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Title: Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens

Posting Date: August 20, 2008 [EBook #1400]
Release Date: July, 1998
Last Updated: March 4, 2018

Language: English

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS

[1867 Edition]

by Charles Dickens


[Project Gutenberg Editor's Note: There is also another version of
this work etext98/grexp10.txt scanned from a different edition]




Chapter I

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my
infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit
than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his
tombstone and my sister,--Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith.
As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness
of either of them (for their days were long before the days of
photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were
unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on
my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man,
with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription,
“Also Georgiana Wife of the Above,” I drew a childish conclusion that
my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each
about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside
their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of
mine,--who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in
that universal struggle,--I am indebted for a belief I religiously
entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands
in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of
existence.

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river
wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression
of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable
raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain
that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and
that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the
above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham,
Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead
and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard,
intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle
feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond
was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was
rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid
of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip.

“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from
among the graves at the side of the church porch. “Keep still, you
little devil, or I'll cut your throat!”

A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man
with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his
head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and
lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by
briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose
teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

“Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir,” I pleaded in terror. “Pray don't do it,
sir.”

“Tell us your name!” said the man. “Quick!”

“Pip, sir.”

“Once more,” said the man, staring at me. “Give it mouth!”

“Pip. Pip, sir.”

“Show us where you live,” said the man. “Pint out the place!”

I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the
alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church.

The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and
emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When
the church came to itself,--for he was so sudden and strong that he
made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my
feet,--when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high
tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously.

“You young dog,” said the man, licking his lips, “what fat cheeks you
ha' got.”

I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my
years, and not strong.

“Darn me if I couldn't eat em,” said the man, with a threatening shake
of his head, “and if I han't half a mind to't!”

I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to
the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it;
partly, to keep myself from crying.

“Now lookee here!” said the man. “Where's your mother?”

“There, sir!” said I.

He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“There, sir!” I timidly explained. “Also Georgiana. That's my mother.”

“Oh!” said he, coming back. “And is that your father alonger your
mother?”

“Yes, sir,” said I; “him too; late of this parish.”

“Ha!” he muttered then, considering. “Who d'ye live with,--supposin'
you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?”

“My sister, sir,--Mrs. Joe Gargery,--wife of Joe Gargery, the
blacksmith, sir.”

“Blacksmith, eh?” said he. And looked down at his leg.

After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer
to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he
could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine,
and mine looked most helplessly up into his.

“Now lookee here,” he said, “the question being whether you're to be let
to live. You know what a file is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you know what wittles is?”

“Yes, sir.”

After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a
greater sense of helplessness and danger.

“You get me a file.” He tilted me again. “And you get me wittles.” He
tilted me again. “You bring 'em both to me.” He tilted me again. “Or
I'll have your heart and liver out.” He tilted me again.

I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both
hands, and said, “If you would kindly please to let me keep upright,
sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.”

He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped
over its own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright
position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:--

“You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You
bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you
never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having
seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to
live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how
small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted,
and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man
hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young
man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar
to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It
is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A
boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw
the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but
that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him
open. I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the present
moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young
man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?”

I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken
bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in
the morning.

“Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!” said the man.

I said so, and he took me down.

“Now,” he pursued, “you remember what you've undertook, and you remember
that young man, and you get home!”

“Goo-good night, sir,” I faltered.

“Much of that!” said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. “I
wish I was a frog. Or a eel!”

At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his
arms,--clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,--and limped
towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the
nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked
in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people,
stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his
ankle and pull him in.

When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose
legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I
saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of
my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on
again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking
his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the
marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy or
the tide was in.

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped
to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not
nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long
angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the
river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the
prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon
by which the sailors steered,--like an unhooped cask upon a pole,--an
ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with some chains
hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on
towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come
down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible
turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to
gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all
round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But now
I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping.




Chapter II

My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I,
and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors
because she had brought me up “by hand.” Having at that time to find out
for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and
heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as
well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up
by hand.

She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general
impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe
was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth
face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed
to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild,
good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,--a sort
of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness.

My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing
redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible
she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall
and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her
figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in
front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful
merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this
apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it
at all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it
off, every day of her life.

Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the
dwellings in our country were,--most of them, at that time. When I ran
home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting
alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having
confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I
raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it,
sitting in the chimney corner.

“Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she's
out now, making it a baker's dozen.”

“Is she?”

“Yes, Pip,” said Joe; “and what's worse, she's got Tickler with her.”

At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat
round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler
was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled
frame.

“She sot down,” said Joe, “and she got up, and she made a grab at
Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That's what she did,” said Joe, slowly
clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at
it; “she Ram-paged out, Pip.”

“Has she been gone long, Joe?” I always treated him as a larger species
of child, and as no more than my equal.

“Well,” said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, “she's been on the
Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a coming! Get
behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you.”

I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open,
and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and
applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing
me--I often served as a connubial missile--at Joe, who, glad to get hold
of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me
up there with his great leg.

“Where have you been, you young monkey?” said Mrs. Joe, stamping her
foot. “Tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret
and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if you was
fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys.”

“I have only been to the churchyard,” said I, from my stool, crying and
rubbing myself.

“Churchyard!” repeated my sister. “If it warn't for me you'd have been
to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by
hand?”

“You did,” said I.

“And why did I do it, I should like to know?” exclaimed my sister.

I whimpered, “I don't know.”

“I don't!” said my sister. “I'd never do it again! I know that. I may
truly say I've never had this apron of mine off since born you were.
It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery) without
being your mother.”

My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at
the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the
mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was
under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me
in the avenging coals.

“Hah!” said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. “Churchyard,
indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two.” One of us, by the by, had
not said it at all. “You'll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one
of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair you'd be without me!”

As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me
over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and
calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the
grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his
right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with
his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times.

My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us,
that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard
and fast against her bib,--where it sometimes got a pin into it, and
sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she
took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in
an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,--using both
sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding
the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart
wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off
the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into
two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other.

On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my
slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful
acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew
Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my
larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore
I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my
trousers.

The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I
found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap
from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water.
And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In
our already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his
good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare
the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each
other's admiration now and then,--which stimulated us to new exertions.
To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast
diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but
he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and
my untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately
considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it
had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the
circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at
me, and got my bread and butter down my leg.

Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss
of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he
didn't seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than
usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like
a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on
one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw
that my bread and butter was gone.

The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold
of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister's
observation.

“What's the matter now?” said she, smartly, as she put down her cup.

“I say, you know!” muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious
remonstrance. “Pip, old chap! You'll do yourself a mischief. It'll stick
somewhere. You can't have chawed it, Pip.”

“What's the matter now?” repeated my sister, more sharply than before.

“If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd recommend you to do it,”
 said Joe, all aghast. “Manners is manners, but still your elth's your
elth.”

By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe,
and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while
against the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily
on.

“Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter,” said my sister, out of
breath, “you staring great stuck pig.”

Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and
looked at me again.

“You know, Pip,” said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek,
and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone,
“you and me is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell upon you,
any time. But such a--” he moved his chair and looked about the floor
between us, and then again at me--“such a most oncommon Bolt as that!”

“Been bolting his food, has he?” cried my sister.

“You know, old chap,” said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe,
with his bite still in his cheek, “I Bolted, myself, when I was your
age--frequent--and as a boy I've been among a many Bolters; but I never
see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't Bolted
dead.”

My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying
nothing more than the awful words, “You come along and be dosed.”

Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine
medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard;
having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the
best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice
restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new
fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a
pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater
comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would
be held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to
swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and
meditating before the fire), “because he had had a turn.” Judging from
myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had
none before.

Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in
the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret
burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great
punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe--I
never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the
housekeeping property as his--united to the necessity of always keeping
one hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about
the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then,
as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the
voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to
secrecy, declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't starve until to-morrow,
but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man
who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me
should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time,
and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night,
instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody's hair stood on end with terror,
mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody's ever did?

It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with
a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with
the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the
load on HIS leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread
and butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away,
and deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom.

“Hark!” said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm
in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; “was that great guns,
Joe?”

“Ah!” said Joe. “There's another conwict off.”

“What does that mean, Joe?” said I.

Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly,
“Escaped. Escaped.” Administering the definition like Tar-water.

While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my
mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, “What's a convict?” Joe put his
mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I
could make out nothing of it but the single word “Pip.”

“There was a conwict off last night,” said Joe, aloud, “after
sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they're
firing warning of another.”

“Who's firing?” said I.

“Drat that boy,” interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work,
“what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.”

It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be
told lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite
unless there was company.

At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost
pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word
that looked to me like “sulks.” Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs.
Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying, “her?” But Joe wouldn't
hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook
the form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of
the word.

“Mrs. Joe,” said I, as a last resort, “I should like to know--if you
wouldn't much mind--where the firing comes from?”

“Lord bless the boy!” exclaimed my sister, as if she didn't quite mean
that but rather the contrary. “From the Hulks!”

“Oh-h!” said I, looking at Joe. “Hulks!”

Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, “Well, I told you so.”

“And please, what's Hulks?” said I.

“That's the way with this boy!” exclaimed my sister, pointing me out
with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. “Answer him one
question, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships,
right 'cross th' meshes.” We always used that name for marshes, in our
country.

“I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and why they're put there?” said
I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation.

It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. “I tell you what,
young fellow,” said she, “I didn't bring you up by hand to badger
people's lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise, if I had.
People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob,
and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking
questions. Now, you get along to bed!”

I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went upstairs
in the dark, with my head tingling,--from Mrs. Joe's thimble
having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,--I
felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were
handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking
questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe.

Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought
that few people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror.
No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in
mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was
in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg; I was in mortal
terror of myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted; I had
no hope of deliverance through my all-powerful sister, who repulsed
me at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I might have done on
requirement, in the secrecy of my terror.

If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting
down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly
pirate calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the
gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at
once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been
inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob
the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no getting
a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it out
of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself
rattling his chains.

As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot
with gray, I got up and went downstairs; every board upon the way, and
every crack in every board calling after me, “Stop thief!” and “Get up,
Mrs. Joe!” In the pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied than
usual, owing to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging
up by the heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back was half
turned, winking. I had no time for verification, no time for selection,
no time for anything, for I had no time to spare. I stole some bread,
some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in
my pocket-handkerchief with my last night's slice), some brandy from a
stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used
for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my
room: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen cupboard),
a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful round compact pork
pie. I was nearly going away without the pie, but I was tempted to mount
upon a shelf, to look what it was that was put away so carefully in a
covered earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was the pie, and
I took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and would
not be missed for some time.

There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I
unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe's tools.
Then I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which
I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty
marshes.




Chapter III

It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the
outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all
night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the
damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of
spiders' webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On
every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick,
that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village--a
direction which they never accepted, for they never came there--was
invisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I looked up
at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a
phantom devoting me to the Hulks.

The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that
instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me.
This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and
banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly
as could be, “A boy with somebody else's pork pie! Stop him!” The
cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes,
and steaming out of their nostrils, “Halloa, young thief!” One black
ox, with a white cravat on,--who even had to my awakened conscience
something of a clerical air,--fixed me so obstinately with his eyes,
and moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I moved
round, that I blubbered out to him, “I couldn't help it, sir! It wasn't
for myself I took it!” Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of
smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs and
a flourish of his tail.

All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I
went, I couldn't warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as
the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew
my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a
Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when
I was 'prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there!
However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far to
the right, and consequently had to try back along the river-side, on the
bank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes that staked the tide
out. Making my way along here with all despatch, I had just crossed a
ditch which I knew to be very near the Battery, and had just scrambled
up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me.
His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was nodding
forward, heavy with sleep.

I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast,
in that unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on
the shoulder. He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but
another man!

And yet this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron
on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that
the other man was; except that he had not the same face, and had a flat
broad-brimmed low-crowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for
I had only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a hit at
me,--it was a round weak blow that missed me and almost knocked himself
down, for it made him stumble,--and then he ran into the mist, stumbling
twice as he went, and I lost him.

“It's the young man!” I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified
him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had
known where it was.

I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right
man,--hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all
night left off hugging and limping,--waiting for me. He was awfully
cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face
and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when
I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to
me he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He did
not turn me upside down this time to get at what I had, but left me
right side upwards while I opened the bundle and emptied my pockets.

“What's in the bottle, boy?” said he.

“Brandy,” said I.

He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious
manner,--more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent
hurry, than a man who was eating it,--but he left off to take some of
the liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite
as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth,
without biting it off.

“I think you have got the ague,” said I.

“I'm much of your opinion, boy,” said he.

“It's bad about here,” I told him. “You've been lying out on the meshes,
and they're dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too.”

“I'll eat my breakfast afore they're the death of me,” said he. “I'd do
that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is
over there, directly afterwards. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet
you.”

He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all
at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round
us, and often stopping--even stopping his jaws--to listen. Some real or
fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the
marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly,--

“You're not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?”

“No, sir! No!”

“Nor giv' no one the office to follow you?”

“No!”

“Well,” said he, “I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound
indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched
warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint
is!”

Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock,
and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his
eyes.

Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down
upon the pie, I made bold to say, “I am glad you enjoy it.”

“Did you speak?”

“I said I was glad you enjoyed it.”

“Thankee, my boy. I do.”

I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now
noticed a decided similarity between the dog's way of eating, and the
man's. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He
swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast;
and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought
there was danger in every direction of somebody's coming to take the pie
away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate
it comfortably I thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without
making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars
he was very like the dog.

“I am afraid you won't leave any of it for him,” said I, timidly; after
a silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of making
the remark. “There's no more to be got where that came from.” It was the
certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint.

“Leave any for him? Who's him?” said my friend, stopping in his
crunching of pie-crust.

“The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you.”

“Oh ah!” he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. “Him? Yes, yes!
He don't want no wittles.”

“I thought he looked as if he did,” said I.

The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and
the greatest surprise.

“Looked? When?”

“Just now.”

“Where?”

“Yonder,” said I, pointing; “over there, where I found him nodding
asleep, and thought it was you.”

He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his
first idea about cutting my throat had revived.

“Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,” I explained, trembling;
“and--and”--I was very anxious to put this delicately--“and with--the
same reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn't you hear the cannon
last night?”

“Then there was firing!” he said to himself.

“I wonder you shouldn't have been sure of that,” I returned, “for
we heard it up at home, and that's farther away, and we were shut in
besides.”

“Why, see now!” said he. “When a man's alone on these flats, with a
light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears
nothin' all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees
the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried
afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself
challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders 'Make
ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!' and is laid hands on--and
there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night--coming up
in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, tramp--I see a hundred. And as to
firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad
day,--But this man”; he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my
being there; “did you notice anything in him?”

“He had a badly bruised face,” said I, recalling what I hardly knew I
knew.

“Not here?” exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly, with
the flat of his hand.

“Yes, there!”

“Where is he?” He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of
his gray jacket. “Show me the way he went. I'll pull him down, like a
bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the file,
boy.”

I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man,
and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet
grass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding
his own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he
handled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I
was very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself into
this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping away
from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, so
I thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw
of him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at his
fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last
I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still
going.




Chapter IV

I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me
up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet
been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the
house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon
the kitchen doorstep to keep him out of the dust-pan,--an article into
which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was
vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment.

“And where the deuce ha' you been?” was Mrs. Joe's Christmas salutation,
when I and my conscience showed ourselves.

I said I had been down to hear the Carols. “Ah! well!” observed Mrs.
Joe. “You might ha' done worse.” Not a doubt of that I thought.

“Perhaps if I warn't a blacksmith's wife, and (what's the same thing) a
slave with her apron never off, I should have been to hear the Carols,”
 said Mrs. Joe. “I'm rather partial to Carols, myself, and that's the
best of reasons for my never hearing any.”

Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dustpan had
retired before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a
conciliatory air, when Mrs. Joe darted a look at him, and, when her eyes
were withdrawn, secretly crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them
to me, as our token that Mrs. Joe was in a cross temper. This was so
much her normal state, that Joe and I would often, for weeks together,
be, as to our fingers, like monumental Crusaders as to their legs.

We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and
greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie had
been made yesterday morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not
being missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. These extensive
arrangements occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respect of
breakfast; “for I ain't,” said Mrs. Joe,--“I ain't a going to have
no formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with what I've got
before me, I promise you!”

So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on a
forced march instead of a man and boy at home; and we took gulps of milk
and water, with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the dresser. In
the meantime, Mrs. Joe put clean white curtains up, and tacked a new
flowered flounce across the wide chimney to replace the old one, and
uncovered the little state parlor across the passage, which was never
uncovered at any other time, but passed the rest of the year in a cool
haze of silver paper, which even extended to the four little white
crockery poodles on the mantel-shelf, each with a black nose and a
basket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the other.
Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of
making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt
itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by
their religion.

My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that
is to say, Joe and I were going. In his working-clothes, Joe was a
well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes,
he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else.
Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and
everything that he wore then grazed him. On the present festive occasion
he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, the picture
of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my
sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom
an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over
to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law.
I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition
to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the
dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have
a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of
Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs.

Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle
for compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside was nothing to
what I underwent within. The terrors that had assailed me whenever
Mrs. Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be
equalled by the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had
done. Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered whether the
Church would be powerful enough to shield me from the vengeance of the
terrible young man, if I divulged to that establishment. I conceived the
idea that the time when the banns were read and when the clergyman said,
“Ye are now to declare it!” would be the time for me to rise and propose
a private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure that I
might not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to this
extreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no Sunday.

Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble
the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe's uncle,
but Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in
the nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was
half-past one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and
Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked
(it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and
everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the robbery.

The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and
the company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large shining
bald forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of; indeed
it was understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him
his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed
that if the Church was “thrown open,” meaning to competition, he would
not despair of making his mark in it. The Church not being “thrown
open,” he was, as I have said, our clerk. But he punished the Amens
tremendously; and when he gave out the psalm,--always giving the whole
verse,--he looked all round the congregation first, as much as to say,
“You have heard my friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this
style!”

I opened the door to the company,--making believe that it was a habit
of ours to open that door,--and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next
to Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. I was
not allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties.

“Mrs. Joe,” said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hard-breathing middle-aged
slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair
standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been
all but choked, and had that moment come to, “I have brought you as the
compliments of the season--I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry
wine--and I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine.”

Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound novelty, with
exactly the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumb-bells.
Every Christmas Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, “O, Un--cle
Pum-ble--chook! This is kind!” Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as
he now retorted, “It's no more than your merits. And now are you all
bobbish, and how's Sixpennorth of halfpence?” meaning me.

We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned, for the nuts
and oranges and apples to the parlor; which was a change very like
Joe's change from his working-clothes to his Sunday dress. My sister was
uncommonly lively on the present occasion, and indeed was generally more
gracious in the society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company. I remember
Mrs. Hubble as a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue, who held a
conventionally juvenile position, because she had married Mr. Hubble,--I
don't know at what remote period,--when she was much younger than he. I
remember Mr Hubble as a tough, high-shouldered, stooping old man, of a
sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide apart: so that in
my short days I always saw some miles of open country between them when
I met him coming up the lane.

Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn't
robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in
at an acute angle of the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and the
Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak
(I didn't want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips
of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork
of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No;
I should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone.
But they wouldn't leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity
lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and
then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate
little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these
moral goads.

It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with
theatrical declamation,--as it now appears to me, something like a
religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,--and
ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful.
Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low
reproachful voice, “Do you hear that? Be grateful.”

“Especially,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “be grateful, boy, to them which
brought you up by hand.”

Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful
presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, “Why is it that the
young are never grateful?” This moral mystery seemed too much for
the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, “Naterally
wicious.” Everybody then murmured “True!” and looked at me in a
particularly unpleasant and personal manner.

Joe's station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when
there was company than when there was none. But he always aided and
comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so
at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty
of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a
pint.

A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with
some severity, and intimated--in the usual hypothetical case of the
Church being “thrown open”--what kind of sermon he would have given
them. After favoring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked
that he considered the subject of the day's homily, ill chosen; which
was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects
“going about.”

“True again,” said Uncle Pumblechook. “You've hit it, sir! Plenty of
subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their
tails. That's what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject,
if he's ready with his salt-box.” Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short
interval of reflection, “Look at Pork alone. There's a subject! If you
want a subject, look at Pork!”

“True, sir. Many a moral for the young,” returned Mr. Wopsle,--and I
knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it; “might be deduced
from that text.”

(“You listen to this,” said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.)

Joe gave me some more gravy.

“Swine,” pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork
at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,--“swine were
the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us,
as an example to the young.” (I thought this pretty well in him who
had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) “What is
detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy.”

“Or girl,” suggested Mr. Hubble.

“Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble,” assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably,
“but there is no girl present.”

“Besides,” said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, “think what you've
got to be grateful for. If you'd been born a Squeaker--”

“He was, if ever a child was,” said my sister, most emphatically.

Joe gave me some more gravy.

“Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “If you
had been born such, would you have been here now? Not you--”

“Unless in that form,” said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish.

“But I don't mean in that form, sir,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had
an objection to being interrupted; “I mean, enjoying himself with his
elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and
rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he
wouldn't. And what would have been your destination?” turning on me
again. “You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according
to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have
come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you
under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his frock
to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would have
shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a
bit of it!”

Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take.

“He was a world of trouble to you, ma'am,” said Mrs. Hubble,
commiserating my sister.

“Trouble?” echoed my sister; “trouble?” and then entered on a fearful
catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts
of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled
from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I
had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I
had contumaciously refused to go there.

I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with
their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in
consequence. Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle's Roman nose so aggravated me, during
the recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it
until he howled. But, all I had endured up to this time was nothing in
comparison with the awful feelings that took possession of me when the
pause was broken which ensued upon my sister's recital, and in which
pause everybody had looked at me (as I felt painfully conscious) with
indignation and abhorrence.

“Yet,” said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the
theme from which they had strayed, “Pork--regarded as biled--is rich,
too; ain't it?”

“Have a little brandy, uncle,” said my sister.

O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say
it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under
the cloth, with both hands, and awaited my fate.

My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle,
and poured his brandy out: no one else taking any. The wretched man
trifled with his glass,--took it up, looked at it through the light,
put it down,--prolonged my misery. All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were
briskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding.

I couldn't keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the
table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his
glass playfully, take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink
the brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with
unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning
round several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance,
and rushing out at the door; he then became visible through the window,
violently plunging and expectorating, making the most hideous faces, and
apparently out of his mind.

I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn't know how
I had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my
dreadful situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and
surveying the company all round as if they had disagreed with him, sank
down into his chair with the one significant gasp, “Tar!”

I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he would be
worse by and by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, by
the vigor of my unseen hold upon it.

“Tar!” cried my sister, in amazement. “Why, how ever could Tar come
there?”

But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't
hear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all
away with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had
begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in
getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel, and mixing
them. For the time being at least, I was saved. I still held on to the
leg of the table, but clutched it now with the fervor of gratitude.

By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of
pudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding.
The course terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the
genial influence of gin and water. I began to think I should get over
the day, when my sister said to Joe, “Clean plates,--cold.”

I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my
bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul.
I foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone.

“You must taste,” said my sister, addressing the guests with her best
grace--“you must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and delicious
present of Uncle Pumblechook's!”

Must they! Let them not hope to taste it!

“You must know,” said my sister, rising, “it's a pie; a savory pork
pie.”

The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of
having deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,--quite vivaciously,
all things considered,--“Well, Mrs. Joe, we'll do our best endeavors;
let us have a cut at this same pie.”

My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I
saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in the
Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that “a bit of
savory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do
no harm,” and I heard Joe say, “You shall have some, Pip.” I have never
been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror,
merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I
could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of the
table, and ran for my life.

But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran head-foremost
into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair
of handcuffs to me, saying, “Here you are, look sharp, come on!”




Chapter V

The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their
loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise
from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen
empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of
“Gracious goodness gracious me, what's gone--with the--pie!”

The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring;
at which crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was
the sergeant who had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the
company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in his
right hand, and his left on my shoulder.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentleman,” said the sergeant, “but as I have
mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver,” (which he hadn't), “I
am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith.”

“And pray what might you want with him?” retorted my sister, quick to
resent his being wanted at all.

“Missis,” returned the gallant sergeant, “speaking for myself, I should
reply, the honor and pleasure of his fine wife's acquaintance; speaking
for the king, I answer, a little job done.”

This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch that Mr.
Pumblechook cried audibly, “Good again!”

“You see, blacksmith,” said the sergeant, who had by this time picked
out Joe with his eye, “we have had an accident with these, and I find
the lock of one of 'em goes wrong, and the coupling don't act pretty.
As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over
them?”

Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would
necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer
two hours than one. “Will it? Then will you set about it at once,
blacksmith?” said the off-hand sergeant, “as it's on his Majesty's
service. And if my men can bear a hand anywhere, they'll make themselves
useful.” With that, he called to his men, who came trooping into the
kitchen one after another, and piled their arms in a corner. And then
they stood about, as soldiers do; now, with their hands loosely clasped
before them; now, resting a knee or a shoulder; now, easing a belt or a
pouch; now, opening the door to spit stiffly over their high stocks, out
into the yard.

All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I
was in an agony of apprehension. But beginning to perceive that the
handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the
better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little
more of my scattered wits.

“Would you give me the time?” said the sergeant, addressing himself to
Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative powers justified the
inference that he was equal to the time.

“It's just gone half past two.”

“That's not so bad,” said the sergeant, reflecting; “even if I was
forced to halt here nigh two hours, that'll do. How far might you call
yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I reckon?”

“Just a mile,” said Mrs. Joe.

“That'll do. We begin to close in upon 'em about dusk. A little before
dusk, my orders are. That'll do.”

“Convicts, sergeant?” asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way.

“Ay!” returned the sergeant, “two. They're pretty well known to be out
on the marshes still, and they won't try to get clear of 'em before
dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game?”

Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody thought of
me.

“Well!” said the sergeant, “they'll find themselves trapped in a circle,
I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, blacksmith! If you're ready,
his Majesty the King is.”

Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather apron
on, and passed into the forge. One of the soldiers opened its wooden
windows, another lighted the fire, another turned to at the bellows, the
rest stood round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then Joe began to
hammer and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on.

The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the general
attention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew a pitcher of beer
from the cask for the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to take a glass
of brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, “Give him wine, Mum. I'll
engage there's no tar in that:” so, the sergeant thanked him and said
that as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it
was equally convenient. When it was given him, he drank his Majesty's
health and compliments of the season, and took it all at a mouthful and
smacked his lips.

“Good stuff, eh, sergeant?” said Mr. Pumblechook.

“I'll tell you something,” returned the sergeant; “I suspect that
stuff's of your providing.”

Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, “Ay, ay? Why?”

“Because,” returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoulder, “you're
a man that knows what's what.”

“D'ye think so?” said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former laugh. “Have
another glass!”

“With you. Hob and nob,” returned the sergeant. “The top of mine to the
foot of yours,--the foot of yours to the top of mine,--Ring once, ring
twice,--the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health. May you live
a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the right sort than you
are at the present moment of your life!”

The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite ready for
another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality
appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the
bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a
gush of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of the wine
that he even called for the other bottle, and handed that about with the
same liberality, when the first was gone.

As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge,
enjoying themselves so much, I thought what terrible good sauce for
a dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes was. They had not enjoyed
themselves a quarter so much, before the entertainment was brightened
with the excitement he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively
anticipation of “the two villains” being taken, and when the bellows
seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke
to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to hammer and clink for them,
and all the murky shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the
blaze rose and sank, and the red-hot sparks dropped and died, the pale
afternoon outside almost seemed in my pitying young fancy to have turned
pale on their account, poor wretches.

At last, Joe's job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped. As Joe
got on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of us should
go down with the soldiers and see what came of the hunt. Mr. Pumblechook
and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies' society; but
Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was agreeable,
and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should have got leave
to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe's curiosity to know all about it and
how it ended. As it was, she merely stipulated, “If you bring the boy
back with his head blown to bits by a musket, don't look to me to put it
together again.”

The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr.
Pumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt if he were quite as fully
sensible of that gentleman's merits under arid conditions, as when
something moist was going. His men resumed their muskets and fell in.
Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and
to speak no word after we reached the marshes. When we were all out in
the raw air and were steadily moving towards our business, I treasonably
whispered to Joe, “I hope, Joe, we shan't find them.” and Joe whispered
to me, “I'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip.”

We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather was
cold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, darkness coming
on, and the people had good fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A
few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after us, but none came
out. We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the churchyard.
There we were stopped a few minutes by a signal from the sergeant's
hand, while two or three of his men dispersed themselves among the
graves, and also examined the porch. They came in again without finding
anything, and then we struck out on the open marshes, through the gate
at the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us
here on the east wind, and Joe took me on his back.

Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little
thought I had been within eight or nine hours and had seen both men
hiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we should
come upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it was I who
had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving
imp, and he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the
hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in
treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him?

It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on Joe's
back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches like a
hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and
to keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us, extending into a
pretty wide line with an interval between man and man. We were taking
the course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in the mist.
Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind had dispelled it.
Under the low red glare of sunset, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the
mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain,
though all of a watery lead color.

With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe's broad shoulder, I
looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I could see none, I could
hear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once, by his
blowing and hard breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and
could dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful
start, when I thought I heard the file still going; but it was only a
sheep-bell. The sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at
us; and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and sleet, stared
angrily as if they held us responsible for both annoyances; but, except
these things, and the shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass,
there was no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes.

The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Battery, and we
were moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all
stopped. For there had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain, a
long shout. It was repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but
it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more shouts raised
together,--if one might judge from a confusion in the sound.

To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speaking under
their breath, when Joe and I came up. After another moment's listening,
Joe (who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge)
agreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not
be answered, but that the course should be changed, and that his men
should make towards it “at the double.” So we slanted to the right
(where the East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had to
hold on tight to keep my seat.

It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two words he
spoke all the time, “a Winder.” Down banks and up banks, and over gates,
and splashing into dikes, and breaking among coarse rushes: no man cared
where he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became more and
more apparent that it was made by more than one voice. Sometimes, it
seemed to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped. When it broke
out again, the soldiers made for it at a greater rate than ever, and we
after them. After a while, we had so run it down, that we could hear one
voice calling “Murder!” and another voice, “Convicts! Runaways! Guard!
This way for the runaway convicts!” Then both voices would seem to be
stifled in a struggle, and then would break out again. And when it had
come to this, the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too.

The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down, and two
of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and levelled
when we all ran in.

“Here are both men!” panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom of a
ditch. “Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild beasts! Come
asunder!”

Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn, and
blows were being struck, when some more men went down into the ditch to
help the sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my convict and the other
one. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling; but
of course I knew them both directly.

“Mind!” said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged
sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: “I took him! I give him
up to you! Mind that!”

“It's not much to be particular about,” said the sergeant; “it'll do you
small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. Handcuffs there!”

“I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more good
than it does now,” said my convict, with a greedy laugh. “I took him. He
knows it. That's enough for me.”

The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old
bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over.
He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both
separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from
falling.

“Take notice, guard,--he tried to murder me,” were his first words.

“Tried to murder him?” said my convict, disdainfully. “Try, and not
do it? I took him, and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not only
prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here,--dragged
him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please, this
villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder
him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag
him back!”

The other one still gasped, “He tried--he tried-to--murder me.
Bear--bear witness.”

“Lookee here!” said my convict to the sergeant. “Single-handed I got
clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha' got
clear of these death-cold flats likewise--look at my leg: you won't find
much iron on it--if I hadn't made the discovery that he was here. Let
him go free? Let him profit by the means as I found out? Let him make a
tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died at
the bottom there,” and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch with his
manacled hands, “I'd have held to him with that grip, that you should
have been safe to find him in my hold.”

The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his
companion, repeated, “He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead
man if you had not come up.”

“He lies!” said my convict, with fierce energy. “He's a liar born, and
he'll die a liar. Look at his face; ain't it written there? Let him turn
those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it.”

The other, with an effort at a scornful smile, which could not, however,
collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set expression, looked
at the soldiers, and looked about at the marshes and at the sky, but
certainly did not look at the speaker.

“Do you see him?” pursued my convict. “Do you see what a villain he is?
Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? That's how he looked
when we were tried together. He never looked at me.”

The other, always working and working his dry lips and turning his eyes
restlessly about him far and near, did at last turn them for a moment on
the speaker, with the words, “You are not much to look at,” and with
a half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that point, my convict
became so frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him
but for the interposition of the soldiers. “Didn't I tell you,” said the
other convict then, “that he would murder me, if he could?” And any one
could see that he shook with fear, and that there broke out upon his
lips curious white flakes, like thin snow.

“Enough of this parley,” said the sergeant. “Light those torches.”

As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went down
on his knee to open it, my convict looked round him for the first time,
and saw me. I had alighted from Joe's back on the brink of the ditch
when we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when
he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had
been waiting for him to see me that I might try to assure him of my
innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended
my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it
all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for
a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having
been more attentive.

The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four
torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been
almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards
very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in
a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches kindled
at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the opposite
bank of the river. “All right,” said the sergeant. “March.”

We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a
sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. “You are expected
on board,” said the sergeant to my convict; “they know you are coming.
Don't straggle, my man. Close up here.”

The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate guard.
I had hold of Joe's hand now, and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr.
Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so
we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly
on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dike
came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. When
I looked round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The
torches we carried dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and
I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing
else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their
pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they
limped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because
of their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we
had to halt while they rested.

After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden hut
and a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged,
and the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut, where there was
a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and
a stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an
overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen
soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in their
great-coats were not much interested in us, but just lifted their heads
and took a sleepy stare, and then lay down again. The sergeant made some
kind of report, and some entry in a book, and then the convict whom I
call the other convict was drafted off with his guard, to go on board
first.

My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the
hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up
his feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if
he pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the
sergeant, and remarked,--

“I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some
persons laying under suspicion alonger me.”

“You can say what you like,” returned the sergeant, standing coolly
looking at him with his arms folded, “but you have no call to say it
here. You'll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it,
before it's done with, you know.”

“I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can't
starve; at least I can't. I took some wittles, up at the willage over
yonder,--where the church stands a'most out on the marshes.”

“You mean stole,” said the sergeant.

“And I'll tell you where from. From the blacksmith's.”

“Halloa!” said the sergeant, staring at Joe.

“Halloa, Pip!” said Joe, staring at me.

“It was some broken wittles--that's what it was--and a dram of liquor,
and a pie.”

“Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?” asked
the sergeant, confidentially.

“My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know, Pip?”

“So,” said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner, and
without the least glance at me,--“so you're the blacksmith, are you?
Than I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie.”

“God knows you're welcome to it,--so far as it was ever mine,” returned
Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. “We don't know what you have
done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable
fellow-creatur.--Would us, Pip?”

The something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man's throat
again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his guard were
ready, so we followed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes
and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of
convicts like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, or interested
in seeing him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word,
except that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, “Give way,
you!” which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By the light of the
torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of
the shore, like a wicked Noah's ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by
massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be
ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw
him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches were
flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with
him.




Chapter VI

My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so
unexpectedly exonerated did not impel me to frank disclosure; but I hope
it had some dregs of good at the bottom of it.

I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference
to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But
I loved Joe,--perhaps for no better reason in those early days than
because the dear fellow let me love him,--and, as to him, my inner self
was not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when
I first saw him looking about for his file) that I ought to tell Joe the
whole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that
if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe's
confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at night
staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my
tongue. I morbidly represented to myself that if Joe knew it, I never
afterwards could see him at the fireside feeling his fair whisker,
without thinking that he was meditating on it. That, if Joe knew it, I
never afterwards could see him glance, however casually, at yesterday's
meat or pudding when it came on to-day's table, without thinking that he
was debating whether I had been in the pantry. That, if Joe knew it, and
at any subsequent period of our joint domestic life remarked that his
beer was flat or thick, the conviction that he suspected tar in it,
would bring a rush of blood to my face. In a word, I was too cowardly
to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing
what I knew to be wrong. I had had no intercourse with the world at
that time, and I imitated none of its many inhabitants who act in this
manner. Quite an untaught genius, I made the discovery of the line of
action for myself.

As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took
me on his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome
journey of it, for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very bad
temper that if the Church had been thrown open, he would probably have
excommunicated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In
his lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp to such
an insane extent, that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the
kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his trousers would have
hanged him, if it had been a capital offence.

By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little
drunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and through having
been fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of
tongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the
shoulders, and the restorative exclamation “Yah! Was there ever such
a boy as this!” from my sister,) I found Joe telling them about the
convict's confession, and all the visitors suggesting different ways
by which he had got into the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook made out, after
carefully surveying the premises, that he had first got upon the roof of
the forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and had then let
himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut
into strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his
own chaise-cart--over everybody--it was agreed that it must be so. Mr.
Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, “No!” with the feeble malice of a
tired man; but, as he had no theory, and no coat on, he was unanimously
set at naught,--not to mention his smoking hard behind, as he stood
with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp out: which was not
calculated to inspire confidence.

This was all I heard that night before my sister clutched me, as a
slumberous offence to the company's eyesight, and assisted me up to bed
with such a strong hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be
dangling them all against the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as
I have described it, began before I was up in the morning, and lasted
long after the subject had died out, and had ceased to be mentioned
saving on exceptional occasions.




Chapter VII

At the time when I stood in the churchyard reading the family
tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My
construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I
read “wife of the Above” as a complimentary reference to my father's
exaltation to a better world; and if any one of my deceased relations
had been referred to as “Below,” I have no doubt I should have formed
the worst opinions of that member of the family. Neither were my notions
of the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at
all accurate; for, I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my
declaration that I was to “walk in the same all the days of my life,”
 laid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our
house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down
by the wheelwright's or up by the mill.

When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could
assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe called “Pompeyed,” or
(as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the
forge, but if any neighbor happened to want an extra boy to frighten
birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favored with the
employment. In order, however, that our superior position might not be
compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf,
into which it was publicly made known that all my earnings were
dropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed
eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I
had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure.

Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is
to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited
infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in
the society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving
opportunity of seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr.
Wopsle had the room upstairs, where we students used to overhear him
reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and occasionally
bumping on the ceiling. There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle “examined”
 the scholars once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn
up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony's oration over
the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on
the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge
throwing his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and taking the
War-denouncing trumpet with a withering look. It was not with me then,
as it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions,
and compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of
both gentlemen.

Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, besides keeping this Educational Institution,
kept in the same room--a little general shop. She had no idea what stock
she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little
greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue
of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transactions.
Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself
quite unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was
to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been
brought up by hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of
her extremities; for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always
wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at
heel. This description must be received with a week-day limitation. On
Sundays, she went to church elaborated.

Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr.
Wopsle's great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been
a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every
letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who
seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and
baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to
read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale.

One night I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate, expending
great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have
been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long
time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the
hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print
and smear this epistle:--

“MI DEER JO i OPE U R KRWITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE
U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO WOT LARX AN
BLEVE ME INF XN PIP.”

There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by
letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered
this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe
received it as a miracle of erudition.

“I say, Pip, old chap!” cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, “what a
scholar you are! An't you?”

“I should like to be,” said I, glancing at the slate as he held it; with
a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly.

“Why, here's a J,” said Joe, “and a O equal to anythink! Here's a J and
a O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe.”

I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this
monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I
accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit
his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to
embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I
should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, “Ah! But read the
rest, Jo.”

“The rest, eh, Pip?” said Joe, looking at it with a slow, searching eye,
“One, two, three. Why, here's three Js, and three Os, and three J-O,
Joes in it, Pip!”

I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger read him the whole
letter.

“Astonishing!” said Joe, when I had finished. “You ARE a scholar.”

“How do you spell Gargery, Joe?” I asked him, with a modest patronage.

“I don't spell it at all,” said Joe.

“But supposing you did?”

“It can't be supposed,” said Joe. “Tho' I'm uncommon fond of reading,
too.”

“Are you, Joe?”

“On-common. Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good newspaper, and
sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!” he continued,
after rubbing his knees a little, “when you do come to a J and a O, and
says you, 'Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,' how interesting reading is!”

I derived from this, that Joe's education, like Steam, was yet in its
infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired,--

“Didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”

“No, Pip.”

“Why didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?”

“Well, Pip,” said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to
his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire
between the lower bars; “I'll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given
to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at
my mother, most onmerciful. It were a'most the only hammering he did,
indeed, 'xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only
to be equalled by the wigor with which he didn't hammer at his
anwil.--You're a listening and understanding, Pip?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“'Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several
times; and then my mother she'd go out to work, and she'd say, “Joe,”
 she'd say, “now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child,” and
she'd put me to school. But my father were that good in his hart that
he couldn't abear to be without us. So, he'd come with a most tremenjous
crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we was, that
they used to be obligated to have no more to do with us and to give us
up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us. Which, you see,
Pip,” said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the fire, and
looking at me, “were a drawback on my learning.”

“Certainly, poor Joe!”

“Though mind you, Pip,” said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the
poker on the top bar, “rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining
equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his hart,
don't you see?”

I didn't see; but I didn't say so.

“Well!” Joe pursued, “somebody must keep the pot a biling, Pip, or the
pot won't bile, don't you know?”

I saw that, and said so.

“'Consequence, my father didn't make objections to my going to work; so
I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he
would have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip.
In time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a
purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his
tombstone that, Whatsume'er the failings on his part, Remember reader he
were that good in his heart.”

Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful
perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself.

“I made it,” said Joe, “my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like
striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so much
surprised in all my life,--couldn't credit my own ed,--to tell you the
truth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were
my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut
it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to mention
bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother.
She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She weren't long of following,
poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last.”

Joe's blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed first one of them, and
then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the
round knob on the top of the poker.

“It were but lonesome then,” said Joe, “living here alone, and I got
acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip,”--Joe looked firmly at me as
if he knew I was not going to agree with him;--“your sister is a fine
figure of a woman.”

I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt.

“Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world's opinions, on that
subject may be, Pip, your sister is,” Joe tapped the top bar with the
poker after every word following, “a-fine-figure--of--a--woman!”

I could think of nothing better to say than “I am glad you think so,
Joe.”

“So am I,” returned Joe, catching me up. “I am glad I think so, Pip. A
little redness or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does it
signify to Me?”

I sagaciously observed, if it didn't signify to him, to whom did it
signify?

“Certainly!” assented Joe. “That's it. You're right, old chap! When I
got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing
you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said,
along with all the folks. As to you,” Joe pursued with a countenance
expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed, “if you could have
been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you'd have
formed the most contemptible opinion of yourself!”

Not exactly relishing this, I said, “Never mind me, Joe.”

“But I did mind you, Pip,” he returned with tender simplicity. “When
I offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at
such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to
her, 'And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,'
I said to your sister, 'there's room for him at the forge!'”

I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round the neck:
who dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, “Ever the best of friends;
an't us, Pip? Don't cry, old chap!”

When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:--

“Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That's about where it lights; here
we are! Now, when you take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I tell
you beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn't see
too much of what we're up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly.
And why on the sly? I'll tell you why, Pip.”

He had taken up the poker again; without which, I doubt if he could have
proceeded in his demonstration.

“Your sister is given to government.”

“Given to government, Joe?” I was startled, for I had some shadowy idea
(and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divorced her in a favor
of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury.

“Given to government,” said Joe. “Which I meantersay the government of
you and myself.”

“Oh!”

“And she an't over partial to having scholars on the premises,” Joe
continued, “and in partickler would not be over partial to my being a
scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don't you see?”

I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as “Why--”
 when Joe stopped me.

“Stay a bit. I know what you're a going to say, Pip; stay a bit! I don't
deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I don't
deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down upon us
heavy. At such times as when your sister is on the Ram-page, Pip,” Joe
sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, “candor compels fur
to admit that she is a Buster.”

Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital
Bs.

“Why don't I rise? That were your observation when I broke it off, Pip?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“Well,” said Joe, passing the poker in to his left hand, that he might
feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that
placid occupation; “your sister's a master-mind. A master-mind.”

“What's that?” I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand. But
Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and completely
stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look,
“Her.”

“And I ain't a master-mind,” Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look,
and got back to his whisker. “And last of all, Pip,--and this I want to
say very serious to you, old chap,--I see so much in my poor mother,
of a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart and never
getting no peace in her mortal days, that I'm dead afeerd of going wrong
in the way of not doing what's right by a woman, and I'd fur rather
of the two go wrong the t'other way, and be a little ill-conwenienced
myself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I wish there warn't
no Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it all on myself;
but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope you'll
overlook shortcomings.”

Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that
night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards
at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had
a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my
heart.

“However,” said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; “here's the
Dutch-clock a working himself up to being equal to strike Eight of 'em,
and she's not come home yet! I hope Uncle Pumblechook's mare mayn't have
set a forefoot on a piece o' ice, and gone down.”

Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days,
to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a
woman's judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no
confidences in his domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe
was out on one of these expeditions.

Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to
listen for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew
keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of
lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and
considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them
as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering
multitude.

“Here comes the mare,” said Joe, “ringing like a peal of bells!”

The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as she
came along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out, ready
for Mrs. Joe's alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a
bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might
be out of its place. When we had completed these preparations, they
drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle
Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with a cloth, and we
were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that
it seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire.

“Now,” said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and
throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings,
“if this boy ain't grateful this night, he never will be!”

I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly
uninformed why he ought to assume that expression.

“It's only to be hoped,” said my sister, “that he won't be Pompeyed. But
I have my fears.”

“She ain't in that line, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “She knows better.”

She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows,
“She?” Joe looked at me, making the motion with his lips and eyebrows,
“She?” My sister catching him in the act, he drew the back of his hand
across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such occasions, and
looked at her.

“Well?” said my sister, in her snappish way. “What are you staring at?
Is the house afire?”

“--Which some individual,” Joe politely hinted, “mentioned--she.”

“And she is a she, I suppose?” said my sister. “Unless you call Miss
Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you'll go so far as that.”

“Miss Havisham, up town?” said Joe.

“Is there any Miss Havisham down town?” returned my sister.

“She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he's going. And
he had better play there,” said my sister, shaking her head at me as an
encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, “or I'll work him.”

I had heard of Miss Havisham up town,--everybody for miles round had
heard of Miss Havisham up town,--as an immensely rich and grim lady who
lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who
led a life of seclusion.

“Well to be sure!” said Joe, astounded. “I wonder how she come to know
Pip!”

“Noodle!” cried my sister. “Who said she knew him?”

“--Which some individual,” Joe again politely hinted, “mentioned that
she wanted him to go and play there.”

“And couldn't she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and
play there? Isn't it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be
a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes--we won't say quarterly
or half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you--but
sometimes--go there to pay his rent? And couldn't she then ask Uncle
Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle
Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for us--though you
may not think it, Joseph,” in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if
he were the most callous of nephews, “then mention this boy, standing
Prancing here”--which I solemnly declare I was not doing--“that I have
for ever been a willing slave to?”

“Good again!” cried Uncle Pumblechook. “Well put! Prettily pointed! Good
indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case.”

“No, Joseph,” said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while Joe
apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose,
“you do not yet--though you may not think it--know the case. You may
consider that you do, but you do not, Joseph. For you do not know that
Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this
boy's fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's, has offered
to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to keep
him to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham's
to-morrow morning. And Lor-a-mussy me!” cried my sister, casting off her
bonnet in sudden desperation, “here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs,
with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door,
and the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the
sole of his foot!”

With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face was
squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps of
water-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and thumped,
and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself. (I
may here remark that I suppose myself to be better acquainted than
any living authority, with the ridgy effect of a wedding-ring, passing
unsympathetically over the human countenance.)

When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the
stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was
trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered
over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the
Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been
dying to make all along: “Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but
especially unto them which brought you up by hand!”

“Good-bye, Joe!”

“God bless you, Pip, old chap!”

I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what
with soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart.
But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the
questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham's, and what
on earth I was expected to play at.




Chapter VIII

Mr. Pumblechook's premises in the High Street of the market town,
were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a
cornchandler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he must be a
very happy man indeed, to have so many little drawers in his shop; and
I wondered when I peeped into one or two on the lower tiers, and saw the
tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the flower-seeds and bulbs
ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails, and bloom.

It was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained this
speculation. On the previous night, I had been sent straight to bed in
an attic with a sloping roof, which was so low in the corner where the
bedstead was, that I calculated the tiles as being within a foot of my
eyebrows. In the same early morning, I discovered a singular affinity
between seeds and corduroys. Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did
his shopman; and somehow, there was a general air and flavor about the
corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, and a general air and flavor
about the seeds, so much in the nature of corduroys, that I hardly knew
which was which. The same opportunity served me for noticing that Mr.
Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the
street at the saddler, who appeared to transact his business by keeping
his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by putting his
hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded
his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at
the chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with
a magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of
smock-frocks poring over him through the glass of his shop-window,
seemed to be about the only person in the High Street whose trade
engaged his attention.

Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o'clock in the parlor behind
the shop, while the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of bread
and butter on a sack of peas in the front premises. I considered Mr.
Pumblechook wretched company. Besides being possessed by my sister's
idea that a mortifying and penitential character ought to be imparted
to my diet,--besides giving me as much crumb as possible in combination
with as little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm water into
my milk that it would have been more candid to have left the milk out
altogether,--his conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On
my politely bidding him Good morning, he said, pompously, “Seven times
nine, boy?” And how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in
a strange place, on an empty stomach! I was hungry, but before I had
swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the
breakfast. “Seven?” “And four?” “And eight?” “And six?” “And two?” “And
ten?” And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much
as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came; while he sat
at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I
may be allowed the expression) a gorging and gormandizing manner.

For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o'clock came and we started
for Miss Havisham's; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the
manner in which I should acquit myself under that lady's roof. Within
a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham's house, which was of old
brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the
windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were
rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred; so
we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come
to open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr.
Pumblechook said, “And fourteen?” but I pretended not to hear him), and
saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing
was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long
time.

A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded “What name?” To which my
conductor replied, “Pumblechook.” The voice returned, “Quite right,” and
the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the court-yard,
with keys in her hand.

“This,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “is Pip.”

“This is Pip, is it?” returned the young lady, who was very pretty and
seemed very proud; “come in, Pip.”

Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate.

“Oh!” she said. “Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?”

“If Miss Havisham wished to see me,” returned Mr. Pumblechook,
discomfited.

“Ah!” said the girl; “but you see she don't.”

She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr.
Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not
protest. But he eyed me severely,--as if I had done anything to
him!--and departed with the words reproachfully delivered: “Boy! Let
your behavior here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand!”
 I was not free from apprehension that he would come back to propound
through the gate, “And sixteen?” But he didn't.

My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the courtyard.
It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The
brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the
wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood
open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused.
The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate; and
it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the
brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.

She saw me looking at it, and she said, “You could drink without hurt
all the strong beer that's brewed there now, boy.”

“I should think I could, miss,” said I, in a shy way.

“Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy;
don't you think so?”

“It looks like it, miss.”

“Not that anybody means to try,” she added, “for that's all done with,
and the place will stand as idle as it is till it falls. As to strong
beer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor
House.”

“Is that the name of this house, miss?”

“One of its names, boy.”

“It has more than one, then, miss?”

“One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or
Hebrew, or all three--or all one to me--for enough.”

“Enough House,” said I; “that's a curious name, miss.”

“Yes,” she replied; “but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it
was given, that whoever had this house could want nothing else. They
must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But don't
loiter, boy.”

Though she called me “boy” so often, and with a carelessness that was
far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much
older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed;
and she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a
queen.

We went into the house by a side door, the great front entrance had two
chains across it outside,--and the first thing I noticed was, that the
passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there.
She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase,
and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us.

At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, “Go in.”

I answered, more in shyness than politeness, “After you, miss.”

To this she returned: “Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in.” And
scornfully walked away, and--what was worse--took the candle with her.

This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only
thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told
from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty
large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to
be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture,
though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But
prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that
I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table.

Whether I should have made out this object so soon if there had been no
fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an
elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the
strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see.

She was dressed in rich materials,--satins, and lace, and silks,--all
of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent
from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was
white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and
some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid
than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about.
She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on,--the
other was on the table near her hand,--her veil was but half arranged,
her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay
with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and
some flowers, and a Prayer-Book all confusedly heaped about the
looking-glass.

It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though
I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But I
saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been
white long ago, and had lost its lustre and was faded and yellow. I saw
that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and
like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her
sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure
of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had
shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly
waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage
lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches
to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress that had been dug out of
a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to
have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if
I could.

“Who is it?” said the lady at the table.

“Pip, ma'am.”

“Pip?”

“Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come--to play.”

“Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.”

It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of
the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped
at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at
twenty minutes to nine.

“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of a woman who has
never seen the sun since you were born?”

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie
comprehended in the answer “No.”

“Do you know what I touch here?” she said, laying her hands, one upon
the other, on her left side.

“Yes, ma'am.” (It made me think of the young man.)

“What do I touch?”

“Your heart.”

“Broken!”

She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and
with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards she kept
her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they
were heavy.

“I am tired,” said Miss Havisham. “I want diversion, and I have done
with men and women. Play.”

I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that she
could hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the wide
world more difficult to be done under the circumstances.

“I sometimes have sick fancies,” she went on, “and I have a sick fancy
that I want to see some play. There, there!” with an impatient movement
of the fingers of her right hand; “play, play, play!”

For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I
had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character
of Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart. But I felt myself so unequal to the
performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in
what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when
we had taken a good look at each other,--

“Are you sullen and obstinate?”

“No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just
now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so
I would do it if I could; but it's so new here, and so strange, and so
fine,--and melancholy--.” I stopped, fearing I might say too much, or
had already said it, and we took another look at each other.

Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the
dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the
looking-glass.

“So new to him,” she muttered, “so old to me; so strange to him, so
familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella.”

As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was
still talking to herself, and kept quiet.

“Call Estella,” she repeated, flashing a look at me. “You can do that.
Call Estella. At the door.”

To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house,
bawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive,
and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost
as bad as playing to order. But she answered at last, and her light came
along the dark passage like a star.

Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from the
table, and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her
pretty brown hair. “Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it
well. Let me see you play cards with this boy.”

“With this boy? Why, he is a common laboring boy!”

I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer,--only it seemed so
unlikely,--“Well? You can break his heart.”

“What do you play, boy?” asked Estella of myself, with the greatest
disdain.

“Nothing but beggar my neighbor, miss.”

“Beggar him,” said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards.

It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had
stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that
Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had
taken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table
again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never
been worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent,
and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been
trodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything, this standing still
of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on
the collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long
veil so like a shroud.

So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings and
trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew nothing
then of the discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in
ancient times, which fall to powder in the moment of being distinctly
seen; but, I have often thought since, that she must have looked as if
the admission of the natural light of day would have struck her to dust.

“He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy!” said Estella with disdain, before
our first game was out. “And what coarse hands he has! And what thick
boots!”

I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began
to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so
strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it.

She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I
knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for
a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy.

“You say nothing of her,” remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked
on. “She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What
do you think of her?”

“I don't like to say,” I stammered.

“Tell me in my ear,” said Miss Havisham, bending down.

“I think she is very proud,” I replied, in a whisper.

“Anything else?”

“I think she is very pretty.”

“Anything else?”

“I think she is very insulting.” (She was looking at me then with a look
of supreme aversion.)

“Anything else?”

“I think I should like to go home.”

“And never see her again, though she is so pretty?”

“I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, but I should like
to go home now.”

“You shall go soon,” said Miss Havisham, aloud. “Play the game out.”

Saving for the one weird smile at first, I should have felt almost
sure that Miss Havisham's face could not smile. It had dropped into a
watchful and brooding expression,--most likely when all the things about
her had become transfixed,--and it looked as if nothing could ever lift
it up again. Her chest had dropped, so that she stooped; and her voice
had dropped, so that she spoke low, and with a dead lull upon her;
altogether, she had the appearance of having dropped body and soul,
within and without, under the weight of a crushing blow.

I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She
threw the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she
despised them for having been won of me.

“When shall I have you here again?” said Miss Havisham. “Let me think.”

I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday, when she
checked me with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her
right hand.

“There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know nothing of
weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam
and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip.”

I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she
stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the
side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must
necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me,
and made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange room
many hours.

“You are to wait here, you boy,” said Estella; and disappeared and
closed the door.

I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my
coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was
not favorable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled
me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever
taught me to call those picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called
knaves. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then
I should have been so too.

She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She
put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread
and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in
disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,--I
cannot hit upon the right name for the smart--God knows what its name
was,--that tears started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the
girl looked at me with a quick delight in having been the cause of them.
This gave me power to keep them back and to look at her: so, she gave a
contemptuous toss--but with a sense, I thought, of having made too sure
that I was so wounded--and left me.

But when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face
in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my
sleeve against the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried.
As I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair; so
bitter were my feelings, and so sharp was the smart without a name, that
needed counteraction.

My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in
which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is
nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be
only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child
is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many
hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within
myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with
injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my
sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had
cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand gave her
no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces,
fasts, and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed
this assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and
unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid
and very sensitive.

I got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them into the
brewery wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and then I smoothed my
face with my sleeve, and came from behind the gate. The bread and meat
were acceptable, and the beer was warming and tingling, and I was soon
in spirits to look about me.

To be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the pigeon-house in the
brewery-yard, which had been blown crooked on its pole by some high
wind, and would have made the pigeons think themselves at sea, if there
had been any pigeons there to be rocked by it. But there were no pigeons
in the dove-cot, no horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in
the storehouse, no smells of grains and beer in the copper or the vat.
All the uses and scents of the brewery might have evaporated with its
last reek of smoke. In a by-yard, there was a wilderness of empty casks,
which had a certain sour remembrance of better days lingering about
them; but it was too sour to be accepted as a sample of the beer that
was gone,--and in this respect I remember those recluses as being like
most others.

Behind the furthest end of the brewery, was a rank garden with an old
wall; not so high but that I could struggle up and hold on long enough
to look over it, and see that the rank garden was the garden of the
house, and that it was overgrown with tangled weeds, but that there was
a track upon the green and yellow paths, as if some one sometimes walked
there, and that Estella was walking away from me even then. But she
seemed to be everywhere. For when I yielded to the temptation presented
by the casks, and began to walk on them, I saw her walking on them at
the end of the yard of casks. She had her back towards me, and held her
pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and never looked round,
and passed out of my view directly. So, in the brewery itself,--by which
I mean the large paved lofty place in which they used to make the beer,
and where the brewing utensils still were. When I first went into it,
and, rather oppressed by its gloom, stood near the door looking about
me, I saw her pass among the extinguished fires, and ascend some light
iron stairs, and go out by a gallery high overhead, as if she were going
out into the sky.

It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange thing happened
to my fancy. I thought it a strange thing then, and I thought it a
stranger thing long afterwards. I turned my eyes--a little dimmed by
looking up at the frosty light--towards a great wooden beam in a low
nook of the building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure
hanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but
one shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the faded
trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was
Miss Havisham's, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if
she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure,
and in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment
before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror
was greatest of all when I found no figure there.

Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of
people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving
influence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought
me round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon
as I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let
me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I
thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason.

She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that
my hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the
gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her,
when she touched me with a taunting hand.

“Why don't you cry?”

“Because I don't want to.”

“You do,” said she. “You have been crying till you are half blind, and
you are near crying again now.”

She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me.
I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook's, and was immensely relieved to find
him not at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I was
wanted at Miss Havisham's again, I set off on the four-mile walk to
our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply
revolving that I was a common laboring-boy; that my hands were coarse;
that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit
of calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had
considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived
bad way.




Chapter IX

When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss
Havisham's, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself
getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small
of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen
wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length.

If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other
young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden
in mine,--which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason
to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity,--it is the key to many
reservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham's as my
eyes had seen it, I should not be understood. Not only that, but I felt
convinced that Miss Havisham too would not be understood; and although
she was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I entertained an impression
that there would be something coarse and treacherous in my dragging
her as she really was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before the
contemplation of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I could,
and had my face shoved against the kitchen wall.

The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by
a devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came
gaping over in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details divulged
to him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth
open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving
with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my reticence.

“Well, boy,” Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the
chair of honor by the fire. “How did you get on up town?”

I answered, “Pretty well, sir,” and my sister shook her fist at me.

“Pretty well?” Mr. Pumblechook repeated. “Pretty well is no answer. Tell
us what you mean by pretty well, boy?”

Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy
perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my
obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered
as if I had discovered a new idea, “I mean pretty well.”

My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me,--I
had no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge,--when Mr.
Pumblechook interposed with “No! Don't lose your temper. Leave this
lad to me, ma'am; leave this lad to me.” Mr. Pumblechook then turned me
towards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said,--

“First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?”

I calculated the consequences of replying “Four Hundred Pound,” and
finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could--which was
somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my
pence-table from “twelve pence make one shilling,” up to “forty pence
make three and fourpence,” and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had
done for me, “Now! How much is forty-three pence?” To which I replied,
after a long interval of reflection, “I don't know.” And I was so
aggravated that I almost doubt if I did know.

Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me,
and said, “Is forty-three pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for
instance?”

“Yes!” said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was
highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and
brought him to a dead stop.

“Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?” Mr. Pumblechook began again when
he had recovered; folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the
screw.

“Very tall and dark,” I told him.

“Is she, uncle?” asked my sister.

Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he had
never seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind.

“Good!” said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. (“This is the way to have him!
We are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mum?”)

“I am sure, uncle,” returned Mrs. Joe, “I wish you had him always; you
know so well how to deal with him.”

“Now, boy! What was she a doing of, when you went in today?” asked Mr.
Pumblechook.

“She was sitting,” I answered, “in a black velvet coach.”

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another--as they well
might--and both repeated, “In a black velvet coach?”

“Yes,” said I. “And Miss Estella--that's her niece, I think--handed her
in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had
cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine,
because she told me to.”

“Was anybody else there?” asked Mr. Pumblechook.

“Four dogs,” said I.

“Large or small?”

“Immense,” said I. “And they fought for veal-cutlets out of a silver
basket.”

Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter
amazement. I was perfectly frantic,--a reckless witness under the
torture,--and would have told them anything.

“Where was this coach, in the name of gracious?” asked my sister.

“In Miss Havisham's room.” They stared again. “But there weren't any
horses to it.” I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting
four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of
harnessing.

“Can this be possible, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe. “What can the boy mean?”

“I'll tell you, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “My opinion is, it's a
sedan-chair. She's flighty, you know,--very flighty,--quite flighty
enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair.”

“Did you ever see her in it, uncle?” asked Mrs. Joe.

“How could I,” he returned, forced to the admission, “when I never see
her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!”

“Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?”

“Why, don't you know,” said Mr. Pumblechook, testily, “that when I have
been there, I have been took up to the outside of her door, and the door
has stood ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don't say you don't
know that, Mum. Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did you play
at, boy?”

“We played with flags,” I said. (I beg to observe that I think of myself
with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.)

“Flags!” echoed my sister.

“Yes,” said I. “Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and
Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out
at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed.”

“Swords!” repeated my sister. “Where did you get swords from?”

“Out of a cupboard,” said I. “And I saw pistols in it,--and jam,--and
pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up
with candles.”

“That's true, Mum,” said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. “That's the
state of the case, for that much I've seen myself.” And then they
both stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my
countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers
with my right hand.

If they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have
betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that
there was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement
but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear
in the brewery. They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the
marvels I had already presented for their consideration, that I escaped.
The subject still held them when Joe came in from his work to have a cup
of tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of her own mind than for
the gratification of his, related my pretended experiences.

Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the
kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only as
regarded him,--not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards
Joe, and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat
debating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham's acquaintance
and favor. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would “do something”
 for me; their doubts related to the form that something would take.
My sister stood out for “property.” Mr. Pumblechook was in favor of a
handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade,--say,
the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest
disgrace with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I might only
be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the veal-cutlets.
“If a fool's head can't express better opinions than that,” said my
sister, “and you have got any work to do, you had better go and do it.”
 So he went.

After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing up,
I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for
the night. Then I said, “Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to
tell you something.”

“Should you, Pip?” said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the forge.
“Then tell us. What is it, Pip?”

“Joe,” said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting
it between my finger and thumb, “you remember all that about Miss
Havisham's?”

“Remember?” said Joe. “I believe you! Wonderful!”

“It's a terrible thing, Joe; it ain't true.”

“What are you telling of, Pip?” cried Joe, falling back in the greatest
amazement. “You don't mean to say it's--”

“Yes I do; it's lies, Joe.”

“But not all of it? Why sure you don't mean to say, Pip, that there was
no black welwet co--eh?” For, I stood shaking my head. “But at least
there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip,” said Joe, persuasively, “if there
warn't no weal-cutlets, at least there was dogs?”

“No, Joe.”

“A dog?” said Joe. “A puppy? Come?”

“No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind.”

As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay.
“Pip, old chap! This won't do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect to
go to?”

“It's terrible, Joe; ain't it?”

“Terrible?” cried Joe. “Awful! What possessed you?”

“I don't know what possessed me, Joe,” I replied, letting his shirt
sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head;
“but I wish you hadn't taught me to call Knaves at cards Jacks; and I
wish my boots weren't so thick nor my hands so coarse.”

And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn't been
able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, who were so rude to
me, and that there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's
who was dreadfully proud, and that she had said I was common, and that I
knew I was common, and that I wished I was not common, and that the lies
had come of it somehow, though I didn't know how.

This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe to deal
with as for me. But Joe took the case altogether out of the region of
metaphysics, and by that means vanquished it.

“There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip,” said Joe, after some
rumination, “namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't
ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to
the same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. That ain't the way to get
out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don't make
it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You're oncommon
small. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar.”

“No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe.”

“Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print even! I've
seen letters--Ah! and from gentlefolks!--that I'll swear weren't wrote
in print,” said Joe.

“I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It's only
that.”

“Well, Pip,” said Joe, “be it so or be it son't, you must be a common
scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon
his throne, with his crown upon his ed, can't sit and write his acts
of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted
Prince, with the alphabet.--Ah!” added Joe, with a shake of the head
that was full of meaning, “and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z.
And I know what that is to do, though I can't say I've exactly done it.”

There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged
me.

“Whether common ones as to callings and earnings,” pursued Joe,
reflectively, “mightn't be the better of continuing for to keep
company with common ones, instead of going out to play with oncommon
ones,--which reminds me to hope that there were a flag, perhaps?”

“No, Joe.”

“(I'm sorry there weren't a flag, Pip). Whether that might be or
mightn't be, is a thing as can't be looked into now, without putting
your sister on the Rampage; and that's a thing not to be thought of as
being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a
true friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can't get to
be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through
going crooked. So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and live well and die
happy.”

“You are not angry with me, Joe?”

“No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I meantersay
of a stunning and outdacious sort,--alluding to them which bordered on
weal-cutlets and dog-fighting,--a sincere well-wisher would adwise, Pip,
their being dropped into your meditations, when you go upstairs to bed.
That's all, old chap, and don't never do it no more.”

When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did not forget
Joe's recommendation, and yet my young mind was in that disturbed and
unthankful state, that I thought long after I laid me down, how common
Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith; how thick his boots, and
how coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting
in the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how
Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the
level of such common doings. I fell asleep recalling what I “used to
do” when I was at Miss Havisham's; as though I had been there weeks or
months, instead of hours; and as though it were quite an old subject of
remembrance, instead of one that had arisen only that day.

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it
is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it,
and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read
this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold,
of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the
formation of the first link on one memorable day.




Chapter X

The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke,
that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to
get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous
conception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's
at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life,
and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart
all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls,
immediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out her promise
within five minutes.

The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt
may be resolved into the following synopsis. The pupils ate apples
and put straws down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt
collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with
a birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the
pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to
hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and
a little spelling,--that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this
volume began to circulate, Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of
coma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then
entered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject
of Boots, with the view of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon
whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at
them and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been
unskilfully cut off the chump end of something), more illegibly printed
at the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with,
speckled all over with ironmould, and having various specimens of the
insect world smashed between their leaves. This part of the Course was
usually lightened by several single combats between Biddy and refractory
students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a
page, and then we all read aloud what we could,--or what we couldn't--in
a frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high, shrill, monotonous voice,
and none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we
were reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain time,
it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered at a boy
fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to terminate
the Course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of
intellectual victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition
against any pupil's entertaining himself with a slate or even with the
ink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that branch
of study in the winter season, on account of the little general shop
in which the classes were holden--and which was also Mr. Wopsle's
great-aunt's sitting-room and bedchamber--being but faintly illuminated
through the agency of one low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers.

It appeared to me that it would take time to become uncommon, under
these circumstances: nevertheless, I resolved to try it, and that
very evening Biddy entered on our special agreement, by imparting some
information from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist
sugar, and lending me, to copy at home, a large old English D which she
had imitated from the heading of some newspaper, and which I supposed,
until she told me what it was, to be a design for a buckle.

Of course there was a public-house in the village, and of course Joe
liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had received strict orders
from my sister to call for him at the Three Jolly Bargemen, that
evening, on my way from school, and bring him home at my peril. To the
Three Jolly Bargemen, therefore, I directed my steps.

There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk
scores in it on the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to
be never paid off. They had been there ever since I could remember, and
had grown more than I had. But there was a quantity of chalk about our
country, and perhaps the people neglected no opportunity of turning it
to account.

It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking rather grimly
at these records; but as my business was with Joe and not with him, I
merely wished him good evening, and passed into the common room at the
end of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire,
and where Joe was smoking his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and a
stranger. Joe greeted me as usual with “Halloa, Pip, old chap!” and the
moment he said that, the stranger turned his head and looked at me.

He was a secret-looking man whom I had never seen before. His head was
all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if he were
taking aim at something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his
mouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away
and looking hard at me all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he
nodded again, and made room on the settle beside him that I might sit
down there.

But as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that place of
resort, I said “No, thank you, sir,” and fell into the space Joe made
for me on the opposite settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe,
and seeing that his attention was otherwise engaged, nodded to me again
when I had taken my seat, and then rubbed his leg--in a very odd way, as
it struck me.

“You was saying,” said the strange man, turning to Joe, “that you was a
blacksmith.”

“Yes. I said it, you know,” said Joe.

“What'll you drink, Mr.--? You didn't mention your name, by the bye.”

Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it. “What'll you
drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up with?”

“Well,” said Joe, “to tell you the truth, I ain't much in the habit of
drinking at anybody's expense but my own.”

“Habit? No,” returned the stranger, “but once and away, and on a
Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr. Gargery.”

“I wouldn't wish to be stiff company,” said Joe. “Rum.”

“Rum,” repeated the stranger. “And will the other gentleman originate a
sentiment.”

“Rum,” said Mr. Wopsle.

“Three Rums!” cried the stranger, calling to the landlord. “Glasses
round!”

“This other gentleman,” observed Joe, by way of introducing Mr. Wopsle,
“is a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out. Our clerk at
church.”

“Aha!” said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me. “The
lonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves round it!”

“That's it,” said Joe.

The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put
his legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a flapping
broad-brimmed traveller's hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over his
head in the manner of a cap: so that he showed no hair. As he looked
at the fire, I thought I saw a cunning expression, followed by a
half-laugh, come into his face.

“I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it seems a
solitary country towards the river.”

“Most marshes is solitary,” said Joe.

“No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or
vagrants of any sort, out there?”

“No,” said Joe; “none but a runaway convict now and then. And we don't
find them, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?”

Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old discomfiture, assented;
but not warmly.

“Seems you have been out after such?” asked the stranger.

“Once,” returned Joe. “Not that we wanted to take them, you understand;
we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip. Didn't us, Pip?”

“Yes, Joe.”

The stranger looked at me again,--still cocking his eye, as if he were
expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,--and said, “He's a
likely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call him?”

“Pip,” said Joe.

“Christened Pip?”

“No, not christened Pip.”

“Surname Pip?”

“No,” said Joe, “it's a kind of family name what he gave himself when a
infant, and is called by.”

“Son of yours?”

“Well,” said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be in
anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at
the Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider deeply about everything that was
discussed over pipes,--“well--no. No, he ain't.”

“Nevvy?” said the strange man.

“Well,” said Joe, with the same appearance of profound cogitation, “he
is not--no, not to deceive you, he is not--my nevvy.”

“What the Blue Blazes is he?” asked the stranger. Which appeared to me
to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength.

Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all about relationships,
having professional occasion to bear in mind what female relations a man
might not marry; and expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having
his hand in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling
passage from Richard the Third, and seemed to think he had done quite
enough to account for it when he added, “--as the poet says.”

And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he considered
it a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into
my eyes. I cannot conceive why everybody of his standing who visited
at our house should always have put me through the same inflammatory
process under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that I
was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family
circle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to
patronize me.

All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and looked at
me as if he were determined to have a shot at me at last, and bring me
down. But he said nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation,
until the glasses of rum and water were brought; and then he made his
shot, and a most extraordinary shot it was.

It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb-show, and was
pointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum and water pointedly at me,
and he tasted his rum and water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and
he tasted it; not with a spoon that was brought to him, but with a file.

He did this so that nobody but I saw the file; and when he had done it
he wiped the file and put it in a breast-pocket. I knew it to be
Joe's file, and I knew that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the
instrument. I sat gazing at him, spell-bound. But he now reclined on his
settle, taking very little notice of me, and talking principally about
turnips.

There was a delicious sense of cleaning-up and making a quiet pause
before going on in life afresh, in our village on Saturday nights, which
stimulated Joe to dare to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays
than at other times. The half-hour and the rum and water running out
together, Joe got up to go, and took me by the hand.

“Stop half a moment, Mr. Gargery,” said the strange man. “I think I've
got a bright new shilling somewhere in my pocket, and if I have, the boy
shall have it.”

He looked it out from a handful of small change, folded it in some
crumpled paper, and gave it to me. “Yours!” said he. “Mind! Your own.”

I thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds of good manners,
and holding tight to Joe. He gave Joe good-night, and he gave Mr. Wopsle
good-night (who went out with us), and he gave me only a look with his
aiming eye,--no, not a look, for he shut it up, but wonders may be done
with an eye by hiding it.

On the way home, if I had been in a humor for talking, the talk must
have been all on my side, for Mr. Wopsle parted from us at the door of
the Jolly Bargemen, and Joe went all the way home with his mouth wide
open, to rinse the rum out with as much air as possible. But I was in
a manner stupefied by this turning up of my old misdeed and old
acquaintance, and could think of nothing else.

My sister was not in a very bad temper when we presented ourselves in
the kitchen, and Joe was encouraged by that unusual circumstance to tell
her about the bright shilling. “A bad un, I'll be bound,” said Mrs. Joe
triumphantly, “or he wouldn't have given it to the boy! Let's look at
it.”

I took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good one. “But what's
this?” said Mrs. Joe, throwing down the shilling and catching up the
paper. “Two One-Pound notes?”

Nothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to have
been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle-markets in
the county. Joe caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the Jolly
Bargemen to restore them to their owner. While he was gone, I sat down
on my usual stool and looked vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty sure
that the man would not be there.

Presently, Joe came back, saying that the man was gone, but that he,
Joe, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes.
Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under
some dried rose-leaves in an ornamental teapot on the top of a press in
the state parlor. There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and many
a night and day.

I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking of the
strange man taking aim at me with his invisible gun, and of the guiltily
coarse and common thing it was, to be on secret terms of conspiracy with
convicts,--a feature in my low career that I had previously forgotten.
I was haunted by the file too. A dread possessed me that when I least
expected it, the file would reappear. I coaxed myself to sleep by
thinking of Miss Havisham's, next Wednesday; and in my sleep I saw
the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who held it, and I
screamed myself awake.




Chapter XI

At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham's, and my hesitating
ring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting
me, as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage
where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the
candle in her hand, when she looked over her shoulder, superciliously
saying, “You are to come this way to-day,” and took me to quite another
part of the house.

The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square
basement of the Manor House. We traversed but one side of the square,
however, and at the end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and
opened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I found myself in
a small paved courtyard, the opposite side of which was formed by a
detached dwelling-house, that looked as if it had once belonged to the
manager or head clerk of the extinct brewery. There was a clock in the
outer wall of this house. Like the clock in Miss Havisham's room, and
like Miss Havisham's watch, it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine.

We went in at the door, which stood open, and into a gloomy room with a
low ceiling, on the ground-floor at the back. There was some company in
the room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, “You are to go and
stand there boy, till you are wanted.” “There”, being the window, I
crossed to it, and stood “there,” in a very uncomfortable state of mind,
looking out.

It opened to the ground, and looked into a most miserable corner of the
neglected garden, upon a rank ruin of cabbage-stalks, and one box-tree
that had been clipped round long ago, like a pudding, and had a new
growth at the top of it, out of shape and of a different color, as if
that part of the pudding had stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. This
was my homely thought, as I contemplated the box-tree. There had been
some light snow, overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my knowledge;
but, it had not quite melted from the cold shadow of this bit of garden,
and the wind caught it up in little eddies and threw it at the window,
as if it pelted me for coming there.

I divined that my coming had stopped conversation in the room, and that
its other occupants were looking at me. I could see nothing of the room
except the shining of the fire in the window-glass, but I stiffened in
all my joints with the consciousness that I was under close inspection.

There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been
standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that
they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not
to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission
that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady
and humbug.

They all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody's pleasure,
and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to
repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded
me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and (as I found
when I caught sight of her) of a blunter cast of features. Indeed, when
I knew her better I began to think it was a Mercy she had any features
at all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face.

“Poor dear soul!” said this lady, with an abruptness of manner quite my
sister's. “Nobody's enemy but his own!”

“It would be much more commendable to be somebody else's enemy,” said
the gentleman; “far more natural.”

“Cousin Raymond,” observed another lady, “we are to love our neighbor.”

“Sarah Pocket,” returned Cousin Raymond, “if a man is not his own
neighbor, who is?”

Miss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said (checking a yawn),
“The idea!” But I thought they seemed to think it rather a good
idea too. The other lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and
emphatically, “Very true!”

“Poor soul!” Camilla presently went on (I knew they had all been looking
at me in the mean time), “he is so very strange! Would anyone believe
that when Tom's wife died, he actually could not be induced to see the
importance of the children's having the deepest of trimmings to their
mourning? 'Good Lord!' says he, 'Camilla, what can it signify so long
as the poor bereaved little things are in black?' So like Matthew! The
idea!”

“Good points in him, good points in him,” said Cousin Raymond; “Heaven
forbid I should deny good points in him; but he never had, and he never
will have, any sense of the proprieties.”

“You know I was obliged,” said Camilla,--“I was obliged to be firm. I
said, 'It WILL NOT DO, for the credit of the family.' I told him that,
without deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from
breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion. And at last he flung out
in his violent way, and said, with a D, 'Then do as you like.' Thank
Goodness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly
went out in a pouring rain and bought the things.”

“He paid for them, did he not?” asked Estella.

“It's not the question, my dear child, who paid for them,” returned
Camilla. “I bought them. And I shall often think of that with peace,
when I wake up in the night.”

The ringing of a distant bell, combined with the echoing of some cry or
call along the passage by which I had come, interrupted the conversation
and caused Estella to say to me, “Now, boy!” On my turning round, they
all looked at me with the utmost contempt, and, as I went out, I heard
Sarah Pocket say, “Well I am sure! What next!” and Camilla add, with
indignation, “Was there ever such a fancy! The i-de-a!”

As we were going with our candle along the dark passage, Estella stopped
all of a sudden, and, facing round, said in her taunting manner, with
her face quite close to mine,--

“Well?”

“Well, miss?” I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself.

She stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood looking at her.

“Am I pretty?”

“Yes; I think you are very pretty.”

“Am I insulting?”

“Not so much so as you were last time,” said I.

“Not so much so?”

“No.”

She fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face with
such force as she had, when I answered it.

“Now?” said she. “You little coarse monster, what do you think of me
now?”

“I shall not tell you.”

“Because you are going to tell upstairs. Is that it?”

“No,” said I, “that's not it.”

“Why don't you cry again, you little wretch?”

“Because I'll never cry for you again,” said I. Which was, I suppose, as
false a declaration as ever was made; for I was inwardly crying for her
then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards.

We went on our way upstairs after this episode; and, as we were going
up, we met a gentleman groping his way down.

“Whom have we here?” asked the gentleman, stopping and looking at me.

“A boy,” said Estella.

He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an
exceedingly large head, and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin
in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the
light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, and
had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn't lie down but stood up bristling.
His eyes were set very deep in his head, and were disagreeably sharp and
suspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and strong black dots where his
beard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. He was nothing
to me, and I could have had no foresight then, that he ever would be
anything to me, but it happened that I had this opportunity of observing
him well.

“Boy of the neighborhood? Hey?” said he.

“Yes, sir,” said I.

“How do you come here?”

“Miss Havisham sent for me, sir,” I explained.

“Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and
you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!” said he, biting the side of his
great forefinger as he frowned at me, “you behave yourself!”

With those words, he released me--which I was glad of, for his hand
smelt of scented soap--and went his way downstairs. I wondered whether
he could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn't be a doctor, or he
would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time
to consider the subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham's room, where
she and everything else were just as I had left them. Estella left me
standing near the door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham cast her
eyes upon me from the dressing-table.

“So!” she said, without being startled or surprised: “the days have worn
away, have they?”

“Yes, ma'am. To-day is--”

“There, there, there!” with the impatient movement of her fingers. “I
don't want to know. Are you ready to play?”

I was obliged to answer in some confusion, “I don't think I am, ma'am.”

“Not at cards again?” she demanded, with a searching look.

“Yes, ma'am; I could do that, if I was wanted.”

“Since this house strikes you old and grave, boy,” said Miss Havisham,
impatiently, “and you are unwilling to play, are you willing to work?”

I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to
find for the other question, and I said I was quite willing.

“Then go into that opposite room,” said she, pointing at the door behind
me with her withered hand, “and wait there till I come.”

I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated.
From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an
airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in
the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than
to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder
than the clearer air,--like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches
of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber; or it
would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It was
spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible
thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The
most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it,
as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all
stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the
middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its
form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow
expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black
fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home
to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest
public importance had just transpired in the spider community.

I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same
occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took
no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous
elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not
on terms with one another.

These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching
them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder.
In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and
she looked like the Witch of the place.

“This,” said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, “is where I
will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here.”

With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and
there and die at once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork
at the Fair, I shrank under her touch.

“What do you think that is?” she asked me, again pointing with her
stick; “that, where those cobwebs are?”

“I can't guess what it is, ma'am.”

“It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!”

She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said,
leaning on me while her hand twitched my shoulder, “Come, come, come!
Walk me, walk me!”

I made out from this, that the work I had to do, was to walk Miss
Havisham round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once, and
she leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have
been an imitation (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr.
Pumblechook's chaise-cart.

She was not physically strong, and after a little time said, “Slower!”
 Still, we went at an impatient fitful speed, and as we went, she
twitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me to
believe that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. After a
while she said, “Call Estella!” so I went out on the landing and
roared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light
appeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round
and round the room.

If only Estella had come to be a spectator of our proceedings, I should
have felt sufficiently discontented; but as she brought with her the
three ladies and the gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn't know
what to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped; but Miss
Havisham twitched my shoulder, and we posted on,--with a shame-faced
consciousness on my part that they would think it was all my doing.

“Dear Miss Havisham,” said Miss Sarah Pocket. “How well you look!”

“I do not,” returned Miss Havisham. “I am yellow skin and bone.”

Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff; and she
murmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, “Poor dear
soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The idea!”

“And how are you?” said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we were close to
Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of course, only Miss
Havisham wouldn't stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly
obnoxious to Camilla.

“Thank you, Miss Havisham,” she returned, “I am as well as can be
expected.”

“Why, what's the matter with you?” asked Miss Havisham, with exceeding
sharpness.

“Nothing worth mentioning,” replied Camilla. “I don't wish to make a
display of my feelings, but I have habitually thought of you more in the
night than I am quite equal to.”

“Then don't think of me,” retorted Miss Havisham.

“Very easily said!” remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a sob, while a
hitch came into her upper lip, and her tears overflowed. “Raymond is a
witness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night.
Raymond is a witness what nervous jerkings I have in my legs. Chokings
and nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with
anxiety of those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensitive,
I should have a better digestion and an iron set of nerves. I am sure
I wish it could be so. But as to not thinking of you in the night--The
idea!” Here, a burst of tears.

The Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentleman present, and
him I understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this point,
and said in a consolatory and complimentary voice, “Camilla, my dear, it
is well known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you to
the extent of making one of your legs shorter than the other.”

“I am not aware,” observed the grave lady whose voice I had heard but
once, “that to think of any person is to make a great claim upon that
person, my dear.”

Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry, brown, corrugated
old woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shells,
and a large mouth like a cat's without the whiskers, supported this
position by saying, “No, indeed, my dear. Hem!”

“Thinking is easy enough,” said the grave lady.

“What is easier, you know?” assented Miss Sarah Pocket.

“Oh, yes, yes!” cried Camilla, whose fermenting feelings appeared to
rise from her legs to her bosom. “It's all very true! It's a weakness
to be so affectionate, but I can't help it. No doubt my health would be
much better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn't change my disposition
if I could. It's the cause of much suffering, but it's a consolation to
know I posses it, when I wake up in the night.” Here another burst of
feeling.

Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, but kept going
round and round the room; now brushing against the skirts of the
visitors, now giving them the whole length of the dismal chamber.

“There's Matthew!” said Camilla. “Never mixing with any natural ties,
never coming here to see how Miss Havisham is! I have taken to the sofa
with my staylace cut, and have lain there hours insensible, with my head
over the side, and my hair all down, and my feet I don't know where--”

(“Much higher than your head, my love,” said Mr. Camilla.)

“I have gone off into that state, hours and hours, on account of
Matthew's strange and inexplicable conduct, and nobody has thanked me.”

“Really I must say I should think not!” interposed the grave lady.

“You see, my dear,” added Miss Sarah Pocket (a blandly vicious
personage), “the question to put to yourself is, who did you expect to
thank you, my love?”

“Without expecting any thanks, or anything of the sort,” resumed
Camilla, “I have remained in that state, hours and hours, and Raymond
is a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what the total
inefficacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the piano-forte
tuner's across the street, where the poor mistaken children have even
supposed it to be pigeons cooing at a distance,--and now to be told--”
 Here Camilla put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemical
as to the formation of new combinations there.

When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Havisham stopped me and
herself, and stood looking at the speaker. This change had a great
influence in bringing Camilla's chemistry to a sudden end.

“Matthew will come and see me at last,” said Miss Havisham, sternly,
“when I am laid on that table. That will be his place,--there,” striking
the table with her stick, “at my head! And yours will be there! And your
husband's there! And Sarah Pocket's there! And Georgiana's there! Now
you all know where to take your stations when you come to feast upon me.
And now go!”

At the mention of each name, she had struck the table with her stick in
a new place. She now said, “Walk me, walk me!” and we went on again.

“I suppose there's nothing to be done,” exclaimed Camilla, “but comply
and depart. It's something to have seen the object of one's love and
duty for even so short a time. I shall think of it with a melancholy
satisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew could have
that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am determined not to make a
display of my feelings, but it's very hard to be told one wants to feast
on one's relations,--as if one was a Giant,--and to be told to go. The
bare idea!”

Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hand upon her heaving
bosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude of manner which I
supposed to be expressive of an intention to drop and choke when out of
view, and kissing her hand to Miss Havisham, was escorted forth. Sarah
Pocket and Georgiana contended who should remain last; but Sarah was
too knowing to be outdone, and ambled round Georgiana with that artful
slipperiness that the latter was obliged to take precedence. Sarah
Pocket then made her separate effect of departing with, “Bless you, Miss
Havisham dear!” and with a smile of forgiving pity on her walnut-shell
countenance for the weaknesses of the rest.

While Estella was away lighting them down, Miss Havisham still walked
with her hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At last she
stopped before the fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it
some seconds,--

“This is my birthday, Pip.”

I was going to wish her many happy returns, when she lifted her stick.

“I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer those who were here
just now, or any one to speak of it. They come here on the day, but they
dare not refer to it.”

Of course I made no further effort to refer to it.

“On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of
decay,” stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the
table, but not touching it, “was brought here. It and I have worn away
together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of
mice have gnawed at me.”

She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking
at the table; she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered; the
once white cloth all yellow and withered; everything around in a state
to crumble under a touch.

“When the ruin is complete,” said she, with a ghastly look, “and when
they lay me dead, in my bride's dress on the bride's table,--which shall
be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him,--so much the
better if it is done on this day!”

She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own figure
lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained
quiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. In
the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its
remoter corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might
presently begin to decay.

At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an
instant, Miss Havisham said, “Let me see you two play cards; why have
you not begun?” With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as
before; I was beggared, as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham
watched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella's beauty, and
made me notice it the more by trying her jewels on Estella's breast and
hair.

Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before, except that she
did not condescend to speak. When we had played some half-dozen games,
a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard
to be fed in the former dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to
wander about as I liked.

It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that garden wall which
I had scrambled up to peep over on the last occasion was, on that last
occasion, open or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I
saw one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella had let
the visitors out,--for she had returned with the keys in her hand,--I
strolled into the garden, and strolled all over it. It was quite a
wilderness, and there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in it,
which seemed in their decline to have produced a spontaneous growth of
weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, with now and then a weedy
offshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan.

When I had exhausted the garden and a greenhouse with nothing in it but
a fallen-down grape-vine and some bottles, I found myself in the dismal
corner upon which I had looked out of the window. Never questioning for
a moment that the house was now empty, I looked in at another window,
and found myself, to my great surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a
pale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair.

This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, and reappeared beside me.
He had been at his books when I had found myself staring at him, and I
now saw that he was inky.

“Halloa!” said he, “young fellow!”

Halloa being a general observation which I had usually observed to
be best answered by itself, I said, “Halloa!” politely omitting young
fellow.

“Who let you in?” said he.

“Miss Estella.”

“Who gave you leave to prowl about?”

“Miss Estella.”

“Come and fight,” said the pale young gentleman.

What could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question
since; but what else could I do? His manner was so final, and I was
so astonished, that I followed where he led, as if I had been under a
spell.

“Stop a minute, though,” he said, wheeling round before we had gone many
paces. “I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There it is!”
 In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against one
another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair,
slapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my stomach.

The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that it was
unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was
particularly disagreeable just after bread and meat. I therefore hit out
at him and was going to hit out again, when he said, “Aha! Would you?”
 and began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner quite unparalleled
within my limited experience.

“Laws of the game!” said he. Here, he skipped from his left leg on to
his right. “Regular rules!” Here, he skipped from his right leg on to
his left. “Come to the ground, and go through the preliminaries!” Here,
he dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts of things while I
looked helplessly at him.

I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous; but I felt
morally and physically convinced that his light head of hair could have
had no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to
consider it irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I
followed him without a word, to a retired nook of the garden, formed by
the junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking me
if I was satisfied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he begged my
leave to absent himself for a moment, and quickly returned with a bottle
of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar. “Available for both,” he said,
placing these against the wall. And then fell to pulling off, not
only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once
light-hearted, business-like, and bloodthirsty.

Although he did not look very healthy,--having pimples on his face, and
a breaking out at his mouth,--these dreadful preparations quite appalled
me. I judged him to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and he
had a way of spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For
the rest, he was a young gentleman in a gray suit (when not denuded
for battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels considerably in
advance of the rest of him as to development.

My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every
demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing my anatomy as if he were
minutely choosing his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life,
as I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his
back, looking up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly
fore-shortened.

But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with
a great show of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest
surprise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again,
looking up at me out of a black eye.

His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no
strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down;
but he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking out
of the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself
according to form, and then came at me with an air and a show that made
me believe he really was going to do for me at last. He got heavily
bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I
hit him; but he came up again and again and again, until at last he got
a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even after that
crisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round confusedly a
few times, not knowing where I was; but finally went on his knees to his
sponge and threw it up: at the same time panting out, “That means you
have won.”

He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the
contest, I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go
so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of
savage young wolf or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly
wiping my sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, “Can I help you?”
 and he said “No thankee,” and I said “Good afternoon,” and he said “Same
to you.”

When I got into the courtyard, I found Estella waiting with the keys.
But she neither asked me where I had been, nor why I had kept her
waiting; and there was a bright flush upon her face, as though something
had happened to delight her. Instead of going straight to the gate, too,
she stepped back into the passage, and beckoned me.

“Come here! You may kiss me, if you like.”

I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone
through a great deal to kiss her cheek. But I felt that the kiss was
given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and
that it was worth nothing.

What with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards, and what with
the fight, my stay had lasted so long, that when I neared home the light
on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against
a black night-sky, and Joe's furnace was flinging a path of fire across
the road.




Chapter XII

My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. The
more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on
his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the
more certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that
the pale young gentleman's blood was on my head, and that the Law would
avenge it. Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had
incurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go stalking
about the country, ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into
the studious youth of England, without laying themselves open to severe
punishment. For some days, I even kept close at home, and looked out at
the kitchen door with the greatest caution and trepidation before going
on an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail should pounce upon
me. The pale young gentleman's nose had stained my trousers, and I tried
to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had cut
my knuckles against the pale young gentleman's teeth, and I twisted my
imagination into a thousand tangles, as I devised incredible ways of
accounting for that damnatory circumstance when I should be haled before
the Judges.

When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of
violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice,
specially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the
gate;--whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for
an outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers,
draw a pistol, and shoot me dead:--whether suborned boys--a numerous
band of mercenaries--might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery,
and cuff me until I was no more;--it was high testimony to my confidence
in the spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined him
accessory to these retaliations; they always came into my mind as the
acts of injudicious relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his
visage and an indignant sympathy with the family features.

However, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did. And behold! nothing
came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way, and no pale
young gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I found the same
gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in at the windows
of the detached house; but my view was suddenly stopped by the closed
shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in the corner where
the combat had taken place could I detect any evidence of the young
gentleman's existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I
covered them with garden-mould from the eye of man.

On the broad landing between Miss Havisham's own room and that other
room in which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden-chair,--a
light chair on wheels, that you pushed from behind. It had been placed
there since my last visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular
occupation of pushing Miss Havisham in this chair (when she was tired of
walking with her hand upon my shoulder) round her own room, and across
the landing, and round the other room. Over and over and over again,
we would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as
three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general mention of
these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I should
return every alternate day at noon for these purposes, and because I am
now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten months.

As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham talked more
to me, and asked me such questions as what had I learnt and what was
I going to be? I told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I
believed; and I enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know
everything, in the hope that she might offer some help towards that
desirable end. But she did not; on the contrary, she seemed to prefer my
being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money,--or anything
but my daily dinner,--nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my
services.

Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told
me I might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me;
sometimes, she would condescend to me; sometimes, she would be quite
familiar with me; sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she
hated me. Miss Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or when we were
alone, “Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip?” And when I said yes
(for indeed she did), would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we
played at cards Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of
Estella's moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods were
so many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled what
to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish fondness,
murmuring something in her ear that sounded like “Break their hearts my
pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!”

There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which the
burden was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of rendering
homage to a patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in that relation
towards smiths. It was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon
iron, and was a mere lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's
respected name. Thus, you were to hammer boys round--Old Clem! With a
thump and a sound--Old Clem! Beat it out, beat it out--Old Clem! With a
clink for the stout--Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fire--Old
Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher--Old Clem! One day soon after the
appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the
impatient movement of her fingers, “There, there, there! Sing!” I was
surprised into crooning this ditty as I pushed her over the floor. It
happened so to catch her fancy that she took it up in a low brooding
voice as if she were singing in her sleep. After that, it became
customary with us to have it as we moved about, and Estella would often
join in; though the whole strain was so subdued, even when there were
three of us, that it made less noise in the grim old house than the
lightest breath of wind.

What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail
to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were
dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the
misty yellow rooms?

Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had
not previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which
I had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly
fail to discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger
to be put into the black velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of him.
Besides, that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed,
which had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time
went on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but I told
poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to do so, and why Biddy
had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, though
I think I know now.

Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with
almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass,
Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of
discussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to
this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that if these hands
could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, they would have done
it. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind, that
he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him,--as it
were, to operate upon,--and he would drag me up from my stool (usually
by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the
fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, “Now, Mum,
here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up
your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did do. Now,
Mum, with respections to this boy!” And then he would rumple my hair
the wrong way,--which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted,
I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do,--and
would hold me before him by the sleeve,--a spectacle of imbecility only
to be equalled by himself.

Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations
about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me,
that I used to want--quite painfully--to burst into spiteful tears, fly
at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister
spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at
every reference; while Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron,
would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of
my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job.

In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at,
while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe's perceiving that
he was not favorable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old
enough now to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on
his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my
sister would so distinctly construe that innocent action into opposition
on his part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out of his
hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating end to
every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to
it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me as
it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, “Come! there's enough of
you! You get along to bed; you've given trouble enough for one night, I
hope!” As if I had besought them as a favor to bother my life out.

We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we
should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss
Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my
shoulder; and said with some displeasure,--

“You are growing tall, Pip!”

I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that
this might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control.

She said no more at the time; but she presently stopped and looked at me
again; and presently again; and after that, looked frowning and moody.
On the next day of my attendance, when our usual exercise was over, and
I had landed her at her dressing-table, she stayed me with a movement of
her impatient fingers:--

“Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours.”

“Joe Gargery, ma'am.”

“Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

“You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here with
you, and bring your indentures, do you think?”

I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honor to be
asked.

“Then let him come.”

“At any particular time, Miss Havisham?”

“There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come
along with you.”

When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister
“went on the Rampage,” in a more alarming degree than at any previous
period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats under
our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we graciously
thought she was fit for? When she had exhausted a torrent of such
inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing,
got out the dustpan,--which was always a very bad sign,--put on her
coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied
with a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned
us out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard.
It was ten o'clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and
then she asked Joe why he hadn't married a Negress Slave at once?
Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and
looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been a
better speculation.




Chapter XIII

It was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see
Joe arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss
Havisham's. However, as he thought his court-suit necessary to the
occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his
working-dress; the rather, because I knew he made himself so dreadfully
uncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled
up his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the hair on the
crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers.

At breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of going to town with
us, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook's and called for “when we had
done with our fine ladies”--a way of putting the case, from which Joe
appeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge was shut up for the day,
and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to do on
the very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable
HOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the
direction he had taken.

We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver
bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited
Straw, a pair of pattens, a spare shawl, and an umbrella, though it
was a fine bright day. I am not quite clear whether these articles were
carried penitentially or ostentatiously; but I rather think they were
displayed as articles of property,--much as Cleopatra or any other
sovereign lady on the Rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or
procession.

When we came to Pumblechook's, my sister bounced in and left us. As it
was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham's house.
Estella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took
his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands; as if
he had some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half a
quarter of an ounce.

Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew
so well. I followed next to her, and Joe came last. When I looked back
at Joe in the long passage, he was still weighing his hat with the
greatest care, and was coming after us in long strides on the tips of
his toes.

Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat-cuff
and conducted him into Miss Havisham's presence. She was seated at her
dressing-table, and looked round at us immediately.

“Oh!” said she to Joe. “You are the husband of the sister of this boy?”

I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or
so like some extraordinary bird; standing as he did speechless, with his
tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm.

“You are the husband,” repeated Miss Havisham, “of the sister of this
boy?”

It was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview, Joe persisted in
addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham.

“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe now observed in a manner that was at
once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great
politeness, “as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time
what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a single man.”

“Well!” said Miss Havisham. “And you have reared the boy, with the
intention of taking him for your apprentice; is that so, Mr. Gargery?”

“You know, Pip,” replied Joe, “as you and me were ever friends, and it
were looked for'ard to betwixt us, as being calc'lated to lead to
larks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever made objections to the
business,--such as its being open to black and sut, or such-like,--not
but what they would have been attended to, don't you see?”

“Has the boy,” said Miss Havisham, “ever made any objection? Does he
like the trade?”

“Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip,” returned Joe, strengthening
his former mixture of argumentation, confidence, and politeness, “that
it were the wish of your own hart.” (I saw the idea suddenly break upon
him that he would adapt his epitaph to the occasion, before he went on
to say) “And there weren't no objection on your part, and Pip it were
the great wish of your hart!”

It was quite in vain for me to endeavor to make him sensible that he
ought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made faces and gestures
to him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative, and polite, he
persisted in being to Me.

“Have you brought his indentures with you?” asked Miss Havisham.

“Well, Pip, you know,” replied Joe, as if that were a little
unreasonable, “you yourself see me put 'em in my 'at, and therefore you
know as they are here.” With which he took them out, and gave them, not
to Miss Havisham, but to me. I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good
fellow,--I know I was ashamed of him,--when I saw that Estella stood
at the back of Miss Havisham's chair, and that her eyes laughed
mischievously. I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to
Miss Havisham.

“You expected,” said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over, “no premium
with the boy?”

“Joe!” I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all. “Why don't you
answer--”

“Pip,” returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt, “which I
meantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwixt yourself
and me, and which you know the answer to be full well No. You know it to
be No, Pip, and wherefore should I say it?”

Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was
better than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there; and took
up a little bag from the table beside her.

“Pip has earned a premium here,” she said, “and here it is. There are
five-and-twenty guineas in this bag. Give it to your master, Pip.”

As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the wonder awakened in
him by her strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass,
persisted in addressing me.

“This is wery liberal on your part, Pip,” said Joe, “and it is as such
received and grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor near,
nor nowheres. And now, old chap,” said Joe, conveying to me a sensation,
first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar
expression were applied to Miss Havisham,--“and now, old chap, may we
do our duty! May you and me do our duty, both on us, by one and another,
and by them which your liberal present--have-conweyed--to be--for the
satisfaction of mind-of--them as never--” here Joe showed that he felt
he had fallen into frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued
himself with the words, “and from myself far be it!” These words had
such a round and convincing sound for him that he said them twice.

“Good-bye, Pip!” said Miss Havisham. “Let them out, Estella.”

“Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?” I asked.

“No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word!”

Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe
in a distinct emphatic voice, “The boy has been a good boy here, and
that is his reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will expect no
other and no more.”

How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine; but
I know that when he did get out he was steadily proceeding upstairs
instead of coming down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went
after him and laid hold of him. In another minute we were outside the
gate, and it was locked, and Estella was gone. When we stood in the
daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a wall, and said to me,
“Astonishing!” And there he remained so long saying, “Astonishing” at
intervals, so often, that I began to think his senses were never coming
back. At length he prolonged his remark into “Pip, I do assure you this
is as-TON-ishing!” and so, by degrees, became conversational and able to
walk away.

I have reason to think that Joe's intellects were brightened by the
encounter they had passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechook's
he invented a subtle and deep design. My reason is to be found in
what took place in Mr. Pumblechook's parlor: where, on our presenting
ourselves, my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman.

“Well?” cried my sister, addressing us both at once. “And what's
happened to you? I wonder you condescend to come back to such poor
society as this, I am sure I do!”

“Miss Havisham,” said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort of
remembrance, “made it wery partick'ler that we should give her--were it
compliments or respects, Pip?”

“Compliments,” I said.

“Which that were my own belief,” answered Joe; “her compliments to Mrs.
J. Gargery--”

“Much good they'll do me!” observed my sister; but rather gratified too.

“And wishing,” pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like another
effort of remembrance, “that the state of Miss Havisham's elth were
sitch as would have--allowed, were it, Pip?”

“Of her having the pleasure,” I added.

“Of ladies' company,” said Joe. And drew a long breath.

“Well!” cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pumblechook.
“She might have had the politeness to send that message at first, but
it's better late than never. And what did she give young Rantipole
here?”

“She giv' him,” said Joe, “nothing.”

Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on.

“What she giv',” said Joe, “she giv' to his friends. 'And by his
friends,' were her explanation, 'I mean into the hands of his sister
Mrs. J. Gargery.' Them were her words; 'Mrs. J. Gargery.' She mayn't
have know'd,” added Joe, with an appearance of reflection, “whether it
were Joe, or Jorge.”

My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the elbows of his wooden
arm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all
about it beforehand.

“And how much have you got?” asked my sister, laughing. Positively
laughing!

“What would present company say to ten pound?” demanded Joe.

“They'd say,” returned my sister, curtly, “pretty well. Not too much,
but pretty well.”

“It's more than that, then,” said Joe.

That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he
rubbed the arms of his chair, “It's more than that, Mum.”

“Why, you don't mean to say--” began my sister.

“Yes I do, Mum,” said Pumblechook; “but wait a bit. Go on, Joseph. Good
in you! Go on!”

“What would present company say,” proceeded Joe, “to twenty pound?”

“Handsome would be the word,” returned my sister.

“Well, then,” said Joe, “It's more than twenty pound.”

That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a
patronizing laugh, “It's more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her up,
Joseph!”

“Then to make an end of it,” said Joe, delightedly handing the bag to my
sister; “it's five-and-twenty pound.”

“It's five-and-twenty pound, Mum,” echoed that basest of swindlers,
Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her; “and it's no more than your
merits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you joy of the
money!”

If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently
awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody,
with a right of patronage that left all his former criminality far
behind.

“Now you see, Joseph and wife,” said Pumblechook, as he took me by the
arm above the elbow, “I am one of them that always go right through with
what they've begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand. That's my way.
Bound out of hand.”

“Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook,” said my sister (grasping the
money), “we're deeply beholden to you.”

“Never mind me, Mum,” returned that diabolical cornchandler. “A
pleasure's a pleasure all the world over. But this boy, you know; we
must have him bound. I said I'd see to it--to tell you the truth.”

The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand, and we at
once went over to have me bound apprentice to Joe in the Magisterial
presence. I say we went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook,
exactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick; indeed,
it was the general impression in Court that I had been taken red-handed;
for, as Pumblechook shoved me before him through the crowd, I heard some
people say, “What's he done?” and others, “He's a young 'un, too, but
looks bad, don't he?” One person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave
me a tract ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young man fitted
up with a perfect sausage-shop of fetters, and entitled TO BE READ IN MY
CELL.

The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a
church,--and with people hanging over the pews looking on,--and with
mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with
folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading
the newspapers,--and with some shining black portraits on the walls,
which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hardbake and
sticking-plaster. Here, in a corner my indentures were duly signed and
attested, and I was “bound”; Mr. Pumblechook holding me all the while
as if we had looked in on our way to the scaffold, to have those little
preliminaries disposed of.

When we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had been put
into great spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly tortured,
and who were much disappointed to find that my friends were merely
rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook's. And there my sister
became so excited by the twenty-five guineas, that nothing would serve
her but we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the Blue Boar, and
that Pumblechook must go over in his chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles
and Mr. Wopsle.

It was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day I passed. For,
it inscrutably appeared to stand to reason, in the minds of the whole
company, that I was an excrescence on the entertainment. And to make it
worse, they all asked me from time to time,--in short, whenever they
had nothing else to do,--why I didn't enjoy myself? And what could I
possibly do then, but say I was enjoying myself,--when I wasn't!

However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the
most of it. That swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent
contriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top of the table;
and, when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and had
fiendishly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I
played at cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad company,
or indulged in other vagaries which the form of my indentures appeared
to contemplate as next to inevitable, he placed me standing on a chair
beside him to illustrate his remarks.

My only other remembrances of the great festival are, That they wouldn't
let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, woke me up
and told me to enjoy myself. That, rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle
gave us Collins's ode, and threw his bloodstained sword in thunder
down, with such effect, that a waiter came in and said, “The Commercials
underneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the Tumblers' Arms.”
 That, they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O
Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously
strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece
of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about
everybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks
flowing, and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going.

Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly
wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like
Joe's trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now.




Chapter XIV

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black
ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well
deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify.

Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister's
temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had
believed in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon; I had believed
in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose
solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had
believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment;
I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and
independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all
coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella
see it on any account.

How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault,
how much Miss Havisham's, how much my sister's, is now of no moment to
me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or
ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done.

Once, it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll up my
shirt-sleeves and go into the forge, Joe's 'prentice, I should be
distinguished and happy. Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt
that I was dusty with the dust of small-coal, and that I had a weight
upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather. There have
been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have
felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest
and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more.
Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in
life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly entered road
of apprenticeship to Joe.

I remember that at a later period of my “time,” I used to stand about
the churchyard on Sunday evenings when night was falling, comparing my
own perspective with the windy marsh view, and making out some likeness
between them by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both
there came an unknown way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was quite
as dejected on the first working-day of my apprenticeship as in that
after-time; but I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe
while my indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know
of myself in that connection.

For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I
proceed to add was Joe's. It was not because I was faithful, but because
Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or
a sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of
industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry,
that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible
to know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing
man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has
touched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that
intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe,
and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me.

What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew? What
I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and
commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one
of the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she
would, sooner or later, find me out, with a black face and hands, doing
the coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me.
Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for Joe, and we were
singing Old Clem, and when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss
Havisham's would seem to show me Estella's face in the fire, with her
pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me,--often at
such a time I would look towards those panels of black night in the wall
which the wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I saw her just
drawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at last.

After that, when we went into supper, the place and the meal would have
a more homely look than ever, and I would feel more ashamed of home than
ever, in my own ungracious breast.




Chapter XV

As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's room, my
education under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until
Biddy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalogue
of prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a half-penny.
Although the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were
the opening lines.

     When I went to Lunnon town sirs,
     Too rul loo rul
     Too rul loo rul
     Wasn't I done very brown sirs?
     Too rul loo rul
     Too rul loo rul

--still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart with the utmost gravity; nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except that I
thought (as I still do) the amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of the
poetry. In my hunger for information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to
bestow some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he kindly complied.
As it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic
lay-figure, to be contradicted and embraced and wept over and bullied
and clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon
declined that course of instruction; though not until Mr. Wopsle in his
poetic fury had severely mauled me.

Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so
well, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted
to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my
society and less open to Estella's reproach.

The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken
slate and a short piece of slate-pencil were our educational implements:
to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to
remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my
tuition, any piece of information whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe
at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else,--even
with a learned air,--as if he considered himself to be advancing
immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did.

It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing
beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was low, looking
as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the
bottom of the water. Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to sea
with their white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and
Estella; and whenever the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud
or sail or green hillside or water-line, it was just the same.--Miss
Havisham and Estella and the strange house and the strange life appeared
to have something to do with everything that was picturesque.

One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on
being “most awful dull,” that I had given him up for the day, I lay on
the earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, descrying traces of
Miss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the
water, until at last I resolved to mention a thought concerning them
that had been much in my head.

“Joe,” said I; “don't you think I ought to make Miss Havisham a visit?”

“Well, Pip,” returned Joe, slowly considering. “What for?”

“What for, Joe? What is any visit made for?”

“There is some wisits p'r'aps,” said Joe, “as for ever remains open to
the question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Havisham. She might
think you wanted something,--expected something of her.”

“Don't you think I might say that I did not, Joe?”

“You might, old chap,” said Joe. “And she might credit it. Similarly she
mightn't.”

Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard
at his pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition.

“You see, Pip,” Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger, “Miss
Havisham done the handsome thing by you. When Miss Havisham done the
handsome thing by you, she called me back to say to me as that were
all.”

“Yes, Joe. I heard her.”

“ALL,” Joe repeated, very emphatically.

“Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her.”

“Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning were,--Make a
end on it!--As you was!--Me to the North, and you to the South!--Keep in
sunders!”

I had thought of that too, and it was very far from comforting to me
to find that he had thought of it; for it seemed to render it more
probable.

“But, Joe.”

“Yes, old chap.”

“Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and, since the day
of my being bound, I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after
her, or shown that I remember her.”

“That's true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of shoes
all four round,--and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all
four round might not be acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of
hoofs--”

“I don't mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don't mean a present.”

But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must harp upon it.
“Or even,” said he, “if you was helped to knocking her up a new chain
for the front door,--or say a gross or two of shark-headed screws for
general use,--or some light fancy article, such as a toasting-fork
when she took her muffins,--or a gridiron when she took a sprat or such
like--”

“I don't mean any present at all, Joe,” I interposed.

“Well,” said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly
pressed it, “if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn't. No, I would not. For
what's a door-chain when she's got one always up? And shark-headers is
open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork, you'd go into
brass and do yourself no credit. And the oncommonest workman can't show
himself oncommon in a gridiron,--for a gridiron IS a gridiron,” said
Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavouring to
rouse me from a fixed delusion, “and you may haim at what you like, but
a gridiron it will come out, either by your leave or again your leave,
and you can't help yourself--”

“My dear Joe,” I cried, in desperation, taking hold of his coat, “don't
go on in that way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham any present.”

“No, Pip,” Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that, all
along; “and what I say to you is, you are right, Pip.”

“Yes, Joe; but what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack
just now, if you would give me a half-holiday to-morrow, I think I would
go uptown and make a call on Miss Est--Havisham.”

“Which her name,” said Joe, gravely, “ain't Estavisham, Pip, unless she
have been rechris'ened.”

“I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you think of it,
Joe?”

In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of
it. But, he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received
with cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a
visit which had no ulterior object but was simply one of gratitude for a
favor received, then this experimental trip should have no successor. By
these conditions I promised to abide.

Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was Orlick.
He pretended that his Christian name was Dolge,--a clear
Impossibility,--but he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition that I
believe him to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but
wilfully to have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its
understanding. He was a broadshouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of
great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He never even
seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere
accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or
went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew,
as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever
coming back. He lodged at a sluice-keeper's out on the marshes, and on
working-days would come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in
his pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck
and dangling on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the
sluice-gates, or stood against ricks and barns. He always slouched,
locomotively, with his eyes on the ground; and, when accosted or
otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a half-resentful,
half-puzzled way, as though the only thought he ever had was, that it
was rather an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking.

This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and
timid, he gave me to understand that the Devil lived in a black corner
of the forge, and that he knew the fiend very well: also that it was
necessary to make up the fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and
that I might consider myself fuel. When I became Joe's 'prentice, Orlick
was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him;
howbeit, he liked me still less. Not that he ever said anything, or did
anything, openly importing hostility; I only noticed that he always beat
his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang Old Clem, he came
in out of time.

Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of
my half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just
got a piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows; but by
and by he said, leaning on his hammer,--

“Now, master! Sure you're not a going to favor only one of us. If Young
Pip has a half-holiday, do as much for Old Orlick.” I suppose he was
about five-and-twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient
person.

“Why, what'll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?” said Joe.

“What'll I do with it! What'll he do with it? I'll do as much with it as
him,” said Orlick.

“As to Pip, he's going up town,” said Joe.

“Well then, as to Old Orlick, he's a going up town,” retorted that
worthy. “Two can go up town. Tain't only one wot can go up town.

“Don't lose your temper,” said Joe.

“Shall if I like,” growled Orlick. “Some and their uptowning! Now,
master! Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!”

The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in
a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot
bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body,
whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,--as
if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood,--and
finally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he
again leaned on his hammer,--

“Now, master!”

“Are you all right now?” demanded Joe.

“Ah! I am all right,” said gruff Old Orlick.

“Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men,” said
Joe, “let it be a half-holiday for all.”

My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,--she was
a most unscrupulous spy and listener,--and she instantly looked in at
one of the windows.

“Like you, you fool!” said she to Joe, “giving holidays to great idle
hulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in
that way. I wish I was his master!”

“You'd be everybody's master, if you durst,” retorted Orlick, with an
ill-favored grin.

(“Let her alone,” said Joe.)

“I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues,” returned my sister,
beginning to work herself into a mighty rage. “And I couldn't be a
match for the noodles, without being a match for your master, who's the
dunder-headed king of the noodles. And I couldn't be a match for the
rogues, without being a match for you, who are the blackest-looking and
the worst rogue between this and France. Now!”

“You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery,” growled the journeyman. “If that
makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a good'un.”

(“Let her alone, will you?” said Joe.)

“What did you say?” cried my sister, beginning to scream. “What did you
say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me,
with my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh!” Each of these exclamations was
a shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all
the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for
her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she
consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself
into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; “what was the
name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me!
Oh!”

“Ah-h-h!” growled the journeyman, between his teeth, “I'd hold you, if
you was my wife. I'd hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you.”

(“I tell you, let her alone,” said Joe.)

“Oh! To hear him!” cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a
scream together,--which was her next stage. “To hear the names he's
giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my
husband standing by! Oh! Oh!” Here my sister, after a fit of clappings
and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and
threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down,--which were the last stages
on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete
success, she made a dash at the door which I had fortunately locked.

What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical
interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and ask him what he meant
by interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe; and further whether he was
man enough to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of
nothing less than coming on, and was on his defence straightway; so,
without so much as pulling off their singed and burnt aprons, they went
at one another, like two giants. But, if any man in that neighborhood
could stand uplong against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he
had been of no more account than the pale young gentleman, was very
soon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of it. Then Joe
unlocked the door and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible
at the window (but who had seen the fight first, I think), and who was
carried into the house and laid down, and who was recommended to revive,
and would do nothing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe's hair.
Then, came that singular calm and silence which succeed all uproars; and
then, with the vague sensation which I have always connected with such
a lull,--namely, that it was Sunday, and somebody was dead,--I went upstairs
to dress myself.

When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any
other traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick's nostrils,
which was neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had appeared
from the Jolly Bargemen, and they were sharing it by turns in a
peaceable manner. The lull had a sedative and philosophical influence on
Joe, who followed me out into the road to say, as a parting observation
that might do me good, “On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage,
Pip:--such is Life!”

With what absurd emotions (for we think the feelings that are very
serious in a man quite comical in a boy) I found myself again going to
Miss Havisham's, matters little here. Nor, how I passed and repassed
the gate many times before I could make up my mind to ring. Nor, how
I debated whether I should go away without ringing; nor, how I should
undoubtedly have gone, if my time had been my own, to come back.

Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella.

“How, then? You here again?” said Miss Pocket. “What do you want?”

When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah
evidently deliberated whether or no she should send me about my
business. But unwilling to hazard the responsibility, she let me in, and
presently brought the sharp message that I was to “come up.”

Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone.

“Well?” said she, fixing her eyes upon me. “I hope you want nothing?
You'll get nothing.”

“No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing
very well in my apprenticeship, and am always much obliged to you.”

“There, there!” with the old restless fingers. “Come now and then; come
on your birthday.--Ay!” she cried suddenly, turning herself and her
chair towards me, “You are looking round for Estella? Hey?”

I had been looking round,--in fact, for Estella,--and I stammered that I
hoped she was well.

“Abroad,” said Miss Havisham; “educating for a lady; far out of reach;
prettier than ever; admired by all who see her. Do you feel that you
have lost her?”

There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words,
and she broke into such a disagreeable laugh, that I was at a loss what
to say. She spared me the trouble of considering, by dismissing me. When
the gate was closed upon me by Sarah of the walnut-shell countenance, I
felt more than ever dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with
everything; and that was all I took by that motion.

As I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately at
the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman,
who should come out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had in
his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that
moment invested sixpence, with the view of heaping every word of it on
the head of Pumblechook, with whom he was going to drink tea. No sooner
did he see me, than he appeared to consider that a special Providence
had put a 'prentice in his way to be read at; and he laid hold of me,
and insisted on my accompanying him to the Pumblechookian parlor. As I
knew it would be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and the
way was dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better
than none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned into
Pumblechook's just as the street and the shops were lighting up.

As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I
don't know how long it may usually take; but I know very well that it
took until half-past nine o' clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle
got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the scaffold, he became
so much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful career. I
thought it a little too much that he should complain of being cut short
in his flower after all, as if he had not been running to seed, leaf
after leaf, ever since his course began. This, however, was a
mere question of length and wearisomeness. What stung me, was the
identification of the whole affair with my unoffending self. When
Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively apologetic,
Pumblechook's indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took
pains to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I
was made to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever;
Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became sheer
monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me; and all I can
say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning, is,
that it was worthy of the general feebleness of my character. Even after
I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook sat
staring at me, and shaking his head, and saying, “Take warning, boy,
take warning!” as if it were a well-known fact that I contemplated
murdering a near relation, provided I could only induce one to have the
weakness to become my benefactor.

It was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with
Mr. Wopsle on the walk home. Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, and
it fell wet and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the
lamp's usual place apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on
the fog. We were noticing this, and saying how that the mist rose with a
change of wind from a certain quarter of our marshes, when we came upon
a man, slouching under the lee of the turnpike house.

“Halloa!” we said, stopping. “Orlick there?”

“Ah!” he answered, slouching out. “I was standing by a minute, on the
chance of company.”

“You are late,” I remarked.

Orlick not unnaturally answered, “Well? And you're late.”

“We have been,” said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late performance,--“we
have been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening.”

Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all
went on together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending his
half-holiday up and down town?

“Yes,” said he, “all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn't see you,
but I must have been pretty close behind you. By the by, the guns is
going again.”

“At the Hulks?” said I.

“Ay! There's some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns have been
going since dark, about. You'll hear one presently.”

In effect, we had not walked many yards further, when the
well-remembered boom came towards us, deadened by the mist, and heavily
rolled away along the low grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing
and threatening the fugitives.

“A good night for cutting off in,” said Orlick. “We'd be puzzled how to
bring down a jail-bird on the wing, to-night.”

The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in
silence. Mr. Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle of the evening's tragedy,
fell to meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell. Orlick, with his
hands in his pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was very dark,
very wet, very muddy, and so we splashed along. Now and then, the sound
of the signal cannon broke upon us again, and again rolled sulkily along
the course of the river. I kept myself to myself and my thoughts. Mr.
Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell, and exceedingly game on Bosworth
Field, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick sometimes
growled, “Beat it out, beat it out,--Old Clem! With a clink for the
stout,--Old Clem!” I thought he had been drinking, but he was not drunk.

Thus, we came to the village. The way by which we approached it took us
past the Three Jolly Bargemen, which we were surprised to find--it being
eleven o'clock--in a state of commotion, with the door wide open, and
unwonted lights that had been hastily caught up and put down scattered
about. Mr. Wopsle dropped into ask what was the matter (surmising that
a convict had been taken), but came running out in a great hurry.

“There's something wrong,” said he, without stopping, “up at your place,
Pip. Run all!”

“What is it?” I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick, at my side.

“I can't quite understand. The house seems to have been violently
entered when Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by convicts. Somebody has
been attacked and hurt.”

We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no
stop until we got into our kitchen. It was full of people; the whole
village was there, or in the yard; and there was a surgeon, and there
was Joe, and there were a group of women, all on the floor in the midst
of the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me,
and so I became aware of my sister,--lying without sense or movement on
the bare boards where she had been knocked down by a tremendous blow
on the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her face was
turned towards the fire,--destined never to be on the Rampage again,
while she was the wife of Joe.




Chapter XVI

With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe
that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at
all events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under
obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than
any one else. But when, in the clearer light of next morning, I began to
reconsider the matter and to hear it discussed around me on all sides, I
took another view of the case, which was more reasonable.

Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a
quarter after eight o'clock to a quarter before ten. While he was there,
my sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had exchanged
Good Night with a farm-laborer going home. The man could not be more
particular as to the time at which he saw her (he got into dense
confusion when he tried to be), than that it must have been before nine.
When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found her struck down
on the floor, and promptly called in assistance. The fire had not then
burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle very long; the
candle, however, had been blown out.

Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house. Neither, beyond
the blowing out of the candle,--which stood on a table between the door
and my sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and was
struck,--was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, excepting such
as she herself had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one
remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with
something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were
dealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable
violence, as she lay on her face. And on the ground beside her, when Joe
picked her up, was a convict's leg-iron which had been filed asunder.

Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, declared it to have
been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the
Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion
was corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the
prison-ships to which it undoubtedly had once belonged; but they claimed
to know for certain that that particular manacle had not been worn by
either of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Further, one of
those two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his iron.

Knowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here. I believed
the iron to be my convict's iron,--the iron I had seen and heard him
filing at, on the marshes,--but my mind did not accuse him of having put
it to its latest use. For I believed one of two other persons to have
become possessed of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account.
Either Orlick, or the strange man who had shown me the file.

Now, as to Orlick; he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we
picked him up at the turnpike, he had been seen about town all the
evening, he had been in divers companies in several public-houses, and
he had come back with myself and Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against
him, save the quarrel; and my sister had quarrelled with him, and with
everybody else about her, ten thousand times. As to the strange man; if
he had come back for his two bank-notes there could have been no dispute
about them, because my sister was fully prepared to restore them.
Besides, there had been no altercation; the assailant had come in so
silently and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could look
round.

It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however
undesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise. I suffered unspeakable
trouble while I considered and reconsidered whether I should at last
dissolve that spell of my childhood and tell Joe all the story. For
months afterwards, I every day settled the question finally in the
negative, and reopened and reargued it next morning. The contention
came, after all, to this;--the secret was such an old one now, had so
grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it
away. In addition to the dread that, having led up to so much mischief,
it would be now more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me if he
believed it, I had a further restraining dread that he would not believe
it, but would assort it with the fabulous dogs and veal-cutlets as a
monstrous invention. However, I temporized with myself, of course--for,
was I not wavering between right and wrong, when the thing is always
done?--and resolved to make a full disclosure if I should see any
such new occasion as a new chance of helping in the discovery of the
assailant.

The Constables and the Bow Street men from London--for, this happened in
the days of the extinct red-waistcoated police--were about the house for
a week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like
authorities doing in other such cases. They took up several obviously
wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas,
and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead
of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. Also, they stood
about the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with knowing and reserved looks
that filled the whole neighborhood with admiration; and they had a
mysterious manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good as
taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it.

Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay very
ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects multiplied,
and grasped at visionary teacups and wineglasses instead of the
realities; her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; and her
speech was unintelligible. When, at last, she came round so far as to
be helped downstairs, it was still necessary to keep my slate always by
her, that she might indicate in writing what she could not indicate in
speech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a more than indifferent
speller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader, extraordinary
complications arose between them which I was always called in to solve.
The administration of mutton instead of medicine, the substitution of
Tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among the mildest of my own
mistakes.

However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A
tremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a
part of her regular state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three
months, she would often put her hands to her head, and would then remain
for about a week at a time in some gloomy aberration of mind. We were
at a loss to find a suitable attendant for her, until a circumstance
happened conveniently to relieve us. Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt conquered a
confirmed habit of living into which she had fallen, and Biddy became a
part of our establishment.

It may have been about a month after my sister's reappearance in the
kitchen, when Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the
whole of her worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household.
Above all, she was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly
cut up by the constant contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had
been accustomed, while attending on her of an evening, to turn to me
every now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened, “Such a fine
figure of a woman as she once were, Pip!” Biddy instantly taking the
cleverest charge of her as though she had studied her from infancy; Joe
became able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his life,
and to get down to the Jolly Bargemen now and then for a change that did
him good. It was characteristic of the police people that they had all
more or less suspected poor Joe (though he never knew it), and that they
had to a man concurred in regarding him as one of the deepest spirits
they had ever encountered.

Biddy's first triumph in her new office, was to solve a difficulty
that had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at it, but had made
nothing of it. Thus it was:--

Again and again and again, my sister had traced upon the slate, a
character that looked like a curious T, and then with the utmost
eagerness had called our attention to it as something she particularly
wanted. I had in vain tried everything producible that began with a T,
from tar to toast and tub. At length it had come into my head that the
sign looked like a hammer, and on my lustily calling that word in my
sister's ear, she had begun to hammer on the table and had expressed a
qualified assent. Thereupon, I had brought in all our hammers, one after
another, but without avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch, the shape
being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and displayed
it to my sister with considerable confidence. But she shook her head to
that extent when she was shown it, that we were terrified lest in her
weak and shattered state she should dislocate her neck.

When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to understand her, this
mysterious sign reappeared on the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully
at it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked
thoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on the slate by his
initial letter), and ran into the forge, followed by Joe and me.

“Why, of course!” cried Biddy, with an exultant face. “Don't you see?
It's him!”

Orlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could only signify
him by his hammer. We told him why we wanted him to come into the
kitchen, and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his
arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching
out, with a curious loose vagabond bend in the knees that strongly
distinguished him.

I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I
was disappointed by the different result. She manifested the greatest
anxiety to be on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by his
being at length produced, and motioned that she would have him
given something to drink. She watched his countenance as if she were
particularly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his reception,
she showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and there was an air
of humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have seen pervade the
bearing of a child towards a hard master. After that day, a day rarely
passed without her drawing the hammer on her slate, and without Orlick's
slouching in and standing doggedly before her, as if he knew no more
than I did what to make of it.




Chapter XVII

I now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which was
varied beyond the limits of the village and the marshes, by no more
remarkable circumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my paying
another visit to Miss Havisham. I found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty
at the gate; I found Miss Havisham just as I had left her, and she spoke
of Estella in the very same way, if not in the very same words. The
interview lasted but a few minutes, and she gave me a guinea when I was
going, and told me to come again on my next birthday. I may mention at
once that this became an annual custom. I tried to decline taking the
guinea on the first occasion, but with no better effect than causing her
to ask me very angrily, if I expected more? Then, and after that, I took
it.

So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened
room, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass, that
I felt as if the stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that
mysterious place, and, while I and everything else outside it grew
older, it stood still. Daylight never entered the house as to my
thoughts and remembrances of it, any more than as to the actual fact. It
bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate my
trade and to be ashamed of home.

Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, however. Her
shoes came up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands were
always clean. She was not beautiful,--she was common, and could not be
like Estella,--but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered.
She had not been with us more than a year (I remember her being newly
out of mourning at the time it struck me), when I observed to myself one
evening that she had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that
were very pretty and very good.

It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring
at--writing some passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at
once by a sort of stratagem--and seeing Biddy observant of what I was
about. I laid down my pen, and Biddy stopped in her needlework without
laying it down.

“Biddy,” said I, “how do you manage it? Either I am very stupid, or you
are very clever.”

“What is it that I manage? I don't know,” returned Biddy, smiling.

She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too; but I did not
mean that, though that made what I did mean more surprising.

“How do you manage, Biddy,” said I, “to learn everything that I learn,
and always to keep up with me?” I was beginning to be rather vain of
my knowledge, for I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the
greater part of my pocket-money for similar investment; though I have no
doubt, now, that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price.

“I might as well ask you,” said Biddy, “how you manage?”

“No; because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see
me turning to at it. But you never turn to at it, Biddy.”

“I suppose I must catch it like a cough,” said Biddy, quietly; and went
on with her sewing.

Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair, and looked at
Biddy sewing away with her head on one side, I began to think her rather
an extraordinary girl. For I called to mind now, that she was equally
accomplished in the terms of our trade, and the names of our different
sorts of work, and our various tools. In short, whatever I knew, Biddy
knew. Theoretically, she was already as good a blacksmith as I, or
better.

“You are one of those, Biddy,” said I, “who make the most of every
chance. You never had a chance before you came here, and see how
improved you are!”

Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her sewing. “I was
your first teacher though; wasn't I?” said she, as she sewed.

“Biddy!” I exclaimed, in amazement. “Why, you are crying!”

“No I am not,” said Biddy, looking up and laughing. “What put that in
your head?”

What could have put it in my head but the glistening of a tear as it
dropped on her work? I sat silent, recalling what a drudge she had been
until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt successfully overcame that bad habit of
living, so highly desirable to be got rid of by some people. I recalled
the hopeless circumstances by which she had been surrounded in the
miserable little shop and the miserable little noisy evening school,
with that miserable old bundle of incompetence always to be dragged and
shouldered. I reflected that even in those untoward times there must
have been latent in Biddy what was now developing, for, in my first
uneasiness and discontent I had turned to her for help, as a matter of
course. Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more tears, and while I
looked at her and thought about it all, it occurred to me that perhaps
I had not been sufficiently grateful to Biddy. I might have been too
reserved, and should have patronized her more (though I did not use that
precise word in my meditations) with my confidence.

“Yes, Biddy,” I observed, when I had done turning it over, “you were my
first teacher, and that at a time when we little thought of ever being
together like this, in this kitchen.”

“Ah, poor thing!” replied Biddy. It was like her self-forgetfulness to
transfer the remark to my sister, and to get up and be busy about her,
making her more comfortable; “that's sadly true!”

“Well!” said I, “we must talk together a little more, as we used to do.
And I must consult you a little more, as I used to do. Let us have a
quiet walk on the marshes next Sunday, Biddy, and a long chat.”

My sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than readily undertook
the care of her on that Sunday afternoon, and Biddy and I went out
together. It was summer-time, and lovely weather. When we had passed the
village and the church and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes
and began to see the sails of the ships as they sailed on, I began to
combine Miss Havisham and Estella with the prospect, in my usual way.
When we came to the river-side and sat down on the bank, with the water
rippling at our feet, making it all more quiet than it would have been
without that sound, I resolved that it was a good time and place for the
admission of Biddy into my inner confidence.

“Biddy,” said I, after binding her to secrecy, “I want to be a
gentleman.”

“O, I wouldn't, if I was you!” she returned. “I don't think it would
answer.”

“Biddy,” said I, with some severity, “I have particular reasons for
wanting to be a gentleman.”

“You know best, Pip; but don't you think you are happier as you are?”

“Biddy,” I exclaimed, impatiently, “I am not at all happy as I am. I
am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to
either, since I was bound. Don't be absurd.”

“Was I absurd?” said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows; “I am sorry
for that; I didn't mean to be. I only want you to do well, and to be
comfortable.”

“Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be
comfortable--or anything but miserable--there, Biddy!--unless I can lead
a very different sort of life from the life I lead now.”

“That's a pity!” said Biddy, shaking her head with a sorrowful air.

Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular kind of
quarrel with myself which I was always carrying on, I was half inclined
to shed tears of vexation and distress when Biddy gave utterance to her
sentiment and my own. I told her she was right, and I knew it was much
to be regretted, but still it was not to be helped.

“If I could have settled down,” I said to Biddy, plucking up the short
grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings
out of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,--“if I could have
settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was
little, I know it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe
would have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone
partners when I was out of my time, and I might even have grown up to
keep company with you, and we might have sat on this very bank on a fine
Sunday, quite different people. I should have been good enough for you;
shouldn't I, Biddy?”

Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for
answer, “Yes; I am not over-particular.” It scarcely sounded flattering,
but I knew she meant well.

“Instead of that,” said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a blade or
two, “see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, and--what
would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me
so!”

Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more
attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships.

“It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say,” she
remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. “Who said it?”

I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where
I was going to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I
answered, “The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's, and she's more
beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want
to be a gentleman on her account.” Having made this lunatic confession,
I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some
thoughts of following it.

“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?” Biddy
quietly asked me, after a pause.

“I don't know,” I moodily answered.

“Because, if it is to spite her,” Biddy pursued, “I should think--but
you know best--that might be better and more independently done by
caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should
think--but you know best--she was not worth gaining over.”

Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was
perfectly manifest to me at the moment. But how could I, a poor dazed
village lad, avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and
wisest of men fall every day?

“It may be all quite true,” said I to Biddy, “but I admire her
dreadfully.”

In short, I turned over on my face when I came to that, and got a good
grasp on the hair on each side of my head, and wrenched it well. All the
while knowing the madness of my heart to be so very mad and misplaced,
that I was quite conscious it would have served my face right, if I
had lifted it up by my hair, and knocked it against the pebbles as a
punishment for belonging to such an idiot.

Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no more with me.
She put her hand, which was a comfortable hand though roughened by work,
upon my hands, one after another, and gently took them out of my hair.
Then she softly patted my shoulder in a soothing way, while with my face
upon my sleeve I cried a little,--exactly as I had done in the brewery
yard,--and felt vaguely convinced that I was very much ill-used by
somebody, or by everybody; I can't say which.

“I am glad of one thing,” said Biddy, “and that is, that you have felt
you could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing,
and that is, that of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it
and always so far deserving it. If your first teacher (dear! such a poor
one, and so much in need of being taught herself!) had been your teacher
at the present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she would set. But
it would be a hard one to learn, and you have got beyond her, and it's
of no use now.” So, with a quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose from the bank,
and said, with a fresh and pleasant change of voice, “Shall we walk a
little farther, or go home?”

“Biddy,” I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her neck, and giving
her a kiss, “I shall always tell you everything.”

“Till you're a gentleman,” said Biddy.

“You know I never shall be, so that's always. Not that I have any
occasion to tell you anything, for you know everything I know,--as I
told you at home the other night.”

“Ah!” said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away at the ships.
And then repeated, with her former pleasant change, “shall we walk a
little farther, or go home?”

I said to Biddy we would walk a little farther, and we did so, and the
summer afternoon toned down into the summer evening, and it was very
beautiful. I began to consider whether I was not more naturally and
wholesomely situated, after all, in these circumstances, than playing
beggar my neighbor by candle-light in the room with the stopped clocks,
and being despised by Estella. I thought it would be very good for me if
I could get her out of my head, with all the rest of those remembrances
and fancies, and could go to work determined to relish what I had to do,
and stick to it, and make the best of it. I asked myself the question
whether I did not surely know that if Estella were beside me at that
moment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? I was obliged to
admit that I did know it for a certainty, and I said to myself, “Pip,
what a fool you are!”

We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said seemed
right. Biddy was never insulting, or capricious, or Biddy to-day and
somebody else to-morrow; she would have derived only pain, and no
pleasure, from giving me pain; she would far rather have wounded her own
breast than mine. How could it be, then, that I did not like her much
the better of the two?

“Biddy,” said I, when we were walking homeward, “I wish you could put me
right.”

“I wish I could!” said Biddy.

“If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,--you don't mind my
speaking so openly to such an old acquaintance?”

“Oh dear, not at all!” said Biddy. “Don't mind me.”

“If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the thing for me.”

“But you never will, you see,” said Biddy.

It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as it would have
done if we had discussed it a few hours before. I therefore observed
I was not quite sure of that. But Biddy said she was, and she said it
decisively. In my heart I believed her to be right; and yet I took it
rather ill, too, that she should be so positive on the point.

When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an embankment, and
get over a stile near a sluice-gate. There started up, from the gate, or
from the rushes, or from the ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way),
Old Orlick.

“Halloa!” he growled, “where are you two going?”

“Where should we be going, but home?”

“Well, then,” said he, “I'm jiggered if I don't see you home!”

This penalty of being jiggered was a favorite supposititious case of
his. He attached no definite meaning to the word that I am aware of, but
used it, like his own pretended Christian name, to affront mankind, and
convey an idea of something savagely damaging. When I was younger, I
had had a general belief that if he had jiggered me personally, he would
have done it with a sharp and twisted hook.

Biddy was much against his going with us, and said to me in a whisper,
“Don't let him come; I don't like him.” As I did not like him either,
I took the liberty of saying that we thanked him, but we didn't want
seeing home. He received that piece of information with a yell of
laughter, and dropped back, but came slouching after us at a little
distance.

Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of having had a hand in
that murderous attack of which my sister had never been able to give any
account, I asked her why she did not like him.

“Oh!” she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he slouched after us,
“because I--I am afraid he likes me.”

“Did he ever tell you he liked you?” I asked indignantly.

“No,” said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, “he never told me
so; but he dances at me, whenever he can catch my eye.”

However novel and peculiar this testimony of attachment, I did not
doubt the accuracy of the interpretation. I was very hot indeed upon
Old Orlick's daring to admire her; as hot as if it were an outrage on
myself.

“But it makes no difference to you, you know,” said Biddy, calmly.

“No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don't like it; I don't
approve of it.”

“Nor I neither,” said Biddy. “Though that makes no difference to you.”

“Exactly,” said I; “but I must tell you I should have no opinion of you,
Biddy, if he danced at you with your own consent.”

I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever circumstances
were favorable to his dancing at Biddy, got before him to obscure that
demonstration. He had struck root in Joe's establishment, by reason
of my sister's sudden fancy for him, or I should have tried to get him
dismissed. He quite understood and reciprocated my good intentions, as I
had reason to know thereafter.

And now, because my mind was not confused enough before, I complicated
its confusion fifty thousand-fold, by having states and seasons when I
was clear that Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that the
plain honest working life to which I was born had nothing in it to
be ashamed of, but offered me sufficient means of self-respect
and happiness. At those times, I would decide conclusively that my
disaffection to dear old Joe and the forge was gone, and that I was
growing up in a fair way to be partners with Joe and to keep company
with Biddy,--when all in a moment some confounding remembrance of the
Havisham days would fall upon me like a destructive missile, and scatter
my wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up; and often
before I had got them well together, they would be dispersed in all
directions by one stray thought, that perhaps after all Miss Havisham
was going to make my fortune when my time was out.

If my time had run out, it would have left me still at the height of my
perplexities, I dare say. It never did run out, however, but was brought
to a premature end, as I proceed to relate.




Chapter XVIII

It was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it was a
Saturday night. There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three
Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud.
Of that group I was one.

A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was imbrued
in blood to the eyebrows. He gloated over every abhorrent adjective
in the description, and identified himself with every witness at the
Inquest. He faintly moaned, “I am done for,” as the victim, and he
barbarously bellowed, “I'll serve you out,” as the murderer. He gave the
medical testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; and
he piped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had heard blows, to
an extent so very paralytic as to suggest a doubt regarding the mental
competency of that witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle's hands, became
Timon of Athens; the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thoroughly,
and we all enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully comfortable. In this
cosey state of mind we came to the verdict Wilful Murder.

Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentleman leaning over
the back of the settle opposite me, looking on. There was an expression
of contempt on his face, and he bit the side of a great forefinger as he
watched the group of faces.

“Well!” said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading was done, “you
have settled it all to your own satisfaction, I have no doubt?”

Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the murderer. He looked
at everybody coldly and sarcastically.

“Guilty, of course?” said he. “Out with it. Come!”

“Sir,” returned Mr. Wopsle, “without having the honor of your
acquaintance, I do say Guilty.” Upon this we all took courage to unite
in a confirmatory murmur.

“I know you do,” said the stranger; “I knew you would. I told you so.
But now I'll ask you a question. Do you know, or do you not know,
that the law of England supposes every man to be innocent, until he is
proved--proved--to be guilty?”

“Sir,” Mr. Wopsle began to reply, “as an Englishman myself, I--”

“Come!” said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him. “Don't evade
the question. Either you know it, or you don't know it. Which is it to
be?”

He stood with his head on one side and himself on one side, in a
bullying, interrogative manner, and he threw his forefinger at Mr.
Wopsle,--as it were to mark him out--before biting it again.

“Now!” said he. “Do you know it, or don't you know it?”

“Certainly I know it,” replied Mr. Wopsle.

“Certainly you know it. Then why didn't you say so at first? Now, I'll
ask you another question,”--taking possession of Mr. Wopsle, as if he
had a right to him,--“do you know that none of these witnesses have yet
been cross-examined?”

Mr. Wopsle was beginning, “I can only say--” when the stranger stopped
him.

“What? You won't answer the question, yes or no? Now, I'll try you
again.” Throwing his finger at him again. “Attend to me. Are you
aware, or are you not aware, that none of these witnesses have yet been
cross-examined? Come, I only want one word from you. Yes, or no?”

Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rather a poor opinion
of him.

“Come!” said the stranger, “I'll help you. You don't deserve help, but
I'll help you. Look at that paper you hold in your hand. What is it?”

“What is it?” repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a loss.

“Is it,” pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and suspicious
manner, “the printed paper you have just been reading from?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me whether it distinctly
states that the prisoner expressly said that his legal advisers
instructed him altogether to reserve his defence?”

“I read that just now,” Mr. Wopsle pleaded.

“Never mind what you read just now, sir; I don't ask you what you read
just now. You may read the Lord's Prayer backwards, if you like,--and,
perhaps, have done it before to-day. Turn to the paper. No, no, no my
friend; not to the top of the column; you know better than that; to
the bottom, to the bottom.” (We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of
subterfuge.) “Well? Have you found it?”

“Here it is,” said Mr. Wopsle.

“Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me whether it
distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that he was
instructed by his legal advisers wholly to reserve his defence? Come! Do
you make that of it?”

Mr. Wopsle answered, “Those are not the exact words.”

“Not the exact words!” repeated the gentleman bitterly. “Is that the
exact substance?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Wopsle.

“Yes,” repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest of the company
with his right hand extended towards the witness, Wopsle. “And now I ask
you what you say to the conscience of that man who, with that passage
before his eyes, can lay his head upon his pillow after having
pronounced a fellow-creature guilty, unheard?”

We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man we had thought
him, and that he was beginning to be found out.

“And that same man, remember,” pursued the gentleman, throwing his
finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily,--“that same man might be summoned as a
juryman upon this very trial, and, having thus deeply committed himself,
might return to the bosom of his family and lay his head upon his
pillow, after deliberately swearing that he would well and truly try the
issue joined between Our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the
bar, and would a true verdict give according to the evidence, so help
him God!”

We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate Wopsle had gone too
far, and had better stop in his reckless career while there was yet
time.

The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be disputed, and
with a manner expressive of knowing something secret about every one of
us that would effectually do for each individual if he chose to disclose
it, left the back of the settle, and came into the space between the two
settles, in front of the fire, where he remained standing, his left hand
in his pocket, and he biting the forefinger of his right.

“From information I have received,” said he, looking round at us as we
all quailed before him, “I have reason to believe there is a blacksmith
among you, by name Joseph--or Joe--Gargery. Which is the man?”

“Here is the man,” said Joe.

The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and Joe went.

“You have an apprentice,” pursued the stranger, “commonly known as Pip?
Is he here?”

“I am here!” I cried.

The stranger did not recognize me, but I recognized him as the gentleman
I had met on the stairs, on the occasion of my second visit to Miss
Havisham. I had known him the moment I saw him looking over the settle,
and now that I stood confronting him with his hand upon my shoulder,
I checked off again in detail his large head, his dark complexion, his
deep-set eyes, his bushy black eyebrows, his large watch-chain, his
strong black dots of beard and whisker, and even the smell of scented
soap on his great hand.

“I wish to have a private conference with you two,” said he, when he had
surveyed me at his leisure. “It will take a little time. Perhaps we
had better go to your place of residence. I prefer not to anticipate my
communication here; you will impart as much or as little of it as you
please to your friends afterwards; I have nothing to do with that.”

Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the Jolly Bargemen,
and in a wondering silence walked home. While going along, the strange
gentleman occasionally looked at me, and occasionally bit the side of
his finger. As we neared home, Joe vaguely acknowledging the occasion as
an impressive and ceremonious one, went on ahead to open the front door.
Our conference was held in the state parlor, which was feebly lighted by
one candle.

It began with the strange gentleman's sitting down at the table, drawing
the candle to him, and looking over some entries in his pocket-book.
He then put up the pocket-book and set the candle a little aside, after
peering round it into the darkness at Joe and me, to ascertain which was
which.

“My name,” he said, “is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London. I am
pretty well known. I have unusual business to transact with you, and I
commence by explaining that it is not of my originating. If my advice
had been asked, I should not have been here. It was not asked, and you
see me here. What I have to do as the confidential agent of another, I
do. No less, no more.”

Finding that he could not see us very well from where he sat, he got
up, and threw one leg over the back of a chair and leaned upon it; thus
having one foot on the seat of the chair, and one foot on the ground.

“Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to relieve you of
this young fellow your apprentice. You would not object to cancel his
indentures at his request and for his good? You would want nothing for
so doing?”

“Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip's way,”
 said Joe, staring.

“Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose,” returned Mr.
Jaggers. “The question is, Would you want anything? Do you want
anything?”

“The answer is,” returned Joe, sternly, “No.”

I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered him a fool for
his disinterestedness. But I was too much bewildered between breathless
curiosity and surprise, to be sure of it.

“Very well,” said Mr. Jaggers. “Recollect the admission you have made,
and don't try to go from it presently.”

“Who's a going to try?” retorted Joe.

“I don't say anybody is. Do you keep a dog?”

“Yes, I do keep a dog.”

“Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better.
Bear that in mind, will you?” repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes
and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something.
“Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to
make is, that he has great expectations.”

Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another.

“I am instructed to communicate to him,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing
his finger at me sideways, “that he will come into a handsome property.
Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that
property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life
and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,--in a word, as a
young fellow of great expectations.”

My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss
Havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale.

“Now, Mr. Pip,” pursued the lawyer, “I address the rest of what I have
to say, to you. You are to understand, first, that it is the request
of the person from whom I take my instructions that you always bear
the name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare say, to your great
expectations being encumbered with that easy condition. But if you have
any objection, this is the time to mention it.”

My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears,
that I could scarcely stammer I had no objection.

“I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip, that
the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound
secret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empowered to mention
that it is the intention of the person to reveal it at first hand by
word of mouth to yourself. When or where that intention may be carried
out, I cannot say; no one can say. It may be years hence. Now, you are
distinctly to understand that you are most positively prohibited from
making any inquiry on this head, or any allusion or reference, however
distant, to any individual whomsoever as the individual, in all the
communications you may have with me. If you have a suspicion in your own
breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast. It is not the least to
the purpose what the reasons of this prohibition are; they may be the
strongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere whim. This is not for
you to inquire into. The condition is laid down. Your acceptance of it,
and your observance of it as binding, is the only remaining condition
that I am charged with, by the person from whom I take my instructions,
and for whom I am not otherwise responsible. That person is the person
from whom you derive your expectations, and the secret is solely held by
that person and by me. Again, not a very difficult condition with which
to encumber such a rise in fortune; but if you have any objection to it,
this is the time to mention it. Speak out.”

Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection.

“I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations.”
 Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he still
could not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion; and even now
he occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while he
spoke, as much as to express that he knew all kinds of things to my
disparagement, if he only chose to mention them. “We come next, to mere
details of arrangement. You must know that, although I have used
the term 'expectations' more than once, you are not endowed with
expectations only. There is already lodged in my hands a sum of money
amply sufficient for your suitable education and maintenance. You will
please consider me your guardian. Oh!” for I was going to thank him, “I
tell you at once, I am paid for my services, or I shouldn't render them.
It is considered that you must be better educated, in accordance with
your altered position, and that you will be alive to the importance and
necessity of at once entering on that advantage.”

I said I had always longed for it.

“Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip,” he retorted;
“keep to the record. If you long for it now, that's enough. Am I
answered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper
tutor? Is that it?”

I stammered yes, that was it.

“Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don't think that
wise, mind, but it's my trust. Have you ever heard of any tutor whom you
would prefer to another?”

I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt;
so, I replied in the negative.

“There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think
might suit the purpose,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I don't recommend him,
observe; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I speak of is
one Mr. Matthew Pocket.”

Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham's relation. The Matthew
whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose place was to
be at Miss Havisham's head, when she lay dead, in her bride's dress on
the bride's table.

“You know the name?” said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and then
shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer.

My answer was, that I had heard of the name.

“Oh!” said he. “You have heard of the name. But the question is, what do
you say of it?”

I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his
recommendation--

“No, my young friend!” he interrupted, shaking his great head very
slowly. “Recollect yourself!”

Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to him
for his recommendation--

“No, my young friend,” he interrupted, shaking his head and frowning and
smiling both at once,--“no, no, no; it's very well done, but it won't
do; you are too young to fix me with it. Recommendation is not the word,
Mr. Pip. Try another.”

Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his mention
of Mr. Matthew Pocket--

“That's more like it!” cried Mr. Jaggers.--And (I added), I would
gladly try that gentleman.

“Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be
prepared for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London. When
will you come to London?”

I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I
supposed I could come directly.

“First,” said Mr. Jaggers, “you should have some new clothes to come in,
and they should not be working-clothes. Say this day week. You'll want
some money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas?”

He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted them
out on the table and pushed them over to me. This was the first time he
had taken his leg from the chair. He sat astride of the chair when he
had pushed the money over, and sat swinging his purse and eyeing Joe.

“Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?”

“I am!” said Joe, in a very decided manner.

“It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, remember?”

“It were understood,” said Joe. “And it are understood. And it ever will
be similar according.”

“But what,” said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,--“what if it was in my
instructions to make you a present, as compensation?”

“As compensation what for?” Joe demanded.

“For the loss of his services.”

Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have
often thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush a man or
pat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with gentleness. “Pip
is that hearty welcome,” said Joe, “to go free with his services, to
honor and fortun', as no words can tell him. But if you think as Money
can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child--what come
to the forge--and ever the best of friends!--”

O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I
see you again, with your muscular blacksmith's arm before your eyes,
and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good
faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm,
as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel's wing!

But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my future
fortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we had trodden together. I
begged Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had ever been the best
of friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so. Joe scooped his eyes
with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but
said not another word.

Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognized in Joe the
village idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said, weighing
in his hand the purse he had ceased to swing:--

“Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half
measures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in charge
to make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the contrary you
mean to say--” Here, to his great amazement, he was stopped by Joe's
suddenly working round him with every demonstration of a fell pugilistic
purpose.

“Which I meantersay,” cried Joe, “that if you come into my place
bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech if
you're a man, come on! Which I meantersay that what I say, I meantersay
and stand or fall by!”

I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating to
me, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice to any
one whom it might happen to concern, that he were not a going to be
bull-baited and badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers had risen when
Joe demonstrated, and had backed near the door. Without evincing
any inclination to come in again, he there delivered his valedictory
remarks. They were these.

“Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here--as you are to be a
gentleman--the better. Let it stand for this day week, and you shall
receive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a hackney-coach
at the stage-coach office in London, and come straight to me.
Understand, that I express no opinion, one way or other, on the trust
I undertake. I am paid for undertaking it, and I do so. Now, understand
that, finally. Understand that!”

He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone
on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off.

Something came into my head which induced me to run after him, as he was
going down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired carriage.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers.”

“Halloa!” said he, facing round, “what's the matter?”

“I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your directions;
so I thought I had better ask. Would there be any objection to my taking
leave of any one I know, about here, before I go away?”

“No,” said he, looking as if he hardly understood me.

“I don't mean in the village only, but up town?”

“No,” said he. “No objection.”

I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had already
locked the front door and vacated the state parlor, and was seated
by the kitchen fire with a hand on each knee, gazing intently at the
burning coals. I too sat down before the fire and gazed at the coals,
and nothing was said for a long time.

My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat at her
needle-work before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next Joe
in the corner opposite my sister. The more I looked into the glowing
coals, the more incapable I became of looking at Joe; the longer the
silence lasted, the more unable I felt to speak.

At length I got out, “Joe, have you told Biddy?”

“No, Pip,” returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his
knees tight, as if he had private information that they intended to make
off somewhere, “which I left it to yourself, Pip.”

“I would rather you told, Joe.”

“Pip's a gentleman of fortun' then,” said Joe, “and God bless him in
it!”

Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and looked
at me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both heartily
congratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness in their
congratulations that I rather resented.

I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe) with the
grave obligation I considered my friends under, to know nothing and say
nothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in good
time, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was to be said, save
that I had come into great expectations from a mysterious patron. Biddy
nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work again,
and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still detaining his
knees, said, “Ay, ay, I'll be ekervally partickler, Pip;” and then they
congratulated me again, and went on to express so much wonder at the
notion of my being a gentleman that I didn't half like it.

Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some idea
of what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts entirely
failed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many times, and even
repeated after Biddy, the words “Pip” and “Property.” But I doubt if
they had more meaning in them than an election cry, and I cannot suggest
a darker picture of her state of mind.

I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and
Biddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy.
Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but it is
possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dissatisfied
with myself.

Any how, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand,
looking into the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and
about what they should do without me, and all that. And whenever I
caught one of them looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and they
often looked at me,--particularly Biddy), I felt offended: as if they
were expressing some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they never did
by word or sign.

At those times I would get up and look out at the door; for our kitchen
door opened at once upon the night, and stood open on summer evenings to
air the room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid
I took to be but poor and humble stars for glittering on the rustic
objects among which I had passed my life.

“Saturday night,” said I, when we sat at our supper of bread and cheese
and beer. “Five more days, and then the day before the day! They'll soon
go.”

“Yes, Pip,” observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his beer-mug.
“They'll soon go.”

“Soon, soon go,” said Biddy.

“I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and
order my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I'll come and put
them on there, or that I'll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook's. It
would be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people here.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new gen-teel figure
too, Pip,” said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his cheese on
it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper
as if he thought of the time when we used to compare slices. “So might
Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment.”

“That's just what I don't want, Joe. They would make such a business of
it,--such a coarse and common business,--that I couldn't bear myself.”

“Ah, that indeed, Pip!” said Joe. “If you couldn't abear yourself--”

Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister's plate, “Have you
thought about when you'll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your sister
and me? You will show yourself to us; won't you?”

“Biddy,” I returned with some resentment, “you are so exceedingly quick
that it's difficult to keep up with you.”

(“She always were quick,” observed Joe.)

“If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have heard me say
that I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle one evening,--most likely
on the evening before I go away.”

Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon exchanged an
affectionate good night with her and Joe, and went up to bed. When I got
into my little room, I sat down and took a long look at it, as a mean
little room that I should soon be parted from and raised above, for
ever. It was furnished with fresh young remembrances too, and even at
the same moment I fell into much the same confused division of mind
between it and the better rooms to which I was going, as I had been in
so often between the forge and Miss Havisham's, and Biddy and Estella.

The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic, and
the room was warm. As I put the window open and stood looking out, I saw
Joe come slowly forth at the dark door, below, and take a turn or two
in the air; and then I saw Biddy come, and bring him a pipe and light
it for him. He never smoked so late, and it seemed to hint to me that he
wanted comforting, for some reason or other.

He presently stood at the door immediately beneath me, smoking his pipe,
and Biddy stood there too, quietly talking to him, and I knew that they
talked of me, for I heard my name mentioned in an endearing tone by both
of them more than once. I would not have listened for more, if I could
have heard more; so I drew away from the window, and sat down in my one
chair by the bedside, feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this
first night of my bright fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever
known.

Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe's pipe
floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe,--not
obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared
together. I put my light out, and crept into bed; and it was an uneasy
bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any more.




Chapter XIX

Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of Life,
and brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same. What lay
heaviest on my mind was, the consideration that six days intervened
between me and the day of departure; for I could not divest myself of
a misgiving that something might happen to London in the meanwhile, and
that, when I got there, it would be either greatly deteriorated or clean
gone.

Joe and Biddy were very sympathetic and pleasant when I spoke of our
approaching separation; but they only referred to it when I did. After
breakfast, Joe brought out my indentures from the press in the best
parlor, and we put them in the fire, and I felt that I was free. With
all the novelty of my emancipation on me, I went to church with Joe, and
thought perhaps the clergyman wouldn't have read that about the rich man
and the kingdom of Heaven, if he had known all.

After our early dinner, I strolled out alone, purposing to finish off
the marshes at once, and get them done with. As I passed the church, I
felt (as I had felt during service in the morning) a sublime compassion
for the poor creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after
Sunday, all their lives through, and to lie obscurely at last among the
low green mounds. I promised myself that I would do something for them
one of these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a
dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of
condescension, upon everybody in the village.

If I had often thought before, with something allied to shame, of my
companionship with the fugitive whom I had once seen limping among those
graves, what were my thoughts on this Sunday, when the place recalled
the wretch, ragged and shivering, with his felon iron and badge! My
comfort was, that it happened a long time ago, and that he had doubtless
been transported a long way off, and that he was dead to me, and might
be veritably dead into the bargain.

No more low, wet grounds, no more dikes and sluices, no more of these
grazing cattle,--though they seemed, in their dull manner, to wear a
more respectful air now, and to face round, in order that they
might stare as long as possible at the possessor of such great
expectations,--farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood,
henceforth I was for London and greatness; not for smith's work in
general, and for you! I made my exultant way to the old Battery, and,
lying down there to consider the question whether Miss Havisham intended
me for Estella, fell asleep.

When I awoke, I was much surprised to find Joe sitting beside me,
smoking his pipe. He greeted me with a cheerful smile on my opening my
eyes, and said,--

“As being the last time, Pip, I thought I'd foller.”

“And Joe, I am very glad you did so.”

“Thankee, Pip.”

“You may be sure, dear Joe,” I went on, after we had shaken hands, “that
I shall never forget you.”

“No, no, Pip!” said Joe, in a comfortable tone, “I'm sure of that. Ay,
ay, old chap! Bless you, it were only necessary to get it well round in
a man's mind, to be certain on it. But it took a bit of time to get it
well round, the change come so oncommon plump; didn't it?”

Somehow, I was not best pleased with Joe's being so mightily secure of
me. I should have liked him to have betrayed emotion, or to have said,
“It does you credit, Pip,” or something of that sort. Therefore, I made
no remark on Joe's first head; merely saying as to his second, that the
tidings had indeed come suddenly, but that I had always wanted to be a
gentleman, and had often and often speculated on what I would do, if I
were one.

“Have you though?” said Joe. “Astonishing!”

“It's a pity now, Joe,” said I, “that you did not get on a little more,
when we had our lessons here; isn't it?”

“Well, I don't know,” returned Joe. “I'm so awful dull. I'm only master
of my own trade. It were always a pity as I was so awful dull; but it's
no more of a pity now, than it was--this day twelvemonth--don't you
see?”

What I had meant was, that when I came into my property and was able to
do something for Joe, it would have been much more agreeable if he
had been better qualified for a rise in station. He was so perfectly
innocent of my meaning, however, that I thought I would mention it to
Biddy in preference.

So, when we had walked home and had had tea, I took Biddy into our
little garden by the side of the lane, and, after throwing out in a
general way for the elevation of her spirits, that I should never forget
her, said I had a favor to ask of her.

“And it is, Biddy,” said I, “that you will not omit any opportunity of
helping Joe on, a little.”

“How helping him on?” asked Biddy, with a steady sort of glance.

“Well! Joe is a dear good fellow,--in fact, I think he is the dearest
fellow that ever lived,--but he is rather backward in some things. For
instance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners.”

Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke, and although she opened her
eyes very wide when I had spoken, she did not look at me.

“O, his manners! won't his manners do then?” asked Biddy, plucking a
black-currant leaf.

“My dear Biddy, they do very well here--”

“O! they do very well here?” interrupted Biddy, looking closely at the
leaf in her hand.

“Hear me out,--but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I
shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would
hardly do him justice.”

“And don't you think he knows that?” asked Biddy.

It was such a very provoking question (for it had never in the most
distant manner occurred to me), that I said, snappishly,--

“Biddy, what do you mean?”

Biddy, having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her hands,--and the
smell of a black-currant bush has ever since recalled to me that evening
in the little garden by the side of the lane,--said, “Have you never
considered that he may be proud?”

“Proud?” I repeated, with disdainful emphasis.

“O! there are many kinds of pride,” said Biddy, looking full at me and
shaking her head; “pride is not all of one kind--”

“Well? What are you stopping for?” said I.

“Not all of one kind,” resumed Biddy. “He may be too proud to let any
one take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills well
and with respect. To tell you the truth, I think he is; though it sounds
bold in me to say so, for you must know him far better than I do.”

“Now, Biddy,” said I, “I am very sorry to see this in you. I did not
expect to see this in you. You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You
are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can't help
showing it.”

“If you have the heart to think so,” returned Biddy, “say so. Say so
over and over again, if you have the heart to think so.”

“If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy,” said I, in a virtuous
and superior tone; “don't put it off upon me. I am very sorry to see it,
and it's a--it's a bad side of human nature. I did intend to ask you
to use any little opportunities you might have after I was gone, of
improving dear Joe. But after this I ask you nothing. I am extremely
sorry to see this in you, Biddy,” I repeated. “It's a--it's a bad side
of human nature.”

“Whether you scold me or approve of me,” returned poor Biddy, “you may
equally depend upon my trying to do all that lies in my power, here,
at all times. And whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make
no difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be
unjust neither,” said Biddy, turning away her head.

I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human nature (in which
sentiment, waiving its application, I have since seen reason to think I
was right), and I walked down the little path away from Biddy, and
Biddy went into the house, and I went out at the garden gate and took a
dejected stroll until supper-time; again feeling it very sorrowful and
strange that this, the second night of my bright fortunes, should be as
lonely and unsatisfactory as the first.

But, morning once more brightened my view, and I extended my clemency to
Biddy, and we dropped the subject. Putting on the best clothes I had,
I went into town as early as I could hope to find the shops open,
and presented myself before Mr. Trabb, the tailor, who was having his
breakfast in the parlor behind his shop, and who did not think it worth
his while to come out to me, but called me into him.

“Well!” said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way. “How are
you, and what can I do for you?”

Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds, and was
slipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. He was a
prosperous old bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous
little garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let into
the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of
his prosperity were put away in it in bags.

“Mr. Trabb,” said I, “it's an unpleasant thing to have to mention,
because it looks like boasting; but I have come into a handsome
property.”

A change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the butter in bed, got up from
the bedside, and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth, exclaiming, “Lord
bless my soul!”

“I am going up to my guardian in London,” said I, casually drawing some
guineas out of my pocket and looking at them; “and I want a fashionable
suit of clothes to go in. I wish to pay for them,” I added--otherwise I
thought he might only pretend to make them, “with ready money.”

“My dear sir,” said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent his body, opened
his arms, and took the liberty of touching me on the outside of each
elbow, “don't hurt me by mentioning that. May I venture to congratulate
you? Would you do me the favor of stepping into the shop?”

Mr. Trabb's boy was the most audacious boy in all that country-side.
When I had entered he was sweeping the shop, and he had sweetened his
labors by sweeping over me. He was still sweeping when I came out into
the shop with Mr. Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible
corners and obstacles, to express (as I understood it) equality with any
blacksmith, alive or dead.

“Hold that noise,” said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest sternness, “or I'll
knock your head off!--Do me the favor to be seated, sir. Now, this,”
 said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out in a
flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand under
it to show the gloss, “is a very sweet article. I can recommend it for
your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall
see some others. Give me Number Four, you!” (To the boy, and with a
dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that miscreant's
brushing me with it, or making some other sign of familiarity.)

Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until he had
deposited number four on the counter and was at a safe distance again.
Then he commanded him to bring number five, and number eight. “And let
me have none of your tricks here,” said Mr. Trabb, “or you shall repent
it, you young scoundrel, the longest day you have to live.”

Mr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort of deferential
confidence recommended it to me as a light article for summer wear, an
article much in vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that
it would ever be an honor to him to reflect upon a distinguished
fellow-townsman's (if he might claim me for a fellow-townsman) having
worn. “Are you bringing numbers five and eight, you vagabond,” said Mr.
Trabb to the boy after that, “or shall I kick you out of the shop and
bring them myself?”

I selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance of Mr. Trabb's
judgment, and re-entered the parlor to be measured. For although Mr.
Trabb had my measure already, and had previously been quite contented
with it, he said apologetically that it “wouldn't do under existing
circumstances, sir,--wouldn't do at all.” So, Mr. Trabb measured and
calculated me in the parlor, as if I were an estate and he the finest
species of surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that
I felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate him for his
pains. When he had at last done and had appointed to send the articles
to Mr. Pumblechook's on the Thursday evening, he said, with his hand
upon the parlor lock, “I know, sir, that London gentlemen cannot be
expected to patronize local work, as a rule; but if you would give me a
turn now and then in the quality of a townsman, I should greatly esteem
it. Good morning, sir, much obliged.--Door!”

The last word was flung at the boy, who had not the least notion what
it meant. But I saw him collapse as his master rubbed me out with his
hands, and my first decided experience of the stupendous power of money
was, that it had morally laid upon his back Trabb's boy.

After this memorable event, I went to the hatter's, and the bootmaker's,
and the hosier's, and felt rather like Mother Hubbard's dog whose outfit
required the services of so many trades. I also went to the coach-office
and took my place for seven o'clock on Saturday morning. It was
not necessary to explain everywhere that I had come into a handsome
property; but whenever I said anything to that effect, it followed that
the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention diverted through
the window by the High Street, and concentrated his mind upon me. When
I had ordered everything I wanted, I directed my steps towards
Pumblechook's, and, as I approached that gentleman's place of business,
I saw him standing at his door.

He was waiting for me with great impatience. He had been out early with
the chaise-cart, and had called at the forge and heard the news. He had
prepared a collation for me in the Barnwell parlor, and he too ordered
his shopman to “come out of the gangway” as my sacred person passed.

“My dear friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both hands, when
he and I and the collation were alone, “I give you joy of your good
fortune. Well deserved, well deserved!”

This was coming to the point, and I thought it a sensible way of
expressing himself.

“To think,” said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration at me for
some moments, “that I should have been the humble instrument of leading
up to this, is a proud reward.”

I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said or
hinted, on that point.

“My dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook; “if you will allow me to
call you so--”

I murmured “Certainly,” and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands again,
and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an emotional
appearance, though it was rather low down, “My dear young friend, rely
upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before
the mind of Joseph.--Joseph!” said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a
compassionate adjuration. “Joseph!! Joseph!!!” Thereupon he shook his
head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph.

“But my dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “you must be hungry,
you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the
Boar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here's one or two little
things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. But do
I,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat
down, “see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy
infancy? And may I--may I--?”

This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was fervent,
and then sat down again.

“Here is wine,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune,
and may she ever pick out her favorites with equal judgment! And yet I
cannot,” said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, “see afore me One--and
likewise drink to One--without again expressing--May I--may I--?”

I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass
and turned it upside down. I did the same; and if I had turned myself
upside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct to
my head.

Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of
tongue (none of those out-of-the-way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and
took, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. “Ah! poultry,
poultry! You little thought,” said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophizing the
fowl in the dish, “when you was a young fledgling, what was in store for
you. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this humble
roof for one as--Call it a weakness, if you will,” said Mr. Pumblechook,
getting up again, “but may I? may I--?”

It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so
he did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself
with my knife, I don't know.

“And your sister,” he resumed, after a little steady eating, “which had
the honor of bringing you up by hand! It's a sad picter, to reflect that
she's no longer equal to fully understanding the honor. May--”

I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him.

“We'll drink her health,” said I.

“Ah!” cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite flaccid
with admiration, “that's the way you know 'em, sir!” (I don't know
who Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was no third person
present); “that's the way you know the noble-minded, sir! Ever forgiving
and ever affable. It might,” said the servile Pumblechook, putting down
his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, “to a common person,
have the appearance of repeating--but may I--?”

When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my sister. “Let us
never be blind,” said Mr. Pumblechook, “to her faults of temper, but it
is to be hoped she meant well.”

At about this time, I began to observe that he was getting flushed in
the face; as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine and smarting.

I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my new clothes
sent to his house, and he was ecstatic on my so distinguishing him. I
mentioned my reason for desiring to avoid observation in the village,
and he lauded it to the skies. There was nobody but himself, he
intimated, worthy of my confidence, and--in short, might he? Then he
asked me tenderly if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and how we
had gone together to have me bound apprentice, and, in effect, how he
had ever been my favorite fancy and my chosen friend? If I had taken
ten times as many glasses of wine as I had, I should have known that he
never had stood in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of
hearts have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling
convinced that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a
sensible, practical, good-hearted prime fellow.

By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in me, as to ask my
advice in reference to his own affairs. He mentioned that there was an
opportunity for a great amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and seed
trade on those premises, if enlarged, such as had never occurred
before in that or any other neighborhood. What alone was wanting to the
realization of a vast fortune, he considered to be More Capital.
Those were the two little words, more capital. Now it appeared to him
(Pumblechook) that if that capital were got into the business, through a
sleeping partner, sir,--which sleeping partner would have nothing to
do but walk in, by self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and examine
the books,--and walk in twice a year and take his profits away in his
pocket, to the tune of fifty per cent,--it appeared to him that that
might be an opening for a young gentleman of spirit combined with
property, which would be worthy of his attention. But what did I think?
He had great confidence in my opinion, and what did I think? I gave it
as my opinion. “Wait a bit!” The united vastness and distinctness of
this view so struck him, that he no longer asked if he might shake hands
with me, but said he really must,--and did.

We drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged himself over and over
again to keep Joseph up to the mark (I don't know what mark), and to
render me efficient and constant service (I don't know what service). He
also made known to me for the first time in my life, and certainly after
having kept his secret wonderfully well, that he had always said of me,
“That boy is no common boy, and mark me, his fortun' will be no common
fortun'.” He said with a tearful smile that it was a singular thing to
think of now, and I said so too. Finally, I went out into the air, with
a dim perception that there was something unwonted in the conduct of the
sunshine, and found that I had slumberously got to the turnpike without
having taken any account of the road.

There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook's hailing me. He was a long way
down the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for me to
stop. I stopped, and he came up breathless.

“No, my dear friend,” said he, when he had recovered wind for speech.
“Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely pass without
that affability on your part.--May I, as an old friend and well-wisher?
May I?”

We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a young
carter out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he blessed
me and stood waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in the
road; and then I turned into a field and had a long nap under a hedge
before I pursued my way home.

I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the little
I possessed was adapted to my new station. But I began packing that same
afternoon, and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want next
morning, in a fiction that there was not a moment to be lost.

So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Friday morning I
went to Mr. Pumblechook's, to put on my new clothes and pay my visit to
Miss Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook's own room was given up to me to dress
in, and was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My
clothes were rather a disappointment, of course. Probably every new
and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell
a trifle short of the wearer's expectation. But after I had had my
new suit on some half an hour, and had gone through an immensity of
posturing with Mr. Pumblechook's very limited dressing-glass, in the
futile endeavor to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better. It being
market morning at a neighboring town some ten miles off, Mr. Pumblechook
was not at home. I had not told him exactly when I meant to leave, and
was not likely to shake hands with him again before departing. This was
all as it should be, and I went out in my new array, fearfully ashamed
of having to pass the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a
personal disadvantage, something like Joe's in his Sunday suit.

I went circuitously to Miss Havisham's by all the back ways, and rang
at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long fingers of my
gloves. Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and positively reeled back when
she saw me so changed; her walnut-shell countenance likewise turned from
brown to green and yellow.

“You?” said she. “You? Good gracious! What do you want?”

“I am going to London, Miss Pocket,” said I, “and want to say good-bye to
Miss Havisham.”

I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while she went
to ask if I were to be admitted. After a very short delay, she returned
and took me up, staring at me all the way.

Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the long spread
table, leaning on her crutch stick. The room was lighted as of yore, and
at the sound of our entrance, she stopped and turned. She was then just
abreast of the rotted bride-cake.

“Don't go, Sarah,” she said. “Well, Pip?”

“I start for London, Miss Havisham, to-morrow,” I was exceedingly
careful what I said, “and I thought you would kindly not mind my taking
leave of you.”

“This is a gay figure, Pip,” said she, making her crutch stick play
round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were
bestowing the finishing gift.

“I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last, Miss
Havisham,” I murmured. “And I am so grateful for it, Miss Havisham!”

“Ay, ay!” said she, looking at the discomfited and envious Sarah, with
delight. “I have seen Mr. Jaggers. I have heard about it, Pip. So you go
to-morrow?”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

“And you are adopted by a rich person?”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

“Not named?”

“No, Miss Havisham.”

“And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian?”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

She quite gloated on these questions and answers, so keen was her
enjoyment of Sarah Pocket's jealous dismay. “Well!” she went on; “you
have a promising career before you. Be good--deserve it--and abide by
Mr. Jaggers's instructions.” She looked at me, and looked at Sarah, and
Sarah's countenance wrung out of her watchful face a cruel smile. “Good-bye,
Pip!--you will always keep the name of Pip, you know.”

“Yes, Miss Havisham.”

“Good-bye, Pip!”

She stretched out her hand, and I went down on my knee and put it to
my lips. I had not considered how I should take leave of her; it came
naturally to me at the moment to do this. She looked at Sarah Pocket
with triumph in her weird eyes, and so I left my fairy godmother, with
both her hands on her crutch stick, standing in the midst of the dimly
lighted room beside the rotten bride-cake that was hidden in cobwebs.

Sarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost who must be seen
out. She could not get over my appearance, and was in the last degree
confounded. I said “Good-bye, Miss Pocket;” but she merely stared, and
did not seem collected enough to know that I had spoken. Clear of the
house, I made the best of my way back to Pumblechook's, took off my new
clothes, made them into a bundle, and went back home in my older dress,
carrying it--to speak the truth--much more at my ease too, though I had
the bundle to carry.

And now, those six days which were to have run out so slowly, had
run out fast and were gone, and to-morrow looked me in the face more
steadily than I could look at it. As the six evenings had dwindled
away, to five, to four, to three, to two, I had become more and more
appreciative of the society of Joe and Biddy. On this last evening, I
dressed my self out in my new clothes for their delight, and sat in my
splendor until bedtime. We had a hot supper on the occasion, graced by
the inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to finish with. We were
all very low, and none the higher for pretending to be in spirits.

I was to leave our village at five in the morning, carrying my little
hand-portmanteau, and I had told Joe that I wished to walk away all
alone. I am afraid--sore afraid--that this purpose originated in my
sense of the contrast there would be between me and Joe, if we went to
the coach together. I had pretended with myself that there was nothing
of this taint in the arrangement; but when I went up to my little room
on this last night, I felt compelled to admit that it might be so, and
had an impulse upon me to go down again and entreat Joe to walk with me
in the morning. I did not.

All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places
instead of to London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now
pigs, now men,--never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occupied
me until the day dawned and the birds were singing. Then, I got up and
partly dressed, and sat at the window to take a last look out, and in
taking it fell asleep.

Biddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, although I did not
sleep at the window an hour, I smelt the smoke of the kitchen fire when
I started up with a terrible idea that it must be late in the afternoon.
But long after that, and long after I had heard the clinking of the
teacups and was quite ready, I wanted the resolution to go downstairs.
After all, I remained up there, repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping
my small portmanteau and locking and strapping it up again, until Biddy
called to me that I was late.

It was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got up from the meal,
saying with a sort of briskness, as if it had only just occurred to me,
“Well! I suppose I must be off!” and then I kissed my sister who was
laughing and nodding and shaking in her usual chair, and kissed
Biddy, and threw my arms around Joe's neck. Then I took up my little
portmanteau and walked out. The last I saw of them was, when I presently
heard a scuffle behind me, and looking back, saw Joe throwing an old
shoe after me and Biddy throwing another old shoe. I stopped then, to
wave my hat, and dear old Joe waved his strong right arm above his head,
crying huskily “Hooroar!” and Biddy put her apron to her face.

I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than I had
supposed it would be, and reflecting that it would never have done to
have had an old shoe thrown after the coach, in sight of all the High
Street. I whistled and made nothing of going. But the village was very
peaceful and quiet, and the light mists were solemnly rising, as if to
show me the world, and I had been so innocent and little there, and all
beyond was so unknown and great, that in a moment with a strong heave
and sob I broke into tears. It was by the finger-post at the end of the
village, and I laid my hand upon it, and said, “Good-bye, O my dear, dear
friend!”

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain
upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was
better after I had cried than before,--more sorry, more aware of my own
ingratitude, more gentle. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe
with me then.

So subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out again in the
course of the quiet walk, that when I was on the coach, and it was clear
of the town, I deliberated with an aching heart whether I would not get
down when we changed horses and walk back, and have another evening at
home, and a better parting. We changed, and I had not made up my mind,
and still reflected for my comfort that it would be quite practicable to
get down and walk back, when we changed again. And while I was occupied
with these deliberations, I would fancy an exact resemblance to Joe
in some man coming along the road towards us, and my heart would beat
high.--As if he could possibly be there!

We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to
go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and
the world lay spread before me.

This is the end of the first stage of Pip's expectations.

Chapter XX

The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five
hours. It was a little past midday when the four-horse stage-coach by
which I was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about
the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London.

We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable
to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise,
while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had
some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and
dirty.

Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address; it was, Little Britain, and he
had written after it on his card, “just out of Smithfield, and close by
the coach-office.” Nevertheless, a hackney-coachman, who seemed to have
as many capes to his greasy great-coat as he was years old, packed me
up in his coach and hemmed me in with a folding and jingling barrier of
steps, as if he were going to take me fifty miles. His getting on his
box, which I remember to have been decorated with an old weather-stained
pea-green hammercloth moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of time.
It was a wonderful equipage, with six great coronets outside, and ragged
things behind for I don't know how many footmen to hold on by, and
a harrow below them, to prevent amateur footmen from yielding to the
temptation.

I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how like a
straw-yard it was, and yet how like a rag-shop, and to wonder why
the horses' nose-bags were kept inside, when I observed the coachman
beginning to get down, as if we were going to stop presently. And stop
we presently did, in a gloomy street, at certain offices with an open
door, whereon was painted MR. JAGGERS.

“How much?” I asked the coachman.

The coachman answered, “A shilling--unless you wish to make it more.”

I naturally said I had no wish to make it more.

“Then it must be a shilling,” observed the coachman. “I don't want to
get into trouble. I know him!” He darkly closed an eye at Mr. Jaggers's
name, and shook his head.

When he had got his shilling, and had in course of time completed the
ascent to his box, and had got away (which appeared to relieve his
mind), I went into the front office with my little portmanteau in my
hand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers at home?

“He is not,” returned the clerk. “He is in Court at present. Am I
addressing Mr. Pip?”

I signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip.

“Mr. Jaggers left word, would you wait in his room. He couldn't say how
long he might be, having a case on. But it stands to reason, his time
being valuable, that he won't be longer than he can help.”

With those words, the clerk opened a door, and ushered me into an inner
chamber at the back. Here, we found a gentleman with one eye, in a
velveteen suit and knee-breeches, who wiped his nose with his sleeve on
being interrupted in the perusal of the newspaper.

“Go and wait outside, Mike,” said the clerk.

I began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting, when the clerk
shoved this gentleman out with as little ceremony as I ever saw used,
and tossing his fur cap out after him, left me alone.

Mr. Jaggers's room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a most dismal
place; the skylight, eccentrically pitched like a broken head, and the
distorted adjoining houses looking as if they had twisted themselves to
peep down at me through it. There were not so many papers about, as I
should have expected to see; and there were some odd objects about, that
I should not have expected to see,--such as an old rusty pistol, a
sword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and packages, and
two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy
about the nose. Mr. Jaggers's own high-backed chair was of deadly black
horsehair, with rows of brass nails round it, like a coffin; and I
fancied I could see how he leaned back in it, and bit his forefinger at
the clients. The room was but small, and the clients seemed to have had
a habit of backing up against the wall; the wall, especially opposite to
Mr. Jaggers's chair, being greasy with shoulders. I recalled, too, that
the one-eyed gentleman had shuffled forth against the wall when I was
the innocent cause of his being turned out.

I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr. Jaggers's
chair, and became fascinated by the dismal atmosphere of the place. I
called to mind that the clerk had the same air of knowing something to
everybody else's disadvantage, as his master had. I wondered how many
other clerks there were upstairs, and whether they all claimed to have
the same detrimental mastery of their fellow-creatures. I wondered what
was the history of all the odd litter about the room, and how it came
there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers's
family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such
ill-looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the
blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home.
Of course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits may
have been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and grit
that lay thick on everything. But I sat wondering and waiting in Mr.
Jaggers's close room, until I really could not bear the two casts on the
shelf above Mr. Jaggers's chair, and got up and went out.

When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I
waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come into
Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield; and the shameful place, being all
asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So,
I rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a street where
I saw the great black dome of Saint Paul's bulging at me from behind a
grim stone building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following
the wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered with straw to deaden
the noise of passing vehicles; and from this, and from the quantity of
people standing about smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I inferred
that the trials were on.

While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and partially drunk
minister of justice asked me if I would like to step in and hear a
trial or so: informing me that he could give me a front place for half a
crown, whence I should command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice in
his wig and robes,--mentioning that awful personage like waxwork, and
presently offering him at the reduced price of eighteen-pence. As I
declined the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as
to take me into a yard and show me where the gallows was kept, and also
where people were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors'
Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged; heightening the interest
of that dreadful portal by giving me to understand that “four on 'em”
 would come out at that door the day after to-morrow at eight in the
morning, to be killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a
sickening idea of London; the more so as the Lord Chief Justice's
proprietor wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his
pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had evidently
not belonged to him originally, and which I took it into my head he had
bought cheap of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought
myself well rid of him for a shilling.

I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet, and I
found he had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I made the tour
of Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew Close; and now I became
aware that other people were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as well
as I. There were two men of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew
Close, and thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of the
pavement as they talked together, one of whom said to the other when
they first passed me, that “Jaggers would do it if it was to be done.”
 There was a knot of three men and two women standing at a corner, and
one of the women was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other comforted
her by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoulders, “Jaggers
is for him, 'Melia, and what more could you have?” There was a red-eyed
little Jew who came into the Close while I was loitering there, in
company with a second little Jew whom he sent upon an errand; and
while the messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a highly
excitable temperament, performing a jig of anxiety under a lamp-post and
accompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy, with the words, “O Jaggerth,
Jaggerth, Jaggerth! all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, give me Jaggerth!”
 These testimonies to the popularity of my guardian made a deep
impression on me, and I admired and wondered more than ever.

At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew Close
into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road towards
me. All the others who were waiting saw him at the same time, and there
was quite a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on my shoulder
and walking me on at his side without saying anything to me, addressed
himself to his followers.

First, he took the two secret men.

“Now, I have nothing to say to you,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his
finger at them. “I want to know no more than I know. As to the result,
it's a toss-up. I told you from the first it was a toss-up. Have you
paid Wemmick?”

“We made the money up this morning, sir,” said one of the men,
submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers's face.

“I don't ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether you made it
up at all. Has Wemmick got it?”

“Yes, sir,” said both the men together.

“Very well; then you may go. Now, I won't have it!” said Mr Jaggers,
waving his hand at them to put them behind him. “If you say a word to
me, I'll throw up the case.”

“We thought, Mr. Jaggers--” one of the men began, pulling off his hat.

“That's what I told you not to do,” said Mr. Jaggers. “You thought! I
think for you; that's enough for you. If I want you, I know where to
find you; I don't want you to find me. Now I won't have it. I won't hear
a word.”

The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved them behind
again, and humbly fell back and were heard no more.

“And now you!” said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and turning on
the two women with the shawls, from whom the three men had meekly
separated,--“Oh! Amelia, is it?”

“Yes, Mr. Jaggers.”

“And do you remember,” retorted Mr. Jaggers, “that but for me you
wouldn't be here and couldn't be here?”

“O yes, sir!” exclaimed both women together. “Lord bless you, sir, well
we knows that!”

“Then why,” said Mr. Jaggers, “do you come here?”

“My Bill, sir!” the crying woman pleaded.

“Now, I tell you what!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Once for all. If you don't
know that your Bill's in good hands, I know it. And if you come here
bothering about your Bill, I'll make an example of both your Bill and
you, and let him slip through my fingers. Have you paid Wemmick?”

“O yes, sir! Every farden.”

“Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say another
word--one single word--and Wemmick shall give you your money back.”

This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off immediately.
No one remained now but the excitable Jew, who had already raised the
skirts of Mr. Jaggers's coat to his lips several times.

“I don't know this man!” said Mr. Jaggers, in the same devastating
strain: “What does this fellow want?”

“Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham Latharuth?”

“Who's he?” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let go of my coat.”

The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before relinquishing
it, replied, “Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion of plate.”

“You're too late,” said Mr. Jaggers. “I am over the way.”

“Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!” cried my excitable acquaintance,
turning white, “don't thay you're again Habraham Latharuth!”

“I am,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and there's an end of it. Get out of the
way.”

“Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen'th gone to Mithter
Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him hany termth. Mithter
Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment! If you'd have the condethenthun to
be bought off from the t'other thide--at hany thuperior prithe!--money
no object!--Mithter Jaggerth--Mithter--!”

My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indifference, and
left him dancing on the pavement as if it were red hot. Without further
interruption, we reached the front office, where we found the clerk and
the man in velveteen with the fur cap.

“Here's Mike,” said the clerk, getting down from his stool, and
approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially.

“Oh!” said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling a lock of
hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling
at the bell-rope; “your man comes on this afternoon. Well?”

“Well, Mas'r Jaggers,” returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer from a
constitutional cold; “arter a deal o' trouble, I've found one, sir, as
might do.”

“What is he prepared to swear?”

“Well, Mas'r Jaggers,” said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur cap this
time; “in a general way, anythink.”

Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. “Now, I warned you before,” said
he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client, “that if you ever
presumed to talk in that way here, I'd make an example of you. You
infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell ME that?”

The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were unconscious
what he had done.

“Spooney!” said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with his
elbow. “Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?”

“Now, I ask you, you blundering booby,” said my guardian, very sternly,
“once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought here is
prepared to swear?”

Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn a lesson
from his face, and slowly replied, “Ayther to character, or to having
been in his company and never left him all the night in question.”

“Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?”

Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at the
ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before
beginning to reply in a nervous manner, “We've dressed him up like--”
 when my guardian blustered out,--

“What? You WILL, will you?”

(“Spooney!” added the clerk again, with another stir.)

After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and began again:--

“He is dressed like a 'spectable pieman. A sort of a pastry-cook.”

“Is he here?” asked my guardian.

“I left him,” said Mike, “a setting on some doorsteps round the corner.”

“Take him past that window, and let me see him.”

The window indicated was the office window. We all three went to
it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an
accidental manner, with a murderous-looking tall individual, in a short
suit of white linen and a paper cap. This guileless confectioner was not
by any means sober, and had a black eye in the green stage of recovery,
which was painted over.

“Tell him to take his witness away directly,” said my guardian to the
clerk, in extreme disgust, “and ask him what he means by bringing such a
fellow as that.”

My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched,
standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket-flask of sherry (he seemed to
bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he
had made for me. I was to go to “Barnard's Inn,” to young Mr. Pocket's
rooms, where a bed had been sent in for my accommodation; I was to
remain with young Mr. Pocket until Monday; on Monday I was to go with
him to his father's house on a visit, that I might try how I liked it.
Also, I was told what my allowance was to be,--it was a very liberal
one,--and had handed to me from one of my guardian's drawers, the cards
of certain tradesmen with whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes,
and such other things as I could in reason want. “You will find your
credit good, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt
like a whole caskful, as he hastily refreshed himself, “but I shall by
this means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if I find you
outrunning the constable. Of course you'll go wrong somehow, but that's
no fault of mine.”

After I had pondered a little over this encouraging sentiment, I asked
Mr. Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was not worth while,
I was so near my destination; Wemmick should walk round with me, if I
pleased.

I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room. Another clerk
was rung down from upstairs to take his place while he was out, and I
accompanied him into the street, after shaking hands with my guardian.
We found a new set of people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a way
among them by saying coolly yet decisively, “I tell you it's no use; he
won't have a word to say to one of you;” and we soon got clear of them,
and went on side by side.




Chapter XXI

Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was
like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in
stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been
imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks
in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and
the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel
had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose,
but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him
to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared
to have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four
mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping
willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings
and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he were quite laden with
remembrances of departed friends. He had glittering eyes,--small, keen,
and black,--and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of
my belief, from forty to fifty years.

“So you were never in London before?” said Mr. Wemmick to me.

“No,” said I.

“I was new here once,” said Mr. Wemmick. “Rum to think of now!”

“You are well acquainted with it now?”

“Why, yes,” said Mr. Wemmick. “I know the moves of it.”

“Is it a very wicked place?” I asked, more for the sake of saying
something than for information.

“You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are
plenty of people anywhere, who'll do that for you.”

“If there is bad blood between you and them,” said I, to soften it off a
little.

“O! I don't know about bad blood,” returned Mr. Wemmick; “there's not
much bad blood about. They'll do it, if there's anything to be got by
it.”

“That makes it worse.”

“You think so?” returned Mr. Wemmick. “Much about the same, I should
say.”

He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him:
walking in a self-contained way as if there were nothing in the streets
to claim his attention. His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth
that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of
Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance,
and that he was not smiling at all.

“Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?” I asked Mr. Wemmick.

“Yes,” said he, nodding in the direction. “At Hammersmith, west of
London.”

“Is that far?”

“Well! Say five miles.”

“Do you know him?”

“Why, you're a regular cross-examiner!” said Mr. Wemmick, looking at me
with an approving air. “Yes, I know him. I know him!”

There was an air of toleration or depreciation about his utterance of
these words that rather depressed me; and I was still looking sideways
at his block of a face in search of any encouraging note to the text,
when he said here we were at Barnard's Inn. My depression was not
alleviated by the announcement, for, I had supposed that establishment
to be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town
was a mere public-house. Whereas I now found Barnard to be a disembodied
spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of shabby
buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for
Tom-cats.

We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an
introductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me
like a flat burying-ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in
it, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most
dismal houses (in number half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen. I
thought the windows of the sets of chambers into which those houses were
divided were in every stage of dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled
flower-pot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable makeshift; while
To Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, as if no new
wretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of Barnard were
being slowly appeased by the gradual suicide of the present occupants
and their unholy interment under the gravel. A frowzy mourning of soot
and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn
ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere
dust-hole. Thus far my sense of sight; while dry rot and wet rot and all
the silent rots that rot in neglected roof and cellar,--rot of rat
and mouse and bug and coaching-stables near at hand besides--addressed
themselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, “Try Barnard's
Mixture.”

So imperfect was this realization of the first of my great expectations,
that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. “Ah!” said he, mistaking me;
“the retirement reminds you of the country. So it does me.”

He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs,--which
appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into sawdust, so that one of
those days the upper lodgers would look out at their doors and find
themselves without the means of coming down,--to a set of chambers on
the top floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and there was
a label on the letter-box, “Return shortly.”

“He hardly thought you'd come so soon,” Mr. Wemmick explained. “You
don't want me any more?”

“No, thank you,” said I.

“As I keep the cash,” Mr. Wemmick observed, “we shall most likely meet
pretty often. Good day.”

“Good day.”

I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as if he
thought I wanted something. Then he looked at me, and said, correcting
himself,--

“To be sure! Yes. You're in the habit of shaking hands?”

I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London fashion,
but said yes.

“I have got so out of it!” said Mr. Wemmick,--“except at last. Very
glad, I'm sure, to make your acquaintance. Good day!”

When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the staircase window
and had nearly beheaded myself, for, the lines had rotted away, and it
came down like the guillotine. Happily it was so quick that I had not
put my head out. After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view
of the Inn through the window's encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully
looking out, saying to myself that London was decidedly overrated.

Mr. Pocket, Junior's, idea of Shortly was not mine, for I had nearly
maddened myself with looking out for half an hour, and had written
my name with my finger several times in the dirt of every pane in the
window, before I heard footsteps on the stairs. Gradually there arose
before me the hat, head, neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a
member of society of about my own standing. He had a paper-bag under
each arm and a pottle of strawberries in one hand, and was out of
breath.

“Mr. Pip?” said he.

“Mr. Pocket?” said I.

“Dear me!” he exclaimed. “I am extremely sorry; but I knew there was a
coach from your part of the country at midday, and I thought you would
come by that one. The fact is, I have been out on your account,--not
that that is any excuse,--for I thought, coming from the country, you
might like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden
Market to get it good.”

For a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out of my
head. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and began to think this
was a dream.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Pocket, Junior. “This door sticks so!”

As he was fast making jam of his fruit by wrestling with the door while
the paper-bags were under his arms, I begged him to allow me to hold
them. He relinquished them with an agreeable smile, and combated with
the door as if it were a wild beast. It yielded so suddenly at last,
that he staggered back upon me, and I staggered back upon the opposite
door, and we both laughed. But still I felt as if my eyes must start out
of my head, and as if this must be a dream.

“Pray come in,” said Mr. Pocket, Junior. “Allow me to lead the way. I am
rather bare here, but I hope you'll be able to make out tolerably well
till Monday. My father thought you would get on more agreeably through
to-morrow with me than with him, and might like to take a walk about
London. I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As to our
table, you won't find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied from our
coffee-house here, and (it is only right I should add) at your expense,
such being Mr. Jaggers's directions. As to our lodging, it's not by
any means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my father
hasn't anything to give me, and I shouldn't be willing to take it, if he
had. This is our sitting-room,--just such chairs and tables and carpet
and so forth, you see, as they could spare from home. You mustn't give
me credit for the tablecloth and spoons and castors, because they come
for you from the coffee-house. This is my little bedroom; rather musty,
but Barnard's is musty. This is your bedroom; the furniture's hired for
the occasion, but I trust it will answer the purpose; if you should want
anything, I'll go and fetch it. The chambers are retired, and we shall
be alone together, but we shan't fight, I dare say. But dear me, I beg
your pardon, you're holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take
these bags from you. I am quite ashamed.”

As I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering him the bags, One,
Two, I saw the starting appearance come into his own eyes that I knew to
be in mine, and he said, falling back,--

“Lord bless me, you're the prowling boy!”

“And you,” said I, “are the pale young gentleman!”




Chapter XXII

The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in
Barnard's Inn, until we both burst out laughing. “The idea of its
being you!” said he. “The idea of its being you!” said I. And then we
contemplated one another afresh, and laughed again. “Well!” said the
pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humoredly, “it's all
over now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you'll forgive me
for having knocked you about so.”

I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for Herbert was the
pale young gentleman's name) still rather confounded his intention with
his execution. But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly.

“You hadn't come into your good fortune at that time?” said Herbert
Pocket.

“No,” said I.

“No,” he acquiesced: “I heard it had happened very lately. I was rather
on the lookout for good fortune then.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to
me. But she couldn't,--at all events, she didn't.”

I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that.

“Bad taste,” said Herbert, laughing, “but a fact. Yes, she had sent for
me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I
suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have been
what-you-may-called it to Estella.”

“What's that?” I asked, with sudden gravity.

He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, which divided his
attention, and was the cause of his having made this lapse of a word.
“Affianced,” he explained, still busy with the fruit. “Betrothed.
Engaged. What's-his-named. Any word of that sort.”

“How did you bear your disappointment?” I asked.

“Pooh!” said he, “I didn't care much for it. She's a Tartar.”

“Miss Havisham?”

“I don't say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl's hard and
haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by
Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex.”

“What relation is she to Miss Havisham?”

“None,” said he. “Only adopted.”

“Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?”

“Lord, Mr. Pip!” said he. “Don't you know?”

“No,” said I.

“Dear me! It's quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time. And
now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come
there, that day?”

I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst
out laughing again, and asked me if I was sore afterwards? I didn't
ask him if he was, for my conviction on that point was perfectly
established.

“Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?” he went on.

“Yes.”

“You know he is Miss Havisham's man of business and solicitor, and has
her confidence when nobody else has?”

This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous ground. I answered with
a constraint I made no attempt to disguise, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers
in Miss Havisham's house on the very day of our combat, but never at any
other time, and that I believed he had no recollection of having ever
seen me there.

“He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your tutor, and he
called on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about my father
from his connection with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham's
cousin; not that that implies familiar intercourse between them, for he
is a bad courtier and will not propitiate her.”

Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was very taking.
I had never seen any one then, and I have never seen any one since,
who more strongly expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural
incapacity to do anything secret and mean. There was something
wonderfully hopeful about his general air, and something that at the
same time whispered to me he would never be very successful or rich. I
don't know how this was. I became imbued with the notion on that first
occasion before we sat down to dinner, but I cannot define by what
means.

He was still a pale young gentleman, and had a certain conquered languor
about him in the midst of his spirits and briskness, that did not seem
indicative of natural strength. He had not a handsome face, but it was
better than handsome: being extremely amiable and cheerful. His figure
was a little ungainly, as in the days when my knuckles had taken such
liberties with it, but it looked as if it would always be light and
young. Whether Mr. Trabb's local work would have sat more gracefully on
him than on me, may be a question; but I am conscious that he carried
off his rather old clothes much better than I carried off my new suit.

As he was so communicative, I felt that reserve on my part would be a
bad return unsuited to our years. I therefore told him my small story,
and laid stress on my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was.
I further mentioned that as I had been brought up a blacksmith in a
country place, and knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would
take it as a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever
he saw me at a loss or going wrong.

“With pleasure,” said he, “though I venture to prophesy that you'll want
very few hints. I dare say we shall be often together, and I should like
to banish any needless restraint between us. Will you do me the favour
to begin at once to call me by my Christian name, Herbert?”

I thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange that my
Christian name was Philip.

“I don't take to Philip,” said he, smiling, “for it sounds like a moral
boy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell into a pond,
or so fat that he couldn't see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that
he locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to go a
bird's-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in the
neighborhood. I tell you what I should like. We are so harmonious, and
you have been a blacksmith,---would you mind it?”

“I shouldn't mind anything that you propose,” I answered, “but I don't
understand you.”

“Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There's a charming piece of
music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith.”

“I should like it very much.”

“Then, my dear Handel,” said he, turning round as the door opened,
“here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the top of the table,
because the dinner is of your providing.”

This I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I faced him. It was a
nice little dinner,--seemed to me then a very Lord Mayor's Feast,--and
it acquired additional relish from being eaten under those independent
circumstances, with no old people by, and with London all around us.
This again was heightened by a certain gypsy character that set the
banquet off; for while the table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might have
said, the lap of luxury,--being entirely furnished forth from the
coffee-house,--the circumjacent region of sitting-room was of a
comparatively pastureless and shifty character; imposing on the waiter
the wandering habits of putting the covers on the floor (where he
fell over them), the melted butter in the arm-chair, the bread on the
bookshelves, the cheese in the coal-scuttle, and the boiled fowl into my
bed in the next room,--where I found much of its parsley and butter in
a state of congelation when I retired for the night. All this made the
feast delightful, and when the waiter was not there to watch me, my
pleasure was without alloy.

We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his
promise to tell me about Miss Havisham.

“True,” he replied. “I'll redeem it at once. Let me introduce the topic,
Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the
knife in the mouth,--for fear of accidents,--and that while the fork is
reserved for that use, it is not put further in than necessary. It is
scarcely worth mentioning, only it's as well to do as other people do.
Also, the spoon is not generally used over-hand, but under. This has
two advantages. You get at your mouth better (which after all is the
object), and you save a good deal of the attitude of opening oysters, on
the part of the right elbow.”

He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we both
laughed and I scarcely blushed.

“Now,” he pursued, “concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you must
know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her
father denied her nothing. Her father was a country gentleman down in
your part of the world, and was a brewer. I don't know why it should
be a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you
cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was
and brew. You see it every day.”

“Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may he?” said I.

“Not on any account,” returned Herbert; “but a public-house may keep a
gentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his
daughter.”

“Miss Havisham was an only child?” I hazarded.

“Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child;
she had a half-brother. Her father privately married again--his cook, I
rather think.”

“I thought he was proud,” said I.

“My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately,
because he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was dead,
I apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then
the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are
acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous,
extravagant, undutiful,--altogether bad. At last his father disinherited
him; but he softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though
not nearly so well off as Miss Havisham.--Take another glass of wine,
and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one
to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it
bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose.”

I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I
thanked him, and apologized. He said, “Not at all,” and resumed.

“Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after
as a great match. Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what
with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again.
There were stronger differences between him and her than there had been
between him and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a deep
and mortal grudge against her as having influenced the father's anger.
Now, I come to the cruel part of the story,--merely breaking off, my
dear Handel, to remark that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler.”

Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to
say. I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance worthy of a
much better cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it
within those limits. Again I thanked him and apologized, and again he
said in the cheerfullest manner, “Not at all, I am sure!” and resumed.

“There appeared upon the scene--say at the races, or the public
balls, or anywhere else you like--a certain man, who made love to Miss
Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago,
before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that
he was a showy man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was
not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my
father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that
no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world
began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the
grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the
grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely,
and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much
susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she possessed
certainly came out then, and she passionately loved him. There is no
doubt that she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in
that systematic way, that he got great sums of money from her, and he
induced her to buy her brother out of a share in the brewery (which had
been weakly left him by his father) at an immense price, on the plea
that when he was her husband he must hold and manage it all. Your
guardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham's counsels, and she was
too haughty and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations
were poor and scheming, with the exception of my father; he was poor
enough, but not time-serving or jealous. The only independent one among
them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man, and
was placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first
opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his
presence, and my father has never seen her since.”

I thought of her having said, “Matthew will come and see me at last when
I am laid dead upon that table;” and I asked Herbert whether his father
was so inveterate against her?

“It's not that,” said he, “but she charged him, in the presence of her
intended husband, with being disappointed in the hope of fawning upon
her for his own advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would
look true--even to him--and even to her. To return to the man and make
an end of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were
bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were
invited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter--”

“Which she received,” I struck in, “when she was dressing for her
marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?”

“At the hour and minute,” said Herbert, nodding, “at which she
afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further than that
it most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can't tell you, because I
don't know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she
laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never since
looked upon the light of day.”

“Is that all the story?” I asked, after considering it.

“All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much, through piecing it
out for myself; for my father always avoids it, and, even when Miss
Havisham invited me to go there, told me no more of it than it was
absolutely requisite I should understand. But I have forgotten one
thing. It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced
confidence acted throughout in concert with her half-brother; that it
was a conspiracy between them; and that they shared the profits.”

“I wonder he didn't marry her and get all the property,” said I.

“He may have been married already, and her cruel mortification may have
been a part of her half-brother's scheme,” said Herbert. “Mind! I don't
know that.”

“What became of the two men?” I asked, after again considering the
subject.

“They fell into deeper shame and degradation--if there can be
deeper--and ruin.”

“Are they alive now?”

“I don't know.”

“You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but
adopted. When adopted?”

Herbert shrugged his shoulders. “There has always been an Estella, since
I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And now, Handel,” said
he, finally throwing off the story as it were, “there is a perfectly
open understanding between us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you
know.”

“And all that I know,” I retorted, “you know.”

“I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or perplexity
between you and me. And as to the condition on which you hold your
advancement in life,--namely, that you are not to inquire or discuss to
whom you owe it,--you may be very sure that it will never be encroached
upon, or even approached, by me, or by any one belonging to me.”

In truth, he said this with so much delicacy, that I felt the subject
done with, even though I should be under his father's roof for years and
years to come. Yet he said it with so much meaning, too, that I felt
he as perfectly understood Miss Havisham to be my benefactress, as I
understood the fact myself.

It had not occurred to me before, that he had led up to the theme for
the purpose of clearing it out of our way; but we were so much the
lighter and easier for having broached it, that I now perceived this
to be the case. We were very gay and sociable, and I asked him, in the
course of conversation, what he was? He replied, “A capitalist,--an
Insurer of Ships.” I suppose he saw me glancing about the room in search
of some tokens of Shipping, or capital, for he added, “In the City.”

I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of Insurers of Ships in
the City, and I began to think with awe of having laid a young Insurer
on his back, blackened his enterprising eye, and cut his responsible
head open. But again there came upon me, for my relief, that odd
impression that Herbert Pocket would never be very successful or rich.

“I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my capital in insuring
ships. I shall buy up some good Life Assurance shares, and cut into the
Direction. I shall also do a little in the mining way. None of these
things will interfere with my chartering a few thousand tons on my own
account. I think I shall trade,” said he, leaning back in his chair, “to
the East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious
woods. It's an interesting trade.”

“And the profits are large?” said I.

“Tremendous!” said he.

I wavered again, and began to think here were greater expectations than
my own.

“I think I shall trade, also,” said he, putting his thumbs in his
waist-coat pockets, “to the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum.
Also to Ceylon, specially for elephants' tusks.”

“You will want a good many ships,” said I.

“A perfect fleet,” said he.

Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these transactions, I asked him
where the ships he insured mostly traded to at present?

“I haven't begun insuring yet,” he replied. “I am looking about me.”

Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with Barnard's Inn. I said
(in a tone of conviction), “Ah-h!”

“Yes. I am in a counting-house, and looking about me.”

“Is a counting-house profitable?” I asked.

“To--do you mean to the young fellow who's in it?” he asked, in reply.

“Yes; to you.”

“Why, n-no; not to me.” He said this with the air of one carefully
reckoning up and striking a balance. “Not directly profitable. That is,
it doesn't pay me anything, and I have to--keep myself.”

This certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook my head as
if I would imply that it would be difficult to lay by much accumulative
capital from such a source of income.

“But the thing is,” said Herbert Pocket, “that you look about you.
That's the grand thing. You are in a counting-house, you know, and you
look about you.”

It struck me as a singular implication that you couldn't be out of a
counting-house, you know, and look about you; but I silently deferred to
his experience.

“Then the time comes,” said Herbert, “when you see your opening. And you
go in, and you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and then there
you are! When you have once made your capital, you have nothing to do
but employ it.”

This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the garden;
very like. His manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly corresponded
to his manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me that he took all
blows and buffets now with just the same air as he had taken mine
then. It was evident that he had nothing around him but the simplest
necessaries, for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have been
sent in on my account from the coffee-house or somewhere else.

Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so
unassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being
puffed up. It was a pleasant addition to his naturally pleasant ways,
and we got on famously. In the evening we went out for a walk in the
streets, and went half-price to the Theatre; and next day we went to
church at Westminster Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in the
Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did.

On a moderate computation, it was many months, that Sunday, since I had
left Joe and Biddy. The space interposed between myself and them partook
of that expansion, and our marshes were any distance off. That I could
have been at our old church in my old church-going clothes, on the very
last Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibilities,
geographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the London streets so
crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted in the dusk of evening,
there were depressing hints of reproaches for that I had put the poor
old kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead of night, the footsteps
of some incapable impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard's Inn,
under pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart.

On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to
the counting-house to report himself,--to look about him, too, I
suppose,--and I bore him company. He was to come away in an hour or
two to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him. It
appeared to me that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched were
incubated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the
places to which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning. Nor
did the counting-house where Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at
all a good Observatory; being a back second floor up a yard, of a grimy
presence in all particulars, and with a look into another back second
floor, rather than a look out.

I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon 'Change, and I saw
fluey men sitting there under the bills about shipping, whom I took to
be great merchants, though I couldn't understand why they should all be
out of spirits. When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a celebrated
house which I then quite venerated, but now believe to have been the
most abject superstition in Europe, and where I could not help noticing,
even then, that there was much more gravy on the tablecloths and knives
and waiters' clothes, than in the steaks. This collation disposed of at
a moderate price (considering the grease, which was not charged for), we
went back to Barnard's Inn and got my little portmanteau, and then took
coach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at two or three o'clock in
the afternoon, and had very little way to walk to Mr. Pocket's house.
Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a little garden
overlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket's children were playing
about. And unless I deceive myself on a point where my interests or
prepossessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. and Mrs.
Pocket's children were not growing up or being brought up, but were
tumbling up.

Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree, reading, with
her legs upon another garden chair; and Mrs. Pocket's two nurse-maids
were looking about them while the children played. “Mamma,” said
Herbert, “this is young Mr. Pip.” Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me
with an appearance of amiable dignity.

“Master Alick and Miss Jane,” cried one of the nurses to two of the
children, “if you go a bouncing up against them bushes you'll fall over
into the river and be drownded, and what'll your pa say then?”

At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket's handkerchief, and
said, “If that don't make six times you've dropped it, Mum!” Upon which
Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, “Thank you, Flopson,” and settling herself
in one chair only, resumed her book. Her countenance immediately assumed
a knitted and intent expression as if she had been reading for a week,
but before she could have read half a dozen lines, she fixed her eyes
upon me, and said, “I hope your mamma is quite well?” This unexpected
inquiry put me into such a difficulty that I began saying in the
absurdest way that if there had been any such person I had no doubt she
would have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and
would have sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue.

“Well!” she cried, picking up the pocket-handkerchief, “if that don't
make seven times! What ARE you a doing of this afternoon, Mum!” Mrs.
Pocket received her property, at first with a look of unutterable
surprise as if she had never seen it before, and then with a laugh of
recognition, and said, “Thank you, Flopson,” and forgot me, and went on
reading.

I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no fewer than
six little Pockets present, in various stages of tumbling up. I had
scarcely arrived at the total when a seventh was heard, as in the region
of air, wailing dolefully.

“If there ain't Baby!” said Flopson, appearing to think it most
surprising. “Make haste up, Millers.”

Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and by degrees
the child's wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were a young
ventriloquist with something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read all the
time, and I was curious to know what the book could be.

We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come out to us; at any
rate we waited there, and so I had an opportunity of observing the
remarkable family phenomenon that whenever any of the children strayed
near Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always tripped themselves up and
tumbled over her,--always very much to her momentary astonishment, and
their own more enduring lamentation. I was at a loss to account for
this surprising circumstance, and could not help giving my mind to
speculations about it, until by and by Millers came down with the baby,
which baby was handed to Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs.
Pocket, when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket, baby
and all, and was caught by Herbert and myself.

“Gracious me, Flopson!” said Mrs. Pocket, looking off her book for a
moment, “everybody's tumbling!”

“Gracious you, indeed, Mum!” returned Flopson, very red in the face;
“what have you got there?”

“I got here, Flopson?” asked Mrs. Pocket.

“Why, if it ain't your footstool!” cried Flopson. “And if you keep it
under your skirts like that, who's to help tumbling? Here! Take the
baby, Mum, and give me your book.”

Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly danced the infant a
little in her lap, while the other children played about it. This had
lasted but a very short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders
that they were all to be taken into the house for a nap. Thus I made the
second discovery on that first occasion, that the nurture of the little
Pockets consisted of alternately tumbling up and lying down.

Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had got the children
into the house, like a little flock of sheep, and Mr. Pocket came out
of it to make my acquaintance, I was not much surprised to find that Mr.
Pocket was a gentleman with a rather perplexed expression of face, and
with his very gray hair disordered on his head, as if he didn't quite
see his way to putting anything straight.




Chapter XXIII

Mr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry to
see him. “For, I really am not,” he added, with his son's smile,
“an alarming personage.” He was a young-looking man, in spite of
his perplexities and his very gray hair, and his manner seemed quite
natural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected;
there was something comic in his distraught way, as though it would have
been downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it was very
near being so. When he had talked with me a little, he said to Mrs.
Pocket, with a rather anxious contraction of his eyebrows, which were
black and handsome, “Belinda, I hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip?” And she
looked up from her book, and said, “Yes.” She then smiled upon me in an
absent state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of orange-flower
water? As the question had no bearing, near or remote, on any foregone
or subsequent transaction, I consider it to have been thrown out, like
her previous approaches, in general conversational condescension.

I found out within a few hours, and may mention at once, that Mrs.
Pocket was the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased
Knight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased
father would have been made a Baronet but for somebody's determined
opposition arising out of entirely personal motives,--I forget whose,
if I ever knew,--the Sovereign's, the Prime Minister's, the Lord
Chancellor's, the Archbishop of Canterbury's, anybody's,--and had
tacked himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of this quite
supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted himself for storming
the English grammar at the point of the pen, in a desperate address
engrossed on vellum, on the occasion of the laying of the first stone of
some building or other, and for handing some Royal Personage either the
trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had directed Mrs. Pocket to
be brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature of things
must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of
plebeian domestic knowledge.

So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady
by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but
perfectly helpless and useless. With her character thus happily formed,
in the first bloom of her youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket: who was
also in the first bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to mount
to the Woolsack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. As his doing the
one or the other was a mere question of time, he and Mrs. Pocket had
taken Time by the forelock (when, to judge from its length, it would
seem to have wanted cutting), and had married without the knowledge of
the judicious parent. The judicious parent, having nothing to bestow or
withhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that dower upon them
after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his wife was “a
treasure for a Prince.” Mr. Pocket had invested the Prince's treasure
in the ways of the world ever since, and it was supposed to have brought
him in but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the
object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married
a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of forgiving
reproach, because he had never got one.

Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room: which was a
pleasant one, and so furnished as that I could use it with comfort for
my own private sitting-room. He then knocked at the doors of two other
similar rooms, and introduced me to their occupants, by name Drummle
and Startop. Drummle, an old-looking young man of a heavy order of
architecture, was whistling. Startop, younger in years and appearance,
was reading and holding his head, as if he thought himself in danger of
exploding it with too strong a charge of knowledge.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in somebody
else's hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house
and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the
servants. It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps, in respect of saving
trouble; but it had the appearance of being expensive, for the servants
felt it a duty they owed to themselves to be nice in their eating and
drinking, and to keep a deal of company downstairs. They allowed a very
liberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that
by far the best part of the house to have boarded in would have been
the kitchen,--always supposing the boarder capable of self-defence, for,
before I had been there a week, a neighboring lady with whom the family
were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that she had seen Millers
slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket, who burst into
tears on receiving the note, and said that it was an extraordinary thing
that the neighbors couldn't mind their own business.

By degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had been
educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had distinguished himself;
but that when he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs. Pocket very
early in life, he had impaired his prospects and taken up the calling
of a Grinder. After grinding a number of dull blades,--of whom it was
remarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always going to
help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had
left the Grindstone,--he had wearied of that poor work and had come to
London. Here, after gradually failing in loftier hopes, he had “read”
 with divers who had lacked opportunities or neglected them, and had
refurbished divers others for special occasions, and had turned his
acquirements to the account of literary compilation and correction,
and on such means, added to some very moderate private resources, still
maintained the house I saw.

Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbor; a widow lady of that highly
sympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed everybody,
and shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to circumstances. This
lady's name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the honor of taking her down to
dinner on the day of my installation. She gave me to understand on the
stairs, that it was a blow to dear Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr. Pocket
should be under the necessity of receiving gentlemen to read with him.
That did not extend to me, she told me in a gush of love and confidence
(at that time, I had known her something less than five minutes); if
they were all like Me, it would be quite another thing.

“But dear Mrs. Pocket,” said Mrs. Coiler, “after her early
disappointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket was to blame in that), requires
so much luxury and elegance--”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said, to stop her, for I was afraid she was going to
cry.

“And she is of so aristocratic a disposition--”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said again, with the same object as before.

“--That it is hard,” said Mrs. Coiler, “to have dear Mr. Pocket's time
and attention diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket.”

I could not help thinking that it might be harder if the butcher's time
and attention were diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket; but I said nothing,
and indeed had enough to do in keeping a bashful watch upon my company
manners.

It came to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs. Pocket and
Drummle while I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and
other instruments of self-destruction, that Drummle, whose Christian
name was Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a baronetcy.
It further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the
garden was all about titles, and that she knew the exact date at which
her grandpapa would have come into the book, if he ever had come at all.
Drummle didn't say much, but in his limited way (he struck me as a sulky
kind of fellow) he spoke as one of the elect, and recognized Mrs. Pocket
as a woman and a sister. No one but themselves and Mrs. Coiler the toady
neighbor showed any interest in this part of the conversation, and it
appeared to me that it was painful to Herbert; but it promised to last
a long time, when the page came in with the announcement of a domestic
affliction. It was, in effect, that the cook had mislaid the beef. To my
unutterable amazement, I now, for the first time, saw Mr. Pocket
relieve his mind by going through a performance that struck me as very
extraordinary, but which made no impression on anybody else, and
with which I soon became as familiar as the rest. He laid down the
carving-knife and fork,--being engaged in carving, at the moment,--put
his two hands into his disturbed hair, and appeared to make an
extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it. When he had done this,
and had not lifted himself up at all, he quietly went on with what he
was about.

Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to flatter me. I liked
it for a few moments, but she flattered me so very grossly that the
pleasure was soon over. She had a serpentine way of coming close at
me when she pretended to be vitally interested in the friends and
localities I had left, which was altogether snaky and fork-tongued; and
when she made an occasional bounce upon Startop (who said very little to
her), or upon Drummle (who said less), I rather envied them for being on
the opposite side of the table.

After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made admiring
comments on their eyes, noses, and legs,--a sagacious way of improving
their minds. There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides
the baby who might have been either, and the baby's next successor who
was as yet neither. They were brought in by Flopson and Millers, much as
though those two non-commissioned officers had been recruiting somewhere
for children and had enlisted these, while Mrs. Pocket looked at the
young Nobles that ought to have been as if she rather thought she had
had the pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn't quite know what
to make of them.

“Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby,” said Flopson. “Don't
take it that way, or you'll get its head under the table.”

Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its head
upon the table; which was announced to all present by a prodigious
concussion.

“Dear, dear! Give it me back, Mum,” said Flopson; “and Miss Jane, come
and dance to baby, do!”

One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely
taken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her place
by me, and danced to and from the baby until it left off crying, and
laughed. Then, all the children laughed, and Mr. Pocket (who in the
meantime had twice endeavored to lift himself up by the hair) laughed,
and we all laughed and were glad.

Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch doll,
then got it safely into Mrs. Pocket's lap, and gave it the nut-crackers
to play with; at the same time recommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice
that the handles of that instrument were not likely to agree with its
eyes, and sharply charging Miss Jane to look after the same. Then, the
two nurses left the room, and had a lively scuffle on the staircase with
a dissipated page who had waited at dinner, and who had clearly lost
half his buttons at the gaming-table.

I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket's falling into a
discussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies, while she ate a
sliced orange steeped in sugar and wine, and, forgetting all about the
baby on her lap, who did most appalling things with the nut-crackers. At
length little Jane, perceiving its young brains to be imperilled, softly
left her place, and with many small artifices coaxed the dangerous
weapon away. Mrs. Pocket finishing her orange at about the same time,
and not approving of this, said to Jane,--

“You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this instant!”

“Mamma dear,” lisped the little girl, “baby ood have put hith eyeth
out.”

“How dare you tell me so?” retorted Mrs. Pocket. “Go and sit down in
your chair this moment!”

Mrs. Pocket's dignity was so crushing, that I felt quite abashed, as if
I myself had done something to rouse it.

“Belinda,” remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other end of the table,
“how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered for the protection
of baby.”

“I will not allow anybody to interfere,” said Mrs. Pocket. “I am
surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of
interference.”

“Good God!” cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate desperation.
“Are infants to be nut-crackered into their tombs, and is nobody to save
them?”

“I will not be interfered with by Jane,” said Mrs. Pocket, with a
majestic glance at that innocent little offender. “I hope I know my poor
grandpapa's position. Jane, indeed!”

Mr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this time really did
lift himself some inches out of his chair. “Hear this!” he helplessly
exclaimed to the elements. “Babies are to be nut-crackered dead, for
people's poor grandpapa's positions!” Then he let himself down again,
and became silent.

We all looked awkwardly at the tablecloth while this was going on. A
pause succeeded, during which the honest and irrepressible baby made a
series of leaps and crows at little Jane, who appeared to me to be the
only member of the family (irrespective of servants) with whom it had
any decided acquaintance.

“Mr. Drummle,” said Mrs. Pocket, “will you ring for Flopson? Jane, you
undutiful little thing, go and lie down. Now, baby darling, come with
ma!”

The baby was the soul of honor, and protested with all its might. It
doubled itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket's arm, exhibited a pair
of knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu of its soft
face, and was carried out in the highest state of mutiny. And it gained
its point after all, for I saw it through the window within a few
minutes, being nursed by little Jane.

It happened that the other five children were left behind at the
dinner-table, through Flopson's having some private engagement, and
their not being anybody else's business. I thus became aware of the
mutual relations between them and Mr. Pocket, which were exemplified in
the following manner. Mr. Pocket, with the normal perplexity of his face
heightened and his hair rumpled, looked at them for some minutes, as if
he couldn't make out how they came to be boarding and lodging in that
establishment, and why they hadn't been billeted by Nature on
somebody else. Then, in a distant Missionary way he asked them certain
questions,--as why little Joe had that hole in his frill, who said, Pa,
Flopson was going to mend it when she had time,--and how little Fanny
came by that whitlow, who said, Pa, Millers was going to poultice it
when she didn't forget. Then, he melted into parental tenderness, and
gave them a shilling apiece and told them to go and play; and then as
they went out, with one very strong effort to lift himself up by the
hair he dismissed the hopeless subject.

In the evening there was rowing on the river. As Drummle and Startop had
each a boat, I resolved to set up mine, and to cut them both out. I was
pretty good at most exercises in which country boys are adepts, but as
I was conscious of wanting elegance of style for the Thames,--not to say
for other waters,--I at once engaged to place myself under the tuition
of the winner of a prize-wherry who plied at our stairs, and to whom I
was introduced by my new allies. This practical authority confused me
very much by saying I had the arm of a blacksmith. If he could have
known how nearly the compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would
have paid it.

There was a supper-tray after we got home at night, and I think we
should all have enjoyed ourselves, but for a rather disagreeable
domestic occurrence. Mr. Pocket was in good spirits, when a housemaid
came in, and said, “If you please, sir, I should wish to speak to you.”

“Speak to your master?” said Mrs. Pocket, whose dignity was roused
again. “How can you think of such a thing? Go and speak to Flopson. Or
speak to me--at some other time.”

“Begging your pardon, ma'am,” returned the housemaid, “I should wish to
speak at once, and to speak to master.”

Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made the best of
ourselves until he came back.

“This is a pretty thing, Belinda!” said Mr. Pocket, returning with a
countenance expressive of grief and despair. “Here's the cook lying
insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh
butter made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease!”

Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and said, “This is
that odious Sophia's doing!”

“What do you mean, Belinda?” demanded Mr. Pocket.

“Sophia has told you,” said Mrs. Pocket. “Did I not see her with my own
eyes and hear her with my own ears, come into the room just now and ask
to speak to you?”

“But has she not taken me downstairs, Belinda,” returned Mr. Pocket,
“and shown me the woman, and the bundle too?”

“And do you defend her, Matthew,” said Mrs. Pocket, “for making
mischief?”

Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan.

“Am I, grandpapa's granddaughter, to be nothing in the house?” said Mrs.
Pocket. “Besides, the cook has always been a very nice respectful woman,
and said in the most natural manner when she came to look after the
situation, that she felt I was born to be a Duchess.”

There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in the
attitude of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that attitude he said, with a
hollow voice, “Good night, Mr. Pip,” when I deemed it advisable to go to
bed and leave him.




Chapter XXIV

After two or three days, when I had established myself in my room and
had gone backwards and forwards to London several times, and had ordered
all I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together.
He knew more of my intended career than I knew myself, for he referred
to his having been told by Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed for any
profession, and that I should be well enough educated for my destiny
if I could “hold my own” with the average of young men in prosperous
circumstances. I acquiesced, of course, knowing nothing to the contrary.

He advised my attending certain places in London, for the acquisition of
such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions
of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with
intelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and
should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way
of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on
confidential terms with me in an admirable manner; and I may state
at once that he was always so zealous and honorable in fulfilling his
compact with me, that he made me zealous and honorable in fulfilling
mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt
I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such
excuse, and each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever regard
him as having anything ludicrous about him--or anything but what was
serious, honest, and good--in his tutor communication with me.

When these points were settled, and so far carried out as that I had
begun to work in earnest, it occurred to me that if I could retain my
bedroom in Barnard's Inn, my life would be agreeably varied, while my
manners would be none the worse for Herbert's society. Mr. Pocket did
not object to this arrangement, but urged that before any step could
possibly be taken in it, it must be submitted to my guardian. I felt
that this delicacy arose out of the consideration that the plan would
save Herbert some expense, so I went off to Little Britain and imparted
my wish to Mr. Jaggers.

“If I could buy the furniture now hired for me,” said I, “and one or two
other little things, I should be quite at home there.”

“Go it!” said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. “I told you you'd get on.
Well! How much do you want?”

I said I didn't know how much.

“Come!” retorted Mr. Jaggers. “How much? Fifty pounds?”

“O, not nearly so much.”

“Five pounds?” said Mr. Jaggers.

This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, “O, more than
that.”

“More than that, eh!” retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me, with
his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes on the wall
behind me; “how much more?”

“It is so difficult to fix a sum,” said I, hesitating.

“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers. “Let's get at it. Twice five; will that do?
Three times five; will that do? Four times five; will that do?”

I said I thought that would do handsomely.

“Four times five will do handsomely, will it?” said Mr. Jaggers,
knitting his brows. “Now, what do you make of four times five?”

“What do I make of it?”

“Ah!” said Mr. Jaggers; “how much?”

“I suppose you make it twenty pounds,” said I, smiling.

“Never mind what I make it, my friend,” observed Mr. Jaggers, with a
knowing and contradictory toss of his head. “I want to know what you
make it.”

“Twenty pounds, of course.”

“Wemmick!” said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. “Take Mr. Pip's
written order, and pay him twenty pounds.”

This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked
impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never
laughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in poising
himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows
joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to
creak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way. As he happened
to go out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said to Wemmick
that I hardly knew what to make of Mr. Jaggers's manner.

“Tell him that, and he'll take it as a compliment,” answered Wemmick;
“he don't mean that you should know what to make of it.--Oh!” for
I looked surprised, “it's not personal; it's professional: only
professional.”

Wemmick was at his desk, lunching--and crunching--on a dry hard biscuit;
pieces of which he threw from time to time into his slit of a mouth, as
if he were posting them.

“Always seems to me,” said Wemmick, “as if he had set a man-trap and was
watching it. Suddenly-click--you're caught!”

Without remarking that man-traps were not among the amenities of life, I
said I supposed he was very skilful?

“Deep,” said Wemmick, “as Australia.” Pointing with his pen at the
office floor, to express that Australia was understood, for the purposes
of the figure, to be symmetrically on the opposite spot of the globe.
“If there was anything deeper,” added Wemmick, bringing his pen to
paper, “he'd be it.”

Then, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and Wemmick said,
“Ca-pi-tal!” Then I asked if there were many clerks? to which he
replied,--

“We don't run much into clerks, because there's only one Jaggers, and
people won't have him at second hand. There are only four of us. Would
you like to see 'em? You are one of us, as I may say.”

I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put all the biscuit into the
post, and had paid me my money from a cash-box in a safe, the key
of which safe he kept somewhere down his back and produced from his
coat-collar like an iron-pigtail, we went upstairs. The house was dark
and shabby, and the greasy shoulders that had left their mark in Mr.
Jaggers's room seemed to have been shuffling up and down the staircase
for years. In the front first floor, a clerk who looked something
between a publican and a rat-catcher--a large pale, puffed, swollen
man--was attentively engaged with three or four people of shabby
appearance, whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed to
be treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers's coffers. “Getting evidence
together,” said Mr. Wemmick, as we came out, “for the Bailey.” In the
room over that, a little flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair
(his cropping seemed to have been forgotten when he was a puppy) was
similarly engaged with a man with weak eyes, whom Mr. Wemmick presented
to me as a smelter who kept his pot always boiling, and who would melt
me anything I pleased,--and who was in an excessive white-perspiration,
as if he had been trying his art on himself. In a back room, a
high-shouldered man with a face-ache tied up in dirty flannel, who was
dressed in old black clothes that bore the appearance of having been
waxed, was stooping over his work of making fair copies of the notes of
the other two gentlemen, for Mr. Jaggers's own use.

This was all the establishment. When we went downstairs again, Wemmick
led me into my guardian's room, and said, “This you've seen already.”

“Pray,” said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer upon them
caught my sight again, “whose likenesses are those?”

“These?” said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing the dust off
the horrible heads before bringing them down. “These are two celebrated
ones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap
(why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the
inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered
his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence,
didn't plan it badly.”

“Is it like him?” I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat
upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve.

“Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate,
directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for
me, hadn't you, Old Artful?” said Wemmick. He then explained this
affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady
and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying,
“Had it made for me, express!”

“Is the lady anybody?” said I.

“No,” returned Wemmick. “Only his game. (You liked your bit of game,
didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except
one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't
have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to
drink in it.” Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he
put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief.

“Did that other creature come to the same end?” I asked. “He has the
same look.”

“You're right,” said Wemmick; “it's the genuine look. Much as if one
nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes,
he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you.
He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed
testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though” (Mr.
Wemmick was again apostrophizing), “and you said you could write Greek.
Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!”
 Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the
largest of his mourning rings and said, “Sent out to buy it for me, only
the day before.”

While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair,
the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived
from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I
ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before
me, dusting his hands.

“O yes,” he returned, “these are all gifts of that kind. One brings
another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're
curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but,
after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with
your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is,
'Get hold of portable property'.”

When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a
friendly manner:--

“If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't
mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I
should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two
or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am
fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house.”

I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality.

“Thankee,” said he; “then we'll consider that it's to come off, when
convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Well,” said Wemmick, “he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you
punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go
to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper.”

“Shall I see something very uncommon?”

“Well,” said Wemmick, “you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very
uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness
of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of
Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it.”

I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his
preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I
would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers “at it?”

For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what
Mr. Jaggers would be found to be “at,” I replied in the affirmative.
We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where
a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the
fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably
chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or
cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and
the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever
degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to
have it “taken down.” If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said,
“I'll have it out of you!” and if anybody made an admission, he said,
“Now I have got you!” The magistrates shivered under a single bite of
his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words,
and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which
side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding
the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe,
he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the
old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his
denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and
justice in that chair that day.




Chapter XXV

Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book
as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an
acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement,
and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in
the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as
he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly,
reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire,
who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the
discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle
had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman,
and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen.

Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he
ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and
admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature,
and was--“as you may see, though you never saw her,” said Herbert to
me--“exactly like his mother.” It was but natural that I should take to
him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest
evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one
another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up
in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He
would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature,
even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always
think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water,
when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in
mid-stream.

Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a
half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down
to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often
took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all
hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so
pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried
youth and hope.

When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs.
Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I
had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She
was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity
religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of
cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon
me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as
a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the
complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they
held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily
disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon
themselves.

These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied
myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began
to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have
thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books.
There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel
my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with
one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and
clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as
Drummle if I had done less.

I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write
him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He
replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect
me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him,
putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck.

“Did you think of walking down to Walworth?” said he.

“Certainly,” said I, “if you approve.”

“Very much,” was Wemmick's reply, “for I have had my legs under the desk
all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I
have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is
of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the
cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a
Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy.
I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, “Pick us out
a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box
another day or two, we could easily have done it.” He said to that,
“Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop.” I let him, of
course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object
to an aged parent, I hope?”

I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added,
“Because I have got an aged parent at my place.” I then said what
politeness required.

“So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?” he pursued, as we walked
along.

“Not yet.”

“He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect
you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too.
Three of 'em; ain't there?”

Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my
intimate associates, I answered, “Yes.”

“Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,”--I hardly felt complimented by
the word,--“and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look
forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum
thing in his house,” proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if
the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; “he never lets a door
or window be fastened at night.”

“Is he never robbed?”

“That's it!” returned Wemmick. “He says, and gives it out publicly, “I
want to see the man who'll rob me.” Lord bless you, I have heard him, a
hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our
front office, “You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there;
why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?”
 Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or
money.”

“They dread him so much?” said I.

“Dread him,” said Wemmick. “I believe you they dread him. Not but what
he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia
metal, every spoon.”

“So they wouldn't have much,” I observed, “even if they--”

“Ah! But he would have much,” said Wemmick, cutting me short, “and they
know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd
have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get,
if he gave his mind to it.”

I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick
remarked:--

“As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know.
A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his
watch-chain. That's real enough.”

“It's very massive,” said I.

“Massive?” repeated Wemmick. “I think so. And his watch is a gold
repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip,
there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about
that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who
wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it
was red hot, if inveigled into touching it.”

At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more
general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road,
until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of
Walworth.

It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little
gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement.
Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of
garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted
with guns.

“My own doing,” said Wemmick. “Looks pretty; don't it?”

I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw;
with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham),
and a gothic door almost too small to get in at.

“That's a real flagstaff, you see,” said Wemmick, “and on Sundays I
run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I
hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication.”

The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide
and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he
hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and
not merely mechanically.

“At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time,” said Wemmick, “the gun
fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll
say he's a Stinger.”

The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress,
constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an
ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella.

“Then, at the back,” said Wemmick, “out of sight, so as not to impede
the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have
an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your
opinion--”

I said, decidedly.

“--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then,
I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and
you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir,” said
Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, “if you
can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a
time in point of provisions.”

Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was
approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long
time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth.
Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower
was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which
might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had
constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going
and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it
made the back of your hand quite wet.

“I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and
my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades,” said Wemmick, in
acknowledging my compliments. “Well; it's a good thing, you know. It
brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't
mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put
you out?”

I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There
we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean,
cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf.

“Well aged parent,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial
and jocose way, “how am you?”

“All right, John; all right!” replied the old man.

“Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent,” said Wemmick, “and I wish you could hear
his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at
him, if you please, like winking!”

“This is a fine place of my son's, sir,” cried the old man, while I
nodded as hard as I possibly could. “This is a pretty pleasure-ground,
sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept
together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's
enjoyment.”

“You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?” said Wemmick,
contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; “there's
a nod for you;” giving him a tremendous one; “there's another for you;”
 giving him a still more tremendous one; “you like that, don't you? If
you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will
you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him.”

I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him
bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in
the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken
him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of
perfection.

“Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?”

“O yes,” said Wemmick, “I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a
freehold, by George!”

“Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?”

“Never seen it,” said Wemmick. “Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged.
Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is
another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and
when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not
in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I
don't wish it professionally spoken about.”

Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his
request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and
talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. “Getting near gun-fire,” said
Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; “it's the Aged's treat.”

Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker,
with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great
nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the
moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and
repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the
Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a
cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in
it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out
of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly,
“He's fired! I heerd him!” and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is
no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him.

The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing
me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious
character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been
committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several
manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr.
Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, “every one
of 'em Lies, sir.” These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens
of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the
museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all
displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first
inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but
as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and
a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a
roasting-jack.

There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in
the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to
give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was
excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch
that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been
farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was
there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such
a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down
on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my
forehead all night.

Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him
cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from
my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in
a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at
half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees,
Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened
into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business
and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious
of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the
arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown
into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger.




Chapter XXVI

It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early
opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his
cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with
his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he
called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends
which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. “No ceremony,” he stipulated,
“and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow.” I asked him where we should
come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his
general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied,
“Come here, and I'll take you home with me.” I embrace this opportunity
of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or
a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which
smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually
large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his
hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came
in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and
my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have
been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found
him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands,
but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had
done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his
penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat
on.

There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into
the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was
something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled
his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along
westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of
the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but
he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody
recognized him.

He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of
that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want
of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the
door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used.
So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on
the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and
as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I
thought they looked like.

Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his
dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole
house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably
laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair
was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on
it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he
kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself.

There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books,
that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials,
acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid
and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and
there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little
table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the
office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an
evening and fall to work.

As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had
walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell,
and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to
be principally if not solely interested in Drummle.

“Pip,” said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to
the window, “I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?”

“The spider?” said I.

“The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow.”

“That's Bentley Drummle,” I replied; “the one with the delicate face is
Startop.”

Not making the least account of “the one with the delicate face,” he
returned, “Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that
fellow.”

He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his
replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw
discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between
me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table.

She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her
younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely
pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot
say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be
parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression
of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at
the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if
it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out
of the Witches' caldron.

She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a
finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats
at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him,
while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the
housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice
mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all
the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our
host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the
table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean
plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just
disused into two baskets on the ground by his chair. No other attendant
than the housekeeper appeared. She set on every dish; and I always saw
in her face, a face rising out of the caldron. Years afterwards, I made
a dreadful likeness of that woman, by causing a face that had no other
natural resemblance to it than it derived from flowing hair to pass
behind a bowl of flaming spirits in a dark room.

Induced to take particular notice of the housekeeper, both by her
own striking appearance and by Wemmick's preparation, I observed
that whenever she was in the room she kept her eyes attentively on my
guardian, and that she would remove her hands from any dish she put
before him, hesitatingly, as if she dreaded his calling her back, and
wanted him to speak when she was nigh, if he had anything to say. I
fancied that I could detect in his manner a consciousness of this, and a
purpose of always holding her in suspense.

Dinner went off gayly, and although my guardian seemed to follow rather
than originate subjects, I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of
our dispositions out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing my
tendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronize Herbert, and to boast
of my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my lips.
It was so with all of us, but with no one more than Drummle: the
development of whose inclination to gird in a grudging and suspicious
way at the rest, was screwed out of him before the fish was taken off.

It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that our
conversation turned upon our rowing feats, and that Drummle was rallied
for coming up behind of a night in that slow amphibious way of his.
Drummle upon this, informed our host that he much preferred our room to
our company, and that as to skill he was more than our master, and that
as to strength he could scatter us like chaff. By some invisible agency,
my guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity about this
trifle; and he fell to baring and spanning his arm to show how muscular
it was, and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms in a ridiculous
manner.

Now the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table; my guardian,
taking no heed of her, but with the side of his face turned from her,
was leaning back in his chair biting the side of his forefinger and
showing an interest in Drummle, that, to me, was quite inexplicable.
Suddenly, he clapped his large hand on the housekeeper's, like a trap,
as she stretched it across the table. So suddenly and smartly did he do
this, that we all stopped in our foolish contention.

“If you talk of strength,” said Mr. Jaggers, “I'll show you a wrist.
Molly, let them see your wrist.”

Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other
hand behind her waist. “Master,” she said, in a low voice, with her eyes
attentively and entreatingly fixed upon him. “Don't.”

“I'll show you a wrist,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an immovable
determination to show it. “Molly, let them see your wrist.”

“Master,” she again murmured. “Please!”

“Molly,” said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately looking
at the opposite side of the room, “let them see both your wrists. Show
them. Come!”

He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the table. She
brought her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by
side. The last wrist was much disfigured,--deeply scarred and scarred
across and across. When she held her hands out she took her eyes from
Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us
in succession.

“There's power here,” said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out the sinews
with his forefinger. “Very few men have the power of wrist that this
woman has. It's remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these
hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but I never saw
stronger in that respect, man's or woman's, than these.”

While he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she continued
to look at every one of us in regular succession as we sat. The moment
he ceased, she looked at him again. “That'll do, Molly,” said Mr.
Jaggers, giving her a slight nod; “you have been admired, and can
go.” She withdrew her hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers,
putting the decanters on from his dumb-waiter, filled his glass and
passed round the wine.

“At half-past nine, gentlemen,” said he, “we must break up. Pray make
the best use of your time. I am glad to see you all. Mr. Drummle, I
drink to you.”

If his object in singling out Drummle were to bring him out still more,
it perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph, Drummle showed his morose
depreciation of the rest of us, in a more and more offensive degree,
until he became downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr.
Jaggers followed him with the same strange interest. He actually seemed
to serve as a zest to Mr. Jaggers's wine.

In our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took too much to drink,
and I know we talked too much. We became particularly hot upon some
boorish sneer of Drummle's, to the effect that we were too free with our
money. It led to my remarking, with more zeal than discretion, that it
came with a bad grace from him, to whom Startop had lent money in my
presence but a week or so before.

“Well,” retorted Drummle; “he'll be paid.”

“I don't mean to imply that he won't,” said I, “but it might make you
hold your tongue about us and our money, I should think.”

“You should think!” retorted Drummle. “Oh Lord!”

“I dare say,” I went on, meaning to be very severe, “that you wouldn't
lend money to any of us if we wanted it.”

“You are right,” said Drummle. “I wouldn't lend one of you a sixpence. I
wouldn't lend anybody a sixpence.”

“Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I should say.”

“You should say,” repeated Drummle. “Oh Lord!”

This was so very aggravating--the more especially as I found myself
making no way against his surly obtuseness--that I said, disregarding
Herbert's efforts to check me,--

“Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I'll tell you what
passed between Herbert here and me, when you borrowed that money.”

“I don't want to know what passed between Herbert there and you,”
 growled Drummle. And I think he added in a lower growl, that we might
both go to the devil and shake ourselves.

“I'll tell you, however,” said I, “whether you want to know or not. We
said that as you put it in your pocket very glad to get it, you seemed
to be immensely amused at his being so weak as to lend it.”

Drummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our faces, with his hands
in his pockets and his round shoulders raised; plainly signifying that
it was quite true, and that he despised us as asses all.

Hereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a much better grace than
I had shown, and exhorted him to be a little more agreeable. Startop,
being a lively, bright young fellow, and Drummle being the exact
opposite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct
personal affront. He now retorted in a coarse, lumpish way, and Startop
tried to turn the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made
us all laugh. Resenting this little success more than anything, Drummle,
without any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of his pockets,
dropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and would
have flung it at his adversary's head, but for our entertainer's
dexterously seizing it at the instant when it was raised for that
purpose.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down the glass, and
hauling out his gold repeater by its massive chain, “I am exceedingly
sorry to announce that it's half past nine.”

On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the street door,
Startop was cheerily calling Drummle “old boy,” as if nothing had
happened. But the old boy was so far from responding, that he would not
even walk to Hammersmith on the same side of the way; so Herbert and I,
who remained in town, saw them going down the street on opposite sides;
Startop leading, and Drummle lagging behind in the shadow of the houses,
much as he was wont to follow in his boat.

As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert there for
a moment, and run upstairs again to say a word to my guardian. I found
him in his dressing-room surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard
at it, washing his hands of us.

I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that anything
disagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped he would not blame
me much.

“Pooh!” said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the
water-drops; “it's nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though.”

He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his head, and blowing, and
towelling himself.

“I am glad you like him, sir,” said I--“but I don't.”

“No, no,” my guardian assented; “don't have too much to do with him.
Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip; he is one
of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-teller--”

Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye.

“But I am not a fortune-teller,” he said, letting his head drop into a
festoon of towel, and towelling away at his two ears. “You know what I
am, don't you? Good night, Pip.”

“Good night, sir.”

In about a month after that, the Spider's time with Mr. Pocket was up
for good, and, to the great relief of all the house but Mrs. Pocket, he
went home to the family hole.




Chapter XXVII


“MY DEAR MR PIP:--

“I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he
is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if
agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard's Hotel
Tuesday morning at nine o'clock, when if not agreeable please leave
word. Your poor sister is much the same as when you left. We talk of you
in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying and doing. If
now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the love of
poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from your ever obliged, and
affectionate servant,

“BIDDY.”

“P.S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks. He says you will
understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see him,
even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is a
worthy, worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last little
sentence, and he wishes me most particular to write again what larks.”

I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and therefore its
appointment was for next day. Let me confess exactly with what feelings
I looked forward to Joe's coming.

Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no;
with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of
incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly
would have paid money. My greatest reassurance was that he was coming
to Barnard's Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently would not fall
in Bentley Drummle's way. I had little objection to his being seen by
Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the
sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in
contempt. So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are
usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.

I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite
unnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those
wrestles with Barnard proved to be. By this time, the rooms were
vastly different from what I had found them, and I enjoyed the honor
of occupying a few prominent pages in the books of a neighboring
upholsterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had even started a boy
in boots,--top boots,--in bondage and slavery to whom I might have been
said to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster (out of the
refuse of my washerwoman's family), and had clothed him with a blue
coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots
already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal
to eat; and with both of those horrible requirements he haunted my
existence.

This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight on Tuesday
morning in the hall, (it was two feet square, as charged for
floorcloth,) and Herbert suggested certain things for breakfast that he
thought Joe would like. While I felt sincerely obliged to him for being
so interested and considerate, I had an odd half-provoked sense of
suspicion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see him, he wouldn't
have been quite so brisk about it.

However, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready for Joe, and
I got up early in the morning, and caused the sitting-room and
breakfast-table to assume their most splendid appearance. Unfortunately
the morning was drizzly, and an angel could not have concealed the fact
that Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window, like some weak
giant of a Sweep.

As the time approached I should have liked to run away, but the Avenger
pursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently I heard Joe on
the staircase. I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming upstairs,
--his state boots being always too big for him,--and by the time
it took him to read the names on the other floors in the course of
his ascent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I could hear his
finger tracing over the painted letters of my name, and I afterwards
distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally he gave a
faint single rap, and Pepper--such was the compromising name of the
avenging boy--announced “Mr. Gargery!” I thought he never would have
done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone out to lift him off the
mat, but at last he came in.

“Joe, how are you, Joe?”

“Pip, how AIR you, Pip?”

With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his hat put
down on the floor between us, he caught both my hands and worked them
straight up and down, as if I had been the last-patented Pump.

“I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat.”

But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird's-nest with
eggs in it, wouldn't hear of parting with that piece of property, and
persisted in standing talking over it in a most uncomfortable way.

“Which you have that growed,” said Joe, “and that swelled, and that
gentle-folked;” Joe considered a little before he discovered this word;
“as to be sure you are a honor to your king and country.”

“And you, Joe, look wonderfully well.”

“Thank God,” said Joe, “I'm ekerval to most. And your sister, she's
no worse than she were. And Biddy, she's ever right and ready. And all
friends is no backerder, if not no forarder. 'Ceptin Wopsle; he's had a
drop.”

All this time (still with both hands taking great care of the
bird's-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the room, and
round and round the flowered pattern of my dressing-gown.

“Had a drop, Joe?”

“Why yes,” said Joe, lowering his voice, “he's left the Church and went
into the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways brought him
to London along with me. And his wish were,” said Joe, getting the
bird's-nest under his left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an
egg with his right; “if no offence, as I would 'and you that.”

I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled play-bill of
a small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first appearance, in that
very week, of “the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown,
whose unique performance in the highest tragic walk of our National Bard
has lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic circles.”

“Were you at his performance, Joe?” I inquired.

“I were,” said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity.

“Was there a great sensation?”

“Why,” said Joe, “yes, there certainly were a peck of orange-peel.
Partickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to yourself, sir,
whether it were calc'lated to keep a man up to his work with a good
hart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with
“Amen!” A man may have had a misfortun' and been in the Church,” said
Joe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and feeling tone, “but
that is no reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I
meantersay, if the ghost of a man's own father cannot be allowed to
claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning 'at
is unfortunately made so small as that the weight of the black feathers
brings it off, try to keep it on how you may.”

A ghost-seeing effect in Joe's own countenance informed me that Herbert
had entered the room. So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his
hand; but Joe backed from it, and held on by the bird's-nest.

“Your servant, Sir,” said Joe, “which I hope as you and Pip”--here his
eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on table, and so
plainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman one of the
family, that I frowned it down and confused him more--“I meantersay, you
two gentlemen,--which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot?
For the present may be a werry good inn, according to London opinions,”
 said Joe, confidentially, “and I believe its character do stand it; but I
wouldn't keep a pig in it myself,--not in the case that I wished him to
fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavor on him.”

Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our
dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this tendency to call me
“sir,” Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked all round the
room for a suitable spot on which to deposit his hat,--as if it were
only on some very few rare substances in nature that it could find a
resting place,--and ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the
chimney-piece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at intervals.

“Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?” asked Herbert, who always
presided of a morning.

“Thankee, Sir,” said Joe, stiff from head to foot, “I'll take whichever
is most agreeable to yourself.”

“What do you say to coffee?”

“Thankee, Sir,” returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal,
“since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run contrairy
to your own opinions. But don't you never find it a little 'eating?”

“Say tea then,” said Herbert, pouring it out.

Here Joe's hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started out of his
chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot. As if it
were an absolute point of good breeding that it should tumble off again
soon.

“When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?”

“Were it yesterday afternoon?” said Joe, after coughing behind his hand,
as if he had had time to catch the whooping-cough since he came. “No
it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon” (with an
appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality).

“Have you seen anything of London yet?”

“Why, yes, Sir,” said Joe, “me and Wopsle went off straight to look at
the Blacking Ware'us. But we didn't find that it come up to its likeness
in the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay,” added Joe, in
an explanatory manner, “as it is there drawd too architectooralooral.”

I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily expressive
to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but
for his attention being providentially attracted by his hat, which
was toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a constant attention, and a
quickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by wicket-keeping.
He made extraordinary play with it, and showed the greatest skill; now,
rushing at it and catching it neatly as it dropped; now, merely stopping
it midway, beating it up, and humoring it in various parts of the room
and against a good deal of the pattern of the paper on the wall,
before he felt it safe to close with it; finally splashing it into the
slop-basin, where I took the liberty of laying hands upon it.

As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to
reflect upon,--insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself
to that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why
should he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for
his holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of
meditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had
his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such
remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much
more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn't dropped it; that I was
heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City.

I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was
all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have
been easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him;
in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head.

“Us two being now alone, sir,”--began Joe.

“Joe,” I interrupted, pettishly, “how can you call me, sir?”

Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like
reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars
were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the look.

“Us two being now alone,” resumed Joe, “and me having the intentions and
abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now conclude--leastways
begin--to mention what have led to my having had the present honor. For
was it not,” said Joe, with his old air of lucid exposition, “that my
only wish were to be useful to you, I should not have had the honor of
breaking wittles in the company and abode of gentlemen.”

I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance
against this tone.

“Well, sir,” pursued Joe, “this is how it were. I were at the Bargemen
t'other night, Pip;”--whenever he subsided into affection, he called me
Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me sir; “when
there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical,”
 said Joe, going down a new track, “do comb my 'air the wrong way
sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were him which
ever had your infant companionation and were looked upon as a playfellow
by yourself.”

“Nonsense. It was you, Joe.”

“Which I fully believed it were, Pip,” said Joe, slightly tossing
his head, “though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip; this same
identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to me at
the Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment to the
workingman, sir, and do not over stimilate), and his word were, 'Joseph,
Miss Havisham she wish to speak to you.'”

“Miss Havisham, Joe?”

“'She wish,' were Pumblechook's word, 'to speak to you.'” Joe sat and
rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

“Yes, Joe? Go on, please.”

“Next day, sir,” said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way off,
“having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A.”

“Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?”

“Which I say, sir,” replied Joe, with an air of legal formality, as if
he were making his will, “Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her expression
air then as follering: 'Mr. Gargery. You air in correspondence with Mr.
Pip?' Having had a letter from you, I were able to say 'I am.' (When
I married your sister, sir, I said 'I will;' and when I answered your
friend, Pip, I said 'I am.') 'Would you tell him, then,' said she, 'that
which Estella has come home and would be glad to see him.'”

I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote cause
of its firing may have been my consciousness that if I had known his
errand, I should have given him more encouragement.

“Biddy,” pursued Joe, “when I got home and asked her fur to write the
message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, 'I know he will be very
glad to have it by word of mouth, it is holiday time, you want to see
him, go!' I have now concluded, sir,” said Joe, rising from his chair,
“and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a
greater height.”

“But you are not going now, Joe?”

“Yes I am,” said Joe.

“But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?”

“No I am not,” said Joe.

Our eyes met, and all the “Sir” melted out of that manly heart as he gave
me his hand.

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded
together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a
whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions
among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there's been
any fault at all to-day, it's mine. You and me is not two figures to
be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and
beknown, and understood among friends. It ain't that I am proud, but
that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these
clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge, the
kitchen, or off th' meshes. You won't find half so much fault in me if
you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even
my pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you
should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge
window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old
burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I'm awful dull, but I hope I've
beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless
you, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless you!”

I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity
in him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he
spoke these words than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched me
gently on the forehead, and went out. As soon as I could recover
myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the
neighboring streets; but he was gone.




Chapter XXVIII

It was clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in the first
flow of my repentance, it was equally clear that I must stay at Joe's.
But, when I had secured my box-place by to-morrow's coach, and had been
down to Mr. Pocket's and back, I was not by any means convinced on the
last point, and began to invent reasons and make excuses for putting
up at the Blue Boar. I should be an inconvenience at Joe's; I was not
expected, and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far from
Miss Havisham's, and she was exacting and mightn't like it. All other
swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such
pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should
innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture is
reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin
of my own make as good money! An obliging stranger, under pretence of
compactly folding up my bank-notes for security's sake, abstracts the
notes and gives me nutshells; but what is his sleight of hand to mine,
when I fold up my own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes!

Having settled that I must go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much
disturbed by indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was
tempting to think of that expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots
in the archway of the Blue Boar's posting-yard; it was almost solemn to
imagine him casually produced in the tailor's shop, and confounding
the disrespectful senses of Trabb's boy. On the other hand, Trabb's boy
might worm himself into his intimacy and tell him things; or, reckless
and desperate wretch as I knew he could be, might hoot him in the High
Street. My patroness, too, might hear of him, and not approve. On the
whole, I resolved to leave the Avenger behind.

It was the afternoon coach by which I had taken my place, and, as winter
had now come round, I should not arrive at my destination until two or
three hours after dark. Our time of starting from the Cross Keys was
two o'clock. I arrived on the ground with a quarter of an hour to spare,
attended by the Avenger,--if I may connect that expression with one who
never attended on me if he could possibly help it.

At that time it was customary to carry Convicts down to the dock-yards
by stage-coach. As I had often heard of them in the capacity of outside
passengers, and had more than once seen them on the high road dangling
their ironed legs over the coach roof, I had no cause to be surprised
when Herbert, meeting me in the yard, came up and told me there were two
convicts going down with me. But I had a reason that was an old reason
now for constitutionally faltering whenever I heard the word “convict.”

“You don't mind them, Handel?” said Herbert.

“O no!”

“I thought you seemed as if you didn't like them?”

“I can't pretend that I do like them, and I suppose you don't
particularly. But I don't mind them.”

“See! There they are,” said Herbert, “coming out of the Tap. What a
degraded and vile sight it is!”

They had been treating their guard, I suppose, for they had a gaoler
with them, and all three came out wiping their mouths on their hands.
The two convicts were handcuffed together, and had irons on their
legs,--irons of a pattern that I knew well. They wore the dress that I
likewise knew well. Their keeper had a brace of pistols, and carried
a thick-knobbed bludgeon under his arm; but he was on terms of good
understanding with them, and stood with them beside him, looking on at
the putting-to of the horses, rather with an air as if the convicts were
an interesting Exhibition not formally open at the moment, and he the
Curator. One was a taller and stouter man than the other, and appeared
as a matter of course, according to the mysterious ways of the world,
both convict and free, to have had allotted to him the smaller suit of
clothes. His arms and legs were like great pincushions of those shapes,
and his attire disguised him absurdly; but I knew his half-closed eye
at one glance. There stood the man whom I had seen on the settle at the
Three Jolly Bargemen on a Saturday night, and who had brought me down
with his invisible gun!

It was easy to make sure that as yet he knew me no more than if he had
never seen me in his life. He looked across at me, and his eye appraised
my watch-chain, and then he incidentally spat and said something to the
other convict, and they laughed and slued themselves round with a clink
of their coupling manacle, and looked at something else. The great
numbers on their backs, as if they were street doors; their coarse mangy
ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower animals; their ironed
legs, apologetically garlanded with pocket-handkerchiefs; and the way
in which all present looked at them and kept from them; made them (as
Herbert had said) a most disagreeable and degraded spectacle.

But this was not the worst of it. It came out that the whole of the back
of the coach had been taken by a family removing from London, and that
there were no places for the two prisoners but on the seat in front
behind the coachman. Hereupon, a choleric gentleman, who had taken the
fourth place on that seat, flew into a most violent passion, and said
that it was a breach of contract to mix him up with such villainous
company, and that it was poisonous, and pernicious, and infamous, and
shameful, and I don't know what else. At this time the coach was ready
and the coachman impatient, and we were all preparing to get up, and
the prisoners had come over with their keeper,--bringing with them that
curious flavor of bread-poultice, baize, rope-yarn, and hearthstone,
which attends the convict presence.

“Don't take it so much amiss, sir,” pleaded the keeper to the angry
passenger; “I'll sit next you myself. I'll put 'em on the outside of
the row. They won't interfere with you, sir. You needn't know they're
there.”

“And don't blame me,” growled the convict I had recognized. “I don't
want to go. I am quite ready to stay behind. As fur as I am concerned
any one's welcome to my place.”

“Or mine,” said the other, gruffly. “I wouldn't have incommoded none
of you, if I'd had my way.” Then they both laughed, and began cracking
nuts, and spitting the shells about.--As I really think I should have
liked to do myself, if I had been in their place and so despised.

At length, it was voted that there was no help for the angry gentleman,
and that he must either go in his chance company or remain behind. So he
got into his place, still making complaints, and the keeper got into the
place next him, and the convicts hauled themselves up as well as they
could, and the convict I had recognized sat behind me with his breath on
the hair of my head.

“Good-bye, Handel!” Herbert called out as we started. I thought what a
blessed fortune it was, that he had found another name for me than Pip.

It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the convict's
breathing, not only on the back of my head, but all along my spine. The
sensation was like being touched in the marrow with some pungent and
searching acid, it set my very teeth on edge. He seemed to have more
breathing business to do than another man, and to make more noise in
doing it; and I was conscious of growing high-shouldered on one side, in
my shrinking endeavors to fend him off.

The weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed the cold. It made us
all lethargic before we had gone far, and when we had left the Half-way
House behind, we habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I dozed
off, myself, in considering the question whether I ought to restore a
couple of pounds sterling to this creature before losing sight of him,
and how it could best be done. In the act of dipping forward as if I
were going to bathe among the horses, I woke in a fright and took the
question up again.

But I must have lost it longer than I had thought, since, although
I could recognize nothing in the darkness and the fitful lights and
shadows of our lamps, I traced marsh country in the cold damp wind that
blew at us. Cowering forward for warmth and to make me a screen against
the wind, the convicts were closer to me than before. The very first
words I heard them interchange as I became conscious, were the words of
my own thought, “Two One Pound notes.”

“How did he get 'em?” said the convict I had never seen.

“How should I know?” returned the other. “He had 'em stowed away
somehows. Giv him by friends, I expect.”

“I wish,” said the other, with a bitter curse upon the cold, “that I had
'em here.”

“Two one pound notes, or friends?”

“Two one pound notes. I'd sell all the friends I ever had for one, and
think it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says--?”

“So he says,” resumed the convict I had recognized,--“it was all
said and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in the
Dock-yard,--'You're a going to be discharged?' Yes, I was. Would I find
out that boy that had fed him and kep his secret, and give him them two
one pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did.”

“More fool you,” growled the other. “I'd have spent 'em on a Man, in
wittles and drink. He must have been a green one. Mean to say he knowed
nothing of you?”

“Not a ha'porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was tried again
for prison breaking, and got made a Lifer.”

“And was that--Honor!--the only time you worked out, in this part of the
country?”

“The only time.”

“What might have been your opinion of the place?”

“A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work; work, swamp,
mist, and mudbank.”

They both execrated the place in very strong language, and gradually
growled themselves out, and had nothing left to say.

After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got down and
been left in the solitude and darkness of the highway, but for feeling
certain that the man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was not
only so changed in the course of nature, but so differently dressed and
so differently circumstanced, that it was not at all likely he could
have known me without accidental help. Still, the coincidence of our
being together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to fill me with a
dread that some other coincidence might at any moment connect me, in his
hearing, with my name. For this reason, I resolved to alight as soon as
we touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This device I
executed successfully. My little portmanteau was in the boot under my
feet; I had but to turn a hinge to get it out; I threw it down before
me, got down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the first
stones of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they went their way
with the coach, and I knew at what point they would be spirited off to
the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat with its convict crew waiting for
them at the slime-washed stairs,--again heard the gruff “Give way, you!”
 like and order to dogs,--again saw the wicked Noah's Ark lying out on
the black water.

I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was altogether
undefined and vague, but there was great fear upon me. As I walked on to
the hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension of
a painful or disagreeable recognition, made me tremble. I am confident
that it took no distinctness of shape, and that it was the revival for a
few minutes of the terror of childhood.

The coffee-room at the Blue Boar was empty, and I had not only ordered
my dinner there, but had sat down to it, before the waiter knew me. As
soon as he had apologized for the remissness of his memory, he asked me
if he should send Boots for Mr. Pumblechook?

“No,” said I, “certainly not.”

The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Remonstrance from the
Commercials, on the day when I was bound) appeared surprised, and
took the earliest opportunity of putting a dirty old copy of a local
newspaper so directly in my way, that I took it up and read this
paragraph:--

Our readers will learn, not altogether without interest, in reference to
the recent romantic rise in fortune of a young artificer in iron of this
neighborhood (what a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our as yet
not universally acknowledged townsman TOOBY, the poet of our columns!)
that the youth's earliest patron, companion, and friend, was a highly
respected individual not entirely unconnected with the corn and seed
trade, and whose eminently convenient and commodious business premises
are situate within a hundred miles of the High Street. It is not wholly
irrespective of our personal feelings that we record HIM as the Mentor
of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our town produced
the founder of the latter's fortunes. Does the thought-contracted brow
of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire whose
fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the BLACKSMITH of Antwerp.
VERB. SAP.

I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the
days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met
somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have
told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my
fortunes.




Chapter XXIX

Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to
Miss Havisham's, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham's
side of town,--which was not Joe's side; I could go there
to-morrow,--thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures
of her plans for me.

She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me, and it could not
fail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to
restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms,
set the clocks a-going and the cold hearths a-blazing, tear down the
cobwebs, destroy the vermin,--in short, do all the shining deeds of the
young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to
look at the house as I passed; and its seared red brick walls, blocked
windows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys with
its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich
attractive mystery, of which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration
of it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had taken such
strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were so set upon
her, though her influence on my boyish life and character had been
all-powerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with any
attributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this place, of a
fixed purpose, because it is the clew by which I am to be followed into
my poor labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion
of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I
loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found
her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often,
if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against
peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that
could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it,
and it had no more influence in restraining me than if I had devoutly
believed her to be human perfection.

I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When
I had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the
gate, while I tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart
moderately quiet. I heard the side-door open, and steps come across the
courtyard; but I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on its
rusty hinges.

Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I started
much more naturally then, to find myself confronted by a man in a sober
gray dress. The last man I should have expected to see in that place of
porter at Miss Havisham's door.

“Orlick!”

“Ah, young master, there's more changes than yours. But come in, come
in. It's opposed to my orders to hold the gate open.”

I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out. “Yes!”
 said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few steps towards
the house. “Here I am!”

“How did you come here?”

“I come her,” he retorted, “on my legs. I had my box brought alongside
me in a barrow.”

“Are you here for good?”

“I ain't here for harm, young master, I suppose?”

I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort in my
mind, while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up my
legs and arms, to my face.

“Then you have left the forge?” I said.

“Do this look like a forge?” replied Orlick, sending his glance all
round him with an air of injury. “Now, do it look like it?”

I asked him how long he had left Gargery's forge?

“One day is so like another here,” he replied, “that I don't know
without casting it up. However, I come here some time since you left.”

“I could have told you that, Orlick.”

“Ah!” said he, dryly. “But then you've got to be a scholar.”

By this time we had come to the house, where I found his room to be one
just within the side-door, with a little window in it looking on the
courtyard. In its small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of place
usually assigned to a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on
the wall, to which he now added the gate key; and his patchwork-covered
bed was in a little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly,
confined, and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dormouse; while he,
looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a corner by the window, looked
like the human dormouse for whom it was fitted up,--as indeed he was.

“I never saw this room before,” I remarked; “but there used to be no
Porter here.”

“No,” said he; “not till it got about that there was no protection on
the premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with convicts and
Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was recommended to
the place as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, and
I took it. It's easier than bellowsing and hammering.--That's loaded,
that is.”

My eye had been caught by a gun with a brass-bound stock over the
chimney-piece, and his eye had followed mine.

“Well,” said I, not desirous of more conversation, “shall I go up to
Miss Havisham?”

“Burn me, if I know!” he retorted, first stretching himself and then
shaking himself; “my orders ends here, young master. I give this here
bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till
you meet somebody.”

“I am expected, I believe?”

“Burn me twice over, if I can say!” said he.

Upon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first trodden in
my thick boots, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the passage,
while the bell was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket, who
appeared to have now become constitutionally green and yellow by reason
of me.

“Oh!” said she. “You, is it, Mr. Pip?”

“It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr. Pocket and family
are all well.”

“Are they any wiser?” said Sarah, with a dismal shake of the head; “they
had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! You know your way,
sir?”

Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many a time. I
ascended it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old
way at the door of Miss Havisham's room. “Pip's rap,” I heard her say,
immediately; “come in, Pip.”

She was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with her two
hands crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them, and her eyes on
the fire. Sitting near her, with the white shoe, that had never been
worn, in her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it, was an elegant
lady whom I had never seen.

“Come in, Pip,” Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking round
or up; “come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I
were a queen, eh?--Well?”

She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a
grimly playful manner,--

“Well?”

“I heard, Miss Havisham,” said I, rather at a loss, “that you were so
kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly.”

“Well?”

The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked
archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella's eyes. But she
was so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly,
in all things winning admiration, had made such wonderful advance,
that I seemed to have made none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that
I slipped hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again. O
the sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the
inaccessibility that came about her!

She gave me her hand. I stammered something about the pleasure I felt in
seeing her again, and about my having looked forward to it, for a long,
long time.

“Do you find her much changed, Pip?” asked Miss Havisham, with her
greedy look, and striking her stick upon a chair that stood between
them, as a sign to me to sit down there.

“When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there was nothing of Estella
in the face or figure; but now it all settles down so curiously into the
old--”

“What? You are not going to say into the old Estella?” Miss Havisham
interrupted. “She was proud and insulting, and you wanted to go away
from her. Don't you remember?”

I said confusedly that that was long ago, and that I knew no better
then, and the like. Estella smiled with perfect composure, and said she
had no doubt of my having been quite right, and of her having been very
disagreeable.

“Is he changed?” Miss Havisham asked her.

“Very much,” said Estella, looking at me.

“Less coarse and common?” said Miss Havisham, playing with Estella's
hair.

Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and laughed again,
and looked at me, and put the shoe down. She treated me as a boy still,
but she lured me on.

We sat in the dreamy room among the old strange influences which had
so wrought upon me, and I learnt that she had but just come home from
France, and that she was going to London. Proud and wilful as of old,
she had brought those qualities into such subjection to her beauty that
it was impossible and out of nature--or I thought so--to separate them
from her beauty. Truly it was impossible to dissociate her presence
from all those wretched hankerings after money and gentility that had
disturbed my boyhood,--from all those ill-regulated aspirations that had
first made me ashamed of home and Joe,--from all those visions that had
raised her face in the glowing fire, struck it out of the iron on the
anvil, extracted it from the darkness of night to look in at the wooden
window of the forge, and flit away. In a word, it was impossible for me
to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life
of my life.

It was settled that I should stay there all the rest of the day, and
return to the hotel at night, and to London to-morrow. When we had
conversed for a while, Miss Havisham sent us two out to walk in the
neglected garden: on our coming in by and by, she said, I should wheel
her about a little, as in times of yore.

So, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate through which I
had strayed to my encounter with the pale young gentleman, now Herbert;
I, trembling in spirit and worshipping the very hem of her dress; she,
quite composed and most decidedly not worshipping the hem of mine. As we
drew near to the place of encounter, she stopped and said,--

“I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see that fight
that day; but I did, and I enjoyed it very much.”

“You rewarded me very much.”

“Did I?” she replied, in an incidental and forgetful way. “I remember I
entertained a great objection to your adversary, because I took it ill
that he should be brought here to pester me with his company.”

“He and I are great friends now.”

“Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read with his father?”

“Yes.”

I made the admission with reluctance, for it seemed to have a boyish
look, and she already treated me more than enough like a boy.

“Since your change of fortune and prospects, you have changed your
companions,” said Estella.

“Naturally,” said I.

“And necessarily,” she added, in a haughty tone; “what was fit company
for you once, would be quite unfit company for you now.”

In my conscience, I doubt very much whether I had any lingering
intention left of going to see Joe; but if I had, this observation put
it to flight.

“You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in those times?” said
Estella, with a slight wave of her hand, signifying in the fighting
times.

“Not the least.”

The air of completeness and superiority with which she walked at my
side, and the air of youthfulness and submission with which I walked at
hers, made a contrast that I strongly felt. It would have rankled in me
more than it did, if I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being
so set apart for her and assigned to her.

The garden was too overgrown and rank for walking in with ease, and
after we had made the round of it twice or thrice, we came out again
into the brewery yard. I showed her to a nicety where I had seen her
walking on the casks, that first old day, and she said, with a cold and
careless look in that direction, “Did I?” I reminded her where she had
come out of the house and given me my meat and drink, and she said, “I
don't remember.” “Not remember that you made me cry?” said I. “No,” said
she, and shook her head and looked about her. I verily believe that
her not remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry again,
inwardly,--and that is the sharpest crying of all.

“You must know,” said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and
beautiful woman might, “that I have no heart,--if that has anything to
do with my memory.”

I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of
doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty
without it.

“Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt,” said
Estella, “and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease
to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there,
no--sympathy--sentiment--nonsense.”

What was it that was borne in upon my mind when she stood still and
looked attentively at me? Anything that I had seen in Miss Havisham? No.
In some of her looks and gestures there was that tinge of resemblance
to Miss Havisham which may often be noticed to have been acquired by
children, from grown person with whom they have been much associated and
secluded, and which, when childhood is passed, will produce a remarkable
occasional likeness of expression between faces that are otherwise quite
different. And yet I could not trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked
again, and though she was still looking at me, the suggestion was gone.

What was it?

“I am serious,” said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow was
smooth) as with a darkening of her face; “if we are to be thrown much
together, you had better believe it at once. No!” imperiously stopping
me as I opened my lips. “I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I
have never had any such thing.”

In another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused, and she
pointed to the high gallery where I had seen her going out on that same
first day, and told me she remembered to have been up there, and to have
seen me standing scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again
the same dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp crossed me. My
involuntary start occasioned her to lay her hand upon my arm. Instantly
the ghost passed once more and was gone.

What was it?

“What is the matter?” asked Estella. “Are you scared again?”

“I should be, if I believed what you said just now,” I replied, to turn
it off.

“Then you don't? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Havisham will
soon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be
laid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round
of the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my
cruelty to-day; you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder.”

Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held it in one hand
now, and with the other lightly touched my shoulder as we walked. We
walked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in
bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of
the old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could
not have been more cherished in my remembrance.

There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me;
we were of nearly the same age, though of course the age told for more
in her case than in mine; but the air of inaccessibility which her
beauty and her manner gave her, tormented me in the midst of my delight,
and at the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen
us for one another. Wretched boy!

At last we went back into the house, and there I heard, with surprise,
that my guardian had come down to see Miss Havisham on business, and
would come back to dinner. The old wintry branches of chandeliers in
the room where the mouldering table was spread had been lighted while we
were out, and Miss Havisham was in her chair and waiting for me.

It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, when we began
the old slow circuit round about the ashes of the bridal feast. But,
in the funereal room, with that figure of the grave fallen back in the
chair fixing its eyes upon her, Estella looked more bright and beautiful
than before, and I was under stronger enchantment.

The time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour drew close at hand,
and Estella left us to prepare herself. We had stopped near the centre
of the long table, and Miss Havisham, with one of her withered arms
stretched out of the chair, rested that clenched hand upon the yellow
cloth. As Estella looked back over her shoulder before going out at the
door, Miss Havisham kissed that hand to her, with a ravenous intensity
that was of its kind quite dreadful.

Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me, and
said in a whisper,--

“Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?”

“Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham.”

She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as
she sat in the chair. “Love her, love her, love her! How does she use
you?”

Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question
at all) she repeated, “Love her, love her, love her! If she favors
you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to
pieces,--and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,--love
her, love her, love her!”

Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her
utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm round
my neck swell with the vehemence that possessed her.

“Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her,
to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved.
Love her!”

She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she
meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of
love--despair--revenge--dire death--it could not have sounded from her
lips more like a curse.

“I'll tell you,” said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, “what
real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation,
utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the
whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter--as I
did!”

When she came to that, and to a wild cry that followed that, I caught
her round the waist. For she rose up in the chair, in her shroud of a
dress, and struck at the air as if she would as soon have struck herself
against the wall and fallen dead.

All this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down into her chair, I
was conscious of a scent that I knew, and turning, saw my guardian in
the room.

He always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I think) a
pocket-handkerchief of rich silk and of imposing proportions, which was
of great value to him in his profession. I have seen him so terrify a
client or a witness by ceremoniously unfolding this pocket-handkerchief
as if he were immediately going to blow his nose, and then pausing,
as if he knew he should not have time to do it before such client
or witness committed himself, that the self-committal has followed
directly, quite as a matter of course. When I saw him in the room he had
this expressive pocket-handkerchief in both hands, and was looking at
us. On meeting my eye, he said plainly, by a momentary and silent pause
in that attitude, “Indeed? Singular!” and then put the handkerchief to
its right use with wonderful effect.

Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like everybody
else) afraid of him. She made a strong attempt to compose herself, and
stammered that he was as punctual as ever.

“As punctual as ever,” he repeated, coming up to us. “(How do you do,
Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham? Once round?) And so you are
here, Pip?”

I told him when I had arrived, and how Miss Havisham had wished me to
come and see Estella. To which he replied, “Ah! Very fine young lady!”
 Then he pushed Miss Havisham in her chair before him, with one of his
large hands, and put the other in his trousers-pocket as if the pocket
were full of secrets.

“Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before?” said he, when
he came to a stop.

“How often?”

“Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?”

“Oh! Certainly not so many.”

“Twice?”

“Jaggers,” interposed Miss Havisham, much to my relief, “leave my Pip
alone, and go with him to your dinner.”

He complied, and we groped our way down the dark stairs together. While
we were still on our way to those detached apartments across the paved
yard at the back, he asked me how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat
and drink; offering me a breadth of choice, as usual, between a hundred
times and once.

I considered, and said, “Never.”

“And never will, Pip,” he retorted, with a frowning smile. “She has
never allowed herself to be seen doing either, since she lived this
present life of hers. She wanders about in the night, and then lays
hands on such food as she takes.”

“Pray, sir,” said I, “may I ask you a question?”

“You may,” said he, “and I may decline to answer it. Put your question.”

“Estella's name. Is it Havisham or--?” I had nothing to add.

“Or what?” said he.

“Is it Havisham?”

“It is Havisham.”

This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah Pocket awaited
us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella sat opposite to him, I faced my
green and yellow friend. We dined very well, and were waited on by a
maid-servant whom I had never seen in all my comings and goings, but
who, for anything I know, had been in that mysterious house the whole
time. After dinner a bottle of choice old port was placed before my
guardian (he was evidently well acquainted with the vintage), and the
two ladies left us.

Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers under that
roof I never saw elsewhere, even in him. He kept his very looks to
himself, and scarcely directed his eyes to Estella's face once during
dinner. When she spoke to him, he listened, and in due course answered,
but never looked at her, that I could see. On the other hand, she often
looked at him, with interest and curiosity, if not distrust, but his
face never showed the least consciousness. Throughout dinner he took
a dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and yellower, by often
referring in conversation with me to my expectations; but here,
again, he showed no consciousness, and even made it appear that he
extorted--and even did extort, though I don't know how--those references
out of my innocent self.

And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an air upon him
of general lying by in consequence of information he possessed, that
really was too much for me. He cross-examined his very wine when he had
nothing else in hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted
the port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his
glass again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and
cross-examined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if I had known
the wine to be telling him something to my disadvantage. Three or four
times I feebly thought I would start conversation; but whenever he saw
me going to ask him anything, he looked at me with his glass in his
hand, and rolling his wine about in his mouth, as if requesting me to
take notice that it was of no use, for he couldn't answer.

I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved her
in the danger of being goaded to madness, and perhaps tearing off her
cap,--which was a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop,--and
strewing the ground with her hair,--which assuredly had never grown
on her head. She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss
Havisham's room, and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss
Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels
from her dressing-table into Estella's hair, and about her bosom and
arms; and I saw even my guardian look at her from under his thick
eyebrows, and raise them a little, when her loveliness was before him,
with those rich flushes of glitter and color in it.

Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into custody, and
came out with mean little cards at the ends of hands, before which the
glory of our Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of
the feeling that I had, respecting his looking upon us personally in the
light of three very obvious and poor riddles that he had found out long
ago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between his cold
presence and my feelings towards Estella. It was not that I knew I could
never bear to speak to him about her, that I knew I could never bear to
hear him creak his boots at her, that I knew I could never bear to see
him wash his hands of her; it was, that my admiration should be within
a foot or two of him,--it was, that my feelings should be in the same
place with him,--that, was the agonizing circumstance.

We played until nine o'clock, and then it was arranged that when Estella
came to London I should be forewarned of her coming and should meet her
at the coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched her and left
her.

My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine. Far into the
night, Miss Havisham's words, “Love her, love her, love her!” sounded in
my ears. I adapted them for my own repetition, and said to my pillow, “I
love her, I love her, I love her!” hundreds of times. Then, a burst of
gratitude came upon me, that she should be destined for me, once the
blacksmith's boy. Then I thought if she were, as I feared, by no means
rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would she begin to be
interested in me? When should I awaken the heart within her that was
mute and sleeping now?

Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions. But I never thought
there was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, because
I knew she would be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe
had brought the tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God forgive me!
soon dried.




Chapter XXX

After well considering the matter while I was dressing at the Blue Boar
in the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick's
being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham's.
“Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip,” said my guardian,
comfortably satisfied beforehand on the general head, “because the man
who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man.” It seemed
quite to put him into spirits to find that this particular post was
not exceptionally held by the right sort of man, and he listened in a
satisfied manner while I told him what knowledge I had of Orlick. “Very
good, Pip,” he observed, when I had concluded, “I'll go round presently,
and pay our friend off.” Rather alarmed by this summary action, I was
for a little delay, and even hinted that our friend himself might be
difficult to deal with. “Oh no he won't,” said my guardian, making his
pocket-handkerchief-point, with perfect confidence; “I should like to
see him argue the question with me.”

As we were going back together to London by the midday coach, and as I
breakfasted under such terrors of Pumblechook that I could scarcely hold
my cup, this gave me an opportunity of saying that I wanted a walk, and
that I would go on along the London road while Mr. Jaggers was occupied,
if he would let the coachman know that I would get into my place when
overtaken. I was thus enabled to fly from the Blue Boar immediately
after breakfast. By then making a loop of about a couple of miles into
the open country at the back of Pumblechook's premises, I got round into
the High Street again, a little beyond that pitfall, and felt myself in
comparative security.

It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and it was not
disagreeable to be here and there suddenly recognized and stared after.
One or two of the tradespeople even darted out of their shops and went
a little way down the street before me, that they might turn, as if they
had forgotten something, and pass me face to face,--on which occasions I
don't know whether they or I made the worse pretence; they of not doing
it, or I of not seeing it. Still my position was a distinguished one,
and I was not at all dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the
way of that unlimited miscreant, Trabb's boy.

Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my progress, I
beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag.
Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best
beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced
with that expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating
myself on my success, when suddenly the knees of Trabb's boy smote
together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he trembled violently in
every limb, staggered out into the road, and crying to the populace,
“Hold me! I'm so frightened!” feigned to be in a paroxysm of terror and
contrition, occasioned by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed him,
his teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every mark of extreme
humiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust.

This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not advanced
another two hundred yards when, to my inexpressible terror, amazement,
and indignation, I again beheld Trabb's boy approaching. He was coming
round a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, honest
industry beamed in his eyes, a determination to proceed to Trabb's with
cheerful briskness was indicated in his gait. With a shock he became
aware of me, and was severely visited as before; but this time his
motion was rotatory, and he staggered round and round me with knees
more afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy. His
sufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a knot of spectators,
and I felt utterly confounded.

I had not got as much further down the street as the post-office, when I
again beheld Trabb's boy shooting round by a back way. This time, he was
entirely changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my great-coat,
and was strutting along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of
the street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to whom he
from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, “Don't know yah!”
 Words cannot state the amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon
me by Trabb's boy, when passing abreast of me, he pulled up his
shirt-collar, twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked
extravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his
attendants, “Don't know yah, don't know yah, 'pon my soul don't know
yah!” The disgrace attendant on his immediately afterwards taking
to crowing and pursuing me across the bridge with crows, as from an
exceedingly dejected fowl who had known me when I was a blacksmith,
culminated the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to
speak, ejected by it into the open country.

But unless I had taken the life of Trabb's boy on that occasion, I
really do not even now see what I could have done save endure. To
have struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower
recompense from him than his heart's best blood, would have been
futile and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt; an
invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew
out again between his captor's legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote,
however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that Mr. Pip must
decline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he owed to
the best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited Loathing
in every respectable mind.

The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I took my
box-seat again, and arrived in London safe,--but not sound, for my heart
was gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential codfish and barrel
of oysters to Joe (as reparation for not having gone myself), and then
went on to Barnard's Inn.

I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to welcome me back.
Having despatched The Avenger to the coffee-house for an addition to the
dinner, I felt that I must open my breast that very evening to my friend
and chum. As confidence was out of the question with The Avenger in the
hall, which could merely be regarded in the light of an antechamber to
the keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A better proof of the severity
of my bondage to that taskmaster could scarcely be afforded, than
the degrading shifts to which I was constantly driven to find him
employment. So mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him to Hyde Park
corner to see what o'clock it was.

Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said to
Herbert, “My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell
you.”

“My dear Handel,” he returned, “I shall esteem and respect your
confidence.”

“It concerns myself, Herbert,” said I, “and one other person.”

Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on one side,
and having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me because I
didn't go on.

“Herbert,” said I, laying my hand upon his knee, “I love--I
adore--Estella.”

Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy matter-of-course
way, “Exactly. Well?”

“Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?”

“What next, I mean?” said Herbert. “Of course I know that.”

“How do you know it?” said I.

“How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you.”

“I never told you.”

“Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I
have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since
I have known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here
together. Told me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you
told me your own story, you told me plainly that you began adoring her
the first time you saw her, when you were very young indeed.”

“Very well, then,” said I, to whom this was a new and not unwelcome
light, “I have never left off adoring her. And she has come back, a most
beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday. And if I
adored her before, I now doubly adore her.”

“Lucky for you then, Handel,” said Herbert, “that you are picked out for
her and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden ground, we
may venture to say that there can be no doubt between ourselves of
that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella's views on the adoration
question?”

I shook my head gloomily. “Oh! She is thousands of miles away, from me,”
 said I.

“Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But you have
something more to say?”

“I am ashamed to say it,” I returned, “and yet it's no worse to say it
than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I was a
blacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am--what shall I say I am--to-day?”

“Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase,” returned Herbert, smiling,
and clapping his hand on the back of mine--“a good fellow, with
impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and
dreaming, curiously mixed in him.”

I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this mixture
in my character. On the whole, I by no means recognized the analysis,
but thought it not worth disputing.

“When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert,” I went on, “I
suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I know I have
done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised
me; that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella--”

(“And when don't you, you know?” Herbert threw in, with his eyes on the
fire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.)

“--Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and uncertain
I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden
ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy of
one person (naming no person) all my expectations depend. And at the
best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what
they are!” In saying this, I relieved my mind of what had always been
there, more or less, though no doubt most since yesterday.

“Now, Handel,” Herbert replied, in his gay, hopeful way, “it seems to me
that in the despondency of the tender passion, we are looking into our
gift-horse's mouth with a magnifying-glass. Likewise, it seems to me
that, concentrating our attention on the examination, we altogether
overlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn't you tell me that
your guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were
not endowed with expectations only? And even if he had not told you
so,--though that is a very large If, I grant,--could you believe that of
all men in London, Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations
towards you unless he were sure of his ground?”

I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it (people
often do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant concession to truth
and justice;--as if I wanted to deny it!

“I should think it was a strong point,” said Herbert, “and I should
think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the rest, you
must bide your guardian's time, and he must bide his client's time.
You'll be one-and-twenty before you know where you are, and then perhaps
you'll get some further enlightenment. At all events, you'll be nearer
getting it, for it must come at last.”

“What a hopeful disposition you have!” said I, gratefully admiring his
cheery ways.

“I ought to have,” said Herbert, “for I have not much else. I must
acknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I have just said is
not my own, but my father's. The only remark I ever heard him make on
your story, was the final one, “The thing is settled and done, or Mr.
Jaggers would not be in it.” And now before I say anything more about my
father, or my father's son, and repay confidence with confidence, I want
to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a moment,--positively
repulsive.”

“You won't succeed,” said I.

“O yes I shall!” said he. “One, two, three, and now I am in for it.
Handel, my good fellow;”--though he spoke in this light tone, he was
very much in earnest,--“I have been thinking since we have been talking
with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a condition
of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by your guardian. Am
I right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never
referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even hinted,
for instance, that your patron might have views as to your marriage
ultimately?”

“Never.”

“Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavor of sour grapes, upon my
soul and honor! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from
her?--I told you I should be disagreeable.”

I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old marsh
winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had subdued
me on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists were solemnly
rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village finger-post, smote upon
my heart again. There was silence between us for a little while.

“Yes; but my dear Handel,” Herbert went on, as if we had been talking,
instead of silent, “its having been so strongly rooted in the breast of
a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic, renders it very
serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of
what she is herself (now I am repulsive and you abominate me). This may
lead to miserable things.”

“I know it, Herbert,” said I, with my head still turned away, “but I
can't help it.”

“You can't detach yourself?”

“No. Impossible!”

“You can't try, Handel?”

“No. Impossible!”

“Well!” said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he had
been asleep, and stirring the fire, “now I'll endeavor to make myself
agreeable again!”

So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the chairs
in their places, tidied the books and so forth that were lying about,
looked into the hall, peeped into the letter-box, shut the door, and
came back to his chair by the fire: where he sat down, nursing his left
leg in both arms.

“I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and my
father's son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my father's son
to remark that my father's establishment is not particularly brilliant
in its housekeeping.”

“There is always plenty, Herbert,” said I, to say something encouraging.

“O yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest approval,
and so does the marine-store shop in the back street. Gravely, Handel,
for the subject is grave enough, you know how it is as well as I do. I
suppose there was a time once when my father had not given matters up;
but if ever there was, the time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever
had an opportunity of remarking, down in your part of the country,
that the children of not exactly suitable marriages are always most
particularly anxious to be married?”

This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return, “Is it
so?”

“I don't know,” said Herbert, “that's what I want to know. Because it
is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte, who was next me
and died before she was fourteen, was a striking example. Little Jane
is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially established, you
might suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual
contemplation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already
made arrangements for his union with a suitable young person at Kew. And
indeed, I think we are all engaged, except the baby.”

“Then you are?” said I.

“I am,” said Herbert; “but it's a secret.”

I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favored with
further particulars. He had spoken so sensibly and feelingly of my
weakness that I wanted to know something about his strength.

“May I ask the name?” I said.

“Name of Clara,” said Herbert.

“Live in London?”

“Yes, perhaps I ought to mention,” said Herbert, who had become
curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting
theme, “that she is rather below my mother's nonsensical family notions.
Her father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. I think he
was a species of purser.”

“What is he now?” said I.

“He's an invalid now,” replied Herbert.

“Living on--?”

“On the first floor,” said Herbert. Which was not at all what I meant,
for I had intended my question to apply to his means. “I have never seen
him, for he has always kept his room overhead, since I have known Clara.
But I have heard him constantly. He makes tremendous rows,--roars, and
pegs at the floor with some frightful instrument.” In looking at me and
then laughing heartily, Herbert for the time recovered his usual lively
manner.

“Don't you expect to see him?” said I.

“O yes, I constantly expect to see him,” returned Herbert, “because
I never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling through the
ceiling. But I don't know how long the rafters may hold.”

When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again, and told
me that the moment he began to realize Capital, it was his intention
to marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident proposition,
engendering low spirits, “But you can't marry, you know, while you're
looking about you.”

As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult vision to
realize this same Capital sometimes was, I put my hands in my pockets.
A folded piece of paper in one of them attracting my attention, I opened
it and found it to be the play-bill I had received from Joe, relative
to the celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian renown. “And bless my
heart,” I involuntarily added aloud, “it's to-night!”

This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly resolve
to go to the play. So, when I had pledged myself to comfort and abet
Herbert in the affair of his heart by all practicable and impracticable
means, and when Herbert had told me that his affianced already knew me
by reputation and that I should be presented to her, and when we had
warmly shaken hands upon our mutual confidence, we blew out our candles,
made up our fire, locked our door, and issued forth in quest of Mr.
Wopsle and Denmark.




Chapter XXXI

On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country
elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The
whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble
boy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer
with a dirty face who seemed to have risen from the people late in life,
and the Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of white
silk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine appearance. My gifted
townsman stood gloomily apart, with folded arms, and I could have wished
that his curls and forehead had been more probable.

Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action proceeded.
The late king of the country not only appeared to have been troubled
with a cough at the time of his decease, but to have taken it with him
to the tomb, and to have brought it back. The royal phantom also carried
a ghostly manuscript round its truncheon, to which it had the appearance
of occasionally referring, and that too, with an air of anxiety and a
tendency to lose the place of reference which were suggestive of a state
of mortality. It was this, I conceive, which led to the Shade's being
advised by the gallery to “turn over!”--a recommendation which it took
extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit, that
whereas it always appeared with an air of having been out a long time
and walked an immense distance, it perceptibly came from a closely
contiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to be received derisively.
The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom lady, though no doubt historically
brazen, was considered by the public to have too much brass about her;
her chin being attached to her diadem by a broad band of that metal (as
if she had a gorgeous toothache), her waist being encircled by another,
and each of her arms by another, so that she was openly mentioned
as “the kettle-drum.” The noble boy in the ancestral boots was
inconsistent, representing himself, as it were in one breath, as an able
seaman, a strolling actor, a grave-digger, a clergyman, and a person
of the utmost importance at a Court fencing-match, on the authority
of whose practised eye and nice discrimination the finest strokes were
judged. This gradually led to a want of toleration for him, and even--on
his being detected in holy orders, and declining to perform the funeral
service--to the general indignation taking the form of nuts. Lastly,
Ophelia was a prey to such slow musical madness, that when, in course of
time, she had taken off her white muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried
it, a sulky man who had been long cooling his impatient nose against an
iron bar in the front row of the gallery, growled, “Now the baby's put
to bed let's have supper!” Which, to say the least of it, was out of
keeping.

Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with
playful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or
state a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As for example; on the
question whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes,
and some no, and some inclining to both opinions said “Toss up for
it;” and quite a Debating Society arose. When he asked what should such
fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, he was encouraged
with loud cries of “Hear, hear!” When he appeared with his stocking
disordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very neat
fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron),
a conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his
leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him.
On his taking the recorders,--very like a little black flute that had
just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door,--he was
called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he recommended the
player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, “And don't you do
it, neither; you're a deal worse than him!” And I grieve to add that
peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of these occasions.

But his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the appearance
of a primeval forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical wash-house
on one side, and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in a
comprehensive black cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike,
the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly way, “Look out! Here's the
undertaker a coming, to see how you're a getting on with your work!”
 I believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr. Wopsle
could not possibly have returned the skull, after moralizing over it,
without dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast;
but even that innocent and indispensable action did not pass without the
comment, “Wai-ter!” The arrival of the body for interment (in an empty
black box with the lid tumbling open), was the signal for a general
joy, which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers, of
an individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended Mr. Wopsle
through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the orchestra and
the grave, and slackened no more until he had tumbled the king off the
kitchen-table, and had died by inches from the ankles upward.

We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle;
but they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat,
feeling keenly for him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I
laughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole thing was so droll;
and yet I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly
fine in Mr. Wopsle's elocution,--not for old associations' sake, I am
afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very uphill and
downhill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural
circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything.
When the tragedy was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I said
to Herbert, “Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him.”

We made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not quick enough
either. Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy
smear of eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we
came up with him,--

“Mr. Pip and friend?”

Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed.

“Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man, “would be glad to have the honor.”

“Waldengarver?” I repeated--when Herbert murmured in my ear, “Probably
Wopsle.”

“Oh!” said I. “Yes. Shall we follow you?”

“A few steps, please.” When we were in a side alley, he turned and
asked, “How did you think he looked?--I dressed him.”

I don't know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with the
addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a
blue ribbon, that had given him the appearance of being insured in some
extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice.

“When he come to the grave,” said our conductor, “he showed his cloak
beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he
see the ghost in the queen's apartment, he might have made more of his
stockings.”

I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door,
into a sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle
was divesting himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just
room for us to look at him over one another's shoulders, by keeping the
packing-case door, or lid, wide open.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wopsle, “I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip,
you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in
former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been
acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying to
get himself out of his princely sables.

“Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver,” said the owner of that
property, “or you'll bust 'em. Bust 'em, and you'll bust five-and-thirty
shillings. Shakspeare never was complimented with a finer pair. Keep
quiet in your chair now, and leave 'em to me.”

With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim; who, on
the first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over backward
with his chair, but for there being no room to fall anyhow.

I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then, Mr.
Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said,--

“Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?”

Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), “Capitally.” So I
said “Capitally.”

“How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?” said Mr.
Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage.

Herbert said from behind (again poking me), “Massive and concrete.” So I
said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it,
“Massive and concrete.”

“I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver,
with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the wall at
the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair.

“But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man who was on
his knees, “in which you're out in your reading. Now mind! I don't care
who says contrairy; I tell you so. You're out in your reading of Hamlet
when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed, made
the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a
large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which
was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever
his reading brought him into profile, I called out “I don't see no
wafers!” And at night his reading was lovely.”

Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say “a faithful
Dependent--I overlook his folly;” and then said aloud, “My view is a
little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will improve, they
will improve.”

Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve.

“Did you observe, gentlemen,” said Mr. Waldengarver, “that there was a
man in the gallery who endeavored to cast derision on the service,--I
mean, the representation?”

We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I
added, “He was drunk, no doubt.”

“O dear no, sir,” said Mr. Wopsle, “not drunk. His employer would see to
that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk.”

“You know his employer?” said I.

Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both
ceremonies very slowly. “You must have observed, gentlemen,” said he,
“an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance
expressive of low malignity, who went through--I will not say
sustained--the rôle (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King
of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!”

Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr.
Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was,
that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces
put on,--which jostled us out at the doorway,--to ask Herbert what he
thought of having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it would
be kind to do so; therefore I invited him, and he went to Barnard's
with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him, and he sat
until two o'clock in the morning, reviewing his success and developing
his plans. I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general
recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end
with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft
and without a chance or hope.

Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and
miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that I
had to give my hand in marriage to Herbert's Clara, or play Hamlet to
Miss Havisham's Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing
twenty words of it.




Chapter XXXII

One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note
by the post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter;
for, though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed,
I divined whose hand it was. It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip,
or Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus:--

“I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I
believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham
has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her
regard.

“Yours, ESTELLA.”

If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits
of clothes for this occasion; but as there was not, I was fain to be
content with those I had. My appetite vanished instantly, and I knew
no peace or rest until the day arrived. Not that its arrival brought
me either; for, then I was worse than ever, and began haunting the
coach-office in Wood Street, Cheapside, before the coach had left the
Blue Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still
felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight
longer than five minutes at a time; and in this condition of unreason I
had performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, when
Wemmick ran against me.

“Halloa, Mr. Pip,” said he; “how do you do? I should hardly have thought
this was your beat.”

I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by
coach, and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged.

“Both flourishing thankye,” said Wemmick, “and particularly the Aged.
He's in wonderful feather. He'll be eighty-two next birthday. I have
a notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighborhood shouldn't
complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure.
However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to?”

“To the office?” said I, for he was tending in that direction.

“Next thing to it,” returned Wemmick, “I am going to Newgate. We are in
a banker's-parcel case just at present, and I have been down the road
taking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word
or two with our client.”

“Did your client commit the robbery?” I asked.

“Bless your soul and body, no,” answered Wemmick, very drily. “But he
is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of
it, you know.”

“Only neither of us is,” I remarked.

“Yah!” said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger;
“you're a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate?
Have you time to spare?”

I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief,
notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my
eye on the coach-office. Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether
I had time to walk with him, I went into the office, and ascertained
from the clerk with the nicest precision and much to the trying of his
temper, the earliest moment at which the coach could be expected,--which
I knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and
affecting to consult my watch, and to be surprised by the information I
had received, accepted his offer.

We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge
where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison
rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time jails were much
neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on
all public wrongdoing--and which is always its heaviest and longest
punishment--was still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better
than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their
prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavor of their soup.
It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his
rounds with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying
beer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing
scene it was.

It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener
might walk among his plants. This was first put into my head by his
seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, “What, Captain
Tom? Are you there? Ah, indeed!” and also, “Is that Black Bill behind
the cistern? Why I didn't look for you these two months; how do you find
yourself?” Equally in his stopping at the bars and attending to
anxious whisperers,--always singly,--Wemmick with his post-office in
an immovable state, looked at them while in conference, as if he were
taking particular notice of the advance they had made, since last
observed, towards coming out in full blow at their trial.

He was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar department
of Mr. Jaggers's business; though something of the state of Mr. Jaggers
hung about him too, forbidding approach beyond certain limits. His
personal recognition of each successive client was comprised in a nod,
and in his settling his hat a little easier on his head with both
hands, and then tightening the post-office, and putting his hands in his
pockets. In one or two instances there was a difficulty respecting the
raising of fees, and then Mr. Wemmick, backing as far as possible from
the insufficient money produced, said, “it's no use, my boy. I'm only
a subordinate. I can't take it. Don't go on in that way with a
subordinate. If you are unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had
better address yourself to a principal; there are plenty of principals
in the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while of one, may
be worth the while of another; that's my recommendation to you, speaking
as a subordinate. Don't try on useless measures. Why should you? Now,
who's next?”

Thus, we walked through Wemmick's greenhouse, until he turned to me and
said, “Notice the man I shall shake hands with.” I should have done so,
without the preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet.

Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man (whom I can
see now, as I write) in a well-worn olive-colored frock-coat, with a
peculiar pallor overspreading the red in his complexion, and eyes that
went wandering about when he tried to fix them, came up to a corner
of the bars, and put his hand to his hat--which had a greasy and fatty
surface like cold broth--with a half-serious and half-jocose military
salute.

“Colonel, to you!” said Wemmick; “how are you, Colonel?”

“All right, Mr. Wemmick.”

“Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too strong
for us, Colonel.”

“Yes, it was too strong, sir,--but I don't care.”

“No, no,” said Wemmick, coolly, “you don't care.” Then, turning to me,
“Served His Majesty this man. Was a soldier in the line and bought his
discharge.”

I said, “Indeed?” and the man's eyes looked at me, and then looked over
my head, and then looked all round me, and then he drew his hand across
his lips and laughed.

“I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir,” he said to Wemmick.

“Perhaps,” returned my friend, “but there's no knowing.”

“I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr. Wemmick,” said
the man, stretching out his hand between two bars.

“Thankye,” said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. “Same to you, Colonel.”

“If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wemmick,” said the
man, unwilling to let his hand go, “I should have asked the favor of
your wearing another ring--in acknowledgment of your attentions.”

“I'll accept the will for the deed,” said Wemmick. “By the by; you were
quite a pigeon-fancier.” The man looked up at the sky. “I am told you
had a remarkable breed of tumblers. Could you commission any friend of
yours to bring me a pair, if you've no further use for 'em?”

“It shall be done, sir.”

“All right,” said Wemmick, “they shall be taken care of. Good afternoon,
Colonel. Good-bye!” They shook hands again, and as we walked away Wemmick
said to me, “A Coiner, a very good workman. The Recorder's report is
made to-day, and he is sure to be executed on Monday. Still you see, as
far as it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable property all the same.”
 With that, he looked back, and nodded at this dead plant, and then cast
his eyes about him in walking out of the yard, as if he were considering
what other pot would go best in its place.

As we came out of the prison through the lodge, I found that the great
importance of my guardian was appreciated by the turnkeys, no less
than by those whom they held in charge. “Well, Mr. Wemmick,” said the
turnkey, who kept us between the two studded and spiked lodge gates,
and who carefully locked one before he unlocked the other, “what's Mr.
Jaggers going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make it
manslaughter, or what's he going to make of it?”

“Why don't you ask him?” returned Wemmick.

“O yes, I dare say!” said the turnkey.

“Now, that's the way with them here, Mr. Pip,” remarked Wemmick, turning
to me with his post-office elongated. “They don't mind what they ask of
me, the subordinate; but you'll never catch 'em asking any questions of
my principal.”

“Is this young gentleman one of the 'prentices or articled ones of your
office?” asked the turnkey, with a grin at Mr. Wemmick's humor.

“There he goes again, you see!” cried Wemmick, “I told you so! Asks
another question of the subordinate before his first is dry! Well,
supposing Mr. Pip is one of them?”

“Why then,” said the turnkey, grinning again, “he knows what Mr. Jaggers
is.”

“Yah!” cried Wemmick, suddenly hitting out at the turnkey in a facetious
way, “you're dumb as one of your own keys when you have to do with my
principal, you know you are. Let us out, you old fox, or I'll get him to
bring an action against you for false imprisonment.”

The turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and stood laughing at us over
the spikes of the wicket when we descended the steps into the street.

“Mind you, Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, gravely in my ear, as he took my arm
to be more confidential; “I don't know that Mr. Jaggers does a better
thing than the way in which he keeps himself so high. He's always so
high. His constant height is of a piece with his immense abilities. That
Colonel durst no more take leave of him, than that turnkey durst ask him
his intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height and them, he
slips in his subordinate,--don't you see?--and so he has 'em, soul and
body.”

I was very much impressed, and not for the first time, by my guardian's
subtlety. To confess the truth, I very heartily wished, and not for the
first time, that I had had some other guardian of minor abilities.

Mr. Wemmick and I parted at the office in Little Britain, where
suppliants for Mr. Jaggers's notice were lingering about as usual, and I
returned to my watch in the street of the coach-office, with some three
hours on hand. I consumed the whole time in thinking how strange it
was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime;
that, in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening, I
should have first encountered it; that, it should have reappeared on two
occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone; that,
it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement. While my
mind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud
and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence
of the contrast between the jail and her. I wished that Wemmick had not
met me, or that I had not yielded to him and gone with him, so that,
of all days in the year on this day, I might not have had Newgate in
my breath and on my clothes. I beat the prison dust off my feet as I
sauntered to and fro, and I shook it out of my dress, and I exhaled
its air from my lungs. So contaminated did I feel, remembering who was
coming, that the coach came quickly after all, and I was not yet free
from the soiling consciousness of Mr. Wemmick's conservatory, when I saw
her face at the coach window and her hand waving to me.

What was the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed?




Chapter XXXIII

In her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful
than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was more
winning than she had cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I
saw Miss Havisham's influence in the change.

We stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her luggage to me, and
when it was all collected I remembered--having forgotten everything but
herself in the meanwhile--that I knew nothing of her destination.

“I am going to Richmond,” she told me. “Our lesson is, that there are
two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine is the
Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, and
you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to pay my charges out
of it. O, you must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, but to
obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you
and I.”

As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was an
inner meaning in her words. She said them slightingly, but not with
displeasure.

“A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a
little?”

“Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and you
are to take care of me the while.”

She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I requested a
waiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen
such a thing in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that,
he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clew without which he
couldn't find the way upstairs, and led us to the black hole of the
establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous
article, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet,
and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into
another room with a dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a scorched
leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked at this
extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my order; which,
proving to be merely, “Some tea for the lady,” sent him out of the room
in a very low state of mind.

I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its strong
combination of stable with soup-stock, might have led one to infer that
the coaching department was not doing well, and that the enterprising
proprietor was boiling down the horses for the refreshment department.
Yet the room was all in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that
with her I could have been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy
there at the time, observe, and I knew it well.)

“Where are you going to, at Richmond?” I asked Estella.

“I am going to live,” said she, “at a great expense, with a lady there,
who has the power--or says she has--of taking me about, and introducing
me, and showing people to me and showing me to people.”

“I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

She answered so carelessly, that I said, “You speak of yourself as if
you were some one else.”

“Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come,” said Estella,
smiling delightfully, “you must not expect me to go to school to you; I
must talk in my own way. How do you thrive with Mr. Pocket?”

“I live quite pleasantly there; at least--” It appeared to me that I was
losing a chance.

“At least?” repeated Estella.

“As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you.”

“You silly boy,” said Estella, quite composedly, “how can you talk such
nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is superior to the rest of
his family?”

“Very superior indeed. He is nobody's enemy--”

“Don't add but his own,” interposed Estella, “for I hate that class of
man. But he really is disinterested, and above small jealousy and spite,
I have heard?”

“I am sure I have every reason to say so.”

“You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people,” said
Estella, nodding at me with an expression of face that was at once
grave and rallying, “for they beset Miss Havisham with reports and
insinuations to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent you,
write letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment
and the occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realize to yourself
the hatred those people feel for you.”

“They do me no harm, I hope?”

Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. This was very singular
to me, and I looked at her in considerable perplexity. When she left
off--and she had not laughed languidly, but with real enjoyment--I said,
in my diffident way with her,--

“I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if they did me any
harm.”

“No, no you may be sure of that,” said Estella. “You may be certain that
I laugh because they fail. O, those people with Miss Havisham, and the
tortures they undergo!” She laughed again, and even now when she had
told me why, her laughter was very singular to me, for I could not
doubt its being genuine, and yet it seemed too much for the occasion.
I thought there must really be something more here than I knew; she saw
the thought in my mind, and answered it.

“It is not easy for even you.” said Estella, “to know what satisfaction
it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of
the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not
brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not
your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed
and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that
is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round
childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a
woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up
in the night. I did.”

It was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was she summoning these
remembrances from any shallow place. I would not have been the cause of
that look of hers for all my expectations in a heap.

“Two things I can tell you,” said Estella. “First, notwithstanding the
proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set
your mind at rest that these people never will--never would, in hundred
years--impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great
or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so
busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it.”

As she gave it to me playfully,--for her darker mood had been but
Momentary,--I held it and put it to my lips. “You ridiculous boy,” said
Estella, “will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the
same spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?”

“What spirit was that?” said I.

“I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and
plotters.”

“If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?”

“You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you
like.”

I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue's. “Now,” said
Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek, “you are to take
care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond.”

Her reverting to this tone as if our association were forced upon
us, and we were mere puppets, gave me pain; but everything in our
intercourse did give me pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be,
I could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it; and yet I went on
against trust and against hope. Why repeat it a thousand times? So it
always was.

I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clew,
brought in by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that refreshment, but of
tea not a glimpse. A teaboard, cups and saucers, plates, knives and
forks (including carvers), spoons (various), saltcellars, a meek little
muffin confined with the utmost precaution under a strong iron cover,
Moses in the bulrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a quantity of
parsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof impressions of
the bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of bread, and
ultimately a fat family urn; which the waiter staggered in with,
expressing in his countenance burden and suffering. After a prolonged
absence at this stage of the entertainment, he at length came back with
a casket of precious appearance containing twigs. These I steeped in hot
water, and so from the whole of these appliances extracted one cup of I
don't know what for Estella.

The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten,
and the chambermaid taken into consideration,--in a word, the whole
house bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella's purse
much lightened,--we got into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into
Cheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls
of which I was so ashamed.

“What place is that?” Estella asked me.

I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognizing it, and then
told her. As she looked at it, and drew in her head again,
murmuring, “Wretches!” I would not have confessed to my visit for any
consideration.

“Mr. Jaggers,” said I, by way of putting it neatly on somebody else,
“has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that dismal place
than any man in London.”

“He is more in the secrets of every place, I think,” said Estella, in a
low voice.

“You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose?”

“I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals, ever since
I can remember. But I know him no better now, than I did before I could
speak plainly. What is your own experience of him? Do you advance with
him?”

“Once habituated to his distrustful manner,” said I, “I have done very
well.”

“Are you intimate?”

“I have dined with him at his private house.”

“I fancy,” said Estella, shrinking “that must be a curious place.”

“It is a curious place.”

I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with
her; but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe
the dinner in Gerrard Street, if we had not then come into a sudden
glare of gas. It seemed, while it lasted, to be all alight and alive
with that inexplicable feeling I had had before; and when we were out of
it, I was as much dazed for a few moments as if I had been in lightning.

So we fell into other talk, and it was principally about the way by
which we were travelling, and about what parts of London lay on this
side of it, and what on that. The great city was almost new to her, she
told me, for she had never left Miss Havisham's neighborhood until she
had gone to France, and she had merely passed through London then in
going and returning. I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her
while she remained here? To that she emphatically said “God forbid!” and
no more.

It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to attract me;
that she made herself winning, and would have won me even if the task
had needed pains. Yet this made me none the happier, for even if she had
not taken that tone of our being disposed of by others, I should have
felt that she held my heart in her hand because she wilfully chose to do
it, and not because it would have wrung any tenderness in her to crush
it and throw it away.

When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where Mr. Matthew
Pocket lived, and said it was no great way from Richmond, and that I
hoped I should see her sometimes.

“O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think proper; you
are to be mentioned to the family; indeed you are already mentioned.”

I inquired was it a large household she was going to be a member of?

“No; there are only two; mother and daughter. The mother is a lady of
some station, though not averse to increasing her income.”

“I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon.”

“It is a part of Miss Havisham's plans for me, Pip,” said Estella, with
a sigh, as if she were tired; “I am to write to her constantly and see
her regularly and report how I go on,--I and the jewels,--for they are
nearly all mine now.”

It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of course she
did so purposely, and knew that I should treasure it up.

We came to Richmond all too soon, and our destination there was a house
by the green,--a staid old house, where hoops and powder and patches,
embroidered coats, rolled stockings, ruffles and swords, had had their
court days many a time. Some ancient trees before the house were still
cut into fashions as formal and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and
stiff skirts; but their own allotted places in the great procession of
the dead were not far off, and they would soon drop into them and go the
silent way of the rest.

A bell with an old voice--which I dare say in its time had often said
to the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamond-hilted
sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire--sounded
gravely in the moonlight, and two cherry-colored maids came fluttering
out to receive Estella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she
gave me her hand and a smile, and said good night, and was absorbed
likewise. And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I
should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy
with her, but always miserable.

I got into the carriage to be taken back to Hammersmith, and I got in
with a bad heart-ache, and I got out with a worse heart-ache. At our
own door, I found little Jane Pocket coming home from a little party
escorted by her little lover; and I envied her little lover, in spite of
his being subject to Flopson.

Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a most delightful lecturer on
domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and
servants were considered the very best text-books on those themes. But
Mrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of
the baby's having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet
during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards)
of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded
as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply
externally or to take as a tonic.

Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving most excellent practical
advice, and for having a clear and sound perception of things and a
highly judicious mind, I had some notion in my heart-ache of begging him
to accept my confidence. But happening to look up at Mrs. Pocket as she
sat reading her book of dignities after prescribing Bed as a sovereign
remedy for baby, I thought--Well--No, I wouldn't.




Chapter XXXIV

As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to
notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on
my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible,
but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of
chronic uneasiness respecting my behavior to Joe. My conscience was not
by any means comfortable about Biddy. When I woke up in the night,--like
Camilla,--I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, that I should
have been happier and better if I had never seen Miss Havisham's face,
and had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in the honest
old forge. Many a time of an evening, when I sat alone looking at the
fire, I thought, after all there was no fire like the forge fire and the
kitchen fire at home.

Yet Estella was so inseparable from all my restlessness and disquiet of
mind, that I really fell into confusion as to the limits of my own part
in its production. That is to say, supposing I had had no expectations,
and yet had had Estella to think of, I could not make out to my
satisfaction that I should have done much better. Now, concerning the
influence of my position on others, I was in no such difficulty, and so
I perceived--though dimly enough perhaps--that it was not beneficial
to anybody, and, above all, that it was not beneficial to Herbert.
My lavish habits led his easy nature into expenses that he could not
afford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and disturbed his peace
with anxieties and regrets. I was not at all remorseful for having
unwittingly set those other branches of the Pocket family to the poor
arts they practised; because such littlenesses were their natural
bent, and would have been evoked by anybody else, if I had left them
slumbering. But Herbert's was a very different case, and it often caused
me a twinge to think that I had done him evil service in crowding his
sparely furnished chambers with incongruous upholstery work, and placing
the Canary-breasted Avenger at his disposal.

So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began
to contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but Herbert
must begin too, so he soon followed. At Startop's suggestion, we put
ourselves down for election into a club called The Finches of the Grove:
the object of which institution I have never divined, if it were not
that the members should dine expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel
among themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause six
waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that these gratifying social
ends were so invariably accomplished, that Herbert and I understood
nothing else to be referred to in the first standing toast of the
society: which ran “Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feeling
ever reign predominant among the Finches of the Grove.”

The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel we dined at was
in Covent Garden), and the first Finch I saw when I had the honor of
joining the Grove was Bentley Drummle, at that time floundering about
town in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage to the posts
at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage
headforemost over the apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver
himself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way--like coals.
But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a Finch, and could not be,
according to the sacred laws of the society, until I came of age.

In my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly have taken
Herbert's expenses on myself; but Herbert was proud, and I could make
no such proposal to him. So he got into difficulties in every direction,
and continued to look about him. When we gradually fell into keeping
late hours and late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a
desponding eye at breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more
hopefully about mid-day; that he drooped when he came into dinner;
that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather clearly, after
dinner; that he all but realized Capital towards midnight; and that at
about two o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent again
as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general
purpose of compelling buffaloes to make his fortune.

I was usually at Hammersmith about half the week, and when I was at
Hammersmith I haunted Richmond, whereof separately by and by. Herbert
would often come to Hammersmith when I was there, and I think at those
seasons his father would occasionally have some passing perception that
the opening he was looking for, had not appeared yet. But in the general
tumbling up of the family, his tumbling out in life somewhere, was
a thing to transact itself somehow. In the meantime Mr. Pocket grew
grayer, and tried oftener to lift himself out of his perplexities by the
hair. While Mrs. Pocket tripped up the family with her footstool, read
her book of dignities, lost her pocket-handkerchief, told us about her
grandpapa, and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting it into
bed whenever it attracted her notice.

As I am now generalizing a period of my life with the object of clearing
my way before me, I can scarcely do so better than by at once completing
the description of our usual manners and customs at Barnard's Inn.

We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people
could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less
miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition.
There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying
ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my
belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one.

Every morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went into the City to look
about him. I often paid him a visit in the dark back-room in which
he consorted with an ink-jar, a hat-peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an
almanac, a desk and stool, and a ruler; and I do not remember that I
ever saw him do anything else but look about him. If we all did what
we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a
Republic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except
at a certain hour of every afternoon to “go to Lloyd's”--in observance
of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think. He never did anything
else in connection with Lloyd's that I could find out, except come back
again. When he felt his case unusually serious, and that he positively
must find an opening, he would go on 'Change at a busy time, and walk in
and out, in a kind of gloomy country dance figure, among the assembled
magnates. “For,” says Herbert to me, coming home to dinner on one
of those special occasions, “I find the truth to be, Handel, that an
opening won't come to one, but one must go to it,--so I have been.”

If we had been less attached to one another, I think we must have hated
one another regularly every morning. I detested the chambers beyond
expression at that period of repentance, and could not endure the
sight of the Avenger's livery; which had a more expensive and a
less remunerative appearance then than at any other time in the
four-and-twenty hours. As we got more and more into debt, breakfast
became a hollower and hollower form, and, being on one occasion at
breakfast-time threatened (by letter) with legal proceedings, “not
unwholly unconnected,” as my local paper might put it, “with jewelery,”
 I went so far as to seize the Avenger by his blue collar and shake
him off his feet,--so that he was actually in the air, like a booted
Cupid,--for presuming to suppose that we wanted a roll.

At certain times--meaning at uncertain times, for they depended on our
humor--I would say to Herbert, as if it were a remarkable discovery,--

“My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly.”

“My dear Handel,” Herbert would say to me, in all sincerity, “if you will
believe me, those very words were on my lips, by a strange coincidence.”

“Then, Herbert,” I would respond, “let us look into our affairs.”

We always derived profound satisfaction from making an appointment for
this purpose. I always thought this was business, this was the way to
confront the thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. And
I know Herbert thought so too.

We ordered something rather special for dinner, with a bottle of
something similarly out of the common way, in order that our minds might
be fortified for the occasion, and we might come well up to the mark.
Dinner over, we produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and
a goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was something
very comfortable in having plenty of stationery.

I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the top of it, in a
neat hand, the heading, “Memorandum of Pip's debts”; with Barnard's Inn
and the date very carefully added. Herbert would also take a sheet of
paper, and write across it with similar formalities, “Memorandum of
Herbert's debts.”

Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers at his side,
which had been thrown into drawers, worn into holes in pockets, half
burnt in lighting candles, stuck for weeks into the looking-glass, and
otherwise damaged. The sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly,
insomuch that I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between this
edifying business proceeding and actually paying the money. In point of
meritorious character, the two things seemed about equal.

When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how he got on?
Herbert probably would have been scratching his head in a most rueful
manner at the sight of his accumulating figures.

“They are mounting up, Handel,” Herbert would say; “upon my life, they
are mounting up.”

“Be firm, Herbert,” I would retort, plying my own pen with great
assiduity. “Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. Stare
them out of countenance.”

“So I would, Handel, only they are staring me out of countenance.”

However, my determined manner would have its effect, and Herbert would
fall to work again. After a time he would give up once more, on the plea
that he had not got Cobbs's bill, or Lobbs's, or Nobbs's, as the case
might be.

“Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round numbers, and put it
down.”

“What a fellow of resource you are!” my friend would reply, with
admiration. “Really your business powers are very remarkable.”

I thought so too. I established with myself, on these occasions,
the reputation of a first-rate man of business,--prompt, decisive,
energetic, clear, cool-headed. When I had got all my responsibilities
down upon my list, I compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My
self-approval when I ticked an entry was quite a luxurious sensation.
When I had no more ticks to make, I folded all my bills up uniformly,
docketed each on the back, and tied the whole into a symmetrical
bundle. Then I did the same for Herbert (who modestly said he had not my
administrative genius), and felt that I had brought his affairs into a
focus for him.

My business habits had one other bright feature, which I called “leaving
a Margin.” For example; supposing Herbert's debts to be one hundred and
sixty-four pounds four-and-twopence, I would say, “Leave a margin, and
put them down at two hundred.” Or, supposing my own to be four times as
much, I would leave a margin, and put them down at seven hundred. I had
the highest opinion of the wisdom of this same Margin, but I am bound
to acknowledge that on looking back, I deem it to have been an expensive
device. For, we always ran into new debt immediately, to the full extent
of the margin, and sometimes, in the sense of freedom and solvency it
imparted, got pretty far on into another margin.

But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent on these
examinations of our affairs that gave me, for the time, an admirable
opinion of myself. Soothed by my exertions, my method, and Herbert's
compliments, I would sit with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the
table before me among the stationary, and feel like a Bank of some sort,
rather than a private individual.

We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions, in order that we might
not be interrupted. I had fallen into my serene state one evening, when
we heard a letter dropped through the slit in the said door, and fall on
the ground. “It's for you, Handel,” said Herbert, going out and coming
back with it, “and I hope there is nothing the matter.” This was in
allusion to its heavy black seal and border.

The letter was signed Trabb & Co., and its contents were simply, that
I was an honored sir, and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J.
Gargery had departed this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past six
in the evening, and that my attendance was requested at the interment on
Monday next at three o'clock in the afternoon.




Chapter XXXV

It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and
the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my
sister in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That
the place could possibly be, without her, was something my mind seemed
unable to compass; and whereas she had seldom or never been in my
thoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming
towards me in the street, or that she would presently knock at the door.
In my rooms too, with which she had never been at all associated, there
was at once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion of the
sound of her voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were
still alive and had been often there.

Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have recalled my
sister with much tenderness. But I suppose there is a shock of regret
which may exist without much tenderness. Under its influence (and
perhaps to make up for the want of the softer feeling) I was seized with
a violent indignation against the assailant from whom she had suffered
so much; and I felt that on sufficient proof I could have revengefully
pursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity.

Having written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and to assure him
that I would come to the funeral, I passed the intermediate days in
the curious state of mind I have glanced at. I went down early in the
morning, and alighted at the Blue Boar in good time to walk over to the
forge.

It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along, the times
when I was a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me,
vividly returned. But they returned with a gentle tone upon them that
softened even the edge of Tickler. For now, the very breath of the beans
and clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it would
be well for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should be
softened as they thought of me.

At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had
put in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd
persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black
bandage,--as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort
to anybody,--were posted at the front door; and in one of them I
recognized a postboy discharged from the Boar for turning a young couple
into a sawpit on their bridal morning, in consequence of intoxication
rendering it necessary for him to ride his horse clasped round the neck
with both arms. All the children of the village, and most of the women,
were admiring these sable warders and the closed windows of the house
and forge; and as I came up, one of the two warders (the postboy)
knocked at the door,--implying that I was far too much exhausted by
grief to have strength remaining to knock for myself.

Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a
wager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlor. Here, Mr.
Trabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves
up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity
of black pins. At the moment of my arrival, he had just finished putting
somebody's hat into black long-clothes, like an African baby; so he held
out his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, and confused by the
occasion, shook hands with him with every testimony of warm affection.

Poor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow
under his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room; where,
as chief mourner, he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent
down and said to him, “Dear Joe, how are you?” he said, “Pip, old chap,
you knowed her when she were a fine figure of a--” and clasped my hand
and said no more.

Biddy, looking very neat and modest in her black dress, went quietly
here and there, and was very helpful. When I had spoken to Biddy, as
I thought it not a time for talking I went and sat down near Joe, and
there began to wonder in what part of the house it--she--my sister--was.
The air of the parlor being faint with the smell of sweet-cake, I looked
about for the table of refreshments; it was scarcely visible until one
had got accustomed to the gloom, but there was a cut-up plum cake upon
it, and there were cut-up oranges, and sandwiches, and biscuits, and two
decanters that I knew very well as ornaments, but had never seen used
in all my life; one full of port, and one of sherry. Standing at this
table, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook in a black cloak
and several yards of hatband, who was alternately stuffing himself,
and making obsequious movements to catch my attention. The moment he
succeeded, he came over to me (breathing sherry and crumbs), and said
in a subdued voice, “May I, dear sir?” and did. I then descried Mr. and
Mrs. Hubble; the last-named in a decent speechless paroxysm in a corner.
We were all going to “follow,” and were all in course of being tied up
separately (by Trabb) into ridiculous bundles.

“Which I meantersay, Pip,” Joe whispered me, as we were being what Mr.
Trabb called “formed” in the parlor, two and two,--and it was dreadfully
like a preparation for some grim kind of dance; “which I meantersay,
sir, as I would in preference have carried her to the church myself,
along with three or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts
and arms, but it were considered wot the neighbors would look down on
such and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect.”

“Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!” cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a
depressed business-like voice. “Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are ready!”

So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our
noses were bleeding, and filed out two and two; Joe and I; Biddy and
Pumblechook; Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been
brought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point of Undertaking
ceremony that the six bearers must be stifled and blinded under a
horrible black velvet housing with a white border, the whole looked like
a blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blundering along,
under the guidance of two keepers,--the postboy and his comrade.

The neighborhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and we
were much admired as we went through the village; the more youthful and
vigorous part of the community making dashes now and then to cut us off,
and lying in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such times
the more exuberant among them called out in an excited manner on our
emergence round some corner of expectancy, “Here they come!” “Here they
are!” and we were all but cheered. In this progress I was much annoyed
by the abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the way
as a delicate attention in arranging my streaming hatband, and smoothing
my cloak. My thoughts were further distracted by the excessive pride of
Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited and vainglorious in
being members of so distinguished a procession.

And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the
ships on the river growing out of it; and we went into the churchyard,
close to the graves of my unknown parents, Philip Pirrip, late of this
parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. And there, my sister was
laid quietly in the earth, while the larks sang high above it, and the
light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees.

Of the conduct of the worldly minded Pumblechook while this was doing,
I desire to say no more than it was all addressed to me; and that even
when those noble passages were read which remind humanity how it brought
nothing into the world and can take nothing out, and how it fleeth like
a shadow and never continueth long in one stay, I heard him cough a
reservation of the case of a young gentleman who came unexpectedly into
large property. When we got back, he had the hardihood to tell me that
he wished my sister could have known I had done her so much honor, and
to hint that she would have considered it reasonably purchased at the
price of her death. After that, he drank all the rest of the sherry,
and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since
observed to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another
race from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal. Finally, he went
away with Mr. and Mrs. Hubble,--to make an evening of it, I felt sure,
and to tell the Jolly Bargemen that he was the founder of my fortunes
and my earliest benefactor.

When they were all gone, and when Trabb and his men--but not his Boy; I
looked for him--had crammed their mummery into bags, and were gone too,
the house felt wholesomer. Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a
cold dinner together; but we dined in the best parlor, not in the old
kitchen, and Joe was so exceedingly particular what he did with his
knife and fork and the saltcellar and what not, that there was great
restraint upon us. But after dinner, when I made him take his pipe,
and when I had loitered with him about the forge, and when we sat down
together on the great block of stone outside it, we got on better. I
noticed that after the funeral Joe changed his clothes so far, as to
make a compromise between his Sunday dress and working dress; in which
the dear fellow looked natural, and like the Man he was.

He was very much pleased by my asking if I might sleep in my own little
room, and I was pleased too; for I felt that I had done rather a great
thing in making the request. When the shadows of evening were closing
in, I took an opportunity of getting into the garden with Biddy for a
little talk.

“Biddy,” said I, “I think you might have written to me about these sad
matters.”

“Do you, Mr. Pip?” said Biddy. “I should have written if I had thought
that.”

“Don't suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, when I say I consider
that you ought to have thought that.”

“Do you, Mr. Pip?”

She was so quiet, and had such an orderly, good, and pretty way with
her, that I did not like the thought of making her cry again. After
looking a little at her downcast eyes as she walked beside me, I gave up
that point.

“I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here now, Biddy dear?”

“Oh! I can't do so, Mr. Pip,” said Biddy, in a tone of regret but still
of quiet conviction. “I have been speaking to Mrs. Hubble, and I am
going to her to-morrow. I hope we shall be able to take some care of Mr.
Gargery, together, until he settles down.”

“How are you going to live, Biddy? If you want any mo--”

“How am I going to live?” repeated Biddy, striking in, with a momentary
flush upon her face. “I'll tell you, Mr. Pip. I am going to try to get
the place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be
well recommended by all the neighbors, and I hope I can be industrious
and patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip,”
 pursued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, “the new
schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you after
that time, and have had time since then to improve.”

“I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances.”

“Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature,” murmured Biddy.

It was not so much a reproach as an irresistible thinking aloud. Well!
I thought I would give up that point too. So, I walked a little further
with Biddy, looking silently at her downcast eyes.

“I have not heard the particulars of my sister's death, Biddy.”

“They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad
states--though they had got better of late, rather than worse--for four
days, when she came out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, and said
quite plainly, 'Joe.' As she had never said any word for a long while, I
ran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me that
she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms
round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid her head down
on his shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she presently said
'Joe' again, and once 'Pardon,' and once 'Pip.' And so she never lifted
her head up any more, and it was just an hour later when we laid it down
on her own bed, because we found she was gone.”

Biddy cried; the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars that were
coming out, were blurred in my own sight.

“Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you know what is become of Orlick?”

“I should think from the color of his clothes that he is working in the
quarries.”

“Of course you have seen him then?--Why are you looking at that dark
tree in the lane?”

“I saw him there, on the night she died.”

“That was not the last time either, Biddy?”

“No; I have seen him there, since we have been walking here.--It is of
no use,” said Biddy, laying her hand upon my arm, as I was for running
out, “you know I would not deceive you; he was not there a minute, and
he is gone.”

It revived my utmost indignation to find that she was still pursued by
this fellow, and I felt inveterate against him. I told her so, and told
her that I would spend any money or take any pains to drive him out of
that country. By degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she
told me how Joe loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything,--she
didn't say, of me; she had no need; I knew what she meant,--but ever did
his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a
gentle heart.

“Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him,” said I; “and Biddy,
we must often speak of these things, for of course I shall be often down
here now. I am not going to leave poor Joe alone.”

Biddy said never a single word.

“Biddy, don't you hear me?”

“Yes, Mr. Pip.”

“Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip,--which appears to me to be in
bad taste, Biddy,--what do you mean?”

“What do I mean?” asked Biddy, timidly.

“Biddy,” said I, in a virtuously self-asserting manner, “I must request
to know what you mean by this?”

“By this?” said Biddy.

“Now, don't echo,” I retorted. “You used not to echo, Biddy.”

“Used not!” said Biddy. “O Mr. Pip! Used!”

Well! I rather thought I would give up that point too. After another
silent turn in the garden, I fell back on the main position.

“Biddy,” said I, “I made a remark respecting my coming down here often,
to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the goodness,
Biddy, to tell me why.”

“Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often?” asked
Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk, and looking at me under the
stars with a clear and honest eye.

“O dear me!” said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up Biddy in
despair. “This really is a very bad side of human nature! Don't say any
more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much.”

For which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during supper, and
when I went up to my own old little room, took as stately a leave of her
as I could, in my murmuring soul, deem reconcilable with the churchyard
and the event of the day. As often as I was restless in the night, and
that was every quarter of an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what
an injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me.

Early in the morning I was to go. Early in the morning I was out, and
looking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There
I stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of
health and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun
of the life in store for him were shining on it.

“Good-bye, dear Joe!--No, don't wipe it off--for God's sake, give me your
blackened hand!--I shall be down soon and often.”

“Never too soon, sir,” said Joe, “and never too often, Pip!”

Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk and
a crust of bread. “Biddy,” said I, when I gave her my hand at parting,
“I am not angry, but I am hurt.”

“No, don't be hurt,” she pleaded quite pathetically; “let only me be
hurt, if I have been ungenerous.”

Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to
me, as I suspect they did, that I should not come back, and that Biddy
was quite right, all I can say is,--they were quite right too.




Chapter XXXVI

Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our
debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like exemplary
transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing;
and I came of age,--in fulfilment of Herbert's prediction, that I should
do so before I knew where I was.

Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had
nothing else than his majority to come into, the event did not make a
profound sensation in Barnard's Inn. But we had looked forward to
my one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and
anticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly
help saying something definite on that occasion.

I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my
birthday was. On the day before it, I received an official note from
Wemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call
upon him at five in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced
us that something great was to happen, and threw me into an unusual
flutter when I repaired to my guardian's office, a model of punctuality.

In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and
incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of
tissue-paper that I liked the look of. But he said nothing respecting
it, and motioned me with a nod into my guardian's room. It was November,
and my guardian was standing before his fire leaning his back against
the chimney-piece, with his hands under his coattails.

“Well, Pip,” said he, “I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations,
Mr. Pip.”

We shook hands,--he was always a remarkably short shaker,--and I thanked
him.

“Take a chair, Mr. Pip,” said my guardian.

As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his
boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time when
I had been put upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the shelf
were not far from him, and their expression was as if they were making a
stupid apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation.

“Now my young friend,” my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the
box, “I am going to have a word or two with you.”

“If you please, sir.”

“What do you suppose,” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the
ground, and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling,--“what
do you suppose you are living at the rate of?”

“At the rate of, sir?”

“At,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling,
“the--rate--of?” And then looked all round the room, and paused with his
pocket-handkerchief in his hand, half-way to his nose.

I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed
any slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly,
I confessed myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply
seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, “I thought so!” and blew his
nose with an air of satisfaction.

“Now, I have asked you a question, my friend,” said Mr. Jaggers. “Have
you anything to ask me?”

“Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several
questions, sir; but I remember your prohibition.”

“Ask one,” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?”

“No. Ask another.”

“Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?”

“Waive that, a moment,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and ask another.”

I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from
the inquiry, “Have-I--anything to receive, sir?” On that, Mr. Jaggers
said, triumphantly, “I thought we should come to it!” and called to
Wemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it in,
and disappeared.

“Now, Mr. Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “attend, if you please. You have been
drawing pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick's
cash-book; but you are in debt, of course?”

“I am afraid I must say yes, sir.”

“You know you must say yes; don't you?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don't ask you what you owe, because you don't know; and if you did
know, you wouldn't tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend,”
 cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a show
of protesting: “it's likely enough that you think you wouldn't, but
you would. You'll excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this
piece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it
and tell me what it is.”

“This is a bank-note,” said I, “for five hundred pounds.”

“That is a bank-note,” repeated Mr. Jaggers, “for five hundred pounds.
And a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so?”

“How could I do otherwise!”

“Ah! But answer the question,” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Undoubtedly.”

“You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that
handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this
day, in earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome
sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until the
donor of the whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your money
affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from Wemmick
one hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter, until you are in
communication with the fountain-head, and no longer with the mere
agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my
instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but
I am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits.”

I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great
liberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. “I am
not paid, Pip,” said he, coolly, “to carry your words to any one;” and
then gathered up his coat-tails, as he had gathered up the subject, and
stood frowning at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against
him.

After a pause, I hinted,--

“There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to
waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again?”

“What is it?” said he.

I might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me aback
to have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. “Is it
likely,” I said, after hesitating, “that my patron, the fountain-head
you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon--” there I delicately
stopped.

“Will soon what?” asked Mr. Jaggers. “That's no question as it stands,
you know.”

“Will soon come to London,” said I, after casting about for a precise
form of words, “or summon me anywhere else?”

“Now, here,” replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with
his dark deep-set eyes, “we must revert to the evening when we first
encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip?”

“You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person
appeared.”

“Just so,” said Mr. Jaggers, “that's my answer.”

As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my
strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came
quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I
had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him.

“Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?”

Mr. Jaggers shook his head,--not in negativing the question, but in
altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer
it,--and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when
my eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their
suspended attention, and were going to sneeze.

“Come!” said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs
of his warmed hands, “I'll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That's a
question I must not be asked. You'll understand that better, when I tell
you it's a question that might compromise me. Come! I'll go a little
further with you; I'll say something more.”

He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the
calves of his legs in the pause he made.

“When that person discloses,” said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself,
“you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person
discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that
person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about
it. And that's all I have got to say.”

We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked
thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion
that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him
into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he resented
this, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he really did object to
that scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I raised my eyes
again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me all the time, and
was doing so still.

“If that is all you have to say, sir,” I remarked, “there can be nothing
left for me to say.”

He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and asked me
where I was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert.
As a necessary sequence, I asked him if he would favor us with his
company, and he promptly accepted the invitation. But he insisted on
walking home with me, in order that I might make no extra preparation
for him, and first he had a letter or two to write, and (of course) had
his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the outer office and talk
to Wemmick.

The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into my pocket,
a thought had come into my head which had been often there before;
and it appeared to me that Wemmick was a good person to advise with
concerning such thought.

He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for going home.
He had left his desk, brought out his two greasy office candlesticks and
stood them in line with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to
be extinguished; he had raked his fire low, put his hat and great-coat
ready, and was beating himself all over the chest with his safe-key, as
an athletic exercise after business.

“Mr. Wemmick,” said I, “I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous
to serve a friend.”

Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion
were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort.

“This friend,” I pursued, “is trying to get on in commercial life,
but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a
beginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a beginning.”

“With money down?” said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust.

“With some money down,” I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot across
me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home--“with some money down,
and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations.”

“Mr. Pip,” said Wemmick, “I should like just to run over with you on my
fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high
as Chelsea Reach. Let's see; there's London, one; Southwark, two;
Blackfriars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six.”
 He had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his
safe-key on the palm of his hand. “There's as many as six, you see, to
choose from.”

“I don't understand you,” said I.

“Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip,” returned Wemmick, “and take a walk upon
your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch
of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and
you may know the end of it too,--but it's a less pleasant and profitable
end.”

I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after
saying this.

“This is very discouraging,” said I.

“Meant to be so,” said Wemmick.

“Then is it your opinion,” I inquired, with some little indignation,
“that a man should never--”

“--Invest portable property in a friend?” said Wemmick. “Certainly
he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,--and then it
becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid
of him.”

“And that,” said I, “is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick?”

“That,” he returned, “is my deliberate opinion in this office.”

“Ah!” said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole
here; “but would that be your opinion at Walworth?”

“Mr. Pip,” he replied, with gravity, “Walworth is one place, and this
office is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is
another. They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments
must be taken at Walworth; none but my official sentiments can be taken
in this office.”

“Very well,” said I, much relieved, “then I shall look you up at
Walworth, you may depend upon it.”

“Mr. Pip,” he returned, “you will be welcome there, in a private and
personal capacity.”

We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my guardian's
ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in his doorway,
towelling his hands, Wemmick got on his great-coat and stood by to snuff
out the candles. We all three went into the street together, and from
the door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours.

I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers
had had an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or
a Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable
consideration on a twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all
seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he
made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than
Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to
dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, because,
after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the
fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the
details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty.




Chapter XXXVII

Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick's Walworth
sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage
to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union
Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of
defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most
pacific manner by the Aged.

“My son, sir,” said the old man, after securing the drawbridge, “rather
had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word
that he would soon be home from his afternoon's walk. He is very regular
in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my son.”

I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and
we went in and sat down by the fireside.

“You made acquaintance with my son, sir,” said the old man, in his
chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, “at his office, I
expect?” I nodded. “Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand at
his business, sir?” I nodded hard. “Yes; so they tell me. His business
is the Law?” I nodded harder. “Which makes it more surprising in my
son,” said the old man, “for he was not brought up to the Law, but to
the Wine-Coopering.”

Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the
reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into
the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very
sprightly manner, “No, to be sure; you're right.” And to this hour I
have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I
had made.

As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making
some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his own
calling in life had been “the Wine-Coopering.” By dint of straining that
term out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on the
chest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning
understood.

“No,” said the old gentleman; “the warehousing, the warehousing. First,
over yonder;” he appeared to mean up the chimney, but I believe he
intended to refer me to Liverpool; “and then in the City of London here.
However, having an infirmity--for I am hard of hearing, sir--”

I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment.

“--Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he
went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and little
made out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to what you
said, you know,” pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, “what I
say is, No to be sure; you're right.”

I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled
me to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this
imaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall
on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little
wooden flap with “JOHN” upon it. The old man, following my eyes, cried
with great triumph, “My son's come home!” and we both went out to the
drawbridge.

It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute to me from the
other side of the moat, when we might have shaken hands across it with
the greatest ease. The Aged was so delighted to work the drawbridge,
that I made no offer to assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had
come across, and had presented me to Miss Skiffins; a lady by whom he
was accompanied.

Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her escort, in
the post-office branch of the service. She might have been some two or
three years younger than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed
of portable property. The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both
before and behind, made her figure very like a boy's kite; and I might
have pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange, and her gloves a
little too intensely green. But she seemed to be a good sort of fellow,
and showed a high regard for the Aged. I was not long in discovering
that she was a frequent visitor at the Castle; for, on our going in,
and my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for announcing
himself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for a moment to
the other side of the chimney, and disappeared. Presently another click
came, and another little door tumbled open with “Miss Skiffins” on it;
then Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open; then Miss Skiffins
and John both tumbled open together, and finally shut up together. On
Wemmick's return from working these mechanical appliances, I expressed
the great admiration with which I regarded them, and he said, “Well, you
know, they're both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And by George, sir,
it's a thing worth mentioning, that of all the people who come to
this gate, the secret of those pulls is only known to the Aged, Miss
Skiffins, and me!”

“And Mr. Wemmick made them,” added Miss Skiffins, “with his own hands
out of his own head.”

While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained her green
gloves during the evening as an outward and visible sign that there was
company), Wemmick invited me to take a walk with him round the property,
and see how the island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he did this
to give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I seized
the opportunity as soon as we were out of the Castle.

Having thought of the matter with care, I approached my subject as if I
had never hinted at it before. I informed Wemmick that I was anxious in
behalf of Herbert Pocket, and I told him how we had first met, and how
we had fought. I glanced at Herbert's home, and at his character, and
at his having no means but such as he was dependent on his father for;
those, uncertain and unpunctual. I alluded to the advantages I had
derived in my first rawness and ignorance from his society, and I
confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid them, and that he might
have done better without me and my expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham
in the background at a great distance, I still hinted at the possibility
of my having competed with him in his prospects, and at the certainty of
his possessing a generous soul, and being far above any mean distrusts,
retaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told Wemmick),
and because he was my young companion and friend, and I had a great
affection for him, I wished my own good fortune to reflect some rays
upon him, and therefore I sought advice from Wemmick's experience and
knowledge of men and affairs, how I could best try with my resources to
help Herbert to some present income,--say of a hundred a year, to keep
him in good hope and heart,--and gradually to buy him on to some small
partnership. I begged Wemmick, in conclusion, to understand that my help
must always be rendered without Herbert's knowledge or suspicion, and
that there was no one else in the world with whom I could advise. I
wound up by laying my hand upon his shoulder, and saying, “I can't help
confiding in you, though I know it must be troublesome to you; but that
is your fault, in having ever brought me here.”

Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a kind of
start, “Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is
devilish good of you.”

“Say you'll help me to be good then,” said I.

“Ecod,” replied Wemmick, shaking his head, “that's not my trade.”

“Nor is this your trading-place,” said I.

“You are right,” he returned. “You hit the nail on the head. Mr. Pip,
I'll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want to do may be
done by degrees. Skiffins (that's her brother) is an accountant and
agent. I'll look him up and go to work for you.”

“I thank you ten thousand times.”

“On the contrary,” said he, “I thank you, for though we are strictly in
our private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that there
are Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away.”

After a little further conversation to the same effect, we returned into
the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The responsible
duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and that excellent
old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger
of melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were going to make,
but a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such a hay-stack of buttered
toast, that I could scarcely see him over it as it simmered on an iron
stand hooked on to the top-bar; while Miss Skiffins brewed such a jorum
of tea, that the pig in the back premises became strongly excited, and
repeatedly expressed his desire to participate in the entertainment.

The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right
moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of Walworth
as if the moat were thirty feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed
the tranquillity of the Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of
John and Miss Skiffins: which little doors were a prey to some spasmodic
infirmity that made me sympathetically uncomfortable until I got used
to it. I inferred from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins's
arrangements that she made tea there every Sunday night; and I rather
suspected that a classic brooch she wore, representing the profile of an
undesirable female with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a
piece of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick.

We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was
delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The Aged
especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a savage
tribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffins--in the
absence of the little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of
her family on Sunday afternoons--washed up the tea-things, in a trifling
lady-like amateur manner that compromised none of us. Then, she put on
her gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, “Now,
Aged Parent, tip us the paper.”

Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that this
was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman infinite
satisfaction to read the news aloud. “I won't offer an apology,” said
Wemmick, “for he isn't capable of many pleasures--are you, Aged P.?”

“All right, John, all right,” returned the old man, seeing himself
spoken to.

“Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper,”
 said Wemmick, “and he'll be as happy as a king. We are all attention,
Aged One.”

“All right, John, all right!” returned the cheerful old man, so busy and
so pleased, that it really was quite charming.

The Aged's reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle's
great-aunt's, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to come
through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and as he was
always on the verge of putting either his head or the newspaper into
them, he required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick was
equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and the Aged read on,
quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever he looked at us, we
all expressed the greatest interest and amazement, and nodded until he
resumed again.

As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a shadowy
corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick's mouth,
powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing his arm round
Miss Skiffins's waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the
other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly
stopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm again as if it were
an article of dress, and with the greatest deliberation laid it on the
table before her. Miss Skiffins's composure while she did this was one
of the most remarkable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have
thought the act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have
deemed that Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically.

By and by, I noticed Wemmick's arm beginning to disappear again, and
gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth began to
widen again. After an interval of suspense on my part that was quite
enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side
of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness
of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid
it on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am
justified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged's reading,
Wemmick's arm was straying from the path of virtue and being recalled to
it by Miss Skiffins.

At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the time
for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and a
black bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, representing some clerical
dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of these
appliances we all had something warm to drink, including the Aged, who
was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed that she and
Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better than to offer to
see Miss Skiffins home, and under the circumstances I thought I had best
go first; which I did, taking a cordial leave of the Aged, and having
passed a pleasant evening.

Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated Walworth,
stating that he hoped he had made some advance in that matter
appertaining to our private and personal capacities, and that he would
be glad if I could come and see him again upon it. So, I went out
to Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and I saw him by
appointment in the City several times, but never held any communication
with him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The upshot was,
that we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker, not long
established in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted
capital, and who in due course of time and receipt would want a partner.
Between him and me, secret articles were signed of which Herbert was the
subject, and I paid him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged
for sundry other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates out of my
income: some, contingent on my coming into my property. Miss Skiffins's
brother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it throughout, but
never appeared in it.

The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not the
least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget the radiant
face with which he came home one afternoon, and told me, as a mighty
piece of news, of his having fallen in with one Clarriker (the young
merchant's name), and of Clarriker's having shown an extraordinary
inclination towards him, and of his belief that the opening had come at
last. Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face brighter, he
must have thought me a more and more affectionate friend, for I had the
greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so
happy. At length, the thing being done, and he having that day entered
Clarriker's House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a
flush of pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when
I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to
somebody.

A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens on my
view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass on to all
the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not
much to give to the theme that so long filled my heart.




Chapter XXXVIII

If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come to
be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O
the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet spirit within
me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let my body be where it
would, my spirit was always wandering, wandering, wandering, about that
house.

The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a
widow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The mother
looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother's complexion was
pink, and the daughter's was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity,
and the daughter for theology. They were in what is called a good
position, and visited, and were visited by, numbers of people. Little,
if any, community of feeling subsisted between them and Estella, but the
understanding was established that they were necessary to her, and
that she was necessary to them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss
Havisham's before the time of her seclusion.

In Mrs. Brandley's house and out of Mrs. Brandley's house, I suffered
every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The
nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of familiarity
without placing me on terms of favor, conduced to my distraction.
She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she turned the very
familiarity between herself and me to the account of putting a constant
slight on my devotion to her. If I had been her secretary, steward,
half-brother, poor relation,--if I had been a younger brother of her
appointed husband,--I could not have seemed to myself further from my
hopes when I was nearest to her. The privilege of calling her by her
name and hearing her call me by mine became, under the circumstances
an aggravation of my trials; and while I think it likely that it almost
maddened her other lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened
me.

She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer of
every one who went near her; but there were more than enough of them
without that.

I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I used
often to take her and the Brandleys on the water; there were picnics,
fête days, plays, operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of pleasures,
through which I pursued her,--and they were all miseries to me. I never
had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the
four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me
unto death.

Throughout this part of our intercourse,--and it lasted, as will
presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,--she habitually
reverted to that tone which expressed that our association was forced
upon us. There were other times when she would come to a sudden check in
this tone and in all her many tones, and would seem to pity me.

“Pip, Pip,” she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we sat
apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; “will you never
take warning?”

“Of what?”

“Of me.”

“Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?”

“Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are blind.”

I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for the
reason that I always was restrained--and this was not the least of my
miseries--by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself upon her,
when she knew that she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My
dread always was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy
disadvantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a rebellious
struggle in her bosom.

“At any rate,” said I, “I have no warning given me just now, for you
wrote to me to come to you, this time.”

“That's true,” said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always
chilled me.

After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went on
to say:--

“The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a day
at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you will. She
would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid,
for she has a sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can
you take me?”

“Can I take you, Estella!”

“You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to pay
all charges out of my purse, You hear the condition of your going?”

“And must obey,” said I.

This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for others
like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so much as seen
her handwriting. We went down on the next day but one, and we found her
in the room where I had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that
there was no change in Satis House.

She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had been when
I last saw them together; I repeat the word advisedly, for there was
something positively dreadful in the energy of her looks and embraces.
She hung upon Estella's beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her
gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while she looked at
her, as though she were devouring the beautiful creature she had reared.

From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that seemed to
pry into my heart and probe its wounds. “How does she use you, Pip; how
does she use you?” she asked me again, with her witch-like eagerness,
even in Estella's hearing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire
at night, she was most weird; for then, keeping Estella's hand drawn
through her arm and clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her,
by dint of referring back to what Estella had told her in her regular
letters, the names and conditions of the men whom she had fascinated;
and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon this roll, with the intensity of a mind
mortally hurt and diseased, she sat with her other hand on her crutch
stick, and her chin on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a
very spectre.

I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the sense of
dependence and even of degradation that it awakened,--I saw in this that
Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham's revenge on men, and that she
was not to be given to me until she had gratified it for a term. I saw
in this, a reason for her being beforehand assigned to me. Sending her
out to attract and torment and do mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with
the malicious assurance that she was beyond the reach of all admirers,
and that all who staked upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in
this that I, too, was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while
the prize was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason for my being
staved off so long and the reason for my late guardian's declining to
commit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a word, I
saw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there before my eyes,
and always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in this, the distinct
shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which her life was hidden
from the sun.

The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces on
the wall. They were high from the ground, and they burnt with the steady
dulness of artificial light in air that is seldom renewed. As I looked
round at them, and at the pale gloom they made, and at the stopped
clock, and at the withered articles of bridal dress upon the table and
the ground, and at her own awful figure with its ghostly reflection
thrown large by the fire upon the ceiling and the wall, I saw in
everything the construction that my mind had come to, repeated and
thrown back to me. My thoughts passed into the great room across the
landing where the table was spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in
the falls of the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the
spiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their
little quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and
pausings of the beetles on the floor.

It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words arose
between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I had ever seen
them opposed.

We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham
still had Estella's arm drawn through her own, and still clutched
Estella's hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself.
She had shown a proud impatience more than once before, and had rather
endured that fierce affection than accepted or returned it.

“What!” said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, “are you tired
of me?”

“Only a little tired of myself,” replied Estella, disengaging her arm,
and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at
the fire.

“Speak the truth, you ingrate!” cried Miss Havisham, passionately
striking her stick upon the floor; “you are tired of me.”

Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down
at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a
self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was
almost cruel.

“You stock and stone!” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “You cold, cold heart!”

“What?” said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she
leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; “do you
reproach me for being cold? You?”

“Are you not?” was the fierce retort.

“You should know,” said Estella. “I am what you have made me. Take
all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the
failure; in short, take me.”

“O, look at her, look at her!” cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; “Look at
her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I
took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its
stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!”

“At least I was no party to the compact,” said Estella, “for if I could
walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what
would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to
you. What would you have?”

“Love,” replied the other.

“You have it.”

“I have not,” said Miss Havisham.

“Mother by adoption,” retorted Estella, never departing from the easy
grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never
yielding either to anger or tenderness,--“mother by adoption, I have
said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All
that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I
have nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what you never gave me, my
gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities.”

“Did I never give her love!” cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me.
“Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all
times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me
mad, let her call me mad!”

“Why should I call you mad,” returned Estella, “I, of all people? Does
any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I
do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half
as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool
that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up
into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!”

“Soon forgotten!” moaned Miss Havisham. “Times soon forgotten!”

“No, not forgotten,” retorted Estella,--“not forgotten, but treasured up
in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have
you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving
admission here,” she touched her bosom with her hand, “to anything that
you excluded? Be just to me.”

“So proud, so proud!” moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her gray hair
with both her hands.

“Who taught me to be proud?” returned Estella. “Who praised me when I
learnt my lesson?”

“So hard, so hard!” moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action.

“Who taught me to be hard?” returned Estella. “Who praised me when I
learnt my lesson?”

“But to be proud and hard to me!” Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as she
stretched out her arms. “Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard
to me!”

Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was
not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked down at
the fire again.

“I cannot think,” said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence “why
you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a separation.
I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never been
unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any weakness
that I can charge myself with.”

“Would it be weakness to return my love?” exclaimed Miss Havisham. “But
yes, yes, she would call it so!”

“I begin to think,” said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment
of calm wonder, “that I almost understand how this comes about. If you
had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of
these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as
the daylight by which she had never once seen your face,--if you had
done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the
daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and
angry?”

Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low moaning, and
swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer.

“Or,” said Estella,--“which is a nearer case,--if you had taught her,
from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might,
that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her
enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had
blighted you and would else blight her;--if you had done this, and then,
for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she
could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?”

Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her
face), but still made no answer.

“So,” said Estella, “I must be taken as I have been made. The success is
not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”

Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor, among
the faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took advantage of
the moment--I had sought one from the first--to leave the room, after
beseeching Estella's attention to her, with a movement of my hand. When
I left, Estella was yet standing by the great chimney-piece, just as she
had stood throughout. Miss Havisham's gray hair was all adrift upon the
ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see.

It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an
hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and about
the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to the room, I
found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking up some stitches
in one of those old articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and
of which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old
banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella
and I played at cards, as of yore,--only we were skilful now, and played
French games,--and so the evening wore away, and I went to bed.

I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the first
time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep refused to
come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on this side
of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at the foot, behind the
half-opened door of the dressing-room, in the dressing-room, in the room
overhead, in the room beneath,--everywhere. At last, when the night was
slow to creep on towards two o'clock, I felt that I absolutely could no
longer bear the place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up.
I therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out across the yard
into the long stone passage, designing to gain the outer courtyard and
walk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no sooner in the passage
than I extinguished my candle; for I saw Miss Havisham going along it
in a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I followed her at a distance,
and saw her go up the staircase. She carried a bare candle in her hand,
which she had probably taken from one of the sconces in her own room,
and was a most unearthly object by its light. Standing at the bottom
of the staircase, I felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, without
seeing her open the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across
into her own room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the low
cry. After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back,
but I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and showed
me where to lay my hands. During the whole interval, whenever I went to
the bottom of the staircase, I heard her footstep, saw her light pass
above, and heard her ceaseless low cry.

Before we left next day, there was no revival of the difference between
her and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar occasion; and
there were four similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. Nor,
did Miss Havisham's manner towards Estella in anywise change, except
that I believed it to have something like fear infused among its former
characteristics.

It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting Bentley
Drummle's name upon it; or I would, very gladly.

On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and when
good feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by nobody's agreeing
with anybody else, the presiding Finch called the Grove to order,
forasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted a lady; which, according
to the solemn constitution of the society, it was the brute's turn to
do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the
decanters were going round, but as there was no love lost between us,
that might easily be. What was my indignant surprise when he called upon
the company to pledge him to “Estella!”

“Estella who?” said I.

“Never you mind,” retorted Drummle.

“Estella of where?” said I. “You are bound to say of where.” Which he
was, as a Finch.

“Of Richmond, gentlemen,” said Drummle, putting me out of the question,
“and a peerless beauty.”

Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I
whispered Herbert.

“I know that lady,” said Herbert, across the table, when the toast had
been honored.

“Do you?” said Drummle.

“And so do I,” I added, with a scarlet face.

“Do you?” said Drummle. “O, Lord!”

This was the only retort--except glass or crockery--that the heavy
creature was capable of making; but, I became as highly incensed by it
as if it had been barbed with wit, and I immediately rose in my place
and said that I could not but regard it as being like the honorable
Finch's impudence to come down to that Grove,--we always talked
about coming down to that Grove, as a neat Parliamentary turn of
expression,--down to that Grove, proposing a lady of whom he knew
nothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up, demanded what I meant by
that? Whereupon I made him the extreme reply that I believed he knew
where I was to be found.

Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get on without blood,
after this, was a question on which the Finches were divided. The debate
upon it grew so lively, indeed, that at least six more honorable members
told six more, during the discussion, that they believed they knew where
they were to be found. However, it was decided at last (the Grove being
a Court of Honor) that if Mr. Drummle would bring never so slight
a certificate from the lady, importing that he had the honor of her
acquaintance, Mr. Pip must express his regret, as a gentleman and a
Finch, for “having been betrayed into a warmth which.” Next day was
appointed for the production (lest our honor should take cold from
delay), and next day Drummle appeared with a polite little avowal in
Estella's hand, that she had had the honor of dancing with him several
times. This left me no course but to regret that I had been “betrayed
into a warmth which,” and on the whole to repudiate, as untenable, the
idea that I was to be found anywhere. Drummle and I then sat snorting
at one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate
contradiction, and finally the promotion of good feeling was declared to
have gone ahead at an amazing rate.

I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot
adequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estella should
show any favor to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far below
the average. To the present moment, I believe it to have been referable
to some pure fire of generosity and disinterestedness in my love for
her, that I could not endure the thought of her stooping to that hound.
No doubt I should have been miserable whomsoever she had favored; but
a worthier object would have caused me a different kind and degree of
distress.

It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that Drummle
had begun to follow her closely, and that she allowed him to do it. A
little while, and he was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed
one another every day. He held on, in a dull persistent way, and Estella
held him on; now with encouragement, now with discouragement, now almost
flattering him, now openly despising him, now knowing him very well, now
scarcely remembering who he was.

The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying in wait,
however, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, he had a
blockhead confidence in his money and in his family greatness,
which sometimes did him good service,--almost taking the place of
concentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider, doggedly watching
Estella, outwatched many brighter insects, and would often uncoil
himself and drop at the right nick of time.

At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be Assembly Balls
at most places then), where Estella had outshone all other beauties,
this blundering Drummle so hung about her, and with so much toleration
on her part, that I resolved to speak to her concerning him. I took the
next opportunity; which was when she was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to
take her home, and was sitting apart among some flowers, ready to go.
I was with her, for I almost always accompanied them to and from such
places.

“Are you tired, Estella?”

“Rather, Pip.”

“You should be.”

“Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House to
write, before I go to sleep.”

“Recounting to-night's triumph?” said I. “Surely a very poor one,
Estella.”

“What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any.”

“Estella,” said I, “do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is
looking over here at us.”

“Why should I look at him?” returned Estella, with her eyes on me
instead. “What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,--to use
your words,--that I need look at?”

“Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you,” said I. “For he
has been hovering about you all night.”

“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures,” replied Estella, with a glance
towards him, “hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”

“No,” I returned; “but cannot the Estella help it?”

“Well!” said she, laughing, after a moment, “perhaps. Yes. Anything you
like.”

“But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should
encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is
despised.”

“Well?” said she.

“You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient,
ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow.”

“Well?” said she.

“You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous
roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don't you?”

“Well?” said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely
eyes the wider.

To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it
from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, “Well! Then, that is why
it makes me wretched.”

Now, if I could have believed that she favored Drummle with any idea of
making me-me--wretched, I should have been in better heart about it;
but in that habitual way of hers, she put me so entirely out of the
question, that I could believe nothing of the kind.

“Pip,” said Estella, casting her glance over the room, “don't be foolish
about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others, and may be
meant to have. It's not worth discussing.”

“Yes it is,” said I, “because I cannot bear that people should say, 'she
throws away her graces and attractions on a mere boor, the lowest in the
crowd.'”

“I can bear it,” said Estella.

“Oh! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible.”

“Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!” said Estella, opening
her hands. “And in his last breath reproached me for stooping to a
boor!”

“There is no doubt you do,” said I, something hurriedly, “for I have
seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never
give to--me.”

“Do you want me then,” said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and
serious, if not angry, look, “to deceive and entrap you?”

“Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?”

“Yes, and many others,--all of them but you. Here is Mrs. Brandley. I'll
say no more.”

* *

And now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that so filled my
heart, and so often made it ache and ache again, I pass on unhindered,
to the event that had impended over me longer yet; the event that had
begun to be prepared for, before I knew that the world held Estella,
and in the days when her baby intelligence was receiving its first
distortions from Miss Havisham's wasting hands.

In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed of
state in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of the quarry, the
tunnel for the rope to hold it in its place was slowly carried through
the leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised and fitted in the roof,
the rope was rove to it and slowly taken through the miles of hollow to
the great iron ring. All being made ready with much labor, and the hour
come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, and the sharpened
axe that was to sever the rope from the great iron ring was put into his
hand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and
the ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar, that
tended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the blow was
struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.




Chapter XXXIX

I was three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to
enlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and my twenty-third
birthday was a week gone. We had left Barnard's Inn more than a year,
and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were in Garden-court, down by the
river.

Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our original
relations, though we continued on the best terms. Notwithstanding my
inability to settle to anything,--which I hope arose out of the restless
and incomplete tenure on which I held my means,--I had a taste for
reading, and read regularly so many hours a day. That matter of
Herbert's was still progressing, and everything with me was as I have
brought it down to the close of the last preceding chapter.

Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone, and
had a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, long hoping
that to-morrow or next week would clear my way, and long disappointed, I
sadly missed the cheerful face and ready response of my friend.

It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud,
mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been
driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East
there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts,
that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs;
and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills
carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of
shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages
of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the
worst of all.

Alterations have been made in that part of the Temple since that time,
and it has not now so lonely a character as it had then, nor is it so
exposed to the river. We lived at the top of the last house, and the
wind rushing up the river shook the house that night, like discharges
of cannon, or breakings of a sea. When the rain came with it and dashed
against the windows, I thought, raising my eyes to them as they
rocked, that I might have fancied myself in a storm-beaten lighthouse.
Occasionally, the smoke came rolling down the chimney as though it could
not bear to go out into such a night; and when I set the doors open and
looked down the staircase, the staircase lamps were blown out; and when
I shaded my face with my hands and looked through the black windows
(opening them ever so little was out of the question in the teeth of
such wind and rain), I saw that the lamps in the court were blown out,
and that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were shuddering, and
that the coal-fires in barges on the river were being carried away
before the wind like red-hot splashes in the rain.

I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book
at eleven o'clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul's, and all the many
church-clocks in the City--some leading, some accompanying, some
following--struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind;
and I was listening, and thinking how the wind assailed and tore it,
when I heard a footstep on the stair.

What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the
footstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment, and I
listened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on.
Remembering then, that the staircase-lights were blown out, I took up
my reading-lamp and went out to the stair-head. Whoever was below had
stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet.

“There is some one down there, is there not?” I called out, looking
down.

“Yes,” said a voice from the darkness beneath.

“What floor do you want?”

“The top. Mr. Pip.”

“That is my name.--There is nothing the matter?”

“Nothing the matter,” returned the voice. And the man came on.

I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly
within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its
circle of light was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere
instant, and then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was
strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched
and pleased by the sight of me.

Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he was substantially
dressed, but roughly, like a voyager by sea. That he had long iron-gray
hair. That his age was about sixty. That he was a muscular man, strong
on his legs, and that he was browned and hardened by exposure to
weather. As he ascended the last stair or two, and the light of my lamp
included us both, I saw, with a stupid kind of amazement, that he was
holding out both his hands to me.

“Pray what is your business?” I asked him.

“My business?” he repeated, pausing. “Ah! Yes. I will explain my
business, by your leave.”

“Do you wish to come in?”

“Yes,” he replied; “I wish to come in, master.”

I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I resented the
sort of bright and gratified recognition that still shone in his face.
I resented it, because it seemed to imply that he expected me to respond
to it. But I took him into the room I had just left, and, having set the
lamp on the table, asked him as civilly as I could to explain himself.

He looked about him with the strangest air,--an air of wondering
pleasure, as if he had some part in the things he admired,--and he
pulled off a rough outer coat, and his hat. Then, I saw that his head
was furrowed and bald, and that the long iron-gray hair grew only on
its sides. But, I saw nothing that in the least explained him. On the
contrary, I saw him next moment, once more holding out both his hands to
me.

“What do you mean?” said I, half suspecting him to be mad.

He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right hand over
his head. “It's disapinting to a man,” he said, in a coarse broken
voice, “arter having looked for'ard so distant, and come so fur; but
you're not to blame for that,--neither on us is to blame for that. I'll
speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute, please.”

He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his
forehead with his large brown veinous hands. I looked at him attentively
then, and recoiled a little from him; but I did not know him.

“There's no one nigh,” said he, looking over his shoulder; “is there?”

“Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of the night,
ask that question?” said I.

“You're a game one,” he returned, shaking his head at me with a
deliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most exasperating;
“I'm glad you've grow'd up, a game one! But don't catch hold of me.
You'd be sorry arterwards to have done it.”

I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Even yet
I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If the wind and
the rain had driven away the intervening years, had scattered all the
intervening objects, had swept us to the churchyard where we first stood
face to face on such different levels, I could not have known my convict
more distinctly than I knew him now as he sat in the chair before the
fire. No need to take a file from his pocket and show it to me; no need
to take the handkerchief from his neck and twist it round his head; no
need to hug himself with both his arms, and take a shivering turn across
the room, looking back at me for recognition. I knew him before he gave
me one of those aids, though, a moment before, I had not been conscious
of remotely suspecting his identity.

He came back to where I stood, and again held out both his hands.
Not knowing what to do,--for, in my astonishment I had lost my
self-possession,--I reluctantly gave him my hands. He grasped them
heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them.

“You acted noble, my boy,” said he. “Noble, Pip! And I have never forgot
it!”

At a change in his manner as if he were even going to embrace me, I laid
a hand upon his breast and put him away.

“Stay!” said I. “Keep off! If you are grateful to me for what I did when
I was a little child, I hope you have shown your gratitude by mending
your way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not
necessary. Still, however you have found me out, there must be something
good in the feeling that has brought you here, and I will not repulse
you; but surely you must understand that--I--”

My attention was so attracted by the singularity of his fixed look at
me, that the words died away on my tongue.

“You was a saying,” he observed, when we had confronted one another
in silence, “that surely I must understand. What, surely must I
understand?”

“That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse with you of long
ago, under these different circumstances. I am glad to believe you have
repented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad
that, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But
our ways are different ways, none the less. You are wet, and you look
weary. Will you drink something before you go?”

He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood, keenly observant
of me, biting a long end of it. “I think,” he answered, still with the
end at his mouth and still observant of me, “that I will drink (I thank
you) afore I go.”

There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the table
near the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one of the
bottles without looking at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum
and water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did so, but his look
at me as he leaned back in his chair with the long draggled end of his
neckerchief between his teeth--evidently forgotten--made my hand very
difficult to master. When at last I put the glass to him, I saw with
amazement that his eyes were full of tears.

Up to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that I wished
him gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect of the man, and felt
a touch of reproach. “I hope,” said I, hurriedly putting something into
a glass for myself, and drawing a chair to the table, “that you will not
think I spoke harshly to you just now. I had no intention of doing it,
and I am sorry for it if I did. I wish you well and happy!”

As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise at the end of his
neckerchief, dropping from his mouth when he opened it, and stretched
out his hand. I gave him mine, and then he drank, and drew his sleeve
across his eyes and forehead.

“How are you living?” I asked him.

“I've been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides, away in
the new world,” said he; “many a thousand mile of stormy water off from
this.”

“I hope you have done well?”

“I've done wonderfully well. There's others went out alonger me as has
done well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I'm famous for
it.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy.”

Without stopping to try to understand those words or the tone in which
they were spoken, I turned off to a point that had just come into my
mind.

“Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me,” I inquired, “since
he undertook that trust?”

“Never set eyes upon him. I warn't likely to it.”

“He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound notes. I was
a poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were a little
fortune. But, like you, I have done well since, and you must let me pay
them back. You can put them to some other poor boy's use.” I took out my
purse.

He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened it, and he
watched me as I separated two one-pound notes from its contents. They
were clean and new, and I spread them out and handed them over to
him. Still watching me, he laid them one upon the other, folded them
long-wise, gave them a twist, set fire to them at the lamp, and dropped
the ashes into the tray.

“May I make so bold,” he said then, with a smile that was like a frown,
and with a frown that was like a smile, “as ask you how you have done
well, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?”

“How?”

“Ah!”

He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with
his heavy brown hand on the mantel-shelf. He put a foot up to the bars,
to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither
looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only
now that I began to tremble.

When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were
without sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it
distinctly), that I had been chosen to succeed to some property.

“Might a mere warmint ask what property?” said he.

I faltered, “I don't know.”

“Might a mere warmint ask whose property?” said he.

I faltered again, “I don't know.”

“Could I make a guess, I wonder,” said the Convict, “at your income
since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?”

With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose
out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking
wildly at him.

“Concerning a guardian,” he went on. “There ought to have been some
guardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As
to the first letter of that lawyer's name now. Would it be J?”

All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its
disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed
in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle
for every breath I drew.

“Put it,” he resumed, “as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun
with a J, and might be Jaggers,--put it as he had come over sea to
Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you.
'However, you have found me out,' you says just now. Well! However, did
I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for
particulars of your address. That person's name? Why, Wemmick.”

I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life.
I stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where
I seemed to be suffocating,--I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I
grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught
me, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one
knee before me, bringing the face that I now well remembered, and that I
shuddered at, very near to mine.

“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot has
done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea
should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec'lated and got
rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth;
I worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I
tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to
know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head
so high that he could make a gentleman,--and, Pip, you're him!”

The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the
repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if
he had been some terrible beast.

“Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son,--more to me
nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a
hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of
sheep till I half forgot wot men's and women's faces wos like, I see
yourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was a-eating my
dinner or my supper, and I says, 'Here's the boy again, a looking at
me whiles I eats and drinks!' I see you there a many times, as plain as
ever I see you on them misty marshes. 'Lord strike me dead!' I says each
time,--and I goes out in the air to say it under the open heavens,--'but
wot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman!' And
I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings
o'yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for
wagers, and beat 'em!”

In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I had been nearly
fainting, he did not remark on my reception of all this. It was the one
grain of relief I had.

“Look'ee here!” he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, and
turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his
touch as if he had been a snake, “a gold 'un and a beauty: that's a
gentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's a
gentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at
your clothes; better ain't to be got! And your books too,” turning his
eyes round the room, “mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And
you read 'em; don't you? I see you'd been a reading of 'em when I come
in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read 'em to me, dear boy! And if they're in
foreign languages wot I don't understand, I shall be just as proud as if
I did.”

Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran
cold within me.

“Don't you mind talking, Pip,” said he, after again drawing his sleeve
over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I well
remembered,--and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so much
in earnest; “you can't do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain't
looked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn't prepared for this as
I wos. But didn't you never think it might be me?”

“O no, no, no,” I returned, “Never, never!”

“Well, you see it wos me, and single-handed. Never a soul in it but my
own self and Mr. Jaggers.”

“Was there no one else?” I asked.

“No,” said he, with a glance of surprise: “who else should there be?
And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There's bright eyes
somewheres--eh? Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the
thoughts on?”

O Estella, Estella!

“They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy 'em. Not that a
gentleman like you, so well set up as you, can't win 'em off of his own
game; but money shall back you! Let me finish wot I was a telling you,
dear boy. From that there hut and that there hiring-out, I got money
left me by my master (which died, and had been the same as me), and got
my liberty and went for myself. In every single thing I went for, I went
for you. 'Lord strike a blight upon it,' I says, wotever it was I went
for, 'if it ain't for him!' It all prospered wonderful. As I giv' you
to understand just now, I'm famous for it. It was the money left me, and
the gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers--all for
you--when he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter.”

O that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge,--far from
contented, yet, by comparison happy!

“And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look'ee here, to know in
secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists
might fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I say? I says
to myself, 'I'm making a better gentleman nor ever you'll be!' When
one of 'em says to another, 'He was a convict, a few year ago, and is a
ignorant common fellow now, for all he's lucky,' what do I say? I says
to myself, 'If I ain't a gentleman, nor yet ain't got no learning, I'm
the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which on you owns a
brought-up London gentleman?' This way I kep myself a going. And this
way I held steady afore my mind that I would for certain come one day
and see my boy, and make myself known to him, on his own ground.”

He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought that for
anything I knew, his hand might be stained with blood.

“It warn't easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor yet it warn't
safe. But I held to it, and the harder it was, the stronger I held, for
I was determined, and my mind firm made up. At last I done it. Dear boy,
I done it!”

I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. Throughout, I had
seemed to myself to attend more to the wind and the rain than to him;
even now, I could not separate his voice from those voices, though those
were loud and his was silent.

“Where will you put me?” he asked, presently. “I must be put somewheres,
dear boy.”

“To sleep?” said I.

“Yes. And to sleep long and sound,” he answered; “for I've been
sea-tossed and sea-washed, months and months.”

“My friend and companion,” said I, rising from the sofa, “is absent; you
must have his room.”

“He won't come back to-morrow; will he?”

“No,” said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite of my utmost
efforts; “not to-morrow.”

“Because, look'ee here, dear boy,” he said, dropping his voice, and
laying a long finger on my breast in an impressive manner, “caution is
necessary.”

“How do you mean? Caution?”

“By G----, it's Death!”

“What's death?”

“I was sent for life. It's death to come back. There's been overmuch
coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if
took.”

Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loading wretched me
with his gold and silver chains for years, had risked his life to come
to me, and I held it there in my keeping! If I had loved him instead
of abhorring him; if I had been attracted to him by the strongest
admiration and affection, instead of shrinking from him with the
strongest repugnance; it could have been no worse. On the contrary, it
would have been better, for his preservation would then have naturally
and tenderly addressed my heart.

My first care was to close the shutters, so that no light might be seen
from without, and then to close and make fast the doors. While I did so,
he stood at the table drinking rum and eating biscuit; and when I saw
him thus engaged, I saw my convict on the marshes at his meal again. It
almost seemed to me as if he must stoop down presently, to file at his
leg.

When I had gone into Herbert's room, and had shut off any other
communication between it and the staircase than through the room in
which our conversation had been held, I asked him if he would go to bed?
He said yes, but asked me for some of my “gentleman's linen” to put
on in the morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready for him, and my
blood again ran cold when he again took me by both hands to give me good
night.

I got away from him, without knowing how I did it, and mended the fire
in the room where we had been together, and sat down by it, afraid to go
to bed. For an hour or more, I remained too stunned to think; and it
was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I
was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces.

Miss Havisham's intentions towards me, all a mere dream; Estella not
designed for me; I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience, a
sting for the greedy relations, a model with a mechanical heart to
practise on when no other practice was at hand; those were the first
smarts I had. But, sharpest and deepest pain of all,--it was for the
convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes, and liable to be taken out
of those rooms where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door,
that I had deserted Joe.

I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to
Biddy now, for any consideration; simply, I suppose, because my sense of
my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration.
No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have
derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never,
undo what I had done.

In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice, I could
have sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the outer door. With
these fears upon me, I began either to imagine or recall that I had had
mysterious warnings of this man's approach. That, for weeks gone by, I
had passed faces in the streets which I had thought like his. That these
likenesses had grown more numerous, as he, coming over the sea, had
drawn nearer. That his wicked spirit had somehow sent these messengers
to mine, and that now on this stormy night he was as good as his word,
and with me.

Crowding up with these reflections came the reflection that I had seen
him with my childish eyes to be a desperately violent man; that I had
heard that other convict reiterate that he had tried to murder him; that
I had seen him down in the ditch tearing and fighting like a wild
beast. Out of such remembrances I brought into the light of the fire a
half-formed terror that it might not be safe to be shut up there with
him in the dead of the wild solitary night. This dilated until it filled
the room, and impelled me to take a candle and go in and look at my
dreadful burden.

He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was set and
lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too, though he had
a pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the key
to the outside of his door, and turned it on him before I again sat down
by the fire. Gradually I slipped from the chair and lay on the floor.
When I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the perception of
my wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward churches were striking five,
the candles were wasted out, the fire was dead, and the wind and rain
intensified the thick black darkness.

THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF PIP'S EXPECTATIONS.




Chapter XL

It was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure (so far
as I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor; for, this thought pressing
on me when I awoke, held other thoughts in a confused concourse at a
distance.

The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers was
self-evident. It could not be done, and the attempt to do it would
inevitably engender suspicion. True, I had no Avenger in my service now,
but I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assisted by an
animated rag-bag whom she called her niece, and to keep a room secret
from them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration. They both had
weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in
at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted; indeed that
was their only reliable quality besides larceny. Not to get up a mystery
with these people, I resolved to announce in the morning that my uncle
had unexpectedly come from the country.

This course I decided on while I was yet groping about in the darkness
for the means of getting a light. Not stumbling on the means after all,
I was fain to go out to the adjacent Lodge and get the watchman there to
come with his lantern. Now, in groping my way down the black staircase I
fell over something, and that something was a man crouching in a corner.

As the man made no answer when I asked him what he did there, but eluded
my touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and urged the watchman to come
quickly; telling him of the incident on the way back. The wind being as
fierce as ever, we did not care to endanger the light in the lantern by
rekindling the extinguished lamps on the staircase, but we examined the
staircase from the bottom to the top and found no one there. It then
occurred to me as possible that the man might have slipped into my
rooms; so, lighting my candle at the watchman's, and leaving him
standing at the door, I examined them carefully, including the room in
which my dreaded guest lay asleep. All was quiet, and assuredly no other
man was in those chambers.

It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on
that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the
chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram
at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had
perceptibly been dining out? Yes, he said; at different times of the
night, three. One lived in Fountain Court, and the other two lived in
the Lane, and he had seen them all go home. Again, the only other man
who dwelt in the house of which my chambers formed a part had been in
the country for some weeks, and he certainly had not returned in the
night, because we had seen his door with his seal on it as we came
upstairs.

“The night being so bad, sir,” said the watchman, as he gave me back
my glass, “uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides them three
gentlemen that I have named, I don't call to mind another since about
eleven o'clock, when a stranger asked for you.”

“My uncle,” I muttered. “Yes.”

“You saw him, sir?”

“Yes. Oh yes.”

“Likewise the person with him?”

“Person with him!” I repeated.

“I judged the person to be with him,” returned the watchman. “The person
stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and the person took this
way when he took this way.”

“What sort of person?”

The watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say a working
person; to the best of his belief, he had a dust-colored kind of clothes
on, under a dark coat. The watchman made more light of the matter than I
did, and naturally; not having my reason for attaching weight to it.

When I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to do without
prolonging explanations, my mind was much troubled by these two
circumstances taken together. Whereas they were easy of innocent
solution apart,--as, for instance, some diner out or diner at home,
who had not gone near this watchman's gate, might have strayed to my
staircase and dropped asleep there,--and my nameless visitor might have
brought some one with him to show him the way,--still, joined, they had
an ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fear as the changes of a
few hours had made me.

I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare at that time of the
morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to have been dozing a
whole night when the clocks struck six. As there was full an hour and
a half between me and daylight, I dozed again; now, waking up uneasily,
with prolix conversations about nothing, in my ears; now, making thunder
of the wind in the chimney; at length, falling off into a profound sleep
from which the daylight woke me with a start.

All this time I had never been able to consider my own situation, nor
could I do so yet. I had not the power to attend to it. I was greatly
dejected and distressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way.
As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an
elephant. When I opened the shutters and looked out at the wet wild
morning, all of a leaden hue; when I walked from room to room; when I
sat down again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my laundress to
appear; I thought how miserable I was, but hardly knew why, or how long
I had been so, or on what day of the week I made the reflection, or even
who I was that made it.

At last, the old woman and the niece came in,--the latter with a head
not easily distinguishable from her dusty broom,--and testified surprise
at sight of me and the fire. To whom I imparted how my uncle had come in
the night and was then asleep, and how the breakfast preparations were
to be modified accordingly. Then I washed and dressed while they knocked
the furniture about and made a dust; and so, in a sort of dream
or sleep-waking, I found myself sitting by the fire again, waiting
for--Him--to come to breakfast.

By and by, his door opened and he came out. I could not bring myself to
bear the sight of him, and I thought he had a worse look by daylight.

“I do not even know,” said I, speaking low as he took his seat at the
table, “by what name to call you. I have given out that you are my
uncle.”

“That's it, dear boy! Call me uncle.”

“You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship?”

“Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis.”

“Do you mean to keep that name?”

“Why, yes, dear boy, it's as good as another,--unless you'd like
another.”

“What is your real name?” I asked him in a whisper.

“Magwitch,” he answered, in the same tone; “chrisen'd Abel.”

“What were you brought up to be?”

“A warmint, dear boy.”

He answered quite seriously, and used the word as if it denoted some
profession.

“When you came into the Temple last night--” said I, pausing to wonder
whether that could really have been last night, which seemed so long
ago.

“Yes, dear boy?”

“When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the way here, had
you any one with you?”

“With me? No, dear boy.”

“But there was some one there?”

“I didn't take particular notice,” he said, dubiously, “not knowing the
ways of the place. But I think there was a person, too, come in alonger
me.”

“Are you known in London?”

“I hope not!” said he, giving his neck a jerk with his forefinger that
made me turn hot and sick.

“Were you known in London, once?”

“Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly.”

“Were you--tried--in London?”

“Which time?” said he, with a sharp look.

“The last time.”

He nodded. “First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me.”

It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took up
a knife, gave it a flourish, and with the words, “And what I done is
worked out and paid for!” fell to at his breakfast.

He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions
were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his teeth had failed him since
I saw him eat on the marshes, and as he turned his food in his mouth,
and turned his head sideways to bring his strongest fangs to bear upon
it, he looked terribly like a hungry old dog. If I had begun with any
appetite, he would have taken it away, and I should have sat much as
I did,--repelled from him by an insurmountable aversion, and gloomily
looking at the cloth.

“I'm a heavy grubber, dear boy,” he said, as a polite kind of apology
when he made an end of his meal, “but I always was. If it had been in
my constitution to be a lighter grubber, I might ha' got into lighter
trouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When I was first hired out as
shepherd t'other side the world, it's my belief I should ha' turned into
a molloncolly-mad sheep myself, if I hadn't a had my smoke.”

As he said so, he got up from table, and putting his hand into the
breast of the pea-coat he wore, brought out a short black pipe, and a
handful of loose tobacco of the kind that is called Negro-head. Having
filled his pipe, he put the surplus tobacco back again, as if his pocket
were a drawer. Then, he took a live coal from the fire with the tongs,
and lighted his pipe at it, and then turned round on the hearth-rug with
his back to the fire, and went through his favorite action of holding
out both his hands for mine.

“And this,” said he, dandling my hands up and down in his, as he puffed
at his pipe,--“and this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine
One! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All I stip'late, is, to
stand by and look at you, dear boy!”

I released my hands as soon as I could, and found that I was beginning
slowly to settle down to the contemplation of my condition. What I was
chained to, and how heavily, became intelligible to me, as I heard his
hoarse voice, and sat looking up at his furrowed bald head with its iron
gray hair at the sides.

“I mustn't see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the streets;
there mustn't be no mud on his boots. My gentleman must have horses,
Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses for his servant
to ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have their horses (and blood
'uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no.
We'll show 'em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won't us?”

He took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, bursting with
papers, and tossed it on the table.

“There's something worth spending in that there book, dear boy. It's
yourn. All I've got ain't mine; it's yourn. Don't you be afeerd on it.
There's more where that come from. I've come to the old country fur
to see my gentleman spend his money like a gentleman. That'll be my
pleasure. My pleasure 'ull be fur to see him do it. And blast you all!”
 he wound up, looking round the room and snapping his fingers once with
a loud snap, “blast you every one, from the judge in his wig, to the
colonist a stirring up the dust, I'll show a better gentleman than the
whole kit on you put together!”

“Stop!” said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, “I want to speak
to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you are to
be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what projects you
have.”

“Look'ee here, Pip,” said he, laying his hand on my arm in a suddenly
altered and subdued manner; “first of all, look'ee here. I forgot myself
half a minute ago. What I said was low; that's what it was; low. Look'ee
here, Pip. Look over it. I ain't a going to be low.”

“First,” I resumed, half groaning, “what precautions can be taken
against your being recognized and seized?”

“No, dear boy,” he said, in the same tone as before, “that don't
go first. Lowness goes first. I ain't took so many year to make a
gentleman, not without knowing what's due to him. Look'ee here, Pip. I
was low; that's what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy.”

Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I
replied, “I have looked over it. In Heaven's name, don't harp upon it!”

“Yes, but look'ee here,” he persisted. “Dear boy, I ain't come so fur,
not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a saying--”

“How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred?”

“Well, dear boy, the danger ain't so great. Without I was informed
agen, the danger ain't so much to signify. There's Jaggers, and there's
Wemmick, and there's you. Who else is there to inform?”

“Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?” said
I.

“Well,” he returned, “there ain't many. Nor yet I don't intend to
advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M. come back from
Botany Bay; and years have rolled away, and who's to gain by it? Still,
look'ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as great, I should
ha' come to see you, mind you, just the same.”

“And how long do you remain?”

“How long?” said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth, and dropping
his jaw as he stared at me. “I'm not a going back. I've come for good.”

“Where are you to live?” said I. “What is to be done with you? Where
will you be safe?”

“Dear boy,” he returned, “there's disguising wigs can be bought
for money, and there's hair powder, and spectacles, and black
clothes,--shorts and what not. Others has done it safe afore, and what
others has done afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of
living, dear boy, give me your own opinions on it.”

“You take it smoothly now,” said I, “but you were very serious last
night, when you swore it was Death.”

“And so I swear it is Death,” said he, putting his pipe back in his
mouth, “and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur from this, and
it's serious that you should fully understand it to be so. What then,
when that's once done? Here I am. To go back now 'ud be as bad as to
stand ground--worse. Besides, Pip, I'm here, because I've meant it by
you, years and years. As to what I dare, I'm a old bird now, as has
dared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I'm not afeerd
to perch upon a scarecrow. If there's Death hid inside of it, there is,
and let him come out, and I'll face him, and then I'll believe in him
and not afore. And now let me have a look at my gentleman agen.”

Once more, he took me by both hands and surveyed me with an air of
admiring proprietorship: smoking with great complacency all the while.

It appeared to me that I could do no better than secure him some
quiet lodging hard by, of which he might take possession when Herbert
returned: whom I expected in two or three days. That the secret must
be confided to Herbert as a matter of unavoidable necessity, even if I
could have put the immense relief I should derive from sharing it with
him out of the question, was plain to me. But it was by no means so
plain to Mr. Provis (I resolved to call him by that name), who reserved
his consent to Herbert's participation until he should have seen him
and formed a favorable judgment of his physiognomy. “And even then, dear
boy,” said he, pulling a greasy little clasped black Testament out of
his pocket, “we'll have him on his oath.”

To state that my terrible patron carried this little black book about
the world solely to swear people on in cases of emergency, would be to
state what I never quite established; but this I can say, that I never
knew him put it to any other use. The book itself had the appearance of
having been stolen from some court of justice, and perhaps his knowledge
of its antecedents, combined with his own experience in that wise, gave
him a reliance on its powers as a sort of legal spell or charm. On this
first occasion of his producing it, I recalled how he had made me swear
fidelity in the churchyard long ago, and how he had described himself
last night as always swearing to his resolutions in his solitude.

As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which he
looked as if he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I next
discussed with him what dress he should wear. He cherished an
extraordinary belief in the virtues of “shorts” as a disguise, and had
in his own mind sketched a dress for himself that would have made
him something between a dean and a dentist. It was with considerable
difficulty that I won him over to the assumption of a dress more like a
prosperous farmer's; and we arranged that he should cut his hair close,
and wear a little powder. Lastly, as he had not yet been seen by the
laundress or her niece, he was to keep himself out of their view until
his change of dress was made.

It would seem a simple matter to decide on these precautions; but in my
dazed, not to say distracted, state, it took so long, that I did not
get out to further them until two or three in the afternoon. He was to
remain shut up in the chambers while I was gone, and was on no account
to open the door.

There being to my knowledge a respectable lodging-house in Essex Street,
the back of which looked into the Temple, and was almost within hail of
my windows, I first of all repaired to that house, and was so fortunate
as to secure the second floor for my uncle, Mr. Provis. I then went from
shop to shop, making such purchases as were necessary to the change in
his appearance. This business transacted, I turned my face, on my own
account, to Little Britain. Mr. Jaggers was at his desk, but, seeing me
enter, got up immediately and stood before his fire.

“Now, Pip,” said he, “be careful.”

“I will, sir,” I returned. For, coming along I had thought well of what
I was going to say.

“Don't commit yourself,” said Mr. Jaggers, “and don't commit any one.
You understand--any one. Don't tell me anything: I don't want to know
anything; I am not curious.”

Of course I saw that he knew the man was come.

“I merely want, Mr. Jaggers,” said I, “to assure myself that what I have
been told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at least I
may verify it.”

Mr. Jaggers nodded. “But did you say 'told' or 'informed'?” he asked
me, with his head on one side, and not looking at me, but looking in
a listening way at the floor. “Told would seem to imply verbal
communication. You can't have verbal communication with a man in New
South Wales, you know.”

“I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers.”

“Good.”

“I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the
benefactor so long unknown to me.”

“That is the man,” said Mr. Jaggers, “in New South Wales.”

“And only he?” said I.

“And only he,” said Mr. Jaggers.

“I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for
my mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always supposed it was Miss
Havisham.”

“As you say, Pip,” returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his eyes upon
me coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, “I am not at all
responsible for that.”

“And yet it looked so like it, sir,” I pleaded with a downcast heart.

“Not a particle of evidence, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his head
and gathering up his skirts. “Take nothing on its looks; take everything
on evidence. There's no better rule.”

“I have no more to say,” said I, with a sigh, after standing silent for
a little while. “I have verified my information, and there's an end.”

“And Magwitch--in New South Wales--having at last disclosed himself,”
 said Mr. Jaggers, “you will comprehend, Pip, how rigidly throughout
my communication with you, I have always adhered to the strict line of
fact. There has never been the least departure from the strict line of
fact. You are quite aware of that?”

“Quite, sir.”

“I communicated to Magwitch--in New South Wales--when he first wrote to
me--from New South Wales--the caution that he must not expect me ever to
deviate from the strict line of fact. I also communicated to him another
caution. He appeared to me to have obscurely hinted in his letter at
some distant idea he had of seeing you in England here. I cautioned
him that I must hear no more of that; that he was not at all likely to
obtain a pardon; that he was expatriated for the term of his natural
life; and that his presenting himself in this country would be an act of
felony, rendering him liable to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave
Magwitch that caution,” said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at me; “I wrote
it to New South Wales. He guided himself by it, no doubt.”

“No doubt,” said I.

“I have been informed by Wemmick,” pursued Mr. Jaggers, still looking
hard at me, “that he has received a letter, under date Portsmouth, from
a colonist of the name of Purvis, or--”

“Or Provis,” I suggested.

“Or Provis--thank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Provis? Perhaps you know it's
Provis?”

“Yes,” said I.

“You know it's Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist
of the name of Provis, asking for the particulars of your address, on
behalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I understand, by
return of post. Probably it is through Provis that you have received the
explanation of Magwitch--in New South Wales?”

“It came through Provis,” I replied.

“Good day, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, offering his hand; “glad to have
seen you. In writing by post to Magwitch--in New South Wales--or in
communicating with him through Provis, have the goodness to mention that
the particulars and vouchers of our long account shall be sent to you,
together with the balance; for there is still a balance remaining. Good
day, Pip!”

We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could see me. I
turned at the door, and he was still looking hard at me, while the two
vile casts on the shelf seemed to be trying to get their eyelids open,
and to force out of their swollen throats, “O, what a man he is!”

Wemmick was out, and though he had been at his desk he could have done
nothing for me. I went straight back to the Temple, where I found
the terrible Provis drinking rum and water and smoking negro-head, in
safety.

Next day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he put them on.
Whatever he put on, became him less (it dismally seemed to me) than what
he had worn before. To my thinking, there was something in him that made
it hopeless to attempt to disguise him. The more I dressed him and the
better I dressed him, the more he looked like the slouching fugitive on
the marshes. This effect on my anxious fancy was partly referable, no
doubt, to his old face and manner growing more familiar to me; but I
believe too that he dragged one of his legs as if there were still a
weight of iron on it, and that from head to foot there was Convict in
the very grain of the man.

The influences of his solitary hut-life were upon him besides, and
gave him a savage air that no dress could tame; added to these were the
influences of his subsequent branded life among men, and, crowning all,
his consciousness that he was dodging and hiding now. In all his ways of
sitting and standing, and eating and drinking,--of brooding about in a
high-shouldered reluctant style,--of taking out his great horn-handled
jackknife and wiping it on his legs and cutting his food,--of
lifting light glasses and cups to his lips, as if they were clumsy
pannikins,--of chopping a wedge off his bread, and soaking up with it
the last fragments of gravy round and round his plate, as if to make the
most of an allowance, and then drying his finger-ends on it, and then
swallowing it,--in these ways and a thousand other small nameless
instances arising every minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon,
Bondsman, plain as plain could be.

It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I had
conceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. But I can compare the
effect of it, when on, to nothing but the probable effect of rouge upon
the dead; so awful was the manner in which everything in him that it was
most desirable to repress, started through that thin layer of pretence,
and seemed to come blazing out at the crown of his head. It was
abandoned as soon as tried, and he wore his grizzled hair cut short.

Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of the dreadful
mystery that he was to me. When he fell asleep of an evening, with his
knotted hands clenching the sides of the easy-chair, and his bald head
tattooed with deep wrinkles falling forward on his breast, I would sit
and look at him, wondering what he had done, and loading him with all
the crimes in the Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on me to
start up and fly from him. Every hour so increased my abhorrence of
him, that I even think I might have yielded to this impulse in the first
agonies of being so haunted, notwithstanding all he had done for me and
the risk he ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon come back.
Once, I actually did start out of bed in the night, and begin to dress
myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave him there with
everything else I possessed, and enlist for India as a private soldier.

I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those
lonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind and the
rain always rushing by. A ghost could not have been taken and hanged on
my account, and the consideration that he could be, and the dread that
he would be, were no small addition to my horrors. When he was not
asleep, or playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of
cards of his own,--a game that I never saw before or since, and in which
he recorded his winnings by sticking his jackknife into the table,--when
he was not engaged in either of these pursuits, he would ask me to
read to him,--“Foreign language, dear boy!” While I complied, he, not
comprehending a single word, would stand before the fire surveying me
with the air of an Exhibitor, and I would see him, between the fingers
of the hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb show to
the furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The imaginary student
pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more
wretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling
from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the
fonder he was of me.

This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year. It lasted
about five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not go out,
except when I took Provis for an airing after dark. At length, one
evening when dinner was over and I had dropped into a slumber quite
worn out,--for my nights had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful
dreams,--I was roused by the welcome footstep on the staircase. Provis,
who had been asleep too, staggered up at the noise I made, and in an
instant I saw his jackknife shining in his hand.

“Quiet! It's Herbert!” I said; and Herbert came bursting in, with the
airy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon him.

“Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again
how are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must have
been, for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my--Halloa! I beg
your pardon.”

He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me, by
seeing Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed attention, was slowly
putting up his jackknife, and groping in another pocket for something
else.

“Herbert, my dear friend,” said I, shutting the double doors, while
Herbert stood staring and wondering, “something very strange has
happened. This is--a visitor of mine.”

“It's all right, dear boy!” said Provis coming forward, with his little
clasped black book, and then addressing himself to Herbert. “Take it in
your right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever you split in
any way sumever! Kiss it!”

“Do so, as he wishes it,” I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking at
me with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and Provis
immediately shaking hands with him, said, “Now you're on your oath, you
know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan't make a gentleman on
you!”




Chapter XLI

In vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet
of Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I
recounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings
reflected in Herbert's face, and not least among them, my repugnance
towards the man who had done so much for me.

What would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there
had been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story.
Saving his troublesome sense of having been “low” on one occasion since
his return,--on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the
moment my revelation was finished,--he had no perception of the
possibility of my finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that
he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the
character on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much as for
himself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us,
and that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite
established in his own mind.

“Though, look'ee here, Pip's comrade,” he said to Herbert, after having
discoursed for some time, “I know very well that once since I come
back--for half a minute--I've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had
been low. But don't you fret yourself on that score. I ain't made Pip a
gentleman, and Pip ain't a going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not
to know what's due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may
count upon me always having a gen-teel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been
since that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am
at the present time, muzzled I ever will be.”

Herbert said, “Certainly,” but looked as if there were no specific
consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. We were
anxious for the time when he would go to his lodging and leave us
together, but he was evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat
late. It was midnight before I took him round to Essex Street, and
saw him safely in at his own dark door. When it closed upon him, I
experienced the first moment of relief I had known since the night of
his arrival.

Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs,
I had always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in
bringing him back; and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a
large city to avoid the suspicion of being watched, when the mind is
conscious of danger in that regard, I could not persuade myself that any
of the people within sight cared about my movements. The few who were
passing passed on their several ways, and the street was empty when I
turned back into the Temple. Nobody had come out at the gate with us,
nobody went in at the gate with me. As I crossed by the fountain, I saw
his lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, when I stood for
a few moments in the doorway of the building where I lived, before going
up the stairs, Garden Court was as still and lifeless as the staircase
was when I ascended it.

Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so
blessedly what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound
words of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the
question, What was to be done?

The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had
stood,--for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in
one unsettled manner, and going through one round of observances with
his pipe and his negro-head and his jackknife and his pack of cards,
and what not, as if it were all put down for him on a slate,--I say his
chair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but
next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. He had
no occasion to say after that that he had conceived an aversion for my
patron, neither had I occasion to confess my own. We interchanged that
confidence without shaping a syllable.

“What,” said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair,--“what is
to be done?”

“My poor dear Handel,” he replied, holding his head, “I am too stunned
to think.”

“So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be
done. He is intent upon various new expenses,--horses, and carriages,
and lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow.”

“You mean that you can't accept--”

“How can I?” I interposed, as Herbert paused. “Think of him! Look at
him!”

An involuntary shudder passed over both of us.

“Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to
me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!”

“My poor dear Handel,” Herbert repeated.

“Then,” said I, “after all, stopping short here, never taking another
penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily
in debt,--very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,--and I have
been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing.”

“Well, well, well!” Herbert remonstrated. “Don't say fit for nothing.”

“What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that
is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for
the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection.”

Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a
warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it.

“Anyhow, my dear Handel,” said he presently, “soldiering won't do. If
you were to renounce this patronage and these favors, I suppose you
would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have
already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering!
Besides, it's absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's
house, small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you know.”

Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money.

“But there is another question,” said Herbert. “This is an ignorant,
determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he
seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce
character.”

“I know he is,” I returned. “Let me tell you what evidence I have seen
of it.” And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that
encounter with the other convict.

“See, then,” said Herbert; “think of this! He comes here at the peril
of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the moment of
realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from
under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him.
Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?”

“I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night
of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his
putting himself in the way of being taken.”

“Then you may rely upon it,” said Herbert, “that there would be great
danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains
in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him.”

I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon
me from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard
myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my
chair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that
even if Provis were recognized and taken, in spite of himself, I should
be wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was so
wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would
far rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would
ever have come to this!

But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done?

“The first and the main thing to be done,” said Herbert, “is to get him
out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced
to go.”

“But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?”

“My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next street,
there must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to him and
making him reckless, here, than elsewhere? If a pretext to get him away
could be made out of that other convict, or out of anything else in his
life, now.”

“There, again!” said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands held
out, as if they contained the desperation of the case. “I know nothing
of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see
him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so
unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days
in my childhood!”

Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and
fro together, studying the carpet.

“Handel,” said Herbert, stopping, “you feel convinced that you can take
no further benefits from him; do you?”

“Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?”

“And you feel convinced that you must break with him?”

“Herbert, can you ask me?”

“And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he
has risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from
throwing it away. Then you must get him out of England before you stir a
finger to extricate yourself. That done, extricate yourself, in Heaven's
name, and we'll see it out together, dear old boy.”

It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and down again,
with only that done.

“Now, Herbert,” said I, “with reference to gaining some knowledge of
his history. There is but one way that I know of. I must ask him point
blank.”

“Yes. Ask him,” said Herbert, “when we sit at breakfast in the morning.”
 For he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that he would come to
breakfast with us.

With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest dreams
concerning him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the fear
which I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a returned
transport. Waking, I never lost that fear.

He came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife, and sat
down to his meal. He was full of plans “for his gentleman's coming out
strong, and like a gentleman,” and urged me to begin speedily upon
the pocket-book which he had left in my possession. He considered the
chambers and his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to
look out at once for a “fashionable crib” near Hyde Park, in which he
could have “a shake-down.” When he had made an end of his breakfast,
and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of
preface,--

“After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that
the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You
remember?”

“Remember!” said he. “I think so!”

“We want to know something about that man--and about you. It is strange
to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to
tell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing
more?”

“Well!” he said, after consideration. “You're on your oath, you know,
Pip's comrade?”

“Assuredly,” replied Herbert.

“As to anything I say, you know,” he insisted. “The oath applies to
all.”

“I understand it to do so.”

“And look'ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid for,” he
insisted again.

“So be it.”

He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head,
when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think
it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again,
stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee,
and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments,
looked round at us and said what follows.




Chapter XLII

“Dear boy and Pip's comrade. I am not a going fur to tell you my life
like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I'll
put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in
jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you've got it.
That's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off,
arter Pip stood my friend.

“I've been done everything to, pretty well--except hanged. I've been
locked up as much as a silver tea-kittle. I've been carted here and
carted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and
stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I've no more
notion where I was born than you have--if so much. I first become aware
of myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had
run away from me--a man--a tinker--and he'd took the fire with him, and
left me wery cold.

“I know'd my name to be Magwitch, chrisen'd Abel. How did I know
it? Much as I know'd the birds' names in the hedges to be chaffinch,
sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only as
the birds' names come out true, I supposed mine did.

“So fur as I could find, there warn't a soul that see young Abel
Magwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him,
and either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, took
up, to that extent that I reg'larly grow'd up took up.

“This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much
to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there
warn't many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name of
being hardened. 'This is a terrible hardened one,' they says to prison
wisitors, picking out me. 'May be said to live in jails, this boy.' Then
they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some
on 'em,--they had better a measured my stomach,--and others on 'em giv
me tracts what I couldn't read, and made me speeches what I couldn't
understand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But what
the Devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, mustn't
I?--Howsomever, I'm a getting low, and I know what's due. Dear boy and
Pip's comrade, don't you be afeerd of me being low.

“Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,--though
that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether
you would ha' been over-ready to give me work yourselves,--a bit of a
poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker,
a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to
trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest,
what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read;
and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me
to write. I warn't locked up as often now as formerly, but I wore out my
good share of key-metal still.

“At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi'
a man whose skull I'd crack wi' this poker, like the claw of a lobster,
if I'd got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson; and that's the
man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, according to
what you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night.

“He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he'd been to a public
boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was
a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It was the
night afore the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth
that I know'd on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when
I went in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a
sporting one) called him out, and said, 'I think this is a man that
might suit you,'--meaning I was.

“Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him. He has a
watch and a chain and a ring and a breast-pin and a handsome suit of
clothes.

“'To judge from appearances, you're out of luck,' says Compeyson to me.

“'Yes, master, and I've never been in it much.' (I had come out of
Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what it might have
been for something else; but it warn't.)

“'Luck changes,' says Compeyson; 'perhaps yours is going to change.'

“I says, 'I hope it may be so. There's room.'

“'What can you do?' says Compeyson.

“'Eat and drink,' I says; 'if you'll find the materials.'

“Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five
shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place.

“I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on
to be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson's business in which we
was to go pardners? Compeyson's business was the swindling, handwriting
forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as
Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get
the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson's business.
He'd no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had
the head of the Devil afore mentioned.

“There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur,--not as
being so chrisen'd, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a
shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a
rich lady some years afore, and they'd made a pot of money by it; but
Compeyson betted and gamed, and he'd have run through the king's taxes.
So, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him,
and Compeyson's wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity
on him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and
nobody.

“I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn't; and I won't pretend I
was partick'ler--for where 'ud be the good on it, dear boy and comrade?
So I begun wi' Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur
lived at the top of Compeyson's house (over nigh Brentford it was), and
Compeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging, in case
he should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon settled the
account. The second or third time as ever I see him, he come a tearing
down into Compeyson's parlor late at night, in only a flannel gown, with
his hair all in a sweat, and he says to Compeyson's wife, 'Sally, she
really is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can't get rid of her. She's
all in white,' he says, 'wi' white flowers in her hair, and she's awful
mad, and she's got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she says she'll
put it on me at five in the morning.'

“Says Compeyson: 'Why, you fool, don't you know she's got a living body?
And how should she be up there, without coming through the door, or in
at the window, and up the stairs?'

“'I don't know how she's there,' says Arthur, shivering dreadful with
the horrors, 'but she's standing in the corner at the foot of the bed,
awful mad. And over where her heart's broke--you broke it!--there's
drops of blood.'

“Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. 'Go up alonger this
drivelling sick man,' he says to his wife, 'and Magwitch, lend her a
hand, will you?' But he never come nigh himself.

“Compeyson's wife and me took him up to bed agen, and he raved most
dreadful. 'Why look at her!' he cries out. 'She's a shaking the shroud
at me! Don't you see her? Look at her eyes! Ain't it awful to see her so
mad?' Next he cries, 'She'll put it on me, and then I'm done for! Take
it away from her, take it away!' And then he catched hold of us, and kep
on a talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed I see
her myself.

“Compeyson's wife, being used to him, giv him some liquor to get the
horrors off, and by and by he quieted. 'O, she's gone! Has her keeper
been for her?' he says. 'Yes,' says Compeyson's wife. 'Did you tell him
to lock her and bar her in?' 'Yes.' 'And to take that ugly thing away
from her?' 'Yes, yes, all right.' 'You're a good creetur,' he says,
'don't leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!'

“He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and
then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, 'Here she is! She's
got the shroud again. She's unfolding it. She's coming out of the
corner. She's coming to the bed. Hold me, both on you--one of each
side--don't let her touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time.
Don't let her throw it over my shoulders. Don't let her lift me up to
get it round me. She's lifting me up. Keep me down!' Then he lifted
himself up hard, and was dead.

“Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and
me was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own
book,--this here little black book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade
on.

“Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I done--which 'ud
take a week--I'll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip's comrade, that
that man got me into such nets as made me his black slave. I was always
in debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working, always a
getting into danger. He was younger than me, but he'd got craft, and
he'd got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and
no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi'--Stop though! I ain't
brought her in--”

He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his place in
the book of his remembrance; and he turned his face to the fire, and
spread his hands broader on his knees, and lifted them off and put them
on again.

“There ain't no need to go into it,” he said, looking round once more.
“The time wi' Compeyson was a'most as hard a time as ever I had; that
said, all's said. Did I tell you as I was tried, alone, for misdemeanor,
while with Compeyson?”

I answered, No.

“Well!” he said, “I was, and got convicted. As to took up on suspicion,
that was twice or three times in the four or five year that it lasted;
but evidence was wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both committed
for felony,--on a charge of putting stolen notes in circulation,--and
there was other charges behind. Compeyson says to me, 'Separate
defences, no communication,' and that was all. And I was so miserable
poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on my back,
afore I could get Jaggers.

“When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman
Compeyson looked, wi' his curly hair and his black clothes and his white
pocket-handkercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I looked. When
the prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I
noticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When the
evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me that had
come for'ard, and could be swore to, how it was always me that the money
had been paid to, how it was always me that had seemed to work the thing
and get the profit. But when the defence come on, then I see the plan
plainer; for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, 'My lord and gentlemen,
here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can
separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to
as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such;
one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and
only suspected; t'other, the elder, always seen in 'em and always wi' his
guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which is
the one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst one?' And
such-like. And when it come to character, warn't it Compeyson as had
been to the school, and warn't it his schoolfellows as was in this
position and in that, and warn't it him as had been know'd by witnesses
in such clubs and societies, and nowt to his disadvantage? And warn't it
me as had been tried afore, and as had been know'd up hill and down dale
in Bridewells and Lock-Ups! And when it come to speech-making, warn't it
Compeyson as could speak to 'em wi' his face dropping every now and then
into his white pocket-handkercher,--ah! and wi' verses in his speech,
too,--and warn't it me as could only say, 'Gentlemen, this man at my
side is a most precious rascal'? And when the verdict come, warn't it
Compeyson as was recommended to mercy on account of good character and
bad company, and giving up all the information he could agen me,
and warn't it me as got never a word but Guilty? And when I says to
Compeyson, 'Once out of this court, I'll smash that face of yourn!'
ain't it Compeyson as prays the Judge to be protected, and gets two
turnkeys stood betwixt us? And when we're sentenced, ain't it him as
gets seven year, and me fourteen, and ain't it him as the Judge is
sorry for, because he might a done so well, and ain't it me as the Judge
perceives to be a old offender of wiolent passion, likely to come to
worse?”

He had worked himself into a state of great excitement, but he checked
it, took two or three short breaths, swallowed as often, and stretching
out his hand towards me said, in a reassuring manner, “I ain't a going
to be low, dear boy!”

He had so heated himself that he took out his handkerchief and wiped his
face and head and neck and hands, before he could go on.

“I had said to Compeyson that I'd smash that face of his, and I swore
Lord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same prison-ship, but I
couldn't get at him for long, though I tried. At last I come behind him
and hit him on the cheek to turn him round and get a smashing one at
him, when I was seen and seized. The black-hole of that ship warn't
a strong one, to a judge of black-holes that could swim and dive. I
escaped to the shore, and I was a hiding among the graves there, envying
them as was in 'em and all over, when I first see my boy!”

He regarded me with a look of affection that made him almost abhorrent
to me again, though I had felt great pity for him.

“By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was out on them marshes
too. Upon my soul, I half believe he escaped in his terror, to get quit
of me, not knowing it was me as had got ashore. I hunted him down. I
smashed his face. 'And now,' says I 'as the worst thing I can do, caring
nothing for myself, I'll drag you back.' And I'd have swum off, towing
him by the hair, if it had come to that, and I'd a got him aboard
without the soldiers.

“Of course he'd much the best of it to the last,--his character was so
good. He had escaped when he was made half wild by me and my murderous
intentions; and his punishment was light. I was put in irons, brought
to trial again, and sent for life. I didn't stop for life, dear boy and
Pip's comrade, being here.”

He wiped himself again, as he had done before, and then slowly took
his tangle of tobacco from his pocket, and plucked his pipe from his
button-hole, and slowly filled it, and began to smoke.

“Is he dead?” I asked, after a silence.

“Is who dead, dear boy?”

“Compeyson.”

“He hopes I am, if he's alive, you may be sure,” with a fierce look. “I
never heerd no more of him.”

Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a book. He
softly pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood smoking with his eyes
on the fire, and I read in it:--

“Young Havisham's name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who professed to
be Miss Havisham's lover.”

I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and put the book by; but
we neither of us said anything, and both looked at Provis as he stood
smoking by the fire.




Chapter XLIII

Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be
traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state
of mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison
before meeting her at the coach-office, with the state of mind in which
I now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty,
and the returned transport whom I harbored? The road would be none the
smoother for it, the end would be none the better for it, he would not
be helped, nor I extenuated.

A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his narrative; or rather,
his narrative had given form and purpose to the fear that was already
there. If Compeyson were alive and should discover his return, I could
hardly doubt the consequence. That Compeyson stood in mortal fear of
him, neither of the two could know much better than I; and that any
such man as that man had been described to be would hesitate to release
himself for good from a dreaded enemy by the safe means of becoming an
informer was scarcely to be imagined.

Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe--or so I resolved--a
word of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert that, before I could
go abroad, I must see both Estella and Miss Havisham. This was when we
were left alone on the night of the day when Provis told us his story. I
resolved to go out to Richmond next day, and I went.

On my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley's, Estella's maid was called to
tell that Estella had gone into the country. Where? To Satis House, as
usual. Not as usual, I said, for she had never yet gone there without
me; when was she coming back? There was an air of reservation in the
answer which increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that her maid
believed she was only coming back at all for a little while. I could
make nothing of this, except that it was meant that I should make
nothing of it, and I went home again in complete discomfiture.

Another night consultation with Herbert after Provis was gone home (I
always took him home, and always looked well about me), led us to the
conclusion that nothing should be said about going abroad until I came
back from Miss Havisham's. In the mean time, Herbert and I were to
consider separately what it would be best to say; whether we should
devise any pretence of being afraid that he was under suspicious
observation; or whether I, who had never yet been abroad, should propose
an expedition. We both knew that I had but to propose anything, and he
would consent. We agreed that his remaining many days in his present
hazard was not to be thought of.

Next day I had the meanness to feign that I was under a binding promise
to go down to Joe; but I was capable of almost any meanness towards Joe
or his name. Provis was to be strictly careful while I was gone, and
Herbert was to take the charge of him that I had taken. I was to be
absent only one night, and, on my return, the gratification of his
impatience for my starting as a gentleman on a greater scale was to
be begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards found to
Herbert also, that he might be best got away across the water, on that
pretence,--as, to make purchases, or the like.

Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss Havisham's, I set
off by the early morning coach before it was yet light, and was out
on the open country road when the day came creeping on, halting and
whimpering and shivering, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of
mist, like a beggar. When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly
ride, whom should I see come out under the gateway, toothpick in hand,
to look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle!

As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him. It was a very
lame pretence on both sides; the lamer, because we both went into the
coffee-room, where he had just finished his breakfast, and where I
ordered mine. It was poisonous to me to see him in the town, for I very
well knew why he had come there.

Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had
nothing half so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of
coffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine with which
it was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in a highly
irregular form, I sat at my table while he stood before the fire. By
degrees it became an enormous injury to me that he stood before the
fire. And I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my
hand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the fireplace to
stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him.

“Is this a cut?” said Mr. Drummle.

“Oh!” said I, poker in hand; “it's you, is it? How do you do? I was
wondering who it was, who kept the fire off.”

With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted myself side
by side with Mr. Drummle, my shoulders squared and my back to the fire.

“You have just come down?” said Mr. Drummle, edging me a little away
with his shoulder.

“Yes,” said I, edging him a little away with my shoulder.

“Beastly place,” said Drummle. “Your part of the country, I think?”

“Yes,” I assented. “I am told it's very like your Shropshire.”

“Not in the least like it,” said Drummle.

Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked at mine, and then Mr.
Drummle looked at my boots, and I looked at his.

“Have you been here long?” I asked, determined not to yield an inch of
the fire.

“Long enough to be tired of it,” returned Drummle, pretending to yawn,
but equally determined.

“Do you stay here long?”

“Can't say,” answered Mr. Drummle. “Do you?”

“Can't say,” said I.

I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr. Drummle's
shoulder had claimed another hair's breadth of room, I should have
jerked him into the window; equally, that if my own shoulder had urged a
similar claim, Mr. Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He
whistled a little. So did I.

“Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?” said Drummle.

“Yes. What of that?” said I.

Mr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then said, “Oh!” and
laughed.

“Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?”

“No,” said he, “not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the
saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way
villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses--and
smithies--and that. Waiter!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is that horse of mine ready?”

“Brought round to the door, sir.”

“I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won't ride to-day; the weather
won't do.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And I don't dine, because I'm going to dine at the lady's.”

“Very good, sir.”

Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph on his
great-jowled face that cut me to the heart, dull as he was, and so
exasperated me, that I felt inclined to take him in my arms (as the
robber in the story-book is said to have taken the old lady) and seat
him on the fire.

One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that until relief
came, neither of us could relinquish the fire. There we stood, well
squared up before it, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with our
hands behind us, not budging an inch. The horse was visible outside in
the drizzle at the door, my breakfast was put on the table, Drummle's
was cleared away, the waiter invited me to begin, I nodded, we both
stood our ground.

“Have you been to the Grove since?” said Drummle.

“No,” said I, “I had quite enough of the Finches the last time I was
there.”

“Was that when we had a difference of opinion?”

“Yes,” I replied, very shortly.

“Come, come! They let you off easily enough,” sneered Drummle. “You
shouldn't have lost your temper.”

“Mr. Drummle,” said I, “you are not competent to give advice on that
subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit having done so on that
occasion), I don't throw glasses.”

“I do,” said Drummle.

After glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state of
smouldering ferocity, I said,--

“Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don't think it an
agreeable one.”

“I am sure it's not,” said he, superciliously over his shoulder; “I
don't think anything about it.”

“And therefore,” I went on, “with your leave, I will suggest that we
hold no kind of communication in future.”

“Quite my opinion,” said Drummle, “and what I should have suggested
myself, or done--more likely--without suggesting. But don't lose your
temper. Haven't you lost enough without that?”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“Waiter!” said Drummle, by way of answering me.

The waiter reappeared.

“Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don't ride
to-day, and that I dine at the young lady's?”

“Quite so, sir!”

When the waiter had felt my fast-cooling teapot with the palm of his
hand, and had looked imploringly at me, and had gone out, Drummle,
careful not to move the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket
and bit the end off, but showed no sign of stirring. Choking and
boiling as I was, I felt that we could not go a word further, without
introducing Estella's name, which I could not endure to hear him utter;
and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if there were
no one present, and forced myself to silence. How long we might have
remained in this ridiculous position it is impossible to say, but
for the incursion of three thriving farmers--laid on by the waiter, I
think--who came into the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and
rubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we
were obliged to give way.

I saw him through the window, seizing his horse's mane, and mounting in
his blundering brutal manner, and sidling and backing away. I thought
he was gone, when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in his
mouth, which he had forgotten. A man in a dust-colored dress appeared
with what was wanted,--I could not have said from where: whether from
the inn yard, or the street, or where not,--and as Drummle leaned down
from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his
head towards the coffee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged
hair of this man whose back was towards me reminded me of Orlick.

Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were he or
no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather and the
journey from my face and hands, and went out to the memorable old house
that it would have been so much the better for me never to have entered,
never to have seen.




Chapter XLIV

In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax-candles
burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham
seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet.
Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised
their eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived
that, from the look they interchanged.

“And what wind,” said Miss Havisham, “blows you here, Pip?”

Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather confused.
Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes upon me, and
then going on, I fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as
plainly as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived I
had discovered my real benefactor.

“Miss Havisham,” said I, “I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to
Estella; and finding that some wind had blown her here, I followed.”

Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth time to sit down,
I took the chair by the dressing-table, which I had often seen her
occupy. With all that ruin at my feet and about me, it seemed a natural
place for me, that day.

“What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you,
presently--in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not
displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.”

Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could see in the
action of Estella's fingers as they worked that she attended to what I
said; but she did not look up.

“I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate discovery,
and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation, station, fortune,
anything. There are reasons why I must say no more of that. It is not my
secret, but another's.”

As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and considering how to
go on, Miss Havisham repeated, “It is not your secret, but another's.
Well?”

“When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham, when I
belonged to the village over yonder, that I wish I had never left,
I suppose I did really come here, as any other chance boy might have
come,--as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and to be paid
for it?”

“Ay, Pip,” replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her head; “you did.”

“And that Mr. Jaggers--”

“Mr. Jaggers,” said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm tone, “had
nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His being my lawyer, and
his being the lawyer of your patron is a coincidence. He holds the same
relation towards numbers of people, and it might easily arise. Be that
as it may, it did arise, and was not brought about by any one.”

Any one might have seen in her haggard face that there was no
suppression or evasion so far.

“But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least
you led me on?” said I.

“Yes,” she returned, again nodding steadily, “I let you go on.”

“Was that kind?”

“Who am I,” cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick upon the floor
and flashing into wrath so suddenly that Estella glanced up at her in
surprise,--“who am I, for God's sake, that I should be kind?”

It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not meant to make it. I
told her so, as she sat brooding after this outburst.

“Well, well, well!” she said. “What else?”

“I was liberally paid for my old attendance here,” I said, to soothe
her, “in being apprenticed, and I have asked these questions only for
my own information. What follows has another (and I hope more
disinterested) purpose. In humoring my mistake, Miss Havisham, you
punished--practised on--perhaps you will supply whatever term expresses
your intention, without offence--your self-seeking relations?”

“I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What has been my
history, that I should be at the pains of entreating either them or you
not to have it so! You made your own snares. I never made them.”

Waiting until she was quiet again,--for this, too, flashed out of her in
a wild and sudden way,--I went on.

“I have been thrown among one family of your relations, Miss Havisham,
and have been constantly among them since I went to London. I know them
to have been as honestly under my delusion as I myself. And I should be
false and base if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you or
no, and whether you are inclined to give credence to it or no, that you
deeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert, if you suppose
them to be otherwise than generous, upright, open, and incapable of
anything designing or mean.”

“They are your friends,” said Miss Havisham.

“They made themselves my friends,” said I, “when they supposed me
to have superseded them; and when Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and
Mistress Camilla were not my friends, I think.”

This contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was glad to see, to do
them good with her. She looked at me keenly for a little while, and then
said quietly,--

“What do you want for them?”

“Only,” said I, “that you would not confound them with the others. They
may be of the same blood, but, believe me, they are not of the same
nature.”

Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated,--

“What do you want for them?”

“I am not so cunning, you see,” I said, in answer, conscious that I
reddened a little, “as that I could hide from you, even if I desired,
that I do want something. Miss Havisham, if you would spare the money
to do my friend Herbert a lasting service in life, but which from the
nature of the case must be done without his knowledge, I could show you
how.”

“Why must it be done without his knowledge?” she asked, settling her
hands upon her stick, that she might regard me the more attentively.

“Because,” said I, “I began the service myself, more than two years ago,
without his knowledge, and I don't want to be betrayed. Why I fail in my
ability to finish it, I cannot explain. It is a part of the secret which
is another person's and not mine.”

She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned them on the fire.
After watching it for what appeared in the silence and by the light
of the slowly wasting candles to be a long time, she was roused by
the collapse of some of the red coals, and looked towards me again--at
first, vacantly--then, with a gradually concentrating attention. All
this time Estella knitted on. When Miss Havisham had fixed her
attention on me, she said, speaking as if there had been no lapse in our
dialogue,--

“What else?”

“Estella,” said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my
trembling voice, “you know I love you. You know that I have loved you
long and dearly.”

She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed, and her fingers
plied their work, and she looked at me with an unmoved countenance. I
saw that Miss Havisham glanced from me to her, and from her to me.

“I should have said this sooner, but for my long mistake. It induced me
to hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one another. While I thought you
could not help yourself, as it were, I refrained from saying it. But I
must say it now.”

Preserving her unmoved countenance, and with her fingers still going,
Estella shook her head.

“I know,” said I, in answer to that action,--“I know. I have no hope
that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may become
of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love
you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house.”

Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook her
head again.

“It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise
on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these
years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the
gravity of what she did. But I think she did not. I think that, in the
endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella.”

I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as she
sat looking by turns at Estella and at me.

“It seems,” said Estella, very calmly, “that there are sentiments,
fancies,--I don't know how to call them,--which I am not able to
comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form
of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch
nothing there. I don't care for what you say at all. I have tried to
warn you of this; now, have I not?”

I said in a miserable manner, “Yes.”

“Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it.
Now, did you not think so?”

“I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and
beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature.”

“It is in my nature,” she returned. And then she added, with a stress
upon the words, “It is in the nature formed within me. I make a great
difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do
no more.”

“Is it not true,” said I, “that Bentley Drummle is in town here, and
pursuing you?”

“It is quite true,” she replied, referring to him with the indifference
of utter contempt.

“That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines with
you this very day?”

She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again replied,
“Quite true.”

“You cannot love him, Estella!”

Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather angrily,
“What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do not
mean what I say?”

“You would never marry him, Estella?”

She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her
work in her hands. Then she said, “Why not tell you the truth? I am
going to be married to him.”

I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control myself better
than I could have expected, considering what agony it gave me to hear
her say those words. When I raised my face again, there was such a
ghastly look upon Miss Havisham's, that it impressed me, even in my
passionate hurry and grief.

“Estella, dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham lead you into this
fatal step. Put me aside for ever,--you have done so, I well know,--but
bestow yourself on some worthier person than Drummle. Miss Havisham
gives you to him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done
to the many far better men who admire you, and to the few who truly
love you. Among those few there may be one who loves you even as dearly,
though he has not loved you as long, as I. Take him, and I can bear it
better, for your sake!”

My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if it would have
been touched with compassion, if she could have rendered me at all
intelligible to her own mind.

“I am going,” she said again, in a gentler voice, “to be married to
him. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I shall be
married soon. Why do you injuriously introduce the name of my mother by
adoption? It is my own act.”

“Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a brute?”

“On whom should I fling myself away?” she retorted, with a smile.
“Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if
people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is
done. I shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to leading
me into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me
wait, and not marry yet; but I am tired of the life I have led, which
has very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say no
more. We shall never understand each other.”

“Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!” I urged, in despair.

“Don't be afraid of my being a blessing to him,” said Estella; “I shall
not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary
boy--or man?”

“O Estella!” I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do
what I would to restrain them; “even if I remained in England and could
hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummle's wife?”

“Nonsense,” she returned,--“nonsense. This will pass in no time.”

“Never, Estella!”

“You will get me out of your thoughts in a week.”

“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You
have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the
rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been
in every prospect I have ever seen since,--on the river, on the sails of
the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness,
in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been
the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become
acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings
are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your
hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and
everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you
cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good
in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only
with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you
must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp
distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!”

In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I
don't know. The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an
inward wound, and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lingering
moments, and so I left her. But ever afterwards, I remembered,--and soon
afterwards with stronger reason,--that while Estella looked at me merely
with incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss Havisham, her hand
still covering her heart, seemed all resolved into a ghastly stare of
pity and remorse.

All done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that when I went out at
the gate, the light of the day seemed of a darker color than when I went
in. For a while, I hid myself among some lanes and by-paths, and then
struck off to walk all the way to London. For, I had by that time come
to myself so far as to consider that I could not go back to the inn and
see Drummle there; that I could not bear to sit upon the coach and
be spoken to; that I could do nothing half so good for myself as tire
myself out.

It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. Pursuing the narrow
intricacies of the streets which at that time tended westward near the
Middlesex shore of the river, my readiest access to the Temple was
close by the river-side, through Whitefriars. I was not expected till
to-morrow; but I had my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could
get to bed myself without disturbing him.

As it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars gate after the
Temple was closed, and as I was very muddy and weary, I did not take it
ill that the night-porter examined me with much attention as he held the
gate a little way open for me to pass in. To help his memory I mentioned
my name.

“I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here's a note, sir. The
messenger that brought it, said would you be so good as read it by my
lantern?”

Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to
Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of the superscription were the
words, “PLEASE READ THIS, HERE.” I opened it, the watchman holding up
his light, and read inside, in Wemmick's writing,--

“DON'T GO HOME.”




Chapter XLV

Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I made
the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late hackney chariot
and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was
always to be got there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain,
letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on
his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in order on his
list. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back, with a
despotic monster of a four-post bedstead in it, straddling over the
whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into the fireplace
and another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little
washing-stand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner.

As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in,
before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those
virtuous days--an object like the ghost of a walking-cane, which
instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could ever be
lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom
of a high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly
wide-awake pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed, and lay there
footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no more close my own
eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. And thus, in the
gloom and death of the night, we stared at one another.

What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an
inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I
looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what
a number of blue-bottle flies from the butchers', and earwigs from the
market, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying
by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever
tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face,--a
disagreeable turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable
approaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those
extraordinary voices with which silence teems began to make themselves
audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little
washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the
chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired
a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw
written, DON'T GO HOME.

Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me, they never warded
off this DON'T GO HOME. It plaited itself into whatever I thought of,
as a bodily pain would have done. Not long before, I had read in the
newspapers, how a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums in the
night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and had been
found in the morning weltering in blood. It came into my head that he
must have occupied this very vault of mine, and I got out of bed to
assure myself that there were no red marks about; then opened the door
to look out into the passages, and cheer myself with the companionship
of a distant light, near which I knew the chamberlain to be dozing. But
all this time, why I was not to go home, and what had happened at home,
and when I should go home, and whether Provis was safe at home, were
questions occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed
there could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even when I
thought of Estella, and how we had parted that day forever, and when
I recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and
tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted,--even then I
was pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the caution, Don't go home.
When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became
a vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative mood, present
tense: Do not thou go home, let him not go home, let us not go home, do
not ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then potentially: I may not
and I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, and should
not go home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and rolled over
on the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall again.

I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was plain
that I must see Wemmick before seeing any one else, and equally plain
that this was a case in which his Walworth sentiments only could be
taken. It was a relief to get out of the room where the night had been
so miserable, and I needed no second knocking at the door to startle me
from my uneasy bed.

The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o'clock. The little
servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I
passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company,
and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was
making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective
view of the Aged in bed.

“Halloa, Mr. Pip!” said Wemmick. “You did come home, then?”

“Yes,” I returned; “but I didn't go home.”

“That's all right,” said he, rubbing his hands. “I left a note for you
at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you come to?”

I told him.

“I'll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the
notes,” said Wemmick; “it's a good rule never to leave documentary
evidence if you can help it, because you don't know when it may be put
in. I'm going to take a liberty with you. Would you mind toasting this
sausage for the Aged P.?”

I said I should be delighted to do it.

“Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne,” said Wemmick to the little
servant; “which leaves us to ourselves, don't you see, Mr. Pip?” he
added, winking, as she disappeared.

I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse
proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged's sausage and he
buttered the crumb of the Aged's roll.

“Now, Mr. Pip, you know,” said Wemmick, “you and I understand one
another. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have been
engaged in a confidential transaction before to-day. Official sentiments
are one thing. We are extra official.”

I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted
the Aged's sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out.

“I accidentally heard, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “being in a
certain place where I once took you,--even between you and me, it's as
well not to mention names when avoidable--”

“Much better not,” said I. “I understand you.”

“I heard there by chance, yesterday morning,” said Wemmick, “that
a certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not
unpossessed of portable property,--I don't know who it may really
be,--we won't name this person--”

“Not necessary,” said I.

“--Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a good
many people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations,
and not quite irrespective of the government expense--”

In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged's sausage,
and greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick's; for which I
apologized.

“--By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of
thereabouts. From which,” said Wemmick, “conjectures had been raised and
theories formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden Court,
Temple, had been watched, and might be watched again.”

“By whom?” said I.

“I wouldn't go into that,” said Wemmick, evasively, “it might clash with
official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time heard other
curious things in the same place. I don't tell it you on information
received. I heard it.”

He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set forth
the Aged's breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing it
before him, he went into the Aged's room with a clean white cloth, and
tied the same under the old gentleman's chin, and propped him up, and
put his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he
placed his breakfast before him with great care, and said, “All right,
ain't you, Aged P.?” To which the cheerful Aged replied, “All right,
John, my boy, all right!” As there seemed to be a tacit understanding
that the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was therefore to be
considered invisible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignorance
of these proceedings.

“This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason to
suspect),” I said to Wemmick when he came back, “is inseparable from the
person to whom you have adverted; is it?”

Wemmick looked very serious. “I couldn't undertake to say that, of my
own knowledge. I mean, I couldn't undertake to say it was at first. But
it either is, or it will be, or it's in great danger of being.”

As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from saying
as much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him how far out
of his way he went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I told
him, after a little meditation over the fire, that I would like to ask
him a question, subject to his answering or not answering, as he
deemed right, and sure that his course would be right. He paused in his
breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his
notion of in-door comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me
once, to put my question.

“You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is
Compeyson?”

He answered with one other nod.

“Is he living?”

One other nod.

“Is he in London?”

He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office exceedingly, gave
me one last nod, and went on with his breakfast.

“Now,” said Wemmick, “questioning being over,” which he emphasized and
repeated for my guidance, “I come to what I did, after hearing what I
heard. I went to Garden Court to find you; not finding you, I went to
Clarriker's to find Mr. Herbert.”

“And him you found?” said I, with great anxiety.

“And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any
details, I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybody--Tom,
Jack, or Richard--being about the chambers, or about the immediate
neighborhood, he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard out of the way
while you were out of the way.”

“He would be greatly puzzled what to do?”

“He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my opinion
that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard too far out
of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I'll tell you something. Under existing
circumstances, there is no place like a great city when you are once
in it. Don't break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken,
before you try the open, even for foreign air.”

I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what Herbert had
done?

“Mr. Herbert,” said Wemmick, “after being all of a heap for half an
hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is
courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden
Pa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a
bow-window where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You
are acquainted with the young lady, most probably?”

“Not personally,” said I.

The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive companion
who did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first proposed to
present me to her, she had received the proposal with such very moderate
warmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the state of
the case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time before I made
her acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Herbert's prospects by
stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful philosophy: he and
his affianced, for their part, had naturally not been very anxious to
introduce a third person into their interviews; and thus, although I was
assured that I had risen in Clara's esteem, and although the young
lady and I had long regularly interchanged messages and remembrances by
Herbert, I had never seen her. However, I did not trouble Wemmick with
these particulars.

“The house with the bow-window,” said Wemmick, “being by the river-side,
down the Pool there between Limehouse and Greenwich, and being kept, it
seems, by a very respectable widow who has a furnished upper floor to
let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary
tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well of it, for
three reasons I'll give you. That is to say: Firstly. It's altogether
out of all your beats, and is well away from the usual heap of streets
great and small. Secondly. Without going near it yourself, you could
always hear of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert.
Thirdly. After a while and when it might be prudent, if you should want
to slip Tom, Jack, or Richard on board a foreign packet-boat, there he
is--ready.”

Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wemmick again and
again, and begged him to proceed.

“Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with a will, and
by nine o'clock last night he housed Tom, Jack, or Richard,--whichever
it may be,--you and I don't want to know,--quite successfully. At the
old lodgings it was understood that he was summoned to Dover, and, in
fact, he was taken down the Dover road and cornered out of it. Now,
another great advantage of all this is, that it was done without you,
and when, if any one was concerning himself about your movements, you
must be known to be ever so many miles off and quite otherwise engaged.
This diverts suspicion and confuses it; and for the same reason I
recommended that, even if you came back last night, you should not go
home. It brings in more confusion, and you want confusion.”

Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his watch, and
began to get his coat on.

“And now, Mr. Pip,” said he, with his hands still in the sleeves, “I
have probably done the most I can do; but if I can ever do more,--from
a Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private and personal
capacity,--I shall be glad to do it. Here's the address. There can be
no harm in your going here to-night, and seeing for yourself that all is
well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,--which is another
reason for your not going home last night. But, after you have gone
home, don't go back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip”; his
hands were now out of his sleeves, and I was shaking them; “and let me
finally impress one important point upon you.” He laid his hands upon
my shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: “Avail yourself of this
evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don't know what may
happen to him. Don't let anything happen to the portable property.”

Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on this point, I
forbore to try.

“Time's up,” said Wemmick, “and I must be off. If you had nothing more
pressing to do than to keep here till dark, that's what I should advise.
You look very much worried, and it would do you good to have a perfectly
quiet day with the Aged,--he'll be up presently,--and a little bit
of--you remember the pig?”

“Of course,” said I.

“Well; and a little bit of him. That sausage you toasted was his, and
he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it is only for old
acquaintance sake. Good-bye, Aged Parent!” in a cheery shout.

“All right, John; all right, my boy!” piped the old man from within.

I soon fell asleep before Wemmick's fire, and the Aged and I enjoyed one
another's society by falling asleep before it more or less all day.
We had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate; and
I nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it
drowsily. When it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for
toast; and I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from his
glances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins was
expected.




Chapter XLVI

Eight o'clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented,
not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore
boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side
region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to
me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted
was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to
find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's Basin; and I had no other
guide to Chinks's Basin than the Old Green Copper Rope-walk.

It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost myself
among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to pieces,
what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of ship-builders
and ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground,
though for years off duty, what mountainous country of accumulated casks
and timber, how many rope-walks that were not the Old Green Copper. After
several times falling short of my destination and as often overshooting
it, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a
fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, where the wind from
the river had room to turn itself round; and there were two or three
trees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there
was the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,--whose long and narrow vista I could
trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the
ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which had grown
old and lost most of their teeth.

Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house with a
wooden front and three stories of bow-window (not bay-window, which is
another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there,
Mrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly
woman of a pleasant and thriving appearance responded. She was
immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who silently led me into
the parlor and shut the door. It was an odd sensation to see his very
familiar face established quite at home in that very unfamiliar room
and region; and I found myself looking at him, much as I looked at
the corner-cupboard with the glass and china, the shells upon the
chimney-piece, and the colored engravings on the wall, representing the
death of Captain Cook, a ship-launch, and his Majesty King George the
Third in a state coachman's wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, on the
terrace at Windsor.

“All is well, Handel,” said Herbert, “and he is quite satisfied, though
eager to see you. My dear girl is with her father; and if you'll wait
till she comes down, I'll make you known to her, and then we'll go upstairs.
That's her father.”

I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and had probably
expressed the fact in my countenance.

“I am afraid he is a sad old rascal,” said Herbert, smiling, “but I have
never seen him. Don't you smell rum? He is always at it.”

“At rum?” said I.

“Yes,” returned Herbert, “and you may suppose how mild it makes his
gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions upstairs in his
room, and serving them out. He keeps them on shelves over his head, and
will weigh them all. His room must be like a chandler's shop.”

While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged roar, and
then died away.

“What else can be the consequence,” said Herbert, in explanation, “if
he will cut the cheese? A man with the gout in his right hand--and
everywhere else--can't expect to get through a Double Gloucester without
hurting himself.”

He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave another furious
roar.

“To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to Mrs. Whimple,”
 said Herbert, “for of course people in general won't stand that noise. A
curious place, Handel; isn't it?”

It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and clean.

“Mrs. Whimple,” said Herbert, when I told him so, “is the best of
housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without
her motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and no
relation in the world but old Gruffandgrim.”

“Surely that's not his name, Herbert?”

“No, no,” said Herbert, “that's my name for him. His name is Mr. Barley.
But what a blessing it is for the son of my father and mother to love a
girl who has no relations, and who can never bother herself or anybody
else about her family!”

Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded me, that he
first knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her education at
an establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being recalled home
to nurse her father, he and she had confided their affection to the
motherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it had been fostered and regulated
with equal kindness and discretion, ever since. It was understood that
nothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by
reason of his being totally unequal to the consideration of any subject
more psychological than Gout, Rum, and Purser's stores.

As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley's sustained
growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the room door
opened, and a very pretty, slight, dark-eyed girl of twenty or so came
in with a basket in her hand: whom Herbert tenderly relieved of the
basket, and presented, blushing, as “Clara.” She really was a most
charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that
truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service.

“Look here,” said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a compassionate
and tender smile, after we had talked a little; “here's poor Clara's
supper, served out every night. Here's her allowance of bread, and
here's her slice of cheese, and here's her rum,--which I drink. This
is Mr. Barley's breakfast for to-morrow, served out to be cooked. Two
mutton-chops, three potatoes, some split peas, a little flour, two
ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, and all this black pepper. It's
stewed up together, and taken hot, and it's a nice thing for the gout, I
should think!”

There was something so natural and winning in Clara's resigned way of
looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out; and
something so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest manner of
yielding herself to Herbert's embracing arm; and something so gentle in
her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks's Basin,
and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk, with Old Barley growling in the
beam,--that I would not have undone the engagement between her and
Herbert for all the money in the pocket-book I had never opened.

I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when suddenly the
growl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping noise was heard
above, as if a giant with a wooden leg were trying to bore it through
the ceiling to come at us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, “Papa wants
me, darling!” and ran away.

“There is an unconscionable old shark for you!” said Herbert. “What do
you suppose he wants now, Handel?”

“I don't know,” said I. “Something to drink?”

“That's it!” cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of extraordinary
merit. “He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub on the table.
Wait a moment, and you'll hear Clara lift him up to take some. There
he goes!” Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the end. “Now,” said
Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence, “he's drinking. Now,” said
Herbert, as the growl resounded in the beam once more, “he's down again
on his back!”

Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me upstairs to
see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley's door, he was heard hoarsely
muttering within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind, the
following Refrain, in which I substitute good wishes for something quite
the reverse:--

“Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here's old Bill Barley. Here's old Bill Barley,
bless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley on the flat of his back, by the
Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting old dead flounder,
here's your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless you.”

In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible Barley
would commune with himself by the day and night together; Often, while
it was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope which was
fitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping the river.

In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh and
airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I found
Provis comfortably settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed to
feel none that was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he was
softened,--indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could never
afterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly.

The opportunity that the day's rest had given me for reflection had
resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him respecting
Compeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity towards the man
might otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on his own
destruction. Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with him by his
fire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on Wemmick's judgment
and sources of information?

“Ay, ay, dear boy!” he answered, with a grave nod, “Jaggers knows.”

“Then, I have talked with Wemmick,” said I, “and have come to tell you
what caution he gave me and what advice.”

This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned; and I told
him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from officers or
prisoners I could not say), that he was under some suspicion, and that
my chambers had been watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping
close for a time, and my keeping away from him; and what Wemmick had
said about getting him abroad. I added, that of course, when the time
came, I should go with him, or should follow close upon him, as might
be safest in Wemmick's judgment. What was to follow that I did not touch
upon; neither, indeed, was I at all clear or comfortable about it in my
own mind, now that I saw him in that softer condition, and in declared
peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living by enlarging my
expenses, I put it to him whether in our present unsettled and difficult
circumstances, it would not be simply ridiculous, if it were no worse?

He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout. His
coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a
venture. He would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and he had
very little fear of his safety with such good help.

Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said
that something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick's
suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. “We are both good
watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the
right time comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no
boatmen; that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any chance
is worth saving. Never mind the season; don't you think it might be a
good thing if you began at once to keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and
were in the habit of rowing up and down the river? You fall into that
habit, and then who notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times,
and there is nothing special in your doing it the twenty-first or
fifty-first.”

I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We agreed
that it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should never
recognize us if we came below Bridge, and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But
we further agreed that he should pull down the blind in that part of his
window which gave upon the east, whenever he saw us and all was right.

Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged, I rose to go;
remarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go home together, and
that I would take half an hour's start of him. “I don't like to leave
you here,” I said to Provis, “though I cannot doubt your being safer
here than near me. Good-bye!”

“Dear boy,” he answered, clasping my hands, “I don't know when we may
meet again, and I don't like good-bye. Say good night!”

“Good night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the time
comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good night, good night!”

We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms; and we left him
on the landing outside his door, holding a light over the stair-rail to
light us downstairs. Looking back at him, I thought of the first night
of his return, when our positions were reversed, and when I little
supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him
as it was now.

Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door, with no
appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease. When we got to the
foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved the name of
Provis. He replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr. Campbell.
He also explained that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there was,
that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and felt a strong
personal interest in his being well cared for, and living a secluded
life. So, when we went into the parlor where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were
seated at work, I said nothing of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but
kept it to myself.

When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, dark-eyed girl, and of the
motherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a little
affair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper Rope-walk had
grown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as old as the hills,
and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming
youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to
overflowing. And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting, and went
home very sadly.

All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The
windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were dark
and still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked past the
fountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that were between
me and my rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my
bedside when he came in,--for I went straight to bed, dispirited and
fatigued,--made the same report. Opening one of the windows after that,
he looked out into the moonlight, and told me that the pavement was as
solemnly empty as the pavement of any cathedral at that same hour.

Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the boat
was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could reach
her within a minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for training and
practice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in
cold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had been
out a few times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the
hours of the tide changed, I took towards London Bridge. It was Old
London Bridge in those days, and at certain states of the tide there
was a race and fall of water there which gave it a bad reputation. But I
knew well enough how to 'shoot' the bridge after seeing it done, and so
began to row about among the shipping in the Pool, and down to Erith.
The first time I passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a
pair of oars; and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind towards
the east come down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three
times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of intelligence
that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that there was cause for alarm,
and I could not get rid of the notion of being watched. Once received,
it is a haunting idea; how many undesigning persons I suspected of
watching me, it would be hard to calculate.

In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in hiding.
Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to stand at
one of our windows after dark, when the tide was running down, and to
think that it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara. But
I thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that
any black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly,
silently, and surely, to take him.




Chapter XLVII

Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick,
and he made no sign. If I had never known him out of Little Britain, and
had never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar footing at the
Castle, I might have doubted him; not so for a moment, knowing him as I
did.

My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was pressed
for money by more than one creditor. Even I myself began to know the
want of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and to relieve
it by converting some easily spared articles of jewelery into cash. But
I had quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take more
money from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts and
plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to
hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfaction--whether it
was a false kind or a true, I hardly know--in not having profited by his
generosity since his revelation of himself.

As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that Estella
was married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was all but a
conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I had
confided the circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her
to me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of
hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know? Why did you
who read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own last
year, last month, last week?

It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety,
towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a
range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause
for fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the terror
fresh upon me that he was discovered; let me sit listening, as I would
with dread, for Herbert's returning step at night, lest it should be
fleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news,--for all that, and
much more to like purpose, the round of things went on. Condemned to
inaction and a state of constant restlessness and suspense, I rowed
about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best could.

There were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I could
not get back through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of old London
Bridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be
brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing
this, as it served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among the
water-side people there. From this slight occasion sprang two meetings
that I have now to tell of.

One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the wharf
at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and
had turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had become
foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my way back among the
shipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the
signal in his window, All well.

As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort
myself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and solitude
before me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would afterwards go
to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved his questionable
triumph was in that water-side neighborhood (it is nowhere now), and
to that theatre I resolved to go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle had
not succeeded in reviving the Drama, but, on the contrary, had rather
partaken of its decline. He had been ominously heard of, through the
play-bills, as a faithful Black, in connection with a little girl of
noble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seen him as a predatory
Tartar of comic propensities, with a face like a red brick, and an
outrageous hat all over bells.

I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chop-house,
where there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims on every half-yard
of the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the knives,--to
this day there is scarcely a single chop-house within the Lord Mayor's
dominions which is not geographical,--and wore out the time in dozing
over crumbs, staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By
and by, I roused myself, and went to the play.

There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty's service,--a most
excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so
tight in some places, and not quite so loose in others,--who knocked all
the little men's hats over their eyes, though he was very generous and
brave, and who wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he was
very patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding in
the cloth, and on that property married a young person in bed-furniture,
with great rejoicings; the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in
number at the last census) turning out on the beach to rub their own
hands and shake everybody else's, and sing “Fill, fill!” A certain
dark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything else
that was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by the
boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed to two other
Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so effectually
done (the Swab family having considerable political influence) that it
took half the evening to set things right, and then it was only brought
about through an honest little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters,
and red nose, getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and
coming out, and knocking everybody down from behind with the gridiron
whom he couldn't confute with what he had overheard. This led to Mr.
Wopsle's (who had never been heard of before) coming in with a star
and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great power direct from the
Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot,
and that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight
acknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for the
first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering
up, and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honor, solicited permission to
take him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious
dignity, was immediately shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody
danced a hornpipe; and from that corner, surveying the public with a
discontented eye, became aware of me.

The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime, in
the first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I detected
Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric
countenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged
in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great
cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner.
But he presently presented himself under worthier circumstances; for,
the Genius of Youthful Love being in want of assistance,--on account of
the parental brutality of an ignorant farmer who opposed the choice
of his daughter's heart, by purposely falling upon the object, in a
flour-sack, out of the first-floor window,--summoned a sententious
Enchanter; and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after
an apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned
hat, with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The business
of this enchanter on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at,
butted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various colors,
he had a good deal of time on his hands. And I observed, with great
surprise, that he devoted it to staring in my direction as if he were
lost in amazement.

There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr.
Wopsle's eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in his
mind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out. I sat
thinking of it long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large
watch-case, and still I could not make it out. I was still thinking
of it when I came out of the theatre an hour afterwards, and found him
waiting for me near the door.

“How do you do?” said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down the
street together. “I saw that you saw me.”

“Saw you, Mr. Pip!” he returned. “Yes, of course I saw you. But who else
was there?”

“Who else?”

“It is the strangest thing,” said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his lost
look again; “and yet I could swear to him.”

Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his meaning.

“Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being there,”
 said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, “I can't be positive;
yet I think I should.”

Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look round me
when I went home; for these mysterious words gave me a chill.

“Oh! He can't be in sight,” said Mr. Wopsle. “He went out before I went
off. I saw him go.”

Having the reason that I had for being suspicious, I even suspected
this poor actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some admission.
Therefore I glanced at him as we walked on together, but said nothing.

“I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I saw
that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you there like a
ghost.”

My former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to speak
yet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he might be set on
to induce me to connect these references with Provis. Of course, I was
perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been there.

“I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed, I see you do. But it is
so very strange! You'll hardly believe what I am going to tell you. I
could hardly believe it myself, if you told me.”

“Indeed?” said I.

“No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas Day,
when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery's, and some soldiers
came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?”

“I remember it very well.”

“And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that we
joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and that I took the
lead, and you kept up with me as well as you could?”

“I remember it all very well.” Better than he thought,--except the last
clause.

“And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and that
there was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had been severely
handled and much mauled about the face by the other?”

“I see it all before me.”

“And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the centre,
and that we went on to see the last of them, over the black marshes,
with the torchlight shining on their faces,--I am particular about
that,--with the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an
outer ring of dark night all about us?”

“Yes,” said I. “I remember all that.”

“Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. I saw
him over your shoulder.”

“Steady!” I thought. I asked him then, “Which of the two do you suppose
you saw?”

“The one who had been mauled,” he answered readily, “and I'll swear I
saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him.”

“This is very curious!” said I, with the best assumption I could put on
of its being nothing more to me. “Very curious indeed!”

I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this conversation
threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson's
having been behind me “like a ghost.” For if he had ever been out of my
thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun, it was
in those very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I
should be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if
I had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had
found him at my elbow. I could not doubt, either, that he was there,
because I was there, and that, however slight an appearance of danger
there might be about us, danger was always near and active.

I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He
could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man.
It was not until he had seen him for some time that he began to identify
him; but he had from the first vaguely associated him with me, and
known him as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How was
he dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise; he thought, in
black. Was his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I believed
not too, for, although in my brooding state I had taken no especial
notice of the people behind me, I thought it likely that a face at all
disfigured would have attracted my attention.

When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I
extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate refreshment,
after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and
one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one
was near me when I went in and went home.

Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But
there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what I
had that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for his hint.
As I thought that I might compromise him if I went too often to the
Castle, I made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I went to
bed, and went out and posted it; and again no one was near me. Herbert
and I agreed that we could do nothing else but be very cautious. And
we were very cautious indeed,--more cautious than before, if that were
possible,--and I for my part never went near Chinks's Basin, except
when I rowed by, and then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at
anything else.




Chapter XLVIII

The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred
about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf
below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and,
undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was
strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy
concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one
overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my
arm.

“As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where
are you bound for?”

“For the Temple, I think,” said I.

“Don't you know?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Well,” I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in
cross-examination, “I do not know, for I have not made up my mind.”

“You are going to dine?” said Mr. Jaggers. “You don't mind admitting
that, I suppose?”

“No,” I returned, “I don't mind admitting that.”

“And are not engaged?”

“I don't mind admitting also that I am not engaged.”

“Then,” said Mr. Jaggers, “come and dine with me.”

I was going to excuse myself, when he added, “Wemmick's coming.” So
I changed my excuse into an acceptance,--the few words I had uttered,
serving for the beginning of either,--and we went along Cheapside
and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up
brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely
finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the
afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out,
opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at
the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall.

At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing,
hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the
business of the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, its rising
and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were
playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse,
fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a
corner were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance of
a host of hanged clients.

We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-coach: And,
as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have
thought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much
as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no
objection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it
was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised
them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were
twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one.

“Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?” Mr.
Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner.

“No, sir,” returned Wemmick; “it was going by post, when you brought Mr.
Pip into the office. Here it is.” He handed it to his principal instead
of to me.

“It's a note of two lines, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on, “sent
up to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being sure of your
address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of
business you mentioned to her. You'll go down?”

“Yes,” said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in those
terms.

“When do you think of going down?”

“I have an impending engagement,” said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was
putting fish into the post-office, “that renders me rather uncertain of
my time. At once, I think.”

“If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once,” said Wemmick to Mr.
Jaggers, “he needn't write an answer, you know.”

Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled
that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine,
and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me.

“So, Pip! Our friend the Spider,” said Mr. Jaggers, “has played his
cards. He has won the pool.”

It was as much as I could do to assent.

“Hah! He is a promising fellow--in his way--but he may not have it all
his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to
be found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her--”

“Surely,” I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, “you do not
seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?”

“I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and
beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be
a question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance
work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such
circumstances, because it's a toss-up between two results.”

“May I ask what they are?”

“A fellow like our friend the Spider,” answered Mr. Jaggers, “either
beats or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not growl; but
he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick his opinion.”

“Either beats or cringes,” said Wemmick, not at all addressing himself
to me.

“So here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle,” said Mr. Jaggers, taking a decanter
of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filling for each of us and
for himself, “and may the question of supremacy be settled to the lady's
satisfaction! To the satisfaction of the lady and the gentleman,
it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are
to-day!”

She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the
table. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or two,
nervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers, as
she spoke, arrested my attention.

“What's the matter?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of,” said I, “was rather
painful to me.”

The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood
looking at her master, not understanding whether she was free to go, or
whether he had more to say to her and would call her back if she did go.
Her look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and such
hands on a memorable occasion very lately!

He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remained
before me as plainly as if she were still there. I looked at those
hands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I
compared them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I knew of,
and with what those might be after twenty years of a brutal husband
and a stormy life. I looked again at those hands and eyes of the
housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come over
me when I last walked--not alone--in the ruined garden, and through the
deserted brewery. I thought how the same feeling had come back when I
saw a face looking at me, and a hand waving to me from a stage-coach
window; and how it had come back again and had flashed about me like
lightning, when I had passed in a carriage--not alone--through a sudden
glare of light in a dark street. I thought how one link of association
had helped that identification in the theatre, and how such a link,
wanting before, had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a
chance swift from Estella's name to the fingers with their knitting
action, and the attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this
woman was Estella's mother.

Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to have missed
the sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal. He nodded when I said
the subject was painful to me, clapped me on the back, put round the
wine again, and went on with his dinner.

Only twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in the
room was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But her hands
were Estella's hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes, and if she had
reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither more sure nor less
sure that my conviction was the truth.

It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine, when it came round,
quite as a matter of business,--just as he might have drawn his salary
when that came round,--and with his eyes on his chief, sat in a state of
perpetual readiness for cross-examination. As to the quantity of wine,
his post-office was as indifferent and ready as any other post-office
for its quantity of letters. From my point of view, he was the wrong
twin all the time, and only externally like the Wemmick of Walworth.

We took our leave early, and left together. Even when we were groping
among Mr. Jaggers's stock of boots for our hats, I felt that the right
twin was on his way back; and we had not gone half a dozen yards down
Gerrard Street in the Walworth direction, before I found that I was
walking arm in arm with the right twin, and that the wrong twin had
evaporated into the evening air.

“Well!” said Wemmick, “that's over! He's a wonderful man, without his
living likeness; but I feel that I have to screw myself up when I dine
with him,--and I dine more comfortably unscrewed.”

I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so.

“Wouldn't say it to anybody but yourself,” he answered. “I know that
what is said between you and me goes no further.”

I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Mrs.
Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke
of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned
Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll
of the head, and a flourish not quite free from latent boastfulness.

“Wemmick,” said I, “do you remember telling me, before I first went to
Mr. Jaggers's private house, to notice that housekeeper?”

“Did I?” he replied. “Ah, I dare say I did. Deuce take me,” he added,
suddenly, “I know I did. I find I am not quite unscrewed yet.”

“A wild beast tamed, you called her.”

“And what do you call her?”

“The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick?”

“That's his secret. She has been with him many a long year.”

“I wish you would tell me her story. I feel a particular interest in
being acquainted with it. You know that what is said between you and me
goes no further.”

“Well!” Wemmick replied, “I don't know her story,--that is, I don't know
all of it. But what I do know I'll tell you. We are in our private and
personal capacities, of course.”

“Of course.”

“A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried at the Old Bailey for
murder, and was acquitted. She was a very handsome young woman, and I
believe had some gypsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot enough when it
was up, as you may suppose.”

“But she was acquitted.”

“Mr. Jaggers was for her,” pursued Wemmick, with a look full of meaning,
“and worked the case in a way quite astonishing. It was a desperate
case, and it was comparatively early days with him then, and he worked
it to general admiration; in fact, it may almost be said to have made
him. He worked it himself at the police-office, day after day for many
days, contending against even a committal; and at the trial where he
couldn't work it himself, sat under counsel, and--every one knew--put
in all the salt and pepper. The murdered person was a woman,--a woman a
good ten years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. It was
a case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman in
Gerrard Street here had been married very young, over the broomstick (as
we say), to a tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy.
The murdered woman,--more a match for the man, certainly, in point of
years--was found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath. There had been a
violent struggle, perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched and
torn, and had been held by the throat, at last, and choked. Now, there
was no reasonable evidence to implicate any person but this woman, and
on the improbabilities of her having been able to do it Mr. Jaggers
principally rested his case. You may be sure,” said Wemmick, touching me
on the sleeve, “that he never dwelt upon the strength of her hands then,
though he sometimes does now.”

I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of the dinner
party.

“Well, sir!” Wemmick went on; “it happened--happened, don't you
see?--that this woman was so very artfully dressed from the time of
her apprehension, that she looked much slighter than she really was; in
particular, her sleeves are always remembered to have been so skilfully
contrived that her arms had quite a delicate look. She had only a bruise
or two about her,--nothing for a tramp,--but the backs of her hands
were lacerated, and the question was, Was it with finger-nails? Now, Mr.
Jaggers showed that she had struggled through a great lot of brambles
which were not as high as her face; but which she could not have got
through and kept her hands out of; and bits of those brambles were
actually found in her skin and put in evidence, as well as the fact that
the brambles in question were found on examination to have been broken
through, and to have little shreds of her dress and little spots of
blood upon them here and there. But the boldest point he made was this:
it was attempted to be set up, in proof of her jealousy, that she was
under strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the murder,
frantically destroyed her child by this man--some three years old--to
revenge herself upon him. Mr. Jaggers worked that in this way: “We say
these are not marks of finger-nails, but marks of brambles, and we show
you the brambles. You say they are marks of finger-nails, and you set
up the hypothesis that she destroyed her child. You must accept all
consequences of that hypothesis. For anything we know, she may have
destroyed her child, and the child in clinging to her may have scratched
her hands. What then? You are not trying her for the murder of her
child; why don't you? As to this case, if you will have scratches,
we say that, for anything we know, you may have accounted for them,
assuming for the sake of argument that you have not invented them?” “To
sum up, sir,” said Wemmick, “Mr. Jaggers was altogether too many for the
jury, and they gave in.”

“Has she been in his service ever since?”

“Yes; but not only that,” said Wemmick, “she went into his service
immediately after her acquittal, tamed as she is now. She has since been
taught one thing and another in the way of her duties, but she was tamed
from the beginning.”

“Do you remember the sex of the child?”

“Said to have been a girl.”

“You have nothing more to say to me to-night?”

“Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. Nothing.”

We exchanged a cordial good-night, and I went home, with new matter for
my thoughts, though with no relief from the old.




Chapter XLIX

Putting Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve as
my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her
waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went
down again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House,
and breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for I sought
to get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it
in the same manner.

The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing
courts behind the High Street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had
once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were
now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost
as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at
once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding
observation, than they had ever had before; so, the swell of the old
organ was borne to my ears like funeral music; and the rooks, as they
hovered about the gray tower and swung in the bare high trees of the
priory garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and that
Estella was gone out of it for ever.

An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who
lived in the supplementary house across the back courtyard, opened the
gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old,
and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not
in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking
in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth
in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the
ashy fire.

Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old
chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There
was an air of utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to
pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge
her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in the
progress of time, I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of
that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice,
“Is it real?”

“It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost
no time.”

“Thank you. Thank you.”

As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I
remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me.

“I want,” she said, “to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you
were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you
can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?”

When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right
hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again
before I understood the action, or knew how to receive it.

“You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do
something useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it
not?”

“Something that I would like done very much.”

“What is it?”

I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had
not got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking
in a discursive way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be
so; for, when I stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed
that she was conscious of the fact.

“Do you break off,” she asked then, with her former air of being afraid
of me, “because you hate me too much to bear to speak to me?”

“No, no,” I answered, “how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I stopped
because I thought you were not following what I said.”

“Perhaps I was not,” she answered, putting a hand to her head. “Begin
again, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell me.”

She set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that sometimes was
habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of
forcing herself to attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her
how I had hoped to complete the transaction out of my means, but how
in this I was disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her)
involved matters which could form no part of my explanation, for they
were the weighty secrets of another.

“So!” said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me. “And how
much money is wanting to complete the purchase?”

I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. “Nine
hundred pounds.”

“If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as
you have kept your own?”

“Quite as faithfully.”

“And your mind will be more at rest?”

“Much more at rest.”

“Are you very unhappy now?”

She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted
tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed
me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid
her forehead on it.

“I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of disquiet
than any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned.”

After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire again.

“It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of
unhappiness. Is it true?”

“Too true.”

“Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as
done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?”

“Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the
tone of the question. But there is nothing.”

She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room
for the means of writing. There were none there, and she took from her
pocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and
wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from
her neck.

“You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?”

“Quite. I dined with him yesterday.”

“This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your
irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if
you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it
to you.”

“Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving
it from him.”

She read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear, and
evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the
receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled
again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the
pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did without
looking at me.

“My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, “I
forgive her,” though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do
it!”

“O Miss Havisham,” said I, “I can do it now. There have been sore
mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want
forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.”

She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it,
and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees
at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which,
when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have
been raised to heaven from her mother's side.

To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet
gave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got
my arms about her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine
which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I
had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the
relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not
kneeling now, but was down upon the ground.

“O!” she cried, despairingly. “What have I done! What have I done!”

“If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me
answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. Is
she married?”

“Yes.”

It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house
had told me so.

“What have I done! What have I done!” She wrung her hands, and crushed
her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. “What have
I done!”

I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a
grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form
that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride found
vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light
of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had
secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that,
her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and
must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew
equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her
punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth
on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a
master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the
vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been
curses in this world?

“Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a
looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know
what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!” And so again,
twenty, fifty times over, What had she done!

“Miss Havisham,” I said, when her cry had died away, “you may dismiss me
from your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and if
you can ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a
part of her right nature away from her, it will be better to do that
than to bemoan the past through a hundred years.”

“Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip--my dear!” There was an earnest womanly
compassion for me in her new affection. “My dear! Believe this: when she
first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first,
I meant no more.”

“Well, well!” said I. “I hope so.”

“But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did
worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings,
and with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and
point my lessons, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place.”

“Better,” I could not help saying, “to have left her a natural heart,
even to be bruised or broken.”

With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and then
burst out again, What had she done!

“If you knew all my story,” she pleaded, “you would have some compassion
for me and a better understanding of me.”

“Miss Havisham,” I answered, as delicately as I could, “I believe I may
say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first left
this neighborhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, and I
hope I understand it and its influences. Does what has passed between us
give me any excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as
she is, but as she was when she first came here?”

She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and
her head leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and
replied, “Go on.”

“Whose child was Estella?”

She shook her head.

“You don't know?”

She shook her head again.

“But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?”

“Brought her here.”

“Will you tell me how that came about?”

She answered in a low whisper and with caution: “I had been shut up in
these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the
clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear
and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent
for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the
newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would
look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here
asleep, and I called her Estella.”

“Might I ask her age then?”

“Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an
orphan and I adopted her.”

So convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, that I wanted
no evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I
thought, the connection here was clear and straight.

What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had
succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew
of Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind. No matter
with what other words we parted; we parted.

Twilight was closing in when I went downstairs into the natural air. I
called to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I would
not trouble her just yet, but would walk round the place before leaving.
For I had a presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt
that the dying light was suited to my last view of it.

By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which
the rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and
leaving miniature swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on
end, I made my way to the ruined garden. I went all round it; round by
the corner where Herbert and I had fought our battle; round by the paths
where Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary all!

Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little
door at the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at the
opposite door,--not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started and
swelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered
with a growth of fungus,--when I turned my head to look back. A childish
association revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight
action, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So
strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from
head to foot before I knew it was a fancy,--though to be sure I was
there in an instant.

The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of
this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an
indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I
had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into
the front courtyard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out
at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go upstairs
and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I had left
her. I took the latter course and went up.

I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the
ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards
me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away,
I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her
running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her,
and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.

I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat.
That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over
her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose,
and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and
all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground
struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her,
the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,--that this
occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or
thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the
floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were
floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded
bridal dress.

Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running
away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries
at the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like
a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or
why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames
were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments
no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us.

She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even
touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if
I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire
would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's
coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands
were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.

On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts,
but that they of themselves were far from hopeless; the danger lay
mainly in the nervous shock. By the surgeon's directions, her bed was
carried into that room and laid upon the great table, which happened to
be well suited to the dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, an
hour afterwards, she lay, indeed, where I had seen her strike her stick,
and had heard her say that she would lie one day.

Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she
still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had
covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with
a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that
had been and was changed was still upon her.

I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I
got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the
next post. Miss Havisham's family I took upon myself; intending to
communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he
liked about informing the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, as
soon as I returned to town.

There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had
happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she
began to wander in her speech; and after that it gradually set in that
she said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, “What have I done!”
 And then, “When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like
mine.” And then, “Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive
her!'” She never changed the order of these three sentences, but she
sometimes left out a word in one or other of them; never putting in
another word, but always leaving a blank and going on to the next word.

As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that pressing
reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive
out of my mind, I decided, in the course of the night that I would
return by the early morning coach, walking on a mile or so, and being
taken up clear of the town. At about six o'clock of the morning,
therefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine, just as
they said, not stopping for being touched, “Take the pencil and write
under my name, 'I forgive her.'”




Chapter L

My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again in
the morning. My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less
severely, as high as the shoulder; it was very painful, but the flames
had set in that direction, and I felt thankful it was no worse. My right
hand was not so badly burnt but that I could move the fingers. It was
bandaged, of course, but much less inconveniently than my left hand and
arm; those I carried in a sling; and I could only wear my coat like a
cloak, loose over my shoulders and fastened at the neck. My hair had
been caught by the fire, but not my head or face.

When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father, he came
back to me at our chambers, and devoted the day to attending on me. He
was the kindest of nurses, and at stated times took off the bandages,
and steeped them in the cooling liquid that was kept ready, and put them
on again, with a patient tenderness that I was deeply grateful for.

At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully difficult, I
might say impossible, to get rid of the impression of the glare of the
flames, their hurry and noise, and the fierce burning smell. If I
dozed for a minute, I was awakened by Miss Havisham's cries, and by her
running at me with all that height of fire above her head. This pain
of the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I
suffered; and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention
engaged.

Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it. That
was made apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and by our
agreeing--without agreement--to make my recovery of the use of my hands
a question of so many hours, not of so many weeks.

My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all
was well down the river? As he replied in the affirmative, with perfect
confidence and cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the day
was wearing away. But then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more by
the light of the fire than by the outer light, he went back to it
spontaneously.

“I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours.”

“Where was Clara?”

“Dear little thing!” said Herbert. “She was up and down with
Gruffandgrim all the evening. He was perpetually pegging at the floor
the moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold out long, though.
What with rum and pepper,--and pepper and rum,--I should think his
pegging must be nearly over.”

“And then you will be married, Herbert?”

“How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?--Lay your arm out upon
the back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I'll sit down here, and get the
bandage off so gradually that you shall not know when it comes. I was
speaking of Provis. Do you know, Handel, he improves?”

“I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him.”

“So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last night, and
told me more of his life. You remember his breaking off here about some
woman that he had had great trouble with.--Did I hurt you?”

I had started, but not under his touch. His words had given me a start.

“I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you speak of it.”

“Well! He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part it is.
Shall I tell you? Or would it worry you just now?”

“Tell me by all means. Every word.”

Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my reply had been
rather more hurried or more eager than he could quite account for. “Your
head is cool?” he said, touching it.

“Quite,” said I. “Tell me what Provis said, my dear Herbert.”

“It seems,” said Herbert, “--there's a bandage off most charmingly, and
now comes the cool one,--makes you shrink at first, my poor dear fellow,
don't it? but it will be comfortable presently,--it seems that the
woman was a young woman, and a jealous woman, and a revengeful woman;
revengeful, Handel, to the last degree.”

“To what last degree?”

“Murder.--Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place?”

“I don't feel it. How did she murder? Whom did she murder?”

“Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name,”
 said Herbert, “but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended
her, and the reputation of that defence first made his name known
to Provis. It was another and a stronger woman who was the victim,
and there had been a struggle--in a barn. Who began it, or how fair
it was, or how unfair, may be doubtful; but how it ended is
certainly not doubtful, for the victim was found throttled.”

“Was the woman brought in guilty?”

“No; she was acquitted.--My poor Handel, I hurt you!”

“It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else?”

“This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child; a little
child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the evening of the very
night when the object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell you, the
young woman presented herself before Provis for one moment, and swore
that she would destroy the child (which was in her possession), and he
should never see it again; then she vanished.--There's the worst arm
comfortably in the sling once more, and now there remains but the right
hand, which is a far easier job. I can do it better by this light
than by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor
blistered patches too distinctly.--You don't think your breathing is
affected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe quickly.”

“Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath?”

“There comes the darkest part of Provis's life. She did.”

“That is, he says she did.”

“Why, of course, my dear boy,” returned Herbert, in a tone of surprise,
and again bending forward to get a nearer look at me. “He says it all. I
have no other information.”

“No, to be sure.”

“Now, whether,” pursued Herbert, “he had used the child's mother ill, or
whether he had used the child's mother well, Provis doesn't say; but she
had shared some four or five years of the wretched life he described
to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt pity for her, and
forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he should be called upon to
depose about this destroyed child, and so be the cause of her death, he
hid himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, as he
says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was only vaguely talked
of as a certain man called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose. After
the acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the
child's mother.”

“I want to ask--”

“A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson,
the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping
out of the way at that time and of his reasons for doing so, of course
afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him
poorer and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed
the point of Provis's animosity.”

“I want to know,” said I, “and particularly, Herbert, whether he told
you when this happened?”

“Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His
expression was, 'a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly after I
took up wi' Compeyson.' How old were you when you came upon him in the
little churchyard?”

“I think in my seventh year.”

“Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you
brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would have
been about your age.”

“Herbert,” said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, “can you see
me best by the light of the window, or the light of the fire?”

“By the firelight,” answered Herbert, coming close again.

“Look at me.”

“I do look at you, my dear boy.”

“Touch me.”

“I do touch you, my dear boy.”

“You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much
disordered by the accident of last night?”

“N-no, my dear boy,” said Herbert, after taking time to examine me. “You
are rather excited, but you are quite yourself.”

“I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding down the river,
is Estella's Father.”




Chapter LI

What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving
Estella's parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the
question was not before me in a distinct shape until it was put before
me by a wiser head than my own.

But when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized
with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down,--that I
ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and come
at the bare truth. I really do not know whether I felt that I did this
for Estella's sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in
whose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic
interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility
may be the nearer to the truth.

Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard Street
that night. Herbert's representations that, if I did, I should probably
be laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive's safety would depend
upon me, alone restrained my impatience. On the understanding, again
and again reiterated, that, come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers
to-morrow, I at length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts
looked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning we went out
together, and at the corner of Giltspur Street by Smithfield, I left
Herbert to go his way into the City, and took my way to Little Britain.

There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went over
the office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all things
straight. On these occasions, Wemmick took his books and papers into Mr.
Jaggers's room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down into the outer
office. Finding such clerk on Wemmick's post that morning, I knew
what was going on; but I was not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick
together, as Wemmick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to
compromise him.

My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my shoulders,
favored my object. Although I had sent Mr. Jaggers a brief account of
the accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to give him all
the details now; and the speciality of the occasion caused our talk
to be less dry and hard, and less strictly regulated by the rules of
evidence, than it had been before. While I described the disaster, Mr.
Jaggers stood, according to his wont, before the fire. Wemmick leaned
back in his chair, staring at me, with his hands in the pockets of his
trousers, and his pen put horizontally into the post. The two brutal
casts, always inseparable in my mind from the official proceedings,
seemed to be congestively considering whether they didn't smell fire at
the present moment.

My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced
Miss Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for
Herbert. Mr. Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his head when
I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick,
with instructions to draw the check for his signature. While that was
in course of being done, I looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr.
Jaggers, poising and swaying himself on his well-polished boots, looked
on at me. “I am sorry, Pip,” said he, as I put the check in my pocket,
when he had signed it, “that we do nothing for you.”

“Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,” I returned, “whether she
could do nothing for me, and I told her No.”

“Everybody should know his own business,” said Mr. Jaggers. And I saw
Wemmick's lips form the words “portable property.”

“I should not have told her No, if I had been you,” said Mr Jaggers;
“but every man ought to know his own business best.”

“Every man's business,” said Wemmick, rather reproachfully towards me,
“is portable property.”

As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at
heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:--

“I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her to give
me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave me
all she possessed.”

“Did she?” said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots and
then straightening himself. “Hah! I don't think I should have done so,
if I had been Miss Havisham. But she ought to know her own business
best.”

“I know more of the history of Miss Havisham's adopted child than Miss
Havisham herself does, sir. I know her mother.”

Mr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated “Mother?”

“I have seen her mother within these three days.”

“Yes?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more recently.”

“Yes?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than even you do,” said I. “I
know her father too.”

A certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in his manner--he was too
self-possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its being
brought to an indefinably attentive stop--assured me that he did not
know who her father was. This I had strongly suspected from Provis's
account (as Herbert had repeated it) of his having kept himself dark;
which I pieced on to the fact that he himself was not Mr. Jaggers's
client until some four years later, and when he could have no reason for
claiming his identity. But, I could not be sure of this unconsciousness
on Mr. Jaggers's part before, though I was quite sure of it now.

“So! You know the young lady's father, Pip?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Yes,” I replied, “and his name is Provis--from New South Wales.”

Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest
start that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the
sooner checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the
action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the
announcement I am unable to say; for I was afraid to look at him just
then, lest Mr. Jaggers's sharpness should detect that there had been
some communication unknown to him between us.

“And on what evidence, Pip,” asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he
paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, “does Provis make
this claim?”

“He does not make it,” said I, “and has never made it, and has no
knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence.”

For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply was so
unexpected, that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket
without completing the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked
with stern attention at me, though with an immovable face.

Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one reservation
that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact
knew from Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor did I look
towards Wemmick until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for
some time silently meeting Mr. Jaggers's look. When I did at last turn
my eyes in Wemmick's direction, I found that he had unposted his pen,
and was intent upon the table before him.

“Hah!” said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the
table. “What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came in?”

But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a
passionate, almost an indignant appeal, to him to be more frank and
manly with me. I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had
lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had
made: and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits. I
represented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence from
him, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said that
I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I wanted
assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it,
and why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he
cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long,
and that although I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life,
whatever concerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything
else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still and
silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to
Wemmick, and said, “Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle
heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the
innocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business
life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to
represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more
open with me!”

I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr.
Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving
crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his
employment; but it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something like
a smile, and Wemmick become bolder.

“What's all this?” said Mr. Jaggers. “You with an old father, and you
with pleasant and playful ways?”

“Well!” returned Wemmick. “If I don't bring 'em here, what does it
matter?”

“Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling
openly, “this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London.”

“Not a bit of it,” returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder. “I think
you're another.”

Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still
distrustful that the other was taking him in.

“You with a pleasant home?” said Mr. Jaggers.

“Since it don't interfere with business,” returned Wemmick, “let it be
so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if you might be planning
and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own one of these days,
when you're tired of all this work.”

Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and
actually drew a sigh. “Pip,” said he, “we won't talk about 'poor
dreams;' you know more about such things than I, having much fresher
experience of that kind. But now about this other matter. I'll put a
case to you. Mind! I admit nothing.”

He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he expressly
said that he admitted nothing.

“Now, Pip,” said Mr. Jaggers, “put this case. Put the case that a
woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her child
concealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her legal adviser,
on his representing to her that he must know, with an eye to the
latitude of his defence, how the fact stood about that child. Put the
case that, at the same time he held a trust to find a child for an
eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up.”

“I follow you, sir.”

“Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he
saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain
destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at
a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that
he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported,
neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing
up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw
in his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much
spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his net,--to be
prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow.”

“I follow you, sir.”

“Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the
heap who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and dared make
no stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this
power: “I know what you did, and how you did it. You came so and so, you
did such and such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through
it all, and I tell it you all. Part with the child, unless it should
be necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be produced.
Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If
you are saved, your child is saved too; if you are lost, your child is
still saved.” Put the case that this was done, and that the woman was
cleared.”

“I understand you perfectly.”

“But that I make no admissions?”

“That you make no admissions.” And Wemmick repeated, “No admissions.”

“Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a little
shaken the woman's intellects, and that when she was set at liberty,
she was scared out of the ways of the world, and went to him to be
sheltered. Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the
old, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking
out, by asserting his power over her in the old way. Do you comprehend
the imaginary case?”

“Quite.”

“Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money. That
the mother was still living. That the father was still living. That the
mother and father, unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many
miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was
still a secret, except that you had got wind of it. Put that last case
to yourself very carefully.”

“I do.”

“I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully.”

And Wemmick said, “I do.”

“For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the father's? I think
he would not be much the better for the mother. For the mother's? I
think if she had done such a deed she would be safer where she was.
For the daughter's? I think it would hardly serve her to establish her
parentage for the information of her husband, and to drag her back to
disgrace, after an escape of twenty years, pretty secure to last for
life. But add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and had made her the
subject of those 'poor dreams' which have, at one time or another, been
in the heads of more men than you think likely, then I tell you that you
had better--and would much sooner when you had thought well of it--chop
off that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand, and
then pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut that off too.”

I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely touched his
lips with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr. Jaggers did the same.
“Now, Wemmick,” said the latter then, resuming his usual manner, “what
item was it you were at when Mr. Pip came in?”

Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that the
odd looks they had cast at one another were repeated several times: with
this difference now, that each of them seemed suspicious, not to say
conscious, of having shown himself in a weak and unprofessional light to
the other. For this reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible with one
another; Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately
justifying himself whenever there was the smallest point in abeyance for
a moment. I had never seen them on such ill terms; for generally they
got on very well indeed together.

But they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of Mike,
the client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose on his
sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my appearance within
those walls. This individual, who, either in his own person or in that
of some member of his family, seemed to be always in trouble (which in
that place meant Newgate), called to announce that his eldest daughter
was taken up on suspicion of shoplifting. As he imparted this melancholy
circumstance to Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the
fire and taking no share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to
twinkle with a tear.

“What are you about?” demanded Wemmick, with the utmost indignation.
“What do you come snivelling here for?”

“I didn't go to do it, Mr. Wemmick.”

“You did,” said Wemmick. “How dare you? You're not in a fit state to
come here, if you can't come here without spluttering like a bad pen.
What do you mean by it?”

“A man can't help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick,” pleaded Mike.

“His what?” demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. “Say that again!”

“Now look here my man,” said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and pointing
to the door. “Get out of this office. I'll have no feelings here. Get
out.”

“It serves you right,” said Wemmick, “Get out.”

So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and
Wemmick appeared to have re-established their good understanding, and
went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had
just had lunch.




Chapter LII


From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss
Skiffins's brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins's brother, the
accountant, going straight to Clarriker's and bringing Clarriker to me,
I had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the
only good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done,
since I was first apprised of my great expectations.

Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the House
were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a
small branch-house in the East which was much wanted for the extension
of the business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would
go out and take charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for
a separation from my friend, even though my own affairs had been more
settled. And now, indeed, I felt as if my last anchor were loosening its
hold, and I should soon be driving with the winds and waves.

But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come home
of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that he told
me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara
Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join
them (with a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the
Nile and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part in
those bright plans, I felt that Herbert's way was clearing fast, and
that old Bill Barley had but to stick to his pepper and rum, and his
daughter would soon be happily provided for.

We had now got into the month of March. My left arm, though it presented
no bad symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to heal that I
was still unable to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably restored;
disfigured, but fairly serviceable.

On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I received
the following letter from Wemmick by the post.

“Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say
Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to try
it. Now burn.”

When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire--but not
before we had both got it by heart--we considered what to do. For, of
course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of view.

“I have thought it over again and again,” said Herbert, “and I think I
know a better course than taking a Thames waterman. Take Startop. A good
fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and honorable.”

I had thought of him more than once.

“But how much would you tell him, Herbert?”

“It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a mere
freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him know that
there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go
with him?”

“No doubt.”

“Where?”

It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given the
point, almost indifferent what port we made for,--Hamburg, Rotterdam,
Antwerp,--the place signified little, so that he was out of England. Any
foreign steamer that fell in our way and would take us up would do.
I had always proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the
boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for
search or inquiry if suspicion were afoot. As foreign steamers would
leave London at about the time of high-water, our plan would be to get
down the river by a previous ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot
until we could pull off to one. The time when one would be due where we
lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty nearly, if we
made inquiries beforehand.

Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after
breakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that a steamer for
Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our
thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we noted down what other foreign
steamers would leave London with the same tide, and we satisfied
ourselves that we knew the build and color of each. We then separated
for a few hours: I, to get at once such passports as were necessary;
Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to do
without any hindrance, and when we met again at one o'clock reported
it done. I, for my part, was prepared with passports; Herbert had seen
Startop, and he was more than ready to join.

Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would steer; our
charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed was not our object, we
should make way enough. We arranged that Herbert should not come home to
dinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that he should
not go there at all to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he should prepare
Provis to come down to some stairs hard by the house, on Wednesday, when
he saw us approach, and not sooner; that all the arrangements with
him should be concluded that Monday night; and that he should be
communicated with no more in any way, until we took him on board.

These precautions well understood by both of us, I went home.

On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a letter
in the box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not ill-written.
It had been delivered by hand (of course, since I left home), and its
contents were these:--

“If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to-morrow
night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the limekiln,
you had better come. If you want information regarding your uncle
Provis, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. You
must come alone. Bring this with you.”

I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of this strange
letter. What to do now, I could not tell. And the worst was, that I must
decide quickly, or I should miss the afternoon coach, which would take
me down in time for to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of
going, for it would be too close upon the time of the flight. And again,
for anything I knew, the proffered information might have some important
bearing on the flight itself.

If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should still have
gone. Having hardly any time for consideration,--my watch showing me
that the coach started within half an hour,--I resolved to go. I should
certainly not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis. That,
coming on Wemmick's letter and the morning's busy preparation, turned
the scale.

It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the contents of almost
any letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this mysterious
epistle again twice, before its injunction to me to be secret got
mechanically into my mind. Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind of
way, I left a note in pencil for Herbert, telling him that as I should
be so soon going away, I knew not for how long, I had decided to hurry
down and back, to ascertain for myself how Miss Havisham was faring.
I had then barely time to get my great-coat, lock up the chambers,
and make for the coach-office by the short by-ways. If I had taken a
hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim;
going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I
was the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I
came to myself.

For I really had not been myself since the receipt of the letter; it had
so bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the morning. The morning hurry
and flutter had been great; for, long and anxiously as I had waited for
Wemmick, his hint had come like a surprise at last. And now I began
to wonder at myself for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had
sufficient reason for being there, and to consider whether I should
get out presently and go back, and to argue against ever heeding an
anonymous communication, and, in short, to pass through all those phases
of contradiction and indecision to which I suppose very few hurried
people are strangers. Still, the reference to Provis by name mastered
everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already without knowing it,--if
that be reasoning,--in case any harm should befall him through my not
going, how could I ever forgive myself!

It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long and dreary
to me, who could see little of it inside, and who could not go outside
in my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of
minor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner. While it was
preparing, I went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she was
still very ill, though considered something better.

My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and I
dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I was not able
to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for
me. This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain
me with my own story,--of course with the popular feature that
Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes.

“Do you know the young man?” said I.

“Know him!” repeated the landlord. “Ever since he was--no height at
all.”

“Does he ever come back to this neighborhood?”

“Ay, he comes back,” said the landlord, “to his great friends, now and
again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made him.”

“What man is that?”

“Him that I speak of,” said the landlord. “Mr. Pumblechook.”

“Is he ungrateful to no one else?”

“No doubt he would be, if he could,” returned the landlord, “but he
can't. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him.”

“Does Pumblechook say so?”

“Say so!” replied the landlord. “He han't no call to say so.”

“But does he say so?”

“It would turn a man's blood to white wine winegar to hear him tell of
it, sir,” said the landlord.

I thought, “Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-suffering and
loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!”

“Your appetite's been touched like by your accident,” said the landlord,
glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat. “Try a tenderer bit.”

“No, thank you,” I replied, turning from the table to brood over the
fire. “I can eat no more. Please take it away.”

I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as
through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe;
the meaner he, the nobler Joe.

My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I mused over the fire
for an hour or more. The striking of the clock aroused me, but not from
my dejection or remorse, and I got up and had my coat fastened round
my neck, and went out. I had previously sought in my pockets for the
letter, that I might refer to it again; but I could not find it, and
was uneasy to think that it must have been dropped in the straw of
the coach. I knew very well, however, that the appointed place was the
little sluice-house by the limekiln on the marshes, and the hour nine.
Towards the marshes I now went straight, having no time to spare.




Chapter LIII

It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed
lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was
a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon.
In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the
piled mountains of cloud.

There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A
stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were
so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew
them well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had
no excuse for returning, being there. So, having come there against my
inclination, I went on against it.

The direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor
that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards
the distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see the old lights
away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew the
limekiln as well as I knew the old Battery, but they were miles apart;
so that, if a light had been burning at each point that night, there
would have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two bright
specks.

At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand
still while the cattle that were lying in the banked-up pathway arose
and blundered down among the grass and reeds. But after a little while I
seemed to have the whole flats to myself.

It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was
burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made up and
left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone-quarry. It
lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the
tools and barrows that were lying about.

Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,--for the rude
path lay through it,--I saw a light in the old sluice-house. I quickened
my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some reply,
I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and
how the house--of wood with a tiled roof--would not be proof against the
weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze
were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a
ghostly way towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked again.
No answer still, and I tried the latch.

It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking in, I saw a lighted
candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle bedstead. As
there was a loft above, I called, “Is there any one here?” but no voice
answered. Then I looked at my watch, and, finding that it was past nine,
called again, “Is there any one here?” There being still no answer, I
went out at the door, irresolute what to do.

It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I had seen
already, I turned back into the house, and stood just within the shelter
of the doorway, looking out into the night. While I was considering that
some one must have been there lately and must soon be coming back, or
the candle would not be burning, it came into my head to look if the
wick were long. I turned round to do so, and had taken up the candle in
my hand, when it was extinguished by some violent shock; and the next
thing I comprehended was, that I had been caught in a strong running
noose, thrown over my head from behind.

“Now,” said a suppressed voice with an oath, “I've got you!”

“What is this?” I cried, struggling. “Who is it? Help, help, help!”

Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure on
my bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes, a strong man's hand,
sometimes a strong man's breast, was set against my mouth to deaden
my cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled
ineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight to the wall. “And
now,” said the suppressed voice with another oath, “call out again, and
I'll make short work of you!”

Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by the
surprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in
execution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were it ever so little.
But, it was bound too tight for that. I felt as if, having been burnt
before, it were now being boiled.

The sudden exclusion of the night, and the substitution of black
darkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter.
After groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel he
wanted, and began to strike a light. I strained my sight upon the sparks
that fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed and breathed,
match in hand, but I could only see his lips, and the blue point of
the match; even those but fitfully. The tinder was damp,--no wonder
there,--and one after another the sparks died out.

The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel. As
the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands, and
touches of his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending
over the table; but nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again,
breathing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and
showed me Orlick.

Whom I had looked for, I don't know. I had not looked for him. Seeing
him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes
upon him.

He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation,
and dropped the match, and trod it out. Then he put the candle away from
him on the table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms folded
on the table and looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout
perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall,--a fixture there,--the
means of ascent to the loft above.

“Now,” said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time, “I've
got you.”

“Unbind me. Let me go!”

“Ah!” he returned, “I'll let you go. I'll let you go to the moon, I'll
let you go to the stars. All in good time.”

“Why have you lured me here?”

“Don't you know?” said he, with a deadly look.

“Why have you set upon me in the dark?”

“Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than two.
O you enemy, you enemy!”

His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms
folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a
malignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence,
he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a
brass-bound stock.

“Do you know this?” said he, making as if he would take aim at me. “Do
you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!”

“Yes,” I answered.

“You cost me that place. You did. Speak!”

“What else could I do?”

“You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How dared you to
come betwixt me and a young woman I liked?”

“When did I?”

“When didn't you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a bad name to
her.”

“You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could have done
you no harm, if you had done yourself none.”

“You're a liar. And you'll take any pains, and spend any money, to drive
me out of this country, will you?” said he, repeating my words to Biddy
in the last interview I had with her. “Now, I'll tell you a piece of
information. It was never so well worth your while to get me out of this
country as it is to-night. Ah! If it was all your money twenty times
told, to the last brass farden!” As he shook his heavy hand at me, with
his mouth snarling like a tiger's, I felt that it was true.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“I'm a going,” said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with a
heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater force,--“I'm
a going to have your life!”

He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand and drew it
across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat down again.

“You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child. You goes
out of his way this present night. He'll have no more on you. You're
dead.”

I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment I looked
wildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but there was none.

“More than that,” said he, folding his arms on the table again, “I won't
have a rag of you, I won't have a bone of you, left on earth. I'll put
your body in the kiln,--I'd carry two such to it, on my Shoulders,--and,
let people suppose what they may of you, they shall never know nothing.”

My mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the consequences
of such a death. Estella's father would believe I had deserted him,
would be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert would doubt me,
when he compared the letter I had left for him with the fact that I had
called at Miss Havisham's gate for only a moment; Joe and Biddy would
never know how sorry I had been that night, none would ever know what
I had suffered, how true I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed
through. The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible
than death was the dread of being misremembered after death. And
so quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn
generations,--Estella's children, and their children,--while the
wretch's words were yet on his lips.

“Now, wolf,” said he, “afore I kill you like any other beast,--which is
wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for,--I'll have a good look
at you and a good goad at you. O you enemy!”

It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; though
few could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the
hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by
a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I
resolved that I would not entreat him, and that I would die making some
last poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of
men were in that dire extremity; humbly beseeching pardon, as I did, of
Heaven; melted at heart, as I was, by the thought that I had taken no
farewell, and never now could take farewell of those who were dear to
me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my
miserable errors,--still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I
would have done it.

He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his
neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink
slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and
took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw
flash into his face.

“Wolf!” said he, folding his arms again, “Old Orlick's a going to tell
you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister.”

Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the
whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her death,
before his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words.

“It was you, villain,” said I.

“I tell you it was your doing,--I tell you it was done through you,” he
retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock at the
vacant air between us. “I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you
to-night. I giv' it her! I left her for dead, and if there had been a
limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn't have come
to life again. But it warn't Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was
favored, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh?
Now you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for it.”

He drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his tilting of
the bottle that there was no great quantity left in it. I distinctly
understood that he was working himself up with its contents to make an
end of me. I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life. I knew
that when I was changed into a part of the vapor that had crept towards
me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do
as he had done in my sister's case,--make all haste to the town, and
be seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses. My rapid mind
pursued him to the town, made a picture of the street with him in it,
and contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white
vapor creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved.

It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years
while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented pictures
to me, and not mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my brain,
I could not think of a place without seeing it, or of persons without
seeing them. It is impossible to overstate the vividness of these
images, and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him himself,--who
would not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring!--that I knew of
the slightest action of his fingers.

When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which
he sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle, and,
shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood
before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight.

“Wolf, I'll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you tumbled
over on your stairs that night.”

I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of
the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman's lantern on the wall.
I saw the rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door half open;
there, a door closed; all the articles of furniture around.

“And why was Old Orlick there? I'll tell you something more, wolf.
You and her have pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far as
getting a easy living in it goes, and I've took up with new companions,
and new masters. Some of 'em writes my letters when I wants 'em
wrote,--do you mind?--writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty hands;
they're not like sneaking you, as writes but one. I've had a firm mind
and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at your
sister's burying. I han't seen a way to get you safe, and I've looked
arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says Old Orlick to himself,
'Somehow or another I'll have him!' What! When I looks for you, I finds
your uncle Provis, eh?”

Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,
all so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the signal whose use was
over, pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill Barley on his
back, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my life fast running
out to sea!

“You with a uncle too! Why, I know'd you at Gargery's when you was so
small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and
thumb and chucked you away dead (as I'd thoughts o' doing, odd times,
when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you
hadn't found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for
to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron wot Old
Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year
ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like
a bullock, as he means to drop you--hey?--when he come for to hear
that--hey?”

In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I
turned my face aside to save it from the flame.

“Ah!” he cried, laughing, after doing it again, “the burnt child dreads
the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was
smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for you and
know'd you'd come to-night! Now I'll tell you something more, wolf, and
this ends it. There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis
as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him 'ware them, when he's lost his
nevvy! Let him 'ware them, when no man can't find a rag of his dear
relation's clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There's them that can't
and that won't have Magwitch,--yes, I know the name!--alive in the same
land with them, and that's had such sure information of him when he
was alive in another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't leave it
unbeknown and put them in danger. P'raps it's them that writes fifty
hands, and that's not like sneaking you as writes but one. 'Ware
Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!”

He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an
instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the
light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and
Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again.

There was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the opposite
wall. Within this space, he now slouched backwards and forwards. His
great strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever before, as he
did this with his hands hanging loose and heavy at his sides, and with
his eyes scowling at me. I had no grain of hope left. Wild as my inward
hurry was, and wonderful the force of the pictures that rushed by me
instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly understand that, unless he had
resolved that I was within a few moments of surely perishing out of all
human knowledge, he would never have told me what he had told.

Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed
it away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed
slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at
me no more. The last few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of his
hand, and licked up. Then, with a sudden hurry of violence and swearing
horribly, he threw the bottle from him, and stooped; and I saw in his
hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy handle.

The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering
one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and
struggled with all my might. It was only my head and my legs that I
could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until
then unknown, that was within me. In the same instant I heard responsive
shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard
voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if
it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the
night.

After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor, in the
same place, with my head on some one's knee. My eyes were fixed on the
ladder against the wall, when I came to myself,--had opened on it before
my mind saw it,--and thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I
was in the place where I had lost it.

Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who supported
me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there came between me and it
a face. The face of Trabb's boy!

“I think he's all right!” said Trabb's boy, in a sober voice; “but ain't
he just pale though!”

At these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into mine,
and I saw my supporter to be--

“Herbert! Great Heaven!”

“Softly,” said Herbert. “Gently, Handel. Don't be too eager.”

“And our old comrade, Startop!” I cried, as he too bent over me.

“Remember what he is going to assist us in,” said Herbert, “and be
calm.”

The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from the pain
in my arm. “The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What night is
to-night? How long have I been here?” For, I had a strange and
strong misgiving that I had been lying there a long time--a day and a
night,--two days and nights,--more.

“The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night.”

“Thank God!”

“And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in,” said Herbert. “But
you can't help groaning, my dear Handel. What hurt have you got? Can you
stand?”

“Yes, yes,” said I, “I can walk. I have no hurt but in this throbbing
arm.”

They laid it bare, and did what they could. It was violently swollen and
inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it touched. But, they tore
up their handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully replaced
it in the sling, until we could get to the town and obtain some cooling
lotion to put upon it. In a little while we had shut the door of the
dark and empty sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on our
way back. Trabb's boy--Trabb's overgrown young man now--went before us
with a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door. But,
the moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the sky,
and the night, though rainy, was much lighter. The white vapor of the
kiln was passing from us as we went by, and as I had thought a prayer
before, I thought a thanksgiving now.

Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,--which at
first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining
quiet,--I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our
chambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had
met in the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I
was gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the
inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him. His
uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding, after a quarter of an
hour's consideration, he set off for the coach-office with Startop, who
volunteered his company, to make inquiry when the next coach went
down. Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his
uneasiness grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he
resolved to follow in a post-chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the
Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but,
finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where they lost me.
Hereupon they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when
I was hearing the popular local version of my own story) to refresh
themselves and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes. Among
the loungers under the Boar's archway happened to be Trabb's Boy,--true
to his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no
business,--and Trabb's boy had seen me passing from Miss Havisham's in
the direction of my dining-place. Thus Trabb's boy became their guide,
and with him they went out to the sluice-house, though by the town way
to the marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as they went along, Herbert
reflected, that I might, after all, have been brought there on some
genuine and serviceable errand tending to Provis's safety, and,
bethinking himself that in that case interruption must be mischievous,
left his guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry, and went on by
himself, and stole round the house two or three times, endeavouring to
ascertain whether all was right within. As he could hear nothing but
indistinct sounds of one deep rough voice (this was while my mind was so
busy), he even at last began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly
I cried out loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely
followed by the other two.

When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for our
immediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at night as it
was, and getting out a warrant. But, I had already considered that such
a course, by detaining us there, or binding us to come back, might
be fatal to Provis. There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we
relinquished all thoughts of pursuing Orlick at that time. For the
present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather
light of the matter to Trabb's boy; who, I am convinced, would have been
much affected by disappointment, if he had known that his intervention
saved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb's boy was of a malignant
nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his
constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody's expense. When
we parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet his
views), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of
him (which made no impression on him at all).

Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London
that night, three in the post-chaise; the rather, as we should then be
clear away before the night's adventure began to be talked of. Herbert
got a large bottle of stuff for my arm; and by dint of having this stuff
dropped over it all the night through, I was just able to bear its pain
on the journey. It was daylight when we reached the Temple, and I went
at once to bed, and lay in bed all day.

My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill, and being unfitted for
to-morrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable me of
itself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunction with the
mental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon
me that to-morrow was. So anxiously looked forward to, charged with such
consequences, its results so impenetrably hidden, though so near.

No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining
from communication with him that day; yet this again increased my
restlessness. I started at every footstep and every sound, believing
that he was discovered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell
me so. I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken; that there was
something more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that the fact
had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the days wore
on, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and darkness fell,
my overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before to-morrow
morning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my burning
head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to
high numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew
in prose and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a
fatigued mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would say to
myself with a start, “Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!”

They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly dressed, and
gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, I awoke with the notion
I had had in the sluice-house, that a long time had elapsed and the
opportunity to save him was gone. About midnight I got out of bed
and went to Herbert, with the conviction that I had been asleep for
four-and-twenty hours, and that Wednesday was past. It was the last
self-exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after that I slept
soundly.

Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking
lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a
marsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was
spanned by bridges that were turning coldly gray, with here and there
at top a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along
the clustered roofs, with church-towers and spires shooting into the
unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn from
the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters. From me
too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well.

Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay asleep on
the sofa. I could not dress myself without help; but I made up the fire,
which was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good
time they too started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp
morning air at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still
flowing towards us.

“When it turns at nine o'clock,” said Herbert, cheerfully, “look out for
us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!”




Chapter LIV

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind
blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
We had our pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly
possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the
bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were
questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for
it was wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for the passing
moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered
circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever.

We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if
we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had
taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After
a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two
or three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went
on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about
high-water,--half-past eight.

Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being
with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned,
and row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long
reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is
broad and solitary, where the water-side inhabitants are very few, and
where lone public-houses are scattered here and there, of which we could
choose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie by all night.
The steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for Rotterdam would start from
London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time
to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first;
so that, if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should have
another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel.

The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose
was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realize the condition in
which I had been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the
movement on the river, and the moving river itself,--the road that ran
with us, seeming to sympathize with us, animate us, and encourage us
on,--freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use
in the boat; but, there were few better oarsmen than my two friends, and
they rowed with a steady stroke that was to last all day.

At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below its present
extent, and watermen's boats were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing
colliers, and coasting-traders, there were perhaps, as many as now;
but of steam-ships, great and small, not a tithe or a twentieth part
so many. Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and
there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide;
the navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a much
easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these; and we
went ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly.

Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate Market with its
oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor's Gate, and
we were in among the tiers of shipping. Here were the Leith, Aberdeen,
and Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking immensely
high out of the water as we passed alongside; here, were colliers by the
score and score, with the coal-whippers plunging off stages on deck, as
counterweights to measures of coal swinging up, which were then rattled
over the side into barges; here, at her moorings was to-morrow's steamer
for Rotterdam, of which we took good notice; and here to-morrow's for
Hamburg, under whose bowsprit we crossed. And now I, sitting in the
stern, could see, with a faster beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill
Pond stairs.

“Is he there?” said Herbert.

“Not yet.”

“Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see his signal?”

“Not well from here; but I think I see it.--Now I see him! Pull both.
Easy, Herbert. Oars!”

We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on board,
and we were off again. He had a boat-cloak with him, and a black canvas
bag; and he looked as like a river-pilot as my heart could have wished.

“Dear boy!” he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his
seat. “Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye, thankye!”

Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty
chain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for the
moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of wood
and shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, under the
figure-head of the John of Sunderland making a speech to the winds (as
is done by many Johns), and the Betsy of Yarmouth with a firm formality
of bosom and her knobby eyes starting two inches out of her head; in
and out, hammers going in ship-builders' yards, saws going at timber,
clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships,
capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures
roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent lightermen, in and
out,--out at last upon the clearer river, where the ships' boys might
take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled waters with them
over the side, and where the festooned sails might fly out to the wind.

At the stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had
looked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We
certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we were not either
attended or followed by any boat. If we had been waited on by any boat,
I should have run in to shore, and have obliged her to go on, or to
make her purpose evident. But we held our own without any appearance of
molestation.

He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural part
of the scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life he had
led accounted for it) that he was the least anxious of any of us. He
was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his
gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country; he was not
disposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it; but he had no
notion of meeting danger half way. When it came upon him, he confronted
it, but it must come before he troubled himself.

“If you knowed, dear boy,” he said to me, “what it is to sit here
alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day
betwixt four walls, you'd envy me. But you don't know what it is.”

“I think I know the delights of freedom,” I answered.

“Ah,” said he, shaking his head gravely. “But you don't know it equal to
me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know it equal to
me,--but I ain't a going to be low.”

It occurred to me as inconsistent, that, for any mastering idea, he
should have endangered his freedom, and even his life. But I reflected
that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the
habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man. I
was not far out, since he said, after smoking a little:--

“You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t'other side the world, I
was always a looking to this side; and it come flat to be there, for
all I was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could
come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head would be troubled about
him. They ain't so easy concerning me here, dear boy,--wouldn't be,
leastwise, if they knowed where I was.”

“If all goes well,” said I, “you will be perfectly free and safe again
within a few hours.”

“Well,” he returned, drawing a long breath, “I hope so.”

“And think so?”

He dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gunwale, and said,
smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:--

“Ay, I s'pose I think so, dear boy. We'd be puzzled to be more quiet
and easy-going than we are at present. But--it's a flowing so soft
and pleasant through the water, p'raps, as makes me think it--I was
a thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see to the
bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this river
what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can't no more hold their tide than
I can hold this. And it's run through my fingers and gone, you see!”
 holding up his dripping hand.

“But for your face I should think you were a little despondent,” said I.

“Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet, and of that
there rippling at the boat's head making a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe
I'm a growing a trifle old besides.”

He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of
face, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already out of
England. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had been
in constant terror; for, when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer
into the boat, and he was stepping out, I hinted that I thought he would
be safest where he was, and he said. “Do you, dear boy?” and quietly sat
down again.

The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the
sunshine was very cheering. The tide ran strong, I took care to lose
none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By
imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more and more of the
nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower between the muddy
banks, but the tide was yet with us when we were off Gravesend. As our
charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed within a boat or
two's length of the floating Custom House, and so out to catch the
stream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the bows of a large
transport with troops on the forecastle looking down at us. And soon
the tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing,
and presently they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking
advantage of the new tide to get up to the Pool began to crowd upon us
in a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of
the tide now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and
mudbanks.

Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her drive
with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an hour's rest
proved full as much as they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery
stones while we ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about.
It was like my own marsh country, flat and monotonous, and with a
dim horizon; while the winding river turned and turned, and the great
floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything else seemed
stranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of ships was round
the last low point we had headed; and the last green barge, straw-laden,
with a brown sail, had followed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped like
a child's first rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a
little squat shoal-lighthouse on open piles stood crippled in the mud
on stilts and crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy
stones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuck
out of the mud, and an old landing-stage and an old roofless building
slipped into the mud, and all about us was stagnation and mud.

We pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harder work
now, but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed and rowed and rowed
until the sun went down. By that time the river had lifted us a little,
so that we could see above the bank. There was the red sun, on the low
level of the shore, in a purple haze, fast deepening into black; and
there was the solitary flat marsh; and far away there were the rising
grounds, between which and us there seemed to be no life, save here and
there in the foreground a melancholy gull.

As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the full,
would not rise early, we held a little council; a short one, for clearly
our course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern we could find. So,
they plied their oars once more, and I looked out for anything like a
house. Thus we held on, speaking little, for four or five dull miles. It
was very cold, and, a collier coming by us, with her galley-fire smoking
and flaring, looked like a comfortable home. The night was as dark by
this time as it would be until morning; and what light we had, seemed
to come more from the river than the sky, as the oars in their dipping
struck at a few reflected stars.

At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that
we were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular
intervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or
other of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and
there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little
creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them
nervously. Sometimes, “What was that ripple?” one of us would say in a
low voice. Or another, “Is that a boat yonder?” And afterwards we would
fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what
an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels.

At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran
alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard
by. Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light
to be in a window of a public-house. It was a dirty place enough, and I
dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good
fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various
liquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bedded rooms,--“such as
they were,” the landlord said. No other company was in the house than
the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the “Jack” of the
little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water
mark too.

With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came
ashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder and boat-hook, and all
else, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the
kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop
were to occupy one; I and our charge the other. We found the air as
carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there
were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have
thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off,
notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found.

While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the
Jack--who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes
on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as
interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of
a drowned seaman washed ashore--asked me if we had seen a four-oared
galley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have
gone down then, and yet she “took up too,” when she left there.

“They must ha' thought better on't for some reason or another,” said the
Jack, “and gone down.”

“A four-oared galley, did you say?” said I.

“A four,” said the Jack, “and two sitters.”

“Did they come ashore here?”

“They put in with a stone two-gallon jar for some beer. I'd ha' been
glad to pison the beer myself,” said the Jack, “or put some rattling
physic in it.”

“Why?”

“I know why,” said the Jack. He spoke in a slushy voice, as if much mud
had washed into his throat.

“He thinks,” said the landlord, a weakly meditative man with a pale eye,
who seemed to rely greatly on his Jack,--“he thinks they was, what they
wasn't.”

“I knows what I thinks,” observed the Jack.

“You thinks Custum 'Us, Jack?” said the landlord.

“I do,” said the Jack.

“Then you're wrong, Jack.”

“AM I!”

In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in
his views, the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into
it, knocked a few stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on
again. He did this with the air of a Jack who was so right that he could
afford to do anything.

“Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then,
Jack?” asked the landlord, vacillating weakly.

“Done with their buttons?” returned the Jack. “Chucked 'em overboard.
Swallered 'em. Sowed 'em, to come up small salad. Done with their
buttons!”

“Don't be cheeky, Jack,” remonstrated the landlord, in a melancholy and
pathetic way.

“A Custum 'Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons,” said the Jack,
repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt, “when they
comes betwixt him and his own light. A four and two sitters don't go
hanging and hovering, up with one tide and down with another, and both
with and against another, without there being Custum 'Us at the bottom
of it.” Saying which he went out in disdain; and the landlord, having no
one to reply upon, found it impracticable to pursue the subject.

This dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy. The dismal wind
was muttering round the house, the tide was flapping at the shore, and
I had a feeling that we were caged and threatened. A four-oared galley
hovering about in so unusual a way as to attract this notice was an ugly
circumstance that I could not get rid of. When I had induced Provis to
go up to bed, I went outside with my two companions (Startop by this
time knew the state of the case), and held another council. Whether we
should remain at the house until near the steamer's time, which would
be about one in the afternoon, or whether we should put off early in the
morning, was the question we discussed. On the whole we deemed it the
better course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of the
steamer's time, and then to get out in her track, and drift easily with
the tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into the house and went
to bed.

I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well for a
few hours. When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of the house
(the Ship) was creaking and banging about, with noises that startled
me. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the
window. It commanded the causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and,
as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the clouded moon, I saw
two men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at
nothing else, and they did not go down to the landing-place which I
could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in the direction
of the Nore.

My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men going
away. But reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back
of the house and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a harder day
than I, and were fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my window, I could
see the two men moving over the marsh. In that light, however, I soon
lost them, and, feeling very cold, lay down to think of the matter, and
fell asleep again.

We were up early. As we walked to and fro, all four together, before
breakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. Again our
charge was the least anxious of the party. It was very likely that the
men belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly, and that they had no
thought of us. I tried to persuade myself that it was so,--as, indeed,
it might easily be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk away
together to a distant point we could see, and that the boat should take
us aboard there, or as near there as might prove feasible, at about
noon. This being considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast he
and I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern.

He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me on
the shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in danger,
not he, and that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As we
approached the point, I begged him to remain in a sheltered place, while
I went on to reconnoitre; for it was towards it that the men had passed
in the night. He complied, and I went on alone. There was no boat off
the point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near it, nor were there any
signs of the men having embarked there. But, to be sure, the tide was
high, and there might have been some footpints under water.

When he looked out from his shelter in the distance, and saw that I
waved my hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we waited;
sometimes lying on the bank, wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving
about to warm ourselves, until we saw our boat coming round. We got
aboard easily, and rowed out into the track of the steamer. By that time
it wanted but ten minutes of one o'clock, and we began to look out for
her smoke.

But, it was half-past one before we saw her smoke, and soon afterwards
we saw behind it the smoke of another steamer. As they were coming on
at full speed, we got the two bags ready, and took that opportunity
of saying good-bye to Herbert and Startop. We had all shaken hands
cordially, and neither Herbert's eyes nor mine were quite dry, when I
saw a four-oared galley shoot out from under the bank but a little way
ahead of us, and row out into the same track.

A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer's smoke,
by reason of the bend and wind of the river; but now she was visible,
coming head on. I called to Herbert and Startop to keep before the tide,
that she might see us lying by for her, and I adjured Provis to sit
quite still, wrapped in his cloak. He answered cheerily, “Trust to me,
dear boy,” and sat like a statue. Meantime the galley, which was very
skilfully handled, had crossed us, let us come up with her, and fallen
alongside. Leaving just room enough for the play of the oars, she kept
alongside, drifting when we drifted, and pulling a stroke or two when we
pulled. Of the two sitters one held the rudder-lines, and looked at us
attentively,--as did all the rowers; the other sitter was wrapped up,
much as Provis was, and seemed to shrink, and whisper some instruction
to the steerer as he looked at us. Not a word was spoken in either boat.

Startop could make out, after a few minutes, which steamer was first,
and gave me the word “Hamburg,” in a low voice, as we sat face to face.
She was nearing us very fast, and the beating of her peddles grew louder
and louder. I felt as if her shadow were absolutely upon us, when the
galley hailed us. I answered.

“You have a returned Transport there,” said the man who held the lines.
“That's the man, wrapped in the cloak. His name is Abel Magwitch,
otherwise Provis. I apprehend that man, and call upon him to surrender,
and you to assist.”

At the same moment, without giving any audible direction to his crew,
he ran the galley abroad of us. They had pulled one sudden stroke ahead,
had got their oars in, had run athwart us, and were holding on to
our gunwale, before we knew what they were doing. This caused great
confusion on board the steamer, and I heard them calling to us, and
heard the order given to stop the paddles, and heard them stop, but felt
her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same moment, I saw the
steersman of the galley lay his hand on his prisoner's shoulder, and saw
that both boats were swinging round with the force of the tide, and
saw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite
frantically. Still, in the same moment, I saw the prisoner start
up, lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of the
shrinking sitter in the galley. Still in the same moment, I saw that the
face disclosed, was the face of the other convict of long ago. Still, in
the same moment, I saw the face tilt backward with a white terror on it
that I shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board the steamer,
and a loud splash in the water, and felt the boat sink from under me.

It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand
mill-weirs and a thousand flashes of light; that instant past, I was
taken on board the galley. Herbert was there, and Startop was there; but
our boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone.

What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off of
her steam, and her driving on, and our driving on, I could not at first
distinguish sky from water or shore from shore; but the crew of the
galley righted her with great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong
strokes ahead, lay upon their oars, every man looking silently and
eagerly at the water astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it,
bearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steersman held up
his hand, and all softly backed water, and kept the boat straight and
true before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, swimming,
but not swimming freely. He was taken on board, and instantly manacled
at the wrists and ankles.

The galley was kept steady, and the silent, eager look-out at the water
was resumed. But, the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and apparently not
understanding what had happened, came on at speed. By the time she had
been hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting away from us, and
we were rising and falling in a troubled wake of water. The look-out was
kept, long after all was still again and the two steamers were gone; but
everybody knew that it was hopeless now.

At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the tavern
we had lately left, where we were received with no little surprise. Here
I was able to get some comforts for Magwitch,--Provis no longer,--who
had received some very severe injury in the Chest, and a deep cut in the
head.

He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the
steamer, and to have been struck on the head in rising. The injury to
his chest (which rendered his breathing extremely painful) he thought
he had received against the side of the galley. He added that he did not
pretend to say what he might or might not have done to Compeyson, but
that, in the moment of his laying his hand on his cloak to identify him,
that villain had staggered up and staggered back, and they had both gone
overboard together, when the sudden wrenching of him (Magwitch) out of
our boat, and the endeavor of his captor to keep him in it, had capsized
us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely locked in
each other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and
that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away.

I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me.
The officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their going
overboard.

When I asked this officer's permission to change the prisoner's
wet clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the
public-house, he gave it readily: merely observing that he must take
charge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book
which had once been in my hands passed into the officer's. He further
gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London; but declined to
accord that grace to my two friends.

The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone
down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was
likeliest to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to
be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it
took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely; and that may
have been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in
various stages of decay.

We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then Magwitch
was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Startop
were to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful
parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's side, I felt that that
was my place henceforth while he lived.

For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away; and in the hunted,
wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man
who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately,
gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a
series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to
Joe.

His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on,
and often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm
I could use, in any easy position; but it was dreadful to think that
I could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, since it was
unquestionably best that he should die. That there were, still living,
people enough who were able and willing to identify him, I could not
doubt. That he would be leniently treated, I could not hope. He who had
been presented in the worst light at his trial, who had since broken
prison and had been tried again, who had returned from transportation
under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who
was the cause of his arrest.

As we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind us,
and as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how
grieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake.

“Dear boy,” he answered, “I'm quite content to take my chance. I've seen
my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me.”

No. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No.
Apart from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick's hint now.
I foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to
the Crown.

“Lookee here, dear boy,” said he “It's best as a gentleman should not be
knowed to belong to me now. Only come to see me as if you come by chance
alonger Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to, for the
last o' many times, and I don't ask no more.”

“I will never stir from your side,” said I, “when I am suffered to be
near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me!”

I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away
as he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his
throat,--softened now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing
that he had touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might not
otherwise have thought of until too late,--that he need never know how
his hopes of enriching me had perished.




Chapter LV

He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been
immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down
for an old officer of the prison-ship from which he had once escaped, to
speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but Compeyson, who had meant
to depose to it, was tumbling on the tides, dead, and it happened that
there was not at that time any prison officer in London who could give
the required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his private
house, on my arrival over night, to retain his assistance, and Mr.
Jaggers on the prisoner's behalf would admit nothing. It was the sole
resource; for he told me that the case must be over in five minutes
when the witness was there, and that no power on earth could prevent its
going against us.

I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the
fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me for
having “let it slip through my fingers,” and said we must memorialize
by and by, and try at all events for some of it. But he did not conceal
from me that, although there might be many cases in which the forfeiture
would not be exacted, there were no circumstances in this case to make
it one of them. I understood that very well. I was not related to the
outlaw, or connected with him by any recognizable tie; he had put his
hand to no writing or settlement in my favor before his apprehension,
and to do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I finally resolved,
and ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my heart should never
be sickened with the hopeless task of attempting to establish one.

There appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer
had hoped for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained some
accurate knowledge of Magwitch's affairs. When his body was found, many
miles from the scene of his death, and so horribly disfigured that he
was only recognizable by the contents of his pockets, notes were still
legible, folded in a case he carried. Among these were the name of a
banking-house in New South Wales, where a sum of money was, and the
designation of certain lands of considerable value. Both these heads of
information were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr.
Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His ignorance,
poor fellow, at last served him; he never mistrusted but that my
inheritance was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers's aid.

After three days' delay, during which the crown prosecution stood over
for the production of the witness from the prison-ship, the witness
came, and completed the easy case. He was committed to take his trial at
the next Sessions, which would come on in a month.

It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one
evening, a good deal cast down, and said,--

“My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you.”

His partner having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than he
thought.

“We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am
very much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me.”

“Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you; but
my need is no greater now than at another time.”

“You will be so lonely.”

“I have not leisure to think of that,” said I. “You know that I am
always with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I
should be with him all day long, if I could. And when I come away from
him, you know that my thoughts are with him.”

The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to both
of us, that we could not refer to it in plainer words.

“My dear fellow,” said Herbert, “let the near prospect of our
separation--for, it is very near--be my justification for troubling you
about yourself. Have you thought of your future?”

“No, for I have been afraid to think of any future.”

“But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear dear Handel, it must not
be dismissed. I wish you would enter on it now, as far as a few friendly
words go, with me.”

“I will,” said I.

“In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a--”

I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, “A
clerk.”

“A clerk. And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he may expand (as
a clerk of your acquaintance has expanded) into a partner. Now,
Handel,--in short, my dear boy, will you come to me?”

There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in
which after saying “Now, Handel,” as if it were the grave beginning of
a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone,
stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy.

“Clara and I have talked about it again and again,” Herbert pursued,
“and the dear little thing begged me only this evening, with tears in
her eyes, to say to you that, if you will live with us when we come
together, she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince her
husband's friend that he is her friend too. We should get on so well,
Handel!”

I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I could not
yet make sure of joining him as he so kindly offered. Firstly, my
mind was too preoccupied to be able to take in the subject clearly.
Secondly,--Yes! Secondly, there was a vague something lingering in my
thoughts that will come out very near the end of this slight narrative.

“But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any injury
to your business, leave the question open for a little while--”

“For any while,” cried Herbert. “Six months, a year!”

“Not so long as that,” said I. “Two or three months at most.”

Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this arrangement,
and said he could now take courage to tell me that he believed he must
go away at the end of the week.

“And Clara?” said I.

“The dear little thing,” returned Herbert, “holds dutifully to her
father as long as he lasts; but he won't last long. Mrs. Whimple
confides to me that he is certainly going.”

“Not to say an unfeeling thing,” said I, “he cannot do better than go.”

“I am afraid that must be admitted,” said Herbert; “and then I shall
come back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I
will walk quietly into the nearest church. Remember! The blessed darling
comes of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the red book,
and hasn't a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son of
my mother!”

On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert,--full
of bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me,--as he sat on one of the
seaport mail coaches. I went into a coffee-house to write a little note
to Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over and
over again, and then went to my lonely home,--if it deserved the name;
for it was now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere.

On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an
unsuccessful application of his knuckles to my door. I had not seen him
alone since the disastrous issue of the attempted flight; and he had
come, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few words of
explanation in reference to that failure.

“The late Compeyson,” said Wemmick, “had by little and little got at the
bottom of half of the regular business now transacted; and it was from
the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people being
always in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, seeming
to have them shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I thought that
would be the best time for making the attempt. I can only suppose now,
that it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, habitually to
deceive his own instruments. You don't blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip? I am
sure I tried to serve you, with all my heart.”

“I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most
earnestly for all your interest and friendship.”

“Thank you, thank you very much. It's a bad job,” said Wemmick,
scratching his head, “and I assure you I haven't been so cut up for a
long time. What I look at is the sacrifice of so much portable property.
Dear me!”

“What I think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the property.”

“Yes, to be sure,” said Wemmick. “Of course, there can be no objection
to your being sorry for him, and I'd put down a five-pound note myself
to get him out of it. But what I look at is this. The late Compeyson
having been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, and being
so determined to bring him to book, I do not think he could have been
saved. Whereas, the portable property certainly could have been saved.
That's the difference between the property and the owner, don't you
see?”

I invited Wemmick to come upstairs, and refresh himself with a glass
of grog before walking to Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he
was drinking his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to
it, and after having appeared rather fidgety,--

“What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr. Pip?”

“Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve months.”

“These twelve years, more likely,” said Wemmick. “Yes. I'm going to take
a holiday. More than that; I'm going to take a walk. More than that; I'm
going to ask you to take a walk with me.”

I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just then,
when Wemmick anticipated me.

“I know your engagements,” said he, “and I know you are out of sorts,
Mr. Pip. But if you could oblige me, I should take it as a kindness.
It ain't a long walk, and it's an early one. Say it might occupy you
(including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve. Couldn't you
stretch a point and manage it?”

He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very little
to do for him. I said I could manage it,--would manage it,--and he was
so very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was pleased too. At his
particular request, I appointed to call for him at the Castle at half
past eight on Monday morning, and so we parted for the time.

Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday
morning, and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as looking
tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there were two
glasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have
been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his
bedroom, I observed that his bed was empty.

When we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits, and
were going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was
considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and put
it over his shoulder. “Why, we are not going fishing!” said I. “No,”
 returned Wemmick, “but I like to walk with one.”

I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off. We went
towards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said
suddenly,--

“Halloa! Here's a church!”

There was nothing very surprising in that; but again, I was rather
surprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea,--

“Let's go in!”

We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and looked all
round. In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his coat-pockets, and
getting something out of paper there.

“Halloa!” said he. “Here's a couple of pair of gloves! Let's put 'em
on!”

As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was widened
to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They
were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side
door, escorting a lady.

“Halloa!” said Wemmick. “Here's Miss Skiffins! Let's have a wedding.”

That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now
engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The
Aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for
the altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much
difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it necessary
to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to get behind the
pillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my part held the old
gentleman round the waist, that he might present an equal and safe
resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to
perfection.

The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at
those fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all without
preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself, as he took something out of
his waistcoat-pocket before the service began, “Halloa! Here's a ring!”

I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom; while
a little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet like a baby's, made a feint
of being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving
the lady away devolved upon the Aged, which led to the clergyman's being
unintentionally scandalized, and it happened thus. When he said, “Who
giveth this woman to be married to this man?” the old gentleman, not in
the least knowing what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood
most amiably beaming at the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergyman
said again, “WHO giveth this woman to be married to this man?” The old
gentleman being still in a state of most estimable unconsciousness, the
bridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice, “Now Aged P. you know; who
giveth?” To which the Aged replied with great briskness, before saying
that he gave, “All right, John, all right, my boy!” And the clergyman
came to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had doubts for the moment
whether we should get completely married that day.

It was completely done, however, and when we were going out of church
Wemmick took the cover off the font, and put his white gloves in it, and
put the cover on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, put
her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her green. “Now, Mr. Pip,”
 said Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came
out, “let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a
wedding-party!”

Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so
away upon the rising ground beyond the green; and there was a bagatelle
board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after
the solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer
unwound Wemmick's arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a
high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and
submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done.

We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined anything on
table, Wemmick said, “Provided by contract, you know; don't be afraid of
it!” I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the Castle,
saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could.

Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with him,
and wished him joy.

“Thankee!” said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. “She's such a manager
of fowls, you have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for
yourself. I say, Mr. Pip!” calling me back, and speaking low. “This is
altogether a Walworth sentiment, please.”

“I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain,” said I.

Wemmick nodded. “After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers
may as well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening, or
something of the kind.”




Chapter LVI

He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his
committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken
two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great
pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his
hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore he spoke
very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the
first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he
ought to hear.

Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after
the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities
of being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for
his illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a
determined prison-breaker, and I know not what else.

Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the
regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record
on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I
do not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; he
wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day
when the prison door closed upon him.

The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man
who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner
or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered
over the question whether he might have been a better man under better
circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that
way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape.

It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate
reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on
him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with
a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small
redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child.
As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him
complain.

When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be
made for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It
was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long,
and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the
bar, he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting
close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he
stretched forth to me.

The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said
for him were said,--how he had taken to industrious habits, and had
thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that
he had returned, and was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It was
impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than find him guilty.

At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible experience
of that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the passing of
Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death.
But for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds before me,
I could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that I saw
two-and-thirty men and women put before the Judge to receive that
sentence together. Foremost among the two-and-thirty was he; seated,
that he might get breath enough to keep life in him.

The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colors of the moment, down
to the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering in
the rays of April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it
at the corner with his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty men
and women; some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and
weeping, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily about. There
had been shrieks from among the women convicts; but they had been
stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their great chains
and nosegays, other civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great
gallery full of people,--a large theatrical audience,--looked on, as the
two-and-thirty and the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then the Judge
addressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must
single out for special address was one who almost from his infancy had
been an offender against the laws; who, after repeated imprisonments and
punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years;
and who, under circumstances of great violence and daring, had made his
escape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would
seem for a time to have become convinced of his errors, when far removed
from the scenes of his old offences, and to have lived a peaceable and
honest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and
passions, the indulgence of which had so long rendered him a scourge to
society, he had quitted his haven of rest and repentance, and had
come back to the country where he was proscribed. Being here presently
denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of
Justice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had
resisted them, and had--he best knew whether by express design, or in
the blindness of his hardihood--caused the death of his denouncer, to
whom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return
to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this
aggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die.

The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the
glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of
light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together,
and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on,
with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things,
and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this
way of light, the prisoner said, “My Lord, I have received my sentence
of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours,” and sat down again.
There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say
to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of them were
supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of
bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands,
and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from
the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to
be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly; and he held my hand
while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up
(putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and
pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me.

I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's
Report was made; but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that
night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting
forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my
sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I
had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men
in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the
Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took
no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed
in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away
from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more
hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable
restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening,
wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To
the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty
spring night, with their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and their
long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association.

The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more
strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention
of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down
at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was
willing to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my
designs. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be
done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the
assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the
room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses,
(malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked!) always
joined in the same report.

As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly
looking at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face
until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would
subside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite unable to speak, then
he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to
understand his meaning very well.

The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change
in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and
lighted up as I entered.

“Dear boy,” he said, as I sat down by his bed: “I thought you was late.
But I knowed you couldn't be that.”

“It is just the time,” said I. “I waited for it at the gate.”

“You always waits at the gate; don't you, dear boy?”

“Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time.”

“Thank'ee dear boy, thank'ee. God bless you! You've never deserted me,
dear boy.”

I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once
meant to desert him.

“And what's the best of all,” he said, “you've been more comfortable
alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone.
That's best of all.”

He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would,
and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a
film came over the placid look at the white ceiling.

“Are you in much pain to-day?”

“I don't complain of none, dear boy.”

“You never do complain.”

He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to
mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it
there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it.

The allotted time ran out, while we were thus; but, looking round, I
found the governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered,
“You needn't go yet.” I thanked him gratefully, and asked, “Might I
speak to him, if he can hear me?”

The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change,
though it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid
look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me.

“Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now, at last. You understand what I
say?”

A gentle pressure on my hand.

“You had a child once, whom you loved and lost.”

A stronger pressure on my hand.

“She lived, and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady
and very beautiful. And I love her!”

With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my
yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then,
he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on
it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and
his head dropped quietly on his breast.

Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men
who went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better
words that I could say beside his bed, than “O Lord, be merciful to him
a sinner!”




Chapter LVII

Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention
to quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally
determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills
up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and
began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought
rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and
concentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth
beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me had
enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it
was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless
as to that.

For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor,--anywhere,
according as I happened to sink down,--with a heavy head and aching
limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came, one night which
appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror;
and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I
found I could not do so.

Whether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the night,
groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there; whether I had
two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror,
not knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found myself
lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up
the stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I had been
inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning
of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making;
whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of
the room, and a voice had called out, over and over again, that Miss
Havisham was consuming within it,--these were things that I tried to
settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning on
my bed. But the vapor of a limekiln would come between me and them,
disordering them all, and it was through the vapor at last that I saw
two men looking at me.

“What do you want?” I asked, starting; “I don't know you.”

“Well, sir,” returned one of them, bending down and touching me on the
shoulder, “this is a matter that you'll soon arrange, I dare say, but
you're arrested.”

“What is the debt?”

“Hundred and twenty-three pound, fifteen, six. Jeweller's account, I
think.”

“What is to be done?”

“You had better come to my house,” said the man. “I keep a very nice
house.”

I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended
to them, they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I
still lay there.

“You see my state,” said I. “I would come with you if I could; but
indeed I am quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall die
by the way.”

Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to
believe that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch as they hang in
my memory by only this one slender thread, I don't know what they did,
except that they forbore to remove me.

That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that
I often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I
confounded impossible existences with my own identity; that I was a
brick in the house-wall, and yet entreating to be released from the
giddy place where the builders had set me; that I was a steel beam of a
vast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored
in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered
off; that I passed through these phases of disease, I know of my own
remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes
struggled with real people, in the belief that they were murderers, and
that I would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and
would then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me
down, I also knew at the time. But, above all, I knew that there was a
constant tendency in all these people,--who, when I was very ill, would
present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face,
and would be much dilated in size,--above all, I say, I knew that there
was an extraordinary tendency in all these people, sooner or later, to
settle down into the likeness of Joe.

After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that
while all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did
not change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened
my eyes in the night, and I saw, in the great chair at the bedside, Joe.
I opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smoking
his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cooling
drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe's. I sank back on
my pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and
tenderly upon me was the face of Joe.

At last, one day, I took courage, and said, “Is it Joe?”

And the dear old home-voice answered, “Which it air, old chap.”

“O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell
me of my ingratitude. Don't be so good to me!”

For Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side, and
put his arm round my neck, in his joy that I knew him.

“Which dear old Pip, old chap,” said Joe, “you and me was ever friends.
And when you're well enough to go out for a ride--what larks!”

After which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back towards
me, wiping his eyes. And as my extreme weakness prevented me from
getting up and going to him, I lay there, penitently whispering, “O God
bless him! O God bless this gentle Christian man!”

Joe's eyes were red when I next found him beside me; but I was holding
his hand, and we both felt happy.

“How long, dear Joe?”

“Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your illness lasted, dear old
chap?”

“Yes, Joe.”

“It's the end of May, Pip. To-morrow is the first of June.”

“And have you been here all that time, dear Joe?”

“Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy when the news of your
being ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, and
being formerly single he is now married though underpaid for a deal of
walking and shoe-leather, but wealth were not a object on his part, and
marriage were the great wish of his hart--”

“It is so delightful to hear you, Joe! But I interrupt you in what you
said to Biddy.”

“Which it were,” said Joe, “that how you might be amongst strangers, and
that how you and me having been ever friends, a wisit at such a moment
might not prove unacceptabobble. And Biddy, her word were, 'Go to him,
without loss of time.' That,” said Joe, summing up with his judicial
air, “were the word of Biddy. 'Go to him,' Biddy say, 'without loss of
time.' In short, I shouldn't greatly deceive you,” Joe added, after a
little grave reflection, “if I represented to you that the word of that
young woman were, 'without a minute's loss of time.'”

There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked
to in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at
stated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that
I was to submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand, and lay
quiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it.

Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him,
it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the
pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its
curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting-room, as
the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and
the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own
writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles,
Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the
pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his
sleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer. It was
necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow,
and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin; and
when he did begin he made every downstroke so slowly that it might
have been six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen
spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was
on the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into
space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was
tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block; but on the whole
he got on very well indeed; and when he had signed his name, and had
removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with
his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the
effect of his performance from various points of view, as it lay there,
with unbounded satisfaction.

Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to
talk much, I deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He
shook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered.

“Is she dead, Joe?”

“Why you see, old chap,” said Joe, in a tone of remonstrance, and by way
of getting at it by degrees, “I wouldn't go so far as to say that, for
that's a deal to say; but she ain't--”

“Living, Joe?”

“That's nigher where it is,” said Joe; “she ain't living.”

“Did she linger long, Joe?”

“Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you might call (if you
was put to it) a week,” said Joe; still determined, on my account, to
come at everything by degrees.

“Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?”

“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “it do appear that she had settled the most
of it, which I meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she had
wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the
accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why,
do you suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand
unto him? 'Because of Pip's account of him, the said Matthew.' I am told
by Biddy, that air the writing,” said Joe, repeating the legal turn as
if it did him infinite good, “'account of him the said Matthew.' And a
cool four thousand, Pip!”

I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of
the four thousand pounds; but it appeared to make the sum of money more
to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool.

This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I
had done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other relations
had any legacies?

“Miss Sarah,” said Joe, “she have twenty-five pound perannium fur to
buy pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have twenty
pound down. Mrs.--what's the name of them wild beasts with humps, old
chap?”

“Camels?” said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know.

Joe nodded. “Mrs. Camels,” by which I presently understood he meant
Camilla, “she have five pound fur to buy rushlights to put her in
spirits when she wake up in the night.”

The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me, to give
me great confidence in Joe's information. “And now,” said Joe, “you
ain't that strong yet, old chap, that you can take in more nor one
additional shovelful to-day. Old Orlick he's been a bustin' open a
dwelling-ouse.”

“Whose?” said I.

“Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterous,” said
Joe, apologetically; “still, a Englishman's ouse is his Castle, and
castles must not be busted 'cept when done in war time. And wotsume'er
the failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsman in his hart.”

“Is it Pumblechook's house that has been broken into, then?”

“That's it, Pip,” said Joe; “and they took his till, and they took his
cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles,
and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him
up to his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they stuffed his
mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out. But he knowed
Orlick, and Orlick's in the county jail.”

By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow
to gain strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe
stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again.

For the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need,
that I was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in the
old confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old unassertive
protecting way, so that I would half believe that all my life since the
days of the old kitchen was one of the mental troubles of the fever that
was gone. He did everything for me except the household work, for which
he had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on
his first arrival. “Which I do assure you, Pip,” he would often say, in
explanation of that liberty; “I found her a tapping the spare bed, like
a cask of beer, and drawing off the feathers in a bucket, for sale.
Which she would have tapped yourn next, and draw'd it off with you a
laying on it, and was then a carrying away the coals gradiwally in
the soup-tureen and wegetable-dishes, and the wine and spirits in your
Wellington boots.”

We looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had
once looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And when the day
came, and an open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up,
took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were
still the small helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly given of
the wealth of his great nature.

And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country,
where the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass,
and sweet summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be
Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought
how it had grown and changed, and how the little wild-flowers had been
forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and
by night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor I lay burning
and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed
there came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday
bells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt
that I was not nearly thankful enough,--that I was too weak yet to be
even that,--and I laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long
ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too much
for my young senses.

More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used
to talk, lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change
whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my
eyes still; just as simply faithful, and as simply right.

When we got back again, and he lifted me out, and carried me--so
easily!--across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful
Christmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet
made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of
my late history he was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself now,
and put so much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself whether I
ought to refer to it when he did not.

“Have you heard, Joe,” I asked him that evening, upon further
consideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window, “who my patron was?”

“I heerd,” returned Joe, “as it were not Miss Havisham, old chap.”

“Did you hear who it was, Joe?”

“Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what giv' you
the bank-notes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip.”

“So it was.”

“Astonishing!” said Joe, in the placidest way.

“Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?” I presently asked, with increasing
diffidence.

“Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, Pip?”

“Yes.”

“I think,” said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking rather
evasively at the window-seat, “as I did hear tell that how he were
something or another in a general way in that direction.”

“Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?”

“Not partickler, Pip.”

“If you would like to hear, Joe--” I was beginning, when Joe got up and
came to my sofa.

“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe, bending over me. “Ever the best of
friends; ain't us, Pip?”

I was ashamed to answer him.

“Wery good, then,” said Joe, as if I had answered; “that's all right;
that's agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old chap, which as
betwixt two sech must be for ever onnecessary? There's subjects enough
as betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones. Lord! To think of your
poor sister and her Rampages! And don't you remember Tickler?”

“I do indeed, Joe.”

“Lookee here, old chap,” said Joe. “I done what I could to keep you
and Tickler in sunders, but my power were not always fully equal to my
inclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it
were not so much,” said Joe, in his favorite argumentative way, “that
she dropped into me too, if I put myself in opposition to her, but that
she dropped into you always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain't a
grab at a man's whisker, not yet a shake or two of a man (to which your
sister was quite welcome), that 'ud put a man off from getting a little
child out of punishment. But when that little child is dropped into
heavier for that grab of whisker or shaking, then that man naterally up
and says to himself, 'Where is the good as you are a doing? I grant you
I see the 'arm,' says the man, 'but I don't see the good. I call upon
you, sir, therefore, to pint out the good.'”

“The man says?” I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak.

“The man says,” Joe assented. “Is he right, that man?”

“Dear Joe, he is always right.”

“Well, old chap,” said Joe, “then abide by your words. If he's always
right (which in general he's more likely wrong), he's right when he says
this: Supposing ever you kep any little matter to yourself, when you
was a little child, you kep it mostly because you know'd as J. Gargery's
power to part you and Tickler in sunders were not fully equal to his
inclinations. Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two sech, and do
not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects. Biddy giv' herself a
deal o' trouble with me afore I left (for I am almost awful dull), as I
should view it in this light, and, viewing it in this light, as I should
so put it. Both of which,” said Joe, quite charmed with his logical
arrangement, “being done, now this to you a true friend, say. Namely.
You mustn't go a overdoing on it, but you must have your supper and your
wine and water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets.”

The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and
kindness with which Biddy--who with her woman's wit had found me out so
soon--had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But
whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had
all dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not
understand.

Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to
develop itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful comprehension
of, was this: As I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less
easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear
fellow had fallen into the old tone, and called me by the old names,
the dear “old Pip, old chap,” that now were music in my ears. I too had
fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But,
imperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe's hold upon them began
to slacken; and whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to
understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was
all mine.

Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that
in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had I given
Joe's innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got
stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better
loosen it in time and let me go, before I plucked myself away?

It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the
Temple Gardens leaning on Joe's arm, that I saw this change in him very
plainly. We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking at the
river, and I chanced to say as we got up,--

“See, Joe! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you shall see me walk back by
myself.”

“Which do not overdo it, Pip,” said Joe; “but I shall be happy fur to
see you able, sir.”

The last word grated on me; but how could I remonstrate! I walked no
further than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be
weaker than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was
thoughtful.

I, for my part, was thoughtful too; for, how best to check this growing
change in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I
was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed, and what I had come
down to, I do not seek to conceal; but I hope my reluctance was not
quite an unworthy one. He would want to help me out of his little
savings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, and that I
must not suffer him to do it.

It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to
bed, I had resolved that I would wait over to-morrow,--to-morrow being
Sunday,--and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday
morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside this
last vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in my thoughts
(that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided to go
out to Herbert, and then the change would be conquered for ever. As I
cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically
arrived at a resolution too.

We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and
then walked in the fields.

“I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe,” I said.

“Dear old Pip, old chap, you're a'most come round, sir.”

“It has been a memorable time for me, Joe.”

“Likeways for myself, sir,” Joe returned.

“We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There were
days once, I know, that I did for a while forget; but I never shall
forget these.”

“Pip,” said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled, “there has
been larks. And, dear sir, what have been betwixt us--have been.”

At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had done
all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well
as in the morning?

“Yes, dear Joe, quite.”

“And are always a getting stronger, old chap?”

“Yes, dear Joe, steadily.”

Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and
said, in what I thought a husky voice, “Good night!”

When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of
my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before
breakfast. I would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him;
for, it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room, and
he was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone.

I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a letter. These
were its brief contents:--

“Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again dear
Pip and will do better without JO.

“P.S. Ever the best of friends.”

Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I
had been arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly supposed that my
creditor had withdrawn, or suspended proceedings until I should be quite
recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe's having paid the money; but Joe
had paid it, and the receipt was in his name.

What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and
there to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance
with him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved
Secondly, which had begun as a vague something lingering in my thoughts,
and had formed into a settled purpose?

The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how
humbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost
all I once hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in
my first unhappy time. Then I would say to her, “Biddy, I think you once
liked me very well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed away
from you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has been since.
If you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take me with
all my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like
a forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much need
of a hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I am a little worthier
of you that I was,--not much, but a little. And, Biddy, it shall rest
with you to say whether I shall work at the forge with Joe, or whether I
shall try for any different occupation down in this country, or whether
we shall go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me which
I set aside, when it was offered, until I knew your answer. And now,
dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with
me, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man
for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you.”

Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to
the old place to put it in execution. And how I sped in it is all I have
left to tell.




Chapter LVIII

The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got down
to my native place and its neighborhood before I got there. I found the
Blue Boar in possession of the intelligence, and I found that it made a
great change in the Boar's demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated
my good opinion with warm assiduity when I was coming into property,
the Boar was exceedingly cool on the subject now that I was going out of
property.

It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey I had so
often made so easily. The Boar could not put me into my usual bedroom,
which was engaged (probably by some one who had expectations), and
could only assign me a very indifferent chamber among the pigeons and
post-chaises up the yard. But I had as sound a sleep in that lodging as
in the most superior accommodation the Boar could have given me, and the
quality of my dreams was about the same as in the best bedroom.

Early in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I strolled
round by Satis House. There were printed bills on the gate and on bits
of carpet hanging out of the windows, announcing a sale by auction of
the Household Furniture and Effects, next week. The House itself was to
be sold as old building materials, and pulled down. LOT 1 was marked in
whitewashed knock-knee letters on the brew house; LOT 2 on that part of
the main building which had been so long shut up. Other lots were marked
off on other parts of the structure, and the ivy had been torn down to
make room for the inscriptions, and much of it trailed low in the dust
and was withered already. Stepping in for a moment at the open gate, and
looking around me with the uncomfortable air of a stranger who had no
business there, I saw the auctioneer's clerk walking on the casks and
telling them off for the information of a catalogue-compiler, pen in
hand, who made a temporary desk of the wheeled chair I had so often
pushed along to the tune of Old Clem.

When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar's coffee-room, I found Mr.
Pumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not improved
in appearance by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting for me, and
addressed me in the following terms:--

“Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what else could be
expected! what else could be expected!”

As he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving air, and as I was
broken by illness and unfit to quarrel, I took it.

“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, “put a muffin on table.
And has it come to this! Has it come to this!”

I frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook stood over me and
poured out my tea--before I could touch the teapot--with the air of a
benefactor who was resolved to be true to the last.

“William,” said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, “put the salt on. In
happier times,” addressing me, “I think you took sugar? And did you take
milk? You did. Sugar and milk. William, bring a watercress.”

“Thank you,” said I, shortly, “but I don't eat watercresses.”

“You don't eat 'em,” returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing and nodding
his head several times, as if he might have expected that, and as if
abstinence from watercresses were consistent with my downfall. “True.
The simple fruits of the earth. No. You needn't bring any, William.”

I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook continued to stand over
me, staring fishily and breathing noisily, as he always did.

“Little more than skin and bone!” mused Mr. Pumblechook, aloud. “And yet
when he went from here (I may say with my blessing), and I spread afore
him my humble store, like the Bee, he was as plump as a Peach!”

This reminded me of the wonderful difference between the servile manner
in which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity, saying, “May I?”
 and the ostentatious clemency with which he had just now exhibited the
same fat five fingers.

“Hah!” he went on, handing me the bread and butter. “And air you a going
to Joseph?”

“In heaven's name,” said I, firing in spite of myself, “what does it
matter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot alone.”

It was the worst course I could have taken, because it gave Pumblechook
the opportunity he wanted.

“Yes, young man,” said he, releasing the handle of the article in
question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking for the
behoof of the landlord and waiter at the door, “I will leave that teapot
alone. You are right, young man. For once you are right. I forgit myself
when I take such an interest in your breakfast, as to wish your frame,
exhausted by the debilitating effects of prodigygality, to be stimilated
by the 'olesome nourishment of your forefathers. And yet,” said
Pumblechook, turning to the landlord and waiter, and pointing me out at
arm's length, “this is him as I ever sported with in his days of happy
infancy! Tell me not it cannot be; I tell you this is him!”

A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared to be
particularly affected.

“This is him,” said Pumblechook, “as I have rode in my shay-cart. This
is him as I have seen brought up by hand. This is him untoe the sister
of which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M'ria from
her own mother, let him deny it if he can!”

The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and that it gave
the case a black look.

“Young man,” said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old
fashion, “you air a going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you
ask me, where you air a going? I say to you, Sir, you air a going to
Joseph.”

The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over that.

“Now,” said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasperating air
of saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly convincing and
conclusive, “I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires of
the Boar present, known and respected in this town, and here is William,
which his father's name was Potkins if I do not deceive myself.”

“You do not, sir,” said William.

“In their presence,” pursued Pumblechook, “I will tell you, young
man, what to say to Joseph. Says you, “Joseph, I have this day seen
my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun's. I will name no
names, Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up town, and I have
seen that man.”

“I swear I don't see him here,” said I.

“Say that likewise,” retorted Pumblechook. “Say you said that, and even
Joseph will probably betray surprise.”

“There you quite mistake him,” said I. “I know better.”

“Says you,” Pumblechook went on, “'Joseph, I have seen that man, and
that man bears you no malice and bears me no malice. He knows your
character, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness and
ignorance; and he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my want of
gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,' says you,” here Pumblechook shook his head and
hand at me, “'he knows my total deficiency of common human gratitoode.
He knows it, Joseph, as none can. You do not know it, Joseph, having no
call to know it, but that man do.'”

Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could have the face
to talk thus to mine.

“Says you, 'Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I will now
repeat. It was that, in my being brought low, he saw the finger of
Providence. He knowed that finger when he saw Joseph, and he saw it
plain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. Reward of ingratitoode to his
earliest benefactor, and founder of fortun's. But that man said he did
not repent of what he had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right to do
it, it was kind to do it, it was benevolent to do it, and he would do it
again.'”

“It's pity,” said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted breakfast,
“that the man did not say what he had done and would do again.”

“Squires of the Boar!” Pumblechook was now addressing the landlord, “and
William! I have no objections to your mentioning, either up town or down
town, if such should be your wishes, that it was right to do it, kind to
do it, benevolent to do it, and that I would do it again.”

With those words the Impostor shook them both by the hand, with an air,
and left the house; leaving me much more astonished than delighted by
the virtues of that same indefinite “it.” I was not long after him in
leaving the house too, and when I went down the High Street I saw him
holding forth (no doubt to the same effect) at his shop door to a select
group, who honored me with very unfavorable glances as I passed on the
opposite side of the way.

But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe, whose
great forbearance shone more brightly than before, if that could be,
contrasted with this brazen pretender. I went towards them slowly, for
my limbs were weak, but with a sense of increasing relief as I drew
nearer to them, and a sense of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness
further and further behind.

The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were soaring
high over the green corn, I thought all that countryside more beautiful
and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet. Many pleasant
pictures of the life that I would lead there, and of the change for the
better that would come over my character when I had a guiding spirit at
my side whose simple faith and clear home wisdom I had proved, beguiled
my way. They awakened a tender emotion in me; for my heart was softened
by my return, and such a change had come to pass, that I felt like one
who was toiling home barefoot from distant travel, and whose wanderings
had lasted many years.

The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen; but, the
little roundabout lane by which I entered the village, for quietness'
sake, took me past it. I was disappointed to find that the day was a
holiday; no children were there, and Biddy's house was closed. Some
hopeful notion of seeing her, busily engaged in her daily duties, before
she saw me, had been in my mind and was defeated.

But the forge was a very short distance off, and I went towards it under
the sweet green limes, listening for the clink of Joe's hammer. Long
after I ought to have heard it, and long after I had fancied I heard it
and found it but a fancy, all was still. The limes were there, and the
white thorns were there, and the chestnut-trees were there, and their
leaves rustled harmoniously when I stopped to listen; but, the clink of
Joe's hammer was not in the midsummer wind.

Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view of the forge, I saw
it at last, and saw that it was closed. No gleam of fire, no glittering
shower of sparks, no roar of bellows; all shut up, and still.

But the house was not deserted, and the best parlor seemed to be in use,
for there were white curtains fluttering in its window, and the window
was open and gay with flowers. I went softly towards it, meaning to peep
over the flowers, when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in arm.

At first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was my apparition, but
in another moment she was in my embrace. I wept to see her, and she wept
to see me; I, because she looked so fresh and pleasant; she, because I
looked so worn and white.

“But dear Biddy, how smart you are!”

“Yes, dear Pip.”

“And Joe, how smart you are!”

“Yes, dear old Pip, old chap.”

I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and then--

“It's my wedding-day!” cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness, “and I am
married to Joe!”

They had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid my head down on
the old deal table. Biddy held one of my hands to her lips, and Joe's
restoring touch was on my shoulder. “Which he warn't strong enough, my
dear, fur to be surprised,” said Joe. And Biddy said, “I ought to
have thought of it, dear Joe, but I was too happy.” They were both so
overjoyed to see me, so proud to see me, so touched by my coming to
them, so delighted that I should have come by accident to make their day
complete!

My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never breathed
this last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me in my
illness, had it risen to my lips! How irrevocable would have been his
knowledge of it, if he had remained with me but another hour!

“Dear Biddy,” said I, “you have the best husband in the whole world,
and if you could have seen him by my bed you would have--But no, you
couldn't love him better than you do.”

“No, I couldn't indeed,” said Biddy.

“And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will
make you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe!”

Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve before
his eyes.

“And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-day, and are in
charity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you
have done for me, and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am
going away within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall
never rest until I have worked for the money with which you have kept me
out of prison, and have sent it to you, don't think, dear Joe and Biddy,
that if I could repay it a thousand times over, I suppose I could cancel
a farthing of the debt I owe you, or that I would do so if I could!”

They were both melted by these words, and both entreated me to say no
more.

“But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love,
and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-corner of a winter
night, who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for
ever. Don't tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don't tell him, Biddy,
that I was ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honored you both,
because you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I said
it would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I did.”

“I ain't a going,” said Joe, from behind his sleeve, “to tell him
nothink o' that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain't. Nor yet no one ain't.”

“And now, though I know you have already done it in your own kind
hearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray let me hear you
say the words, that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and then
I shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and think better of
me, in the time to come!”

“O dear old Pip, old chap,” said Joe. “God knows as I forgive you, if I
have anythink to forgive!”

“Amen! And God knows I do!” echoed Biddy.

“Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest there a few
minutes by myself. And then, when I have eaten and drunk with you, go
with me as far as the finger-post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say
good-bye!”

***

I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a composition
with my creditors,--who gave me ample time to pay them in full,--and I
went out and joined Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England,
and within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four
months I assumed my first undivided responsibility. For the beam across
the parlor ceiling at Mill Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble under
old Bill Barley's growls and was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to
marry Clara, and I was left in sole charge of the Eastern Branch until
he brought her back.

Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House; but I lived
happily with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my
debts, and maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It
was not until I became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to
Herbert; but he then declared that the secret of Herbert's partnership
had been long enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So he
told it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed, and the dear fellow
and I were not the worse friends for the long concealment. I must not
leave it to be supposed that we were ever a great House, or that we made
mints of money. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had a
good name, and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so
much to Herbert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often
wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I
was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude
had never been in him at all, but had been in me.




Chapter LIX

For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily
eyes,--though they had both been often before my fancy in the
East,--when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I
laid my hand softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it
so softly that I was not heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking his
pipe in the old place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong as
ever, though a little gray, sat Joe; and there, fenced into the corner
with Joe's leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking at the fire,
was--I again!

“We giv' him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap,” said Joe,
delighted, when I took another stool by the child's side (but I did not
rumple his hair), “and we hoped he might grow a little bit like you, and
we think he do.”

I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morning, and we
talked immensely, understanding one another to perfection. And I took
him down to the churchyard, and set him on a certain tombstone there,
and he showed me from that elevation which stone was sacred to the
memory of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife
of the Above.

“Biddy,” said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her little girl
lay sleeping in her lap, “you must give Pip to me one of these days; or
lend him, at all events.”

“No, no,” said Biddy, gently. “You must marry.”

“So Herbert and Clara say, but I don't think I shall, Biddy. I have so
settled down in their home, that it's not at all likely. I am already
quite an old bachelor.”

Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to her lips, and
then put the good matronly hand with which she had touched it into mine.
There was something in the action, and in the light pressure of Biddy's
wedding-ring, that had a very pretty eloquence in it.

“Dear Pip,” said Biddy, “you are sure you don't fret for her?”

“O no,--I think not, Biddy.”

“Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her?

“My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a
foremost place there, and little that ever had any place there. But that
poor dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy,--all gone
by!”

Nevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly intended
to revisit the site of the old house that evening, alone, for her sake.
Yes, even so. For Estella's sake.

I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being
separated from her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and who
had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality,
and meanness. And I had heard of the death of her husband, from an
accident consequent on his ill-treatment of a horse. This release had
befallen her some two years before; for anything I knew, she was married
again.

The early dinner hour at Joe's, left me abundance of time, without
hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over to the old spot before dark.
But, what with loitering on the way to look at old objects and to think
of old times, the day had quite declined when I came to the place.

There was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but the
wall of the old garden. The cleared space had been enclosed with a rough
fence, and looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had struck
root anew, and was growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in
the fence standing ajar, I pushed it open, and went in.

A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet
up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the
moon was coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where
every part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been,
and where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking
along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it.

The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving
towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the
figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when
it stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much
surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out,--

“Estella!”

“I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me.”

The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable
majesty and its indescribable charm remained. Those attractions in it,
I had seen before; what I had never seen before, was the saddened,
softened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was
the friendly touch of the once insensible hand.

We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, “After so many years,
it is strange that we should thus meet again, Estella, here where our
first meeting was! Do you often come back?”

“I have never been here since.”

“Nor I.”

The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white
ceiling, which had passed away. The moon began to rise, and I thought of
the pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on
earth.

Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us.

“I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been
prevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old place!”

The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and
the same rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes. Not knowing
that I saw them, and setting herself to get the better of them, she said
quietly,--

“Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in this
condition?”

“Yes, Estella.”

“The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not
relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I
have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I
made in all the wretched years.”

“Is it to be built on?”

“At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And
you,” she said, in a voice of touching interest to a wanderer,--“you
live abroad still?”

“Still.”

“And do well, I am sure?”

“I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore--yes, I do
well.”

“I have often thought of you,” said Estella.

“Have you?”

“Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me
the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant
of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the
admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.”

“You have always held your place in my heart,” I answered.

And we were silent again until she spoke.

“I little thought,” said Estella, “that I should take leave of you in
taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.”

“Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me,
the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful.”

“But you said to me,” returned Estella, very earnestly, “'God bless you,
God forgive you!' And if you could say that to me then, you will not
hesitate to say that to me now,--now, when suffering has been stronger
than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart
used to be. I have been bent and broken, but--I hope--into a better
shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are
friends.”

“We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from
the bench.

“And will continue friends apart,” said Estella.

I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as
the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the
evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil
light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.





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Title: Emma

Author: Jane Austen

Release Date: August, 1994  [Etext #158]
Posting Date: January 21, 2010
Last Updated: March 10, 2018

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMA ***




Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer





EMMA

By Jane Austen




VOLUME I



CHAPTER I


Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home
and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of
existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very
little to distress or vex her.

She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate,
indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been
mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died
too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of
her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as
governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.

Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse's family, less as a
governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly
of Emma. Between _them_ it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before
Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the
mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint;
and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been
living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma
doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgment, but
directed chiefly by her own.

The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having
rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too
well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to
her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived,
that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.

Sorrow came--a gentle sorrow--but not at all in the shape of any
disagreeable consciousness.--Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor's
loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this
beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any
continuance. The wedding over, and the bride-people gone, her father and
herself were left to dine together, with no prospect of a third to cheer
a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after dinner, as
usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost.

The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston
was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and
pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering
with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and
promoted the match; but it was a black morning's work for her. The want
of Miss Taylor would be felt every hour of every day. She recalled her
past kindness--the kindness, the affection of sixteen years--how she had
taught and how she had played with her from five years old--how she had
devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her in health--and how
nursed her through the various illnesses of childhood. A large debt of
gratitude was owing here; but the intercourse of the last seven
years, the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed
Isabella's marriage, on their being left to each other, was yet a
dearer, tenderer recollection. She had been a friend and companion such
as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing
all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and
peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of
hers--one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had
such an affection for her as could never find fault.

How was she to bear the change?--It was true that her friend was going
only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the
difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss
Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic,
she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She
dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not
meet her in conversation, rational or playful.

The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had
not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits;
for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of
mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though
everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable
temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time.

Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being
settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily
reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled
through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from
Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house,
and give her pleasant society again.

Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town,
to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and
name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses
were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many
acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but
not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even
half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over
it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it
necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous
man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and
hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the
origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet
reconciled to his own daughter's marrying, nor could ever speak of her
but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection,
when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his
habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that
other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much
disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for
them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the
rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully
as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was
impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,

“Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that
Mr. Weston ever thought of her!”

“I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such
a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves
a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for
ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her
own?”

“A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own?
This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my
dear.”

“How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We
shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding
visit very soon.”

“My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could
not walk half so far.”

“No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage,
to be sure.”

“The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a
little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our
visit?”

“They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa. You know we have
settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last
night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going
to Randalls, because of his daughter's being housemaid there. I only
doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing,
papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you
mentioned her--James is so obliged to you!”

“I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not
have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account; and I am
sure she will make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken
girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always
curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when you
have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock
of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an
excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor
to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes
over to see his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will
be able to tell her how we all are.”

Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and
hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably
through the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The
backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor immediately afterwards walked
in and made it unnecessary.

Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not
only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly
connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella's husband. He lived
about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome,
and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their
mutual connexions in London. He had returned to a late dinner, after
some days' absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were
well in Brunswick Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated
Mr. Woodhouse for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, which
always did him good; and his many inquiries after “poor Isabella” and
her children were answered most satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr.
Woodhouse gratefully observed, “It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley,
to come out at this late hour to call upon us. I am afraid you must have
had a shocking walk.”

“Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful moonlight night; and so mild that I
must draw back from your great fire.”

“But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not
catch cold.”

“Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them.”

“Well! that is quite surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain
here. It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at
breakfast. I wanted them to put off the wedding.”

“By the bye--I have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what
sort of joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my
congratulations; but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you
all behave? Who cried most?”

“Ah! poor Miss Taylor! 'Tis a sad business.”

“Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say
'poor Miss Taylor.' I have a great regard for you and Emma; but when it
comes to the question of dependence or independence!--At any rate, it
must be better to have only one to please than two.”

“Especially when _one_ of those two is such a fanciful, troublesome
creature!” said Emma playfully. “That is what you have in your head, I
know--and what you would certainly say if my father were not by.”

“I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed,” said Mr. Woodhouse, with a
sigh. “I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”

“My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean _you_, or suppose Mr.
Knightley to mean _you_. What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only
myself. Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you know--in a
joke--it is all a joke. We always say what we like to one another.”

Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults
in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and
though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew
it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him
really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by
every body.

“Emma knows I never flatter her,” said Mr. Knightley, “but I meant no
reflection on any body. Miss Taylor has been used to have two persons
to please; she will now have but one. The chances are that she must be a
gainer.”

“Well,” said Emma, willing to let it pass--“you want to hear about
the wedding; and I shall be happy to tell you, for we all behaved
charmingly. Every body was punctual, every body in their best looks: not
a tear, and hardly a long face to be seen. Oh no; we all felt that we
were going to be only half a mile apart, and were sure of meeting every
day.”

“Dear Emma bears every thing so well,” said her father. “But, Mr.
Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am
sure she _will_ miss her more than she thinks for.”

Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles. “It
is impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion,” said Mr.
Knightley. “We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could
suppose it; but she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor's
advantage; she knows how very acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor's
time of life, to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to
her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow
herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor
must be glad to have her so happily married.”

“And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a very
considerable one--that I made the match myself. I made the match, you
know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the
right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may
comfort me for any thing.”

Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, “Ah!
my dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for
whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more
matches.”

“I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for
other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such
success, you know!--Every body said that Mr. Weston would never marry
again. Oh dear, no! Mr. Weston, who had been a widower so long, and who
seemed so perfectly comfortable without a wife, so constantly occupied
either in his business in town or among his friends here, always
acceptable wherever he went, always cheerful--Mr. Weston need not spend
a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it. Oh no! Mr.
Weston certainly would never marry again. Some people even talked of a
promise to his wife on her deathbed, and others of the son and the
uncle not letting him. All manner of solemn nonsense was talked on the
subject, but I believed none of it.

“Ever since the day--about four years ago--that Miss Taylor and I met
with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted
away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from
Farmer Mitchell's, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match
from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this instance,
dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off match-making.”

“I do not understand what you mean by 'success,'” said Mr. Knightley.
“Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately
spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring
about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady's mind! But
if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means
only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, 'I think it
would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry
her,' and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why
do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of? You
made a lucky guess; and _that_ is all that can be said.”

“And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?--I
pity you.--I thought you cleverer--for, depend upon it a lucky guess is
never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my
poor word 'success,' which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so
entirely without any claim to it. You have drawn two pretty pictures;
but I think there may be a third--a something between the do-nothing and
the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston's visits here, and given
many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might
not have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield
enough to comprehend that.”

“A straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational,
unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their
own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than
good to them, by interference.”

“Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others,” rejoined
Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. “But, my dear, pray do not
make any more matches; they are silly things, and break up one's family
circle grievously.”

“Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr.
Elton, papa,--I must look about for a wife for him. There is nobody in
Highbury who deserves him--and he has been here a whole year, and has
fitted up his house so comfortably, that it would be a shame to have him
single any longer--and I thought when he was joining their hands to-day,
he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same kind office
done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is the only way I
have of doing him a service.”

“Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man, to be sure, and a very good young
man, and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any
attention, my dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will
be a much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to
meet him.”

“With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time,” said Mr. Knightley,
laughing, “and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better
thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish
and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a
man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself.”



CHAPTER II


Mr. Weston was a native of Highbury, and born of a respectable family,
which for the last two or three generations had been rising into
gentility and property. He had received a good education, but, on
succeeding early in life to a small independence, had become indisposed
for any of the more homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged,
and had satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering
into the militia of his county, then embodied.

Captain Weston was a general favourite; and when the chances of his
military life had introduced him to Miss Churchill, of a great Yorkshire
family, and Miss Churchill fell in love with him, nobody was surprized,
except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were
full of pride and importance, which the connexion would offend.

Miss Churchill, however, being of age, and with the full command of her
fortune--though her fortune bore no proportion to the family-estate--was
not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the
infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with
due decorum. It was an unsuitable connexion, and did not produce much
happiness. Mrs. Weston ought to have found more in it, for she had a
husband whose warm heart and sweet temper made him think every thing due
to her in return for the great goodness of being in love with him;
but though she had one sort of spirit, she had not the best. She had
resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of her brother,
but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at that brother's
unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her former home.
They lived beyond their income, but still it was nothing in comparison
of Enscombe: she did not cease to love her husband, but she wanted at
once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill of Enscombe.

Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills,
as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of
the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years' marriage, he
was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain.
From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy
had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his
mother's, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs.
Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature
of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the
little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance
the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were
overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and
the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek,
and his own situation to improve as he could.

A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and
engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in
London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which
brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury,
where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation
and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his
life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy
competence--enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining
Highbury, which he had always longed for--enough to marry a woman as
portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of
his own friendly and social disposition.

It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his
schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth,
it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could
purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to;
but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were
accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained
his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every
probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had
never been an unhappy man; his own temper had secured him from that,
even in his first marriage; but his second must shew him how delightful
a well-judging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the
pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be
chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.

He had only himself to please in his choice: his fortune was his own;
for as to Frank, it was more than being tacitly brought up as his
uncle's heir, it had become so avowed an adoption as to have him assume
the name of Churchill on coming of age. It was most unlikely, therefore,
that he should ever want his father's assistance. His father had no
apprehension of it. The aunt was a capricious woman, and governed her
husband entirely; but it was not in Mr. Weston's nature to imagine that
any caprice could be strong enough to affect one so dear, and, as he
believed, so deservedly dear. He saw his son every year in London, and
was proud of him; and his fond report of him as a very fine young man
had made Highbury feel a sort of pride in him too. He was looked on as
sufficiently belonging to the place to make his merits and prospects a
kind of common concern.

Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively
curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little
returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit
his father had been often talked of but never achieved.

Now, upon his father's marriage, it was very generally proposed, as a
most proper attention, that the visit should take place. There was not a
dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs. Perry drank tea with
Mrs. and Miss Bates, or when Mrs. and Miss Bates returned the visit. Now
was the time for Mr. Frank Churchill to come among them; and the hope
strengthened when it was understood that he had written to his new
mother on the occasion. For a few days, every morning visit in Highbury
included some mention of the handsome letter Mrs. Weston had received.
“I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr. Frank Churchill
has written to Mrs. Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter,
indeed. Mr. Woodhouse told me of it. Mr. Woodhouse saw the letter, and
he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life.”

It was, indeed, a highly prized letter. Mrs. Weston had, of course,
formed a very favourable idea of the young man; and such a pleasing
attention was an irresistible proof of his great good sense, and a most
welcome addition to every source and every expression of congratulation
which her marriage had already secured. She felt herself a most
fortunate woman; and she had lived long enough to know how fortunate
she might well be thought, where the only regret was for a partial
separation from friends whose friendship for her had never cooled, and
who could ill bear to part with her.

She knew that at times she must be missed; and could not think, without
pain, of Emma's losing a single pleasure, or suffering an hour's ennui,
from the want of her companionableness: but dear Emma was of no feeble
character; she was more equal to her situation than most girls would
have been, and had sense, and energy, and spirits that might be hoped
would bear her well and happily through its little difficulties and
privations. And then there was such comfort in the very easy distance of
Randalls from Hartfield, so convenient for even solitary female walking,
and in Mr. Weston's disposition and circumstances, which would make the
approaching season no hindrance to their spending half the evenings in
the week together.

Her situation was altogether the subject of hours of gratitude to Mrs.
Weston, and of moments only of regret; and her satisfaction--her more
than satisfaction--her cheerful enjoyment, was so just and so apparent,
that Emma, well as she knew her father, was sometimes taken by surprize
at his being still able to pity 'poor Miss Taylor,' when they left her
at Randalls in the centre of every domestic comfort, or saw her go away
in the evening attended by her pleasant husband to a carriage of her
own. But never did she go without Mr. Woodhouse's giving a gentle sigh,
and saying, “Ah, poor Miss Taylor! She would be very glad to stay.”

There was no recovering Miss Taylor--nor much likelihood of ceasing to
pity her; but a few weeks brought some alleviation to Mr. Woodhouse.
The compliments of his neighbours were over; he was no longer teased by
being wished joy of so sorrowful an event; and the wedding-cake, which
had been a great distress to him, was all eat up. His own stomach
could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be
different from himself. What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit
for any body; and he had, therefore, earnestly tried to dissuade them
from having any wedding-cake at all, and when that proved vain, as
earnestly tried to prevent any body's eating it. He had been at the
pains of consulting Mr. Perry, the apothecary, on the subject. Mr. Perry
was an intelligent, gentlemanlike man, whose frequent visits were one
of the comforts of Mr. Woodhouse's life; and upon being applied to, he
could not but acknowledge (though it seemed rather against the bias
of inclination) that wedding-cake might certainly disagree with
many--perhaps with most people, unless taken moderately. With such an
opinion, in confirmation of his own, Mr. Woodhouse hoped to influence
every visitor of the newly married pair; but still the cake was eaten;
and there was no rest for his benevolent nerves till it was all gone.

There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being
seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston's wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr.
Woodhouse would never believe it.



CHAPTER III


Mr. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to
have his friends come and see him; and from various united causes, from
his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature, from his fortune,
his house, and his daughter, he could command the visits of his
own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked. He had not much
intercourse with any families beyond that circle; his horror of late
hours, and large dinner-parties, made him unfit for any acquaintance but
such as would visit him on his own terms. Fortunately for him, Highbury,
including Randalls in the same parish, and Donwell Abbey in the parish
adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley, comprehended many such. Not
unfrequently, through Emma's persuasion, he had some of the chosen and
the best to dine with him: but evening parties were what he preferred;
and, unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there
was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a
card-table for him.

Real, long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley; and by
Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege
of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the
elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse's drawing-room, and the smiles
of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being thrown away.

After these came a second set; among the most come-at-able of whom were
Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at
the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and
carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for
either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it
would have been a grievance.

Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old
lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her
single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the
regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward
circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree
of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married.
Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having
much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to
make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into
outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her
youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted
to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small
income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman
whom no one named without good-will. It was her own universal good-will
and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body,
was interested in every body's happiness, quicksighted to every body's
merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with
blessings in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours
and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and
cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a
recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was
a great talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse,
full of trivial communications and harmless gossip.

Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School--not of a seminary, or an
establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of
refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality,
upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies for enormous
pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but a real,
honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of
accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might
be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little
education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs. Goddard's
school was in high repute--and very deservedly; for Highbury was
reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample house and garden,
gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great
deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own
hands. It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked
after her to church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who
had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the
occasional holiday of a tea-visit; and having formerly owed much to Mr.
Woodhouse's kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat
parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose
a few sixpences by his fireside.

These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to
collect; and happy was she, for her father's sake, in the power; though,
as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of
Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and
very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well; but the
quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so
spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated.

As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the
present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting, in most
respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her; a most
welcome request: for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew
very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of
her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no
longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion.

Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed
her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard's school, and somebody
had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of
parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history.
She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and
was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young
ladies who had been at school there with her.

She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort
which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a
fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great
sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased
with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the
acquaintance.

She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith's
conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not
inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing,
shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly
grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed
by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had
been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement.
Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those
natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury
and its connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed were
unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though very
good sort of people, must be doing her harm. They were a family of the
name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large
farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwell--very
creditably, she believed--she knew Mr. Knightley thought highly of
them--but they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the
intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance
to be quite perfect. _She_ would notice her; she would improve her; she
would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good
society; she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an
interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her
own situation in life, her leisure, and powers.

She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and
listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the
evening flew away at a very unusual rate; and the supper-table, which
always closed such parties, and for which she had been used to sit and
watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved forwards to the
fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond the common impulse
of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing every
thing well and attentively, with the real good-will of a mind delighted
with its own ideas, did she then do all the honours of the meal, and
help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters, with an
urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil
scruples of their guests.

Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse's feelings were in sad warfare.
He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his
youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him
rather sorry to see any thing put on it; and while his hospitality would
have welcomed his visitors to every thing, his care for their health
made him grieve that they would eat.

Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could,
with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain
himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to
say:

“Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg
boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg
better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body
else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of
our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a
_little_ bit of tart--a _very_ little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You
need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the
custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to _half_ a glass of wine? A
_small_ half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could
disagree with you.”

Emma allowed her father to talk--but supplied her visitors in a much
more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had particular
pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of Miss Smith was
quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so great a personage
in Highbury, that the prospect of the introduction had given as much
panic as pleasure; but the humble, grateful little girl went off with
highly gratified feelings, delighted with the affability with which Miss
Woodhouse had treated her all the evening, and actually shaken hands
with her at last!



CHAPTER IV


Harriet Smith's intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick
and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and
telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so
did their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had
very early foreseen how useful she might find her. In that respect
Mrs. Weston's loss had been important. Her father never went beyond the
shrubbery, where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long
walk, or his short, as the year varied; and since Mrs. Weston's marriage
her exercise had been too much confined. She had ventured once alone to
Randalls, but it was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore,
one whom she could summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable
addition to her privileges. But in every respect, as she saw more of
her, she approved her, and was confirmed in all her kind designs.

Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful
disposition, was totally free from conceit, and only desiring to be
guided by any one she looked up to. Her early attachment to herself
was very amiable; and her inclination for good company, and power of
appreciating what was elegant and clever, shewed that there was no
want of taste, though strength of understanding must not be expected.
Altogether she was quite convinced of Harriet Smith's being exactly the
young friend she wanted--exactly the something which her home required.
Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out of the question. Two such could
never be granted. Two such she did not want. It was quite a different
sort of thing, a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the
object of a regard which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet
would be loved as one to whom she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there
was nothing to be done; for Harriet every thing.

Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who
were the parents, but Harriet could not tell. She was ready to tell
every thing in her power, but on this subject questions were vain. Emma
was obliged to fancy what she liked--but she could never believe that in
the same situation _she_ should not have discovered the truth. Harriet
had no penetration. She had been satisfied to hear and believe just what
Mrs. Goddard chose to tell her; and looked no farther.

Mrs. Goddard, and the teachers, and the girls and the affairs of
the school in general, formed naturally a great part of the
conversation--and but for her acquaintance with the Martins of
Abbey-Mill Farm, it must have been the whole. But the Martins occupied
her thoughts a good deal; she had spent two very happy months with them,
and now loved to talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe
the many comforts and wonders of the place. Emma encouraged her
talkativeness--amused by such a picture of another set of beings,
and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak with so much
exultation of Mrs. Martin's having “_two_ parlours, two very good
parlours, indeed; one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard's
drawing-room; and of her having an upper maid who had lived
five-and-twenty years with her; and of their having eight cows, two of
them Alderneys, and one a little Welch cow, a very pretty little Welch
cow indeed; and of Mrs. Martin's saying as she was so fond of it,
it should be called _her_ cow; and of their having a very handsome
summer-house in their garden, where some day next year they were all to
drink tea:--a very handsome summer-house, large enough to hold a dozen
people.”

For some time she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate
cause; but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings
arose. She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and
daughter, a son and son's wife, who all lived together; but when it
appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was
always mentioned with approbation for his great good-nature in doing
something or other, was a single man; that there was no young Mrs.
Martin, no wife in the case; she did suspect danger to her poor little
friend from all this hospitality and kindness, and that, if she were not
taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever.

With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and
meaning; and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin,
and there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to
speak of the share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening
games; and dwelt a good deal upon his being so very good-humoured and
obliging. He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her
some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them, and in
every thing else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd's son into
the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond
of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very
clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while
she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in
the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and
sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and
there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body
to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he
would make a good husband. Not that she _wanted_ him to marry. She was
in no hurry at all.

“Well done, Mrs. Martin!” thought Emma. “You know what you are about.”

“And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send
Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose--the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever
seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three
teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with
her.”

“Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of
his own business? He does not read?”

“Oh yes!--that is, no--I do not know--but I believe he has read a
good deal--but not what you would think any thing of. He reads the
Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window
seats--but he reads all _them_ to himself. But sometimes of an evening,
before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the
Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of
Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of
the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but
he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can.”

The next question was--

“What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?”

“Oh! not handsome--not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at
first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know,
after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and
then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston.
He has passed you very often.”

“That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having
any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot,
is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are
precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do.
A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me;
I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But
a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as
much above my notice as in every other he is below it.”

“To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have observed him;
but he knows you very well indeed--I mean by sight.”

“I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know,
indeed, that he is so, and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine
his age to be?”

“He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is the
23rd just a fortnight and a day's difference--which is very odd.”

“Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is
perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they
are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably
repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young
woman in the same rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very
desirable.”

“Six years hence! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old!”

“Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not
born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely
to make--cannot be at all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he
might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family
property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and
so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in
time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised any thing
yet.”

“To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no
indoors man, else they do not want for any thing; and Mrs. Martin talks
of taking a boy another year.”

“I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does
marry;--I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife--for though his
sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected
to, it does not follow that he might marry any body at all fit for you
to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly
careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a
gentleman's daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by
every thing within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who
would take pleasure in degrading you.”

“Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield,
and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what any
body can do.”

“You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would
have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent
even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently
well connected, and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd
acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say that if you should still
be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn
in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife,
who will probably be some mere farmer's daughter, without education.”

“To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry any body
but what had had some education--and been very well brought up. However,
I do not mean to set up my opinion against yours--and I am sure I shall
not wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great
regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very
sorry to give them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But
if he marries a very ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not
visit her, if I can help it.”

Emma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no
alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but
she trusted there was no other hold, and that there would be no serious
difficulty, on Harriet's side, to oppose any friendly arrangement of her
own.

They met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the
Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at
her, looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion. Emma was
not sorry to have such an opportunity of survey; and walking a few
yards forward, while they talked together, soon made her quick eye
sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Robert Martin. His appearance was very
neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no
other advantage; and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen,
she thought he must lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet's
inclination. Harriet was not insensible of manner; she had voluntarily
noticed her father's gentleness with admiration as well as wonder. Mr.
Martin looked as if he did not know what manner was.

They remained but a few minutes together, as Miss Woodhouse must not be
kept waiting; and Harriet then came running to her with a smiling face,
and in a flutter of spirits, which Miss Woodhouse hoped very soon to
compose.

“Only think of our happening to meet him!--How very odd! It was quite
a chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not
think we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls
most days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet.
He was so busy the last time he was at Kingston that he quite forgot it,
but he goes again to-morrow. So very odd we should happen to meet! Well,
Miss Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him?
Do you think him so very plain?”

“He is very plain, undoubtedly--remarkably plain:--but that is nothing
compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect
much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so
very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a
degree or two nearer gentility.”

“To be sure,” said Harriet, in a mortified voice, “he is not so genteel
as real gentlemen.”

“I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been
repeatedly in the company of some such very real gentlemen, that you
must yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield,
you have had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I
should be surprized if, after seeing them, you could be in company
with Mr. Martin again without perceiving him to be a very inferior
creature--and rather wondering at yourself for having ever thought him
at all agreeable before. Do not you begin to feel that now? Were not
you struck? I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and
abrupt manner, and the uncouthness of a voice which I heard to be wholly
unmodulated as I stood here.”

“Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and
way of walking as Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough. But
Mr. Knightley is so very fine a man!”

“Mr. Knightley's air is so remarkably good that it is not fair to
compare Mr. Martin with _him_. You might not see one in a hundred with
_gentleman_ so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. But he is not the
only gentleman you have been lately used to. What say you to Mr. Weston
and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of _them_. Compare their
manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent.
You must see the difference.”

“Oh yes!--there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old
man. Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty.”

“Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person
grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not
be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or
awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later
age. Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr.
Weston's time of life?”

“There is no saying, indeed,” replied Harriet rather solemnly.

“But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross,
vulgar farmer, totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of
nothing but profit and loss.”

“Will he, indeed? That will be very bad.”

“How much his business engrosses him already is very plain from the
circumstance of his forgetting to inquire for the book you recommended.
He was a great deal too full of the market to think of any thing
else--which is just as it should be, for a thriving man. What has he to
do with books? And I have no doubt that he _will_ thrive, and be a very
rich man in time--and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb
_us_.”

“I wonder he did not remember the book”--was all Harriet's answer, and
spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be
safely left to itself. She, therefore, said no more for some time. Her
next beginning was,

“In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton's manners are superior to Mr.
Knightley's or Mr. Weston's. They have more gentleness. They might be
more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness,
almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in _him_,
because there is so much good-humour with it--but that would not do to
be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley's downright, decided, commanding
sort of manner, though it suits _him_ very well; his figure, and look,
and situation in life seem to allow it; but if any young man were to set
about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think
a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a
model. Mr. Elton is good-humoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle.
He seems to me to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know
whether he has any design of ingratiating himself with either of us,
Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are
softer than they used to be. If he means any thing, it must be to please
you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?”

She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr.
Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and
said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable.

Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young
farmer out of Harriet's head. She thought it would be an excellent
match; and only too palpably desirable, natural, and probable, for her
to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body
else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however, that any
body should have equalled her in the date of the plan, as it had
entered her brain during the very first evening of Harriet's coming to
Hartfield. The longer she considered it, the greater was her sense
of its expediency. Mr. Elton's situation was most suitable, quite the
gentleman himself, and without low connexions; at the same time, not of
any family that could fairly object to the doubtful birth of Harriet.
He had a comfortable home for her, and Emma imagined a very sufficient
income; for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he was known
to have some independent property; and she thought very highly of him
as a good-humoured, well-meaning, respectable young man, without any
deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world.

She had already satisfied herself that he thought Harriet a beautiful
girl, which she trusted, with such frequent meetings at Hartfield, was
foundation enough on his side; and on Harriet's there could be little
doubt that the idea of being preferred by him would have all the usual
weight and efficacy. And he was really a very pleasing young man, a
young man whom any woman not fastidious might like. He was reckoned very
handsome; his person much admired in general, though not by her,
there being a want of elegance of feature which she could not dispense
with:--but the girl who could be gratified by a Robert Martin's riding
about the country to get walnuts for her might very well be conquered by
Mr. Elton's admiration.



CHAPTER V


“I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston,” said Mr.
Knightley, “of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I
think it a bad thing.”

“A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing?--why so?”

“I think they will neither of them do the other any good.”

“You surprize me! Emma must do Harriet good: and by supplying her with a
new object of interest, Harriet may be said to do Emma good. I have been
seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure. How very differently
we feel!--Not think they will do each other any good! This will
certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr.
Knightley.”

“Perhaps you think I am come on purpose to quarrel with you, knowing
Weston to be out, and that you must still fight your own battle.”

“Mr. Weston would undoubtedly support me, if he were here, for he thinks
exactly as I do on the subject. We were speaking of it only yesterday,
and agreeing how fortunate it was for Emma, that there should be such a
girl in Highbury for her to associate with. Mr. Knightley, I shall not
allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live
alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and, perhaps no
man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of
one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life. I can imagine
your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman
which Emma's friend ought to be. But on the other hand, as Emma wants
to see her better informed, it will be an inducement to her to read more
herself. They will read together. She means it, I know.”

“Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old.
I have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of
books that she meant to read regularly through--and very good lists
they were--very well chosen, and very neatly arranged--sometimes
alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew
up when only fourteen--I remember thinking it did her judgment so much
credit, that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made
out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of
steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing
requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the
understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely
affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing.--You never could persuade her
to read half so much as you wished.--You know you could not.”

“I dare say,” replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, “that I thought so
_then_;--but since we have parted, I can never remember Emma's omitting
to do any thing I wished.”

“There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as _that_,”--said
Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or two he had done. “But I,”
 he soon added, “who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must
still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest
of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to
answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always
quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she
was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her
mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her
mother's talents, and must have been under subjection to her.”

“I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be dependent on _your_
recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse's family and wanted another
situation; I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to
any body. I am sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held.”

“Yes,” said he, smiling. “You are better placed _here_; very fit for a
wife, but not at all for a governess. But you were preparing yourself to
be an excellent wife all the time you were at Hartfield. You might
not give Emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to
promise; but you were receiving a very good education from _her_, on the
very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing
as you were bid; and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I
should certainly have named Miss Taylor.”

“Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to
such a man as Mr. Weston.”

“Why, to own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that
with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We
will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of
comfort, or his son may plague him.”

“I hope not _that_.--It is not likely. No, Mr. Knightley, do not
foretell vexation from that quarter.”

“Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma's
genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart, the
young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune.--But
Harriet Smith--I have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think her the
very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows
nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing. She is a
flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned.
Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has any
thing to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful
inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that _she_ cannot
gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit
with all the other places she belongs to. She will grow just refined
enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances
have placed her home. I am much mistaken if Emma's doctrines give any
strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally
to the varieties of her situation in life.--They only give a little
polish.”

“I either depend more upon Emma's good sense than you do, or am more
anxious for her present comfort; for I cannot lament the acquaintance.
How well she looked last night!”

“Oh! you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very
well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma's being pretty.”

“Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect
beauty than Emma altogether--face and figure?”

“I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom
seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial
old friend.”

“Such an eye!--the true hazle eye--and so brilliant! regular features,
open countenance, with a complexion! oh! what a bloom of full health,
and such a pretty height and size; such a firm and upright figure!
There is health, not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her
glance. One hears sometimes of a child being 'the picture of health;'
now, Emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of
grown-up health. She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?”

“I have not a fault to find with her person,” he replied. “I think her
all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise,
that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome
she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies
another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my dislike of
Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm.”

“And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not
doing them any harm. With all dear Emma's little faults, she is an
excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder
sister, or a truer friend? No, no; she has qualities which may be
trusted; she will never lead any one really wrong; she will make no
lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred
times.”

“Very well; I will not plague you any more. Emma shall be an angel, and
I will keep my spleen to myself till Christmas brings John and Isabella.
John loves Emma with a reasonable and therefore not a blind affection,
and Isabella always thinks as he does; except when he is not quite
frightened enough about the children. I am sure of having their opinions
with me.”

“I know that you all love her really too well to be unjust or unkind;
but excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if I take the liberty (I consider myself,
you know, as having somewhat of the privilege of speech that Emma's
mother might have had) the liberty of hinting that I do not think any
possible good can arise from Harriet Smith's intimacy being made a
matter of much discussion among you. Pray excuse me; but supposing any
little inconvenience may be apprehended from the intimacy, it cannot be
expected that Emma, accountable to nobody but her father, who perfectly
approves the acquaintance, should put an end to it, so long as it is a
source of pleasure to herself. It has been so many years my province to
give advice, that you cannot be surprized, Mr. Knightley, at this little
remains of office.”

“Not at all,” cried he; “I am much obliged to you for it. It is very
good advice, and it shall have a better fate than your advice has often
found; for it shall be attended to.”

“Mrs. John Knightley is easily alarmed, and might be made unhappy about
her sister.”

“Be satisfied,” said he, “I will not raise any outcry. I will keep my
ill-humour to myself. I have a very sincere interest in Emma. Isabella
does not seem more my sister; has never excited a greater interest;
perhaps hardly so great. There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one
feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her!”

“So do I,” said Mrs. Weston gently, “very much.”

“She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just
nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she
cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love
with a proper object. I should like to see Emma in love, and in some
doubt of a return; it would do her good. But there is nobody hereabouts
to attach her; and she goes so seldom from home.”

“There does, indeed, seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution
at present,” said Mrs. Weston, “as can well be; and while she is so
happy at Hartfield, I cannot wish her to be forming any attachment which
would be creating such difficulties on poor Mr. Woodhouse's account. I
do not recommend matrimony at present to Emma, though I mean no slight
to the state, I assure you.”

Part of her meaning was to conceal some favourite thoughts of her own
and Mr. Weston's on the subject, as much as possible. There were wishes
at Randalls respecting Emma's destiny, but it was not desirable to
have them suspected; and the quiet transition which Mr. Knightley soon
afterwards made to “What does Weston think of the weather; shall we have
rain?” convinced her that he had nothing more to say or surmise about
Hartfield.



CHAPTER VI


Emma could not feel a doubt of having given Harriet's fancy a proper
direction and raised the gratitude of her young vanity to a very good
purpose, for she found her decidedly more sensible than before of Mr.
Elton's being a remarkably handsome man, with most agreeable manners;
and as she had no hesitation in following up the assurance of his
admiration by agreeable hints, she was soon pretty confident of creating
as much liking on Harriet's side, as there could be any occasion for.
She was quite convinced of Mr. Elton's being in the fairest way of
falling in love, if not in love already. She had no scruple with regard
to him. He talked of Harriet, and praised her so warmly, that she could
not suppose any thing wanting which a little time would not add. His
perception of the striking improvement of Harriet's manner, since her
introduction at Hartfield, was not one of the least agreeable proofs of
his growing attachment.

“You have given Miss Smith all that she required,” said he; “you have
made her graceful and easy. She was a beautiful creature when she
came to you, but, in my opinion, the attractions you have added are
infinitely superior to what she received from nature.”

“I am glad you think I have been useful to her; but Harriet only wanted
drawing out, and receiving a few, very few hints. She had all the
natural grace of sweetness of temper and artlessness in herself. I have
done very little.”

“If it were admissible to contradict a lady,” said the gallant Mr.
Elton--

“I have perhaps given her a little more decision of character, have
taught her to think on points which had not fallen in her way before.”

“Exactly so; that is what principally strikes me. So much superadded
decision of character! Skilful has been the hand!”

“Great has been the pleasure, I am sure. I never met with a disposition
more truly amiable.”

“I have no doubt of it.” And it was spoken with a sort of sighing
animation, which had a vast deal of the lover. She was not less pleased
another day with the manner in which he seconded a sudden wish of hers,
to have Harriet's picture.

“Did you ever have your likeness taken, Harriet?” said she: “did you
ever sit for your picture?”

Harriet was on the point of leaving the room, and only stopt to say,
with a very interesting naivete,

“Oh! dear, no, never.”

No sooner was she out of sight, than Emma exclaimed,

“What an exquisite possession a good picture of her would be! I would
give any money for it. I almost long to attempt her likeness myself.
You do not know it I dare say, but two or three years ago I had a great
passion for taking likenesses, and attempted several of my friends, and
was thought to have a tolerable eye in general. But from one cause or
another, I gave it up in disgust. But really, I could almost venture,
if Harriet would sit to me. It would be such a delight to have her
picture!”

“Let me entreat you,” cried Mr. Elton; “it would indeed be a delight!
Let me entreat you, Miss Woodhouse, to exercise so charming a talent
in favour of your friend. I know what your drawings are. How could
you suppose me ignorant? Is not this room rich in specimens of your
landscapes and flowers; and has not Mrs. Weston some inimitable
figure-pieces in her drawing-room, at Randalls?”

Yes, good man!--thought Emma--but what has all that to do with taking
likenesses? You know nothing of drawing. Don't pretend to be in raptures
about mine. Keep your raptures for Harriet's face. “Well, if you give me
such kind encouragement, Mr. Elton, I believe I shall try what I can do.
Harriet's features are very delicate, which makes a likeness difficult;
and yet there is a peculiarity in the shape of the eye and the lines
about the mouth which one ought to catch.”

“Exactly so--The shape of the eye and the lines about the mouth--I have
not a doubt of your success. Pray, pray attempt it. As you will do it,
it will indeed, to use your own words, be an exquisite possession.”

“But I am afraid, Mr. Elton, Harriet will not like to sit. She thinks
so little of her own beauty. Did not you observe her manner of answering
me? How completely it meant, 'why should my picture be drawn?'”

“Oh! yes, I observed it, I assure you. It was not lost on me. But still
I cannot imagine she would not be persuaded.”

Harriet was soon back again, and the proposal almost immediately made;
and she had no scruples which could stand many minutes against the
earnest pressing of both the others. Emma wished to go to work directly,
and therefore produced the portfolio containing her various attempts at
portraits, for not one of them had ever been finished, that they might
decide together on the best size for Harriet. Her many beginnings were
displayed. Miniatures, half-lengths, whole-lengths, pencil, crayon, and
water-colours had been all tried in turn. She had always wanted to do
every thing, and had made more progress both in drawing and music than
many might have done with so little labour as she would ever submit to.
She played and sang;--and drew in almost every style; but steadiness
had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of
excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to
have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill either
as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others
deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often
higher than it deserved.

There was merit in every drawing--in the least finished, perhaps the
most; her style was spirited; but had there been much less, or had there
been ten times more, the delight and admiration of her two companions
would have been the same. They were both in ecstasies. A likeness
pleases every body; and Miss Woodhouse's performances must be capital.

“No great variety of faces for you,” said Emma. “I had only my own
family to study from. There is my father--another of my father--but the
idea of sitting for his picture made him so nervous, that I could only
take him by stealth; neither of them very like therefore. Mrs. Weston
again, and again, and again, you see. Dear Mrs. Weston! always my
kindest friend on every occasion. She would sit whenever I asked her.
There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure!--and
the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she
would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw
her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my
attempts at three of those four children;--there they are, Henry and
John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of
them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them
drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three
or four years old stand still you know; nor can it be very easy to take
any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are
coarser featured than any of mama's children ever were. Here is my
sketch of the fourth, who was a baby. I took him as he was sleeping on
the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would
wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That's very
like. I am rather proud of little George. The corner of the sofa is very
good. Then here is my last,”--unclosing a pretty sketch of a gentleman
in small size, whole-length--“my last and my best--my brother, Mr. John
Knightley.--This did not want much of being finished, when I put it away
in a pet, and vowed I would never take another likeness. I could not
help being provoked; for after all my pains, and when I had really made
a very good likeness of it--(Mrs. Weston and I were quite agreed in
thinking it _very_ like)--only too handsome--too flattering--but
that was a fault on the right side”--after all this, came poor dear
Isabella's cold approbation of--“Yes, it was a little like--but to be
sure it did not do him justice. We had had a great deal of trouble
in persuading him to sit at all. It was made a great favour of; and
altogether it was more than I could bear; and so I never would finish
it, to have it apologised over as an unfavourable likeness, to every
morning visitor in Brunswick Square;--and, as I said, I did then
forswear ever drawing any body again. But for Harriet's sake, or rather
for my own, and as there are no husbands and wives in the case _at_
_present_, I will break my resolution now.”

Mr. Elton seemed very properly struck and delighted by the idea, and was
repeating, “No husbands and wives in the case at present indeed, as
you observe. Exactly so. No husbands and wives,” with so interesting a
consciousness, that Emma began to consider whether she had not better
leave them together at once. But as she wanted to be drawing, the
declaration must wait a little longer.

She had soon fixed on the size and sort of portrait. It was to be
a whole-length in water-colours, like Mr. John Knightley's, and was
destined, if she could please herself, to hold a very honourable station
over the mantelpiece.

The sitting began; and Harriet, smiling and blushing, and afraid of not
keeping her attitude and countenance, presented a very sweet mixture of
youthful expression to the steady eyes of the artist. But there was no
doing any thing, with Mr. Elton fidgeting behind her and watching every
touch. She gave him credit for stationing himself where he might gaze
and gaze again without offence; but was really obliged to put an end to
it, and request him to place himself elsewhere. It then occurred to her
to employ him in reading.

“If he would be so good as to read to them, it would be a kindness
indeed! It would amuse away the difficulties of her part, and lessen the
irksomeness of Miss Smith's.”

Mr. Elton was only too happy. Harriet listened, and Emma drew in peace.
She must allow him to be still frequently coming to look; any thing less
would certainly have been too little in a lover; and he was ready at the
smallest intermission of the pencil, to jump up and see the progress,
and be charmed.--There was no being displeased with such an encourager,
for his admiration made him discern a likeness almost before it
was possible. She could not respect his eye, but his love and his
complaisance were unexceptionable.

The sitting was altogether very satisfactory; she was quite enough
pleased with the first day's sketch to wish to go on. There was no want
of likeness, she had been fortunate in the attitude, and as she meant
to throw in a little improvement to the figure, to give a little more
height, and considerably more elegance, she had great confidence of
its being in every way a pretty drawing at last, and of its filling
its destined place with credit to them both--a standing memorial of the
beauty of one, the skill of the other, and the friendship of both;
with as many other agreeable associations as Mr. Elton's very promising
attachment was likely to add.

Harriet was to sit again the next day; and Mr. Elton, just as he ought,
entreated for the permission of attending and reading to them again.

“By all means. We shall be most happy to consider you as one of the
party.”

The same civilities and courtesies, the same success and satisfaction,
took place on the morrow, and accompanied the whole progress of the
picture, which was rapid and happy. Every body who saw it was pleased,
but Mr. Elton was in continual raptures, and defended it through every
criticism.

“Miss Woodhouse has given her friend the only beauty she
wanted,”--observed Mrs. Weston to him--not in the least suspecting that
she was addressing a lover.--“The expression of the eye is most correct,
but Miss Smith has not those eyebrows and eyelashes. It is the fault of
her face that she has them not.”

“Do you think so?” replied he. “I cannot agree with you. It appears
to me a most perfect resemblance in every feature. I never saw such a
likeness in my life. We must allow for the effect of shade, you know.”

“You have made her too tall, Emma,” said Mr. Knightley.

Emma knew that she had, but would not own it; and Mr. Elton warmly
added,

“Oh no! certainly not too tall; not in the least too tall. Consider, she
is sitting down--which naturally presents a different--which in short
gives exactly the idea--and the proportions must be preserved, you know.
Proportions, fore-shortening.--Oh no! it gives one exactly the idea of
such a height as Miss Smith's. Exactly so indeed!”

“It is very pretty,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “So prettily done! Just as your
drawings always are, my dear. I do not know any body who draws so well
as you do. The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems
to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her
shoulders--and it makes one think she must catch cold.”

“But, my dear papa, it is supposed to be summer; a warm day in summer.
Look at the tree.”

“But it is never safe to sit out of doors, my dear.”

“You, sir, may say any thing,” cried Mr. Elton, “but I must confess that
I regard it as a most happy thought, the placing of Miss Smith out of
doors; and the tree is touched with such inimitable spirit! Any other
situation would have been much less in character. The naivete of Miss
Smith's manners--and altogether--Oh, it is most admirable! I cannot keep
my eyes from it. I never saw such a likeness.”

The next thing wanted was to get the picture framed; and here were a few
difficulties. It must be done directly; it must be done in London; the
order must go through the hands of some intelligent person whose taste
could be depended on; and Isabella, the usual doer of all commissions,
must not be applied to, because it was December, and Mr. Woodhouse
could not bear the idea of her stirring out of her house in the fogs of
December. But no sooner was the distress known to Mr. Elton, than it
was removed. His gallantry was always on the alert. “Might he be trusted
with the commission, what infinite pleasure should he have in executing
it! he could ride to London at any time. It was impossible to say how
much he should be gratified by being employed on such an errand.”

“He was too good!--she could not endure the thought!--she would not give
him such a troublesome office for the world,”--brought on the desired
repetition of entreaties and assurances,--and a very few minutes settled
the business.

Mr. Elton was to take the drawing to London, chuse the frame, and give
the directions; and Emma thought she could so pack it as to ensure its
safety without much incommoding him, while he seemed mostly fearful of
not being incommoded enough.

“What a precious deposit!” said he with a tender sigh, as he received
it.

“This man is almost too gallant to be in love,” thought Emma. “I should
say so, but that I suppose there may be a hundred different ways of
being in love. He is an excellent young man, and will suit Harriet
exactly; it will be an 'Exactly so,' as he says himself; but he does
sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could
endure as a principal. I come in for a pretty good share as a second.
But it is his gratitude on Harriet's account.”



CHAPTER VII


The very day of Mr. Elton's going to London produced a fresh occasion
for Emma's services towards her friend. Harriet had been at Hartfield,
as usual, soon after breakfast; and, after a time, had gone home to
return again to dinner: she returned, and sooner than had been
talked of, and with an agitated, hurried look, announcing something
extraordinary to have happened which she was longing to tell. Half a
minute brought it all out. She had heard, as soon as she got back to
Mrs. Goddard's, that Mr. Martin had been there an hour before, and
finding she was not at home, nor particularly expected, had left a
little parcel for her from one of his sisters, and gone away; and on
opening this parcel, she had actually found, besides the two songs which
she had lent Elizabeth to copy, a letter to herself; and this letter was
from him, from Mr. Martin, and contained a direct proposal of marriage.
“Who could have thought it? She was so surprized she did not know what
to do. Yes, quite a proposal of marriage; and a very good letter,
at least she thought so. And he wrote as if he really loved her very
much--but she did not know--and so, she was come as fast as she could to
ask Miss Woodhouse what she should do.--” Emma was half-ashamed of her
friend for seeming so pleased and so doubtful.

“Upon my word,” she cried, “the young man is determined not to lose any
thing for want of asking. He will connect himself well if he can.”

“Will you read the letter?” cried Harriet. “Pray do. I'd rather you
would.”

Emma was not sorry to be pressed. She read, and was surprized. The style
of the letter was much above her expectation. There were not merely no
grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a
gentleman; the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and
the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was
short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety,
even delicacy of feeling. She paused over it, while Harriet stood
anxiously watching for her opinion, with a “Well, well,” and was at last
forced to add, “Is it a good letter? or is it too short?”

“Yes, indeed, a very good letter,” replied Emma rather slowly--“so
good a letter, Harriet, that every thing considered, I think one of his
sisters must have helped him. I can hardly imagine the young man whom
I saw talking with you the other day could express himself so well, if
left quite to his own powers, and yet it is not the style of a woman;
no, certainly, it is too strong and concise; not diffuse enough for a
woman. No doubt he is a sensible man, and I suppose may have a natural
talent for--thinks strongly and clearly--and when he takes a pen in
hand, his thoughts naturally find proper words. It is so with some men.
Yes, I understand the sort of mind. Vigorous, decided, with sentiments
to a certain point, not coarse. A better written letter, Harriet
(returning it,) than I had expected.”

“Well,” said the still waiting Harriet;--“well--and--and what shall I
do?”

“What shall you do! In what respect? Do you mean with regard to this
letter?”

“Yes.”

“But what are you in doubt of? You must answer it of course--and
speedily.”

“Yes. But what shall I say? Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me.”

“Oh no, no! the letter had much better be all your own. You will express
yourself very properly, I am sure. There is no danger of your not
being intelligible, which is the first thing. Your meaning must be
unequivocal; no doubts or demurs: and such expressions of gratitude
and concern for the pain you are inflicting as propriety requires, will
present themselves unbidden to _your_ mind, I am persuaded. You need
not be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his
disappointment.”

“You think I ought to refuse him then,” said Harriet, looking down.

“Ought to refuse him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any
doubt as to that? I thought--but I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been
under a mistake. I certainly have been misunderstanding you, if you feel
in doubt as to the _purport_ of your answer. I had imagined you were
consulting me only as to the wording of it.”

Harriet was silent. With a little reserve of manner, Emma continued:

“You mean to return a favourable answer, I collect.”

“No, I do not; that is, I do not mean--What shall I do? What would you
advise me to do? Pray, dear Miss Woodhouse, tell me what I ought to do.”

“I shall not give you any advice, Harriet. I will have nothing to do
with it. This is a point which you must settle with your feelings.”

“I had no notion that he liked me so very much,” said Harriet,
contemplating the letter. For a little while Emma persevered in her
silence; but beginning to apprehend the bewitching flattery of that
letter might be too powerful, she thought it best to say,

“I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman _doubts_ as
to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse
him. If she can hesitate as to 'Yes,' she ought to say 'No' directly.
It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with
half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself,
to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence
you.”

“Oh! no, I am sure you are a great deal too kind to--but if you would
just advise me what I had best do--No, no, I do not mean that--As
you say, one's mind ought to be quite made up--One should not be
hesitating--It is a very serious thing.--It will be safer to say 'No,'
perhaps.--Do you think I had better say 'No?'”

“Not for the world,” said Emma, smiling graciously, “would I advise you
either way. You must be the best judge of your own happiness. If you
prefer Mr. Martin to every other person; if you think him the most
agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you
hesitate? You blush, Harriet.--Does any body else occur to you at
this moment under such a definition? Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive
yourself; do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion. At this
moment whom are you thinking of?”

The symptoms were favourable.--Instead of answering, Harriet turned away
confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire; and though the letter was
still in her hand, it was now mechanically twisted about without regard.
Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. At
last, with some hesitation, Harriet said--

“Miss Woodhouse, as you will not give me your opinion, I must do as well
as I can by myself; and I have now quite determined, and really almost
made up my mind--to refuse Mr. Martin. Do you think I am right?”

“Perfectly, perfectly right, my dearest Harriet; you are doing just
what you ought. While you were at all in suspense I kept my feelings to
myself, but now that you are so completely decided I have no hesitation
in approving. Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would
have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the
consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin. While you were in the smallest
degree wavering, I said nothing about it, because I would not influence;
but it would have been the loss of a friend to me. I could not have
visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill Farm. Now I am secure of you
for ever.”

Harriet had not surmised her own danger, but the idea of it struck her
forcibly.

“You could not have visited me!” she cried, looking aghast. “No, to be
sure you could not; but I never thought of that before. That would have
been too dreadful!--What an escape!--Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not
give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for any thing
in the world.”

“Indeed, Harriet, it would have been a severe pang to lose you; but it
must have been. You would have thrown yourself out of all good society.
I must have given you up.”

“Dear me!--How should I ever have borne it! It would have killed me
never to come to Hartfield any more!”

“Dear affectionate creature!--_You_ banished to Abbey-Mill Farm!--_You_
confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar all your life! I
wonder how the young man could have the assurance to ask it. He must
have a pretty good opinion of himself.”

“I do not think he is conceited either, in general,” said Harriet, her
conscience opposing such censure; “at least, he is very good natured,
and I shall always feel much obliged to him, and have a great regard
for--but that is quite a different thing from--and you know, though
he may like me, it does not follow that I should--and certainly I must
confess that since my visiting here I have seen people--and if one comes
to compare them, person and manners, there is no comparison at all,
_one_ is so very handsome and agreeable. However, I do really think Mr.
Martin a very amiable young man, and have a great opinion of him; and
his being so much attached to me--and his writing such a letter--but as
to leaving you, it is what I would not do upon any consideration.”

“Thank you, thank you, my own sweet little friend. We will not be
parted. A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or
because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.”

“Oh no;--and it is but a short letter too.”

Emma felt the bad taste of her friend, but let it pass with a “very
true; and it would be a small consolation to her, for the clownish
manner which might be offending her every hour of the day, to know that
her husband could write a good letter.”

“Oh! yes, very. Nobody cares for a letter; the thing is, to be always
happy with pleasant companions. I am quite determined to refuse him. But
how shall I do? What shall I say?”

Emma assured her there would be no difficulty in the answer, and advised
its being written directly, which was agreed to, in the hope of her
assistance; and though Emma continued to protest against any assistance
being wanted, it was in fact given in the formation of every sentence.
The looking over his letter again, in replying to it, had such a
softening tendency, that it was particularly necessary to brace her up
with a few decisive expressions; and she was so very much concerned at
the idea of making him unhappy, and thought so much of what his mother
and sisters would think and say, and was so anxious that they should not
fancy her ungrateful, that Emma believed if the young man had come in
her way at that moment, he would have been accepted after all.

This letter, however, was written, and sealed, and sent. The business
was finished, and Harriet safe. She was rather low all the evening, but
Emma could allow for her amiable regrets, and sometimes relieved them by
speaking of her own affection, sometimes by bringing forward the idea of
Mr. Elton.

“I shall never be invited to Abbey-Mill again,” was said in rather a
sorrowful tone.

“Nor, if you were, could I ever bear to part with you, my Harriet. You
are a great deal too necessary at Hartfield to be spared to Abbey-Mill.”

“And I am sure I should never want to go there; for I am never happy but
at Hartfield.”

Some time afterwards it was, “I think Mrs. Goddard would be very much
surprized if she knew what had happened. I am sure Miss Nash would--for
Miss Nash thinks her own sister very well married, and it is only a
linen-draper.”

“One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher
of a school, Harriet. I dare say Miss Nash would envy you such an
opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear
valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she
is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be
among the tittle-tattle of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I
are the only people to whom his looks and manners have explained
themselves.”

Harriet blushed and smiled, and said something about wondering that
people should like her so much. The idea of Mr. Elton was certainly
cheering; but still, after a time, she was tender-hearted again towards
the rejected Mr. Martin.

“Now he has got my letter,” said she softly. “I wonder what they are all
doing--whether his sisters know--if he is unhappy, they will be unhappy
too. I hope he will not mind it so very much.”

“Let us think of those among our absent friends who are more cheerfully
employed,” cried Emma. “At this moment, perhaps, Mr. Elton is shewing
your picture to his mother and sisters, telling how much more beautiful
is the original, and after being asked for it five or six times,
allowing them to hear your name, your own dear name.”

“My picture!--But he has left my picture in Bond-street.”

“Has he so!--Then I know nothing of Mr. Elton. No, my dear little modest
Harriet, depend upon it the picture will not be in Bond-street till
just before he mounts his horse to-morrow. It is his companion all this
evening, his solace, his delight. It opens his designs to his family,
it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those
pleasantest feelings of our nature, eager curiosity and warm
prepossession. How cheerful, how animated, how suspicious, how busy
their imaginations all are!”

Harriet smiled again, and her smiles grew stronger.



CHAPTER VIII


Harriet slept at Hartfield that night. For some weeks past she had been
spending more than half her time there, and gradually getting to have
a bed-room appropriated to herself; and Emma judged it best in every
respect, safest and kindest, to keep her with them as much as possible
just at present. She was obliged to go the next morning for an hour or
two to Mrs. Goddard's, but it was then to be settled that she should
return to Hartfield, to make a regular visit of some days.

While she was gone, Mr. Knightley called, and sat some time with Mr.
Woodhouse and Emma, till Mr. Woodhouse, who had previously made up his
mind to walk out, was persuaded by his daughter not to defer it, and was
induced by the entreaties of both, though against the scruples of his
own civility, to leave Mr. Knightley for that purpose. Mr. Knightley,
who had nothing of ceremony about him, was offering by his short,
decided answers, an amusing contrast to the protracted apologies and
civil hesitations of the other.

“Well, I believe, if you will excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if you will not
consider me as doing a very rude thing, I shall take Emma's advice and
go out for a quarter of an hour. As the sun is out, I believe I had
better take my three turns while I can. I treat you without ceremony,
Mr. Knightley. We invalids think we are privileged people.”

“My dear sir, do not make a stranger of me.”

“I leave an excellent substitute in my daughter. Emma will be happy to
entertain you. And therefore I think I will beg your excuse and take my
three turns--my winter walk.”

“You cannot do better, sir.”

“I would ask for the pleasure of your company, Mr. Knightley, but I am a
very slow walker, and my pace would be tedious to you; and, besides, you
have another long walk before you, to Donwell Abbey.”

“Thank you, sir, thank you; I am going this moment myself; and I think
the sooner _you_ go the better. I will fetch your greatcoat and open the
garden door for you.”

Mr. Woodhouse at last was off; but Mr. Knightley, instead of being
immediately off likewise, sat down again, seemingly inclined for more
chat. He began speaking of Harriet, and speaking of her with more
voluntary praise than Emma had ever heard before.

“I cannot rate her beauty as you do,” said he; “but she is a
pretty little creature, and I am inclined to think very well of her
disposition. Her character depends upon those she is with; but in good
hands she will turn out a valuable woman.”

“I am glad you think so; and the good hands, I hope, may not be
wanting.”

“Come,” said he, “you are anxious for a compliment, so I will tell you
that you have improved her. You have cured her of her school-girl's
giggle; she really does you credit.”

“Thank you. I should be mortified indeed if I did not believe I had been
of some use; but it is not every body who will bestow praise where they
may. _You_ do not often overpower me with it.”

“You are expecting her again, you say, this morning?”

“Almost every moment. She has been gone longer already than she
intended.”

“Something has happened to delay her; some visitors perhaps.”

“Highbury gossips!--Tiresome wretches!”

“Harriet may not consider every body tiresome that you would.”

Emma knew this was too true for contradiction, and therefore said
nothing. He presently added, with a smile,

“I do not pretend to fix on times or places, but I must tell you that
I have good reason to believe your little friend will soon hear of
something to her advantage.”

“Indeed! how so? of what sort?”

“A very serious sort, I assure you;” still smiling.

“Very serious! I can think of but one thing--Who is in love with her?
Who makes you their confidant?”

Emma was more than half in hopes of Mr. Elton's having dropt a hint.
Mr. Knightley was a sort of general friend and adviser, and she knew Mr.
Elton looked up to him.

“I have reason to think,” he replied, “that Harriet Smith will soon have
an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarter:--Robert
Martin is the man. Her visit to Abbey-Mill, this summer, seems to have
done his business. He is desperately in love and means to marry her.”

“He is very obliging,” said Emma; “but is he sure that Harriet means to
marry him?”

“Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to
the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows
I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe,
considers me as one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether
I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early; whether
I thought her too young: in short, whether I approved his choice
altogether; having some apprehension perhaps of her being considered
(especially since _your_ making so much of her) as in a line of society
above him. I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear
better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the
purpose; open, straightforward, and very well judging. He told me every
thing; his circumstances and plans, and what they all proposed doing in
the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and
brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved to me
that he could afford it; and that being the case, I was convinced he
could not do better. I praised the fair lady too, and altogether sent
him away very happy. If he had never esteemed my opinion before, he
would have thought highly of me then; and, I dare say, left the house
thinking me the best friend and counsellor man ever had. This happened
the night before last. Now, as we may fairly suppose, he would not allow
much time to pass before he spoke to the lady, and as he does not appear
to have spoken yesterday, it is not unlikely that he should be at Mrs.
Goddard's to-day; and she may be detained by a visitor, without thinking
him at all a tiresome wretch.”

“Pray, Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, who had been smiling to herself
through a great part of this speech, “how do you know that Mr. Martin
did not speak yesterday?”

“Certainly,” replied he, surprized, “I do not absolutely know it; but it
may be inferred. Was not she the whole day with you?”

“Come,” said she, “I will tell you something, in return for what
you have told me. He did speak yesterday--that is, he wrote, and was
refused.”

This was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed; and Mr.
Knightley actually looked red with surprize and displeasure, as he stood
up, in tall indignation, and said,

“Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the
foolish girl about?”

“Oh! to be sure,” cried Emma, “it is always incomprehensible to a man
that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always
imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”

“Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the
meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin? madness, if it is
so; but I hope you are mistaken.”

“I saw her answer!--nothing could be clearer.”

“You saw her answer!--you wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your
doing. You persuaded her to refuse him.”

“And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing) I should not
feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man,
but I cannot admit him to be Harriet's equal; and am rather surprized
indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he
does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever
got over.”

“Not Harriet's equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and
with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is
not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in
situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are
Harriet Smith's claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any
connexion higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of
nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and
certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder
at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any
information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and
too simple to have acquired any thing herself. At her age she can have
no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have
any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and
that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account,
as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that,
as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as
to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I
could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there
being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in
good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well.
The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side; and had not the
smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cry-out
upon her extreme good luck. Even _your_ satisfaction I made sure of.
It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend's
leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember
saying to myself, 'Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will
think this a good match.'”

“I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any
such thing. What! think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his
merit Mr. Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend!
Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom
I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should
think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are
very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are
not just to Harriet's claims. They would be estimated very differently
by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two,
but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.--The sphere in
which she moves is much above his.--It would be a degradation.”

“A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a
respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!”

“As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may
be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay
for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with
whom she is brought up.--There can scarcely be a doubt that her father
is a gentleman--and a gentleman of fortune.--Her allowance is
very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or
comfort.--That she is a gentleman's daughter, is indubitable to me; that
she associates with gentlemen's daughters, no one, I apprehend, will
deny.--She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin.”

“Whoever might be her parents,” said Mr. Knightley, “whoever may have
had the charge of her, it does not appear to have been any part of
their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society. After
receiving a very indifferent education she is left in Mrs. Goddard's
hands to shift as she can;--to move, in short, in Mrs. Goddard's line,
to have Mrs. Goddard's acquaintance. Her friends evidently thought
this good enough for her; and it _was_ good enough. She desired nothing
better herself. Till you chose to turn her into a friend, her mind had
no distaste for her own set, nor any ambition beyond it. She was as
happy as possible with the Martins in the summer. She had no sense of
superiority then. If she has it now, you have given it. You have been no
friend to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded
so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to
him. I know him well. He has too much real feeling to address any
woman on the haphazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is
the farthest from it of any man I know. Depend upon it he had
encouragement.”

It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct reply to this
assertion; she chose rather to take up her own line of the subject
again.

“You are a very warm friend to Mr. Martin; but, as I said before,
are unjust to Harriet. Harriet's claims to marry well are not so
contemptible as you represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she
has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her
understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waiving that point, however, and
supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and good-natured,
let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not
trivial recommendations to the world in general, for she is, in fact, a
beautiful girl, and must be thought so by ninety-nine people out of an
hundred; and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the
subject of beauty than they are generally supposed; till they do fall
in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with
such loveliness as Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought
after, of having the power of chusing from among many, consequently a
claim to be nice. Her good-nature, too, is not so very slight a claim,
comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and
manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to
be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in
general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims
a woman could possess.”

“Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost
enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply
it as you do.”

“To be sure!” cried she playfully. “I know _that_ is the feeling of
you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every
man delights in--what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his
judgment. Oh! Harriet may pick and chuse. Were you, yourself, ever to
marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just
entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at
because she does not accept the first offer she receives? No--pray let
her have time to look about her.”

“I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy,” said Mr. Knightley
presently, “though I have kept my thoughts to myself; but I now perceive
that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up
with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that,
in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her.
Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief. Nothing
so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss
Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though
she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to
say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of
connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity--and most prudent
men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be
involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed. Let
her marry Robert Martin, and she is safe, respectable, and happy for
ever; but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly, and teach her
to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large
fortune, she may be a parlour-boarder at Mrs. Goddard's all the rest
of her life--or, at least, (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry
somebody or other,) till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the
old writing-master's son.”

“We think so very differently on this point, Mr. Knightley, that there
can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more
angry. But as to my _letting_ her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible;
she has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any
second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused him,
whatever it may be; and as to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to
say that I might not influence her a little; but I assure you there
was very little for me or for any body to do. His appearance is so much
against him, and his manner so bad, that if she ever were disposed to
favour him, she is not now. I can imagine, that before she had seen
any body superior, she might tolerate him. He was the brother of her
friends, and he took pains to please her; and altogether, having seen
nobody better (that must have been his great assistant) she might not,
while she was at Abbey-Mill, find him disagreeable. But the case
is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are; and nothing but a
gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet.”

“Nonsense, errant nonsense, as ever was talked!” cried Mr.
Knightley.--“Robert Martin's manners have sense, sincerity, and
good-humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than
Harriet Smith could understand.”

Emma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned, but was
really feeling uncomfortable and wanting him very much to be gone. She
did not repent what she had done; she still thought herself a better
judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be;
but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general,
which made her dislike having it so loudly against her; and to have him
sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable.
Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one attempt
on Emma's side to talk of the weather, but he made no answer. He was
thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words.

“Robert Martin has no great loss--if he can but think so; and I hope it
will not be long before he does. Your views for Harriet are best known
to yourself; but as you make no secret of your love of match-making, it
is fair to suppose that views, and plans, and projects you have;--and as
a friend I shall just hint to you that if Elton is the man, I think it
will be all labour in vain.”

Emma laughed and disclaimed. He continued,

“Depend upon it, Elton will not do. Elton is a very good sort of man,
and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make
an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income as well as any
body. Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will act rationally. He is
as well acquainted with his own claims, as you can be with Harriet's.
He knows that he is a very handsome young man, and a great favourite
wherever he goes; and from his general way of talking in unreserved
moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced that he does
not mean to throw himself away. I have heard him speak with great
animation of a large family of young ladies that his sisters are
intimate with, who have all twenty thousand pounds apiece.”

“I am very much obliged to you,” said Emma, laughing again. “If I had
set my heart on Mr. Elton's marrying Harriet, it would have been very
kind to open my eyes; but at present I only want to keep Harriet to
myself. I have done with match-making indeed. I could never hope to
equal my own doings at Randalls. I shall leave off while I am well.”

“Good morning to you,”--said he, rising and walking off abruptly. He was
very much vexed. He felt the disappointment of the young man, and was
mortified to have been the means of promoting it, by the sanction he had
given; and the part which he was persuaded Emma had taken in the affair,
was provoking him exceedingly.

Emma remained in a state of vexation too; but there was more
indistinctness in the causes of her's, than in his. She did not always
feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that
her opinions were right and her adversary's wrong, as Mr. Knightley. He
walked off in more complete self-approbation than he left for her. She
was not so materially cast down, however, but that a little time and
the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives. Harriet's staying
away so long was beginning to make her uneasy. The possibility of the
young man's coming to Mrs. Goddard's that morning, and meeting with
Harriet and pleading his own cause, gave alarming ideas. The dread
of such a failure after all became the prominent uneasiness; and when
Harriet appeared, and in very good spirits, and without having any
such reason to give for her long absence, she felt a satisfaction which
settled her with her own mind, and convinced her, that let Mr.
Knightley think or say what he would, she had done nothing which woman's
friendship and woman's feelings would not justify.

He had frightened her a little about Mr. Elton; but when she considered
that Mr. Knightley could not have observed him as she had done, neither
with the interest, nor (she must be allowed to tell herself, in spite of
Mr. Knightley's pretensions) with the skill of such an observer on such
a question as herself, that he had spoken it hastily and in anger, she
was able to believe, that he had rather said what he wished resentfully
to be true, than what he knew any thing about. He certainly might have
heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever done, and
Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition as to
money matters; he might naturally be rather attentive than otherwise
to them; but then, Mr. Knightley did not make due allowance for the
influence of a strong passion at war with all interested motives. Mr.
Knightley saw no such passion, and of course thought nothing of its
effects; but she saw too much of it to feel a doubt of its overcoming
any hesitations that a reasonable prudence might originally suggest; and
more than a reasonable, becoming degree of prudence, she was very sure
did not belong to Mr. Elton.

Harriet's cheerful look and manner established hers: she came back, not
to think of Mr. Martin, but to talk of Mr. Elton. Miss Nash had been
telling her something, which she repeated immediately with great
delight. Mr. Perry had been to Mrs. Goddard's to attend a sick child,
and Miss Nash had seen him, and he had told Miss Nash, that as he was
coming back yesterday from Clayton Park, he had met Mr. Elton, and
found to his great surprize, that Mr. Elton was actually on his road
to London, and not meaning to return till the morrow, though it was the
whist-club night, which he had been never known to miss before; and Mr.
Perry had remonstrated with him about it, and told him how shabby it
was in him, their best player, to absent himself, and tried very much to
persuade him to put off his journey only one day; but it would not
do; Mr. Elton had been determined to go on, and had said in a _very_
_particular_ way indeed, that he was going on business which he would
not put off for any inducement in the world; and something about a
very enviable commission, and being the bearer of something exceedingly
precious. Mr. Perry could not quite understand him, but he was very sure
there must be a _lady_ in the case, and he told him so; and Mr. Elton
only looked very conscious and smiling, and rode off in great spirits.
Miss Nash had told her all this, and had talked a great deal more about
Mr. Elton; and said, looking so very significantly at her, “that she did
not pretend to understand what his business might be, but she only
knew that any woman whom Mr. Elton could prefer, she should think the
luckiest woman in the world; for, beyond a doubt, Mr. Elton had not his
equal for beauty or agreeableness.”



CHAPTER IX


Mr. Knightley might quarrel with her, but Emma could not quarrel with
herself. He was so much displeased, that it was longer than usual before
he came to Hartfield again; and when they did meet, his grave looks
shewed that she was not forgiven. She was sorry, but could not repent.
On the contrary, her plans and proceedings were more and more justified
and endeared to her by the general appearances of the next few days.

The Picture, elegantly framed, came safely to hand soon after Mr.
Elton's return, and being hung over the mantelpiece of the common
sitting-room, he got up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences
of admiration just as he ought; and as for Harriet's feelings, they were
visibly forming themselves into as strong and steady an attachment as
her youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly satisfied
of Mr. Martin's being no otherwise remembered, than as he furnished a
contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the latter.

Her views of improving her little friend's mind, by a great deal of
useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than a few
first chapters, and the intention of going on to-morrow. It was much
easier to chat than to study; much pleasanter to let her imagination
range and work at Harriet's fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge
her comprehension or exercise it on sober facts; and the only literary
pursuit which engaged Harriet at present, the only mental provision she
was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and transcribing
all the riddles of every sort that she could meet with, into a thin
quarto of hot-pressed paper, made up by her friend, and ornamented with
ciphers and trophies.

In this age of literature, such collections on a very grand scale are
not uncommon. Miss Nash, head-teacher at Mrs. Goddard's, had written out
at least three hundred; and Harriet, who had taken the first hint of it
from her, hoped, with Miss Woodhouse's help, to get a great many more.
Emma assisted with her invention, memory and taste; and as Harriet wrote
a very pretty hand, it was likely to be an arrangement of the first
order, in form as well as quantity.

Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the
girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting
in. “So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young--he
wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time.”
 And it always ended in “Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.”

His good friend Perry, too, whom he had spoken to on the subject,
did not at present recollect any thing of the riddle kind; but he
had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and as he went about so much,
something, he thought, might come from that quarter.

It was by no means his daughter's wish that the intellects of Highbury
in general should be put under requisition. Mr. Elton was the only one
whose assistance she asked. He was invited to contribute any really good
enigmas, charades, or conundrums that he might recollect; and she had
the pleasure of seeing him most intently at work with his recollections;
and at the same time, as she could perceive, most earnestly careful that
nothing ungallant, nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the
sex should pass his lips. They owed to him their two or three politest
puzzles; and the joy and exultation with which at last he recalled, and
rather sentimentally recited, that well-known charade,

    My first doth affliction denote,
      Which my second is destin'd to feel
    And my whole is the best antidote
      That affliction to soften and heal.--

made her quite sorry to acknowledge that they had transcribed it some
pages ago already.

“Why will not you write one yourself for us, Mr. Elton?” said she; “that
is the only security for its freshness; and nothing could be easier to
you.”

“Oh no! he had never written, hardly ever, any thing of the kind in his
life. The stupidest fellow! He was afraid not even Miss Woodhouse”--he
stopt a moment--“or Miss Smith could inspire him.”

The very next day however produced some proof of inspiration. He
called for a few moments, just to leave a piece of paper on the table
containing, as he said, a charade, which a friend of his had addressed
to a young lady, the object of his admiration, but which, from his
manner, Emma was immediately convinced must be his own.

“I do not offer it for Miss Smith's collection,” said he. “Being my
friend's, I have no right to expose it in any degree to the public eye,
but perhaps you may not dislike looking at it.”

The speech was more to Emma than to Harriet, which Emma could
understand. There was deep consciousness about him, and he found
it easier to meet her eye than her friend's. He was gone the next
moment:--after another moment's pause,

“Take it,” said Emma, smiling, and pushing the paper towards
Harriet--“it is for you. Take your own.”

But Harriet was in a tremor, and could not touch it; and Emma, never
loth to be first, was obliged to examine it herself.

        To Miss--

          CHARADE.

    My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,
      Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.
    Another view of man, my second brings,
      Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!

    But ah! united, what reverse we have!
      Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown;
    Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,
      And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.

      Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,
      May its approval beam in that soft eye!

She cast her eye over it, pondered, caught the meaning, read it through
again to be quite certain, and quite mistress of the lines, and then
passing it to Harriet, sat happily smiling, and saying to herself, while
Harriet was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and
dulness, “Very well, Mr. Elton, very well indeed. I have read worse
charades. _Courtship_--a very good hint. I give you credit for it. This
is feeling your way. This is saying very plainly--'Pray, Miss Smith,
give me leave to pay my addresses to you. Approve my charade and my
intentions in the same glance.'

      May its approval beam in that soft eye!

Harriet exactly. Soft is the very word for her eye--of all epithets, the
justest that could be given.

      Thy ready wit the word will soon supply.

Humph--Harriet's ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in
love, indeed, to describe her so. Ah! Mr. Knightley, I wish you had the
benefit of this; I think this would convince you. For once in your life
you would be obliged to own yourself mistaken. An excellent charade
indeed! and very much to the purpose. Things must come to a crisis soon
now.”

She was obliged to break off from these very pleasant observations,
which were otherwise of a sort to run into great length, by the
eagerness of Harriet's wondering questions.

“What can it be, Miss Woodhouse?--what can it be? I have not an idea--I
cannot guess it in the least. What can it possibly be? Do try to find
it out, Miss Woodhouse. Do help me. I never saw any thing so hard. Is it
kingdom? I wonder who the friend was--and who could be the young lady.
Do you think it is a good one? Can it be woman?

      And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.

Can it be Neptune?

      Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!

Or a trident? or a mermaid? or a shark? Oh, no! shark is only one
syllable. It must be very clever, or he would not have brought it. Oh!
Miss Woodhouse, do you think we shall ever find it out?”

“Mermaids and sharks! Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking
of? Where would be the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend
upon a mermaid or a shark? Give me the paper and listen.

For Miss ------, read Miss Smith.

    My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,
      Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.

That is _court_.

    Another view of man, my second brings;
      Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!

That is _ship_;--plain as it can be.--Now for the cream.

    But ah! united, (_courtship_, you know,) what reverse we have!
      Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown.
    Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,
      And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.

A very proper compliment!--and then follows the application, which
I think, my dear Harriet, you cannot find much difficulty in
comprehending. Read it in comfort to yourself. There can be no doubt of
its being written for you and to you.”

Harriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion. She read
the concluding lines, and was all flutter and happiness. She could not
speak. But she was not wanted to speak. It was enough for her to feel.
Emma spoke for her.

“There is so pointed, and so particular a meaning in this compliment,”
 said she, “that I cannot have a doubt as to Mr. Elton's intentions. You
are his object--and you will soon receive the completest proof of it. I
thought it must be so. I thought I could not be so deceived; but now, it
is clear; the state of his mind is as clear and decided, as my wishes on
the subject have been ever since I knew you. Yes, Harriet, just so long
have I been wanting the very circumstance to happen that has happened.
I could never tell whether an attachment between you and Mr. Elton were
most desirable or most natural. Its probability and its eligibility have
really so equalled each other! I am very happy. I congratulate you, my
dear Harriet, with all my heart. This is an attachment which a woman may
well feel pride in creating. This is a connexion which offers nothing
but good. It will give you every thing that you want--consideration,
independence, a proper home--it will fix you in the centre of all your
real friends, close to Hartfield and to me, and confirm our intimacy
for ever. This, Harriet, is an alliance which can never raise a blush in
either of us.”

“Dear Miss Woodhouse!”--and “Dear Miss Woodhouse,” was all that Harriet,
with many tender embraces could articulate at first; but when they did
arrive at something more like conversation, it was sufficiently clear to
her friend that she saw, felt, anticipated, and remembered just as she
ought. Mr. Elton's superiority had very ample acknowledgment.

“Whatever you say is always right,” cried Harriet, “and therefore I
suppose, and believe, and hope it must be so; but otherwise I could not
have imagined it. It is so much beyond any thing I deserve. Mr. Elton,
who might marry any body! There cannot be two opinions about _him_. He
is so very superior. Only think of those sweet verses--'To Miss ------.'
Dear me, how clever!--Could it really be meant for me?”

“I cannot make a question, or listen to a question about that. It is a
certainty. Receive it on my judgment. It is a sort of prologue to
the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by
matter-of-fact prose.”

“It is a sort of thing which nobody could have expected. I am sure,
a month ago, I had no more idea myself!--The strangest things do take
place!”

“When Miss Smiths and Mr. Eltons get acquainted--they do indeed--and
really it is strange; it is out of the common course that what is so
evidently, so palpably desirable--what courts the pre-arrangement of
other people, should so immediately shape itself into the proper form.
You and Mr. Elton are by situation called together; you belong to one
another by every circumstance of your respective homes. Your marrying
will be equal to the match at Randalls. There does seem to be a
something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right
direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow.

      The course of true love never did run smooth--

A Hartfield edition of Shakespeare would have a long note on that
passage.”

“That Mr. Elton should really be in love with me,--me, of all people,
who did not know him, to speak to him, at Michaelmas! And he, the very
handsomest man that ever was, and a man that every body looks up to,
quite like Mr. Knightley! His company so sought after, that every body
says he need not eat a single meal by himself if he does not chuse it;
that he has more invitations than there are days in the week. And so
excellent in the Church! Miss Nash has put down all the texts he has
ever preached from since he came to Highbury. Dear me! When I look back
to the first time I saw him! How little did I think!--The two Abbots and
I ran into the front room and peeped through the blind when we heard he
was going by, and Miss Nash came and scolded us away, and staid to look
through herself; however, she called me back presently, and let me
look too, which was very good-natured. And how beautiful we thought he
looked! He was arm-in-arm with Mr. Cole.”

“This is an alliance which, whoever--whatever your friends may be, must
be agreeable to them, provided at least they have common sense; and we
are not to be addressing our conduct to fools. If they are anxious to
see you _happily_ married, here is a man whose amiable character gives
every assurance of it;--if they wish to have you settled in the same
country and circle which they have chosen to place you in, here it will
be accomplished; and if their only object is that you should, in the
common phrase, be _well_ married, here is the comfortable fortune, the
respectable establishment, the rise in the world which must satisfy
them.”

“Yes, very true. How nicely you talk; I love to hear you. You understand
every thing. You and Mr. Elton are one as clever as the other. This
charade!--If I had studied a twelvemonth, I could never have made any
thing like it.”

“I thought he meant to try his skill, by his manner of declining it
yesterday.”

“I do think it is, without exception, the best charade I ever read.”

“I never read one more to the purpose, certainly.”

“It is as long again as almost all we have had before.”

“I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour. Such things
in general cannot be too short.”

Harriet was too intent on the lines to hear. The most satisfactory
comparisons were rising in her mind.

“It is one thing,” said she, presently--her cheeks in a glow--“to have
very good sense in a common way, like every body else, and if there is
any thing to say, to sit down and write a letter, and say just what you
must, in a short way; and another, to write verses and charades like
this.”

Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr. Martin's
prose.

“Such sweet lines!” continued Harriet--“these two last!--But how shall I
ever be able to return the paper, or say I have found it out?--Oh! Miss
Woodhouse, what can we do about that?”

“Leave it to me. You do nothing. He will be here this evening, I dare
say, and then I will give it him back, and some nonsense or other will
pass between us, and you shall not be committed.--Your soft eyes shall
chuse their own time for beaming. Trust to me.”

“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what a pity that I must not write this beautiful
charade into my book! I am sure I have not got one half so good.”

“Leave out the two last lines, and there is no reason why you should not
write it into your book.”

“Oh! but those two lines are”--

--“The best of all. Granted;--for private enjoyment; and for private
enjoyment keep them. They are not at all the less written you know,
because you divide them. The couplet does not cease to be, nor does its
meaning change. But take it away, and all _appropriation_ ceases, and a
very pretty gallant charade remains, fit for any collection. Depend upon
it, he would not like to have his charade slighted, much better than his
passion. A poet in love must be encouraged in both capacities, or
neither. Give me the book, I will write it down, and then there can be
no possible reflection on you.”

Harriet submitted, though her mind could hardly separate the parts,
so as to feel quite sure that her friend were not writing down a
declaration of love. It seemed too precious an offering for any degree
of publicity.

“I shall never let that book go out of my own hands,” said she.

“Very well,” replied Emma; “a most natural feeling; and the longer it
lasts, the better I shall be pleased. But here is my father coming: you
will not object to my reading the charade to him. It will be giving him
so much pleasure! He loves any thing of the sort, and especially any
thing that pays woman a compliment. He has the tenderest spirit of
gallantry towards us all!--You must let me read it to him.”

Harriet looked grave.

“My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.--You
will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too
quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning
which may be affixed to it. Do not be overpowered by such a little
tribute of admiration. If he had been anxious for secrecy, he would not
have left the paper while I was by; but he rather pushed it towards me
than towards you. Do not let us be too solemn on the business. He has
encouragement enough to proceed, without our sighing out our souls over
this charade.”

“Oh! no--I hope I shall not be ridiculous about it. Do as you please.”

Mr. Woodhouse came in, and very soon led to the subject again, by the
recurrence of his very frequent inquiry of “Well, my dears, how does
your book go on?--Have you got any thing fresh?”

“Yes, papa; we have something to read you, something quite fresh. A
piece of paper was found on the table this morning--(dropt, we suppose,
by a fairy)--containing a very pretty charade, and we have just copied
it in.”

She read it to him, just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and
distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every
part as she proceeded--and he was very much pleased, and, as she had
foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion.

“Aye, that's very just, indeed, that's very properly said. Very true.
'Woman, lovely woman.' It is such a pretty charade, my dear, that I
can easily guess what fairy brought it.--Nobody could have written so
prettily, but you, Emma.”

Emma only nodded, and smiled.--After a little thinking, and a very
tender sigh, he added,

“Ah! it is no difficulty to see who you take after! Your dear mother
was so clever at all those things! If I had but her memory! But I can
remember nothing;--not even that particular riddle which you have
heard me mention; I can only recollect the first stanza; and there are
several.

    Kitty, a fair but frozen maid,
      Kindled a flame I yet deplore,
    The hood-wink'd boy I called to aid,
    Though of his near approach afraid,
      So fatal to my suit before.

And that is all that I can recollect of it--but it is very clever all
the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it.”

“Yes, papa, it is written out in our second page. We copied it from the
Elegant Extracts. It was Garrick's, you know.”

“Aye, very true.--I wish I could recollect more of it.

    Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.

The name makes me think of poor Isabella; for she was very near being
christened Catherine after her grandmama. I hope we shall have her here
next week. Have you thought, my dear, where you shall put her--and what
room there will be for the children?”

“Oh! yes--she will have her own room, of course; the room she always
has;--and there is the nursery for the children,--just as usual, you
know. Why should there be any change?”

“I do not know, my dear--but it is so long since she was here!--not
since last Easter, and then only for a few days.--Mr. John Knightley's
being a lawyer is very inconvenient.--Poor Isabella!--she is sadly taken
away from us all!--and how sorry she will be when she comes, not to see
Miss Taylor here!”

“She will not be surprized, papa, at least.”

“I do not know, my dear. I am sure I was very much surprized when I
first heard she was going to be married.”

“We must ask Mr. and Mrs. Weston to dine with us, while Isabella is
here.”

“Yes, my dear, if there is time.--But--(in a very depressed tone)--she
is coming for only one week. There will not be time for any thing.”

“It is unfortunate that they cannot stay longer--but it seems a case of
necessity. Mr. John Knightley must be in town again on the 28th, and we
ought to be thankful, papa, that we are to have the whole of the time
they can give to the country, that two or three days are not to be taken
out for the Abbey. Mr. Knightley promises to give up his claim this
Christmas--though you know it is longer since they were with him, than
with us.”

“It would be very hard, indeed, my dear, if poor Isabella were to be
anywhere but at Hartfield.”

Mr. Woodhouse could never allow for Mr. Knightley's claims on his
brother, or any body's claims on Isabella, except his own. He sat musing
a little while, and then said,

“But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so
soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to
stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well.”

“Ah! papa--that is what you never have been able to accomplish, and I
do not think you ever will. Isabella cannot bear to stay behind her
husband.”

This was too true for contradiction. Unwelcome as it was, Mr. Woodhouse
could only give a submissive sigh; and as Emma saw his spirits affected
by the idea of his daughter's attachment to her husband, she immediately
led to such a branch of the subject as must raise them.

“Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother
and sister are here. I am sure she will be pleased with the children.
We are very proud of the children, are not we, papa? I wonder which she
will think the handsomest, Henry or John?”

“Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be
to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet.”

“I dare say they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not.”

“Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the
eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second,
is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that
the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I
thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They
are all remarkably clever; and they have so many pretty ways. They will
come and stand by my chair, and say, 'Grandpapa, can you give me a bit
of string?' and once Henry asked me for a knife, but I told him knives
were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with
them very often.”

“He appears rough to you,” said Emma, “because you are so very gentle
yourself; but if you could compare him with other papas, you would not
think him rough. He wishes his boys to be active and hardy; and if
they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then; but he is an
affectionate father--certainly Mr. John Knightley is an affectionate
father. The children are all fond of him.”

“And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a
very frightful way!”

“But they like it, papa; there is nothing they like so much. It is such
enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of
their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other.”

“Well, I cannot understand it.”

“That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot
understand the pleasures of the other.”

Later in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate
in preparation for the regular four o'clock dinner, the hero of this
inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away; but Emma could
receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in
his the consciousness of having made a push--of having thrown a die;
and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible
reason, however, was to ask whether Mr. Woodhouse's party could be made
up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest
degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, every thing else must give
way; but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his
dining with him--had made such a point of it, that he had promised him
conditionally to come.

Emma thanked him, but could not allow of his disappointing his friend
on their account; her father was sure of his rubber. He re-urged--she
re-declined; and he seemed then about to make his bow, when taking the
paper from the table, she returned it--

“Oh! here is the charade you were so obliging as to leave with us; thank
you for the sight of it. We admired it so much, that I have ventured
to write it into Miss Smith's collection. Your friend will not take it
amiss I hope. Of course I have not transcribed beyond the first eight
lines.”

Mr. Elton certainly did not very well know what to say. He looked rather
doubtingly--rather confused; said something about “honour,”--glanced at
Emma and at Harriet, and then seeing the book open on the table, took
it up, and examined it very attentively. With the view of passing off an
awkward moment, Emma smilingly said,

“You must make my apologies to your friend; but so good a charade
must not be confined to one or two. He may be sure of every woman's
approbation while he writes with such gallantry.”

“I have no hesitation in saying,” replied Mr. Elton, though hesitating
a good deal while he spoke; “I have no hesitation in saying--at least
if my friend feels at all as _I_ do--I have not the smallest doubt that,
could he see his little effusion honoured as _I_ see it, (looking at the
book again, and replacing it on the table), he would consider it as the
proudest moment of his life.”

After this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Emma could not think
it too soon; for with all his good and agreeable qualities, there was
a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to
laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and
the sublime of pleasure to Harriet's share.



CHAPTER X


Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to
prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the
morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who
lived a little way out of Highbury.

Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane
leading at right angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of
the place; and, as may be inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr.
Elton. A few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, and then, about
a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the Vicarage, an old and not
very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had
no advantage of situation; but had been very much smartened up by the
present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility
of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing
eyes.--Emma's remark was--

“There it is. There go you and your riddle-book one of these
days.”--Harriet's was--

“Oh, what a sweet house!--How very beautiful!--There are the yellow
curtains that Miss Nash admires so much.”

“I do not often walk this way _now_,” said Emma, as they proceeded, “but
_then_ there will be an inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately
acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools and pollards of this part
of Highbury.”

Harriet, she found, had never in her life been inside the Vicarage,
and her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that, considering exteriors
and probabilities, Emma could only class it, as a proof of love, with
Mr. Elton's seeing ready wit in her.

“I wish we could contrive it,” said she; “but I cannot think of any
tolerable pretence for going in;--no servant that I want to inquire
about of his housekeeper--no message from my father.”

She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some
minutes, Harriet thus began again--

“I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or
going to be married! so charming as you are!”--

Emma laughed, and replied,

“My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry;
I must find other people charming--one other person at least. And I
am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little
intention of ever marrying at all.”

“Ah!--so you say; but I cannot believe it.”

“I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be
tempted; Mr. Elton, you know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the
question: and I do _not_ wish to see any such person. I would rather not
be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I
must expect to repent it.”

“Dear me!--it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”--

“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall
in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in
love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.
And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a
situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want;
consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much
mistress of their husband's house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never
could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and
always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's.”

“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”

“That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if
I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so silly--so satisfied--so
smiling--so prosing--so undistinguishing and unfastidious--and so apt
to tell every thing relative to every body about me, I would marry
to-morrow. But between _us_, I am convinced there never can be any
likeness, except in being unmarried.”

“But still, you will be an old maid! and that's so dreadful!”

“Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty
only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single
woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old
maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good
fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant
as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the
candour and common sense of the world as appears at first; for a very
narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper.
Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and
generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This
does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and
too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste
of every body, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not
contracted her mind: I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the
world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it; and nobody
is afraid of her: that is a great charm.”

“Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself when you
grow old?”

“If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great
many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more
in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman's
usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they
are now; or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read
more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for
objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the
great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil
to be avoided in _not_ marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the
children of a sister I love so much, to care about. There will be enough
of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that
declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every
fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it
suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My
nephews and nieces!--I shall often have a niece with me.”

“Do you know Miss Bates's niece? That is, I know you must have seen her
a hundred times--but are you acquainted?”

“Oh! yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to
Highbury. By the bye, _that_ is almost enough to put one out of conceit
with a niece. Heaven forbid! at least, that I should ever bore people
half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane
Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from
her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round
and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a
stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of
nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires
me to death.”

They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were
superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor
were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her
counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways,
could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic
expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had
done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and
always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will. In
the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she
came to visit; and after remaining there as long as she could give
comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of
the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,

“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make
every thing else appear!--I feel now as if I could think of nothing but
these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how
soon it may all vanish from my mind?”

“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures! one can think of nothing
else.”

“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said
Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended
the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them
into the lane again. “I do not think it will,” stopping to look once
more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still
greater within.

“Oh! dear, no,” said her companion.

They walked on. The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was
passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight; and so near as to give Emma
time only to say farther,

“Ah! Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good
thoughts. Well, (smiling,) I hope it may be allowed that if compassion
has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that
is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can
for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.”

Harriet could just answer, “Oh! dear, yes,” before the gentleman joined
them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the
first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit
he would now defer; but they had a very interesting parley about
what could be done and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back to
accompany them.

“To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,” thought Emma;
“to meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase
of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the
declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else.”

Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon
afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one
side of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had
not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet's habits of
dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short,
they would both be soon after her. This would not do; she immediately
stopped, under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing
of her half-boot, and stooping down in complete occupation of the
footpath, begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would
follow in half a minute. They did as they were desired; and by the time
she judged it reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the comfort
of farther delay in her power, being overtaken by a child from the
cottage, setting out, according to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch
broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side of this child, and talk to
and question her, was the most natural thing in the world, or would have
been the most natural, had she been acting just then without design;
and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead, without
any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however,
involuntarily: the child's pace was quick, and theirs rather slow;
and she was the more concerned at it, from their being evidently in
a conversation which interested them. Mr. Elton was speaking with
animation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention; and Emma,
having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she might draw back
a little more, when they both looked around, and she was obliged to join
them.

Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail;
and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only
giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday's party at his
friend Cole's, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese,
the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root, and all the
dessert.

“This would soon have led to something better, of course,” was her
consoling reflection; “any thing interests between those who love; and
any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I
could but have kept longer away!”

They now walked on together quietly, till within view of the vicarage
pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the
house, made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and
fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short,
and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to
entreat them to stop, and acknowledged her inability to put herself to
rights so as to be able to walk home in tolerable comfort.

“Part of my lace is gone,” said she, “and I do not know how I am to
contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I
hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop
at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string,
or any thing just to keep my boot on.”

Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could
exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and
endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage. The room they were
taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards; behind
it was another with which it immediately communicated; the door between
them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive
her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave
the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton
should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar; but
by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make
it practicable for him to chuse his own subject in the adjoining
room. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be
protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her
appearance.

The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most
favourable aspect; and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having
schemed successfully. But it would not do; he had not come to the point.
He had been most agreeable, most delightful; he had told Harriet that
he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little
gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious.

“Cautious, very cautious,” thought Emma; “he advances inch by inch, and
will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure.”

Still, however, though every thing had not been accomplished by her
ingenious device, she could not but flatter herself that it had been
the occasion of much present enjoyment to both, and must be leading them
forward to the great event.



CHAPTER XI


Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma's power
to superintend his happiness or quicken his measures. The coming of her
sister's family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation,
and then in reality, it became henceforth her prime object of interest;
and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be
expected--she did not herself expect--that any thing beyond occasional,
fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers. They might
advance rapidly if they would, however; they must advance somehow or
other whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure
for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they
will do for themselves.

Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent
from Surry, were exciting of course rather more than the usual interest.
Till this year, every long vacation since their marriage had been
divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey; but all the holidays of
this autumn had been given to sea-bathing for the children, and it was
therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their
Surry connexions, or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be
induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella's sake; and
who consequently was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in
forestalling this too short visit.

He thought much of the evils of the journey for her, and not a little
of the fatigues of his own horses and coachman who were to bring some
of the party the last half of the way; but his alarms were needless;
the sixteen miles being happily accomplished, and Mr. and Mrs. John
Knightley, their five children, and a competent number of nursery-maids,
all reaching Hartfield in safety. The bustle and joy of such an arrival,
the many to be talked to, welcomed, encouraged, and variously dispersed
and disposed of, produced a noise and confusion which his nerves could
not have borne under any other cause, nor have endured much longer even
for this; but the ways of Hartfield and the feelings of her father
were so respected by Mrs. John Knightley, that in spite of maternal
solicitude for the immediate enjoyment of her little ones, and for their
having instantly all the liberty and attendance, all the eating and
drinking, and sleeping and playing, which they could possibly wish for,
without the smallest delay, the children were never allowed to be long
a disturbance to him, either in themselves or in any restless attendance
on them.

Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet
manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; wrapt
up in her family; a devoted wife, a doating mother, and so tenderly
attached to her father and sister that, but for these higher ties, a
warmer love might have seemed impossible. She could never see a fault
in any of them. She was not a woman of strong understanding or any
quickness; and with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also
much of his constitution; was delicate in her own health, over-careful
of that of her children, had many fears and many nerves, and was as fond
of her own Mr. Wingfield in town as her father could be of Mr. Perry.
They were alike too, in a general benevolence of temper, and a strong
habit of regard for every old acquaintance.

Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man;
rising in his profession, domestic, and respectable in his private
character; but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally
pleasing; and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an
ill-tempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a
reproach; but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with
such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects
in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper
must hurt his. He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she
wanted, and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing.

He was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong
in him escaped her. She was quick in feeling the little injuries to
Isabella, which Isabella never felt herself. Perhaps she might have
passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella's sister,
but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend, without
praise and without blindness; but hardly any degree of personal
compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of
all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into, the want of respectful
forbearance towards her father. There he had not always the patience
that could have been wished. Mr. Woodhouse's peculiarities and
fidgetiness were sometimes provoking him to a rational remonstrance or
sharp retort equally ill-bestowed. It did not often happen; for Mr. John
Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law, and generally
a strong sense of what was due to him; but it was too often for Emma's
charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently
to be endured, though the offence came not. The beginning, however, of
every visit displayed none but the properest feelings, and this being of
necessity so short might be hoped to pass away in unsullied cordiality.
They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse, with a
melancholy shake of the head and a sigh, called his daughter's attention
to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last.

“Ah, my dear,” said he, “poor Miss Taylor--It is a grievous business.”

“Oh yes, sir,” cried she with ready sympathy, “how you must miss her!
And dear Emma, too!--What a dreadful loss to you both!--I have been so
grieved for you.--I could not imagine how you could possibly do without
her.--It is a sad change indeed.--But I hope she is pretty well, sir.”

“Pretty well, my dear--I hope--pretty well.--I do not know but that the
place agrees with her tolerably.”

Mr. John Knightley here asked Emma quietly whether there were any doubts
of the air of Randalls.

“Oh! no--none in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my
life--never looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret.”

“Very much to the honour of both,” was the handsome reply.

“And do you see her, sir, tolerably often?” asked Isabella in the
plaintive tone which just suited her father.

Mr. Woodhouse hesitated.--“Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish.”

“Oh! papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they
married. Either in the morning or evening of every day, excepting one,
have we seen either Mr. Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both,
either at Randalls or here--and as you may suppose, Isabella, most
frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr. Weston
is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way,
you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all. Every body must be
aware that Miss Taylor must be missed, but every body ought also to be
assured that Mr. and Mrs. Weston do really prevent our missing her by
any means to the extent we ourselves anticipated--which is the exact
truth.”

“Just as it should be,” said Mr. John Knightley, “and just as I hoped
it was from your letters. Her wish of shewing you attention could not be
doubted, and his being a disengaged and social man makes it all easy. I
have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change
being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended; and now you have
Emma's account, I hope you will be satisfied.”

“Why, to be sure,” said Mr. Woodhouse--“yes, certainly--I cannot
deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty
often--but then--she is always obliged to go away again.”

“It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa.--You quite
forget poor Mr. Weston.”

“I think, indeed,” said John Knightley pleasantly, “that Mr. Weston has
some little claim. You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the
poor husband. I, being a husband, and you not being a wife, the claims
of the man may very likely strike us with equal force. As for Isabella,
she has been married long enough to see the convenience of putting all
the Mr. Westons aside as much as she can.”

“Me, my love,” cried his wife, hearing and understanding only in part.--
“Are you talking about me?--I am sure nobody ought to be, or can be, a
greater advocate for matrimony than I am; and if it had not been for
the misery of her leaving Hartfield, I should never have thought of Miss
Taylor but as the most fortunate woman in the world; and as to slighting
Mr. Weston, that excellent Mr. Weston, I think there is nothing he does
not deserve. I believe he is one of the very best-tempered men that ever
existed. Excepting yourself and your brother, I do not know his equal
for temper. I shall never forget his flying Henry's kite for him that
very windy day last Easter--and ever since his particular kindness last
September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o'clock at night,
on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I
have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better
man in existence.--If any body can deserve him, it must be Miss Taylor.”

“Where is the young man?” said John Knightley. “Has he been here on this
occasion--or has he not?”

“He has not been here yet,” replied Emma. “There was a strong
expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in
nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately.”

“But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,” said her father.
“He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very
proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me. I thought it very
well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one
cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps--”

“My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes.”

“Three-and-twenty!--is he indeed?--Well, I could not have thought
it--and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother! Well,
time does fly indeed!--and my memory is very bad. However, it was an
exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal
of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept.
28th--and began, 'My dear Madam,' but I forget how it went on; and it
was signed 'F. C. Weston Churchill.'--I remember that perfectly.”

“How very pleasing and proper of him!” cried the good-hearted Mrs. John
Knightley. “I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But
how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! There is
something so shocking in a child's being taken away from his parents and
natural home! I never could comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with
him. To give up one's child! I really never could think well of any body
who proposed such a thing to any body else.”

“Nobody ever did think well of the Churchills, I fancy,” observed Mr.
John Knightley coolly. “But you need not imagine Mr. Weston to have felt
what you would feel in giving up Henry or John. Mr. Weston is rather
an easy, cheerful-tempered man, than a man of strong feelings; he takes
things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other,
depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his
comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing
whist with his neighbours five times a week, than upon family affection,
or any thing that home affords.”

Emma could not like what bordered on a reflection on Mr. Weston, and had
half a mind to take it up; but she struggled, and let it pass. She
would keep the peace if possible; and there was something honourable and
valuable in the strong domestic habits, the all-sufficiency of home to
himself, whence resulted her brother's disposition to look down on
the common rate of social intercourse, and those to whom it was
important.--It had a high claim to forbearance.



CHAPTER XII


Mr. Knightley was to dine with them--rather against the inclination of
Mr. Woodhouse, who did not like that any one should share with him in
Isabella's first day. Emma's sense of right however had decided it;
and besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had
particular pleasure, from the circumstance of the late disagreement
between Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper
invitation.

She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time
to make up. Making-up indeed would not do. _She_ certainly had not been
in the wrong, and _he_ would never own that he had. Concession must be
out of the question; but it was time to appear to forget that they had
ever quarrelled; and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of
friendship, that when he came into the room she had one of the children
with her--the youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who
was now making her first visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced
about in her aunt's arms. It did assist; for though he began with grave
looks and short questions, he was soon led on to talk of them all in
the usual way, and to take the child out of her arms with all the
unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt they were friends again;
and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction, and then
a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the
baby,

“What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces.
As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different; but with
regard to these children, I observe we never disagree.”

“If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women,
and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with
them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always
think alike.”

“To be sure--our discordancies must always arise from my being in the
wrong.”

“Yes,” said he, smiling--“and reason good. I was sixteen years old when
you were born.”

“A material difference then,” she replied--“and no doubt you were much
my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the
lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal
nearer?”

“Yes--a good deal _nearer_.”

“But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we
think differently.”

“I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years' experience, and by
not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma,
let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little
Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old
grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now.”

“That's true,” she cried--“very true. Little Emma, grow up a better
woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited.
Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good
intentions went, we were _both_ right, and I must say that no effects on
my side of the argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that
Mr. Martin is not very, very bitterly disappointed.”

“A man cannot be more so,” was his short, full answer.

“Ah!--Indeed I am very sorry.--Come, shake hands with me.”

This had just taken place and with great cordiality, when John Knightley
made his appearance, and “How d'ye do, George?” and “John, how are
you?” succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that
seemed all but indifference, the real attachment which would have led
either of them, if requisite, to do every thing for the good of the
other.

The evening was quiet and conversable, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards
entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and
the little party made two natural divisions; on one side he and his
daughter; on the other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally
distinct, or very rarely mixing--and Emma only occasionally joining in
one or the other.

The brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally
of those of the elder, whose temper was by much the most communicative,
and who was always the greater talker. As a magistrate, he had generally
some point of law to consult John about, or, at least, some curious
anecdote to give; and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the home-farm at
Donwell, he had to tell what every field was to bear next year, and to
give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting
to a brother whose home it had equally been the longest part of his
life, and whose attachments were strong. The plan of a drain, the change
of a fence, the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for
wheat, turnips, or spring corn, was entered into with as much equality
of interest by John, as his cooler manners rendered possible; and if his
willing brother ever left him any thing to inquire about, his inquiries
even approached a tone of eagerness.

While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a
full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter.

“My poor dear Isabella,” said he, fondly taking her hand, and
interrupting, for a few moments, her busy labours for some one of her
five children--“How long it is, how terribly long since you were here!
And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early,
my dear--and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.--You and
I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all
have a little gruel.”

Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing as she did, that both the
Mr. Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself;--and
two basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of
gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every
body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection,

“It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South
End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air.”

“Mr. Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, sir--or we should not
have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for
the weakness in little Bella's throat,--both sea air and bathing.”

“Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any
good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though
perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use
to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once.”

“Come, come,” cried Emma, feeling this to be an unsafe subject, “I must
beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable;--I
who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear
Isabella, I have not heard you make one inquiry about Mr. Perry yet; and
he never forgets you.”

“Oh! good Mr. Perry--how is he, sir?”

“Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has
not time to take care of himself--he tells me he has not time to take
care of himself--which is very sad--but he is always wanted all round
the country. I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But
then there is not so clever a man any where.”

“And Mrs. Perry and the children, how are they? do the children grow?
I have a great regard for Mr. Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He
will be so pleased to see my little ones.”

“I hope he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask
him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes,
you had better let him look at little Bella's throat.”

“Oh! my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any
uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to
her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr.
Wingfield's, which we have been applying at times ever since August.”

“It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use
to her--and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have
spoken to--

“You seem to me to have forgotten Mrs. and Miss Bates,” said Emma, “I
have not heard one inquiry after them.”

“Oh! the good Bateses--I am quite ashamed of myself--but you mention
them in most of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs.
Bates--I will call upon her to-morrow, and take my children.--They
are always so pleased to see my children.--And that excellent Miss
Bates!--such thorough worthy people!--How are they, sir?”

“Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a
bad cold about a month ago.”

“How sorry I am! But colds were never so prevalent as they have been
this autumn. Mr. Wingfield told me that he has never known them more
general or heavy--except when it has been quite an influenza.”

“That has been a good deal the case, my dear; but not to the degree you
mention. Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy
as he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it
altogether a sickly season.”

“No, I do not know that Mr. Wingfield considers it _very_ sickly
except--

“Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always
a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a
dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!--and the
air so bad!”

“No, indeed--_we_ are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is
very superior to most others!--You must not confound us with London
in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very
different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be
unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the town;--there is
hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in:
but _we_ are so remarkably airy!--Mr. Wingfield thinks the vicinity of
Brunswick Square decidedly the most favourable as to air.”

“Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it--but
after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different
creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think
you are any of you looking well at present.”

“I am sorry to hear you say so, sir; but I assure you, excepting those
little nervous head-aches and palpitations which I am never entirely
free from anywhere, I am quite well myself; and if the children were
rather pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a
little more tired than usual, from their journey and the happiness of
coming. I hope you will think better of their looks to-morrow; for I
assure you Mr. Wingfield told me, that he did not believe he had ever
sent us off altogether, in such good case. I trust, at least, that
you do not think Mr. Knightley looking ill,” turning her eyes with
affectionate anxiety towards her husband.

“Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley
very far from looking well.”

“What is the matter, sir?--Did you speak to me?” cried Mr. John
Knightley, hearing his own name.

“I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking
well--but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have
wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you
left home.”

“My dear Isabella,”--exclaimed he hastily--“pray do not concern yourself
about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and
the children, and let me look as I chuse.”

“I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother,”
 cried Emma, “about your friend Mr. Graham's intending to have a bailiff
from Scotland, to look after his new estate. What will it answer? Will
not the old prejudice be too strong?”

And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to
give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing
worse to hear than Isabella's kind inquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane
Fairfax, though no great favourite with her in general, she was at that
moment very happy to assist in praising.

“That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!” said Mrs. John Knightley.--“It
is so long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment
accidentally in town! What happiness it must be to her good old
grandmother and excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always
regret excessively on dear Emma's account that she cannot be more at
Highbury; but now their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs.
Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a
delightful companion for Emma.”

Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added,

“Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty
kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a
better companion than Harriet.”

“I am most happy to hear it--but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so
very accomplished and superior!--and exactly Emma's age.”

This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar
moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not
close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came and supplied
a great deal to be said--much praise and many comments--undoubting
decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty
severe Philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with
tolerably;--but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter
had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in
her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never
had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth
gruel, thin, but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered
it, she had never been able to get any thing tolerable. Here was a
dangerous opening.

“Ah!” said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head and fixing his eyes on her
with tender concern.--The ejaculation in Emma's ear expressed, “Ah!
there is no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It
does not bear talking of.” And for a little while she hoped he would not
talk of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to
the relish of his own smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes,
however, he began with,

“I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn,
instead of coming here.”

“But why should you be sorry, sir?--I assure you, it did the children a
great deal of good.”

“And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been
to South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprized to
hear you had fixed upon South End.”

“I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite
a mistake, sir.--We all had our health perfectly well there, never
found the least inconvenience from the mud; and Mr. Wingfield says it is
entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he may
be depended on, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and
his own brother and family have been there repeatedly.”

“You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere.--Perry
was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the
sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by
what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from
the sea--a quarter of a mile off--very comfortable. You should have
consulted Perry.”

“But, my dear sir, the difference of the journey;--only consider how
great it would have been.--An hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty.”

“Ah! my dear, as Perry says, where health is at stake, nothing else
should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to
chuse between forty miles and an hundred.--Better not move at all,
better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into
a worse air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very
ill-judged measure.”

Emma's attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he
had reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her
brother-in-law's breaking out.

“Mr. Perry,” said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, “would do
as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it
any business of his, to wonder at what I do?--at my taking my family to
one part of the coast or another?--I may be allowed, I hope, the use of
my judgment as well as Mr. Perry.--I want his directions no more than
his drugs.” He paused--and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only
sarcastic dryness, “If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and
five children a distance of an hundred and thirty miles with no greater
expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as
willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself.”

“True, true,” cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition--“very
true. That's a consideration indeed.--But John, as to what I was telling
you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the
right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive
any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of
inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly
the present line of the path.... The only way of proving it, however,
will be to turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey to-morrow
morning I hope, and then we will look them over, and you shall give me
your opinion.”

Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his
friend Perry, to whom he had, in fact, though unconsciously, been
attributing many of his own feelings and expressions;--but the soothing
attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and
the immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the
other, prevented any renewal of it.



CHAPTER XIII


There could hardly be a happier creature in the world than Mrs. John
Knightley, in this short visit to Hartfield, going about every morning
among her old acquaintance with her five children, and talking over what
she had done every evening with her father and sister. She had nothing
to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a
delightful visit;--perfect, in being much too short.

In general their evenings were less engaged with friends than their
mornings; but one complete dinner engagement, and out of the house too,
there was no avoiding, though at Christmas. Mr. Weston would take no
denial; they must all dine at Randalls one day;--even Mr. Woodhouse was
persuaded to think it a possible thing in preference to a division of
the party.

How they were all to be conveyed, he would have made a difficulty if he
could, but as his son and daughter's carriage and horses were actually
at Hartfield, he was not able to make more than a simple question on
that head; it hardly amounted to a doubt; nor did it occupy Emma long
to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for
Harriet also.

Harriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley, their own especial set, were the
only persons invited to meet them;--the hours were to be early, as
well as the numbers few; Mr. Woodhouse's habits and inclination being
consulted in every thing.

The evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that
Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December) had been spent
by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with
a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs.
Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called
on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to
Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore throat: Mrs. Goddard
was full of care and affection, Mr. Perry was talked of, and Harriet
herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her
from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss
without many tears.

Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs. Goddard's
unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr.
Elton's would be depressed when he knew her state; and left her at last
tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most
comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not
advanced many yards from Mrs. Goddard's door, when she was met by Mr.
Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly
together in conversation about the invalid--of whom he, on the rumour
of considerable illness, had been going to inquire, that he might
carry some report of her to Hartfield--they were overtaken by Mr. John
Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest
boys, whose healthy, glowing faces shewed all the benefit of a country
run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice
pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and
proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend's
complaint;--“a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat
about her, a quick, low pulse, &c. and she was sorry to find from Mrs.
Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore-throats, and had often
alarmed her with them.” Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as
he exclaimed,

“A sore-throat!--I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid
infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of
yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks.
Why does not Perry see her?”

Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this
excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard's experience and
care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she
could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist
than not, she added soon afterwards--as if quite another subject,

“It is so cold, so very cold--and looks and feels so very much like
snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I
should really try not to go out to-day--and dissuade my father from
venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the
cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great
a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton,
in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a
little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and
what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than
common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night.”

Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make;
which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind
care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her's,
he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma,
too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him
impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with
his muttering acknowledgment of its being “very cold, certainly very
cold,” and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls,
and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour
of the evening.

“You do quite right,” said she;--“we will make your apologies to Mr. and
Mrs. Weston.”

But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly
offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only
objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt
satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had
his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment;
never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when
he next looked at her.

“Well,” said she to herself, “this is most strange!--After I had got
him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill
behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men,
especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining
out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures,
their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any
thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most
valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love
with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine
out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready
wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her.”

Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him
the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his
manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while
assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard's for news of her fair
friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting
her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and
he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of
approbation much in his favour.

After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began
with--

“I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr.
Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With
men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please,
every feature works.”

“Mr. Elton's manners are not perfect,” replied Emma; “but where there is
a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great
deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will
have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect
good-temper and good-will in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value.”

“Yes,” said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, “he seems
to have a great deal of good-will towards you.”

“Me!” she replied with a smile of astonishment, “are you imagining me to
be Mr. Elton's object?”

“Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never
occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now.”

“Mr. Elton in love with me!--What an idea!”

“I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it
is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your
manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better
look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do.”

“I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and
I are very good friends, and nothing more;” and she walked on, amusing
herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a
partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high
pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well
pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in
want of counsel. He said no more.

Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in
spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking
from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest
daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the
weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own
going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was
cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe;
and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow
were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so
overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce a very white world
in a very short time.

Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The
preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of
his children after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables at least,
which Mr. John Knightley did not by any means like; he anticipated
nothing in the visit that could be at all worth the purchase; and the
whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in expressing his
discontent.

“A man,” said he, “must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks
people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as
this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most
agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest
absurdity--Actually snowing at this moment!--The folly of not allowing
people to be comfortable at home--and the folly of people's not staying
comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such
an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we
should deem it;--and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing
than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of
the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view
or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter
that he can;--here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in
another man's house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said
and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow.
Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse;--four horses and
four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering
creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had
at home.”

Emma did not find herself equal to give the pleased assent, which no
doubt he was in the habit of receiving, to emulate the “Very true,
my love,” which must have been usually administered by his travelling
companion; but she had resolution enough to refrain from making
any answer at all. She could not be complying, she dreaded being
quarrelsome; her heroism reached only to silence. She allowed him to
talk, and arranged the glasses, and wrapped herself up, without opening
her lips.

They arrived, the carriage turned, the step was let down, and Mr. Elton,
spruce, black, and smiling, was with them instantly. Emma thought with
pleasure of some change of subject. Mr. Elton was all obligation and
cheerfulness; he was so very cheerful in his civilities indeed, that she
began to think he must have received a different account of Harriet from
what had reached her. She had sent while dressing, and the answer had
been, “Much the same--not better.”

“_My_ report from Mrs. Goddard's,” said she presently, “was not so
pleasant as I had hoped--'Not better' was _my_ answer.”

His face lengthened immediately; and his voice was the voice of
sentiment as he answered.

“Oh! no--I am grieved to find--I was on the point of telling you that
when I called at Mrs. Goddard's door, which I did the very last thing
before I returned to dress, I was told that Miss Smith was not better,
by no means better, rather worse. Very much grieved and concerned--I
had flattered myself that she must be better after such a cordial as I
knew had been given her in the morning.”

Emma smiled and answered--“My visit was of use to the nervous part of
her complaint, I hope; but not even I can charm away a sore throat;
it is a most severe cold indeed. Mr. Perry has been with her, as you
probably heard.”

“Yes--I imagined--that is--I did not--”

“He has been used to her in these complaints, and I hope to-morrow
morning will bring us both a more comfortable report. But it is
impossible not to feel uneasiness. Such a sad loss to our party to-day!”

“Dreadful!--Exactly so, indeed.--She will be missed every moment.”

This was very proper; the sigh which accompanied it was really
estimable; but it should have lasted longer. Emma was rather in dismay
when only half a minute afterwards he began to speak of other things,
and in a voice of the greatest alacrity and enjoyment.

“What an excellent device,” said he, “the use of a sheepskin for
carriages. How very comfortable they make it;--impossible to feel cold
with such precautions. The contrivances of modern days indeed have
rendered a gentleman's carriage perfectly complete. One is so fenced
and guarded from the weather, that not a breath of air can find its way
unpermitted. Weather becomes absolutely of no consequence. It is a very
cold afternoon--but in this carriage we know nothing of the matter.--Ha!
snows a little I see.”

“Yes,” said John Knightley, “and I think we shall have a good deal of
it.”

“Christmas weather,” observed Mr. Elton. “Quite seasonable; and
extremely fortunate we may think ourselves that it did not begin
yesterday, and prevent this day's party, which it might very possibly
have done, for Mr. Woodhouse would hardly have ventured had there been
much snow on the ground; but now it is of no consequence. This is quite
the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites
their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst
weather. I was snowed up at a friend's house once for a week. Nothing
could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not get away
till that very day se'nnight.”

Mr. John Knightley looked as if he did not comprehend the pleasure, but
said only, coolly,

“I cannot wish to be snowed up a week at Randalls.”

At another time Emma might have been amused, but she was too much
astonished now at Mr. Elton's spirits for other feelings. Harriet seemed
quite forgotten in the expectation of a pleasant party.

“We are sure of excellent fires,” continued he, “and every thing in the
greatest comfort. Charming people, Mr. and Mrs. Weston;--Mrs. Weston
indeed is much beyond praise, and he is exactly what one values, so
hospitable, and so fond of society;--it will be a small party, but where
small parties are select, they are perhaps the most agreeable of any.
Mr. Weston's dining-room does not accommodate more than ten comfortably;
and for my part, I would rather, under such circumstances, fall short by
two than exceed by two. I think you will agree with me, (turning with
a soft air to Emma,) I think I shall certainly have your approbation,
though Mr. Knightley perhaps, from being used to the large parties of
London, may not quite enter into our feelings.”

“I know nothing of the large parties of London, sir--I never dine with
any body.”

“Indeed! (in a tone of wonder and pity,) I had no idea that the law had
been so great a slavery. Well, sir, the time must come when you will
be paid for all this, when you will have little labour and great
enjoyment.”

“My first enjoyment,” replied John Knightley, as they passed through the
sweep-gate, “will be to find myself safe at Hartfield again.”



CHAPTER XIV


Some change of countenance was necessary for each gentleman as they
walked into Mrs. Weston's drawing-room;--Mr. Elton must compose his
joyous looks, and Mr. John Knightley disperse his ill-humour. Mr.
Elton must smile less, and Mr. John Knightley more, to fit them for the
place.--Emma only might be as nature prompted, and shew herself just as
happy as she was. To her it was real enjoyment to be with the Westons.
Mr. Weston was a great favourite, and there was not a creature in the
world to whom she spoke with such unreserve, as to his wife; not any
one, to whom she related with such conviction of being listened to and
understood, of being always interesting and always intelligible, the
little affairs, arrangements, perplexities, and pleasures of her father
and herself. She could tell nothing of Hartfield, in which Mrs. Weston
had not a lively concern; and half an hour's uninterrupted communication
of all those little matters on which the daily happiness of private life
depends, was one of the first gratifications of each.

This was a pleasure which perhaps the whole day's visit might not
afford, which certainly did not belong to the present half-hour; but the
very sight of Mrs. Weston, her smile, her touch, her voice was grateful
to Emma, and she determined to think as little as possible of Mr.
Elton's oddities, or of any thing else unpleasant, and enjoy all that
was enjoyable to the utmost.

The misfortune of Harriet's cold had been pretty well gone through
before her arrival. Mr. Woodhouse had been safely seated long enough
to give the history of it, besides all the history of his own and
Isabella's coming, and of Emma's being to follow, and had indeed just
got to the end of his satisfaction that James should come and see his
daughter, when the others appeared, and Mrs. Weston, who had been almost
wholly engrossed by her attentions to him, was able to turn away and
welcome her dear Emma.

Emma's project of forgetting Mr. Elton for a while made her rather sorry
to find, when they had all taken their places, that he was close to her.
The difficulty was great of driving his strange insensibility towards
Harriet, from her mind, while he not only sat at her elbow, but
was continually obtruding his happy countenance on her notice, and
solicitously addressing her upon every occasion. Instead of forgetting
him, his behaviour was such that she could not avoid the internal
suggestion of “Can it really be as my brother imagined? can it be
possible for this man to be beginning to transfer his affections from
Harriet to me?--Absurd and insufferable!”--Yet he would be so anxious
for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father,
and so delighted with Mrs. Weston; and at last would begin admiring her
drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly
like a would-be lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her
good manners. For her own sake she could not be rude; and for Harriet's,
in the hope that all would yet turn out right, she was even positively
civil; but it was an effort; especially as something was going on
amongst the others, in the most overpowering period of Mr. Elton's
nonsense, which she particularly wished to listen to. She heard enough
to know that Mr. Weston was giving some information about his son; she
heard the words “my son,” and “Frank,” and “my son,” repeated several
times over; and, from a few other half-syllables very much suspected
that he was announcing an early visit from his son; but before she could
quiet Mr. Elton, the subject was so completely past that any reviving
question from her would have been awkward.

Now, it so happened that in spite of Emma's resolution of never
marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea of Mr.
Frank Churchill, which always interested her. She had frequently
thought--especially since his father's marriage with Miss Taylor--that
if she _were_ to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age,
character and condition. He seemed by this connexion between the
families, quite to belong to her. She could not but suppose it to be
a match that every body who knew them must think of. That Mr. and Mrs.
Weston did think of it, she was very strongly persuaded; and though
not meaning to be induced by him, or by any body else, to give up a
situation which she believed more replete with good than any she could
change it for, she had a great curiosity to see him, a decided intention
of finding him pleasant, of being liked by him to a certain degree, and
a sort of pleasure in the idea of their being coupled in their friends'
imaginations.

With such sensations, Mr. Elton's civilities were dreadfully ill-timed;
but she had the comfort of appearing very polite, while feeling very
cross--and of thinking that the rest of the visit could not possibly
pass without bringing forward the same information again, or the
substance of it, from the open-hearted Mr. Weston.--So it proved;--for
when happily released from Mr. Elton, and seated by Mr. Weston,
at dinner, he made use of the very first interval in the cares of
hospitality, the very first leisure from the saddle of mutton, to say to
her,

“We want only two more to be just the right number. I should like to see
two more here,--your pretty little friend, Miss Smith, and my son--and
then I should say we were quite complete. I believe you did not hear me
telling the others in the drawing-room that we are expecting Frank.
I had a letter from him this morning, and he will be with us within a
fortnight.”

Emma spoke with a very proper degree of pleasure; and fully assented to
his proposition of Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Smith making their party
quite complete.

“He has been wanting to come to us,” continued Mr. Weston, “ever since
September: every letter has been full of it; but he cannot command his
own time. He has those to please who must be pleased, and who (between
ourselves) are sometimes to be pleased only by a good many sacrifices.
But now I have no doubt of seeing him here about the second week in
January.”

“What a very great pleasure it will be to you! and Mrs. Weston is so
anxious to be acquainted with him, that she must be almost as happy as
yourself.”

“Yes, she would be, but that she thinks there will be another put-off.
She does not depend upon his coming so much as I do: but she does not
know the parties so well as I do. The case, you see, is--(but this is
quite between ourselves: I did not mention a syllable of it in the other
room. There are secrets in all families, you know)--The case is, that a
party of friends are invited to pay a visit at Enscombe in January; and
that Frank's coming depends upon their being put off. If they are not
put off, he cannot stir. But I know they will, because it is a family
that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular
dislike to: and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in
two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point.
I have not the smallest doubt of the issue. I am as confident of seeing
Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself:
but your good friend there (nodding towards the upper end of the table)
has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at
Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been
long in the practice of doing.”

“I am sorry there should be any thing like doubt in the case,” replied
Emma; “but am disposed to side with you, Mr. Weston. If you think he
will come, I shall think so too; for you know Enscombe.”

“Yes--I have some right to that knowledge; though I have never been at
the place in my life.--She is an odd woman!--But I never allow myself
to speak ill of her, on Frank's account; for I do believe her to be very
fond of him. I used to think she was not capable of being fond of
any body, except herself: but she has always been kind to him (in her
way--allowing for little whims and caprices, and expecting every thing
to be as she likes). And it is no small credit, in my opinion, to him,
that he should excite such an affection; for, though I would not say
it to any body else, she has no more heart than a stone to people in
general; and the devil of a temper.”

Emma liked the subject so well, that she began upon it, to Mrs. Weston,
very soon after their moving into the drawing-room: wishing her joy--yet
observing, that she knew the first meeting must be rather alarming.--
Mrs. Weston agreed to it; but added, that she should be very glad to be
secure of undergoing the anxiety of a first meeting at the time talked
of: “for I cannot depend upon his coming. I cannot be so sanguine as
Mr. Weston. I am very much afraid that it will all end in nothing. Mr.
Weston, I dare say, has been telling you exactly how the matter stands?”

“Yes--it seems to depend upon nothing but the ill-humour of Mrs.
Churchill, which I imagine to be the most certain thing in the world.”

“My Emma!” replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, “what is the certainty
of caprice?” Then turning to Isabella, who had not been attending
before--“You must know, my dear Mrs. Knightley, that we are by no means
so sure of seeing Mr. Frank Churchill, in my opinion, as his father
thinks. It depends entirely upon his aunt's spirits and pleasure; in
short, upon her temper. To you--to my two daughters--I may venture on
the truth. Mrs. Churchill rules at Enscombe, and is a very odd-tempered
woman; and his coming now, depends upon her being willing to spare him.”

“Oh, Mrs. Churchill; every body knows Mrs. Churchill,” replied Isabella:
“and I am sure I never think of that poor young man without the greatest
compassion. To be constantly living with an ill-tempered person, must
be dreadful. It is what we happily have never known any thing of; but
it must be a life of misery. What a blessing, that she never had any
children! Poor little creatures, how unhappy she would have made them!”

Emma wished she had been alone with Mrs. Weston. She should then have
heard more: Mrs. Weston would speak to her, with a degree of unreserve
which she would not hazard with Isabella; and, she really believed,
would scarcely try to conceal any thing relative to the Churchills
from her, excepting those views on the young man, of which her own
imagination had already given her such instinctive knowledge. But at
present there was nothing more to be said. Mr. Woodhouse very soon
followed them into the drawing-room. To be sitting long after
dinner, was a confinement that he could not endure. Neither wine nor
conversation was any thing to him; and gladly did he move to those with
whom he was always comfortable.

While he talked to Isabella, however, Emma found an opportunity of
saying,

“And so you do not consider this visit from your son as by any means
certain. I am sorry for it. The introduction must be unpleasant,
whenever it takes place; and the sooner it could be over, the better.”

“Yes; and every delay makes one more apprehensive of other delays. Even
if this family, the Braithwaites, are put off, I am still afraid that
some excuse may be found for disappointing us. I cannot bear to imagine
any reluctance on his side; but I am sure there is a great wish on
the Churchills' to keep him to themselves. There is jealousy. They
are jealous even of his regard for his father. In short, I can feel no
dependence on his coming, and I wish Mr. Weston were less sanguine.”

“He ought to come,” said Emma. “If he could stay only a couple of days,
he ought to come; and one can hardly conceive a young man's not having
it in his power to do as much as that. A young _woman_, if she fall into
bad hands, may be teased, and kept at a distance from those she wants
to be with; but one cannot comprehend a young _man_'s being under such
restraint, as not to be able to spend a week with his father, if he
likes it.”

“One ought to be at Enscombe, and know the ways of the family, before
one decides upon what he can do,” replied Mrs. Weston. “One ought to
use the same caution, perhaps, in judging of the conduct of any one
individual of any one family; but Enscombe, I believe, certainly must
not be judged by general rules: _she_ is so very unreasonable; and every
thing gives way to her.”

“But she is so fond of the nephew: he is so very great a favourite. Now,
according to my idea of Mrs. Churchill, it would be most natural, that
while she makes no sacrifice for the comfort of the husband, to whom she
owes every thing, while she exercises incessant caprice towards _him_,
she should frequently be governed by the nephew, to whom she owes
nothing at all.”

“My dearest Emma, do not pretend, with your sweet temper, to understand
a bad one, or to lay down rules for it: you must let it go its own way.
I have no doubt of his having, at times, considerable influence; but it
may be perfectly impossible for him to know beforehand _when_ it will
be.”

Emma listened, and then coolly said, “I shall not be satisfied, unless
he comes.”

“He may have a great deal of influence on some points,” continued Mrs.
Weston, “and on others, very little: and among those, on which she is
beyond his reach, it is but too likely, may be this very circumstance of
his coming away from them to visit us.”



CHAPTER XV


Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his
tea he was quite ready to go home; and it was as much as his three
companions could do, to entertain away his notice of the lateness of
the hour, before the other gentlemen appeared. Mr. Weston was chatty and
convivial, and no friend to early separations of any sort; but at last
the drawing-room party did receive an augmentation. Mr. Elton, in very
good spirits, was one of the first to walk in. Mrs. Weston and Emma
were sitting together on a sofa. He joined them immediately, and, with
scarcely an invitation, seated himself between them.

Emma, in good spirits too, from the amusement afforded her mind by
the expectation of Mr. Frank Churchill, was willing to forget his late
improprieties, and be as well satisfied with him as before, and on his
making Harriet his very first subject, was ready to listen with most
friendly smiles.

He professed himself extremely anxious about her fair friend--her fair,
lovely, amiable friend. “Did she know?--had she heard any thing about
her, since their being at Randalls?--he felt much anxiety--he must
confess that the nature of her complaint alarmed him considerably.”
 And in this style he talked on for some time very properly, not much
attending to any answer, but altogether sufficiently awake to the terror
of a bad sore throat; and Emma was quite in charity with him.

But at last there seemed a perverse turn; it seemed all at once as if he
were more afraid of its being a bad sore throat on her account, than on
Harriet's--more anxious that she should escape the infection, than
that there should be no infection in the complaint. He began with great
earnestness to entreat her to refrain from visiting the sick-chamber
again, for the present--to entreat her to _promise_ _him_ not to venture
into such hazard till he had seen Mr. Perry and learnt his opinion; and
though she tried to laugh it off and bring the subject back into its
proper course, there was no putting an end to his extreme solicitude
about her. She was vexed. It did appear--there was no concealing
it--exactly like the pretence of being in love with her, instead of
Harriet; an inconstancy, if real, the most contemptible and abominable!
and she had difficulty in behaving with temper. He turned to Mrs. Weston
to implore her assistance, “Would not she give him her support?--would
not she add her persuasions to his, to induce Miss Woodhouse not to go
to Mrs. Goddard's till it were certain that Miss Smith's disorder had
no infection? He could not be satisfied without a promise--would not she
give him her influence in procuring it?”

“So scrupulous for others,” he continued, “and yet so careless for
herself! She wanted me to nurse my cold by staying at home to-day, and
yet will not promise to avoid the danger of catching an ulcerated sore
throat herself. Is this fair, Mrs. Weston?--Judge between us. Have not I
some right to complain? I am sure of your kind support and aid.”

Emma saw Mrs. Weston's surprize, and felt that it must be great, at an
address which, in words and manner, was assuming to himself the right of
first interest in her; and as for herself, she was too much provoked and
offended to have the power of directly saying any thing to the purpose.
She could only give him a look; but it was such a look as she thought
must restore him to his senses, and then left the sofa, removing to a
seat by her sister, and giving her all her attention.

She had not time to know how Mr. Elton took the reproof, so rapidly did
another subject succeed; for Mr. John Knightley now came into the room
from examining the weather, and opened on them all with the information
of the ground being covered with snow, and of its still snowing
fast, with a strong drifting wind; concluding with these words to Mr.
Woodhouse:

“This will prove a spirited beginning of your winter engagements,
sir. Something new for your coachman and horses to be making their way
through a storm of snow.”

Poor Mr. Woodhouse was silent from consternation; but every body else
had something to say; every body was either surprized or not surprized,
and had some question to ask, or some comfort to offer. Mrs. Weston
and Emma tried earnestly to cheer him and turn his attention from his
son-in-law, who was pursuing his triumph rather unfeelingly.

“I admired your resolution very much, sir,” said he, “in venturing out
in such weather, for of course you saw there would be snow very soon.
Every body must have seen the snow coming on. I admired your spirit; and
I dare say we shall get home very well. Another hour or two's snow can
hardly make the road impassable; and we are two carriages; if one is
blown over in the bleak part of the common field there will be the other
at hand. I dare say we shall be all safe at Hartfield before midnight.”

Mr. Weston, with triumph of a different sort, was confessing that he
had known it to be snowing some time, but had not said a word, lest
it should make Mr. Woodhouse uncomfortable, and be an excuse for his
hurrying away. As to there being any quantity of snow fallen or likely
to fall to impede their return, that was a mere joke; he was afraid they
would find no difficulty. He wished the road might be impassable, that
he might be able to keep them all at Randalls; and with the utmost
good-will was sure that accommodation might be found for every body,
calling on his wife to agree with him, that with a little contrivance,
every body might be lodged, which she hardly knew how to do, from the
consciousness of there being but two spare rooms in the house.

“What is to be done, my dear Emma?--what is to be done?” was Mr.
Woodhouse's first exclamation, and all that he could say for some
time. To her he looked for comfort; and her assurances of safety, her
representation of the excellence of the horses, and of James, and of
their having so many friends about them, revived him a little.

His eldest daughter's alarm was equal to his own. The horror of being
blocked up at Randalls, while her children were at Hartfield, was full
in her imagination; and fancying the road to be now just passable for
adventurous people, but in a state that admitted no delay, she was eager
to have it settled, that her father and Emma should remain at Randalls,
while she and her husband set forward instantly through all the possible
accumulations of drifted snow that might impede them.

“You had better order the carriage directly, my love,” said she; “I dare
say we shall be able to get along, if we set off directly; and if we
do come to any thing very bad, I can get out and walk. I am not at all
afraid. I should not mind walking half the way. I could change my shoes,
you know, the moment I got home; and it is not the sort of thing that
gives me cold.”

“Indeed!” replied he. “Then, my dear Isabella, it is the most
extraordinary sort of thing in the world, for in general every thing
does give you cold. Walk home!--you are prettily shod for walking home,
I dare say. It will be bad enough for the horses.”

Isabella turned to Mrs. Weston for her approbation of the plan. Mrs.
Weston could only approve. Isabella then went to Emma; but Emma could
not so entirely give up the hope of their being all able to get away;
and they were still discussing the point, when Mr. Knightley, who had
left the room immediately after his brother's first report of the snow,
came back again, and told them that he had been out of doors to examine,
and could answer for there not being the smallest difficulty in their
getting home, whenever they liked it, either now or an hour hence. He
had gone beyond the sweep--some way along the Highbury road--the snow
was nowhere above half an inch deep--in many places hardly enough to
whiten the ground; a very few flakes were falling at present, but the
clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon
over. He had seen the coachmen, and they both agreed with him in there
being nothing to apprehend.

To Isabella, the relief of such tidings was very great, and they were
scarcely less acceptable to Emma on her father's account, who
was immediately set as much at ease on the subject as his nervous
constitution allowed; but the alarm that had been raised could not be
appeased so as to admit of any comfort for him while he continued at
Randalls. He was satisfied of there being no present danger in returning
home, but no assurances could convince him that it was safe to stay; and
while the others were variously urging and recommending, Mr. Knightley
and Emma settled it in a few brief sentences: thus--

“Your father will not be easy; why do not you go?”

“I am ready, if the others are.”

“Shall I ring the bell?”

“Yes, do.”

And the bell was rung, and the carriages spoken for. A few minutes more,
and Emma hoped to see one troublesome companion deposited in his own
house, to get sober and cool, and the other recover his temper and
happiness when this visit of hardship were over.

The carriage came: and Mr. Woodhouse, always the first object on such
occasions, was carefully attended to his own by Mr. Knightley and Mr.
Weston; but not all that either could say could prevent some renewal
of alarm at the sight of the snow which had actually fallen, and the
discovery of a much darker night than he had been prepared for. “He was
afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella
would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind.
He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together
as they could;” and James was talked to, and given a charge to go very
slow and wait for the other carriage.

Isabella stept in after her father; John Knightley, forgetting that he
did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally;
so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second
carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them,
and that they were to have a tete-a-tete drive. It would not have been
the awkwardness of a moment, it would have been rather a pleasure,
previous to the suspicions of this very day; she could have talked to
him of Harriet, and the three-quarters of a mile would have seemed but
one. But now, she would rather it had not happened. She believed he had
been drinking too much of Mr. Weston's good wine, and felt sure that he
would want to be talking nonsense.

To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was
immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of
the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they
passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her
subject cut up--her hand seized--her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton
actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious
opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known,
hoping--fearing--adoring--ready to die if she refused him; but
flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and
unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short,
very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible. It
really was so. Without scruple--without apology--without much apparent
diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself
_her_ lover. She tried to stop him; but vainly; he would go on, and say
it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to
restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must
be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to
the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the
playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she
replied,

“I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to _me_! you forget
yourself--you take me for my friend--any message to Miss Smith I shall
be happy to deliver; but no more of this to _me_, if you please.”

“Miss Smith!--message to Miss Smith!--What could she possibly
mean!”--And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such
boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with
quickness,

“Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account
for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak
either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough
to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it.”

But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at
all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and
having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and
slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but
acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he
resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a
favourable answer.

As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his
inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness,
replied,

“It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself
too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can
express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last
month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily
habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an
unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible!
Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object
of such professions.”

“Good Heaven!” cried Mr. Elton, “what can be the meaning of this?--Miss
Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my
existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never
cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she
has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very
sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse!
who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my
honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of
you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one
else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has
been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You
cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--(in an accent meant to be
insinuating)--I am sure you have seen and understood me.”

It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which
of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely
overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence
being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he
tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed--

“Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting
silence. It confesses that you have long understood me.”

“No, sir,” cried Emma, “it confesses no such thing. So far from having
long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect
to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you
should have been giving way to any feelings--Nothing could be farther
from my wishes--your attachment to my friend Harriet--your pursuit of
her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been
very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were not
your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged
ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have
never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?--that you
have never thought seriously of her?”

“Never, madam,” cried he, affronted in his turn: “never, I assure you.
_I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!--Miss Smith is a very good sort of
girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish
her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object
to--Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think,
quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal
alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!--No, madam, my
visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I
received--”

“Encouragement!--I give you encouragement!--Sir, you have been entirely
mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my
friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common
acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake
ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might
have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware,
probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you
are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I
trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present.”

He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite
supplication; and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually
deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer,
for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot-pace. If
there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate
awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the
little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage
turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves,
all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another
syllable passed.--Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good
night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and, under
indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to Hartfield.

There she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who
had been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage
Lane--turning a corner which he could never bear to think of--and in
strange hands--a mere common coachman--no James; and there it seemed as
if her return only were wanted to make every thing go well: for Mr.
John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and
attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her
father, as to seem--if not quite ready to join him in a basin of
gruel--perfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome; and the
day was concluding in peace and comfort to all their little party,
except herself.--But her mind had never been in such perturbation; and
it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till the
usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet reflection.



CHAPTER XVI


The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think
and be miserable.--It was a wretched business indeed!--Such an overthrow
of every thing she had been wishing for!--Such a development of every
thing most unwelcome!--Such a blow for Harriet!--that was the worst
of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or
other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and
she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken--more in
error--more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could the
effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.

“If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have
borne any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to me--but poor
Harriet!”

How she could have been so deceived!--He protested that he had never
thought seriously of Harriet--never! She looked back as well as
she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she
supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must
have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so
misled.

The picture!--How eager he had been about the picture!--and the
charade!--and an hundred other circumstances;--how clearly they had
seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its “ready
wit”--but then the “soft eyes”--in fact it suited neither; it was
a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such
thick-headed nonsense?

Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to
herself unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere
error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others
that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the
gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting; but,
till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it to mean
any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet's friend.

To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the
subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying
that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley
had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given,
the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry
indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his
character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself. It
was dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many
respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him;
proud, assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little
concerned about the feelings of others.

Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton's wanting to pay his
addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his
proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment,
and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the
arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she was
perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be
cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language or
manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she could
hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice, less
allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him. He
only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse
of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so
easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody
else with twenty, or with ten.

But--that he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware
of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry
him!--should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!--look down
upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below
him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no
presumption in addressing her!--It was most provoking.

Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he was her
inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of
such equality might prevent his perception of it; but he must know that
in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must
know that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at
Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family--and that the
Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was
inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate,
to which all the rest of Highbury belonged; but their fortune, from
other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell
Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence; and the Woodhouses had
long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood which
Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as he
could, without any alliances but in trade, or any thing to recommend him
to notice but his situation and his civility.--But he had fancied her
in love with him; that evidently must have been his dependence; and
after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners
and a conceited head, Emma was obliged in common honesty to stop
and admit that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and
obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real
motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and
delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite.
If _she_ had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to
wonder that _he_, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken
hers.

The first error and the worst lay at her door. It was foolish, it was
wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together. It
was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what
ought to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite
concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more.

“Here have I,” said she, “actually talked poor Harriet into being very
much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for
me; and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had
not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I
used to think him. Oh! that I had been satisfied with persuading her not
to accept young Martin. There I was quite right. That was well done
of me; but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and
chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the
opportunity of pleasing some one worth having; I ought not to have
attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time.
I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were _not_ to feel this
disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any body
else who would be at all desirable for her;--William Coxe--Oh! no, I
could not endure William Coxe--a pert young lawyer.”

She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more
serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be,
and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to Harriet, and
all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the awkwardness of
future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or discontinuing the
acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding
eclat, were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflections some
time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the
conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully.

To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma's, though under temporary
gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of
spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy,
and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough
to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of
softened pain and brighter hope.

Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone
to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to
depend on getting tolerably out of it.

It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in
love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to
disappoint him--that Harriet's nature should not be of that superior
sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive--and that there
could be no necessity for any body's knowing what had passed except the
three principals, and especially for her father's being given a moment's
uneasiness about it.

These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of snow
on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome that
might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.

The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas Day, she
could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his
daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting
or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered
with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and
thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every
morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to
freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse
with Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on Sunday any
more than on Christmas Day; and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton's
absenting himself.

It was weather which might fairly confine every body at home; and though
she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some society
or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied with
his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir out; and to
hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep entirely from
them,--

“Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr. Elton?”

These days of confinement would have been, but for her private
perplexities, remarkably comfortable, as such seclusion exactly suited
her brother, whose feelings must always be of great importance to
his companions; and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared off his
ill-humour at Randalls, that his amiableness never failed him during the
rest of his stay at Hartfield. He was always agreeable and obliging,
and speaking pleasantly of every body. But with all the hopes of
cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay, there was still such
an evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet, as
made it impossible for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease.



CHAPTER XVII


Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long at Hartfield. The
weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move; and Mr.
Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay
behind with all her children, was obliged to see the whole party
set off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor
Isabella;--which poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated
on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently
busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness.

The evening of the very day on which they went brought a note from Mr.
Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, a long, civil, ceremonious note, to say, with
Mr. Elton's best compliments, “that he was proposing to leave Highbury
the following morning in his way to Bath; where, in compliance with
the pressing entreaties of some friends, he had engaged to spend a few
weeks, and very much regretted the impossibility he was under, from
various circumstances of weather and business, of taking a personal
leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose friendly civilities he should ever
retain a grateful sense--and had Mr. Woodhouse any commands, should be
happy to attend to them.”

Emma was most agreeably surprized.--Mr. Elton's absence just at this
time was the very thing to be desired. She admired him for contriving
it, though not able to give him much credit for the manner in which it
was announced. Resentment could not have been more plainly spoken than
in a civility to her father, from which she was so pointedly excluded.
She had not even a share in his opening compliments.--Her name was not
mentioned;--and there was so striking a change in all this, and such an
ill-judged solemnity of leave-taking in his graceful acknowledgments, as
she thought, at first, could not escape her father's suspicion.

It did, however.--Her father was quite taken up with the surprize of so
sudden a journey, and his fears that Mr. Elton might never get safely to
the end of it, and saw nothing extraordinary in his language. It was a
very useful note, for it supplied them with fresh matter for thought
and conversation during the rest of their lonely evening. Mr. Woodhouse
talked over his alarms, and Emma was in spirits to persuade them away
with all her usual promptitude.

She now resolved to keep Harriet no longer in the dark. She had reason
to believe her nearly recovered from her cold, and it was desirable that
she should have as much time as possible for getting the better of
her other complaint before the gentleman's return. She went to Mrs.
Goddard's accordingly the very next day, to undergo the necessary
penance of communication; and a severe one it was.--She had to destroy
all the hopes which she had been so industriously feeding--to appear in
the ungracious character of the one preferred--and acknowledge herself
grossly mistaken and mis-judging in all her ideas on one subject, all
her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last
six weeks.

The confession completely renewed her first shame--and the sight of
Harriet's tears made her think that she should never be in charity with
herself again.

Harriet bore the intelligence very well--blaming nobody--and in every
thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion
of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to
her friend.

Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost;
and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on
Harriet's side, not her own. Harriet did not consider herself as having
any thing to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr. Elton
would have been too great a distinction.--She never could have deserved
him--and nobody but so partial and kind a friend as Miss Woodhouse would
have thought it possible.

Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that
no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes--and
she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and
understanding--really for the time convinced that Harriet was the
superior creature of the two--and that to resemble her would be more for
her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could
do.

It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and
ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of
being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of
her life. Her second duty now, inferior only to her father's claims, was
to promote Harriet's comfort, and endeavour to prove her own affection
in some better method than by match-making. She got her to Hartfield,
and shewed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to occupy and
amuse her, and by books and conversation, to drive Mr. Elton from her
thoughts.

Time, she knew, must be allowed for this being thoroughly done; and
she could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in
general, and very inadequate to sympathise in an attachment to Mr. Elton
in particular; but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet's age,
and with the entire extinction of all hope, such a progress might be
made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton's return, as
to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance,
without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them.

Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence
of any body equal to him in person or goodness--and did, in truth,
prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen; but yet
it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an
inclination of that sort _unrequited_, that she could not comprehend its
continuing very long in equal force.

If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and
indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not
imagine Harriet's persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the
recollection of him.

Their being fixed, so absolutely fixed, in the same place, was bad for
each, for all three. Not one of them had the power of removal, or of
effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each
other, and make the best of it.

Harriet was farther unfortunate in the tone of her companions at Mrs.
Goddard's; Mr. Elton being the adoration of all the teachers and great
girls in the school; and it must be at Hartfield only that she could
have any chance of hearing him spoken of with cooling moderation or
repellent truth. Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be
found if anywhere; and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of
cure, there could be no true peace for herself.



CHAPTER XVIII


Mr. Frank Churchill did not come. When the time proposed drew near, Mrs.
Weston's fears were justified in the arrival of a letter of excuse. For
the present, he could not be spared, to his “very great mortification
and regret; but still he looked forward with the hope of coming to
Randalls at no distant period.”

Mrs. Weston was exceedingly disappointed--much more disappointed, in
fact, than her husband, though her dependence on seeing the young man
had been so much more sober: but a sanguine temper, though for ever
expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by
any proportionate depression. It soon flies over the present failure,
and begins to hope again. For half an hour Mr. Weston was surprized and
sorry; but then he began to perceive that Frank's coming two or three
months later would be a much better plan; better time of year;
better weather; and that he would be able, without any doubt, to stay
considerably longer with them than if he had come sooner.

These feelings rapidly restored his comfort, while Mrs. Weston, of
a more apprehensive disposition, foresaw nothing but a repetition of
excuses and delays; and after all her concern for what her husband was
to suffer, suffered a great deal more herself.

Emma was not at this time in a state of spirits to care really about Mr.
Frank Churchill's not coming, except as a disappointment at Randalls.
The acquaintance at present had no charm for her. She wanted, rather, to
be quiet, and out of temptation; but still, as it was desirable that she
should appear, in general, like her usual self, she took care to express
as much interest in the circumstance, and enter as warmly into Mr.
and Mrs. Weston's disappointment, as might naturally belong to their
friendship.

She was the first to announce it to Mr. Knightley; and exclaimed quite
as much as was necessary, (or, being acting a part, perhaps rather
more,) at the conduct of the Churchills, in keeping him away. She then
proceeded to say a good deal more than she felt, of the advantage of
such an addition to their confined society in Surry; the pleasure of
looking at somebody new; the gala-day to Highbury entire, which the
sight of him would have made; and ending with reflections on the
Churchills again, found herself directly involved in a disagreement
with Mr. Knightley; and, to her great amusement, perceived that she was
taking the other side of the question from her real opinion, and making
use of Mrs. Weston's arguments against herself.

“The Churchills are very likely in fault,” said Mr. Knightley, coolly;
“but I dare say he might come if he would.”

“I do not know why you should say so. He wishes exceedingly to come; but
his uncle and aunt will not spare him.”

“I cannot believe that he has not the power of coming, if he made a
point of it. It is too unlikely, for me to believe it without proof.”

“How odd you are! What has Mr. Frank Churchill done, to make you suppose
him such an unnatural creature?”

“I am not supposing him at all an unnatural creature, in suspecting that
he may have learnt to be above his connexions, and to care very little
for any thing but his own pleasure, from living with those who have
always set him the example of it. It is a great deal more natural than
one could wish, that a young man, brought up by those who are proud,
luxurious, and selfish, should be proud, luxurious, and selfish too. If
Frank Churchill had wanted to see his father, he would have contrived it
between September and January. A man at his age--what is he?--three or
four-and-twenty--cannot be without the means of doing as much as that.
It is impossible.”

“That's easily said, and easily felt by you, who have always been your
own master. You are the worst judge in the world, Mr. Knightley, of the
difficulties of dependence. You do not know what it is to have tempers
to manage.”

“It is not to be conceived that a man of three or four-and-twenty
should not have liberty of mind or limb to that amount. He cannot want
money--he cannot want leisure. We know, on the contrary, that he has so
much of both, that he is glad to get rid of them at the idlest haunts in
the kingdom. We hear of him for ever at some watering-place or other. A
little while ago, he was at Weymouth. This proves that he can leave the
Churchills.”

“Yes, sometimes he can.”

“And those times are whenever he thinks it worth his while; whenever
there is any temptation of pleasure.”

“It is very unfair to judge of any body's conduct, without an intimate
knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior
of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that
family may be. We ought to be acquainted with Enscombe, and with Mrs.
Churchill's temper, before we pretend to decide upon what her nephew
can do. He may, at times, be able to do a great deal more than he can at
others.”

“There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and
that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and
resolution. It is Frank Churchill's duty to pay this attention to his
father. He knows it to be so, by his promises and messages; but if he
wished to do it, it might be done. A man who felt rightly would say at
once, simply and resolutely, to Mrs. Churchill--'Every sacrifice of
mere pleasure you will always find me ready to make to your convenience;
but I must go and see my father immediately. I know he would be hurt by
my failing in such a mark of respect to him on the present occasion.
I shall, therefore, set off to-morrow.'--If he would say so to her
at once, in the tone of decision becoming a man, there would be no
opposition made to his going.”

“No,” said Emma, laughing; “but perhaps there might be some made to his
coming back again. Such language for a young man entirely dependent, to
use!--Nobody but you, Mr. Knightley, would imagine it possible. But you
have not an idea of what is requisite in situations directly opposite to
your own. Mr. Frank Churchill to be making such a speech as that to
the uncle and aunt, who have brought him up, and are to provide for
him!--Standing up in the middle of the room, I suppose, and speaking as
loud as he could!--How can you imagine such conduct practicable?”

“Depend upon it, Emma, a sensible man would find no difficulty in it. He
would feel himself in the right; and the declaration--made, of course,
as a man of sense would make it, in a proper manner--would do him more
good, raise him higher, fix his interest stronger with the people he
depended on, than all that a line of shifts and expedients can ever do.
Respect would be added to affection. They would feel that they could
trust him; that the nephew who had done rightly by his father, would do
rightly by them; for they know, as well as he does, as well as all the
world must know, that he ought to pay this visit to his father; and
while meanly exerting their power to delay it, are in their hearts not
thinking the better of him for submitting to their whims. Respect for
right conduct is felt by every body. If he would act in this sort of
manner, on principle, consistently, regularly, their little minds would
bend to his.”

“I rather doubt that. You are very fond of bending little minds; but
where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have
a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great
ones. I can imagine, that if you, as you are, Mr. Knightley, were to be
transported and placed all at once in Mr. Frank Churchill's situation,
you would be able to say and do just what you have been recommending for
him; and it might have a very good effect. The Churchills might not have
a word to say in return; but then, you would have no habits of early
obedience and long observance to break through. To him who has, it might
not be so easy to burst forth at once into perfect independence, and set
all their claims on his gratitude and regard at nought. He may have as
strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so
equal, under particular circumstances, to act up to it.”

“Then it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal
exertion, it could not be an equal conviction.”

“Oh, the difference of situation and habit! I wish you would try to
understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly
opposing those, whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his
life.”

“Our amiable young man is a very weak young man, if this be the first
occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the
will of others. It ought to have been a habit with him by this time, of
following his duty, instead of consulting expediency. I can allow for
the fears of the child, but not of the man. As he became rational, he
ought to have roused himself and shaken off all that was unworthy in
their authority. He ought to have opposed the first attempt on their
side to make him slight his father. Had he begun as he ought, there
would have been no difficulty now.”

“We shall never agree about him,” cried Emma; “but that is nothing
extraordinary. I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man:
I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly,
though in his own son; but he is very likely to have a more yielding,
complying, mild disposition than would suit your notions of man's
perfection. I dare say he has; and though it may cut him off from some
advantages, it will secure him many others.”

“Yes; all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and
of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely
expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine
flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade
himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of
preserving peace at home and preventing his father's having any right to
complain. His letters disgust me.”

“Your feelings are singular. They seem to satisfy every body else.”

“I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston. They hardly can satisfy
a woman of her good sense and quick feelings: standing in a mother's
place, but without a mother's affection to blind her. It is on her
account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly
feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he
would have come I dare say; and it would not have signified whether
he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of
considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to
herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French,
not in English. He may be very 'amiable,' have very good manners, and be
very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings
of other people: nothing really amiable about him.”

“You seem determined to think ill of him.”

“Me!--not at all,” replied Mr. Knightley, rather displeased; “I do not
want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits
as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal;
that he is well-grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners.”

“Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure
at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, well-bred and
agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the
bargain. Cannot you imagine, Mr. Knightley, what a _sensation_ his
coming will produce? There will be but one subject throughout the
parishes of Donwell and Highbury; but one interest--one object of
curiosity; it will be all Mr. Frank Churchill; we shall think and speak
of nobody else.”

“You will excuse my being so much over-powered. If I find him
conversable, I shall be glad of his acquaintance; but if he is only a
chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts.”

“My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of
every body, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally
agreeable. To you, he will talk of farming; to me, of drawing or music;
and so on to every body, having that general information on all subjects
which will enable him to follow the lead, or take the lead, just as
propriety may require, and to speak extremely well on each; that is my
idea of him.”

“And mine,” said Mr. Knightley warmly, “is, that if he turn out any
thing like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing! What!
at three-and-twenty to be the king of his company--the great man--the
practised politician, who is to read every body's character, and make
every body's talents conduce to the display of his own superiority; to
be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like
fools compared with himself! My dear Emma, your own good sense could not
endure such a puppy when it came to the point.”

“I will say no more about him,” cried Emma, “you turn every thing to
evil. We are both prejudiced; you against, I for him; and we have no
chance of agreeing till he is really here.”

“Prejudiced! I am not prejudiced.”

“But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it. My love for
Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour.”

“He is a person I never think of from one month's end to another,” said
Mr. Knightley, with a degree of vexation, which made Emma immediately
talk of something else, though she could not comprehend why he should be
angry.

To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a
different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of
mind which she was always used to acknowledge in him; for with all the
high opinion of himself, which she had often laid to his charge, she had
never before for a moment supposed it could make him unjust to the merit
of another.




VOLUME II



CHAPTER I


Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning, and, in Emma's
opinion, had been talking enough of Mr. Elton for that day. She could
not think that Harriet's solace or her own sins required more; and
she was therefore industriously getting rid of the subject as they
returned;--but it burst out again when she thought she had succeeded,
and after speaking some time of what the poor must suffer in winter, and
receiving no other answer than a very plaintive--“Mr. Elton is so good
to the poor!” she found something else must be done.

They were just approaching the house where lived Mrs. and Miss Bates.
She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers. There was
always sufficient reason for such an attention; Mrs. and Miss Bates
loved to be called on, and she knew she was considered by the very few
who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in
that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of
their scanty comforts.

She had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley and some from her own heart,
as to her deficiency--but none were equal to counteract the persuasion
of its being very disagreeable,--a waste of time--tiresome women--and
all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second-rate and
third-rate of Highbury, who were calling on them for ever, and therefore
she seldom went near them. But now she made the sudden resolution of not
passing their door without going in--observing, as she proposed it to
Harriet, that, as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite
safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax.

The house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied
the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment,
which was every thing to them, the visitors were most cordially and even
gratefully welcomed; the quiet neat old lady, who with her knitting was
seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to
Miss Woodhouse, and her more active, talking daughter, almost ready
to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit,
solicitude for their shoes, anxious inquiries after Mr. Woodhouse's
health, cheerful communications about her mother's, and sweet-cake from
the beaufet--“Mrs. Cole had just been there, just called in for ten
minutes, and had been so good as to sit an hour with them, and _she_ had
taken a piece of cake and been so kind as to say she liked it very much;
and, therefore, she hoped Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith would do them
the favour to eat a piece too.”

The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr. Elton.
There was intimacy between them, and Mr. Cole had heard from Mr. Elton
since his going away. Emma knew what was coming; they must have the
letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much
he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went,
and how full the Master of the Ceremonies' ball had been; and she went
through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation
that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet's
being obliged to say a word.

This she had been prepared for when she entered the house; but meant,
having once talked him handsomely over, to be no farther incommoded by
any troublesome topic, and to wander at large amongst all the Mistresses
and Misses of Highbury, and their card-parties. She had not been
prepared to have Jane Fairfax succeed Mr. Elton; but he was actually
hurried off by Miss Bates, she jumped away from him at last abruptly to
the Coles, to usher in a letter from her niece.

“Oh! yes--Mr. Elton, I understand--certainly as to dancing--Mrs. Cole
was telling me that dancing at the rooms at Bath was--Mrs. Cole was so
kind as to sit some time with us, talking of Jane; for as soon as
she came in, she began inquiring after her, Jane is so very great a
favourite there. Whenever she is with us, Mrs. Cole does not know how to
shew her kindness enough; and I must say that Jane deserves it as much
as any body can. And so she began inquiring after her directly, saying,
'I know you cannot have heard from Jane lately, because it is not her
time for writing;' and when I immediately said, 'But indeed we have, we
had a letter this very morning,' I do not know that I ever saw any body
more surprized. 'Have you, upon your honour?' said she; 'well, that is
quite unexpected. Do let me hear what she says.'”

Emma's politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest--

“Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I
hope she is well?”

“Thank you. You are so kind!” replied the happily deceived aunt, while
eagerly hunting for the letter.--“Oh! here it is. I was sure it could
not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being
aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately
that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs.
Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for
it is such a pleasure to her--a letter from Jane--that she can never
hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is,
only just under my huswife--and since you are so kind as to wish to hear
what she says;--but, first of all, I really must, in justice to
Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter--only two pages you
see--hardly two--and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses
half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often
says, when the letter is first opened, 'Well, Hetty, now I think
you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work'--don't you,
ma'am?--And then I tell her, I am sure she would contrive to make it out
herself, if she had nobody to do it for her--every word of it--I am sure
she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed,
though my mother's eyes are not so good as they were, she can see
amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such
a blessing! My mother's are really very good indeed. Jane often says,
when she is here, 'I am sure, grandmama, you must have had very strong
eyes to see as you do--and so much fine work as you have done too!--I
only wish my eyes may last me as well.'”

All this spoken extremely fast obliged Miss Bates to stop for breath;
and Emma said something very civil about the excellence of Miss
Fairfax's handwriting.

“You are extremely kind,” replied Miss Bates, highly gratified; “you who
are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is
nobody's praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse's.
My mother does not hear; she is a little deaf you know. Ma'am,”
 addressing her, “do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say
about Jane's handwriting?”

And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated
twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was
pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very
rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax's letter, and had almost
resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss
Bates turned to her again and seized her attention.

“My mother's deafness is very trifling you see--just nothing at all. By
only raising my voice, and saying any thing two or three times over,
she is sure to hear; but then she is used to my voice. But it is very
remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me.
Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmama at all
deafer than she was two years ago; which is saying a great deal at my
mother's time of life--and it really is full two years, you know, since
she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as
I was telling Mrs. Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her
now.”

“Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon?”

“Oh yes; next week.”

“Indeed!--that must be a very great pleasure.”

“Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Every body is so
surprized; and every body says the same obliging things. I am sure she
will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury, as they can be to see
her. Yes, Friday or Saturday; she cannot say which, because Colonel
Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very
good of them to send her the whole way! But they always do, you know. Oh
yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is
the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it; for, in the
common course, we should not have heard from her before next Tuesday or
Wednesday.”

“Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could be little chance of my
hearing any thing of Miss Fairfax to-day.”

“So obliging of you! No, we should not have heard, if it had not been
for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My
mother is so delighted!--for she is to be three months with us at
least. Three months, she says so, positively, as I am going to have the
pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are
going to Ireland. Mrs. Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come
over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the
summer, but she is so impatient to see them again--for till she married,
last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must
make it very strange to be in different kingdoms, I was going to say,
but however different countries, and so she wrote a very urgent letter
to her mother--or her father, I declare I do not know which it was, but
we shall see presently in Jane's letter--wrote in Mr. Dixon's name as
well as her own, to press their coming over directly, and they would
give them the meeting in Dublin, and take them back to their country
seat, Baly-craig, a beautiful place, I fancy. Jane has heard a great
deal of its beauty; from Mr. Dixon, I mean--I do not know that she ever
heard about it from any body else; but it was very natural, you know,
that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his
addresses--and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them--for
Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter's
not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all
blame them; of course she heard every thing he might be telling Miss
Campbell about his own home in Ireland; and I think she wrote us word
that he had shewn them some drawings of the place, views that he had
taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane
was quite longing to go to Ireland, from his account of things.”

At this moment, an ingenious and animating suspicion entering Emma's
brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon, and the
not going to Ireland, she said, with the insidious design of farther
discovery,

“You must feel it very fortunate that Miss Fairfax should be allowed to
come to you at such a time. Considering the very particular friendship
between her and Mrs. Dixon, you could hardly have expected her to be
excused from accompanying Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”

“Very true, very true, indeed. The very thing that we have always been
rather afraid of; for we should not have liked to have her at such a
distance from us, for months together--not able to come if any thing was
to happen. But you see, every thing turns out for the best. They want
her (Mr. and Mrs. Dixon) excessively to come over with Colonel and Mrs.
Campbell; quite depend upon it; nothing can be more kind or pressing
than their _joint_ invitation, Jane says, as you will hear presently;
Mr. Dixon does not seem in the least backward in any attention. He is
a most charming young man. Ever since the service he rendered Jane at
Weymouth, when they were out in that party on the water, and she, by the
sudden whirling round of something or other among the sails, would have
been dashed into the sea at once, and actually was all but gone, if he
had not, with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit--
(I can never think of it without trembling!)--But ever since we had the
history of that day, I have been so fond of Mr. Dixon!”

“But, in spite of all her friends' urgency, and her own wish of seeing
Ireland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting the time to you and Mrs. Bates?”

“Yes--entirely her own doing, entirely her own choice; and Colonel
and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should
recommend; and indeed they particularly _wish_ her to try her native
air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately.”

“I am concerned to hear of it. I think they judge wisely. But Mrs.
Dixon must be very much disappointed. Mrs. Dixon, I understand, has
no remarkable degree of personal beauty; is not, by any means, to be
compared with Miss Fairfax.”

“Oh! no. You are very obliging to say such things--but certainly not.
There is no comparison between them. Miss Campbell always was absolutely
plain--but extremely elegant and amiable.”

“Yes, that of course.”

“Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the 7th of November,
(as I am going to read to you,) and has never been well since. A long
time, is not it, for a cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned
it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so
considerate!--But however, she is so far from well, that her kind
friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air
that always agrees with her; and they have no doubt that three or four
months at Highbury will entirely cure her--and it is certainly a great
deal better that she should come here, than go to Ireland, if she is
unwell. Nobody could nurse her, as we should do.”

“It appears to me the most desirable arrangement in the world.”

“And so she is to come to us next Friday or Saturday, and the Campbells
leave town in their way to Holyhead the Monday following--as you will
find from Jane's letter. So sudden!--You may guess, dear Miss Woodhouse,
what a flurry it has thrown me in! If it was not for the drawback of
her illness--but I am afraid we must expect to see her grown thin, and
looking very poorly. I must tell you what an unlucky thing happened to
me, as to that. I always make a point of reading Jane's letters through
to myself first, before I read them aloud to my mother, you know, for
fear of there being any thing in them to distress her. Jane desired me
to do it, so I always do: and so I began to-day with my usual caution;
but no sooner did I come to the mention of her being unwell, than I
burst out, quite frightened, with 'Bless me! poor Jane is ill!'--which
my mother, being on the watch, heard distinctly, and was sadly alarmed
at. However, when I read on, I found it was not near so bad as I had
fancied at first; and I make so light of it now to her, that she does
not think much about it. But I cannot imagine how I could be so off my
guard. If Jane does not get well soon, we will call in Mr. Perry. The
expense shall not be thought of; and though he is so liberal, and so
fond of Jane that I dare say he would not mean to charge any thing for
attendance, we could not suffer it to be so, you know. He has a wife and
family to maintain, and is not to be giving away his time. Well, now I
have just given you a hint of what Jane writes about, we will turn to
her letter, and I am sure she tells her own story a great deal better
than I can tell it for her.”

“I am afraid we must be running away,” said Emma, glancing at Harriet,
and beginning to rise--“My father will be expecting us. I had no
intention, I thought I had no power of staying more than five minutes,
when I first entered the house. I merely called, because I would not
pass the door without inquiring after Mrs. Bates; but I have been so
pleasantly detained! Now, however, we must wish you and Mrs. Bates good
morning.”

And not all that could be urged to detain her succeeded. She regained
the street--happy in this, that though much had been forced on her
against her will, though she had in fact heard the whole substance of
Jane Fairfax's letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself.



CHAPTER II


Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates's youngest
daughter.

The marriage of Lieut. Fairfax of the ----regiment of infantry,
and Miss Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope
and interest; but nothing now remained of it, save the melancholy
remembrance of him dying in action abroad--of his widow sinking under
consumption and grief soon afterwards--and this girl.

By birth she belonged to Highbury: and when at three years old, on
losing her mother, she became the property, the charge, the consolation,
the foundling of her grandmother and aunt, there had seemed every
probability of her being permanently fixed there; of her being taught
only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no
advantages of connexion or improvement, to be engrafted on what
nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and
warm-hearted, well-meaning relations.

But the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave a change
to her destiny. This was Colonel Campbell, who had very highly regarded
Fairfax, as an excellent officer and most deserving young man; and
farther, had been indebted to him for such attentions, during a severe
camp-fever, as he believed had saved his life. These were claims which
he did not learn to overlook, though some years passed away from the
death of poor Fairfax, before his own return to England put any thing in
his power. When he did return, he sought out the child and took notice
of her. He was a married man, with only one living child, a girl, about
Jane's age: and Jane became their guest, paying them long visits and
growing a favourite with all; and before she was nine years old, his
daughter's great fondness for her, and his own wish of being a real
friend, united to produce an offer from Colonel Campbell of undertaking
the whole charge of her education. It was accepted; and from that period
Jane had belonged to Colonel Campbell's family, and had lived with them
entirely, only visiting her grandmother from time to time.

The plan was that she should be brought up for educating others; the
very few hundred pounds which she inherited from her father making
independence impossible. To provide for her otherwise was out of Colonel
Campbell's power; for though his income, by pay and appointments, was
handsome, his fortune was moderate and must be all his daughter's;
but, by giving her an education, he hoped to be supplying the means of
respectable subsistence hereafter.

Such was Jane Fairfax's history. She had fallen into good hands, known
nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent
education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people,
her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline
and culture; and Colonel Campbell's residence being in London, every
lighter talent had been done full justice to, by the attendance of
first-rate masters. Her disposition and abilities were equally worthy
of all that friendship could do; and at eighteen or nineteen she was,
as far as such an early age can be qualified for the care of children,
fully competent to the office of instruction herself; but she was too
much beloved to be parted with. Neither father nor mother could promote,
and the daughter could not endure it. The evil day was put off. It was
easy to decide that she was still too young; and Jane remained with
them, sharing, as another daughter, in all the rational pleasures of
an elegant society, and a judicious mixture of home and amusement, with
only the drawback of the future, the sobering suggestions of her own
good understanding to remind her that all this might soon be over.

The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss
Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party from
the circumstance of Jane's decided superiority both in beauty and
acquirements. That nature had given it in feature could not be unseen
by the young woman, nor could her higher powers of mind be unfelt by the
parents. They continued together with unabated regard however, till the
marriage of Miss Campbell, who by that chance, that luck which so often
defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is
moderate rather than to what is superior, engaged the affections of
Mr. Dixon, a young man, rich and agreeable, almost as soon as they were
acquainted; and was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had
yet her bread to earn.

This event had very lately taken place; too lately for any thing to be
yet attempted by her less fortunate friend towards entering on her path
of duty; though she had now reached the age which her own judgment had
fixed on for beginning. She had long resolved that one-and-twenty
should be the period. With the fortitude of a devoted novitiate, she had
resolved at one-and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from
all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace
and hope, to penance and mortification for ever.

The good sense of Colonel and Mrs. Campbell could not oppose such
a resolution, though their feelings did. As long as they lived, no
exertions would be necessary, their home might be hers for ever; and for
their own comfort they would have retained her wholly; but this would
be selfishness:--what must be at last, had better be soon. Perhaps they
began to feel it might have been kinder and wiser to have resisted the
temptation of any delay, and spared her from a taste of such enjoyments
of ease and leisure as must now be relinquished. Still, however,
affection was glad to catch at any reasonable excuse for not hurrying
on the wretched moment. She had never been quite well since the time of
their daughter's marriage; and till she should have completely recovered
her usual strength, they must forbid her engaging in duties, which, so
far from being compatible with a weakened frame and varying spirits,
seemed, under the most favourable circumstances, to require something
more than human perfection of body and mind to be discharged with
tolerable comfort.

With regard to her not accompanying them to Ireland, her account to her
aunt contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths
not told. It was her own choice to give the time of their absence to
Highbury; to spend, perhaps, her last months of perfect liberty with
those kind relations to whom she was so very dear: and the Campbells,
whatever might be their motive or motives, whether single, or double, or
treble, gave the arrangement their ready sanction, and said, that they
depended more on a few months spent in her native air, for the recovery
of her health, than on any thing else. Certain it was that she was to
come; and that Highbury, instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which
had been so long promised it--Mr. Frank Churchill--must put up for the
present with Jane Fairfax, who could bring only the freshness of a two
years' absence.

Emma was sorry;--to have to pay civilities to a person she did not like
through three long months!--to be always doing more than she wished,
and less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a
difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was
because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she
wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly
refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which
her conscience could not quite acquit her. But “she could never get
acquainted with her: she did not know how it was, but there was such
coldness and reserve--such apparent indifference whether she pleased or
not--and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!--and she was made
such a fuss with by every body!--and it had been always imagined that
they were to be so intimate--because their ages were the same, every
body had supposed they must be so fond of each other.” These were her
reasons--she had no better.

It was a dislike so little just--every imputed fault was so magnified
by fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any
considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and
now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years'
interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and
manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane
Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the
highest value for elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as almost
every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall; her
figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium, between
fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point
out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all this; and
then, her face--her features--there was more beauty in them altogether
than she had remembered; it was not regular, but it was very pleasing
beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eye-lashes and eyebrows, had
never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to
cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really
needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty, of which elegance was
the reigning character, and as such, she must, in honour, by all her
principles, admire it:--elegance, which, whether of person or of mind,
she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was distinction,
and merit.

In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with
twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering
justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When
she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty;
when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was
going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible
to feel any thing but compassion and respect; especially, if to every
well-known particular entitling her to interest, were added the highly
probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had
so naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more
pitiable or more honourable than the sacrifices she had resolved on.
Emma was very willing now to acquit her of having seduced Mr. Dixon's
actions from his wife, or of any thing mischievous which her imagination
had suggested at first. If it were love, it might be simple, single,
successless love on her side alone. She might have been unconsciously
sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his conversation with her
friend; and from the best, the purest of motives, might now be
denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to divide herself
effectually from him and his connexions by soon beginning her career of
laborious duty.

Upon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings,
as made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury
afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence; nobody that she
could wish to scheme about for her.

These were charming feelings--but not lasting. Before she had committed
herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane Fairfax,
or done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and errors, than
saying to Mr. Knightley, “She certainly is handsome; she is better than
handsome!” Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother
and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its usual state.
Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more
tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration
of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how
little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice
of mutton for dinner, as well as to see exhibitions of new caps and new
workbags for her mother and herself; and Jane's offences rose again.
They had music; Emma was obliged to play; and the thanks and praise
which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an
air of greatness, meaning only to shew off in higher style her own very
superior performance. She was, besides, which was the worst of all, so
cold, so cautious! There was no getting at her real opinion. Wrapt up in
a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard nothing. She was
disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved.

If any thing could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved on
the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than any thing. She seemed bent
on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon's character, or her own value
for his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It was all
general approbation and smoothness; nothing delineated or distinguished.
It did her no service however. Her caution was thrown away. Emma saw
its artifice, and returned to her first surmises. There probably _was_
something more to conceal than her own preference; Mr. Dixon, perhaps,
had been very near changing one friend for the other, or been fixed only
to Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds.

The like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill
had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a
little acquainted; but not a syllable of real information could Emma
procure as to what he truly was. “Was he handsome?”--“She believed
he was reckoned a very fine young man.” “Was he agreeable?”--“He was
generally thought so.” “Did he appear a sensible young man; a young
man of information?”--“At a watering-place, or in a common London
acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were
all that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than
they had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed every body found his
manners pleasing.” Emma could not forgive her.



CHAPTER III


Emma could not forgive her;--but as neither provocation nor resentment
were discerned by Mr. Knightley, who had been of the party, and had
seen only proper attention and pleasing behaviour on each side, he was
expressing the next morning, being at Hartfield again on business with
Mr. Woodhouse, his approbation of the whole; not so openly as he might
have done had her father been out of the room, but speaking plain enough
to be very intelligible to Emma. He had been used to think her unjust to
Jane, and had now great pleasure in marking an improvement.

“A very pleasant evening,” he began, as soon as Mr. Woodhouse had been
talked into what was necessary, told that he understood, and the papers
swept away;--“particularly pleasant. You and Miss Fairfax gave us some
very good music. I do not know a more luxurious state, sir, than sitting
at one's ease to be entertained a whole evening by two such young women;
sometimes with music and sometimes with conversation. I am sure Miss
Fairfax must have found the evening pleasant, Emma. You left nothing
undone. I was glad you made her play so much, for having no instrument
at her grandmother's, it must have been a real indulgence.”

“I am happy you approved,” said Emma, smiling; “but I hope I am not
often deficient in what is due to guests at Hartfield.”

“No, my dear,” said her father instantly; “_that_ I am sure you are not.
There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If any thing,
you are too attentive. The muffin last night--if it had been handed
round once, I think it would have been enough.”

“No,” said Mr. Knightley, nearly at the same time; “you are not often
deficient; not often deficient either in manner or comprehension. I
think you understand me, therefore.”

An arch look expressed--“I understand you well enough;” but she said
only, “Miss Fairfax is reserved.”

“I always told you she was--a little; but you will soon overcome all
that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its
foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be honoured.”

“You think her diffident. I do not see it.”

“My dear Emma,” said he, moving from his chair into one close by her,
“you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant
evening.”

“Oh! no; I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions; and
amused to think how little information I obtained.”

“I am disappointed,” was his only answer.

“I hope every body had a pleasant evening,” said Mr. Woodhouse, in his
quiet way. “I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I
moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me.
Miss Bates was very chatty and good-humoured, as she always is, though
she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs.
Bates too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane
Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady, a very pretty and a
very well-behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening
agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma.”

“True, sir; and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax.”

Emma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the
present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question--

“She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one's eyes from.
I am always watching her to admire; and I do pity her from my heart.”

Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to
express; and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose
thoughts were on the Bates's, said--

“It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a
great pity indeed! and I have often wished--but it is so little one can
venture to do--small, trifling presents, of any thing uncommon--Now we
have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg;
it is very small and delicate--Hartfield pork is not like any other
pork--but still it is pork--and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure
of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without
the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast
pork--I think we had better send the leg--do not you think so, my dear?”

“My dear papa, I sent the whole hind-quarter. I knew you would wish it.
There will be the leg to be salted, you know, which is so very nice, and
the loin to be dressed directly in any manner they like.”

“That's right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but
that is the best way. They must not over-salt the leg; and then, if it
is not over-salted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle
boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a
little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome.”

“Emma,” said Mr. Knightley presently, “I have a piece of news for you.
You like news--and I heard an article in my way hither that I think will
interest you.”

“News! Oh! yes, I always like news. What is it?--why do you smile
so?--where did you hear it?--at Randalls?”

He had time only to say,

“No, not at Randalls; I have not been near Randalls,” when the door was
thrown open, and Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax walked into the room. Full
of thanks, and full of news, Miss Bates knew not which to give quickest.
Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that not another
syllable of communication could rest with him.

“Oh! my dear sir, how are you this morning? My dear Miss Woodhouse--I
come quite over-powered. Such a beautiful hind-quarter of pork! You
are too bountiful! Have you heard the news? Mr. Elton is going to be
married.”

Emma had not had time even to think of Mr. Elton, and she was so
completely surprized that she could not avoid a little start, and a
little blush, at the sound.

“There is my news:--I thought it would interest you,” said Mr.
Knightley, with a smile which implied a conviction of some part of what
had passed between them.

“But where could _you_ hear it?” cried Miss Bates. “Where could you
possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I
received Mrs. Cole's note--no, it cannot be more than five--or at least
ten--for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out--I
was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork--Jane was
standing in the passage--were not you, Jane?--for my mother was so
afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said I would
go down and see, and Jane said, 'Shall I go down instead? for I think
you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen.'--'Oh!
my dear,' said I--well, and just then came the note. A Miss
Hawkins--that's all I know. A Miss Hawkins of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley,
how could you possibly have heard it? for the very moment Mr. Cole told
Mrs. Cole of it, she sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins--”

“I was with Mr. Cole on business an hour and a half ago. He had just
read Elton's letter as I was shewn in, and handed it to me directly.”

“Well! that is quite--I suppose there never was a piece of news more
generally interesting. My dear sir, you really are too bountiful. My
mother desires her very best compliments and regards, and a thousand
thanks, and says you really quite oppress her.”

“We consider our Hartfield pork,” replied Mr. Woodhouse--“indeed it
certainly is, so very superior to all other pork, that Emma and I cannot
have a greater pleasure than--”

“Oh! my dear sir, as my mother says, our friends are only too good
to us. If ever there were people who, without having great wealth
themselves, had every thing they could wish for, I am sure it is us.
We may well say that 'our lot is cast in a goodly heritage.' Well, Mr.
Knightley, and so you actually saw the letter; well--”

“It was short--merely to announce--but cheerful, exulting, of course.”--
Here was a sly glance at Emma. “He had been so fortunate as to--I forget
the precise words--one has no business to remember them. The information
was, as you state, that he was going to be married to a Miss Hawkins. By
his style, I should imagine it just settled.”

“Mr. Elton going to be married!” said Emma, as soon as she could speak.
“He will have every body's wishes for his happiness.”

“He is very young to settle,” was Mr. Woodhouse's observation. “He had
better not be in a hurry. He seemed to me very well off as he was. We
were always glad to see him at Hartfield.”

“A new neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse!” said Miss Bates, joyfully;
“my mother is so pleased!--she says she cannot bear to have the poor old
Vicarage without a mistress. This is great news, indeed. Jane, you have
never seen Mr. Elton!--no wonder that you have such a curiosity to see
him.”

Jane's curiosity did not appear of that absorbing nature as wholly to
occupy her.

“No--I have never seen Mr. Elton,” she replied, starting on this appeal;
“is he--is he a tall man?”

“Who shall answer that question?” cried Emma. “My father would say
'yes,' Mr. Knightley 'no;' and Miss Bates and I that he is just the
happy medium. When you have been here a little longer, Miss Fairfax,
you will understand that Mr. Elton is the standard of perfection in
Highbury, both in person and mind.”

“Very true, Miss Woodhouse, so she will. He is the very best young
man--But, my dear Jane, if you remember, I told you yesterday he
was precisely the height of Mr. Perry. Miss Hawkins,--I dare say, an
excellent young woman. His extreme attention to my mother--wanting
her to sit in the vicarage pew, that she might hear the better, for my
mother is a little deaf, you know--it is not much, but she does not
hear quite quick. Jane says that Colonel Campbell is a little deaf. He
fancied bathing might be good for it--the warm bath--but she says it did
him no lasting benefit. Colonel Campbell, you know, is quite our angel.
And Mr. Dixon seems a very charming young man, quite worthy of him. It
is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do.
Now, here will be Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins; and there are the Coles,
such very good people; and the Perrys--I suppose there never was a
happier or a better couple than Mr. and Mrs. Perry. I say, sir,” turning
to Mr. Woodhouse, “I think there are few places with such society as
Highbury. I always say, we are quite blessed in our neighbours.--My dear
sir, if there is one thing my mother loves better than another, it is
pork--a roast loin of pork--”

“As to who, or what Miss Hawkins is, or how long he has been acquainted
with her,” said Emma, “nothing I suppose can be known. One feels that it
cannot be a very long acquaintance. He has been gone only four weeks.”

Nobody had any information to give; and, after a few more wonderings,
Emma said,

“You are silent, Miss Fairfax--but I hope you mean to take an interest
in this news. You, who have been hearing and seeing so much of late
on these subjects, who must have been so deep in the business on Miss
Campbell's account--we shall not excuse your being indifferent about Mr.
Elton and Miss Hawkins.”

“When I have seen Mr. Elton,” replied Jane, “I dare say I shall be
interested--but I believe it requires _that_ with me. And as it is some
months since Miss Campbell married, the impression may be a little worn
off.”

“Yes, he has been gone just four weeks, as you observe, Miss Woodhouse,”
 said Miss Bates, “four weeks yesterday.--A Miss Hawkins!--Well, I had
always rather fancied it would be some young lady hereabouts; not that
I ever--Mrs. Cole once whispered to me--but I immediately said, 'No, Mr.
Elton is a most worthy young man--but'--In short, I do not think I am
particularly quick at those sort of discoveries. I do not pretend to it.
What is before me, I see. At the same time, nobody could wonder if
Mr. Elton should have aspired--Miss Woodhouse lets me chatter on, so
good-humouredly. She knows I would not offend for the world. How does
Miss Smith do? She seems quite recovered now. Have you heard from Mrs.
John Knightley lately? Oh! those dear little children. Jane, do you
know I always fancy Mr. Dixon like Mr. John Knightley. I mean in
person--tall, and with that sort of look--and not very talkative.”

“Quite wrong, my dear aunt; there is no likeness at all.”

“Very odd! but one never does form a just idea of any body beforehand.
One takes up a notion, and runs away with it. Mr. Dixon, you say, is
not, strictly speaking, handsome?”

“Handsome! Oh! no--far from it--certainly plain. I told you he was
plain.”

“My dear, you said that Miss Campbell would not allow him to be plain,
and that you yourself--”

“Oh! as for me, my judgment is worth nothing. Where I have a regard,
I always think a person well-looking. But I gave what I believed the
general opinion, when I called him plain.”

“Well, my dear Jane, I believe we must be running away. The weather does
not look well, and grandmama will be uneasy. You are too obliging, my
dear Miss Woodhouse; but we really must take leave. This has been a most
agreeable piece of news indeed. I shall just go round by Mrs. Cole's;
but I shall not stop three minutes: and, Jane, you had better go home
directly--I would not have you out in a shower!--We think she is the
better for Highbury already. Thank you, we do indeed. I shall not
attempt calling on Mrs. Goddard, for I really do not think she cares for
any thing but _boiled_ pork: when we dress the leg it will be another
thing. Good morning to you, my dear sir. Oh! Mr. Knightley is coming
too. Well, that is so very!--I am sure if Jane is tired, you will be
so kind as to give her your arm.--Mr. Elton, and Miss Hawkins!--Good
morning to you.”

Emma, alone with her father, had half her attention wanted by him while
he lamented that young people would be in such a hurry to marry--and to
marry strangers too--and the other half she could give to her own view
of the subject. It was to herself an amusing and a very welcome piece
of news, as proving that Mr. Elton could not have suffered long; but she
was sorry for Harriet: Harriet must feel it--and all that she could hope
was, by giving the first information herself, to save her from hearing
it abruptly from others. It was now about the time that she was likely
to call. If she were to meet Miss Bates in her way!--and upon its
beginning to rain, Emma was obliged to expect that the weather would
be detaining her at Mrs. Goddard's, and that the intelligence would
undoubtedly rush upon her without preparation.

The shower was heavy, but short; and it had not been over five minutes,
when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which
hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give; and the “Oh! Miss
Woodhouse, what do you think has happened!” which instantly burst forth,
had all the evidence of corresponding perturbation. As the blow was
given, Emma felt that she could not now shew greater kindness than in
listening; and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to
tell. “She had set out from Mrs. Goddard's half an hour ago--she had
been afraid it would rain--she had been afraid it would pour down
every moment--but she thought she might get to Hartfield first--she
had hurried on as fast as possible; but then, as she was passing by the
house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she
would just step in and see how it went on; and though she did not seem
to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain,
and she did not know what to do; so she ran on directly, as fast as
she could, and took shelter at Ford's.”--Ford's was the principal
woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher's shop united; the shop
first in size and fashion in the place.--“And so, there she had
set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes,
perhaps--when, all of a sudden, who should come in--to be sure it was
so very odd!--but they always dealt at Ford's--who should come in, but
Elizabeth Martin and her brother!--Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I
thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting
near the door--Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; he was busy
with the umbrella. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly,
and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the
shop; and I kept sitting near the door!--Oh! dear; I was so miserable!
I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away
you know, because of the rain; but I did so wish myself anywhere in the
world but there.--Oh! dear, Miss Woodhouse--well, at last, I fancy, he
looked round and saw me; for instead of going on with her buyings, they
began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me; and
I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak to me--(do
you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?)--for presently she came forward--came
quite up to me, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands,
if I would. She did not do any of it in the same way that she used; I
could see she was altered; but, however, she seemed to _try_ to be very
friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking some time; but I know no
more what I said--I was in such a tremble!--I remember she said she
was sorry we never met now; which I thought almost too kind! Dear, Miss
Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, it was beginning to
hold up, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting
away--and then--only think!--I found he was coming up towards me
too--slowly you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do; and
so he came and spoke, and I answered--and I stood for a minute, feeling
dreadfully, you know, one can't tell how; and then I took courage, and
said it did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set; and I had not got
three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was
going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole's
stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh!
dear, I thought it would have been the death of me! So I said, I was
very much obliged to him: you know I could not do less; and then he went
back to Elizabeth, and I came round by the stables--I believe I did--but
I hardly knew where I was, or any thing about it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse,
I would rather done any thing than have it happen: and yet, you know,
there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and
so kindly. And Elizabeth, too. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do talk to me and
make me comfortable again.”

Very sincerely did Emma wish to do so; but it was not immediately in
her power. She was obliged to stop and think. She was not thoroughly
comfortable herself. The young man's conduct, and his sister's, seemed
the result of real feeling, and she could not but pity them. As Harriet
described it, there had been an interesting mixture of wounded affection
and genuine delicacy in their behaviour. But she had believed them to be
well-meaning, worthy people before; and what difference did this make
in the evils of the connexion? It was folly to be disturbed by it. Of
course, he must be sorry to lose her--they must be all sorry. Ambition,
as well as love, had probably been mortified. They might all have hoped
to rise by Harriet's acquaintance: and besides, what was the value of
Harriet's description?--So easily pleased--so little discerning;--what
signified her praise?

She exerted herself, and did try to make her comfortable, by considering
all that had passed as a mere trifle, and quite unworthy of being dwelt
on,

“It might be distressing, for the moment,” said she; “but you seem to
have behaved extremely well; and it is over--and may never--can never,
as a first meeting, occur again, and therefore you need not think about
it.”

Harriet said, “very true,” and she “would not think about it;” but still
she talked of it--still she could talk of nothing else; and Emma, at
last, in order to put the Martins out of her head, was obliged to hurry
on the news, which she had meant to give with so much tender caution;
hardly knowing herself whether to rejoice or be angry, ashamed or only
amused, at such a state of mind in poor Harriet--such a conclusion of
Mr. Elton's importance with her!

Mr. Elton's rights, however, gradually revived. Though she did not feel
the first intelligence as she might have done the day before, or an hour
before, its interest soon increased; and before their first conversation
was over, she had talked herself into all the sensations of curiosity,
wonder and regret, pain and pleasure, as to this fortunate Miss Hawkins,
which could conduce to place the Martins under proper subordination in
her fancy.

Emma learned to be rather glad that there had been such a meeting. It
had been serviceable in deadening the first shock, without retaining any
influence to alarm. As Harriet now lived, the Martins could not get
at her, without seeking her, where hitherto they had wanted either the
courage or the condescension to seek her; for since her refusal of the
brother, the sisters never had been at Mrs. Goddard's; and a twelvemonth
might pass without their being thrown together again, with any
necessity, or even any power of speech.



CHAPTER IV


Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting
situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of
being kindly spoken of.

A week had not passed since Miss Hawkins's name was first mentioned in
Highbury, before she was, by some means or other, discovered to have
every recommendation of person and mind; to be handsome, elegant, highly
accomplished, and perfectly amiable: and when Mr. Elton himself arrived
to triumph in his happy prospects, and circulate the fame of her merits,
there was very little more for him to do, than to tell her Christian
name, and say whose music she principally played.

Mr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected and
mortified--disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series of what
appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing the right
lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one. He
had gone away deeply offended--he came back engaged to another--and
to another as superior, of course, to the first, as under such
circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost. He came back gay
and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse,
and defying Miss Smith.

The charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of
perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune,
of so many thousands as would always be called ten; a point of some
dignity, as well as some convenience: the story told well; he had not
thrown himself away--he had gained a woman of 10,000 l. or thereabouts;
and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity--the first hour of
introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice;
the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress
of the affair was so glorious--the steps so quick, from the accidental
rencontre, to the dinner at Mr. Green's, and the party at Mrs.
Brown's--smiles and blushes rising in importance--with consciousness and
agitation richly scattered--the lady had been so easily impressed--so
sweetly disposed--had in short, to use a most intelligible phrase,
been so very ready to have him, that vanity and prudence were equally
contented.

He had caught both substance and shadow--both fortune and affection, and
was just the happy man he ought to be; talking only of himself and
his own concerns--expecting to be congratulated--ready to be laughed
at--and, with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young
ladies of the place, to whom, a few weeks ago, he would have been more
cautiously gallant.

The wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to
please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for; and
when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation, which
a certain glance of Mrs. Cole's did not seem to contradict, that when he
next entered Highbury he would bring his bride.

During his present short stay, Emma had barely seen him; but just enough
to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression
of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension, now
spread over his air. She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder
that she had ever thought him pleasing at all; and his sight was so
inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that,
except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable
humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured
of never seeing him again. She wished him very well; but he gave
her pain, and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most
satisfaction.

The pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must
certainly be lessened by his marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be
prevented--many awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A _Mrs._ _Elton_ would
be an excuse for any change of intercourse; former intimacy might sink
without remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility
again.

Of the lady, individually, Emma thought very little. She was good enough
for Mr. Elton, no doubt; accomplished enough for Highbury--handsome
enough--to look plain, probably, by Harriet's side. As to connexion,
there Emma was perfectly easy; persuaded, that after all his own vaunted
claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article,
truth seemed attainable. _What_ she was, must be uncertain; but _who_
she was, might be found out; and setting aside the 10,000 l., it did not
appear that she was at all Harriet's superior. She brought no name, no
blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters
of a Bristol--merchant, of course, he must be called; but, as the whole
of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it
was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very
moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath;
but Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol; for though the
father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained--in the law
line--nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than
that he was in the law line; and with him the daughter had lived. Emma
guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise.
And all the grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder
sister, who was _very_ _well_ _married_, to a gentleman in a _great_
_way_, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the
history; that was the glory of Miss Hawkins.

Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had
talked her into love; but, alas! she was not so easily to be talked out
of it. The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet's
mind was not to be talked away. He might be superseded by another; he
certainly would indeed; nothing could be clearer; even a Robert Martin
would have been sufficient; but nothing else, she feared, would cure
her. Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always
in love. And now, poor girl! she was considerably worse from this
reappearance of Mr. Elton. She was always having a glimpse of him
somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once; but two or three times every
day Harriet was sure _just_ to meet with him, or _just_ to miss him,
_just_ to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, _just_ to have something
occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring warmth of
surprize and conjecture. She was, moreover, perpetually hearing about
him; for, excepting when at Hartfield, she was always among those who
saw no fault in Mr. Elton, and found nothing so interesting as
the discussion of his concerns; and every report, therefore, every
guess--all that had already occurred, all that might occur in the
arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and
furniture, was continually in agitation around her. Her regard was
receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept
alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Miss
Hawkins's happiness, and continual observation of, how much he seemed
attached!--his air as he walked by the house--the very sitting of his
hat, being all in proof of how much he was in love!

Had it been allowable entertainment, had there been no pain to her
friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet's mind,
Emma would have been amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr. Elton
predominated, sometimes the Martins; and each was occasionally useful
as a check to the other. Mr. Elton's engagement had been the cure of
the agitation of meeting Mr. Martin. The unhappiness produced by the
knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth
Martin's calling at Mrs. Goddard's a few days afterwards. Harriet had
not been at home; but a note had been prepared and left for her, written
in the very style to touch; a small mixture of reproach, with a great
deal of kindness; and till Mr. Elton himself appeared, she had been much
occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return,
and wishing to do more than she dared to confess. But Mr. Elton, in
person, had driven away all such cares. While he staid, the Martins were
forgotten; and on the very morning of his setting off for Bath again,
Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best
for her to return Elizabeth Martin's visit.

How that visit was to be acknowledged--what would be necessary--and
what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration.
Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would
be ingratitude. It must not be: and yet the danger of a renewal of the
acquaintance--!

After much thinking, she could determine on nothing better, than
Harriet's returning the visit; but in a way that, if they had
understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal
acquaintance. She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the
Abbey Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again
so soon, as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous
recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree
of intimacy was chosen for the future.

She could think of nothing better: and though there was something in it
which her own heart could not approve--something of ingratitude, merely
glossed over--it must be done, or what would become of Harriet?



CHAPTER V


Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her
friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard's, her evil stars had led her
to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to _The Rev.
Philip Elton, White-Hart, Bath_, was to be seen under the operation of
being lifted into the butcher's cart, which was to convey it to where
the coaches past; and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk
and the direction, was consequently a blank.

She went, however; and when they reached the farm, and she was to be
put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between
espalier apple-trees to the front door, the sight of every thing which
had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to
revive a little local agitation; and when they parted, Emma observed her
to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined
her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour.
She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who
was married, and settled in Donwell.

The quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again;
and Miss Smith receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and
unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the
gravel walk--a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with
her seemingly with ceremonious civility.

Harriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was
feeling too much; but at last Emma collected from her enough to
understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating.
She had seen only Mrs. Martin and the two girls. They had received her
doubtingly, if not coolly; and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had
been talked almost all the time--till just at last, when Mrs. Martin's
saying, all of a sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had
brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very
room she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There
were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window.
_He_ had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour,
the party, the occasion--to feel the same consciousness, the same
regrets--to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they
were just growing again like themselves, (Harriet, as Emma must suspect,
as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy,) when the carriage
reappeared, and all was over. The style of the visit, and the shortness
of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given
to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months
ago!--Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might
resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She
would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had
the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a
_little_ higher should have been enough: but as it was, how could she
have done otherwise?--Impossible!--She could not repent. They must be
separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the process--so much
to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little
consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls to
procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the Martins. The
refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary.

It was a good scheme; but on driving to the door they heard that neither
“master nor mistress was at home;” they had both been out some time; the
man believed they were gone to Hartfield.

“This is too bad,” cried Emma, as they turned away. “And now we shall
just miss them; too provoking!--I do not know when I have been so
disappointed.” And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her
murmurs, or to reason them away; probably a little of both--such being
the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage
stopt; she looked up; it was stopt by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were
standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of
them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound--for Mr. Weston
immediately accosted her with,

“How d'ye do?--how d'ye do?--We have been sitting with your father--glad
to see him so well. Frank comes to-morrow--I had a letter this
morning--we see him to-morrow by dinner-time to a certainty--he is at
Oxford to-day, and he comes for a whole fortnight; I knew it would be
so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days; I
was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have
just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall
enjoy him completely; every thing has turned out exactly as we could
wish.”

There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the
influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston's, confirmed as it all was
by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not
less to the purpose. To know that _she_ thought his coming certain was
enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in
their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits.
The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in
the rapidity of half a moment's thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now
be talked of no more.

Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which
allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command,
as well as the route and the method of his journey; and she listened,
and smiled, and congratulated.

“I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield,” said he, at the conclusion.

Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his
wife.

“We had better move on, Mr. Weston,” said she, “we are detaining the
girls.”

“Well, well, I am ready;”--and turning again to Emma, “but you must
not be expecting such a _very_ fine young man; you have only
had _my_ account you know; I dare say he is really nothing
extraordinary:”--though his own sparkling eyes at the moment were
speaking a very different conviction.

Emma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a
manner that appropriated nothing.

“Think of me to-morrow, my dear Emma, about four o'clock,” was Mrs.
Weston's parting injunction; spoken with some anxiety, and meant only
for her.

“Four o'clock!--depend upon it he will be here by three,” was Mr.
Weston's quick amendment; and so ended a most satisfactory meeting.
Emma's spirits were mounted quite up to happiness; every thing wore
a different air; James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as
before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least
must soon be coming out; and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw
something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there.

“Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?”--was a
question, however, which did not augur much.

But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once, and Emma
was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time.

The morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston's faithful
pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve o'clock, that
she was to think of her at four.

“My dear, dear anxious friend,”--said she, in mental soliloquy, while
walking downstairs from her own room, “always overcareful for every
body's comfort but your own; I see you now in all your little fidgets,
going again and again into his room, to be sure that all is right.”
 The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. “'Tis twelve;
I shall not forget to think of you four hours hence; and by this
time to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the
possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring him
soon.”

She opened the parlour door, and saw two gentlemen sitting with her
father--Mr. Weston and his son. They had been arrived only a few
minutes, and Mr. Weston had scarcely finished his explanation of Frank's
being a day before his time, and her father was yet in the midst of his
very civil welcome and congratulations, when she appeared, to have her
share of surprize, introduction, and pleasure.

The Frank Churchill so long talked of, so high in interest, was actually
before her--he was presented to her, and she did not think too much had
been said in his praise; he was a _very_ good looking young man; height,
air, address, all were unexceptionable, and his countenance had a great
deal of the spirit and liveliness of his father's; he looked quick and
sensible. She felt immediately that she should like him; and there was
a well-bred ease of manner, and a readiness to talk, which convinced her
that he came intending to be acquainted with her, and that acquainted
they soon must be.

He had reached Randalls the evening before. She was pleased with the
eagerness to arrive which had made him alter his plan, and travel
earlier, later, and quicker, that he might gain half a day.

“I told you yesterday,” cried Mr. Weston with exultation, “I told you
all that he would be here before the time named. I remembered what I
used to do myself. One cannot creep upon a journey; one cannot help
getting on faster than one has planned; and the pleasure of coming in
upon one's friends before the look-out begins, is worth a great deal
more than any little exertion it needs.”

“It is a great pleasure where one can indulge in it,” said the young
man, “though there are not many houses that I should presume on so far;
but in coming _home_ I felt I might do any thing.”

The word _home_ made his father look on him with fresh complacency.
Emma was directly sure that he knew how to make himself agreeable; the
conviction was strengthened by what followed. He was very much pleased
with Randalls, thought it a most admirably arranged house, would hardly
allow it even to be very small, admired the situation, the walk to
Highbury, Highbury itself, Hartfield still more, and professed himself
to have always felt the sort of interest in the country which none but
one's _own_ country gives, and the greatest curiosity to visit it. That
he should never have been able to indulge so amiable a feeling before,
passed suspiciously through Emma's brain; but still, if it were a
falsehood, it was a pleasant one, and pleasantly handled. His manner had
no air of study or exaggeration. He did really look and speak as if in a
state of no common enjoyment.

Their subjects in general were such as belong to an opening
acquaintance. On his side were the inquiries,--“Was she a
horsewoman?--Pleasant rides?--Pleasant walks?--Had they a large
neighbourhood?--Highbury, perhaps, afforded society enough?--There were
several very pretty houses in and about it.--Balls--had they balls?--Was
it a musical society?”

But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance
proportionably advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while
their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his
mother-in-law, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much
warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his
father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional
proof of his knowing how to please--and of his certainly thinking it
worth while to try to please her. He did not advance a word of praise
beyond what she knew to be thoroughly deserved by Mrs. Weston; but,
undoubtedly he could know very little of the matter. He understood
what would be welcome; he could be sure of little else. “His father's
marriage,” he said, “had been the wisest measure, every friend must
rejoice in it; and the family from whom he had received such a blessing
must be ever considered as having conferred the highest obligation on
him.”

He got as near as he could to thanking her for Miss Taylor's merits,
without seeming quite to forget that in the common course of things it
was to be rather supposed that Miss Taylor had formed Miss Woodhouse's
character, than Miss Woodhouse Miss Taylor's. And at last, as if
resolved to qualify his opinion completely for travelling round to its
object, he wound it all up with astonishment at the youth and beauty of
her person.

“Elegant, agreeable manners, I was prepared for,” said he; “but I
confess that, considering every thing, I had not expected more than a
very tolerably well-looking woman of a certain age; I did not know that
I was to find a pretty young woman in Mrs. Weston.”

“You cannot see too much perfection in Mrs. Weston for my feelings,”
 said Emma; “were you to guess her to be _eighteen_, I should listen with
pleasure; but _she_ would be ready to quarrel with you for using such
words. Don't let her imagine that you have spoken of her as a pretty
young woman.”

“I hope I should know better,” he replied; “no, depend upon it, (with a
gallant bow,) that in addressing Mrs. Weston I should understand whom
I might praise without any danger of being thought extravagant in my
terms.”

Emma wondered whether the same suspicion of what might be expected from
their knowing each other, which had taken strong possession of her mind,
had ever crossed his; and whether his compliments were to be considered
as marks of acquiescence, or proofs of defiance. She must see more
of him to understand his ways; at present she only felt they were
agreeable.

She had no doubt of what Mr. Weston was often thinking about. His quick
eye she detected again and again glancing towards them with a happy
expression; and even, when he might have determined not to look, she was
confident that he was often listening.

Her own father's perfect exemption from any thought of the kind, the
entire deficiency in him of all such sort of penetration or suspicion,
was a most comfortable circumstance. Happily he was not farther from
approving matrimony than from foreseeing it.--Though always objecting
to every marriage that was arranged, he never suffered beforehand from
the apprehension of any; it seemed as if he could not think so ill of
any two persons' understanding as to suppose they meant to marry till it
were proved against them. She blessed the favouring blindness. He could
now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a
glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all
his natural kind-hearted civility in solicitous inquiries after Mr.
Frank Churchill's accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils
of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed
anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching cold--which,
however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself till
after another night.

A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move.--“He must be going.
He had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for
Mrs. Weston at Ford's, but he need not hurry any body else.” His son,
too well bred to hear the hint, rose immediately also, saying,

“As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity
of paying a visit, which must be paid some day or other, and therefore
may as well be paid now. I have the honour of being acquainted with
a neighbour of yours, (turning to Emma,) a lady residing in or near
Highbury; a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall have no difficulty,
I suppose, in finding the house; though Fairfax, I believe, is not
the proper name--I should rather say Barnes, or Bates. Do you know any
family of that name?”

“To be sure we do,” cried his father; “Mrs. Bates--we passed her
house--I saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted
with Miss Fairfax; I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl
she is. Call upon her, by all means.”

“There is no necessity for my calling this morning,” said the young man;
“another day would do as well; but there was that degree of acquaintance
at Weymouth which--”

“Oh! go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done
cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank;
any want of attention to her _here_ should be carefully avoided. You saw
her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of every body she mixed
with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother, who has barely enough
to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight.”

The son looked convinced.

“I have heard her speak of the acquaintance,” said Emma; “she is a very
elegant young woman.”

He agreed to it, but with so quiet a “Yes,” as inclined her almost to
doubt his real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort
of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought
only ordinarily gifted with it.

“If you were never particularly struck by her manners before,” said she,
“I think you will to-day. You will see her to advantage; see her and
hear her--no, I am afraid you will not hear her at all, for she has an
aunt who never holds her tongue.”

“You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you?” said Mr.
Woodhouse, always the last to make his way in conversation; “then give
me leave to assure you that you will find her a very agreeable young
lady. She is staying here on a visit to her grandmama and aunt, very
worthy people; I have known them all my life. They will be extremely
glad to see you, I am sure; and one of my servants shall go with you to
shew you the way.”

“My dear sir, upon no account in the world; my father can direct me.”

“But your father is not going so far; he is only going to the Crown,
quite on the other side of the street, and there are a great many
houses; you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty walk,
unless you keep on the footpath; but my coachman can tell you where you
had best cross the street.”

Mr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could,
and his father gave his hearty support by calling out, “My good friend,
this is quite unnecessary; Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees
it, and as to Mrs. Bates's, he may get there from the Crown in a hop,
step, and jump.”

They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one, and a
graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained
very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now
engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full
confidence in their comfort.



CHAPTER VI


The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with Mrs.
Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially. He had
been sitting with her, it appeared, most companionably at home, till
her usual hour of exercise; and on being desired to chuse their walk,
immediately fixed on Highbury.--“He did not doubt there being very
pleasant walks in every direction, but if left to him, he should always
chuse the same. Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happy-looking Highbury,
would be his constant attraction.”--Highbury, with Mrs. Weston, stood
for Hartfield; and she trusted to its bearing the same construction with
him. They walked thither directly.

Emma had hardly expected them: for Mr. Weston, who had called in for
half a minute, in order to hear that his son was very handsome, knew
nothing of their plans; and it was an agreeable surprize to her,
therefore, to perceive them walking up to the house together, arm in
arm. She was wanting to see him again, and especially to see him in
company with Mrs. Weston, upon his behaviour to whom her opinion of him
was to depend. If he were deficient there, nothing should make amends
for it. But on seeing them together, she became perfectly satisfied. It
was not merely in fine words or hyperbolical compliment that he paid his
duty; nothing could be more proper or pleasing than his whole manner to
her--nothing could more agreeably denote his wish of considering her as
a friend and securing her affection. And there was time enough for Emma
to form a reasonable judgment, as their visit included all the rest of
the morning. They were all three walking about together for an hour
or two--first round the shrubberies of Hartfield, and afterwards
in Highbury. He was delighted with every thing; admired Hartfield
sufficiently for Mr. Woodhouse's ear; and when their going farther was
resolved on, confessed his wish to be made acquainted with the whole
village, and found matter of commendation and interest much oftener than
Emma could have supposed.

Some of the objects of his curiosity spoke very amiable feelings. He
begged to be shewn the house which his father had lived in so long, and
which had been the home of his father's father; and on recollecting that
an old woman who had nursed him was still living, walked in quest of
her cottage from one end of the street to the other; and though in
some points of pursuit or observation there was no positive merit, they
shewed, altogether, a good-will towards Highbury in general, which must
be very like a merit to those he was with.

Emma watched and decided, that with such feelings as were now shewn, it
could not be fairly supposed that he had been ever voluntarily absenting
himself; that he had not been acting a part, or making a parade of
insincere professions; and that Mr. Knightley certainly had not done him
justice.

Their first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though
the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of post-horses
were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any
run on the road; and his companions had not expected to be detained by
any interest excited there; but in passing it they gave the history of
the large room visibly added; it had been built many years ago for
a ball-room, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly
populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as such;--but such
brilliant days had long passed away, and now the highest purpose for
which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established
among the gentlemen and half-gentlemen of the place. He was immediately
interested. Its character as a ball-room caught him; and instead of
passing on, he stopt for several minutes at the two superior sashed
windows which were open, to look in and contemplate its capabilities,
and lament that its original purpose should have ceased. He saw no fault
in the room, he would acknowledge none which they suggested. No, it
was long enough, broad enough, handsome enough. It would hold the
very number for comfort. They ought to have balls there at least every
fortnight through the winter. Why had not Miss Woodhouse revived
the former good old days of the room?--She who could do any thing in
Highbury! The want of proper families in the place, and the conviction
that none beyond the place and its immediate environs could be tempted
to attend, were mentioned; but he was not satisfied. He could not be
persuaded that so many good-looking houses as he saw around him, could
not furnish numbers enough for such a meeting; and even when particulars
were given and families described, he was still unwilling to admit that
the inconvenience of such a mixture would be any thing, or that there
would be the smallest difficulty in every body's returning into their
proper place the next morning. He argued like a young man very much bent
on dancing; and Emma was rather surprized to see the constitution of
the Weston prevail so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills.
He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social
inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of
Enscombe. Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough; his
indifference to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of
mind. He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap.
It was but an effusion of lively spirits.

At last he was persuaded to move on from the front of the Crown;
and being now almost facing the house where the Bateses lodged, Emma
recollected his intended visit the day before, and asked him if he had
paid it.

“Yes, oh! yes”--he replied; “I was just going to mention it. A very
successful visit:--I saw all the three ladies; and felt very much
obliged to you for your preparatory hint. If the talking aunt had taken
me quite by surprize, it must have been the death of me. As it was, I
was only betrayed into paying a most unreasonable visit. Ten minutes
would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper; and
I had told my father I should certainly be at home before him--but there
was no getting away, no pause; and, to my utter astonishment, I found,
when he (finding me nowhere else) joined me there at last, that I had
been actually sitting with them very nearly three-quarters of an hour.
The good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before.”

“And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking?”

“Ill, very ill--that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look
ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies
can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so
pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.--A most
deplorable want of complexion.”

Emma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax's
complexion. “It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not
allow it to have a sickly hue in general; and there was a softness and
delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of
her face.” He listened with all due deference; acknowledged that he had
heard many people say the same--but yet he must confess, that to him
nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where
features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all;
and where they were good, the effect was--fortunately he need not
attempt to describe what the effect was.

“Well,” said Emma, “there is no disputing about taste.--At least you
admire her except her complexion.”

He shook his head and laughed.--“I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her
complexion.”

“Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?”

At this moment they were approaching Ford's, and he hastily exclaimed,
“Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of
their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he
says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's.
If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove
myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must
buy something at Ford's. It will be taking out my freedom.--I dare say
they sell gloves.”

“Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will
be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because
you were Mr. Weston's son--but lay out half a guinea at Ford's, and your
popularity will stand upon your own virtues.”

They went in; and while the sleek, well-tied parcels of “Men's Beavers”
 and “York Tan” were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he
said--“But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me,
you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my _amor_
_patriae_. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of
public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in
private life.”

“I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her
party at Weymouth.”

“And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a
very unfair one. It is always the lady's right to decide on the degree
of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account.--I
shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow.”

“Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But
her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very
reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any
body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance
with her.”

“May I, indeed?--Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so
well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a
little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set.
Colonel Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly,
warm-hearted woman. I like them all.”

“You know Miss Fairfax's situation in life, I conclude; what she is
destined to be?”

“Yes--(rather hesitatingly)--I believe I do.”

“You get upon delicate subjects, Emma,” said Mrs. Weston smiling;
“remember that I am here.--Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say
when you speak of Miss Fairfax's situation in life. I will move a little
farther off.”

“I certainly do forget to think of _her_,” said Emma, “as having ever
been any thing but my friend and my dearest friend.”

He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment.

When the gloves were bought, and they had quitted the shop again, “Did
you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?” said Frank
Churchill.

“Ever hear her!” repeated Emma. “You forget how much she belongs to
Highbury. I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began.
She plays charmingly.”

“You think so, do you?--I wanted the opinion of some one who
could really judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with
considerable taste, but I know nothing of the matter myself.--I am
excessively fond of music, but without the smallest skill or right
of judging of any body's performance.--I have been used to hear her's
admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well:--a
man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman--engaged to
her--on the point of marriage--would yet never ask that other woman
to sit down to the instrument, if the lady in question could sit down
instead--never seemed to like to hear one if he could hear the other.
That, I thought, in a man of known musical talent, was some proof.”

“Proof indeed!” said Emma, highly amused.--“Mr. Dixon is very musical,
is he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you,
than Miss Fairfax would have vouchsafed in half a year.”

“Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a
very strong proof.”

“Certainly--very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger
than, if _I_ had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable
to me. I could not excuse a man's having more music than love--more ear
than eye--a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings.
How did Miss Campbell appear to like it?”

“It was her very particular friend, you know.”

“Poor comfort!” said Emma, laughing. “One would rather have a stranger
preferred than one's very particular friend--with a stranger it might
not recur again--but the misery of having a very particular friend
always at hand, to do every thing better than one does oneself!--Poor
Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone to settle in Ireland.”

“You are right. It was not very flattering to Miss Campbell; but she
really did not seem to feel it.”

“So much the better--or so much the worse:--I do not know which. But
be it sweetness or be it stupidity in her--quickness of friendship, or
dulness of feeling--there was one person, I think, who must have felt
it: Miss Fairfax herself. She must have felt the improper and dangerous
distinction.”

“As to that--I do not--”

“Oh! do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax's
sensations from you, or from any body else. They are known to no human
being, I guess, but herself. But if she continued to play whenever she
was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses.”

“There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all--”
 he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, “however, it is
impossible for me to say on what terms they really were--how it might
all be behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness
outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be
a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct
herself in critical situations, than I can be.”

“I have known her from a child, undoubtedly; we have been children
and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be
intimate,--that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited
her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened; a
little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take
disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was,
by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserve--I
never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved.”

“It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,” said he. “Oftentimes very
convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve,
but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”

“Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction
may be the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an
agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of
conquering any body's reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss
Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. I have no reason to think
ill of her--not the least--except that such extreme and perpetual
cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea
about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to
conceal.”

He perfectly agreed with her: and after walking together so long, and
thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him,
that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was
not exactly what she had expected; less of the man of the world in some
of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better
than she had expected. His ideas seemed more moderate--his feelings
warmer. She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr.
Elton's house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at,
and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could not
believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for
having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not
think any man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample
room in it for every real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who
wanted more.

Mrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about.
Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many
advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no
judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma,
in her own mind, determined that he _did_ know what he was talking
about, and that he shewed a very amiable inclination to settle early in
life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the
inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper's room, or
a bad butler's pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe
could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would
willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment.



CHAPTER VII


Emma's very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the
following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have
his hair cut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and
he had sent for a chaise and set off, intending to return to dinner,
but with no more important view that appeared than having his hair cut.
There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over
on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it
which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of
plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart,
which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity,
extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be
doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his
father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear
in general; he became liable to all these charges. His father only
called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs.
Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as
quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that “all young
people would have their little whims.”

With the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit
hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston
was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made
himself--how much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He
appeared to have a very open temper--certainly a very cheerful and
lively one; she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal
decidedly right; he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of
talking of him--said he would be the best man in the world if he were
left to himself; and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he
acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to
speak of her with respect. This was all very promising; and, but for
such an unfortunate fancy for having his hair cut, there was nothing to
denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination
had given him; the honour, if not of being really in love with her,
of being at least very near it, and saved only by her own
indifference--(for still her resolution held of never marrying)--the
honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint
acquaintance.

Mr. Weston, on his side, added a virtue to the account which must
have some weight. He gave her to understand that Frank admired her
extremely--thought her very beautiful and very charming; and with so
much to be said for him altogether, she found she must not judge him
harshly. As Mrs. Weston observed, “all young people would have their
little whims.”

There was one person among his new acquaintance in Surry, not so
leniently disposed. In general he was judged, throughout the parishes of
Donwell and Highbury, with great candour; liberal allowances were made
for the little excesses of such a handsome young man--one who smiled so
often and bowed so well; but there was one spirit among them not to be
softened, from its power of censure, by bows or smiles--Mr. Knightley.
The circumstance was told him at Hartfield; for the moment, he was
silent; but Emma heard him almost immediately afterwards say to himself,
over a newspaper he held in his hand, “Hum! just the trifling, silly
fellow I took him for.” She had half a mind to resent; but an instant's
observation convinced her that it was really said only to relieve his
own feelings, and not meant to provoke; and therefore she let it pass.

Although in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and
Mrs. Weston's visit this morning was in another respect particularly
opportune. Something occurred while they were at Hartfield, to make Emma
want their advice; and, which was still more lucky, she wanted exactly
the advice they gave.

This was the occurrence:--The Coles had been settled some years in
Highbury, and were very good sort of people--friendly, liberal, and
unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade,
and only moderately genteel. On their first coming into the country,
they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little
company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had
brought them a considerable increase of means--the house in town had
yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With
their wealth, their views increased; their want of a larger house, their
inclination for more company. They added to their house, to their number
of servants, to their expenses of every sort; and by this time were,
in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield.
Their love of society, and their new dining-room, prepared every body
for their keeping dinner-company; and a few parties, chiefly among the
single men, had already taken place. The regular and best families Emma
could hardly suppose they would presume to invite--neither Donwell, nor
Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing should tempt _her_ to go, if they did;
and she regretted that her father's known habits would be giving
her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very
respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not
for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit
them. This lesson, she very much feared, they would receive only from
herself; she had little hope of Mr. Knightley, none of Mr. Weston.

But she had made up her mind how to meet this presumption so many weeks
before it appeared, that when the insult came at last, it found her
very differently affected. Donwell and Randalls had received their
invitation, and none had come for her father and herself; and Mrs.
Weston's accounting for it with “I suppose they will not take the
liberty with you; they know you do not dine out,” was not quite
sufficient. She felt that she should like to have had the power of
refusal; and afterwards, as the idea of the party to be assembled there,
consisting precisely of those whose society was dearest to her, occurred
again and again, she did not know that she might not have been tempted
to accept. Harriet was to be there in the evening, and the Bateses. They
had been speaking of it as they walked about Highbury the day before,
and Frank Churchill had most earnestly lamented her absence. Might
not the evening end in a dance? had been a question of his. The bare
possibility of it acted as a farther irritation on her spirits; and
her being left in solitary grandeur, even supposing the omission to be
intended as a compliment, was but poor comfort.

It was the arrival of this very invitation while the Westons were at
Hartfield, which made their presence so acceptable; for though her first
remark, on reading it, was that “of course it must be declined,” she so
very soon proceeded to ask them what they advised her to do, that their
advice for her going was most prompt and successful.

She owned that, considering every thing, she was not absolutely
without inclination for the party. The Coles expressed themselves so
properly--there was so much real attention in the manner of it--so much
consideration for her father. “They would have solicited the honour
earlier, but had been waiting the arrival of a folding-screen from
London, which they hoped might keep Mr. Woodhouse from any draught of
air, and therefore induce him the more readily to give them the honour
of his company.” Upon the whole, she was very persuadable; and it being
briefly settled among themselves how it might be done without neglecting
his comfort--how certainly Mrs. Goddard, if not Mrs. Bates, might be
depended on for bearing him company--Mr. Woodhouse was to be talked
into an acquiescence of his daughter's going out to dinner on a day now
near at hand, and spending the whole evening away from him. As for _his_
going, Emma did not wish him to think it possible, the hours would be
too late, and the party too numerous. He was soon pretty well resigned.

“I am not fond of dinner-visiting,” said he--“I never was. No more is
Emma. Late hours do not agree with us. I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Cole
should have done it. I think it would be much better if they would come
in one afternoon next summer, and take their tea with us--take us
in their afternoon walk; which they might do, as our hours are so
reasonable, and yet get home without being out in the damp of the
evening. The dews of a summer evening are what I would not expose any
body to. However, as they are so very desirous to have dear Emma dine
with them, and as you will both be there, and Mr. Knightley too, to take
care of her, I cannot wish to prevent it, provided the weather be what
it ought, neither damp, nor cold, nor windy.” Then turning to Mrs.
Weston, with a look of gentle reproach--“Ah! Miss Taylor, if you had not
married, you would have staid at home with me.”

“Well, sir,” cried Mr. Weston, “as I took Miss Taylor away, it is
incumbent on me to supply her place, if I can; and I will step to Mrs.
Goddard in a moment, if you wish it.”

But the idea of any thing to be done in a _moment_, was increasing,
not lessening, Mr. Woodhouse's agitation. The ladies knew better how
to allay it. Mr. Weston must be quiet, and every thing deliberately
arranged.

With this treatment, Mr. Woodhouse was soon composed enough for talking
as usual. “He should be happy to see Mrs. Goddard. He had a great regard
for Mrs. Goddard; and Emma should write a line, and invite her. James
could take the note. But first of all, there must be an answer written
to Mrs. Cole.”

“You will make my excuses, my dear, as civilly as possible. You will say
that I am quite an invalid, and go no where, and therefore must decline
their obliging invitation; beginning with my _compliments_, of course.
But you will do every thing right. I need not tell you what is to be
done. We must remember to let James know that the carriage will be
wanted on Tuesday. I shall have no fears for you with him. We have never
been there above once since the new approach was made; but still I have
no doubt that James will take you very safely. And when you get there,
you must tell him at what time you would have him come for you again;
and you had better name an early hour. You will not like staying late.
You will get very tired when tea is over.”

“But you would not wish me to come away before I am tired, papa?”

“Oh! no, my love; but you will soon be tired. There will be a great many
people talking at once. You will not like the noise.”

“But, my dear sir,” cried Mr. Weston, “if Emma comes away early, it will
be breaking up the party.”

“And no great harm if it does,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “The sooner every
party breaks up, the better.”

“But you do not consider how it may appear to the Coles. Emma's going
away directly after tea might be giving offence. They are good-natured
people, and think little of their own claims; but still they must
feel that any body's hurrying away is no great compliment; and Miss
Woodhouse's doing it would be more thought of than any other person's in
the room. You would not wish to disappoint and mortify the Coles, I am
sure, sir; friendly, good sort of people as ever lived, and who have
been your neighbours these _ten_ years.”

“No, upon no account in the world, Mr. Weston; I am much obliged to
you for reminding me. I should be extremely sorry to be giving them any
pain. I know what worthy people they are. Perry tells me that Mr. Cole
never touches malt liquor. You would not think it to look at him, but
he is bilious--Mr. Cole is very bilious. No, I would not be the means
of giving them any pain. My dear Emma, we must consider this. I am sure,
rather than run the risk of hurting Mr. and Mrs. Cole, you would stay a
little longer than you might wish. You will not regard being tired. You
will be perfectly safe, you know, among your friends.”

“Oh yes, papa. I have no fears at all for myself; and I should have no
scruples of staying as late as Mrs. Weston, but on your account. I am
only afraid of your sitting up for me. I am not afraid of your not being
exceedingly comfortable with Mrs. Goddard. She loves piquet, you
know; but when she is gone home, I am afraid you will be sitting up by
yourself, instead of going to bed at your usual time--and the idea of
that would entirely destroy my comfort. You must promise me not to sit
up.”

He did, on the condition of some promises on her side: such as that,
if she came home cold, she would be sure to warm herself thoroughly; if
hungry, that she would take something to eat; that her own maid should
sit up for her; and that Serle and the butler should see that every
thing were safe in the house, as usual.



CHAPTER VIII


Frank Churchill came back again; and if he kept his father's dinner
waiting, it was not known at Hartfield; for Mrs. Weston was too anxious
for his being a favourite with Mr. Woodhouse, to betray any imperfection
which could be concealed.

He came back, had had his hair cut, and laughed at himself with a very
good grace, but without seeming really at all ashamed of what he had
done. He had no reason to wish his hair longer, to conceal any confusion
of face; no reason to wish the money unspent, to improve his spirits.
He was quite as undaunted and as lively as ever; and, after seeing him,
Emma thus moralised to herself:--

“I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things
do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent
way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.--It
depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is
_not_ a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this
differently. He would either have gloried in the achievement, or
been ashamed of it. There would have been either the ostentation of
a coxcomb, or the evasions of a mind too weak to defend its own
vanities.--No, I am perfectly sure that he is not trifling or silly.”

With Tuesday came the agreeable prospect of seeing him again, and for
a longer time than hitherto; of judging of his general manners, and by
inference, of the meaning of his manners towards herself; of guessing
how soon it might be necessary for her to throw coldness into her air;
and of fancying what the observations of all those might be, who were
now seeing them together for the first time.

She meant to be very happy, in spite of the scene being laid at Mr.
Cole's; and without being able to forget that among the failings of Mr.
Elton, even in the days of his favour, none had disturbed her more than
his propensity to dine with Mr. Cole.

Her father's comfort was amply secured, Mrs. Bates as well as Mrs.
Goddard being able to come; and her last pleasing duty, before she left
the house, was to pay her respects to them as they sat together after
dinner; and while her father was fondly noticing the beauty of her
dress, to make the two ladies all the amends in her power, by helping
them to large slices of cake and full glasses of wine, for whatever
unwilling self-denial his care of their constitution might have obliged
them to practise during the meal.--She had provided a plentiful dinner
for them; she wished she could know that they had been allowed to eat
it.

She followed another carriage to Mr. Cole's door; and was pleased to see
that it was Mr. Knightley's; for Mr. Knightley keeping no horses,
having little spare money and a great deal of health, activity, and
independence, was too apt, in Emma's opinion, to get about as he could,
and not use his carriage so often as became the owner of Donwell Abbey.
She had an opportunity now of speaking her approbation while warm from
her heart, for he stopped to hand her out.

“This is coming as you should do,” said she; “like a gentleman.--I am
quite glad to see you.”

He thanked her, observing, “How lucky that we should arrive at the same
moment! for, if we had met first in the drawing-room, I doubt whether
you would have discerned me to be more of a gentleman than usual.--You
might not have distinguished how I came, by my look or manner.”

“Yes I should, I am sure I should. There is always a look of
consciousness or bustle when people come in a way which they know to be
beneath them. You think you carry it off very well, I dare say, but
with you it is a sort of bravado, an air of affected unconcern; I always
observe it whenever I meet you under those circumstances. _Now_ you have
nothing to try for. You are not afraid of being supposed ashamed. You
are not striving to look taller than any body else. _Now_ I shall really
be very happy to walk into the same room with you.”

“Nonsensical girl!” was his reply, but not at all in anger.

Emma had as much reason to be satisfied with the rest of the party as
with Mr. Knightley. She was received with a cordial respect which could
not but please, and given all the consequence she could wish for.
When the Westons arrived, the kindest looks of love, the strongest of
admiration were for her, from both husband and wife; the son approached
her with a cheerful eagerness which marked her as his peculiar object,
and at dinner she found him seated by her--and, as she firmly believed,
not without some dexterity on his side.

The party was rather large, as it included one other family, a proper
unobjectionable country family, whom the Coles had the advantage of
naming among their acquaintance, and the male part of Mr. Cox's family,
the lawyer of Highbury. The less worthy females were to come in the
evening, with Miss Bates, Miss Fairfax, and Miss Smith; but already,
at dinner, they were too numerous for any subject of conversation to be
general; and, while politics and Mr. Elton were talked over, Emma could
fairly surrender all her attention to the pleasantness of her neighbour.
The first remote sound to which she felt herself obliged to attend, was
the name of Jane Fairfax. Mrs. Cole seemed to be relating something of
her that was expected to be very interesting. She listened, and found
it well worth listening to. That very dear part of Emma, her fancy,
received an amusing supply. Mrs. Cole was telling that she had been
calling on Miss Bates, and as soon as she entered the room had
been struck by the sight of a pianoforte--a very elegant looking
instrument--not a grand, but a large-sized square pianoforte; and the
substance of the story, the end of all the dialogue which ensued of
surprize, and inquiry, and congratulations on her side, and explanations
on Miss Bates's, was, that this pianoforte had arrived from
Broadwood's the day before, to the great astonishment of both aunt and
niece--entirely unexpected; that at first, by Miss Bates's account,
Jane herself was quite at a loss, quite bewildered to think who could
possibly have ordered it--but now, they were both perfectly satisfied
that it could be from only one quarter;--of course it must be from
Colonel Campbell.

“One can suppose nothing else,” added Mrs. Cole, “and I was only
surprized that there could ever have been a doubt. But Jane, it seems,
had a letter from them very lately, and not a word was said about it.
She knows their ways best; but I should not consider their silence as
any reason for their not meaning to make the present. They might chuse
to surprize her.”

Mrs. Cole had many to agree with her; every body who spoke on the
subject was equally convinced that it must come from Colonel Campbell,
and equally rejoiced that such a present had been made; and there were
enough ready to speak to allow Emma to think her own way, and still
listen to Mrs. Cole.

“I declare, I do not know when I have heard any thing that has given me
more satisfaction!--It always has quite hurt me that Jane Fairfax, who
plays so delightfully, should not have an instrument. It seemed quite
a shame, especially considering how many houses there are where fine
instruments are absolutely thrown away. This is like giving ourselves
a slap, to be sure! and it was but yesterday I was telling Mr. Cole,
I really was ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the
drawing-room, while I do not know one note from another, and our little
girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make any thing of
it; and there is poor Jane Fairfax, who is mistress of music, has not
any thing of the nature of an instrument, not even the pitifullest old
spinet in the world, to amuse herself with.--I was saying this to
Mr. Cole but yesterday, and he quite agreed with me; only he is so
particularly fond of music that he could not help indulging himself
in the purchase, hoping that some of our good neighbours might be so
obliging occasionally to put it to a better use than we can; and that
really is the reason why the instrument was bought--or else I am sure
we ought to be ashamed of it.--We are in great hopes that Miss Woodhouse
may be prevailed with to try it this evening.”

Miss Woodhouse made the proper acquiescence; and finding that nothing
more was to be entrapped from any communication of Mrs. Cole's, turned
to Frank Churchill.

“Why do you smile?” said she.

“Nay, why do you?”

“Me!--I suppose I smile for pleasure at Colonel Campbell's being so rich
and so liberal.--It is a handsome present.”

“Very.”

“I rather wonder that it was never made before.”

“Perhaps Miss Fairfax has never been staying here so long before.”

“Or that he did not give her the use of their own instrument--which must
now be shut up in London, untouched by any body.”

“That is a grand pianoforte, and he might think it too large for Mrs.
Bates's house.”

“You may _say_ what you chuse--but your countenance testifies that your
_thoughts_ on this subject are very much like mine.”

“I do not know. I rather believe you are giving me more credit for
acuteness than I deserve. I smile because you smile, and shall probably
suspect whatever I find you suspect; but at present I do not see what
there is to question. If Colonel Campbell is not the person, who can
be?”

“What do you say to Mrs. Dixon?”

“Mrs. Dixon! very true indeed. I had not thought of Mrs. Dixon. She must
know as well as her father, how acceptable an instrument would be; and
perhaps the mode of it, the mystery, the surprize, is more like a young
woman's scheme than an elderly man's. It is Mrs. Dixon, I dare say. I
told you that your suspicions would guide mine.”

“If so, you must extend your suspicions and comprehend _Mr_. Dixon in
them.”

“Mr. Dixon.--Very well. Yes, I immediately perceive that it must be the
joint present of Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. We were speaking the other day, you
know, of his being so warm an admirer of her performance.”

“Yes, and what you told me on that head, confirmed an idea which I had
entertained before.--I do not mean to reflect upon the good intentions
of either Mr. Dixon or Miss Fairfax, but I cannot help suspecting either
that, after making his proposals to her friend, he had the misfortune
to fall in love with _her_, or that he became conscious of a little
attachment on her side. One might guess twenty things without guessing
exactly the right; but I am sure there must be a particular cause for
her chusing to come to Highbury instead of going with the Campbells
to Ireland. Here, she must be leading a life of privation and penance;
there it would have been all enjoyment. As to the pretence of trying her
native air, I look upon that as a mere excuse.--In the summer it might
have passed; but what can any body's native air do for them in the
months of January, February, and March? Good fires and carriages would
be much more to the purpose in most cases of delicate health, and I dare
say in her's. I do not require you to adopt all my suspicions, though
you make so noble a profession of doing it, but I honestly tell you what
they are.”

“And, upon my word, they have an air of great probability. Mr. Dixon's
preference of her music to her friend's, I can answer for being very
decided.”

“And then, he saved her life. Did you ever hear of that?--A water
party; and by some accident she was falling overboard. He caught her.”

“He did. I was there--one of the party.”

“Were you really?--Well!--But you observed nothing of course, for it
seems to be a new idea to you.--If I had been there, I think I should
have made some discoveries.”

“I dare say you would; but I, simple I, saw nothing but the fact, that
Miss Fairfax was nearly dashed from the vessel and that Mr. Dixon caught
her.--It was the work of a moment. And though the consequent shock and
alarm was very great and much more durable--indeed I believe it was
half an hour before any of us were comfortable again--yet that was too
general a sensation for any thing of peculiar anxiety to be
observable. I do not mean to say, however, that you might not have made
discoveries.”

The conversation was here interrupted. They were called on to share
in the awkwardness of a rather long interval between the courses, and
obliged to be as formal and as orderly as the others; but when the table
was again safely covered, when every corner dish was placed exactly
right, and occupation and ease were generally restored, Emma said,

“The arrival of this pianoforte is decisive with me. I wanted to know
a little more, and this tells me quite enough. Depend upon it, we shall
soon hear that it is a present from Mr. and Mrs. Dixon.”

“And if the Dixons should absolutely deny all knowledge of it we must
conclude it to come from the Campbells.”

“No, I am sure it is not from the Campbells. Miss Fairfax knows it is
not from the Campbells, or they would have been guessed at first. She
would not have been puzzled, had she dared fix on them. I may not have
convinced you perhaps, but I am perfectly convinced myself that Mr.
Dixon is a principal in the business.”

“Indeed you injure me if you suppose me unconvinced. Your reasonings
carry my judgment along with them entirely. At first, while I supposed
you satisfied that Colonel Campbell was the giver, I saw it only as
paternal kindness, and thought it the most natural thing in the world.
But when you mentioned Mrs. Dixon, I felt how much more probable that it
should be the tribute of warm female friendship. And now I can see it in
no other light than as an offering of love.”

There was no occasion to press the matter farther. The conviction seemed
real; he looked as if he felt it. She said no more, other subjects
took their turn; and the rest of the dinner passed away; the dessert
succeeded, the children came in, and were talked to and admired amid the
usual rate of conversation; a few clever things said, a few downright
silly, but by much the larger proportion neither the one nor the
other--nothing worse than everyday remarks, dull repetitions, old news,
and heavy jokes.

The ladies had not been long in the drawing-room, before the other
ladies, in their different divisions, arrived. Emma watched the entree
of her own particular little friend; and if she could not exult in her
dignity and grace, she could not only love the blooming sweetness and
the artless manner, but could most heartily rejoice in that light,
cheerful, unsentimental disposition which allowed her so many
alleviations of pleasure, in the midst of the pangs of disappointed
affection. There she sat--and who would have guessed how many tears she
had been lately shedding? To be in company, nicely dressed herself and
seeing others nicely dressed, to sit and smile and look pretty, and say
nothing, was enough for the happiness of the present hour. Jane Fairfax
did look and move superior; but Emma suspected she might have been
glad to change feelings with Harriet, very glad to have purchased the
mortification of having loved--yes, of having loved even Mr. Elton in
vain--by the surrender of all the dangerous pleasure of knowing herself
beloved by the husband of her friend.

In so large a party it was not necessary that Emma should approach her.
She did not wish to speak of the pianoforte, she felt too much in the
secret herself, to think the appearance of curiosity or interest fair,
and therefore purposely kept at a distance; but by the others, the
subject was almost immediately introduced, and she saw the blush of
consciousness with which congratulations were received, the blush
of guilt which accompanied the name of “my excellent friend Colonel
Campbell.”

Mrs. Weston, kind-hearted and musical, was particularly interested
by the circumstance, and Emma could not help being amused at her
perseverance in dwelling on the subject; and having so much to ask and
to say as to tone, touch, and pedal, totally unsuspicious of that wish
of saying as little about it as possible, which she plainly read in the
fair heroine's countenance.

They were soon joined by some of the gentlemen; and the very first
of the early was Frank Churchill. In he walked, the first and the
handsomest; and after paying his compliments en passant to Miss Bates
and her niece, made his way directly to the opposite side of the circle,
where sat Miss Woodhouse; and till he could find a seat by her, would
not sit at all. Emma divined what every body present must be thinking.
She was his object, and every body must perceive it. She introduced him
to her friend, Miss Smith, and, at convenient moments afterwards, heard
what each thought of the other. “He had never seen so lovely a face, and
was delighted with her naivete.” And she, “Only to be sure it was paying
him too great a compliment, but she did think there were some looks a
little like Mr. Elton.” Emma restrained her indignation, and only turned
from her in silence.

Smiles of intelligence passed between her and the gentleman on first
glancing towards Miss Fairfax; but it was most prudent to avoid speech.
He told her that he had been impatient to leave the dining-room--hated
sitting long--was always the first to move when he could--that his
father, Mr. Knightley, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Cole, were left very busy over
parish business--that as long as he had staid, however, it had been
pleasant enough, as he had found them in general a set of gentlemanlike,
sensible men; and spoke so handsomely of Highbury altogether--thought it
so abundant in agreeable families--that Emma began to feel she had been
used to despise the place rather too much. She questioned him as to the
society in Yorkshire--the extent of the neighbourhood about Enscombe,
and the sort; and could make out from his answers that, as far as
Enscombe was concerned, there was very little going on, that their
visitings were among a range of great families, none very near; and
that even when days were fixed, and invitations accepted, it was an even
chance that Mrs. Churchill were not in health and spirits for going;
that they made a point of visiting no fresh person; and that, though
he had his separate engagements, it was not without difficulty, without
considerable address _at_ _times_, that he could get away, or introduce
an acquaintance for a night.

She saw that Enscombe could not satisfy, and that Highbury, taken at
its best, might reasonably please a young man who had more retirement at
home than he liked. His importance at Enscombe was very evident. He did
not boast, but it naturally betrayed itself, that he had persuaded his
aunt where his uncle could do nothing, and on her laughing and noticing
it, he owned that he believed (excepting one or two points) he could
_with_ _time_ persuade her to any thing. One of those points on which
his influence failed, he then mentioned. He had wanted very much to
go abroad--had been very eager indeed to be allowed to travel--but she
would not hear of it. This had happened the year before. _Now_, he said,
he was beginning to have no longer the same wish.

The unpersuadable point, which he did not mention, Emma guessed to be
good behaviour to his father.

“I have made a most wretched discovery,” said he, after a short pause.--
“I have been here a week to-morrow--half my time. I never knew days fly
so fast. A week to-morrow!--And I have hardly begun to enjoy myself.
But just got acquainted with Mrs. Weston, and others!--I hate the
recollection.”

“Perhaps you may now begin to regret that you spent one whole day, out
of so few, in having your hair cut.”

“No,” said he, smiling, “that is no subject of regret at all. I have
no pleasure in seeing my friends, unless I can believe myself fit to be
seen.”

The rest of the gentlemen being now in the room, Emma found herself
obliged to turn from him for a few minutes, and listen to Mr. Cole. When
Mr. Cole had moved away, and her attention could be restored as before,
she saw Frank Churchill looking intently across the room at Miss
Fairfax, who was sitting exactly opposite.

“What is the matter?” said she.

He started. “Thank you for rousing me,” he replied. “I believe I have
been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a
way--so very odd a way--that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw
any thing so outree!--Those curls!--This must be a fancy of her own. I
see nobody else looking like her!--I must go and ask her whether it
is an Irish fashion. Shall I?--Yes, I will--I declare I will--and you
shall see how she takes it;--whether she colours.”

He was gone immediately; and Emma soon saw him standing before Miss
Fairfax, and talking to her; but as to its effect on the young lady,
as he had improvidently placed himself exactly between them, exactly in
front of Miss Fairfax, she could absolutely distinguish nothing.

Before he could return to his chair, it was taken by Mrs. Weston.

“This is the luxury of a large party,” said she:--“one can get near
every body, and say every thing. My dear Emma, I am longing to talk
to you. I have been making discoveries and forming plans, just like
yourself, and I must tell them while the idea is fresh. Do you know how
Miss Bates and her niece came here?”

“How?--They were invited, were not they?”

“Oh! yes--but how they were conveyed hither?--the manner of their
coming?”

“They walked, I conclude. How else could they come?”

“Very true.--Well, a little while ago it occurred to me how very sad
it would be to have Jane Fairfax walking home again, late at night, and
cold as the nights are now. And as I looked at her, though I never saw
her appear to more advantage, it struck me that she was heated, and
would therefore be particularly liable to take cold. Poor girl! I could
not bear the idea of it; so, as soon as Mr. Weston came into the room,
and I could get at him, I spoke to him about the carriage. You may guess
how readily he came into my wishes; and having his approbation, I made
my way directly to Miss Bates, to assure her that the carriage would be
at her service before it took us home; for I thought it would be making
her comfortable at once. Good soul! she was as grateful as possible, you
may be sure. 'Nobody was ever so fortunate as herself!'--but with many,
many thanks--'there was no occasion to trouble us, for Mr. Knightley's
carriage had brought, and was to take them home again.' I was quite
surprized;--very glad, I am sure; but really quite surprized. Such a
very kind attention--and so thoughtful an attention!--the sort of thing
that so few men would think of. And, in short, from knowing his
usual ways, I am very much inclined to think that it was for their
accommodation the carriage was used at all. I do suspect he would not
have had a pair of horses for himself, and that it was only as an excuse
for assisting them.”

“Very likely,” said Emma--“nothing more likely. I know no man more
likely than Mr. Knightley to do the sort of thing--to do any thing
really good-natured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a
gallant man, but he is a very humane one; and this, considering Jane
Fairfax's ill-health, would appear a case of humanity to him;--and for
an act of unostentatious kindness, there is nobody whom I would fix on
more than on Mr. Knightley. I know he had horses to-day--for we arrived
together; and I laughed at him about it, but he said not a word that
could betray.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Weston, smiling, “you give him credit for more simple,
disinterested benevolence in this instance than I do; for while Miss
Bates was speaking, a suspicion darted into my head, and I have never
been able to get it out again. The more I think of it, the more probable
it appears. In short, I have made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane
Fairfax. See the consequence of keeping you company!--What do you say to
it?”

“Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax!” exclaimed Emma. “Dear Mrs. Weston, how
could you think of such a thing?--Mr. Knightley!--Mr. Knightley must not
marry!--You would not have little Henry cut out from Donwell?--Oh! no,
no, Henry must have Donwell. I cannot at all consent to Mr. Knightley's
marrying; and I am sure it is not at all likely. I am amazed that you
should think of such a thing.”

“My dear Emma, I have told you what led me to think of it. I do not want
the match--I do not want to injure dear little Henry--but the idea has
been given me by circumstances; and if Mr. Knightley really wished to
marry, you would not have him refrain on Henry's account, a boy of six
years old, who knows nothing of the matter?”

“Yes, I would. I could not bear to have Henry supplanted.--Mr.
Knightley marry!--No, I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt
it now. And Jane Fairfax, too, of all women!”

“Nay, she has always been a first favourite with him, as you very well
know.”

“But the imprudence of such a match!”

“I am not speaking of its prudence; merely its probability.”

“I see no probability in it, unless you have any better foundation than
what you mention. His good-nature, his humanity, as I tell you, would
be quite enough to account for the horses. He has a great regard for the
Bateses, you know, independent of Jane Fairfax--and is always glad to
shew them attention. My dear Mrs. Weston, do not take to match-making.
You do it very ill. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey!--Oh! no,
no;--every feeling revolts. For his own sake, I would not have him do so
mad a thing.”

“Imprudent, if you please--but not mad. Excepting inequality of fortune,
and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable.”

“But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the
least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry?--He
is as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and
his library, and all the parish to manage; and he is extremely fond of
his brother's children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up
his time or his heart.”

“My dear Emma, as long as he thinks so, it is so; but if he really loves
Jane Fairfax--”

“Nonsense! He does not care about Jane Fairfax. In the way of love, I am
sure he does not. He would do any good to her, or her family; but--”

“Well,” said Mrs. Weston, laughing, “perhaps the greatest good he could
do them, would be to give Jane such a respectable home.”

“If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself; a
very shameful and degrading connexion. How would he bear to have Miss
Bates belonging to him?--To have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking
him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane?--'So very
kind and obliging!--But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!'
And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother's old
petticoat. 'Not that it was such a very old petticoat either--for still
it would last a great while--and, indeed, she must thankfully say that
their petticoats were all very strong.'”

“For shame, Emma! Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience.
And, upon my word, I do not think Mr. Knightley would be much disturbed
by Miss Bates. Little things do not irritate him. She might talk on; and
if he wanted to say any thing himself, he would only talk louder, and
drown her voice. But the question is not, whether it would be a bad
connexion for him, but whether he wishes it; and I think he does. I have
heard him speak, and so must you, so very highly of Jane Fairfax! The
interest he takes in her--his anxiety about her health--his concern that
she should have no happier prospect! I have heard him express himself
so warmly on those points!--Such an admirer of her performance on the
pianoforte, and of her voice! I have heard him say that he could listen
to her for ever. Oh! and I had almost forgotten one idea that occurred
to me--this pianoforte that has been sent here by somebody--though
we have all been so well satisfied to consider it a present from the
Campbells, may it not be from Mr. Knightley? I cannot help suspecting
him. I think he is just the person to do it, even without being in
love.”

“Then it can be no argument to prove that he is in love. But I do not
think it is at all a likely thing for him to do. Mr. Knightley does
nothing mysteriously.”

“I have heard him lamenting her having no instrument repeatedly; oftener
than I should suppose such a circumstance would, in the common course of
things, occur to him.”

“Very well; and if he had intended to give her one, he would have told
her so.”

“There might be scruples of delicacy, my dear Emma. I have a very strong
notion that it comes from him. I am sure he was particularly silent when
Mrs. Cole told us of it at dinner.”

“You take up an idea, Mrs. Weston, and run away with it; as you have
many a time reproached me with doing. I see no sign of attachment--I
believe nothing of the pianoforte--and proof only shall convince me that
Mr. Knightley has any thought of marrying Jane Fairfax.”

They combated the point some time longer in the same way; Emma rather
gaining ground over the mind of her friend; for Mrs. Weston was the most
used of the two to yield; till a little bustle in the room shewed them
that tea was over, and the instrument in preparation;--and at the same
moment Mr. Cole approaching to entreat Miss Woodhouse would do them the
honour of trying it. Frank Churchill, of whom, in the eagerness of her
conversation with Mrs. Weston, she had been seeing nothing, except that
he had found a seat by Miss Fairfax, followed Mr. Cole, to add his very
pressing entreaties; and as, in every respect, it suited Emma best to
lead, she gave a very proper compliance.

She knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than
she could perform with credit; she wanted neither taste nor spirit in
the little things which are generally acceptable, and could accompany
her own voice well. One accompaniment to her song took her agreeably by
surprize--a second, slightly but correctly taken by Frank Churchill. Her
pardon was duly begged at the close of the song, and every thing usual
followed. He was accused of having a delightful voice, and a perfect
knowledge of music; which was properly denied; and that he knew nothing
of the matter, and had no voice at all, roundly asserted. They sang
together once more; and Emma would then resign her place to Miss
Fairfax, whose performance, both vocal and instrumental, she never could
attempt to conceal from herself, was infinitely superior to her own.

With mixed feelings, she seated herself at a little distance from the
numbers round the instrument, to listen. Frank Churchill sang again.
They had sung together once or twice, it appeared, at Weymouth. But the
sight of Mr. Knightley among the most attentive, soon drew away half
Emma's mind; and she fell into a train of thinking on the subject of
Mrs. Weston's suspicions, to which the sweet sounds of the united voices
gave only momentary interruptions. Her objections to Mr. Knightley's
marrying did not in the least subside. She could see nothing but evil
in it. It would be a great disappointment to Mr. John Knightley;
consequently to Isabella. A real injury to the children--a most
mortifying change, and material loss to them all;--a very great
deduction from her father's daily comfort--and, as to herself, she could
not at all endure the idea of Jane Fairfax at Donwell Abbey. A Mrs.
Knightley for them all to give way to!--No--Mr. Knightley must never
marry. Little Henry must remain the heir of Donwell.

Presently Mr. Knightley looked back, and came and sat down by her. They
talked at first only of the performance. His admiration was certainly
very warm; yet she thought, but for Mrs. Weston, it would not have
struck her. As a sort of touchstone, however, she began to speak of his
kindness in conveying the aunt and niece; and though his answer was in
the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to indicate only
his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own.

“I often feel concern,” said she, “that I dare not make our carriage
more useful on such occasions. It is not that I am without the wish; but
you know how impossible my father would deem it that James should put-to
for such a purpose.”

“Quite out of the question, quite out of the question,” he
replied;--“but you must often wish it, I am sure.” And he smiled with
such seeming pleasure at the conviction, that she must proceed another
step.

“This present from the Campbells,” said she--“this pianoforte is very
kindly given.”

“Yes,” he replied, and without the smallest apparent
embarrassment.--“But they would have done better had they given
her notice of it. Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not
enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. I should have
expected better judgment in Colonel Campbell.”

From that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had
had no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were
entirely free from peculiar attachment--whether there were no actual
preference--remained a little longer doubtful. Towards the end of Jane's
second song, her voice grew thick.

“That will do,” said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud--“you have
sung quite enough for one evening--now be quiet.”

Another song, however, was soon begged for. “One more;--they would not
fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more.”
 And Frank Churchill was heard to say, “I think you could manage this
without effort; the first part is so very trifling. The strength of the
song falls on the second.”

Mr. Knightley grew angry.

“That fellow,” said he, indignantly, “thinks of nothing but shewing off
his own voice. This must not be.” And touching Miss Bates, who at that
moment passed near--“Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing
herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on
her.”

Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to
be grateful, before she stept forward and put an end to all farther
singing. Here ceased the concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodhouse
and Miss Fairfax were the only young lady performers; but soon (within
five minutes) the proposal of dancing--originating nobody exactly knew
where--was so effectually promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Cole, that every
thing was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs. Weston,
capital in her country-dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible
waltz; and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to
Emma, had secured her hand, and led her up to the top.

While waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off,
Emma found time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on
her voice and her taste, to look about, and see what became of Mr.
Knightley. This would be a trial. He was no dancer in general. If he
were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it might augur
something. There was no immediate appearance. No; he was talking to Mrs.
Cole--he was looking on unconcerned; Jane was asked by somebody else,
and he was still talking to Mrs. Cole.

Emma had no longer an alarm for Henry; his interest was yet safe; and
she led off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than
five couple could be mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of
it made it very delightful, and she found herself well matched in a
partner. They were a couple worth looking at.

Two dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was
growing late, and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother's
account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again,
they were obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done.

“Perhaps it is as well,” said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to
her carriage. “I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing
would not have agreed with me, after yours.”



CHAPTER IX


Emma did not repent her condescension in going to the Coles. The visit
afforded her many pleasant recollections the next day; and all that she
might be supposed to have lost on the side of dignified seclusion, must
be amply repaid in the splendour of popularity. She must have delighted
the Coles--worthy people, who deserved to be made happy!--And left a
name behind her that would not soon die away.

Perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common; and there were two
points on which she was not quite easy. She doubted whether she had not
transgressed the duty of woman by woman, in betraying her suspicions of
Jane Fairfax's feelings to Frank Churchill. It was hardly right; but it
had been so strong an idea, that it would escape her, and his submission
to all that she told, was a compliment to her penetration, which made
it difficult for her to be quite certain that she ought to have held her
tongue.

The other circumstance of regret related also to Jane Fairfax; and
there she had no doubt. She did unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the
inferiority of her own playing and singing. She did most heartily
grieve over the idleness of her childhood--and sat down and practised
vigorously an hour and a half.

She was then interrupted by Harriet's coming in; and if Harriet's praise
could have satisfied her, she might soon have been comforted.

“Oh! if I could but play as well as you and Miss Fairfax!”

“Don't class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like her's,
than a lamp is like sunshine.”

“Oh! dear--I think you play the best of the two. I think you play quite
as well as she does. I am sure I had much rather hear you. Every body
last night said how well you played.”

“Those who knew any thing about it, must have felt the difference. The
truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised,
but Jane Fairfax's is much beyond it.”

“Well, I always shall think that you play quite as well as she does, or
that if there is any difference nobody would ever find it out. Mr. Cole
said how much taste you had; and Mr. Frank Churchill talked a great deal
about your taste, and that he valued taste much more than execution.”

“Ah! but Jane Fairfax has them both, Harriet.”

“Are you sure? I saw she had execution, but I did not know she had any
taste. Nobody talked about it. And I hate Italian singing.--There is no
understanding a word of it. Besides, if she does play so very well, you
know, it is no more than she is obliged to do, because she will have to
teach. The Coxes were wondering last night whether she would get into
any great family. How did you think the Coxes looked?”

“Just as they always do--very vulgar.”

“They told me something,” said Harriet rather hesitatingly; “but it is
nothing of any consequence.”

Emma was obliged to ask what they had told her, though fearful of its
producing Mr. Elton.

“They told me--that Mr. Martin dined with them last Saturday.”

“Oh!”

“He came to their father upon some business, and he asked him to stay to
dinner.”

“Oh!”

“They talked a great deal about him, especially Anne Cox. I do not know
what she meant, but she asked me if I thought I should go and stay there
again next summer.”

“She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should
be.”

“She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at
dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry
him.”

“Very likely.--I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar
girls in Highbury.”

Harriet had business at Ford's.--Emma thought it most prudent to go with
her. Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and in
her present state, would be dangerous.

Harriet, tempted by every thing and swayed by half a word, was always
very long at a purchase; and while she was still hanging over muslins
and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement.--Much could
not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury;--Mr.
Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the
office-door, Mr. Cole's carriage-horses returning from exercise, or a
stray letter-boy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she
could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with
his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full
basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling
children round the baker's little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she
knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough; quite enough
still to stand at the door. A mind lively and at ease, can do with
seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.

She looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged; two persons
appeared; Mrs. Weston and her son-in-law; they were walking into
Highbury;--to Hartfield of course. They were stopping, however, in the
first place at Mrs. Bates's; whose house was a little nearer
Randalls than Ford's; and had all but knocked, when Emma caught their
eye.--Immediately they crossed the road and came forward to her; and the
agreeableness of yesterday's engagement seemed to give fresh pleasure to
the present meeting. Mrs. Weston informed her that she was going to call
on the Bateses, in order to hear the new instrument.

“For my companion tells me,” said she, “that I absolutely promised Miss
Bates last night, that I would come this morning. I was not aware of it
myself. I did not know that I had fixed a day, but as he says I did, I
am going now.”

“And while Mrs. Weston pays her visit, I may be allowed, I hope,” said
Frank Churchill, “to join your party and wait for her at Hartfield--if
you are going home.”

Mrs. Weston was disappointed.

“I thought you meant to go with me. They would be very much pleased.”

“Me! I should be quite in the way. But, perhaps--I may be equally in the
way here. Miss Woodhouse looks as if she did not want me. My aunt always
sends me off when she is shopping. She says I fidget her to death; and
Miss Woodhouse looks as if she could almost say the same. What am I to
do?”

“I am here on no business of my own,” said Emma; “I am only waiting for
my friend. She will probably have soon done, and then we shall go home.
But you had better go with Mrs. Weston and hear the instrument.”

“Well--if you advise it.--But (with a smile) if Colonel Campbell should
have employed a careless friend, and if it should prove to have an
indifferent tone--what shall I say? I shall be no support to Mrs.
Weston. She might do very well by herself. A disagreeable truth would be
palatable through her lips, but I am the wretchedest being in the world
at a civil falsehood.”

“I do not believe any such thing,” replied Emma.--“I am persuaded that
you can be as insincere as your neighbours, when it is necessary; but
there is no reason to suppose the instrument is indifferent. Quite
otherwise indeed, if I understood Miss Fairfax's opinion last night.”

“Do come with me,” said Mrs. Weston, “if it be not very disagreeable to
you. It need not detain us long. We will go to Hartfield afterwards.
We will follow them to Hartfield. I really wish you to call with me. It
will be felt so great an attention! and I always thought you meant it.”

He could say no more; and with the hope of Hartfield to reward him,
returned with Mrs. Weston to Mrs. Bates's door. Emma watched them in,
and then joined Harriet at the interesting counter,--trying, with all
the force of her own mind, to convince her that if she wanted plain
muslin it was of no use to look at figured; and that a blue ribbon, be
it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern. At
last it was all settled, even to the destination of the parcel.

“Should I send it to Mrs. Goddard's, ma'am?” asked Mrs.
Ford.--“Yes--no--yes, to Mrs. Goddard's. Only my pattern gown is at
Hartfield. No, you shall send it to Hartfield, if you please. But then,
Mrs. Goddard will want to see it.--And I could take the pattern gown
home any day. But I shall want the ribbon directly--so it had better go
to Hartfield--at least the ribbon. You could make it into two parcels,
Mrs. Ford, could not you?”

“It is not worth while, Harriet, to give Mrs. Ford the trouble of two
parcels.”

“No more it is.”

“No trouble in the world, ma'am,” said the obliging Mrs. Ford.

“Oh! but indeed I would much rather have it only in one. Then, if you
please, you shall send it all to Mrs. Goddard's--I do not know--No, I
think, Miss Woodhouse, I may just as well have it sent to Hartfield, and
take it home with me at night. What do you advise?”

“That you do not give another half-second to the subject. To Hartfield,
if you please, Mrs. Ford.”

“Aye, that will be much best,” said Harriet, quite satisfied, “I should
not at all like to have it sent to Mrs. Goddard's.”

Voices approached the shop--or rather one voice and two ladies: Mrs.
Weston and Miss Bates met them at the door.

“My dear Miss Woodhouse,” said the latter, “I am just run across to
entreat the favour of you to come and sit down with us a little while,
and give us your opinion of our new instrument; you and Miss Smith. How
do you do, Miss Smith?--Very well I thank you.--And I begged Mrs. Weston
to come with me, that I might be sure of succeeding.”

“I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are--”

“Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well;
and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse?--I am so glad
to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here.--Oh!
then, said I, I must run across, I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me
just to run across and entreat her to come in; my mother will be so
very happy to see her--and now we are such a nice party, she cannot
refuse.--'Aye, pray do,' said Mr. Frank Churchill, 'Miss Woodhouse's
opinion of the instrument will be worth having.'--But, said I, I shall
be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.--'Oh,' said
he, 'wait half a minute, till I have finished my job;'--For, would you
believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in
the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother's spectacles.--The rivet
came out, you know, this morning.--So very obliging!--For my mother had
no use of her spectacles--could not put them on. And, by the bye, every
body ought to have two pair of spectacles; they should indeed. Jane said
so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders the first thing I did,
but something or other hindered me all the morning; first one thing,
then another, there is no saying what, you know. At one time Patty came
to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I,
Patty do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the rivet of your
mistress's spectacles out. Then the baked apples came home, Mrs. Wallis
sent them by her boy; they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the
Wallises, always--I have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be
uncivil and give a very rude answer, but we have never known any thing
but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value
of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know?
Only three of us.--besides dear Jane at present--and she really eats
nothing--makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened
if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eats--so I
say one thing and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the
middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so
well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took
the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet
him in the street. Not that I had any doubt before--I have so often
heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only
way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We
have apple-dumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent
apple-dumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these
ladies will oblige us.”

Emma would be “very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates, &c.,” and they did at
last move out of the shop, with no farther delay from Miss Bates than,

“How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon. I did not see you before.
I hear you have a charming collection of new ribbons from town. Jane
came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye, the gloves do very well--only a
little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in.”

“What was I talking of?” said she, beginning again when they were all in
the street.

Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix.

“I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.--Oh! my mother's
spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! 'Oh!' said he,
'I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind
excessively.'--Which you know shewed him to be so very.... Indeed I must
say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected,
he very far exceeds any thing.... I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston,
most warmly. He seems every thing the fondest parent could....
'Oh!' said he, 'I can fasten the rivet. I like a job of that sort
excessively.' I never shall forget his manner. And when I brought out
the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very
obliging as to take some, 'Oh!' said he directly, 'there is nothing
in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest-looking
home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.' That, you know, was so
very.... And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed they
are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice--only
we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us
promise to have them done three times--but Miss Woodhouse will be so
good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest
sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell--some of Mr.
Knightley's most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year; and
certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his
trees--I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was
always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the
other day--for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating
these apples, and we talked about them and said how much she enjoyed
them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. 'I
am sure you must be,' said he, 'and I will send you another supply; for
I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me
keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more,
before they get good for nothing.' So I begged he would not--for really
as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great
many left--it was but half a dozen indeed; but they should be all kept
for Jane; and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more,
so liberal as he had been already; and Jane said the same. And when
he was gone, she almost quarrelled with me--No, I should not say
quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives; but she was quite
distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone; she wished
I had made him believe we had a great many left. Oh, said I, my dear,
I did say as much as I could. However, the very same evening William
Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of
apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down
and spoke to William Larkins and said every thing, as you may suppose.
William Larkins is such an old acquaintance! I am always glad to see
him. But, however, I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it
was all the apples of _that_ sort his master had; he had brought them
all--and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did
not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had
sold so many; for William, you know, thinks more of his master's profit
than any thing; but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their
being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be
able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid
her not mind it, and be sure not to say any thing to us about it, for
Mrs. Hodges _would_ be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks
were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder. And so Patty told
me, and I was excessively shocked indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley
know any thing about it for the world! He would be so very.... I wanted
to keep it from Jane's knowledge; but, unluckily, I had mentioned it
before I was aware.”

Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visitors
walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to,
pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will.

“Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take
care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircase--rather darker
and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss
Woodhouse, I am quite concerned, I am sure you hit your foot. Miss
Smith, the step at the turning.”



CHAPTER X


The appearance of the little sitting-room as they entered, was
tranquillity itself; Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment,
slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near
her, most deedily occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax,
standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte.

Busy as he was, however, the young man was yet able to shew a most happy
countenance on seeing Emma again.

“This is a pleasure,” said he, in rather a low voice, “coming at least
ten minutes earlier than I had calculated. You find me trying to be
useful; tell me if you think I shall succeed.”

“What!” said Mrs. Weston, “have not you finished it yet? you would not
earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate.”

“I have not been working uninterruptedly,” he replied, “I have been
assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily,
it was not quite firm; an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see
we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be
persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home.”

He contrived that she should be seated by him; and was sufficiently
employed in looking out the best baked apple for her, and trying to make
her help or advise him in his work, till Jane Fairfax was quite ready
to sit down to the pianoforte again. That she was not immediately ready,
Emma did suspect to arise from the state of her nerves; she had not yet
possessed the instrument long enough to touch it without emotion; she
must reason herself into the power of performance; and Emma could not
but pity such feelings, whatever their origin, and could not but resolve
never to expose them to her neighbour again.

At last Jane began, and though the first bars were feebly given, the
powers of the instrument were gradually done full justice to. Mrs.
Weston had been delighted before, and was delighted again; Emma
joined her in all her praise; and the pianoforte, with every proper
discrimination, was pronounced to be altogether of the highest promise.

“Whoever Colonel Campbell might employ,” said Frank Churchill, with a
smile at Emma, “the person has not chosen ill. I heard a good deal of
Colonel Campbell's taste at Weymouth; and the softness of the upper
notes I am sure is exactly what he and _all_ _that_ _party_ would
particularly prize. I dare say, Miss Fairfax, that he either gave his
friend very minute directions, or wrote to Broadwood himself. Do not you
think so?”

Jane did not look round. She was not obliged to hear. Mrs. Weston had
been speaking to her at the same moment.

“It is not fair,” said Emma, in a whisper; “mine was a random guess. Do
not distress her.”

He shook his head with a smile, and looked as if he had very little
doubt and very little mercy. Soon afterwards he began again,

“How much your friends in Ireland must be enjoying your pleasure on this
occasion, Miss Fairfax. I dare say they often think of you, and wonder
which will be the day, the precise day of the instrument's coming to
hand. Do you imagine Colonel Campbell knows the business to be going
forward just at this time?--Do you imagine it to be the consequence
of an immediate commission from him, or that he may have sent only
a general direction, an order indefinite as to time, to depend upon
contingencies and conveniences?”

He paused. She could not but hear; she could not avoid answering,

“Till I have a letter from Colonel Campbell,” said she, in a voice of
forced calmness, “I can imagine nothing with any confidence. It must be
all conjecture.”

“Conjecture--aye, sometimes one conjectures right, and sometimes one
conjectures wrong. I wish I could conjecture how soon I shall make this
rivet quite firm. What nonsense one talks, Miss Woodhouse, when hard
at work, if one talks at all;--your real workmen, I suppose, hold their
tongues; but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a word--Miss
Fairfax said something about conjecturing. There, it is done. I have the
pleasure, madam, (to Mrs. Bates,) of restoring your spectacles, healed
for the present.”

He was very warmly thanked both by mother and daughter; to escape a
little from the latter, he went to the pianoforte, and begged Miss
Fairfax, who was still sitting at it, to play something more.

“If you are very kind,” said he, “it will be one of the waltzes we
danced last night;--let me live them over again. You did not enjoy them
as I did; you appeared tired the whole time. I believe you were glad we
danced no longer; but I would have given worlds--all the worlds one ever
has to give--for another half-hour.”

She played.

“What felicity it is to hear a tune again which _has_ made one
happy!--If I mistake not that was danced at Weymouth.”

She looked up at him for a moment, coloured deeply, and played something
else. He took some music from a chair near the pianoforte, and turning
to Emma, said,

“Here is something quite new to me. Do you know it?--Cramer.--And here
are a new set of Irish melodies. That, from such a quarter, one might
expect. This was all sent with the instrument. Very thoughtful of
Colonel Campbell, was not it?--He knew Miss Fairfax could have no music
here. I honour that part of the attention particularly; it shews it to
have been so thoroughly from the heart. Nothing hastily done; nothing
incomplete. True affection only could have prompted it.”

Emma wished he would be less pointed, yet could not help being amused;
and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains
of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness,
there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the
amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.--This
amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently cherishing very
reprehensible feelings.

He brought all the music to her, and they looked it over together.--Emma
took the opportunity of whispering,

“You speak too plain. She must understand you.”

“I hope she does. I would have her understand me. I am not in the least
ashamed of my meaning.”

“But really, I am half ashamed, and wish I had never taken up the idea.”

“I am very glad you did, and that you communicated it to me. I have now
a key to all her odd looks and ways. Leave shame to her. If she does
wrong, she ought to feel it.”

“She is not entirely without it, I think.”

“I do not see much sign of it. She is playing _Robin_ _Adair_ at this
moment--_his_ favourite.”

Shortly afterwards Miss Bates, passing near the window, descried Mr.
Knightley on horse-back not far off.

“Mr. Knightley I declare!--I must speak to him if possible, just to
thank him. I will not open the window here; it would give you all cold;
but I can go into my mother's room you know. I dare say he will come
in when he knows who is here. Quite delightful to have you all meet
so!--Our little room so honoured!”

She was in the adjoining chamber while she still spoke, and opening the
casement there, immediately called Mr. Knightley's attention, and every
syllable of their conversation was as distinctly heard by the others, as
if it had passed within the same apartment.

“How d' ye do?--how d'ye do?--Very well, I thank you. So obliged to you
for the carriage last night. We were just in time; my mother just ready
for us. Pray come in; do come in. You will find some friends here.”

So began Miss Bates; and Mr. Knightley seemed determined to be heard in
his turn, for most resolutely and commandingly did he say,

“How is your niece, Miss Bates?--I want to inquire after you all, but
particularly your niece. How is Miss Fairfax?--I hope she caught no cold
last night. How is she to-day? Tell me how Miss Fairfax is.”

And Miss Bates was obliged to give a direct answer before he would hear
her in any thing else. The listeners were amused; and Mrs. Weston gave
Emma a look of particular meaning. But Emma still shook her head in
steady scepticism.

“So obliged to you!--so very much obliged to you for the carriage,”
 resumed Miss Bates.

He cut her short with,

“I am going to Kingston. Can I do any thing for you?”

“Oh! dear, Kingston--are you?--Mrs. Cole was saying the other day she
wanted something from Kingston.”

“Mrs. Cole has servants to send. Can I do any thing for _you_?”

“No, I thank you. But do come in. Who do you think is here?--Miss
Woodhouse and Miss Smith; so kind as to call to hear the new pianoforte.
Do put up your horse at the Crown, and come in.”

“Well,” said he, in a deliberating manner, “for five minutes, perhaps.”

“And here is Mrs. Weston and Mr. Frank Churchill too!--Quite delightful;
so many friends!”

“No, not now, I thank you. I could not stay two minutes. I must get on
to Kingston as fast as I can.”

“Oh! do come in. They will be so very happy to see you.”

“No, no; your room is full enough. I will call another day, and hear the
pianoforte.”

“Well, I am so sorry!--Oh! Mr. Knightley, what a delightful party last
night; how extremely pleasant.--Did you ever see such dancing?--Was not
it delightful?--Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill; I never saw any
thing equal to it.”

“Oh! very delightful indeed; I can say nothing less, for I suppose Miss
Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill are hearing every thing that passes.
And (raising his voice still more) I do not see why Miss Fairfax should
not be mentioned too. I think Miss Fairfax dances very well; and Mrs.
Weston is the very best country-dance player, without exception,
in England. Now, if your friends have any gratitude, they will say
something pretty loud about you and me in return; but I cannot stay to
hear it.”

“Oh! Mr. Knightley, one moment more; something of consequence--so
shocked!--Jane and I are both so shocked about the apples!”

“What is the matter now?”

“To think of your sending us all your store apples. You said you had
a great many, and now you have not one left. We really are so shocked!
Mrs. Hodges may well be angry. William Larkins mentioned it here. You
should not have done it, indeed you should not. Ah! he is off. He never
can bear to be thanked. But I thought he would have staid now, and it
would have been a pity not to have mentioned.... Well, (returning to the
room,) I have not been able to succeed. Mr. Knightley cannot stop. He is
going to Kingston. He asked me if he could do any thing....”

“Yes,” said Jane, “we heard his kind offers, we heard every thing.”

“Oh! yes, my dear, I dare say you might, because you know, the door was
open, and the window was open, and Mr. Knightley spoke loud. You must
have heard every thing to be sure. 'Can I do any thing for you at
Kingston?' said he; so I just mentioned.... Oh! Miss Woodhouse, must you
be going?--You seem but just come--so very obliging of you.”

Emma found it really time to be at home; the visit had already lasted
long; and on examining watches, so much of the morning was perceived
to be gone, that Mrs. Weston and her companion taking leave also, could
allow themselves only to walk with the two young ladies to Hartfield
gates, before they set off for Randalls.



CHAPTER XI


It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been
known of young people passing many, many months successively, without
being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue
either to body or mind;--but when a beginning is made--when the
felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt--it
must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.

Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury, and longed to dance again;
and the last half-hour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded
to spend with his daughter at Randalls, was passed by the two young
people in schemes on the subject. Frank's was the first idea; and his
the greatest zeal in pursuing it; for the lady was the best judge of the
difficulties, and the most solicitous for accommodation and appearance.
But still she had inclination enough for shewing people again how
delightfully Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse danced--for
doing that in which she need not blush to compare herself with Jane
Fairfax--and even for simple dancing itself, without any of the wicked
aids of vanity--to assist him first in pacing out the room they were in
to see what it could be made to hold--and then in taking the dimensions
of the other parlour, in the hope of discovering, in spite of all that
Mr. Weston could say of their exactly equal size, that it was a little
the largest.

His first proposition and request, that the dance begun at Mr. Cole's
should be finished there--that the same party should be collected,
and the same musician engaged, met with the readiest acquiescence. Mr.
Weston entered into the idea with thorough enjoyment, and Mrs. Weston
most willingly undertook to play as long as they could wish to dance;
and the interesting employment had followed, of reckoning up exactly who
there would be, and portioning out the indispensable division of space
to every couple.

“You and Miss Smith, and Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss
Coxes five,” had been repeated many times over. “And there will be the
two Gilberts, young Cox, my father, and myself, besides Mr. Knightley.
Yes, that will be quite enough for pleasure. You and Miss Smith, and
Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss Coxes five; and for five
couple there will be plenty of room.”

But soon it came to be on one side,

“But will there be good room for five couple?--I really do not think
there will.”

On another,

“And after all, five couple are not enough to make it worth while to
stand up. Five couple are nothing, when one thinks seriously about it.
It will not do to _invite_ five couple. It can be allowable only as the
thought of the moment.”

Somebody said that _Miss_ Gilbert was expected at her brother's, and
must be invited with the rest. Somebody else believed _Mrs_. Gilbert
would have danced the other evening, if she had been asked. A word was
put in for a second young Cox; and at last, Mr. Weston naming one family
of cousins who must be included, and another of very old acquaintance
who could not be left out, it became a certainty that the five couple
would be at least ten, and a very interesting speculation in what
possible manner they could be disposed of.

The doors of the two rooms were just opposite each other. “Might not
they use both rooms, and dance across the passage?” It seemed the
best scheme; and yet it was not so good but that many of them wanted a
better. Emma said it would be awkward; Mrs. Weston was in distress about
the supper; and Mr. Woodhouse opposed it earnestly, on the score of
health. It made him so very unhappy, indeed, that it could not be
persevered in.

“Oh! no,” said he; “it would be the extreme of imprudence. I could not
bear it for Emma!--Emma is not strong. She would catch a dreadful cold.
So would poor little Harriet. So you would all. Mrs. Weston, you would
be quite laid up; do not let them talk of such a wild thing. Pray do
not let them talk of it. That young man (speaking lower) is very
thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite
the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening,
and keeping them open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the
draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but indeed he is not
quite the thing!”

Mrs. Weston was sorry for such a charge. She knew the importance of
it, and said every thing in her power to do it away. Every door was now
closed, the passage plan given up, and the first scheme of dancing only
in the room they were in resorted to again; and with such good-will on
Frank Churchill's part, that the space which a quarter of an hour before
had been deemed barely sufficient for five couple, was now endeavoured
to be made out quite enough for ten.

“We were too magnificent,” said he. “We allowed unnecessary room. Ten
couple may stand here very well.”

Emma demurred. “It would be a crowd--a sad crowd; and what could be
worse than dancing without space to turn in?”

“Very true,” he gravely replied; “it was very bad.” But still he went on
measuring, and still he ended with,

“I think there will be very tolerable room for ten couple.”

“No, no,” said she, “you are quite unreasonable. It would be dreadful
to be standing so close! Nothing can be farther from pleasure than to be
dancing in a crowd--and a crowd in a little room!”

“There is no denying it,” he replied. “I agree with you exactly. A crowd
in a little room--Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures
in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!--Still, however, having
proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up. It would be
a disappointment to my father--and altogether--I do not know that--I am
rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well.”

Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little
self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of
dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest.
Had she intended ever to _marry_ him, it might have been worth while to
pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference,
and the character of his temper; but for all the purposes of their
acquaintance, he was quite amiable enough.

Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield; and he entered
the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of
the scheme. It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement.

“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” he almost immediately began, “your inclination
for dancing has not been quite frightened away, I hope, by the terrors
of my father's little rooms. I bring a new proposal on the subject:--a
thought of my father's, which waits only your approbation to be acted
upon. May I hope for the honour of your hand for the two first dances
of this little projected ball, to be given, not at Randalls, but at the
Crown Inn?”

“The Crown!”

“Yes; if you and Mr. Woodhouse see no objection, and I trust you cannot,
my father hopes his friends will be so kind as to visit him there.
Better accommodations, he can promise them, and not a less grateful
welcome than at Randalls. It is his own idea. Mrs. Weston sees no
objection to it, provided you are satisfied. This is what we all feel.
Oh! you were perfectly right! Ten couple, in either of the Randalls
rooms, would have been insufferable!--Dreadful!--I felt how right you
were the whole time, but was too anxious for securing _any_ _thing_
to like to yield. Is not it a good exchange?--You consent--I hope you
consent?”

“It appears to me a plan that nobody can object to, if Mr. and Mrs.
Weston do not. I think it admirable; and, as far as I can answer for
myself, shall be most happy--It seems the only improvement that could
be. Papa, do you not think it an excellent improvement?”

She was obliged to repeat and explain it, before it was fully
comprehended; and then, being quite new, farther representations were
necessary to make it acceptable.

“No; he thought it very far from an improvement--a very bad plan--much
worse than the other. A room at an inn was always damp and dangerous;
never properly aired, or fit to be inhabited. If they must dance, they
had better dance at Randalls. He had never been in the room at the Crown
in his life--did not know the people who kept it by sight.--Oh! no--a
very bad plan. They would catch worse colds at the Crown than anywhere.”

“I was going to observe, sir,” said Frank Churchill, “that one of the
great recommendations of this change would be the very little danger
of any body's catching cold--so much less danger at the Crown than at
Randalls! Mr. Perry might have reason to regret the alteration, but
nobody else could.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Woodhouse, rather warmly, “you are very much mistaken
if you suppose Mr. Perry to be that sort of character. Mr. Perry is
extremely concerned when any of us are ill. But I do not understand how
the room at the Crown can be safer for you than your father's house.”

“From the very circumstance of its being larger, sir. We shall have no
occasion to open the windows at all--not once the whole evening; and it
is that dreadful habit of opening the windows, letting in cold air upon
heated bodies, which (as you well know, sir) does the mischief.”

“Open the windows!--but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think of
opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent! I never
heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows!--I am sure, neither
your father nor Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) would suffer
it.”

“Ah! sir--but a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind a
window-curtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected. I have
often known it done myself.”

“Have you indeed, sir?--Bless me! I never could have supposed it. But I
live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear. However,
this does make a difference; and, perhaps, when we come to talk it
over--but these sort of things require a good deal of consideration. One
cannot resolve upon them in a hurry. If Mr. and Mrs. Weston will be so
obliging as to call here one morning, we may talk it over, and see what
can be done.”

“But, unfortunately, sir, my time is so limited--”

“Oh!” interrupted Emma, “there will be plenty of time for talking every
thing over. There is no hurry at all. If it can be contrived to be at
the Crown, papa, it will be very convenient for the horses. They will be
so near their own stable.”

“So they will, my dear. That is a great thing. Not that James ever
complains; but it is right to spare our horses when we can. If I could
be sure of the rooms being thoroughly aired--but is Mrs. Stokes to be
trusted? I doubt it. I do not know her, even by sight.”

“I can answer for every thing of that nature, sir, because it will be
under Mrs. Weston's care. Mrs. Weston undertakes to direct the whole.”

“There, papa!--Now you must be satisfied--Our own dear Mrs. Weston, who
is carefulness itself. Do not you remember what Mr. Perry said, so many
years ago, when I had the measles? 'If _Miss_ _Taylor_ undertakes to
wrap Miss Emma up, you need not have any fears, sir.' How often have I
heard you speak of it as such a compliment to her!”

“Aye, very true. Mr. Perry did say so. I shall never forget it. Poor
little Emma! You were very bad with the measles; that is, you would have
been very bad, but for Perry's great attention. He came four times a day
for a week. He said, from the first, it was a very good sort--which
was our great comfort; but the measles are a dreadful complaint. I hope
whenever poor Isabella's little ones have the measles, she will send for
Perry.”

“My father and Mrs. Weston are at the Crown at this moment,” said Frank
Churchill, “examining the capabilities of the house. I left them there
and came on to Hartfield, impatient for your opinion, and hoping you
might be persuaded to join them and give your advice on the spot. I was
desired to say so from both. It would be the greatest pleasure to
them, if you could allow me to attend you there. They can do nothing
satisfactorily without you.”

Emma was most happy to be called to such a council; and her father,
engaging to think it all over while she was gone, the two young people
set off together without delay for the Crown. There were Mr. and Mrs.
Weston; delighted to see her and receive her approbation, very busy and
very happy in their different way; she, in some little distress; and he,
finding every thing perfect.

“Emma,” said she, “this paper is worse than I expected. Look! in places
you see it is dreadfully dirty; and the wainscot is more yellow and
forlorn than any thing I could have imagined.”

“My dear, you are too particular,” said her husband. “What does all that
signify? You will see nothing of it by candlelight. It will be as
clean as Randalls by candlelight. We never see any thing of it on our
club-nights.”

The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, “Men never know
when things are dirty or not;” and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to
himself, “Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares.”

One perplexity, however, arose, which the gentlemen did not disdain.
It regarded a supper-room. At the time of the ballroom's being built,
suppers had not been in question; and a small card-room adjoining, was
the only addition. What was to be done? This card-room would be wanted
as a card-room now; or, if cards were conveniently voted unnecessary
by their four selves, still was it not too small for any comfortable
supper? Another room of much better size might be secured for the
purpose; but it was at the other end of the house, and a long awkward
passage must be gone through to get at it. This made a difficulty. Mrs.
Weston was afraid of draughts for the young people in that passage;
and neither Emma nor the gentlemen could tolerate the prospect of being
miserably crowded at supper.

Mrs. Weston proposed having no regular supper; merely sandwiches,
&c., set out in the little room; but that was scouted as a wretched
suggestion. A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was
pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women; and
Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again. She then took another line of
expediency, and looking into the doubtful room, observed,

“I do not think it _is_ so very small. We shall not be many, you know.”

And Mr. Weston at the same time, walking briskly with long steps through
the passage, was calling out,

“You talk a great deal of the length of this passage, my dear. It is a
mere nothing after all; and not the least draught from the stairs.”

“I wish,” said Mrs. Weston, “one could know which arrangement our guests
in general would like best. To do what would be most generally pleasing
must be our object--if one could but tell what that would be.”

“Yes, very true,” cried Frank, “very true. You want your neighbours'
opinions. I do not wonder at you. If one could ascertain what the chief
of them--the Coles, for instance. They are not far off. Shall I call
upon them? Or Miss Bates? She is still nearer.--And I do not know
whether Miss Bates is not as likely to understand the inclinations of
the rest of the people as any body. I think we do want a larger council.
Suppose I go and invite Miss Bates to join us?”

“Well--if you please,” said Mrs. Weston rather hesitating, “if you think
she will be of any use.”

“You will get nothing to the purpose from Miss Bates,” said Emma. “She
will be all delight and gratitude, but she will tell you nothing. She
will not even listen to your questions. I see no advantage in consulting
Miss Bates.”

“But she is so amusing, so extremely amusing! I am very fond of hearing
Miss Bates talk. And I need not bring the whole family, you know.”

Here Mr. Weston joined them, and on hearing what was proposed, gave it
his decided approbation.

“Aye, do, Frank.--Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter at
once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure; and I do not know a properer
person for shewing us how to do away difficulties. Fetch Miss Bates.
We are growing a little too nice. She is a standing lesson of how to be
happy. But fetch them both. Invite them both.”

“Both sir! Can the old lady?”...

“The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you a great
blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece.”

“Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I did not immediately recollect.
Undoubtedly if you wish it, I will endeavour to persuade them both.” And
away he ran.

Long before he reappeared, attending the short, neat, brisk-moving aunt,
and her elegant niece,--Mrs. Weston, like a sweet-tempered woman and
a good wife, had examined the passage again, and found the evils of it
much less than she had supposed before--indeed very trifling; and here
ended the difficulties of decision. All the rest, in speculation at
least, was perfectly smooth. All the minor arrangements of table and
chair, lights and music, tea and supper, made themselves; or were left
as mere trifles to be settled at any time between Mrs. Weston and Mrs.
Stokes.--Every body invited, was certainly to come; Frank had already
written to Enscombe to propose staying a few days beyond his fortnight,
which could not possibly be refused. And a delightful dance it was to
be.

Most cordially, when Miss Bates arrived, did she agree that it must.
As a counsellor she was not wanted; but as an approver, (a much safer
character,) she was truly welcome. Her approbation, at once general
and minute, warm and incessant, could not but please; and for another
half-hour they were all walking to and fro, between the different rooms,
some suggesting, some attending, and all in happy enjoyment of the
future. The party did not break up without Emma's being positively
secured for the two first dances by the hero of the evening, nor without
her overhearing Mr. Weston whisper to his wife, “He has asked her, my
dear. That's right. I knew he would!”



CHAPTER XII


One thing only was wanting to make the prospect of the ball completely
satisfactory to Emma--its being fixed for a day within the granted
term of Frank Churchill's stay in Surry; for, in spite of Mr. Weston's
confidence, she could not think it so very impossible that the
Churchills might not allow their nephew to remain a day beyond his
fortnight. But this was not judged feasible. The preparations must take
their time, nothing could be properly ready till the third week were
entered on, and for a few days they must be planning, proceeding and
hoping in uncertainty--at the risk--in her opinion, the great risk, of
its being all in vain.

Enscombe however was gracious, gracious in fact, if not in word. His
wish of staying longer evidently did not please; but it was not opposed.
All was safe and prosperous; and as the removal of one solicitude
generally makes way for another, Emma, being now certain of her
ball, began to adopt as the next vexation Mr. Knightley's provoking
indifference about it. Either because he did not dance himself, or
because the plan had been formed without his being consulted, he
seemed resolved that it should not interest him, determined against its
exciting any present curiosity, or affording him any future amusement.
To her voluntary communications Emma could get no more approving reply,
than,

“Very well. If the Westons think it worth while to be at all this
trouble for a few hours of noisy entertainment, I have nothing to say
against it, but that they shall not chuse pleasures for me.--Oh! yes,
I must be there; I could not refuse; and I will keep as much awake as
I can; but I would rather be at home, looking over William Larkins's
week's account; much rather, I confess.--Pleasure in seeing
dancing!--not I, indeed--I never look at it--I do not know who
does.--Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward.
Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very
different.”

This Emma felt was aimed at her; and it made her quite angry. It was not
in compliment to Jane Fairfax however that he was so indifferent, or so
indignant; he was not guided by _her_ feelings in reprobating the ball,
for _she_ enjoyed the thought of it to an extraordinary degree. It made
her animated--open hearted--she voluntarily said;--

“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I hope nothing may happen to prevent the ball.
What a disappointment it would be! I do look forward to it, I own, with
_very_ great pleasure.”

It was not to oblige Jane Fairfax therefore that he would have preferred
the society of William Larkins. No!--she was more and more convinced
that Mrs. Weston was quite mistaken in that surmise. There was a great
deal of friendly and of compassionate attachment on his side--but no
love.

Alas! there was soon no leisure for quarrelling with Mr. Knightley. Two
days of joyful security were immediately followed by the over-throw of
every thing. A letter arrived from Mr. Churchill to urge his nephew's
instant return. Mrs. Churchill was unwell--far too unwell to do without
him; she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband)
when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual
unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of
herself, she had not mentioned it; but now she was too ill to trifle,
and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay.

The substance of this letter was forwarded to Emma, in a note from Mrs.
Weston, instantly. As to his going, it was inevitable. He must be gone
within a few hours, though without feeling any real alarm for his aunt,
to lessen his repugnance. He knew her illnesses; they never occurred but
for her own convenience.

Mrs. Weston added, “that he could only allow himself time to hurry to
Highbury, after breakfast, and take leave of the few friends there
whom he could suppose to feel any interest in him; and that he might be
expected at Hartfield very soon.”

This wretched note was the finale of Emma's breakfast. When once it had
been read, there was no doing any thing, but lament and exclaim. The
loss of the ball--the loss of the young man--and all that the young man
might be feeling!--It was too wretched!--Such a delightful evening as
it would have been!--Every body so happy! and she and her partner the
happiest!--“I said it would be so,” was the only consolation.

Her father's feelings were quite distinct. He thought principally of
Mrs. Churchill's illness, and wanted to know how she was treated; and as
for the ball, it was shocking to have dear Emma disappointed; but they
would all be safer at home.

Emma was ready for her visitor some time before he appeared; but if this
reflected at all upon his impatience, his sorrowful look and total want
of spirits when he did come might redeem him. He felt the going away
almost too much to speak of it. His dejection was most evident. He
sat really lost in thought for the first few minutes; and when rousing
himself, it was only to say,

“Of all horrid things, leave-taking is the worst.”

“But you will come again,” said Emma. “This will not be your only visit
to Randalls.”

“Ah!--(shaking his head)--the uncertainty of when I may be able to
return!--I shall try for it with a zeal!--It will be the object of
all my thoughts and cares!--and if my uncle and aunt go to town this
spring--but I am afraid--they did not stir last spring--I am afraid it
is a custom gone for ever.”

“Our poor ball must be quite given up.”

“Ah! that ball!--why did we wait for any thing?--why not seize the
pleasure at once?--How often is happiness destroyed by preparation,
foolish preparation!--You told us it would be so.--Oh! Miss Woodhouse,
why are you always so right?”

“Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much
rather have been merry than wise.”

“If I can come again, we are still to have our ball. My father depends
on it. Do not forget your engagement.”

Emma looked graciously.

“Such a fortnight as it has been!” he continued; “every day more
precious and more delightful than the day before!--every day making
me less fit to bear any other place. Happy those, who can remain at
Highbury!”

“As you do us such ample justice now,” said Emma, laughing, “I will
venture to ask, whether you did not come a little doubtfully at first?
Do not we rather surpass your expectations? I am sure we do. I am sure
you did not much expect to like us. You would not have been so long in
coming, if you had had a pleasant idea of Highbury.”

He laughed rather consciously; and though denying the sentiment, Emma
was convinced that it had been so.

“And you must be off this very morning?”

“Yes; my father is to join me here: we shall walk back together, and I
must be off immediately. I am almost afraid that every moment will bring
him.”

“Not five minutes to spare even for your friends Miss Fairfax and Miss
Bates? How unlucky! Miss Bates's powerful, argumentative mind might have
strengthened yours.”

“Yes--I _have_ called there; passing the door, I thought it better. It
was a right thing to do. I went in for three minutes, and was detained
by Miss Bates's being absent. She was out; and I felt it impossible not
to wait till she came in. She is a woman that one may, that one _must_
laugh at; but that one would not wish to slight. It was better to pay my
visit, then”--

He hesitated, got up, walked to a window.

“In short,” said he, “perhaps, Miss Woodhouse--I think you can hardly be
quite without suspicion”--

He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts. She hardly knew
what to say. It seemed like the forerunner of something absolutely
serious, which she did not wish. Forcing herself to speak, therefore, in
the hope of putting it by, she calmly said,

“You are quite in the right; it was most natural to pay your visit,
then”--

He was silent. She believed he was looking at her; probably reflecting
on what she had said, and trying to understand the manner. She heard
him sigh. It was natural for him to feel that he had _cause_ to sigh.
He could not believe her to be encouraging him. A few awkward moments
passed, and he sat down again; and in a more determined manner said,

“It was something to feel that all the rest of my time might be given to
Hartfield. My regard for Hartfield is most warm”--

He stopt again, rose again, and seemed quite embarrassed.--He was more
in love with her than Emma had supposed; and who can say how it might
have ended, if his father had not made his appearance? Mr. Woodhouse
soon followed; and the necessity of exertion made him composed.

A very few minutes more, however, completed the present trial. Mr.
Weston, always alert when business was to be done, and as incapable of
procrastinating any evil that was inevitable, as of foreseeing any that
was doubtful, said, “It was time to go;” and the young man, though he
might and did sigh, could not but agree, to take leave.

“I shall hear about you all,” said he; “that is my chief consolation.
I shall hear of every thing that is going on among you. I have engaged
Mrs. Weston to correspond with me. She has been so kind as to promise
it. Oh! the blessing of a female correspondent, when one is really
interested in the absent!--she will tell me every thing. In her letters
I shall be at dear Highbury again.”

A very friendly shake of the hand, a very earnest “Good-bye,” closed the
speech, and the door had soon shut out Frank Churchill. Short had been
the notice--short their meeting; he was gone; and Emma felt so sorry
to part, and foresaw so great a loss to their little society from his
absence as to begin to be afraid of being too sorry, and feeling it too
much.

It was a sad change. They had been meeting almost every day since his
arrival. Certainly his being at Randalls had given great spirit to
the last two weeks--indescribable spirit; the idea, the expectation
of seeing him which every morning had brought, the assurance of his
attentions, his liveliness, his manners! It had been a very happy
fortnight, and forlorn must be the sinking from it into the common
course of Hartfield days. To complete every other recommendation, he had
_almost_ told her that he loved her. What strength, or what constancy of
affection he might be subject to, was another point; but at present
she could not doubt his having a decidedly warm admiration, a conscious
preference of herself; and this persuasion, joined to all the rest,
made her think that she _must_ be a little in love with him, in spite of
every previous determination against it.

“I certainly must,” said she. “This sensation of listlessness,
weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself,
this feeling of every thing's being dull and insipid about the house!--
I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I
were not--for a few weeks at least. Well! evil to some is always good to
others. I shall have many fellow-mourners for the ball, if not for Frank
Churchill; but Mr. Knightley will be happy. He may spend the evening
with his dear William Larkins now if he likes.”

Mr. Knightley, however, shewed no triumphant happiness. He could not say
that he was sorry on his own account; his very cheerful look would have
contradicted him if he had; but he said, and very steadily, that he
was sorry for the disappointment of the others, and with considerable
kindness added,

“You, Emma, who have so few opportunities of dancing, you are really out
of luck; you are very much out of luck!”

It was some days before she saw Jane Fairfax, to judge of her honest
regret in this woeful change; but when they did meet, her composure
was odious. She had been particularly unwell, however, suffering from
headache to a degree, which made her aunt declare, that had the ball
taken place, she did not think Jane could have attended it; and it was
charity to impute some of her unbecoming indifference to the languor of
ill-health.



CHAPTER XIII


Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas
only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good
deal; and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing
Frank Churchill talked of; and, for his sake, greater pleasure than ever
in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of him, and
quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, how were
his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his coming to
Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she could not admit
herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed
for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and,
pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and
farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or
working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close
of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing
elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his
side was that she _refused_ _him_. Their affection was always to subside
into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their
parting; but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this,
it struck her that she could not be very much in love; for in spite of
her previous and fixed determination never to quit her father, never
to marry, a strong attachment certainly must produce more of a struggle
than she could foresee in her own feelings.

“I do not find myself making any use of the word _sacrifice_,” said
she.--“In not one of all my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is
there any allusion to making a sacrifice. I do suspect that he is not
really necessary to my happiness. So much the better. I certainly will
not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I
should be sorry to be more.”

Upon the whole, she was equally contented with her view of his feelings.

“_He_ is undoubtedly very much in love--every thing denotes it--very
much in love indeed!--and when he comes again, if his affection
continue, I must be on my guard not to encourage it.--It would be most
inexcusable to do otherwise, as my own mind is quite made up. Not that I
imagine he can think I have been encouraging him hitherto. No, if he
had believed me at all to share his feelings, he would not have been
so wretched. Could he have thought himself encouraged, his looks and
language at parting would have been different.--Still, however, I must
be on my guard. This is in the supposition of his attachment continuing
what it now is; but I do not know that I expect it will; I do not look
upon him to be quite the sort of man--I do not altogether build upon
his steadiness or constancy.--His feelings are warm, but I can imagine
them rather changeable.--Every consideration of the subject, in short,
makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved.--I
shall do very well again after a little while--and then, it will be a
good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives,
and I shall have been let off easily.”

When his letter to Mrs. Weston arrived, Emma had the perusal of it; and
she read it with a degree of pleasure and admiration which made her
at first shake her head over her own sensations, and think she had
undervalued their strength. It was a long, well-written letter, giving
the particulars of his journey and of his feelings, expressing all the
affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable,
and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed
attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of
apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs.
Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast
between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was
just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more
might have been said but for the restraints of propriety.--The charm
of her own name was not wanting. _Miss_ _Woodhouse_ appeared more than
once, and never without a something of pleasing connexion, either a
compliment to her taste, or a remembrance of what she had said; and in
the very last time of its meeting her eye, unadorned as it was by any
such broad wreath of gallantry, she yet could discern the effect of
her influence and acknowledge the greatest compliment perhaps of all
conveyed. Compressed into the very lowest vacant corner were these
words--“I had not a spare moment on Tuesday, as you know, for Miss
Woodhouse's beautiful little friend. Pray make my excuses and adieus
to her.” This, Emma could not doubt, was all for herself. Harriet was
remembered only from being _her_ friend. His information and prospects
as to Enscombe were neither worse nor better than had been anticipated;
Mrs. Churchill was recovering, and he dared not yet, even in his own
imagination, fix a time for coming to Randalls again.

Gratifying, however, and stimulative as was the letter in the material
part, its sentiments, she yet found, when it was folded up and returned
to Mrs. Weston, that it had not added any lasting warmth, that she could
still do without the writer, and that he must learn to do without her.
Her intentions were unchanged. Her resolution of refusal only grew more
interesting by the addition of a scheme for his subsequent consolation
and happiness. His recollection of Harriet, and the words which
clothed it, the “beautiful little friend,” suggested to her the
idea of Harriet's succeeding her in his affections. Was it
impossible?--No.--Harriet undoubtedly was greatly his inferior in
understanding; but he had been very much struck with the loveliness
of her face and the warm simplicity of her manner; and all the
probabilities of circumstance and connexion were in her favour.--For
Harriet, it would be advantageous and delightful indeed.

“I must not dwell upon it,” said she.--“I must not think of it. I know
the danger of indulging such speculations. But stranger things have
happened; and when we cease to care for each other as we do now, it
will be the means of confirming us in that sort of true disinterested
friendship which I can already look forward to with pleasure.”

It was well to have a comfort in store on Harriet's behalf, though it
might be wise to let the fancy touch it seldom; for evil in that quarter
was at hand. As Frank Churchill's arrival had succeeded Mr. Elton's
engagement in the conversation of Highbury, as the latest interest
had entirely borne down the first, so now upon Frank Churchill's
disappearance, Mr. Elton's concerns were assuming the most irresistible
form.--His wedding-day was named. He would soon be among them again; Mr.
Elton and his bride. There was hardly time to talk over the first letter
from Enscombe before “Mr. Elton and his bride” was in every body's
mouth, and Frank Churchill was forgotten. Emma grew sick at the sound.
She had had three weeks of happy exemption from Mr. Elton; and Harriet's
mind, she had been willing to hope, had been lately gaining strength.
With Mr. Weston's ball in view at least, there had been a great deal of
insensibility to other things; but it was now too evident that she had
not attained such a state of composure as could stand against the actual
approach--new carriage, bell-ringing, and all.

Poor Harriet was in a flutter of spirits which required all the
reasonings and soothings and attentions of every kind that Emma could
give. Emma felt that she could not do too much for her, that Harriet had
a right to all her ingenuity and all her patience; but it was heavy work
to be for ever convincing without producing any effect, for ever agreed
to, without being able to make their opinions the same. Harriet listened
submissively, and said “it was very true--it was just as Miss Woodhouse
described--it was not worth while to think about them--and she would not
think about them any longer” but no change of subject could avail, and
the next half-hour saw her as anxious and restless about the Eltons as
before. At last Emma attacked her on another ground.

“Your allowing yourself to be so occupied and so unhappy about Mr.
Elton's marrying, Harriet, is the strongest reproach you can make _me_.
You could not give me a greater reproof for the mistake I fell into.
It was all my doing, I know. I have not forgotten it, I assure
you.--Deceived myself, I did very miserably deceive you--and it will
be a painful reflection to me for ever. Do not imagine me in danger of
forgetting it.”

Harriet felt this too much to utter more than a few words of eager
exclamation. Emma continued,

“I have not said, exert yourself Harriet for my sake; think less, talk
less of Mr. Elton for my sake; because for your own sake rather, I
would wish it to be done, for the sake of what is more important than my
comfort, a habit of self-command in you, a consideration of what is your
duty, an attention to propriety, an endeavour to avoid the suspicions of
others, to save your health and credit, and restore your tranquillity.
These are the motives which I have been pressing on you. They are very
important--and sorry I am that you cannot feel them sufficiently to act
upon them. My being saved from pain is a very secondary consideration.
I want you to save yourself from greater pain. Perhaps I may sometimes
have felt that Harriet would not forget what was due--or rather what
would be kind by me.”

This appeal to her affections did more than all the rest. The idea of
wanting gratitude and consideration for Miss Woodhouse, whom she really
loved extremely, made her wretched for a while, and when the violence
of grief was comforted away, still remained powerful enough to prompt to
what was right and support her in it very tolerably.

“You, who have been the best friend I ever had in my life--Want
gratitude to you!--Nobody is equal to you!--I care for nobody as I do
for you!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!”

Such expressions, assisted as they were by every thing that look and
manner could do, made Emma feel that she had never loved Harriet so
well, nor valued her affection so highly before.

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” said she afterwards to
herself. “There is nothing to be compared to it. Warmth and tenderness
of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the
clearness of head in the world, for attraction, I am sure it will. It
is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally
beloved--which gives Isabella all her popularity.--I have it not--but
I know how to prize and respect it.--Harriet is my superior in all the
charm and all the felicity it gives. Dear Harriet!--I would not change
you for the clearest-headed, longest-sighted, best-judging female
breathing. Oh! the coldness of a Jane Fairfax!--Harriet is worth a
hundred such--And for a wife--a sensible man's wife--it is invaluable. I
mention no names; but happy the man who changes Emma for Harriet!”



CHAPTER XIV


Mrs. Elton was first seen at church: but though devotion might be
interrupted, curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew, and
it must be left for the visits in form which were then to be paid, to
settle whether she were very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or
not pretty at all.

Emma had feelings, less of curiosity than of pride or propriety, to make
her resolve on not being the last to pay her respects; and she made a
point of Harriet's going with her, that the worst of the business might
be gone through as soon as possible.

She could not enter the house again, could not be in the same room to
which she had with such vain artifice retreated three months ago, to
lace up her boot, without _recollecting_. A thousand vexatious thoughts
would recur. Compliments, charades, and horrible blunders; and it was
not to be supposed that poor Harriet should not be recollecting too; but
she behaved very well, and was only rather pale and silent. The visit
was of course short; and there was so much embarrassment and occupation
of mind to shorten it, that Emma would not allow herself entirely to
form an opinion of the lady, and on no account to give one, beyond the
nothing-meaning terms of being “elegantly dressed, and very pleasing.”

She did not really like her. She would not be in a hurry to find fault,
but she suspected that there was no elegance;--ease, but not elegance.--
She was almost sure that for a young woman, a stranger, a bride, there
was too much ease. Her person was rather good; her face not unpretty;
but neither feature, nor air, nor voice, nor manner, were elegant. Emma
thought at least it would turn out so.

As for Mr. Elton, his manners did not appear--but no, she would not
permit a hasty or a witty word from herself about his manners. It was an
awkward ceremony at any time to be receiving wedding visits, and a man
had need be all grace to acquit himself well through it. The woman
was better off; she might have the assistance of fine clothes, and the
privilege of bashfulness, but the man had only his own good sense to
depend on; and when she considered how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr.
Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just
married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman whom he had
been expected to marry, she must allow him to have the right to look as
little wise, and to be as much affectedly, and as little really easy as
could be.

“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” said Harriet, when they had quitted the
house, and after waiting in vain for her friend to begin; “Well, Miss
Woodhouse, (with a gentle sigh,) what do you think of her?--Is not she
very charming?”

There was a little hesitation in Emma's answer.

“Oh! yes--very--a very pleasing young woman.”

“I think her beautiful, quite beautiful.”

“Very nicely dressed, indeed; a remarkably elegant gown.”

“I am not at all surprized that he should have fallen in love.”

“Oh! no--there is nothing to surprize one at all.--A pretty fortune; and
she came in his way.”

“I dare say,” returned Harriet, sighing again, “I dare say she was very
much attached to him.”

“Perhaps she might; but it is not every man's fate to marry the woman
who loves him best. Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this
the best offer she was likely to have.”

“Yes,” said Harriet earnestly, “and well she might, nobody could ever
have a better. Well, I wish them happy with all my heart. And now, Miss
Woodhouse, I do not think I shall mind seeing them again. He is just as
superior as ever;--but being married, you know, it is quite a different
thing. No, indeed, Miss Woodhouse, you need not be afraid; I can sit and
admire him now without any great misery. To know that he has not thrown
himself away, is such a comfort!--She does seem a charming young woman,
just what he deserves. Happy creature! He called her 'Augusta.' How
delightful!”

When the visit was returned, Emma made up her mind. She could then see
more and judge better. From Harriet's happening not to be at Hartfield,
and her father's being present to engage Mr. Elton, she had a quarter
of an hour of the lady's conversation to herself, and could composedly
attend to her; and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that
Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and
thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very
superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert
and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people,
and one style of living; that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that
her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good.

Harriet would have been a better match. If not wise or refined herself,
she would have connected him with those who were; but Miss Hawkins, it
might be fairly supposed from her easy conceit, had been the best of
her own set. The rich brother-in-law near Bristol was the pride of the
alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him.

The very first subject after being seated was Maple Grove, “My brother
Mr. Suckling's seat;”--a comparison of Hartfield to Maple Grove. The
grounds of Hartfield were small, but neat and pretty; and the house was
modern and well-built. Mrs. Elton seemed most favourably impressed
by the size of the room, the entrance, and all that she could see or
imagine. “Very like Maple Grove indeed!--She was quite struck by the
likeness!--That room was the very shape and size of the morning-room
at Maple Grove; her sister's favourite room.”--Mr. Elton was appealed
to.--“Was not it astonishingly like?--She could really almost fancy
herself at Maple Grove.”

“And the staircase--You know, as I came in, I observed how very like the
staircase was; placed exactly in the same part of the house. I really
could not help exclaiming! I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, it is very
delightful to me, to be reminded of a place I am so extremely partial to
as Maple Grove. I have spent so many happy months there! (with a little
sigh of sentiment). A charming place, undoubtedly. Every body who
sees it is struck by its beauty; but to me, it has been quite a home.
Whenever you are transplanted, like me, Miss Woodhouse, you will
understand how very delightful it is to meet with any thing at all like
what one has left behind. I always say this is quite one of the evils of
matrimony.”

Emma made as slight a reply as she could; but it was fully sufficient
for Mrs. Elton, who only wanted to be talking herself.

“So extremely like Maple Grove! And it is not merely the house--the
grounds, I assure you, as far as I could observe, are strikingly like.
The laurels at Maple Grove are in the same profusion as here, and stand
very much in the same way--just across the lawn; and I had a glimpse
of a fine large tree, with a bench round it, which put me so exactly in
mind! My brother and sister will be enchanted with this place. People
who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with any thing
in the same style.”

Emma doubted the truth of this sentiment. She had a great idea that
people who had extensive grounds themselves cared very little for the
extensive grounds of any body else; but it was not worth while to attack
an error so double-dyed, and therefore only said in reply,

“When you have seen more of this country, I am afraid you will think you
have overrated Hartfield. Surry is full of beauties.”

“Oh! yes, I am quite aware of that. It is the garden of England, you
know. Surry is the garden of England.”

“Yes; but we must not rest our claims on that distinction. Many
counties, I believe, are called the garden of England, as well as
Surry.”

“No, I fancy not,” replied Mrs. Elton, with a most satisfied smile.
“I never heard any county but Surry called so.”

Emma was silenced.

“My brother and sister have promised us a visit in the spring, or summer
at farthest,” continued Mrs. Elton; “and that will be our time for
exploring. While they are with us, we shall explore a great deal, I dare
say. They will have their barouche-landau, of course, which holds four
perfectly; and therefore, without saying any thing of _our_ carriage,
we should be able to explore the different beauties extremely well. They
would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the
year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their
bringing the barouche-landau; it will be so very much preferable.
When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss
Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible; and Mr.
Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King's-Weston
twice last summer, in that way, most delightfully, just after their
first having the barouche-landau. You have many parties of that kind
here, I suppose, Miss Woodhouse, every summer?”

“No; not immediately here. We are rather out of distance of the very
striking beauties which attract the sort of parties you speak of; and we
are a very quiet set of people, I believe; more disposed to stay at home
than engage in schemes of pleasure.”

“Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Nobody can
be more devoted to home than I am. I was quite a proverb for it at Maple
Grove. Many a time has Selina said, when she has been going to Bristol,
'I really cannot get this girl to move from the house. I absolutely must
go in by myself, though I hate being stuck up in the barouche-landau
without a companion; but Augusta, I believe, with her own good-will,
would never stir beyond the park paling.' Many a time has she said so;
and yet I am no advocate for entire seclusion. I think, on the contrary,
when people shut themselves up entirely from society, it is a very
bad thing; and that it is much more advisable to mix in the world in
a proper degree, without living in it either too much or too little. I
perfectly understand your situation, however, Miss Woodhouse--(looking
towards Mr. Woodhouse), Your father's state of health must be a great
drawback. Why does not he try Bath?--Indeed he should. Let me recommend
Bath to you. I assure you I have no doubt of its doing Mr. Woodhouse
good.”

“My father tried it more than once, formerly; but without receiving any
benefit; and Mr. Perry, whose name, I dare say, is not unknown to you,
does not conceive it would be at all more likely to be useful now.”

“Ah! that's a great pity; for I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, where the
waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give. In my Bath
life, I have seen such instances of it! And it is so cheerful a place,
that it could not fail of being of use to Mr. Woodhouse's spirits,
which, I understand, are sometimes much depressed. And as to its
recommendations to _you_, I fancy I need not take much pains to dwell
on them. The advantages of Bath to the young are pretty generally
understood. It would be a charming introduction for you, who have lived
so secluded a life; and I could immediately secure you some of the best
society in the place. A line from me would bring you a little host of
acquaintance; and my particular friend, Mrs. Partridge, the lady I have
always resided with when in Bath, would be most happy to shew you any
attentions, and would be the very person for you to go into public
with.”

It was as much as Emma could bear, without being impolite. The idea
of her being indebted to Mrs. Elton for what was called an
_introduction_--of her going into public under the auspices of a friend
of Mrs. Elton's--probably some vulgar, dashing widow, who, with the
help of a boarder, just made a shift to live!--The dignity of Miss
Woodhouse, of Hartfield, was sunk indeed!

She restrained herself, however, from any of the reproofs she could have
given, and only thanked Mrs. Elton coolly; “but their going to Bath was
quite out of the question; and she was not perfectly convinced that
the place might suit her better than her father.” And then, to prevent
farther outrage and indignation, changed the subject directly.

“I do not ask whether you are musical, Mrs. Elton. Upon these occasions,
a lady's character generally precedes her; and Highbury has long known
that you are a superior performer.”

“Oh! no, indeed; I must protest against any such idea. A superior
performer!--very far from it, I assure you. Consider from how partial
a quarter your information came. I am doatingly fond of
music--passionately fond;--and my friends say I am not entirely devoid
of taste; but as to any thing else, upon my honour my performance is
_mediocre_ to the last degree. You, Miss Woodhouse, I well know, play
delightfully. I assure you it has been the greatest satisfaction,
comfort, and delight to me, to hear what a musical society I am got
into. I absolutely cannot do without music. It is a necessary of life to
me; and having always been used to a very musical society, both at
Maple Grove and in Bath, it would have been a most serious sacrifice. I
honestly said as much to Mr. E. when he was speaking of my future
home, and expressing his fears lest the retirement of it should be
disagreeable; and the inferiority of the house too--knowing what I had
been accustomed to--of course he was not wholly without apprehension.
When he was speaking of it in that way, I honestly said that _the_
_world_ I could give up--parties, balls, plays--for I had no fear of
retirement. Blessed with so many resources within myself, the world was
not necessary to _me_. I could do very well without it. To those who had
no resources it was a different thing; but my resources made me quite
independent. And as to smaller-sized rooms than I had been used to, I
really could not give it a thought. I hoped I was perfectly equal to any
sacrifice of that description. Certainly I had been accustomed to every
luxury at Maple Grove; but I did assure him that two carriages were not
necessary to my happiness, nor were spacious apartments. 'But,' said I,
'to be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a
musical society. I condition for nothing else; but without music, life
would be a blank to me.'”

“We cannot suppose,” said Emma, smiling, “that Mr. Elton would hesitate
to assure you of there being a _very_ musical society in Highbury; and
I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be
pardoned, in consideration of the motive.”

“No, indeed, I have no doubts at all on that head. I am delighted to
find myself in such a circle. I hope we shall have many sweet little
concerts together. I think, Miss Woodhouse, you and I must establish a
musical club, and have regular weekly meetings at your house, or ours.
Will not it be a good plan? If _we_ exert ourselves, I think we shall
not be long in want of allies. Something of that nature would be
particularly desirable for _me_, as an inducement to keep me in
practice; for married women, you know--there is a sad story against
them, in general. They are but too apt to give up music.”

“But you, who are so extremely fond of it--there can be no danger,
surely?”

“I should hope not; but really when I look around among my acquaintance,
I tremble. Selina has entirely given up music--never touches the
instrument--though she played sweetly. And the same may be said of Mrs.
Jeffereys--Clara Partridge, that was--and of the two Milmans, now Mrs.
Bird and Mrs. James Cooper; and of more than I can enumerate. Upon my
word it is enough to put one in a fright. I used to be quite angry with
Selina; but really I begin now to comprehend that a married woman has
many things to call her attention. I believe I was half an hour this
morning shut up with my housekeeper.”

“But every thing of that kind,” said Emma, “will soon be in so regular a
train--”

“Well,” said Mrs. Elton, laughing, “we shall see.”

Emma, finding her so determined upon neglecting her music, had nothing
more to say; and, after a moment's pause, Mrs. Elton chose another
subject.

“We have been calling at Randalls,” said she, “and found them both at
home; and very pleasant people they seem to be. I like them extremely.
Mr. Weston seems an excellent creature--quite a first-rate favourite
with me already, I assure you. And _she_ appears so truly good--there is
something so motherly and kind-hearted about her, that it wins upon one
directly. She was your governess, I think?”

Emma was almost too much astonished to answer; but Mrs. Elton hardly
waited for the affirmative before she went on.

“Having understood as much, I was rather astonished to find her so very
lady-like! But she is really quite the gentlewoman.”

“Mrs. Weston's manners,” said Emma, “were always particularly good.
Their propriety, simplicity, and elegance, would make them the safest
model for any young woman.”

“And who do you think came in while we were there?”

Emma was quite at a loss. The tone implied some old acquaintance--and
how could she possibly guess?

“Knightley!” continued Mrs. Elton; “Knightley himself!--Was not it
lucky?--for, not being within when he called the other day, I had never
seen him before; and of course, as so particular a friend of Mr. E.'s,
I had a great curiosity. 'My friend Knightley' had been so often
mentioned, that I was really impatient to see him; and I must do my
caro sposo the justice to say that he need not be ashamed of his friend.
Knightley is quite the gentleman. I like him very much. Decidedly, I
think, a very gentleman-like man.”

Happily, it was now time to be gone. They were off; and Emma could
breathe.

“Insufferable woman!” was her immediate exclamation. “Worse than I had
supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley!--I could not have
believed it. Knightley!--never seen him in her life before, and call
him Knightley!--and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart,
vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her _caro_ _sposo_, and her
resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery.
Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether
he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could
not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to
form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs.
Weston!--Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a
gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond
my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank
Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he
would be! Ah! there I am--thinking of him directly. Always the first
person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes
as regularly into my mind!”--

All this ran so glibly through her thoughts, that by the time her father
had arranged himself, after the bustle of the Eltons' departure, and was
ready to speak, she was very tolerably capable of attending.

“Well, my dear,” he deliberately began, “considering we never saw her
before, she seems a very pretty sort of young lady; and I dare say she
was very much pleased with you. She speaks a little too quick. A little
quickness of voice there is which rather hurts the ear. But I believe
I am nice; I do not like strange voices; and nobody speaks like you and
poor Miss Taylor. However, she seems a very obliging, pretty-behaved
young lady, and no doubt will make him a very good wife. Though I think
he had better not have married. I made the best excuses I could for not
having been able to wait on him and Mrs. Elton on this happy occasion; I
said that I hoped I _should_ in the course of the summer. But I ought to
have gone before. Not to wait upon a bride is very remiss. Ah! it shews
what a sad invalid I am! But I do not like the corner into Vicarage
Lane.”

“I dare say your apologies were accepted, sir. Mr. Elton knows you.”

“Yes: but a young lady--a bride--I ought to have paid my respects to her
if possible. It was being very deficient.”

“But, my dear papa, you are no friend to matrimony; and therefore why
should you be so anxious to pay your respects to a _bride_? It ought to
be no recommendation to _you_. It is encouraging people to marry if you
make so much of them.”

“No, my dear, I never encouraged any body to marry, but I would always
wish to pay every proper attention to a lady--and a bride, especially,
is never to be neglected. More is avowedly due to _her_. A bride, you
know, my dear, is always the first in company, let the others be who
they may.”

“Well, papa, if this is not encouragement to marry, I do not know what
is. And I should never have expected you to be lending your sanction to
such vanity-baits for poor young ladies.”

“My dear, you do not understand me. This is a matter of mere
common politeness and good-breeding, and has nothing to do with any
encouragement to people to marry.”

Emma had done. Her father was growing nervous, and could not understand
_her_. Her mind returned to Mrs. Elton's offences, and long, very long,
did they occupy her.



CHAPTER XV


Emma was not required, by any subsequent discovery, to retract her ill
opinion of Mrs. Elton. Her observation had been pretty correct. Such as
Mrs. Elton appeared to her on this second interview, such she appeared
whenever they met again,--self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant,
and ill-bred. She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment,
but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior
knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood;
and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs.
Elton's consequence only could surpass.

There was no reason to suppose Mr. Elton thought at all differently from
his wife. He seemed not merely happy with her, but proud. He had the air
of congratulating himself on having brought such a woman to Highbury,
as not even Miss Woodhouse could equal; and the greater part of her
new acquaintance, disposed to commend, or not in the habit of judging,
following the lead of Miss Bates's good-will, or taking it for granted
that the bride must be as clever and as agreeable as she professed
herself, were very well satisfied; so that Mrs. Elton's praise
passed from one mouth to another as it ought to do, unimpeded by Miss
Woodhouse, who readily continued her first contribution and talked with
a good grace of her being “very pleasant and very elegantly dressed.”

In one respect Mrs. Elton grew even worse than she had appeared at
first. Her feelings altered towards Emma.--Offended, probably, by the
little encouragement which her proposals of intimacy met with, she drew
back in her turn and gradually became much more cold and distant; and
though the effect was agreeable, the ill-will which produced it was
necessarily increasing Emma's dislike. Her manners, too--and Mr.
Elton's, were unpleasant towards Harriet. They were sneering and
negligent. Emma hoped it must rapidly work Harriet's cure; but the
sensations which could prompt such behaviour sunk them both very
much.--It was not to be doubted that poor Harriet's attachment had been
an offering to conjugal unreserve, and her own share in the story, under
a colouring the least favourable to her and the most soothing to him,
had in all likelihood been given also. She was, of course, the object
of their joint dislike.--When they had nothing else to say, it must be
always easy to begin abusing Miss Woodhouse; and the enmity which
they dared not shew in open disrespect to her, found a broader vent in
contemptuous treatment of Harriet.

Mrs. Elton took a great fancy to Jane Fairfax; and from the first. Not
merely when a state of warfare with one young lady might be supposed to
recommend the other, but from the very first; and she was not satisfied
with expressing a natural and reasonable admiration--but without
solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and
befriend her.--Before Emma had forfeited her confidence, and about the
third time of their meeting, she heard all Mrs. Elton's knight-errantry
on the subject.--

“Jane Fairfax is absolutely charming, Miss Woodhouse.--I quite rave
about Jane Fairfax.--A sweet, interesting creature. So mild and
ladylike--and with such talents!--I assure you I think she has very
extraordinary talents. I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely
well. I know enough of music to speak decidedly on that point. Oh! she
is absolutely charming! You will laugh at my warmth--but, upon my word,
I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax.--And her situation is so calculated
to affect one!--Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour
to do something for her. We must bring her forward. Such talent as hers
must not be suffered to remain unknown.--I dare say you have heard those
charming lines of the poet,

        'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
          'And waste its fragrance on the desert air.'

We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax.”

“I cannot think there is any danger of it,” was Emma's calm answer--“and
when you are better acquainted with Miss Fairfax's situation and
understand what her home has been, with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell, I
have no idea that you will suppose her talents can be unknown.”

“Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such
obscurity, so thrown away.--Whatever advantages she may have enjoyed
with the Campbells are so palpably at an end! And I think she feels it.
I am sure she does. She is very timid and silent. One can see that she
feels the want of encouragement. I like her the better for it. I
must confess it is a recommendation to me. I am a great advocate for
timidity--and I am sure one does not often meet with it.--But in those
who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing. Oh! I assure
you, Jane Fairfax is a very delightful character, and interests me more
than I can express.”

“You appear to feel a great deal--but I am not aware how you or any of
Miss Fairfax's acquaintance here, any of those who have known her longer
than yourself, can shew her any other attention than”--

“My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to
act. You and I need not be afraid. If _we_ set the example, many will
follow it as far as they can; though all have not our situations. _We_
have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and _we_ live in a style
which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the
least inconvenient.--I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to
send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked _more_
than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of
thing. It is not likely that I _should_, considering what I have been
used to. My greatest danger, perhaps, in housekeeping, may be quite the
other way, in doing too much, and being too careless of expense. Maple
Grove will probably be my model more than it ought to be--for we do not
at all affect to equal my brother, Mr. Suckling, in income.--However, my
resolution is taken as to noticing Jane Fairfax.--I shall certainly have
her very often at my house, shall introduce her wherever I can, shall
have musical parties to draw out her talents, and shall be constantly
on the watch for an eligible situation. My acquaintance is so very
extensive, that I have little doubt of hearing of something to suit
her shortly.--I shall introduce her, of course, very particularly to my
brother and sister when they come to us. I am sure they will like her
extremely; and when she gets a little acquainted with them, her fears
will completely wear off, for there really is nothing in the manners
of either but what is highly conciliating.--I shall have her very often
indeed while they are with me, and I dare say we shall sometimes find a
seat for her in the barouche-landau in some of our exploring parties.”

“Poor Jane Fairfax!”--thought Emma.--“You have not deserved this. You
may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment
beyond what you can have merited!--The kindness and protection of Mrs.
Elton!--'Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.' Heavens! Let me not suppose
that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!--But upon my honour,
there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue!”

Emma had not to listen to such paradings again--to any so exclusively
addressed to herself--so disgustingly decorated with a “dear Miss
Woodhouse.” The change on Mrs. Elton's side soon afterwards appeared,
and she was left in peace--neither forced to be the very particular
friend of Mrs. Elton, nor, under Mrs. Elton's guidance, the very active
patroness of Jane Fairfax, and only sharing with others in a general
way, in knowing what was felt, what was meditated, what was done.

She looked on with some amusement.--Miss Bates's gratitude for
Mrs. Elton's attentions to Jane was in the first style of guileless
simplicity and warmth. She was quite one of her worthies--the
most amiable, affable, delightful woman--just as accomplished and
condescending as Mrs. Elton meant to be considered. Emma's only surprize
was that Jane Fairfax should accept those attentions and tolerate Mrs.
Elton as she seemed to do. She heard of her walking with the Eltons,
sitting with the Eltons, spending a day with the Eltons! This was
astonishing!--She could not have believed it possible that the taste or
the pride of Miss Fairfax could endure such society and friendship as
the Vicarage had to offer.

“She is a riddle, quite a riddle!” said she.--“To chuse to remain here
month after month, under privations of every sort! And now to chuse the
mortification of Mrs. Elton's notice and the penury of her conversation,
rather than return to the superior companions who have always loved her
with such real, generous affection.”

Jane had come to Highbury professedly for three months; the Campbells
were gone to Ireland for three months; but now the Campbells had
promised their daughter to stay at least till Midsummer, and fresh
invitations had arrived for her to join them there. According to Miss
Bates--it all came from her--Mrs. Dixon had written most pressingly.
Would Jane but go, means were to be found, servants sent, friends
contrived--no travelling difficulty allowed to exist; but still she had
declined it!

“She must have some motive, more powerful than appears, for refusing
this invitation,” was Emma's conclusion. “She must be under some sort
of penance, inflicted either by the Campbells or herself. There is great
fear, great caution, great resolution somewhere.--She is _not_ to be
with the _Dixons_. The decree is issued by somebody. But why must she
consent to be with the Eltons?--Here is quite a separate puzzle.”

Upon her speaking her wonder aloud on that part of the subject, before
the few who knew her opinion of Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Weston ventured this
apology for Jane.

“We cannot suppose that she has any great enjoyment at the Vicarage,
my dear Emma--but it is better than being always at home. Her aunt is a
good creature, but, as a constant companion, must be very tiresome. We
must consider what Miss Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for
what she goes to.”

“You are right, Mrs. Weston,” said Mr. Knightley warmly, “Miss Fairfax
is as capable as any of us of forming a just opinion of Mrs. Elton.
Could she have chosen with whom to associate, she would not have chosen
her. But (with a reproachful smile at Emma) she receives attentions from
Mrs. Elton, which nobody else pays her.”

Emma felt that Mrs. Weston was giving her a momentary glance; and she
was herself struck by his warmth. With a faint blush, she presently
replied,

“Such attentions as Mrs. Elton's, I should have imagined, would rather
disgust than gratify Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton's invitations I should
have imagined any thing but inviting.”

“I should not wonder,” said Mrs. Weston, “if Miss Fairfax were to have
been drawn on beyond her own inclination, by her aunt's eagerness in
accepting Mrs. Elton's civilities for her. Poor Miss Bates may
very likely have committed her niece and hurried her into a greater
appearance of intimacy than her own good sense would have dictated, in
spite of the very natural wish of a little change.”

Both felt rather anxious to hear him speak again; and after a few
minutes silence, he said,

“Another thing must be taken into consideration too--Mrs. Elton does
not talk _to_ Miss Fairfax as she speaks _of_ her. We all know the
difference between the pronouns he or she and thou, the plainest spoken
amongst us; we all feel the influence of a something beyond common
civility in our personal intercourse with each other--a something more
early implanted. We cannot give any body the disagreeable hints that we
may have been very full of the hour before. We feel things differently.
And besides the operation of this, as a general principle, you may be
sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs. Elton by her superiority both of mind
and manner; and that, face to face, Mrs. Elton treats her with all the
respect which she has a claim to. Such a woman as Jane Fairfax probably
never fell in Mrs. Elton's way before--and no degree of vanity can
prevent her acknowledging her own comparative littleness in action, if
not in consciousness.”

“I know how highly you think of Jane Fairfax,” said Emma. Little Henry
was in her thoughts, and a mixture of alarm and delicacy made her
irresolute what else to say.

“Yes,” he replied, “any body may know how highly I think of her.”

“And yet,” said Emma, beginning hastily and with an arch look, but soon
stopping--it was better, however, to know the worst at once--she hurried
on--“And yet, perhaps, you may hardly be aware yourself how highly it
is. The extent of your admiration may take you by surprize some day or
other.”

Mr. Knightley was hard at work upon the lower buttons of his thick
leather gaiters, and either the exertion of getting them together, or
some other cause, brought the colour into his face, as he answered,

“Oh! are you there?--But you are miserably behindhand. Mr. Cole gave me
a hint of it six weeks ago.”

He stopped.--Emma felt her foot pressed by Mrs. Weston, and did not
herself know what to think. In a moment he went on--

“That will never be, however, I can assure you. Miss Fairfax, I dare
say, would not have me if I were to ask her--and I am very sure I shall
never ask her.”

Emma returned her friend's pressure with interest; and was pleased
enough to exclaim,

“You are not vain, Mr. Knightley. I will say that for you.”

He seemed hardly to hear her; he was thoughtful--and in a manner which
shewed him not pleased, soon afterwards said,

“So you have been settling that I should marry Jane Fairfax?”

“No indeed I have not. You have scolded me too much for match-making,
for me to presume to take such a liberty with you. What I said just now,
meant nothing. One says those sort of things, of course, without any
idea of a serious meaning. Oh! no, upon my word I have not the smallest
wish for your marrying Jane Fairfax or Jane any body. You would not come
in and sit with us in this comfortable way, if you were married.”

Mr. Knightley was thoughtful again. The result of his reverie was, “No,
Emma, I do not think the extent of my admiration for her will ever take
me by surprize.--I never had a thought of her in that way, I assure
you.” And soon afterwards, “Jane Fairfax is a very charming young
woman--but not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has
not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife.”

Emma could not but rejoice to hear that she had a fault. “Well,” said
she, “and you soon silenced Mr. Cole, I suppose?”

“Yes, very soon. He gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken;
he asked my pardon and said no more. Cole does not want to be wiser or
wittier than his neighbours.”

“In that respect how unlike dear Mrs. Elton, who wants to be wiser and
wittier than all the world! I wonder how she speaks of the Coles--what
she calls them! How can she find any appellation for them, deep enough
in familiar vulgarity? She calls you, Knightley--what can she do for
Mr. Cole? And so I am not to be surprized that Jane Fairfax accepts
her civilities and consents to be with her. Mrs. Weston, your argument
weighs most with me. I can much more readily enter into the temptation
of getting away from Miss Bates, than I can believe in the triumph of
Miss Fairfax's mind over Mrs. Elton. I have no faith in Mrs. Elton's
acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed; or in her
being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of good-breeding.
I cannot imagine that she will not be continually insulting her visitor
with praise, encouragement, and offers of service; that she will not be
continually detailing her magnificent intentions, from the procuring her
a permanent situation to the including her in those delightful exploring
parties which are to take place in the barouche-landau.”

“Jane Fairfax has feeling,” said Mr. Knightley--“I do not accuse her
of want of feeling. Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strong--and her
temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, self-control;
but it wants openness. She is reserved, more reserved, I think, than
she used to be--And I love an open temper. No--till Cole alluded to my
supposed attachment, it had never entered my head. I saw Jane Fairfax
and conversed with her, with admiration and pleasure always--but with no
thought beyond.”

“Well, Mrs. Weston,” said Emma triumphantly when he left them, “what do
you say now to Mr. Knightley's marrying Jane Fairfax?”

“Why, really, dear Emma, I say that he is so very much occupied by the
idea of _not_ being in love with her, that I should not wonder if it
were to end in his being so at last. Do not beat me.”



CHAPTER XVI


Every body in and about Highbury who had ever visited Mr. Elton, was
disposed to pay him attention on his marriage. Dinner-parties and
evening-parties were made for him and his lady; and invitations flowed
in so fast that she had soon the pleasure of apprehending they were
never to have a disengaged day.

“I see how it is,” said she. “I see what a life I am to lead among you.
Upon my word we shall be absolutely dissipated. We really seem quite
the fashion. If this is living in the country, it is nothing very
formidable. From Monday next to Saturday, I assure you we have not a
disengaged day!--A woman with fewer resources than I have, need not have
been at a loss.”

No invitation came amiss to her. Her Bath habits made evening-parties
perfectly natural to her, and Maple Grove had given her a taste for
dinners. She was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at
the poor attempt at rout-cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury
card-parties. Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Goddard and others, were a
good deal behind-hand in knowledge of the world, but she would soon shew
them how every thing ought to be arranged. In the course of the spring
she must return their civilities by one very superior party--in which
her card-tables should be set out with their separate candles and
unbroken packs in the true style--and more waiters engaged for the
evening than their own establishment could furnish, to carry round the
refreshments at exactly the proper hour, and in the proper order.

Emma, in the meanwhile, could not be satisfied without a dinner at
Hartfield for the Eltons. They must not do less than others, or she
should be exposed to odious suspicions, and imagined capable of pitiful
resentment. A dinner there must be. After Emma had talked about it for
ten minutes, Mr. Woodhouse felt no unwillingness, and only made the
usual stipulation of not sitting at the bottom of the table himself,
with the usual regular difficulty of deciding who should do it for him.

The persons to be invited, required little thought. Besides the
Eltons, it must be the Westons and Mr. Knightley; so far it was all of
course--and it was hardly less inevitable that poor little Harriet must
be asked to make the eighth:--but this invitation was not given with
equal satisfaction, and on many accounts Emma was particularly pleased
by Harriet's begging to be allowed to decline it. “She would rather not
be in his company more than she could help. She was not yet quite
able to see him and his charming happy wife together, without feeling
uncomfortable. If Miss Woodhouse would not be displeased, she would
rather stay at home.” It was precisely what Emma would have wished, had
she deemed it possible enough for wishing. She was delighted with the
fortitude of her little friend--for fortitude she knew it was in her to
give up being in company and stay at home; and she could now invite the
very person whom she really wanted to make the eighth, Jane Fairfax.--
Since her last conversation with Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, she
was more conscience-stricken about Jane Fairfax than she had often
been.--Mr. Knightley's words dwelt with her. He had said that Jane
Fairfax received attentions from Mrs. Elton which nobody else paid her.

“This is very true,” said she, “at least as far as relates to me, which
was all that was meant--and it is very shameful.--Of the same age--and
always knowing her--I ought to have been more her friend.--She will
never like me now. I have neglected her too long. But I will shew her
greater attention than I have done.”

Every invitation was successful. They were all disengaged and all
happy.--The preparatory interest of this dinner, however, was not yet
over. A circumstance rather unlucky occurred. The two eldest little
Knightleys were engaged to pay their grandpapa and aunt a visit of some
weeks in the spring, and their papa now proposed bringing them, and
staying one whole day at Hartfield--which one day would be the very day
of this party.--His professional engagements did not allow of his being
put off, but both father and daughter were disturbed by its happening
so. Mr. Woodhouse considered eight persons at dinner together as the
utmost that his nerves could bear--and here would be a ninth--and Emma
apprehended that it would be a ninth very much out of humour at not
being able to come even to Hartfield for forty-eight hours without
falling in with a dinner-party.

She comforted her father better than she could comfort herself, by
representing that though he certainly would make them nine, yet
he always said so little, that the increase of noise would be very
immaterial. She thought it in reality a sad exchange for herself, to
have him with his grave looks and reluctant conversation opposed to her
instead of his brother.

The event was more favourable to Mr. Woodhouse than to Emma. John
Knightley came; but Mr. Weston was unexpectedly summoned to town and
must be absent on the very day. He might be able to join them in the
evening, but certainly not to dinner. Mr. Woodhouse was quite at ease;
and the seeing him so, with the arrival of the little boys and the
philosophic composure of her brother on hearing his fate, removed the
chief of even Emma's vexation.

The day came, the party were punctually assembled, and Mr. John
Knightley seemed early to devote himself to the business of being
agreeable. Instead of drawing his brother off to a window while they
waited for dinner, he was talking to Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton,
as elegant as lace and pearls could make her, he looked at in
silence--wanting only to observe enough for Isabella's information--but
Miss Fairfax was an old acquaintance and a quiet girl, and he could talk
to her. He had met her before breakfast as he was returning from a walk
with his little boys, when it had been just beginning to rain. It was
natural to have some civil hopes on the subject, and he said,

“I hope you did not venture far, Miss Fairfax, this morning, or I am
sure you must have been wet.--We scarcely got home in time. I hope you
turned directly.”

“I went only to the post-office,” said she, “and reached home before the
rain was much. It is my daily errand. I always fetch the letters when
I am here. It saves trouble, and is a something to get me out. A walk
before breakfast does me good.”

“Not a walk in the rain, I should imagine.”

“No, but it did not absolutely rain when I set out.”

Mr. John Knightley smiled, and replied,

“That is to say, you chose to have your walk, for you were not six yards
from your own door when I had the pleasure of meeting you; and Henry
and John had seen more drops than they could count long before. The
post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have
lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going
through the rain for.”

There was a little blush, and then this answer,

“I must not hope to be ever situated as you are, in the midst of every
dearest connexion, and therefore I cannot expect that simply growing
older should make me indifferent about letters.”

“Indifferent! Oh! no--I never conceived you could become indifferent.
Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very
positive curse.”

“You are speaking of letters of business; mine are letters of
friendship.”

“I have often thought them the worst of the two,” replied he coolly.
“Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.”

“Ah! you are not serious now. I know Mr. John Knightley too well--I am
very sure he understands the value of friendship as well as any body. I
can easily believe that letters are very little to you, much less than
to me, but it is not your being ten years older than myself which
makes the difference, it is not age, but situation. You have every
body dearest to you always at hand, I, probably, never shall again;
and therefore till I have outlived all my affections, a post-office,
I think, must always have power to draw me out, in worse weather than
to-day.”

“When I talked of your being altered by time, by the progress of years,”
 said John Knightley, “I meant to imply the change of situation which
time usually brings. I consider one as including the other. Time will
generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily
circle--but that is not the change I had in view for you. As an old
friend, you will allow me to hope, Miss Fairfax, that ten years hence
you may have as many concentrated objects as I have.”

It was kindly said, and very far from giving offence. A pleasant “thank
you” seemed meant to laugh it off, but a blush, a quivering lip, a tear
in the eye, shewed that it was felt beyond a laugh. Her attention was
now claimed by Mr. Woodhouse, who being, according to his custom on such
occasions, making the circle of his guests, and paying his particular
compliments to the ladies, was ending with her--and with all his mildest
urbanity, said,

“I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning
in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves.--Young ladies
are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their
complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?”

“Yes, sir, I did indeed; and I am very much obliged by your kind
solicitude about me.”

“My dear Miss Fairfax, young ladies are very sure to be cared for.--I
hope your good grand-mama and aunt are well. They are some of my very
old friends. I wish my health allowed me to be a better neighbour. You
do us a great deal of honour to-day, I am sure. My daughter and I
are both highly sensible of your goodness, and have the greatest
satisfaction in seeing you at Hartfield.”

The kind-hearted, polite old man might then sit down and feel that he
had done his duty, and made every fair lady welcome and easy.

By this time, the walk in the rain had reached Mrs. Elton, and her
remonstrances now opened upon Jane.

“My dear Jane, what is this I hear?--Going to the post-office in the
rain!--This must not be, I assure you.--You sad girl, how could you do
such a thing?--It is a sign I was not there to take care of you.”

Jane very patiently assured her that she had not caught any cold.

“Oh! do not tell _me_. You really are a very sad girl, and do not know
how to take care of yourself.--To the post-office indeed! Mrs. Weston,
did you ever hear the like? You and I must positively exert our
authority.”

“My advice,” said Mrs. Weston kindly and persuasively, “I certainly do
feel tempted to give. Miss Fairfax, you must not run such risks.--Liable
as you have been to severe colds, indeed you ought to be particularly
careful, especially at this time of year. The spring I always think
requires more than common care. Better wait an hour or two, or even
half a day for your letters, than run the risk of bringing on your cough
again. Now do not you feel that you had? Yes, I am sure you are much too
reasonable. You look as if you would not do such a thing again.”

“Oh! she _shall_ _not_ do such a thing again,” eagerly rejoined Mrs.
Elton. “We will not allow her to do such a thing again:”--and nodding
significantly--“there must be some arrangement made, there must indeed.
I shall speak to Mr. E. The man who fetches our letters every morning
(one of our men, I forget his name) shall inquire for yours too and
bring them to you. That will obviate all difficulties you know; and from
_us_ I really think, my dear Jane, you can have no scruple to accept
such an accommodation.”

“You are extremely kind,” said Jane; “but I cannot give up my early
walk. I am advised to be out of doors as much as I can, I must walk
somewhere, and the post-office is an object; and upon my word, I have
scarcely ever had a bad morning before.”

“My dear Jane, say no more about it. The thing is determined, that is
(laughing affectedly) as far as I can presume to determine any thing
without the concurrence of my lord and master. You know, Mrs. Weston,
you and I must be cautious how we express ourselves. But I do flatter
myself, my dear Jane, that my influence is not entirely worn out. If I
meet with no insuperable difficulties therefore, consider that point as
settled.”

“Excuse me,” said Jane earnestly, “I cannot by any means consent to such
an arrangement, so needlessly troublesome to your servant. If the errand
were not a pleasure to me, it could be done, as it always is when I am
not here, by my grandmama's.”

“Oh! my dear; but so much as Patty has to do!--And it is a kindness to
employ our men.”

Jane looked as if she did not mean to be conquered; but instead of
answering, she began speaking again to Mr. John Knightley.

“The post-office is a wonderful establishment!” said she.--“The
regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do,
and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!”

“It is certainly very well regulated.”

“So seldom that any negligence or blunder appears! So seldom that
a letter, among the thousands that are constantly passing about the
kingdom, is even carried wrong--and not one in a million, I suppose,
actually lost! And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad
hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder.”

“The clerks grow expert from habit.--They must begin with some quickness
of sight and hand, and exercise improves them. If you want any farther
explanation,” continued he, smiling, “they are paid for it. That is
the key to a great deal of capacity. The public pays and must be served
well.”

The varieties of handwriting were farther talked of, and the usual
observations made.

“I have heard it asserted,” said John Knightley, “that the same sort
of handwriting often prevails in a family; and where the same master
teaches, it is natural enough. But for that reason, I should imagine
the likeness must be chiefly confined to the females, for boys have very
little teaching after an early age, and scramble into any hand they can
get. Isabella and Emma, I think, do write very much alike. I have not
always known their writing apart.”

“Yes,” said his brother hesitatingly, “there is a likeness. I know what
you mean--but Emma's hand is the strongest.”

“Isabella and Emma both write beautifully,” said Mr. Woodhouse; “and
always did. And so does poor Mrs. Weston”--with half a sigh and half a
smile at her.

“I never saw any gentleman's handwriting”--Emma began, looking also at
Mrs. Weston; but stopped, on perceiving that Mrs. Weston was attending
to some one else--and the pause gave her time to reflect, “Now, how am
I going to introduce him?--Am I unequal to speaking his name at once
before all these people? Is it necessary for me to use any roundabout
phrase?--Your Yorkshire friend--your correspondent in Yorkshire;--that
would be the way, I suppose, if I were very bad.--No, I can pronounce
his name without the smallest distress. I certainly get better and
better.--Now for it.”

Mrs. Weston was disengaged and Emma began again--“Mr. Frank Churchill
writes one of the best gentleman's hands I ever saw.”

“I do not admire it,” said Mr. Knightley. “It is too small--wants
strength. It is like a woman's writing.”

This was not submitted to by either lady. They vindicated him against
the base aspersion. “No, it by no means wanted strength--it was not a
large hand, but very clear and certainly strong. Had not Mrs. Weston any
letter about her to produce?” No, she had heard from him very lately,
but having answered the letter, had put it away.

“If we were in the other room,” said Emma, “if I had my writing-desk, I
am sure I could produce a specimen. I have a note of his.--Do not you
remember, Mrs. Weston, employing him to write for you one day?”

“He chose to say he was employed”--

“Well, well, I have that note; and can shew it after dinner to convince
Mr. Knightley.”

“Oh! when a gallant young man, like Mr. Frank Churchill,” said Mr.
Knightley dryly, “writes to a fair lady like Miss Woodhouse, he will, of
course, put forth his best.”

Dinner was on table.--Mrs. Elton, before she could be spoken to, was
ready; and before Mr. Woodhouse had reached her with his request to be
allowed to hand her into the dining-parlour, was saying--

“Must I go first? I really am ashamed of always leading the way.”

Jane's solicitude about fetching her own letters had not escaped Emma.
She had heard and seen it all; and felt some curiosity to know whether
the wet walk of this morning had produced any. She suspected that it
_had_; that it would not have been so resolutely encountered but in full
expectation of hearing from some one very dear, and that it had not been
in vain. She thought there was an air of greater happiness than usual--a
glow both of complexion and spirits.

She could have made an inquiry or two, as to the expedition and the
expense of the Irish mails;--it was at her tongue's end--but she
abstained. She was quite determined not to utter a word that should hurt
Jane Fairfax's feelings; and they followed the other ladies out of the
room, arm in arm, with an appearance of good-will highly becoming to the
beauty and grace of each.



CHAPTER XVII


When the ladies returned to the drawing-room after dinner, Emma found it
hardly possible to prevent their making two distinct parties;--with so
much perseverance in judging and behaving ill did Mrs. Elton engross
Jane Fairfax and slight herself. She and Mrs. Weston were obliged to
be almost always either talking together or silent together. Mrs. Elton
left them no choice. If Jane repressed her for a little time, she
soon began again; and though much that passed between them was in a
half-whisper, especially on Mrs. Elton's side, there was no avoiding
a knowledge of their principal subjects: The post-office--catching
cold--fetching letters--and friendship, were long under discussion;
and to them succeeded one, which must be at least equally unpleasant
to Jane--inquiries whether she had yet heard of any situation likely to
suit her, and professions of Mrs. Elton's meditated activity.

“Here is April come!” said she, “I get quite anxious about you. June
will soon be here.”

“But I have never fixed on June or any other month--merely looked
forward to the summer in general.”

“But have you really heard of nothing?”

“I have not even made any inquiry; I do not wish to make any yet.”

“Oh! my dear, we cannot begin too early; you are not aware of the
difficulty of procuring exactly the desirable thing.”

“I not aware!” said Jane, shaking her head; “dear Mrs. Elton, who can
have thought of it as I have done?”

“But you have not seen so much of the world as I have. You do not know
how many candidates there always are for the _first_ situations. I saw
a vast deal of that in the neighbourhood round Maple Grove. A cousin of
Mr. Suckling, Mrs. Bragge, had such an infinity of applications; every
body was anxious to be in her family, for she moves in the first circle.
Wax-candles in the schoolroom! You may imagine how desirable! Of all
houses in the kingdom Mrs. Bragge's is the one I would most wish to see
you in.”

“Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are to be in town again by midsummer,”
 said Jane. “I must spend some time with them; I am sure they will want
it;--afterwards I may probably be glad to dispose of myself. But I would
not wish you to take the trouble of making any inquiries at present.”

“Trouble! aye, I know your scruples. You are afraid of giving me
trouble; but I assure you, my dear Jane, the Campbells can hardly be
more interested about you than I am. I shall write to Mrs. Partridge in
a day or two, and shall give her a strict charge to be on the look-out
for any thing eligible.”

“Thank you, but I would rather you did not mention the subject to
her; till the time draws nearer, I do not wish to be giving any body
trouble.”

“But, my dear child, the time is drawing near; here is April, and June,
or say even July, is very near, with such business to accomplish before
us. Your inexperience really amuses me! A situation such as you deserve,
and your friends would require for you, is no everyday occurrence,
is not obtained at a moment's notice; indeed, indeed, we must begin
inquiring directly.”

“Excuse me, ma'am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no
inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When
I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being
long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry
would soon produce something--Offices for the sale--not quite of human
flesh--but of human intellect.”

“Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at
the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to
the abolition.”

“I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade,” replied Jane;
“governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely
different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to
the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But
I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by
applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with
something that would do.”

“Something that would do!” repeated Mrs. Elton. “Aye, _that_ may suit
your humble ideas of yourself;--I know what a modest creature you are;
but it will not satisfy your friends to have you taking up with any
thing that may offer, any inferior, commonplace situation, in a family
not moving in a certain circle, or able to command the elegancies of
life.”

“You are very obliging; but as to all that, I am very indifferent;
it would be no object to me to be with the rich; my mortifications, I
think, would only be the greater; I should suffer more from comparison.
A gentleman's family is all that I should condition for.”

“I know you, I know you; you would take up with any thing; but I shall
be a little more nice, and I am sure the good Campbells will be quite
on my side; with your superior talents, you have a right to move in the
first circle. Your musical knowledge alone would entitle you to name
your own terms, have as many rooms as you like, and mix in the family
as much as you chose;--that is--I do not know--if you knew the harp, you
might do all that, I am very sure; but you sing as well as play;--yes, I
really believe you might, even without the harp, stipulate for what
you chose;--and you must and shall be delightfully, honourably and
comfortably settled before the Campbells or I have any rest.”

“You may well class the delight, the honour, and the comfort of such
a situation together,” said Jane, “they are pretty sure to be equal;
however, I am very serious in not wishing any thing to be attempted
at present for me. I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mrs. Elton, I am
obliged to any body who feels for me, but I am quite serious in wishing
nothing to be done till the summer. For two or three months longer I
shall remain where I am, and as I am.”

“And I am quite serious too, I assure you,” replied Mrs. Elton gaily,
“in resolving to be always on the watch, and employing my friends to
watch also, that nothing really unexceptionable may pass us.”

In this style she ran on; never thoroughly stopped by any thing till Mr.
Woodhouse came into the room; her vanity had then a change of object,
and Emma heard her saying in the same half-whisper to Jane,

“Here comes this dear old beau of mine, I protest!--Only think of his
gallantry in coming away before the other men!--what a dear creature
he is;--I assure you I like him excessively. I admire all that quaint,
old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease;
modern ease often disgusts me. But this good old Mr. Woodhouse, I wish
you had heard his gallant speeches to me at dinner. Oh! I assure you I
began to think my caro sposo would be absolutely jealous. I fancy I
am rather a favourite; he took notice of my gown. How do you like
it?--Selina's choice--handsome, I think, but I do not know whether it
is not over-trimmed; I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being
over-trimmed--quite a horror of finery. I must put on a few ornaments
now, because it is expected of me. A bride, you know, must appear like
a bride, but my natural taste is all for simplicity; a simple style
of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery. But I am quite in the
minority, I believe; few people seem to value simplicity of dress,--show
and finery are every thing. I have some notion of putting such a
trimming as this to my white and silver poplin. Do you think it will
look well?”

The whole party were but just reassembled in the drawing-room when Mr.
Weston made his appearance among them. He had returned to a late dinner,
and walked to Hartfield as soon as it was over. He had been too much
expected by the best judges, for surprize--but there was great joy. Mr.
Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry
to see him before. John Knightley only was in mute astonishment.--That
a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day
of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile
to another man's house, for the sake of being in mixed company till
bed-time, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility and the noise
of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply. A man who had been
in motion since eight o'clock in the morning, and might now have been
still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had
been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone!--Such a man, to
quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the
evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world!--Could
he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife, there
would have been a motive; but his coming would probably prolong rather
than break up the party. John Knightley looked at him with amazement,
then shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I could not have believed it
even of _him_.”

Mr. Weston meanwhile, perfectly unsuspicious of the indignation he was
exciting, happy and cheerful as usual, and with all the right of being
principal talker, which a day spent anywhere from home confers, was
making himself agreeable among the rest; and having satisfied the
inquiries of his wife as to his dinner, convincing her that none of all
her careful directions to the servants had been forgotten, and spread
abroad what public news he had heard, was proceeding to a family
communication, which, though principally addressed to Mrs. Weston, he
had not the smallest doubt of being highly interesting to every body in
the room. He gave her a letter, it was from Frank, and to herself; he
had met with it in his way, and had taken the liberty of opening it.

“Read it, read it,” said he, “it will give you pleasure; only a few
lines--will not take you long; read it to Emma.”

The two ladies looked over it together; and he sat smiling and talking
to them the whole time, in a voice a little subdued, but very audible to
every body.

“Well, he is coming, you see; good news, I think. Well, what do you say
to it?--I always told you he would be here again soon, did not I?--Anne,
my dear, did not I always tell you so, and you would not believe me?--In
town next week, you see--at the latest, I dare say; for _she_ is as
impatient as the black gentleman when any thing is to be done; most
likely they will be there to-morrow or Saturday. As to her illness, all
nothing of course. But it is an excellent thing to have Frank among us
again, so near as town. They will stay a good while when they do come,
and he will be half his time with us. This is precisely what I wanted.
Well, pretty good news, is not it? Have you finished it? Has Emma read
it all? Put it up, put it up; we will have a good talk about it some
other time, but it will not do now. I shall only just mention the
circumstance to the others in a common way.”

Mrs. Weston was most comfortably pleased on the occasion. Her looks
and words had nothing to restrain them. She was happy, she knew she was
happy, and knew she ought to be happy. Her congratulations were warm and
open; but Emma could not speak so fluently. _She_ was a little occupied
in weighing her own feelings, and trying to understand the degree of her
agitation, which she rather thought was considerable.

Mr. Weston, however, too eager to be very observant, too communicative
to want others to talk, was very well satisfied with what she did say,
and soon moved away to make the rest of his friends happy by a partial
communication of what the whole room must have overheard already.

It was well that he took every body's joy for granted, or he might
not have thought either Mr. Woodhouse or Mr. Knightley particularly
delighted. They were the first entitled, after Mrs. Weston and Emma, to
be made happy;--from them he would have proceeded to Miss Fairfax, but
she was so deep in conversation with John Knightley, that it would have
been too positive an interruption; and finding himself close to Mrs.
Elton, and her attention disengaged, he necessarily began on the subject
with her.



CHAPTER XVIII


“I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of introducing my son to you,”
 said Mr. Weston.

Mrs. Elton, very willing to suppose a particular compliment intended her
by such a hope, smiled most graciously.

“You have heard of a certain Frank Churchill, I presume,” he
continued--“and know him to be my son, though he does not bear my name.”

“Oh! yes, and I shall be very happy in his acquaintance. I am sure Mr.
Elton will lose no time in calling on him; and we shall both have great
pleasure in seeing him at the Vicarage.”

“You are very obliging.--Frank will be extremely happy, I am sure.--
He is to be in town next week, if not sooner. We have notice of it in a
letter to-day. I met the letters in my way this morning, and seeing my
son's hand, presumed to open it--though it was not directed to me--it
was to Mrs. Weston. She is his principal correspondent, I assure you. I
hardly ever get a letter.”

“And so you absolutely opened what was directed to her! Oh! Mr.
Weston--(laughing affectedly) I must protest against that.--A most
dangerous precedent indeed!--I beg you will not let your neighbours
follow your example.--Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we
married women must begin to exert ourselves!--Oh! Mr. Weston, I could
not have believed it of you!”

“Aye, we men are sad fellows. You must take care of yourself, Mrs.
Elton.--This letter tells us--it is a short letter--written in a hurry,
merely to give us notice--it tells us that they are all coming up to
town directly, on Mrs. Churchill's account--she has not been well the
whole winter, and thinks Enscombe too cold for her--so they are all to
move southward without loss of time.”

“Indeed!--from Yorkshire, I think. Enscombe is in Yorkshire?”

“Yes, they are about one hundred and ninety miles from London, a
considerable journey.”

“Yes, upon my word, very considerable. Sixty-five miles farther than
from Maple Grove to London. But what is distance, Mr. Weston, to people
of large fortune?--You would be amazed to hear how my brother, Mr.
Suckling, sometimes flies about. You will hardly believe me--but twice
in one week he and Mr. Bragge went to London and back again with four
horses.”

“The evil of the distance from Enscombe,” said Mr. Weston, “is, that
Mrs. Churchill, _as_ _we_ _understand_, has not been able to leave the
sofa for a week together. In Frank's last letter she complained, he
said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having
both his arm and his uncle's! This, you know, speaks a great degree of
weakness--but now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to
sleep only two nights on the road.--So Frank writes word. Certainly,
delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You
must grant me that.”

“No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my
own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice--You will find me a formidable
antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women--and I assure you,
if you knew how Selina feels with respect to sleeping at an inn, you
would not wonder at Mrs. Churchill's making incredible exertions to
avoid it. Selina says it is quite horror to her--and I believe I have
caught a little of her nicety. She always travels with her own sheets;
an excellent precaution. Does Mrs. Churchill do the same?”

“Depend upon it, Mrs. Churchill does every thing that any other fine
lady ever did. Mrs. Churchill will not be second to any lady in the land
for”--

Mrs. Elton eagerly interposed with,

“Oh! Mr. Weston, do not mistake me. Selina is no fine lady, I assure
you. Do not run away with such an idea.”

“Is not she? Then she is no rule for Mrs. Churchill, who is as thorough
a fine lady as any body ever beheld.”

Mrs. Elton began to think she had been wrong in disclaiming so warmly.
It was by no means her object to have it believed that her sister was
_not_ a fine lady; perhaps there was want of spirit in the pretence of
it;--and she was considering in what way she had best retract, when Mr.
Weston went on.

“Mrs. Churchill is not much in my good graces, as you may suspect--but
this is quite between ourselves. She is very fond of Frank, and
therefore I would not speak ill of her. Besides, she is out of health
now; but _that_ indeed, by her own account, she has always been. I would
not say so to every body, Mrs. Elton, but I have not much faith in Mrs.
Churchill's illness.”

“If she is really ill, why not go to Bath, Mr. Weston?--To Bath, or to
Clifton?” “She has taken it into her head that Enscombe is too cold for
her. The fact is, I suppose, that she is tired of Enscombe. She has now
been a longer time stationary there, than she ever was before, and she
begins to want change. It is a retired place. A fine place, but very
retired.”

“Aye--like Maple Grove, I dare say. Nothing can stand more retired from
the road than Maple Grove. Such an immense plantation all round it! You
seem shut out from every thing--in the most complete retirement.--And
Mrs. Churchill probably has not health or spirits like Selina to enjoy
that sort of seclusion. Or, perhaps she may not have resources enough in
herself to be qualified for a country life. I always say a woman cannot
have too many resources--and I feel very thankful that I have so many
myself as to be quite independent of society.”

“Frank was here in February for a fortnight.”

“So I remember to have heard. He will find an _addition_ to the society
of Highbury when he comes again; that is, if I may presume to call
myself an addition. But perhaps he may never have heard of there being
such a creature in the world.”

This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr.
Weston, with a very good grace, immediately exclaimed,

“My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible.
Not heard of you!--I believe Mrs. Weston's letters lately have been full
of very little else than Mrs. Elton.”

He had done his duty and could return to his son.

“When Frank left us,” continued he, “it was quite uncertain when we
might see him again, which makes this day's news doubly welcome. It has
been completely unexpected. That is, _I_ always had a strong persuasion
he would be here again soon, I was sure something favourable would turn
up--but nobody believed me. He and Mrs. Weston were both dreadfully
desponding. 'How could he contrive to come? And how could it be supposed
that his uncle and aunt would spare him again?' and so forth--I always
felt that something would happen in our favour; and so it has, you see.
I have observed, Mrs. Elton, in the course of my life, that if things
are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.”

“Very true, Mr. Weston, perfectly true. It is just what I used to say to
a certain gentleman in company in the days of courtship, when, because
things did not go quite right, did not proceed with all the rapidity
which suited his feelings, he was apt to be in despair, and exclaim that
he was sure at this rate it would be _May_ before Hymen's saffron robe
would be put on for us. Oh! the pains I have been at to dispel those
gloomy ideas and give him cheerfuller views! The carriage--we had
disappointments about the carriage;--one morning, I remember, he came to
me quite in despair.”

She was stopped by a slight fit of coughing, and Mr. Weston instantly
seized the opportunity of going on.

“You were mentioning May. May is the very month which Mrs. Churchill
is ordered, or has ordered herself, to spend in some warmer place than
Enscombe--in short, to spend in London; so that we have the agreeable
prospect of frequent visits from Frank the whole spring--precisely the
season of the year which one should have chosen for it: days almost at
the longest; weather genial and pleasant, always inviting one out, and
never too hot for exercise. When he was here before, we made the best
of it; but there was a good deal of wet, damp, cheerless weather;
there always is in February, you know, and we could not do half that we
intended. Now will be the time. This will be complete enjoyment; and I
do not know, Mrs. Elton, whether the uncertainty of our meetings, the
sort of constant expectation there will be of his coming in to-day or
to-morrow, and at any hour, may not be more friendly to happiness than
having him actually in the house. I think it is so. I think it is the
state of mind which gives most spirit and delight. I hope you will be
pleased with my son; but you must not expect a prodigy. He is generally
thought a fine young man, but do not expect a prodigy. Mrs. Weston's
partiality for him is very great, and, as you may suppose, most
gratifying to me. She thinks nobody equal to him.”

“And I assure you, Mr. Weston, I have very little doubt that my opinion
will be decidedly in his favour. I have heard so much in praise of Mr.
Frank Churchill.--At the same time it is fair to observe, that I am one
of those who always judge for themselves, and are by no means implicitly
guided by others. I give you notice that as I find your son, so I shall
judge of him.--I am no flatterer.”

Mr. Weston was musing.

“I hope,” said he presently, “I have not been severe upon poor Mrs.
Churchill. If she is ill I should be sorry to do her injustice; but
there are some traits in her character which make it difficult for me to
speak of her with the forbearance I could wish. You cannot be ignorant,
Mrs. Elton, of my connexion with the family, nor of the treatment I have
met with; and, between ourselves, the whole blame of it is to be laid
to her. She was the instigator. Frank's mother would never have been
slighted as she was but for her. Mr. Churchill has pride; but his pride
is nothing to his wife's: his is a quiet, indolent, gentlemanlike sort
of pride that would harm nobody, and only make himself a little helpless
and tiresome; but her pride is arrogance and insolence! And what
inclines one less to bear, she has no fair pretence of family or blood.
She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman;
but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill'd
them all in high and mighty claims: but in herself, I assure you, she is
an upstart.”

“Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite
a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust to
people of that sort; for there is a family in that neighbourhood who
are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs they give
themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me think of them
directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and
encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs,
and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families.
A year and a half is the very utmost that they can have lived at West
Hall; and how they got their fortune nobody knows. They came from
Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston.
One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something
direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the
Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and
yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to
my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest
neighbours. It is infinitely too bad. Mr. Suckling, who has been eleven
years a resident at Maple Grove, and whose father had it before him--I
believe, at least--I am almost sure that old Mr. Suckling had completed
the purchase before his death.”

They were interrupted. Tea was carrying round, and Mr. Weston, having
said all that he wanted, soon took the opportunity of walking away.

After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Elton sat down with Mr.
Woodhouse to cards. The remaining five were left to their own powers,
and Emma doubted their getting on very well; for Mr. Knightley seemed
little disposed for conversation; Mrs. Elton was wanting notice, which
nobody had inclination to pay, and she was herself in a worry of spirits
which would have made her prefer being silent.

Mr. John Knightley proved more talkative than his brother. He was to
leave them early the next day; and he soon began with--

“Well, Emma, I do not believe I have any thing more to say about the
boys; but you have your sister's letter, and every thing is down at full
length there we may be sure. My charge would be much more concise than
her's, and probably not much in the same spirit; all that I have to
recommend being comprised in, do not spoil them, and do not physic
them.”

“I rather hope to satisfy you both,” said Emma, “for I shall do all
in my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella; and
happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.”

“And if you find them troublesome, you must send them home again.”

“That is very likely. You think so, do not you?”

“I hope I am aware that they may be too noisy for your father--or even
may be some encumbrance to you, if your visiting engagements continue to
increase as much as they have done lately.”

“Increase!”

“Certainly; you must be sensible that the last half-year has made a
great difference in your way of life.”

“Difference! No indeed I am not.”

“There can be no doubt of your being much more engaged with company than
you used to be. Witness this very time. Here am I come down for only
one day, and you are engaged with a dinner-party!--When did it happen
before, or any thing like it? Your neighbourhood is increasing, and you
mix more with it. A little while ago, every letter to Isabella brought
an account of fresh gaieties; dinners at Mr. Cole's, or balls at the
Crown. The difference which Randalls, Randalls alone makes in your
goings-on, is very great.”

“Yes,” said his brother quickly, “it is Randalls that does it all.”

“Very well--and as Randalls, I suppose, is not likely to have less
influence than heretofore, it strikes me as a possible thing, Emma, that
Henry and John may be sometimes in the way. And if they are, I only beg
you to send them home.”

“No,” cried Mr. Knightley, “that need not be the consequence. Let them
be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure.”

“Upon my word,” exclaimed Emma, “you amuse me! I should like to know how
many of all my numerous engagements take place without your being of
the party; and why I am to be supposed in danger of wanting leisure to
attend to the little boys. These amazing engagements of mine--what have
they been? Dining once with the Coles--and having a ball talked of,
which never took place. I can understand you--(nodding at Mr. John
Knightley)--your good fortune in meeting with so many of your friends at
once here, delights you too much to pass unnoticed. But you, (turning to
Mr. Knightley,) who know how very, very seldom I am ever two hours from
Hartfield, why you should foresee such a series of dissipation for me, I
cannot imagine. And as to my dear little boys, I must say, that if Aunt
Emma has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much better
with Uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours where she
is absent one--and who, when he is at home, is either reading to himself
or settling his accounts.”

Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without
difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton's beginning to talk to him.




VOLUME III



CHAPTER I


A very little quiet reflection was enough to satisfy Emma as to the
nature of her agitation on hearing this news of Frank Churchill. She
was soon convinced that it was not for herself she was feeling at all
apprehensive or embarrassed; it was for him. Her own attachment had
really subsided into a mere nothing; it was not worth thinking of;--but
if he, who had undoubtedly been always so much the most in love of the
two, were to be returning with the same warmth of sentiment which he had
taken away, it would be very distressing. If a separation of two
months should not have cooled him, there were dangers and evils before
her:--caution for him and for herself would be necessary. She did
not mean to have her own affections entangled again, and it would be
incumbent on her to avoid any encouragement of his.

She wished she might be able to keep him from an absolute declaration.
That would be so very painful a conclusion of their present
acquaintance! and yet, she could not help rather anticipating something
decisive. She felt as if the spring would not pass without bringing a
crisis, an event, a something to alter her present composed and tranquil
state.

It was not very long, though rather longer than Mr. Weston had foreseen,
before she had the power of forming some opinion of Frank Churchill's
feelings. The Enscombe family were not in town quite so soon as had been
imagined, but he was at Highbury very soon afterwards. He rode down
for a couple of hours; he could not yet do more; but as he came from
Randalls immediately to Hartfield, she could then exercise all her quick
observation, and speedily determine how he was influenced, and how she
must act. They met with the utmost friendliness. There could be no doubt
of his great pleasure in seeing her. But she had an almost instant doubt
of his caring for her as he had done, of his feeling the same tenderness
in the same degree. She watched him well. It was a clear thing he was
less in love than he had been. Absence, with the conviction probably
of her indifference, had produced this very natural and very desirable
effect.

He was in high spirits; as ready to talk and laugh as ever, and seemed
delighted to speak of his former visit, and recur to old stories: and he
was not without agitation. It was not in his calmness that she read
his comparative difference. He was not calm; his spirits were evidently
fluttered; there was restlessness about him. Lively as he was, it seemed
a liveliness that did not satisfy himself; but what decided her belief
on the subject, was his staying only a quarter of an hour, and hurrying
away to make other calls in Highbury. “He had seen a group of old
acquaintance in the street as he passed--he had not stopped, he would
not stop for more than a word--but he had the vanity to think they would
be disappointed if he did not call, and much as he wished to stay longer
at Hartfield, he must hurry off.” She had no doubt as to his being less
in love--but neither his agitated spirits, nor his hurrying away, seemed
like a perfect cure; and she was rather inclined to think it implied a
dread of her returning power, and a discreet resolution of not trusting
himself with her long.

This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days.
He was often hoping, intending to come--but was always prevented. His
aunt could not bear to have him leave her. Such was his own account at
Randall's. If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was
to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill's removal to London had been of no
service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder. That she was
really ill was very certain; he had declared himself convinced of it, at
Randalls. Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked
back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a
year ago. He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care
and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many
years of existence before her; but he could not be prevailed on, by all
his father's doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary,
or that she was as strong as ever.

It soon appeared that London was not the place for her. She could
not endure its noise. Her nerves were under continual irritation and
suffering; and by the ten days' end, her nephew's letter to Randalls
communicated a change of plan. They were going to remove immediately to
Richmond. Mrs. Churchill had been recommended to the medical skill of
an eminent person there, and had otherwise a fancy for the place. A
ready-furnished house in a favourite spot was engaged, and much benefit
expected from the change.

Emma heard that Frank wrote in the highest spirits of this arrangement,
and seemed most fully to appreciate the blessing of having two months
before him of such near neighbourhood to many dear friends--for the
house was taken for May and June. She was told that now he wrote with
the greatest confidence of being often with them, almost as often as he
could even wish.

Emma saw how Mr. Weston understood these joyous prospects. He was
considering her as the source of all the happiness they offered. She
hoped it was not so. Two months must bring it to the proof.

Mr. Weston's own happiness was indisputable. He was quite delighted.
It was the very circumstance he could have wished for. Now, it would be
really having Frank in their neighbourhood. What were nine miles to
a young man?--An hour's ride. He would be always coming over. The
difference in that respect of Richmond and London was enough to make
the whole difference of seeing him always and seeing him never. Sixteen
miles--nay, eighteen--it must be full eighteen to Manchester-street--was
a serious obstacle. Were he ever able to get away, the day would be
spent in coming and returning. There was no comfort in having him in
London; he might as well be at Enscombe; but Richmond was the very
distance for easy intercourse. Better than nearer!

One good thing was immediately brought to a certainty by this
removal,--the ball at the Crown. It had not been forgotten before,
but it had been soon acknowledged vain to attempt to fix a day. Now,
however, it was absolutely to be; every preparation was resumed, and
very soon after the Churchills had removed to Richmond, a few lines from
Frank, to say that his aunt felt already much better for the change, and
that he had no doubt of being able to join them for twenty-four hours at
any given time, induced them to name as early a day as possible.

Mr. Weston's ball was to be a real thing. A very few to-morrows stood
between the young people of Highbury and happiness.

Mr. Woodhouse was resigned. The time of year lightened the evil to him.
May was better for every thing than February. Mrs. Bates was engaged to
spend the evening at Hartfield, James had due notice, and he sanguinely
hoped that neither dear little Henry nor dear little John would have any
thing the matter with them, while dear Emma were gone.



CHAPTER II


No misfortune occurred, again to prevent the ball. The day approached,
the day arrived; and after a morning of some anxious watching, Frank
Churchill, in all the certainty of his own self, reached Randalls before
dinner, and every thing was safe.

No second meeting had there yet been between him and Emma. The room
at the Crown was to witness it;--but it would be better than a
common meeting in a crowd. Mr. Weston had been so very earnest in his
entreaties for her arriving there as soon as possible after themselves,
for the purpose of taking her opinion as to the propriety and comfort of
the rooms before any other persons came, that she could not refuse him,
and must therefore spend some quiet interval in the young man's company.
She was to convey Harriet, and they drove to the Crown in good time, the
Randalls party just sufficiently before them.

Frank Churchill seemed to have been on the watch; and though he did not
say much, his eyes declared that he meant to have a delightful evening.
They all walked about together, to see that every thing was as it should
be; and within a few minutes were joined by the contents of another
carriage, which Emma could not hear the sound of at first, without great
surprize. “So unreasonably early!” she was going to exclaim; but she
presently found that it was a family of old friends, who were coming,
like herself, by particular desire, to help Mr. Weston's judgment; and
they were so very closely followed by another carriage of cousins,
who had been entreated to come early with the same distinguishing
earnestness, on the same errand, that it seemed as if half the company
might soon be collected together for the purpose of preparatory
inspection.

Emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which Mr. Weston
depended, and felt, that to be the favourite and intimate of a man
who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first
distinction in the scale of vanity. She liked his open manners, but
a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher
character.--General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a
man what he ought to be.--She could fancy such a man. The whole party
walked about, and looked, and praised again; and then, having nothing
else to do, formed a sort of half-circle round the fire, to observe
in their various modes, till other subjects were started, that, though
_May_, a fire in the evening was still very pleasant.

Emma found that it was not Mr. Weston's fault that the number of privy
councillors was not yet larger. They had stopped at Mrs. Bates's door
to offer the use of their carriage, but the aunt and niece were to be
brought by the Eltons.

Frank was standing by her, but not steadily; there was a restlessness,
which shewed a mind not at ease. He was looking about, he was going to
the door, he was watching for the sound of other carriages,--impatient
to begin, or afraid of being always near her.

Mrs. Elton was spoken of. “I think she must be here soon,” said he. “I
have a great curiosity to see Mrs. Elton, I have heard so much of her.
It cannot be long, I think, before she comes.”

A carriage was heard. He was on the move immediately; but coming back,
said,

“I am forgetting that I am not acquainted with her. I have never seen
either Mr. or Mrs. Elton. I have no business to put myself forward.”

Mr. and Mrs. Elton appeared; and all the smiles and the proprieties
passed.

“But Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax!” said Mr. Weston, looking about. “We
thought you were to bring them.”

The mistake had been slight. The carriage was sent for them now. Emma
longed to know what Frank's first opinion of Mrs. Elton might be; how
he was affected by the studied elegance of her dress, and her smiles of
graciousness. He was immediately qualifying himself to form an opinion,
by giving her very proper attention, after the introduction had passed.

In a few minutes the carriage returned.--Somebody talked of rain.--“I
will see that there are umbrellas, sir,” said Frank to his father:
“Miss Bates must not be forgotten:” and away he went. Mr. Weston was
following; but Mrs. Elton detained him, to gratify him by her opinion
of his son; and so briskly did she begin, that the young man himself,
though by no means moving slowly, could hardly be out of hearing.

“A very fine young man indeed, Mr. Weston. You know I candidly told you
I should form my own opinion; and I am happy to say that I am extremely
pleased with him.--You may believe me. I never compliment. I think him
a very handsome young man, and his manners are precisely what I like and
approve--so truly the gentleman, without the least conceit or puppyism.
You must know I have a vast dislike to puppies--quite a horror of them.
They were never tolerated at Maple Grove. Neither Mr. Suckling nor
me had ever any patience with them; and we used sometimes to say very
cutting things! Selina, who is mild almost to a fault, bore with them
much better.”

While she talked of his son, Mr. Weston's attention was chained; but
when she got to Maple Grove, he could recollect that there were ladies
just arriving to be attended to, and with happy smiles must hurry away.

Mrs. Elton turned to Mrs. Weston. “I have no doubt of its being our
carriage with Miss Bates and Jane. Our coachman and horses are so
extremely expeditious!--I believe we drive faster than any body.--What
a pleasure it is to send one's carriage for a friend!--I understand you
were so kind as to offer, but another time it will be quite unnecessary.
You may be very sure I shall always take care of _them_.”

Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax, escorted by the two gentlemen, walked into
the room; and Mrs. Elton seemed to think it as much her duty as Mrs.
Weston's to receive them. Her gestures and movements might be understood
by any one who looked on like Emma; but her words, every body's words,
were soon lost under the incessant flow of Miss Bates, who came in
talking, and had not finished her speech under many minutes after her
being admitted into the circle at the fire. As the door opened she was
heard,

“So very obliging of you!--No rain at all. Nothing to signify. I do not
care for myself. Quite thick shoes. And Jane declares--Well!--(as soon
as she was within the door) Well! This is brilliant indeed!--This is
admirable!--Excellently contrived, upon my word. Nothing wanting. Could
not have imagined it.--So well lighted up!--Jane, Jane, look!--did you
ever see any thing? Oh! Mr. Weston, you must really have had Aladdin's
lamp. Good Mrs. Stokes would not know her own room again. I saw her as
I came in; she was standing in the entrance. 'Oh! Mrs. Stokes,' said
I--but I had not time for more.” She was now met by Mrs. Weston.--“Very
well, I thank you, ma'am. I hope you are quite well. Very happy to hear
it. So afraid you might have a headache!--seeing you pass by so often,
and knowing how much trouble you must have. Delighted to hear it indeed.
Ah! dear Mrs. Elton, so obliged to you for the carriage!--excellent
time. Jane and I quite ready. Did not keep the horses a moment. Most
comfortable carriage.--Oh! and I am sure our thanks are due to you,
Mrs. Weston, on that score. Mrs. Elton had most kindly sent Jane a note,
or we should have been.--But two such offers in one day!--Never were
such neighbours. I said to my mother, 'Upon my word, ma'am--.' Thank
you, my mother is remarkably well. Gone to Mr. Woodhouse's. I made her
take her shawl--for the evenings are not warm--her large new shawl--
Mrs. Dixon's wedding-present.--So kind of her to think of my mother!
Bought at Weymouth, you know--Mr. Dixon's choice. There were three
others, Jane says, which they hesitated about some time. Colonel
Campbell rather preferred an olive. My dear Jane, are you sure you did
not wet your feet?--It was but a drop or two, but I am so afraid:--but
Mr. Frank Churchill was so extremely--and there was a mat to step
upon--I shall never forget his extreme politeness.--Oh! Mr. Frank
Churchill, I must tell you my mother's spectacles have never been in
fault since; the rivet never came out again. My mother often talks of
your good-nature. Does not she, Jane?--Do not we often talk of Mr. Frank
Churchill?--Ah! here's Miss Woodhouse.--Dear Miss Woodhouse, how do
you do?--Very well I thank you, quite well. This is meeting quite
in fairy-land!--Such a transformation!--Must not compliment, I know
(eyeing Emma most complacently)--that would be rude--but upon my word,
Miss Woodhouse, you do look--how do you like Jane's hair?--You are
a judge.--She did it all herself. Quite wonderful how she does her
hair!--No hairdresser from London I think could.--Ah! Dr. Hughes I
declare--and Mrs. Hughes. Must go and speak to Dr. and Mrs. Hughes for a
moment.--How do you do? How do you do?--Very well, I thank you. This
is delightful, is not it?--Where's dear Mr. Richard?--Oh! there he is.
Don't disturb him. Much better employed talking to the young ladies. How
do you do, Mr. Richard?--I saw you the other day as you rode through
the town--Mrs. Otway, I protest!--and good Mr. Otway, and Miss Otway
and Miss Caroline.--Such a host of friends!--and Mr. George and Mr.
Arthur!--How do you do? How do you all do?--Quite well, I am much
obliged to you. Never better.--Don't I hear another carriage?--Who can
this be?--very likely the worthy Coles.--Upon my word, this is charming
to be standing about among such friends! And such a noble fire!--I am
quite roasted. No coffee, I thank you, for me--never take coffee.--A
little tea if you please, sir, by and bye,--no hurry--Oh! here it comes.
Every thing so good!”

Frank Churchill returned to his station by Emma; and as soon as Miss
Bates was quiet, she found herself necessarily overhearing the discourse
of Mrs. Elton and Miss Fairfax, who were standing a little way behind
her.--He was thoughtful. Whether he were overhearing too, she could not
determine. After a good many compliments to Jane on her dress and look,
compliments very quietly and properly taken, Mrs. Elton was evidently
wanting to be complimented herself--and it was, “How do you like
my gown?--How do you like my trimming?--How has Wright done my
hair?”--with many other relative questions, all answered with patient
politeness. Mrs. Elton then said, “Nobody can think less of dress in
general than I do--but upon such an occasion as this, when every body's
eyes are so much upon me, and in compliment to the Westons--who I have
no doubt are giving this ball chiefly to do me honour--I would not wish
to be inferior to others. And I see very few pearls in the room except
mine.--So Frank Churchill is a capital dancer, I understand.--We shall
see if our styles suit.--A fine young man certainly is Frank Churchill.
I like him very well.”

At this moment Frank began talking so vigorously, that Emma could not
but imagine he had overheard his own praises, and did not want to hear
more;--and the voices of the ladies were drowned for a while, till
another suspension brought Mrs. Elton's tones again distinctly
forward.--Mr. Elton had just joined them, and his wife was exclaiming,

“Oh! you have found us out at last, have you, in our seclusion?--I was
this moment telling Jane, I thought you would begin to be impatient for
tidings of us.”

“Jane!”--repeated Frank Churchill, with a look of surprize and
displeasure.--“That is easy--but Miss Fairfax does not disapprove it, I
suppose.”

“How do you like Mrs. Elton?” said Emma in a whisper.

“Not at all.”

“You are ungrateful.”

“Ungrateful!--What do you mean?” Then changing from a frown to a
smile--“No, do not tell me--I do not want to know what you mean.--Where
is my father?--When are we to begin dancing?”

Emma could hardly understand him; he seemed in an odd humour. He walked
off to find his father, but was quickly back again with both Mr. and
Mrs. Weston. He had met with them in a little perplexity, which must be
laid before Emma. It had just occurred to Mrs. Weston that Mrs. Elton
must be asked to begin the ball; that she would expect it; which
interfered with all their wishes of giving Emma that distinction.--Emma
heard the sad truth with fortitude.

“And what are we to do for a proper partner for her?” said Mr. Weston.
“She will think Frank ought to ask her.”

Frank turned instantly to Emma, to claim her former promise; and
boasted himself an engaged man, which his father looked his most perfect
approbation of--and it then appeared that Mrs. Weston was wanting _him_
to dance with Mrs. Elton himself, and that their business was to help to
persuade him into it, which was done pretty soon.--Mr. Weston and Mrs.
Elton led the way, Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse followed.
Emma must submit to stand second to Mrs. Elton, though she had always
considered the ball as peculiarly for her. It was almost enough to make
her think of marrying. Mrs. Elton had undoubtedly the advantage, at this
time, in vanity completely gratified; for though she had intended to
begin with Frank Churchill, she could not lose by the change. Mr. Weston
might be his son's superior.--In spite of this little rub, however,
Emma was smiling with enjoyment, delighted to see the respectable length
of the set as it was forming, and to feel that she had so many hours
of unusual festivity before her.--She was more disturbed by Mr.
Knightley's not dancing than by any thing else.--There he was, among
the standers-by, where he ought not to be; he ought to be dancing,--not
classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whist-players, who
were pretending to feel an interest in the dance till their rubbers were
made up,--so young as he looked!--He could not have appeared to greater
advantage perhaps anywhere, than where he had placed himself. His tall,
firm, upright figure, among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of
the elderly men, was such as Emma felt must draw every body's eyes;
and, excepting her own partner, there was not one among the whole row of
young men who could be compared with him.--He moved a few steps nearer,
and those few steps were enough to prove in how gentlemanlike a manner,
with what natural grace, he must have danced, would he but take the
trouble.--Whenever she caught his eye, she forced him to smile; but
in general he was looking grave. She wished he could love a ballroom
better, and could like Frank Churchill better.--He seemed often
observing her. She must not flatter herself that he thought of her
dancing, but if he were criticising her behaviour, she did not feel
afraid. There was nothing like flirtation between her and her partner.
They seemed more like cheerful, easy friends, than lovers. That Frank
Churchill thought less of her than he had done, was indubitable.

The ball proceeded pleasantly. The anxious cares, the incessant
attentions of Mrs. Weston, were not thrown away. Every body seemed
happy; and the praise of being a delightful ball, which is seldom
bestowed till after a ball has ceased to be, was repeatedly given in
the very beginning of the existence of this. Of very important, very
recordable events, it was not more productive than such meetings usually
are. There was one, however, which Emma thought something of.--The two
last dances before supper were begun, and Harriet had no partner;--the
only young lady sitting down;--and so equal had been hitherto the
number of dancers, that how there could be any one disengaged was the
wonder!--But Emma's wonder lessened soon afterwards, on seeing Mr. Elton
sauntering about. He would not ask Harriet to dance if it were possible
to be avoided: she was sure he would not--and she was expecting him
every moment to escape into the card-room.

Escape, however, was not his plan. He came to the part of the room where
the sitters-by were collected, spoke to some, and walked about in front
of them, as if to shew his liberty, and his resolution of maintaining
it. He did not omit being sometimes directly before Miss Smith, or
speaking to those who were close to her.--Emma saw it. She was not yet
dancing; she was working her way up from the bottom, and had therefore
leisure to look around, and by only turning her head a little she saw
it all. When she was half-way up the set, the whole group were exactly
behind her, and she would no longer allow her eyes to watch; but Mr.
Elton was so near, that she heard every syllable of a dialogue which
just then took place between him and Mrs. Weston; and she perceived that
his wife, who was standing immediately above her, was not only
listening also, but even encouraging him by significant glances.--The
kind-hearted, gentle Mrs. Weston had left her seat to join him and say,
“Do not you dance, Mr. Elton?” to which his prompt reply was, “Most
readily, Mrs. Weston, if you will dance with me.”

“Me!--oh! no--I would get you a better partner than myself. I am no
dancer.”

“If Mrs. Gilbert wishes to dance,” said he, “I shall have great
pleasure, I am sure--for, though beginning to feel myself rather an old
married man, and that my dancing days are over, it would give me very
great pleasure at any time to stand up with an old friend like Mrs.
Gilbert.”

“Mrs. Gilbert does not mean to dance, but there is a young lady
disengaged whom I should be very glad to see dancing--Miss Smith.” “Miss
Smith!--oh!--I had not observed.--You are extremely obliging--and if I
were not an old married man.--But my dancing days are over, Mrs. Weston.
You will excuse me. Any thing else I should be most happy to do, at your
command--but my dancing days are over.”

Mrs. Weston said no more; and Emma could imagine with what surprize and
mortification she must be returning to her seat. This was Mr. Elton! the
amiable, obliging, gentle Mr. Elton.--She looked round for a moment; he
had joined Mr. Knightley at a little distance, and was arranging himself
for settled conversation, while smiles of high glee passed between him
and his wife.

She would not look again. Her heart was in a glow, and she feared her
face might be as hot.

In another moment a happier sight caught her;--Mr. Knightley leading
Harriet to the set!--Never had she been more surprized, seldom more
delighted, than at that instant. She was all pleasure and gratitude,
both for Harriet and herself, and longed to be thanking him; and though
too distant for speech, her countenance said much, as soon as she could
catch his eye again.

His dancing proved to be just what she had believed it, extremely good;
and Harriet would have seemed almost too lucky, if it had not been for
the cruel state of things before, and for the very complete enjoyment
and very high sense of the distinction which her happy features
announced. It was not thrown away on her, she bounded higher than ever,
flew farther down the middle, and was in a continual course of smiles.

Mr. Elton had retreated into the card-room, looking (Emma trusted) very
foolish. She did not think he was quite so hardened as his wife, though
growing very like her;--_she_ spoke some of her feelings, by observing
audibly to her partner,

“Knightley has taken pity on poor little Miss Smith!--Very good-natured,
I declare.”

Supper was announced. The move began; and Miss Bates might be heard from
that moment, without interruption, till her being seated at table and
taking up her spoon.

“Jane, Jane, my dear Jane, where are you?--Here is your tippet. Mrs.
Weston begs you to put on your tippet. She says she is afraid there will
be draughts in the passage, though every thing has been done--One door
nailed up--Quantities of matting--My dear Jane, indeed you must.
Mr. Churchill, oh! you are too obliging! How well you put it on!--so
gratified! Excellent dancing indeed!--Yes, my dear, I ran home, as I
said I should, to help grandmama to bed, and got back again, and
nobody missed me.--I set off without saying a word, just as I told you.
Grandmama was quite well, had a charming evening with Mr. Woodhouse, a
vast deal of chat, and backgammon.--Tea was made downstairs, biscuits
and baked apples and wine before she came away: amazing luck in some
of her throws: and she inquired a great deal about you, how you were
amused, and who were your partners. 'Oh!' said I, 'I shall not forestall
Jane; I left her dancing with Mr. George Otway; she will love to tell
you all about it herself to-morrow: her first partner was Mr. Elton,
I do not know who will ask her next, perhaps Mr. William Cox.' My dear
sir, you are too obliging.--Is there nobody you would not rather?--I am
not helpless. Sir, you are most kind. Upon my word, Jane on one arm, and
me on the other!--Stop, stop, let us stand a little back, Mrs. Elton is
going; dear Mrs. Elton, how elegant she looks!--Beautiful lace!--Now we
all follow in her train. Quite the queen of the evening!--Well, here we
are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no,
there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd!
I was convinced there were two, and there is but one. I never saw any
thing equal to the comfort and style--Candles everywhere.--I was telling
you of your grandmama, Jane,--There was a little disappointment.--The
baked apples and biscuits, excellent in their way, you know; but there
was a delicate fricassee of sweetbread and some asparagus brought in at
first, and good Mr. Woodhouse, not thinking the asparagus quite boiled
enough, sent it all out again. Now there is nothing grandmama loves
better than sweetbread and asparagus--so she was rather disappointed,
but we agreed we would not speak of it to any body, for fear of
its getting round to dear Miss Woodhouse, who would be so very much
concerned!--Well, this is brilliant! I am all amazement! could not have
supposed any thing!--Such elegance and profusion!--I have seen nothing
like it since--Well, where shall we sit? where shall we sit? Anywhere,
so that Jane is not in a draught. Where _I_ sit is of no consequence.
Oh! do you recommend this side?--Well, I am sure, Mr. Churchill--only
it seems too good--but just as you please. What you direct in this house
cannot be wrong. Dear Jane, how shall we ever recollect half the dishes
for grandmama? Soup too! Bless me! I should not be helped so soon, but
it smells most excellent, and I cannot help beginning.”

Emma had no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Knightley till after supper;
but, when they were all in the ballroom again, her eyes invited
him irresistibly to come to her and be thanked. He was warm in his
reprobation of Mr. Elton's conduct; it had been unpardonable rudeness;
and Mrs. Elton's looks also received the due share of censure.

“They aimed at wounding more than Harriet,” said he. “Emma, why is it
that they are your enemies?”

He looked with smiling penetration; and, on receiving no answer, added,
“_She_ ought not to be angry with you, I suspect, whatever he may
be.--To that surmise, you say nothing, of course; but confess, Emma,
that you did want him to marry Harriet.”

“I did,” replied Emma, “and they cannot forgive me.”

He shook his head; but there was a smile of indulgence with it, and he
only said,

“I shall not scold you. I leave you to your own reflections.”

“Can you trust me with such flatterers?--Does my vain spirit ever tell
me I am wrong?”

“Not your vain spirit, but your serious spirit.--If one leads you wrong,
I am sure the other tells you of it.”

“I do own myself to have been completely mistaken in Mr. Elton. There is
a littleness about him which you discovered, and which I did not: and I
was fully convinced of his being in love with Harriet. It was through a
series of strange blunders!”

“And, in return for your acknowledging so much, I will do you the
justice to say, that you would have chosen for him better than he has
chosen for himself.--Harriet Smith has some first-rate qualities, which
Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, single-minded, artless
girl--infinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a
woman as Mrs. Elton. I found Harriet more conversable than I expected.”

Emma was extremely gratified.--They were interrupted by the bustle of
Mr. Weston calling on every body to begin dancing again.

“Come Miss Woodhouse, Miss Otway, Miss Fairfax, what are you all
doing?--Come Emma, set your companions the example. Every body is lazy!
Every body is asleep!”

“I am ready,” said Emma, “whenever I am wanted.”

“Whom are you going to dance with?” asked Mr. Knightley.

She hesitated a moment, and then replied, “With you, if you will ask
me.”

“Will you?” said he, offering his hand.

“Indeed I will. You have shewn that you can dance, and you know we are
not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.”

“Brother and sister! no, indeed.”



CHAPTER III


This little explanation with Mr. Knightley gave Emma considerable
pleasure. It was one of the agreeable recollections of the ball, which
she walked about the lawn the next morning to enjoy.--She was extremely
glad that they had come to so good an understanding respecting the
Eltons, and that their opinions of both husband and wife were so much
alike; and his praise of Harriet, his concession in her favour, was
peculiarly gratifying. The impertinence of the Eltons, which for a few
minutes had threatened to ruin the rest of her evening, had been the
occasion of some of its highest satisfactions; and she looked forward
to another happy result--the cure of Harriet's infatuation.--From
Harriet's manner of speaking of the circumstance before they quitted the
ballroom, she had strong hopes. It seemed as if her eyes were suddenly
opened, and she were enabled to see that Mr. Elton was not the superior
creature she had believed him. The fever was over, and Emma could
harbour little fear of the pulse being quickened again by injurious
courtesy. She depended on the evil feelings of the Eltons for
supplying all the discipline of pointed neglect that could be farther
requisite.--Harriet rational, Frank Churchill not too much in love, and
Mr. Knightley not wanting to quarrel with her, how very happy a summer
must be before her!

She was not to see Frank Churchill this morning. He had told her that he
could not allow himself the pleasure of stopping at Hartfield, as he was
to be at home by the middle of the day. She did not regret it.

Having arranged all these matters, looked them through, and put them all
to rights, she was just turning to the house with spirits freshened up
for the demands of the two little boys, as well as of their grandpapa,
when the great iron sweep-gate opened, and two persons entered whom she
had never less expected to see together--Frank Churchill, with Harriet
leaning on his arm--actually Harriet!--A moment sufficed to convince
her that something extraordinary had happened. Harriet looked white
and frightened, and he was trying to cheer her.--The iron gates and the
front-door were not twenty yards asunder;--they were all three soon in
the hall, and Harriet immediately sinking into a chair fainted away.

A young lady who faints, must be recovered; questions must be answered,
and surprizes be explained. Such events are very interesting, but the
suspense of them cannot last long. A few minutes made Emma acquainted
with the whole.

Miss Smith, and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs.
Goddard's, who had been also at the ball, had walked out together, and
taken a road, the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough
for safety, had led them into alarm.--About half a mile beyond Highbury,
making a sudden turn, and deeply shaded by elms on each side, it became
for a considerable stretch very retired; and when the young ladies
had advanced some way into it, they had suddenly perceived at a small
distance before them, on a broader patch of greensward by the side, a
party of gipsies. A child on the watch, came towards them to beg; and
Miss Bickerton, excessively frightened, gave a great scream, and calling
on Harriet to follow her, ran up a steep bank, cleared a slight hedge at
the top, and made the best of her way by a short cut back to Highbury.
But poor Harriet could not follow. She had suffered very much from cramp
after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank brought on such
a return of it as made her absolutely powerless--and in this state, and
exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain.

How the trampers might have behaved, had the young ladies been more
courageous, must be doubtful; but such an invitation for attack could
not be resisted; and Harriet was soon assailed by half a dozen children,
headed by a stout woman and a great boy, all clamorous, and impertinent
in look, though not absolutely in word.--More and more frightened, she
immediately promised them money, and taking out her purse, gave them a
shilling, and begged them not to want more, or to use her ill.--She
was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was moving away--but her
terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was followed, or rather
surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more.

In this state Frank Churchill had found her, she trembling and
conditioning, they loud and insolent. By a most fortunate chance his
leaving Highbury had been delayed so as to bring him to her assistance
at this critical moment. The pleasantness of the morning had induced
him to walk forward, and leave his horses to meet him by another road,
a mile or two beyond Highbury--and happening to have borrowed a pair
of scissors the night before of Miss Bates, and to have forgotten to
restore them, he had been obliged to stop at her door, and go in for a
few minutes: he was therefore later than he had intended; and being
on foot, was unseen by the whole party till almost close to them. The
terror which the woman and boy had been creating in Harriet was then
their own portion. He had left them completely frightened; and Harriet
eagerly clinging to him, and hardly able to speak, had just strength
enough to reach Hartfield, before her spirits were quite overcome.
It was his idea to bring her to Hartfield: he had thought of no other
place.

This was the amount of the whole story,--of his communication and of
Harriet's as soon as she had recovered her senses and speech.--He dared
not stay longer than to see her well; these several delays left him
not another minute to lose; and Emma engaging to give assurance of her
safety to Mrs. Goddard, and notice of there being such a set of people
in the neighbourhood to Mr. Knightley, he set off, with all the grateful
blessings that she could utter for her friend and herself.

Such an adventure as this,--a fine young man and a lovely young woman
thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain
ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at
least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician
have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and
heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been
at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?--How much
more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and
foresight!--especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her
mind had already made.

It was a very extraordinary thing! Nothing of the sort had ever
occurred before to any young ladies in the place, within her memory; no
rencontre, no alarm of the kind;--and now it had happened to the very
person, and at the very hour, when the other very person was chancing
to pass by to rescue her!--It certainly was very extraordinary!--And
knowing, as she did, the favourable state of mind of each at this
period, it struck her the more. He was wishing to get the better of his
attachment to herself, she just recovering from her mania for Mr. Elton.
It seemed as if every thing united to promise the most interesting
consequences. It was not possible that the occurrence should not be
strongly recommending each to the other.

In the few minutes' conversation which she had yet had with him, while
Harriet had been partially insensible, he had spoken of her terror,
her naivete, her fervour as she seized and clung to his arm, with a
sensibility amused and delighted; and just at last, after Harriet's
own account had been given, he had expressed his indignation at the
abominable folly of Miss Bickerton in the warmest terms. Every thing was
to take its natural course, however, neither impelled nor assisted.
She would not stir a step, nor drop a hint. No, she had had enough of
interference. There could be no harm in a scheme, a mere passive scheme.
It was no more than a wish. Beyond it she would on no account proceed.

Emma's first resolution was to keep her father from the knowledge of
what had passed,--aware of the anxiety and alarm it would occasion: but
she soon felt that concealment must be impossible. Within half an hour
it was known all over Highbury. It was the very event to engage those
who talk most, the young and the low; and all the youth and servants in
the place were soon in the happiness of frightful news. The last night's
ball seemed lost in the gipsies. Poor Mr. Woodhouse trembled as he sat,
and, as Emma had foreseen, would scarcely be satisfied without their
promising never to go beyond the shrubbery again. It was some comfort
to him that many inquiries after himself and Miss Woodhouse (for his
neighbours knew that he loved to be inquired after), as well as Miss
Smith, were coming in during the rest of the day; and he had
the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very
indifferent--which, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well,
and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with. She had
an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man,
for she hardly knew what indisposition was; and if he did not invent
illnesses for her, she could make no figure in a message.

The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice; they took
themselves off in a hurry. The young ladies of Highbury might have
walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history
dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her
nephews:--in her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and
John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the
gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the
slightest particular from the original recital.



CHAPTER IV


A very few days had passed after this adventure, when Harriet came one
morning to Emma with a small parcel in her hand, and after sitting down
and hesitating, thus began:

“Miss Woodhouse--if you are at leisure--I have something that I should
like to tell you--a sort of confession to make--and then, you know, it
will be over.”

Emma was a good deal surprized; but begged her to speak. There was a
seriousness in Harriet's manner which prepared her, quite as much as her
words, for something more than ordinary.

“It is my duty, and I am sure it is my wish,” she continued, “to have
no reserves with you on this subject. As I am happily quite an altered
creature in _one_ _respect_, it is very fit that you should have
the satisfaction of knowing it. I do not want to say more than is
necessary--I am too much ashamed of having given way as I have done, and
I dare say you understand me.”

“Yes,” said Emma, “I hope I do.”

“How I could so long a time be fancying myself!...” cried Harriet,
warmly. “It seems like madness! I can see nothing at all extraordinary
in him now.--I do not care whether I meet him or not--except that of the
two I had rather not see him--and indeed I would go any distance round
to avoid him--but I do not envy his wife in the least; I neither admire
her nor envy her, as I have done: she is very charming, I dare say, and
all that, but I think her very ill-tempered and disagreeable--I shall
never forget her look the other night!--However, I assure you, Miss
Woodhouse, I wish her no evil.--No, let them be ever so happy together,
it will not give me another moment's pang: and to convince you that I
have been speaking truth, I am now going to destroy--what I ought to
have destroyed long ago--what I ought never to have kept--I know that
very well (blushing as she spoke).--However, now I will destroy it
all--and it is my particular wish to do it in your presence, that you
may see how rational I am grown. Cannot you guess what this parcel
holds?” said she, with a conscious look.

“Not the least in the world.--Did he ever give you any thing?”

“No--I cannot call them gifts; but they are things that I have valued
very much.”

She held the parcel towards her, and Emma read the words _Most_
_precious_ _treasures_ on the top. Her curiosity was greatly excited.
Harriet unfolded the parcel, and she looked on with impatience. Within
abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridge-ware box,
which Harriet opened: it was well lined with the softest cotton; but,
excepting the cotton, Emma saw only a small piece of court-plaister.

“Now,” said Harriet, “you _must_ recollect.”

“No, indeed I do not.”

“Dear me! I should not have thought it possible you could forget what
passed in this very room about court-plaister, one of the very last
times we ever met in it!--It was but a very few days before I had my
sore throat--just before Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley came--I think the
very evening.--Do not you remember his cutting his finger with your new
penknife, and your recommending court-plaister?--But, as you had none
about you, and knew I had, you desired me to supply him; and so I took
mine out and cut him a piece; but it was a great deal too large, and he
cut it smaller, and kept playing some time with what was left, before he
gave it back to me. And so then, in my nonsense, I could not help making
a treasure of it--so I put it by never to be used, and looked at it now
and then as a great treat.”

“My dearest Harriet!” cried Emma, putting her hand before her face,
and jumping up, “you make me more ashamed of myself than I can bear.
Remember it? Aye, I remember it all now; all, except your saving this
relic--I knew nothing of that till this moment--but the cutting the
finger, and my recommending court-plaister, and saying I had none
about me!--Oh! my sins, my sins!--And I had plenty all the while in my
pocket!--One of my senseless tricks!--I deserve to be under a continual
blush all the rest of my life.--Well--(sitting down again)--go on--what
else?”

“And had you really some at hand yourself? I am sure I never suspected
it, you did it so naturally.”

“And so you actually put this piece of court-plaister by for his sake!”
 said Emma, recovering from her state of shame and feeling divided
between wonder and amusement. And secretly she added to herself, “Lord
bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a
piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I
never was equal to this.”

“Here,” resumed Harriet, turning to her box again, “here is something
still more valuable, I mean that _has_ _been_ more valuable, because
this is what did really once belong to him, which the court-plaister
never did.”

Emma was quite eager to see this superior treasure. It was the end of an
old pencil,--the part without any lead.

“This was really his,” said Harriet.--“Do not you remember one
morning?--no, I dare say you do not. But one morning--I forget exactly
the day--but perhaps it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before _that_
_evening_, he wanted to make a memorandum in his pocket-book; it was
about spruce-beer. Mr. Knightley had been telling him something about
brewing spruce-beer, and he wanted to put it down; but when he took out
his pencil, there was so little lead that he soon cut it all away, and
it would not do, so you lent him another, and this was left upon the
table as good for nothing. But I kept my eye on it; and, as soon as I
dared, caught it up, and never parted with it again from that moment.”

“I do remember it,” cried Emma; “I perfectly remember it.--Talking
about spruce-beer.--Oh! yes--Mr. Knightley and I both saying we
liked it, and Mr. Elton's seeming resolved to learn to like it too. I
perfectly remember it.--Stop; Mr. Knightley was standing just here, was
not he? I have an idea he was standing just here.”

“Ah! I do not know. I cannot recollect.--It is very odd, but I cannot
recollect.--Mr. Elton was sitting here, I remember, much about where I
am now.”--

“Well, go on.”

“Oh! that's all. I have nothing more to shew you, or to say--except that
I am now going to throw them both behind the fire, and I wish you to see
me do it.”

“My poor dear Harriet! and have you actually found happiness in
treasuring up these things?”

“Yes, simpleton as I was!--but I am quite ashamed of it now, and wish I
could forget as easily as I can burn them. It was very wrong of me, you
know, to keep any remembrances, after he was married. I knew it was--but
had not resolution enough to part with them.”

“But, Harriet, is it necessary to burn the court-plaister?--I have not
a word to say for the bit of old pencil, but the court-plaister might be
useful.”

“I shall be happier to burn it,” replied Harriet. “It has a disagreeable
look to me. I must get rid of every thing.--There it goes, and there is
an end, thank Heaven! of Mr. Elton.”

“And when,” thought Emma, “will there be a beginning of Mr. Churchill?”

She had soon afterwards reason to believe that the beginning was already
made, and could not but hope that the gipsy, though she had _told_ no
fortune, might be proved to have made Harriet's.--About a fortnight
after the alarm, they came to a sufficient explanation, and quite
undesignedly. Emma was not thinking of it at the moment, which made the
information she received more valuable. She merely said, in the course
of some trivial chat, “Well, Harriet, whenever you marry I would advise
you to do so and so”--and thought no more of it, till after a minute's
silence she heard Harriet say in a very serious tone, “I shall never
marry.”

Emma then looked up, and immediately saw how it was; and after a
moment's debate, as to whether it should pass unnoticed or not, replied,

“Never marry!--This is a new resolution.”

“It is one that I shall never change, however.”

After another short hesitation, “I hope it does not proceed from--I hope
it is not in compliment to Mr. Elton?”

“Mr. Elton indeed!” cried Harriet indignantly.--“Oh! no”--and Emma could
just catch the words, “so superior to Mr. Elton!”

She then took a longer time for consideration. Should she proceed no
farther?--should she let it pass, and seem to suspect nothing?--Perhaps
Harriet might think her cold or angry if she did; or perhaps if she were
totally silent, it might only drive Harriet into asking her to hear too
much; and against any thing like such an unreserve as had been, such
an open and frequent discussion of hopes and chances, she was perfectly
resolved.--She believed it would be wiser for her to say and know at
once, all that she meant to say and know. Plain dealing was always
best. She had previously determined how far she would proceed, on any
application of the sort; and it would be safer for both, to have the
judicious law of her own brain laid down with speed.--She was decided,
and thus spoke--

“Harriet, I will not affect to be in doubt of your meaning. Your
resolution, or rather your expectation of never marrying, results from
an idea that the person whom you might prefer, would be too greatly your
superior in situation to think of you. Is not it so?”

“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, believe me I have not the presumption to suppose--
Indeed I am not so mad.--But it is a pleasure to me to admire him at a
distance--and to think of his infinite superiority to all the rest of
the world, with the gratitude, wonder, and veneration, which are so
proper, in me especially.”

“I am not at all surprized at you, Harriet. The service he rendered you
was enough to warm your heart.”

“Service! oh! it was such an inexpressible obligation!--The very
recollection of it, and all that I felt at the time--when I saw him
coming--his noble look--and my wretchedness before. Such a change! In
one moment such a change! From perfect misery to perfect happiness!”

“It is very natural. It is natural, and it is honourable.--Yes,
honourable, I think, to chuse so well and so gratefully.--But that
it will be a fortunate preference is more than I can promise. I do not
advise you to give way to it, Harriet. I do not by any means engage
for its being returned. Consider what you are about. Perhaps it will be
wisest in you to check your feelings while you can: at any rate do not
let them carry you far, unless you are persuaded of his liking you. Be
observant of him. Let his behaviour be the guide of your sensations. I
give you this caution now, because I shall never speak to you again on
the subject. I am determined against all interference. Henceforward I
know nothing of the matter. Let no name ever pass our lips. We were very
wrong before; we will be cautious now.--He is your superior, no doubt,
and there do seem objections and obstacles of a very serious nature; but
yet, Harriet, more wonderful things have taken place, there have been
matches of greater disparity. But take care of yourself. I would not
have you too sanguine; though, however it may end, be assured your
raising your thoughts to _him_, is a mark of good taste which I shall
always know how to value.”

Harriet kissed her hand in silent and submissive gratitude. Emma was
very decided in thinking such an attachment no bad thing for her friend.
Its tendency would be to raise and refine her mind--and it must be
saving her from the danger of degradation.



CHAPTER V


In this state of schemes, and hopes, and connivance, June opened upon
Hartfield. To Highbury in general it brought no material change. The
Eltons were still talking of a visit from the Sucklings, and of the use
to be made of their barouche-landau; and Jane Fairfax was still at her
grandmother's; and as the return of the Campbells from Ireland was again
delayed, and August, instead of Midsummer, fixed for it, she was likely
to remain there full two months longer, provided at least she were able
to defeat Mrs. Elton's activity in her service, and save herself from
being hurried into a delightful situation against her will.

Mr. Knightley, who, for some reason best known to himself, had certainly
taken an early dislike to Frank Churchill, was only growing to dislike
him more. He began to suspect him of some double dealing in his pursuit
of Emma. That Emma was his object appeared indisputable. Every thing
declared it; his own attentions, his father's hints, his mother-in-law's
guarded silence; it was all in unison; words, conduct, discretion, and
indiscretion, told the same story. But while so many were devoting him
to Emma, and Emma herself making him over to Harriet, Mr. Knightley
began to suspect him of some inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax. He
could not understand it; but there were symptoms of intelligence between
them--he thought so at least--symptoms of admiration on his side, which,
having once observed, he could not persuade himself to think entirely
void of meaning, however he might wish to escape any of Emma's errors
of imagination. _She_ was not present when the suspicion first arose.
He was dining with the Randalls family, and Jane, at the Eltons'; and he
had seen a look, more than a single look, at Miss Fairfax, which, from
the admirer of Miss Woodhouse, seemed somewhat out of place. When he was
again in their company, he could not help remembering what he had seen;
nor could he avoid observations which, unless it were like Cowper and
his fire at twilight,

“Myself creating what I saw,”

brought him yet stronger suspicion of there being a something of private
liking, of private understanding even, between Frank Churchill and Jane.

He had walked up one day after dinner, as he very often did, to spend
his evening at Hartfield. Emma and Harriet were going to walk; he joined
them; and, on returning, they fell in with a larger party, who, like
themselves, judged it wisest to take their exercise early, as the
weather threatened rain; Mr. and Mrs. Weston and their son, Miss Bates
and her niece, who had accidentally met. They all united; and, on
reaching Hartfield gates, Emma, who knew it was exactly the sort of
visiting that would be welcome to her father, pressed them all to go in
and drink tea with him. The Randalls party agreed to it immediately; and
after a pretty long speech from Miss Bates, which few persons listened
to, she also found it possible to accept dear Miss Woodhouse's most
obliging invitation.

As they were turning into the grounds, Mr. Perry passed by on horseback.
The gentlemen spoke of his horse.

“By the bye,” said Frank Churchill to Mrs. Weston presently, “what
became of Mr. Perry's plan of setting up his carriage?”

Mrs. Weston looked surprized, and said, “I did not know that he ever had
any such plan.”

“Nay, I had it from you. You wrote me word of it three months ago.”

“Me! impossible!”

“Indeed you did. I remember it perfectly. You mentioned it as what
was certainly to be very soon. Mrs. Perry had told somebody, and was
extremely happy about it. It was owing to _her_ persuasion, as she
thought his being out in bad weather did him a great deal of harm. You
must remember it now?”

“Upon my word I never heard of it till this moment.”

“Never! really, never!--Bless me! how could it be?--Then I must have
dreamt it--but I was completely persuaded--Miss Smith, you walk as if
you were tired. You will not be sorry to find yourself at home.”

“What is this?--What is this?” cried Mr. Weston, “about Perry and a
carriage? Is Perry going to set up his carriage, Frank? I am glad he can
afford it. You had it from himself, had you?”

“No, sir,” replied his son, laughing, “I seem to have had it from
nobody.--Very odd!--I really was persuaded of Mrs. Weston's having
mentioned it in one of her letters to Enscombe, many weeks ago, with all
these particulars--but as she declares she never heard a syllable of
it before, of course it must have been a dream. I am a great dreamer.
I dream of every body at Highbury when I am away--and when I have gone
through my particular friends, then I begin dreaming of Mr. and Mrs.
Perry.”

“It is odd though,” observed his father, “that you should have had such
a regular connected dream about people whom it was not very likely you
should be thinking of at Enscombe. Perry's setting up his carriage! and
his wife's persuading him to it, out of care for his health--just
what will happen, I have no doubt, some time or other; only a little
premature. What an air of probability sometimes runs through a dream!
And at others, what a heap of absurdities it is! Well, Frank, your dream
certainly shews that Highbury is in your thoughts when you are absent.
Emma, you are a great dreamer, I think?”

Emma was out of hearing. She had hurried on before her guests to
prepare her father for their appearance, and was beyond the reach of Mr.
Weston's hint.

“Why, to own the truth,” cried Miss Bates, who had been trying in vain
to be heard the last two minutes, “if I must speak on this subject,
there is no denying that Mr. Frank Churchill might have--I do not mean
to say that he did not dream it--I am sure I have sometimes the oddest
dreams in the world--but if I am questioned about it, I must acknowledge
that there was such an idea last spring; for Mrs. Perry herself
mentioned it to my mother, and the Coles knew of it as well as
ourselves--but it was quite a secret, known to nobody else, and only
thought of about three days. Mrs. Perry was very anxious that he should
have a carriage, and came to my mother in great spirits one morning
because she thought she had prevailed. Jane, don't you remember
grandmama's telling us of it when we got home? I forget where we
had been walking to--very likely to Randalls; yes, I think it was to
Randalls. Mrs. Perry was always particularly fond of my mother--indeed
I do not know who is not--and she had mentioned it to her in confidence;
she had no objection to her telling us, of course, but it was not to go
beyond: and, from that day to this, I never mentioned it to a soul that
I know of. At the same time, I will not positively answer for my having
never dropt a hint, because I know I do sometimes pop out a thing before
I am aware. I am a talker, you know; I am rather a talker; and now and
then I have let a thing escape me which I should not. I am not like
Jane; I wish I were. I will answer for it _she_ never betrayed the least
thing in the world. Where is she?--Oh! just behind. Perfectly remember
Mrs. Perry's coming.--Extraordinary dream, indeed!”

They were entering the hall. Mr. Knightley's eyes had preceded Miss
Bates's in a glance at Jane. From Frank Churchill's face, where
he thought he saw confusion suppressed or laughed away, he had
involuntarily turned to hers; but she was indeed behind, and too busy
with her shawl. Mr. Weston had walked in. The two other gentlemen waited
at the door to let her pass. Mr. Knightley suspected in Frank
Churchill the determination of catching her eye--he seemed watching her
intently--in vain, however, if it were so--Jane passed between them
into the hall, and looked at neither.

There was no time for farther remark or explanation. The dream must be
borne with, and Mr. Knightley must take his seat with the rest round the
large modern circular table which Emma had introduced at Hartfield, and
which none but Emma could have had power to place there and persuade her
father to use, instead of the small-sized Pembroke, on which two of his
daily meals had, for forty years been crowded. Tea passed pleasantly,
and nobody seemed in a hurry to move.

“Miss Woodhouse,” said Frank Churchill, after examining a table behind
him, which he could reach as he sat, “have your nephews taken away their
alphabets--their box of letters? It used to stand here. Where is it?
This is a sort of dull-looking evening, that ought to be treated rather
as winter than summer. We had great amusement with those letters one
morning. I want to puzzle you again.”

Emma was pleased with the thought; and producing the box, the table
was quickly scattered over with alphabets, which no one seemed so much
disposed to employ as their two selves. They were rapidly forming words
for each other, or for any body else who would be puzzled. The quietness
of the game made it particularly eligible for Mr. Woodhouse, who had
often been distressed by the more animated sort, which Mr. Weston had
occasionally introduced, and who now sat happily occupied in lamenting,
with tender melancholy, over the departure of the “poor little boys,”
 or in fondly pointing out, as he took up any stray letter near him, how
beautifully Emma had written it.

Frank Churchill placed a word before Miss Fairfax. She gave a slight
glance round the table, and applied herself to it. Frank was next to
Emma, Jane opposite to them--and Mr. Knightley so placed as to see them
all; and it was his object to see as much as he could, with as little
apparent observation. The word was discovered, and with a faint smile
pushed away. If meant to be immediately mixed with the others, and
buried from sight, she should have looked on the table instead of
looking just across, for it was not mixed; and Harriet, eager after
every fresh word, and finding out none, directly took it up, and fell to
work. She was sitting by Mr. Knightley, and turned to him for help. The
word was _blunder_; and as Harriet exultingly proclaimed it, there was a
blush on Jane's cheek which gave it a meaning not otherwise ostensible.
Mr. Knightley connected it with the dream; but how it could all be,
was beyond his comprehension. How the delicacy, the discretion of his
favourite could have been so lain asleep! He feared there must be some
decided involvement. Disingenuousness and double dealing seemed to meet
him at every turn. These letters were but the vehicle for gallantry and
trick. It was a child's play, chosen to conceal a deeper game on Frank
Churchill's part.

With great indignation did he continue to observe him; with great alarm
and distrust, to observe also his two blinded companions. He saw a short
word prepared for Emma, and given to her with a look sly and demure. He
saw that Emma had soon made it out, and found it highly entertaining,
though it was something which she judged it proper to appear to censure;
for she said, “Nonsense! for shame!” He heard Frank Churchill next say,
with a glance towards Jane, “I will give it to her--shall I?”--and as
clearly heard Emma opposing it with eager laughing warmth. “No, no, you
must not; you shall not, indeed.”

It was done however. This gallant young man, who seemed to love without
feeling, and to recommend himself without complaisance, directly handed
over the word to Miss Fairfax, and with a particular degree of sedate
civility entreated her to study it. Mr. Knightley's excessive curiosity
to know what this word might be, made him seize every possible moment
for darting his eye towards it, and it was not long before he saw it
to be _Dixon_. Jane Fairfax's perception seemed to accompany his;
her comprehension was certainly more equal to the covert meaning,
the superior intelligence, of those five letters so arranged. She was
evidently displeased; looked up, and seeing herself watched, blushed
more deeply than he had ever perceived her, and saying only, “I did not
know that proper names were allowed,” pushed away the letters with even
an angry spirit, and looked resolved to be engaged by no other word
that could be offered. Her face was averted from those who had made the
attack, and turned towards her aunt.

“Aye, very true, my dear,” cried the latter, though Jane had not spoken
a word--“I was just going to say the same thing. It is time for us to be
going indeed. The evening is closing in, and grandmama will be looking
for us. My dear sir, you are too obliging. We really must wish you good
night.”

Jane's alertness in moving, proved her as ready as her aunt had
preconceived. She was immediately up, and wanting to quit the table; but
so many were also moving, that she could not get away; and Mr. Knightley
thought he saw another collection of letters anxiously pushed towards
her, and resolutely swept away by her unexamined. She was afterwards
looking for her shawl--Frank Churchill was looking also--it was growing
dusk, and the room was in confusion; and how they parted, Mr. Knightley
could not tell.

He remained at Hartfield after all the rest, his thoughts full of
what he had seen; so full, that when the candles came to assist his
observations, he must--yes, he certainly must, as a friend--an anxious
friend--give Emma some hint, ask her some question. He could not see her
in a situation of such danger, without trying to preserve her. It was
his duty.

“Pray, Emma,” said he, “may I ask in what lay the great amusement, the
poignant sting of the last word given to you and Miss Fairfax? I saw the
word, and am curious to know how it could be so very entertaining to the
one, and so very distressing to the other.”

Emma was extremely confused. She could not endure to give him the true
explanation; for though her suspicions were by no means removed, she was
really ashamed of having ever imparted them.

“Oh!” she cried in evident embarrassment, “it all meant nothing; a mere
joke among ourselves.”

“The joke,” he replied gravely, “seemed confined to you and Mr.
Churchill.”

He had hoped she would speak again, but she did not. She would rather
busy herself about any thing than speak. He sat a little while in
doubt. A variety of evils crossed his mind. Interference--fruitless
interference. Emma's confusion, and the acknowledged intimacy, seemed to
declare her affection engaged. Yet he would speak. He owed it to her,
to risk any thing that might be involved in an unwelcome interference,
rather than her welfare; to encounter any thing, rather than the
remembrance of neglect in such a cause.

“My dear Emma,” said he at last, with earnest kindness, “do you
think you perfectly understand the degree of acquaintance between the
gentleman and lady we have been speaking of?”

“Between Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax? Oh! yes, perfectly.--Why
do you make a doubt of it?”

“Have you never at any time had reason to think that he admired her, or
that she admired him?”

“Never, never!” she cried with a most open eagerness--“Never, for the
twentieth part of a moment, did such an idea occur to me. And how could
it possibly come into your head?”

“I have lately imagined that I saw symptoms of attachment between
them--certain expressive looks, which I did not believe meant to be
public.”

“Oh! you amuse me excessively. I am delighted to find that you can
vouchsafe to let your imagination wander--but it will not do--very sorry
to check you in your first essay--but indeed it will not do. There is no
admiration between them, I do assure you; and the appearances which
have caught you, have arisen from some peculiar circumstances--feelings
rather of a totally different nature--it is impossible exactly to
explain:--there is a good deal of nonsense in it--but the part which is
capable of being communicated, which is sense, is, that they are as far
from any attachment or admiration for one another, as any two beings in
the world can be. That is, I _presume_ it to be so on her side, and I
can _answer_ for its being so on his. I will answer for the gentleman's
indifference.”

She spoke with a confidence which staggered, with a satisfaction
which silenced, Mr. Knightley. She was in gay spirits, and would have
prolonged the conversation, wanting to hear the particulars of his
suspicions, every look described, and all the wheres and hows of a
circumstance which highly entertained her: but his gaiety did not meet
hers. He found he could not be useful, and his feelings were too much
irritated for talking. That he might not be irritated into an absolute
fever, by the fire which Mr. Woodhouse's tender habits required almost
every evening throughout the year, he soon afterwards took a hasty
leave, and walked home to the coolness and solitude of Donwell Abbey.



CHAPTER VI


After being long fed with hopes of a speedy visit from Mr. and Mrs.
Suckling, the Highbury world were obliged to endure the mortification
of hearing that they could not possibly come till the autumn. No such
importation of novelties could enrich their intellectual stores at
present. In the daily interchange of news, they must be again restricted
to the other topics with which for a while the Sucklings' coming had
been united, such as the last accounts of Mrs. Churchill, whose health
seemed every day to supply a different report, and the situation of Mrs.
Weston, whose happiness it was to be hoped might eventually be as much
increased by the arrival of a child, as that of all her neighbours was
by the approach of it.

Mrs. Elton was very much disappointed. It was the delay of a great deal
of pleasure and parade. Her introductions and recommendations must all
wait, and every projected party be still only talked of. So she thought
at first;--but a little consideration convinced her that every thing
need not be put off. Why should not they explore to Box Hill though
the Sucklings did not come? They could go there again with them in the
autumn. It was settled that they should go to Box Hill. That there was
to be such a party had been long generally known: it had even given the
idea of another. Emma had never been to Box Hill; she wished to see what
every body found so well worth seeing, and she and Mr. Weston had agreed
to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the
chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a
quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and
preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the
Eltons and the Sucklings.

This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but
feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston
that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had
failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together; and that
as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she
had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great
dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly
aware, it was not worth bringing forward again:--it could not be done
without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and
she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which
she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which would
probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs.
Elton's party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her
outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her
reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston's temper.

“I am glad you approve of what I have done,” said he very comfortably.
“But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without
numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its
own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not
leave her out.”

Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.

It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton
was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to
pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing
into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days,
before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured
on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were
inadequate to such an attack.

“Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?” she cried.--“And such weather
for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What
are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing
done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful
exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston.”

“You had better explore to Donwell,” replied Mr. Knightley. “That may
be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening
fast.”

If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so,
for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the “Oh! I should like
it of all things,” was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was
famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation:
but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt
the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again
and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely
gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment
as she chose to consider it.

“You may depend upon me,” said she. “I certainly will come. Name your
day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?”

“I cannot name a day,” said he, “till I have spoken to some others whom
I would wish to meet you.”

“Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady
Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me.”

“I hope you will bring Elton,” said he: “but I will not trouble you to
give any other invitations.”

“Oh! now you are looking very sly. But consider--you need not be afraid
of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on her preferment.
Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave
it all to me. I will invite your guests.”

“No,”--he calmly replied,--“there is but one married woman in the world
whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and
that one is--”

“--Mrs. Weston, I suppose,” interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified.

“No--Mrs. Knightley;--and till she is in being, I will manage such
matters myself.”

“Ah! you are an odd creature!” she cried, satisfied to have no one
preferred to herself.--“You are a humourist, and may say what you
like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with me--Jane and her
aunt.--The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meeting
the Hartfield family. Don't scruple. I know you are attached to them.”

“You certainly will meet them if I can prevail; and I shall call on Miss
Bates in my way home.”

“That's quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day:--but as you like. It
is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite a simple thing. I
shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging
on my arm. Here,--probably this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be
more simple, you see. And Jane will have such another. There is to be
no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. We are to walk about
your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under
trees;--and whatever else you may like to provide, it is to be all out
of doors--a table spread in the shade, you know. Every thing as natural
and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?”

“Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have
the table spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity of
gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is
best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating
strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house.”

“Well--as you please; only don't have a great set out. And, by the bye,
can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?--Pray be
sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs. Hodges, or to inspect
anything--”

“I have not the least wish for it, I thank you.”

“Well--but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is extremely
clever.”

“I will answer for it, that mine thinks herself full as clever, and
would spurn any body's assistance.”

“I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on
donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me--and my caro sposo walking by. I
really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life
I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever
so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at
home;--and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and in
winter there is dirt.”

“You will not find either, between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Lane is
never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey, however, if
you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs. Cole's. I would wish every thing to
be as much to your taste as possible.”

“That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend.
Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have the
warmest heart. As I tell Mr. E., you are a thorough humourist.--Yes,
believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me in
the whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to please
me.”

Mr. Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. He
wished to persuade Mr. Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party;
and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to
eat would inevitably make him ill. Mr. Woodhouse must not, under the
specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at
Donwell, be tempted away to his misery.

He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid him for
his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwell for two
years. “Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet, could go
very well; and he could sit still with Mrs. Weston, while the dear girls
walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they could be damp now,
in the middle of the day. He should like to see the old house again
exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr. and Mrs. Elton, and
any other of his neighbours.--He could not see any objection at all to
his, and Emma's, and Harriet's going there some very fine morning. He
thought it very well done of Mr. Knightley to invite them--very kind
and sensible--much cleverer than dining out.--He was not fond of dining
out.”

Mr. Knightley was fortunate in every body's most ready concurrence. The
invitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, like
Mrs. Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular compliment
to themselves.--Emma and Harriet professed very high expectations of
pleasure from it; and Mr. Weston, unasked, promised to get Frank over to
join them, if possible; a proof of approbation and gratitude which could
have been dispensed with.--Mr. Knightley was then obliged to say that
he should be glad to see him; and Mr. Weston engaged to lose no time in
writing, and spare no arguments to induce him to come.

In the meanwhile the lame horse recovered so fast, that the party to
Box Hill was again under happy consideration; and at last Donwell was
settled for one day, and Box Hill for the next,--the weather appearing
exactly right.

Under a bright mid-day sun, at almost Midsummer, Mr. Woodhouse was
safely conveyed in his carriage, with one window down, to partake of
this al-fresco party; and in one of the most comfortable rooms in the
Abbey, especially prepared for him by a fire all the morning, he was
happily placed, quite at his ease, ready to talk with pleasure of what
had been achieved, and advise every body to come and sit down, and not
to heat themselves.--Mrs. Weston, who seemed to have walked there on
purpose to be tired, and sit all the time with him, remained, when
all the others were invited or persuaded out, his patient listener and
sympathiser.

It was so long since Emma had been at the Abbey, that as soon as she was
satisfied of her father's comfort, she was glad to leave him, and look
around her; eager to refresh and correct her memory with more particular
observation, more exact understanding of a house and grounds which must
ever be so interesting to her and all her family.

She felt all the honest pride and complacency which her alliance with
the present and future proprietor could fairly warrant, as she viewed
the respectable size and style of the building, its suitable, becoming,
characteristic situation, low and sheltered--its ample gardens
stretching down to meadows washed by a stream, of which the Abbey, with
all the old neglect of prospect, had scarcely a sight--and its abundance
of timber in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance
had rooted up.--The house was larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike
it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular, with many
comfortable, and one or two handsome rooms.--It was just what it ought
to be, and it looked what it was--and Emma felt an increasing respect
for it, as the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted
in blood and understanding.--Some faults of temper John Knightley had;
but Isabella had connected herself unexceptionably. She had given them
neither men, nor names, nor places, that could raise a blush. These were
pleasant feelings, and she walked about and indulged them till it
was necessary to do as the others did, and collect round the
strawberry-beds.--The whole party were assembled, excepting Frank
Churchill, who was expected every moment from Richmond; and Mrs. Elton,
in all her apparatus of happiness, her large bonnet and her basket,
was very ready to lead the way in gathering, accepting, or
talking--strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or
spoken of.--“The best fruit in England--every body's favourite--always
wholesome.--These the finest beds and finest sorts.--Delightful to
gather for one's self--the only way of really enjoying them.--Morning
decidedly the best time--never tired--every sort good--hautboy
infinitely superior--no comparison--the others hardly eatable--hautboys
very scarce--Chili preferred--white wood finest flavour of all--price
of strawberries in London--abundance about Bristol--Maple
Grove--cultivation--beds when to be renewed--gardeners thinking exactly
different--no general rule--gardeners never to be put out of their
way--delicious fruit--only too rich to be eaten much of--inferior
to cherries--currants more refreshing--only objection to gathering
strawberries the stooping--glaring sun--tired to death--could bear it no
longer--must go and sit in the shade.”

Such, for half an hour, was the conversation--interrupted only once by
Mrs. Weston, who came out, in her solicitude after her son-in-law, to
inquire if he were come--and she was a little uneasy.--She had some
fears of his horse.

Seats tolerably in the shade were found; and now Emma was obliged
to overhear what Mrs. Elton and Jane Fairfax were talking of.--A
situation, a most desirable situation, was in question. Mrs. Elton had
received notice of it that morning, and was in raptures. It was not
with Mrs. Suckling, it was not with Mrs. Bragge, but in felicity and
splendour it fell short only of them: it was with a cousin of Mrs.
Bragge, an acquaintance of Mrs. Suckling, a lady known at Maple Grove.
Delightful, charming, superior, first circles, spheres, lines, ranks,
every thing--and Mrs. Elton was wild to have the offer closed with
immediately.--On her side, all was warmth, energy, and triumph--and she
positively refused to take her friend's negative, though Miss Fairfax
continued to assure her that she would not at present engage in any
thing, repeating the same motives which she had been heard to urge
before.--Still Mrs. Elton insisted on being authorised to write an
acquiescence by the morrow's post.--How Jane could bear it at all, was
astonishing to Emma.--She did look vexed, she did speak pointedly--and
at last, with a decision of action unusual to her, proposed a
removal.--“Should not they walk? Would not Mr. Knightley shew them the
gardens--all the gardens?--She wished to see the whole extent.”--The
pertinacity of her friend seemed more than she could bear.

It was hot; and after walking some time over the gardens in a scattered,
dispersed way, scarcely any three together, they insensibly followed one
another to the delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes, which
stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed
the finish of the pleasure grounds.--It led to nothing; nothing but a
view at the end over a low stone wall with high pillars, which seemed
intended, in their erection, to give the appearance of an approach to
the house, which never had been there. Disputable, however, as might be
the taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming walk, and
the view which closed it extremely pretty.--The considerable slope, at
nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper
form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of
considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood;--and at
the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the
Abbey Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and
handsome curve around it.

It was a sweet view--sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure,
English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being
oppressive.

In this walk Emma and Mr. Weston found all the others assembled; and
towards this view she immediately perceived Mr. Knightley and Harriet
distinct from the rest, quietly leading the way. Mr. Knightley and
Harriet!--It was an odd tete-a-tete; but she was glad to see it.--There
had been a time when he would have scorned her as a companion, and
turned from her with little ceremony. Now they seemed in pleasant
conversation. There had been a time also when Emma would have been sorry
to see Harriet in a spot so favourable for the Abbey Mill Farm; but now
she feared it not. It might be safely viewed with all its appendages of
prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in
blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.--She joined them at the
wall, and found them more engaged in talking than in looking around. He
was giving Harriet information as to modes of agriculture, etc. and Emma
received a smile which seemed to say, “These are my own concerns. I have
a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of
introducing Robert Martin.”--She did not suspect him. It was too old
a story.--Robert Martin had probably ceased to think of Harriet.--They
took a few turns together along the walk.--The shade was most
refreshing, and Emma found it the pleasantest part of the day.

The next remove was to the house; they must all go in and eat;--and they
were all seated and busy, and still Frank Churchill did not come. Mrs.
Weston looked, and looked in vain. His father would not own himself
uneasy, and laughed at her fears; but she could not be cured of wishing
that he would part with his black mare. He had expressed himself as to
coming, with more than common certainty. “His aunt was so much better,
that he had not a doubt of getting over to them.”--Mrs. Churchill's
state, however, as many were ready to remind her, was liable to such
sudden variation as might disappoint her nephew in the most reasonable
dependence--and Mrs. Weston was at last persuaded to believe, or to say,
that it must be by some attack of Mrs. Churchill that he was
prevented coming.--Emma looked at Harriet while the point was under
consideration; she behaved very well, and betrayed no emotion.

The cold repast was over, and the party were to go out once more to see
what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fish-ponds; perhaps get as far
as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at
any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.--Mr.
Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part
of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him,
stirred no more; and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that
Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and
variety which her spirits seemed to need.

Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse's
entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals,
shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been
prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness
had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused.
Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them
all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than
in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and
methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma
walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of
the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when
Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a
look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there
was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in
quest of.

“Will you be so kind,” said she, “when I am missed, as to say that I am
gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it
is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted,
and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any
body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the
ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be
missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am
gone?”

“Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury
alone?”

“Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty
minutes.”

“But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my
father's servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be
round in five minutes.”

“Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And
for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to
guard others!”

She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, “That
can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the
carriage. The heat even would be danger.--You are fatigued already.”

“I am,”--she answered--“I am fatigued; but it is not the sort of
fatigue--quick walking will refresh me.--Miss Woodhouse, we all know
at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are
exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have
my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary.”

Emma had not another word to oppose. She saw it all; and entering into
her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and
watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend. Her parting look was
grateful--and her parting words, “Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of
being sometimes alone!”--seemed to burst from an overcharged heart, and
to describe somewhat of the continual endurance to be practised by her,
even towards some of those who loved her best.

“Such a home, indeed! such an aunt!” said Emma, as she turned back into
the hall again. “I do pity you. And the more sensibility you betray of
their just horrors, the more I shall like you.”

Jane had not been gone a quarter of an hour, and they had only
accomplished some views of St. Mark's Place, Venice, when Frank
Churchill entered the room. Emma had not been thinking of him, she had
forgotten to think of him--but she was very glad to see him. Mrs. Weston
would be at ease. The black mare was blameless; _they_ were right
who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by
a temporary increase of illness in her; a nervous seizure, which had
lasted some hours--and he had quite given up every thought of coming,
till very late;--and had he known how hot a ride he should have, and
how late, with all his hurry, he must be, he believed he should not have
come at all. The heat was excessive; he had never suffered any thing
like it--almost wished he had staid at home--nothing killed him
like heat--he could bear any degree of cold, etc., but heat was
intolerable--and he sat down, at the greatest possible distance from the
slight remains of Mr. Woodhouse's fire, looking very deplorable.

“You will soon be cooler, if you sit still,” said Emma.

“As soon as I am cooler I shall go back again. I could very ill be
spared--but such a point had been made of my coming! You will all be
going soon I suppose; the whole party breaking up. I met _one_ as I
came--Madness in such weather!--absolute madness!”

Emma listened, and looked, and soon perceived that Frank Churchill's
state might be best defined by the expressive phrase of being out of
humour. Some people were always cross when they were hot. Such might be
his constitution; and as she knew that eating and drinking were often
the cure of such incidental complaints, she recommended his taking
some refreshment; he would find abundance of every thing in the
dining-room--and she humanely pointed out the door.

“No--he should not eat. He was not hungry; it would only make him
hotter.” In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour; and
muttering something about spruce-beer, walked off. Emma returned all her
attention to her father, saying in secret--

“I am glad I have done being in love with him. I should not like a man
who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning. Harriet's sweet easy temper
will not mind it.”

He was gone long enough to have had a very comfortable meal, and came
back all the better--grown quite cool--and, with good manners, like
himself--able to draw a chair close to them, take an interest in their
employment; and regret, in a reasonable way, that he should be so late.
He was not in his best spirits, but seemed trying to improve them; and,
at last, made himself talk nonsense very agreeably. They were looking
over views in Swisserland.

“As soon as my aunt gets well, I shall go abroad,” said he. “I shall
never be easy till I have seen some of these places. You will have my
sketches, some time or other, to look at--or my tour to read--or my
poem. I shall do something to expose myself.”

“That may be--but not by sketches in Swisserland. You will never go to
Swisserland. Your uncle and aunt will never allow you to leave England.”

“They may be induced to go too. A warm climate may be prescribed for
her. I have more than half an expectation of our all going abroad. I
assure you I have. I feel a strong persuasion, this morning, that I
shall soon be abroad. I ought to travel. I am tired of doing nothing. I
want a change. I am serious, Miss Woodhouse, whatever your penetrating
eyes may fancy--I am sick of England--and would leave it to-morrow, if
I could.”

“You are sick of prosperity and indulgence. Cannot you invent a few
hardships for yourself, and be contented to stay?”

“_I_ sick of prosperity and indulgence! You are quite mistaken. I do
not look upon myself as either prosperous or indulged. I am thwarted
in every thing material. I do not consider myself at all a fortunate
person.”

“You are not quite so miserable, though, as when you first came. Go and
eat and drink a little more, and you will do very well. Another slice of
cold meat, another draught of Madeira and water, will make you nearly on
a par with the rest of us.”

“No--I shall not stir. I shall sit by you. You are my best cure.”

“We are going to Box Hill to-morrow;--you will join us. It is not
Swisserland, but it will be something for a young man so much in want of
a change. You will stay, and go with us?”

“No, certainly not; I shall go home in the cool of the evening.”

“But you may come again in the cool of to-morrow morning.”

“No--It will not be worth while. If I come, I shall be cross.”

“Then pray stay at Richmond.”

“But if I do, I shall be crosser still. I can never bear to think of you
all there without me.”

“These are difficulties which you must settle for yourself. Chuse your
own degree of crossness. I shall press you no more.”

The rest of the party were now returning, and all were soon collected.
With some there was great joy at the sight of Frank Churchill; others
took it very composedly; but there was a very general distress and
disturbance on Miss Fairfax's disappearance being explained. That it was
time for every body to go, concluded the subject; and with a short final
arrangement for the next day's scheme, they parted. Frank Churchill's
little inclination to exclude himself increased so much, that his last
words to Emma were,

“Well;--if _you_ wish me to stay and join the party, I will.”

She smiled her acceptance; and nothing less than a summons from Richmond
was to take him back before the following evening.



CHAPTER VII


They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward
circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in
favour of a pleasant party. Mr. Weston directed the whole, officiating
safely between Hartfield and the Vicarage, and every body was in good
time. Emma and Harriet went together; Miss Bates and her niece, with
the Eltons; the gentlemen on horseback. Mrs. Weston remained with Mr.
Woodhouse. Nothing was wanting but to be happy when they got there.
Seven miles were travelled in expectation of enjoyment, and every body
had a burst of admiration on first arriving; but in the general amount
of the day there was deficiency. There was a languor, a want of spirits,
a want of union, which could not be got over. They separated too much
into parties. The Eltons walked together; Mr. Knightley took charge of
Miss Bates and Jane; and Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill.
And Mr. Weston tried, in vain, to make them harmonise better. It seemed
at first an accidental division, but it never materially varied. Mr. and
Mrs. Elton, indeed, shewed no unwillingness to mix, and be as agreeable
as they could; but during the two whole hours that were spent on the
hill, there seemed a principle of separation, between the other parties,
too strong for any fine prospects, or any cold collation, or any
cheerful Mr. Weston, to remove.

At first it was downright dulness to Emma. She had never seen Frank
Churchill so silent and stupid. He said nothing worth hearing--looked
without seeing--admired without intelligence--listened without knowing
what she said. While he was so dull, it was no wonder that Harriet
should be dull likewise; and they were both insufferable.

When they all sat down it was better; to her taste a great deal better,
for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay, making her his first object.
Every distinguishing attention that could be paid, was paid to her.
To amuse her, and be agreeable in her eyes, seemed all that he cared
for--and Emma, glad to be enlivened, not sorry to be flattered, was gay
and easy too, and gave him all the friendly encouragement, the admission
to be gallant, which she had ever given in the first and most animating
period of their acquaintance; but which now, in her own estimation,
meant nothing, though in the judgment of most people looking on it must
have had such an appearance as no English word but flirtation could very
well describe. “Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together
excessively.” They were laying themselves open to that very phrase--and
to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to
Ireland by another. Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any
real felicity; it was rather because she felt less happy than she had
expected. She laughed because she was disappointed; and though she liked
him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship,
admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning
back her heart. She still intended him for her friend.

“How much I am obliged to you,” said he, “for telling me to come
to-day!--If it had not been for you, I should certainly have lost all
the happiness of this party. I had quite determined to go away again.”

“Yes, you were very cross; and I do not know what about, except that you
were too late for the best strawberries. I was a kinder friend than you
deserved. But you were humble. You begged hard to be commanded to come.”

“Don't say I was cross. I was fatigued. The heat overcame me.”

“It is hotter to-day.”

“Not to my feelings. I am perfectly comfortable to-day.”

“You are comfortable because you are under command.”

“Your command?--Yes.”

“Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant self-command. You had,
somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own
management; but to-day you are got back again--and as I cannot be always
with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command
rather than mine.”

“It comes to the same thing. I can have no self-command without a
motive. You order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always
with me. You are always with me.”

“Dating from three o'clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not
begin earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before.”

“Three o'clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you
first in February.”

“Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But (lowering her voice)--nobody
speaks except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking
nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people.”

“I say nothing of which I am ashamed,” replied he, with lively
impudence. “I saw you first in February. Let every body on the Hill
hear me if they can. Let my accents swell to Mickleham on one side,
and Dorking on the other. I saw you first in February.” And then
whispering--“Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do
to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They _shall_ talk. Ladies
and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is,
presides) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking
of?”

Some laughed, and answered good-humouredly. Miss Bates said a great
deal; Mrs. Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse's presiding; Mr.
Knightley's answer was the most distinct.

“Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all
thinking of?”

“Oh! no, no”--cried Emma, laughing as carelessly as she could--“Upon no
account in the world. It is the very last thing I would stand the brunt
of just now. Let me hear any thing rather than what you are all thinking
of. I will not say quite all. There are one or two, perhaps, (glancing
at Mr. Weston and Harriet,) whose thoughts I might not be afraid of
knowing.”

“It is a sort of thing,” cried Mrs. Elton emphatically, “which _I_
should not have thought myself privileged to inquire into. Though,
perhaps, as the _Chaperon_ of the party--_I_ never was in any
circle--exploring parties--young ladies--married women--”

Her mutterings were chiefly to her husband; and he murmured, in reply,

“Very true, my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed--quite unheard
of--but some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every
body knows what is due to _you_.”

“It will not do,” whispered Frank to Emma; “they are most of them
affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen--I
am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waives her right of
knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires
something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way. Here
are seven of you, besides myself, (who, she is pleased to say, am very
entertaining already,) and she only demands from each of you either one
thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated--or two
things moderately clever--or three things very dull indeed, and she
engages to laugh heartily at them all.”

“Oh! very well,” exclaimed Miss Bates, “then I need not be uneasy.
'Three things very dull indeed.' That will just do for me, you know. I
shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth,
shan't I? (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every
body's assent)--Do not you all think I shall?”

Emma could not resist.

“Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me--but you will be
limited as to number--only three at once.”

Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not
immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not
anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her.

“Ah!--well--to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr.
Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very
disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend.”

“I like your plan,” cried Mr. Weston. “Agreed, agreed. I will do my
best. I am making a conundrum. How will a conundrum reckon?”

“Low, I am afraid, sir, very low,” answered his son;--“but we shall be
indulgent--especially to any one who leads the way.”

“No, no,” said Emma, “it will not reckon low. A conundrum of Mr.
Weston's shall clear him and his next neighbour. Come, sir, pray let me
hear it.”

“I doubt its being very clever myself,” said Mr. Weston. “It is too much
a matter of fact, but here it is.--What two letters of the alphabet are
there, that express perfection?”

“What two letters!--express perfection! I am sure I do not know.”

“Ah! you will never guess. You, (to Emma), I am certain, will never
guess.--I will tell you.--M. and A.--Em-ma.--Do you understand?”

Understanding and gratification came together. It might be a very
indifferent piece of wit, but Emma found a great deal to laugh at and
enjoy in it--and so did Frank and Harriet.--It did not seem to touch
the rest of the party equally; some looked very stupid about it, and Mr.
Knightley gravely said,

“This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston
has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up every body
else. _Perfection_ should not have come quite so soon.”

“Oh! for myself, I protest I must be excused,” said Mrs. Elton; “_I_
really cannot attempt--I am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I had
an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name, which I was not at all
pleased with. I knew who it came from. An abominable puppy!--You know
who I mean (nodding to her husband). These kind of things are very
well at Christmas, when one is sitting round the fire; but quite out of
place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer.
Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty
things at every body's service. I do not pretend to be a wit. I have a
great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I really must be allowed to
judge when to speak and when to hold my tongue. Pass us, if you please,
Mr. Churchill. Pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing
clever to say--not one of us.

“Yes, yes, pray pass _me_,” added her husband, with a sort of sneering
consciousness; “_I_ have nothing to say that can entertain Miss
Woodhouse, or any other young lady. An old married man--quite good for
nothing. Shall we walk, Augusta?”

“With all my heart. I am really tired of exploring so long on one spot.
Come, Jane, take my other arm.”

Jane declined it, however, and the husband and wife walked off.
“Happy couple!” said Frank Churchill, as soon as they were out of
hearing:--“How well they suit one another!--Very lucky--marrying as they
did, upon an acquaintance formed only in a public place!--They only knew
each other, I think, a few weeks in Bath! Peculiarly lucky!--for as to
any real knowledge of a person's disposition that Bath, or any public
place, can give--it is all nothing; there can be no knowledge. It is
only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as
they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it
is all guess and luck--and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man
has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest
of his life!”

Miss Fairfax, who had seldom spoken before, except among her own
confederates, spoke now.

“Such things do occur, undoubtedly.”--She was stopped by a cough. Frank
Churchill turned towards her to listen.

“You were speaking,” said he, gravely. She recovered her voice.

“I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances
do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be
very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise--but there is
generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to
mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness
must be always at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate
acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever.”

He made no answer; merely looked, and bowed in submission; and soon
afterwards said, in a lively tone,

“Well, I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I
marry, I hope some body will chuse my wife for me. Will you? (turning to
Emma.) Will you chuse a wife for me?--I am sure I should like any body
fixed on by you. You provide for the family, you know, (with a smile at
his father). Find some body for me. I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate
her.”

“And make her like myself.”

“By all means, if you can.”

“Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife.”

“She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else.
I shall go abroad for a couple of years--and when I return, I shall come
to you for my wife. Remember.”

Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every
favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described?
Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished.
He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment; who could say?
Referring the education to her seemed to imply it.

“Now, ma'am,” said Jane to her aunt, “shall we join Mrs. Elton?”

“If you please, my dear. With all my heart. I am quite ready. I was
ready to have gone with her, but this will do just as well. We shall
soon overtake her. There she is--no, that's somebody else. That's one
of the ladies in the Irish car party, not at all like her.--Well, I
declare--”

They walked off, followed in half a minute by Mr. Knightley. Mr. Weston,
his son, Emma, and Harriet, only remained; and the young man's spirits
now rose to a pitch almost unpleasant. Even Emma grew tired at last of
flattery and merriment, and wished herself rather walking quietly about
with any of the others, or sitting almost alone, and quite unattended
to, in tranquil observation of the beautiful views beneath her. The
appearance of the servants looking out for them to give notice of the
carriages was a joyful sight; and even the bustle of collecting and
preparing to depart, and the solicitude of Mrs. Elton to have _her_
carriage first, were gladly endured, in the prospect of the quiet drive
home which was to close the very questionable enjoyments of this day of
pleasure. Such another scheme, composed of so many ill-assorted people,
she hoped never to be betrayed into again.

While waiting for the carriage, she found Mr. Knightley by her side. He
looked around, as if to see that no one were near, and then said,

“Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do: a
privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it.
I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be
so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to
a woman of her character, age, and situation?--Emma, I had not thought
it possible.”

Emma recollected, blushed, was sorry, but tried to laugh it off.

“Nay, how could I help saying what I did?--Nobody could have helped it.
It was not so very bad. I dare say she did not understand me.”

“I assure you she did. She felt your full meaning. She has talked of
it since. I wish you could have heard how she talked of it--with what
candour and generosity. I wish you could have heard her honouring your
forbearance, in being able to pay her such attentions, as she was for
ever receiving from yourself and your father, when her society must be
so irksome.”

“Oh!” cried Emma, “I know there is not a better creature in the world:
but you must allow, that what is good and what is ridiculous are most
unfortunately blended in her.”

“They are blended,” said he, “I acknowledge; and, were she prosperous,
I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over
the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless
absurdity to take its chance, I would not quarrel with you for any
liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situation--but, Emma,
consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she has sunk
from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must
probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was
badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had
seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you
now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her,
humble her--and before her niece, too--and before others, many of whom
(certainly _some_,) would be entirely guided by _your_ treatment
of her.--This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from
pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can;
satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and
trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you
can do now.”

While they talked, they were advancing towards the carriage; it was
ready; and, before she could speak again, he had handed her in. He had
misinterpreted the feelings which had kept her face averted, and her
tongue motionless. They were combined only of anger against herself,
mortification, and deep concern. She had not been able to speak; and, on
entering the carriage, sunk back for a moment overcome--then reproaching
herself for having taken no leave, making no acknowledgment, parting in
apparent sullenness, she looked out with voice and hand eager to shew a
difference; but it was just too late. He had turned away, and the horses
were in motion. She continued to look back, but in vain; and soon, with
what appeared unusual speed, they were half way down the hill, and
every thing left far behind. She was vexed beyond what could have been
expressed--almost beyond what she could conceal. Never had she felt so
agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was
most forcibly struck. The truth of this representation there was no
denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal,
so cruel to Miss Bates! How could she have exposed herself to such ill
opinion in any one she valued! And how suffer him to leave her without
saying one word of gratitude, of concurrence, of common kindness!

Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel
it more. She never had been so depressed. Happily it was not necessary
to speak. There was only Harriet, who seemed not in spirits herself,
fagged, and very willing to be silent; and Emma felt the tears running
down her cheeks almost all the way home, without being at any trouble to
check them, extraordinary as they were.



CHAPTER VIII


The wretchedness of a scheme to Box Hill was in Emma's thoughts all the
evening. How it might be considered by the rest of the party, she could
not tell. They, in their different homes, and their different ways,
might be looking back on it with pleasure; but in her view it was
a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational
satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than
any she had ever passed. A whole evening of back-gammon with her father,
was felicity to it. _There_, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she
was giving up the sweetest hours of the twenty-four to his comfort; and
feeling that, unmerited as might be the degree of his fond affection and
confiding esteem, she could not, in her general conduct, be open to any
severe reproach. As a daughter, she hoped she was not without a heart.
She hoped no one could have said to her, “How could you be so unfeeling
to your father?--I must, I will tell you truths while I can.” Miss
Bates should never again--no, never! If attention, in future, could do
away the past, she might hope to be forgiven. She had been often remiss,
her conscience told her so; remiss, perhaps, more in thought than fact;
scornful, ungracious. But it should be so no more. In the warmth of true
contrition, she would call upon her the very next morning, and it should
be the beginning, on her side, of a regular, equal, kindly intercourse.

She was just as determined when the morrow came, and went early, that
nothing might prevent her. It was not unlikely, she thought, that she
might see Mr. Knightley in her way; or, perhaps, he might come in
while she were paying her visit. She had no objection. She would not be
ashamed of the appearance of the penitence, so justly and truly hers.
Her eyes were towards Donwell as she walked, but she saw him not.

“The ladies were all at home.” She had never rejoiced at the sound
before, nor ever before entered the passage, nor walked up the stairs,
with any wish of giving pleasure, but in conferring obligation, or of
deriving it, except in subsequent ridicule.

There was a bustle on her approach; a good deal of moving and talking.
She heard Miss Bates's voice, something was to be done in a hurry; the
maid looked frightened and awkward; hoped she would be pleased to wait a
moment, and then ushered her in too soon. The aunt and niece seemed both
escaping into the adjoining room. Jane she had a distinct glimpse of,
looking extremely ill; and, before the door had shut them out, she heard
Miss Bates saying, “Well, my dear, I shall _say_ you are laid down upon
the bed, and I am sure you are ill enough.”

Poor old Mrs. Bates, civil and humble as usual, looked as if she did not
quite understand what was going on.

“I am afraid Jane is not very well,” said she, “but I do not know; they
_tell_ me she is well. I dare say my daughter will be here presently,
Miss Woodhouse. I hope you find a chair. I wish Hetty had not gone. I am
very little able--Have you a chair, ma'am? Do you sit where you like? I
am sure she will be here presently.”

Emma seriously hoped she would. She had a moment's fear of Miss Bates
keeping away from her. But Miss Bates soon came--“Very happy and
obliged”--but Emma's conscience told her that there was not the same
cheerful volubility as before--less ease of look and manner. A very
friendly inquiry after Miss Fairfax, she hoped, might lead the way to a
return of old feelings. The touch seemed immediate.

“Ah! Miss Woodhouse, how kind you are!--I suppose you have heard--and
are come to give us joy. This does not seem much like joy, indeed, in
me--(twinkling away a tear or two)--but it will be very trying for us
to part with her, after having had her so long, and she has a dreadful
headache just now, writing all the morning:--such long letters, you
know, to be written to Colonel Campbell, and Mrs. Dixon. 'My dear,' said
I, 'you will blind yourself'--for tears were in her eyes perpetually.
One cannot wonder, one cannot wonder. It is a great change; and though
she is amazingly fortunate--such a situation, I suppose, as no
young woman before ever met with on first going out--do not think us
ungrateful, Miss Woodhouse, for such surprising good fortune--(again
dispersing her tears)--but, poor dear soul! if you were to see what a
headache she has. When one is in great pain, you know one cannot feel
any blessing quite as it may deserve. She is as low as possible. To
look at her, nobody would think how delighted and happy she is to have
secured such a situation. You will excuse her not coming to you--she is
not able--she is gone into her own room--I want her to lie down upon the
bed. 'My dear,' said I, 'I shall say you are laid down upon the bed:'
but, however, she is not; she is walking about the room. But, now that
she has written her letters, she says she shall soon be well. She will
be extremely sorry to miss seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, but your
kindness will excuse her. You were kept waiting at the door--I was quite
ashamed--but somehow there was a little bustle--for it so happened that
we had not heard the knock, and till you were on the stairs, we did not
know any body was coming. 'It is only Mrs. Cole,' said I, 'depend upon
it. Nobody else would come so early.' 'Well,' said she, 'it must be
borne some time or other, and it may as well be now.' But then Patty
came in, and said it was you. 'Oh!' said I, 'it is Miss Woodhouse: I am
sure you will like to see her.'--'I can see nobody,' said she; and
up she got, and would go away; and that was what made us keep you
waiting--and extremely sorry and ashamed we were. 'If you must go, my
dear,' said I, 'you must, and I will say you are laid down upon the
bed.'”

Emma was most sincerely interested. Her heart had been long growing
kinder towards Jane; and this picture of her present sufferings acted
as a cure of every former ungenerous suspicion, and left her nothing but
pity; and the remembrance of the less just and less gentle sensations of
the past, obliged her to admit that Jane might very naturally resolve on
seeing Mrs. Cole or any other steady friend, when she might not bear
to see herself. She spoke as she felt, with earnest regret and
solicitude--sincerely wishing that the circumstances which she collected
from Miss Bates to be now actually determined on, might be as much for
Miss Fairfax's advantage and comfort as possible. “It must be a severe
trial to them all. She had understood it was to be delayed till Colonel
Campbell's return.”

“So very kind!” replied Miss Bates. “But you are always kind.”

There was no bearing such an “always;” and to break through her dreadful
gratitude, Emma made the direct inquiry of--

“Where--may I ask?--is Miss Fairfax going?”

“To a Mrs. Smallridge--charming woman--most superior--to have the charge
of her three little girls--delightful children. Impossible that any
situation could be more replete with comfort; if we except, perhaps,
Mrs. Suckling's own family, and Mrs. Bragge's; but Mrs. Smallridge is
intimate with both, and in the very same neighbourhood:--lives only four
miles from Maple Grove. Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove.”

“Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes--”

“Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend. She
would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, 'No;' for when Jane
first heard of it, (it was the day before yesterday, the very morning
we were at Donwell,) when Jane first heard of it, she was quite decided
against accepting the offer, and for the reasons you mention; exactly
as you say, she had made up her mind to close with nothing till Colonel
Campbell's return, and nothing should induce her to enter into any
engagement at present--and so she told Mrs. Elton over and over
again--and I am sure I had no more idea that she would change her
mind!--but that good Mrs. Elton, whose judgment never fails her, saw
farther than I did. It is not every body that would have stood out in
such a kind way as she did, and refuse to take Jane's answer; but she
positively declared she would _not_ write any such denial yesterday, as
Jane wished her; she would wait--and, sure enough, yesterday evening it
was all settled that Jane should go. Quite a surprize to me! I had not
the least idea!--Jane took Mrs. Elton aside, and told her at once, that
upon thinking over the advantages of Mrs. Smallridge's situation, she
had come to the resolution of accepting it.--I did not know a word of it
till it was all settled.”

“You spent the evening with Mrs. Elton?”

“Yes, all of us; Mrs. Elton would have us come. It was settled so, upon
the hill, while we were walking about with Mr. Knightley. 'You _must_
_all_ spend your evening with us,' said she--'I positively must have you
_all_ come.'”

“Mr. Knightley was there too, was he?”

“No, not Mr. Knightley; he declined it from the first; and though I
thought he would come, because Mrs. Elton declared she would not let him
off, he did not;--but my mother, and Jane, and I, were all there, and
a very agreeable evening we had. Such kind friends, you know, Miss
Woodhouse, one must always find agreeable, though every body seemed
rather fagged after the morning's party. Even pleasure, you know, is
fatiguing--and I cannot say that any of them seemed very much to have
enjoyed it. However, _I_ shall always think it a very pleasant party,
and feel extremely obliged to the kind friends who included me in it.”

“Miss Fairfax, I suppose, though you were not aware of it, had been
making up her mind the whole day?”

“I dare say she had.”

“Whenever the time may come, it must be unwelcome to her and all her
friends--but I hope her engagement will have every alleviation that is
possible--I mean, as to the character and manners of the family.”

“Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse. Yes, indeed, there is every thing
in the world that can make her happy in it. Except the Sucklings and
Bragges, there is not such another nursery establishment, so liberal
and elegant, in all Mrs. Elton's acquaintance. Mrs. Smallridge, a most
delightful woman!--A style of living almost equal to Maple Grove--and as
to the children, except the little Sucklings and little Bragges, there
are not such elegant sweet children anywhere. Jane will be treated with
such regard and kindness!--It will be nothing but pleasure, a life of
pleasure.--And her salary!--I really cannot venture to name her salary
to you, Miss Woodhouse. Even you, used as you are to great sums, would
hardly believe that so much could be given to a young person like Jane.”

“Ah! madam,” cried Emma, “if other children are at all like what I
remember to have been myself, I should think five times the amount of
what I have ever yet heard named as a salary on such occasions, dearly
earned.”

“You are so noble in your ideas!”

“And when is Miss Fairfax to leave you?”

“Very soon, very soon, indeed; that's the worst of it. Within a
fortnight. Mrs. Smallridge is in a great hurry. My poor mother does not
know how to bear it. So then, I try to put it out of her thoughts, and
say, Come ma'am, do not let us think about it any more.”

“Her friends must all be sorry to lose her; and will not Colonel and
Mrs. Campbell be sorry to find that she has engaged herself before their
return?”

“Yes; Jane says she is sure they will; but yet, this is such a situation
as she cannot feel herself justified in declining. I was so astonished
when she first told me what she had been saying to Mrs. Elton, and when
Mrs. Elton at the same moment came congratulating me upon it! It was
before tea--stay--no, it could not be before tea, because we were
just going to cards--and yet it was before tea, because I remember
thinking--Oh! no, now I recollect, now I have it; something happened
before tea, but not that. Mr. Elton was called out of the room before
tea, old John Abdy's son wanted to speak with him. Poor old John, I
have a great regard for him; he was clerk to my poor father twenty-seven
years; and now, poor old man, he is bed-ridden, and very poorly with the
rheumatic gout in his joints--I must go and see him to-day; and so will
Jane, I am sure, if she gets out at all. And poor John's son came to
talk to Mr. Elton about relief from the parish; he is very well to do
himself, you know, being head man at the Crown, ostler, and every thing
of that sort, but still he cannot keep his father without some help;
and so, when Mr. Elton came back, he told us what John ostler had been
telling him, and then it came out about the chaise having been sent to
Randalls to take Mr. Frank Churchill to Richmond. That was what happened
before tea. It was after tea that Jane spoke to Mrs. Elton.”

Miss Bates would hardly give Emma time to say how perfectly new this
circumstance was to her; but as without supposing it possible that she
could be ignorant of any of the particulars of Mr. Frank Churchill's
going, she proceeded to give them all, it was of no consequence.

What Mr. Elton had learned from the ostler on the subject, being the
accumulation of the ostler's own knowledge, and the knowledge of the
servants at Randalls, was, that a messenger had come over from Richmond
soon after the return of the party from Box Hill--which messenger,
however, had been no more than was expected; and that Mr. Churchill had
sent his nephew a few lines, containing, upon the whole, a tolerable
account of Mrs. Churchill, and only wishing him not to delay coming
back beyond the next morning early; but that Mr. Frank Churchill having
resolved to go home directly, without waiting at all, and his horse
seeming to have got a cold, Tom had been sent off immediately for the
Crown chaise, and the ostler had stood out and seen it pass by, the boy
going a good pace, and driving very steady.

There was nothing in all this either to astonish or interest, and it
caught Emma's attention only as it united with the subject which already
engaged her mind. The contrast between Mrs. Churchill's importance in
the world, and Jane Fairfax's, struck her; one was every thing, the
other nothing--and she sat musing on the difference of woman's destiny,
and quite unconscious on what her eyes were fixed, till roused by Miss
Bates's saying,

“Aye, I see what you are thinking of, the pianoforte. What is to become
of that?--Very true. Poor dear Jane was talking of it just now.--'You
must go,' said she. 'You and I must part. You will have no business
here.--Let it stay, however,' said she; 'give it houseroom till Colonel
Campbell comes back. I shall talk about it to him; he will settle for
me; he will help me out of all my difficulties.'--And to this day, I do
believe, she knows not whether it was his present or his daughter's.”

Now Emma was obliged to think of the pianoforte; and the remembrance of
all her former fanciful and unfair conjectures was so little pleasing,
that she soon allowed herself to believe her visit had been long enough;
and, with a repetition of every thing that she could venture to say of
the good wishes which she really felt, took leave.



CHAPTER IX


Emma's pensive meditations, as she walked home, were not interrupted;
but on entering the parlour, she found those who must rouse her. Mr.
Knightley and Harriet had arrived during her absence, and were sitting
with her father.--Mr. Knightley immediately got up, and in a manner
decidedly graver than usual, said,

“I would not go away without seeing you, but I have no time to spare,
and therefore must now be gone directly. I am going to London, to spend
a few days with John and Isabella. Have you any thing to send or say,
besides the 'love,' which nobody carries?”

“Nothing at all. But is not this a sudden scheme?”

“Yes--rather--I have been thinking of it some little time.”

Emma was sure he had not forgiven her; he looked unlike himself. Time,
however, she thought, would tell him that they ought to be friends
again. While he stood, as if meaning to go, but not going--her father
began his inquiries.

“Well, my dear, and did you get there safely?--And how did you find my
worthy old friend and her daughter?--I dare say they must have been very
much obliged to you for coming. Dear Emma has been to call on Mrs.
and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, as I told you before. She is always so
attentive to them!”

Emma's colour was heightened by this unjust praise; and with a
smile, and shake of the head, which spoke much, she looked at Mr.
Knightley.--It seemed as if there were an instantaneous impression in
her favour, as if his eyes received the truth from hers, and all that
had passed of good in her feelings were at once caught and honoured.--
He looked at her with a glow of regard. She was warmly gratified--and in
another moment still more so, by a little movement of more than common
friendliness on his part.--He took her hand;--whether she had not
herself made the first motion, she could not say--she might, perhaps,
have rather offered it--but he took her hand, pressed it, and certainly
was on the point of carrying it to his lips--when, from some fancy or
other, he suddenly let it go.--Why he should feel such a scruple, why
he should change his mind when it was all but done, she could not
perceive.--He would have judged better, she thought, if he had not
stopped.--The intention, however, was indubitable; and whether it was
that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it
happened, but she thought nothing became him more.--It was with him,
of so simple, yet so dignified a nature.--She could not but recall the
attempt with great satisfaction. It spoke such perfect amity.--He left
them immediately afterwards--gone in a moment. He always moved with the
alertness of a mind which could neither be undecided nor dilatory, but
now he seemed more sudden than usual in his disappearance.

Emma could not regret her having gone to Miss Bates, but she wished she
had left her ten minutes earlier;--it would have been a great pleasure
to talk over Jane Fairfax's situation with Mr. Knightley.--Neither
would she regret that he should be going to Brunswick Square, for she
knew how much his visit would be enjoyed--but it might have happened
at a better time--and to have had longer notice of it, would have been
pleasanter.--They parted thorough friends, however; she could not
be deceived as to the meaning of his countenance, and his unfinished
gallantry;--it was all done to assure her that she had fully recovered
his good opinion.--He had been sitting with them half an hour, she
found. It was a pity that she had not come back earlier!

In the hope of diverting her father's thoughts from the disagreeableness
of Mr. Knightley's going to London; and going so suddenly; and going on
horseback, which she knew would be all very bad; Emma communicated her
news of Jane Fairfax, and her dependence on the effect was justified;
it supplied a very useful check,--interested, without disturbing him. He
had long made up his mind to Jane Fairfax's going out as governess, and
could talk of it cheerfully, but Mr. Knightley's going to London had
been an unexpected blow.

“I am very glad, indeed, my dear, to hear she is to be so comfortably
settled. Mrs. Elton is very good-natured and agreeable, and I dare say
her acquaintance are just what they ought to be. I hope it is a dry
situation, and that her health will be taken good care of. It ought to
be a first object, as I am sure poor Miss Taylor's always was with me.
You know, my dear, she is going to be to this new lady what Miss Taylor
was to us. And I hope she will be better off in one respect, and not be
induced to go away after it has been her home so long.”

The following day brought news from Richmond to throw every thing else
into the background. An express arrived at Randalls to announce the
death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason
to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty
hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any
thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short
struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more.

It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of
gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the
surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where
she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops
to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be
disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.
Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was
now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully
justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The
event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of
imaginary complaints.

“Poor Mrs. Churchill! no doubt she had been suffering a great deal:
more than any body had ever supposed--and continual pain would try the
temper. It was a sad event--a great shock--with all her faults, what
would Mr. Churchill do without her? Mr. Churchill's loss would be
dreadful indeed. Mr. Churchill would never get over it.”--Even Mr.
Weston shook his head, and looked solemn, and said, “Ah! poor woman,
who would have thought it!” and resolved, that his mourning should be as
handsome as possible; and his wife sat sighing and moralising over her
broad hems with a commiseration and good sense, true and steady. How it
would affect Frank was among the earliest thoughts of both. It was also
a very early speculation with Emma. The character of Mrs. Churchill,
the grief of her husband--her mind glanced over them both with awe and
compassion--and then rested with lightened feelings on how Frank might
be affected by the event, how benefited, how freed. She saw in a moment
all the possible good. Now, an attachment to Harriet Smith would have
nothing to encounter. Mr. Churchill, independent of his wife, was feared
by nobody; an easy, guidable man, to be persuaded into any thing by his
nephew. All that remained to be wished was, that the nephew should form
the attachment, as, with all her goodwill in the cause, Emma could feel
no certainty of its being already formed.

Harriet behaved extremely well on the occasion, with great self-command.
What ever she might feel of brighter hope, she betrayed nothing. Emma
was gratified, to observe such a proof in her of strengthened character,
and refrained from any allusion that might endanger its maintenance.
They spoke, therefore, of Mrs. Churchill's death with mutual
forbearance.

Short letters from Frank were received at Randalls, communicating all
that was immediately important of their state and plans. Mr. Churchill
was better than could be expected; and their first removal, on the
departure of the funeral for Yorkshire, was to be to the house of a very
old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a
visit the last ten years. At present, there was nothing to be done for
Harriet; good wishes for the future were all that could yet be possible
on Emma's side.

It was a more pressing concern to shew attention to Jane Fairfax, whose
prospects were closing, while Harriet's opened, and whose engagements
now allowed of no delay in any one at Highbury, who wished to shew her
kindness--and with Emma it was grown into a first wish. She had scarcely
a stronger regret than for her past coldness; and the person, whom she
had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she
would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy. She wanted
to be of use to her; wanted to shew a value for her society, and testify
respect and consideration. She resolved to prevail on her to spend a day
at Hartfield. A note was written to urge it. The invitation was refused,
and by a verbal message. “Miss Fairfax was not well enough to write;”
 and when Mr. Perry called at Hartfield, the same morning, it appeared
that she was so much indisposed as to have been visited, though against
her own consent, by himself, and that she was suffering under severe
headaches, and a nervous fever to a degree, which made him doubt the
possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge's at the time proposed.
Her health seemed for the moment completely deranged--appetite quite
gone--and though there were no absolutely alarming symptoms, nothing
touching the pulmonary complaint, which was the standing apprehension
of the family, Mr. Perry was uneasy about her. He thought she had
undertaken more than she was equal to, and that she felt it so herself,
though she would not own it. Her spirits seemed overcome. Her
present home, he could not but observe, was unfavourable to a nervous
disorder:--confined always to one room;--he could have wished it
otherwise--and her good aunt, though his very old friend, he must
acknowledge to be not the best companion for an invalid of that
description. Her care and attention could not be questioned; they were,
in fact, only too great. He very much feared that Miss Fairfax derived
more evil than good from them. Emma listened with the warmest concern;
grieved for her more and more, and looked around eager to discover some
way of being useful. To take her--be it only an hour or two--from
her aunt, to give her change of air and scene, and quiet rational
conversation, even for an hour or two, might do her good; and the
following morning she wrote again to say, in the most feeling language
she could command, that she would call for her in the carriage at any
hour that Jane would name--mentioning that she had Mr. Perry's decided
opinion, in favour of such exercise for his patient. The answer was only
in this short note:

“Miss Fairfax's compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any
exercise.”

Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better; but it was
impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed
indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best
counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted. In spite of the
answer, therefore, she ordered the carriage, and drove to Mrs. Bates's,
in the hope that Jane would be induced to join her--but it would not
do;--Miss Bates came to the carriage door, all gratitude, and agreeing
with her most earnestly in thinking an airing might be of the greatest
service--and every thing that message could do was tried--but all in
vain. Miss Bates was obliged to return without success; Jane was
quite unpersuadable; the mere proposal of going out seemed to make her
worse.--Emma wished she could have seen her, and tried her own powers;
but, almost before she could hint the wish, Miss Bates made it appear
that she had promised her niece on no account to let Miss Woodhouse in.
“Indeed, the truth was, that poor dear Jane could not bear to see any
body--any body at all--Mrs. Elton, indeed, could not be denied--and
Mrs. Cole had made such a point--and Mrs. Perry had said so much--but,
except them, Jane would really see nobody.”

Emma did not want to be classed with the Mrs. Eltons, the Mrs. Perrys,
and the Mrs. Coles, who would force themselves anywhere; neither could
she feel any right of preference herself--she submitted, therefore, and
only questioned Miss Bates farther as to her niece's appetite and diet,
which she longed to be able to assist. On that subject poor Miss Bates
was very unhappy, and very communicative; Jane would hardly eat any
thing:--Mr. Perry recommended nourishing food; but every thing
they could command (and never had any body such good neighbours) was
distasteful.

Emma, on reaching home, called the housekeeper directly, to an
examination of her stores; and some arrowroot of very superior quality
was speedily despatched to Miss Bates with a most friendly note. In half
an hour the arrowroot was returned, with a thousand thanks from Miss
Bates, but “dear Jane would not be satisfied without its being sent
back; it was a thing she could not take--and, moreover, she insisted on
her saying, that she was not at all in want of any thing.”

When Emma afterwards heard that Jane Fairfax had been seen wandering
about the meadows, at some distance from Highbury, on the afternoon of
the very day on which she had, under the plea of being unequal to any
exercise, so peremptorily refused to go out with her in the carriage,
she could have no doubt--putting every thing together--that Jane was
resolved to receive no kindness from _her_. She was sorry, very sorry.
Her heart was grieved for a state which seemed but the more pitiable
from this sort of irritation of spirits, inconsistency of action, and
inequality of powers; and it mortified her that she was given so little
credit for proper feeling, or esteemed so little worthy as a friend: but
she had the consolation of knowing that her intentions were good, and of
being able to say to herself, that could Mr. Knightley have been privy
to all her attempts of assisting Jane Fairfax, could he even have seen
into her heart, he would not, on this occasion, have found any thing to
reprove.



CHAPTER X


One morning, about ten days after Mrs. Churchill's decease, Emma was
called downstairs to Mr. Weston, who “could not stay five minutes,
and wanted particularly to speak with her.”--He met her at the
parlour-door, and hardly asking her how she did, in the natural key of
his voice, sunk it immediately, to say, unheard by her father,

“Can you come to Randalls at any time this morning?--Do, if it be
possible. Mrs. Weston wants to see you. She must see you.”

“Is she unwell?”

“No, no, not at all--only a little agitated. She would have ordered the
carriage, and come to you, but she must see you _alone_, and that you
know--(nodding towards her father)--Humph!--Can you come?”

“Certainly. This moment, if you please. It is impossible to refuse what
you ask in such a way. But what can be the matter?--Is she really not
ill?”

“Depend upon me--but ask no more questions. You will know it all in
time. The most unaccountable business! But hush, hush!”

To guess what all this meant, was impossible even for Emma. Something
really important seemed announced by his looks; but, as her friend was
well, she endeavoured not to be uneasy, and settling it with her father,
that she would take her walk now, she and Mr. Weston were soon out of
the house together and on their way at a quick pace for Randalls.

“Now,”--said Emma, when they were fairly beyond the sweep gates,--“now
Mr. Weston, do let me know what has happened.”

“No, no,”--he gravely replied.--“Don't ask me. I promised my wife to
leave it all to her. She will break it to you better than I can. Do not
be impatient, Emma; it will all come out too soon.”

“Break it to me,” cried Emma, standing still with terror.--“Good
God!--Mr. Weston, tell me at once.--Something has happened in Brunswick
Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it
is.”

“No, indeed you are mistaken.”--

“Mr. Weston do not trifle with me.--Consider how many of my dearest
friends are now in Brunswick Square. Which of them is it?--I charge you
by all that is sacred, not to attempt concealment.”

“Upon my word, Emma.”--

“Your word!--why not your honour!--why not say upon your honour, that
it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!--What can be to be
_broke_ to me, that does not relate to one of that family?”

“Upon my honour,” said he very seriously, “it does not. It is not in
the smallest degree connected with any human being of the name of
Knightley.”

Emma's courage returned, and she walked on.

“I was wrong,” he continued, “in talking of its being _broke_ to you.
I should not have used the expression. In fact, it does not concern
you--it concerns only myself,--that is, we hope.--Humph!--In short, my
dear Emma, there is no occasion to be so uneasy about it. I don't
say that it is not a disagreeable business--but things might be much
worse.--If we walk fast, we shall soon be at Randalls.”

Emma found that she must wait; and now it required little effort. She
asked no more questions therefore, merely employed her own fancy, and
that soon pointed out to her the probability of its being some money
concern--something just come to light, of a disagreeable nature in the
circumstances of the family,--something which the late event at Richmond
had brought forward. Her fancy was very active. Half a dozen natural
children, perhaps--and poor Frank cut off!--This, though very
undesirable, would be no matter of agony to her. It inspired little more
than an animating curiosity.

“Who is that gentleman on horseback?” said she, as they
proceeded--speaking more to assist Mr. Weston in keeping his secret,
than with any other view.

“I do not know.--One of the Otways.--Not Frank;--it is not Frank, I
assure you. You will not see him. He is half way to Windsor by this
time.”

“Has your son been with you, then?”

“Oh! yes--did not you know?--Well, well, never mind.”

For a moment he was silent; and then added, in a tone much more guarded
and demure,

“Yes, Frank came over this morning, just to ask us how we did.”

They hurried on, and were speedily at Randalls.--“Well, my dear,” said
he, as they entered the room--“I have brought her, and now I hope you
will soon be better. I shall leave you together. There is no use in
delay. I shall not be far off, if you want me.”--And Emma distinctly
heard him add, in a lower tone, before he quitted the room,--“I have
been as good as my word. She has not the least idea.”

Mrs. Weston was looking so ill, and had an air of so much perturbation,
that Emma's uneasiness increased; and the moment they were alone, she
eagerly said,

“What is it my dear friend? Something of a very unpleasant nature, I
find, has occurred;--do let me know directly what it is. I have been
walking all this way in complete suspense. We both abhor suspense.
Do not let mine continue longer. It will do you good to speak of your
distress, whatever it may be.”

“Have you indeed no idea?” said Mrs. Weston in a trembling voice.
“Cannot you, my dear Emma--cannot you form a guess as to what you are to
hear?”

“So far as that it relates to Mr. Frank Churchill, I do guess.”

“You are right. It does relate to him, and I will tell you directly;”
 (resuming her work, and seeming resolved against looking up.) “He has
been here this very morning, on a most extraordinary errand. It is
impossible to express our surprize. He came to speak to his father on a
subject,--to announce an attachment--”

She stopped to breathe. Emma thought first of herself, and then of
Harriet.

“More than an attachment, indeed,” resumed Mrs. Weston; “an
engagement--a positive engagement.--What will you say, Emma--what will
any body say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are
engaged;--nay, that they have been long engaged!”

Emma even jumped with surprize;--and, horror-struck, exclaimed,

“Jane Fairfax!--Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it?”

“You may well be amazed,” returned Mrs. Weston, still averting her eyes,
and talking on with eagerness, that Emma might have time to recover--
“You may well be amazed. But it is even so. There has been a solemn
engagement between them ever since October--formed at Weymouth, and
kept a secret from every body. Not a creature knowing it but
themselves--neither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.--It is so
wonderful, that though perfectly convinced of the fact, it is yet almost
incredible to myself. I can hardly believe it.--I thought I knew him.”

Emma scarcely heard what was said.--Her mind was divided between two
ideas--her own former conversations with him about Miss Fairfax; and
poor Harriet;--and for some time she could only exclaim, and require
confirmation, repeated confirmation.

“Well,” said she at last, trying to recover herself; “this is a
circumstance which I must think of at least half a day, before I can at
all comprehend it. What!--engaged to her all the winter--before either
of them came to Highbury?”

“Engaged since October,--secretly engaged.--It has hurt me, Emma, very
much. It has hurt his father equally. _Some_ _part_ of his conduct we
cannot excuse.”

Emma pondered a moment, and then replied, “I will not pretend _not_ to
understand you; and to give you all the relief in my power, be assured
that no such effect has followed his attentions to me, as you are
apprehensive of.”

Mrs. Weston looked up, afraid to believe; but Emma's countenance was as
steady as her words.

“That you may have less difficulty in believing this boast, of my
present perfect indifference,” she continued, “I will farther tell you,
that there was a period in the early part of our acquaintance, when I
did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to him--nay,
was attached--and how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder.
Fortunately, however, it did cease. I have really for some time past,
for at least these three months, cared nothing about him. You may
believe me, Mrs. Weston. This is the simple truth.”

Mrs. Weston kissed her with tears of joy; and when she could find
utterance, assured her, that this protestation had done her more good
than any thing else in the world could do.

“Mr. Weston will be almost as much relieved as myself,” said she. “On
this point we have been wretched. It was our darling wish that you
might be attached to each other--and we were persuaded that it was so.--
Imagine what we have been feeling on your account.”

“I have escaped; and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful
wonder to you and myself. But this does not acquit _him_, Mrs. Weston;
and I must say, that I think him greatly to blame. What right had he
to come among us with affection and faith engaged, and with manners
so _very_ disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please, as
he certainly did--to distinguish any one young woman with persevering
attention, as he certainly did--while he really belonged to
another?--How could he tell what mischief he might be doing?--How could
he tell that he might not be making me in love with him?--very wrong,
very wrong indeed.”

“From something that he said, my dear Emma, I rather imagine--”

“And how could _she_ bear such behaviour! Composure with a witness!
to look on, while repeated attentions were offering to another woman,
before her face, and not resent it.--That is a degree of placidity,
which I can neither comprehend nor respect.”

“There were misunderstandings between them, Emma; he said so expressly.
He had not time to enter into much explanation. He was here only a
quarter of an hour, and in a state of agitation which did not allow
the full use even of the time he could stay--but that there had been
misunderstandings he decidedly said. The present crisis, indeed,
seemed to be brought on by them; and those misunderstandings might very
possibly arise from the impropriety of his conduct.”

“Impropriety! Oh! Mrs. Weston--it is too calm a censure. Much, much
beyond impropriety!--It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him
in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!--None of that upright
integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of
trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of
his life.”

“Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part; for though he has been wrong
in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having
many, very many, good qualities; and--”

“Good God!” cried Emma, not attending to her.--“Mrs. Smallridge, too!
Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by
such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself--to suffer her
even to think of such a measure!”

“He knew nothing about it, Emma. On this article I can fully acquit
him. It was a private resolution of hers, not communicated to him--or at
least not communicated in a way to carry conviction.--Till yesterday, I
know he said he was in the dark as to her plans. They burst on him, I do
not know how, but by some letter or message--and it was the discovery of
what she was doing, of this very project of hers, which determined him
to come forward at once, own it all to his uncle, throw himself on
his kindness, and, in short, put an end to the miserable state of
concealment that had been carrying on so long.”

Emma began to listen better.

“I am to hear from him soon,” continued Mrs. Weston. “He told me at
parting, that he should soon write; and he spoke in a manner which
seemed to promise me many particulars that could not be given now. Let
us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations. It
may make many things intelligible and excusable which now are not to
be understood. Don't let us be severe, don't let us be in a hurry to
condemn him. Let us have patience. I must love him; and now that I am
satisfied on one point, the one material point, I am sincerely anxious
for its all turning out well, and ready to hope that it may. They must
both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secresy and
concealment.”

“_His_ sufferings,” replied Emma dryly, “do not appear to have done him
much harm. Well, and how did Mr. Churchill take it?”

“Most favourably for his nephew--gave his consent with scarcely a
difficulty. Conceive what the events of a week have done in that family!
While poor Mrs. Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a
hope, a chance, a possibility;--but scarcely are her remains at rest in
the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite
to what she would have required. What a blessing it is, when undue
influence does not survive the grave!--He gave his consent with very
little persuasion.”

“Ah!” thought Emma, “he would have done as much for Harriet.”

“This was settled last night, and Frank was off with the light this
morning. He stopped at Highbury, at the Bates's, I fancy, some time--and
then came on hither; but was in such a hurry to get back to his uncle,
to whom he is just now more necessary than ever, that, as I tell you,
he could stay with us but a quarter of an hour.--He was very much
agitated--very much, indeed--to a degree that made him appear quite
a different creature from any thing I had ever seen him before.--In
addition to all the rest, there had been the shock of finding her so
very unwell, which he had had no previous suspicion of--and there was
every appearance of his having been feeling a great deal.”

“And do you really believe the affair to have been carrying on with such
perfect secresy?--The Campbells, the Dixons, did none of them know of
the engagement?”

Emma could not speak the name of Dixon without a little blush.

“None; not one. He positively said that it had been known to no being in
the world but their two selves.”

“Well,” said Emma, “I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the
idea, and I wish them very happy. But I shall always think it a
very abominable sort of proceeding. What has it been but a system of
hypocrisy and deceit,--espionage, and treachery?--To come among us with
professions of openness and simplicity; and such a league in secret
to judge us all!--Here have we been, the whole winter and spring,
completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth
and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been
carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgment on sentiments and
words that were never meant for both to hear.--They must take the
consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not
perfectly agreeable!”

“I am quite easy on that head,” replied Mrs. Weston. “I am very sure
that I never said any thing of either to the other, which both might not
have heard.”

“You are in luck.--Your only blunder was confined to my ear, when you
imagined a certain friend of ours in love with the lady.”

“True. But as I have always had a thoroughly good opinion of Miss
Fairfax, I never could, under any blunder, have spoken ill of her; and
as to speaking ill of him, there I must have been safe.”

At this moment Mr. Weston appeared at a little distance from the window,
evidently on the watch. His wife gave him a look which invited him
in; and, while he was coming round, added, “Now, dearest Emma, let me
intreat you to say and look every thing that may set his heart at ease,
and incline him to be satisfied with the match. Let us make the best of
it--and, indeed, almost every thing may be fairly said in her favour. It
is not a connexion to gratify; but if Mr. Churchill does not feel that,
why should we? and it may be a very fortunate circumstance for him, for
Frank, I mean, that he should have attached himself to a girl of such
steadiness of character and good judgment as I have always given her
credit for--and still am disposed to give her credit for, in spite of
this one great deviation from the strict rule of right. And how much may
be said in her situation for even that error!”

“Much, indeed!” cried Emma feelingly. “If a woman can ever be
excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane
Fairfax's.--Of such, one may almost say, that 'the world is not their's,
nor the world's law.'”

She met Mr. Weston on his entrance, with a smiling countenance,
exclaiming,

“A very pretty trick you have been playing me, upon my word! This was a
device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of
guessing. But you really frightened me. I thought you had lost half
your property, at least. And here, instead of its being a matter of
condolence, it turns out to be one of congratulation.--I congratulate
you, Mr. Weston, with all my heart, on the prospect of having one of the
most lovely and accomplished young women in England for your daughter.”

A glance or two between him and his wife, convinced him that all was as
right as this speech proclaimed; and its happy effect on his spirits was
immediate. His air and voice recovered their usual briskness: he shook
her heartily and gratefully by the hand, and entered on the subject in
a manner to prove, that he now only wanted time and persuasion to think
the engagement no very bad thing. His companions suggested only what
could palliate imprudence, or smooth objections; and by the time they
had talked it all over together, and he had talked it all over again
with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly
reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank
could possibly have done.



CHAPTER XI


“Harriet, poor Harriet!”--Those were the words; in them lay the
tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted
the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very
ill by herself--very ill in many ways,--but it was not so much _his_
behaviour as her _own_, which made her so angry with him. It was the
scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet's account, that gave the
deepest hue to his offence.--Poor Harriet! to be a second time the
dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr. Knightley had spoken
prophetically, when he once said, “Emma, you have been no friend
to Harriet Smith.”--She was afraid she had done her nothing but
disservice.--It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this
instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of
the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise
never have entered Harriet's imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged
her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever
given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty
of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have
prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence
would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought
to have prevented them.--She felt that she had been risking her friend's
happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed
her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him,
and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring
for her.--“But, with common sense,” she added, “I am afraid I have had
little to do.”

She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry
with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful.--As for Jane
Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present
solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough; she need
no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose ill-health
having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure.--Her
days of insignificance and evil were over.--She would soon be well, and
happy, and prosperous.--Emma could now imagine why her own attentions
had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No
doubt it had been from jealousy.--In Jane's eyes she had been a rival;
and well might any thing she could offer of assistance or regard be
repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack,
and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She
understood it all; and as far as her mind could disengage itself from
the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that
Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her
desert. But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was little
sympathy to be spared for any body else. Emma was sadly fearful
that this second disappointment would be more severe than the first.
Considering the very superior claims of the object, it ought; and
judging by its apparently stronger effect on Harriet's mind, producing
reserve and self-command, it would.--She must communicate the painful
truth, however, and as soon as possible. An injunction of secresy had
been among Mr. Weston's parting words. “For the present, the whole
affair was to be completely a secret. Mr. Churchill had made a point of
it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost;
and every body admitted it to be no more than due decorum.”--Emma had
promised; but still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty.

In spite of her vexation, she could not help feeling it almost
ridiculous, that she should have the very same distressing and delicate
office to perform by Harriet, which Mrs. Weston had just gone through by
herself. The intelligence, which had been so anxiously announced to her,
she was now to be anxiously announcing to another. Her heart beat quick
on hearing Harriet's footstep and voice; so, she supposed, had poor Mrs.
Weston felt when _she_ was approaching Randalls. Could the event of
the disclosure bear an equal resemblance!--But of that, unfortunately,
there could be no chance.

“Well, Miss Woodhouse!” cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room--“is
not this the oddest news that ever was?”

“What news do you mean?” replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or
voice, whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint.

“About Jane Fairfax. Did you ever hear any thing so strange? Oh!--you
need not be afraid of owning it to me, for Mr. Weston has told me
himself. I met him just now. He told me it was to be a great secret;
and, therefore, I should not think of mentioning it to any body but you,
but he said you knew it.”

“What did Mr. Weston tell you?”--said Emma, still perplexed.

“Oh! he told me all about it; that Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill
are to be married, and that they have been privately engaged to one
another this long while. How very odd!”

It was, indeed, so odd; Harriet's behaviour was so extremely odd,
that Emma did not know how to understand it. Her character appeared
absolutely changed. She seemed to propose shewing no agitation, or
disappointment, or peculiar concern in the discovery. Emma looked at
her, quite unable to speak.

“Had you any idea,” cried Harriet, “of his being in love with her?--You,
perhaps, might.--You (blushing as she spoke) who can see into every
body's heart; but nobody else--”

“Upon my word,” said Emma, “I begin to doubt my having any such talent.
Can you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached
to another woman at the very time that I was--tacitly, if not
openly--encouraging you to give way to your own feelings?--I never
had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr. Frank
Churchill's having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very
sure that if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly.”

“Me!” cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished. “Why should you caution
me?--You do not think I care about Mr. Frank Churchill.”

“I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject,” replied
Emma, smiling; “but you do not mean to deny that there was a time--and
not very distant either--when you gave me reason to understand that you
did care about him?”

“Him!--never, never. Dear Miss Woodhouse, how could you so mistake me?”
 turning away distressed.

“Harriet!” cried Emma, after a moment's pause--“What do you mean?--Good
Heaven! what do you mean?--Mistake you!--Am I to suppose then?--”

She could not speak another word.--Her voice was lost; and she sat down,
waiting in great terror till Harriet should answer.

Harriet, who was standing at some distance, and with face turned from
her, did not immediately say any thing; and when she did speak, it was
in a voice nearly as agitated as Emma's.

“I should not have thought it possible,” she began, “that you could have
misunderstood me! I know we agreed never to name him--but considering
how infinitely superior he is to every body else, I should not have
thought it possible that I could be supposed to mean any other person.
Mr. Frank Churchill, indeed! I do not know who would ever look at him in
the company of the other. I hope I have a better taste than to think of
Mr. Frank Churchill, who is like nobody by his side. And that you should
have been so mistaken, is amazing!--I am sure, but for believing that
you entirely approved and meant to encourage me in my attachment, I
should have considered it at first too great a presumption almost,
to dare to think of him. At first, if you had not told me that more
wonderful things had happened; that there had been matches of greater
disparity (those were your very words);--I should not have dared to
give way to--I should not have thought it possible--But if _you_, who
had been always acquainted with him--”

“Harriet!” cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely--“Let us understand
each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you
speaking of--Mr. Knightley?”

“To be sure I am. I never could have an idea of any body else--and so
I thought you knew. When we talked about him, it was as clear as
possible.”

“Not quite,” returned Emma, with forced calmness, “for all that you then
said, appeared to me to relate to a different person. I could almost
assert that you had _named_ Mr. Frank Churchill. I am sure the service
Mr. Frank Churchill had rendered you, in protecting you from the
gipsies, was spoken of.”

“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how you do forget!”

“My dear Harriet, I perfectly remember the substance of what I said on
the occasion. I told you that I did not wonder at your attachment;
that considering the service he had rendered you, it was extremely
natural:--and you agreed to it, expressing yourself very warmly as to
your sense of that service, and mentioning even what your sensations had
been in seeing him come forward to your rescue.--The impression of it is
strong on my memory.”

“Oh, dear,” cried Harriet, “now I recollect what you mean; but I
was thinking of something very different at the time. It was not the
gipsies--it was not Mr. Frank Churchill that I meant. No! (with some
elevation) I was thinking of a much more precious circumstance--of Mr.
Knightley's coming and asking me to dance, when Mr. Elton would not
stand up with me; and when there was no other partner in the room. That
was the kind action; that was the noble benevolence and generosity; that
was the service which made me begin to feel how superior he was to every
other being upon earth.”

“Good God!” cried Emma, “this has been a most unfortunate--most
deplorable mistake!--What is to be done?”

“You would not have encouraged me, then, if you had understood me? At
least, however, I cannot be worse off than I should have been, if the
other had been the person; and now--it _is_ possible--”

She paused a few moments. Emma could not speak.

“I do not wonder, Miss Woodhouse,” she resumed, “that you should feel a
great difference between the two, as to me or as to any body. You must
think one five hundred million times more above me than the other. But
I hope, Miss Woodhouse, that supposing--that if--strange as it may
appear--. But you know they were your own words, that _more_ wonderful
things had happened, matches of _greater_ disparity had taken place than
between Mr. Frank Churchill and me; and, therefore, it seems as if such
a thing even as this, may have occurred before--and if I should be so
fortunate, beyond expression, as to--if Mr. Knightley should really--if
_he_ does not mind the disparity, I hope, dear Miss Woodhouse, you will
not set yourself against it, and try to put difficulties in the way. But
you are too good for that, I am sure.”

Harriet was standing at one of the windows. Emma turned round to look at
her in consternation, and hastily said,

“Have you any idea of Mr. Knightley's returning your affection?”

“Yes,” replied Harriet modestly, but not fearfully--“I must say that I
have.”

Emma's eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating,
in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient
for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers,
once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched--she
admitted--she acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse
that Harriet should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank
Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet's having
some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an
arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!

Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same
few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed
her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How
inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been
her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her
with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the
world. Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of all
these demerits--some concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense
of justice by Harriet--(there would be no need of _compassion_ to the
girl who believed herself loved by Mr. Knightley--but justice required
that she should not be made unhappy by any coldness now,) gave Emma the
resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness, with even apparent
kindness.--For her own advantage indeed, it was fit that the utmost
extent of Harriet's hopes should be enquired into; and Harriet had done
nothing to forfeit the regard and interest which had been so voluntarily
formed and maintained--or to deserve to be slighted by the person, whose
counsels had never led her right.--Rousing from reflection, therefore,
and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again, and, in a more
inviting accent, renewed the conversation; for as to the subject which
had first introduced it, the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was
quite sunk and lost.--Neither of them thought but of Mr. Knightley and
themselves.

Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad
to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge, and
such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation, to give
the history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight.--Emma's
tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than
Harriet's, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady; but her
mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of self, such
a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden and perplexing
emotions, must create.--She listened with much inward suffering, but
with great outward patience, to Harriet's detail.--Methodical, or well
arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be; but it
contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of
the narration, a substance to sink her spirit--especially with the
corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of
Mr. Knightley's most improved opinion of Harriet.

Harriet had been conscious of a difference in his behaviour ever since
those two decisive dances.--Emma knew that he had, on that occasion,
found her much superior to his expectation. From that evening, or at
least from the time of Miss Woodhouse's encouraging her to think of him,
Harriet had begun to be sensible of his talking to her much more than he
had been used to do, and of his having indeed quite a different manner
towards her; a manner of kindness and sweetness!--Latterly she had been
more and more aware of it. When they had been all walking together,
he had so often come and walked by her, and talked so very
delightfully!--He seemed to want to be acquainted with her. Emma knew it
to have been very much the case. She had often observed the change, to
almost the same extent.--Harriet repeated expressions of approbation
and praise from him--and Emma felt them to be in the closest agreement
with what she had known of his opinion of Harriet. He praised her for
being without art or affectation, for having simple, honest, generous,
feelings.--She knew that he saw such recommendations in Harriet; he
had dwelt on them to her more than once.--Much that lived in Harriet's
memory, many little particulars of the notice she had received from
him, a look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment
implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because unsuspected,
by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an hour's relation,
and contained multiplied proofs to her who had seen them, had passed
undiscerned by her who now heard them; but the two latest occurrences to
be mentioned, the two of strongest promise to Harriet, were not without
some degree of witness from Emma herself.--The first, was his walking
with her apart from the others, in the lime-walk at Donwell, where they
had been walking some time before Emma came, and he had taken pains (as
she was convinced) to draw her from the rest to himself--and at first,
he had talked to her in a more particular way than he had ever done
before, in a very particular way indeed!--(Harriet could not recall
it without a blush.) He seemed to be almost asking her, whether her
affections were engaged.--But as soon as she (Miss Woodhouse) appeared
likely to join them, he changed the subject, and began talking about
farming:--The second, was his having sat talking with her nearly half
an hour before Emma came back from her visit, the very last morning of
his being at Hartfield--though, when he first came in, he had said that
he could not stay five minutes--and his having told her, during their
conversation, that though he must go to London, it was very much against
his inclination that he left home at all, which was much more (as
Emma felt) than he had acknowledged to _her_. The superior degree of
confidence towards Harriet, which this one article marked, gave her
severe pain.

On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did, after a
little reflection, venture the following question. “Might he not?--Is
not it possible, that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of
your affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martin--he might have
Mr. Martin's interest in view? But Harriet rejected the suspicion with
spirit.

“Mr. Martin! No indeed!--There was not a hint of Mr. Martin. I hope I
know better now, than to care for Mr. Martin, or to be suspected of it.”

When Harriet had closed her evidence, she appealed to her dear Miss
Woodhouse, to say whether she had not good ground for hope.

“I never should have presumed to think of it at first,” said she, “but
for you. You told me to observe him carefully, and let his behaviour
be the rule of mine--and so I have. But now I seem to feel that I may
deserve him; and that if he does chuse me, it will not be any thing so
very wonderful.”

The bitter feelings occasioned by this speech, the many bitter feelings,
made the utmost exertion necessary on Emma's side, to enable her to say
on reply,

“Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is the last
man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his
feeling for her more than he really does.”

Harriet seemed ready to worship her friend for a sentence so
satisfactory; and Emma was only saved from raptures and fondness, which
at that moment would have been dreadful penance, by the sound of her
father's footsteps. He was coming through the hall. Harriet was too
much agitated to encounter him. “She could not compose herself--
Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmed--she had better go;”--with most ready
encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through another
door--and the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of
Emma's feelings: “Oh God! that I had never seen her!”

The rest of the day, the following night, were hardly enough for her
thoughts.--She was bewildered amidst the confusion of all that had
rushed on her within the last few hours. Every moment had brought a
fresh surprize; and every surprize must be matter of humiliation to
her.--How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had
been thus practising on herself, and living under!--The blunders, the
blindness of her own head and heart!--she sat still, she walked about,
she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery--in every place, every
posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly; that she had
been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree; that she had
been imposing on herself in a degree yet more mortifying; that she
was wretched, and should probably find this day but the beginning of
wretchedness.

To understand, thoroughly understand her own heart, was the first
endeavour. To that point went every leisure moment which her father's
claims on her allowed, and every moment of involuntary absence of mind.

How long had Mr. Knightley been so dear to her, as every feeling
declared him now to be? When had his influence, such influence begun?--
When had he succeeded to that place in her affection, which Frank
Churchill had once, for a short period, occupied?--She looked back;
she compared the two--compared them, as they had always stood in her
estimation, from the time of the latter's becoming known to her--and as
they must at any time have been compared by her, had it--oh! had it, by
any blessed felicity, occurred to her, to institute the comparison.--She
saw that there never had been a time when she did not consider Mr.
Knightley as infinitely the superior, or when his regard for her had not
been infinitely the most dear. She saw, that in persuading herself,
in fancying, in acting to the contrary, she had been entirely under a
delusion, totally ignorant of her own heart--and, in short, that she had
never really cared for Frank Churchill at all!

This was the conclusion of the first series of reflection. This was
the knowledge of herself, on the first question of inquiry, which
she reached; and without being long in reaching it.--She was most
sorrowfully indignant; ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed
to her--her affection for Mr. Knightley.--Every other part of her mind
was disgusting.

With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of every
body's feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange every
body's destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and
she had not quite done nothing--for she had done mischief. She had
brought evil on Harriet, on herself, and she too much feared, on Mr.
Knightley.--Were this most unequal of all connexions to take place, on
her must rest all the reproach of having given it a beginning; for his
attachment, she must believe to be produced only by a consciousness of
Harriet's;--and even were this not the case, he would never have known
Harriet at all but for her folly.

Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--It was a union to distance every
wonder of the kind.--The attachment of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax
became commonplace, threadbare, stale in the comparison, exciting no
surprize, presenting no disparity, affording nothing to be said or
thought.--Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--Such an elevation on her
side! Such a debasement on his! It was horrible to Emma to think how it
must sink him in the general opinion, to foresee the smiles, the sneers,
the merriment it would prompt at his expense; the mortification and
disdain of his brother, the thousand inconveniences to himself.--Could
it be?--No; it was impossible. And yet it was far, very far, from
impossible.--Was it a new circumstance for a man of first-rate abilities
to be captivated by very inferior powers? Was it new for one, perhaps
too busy to seek, to be the prize of a girl who would seek him?--Was
it new for any thing in this world to be unequal, inconsistent,
incongruous--or for chance and circumstance (as second causes) to direct
the human fate?

Oh! had she never brought Harriet forward! Had she left her where she
ought, and where he had told her she ought!--Had she not, with a
folly which no tongue could express, prevented her marrying the
unexceptionable young man who would have made her happy and respectable
in the line of life to which she ought to belong--all would have been
safe; none of this dreadful sequel would have been.

How Harriet could ever have had the presumption to raise her thoughts to
Mr. Knightley!--How she could dare to fancy herself the chosen of such
a man till actually assured of it!--But Harriet was less humble, had
fewer scruples than formerly.--Her inferiority, whether of mind or
situation, seemed little felt.--She had seemed more sensible of Mr.
Elton's being to stoop in marrying her, than she now seemed of Mr.
Knightley's.--Alas! was not that her own doing too? Who had been at
pains to give Harriet notions of self-consequence but herself?--Who but
herself had taught her, that she was to elevate herself if possible,
and that her claims were great to a high worldly establishment?--If
Harriet, from being humble, were grown vain, it was her doing too.



CHAPTER XII


Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known
how much of her happiness depended on being _first_ with Mr. Knightley,
first in interest and affection.--Satisfied that it was so, and feeling
it her due, she had enjoyed it without reflection; and only in the
dread of being supplanted, found how inexpressibly important it had
been.--Long, very long, she felt she had been first; for, having no
female connexions of his own, there had been only Isabella whose claims
could be compared with hers, and she had always known exactly how far
he loved and esteemed Isabella. She had herself been first with him for
many years past. She had not deserved it; she had often been negligent
or perverse, slighting his advice, or even wilfully opposing him,
insensible of half his merits, and quarrelling with him because he would
not acknowledge her false and insolent estimate of her own--but still,
from family attachment and habit, and thorough excellence of mind, he
had loved her, and watched over her from a girl, with an endeavour to
improve her, and an anxiety for her doing right, which no other creature
had at all shared. In spite of all her faults, she knew she was dear
to him; might she not say, very dear?--When the suggestions of hope,
however, which must follow here, presented themselves, she could not
presume to indulge them. Harriet Smith might think herself not unworthy
of being peculiarly, exclusively, passionately loved by Mr. Knightley.
_She_ could not. She could not flatter herself with any idea of
blindness in his attachment to _her_. She had received a very recent
proof of its impartiality.--How shocked had he been by her behaviour to
Miss Bates! How directly, how strongly had he expressed himself to her
on the subject!--Not too strongly for the offence--but far, far too
strongly to issue from any feeling softer than upright justice and
clear-sighted goodwill.--She had no hope, nothing to deserve the name
of hope, that he could have that sort of affection for herself which was
now in question; but there was a hope (at times a slight one, at
times much stronger,) that Harriet might have deceived herself, and be
overrating his regard for _her_.--Wish it she must, for his sake--be the
consequence nothing to herself, but his remaining single all his life.
Could she be secure of that, indeed, of his never marrying at all, she
believed she should be perfectly satisfied.--Let him but continue the
same Mr. Knightley to her and her father, the same Mr. Knightley to
all the world; let Donwell and Hartfield lose none of their precious
intercourse of friendship and confidence, and her peace would be
fully secured.--Marriage, in fact, would not do for her. It would be
incompatible with what she owed to her father, and with what she felt
for him. Nothing should separate her from her father. She would not
marry, even if she were asked by Mr. Knightley.

It must be her ardent wish that Harriet might be disappointed; and she
hoped, that when able to see them together again, she might at least
be able to ascertain what the chances for it were.--She should see them
henceforward with the closest observance; and wretchedly as she had
hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how
to admit that she could be blinded here.--He was expected back every
day. The power of observation would be soon given--frightfully soon it
appeared when her thoughts were in one course. In the meanwhile, she
resolved against seeing Harriet.--It would do neither of them good,
it would do the subject no good, to be talking of it farther.--She was
resolved not to be convinced, as long as she could doubt, and yet had
no authority for opposing Harriet's confidence. To talk would be only to
irritate.--She wrote to her, therefore, kindly, but decisively, to beg
that she would not, at present, come to Hartfield; acknowledging it to
be her conviction, that all farther confidential discussion of _one_
topic had better be avoided; and hoping, that if a few days were allowed
to pass before they met again, except in the company of others--she
objected only to a tete-a-tete--they might be able to act as if they
had forgotten the conversation of yesterday.--Harriet submitted, and
approved, and was grateful.

This point was just arranged, when a visitor arrived to tear Emma's
thoughts a little from the one subject which had engrossed them,
sleeping or waking, the last twenty-four hours--Mrs. Weston, who had
been calling on her daughter-in-law elect, and took Hartfield in her
way home, almost as much in duty to Emma as in pleasure to herself, to
relate all the particulars of so interesting an interview.

Mr. Weston had accompanied her to Mrs. Bates's, and gone through his
share of this essential attention most handsomely; but she having then
induced Miss Fairfax to join her in an airing, was now returned with
much more to say, and much more to say with satisfaction, than a quarter
of an hour spent in Mrs. Bates's parlour, with all the encumbrance of
awkward feelings, could have afforded.

A little curiosity Emma had; and she made the most of it while her
friend related. Mrs. Weston had set off to pay the visit in a good deal
of agitation herself; and in the first place had wished not to go at all
at present, to be allowed merely to write to Miss Fairfax instead, and
to defer this ceremonious call till a little time had passed, and Mr.
Churchill could be reconciled to the engagement's becoming known; as,
considering every thing, she thought such a visit could not be paid
without leading to reports:--but Mr. Weston had thought differently; he
was extremely anxious to shew his approbation to Miss Fairfax and her
family, and did not conceive that any suspicion could be excited by it;
or if it were, that it would be of any consequence; for “such things,”
 he observed, “always got about.” Emma smiled, and felt that Mr. Weston
had very good reason for saying so. They had gone, in short--and very
great had been the evident distress and confusion of the lady. She had
hardly been able to speak a word, and every look and action had shewn
how deeply she was suffering from consciousness. The quiet, heart-felt
satisfaction of the old lady, and the rapturous delight of her
daughter--who proved even too joyous to talk as usual, had been a
gratifying, yet almost an affecting, scene. They were both so truly
respectable in their happiness, so disinterested in every sensation;
thought so much of Jane; so much of every body, and so little of
themselves, that every kindly feeling was at work for them. Miss
Fairfax's recent illness had offered a fair plea for Mrs. Weston to
invite her to an airing; she had drawn back and declined at first, but,
on being pressed had yielded; and, in the course of their drive,
Mrs. Weston had, by gentle encouragement, overcome so much of her
embarrassment, as to bring her to converse on the important subject.
Apologies for her seemingly ungracious silence in their first reception,
and the warmest expressions of the gratitude she was always feeling
towards herself and Mr. Weston, must necessarily open the cause; but
when these effusions were put by, they had talked a good deal of the
present and of the future state of the engagement. Mrs. Weston was
convinced that such conversation must be the greatest relief to her
companion, pent up within her own mind as every thing had so long been,
and was very much pleased with all that she had said on the subject.

“On the misery of what she had suffered, during the concealment of so
many months,” continued Mrs. Weston, “she was energetic. This was one
of her expressions. 'I will not say, that since I entered into the
engagement I have not had some happy moments; but I can say, that I have
never known the blessing of one tranquil hour:'--and the quivering lip,
Emma, which uttered it, was an attestation that I felt at my heart.”

“Poor girl!” said Emma. “She thinks herself wrong, then, for having
consented to a private engagement?”

“Wrong! No one, I believe, can blame her more than she is disposed
to blame herself. 'The consequence,' said she, 'has been a state of
perpetual suffering to me; and so it ought. But after all the punishment
that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. Pain is no
expiation. I never can be blameless. I have been acting contrary to all
my sense of right; and the fortunate turn that every thing has taken,
and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me
ought not to be.' 'Do not imagine, madam,' she continued, 'that I was
taught wrong. Do not let any reflection fall on the principles or the
care of the friends who brought me up. The error has been all my own;
and I do assure you that, with all the excuse that present circumstances
may appear to give, I shall yet dread making the story known to Colonel
Campbell.'”

“Poor girl!” said Emma again. “She loves him then excessively, I
suppose. It must have been from attachment only, that she could be
led to form the engagement. Her affection must have overpowered her
judgment.”

“Yes, I have no doubt of her being extremely attached to him.”

“I am afraid,” returned Emma, sighing, “that I must often have
contributed to make her unhappy.”

“On your side, my love, it was very innocently done. But she
probably had something of that in her thoughts, when alluding to the
misunderstandings which he had given us hints of before. One natural
consequence of the evil she had involved herself in,” she said, “was
that of making her _unreasonable_. The consciousness of having done
amiss, had exposed her to a thousand inquietudes, and made her captious
and irritable to a degree that must have been--that had been--hard for
him to bear. 'I did not make the allowances,' said she, 'which I ought
to have done, for his temper and spirits--his delightful spirits, and
that gaiety, that playfulness of disposition, which, under any other
circumstances, would, I am sure, have been as constantly bewitching to
me, as they were at first.' She then began to speak of you, and of the
great kindness you had shewn her during her illness; and with a blush
which shewed me how it was all connected, desired me, whenever I had
an opportunity, to thank you--I could not thank you too much--for every
wish and every endeavour to do her good. She was sensible that you had
never received any proper acknowledgment from herself.”

“If I did not know her to be happy now,” said Emma, seriously, “which,
in spite of every little drawback from her scrupulous conscience, she
must be, I could not bear these thanks;--for, oh! Mrs. Weston, if there
were an account drawn up of the evil and the good I have done Miss
Fairfax!--Well (checking herself, and trying to be more lively), this
is all to be forgotten. You are very kind to bring me these interesting
particulars. They shew her to the greatest advantage. I am sure she is
very good--I hope she will be very happy. It is fit that the fortune
should be on his side, for I think the merit will be all on hers.”

Such a conclusion could not pass unanswered by Mrs. Weston. She thought
well of Frank in almost every respect; and, what was more, she loved him
very much, and her defence was, therefore, earnest. She talked with a
great deal of reason, and at least equal affection--but she had too much
to urge for Emma's attention; it was soon gone to Brunswick Square or
to Donwell; she forgot to attempt to listen; and when Mrs. Weston ended
with, “We have not yet had the letter we are so anxious for, you know,
but I hope it will soon come,” she was obliged to pause before she
answered, and at last obliged to answer at random, before she could at
all recollect what letter it was which they were so anxious for.

“Are you well, my Emma?” was Mrs. Weston's parting question.

“Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me
intelligence of the letter as soon as possible.”

Mrs. Weston's communications furnished Emma with more food for
unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her
sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted
not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the
envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause.
Had she followed Mr. Knightley's known wishes, in paying that attention
to Miss Fairfax, which was every way her due; had she tried to know her
better; had she done her part towards intimacy; had she endeavoured
to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith; she must, in all
probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her
now.--Birth, abilities, and education, had been equally marking one as
an associate for her, to be received with gratitude; and the other--what
was she?--Supposing even that they had never become intimate friends;
that she had never been admitted into Miss Fairfax's confidence on this
important matter--which was most probable--still, in knowing her as
she ought, and as she might, she must have been preserved from the
abominable suspicions of an improper attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she
had not only so foolishly fashioned and harboured herself, but had so
unpardonably imparted; an idea which she greatly feared had been made a
subject of material distress to the delicacy of Jane's feelings, by the
levity or carelessness of Frank Churchill's. Of all the sources of evil
surrounding the former, since her coming to Highbury, she was persuaded
that she must herself have been the worst. She must have been a
perpetual enemy. They never could have been all three together, without
her having stabbed Jane Fairfax's peace in a thousand instances; and on
Box Hill, perhaps, it had been the agony of a mind that would bear no
more.

The evening of this day was very long, and melancholy, at Hartfield.
The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and
nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was
despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights
the longer visible.

The weather affected Mr. Woodhouse, and he could only be kept tolerably
comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter's side, and by
exertions which had never cost her half so much before. It reminded
her of their first forlorn tete-a-tete, on the evening of Mrs. Weston's
wedding-day; but Mr. Knightley had walked in then, soon after tea,
and dissipated every melancholy fancy. Alas! such delightful proofs of
Hartfield's attraction, as those sort of visits conveyed, might shortly
be over. The picture which she had then drawn of the privations of the
approaching winter, had proved erroneous; no friends had deserted them,
no pleasures had been lost.--But her present forebodings she feared
would experience no similar contradiction. The prospect before her now,
was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled--that
might not be even partially brightened. If all took place that
might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be
comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the
spirits only of ruined happiness.

The child to be born at Randalls must be a tie there even dearer than
herself; and Mrs. Weston's heart and time would be occupied by it.
They should lose her; and, probably, in great measure, her husband
also.--Frank Churchill would return among them no more; and Miss
Fairfax, it was reasonable to suppose, would soon cease to belong to
Highbury. They would be married, and settled either at or near Enscombe.
All that were good would be withdrawn; and if to these losses, the
loss of Donwell were to be added, what would remain of cheerful or
of rational society within their reach? Mr. Knightley to be no longer
coming there for his evening comfort!--No longer walking in at all
hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their's!--How was
it to be endured? And if he were to be lost to them for Harriet's sake;
if he were to be thought of hereafter, as finding in Harriet's society
all that he wanted; if Harriet were to be the chosen, the first,
the dearest, the friend, the wife to whom he looked for all the best
blessings of existence; what could be increasing Emma's wretchedness but
the reflection never far distant from her mind, that it had been all her
own work?

When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from
a start, or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a
few seconds--and the only source whence any thing like consolation
or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better
conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might
be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it
would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and
leave her less to regret when it were gone.



CHAPTER XIII


The weather continued much the same all the following morning; and
the same loneliness, and the same melancholy, seemed to reign at
Hartfield--but in the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a
softer quarter; the clouds were carried off; the sun appeared; it was
summer again. With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, Emma
resolved to be out of doors as soon as possible. Never had the exquisite
sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after
a storm, been more attractive to her. She longed for the serenity they
might gradually introduce; and on Mr. Perry's coming in soon after
dinner, with a disengaged hour to give her father, she lost no time
in hurrying into the shrubbery.--There, with spirits freshened, and
thoughts a little relieved, she had taken a few turns, when she saw Mr.
Knightley passing through the garden door, and coming towards her.--It
was the first intimation of his being returned from London. She had
been thinking of him the moment before, as unquestionably sixteen miles
distant.--There was time only for the quickest arrangement of mind. She
must be collected and calm. In half a minute they were together. The
“How d'ye do's” were quiet and constrained on each side. She asked after
their mutual friends; they were all well.--When had he left them?--Only
that morning. He must have had a wet ride.--Yes.--He meant to walk with
her, she found. “He had just looked into the dining-room, and as he was
not wanted there, preferred being out of doors.”--She thought he neither
looked nor spoke cheerfully; and the first possible cause for it,
suggested by her fears, was, that he had perhaps been communicating his
plans to his brother, and was pained by the manner in which they had
been received.

They walked together. He was silent. She thought he was often looking
at her, and trying for a fuller view of her face than it suited her to
give. And this belief produced another dread. Perhaps he wanted to
speak to her, of his attachment to Harriet; he might be watching for
encouragement to begin.--She did not, could not, feel equal to lead the
way to any such subject. He must do it all himself. Yet she could
not bear this silence. With him it was most unnatural. She
considered--resolved--and, trying to smile, began--

“You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather
surprize you.”

“Have I?” said he quietly, and looking at her; “of what nature?”

“Oh! the best nature in the world--a wedding.”

After waiting a moment, as if to be sure she intended to say no more, he
replied,

“If you mean Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, I have heard that
already.”

“How is it possible?” cried Emma, turning her glowing cheeks towards
him; for, while she spoke, it occurred to her that he might have called
at Mrs. Goddard's in his way.

“I had a few lines on parish business from Mr. Weston this morning, and
at the end of them he gave me a brief account of what had happened.”

Emma was quite relieved, and could presently say, with a little more
composure,

“_You_ probably have been less surprized than any of us, for you have
had your suspicions.--I have not forgotten that you once tried to give
me a caution.--I wish I had attended to it--but--(with a sinking voice
and a heavy sigh) I seem to have been doomed to blindness.”

For a moment or two nothing was said, and she was unsuspicious of having
excited any particular interest, till she found her arm drawn within
his, and pressed against his heart, and heard him thus saying, in a tone
of great sensibility, speaking low,

“Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound.--Your own excellent
sense--your exertions for your father's sake--I know you will not allow
yourself--.” Her arm was pressed again, as he added, in a more
broken and subdued accent, “The feelings of the warmest
friendship--Indignation--Abominable scoundrel!”--And in a louder,
steadier tone, he concluded with, “He will soon be gone. They will soon
be in Yorkshire. I am sorry for _her_. She deserves a better fate.”

Emma understood him; and as soon as she could recover from the flutter
of pleasure, excited by such tender consideration, replied,

“You are very kind--but you are mistaken--and I must set you right.--
I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was
going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed
of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may
well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I have no other reason
to regret that I was not in the secret earlier.”

“Emma!” cried he, looking eagerly at her, “are you, indeed?”--but
checking himself--“No, no, I understand you--forgive me--I am pleased
that you can say even so much.--He is no object of regret, indeed! and
it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes the acknowledgment
of more than your reason.--Fortunate that your affections were not
farther entangled!--I could never, I confess, from your manners, assure
myself as to the degree of what you felt--I could only be certain that
there was a preference--and a preference which I never believed him to
deserve.--He is a disgrace to the name of man.--And is he to be rewarded
with that sweet young woman?--Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable
creature.”

“Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused--“I
am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your
error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I
have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been
at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural
for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse.--But I never
have.”

He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he would
not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled to his
clemency; but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower herself in
his opinion. She went on, however.

“I have very little to say for my own conduct.--I was tempted by his
attentions, and allowed myself to appear pleased.--An old story,
probably--a common case--and no more than has happened to hundreds of my
sex before; and yet it may not be the more excusable in one who sets up
as I do for Understanding. Many circumstances assisted the temptation.
He was the son of Mr. Weston--he was continually here--I always found
him very pleasant--and, in short, for (with a sigh) let me swell out the
causes ever so ingeniously, they all centre in this at last--my vanity
was flattered, and I allowed his attentions. Latterly, however--for some
time, indeed--I have had no idea of their meaning any thing.--I thought
them a habit, a trick, nothing that called for seriousness on my side.
He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me. I have never been
attached to him. And now I can tolerably comprehend his behaviour. He
never wished to attach me. It was merely a blind to conceal his real
situation with another.--It was his object to blind all about him; and
no one, I am sure, could be more effectually blinded than myself--except
that I was _not_ blinded--that it was my good fortune--that, in short, I
was somehow or other safe from him.”

She had hoped for an answer here--for a few words to say that her
conduct was at least intelligible; but he was silent; and, as far as she
could judge, deep in thought. At last, and tolerably in his usual tone,
he said,

“I have never had a high opinion of Frank Churchill.--I can suppose,
however, that I may have underrated him. My acquaintance with him has
been but trifling.--And even if I have not underrated him hitherto, he
may yet turn out well.--With such a woman he has a chance.--I have no
motive for wishing him ill--and for her sake, whose happiness will be
involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him
well.”

“I have no doubt of their being happy together,” said Emma; “I believe
them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached.”

“He is a most fortunate man!” returned Mr. Knightley, with energy. “So
early in life--at three-and-twenty--a period when, if a man chuses a
wife, he generally chuses ill. At three-and-twenty to have drawn such
a prize! What years of felicity that man, in all human calculation,
has before him!--Assured of the love of such a woman--the disinterested
love, for Jane Fairfax's character vouches for her disinterestedness;
every thing in his favour,--equality of situation--I mean, as far as
regards society, and all the habits and manners that are important;
equality in every point but one--and that one, since the purity of her
heart is not to be doubted, such as must increase his felicity, for it
will be his to bestow the only advantages she wants.--A man would always
wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from;
and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of _her_ regard, must,
I think, be the happiest of mortals.--Frank Churchill is, indeed, the
favourite of fortune. Every thing turns out for his good.--He meets
with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even
weary her by negligent treatment--and had he and all his family sought
round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found
her superior.--His aunt is in the way.--His aunt dies.--He has only to
speak.--His friends are eager to promote his happiness.--He had used
every body ill--and they are all delighted to forgive him.--He is a
fortunate man indeed!”

“You speak as if you envied him.”

“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy.”

Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence
of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if
possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally
different--the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for
breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying,

“You will not ask me what is the point of envy.--You are determined, I
see, to have no curiosity.--You are wise--but _I_ cannot be wise. Emma,
I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the
next moment.”

“Oh! then, don't speak it, don't speak it,” she eagerly cried. “Take a
little time, consider, do not commit yourself.”

“Thank you,” said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not
another syllable followed.

Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in
her--perhaps to consult her;--cost her what it would, she would listen.
She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give
just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence,
relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more
intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.--They had
reached the house.

“You are going in, I suppose?” said he.

“No,”--replied Emma--quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which
he still spoke--“I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not
gone.” And, after proceeding a few steps, she added--“I stopped you
ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you
pain.--But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or
to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation--as
a friend, indeed, you may command me.--I will hear whatever you like. I
will tell you exactly what I think.”

“As a friend!”--repeated Mr. Knightley.--“Emma, that I fear is a
word--No, I have no wish--Stay, yes, why should I hesitate?--I
have gone too far already for concealment.--Emma, I accept your
offer--Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to
you as a friend.--Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?”

He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression
of his eyes overpowered her.

“My dearest Emma,” said he, “for dearest you will always be, whatever
the event of this hour's conversation, my dearest, most beloved
Emma--tell me at once. Say 'No,' if it is to be said.”--She could
really say nothing.--“You are silent,” he cried, with great animation;
“absolutely silent! at present I ask no more.”

Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The
dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most
prominent feeling.

“I cannot make speeches, Emma:” he soon resumed; and in a tone of
such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably
convincing.--“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it
more. But you know what I am.--You hear nothing but truth from me.--I
have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other
woman in England would have borne it.--Bear with the truths I would
tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The
manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have
been a very indifferent lover.--But you understand me.--Yes, you see,
you understand my feelings--and will return them if you can. At present,
I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.”

While he spoke, Emma's mind was most busy, and, with all the wonderful
velocity of thought, had been able--and yet without losing a word--to
catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole; to see that Harriet's
hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a
delusion as any of her own--that Harriet was nothing; that she was every
thing herself; that what she had been saying relative to Harriet
had been all taken as the language of her own feelings; and that her
agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all
received as discouragement from herself.--And not only was there time
for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness; there
was time also to rejoice that Harriet's secret had not escaped her, and
to resolve that it need not, and should not.--It was all the service
she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of
sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his
affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the most worthy of the
two--or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at
once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not
marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and
with contrition; but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that
could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her
friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her for ever; but her
judgment was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever
been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal
and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.--She spoke
then, on being so entreated.--What did she say?--Just what she ought,
of course. A lady always does.--She said enough to shew there need not
be despair--and to invite him to say more himself. He _had_ despaired at
one period; he had received such an injunction to caution and silence,
as for the time crushed every hope;--she had begun by refusing to hear
him.--The change had perhaps been somewhat sudden;--her proposal of
taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had
just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary!--She felt its
inconsistency; but Mr. Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it,
and seek no farther explanation.

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure;
seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a
little mistaken; but where, as in this case, though the conduct is
mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material.--Mr.
Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she
possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his.

He had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had
followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying it. He had come,
in his anxiety to see how she bore Frank Churchill's engagement, with no
selfish view, no view at all, but of endeavouring, if she allowed him an
opening, to soothe or to counsel her.--The rest had been the work of
the moment, the immediate effect of what he heard, on his feelings. The
delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill,
of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth
to the hope, that, in time, he might gain her affection himself;--but
it had been no present hope--he had only, in the momentary conquest of
eagerness over judgment, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his
attempt to attach her.--The superior hopes which gradually opened were
so much the more enchanting.--The affection, which he had been asking
to be allowed to create, if he could, was already his!--Within half
an hour, he had passed from a thoroughly distressed state of mind, to
something so like perfect happiness, that it could bear no other name.

_Her_ change was equal.--This one half-hour had given to each the same
precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same
degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust.--On his side, there had been
a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation,
of Frank Churchill.--He had been in love with Emma, and jealous of Frank
Churchill, from about the same period, one sentiment having probably
enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill
that had taken him from the country.--The Box Hill party had decided
him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again
such permitted, encouraged attentions.--He had gone to learn to be
indifferent.--But he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much
domestic happiness in his brother's house; woman wore too amiable a form
in it; Isabella was too much like Emma--differing only in those striking
inferiorities, which always brought the other in brilliancy before
him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer.--He had
stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day--till this very morning's
post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax.--Then, with the gladness
which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never
believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much
fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no
longer. He had ridden home through the rain; and had walked up directly
after dinner, to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures,
faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.

He had found her agitated and low.--Frank Churchill was a villain.--
He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill's
character was not desperate.--She was his own Emma, by hand and word,
when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank
Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.



CHAPTER XIV


What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from
what she had brought out!--she had then been only daring to hope for
a little respite of suffering;--she was now in an exquisite flutter of
happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must still be
greater when the flutter should have passed away.

They sat down to tea--the same party round the same table--how often
it had been collected!--and how often had her eyes fallen on the same
shrubs in the lawn, and observed the same beautiful effect of the
western sun!--But never in such a state of spirits, never in any thing
like it; and it was with difficulty that she could summon enough of her
usual self to be the attentive lady of the house, or even the attentive
daughter.

Poor Mr. Woodhouse little suspected what was plotting against him in the
breast of that man whom he was so cordially welcoming, and so anxiously
hoping might not have taken cold from his ride.--Could he have seen the
heart, he would have cared very little for the lungs; but without the
most distant imagination of the impending evil, without the slightest
perception of any thing extraordinary in the looks or ways of either,
he repeated to them very comfortably all the articles of news he had
received from Mr. Perry, and talked on with much self-contentment,
totally unsuspicious of what they could have told him in return.

As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma's fever continued;
but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillised and
subdued--and in the course of the sleepless night, which was the tax
for such an evening, she found one or two such very serious points
to consider, as made her feel, that even her happiness must have some
alloy. Her father--and Harriet. She could not be alone without feeling
the full weight of their separate claims; and how to guard the comfort
of both to the utmost, was the question. With respect to her father,
it was a question soon answered. She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley
would ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produced the most
solemn resolution of never quitting her father.--She even wept over
the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an
engagement; but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger of
drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him.--How
to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decision;--how to spare
her from any unnecessary pain; how to make her any possible atonement;
how to appear least her enemy?--On these subjects, her perplexity
and distress were very great--and her mind had to pass again and
again through every bitter reproach and sorrowful regret that had ever
surrounded it.--She could only resolve at last, that she would still
avoid a meeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by
letter; that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed
just now for a time from Highbury, and--indulging in one scheme
more--nearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitation
for her to Brunswick Square.--Isabella had been pleased with Harriet;
and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement.--She did
not think it in Harriet's nature to escape being benefited by novelty
and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children.--At any rate,
it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself, from whom
every thing was due; a separation for the present; an averting of the
evil day, when they must all be together again.

She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet; an employment which
left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley, in walking
up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon; and half
an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground again with him,
literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstate her in a
proper share of the happiness of the evening before.

He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to have the
slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letter was
brought her from Randalls--a very thick letter;--she guessed what it
must contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it.--She was now
in perfect charity with Frank Churchill; she wanted no explanations, she
wanted only to have her thoughts to herself--and as for understanding
any thing he wrote, she was sure she was incapable of it.--It must be
waded through, however. She opened the packet; it was too surely so;--a
note from Mrs. Weston to herself, ushered in the letter from Frank to
Mrs. Weston.

“I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwarding to you the
enclosed. I know what thorough justice you will do it, and have scarcely
a doubt of its happy effect.--I think we shall never materially disagree
about the writer again; but I will not delay you by a long preface.--We
are quite well.--This letter has been the cure of all the little
nervousness I have been feeling lately.--I did not quite like your looks
on Tuesday, but it was an ungenial morning; and though you will never
own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a north-east
wind.--I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesday
afternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearing last
night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill.

                              “Yours ever,
                                                       “A. W.”

                       [To Mrs. Weston.]


                                                       WINDSOR-JULY.
MY DEAR MADAM,

“If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be
expected; but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and
indulgence.--You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of
even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.--But
I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage
rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be
humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for
pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours,
and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.--You
must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I
first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret which
was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place
myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question.
I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to _think_ it a right,
I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and
casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my
difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to
require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we
parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the
creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.--Had she refused, I
should have gone mad.--But you will be ready to say, what was your
hope in doing this?--What did you look forward to?--To any thing, every
thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts,
perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of
good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her
promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther explanation,
I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband's son, and
the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no
inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of.--See
me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to
Randalls;--and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have
been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come till
Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as _you_ were the person slighted, you
will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father's compassion, by
reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house, so long
I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour, during the very
happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I hope, lay me open to
reprehension, excepting on one point. And now I come to the principal,
the only important part of my conduct while belonging to you, which
excites my own anxiety, or requires very solicitous explanation. With
the greatest respect, and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss
Woodhouse; my father perhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest
humiliation.--A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his
opinion, and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to.--My behaviour
to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought.--In order to
assist a concealment so essential to me, I was led on to make more than
an allowable use of the sort of intimacy into which we were immediately
thrown.--I cannot deny that Miss Woodhouse was my ostensible object--but
I am sure you will believe the declaration, that had I not been
convinced of her indifference, I would not have been induced by any
selfish views to go on.--Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is,
she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached; and
that she was perfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me,
was as much my conviction as my wish.--She received my attentions with
an easy, friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me.
We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation, those
attentions were her due, and were felt to be so.--Whether Miss Woodhouse
began really to understand me before the expiration of that fortnight,
I cannot say;--when I called to take leave of her, I remember that I was
within a moment of confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not
without suspicion; but I have no doubt of her having since detected me,
at least in some degree.--She may not have surmised the whole, but her
quickness must have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find,
whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it
did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it.
I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude
for her attentions to Miss Fairfax.--I hope this history of my conduct
towards her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation
of what you saw amiss. While you considered me as having sinned against
Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and
procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes
of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly
affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as
myself.--Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight,
you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to
get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.
If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.--Of
the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that
its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F--, who would never
have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.--The
delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam,
is much beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon, I earnestly
hope, know her thoroughly yourself.--No description can describe her.
She must tell you herself what she is--yet not by word, for never
was there a human creature who would so designedly suppress her own
merit.--Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw,
I have heard from her.--She gives a good account of her own health; but
as she never complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion
of her looks. I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread
of the visit. Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without
delay; I am impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how few
minutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state: and
I am not much better yet; still insane either from happiness or
misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I have met with, of her
excellence and patience, and my uncle's generosity, I am mad with joy:
but when I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little
I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with anger. If I could but see her
again!--But I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me
to encroach.--I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard
all that you ought to hear. I could not give any connected detail
yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness
with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the event
of the 26th ult., as you will conclude, immediately opened to me the
happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures,
but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to
lose. I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she
would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and
refinement.--But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered
into with that woman--Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off
abruptly, to recollect and compose myself.--I have been walking over
the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of
my letter what it ought to be.--It is, in fact, a most mortifying
retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit, that
my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly
blameable. _She_ disapproved them, which ought to have been enough.--My
plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient.--She was
displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand
occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even
cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment, and
subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should have
escaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever known.--We quarrelled.--
Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell?--_There_ every little
dissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late;
I met her walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her, but she
would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to allow me, which I then
thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothing in it but a very
natural and consistent degree of discretion. While I, to blind the
world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable
particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a
proposal which might have made every previous caution useless?--Had we
been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must
have been suspected.--I was mad enough, however, to resent.--I doubted
her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill; when,
provoked by such conduct on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect
of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been
impossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in
a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.--In short, my dear
madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side, abominable on mine; and
I returned the same evening to Richmond, though I might have staid with
you till the next morning, merely because I would be as angry with
her as possible. Even then, I was not such a fool as not to mean to
be reconciled in time; but I was the injured person, injured by her
coldness, and I went away determined that she should make the first
advances.--I shall always congratulate myself that you were not of
the Box Hill party. Had you witnessed my behaviour there, I can hardly
suppose you would ever have thought well of me again. Its effect upon
her appears in the immediate resolution it produced: as soon as she
found I was really gone from Randalls, she closed with the offer of that
officious Mrs. Elton; the whole system of whose treatment of her, by the
bye, has ever filled me with indignation and hatred. I must not quarrel
with a spirit of forbearance which has been so richly extended towards
myself; but, otherwise, I should loudly protest against the share of it
which that woman has known.--'Jane,' indeed!--You will observe that I
have not yet indulged myself in calling her by that name, even to you.
Think, then, what I must have endured in hearing it bandied between
the Eltons with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the
insolence of imaginary superiority. Have patience with me, I shall soon
have done.--She closed with this offer, resolving to break with me
entirely, and wrote the next day to tell me that we never were to meet
again.--_She_ _felt_ _the_ _engagement_ _to_ _be_ _a_ _source_ _of_
_repentance_ _and_ _misery_ _to_ _each_: _she_ _dissolved_ _it_.--This
letter reached me on the very morning of my poor aunt's death. I
answered it within an hour; but from the confusion of my mind, and the
multiplicity of business falling on me at once, my answer, instead of
being sent with all the many other letters of that day, was locked up in
my writing-desk; and I, trusting that I had written enough, though but
a few lines, to satisfy her, remained without any uneasiness.--I was
rather disappointed that I did not hear from her again speedily; but I
made excuses for her, and was too busy, and--may I add?--too cheerful
in my views to be captious.--We removed to Windsor; and two
days afterwards I received a parcel from her, my own letters all
returned!--and a few lines at the same time by the post, stating her
extreme surprize at not having had the smallest reply to her last; and
adding, that as silence on such a point could not be misconstrued,
and as it must be equally desirable to both to have every subordinate
arrangement concluded as soon as possible, she now sent me, by a safe
conveyance, all my letters, and requested, that if I could not directly
command hers, so as to send them to Highbury within a week, I would
forward them after that period to her at--: in short, the full direction
to Mr. Smallridge's, near Bristol, stared me in the face. I knew the
name, the place, I knew all about it, and instantly saw what she had
been doing. It was perfectly accordant with that resolution of character
which I knew her to possess; and the secrecy she had maintained, as to
any such design in her former letter, was equally descriptive of its
anxious delicacy. For the world would not she have seemed to threaten
me.--Imagine the shock; imagine how, till I had actually detected my
own blunder, I raved at the blunders of the post.--What was to be
done?--One thing only.--I must speak to my uncle. Without his sanction I
could not hope to be listened to again.--I spoke; circumstances were
in my favour; the late event had softened away his pride, and he was,
earlier than I could have anticipated, wholly reconciled and complying;
and could say at last, poor man! with a deep sigh, that he wished I
might find as much happiness in the marriage state as he had done.--I
felt that it would be of a different sort.--Are you disposed to pity
me for what I must have suffered in opening the cause to him, for my
suspense while all was at stake?--No; do not pity me till I reached
Highbury, and saw how ill I had made her. Do not pity me till I saw her
wan, sick looks.--I reached Highbury at the time of day when, from my
knowledge of their late breakfast hour, I was certain of a good chance
of finding her alone.--I was not disappointed; and at last I was not
disappointed either in the object of my journey. A great deal of very
reasonable, very just displeasure I had to persuade away. But it is
done; we are reconciled, dearer, much dearer, than ever, and no moment's
uneasiness can ever occur between us again. Now, my dear madam, I will
release you; but I could not conclude before. A thousand and a thousand
thanks for all the kindness you have ever shewn me, and ten thousand for
the attentions your heart will dictate towards her.--If you think me in
a way to be happier than I deserve, I am quite of your opinion.--Miss
W. calls me the child of good fortune. I hope she is right.--In one
respect, my good fortune is undoubted, that of being able to subscribe
myself,

                    Your obliged and affectionate Son,

                                          F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL.



CHAPTER XV


This letter must make its way to Emma's feelings. She was obliged, in
spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it all the
justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to her own name,
it was irresistible; every line relating to herself was interesting,
and almost every line agreeable; and when this charm ceased, the subject
could still maintain itself, by the natural return of her former regard
for the writer, and the very strong attraction which any picture of
love must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till she had gone
through the whole; and though it was impossible not to feel that he had
been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had supposed--and he had
suffered, and was very sorry--and he was so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and
so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so happy herself, that
there was no being severe; and could he have entered the room, she must
have shaken hands with him as heartily as ever.

She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came again,
she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston's wishing it to
be communicated; especially to one, who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen so
much to blame in his conduct.

“I shall be very glad to look it over,” said he; “but it seems long. I
will take it home with me at night.”

But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and she
must return it by him.

“I would rather be talking to you,” he replied; “but as it seems a
matter of justice, it shall be done.”

He began--stopping, however, almost directly to say, “Had I been offered
the sight of one of this gentleman's letters to his mother-in-law a few
months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken with such indifference.”

He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with a
smile, observed, “Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But it is his
way. One man's style must not be the rule of another's. We will not be
severe.”

“It will be natural for me,” he added shortly afterwards, “to speak my
opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you.
It will not be so great a loss of time: but if you dislike it--”

“Not at all. I should wish it.”

Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity.

“He trifles here,” said he, “as to the temptation. He knows he is wrong,
and has nothing rational to urge.--Bad.--He ought not to have formed the
engagement.--'His father's disposition:'--he is unjust, however, to his
father. Mr. Weston's sanguine temper was a blessing on all his upright
and honourable exertions; but Mr. Weston earned every present comfort
before he endeavoured to gain it.--Very true; he did not come till Miss
Fairfax was here.”

“And I have not forgotten,” said Emma, “how sure you were that he might
have come sooner if he would. You pass it over very handsomely--but you
were perfectly right.”

“I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emma:--but yet, I think--had
_you_ not been in the case--I should still have distrusted him.”

When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it
aloud--all that related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake of the
head; a word or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely of love, as
the subject required; concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady
reflection, thus--

“Very bad--though it might have been worse.--Playing a most dangerous
game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.--No judge of
his own manners by you.--Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and
regardless of little besides his own convenience.--Fancying you to have
fathomed his secret. Natural enough!--his own mind full of intrigue,
that he should suspect it in others.--Mystery; Finesse--how they pervert
the understanding! My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more
and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each
other?”

Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet's account,
which she could not give any sincere explanation of.

“You had better go on,” said she.

He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, “the pianoforte! Ah! That
was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether
the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A
boyish scheme, indeed!--I cannot comprehend a man's wishing to give a
woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense
with; and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument's
coming if she could.”

After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill's
confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for
more than a word in passing.

“I perfectly agree with you, sir,”--was then his remark. “You did behave
very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line.” And having gone through
what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his
persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax's sense of right,
he made a fuller pause to say, “This is very bad.--He had induced her
to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and
uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from
suffering unnecessarily.--She must have had much more to contend
with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have
respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were
all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she
had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she
should have been in such a state of punishment.”

Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew
uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was
deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read,
however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and,
excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear
of giving pain--no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist.

“There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the
Eltons,” was his next observation.--“His feelings are natural.--What!
actually resolve to break with him entirely!--She felt the engagement to
be a source of repentance and misery to each--she dissolved it.--What a
view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!--Well, he must be a most
extraordinary--”

“Nay, nay, read on.--You will find how very much he suffers.”

“I hope he does,” replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter.
“'Smallridge!'--What does this mean? What is all this?”

“She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge's children--a
dear friend of Mrs. Elton's--a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the
bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?”

“Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read--not even of
Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter
the man writes!”

“I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him.”

“Well, there _is_ feeling here.--He does seem to have suffered in
finding her ill.--Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of
her. 'Dearer, much dearer than ever.' I hope he may long continue to
feel all the value of such a reconciliation.--He is a very liberal
thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.--'Happier than I
deserve.' Come, he knows himself there. 'Miss Woodhouse calls me the
child of good fortune.'--Those were Miss Woodhouse's words, were they?--
And a fine ending--and there is the letter. The child of good fortune!
That was your name for him, was it?”

“You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am; but still
you must, at least I hope you must, think the better of him for it. I
hope it does him some service with you.”

“Yes, certainly it does. He has had great faults, faults of
inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion
in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves: but still as he
is, beyond a doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it
may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very
ready to believe his character will improve, and acquire from hers the
steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now, let me talk
to you of something else. I have another person's interest at present
so much at heart, that I cannot think any longer about Frank Churchill.
Ever since I left you this morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work
on one subject.”

The subject followed; it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike
English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love
with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the
happiness of her father. Emma's answer was ready at the first word.
“While her dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible
for her. She could never quit him.” Part only of this answer, however,
was admitted. The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr.
Knightley felt as strongly as herself; but the inadmissibility of any
other change, he could not agree to. He had been thinking it over most
deeply, most intently; he had at first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to
remove with her to Donwell; he had wanted to believe it feasible, but
his knowledge of Mr. Woodhouse would not suffer him to deceive himself
long; and now he confessed his persuasion, that such a transplantation
would be a risk of her father's comfort, perhaps even of his life, which
must not be hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield!--No, he felt
that it ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen on the
sacrifice of this, he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any
respect objectionable; it was, that he should be received at Hartfield;
that so long as her father's happiness--in other words, his life--required
Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise.

Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had already had her own passing
thoughts. Like him, she had tried the scheme and rejected it; but such
an alternative as this had not occurred to her. She was sensible of all
the affection it evinced. She felt that, in quitting Donwell, he must
be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that
in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there
would be much, very much, to be borne with. She promised to think of it,
and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced, that no
reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had
given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration; he had
been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his
thoughts to himself.

“Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for,” cried Emma. “I am sure
William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you
ask mine.”

She promised, however, to think of it; and pretty nearly promised,
moreover, to think of it, with the intention of finding it a very good
scheme.

It is remarkable, that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in
which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never
struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as
heir-expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded. Think she must
of the possible difference to the poor little boy; and yet she only
gave herself a saucy conscious smile about it, and found amusement in
detecting the real cause of that violent dislike of Mr. Knightley's
marrying Jane Fairfax, or any body else, which at the time she had
wholly imputed to the amiable solicitude of the sister and the aunt.

This proposal of his, this plan of marrying and continuing at
Hartfield--the more she contemplated it, the more pleasing it became.
His evils seemed to lessen, her own advantages to increase, their mutual
good to outweigh every drawback. Such a companion for herself in the
periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her!--Such a partner in
all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase of
melancholy!

She would have been too happy but for poor Harriet; but every blessing
of her own seemed to involve and advance the sufferings of her friend,
who must now be even excluded from Hartfield. The delightful family
party which Emma was securing for herself, poor Harriet must, in mere
charitable caution, be kept at a distance from. She would be a loser in
every way. Emma could not deplore her future absence as any deduction
from her own enjoyment. In such a party, Harriet would be rather a
dead weight than otherwise; but for the poor girl herself, it seemed a
peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing her in such a state of
unmerited punishment.

In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is,
supplanted; but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr.
Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the cure;--not
like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly
considerate for every body, would never deserve to be less worshipped
than now; and it really was too much to hope even of Harriet, that she
could be in love with more than _three_ men in one year.



CHAPTER XVI


It was a very great relief to Emma to find Harriet as desirous as
herself to avoid a meeting. Their intercourse was painful enough by
letter. How much worse, had they been obliged to meet!

Harriet expressed herself very much as might be supposed, without
reproaches, or apparent sense of ill-usage; and yet Emma fancied there
was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style,
which increased the desirableness of their being separate.--It might be
only her own consciousness; but it seemed as if an angel only could have
been quite without resentment under such a stroke.

She had no difficulty in procuring Isabella's invitation; and she was
fortunate in having a sufficient reason for asking it, without resorting
to invention.--There was a tooth amiss. Harriet really wished, and
had wished some time, to consult a dentist. Mrs. John Knightley was
delighted to be of use; any thing of ill health was a recommendation to
her--and though not so fond of a dentist as of a Mr. Wingfield, she was
quite eager to have Harriet under her care.--When it was thus settled
on her sister's side, Emma proposed it to her friend, and found her
very persuadable.--Harriet was to go; she was invited for at least a
fortnight; she was to be conveyed in Mr. Woodhouse's carriage.--It was
all arranged, it was all completed, and Harriet was safe in Brunswick
Square.

Now Emma could, indeed, enjoy Mr. Knightley's visits; now she could
talk, and she could listen with true happiness, unchecked by that sense
of injustice, of guilt, of something most painful, which had haunted her
when remembering how disappointed a heart was near her, how much might
at that moment, and at a little distance, be enduring by the feelings
which she had led astray herself.

The difference of Harriet at Mrs. Goddard's, or in London, made perhaps
an unreasonable difference in Emma's sensations; but she could not think
of her in London without objects of curiosity and employment, which must
be averting the past, and carrying her out of herself.

She would not allow any other anxiety to succeed directly to the place
in her mind which Harriet had occupied. There was a communication before
her, one which _she_ only could be competent to make--the confession of
her engagement to her father; but she would have nothing to do with it
at present.--She had resolved to defer the disclosure till Mrs. Weston
were safe and well. No additional agitation should be thrown at this
period among those she loved--and the evil should not act on herself
by anticipation before the appointed time.--A fortnight, at least, of
leisure and peace of mind, to crown every warmer, but more agitating,
delight, should be hers.

She soon resolved, equally as a duty and a pleasure, to employ half an
hour of this holiday of spirits in calling on Miss Fairfax.--She ought
to go--and she was longing to see her; the resemblance of their present
situations increasing every other motive of goodwill. It would be a
_secret_ satisfaction; but the consciousness of a similarity of prospect
would certainly add to the interest with which she should attend to any
thing Jane might communicate.

She went--she had driven once unsuccessfully to the door, but had not
been into the house since the morning after Box Hill, when poor Jane had
been in such distress as had filled her with compassion, though all the
worst of her sufferings had been unsuspected.--The fear of being still
unwelcome, determined her, though assured of their being at home, to
wait in the passage, and send up her name.--She heard Patty announcing
it; but no such bustle succeeded as poor Miss Bates had before made so
happily intelligible.--No; she heard nothing but the instant reply of,
“Beg her to walk up;”--and a moment afterwards she was met on the stairs
by Jane herself, coming eagerly forward, as if no other reception of her
were felt sufficient.--Emma had never seen her look so well, so lovely,
so engaging. There was consciousness, animation, and warmth; there was
every thing which her countenance or manner could ever have wanted.--
She came forward with an offered hand; and said, in a low, but very
feeling tone,

“This is most kind, indeed!--Miss Woodhouse, it is impossible for me
to express--I hope you will believe--Excuse me for being so entirely
without words.”

Emma was gratified, and would soon have shewn no want of words, if the
sound of Mrs. Elton's voice from the sitting-room had not checked
her, and made it expedient to compress all her friendly and all her
congratulatory sensations into a very, very earnest shake of the hand.

Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Elton were together. Miss Bates was out, which
accounted for the previous tranquillity. Emma could have wished Mrs.
Elton elsewhere; but she was in a humour to have patience with every
body; and as Mrs. Elton met her with unusual graciousness, she hoped the
rencontre would do them no harm.

She soon believed herself to penetrate Mrs. Elton's thoughts, and
understand why she was, like herself, in happy spirits; it was being in
Miss Fairfax's confidence, and fancying herself acquainted with what was
still a secret to other people. Emma saw symptoms of it immediately in
the expression of her face; and while paying her own compliments to Mrs.
Bates, and appearing to attend to the good old lady's replies, she saw
her with a sort of anxious parade of mystery fold up a letter which she
had apparently been reading aloud to Miss Fairfax, and return it into
the purple and gold reticule by her side, saying, with significant nods,

“We can finish this some other time, you know. You and I shall not want
opportunities. And, in fact, you have heard all the essential already. I
only wanted to prove to you that Mrs. S. admits our apology, and is
not offended. You see how delightfully she writes. Oh! she is a sweet
creature! You would have doated on her, had you gone.--But not a word
more. Let us be discreet--quite on our good behaviour.--Hush!--You
remember those lines--I forget the poem at this moment:

        “For when a lady's in the case,
        “You know all other things give place.”

Now I say, my dear, in _our_ case, for _lady_, read----mum! a word to
the wise.--I am in a fine flow of spirits, an't I? But I want to set
your heart at ease as to Mrs. S.--_My_ representation, you see, has
quite appeased her.”

And again, on Emma's merely turning her head to look at Mrs. Bates's
knitting, she added, in a half whisper,

“I mentioned no _names_, you will observe.--Oh! no; cautious as a
minister of state. I managed it extremely well.”

Emma could not doubt. It was a palpable display, repeated on every
possible occasion. When they had all talked a little while in harmony of
the weather and Mrs. Weston, she found herself abruptly addressed with,

“Do not you think, Miss Woodhouse, our saucy little friend here is
charmingly recovered?--Do not you think her cure does Perry the highest
credit?--(here was a side-glance of great meaning at Jane.) Upon my
word, Perry has restored her in a wonderful short time!--Oh! if you had
seen her, as I did, when she was at the worst!”--And when Mrs. Bates
was saying something to Emma, whispered farther, “We do not say a word
of any _assistance_ that Perry might have; not a word of a certain young
physician from Windsor.--Oh! no; Perry shall have all the credit.”

“I have scarce had the pleasure of seeing you, Miss Woodhouse,” she
shortly afterwards began, “since the party to Box Hill. Very pleasant
party. But yet I think there was something wanting. Things did not
seem--that is, there seemed a little cloud upon the spirits of some.--So
it appeared to me at least, but I might be mistaken. However, I think
it answered so far as to tempt one to go again. What say you both to our
collecting the same party, and exploring to Box Hill again, while the
fine weather lasts?--It must be the same party, you know, quite the
same party, not _one_ exception.”

Soon after this Miss Bates came in, and Emma could not help being
diverted by the perplexity of her first answer to herself, resulting,
she supposed, from doubt of what might be said, and impatience to say
every thing.

“Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse, you are all kindness.--It is impossible
to say--Yes, indeed, I quite understand--dearest Jane's prospects--that
is, I do not mean.--But she is charmingly recovered.--How is Mr.
Woodhouse?--I am so glad.--Quite out of my power.--Such a happy little
circle as you find us here.--Yes, indeed.--Charming young man!--that
is--so very friendly; I mean good Mr. Perry!--such attention to
Jane!”--And from her great, her more than commonly thankful delight
towards Mrs. Elton for being there, Emma guessed that there had been a
little show of resentment towards Jane, from the vicarage quarter,
which was now graciously overcome.--After a few whispers, indeed, which
placed it beyond a guess, Mrs. Elton, speaking louder, said,

“Yes, here I am, my good friend; and here I have been so long, that
anywhere else I should think it necessary to apologise; but, the truth
is, that I am waiting for my lord and master. He promised to join me
here, and pay his respects to you.”

“What! are we to have the pleasure of a call from Mr. Elton?--That will
be a favour indeed! for I know gentlemen do not like morning visits, and
Mr. Elton's time is so engaged.”

“Upon my word it is, Miss Bates.--He really is engaged from morning to
night.--There is no end of people's coming to him, on some pretence or
other.--The magistrates, and overseers, and churchwardens, are always
wanting his opinion. They seem not able to do any thing without
him.--'Upon my word, Mr. E.,' I often say, 'rather you than I.--I do
not know what would become of my crayons and my instrument, if I had
half so many applicants.'--Bad enough as it is, for I absolutely neglect
them both to an unpardonable degree.--I believe I have not played a bar
this fortnight.--However, he is coming, I assure you: yes, indeed, on
purpose to wait on you all.” And putting up her hand to screen her
words from Emma--“A congratulatory visit, you know.--Oh! yes, quite
indispensable.”

Miss Bates looked about her, so happily--!

“He promised to come to me as soon as he could disengage himself
from Knightley; but he and Knightley are shut up together in deep
consultation.--Mr. E. is Knightley's right hand.”

Emma would not have smiled for the world, and only said, “Is Mr. Elton
gone on foot to Donwell?--He will have a hot walk.”

“Oh! no, it is a meeting at the Crown, a regular meeting. Weston and
Cole will be there too; but one is apt to speak only of those who
lead.--I fancy Mr. E. and Knightley have every thing their own way.”

“Have not you mistaken the day?” said Emma. “I am almost certain that
the meeting at the Crown is not till to-morrow.--Mr. Knightley was at
Hartfield yesterday, and spoke of it as for Saturday.”

“Oh! no, the meeting is certainly to-day,” was the abrupt answer, which
denoted the impossibility of any blunder on Mrs. Elton's side.--“I do
believe,” she continued, “this is the most troublesome parish that ever
was. We never heard of such things at Maple Grove.”

“Your parish there was small,” said Jane.

“Upon my word, my dear, I do not know, for I never heard the subject
talked of.”

“But it is proved by the smallness of the school, which I have heard
you speak of, as under the patronage of your sister and Mrs. Bragge; the
only school, and not more than five-and-twenty children.”

“Ah! you clever creature, that's very true. What a thinking brain you
have! I say, Jane, what a perfect character you and I should make, if we
could be shaken together. My liveliness and your solidity would produce
perfection.--Not that I presume to insinuate, however, that _some_
people may not think _you_ perfection already.--But hush!--not a word,
if you please.”

It seemed an unnecessary caution; Jane was wanting to give her words,
not to Mrs. Elton, but to Miss Woodhouse, as the latter plainly saw.
The wish of distinguishing her, as far as civility permitted, was very
evident, though it could not often proceed beyond a look.

Mr. Elton made his appearance. His lady greeted him with some of her
sparkling vivacity.

“Very pretty, sir, upon my word; to send me on here, to be an
encumbrance to my friends, so long before you vouchsafe to come!--But
you knew what a dutiful creature you had to deal with. You knew I should
not stir till my lord and master appeared.--Here have I been sitting
this hour, giving these young ladies a sample of true conjugal
obedience--for who can say, you know, how soon it may be wanted?”

Mr. Elton was so hot and tired, that all this wit seemed thrown away.
His civilities to the other ladies must be paid; but his subsequent
object was to lament over himself for the heat he was suffering, and the
walk he had had for nothing.

“When I got to Donwell,” said he, “Knightley could not be found. Very
odd! very unaccountable! after the note I sent him this morning, and the
message he returned, that he should certainly be at home till one.”

“Donwell!” cried his wife.--“My dear Mr. E., you have not been to
Donwell!--You mean the Crown; you come from the meeting at the Crown.”

“No, no, that's to-morrow; and I particularly wanted to see Knightley
to-day on that very account.--Such a dreadful broiling morning!--I went
over the fields too--(speaking in a tone of great ill-usage,) which made
it so much the worse. And then not to find him at home! I assure you
I am not at all pleased. And no apology left, no message for me. The
housekeeper declared she knew nothing of my being expected.--Very
extraordinary!--And nobody knew at all which way he was gone. Perhaps
to Hartfield, perhaps to the Abbey Mill, perhaps into his woods.--Miss
Woodhouse, this is not like our friend Knightley!--Can you explain it?”

Emma amused herself by protesting that it was very extraordinary,
indeed, and that she had not a syllable to say for him.

“I cannot imagine,” said Mrs. Elton, (feeling the indignity as a wife
ought to do,) “I cannot imagine how he could do such a thing by you, of
all people in the world! The very last person whom one should expect to
be forgotten!--My dear Mr. E., he must have left a message for you, I am
sure he must.--Not even Knightley could be so very eccentric;--and his
servants forgot it. Depend upon it, that was the case: and very likely
to happen with the Donwell servants, who are all, I have often observed,
extremely awkward and remiss.--I am sure I would not have such a
creature as his Harry stand at our sideboard for any consideration. And
as for Mrs. Hodges, Wright holds her very cheap indeed.--She promised
Wright a receipt, and never sent it.”

“I met William Larkins,” continued Mr. Elton, “as I got near the house,
and he told me I should not find his master at home, but I did not
believe him.--William seemed rather out of humour. He did not know what
was come to his master lately, he said, but he could hardly ever get the
speech of him. I have nothing to do with William's wants, but it really
is of very great importance that _I_ should see Knightley to-day; and it
becomes a matter, therefore, of very serious inconvenience that I should
have had this hot walk to no purpose.”

Emma felt that she could not do better than go home directly. In
all probability she was at this very time waited for there; and Mr.
Knightley might be preserved from sinking deeper in aggression towards
Mr. Elton, if not towards William Larkins.

She was pleased, on taking leave, to find Miss Fairfax determined to
attend her out of the room, to go with her even downstairs; it gave her
an opportunity which she immediately made use of, to say,

“It is as well, perhaps, that I have not had the possibility. Had you
not been surrounded by other friends, I might have been tempted to
introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might
have been strictly correct.--I feel that I should certainly have been
impertinent.”

“Oh!” cried Jane, with a blush and an hesitation which Emma thought
infinitely more becoming to her than all the elegance of all her usual
composure--“there would have been no danger. The danger would have
been of my wearying you. You could not have gratified me more than
by expressing an interest--. Indeed, Miss Woodhouse, (speaking more
collectedly,) with the consciousness which I have of misconduct, very
great misconduct, it is particularly consoling to me to know that those
of my friends, whose good opinion is most worth preserving, are not
disgusted to such a degree as to--I have not time for half that I could
wish to say. I long to make apologies, excuses, to urge something for
myself. I feel it so very due. But, unfortunately--in short, if your
compassion does not stand my friend--”

“Oh! you are too scrupulous, indeed you are,” cried Emma warmly, and
taking her hand. “You owe me no apologies; and every body to whom you
might be supposed to owe them, is so perfectly satisfied, so delighted
even--”

“You are very kind, but I know what my manners were to you.--So
cold and artificial!--I had always a part to act.--It was a life of
deceit!--I know that I must have disgusted you.”

“Pray say no more. I feel that all the apologies should be on my side.
Let us forgive each other at once. We must do whatever is to be done
quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there. I hope you
have pleasant accounts from Windsor?”

“Very.”

“And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose you--just as
I begin to know you.”

“Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet. I am here
till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”

“Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps,” replied Emma,
smiling--“but, excuse me, it must be thought of.”

The smile was returned as Jane answered,

“You are very right; it has been thought of. And I will own to you, (I
am sure it will be safe), that so far as our living with Mr. Churchill
at Enscombe, it is settled. There must be three months, at least, of
deep mourning; but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing
more to wait for.”

“Thank you, thank you.--This is just what I wanted to be assured
of.--Oh! if you knew how much I love every thing that is decided and
open!--Good-bye, good-bye.”



CHAPTER XVII


Mrs. Weston's friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the
satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by
knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in
wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with
any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella's
sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father
and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew
older--and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence--to
have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks
and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and Mrs. Weston--no
one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her; and it would be
quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have
their powers in exercise again.

“She has had the advantage, you know, of practising on me,” she
continued--“like La Baronne d'Almane on La Comtesse d'Ostalis, in Madame
de Genlis' Adelaide and Theodore, and we shall now see her own little
Adelaide educated on a more perfect plan.”

“That is,” replied Mr. Knightley, “she will indulge her even more than
she did you, and believe that she does not indulge her at all. It will
be the only difference.”

“Poor child!” cried Emma; “at that rate, what will become of her?”

“Nothing very bad.--The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable
in infancy, and correct herself as she grows older. I am losing all my
bitterness against spoilt children, my dearest Emma. I, who am owing all
my happiness to _you_, would not it be horrible ingratitude in me to be
severe on them?”

Emma laughed, and replied: “But I had the assistance of all your
endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether
my own sense would have corrected me without it.”

“Do you?--I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:--Miss Taylor
gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite
as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what
right has he to lecture me?--and I am afraid very natural for you to
feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did
you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the
tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without
doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many errors,
have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least.”

“I am sure you were of use to me,” cried Emma. “I was very often
influenced rightly by you--oftener than I would own at the time. I
am very sure you did me good. And if poor little Anna Weston is to be
spoiled, it will be the greatest humanity in you to do as much for her
as you have done for me, except falling in love with her when she is
thirteen.”

“How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your
saucy looks--'Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I
may, or I have Miss Taylor's leave'--something which, you knew, I
did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad
feelings instead of one.”

“What an amiable creature I was!--No wonder you should hold my speeches
in such affectionate remembrance.”

“'Mr. Knightley.'--You always called me, 'Mr. Knightley;' and, from
habit, it has not so very formal a sound.--And yet it is formal. I want
you to call me something else, but I do not know what.”

“I remember once calling you 'George,' in one of my amiable fits, about
ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as
you made no objection, I never did it again.”

“And cannot you call me 'George' now?”

“Impossible!--I never can call you any thing but 'Mr. Knightley.' I
will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by
calling you Mr. K.--But I will promise,” she added presently, laughing
and blushing--“I will promise to call you once by your Christian name.
I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where;--in the building in
which N. takes M. for better, for worse.”

Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important
service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the
advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly
follies--her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a
subject.--She could not enter on it.--Harriet was very seldom mentioned
between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being
thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy,
and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were
declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other
circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that
her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on
Isabella's letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being
obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to
the pain of having made Harriet unhappy.

Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be
expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which
appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted; but,
since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet
different from what she had known her before.--Isabella, to be sure,
was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing
with the children, it would not have escaped her. Emma's comforts and
hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet's being to stay longer;
her fortnight was likely to be a month at least. Mr. and Mrs. John
Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain
till they could bring her back.

“John does not even mention your friend,” said Mr. Knightley. “Here is
his answer, if you like to see it.”

It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma
accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know
what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her
friend was unmentioned.

“John enters like a brother into my happiness,” continued Mr. Knightley,
“but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have,
likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making
flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in
her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes.”

“He writes like a sensible man,” replied Emma, when she had read the
letter. “I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the
good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not
without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as
you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different
construction, I should not have believed him.”

“My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means--”

“He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two,”
 interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile--“much less, perhaps, than
he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the
subject.”

“Emma, my dear Emma--”

“Oh!” she cried with more thorough gaiety, “if you fancy your brother
does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret,
and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from doing
_you_ justice. He will think all the happiness, all the advantage, on
your side of the question; all the merit on mine. I wish I may not
sink into 'poor Emma' with him at once.--His tender compassion towards
oppressed worth can go no farther.”

“Ah!” he cried, “I wish your father might be half as easily convinced as
John will be, of our having every right that equal worth can give, to be
happy together. I am amused by one part of John's letter--did you notice
it?--where he says, that my information did not take him wholly by
surprize, that he was rather in expectation of hearing something of the
kind.”

“If I understand your brother, he only means so far as your having
some thoughts of marrying. He had no idea of me. He seems perfectly
unprepared for that.”

“Yes, yes--but I am amused that he should have seen so far into my
feelings. What has he been judging by?--I am not conscious of any
difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at
this time for my marrying any more than at another.--But it was so, I
suppose. I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them
the other day. I believe I did not play with the children quite so much
as usual. I remember one evening the poor boys saying, 'Uncle seems
always tired now.'”

The time was coming when the news must spread farther, and other
persons' reception of it tried. As soon as Mrs. Weston was sufficiently
recovered to admit Mr. Woodhouse's visits, Emma having it in view that
her gentle reasonings should be employed in the cause, resolved first to
announce it at home, and then at Randalls.--But how to break it to her
father at last!--She had bound herself to do it, in such an hour of Mr.
Knightley's absence, or when it came to the point her heart would have
failed her, and she must have put it off; but Mr. Knightley was to come
at such a time, and follow up the beginning she was to make.--She was
forced to speak, and to speak cheerfully too. She must not make it a
more decided subject of misery to him, by a melancholy tone herself.
She must not appear to think it a misfortune.--With all the spirits she
could command, she prepared him first for something strange, and then,
in a few words, said, that if his consent and approbation could be
obtained--which, she trusted, would be attended with no difficulty,
since it was a plan to promote the happiness of all--she and Mr.
Knightley meant to marry; by which means Hartfield would receive the
constant addition of that person's company whom she knew he loved, next
to his daughters and Mrs. Weston, best in the world.

Poor man!--it was at first a considerable shock to him, and he tried
earnestly to dissuade her from it. She was reminded, more than once, of
having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be
a great deal better for her to remain single; and told of poor Isabella,
and poor Miss Taylor.--But it would not do. Emma hung about him
affectionately, and smiled, and said it must be so; and that he must
not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages taking them
from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change: but she was not
going from Hartfield; she should be always there; she was introducing
no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better; and she
was very sure that he would be a great deal the happier for having Mr.
Knightley always at hand, when he were once got used to the idea.--Did
he not love Mr. Knightley very much?--He would not deny that he did,
she was sure.--Whom did he ever want to consult on business but Mr.
Knightley?--Who was so useful to him, who so ready to write his letters,
who so glad to assist him?--Who so cheerful, so attentive, so attached
to him?--Would not he like to have him always on the spot?--Yes. That
was all very true. Mr. Knightley could not be there too often; he should
be glad to see him every day;--but they did see him every day as it
was.--Why could not they go on as they had done?

Mr. Woodhouse could not be soon reconciled; but the worst was overcome,
the idea was given; time and continual repetition must do the rest.--To
Emma's entreaties and assurances succeeded Mr. Knightley's, whose fond
praise of her gave the subject even a kind of welcome; and he was soon
used to be talked to by each, on every fair occasion.--They had all
the assistance which Isabella could give, by letters of the strongest
approbation; and Mrs. Weston was ready, on the first meeting, to
consider the subject in the most serviceable light--first, as a settled,
and, secondly, as a good one--well aware of the nearly equal importance
of the two recommendations to Mr. Woodhouse's mind.--It was agreed
upon, as what was to be; and every body by whom he was used to be
guided assuring him that it would be for his happiness; and having some
feelings himself which almost admitted it, he began to think that some
time or other--in another year or two, perhaps--it might not be so very
bad if the marriage did take place.

Mrs. Weston was acting no part, feigning no feelings in all that she
said to him in favour of the event.--She had been extremely surprized,
never more so, than when Emma first opened the affair to her; but she
saw in it only increase of happiness to all, and had no scruple in
urging him to the utmost.--She had such a regard for Mr. Knightley, as
to think he deserved even her dearest Emma; and it was in every respect
so proper, suitable, and unexceptionable a connexion, and in one
respect, one point of the highest importance, so peculiarly eligible,
so singularly fortunate, that now it seemed as if Emma could not safely
have attached herself to any other creature, and that she had herself
been the stupidest of beings in not having thought of it, and wished it
long ago.--How very few of those men in a rank of life to address Emma
would have renounced their own home for Hartfield! And who but Mr.
Knightley could know and bear with Mr. Woodhouse, so as to make such
an arrangement desirable!--The difficulty of disposing of poor Mr.
Woodhouse had been always felt in her husband's plans and her own, for
a marriage between Frank and Emma. How to settle the claims of Enscombe
and Hartfield had been a continual impediment--less acknowledged by Mr.
Weston than by herself--but even he had never been able to finish
the subject better than by saying--“Those matters will take care of
themselves; the young people will find a way.” But here there was
nothing to be shifted off in a wild speculation on the future. It was
all right, all open, all equal. No sacrifice on any side worth the name.
It was a union of the highest promise of felicity in itself, and without
one real, rational difficulty to oppose or delay it.

Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in such reflections
as these, was one of the happiest women in the world. If any thing could
increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have
outgrown its first set of caps.

The news was universally a surprize wherever it spread; and Mr. Weston
had his five minutes share of it; but five minutes were enough to
familiarise the idea to his quickness of mind.--He saw the advantages
of the match, and rejoiced in them with all the constancy of his wife;
but the wonder of it was very soon nothing; and by the end of an hour he
was not far from believing that he had always foreseen it.

“It is to be a secret, I conclude,” said he. “These matters are always a
secret, till it is found out that every body knows them. Only let me be
told when I may speak out.--I wonder whether Jane has any suspicion.”

He went to Highbury the next morning, and satisfied himself on that
point. He told her the news. Was not she like a daughter, his eldest
daughter?--he must tell her; and Miss Bates being present, it passed,
of course, to Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Perry, and Mrs. Elton, immediately
afterwards. It was no more than the principals were prepared for; they
had calculated from the time of its being known at Randalls, how soon it
would be over Highbury; and were thinking of themselves, as the evening
wonder in many a family circle, with great sagacity.

In general, it was a very well approved match. Some might think him, and
others might think her, the most in luck. One set might recommend their
all removing to Donwell, and leaving Hartfield for the John Knightleys;
and another might predict disagreements among their servants; but yet,
upon the whole, there was no serious objection raised, except in one
habitation, the Vicarage.--There, the surprize was not softened by any
satisfaction. Mr. Elton cared little about it, compared with his wife;
he only hoped “the young lady's pride would now be contented;” and
supposed “she had always meant to catch Knightley if she could;” and,
on the point of living at Hartfield, could daringly exclaim, “Rather
he than I!”--But Mrs. Elton was very much discomposed indeed.--“Poor
Knightley! poor fellow!--sad business for him.”--She was extremely
concerned; for, though very eccentric, he had a thousand good
qualities.--How could he be so taken in?--Did not think him at all in
love--not in the least.--Poor Knightley!--There would be an end of all
pleasant intercourse with him.--How happy he had been to come and dine
with them whenever they asked him! But that would be all over now.--Poor
fellow!--No more exploring parties to Donwell made for _her_. Oh!
no; there would be a Mrs. Knightley to throw cold water on every
thing.--Extremely disagreeable! But she was not at all sorry that
she had abused the housekeeper the other day.--Shocking plan, living
together. It would never do. She knew a family near Maple Grove who
had tried it, and been obliged to separate before the end of the first
quarter.



CHAPTER XVIII


Time passed on. A few more to-morrows, and the party from London would
be arriving. It was an alarming change; and Emma was thinking of it one
morning, as what must bring a great deal to agitate and grieve her, when
Mr. Knightley came in, and distressing thoughts were put by. After the
first chat of pleasure he was silent; and then, in a graver tone, began
with,

“I have something to tell you, Emma; some news.”

“Good or bad?” said she, quickly, looking up in his face.

“I do not know which it ought to be called.”

“Oh! good I am sure.--I see it in your countenance. You are trying not
to smile.”

“I am afraid,” said he, composing his features, “I am very much afraid,
my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it.”

“Indeed! but why so?--I can hardly imagine that any thing which pleases
or amuses you, should not please and amuse me too.”

“There is one subject,” he replied, “I hope but one, on which we do not
think alike.” He paused a moment, again smiling, with his eyes fixed on
her face. “Does nothing occur to you?--Do not you recollect?--Harriet
Smith.”

Her cheeks flushed at the name, and she felt afraid of something, though
she knew not what.

“Have you heard from her yourself this morning?” cried he. “You have, I
believe, and know the whole.”

“No, I have not; I know nothing; pray tell me.”

“You are prepared for the worst, I see--and very bad it is. Harriet
Smith marries Robert Martin.”

Emma gave a start, which did not seem like being prepared--and her eyes,
in eager gaze, said, “No, this is impossible!” but her lips were closed.

“It is so, indeed,” continued Mr. Knightley; “I have it from Robert
Martin himself. He left me not half an hour ago.”

She was still looking at him with the most speaking amazement.

“You like it, my Emma, as little as I feared.--I wish our opinions were
the same. But in time they will. Time, you may be sure, will make one
or the other of us think differently; and, in the meanwhile, we need not
talk much on the subject.”

“You mistake me, you quite mistake me,” she replied, exerting herself.
“It is not that such a circumstance would now make me unhappy, but I
cannot believe it. It seems an impossibility!--You cannot mean to say,
that Harriet Smith has accepted Robert Martin. You cannot mean that he
has even proposed to her again--yet. You only mean, that he intends it.”

“I mean that he has done it,” answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but
determined decision, “and been accepted.”

“Good God!” she cried.--“Well!”--Then having recourse to her workbasket,
in excuse for leaning down her face, and concealing all the exquisite
feelings of delight and entertainment which she knew she must be
expressing, she added, “Well, now tell me every thing; make this
intelligible to me. How, where, when?--Let me know it all. I never was
more surprized--but it does not make me unhappy, I assure you.--How--how
has it been possible?”

“It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago,
and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send
to John.--He delivered these papers to John, at his chambers, and was
asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley's. They were
going to take the two eldest boys to Astley's. The party was to be our
brother and sister, Henry, John--and Miss Smith. My friend Robert could
not resist. They called for him in their way; were all extremely amused;
and my brother asked him to dine with them the next day--which he
did--and in the course of that visit (as I understand) he found an
opportunity of speaking to Harriet; and certainly did not speak
in vain.--She made him, by her acceptance, as happy even as he is
deserving. He came down by yesterday's coach, and was with me this
morning immediately after breakfast, to report his proceedings, first
on my affairs, and then on his own. This is all that I can relate of
the how, where, and when. Your friend Harriet will make a much
longer history when you see her.--She will give you all the minute
particulars, which only woman's language can make interesting.--In our
communications we deal only in the great.--However, I must say, that
Robert Martin's heart seemed for _him_, and to _me_, very overflowing;
and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that
on quitting their box at Astley's, my brother took charge of Mrs. John
Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry;
and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith
rather uneasy.”

He stopped.--Emma dared not attempt any immediate reply. To speak, she
was sure would be to betray a most unreasonable degree of happiness.
She must wait a moment, or he would think her mad. Her silence disturbed
him; and after observing her a little while, he added,

“Emma, my love, you said that this circumstance would not now make you
unhappy; but I am afraid it gives you more pain than you expected. His
situation is an evil--but you must consider it as what satisfies your
friend; and I will answer for your thinking better and better of him
as you know him more. His good sense and good principles would delight
you.--As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend
in better hands. His rank in society I would alter if I could, which is
saying a great deal I assure you, Emma.--You laugh at me about William
Larkins; but I could quite as ill spare Robert Martin.”

He wanted her to look up and smile; and having now brought herself not
to smile too broadly--she did--cheerfully answering,

“You need not be at any pains to reconcile me to the match. I think
Harriet is doing extremely well. _Her_ connexions may be worse than
_his_. In respectability of character, there can be no doubt that they
are. I have been silent from surprize merely, excessive surprize. You
cannot imagine how suddenly it has come on me! how peculiarly unprepared
I was!--for I had reason to believe her very lately more determined
against him, much more, than she was before.”

“You ought to know your friend best,” replied Mr. Knightley; “but I
should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be
very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her.”

Emma could not help laughing as she answered, “Upon my word, I believe
you know her quite as well as I do.--But, Mr. Knightley, are you
perfectly sure that she has absolutely and downright _accepted_ him.
I could suppose she might in time--but can she already?--Did not you
misunderstand him?--You were both talking of other things; of business,
shows of cattle, or new drills--and might not you, in the confusion of
so many subjects, mistake him?--It was not Harriet's hand that he was
certain of--it was the dimensions of some famous ox.”

The contrast between the countenance and air of Mr. Knightley and Robert
Martin was, at this moment, so strong to Emma's feelings, and so strong
was the recollection of all that had so recently passed on Harriet's
side, so fresh the sound of those words, spoken with such emphasis,
“No, I hope I know better than to think of Robert Martin,” that she was
really expecting the intelligence to prove, in some measure, premature.
It could not be otherwise.

“Do you dare say this?” cried Mr. Knightley. “Do you dare to suppose me
so great a blockhead, as not to know what a man is talking of?--What do
you deserve?”

“Oh! I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with
any other; and, therefore, you must give me a plain, direct answer. Are
you quite sure that you understand the terms on which Mr. Martin and
Harriet now are?”

“I am quite sure,” he replied, speaking very distinctly, “that he
told me she had accepted him; and that there was no obscurity, nothing
doubtful, in the words he used; and I think I can give you a proof that
it must be so. He asked my opinion as to what he was now to do. He knew
of no one but Mrs. Goddard to whom he could apply for information of
her relations or friends. Could I mention any thing more fit to be done,
than to go to Mrs. Goddard? I assured him that I could not. Then, he
said, he would endeavour to see her in the course of this day.”

“I am perfectly satisfied,” replied Emma, with the brightest smiles,
“and most sincerely wish them happy.”

“You are materially changed since we talked on this subject before.”

“I hope so--for at that time I was a fool.”

“And I am changed also; for I am now very willing to grant you all
Harriet's good qualities. I have taken some pains for your sake, and for
Robert Martin's sake, (whom I have always had reason to believe as much
in love with her as ever,) to get acquainted with her. I have often
talked to her a good deal. You must have seen that I did. Sometimes,
indeed, I have thought you were half suspecting me of pleading poor
Martin's cause, which was never the case; but, from all my observations,
I am convinced of her being an artless, amiable girl, with very good
notions, very seriously good principles, and placing her happiness in
the affections and utility of domestic life.--Much of this, I have no
doubt, she may thank you for.”

“Me!” cried Emma, shaking her head.--“Ah! poor Harriet!”

She checked herself, however, and submitted quietly to a little more
praise than she deserved.

Their conversation was soon afterwards closed by the entrance of her
father. She was not sorry. She wanted to be alone. Her mind was in a
state of flutter and wonder, which made it impossible for her to be
collected. She was in dancing, singing, exclaiming spirits; and till she
had moved about, and talked to herself, and laughed and reflected, she
could be fit for nothing rational.

Her father's business was to announce James's being gone out to put the
horses to, preparatory to their now daily drive to Randalls; and she
had, therefore, an immediate excuse for disappearing.

The joy, the gratitude, the exquisite delight of her sensations may be
imagined. The sole grievance and alloy thus removed in the prospect of
Harriet's welfare, she was really in danger of becoming too happy for
security.--What had she to wish for? Nothing, but to grow more worthy of
him, whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own.
Nothing, but that the lessons of her past folly might teach her humility
and circumspection in future.

Serious she was, very serious in her thankfulness, and in her
resolutions; and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the
very midst of them. She must laugh at such a close! Such an end of the
doleful disappointment of five weeks back! Such a heart--such a Harriet!

Now there would be pleasure in her returning--Every thing would be a
pleasure. It would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin.

High in the rank of her most serious and heartfelt felicities, was the
reflection that all necessity of concealment from Mr. Knightley would
soon be over. The disguise, equivocation, mystery, so hateful to her to
practise, might soon be over. She could now look forward to giving him
that full and perfect confidence which her disposition was most ready to
welcome as a duty.

In the gayest and happiest spirits she set forward with her father; not
always listening, but always agreeing to what he said; and, whether in
speech or silence, conniving at the comfortable persuasion of his
being obliged to go to Randalls every day, or poor Mrs. Weston would be
disappointed.

They arrived.--Mrs. Weston was alone in the drawing-room:--but hardly
had they been told of the baby, and Mr. Woodhouse received the thanks
for coming, which he asked for, when a glimpse was caught through the
blind, of two figures passing near the window.

“It is Frank and Miss Fairfax,” said Mrs. Weston. “I was just going to
tell you of our agreeable surprize in seeing him arrive this morning. He
stays till to-morrow, and Miss Fairfax has been persuaded to spend the
day with us.--They are coming in, I hope.”

In half a minute they were in the room. Emma was extremely glad to
see him--but there was a degree of confusion--a number of embarrassing
recollections on each side. They met readily and smiling, but with a
consciousness which at first allowed little to be said; and having all
sat down again, there was for some time such a blank in the circle, that
Emma began to doubt whether the wish now indulged, which she had long
felt, of seeing Frank Churchill once more, and of seeing him with Jane,
would yield its proportion of pleasure. When Mr. Weston joined the
party, however, and when the baby was fetched, there was no longer a
want of subject or animation--or of courage and opportunity for Frank
Churchill to draw near her and say,

“I have to thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for a very kind forgiving message
in one of Mrs. Weston's letters. I hope time has not made you less
willing to pardon. I hope you do not retract what you then said.”

“No, indeed,” cried Emma, most happy to begin, “not in the least. I am
particularly glad to see and shake hands with you--and to give you joy
in person.”

He thanked her with all his heart, and continued some time to speak with
serious feeling of his gratitude and happiness.

“Is not she looking well?” said he, turning his eyes towards Jane.
“Better than she ever used to do?--You see how my father and Mrs. Weston
doat upon her.”

But his spirits were soon rising again, and with laughing eyes, after
mentioning the expected return of the Campbells, he named the name of
Dixon.--Emma blushed, and forbade its being pronounced in her hearing.

“I can never think of it,” she cried, “without extreme shame.”

“The shame,” he answered, “is all mine, or ought to be. But is it
possible that you had no suspicion?--I mean of late. Early, I know, you
had none.”

“I never had the smallest, I assure you.”

“That appears quite wonderful. I was once very near--and I wish I
had--it would have been better. But though I was always doing wrong
things, they were very bad wrong things, and such as did me no
service.--It would have been a much better transgression had I broken
the bond of secrecy and told you every thing.”

“It is not now worth a regret,” said Emma.

“I have some hope,” resumed he, “of my uncle's being persuaded to pay a
visit at Randalls; he wants to be introduced to her. When the Campbells
are returned, we shall meet them in London, and continue there, I trust,
till we may carry her northward.--But now, I am at such a distance from
her--is not it hard, Miss Woodhouse?--Till this morning, we have not
once met since the day of reconciliation. Do not you pity me?”

Emma spoke her pity so very kindly, that with a sudden accession of gay
thought, he cried,

“Ah! by the bye,” then sinking his voice, and looking demure for the
moment--“I hope Mr. Knightley is well?” He paused.--She coloured and
laughed.--“I know you saw my letter, and think you may remember my wish
in your favour. Let me return your congratulations.--I assure you that
I have heard the news with the warmest interest and satisfaction.--He is
a man whom I cannot presume to praise.”

Emma was delighted, and only wanted him to go on in the same style; but
his mind was the next moment in his own concerns and with his own Jane,
and his next words were,

“Did you ever see such a skin?--such smoothness! such delicacy!--and
yet without being actually fair.--One cannot call her fair. It is a
most uncommon complexion, with her dark eye-lashes and hair--a most
distinguishing complexion! So peculiarly the lady in it.--Just colour
enough for beauty.”

“I have always admired her complexion,” replied Emma, archly; “but
do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so
pale?--When we first began to talk of her.--Have you quite forgotten?”

“Oh! no--what an impudent dog I was!--How could I dare--”

But he laughed so heartily at the recollection, that Emma could not help
saying,

“I do suspect that in the midst of your perplexities at that time, you
had very great amusement in tricking us all.--I am sure you had.--I am
sure it was a consolation to you.”

“Oh! no, no, no--how can you suspect me of such a thing? I was the most
miserable wretch!”

“Not quite so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a
source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us
all in.--Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the
truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same
situation. I think there is a little likeness between us.”

He bowed.

“If not in our dispositions,” she presently added, with a look of true
sensibility, “there is a likeness in our destiny; the destiny which bids
fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own.”

“True, true,” he answered, warmly. “No, not true on your side. You can
have no superior, but most true on mine.--She is a complete angel. Look
at her. Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her
throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father.--You will
be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my
uncle means to give her all my aunt's jewels. They are to be new set.
I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be
beautiful in her dark hair?”

“Very beautiful, indeed,” replied Emma; and she spoke so kindly, that he
gratefully burst out,

“How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent
looks!--I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should
certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come.”

The others had been talking of the child, Mrs. Weston giving an account
of a little alarm she had been under, the evening before, from the
infant's appearing not quite well. She believed she had been foolish,
but it had alarmed her, and she had been within half a minute of sending
for Mr. Perry. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but Mr. Weston had been
almost as uneasy as herself.--In ten minutes, however, the child had
been perfectly well again. This was her history; and particularly
interesting it was to Mr. Woodhouse, who commended her very much for
thinking of sending for Perry, and only regretted that she had not done
it. “She should always send for Perry, if the child appeared in the
slightest degree disordered, were it only for a moment. She could not be
too soon alarmed, nor send for Perry too often. It was a pity, perhaps,
that he had not come last night; for, though the child seemed well now,
very well considering, it would probably have been better if Perry had
seen it.”

Frank Churchill caught the name.

“Perry!” said he to Emma, and trying, as he spoke, to catch Miss
Fairfax's eye. “My friend Mr. Perry! What are they saying about Mr.
Perry?--Has he been here this morning?--And how does he travel now?--Has
he set up his carriage?”

Emma soon recollected, and understood him; and while she joined in the
laugh, it was evident from Jane's countenance that she too was really
hearing him, though trying to seem deaf.

“Such an extraordinary dream of mine!” he cried. “I can never think of
it without laughing.--She hears us, she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see
it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her. Do
not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter,
which sent me the report, is passing under her eye--that the whole
blunder is spread before her--that she can attend to nothing else,
though pretending to listen to the others?”

Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment; and the smile partly
remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet
steady voice,

“How you can bear such recollections, is astonishing to me!--They
_will_ sometimes obtrude--but how you can court them!”

He had a great deal to say in return, and very entertainingly; but
Emma's feelings were chiefly with Jane, in the argument; and on leaving
Randalls, and falling naturally into a comparison of the two men, she
felt, that pleased as she had been to see Frank Churchill, and really
regarding him as she did with friendship, she had never been more
sensible of Mr. Knightley's high superiority of character. The happiness
of this most happy day, received its completion, in the animated
contemplation of his worth which this comparison produced.



CHAPTER XIX


If Emma had still, at intervals, an anxious feeling for Harriet, a
momentary doubt of its being possible for her to be really cured of her
attachment to Mr. Knightley, and really able to accept another man from
unbiased inclination, it was not long that she had to suffer from the
recurrence of any such uncertainty. A very few days brought the party
from London, and she had no sooner an opportunity of being one hour
alone with Harriet, than she became perfectly satisfied--unaccountable
as it was!--that Robert Martin had thoroughly supplanted Mr. Knightley,
and was now forming all her views of happiness.

Harriet was a little distressed--did look a little foolish at first:
but having once owned that she had been presumptuous and silly, and
self-deceived, before, her pain and confusion seemed to die away with
the words, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the
fullest exultation in the present and future; for, as to her friend's
approbation, Emma had instantly removed every fear of that nature, by
meeting her with the most unqualified congratulations.--Harriet was
most happy to give every particular of the evening at Astley's, and the
dinner the next day; she could dwell on it all with the utmost delight.
But what did such particulars explain?--The fact was, as Emma could now
acknowledge, that Harriet had always liked Robert Martin; and that his
continuing to love her had been irresistible.--Beyond this, it must ever
be unintelligible to Emma.

The event, however, was most joyful; and every day was giving her fresh
reason for thinking so.--Harriet's parentage became known. She proved
to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the
comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to
have always wished for concealment.--Such was the blood of gentility
which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!--It was likely to
be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what
a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightley--or for the
Churchills--or even for Mr. Elton!--The stain of illegitimacy,
unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed.

No objection was raised on the father's side; the young man was treated
liberally; it was all as it should be: and as Emma became acquainted
with Robert Martin, who was now introduced at Hartfield, she fully
acknowledged in him all the appearance of sense and worth which could
bid fairest for her little friend. She had no doubt of Harriet's
happiness with any good-tempered man; but with him, and in the home he
offered, there would be the hope of more, of security, stability, and
improvement. She would be placed in the midst of those who loved her,
and who had better sense than herself; retired enough for safety,
and occupied enough for cheerfulness. She would be never led into
temptation, nor left for it to find her out. She would be respectable
and happy; and Emma admitted her to be the luckiest creature in the
world, to have created so steady and persevering an affection in such a
man;--or, if not quite the luckiest, to yield only to herself.

Harriet, necessarily drawn away by her engagements with the Martins,
was less and less at Hartfield; which was not to be regretted.--The
intimacy between her and Emma must sink; their friendship must change
into a calmer sort of goodwill; and, fortunately, what ought to be,
and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural
manner.

Before the end of September, Emma attended Harriet to church, and saw
her hand bestowed on Robert Martin with so complete a satisfaction, as
no remembrances, even connected with Mr. Elton as he stood before them,
could impair.--Perhaps, indeed, at that time she scarcely saw Mr. Elton,
but as the clergyman whose blessing at the altar might next fall on
herself.--Robert Martin and Harriet Smith, the latest couple engaged of
the three, were the first to be married.

Jane Fairfax had already quitted Highbury, and was restored to the
comforts of her beloved home with the Campbells.--The Mr. Churchills
were also in town; and they were only waiting for November.

The intermediate month was the one fixed on, as far as they dared, by
Emma and Mr. Knightley.--They had determined that their marriage ought
to be concluded while John and Isabella were still at Hartfield, to
allow them the fortnight's absence in a tour to the seaside, which was
the plan.--John and Isabella, and every other friend, were agreed in
approving it. But Mr. Woodhouse--how was Mr. Woodhouse to be induced
to consent?--he, who had never yet alluded to their marriage but as a
distant event.

When first sounded on the subject, he was so miserable, that they were
almost hopeless.--A second allusion, indeed, gave less pain.--He
began to think it was to be, and that he could not prevent it--a very
promising step of the mind on its way to resignation. Still, however, he
was not happy. Nay, he appeared so much otherwise, that his daughter's
courage failed. She could not bear to see him suffering, to know
him fancying himself neglected; and though her understanding almost
acquiesced in the assurance of both the Mr. Knightleys, that when
once the event were over, his distress would be soon over too, she
hesitated--she could not proceed.

In this state of suspense they were befriended, not by any sudden
illumination of Mr. Woodhouse's mind, or any wonderful change of his
nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another
way.--Mrs. Weston's poultry-house was robbed one night of all her
turkeys--evidently by the ingenuity of man. Other poultry-yards in
the neighbourhood also suffered.--Pilfering was _housebreaking_ to Mr.
Woodhouse's fears.--He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his
son-in-law's protection, would have been under wretched alarm every
night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the
Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependence. While either of them
protected him and his, Hartfield was safe.--But Mr. John Knightley must
be in London again by the end of the first week in November.

The result of this distress was, that, with a much more voluntary,
cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for at the
moment, she was able to fix her wedding-day--and Mr. Elton was called
on, within a month from the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin, to
join the hands of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse.

The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have
no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars
detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very
inferior to her own.--“Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a
most pitiful business!--Selina would stare when she heard of it.”--But,
in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence,
the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the
ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.



FINIS






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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Princess White Flame, by Gertrude Crownfield

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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Title: Princess White Flame

Author: Gertrude Crownfield

Illustrator: Anne Merriman Peck

Release Date: October 6, 2018 [EBook #58042]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRINCESS WHITE FLAME ***




Produced by Mary Glenn Krause, amsibert, David E. Brown,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)









TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Page number errors in the Table of Contents have been corrected.

  Illustrations have been moved to the nearest paragraph breaks, thus
    the page numbers in the List of Illustrations have been adjusted to
    reflect these moves.





PRINCESS WHITE FLAME




    PRINCESS
    WHITE FLAME

    BY
    GERTRUDE·CROWNFIELD

    [Illustration]

    ILLUSTRATIONS·BY·
    ANNE·MERRIMAN·PECK·

    E·P·DUTTON·&·COMPANY
    NEW YORK




    Copyright, 1920,
    By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

    _All Rights Reserved_

    [Illustration]

    _Printed in the United States of America_




    TO
    MY DEAR SISTER
    KATHARINE




[Illustration]




CONTENTS


                   PAGE

    PROLOGUE          1

    CHAPTER

         I.           5

        II.          19

       III.          37

        IV.          53

         V.          56

        VI.          77

       VII.          96

      VIII.         106

        IX.         119

         X.         136

        XI.         152

       XII.         170

      XIII.         187

       XIV.         204

        XV.         222




[Illustration]




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                    PAGE

    “Here am I, Prince Radiance, come to serve you.”                  65

    Suddenly the Giant hurled his Cloak violently forward            129

    The Sword of Flames leapt from its scabbard and was raised
      on high                                                        162

    Prince Radiance fell on his knees before her                     217




PRINCESS WHITE FLAME




PRINCESS WHITE FLAME




PROLOGUE


Of all the fairy countries in the world none is more wonderful or
beautiful than the country where the Fire Fairies live. Into that land
no fairies of the earth, or air, or water dare venture. They would be
seared, or changed to ash or vapor.

Many are the doors that open into the Fire Kingdom--thousands, and
hundreds of thousands in number. Wherever you see the firelight
flicker, wherever you see flames leaping and dancing, wherever you hear
the snap of the burning logs, there you may be sure is an open door.
Then if you choose to creep close to it, and peer in, you may perhaps
see wonderful things; fairy forms that flit and vanish, and reappear,
and vanish again among the leaping flames, and smoldering embers.
Perhaps, also, you may see the shining domes and glittering turrets of
the fairy palaces.

But when the fire burns down, and the hearth grows dark the door is
closed--there is no more to be seen of that wonderland.

In the very heart of the Fire Country stands the palace of King Red
Flame, the gleaming flame-colored palace, the Palace of Burning Coals.
Round it lies a wonderful garden, where paths wind away among great
fields of fire lilies, and flame roses lift their heads, and the tall
shining trees rustle in the wind with a sound like the whispering of
the fire on the hearth. Here in this glowing country the good and happy
fairies work and play, and serve their king as all good fairies should.

But not all fairies in this land are good and happy. Beyond the glow
of the roses and the lilies, beyond all sight of the glimmering trees,
there lies another part of the country where live the evil fairies of
that land. Here are great Plains of Ash, and huge Caverns of Soot,
and stretches of gloom where comes and goes the Shadow Witch. Here
Imps of Darkness lurk, here Dragons crouch, and Wizards dwell. Perhaps
sometimes when you have looked into the Fireplace you have seen those
dismal plains and darksome valleys. They lie away from the heart of the
Fire, at the side of the Hearth, and between the flames and the heaps
of ashes.

And now listen, and I will tell you of Prince Radiance, and Princess
White Flame who lived in the Fire Country and of many strange and
wonderful adventures through which they journeyed on to reach at last a
never-ending happiness.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER I


Once upon a time a wicked Earth Fairy went forth to see what mischief
she could do. She flitted on and on until she came to a House Door. She
had come to one of the homes where the good and useful House Fairies
dwell. The Door was open, and she crept up to it slyly, and peered in.
There she saw a great room, in perfect order, for the House Fairies had
put everything to rights before they went away to their tasks upstairs.
The floor was swept, the pictures hung trim and straight upon the
walls, the chairs were dusted and set about invitingly, and on the
Hearth the Fire burned warm and clear.

“Hhm!” muttered the Earth Fairy. “Here is the very chance I’ve been
looking for!”

She slipped inside the Door and set to work at once. She sprinkled
ashes on the clean-swept floor, and set the chairs askew. She pulled
the pictures crooked, and turned their faces to the wall. Into every
corner of the room she went, making mischief, and leaving disorder
behind her. No one came to interrupt her, so that she kept on and on
with her malicious task until the room was in complete confusion.
Wearied with the mischief she had done, she paused and looked about her
for a place to rest. On the Hearth lay a great bank of warm ashes, soft
as a feather-bed. She went to it at once, and threw herself down upon
it, thinking to rest only a moment before she journeyed on. Now this
was a very dangerous thing for an Earth Fairy to do, because none but
Fire Fairies can safely rest so close to Fire and Flame. But this the
Earth Fairy did not know, so she sank down, meaning to rest but for a
short time, but she was so weary that before she knew it she had fallen
off into a deep sleep, and while she slept the Fire stole from her all
her Earth magic, and her Earth powers.

Since the Fire was burning, that Door to the Fire Country was of course
wide open, so that King Red Flame riding out that morning on his
flame-colored horse caught a glimpse of the Earth Fairy’s yellow hair
as she lay in the ashes. He drew near to see who was slumbering there.
At the first glance he knew that she was not a Fire Fairy. It was
plain, too, that she was not a House Fairy. Whoever she was, he knew
that she was in great danger, and that she must be rescued at once.

He called to her, but she neither answered nor stirred. He alighted
from his horse, and bending over her shook her gently, but she gave no
sign of life. He shook her more roughly, and called louder, but quite
in vain.

“I shall have to take her to the palace,” murmured King Red Flame to
himself. “Here I can do nothing. Queen Glow and I must consult together
over the matter.”

He lifted the Earth Fairy in his arms, and laid her across his horse.
Then mounting again, he rode away with her in the direction of the
Palace of Burning Coals, satisfied that there, in counsel with his
queen, he could bring succor to the stranger in her great need.

Queen Glow was a very beautiful fairy, and as wise and good as she was
beautiful. Always her thought was how she could help and comfort those
who were in trouble or distress. As soon as King Red Flame arrived at
the palace, Queen Glow had the insensible Earth Fairy carried to her
own room, and laid upon her royal bed. Here she bent over her, chafing
her hands, and trying in every way to revive her.

There was deep silence in the room, except for the suppressed
whispering of a little group of Fire Fairies gathered about the door.
One by one other fairies that belonged to the palace came to join them,
and among the rest came Grey Smoke, old and wise, she who had nursed
Queen Glow as a child.

As soon as Grey Smoke saw the Earth Fairy, she said, “She has rested
too long on the Hearth. She has rested too long in the heat. Never
again can she return to her own life. There is only one thing left for
us to do. We must change her into a Fire Fairy. In this way only can
she again be wakened into life. Then she can live happily among us, and
fill her uses in the Fire Kingdom.”

“How is so great a change as that to be wrought?” asked King Red Flame.
“Have you knowledge of such a spell as will accomplish this?”

Dame Grey Smoke shook her head. “No, Your Majesty, not I,” she said.
“But there is in the palace, greater knowledge than I possess. It was
written long ago in the Book of Spells, that lies locked away in your
treasury.”

“True,” cried the King. “Why had I not thought of that? Let the book
be brought!”

The King and Queen waited in silence while a trusted messenger was
dispatched to fetch it from the treasure chamber where it lay. When it
was brought the King drew from his bosom a tiny key, which hung about
his neck from a golden thread. As the King unlocked the book, a thin
mist of magic floated out from its pages, and circled about his head
for a moment before it disappeared. A thrill of awe passed through the
watching fairies.

Slowly the King turned page after page, until at last he paused. “It is
here,” said he. He and the Queen stooped above the book, reading the
strange and crabbed letters written so many ages ago by the masters
of fairy magic. When they had read the charm through to the end, the
King lifted his head: “None but those who work this charm may see it
wrought,” commanded he. Then one by one the fairies passed from the
royal bedchamber, leaving the King and Queen alone.

All was silent in the room. The charm had been spoken--the spell had
been wrought. The King and Queen stood watching the still motionless
form of the Earth Fairy.

At last through her passed a thrill of wakening life. She turned upon
her side. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened wide, and her eyes rested
in bewilderment upon the two bending over her. From them her eyes
wandered to the room about her. She raised herself upon her elbow.
“Where am I?” she demanded in a trembling voice.

“You are in the Kingdom of the Fire Fairies,” answered Queen Glow
gently. “But do not be afraid. You are safe here, for we have changed
you into a Fire Fairy, and there is now no more danger for you here
from heat or flame than there is for our own royal selves.”

The Earth Fairy’s face grew black with anger. “A Fire Fairy!” she
cried. “I, a Fire Fairy! That must never be. I am of the Earth. How
dared you meddle with an Earth Fairy? Let me go instantly. I am going
back to my own country--to my own kind.”

“That cannot be,” answered the King. “There is no spell to transform
you to what you were, and it was only by changing you into a Fire Fairy
that we were able to awaken you from sleep. If we had not done this,
you would have slept and slept yourself away into a film of ashes.”

Carefully then he explained to her where he had found her, and how
every means had been tried to rouse her, but in vain, and only by the
power of the Book of Spells had it been possible to save her. But
nothing that the King or Queen could say--no words, however kind or
wise, made the slightest difference to the Earth Fairy. She sprang from
the bed, and stamped her foot. She wept, she stormed.

By and by, however, she became sulky, and sank into silence, and would
not even answer what the King and Queen said to her. They were obliged
to leave her alone, and though she ate the food that was presently sent
to her, she would neither speak, nor look at the attendants who brought
it.

But as time passed the Earth Fairy grew less sullen, and even seemed
to be in some measure content with her new home, and her life in the
palace, but Queen Glow felt sorry for her, and kept her near as her own
personal attendant. If any difference was made by the Queen between
her and the Fire Fairies, it was that she treated her with especial
kindness and affection. But the new lady in waiting never forgot her
old life, and although she was now a Fire Fairy, she always insisted
upon being called Earth Fairy, and that was the name by which everyone
knew her.

At last there came a time when she really seemed to respond to
kindness, and to feel a certain love for the Queen. She sought to
please her, and was always cheerful and complacent, and on their part
the King and Queen trusted her more and more. There was nothing in the
palace that they would not have given her, nor anything that they
would not have granted to her, if she had asked; that is, nothing that
was at all possible.

But as a matter of fact, all this affection and pleasantness was only
seeming. The Earth Fairy hated both the King and Queen, and longed to
be revenged upon them for the change they had wrought in her, even
though it had been done to save her. Constantly her anger burned
against them, and she only awaited a chance to wreak vengeance upon
them. The Earth Fairy was crafty, and had the patience of craft. She
was willing to wait and watch a long while if necessary, if only her
chance would come in the end.

While waiting she watched and listened, learning such spells as she
could from the fairies around her, and practicing them in secret. There
was not a book of magic in the Palace of Burning Coals that she did
not seek out and pore over; not a wand that she did not try. Only the
King’s own Book of Spells was locked away from her, and one precious
wand that had belonged to the mother of King Red Flame, and had been
left by her in charge of the Fairy Grey Smoke, oldest and wisest of
any save one in the Kingdom of the Fire Fairies. No one else, not even
the King himself knew of this wand, for his mother had made Grey Smoke
promise that she would never tell him of it, nor bring it from its
secret hiding-place until some great need arose that called for a spell
that nothing could possibly break.

If the Earth Fairy had known of this wand she would have spared no
pains to get hold of it; but Grey Smoke was wise and faithful, and kept
the trust that the King’s mother had reposed in her.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER II


It was a shining morning in Spring. King Red Flame put on his scarlet
cloak and cap, kissed Queen Glow good-by, mounted his flame-colored
horse, and rode away in the direction of the Dying Embers where he had
been called upon important business.

The Earth Fairy, peeping from an upper window of the Palace of Burning
Coals, watched him out of sight. Then she clapped her hands gleefully.
“When you come back, King Red Flame--ah, yes--when you come back, I
think perhaps you will find a surprise awaiting you.” For at last the
Earth Fairy saw a chance for the revenge for which she had long been
watching, and if things but fell out as she hoped, there was no wand
nor spell that could restore to the King the priceless treasure that
she purposed to destroy.

That night all was still and tranquil in the Palace of Burning Coals,
but the next morning a sudden stir arose. Sooner than the Queen had
been led to expect it a very wonderful thing had happened in the
palace, for very early, with the dawning, a tiny baby Princess came to
be the daughter of King Red Flame, and Queen Glow.

All was tumult and rejoicing. The Queen lay proud and happy on the
satin pillows of her great golden bed, and looked and looked at the
beautiful little Princess in the golden cradle at her side. Everyone
was delighted at the coming of this Princess, but none seemed more so
than the Earth Fairy herself. She stayed close by the Queen’s side,
ready to anticipate her every want, and joined with the rest in her
admiration of the baby Princess.

As soon as the child arrived, a messenger was sent in haste to recall
King Red Flame to the palace, but before the man rode forth the Earth
Fairy hastened down, and even as he was placing his foot in the
stirrup, she told him that Queen Glow had decided not to send word to
the King, as his business was too important to be interrupted. Instead
the messenger was to ride off in exactly the opposite direction, and
fetch back a golden cup which Queen Glow had ordered to be ready when
she should send for it.

This was a false errand, but the Earth Fairy did not wish anyone to
know that she had countermanded the Queen’s order, and if he were seen
to set out on a journey, all would suppose that he had gone in search
of the King.

Soon after the messenger had departed, the Queen said to the Earth
Fairy, who was sitting beside her, “Send everybody away except
yourself. I wish to rest. You yourself are so quiet, dear Earth Fairy,
you will not disturb me, and you can watch over my little daughter, and
see that no harm comes to her while I sleep.”

“I shall be only too happy, Your Highness, to do anything that pleases
you,” answered the Earth Fairy sweetly.

So it was that the Queen, and the Earth Fairy, and the baby Princess
were presently left alone together, and as Queen Glow turned on her
side and closed her eyes, the Earth Fairy seated herself beside the
cradle with a piece of embroidery.

Before Queen Glow fell asleep, she murmured softly, “To-morrow, Earth
Fairy, King Red Flame will be here. Only think how happy he will be to
see his little daughter!”

“Ah, Your Highness; what happiness!” purred the Earth Fairy from her
chair beside the cradle.

Now the room grew very still, and Queen Glow fell into a profound
slumber. Then the Earth Fairy laid down her embroidery, and rose
softly from her chair. She tiptoed to the bed, bent over the Queen,
and listened intently to her breathing, till she was certain that her
mistress slept. Then she crept from the room, and was gone for some
little time. When she returned, she brought, concealed in the folds
of her dress, a bundle of the most powerful wands that the palace
contained. She stood a moment and listened. The Queen and the Princess
slept as before.

The Earth Fairy locked the door quickly, and made haste to open
the bundle of wands. She took out the one that she knew to be the
most potent, and carried it to the bedside of the Queen. It was
serpent-shaped and slender, and as the Earth Fairy waved it above the
Queen long green tongues of flame darted from its tip.

“Sleep,” whispered the Earth Fairy. “Sleep till I bid you waken.” At
these words the Queen sank into an even deeper slumber than before.

Then the Earth Fairy turned to the defenseless Princess. With one sweep
of the glimmering wand, she bound the cradle within a magic circle, so
that she might weave a spell that no power could break.

But at the very moment that the first word of her charm fell from
her lips there came a sudden knock at the door. The Earth Fairy was
startled. She thrust the wand behind her, stole swiftly to the door,
and laid her ear to the keyhole.

“Who is there?” she demanded in a low voice.

“It is I--Grey Smoke,” was the answer. “I bear a message to the Queen.”

“Queen Glow has given orders that she is not to be disturbed,” returned
the Earth Fairy. “She sleeps, and I can awaken her for no one.”

Satisfied with the answer that she had received, Grey Smoke took her
departure, and the wicked Earth Fairy returned to the cradle of the
Princess. She had no more than drawn a second time her circle of
enchantment, had but once waved her wand above the little Princess,
than there came another, and a louder knock.

Furious that her spell should again be interrupted, the Earth Fairy
threw down her wand, and hurried to the door. “Who is it now who comes
to disturb the Queen?” she demanded sharply. “Has not everyone been
told that her Majesty wishes to sleep?”

“It is I--Spark--the page,” was the reply. “My business is important.
A golden necklace has just arrived for Her Highness the Princess, with
orders to deliver it to the Queen at once.”

“Her Majesty is not to be disturbed for any purpose,” retorted the
Earth Fairy. “Go away at once, and put it in a place of safety till she
awakens.”

The page was not satisfied. “Since the Queen cannot be disturbed,”
replied he, “you must yourself take it, and keep it until she awakens.
Open the door, and I will give it to you.”

Obliged to control her anger, lest Spark should become suspicious that
mischief was on foot, the Earth Fairy opened the door the merest crack,
and received a marvelous golden box from his hands. At any other time
she certainly would have turned it over curiously, and if no one had
been by she would have peeped within, but now she was only anxious to
guard the entrance to the room as well as she could, and to shut the
door quickly, before the sharp eyes of Spark should see too much.

Careful as she was, however, she did not succeed in preventing him
from catching a glimpse of the bundle of wands lying upon the Queen’s
bed. The sight of them in this unexpected place excited his suspicions
at once, but he was far too clever to say anything concerning them to
the Earth Fairy. She would give him no satisfaction, he was sure. But
he lost no time in going to Grey Smoke, who was his grandmother, and
telling her what he had seen.

Grey Smoke looked very grave. She had never trusted Earth Fairy, and
now a strange fear took possession of her. “I will go to the Queen at
once,” declared she. “I--her old nurse, must see to it that no harm
comes to her in the King’s absence.”

But swiftly as Grey Smoke hastened to the side of her mistress, she
was too late, for as soon as the page had departed, the Earth Fairy
snatched up her wand and rushed to the cradle of the Princess. Quickly
she drew once more her magic circle. Quickly she waved the flaming
wand three times above the sleeping child. “Become invisible!” she
hissed--“Become invisible!”

Instantly the little Princess vanished from before her eyes, leaving
only the golden cradle standing empty beside the Queen’s bed.

The Earth Fairy was filled with delight when she saw that she had
accomplished what she had set out to do.

“Now I will awaken Queen Glow,” said she triumphantly. “She shall see
that she is not the only one who can work spells.”

Though the form of the Princess had indeed vanished from the cradle,
the Earth Fairy did not notice that a tender white flame was hovering
above the place where the child had lain, for there was one thing that
the wicked fairy, with all her knowledge of magic did not know: that
is, that no Fire Fairy can ever be made entirely invisible. Though its
form may vanish, its spirit is always seen as a fine flame.

The Earth Fairy, in her impatience to show the hapless Queen how she
had revenged herself, had turned her back upon the cradle as soon as
her spell was fully wrought, and was not aware of the presence of the
tiny flame. She took up the wand with which to arouse the Queen. She
leaned over her, and touched her with it.

“Awake!” she cried.

Immediately, as if she had only waited for the word, the Queen opened
her eyes, and saw with astonishment and amaze the evil triumph written
upon the face of the Earth Fairy. Instantly she started from her
pillows, and glanced in the direction of the cradle. She saw that it
was empty, and saw the tiny white flame flickering where the little
Princess had been. Then her eyes fell upon the bundle of wands, and she
knew what had been done to her helpless child.

She gave a great cry that rang through the room. Grey Smoke, hurrying
down the palace hall, heard it and hastened still faster. Without
waiting to knock, without even trying the door, she wound herself like
a thin gray thread through the keyhole, was on the other side of the
door in a moment, and stood beside her mistress in her own shape.

The Queen lay back among her satin pillows, quite without life. Grief
at that what had happened to her beloved child had broken her heart.

The Earth Fairy and her wands were nowhere to be seen, for as soon as
the Queen had cried out, she had made haste to escape by another door
that led to a distant part of the palace.

Grey Smoke was filled with horror at what she saw. At first she was
unable to move, or even to think. But she recovered herself quickly.
Something must be done. She rushed to the door, tore it open, and
called aloud for help.

Spark, who was lingering in the hall, came at once, eager to learn
what she had discovered, but his grandmother’s face showed him that it
was no time for questions.

“Go quickly, Spark,” commanded she. “Bring every fairy in the palace.
Something terrible has happened. Bring everyone, but especially the
Earth Fairy; on no account must she be allowed to escape.”

Away flashed Spark in hot haste, and did his errand so well, that
presently the bedroom of the Queen was filled with anxious fairies.
Under the direction of old Grey Smoke, everything known to fairy lore
was done to revive Queen Glow, but nothing was of the least avail.
Knowing but too well, by the flame hovering above the cradle, what had
happened to the Princess, a band of the most trustworthy and faithful
fairies set themselves as a guard about her, lest the one who had done
this wicked deed might seek to approach and do further harm, if that
were possible.

It was not until all the other fairies were gathered in the room that
the Earth Fairy appeared, with Spark close at her side, guarding her
lest she should try to escape. But the Earth Fairy made no attempt to
do this. When she entered the room she seemed to be overwhelmed by
surprise at what she saw, and to be the most grief-stricken of them all.

Grey Smoke pointed an accusing finger at her. “Wicked one,” she cried,
“It is you who have done this to our Queen, and to our little Princess.
It is you who must pay the penalty when King Red Flame returns, and
finds what you have done.”

The Earth Fairy interrupted her indignantly, and declared with a storm
of sobs and tears that she was absolutely innocent, and that when she
had left the room to put away the wands the Queen had asked her to
bring, that all had been well; the Queen had been sleeping quietly in
her bed, and the child had been in the cradle by her side.

“Say no more,” commanded Grey Smoke. “No one believes you for a moment.
No one else would have wrought evil upon our dear Queen.”

In spite of everything that the Earth Fairy said to try to prove her
innocence, she was taken away under a close guard of Fire Fairies, to
be given over to the keepers of the prison.

Around the cradle of the baby Princess a ceaseless watch was kept. The
Fire Fairies who were appointed to guard it kept their eyes fixed upon
the white and flickering flame, awaiting the return of King Red Flame.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER III


Now all this time King Red Flame knew nothing of the happiness and
the misfortune that had come to his queen. He finished the business
that had taken him forth as quickly as he could, and then, in haste,
he turned his horse toward home. But it was by another road that he
returned to the palace, and it was for this reason that he missed the
messengers that Grey Smoke had sent to seek him.

Three days had passed since he had bade farewell to the Queen, and now
he was soon to see her again. Light-heartedly he rode along, singing
a snatch of a song that the Queen loved, and more than once he took
from his pouch a beautiful flashing necklace that he was bringing as a
present to his wife. As he held it up in the glowing light it shone and
flashed as only magic can. He smiled with delight as he thought of the
pleasure it would give her.

So full of joy was he that when he reached the palace gate he failed
to notice the sad faces and tear-stained eyes of the fairies that came
out to meet him, and take his horse. Only as he hurried up the palace
stairs did he realize that the place seemed quieter than usual.

But presently, drawing still nearer to the chamber of Queen Glow, the
sound of the wailing of many voices smote on his ears, and the nearer
he drew to her chamber, the louder it became. Fear suddenly awoke in
his heart, and drove his feet swiftly forward. He rushed to the Queen’s
door, flung it wide open, and stood for a moment looking in. Then he
hurried to her bedside, the fairies shrinking away before him to right
and left.

There upon the bed lay the Queen, as fair and white as some beautiful
figure carved in ivory.

With a loud cry King Red Flame fell on his knees beside the bed, and
clasping the lifeless hand of the Queen in his, he called to her,
beseeching her to look at him, to wake, to speak. It seemed indeed as
though he were unable to believe that she could no longer hear him.

At last, laying down her hand, he raised himself slowly to his feet.
“Tell me,” he cried, “how has this happened, and what has brought this
terrible misfortune upon our land?”

For a moment all were still. Then Grey Smoke stepped forth from among
the rest. “Your Majesty,” said she, “it is the work of the Earth Fairy.
It is she who has revenged herself thus.” Then briefly she told him all
that had happened since he had ridden away.

Silently the King listened, too stunned for word or thought. There was
a pause, and then Grey Smoke laid a gentle hand upon his sleeve, and
spoke again: “Your Highness,” said she respectfully, “do not forget
that the baby Princess needs you, and that she who has wrought all this
evil is still free and unpunished.”

At that King Red Flame turned his head, and looked at the golden
cradle. There above it hovered the tiny white flame, the only visible
form of the fairy Princess.

“Alas! Alas!” mourned Grey Smoke at his ear, “that this should be
all that is left of the loveliest princess that the Land of the Fire
Fairies has ever seen!”

The King aroused himself. “It is too late,” he cried, “to bring my dear
Queen back to life, but at least as far as the Princess is concerned
the guilty one shall repair her mischief. Bring the Earth Fairy to
me, and after she has restored my daughter, she shall receive the
punishment she has deserved.”

At once several fairies hastened away to seek for the Earth Fairy, and
soon returned guarding her in their midst. She was weeping bitterly.
As soon as her captors released her, she threw herself at the King’s
feet. “Alas! Alas!” she wailed, “the Queen is dead, and they accuse me
of being the cause. Though why, I cannot understand.”

“You know why they accuse you,” answered the King sternly. “I am but
too well assured that it is you who have brought this grief upon us
all. Now it is for you to break the spell you have laid upon the
Princess, and after that we will consider what punishment is fitting
for such a one as you.”

“The Princess!” cried the Earth Fairy, “I left her here in the cradle,
but it appears that harm overtook her also.”

“Enough!” cried the King. “Yours is the spell that has changed the
Princess to a flame. Yours must be the spell to restore her to her
shape.”

“But I know nothing of spells,” exclaimed the Earth Fairy desperately.

Grey Smoke started forward vehemently. “What then were you doing with
the wands that Spark saw when you opened the door?” she demanded
sharply.

The Earth Fairy flushed deeply, but answered without hesitation.
“Before my mistress fell asleep, she bade me bring her a certain bundle
of wands that she wished to look at. I brought them, as she bade me,
and she looked at them, taking some in her hands, and putting others
aside. After that she gave them back to me, and bade me return them.
While I was still busy putting them away, these Fire Fairies came and
seized me roughly, crying that the Queen was dead, and that I was to
blame. But listen--who was it that accused me? It was Grey Smoke who
forced her way into the chamber of the Queen in my absence--it is
Grey Smoke who says these things about me. How do you know that it is
not Grey Smoke herself who has done this deed? What more likely than,
having done it, she should try to throw the blame upon another?”

“Do not dare to accuse my good Grey Smoke. There is none whom I trust
more than I do her,” retorted the King angrily. “Had we but chosen
her as the Queen’s attendant, this grief would not have come upon us.
Nothing that you can say will ever make me believe that you are not
guilty. But we are wasting time. You have been brought to break the
spell.”

Stubbornly, again and again, the Earth Fairy repeated that she knew
nothing of spells, either to make them or break them.

“Take her away,” commanded the King at last. “Let her be kept in a
dungeon, away from everyone, until she consents to restore the Princess
to her true form.” In spite of the Earth Fairy’s cries and struggles
she was dragged away, to be kept securely under lock and key, until she
was ready to obey the King’s command.

This done, King Red Flame had a golden box brought that contained the
very finest wands that he possessed, and tried with all the skill he
knew to break the spell cast over his daughter; but it was quite in
vain--the white flame still fluttered above the cradle, and the baby
Princess still remained invisible. The King was filled with despair,
for he knew of nothing more that he could do to break the Earth
Fairy’s spell. Overcome with grief he turned to leave the room.

And now a strange thing happened. The tiny white flame, leaving the
cradle, followed after him very timidly, but very steadily, as if the
fairy Princess knew him, and longed to be close by him, in the shelter
of his love and protection.

“Look, look, Your Majesty,” cried Grey Smoke, “the little Princess
follows you!”

The King was touched to the heart. He commanded that the Princess’s
cradle should be brought to his own chamber, and there sitting beside
it, he rested his head sadly upon his hand, and pondered deeply, while
still the white flame hovered quivering and flashing softly above the
cradle.

Suddenly there came a low knock at the door, and Grey Smoke’s voice
was heard, asking if she might enter.

“Come in, Grey Smoke,” replied the King, and as the door opened, and
the old nurse came in, he added, “Let us see whether you cannot suggest
some way to help my poor little daughter. For me--I have no thought
left.” He sighed heavily as he spoke, and from the white flame above
the cradle there seemed to float a faint answering sigh.

“Your Majesty, do not despair,” counseled Grey Smoke. “It is true
that the spell cast upon the Princess is a powerful one, but I am sure
that in time everything will turn out well. I have been to see the
Wise One, and he has told me that only the Veil of Disenchantment that
lies hidden in his magic chest can break the spell that rests upon the
Princess.”

The King sprang to his feet eagerly. “There is, then, some magic thing
that can break this enchantment?” he cried. “Let us go at once and
fetch it.”

“That is impossible,” replied Grey Smoke. “Only the prince who will one
day come--he who is fated to win the Princess as his bride, can see
this Veil. Only in his hands is it potent to restore her.”

King Red Flame shook his head in doubt. “My good nurse,” he groaned,
“what hope can there be that such a prince would ever love my poor
daughter, who is nothing but a quivering flame?”

“Is there no charm that you can bestow upon her, so that even though
she remains a flame it will win his heart, and make him long to set her
free?” inquired Grey Smoke.

Again the King sank into deep thought, and as he sat there silently the
soft cry of the flame again sounded in his ears.

“Her voice!” cried the King. “Though her form has been taken from her,
her voice still remains! Could I but make it the most beautiful voice
in the world, it might draw all hearts to her, even though she should
indeed remain forever invisible. Had I but a wand that had not already
failed--but, as you know, I have already tried with every wand in the
palace to restore the Princess to her true form, and as you also know,
no wand that has once failed can be used the second time.”

“Your Majesty, the time has now come for me to tell you something that
up to now has been known to no living soul except myself. When your
mother died, she left in my care a wand more powerful than any other
in the palace. This wand I was to keep until such desperate need arose
as could be met by no other magic known to any of us. It is called the
Wand of Good Enchantment. The time for you to use it has now come.” So
saying Dame Grey Smoke drew from under her long cloak a faded silken
case, and laid it in his hands.

Eagerly the King opened the case, and drew from it a slender wand,
decked with snow-white feathers. The moment he touched it, the thrill
that passed through his fingers told him that it was full of magic. His
eyes gleamed with joy.

“Ah, Grey Smoke,” he cried, “might it not be possible that this wand
has the power that none of the others possessed to break the spell, and
give me back my daughter? Shall we not try to restore her at once?”

“Nay, nay, Your Majesty! Do not venture!” begged Grey Smoke anxiously.
“Trust to what the Wise One has told me. As yet no power can restore
the Princess. Do not destroy the magic of this wand in a useless
attempt. Rather use it to bestow the gift that will win the heart of
the prince who is to save her.”

“You are right,” agreed the King sadly. “The risk is too great. It
shall be as you say.”

Taking the Wand of Good Enchantment, he rose, and stood looking down
into the cradle of the little Princess. Waving it to and fro above the
tiny flame, he said tenderly, “My daughter, by the magic of this wand,
I bestow upon you a voice of such marvelous sweetness that all who hear
it shall be drawn to you, and it shall in the end win for you the love
of that prince who alone can save you.”

The words were no sooner uttered than forth from the flame came a
gentle sound of exquisite music, stirring the heart.

Hearing it, tears of joy rose to the eyes of King Red Flame. His
mother’s wand, left to him for his hour of need, had not failed him.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV


Day followed day, weeks and years slipped by, and the tiny dancing
flame that was the spirit of the baby Princess grew larger and more
brilliant year by year. The Fire Fairies called her Princess White
Flame, and regarded her with the greatest respect and love, but pity
and sympathy were always mingled with that respect.

The story of the magic Veil was known, and many princes had heard the
voice of the Princess, and had seen her passing as a fine white flame.
Many would gladly have won her as a bride; many had sought the Wise
One--many had peered into his ancient chest, but none had been able to
grasp, or even to see the wondrous Veil that alone could restore the
Princess to her fairy form.

King Red Flame loved his daughter dearly, and was never so happy as
when she fluttered gently from place to place with him, or hovered in
the air by his side when he sat at rest; yet always he longed to see
her face--to have her visible presence.

One evening as they were moving together in the garden, watching the
red and yellow light that came and went among the fire-lilies that
bordered the winding paths, the King asked her tenderly, “My child,
have you not yet seen a prince whom you can love?”

White Flame laughed softly. “No, there is no one. Why do you ask, dear
father?”

King Red Flame sighed. “Because it is only a prince who loves you, and
whom you can love in return, who can free you from the spell.”

White Flame stole closer to her father’s side, and whispered in his
ear, “I have not yet seen anyone, dear father, for whom I would wish to
be more than the glancing flame that they see me now.”

Again the King sighed. “Ah, well, my daughter, the time may come. But
remember that until it does, your face is hidden from me also.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER V


Not far from the Land of the Fire Fairies there is another wonderland.
It is called the Kingdom of Light. Here, though the people are fairies,
their magic is different from the magic of the fairies of fire and
flame. But it is not less marvelous and beautiful.

The ruler of this country had a son whose name was Prince Radiance. The
Prince was tall and strong and handsome. His soft red suit of velvet,
his scarlet cap with long red feather that tossed and floated above his
yellow hair became him well. So very bright with hope and courage were
his eyes, so very friendly was his smile, that wherever he appeared the
fairies cried to one another, “Ah, here comes Prince Radiance, bringing
happiness and cheer!”

The young Prince was now of an age to seek a bride, but the King was
too fond of his son to wish him to marry anyone whom he did not love
with all his heart. Many princesses and beautiful ladies would have
been glad to be chosen by him, but the young Prince cared for none of
them. And although the wise men of the country came often to their King
to urge the Prince to take a wife, the old King always replied, “Not
yet, not yet. My son must make his own choice, and in his own way.”

So time passed, until one day Prince Radiance asked his father’s
permission to visit the Land of the Fire Fairies. He had heard of their
strange magic, and wished to behold it with his own eyes.

The King gave him leave, and bidding his father farewell, the Prince
set out, quite alone, as was his wish.

By traveling swiftly, he soon reached the boundary of his father’s
kingdom, and crossed into the Land of the Fire Fairies. Now the Fire
Fairies have always been friendly to the Fairies of Light, so the
Prince was made welcome wherever he went.

The magic of the Fire Fairies charmed and delighted him. He stood and
watched them rear their shining palaces, saw them deck the walls with
glittering jewels, or wreathe them with flaming vines by the mere wave
of a wand. He wandered from place to place, learning many new and
wonderful things.

And all the time he drew nearer and nearer to the Palace of Burning
Coals, but as yet he had heard nothing, had seen nothing of the
Princess White Flame.

At last he came to a garden, whose open gate showed him bright trees
rustling in the breeze and bushes thick-set with flame-colored
blossoms, showed him paths that wound away into stretches of still
greater loveliness and bloom. He had come to the garden of the Princess.

He entered, and stood a moment, to see if any would come to stop his
progress; but all was still in the garden, and not a living creature
was anywhere in sight. He chose the path of greatest beauty, but had
not gone far upon it when he became aware of a voice singing in the
distance, a voice that drew nearer and more near, until the air around
him was filled with its exquisite music. Entranced, rooted to the spot,
Prince Radiance listened. Never had he heard so wondrous a voice. It
was as though it drew his very heart from his breast to follow it.

So spellbound was he, that at first he thought only of the voice, but
presently he was filled with an ardent desire to know from whom it
came. But even as he looked eagerly about him for the singer, the voice
began to recede from him, and to fade away among the tree-tops. Then
it was, that glancing upward, he saw a pure and pearl-white flame, and
from the flame came the magic voice that had so stirred his heart.

Awaking from his trance of wonder and delight, the Prince sought to
follow it; even as he did so the flame was lost to sight. He pursued it
in the direction in which he had seen it pass, but in vain.

Still the Prince went on in haste, seeking someone who could tell him
where it might be found. The faint cracking of boughs struck on his
ear, and going to the place from whence it came, he saw a Fire Fairy,
pruning a glittering shrub.

“Tell me,” he cried, “where shall I find the flame that was singing
yonder, the flame with the wonderful voice?”

The fairy paused in his work, and regarded the Prince curiously. “Can
it be,” inquired he slowly, “that you have not heard of the Princess
White Flame?”

“I saw no Princess,” answered Radiance, “but I heard a voice of
magical beauty that seemed to come from a pure white flame.”

“Ah,” replied the Fire Fairy, “that is indeed our dear Princess. A
flame she is, and a flame she must remain, until that prince comes at
last who alone can set her free.” Then he told Prince Radiance the
story of the spell that had been cast upon her in her cradle; told him
of the wondrous Veil that lay hidden in the Wise One’s ancient chest;
told him also of the many princes who had vainly sought to see it, that
they might deliver the Princess.

“I, too, must go,” exclaimed Prince Radiance. “Who knows but I may be
more fortunate than they. Tell me at once where this Wise One is to be
found.”

Filled with the hope that this at last might be the true prince, the
fairy told him exactly how to find the Wise One’s hut, and the Prince
hurried away.

He had not gone far, however, when what was his joy to hear once more,
soft and faint at first, but clearer and stronger as he proceeded, that
voice that had so charmed him a little while before.

Eagerly, scarce daring to breathe, lest he should startle the Princess,
and drive her from him, the Prince hastened toward her.

She was poised at the foot of a great fire-oak, her flame seeming to
wax or wane as the music rose or fell.

So silently the Prince advanced that he stood beside her before she was
aware.

“Princess! Princess White Flame!” he cried low, “Here am I, Prince
Radiance, come to serve you. Say that you are willing that it should be
so.”

At the sound of his voice, the singing of the Princess ceased suddenly.
Flashing and trembling at the unexpected appearance of this stranger,
she seemed about to take flight.

“Nay, do not leave me,” he besought her. “Tell me, rather, that I too
may seek to deliver you from the cruel spell that binds you thus.”

So did his face glow with the love that her voice had awakened in his
heart, so did his own voice thrill with tenderness, that a soft and
roseate flush passed over the whiteness of the flame, as if in answer.
Yet she spoke no word.

“I know what I must do,” pursued the Prince. “A fairy has told me.
Even now I was on my way to seek the Wise One, and happily to bring
forth the mystic Veil. Do you bid me go?” He paused, and waited for the
Princess to speak.

[Illustration: “Here am I, Prince Radiance, come to serve you.”]

“Yes,” she whispered softly, “go. But ah--if you should not see this
Veil--what then?”

“Then--ah then,” he answered quickly, “I will return to you, and gaze
upon your pure and beauteous flame, and listen to your magic voice,
till love shall make keen the eyes that were too dull before. Say that
you will await me here!”

Again a rosy flush overspread the whiteness of the Princess. “I promise
you,” she said. “When you return, you will find me waiting.”

Overjoyed at so gracious an answer, Prince Radiance drew still nearer
to the glowing flame. “Ah, my beloved Princess,” he cried, “something
tells me that I shall not fail. I shall return indeed, and in my hand
shall be the Veil that will set you free. Farewell, then, till I come
again.”

Then he left her, a gleaming whiteness at the foot of the great
fire-oak, and went his way as the fairy had directed him.

It was not long until he arrived at the house of the Wise One. A queer
little scarlet hut, it was, set in the midst of a thicket of flaming
bushes, with a bright red path that led straight to the door. The path
was worn and hollowed out by many feet. From the pointed chimney, and
the quaintly peaked roof, down all the walls to the very ground, the
hut was covered with magic signs that no one but the Wise One himself
understood.

Boldly the Prince approached the door, and knocked. A voice bade him
enter. The Prince obeyed, and found himself in the presence of an old,
old fairy, who was sitting before a table, poring over a great Book of
Wisdom.

It was the Wise One. He wore a long white beard, that swept down his
scarlet robe almost to his feet. A curious border of fairy letters ran
about the hem of his robe, and as he rose slowly to greet his guest,
they flashed and moved as if with life. A wave of magic flowed from
them toward the Prince.

“Welcome, Prince Radiance,” said the Wise One, “I know your errand.
Come, let us see if you will be able to succeed where others have
failed.”

“Ah, that it may be so!” exclaimed the Prince, following the Wise
One, who led him to a chest that stood in a corner of the hut. A very
ancient chest it was, carved deeply with magic inscriptions that age
had had no power to dim. Huge hinges held it firm; a huge lock fastened
it.

The Prince looked down upon it with eager hope. He trembled a little
as the Wise One drew from his breast a key, and fitted it in the lock.
Slowly the key turned. Slowly the lid rose of itself.

“Look within,” commanded the Wise One, “and tell me what you see.”

In breathless suspense, Prince Radiance bent over the chest,
hoping--fearing--so much hung upon his power to behold what lay
therein. The light was dim, and the chest deep. For a moment he saw no
more than what looked like a film of ash upon the bottom of the chest,
and through his heart went a stab of pain and disappointment.

Then, suddenly, his sight seemed to clear. “The Veil! The mystic Veil!”
he cried. “There! There it lies! I see it! Oh, I see!”

“Look again,” said the Wise One. “Do you see nothing more?”

Again Prince Radiance bent above the chest; again he peered earnestly
into its depths. Dimly discerned beside the Veil lay a sword in its
scabbard, and close beside it a soft grey pouch.

“A sword is there, and a curious pouch,” he answered.

“You have seen what none have seen before,” replied the Wise One. “The
Veil is for the Princess, the Sword and the Pouch for you. Take them,
for the time will come, before your task is done, when you will need
them all. Take out the Veil.”

Gently the Prince lifted the magic Veil from out the chest. As it
rose, it floated out and out, and seemed to fill the hut, like a mist
for fineness, like a web for strength.

The Wise One went to a cabinet, and drew from it a tiny golden casket.
He returned to the Prince, and said, “Place the Veil inside.”

“How is that possible?” inquired Prince Radiance.

“You have but to press the corner of the Veil, and it will become small
enough to fit into the tiniest box. You have but to lift it from the
box, and shake it out, and it will become as you behold it now. Do as I
have said, and you will see.”

The Prince obeyed, and presently the Veil lay in the golden casket. The
Wise One handed him a golden key. “Lock it, and fasten it securely
within your robe where none can rob you of it,” he told him. “On its
safety all your hopes depend.”

Gravely Prince Radiance did as the ancient fairy bade him.

“Lift out the Sword,” directed the Wise One, “and draw it from its
scabbard.”

Again the Prince obeyed. As he laid his hand upon the hilt it was as
if the Sword answered to his touch, and leapt from its scabbard, a
flashing flame of blue, that shed a dazzling light on all around it.

“It is the Sword of Flames,” the Wise One told him, “a powerful
weapon--potent in your hands alone. It will serve you well. See that
you do not lose it. See that you do not use it until its day comes.”

Prince Radiance looked at him in wonder. “How shall I know the day?”
asked he.

“When the day comes you will need none to tell you,” was the answer.
“And now take the Pouch--the third and last gift.”

The Prince replaced the Sword of Flames in its sheath, and bound it on.
Then stooping he took out the Pouch.

“Open it,” said the Wise One.

Prince Radiance did so, and saw that it was divided within into two
compartments.

“This is a magic pouch,” the Wise One instructed him. “Whatever you
place in it will never fail of its supply. It will help you out of many
a danger, out of many a difficulty.”

The Prince thought deeply. “What shall I place within it that will have
such power?” he asked at last.

The Wise One smiled. “That is easy enough to choose,” he answered. “In
the one side place a burning coal; put in the other a handful of ash.
Nothing else could possibly be so unfailingly useful wherever you may
go.”

Surprised at such an answer, Prince Radiance gazed at him without
obeying.

“It is as I have told you,” the ancient one assured him. “You will find
it so.”

Then the Prince stooped to the fire that was burning on the hearth, and
filled the Pouch as he had been directed, and fastened it to his side,
the Wise One watching him meanwhile with a kindly smile.

When Prince Radiance would have thanked him for the fairy gifts, he
dismissed him with a wave of the hand. “Go,” he said, “and all good
fortune attend you. If you but do your part, the magic of the Veil will
be potent to break the Earth Fairy’s spell, and restore the Princess
White Flame to her fairy form.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI


Far from the kingdom of King Red Flame, in the dismal country that lies
along the Chimney Back are many dark and mischievous fairies, and the
most mischievous of them all was Flying Soot.

He was a great traveler, and employed himself in flitting from place to
place collecting news, and telling it again wherever he thought that
it would do the most harm. Most of his time was spent in the Land of
Evil Fairies where he had many friends who gave him welcome for the
sake of what he had to tell. But now and again he crossed secretly into
King Red Flame’s dominions, in the hope that he might pick up some
information that he could use. He always took great care, however, not
to allow himself to be seen by any of the Fire Fairies.

Upon one of these excursions he overheard some Fire Fairies repeating
the story of the enchantment of Princess White Flame, and learned at
the same time about the Earth Fairy’s imprisonment. After that he could
not rest until he had found the way to the place where she was confined.

During all the years that the Earth Fairy had been locked in her
prison, she had known nothing of what went on outside of it. She
neither knew of the wondrous Veil in the Wise One’s ancient chest, nor
that it was expected that a Prince would some day come who would set
the Princess free.

Because of her long imprisonment her hatred of King Red Flame burned
all the more intensely, but deprived as she now was of every means of
working magic, she could neither escape, nor wreak further vengeance
upon her master.

One day, as she sat in a corner of her cell nursing her anger, she
heard her fairy keeper come to her door and try it carefully to see
that it was still securely fastened. Then his footsteps retreated, and
she knew that he had gone away with his companions for a short rest
under the trees as was his daily custom.

Hardly had the sound of his footsteps faded away when a faint rustle
outside the door caught her ear, and a voice that was unknown to her
softly called her name.

Making no noise she crept to the keyhole and peered through. A figure
stood near it, wrapped in a long black mantle, with a black velvet
cap pulled low over his forehead. From his face she knew that he was
an evil fairy, but he was a stranger, and fearing that he might be an
enemy she made no answer.

Her visitor was not discouraged. He called to her again, and told her
that he was Flying Soot. Finding that she still made no reply, he
assured her that he was a friend, and began at once to give her what
news he could of King Red Flame and the Princess. At that the Earth
Fairy answered him willingly, and harkened with eagerness to what he
had to say. They talked for some time, but as soon as the keeper was
heard returning, Flying Soot scurried off. After that he came from
time to time to see her and bring the news, and the knowledge that the
Princess was still but a flame, always filled the Earth Fairy with
wicked satisfaction.

On the day that Prince Radiance found and talked with Princess White
Flame in the palace garden, Flying Soot passed near them on his way to
the Earth Fairy’s prison.

Hearing their voices he drew near stealthily, and listened to them. As
soon as Prince Radiance departed, away rushed the mischief-maker to the
Earth Fairy. It was the hour when the keeper was absent, so that he
flew straight to the door without pause.

“Earth Fairy! Earth Fairy!” he called, placing his lips to the
keyhole. “Come close and listen; I have great news!”

The Earth Fairy sprang to the door at once. “What is it?” demanded she,
“Tell me quickly.”

“A Prince has come,” he told her. “A Prince who swears to break the
power of your spell.”

From the Earth Fairy’s lips burst a laugh of scorn. “Let him try as he
may,” she declared, “he will never succeed.”

“Be not too sure of that,” warned Flying Soot. “This Prince spoke with
the Princess of a magic Veil, which he has but to cast over her to
restore her at once to her true form.”

For a moment the Earth Fairy was quite speechless with astonishment and
dismay; then she cried aloud, “A Veil! A magic Veil that will set the
Princess free!”

“Yes,” replied her companion, “Already the Prince has gone to fetch it
from where it lies hidden in the chest of the Wise One. Soon he will
return to where the Princess awaits him in the garden, and presently,
my dear Earth Fairy, the spell that you wrought with such care will be
a thing of naught.”

“No, no!” screamed the Earth Fairy, “Never, never shall this be! I must
escape. You must help me to escape at once, and prevent it!”

Flying Soot shook his head doubtfully.

“How can I enable you to escape from a prison so strong, and so
securely locked?”

“It takes but a key to open the strongest lock,” insisted the Earth
Fairy. “You must overpower the keeper. You must obtain the key--and let
me out.”

In the beginning Flying Soot was unwilling to try, but when the Earth
Fairy presently spoke of rewarding him for his services, he agreed to
do as she wished.

“First you must release me,” commanded she. “Then you must hasten to
the Palace of Burning Coals, and bring forth my bundle of wands from a
hiding place that I will tell you of. When you have brought them to me,
I will bestow one of them upon you as your reward.”

Now Flying Soot knew well that a Soot Fairy can work no magic with the
wand of a Fire Fairy unless he is taught its secret. “Promise that you
will surely show me how to use it,” said he, “and I will do as you ask.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” agreed the Earth Fairy impatiently. “Only be
swift about your task, and the secret shall be yours.”

Satisfied with her reply, Flying Soot went his way. In the darkness of
her cell the Earth Fairy waited, scarcely able to breathe, so fearful
was she that the Prince might return from the Wise One and disenchant
the Princess before she had time to interfere.

It was but a little while, however, before she heard the stealthy
footsteps of Flying Soot returning. It was but a moment more till she
heard the great key turn in the lock, and saw the door flung wide open.

“Come out quickly,” whispered her deliverer. “Your keepers, blinded
with soot, grope hither and thither utterly bewildered. Together we
must contrive to shove them into your prison, and lock them up in your
place. After that you will be able to go on your way in safety.”

Instantly, the Earth Fairy sprang to his help, and so skillfully did
the two evil fairies jostle the keepers against one another and guide
them to the prison door, that soon they were lodged in the Earth
Fairy’s cell. Then the key was turned upon them, and they were left to
grope clumsily about in the darkness, while the Earth Fairy and her
companion hurried to the safe shelter of a thicket. There the Earth
Fairy told Flying Soot where she had hidden her wands, and bade him
haste to bring them to her. When he had departed upon his errand the
Earth Fairy huddled low among the bushes to await his coming with what
patience she might.

In spite of the years that had passed since the Earth Fairy had hidden
her wands, none had discovered the place where they lay. So crafty a
messenger was Flying Soot that he obtained them unseen, and without
difficulty, and soon returned to where the Earth Fairy was concealed.
He laid the bundle in her outstretched hand.

Trembling with anxiety, the Earth Fairy opened the case, and ran her
fingers over the wands to test their power. The Green Wand shot forth
emerald fire from its tip as she took it from among the rest. It was as
full of magic as on that far-off day when with it she had so cruelly
enchanted the baby Princess.

With covetous eyes Flying Soot looked upon it. “Ah!” cried he, “that
is the wand of my desire. That shall be my well-earned reward.” He
stretched his hand to take it from her, but the Earth Fairy waved him
back with an imperious gesture.

“Touch not the Green Wand,” she commanded. “To do so is to destroy
yourself.” She laid it back in its place and took out in it its stead
a small dark wand. This she extended to him saying, “Here is the one
which is for you.” With indignant words he would have spurned it, but
she checked his complaints abruptly. “It will serve you well, if you
but know its secret,” she told him, “See--in this its magic dwells.”
With a last envious look at the Green Wand, Flying Soot cast aside his
anger, and watched her narrowly while she showed him how to use her
gift. Still a little ungraciously he received it, and hid it in his
mantle.

The Earth Fairy stopping for no farewell, gathered up her bundle of
wands, and hurried to the spot where Flying Soot had told her the
Princess awaited the coming of Prince Radiance. There at the foot of
the great fire oak she saw her, flushing and paling with glorious
light. She was thinking of the wonderful happiness that had come to
her, but suddenly she became aware that a stranger was approaching.
Looking up she beheld the Earth Fairy.

Quickly the Earth Fairy advanced till she stood before the Princess,
and without waiting to be addressed, announced her errand.

“Your Highness,” she said, “I am a messenger from Prince Radiance. He
cannot return to you as he had expected; but he has sent me to ask you
to let me guide you to where he waits for you.”

Princess White Flame regarded her doubtfully. “You are a stranger to
me,” she replied. “How may I know that you are in truth a messenger
from the Prince?”

“Ah,” cried the Earth Fairy, “will you not trust me? Alas! If you do
not, the Prince can never disenchant you, for the Wise One has assured
him that unless you come to where Prince Radiance now awaits you, the
Veil will have no power over you.”

For a moment the Princess regarded the face of the wicked one closely.
It bore a kind and innocent look. Still she felt undecided.

“Hasten, Your Highness!” entreated the Earth Fairy. “Hasten, I beg of
you, lest its magic be lost to you both.”

The Princess White Flame hesitated no longer. “Lead on,” she said, “and
I will follow.”

Rejoiced that she had been able to persuade the Princess so easily, the
Earth Fairy passed at once out of the Garden, and away from the Palace
of Burning Coals, and close beside her fluttered the white flame of the
Princess.

Silently they traveled, and after a time the country through which they
were passing began to look strange to the Princess. Yet, though they
went on and on, she still saw no sign of Prince Radiance. At last she
began to question the Earth Fairy, who always replied that they had but
a short distance farther to go.

The lovely flame-colored and yellow trees of the Land of the Fire
Fairies had been left far behind; the little birds that make a music in
the Fire Kingdom like none elsewhere, were heard no more: the beautiful
palaces, the shining gardens, where happy fairies worked and played,
had vanished. On all sides rose dull red caves, huge heaps of ash, or
high black walls of soot, ugly and forbidding.

Hideous creatures crept away into darkness as they drew near, or peered
out upon them from hiding-places as they passed.

Princess White Flame shuddered, and her light grew pale and dim.
“Whither are you leading me?” she cried faintly, “Answer truly, for I
will go no further.”

The Earth Fairy laughed mockingly. “Well may you ask,” she replied.
“Evil for you was the hour when you left your garden to follow me.
Behold in me the Earth Fairy--your parents’ enemy and yours.”

A great trembling seized the unfortunate Princess. In this terrible
land, helpless in the power of this wicked fairy, how could she hope
ever again to see the Prince who had won her heart? How could she hope
ever again to return to her father in the Palace of Burning Coals?

Coldly and cruelly the voice of the Earth Fairy came to her in her
despair.

“Many years was I a prisoner by King Red Flame’s command, and dark and
dreary was my cell. Now my turn for vengeance has come, and you may
be well assured that in the place that I have chosen for you, neither
the beauty of your voice, nor your flashing brightness shall avail you
aught.”

Before them yawned a black and narrow cave, its walls hung thick with
soot. From under her cloak the Earth Fairy drew her Green Wand. She
extended it over the Princess, and pointed to the cave. “By the power
of my Green Wand I command you to enter,” she cried.

From the wand streamed a magic so potent that the poor Princess had no
power to resist it. With a low cry of anguish, she bowed herself, and
disappeared into the darkness of the cave.

Calling all her evil magic to her aid, the Earth Fairy drew down the
walls of the cave and sealed them. She listened to make sure that
no sound could make its way from within. Then she returned her wand
to its place, and flitted away over the desolate plain. As she went
she murmured gleefully, “Ah! that was well done. Now I know for a
certainty that nothing good can ever come to Princess White Flame.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII


Hardly had Princess White Flame departed with the Earth Fairy when
Prince Radiance returned to the garden.

Great was his astonishment to find the Princess no longer there.
Believing, however, that she had gone but for a moment he sat down
beneath the flame-red tree to wait for her return.

Many moments passed, and she did not come, and at last the Prince rose
to seek her through the garden, calling softly as he went, “Princess,
dear Princess White Flame, where are you?”

But none answered him through the stillness, and again he cried, “White
Flame, dear White Flame--it is I, Prince Radiance. Answer--ah answer
me!” Yet up and down the blooming spaces of the garden he sought her,
and called to her in vain. Presently he came to a wide avenue, and
entering it found himself erelong before a great and shining palace. It
was the Palace of Burning Coals, and through its open doors and windows
he could see the Fire Fairies going to and fro about their appointed
tasks. Hoping that here he might learn where to find the Princess, he
ascended the steps to the bright door, and told his errand to the fairy
who guarded it.

“In this palace dwells the Princess,” answered the Fire Fairy. “She is
King Red Flame’s daughter.”

“Take me to His Majesty then,” commanded Prince Radiance, “for I would
have speech with him.”

So he was brought before King Red Flame without delay. In the great
hall of the Palace sat the King. It was that time of evening when the
Princess was wont to bear him company, but she had not yet come, and he
was beginning to wonder why she tarried.

When Prince Radiance, guided by the Fire Fairy, was shown into the
royal presence the King gave him hearty welcome. With transports of
joy he learned how the Prince had heard and loved Princess White Flame
in her garden, how he had gone to obtain the mystic Veil from the Wise
One, and had been successful where countless who had come there before
him had failed. Great was the King’s surprise, however, when he learned
that Prince Radiance had returned to the garden, only to find the
Princess gone.

“It is not like my daughter to break a promise,” he said, “especially
one of such great moment. Why she has done so, I cannot even guess, but
I will send for her at once, and she shall speak for herself.”

A messenger was dispatched immediately to summon the Princess. He was
gone for some time, but at length returned to say that nowhere in the
palace had he been able to find her.

Then the King sent for Grey Smoke, for none knew so well as she where
her young mistress was most likely to be found. Yet though Grey Smoke
made a most thorough search in every nook and corner of the palace,
though she went to the top of its highest tower, and looked anxiously
without in every direction, no where could she catch a glimpse of that
pure white flame that was the spirit of the Princess, nor hear the
music of her well-loved voice.

When she returned to her master to say that her quest also had been
fruitless, the King became very much alarmed.

“Let the palace grounds be searched, once more,” he commanded. “Let no
spot be overlooked. Let none rest until my daughter has been found.”

Anxiously the Fire Fairies one and all set forth to seek her. Yet more
anxiously King Red Flame and Prince Radiance awaited their return.

Suddenly a tumult arose outside the palace walls, and immediately
after the Earth Fairy’s head-keeper, his eyes still half-blinded with
soot, stumbled into the King’s presence. Close behind him came a
crowd of excited Fire Fairies. The head-keeper threw himself at King
Red Flame’s feet. “Your Majesty! Oh, Your Majesty!” he moaned. “In
some strange manner the wicked Earth Fairy has escaped, while we, her
keepers, blinded with soot have been imprisoned in her stead. Forgive
us, oh forgive us we beg, that this should ever have come to pass.”

“Escaped! The Earth Fairy escaped!” thundered King Red Flame, aghast at
such evil tidings.

“Escaped. The Earth Fairy escaped!” shrieked all the fairies who were
clustered in the palace hall. “Oh! Oh! That this should be!”

Old Grey Smoke bowed her head between her shoulders. “If this be true,”
mourned she, “then the Princess is indeed lost.”

Filled with consternation the King looked down upon the head-keeper
still crouched at his feet. “Speak,” he commanded, “and tell me how
this has come to pass.”

“Surely Sire, it must have been the work of a spell,” began the
head-keeper, “Nothing else could have brought such calamity upon us.”
Then he went on to tell what had happened. As his tale proceeded the
King listened intently, and all the Fire Fairies drew closer that they
might not miss a word.

“And by what means have you now escaped?” demanded the King, as the
head-keeper paused for breath.

“But a moment since, Your Majesty, one of our number contrived to
wrench away the lock of the cell-door, and immediately I hastened here
to warn you that the Earth Fairy is abroad, and that the Princess may
be in danger.”

“Alas!” groaned King Red Flame, “The Earth Fairy is doubtless already
at work, for the Princess is nowhere to be found.”

Hearing this, the head-keeper began to beat himself upon the breast.
“The Princess lost! The Princess White Flame lost, and we the cause!”

“Ay!” replied his master sternly, “you, the Earth Fairy’s careless
keepers, were the cause. Had you not deserted your post, this great
misfortune could never have fallen upon us.” He turned to a trusted
servant. “Take away this faithless keeper,” he commanded, “and place
him and his companions under strict guard, there to remain until my
daughter, Princess White Flame, is restored to me.”

So the keeper was taken away, still beating his breast, and crying
aloud in vain remorse.

All about the palace hall stood the Fire Fairies weeping and lamenting,
for the Princess was dearly loved.

Then the King turned to the old nurse. “Come, my good Grey Smoke,” said
he, “give me of your wise counsel. How shall I best seek my beloved
daughter?”

But before Grey Smoke could answer, Prince Radiance sprang to the
King’s side, and laid his hand upon the monarch’s arm.

“Your Majesty,” he implored, “remember that I, also, love the
Princess. I claim the right to seek her, for have I not the magic gifts
of the Wise One, and shall not my love guide me to her rescue? Fear
not. By the aid of these I will surely bring her back to the Palace of
Burning Coals, not as you saw her last, indeed--but in her true form,
freed forever from the Earth Fairy’s spell.”

Looking upon the ardent and hopeful face of the young Prince, hearing
his earnest words, the heart of King Red Flame was deeply stirred, and
strangely comforted. He stretched forth his arms, and drew him to his
breast.

“Go, my son,” he said, tenderly. “Go, and all good fortune follow you.
Bring back my beloved daughter to her home once more. So shall you
gladden her father’s heart, and win happiness for yourself and her.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII


Back across the dismal land through which she had led the Princess,
flitted the Earth Fairy. Freed though she now was from her long
imprisonment, she yet hoped for even greater liberty. When Flying Soot
had told her that the Veil had power to disenchant the Princess, she
felt sure that it would have a like magic influence over herself; that
if she could but obtain it, and cast it about her that she should once
more become a true Earth Fairy. Should this come to pass, she would
flee forever from the Land of Fire which she so hated, to her own
people and her own home.

Therefore she determined to go in search of the Prince, and by means of
her wands wrest from him the coveted Veil. She knew that it would soon
be discovered that Princess White Flame was no longer in her father’s
kingdom, and she believed that Prince Radiance would then come to seek
the Princess in the Land of the Evil Fairies. She herself would be in
wait for him near the boundary and would endeavor to overpower him
there.

So rapidly did she journey that she soon reached the borders of the
Land of the Fire Fairies, and began to watch for the coming of the
Prince.

Some time had passed before she beheld a scarlet cloaked figure
approaching, looking eagerly on all sides, as if in search of someone.
From what Flying Soot had told her she knew that it was Prince
Radiance. She crept to meet him, concealing herself cleverly from sight
as she went.

When she was but a short distance from him she stopped and opened her
bundle of wands. She had taken out the Green Wand, and was about to
use it, when she paused. Well did she know that she had none other so
powerful, none other that could so fully work her will. By this she
held the Princess completely under her sway. Upon the Prince she was
unwilling to risk it unless all else failed. She laid it back among
the rest and took up another that she had always trusted. Waving it
toward the Prince she murmured the words of a spell so potent that she
expected to see him fall instantly to the ground unable to speak or to
move. But it was as though the spell had never been uttered. The Prince
continued on his way as before, and the Earth Fairy knew by this that
all power had departed from her wand. She cast it away, and selecting
another without hesitation, she followed close after him, repeating
the words of her spell. This time also, the spell was of no avail; the
second wand became as useless as the first, and was discarded in its
turn.

“Truly there must be magic in this that will overpower him,” she
muttered, taking out the third. “Never before has this one failed me.”
Yet the third wand had no more power than the rest. One by one, she
tried them all, until there was none left but the Green Wand. She
looked at it longingly, but dared not risk it. Should it too be useless
before this mysterious influence that protected the Prince she would
have nothing at all by which to work her will.

She ceased to follow Prince Radiance, and sat down to think of what she
should do in order to carry out her purpose.

Pondering deeply, she did not know that someone had approached her
from behind, and was standing close beside her. It was Flying Soot.
He waited a few moments but finding that the Earth Fairy was too much
engaged to be aware of his presence, he tapped her upon the arm. “Well,
my good friend,” he began, “how have your affairs prospered since you
left me so abruptly in the palace gardens?”

The Earth Fairy looked up with a start. No one had been further from
her thoughts than Flying Soot.

“Do not disturb me,” she answered impatiently, “I am thinking over an
important matter in which you can be of no use to me.”

“Do not be too certain of that,” the Soot Fairy replied. “Remember that
you are now in a land where I have many and powerful friends.”

The Earth Fairy had not realized that. At his words, she suddenly began
to wonder if some of these wicked fairies of which he spoke, might be
able to help her to obtain what she so desired. Instantly she changed
her tone.

“Hark you,” she said, “I believe you told me of a magic Veil that the
Prince was to obtain from the Wise One. I have decided that I want
this Veil for myself. I have tried all my wands upon the Prince in an
effort to take it from him, but they have failed. One alone I have not
tried. It is the Green Wand which rules the Princess White Flame. This
I am unwilling to risk--for the present at least. Have you, perhaps,
among your friends, any who is sufficiently powerful to overcome Prince
Radiance, so that I can take from him this Veil?”

Flying Soot threw back his black mantle from his shoulder with a
confident gesture. “To be sure I have,” he assured her, “and if the
first should not succeed there are many others who would be willing to
try.”

“There is one difficulty,” the Earth Fairy warned him, “I can offer no
reward.”

“Do not let that trouble you,” was the reply. “The friends whom I
shall ask to assist you are too proud to receive rewards. They are
sufficiently pleased when they have succeeded in accomplishing the
mischief they set out to perform.”

This was good news to the Earth Fairy. Her face shone with satisfaction.

“There is one thing that you must do, however,” continued Flying Soot.
“You must contrive to lure the Prince to my friends, for they are far
too haughty to seek him, even to do him harm. Is there any plan by
which you can do this?”

For a time the Earth Fairy sat plunged in thought. Then she sprang up
clapping her hands in delight. “Ay,” cried she, “that I can. I will
compel the Princess herself to lure him on. Well has my Green Wand
proved its power over her, and she it is who shall lead him to his
destruction.”

“How shall this be done?” inquired her companion.

“That is simple enough,” replied the Earth Fairy. “You have but to tell
me whither I must bring the Prince. Then while you have gone to enlist
the services of this friend whom you have chosen, I will release the
Princess, will seek out the Prince, and bring him by her influence to
the appointed place.”

He gave her most careful instructions as to where she would find him.
“And now,” said he, when he had made everything clear, “I go to engage
my friend the Giant of the Wide Grey Plain to assist you. You need have
no fear. He will agree to do so. As soon as you arrive with your Prince
you will find him ready.” He rose from his seat, shook out his black
mantle, and quickly vanished in the distance.

The Earth Fairy on her part, hastened to the cave where the Princess
White Flame was imprisoned. Carefully she unwove the spell which sealed
its walls, and in a loud voice she commanded the Princess to come
forth. Out of the yawning entrance glimmered the flame, pale and faint,
but still of a pure and beautiful whiteness.

The Earth Fairy drew out her Green Wand, and held it aloft. “Go where I
bid you,” she cried, “and delay not.”

Unable to resist the spell of the Green Wand, the Princess without word
or sound, flitted rapidly away with her enchantress to seek the Prince.

Meanwhile Prince Radiance, knowing nothing of the attempt that the
Earth Fairy had already made to destroy him, proceeded on his quest.
All across the Wide Grey Plain where he now was, are scattered hills
and mounds of ash in great number, and so much alike in size and shape
are they, that the traveler often becomes confused and knows not which
way to direct his steps. Thus it was with Prince Radiance, and at last
quite bewildered he stood still, and looked about him, seeking for
something to guide him. It was while he did so, that suddenly he saw
gleaming in the distance a flame so pure and lovely that he could not
doubt that it was the spirit of his Princess. In an ecstasy of joy he
threw out his arms to it. “White Flame! Ah my beloved White Flame,” he
cried, “can it be that I have in truth found you so much sooner than I
had dared to hope?”

Quickly he hastened toward her, drawing nearer and yet nearer until he
was sure that she could hear his voice.

“Princess,” he called to her. “Wait, ah, wait until I reach you. See,
it is I, Prince Radiance, who follow. I bring with me the Veil that is
to set you free.” He expected her to pause; but it was not so. Slowly,
yet steadily she retreated from him, and as she went her well-loved
voice floated back to him, not singing sweetly, as when he had heard it
in her garden, but weeping, and in anguish.

“Ah me, ah me, dear Radiance!” she sobbed, “the Earth Fairy has cast a
second and more cruel spell upon me, that causes me to flee as you draw
near.”

So overwhelmed with grief was the Prince by the news of this fresh
misfortune that at first he was stricken dumb, but presently hope and
courage sprang afresh within his breast.

Across the distance that widened between them his answer rang tender
and undismayed.

“Go where you must, my Princess, I will surely follow. No power,
however strong, no spell, however potent, can suffice to daunt my love.
Believe always that I will surely overtake and save you in the end.”

Princess White Flame heard him, and took comfort. The Earth Fairy
heard him, and rejoiced, for now she knew that without doubt she could
lead him where she would. Keeping herself out of sight, she drove the
Princess away and away in the direction that Flying Soot had gone, and
unswervingly Prince Radiance pursued the ever brightening flame.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX


Away went Flying Soot at full speed until he came to the Seven Hills
of Ash. There in a great hollow between them crouched the Giant of the
Wide Grey Plain. He was grumbling and grumbling to himself, for no one
had invited him to join them in any evil magic for a long while. So he
was having a terribly stupid time of it, and wished with all his heart
that something would happen that would give him a chance to show his
power.

Flying Soot stole up to him unseen, and softly touched his elbow.

The Giant turned with so tremendous a start that masses of ash were
shaken loose from the Seven Hills, and fell in clouds into the hollow.
“So it is you, Flying Soot!” he cried joyfully. “That means there is
good prospect of mischief afoot.”

“Ay,” replied Flying Soot, “that there is.” He found a seat on a
soft bank close to the Giant, who at once prepared himself to hear
interesting news.

Flying Soot began forthwith to tell him about the Earth Fairy, who he
said had sent him to ask the Giant’s aid against a young Prince who
would soon be traveling that way. “He will be preceded by a flame,
who is the enchanted Princess whom he loves,” said he. “She it is,
who, under the Earth Fairy’s spell, leads him on to danger. We wish
you to destroy the Prince if you can. At any rate you must completely
overpower him, in order that the Earth Fairy may take from him a Veil
which he carries, and which she greatly covets.”

“Surely this Veil must be endowed with marvelous power,” exclaimed the
Giant, “if the Earth Fairy is so anxious to secure it.”

“True,” Flying Soot made haste to answer; “but it possesses this power
only in the hands of the Prince, or of the Earth Fairy. To you or to
others it would be of no use whatever.”

“Well, well,” growled the Giant, “she may have it and welcome for all I
care. Why should I wish for a wretched Veil so long as I have my Cloak
with which to work my will.”

“Why should you, indeed?” agreed the Soot Fairy. “What is a trifle
like a Veil, compared to a Cloak so wonderful as yours?”

Flattered by the words of Flying Soot, the Giant was now ready to exert
himself to the utmost, and could hardly wait for the arrival of the
Prince.

“Be sure that you do no harm to the Princess,” Flying Soot warned him.
“The Earth Fairy herself will see to her. It is the Prince alone upon
whom you are to exercise your power.”

“I shall remember,” replied the Giant. “Say no more, but come and watch
for them with me. Through this opening between the Seven Hills we can
surely see them as they approach.” Flying Soot did as the Giant bade
him and together they watched and waited for some time.

At last, in the distance, they beheld a flashing brightness coming
steadily toward the place where they lay in wait, and close behind it
followed a figure well known to Flying Soot.

“See!” he whispered, gripping the Giant’s arm. “The Princess comes, and
the Prince hastens after. There also is my friend the Earth Fairy.”

“Ay,” answered the Giant with a malicious chuckle. “They are coming
fast. Go farther from me, Flying Soot, that I may have room to use my
Cloak.” Flying Soot obeyed, and the Giant began to make ready.

He loosed his huge grey Cloak from his neck, dragged it from his
shoulders, and gathered its collar firmly in his hand. Then he crouched
down once more behind the hill nearest to the approaching travelers.
So like to the ashes in color was the Giant’s great body that he was
almost indistinguishable, as with eyes glued to the opening in the
side of the hill, he awaited the moment when the Prince should arrive.

Prince Radiance gave heed only to the Princess. With his gaze fixed
upon her flashing light, he followed its guidance across the Wide Grey
Plain. As he sped on and on, he kept ever before him the hope that by
some means he might be able to bridge the distance between them. So,
before he realized it, he had reached the Seven Hills of Ash, and the
danger that lurked behind them.

The Giant’s time had come. Silently, swiftly he rose, and towered above
the hills that had sheltered him. With a sweep of his mighty arm he
flung out his cloak and cast it like a grey wall between the Prince and
the Princess. Deftly he caught Prince Radiance in its folds, and before
the Prince could make the least effort to free himself, the Giant
raised his Cloak high in air, and set it spinning about his head like
an enormous revolving cloud. Larger it grew, flying faster and faster
the while, and at every turn its stifling folds settled closer about
the captive Prince.

The hoarse laughter of the Giant roared in his ears like thunder. Half
choked, the Prince beat back the Cloak from his face, and struggled
violently to escape. But round and round spun the Cloak as the Giant
whirled his powerful arm, and Prince Radiance only exhausted himself
against its tightening clasp, in vain.

The Giant’s dull eyes began to glitter for he knew that none could
resist his evil Cloak for very long. Safe hidden within the hollow
between the Hills of Ash, Flying Soot peered out upon them, and near
him hovered the cruel Earth Fairy, ready to dart out and seize the
treasure that she coveted as soon as the Giant’s victory was gained.
Princess White Flame, stricken with grief and dismay at the sudden
disappearance of the Prince, quivered alone and helpless where the
Earth Fairy held her in thrall.

Gladly the Prince would have drawn his sword to slash his way through
the Giant’s great Cloak, but he could not free his arms sufficiently
to do so. Thus he seemed entirely without a weapon that he could use
in his own defense, and he was about to give himself up for lost, when
suddenly he remembered the Grey Pouch at his side. He remembered also
the words of the giver, “It will help you out of many a danger--out of
many a difficulty.”

“May it not be that it will help me now?” murmured the Prince faintly,
“Ah, if it does not, then all hope of escape is gone.”

By a great effort he slipped his hand down to his side. With shaking
fingers he undid the clasp of his Pouch and reached for the glowing
coal that lay within. He drew it forth, and felt, as he did so that
it was on fire with magic. He pressed it against the Giant’s Cloak.
Immediately a hole appeared in its folds, which widened rapidly. The
air rushed in, reviving the Prince with its freshness and giving
him zeal and new courage. So well did he use his weapon then, that
presently he had before him a great opening in the thick folds through
which he could pass with ease.

The Cloak in the Giant’s hands was still whirling at tremendous speed.
Prince Radiance, looking out through the opening saw the Seven Hills
of Ash and the Wide Grey Plain spinning dizzily round and round far
beneath him. Yet he was not afraid. He prepared himself to leap from
the opening that he had made, when suddenly the Giant hurled his Cloak
violently forward. Instantly the Prince was thrown through the air with
such force that he was driven far out of reach or sight of his enemies.
His scarlet mantle spread itself about him like great wings that bore
him swiftly on and on, until at last it settled slowly and allowed him
to alight in a place of safety.

The Giant, unaware that Prince Radiance was no longer in his power,
gave his huge Cloak an abrupt twist. Immediately it shrunk to its
former size, and he threw it down into the hollow between the Seven
Hills. Then he turned to the Earth Fairy triumphantly.

[Illustration: Suddenly the Giant hurled his Cloak violently forward]

“Come now, and take what you desire,” he roared, “for this miserable
Prince is without doubt completely destroyed.”

Forth rushed the wicked Earth Fairy in a tremor of delight, sure that
she was about to possess the Veil. With greedy hands she flung aside
the folds of the Giant’s Cloak; with greedy hands she searched within
its folds; but search as she would, she could find nothing. Unable to
believe in such ill-fortune she tore the Cloak to right and left, but
at last she knew for a certainty that the Prince was not there.

In a rage she turned upon the Giant. “Miserable creature, see what you
have done!” she screamed. “With the Prince completely in your grasp as
he was, you have been so stupid as to allow him to escape.”

The Giant could not believe it possible. He stooped over the Cloak,
and himself examined each one of its great folds, but at last he was
convinced that the Earth Fairy was right. The Prince was indeed gone,
and the great hole burned in the Cloak showed plainly the manner of his
escape. Vexed as he was, his vexation changed quickly to anger as the
Earth Fairy continued to pour contempt upon him for his failure, and to
upbraid Flying Soot for having brought her to so worthless an ally.

Springing up in uncontrollable fury at her insolence, the Giant shouted
threats at her at the top of his lungs.

Flying Soot saw that he must interfere at once. He bent down and
whispered quickly to the Earth Fairy, “Do not tarry here an instant
longer. You have made an enemy of the Giant. In another moment he will
destroy us all. Come, let us go in quest of the Prince, for I have
other friends who may serve you better than the Giant.”

The crafty Earth Fairy perceived that he was right, and yielded herself
at once to his advice. Away she fled with Flying Soot across the Wide
Grey Plain, taking with her the sorrowing Princess, and soon the Giant
and his rage, and the Seven Hills of Ash lay far behind them.

At last Flying Soot checked the Earth Fairy’s flight. “Let us stop here
while I tell you what I mean to do,” he said.

The Earth Fairy was willing. She rested her Green Wand, and Princess
White Flame ceased to go forward, but her captor made sure that the
Princess was not near enough to herself and Flying Soot to overhear
anything that might be said.

“The Prince as you know, has escaped by the work of a magic coal,”
began Flying Soot. “Against such a fairy weapon the Giant’s wondrous
Cloak is powerless. But come--I will take you to one who will be proof
against this--one whose weapons are such that the Prince cannot even
approach him to injure him. This powerful friend of whom I speak is the
Great Black Dragon, and his haunt is yonder in the Gloomy Vale. From
here, as you see, it is not far distant. I will go at once to bespeak
his aid. Go you, on your part, and find the Prince, and when you have
brought him to the Dragon, you may be sure that you will find him ready
to serve you. Then shall you discover also that I have not boasted of
the Dragon’s power in vain.”

Glad was the Earth Fairy to consent to what promised so well for her
purpose, and presently they parted, each to go upon the errand set.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER X


In the Gloomy Vale the Great Black Dragon lay asleep with his head
between his paws. Around him, on all sides, stretched the black
hillsides, with apparently no living creature but the Dragon to be seen.

Yet as Flying Soot entered the valley on his mission for the Earth
Fairy, dull-hued toads hopped away from his feet, and strange animals
of hideous shapes left the nooks where they had lain sleeping to creep
away and drowse again in a more distant spot. Occasionally he saw
fierce eyes glare out upon him from a dim thicket, or beheld the sharp
claw or lashing tail of some evil creature whisking itself away from
his view.

Flying Soot knew them all, and feared them not. He passed unmolested on
his way, and stopped within a yard of the Dragon, but so profound was
the monster’s sleep that he did not stir.

“Awake, Sir Dragon!” cried Flying Soot, drawing nearer, “Awake!”

The Dragon moved one claw a little in his slumber, but gave no other
heed.

Flying Soot drew nearer still. “Awake, Sir Dragon! Awake!” he shouted
in his very ear.

Then the Dragon gave a great yawn, and his eyelids slowly rose.

“Ah, it is you, Flying Soot,” he grunted. “What is it that brings you
here to disturb my rest?”

“I come on an errand of importance,” answered the Soot Fairy. “One in
which none can give such valuable aid as the Great Black Dragon of the
Gloomy Vale.”

His words pleased the Dragon. He moistened his lips and cheeks with
his great tongue, and sat erect upon his haunches. “Let me hear your
errand,” commanded he.

So Flying Soot made haste to explain why he had come, and the Dragon
immediately agreed to help the Earth Fairy.

“Ho, ho!” he cried. “I shall vanquish this Prince quickly, you shall
see, for when I choose to use them I have weapons of such power that
none can stand out against them. Have no fear, Flying Soot. Trust all
to me, and I assure you that you and your friend the Earth Fairy, shall
not be disappointed.”

Looking upon the monster’s huge form, his terrible claws, his fiercely
lashing tail, Flying Soot knew that the Great Black Dragon had good
cause to boast.

“I leave the matter entirely to you,” said he. “There is one thing
more, however, that you must promise me. You must on no account harm,
or even touch the fairy Veil of which I have told you. Least of all
must you attempt to take it for yourself. I assure you that it is of no
value to any but the Prince or the Earth Fairy. For others it will work
no charm.”

The Dragon laughed loud and scornfully. “That matters naught to me,”
he cried. “By the weapons that I carry always with me I am able to
accomplish what things I please. Why then should I wish for a trifle
like this Veil?”

His mind entirely at rest upon that score, Flying Soot now sat himself
down upon a black hillock close to the Dragon, and sought to entertain
him as they waited by giving him such bits of news as he had collected
in his travels. The Dragon well pleased to have him do so, listened
hungrily to every word.

Meanwhile Prince Radiance, alone in a strange land, and still weary
from his struggle with the Giant, sunk down upon a heap of ash and
bowed his head. He wished to ponder well his course, before he again
set out. Behind him lay that part of the Wide Grey Plain where the
Giant dwelt who had so lately tried to destroy him. Before him, and at
his left stretched a plain of ash. To his right a black country opened
with low lying hills and valleys wherein might lurk unseen dangers for
them both.

As he sat there in indecision, the Earth Fairy coming in search of him,
espied him from afar.

Princess White Flame saw him also, and uttered a cry of joy. She needed
not the spur of the Earth Fairy’s wand to drive her to him. Swiftly
across the desolate waste she flitted until he was within sound of her
voice.

“Radiance, dear Radiance!” she called to him, “What happiness is mine
that I have found you once more!”

Hearing that well-loved voice the Prince raised his head quickly and
saw the Princess, not fleeing from him, but advancing toward him.
Instantly he leaped to his feet, with arms outstretched, crying
in rapture, “Nay my Princess, what happiness is mine that you have
returned to me once more!”

He ran to her at full-speed and had well-nigh reached her, when
suddenly Princess White Flame was again made sensible of the
restraining wand of the Earth Fairy. Cruelly, inexorably, it drew her
steadily away from the Prince into the black country at his right.

Seeing the distance widening between them the Prince cried aloud with
grief and disappointment. Sore as was his own heart, Prince Radiance
nevertheless called to her tenderly, hoping to support and comfort her.
“Fear not, dearest White Flame,” he exclaimed. “Whither you go, there
will I go also, and in the end my love shall conquer every spell.”

At his words the courage of the Princess rose again, and with it came
hope, even though she shivered as they presently entered that dark
valley where the Dragon dwelt. At first it appeared to them quite
deserted, for so close the monster lay to the black ground that he
looked to be but a part of the vale itself. Thus White Flame passed
over him and beyond him without suspecting his presence, and Prince
Radiance in his turn had advanced almost to the Dragon’s feet before he
saw what lay in wait to bar his way.

Aghast at the sudden appearance of this new foe, Prince Radiance fell
back a pace to place himself on guard, scarce knowing how to defend
himself against an enemy so ferocious.

Then up rose the Dragon, black and terrible, a creature to strike
terror to one less valiant than the Prince. “Yield you, Sir Prince,”
he bellowed hoarsely, raising his bared claw in menace, “Yield to the
Master of the Gloomy Vale.”

“I yield to none,” retorted Prince Radiance, fearlessly, “for I follow
the Princess White Flame, and to her I must pass.”

“None passes where the Great Black Dragon bars the way,” roared his
enemy, “and none defies him but learns to rue his folly.” He crouched
to spring; his hard and glittering eyes were fixed angrily upon the
Prince, his tail lashed furiously from side to side.

The Prince knew that he must defend himself without delay if he would
escape destruction. Quickly he slipped his hand beneath his mantle to
his good Grey Pouch, opened it, and drew forth a brimming handful of
the fairy ash that lay within. Thus was he armed against his foe.

It was none too soon, for with a roar that shook the black hillsides
the Dragon sprang toward him with outstretched claws. The magic ash
of the Wise One flew from the hand of Prince Radiance, and met him
half-way. It fell full upon the bulging eye-balls of the Great Dragon,
and smote him with instant blindness. A howl of astonishment and rage
burst from him, but he was undismayed. Although he could no longer see
to direct his weapons, he struck out boldly with his claw. Again the
ashes met him and at their touch the Dragon’s terrible claw withered
and fell powerless at his side. One by one his remaining claws met
with the same fate. And now no weapon remained to him but his powerful
tail--that great tail with which he had thought to beat the Prince to
finest dust.

But blinded as he was, he could strike only at random--could only lash
it aimlessly from side to side. Thus, the Dragon’s last weapon was soon
rendered powerless also. Before the magic of the fairy ash it shriveled
at the very root, and presently it trailed limp and useless along the
ground.

The Earth Fairy, watching the battle, saw that the Dragon had also
failed, and anger rose hot within her. Flying Soot was quick to
perceive this, and hastened to conciliate her. He tapped her gently,
upon the arm saying: “My good Earth Fairy, to my great surprise I find
that the Great Black Dragon is no match for the Prince after all. But
do not let that discourage you. I have yet another friend to whom I
will take you, who is much more powerful than he.”

The Earth Fairy cut him short in wrath. “Were you not certain that the
Giant could help me?” said she. “Were you not equally certain that this
wonderful Dragon was invincible? Speak not to me of this third friend
of yours, I have no faith in him.”

“Ah,” answered Flying Soot, “but how should I know that the Prince
possessed the fairy ash of the Wise One? This alone it is that has
enabled him to overcome the Black Dragon. Neither this, nor the magic
coal with which he burned the Giant’s cloak will avail him however
against the great magician, Curling Smoke, to whom I now propose to
take you.”

“Nevertheless,” replied the Earth Fairy, “he wears a sword. Do you not
see it? Who knows what fairy virtue may dwell therein?”

Flying Soot laughed her to scorn. “Think you that if it possessed such
fairy virtue that he would not long since have drawn this sword to
cleave the Giant’s cloak, or to attack the Great Dragon? Nay, fear it
not. ’Tis but a useless toy that he well knows will serve him not at
all away from his father’s kingdom.”

The Earth Fairy glanced to where the flame of the Princess trembled
between hope and fear for the Prince. She looked to where the Dragon
groaning dismally lay close along the ground, his head buried
between his paws. She knew that here all chance of help for herself
was completely gone. She had no plan of her own that promised more
than this of Flying Soot. She had almost decided to consent to his
proposal, when he caught at her sleeve. “Look quickly!” he cried, under
his breath. “Do you not behold him there in the distance, my friend,
Curling Smoke. See--there he rises in the plain beyond that dark hill.
He is a marvelous magician. I am certain that he will not fail you. Do
not be foolish, Earth Fairy. Permit me to go to him in your behalf. I
assure you, you will not regret it.”

Urged thus, the Earth Fairy gave her consent, and Flying Soot flew off
in a twinkling upon his errand of evil.

With the Dragon now fully vanquished Prince Radiance saw that he could
at last pass on his way in safety. Leaving his enemy behind him he
stepped boldly into the country beyond. There he discerned the flame
of his Princess flickering pure and pale against a gloomy hillside.
Swiftly he hastened toward her, and presently he found himself so near
that he believed he could cast the Veil upon her from where he now
stood. Trembling with eagerness he felt for the golden box in which the
wondrous Veil lay hid--found it, and pressed upon the clasp.

Alas for his hopes! The keen eyes of the Earth Fairy saw what he was
about to do. Before he could draw out the Veil or even undo the clasp,
the Green Wand was lifted, and by its dread power the Princess was
once more compelled to take her flight from him who would fain have
delivered her.

With a sinking heart Prince Radiance beheld her receding down the dark
valley, but with fresh rallying of his courage he called to her,
“Princess, dear Princess, go if you must, but remember always that I
follow--follow to the end.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI


Where the Gloomy Vale borders the plain beyond, rises the low-walled
dwelling of the Ash Goblin.

So low it lies that only those familiar with that land know of its
presence. Only those with eyes accustomed to the grey stretches can see
the Ash Goblin himself. Very small he is, and grey of face and eyes
and hair. Grey, too, are his garments, soft and grey as the ashes that
surround him.

So he moves about, concealed from the view of all but his friends. Not
less eager than the rest of the Evil Fairies is he to join in any
mischief, but because he is so small and weak, his help is less often
sought than is that of the more powerful fairies of the land.

Flying Soot had no intention of asking him to join in the affairs
of the Earth Fairy. He had not even thought of him. On many former
occasions as he had passed through the Land of the Evil Fairies he
had stopped to chat with the Ash Goblin, and give him the news, but
to-day he had not time for so much as a glance at the grey walls of his
dwelling.

The Ash Goblin seated beside his door saw him as he approached, and
saw too that he intended to pass without speaking. Astonished and
displeased he determined not to permit it. He sprang to his feet in
haste, and caught at the fluttering mantle of the Soot Fairy to drag
him back.

“Ho there,” he cried. “On what errand of mischief are you bound, that
you do not even give me good-day?”

“Pray let me go at once,” answered Flying Soot impatiently, with a jerk
of his mantle, “I have business of importance that must not be delayed.”

“But it is of this important business that I wish to hear,” insisted
the Ash Goblin, clutching his raiment only the more firmly.

Flying Soot knew well that one so insignificant as the Ash Goblin could
do little to further the wishes of the Earth Fairy. So he put him off.
“It is an adventure,” said he, “in which you cannot be of the smallest
use to me. Let me go then to where I can get the help that I need.”

At this the Ash Goblin became exceedingly affronted, and was at no
pains to conceal it. “If it is a matter in which you require assistance
you do ill to despise mine,” he declared, drawing himself up haughtily.

But Flying Soot did not tarry to argue the matter. He wrenched free his
mantle, and hurried away to seek Curling Smoke, leaving the Ash Goblin
to nurse his wrath at his leisure.

Wavering and swaying in the plain beyond the dark hill where Flying
Soot had first beheld him, hung Curling Smoke, the grey magician. In
all the Land of the Evil Fairies there were few who possessed such
power as he, or were so ready to wield it.

Even at this moment he was watching craftily for a chance to work ill
upon whoever might come his way, now crouching low to peer between the
hills, now rising to the full spire of his height to overlook the black
valleys, and ashy plains.

Thus he caught sight of Flying Soot from afar, and waited for him, for
well he knew that mischief was afoot wherever that black mantle flew.

Flying Soot came fast, calling to him as he drew near. “Curling Smoke,
Curling Smoke, do not depart! I have urgent business with you.” Nothing
that he could have said would have been more pleasing to Curling Smoke,
and when the Soot Fairy reached him he waved him to a seat, settled
himself down beside him and gave him an attentive ear.

Glad to find his wicked friend so ready to listen, Flying Soot began.
“A Prince is traveling through this land--a stranger. He pursues a
flame, who is an enchanted Princess whom he hopes to win as a bride by
delivering her from the spell that binds her. This he expects to do by
means of a magic Veil which he carries. My friend the Earth Fairy, who
is not far distant, purposes to prevent this, for she has good cause to
desire vengeance upon the Princess because of injuries that she herself
has suffered from the parents of this Princess. Moreover, the Earth
Fairy wishes the Veil for herself. It is for you, greatest magician in
all this land, to vanquish this presumptuous Prince so that the Earth
Fairy may take from him this Veil. You must give your word, however,
that no matter what means you may employ to conquer him, that you will
neither injure the Veil itself, nor seek to deprive the Earth Fairy of
it. Indeed, in case you should attempt it, you would find that it would
have no virtue in your hands.”

In proud disdain Curling Smoke made answer: “Bring hither your Prince,
and when I have conquered him the Earth Fairy may take from him his
Veil and go where she wishes. What care I for such a miserable trifle
as this Prince carries? Have I not my Veil that Blinds? Have I not also
my Veil that Chokes? With these two I am able to work what magic I
will.”

“That I can well believe,” spoke Flying Soot in flattering tones.
“As to the Prince--I need not go to fetch him. The Princess herself,
driven by the Earth Fairy’s spell, leads him on. See you--even now they
approach us. A moment more, and they will be here.”

It was as he said. Straight toward them came the beautiful flame of
the Princess, and behind her sped Prince Radiance still cherishing
the hope that the fortunate moment would soon arrive when he should be
able to overtake her. Hidden from the eyes of the Prince, but clearly
visible to Curling Smoke and Flying Soot came the wicked Earth Fairy,
eager to test the power of her new ally. Within the shelter of a black
crag Curling Smoke sank down and lay concealed until the Princess had
flitted by, but when Prince Radiance would have done likewise, the
tall grey form of the magician stole from his hiding-place and filled
the path. Twisted about his arm and trailing from it were the smoke
veils in which his power dwelt. Delaying not he unloosed the Veil that
Blinds. “Yield you to Curling Smoke, to Curling Smoke, Magician of
Veils,” he cried.

Tall and powerful as was the unexpected enemy who now beset him, Prince
Radiance did not quail. Quickly he laid his hand upon his scabbard and
his voice rang clear, “Magician though you be, I fear you not. Neither
do I obey. Stand back then from my path, for I follow the Princess
White Flame, and yield to none.”

Curling Smoke gave no word in answer but flung his veil of smoke
instead full in the Prince’s face. He thought to see it sting his eyes
to instant blindness, but it was not so. Before it could come near him
to do him harm the Sword of Flames answering its master’s hand had
leapt from its scabbard, and was raised on high. Back from its splendor
the Veil that Blinds drifted--drifted--till it settled limp across the
magician’s arm. By the mere lifting of that fairy sword its power
had been scattered, and its magic spent. Curling Smoke beheld it with
astonishment and anger. Yet he did not hesitate. Grimly he snatched
from his arm the Veil that Chokes, and flung it in its turn toward the
Prince. He looked to have it take from Prince Radiance his very breath,
so great was its pungent stifling power. But this also failed for the
Sword of Flames met and clove it, and striking to right and left rent
it in pieces. It fell in a thousand fragments about the magician’s feet.

[Illustration: The Sword of Flames leapt from its scabbard and was
raised on high.]

Then Curling Smoke in a frenzy of wrath sprang upon the Prince to
clutch him with his arms and bear him down.

Swiftly did Prince Radiance meet his onset, and right valiantly did
he wield his Sword of Flames. Though Curling Smoke put forth all his
craft, though he writhed now here, now there, seeking to ensnare the
Prince, though he towered above him at one instant or in the next
curled about his knees to drag him to the earth, yet everywhere the
shining Sword sharp and invincible met him. Everywhere its violet
splendor flashed; around him and through him, until at last the
magician’s very form was scattered and driven away in floating wisps of
smoke.

Prince Radiance sheathed his Sword of Flames. Before him lay the open
path, and not far away hovered the Princess. Across the space between
them came her exquisite voice, calling tremulously her joy at his new
deliverance from peril, and the fear for him that had been hers.

“Nay, then, my White Flame,” he answered, “fear not for me ever. But
one grief have I--that I have not yet overtaken you; but one fear is
mine--that I may lose you in my journeyings. Over both of these, hope,
like a star, shines always. Happiness awaits us in the end. Doubt it
not.”

The Earth Fairy berating Flying Soot over the utter failure of Curling
Smoke, was arrested by the words of the Prince.

They but made her the more determined to achieve her end. Already
the Prince was advancing toward the Princess. Should he overtake her
all was lost to herself. Quickly she lifted her Green Wand and drove
Princess White Flame onward. Quickly she turned to Flying Soot who had
been making a new offer. “Go then,” she cried, “and seek this Wizard
of the Cave of Darkness, of whom you have spoken. Obtain his assistance
for me. We shall not be far behind you, so lose no time. Let us hope
that this last plan of yours will be of more value to me than the
others that you have suggested.”

Flying Soot needed no second bidding, but took himself off in the
direction of the Wizard’s Cave. More slowly the Earth Fairy proceeded
along the same way, keeping the Prince and the Princess ever before her.

They had scarcely left the spot where Curling Smoke had been
vanquished, when a small grey figure stole out from a crevice in a
rock near by and looked cautiously after them. It was the Ash Goblin.
He shook his fist at them in menace, muttering, “We shall see, Flying
Soot, we shall see, Earth Fairy, whether you can afford to scorn the
help of one so small even as an Ash Goblin.” He sat down upon a low
rock to watch the floating remnants that had once been Curling Smoke.
Patiently he waited, for knowing this crafty magician, he knew also
what would come to pass. Slowly, slowly these remnants came closer and
closer. Slowly they gathered themselves bit by bit into one mass, and
at length before the Ash Goblin’s eyes Curling Smoke appeared once
more in his own shape. He who had so lately boasted himself to be
invincible, held himself haughtily, for anger burned within him at his
humiliation and he was determined to be revenged. It pleased the Ash
Goblin to see him thus, for it fell in with his own purposes. Fearful
lest Curling Smoke should be about to depart he made haste to address
him.

“Master Magician,” he called from his lowly seat, “do you know what
Flying Soot has said of you?”

“It is not Flying Soot who concerns me,” answered Curling Smoke, not
deigning to look down at the speaker. “It is this Prince whom I mean to
punish for what he has lately done.”

“Ay, but it was Flying Soot whom I heard telling the Earth Fairy that
he might have guessed that you were no magician after all, but a mere
boaster. He declared also that he had other friends who would help her,
who were really more powerful, and whose word could be trusted. Many
other things he said, that put shame and contempt upon you. It would
take too long to repeat them all. Does not Flying Soot concern you, now
that you know this, Master Magician?”

“So much does he concern me that I shall punish him as well,” replied
Curling Smoke, in mounting rage. “Ay, and the Earth Fairy, also. Before
their journey is done--in a moment when they look not for me, they
shall one and all find that the power of Curling Smoke is not to be
despised.”

The Ash Goblin clapped his hands in a burst of wicked glee. “Ah,
Master Magician, that I can well believe--and I--the Ash Goblin--shall
make it my business to be there to see it.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII


Strange though the lands had been across which Prince Radiance had
journeyed since he left his father’s kingdom, the one through which
the flame now led him was the strangest of all. At one time he thought
himself to be approaching a great palace, not brilliant and glittering
like the Palace of Burning Coals, but looming dark and forbidding
before his eyes. He wondered what manner of danger might await him
there; yet when at last he stood before it, it dissolved from before
his sight as though it had never been. And beyond him, hastening toward
a gloomy forest the flame of his Princess still seemed to lead on.

He reached the forest, and it, too, vanished into thin air, while
before him the pale flame steadily pursued its way.

A great black cave became visible in the distance. Soon the flame
reached it and disappeared into its mouth, yet when the Prince arrived,
no cave was there, and flitting on in silence went the unresting flame.
Thus he was deceived again and again, for whatever he saw was found to
be naught as soon as he reached it.

“Saw I never so curious a land!” murmured the Prince. “Surely but a
moment since I seemed to see a strange grey woman close by my side; yet
now she is gone.” He turned to assure himself of it, and as he did so,
a faint laugh echoed through the air.

“Ah! I was not mistaken after all,” he whispered. “Someone laughed!”

Again, yet farther off, he heard the same echoing laugh, but though
he looked sharply in the direction from whence it came, he still saw
nothing. Paying no further heed to it Prince Radiance traveled onward
with greater speed. Now at last he found that he was truly overtaking
the flame. At times it stood still, then went slowly on, but finally,
as if it meant to go no further it burned steadily in one spot.

“She waits!” exclaimed Radiance. “My Princess waits!” He ran to her,
his heart filled with dread lest she should again take flight. He
reached her, and opened his box in haste. He took the magic Veil from
its shelter, and shook its transparent folds over the waiting flame.
Instantly the flame vanished, and Radiance watched with eager eyes for
the appearance of his Princess in her true form.

But moment followed moment, the Veil drooped limp from his hand, and
though the flame was gone, the Princess did not become visible.

Perceiving that he had been deceived once more, Prince Radiance cried
aloud in his grief, “Alas! This also is nothing! I have followed a
false flame!”

Overcome with pain and discouragement, he dropped the Veil unheeded to
the ground, and buried his face in his hands.

A long grey shadow crept toward him from the gloom, and once more a
faint laugh broke the stillness. It was so near that it startled the
Prince, plunged though he was in distress. He took his hands quickly
from his eyes, and saw the creeping shadow, saw that with long arms
outstretched it sought to reach and steal the mystic Veil that lay
unprotected at his feet. Swiftly he bent, and snatched the Veil to
himself. He restored it to the golden box, and fastened the box safely
beneath his cloak.

“Ah!” breathed a voice from the shadow, “you were too quick for me.
I so much longed to see closely this wonderful Veil that Flying Soot
tells of.”

Prince Radiance, looking, saw the creeping shadow rise up and up until
it became a tall woman, young and beautiful, dressed in long grey robes
that swept in trailing webs from her arms and shoulders to her feet.
Her black hair fell straight to her knees; her eyes were very dark,
and looked as though they never smiled, although even now, the Prince
heard that strange laughter floating from her lips that had echoed in
his ears as he had pursued the flame that he had believed to be his
Princess.

He turned indignant eyes upon her. “Who are you that mock me thus?” he
demanded, wondering as he spoke whether this could be the Earth Fairy
in disguise.

The woman did not answer, but looked at him intently.

“Speak,” commanded the Prince. “Are you the wicked Earth Fairy, that
you laugh so heartlessly?”

“No Earth Fairy am I,” replied the grey woman. “I am the Shadow Witch,
and with me are all my servants.” She waved her arms, and out of the
gloom, as she herself had done, sprang a host of pale grey figures who
stood behind her murmuring, “Yes, we are her servants--her servants
the Shadows, who come and go at her behest.”

“And you it is, then, who have so cruelly deceived me, and lured me by
your false flame from following my Princess,” cried Prince Radiance to
the Shadow Witch.

“True enough,” she declared, “and why should I not?” She tossed her
black hair from her face, and continued. “I grow so weary in this Land
of Shadows, with none but my creeping servants about me, naught but my
own grey magic to fill my hours. Seldom does a stranger cross through
my land; more seldom have I a chance to look upon the magic of others.
All the tricks of my brother, the Wizard of the Cave, I know by heart.
I am tired of watching him play them day after day. Why should I not
lure you from your path if it gives me an hour of pleasure?”

“Surely you are the friend of the Earth Fairy,” exclaimed the Prince,
“and you have led me here to steal my fairy Veil if you can, but be
assured you will never obtain it in spite of all your craft.”

The Shadow Witch, who had bent her eyes upon the ground, raised them
now, and turned upon the Prince an earnest gaze as though she rejoiced
to look upon him. “I am no friend of the Earth Fairy,” she answered
quietly. “She is nothing to me. I will tell you fully if you wish
to know, why it is that I have brought you here. Of late as I sat
unobserved in a corner of the Wizard’s Cave, where my brother dwells,
I saw Flying Soot come in, and heard him say that he had work for my
brother to do, if he was willing. What could that mean but mischief? I
crept close, yet taking care lest I should be seen, and listened keenly
that I might lose nothing. Thus I learned all that Flying Soot had to
tell him concerning yourself and Princess White Flame, and about the
Veil that the Earth Fairy claims that you have stolen from her.”

“Nay,” interrupted the Prince indignantly. “If she says that she tells
a wicked falsehood. The magic Veil is a gift to me from the Wise One.
The Earth Fairy has never even beheld it.”

“However that may be,” answered the Shadow Witch, shaking out her
grey sleeves, “she means to wrest it from you, and my brother has
promised to help her. You may take my word for it that his help is not
to be despised. I heard Flying Soot suggest also that he should get me
to assist in the matter, but the Wizard replied, ‘Nay, you need not
trouble yourself to ask her. She can do nothing that is really worth
while.’ When he said that, I determined to cheat them both, and as you
see, I have done so.”

“Alas, that you should have succeeded,” cried Prince Radiance. “It may
be that even now my Princess is in the hands of your wicked brother.”

“Is then this Princess so dear to you?” asked the Shadow Witch softly.

“Ah, yes. So dear that no witchcraft of yours shall be able to keep me
from her,” exclaimed the Prince.

“Yet she is no more than a flame, and a voice,” murmured the Shadow
Witch.

“But such a voice as none have ever heard before, and such a flame, so
pure, so white, that I wonder how I could have been deceived by the
false flame of your contriving that has lured me here.”

The lips of the Shadow Witch curled in a smile. “I have much skill with
magic,” she said. “Beautiful may be the flame of your Princess, of
wondrous sweetness may be her voice, yet if you would consent to remain
in my land, I think I should be able to make you forget them both.”

“Nay,” replied Prince Radiance firmly, “that would never be.” Turning
from her, he sought to depart, but the Shadow Witch would not have
it so. She waved her long arms to her servants, and instantly they
surrounded him in so dense a barrier that he could not pass.

“You must hear me yet further,” cried the Shadow Witch. “I am not so
cruel, perhaps, as you think. It was not alone that I desired to cheat
my brother and Flying Soot, for when I saw your face so full of hope
and courage it cheered me as none had ever done before. Because of this
I would have saved you from his evil power. Well did I know that he
had promised not to harm the Princess, but I feared that you might not
escape in safety, and therefore I led you here. And then--besides--I
am so lonely in my kingdom.” She drew nearer, and held out her hands
beseechingly. Her pleading voice spoke on. “Oh if you would but stay
with me. I long for brightness, for light, for cheer. These you can
give me. Stay, ah stay with me, Prince Radiance. In my land you shall
be prince and ruler. Stay, and teach me to forget my witch’s tricks;
stay, and help me to learn nobler ways.”

Prince Radiance looked into the face of the Shadow Witch, and saw that
her eyes overflowed with tears. Gently he took her hand, gently he
answered her. “Though you have drawn me away from my beloved Princess,
I bear you no malice. Yet I cannot stay with you, for my heart follows
the Princess White Flame. I have sworn to deliver her, and to my vow I
give my life. You tell me that you are not cruel. Prove it then. Lead
me back to my Princess quickly; show me where to find this Cave where
your brother dwells.”

The Shadow Witch sighed bitterly and drew her hand away. “If I let
you go, you will never come again.” Silent she stood, wavering in
indecision, but at length she spoke quickly, “Yes--yes--I will let
you go. I will even do as you ask, and take you to the Cave myself,
for in this Land of Shadows you would wander long, and never find your
way.” Turning to her band of servants, she waved them back. “Go,” she
exclaimed. “Go, till I summon you again.”

With a flutter of grey garments they dissolved like mist at her
command. Then the Shadow Witch stretched her hand to Prince Radiance.
“Come,” she said. “Follow where I lead you, and you shall learn that I
spoke truly when I said that in this land there is one at least who is
not altogether unkind.”

Gratefully the Prince obeyed her, and before he could have believed it
possible, they stood together at the spot where he had begun to pursue
the false flame. A high black cliff rose before them. The Shadow Witch
pointed to it and said, “My brother’s Cave lies yonder. Enter that
wide opening in the cliff-side. Pursue the narrow way that leads from
it, and erelong you will reach the Cave Hall where he sits. Gladly
would I give you some weapon to use against him, but there is only one
that he fears, and alas, I do not possess it.”

“What weapon may that be?” inquired the Prince.

“It is the Sword of Flames,” she answered. “He has never seen it, but
its fame has reached him, and he knows well that before it his power
would be shattered.”

Prince Radiance smiled, and laid his hand upon his scabbard. “Then am
I well assured of victory,” he told her, “for the Sword of Flames is
here.”

“The Sword of Flames? You have the Sword of Flames?” exclaimed she.
“Ah, now you may meet him safely. And yet----” she warned him, “he is
clever, very clever. Beware lest he steal your strength from you and
overpower you before you are aware.”

“I will be watchful,” he promised.

“Farewell then,” she murmured, “and forget not the Shadow Witch.”

“Always will I remember you and be grateful,” replied the Prince. With
a wave of his hand he left her. Rapidly he mounted the cliff, and found
himself at the entrance to the Wizard’s Cave.

The Shadow Witch, who had remained below, watched him sadly until she
saw him disappear in the Cave’s mouth. Then she turned away to go back
to the Land of Shadows. But suddenly she changed her mind. Silently
she, too, climbed the cliff wall, trailing her long grey robes behind
her, and entered the Cave.

“My brother is so clever,” she muttered to herself, “and none know
his tricks so well as I. He shall not harm this Prince, no--nor the
Princess that he loves. I will go to make sure of it.”




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII


While Prince Radiance, deceived by the Shadow Witch had gone away into
the Land of Shadows, the Earth Fairy on her part had proceeded straight
to the Cave of Darkness where the Wizard dwelt.

A figure that she believed to be the Prince followed the Princess
steadily, so that she suspected nothing wrong.

The Cave was black and forbidding; its walls of charcoal were full of
gaping crevices; and a very little way from the entrance it became
pitch dark. Because of this great darkness it was the duty of many
Imps, the servants of the Wizard, to run back and forth with glimmering
lanterns, to light the way of those who came to see their master.

Flying Soot, who had arrived some time before, had told his story to
the Wizard and had easily gained his consent to assist the Earth Fairy.
So when the Earth Fairy with her companions reached the entrance to the
Cave she found the Imps waiting there to conduct her to the Wizard. The
Princess was first to enter, and so brilliant was the light of her pure
flame that the lanterns of the Imps were quite dimmed by it. The Imps
themselves stared at her in the utmost astonishment. Never before had
they seen a light so gloriously beautiful. Scurrying in front to lead
the way, they turned back every few moments to behold her. Behind the
Princess came the supposed prince, and after him came the Earth Fairy,
holding her cloak closely about her as she went, lest she should become
blackened by the walls of the Cave.

Far down in a wider portion of the Cave called the Cave Hall, sat the
Wizard in a great black armchair pushed close against the wall. He
was very ancient and grim. His long dingy white hair and beard fell
down over a loose black robe and mantle thickly powdered with finest
charcoal. At his least movement little clouds of black dust flew from
his garments and floated round about the Cave. His jet black eyes
sparkled so sharply in his head that one saw immediately that he was
not a person with whom one could trifle. Flying Soot, perched at a
respectful distance on a lump of charcoal, waited for the coming of
the Earth Fairy. He was quite sure that this time he had obtained for
her the help of one who could not fail. He kept his eyes fixed on the
dark passage before them, and at last he cried softly, “They come, Sir
Wizard, they come, for I behold the flame of the Princess!”

Instantly the Wizard beckoned to one of the many Imps who clustered
about. “Bring hither the Urn of Vapors,” commanded he, “and make no
delay.”

Away rushed the Imp accompanied by a dozen or more of his companions
to do the Wizard’s bidding, and presently a low rumbling was heard.
It was the Imps returning, all pushing and shoving a huge black urn.
A ponderous cover sealed it tightly, and when the Imps had succeeded
in placing it beside their master, Flying Soot saw that it was so
tall that it reached almost to the Wizard’s shoulders. Its sides were
covered with inscriptions of evil magic. The Wizard scrutinized it
closely, and satisfied himself that it was the one that he desired.
Then he waved back his servants and turned to Flying Soot. “When I lift
this cover,” he said, “the Earth Fairy has but to rush forward and
take what she desires, for in the instant that the Prince is met by my
magic vapor he will fall to the Earth unable to offer her the slightest
resistance.”

Flying Soot had no time to answer, for at that moment Princess White
Flame, driven by the Earth Fairy, fluttered terror-stricken into the
Cave Hall, and came to rest in a corner at some distance from the
Wizard. Soon after he whom the Earth Fairy believed to be Prince
Radiance appeared also, but before he could advance into the Cave Hall
the Wizard stretched forth his hand quickly to the urn. Uttering mystic
words he lifted the cover and forthwith a stream of vapor rushed from
it directly toward the Prince.

It had no sooner reached him than the Wizard’s prophecy was fulfilled;
he fell to the ground in a heap, apparently without life.

The Princess seeing this uttered a piercing cry, but held by the spell
of her enchantress she could not stir from her place.

The Wizard replaced the lid of the urn, and the Earth Fairy rushed
forward to pounce upon the helpless Prince. Her eyes glittered with joy
to see him in her power at last.

She tore back his cloak, sure that the Veil of Disenchantment was
hidden beneath it, but as soon as her fingers touched the prostrate
form it vanished. Where it had been, she saw only the charcoal floor
of the Cave. Puzzled and astonished she struggled to her feet, and
stood dazed, peering down at the spot where the figure had lain as
though she could scarcely believe her senses. When at last she could
no longer doubt that the Prince had indeed disappeared, she rushed to
the Wizard, shrieking in fury, “What evil magic is this that you have
wrought upon me, wicked one that you are? You have ruined everything by
your miserable enchantments. You have destroyed the Veil as well as the
Prince.”

The Wizard interrupted her angrily. “How dare you speak to me in this
manner,” he thundered, bringing his fist down upon the top of the urn.
“You, who have deceived me by pretending to bring a Prince before me?
But I will show you that you cannot trifle with the Wizard of the Cave.”

He waved to his Imps. They understood him without a word, and bounded
forward with ropes of darkness in their hands to bind the Earth Fairy.
It would have gone hard with her then if it had not been for Flying
Soot. He jumped down with all speed from his lump of charcoal, and ran
to cast himself at the Wizard’s feet. He threw his arms about them, and
tried to soothe him. “Sir Wizard, Sir Wizard,” he pleaded, “listen but
a moment. There has certainly been some strange mistake. I assure you
that we are not to blame. This creature that has so suddenly vanished
could never have been the Prince. Someone--I know not who, has tricked
us all. I pray you, do nothing rash to the Earth Fairy. She is not to
blame.”

The Imps who surrounded the Earth Fairy, hearing this, stood swinging
the ropes of darkness in their hands, waiting to see what their master
would say, before they ventured to bind her fast. White Flame, weeping
and trembling in her corner, checked her sobs and listened breathlessly
for the Wizard’s reply.

The Wizard thought for a time in silence. Then at last he spoke.
“Since you yourselves have played no tricks upon me, there is but one
way in which to explain this matter. My sister, the Shadow Witch, has
been at work. She it is who has caused us to see a prince where no
prince was. The real prince she has without doubt lured away into the
Land of Shadows.”

At these words Flying Soot rose to his feet and turned to the Earth
Fairy. “Then we must go to seek him there,” he declared.

The Earth Fairy was but too anxious to set forth. At a signal from
their master, the Imps drew back, leaving her free to go as she would,
but as she was about to depart from the Wizard’s presence with her
companions, an Imp came rushing down the long dark corridor from the
Cave entrance, and into the Cave Hall. “Sir Wizard--Sir Wizard!” he
panted. “A second prince approaches! Even now he is within the entrance
to the Cave.”

Certain that this could be no other than Prince Radiance himself, the
Earth Fairy and Flying Soot paused instantly.

The Wizard, seeing this, was not unwilling to prove his skill upon the
true prince. He spoke in a friendly manner to the Earth Fairy, and
prepared himself once more to lift the cover of his Urn of Vapors. The
Imps, flinging their ropes of darkness into a corner, retreated so
close against the Cave Wall that they could scarcely be seen. In her
corner quivered Princess White Flame, her longing to see her beloved
Radiance once more overborne by her fear of what might befall him at
the hands of his foes.

Each in his own place peered eagerly down the dusky corridor, awaiting
in silence the coming of the Prince.

But one accompanied the Prince whom they did not expect. It was the
Shadow Witch. Although by her grey magic she had sent a shadow prince
to deceive her brother, she had never for a moment lost sight of
Prince Radiance, and now that he was drawing near to the Wizard, she
knew that the time for her further good offices had arrived. If she
could prevent him from being seen by her brother until the Prince was
near enough to use his Sword of Flames, she knew that all would be well.

Prince Radiance was so near to the Cave Hall that one short turn would
bring him into the Wizard’s view. The Shadow Witch knew that her time
to help him had come. She waved her long arms and instantly a thick
curtain of shadow fell directly in front of the Prince. He could not
see a yard before him, and stood still at once, fearing that some trap
had been laid for him.

“Do not be afraid,” whispered a voice at his ear. “Go forward. It is
I, the Shadow Witch, who have come to help you.”

Prince Radiance knew her voice, yet he hesitated.

“Fear nothing,” insisted the Shadow Witch. “Go forward, and no harm
shall come to you.”

Trusting her then, the Prince trod boldly on, and before him went the
curtain of the Shadow Witch like a covering shield. Beyond it the
Wizard and his companions watched and waited, but saw only the corridor
of the Cave stretching before them darker than ever, and filled with
shadows so deep that their eyes could not penetrate them.

Nearer and nearer came the Prince, and presently the voice of the
Shadow Witch was heard again at his ear. “Have out your Sword of
Flames,” she whispered. “The time has come.”

Radiance laid his hand upon the hilt. At that moment the shadow
curtain dissolved, and he beheld the Wizard little more than a yard
away. So suddenly had the Prince appeared that the Wizard started with
astonishment, but he recovered himself immediately, and shot forth his
hand to lift the cover of his urn.

“Now, now,” urged the Shadow Witch, at the Prince’s ear. “Now, or it
will be too late!”

Out flashed the Sword of Flames. It filled the Cave with blinding
light. The cover of the urn settled back to its place with a harsh
clang, as the Wizard leaped to his feet, shielding his eyes with his
hands.

“The Sword of Flames! The Sword of Flames!” he shrieked. “Away! Away!”

He tried to flee, but fell prostrate across the Urn of Vapors instead.
From every corner of the Cave sprang a crowd of Imps in answer to
their master’s cry. Seeing the dread weapon that flashed in the
hand of Prince Radiance they turned their backs upon it in terror,
and screaming wildly surrounded the urn in a huddled mass. Throwing
themselves upon it, they hurried it away into a dim passage, with their
master still lying senseless across its top. As they disappeared into
the pitch dark opening, a heavy door of charcoal fell shut behind them,
closing the entrance to the place to which they fled.

Overjoyed at his victory, Radiance lifted his eyes to where but a
moment since he had seen Princess White Flame trembling against the
Cave wall, but the Princess, the Earth Fairy, and Flying Soot were
nowhere to be seen. Except for the Shadow Witch he was entirely alone
in the Cave of Darkness.

With a gesture of despair the Prince let the Sword of Flames drop back
into its sheath. “What has it availed me to overcome this miserable
Wizard,” he groaned, “since it has brought me no nearer to my dear
White Flame? Again she has vanished, and I know not where to seek her;
whether in some dusky portion of this hateful Cave, or in the open
country without.”

The voice of the Shadow Witch answered him. “Have courage, good Prince.
All is not lost. Leave the Cave of Darkness with me, and seek her in
the light.”

Prince Radiance hesitated, but the Shadow Witch insisted. “She is not
here,” she told him. “Trust yourself fully to my guidance, and I will
lead you safely out.” Then the Prince yielded, and together they left
the Wizard’s Hall. Down the dark corridor they passed swiftly and
soon arrived at the Cave’s mouth. There they parted, the Shadow Witch
stealing away with drooped head to her Land of Shadows, the Prince
standing for a moment gazing with eager eyes across the plain, hoping
that not far away he might behold the flame of his Princess.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIV


No sooner had the Earth Fairy beheld the sudden downfall of the Wizard
than she immediately fled from the Cave of Darkness taking Princess
White Flame with her.

Flying Soot, much crestfallen over the way in which matters had turned
out, kept a little way behind them, for he was not anxious to speak
with the Earth Fairy until her anger had had time to cool. When they
were well outside the Cave, however, he drew nearer, and began as usual
to make excuses and suggest new plans.

The Earth Fairy listened to him most ungraciously. “Speak no more of
these friends of yours,” she exclaimed, “for I have lost all faith in
them.”

“As you will,” said Flying Soot, with a shrug of his black shoulders,
“but you make a grave mistake if you do not try the Wind in the
Chimney.”

“I have no reason to believe that he will do any better than those
others of whom you boasted so loudly,” retorted the Earth Fairy.

But Flying Soot was not to be discouraged. He continued to sing the
Wind’s praises, until finally the Earth Fairy consented to give him a
trial.

“You have but to wait here in concealment near the mouth of the Cave
until the Prince comes forth,” directed Flying Soot, before he took
his leave of her. “Then cause the Princess to lead him to the Chimney
yonder, and you will soon see that the Wind is one whose magic is not
to be despised.”

He gathered his black mantle about him and departed, and the Earth
Fairy hid herself and Princess White Flame in a deep cleft close by,
from whence she should be able to see Prince Radiance the moment that
he issued from the Cave.

With her keen eyes fixed steadily in that direction the Earth Fairy
did not let her gaze wander elsewhere, and hence she did not see a
tall form creeping stealthily from dark cliff to dark cliff as though
seeking someone; she did not see a small grey figure following closely
at his heels. They were Curling Smoke and the Ash Goblin in quest of
the Prince and Flying Soot.

At last the Earth Fairy’s watching was rewarded. She saw Prince
Radiance come from the Cave’s mouth in company with the Shadow Witch,
saw him bid her farewell, and saw the Shadow Witch steal away from him
to her own land.

Then quickly the Earth Fairy came forth and drove the Princess to where
Prince Radiance could not fail to behold her when he should set out in
quest of her.

It happened as the Earth Fairy expected; the Prince searching the plain
with his eyes instantly descried the Princess. He had not even had time
to call to her, when suddenly the huge grey form of Curling Smoke wound
upon him from behind, gathered the Prince, the Princess and the Earth
Fairy, one and all, into a dense cloud of smoke, in which none could
see the other, and hurried them away toward the Chimney.

The Ash Goblin beholding, danced for joy, for he had seen Flying Soot
vanish into the Chimney not long since, and believed that now his time
of punishment was come.

Flying Soot had indeed reached the great Chimney where the Wind dwelt,
and was even now awaiting the coming of the Earth Fairy and those that
she should bring with her. The Chimney was wide and dark, with great
rough boundaries, and the Wind’s voice was so strong and boisterous
that it could be heard from the Chimney Mouth to the Chimney Top. Over
the entire Chimney the Wind ruled, and none dared to intrude upon him
there without first asking his permission.

It was true that Curling Smoke had the right of way to the Chimney
Top, but it was well understood that the Wind was at liberty to deny
him entrance to the Chimney at any time that he chose.

When Flying Soot had arrived at the Chimney Mouth, the Wind had howled
a welcome to him, and bade him enter. This Flying Soot had made haste
to do, and finding a seat beside the Wind had told his errand without
loss of time.

“Ah!” whistled the Wind, “what you say interests me greatly, and I
am perfectly willing to do as you ask and help the Earth Fairy. You
may give yourself no anxiety about the Veil. I care nothing whatever
for it. Of one thing you must assure me, however, and that is that she
has had no dealings with Curling Smoke in this matter, for I am on bad
terms with him at present, and refuse to take part in anything in which
he has at any time been concerned.”

Flying Soot rolled up his eyes and swore to the Wind in the Chimney
that neither he nor the Earth Fairy had had anything to do with Curling
Smoke, nor would they think of approaching him. So the Wind was
satisfied and declared that he would exert all his powers in the Earth
Fairy’s behalf.

The Soot Fairy was just about to thank him for the promise of his good
offices, when suddenly the Wind leaned from his seat, and peered down
toward the Chimney Mouth. Flying Soot looked also. Up the Chimney rose
a dense cloud of smoke, and in it, so enveloped by it that they could
not see each other, though they were plainly visible to the eyes of
the Wind and Flying Soot, were the Earth Fairy, Princess White Flame,
and Prince Radiance. Behind them loomed an immense grey shape. It was
Curling Smoke on his way to the Chimney Top, driving his enemies before
him.

The Wind started from his seat in a towering rage. “So this is the way
you and your Earth Fairy have deceived me,” he howled, turning upon
Flying Soot. “This is the way in which she has had nothing to do with
Curling Smoke. But you, her messenger, shall learn what happens when
you trifle with the Wind. Up, out of my Chimney, to the punishment that
you well deserve.”

With one blast he drove the Soot Fairy up and away through the great
black spaces of the Chimney, and hurled him out into the Great World
Beyond. Well did the Wind know that from thence he could not return.

Then with so mighty a rush that nothing could stand before it he
pounced upon Curling Smoke and those whom he had in his power. “How
dare you come into my presence unbidden?” he shrieked. “Out of my
kingdom all of you! Out, out into the Borderland.”

Away they were driven by the fury of the Wind like leaves before a
storm, down through the black Chimney and out of its mouth, into the
Borderland near to the Kingdom of Earth.

There the Wind scattered Curling Smoke far and wide in thin pale
streamers that slowly floated back at last to the great plain from
whence he had come.

As for the wicked Earth Fairy, the Wind in the Chimney drove her away
and away into the Land of Desolate Places there to remain forever a
prisoner.

In the Borderland he cast down Prince Radiance, and roughly tossed the
flame of the Princess upon a pile of scattered ash, and blackened coals.

Then with his anger satisfied, the Wind rushed back to his Chimney,
shrieking and howling with glee at the punishment that he had dealt out
to those who had offended him.

Princess White Flame, so pale that she could scarcely be discerned,
quivered and flickered where the Wind had rudely thrown her. Too weak
to cry out, she only sighed faintly, and sank still lower upon the
ashes.

She knew not that by her entrance into the Borderland the cruel spell
had been broken by which the Earth Fairy had so long compelled her to
flee from Prince Radiance. She only knew that she felt helpless, and
almost without life. And indeed the Princess was now in great danger,
for away from the Fire, no Fire Fairy can live for long.

Over Prince Radiance the Borderland possessed no evil power. He arose
unharmed from the stones and looked anxiously about him for his
Princess. So almost extinguished was her fairy flame that at first
he did not see her, and his heart was rent by fear lest the Wind had
carried her away from him forever.

But presently he descried her lying there, as if unable to proceed
further, and hope rose again in his breast. In haste he took forth the
Veil of Disenchantment--in haste he ran to her holding it securely in
his hand. He reached her, he bent above her, and she did not stir.

“At last my White Flame,” he cried, in an outburst of joy, “at last
you flee from me no more.”

He cast the mystic Veil over the flame of the Princess. Like a web of
gossamer it settled slowly upon her, and the Prince, scarce daring
to breathe as he watched it, saw the Wise One’s promise instantly
fulfilled.

At his feet, visible in her true form, lay a creature so beautiful,
so charming as none had ever seen the like before. The Veil of
Disenchantment, in touching her, had changed to a marvelous robe, soft
and silvery, that swept in shining folds from her head to her feet.
Over her shoulders and down to her knees streamed the silken splendor
of her hair; pale gold it was, and finer than the finest floss. Her
delicate red lips were closed, her eyes fast shut.

Prince Radiance fell on his knees before her and touched her gently.
“White Flame,” he whispered, “dear White Flame, awake and speak.”

The Princess lay there pale and still, giving no sign that she had
heard. The Prince laid his hand on hers, but felt no glow of life.

In wild alarm he cried aloud, “White Flame! White Flame! Awake--awake!”

Still the Princess made no answer, and though he tried by every means
he knew to revive her, his efforts were all in vain.

At length, choked with grief he bowed his head upon her breast. If he
had reached her, and freed her, only to lose her thus, he had no wish
left except to die by her side.

A fierce tug at his arm aroused him. “Do you not know that a Fire
Fairy cannot exist in the Borderland?” demanded an indignant voice.
“Take her back to the Fire at once, and warm her back to life.”

[Illustration: Prince Radiance fell on his knees before her.]

The Prince raised his head, and saw at his elbow a fuzzy little
creature, who clutched and shook him with a pudgy hand. It was an Elf
of the Borderland.

“Come, come,” cried the Elf, “bestir yourself, or it will be too late.”

Quickly the Prince bent over Princess White Flame to raise her in his
arms, but before he could do so the Elf had laid a fuzzy ear to the
heart of the unconscious Princess.

“Ah, me,” he murmured, lifting his head, and regarding the Prince
mournfully, “I fear she can never live to reach there. She should have
warmth at this very moment.”

Hardly had the Elf spoken, when Prince Radiance remembered his good
Grey Pouch. He tore it open, took out a glowing coal quickly, and laid
it over the heart of the Princess. What was his joy to see an exquisite
roseate glow steal into her face, to feel her hand grow warm under its
fairy touch. Then as it lay there warm against her heart, the eyes of
the Princess opened slowly to behold Prince Radiance bending above her;
her ears awoke to his voice calling tenderly, “White Flame, my own
White Flame!”

For a moment she gazed up at him lovingly, too overcome with joy to
speak; then fear crept into her face, and she clung to him whispering,
“The Earth Fairy!--where is she?”

“Gone, gone forever,” the Prince assured her, drawing her closer to
his breast. “Her wicked spells are broken. Fear her no more.”

The Princess, beholding her hands, her figure, her shining garments,
knew that it was indeed true, and gave a low cry of rapture.

Prince Radiance raised her gently to her feet. “Come,” said he, “let me
lead you home to your father, King Red Flame, as I have promised. He
waits and yearns for you in his Palace of Burning Coals.”

“Yes, let us go to him quickly, dear Radiance,” she answered. “Had it
not been for you he must have waited always in vain.”

So they set out, and the Elf of the Borderland went before them, and
guided them to the boundary of the Land of Fire, by the nearest way.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV


Far away in the Land of the Fire Fairies, King Red Flame mourned daily
the loss of his dear daughter. As day followed day and no news of her
reached him he became more and more fearful that he should never again
look upon her exquisite flame, or hear her voice speaking to him in
tenderness and love.

The old nurse, Grey Smoke, did all that she could to hearten him, and
as for herself, she never lost the hope and belief that at no distant
day her beloved mistress would come safely home.

The Fire Fairies spoke of her always in hushed voices, and when they
repeated her story to one another as they worked or played, they
would sigh, and whisper, “Ah, she was beautiful, our Princess White
Flame--beautiful and good as none else.” But they spoke of her always
as one who would never come again.

At last one day King Red Flame could bear his anxious thoughts no
longer. He left the Palace of Burning Coals, and took his way to the
hut of the Wise One. There he hoped to find encouragement and counsel.
Arrived at the low red door he knocked, and presently he heard the Wise
One’s voice bidding him enter.

The King did so, and talked to him long and despondently, but the Wise
One enjoined upon him not to give up hope. “There will be difficulties
to be met and conquered,” he told him, “and that takes time. But
something assures me that the Princess is alive and well. As for Prince
Radiance, you may trust him entirely. Take courage; at any time they
may return in triumph.”

While the Wise One spoke thus to the King, Grey Smoke stood in the high
tower of the Palace of Burning Coals and gazed earnestly out across the
country, as she did many times each day, in order that she might be the
first to catch a glimpse of the Princess when she should return.

Grey Smoke was old, but her eyes were still keen. On this day, as she
looked, she saw in the distance two travelers approaching hand in
hand. One of these travelers appeared to her to be Prince Radiance. She
waited a few moments to make sure of it; but soon she could no longer
doubt. It was he in very truth. The other, her eyes told her for a
certainty, was her beloved young mistress. The heart of old Grey Smoke
leaped for joy. As rapidly as her age would permit she descended the
steps of the tower, calling out with trembling voice, “The Princess
comes! The Princess White Flame comes!”

The palace fairies at their tasks heard it. Knowing that Grey Smoke was
one who made no mistakes, they seized upon the glad news, and rushed
from one end of the palace to the other shouting it: “The Princess
comes! The Princess comes!”

The garden fairies were not slow to hear it, and they too took up the
excited cry, “The Princess White Flame comes! The Princess White Flame
comes!”

Grey Smoke, anxious to be the first to bring the glad tidings to her
master, went in search of him, and after her the fairies one and all
came trooping, trooping from everywhere. In this manner they drew near
to the little red hut in the shrubbery. King Red Flame heard the tumult
and caught the words of their cry. He hurried forth, followed by the
Wise One. “Where is the Princess White Flame?” exclaimed the King,
“Tell me quickly.”

There was no need of any answer, for in that instant he saw her coming
down the shining way--his dear lost daughter--lovelier by far than he
had ever dreamed she might be. He heard the music of her voice calling
to him, sweeter even than he had so fondly remembered it.

Hand in hand with her came Prince Radiance leading her safely to her
journey’s end.

King Red Flame opened his arms to her crying in ecstasy, “Ah that I
should at last behold you, my White Flame, my own dear child!”

And Princess White Flame ran to him, and nestled at his breast, weeping
and laughing all in a breath for pure happiness.

For a little he held her thus in silence; but presently, thirsting to
hear of all that had transpired during her long absence from him, he
begged the Prince to relate the story of their wanderings.

Briefly the tale was told, and as the King listened intently, the eager
fairies clustered close about him meanwhile, that they also might lose
no syllable concerning the perils that had been safely passed. The Wise
One, hearing, stroked his beard with satisfaction that all had turned
out so triumphantly and well.

When the last words had been spoken, King Red Flame led his beloved
child to Prince Radiance, and placed her hand in his. “Noble Prince,”
he exclaimed, with deep emotion, “take my daughter, with her father’s
love and gratitude, for valiantly have you won your bride.”

Then King Red Flame turned to the thronging fairies, and raising his
voice so as to be heard by all, he cried, “Hasten, one and all, to
the Palace of Burning Coals. Prepare all things for the wedding. Let
swift messengers speed to the Kingdom of Light, to bid its ruler to the
marriage of his son. And you, my good Grey Smoke, who know so well how
to carry out my desires, see to it that never fairy wedding in the Land
of Fire has equaled this of my beloved daughter Princess White Flame,
and my dear son Prince Radiance.”

Thus, amid tumults of rejoicing, did Princess White Flame and Prince
Radiance enter upon their life of never-ending happiness.


[Illustration: FINIS]





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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Self-Plumbed Bishop Unplumed, by T. Latham


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Title: The Self-Plumbed Bishop Unplumed


Author: T. Latham



Release Date: October 7, 2018  [eBook #58052]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SELF-PLUMBED BISHOP UNPLUMED***


Transcribed from the [1828] T. Tippell edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

                   [Picture: Public domain book cover]





                     THE SELF-PLUMED BISHOP UNPLUMED.


                                * * * * *

                                 A REPLY

                                  TO THE

                   PROFOUND ERUDITION OF THE SELF-NAMED

                              HUGH LATIMER,

                                  IN HIS

                 DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT ASSERTED,

                                    BY

                                T. LATHAM,

                     MINISTER AT BRAMFIELD, SUFFOLK.

                                * * * * *

    “Let us candidly admit where we cannot refute, calmly reply where we
    cannot admit, and leave anger to the vanquished, and imputation of
    bad motives to those who are deficient in good argument.”  REV. W. J.
    FOX.

    “Illi sæviant in vos, qui nesciunt quo cum labore verum inveniatur,
    et quam difficile caveantur errores.  Illi in vos sæviant, qui
    nesciunt quam rarum et arduum sit, carnalia phantasmata piæ mentis
    serenitate superare.  Illi in vos sæviant, qui nesciunt quantis
    gemitibus et suspiriis fiat, ut quantulacunque parte possit intelligi
    Deus.  Postremo, illi in vos sæviant, qui nullo tali errore decepti
    sunt, quali vos deceptos vident.”  ST. AUGUSTINE.

                                * * * * *

                               HALESWORTH:
                     PRINTED AND SOLD BY T. TIPPELL;
          SOLD ALSO BY MESSRS. TEULON AND FOX, 67, WHITE-CHAPEL.

                                * * * * *

                             PRICE SIXPENCE.

                                * * * * *




REPLY, &c.


IN the various tracts that I have presented to the public, as well as at
the conclusion of my lectures and appendix, I have earnestly requested
any one who deemed himself competent to the task, to refute and expose my
errors publicly from the press.  W. W. Horne was the first who made an
attempt to prop up the tottering cause of orthodoxy, and re-build the
Idol Temple; and how much this attempt met the approbation of the
orthodox, may be gathered from the fact, that they would not permit his
performance to see daylight in these parts!!!  The person more
immediately concerned to reply to my lectures and appendix, has contented
himself, and satisfied his friends, with warning young people to be upon
their guard against that bare-faced infidelity that dares to shew its
hateful crest in open daylight; and by assuring them in one concise
sentence, “that if they are saved it will be for ever and ever, and if
they are lost it will be for ever and ever; and if they depend on having
been sincere and morally honest, or on repentance and reformation of
conduct, (though both he says are necessary), their hopes will prove
totally fallacious and groundless, and will deceive their souls in the
end, and they must sink into the frightful regions of despair, and become
companions of those who must for ever weep, wail, and gnash their teeth,
without any diminution of their sufferings or deliverance from them.”
This is doing business with dispatch.  Yet, I have never imagined, that
any one would suppose that a note in a funeral sermon was a proper reply
to my book, and therefore I have been waiting in expectation of hearing
from some other quarter, so that I am neither surprised nor disappointed
at being attacked by some one under the _nom de guerre_ {3} of Hugh
Latimer: nor am I at all surprised that the old bishop’s ghost, which has
been conjured up on the occasion, should act so perfectly in _esprit de
corps_, {4a} or so directly _contra bonos mores_; {4b} for this has ever
been the spirit and temper of the whole body, that what they were
deficient in truth and sober argument, they have abundantly made up by
scurrility and vituperation.  But since Hugh Latimer, who stalks forth
_incognito_, {4c} whoever he is in _propria persona_, {4d} whether
English, Irish, Scotch, or Welch, is to me a matter of small importance.
I have nothing to do with the man, but with his evangelical matter: yet,
I may be curious to ask, why such _homo multarum literarum_, {4e} as he
affects to be, should be ashamed of his own name; especially to such a
_chef d’œuvre_ {4f} as his performance appears to be.  Probably, in the
course of his extensive research into antiquity, he has discovered a
striking similarity between the coarse sternness of the old bishop’s
spirit and language and his own, and may think himself qualified for such
an office; and he may perhaps have learned that as King Harry obtained
from the Pope the title of Defender of the Faith, for writing in defence
of popery, so Horsley, Magee, and others have been rewarded with mitres
for writing against Socinians and Infidels; and, like the supplanter of
old, he may wish to obtain the blessing, and rear his mitred front in
parliament by wrapping himself in another person’s coat.  Yet, blind as
we are, we can discover, that although the voice is Jacob’s voice, the
hands and the heart are those of Esau.  But I shall leave all _gens de
l’eglise_ {4g} to scramble for bishoprics and mitres as they please, and
attend to the author who styles himself Hugh Latimer, and who deigns to
bestow his favors upon me.

In the first instance, he condescends to give me what he deems a severe
castigation for my dulness; and, having laid on me forty stripes, save
one, he feels some relentings, and kindly proposes to pity my ignorance
and become my instructor, (p. 11.)  I ought to thank him for his good
will; but, before I become his _elevé_, {4h} I ought to be satisfied that
he is quite competent to the task of a tutor; and, as I have my doubts on
this head, (after all his pretensions to be _savant_, {5a}) this point
must be settled _entre nous_ {5b} before we proceed any further.  My
tutor, as he pretends to be, on page 11 says, “I have yet got to learn
English.”  Some would have chosen to say, in correct English, that I had
yet to learn English; but this was perhaps a _lapsus linguæ_. {5c}  But
my _soi disant_ {5d} tutor, without shewing me wherein I am deficient,
whether in orthography, etymology, syntax, or prosody, or even without
enquiring whether I had learned the English alphabet, begins to treat me,
as a judicious tutor ought to treat a pupil, by an attempt to teach me
Greek and Latin, although he knew I had “got to learn English.”  This
surely was doing the thing _comme il faut_, {5e} and I shall here pay
some attention to his learned lectures.  In the first place, I am smartly
reproved for writing Greek words in English characters—a fault which
every author besides me has been guilty of, authors of Dictionaries and
Concordances not excepted; but then, while I ought to have known that
Greek words cannot be properly expressed in English letters, my tutor
says, I should at least have written them in those English letters which
would have expressed them properly: thus my modern task-master requires
me to make bricks without straw.  But I am next reproved for blundering
in Greek orthography, because in one word, either I or the printer, have
put a _u_, instead of an _o_—an unpardonable blunder in me; however it
happened, and _bonne bouche_ {5f} for a word catcher.  For, as Bentley
remarks, “a sophist abhors mediocrity; he must always say the greatest
thing, and make a tide and a flood, though it be but a basin of water.”
But I have also blundered on the unlucky words _aion_, _aionian_,
_oletheron_, and _kolassis_, and have given them an unfortunate
signification—a signification most unfortunate for his system of infinite
and endless torment: since, in spite of all his criticisms, the true
sense of the terms completely overthrows his blazing creed; at which he
rages like a fury, and exhausts all his ample stores of skill in
criticism on the original languages; yes, and pities and deplores my
ignorance in these matters.  It is not, however, worth my while to waste
much time in debating whether he who (is at least capable of consulting a
Greek lexicon) is possessed of more profound erudition on such points
than I, who have “got to learn English yet;” the point may be
satisfactorily settled by determining at once, whether of us has given
the true and proper meaning of the words in question.  I have said _aion_
and _aionian_ never mean unlimited duration, except when connected with
the existence of God, or the future happiness of good men.  In every
other case they have only a limited signification.  Many proofs of this I
have produced from the scriptures in my lectures: not one of which has
been corrected nor even noticed by my tutor.  He asserts, that words are
to be always taken in their literal and primary sense, unless there be
something in the nature of the subject which requires them to be
differently understood.  This is first objecting to what I have said and
then saying the very same thing himself, and accusing me of blundering,
when he has made the very same blunder; but the fact is, I have stated
the real truth as to the application of the terms, and he, _nolens
volens_, {6} is compelled to admit the same, which he does twice over
(page 9, 10).  I had said, the true and primary sense of _aion_, is age,
a limited period.  For this I have given the authority of Doctor
Doddridge, the Bishop of London, Dr. Hammond, and the Critical Review;
(see Lectures, page 18, 19), to which I might add the authority of every
person who pretends to be at all acquainted with Greek: yet my tutor, for
the sake of exposing my ignorance, as he pretends, will thus expose his
own, and fly in the face of all this host, even among the orthodox, who
have had sense and honesty enough to admit the true meaning of the terms.
He says (page 11) _aion_, is more expressive of proper eternity than the
Bramfield scholar has any conception of, being derived from two words
which signify “ever being.”  Let us allow him this, and also what he
claims before, that words are always to be taken in their literal
signification.  How will it sound in Matt. xxiv. 3, to read “What shall
be the signs of thy coming, and the end of this everbeing.”  Rom. xii. 2,
“Be not conformed to this everbeing.”  1 Cor. x. 11, “Upon whom the ends
of the everbeing are come.”  Eph. ii. 2, “According to the course of this
everbeing.”  Verse 7, “That in the everbeings to come.”  Heb. ix. 26,
“But now in the end of the everbeing hath he appeared.”  Matt xii. 32,
“Shall not be forgiven neither in this everbeing, nor in the everbeing
which is to come.”  Tit. i. 2, “Before the everbeing begun.”  Exod. xv.
18, “From everbeing to everbeing and farther.”  Dan. xii. 3, “Through the
everbeing and further.”  Mich. iv. 5, “Through the everbeing and beyond
it.”  Thus my learned tutor by his wonderful skill in criticism, may if
he please, burlesque the scriptures, and make them speak his ridiculous
nonsense and Greek-English gibberish from beginning to end. {7a}  Yet
after all the rebuffs and blows, the pity and kind instructions which my
tutor has bestowed upon me, such is my lamentable dulness, that I cannot
yet perceive that _aion_ is expressive of everbeing, eternity, or
unlimited duration; and I am still ignorant enough to think, as the
Critical Reviewers do, its true meaning is an age or limited period all
through the scriptures, without a single exception, and until I am better
taught _menomen hosper osmen_. {7b}

My tutor next charges me with reiterating my blunders as to the meaning
of _aionian_, which he asserts is “everlasting.”  _Aion_ is singular,
_aionian_ is its plural, and so must, according to my tutor, mean
everlastings, everbeings, eternities.  This may be good Greek; but I,
“who have got to learn English,” venture to pronounce it no English, but
sheer nonsense.  But my tutor informs me, “that it is an established
canon of criticism, that an author is the best commentator on his own
words; and that because in Matt. xxv. 46, the word _aionian_ is connected
both with future punishment and future happiness, it must have the same
unlimited signification in both cases, and denote equal periods of time.”
This is the same weighty argument that good Mr. Dennant, as my tutor
styles him, brought forward in his funeral sermon, and for ought I know,
may have been borrowed from the same source.  But let my tutor try his
artillery upon a text in Hab. iii. 6, where the word _aionian_ is in the
same manner used to denote the existence of God and the duration of the
material hills.  Let him here but keep the antithesis unbroken, and
maintain that in both cases it must mean equal duration, and then the
material hills will be as eternal as God; and thus my tutor, by
overcharging his own cannon and firing at random, has not only blown up
his own fortifications, but also demolished the strong hold of good Mr.
D. with the same explosion.

My tutor next takes me to a lexicon to learn from it that the terms which
I have said signify corrective punishment, signify nothing short of
perdition, ruin, destruction.  Admit all this: yet this does not express
eternal misery; for a being destroyed or blotted out of existence cannot
suffer any more, much less suffer eternal misery.  I have shewn in my
lectures, that the terms used in the original to express future
punishment are all of a limited duration; this I have proved upon the
authority of those who wrote and spoke Greek as their own vernacular
tongue.  But, as my tutor did not choose to come in contact with such
authorities, he has prudently passed the whole without note or comment:
for, as the Irishman said, the easiest way to climb over a high stile, is
to creep under it; so he has found that the easiest way to get over a
difficulty is to avoid it wholly; and upon this prudential maxim, he has
uniformly acted.  My tutor at length wearied out with _ennui_ {8a} of
leading me through _l’empire des lettres_ {8b} and teaching me Greek,
quite looses his temper, and in angry mood turns me back to a task in
English and Latin etymology.  Short-sighted mortal he exclaims! hadst
thou not wit enough to see that the English word eternity was derived
from the Latin _æternus_, which is a contraction for _æviternus_, or,
age-lasting.  Yes, my good tutor, short-sighted as I am, and whether I
can see by my wit or not I had seen by my eyesight, and that too,
independent of supposed influence, or special inspiration, long before
you revealed the secret, that eternity IS (not was) derived from the
Latin, and is a contraction OF (not for) the Latin word, which means
age-lasting; and I had seen you try to turn the term age-lasting, when
used by me, to ridicule, and I now see you use the same ridiculous
expression as very proper, when used by _idoneus homa_. {9a}  I had often
seen the same words used in a limited sense, and applied to things of
limited duration: to mountains crowned with eternal snows; to trees robed
in eternal verdure; yes, sir, and to the eternal brawlings of an angry
and contentious man or woman; and I had both seen and understood, that as
a derived word can mean no more than the original from which it is
derived, and as that, in the present case, is age-lasting and limited, I
had seen that the English word eternity, like all others, can only
express unlimited duration, when it derives that sense from the subject
with which it is connected, and that is only when applied to the
existence of God and future happiness; for tell me, sir, if you can, what
else is properly eternal?  And although you have charged me with it, yet
I never said or thought that a scripture word of equal import would be
conclusive; nor have you, nor can you show the page on which I have
hinted at it.  And I can also assure my tutor, that I am so well
satisfied with the old morals, religion, and God of the Bible, that I
covet none of those new ones, which were intruded upon the world four
hundred years after Christ, by a set of Pagans calling themselves
Christians; but can contentedly leave him and all his fraternity to share
the paganized religion together, and to worship the _tria juncta in uno_,
{9b}—the new God set up by Constantine and his council in the fourth
century.  Now, at the _denouement_ {9c} of his learned lectures, my
tutor, having arrived at the height of his choler, throws his last bolt,
by scornfully asking, “And, where Master Latham, didst thou find the
_malaka topon_ in thy epistle to good Mr. Dennant.”  If I had not
perceived from what follows, that his lexicon, (that fruitful source of
his wisdom) has furnished him with the meaning (at least) of the words
after which he enquires, I would have advised him to read the New
Testament, and if he keep his eyes open, he will sooner discover those
words there, than either Trinity, Triune-Deity, God-Man, Vicarious
Satisfaction, or that long catalogue of _mots d’usage_ {10a} which he and
his orthodox brethren pretend by “superior influence” to discover there,
while those who make “their mind and reason their guide,” cannot find a
single word which either in sense or sound bears the shadow of a
resemblance to their shibboleth.  By this time it will be seen _quo
warranto_, {10b} my tutor has undertaken to correct my blunders, when out
of twenty, and many others, with which he has charged me in the gross, on
his 11th page, he himself has reduced them all to blunders of his own
making; nor can I be surprised that my tutor, to keep up his own dignity,
should pour contempt upon my illiterature, when the tutor of a Scotish
seat of science (Dr. Wardlaw), has had the audacity to accuse both
Grotius, Clarke, and Pierce, with being ignorant of the Greek language;
nay, this minister of Albion-Street Chapel, Glasgow, accuses Origen and
Eusebius with the same ignorance, although Greek was their native tongue,
and the Scotch Doctor’s reflections turn only to his own disgrace.  But
_quo animo_ {10c} are such charges made, except it be _ad captandum
vulgus_ {10d} and keep them still in ignorance: looking up to them as the
only men of understanding, and implicitly receiving all they please to
say as if it was uttered by the oracle of heaven.

Since my tutor has succeeded so poorly in teaching me Greek and Latin,
_cui malo_, {10e} if, according to _lex talionis_, {10f} I, in my turn,
give my tutor a short lesson or two in plain English; for although he
thinks I have “yet got to learn English,” I am vain enough to think his
English may be improved.  My lessons shall be short, easy to be
understood, and adapted to instruct my own tutor: and, in the first
place, who that knows the meaning of Socinian and Infidel, would confound
the two words as synonymous.  An Infidel is a denier of revelation, but a
Socinian believes in and receives revelation; if not, can my tutor tell
how it has happened, that the most and the best of the works written in
defence of revelation against Infidels, have been written by Socinians,
or those who have the misnomer?  Again, who that knows the meaning of
sceptic, a doubter of the truth, or some parts of the truth of
revelation, (except such a linguist as my tutor,) would confound this
term with Socinian and Infidel, and use it as designative of the same
person?  Once more: who that knows the use of English words would expose
himself by printing on a title page “Socinian Infidelity?” for these
words are as incompatible as light and darkness, and a man can no more be
a Socinian and an Infidel, than he can be a man and an angel; and this
compound anomaly, this incongruous combination, (Socinian infidelity),
which shames his title page, and was derived from good Mr. Dennant’s
vocabulary and funeral sermon, is just as good English as the Irishman’s
crooked straight, as dark lightness, and black whiteness.  Again, “to
have lounged and slipped,” as he says on page 2, conveys excellent sense
to an English reader.  To lounge, is to live idle, or lazy; to slip from
the foundation is, in his sense, to deny the truth; and these two words
combined make a very intelligible sentence—nearly as intelligible as when
the Welch curate, having to say the lamb, said the little mutton, and
left the people to guess at the meaning.  But, had I lounged and, like
the orthodox in general, been too lazy to examine into sentiments, and
willing to take opinions upon trust, I should not have had the mishap to
slip from their foundation; but, like them, should have remained
stationary there, lounging in ignorance and error; but, by being active
and industrious in proving all things, I have slipped from their
foundation, or rather extricated myself from their quagmire system, and
settled on the immoveable rock of truth.  On the 11th page, my tutor raps
my knuckles for blundering and writing _o_, instead of _oh_, although on
page 9 he has set me the example in writing _oh_, instead of _O_, twice
over; but he wants the qualification of a master who cannot find fault.
On the same page, my tutor knits his brows, and with a learned frown
exclaims, “Greek, indeed!  Why, the man has yet got to learn English.”
This sentence, in excellence of spirit and diction, matches well with the
following: “so we will give the devil battle, we will beat the devil to.”
{11}  I shall not waste time to correct my tutor for writing _was_, where
it should be _is_, and _for_, where it should be _of_, &c. &c. least my
readers should be led to think I have learned from my tutor to be as
expert in word catching as himself, and should be tempted to say of us,
_tel maitre_, _tel valet_. {12a}  But, as I promised that my lessons
should be short, I leave him to study the following concise one: _ergo
docens alium tipsum non doces_. {12b}

I have now to attend on my tutor while he gives me his most instructive
lectures in theology; and it will be a pity indeed if my unaccountable
dulness should prevent me from profiting by the wondrous wisdom which he
has displayed, and by those floods of eloquence which flow from his
silver tongue.  However, I will do the best I can, by using such powers
as I possess; and if I am denied the gift of “superior influence,” the
fault is no more mine than it would be a fault in him not to see the
daylight, had he been denied the gift of eyesight.  Yet, _mirabile
dictum_, {12c} the first _sine qua non_, {12d} that my tutor requires in
his pupil is, that I should lay aside the reason I have or what is the
same thing, “not suffer my mind to be its own guide.”  But were I to
shut, or put out my eyes, in order to behold a beautiful object, would he
not be tempted to call me a fool?  Were I to discard reason in the common
concerns of life, would he not call me irrational?  And if I take his
advice in respect to religion, shall I not act the part of one insane?
Has he laid aside reason in writing his squib?  How, then, can he expect
reasonable men to read, or me to profit by the irrational ravings of a
mere maniac; but a man is never against reason in religion, but when
reason is against his religion—and here my tutor feels the shoe pinch his
corns.  Nothing, however, he says, is too irrational to be believed by
those who will not (as he directs) become irrational in religion, but
will make the mind its own guide.  He is therefore for doing the business
by the aid of “superior influence;” and not to say, that in his
performance he has given mathematical demonstration, that pretensions to
“superior influence” have produced the effect of the most irrational
belief, let others of the same school prove the fact.  “A christian,”
says Lord Bacon, “believes three to be one, and one to be three: a
Father, not to be older than the Son; a Son, to be equal with his Father;
and one proceedings from both, to be equal with both.  He believes three
persons in one nature, and two natures in one person: a virgin to be the
mother of a son, and that very son of hers to be her Maker.  He believes
him to have been shut up in a narrow room, whom heaven and earth could
not contain; him to have been born in time, who was and is born from
everlasting; him to be a weak child carried in arms, who is the Almighty;
and him to have died, who only has life and immortality: and the more
absurd and incredible any mystery is, the greater honour we do to God in
believing it, and so much the more noble the victory of faith.”  The same
lesson Bishop Beveridge learnt in the same school: “The mysteries, (says
he) which I am least able to conceive, I think myself the more obliged to
believe.  That God the Father should be one perfect God of himself; God
the Son one perfect God of himself; and God the Holy Ghost one perfect
God of himself: and yet that these three should be but one perfect God of
himself, so that one should be perfectly three, and three perfectly one;
three and yet but one, but one and yet three.  O heart-amazing,
thought-devouring, inconceivable mystery!  Who cannot believe it to be
true of the glorious Deity?”  From the above confessions of the orthodox
faith, and hundreds more that might be added, equally clear and decisive,
let my tutor now say what system produces the most irrational belief—his
which enables him to give a reason of the hope that is in him, or his
which prevents him from giving any reason at all why he believes such
monstrous absurdities.  And who acts the most like a rational being—he
who knows what and why he believes, or he who, laying aside reason,
believes the wildest contradictions, under pretence of believing
mysteries, which is a thing just as possible as believing in the
existence of non-entities, or seeing invisibilities, or possessing
non-existences.  But if I had the superior light with which my tutor is
blessed, I might learn from him that Socinianism is scepticism and
infidelity; for he has made it include this triad of irreconcilables in
the compass of three lines; and then he says, it is a virtual rejection
of apostolic doctrine, requiring no more than what reason can apprehend.
The apostolic doctrine requires us to give a reason of our hope, to prove
all things, to judge of ourselves what is right; and when Paul reasoned
with the Jews and required them to judge what he said, he surely did not
wish them to lay aside reason and believe mysteries which neither
preacher nor hearers could comprehend.  But a Senator in parliament, he
says, described Socinianism as a species of Mahometanism.  Well, if
senators turn preachers, and my tutor writes them into notice, woe be to
his own craft.  Such men as he will soon be easily spared; but if any one
will turn to the newspaper which contains the senator’s orthodox sermon,
they will see by the rejoinder there made, that the preaching senator
made as good a figure among his brother senators as my tutor and his
performance is destined to make among readers who use reason and common
sense when they read.

On page 3, my tutor has summed up the articles of my disbelief, and he
has done it honestly and accurately; and I am free to speak le _verite
sans peur_, {14a} and to acknowledge _sans mauvaise honte_, {14b} that I
do deny and disbelieve the whole catalogue of absurdities which he has
enumerated _in toto_; and I assert, that it is out of my tutor’s power to
prove, that in so doing I have denied one truth revealed in the Bible, or
that I disbelieve one iota of the faith originally delivered to saints by
Jesus and his inspired apostles; nor can he prove, that in denying every
one of those points, which are essentials in his creed, I have done any
more than what every christian ought to do—that is, deny the faith of
heathen philosophers, and reject the vain traditions of ignorant fallible
men.  My tutor, however, allows that I am not destitute of all faith,
although I reject his faith; for he says, I believe with the Grand Turk
in one God and one prophet.  This piece of wisdom he seems to have
borrowed from the senator mentioned above; still I can shew my tutor,
that my Mahomedan faith is more scriptural, rational, just, and pure,
than either his or that of the orthodox senator.  I believe in one God;
and will my tutor say he believes in more Gods than one?  No, although
Bishop Beveridge has made three—each perfectly God of himself; and
although my tutor’s faith is just the same, yet, of the two evils, rather
than be thought to be a tritheist, a plain pagan, a believer in many
Gods, he will come over to Socinians, and subscribe the faith of one God;
he will not pretend to deny that this part of my faith is scriptural,
since scripture compels him to confess it; and if my faith in one
prophet, be not scriptural, let him say what the following scriptures can
mean: Deut. xviii. 15, the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet
from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like unto me, unto him ye shall
hearken.  In verses 18, 19, the same title, a prophet, is given to the
same person, and that this person here spoken of, and styled by Jehovah,
his prophet, is Jesus Christ, let the New Testament determine; Acts, vii.
37, Stephen applies it to Jesus; Acts, iii. 22, Peter applies it to him;
and in the following texts he is styled a prophet, Luke, vii. 16.—xx.
6.—Mark, xi. 32.—Luke, xxiv. 19.—John iv. 19.—ix. 17. and he styles
himself a prophet Matt. xiii. 57.—Luke, iv. 24.—xiii. 33.  And if I
believe either in him, or in the scriptures, I must believe in one God,
and in Jesus as his prophet.  And whether this be a more scriptural faith
than my tutor’s, who believes in Jesus as both God and his own prophet, I
leave the reader to determine; and whether this faith in one God, and one
prophet, be believing too little, I leave Christ to determine, who has
said, “This is life eternal to know the Father the only true God, and
Jesus to be the Christ the anointed prophet whom he has sent.”  And Paul
has reduced the articles of saving faith to a short compass, when he
says, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall
believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt
be saved.”  Now, if this belief in one God and one prophet Jesus, be
believing enough, that surely is believing too much, as my tutor does,
when he embraces a creed made up of heathen reveries—not one sentence of
which is taught in or required by the Bible.  If to call my faith
“christianity,” be a misnomer, what must it be to call his
christianity?—not one article of which is taught in, but condemned _in
toto_ by the christian scriptures.  My tutor says, he did not think it
worth while to attempt to disprove my doctrines; no, nor even attempt to
establish his own, which he styles the articles of the christian faith.
And he had two very cogent reasons for this: first, he knew that to
assert was far more easy than either to disprove or establish; and then
he had given previous notice on his title page; that he meant only to
assert, not to prove any thing, and this pledge he has honourably
redeemed through his whole performance.  It is worth my while, however,
to remark in passing, that my tutor has encroached upon the science of
the wandering gypsy, and affects to turn fortune-teller; he predicts the
good news, that I am on the way to preferment, and stand a fair chance of
becoming caliph of Constantinople.  I can tell him honestly I have no
such ambition; and was there even a chance of a mitre in the church of
England, _nolo episcopari_, {16a} upon the usual conditions of assenting
and consenting to all that is contained in an English version of the
Latin Mass-Book.

On the foot of his 3rd page, my tutor applies himself to his task in good
earnest, (at least pretends to do so), and begins to refute and expose my
theological blunders; but he quickly lugs in the _coup de main_, {16b}
and lays down the _onus probandi_ {16c} after a very short and feeble
display of his reasoning powers.  He has attempted, it is true, on his 3,
4, 5, and 6th pages, to prove the infinite evil and demerit of sin.  Had
he succeeded in proving these, he must have established, also, that every
sin, because committed against an infinite being, must be infinite in
turpitude and demerit; then, where is the difference between his fifty
and my five hundred pence debt?  Between his ten and my ten thousand
talents?  Mine are infinite, and his, by his own confession, are no less.
If every sin be infinite, how does the aggregate of infinites swell, when
we calculate the almost infinite number of sinners, and the infinite
number of sins committed by each?  And if each of these infinite sins
require an infinite atonement, where is such an one to be found?
According to my tutor, page 4, it was found “in the vicarious sufferings
of the Son of God:” but, when he has proved from the scriptures that the
sufferings of Christ were such, which he neither has nor can do; and even
one of his own school has confessed, “it is an unaccountable, irrational
doctrine, destroying every natural idea we have of divine justice, and
laying aside the evidence of scripture (which is none at all) it is so
far from being true that it is ridiculous.” {16d}  I have still to ask
him, did the son of God suffer as God, in his supposed divine nature?  If
he be as flagrant as the poets are, to speak of a dying God, no man of
sound mind will believe him.  Should he admit, as truth will compel him
to admit, that Christ suffered only as a man, then he has to explain the
mystery how the sacrifice of a human victim could make, by finite
sufferings, an infinite satisfaction.  In describing what he judges
proofs, that sin is an infinite evil, he musters together many things
which without proof he assumes as points granted; and then, from the heat
of this great burning, which his fiery temperament and frightened
imagination has kindled, he infers, that finite men can perform those
infinite acts which can subvert the order and council of heaven,
annihilate all virtue and happiness in the universe, and shake the throne
of the eternal:—thus he makes man and sin almighty, and the almighty God,
weak, impotent, and subject to the caprice of his own creatures.  Nay,
more, he asserts, but does not prove it, that men and sin have changed
the unchangeable deity; having “extinguished the paternal goodness of the
creator,” and in his opinion converted the God of love into a merciless
being like himself.  God, he tells us, is the source of all excellence.
This we know, and rejoice in the truth; but can fury, anger, indignation,
wrath, and vindictive cruelty, such as he represents God manifesting
towards his offspring, be reckoned among the moral excellencies of the
divine character?  Strange if they can!  My tutor thinks these
perfections belong to his God, the God of Calvinism; and so they may, but
not to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  To overthrow what I
said, that if sin be infinite in demerit, because committed against an
infinite God, obedience must be infinite in merit, as obedience to the
same infinite God.  My tutor tells me, the case is just the reverse, and
that as sin rises in turpitude, merit sinks in the same proportion.  He
who can reason with the same logical precision, may possibly arrive at
the same conclusion, which is this: that the more virtuous a man is, the
less is he entitled to the rewards of virtue; and, therefore, the more
Paul pressed forward to the prize of his high calling, just in proportion
was he further from the object of his pursuit.  Well may the man that
advocates such sentiments brand the opinions of others with immoral
tendency!  My tutor asks, page 6, whoever thought of good accruing to the
chief magistrate of a country, or to the criminal himself, from the
infliction of capital punishment?  This is merely evading what I have
said on the subject in my lectures; but I ask, what is the chief end
aimed at in inflicting any punishments at all?  Is it a vindictive
disposition in the judge towards some, or is it not with a view to the
good of the whole?  And why are any capital punishments inflicted?  Is it
not because the ends of human justice cannot be attained without them?
Had men the power to prevent the evil by any other means, would a wise
and virtuous government make useless waste of human life, and take it
wantonly away when it might be spared?  And shall a God of infinite
wisdom and almighty power, admit into the moral government of the
universe an evil which he can never remedy; but which shall eternally
cause his soul to burn with vindictive rage and fury against those puny
ants which he called from nothing at first, and which in an instant he
could crush to nothing as easily as a moth?  Shall finite evil overcome
infinite good?  My tutor says, for any thing we know, the good of the
universe may require the perpetuation of punishment, rather than the
termination of sin.  He does not know this: Why assert what he does not
know? {18}  But we know the contrary, and my tutor needs not remain in
ignorance on this point if he will read his Bible—that will inform him,
that God has exalted that same Jesus, who was crucified, to reign as his
anointed king in Zion; and that he must reign till all rule, authority,
and power is put down; till the last enemy death is destroyed and
swallowed up in victory; till there shall be no more death, nor pain, nor
sorrow, nor crying.  But if death and sin must reign eternally and be
perpetuated to an interminable duration, when will the end come for
Christ to deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, and God be all
in all?  My tutor has been in too much haste to answer this, or any one
of the many arguments which I have advanced on this head in my 6th
lecture.  With a view to expose the ignorance of those who, like my
tutor, represent God as burning in an unquenchable fire, and roasting on
eternal gridirons the bodies and souls of men, I have said in my
lectures, the nature of man is incapable of eternal combustion; the body
must quickly be consumed by fire; and material fire cannot act on the
immaterial spirit, as they suppose the soul of man to be.  To this last
remark he has said nothing; to the former, he has pretended to reply, by
asking me to inform him, how the nature of man can for an instant or for
ages of ages endure future punishment?  I tell him, that the future
punishment of the wicked will be in nature suited to the nature of man;
but God will have other means of punishing than roasting men in fire, as
Calvin roasted Servetus.  He says, Socinianism affords no answer to the
question, how they can endure the fire that never shall be quenched for a
single instant and not be consumed?  It does not belong to Socinians to
answer this, but to him who ignorantly thinks God will roast them in
eternal fire.  To say not only how they can endure it for an instant, but
how they can burn eternally without being consumed; and if denying that
they can, is denying future punishment, then by _argumentum ad
ignorantiam_ {19} my tutor has denied it most positively; and if I am
going on to perfection, as he says I am, his stationary creed seems to be
following me in that way.

I have stated in my lectures, that eternal misery is irreconcileable with
the character and perfections of God.  At this my tutor nibbles in his
usual way; and although he has denied in the last paragraph that men are
capable of burning for ever, yet here he charges me with being mistaken
in thinking sin does not call for the vengeance of eternal fire.  When
will he attain perfection whose faith thus reels to and fro and staggers
like a drunken man?  Because I cannot receive his vengeance-teeming
system, and believe that God who is love will pour tempestuous
indignation upon his own offspring, and swallow them up in his wrath, I
am charged, page 8, with not knowing how to deal with the fact, that God
has admitted both moral and physical evil to have place in the universe.
But I tell my tutor, these things are admitted not for their own sakes,
but because infinite wisdom, power, and goodness both can and will and
always has overruled them for the promotion of the greater sum of good.
Will my tutor pretend that the sufferings of those millions of innocent
and virtuous people, (whom he has found among a race who he says are
totally depraved without a single exception,) or the death of infants,
are examples and proofs of God’s vindictive ire and fiery indignation
against them; if not, why has he referred to them as such?  And why “not
wiser he, in his just scale of sense, weigh his opinions against
providence,” and compare one part of his system with another, and observe
how one part proclaims war against the other?

My tutor has admitted, that “God is love; that his various perfections
are only modifications of his love; that he delights in diffusing
happiness; that his tender mercies are over all his works; that he does
not willingly afflict nor grieve the children of men; nor take pleasure
in the death of a sinner.”  Yet he has made it out, that the God of love
pursues some with eternal hatred; that his love is modified into
inexorable justice, his mercy into vindictive cruelty, his compassion
into unrelenting severity; that he delights to diffuse happiness and to
perpetuate eternal misery; that his tender mercies are over all his
works, while he inflicts upon the great majority the unmitigated
vengeance of eternal fire; that he does not afflict willingly, but takes
pleasure in punishing eternally; that he does not take pleasure in the
death of a sinner, yet makes the eternal ruin and interminable misery of
such the ultimate end of his moral government—all this my tutor has
proved in his pages.  He asks, is God required to seek the good of his
creatures irrespective of their characters and deserts?  No: the Bible
teaches, “he will render unto every man according to his deeds;” but my
tutor teaches, that God might have made all men to be damned, and he
might or might not have saved any; and, that those few who will be saved,
will be saved irrespective of their own deserts, by the merits and
sufferings of another.  Yet such men who speak of God as neither wise nor
good, except he be and act as they dictate, are not, he says, to be
reasoned with, but reproved; and who is less capable of being reasoned
with, and who more deserving of reproof than my tutor?  For his God must
be a cruel, vindictive, wrathful being, and with unrelenting fury pursue
his creatures with devouring flames and eternal indignation, or my tutor
cannot avouch him for his God.

I have now attended my theological instructor so far as his lucubrations
are connected with my lectures.  He has not dispatched business indeed so
quickly as he by whom he has been appointed to act as _locum tenens_,
{21a} but he has managed in 12 pages, to answer all I have said in 228
pages—at least he has offered this scrap for an answer, and I have no
doubt but it will be received by many as full to the purpose.  But before
any one comes to such a conclusion, he ought to read what I have written
in my lectures, and then he will perhaps have reason to conclude, that
all that my tutor has said is merely _gratis dictum_; {21b} for having
left nearly every argument of mine untouched, and those which he has
touched still unanswered, and having in profound silence passed over the
whole task I have set him in the close of my sixth lecture; not daring to
offer a single word in reply to any one of the twenty-two points that he
and every advocate of eternal torments ought to disprove if they would
establish their system; he takes his leave of me and my lectures, and
finishes his performance by bringing forward a few stale arguments which
were reiterated over and over again by Andrew Fuller, until he was
ashamed to push them upon the public any longer.

Instead, therefore, of following him and wasting time to answer what has
been answered times without number, I might here conclude; however, I
will give him a short specimen of the way in which all his arguments may
be disposed of.  He says in his first, on page 12, my sentiments have
some appearance of good will about them.  This is confessing I approach
near in this virtue to God, to Christ, and the true spirit of the gospel,
which is “glory to God in the highest, and good will to men.”  Does his
vindictive system breathe this spirit?  He had expected, it seems, to
have found devils included in my scheme of benevolence; and had I
believed in the existence of such beings, I should have included them;
and can he tell me why not?  If such there be, are they not the creatures
of a God who hates nothing that he has made; and when he made them, if
ever he did, he made them either to be happy or miserable, unless their
fate was left wholly to chance?  And is it very likely, that the God of
boundless benevolence, whose tender mercies are over all his works,
should create them for eternal misery?  He says, they have for ages been
suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.  But this proves he knows no
more of the meaning of that text, than when a school-boy he read it for
his task.  Let him contradict what I have said on it in my lectures.  To
use my tutor’s own polite words, on page 12, I might say, “short-sighted
mortal!  Hadst thou not wit enough to see,” that by shutting the door of
mercy against devils, thou hast shut it against thyself!  Surely thy
critical skill in Greek ought to have taught thee, that every
calumniator, false accuser, traducer, and slanderer, is, according to the
true import of the word, a _diabolos_, a devil; and that thou art such,
is proved on thy title page, as well as in many other parts of thy book,
which breathes calumny and slander throughout.  But my tutor wonders if
my doctrine be true, why Christ and his apostles never plainly taught it.
I wonder how he reads the Bible, and how he has read my lectures, in
which I have shewn the doctrine taught through the whole, from the first
promise in Genesis to Revelations, agreeable to the text which tells him,
God has taught it by all the prophets since the world began.  But he has
been so long accustomed to gaze at the unquenchable fire, and to look at
every object through clouds of smoke issuing from the bottomless pit of
Heathen and Popish error, that he can form no distinct and proper notion
of any text in the Bible; no, nor of the character of the God it reveals;
and besides, this is one of Andrew Fuller’s arguments, who had never read
my book—my tutor should have recollected this.  He requires to know, page
13, “if future punishment be only corrective, what reason for the
threatening in the Bible against impenitants can be given?”  The answer
is, God is not, cannot be, a vindictive God; he cannot punish with
eternal vindictiveness: and never a threatening in all the Bible contains
either a threatening of vindictive or eternal punishment; they are all to
warn men to ensure a part, by repentance and obedience, in the first
resurrection, and escape from the punishments which constitute the second
death; and when he attributes eternal vindictiveness to God, he libels
the Divine Being, and levels him with a Nero, a Moloch, or with the Devil
of his own blind creed.  He asks, how the mere infliction of pain is to
purify sinners?  I answer, it is for him, and those who like him, blindly
imagine, that God has no other means to apply than the pains of eternal
fire, to determine this; but those who believe, that God has both wisdom,
power, and goodness sufficient to reconcile all things to himself, and to
adapt the means to the end, both in the present and future state, can
leave it with him whose counsel shall stand, and who will do all his
pleasure to accomplish in his own way that purpose by which he has
purposed to gather together all things, and to reconcile all things to
himself; whether things in earth, or in heaven, or under the earth,
without judging it a thing impossible with God.  On page 14, he asks, if
the wicked in hell be in a state of probation, what is the propriety and
advantages of the present means of grace?  I do not, like him, teach,
that men are sent to hell as soon as they die, but with the scripture,
“that the unjust are reserved unto the day of judgment to be punished.”
But, were I a believer in a local hell, (still, if a Calvinist can talk
of this life being a state of probation, while the elect are chosen to
life, and the reprobates appointed to wrath and ruin, and of the free
agency of man, when all is to be done by the agency of the spirit), I
might surely think of hell being a state of probation; and that God can
use means to reclaim sinners there, without destroying their free agency,
as well as he does, according to Calvinism, by fixing the elect in a
state of unfrustrable salvation, and the reprobate in final perdition,
without leaving the chance of either to free agency.  He tells me, Christ
said the night cometh when no man can work; and Solomon says, nothing can
be done in the grave.  True; but he should know, that the present means
of grace are what God has wisely adapted to men in the present life, and
what they are to improve in this life to gain the first resurrection and
shun the second death; and when the night of death comes, no man can work
this work, or improve these means any longer.  But this does not prove
there will be no further means afforded; nor does Solomon’s saying,
nothing can be done in the grave, prove that nothing can and that nothing
will be done in the state beyond the grave; for God is able to accomplish
his own pleasure, and he will have all men to be saved: he will make all
things new; every knee shall bow to his authority.  A Socinian or Infidel
can believe all this, although such tutors as mine, though Christians,
cannot believe these parts of the Bible.  On page 15, he has become
Socinian, and for fourteen lines together, he has made as good a
confession of the Socinian faith as any Socinian can do.  He confesses,
that on earth at least God afflicts as a father, with designs of mercy,
and in every affliction he sends, mixes the whole with mercy.  But, in
the next sentence, he shews the unchangeable changed; and he who punished
in time, in measure, and in mercy, punishing in eternity with pure
unmixed vindictiveness and eternal fury.  To establish his system, he has
quoted scripture again, which has nothing to do with the subject, and
serves only to shew how little he understands the Bible; but such
quotations and such comments as his, answer the purpose of representing
the Father of all Mercies, us one of the most merciless beings in the
universe.  All that he advances in the remaining arguments, proceed upon
the same false principle and groundless supposition, that God is bound to
treat men in a future state, just as he has treated them in this; and,
that since the means adapted to this state, have not accomplished God’s
end, in the present salvation and blessing of all of human kind, that
therefore infinite wisdom and goodness will be at an eternal loss to
devise and apply any other adequate means; and that, consequently, he
that does what he will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants
of the earth, must have his hand stayed, his sovereign will crossed, his
purposes frustrated, his expectations cut off, his eternal plans
deranged, and the disappointed Deity be compelled to submit to be baffled
by these insuperable difficulties in his way, which omniscience could not
foresee, or which omnipotence itself cannot surmount.  When he is wiser
than God, let him presume to give him counsel, and dictate to him what
line of conduct he is bound to pursue with his creatures; or rather, let
him acknowledge that the judge of all the earth can and will do right;
and that it is right for him to fulfil his promise to accomplish his
gracious purpose, in sending Christ to be the saviour and restorer of the
whole world; and this will answer every argument and every objection that
he can urge against limited punishment, or in favour of vindictive and
eternal misery, inflicted by a God of mercy, kindness, compassion, and
love.  He has referred to and quoted almost every text in favour of his
vindictive scheme, that I have quoted and explained in my lectures, in
support of final restoration; but he has not so much as attempted to shew
that any one of my explanations are wrong; nor has he taken any pains to
shew that his own are right.  He knew he could do neither; and,
therefore, he has barely quoted them as common-place expressions, and
asserted what he has no ability to prove—this was easy, as Andrew Fuller
had done it ready to his hand.

I will now draw to an end by first pourtraying his vindictive system;
and, secondly, noticing how he manages to support such a system.  First,
I shall briefly sketch out his vindictive system, and it may be described
as follows: The God of his system is, according to his representation, a
God without goodness, a Father without compassion; vindictive,
malevolent, indignant, wrathful, tyrannical, cruel, unrelenting, furious,
and fierce; breathing out threatenings and slaughter; inflicting
punishment and perpetuating sin and misery to eternal ages; he is a
Creator who has given existence to countless millions of rational beings
whose final end he foresaw would be infinite and unmixed misery without
respite or termination; a Creator who gave them existence without any
assignable reason, but that it was his arbitrary will to confer existence
upon them, that he might have the pleasure of making that being an
eternal curse.  This system further represents the God of it, as a
partial, capricious being, arbitrarily appointing most men to endless
ruin, while he appoints a few favorites to free unmerited favour and
everlasting life.  But still it represents him so sanguinary and unjust,
that he punishes, in the most vindictive manner, one that did no sin, and
extorts from him a full and rigid satisfaction in sufferings, groans, and
blood, before even his own favorites shall taste his mercy or possess
eternal life.  This system represents the God of it, as possessing the
propensities of the alligators of the Ohio, which bring forth such
multitudes of young ones at every hatching, that the whole country would
soon be desolated by them, did not the tender-hearted old ones prevent
the evil by devouring and feeding deliciously upon their own young ones,
and thus destroying their own progeny, as long as they have the power to
destroy them.  Let my tutor now draw near and behold this great sight:
let him in fixed amaze, stand still and gaze and try to contemplate this
monstrous God of Calvinism—a being shrouded in eternal frowns, clothed in
eternal vengeance, and armed with eternal and vindictive fury; with eyes
darting flames of devouring fire, with hands hurling the thunderbolts of
eternal destruction, and breathing from his nostrils streams of fire and
brimstone, “to blast a helpless worm and beat upon his naked soul in one
eternal storm.”  And let him tell us, if this horrifying spectacle,
created in his own distorted and horror-brooding fancy, can be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose name is love, and whose nature
is merciful, gracious, long-suffering, full of compassion, and ready to
forgive.  Let him say if the God of his sanguinary system possess any of
those amiable perfections which can render him an object of love,
confidence, and sacred veneration.  Let him say if he can love the God of
his system _toto corde,_ {26} or pay to such a being a rational service;
or whether the homage offered to such a being, must not spring from the
same slavish principle as the worship of the benighted savages, when they
worship an imaginary being, called by many enlightened christians a
devil.  An orthodox missionary records among other wonders in his
journal, that when he had been describing to an Indian the infinite evil
of sin, and the infinite and eternal punishment which God will inflict
upon sinners in the next world; he asked the Indian if he should not like
to go to heaven.  To which he replied, no; if your God be such a dreadful
being, I do not wish to be so near him.  This was given as a proof of the
man’s ignorance, but it proved him wiser than his teacher.

But I promised, in the second place, to shew the manner in which my tutor
has attempted to support his preposterous system.  He has not attempted
it by shewing that I have given a wrong explanation of any of the
numerous texts of scripture which I have quoted on the subject of future
punishment, nor has he so much as attempted to prove, that the texts he
has quoted have any reference to the subject; but like a salamander bred
in fire, and breathing sulphur as his native element, he has piled
together a few texts, in which the words wrath, vengeance, indignation,
fire, fury, and the like occur; and although he knows, and even allows,
that this is figurative language, he applies it literally, as if God was
really the subject of the vilest passions that disgrace humanity.  I have
said in my Lectures, that the strongest figures and language used in the
Bible, will not support eternal punishments; I have produced the
strongest, and shewn that they will not do it; and why has he not shewn
me to be in error?  Not in one single instance—for this plain reason,
because it was not in his power to do so.  And I now defy him, and every
man in existence to prove, that any one of those texts which he has
referred to, will either prove eternal punishment, or that they have any
thing to do with the subject.  This shews his skill in the language of
scripture, and how far his bare assertion is to be taken, when he says,
“that if words have any meaning, the texts he has quoted prove future
punishments eternal and vindictive.”  He may assert the doctrine of
endless punishment—but assertions are not proof; he may reproach those
who cannot breathe in his sulphurous atmosphere, as Socinians, Sceptics,
and Infidels; but _veritas vincit_, {27} and the doctrine I have
advocated and the arguments by which I have maintained it, are still
invulnerable to all the shafts of ignorance and bigotry which this
pretender to wisdom can hurl against them.  It is pleasing, however, to
see how deeply he feels interested at the close for the cause of virtue
and good morals, and it reminds me of the fable in which

    “A grave skilful mason gave in his opinion,
    That nothing but stone could defend the dominion;
    A carpenter said, though that was well spoke,
    It was better by far to defend it with oak;
    A currier, wiser than both these together,
    Said, try what you please, there is nothing like leather.”

So my tutor seems to think, that if men are not frightened into virtue
and morality, by the senseless cry of suffering the vengeance of eternal
fire, and by being threatened with being devoted as a prey to the fiery
tusks and burning talons of the devil, that this imaginary fiction of
heathen divinity will succeed in sapping the foundation of all virtue,
“and bring dishonour upon God, and ruin upon a sinful world:”—that is to
say, bring ruin upon a world which my tutor asserts to be already in a
state of universal ruin.  But, if my tutor is really desirous to become
_custos morum_, {28a} let him adopt a system more to the purpose than
Calvinism, which damns all reprobates, let them be as virtuous as angels,
and provides a substitute for all the elect, and saves them independent
of any duties or virtues of their own; and let him adopt a system
producing better moral effects than Calvinism did, when it committed
Servetus to the flames, kindled by the wrath of Calvin, in hopes too of
precipitating the heretic into the flames that he thought never would be
quenched.  O the tender mercies of Calvin and Calvinism!  Surely those
who do not wilfully shut their eyes may see _veluti in speculum_, {28b}
the transcendent glories of that immaculate system, which has John Calvin
for its author, heathen errors for its subject-matter, and eternal ruin,
pain, and misery for its end.

In my Lectures I have referred to every unquenchable fire mentioned in
the scriptures, and have proved that, they are all long since
extinguished, and none of them reserved for burning sinners eternally.
My tutor has not disproved this; nor so much as noticed the subject in
any part of his tract.  And, although he has done his best to blow the
extinguished embers into sparks and flames of his own kindling, and says,
ah! ah! I have seen the fire; yet it sleeps harmless in his own pages,
without burning even the paper; and all the effect it is destined to
produce, is the burning of his own cheeks with blushes for his own
ignorance.  But, since my tutor seems to be affected with a _cacoethis
scribendi_, {28c} he had best go to work again; for, as _succedaneum_
{28d} for others, he ought to plead the cause of all his employers.  He
has indeed shewn so much sympathy with Mr. Dennant, that he has once
mentioned the good man’s name; but, he has not offered a single word in
defence of his system of dreams, sleep-walking, ghosts, and witchcraft.
Why this profound silence?  Was the case past all cure, and such as
admits of no alleviation?  Or was it because he has committed the same
faults on his 15th page?

I have said in my Lectures, that _kolasis_ intends corrective punishment;
such as, according to Paulus, produces amendment; according to Plato,
such as makes wiser; and according to Plutarch, promotes healing: and I
have said, such punishments cannot be eternal.  Will my tutor pretend to
know the meaning of the Greek word, better than those who constantly
spoke and wrote Greek as their native language?  If so, what an oracle of
wisdom is this learned word-catcher!

As all those who differ from my tutor in sentiment are Socinians,
Sceptics, Infidels, Saducees, and Apostates, he has prudently passed,
without notice, the sentiments of Bishop Newton, quoted in my Lectures,
page 115–16—sentiments in perfect unison with mine, and utterly
destructive of the scheme of endless torments; but, had he noticed this,
he must have condemned the Bishop among his motley group of heretics, and
detected the ruinous contagion in the Church of England, advocated there
by one of her brightest ornaments.  And, if he can prove his good
advocate for sleep-walking and witchcraft, to be right in his opinion, as
to natural immortality, he will prove that the pulpit in Halesworth
church has been polluted by a poisonous error, and prove Bishop Law to
have been a filthy heretic.  But I suppose it was _ad honores_ {29a} that
he passed by these things in silence; and he may learn from Watson,
Bishop of Landaff, “that though he was no Socinian himself, he was
willing to believe Socinians to be christians.”  My tutor might then
without _mauvaise hont_, {29b} keep silent, and forbear from branding
others with every reproachful epithet that calumny can supply, and such
as he knows are wilful slander when he uses them.

Since my tutor has given me a lesson in poetry, which he thinks suits his
scheme, but which I am sure suits mine much better, I will return him the
favour from the same source:

    “Yet gav’st roe, in this dark estate,
       To know the good from ill,
    And binding nature fast in fate,
       Left free the human will.

    “What conscience dictates to be done,
       Or warns me not to do,
    This teach me more than hell to shun,
       That more that heav’n pursue.”

Now, if my tutor admits the above, he must overthrow his own system
altogether; if he rejects it, he must condemn his own favourite author
among those Socinian, Sceptical, and Infidel heretics; who, among other
errors, “independent of superior influence,” make their mind and
conscience their guide; and, having thrown himself on the two horns of
this dilemma, he is at liberty to get off as well as he can without being
gored; and his good friend, who has hung some time in the same
predicament, may perhaps lend him some assistance, or advise him, like
himself, to be content in every situation, and struggle no longer in the
mud, lest he sink deeper in the mire.

If Hugh Latimer will do his work worthy of a bishop, let him employ his
pen again, _pro bono publico_; {30a} or, if he prefers it, let him come
forth from his sculking place, and meet me _tete a tete_, {30b} and I
will canvass any one, or all of the favourite sentiments, belonging to
his favourite system, with him _viva voce_; {30c} and, if I do not prove
his opinions unscriptural and irrational errors, I will require nothing
for my trouble; nor will I either menace him with a prosecution, nor
prevent his books from being sold, as the good men at Halesworth have
served me.  But, if it be true, as my tutor asserts, page 2, that my book
carries its own antidote along with it, why has so much alarm been taken
at it?  Why such active endeavours to prevent its circulation? (but all
in vain)  And why has Hugh Latimer wasted his time, spent his money, and
exposed his own folly, to remedy an evil which required no remedy, but to
be left to work its own cure according to his opinion?  Various pretexts
may be set up for such inconsistency; but the true reason may be given in
these words: “if we let this man alone, . . . the Romans will come and
take away our place and nation.”  Yes, craft—your craft, good Bishop, is
in danger; and how can such a man as you sleep at your post in a time of
threatening danger?  You must be patching the old garment, if you only
make the rent worse.  You have said, page 3, that “I deny the existence
and agency of the Holy Spirit, the necessity of regeneration,
justification by faith, the immateriality and immortality of the soul.”
I deny them all in the orthodox sense.  I deny the existence of the Holy
Spirit, as a third personal God; but, I believe the existence of one God,
who is a spirit.  I admit the divine agency, called the Holy Spirit, at
the first promulgation of the gospel; but, I deny such supernatural
agency now, as the orthodox pretend to.  I deny regeneration to be what
they make it; but, I hold the necessity of a change of mind and conduct,
whereby sinners must turn themselves from all their transgressions and
save their souls alive.  I deny justification by faith in the popular
sense of believing in the merits and righteousness of another, which is a
most flagrant error; but, I admit both Jews and Gentiles were justified
by believing and obeying the gospel, without being tied to the ceremonial
law, which was superceded by the gospel.  This is the faith of the
gospel, the faith at first delivered to the saints; and, to believe
otherwise, is to believe a lie, and to believe what God has not required.
I deny the immateriality and natural immortality of the soul; but, I
firmly believe what the scriptures teach, that at the resurrection, that
which is mortal, shall put on immortality.  These remarks will serve to
explain how I wished to be understood, when I said in page 14, that you
had stated my disbelief honestly and accurately—that is, according to
orthodox sentiments, I disbelieve all you have stated.

Had Hugh Latimer contented himself with singling me out as an individual,
and with exposing (as he is pleased to call it), my ignorance, errors,
and blunders alone, all the answer his tract would have merited, and all
it would probably have received from me, would have been a silent
contempt of such a paltry performance; but, when, instead of meeting my
arguments fairly, and refuting my sentiments scripturally and rationally,
he has declined do so, and has condescended to calumniate and wilfully
misrepresent Unitarians in general, and condemn their sentiments in the
gross, as disguised infidelity, &c. I felt myself compelled by a sense of
duty to offer a short reply to his slanders.  For it is a well-known
fact, that bare assertions such as his, will pass with too many for
argument, and the truth of his statements will be concluded, by such,
from his positivity and confidence in making them; and if nothing was
said, in answer to such writers, too many would conclude they cannot be
answered.  And as he has given another proof, that the orthodox are never
tired of reiterating those arguments which have been answered and refuted
an hundred times twice told, we heretics must not tire of refuting them
over again.  But we have the disadvantage, that so many are willing to
take any thing and every thing upon trust, that comes from an orthodox
pen, while few, very few, will so much as look at what is written by a
reputed heretic; and the number is fewer still, who will impartially
examine both sides, and candidly acknowledge, (even when convinced), that
truth is on the side opposite to their own.  Bishop Watson says, he knew
a divine of great eminence, who declared, “that he never read dissenting
divinity.” {32a}  Another divine was once asked how he approved of Mr.
Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity: he replied, “very well; but, said
he, if I should be known to think well of it, I should have my lawn torn
from my shoulders.” {32b}  A divine who has read my Lectures, being asked
his opinion of them, said, “If I were to give my candid opinion on them,
I should be styled a Unitarian too.”  Another, who approved of them,
being asked why such doctrine was never taught in the place where he
preached, said, “When a boy is bound apprentice, he must obey his
master’s rules.”  Thus some from interest, others from indolence, and the
many from ignorance and bigotry, never take trouble to examine and
compare the different opinions proposed to them, and so remain in
darkness and confusion all their days.  And as it was well said, long
ago, “As people in general, for one reason or another, like short
objections (and bare assertions) better than long answers (and sound
reasons), the odds must ever be against us; and we must be content with
those for our friends, who have honesty and erudition, candour and
patience, to study both sides.” {33}  It is to be lamented, that readers
of the last description are very rare in these parts, yet there is here
and there one; and I had much rather my books should be consulted, read,
and examined by a dozen such men as these, than I would have the stare
and gape of hundreds listening to an harangue, five sentences of which
they did not understand.  That this is the general run of hearers
hereabouts, no one can deny; and this sufficiently accounts for the
spread of mysticism and enthusiasm, and the tardy progress of pure
scriptural and rational truth; to say nothing of the salvo which
orthodoxy affords, to those who can fancy themselves entitled to an
interest in its inexhaustible and unconditional stores;—pardon,
righteousness, and heaven, and all procured by the merits and sufferings
of another, on the very easy terms of “only believe and be saved.”

                                * * * * *

I shall here attempt to obviate the objection so generally laid against
me, that I am inimical and hostile to the Bible Society.  I speak the
truth when I say—first, that I esteem the Bible as the choicest gift of
God, save that of his own Son, the restorer, the light and saviour of the
world—Secondly, that I esteem and cordially approve the universal spread
of the Bible among all nations, and in every language; believing, as I
firmly do, in the sufficiency of the Scriptures to make all men (who use
them properly) wise unto salvation, since all scripture (which is) given
by the inspiration of God, is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works.  Convinced as I am, that
the Scriptures contain a full, clear, and plain revelation of every thing
that is essential for mankind to know, believe, and practice; of all that
God requires from them, or gives them ground to expect from him, in order
to promote their virtue and peace on earth, and final happiness in
heaven.  I approve of the principle on which protestantism is founded,
that the Bible alone contains the religion of protestants; I consequently
fall in most heartily with the circulation of the Scriptures without note
or comment; leaving every man at full liberty of conscience, and the use
of his own reason and judgment in interpreting and understanding the word
of God.  I have attended Bible Societies from their first formation; I
have contributed to them in several parts of the kingdom, and at
Halesworth too, without sounding a trumpet; I have recommended them
constantly on the principles stated above; and, if I have not been a
public advocate on the platform, the reason has invariably been, because
the advocates have universally treated me, even when on the platform
among them, with silent contempt and cold disdain.  It is not the Bible
Society I object to; but, the way in which its professed advocates expose
the cause and themselves, by bringing forward in their speeches subjects
calculated only (in some instances) to insult a rational understanding,
and impose on and deceive the vulgar; and the effect produced has been to
lead numbers to imagine, that if they give a trifle, or obtain a Bible,
it will go well nigh to secure their salvation.  Hence it happens, that
in every village I can find a Bible or two in almost every house; in many
of which they are never read, because not one in the family can read
them.  Can it be otherwise in other countries?  And yet what romantic
tales we often hear of the wonderful conversions effected by the Bible!
just as if the Bible could produce any good effect, but where it is read,
understood, and its precepts reduced to practice.  Let the professed
advocates lay aside those arts and tricks which alone become mountebanks
and quacks, and let them plead the cause of the Bible as becomes the
dignity and grandeur of the subject, and I will wish them God speed in
spreading the Bible to the remotest habitation of human beings; and, let
those who cannot treat the subject as becomes truth and holiness, keep
silent.  Religion and the Bible require not the aid of enthusiasm,
ribaldry, and buffoonery; nor of tales and anecdotes on a par with Mother
Goose’s Fables.

In addition to those tales which I have advanced on former occasions, and
numbers that I could still advance, I will only select the following.  I
once heard a preacher at a meeting in Wellingborough church recommend the
Bible, as a quack recommends his pills and balsams—a cure for every
malady, “Do you know (said he), a drunkard, a swearer, a liar, give him a
Bible; do you know an adulterer, sabbath-breaker, or covetous miser, give
him a Bible; do you know a bad husband, a bad father, a bad wife, or a
bad mother, give them each a Bible; do you know a bad master, of
mistress, or a bad servant or apprentice, give them a Bible; do you know
a bad neighbour, a slanderer, backbiter, or busybody, give them a Bible.”
Thus he ran on through the whole catalogue of vices, and recommended, as
a cure for them all, the gift of a Bible.  I need not remind my readers
of what has been stated in the Ipswich Chronicle twice over, on the
application of the funds of the Bible Society; but I remember a speaker
said at the conclusion of a meeting at Halesworth, three years back,
“that in answer to the question, what becomes of the money given at these
meetings, he would assure them, on the word of a dying man, speaking as
to dying men, in the presence of God, before whom all must appear in
judgment, that not a single penny of their money was applied to any other
purpose than that for which they gave it, (namely), for printing and
circulation of the scriptures.”  It belongs not to me to reconcile this
with the statements in the Ipswich and London papers.  Since those
persons who have enjoyed the advantage of travel are allowed to enliven
your meetings by anecdote, I will give a specimen or two of their manner
and matter.  At a meeting held at Leeds, some months past, Dr. Patterson
stated, that in his travels he had found a set of men making an attempt
to supplant the Bible by substituting in its place a Socinian Bible, full
of errors, and void of every essential doctrine; that he had procured the
suppression of it and of another as bad, and hoped the whole was rotten
or rotting in a fort to which they were consigned; that a professor in a
university, the author of the above, had been turned out of his
professorship.  All this and much more was stated and printed in the
Leeds paper, but no name of the book, place, or professor was mentioned.
The whole was a fabrication to suit a purpose, and has been well exposed
by Dr. Hutton, Unitarian minister, at Leeds.  At a meeting in the
City-Road Chapel, London, last May, Lord Mountcassel proved, that the age
of miracles was returned in Ireland; he could vouch, he said, as a
missionary was preaching in a village, a Catholic priest interrupted him:
the day following the priest pointing out the place to a friend, said,
there is the spot where that cursed pharisee preached to the people;—he
was struck with paralysis, his arm fell powerless, his mouth was
distorted, he fell back, and was taken home senseless.  Another priest, a
great opponent of Bibles, was struck in a meeting with a paralytic shock
and never spoke afterwards.  These were the visitations of God, and are
recorded as such in the Evangelical Magazine.  While such men as doctors
of divinity and titled noblemen can thus, with devotion’s visage and
pious actions, sugar over the devil himself, we may expect that other
pigmies, in a petty way, will ape and mimic their example; but if the
Bible which they circulate teaches others no better morals than theirs,
the gift will be of little use to those who obtain it.  I wish such
advocates as the above to recollect, that we are forbidden by the Bible
“to do evil that good may come,” or to propagate “cunningly devised
fables.”

                                * * * * *

                    _Lately Published_, _Price_ 4_s._

                               SIX LECTURES

                                  ON THE

     Non-eternity of Future Punishment, and on the final Restoration
                 of all Mankind to Purity and Happiness,

                              BY T. LATHAM.

       _Sold by the Author at Bramfield_; _also by Teulon and Fox_,
                              _Whitechapel_,
                  _London_; _and all other Booksellers_.

                      TIPPELL, PRINTER, HALESWORTH.

                                * * * * *




FOOTNOTES.


{3}  Assumed name.

{4a}  The spirit of the party.

{4b}  Against good manners.

{4c}  Disguised.

{4d}  In person.

{4e}  A man of various learning.

{4f}  Masterpiece.

{4g}  Churchmen.

{4h}  Pupil.

{5a}  A learned man.

{5b}  Between ourselves.

{5c}  Slip of the tongue.

{5d}  Pretended.

{5e}  As it should be.

{5f}  A nice morsel

{6}  Willing or not.

{7a}  I have read of a bishop who, on coming to his bishopric, ordered a
Greek inscription to be written over his palace gate.  It was meant to
say, “Gate be thou ever open to, and never shut against a good man.”  But
when finished, it said, “Gate be thou always shut against, and never open
to a good man.”  And as the bishop was so well versed in Greek, that he
could not find out the blunder, he was for his learning deposed.  I give
this as a hint to Hugh Latimer.

{7b}  I must remain in my present sentiments.

{8a}  Tiresomeness.

{8b}  The republic of letters.

{9a}  A fit man.

{9b}  Three united in one.

{9c}  Winding up.

{10a}  Common phrases

{10b}  By what authority.

{10c}  With what intention.

{10d}  To ensnare the vulgar.

{10e}  What harm will it do.

{10f}  The law of retaliation.

{11}  See a speech by a minister.  (Lectures, page 177)

{12a}  Like master like man.

{12b}  Thou that teachest others, teachest thou not thyself.

{12c}  Wonderful to tell.

{12d}  Indispensable pre-requisite.

{14a}  The truth without fear.

{14b}  Without over bashfulness.

{16a}  I do not wish to be made a bishop.

{16b}  Sudden enterprise.

{16c}  Burden of proving.

{16d}  Bradbury.

{18}  Jesus Christ has informed us, John iii. 16, 18, “that God has
displayed his love to the world in sending his Son, not to condemn the
world, but to save it.”  Hugh Latimer tells us, page 6, “that the
perpetuity of punishment in vindictive justice, (which by the way is a
contradiction in terms), is the emanation of love to the universe.”
There is no method of reconciling these plain contradictions, but by
allowing him to be acquainted with those sublime mysteries with which
Christ was wholly unacquainted.

{19}  A foolish argument.

{21a}  Deputy.

{21b}  Said for nothing.

{26}  With the whole heart.

{27}  Truth conquers.

{28a}  The guardian of morality.

{28b}  As in a looking glass.

{28c}  Improper fondness of writing.

{28d}  Substitute.

{29a}  For decency sake.

{29b}  Over much bashfulness.

{30a}  For the public good.

{30b}  Face to face.

{30c}  By word of mouth.

{32a}  Theological tracts, preface, page 19.

{32b}  Molineux’s Familiar Letters, page 163.

{33}  Bishop Horne.




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The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Study In Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
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with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: A Study In Scarlet

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

Posting Date: July 12, 2008 [EBook #244]
Release Date: April, 1995
Last Updated: September 30, 2016

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A STUDY IN SCARLET ***




Produced by Roger Squires





A STUDY IN SCARLET.

By A. Conan Doyle

[1]



     Original Transcriber’s Note: This etext is prepared directly
     from an 1887 edition, and care has been taken to duplicate the
     original exactly, including typographical and punctuation
     vagaries.

     Additions to the text include adding the underscore character to
     indicate italics, and textual end-notes in square braces.

     Project Gutenberg Editor’s Note: In reproofing and moving old PG
     files such as this to the present PG directory system it is the
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     original 1887 edition as to typography and punctuation vagaries,
     no changes have been made in this ascii text file. However, in
     the Latin-1 file and this html file, present standards are
     followed and the several French and Spanish words have been
     given their proper accents.

	 Part II, The Country of the Saints, deals much with the Mormon Church.




A STUDY IN SCARLET.





PART I.

(_Being a reprint from the reminiscences of_ JOHN H. WATSON, M.D., _late
of the Army Medical Department._) [2]




CHAPTER I. MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES.


IN the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the
University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course
prescribed for surgeons in the army. Having completed my studies there,
I was duly attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers as Assistant
Surgeon. The regiment was stationed in India at the time, and before
I could join it, the second Afghan war had broken out. On landing at
Bombay, I learned that my corps had advanced through the passes, and
was already deep in the enemy’s country. I followed, however, with many
other officers who were in the same situation as myself, and succeeded
in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once
entered upon my new duties.

The campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had
nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and
attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of
Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which
shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have
fallen into the hands of the murderous Ghazis had it not been for the
devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a
pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines.

Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships which I had
undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to
the base hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved
so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little
upon the verandah, when I was struck down by enteric fever, that curse
of our Indian possessions. For months my life was despaired of, and
when at last I came to myself and became convalescent, I was so weak and
emaciated that a medical board determined that not a day should be lost
in sending me back to England. I was dispatched, accordingly, in the
troopship “Orontes,” and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with
my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal
government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it.

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as
air--or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will
permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of
the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at
a private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless, meaningless
existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely
than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances become, that
I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate
somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in
my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making
up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less
pretentious and less expensive domicile.

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at
the Criterion Bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turning
round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at
Barts. The sight of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is
a pleasant thing indeed to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never
been a particular crony of mine, but now I hailed him with enthusiasm,
and he, in his turn, appeared to be delighted to see me. In the
exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me at the Holborn, and
we started off together in a hansom.

“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked in
undisguised wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets.
“You are as thin as a lath and as brown as a nut.”

I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it
by the time that we reached our destination.

“Poor devil!” he said, commiseratingly, after he had listened to my
misfortunes. “What are you up to now?”

“Looking for lodgings.” [3] I answered. “Trying to solve the problem
as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable
price.”

“That’s a strange thing,” remarked my companion; “you are the second man
to-day that has used that expression to me.”

“And who was the first?” I asked.

“A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital.
He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone
to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which
were too much for his purse.”

“By Jove!” I cried, “if he really wants someone to share the rooms and
the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner
to being alone.”

Young Stamford looked rather strangely at me over his wine-glass. “You
don’t know Sherlock Holmes yet,” he said; “perhaps you would not care
for him as a constant companion.”

“Why, what is there against him?”

“Oh, I didn’t say there was anything against him. He is a little queer
in his ideas--an enthusiast in some branches of science. As far as I
know he is a decent fellow enough.”

“A medical student, I suppose?” said I.

“No--I have no idea what he intends to go in for. I believe he is well
up in anatomy, and he is a first-class chemist; but, as far as I know,
he has never taken out any systematic medical classes. His studies are
very desultory and eccentric, but he has amassed a lot of out-of-the way
knowledge which would astonish his professors.”

“Did you never ask him what he was going in for?” I asked.

“No; he is not a man that it is easy to draw out, though he can be
communicative enough when the fancy seizes him.”

“I should like to meet him,” I said. “If I am to lodge with anyone, I
should prefer a man of studious and quiet habits. I am not strong
enough yet to stand much noise or excitement. I had enough of both in
Afghanistan to last me for the remainder of my natural existence. How
could I meet this friend of yours?”

“He is sure to be at the laboratory,” returned my companion. “He either
avoids the place for weeks, or else he works there from morning to
night. If you like, we shall drive round together after luncheon.”

“Certainly,” I answered, and the conversation drifted away into other
channels.

As we made our way to the hospital after leaving the Holborn, Stamford
gave me a few more particulars about the gentleman whom I proposed to
take as a fellow-lodger.

“You mustn’t blame me if you don’t get on with him,” he said; “I know
nothing more of him than I have learned from meeting him occasionally in
the laboratory. You proposed this arrangement, so you must not hold me
responsible.”

“If we don’t get on it will be easy to part company,” I answered. “It
seems to me, Stamford,” I added, looking hard at my companion, “that you
have some reason for washing your hands of the matter. Is this fellow’s
temper so formidable, or what is it? Don’t be mealy-mouthed about it.”

“It is not easy to express the inexpressible,” he answered with a laugh.
“Holmes is a little too scientific for my tastes--it approaches to
cold-bloodedness. I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of
the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand,
but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea
of the effects. To do him justice, I think that he would take it himself
with the same readiness. He appears to have a passion for definite and
exact knowledge.”

“Very right too.”

“Yes, but it may be pushed to excess. When it comes to beating the
subjects in the dissecting-rooms with a stick, it is certainly taking
rather a bizarre shape.”

“Beating the subjects!”

“Yes, to verify how far bruises may be produced after death. I saw him
at it with my own eyes.”

“And yet you say he is not a medical student?”

“No. Heaven knows what the objects of his studies are. But here we
are, and you must form your own impressions about him.” As he spoke, we
turned down a narrow lane and passed through a small side-door, which
opened into a wing of the great hospital. It was familiar ground to me,
and I needed no guiding as we ascended the bleak stone staircase and
made our way down the long corridor with its vista of whitewashed
wall and dun-coloured doors. Near the further end a low arched passage
branched away from it and led to the chemical laboratory.

This was a lofty chamber, lined and littered with countless bottles.
Broad, low tables were scattered about, which bristled with retorts,
test-tubes, and little Bunsen lamps, with their blue flickering flames.
There was only one student in the room, who was bending over a distant
table absorbed in his work. At the sound of our steps he glanced round
and sprang to his feet with a cry of pleasure. “I’ve found it! I’ve
found it,” he shouted to my companion, running towards us with a
test-tube in his hand. “I have found a re-agent which is precipitated
by hoemoglobin, [4] and by nothing else.” Had he discovered a gold mine,
greater delight could not have shone upon his features.

“Dr. Watson, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Stamford, introducing us.

“How are you?” he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength
for which I should hardly have given him credit. “You have been in
Afghanistan, I perceive.”

“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.

“Never mind,” said he, chuckling to himself. “The question now is about
hoemoglobin. No doubt you see the significance of this discovery of
mine?”

“It is interesting, chemically, no doubt,” I answered, “but
practically----”

“Why, man, it is the most practical medico-legal discovery for years.
Don’t you see that it gives us an infallible test for blood stains. Come
over here now!” He seized me by the coat-sleeve in his eagerness, and
drew me over to the table at which he had been working. “Let us have
some fresh blood,” he said, digging a long bodkin into his finger, and
drawing off the resulting drop of blood in a chemical pipette. “Now, I
add this small quantity of blood to a litre of water. You perceive that
the resulting mixture has the appearance of pure water. The proportion
of blood cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however,
that we shall be able to obtain the characteristic reaction.” As he
spoke, he threw into the vessel a few white crystals, and then added
some drops of a transparent fluid. In an instant the contents assumed a
dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom
of the glass jar.

“Ha! ha!” he cried, clapping his hands, and looking as delighted as a
child with a new toy. “What do you think of that?”

“It seems to be a very delicate test,” I remarked.

“Beautiful! beautiful! The old Guiacum test was very clumsy and
uncertain. So is the microscopic examination for blood corpuscles. The
latter is valueless if the stains are a few hours old. Now, this appears
to act as well whether the blood is old or new. Had this test been
invented, there are hundreds of men now walking the earth who would long
ago have paid the penalty of their crimes.”

“Indeed!” I murmured.

“Criminal cases are continually hinging upon that one point. A man is
suspected of a crime months perhaps after it has been committed. His
linen or clothes are examined, and brownish stains discovered upon them.
Are they blood stains, or mud stains, or rust stains, or fruit stains,
or what are they? That is a question which has puzzled many an expert,
and why? Because there was no reliable test. Now we have the Sherlock
Holmes’ test, and there will no longer be any difficulty.”

His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, and he put his hand over his
heart and bowed as if to some applauding crowd conjured up by his
imagination.

“You are to be congratulated,” I remarked, considerably surprised at his
enthusiasm.

“There was the case of Von Bischoff at Frankfort last year. He would
certainly have been hung had this test been in existence. Then there was
Mason of Bradford, and the notorious Muller, and Lefevre of Montpellier,
and Samson of New Orleans. I could name a score of cases in which it
would have been decisive.”

“You seem to be a walking calendar of crime,” said Stamford with a
laugh. “You might start a paper on those lines. Call it the ‘Police News
of the Past.’”

“Very interesting reading it might be made, too,” remarked Sherlock
Holmes, sticking a small piece of plaster over the prick on his finger.
“I have to be careful,” he continued, turning to me with a smile, “for I
dabble with poisons a good deal.” He held out his hand as he spoke, and
I noticed that it was all mottled over with similar pieces of plaster,
and discoloured with strong acids.

“We came here on business,” said Stamford, sitting down on a high
three-legged stool, and pushing another one in my direction with
his foot. “My friend here wants to take diggings, and as you were
complaining that you could get no one to go halves with you, I thought
that I had better bring you together.”

Sherlock Holmes seemed delighted at the idea of sharing his rooms with
me. “I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street,” he said, “which would
suit us down to the ground. You don’t mind the smell of strong tobacco,
I hope?”

“I always smoke ‘ship’s’ myself,” I answered.

“That’s good enough. I generally have chemicals about, and occasionally
do experiments. Would that annoy you?”

“By no means.”

“Let me see--what are my other shortcomings. I get in the dumps at
times, and don’t open my mouth for days on end. You must not think I am
sulky when I do that. Just let me alone, and I’ll soon be right. What
have you to confess now? It’s just as well for two fellows to know the
worst of one another before they begin to live together.”

I laughed at this cross-examination. “I keep a bull pup,” I said, “and
I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts
of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices
when I’m well, but those are the principal ones at present.”

“Do you include violin-playing in your category of rows?” he asked,
anxiously.

“It depends on the player,” I answered. “A well-played violin is a treat
for the gods--a badly-played one----”

“Oh, that’s all right,” he cried, with a merry laugh. “I think we may
consider the thing as settled--that is, if the rooms are agreeable to
you.”

“When shall we see them?”

“Call for me here at noon to-morrow, and we’ll go together and settle
everything,” he answered.

“All right--noon exactly,” said I, shaking his hand.

We left him working among his chemicals, and we walked together towards
my hotel.

“By the way,” I asked suddenly, stopping and turning upon Stamford, “how
the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?”

My companion smiled an enigmatical smile. “That’s just his little
peculiarity,” he said. “A good many people have wanted to know how he
finds things out.”

“Oh! a mystery is it?” I cried, rubbing my hands. “This is very piquant.
I am much obliged to you for bringing us together. ‘The proper study of
mankind is man,’ you know.”

“You must study him, then,” Stamford said, as he bade me good-bye.
“You’ll find him a knotty problem, though. I’ll wager he learns more
about you than you about him. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I answered, and strolled on to my hotel, considerably
interested in my new acquaintance.




CHAPTER II. THE SCIENCE OF DEDUCTION.


WE met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B,
[5] Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting. They
consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large
airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad
windows. So desirable in every way were the apartments, and so moderate
did the terms seem when divided between us, that the bargain was
concluded upon the spot, and we at once entered into possession.
That very evening I moved my things round from the hotel, and on the
following morning Sherlock Holmes followed me with several boxes and
portmanteaus. For a day or two we were busily employed in unpacking and
laying out our property to the best advantage. That done, we
gradually began to settle down and to accommodate ourselves to our new
surroundings.

Holmes was certainly not a difficult man to live with. He was quiet
in his ways, and his habits were regular. It was rare for him to be
up after ten at night, and he had invariably breakfasted and gone out
before I rose in the morning. Sometimes he spent his day at the chemical
laboratory, sometimes in the dissecting-rooms, and occasionally in long
walks, which appeared to take him into the lowest portions of the City.
Nothing could exceed his energy when the working fit was upon him; but
now and again a reaction would seize him, and for days on end he would
lie upon the sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving
a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such
a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him
of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance
and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.

As the weeks went by, my interest in him and my curiosity as to his
aims in life, gradually deepened and increased. His very person and
appearance were such as to strike the attention of the most casual
observer. In height he was rather over six feet, and so excessively
lean that he seemed to be considerably taller. His eyes were sharp and
piercing, save during those intervals of torpor to which I have alluded;
and his thin, hawk-like nose gave his whole expression an air of
alertness and decision. His chin, too, had the prominence and squareness
which mark the man of determination. His hands were invariably
blotted with ink and stained with chemicals, yet he was possessed of
extraordinary delicacy of touch, as I frequently had occasion to observe
when I watched him manipulating his fragile philosophical instruments.

The reader may set me down as a hopeless busybody, when I confess how
much this man stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured
to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned
himself. Before pronouncing judgment, however, be it remembered, how
objectless was my life, and how little there was to engage my attention.
My health forbade me from venturing out unless the weather was
exceptionally genial, and I had no friends who would call upon me and
break the monotony of my daily existence. Under these circumstances, I
eagerly hailed the little mystery which hung around my companion, and
spent much of my time in endeavouring to unravel it.

He was not studying medicine. He had himself, in reply to a question,
confirmed Stamford’s opinion upon that point. Neither did he appear to
have pursued any course of reading which might fit him for a degree in
science or any other recognized portal which would give him an entrance
into the learned world. Yet his zeal for certain studies was remarkable,
and within eccentric limits his knowledge was so extraordinarily ample
and minute that his observations have fairly astounded me. Surely no man
would work so hard or attain such precise information unless he had some
definite end in view. Desultory readers are seldom remarkable for the
exactness of their learning. No man burdens his mind with small matters
unless he has some very good reason for doing so.

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary
literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing.
Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he
might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however,
when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory
and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human
being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth
travelled round the sun appeared to be to me such an extraordinary fact
that I could hardly realize it.

“You appear to be astonished,” he said, smiling at my expression of
surprise. “Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it.”

“To forget it!”

“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is
like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture
as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he
comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets
crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that
he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman
is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will
have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of
these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It
is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can
distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every
addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is
of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing
out the useful ones.”

“But the Solar System!” I protested.

“What the deuce is it to me?” he interrupted impatiently; “you say
that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a
pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.”

I was on the point of asking him what that work might be, but something
in his manner showed me that the question would be an unwelcome one. I
pondered over our short conversation, however, and endeavoured to draw
my deductions from it. He said that he would acquire no knowledge which
did not bear upon his object. Therefore all the knowledge which he
possessed was such as would be useful to him. I enumerated in my own
mind all the various points upon which he had shown me that he was
exceptionally well-informed. I even took a pencil and jotted them down.
I could not help smiling at the document when I had completed it. It ran
in this way--


SHERLOCK HOLMES--his limits.

  1. Knowledge of Literature.--Nil.
  2.              Philosophy.--Nil.
  3.              Astronomy.--Nil.
  4.              Politics.--Feeble.
  5.              Botany.--Variable.  Well up in belladonna,
                              opium, and poisons generally.
                              Knows nothing of practical gardening.
  6.              Geology.--Practical, but limited.
                               Tells at a glance different soils
                               from each other.  After walks has
                               shown me splashes upon his trousers,
                               and told me by their colour and
                               consistence in what part of London
                               he had received them.
  7.              Chemistry.--Profound.
  8.              Anatomy.--Accurate, but unsystematic.
  9.              Sensational Literature.--Immense.  He appears
                              to know every detail of every horror
                              perpetrated in the century.
  10. Plays the violin well.
  11. Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.
  12. Has a good practical knowledge of British law.


When I had got so far in my list I threw it into the fire in despair.
“If I can only find what the fellow is driving at by reconciling all
these accomplishments, and discovering a calling which needs them all,”
 I said to myself, “I may as well give up the attempt at once.”

I see that I have alluded above to his powers upon the violin. These
were very remarkable, but as eccentric as all his other accomplishments.
That he could play pieces, and difficult pieces, I knew well, because
at my request he has played me some of Mendelssohn’s Lieder, and other
favourites. When left to himself, however, he would seldom produce any
music or attempt any recognized air. Leaning back in his arm-chair of
an evening, he would close his eyes and scrape carelessly at the fiddle
which was thrown across his knee. Sometimes the chords were sonorous and
melancholy. Occasionally they were fantastic and cheerful. Clearly they
reflected the thoughts which possessed him, but whether the music aided
those thoughts, or whether the playing was simply the result of a whim
or fancy was more than I could determine. I might have rebelled against
these exasperating solos had it not been that he usually terminated them
by playing in quick succession a whole series of my favourite airs as a
slight compensation for the trial upon my patience.

During the first week or so we had no callers, and I had begun to think
that my companion was as friendless a man as I was myself. Presently,
however, I found that he had many acquaintances, and those in the most
different classes of society. There was one little sallow rat-faced,
dark-eyed fellow who was introduced to me as Mr. Lestrade, and who came
three or four times in a single week. One morning a young girl called,
fashionably dressed, and stayed for half an hour or more. The same
afternoon brought a grey-headed, seedy visitor, looking like a Jew
pedlar, who appeared to me to be much excited, and who was closely
followed by a slip-shod elderly woman. On another occasion an old
white-haired gentleman had an interview with my companion; and on
another a railway porter in his velveteen uniform. When any of these
nondescript individuals put in an appearance, Sherlock Holmes used to
beg for the use of the sitting-room, and I would retire to my bed-room.
He always apologized to me for putting me to this inconvenience. “I have
to use this room as a place of business,” he said, “and these people
are my clients.” Again I had an opportunity of asking him a point blank
question, and again my delicacy prevented me from forcing another man to
confide in me. I imagined at the time that he had some strong reason for
not alluding to it, but he soon dispelled the idea by coming round to
the subject of his own accord.

It was upon the 4th of March, as I have good reason to remember, that I
rose somewhat earlier than usual, and found that Sherlock Holmes had not
yet finished his breakfast. The landlady had become so accustomed to my
late habits that my place had not been laid nor my coffee prepared. With
the unreasonable petulance of mankind I rang the bell and gave a curt
intimation that I was ready. Then I picked up a magazine from the table
and attempted to while away the time with it, while my companion munched
silently at his toast. One of the articles had a pencil mark at the
heading, and I naturally began to run my eye through it.

Its somewhat ambitious title was “The Book of Life,” and it attempted to
show how much an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic
examination of all that came in his way. It struck me as being a
remarkable mixture of shrewdness and of absurdity. The reasoning was
close and intense, but the deductions appeared to me to be far-fetched
and exaggerated. The writer claimed by a momentary expression, a twitch
of a muscle or a glance of an eye, to fathom a man’s inmost thoughts.
Deceit, according to him, was an impossibility in the case of one
trained to observation and analysis. His conclusions were as infallible
as so many propositions of Euclid. So startling would his results appear
to the uninitiated that until they learned the processes by which he had
arrived at them they might well consider him as a necromancer.

“From a drop of water,” said the writer, “a logician could infer the
possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of
one or the other. So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is
known whenever we are shown a single link of it. Like all other arts,
the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired
by long and patient study nor is life long enough to allow any mortal
to attain the highest possible perfection in it. Before turning to
those moral and mental aspects of the matter which present the greatest
difficulties, let the enquirer begin by mastering more elementary
problems. Let him, on meeting a fellow-mortal, learn at a glance to
distinguish the history of the man, and the trade or profession to
which he belongs. Puerile as such an exercise may seem, it sharpens the
faculties of observation, and teaches one where to look and what to look
for. By a man’s finger nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boot, by his
trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his
expression, by his shirt cuffs--by each of these things a man’s calling
is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the
competent enquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.”

“What ineffable twaddle!” I cried, slapping the magazine down on the
table, “I never read such rubbish in my life.”

“What is it?” asked Sherlock Holmes.

“Why, this article,” I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon as I sat
down to my breakfast. “I see that you have read it since you have marked
it. I don’t deny that it is smartly written. It irritates me though. It
is evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who evolves all these
neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not
practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a third class
carriage on the Underground, and asked to give the trades of all his
fellow-travellers. I would lay a thousand to one against him.”

“You would lose your money,” Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly. “As for
the article I wrote it myself.”

“You!”

“Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction. The
theories which I have expressed there, and which appear to you to be so
chimerical are really extremely practical--so practical that I depend
upon them for my bread and cheese.”

“And how?” I asked involuntarily.

“Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one in the
world. I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is.
Here in London we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private
ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to
put them on the right scent. They lay all the evidence before me, and I
am generally able, by the help of my knowledge of the history of
crime, to set them straight. There is a strong family resemblance about
misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger
ends, it is odd if you can’t unravel the thousand and first. Lestrade
is a well-known detective. He got himself into a fog recently over a
forgery case, and that was what brought him here.”

“And these other people?”

“They are mostly sent on by private inquiry agencies. They are
all people who are in trouble about something, and want a little
enlightening. I listen to their story, they listen to my comments, and
then I pocket my fee.”

“But do you mean to say,” I said, “that without leaving your room you
can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they
have seen every detail for themselves?”

“Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. Now and again a case
turns up which is a little more complex. Then I have to bustle about and
see things with my own eyes. You see I have a lot of special knowledge
which I apply to the problem, and which facilitates matters wonderfully.
Those rules of deduction laid down in that article which aroused your
scorn, are invaluable to me in practical work. Observation with me is
second nature. You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our
first meeting, that you had come from Afghanistan.”

“You were told, no doubt.”

“Nothing of the sort. I _knew_ you came from Afghanistan. From long
habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind, that I
arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps.
There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran, ‘Here is a
gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly
an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is
dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are
fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says
clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and
unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have
seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’ The
whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you
came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.”

“It is simple enough as you explain it,” I said, smiling. “You remind
me of Edgar Allen Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did
exist outside of stories.”

Sherlock Holmes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are
complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my
opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking
in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of
an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial. He had some
analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as
Poe appeared to imagine.”

“Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. “Does Lecoq come up to your
idea of a detective?”

Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “Lecoq was a miserable bungler,”
 he said, in an angry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him, and
that was his energy. That book made me positively ill. The question was
how to identify an unknown prisoner. I could have done it in twenty-four
hours. Lecoq took six months or so. It might be made a text-book for
detectives to teach them what to avoid.”

I felt rather indignant at having two characters whom I had admired
treated in this cavalier style. I walked over to the window, and stood
looking out into the busy street. “This fellow may be very clever,” I
said to myself, “but he is certainly very conceited.”

“There are no crimes and no criminals in these days,” he said,
querulously. “What is the use of having brains in our profession. I know
well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has
ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural
talent to the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the
result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy
with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see
through it.”

I was still annoyed at his bumptious style of conversation. I thought it
best to change the topic.

“I wonder what that fellow is looking for?” I asked, pointing to a
stalwart, plainly-dressed individual who was walking slowly down the
other side of the street, looking anxiously at the numbers. He had
a large blue envelope in his hand, and was evidently the bearer of a
message.

“You mean the retired sergeant of Marines,” said Sherlock Holmes.

“Brag and bounce!” thought I to myself. “He knows that I cannot verify
his guess.”

The thought had hardly passed through my mind when the man whom we were
watching caught sight of the number on our door, and ran rapidly across
the roadway. We heard a loud knock, a deep voice below, and heavy steps
ascending the stair.

“For Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” he said, stepping into the room and handing
my friend the letter.

Here was an opportunity of taking the conceit out of him. He little
thought of this when he made that random shot. “May I ask, my lad,” I
said, in the blandest voice, “what your trade may be?”

“Commissionaire, sir,” he said, gruffly. “Uniform away for repairs.”

“And you were?” I asked, with a slightly malicious glance at my
companion.

“A sergeant, sir, Royal Marine Light Infantry, sir. No answer? Right,
sir.”

He clicked his heels together, raised his hand in a salute, and was
gone.




CHAPTER III. THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY [6]


I CONFESS that I was considerably startled by this fresh proof of the
practical nature of my companion’s theories. My respect for his powers
of analysis increased wondrously. There still remained some lurking
suspicion in my mind, however, that the whole thing was a pre-arranged
episode, intended to dazzle me, though what earthly object he could have
in taking me in was past my comprehension. When I looked at him he
had finished reading the note, and his eyes had assumed the vacant,
lack-lustre expression which showed mental abstraction.

“How in the world did you deduce that?” I asked.

“Deduce what?” said he, petulantly.

“Why, that he was a retired sergeant of Marines.”

“I have no time for trifles,” he answered, brusquely; then with a smile,
“Excuse my rudeness. You broke the thread of my thoughts; but perhaps
it is as well. So you actually were not able to see that that man was a
sergeant of Marines?”

“No, indeed.”

“It was easier to know it than to explain why I knew it. If you
were asked to prove that two and two made four, you might find some
difficulty, and yet you are quite sure of the fact. Even across the
street I could see a great blue anchor tattooed on the back of the
fellow’s hand. That smacked of the sea. He had a military carriage,
however, and regulation side whiskers. There we have the marine. He was
a man with some amount of self-importance and a certain air of command.
You must have observed the way in which he held his head and swung
his cane. A steady, respectable, middle-aged man, too, on the face of
him--all facts which led me to believe that he had been a sergeant.”

“Wonderful!” I ejaculated.

“Commonplace,” said Holmes, though I thought from his expression that he
was pleased at my evident surprise and admiration. “I said just now that
there were no criminals. It appears that I am wrong--look at this!” He
threw me over the note which the commissionaire had brought. [7]

“Why,” I cried, as I cast my eye over it, “this is terrible!”

“It does seem to be a little out of the common,” he remarked, calmly.
“Would you mind reading it to me aloud?”

This is the letter which I read to him----


“MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,--

“There has been a bad business during the night at 3, Lauriston Gardens,
off the Brixton Road. Our man on the beat saw a light there about two in
the morning, and as the house was an empty one, suspected that something
was amiss. He found the door open, and in the front room, which is bare
of furniture, discovered the body of a gentleman, well dressed, and
having cards in his pocket bearing the name of ‘Enoch J. Drebber,
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.’ There had been no robbery, nor is there any
evidence as to how the man met his death. There are marks of blood in
the room, but there is no wound upon his person. We are at a loss as to
how he came into the empty house; indeed, the whole affair is a puzzler.
If you can come round to the house any time before twelve, you will find
me there. I have left everything _in statu quo_ until I hear from you.
If you are unable to come I shall give you fuller details, and would
esteem it a great kindness if you would favour me with your opinion.
Yours faithfully,

“TOBIAS GREGSON.”


“Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,” my friend remarked;
“he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and
energetic, but conventional--shockingly so. They have their knives
into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional
beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put
upon the scent.”

I was amazed at the calm way in which he rippled on. “Surely there is
not a moment to be lost,” I cried, “shall I go and order you a cab?”

“I’m not sure about whether I shall go. I am the most incurably lazy
devil that ever stood in shoe leather--that is, when the fit is on me,
for I can be spry enough at times.”

“Why, it is just such a chance as you have been longing for.”

“My dear fellow, what does it matter to me. Supposing I unravel the
whole matter, you may be sure that Gregson, Lestrade, and Co. will
pocket all the credit. That comes of being an unofficial personage.”

“But he begs you to help him.”

“Yes. He knows that I am his superior, and acknowledges it to me; but
he would cut his tongue out before he would own it to any third person.
However, we may as well go and have a look. I shall work it out on my
own hook. I may have a laugh at them if I have nothing else. Come on!”

He hustled on his overcoat, and bustled about in a way that showed that
an energetic fit had superseded the apathetic one.

“Get your hat,” he said.

“You wish me to come?”

“Yes, if you have nothing better to do.” A minute later we were both in
a hansom, driving furiously for the Brixton Road.

It was a foggy, cloudy morning, and a dun-coloured veil hung over the
house-tops, looking like the reflection of the mud-coloured streets
beneath. My companion was in the best of spirits, and prattled away
about Cremona fiddles, and the difference between a Stradivarius and
an Amati. As for myself, I was silent, for the dull weather and the
melancholy business upon which we were engaged, depressed my spirits.

“You don’t seem to give much thought to the matter in hand,” I said at
last, interrupting Holmes’ musical disquisition.

“No data yet,” he answered. “It is a capital mistake to theorize before
you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”

“You will have your data soon,” I remarked, pointing with my finger;
“this is the Brixton Road, and that is the house, if I am not very much
mistaken.”

“So it is. Stop, driver, stop!” We were still a hundred yards or so from
it, but he insisted upon our alighting, and we finished our journey upon
foot.

Number 3, Lauriston Gardens wore an ill-omened and minatory look. It was
one of four which stood back some little way from the street, two being
occupied and two empty. The latter looked out with three tiers of vacant
melancholy windows, which were blank and dreary, save that here and
there a “To Let” card had developed like a cataract upon the bleared
panes. A small garden sprinkled over with a scattered eruption of sickly
plants separated each of these houses from the street, and was traversed
by a narrow pathway, yellowish in colour, and consisting apparently of a
mixture of clay and of gravel. The whole place was very sloppy from the
rain which had fallen through the night. The garden was bounded by a
three-foot brick wall with a fringe of wood rails upon the top, and
against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable, surrounded by
a small knot of loafers, who craned their necks and strained their eyes
in the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the proceedings within.

I had imagined that Sherlock Holmes would at once have hurried into the
house and plunged into a study of the mystery. Nothing appeared to be
further from his intention. With an air of nonchalance which, under the
circumstances, seemed to me to border upon affectation, he lounged up
and down the pavement, and gazed vacantly at the ground, the sky, the
opposite houses and the line of railings. Having finished his scrutiny,
he proceeded slowly down the path, or rather down the fringe of grass
which flanked the path, keeping his eyes riveted upon the ground. Twice
he stopped, and once I saw him smile, and heard him utter an exclamation
of satisfaction. There were many marks of footsteps upon the wet clayey
soil, but since the police had been coming and going over it, I was
unable to see how my companion could hope to learn anything from it.
Still I had had such extraordinary evidence of the quickness of his
perceptive faculties, that I had no doubt that he could see a great deal
which was hidden from me.

At the door of the house we were met by a tall, white-faced,
flaxen-haired man, with a notebook in his hand, who rushed forward and
wrung my companion’s hand with effusion. “It is indeed kind of you to
come,” he said, “I have had everything left untouched.”

“Except that!” my friend answered, pointing at the pathway. “If a herd
of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. No
doubt, however, you had drawn your own conclusions, Gregson, before you
permitted this.”

“I have had so much to do inside the house,” the detective said
evasively. “My colleague, Mr. Lestrade, is here. I had relied upon him
to look after this.”

Holmes glanced at me and raised his eyebrows sardonically. “With two
such men as yourself and Lestrade upon the ground, there will not be
much for a third party to find out,” he said.

Gregson rubbed his hands in a self-satisfied way. “I think we have done
all that can be done,” he answered; “it’s a queer case though, and I
knew your taste for such things.”

“You did not come here in a cab?” asked Sherlock Holmes.

“No, sir.”

“Nor Lestrade?”

“No, sir.”

“Then let us go and look at the room.” With which inconsequent remark he
strode on into the house, followed by Gregson, whose features expressed
his astonishment.

A short passage, bare planked and dusty, led to the kitchen and offices.
Two doors opened out of it to the left and to the right. One of these
had obviously been closed for many weeks. The other belonged to the
dining-room, which was the apartment in which the mysterious affair had
occurred. Holmes walked in, and I followed him with that subdued feeling
at my heart which the presence of death inspires.

It was a large square room, looking all the larger from the absence
of all furniture. A vulgar flaring paper adorned the walls, but it was
blotched in places with mildew, and here and there great strips had
become detached and hung down, exposing the yellow plaster beneath.
Opposite the door was a showy fireplace, surmounted by a mantelpiece of
imitation white marble. On one corner of this was stuck the stump of a
red wax candle. The solitary window was so dirty that the light was
hazy and uncertain, giving a dull grey tinge to everything, which was
intensified by the thick layer of dust which coated the whole apartment.

All these details I observed afterwards. At present my attention was
centred upon the single grim motionless figure which lay stretched upon
the boards, with vacant sightless eyes staring up at the discoloured
ceiling. It was that of a man about forty-three or forty-four years of
age, middle-sized, broad shouldered, with crisp curling black hair, and
a short stubbly beard. He was dressed in a heavy broadcloth frock coat
and waistcoat, with light-coloured trousers, and immaculate collar
and cuffs. A top hat, well brushed and trim, was placed upon the floor
beside him. His hands were clenched and his arms thrown abroad, while
his lower limbs were interlocked as though his death struggle had been a
grievous one. On his rigid face there stood an expression of horror,
and as it seemed to me, of hatred, such as I have never seen upon human
features. This malignant and terrible contortion, combined with the low
forehead, blunt nose, and prognathous jaw gave the dead man a singularly
simious and ape-like appearance, which was increased by his writhing,
unnatural posture. I have seen death in many forms, but never has
it appeared to me in a more fearsome aspect than in that dark grimy
apartment, which looked out upon one of the main arteries of suburban
London.

Lestrade, lean and ferret-like as ever, was standing by the doorway, and
greeted my companion and myself.

“This case will make a stir, sir,” he remarked. “It beats anything I
have seen, and I am no chicken.”

“There is no clue?” said Gregson.

“None at all,” chimed in Lestrade.

Sherlock Holmes approached the body, and, kneeling down, examined it
intently. “You are sure that there is no wound?” he asked, pointing to
numerous gouts and splashes of blood which lay all round.

“Positive!” cried both detectives.

“Then, of course, this blood belongs to a second individual--[8]
presumably the murderer, if murder has been committed. It reminds me of
the circumstances attendant on the death of Van Jansen, in Utrecht, in
the year ‘34. Do you remember the case, Gregson?”

“No, sir.”

“Read it up--you really should. There is nothing new under the sun. It
has all been done before.”

As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and everywhere,
feeling, pressing, unbuttoning, examining, while his eyes wore the same
far-away expression which I have already remarked upon. So swiftly was
the examination made, that one would hardly have guessed the minuteness
with which it was conducted. Finally, he sniffed the dead man’s lips,
and then glanced at the soles of his patent leather boots.

“He has not been moved at all?” he asked.

“No more than was necessary for the purposes of our examination.”

“You can take him to the mortuary now,” he said. “There is nothing more
to be learned.”

Gregson had a stretcher and four men at hand. At his call they entered
the room, and the stranger was lifted and carried out. As they raised
him, a ring tinkled down and rolled across the floor. Lestrade grabbed
it up and stared at it with mystified eyes.

“There’s been a woman here,” he cried. “It’s a woman’s wedding-ring.”

He held it out, as he spoke, upon the palm of his hand. We all gathered
round him and gazed at it. There could be no doubt that that circlet of
plain gold had once adorned the finger of a bride.

“This complicates matters,” said Gregson. “Heaven knows, they were
complicated enough before.”

“You’re sure it doesn’t simplify them?” observed Holmes. “There’s
nothing to be learned by staring at it. What did you find in his
pockets?”

“We have it all here,” said Gregson, pointing to a litter of objects
upon one of the bottom steps of the stairs. “A gold watch, No. 97163, by
Barraud, of London. Gold Albert chain, very heavy and solid. Gold ring,
with masonic device. Gold pin--bull-dog’s head, with rubies as eyes.
Russian leather card-case, with cards of Enoch J. Drebber of Cleveland,
corresponding with the E. J. D. upon the linen. No purse, but loose
money to the extent of seven pounds thirteen. Pocket edition of
Boccaccio’s ‘Decameron,’ with name of Joseph Stangerson upon the
fly-leaf. Two letters--one addressed to E. J. Drebber and one to Joseph
Stangerson.”

“At what address?”

“American Exchange, Strand--to be left till called for. They are both
from the Guion Steamship Company, and refer to the sailing of their
boats from Liverpool. It is clear that this unfortunate man was about to
return to New York.”

“Have you made any inquiries as to this man, Stangerson?”

“I did it at once, sir,” said Gregson. “I have had advertisements
sent to all the newspapers, and one of my men has gone to the American
Exchange, but he has not returned yet.”

“Have you sent to Cleveland?”

“We telegraphed this morning.”

“How did you word your inquiries?”

“We simply detailed the circumstances, and said that we should be glad
of any information which could help us.”

“You did not ask for particulars on any point which appeared to you to
be crucial?”

“I asked about Stangerson.”

“Nothing else? Is there no circumstance on which this whole case appears
to hinge? Will you not telegraph again?”

“I have said all I have to say,” said Gregson, in an offended voice.

Sherlock Holmes chuckled to himself, and appeared to be about to make
some remark, when Lestrade, who had been in the front room while we
were holding this conversation in the hall, reappeared upon the scene,
rubbing his hands in a pompous and self-satisfied manner.

“Mr. Gregson,” he said, “I have just made a discovery of the highest
importance, and one which would have been overlooked had I not made a
careful examination of the walls.”

The little man’s eyes sparkled as he spoke, and he was evidently in
a state of suppressed exultation at having scored a point against his
colleague.

“Come here,” he said, bustling back into the room, the atmosphere of
which felt clearer since the removal of its ghastly inmate. “Now, stand
there!”

He struck a match on his boot and held it up against the wall.

“Look at that!” he said, triumphantly.

I have remarked that the paper had fallen away in parts. In this
particular corner of the room a large piece had peeled off, leaving a
yellow square of coarse plastering. Across this bare space there was
scrawled in blood-red letters a single word--

                         RACHE.


“What do you think of that?” cried the detective, with the air of a
showman exhibiting his show. “This was overlooked because it was in the
darkest corner of the room, and no one thought of looking there. The
murderer has written it with his or her own blood. See this smear where
it has trickled down the wall! That disposes of the idea of suicide
anyhow. Why was that corner chosen to write it on? I will tell you. See
that candle on the mantelpiece. It was lit at the time, and if it was
lit this corner would be the brightest instead of the darkest portion of
the wall.”

“And what does it mean now that you _have_ found it?” asked Gregson in a
depreciatory voice.

“Mean? Why, it means that the writer was going to put the female name
Rachel, but was disturbed before he or she had time to finish. You mark
my words, when this case comes to be cleared up you will find that a
woman named Rachel has something to do with it. It’s all very well for
you to laugh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. You may be very smart and clever, but
the old hound is the best, when all is said and done.”

“I really beg your pardon!” said my companion, who had ruffled the
little man’s temper by bursting into an explosion of laughter. “You
certainly have the credit of being the first of us to find this out,
and, as you say, it bears every mark of having been written by the other
participant in last night’s mystery. I have not had time to examine this
room yet, but with your permission I shall do so now.”

As he spoke, he whipped a tape measure and a large round magnifying
glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly
about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once
lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that
he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered away to
himself under his breath the whole time, keeping up a running fire
of exclamations, groans, whistles, and little cries suggestive of
encouragement and of hope. As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded
of a pure-blooded well-trained foxhound as it dashes backwards and
forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes
across the lost scent. For twenty minutes or more he continued his
researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between
marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applying his
tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner. In one place
he gathered up very carefully a little pile of grey dust from the floor,
and packed it away in an envelope. Finally, he examined with his glass
the word upon the wall, going over every letter of it with the most
minute exactness. This done, he appeared to be satisfied, for he
replaced his tape and his glass in his pocket.

“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he
remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to
detective work.”

Gregson and Lestrade had watched the manoeuvres [9] of their amateur
companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt. They evidently
failed to appreciate the fact, which I had begun to realize, that
Sherlock Holmes’ smallest actions were all directed towards some
definite and practical end.

“What do you think of it, sir?” they both asked.

“It would be robbing you of the credit of the case if I was to presume
to help you,” remarked my friend. “You are doing so well now that it
would be a pity for anyone to interfere.” There was a world of
sarcasm in his voice as he spoke. “If you will let me know how your
investigations go,” he continued, “I shall be happy to give you any help
I can. In the meantime I should like to speak to the constable who found
the body. Can you give me his name and address?”

Lestrade glanced at his note-book. “John Rance,” he said. “He is off
duty now. You will find him at 46, Audley Court, Kennington Park Gate.”

Holmes took a note of the address.

“Come along, Doctor,” he said; “we shall go and look him up. I’ll tell
you one thing which may help you in the case,” he continued, turning to
the two detectives. “There has been murder done, and the murderer was a
man. He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had
small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a
Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab,
which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his
off fore leg. In all probability the murderer had a florid face, and the
finger-nails of his right hand were remarkably long. These are only a
few indications, but they may assist you.”

Lestrade and Gregson glanced at each other with an incredulous smile.

“If this man was murdered, how was it done?” asked the former.

“Poison,” said Sherlock Holmes curtly, and strode off. “One other thing,
Lestrade,” he added, turning round at the door: “‘Rache,’ is the German
for ‘revenge;’ so don’t lose your time looking for Miss Rachel.”

With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals
open-mouthed behind him.




CHAPTER IV. WHAT JOHN RANCE HAD TO TELL.


IT was one o’clock when we left No. 3, Lauriston Gardens. Sherlock
Holmes led me to the nearest telegraph office, whence he dispatched a
long telegram. He then hailed a cab, and ordered the driver to take us
to the address given us by Lestrade.

“There is nothing like first hand evidence,” he remarked; “as a matter
of fact, my mind is entirely made up upon the case, but still we may as
well learn all that is to be learned.”

“You amaze me, Holmes,” said I. “Surely you are not as sure as you
pretend to be of all those particulars which you gave.”

“There’s no room for a mistake,” he answered. “The very first thing
which I observed on arriving there was that a cab had made two ruts with
its wheels close to the curb. Now, up to last night, we have had no rain
for a week, so that those wheels which left such a deep impression must
have been there during the night. There were the marks of the horse’s
hoofs, too, the outline of one of which was far more clearly cut than
that of the other three, showing that that was a new shoe. Since the cab
was there after the rain began, and was not there at any time during the
morning--I have Gregson’s word for that--it follows that it must have
been there during the night, and, therefore, that it brought those two
individuals to the house.”

“That seems simple enough,” said I; “but how about the other man’s
height?”

“Why, the height of a man, in nine cases out of ten, can be told from
the length of his stride. It is a simple calculation enough, though
there is no use my boring you with figures. I had this fellow’s stride
both on the clay outside and on the dust within. Then I had a way of
checking my calculation. When a man writes on a wall, his instinct leads
him to write about the level of his own eyes. Now that writing was just
over six feet from the ground. It was child’s play.”

“And his age?” I asked.

“Well, if a man can stride four and a-half feet without the smallest
effort, he can’t be quite in the sere and yellow. That was the breadth
of a puddle on the garden walk which he had evidently walked across.
Patent-leather boots had gone round, and Square-toes had hopped over.
There is no mystery about it at all. I am simply applying to ordinary
life a few of those precepts of observation and deduction which I
advocated in that article. Is there anything else that puzzles you?”

“The finger nails and the Trichinopoly,” I suggested.

“The writing on the wall was done with a man’s forefinger dipped in
blood. My glass allowed me to observe that the plaster was slightly
scratched in doing it, which would not have been the case if the man’s
nail had been trimmed. I gathered up some scattered ash from the floor.
It was dark in colour and flakey--such an ash as is only made by a
Trichinopoly. I have made a special study of cigar ashes--in fact, I
have written a monograph upon the subject. I flatter myself that I can
distinguish at a glance the ash of any known brand, either of cigar
or of tobacco. It is just in such details that the skilled detective
differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type.”

“And the florid face?” I asked.

“Ah, that was a more daring shot, though I have no doubt that I was
right. You must not ask me that at the present state of the affair.”

I passed my hand over my brow. “My head is in a whirl,” I remarked; “the
more one thinks of it the more mysterious it grows. How came these two
men--if there were two men--into an empty house? What has become of the
cabman who drove them? How could one man compel another to take poison?
Where did the blood come from? What was the object of the murderer,
since robbery had no part in it? How came the woman’s ring there? Above
all, why should the second man write up the German word RACHE before
decamping? I confess that I cannot see any possible way of reconciling
all these facts.”

My companion smiled approvingly.

“You sum up the difficulties of the situation succinctly and well,” he
said. “There is much that is still obscure, though I have quite made up
my mind on the main facts. As to poor Lestrade’s discovery it was simply
a blind intended to put the police upon a wrong track, by suggesting
Socialism and secret societies. It was not done by a German. The A, if
you noticed, was printed somewhat after the German fashion. Now, a real
German invariably prints in the Latin character, so that we may safely
say that this was not written by one, but by a clumsy imitator who
overdid his part. It was simply a ruse to divert inquiry into a wrong
channel. I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You
know a conjuror gets no credit when once he has explained his trick,
and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the
conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”

“I shall never do that,” I answered; “you have brought detection as near
an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”

My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way
in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive
to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

“I’ll tell you one other thing,” he said. “Patent leathers [10] and
Square-toes came in the same cab, and they walked down the pathway
together as friendly as possible--arm-in-arm, in all probability.
When they got inside they walked up and down the room--or rather,
Patent-leathers stood still while Square-toes walked up and down. I
could read all that in the dust; and I could read that as he walked he
grew more and more excited. That is shown by the increased length of his
strides. He was talking all the while, and working himself up, no doubt,
into a fury. Then the tragedy occurred. I’ve told you all I know myself
now, for the rest is mere surmise and conjecture. We have a good working
basis, however, on which to start. We must hurry up, for I want to go to
Halle’s concert to hear Norman Neruda this afternoon.”

This conversation had occurred while our cab had been threading its way
through a long succession of dingy streets and dreary by-ways. In the
dingiest and dreariest of them our driver suddenly came to a stand.
“That’s Audley Court in there,” he said, pointing to a narrow slit in
the line of dead-coloured brick. “You’ll find me here when you come
back.”

Audley Court was not an attractive locality. The narrow passage led us
into a quadrangle paved with flags and lined by sordid dwellings. We
picked our way among groups of dirty children, and through lines of
discoloured linen, until we came to Number 46, the door of which
was decorated with a small slip of brass on which the name Rance was
engraved. On enquiry we found that the constable was in bed, and we were
shown into a little front parlour to await his coming.

He appeared presently, looking a little irritable at being disturbed in
his slumbers. “I made my report at the office,” he said.

Holmes took a half-sovereign from his pocket and played with it
pensively. “We thought that we should like to hear it all from your own
lips,” he said.

“I shall be most happy to tell you anything I can,” the constable
answered with his eyes upon the little golden disk.

“Just let us hear it all in your own way as it occurred.”

Rance sat down on the horsehair sofa, and knitted his brows as though
determined not to omit anything in his narrative.

“I’ll tell it ye from the beginning,” he said. “My time is from ten at
night to six in the morning. At eleven there was a fight at the ‘White
Hart’; but bar that all was quiet enough on the beat. At one o’clock it
began to rain, and I met Harry Murcher--him who has the Holland Grove
beat--and we stood together at the corner of Henrietta Street a-talkin’.
Presently--maybe about two or a little after--I thought I would take
a look round and see that all was right down the Brixton Road. It was
precious dirty and lonely. Not a soul did I meet all the way down,
though a cab or two went past me. I was a strollin’ down, thinkin’
between ourselves how uncommon handy a four of gin hot would be, when
suddenly the glint of a light caught my eye in the window of that same
house. Now, I knew that them two houses in Lauriston Gardens was empty
on account of him that owns them who won’t have the drains seen to,
though the very last tenant what lived in one of them died o’ typhoid
fever. I was knocked all in a heap therefore at seeing a light in
the window, and I suspected as something was wrong. When I got to the
door----”

“You stopped, and then walked back to the garden gate,” my companion
interrupted. “What did you do that for?”

Rance gave a violent jump, and stared at Sherlock Holmes with the utmost
amazement upon his features.

“Why, that’s true, sir,” he said; “though how you come to know it,
Heaven only knows. Ye see, when I got up to the door it was so still and
so lonesome, that I thought I’d be none the worse for some one with me.
I ain’t afeared of anything on this side o’ the grave; but I thought
that maybe it was him that died o’ the typhoid inspecting the drains
what killed him. The thought gave me a kind o’ turn, and I walked back
to the gate to see if I could see Murcher’s lantern, but there wasn’t no
sign of him nor of anyone else.”

“There was no one in the street?”

“Not a livin’ soul, sir, nor as much as a dog. Then I pulled myself
together and went back and pushed the door open. All was quiet inside,
so I went into the room where the light was a-burnin’. There was a
candle flickerin’ on the mantelpiece--a red wax one--and by its light I
saw----”

“Yes, I know all that you saw. You walked round the room several times,
and you knelt down by the body, and then you walked through and tried
the kitchen door, and then----”

John Rance sprang to his feet with a frightened face and suspicion in
his eyes. “Where was you hid to see all that?” he cried. “It seems to me
that you knows a deal more than you should.”

Holmes laughed and threw his card across the table to the constable.
“Don’t get arresting me for the murder,” he said. “I am one of the
hounds and not the wolf; Mr. Gregson or Mr. Lestrade will answer for
that. Go on, though. What did you do next?”

Rance resumed his seat, without however losing his mystified expression.
“I went back to the gate and sounded my whistle. That brought Murcher
and two more to the spot.”

“Was the street empty then?”

“Well, it was, as far as anybody that could be of any good goes.”

“What do you mean?”

The constable’s features broadened into a grin. “I’ve seen many a drunk
chap in my time,” he said, “but never anyone so cryin’ drunk as
that cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin’ up agin the
railings, and a-singin’ at the pitch o’ his lungs about Columbine’s
New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn’t stand, far less
help.”

“What sort of a man was he?” asked Sherlock Holmes.

John Rance appeared to be somewhat irritated at this digression. “He was
an uncommon drunk sort o’ man,” he said. “He’d ha’ found hisself in the
station if we hadn’t been so took up.”

“His face--his dress--didn’t you notice them?” Holmes broke in
impatiently.

“I should think I did notice them, seeing that I had to prop him up--me
and Murcher between us. He was a long chap, with a red face, the lower
part muffled round----”

“That will do,” cried Holmes. “What became of him?”

“We’d enough to do without lookin’ after him,” the policeman said, in an
aggrieved voice. “I’ll wager he found his way home all right.”

“How was he dressed?”

“A brown overcoat.”

“Had he a whip in his hand?”

“A whip--no.”

“He must have left it behind,” muttered my companion. “You didn’t happen
to see or hear a cab after that?”

“No.”

“There’s a half-sovereign for you,” my companion said, standing up and
taking his hat. “I am afraid, Rance, that you will never rise in the
force. That head of yours should be for use as well as ornament. You
might have gained your sergeant’s stripes last night. The man whom you
held in your hands is the man who holds the clue of this mystery, and
whom we are seeking. There is no use of arguing about it now; I tell you
that it is so. Come along, Doctor.”

We started off for the cab together, leaving our informant incredulous,
but obviously uncomfortable.

“The blundering fool,” Holmes said, bitterly, as we drove back to our
lodgings. “Just to think of his having such an incomparable bit of good
luck, and not taking advantage of it.”

“I am rather in the dark still. It is true that the description of this
man tallies with your idea of the second party in this mystery. But why
should he come back to the house after leaving it? That is not the way
of criminals.”

“The ring, man, the ring: that was what he came back for. If we have no
other way of catching him, we can always bait our line with the ring. I
shall have him, Doctor--I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I must
thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have
missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh?
Why shouldn’t we use a little art jargon. There’s the scarlet thread of
murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is
to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it. And now
for lunch, and then for Norman Neruda. Her attack and her bowing
are splendid. What’s that little thing of Chopin’s she plays so
magnificently: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.”

Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a
lark while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.




CHAPTER V. OUR ADVERTISEMENT BRINGS A VISITOR.


OUR morning’s exertions had been too much for my weak health, and I was
tired out in the afternoon. After Holmes’ departure for the concert, I
lay down upon the sofa and endeavoured to get a couple of hours’ sleep.
It was a useless attempt. My mind had been too much excited by all that
had occurred, and the strangest fancies and surmises crowded into
it. Every time that I closed my eyes I saw before me the distorted
baboon-like countenance of the murdered man. So sinister was the
impression which that face had produced upon me that I found it
difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who had removed its
owner from the world. If ever human features bespoke vice of the most
malignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch J. Drebber, of
Cleveland. Still I recognized that justice must be done, and that the
depravity of the victim was no condonment [11] in the eyes of the law.

The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion’s
hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered how he
had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he had detected something
which had given rise to the idea. Then, again, if not poison, what
had caused the man’s death, since there was neither wound nor marks of
strangulation? But, on the other hand, whose blood was that which lay so
thickly upon the floor? There were no signs of a struggle, nor had the
victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist. As
long as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be
no easy matter, either for Holmes or myself. His quiet self-confident
manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory which explained
all the facts, though what it was I could not for an instant conjecture.

He was very late in returning--so late, that I knew that the concert
could not have detained him all the time. Dinner was on the table before
he appeared.

“It was magnificent,” he said, as he took his seat. “Do you remember
what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and
appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of
speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced
by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries
when the world was in its childhood.”

“That’s rather a broad idea,” I remarked.

“One’s ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret
Nature,” he answered. “What’s the matter? You’re not looking quite
yourself. This Brixton Road affair has upset you.”

“To tell the truth, it has,” I said. “I ought to be more case-hardened
after my Afghan experiences. I saw my own comrades hacked to pieces at
Maiwand without losing my nerve.”

“I can understand. There is a mystery about this which stimulates the
imagination; where there is no imagination there is no horror. Have you
seen the evening paper?”

“No.”

“It gives a fairly good account of the affair. It does not mention the
fact that when the man was raised up, a woman’s wedding ring fell upon
the floor. It is just as well it does not.”

“Why?”

“Look at this advertisement,” he answered. “I had one sent to every
paper this morning immediately after the affair.”

He threw the paper across to me and I glanced at the place indicated. It
was the first announcement in the “Found” column. “In Brixton Road,
this morning,” it ran, “a plain gold wedding ring, found in the roadway
between the ‘White Hart’ Tavern and Holland Grove. Apply Dr. Watson,
221B, Baker Street, between eight and nine this evening.”

“Excuse my using your name,” he said. “If I used my own some of these
dunderheads would recognize it, and want to meddle in the affair.”

“That is all right,” I answered. “But supposing anyone applies, I have
no ring.”

“Oh yes, you have,” said he, handing me one. “This will do very well. It
is almost a facsimile.”

“And who do you expect will answer this advertisement.”

“Why, the man in the brown coat--our florid friend with the square toes.
If he does not come himself he will send an accomplice.”

“Would he not consider it as too dangerous?”

“Not at all. If my view of the case is correct, and I have every reason
to believe that it is, this man would rather risk anything than lose the
ring. According to my notion he dropped it while stooping over Drebber’s
body, and did not miss it at the time. After leaving the house he
discovered his loss and hurried back, but found the police already in
possession, owing to his own folly in leaving the candle burning. He had
to pretend to be drunk in order to allay the suspicions which might have
been aroused by his appearance at the gate. Now put yourself in that
man’s place. On thinking the matter over, it must have occurred to him
that it was possible that he had lost the ring in the road after leaving
the house. What would he do, then? He would eagerly look out for the
evening papers in the hope of seeing it among the articles found. His
eye, of course, would light upon this. He would be overjoyed. Why should
he fear a trap? There would be no reason in his eyes why the finding
of the ring should be connected with the murder. He would come. He will
come. You shall see him within an hour?”

“And then?” I asked.

“Oh, you can leave me to deal with him then. Have you any arms?”

“I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges.”

“You had better clean it and load it. He will be a desperate man,
and though I shall take him unawares, it is as well to be ready for
anything.”

I went to my bedroom and followed his advice. When I returned with
the pistol the table had been cleared, and Holmes was engaged in his
favourite occupation of scraping upon his violin.

“The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered; “I have just had an answer
to my American telegram. My view of the case is the correct one.”

“And that is?” I asked eagerly.

“My fiddle would be the better for new strings,” he remarked. “Put your
pistol in your pocket. When the fellow comes speak to him in an ordinary
way. Leave the rest to me. Don’t frighten him by looking at him too
hard.”

“It is eight o’clock now,” I said, glancing at my watch.

“Yes. He will probably be here in a few minutes. Open the door slightly.
That will do. Now put the key on the inside. Thank you! This is a
queer old book I picked up at a stall yesterday--‘De Jure inter
Gentes’--published in Latin at Liege in the Lowlands, in 1642. Charles’
head was still firm on his shoulders when this little brown-backed
volume was struck off.”

“Who is the printer?”

“Philippe de Croy, whoever he may have been. On the fly-leaf, in very
faded ink, is written ‘Ex libris Guliolmi Whyte.’ I wonder who William
Whyte was. Some pragmatical seventeenth century lawyer, I suppose. His
writing has a legal twist about it. Here comes our man, I think.”

As he spoke there was a sharp ring at the bell. Sherlock Holmes rose
softly and moved his chair in the direction of the door. We heard the
servant pass along the hall, and the sharp click of the latch as she
opened it.

“Does Dr. Watson live here?” asked a clear but rather harsh voice. We
could not hear the servant’s reply, but the door closed, and some one
began to ascend the stairs. The footfall was an uncertain and shuffling
one. A look of surprise passed over the face of my companion as he
listened to it. It came slowly along the passage, and there was a feeble
tap at the door.

“Come in,” I cried.

At my summons, instead of the man of violence whom we expected, a very
old and wrinkled woman hobbled into the apartment. She appeared to be
dazzled by the sudden blaze of light, and after dropping a curtsey, she
stood blinking at us with her bleared eyes and fumbling in her pocket
with nervous, shaky fingers. I glanced at my companion, and his face
had assumed such a disconsolate expression that it was all I could do to
keep my countenance.

The old crone drew out an evening paper, and pointed at our
advertisement. “It’s this as has brought me, good gentlemen,” she said,
dropping another curtsey; “a gold wedding ring in the Brixton Road. It
belongs to my girl Sally, as was married only this time twelvemonth,
which her husband is steward aboard a Union boat, and what he’d say if
he come ‘ome and found her without her ring is more than I can think, he
being short enough at the best o’ times, but more especially when he
has the drink. If it please you, she went to the circus last night along
with----”

“Is that her ring?” I asked.

“The Lord be thanked!” cried the old woman; “Sally will be a glad woman
this night. That’s the ring.”

“And what may your address be?” I inquired, taking up a pencil.

“13, Duncan Street, Houndsditch. A weary way from here.”

“The Brixton Road does not lie between any circus and Houndsditch,” said
Sherlock Holmes sharply.

The old woman faced round and looked keenly at him from her little
red-rimmed eyes. “The gentleman asked me for _my_ address,” she said.
“Sally lives in lodgings at 3, Mayfield Place, Peckham.”

“And your name is----?”

“My name is Sawyer--her’s is Dennis, which Tom Dennis married her--and
a smart, clean lad, too, as long as he’s at sea, and no steward in the
company more thought of; but when on shore, what with the women and what
with liquor shops----”

“Here is your ring, Mrs. Sawyer,” I interrupted, in obedience to a sign
from my companion; “it clearly belongs to your daughter, and I am glad
to be able to restore it to the rightful owner.”

With many mumbled blessings and protestations of gratitude the old crone
packed it away in her pocket, and shuffled off down the stairs. Sherlock
Holmes sprang to his feet the moment that she was gone and rushed into
his room. He returned in a few seconds enveloped in an ulster and
a cravat. “I’ll follow her,” he said, hurriedly; “she must be an
accomplice, and will lead me to him. Wait up for me.” The hall door had
hardly slammed behind our visitor before Holmes had descended the stair.
Looking through the window I could see her walking feebly along the
other side, while her pursuer dogged her some little distance behind.
“Either his whole theory is incorrect,” I thought to myself, “or else he
will be led now to the heart of the mystery.” There was no need for him
to ask me to wait up for him, for I felt that sleep was impossible until
I heard the result of his adventure.

It was close upon nine when he set out. I had no idea how long he might
be, but I sat stolidly puffing at my pipe and skipping over the pages
of Henri Murger’s “Vie de Bohème.” Ten o’clock passed, and I heard the
footsteps of the maid as they pattered off to bed. Eleven, and the
more stately tread of the landlady passed my door, bound for the same
destination. It was close upon twelve before I heard the sharp sound of
his latch-key. The instant he entered I saw by his face that he had not
been successful. Amusement and chagrin seemed to be struggling for the
mastery, until the former suddenly carried the day, and he burst into a
hearty laugh.

“I wouldn’t have the Scotland Yarders know it for the world,” he cried,
dropping into his chair; “I have chaffed them so much that they would
never have let me hear the end of it. I can afford to laugh, because I
know that I will be even with them in the long run.”

“What is it then?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t mind telling a story against myself. That creature had
gone a little way when she began to limp and show every sign of being
foot-sore. Presently she came to a halt, and hailed a four-wheeler which
was passing. I managed to be close to her so as to hear the address, but
I need not have been so anxious, for she sang it out loud enough to
be heard at the other side of the street, ‘Drive to 13, Duncan Street,
Houndsditch,’ she cried. This begins to look genuine, I thought, and
having seen her safely inside, I perched myself behind. That’s an art
which every detective should be an expert at. Well, away we rattled, and
never drew rein until we reached the street in question. I hopped off
before we came to the door, and strolled down the street in an easy,
lounging way. I saw the cab pull up. The driver jumped down, and I saw
him open the door and stand expectantly. Nothing came out though. When
I reached him he was groping about frantically in the empty cab, and
giving vent to the finest assorted collection of oaths that ever I
listened to. There was no sign or trace of his passenger, and I fear it
will be some time before he gets his fare. On inquiring at Number 13
we found that the house belonged to a respectable paperhanger, named
Keswick, and that no one of the name either of Sawyer or Dennis had ever
been heard of there.”

“You don’t mean to say,” I cried, in amazement, “that that tottering,
feeble old woman was able to get out of the cab while it was in motion,
without either you or the driver seeing her?”

“Old woman be damned!” said Sherlock Holmes, sharply. “We were the old
women to be so taken in. It must have been a young man, and an
active one, too, besides being an incomparable actor. The get-up was
inimitable. He saw that he was followed, no doubt, and used this means
of giving me the slip. It shows that the man we are after is not as
lonely as I imagined he was, but has friends who are ready to risk
something for him. Now, Doctor, you are looking done-up. Take my advice
and turn in.”

I was certainly feeling very weary, so I obeyed his injunction. I
left Holmes seated in front of the smouldering fire, and long into the
watches of the night I heard the low, melancholy wailings of his violin,
and knew that he was still pondering over the strange problem which he
had set himself to unravel.




CHAPTER VI. TOBIAS GREGSON SHOWS WHAT HE CAN DO.


THE papers next day were full of the “Brixton Mystery,” as they termed
it. Each had a long account of the affair, and some had leaders upon it
in addition. There was some information in them which was new to me. I
still retain in my scrap-book numerous clippings and extracts bearing
upon the case. Here is a condensation of a few of them:--

The _Daily Telegraph_ remarked that in the history of crime there had
seldom been a tragedy which presented stranger features. The German
name of the victim, the absence of all other motive, and the sinister
inscription on the wall, all pointed to its perpetration by political
refugees and revolutionists. The Socialists had many branches in
America, and the deceased had, no doubt, infringed their unwritten laws,
and been tracked down by them. After alluding airily to the Vehmgericht,
aqua tofana, Carbonari, the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, the Darwinian
theory, the principles of Malthus, and the Ratcliff Highway murders, the
article concluded by admonishing the Government and advocating a closer
watch over foreigners in England.

The _Standard_ commented upon the fact that lawless outrages of the sort
usually occurred under a Liberal Administration. They arose from the
unsettling of the minds of the masses, and the consequent weakening
of all authority. The deceased was an American gentleman who had
been residing for some weeks in the Metropolis. He had stayed at the
boarding-house of Madame Charpentier, in Torquay Terrace, Camberwell.
He was accompanied in his travels by his private secretary, Mr. Joseph
Stangerson. The two bade adieu to their landlady upon Tuesday, the
4th inst., and departed to Euston Station with the avowed intention of
catching the Liverpool express. They were afterwards seen together upon
the platform. Nothing more is known of them until Mr. Drebber’s body
was, as recorded, discovered in an empty house in the Brixton Road,
many miles from Euston. How he came there, or how he met his fate, are
questions which are still involved in mystery. Nothing is known of the
whereabouts of Stangerson. We are glad to learn that Mr. Lestrade and
Mr. Gregson, of Scotland Yard, are both engaged upon the case, and it
is confidently anticipated that these well-known officers will speedily
throw light upon the matter.

The _Daily News_ observed that there was no doubt as to the crime being
a political one. The despotism and hatred of Liberalism which animated
the Continental Governments had had the effect of driving to our shores
a number of men who might have made excellent citizens were they not
soured by the recollection of all that they had undergone. Among these
men there was a stringent code of honour, any infringement of which was
punished by death. Every effort should be made to find the secretary,
Stangerson, and to ascertain some particulars of the habits of the
deceased. A great step had been gained by the discovery of the address
of the house at which he had boarded--a result which was entirely due to
the acuteness and energy of Mr. Gregson of Scotland Yard.

Sherlock Holmes and I read these notices over together at breakfast, and
they appeared to afford him considerable amusement.

“I told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson would be sure
to score.”

“That depends on how it turns out.”

“Oh, bless you, it doesn’t matter in the least. If the man is caught, it
will be _on account_ of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be _in
spite_ of their exertions. It’s heads I win and tails you lose. Whatever
they do, they will have followers. ‘Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot
qui l’admire.’”

“What on earth is this?” I cried, for at this moment there came the
pattering of many steps in the hall and on the stairs, accompanied by
audible expressions of disgust upon the part of our landlady.

“It’s the Baker Street division of the detective police force,” said my
companion, gravely; and as he spoke there rushed into the room half a
dozen of the dirtiest and most ragged street Arabs that ever I clapped
eyes on.

“‘Tention!” cried Holmes, in a sharp tone, and the six dirty little
scoundrels stood in a line like so many disreputable statuettes. “In
future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you
must wait in the street. Have you found it, Wiggins?”

“No, sir, we hain’t,” said one of the youths.

“I hardly expected you would. You must keep on until you do. Here are
your wages.” [13] He handed each of them a shilling.

“Now, off you go, and come back with a better report next time.”

He waved his hand, and they scampered away downstairs like so many rats,
and we heard their shrill voices next moment in the street.

“There’s more work to be got out of one of those little beggars than
out of a dozen of the force,” Holmes remarked. “The mere sight of an
official-looking person seals men’s lips. These youngsters, however, go
everywhere and hear everything. They are as sharp as needles, too; all
they want is organisation.”

“Is it on this Brixton case that you are employing them?” I asked.

“Yes; there is a point which I wish to ascertain. It is merely a matter
of time. Hullo! we are going to hear some news now with a vengeance!
Here is Gregson coming down the road with beatitude written upon every
feature of his face. Bound for us, I know. Yes, he is stopping. There he
is!”

There was a violent peal at the bell, and in a few seconds the
fair-haired detective came up the stairs, three steps at a time, and
burst into our sitting-room.

“My dear fellow,” he cried, wringing Holmes’ unresponsive hand,
“congratulate me! I have made the whole thing as clear as day.”

A shade of anxiety seemed to me to cross my companion’s expressive face.

“Do you mean that you are on the right track?” he asked.

“The right track! Why, sir, we have the man under lock and key.”

“And his name is?”

“Arthur Charpentier, sub-lieutenant in Her Majesty’s navy,” cried
Gregson, pompously, rubbing his fat hands and inflating his chest.

Sherlock Holmes gave a sigh of relief, and relaxed into a smile.

“Take a seat, and try one of these cigars,” he said. “We are anxious to
know how you managed it. Will you have some whiskey and water?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” the detective answered. “The tremendous
exertions which I have gone through during the last day or two have worn
me out. Not so much bodily exertion, you understand, as the strain upon
the mind. You will appreciate that, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, for we are both
brain-workers.”

“You do me too much honour,” said Holmes, gravely. “Let us hear how you
arrived at this most gratifying result.”

The detective seated himself in the arm-chair, and puffed complacently
at his cigar. Then suddenly he slapped his thigh in a paroxysm of
amusement.

“The fun of it is,” he cried, “that that fool Lestrade, who thinks
himself so smart, has gone off upon the wrong track altogether. He is
after the secretary Stangerson, who had no more to do with the crime
than the babe unborn. I have no doubt that he has caught him by this
time.”

The idea tickled Gregson so much that he laughed until he choked.

“And how did you get your clue?”

“Ah, I’ll tell you all about it. Of course, Doctor Watson, this is
strictly between ourselves. The first difficulty which we had to contend
with was the finding of this American’s antecedents. Some people would
have waited until their advertisements were answered, or until parties
came forward and volunteered information. That is not Tobias Gregson’s
way of going to work. You remember the hat beside the dead man?”

“Yes,” said Holmes; “by John Underwood and Sons, 129, Camberwell Road.”

Gregson looked quite crest-fallen.

“I had no idea that you noticed that,” he said. “Have you been there?”

“No.”

“Ha!” cried Gregson, in a relieved voice; “you should never neglect a
chance, however small it may seem.”

“To a great mind, nothing is little,” remarked Holmes, sententiously.

“Well, I went to Underwood, and asked him if he had sold a hat of that
size and description. He looked over his books, and came on it at once.
He had sent the hat to a Mr. Drebber, residing at Charpentier’s Boarding
Establishment, Torquay Terrace. Thus I got at his address.”

“Smart--very smart!” murmured Sherlock Holmes.

“I next called upon Madame Charpentier,” continued the detective.
“I found her very pale and distressed. Her daughter was in the room,
too--an uncommonly fine girl she is, too; she was looking red about
the eyes and her lips trembled as I spoke to her. That didn’t escape
my notice. I began to smell a rat. You know the feeling, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes, when you come upon the right scent--a kind of thrill in your
nerves. ‘Have you heard of the mysterious death of your late boarder Mr.
Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland?’ I asked.

“The mother nodded. She didn’t seem able to get out a word. The daughter
burst into tears. I felt more than ever that these people knew something
of the matter.

“‘At what o’clock did Mr. Drebber leave your house for the train?’ I
asked.

“‘At eight o’clock,’ she said, gulping in her throat to keep down her
agitation. ‘His secretary, Mr. Stangerson, said that there were two
trains--one at 9.15 and one at 11. He was to catch the first. [14]

“‘And was that the last which you saw of him?’

“A terrible change came over the woman’s face as I asked the question.
Her features turned perfectly livid. It was some seconds before she
could get out the single word ‘Yes’--and when it did come it was in a
husky unnatural tone.

“There was silence for a moment, and then the daughter spoke in a calm
clear voice.

“‘No good can ever come of falsehood, mother,’ she said. ‘Let us be
frank with this gentleman. We _did_ see Mr. Drebber again.’

“‘God forgive you!’ cried Madame Charpentier, throwing up her hands and
sinking back in her chair. ‘You have murdered your brother.’

“‘Arthur would rather that we spoke the truth,’ the girl answered
firmly.

“‘You had best tell me all about it now,’ I said. ‘Half-confidences are
worse than none. Besides, you do not know how much we know of it.’

“‘On your head be it, Alice!’ cried her mother; and then, turning to me,
‘I will tell you all, sir. Do not imagine that my agitation on behalf
of my son arises from any fear lest he should have had a hand in this
terrible affair. He is utterly innocent of it. My dread is, however,
that in your eyes and in the eyes of others he may appear to be
compromised. That however is surely impossible. His high character, his
profession, his antecedents would all forbid it.’

“‘Your best way is to make a clean breast of the facts,’ I answered.
‘Depend upon it, if your son is innocent he will be none the worse.’

“‘Perhaps, Alice, you had better leave us together,’ she said, and her
daughter withdrew. ‘Now, sir,’ she continued, ‘I had no intention of
telling you all this, but since my poor daughter has disclosed it I
have no alternative. Having once decided to speak, I will tell you all
without omitting any particular.’

“‘It is your wisest course,’ said I.

“‘Mr. Drebber has been with us nearly three weeks. He and his secretary,
Mr. Stangerson, had been travelling on the Continent. I noticed a
“Copenhagen” label upon each of their trunks, showing that that had been
their last stopping place. Stangerson was a quiet reserved man, but his
employer, I am sorry to say, was far otherwise. He was coarse in his
habits and brutish in his ways. The very night of his arrival he became
very much the worse for drink, and, indeed, after twelve o’clock in the
day he could hardly ever be said to be sober. His manners towards the
maid-servants were disgustingly free and familiar. Worst of all, he
speedily assumed the same attitude towards my daughter, Alice, and spoke
to her more than once in a way which, fortunately, she is too innocent
to understand. On one occasion he actually seized her in his arms and
embraced her--an outrage which caused his own secretary to reproach him
for his unmanly conduct.’

“‘But why did you stand all this,’ I asked. ‘I suppose that you can get
rid of your boarders when you wish.’

“Mrs. Charpentier blushed at my pertinent question. ‘Would to God that
I had given him notice on the very day that he came,’ she said. ‘But
it was a sore temptation. They were paying a pound a day each--fourteen
pounds a week, and this is the slack season. I am a widow, and my boy in
the Navy has cost me much. I grudged to lose the money. I acted for the
best. This last was too much, however, and I gave him notice to leave on
account of it. That was the reason of his going.’

“‘Well?’

“‘My heart grew light when I saw him drive away. My son is on leave
just now, but I did not tell him anything of all this, for his temper
is violent, and he is passionately fond of his sister. When I closed the
door behind them a load seemed to be lifted from my mind. Alas, in
less than an hour there was a ring at the bell, and I learned that Mr.
Drebber had returned. He was much excited, and evidently the worse for
drink. He forced his way into the room, where I was sitting with my
daughter, and made some incoherent remark about having missed his train.
He then turned to Alice, and before my very face, proposed to her that
she should fly with him. “You are of age,” he said, “and there is no law
to stop you. I have money enough and to spare. Never mind the old girl
here, but come along with me now straight away. You shall live like a
princess.” Poor Alice was so frightened that she shrunk away from him,
but he caught her by the wrist and endeavoured to draw her towards the
door. I screamed, and at that moment my son Arthur came into the room.
What happened then I do not know. I heard oaths and the confused sounds
of a scuffle. I was too terrified to raise my head. When I did look up
I saw Arthur standing in the doorway laughing, with a stick in his hand.
“I don’t think that fine fellow will trouble us again,” he said. “I will
just go after him and see what he does with himself.” With those words
he took his hat and started off down the street. The next morning we
heard of Mr. Drebber’s mysterious death.’

“This statement came from Mrs. Charpentier’s lips with many gasps and
pauses. At times she spoke so low that I could hardly catch the words. I
made shorthand notes of all that she said, however, so that there should
be no possibility of a mistake.”

“It’s quite exciting,” said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn. “What happened
next?”

“When Mrs. Charpentier paused,” the detective continued, “I saw that the
whole case hung upon one point. Fixing her with my eye in a way which
I always found effective with women, I asked her at what hour her son
returned.

“‘I do not know,’ she answered.

“‘Not know?’

“‘No; he has a latch-key, and he let himself in.’

“‘After you went to bed?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘When did you go to bed?’

“‘About eleven.’

“‘So your son was gone at least two hours?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Possibly four or five?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘What was he doing during that time?’

“‘I do not know,’ she answered, turning white to her very lips.

“Of course after that there was nothing more to be done. I found
out where Lieutenant Charpentier was, took two officers with me, and
arrested him. When I touched him on the shoulder and warned him to come
quietly with us, he answered us as bold as brass, ‘I suppose you
are arresting me for being concerned in the death of that scoundrel
Drebber,’ he said. We had said nothing to him about it, so that his
alluding to it had a most suspicious aspect.”

“Very,” said Holmes.

“He still carried the heavy stick which the mother described him as
having with him when he followed Drebber. It was a stout oak cudgel.”

“What is your theory, then?”

“Well, my theory is that he followed Drebber as far as the Brixton Road.
When there, a fresh altercation arose between them, in the course of
which Drebber received a blow from the stick, in the pit of the stomach,
perhaps, which killed him without leaving any mark. The night was so
wet that no one was about, so Charpentier dragged the body of his victim
into the empty house. As to the candle, and the blood, and the writing
on the wall, and the ring, they may all be so many tricks to throw the
police on to the wrong scent.”

“Well done!” said Holmes in an encouraging voice. “Really, Gregson, you
are getting along. We shall make something of you yet.”

“I flatter myself that I have managed it rather neatly,” the detective
answered proudly. “The young man volunteered a statement, in which he
said that after following Drebber some time, the latter perceived him,
and took a cab in order to get away from him. On his way home he met an
old shipmate, and took a long walk with him. On being asked where this
old shipmate lived, he was unable to give any satisfactory reply. I
think the whole case fits together uncommonly well. What amuses me is to
think of Lestrade, who had started off upon the wrong scent. I am afraid
he won’t make much of [15] Why, by Jove, here’s the very man himself!”

It was indeed Lestrade, who had ascended the stairs while we were
talking, and who now entered the room. The assurance and jauntiness
which generally marked his demeanour and dress were, however, wanting.
His face was disturbed and troubled, while his clothes were disarranged
and untidy. He had evidently come with the intention of consulting
with Sherlock Holmes, for on perceiving his colleague he appeared to be
embarrassed and put out. He stood in the centre of the room, fumbling
nervously with his hat and uncertain what to do. “This is a most
extraordinary case,” he said at last--“a most incomprehensible affair.”

“Ah, you find it so, Mr. Lestrade!” cried Gregson, triumphantly. “I
thought you would come to that conclusion. Have you managed to find the
Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson?”

“The Secretary, Mr. Joseph Stangerson,” said Lestrade gravely, “was
murdered at Halliday’s Private Hotel about six o’clock this morning.”




CHAPTER VII. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS.


THE intelligence with which Lestrade greeted us was so momentous and so
unexpected, that we were all three fairly dumfoundered. Gregson sprang
out of his chair and upset the remainder of his whiskey and water. I
stared in silence at Sherlock Holmes, whose lips were compressed and his
brows drawn down over his eyes.

“Stangerson too!” he muttered. “The plot thickens.”

“It was quite thick enough before,” grumbled Lestrade, taking a chair.
“I seem to have dropped into a sort of council of war.”

“Are you--are you sure of this piece of intelligence?” stammered
Gregson.

“I have just come from his room,” said Lestrade. “I was the first to
discover what had occurred.”

“We have been hearing Gregson’s view of the matter,” Holmes observed.
“Would you mind letting us know what you have seen and done?”

“I have no objection,” Lestrade answered, seating himself. “I freely
confess that I was of the opinion that Stangerson was concerned in
the death of Drebber. This fresh development has shown me that I was
completely mistaken. Full of the one idea, I set myself to find out
what had become of the Secretary. They had been seen together at Euston
Station about half-past eight on the evening of the third. At two in the
morning Drebber had been found in the Brixton Road. The question which
confronted me was to find out how Stangerson had been employed between
8.30 and the time of the crime, and what had become of him afterwards.
I telegraphed to Liverpool, giving a description of the man, and warning
them to keep a watch upon the American boats. I then set to work calling
upon all the hotels and lodging-houses in the vicinity of Euston. You
see, I argued that if Drebber and his companion had become separated,
the natural course for the latter would be to put up somewhere in the
vicinity for the night, and then to hang about the station again next
morning.”

“They would be likely to agree on some meeting-place beforehand,”
 remarked Holmes.

“So it proved. I spent the whole of yesterday evening in making
enquiries entirely without avail. This morning I began very early, and
at eight o’clock I reached Halliday’s Private Hotel, in Little George
Street. On my enquiry as to whether a Mr. Stangerson was living there,
they at once answered me in the affirmative.

“‘No doubt you are the gentleman whom he was expecting,’ they said. ‘He
has been waiting for a gentleman for two days.’

“‘Where is he now?’ I asked.

“‘He is upstairs in bed. He wished to be called at nine.’

“‘I will go up and see him at once,’ I said.

“It seemed to me that my sudden appearance might shake his nerves and
lead him to say something unguarded. The Boots volunteered to show me
the room: it was on the second floor, and there was a small corridor
leading up to it. The Boots pointed out the door to me, and was about to
go downstairs again when I saw something that made me feel sickish, in
spite of my twenty years’ experience. From under the door there curled
a little red ribbon of blood, which had meandered across the passage and
formed a little pool along the skirting at the other side. I gave a cry,
which brought the Boots back. He nearly fainted when he saw it. The door
was locked on the inside, but we put our shoulders to it, and knocked it
in. The window of the room was open, and beside the window, all huddled
up, lay the body of a man in his nightdress. He was quite dead, and had
been for some time, for his limbs were rigid and cold. When we turned
him over, the Boots recognized him at once as being the same gentleman
who had engaged the room under the name of Joseph Stangerson. The cause
of death was a deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated
the heart. And now comes the strangest part of the affair. What do you
suppose was above the murdered man?”

I felt a creeping of the flesh, and a presentiment of coming horror,
even before Sherlock Holmes answered.

“The word RACHE, written in letters of blood,” he said.

“That was it,” said Lestrade, in an awe-struck voice; and we were all
silent for a while.

There was something so methodical and so incomprehensible about the
deeds of this unknown assassin, that it imparted a fresh ghastliness to
his crimes. My nerves, which were steady enough on the field of battle
tingled as I thought of it.

“The man was seen,” continued Lestrade. “A milk boy, passing on his way
to the dairy, happened to walk down the lane which leads from the mews
at the back of the hotel. He noticed that a ladder, which usually lay
there, was raised against one of the windows of the second floor, which
was wide open. After passing, he looked back and saw a man descend the
ladder. He came down so quietly and openly that the boy imagined him to
be some carpenter or joiner at work in the hotel. He took no particular
notice of him, beyond thinking in his own mind that it was early for him
to be at work. He has an impression that the man was tall, had a reddish
face, and was dressed in a long, brownish coat. He must have stayed in
the room some little time after the murder, for we found blood-stained
water in the basin, where he had washed his hands, and marks on the
sheets where he had deliberately wiped his knife.”

I glanced at Holmes on hearing the description of the murderer, which
tallied so exactly with his own. There was, however, no trace of
exultation or satisfaction upon his face.

“Did you find nothing in the room which could furnish a clue to the
murderer?” he asked.

“Nothing. Stangerson had Drebber’s purse in his pocket, but it seems
that this was usual, as he did all the paying. There was eighty odd
pounds in it, but nothing had been taken. Whatever the motives of these
extraordinary crimes, robbery is certainly not one of them. There were
no papers or memoranda in the murdered man’s pocket, except a single
telegram, dated from Cleveland about a month ago, and containing
the words, ‘J. H. is in Europe.’ There was no name appended to this
message.”

“And there was nothing else?” Holmes asked.

“Nothing of any importance. The man’s novel, with which he had read
himself to sleep was lying upon the bed, and his pipe was on a chair
beside him. There was a glass of water on the table, and on the
window-sill a small chip ointment box containing a couple of pills.”

Sherlock Holmes sprang from his chair with an exclamation of delight.

“The last link,” he cried, exultantly. “My case is complete.”

The two detectives stared at him in amazement.

“I have now in my hands,” my companion said, confidently, “all the
threads which have formed such a tangle. There are, of course, details
to be filled in, but I am as certain of all the main facts, from the
time that Drebber parted from Stangerson at the station, up to the
discovery of the body of the latter, as if I had seen them with my own
eyes. I will give you a proof of my knowledge. Could you lay your hand
upon those pills?”

“I have them,” said Lestrade, producing a small white box; “I took them
and the purse and the telegram, intending to have them put in a place of
safety at the Police Station. It was the merest chance my taking these
pills, for I am bound to say that I do not attach any importance to
them.”

“Give them here,” said Holmes. “Now, Doctor,” turning to me, “are those
ordinary pills?”

They certainly were not. They were of a pearly grey colour, small,
round, and almost transparent against the light. “From their lightness
and transparency, I should imagine that they are soluble in water,” I
remarked.

“Precisely so,” answered Holmes. “Now would you mind going down and
fetching that poor little devil of a terrier which has been bad so long,
and which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain yesterday.”

I went downstairs and carried the dog upstair in my arms. It’s laboured
breathing and glazing eye showed that it was not far from its end.
Indeed, its snow-white muzzle proclaimed that it had already exceeded
the usual term of canine existence. I placed it upon a cushion on the
rug.

“I will now cut one of these pills in two,” said Holmes, and drawing his
penknife he suited the action to the word. “One half we return into the
box for future purposes. The other half I will place in this wine glass,
in which is a teaspoonful of water. You perceive that our friend, the
Doctor, is right, and that it readily dissolves.”

“This may be very interesting,” said Lestrade, in the injured tone of
one who suspects that he is being laughed at, “I cannot see, however,
what it has to do with the death of Mr. Joseph Stangerson.”

“Patience, my friend, patience! You will find in time that it has
everything to do with it. I shall now add a little milk to make the
mixture palatable, and on presenting it to the dog we find that he laps
it up readily enough.”

As he spoke he turned the contents of the wine glass into a saucer and
placed it in front of the terrier, who speedily licked it dry. Sherlock
Holmes’ earnest demeanour had so far convinced us that we all sat in
silence, watching the animal intently, and expecting some startling
effect. None such appeared, however. The dog continued to lie stretched
upon tho [16] cushion, breathing in a laboured way, but apparently
neither the better nor the worse for its draught.

Holmes had taken out his watch, and as minute followed minute without
result, an expression of the utmost chagrin and disappointment appeared
upon his features. He gnawed his lip, drummed his fingers upon the
table, and showed every other symptom of acute impatience. So great
was his emotion, that I felt sincerely sorry for him, while the two
detectives smiled derisively, by no means displeased at this check which
he had met.

“It can’t be a coincidence,” he cried, at last springing from his chair
and pacing wildly up and down the room; “it is impossible that it should
be a mere coincidence. The very pills which I suspected in the case of
Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson. And yet they
are inert. What can it mean? Surely my whole chain of reasoning cannot
have been false. It is impossible! And yet this wretched dog is none the
worse. Ah, I have it! I have it!” With a perfect shriek of delight he
rushed to the box, cut the other pill in two, dissolved it, added milk,
and presented it to the terrier. The unfortunate creature’s tongue
seemed hardly to have been moistened in it before it gave a convulsive
shiver in every limb, and lay as rigid and lifeless as if it had been
struck by lightning.

Sherlock Holmes drew a long breath, and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead. “I should have more faith,” he said; “I ought to know by
this time that when a fact appears to be opposed to a long train of
deductions, it invariably proves to be capable of bearing some other
interpretation. Of the two pills in that box one was of the most deadly
poison, and the other was entirely harmless. I ought to have known that
before ever I saw the box at all.”

This last statement appeared to me to be so startling, that I could
hardly believe that he was in his sober senses. There was the dead dog,
however, to prove that his conjecture had been correct. It seemed to me
that the mists in my own mind were gradually clearing away, and I began
to have a dim, vague perception of the truth.

“All this seems strange to you,” continued Holmes, “because you failed
at the beginning of the inquiry to grasp the importance of the single
real clue which was presented to you. I had the good fortune to seize
upon that, and everything which has occurred since then has served to
confirm my original supposition, and, indeed, was the logical sequence
of it. Hence things which have perplexed you and made the case more
obscure, have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions.
It is a mistake to confound strangeness with mystery. The most
commonplace crime is often the most mysterious because it presents no
new or special features from which deductions may be drawn. This murder
would have been infinitely more difficult to unravel had the body of
the victim been simply found lying in the roadway without any of
those _outré_ and sensational accompaniments which have rendered
it remarkable. These strange details, far from making the case more
difficult, have really had the effect of making it less so.”

Mr. Gregson, who had listened to this address with considerable
impatience, could contain himself no longer. “Look here, Mr. Sherlock
Holmes,” he said, “we are all ready to acknowledge that you are a smart
man, and that you have your own methods of working. We want something
more than mere theory and preaching now, though. It is a case of taking
the man. I have made my case out, and it seems I was wrong. Young
Charpentier could not have been engaged in this second affair. Lestrade
went after his man, Stangerson, and it appears that he was wrong too.
You have thrown out hints here, and hints there, and seem to know more
than we do, but the time has come when we feel that we have a right to
ask you straight how much you do know of the business. Can you name the
man who did it?”

“I cannot help feeling that Gregson is right, sir,” remarked Lestrade.
“We have both tried, and we have both failed. You have remarked more
than once since I have been in the room that you had all the evidence
which you require. Surely you will not withhold it any longer.”

“Any delay in arresting the assassin,” I observed, “might give him time
to perpetrate some fresh atrocity.”

Thus pressed by us all, Holmes showed signs of irresolution. He
continued to walk up and down the room with his head sunk on his chest
and his brows drawn down, as was his habit when lost in thought.

“There will be no more murders,” he said at last, stopping abruptly and
facing us. “You can put that consideration out of the question. You have
asked me if I know the name of the assassin. I do. The mere knowing of
his name is a small thing, however, compared with the power of laying
our hands upon him. This I expect very shortly to do. I have good hopes
of managing it through my own arrangements; but it is a thing which
needs delicate handling, for we have a shrewd and desperate man to deal
with, who is supported, as I have had occasion to prove, by another who
is as clever as himself. As long as this man has no idea that anyone
can have a clue there is some chance of securing him; but if he had the
slightest suspicion, he would change his name, and vanish in an instant
among the four million inhabitants of this great city. Without meaning
to hurt either of your feelings, I am bound to say that I consider these
men to be more than a match for the official force, and that is why I
have not asked your assistance. If I fail I shall, of course, incur all
the blame due to this omission; but that I am prepared for. At present
I am ready to promise that the instant that I can communicate with you
without endangering my own combinations, I shall do so.”

Gregson and Lestrade seemed to be far from satisfied by this assurance,
or by the depreciating allusion to the detective police. The former had
flushed up to the roots of his flaxen hair, while the other’s beady eyes
glistened with curiosity and resentment. Neither of them had time to
speak, however, before there was a tap at the door, and the spokesman
of the street Arabs, young Wiggins, introduced his insignificant and
unsavoury person.

“Please, sir,” he said, touching his forelock, “I have the cab
downstairs.”

“Good boy,” said Holmes, blandly. “Why don’t you introduce this pattern
at Scotland Yard?” he continued, taking a pair of steel handcuffs from
a drawer. “See how beautifully the spring works. They fasten in an
instant.”

“The old pattern is good enough,” remarked Lestrade, “if we can only
find the man to put them on.”

“Very good, very good,” said Holmes, smiling. “The cabman may as well
help me with my boxes. Just ask him to step up, Wiggins.”

I was surprised to find my companion speaking as though he were about
to set out on a journey, since he had not said anything to me about it.
There was a small portmanteau in the room, and this he pulled out and
began to strap. He was busily engaged at it when the cabman entered the
room.

“Just give me a help with this buckle, cabman,” he said, kneeling over
his task, and never turning his head.

The fellow came forward with a somewhat sullen, defiant air, and put
down his hands to assist. At that instant there was a sharp click, the
jangling of metal, and Sherlock Holmes sprang to his feet again.

“Gentlemen,” he cried, with flashing eyes, “let me introduce you to Mr.
Jefferson Hope, the murderer of Enoch Drebber and of Joseph Stangerson.”

The whole thing occurred in a moment--so quickly that I had no time
to realize it. I have a vivid recollection of that instant, of Holmes’
triumphant expression and the ring of his voice, of the cabman’s
dazed, savage face, as he glared at the glittering handcuffs, which had
appeared as if by magic upon his wrists. For a second or two we might
have been a group of statues. Then, with an inarticulate roar of fury,
the prisoner wrenched himself free from Holmes’s grasp, and hurled
himself through the window. Woodwork and glass gave way before him; but
before he got quite through, Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon
him like so many staghounds. He was dragged back into the room, and then
commenced a terrific conflict. So powerful and so fierce was he, that
the four of us were shaken off again and again. He appeared to have the
convulsive strength of a man in an epileptic fit. His face and hands
were terribly mangled by his passage through the glass, but loss of
blood had no effect in diminishing his resistance. It was not until
Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neckcloth and
half-strangling him that we made him realize that his struggles were of
no avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his
feet as well as his hands. That done, we rose to our feet breathless and
panting.

“We have his cab,” said Sherlock Holmes. “It will serve to take him to
Scotland Yard. And now, gentlemen,” he continued, with a pleasant smile,
“we have reached the end of our little mystery. You are very welcome to
put any questions that you like to me now, and there is no danger that I
will refuse to answer them.”





PART II. _The Country of the Saints._




CHAPTER I. ON THE GREAT ALKALI PLAIN.


IN the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies
an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a
barrier against the advance of civilisation. From the Sierra Nevada to
Nebraska, and from the Yellowstone River in the north to the Colorado
upon the south, is a region of desolation and silence. Nor is Nature
always in one mood throughout this grim district. It comprises
snow-capped and lofty mountains, and dark and gloomy valleys. There are
swift-flowing rivers which dash through jagged cañons; and there are
enormous plains, which in winter are white with snow, and in summer are
grey with the saline alkali dust. They all preserve, however, the common
characteristics of barrenness, inhospitality, and misery.

There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. A band of Pawnees
or of Blackfeet may occasionally traverse it in order to reach other
hunting-grounds, but the hardiest of the braves are glad to lose sight
of those awesome plains, and to find themselves once more upon their
prairies. The coyote skulks among the scrub, the buzzard flaps heavily
through the air, and the clumsy grizzly bear lumbers through the dark
ravines, and picks up such sustenance as it can amongst the rocks. These
are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.

In the whole world there can be no more dreary view than that from
the northern slope of the Sierra Blanco. As far as the eye can reach
stretches the great flat plain-land, all dusted over with patches of
alkali, and intersected by clumps of the dwarfish chaparral bushes. On
the extreme verge of the horizon lie a long chain of mountain peaks,
with their rugged summits flecked with snow. In this great stretch of
country there is no sign of life, nor of anything appertaining to life.
There is no bird in the steel-blue heaven, no movement upon the dull,
grey earth--above all, there is absolute silence. Listen as one may,
there is no shadow of a sound in all that mighty wilderness; nothing but
silence--complete and heart-subduing silence.

It has been said there is nothing appertaining to life upon the broad
plain. That is hardly true. Looking down from the Sierra Blanco, one
sees a pathway traced out across the desert, which winds away and is
lost in the extreme distance. It is rutted with wheels and trodden down
by the feet of many adventurers. Here and there there are scattered
white objects which glisten in the sun, and stand out against the dull
deposit of alkali. Approach, and examine them! They are bones: some
large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate. The former have
belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. For fifteen hundred miles one
may trace this ghastly caravan route by these scattered remains of those
who had fallen by the wayside.

Looking down on this very scene, there stood upon the fourth of May,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. His appearance
was such that he might have been the very genius or demon of the region.
An observer would have found it difficult to say whether he was nearer
to forty or to sixty. His face was lean and haggard, and the brown
parchment-like skin was drawn tightly over the projecting bones; his
long, brown hair and beard were all flecked and dashed with white; his
eyes were sunken in his head, and burned with an unnatural lustre; while
the hand which grasped his rifle was hardly more fleshy than that of a
skeleton. As he stood, he leaned upon his weapon for support, and yet
his tall figure and the massive framework of his bones suggested a wiry
and vigorous constitution. His gaunt face, however, and his clothes,
which hung so baggily over his shrivelled limbs, proclaimed what it
was that gave him that senile and decrepit appearance. The man was
dying--dying from hunger and from thirst.

He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little
elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great
salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage
mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might
indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there
was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild
questioning eyes, and then he realised that his wanderings had come to
an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. “Why
not here, as well as in a feather bed, twenty years hence,” he muttered,
as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.

Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle,
and also a large bundle tied up in a grey shawl, which he had carried
slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for
his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some
little violence. Instantly there broke from the grey parcel a little
moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small, scared face, with very
bright brown eyes, and two little speckled, dimpled fists.

“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.

“Have I though,” the man answered penitently, “I didn’t go for to do
it.” As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty
little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart
pink frock with its little linen apron all bespoke a mother’s care. The
child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she
had suffered less than her companion.

“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the
towsy golden curls which covered the back of her head.

“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, shoving
[19] the injured part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s
mother?”

“Mother’s gone. I guess you’ll see her before long.”

“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she
‘most always did if she was just goin’ over to Auntie’s for tea, and now
she’s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain’t there
no water, nor nothing to eat?”

“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You’ll just need to be patient awhile,
and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up agin me like that, and
then you’ll feel bullier. It ain’t easy to talk when your lips is like
leather, but I guess I’d best let you know how the cards lie. What’s
that you’ve got?”

“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically,
holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home
I’ll give them to brother Bob.”

“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently.
“You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though--you remember when
we left the river?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, we reckoned we’d strike another river soon, d’ye see. But there
was somethin’ wrong; compasses, or map, or somethin’, and it didn’t
turn up. Water ran out. Just except a little drop for the likes of you
and--and----”

“And you couldn’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely,
staring up at his grimy visage.

“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender, he was the fust to go, and then Indian
Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, dearie,
your mother.”

“Then mother’s a deader too,” cried the little girl dropping her face in
her pinafore and sobbing bitterly.

“Yes, they all went except you and me. Then I thought there was some
chance of water in this direction, so I heaved you over my shoulder and
we tramped it together. It don’t seem as though we’ve improved matters.
There’s an almighty small chance for us now!”

“Do you mean that we are going to die too?” asked the child, checking
her sobs, and raising her tear-stained face.

“I guess that’s about the size of it.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said, laughing gleefully. “You gave
me such a fright. Why, of course, now as long as we die we’ll be with
mother again.”

“Yes, you will, dearie.”

“And you too. I’ll tell her how awful good you’ve been. I’ll bet she
meets us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot
of buckwheat cakes, hot, and toasted on both sides, like Bob and me was
fond of. How long will it be first?”

“I don’t know--not very long.” The man’s eyes were fixed upon the
northern horizon. In the blue vault of the heaven there had appeared
three little specks which increased in size every moment, so rapidly did
they approach. They speedily resolved themselves into three large brown
birds, which circled over the heads of the two wanderers, and then
settled upon some rocks which overlooked them. They were buzzards, the
vultures of the west, whose coming is the forerunner of death.

“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully, pointing at their
ill-omened forms, and clapping her hands to make them rise. “Say, did
God make this country?”

“In course He did,” said her companion, rather startled by this
unexpected question.

“He made the country down in Illinois, and He made the Missouri,” the
little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country in these
parts. It’s not nearly so well done. They forgot the water and the
trees.”

“What would ye think of offering up prayer?” the man asked diffidently.

“It ain’t night yet,” she answered.

“It don’t matter. It ain’t quite regular, but He won’t mind that, you
bet. You say over them ones that you used to say every night in the
waggon when we was on the Plains.”

“Why don’t you say some yourself?” the child asked, with wondering eyes.

“I disremember them,” he answered. “I hain’t said none since I was half
the height o’ that gun. I guess it’s never too late. You say them out,
and I’ll stand by and come in on the choruses.”

“Then you’ll need to kneel down, and me too,” she said, laying the shawl
out for that purpose. “You’ve got to put your hands up like this. It
makes you feel kind o’ good.”

It was a strange sight had there been anything but the buzzards to see
it. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the little
prattling child and the reckless, hardened adventurer. Her chubby face,
and his haggard, angular visage were both turned up to the cloudless
heaven in heartfelt entreaty to that dread being with whom they were
face to face, while the two voices--the one thin and clear, the other
deep and harsh--united in the entreaty for mercy and forgiveness. The
prayer finished, they resumed their seat in the shadow of the boulder
until the child fell asleep, nestling upon the broad breast of her
protector. He watched over her slumber for some time, but Nature proved
to be too strong for him. For three days and three nights he had allowed
himself neither rest nor repose. Slowly the eyelids drooped over the
tired eyes, and the head sunk lower and lower upon the breast, until the
man’s grizzled beard was mixed with the gold tresses of his companion,
and both slept the same deep and dreamless slumber.

Had the wanderer remained awake for another half hour a strange sight
would have met his eyes. Far away on the extreme verge of the alkali
plain there rose up a little spray of dust, very slight at first, and
hardly to be distinguished from the mists of the distance, but gradually
growing higher and broader until it formed a solid, well-defined cloud.
This cloud continued to increase in size until it became evident that it
could only be raised by a great multitude of moving creatures. In more
fertile spots the observer would have come to the conclusion that one
of those great herds of bisons which graze upon the prairie land was
approaching him. This was obviously impossible in these arid wilds. As
the whirl of dust drew nearer to the solitary bluff upon which the two
castaways were reposing, the canvas-covered tilts of waggons and the
figures of armed horsemen began to show up through the haze, and the
apparition revealed itself as being a great caravan upon its journey for
the West. But what a caravan! When the head of it had reached the base
of the mountains, the rear was not yet visible on the horizon. Right
across the enormous plain stretched the straggling array, waggons
and carts, men on horseback, and men on foot. Innumerable women who
staggered along under burdens, and children who toddled beside the
waggons or peeped out from under the white coverings. This was evidently
no ordinary party of immigrants, but rather some nomad people who had
been compelled from stress of circumstances to seek themselves a new
country. There rose through the clear air a confused clattering and
rumbling from this great mass of humanity, with the creaking of wheels
and the neighing of horses. Loud as it was, it was not sufficient to
rouse the two tired wayfarers above them.

At the head of the column there rode a score or more of grave ironfaced
men, clad in sombre homespun garments and armed with rifles. On reaching
the base of the bluff they halted, and held a short council among
themselves.

“The wells are to the right, my brothers,” said one, a hard-lipped,
clean-shaven man with grizzly hair.

“To the right of the Sierra Blanco--so we shall reach the Rio Grande,”
 said another.

“Fear not for water,” cried a third. “He who could draw it from the
rocks will not now abandon His own chosen people.”

“Amen! Amen!” responded the whole party.

They were about to resume their journey when one of the youngest and
keenest-eyed uttered an exclamation and pointed up at the rugged crag
above them. From its summit there fluttered a little wisp of pink,
showing up hard and bright against the grey rocks behind. At the sight
there was a general reining up of horses and unslinging of guns, while
fresh horsemen came galloping up to reinforce the vanguard. The word
‘Redskins’ was on every lip.

“There can’t be any number of Injuns here,” said the elderly man who
appeared to be in command. “We have passed the Pawnees, and there are no
other tribes until we cross the great mountains.”

“Shall I go forward and see, Brother Stangerson,” asked one of the band.

“And I,” “and I,” cried a dozen voices.

“Leave your horses below and we will await you here,” the Elder
answered. In a moment the young fellows had dismounted, fastened their
horses, and were ascending the precipitous slope which led up to the
object which had excited their curiosity. They advanced rapidly and
noiselessly, with the confidence and dexterity of practised scouts.
The watchers from the plain below could see them flit from rock to rock
until their figures stood out against the skyline. The young man who had
first given the alarm was leading them. Suddenly his followers saw him
throw up his hands, as though overcome with astonishment, and on joining
him they were affected in the same way by the sight which met their
eyes.

On the little plateau which crowned the barren hill there stood a
single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man,
long-bearded and hard-featured, but of an excessive thinness. His placid
face and regular breathing showed that he was fast asleep. Beside him
lay a little child, with her round white arms encircling his brown
sinewy neck, and her golden haired head resting upon the breast of his
velveteen tunic. Her rosy lips were parted, showing the regular line of
snow-white teeth within, and a playful smile played over her infantile
features. Her plump little white legs terminating in white socks and
neat shoes with shining buckles, offered a strange contrast to the long
shrivelled members of her companion. On the ledge of rock above this
strange couple there stood three solemn buzzards, who, at the sight of
the new comers uttered raucous screams of disappointment and flapped
sullenly away.

The cries of the foul birds awoke the two sleepers who stared about [20]
them in bewilderment. The man staggered to his feet and looked down upon
the plain which had been so desolate when sleep had overtaken him, and
which was now traversed by this enormous body of men and of beasts. His
face assumed an expression of incredulity as he gazed, and he passed his
boney hand over his eyes. “This is what they call delirium, I guess,”
 he muttered. The child stood beside him, holding on to the skirt of
his coat, and said nothing but looked all round her with the wondering
questioning gaze of childhood.

The rescuing party were speedily able to convince the two castaways that
their appearance was no delusion. One of them seized the little girl,
and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others supported her gaunt
companion, and assisted him towards the waggons.

“My name is John Ferrier,” the wanderer explained; “me and that little
un are all that’s left o’ twenty-one people. The rest is all dead o’
thirst and hunger away down in the south.”

“Is she your child?” asked someone.

“I guess she is now,” the other cried, defiantly; “she’s mine ‘cause I
saved her. No man will take her from me. She’s Lucy Ferrier from this
day on. Who are you, though?” he continued, glancing with curiosity at
his stalwart, sunburned rescuers; “there seems to be a powerful lot of
ye.”

“Nigh upon ten thousand,” said one of the young men; “we are the
persecuted children of God--the chosen of the Angel Merona.”

“I never heard tell on him,” said the wanderer. “He appears to have
chosen a fair crowd of ye.”

“Do not jest at that which is sacred,” said the other sternly. “We are
of those who believe in those sacred writings, drawn in Egyptian letters
on plates of beaten gold, which were handed unto the holy Joseph Smith
at Palmyra. We have come from Nauvoo, in the State of Illinois, where we
had founded our temple. We have come to seek a refuge from the violent
man and from the godless, even though it be the heart of the desert.”

The name of Nauvoo evidently recalled recollections to John Ferrier. “I
see,” he said, “you are the Mormons.”

“We are the Mormons,” answered his companions with one voice.

“And where are you going?”

“We do not know. The hand of God is leading us under the person of our
Prophet. You must come before him. He shall say what is to be done with
you.”

They had reached the base of the hill by this time, and were surrounded
by crowds of the pilgrims--pale-faced meek-looking women, strong
laughing children, and anxious earnest-eyed men. Many were the cries
of astonishment and of commiseration which arose from them when they
perceived the youth of one of the strangers and the destitution of the
other. Their escort did not halt, however, but pushed on, followed by
a great crowd of Mormons, until they reached a waggon, which was
conspicuous for its great size and for the gaudiness and smartness of
its appearance. Six horses were yoked to it, whereas the others were
furnished with two, or, at most, four a-piece. Beside the driver there
sat a man who could not have been more than thirty years of age, but
whose massive head and resolute expression marked him as a leader. He
was reading a brown-backed volume, but as the crowd approached he laid
it aside, and listened attentively to an account of the episode. Then he
turned to the two castaways.

“If we take you with us,” he said, in solemn words, “it can only be as
believers in our own creed. We shall have no wolves in our fold. Better
far that your bones should bleach in this wilderness than that you
should prove to be that little speck of decay which in time corrupts the
whole fruit. Will you come with us on these terms?”

“Guess I’ll come with you on any terms,” said Ferrier, with such
emphasis that the grave Elders could not restrain a smile. The leader
alone retained his stern, impressive expression.

“Take him, Brother Stangerson,” he said, “give him food and drink,
and the child likewise. Let it be your task also to teach him our holy
creed. We have delayed long enough. Forward! On, on to Zion!”

“On, on to Zion!” cried the crowd of Mormons, and the words rippled down
the long caravan, passing from mouth to mouth until they died away in a
dull murmur in the far distance. With a cracking of whips and a creaking
of wheels the great waggons got into motion, and soon the whole caravan
was winding along once more. The Elder to whose care the two waifs
had been committed, led them to his waggon, where a meal was already
awaiting them.

“You shall remain here,” he said. “In a few days you will have recovered
from your fatigues. In the meantime, remember that now and for ever you
are of our religion. Brigham Young has said it, and he has spoken with
the voice of Joseph Smith, which is the voice of God.”




CHAPTER II. THE FLOWER OF UTAH.


THIS is not the place to commemorate the trials and privations endured
by the immigrant Mormons before they came to their final haven. From the
shores of the Mississippi to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains
they had struggled on with a constancy almost unparalleled in history.
The savage man, and the savage beast, hunger, thirst, fatigue, and
disease--every impediment which Nature could place in the way, had all
been overcome with Anglo-Saxon tenacity. Yet the long journey and the
accumulated terrors had shaken the hearts of the stoutest among them.
There was not one who did not sink upon his knees in heartfelt prayer
when they saw the broad valley of Utah bathed in the sunlight beneath
them, and learned from the lips of their leader that this was the
promised land, and that these virgin acres were to be theirs for
evermore.

Young speedily proved himself to be a skilful administrator as well as a
resolute chief. Maps were drawn and charts prepared, in which the future
city was sketched out. All around farms were apportioned and allotted in
proportion to the standing of each individual. The tradesman was put
to his trade and the artisan to his calling. In the town streets and
squares sprang up, as if by magic. In the country there was draining
and hedging, planting and clearing, until the next summer saw the whole
country golden with the wheat crop. Everything prospered in the strange
settlement. Above all, the great temple which they had erected in the
centre of the city grew ever taller and larger. From the first blush of
dawn until the closing of the twilight, the clatter of the hammer
and the rasp of the saw was never absent from the monument which the
immigrants erected to Him who had led them safe through many dangers.

The two castaways, John Ferrier and the little girl who had shared his
fortunes and had been adopted as his daughter, accompanied the Mormons
to the end of their great pilgrimage. Little Lucy Ferrier was borne
along pleasantly enough in Elder Stangerson’s waggon, a retreat which
she shared with the Mormon’s three wives and with his son, a headstrong
forward boy of twelve. Having rallied, with the elasticity of childhood,
from the shock caused by her mother’s death, she soon became a pet
with the women, and reconciled herself to this new life in her moving
canvas-covered home. In the meantime Ferrier having recovered from his
privations, distinguished himself as a useful guide and an indefatigable
hunter. So rapidly did he gain the esteem of his new companions, that
when they reached the end of their wanderings, it was unanimously agreed
that he should be provided with as large and as fertile a tract of land
as any of the settlers, with the exception of Young himself, and of
Stangerson, Kemball, Johnston, and Drebber, who were the four principal
Elders.

On the farm thus acquired John Ferrier built himself a substantial
log-house, which received so many additions in succeeding years that it
grew into a roomy villa. He was a man of a practical turn of mind,
keen in his dealings and skilful with his hands. His iron constitution
enabled him to work morning and evening at improving and tilling his
lands. Hence it came about that his farm and all that belonged to
him prospered exceedingly. In three years he was better off than his
neighbours, in six he was well-to-do, in nine he was rich, and in twelve
there were not half a dozen men in the whole of Salt Lake City who could
compare with him. From the great inland sea to the distant Wahsatch
Mountains there was no name better known than that of John Ferrier.

There was one way and only one in which he offended the susceptibilities
of his co-religionists. No argument or persuasion could ever induce him
to set up a female establishment after the manner of his companions. He
never gave reasons for this persistent refusal, but contented himself by
resolutely and inflexibly adhering to his determination. There were some
who accused him of lukewarmness in his adopted religion, and others who
put it down to greed of wealth and reluctance to incur expense. Others,
again, spoke of some early love affair, and of a fair-haired girl who
had pined away on the shores of the Atlantic. Whatever the reason,
Ferrier remained strictly celibate. In every other respect he conformed
to the religion of the young settlement, and gained the name of being an
orthodox and straight-walking man.

Lucy Ferrier grew up within the log-house, and assisted her adopted
father in all his undertakings. The keen air of the mountains and the
balsamic odour of the pine trees took the place of nurse and mother to
the young girl. As year succeeded to year she grew taller and stronger,
her cheek more rudy, and her step more elastic. Many a wayfarer upon
the high road which ran by Ferrier’s farm felt long-forgotten thoughts
revive in their mind as they watched her lithe girlish figure tripping
through the wheatfields, or met her mounted upon her father’s mustang,
and managing it with all the ease and grace of a true child of the West.
So the bud blossomed into a flower, and the year which saw her father
the richest of the farmers left her as fair a specimen of American
girlhood as could be found in the whole Pacific slope.

It was not the father, however, who first discovered that the child had
developed into the woman. It seldom is in such cases. That mysterious
change is too subtle and too gradual to be measured by dates. Least of
all does the maiden herself know it until the tone of a voice or the
touch of a hand sets her heart thrilling within her, and she learns,
with a mixture of pride and of fear, that a new and a larger nature has
awoken within her. There are few who cannot recall that day and remember
the one little incident which heralded the dawn of a new life. In the
case of Lucy Ferrier the occasion was serious enough in itself, apart
from its future influence on her destiny and that of many besides.

It was a warm June morning, and the Latter Day Saints were as busy as
the bees whose hive they have chosen for their emblem. In the fields and
in the streets rose the same hum of human industry. Down the dusty high
roads defiled long streams of heavily-laden mules, all heading to the
west, for the gold fever had broken out in California, and the Overland
Route lay through the City of the Elect. There, too, were droves of
sheep and bullocks coming in from the outlying pasture lands, and trains
of tired immigrants, men and horses equally weary of their interminable
journey. Through all this motley assemblage, threading her way with the
skill of an accomplished rider, there galloped Lucy Ferrier, her fair
face flushed with the exercise and her long chestnut hair floating out
behind her. She had a commission from her father in the City, and was
dashing in as she had done many a time before, with all the fearlessness
of youth, thinking only of her task and how it was to be performed. The
travel-stained adventurers gazed after her in astonishment, and even
the unemotional Indians, journeying in with their pelties, relaxed their
accustomed stoicism as they marvelled at the beauty of the pale-faced
maiden.

She had reached the outskirts of the city when she found the road
blocked by a great drove of cattle, driven by a half-dozen wild-looking
herdsmen from the plains. In her impatience she endeavoured to pass this
obstacle by pushing her horse into what appeared to be a gap. Scarcely
had she got fairly into it, however, before the beasts closed in behind
her, and she found herself completely imbedded in the moving stream of
fierce-eyed, long-horned bullocks. Accustomed as she was to deal with
cattle, she was not alarmed at her situation, but took advantage of
every opportunity to urge her horse on in the hopes of pushing her way
through the cavalcade. Unfortunately the horns of one of the creatures,
either by accident or design, came in violent contact with the flank of
the mustang, and excited it to madness. In an instant it reared up upon
its hind legs with a snort of rage, and pranced and tossed in a way that
would have unseated any but a most skilful rider. The situation was full
of peril. Every plunge of the excited horse brought it against the horns
again, and goaded it to fresh madness. It was all that the girl could
do to keep herself in the saddle, yet a slip would mean a terrible death
under the hoofs of the unwieldy and terrified animals. Unaccustomed to
sudden emergencies, her head began to swim, and her grip upon the bridle
to relax. Choked by the rising cloud of dust and by the steam from the
struggling creatures, she might have abandoned her efforts in despair,
but for a kindly voice at her elbow which assured her of assistance. At
the same moment a sinewy brown hand caught the frightened horse by
the curb, and forcing a way through the drove, soon brought her to the
outskirts.

“You’re not hurt, I hope, miss,” said her preserver, respectfully.

She looked up at his dark, fierce face, and laughed saucily. “I’m awful
frightened,” she said, naively; “whoever would have thought that Poncho
would have been so scared by a lot of cows?”

“Thank God you kept your seat,” the other said earnestly. He was a tall,
savage-looking young fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse, and
clad in the rough dress of a hunter, with a long rifle slung over his
shoulders. “I guess you are the daughter of John Ferrier,” he remarked,
“I saw you ride down from his house. When you see him, ask him if he
remembers the Jefferson Hopes of St. Louis. If he’s the same Ferrier, my
father and he were pretty thick.”

“Hadn’t you better come and ask yourself?” she asked, demurely.

The young fellow seemed pleased at the suggestion, and his dark eyes
sparkled with pleasure. “I’ll do so,” he said, “we’ve been in the
mountains for two months, and are not over and above in visiting
condition. He must take us as he finds us.”

“He has a good deal to thank you for, and so have I,” she answered,
“he’s awful fond of me. If those cows had jumped on me he’d have never
got over it.”

“Neither would I,” said her companion.

“You! Well, I don’t see that it would make much matter to you, anyhow.
You ain’t even a friend of ours.”

The young hunter’s dark face grew so gloomy over this remark that Lucy
Ferrier laughed aloud.

“There, I didn’t mean that,” she said; “of course, you are a friend now.
You must come and see us. Now I must push along, or father won’t trust
me with his business any more. Good-bye!”

“Good-bye,” he answered, raising his broad sombrero, and bending over
her little hand. She wheeled her mustang round, gave it a cut with her
riding-whip, and darted away down the broad road in a rolling cloud of
dust.

Young Jefferson Hope rode on with his companions, gloomy and taciturn.
He and they had been among the Nevada Mountains prospecting for silver,
and were returning to Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital
enough to work some lodes which they had discovered. He had been as keen
as any of them upon the business until this sudden incident had drawn
his thoughts into another channel. The sight of the fair young girl,
as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his volcanic,
untamed heart to its very depths. When she had vanished from his sight,
he realized that a crisis had come in his life, and that neither silver
speculations nor any other questions could ever be of such importance to
him as this new and all-absorbing one. The love which had sprung up in
his heart was not the sudden, changeable fancy of a boy, but rather the
wild, fierce passion of a man of strong will and imperious temper. He
had been accustomed to succeed in all that he undertook. He swore in
his heart that he would not fail in this if human effort and human
perseverance could render him successful.

He called on John Ferrier that night, and many times again, until
his face was a familiar one at the farm-house. John, cooped up in the
valley, and absorbed in his work, had had little chance of learning
the news of the outside world during the last twelve years. All this
Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested
Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and
could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost
in those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a
silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to be
had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon became a
favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his virtues. On
such occasions, Lucy was silent, but her blushing cheek and her bright,
happy eyes, showed only too clearly that her young heart was no longer
her own. Her honest father may not have observed these symptoms,
but they were assuredly not thrown away upon the man who had won her
affections.

It was a summer evening when he came galloping down the road and pulled
up at the gate. She was at the doorway, and came down to meet him. He
threw the bridle over the fence and strode up the pathway.

“I am off, Lucy,” he said, taking her two hands in his, and gazing
tenderly down into her face; “I won’t ask you to come with me now, but
will you be ready to come when I am here again?”

“And when will that be?” she asked, blushing and laughing.

“A couple of months at the outside. I will come and claim you then, my
darling. There’s no one who can stand between us.”

“And how about father?” she asked.

“He has given his consent, provided we get these mines working all
right. I have no fear on that head.”

“Oh, well; of course, if you and father have arranged it all, there’s
no more to be said,” she whispered, with her cheek against his broad
breast.

“Thank God!” he said, hoarsely, stooping and kissing her. “It is
settled, then. The longer I stay, the harder it will be to go. They are
waiting for me at the cañon. Good-bye, my own darling--good-bye. In two
months you shall see me.”

He tore himself from her as he spoke, and, flinging himself upon his
horse, galloped furiously away, never even looking round, as though
afraid that his resolution might fail him if he took one glance at
what he was leaving. She stood at the gate, gazing after him until
he vanished from her sight. Then she walked back into the house, the
happiest girl in all Utah.




CHAPTER III. JOHN FERRIER TALKS WITH THE PROPHET.


THREE weeks had passed since Jefferson Hope and his comrades had
departed from Salt Lake City. John Ferrier’s heart was sore within him
when he thought of the young man’s return, and of the impending loss of
his adopted child. Yet her bright and happy face reconciled him to
the arrangement more than any argument could have done. He had always
determined, deep down in his resolute heart, that nothing would ever
induce him to allow his daughter to wed a Mormon. Such a marriage he
regarded as no marriage at all, but as a shame and a disgrace. Whatever
he might think of the Mormon doctrines, upon that one point he was
inflexible. He had to seal his mouth on the subject, however, for to
express an unorthodox opinion was a dangerous matter in those days in
the Land of the Saints.

Yes, a dangerous matter--so dangerous that even the most saintly dared
only whisper their religious opinions with bated breath, lest something
which fell from their lips might be misconstrued, and bring down a
swift retribution upon them. The victims of persecution had now turned
persecutors on their own account, and persecutors of the most
terrible description. Not the Inquisition of Seville, nor the German
Vehm-gericht, nor the Secret Societies of Italy, were ever able to put
a more formidable machinery in motion than that which cast a cloud over
the State of Utah.

Its invisibility, and the mystery which was attached to it, made
this organization doubly terrible. It appeared to be omniscient and
omnipotent, and yet was neither seen nor heard. The man who held out
against the Church vanished away, and none knew whither he had gone or
what had befallen him. His wife and his children awaited him at home,
but no father ever returned to tell them how he had fared at the
hands of his secret judges. A rash word or a hasty act was followed
by annihilation, and yet none knew what the nature might be of this
terrible power which was suspended over them. No wonder that men
went about in fear and trembling, and that even in the heart of the
wilderness they dared not whisper the doubts which oppressed them.

At first this vague and terrible power was exercised only upon the
recalcitrants who, having embraced the Mormon faith, wished afterwards
to pervert or to abandon it. Soon, however, it took a wider range. The
supply of adult women was running short, and polygamy without a female
population on which to draw was a barren doctrine indeed. Strange
rumours began to be bandied about--rumours of murdered immigrants and
rifled camps in regions where Indians had never been seen. Fresh women
appeared in the harems of the Elders--women who pined and wept, and
bore upon their faces the traces of an unextinguishable horror. Belated
wanderers upon the mountains spoke of gangs of armed men, masked,
stealthy, and noiseless, who flitted by them in the darkness. These
tales and rumours took substance and shape, and were corroborated and
re-corroborated, until they resolved themselves into a definite name.
To this day, in the lonely ranches of the West, the name of the Danite
Band, or the Avenging Angels, is a sinister and an ill-omened one.

Fuller knowledge of the organization which produced such terrible
results served to increase rather than to lessen the horror which it
inspired in the minds of men. None knew who belonged to this ruthless
society. The names of the participators in the deeds of blood and
violence done under the name of religion were kept profoundly secret.
The very friend to whom you communicated your misgivings as to the
Prophet and his mission, might be one of those who would come forth at
night with fire and sword to exact a terrible reparation. Hence every
man feared his neighbour, and none spoke of the things which were
nearest his heart.

One fine morning, John Ferrier was about to set out to his wheatfields,
when he heard the click of the latch, and, looking through the window,
saw a stout, sandy-haired, middle-aged man coming up the pathway. His
heart leapt to his mouth, for this was none other than the great Brigham
Young himself. Full of trepidation--for he knew that such a visit boded
him little good--Ferrier ran to the door to greet the Mormon chief. The
latter, however, received his salutations coldly, and followed him with
a stern face into the sitting-room.

“Brother Ferrier,” he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer keenly
from under his light-coloured eyelashes, “the true believers have been
good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the
desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley,
gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our
protection. Is not this so?”

“It is so,” answered John Ferrier.

“In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that you
should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its usages.
This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you have
neglected.”

“And how have I neglected it?” asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in
expostulation. “Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not attended
at the Temple? Have I not----?”

“Where are your wives?” asked Young, looking round him. “Call them in,
that I may greet them.”

“It is true that I have not married,” Ferrier answered. “But women
were few, and there were many who had better claims than I. I was not a
lonely man: I had my daughter to attend to my wants.”

“It is of that daughter that I would speak to you,” said the leader
of the Mormons. “She has grown to be the flower of Utah, and has found
favour in the eyes of many who are high in the land.”

John Ferrier groaned internally.

“There are stories of her which I would fain disbelieve--stories that
she is sealed to some Gentile. This must be the gossip of idle tongues.
What is the thirteenth rule in the code of the sainted Joseph Smith?
‘Let every maiden of the true faith marry one of the elect; for if
she wed a Gentile, she commits a grievous sin.’ This being so, it is
impossible that you, who profess the holy creed, should suffer your
daughter to violate it.”

John Ferrier made no answer, but he played nervously with his
riding-whip.

“Upon this one point your whole faith shall be tested--so it has been
decided in the Sacred Council of Four. The girl is young, and we would
not have her wed grey hairs, neither would we deprive her of all
choice. We Elders have many heifers, [29] but our children must also
be provided. Stangerson has a son, and Drebber has a son, and either of
them would gladly welcome your daughter to their house. Let her choose
between them. They are young and rich, and of the true faith. What say
you to that?”

Ferrier remained silent for some little time with his brows knitted.

“You will give us time,” he said at last. “My daughter is very
young--she is scarce of an age to marry.”

“She shall have a month to choose,” said Young, rising from his seat.
“At the end of that time she shall give her answer.”

He was passing through the door, when he turned, with flushed face and
flashing eyes. “It were better for you, John Ferrier,” he thundered,
“that you and she were now lying blanched skeletons upon the Sierra
Blanco, than that you should put your weak wills against the orders of
the Holy Four!”

With a threatening gesture of his hand, he turned from the door, and
Ferrier heard his heavy step scrunching along the shingly path.

He was still sitting with his elbows upon his knees, considering how he
should broach the matter to his daughter when a soft hand was laid upon
his, and looking up, he saw her standing beside him. One glance at her
pale, frightened face showed him that she had heard what had passed.

“I could not help it,” she said, in answer to his look. “His voice rang
through the house. Oh, father, father, what shall we do?”

“Don’t you scare yourself,” he answered, drawing her to him, and passing
his broad, rough hand caressingly over her chestnut hair. “We’ll fix it
up somehow or another. You don’t find your fancy kind o’ lessening for
this chap, do you?”

A sob and a squeeze of his hand was her only answer.

“No; of course not. I shouldn’t care to hear you say you did. He’s a
likely lad, and he’s a Christian, which is more than these folk here, in
spite o’ all their praying and preaching. There’s a party starting for
Nevada to-morrow, and I’ll manage to send him a message letting him know
the hole we are in. If I know anything o’ that young man, he’ll be back
here with a speed that would whip electro-telegraphs.”

Lucy laughed through her tears at her father’s description.

“When he comes, he will advise us for the best. But it is for you that
I am frightened, dear. One hears--one hears such dreadful stories about
those who oppose the Prophet: something terrible always happens to
them.”

“But we haven’t opposed him yet,” her father answered. “It will be time
to look out for squalls when we do. We have a clear month before us; at
the end of that, I guess we had best shin out of Utah.”

“Leave Utah!”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“But the farm?”

“We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. To tell
the truth, Lucy, it isn’t the first time I have thought of doing it. I
don’t care about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do to their
darned prophet. I’m a free-born American, and it’s all new to me. Guess
I’m too old to learn. If he comes browsing about this farm, he might
chance to run up against a charge of buckshot travelling in the opposite
direction.”

“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.

“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. In the meantime,
don’t you fret yourself, my dearie, and don’t get your eyes swelled up,
else he’ll be walking into me when he sees you. There’s nothing to be
afeared about, and there’s no danger at all.”

John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone,
but she could not help observing that he paid unusual care to the
fastening of the doors that night, and that he carefully cleaned and
loaded the rusty old shotgun which hung upon the wall of his bedroom.




CHAPTER IV. A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.


ON the morning which followed his interview with the Mormon Prophet,
John Ferrier went in to Salt Lake City, and having found his
acquaintance, who was bound for the Nevada Mountains, he entrusted him
with his message to Jefferson Hope. In it he told the young man of the
imminent danger which threatened them, and how necessary it was that he
should return. Having done thus he felt easier in his mind, and returned
home with a lighter heart.

As he approached his farm, he was surprised to see a horse hitched to
each of the posts of the gate. Still more surprised was he on entering
to find two young men in possession of his sitting-room. One, with a
long pale face, was leaning back in the rocking-chair, with his feet
cocked up upon the stove. The other, a bull-necked youth with coarse
bloated features, was standing in front of the window with his hands in
his pocket, whistling a popular hymn. Both of them nodded to Ferrier as
he entered, and the one in the rocking-chair commenced the conversation.

“Maybe you don’t know us,” he said. “This here is the son of Elder
Drebber, and I’m Joseph Stangerson, who travelled with you in the desert
when the Lord stretched out His hand and gathered you into the true
fold.”

“As He will all the nations in His own good time,” said the other in a
nasal voice; “He grindeth slowly but exceeding small.”

John Ferrier bowed coldly. He had guessed who his visitors were.

“We have come,” continued Stangerson, “at the advice of our fathers to
solicit the hand of your daughter for whichever of us may seem good to
you and to her. As I have but four wives and Brother Drebber here has
seven, it appears to me that my claim is the stronger one.”

“Nay, nay, Brother Stangerson,” cried the other; “the question is not
how many wives we have, but how many we can keep. My father has now
given over his mills to me, and I am the richer man.”

“But my prospects are better,” said the other, warmly. “When the
Lord removes my father, I shall have his tanning yard and his leather
factory. Then I am your elder, and am higher in the Church.”

“It will be for the maiden to decide,” rejoined young Drebber, smirking
at his own reflection in the glass. “We will leave it all to her
decision.”

During this dialogue, John Ferrier had stood fuming in the doorway,
hardly able to keep his riding-whip from the backs of his two visitors.

“Look here,” he said at last, striding up to them, “when my daughter
summons you, you can come, but until then I don’t want to see your faces
again.”

The two young Mormons stared at him in amazement. In their eyes this
competition between them for the maiden’s hand was the highest of
honours both to her and her father.

“There are two ways out of the room,” cried Ferrier; “there is the door,
and there is the window. Which do you care to use?”

His brown face looked so savage, and his gaunt hands so threatening,
that his visitors sprang to their feet and beat a hurried retreat. The
old farmer followed them to the door.

“Let me know when you have settled which it is to be,” he said,
sardonically.

“You shall smart for this!” Stangerson cried, white with rage. “You have
defied the Prophet and the Council of Four. You shall rue it to the end
of your days.”

“The hand of the Lord shall be heavy upon you,” cried young Drebber; “He
will arise and smite you!”

“Then I’ll start the smiting,” exclaimed Ferrier furiously, and would
have rushed upstairs for his gun had not Lucy seized him by the arm and
restrained him. Before he could escape from her, the clatter of horses’
hoofs told him that they were beyond his reach.

“The young canting rascals!” he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from
his forehead; “I would sooner see you in your grave, my girl, than the
wife of either of them.”

“And so should I, father,” she answered, with spirit; “but Jefferson
will soon be here.”

“Yes. It will not be long before he comes. The sooner the better, for we
do not know what their next move may be.”

It was, indeed, high time that someone capable of giving advice and
help should come to the aid of the sturdy old farmer and his adopted
daughter. In the whole history of the settlement there had never been
such a case of rank disobedience to the authority of the Elders. If
minor errors were punished so sternly, what would be the fate of this
arch rebel. Ferrier knew that his wealth and position would be of no
avail to him. Others as well known and as rich as himself had been
spirited away before now, and their goods given over to the Church. He
was a brave man, but he trembled at the vague, shadowy terrors which
hung over him. Any known danger he could face with a firm lip, but
this suspense was unnerving. He concealed his fears from his daughter,
however, and affected to make light of the whole matter, though she,
with the keen eye of love, saw plainly that he was ill at ease.

He expected that he would receive some message or remonstrance from
Young as to his conduct, and he was not mistaken, though it came in an
unlooked-for manner. Upon rising next morning he found, to his surprise,
a small square of paper pinned on to the coverlet of his bed just over
his chest. On it was printed, in bold straggling letters:--

“Twenty-nine days are given you for amendment, and then----”

The dash was more fear-inspiring than any threat could have been. How
this warning came into his room puzzled John Ferrier sorely, for his
servants slept in an outhouse, and the doors and windows had all been
secured. He crumpled the paper up and said nothing to his daughter, but
the incident struck a chill into his heart. The twenty-nine days were
evidently the balance of the month which Young had promised. What
strength or courage could avail against an enemy armed with such
mysterious powers? The hand which fastened that pin might have struck
him to the heart, and he could never have known who had slain him.

Still more shaken was he next morning. They had sat down to their
breakfast when Lucy with a cry of surprise pointed upwards. In the
centre of the ceiling was scrawled, with a burned stick apparently,
the number 28. To his daughter it was unintelligible, and he did not
enlighten her. That night he sat up with his gun and kept watch and
ward. He saw and he heard nothing, and yet in the morning a great 27 had
been painted upon the outside of his door.

Thus day followed day; and as sure as morning came he found that his
unseen enemies had kept their register, and had marked up in some
conspicuous position how many days were still left to him out of the
month of grace. Sometimes the fatal numbers appeared upon the walls,
sometimes upon the floors, occasionally they were on small placards
stuck upon the garden gate or the railings. With all his vigilance John
Ferrier could not discover whence these daily warnings proceeded. A
horror which was almost superstitious came upon him at the sight of
them. He became haggard and restless, and his eyes had the troubled look
of some hunted creature. He had but one hope in life now, and that was
for the arrival of the young hunter from Nevada.

Twenty had changed to fifteen and fifteen to ten, but there was no news
of the absentee. One by one the numbers dwindled down, and still there
came no sign of him. Whenever a horseman clattered down the road, or a
driver shouted at his team, the old farmer hurried to the gate thinking
that help had arrived at last. At last, when he saw five give way to
four and that again to three, he lost heart, and abandoned all hope of
escape. Single-handed, and with his limited knowledge of the mountains
which surrounded the settlement, he knew that he was powerless. The
more-frequented roads were strictly watched and guarded, and none could
pass along them without an order from the Council. Turn which way he
would, there appeared to be no avoiding the blow which hung over him.
Yet the old man never wavered in his resolution to part with life itself
before he consented to what he regarded as his daughter’s dishonour.

He was sitting alone one evening pondering deeply over his troubles, and
searching vainly for some way out of them. That morning had shown the
figure 2 upon the wall of his house, and the next day would be the last
of the allotted time. What was to happen then? All manner of vague and
terrible fancies filled his imagination. And his daughter--what was to
become of her after he was gone? Was there no escape from the invisible
network which was drawn all round them. He sank his head upon the table
and sobbed at the thought of his own impotence.

What was that? In the silence he heard a gentle scratching sound--low,
but very distinct in the quiet of the night. It came from the door of
the house. Ferrier crept into the hall and listened intently. There
was a pause for a few moments, and then the low insidious sound was
repeated. Someone was evidently tapping very gently upon one of the
panels of the door. Was it some midnight assassin who had come to carry
out the murderous orders of the secret tribunal? Or was it some agent
who was marking up that the last day of grace had arrived. John Ferrier
felt that instant death would be better than the suspense which shook
his nerves and chilled his heart. Springing forward he drew the bolt and
threw the door open.

Outside all was calm and quiet. The night was fine, and the stars were
twinkling brightly overhead. The little front garden lay before the
farmer’s eyes bounded by the fence and gate, but neither there nor on
the road was any human being to be seen. With a sigh of relief, Ferrier
looked to right and to left, until happening to glance straight down at
his own feet he saw to his astonishment a man lying flat upon his face
upon the ground, with arms and legs all asprawl.

So unnerved was he at the sight that he leaned up against the wall with
his hand to his throat to stifle his inclination to call out. His first
thought was that the prostrate figure was that of some wounded or dying
man, but as he watched it he saw it writhe along the ground and into the
hall with the rapidity and noiselessness of a serpent. Once within the
house the man sprang to his feet, closed the door, and revealed to the
astonished farmer the fierce face and resolute expression of Jefferson
Hope.

“Good God!” gasped John Ferrier. “How you scared me! Whatever made you
come in like that.”

“Give me food,” the other said, hoarsely. “I have had no time for bite
or sup for eight-and-forty hours.” He flung himself upon the [21] cold
meat and bread which were still lying upon the table from his host’s
supper, and devoured it voraciously. “Does Lucy bear up well?” he asked,
when he had satisfied his hunger.

“Yes. She does not know the danger,” her father answered.

“That is well. The house is watched on every side. That is why I crawled
my way up to it. They may be darned sharp, but they’re not quite sharp
enough to catch a Washoe hunter.”

John Ferrier felt a different man now that he realized that he had
a devoted ally. He seized the young man’s leathery hand and wrung it
cordially. “You’re a man to be proud of,” he said. “There are not many
who would come to share our danger and our troubles.”

“You’ve hit it there, pard,” the young hunter answered. “I have a
respect for you, but if you were alone in this business I’d think twice
before I put my head into such a hornet’s nest. It’s Lucy that brings me
here, and before harm comes on her I guess there will be one less o’ the
Hope family in Utah.”

“What are we to do?”

“To-morrow is your last day, and unless you act to-night you are lost.
I have a mule and two horses waiting in the Eagle Ravine. How much money
have you?”

“Two thousand dollars in gold, and five in notes.”

“That will do. I have as much more to add to it. We must push for Carson
City through the mountains. You had best wake Lucy. It is as well that
the servants do not sleep in the house.”

While Ferrier was absent, preparing his daughter for the approaching
journey, Jefferson Hope packed all the eatables that he could find into
a small parcel, and filled a stoneware jar with water, for he knew by
experience that the mountain wells were few and far between. He had
hardly completed his arrangements before the farmer returned with his
daughter all dressed and ready for a start. The greeting between the
lovers was warm, but brief, for minutes were precious, and there was
much to be done.

“We must make our start at once,” said Jefferson Hope, speaking in a low
but resolute voice, like one who realizes the greatness of the peril,
but has steeled his heart to meet it. “The front and back entrances are
watched, but with caution we may get away through the side window and
across the fields. Once on the road we are only two miles from the
Ravine where the horses are waiting. By daybreak we should be half-way
through the mountains.”

“What if we are stopped,” asked Ferrier.

Hope slapped the revolver butt which protruded from the front of his
tunic. “If they are too many for us we shall take two or three of them
with us,” he said with a sinister smile.

The lights inside the house had all been extinguished, and from the
darkened window Ferrier peered over the fields which had been his own,
and which he was now about to abandon for ever. He had long nerved
himself to the sacrifice, however, and the thought of the honour and
happiness of his daughter outweighed any regret at his ruined fortunes.
All looked so peaceful and happy, the rustling trees and the broad
silent stretch of grain-land, that it was difficult to realize that
the spirit of murder lurked through it all. Yet the white face and set
expression of the young hunter showed that in his approach to the house
he had seen enough to satisfy him upon that head.

Ferrier carried the bag of gold and notes, Jefferson Hope had the scanty
provisions and water, while Lucy had a small bundle containing a few
of her more valued possessions. Opening the window very slowly and
carefully, they waited until a dark cloud had somewhat obscured the
night, and then one by one passed through into the little garden. With
bated breath and crouching figures they stumbled across it, and gained
the shelter of the hedge, which they skirted until they came to the gap
which opened into the cornfields. They had just reached this point when
the young man seized his two companions and dragged them down into the
shadow, where they lay silent and trembling.

It was as well that his prairie training had given Jefferson Hope the
ears of a lynx. He and his friends had hardly crouched down before the
melancholy hooting of a mountain owl was heard within a few yards
of them, which was immediately answered by another hoot at a small
distance. At the same moment a vague shadowy figure emerged from the
gap for which they had been making, and uttered the plaintive signal cry
again, on which a second man appeared out of the obscurity.

“To-morrow at midnight,” said the first who appeared to be in authority.
“When the Whip-poor-Will calls three times.”

“It is well,” returned the other. “Shall I tell Brother Drebber?”

“Pass it on to him, and from him to the others. Nine to seven!”

“Seven to five!” repeated the other, and the two figures flitted away
in different directions. Their concluding words had evidently been some
form of sign and countersign. The instant that their footsteps had died
away in the distance, Jefferson Hope sprang to his feet, and helping his
companions through the gap, led the way across the fields at the top
of his speed, supporting and half-carrying the girl when her strength
appeared to fail her.

“Hurry on! hurry on!” he gasped from time to time. “We are through the
line of sentinels. Everything depends on speed. Hurry on!”

Once on the high road they made rapid progress. Only once did they
meet anyone, and then they managed to slip into a field, and so avoid
recognition. Before reaching the town the hunter branched away into a
rugged and narrow footpath which led to the mountains. Two dark jagged
peaks loomed above them through the darkness, and the defile which led
between them was the Eagle Cañon in which the horses were awaiting them.
With unerring instinct Jefferson Hope picked his way among the great
boulders and along the bed of a dried-up watercourse, until he came to
the retired corner, screened with rocks, where the faithful animals had
been picketed. The girl was placed upon the mule, and old Ferrier upon
one of the horses, with his money-bag, while Jefferson Hope led the
other along the precipitous and dangerous path.

It was a bewildering route for anyone who was not accustomed to face
Nature in her wildest moods. On the one side a great crag towered up a
thousand feet or more, black, stern, and menacing, with long basaltic
columns upon its rugged surface like the ribs of some petrified monster.
On the other hand a wild chaos of boulders and debris made all advance
impossible. Between the two ran the irregular track, so narrow in places
that they had to travel in Indian file, and so rough that only practised
riders could have traversed it at all. Yet in spite of all dangers and
difficulties, the hearts of the fugitives were light within them,
for every step increased the distance between them and the terrible
despotism from which they were flying.

They soon had a proof, however, that they were still within the
jurisdiction of the Saints. They had reached the very wildest and most
desolate portion of the pass when the girl gave a startled cry, and
pointed upwards. On a rock which overlooked the track, showing out dark
and plain against the sky, there stood a solitary sentinel. He saw them
as soon as they perceived him, and his military challenge of “Who goes
there?” rang through the silent ravine.

“Travellers for Nevada,” said Jefferson Hope, with his hand upon the
rifle which hung by his saddle.

They could see the lonely watcher fingering his gun, and peering down at
them as if dissatisfied at their reply.

“By whose permission?” he asked.

“The Holy Four,” answered Ferrier. His Mormon experiences had taught him
that that was the highest authority to which he could refer.

“Nine from seven,” cried the sentinel.

“Seven from five,” returned Jefferson Hope promptly, remembering the
countersign which he had heard in the garden.

“Pass, and the Lord go with you,” said the voice from above. Beyond his
post the path broadened out, and the horses were able to break into a
trot. Looking back, they could see the solitary watcher leaning upon
his gun, and knew that they had passed the outlying post of the chosen
people, and that freedom lay before them.




CHAPTER V. THE AVENGING ANGELS.


ALL night their course lay through intricate defiles and over irregular
and rock-strewn paths. More than once they lost their way, but Hope’s
intimate knowledge of the mountains enabled them to regain the track
once more. When morning broke, a scene of marvellous though savage
beauty lay before them. In every direction the great snow-capped peaks
hemmed them in, peeping over each other’s shoulders to the far horizon.
So steep were the rocky banks on either side of them, that the larch
and the pine seemed to be suspended over their heads, and to need only a
gust of wind to come hurtling down upon them. Nor was the fear entirely
an illusion, for the barren valley was thickly strewn with trees and
boulders which had fallen in a similar manner. Even as they passed,
a great rock came thundering down with a hoarse rattle which woke
the echoes in the silent gorges, and startled the weary horses into a
gallop.

As the sun rose slowly above the eastern horizon, the caps of the great
mountains lit up one after the other, like lamps at a festival, until
they were all ruddy and glowing. The magnificent spectacle cheered the
hearts of the three fugitives and gave them fresh energy. At a wild
torrent which swept out of a ravine they called a halt and watered their
horses, while they partook of a hasty breakfast. Lucy and her father
would fain have rested longer, but Jefferson Hope was inexorable. “They
will be upon our track by this time,” he said. “Everything depends upon
our speed. Once safe in Carson we may rest for the remainder of our
lives.”

During the whole of that day they struggled on through the defiles, and
by evening they calculated that they were more than thirty miles from
their enemies. At night-time they chose the base of a beetling crag,
where the rocks offered some protection from the chill wind, and there
huddled together for warmth, they enjoyed a few hours’ sleep. Before
daybreak, however, they were up and on their way once more. They had
seen no signs of any pursuers, and Jefferson Hope began to think that
they were fairly out of the reach of the terrible organization whose
enmity they had incurred. He little knew how far that iron grasp could
reach, or how soon it was to close upon them and crush them.

About the middle of the second day of their flight their scanty store
of provisions began to run out. This gave the hunter little uneasiness,
however, for there was game to be had among the mountains, and he had
frequently before had to depend upon his rifle for the needs of life.
Choosing a sheltered nook, he piled together a few dried branches and
made a blazing fire, at which his companions might warm themselves, for
they were now nearly five thousand feet above the sea level, and the air
was bitter and keen. Having tethered the horses, and bade Lucy adieu,
he threw his gun over his shoulder, and set out in search of whatever
chance might throw in his way. Looking back he saw the old man and the
young girl crouching over the blazing fire, while the three animals
stood motionless in the back-ground. Then the intervening rocks hid them
from his view.

He walked for a couple of miles through one ravine after another without
success, though from the marks upon the bark of the trees, and other
indications, he judged that there were numerous bears in the vicinity.
At last, after two or three hours’ fruitless search, he was thinking of
turning back in despair, when casting his eyes upwards he saw a sight
which sent a thrill of pleasure through his heart. On the edge of a
jutting pinnacle, three or four hundred feet above him, there stood a
creature somewhat resembling a sheep in appearance, but armed with a
pair of gigantic horns. The big-horn--for so it is called--was acting,
probably, as a guardian over a flock which were invisible to the hunter;
but fortunately it was heading in the opposite direction, and had not
perceived him. Lying on his face, he rested his rifle upon a rock, and
took a long and steady aim before drawing the trigger. The animal sprang
into the air, tottered for a moment upon the edge of the precipice, and
then came crashing down into the valley beneath.

The creature was too unwieldy to lift, so the hunter contented himself
with cutting away one haunch and part of the flank. With this trophy
over his shoulder, he hastened to retrace his steps, for the evening was
already drawing in. He had hardly started, however, before he realized
the difficulty which faced him. In his eagerness he had wandered far
past the ravines which were known to him, and it was no easy matter
to pick out the path which he had taken. The valley in which he found
himself divided and sub-divided into many gorges, which were so like
each other that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other.
He followed one for a mile or more until he came to a mountain torrent
which he was sure that he had never seen before. Convinced that he had
taken the wrong turn, he tried another, but with the same result. Night
was coming on rapidly, and it was almost dark before he at last found
himself in a defile which was familiar to him. Even then it was no easy
matter to keep to the right track, for the moon had not yet risen, and
the high cliffs on either side made the obscurity more profound. Weighed
down with his burden, and weary from his exertions, he stumbled along,
keeping up his heart by the reflection that every step brought him
nearer to Lucy, and that he carried with him enough to ensure them food
for the remainder of their journey.

He had now come to the mouth of the very defile in which he had left
them. Even in the darkness he could recognize the outline of the cliffs
which bounded it. They must, he reflected, be awaiting him anxiously,
for he had been absent nearly five hours. In the gladness of his heart
he put his hands to his mouth and made the glen re-echo to a loud halloo
as a signal that he was coming. He paused and listened for an answer.
None came save his own cry, which clattered up the dreary silent
ravines, and was borne back to his ears in countless repetitions. Again
he shouted, even louder than before, and again no whisper came back from
the friends whom he had left such a short time ago. A vague, nameless
dread came over him, and he hurried onwards frantically, dropping the
precious food in his agitation.

When he turned the corner, he came full in sight of the spot where the
fire had been lit. There was still a glowing pile of wood ashes there,
but it had evidently not been tended since his departure. The same
dead silence still reigned all round. With his fears all changed to
convictions, he hurried on. There was no living creature near the
remains of the fire: animals, man, maiden, all were gone. It was only
too clear that some sudden and terrible disaster had occurred during
his absence--a disaster which had embraced them all, and yet had left no
traces behind it.

Bewildered and stunned by this blow, Jefferson Hope felt his head spin
round, and had to lean upon his rifle to save himself from falling. He
was essentially a man of action, however, and speedily recovered from
his temporary impotence. Seizing a half-consumed piece of wood from the
smouldering fire, he blew it into a flame, and proceeded with its help
to examine the little camp. The ground was all stamped down by the feet
of horses, showing that a large party of mounted men had overtaken
the fugitives, and the direction of their tracks proved that they had
afterwards turned back to Salt Lake City. Had they carried back both of
his companions with them? Jefferson Hope had almost persuaded himself
that they must have done so, when his eye fell upon an object which made
every nerve of his body tingle within him. A little way on one side of
the camp was a low-lying heap of reddish soil, which had assuredly
not been there before. There was no mistaking it for anything but a
newly-dug grave. As the young hunter approached it, he perceived that a
stick had been planted on it, with a sheet of paper stuck in the cleft
fork of it. The inscription upon the paper was brief, but to the point:

                        JOHN FERRIER,
                 FORMERLY OF SALT LAKE CITY, [22]
                    Died August 4th, 1860.

The sturdy old man, whom he had left so short a time before, was gone,
then, and this was all his epitaph. Jefferson Hope looked wildly round
to see if there was a second grave, but there was no sign of one. Lucy
had been carried back by their terrible pursuers to fulfil her original
destiny, by becoming one of the harem of the Elder’s son. As the young
fellow realized the certainty of her fate, and his own powerlessness to
prevent it, he wished that he, too, was lying with the old farmer in his
last silent resting-place.

Again, however, his active spirit shook off the lethargy which springs
from despair. If there was nothing else left to him, he could at least
devote his life to revenge. With indomitable patience and perseverance,
Jefferson Hope possessed also a power of sustained vindictiveness, which
he may have learned from the Indians amongst whom he had lived. As he
stood by the desolate fire, he felt that the only one thing which could
assuage his grief would be thorough and complete retribution, brought
by his own hand upon his enemies. His strong will and untiring energy
should, he determined, be devoted to that one end. With a grim, white
face, he retraced his steps to where he had dropped the food, and having
stirred up the smouldering fire, he cooked enough to last him for a
few days. This he made up into a bundle, and, tired as he was, he
set himself to walk back through the mountains upon the track of the
avenging angels.

For five days he toiled footsore and weary through the defiles which he
had already traversed on horseback. At night he flung himself down among
the rocks, and snatched a few hours of sleep; but before daybreak he was
always well on his way. On the sixth day, he reached the Eagle Cañon,
from which they had commenced their ill-fated flight. Thence he could
look down upon the home of the saints. Worn and exhausted, he leaned
upon his rifle and shook his gaunt hand fiercely at the silent
widespread city beneath him. As he looked at it, he observed that
there were flags in some of the principal streets, and other signs of
festivity. He was still speculating as to what this might mean when he
heard the clatter of horse’s hoofs, and saw a mounted man riding towards
him. As he approached, he recognized him as a Mormon named Cowper, to
whom he had rendered services at different times. He therefore accosted
him when he got up to him, with the object of finding out what Lucy
Ferrier’s fate had been.

“I am Jefferson Hope,” he said. “You remember me.”

The Mormon looked at him with undisguised astonishment--indeed, it was
difficult to recognize in this tattered, unkempt wanderer, with ghastly
white face and fierce, wild eyes, the spruce young hunter of former
days. Having, however, at last, satisfied himself as to his identity,
the man’s surprise changed to consternation.

“You are mad to come here,” he cried. “It is as much as my own life is
worth to be seen talking with you. There is a warrant against you from
the Holy Four for assisting the Ferriers away.”

“I don’t fear them, or their warrant,” Hope said, earnestly. “You must
know something of this matter, Cowper. I conjure you by everything you
hold dear to answer a few questions. We have always been friends. For
God’s sake, don’t refuse to answer me.”

“What is it?” the Mormon asked uneasily. “Be quick. The very rocks have
ears and the trees eyes.”

“What has become of Lucy Ferrier?”

“She was married yesterday to young Drebber. Hold up, man, hold up, you
have no life left in you.”

“Don’t mind me,” said Hope faintly. He was white to the very lips, and
had sunk down on the stone against which he had been leaning. “Married,
you say?”

“Married yesterday--that’s what those flags are for on the Endowment
House. There was some words between young Drebber and young Stangerson
as to which was to have her. They’d both been in the party that followed
them, and Stangerson had shot her father, which seemed to give him the
best claim; but when they argued it out in council, Drebber’s party was
the stronger, so the Prophet gave her over to him. No one won’t have
her very long though, for I saw death in her face yesterday. She is more
like a ghost than a woman. Are you off, then?”

“Yes, I am off,” said Jefferson Hope, who had risen from his seat. His
face might have been chiselled out of marble, so hard and set was its
expression, while its eyes glowed with a baleful light.

“Where are you going?”

“Never mind,” he answered; and, slinging his weapon over his shoulder,
strode off down the gorge and so away into the heart of the mountains to
the haunts of the wild beasts. Amongst them all there was none so fierce
and so dangerous as himself.

The prediction of the Mormon was only too well fulfilled. Whether it was
the terrible death of her father or the effects of the hateful marriage
into which she had been forced, poor Lucy never held up her head again,
but pined away and died within a month. Her sottish husband, who had
married her principally for the sake of John Ferrier’s property, did not
affect any great grief at his bereavement; but his other wives mourned
over her, and sat up with her the night before the burial, as is the
Mormon custom. They were grouped round the bier in the early hours of
the morning, when, to their inexpressible fear and astonishment,
the door was flung open, and a savage-looking, weather-beaten man in
tattered garments strode into the room. Without a glance or a word to
the cowering women, he walked up to the white silent figure which had
once contained the pure soul of Lucy Ferrier. Stooping over her, he
pressed his lips reverently to her cold forehead, and then, snatching
up her hand, he took the wedding-ring from her finger. “She shall not be
buried in that,” he cried with a fierce snarl, and before an alarm could
be raised sprang down the stairs and was gone. So strange and so brief
was the episode, that the watchers might have found it hard to believe
it themselves or persuade other people of it, had it not been for the
undeniable fact that the circlet of gold which marked her as having been
a bride had disappeared.

For some months Jefferson Hope lingered among the mountains, leading
a strange wild life, and nursing in his heart the fierce desire for
vengeance which possessed him. Tales were told in the City of the weird
figure which was seen prowling about the suburbs, and which haunted
the lonely mountain gorges. Once a bullet whistled through Stangerson’s
window and flattened itself upon the wall within a foot of him. On
another occasion, as Drebber passed under a cliff a great boulder
crashed down on him, and he only escaped a terrible death by throwing
himself upon his face. The two young Mormons were not long in
discovering the reason of these attempts upon their lives, and led
repeated expeditions into the mountains in the hope of capturing or
killing their enemy, but always without success. Then they adopted the
precaution of never going out alone or after nightfall, and of having
their houses guarded. After a time they were able to relax these
measures, for nothing was either heard or seen of their opponent, and
they hoped that time had cooled his vindictiveness.

Far from doing so, it had, if anything, augmented it. The hunter’s mind
was of a hard, unyielding nature, and the predominant idea of revenge
had taken such complete possession of it that there was no room for
any other emotion. He was, however, above all things practical. He soon
realized that even his iron constitution could not stand the incessant
strain which he was putting upon it. Exposure and want of wholesome food
were wearing him out. If he died like a dog among the mountains, what
was to become of his revenge then? And yet such a death was sure to
overtake him if he persisted. He felt that that was to play his enemy’s
game, so he reluctantly returned to the old Nevada mines, there to
recruit his health and to amass money enough to allow him to pursue his
object without privation.

His intention had been to be absent a year at the most, but a
combination of unforeseen circumstances prevented his leaving the mines
for nearly five. At the end of that time, however, his memory of
his wrongs and his craving for revenge were quite as keen as on that
memorable night when he had stood by John Ferrier’s grave. Disguised,
and under an assumed name, he returned to Salt Lake City, careless
what became of his own life, as long as he obtained what he knew to
be justice. There he found evil tidings awaiting him. There had been a
schism among the Chosen People a few months before, some of the younger
members of the Church having rebelled against the authority of the
Elders, and the result had been the secession of a certain number of the
malcontents, who had left Utah and become Gentiles. Among these had been
Drebber and Stangerson; and no one knew whither they had gone. Rumour
reported that Drebber had managed to convert a large part of his
property into money, and that he had departed a wealthy man, while his
companion, Stangerson, was comparatively poor. There was no clue at all,
however, as to their whereabouts.

Many a man, however vindictive, would have abandoned all thought of
revenge in the face of such a difficulty, but Jefferson Hope never
faltered for a moment. With the small competence he possessed, eked out
by such employment as he could pick up, he travelled from town to town
through the United States in quest of his enemies. Year passed into
year, his black hair turned grizzled, but still he wandered on, a human
bloodhound, with his mind wholly set upon the one object upon which he
had devoted his life. At last his perseverance was rewarded. It was
but a glance of a face in a window, but that one glance told him that
Cleveland in Ohio possessed the men whom he was in pursuit of. He
returned to his miserable lodgings with his plan of vengeance all
arranged. It chanced, however, that Drebber, looking from his window,
had recognized the vagrant in the street, and had read murder in
his eyes. He hurried before a justice of the peace, accompanied by
Stangerson, who had become his private secretary, and represented to him
that they were in danger of their lives from the jealousy and hatred of
an old rival. That evening Jefferson Hope was taken into custody, and
not being able to find sureties, was detained for some weeks. When at
last he was liberated, it was only to find that Drebber’s house was
deserted, and that he and his secretary had departed for Europe.

Again the avenger had been foiled, and again his concentrated hatred
urged him to continue the pursuit. Funds were wanting, however, and
for some time he had to return to work, saving every dollar for his
approaching journey. At last, having collected enough to keep life in
him, he departed for Europe, and tracked his enemies from city to
city, working his way in any menial capacity, but never overtaking the
fugitives. When he reached St. Petersburg they had departed for Paris;
and when he followed them there he learned that they had just set off
for Copenhagen. At the Danish capital he was again a few days late, for
they had journeyed on to London, where he at last succeeded in running
them to earth. As to what occurred there, we cannot do better than quote
the old hunter’s own account, as duly recorded in Dr. Watson’s Journal,
to which we are already under such obligations.




CHAPTER VI. A CONTINUATION OF THE REMINISCENCES OF JOHN WATSON, M.D.


OUR prisoner’s furious resistance did not apparently indicate any
ferocity in his disposition towards ourselves, for on finding himself
powerless, he smiled in an affable manner, and expressed his hopes that
he had not hurt any of us in the scuffle. “I guess you’re going to take
me to the police-station,” he remarked to Sherlock Holmes. “My cab’s at
the door. If you’ll loose my legs I’ll walk down to it. I’m not so light
to lift as I used to be.”

Gregson and Lestrade exchanged glances as if they thought this
proposition rather a bold one; but Holmes at once took the prisoner at
his word, and loosened the towel which we had bound round his ancles.
[23] He rose and stretched his legs, as though to assure himself that
they were free once more. I remember that I thought to myself, as I eyed
him, that I had seldom seen a more powerfully built man; and his dark
sunburned face bore an expression of determination and energy which was
as formidable as his personal strength.

“If there’s a vacant place for a chief of the police, I reckon you
are the man for it,” he said, gazing with undisguised admiration at my
fellow-lodger. “The way you kept on my trail was a caution.”

“You had better come with me,” said Holmes to the two detectives.

“I can drive you,” said Lestrade.

“Good! and Gregson can come inside with me. You too, Doctor, you have
taken an interest in the case and may as well stick to us.”

I assented gladly, and we all descended together. Our prisoner made no
attempt at escape, but stepped calmly into the cab which had been his,
and we followed him. Lestrade mounted the box, whipped up the horse, and
brought us in a very short time to our destination. We were ushered into
a small chamber where a police Inspector noted down our prisoner’s name
and the names of the men with whose murder he had been charged. The
official was a white-faced unemotional man, who went through his
duties in a dull mechanical way. “The prisoner will be put before the
magistrates in the course of the week,” he said; “in the mean time, Mr.
Jefferson Hope, have you anything that you wish to say? I must warn you
that your words will be taken down, and may be used against you.”

“I’ve got a good deal to say,” our prisoner said slowly. “I want to tell
you gentlemen all about it.”

“Hadn’t you better reserve that for your trial?” asked the Inspector.

“I may never be tried,” he answered. “You needn’t look startled. It
isn’t suicide I am thinking of. Are you a Doctor?” He turned his fierce
dark eyes upon me as he asked this last question.

“Yes; I am,” I answered.

“Then put your hand here,” he said, with a smile, motioning with his
manacled wrists towards his chest.

I did so; and became at once conscious of an extraordinary throbbing and
commotion which was going on inside. The walls of his chest seemed to
thrill and quiver as a frail building would do inside when some powerful
engine was at work. In the silence of the room I could hear a dull
humming and buzzing noise which proceeded from the same source.

“Why,” I cried, “you have an aortic aneurism!”

“That’s what they call it,” he said, placidly. “I went to a Doctor last
week about it, and he told me that it is bound to burst before many days
passed. It has been getting worse for years. I got it from over-exposure
and under-feeding among the Salt Lake Mountains. I’ve done my work now,
and I don’t care how soon I go, but I should like to leave some account
of the business behind me. I don’t want to be remembered as a common
cut-throat.”

The Inspector and the two detectives had a hurried discussion as to the
advisability of allowing him to tell his story.

“Do you consider, Doctor, that there is immediate danger?” the former
asked, [24]

“Most certainly there is,” I answered.

“In that case it is clearly our duty, in the interests of justice, to
take his statement,” said the Inspector. “You are at liberty, sir, to
give your account, which I again warn you will be taken down.”

“I’ll sit down, with your leave,” the prisoner said, suiting the action
to the word. “This aneurism of mine makes me easily tired, and the
tussle we had half an hour ago has not mended matters. I’m on the brink
of the grave, and I am not likely to lie to you. Every word I say is the
absolute truth, and how you use it is a matter of no consequence to me.”

With these words, Jefferson Hope leaned back in his chair and began
the following remarkable statement. He spoke in a calm and methodical
manner, as though the events which he narrated were commonplace enough.
I can vouch for the accuracy of the subjoined account, for I have had
access to Lestrade’s note-book, in which the prisoner’s words were taken
down exactly as they were uttered.

“It don’t much matter to you why I hated these men,” he said; “it’s
enough that they were guilty of the death of two human beings--a father
and a daughter--and that they had, therefore, forfeited their own
lives. After the lapse of time that has passed since their crime, it was
impossible for me to secure a conviction against them in any court. I
knew of their guilt though, and I determined that I should be judge,
jury, and executioner all rolled into one. You’d have done the same, if
you have any manhood in you, if you had been in my place.

“That girl that I spoke of was to have married me twenty years ago. She
was forced into marrying that same Drebber, and broke her heart over
it. I took the marriage ring from her dead finger, and I vowed that his
dying eyes should rest upon that very ring, and that his last thoughts
should be of the crime for which he was punished. I have carried
it about with me, and have followed him and his accomplice over two
continents until I caught them. They thought to tire me out, but they
could not do it. If I die to-morrow, as is likely enough, I die knowing
that my work in this world is done, and well done. They have perished,
and by my hand. There is nothing left for me to hope for, or to desire.

“They were rich and I was poor, so that it was no easy matter for me to
follow them. When I got to London my pocket was about empty, and I found
that I must turn my hand to something for my living. Driving and riding
are as natural to me as walking, so I applied at a cabowner’s office,
and soon got employment. I was to bring a certain sum a week to the
owner, and whatever was over that I might keep for myself. There was
seldom much over, but I managed to scrape along somehow. The hardest job
was to learn my way about, for I reckon that of all the mazes that ever
were contrived, this city is the most confusing. I had a map beside me
though, and when once I had spotted the principal hotels and stations, I
got on pretty well.

“It was some time before I found out where my two gentlemen were living;
but I inquired and inquired until at last I dropped across them. They
were at a boarding-house at Camberwell, over on the other side of the
river. When once I found them out I knew that I had them at my mercy. I
had grown my beard, and there was no chance of their recognizing me.
I would dog them and follow them until I saw my opportunity. I was
determined that they should not escape me again.

“They were very near doing it for all that. Go where they would about
London, I was always at their heels. Sometimes I followed them on my
cab, and sometimes on foot, but the former was the best, for then they
could not get away from me. It was only early in the morning or late
at night that I could earn anything, so that I began to get behind hand
with my employer. I did not mind that, however, as long as I could lay
my hand upon the men I wanted.

“They were very cunning, though. They must have thought that there was
some chance of their being followed, for they would never go out alone,
and never after nightfall. During two weeks I drove behind them every
day, and never once saw them separate. Drebber himself was drunk half
the time, but Stangerson was not to be caught napping. I watched them
late and early, but never saw the ghost of a chance; but I was not
discouraged, for something told me that the hour had almost come. My
only fear was that this thing in my chest might burst a little too soon
and leave my work undone.

“At last, one evening I was driving up and down Torquay Terrace, as the
street was called in which they boarded, when I saw a cab drive up to
their door. Presently some luggage was brought out, and after a time
Drebber and Stangerson followed it, and drove off. I whipped up my horse
and kept within sight of them, feeling very ill at ease, for I feared
that they were going to shift their quarters. At Euston Station they
got out, and I left a boy to hold my horse, and followed them on to the
platform. I heard them ask for the Liverpool train, and the guard answer
that one had just gone and there would not be another for some hours.
Stangerson seemed to be put out at that, but Drebber was rather pleased
than otherwise. I got so close to them in the bustle that I could hear
every word that passed between them. Drebber said that he had a little
business of his own to do, and that if the other would wait for him he
would soon rejoin him. His companion remonstrated with him, and reminded
him that they had resolved to stick together. Drebber answered that the
matter was a delicate one, and that he must go alone. I could not catch
what Stangerson said to that, but the other burst out swearing, and
reminded him that he was nothing more than his paid servant, and that he
must not presume to dictate to him. On that the Secretary gave it up
as a bad job, and simply bargained with him that if he missed the last
train he should rejoin him at Halliday’s Private Hotel; to which Drebber
answered that he would be back on the platform before eleven, and made
his way out of the station.

“The moment for which I had waited so long had at last come. I had my
enemies within my power. Together they could protect each other,
but singly they were at my mercy. I did not act, however, with undue
precipitation. My plans were already formed. There is no satisfaction in
vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes
him, and why retribution has come upon him. I had my plans arranged by
which I should have the opportunity of making the man who had wronged me
understand that his old sin had found him out. It chanced that some days
before a gentleman who had been engaged in looking over some houses in
the Brixton Road had dropped the key of one of them in my carriage. It
was claimed that same evening, and returned; but in the interval I had
taken a moulding of it, and had a duplicate constructed. By means of
this I had access to at least one spot in this great city where I could
rely upon being free from interruption. How to get Drebber to that house
was the difficult problem which I had now to solve.

“He walked down the road and went into one or two liquor shops, staying
for nearly half-an-hour in the last of them. When he came out he
staggered in his walk, and was evidently pretty well on. There was a
hansom just in front of me, and he hailed it. I followed it so close
that the nose of my horse was within a yard of his driver the whole way.
We rattled across Waterloo Bridge and through miles of streets, until,
to my astonishment, we found ourselves back in the Terrace in which he
had boarded. I could not imagine what his intention was in returning
there; but I went on and pulled up my cab a hundred yards or so from
the house. He entered it, and his hansom drove away. Give me a glass of
water, if you please. My mouth gets dry with the talking.”

I handed him the glass, and he drank it down.

“That’s better,” he said. “Well, I waited for a quarter of an hour, or
more, when suddenly there came a noise like people struggling inside the
house. Next moment the door was flung open and two men appeared, one of
whom was Drebber, and the other was a young chap whom I had never seen
before. This fellow had Drebber by the collar, and when they came to
the head of the steps he gave him a shove and a kick which sent him half
across the road. ‘You hound,’ he cried, shaking his stick at him; ‘I’ll
teach you to insult an honest girl!’ He was so hot that I think he would
have thrashed Drebber with his cudgel, only that the cur staggered away
down the road as fast as his legs would carry him. He ran as far as the
corner, and then, seeing my cab, he hailed me and jumped in. ‘Drive me
to Halliday’s Private Hotel,’ said he.

“When I had him fairly inside my cab, my heart jumped so with joy that
I feared lest at this last moment my aneurism might go wrong. I drove
along slowly, weighing in my own mind what it was best to do. I might
take him right out into the country, and there in some deserted lane
have my last interview with him. I had almost decided upon this, when he
solved the problem for me. The craze for drink had seized him again, and
he ordered me to pull up outside a gin palace. He went in, leaving word
that I should wait for him. There he remained until closing time, and
when he came out he was so far gone that I knew the game was in my own
hands.

“Don’t imagine that I intended to kill him in cold blood. It would only
have been rigid justice if I had done so, but I could not bring myself
to do it. I had long determined that he should have a show for his life
if he chose to take advantage of it. Among the many billets which I
have filled in America during my wandering life, I was once janitor and
sweeper out of the laboratory at York College. One day the professor was
lecturing on poisions, [25] and he showed his students some alkaloid,
as he called it, which he had extracted from some South American arrow
poison, and which was so powerful that the least grain meant instant
death. I spotted the bottle in which this preparation was kept, and when
they were all gone, I helped myself to a little of it. I was a fairly
good dispenser, so I worked this alkaloid into small, soluble pills, and
each pill I put in a box with a similar pill made without the poison.
I determined at the time that when I had my chance, my gentlemen should
each have a draw out of one of these boxes, while I ate the pill that
remained. It would be quite as deadly, and a good deal less noisy than
firing across a handkerchief. From that day I had always my pill boxes
about with me, and the time had now come when I was to use them.

“It was nearer one than twelve, and a wild, bleak night, blowing hard
and raining in torrents. Dismal as it was outside, I was glad within--so
glad that I could have shouted out from pure exultation. If any of you
gentlemen have ever pined for a thing, and longed for it during twenty
long years, and then suddenly found it within your reach, you would
understand my feelings. I lit a cigar, and puffed at it to steady my
nerves, but my hands were trembling, and my temples throbbing with
excitement. As I drove, I could see old John Ferrier and sweet Lucy
looking at me out of the darkness and smiling at me, just as plain as I
see you all in this room. All the way they were ahead of me, one on each
side of the horse until I pulled up at the house in the Brixton Road.

“There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the
dripping of the rain. When I looked in at the window, I found Drebber
all huddled together in a drunken sleep. I shook him by the arm, ‘It’s
time to get out,’ I said.

“‘All right, cabby,’ said he.

“I suppose he thought we had come to the hotel that he had mentioned,
for he got out without another word, and followed me down the garden.
I had to walk beside him to keep him steady, for he was still a little
top-heavy. When we came to the door, I opened it, and led him into the
front room. I give you my word that all the way, the father and the
daughter were walking in front of us.

“‘It’s infernally dark,’ said he, stamping about.

“‘We’ll soon have a light,’ I said, striking a match and putting it to
a wax candle which I had brought with me. ‘Now, Enoch Drebber,’ I
continued, turning to him, and holding the light to my own face, ‘who am
I?’

“He gazed at me with bleared, drunken eyes for a moment, and then I
saw a horror spring up in them, and convulse his whole features, which
showed me that he knew me. He staggered back with a livid face, and I
saw the perspiration break out upon his brow, while his teeth chattered
in his head. At the sight, I leaned my back against the door and laughed
loud and long. I had always known that vengeance would be sweet, but I
had never hoped for the contentment of soul which now possessed me.

“‘You dog!’ I said; ‘I have hunted you from Salt Lake City to St.
Petersburg, and you have always escaped me. Now, at last your wanderings
have come to an end, for either you or I shall never see to-morrow’s sun
rise.’ He shrunk still further away as I spoke, and I could see on his
face that he thought I was mad. So I was for the time. The pulses in my
temples beat like sledge-hammers, and I believe I would have had a fit
of some sort if the blood had not gushed from my nose and relieved me.

“‘What do you think of Lucy Ferrier now?’ I cried, locking the door, and
shaking the key in his face. ‘Punishment has been slow in coming, but it
has overtaken you at last.’ I saw his coward lips tremble as I spoke. He
would have begged for his life, but he knew well that it was useless.

“‘Would you murder me?’ he stammered.

“‘There is no murder,’ I answered. ‘Who talks of murdering a mad dog?
What mercy had you upon my poor darling, when you dragged her from her
slaughtered father, and bore her away to your accursed and shameless
harem.’

“‘It was not I who killed her father,’ he cried.

“‘But it was you who broke her innocent heart,’ I shrieked, thrusting
the box before him. ‘Let the high God judge between us. Choose and
eat. There is death in one and life in the other. I shall take what you
leave. Let us see if there is justice upon the earth, or if we are ruled
by chance.’

“He cowered away with wild cries and prayers for mercy, but I drew my
knife and held it to his throat until he had obeyed me. Then I swallowed
the other, and we stood facing one another in silence for a minute or
more, waiting to see which was to live and which was to die. Shall I
ever forget the look which came over his face when the first warning
pangs told him that the poison was in his system? I laughed as I saw
it, and held Lucy’s marriage ring in front of his eyes. It was but for
a moment, for the action of the alkaloid is rapid. A spasm of pain
contorted his features; he threw his hands out in front of him,
staggered, and then, with a hoarse cry, fell heavily upon the floor. I
turned him over with my foot, and placed my hand upon his heart. There
was no movement. He was dead!

“The blood had been streaming from my nose, but I had taken no notice of
it. I don’t know what it was that put it into my head to write upon the
wall with it. Perhaps it was some mischievous idea of setting the police
upon a wrong track, for I felt light-hearted and cheerful. I remembered
a German being found in New York with RACHE written up above him, and it
was argued at the time in the newspapers that the secret societies must
have done it. I guessed that what puzzled the New Yorkers would puzzle
the Londoners, so I dipped my finger in my own blood and printed it on
a convenient place on the wall. Then I walked down to my cab and found
that there was nobody about, and that the night was still very wild. I
had driven some distance when I put my hand into the pocket in which
I usually kept Lucy’s ring, and found that it was not there. I was
thunderstruck at this, for it was the only memento that I had of her.
Thinking that I might have dropped it when I stooped over Drebber’s
body, I drove back, and leaving my cab in a side street, I went boldly
up to the house--for I was ready to dare anything rather than lose
the ring. When I arrived there, I walked right into the arms of a
police-officer who was coming out, and only managed to disarm his
suspicions by pretending to be hopelessly drunk.

“That was how Enoch Drebber came to his end. All I had to do then was
to do as much for Stangerson, and so pay off John Ferrier’s debt. I knew
that he was staying at Halliday’s Private Hotel, and I hung about all
day, but he never came out. [26] fancy that he suspected something when
Drebber failed to put in an appearance. He was cunning, was Stangerson,
and always on his guard. If he thought he could keep me off by staying
indoors he was very much mistaken. I soon found out which was the window
of his bedroom, and early next morning I took advantage of some ladders
which were lying in the lane behind the hotel, and so made my way into
his room in the grey of the dawn. I woke him up and told him that the
hour had come when he was to answer for the life he had taken so long
before. I described Drebber’s death to him, and I gave him the same
choice of the poisoned pills. Instead of grasping at the chance of
safety which that offered him, he sprang from his bed and flew at my
throat. In self-defence I stabbed him to the heart. It would have been
the same in any case, for Providence would never have allowed his guilty
hand to pick out anything but the poison.

“I have little more to say, and it’s as well, for I am about done up.
I went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until I
could save enough to take me back to America. I was standing in the
yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called
Jefferson Hope, and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 221B,
Baker Street. I went round, suspecting no harm, and the next thing I
knew, this young man here had the bracelets on my wrists, and as neatly
snackled [27] as ever I saw in my life. That’s the whole of my story,
gentlemen. You may consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that I am
just as much an officer of justice as you are.”

So thrilling had the man’s narrative been, and his manner was so
impressive that we had sat silent and absorbed. Even the professional
detectives, _blasé_ as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to
be keenly interested in the man’s story. When he finished we sat for
some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching
of Lestrade’s pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his shorthand
account.

“There is only one point on which I should like a little more
information,” Sherlock Holmes said at last. “Who was your accomplice who
came for the ring which I advertised?”

The prisoner winked at my friend jocosely. “I can tell my own secrets,”
 he said, “but I don’t get other people into trouble. I saw your
advertisement, and I thought it might be a plant, or it might be the
ring which I wanted. My friend volunteered to go and see. I think you’ll
own he did it smartly.”

“Not a doubt of that,” said Holmes heartily.

“Now, gentlemen,” the Inspector remarked gravely, “the forms of the law
must be complied with. On Thursday the prisoner will be brought before
the magistrates, and your attendance will be required. Until then I will
be responsible for him.” He rang the bell as he spoke, and Jefferson
Hope was led off by a couple of warders, while my friend and I made our
way out of the Station and took a cab back to Baker Street.




CHAPTER VII. THE CONCLUSION.


WE had all been warned to appear before the magistrates upon the
Thursday; but when the Thursday came there was no occasion for our
testimony. A higher Judge had taken the matter in hand, and Jefferson
Hope had been summoned before a tribunal where strict justice would
be meted out to him. On the very night after his capture the aneurism
burst, and he was found in the morning stretched upon the floor of the
cell, with a placid smile upon his face, as though he had been able
in his dying moments to look back upon a useful life, and on work well
done.

“Gregson and Lestrade will be wild about his death,” Holmes remarked, as
we chatted it over next evening. “Where will their grand advertisement
be now?”

“I don’t see that they had very much to do with his capture,” I
answered.

“What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence,” returned my
companion, bitterly. “The question is, what can you make people believe
that you have done. Never mind,” he continued, more brightly, after a
pause. “I would not have missed the investigation for anything. There
has been no better case within my recollection. Simple as it was, there
were several most instructive points about it.”

“Simple!” I ejaculated.

“Well, really, it can hardly be described as otherwise,” said Sherlock
Holmes, smiling at my surprise. “The proof of its intrinsic simplicity
is, that without any help save a few very ordinary deductions I was able
to lay my hand upon the criminal within three days.”

“That is true,” said I.

“I have already explained to you that what is out of the common is
usually a guide rather than a hindrance. In solving a problem of this
sort, the grand thing is to be able to reason backwards. That is a very
useful accomplishment, and a very easy one, but people do not practise
it much. In the every-day affairs of life it is more useful to reason
forwards, and so the other comes to be neglected. There are fifty who
can reason synthetically for one who can reason analytically.”

“I confess,” said I, “that I do not quite follow you.”

“I hardly expected that you would. Let me see if I can make it clearer.
Most people, if you describe a train of events to them, will tell you
what the result would be. They can put those events together in their
minds, and argue from them that something will come to pass. There are
few people, however, who, if you told them a result, would be able to
evolve from their own inner consciousness what the steps were which led
up to that result. This power is what I mean when I talk of reasoning
backwards, or analytically.”

“I understand,” said I.

“Now this was a case in which you were given the result and had to
find everything else for yourself. Now let me endeavour to show you the
different steps in my reasoning. To begin at the beginning. I approached
the house, as you know, on foot, and with my mind entirely free from all
impressions. I naturally began by examining the roadway, and there, as I
have already explained to you, I saw clearly the marks of a cab, which,
I ascertained by inquiry, must have been there during the night. I
satisfied myself that it was a cab and not a private carriage by the
narrow gauge of the wheels. The ordinary London growler is considerably
less wide than a gentleman’s brougham.

“This was the first point gained. I then walked slowly down the garden
path, which happened to be composed of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable
for taking impressions. No doubt it appeared to you to be a mere
trampled line of slush, but to my trained eyes every mark upon its
surface had a meaning. There is no branch of detective science which
is so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.
Happily, I have always laid great stress upon it, and much practice
has made it second nature to me. I saw the heavy footmarks of the
constables, but I saw also the track of the two men who had first passed
through the garden. It was easy to tell that they had been before the
others, because in places their marks had been entirely obliterated by
the others coming upon the top of them. In this way my second link was
formed, which told me that the nocturnal visitors were two in number,
one remarkable for his height (as I calculated from the length of his
stride), and the other fashionably dressed, to judge from the small and
elegant impression left by his boots.

“On entering the house this last inference was confirmed. My well-booted
man lay before me. The tall one, then, had done the murder, if murder
there was. There was no wound upon the dead man’s person, but the
agitated expression upon his face assured me that he had foreseen his
fate before it came upon him. Men who die from heart disease, or any
sudden natural cause, never by any chance exhibit agitation upon their
features. Having sniffed the dead man’s lips I detected a slightly sour
smell, and I came to the conclusion that he had had poison forced upon
him. Again, I argued that it had been forced upon him from the hatred
and fear expressed upon his face. By the method of exclusion, I had
arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would meet the facts.
Do not imagine that it was a very unheard of idea. The forcible
administration of poison is by no means a new thing in criminal annals.
The cases of Dolsky in Odessa, and of Leturier in Montpellier, will
occur at once to any toxicologist.

“And now came the great question as to the reason why. Robbery had not
been the object of the murder, for nothing was taken. Was it politics,
then, or was it a woman? That was the question which confronted me.
I was inclined from the first to the latter supposition. Political
assassins are only too glad to do their work and to fly. This murder
had, on the contrary, been done most deliberately, and the perpetrator
had left his tracks all over the room, showing that he had been there
all the time. It must have been a private wrong, and not a political
one, which called for such a methodical revenge. When the inscription
was discovered upon the wall I was more inclined than ever to my
opinion. The thing was too evidently a blind. When the ring was found,
however, it settled the question. Clearly the murderer had used it to
remind his victim of some dead or absent woman. It was at this point
that I asked Gregson whether he had enquired in his telegram to
Cleveland as to any particular point in Mr. Drebber’s former career. He
answered, you remember, in the negative.

“I then proceeded to make a careful examination of the room, which
confirmed me in my opinion as to the murderer’s height, and furnished me
with the additional details as to the Trichinopoly cigar and the length
of his nails. I had already come to the conclusion, since there were no
signs of a struggle, that the blood which covered the floor had burst
from the murderer’s nose in his excitement. I could perceive that the
track of blood coincided with the track of his feet. It is seldom that
any man, unless he is very full-blooded, breaks out in this way through
emotion, so I hazarded the opinion that the criminal was probably a
robust and ruddy-faced man. Events proved that I had judged correctly.

“Having left the house, I proceeded to do what Gregson had neglected. I
telegraphed to the head of the police at Cleveland, limiting my enquiry
to the circumstances connected with the marriage of Enoch Drebber. The
answer was conclusive. It told me that Drebber had already applied for
the protection of the law against an old rival in love, named Jefferson
Hope, and that this same Hope was at present in Europe. I knew now that
I held the clue to the mystery in my hand, and all that remained was to
secure the murderer.

“I had already determined in my own mind that the man who had walked
into the house with Drebber, was none other than the man who had driven
the cab. The marks in the road showed me that the horse had wandered
on in a way which would have been impossible had there been anyone in
charge of it. Where, then, could the driver be, unless he were inside
the house? Again, it is absurd to suppose that any sane man would carry
out a deliberate crime under the very eyes, as it were, of a third
person, who was sure to betray him. Lastly, supposing one man wished
to dog another through London, what better means could he adopt than
to turn cabdriver. All these considerations led me to the irresistible
conclusion that Jefferson Hope was to be found among the jarveys of the
Metropolis.

“If he had been one there was no reason to believe that he had ceased to
be. On the contrary, from his point of view, any sudden change would be
likely to draw attention to himself. He would, probably, for a time at
least, continue to perform his duties. There was no reason to suppose
that he was going under an assumed name. Why should he change his name
in a country where no one knew his original one? I therefore organized
my Street Arab detective corps, and sent them systematically to every
cab proprietor in London until they ferreted out the man that I wanted.
How well they succeeded, and how quickly I took advantage of it, are
still fresh in your recollection. The murder of Stangerson was an
incident which was entirely unexpected, but which could hardly in
any case have been prevented. Through it, as you know, I came into
possession of the pills, the existence of which I had already surmised.
You see the whole thing is a chain of logical sequences without a break
or flaw.”

“It is wonderful!” I cried. “Your merits should be publicly recognized.
You should publish an account of the case. If you won’t, I will for
you.”

“You may do what you like, Doctor,” he answered. “See here!” he
continued, handing a paper over to me, “look at this!”

It was the _Echo_ for the day, and the paragraph to which he pointed was
devoted to the case in question.

“The public,” it said, “have lost a sensational treat through the sudden
death of the man Hope, who was suspected of the murder of Mr. Enoch
Drebber and of Mr. Joseph Stangerson. The details of the case will
probably be never known now, though we are informed upon good authority
that the crime was the result of an old standing and romantic feud, in
which love and Mormonism bore a part. It seems that both the victims
belonged, in their younger days, to the Latter Day Saints, and Hope, the
deceased prisoner, hails also from Salt Lake City. If the case has had
no other effect, it, at least, brings out in the most striking manner
the efficiency of our detective police force, and will serve as a lesson
to all foreigners that they will do wisely to settle their feuds at
home, and not to carry them on to British soil. It is an open secret
that the credit of this smart capture belongs entirely to the well-known
Scotland Yard officials, Messrs. Lestrade and Gregson. The man was
apprehended, it appears, in the rooms of a certain Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
who has himself, as an amateur, shown some talent in the detective
line, and who, with such instructors, may hope in time to attain to some
degree of their skill. It is expected that a testimonial of some sort
will be presented to the two officers as a fitting recognition of their
services.”

“Didn’t I tell you so when we started?” cried Sherlock Holmes with a
laugh. “That’s the result of all our Study in Scarlet: to get them a
testimonial!”

“Never mind,” I answered, “I have all the facts in my journal, and the
public shall know them. In the meantime you must make yourself contented
by the consciousness of success, like the Roman miser--

            “‘Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
       Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.’”





ORIGINAL TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


[Footnote 1: Frontispiece, with the caption: “He examined with his glass
the word upon the wall, going over every letter of it with the most
minute exactness.” (_Page_ 23.)]

[Footnote 2: “JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.”: the initial letters in the name are
capitalized, the other letters in small caps. All chapter titles are in
small caps. The initial words of chapters are in small caps with first
letter capitalized.]

[Footnote 3: “lodgings.”: the period should be a comma, as in later
editions.]

[Footnote 4: “hoemoglobin”: should be haemoglobin. The o&e are
concatenated.]

[Footnote 5: “221B”: the B is in small caps]

[Footnote 6: “THE LAURISTON GARDEN MYSTERY”: the table-of-contents
lists this chapter as “...GARDENS MYSTERY”--plural, and probably more
correct.]

[Footnote 7: “brought."”: the text has an extra double-quote mark]

[Footnote 8: “individual--“: illustration this page, with the
caption: “As he spoke, his nimble fingers were flying here, there, and
everywhere.”]

[Footnote 9: “manoeuvres”: the o&e are concatenated.]

[Footnote 10: “Patent leathers”: the hyphen is missing.]

[Footnote 11: “condonment”: should be condonement.]

[Footnote 13: “wages.”: ending quote is missing.]

[Footnote 14: “the first.”: ending quote is missing.]

[Footnote 15: “make much of...”: Other editions complete this sentence
with an “it.” But there is a gap in the text at this point, and, given
the context, it may have actually been an interjection, a dash. The gap
is just the right size for the characters “it.” and the start of a new
sentence, or for a “----“]

[Footnote 16: “tho cushion”: “tho” should be “the”]

[Footnote 19: “shoving”: later editions have “showing”. The original is
clearly superior.]

[Footnote 20: “stared about...”: illustration, with the caption: “One of
them seized the little girl, and hoisted her upon his shoulder.”]

[Footnote 21: “upon the”: illustration, with the caption: “As he watched
it he saw it writhe along the ground.”]

[Footnote 22: “FORMERLY...”: F,S,L,C in caps, other letters in this line
in small caps.]

[Footnote 23: “ancles”: ankles.]

[Footnote 24: “asked,”: should be “asked.”]

[Footnote 25: “poisions”: should be “poisons”]

[Footnote 26: “...fancy”: should be “I fancy”. There is a gap in the
text.]

[Footnote 27: “snackled”: “shackled” in later texts.]

[Footnote 29: Heber C. Kemball, in one of his sermons, alludes to his
hundred wives under this endearing epithet.]





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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte


This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org





Title: Wuthering Heights


Author: Emily Bronte



Release Date: April 19, 2007  [eBook #768]
[This file last updated on August 28, 2010]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WUTHERING HEIGHTS***




Transcribed from the 1910 John Murray edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org





WUTHERING HEIGHTS


CHAPTER I


1801.--I have just returned from a visit to my landlord--the solitary
neighbour that I shall be troubled with.  This is certainly a beautiful
country!  In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a
situation so completely removed from the stir of society.  A perfect
misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair
to divide the desolation between us.  A capital fellow!  He little
imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes
withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his
fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in
his waistcoat, as I announced my name.

'Mr. Heathcliff?' I said.

A nod was the answer.

'Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir.  I do myself the honour of calling
as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not
inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of
Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts--'

'Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,' he interrupted, wincing.  'I should
not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it--walk in!'

The 'walk in' was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment,
'Go to the Deuce:' even the gate over which he leant manifested no
sympathising movement to the words; and I think that circumstance
determined me to accept the invitation: I felt interested in a man who
seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself.

When he saw my horse's breast fairly pushing the barrier, he did put out
his hand to unchain it, and then sullenly preceded me up the causeway,
calling, as we entered the court,--'Joseph, take Mr. Lockwood's horse;
and bring up some wine.'

'Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose,' was the
reflection suggested by this compound order.  'No wonder the grass grows
up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedge-cutters.'

Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man: very old, perhaps, though hale
and sinewy.  'The Lord help us!' he soliloquised in an undertone of
peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime,
in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of
divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no
reference to my unexpected advent.

Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling.  'Wuthering'
being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric
tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.  Pure, bracing
ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess
the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant
of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt
thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.
Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow
windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large
jutting stones.

Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque
carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door;
above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless
little boys, I detected the date '1500,' and the name 'Hareton Earnshaw.'
I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the
place from the surly owner; but his attitude at the door appeared to
demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to
aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium.

One stop brought us into the family sitting-room, without any
introductory lobby or passage: they call it here 'the house'
pre-eminently.  It includes kitchen and parlour, generally; but I believe
at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether into
another quarter: at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a
clatter of culinary utensils, deep within; and I observed no signs of
roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge fireplace; nor any glitter
of copper saucepans and tin cullenders on the walls.  One end, indeed,
reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter
dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after
row, on a vast oak dresser, to the very roof.  The latter had never been
under-drawn: its entire anatomy lay bare to an inquiring eye, except
where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes and clusters of legs of beef,
mutton, and ham, concealed it.  Above the chimney were sundry villainous
old guns, and a couple of horse-pistols: and, by way of ornament, three
gaudily-painted canisters disposed along its ledge.  The floor was of
smooth, white stone; the chairs, high-backed, primitive structures,
painted green: one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade.  In an
arch under the dresser reposed a huge, liver-coloured bitch pointer,
surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies; and other dogs haunted other
recesses.

The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as
belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and
stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee-breeches and gaiters.  Such
an individual seated in his arm-chair, his mug of ale frothing on the
round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles
among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner.  But Mr.
Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living.  He
is a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that
is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly,
perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an
erect and handsome figure; and rather morose.  Possibly, some people
might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride; I have a sympathetic
chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by
instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of
feeling--to manifestations of mutual kindliness.  He'll love and hate
equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved
or hated again.  No, I'm running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes
over-liberally on him.  Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar
reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he meets a would-be
acquaintance, to those which actuate me.  Let me hope my constitution is
almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a
comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy
of one.

While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea-coast, I was thrown
into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my
eyes, as long as she took no notice of me.  I 'never told my love'
vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have
guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a
return--the sweetest of all imaginable looks.  And what did I do?  I
confess it with shame--shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every
glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led
to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed
mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp.  By this curious turn of
disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how
undeserved, I alone can appreciate.

I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which
my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting
to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking
wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth
watering for a snatch.  My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl.

'You'd better let the dog alone,' growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison,
checking fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot.  'She's not
accustomed to be spoiled--not kept for a pet.'  Then, striding to a side
door, he shouted again, 'Joseph!'

Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no
intimation of ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me
_vis-a-vis_ the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs,
who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements. Not
anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but, imagining
they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged
in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy
so irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my
knees. I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us.
This proceeding aroused the whole hive: half-a-dozen four-footed fiends,
of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre.
I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying
off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I
was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household
in re-establishing peace.

Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious
phlegm: I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though
the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily, an
inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty dame, with
tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the
midst of us flourishing a frying-pan: and used that weapon, and her
tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she only
remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered
on the scene.

'What the devil is the matter?' he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I
could ill endure, after this inhospitable treatment.

'What the devil, indeed!' I muttered.  'The herd of possessed swine could
have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir.  You
might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!'

'They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing,' he remarked, putting
the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table.  'The dogs do
right to be vigilant.  Take a glass of wine?'

'No, thank you.'

'Not bitten, are you?'

'If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter.'  Heathcliff's
countenance relaxed into a grin.

'Come, come,' he said, 'you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood.  Here, take a
little wine.  Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my
dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them.  Your health,
sir?'

I bowed and returned the pledge; beginning to perceive that it would be
foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs; besides, I
felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense; since his
humour took that turn.  He--probably swayed by prudential consideration
of the folly of offending a good tenant--relaxed a little in the laconic
style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs, and introduced
what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me,--a discourse on
the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of retirement.  I
found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and before I went
home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another visit to-morrow.  He
evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion.  I shall go,
notwithstanding.  It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared
with him.




CHAPTER II


Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold.  I had half a mind to spend it
by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering
Heights.  On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.--I dine between twelve
and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture
along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that
I might be served at five)--on mounting the stairs with this lazy
intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees
surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as
she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders.  This spectacle drove
me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles' walk,
arrived at Heathcliff's garden-gate just in time to escape the first
feathery flakes of a snow-shower.

On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air
made me shiver through every limb.  Being unable to remove the chain, I
jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with
straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my
knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.

'Wretched inmates!' I ejaculated, mentally, 'you deserve perpetual
isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least, I
would not keep my doors barred in the day-time. I don't care--I will get
in!' So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently.
Vinegar-faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn.

'What are ye for?' he shouted.  'T' maister's down i' t' fowld.  Go round
by th' end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him.'

'Is there nobody inside to open the door?' I hallooed, responsively.

'There's nobbut t' missis; and shoo'll not oppen 't an ye mak' yer
flaysome dins till neeght.'

'Why?  Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?'

'Nor-ne me!  I'll hae no hend wi't,' muttered the head, vanishing.

The snow began to drive thickly.  I seized the handle to essay another
trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork,
appeared in the yard behind.  He hailed me to follow him, and, after
marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed,
pump, and pigeon-cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful
apartment where I was formerly received.  It glowed delightfully in the
radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near
the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe
the 'missis,' an individual whose existence I had never previously
suspected.  I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat.
She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained motionless and
mute.

'Rough weather!' I remarked.  'I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must
bear the consequence of your servants' leisure attendance: I had hard
work to make them hear me.'

She never opened her mouth.  I stared--she stared also: at any rate, she
kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly
embarrassing and disagreeable.

'Sit down,' said the young man, gruffly.  'He'll be in soon.'

I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this
second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning
my acquaintance.

'A beautiful animal!' I commenced again.  'Do you intend parting with the
little ones, madam?'

'They are not mine,' said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than
Heathcliff himself could have replied.

'Ah, your favourites are among these?' I continued, turning to an obscure
cushion full of something like cats.

'A strange choice of favourites!' she observed scornfully.

Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits.  I hemmed once more, and drew
closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the
evening.

'You should not have come out,' she said, rising and reaching from the
chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.

Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct
view of her whole figure and countenance.  She was slender, and
apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most
exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding;
small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging
loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in
expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my
susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn
and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there.  The
canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she
turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him
in counting his gold.

'I don't want your help,' she snapped; 'I can get them for myself.'

'I beg your pardon!' I hastened to reply.

'Were you asked to tea?' she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black
frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.

'I shall be glad to have a cup,' I answered.

'Were you asked?' she repeated.

'No,' I said, half smiling.  'You are the proper person to ask me.'

She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet;
her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child's
ready to cry.

Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby
upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me
from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some
mortal feud unavenged between us.  I began to doubt whether he were a
servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of
the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown
curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over
his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer:
still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a
domestic's assiduity in attending on the lady of the house.  In the
absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to abstain
from noticing his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the
entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure, from my
uncomfortable state.

'You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!' I exclaimed, assuming
the cheerful; 'and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if
you can afford me shelter during that space.'

'Half an hour?' he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; 'I
wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in.  Do
you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes?  People
familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I
can tell you there is no chance of a change at present.'

'Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the
Grange till morning--could you spare me one?'

'No, I could not.'

'Oh, indeed!  Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity.'

'Umph!'

'Are you going to mak' the tea?' demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting
his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.

'Is _he_ to have any?' she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.

'Get it ready, will you?' was the answer, uttered so savagely that I
started.  The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad
nature.  I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow.
When the preparations were finished, he invited me with--'Now, sir, bring
forward your chair.'  And we all, including the rustic youth, drew round
the table: an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our meal.

I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to
dispel it.  They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was
impossible, however ill-tempered they might be, that the universal scowl
they wore was their every-day countenance.

'It is strange,' I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea
and receiving another--'it is strange how custom can mould our tastes and
ideas: many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of
such complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr. Heathcliff; yet,
I'll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your
amiable lady as the presiding genius over your home and heart--'

'My amiable lady!' he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his
face.  'Where is she--my amiable lady?'

'Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.'

'Well, yes--oh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of
ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even
when her body is gone.  Is that it?'

Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it.  I might have
seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to
make it likely that they were man and wife.  One was about forty: a
period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being
married for love by girls: that dream is reserved for the solace of our
declining years.  The other did not look seventeen.

Then it flashed upon me--'The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea
out of a basin and eating his bread with unwashed hands, may be her
husband: Heathcliff junior, of course.  Here is the consequence of being
buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer
ignorance that better individuals existed!  A sad pity--I must beware how
I cause her to regret her choice.'  The last reflection may seem
conceited; it was not.  My neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive;
I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive.

'Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,' said Heathcliff, corroborating
my surmise.  He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction: a
look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that
will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.

'Ah, certainly--I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the
beneficent fairy,' I remarked, turning to my neighbour.

This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his
fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault.  But he seemed to
recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a brutal curse,
muttered on my behalf: which, however, I took care not to notice.

'Unhappy in your conjectures, sir,' observed my host; 'we neither of us
have the privilege of owning your good fairy; her mate is dead.  I said
she was my daughter-in-law: therefore, she must have married my son.'

'And this young man is--'

'Not my son, assuredly.'

Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to
attribute the paternity of that bear to him.

'My name is Hareton Earnshaw,' growled the other; 'and I'd counsel you to
respect it!'

'I've shown no disrespect,' was my reply, laughing internally at the
dignity with which he announced himself.

He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear
I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible.
I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle.
The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the
glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to be cautious how I
ventured under those rafters a third time.

The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of
sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather.  A
sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and
hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.

'I don't think it possible for me to get home now without a guide,' I
could not help exclaiming.  'The roads will be buried already; and, if
they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance.'

'Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch.  They'll be
covered if left in the fold all night: and put a plank before them,' said
Heathcliff.

'How must I do?' I continued, with rising irritation.

There was no reply to my question; and on looking round I saw only Joseph
bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning
over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of matches which
had fallen from the chimney-piece as she restored the tea-canister to its
place.  The former, when he had deposited his burden, took a critical
survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated out--'Aw wonder how yah
can faishion to stand thear i' idleness un war, when all on 'ems goan
out!  Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking--yah'll niver mend o'yer
ill ways, but goa raight to t' divil, like yer mother afore ye!'

I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to
me; and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an
intention of kicking him out of the door.  Mrs. Heathcliff, however,
checked me by her answer.

'You scandalous old hypocrite!' she replied.  'Are you not afraid of
being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil's name?  I warn
you to refrain from provoking me, or I'll ask your abduction as a special
favour!  Stop! look here, Joseph,' she continued, taking a long, dark
book from a shelf; 'I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black
Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it.  The red cow
didn't die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among
providential visitations!'

'Oh, wicked, wicked!' gasped the elder; 'may the Lord deliver us from
evil!'

'No, reprobate! you are a castaway--be off, or I'll hurt you seriously!
I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay! and the first who passes the
limits I fix shall--I'll not say what he shall be done to--but, you'll
see!  Go, I'm looking at you!'

The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and
Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and
ejaculating 'wicked' as he went.  I thought her conduct must be prompted
by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to
interest her in my distress.

'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said earnestly, 'you must excuse me for troubling
you.  I presume, because, with that face, I'm sure you cannot help being
good-hearted.  Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way
home: I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get
to London!'

'Take the road you came,' she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair,
with a candle, and the long book open before her.  'It is brief advice,
but as sound as I can give.'

'Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of
snow, your conscience won't whisper that it is partly your fault?'

'How so?  I cannot escort you.  They wouldn't let me go to the end of the
garden wall.'

'_You_!  I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my
convenience, on such a night,' I cried.  'I want you to tell me my way,
not to _show_ it: or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide.'

'Who?  There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I.  Which would you
have?'

'Are there no boys at the farm?'

'No; those are all.'

'Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay.'

'That you may settle with your host.  I have nothing to do with it.'

'I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these
hills,' cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the kitchen entrance.  'As to
staying here, I don't keep accommodations for visitors: you must share a
bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do.'

'I can sleep on a chair in this room,' I replied.

'No, no!  A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit
me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!' said
the unmannerly wretch.

With this insult my patience was at an end.  I uttered an expression of
disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in
my haste.  It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and, as
I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour
amongst each other.  At first the young man appeared about to befriend
me.

'I'll go with him as far as the park,' he said.

'You'll go with him to hell!' exclaimed his master, or whatever relation
he bore.  'And who is to look after the horses, eh?'

'A man's life is of more consequence than one evening's neglect of the
horses: somebody must go,' murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I
expected.

'Not at your command!' retorted Hareton.  'If you set store on him, you'd
better be quiet.'

'Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will
never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin,' she answered,
sharply.

'Hearken, hearken, shoo's cursing on 'em!' muttered Joseph, towards whom
I had been steering.

He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which
I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it back on
the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern.

'Maister, maister, he's staling t' lanthern!' shouted the ancient,
pursuing my retreat.  'Hey, Gnasher!  Hey, dog!  Hey Wolf, holld him,
holld him!'

On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing
me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from
Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation.
Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching their paws, and
yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive; but they
would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their
malignant masters pleased to deliver me: then, hatless and trembling with
wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out--on their peril to keep me
one minute longer--with several incoherent threats of retaliation that,
in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of King Lear.

The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose,
and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded.  I don't know what
would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at hand
rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my
entertainer.  This was Zillah, the stout housewife; who at length issued
forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar.  She thought that some of
them had been laying violent hands on me; and, not daring to attack her
master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger scoundrel.

'Well, Mr. Earnshaw,' she cried, 'I wonder what you'll have agait next?
Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones?  I see this house
will never do for me--look at t' poor lad, he's fair choking!  Wisht,
wisht; you mun'n't go on so.  Come in, and I'll cure that: there now,
hold ye still.'

With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my neck,
and pulled me into the kitchen.  Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental
merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness.

I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled perforce
to accept lodgings under his roof.  He told Zillah to give me a glass of
brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she condoled with me
on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was
somewhat revived, ushered me to bed.




CHAPTER III


While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the
candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the
chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly.
I asked the reason.  She did not know, she answered: she had only lived
there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not
begin to be curious.

Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round
for the bed.  The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press,
and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach
windows.  Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and
perceived it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very
conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the
family having a room to himself.  In fact, it formed a little closet, and
the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table.  I slid back
the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and
felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in
one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint.  This
writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of
characters, large and small--_Catherine Earnshaw_, here and there varied
to _Catherine Heathcliff_, and then again to _Catherine Linton_.

In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued
spelling over Catherine Earnshaw--Heathcliff--Linton, till my eyes
closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white
letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres--the air swarmed with
Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered
my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the
place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.  I snuffed it off, and, very
ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and
spread open the injured tome on my knee.  It was a Testament, in lean
type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the
inscription--'Catherine Earnshaw, her book,' and a date some quarter of a
century back.  I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had
examined all.  Catherine's library was select, and its state of
dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for
a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen-and-ink
commentary--at least the appearance of one--covering every morsel of
blank that the printer had left.  Some were detached sentences; other
parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish
hand.  At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when
first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature
of my friend Joseph,--rudely, yet powerfully sketched.  An immediate
interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began
forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.

'An awful Sunday,' commenced the paragraph beneath.  'I wish my father
were back again.  Hindley is a detestable substitute--his conduct to
Heathcliff is atrocious--H. and I are going to rebel--we took our
initiatory step this evening.

'All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so
Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret; and, while Hindley
and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire--doing anything
but reading their Bibles, I'll answer for it--Heathcliff, myself, and the
unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayer-books, and mount: we
were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and
hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short
homily for his own sake.  A vain idea!  The service lasted precisely
three hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us
descending, "What, done already?"  On Sunday evenings we used to be
permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is
sufficient to send us into corners.

'"You forget you have a master here," says the tyrant.  "I'll demolish
the first who puts me out of temper!  I insist on perfect sobriety and
silence.  Oh, boy! was that you?  Frances darling, pull his hair as you
go by: I heard him snap his fingers."  Frances pulled his hair heartily,
and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they
were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour--foolish
palaver that we should be ashamed of.  We made ourselves as snug as our
means allowed in the arch of the dresser.  I had just fastened our
pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph,
on an errand from the stables.  He tears down my handiwork, boxes my
ears, and croaks:

'"T' maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o'ered, und t' sound o'
t' gospel still i' yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking!  Shame on ye! sit ye
down, ill childer! there's good books eneugh if ye'll read 'em: sit ye
down, and think o' yer sowls!"

'Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might
receive from the far-off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the
lumber he thrust upon us.  I could not bear the employment.  I took my
dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I
hated a good book.  Heathcliff kicked his to the same place.  Then there
was a hubbub!

'"Maister Hindley!" shouted our chaplain.  "Maister, coom hither!  Miss
Cathy's riven th' back off 'Th' Helmet o' Salvation,' un' Heathcliff's
pawsed his fit into t' first part o' 'T' Brooad Way to Destruction!'  It's
fair flaysome that ye let 'em go on this gait.  Ech! th' owd man wad ha'
laced 'em properly--but he's goan!"

'Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of
us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the
back-kitchen; where, Joseph asseverated, "owd Nick" would fetch us as
sure as we were living: and, so comforted, we each sought a separate
nook to await his advent. I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a
shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got
the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is
impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman's
cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant
suggestion--and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his
prophecy verified--we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we
are here.'

* * * * * *

I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up
another subject: she waxed lachrymose.

'How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!' she
wrote.  'My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow; and still I
can't give over.  Poor Heathcliff!  Hindley calls him a vagabond, and
won't let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and
I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if
we break his orders.  He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for
treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right
place--'

* * * * * *

I began to nod drowsily over the dim page: my eye wandered from
manuscript to print.  I saw a red ornamented title--'Seventy Times Seven,
and the First of the Seventy-First.  A Pious Discourse delivered by the
Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough.'  And while
I was, half-consciously, worrying my brain to guess what Jabez Branderham
would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell asleep.  Alas,
for the effects of bad tea and bad temper!  What else could it be that
made me pass such a terrible night?  I don't remember another that I can
at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering.

I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality.  I
thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for
a guide.  The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered on,
my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a
pilgrim's staff: telling me that I could never get into the house without
one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood
to be so denominated.  For a moment I considered it absurd that I should
need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence.  Then a new
idea flashed across me.  I was not going there: we were journeying to
hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text--'Seventy Times
Seven;' and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the 'First of
the Seventy-First,' and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated.

We came to the chapel.  I have passed it really in my walks, twice or
thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near
a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of
embalming on the few corpses deposited there.  The roof has been kept
whole hitherto; but as the clergyman's stipend is only twenty pounds per
annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into
one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor: especially as it
is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than
increase the living by one penny from their own pockets.  However, in my
dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached--good
God! what a sermon; divided into _four hundred and ninety_ parts, each
fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a
separate sin!  Where he searched for them, I cannot tell.  He had his
private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the
brother should sin different sins on every occasion.  They were of the
most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined
previously.

Oh, how weary I grow.  How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and
revived!  How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood
up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would _ever_
have done.  I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the
'_First of the Seventy-First_.'  At that crisis, a sudden inspiration
descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the
sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon.

'Sir,' I exclaimed, 'sitting here within these four walls, at one
stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of
your discourse.  Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and
been about to depart--Seventy times seven times have you preposterously
forced me to resume my seat.  The four hundred and ninety-first is too
much.  Fellow-martyrs, have at him!  Drag him down, and crush him to
atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!'

'_Thou art the Man_!' cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his
cushion.  'Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy
visage--seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul--Lo, this is
human weakness: this also may be absolved!  The First of the
Seventy-First is come.  Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written.
Such honour have all His saints!'

With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim's
staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in
self-defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most
ferocious assailant, for his.  In the confluence of the multitude,
several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces.
Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings:
every man's hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to
remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards
of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my
unspeakable relief, they woke me.  And what was it that had suggested the
tremendous tumult?  What had played Jabez's part in the row?  Merely the
branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and
rattled its dry cones against the panes!  I listened doubtingly an
instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again:
if possible, still more disagreeably than before.

This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard
distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also,
the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right
cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if
possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement.
The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when
awake, but forgotten.  'I must stop it, nevertheless!' I muttered,
knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to
seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the
fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!  The intense horror of nightmare came
over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a
most melancholy voice sobbed, 'Let me in--let me in!'  'Who are you?' I
asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.  'Catherine Linton,'
it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of _Linton_?  I had read
_Earnshaw_ twenty times for Linton)--'I'm come home: I'd lost my way on
the moor!'  As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking
through the window.  Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to
attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken
pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the
bedclothes: still it wailed, 'Let me in!' and maintained its tenacious
grip, almost maddening me with fear.  'How can I!' I said at length.
'Let _me_ go, if you want me to let you in!'  The fingers relaxed, I
snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid
against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer.  I
seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I
listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!  'Begone!' I
shouted.  'I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.'  'It
is twenty years,' mourned the voice: 'twenty years.  I've been a waif for
twenty years!'  Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile
of books moved as if thrust forward.  I tried to jump up; but could not
stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.  To my
confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps
approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous
hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed.  I
sat shuddering yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead: the
intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself.  At last, he
said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, 'Is any one
here?'  I considered it best to confess my presence; for I knew
Heathcliff's accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept
quiet.  With this intention, I turned and opened the panels.  I shall not
soon forget the effect my action produced.

Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a
candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall
behind him.  The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric
shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his
agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.

'It is only your guest, sir,' I called out, desirous to spare him the
humiliation of exposing his cowardice further.  'I had the misfortune to
scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare.  I'm sorry I
disturbed you.'

'Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood!  I wish you were at the--' commenced
my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to
hold it steady.  'And who showed you up into this room?' he continued,
crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the
maxillary convulsions.  'Who was it?  I've a good mind to turn them out
of the house this moment?'

'It was your servant Zillah,' I replied, flinging myself on to the floor,
and rapidly resuming my garments.  'I should not care if you did, Mr.
Heathcliff; she richly deserves it.  I suppose that she wanted to get
another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense.  Well, it
is--swarming with ghosts and goblins!  You have reason in shutting it up,
I assure you.  No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!'

'What do you mean?' asked Heathcliff, 'and what are you doing?  Lie down
and finish out the night, since you _are_ here; but, for heaven's sake!
don't repeat that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless you were
having your throat cut!'

'If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have
strangled me!' I returned.  'I'm not going to endure the persecutions of
your hospitable ancestors again.  Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham
akin to you on the mother's side?  And that minx, Catherine Linton, or
Earnshaw, or however she was called--she must have been a
changeling--wicked little soul!  She told me she had been walking the
earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal
transgressions, I've no doubt!'

Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of
Heathcliff's with Catherine's name in the book, which had completely
slipped from my memory, till thus awakened.  I blushed at my
inconsideration: but, without showing further consciousness of the
offence, I hastened to add--'The truth is, sir, I passed the first part
of the night in--'  Here I stopped afresh--I was about to say 'perusing
those old volumes,' then it would have revealed my knowledge of their
written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I
went on--'in spelling over the name scratched on that window-ledge.  A
monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or--'

'What _can_ you mean by talking in this way to _me_!' thundered
Heathcliff with savage vehemence.  'How--how _dare_ you, under my
roof?--God! he's mad to speak so!'  And he struck his forehead with rage.

I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation;
but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity and proceeded with
my dreams; affirming I had never heard the appellation of 'Catherine
Linton' before, but reading it often over produced an impression which
personified itself when I had no longer my imagination under control.
Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke;
finally sitting down almost concealed behind it.  I guessed, however, by
his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he struggled to vanquish an
excess of violent emotion.  Not liking to show him that I had heard the
conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily, looked at my watch, and
soliloquised on the length of the night: 'Not three o'clock yet!  I could
have taken oath it had been six.  Time stagnates here: we must surely
have retired to rest at eight!'

'Always at nine in winter, and rise at four,' said my host, suppressing a
groan: and, as I fancied, by the motion of his arm's shadow, dashing a
tear from his eyes.  'Mr. Lockwood,' he added, 'you may go into my room:
you'll only be in the way, coming down-stairs so early: and your childish
outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me.'

'And for me, too,' I replied.  'I'll walk in the yard till daylight, and
then I'll be off; and you need not dread a repetition of my intrusion.
I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or
town.  A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.'

'Delightful company!' muttered Heathcliff.  'Take the candle, and go
where you please.  I shall join you directly.  Keep out of the yard,
though, the dogs are unchained; and the house--Juno mounts sentinel
there, and--nay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages.  But,
away with you!  I'll come in two minutes!'

I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow
lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of
superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent
sense.  He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as
he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears.  'Come in! come
in!' he sobbed.  'Cathy, do come.  Oh, do--_once_ more!  Oh! my heart's
darling! hear me _this_ time, Catherine, at last!'  The spectre showed a
spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and
wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out
the light.

There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving,
that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry
to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous
nightmare, since it produced that agony; though _why_ was beyond my
comprehension.  I descended cautiously to the lower regions, and landed
in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly together,
enabled me to rekindle my candle.  Nothing was stirring except a
brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a
querulous mew.

Two benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the hearth;
on one of these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other.  We
were both of us nodding ere any one invaded our retreat, and then it was
Joseph, shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the roof, through
a trap: the ascent to his garret, I suppose.  He cast a sinister look at
the little flame which I had enticed to play between the ribs, swept the
cat from its elevation, and bestowing himself in the vacancy, commenced
the operation of stuffing a three-inch pipe with tobacco.  My presence in
his sanctum was evidently esteemed a piece of impudence too shameful for
remark: he silently applied the tube to his lips, folded his arms, and
puffed away.  I let him enjoy the luxury unannoyed; and after sucking out
his last wreath, and heaving a profound sigh, he got up, and departed as
solemnly as he came.

A more elastic footstep entered next; and now I opened my mouth for a
'good-morning,' but closed it again, the salutation unachieved; for
Hareton Earnshaw was performing his orison _sotto voce_, in a series of
curses directed against every object he touched, while he rummaged a
corner for a spade or shovel to dig through the drifts.  He glanced over
the back of the bench, dilating his nostrils, and thought as little of
exchanging civilities with me as with my companion the cat.  I guessed,
by his preparations, that egress was allowed, and, leaving my hard couch,
made a movement to follow him.  He noticed this, and thrust at an inner
door with the end of his spade, intimating by an inarticulate sound that
there was the place where I must go, if I changed my locality.

It opened into the house, where the females were already astir; Zillah
urging flakes of flame up the chimney with a colossal bellows; and Mrs.
Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the
blaze.  She held her hand interposed between the furnace-heat and her
eyes, and seemed absorbed in her occupation; desisting from it only to
chide the servant for covering her with sparks, or to push away a dog,
now and then, that snoozled its nose overforwardly into her face.  I was
surprised to see Heathcliff there also.  He stood by the fire, his back
towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah; who ever and
anon interrupted her labour to pluck up the corner of her apron, and
heave an indignant groan.

'And you, you worthless--' he broke out as I entered, turning to his
daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep,
but generally represented by a dash--.  'There you are, at your idle
tricks again!  The rest of them do earn their bread--you live on my
charity!  Put your trash away, and find something to do.  You shall pay
me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight--do you hear,
damnable jade?'

'I'll put my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse,' answered
the young lady, closing her book, and throwing it on a chair.  'But I'll
not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I
please!'

Heathcliff lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance,
obviously acquainted with its weight.  Having no desire to be entertained
by a cat-and-dog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to
partake the warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any knowledge of the
interrupted dispute.  Each had enough decorum to suspend further
hostilities: Heathcliff placed his fists, out of temptation, in his
pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off,
where she kept her word by playing the part of a statue during the
remainder of my stay.  That was not long.  I declined joining their
breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, took an opportunity of
escaping into the free air, now clear, and still, and cold as impalpable
ice.

My landlord halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the
garden, and offered to accompany me across the moor.  It was well he did,
for the whole hill-back was one billowy, white ocean; the swells and
falls not indicating corresponding rises and depressions in the ground:
many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges of mounds,
the refuse of the quarries, blotted from the chart which my yesterday's
walk left pictured in my mind.  I had remarked on one side of the road,
at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of upright stones, continued
through the whole length of the barren: these were erected and daubed
with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark, and also when a
fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand with
the firmer path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there,
all traces of their existence had vanished: and my companion found it
necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when I
imagined I was following, correctly, the windings of the road.

We exchanged little conversation, and he halted at the entrance of
Thrushcross Park, saying, I could make no error there.  Our adieux were
limited to a hasty bow, and then I pushed forward, trusting to my own
resources; for the porter's lodge is untenanted as yet.  The distance
from the gate to the grange is two miles; I believe I managed to make it
four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck
in snow: a predicament which only those who have experienced it can
appreciate.  At any rate, whatever were my wanderings, the clock chimed
twelve as I entered the house; and that gave exactly an hour for every
mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights.

My human fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me; exclaiming,
tumultuously, they had completely given me up: everybody conjectured that
I perished last night; and they were wondering how they must set about
the search for my remains.  I bid them be quiet, now that they saw me
returned, and, benumbed to my very heart, I dragged up-stairs; whence,
after putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro thirty or forty
minutes, to restore the animal heat, I adjourned to my study, feeble as a
kitten: almost too much so to enjoy the cheerful fire and smoking coffee
which the servant had prepared for my refreshment.




CHAPTER IV


What vain weathercocks we are!  I, who had determined to hold myself
independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at
length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable--I,
weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and
solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence
of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I
desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate
it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse
me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk.

'You have lived here a considerable time,' I commenced; 'did you not say
sixteen years?'

'Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, to wait on her;
after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper.'

'Indeed.'

There ensued a pause.  She was not a gossip, I feared; unless about her
own affairs, and those could hardly interest me.  However, having studied
for an interval, with a fist on either knee, and a cloud of meditation
over her ruddy countenance, she ejaculated--'Ah, times are greatly
changed since then!'

'Yes,' I remarked, 'you've seen a good many alterations, I suppose?'

'I have: and troubles too,' she said.

'Oh, I'll turn the talk on my landlord's family!' I thought to myself.  'A
good subject to start!  And that pretty girl-widow, I should like to know
her history: whether she be a native of the country, or, as is more
probable, an exotic that the surly _indigenae_ will not recognise for
kin.'  With this intention I asked Mrs. Dean why Heathcliff let
Thrushcross Grange, and preferred living in a situation and residence so
much inferior.  'Is he not rich enough to keep the estate in good order?'
I inquired.

'Rich, sir!' she returned.  'He has nobody knows what money, and every
year it increases.  Yes, yes, he's rich enough to live in a finer house
than this: but he's very near--close-handed; and, if he had meant to flit
to Thrushcross Grange, as soon as he heard of a good tenant he could not
have borne to miss the chance of getting a few hundreds more.  It is
strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!'

'He had a son, it seems?'

'Yes, he had one--he is dead.'

'And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is his widow?'

'Yes.'

'Where did she come from originally?'

'Why, sir, she is my late master's daughter: Catherine Linton was her
maiden name.  I nursed her, poor thing!  I did wish Mr. Heathcliff would
remove here, and then we might have been together again.'

'What!  Catherine Linton?' I exclaimed, astonished.  But a minute's
reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine.  'Then,' I
continued, 'my predecessor's name was Linton?'

'It was.'

'And who is that Earnshaw: Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr.
Heathcliff?  Are they relations?'

'No; he is the late Mrs. Linton's nephew.'

'The young lady's cousin, then?'

'Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother's, the other
on the father's side: Heathcliff married Mr. Linton's sister.'

'I see the house at Wuthering Heights has "Earnshaw" carved over the
front door.  Are they an old family?'

'Very old, sir; and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of
us--I mean, of the Lintons.  Have you been to Wuthering Heights?  I beg
pardon for asking; but I should like to hear how she is!'

'Mrs. Heathcliff? she looked very well, and very handsome; yet, I think,
not very happy.'

'Oh dear, I don't wonder!  And how did you like the master?'

'A rough fellow, rather, Mrs. Dean.  Is not that his character?

'Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone!  The less you meddle with
him the better.'

'He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl.  Do
you know anything of his history?'

'It's a cuckoo's, sir--I know all about it: except where he was born, and
who were his parents, and how he got his money at first.  And Hareton has
been cast out like an unfledged dunnock!  The unfortunate lad is the only
one in all this parish that does not guess how he has been cheated.'

'Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my
neighbours: I feel I shall not rest if I go to bed; so be good enough to
sit and chat an hour.'

'Oh, certainly, sir!  I'll just fetch a little sewing, and then I'll sit
as long as you please.  But you've caught cold: I saw you shivering, and
you must have some gruel to drive it out.'

The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire; my head
felt hot, and the rest of me chill: moreover, I was excited, almost to a
pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain.  This caused me to
feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious
effects from the incidents of to-day and yesterday.  She returned
presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having
placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find
me so companionable.

Before I came to live here, she commenced--waiting no farther invitation
to her story--I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because my mother
had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton's father, and I got
used to playing with the children: I ran errands too, and helped to make
hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody would set me
to.  One fine summer morning--it was the beginning of harvest, I
remember--Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, came down-stairs, dressed for a
journey; and, after he had told Joseph what was to be done during the
day, he turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and me--for I sat eating my
porridge with them--and he said, speaking to his son, 'Now, my bonny man,
I'm going to Liverpool to-day, what shall I bring you?  You may choose
what you like: only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back:
sixty miles each way, that is a long spell!'  Hindley named a fiddle, and
then he asked Miss Cathy; she was hardly six years old, but she could
ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip.  He did not forget
me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes.  He
promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed
his children, said good-bye, and set off.

It seemed a long while to us all--the three days of his absence--and
often did little Cathy ask when he would be home.  Mrs. Earnshaw expected
him by supper-time on the third evening, and she put the meal off hour
after hour; there were no signs of his coming, however, and at last the
children got tired of running down to the gate to look.  Then it grew
dark; she would have had them to bed, but they begged sadly to be allowed
to stay up; and, just about eleven o'clock, the door-latch was raised
quietly, and in stepped the master.  He threw himself into a chair,
laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was nearly
killed--he would not have such another walk for the three kingdoms.

'And at the end of it to be flighted to death!' he said, opening his
great-coat, which he held bundled up in his arms.  'See here, wife!  I
was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e'en take it
as a gift of God; though it's as dark almost as if it came from the
devil.'

We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy's head I had a peep at a dirty,
ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed, its
face looked older than Catherine's; yet when it was set on its feet, it
only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that
nobody could understand.  I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready
to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to
bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to
feed and fend for?  What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad?
The master tried to explain the matter; but he was really half dead with
fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale
of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the
streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner.
Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time
being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at
once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he
would not leave it as he found it.  Well, the conclusion was, that my
mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and
give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children.

Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till
peace was restored: then, both began searching their father's pockets
for the presents he had promised them. The former was a boy of fourteen,
but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to morsels in the
great-coat, he blubbered aloud; and Cathy, when she learned the master
had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by
grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing; earning for her pains
a sound blow from her father, to teach her cleaner manners. They
entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room; and
I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it
might be gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his
voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on
quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was
obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity
was sent out of the house.

This was Heathcliff's first introduction to the family.  On coming back a
few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual), I
found they had christened him 'Heathcliff': it was the name of a son who
died in childhood, and it has served him ever since, both for Christian
and surname.  Miss Cathy and he were now very thick; but Hindley hated
him: and to say the truth I did the same; and we plagued and went on with
him shamefully: for I wasn't reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and
the mistress never put in a word on his behalf when she saw him wronged.

He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment:
he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my
pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he
had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame.  This endurance
made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son persecuting the
poor fatherless child, as he called him.  He took to Heathcliff
strangely, believing all he said (for that matter, he said precious
little, and generally the truth), and petting him up far above Cathy, who
was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite.

So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at
Mrs. Earnshaw's death, which happened in less than two years after, the
young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than
a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent's affections and his
privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries.  I
sympathised a while; but when the children fell ill of the measles, and I
had to tend them, and take on me the cares of a woman at once, I changed
my idea.  Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and while he lay at the worst
he would have me constantly by his pillow: I suppose he felt I did a good
deal for him, and he hadn't wit to guess that I was compelled to do it.
However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse
watched over.  The difference between him and the others forced me to be
less partial.  Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly: he was as
uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness, made him give
little trouble.

He got through, and the doctor affirmed it was in a great measure owing
to me, and praised me for my care.  I was vain of his commendations, and
softened towards the being by whose means I earned them, and thus Hindley
lost his last ally: still I couldn't dote on Heathcliff, and I wondered
often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy; who never,
to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of gratitude.  He
was not insolent to his benefactor, he was simply insensible; though
knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and conscious he had only
to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes.  As an
instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought a couple of colts at the
parish fair, and gave the lads each one.  Heathcliff took the handsomest,
but it soon fell lame, and when he discovered it, he said to Hindley--

'You must exchange horses with me: I don't like mine; and if you won't I
shall tell your father of the three thrashings you've given me this week,
and show him my arm, which is black to the shoulder.'  Hindley put out
his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears.  'You'd better do it at once,'
he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable): 'you will
have to: and if I speak of these blows, you'll get them again with
interest.'  'Off, dog!' cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron
weight used for weighing potatoes and hay.  'Throw it,' he replied,
standing still, 'and then I'll tell how you boasted that you would turn
me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you
out directly.'  Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he
fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I
prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full
revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused
it.  'Take my colt, Gipsy, then!' said young Earnshaw.  'And I pray that
he may break your neck: take him, and be damned, you beggarly interloper!
and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards show him what
you are, imp of Satan.--And take that, I hope he'll kick out your
brains!'

Heathcliff had gone to loose the beast, and shift it to his own stall; he
was passing behind it, when Hindley finished his speech by knocking him
under its feet, and without stopping to examine whether his hopes were
fulfilled, ran away as fast as he could.  I was surprised to witness how
coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on with his intention;
exchanging saddles and all, and then sitting down on a bundle of hay to
overcome the qualm which the violent blow occasioned, before he entered
the house.  I persuaded him easily to let me lay the blame of his bruises
on the horse: he minded little what tale was told since he had what he
wanted.  He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these, that I
really thought him not vindictive: I was deceived completely, as you will
hear.




CHAPTER V


In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and
healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was confined to
the chimney-corner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing vexed him;
and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits. This
was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose upon, or
domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a word
should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head the
notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do
him an ill-turn. It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder among
us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality; and
that humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black
tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary; twice, or thrice,
Hindley's manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the
old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and shook with
rage that he could not do it.

At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by
teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land
himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr.
Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said--'Hindley was
nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.'

I hoped heartily we should have peace now.  It hurt me to think the
master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed.  I fancied the
discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as he
would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking
frame.  We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two
people--Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up
yonder.  He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self-righteous
Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and
fling the curses to his neighbours.  By his knack of sermonising and
pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr.
Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he
gained.  He was relentless in worrying him about his soul's concerns, and
about ruling his children rigidly.  He encouraged him to regard Hindley
as a reprobate; and, night after night, he regularly grumbled out a long
string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine: always minding to
flatter Earnshaw's weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter.

Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up
before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener
in a day: from the hour she came down-stairs till the hour she went to
bed, we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief.  Her
spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going--singing,
laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same.  A wild,
wicked slip she was--but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile,
and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I believe she meant no
harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened
that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you
might comfort her.  She was much too fond of Heathcliff.  The greatest
punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet
she got chided more than any of us on his account.  In play, she liked
exceedingly to act the little mistress; using her hands freely, and
commanding her companions: she did so to me, but I would not bear
slapping and ordering; and so I let her know.

Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had
always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had
no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing
condition than he was in his prime.  His peevish reproofs wakened in her
a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were
all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look,
and her ready words; turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule,
baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most--showing how her
pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over
Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do _her_ bidding in
anything, and _his_ only when it suited his own inclination.  After
behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to
make it up at night.  'Nay, Cathy,' the old man would say, 'I cannot love
thee, thou'rt worse than thy brother.  Go, say thy prayers, child, and
ask God's pardon.  I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared
thee!'  That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed continually
hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her
faults, and beg to be forgiven.

But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on earth.
He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the
fire-side.  A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the
chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all
together--I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and
Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat
in the house then, after their work was done).  Miss Cathy had been sick,
and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and
Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap.  I remember
the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair--it
pleased him rarely to see her gentle--and saying, 'Why canst thou not
always be a good lass, Cathy?'  And she turned her face up to his, and
laughed, and answered, 'Why cannot you always be a good man, father?'  But
as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she
would sing him to sleep.  She began singing very low, till his fingers
dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast.  Then I told her to
hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him.  We all kept as mute as
mice a full half-hour, and should have done so longer, only Joseph,
having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse the
master for prayers and bed.  He stepped forward, and called him by name,
and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the candle
and looked at him.  I thought there was something wrong as he set down
the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them to
'frame up-stairs, and make little din--they might pray alone that
evening--he had summut to do.'

'I shall bid father good-night first,' said Catherine, putting her arms
round his neck, before we could hinder her.  The poor thing discovered
her loss directly--she screamed out--'Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's
dead!'  And they both set up a heart-breaking cry.

I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we
could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven.  He told
me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson.
I could not guess the use that either would be of, then.  However, I
went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me;
the other said he would come in the morning.  Leaving Joseph to explain
matters, I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they
had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer,
and did not need me to console them.  The little souls were comforting
each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in
the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their
innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing
we were all there safe together.




CHAPTER VI


Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and--a thing that amazed us, and
set the neighbours gossiping right and left--he brought a wife with him.
What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she
had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have
kept the union from his father.

She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own
account.  Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold,
appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about
her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the
mourners.  I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that
went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I
should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and
clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly--'Are they gone yet?'  Then she
began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to
see black; and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell a-weeping--and
when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn't know; but she felt
so afraid of dying!  I imagined her as little likely to die as myself.
She was rather thin, but young, and fresh-complexioned, and her eyes
sparkled as bright as diamonds.  I did remark, to be sure, that mounting
the stairs made her breathe very quick; that the least sudden noise set
her all in a quiver, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I
knew nothing of what these symptoms portended, and had no impulse to
sympathise with her.  We don't in general take to foreigners here, Mr.
Lockwood, unless they take to us first.

Young Earnshaw was altered considerably in the three years of his
absence. He had grown sparer, and lost his colour, and spoke and dressed
quite differently; and, on the very day of his return, he told Joseph
and me we must thenceforth quarter ourselves in the back-kitchen, and
leave the house for him. Indeed, he would have carpeted and papered a
small spare room for a parlour; but his wife expressed such pleasure at
the white floor and huge glowing fireplace, at the pewter dishes and
delf-case, and dog-kennel, and the wide space there was to move about in
where they usually sat, that he thought it unnecessary to her comfort,
and so dropped the intention.

She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new
acquaintance; and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran
about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning.
Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish,
Hindley became tyrannical.  A few words from her, evincing a dislike to
Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy.  He
drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the
instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of
doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the
farm.

Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy
taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields.
They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages; the young master
being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they did, so they
kept clear of him.  He would not even have seen after their going to
church on Sundays, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded his
carelessness when they absented themselves; and that reminded him to
order Heathcliff a flogging, and Catherine a fast from dinner or supper.
But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the
morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment grew a mere
thing to laugh at.  The curate might set as many chapters as he pleased
for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till
his arm ached; they forgot everything the minute they were together
again: at least the minute they had contrived some naughty plan of
revenge; and many a time I've cried to myself to watch them growing more
reckless daily, and I not daring to speak a syllable, for fear of losing
the small power I still retained over the unfriended creatures.  One
Sunday evening, it chanced that they were banished from the sitting-room,
for making a noise, or a light offence of the kind; and when I went to
call them to supper, I could discover them nowhere.  We searched the
house, above and below, and the yard and stables; they were invisible:
and, at last, Hindley in a passion told us to bolt the doors, and swore
nobody should let them in that night.  The household went to bed; and I,
too, anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put my head out to
hearken, though it rained: determined to admit them in spite of the
prohibition, should they return.  In a while, I distinguished steps
coming up the road, and the light of a lantern glimmered through the
gate.  I threw a shawl over my head and ran to prevent them from waking
Mr. Earnshaw by knocking.  There was Heathcliff, by himself: it gave me a
start to see him alone.

'Where is Miss Catherine?' I cried hurriedly. 'No accident, I hope?' 'At
Thrushcross Grange,' he answered; 'and I would have been there too, but
they had not the manners to ask me to stay.' 'Well, you will catch it!'
I said: 'you'll never be content till you're sent about your business.
What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange?' 'Let me get
off my wet clothes, and I'll tell you all about it, Nelly,' he replied.
I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he undressed and I
waited to put out the candle, he continued--'Cathy and I escaped from
the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the
Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons
passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their
father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and
burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading
sermons, and being catechised by their manservant, and set to learn a
column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly?' 'Probably
not,' I responded. 'They are good children, no doubt, and don't deserve
the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct.' 'Don't cant, Nelly,'
he said: 'nonsense! We ran from the top of the Heights to the park,
without stopping--Catherine completely beaten in the race, because she
was barefoot. You'll have to seek for her shoes in the bog to-morrow. We
crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted
ourselves on a flower-plot under the drawing-room window. The light came
from thence; they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were
only half closed. Both of us were able to look in by standing on the
basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we saw--ah! it was beautiful--a
splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and
tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of
glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering
with little soft tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar
and his sisters had it entirely to themselves. Shouldn't they have been
happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven! And now, guess what
your good children were doing? Isabella--I believe she is eleven, a year
younger than Cathy--lay screaming at the farther end of the room,
shrieking as if witches were running red-hot needles into her. Edgar
stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat
a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which, from their mutual
accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them.
The idiots! That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap
of warm hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to
get it, refused to take it. We laughed outright at the petted things; we
did despise them! When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine
wanted? or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and
sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I'd not
exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at
Thrushcross Grange--not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph
off the highest gable, and painting the house-front with Hindley's
blood!'

'Hush, hush!' I interrupted.  'Still you have not told me, Heathcliff,
how Catherine is left behind?'

'I told you we laughed,' he answered. 'The Lintons heard us, and with
one accord they shot like arrows to the door; there was silence, and
then a cry, "Oh, mamma, mamma! Oh, papa! Oh, mamma, come here. Oh, papa,
oh!" They really did howl out something in that way. We made frightful
noises to terrify them still more, and then we dropped off the ledge,
because somebody was drawing the bars, and we felt we had better flee. I
had Cathy by the hand, and was urging her on, when all at once she fell
down. "Run, Heathcliff, run!" she whispered. "They have let the bull-dog
loose, and he holds me!" The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly: I heard
his abominable snorting. She did not yell out--no! she would have
scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow. I
did, though: I vociferated curses enough to annihilate any fiend in
Christendom; and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried
with all my might to cram it down his throat. A beast of a servant came
up with a lantern, at last, shouting--"Keep fast, Skulker, keep fast!"
He changed his note, however, when he saw Skulker's game. The dog was
throttled off; his huge, purple tongue hanging half a foot out of his
mouth, and his pendent lips streaming with bloody slaver. The man took
Cathy up; she was sick: not from fear, I'm certain, but from pain. He
carried her in; I followed, grumbling execrations and vengeance. "What
prey, Robert?" hallooed Linton from the entrance. "Skulker has caught a
little girl, sir," he replied; "and there's a lad here," he added,
making a clutch at me, "who looks an out-and-outer! Very like the
robbers were for putting them through the window to open the doors to
the gang after all were asleep, that they might murder us at their ease.
Hold your tongue, you foul-mouthed thief, you! you shall go to the
gallows for this. Mr. Linton, sir, don't lay by your gun." "No, no,
Robert," said the old fool. "The rascals knew that yesterday was my
rent-day: they thought to have me cleverly. Come in; I'll furnish them a
reception. There, John, fasten the chain. Give Skulker some water,
Jenny. To beard a magistrate in his stronghold, and on the Sabbath, too!
Where will their insolence stop? Oh, my dear Mary, look here! Don't be
afraid, it is but a boy--yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face;
would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he
shows his nature in acts as well as features?" He pulled me under the
chandelier, and Mrs. Linton placed her spectacles on her nose and raised
her hands in horror. The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella
lisping--"Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He's exactly
like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn't
he, Edgar?"

'While they examined me, Cathy came round; she heard the last speech, and
laughed.  Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected sufficient
wit to recognise her.  They see us at church, you know, though we seldom
meet them elsewhere.  "That's Miss Earnshaw?" he whispered to his mother,
"and look how Skulker has bitten her--how her foot bleeds!"

'"Miss Earnshaw?  Nonsense!" cried the dame; "Miss Earnshaw scouring the
country with a gipsy!  And yet, my dear, the child is in mourning--surely
it is--and she may be lamed for life!"

'"What culpable carelessness in her brother!" exclaimed Mr. Linton,
turning from me to Catherine.  "I've understood from Shielders"' (that
was the curate, sir) '"that he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism.
But who is this?  Where did she pick up this companion?  Oho! I declare
he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to
Liverpool--a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway."

'"A wicked boy, at all events," remarked the old lady, "and quite unfit
for a decent house!  Did you notice his language, Linton?  I'm shocked
that my children should have heard it."

'I recommenced cursing--don't be angry, Nelly--and so Robert was ordered
to take me off.  I refused to go without Cathy; he dragged me into the
garden, pushed the lantern into my hand, assured me that Mr. Earnshaw
should be informed of my behaviour, and, bidding me march directly,
secured the door again.  The curtains were still looped up at one corner,
and I resumed my station as spy; because, if Catherine had wished to
return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of
fragments, unless they let her out.  She sat on the sofa quietly.  Mrs.
Linton took off the grey cloak of the dairy-maid which we had borrowed
for our excursion, shaking her head and expostulating with her, I
suppose: she was a young lady, and they made a distinction between her
treatment and mine.  Then the woman-servant brought a basin of warm
water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of negus, and
Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping
at a distance.  Afterwards, they dried and combed her beautiful hair, and
gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled her to the fire; and I
left her, as merry as she could be, dividing her food between the little
dog and Skulker, whose nose she pinched as he ate; and kindling a spark
of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the Lintons--a dim reflection from
her own enchanting face.  I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she
is so immeasurably superior to them--to everybody on earth, is she not,
Nelly?'

'There will more come of this business than you reckon on,' I answered,
covering him up and extinguishing the light.  'You are incurable,
Heathcliff; and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremities, see if
he won't.'  My words came truer than I desired.  The luckless adventure
made Earnshaw furious.  And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a
visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture on
the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about him, in
earnest.  Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first
word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal; and Mrs.
Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint when she
returned home; employing art, not force: with force she would have found
it impossible.




CHAPTER VII


Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks: till Christmas.  By that
time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved.  The
mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of
reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and
flattery, which she took readily; so that, instead of a wild, hatless
little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all
breathless, there 'lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified
person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver,
and a long cloth habit, which she was obliged to hold up with both hands
that she might sail in.  Hindley lifted her from her horse, exclaiming
delightedly, 'Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty!  I should scarcely have
known you: you look like a lady now.  Isabella Linton is not to be
compared with her, is she, Frances?'  'Isabella has not her natural
advantages,' replied his wife: 'but she must mind and not grow wild again
here.  Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her things--Stay, dear, you
will disarrange your curls--let me untie your hat.'

I removed the habit, and there shone forth beneath a grand plaid silk
frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes; and, while her eyes sparkled
joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she dared hardly
touch them lest they should fawn upon her splendid garments.  She kissed
me gently: I was all flour making the Christmas cake, and it would not
have done to give me a hug; and then she looked round for Heathcliff.  Mr.
and Mrs. Earnshaw watched anxiously their meeting; thinking it would
enable them to judge, in some measure, what grounds they had for hoping
to succeed in separating the two friends.

Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first.  If he were careless, and
uncared for, before Catherine's absence, he had been ten times more so
since.  Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy,
and bid him wash himself, once a week; and children of his age seldom
have a natural pleasure in soap and water.  Therefore, not to mention his
clothes, which had seen three months' service in mire and dust, and his
thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally
beclouded.  He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a
bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed
counterpart of himself, as he expected.  'Is Heathcliff not here?' she
demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully
whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors.

'Heathcliff, you may come forward,' cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his
discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he
would be compelled to present himself.  'You may come and wish Miss
Catherine welcome, like the other servants.'

Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to
embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the
second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh,
exclaiming, 'Why, how very black and cross you look! and how--how funny
and grim!  But that's because I'm used to Edgar and Isabella Linton.
Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?'

She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw double
gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable.

'Shake hands, Heathcliff,' said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; 'once in a
way that is permitted.'

'I shall not,' replied the boy, finding his tongue at last; 'I shall not
stand to be laughed at.  I shall not bear it!'  And he would have broken
from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him again.

'I did not mean to laugh at you,' she said; 'I could not hinder myself:
Heathcliff, shake hands at least!  What are you sulky for?  It was only
that you looked odd.  If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will
be all right: but you are so dirty!'

She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also
at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from its
contact with his.

'You needn't have touched me!' he answered, following her eye and
snatching away his hand.  'I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like to
be dirty, and I will be dirty.'

With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of
the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine; who
could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an
exhibition of bad temper.

After playing lady's-maid to the new-comer, and putting my cakes in the
oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires,
befitting Christmas-eve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by
singing carols, all alone; regardless of Joseph's affirmations that he
considered the merry tunes I chose as next door to songs.  He had retired
to private prayer in his chamber, and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw were engaging
Missy's attention by sundry gay trifles bought for her to present to the
little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness.  They had invited
them to spend the morrow at Wuthering Heights, and the invitation had
been accepted, on one condition: Mrs. Linton begged that her darlings
might be kept carefully apart from that 'naughty swearing boy.'

Under these circumstances I remained solitary.  I smelt the rich scent of
the heating spices; and admired the shining kitchen utensils, the
polished clock, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray ready
to be filled with mulled ale for supper; and above all, the speckless
purity of my particular care--the scoured and well-swept floor.  I gave
due inward applause to every object, and then I remembered how old
Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass,
and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmas-box; and from that I went
on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should
suffer neglect after death had removed him: and that naturally led me to
consider the poor lad's situation now, and from singing I changed my mind
to crying.  It struck me soon, however, there would be more sense in
endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding tears over them:
I got up and walked into the court to seek him.  He was not far; I found
him smoothing the glossy coat of the new pony in the stable, and feeding
the other beasts, according to custom.

'Make haste, Heathcliff!' I said, 'the kitchen is so comfortable; and
Joseph is up-stairs: make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss
Cathy comes out, and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth to
yourselves, and have a long chatter till bedtime.'

He proceeded with his task, and never turned his head towards me.

'Come--are you coming?' I continued.  'There's a little cake for each of
you, nearly enough; and you'll need half-an-hour's donning.'

I waited five minutes, but getting no answer left him.  Catherine supped
with her brother and sister-in-law: Joseph and I joined at an unsociable
meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other.  His
cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies.  He
managed to continue work till nine o'clock, and then marched dumb and
dour to his chamber.  Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to
order for the reception of her new friends: she came into the kitchen
once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask
what was the matter with him, and then went back.  In the morning he rose
early; and, as it was a holiday, carried his ill-humour on to the moors;
not re-appearing till the family were departed for church.  Fasting and
reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit.  He hung about
me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed
abruptly--'Nelly, make me decent, I'm going to be good.'

'High time, Heathcliff,' I said; 'you _have_ grieved Catherine: she's
sorry she ever came home, I daresay!  It looks as if you envied her,
because she is more thought of than you.'

The notion of _envying_ Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the
notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough.

'Did she say she was grieved?' he inquired, looking very serious.

'She cried when I told her you were off again this morning.'

'Well, _I_ cried last night,' he returned, 'and I had more reason to cry
than she.'

'Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty
stomach,' said I.  'Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.  But,
if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she
comes in.  You must go up and offer to kiss her, and say--you know best
what to say; only do it heartily, and not as if you thought her converted
into a stranger by her grand dress.  And now, though I have dinner to get
ready, I'll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar Linton shall look
quite a doll beside you: and that he does.  You are younger, and yet,
I'll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders;
you could knock him down in a twinkling; don't you feel that you could?'

Heathcliff's face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and
he sighed.

'But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn't make him
less handsome or me more so.  I wish I had light hair and a fair skin,
and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as
he will be!'

'And cried for mamma at every turn,' I added, 'and trembled if a country
lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of
rain.  Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit!  Come to the glass,
and I'll let you see what you should wish.  Do you mark those two lines
between your eyes; and those thick brows, that, instead of rising arched,
sink in the middle; and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried,
who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like
devil's spies?  Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to
raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent
angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where
they are not sure of foes.  Don't get the expression of a vicious cur
that appears to know the kicks it gets are its dessert, and yet hates all
the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.'

'In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes and even
forehead,' he replied.  'I do--and that won't help me to them.'

'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,' I continued, 'if
you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into
something worse than ugly.  And now that we've done washing, and combing,
and sulking--tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome?
I'll tell you, I do.  You're fit for a prince in disguise.  Who knows but
your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each
of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Grange together?  And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors
and brought to England.  Were I in your place, I would frame high notions
of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and
dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!'

So I chattered on; and Heathcliff gradually lost his frown and began to
look quite pleasant, when all at once our conversation was interrupted by
a rumbling sound moving up the road and entering the court.  He ran to
the window and I to the door, just in time to behold the two Lintons
descend from the family carriage, smothered in cloaks and furs, and the
Earnshaws dismount from their horses: they often rode to church in
winter.  Catherine took a hand of each of the children, and brought them
into the house and set them before the fire, which quickly put colour
into their white faces.

I urged my companion to hasten now and show his amiable humour, and he
willingly obeyed; but ill luck would have it that, as he opened the door
leading from the kitchen on one side, Hindley opened it on the other.
They met, and the master, irritated at seeing him clean and cheerful, or,
perhaps, eager to keep his promise to Mrs. Linton, shoved him back with a
sudden thrust, and angrily bade Joseph 'keep the fellow out of the
room--send him into the garret till dinner is over.  He'll be cramming
his fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit, if left alone with them
a minute.'

'Nay, sir,' I could not avoid answering, 'he'll touch nothing, not he:
and I suppose he must have his share of the dainties as well as we.'

'He shall have his share of my hand, if I catch him downstairs till
dark,' cried Hindley.  'Begone, you vagabond!  What! you are attempting
the coxcomb, are you?  Wait till I get hold of those elegant locks--see
if I won't pull them a bit longer!'

'They are long enough already,' observed Master Linton, peeping from the
doorway; 'I wonder they don't make his head ache.  It's like a colt's
mane over his eyes!'

He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but Heathcliff's
violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence
from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival.  He seized a
tureen of hot apple sauce (the first thing that came under his grip) and
dashed it full against the speaker's face and neck; who instantly
commenced a lament that brought Isabella and Catherine hurrying to the
place.  Mr. Earnshaw snatched up the culprit directly and conveyed him to
his chamber; where, doubtless, he administered a rough remedy to cool the
fit of passion, for he appeared red and breathless.  I got the dishcloth,
and rather spitefully scrubbed Edgar's nose and mouth, affirming it
served him right for meddling.  His sister began weeping to go home, and
Cathy stood by confounded, blushing for all.

'You should not have spoken to him!' she expostulated with Master Linton.
'He was in a bad temper, and now you've spoilt your visit; and he'll be
flogged: I hate him to be flogged!  I can't eat my dinner.  Why did you
speak to him, Edgar?'

'I didn't,' sobbed the youth, escaping from my hands, and finishing the
remainder of the purification with his cambric pocket-handkerchief.  'I
promised mamma that I wouldn't say one word to him, and I didn't.'

'Well, don't cry,' replied Catherine, contemptuously; 'you're not killed.
Don't make more mischief; my brother is coming: be quiet!  Hush,
Isabella!  Has anybody hurt you?'

'There, there, children--to your seats!' cried Hindley, bustling in.
'That brute of a lad has warmed me nicely.  Next time, Master Edgar, take
the law into your own fists--it will give you an appetite!'

The little party recovered its equanimity at sight of the fragrant feast.
They were hungry after their ride, and easily consoled, since no real
harm had befallen them.  Mr. Earnshaw carved bountiful platefuls, and the
mistress made them merry with lively talk.  I waited behind her chair,
and was pained to behold Catherine, with dry eyes and an indifferent air,
commence cutting up the wing of a goose before her.  'An unfeeling
child,' I thought to myself; 'how lightly she dismisses her old
playmate's troubles.  I could not have imagined her to be so selfish.'
She lifted a mouthful to her lips: then she set it down again: her cheeks
flushed, and the tears gushed over them.  She slipped her fork to the
floor, and hastily dived under the cloth to conceal her emotion.  I did
not call her unfeeling long; for I perceived she was in purgatory
throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of getting by
herself, or paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the
master: as I discovered, on endeavouring to introduce to him a private
mess of victuals.

In the evening we had a dance.  Cathy begged that he might be liberated
then, as Isabella Linton had no partner: her entreaties were vain, and I
was appointed to supply the deficiency.  We got rid of all gloom in the
excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival
of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone,
clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers.
They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive
contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to
hear them.  After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs
and glees.  Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty.

Catherine loved it too: but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of
the steps, and she went up in the dark: I followed. They shut the house
door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people. She made
no stay at the stairs'-head, but mounted farther, to the garret where
Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined
answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold
communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things converse
unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the
singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to warn
her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The
little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof,
into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I
could coax her out again. When she did come, Heathcliff came with her,
and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my
fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour's, to be removed from the sound
of our 'devil's psalmody,' as it pleased him to call it. I told them I
intended by no means to encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had
never broken his fast since yesterday's dinner, I would wink at his
cheating Mr. Hindley that once. He went down: I set him a stool by the
fire, and offered him a quantity of good things: but he was sick and
could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away. He
leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and
remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his
thoughts, he answered gravely--'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay
Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last.
I hope he will not die before I do!'

'For shame, Heathcliff!' said I.  'It is for God to punish wicked people;
we should learn to forgive.'

'No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned.  'I only
wish I knew the best way!  Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm
thinking of that I don't feel pain.'

'But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you.  I'm annoyed
how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate; and your gruel cold,
and you nodding for bed!  I could have told Heathcliff's history, all
that you need hear, in half a dozen words.'

* * * * *

Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and proceeded to lay
aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I
was very far from nodding.  'Sit still, Mrs. Dean,' I cried; 'do sit
still another half-hour.  You've done just right to tell the story
leisurely.  That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the same
style.  I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more or
less.'

'The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.'

'No matter--I'm not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours.  One or
two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.'

'You shouldn't lie till ten.  There's the very prime of the morning gone
long before that time.  A person who has not done one-half his day's work
by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.'

'Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair; because to-morrow I intend
lengthening the night till afternoon.  I prognosticate for myself an
obstinate cold, at least.'

'I hope not, sir.  Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years;
during that space Mrs. Earnshaw--'

'No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort!  Are you acquainted with the
mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its
kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently
that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper?'

'A terribly lazy mood, I should say.'

'On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present; and,
therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these regions
acquire over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does
over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the
deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the
looker-on. They _do_ live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less
in surface, change, and frivolous external things. I could fancy a love
for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love
of a year's standing. One state resembles setting a hungry man down to a
single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do it
justice; the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks:
he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but each part
is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance.'

'Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us,'
observed Mrs. Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech.

'Excuse me,' I responded; 'you, my good friend, are a striking evidence
against that assertion.  Excepting a few provincialisms of slight
consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to
consider as peculiar to your class.  I am sure you have thought a great
deal more than the generality of servants think.  You have been compelled
to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for
frittering your life away in silly trifles.'

Mrs. Dean laughed.

'I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body,' she said;
'not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and
one series of actions, from year's end to year's end; but I have
undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have
read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood.  You could not open a book
in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of
also: unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of French; and
those I know one from another: it is as much as you can expect of a poor
man's daughter.  However, if I am to follow my story in true gossip's
fashion, I had better go on; and instead of leaping three years, I will
be content to pass to the next summer--the summer of 1778, that is nearly
twenty-three years ago.'




CHAPTER VIII


On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and the
last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born.  We were busy with the hay
in a far-away field, when the girl that usually brought our breakfasts
came running an hour too soon across the meadow and up the lane, calling
me as she ran.

'Oh, such a grand bairn!' she panted out.  'The finest lad that ever
breathed!  But the doctor says missis must go: he says she's been in a
consumption these many months.  I heard him tell Mr. Hindley: and now she
has nothing to keep her, and she'll be dead before winter.  You must come
home directly.  You're to nurse it, Nelly: to feed it with sugar and
milk, and take care of it day and night.  I wish I were you, because it
will be all yours when there is no missis!'

'But is she very ill?' I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my
bonnet.

'I guess she is; yet she looks bravely,' replied the girl, 'and she talks
as if she thought of living to see it grow a man.  She's out of her head
for joy, it's such a beauty!  If I were her I'm certain I should not die:
I should get better at the bare sight of it, in spite of Kenneth.  I was
fairly mad at him.  Dame Archer brought the cherub down to master, in the
house, and his face just began to light up, when the old croaker steps
forward, and says he--"Earnshaw, it's a blessing your wife has been
spared to leave you this son.  When she came, I felt convinced we
shouldn't keep her long; and now, I must tell you, the winter will
probably finish her.  Don't take on, and fret about it too much: it can't
be helped.  And besides, you should have known better than to choose such
a rush of a lass!"'

'And what did the master answer?' I inquired.

'I think he swore: but I didn't mind him, I was straining to see the
bairn,' and she began again to describe it rapturously.  I, as zealous as
herself, hurried eagerly home to admire, on my part; though I was very
sad for Hindley's sake.  He had room in his heart only for two idols--his
wife and himself: he doted on both, and adored one, and I couldn't
conceive how he would bear the loss.

When we got to Wuthering Heights, there he stood at the front door; and,
as I passed in, I asked, 'how was the baby?'

'Nearly ready to run about, Nell!' he replied, putting on a cheerful
smile.

'And the mistress?' I ventured to inquire; 'the doctor says she's--'

'Damn the doctor!' he interrupted, reddening.  'Frances is quite right:
she'll be perfectly well by this time next week.  Are you going
up-stairs? will you tell her that I'll come, if she'll promise not to
talk.  I left her because she would not hold her tongue; and she
must--tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet.'

I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw; she seemed in flighty spirits,
and replied merrily, 'I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there he has gone
out twice, crying.  Well, say I promise I won't speak: but that does not
bind me not to laugh at him!'

Poor soul!  Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed
her; and her husband persisted doggedly, nay, furiously, in affirming her
health improved every day.  When Kenneth warned him that his medicines
were useless at that stage of the malady, and he needn't put him to
further expense by attending her, he retorted, 'I know you need not--she's
well--she does not want any more attendance from you!  She never was in a
consumption.  It was a fever; and it is gone: her pulse is as slow as
mine now, and her cheek as cool.'

He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him; but one
night, while leaning on his shoulder, in the act of saying she thought
she should be able to get up to-morrow, a fit of coughing took her--a
very slight one--he raised her in his arms; she put her two hands about
his neck, her face changed, and she was dead.

As the girl had anticipated, the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands.
Mr. Earnshaw, provided he saw him healthy and never heard him cry, was
contented, as far as regarded him.  For himself, he grew desperate: his
sorrow was of that kind that will not lament.  He neither wept nor
prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave himself up
to reckless dissipation.  The servants could not bear his tyrannical and
evil conduct long: Joseph and I were the only two that would stay.  I had
not the heart to leave my charge; and besides, you know, I had been his
foster-sister, and excused his behaviour more readily than a stranger
would.  Joseph remained to hector over tenants and labourers; and because
it was his vocation to be where he had plenty of wickedness to reprove.

The master's bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for
Catherine and Heathcliff.  His treatment of the latter was enough to make
a fiend of a saint.  And, truly, it appeared as if the lad _were_
possessed of something diabolical at that period.  He delighted to
witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption; and became daily more
notable for savage sullenness and ferocity.  I could not half tell what
an infernal house we had.  The curate dropped calling, and nobody decent
came near us, at last; unless Edgar Linton's visits to Miss Cathy might
be an exception.  At fifteen she was the queen of the country-side; she
had no peer; and she did turn out a haughty, headstrong creature!  I own
I did not like her, after infancy was past; and I vexed her frequently by
trying to bring down her arrogance: she never took an aversion to me,
though.  She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments: even Heathcliff
kept his hold on her affections unalterably; and young Linton, with all
his superiority, found it difficult to make an equally deep impression.
He was my late master: that is his portrait over the fireplace.  It used
to hang on one side, and his wife's on the other; but hers has been
removed, or else you might see something of what she was.  Can you make
that out?

Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a soft-featured face,
exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive
and amiable in expression.  It formed a sweet picture.  The long light
hair curled slightly on the temples; the eyes were large and serious; the
figure almost too graceful.  I did not marvel how Catherine Earnshaw
could forget her first friend for such an individual.  I marvelled much
how he, with a mind to correspond with his person, could fancy my idea of
Catherine Earnshaw.

'A very agreeable portrait,' I observed to the house-keeper.  'Is it
like?'

'Yes,' she answered; 'but he looked better when he was animated; that is
his everyday countenance: he wanted spirit in general.'

Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons since her
five-weeks' residence among them; and as she had no temptation to show
her rough side in their company, and had the sense to be ashamed of
being rude where she experienced such invariable courtesy, she imposed
unwittingly on the old lady and gentleman by her ingenious cordiality;
gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her
brother: acquisitions that flattered her from the first--for she was
full of ambition--and led her to adopt a double character without
exactly intending to deceive any one. In the place where she heard
Heathcliff termed a 'vulgar young ruffian,' and 'worse than a brute,'
she took care not to act like him; but at home she had small inclination
to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and restrain an
unruly nature when it would bring her neither credit nor praise.

Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights openly.  He
had a terror of Earnshaw's reputation, and shrunk from encountering him;
and yet he was always received with our best attempts at civility: the
master himself avoided offending him, knowing why he came; and if he
could not be gracious, kept out of the way.  I rather think his
appearance there was distasteful to Catherine; she was not artful, never
played the coquette, and had evidently an objection to her two friends
meeting at all; for when Heathcliff expressed contempt of Linton in his
presence, she could not half coincide, as she did in his absence; and
when Linton evinced disgust and antipathy to Heathcliff, she dared not
treat his sentiments with indifference, as if depreciation of her
playmate were of scarcely any consequence to her.  I've had many a laugh
at her perplexities and untold troubles, which she vainly strove to hide
from my mockery.  That sounds ill-natured: but she was so proud it became
really impossible to pity her distresses, till she should be chastened
into more humility.  She did bring herself, finally, to confess, and to
confide in me: there was not a soul else that she might fashion into an
adviser.

Mr. Hindley had gone from home one afternoon, and Heathcliff presumed to
give himself a holiday on the strength of it.  He had reached the age of
sixteen then, I think, and without having bad features, or being
deficient in intellect, he contrived to convey an impression of inward
and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no traces of.
In the first place, he had by that time lost the benefit of his early
education: continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late, had
extinguished any curiosity he once possessed in pursuit of knowledge, and
any love for books or learning.  His childhood's sense of superiority,
instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was faded away.  He
struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies, and
yielded with poignant though silent regret: but he yielded completely;
and there was no prevailing on him to take a step in the way of moving
upward, when he found he must, necessarily, sink beneath his former
level.  Then personal appearance sympathised with mental deterioration:
he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved
disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable
moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the
aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintances.

Catherine and he were constant companions still at his seasons of respite
from labour; but he had ceased to express his fondness for her in words,
and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses, as if
conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks of
affection on him.  On the before-named occasion he came into the house to
announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting Miss Cathy
to arrange her dress: she had not reckoned on his taking it into his head
to be idle; and imagining she would have the whole place to herself, she
managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her brother's absence, and
was then preparing to receive him.

'Cathy, are you busy this afternoon?' asked Heathcliff.  'Are you going
anywhere?'

'No, it is raining,' she answered.

'Why have you that silk frock on, then?' he said.  'Nobody coming here, I
hope?'

'Not that I know of,' stammered Miss: 'but you should be in the field
now, Heathcliff.  It is an hour past dinnertime: I thought you were
gone.'

'Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence,' observed the
boy.  'I'll not work any more to-day: I'll stay with you.'

'Oh, but Joseph will tell,' she suggested; 'you'd better go!'

'Joseph is loading lime on the further side of Penistone Crags; it will
take him till dark, and he'll never know.'

So, saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down.  Catherine reflected an
instant, with knitted brows--she found it needful to smooth the way for
an intrusion.  'Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this
afternoon,' she said, at the conclusion of a minute's silence.  'As it
rains, I hardly expect them; but they may come, and if they do, you run
the risk of being scolded for no good.'

'Order Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy,' he persisted; 'don't turn me
out for those pitiful, silly friends of yours!  I'm on the point,
sometimes, of complaining that they--but I'll not--'

'That they what?' cried Catherine, gazing at him with a troubled
countenance.  'Oh, Nelly!' she added petulantly, jerking her head away
from my hands, 'you've combed my hair quite out of curl!  That's enough;
let me alone.  What are you on the point of complaining about,
Heathcliff?'

'Nothing--only look at the almanack on that wall;' he pointed to a framed
sheet hanging near the window, and continued, 'The crosses are for the
evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those spent with
me.  Do you see?  I've marked every day.'

'Yes--very foolish: as if I took notice!' replied Catherine, in a peevish
tone.  'And where is the sense of that?'

'To show that I _do_ take notice,' said Heathcliff.

'And should I always be sitting with you?' she demanded, growing more
irritated.  'What good do I get?  What do you talk about?  You might be
dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you
do, either!'

'You never told me before that I talked too little, or that you disliked
my company, Cathy!' exclaimed Heathcliff, in much agitation.

'It's no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,' she
muttered.

Her companion rose up, but he hadn't time to express his feelings
further, for a horse's feet were heard on the flags, and having knocked
gently, young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the
unexpected summon she had received.  Doubtless Catherine marked the
difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out.
The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal
country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were
as opposite as his aspect.  He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and
pronounced his words as you do: that's less gruff than we talk here, and
softer.

'I'm not come too soon, am I?' he said, casting a look at me: I had begun
to wipe the plate, and tidy some drawers at the far end in the dresser.

'No,' answered Catherine.  'What are you doing there, Nelly?'

'My work, Miss,' I replied.  (Mr. Hindley had given me directions to make
a third party in any private visits Linton chose to pay.)

She stepped behind me and whispered crossly, 'Take yourself and your
dusters off; when company are in the house, servants don't commence
scouring and cleaning in the room where they are!'

'It's a good opportunity, now that master is away,' I answered aloud: 'he
hates me to be fidgeting over these things in his presence.  I'm sure Mr.
Edgar will excuse me.'

'I hate you to be fidgeting in _my_ presence,' exclaimed the young lady
imperiously, not allowing her guest time to speak: she had failed to
recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff.

'I'm sorry for it, Miss Catherine,' was my response; and I proceeded
assiduously with my occupation.

She, supposing Edgar could not see her, snatched the cloth from my hand,
and pinched me, with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the arm.  I've
said I did not love her, and rather relished mortifying her vanity now
and then: besides, she hurt me extremely; so I started up from my knees,
and screamed out, 'Oh, Miss, that's a nasty trick!  You have no right to
nip me, and I'm not going to bear it.'

'I didn't touch you, you lying creature!' cried she, her fingers tingling
to repeat the act, and her ears red with rage.  She never had power to
conceal her passion, it always set her whole complexion in a blaze.

'What's that, then?' I retorted, showing a decided purple witness to
refute her.

She stamped her foot, wavered a moment, and then, irresistibly impelled
by the naughty spirit within her, slapped me on the cheek: a stinging
blow that filled both eyes with water.

'Catherine, love!  Catherine!' interposed Linton, greatly shocked at the
double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed.

'Leave the room, Ellen!' she repeated, trembling all over.

Little Hareton, who followed me everywhere, and was sitting near me on
the floor, at seeing my tears commenced crying himself, and sobbed out
complaints against 'wicked aunt Cathy,' which drew her fury on to his
unlucky head: she seized his shoulders, and shook him till the poor child
waxed livid, and Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to deliver
him.  In an instant one was wrung free, and the astonished young man felt
it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for jest.
He drew back in consternation.  I lifted Hareton in my arms, and walked
off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of communication open, for
I was curious to watch how they would settle their disagreement.  The
insulted visitor moved to the spot where he had laid his hat, pale and
with a quivering lip.

'That's right!' I said to myself.  'Take warning and begone!  It's a
kindness to let you have a glimpse of her genuine disposition.'

'Where are you going?' demanded Catherine, advancing to the door.

He swerved aside, and attempted to pass.

'You must not go!' she exclaimed, energetically.

'I must and shall!' he replied in a subdued voice.

'No,' she persisted, grasping the handle; 'not yet, Edgar Linton: sit
down; you shall not leave me in that temper.  I should be miserable all
night, and I won't be miserable for you!'

'Can I stay after you have struck me?' asked Linton.

Catherine was mute.

'You've made me afraid and ashamed of you,' he continued; 'I'll not come
here again!'

Her eyes began to glisten and her lids to twinkle.

'And you told a deliberate untruth!' he said.

'I didn't!' she cried, recovering her speech; 'I did nothing
deliberately.  Well, go, if you please--get away!  And now I'll cry--I'll
cry myself sick!'

She dropped down on her knees by a chair, and set to weeping in serious
earnest.  Edgar persevered in his resolution as far as the court; there
he lingered.  I resolved to encourage him.

'Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir,' I called out.  'As bad as any marred
child: you'd better be riding home, or else she will be sick, only to
grieve us.'

The soft thing looked askance through the window: he possessed the power
to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half
killed, or a bird half eaten.  Ah, I thought, there will be no saving
him: he's doomed, and flies to his fate!  And so it was: he turned
abruptly, hastened into the house again, shut the door behind him; and
when I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had come home
rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears (his ordinary
frame of mind in that condition), I saw the quarrel had merely effected a
closer intimacy--had broken the outworks of youthful timidity, and
enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and confess
themselves lovers.

Intelligence of Mr. Hindley's arrival drove Linton speedily to his horse,
and Catherine to her chamber.  I went to hide little Hareton, and to take
the shot out of the master's fowling-piece, which he was fond of playing
with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who
provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit upon the
plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the
length of firing the gun.




CHAPTER IX


He entered, vociferating oaths dreadful to hear; and caught me in the act
of stowing his son away in the kitchen cupboard.  Hareton was impressed
with a wholesome terror of encountering either his wild beast's fondness
or his madman's rage; for in one he ran a chance of being squeezed and
kissed to death, and in the other of being flung into the fire, or dashed
against the wall; and the poor thing remained perfectly quiet wherever I
chose to put him.

'There, I've found it out at last!' cried Hindley, pulling me back by the
skin of my neck, like a dog.  'By heaven and hell, you've sworn between
you to murder that child!  I know how it is, now, that he is always out
of my way.  But, with the help of Satan, I shall make you swallow the
carving-knife, Nelly!  You needn't laugh; for I've just crammed Kenneth,
head-downmost, in the Black-horse marsh; and two is the same as one--and
I want to kill some of you: I shall have no rest till I do!'

'But I don't like the carving-knife, Mr. Hindley,' I answered; 'it has
been cutting red herrings.  I'd rather be shot, if you please.'

'You'd rather be damned!' he said; 'and so you shall.  No law in England
can hinder a man from keeping his house decent, and mine's abominable!
Open your mouth.'  He held the knife in his hand, and pushed its point
between my teeth: but, for my part, I was never much afraid of his
vagaries.  I spat out, and affirmed it tasted detestably--I would not
take it on any account.

'Oh!' said he, releasing me, 'I see that hideous little villain is not
Hareton: I beg your pardon, Nell.  If it be, he deserves flaying alive
for not running to welcome me, and for screaming as if I were a goblin.
Unnatural cub, come hither!  I'll teach thee to impose on a good-hearted,
deluded father.  Now, don't you think the lad would be handsomer cropped?
It makes a dog fiercer, and I love something fierce--get me a
scissors--something fierce and trim!  Besides, it's infernal
affectation--devilish conceit it is, to cherish our ears--we're asses
enough without them.  Hush, child, hush!  Well then, it is my darling!
wisht, dry thy eyes--there's a joy; kiss me.  What! it won't?  Kiss me,
Hareton!  Damn thee, kiss me!  By God, as if I would rear such a monster!
As sure as I'm living, I'll break the brat's neck.'

Poor Hareton was squalling and kicking in his father's arms with all his
might, and redoubled his yells when he carried him up-stairs and lifted
him over the banister.  I cried out that he would frighten the child into
fits, and ran to rescue him.  As I reached them, Hindley leant forward on
the rails to listen to a noise below; almost forgetting what he had in
his hands.  'Who is that?' he asked, hearing some one approaching the
stairs'-foot.  I leant forward also, for the purpose of signing to
Heathcliff, whose step I recognised, not to come further; and, at the
instant when my eye quitted Hareton, he gave a sudden spring, delivered
himself from the careless grasp that held him, and fell.

There was scarcely time to experience a thrill of horror before we saw
that the little wretch was safe.  Heathcliff arrived underneath just at
the critical moment; by a natural impulse he arrested his descent, and
setting him on his feet, looked up to discover the author of the
accident.  A miser who has parted with a lucky lottery ticket for five
shillings, and finds next day he has lost in the bargain five thousand
pounds, could not show a blanker countenance than he did on beholding the
figure of Mr. Earnshaw above.  It expressed, plainer than words could do,
the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting
his own revenge.  Had it been dark, I daresay he would have tried to
remedy the mistake by smashing Hareton's skull on the steps; but, we
witnessed his salvation; and I was presently below with my precious
charge pressed to my heart.  Hindley descended more leisurely, sobered
and abashed.

'It is your fault, Ellen,' he said; 'you should have kept him out of
sight: you should have taken him from me!  Is he injured anywhere?'

'Injured!' I cried angrily; 'if he is not killed, he'll be an idiot!  Oh!
I wonder his mother does not rise from her grave to see how you use him.
You're worse than a heathen--treating your own flesh and blood in that
manner!'  He attempted to touch the child, who, on finding himself with
me, sobbed off his terror directly.  At the first finger his father laid
on him, however, he shrieked again louder than before, and struggled as
if he would go into convulsions.

'You shall not meddle with him!' I continued.  'He hates you--they all
hate you--that's the truth!  A happy family you have; and a pretty state
you're come to!'

'I shall come to a prettier, yet, Nelly,' laughed the misguided man,
recovering his hardness.  'At present, convey yourself and him away.  And
hark you, Heathcliff! clear you too quite from my reach and hearing.  I
wouldn't murder you to-night; unless, perhaps, I set the house on fire:
but that's as my fancy goes.'

While saying this he took a pint bottle of brandy from the dresser, and
poured some into a tumbler.

'Nay, don't!' I entreated.  'Mr. Hindley, do take warning.  Have mercy on
this unfortunate boy, if you care nothing for yourself!'

'Any one will do better for him than I shall,' he answered.

'Have mercy on your own soul!' I said, endeavouring to snatch the glass
from his hand.

'Not I!  On the contrary, I shall have great pleasure in sending it to
perdition to punish its Maker,' exclaimed the blasphemer.  'Here's to its
hearty damnation!'

He drank the spirits and impatiently bade us go; terminating his command
with a sequel of horrid imprecations too bad to repeat or remember.

'It's a pity he cannot kill himself with drink,' observed Heathcliff,
muttering an echo of curses back when the door was shut.  'He's doing his
very utmost; but his constitution defies him.  Mr. Kenneth says he would
wager his mare that he'll outlive any man on this side Gimmerton, and go
to the grave a hoary sinner; unless some happy chance out of the common
course befall him.'

I went into the kitchen, and sat down to lull my little lamb to sleep.
Heathcliff, as I thought, walked through to the barn.  It turned out
afterwards that he only got as far as the other side the settle, when he
flung himself on a bench by the wall, removed from the fire and remained
silent.

I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that began,--

   It was far in the night, and the bairnies grat,
   The mither beneath the mools heard that,

when Miss Cathy, who had listened to the hubbub from her room, put her
head in, and whispered,--'Are you alone, Nelly?'

'Yes, Miss,' I replied.

She entered and approached the hearth.  I, supposing she was going to say
something, looked up.  The expression of her face seemed disturbed and
anxious.  Her lips were half asunder, as if she meant to speak, and she
drew a breath; but it escaped in a sigh instead of a sentence.  I resumed
my song; not having forgotten her recent behaviour.

'Where's Heathcliff?' she said, interrupting me.

'About his work in the stable,' was my answer.

He did not contradict me; perhaps he had fallen into a doze.  There
followed another long pause, during which I perceived a drop or two
trickle from Catherine's cheek to the flags.  Is she sorry for her
shameful conduct?--I asked myself.  That will be a novelty: but she may
come to the point--as she will--I sha'n't help her!  No, she felt small
trouble regarding any subject, save her own concerns.

'Oh, dear!' she cried at last.  'I'm very unhappy!'

'A pity,' observed I.  'You're hard to please; so many friends and so few
cares, and can't make yourself content!'

'Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?' she pursued, kneeling down by me,
and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which
turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the world to
indulge it.

'Is it worth keeping?' I inquired, less sulkily.

'Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out!  I want to know what I
should do.  To-day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I've
given him an answer.  Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or
denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.'

'Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know?' I replied.  'To be sure,
considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this afternoon,
I might say it would be wise to refuse him: since he asked you after
that, he must either be hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool.'

'If you talk so, I won't tell you any more,' she returned, peevishly
rising to her feet.  'I accepted him, Nelly.  Be quick, and say whether I
was wrong!'

'You accepted him!  Then what good is it discussing the matter?  You have
pledged your word, and cannot retract.'

'But say whether I should have done so--do!' she exclaimed in an
irritated tone; chafing her hands together, and frowning.

'There are many things to be considered before that question can be
answered properly,' I said, sententiously.  'First and foremost, do you
love Mr. Edgar?'

'Who can help it?  Of course I do,' she answered.

Then I put her through the following catechism: for a girl of twenty-two
it was not injudicious.

'Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?'

'Nonsense, I do--that's sufficient.'

'By no means; you must say why?'

'Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with.'

'Bad!' was my commentary.

'And because he is young and cheerful.'

'Bad, still.'

'And because he loves me.'

'Indifferent, coming there.'

'And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the
neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.'

'Worst of all.  And now, say how you love him?'

'As everybody loves--You're silly, Nelly.'

'Not at all--Answer.'

'I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and
everything he touches, and every word he says.  I love all his looks, and
all his actions, and him entirely and altogether.  There now!'

'And why?'

'Nay; you are making a jest of it: it is exceedingly ill-natured!  It's
no jest to me!' said the young lady, scowling, and turning her face to
the fire.

'I'm very far from jesting, Miss Catherine,' I replied.  'You love Mr.
Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and
loves you.  The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him
without that, probably; and with it you wouldn't, unless he possessed the
four former attractions.'

'No, to be sure not: I should only pity him--hate him, perhaps, if he
were ugly, and a clown.'

'But there are several other handsome, rich young men in the world:
handsomer, possibly, and richer than he is.  What should hinder you from
loving them?'

'If there be any, they are out of my way: I've seen none like Edgar.'

'You may see some; and he won't always be handsome, and young, and may
not always be rich.'

'He is now; and I have only to do with the present.  I wish you would
speak rationally.'

'Well, that settles it: if you have only to do with the present, marry
Mr. Linton.'

'I don't want your permission for that--I _shall_ marry him: and yet you
have not told me whether I'm right.'

'Perfectly right; if people be right to marry only for the present.  And
now, let us hear what you are unhappy about.  Your brother will be
pleased; the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will
escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable
one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you.  All seems smooth and easy:
where is the obstacle?'

'_Here_! and _here_!' replied Catherine, striking one hand on her
forehead, and the other on her breast: 'in whichever place the soul
lives.  In my soul and in my heart, I'm convinced I'm wrong!'

'That's very strange!  I cannot make it out.'

'It's my secret.  But if you will not mock at me, I'll explain it: I
can't do it distinctly; but I'll give you a feeling of how I feel.'

She seated herself by me again: her countenance grew sadder and graver,
and her clasped hands trembled.

'Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?' she said, suddenly, after some
minutes' reflection.

'Yes, now and then,' I answered.

'And so do I.  I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me
ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me,
like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.  And this is
one: I'm going to tell it--but take care not to smile at any part of it.'

'Oh! don't, Miss Catherine!' I cried.  'We're dismal enough without
conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us.  Come, come, be merry and
like yourself!  Look at little Hareton! _he's_ dreaming nothing dreary.
How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!'

'Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his solitude!  You remember
him, I daresay, when he was just such another as that chubby thing:
nearly as young and innocent.  However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to
listen: it's not long; and I've no power to be merry to-night.'

'I won't hear it, I won't hear it!' I repeated, hastily.

I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had an
unusual gloom in her aspect, that made me dread something from which I
might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe.  She was
vexed, but she did not proceed.  Apparently taking up another subject,
she recommenced in a short time.

'If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.'

'Because you are not fit to go there,' I answered.  'All sinners would be
miserable in heaven.'

'But it is not for that.  I dreamt once that I was there.'

'I tell you I won't hearken to your dreams, Miss Catherine!  I'll go to
bed,' I interrupted again.

She laughed, and held me down; for I made a motion to leave my chair.

'This is nothing,' cried she: 'I was only going to say that heaven did
not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to
earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the
middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing
for joy.  That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other.  I've
no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and
if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't
have thought of it.  It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he
shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome,
Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are
made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a
moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.'

Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence.  Having
noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the
bench, and steal out noiselessly.  He had listened till he heard
Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to
hear no further.  My companion, sitting on the ground, was prevented by
the back of the settle from remarking his presence or departure; but I
started, and bade her hush!

'Why?' she asked, gazing nervously round.

'Joseph is here,' I answered, catching opportunely the roll of his
cartwheels up the road; 'and Heathcliff will come in with him.  I'm not
sure whether he were not at the door this moment.'

'Oh, he couldn't overhear me at the door!' said she.  'Give me Hareton,
while you get the supper, and when it is ready ask me to sup with you.  I
want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that
Heathcliff has no notion of these things.  He has not, has he?  He does
not know what being in love is!'

'I see no reason that he should not know, as well as you,' I returned;
'and if you are his choice, he'll be the most unfortunate creature that
ever was born!  As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend, and
love, and all!  Have you considered how you'll bear the separation, and
how he'll bear to be quite deserted in the world?  Because, Miss
Catherine--'

'He quite deserted! we separated!' she exclaimed, with an accent of
indignation.  'Who is to separate us, pray?  They'll meet the fate of
Milo!  Not as long as I live, Ellen: for no mortal creature.  Every
Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could
consent to forsake Heathcliff.  Oh, that's not what I intend--that's not
what I mean!  I shouldn't be Mrs. Linton were such a price demanded!
He'll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime.  Edgar must shake
off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least.  He will, when he learns
my true feelings towards him.  Nelly, I see now you think me a selfish
wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we
should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to
rise, and place him out of my brother's power.'

'With your husband's money, Miss Catherine?' I asked.  'You'll find him
not so pliable as you calculate upon: and, though I'm hardly a judge, I
think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being the wife of
young Linton.'

'It is not,' retorted she; 'it is the best!  The others were the
satisfaction of my whims: and for Edgar's sake, too, to satisfy him.  This
is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar
and myself.  I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a
notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you.  What
were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here?  My great
miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and
felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself.  If
all else perished, and _he_ remained, _I_ should still continue to be;
and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would
turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.--My love for
Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well
aware, as winter changes the trees.  My love for Heathcliff resembles the
eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.
Nelly, I _am_ Heathcliff!  He's always, always in my mind: not as a
pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own
being.  So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable; and--'

She paused, and hid her face in the folds of my gown; but I jerked it
forcibly away.  I was out of patience with her folly!

'If I can make any sense of your nonsense, Miss,' I said, 'it only goes
to convince me that you are ignorant of the duties you undertake in
marrying; or else that you are a wicked, unprincipled girl.  But trouble
me with no more secrets: I'll not promise to keep them.'

'You'll keep that?' she asked, eagerly.

'No, I'll not promise,' I repeated.

She was about to insist, when the entrance of Joseph finished our
conversation; and Catherine removed her seat to a corner, and nursed
Hareton, while I made the supper.  After it was cooked, my fellow-servant
and I began to quarrel who should carry some to Mr. Hindley; and we
didn't settle it till all was nearly cold.  Then we came to the agreement
that we would let him ask, if he wanted any; for we feared particularly
to go into his presence when he had been some time alone.

'And how isn't that nowt comed in fro' th' field, be this time?  What is
he about? girt idle seeght!' demanded the old man, looking round for
Heathcliff.

'I'll call him,' I replied.  'He's in the barn, I've no doubt.'

I went and called, but got no answer.  On returning, I whispered to
Catherine that he had heard a good part of what she said, I was sure; and
told how I saw him quit the kitchen just as she complained of her
brother's conduct regarding him.  She jumped up in a fine fright, flung
Hareton on to the settle, and ran to seek for her friend herself; not
taking leisure to consider why she was so flurried, or how her talk would
have affected him.  She was absent such a while that Joseph proposed we
should wait no longer.  He cunningly conjectured they were staying away
in order to avoid hearing his protracted blessing.  They were 'ill eneugh
for ony fahl manners,' he affirmed.  And on their behalf he added that
night a special prayer to the usual quarter-of-an-hour's supplication
before meat, and would have tacked another to the end of the grace, had
not his young mistress broken in upon him with a hurried command that he
must run down the road, and, wherever Heathcliff had rambled, find and
make him re-enter directly!

'I want to speak to him, and I _must_, before I go upstairs,' she said.
'And the gate is open: he is somewhere out of hearing; for he would not
reply, though I shouted at the top of the fold as loud as I could.'

Joseph objected at first; she was too much in earnest, however, to suffer
contradiction; and at last he placed his hat on his head, and walked
grumbling forth.  Meantime, Catherine paced up and down the floor,
exclaiming--'I wonder where he is--I wonder where he can be!  What did I
say, Nelly?  I've forgotten.  Was he vexed at my bad humour this
afternoon?  Dear! tell me what I've said to grieve him?  I do wish he'd
come.  I do wish he would!'

'What a noise for nothing!' I cried, though rather uneasy myself.  'What
a trifle scares you!  It's surely no great cause of alarm that Heathcliff
should take a moonlight saunter on the moors, or even lie too sulky to
speak to us in the hay-loft.  I'll engage he's lurking there.  See if I
don't ferret him out!'

I departed to renew my search; its result was disappointment, and
Joseph's quest ended in the same.

'Yon lad gets war und war!' observed he on re-entering.  'He's left th'
gate at t' full swing, and Miss's pony has trodden dahn two rigs o' corn,
and plottered through, raight o'er into t' meadow!  Hahsomdiver, t'
maister 'ull play t' devil to-morn, and he'll do weel.  He's patience
itsseln wi' sich careless, offald craters--patience itsseln he is!  Bud
he'll not be soa allus--yah's see, all on ye!  Yah mun'n't drive him out
of his heead for nowt!'

'Have you found Heathcliff, you ass?' interrupted Catherine.  'Have you
been looking for him, as I ordered?'

'I sud more likker look for th' horse,' he replied.  'It 'ud be to more
sense.  Bud I can look for norther horse nur man of a neeght loike
this--as black as t' chimbley! und Heathcliff's noan t' chap to coom at
_my_ whistle--happen he'll be less hard o' hearing wi' _ye_!'

It _was_ a very dark evening for summer: the clouds appeared inclined to
thunder, and I said we had better all sit down; the approaching rain
would be certain to bring him home without further trouble.  However,
Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquillity.  She kept wandering
to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which
permitted no repose; and at length took up a permanent situation on one
side of the wall, near the road: where, heedless of my expostulations and
the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash around her,
she remained, calling at intervals, and then listening, and then crying
outright.  She beat Hareton, or any child, at a good passionate fit of
crying.

About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the
Heights in full fury.  There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and
either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building: a
huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down a portion of the east
chimney-stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the
kitchen-fire.  We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us; and
Joseph swung on to his knees, beseeching the Lord to remember the
patriarchs Noah and Lot, and, as in former times, spare the righteous,
though he smote the ungodly.  I felt some sentiment that it must be a
judgment on us also.  The Jonah, in my mind, was Mr. Earnshaw; and I
shook the handle of his den that I might ascertain if he were yet living.
He replied audibly enough, in a fashion which made my companion
vociferate, more clamorously than before, that a wide distinction might
be drawn between saints like himself and sinners like his master.  But
the uproar passed away in twenty minutes, leaving us all unharmed;
excepting Cathy, who got thoroughly drenched for her obstinacy in
refusing to take shelter, and standing bonnetless and shawlless to catch
as much water as she could with her hair and clothes.  She came in and
lay down on the settle, all soaked as she was, turning her face to the
back, and putting her hands before it.

'Well, Miss!' I exclaimed, touching her shoulder; 'you are not bent on
getting your death, are you?  Do you know what o'clock it is?  Half-past
twelve.  Come, come to bed! there's no use waiting any longer on that
foolish boy: he'll be gone to Gimmerton, and he'll stay there now.  He
guesses we shouldn't wait for him till this late hour: at least, he
guesses that only Mr. Hindley would be up; and he'd rather avoid having
the door opened by the master.'

'Nay, nay, he's noan at Gimmerton,' said Joseph.  'I's niver wonder but
he's at t' bothom of a bog-hoile.  This visitation worn't for nowt, and I
wod hev' ye to look out, Miss--yah muh be t' next.  Thank Hivin for all!
All warks togither for gooid to them as is chozzen, and piked out fro'
th' rubbidge!  Yah knaw whet t' Scripture ses.'  And he began quoting
several texts, referring us to chapters and verses where we might find
them.

I, having vainly begged the wilful girl to rise and remove her wet
things, left him preaching and her shivering, and betook myself to bed
with little Hareton, who slept as fast as if everyone had been sleeping
round him.  I heard Joseph read on a while afterwards; then I
distinguished his slow step on the ladder, and then I dropped asleep.

Coming down somewhat later than usual, I saw, by the sunbeams piercing
the chinks of the shutters, Miss Catherine still seated near the
fireplace.  The house-door was ajar, too; light entered from its unclosed
windows; Hindley had come out, and stood on the kitchen hearth, haggard
and drowsy.

'What ails you, Cathy?' he was saying when I entered: 'you look as dismal
as a drowned whelp.  Why are you so damp and pale, child?'

'I've been wet,' she answered reluctantly, 'and I'm cold, that's all.'

'Oh, she is naughty!' I cried, perceiving the master to be tolerably
sober.  'She got steeped in the shower of yesterday evening, and there
she has sat the night through, and I couldn't prevail on her to stir.'

Mr. Earnshaw stared at us in surprise.  'The night through,' he repeated.
'What kept her up? not fear of the thunder, surely?  That was over hours
since.'

Neither of us wished to mention Heathcliff's absence, as long as we could
conceal it; so I replied, I didn't know how she took it into her head to
sit up; and she said nothing.  The morning was fresh and cool; I threw
back the lattice, and presently the room filled with sweet scents from
the garden; but Catherine called peevishly to me, 'Ellen, shut the
window.  I'm starving!'  And her teeth chattered as she shrank closer to
the almost extinguished embers.

'She's ill,' said Hindley, taking her wrist; 'I suppose that's the reason
she would not go to bed.  Damn it!  I don't want to be troubled with more
sickness here.  What took you into the rain?'

'Running after t' lads, as usuald!' croaked Joseph, catching an
opportunity from our hesitation to thrust in his evil tongue.  'If I war
yah, maister, I'd just slam t' boards i' their faces all on 'em, gentle
and simple!  Never a day ut yah're off, but yon cat o' Linton comes
sneaking hither; and Miss Nelly, shoo's a fine lass! shoo sits watching
for ye i' t' kitchen; and as yah're in at one door, he's out at t'other;
and, then, wer grand lady goes a-courting of her side!  It's bonny
behaviour, lurking amang t' fields, after twelve o' t' night, wi' that
fahl, flaysome divil of a gipsy, Heathcliff!  They think _I'm_ blind; but
I'm noan: nowt ut t' soart!--I seed young Linton boath coming and going,
and I seed _yah_' (directing his discourse to me), 'yah gooid fur nowt,
slattenly witch! nip up and bolt into th' house, t' minute yah heard t'
maister's horse-fit clatter up t' road.'

'Silence, eavesdropper!' cried Catherine; 'none of your insolence before
me!  Edgar Linton came yesterday by chance, Hindley; and it was _I_ who
told him to be off: because I knew you would not like to have met him as
you were.'

'You lie, Cathy, no doubt,' answered her brother, 'and you are a
confounded simpleton!  But never mind Linton at present: tell me, were
you not with Heathcliff last night?  Speak the truth, now.  You need not
be afraid of harming him: though I hate him as much as ever, he did me a
good turn a short time since that will make my conscience tender of
breaking his neck.  To prevent it, I shall send him about his business
this very morning; and after he's gone, I'd advise you all to look sharp:
I shall only have the more humour for you.'

'I never saw Heathcliff last night,' answered Catherine, beginning to sob
bitterly: 'and if you do turn him out of doors, I'll go with him.  But,
perhaps, you'll never have an opportunity: perhaps, he's gone.'  Here she
burst into uncontrollable grief, and the remainder of her words were
inarticulate.

Hindley lavished on her a torrent of scornful abuse, and bade her get to
her room immediately, or she shouldn't cry for nothing!  I obliged her to
obey; and I shall never forget what a scene she acted when we reached her
chamber: it terrified me.  I thought she was going mad, and I begged
Joseph to run for the doctor.  It proved the commencement of delirium:
Mr. Kenneth, as soon as he saw her, pronounced her dangerously ill; she
had a fever.  He bled her, and he told me to let her live on whey and
water-gruel, and take care she did not throw herself downstairs or out of
the window; and then he left: for he had enough to do in the parish,
where two or three miles was the ordinary distance between cottage and
cottage.

Though I cannot say I made a gentle nurse, and Joseph and the master were
no better, and though our patient was as wearisome and headstrong as a
patient could be, she weathered it through.  Old Mrs. Linton paid us
several visits, to be sure, and set things to rights, and scolded and
ordered us all; and when Catherine was convalescent, she insisted on
conveying her to Thrushcross Grange: for which deliverance we were very
grateful.  But the poor dame had reason to repent of her kindness: she
and her husband both took the fever, and died within a few days of each
other.

Our young lady returned to us saucier and more passionate, and haughtier
than ever.  Heathcliff had never been heard of since the evening of the
thunder-storm; and, one day, I had the misfortune, when she had provoked
me exceedingly, to lay the blame of his disappearance on her: where
indeed it belonged, as she well knew.  From that period, for several
months, she ceased to hold any communication with me, save in the
relation of a mere servant.  Joseph fell under a ban also: he would speak
his mind, and lecture her all the same as if she were a little girl; and
she esteemed herself a woman, and our mistress, and thought that her
recent illness gave her a claim to be treated with consideration.  Then
the doctor had said that she would not bear crossing much; she ought to
have her own way; and it was nothing less than murder in her eyes for any
one to presume to stand up and contradict her.  From Mr. Earnshaw and his
companions she kept aloof; and tutored by Kenneth, and serious threats of
a fit that often attended her rages, her brother allowed her whatever she
pleased to demand, and generally avoided aggravating her fiery temper.  He
was rather too indulgent in humouring her caprices; not from affection,
but from pride: he wished earnestly to see her bring honour to the family
by an alliance with the Lintons, and as long as she let him alone she
might trample on us like slaves, for aught he cared!  Edgar Linton, as
multitudes have been before and will be after him, was infatuated: and
believed himself the happiest man alive on the day he led her to
Gimmerton Chapel, three years subsequent to his father's death.

Much against my inclination, I was persuaded to leave Wuthering Heights
and accompany her here. Little Hareton was nearly five years old, and I
had just begun to teach him his letters.  We made a sad parting; but
Catherine's tears were more powerful than ours.  When I refused to go,
and when she found her entreaties did not move me, she went lamenting to
her husband and brother.  The former offered me munificent wages; the
latter ordered me to pack up: he wanted no women in the house, he said,
now that there was no mistress; and as to Hareton, the curate should take
him in hand, by-and-by.  And so I had but one choice left: to do as I was
ordered.  I told the master he got rid of all decent people only to run
to ruin a little faster; I kissed Hareton, said good-by; and since then
he has been a stranger: and it's very queer to think it, but I've no
doubt he has completely forgotten all about Ellen Dean, and that he was
ever more than all the world to her and she to him!

* * * * *

At this point of the housekeeper's story she chanced to glance towards
the time-piece over the chimney; and was in amazement on seeing the
minute-hand measure half-past one.  She would not hear of staying a
second longer: in truth, I felt rather disposed to defer the sequel of
her narrative myself.  And now that she is vanished to her rest, and I
have meditated for another hour or two, I shall summon courage to go
also, in spite of aching laziness of head and limbs.




CHAPTER X


A charming introduction to a hermit's life!  Four weeks' torture,
tossing, and sickness!  Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies,
and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons!  And oh, this dearth
of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of
Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring!

Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call.  About seven days ago he
sent me a brace of grouse--the last of the season.  Scoundrel!  He is not
altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a great mind
to tell him.  But, alas! how could I offend a man who was charitable
enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some other subject
than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches?  This is quite an easy
interval.  I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could enjoy
something interesting.  Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale?  I
can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone.  Yes: I
remember her hero had run off, and never been heard of for three years;
and the heroine was married.  I'll ring: she'll be delighted to find me
capable of talking cheerfully.  Mrs. Dean came.

'It wants twenty minutes, sir, to taking the medicine,' she commenced.

'Away, away with it!' I replied; 'I desire to have--'

'The doctor says you must drop the powders.'

'With all my heart!  Don't interrupt me.  Come and take your seat here.
Keep your fingers from that bitter phalanx of vials.  Draw your knitting
out of your pocket--that will do--now continue the history of Mr.
Heathcliff, from where you left off, to the present day.  Did he finish
his education on the Continent, and come back a gentleman? or did he get
a sizar's place at college, or escape to America, and earn honours by
drawing blood from his foster-country? or make a fortune more promptly on
the English highways?'

'He may have done a little in all these vocations, Mr. Lockwood; but I
couldn't give my word for any.  I stated before that I didn't know how he
gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his
mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk: but, with your
leave, I'll proceed in my own fashion, if you think it will amuse and not
weary you.  Are you feeling better this morning?'

'Much.'

'That's good news.'

* * * * *

I got Miss Catherine and myself to Thrushcross Grange; and, to my
agreeable disappointment, she behaved infinitely better than I dared to
expect.  She seemed almost over-fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his
sister she showed plenty of affection.  They were both very attentive to
her comfort, certainly.  It was not the thorn bending to the
honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.  There were no
mutual concessions: one stood erect, and the others yielded: and who can
be ill-natured and bad-tempered when they encounter neither opposition
nor indifference?  I observed that Mr. Edgar had a deep-rooted fear of
ruffling her humour.  He concealed it from her; but if ever he heard me
answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow cloudy at some imperious
order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that
never darkened on his own account.  He many a time spoke sternly to me
about my pertness; and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict
a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed.  Not to grieve a
kind master, I learned to be less touchy; and, for the space of half a
year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to
explode it.  Catherine had seasons of gloom and silence now and then:
they were respected with sympathising silence by her husband, who
ascribed them to an alteration in her constitution, produced by her
perilous illness; as she was never subject to depression of spirits
before.  The return of sunshine was welcomed by answering sunshine from
him.  I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep
and growing happiness.

It ended.  Well, we _must_ be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and
generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering; and it ended
when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not
the chief consideration in the other's thoughts.  On a mellow evening in
September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples
which I had been gathering.  It had got dusk, and the moon looked over
the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the
corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building.  I set my
burden on the house-steps by the kitchen-door, and lingered to rest, and
drew in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the
moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me
say,--'Nelly, is that you?'

It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone; yet there was something in the
manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar.  I turned
about to discover who spoke, fearfully; for the doors were shut, and I
had seen nobody on approaching the steps.  Something stirred in the
porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark
clothes, with dark face and hair.  He leant against the side, and held
his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself.  'Who can
it be?' I thought.  'Mr. Earnshaw?  Oh, no!  The voice has no resemblance
to his.'

'I have waited here an hour,' he resumed, while I continued staring; 'and
the whole of that time all round has been as still as death.  I dared not
enter.  You do not know me?  Look, I'm not a stranger!'

A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half covered with
black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular.  I
remembered the eyes.

'What!' I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor,
and I raised my hands in amazement.  'What! you come back?  Is it really
you?  Is it?'

'Yes, Heathcliff,' he replied, glancing from me up to the windows, which
reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from within.
'Are they at home? where is she?  Nelly, you are not glad! you needn't be
so disturbed.  Is she here?  Speak!  I want to have one word with
her--your mistress.  Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires to
see her.'

'How will she take it?' I exclaimed.  'What will she do?  The surprise
bewilders me--it will put her out of her head!  And you _are_ Heathcliff!
But altered!  Nay, there's no comprehending it.  Have you been for a
soldier?'

'Go and carry my message,' he interrupted, impatiently.  'I'm in hell
till you do!'

He lifted the latch, and I entered; but when I got to the parlour where
Mr. and Mrs. Linton were, I could not persuade myself to proceed.  At
length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if they would have the
candles lighted, and I opened the door.

They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall,
and displayed, beyond the garden trees, and the wild green park, the
valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top
(for very soon after you pass the chapel, as you may have noticed, the
sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of
the glen).  Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour; but our old
house was invisible; it rather dips down on the other side.  Both the
room and its occupants, and the scene they gazed on, looked wondrously
peaceful.  I shrank reluctantly from performing my errand; and was
actually going away leaving it unsaid, after having put my question about
the candles, when a sense of my folly compelled me to return, and mutter,
'A person from Gimmerton wishes to see you ma'am.'

'What does he want?' asked Mrs. Linton.

'I did not question him,' I answered.

'Well, close the curtains, Nelly,' she said; 'and bring up tea.  I'll be
back again directly.'

She quitted the apartment; Mr. Edgar inquired, carelessly, who it was.

'Some one mistress does not expect,' I replied.  'That Heathcliff--you
recollect him, sir--who used to live at Mr. Earnshaw's.'

'What! the gipsy--the ploughboy?' he cried.  'Why did you not say so to
Catherine?'

'Hush! you must not call him by those names, master,' I said.  'She'd be
sadly grieved to hear you.  She was nearly heartbroken when he ran off.  I
guess his return will make a jubilee to her.'

Mr. Linton walked to a window on the other side of the room that
overlooked the court.  He unfastened it, and leant out.  I suppose they
were below, for he exclaimed quickly: 'Don't stand there, love!  Bring
the person in, if it be anyone particular.'  Ere long, I heard the click
of the latch, and Catherine flew up-stairs, breathless and wild; too
excited to show gladness: indeed, by her face, you would rather have
surmised an awful calamity.

'Oh, Edgar, Edgar!' she panted, flinging her arms round his neck.  'Oh,
Edgar darling!  Heathcliff's come back--he is!'  And she tightened her
embrace to a squeeze.

'Well, well,' cried her husband, crossly, 'don't strangle me for that!  He
never struck me as such a marvellous treasure.  There is no need to be
frantic!'

'I know you didn't like him,' she answered, repressing a little the
intensity of her delight.  'Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now.
Shall I tell him to come up?'

'Here,' he said, 'into the parlour?'

'Where else?' she asked.

He looked vexed, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for
him.  Mrs. Linton eyed him with a droll expression--half angry, half
laughing at his fastidiousness.

'No,' she added, after a while; 'I cannot sit in the kitchen.  Set two
tables here, Ellen: one for your master and Miss Isabella, being gentry;
the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders.  Will
that please you, dear?  Or must I have a fire lighted elsewhere?  If so,
give directions.  I'll run down and secure my guest.  I'm afraid the joy
is too great to be real!'

She was about to dart off again; but Edgar arrested her.

'_You_ bid him step up,' he said, addressing me; 'and, Catherine, try to
be glad, without being absurd.  The whole household need not witness the
sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother.'

I descended, and found Heathcliff waiting under the porch, evidently
anticipating an invitation to enter.  He followed my guidance without
waste of words, and I ushered him into the presence of the master and
mistress, whose flushed cheeks betrayed signs of warm talking.  But the
lady's glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the door:
she sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton; and then
she seized Linton's reluctant fingers and crushed them into his.  Now,
fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed, more than ever,
to behold the transformation of Heathcliff.  He had grown a tall,
athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master seemed quite slender and
youth-like.  His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been
in the army.  His countenance was much older in expression and decision
of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked intelligent, and retained no
marks of former degradation.  A half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the
depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his
manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though stern for
grace.  My master's surprise equalled or exceeded mine: he remained for a
minute at a loss how to address the ploughboy, as he had called him.
Heathcliff dropped his slight hand, and stood looking at him coolly till
he chose to speak.

'Sit down, sir,' he said, at length.  'Mrs. Linton, recalling old times,
would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am
gratified when anything occurs to please her.'

'And I also,' answered Heathcliff, 'especially if it be anything in which
I have a part.  I shall stay an hour or two willingly.'

He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if
she feared he would vanish were she to remove it.  He did not raise his
to her often: a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed back,
each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from hers.
They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer embarrassment.
Not so Mr. Edgar: he grew pale with pure annoyance: a feeling that
reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across the rug,
seized Heathcliff's hands again, and laughed like one beside herself.

'I shall think it a dream to-morrow!' she cried.  'I shall not be able to
believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more.  And
yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don't deserve this welcome.  To be absent and
silent for three years, and never to think of me!'

'A little more than you have thought of me,' he murmured.  'I heard of
your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard
below, I meditated this plan--just to have one glimpse of your face, a
stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my
score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on
myself.  Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of
meeting me with another aspect next time!  Nay, you'll not drive me off
again.  You were really sorry for me, were you?  Well, there was cause.
I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and you
must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!'

'Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the table,'
interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and a due
measure of politeness.  'Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk, wherever
he may lodge to-night; and I'm thirsty.'

She took her post before the urn; and Miss Isabella came, summoned by the
bell; then, having handed their chairs forward, I left the room.  The
meal hardly endured ten minutes.  Catherine's cup was never filled: she
could neither eat nor drink.  Edgar had made a slop in his saucer, and
scarcely swallowed a mouthful.  Their guest did not protract his stay
that evening above an hour longer.  I asked, as he departed, if he went
to Gimmerton?

'No, to Wuthering Heights,' he answered: 'Mr. Earnshaw invited me, when I
called this morning.'

Mr. Earnshaw invited _him_! and _he_ called on Mr. Earnshaw!  I pondered
this sentence painfully, after he was gone.  Is he turning out a bit of a
hypocrite, and coming into the country to work mischief under a cloak?  I
mused: I had a presentiment in the bottom of my heart that he had better
have remained away.

About the middle of the night, I was wakened from my first nap by Mrs.
Linton gliding into my chamber, taking a seat on my bedside, and pulling
me by the hair to rouse me.

'I cannot rest, Ellen,' she said, by way of apology.  'And I want some
living creature to keep me company in my happiness!  Edgar is sulky,
because I'm glad of a thing that does not interest him: he refuses to
open his mouth, except to utter pettish, silly speeches; and he affirmed
I was cruel and selfish for wishing to talk when he was so sick and
sleepy.  He always contrives to be sick at the least cross!  I gave a few
sentences of commendation to Heathcliff, and he, either for a headache or
a pang of envy, began to cry: so I got up and left him.'

'What use is it praising Heathcliff to him?' I answered.  'As lads they
had an aversion to each other, and Heathcliff would hate just as much to
hear him praised: it's human nature.  Let Mr. Linton alone about him,
unless you would like an open quarrel between them.'

'But does it not show great weakness?' pursued she.  'I'm not envious: I
never feel hurt at the brightness of Isabella's yellow hair and the
whiteness of her skin, at her dainty elegance, and the fondness all the
family exhibit for her.  Even you, Nelly, if we have a dispute sometimes,
you back Isabella at once; and I yield like a foolish mother: I call her
a darling, and flatter her into a good temper.  It pleases her brother to
see us cordial, and that pleases me.  But they are very much alike: they
are spoiled children, and fancy the world was made for their
accommodation; and though I humour both, I think a smart chastisement
might improve them all the same.'

'You're mistaken, Mrs. Linton,' said I.  'They humour you: I know what
there would be to do if they did not.  You can well afford to indulge
their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your
desires.  You may, however, fall out, at last, over something of equal
consequence to both sides; and then those you term weak are very capable
of being as obstinate as you.'

'And then we shall fight to the death, sha'n't we, Nelly?' she returned,
laughing.  'No! I tell you, I have such faith in Linton's love, that I
believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate.'

I advised her to value him the more for his affection.

'I do,' she answered, 'but he needn't resort to whining for trifles.  It
is childish and, instead of melting into tears because I said that
Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone's regard, and it would honour the
first gentleman in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said it
for me, and been delighted from sympathy.  He must get accustomed to him,
and he may as well like him: considering how Heathcliff has reason to
object to him, I'm sure he behaved excellently!'

'What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights?' I inquired.  'He
is reformed in every respect, apparently: quite a Christian: offering the
right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around!'

'He explained it,' she replied.  'I wonder as much as you.  He said he
called to gather information concerning me from you, supposing you
resided there still; and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to
questioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living;
and finally, desired him to walk in.  There were some persons sitting at
cards; Heathcliff joined them; my brother lost some money to him, and,
finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again
in the evening: to which he consented.  Hindley is too reckless to select
his acquaintance prudently: he doesn't trouble himself to reflect on the
causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has basely injured.  But
Heathcliff affirms his principal reason for resuming a connection with
his ancient persecutor is a wish to install himself in quarters at walking
distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived
together; and likewise a hope that I shall have more opportunities of
seeing him there than I could have if he settled in Gimmerton.  He means
to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights; and
doubtless my brother's covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms:
he was always greedy; though what he grasps with one hand he flings away
with the other.'

'It's a nice place for a young man to fix his dwelling in!' said I.  'Have
you no fear of the consequences, Mrs. Linton?'

'None for my friend,' she replied: 'his strong head will keep him from
danger; a little for Hindley: but he can't be made morally worse than he
is; and I stand between him and bodily harm.  The event of this evening
has reconciled me to God and humanity!  I had risen in angry rebellion
against Providence.  Oh, I've endured very, very bitter misery, Nelly!  If
that creature knew how bitter, he'd be ashamed to cloud its removal with
idle petulance.  It was kindness for him which induced me to bear it
alone: had I expressed the agony I frequently felt, he would have been
taught to long for its alleviation as ardently as I.  However, it's over,
and I'll take no revenge on his folly; I can afford to suffer anything
hereafter!  Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I'd not
only turn the other, but I'd ask pardon for provoking it; and, as a
proof, I'll go make my peace with Edgar instantly.  Good-night!  I'm an
angel!'

In this self-complacent conviction she departed; and the success of her
fulfilled resolution was obvious on the morrow: Mr. Linton had not only
abjured his peevishness (though his spirits seemed still subdued by
Catherine's exuberance of vivacity), but he ventured no objection to her
taking Isabella with her to Wuthering Heights in the afternoon; and she
rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection in return as
made the house a paradise for several days; both master and servants
profiting from the perpetual sunshine.

Heathcliff--Mr. Heathcliff I should say in future--used the liberty of
visiting at Thrushcross Grange cautiously, at first: he seemed estimating
how far its owner would bear his intrusion.  Catherine, also, deemed it
judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in receiving him; and
he gradually established his right to be expected.  He retained a great
deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was remarkable; and that served
to repress all startling demonstrations of feeling.  My master's
uneasiness experienced a lull, and further circumstances diverted it into
another channel for a space.

His new source of trouble sprang from the not anticipated misfortune of
Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the
tolerated guest.  She was at that time a charming young lady of eighteen;
infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a
keen temper, too, if irritated.  Her brother, who loved her tenderly, was
appalled at this fantastic preference.  Leaving aside the degradation of
an alliance with a nameless man, and the possible fact that his property,
in default of heirs male, might pass into such a one's power, he had
sense to comprehend Heathcliff's disposition: to know that, though his
exterior was altered, his mind was unchangeable and unchanged.  And he
dreaded that mind: it revolted him: he shrank forebodingly from the idea
of committing Isabella to its keeping.  He would have recoiled still more
had he been aware that her attachment rose unsolicited, and was bestowed
where it awakened no reciprocation of sentiment; for the minute he
discovered its existence he laid the blame on Heathcliff's deliberate
designing.

We had all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and pined
over something.  She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at and teasing
Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her limited
patience.  We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of
ill-health: she was dwindling and fading before our eyes.  But one day,
when she had been peculiarly wayward, rejecting her breakfast,
complaining that the servants did not do what she told them; that the
mistress would allow her to be nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected
her; that she had caught a cold with the doors being left open, and we
let the parlour fire go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet
more frivolous accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she
should get to bed; and, having scolded her heartily, threatened to send
for the doctor.  Mention of Kenneth caused her to exclaim, instantly,
that her health was perfect, and it was only Catherine's harshness which
made her unhappy.

'How can you say I am harsh, you naughty fondling?' cried the mistress,
amazed at the unreasonable assertion.  'You are surely losing your
reason.  When have I been harsh, tell me?'

'Yesterday,' sobbed Isabella, 'and now!'

'Yesterday!' said her sister-in-law.  'On what occasion?'

'In our walk along the moor: you told me to ramble where I pleased, while
you sauntered on with Mr. Heathcliff!'

'And that's your notion of harshness?' said Catherine, laughing.  'It was
no hint that your company was superfluous?  We didn't care whether you
kept with us or not; I merely thought Heathcliff's talk would have
nothing entertaining for your ears.'

'Oh, no,' wept the young lady; 'you wished me away, because you knew I
liked to be there!'

'Is she sane?' asked Mrs. Linton, appealing to me.  'I'll repeat our
conversation, word for word, Isabella; and you point out any charm it
could have had for you.'

'I don't mind the conversation,' she answered: 'I wanted to be with--'

'Well?' said Catherine, perceiving her hesitate to complete the sentence.

'With him: and I won't be always sent off!' she continued, kindling up.
'You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but
yourself!'

'You are an impertinent little monkey!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in
surprise.  'But I'll not believe this idiotcy!  It is impossible that you
can covet the admiration of Heathcliff--that you consider him an
agreeable person!  I hope I have misunderstood you, Isabella?'

'No, you have not,' said the infatuated girl.  'I love him more than ever
you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!'

'I wouldn't be you for a kingdom, then!' Catherine declared,
emphatically: and she seemed to speak sincerely.  'Nelly, help me to
convince her of her madness.  Tell her what Heathcliff is: an unreclaimed
creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an arid wilderness of
furze and whinstone.  I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on
a winter's day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him!  It is
deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which
makes that dream enter your head.  Pray, don't imagine that he conceals
depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior!  He's not a
rough diamond--a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce,
pitiless, wolfish man.  I never say to him, "Let this or that enemy
alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them;" I say, "Let
them alone, because _I_ should hate them to be wronged:" and he'd crush
you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge.
I know he couldn't love a Linton; and yet he'd be quite capable of
marrying your fortune and expectations: avarice is growing with him a
besetting sin.  There's my picture: and I'm his friend--so much so, that
had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my
tongue, and let you fall into his trap.'

Miss Linton regarded her sister-in-law with indignation.

'For shame! for shame!' she repeated, angrily.  'You are worse than
twenty foes, you poisonous friend!'

'Ah! you won't believe me, then?' said Catherine.  'You think I speak
from wicked selfishness?'

'I'm certain you do,' retorted Isabella; 'and I shudder at you!'

'Good!' cried the other.  'Try for yourself, if that be your spirit: I
have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence.'--

'And I must suffer for her egotism!' she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left the
room.  'All, all is against me: she has blighted my single consolation.
But she uttered falsehoods, didn't she?  Mr. Heathcliff is not a fiend:
he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he remember her?'

'Banish him from your thoughts, Miss,' I said.  'He's a bird of bad omen:
no mate for you.  Mrs. Linton spoke strongly, and yet I can't contradict
her.  She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides;
and she never would represent him as worse than he is.  Honest people
don't hide their deeds.  How has he been living? how has he got rich? why
is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man whom he abhors?
They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came.  They sit up all
night together continually, and Hindley has been borrowing money on his
land, and does nothing but play and drink: I heard only a week ago--it
was Joseph who told me--I met him at Gimmerton: "Nelly," he said, "we's
hae a crowner's 'quest enow, at ahr folks'.  One on 'em 's a'most getten
his finger cut off wi' hauding t' other fro' stickin' hisseln loike a
cawlf.  That's maister, yeah knaw, 'at 's soa up o' going tuh t' grand
'sizes.  He's noan feared o' t' bench o' judges, norther Paul, nur Peter,
nur John, nur Matthew, nor noan on 'em, not he!  He fair likes--he langs
to set his brazened face agean 'em!  And yon bonny lad Heathcliff, yah
mind, he's a rare 'un.  He can girn a laugh as well 's onybody at a
raight divil's jest.  Does he niver say nowt of his fine living amang us,
when he goes to t' Grange?  This is t' way on 't:--up at sun-down: dice,
brandy, cloised shutters, und can'le-light till next day at noon: then,
t'fooil gangs banning und raving to his cham'er, makking dacent fowks dig
thur fingers i' thur lugs fur varry shame; un' the knave, why he can
caint his brass, un' ate, un' sleep, un' off to his neighbour's to gossip
wi' t' wife.  I' course, he tells Dame Catherine how her fathur's goold
runs into his pocket, and her fathur's son gallops down t' broad road,
while he flees afore to oppen t' pikes!"  Now, Miss Linton, Joseph is an
old rascal, but no liar; and, if his account of Heathcliff's conduct be
true, you would never think of desiring such a husband, would you?'

'You are leagued with the rest, Ellen!' she replied.  'I'll not listen to
your slanders.  What malevolence you must have to wish to convince me
that there is no happiness in the world!'

Whether she would have got over this fancy if left to herself, or
persevered in nursing it perpetually, I cannot say: she had little time
to reflect.  The day after, there was a justice-meeting at the next town;
my master was obliged to attend; and Mr. Heathcliff, aware of his
absence, called rather earlier than usual.  Catherine and Isabella were
sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent: the latter alarmed
at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of her secret
feelings in a transient fit of passion; the former, on mature
consideration, really offended with her companion; and, if she laughed
again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter to her.  She
did laugh as she saw Heathcliff pass the window.  I was sweeping the
hearth, and I noticed a mischievous smile on her lips.  Isabella,
absorbed in her meditations, or a book, remained till the door opened;
and it was too late to attempt an escape, which she would gladly have
done had it been practicable.

'Come in, that's right!' exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair
to the fire.  'Here are two people sadly in need of a third to thaw the
ice between them; and you are the very one we should both of us choose.
Heathcliff, I'm proud to show you, at last, somebody that dotes on you
more than myself.  I expect you to feel flattered.  Nay, it's not Nelly;
don't look at her!  My poor little sister-in-law is breaking her heart by
mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty.  It lies in your
own power to be Edgar's brother!  No, no, Isabella, you sha'n't run off,'
she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the confounded girl,
who had risen indignantly.  'We were quarrelling like cats about you,
Heathcliff; and I was fairly beaten in protestations of devotion and
admiration: and, moreover, I was informed that if I would but have the
manners to stand aside, my rival, as she will have herself to be, would
shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever, and send my
image into eternal oblivion!'

'Catherine!' said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to
struggle from the tight grasp that held her, 'I'd thank you to adhere to
the truth and not slander me, even in joke!  Mr. Heathcliff, be kind
enough to bid this friend of yours release me: she forgets that you and I
are not intimate acquaintances; and what amuses her is painful to me
beyond expression.'

As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly
indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned and
whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor.

'By no means!' cried Mrs. Linton in answer.  'I won't be named a dog in
the manger again.  You _shall_ stay: now then!  Heathcliff, why don't you
evince satisfaction at my pleasant news?  Isabella swears that the love
Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you.  I'm sure she
made some speech of the kind; did she not, Ellen?  And she has fasted
ever since the day before yesterday's walk, from sorrow and rage that I
despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being
unacceptable.'

'I think you belie her,' said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face
them.  'She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!'

And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a
strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance,
which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises.
The poor thing couldn't bear that; she grew white and red in rapid
succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her
small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and perceiving that
as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she
could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of her nails;
and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainer's with crescents of
red.

'There's a tigress!' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and shaking
her hand with pain.  'Begone, for God's sake, and hide your vixen face!
How foolish to reveal those talons to him.  Can't you fancy the
conclusions he'll draw?  Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will
do execution--you must beware of your eyes.'

'I'd wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me,' he answered,
brutally, when the door had closed after her.  'But what did you mean by
teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy?  You were not speaking the
truth, were you?'

'I assure you I was,' she returned.  'She has been dying for your sake
several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a
deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light,
for the purpose of mitigating her adoration.  But don't notice it
further: I wished to punish her sauciness, that's all.  I like her too
well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up.'

'And I like her too ill to attempt it,' said he, 'except in a very
ghoulish fashion.  You'd hear of odd things if I lived alone with that
mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white the
colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or
two: they detestably resemble Linton's.'

'Delectably!' observed Catherine.  'They are dove's eyes--angel's!'

'She's her brother's heir, is she not?' he asked, after a brief silence.

'I should be sorry to think so,' returned his companion.  'Half a dozen
nephews shall erase her title, please heaven!  Abstract your mind from
the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbour's
goods; remember _this_ neighbour's goods are mine.'

'If they were _mine_, they would be none the less that,' said Heathcliff;
'but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely mad; and, in
short, we'll dismiss the matter, as you advise.'

From their tongues they did dismiss it; and Catherine, probably, from her
thoughts.  The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the course of
the evening.  I saw him smile to himself--grin rather--and lapse into
ominous musing whenever Mrs. Linton had occasion to be absent from the
apartment.

I determined to watch his movements.  My heart invariably cleaved to the
master's, in preference to Catherine's side: with reason I imagined, for
he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she--she could not be
called _opposite_, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude,
that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for
her feelings.  I wanted something to happen which might have the effect
of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff
quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent.  His visits were
a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also.  His
abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining.  I felt that God
had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an
evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring
and destroy.




CHAPTER XI


Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I've got up in a
sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the farm.
I've persuaded my conscience that it was a duty to warn him how people
talked regarding his ways; and then I've recollected his confirmed bad
habits, and, hopeless of benefiting him, have flinched from re-entering
the dismal house, doubting if I could bear to be taken at my word.

One time I passed the old gate, going out of my way, on a journey to
Gimmerton. It was about the period that my narrative has reached: a
bright frosty afternoon; the ground bare, and the road hard and dry. I
came to a stone where the highway branches off on to the moor at your
left hand; a rough sand-pillar, with the letters W. H. cut on its north
side, on the east, G., and on the south-west, T. G. It serves as a
guide-post to the Grange, the Heights, and village. The sun shone yellow
on its grey head, reminding me of summer; and I cannot say why, but all
at once a gush of child's sensations flowed into my heart. Hindley and I
held it a favourite spot twenty years before. I gazed long at the
weather-worn block; and, stooping down, perceived a hole near the bottom
still full of snail-shells and pebbles, which we were fond of storing
there with more perishable things; and, as fresh as reality, it appeared
that I beheld my early playmate seated on the withered turf: his dark,
square head bent forward, and his little hand scooping out the earth
with a piece of slate. 'Poor Hindley!' I exclaimed, involuntarily. I
started: my bodily eye was cheated into a momentary belief that the
child lifted its face and stared straight into mine! It vanished in a
twinkling; but immediately I felt an irresistible yearning to be at the
Heights. Superstition urged me to comply with this impulse: supposing he
should be dead! I thought--or should die soon!--supposing it were a sign
of death! The nearer I got to the house the more agitated I grew; and on
catching sight of it I trembled in every limb. The apparition had
outstripped me: it stood looking through the gate. That was my first
idea on observing an elf-locked, brown-eyed boy setting his ruddy
countenance against the bars. Further reflection suggested this must be
Hareton, _my_ Hareton, not altered greatly since I left him, ten months
since.

'God bless thee, darling!' I cried, forgetting instantaneously my
foolish fears. 'Hareton, it's Nelly! Nelly, thy nurse.'

He retreated out of arm's length, and picked up a large flint.

'I am come to see thy father, Hareton,' I added, guessing from the
action that Nelly, if she lived in his memory at all, was not recognised
as one with me.

He raised his missile to hurl it; I commenced a soothing speech, but
could not stay his hand: the stone struck my bonnet; and then ensued,
from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses, which,
whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with practised
emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of
malignity.  You may be certain this grieved more than angered me.  Fit to
cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it to propitiate him.
He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold; as if he fancied I only
intended to tempt and disappoint him.  I showed another, keeping it out
of his reach.

'Who has taught you those fine words, my bairn?' I inquired.  'The
curate?'

'Damn the curate, and thee!  Gie me that,' he replied.

'Tell us where you got your lessons, and you shall have it,' said I.
'Who's your master?'

'Devil daddy,' was his answer.

'And what do you learn from daddy?' I continued.

He jumped at the fruit; I raised it higher.  'What does he teach you?' I
asked.

'Naught,' said he, 'but to keep out of his gait.  Daddy cannot bide me,
because I swear at him.'

'Ah! and the devil teaches you to swear at daddy?' I observed.

'Ay--nay,' he drawled.

'Who, then?'

'Heathcliff.'

'I asked if he liked Mr. Heathcliff.'

'Ay!' he answered again.

Desiring to have his reasons for liking him, I could only gather the
sentences--'I known't: he pays dad back what he gies to me--he curses
daddy for cursing me.  He says I mun do as I will.'

'And the curate does not teach you to read and write, then?' I pursued.

'No, I was told the curate should have his--teeth dashed down his--throat,
if he stepped over the threshold--Heathcliff had promised that!'

I put the orange in his hand, and bade him tell his father that a woman
called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him, by the garden gate.  He
went up the walk, and entered the house; but, instead of Hindley,
Heathcliff appeared on the door-stones; and I turned directly and ran
down the road as hard as ever I could race, making no halt till I gained
the guide-post, and feeling as scared as if I had raised a goblin.  This
is not much connected with Miss Isabella's affair: except that it urged
me to resolve further on mounting vigilant guard, and doing my utmost to
check the spread of such bad influence at the Grange: even though I
should wake a domestic storm, by thwarting Mrs. Linton's pleasure.

The next time Heathcliff came my young lady chanced to be feeding some
pigeons in the court.  She had never spoken a word to her sister-in-law
for three days; but she had likewise dropped her fretful complaining, and
we found it a great comfort.  Heathcliff had not the habit of bestowing a
single unnecessary civility on Miss Linton, I knew.  Now, as soon as he
beheld her, his first precaution was to take a sweeping survey of the
house-front.  I was standing by the kitchen-window, but I drew out of
sight.  He then stepped across the pavement to her, and said something:
she seemed embarrassed, and desirous of getting away; to prevent it, he
laid his hand on her arm.  She averted her face: he apparently put some
question which she had no mind to answer.  There was another rapid glance
at the house, and supposing himself unseen, the scoundrel had the
impudence to embrace her.

'Judas!  Traitor!' I ejaculated.  'You are a hypocrite, too, are you?  A
deliberate deceiver.'

'Who is, Nelly?' said Catherine's voice at my elbow: I had been
over-intent on watching the pair outside to mark her entrance.

'Your worthless friend!' I answered, warmly: 'the sneaking rascal yonder.
Ah, he has caught a glimpse of us--he is coming in!  I wonder will he
have the heart to find a plausible excuse for making love to Miss, when
he told you he hated her?'

Mrs. Linton saw Isabella tear herself free, and run into the garden; and
a minute after, Heathcliff opened the door.  I couldn't withhold giving
some loose to my indignation; but Catherine angrily insisted on silence,
and threatened to order me out of the kitchen, if I dared to be so
presumptuous as to put in my insolent tongue.

'To hear you, people might think you were the mistress!' she cried.  'You
want setting down in your right place!  Heathcliff, what are you about,
raising this stir?  I said you must let Isabella alone!--I beg you will,
unless you are tired of being received here, and wish Linton to draw the
bolts against you!'

'God forbid that he should try!' answered the black villain.  I detested
him just then.  'God keep him meek and patient!  Every day I grow madder
after sending him to heaven!'

'Hush!' said Catherine, shutting the inner door!  'Don't vex me.  Why
have you disregarded my request?  Did she come across you on purpose?'

'What is it to you?' he growled.  'I have a right to kiss her, if she
chooses; and you have no right to object.  I am not _your_ husband: _you_
needn't be jealous of me!'

'I'm not jealous of you,' replied the mistress; 'I'm jealous for you.
Clear your face: you sha'n't scowl at me!  If you like Isabella, you
shall marry her.  But do you like her?  Tell the truth, Heathcliff!
There, you won't answer.  I'm certain you don't.'

'And would Mr. Linton approve of his sister marrying that man?' I
inquired.

'Mr. Linton should approve,' returned my lady, decisively.

'He might spare himself the trouble,' said Heathcliff: 'I could do as
well without his approbation. And as to you, Catherine, I have a mind to
speak a few words now, while we are at it. I want you to be aware that I
_know_ you have treated me infernally--infernally! Do you hear? And if
you flatter yourself that I don't perceive it, you are a fool; and if
you think I can be consoled by sweet words, you are an idiot: and if you
fancy I'll suffer unrevenged, I'll convince you of the contrary, in a
very little while! Meantime, thank you for telling me your
sister-in-law's secret: I swear I'll make the most of it. And stand you
aside!'

'What new phase of his character is this?' exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in
amazement.  'I've treated you infernally--and you'll take your revenge!
How will you take it, ungrateful brute?  How have I treated you
infernally?'

'I seek no revenge on you,' replied Heathcliff, less vehemently.  'That's
not the plan.  The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn
against him; they crush those beneath them.  You are welcome to torture
me to death for your amusement, only allow me to amuse myself a little in
the same style, and refrain from insult as much as you are able.  Having
levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own
charity in giving me that for a home.  If I imagined you really wished me
to marry Isabel, I'd cut my throat!'

'Oh, the evil is that I am _not_ jealous, is it?' cried Catherine.  'Well,
I won't repeat my offer of a wife: it is as bad as offering Satan a lost
soul.  Your bliss lies, like his, in inflicting misery.  You prove it.
Edgar is restored from the ill-temper he gave way to at your coming; I
begin to be secure and tranquil; and you, restless to know us at peace,
appear resolved on exciting a quarrel.  Quarrel with Edgar, if you
please, Heathcliff, and deceive his sister: you'll hit on exactly the
most efficient method of revenging yourself on me.'

The conversation ceased.  Mrs. Linton sat down by the fire, flushed and
gloomy.  The spirit which served her was growing intractable: she could
neither lay nor control it.  He stood on the hearth with folded arms,
brooding on his evil thoughts; and in this position I left them to seek
the master, who was wondering what kept Catherine below so long.

'Ellen,' said he, when I entered, 'have you seen your mistress?'

'Yes; she's in the kitchen, sir,' I answered.  'She's sadly put out by
Mr. Heathcliff's behaviour: and, indeed, I do think it's time to arrange
his visits on another footing.  There's harm in being too soft, and now
it's come to this--.'  And I related the scene in the court, and, as near
as I dared, the whole subsequent dispute.  I fancied it could not be very
prejudicial to Mrs. Linton; unless she made it so afterwards, by assuming
the defensive for her guest.  Edgar Linton had difficulty in hearing me
to the close.  His first words revealed that he did not clear his wife of
blame.

'This is insufferable!' he exclaimed.  'It is disgraceful that she should
own him for a friend, and force his company on me!  Call me two men out
of the hall, Ellen.  Catherine shall linger no longer to argue with the
low ruffian--I have humoured her enough.'

He descended, and bidding the servants wait in the passage, went,
followed by me, to the kitchen.  Its occupants had recommenced their
angry discussion: Mrs. Linton, at least, was scolding with renewed
vigour; Heathcliff had moved to the window, and hung his head, somewhat
cowed by her violent rating apparently.  He saw the master first, and
made a hasty motion that she should be silent; which she obeyed,
abruptly, on discovering the reason of his intimation.

'How is this?' said Linton, addressing her; 'what notion of propriety
must you have to remain here, after the language which has been held to
you by that blackguard?  I suppose, because it is his ordinary talk you
think nothing of it: you are habituated to his baseness, and, perhaps,
imagine I can get used to it too!'

'Have you been listening at the door, Edgar?' asked the mistress, in a
tone particularly calculated to provoke her husband, implying both
carelessness and contempt of his irritation.  Heathcliff, who had raised
his eyes at the former speech, gave a sneering laugh at the latter; on
purpose, it seemed, to draw Mr. Linton's attention to him.  He succeeded;
but Edgar did not mean to entertain him with any high flights of passion.

'I've been so far forbearing with you, sir,' he said quietly; 'not that I
was ignorant of your miserable, degraded character, but I felt you were
only partly responsible for that; and Catherine wishing to keep up your
acquaintance, I acquiesced--foolishly.  Your presence is a moral poison
that would contaminate the most virtuous: for that cause, and to prevent
worse consequences, I shall deny you hereafter admission into this house,
and give notice now that I require your instant departure.  Three
minutes' delay will render it involuntary and ignominious.'

Heathcliff measured the height and breadth of the speaker with an eye
full of derision.

'Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!' he said.  'It is in
danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles.  By God!  Mr. Linton,
I'm mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!'

My master glanced towards the passage, and signed me to fetch the men: he
had no intention of hazarding a personal encounter.  I obeyed the hint;
but Mrs. Linton, suspecting something, followed; and when I attempted to
call them, she pulled me back, slammed the door to, and locked it.

'Fair means!' she said, in answer to her husband's look of angry
surprise.  'If you have not courage to attack him, make an apology, or
allow yourself to be beaten.  It will correct you of feigning more valour
than you possess.  No, I'll swallow the key before you shall get it!  I'm
delightfully rewarded for my kindness to each!  After constant indulgence
of one's weak nature, and the other's bad one, I earn for thanks two
samples of blind ingratitude, stupid to absurdity!  Edgar, I was
defending you and yours; and I wish Heathcliff may flog you sick, for
daring to think an evil thought of me!'

It did not need the medium of a flogging to produce that effect on the
master.  He tried to wrest the key from Catherine's grasp, and for safety
she flung it into the hottest part of the fire; whereupon Mr. Edgar was
taken with a nervous trembling, and his countenance grew deadly pale.  For
his life he could not avert that excess of emotion: mingled anguish and
humiliation overcame him completely.  He leant on the back of a chair,
and covered his face.

'Oh, heavens!  In old days this would win you knighthood!' exclaimed Mrs.
Linton.  'We are vanquished! we are vanquished!  Heathcliff would as soon
lift a finger at you as the king would march his army against a colony of
mice.  Cheer up! you sha'n't be hurt!  Your type is not a lamb, it's a
sucking leveret.'

'I wish you joy of the milk-blooded coward, Cathy!' said her friend.  'I
compliment you on your taste.  And that is the slavering, shivering thing
you preferred to me!  I would not strike him with my fist, but I'd kick
him with my foot, and experience considerable satisfaction.  Is he
weeping, or is he going to faint for fear?'

The fellow approached and gave the chair on which Linton rested a push.
He'd better have kept his distance: my master quickly sprang erect, and
struck him full on the throat a blow that would have levelled a slighter
man.  It took his breath for a minute; and while he choked, Mr. Linton
walked out by the back door into the yard, and from thence to the front
entrance.

'There! you've done with coming here,' cried Catherine.  'Get away, now;
he'll return with a brace of pistols and half-a-dozen assistants.  If he
did overhear us, of course he'd never forgive you.  You've played me an
ill turn, Heathcliff!  But go--make haste!  I'd rather see Edgar at bay
than you.'

'Do you suppose I'm going with that blow burning in my gullet?' he
thundered.  'By hell, no!  I'll crush his ribs in like a rotten hazel-nut
before I cross the threshold!  If I don't floor him now, I shall murder
him some time; so, as you value his existence, let me get at him!'

'He is not coming,' I interposed, framing a bit of a lie.  'There's the
coachman and the two gardeners; you'll surely not wait to be thrust into
the road by them!  Each has a bludgeon; and master will, very likely, be
watching from the parlour-windows to see that they fulfil his orders.'

The gardeners and coachman were there: but Linton was with them.  They
had already entered the court.  Heathcliff, on the second thoughts,
resolved to avoid a struggle against three underlings: he seized the
poker, smashed the lock from the inner door, and made his escape as they
tramped in.

Mrs. Linton, who was very much excited, bade me accompany her up-stairs.
She did not know my share in contributing to the disturbance, and I was
anxious to keep her in ignorance.

'I'm nearly distracted, Nelly!' she exclaimed, throwing herself on the
sofa.  'A thousand smiths' hammers are beating in my head!  Tell Isabella
to shun me; this uproar is owing to her; and should she or any one else
aggravate my anger at present, I shall get wild.  And, Nelly, say to
Edgar, if you see him again to-night, that I'm in danger of being
seriously ill.  I wish it may prove true.  He has startled and distressed
me shockingly!  I want to frighten him.  Besides, he might come and begin
a string of abuse or complainings; I'm certain I should recriminate, and
God knows where we should end!  Will you do so, my good Nelly?  You are
aware that I am no way blamable in this matter.  What possessed him to
turn listener?  Heathcliff's talk was outrageous, after you left us; but
I could soon have diverted him from Isabella, and the rest meant nothing.
Now all is dashed wrong; by the fool's craving to hear evil of self, that
haunts some people like a demon!  Had Edgar never gathered our
conversation, he would never have been the worse for it.  Really, when he
opened on me in that unreasonable tone of displeasure after I had scolded
Heathcliff till I was hoarse for him, I did not care hardly what they did
to each other; especially as I felt that, however the scene closed, we
should all be driven asunder for nobody knows how long!  Well, if I
cannot keep Heathcliff for my friend--if Edgar will be mean and jealous,
I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own.  That will be a prompt
way of finishing all, when I am pushed to extremity!  But it's a deed to
be reserved for a forlorn hope; I'd not take Linton by surprise with it.
To this point he has been discreet in dreading to provoke me; you must
represent the peril of quitting that policy, and remind him of my
passionate temper, verging, when kindled, on frenzy.  I wish you could
dismiss that apathy out of that countenance, and look rather more anxious
about me.'

The stolidity with which I received these instructions was, no doubt,
rather exasperating: for they were delivered in perfect sincerity; but I
believed a person who could plan the turning of her fits of passion to
account, beforehand, might, by exerting her will, manage to control
herself tolerably, even while under their influence; and I did not wish
to 'frighten' her husband, as she said, and multiply his annoyances for
the purpose of serving her selfishness.  Therefore I said nothing when I
met the master coming towards the parlour; but I took the liberty of
turning back to listen whether they would resume their quarrel together.
He began to speak first.

'Remain where you are, Catherine,' he said; without any anger in his
voice, but with much sorrowful despondency.  'I shall not stay.  I am
neither come to wrangle nor be reconciled; but I wish just to learn
whether, after this evening's events, you intend to continue your
intimacy with--'

'Oh, for mercy's sake,' interrupted the mistress, stamping her foot, 'for
mercy's sake, let us hear no more of it now!  Your cold blood cannot be
worked into a fever: your veins are full of ice-water; but mine are
boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance.'

'To get rid of me, answer my question,' persevered Mr. Linton.  'You must
answer it; and that violence does not alarm me.  I have found that you
can be as stoical as anyone, when you please.  Will you give up
Heathcliff hereafter, or will you give up me?  It is impossible for you
to be _my_ friend and _his_ at the same time; and I absolutely _require_
to know which you choose.'

'I require to be let alone!' exclaimed Catherine, furiously.  'I demand
it!  Don't you see I can scarcely stand?  Edgar, you--you leave me!'

She rang the bell till it broke with a twang; I entered leisurely.  It
was enough to try the temper of a saint, such senseless, wicked rages!
There she lay dashing her head against the arm of the sofa, and grinding
her teeth, so that you might fancy she would crash them to splinters!  Mr.
Linton stood looking at her in sudden compunction and fear.  He told me
to fetch some water.  She had no breath for speaking.  I brought a glass
full; and as she would not drink, I sprinkled it on her face.  In a few
seconds she stretched herself out stiff, and turned up her eyes, while
her cheeks, at once blanched and livid, assumed the aspect of death.
Linton looked terrified.

'There is nothing in the world the matter,' I whispered.  I did not want
him to yield, though I could not help being afraid in my heart.

'She has blood on her lips!' he said, shuddering.

'Never mind!' I answered, tartly. And I told him how she had resolved,
previous to his coming, on exhibiting a fit of frenzy. I incautiously
gave the account aloud, and she heard me; for she started up--her hair
flying over her shoulders, her eyes flashing, the muscles of her neck
and arms standing out preternaturally. I made up my mind for broken
bones, at least; but she only glared about her for an instant, and then
rushed from the room. The master directed me to follow; I did, to her
chamber-door: she hindered me from going further by securing it against
me.

As she never offered to descend to breakfast next morning, I went to ask
whether she would have some carried up.  'No!' she replied, peremptorily.
The same question was repeated at dinner and tea; and again on the morrow
after, and received the same answer.  Mr. Linton, on his part, spent his
time in the library, and did not inquire concerning his wife's
occupations.  Isabella and he had had an hour's interview, during which
he tried to elicit from her some sentiment of proper horror for
Heathcliff's advances: but he could make nothing of her evasive replies,
and was obliged to close the examination unsatisfactorily; adding,
however, a solemn warning, that if she were so insane as to encourage
that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of relationship
between herself and him.




CHAPTER XII


While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and
almost always in tears; and her brother shut himself up among books that
he never opened--wearying, I guessed, with a continual vague expectation
that Catherine, repenting her conduct, would come of her own accord to
ask pardon, and seek a reconciliation--and _she_ fasted pertinaciously,
under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was ready to choke for
her absence, and pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her
feet; I went about my household duties, convinced that the Grange had but
one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body.  I wasted no
condolences on Miss, nor any expostulations on my mistress; nor did I pay
much attention to the sighs of my master, who yearned to hear his lady's
name, since he might not hear her voice.  I determined they should come
about as they pleased for me; and though it was a tiresomely slow
process, I began to rejoice at length in a faint dawn of its progress: as
I thought at first.

Mrs. Linton, on the third day, unbarred her door, and having finished the
water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a basin
of gruel, for she believed she was dying.  That I set down as a speech
meant for Edgar's ears; I believed no such thing, so I kept it to myself
and brought her some tea and dry toast.  She ate and drank eagerly, and
sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and groaning.  'Oh, I
will die,' she exclaimed, 'since no one cares anything about me.  I wish
I had not taken that.'  Then a good while after I heard her murmur, 'No,
I'll not die--he'd be glad--he does not love me at all--he would never
miss me!'

'Did you want anything, ma'am?' I inquired, still preserving my external
composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange, exaggerated
manner.

'What is that apathetic being doing?' she demanded, pushing the thick
entangled locks from her wasted face.  'Has he fallen into a lethargy, or
is he dead?'

'Neither,' replied I; 'if you mean Mr. Linton.  He's tolerably well, I
think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought: he is
continually among his books, since he has no other society.'

I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but I
could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder.

'Among his books!' she cried, confounded.  'And I dying!  I on the brink
of the grave!  My God! does he know how I'm altered?' continued she,
staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite wall.
'Is that Catherine Linton?  He imagines me in a pet--in play, perhaps.
Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest?  Nelly, if it be not
too late, as soon as I learn how he feels, I'll choose between these two:
either to starve at once--that would be no punishment unless he had a
heart--or to recover, and leave the country.  Are you speaking the truth
about him now?  Take care.  Is he actually so utterly indifferent for my
life?'

'Why, ma'am,' I answered, 'the master has no idea of your being deranged;
and of course he does not fear that you will let yourself die of hunger.'

'You think not?  Cannot you tell him I will?' she returned.  'Persuade
him! speak of your own mind: say you are certain I will!'

'No, you forget, Mrs. Linton,' I suggested, 'that you have eaten some
food with a relish this evening, and to-morrow you will perceive its good
effects.'

'If I were only sure it would kill him,' she interrupted, 'I'd kill
myself directly!  These three awful nights I've never closed my lids--and
oh, I've been tormented!  I've been haunted, Nelly!  But I begin to fancy
you don't like me.  How strange!  I thought, though everybody hated and
despised each other, they could not avoid loving me.  And they have all
turned to enemies in a few hours: they have, I'm positive; the people
here.  How dreary to meet death, surrounded by their cold faces!
Isabella, terrified and repelled, afraid to enter the room, it would be
so dreadful to watch Catherine go.  And Edgar standing solemnly by to see
it over; then offering prayers of thanks to God for restoring peace to
his house, and going back to his _books_!  What in the name of all that
feels has he to do with _books_, when I am dying?'

She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr.
Linton's philosophical resignation.  Tossing about, she increased her
feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth;
then raising herself up all burning, desired that I would open the
window.  We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the
north-east, and I objected.  Both the expressions flitting over her face,
and the changes of her moods, began to alarm me terribly; and brought to
my recollection her former illness, and the doctor's injunction that she
should not be crossed.  A minute previously she was violent; now,
supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey her, she seemed
to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from the rents she had
just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to their different
species: her mind had strayed to other associations.

'That's a turkey's,' she murmured to herself; 'and this is a wild duck's;
and this is a pigeon's.  Ah, they put pigeons' feathers in the pillows--no
wonder I couldn't die!  Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I
lie down.  And here is a moor-cock's; and this--I should know it among a
thousand--it's a lapwing's.  Bonny bird; wheeling over our heads in the
middle of the moor.  It wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had
touched the swells, and it felt rain coming.  This feather was picked up
from the heath, the bird was not shot: we saw its nest in the winter,
full of little skeletons.  Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old
ones dared not come.  I made him promise he'd never shoot a lapwing after
that, and he didn't.  Yes, here are more!  Did he shoot my lapwings,
Nelly?  Are they red, any of them?  Let me look.'

'Give over with that baby-work!' I interrupted, dragging the pillow away,
and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its
contents by handfuls.  'Lie down and shut your eyes: you're wandering.
There's a mess!  The down is flying about like snow.'

I went here and there collecting it.

'I see in you, Nelly,' she continued dreamily, 'an aged woman: you have
grey hair and bent shoulders.  This bed is the fairy cave under Penistone
crags, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending,
while I am near, that they are only locks of wool.  That's what you'll
come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now.  I'm not wandering:
you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really _were_ that withered
hag, and I should think I _was_ under Penistone Crags; and I'm conscious
it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press
shine like jet.'

'The black press? where is that?' I asked.  'You are talking in your
sleep!'

'It's against the wall, as it always is,' she replied.  'It _does_ appear
odd--I see a face in it!'

'There's no press in the room, and never was,' said I, resuming my seat,
and looping up the curtain that I might watch her.

'Don't _you_ see that face?' she inquired, gazing earnestly at the
mirror.

And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be
her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl.

'It's behind there still!' she pursued, anxiously.  'And it stirred.  Who
is it?  I hope it will not come out when you are gone!  Oh!  Nelly, the
room is haunted!  I'm afraid of being alone!'

I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed; for a succession of
shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze
towards the glass.

'There's nobody here!' I insisted.  'It was _yourself_, Mrs. Linton: you
knew it a while since.'

'Myself!' she gasped, 'and the clock is striking twelve!  It's true,
then! that's dreadful!'

Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes.  I
attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her husband;
but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek--the shawl had dropped from
the frame.

'Why, what is the matter?' cried I.  'Who is coward now?  Wake up!  That
is the glass--the mirror, Mrs. Linton; and you see yourself in it, and
there am I too by your side.'

Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror gradually
passed from her countenance; its paleness gave place to a glow of shame.

'Oh, dear!  I thought I was at home,' she sighed.  'I thought I was lying
in my chamber at Wuthering Heights.  Because I'm weak, my brain got
confused, and I screamed unconsciously.  Don't say anything; but stay
with me.  I dread sleeping: my dreams appal me.'

'A sound sleep would do you good, ma'am,' I answered: 'and I hope this
suffering will prevent your trying starving again.'

'Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house!' she went on bitterly,
wringing her hands.  'And that wind sounding in the firs by the lattice.
Do let me feel it--it comes straight down the moor--do let me have one
breath!'  To pacify her I held the casement ajar a few seconds.  A cold
blast rushed through; I closed it, and returned to my post.  She lay
still now, her face bathed in tears.  Exhaustion of body had entirely
subdued her spirit: our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing
child.

'How long is it since I shut myself in here?' she asked, suddenly
reviving.

'It was Monday evening,' I replied, 'and this is Thursday night, or
rather Friday morning, at present.'

'What! of the same week?' she exclaimed.  'Only that brief time?'

'Long enough to live on nothing but cold water and ill-temper,' observed
I.

'Well, it seems a weary number of hours,' she muttered doubtfully: 'it
must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled,
and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this room
desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness
overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to Edgar how
certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in
teasing me! I had no command of tongue, or brain, and he did not guess
my agony, perhaps: it barely left me sense to try to escape from him and
his voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it began to
be dawn, and, Nelly, I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept
recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay
there, with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning
the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oak-panelled
bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which, just
waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself to
discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven
years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that they had been at
all. I was a child; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from
the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff. I was
laid alone, for the first time; and, rousing from a dismal doze after a
night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside: it struck
the table-top! I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my
late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say why I
felt so wildly wretched: it must have been temporary derangement; for
there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years old I had been
wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in
all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke into
Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger:
an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world. You may
fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Shake your head as you
will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me! You should have spoken to
Edgar, indeed you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm
burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half
savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening
under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of
tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the
heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open!
Quick, why don't you move?'

'Because I won't give you your death of cold,' I answered.

'You won't give me a chance of life, you mean,' she said, sullenly.
'However, I'm not helpless yet; I'll open it myself.'

And sliding from the bed before I could hinder her, she crossed the room,
walking very uncertainly, threw it back, and bent out, careless of the
frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife.  I entreated,
and finally attempted to force her to retire.  But I soon found her
delirious strength much surpassed mine (she was delirious, I became
convinced by her subsequent actions and ravings).  There was no moon, and
everything beneath lay in misty darkness: not a light gleamed from any
house, far or near all had been extinguished long ago: and those at
Wuthering Heights were never visible--still she asserted she caught their
shining.

'Look!' she cried eagerly, 'that's my room with the candle in it, and the
trees swaying before it; and the other candle is in Joseph's garret.
Joseph sits up late, doesn't he?  He's waiting till I come home that he
may lock the gate.  Well, he'll wait a while yet.  It's a rough journey,
and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go
that journey!  We've braved its ghosts often together, and dared each
other to stand among the graves and ask them to come.  But, Heathcliff,
if I dare you now, will you venture?  If you do, I'll keep you.  I'll not
lie there by myself: they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the
church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with me.  I never
will!'

She paused, and resumed with a strange smile.  'He's considering--he'd
rather I'd come to him!  Find a way, then! not through that kirkyard.  You
are slow!  Be content, you always followed me!'

Perceiving it vain to argue against her insanity, I was planning how I
could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold of
herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice), when, to
my consternation, I heard the rattle of the door-handle, and Mr. Linton
entered.  He had only then come from the library; and, in passing through
the lobby, had noticed our talking and been attracted by curiosity, or
fear, to examine what it signified, at that late hour.

'Oh, sir!' I cried, checking the exclamation risen to his lips at the
sight which met him, and the bleak atmosphere of the chamber.  'My poor
mistress is ill, and she quite masters me: I cannot manage her at all;
pray, come and persuade her to go to bed.  Forget your anger, for she's
hard to guide any way but her own.'

'Catherine ill?' he said, hastening to us.  'Shut the window, Ellen!
Catherine! why--'

He was silent.  The haggardness of Mrs. Linton's appearance smote him
speechless, and he could only glance from her to me in horrified
astonishment.

'She's been fretting here,' I continued, 'and eating scarcely anything,
and never complaining: she would admit none of us till this evening, and
so we couldn't inform you of her state, as we were not aware of it
ourselves; but it is nothing.'

I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly; the master frowned.  'It is
nothing, is it, Ellen Dean?' he said sternly.  'You shall account more
clearly for keeping me ignorant of this!'  And he took his wife in his
arms, and looked at her with anguish.

At first she gave him no glance of recognition: he was invisible to her
abstracted gaze.  The delirium was not fixed, however; having weaned her
eyes from contemplating the outer darkness, by degrees she centred her
attention on him, and discovered who it was that held her.

'Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton?' she said, with angry
animation.  'You are one of those things that are ever found when least
wanted, and when you are wanted, never!  I suppose we shall have plenty
of lamentations now--I see we shall--but they can't keep me from my
narrow home out yonder: my resting-place, where I'm bound before spring
is over!  There it is: not among the Lintons, mind, under the
chapel-roof, but in the open air, with a head-stone; and you may please
yourself whether you go to them or come to me!'

'Catherine, what have you done?' commenced the master.  'Am I nothing to
you any more?  Do you love that wretch Heath--'

'Hush!' cried Mrs. Linton.  'Hush, this moment!  You mention that name
and I end the matter instantly by a spring from the window!  What you
touch at present you may have; but my soul will be on that hill-top
before you lay hands on me again.  I don't want you, Edgar: I'm past
wanting you.  Return to your books.  I'm glad you possess a consolation,
for all you had in me is gone.'

'Her mind wanders, sir,' I interposed.  'She has been talking nonsense
the whole evening; but let her have quiet, and proper attendance, and
she'll rally.  Hereafter, we must be cautious how we vex her.'

'I desire no further advice from you,' answered Mr. Linton.  'You knew
your mistress's nature, and you encouraged me to harass her.  And not to
give me one hint of how she has been these three days!  It was heartless!
Months of sickness could not cause such a change!'

I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for another's
wicked waywardness.  'I knew Mrs. Linton's nature to be headstrong and
domineering,' cried I: 'but I didn't know that you wished to foster her
fierce temper!  I didn't know that, to humour her, I should wink at Mr.
Heathcliff.  I performed the duty of a faithful servant in telling you,
and I have got a faithful servant's wages!  Well, it will teach me to be
careful next time.  Next time you may gather intelligence for yourself!'

'The next time you bring a tale to me you shall quit my service, Ellen
Dean,' he replied.

'You'd rather hear nothing about it, I suppose, then, Mr. Linton?' said
I.  'Heathcliff has your permission to come a-courting to Miss, and to
drop in at every opportunity your absence offers, on purpose to poison
the mistress against you?'

Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our
conversation.

'Ah!  Nelly has played traitor,' she exclaimed, passionately.  'Nelly is
my hidden enemy.  You witch!  So you do seek elf-bolts to hurt us!  Let
me go, and I'll make her rue!  I'll make her howl a recantation!'

A maniac's fury kindled under her brows; she struggled desperately to
disengage herself from Linton's arms.  I felt no inclination to tarry the
event; and, resolving to seek medical aid on my own responsibility, I
quitted the chamber.

In passing the garden to reach the road, at a place where a bridle hook
is driven into the wall, I saw something white moved irregularly,
evidently by another agent than the wind.  Notwithstanding my hurry, I
stayed to examine it, lest ever after I should have the conviction
impressed on my imagination that it was a creature of the other world.  My
surprise and perplexity were great on discovering, by touch more than
vision, Miss Isabella's springer, Fanny, suspended by a handkerchief, and
nearly at its last gasp.  I quickly released the animal, and lifted it
into the garden.  I had seen it follow its mistress up-stairs when she
went to bed; and wondered much how it could have got out there, and what
mischievous person had treated it so.  While untying the knot round the
hook, it seemed to me that I repeatedly caught the beat of horses' feet
galloping at some distance; but there were such a number of things to
occupy my reflections that I hardly gave the circumstance a thought:
though it was a strange sound, in that place, at two o'clock in the
morning.

Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a patient
in the village as I came up the street; and my account of Catherine
Linton's malady induced him to accompany me back immediately.  He was a
plain rough man; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of her
surviving this second attack; unless she were more submissive to his
directions than she had shown herself before.

'Nelly Dean,' said he, 'I can't help fancying there's an extra cause for
this.  What has there been to do at the Grange?  We've odd reports up
here.  A stout, hearty lass like Catherine does not fall ill for a
trifle; and that sort of people should not either.  It's hard work
bringing them through fevers, and such things.  How did it begin?'

'The master will inform you,' I answered; 'but you are acquainted with
the Earnshaws' violent dispositions, and Mrs. Linton caps them all.  I
may say this; it commenced in a quarrel.  She was struck during a tempest
of passion with a kind of fit.  That's her account, at least: for she
flew off in the height of it, and locked herself up.  Afterwards, she
refused to eat, and now she alternately raves and remains in a half
dream; knowing those about her, but having her mind filled with all sorts
of strange ideas and illusions.'

'Mr. Linton will be sorry?' observed Kenneth, interrogatively.

'Sorry? he'll break his heart should anything happen!' I replied.  'Don't
alarm him more than necessary.'

'Well, I told him to beware,' said my companion; 'and he must bide the
consequences of neglecting my warning!  Hasn't he been intimate with Mr.
Heathcliff lately?'

'Heathcliff frequently visits at the Grange,' answered I, 'though more on
the strength of the mistress having known him when a boy, than because
the master likes his company.  At present he's discharged from the
trouble of calling; owing to some presumptuous aspirations after Miss
Linton which he manifested.  I hardly think he'll be taken in again.'

'And does Miss Linton turn a cold shoulder on him?' was the doctor's next
question.

'I'm not in her confidence,' returned I, reluctant to continue the
subject.

'No, she's a sly one,' he remarked, shaking his head.  'She keeps her own
counsel!  But she's a real little fool.  I have it from good authority
that last night (and a pretty night it was!) she and Heathcliff were
walking in the plantation at the back of your house above two hours; and
he pressed her not to go in again, but just mount his horse and away with
him!  My informant said she could only put him off by pledging her word
of honour to be prepared on their first meeting after that: when it was
to be he didn't hear; but you urge Mr. Linton to look sharp!'

This news filled me with fresh fears; I outstripped Kenneth, and ran most
of the way back.  The little dog was yelping in the garden yet.  I spared
a minute to open the gate for it, but instead of going to the house door,
it coursed up and down snuffing the grass, and would have escaped to the
road, had I not seized it and conveyed it in with me.  On ascending to
Isabella's room, my suspicions were confirmed: it was empty.  Had I been
a few hours sooner Mrs. Linton's illness might have arrested her rash
step.  But what could be done now?  There was a bare possibility of
overtaking them if pursued instantly.  _I_ could not pursue them,
however; and I dared not rouse the family, and fill the place with
confusion; still less unfold the business to my master, absorbed as he
was in his present calamity, and having no heart to spare for a second
grief!  I saw nothing for it but to hold my tongue, and suffer matters to
take their course; and Kenneth being arrived, I went with a badly
composed countenance to announce him.  Catherine lay in a troubled sleep:
her husband had succeeded in soothing the excess of frenzy; he now hung
over her pillow, watching every shade and every change of her painfully
expressive features.

The doctor, on examining the case for himself, spoke hopefully to him of
its having a favourable termination, if we could only preserve around her
perfect and constant tranquillity.  To me, he signified the threatening
danger was not so much death, as permanent alienation of intellect.

I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton: indeed, we never
went to bed; and the servants were all up long before the usual hour,
moving through the house with stealthy tread, and exchanging whispers as
they encountered each other in their vocations.  Every one was active but
Miss Isabella; and they began to remark how sound she slept: her brother,
too, asked if she had risen, and seemed impatient for her presence, and
hurt that she showed so little anxiety for her sister-in-law.  I trembled
lest he should send me to call her; but I was spared the pain of being
the first proclaimant of her flight.  One of the maids, a thoughtless
girl, who had been on an early errand to Gimmerton, came panting
up-stairs, open-mouthed, and dashed into the chamber, crying: 'Oh, dear,
dear!  What mun we have next?  Master, master, our young lady--'

'Hold your noise!' cried, I hastily, enraged at her clamorous manner.

'Speak lower, Mary--What is the matter?' said Mr. Linton.  'What ails
your young lady?'

'She's gone, she's gone!  Yon' Heathcliff's run off wi' her!' gasped the
girl.

'That is not true!' exclaimed Linton, rising in agitation.  'It cannot
be: how has the idea entered your head?  Ellen Dean, go and seek her.  It
is incredible: it cannot be.'

As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his demand
to know her reasons for such an assertion.

'Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here,' she stammered,
'and he asked whether we weren't in trouble at the Grange.  I thought he
meant for missis's sickness, so I answered, yes.  Then says he, "There's
somebody gone after 'em, I guess?"  I stared.  He saw I knew nought about
it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to have a horse's
shoe fastened at a blacksmith's shop, two miles out of Gimmerton, not
very long after midnight! and how the blacksmith's lass had got up to spy
who they were: she knew them both directly.  And she noticed the
man--Heathcliff it was, she felt certain: nob'dy could mistake him,
besides--put a sovereign in her father's hand for payment.  The lady had
a cloak about her face; but having desired a sup of water, while she
drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain.  Heathcliff held both
bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the village, and
went as fast as the rough roads would let them.  The lass said nothing to
her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this morning.'

I ran and peeped, for form's sake, into Isabella's room; confirming, when
I returned, the servant's statement.  Mr. Linton had resumed his seat by
the bed; on my re-entrance, he raised his eyes, read the meaning of my
blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order, or uttering a
word.

'Are we to try any measures for overtaking and bringing her back,' I
inquired.  'How should we do?'

'She went of her own accord,' answered the master; 'she had a right to go
if she pleased.  Trouble me no more about her.  Hereafter she is only my
sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned
me.'

And that was all he said on the subject: he did not make single inquiry
further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send what
property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was, when I
knew it.




CHAPTER XIII


For two months the fugitives remained absent; in those two months, Mrs.
Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated
a brain fever.  No mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly
than Edgar tended her.  Day and night he was watching, and patiently
enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason
could inflict; and, though Kenneth remarked that what he saved from the
grave would only recompense his care by forming the source of constant
future anxiety--in fact, that his health and strength were being
sacrificed to preserve a mere ruin of humanity--he knew no limits in
gratitude and joy when Catherine's life was declared out of danger; and
hour after hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to
bodily health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion
that her mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would
soon be entirely her former self.

The first time she left her chamber was at the commencement of the
following March.  Mr. Linton had put on her pillow, in the morning, a
handful of golden crocuses; her eye, long stranger to any gleam of
pleasure, caught them in waking, and shone delighted as she gathered them
eagerly together.

'These are the earliest flowers at the Heights,' she exclaimed.  'They
remind me of soft thaw winds, and warm sunshine, and nearly melted snow.
Edgar, is there not a south wind, and is not the snow almost gone?'

'The snow is quite gone down here, darling,' replied her husband; 'and I
only see two white spots on the whole range of moors: the sky is blue,
and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full.
Catherine, last spring at this time, I was longing to have you under this
roof; now, I wish you were a mile or two up those hills: the air blows so
sweetly, I feel that it would cure you.'

'I shall never be there but once more,' said the invalid; 'and then
you'll leave me, and I shall remain for ever.  Next spring you'll long
again to have me under this roof, and you'll look back and think you were
happy to-day.'

Linton lavished on her the kindest caresses, and tried to cheer her by
the fondest words; but, vaguely regarding the flowers, she let the tears
collect on her lashes and stream down her cheeks unheeding.  We knew she
was really better, and, therefore, decided that long confinement to a
single place produced much of this despondency, and it might be partially
removed by a change of scene.  The master told me to light a fire in the
many-weeks' deserted parlour, and to set an easy-chair in the sunshine by
the window; and then he brought her down, and she sat a long while
enjoying the genial heat, and, as we expected, revived by the objects
round her: which, though familiar, were free from the dreary associations
investing her hated sick chamber.  By evening she seemed greatly
exhausted; yet no arguments could persuade her to return to that
apartment, and I had to arrange the parlour sofa for her bed, till
another room could be prepared.  To obviate the fatigue of mounting and
descending the stairs, we fitted up this, where you lie at present--on
the same floor with the parlour; and she was soon strong enough to move
from one to the other, leaning on Edgar's arm.  Ah, I thought myself, she
might recover, so waited on as she was.  And there was double cause to
desire it, for on her existence depended that of another: we cherished
the hope that in a little while Mr. Linton's heart would be gladdened,
and his lands secured from a stranger's grip, by the birth of an heir.

I should mention that Isabella sent to her brother, some six weeks from
her departure, a short note, announcing her marriage with Heathcliff.  It
appeared dry and cold; but at the bottom was dotted in with pencil an
obscure apology, and an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation,
if her proceeding had offended him: asserting that she could not help it
then, and being done, she had now no power to repeal it.  Linton did not
reply to this, I believe; and, in a fortnight more, I got a long letter,
which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride just out of the
honeymoon.  I'll read it: for I keep it yet.  Any relic of the dead is
precious, if they were valued living.

* * * * *

DEAR ELLEN, it begins,--I came last night to Wuthering Heights, and
heard, for the first time, that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill.
I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry or
too distressed to answer what I sent him.  Still, I must write to
somebody, and the only choice left me is you.

Inform Edgar that I'd give the world to see his face again--that my heart
returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty-four hours after I left it, and
is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him, and Catherine!  _I
can't follow it though_--(these words are underlined)--they need not
expect me, and they may draw what conclusions they please; taking care,
however, to lay nothing at the door of my weak will or deficient
affection.

The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone.  I want to ask you two
questions: the first is,--How did you contrive to preserve the common
sympathies of human nature when you resided here?  I cannot recognise any
sentiment which those around share with me.

The second question I have great interest in; it is this--Is Mr.
Heathcliff a man?  If so, is he mad?  And if not, is he a devil?  I
sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to
explain, if you can, what I have married: that is, when you call to see
me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon.  Don't write, but come, and
bring me something from Edgar.

Now, you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led
to imagine the Heights will be.  It is to amuse myself that I dwell on
such subjects as the lack of external comforts: they never occupy my
thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them.  I should laugh and
dance for joy, if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and
the rest was an unnatural dream!

The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors; by that, I
judged it to be six o'clock; and my companion halted half an hour, to
inspect the park, and the gardens, and, probably, the place itself, as
well as he could; so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of
the farm-house, and your old fellow-servant, Joseph, issued out to
receive us by the light of a dip candle.  He did it with a courtesy that
redounded to his credit.  His first act was to elevate his torch to a
level with my face, squint malignantly, project his under-lip, and turn
away.  Then he took the two horses, and led them into the stables;
reappearing for the purpose of locking the outer gate, as if we lived in
an ancient castle.

Heathcliff stayed to speak to him, and I entered the kitchen--a dingy,
untidy hole; I daresay you would not know it, it is so changed since it
was in your charge.  By the fire stood a ruffianly child, strong in limb
and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his
mouth.

'This is Edgar's legal nephew,' I reflected--'mine in a manner; I must
shake hands, and--yes--I must kiss him.  It is right to establish a good
understanding at the beginning.'

I approached, and, attempting to take his chubby fist, said--'How do you
do, my dear?'

He replied in a jargon I did not comprehend.

'Shall you and I be friends, Hareton?' was my next essay at conversation.

An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not 'frame off'
rewarded my perseverance.

'Hey, Throttler, lad!' whispered the little wretch, rousing a half-bred
bull-dog from its lair in a corner.  'Now, wilt thou be ganging?' he
asked authoritatively.

Love for my life urged a compliance; I stepped over the threshold to wait
till the others should enter.  Mr. Heathcliff was nowhere visible; and
Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, and requested to accompany me in,
after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his nose and
replied--'Mim! mim! mim!  Did iver Christian body hear aught like it?
Mincing un' munching!  How can I tell whet ye say?'

'I say, I wish you to come with me into the house!' I cried, thinking him
deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness.

'None o' me!  I getten summut else to do,' he answered, and continued his
work; moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and
countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I'm sure,
as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt.

I walked round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which
I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might
show himself.  After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt
man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features
were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and _his_
eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's with all their beauty
annihilated.

'What's your business here?' he demanded, grimly.  'Who are you?'

'My name was Isabella Linton,' I replied.  'You've seen me before, sir.
I'm lately married to Mr. Heathcliff, and he has brought me here--I
suppose, by your permission.'

'Is he come back, then?' asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf.

'Yes--we came just now,' I said; 'but he left me by the kitchen door; and
when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the
place, and frightened me off by the help of a bull-dog.'

'It's well the hellish villain has kept his word!' growled my future
host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering
Heathcliff; and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and
threats of what he would have done had the 'fiend' deceived him.

I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to
slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that
intention, he ordered me in, and shut and re-fastened the door.  There
was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose
floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter-dishes,
which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook of a similar
obscurity, created by tarnish and dust.  I inquired whether I might call
the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom!  Mr. Earnshaw vouchsafed no
answer.  He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets, apparently
quite forgetting my presence; and his abstraction was evidently so deep,
and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I shrank from disturbing him
again.

You'll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly cheerless,
seated in worse than solitude on that inhospitable hearth, and
remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home, containing
the only people I loved on earth; and there might as well be the
Atlantic to part us, instead of those four miles: I could not overpass
them! I questioned with myself--where must I turn for comfort? and--mind
you don't tell Edgar, or Catherine--above every sorrow beside, this rose
pre-eminent: despair at finding nobody who could or would be my ally
against Heathcliff! I had sought shelter at Wuthering Heights, almost
gladly, because I was secured by that arrangement from living alone with
him; but he knew the people we were coming amongst, and he did not fear
their intermeddling.

I sat and thought a doleful time: the clock struck eight, and nine, and
still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and
perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced itself
out at intervals.  I listened to detect a woman's voice in the house, and
filled the interim with wild regrets and dismal anticipations, which, at
last, spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing and weeping.  I was not
aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted opposite, in his
measured walk, and gave me a stare of newly-awakened surprise.  Taking
advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed--'I'm tired with my
journey, and I want to go to bed!  Where is the maid-servant?  Direct me
to her, as she won't come to me!'

'We have none,' he answered; 'you must wait on yourself!'

'Where must I sleep, then?' I sobbed; I was beyond regarding
self-respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness.

'Joseph will show you Heathcliff's chamber,' said he; 'open that
door--he's in there.'

I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the
strangest tone--'Be so good as to turn your lock, and draw your
bolt--don't omit it!'

'Well!' I said.  'But why, Mr. Earnshaw?'  I did not relish the notion of
deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff.

'Look here!' he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a
curiously-constructed pistol, having a double-edged spring knife attached
to the barrel.  'That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not?  I
cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door.  If
once I find it open he's done for; I do it invariably, even though the
minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me
refrain: it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by
killing him.  You fight against that devil for love as long as you may;
when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!'

I surveyed the weapon inquisitively.  A hideous notion struck me: how
powerful I should be possessing such an instrument!  I took it from his
hand, and touched the blade.  He looked astonished at the expression my
face assumed during a brief second: it was not horror, it was
covetousness.  He snatched the pistol back, jealously; shut the knife,
and returned it to its concealment.

'I don't care if you tell him,' said he.  'Put him on his guard, and
watch for him.  You know the terms we are on, I see: his danger does not
shock you.'

'What has Heathcliff done to you?' I asked.  'In what has he wronged you,
to warrant this appalling hatred?  Wouldn't it be wiser to bid him quit
the house?'

'No!' thundered Earnshaw; 'should he offer to leave me, he's a dead man:
persuade him to attempt it, and you are a murderess!  Am I to lose _all_,
without a chance of retrieval?  Is Hareton to be a beggar?  Oh,
damnation!  I _will_ have it back; and I'll have _his_ gold too; and then
his blood; and hell shall have his soul!  It will be ten times blacker
with that guest than ever it was before!'

You've acquainted me, Ellen, with your old master's habits.  He is
clearly on the verge of madness: he was so last night at least.  I
shuddered to be near him, and thought on the servant's ill-bred
moroseness as comparatively agreeable.  He now recommenced his moody
walk, and I raised the latch, and escaped into the kitchen.  Joseph was
bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it; and
a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by.  The contents of
the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl; I
conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and, being
hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply, '_I'll_
make the porridge!'  I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded
to take off my hat and riding-habit.  'Mr. Earnshaw,' I continued,
'directs me to wait on myself: I will.  I'm not going to act the lady
among you, for fear I should starve.'

'Gooid Lord!' he muttered, sitting down, and stroking his ribbed
stockings from the knee to the ankle.  'If there's to be fresh
ortherings--just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev' a
_mistress_ set o'er my heead, it's like time to be flitting.  I niver
_did_ think to see t' day that I mud lave th' owld place--but I doubt
it's nigh at hand!'

This lamentation drew no notice from me: I went briskly to work, sighing
to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun; but compelled
speedily to drive off the remembrance.  It racked me to recall past
happiness and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its apparition,
the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal
fell into the water.  Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing
indignation.

'Thear!' he ejaculated.  'Hareton, thou willn't sup thy porridge
to-neeght; they'll be naught but lumps as big as my neive.  Thear, agean!
I'd fling in bowl un' all, if I wer ye!  There, pale t' guilp off, un'
then ye'll hae done wi' 't.  Bang, bang.  It's a mercy t' bothom isn't
deaved out!'

It _was_ rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins; four
had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the
dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the
expansive lip.  I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a
mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily.  The
old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me,
repeatedly, that 'the barn was every bit as good' as I, 'and every bit as
wollsome,' and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited.
Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered up at me
defyingly, as he slavered into the jug.

'I shall have my supper in another room,' I said.  'Have you no place you
call a parlour?'

'_Parlour_!' he echoed, sneeringly, '_parlour_!  Nay, we've noa
_parlours_.  If yah dunnut loike wer company, there's maister's; un' if
yah dunnut loike maister, there's us.'

'Then I shall go up-stairs,' I answered; 'show me a chamber.'

I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk.  With
great grumblings, the fellow rose, and preceded me in my ascent: we
mounted to the garrets; he opened a door, now and then, to look into the
apartments we passed.

'Here's a rahm,' he said, at last, flinging back a cranky board on
hinges.  'It's weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in.  There's a pack o'
corn i' t' corner, thear, meeterly clane; if ye're feared o' muckying yer
grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o' t' top on't.'

The 'rahm' was a kind of lumber-hole smelling strong of malt and grain;
various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a wide, bare
space in the middle.

'Why, man,' I exclaimed, facing him angrily, 'this is not a place to
sleep in.  I wish to see my bed-room.'

'_Bed-rume_!' he repeated, in a tone of mockery. 'Yah's see all t'
_bed-rumes_ thear is--yon's mine.'

He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in being
more naked about the walls, and having a large, low, curtainless bed,
with an indigo-coloured quilt, at one end.

'What do I want with yours?' I retorted.  'I suppose Mr. Heathcliff does
not lodge at the top of the house, does he?'

'Oh! it's Maister _Hathecliff's_ ye're wanting?' cried he, as if making a
new discovery.  'Couldn't ye ha' said soa, at onst? un' then, I mud ha'
telled ye, baht all this wark, that that's just one ye cannut see--he
allas keeps it locked, un' nob'dy iver mells on't but hisseln.'

'You've a nice house, Joseph,' I could not refrain from observing, 'and
pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness
in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with
theirs!  However, that is not to the present purpose--there are other
rooms.  For heaven's sake be quick, and let me settle somewhere!'

He made no reply to this adjuration; only plodding doggedly down the
wooden steps, and halting, before an apartment which, from that halt and
the superior quality of its furniture, I conjectured to be the best one.
There was a carpet--a good one, but the pattern was obliterated by dust;
a fireplace hung with cut-paper, dropping to pieces; a handsome
oak-bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and
modern make; but they had evidently experienced rough usage: the
vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod
supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to
trail upon the floor.  The chairs were also damaged, many of them
severely; and deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls.  I was
endeavouring to gather resolution for entering and taking possession,
when my fool of a guide announced,--'This here is t' maister's.'  My
supper by this time was cold, my appetite gone, and my patience
exhausted.  I insisted on being provided instantly with a place of
refuge, and means of repose.

'Whear the divil?' began the religious elder.  'The Lord bless us!  The
Lord forgie us!  Whear the _hell_ wold ye gang? ye marred, wearisome
nowt!  Ye've seen all but Hareton's bit of a cham'er.  There's not
another hoile to lig down in i' th' hahse!'

I was so vexed, I flung my tray and its contents on the ground; and then
seated myself at the stairs'-head, hid my face in my hands, and cried.

'Ech! ech!' exclaimed Joseph.  'Weel done, Miss Cathy! weel done, Miss
Cathy!  Howsiver, t' maister sall just tum'le o'er them brooken pots; un'
then we's hear summut; we's hear how it's to be.  Gooid-for-naught
madling! ye desarve pining fro' this to Chrustmas, flinging t' precious
gifts o'God under fooit i' yer flaysome rages!  But I'm mista'en if ye
shew yer sperrit lang.  Will Hathecliff bide sich bonny ways, think ye? I
nobbut wish he may catch ye i' that plisky.  I nobbut wish he may.'

And so he went on scolding to his den beneath, taking the candle with
him; and I remained in the dark. The period of reflection succeeding
this silly action compelled me to admit the necessity of smothering my
pride and choking my wrath, and bestirring myself to remove its effects.
An unexpected aid presently appeared in the shape of Throttler, whom I
now recognised as a son of our old Skulker: it had spent its whelphood
at the Grange, and was given by my father to Mr. Hindley. I fancy it
knew me: it pushed its nose against mine by way of salute, and then
hastened to devour the porridge; while I groped from step to step,
collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk
from the banister with my pocket-handkerchief. Our labours were scarcely
over when I heard Earnshaw's tread in the passage; my assistant tucked
in his tail, and pressed to the wall; I stole into the nearest doorway.
The dog's endeavour to avoid him was unsuccessful; as I guessed by a
scutter down-stairs, and a prolonged, piteous yelping. I had better
luck: he passed on, entered his chamber, and shut the door. Directly
after Joseph came up with Hareton, to put him to bed. I had found
shelter in Hareton's room, and the old man, on seeing me, said,--'They's
rahm for boath ye un' yer pride, now, I sud think i' the hahse. It's
empty; ye may hev' it all to yerseln, un' Him as allus maks a third, i'
sich ill company!'

Gladly did I take advantage of this intimation; and the minute I flung
myself into a chair, by the fire, I nodded, and slept.  My slumber was
deep and sweet, though over far too soon.  Mr. Heathcliff awoke me; he
had just come in, and demanded, in his loving manner, what I was doing
there?  I told him the cause of my staying up so late--that he had the
key of our room in his pocket.  The adjective _our_ gave mortal offence.
He swore it was not, nor ever should be, mine; and he'd--but I'll not
repeat his language, nor describe his habitual conduct: he is ingenious
and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence!  I sometimes wonder at
him with an intensity that deadens my fear: yet, I assure you, a tiger or
a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he
wakens.  He told me of Catherine's illness, and accused my brother of
causing it promising that I should be Edgar's proxy in suffering, till he
could get hold of him.

I do hate him--I am wretched--I have been a fool!  Beware of uttering one
breath of this to any one at the Grange.  I shall expect you every
day--don't disappoint me!--ISABELLA.




CHAPTER XIV


As soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master, and informed
him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter
expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton's situation, and her ardent desire
to see him; with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as
possible, some token of forgiveness by me.

'Forgiveness!' said Linton.  'I have nothing to forgive her, Ellen.  You
may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say that I
am not angry, but I'm sorry to have lost her; especially as I can never
think she'll be happy.  It is out of the question my going to see her,
however: we are eternally divided; and should she really wish to oblige
me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country.'

'And you won't write her a little note, sir?' I asked, imploringly.

'No,' he answered.  'It is needless.  My communication with Heathcliff's
family shall be as sparing as his with mine.  It shall not exist!'

Mr. Edgar's coldness depressed me exceedingly; and all the way from the
Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when
I repeated it; and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to
console Isabella. I daresay she had been on the watch for me since
morning: I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden
causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back, as if afraid of being
observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary,
dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented! I must confess,
that if I had been in the young lady's place, I would, at least, have
swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already
partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her
pretty face was wan and listless; her hair uncurled: some locks hanging
lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she
had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there.
Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his
pocket-book; but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite
friendly, and offered me a chair. He was the only thing there that
seemed decent; and I thought he never looked better. So much had
circumstances altered their positions, that he would certainly have
struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman; and his wife as a
thorough little slattern! She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held
out one hand to take the expected letter. I shook my head. She wouldn't
understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard, where I went to lay
my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I
had brought. Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manoeuvres, and
said--'If you have got anything for Isabella (as no doubt you have,
Nelly), give it to her. You needn't make a secret of it: we have no
secrets between us.'

'Oh, I have nothing,' I replied, thinking it best to speak the truth at
once.  'My master bid me tell his sister that she must not expect either
a letter or a visit from him at present.  He sends his love, ma'am, and
his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the grief you have
occasioned; but he thinks that after this time his household and the
household here should drop intercommunication, as nothing could come of
keeping it up.'

Mrs. Heathcliff's lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her seat in
the window.  Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone, near me, and
began to put questions concerning Catherine.  I told him as much as I
thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by
cross-examination, most of the facts connected with its origin.  I blamed
her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself; and ended by hoping
that he would follow Mr. Linton's example and avoid future interference
with his family, for good or evil.

'Mrs. Linton is now just recovering,' I said; 'she'll never be like she
was, but her life is spared; and if you really have a regard for her,
you'll shun crossing her way again: nay, you'll move out of this country
entirely; and that you may not regret it, I'll inform you Catherine
Linton is as different now from your old friend Catherine Earnshaw, as
that young lady is different from me.  Her appearance is changed greatly,
her character much more so; and the person who is compelled, of
necessity, to be her companion, will only sustain his affection hereafter
by the remembrance of what she once was, by common humanity, and a sense
of duty!'

'That is quite possible,' remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to seem
calm: 'quite possible that your master should have nothing but common
humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon.  But do you imagine that
I shall leave Catherine to his _duty_ and _humanity_? and can you compare
my feelings respecting Catherine to his?  Before you leave this house, I
must exact a promise from you that you'll get me an interview with her:
consent, or refuse, I _will_ see her!  What do you say?'

'I say, Mr. Heathcliff,' I replied, 'you must not: you never shall,
through my means.  Another encounter between you and the master would
kill her altogether.'

'With your aid that may be avoided,' he continued; 'and should there be
danger of such an event--should he be the cause of adding a single
trouble more to her existence--why, I think I shall be justified in going
to extremes!  I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether
Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would
restrains me.  And there you see the distinction between our feelings:
had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred
that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against
him.  You may look incredulous, if you please!  I never would have
banished him from her society as long as she desired his.  The moment her
regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood!  But,
till then--if you don't believe me, you don't know me--till then, I would
have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!'

'And yet,' I interrupted, 'you have no scruples in completely ruining all
hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her
remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in
a new tumult of discord and distress.'

'You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?' he said.  'Oh, Nelly! you know
she has not!  You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends
on Linton she spends a thousand on me!  At a most miserable period of my
life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the
neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit
the horrible idea again.  And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley,
nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt.  Two words would comprehend my
future--_death_ and _hell_: existence, after losing her, would be hell.
Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's
attachment more than mine.  If he loved with all the powers of his puny
being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.  And
Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily
contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by
him.  Tush!  He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her
horse.  It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him
what he has not?'

'Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be,'
cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity.  'No one has a right to talk in
that manner, and I won't hear my brother depreciated in silence!'

'Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn't he?' observed
Heathcliff, scornfully.  'He turns you adrift on the world with
surprising alacrity.'

'He is not aware of what I suffer,' she replied.  'I didn't tell him
that.'

'You have been telling him something, then: you have written, have you?'

'To say that I was married, I did write--you saw the note.'

'And nothing since?'

'No.'

'My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition,' I
remarked.  'Somebody's love comes short in her case, obviously; whose, I
may guess; but, perhaps, I shouldn't say.'

'I should guess it was her own,' said Heathcliff.  'She degenerates into
a mere slut!  She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early.  You'd
hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to
go home.  However, she'll suit this house so much the better for not
being over nice, and I'll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling
abroad.'

'Well, sir,' returned I, 'I hope you'll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is
accustomed to be looked after and waited on; and that she has been
brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to serve.  You
must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must
treat her kindly.  Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you cannot doubt
that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she wouldn't have
abandoned the elegancies, and comforts, and friends of her former home,
to fix contentedly, in such a wilderness as this, with you.'

'She abandoned them under a delusion,' he answered; 'picturing in me a
hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous
devotion.  I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature,
so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my
character and acting on the false impressions she cherished.  But, at
last, I think she begins to know me: I don't perceive the silly smiles
and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of
discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her
infatuation and herself.  It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to
discover that I did not love her.  I believed, at one time, no lessons
could teach her that!  And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she
announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually
succeeded in making her hate me!  A positive labour of Hercules, I assure
you!  If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks.  Can I trust your
assertion, Isabella?  Are you sure you hate me?  If I let you alone for
half a day, won't you come sighing and wheedling to me again?  I daresay
she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her
vanity to have the truth exposed.  But I don't care who knows that the
passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it.  She
cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness.  The first
thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her
little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a
wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one:
possibly she took that exception for herself.  But no brutality disgusted
her: I suppose she has an innate admiration of it, if only her precious
person were secure from injury!  Now, was it not the depth of
absurdity--of genuine idiotcy, for that pitiful, slavish, mean-minded
brach to dream that I could love her?  Tell your master, Nelly, that I
never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as she is.  She even
disgraces the name of Linton; and I've sometimes relented, from pure lack
of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep
shamefully cringing back!  But tell him, also, to set his fraternal and
magisterial heart at ease: that I keep strictly within the limits of the
law.  I have avoided, up to this period, giving her the slightest right
to claim a separation; and, what's more, she'd thank nobody for dividing
us.  If she desired to go, she might: the nuisance of her presence
outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her!'

'Mr. Heathcliff,' said I, 'this is the talk of a madman; your wife, most
likely, is convinced you are mad; and, for that reason, she has borne
with you hitherto: but now that you say she may go, she'll doubtless
avail herself of the permission.  You are not so bewitched, ma'am, are
you, as to remain with him of your own accord?'

'Take care, Ellen!' answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully; there
was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of her partner's
endeavours to make himself detested.  'Don't put faith in a single word
he speaks.  He's a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being!  I've
been told I might leave him before; and I've made the attempt, but I dare
not repeat it!  Only, Ellen, promise you'll not mention a syllable of his
infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine.  Whatever he may
pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to desperation: he says he has
married me on purpose to obtain power over him; and he sha'n't obtain
it--I'll die first!  I just hope, I pray, that he may forget his
diabolical prudence and kill me!  The single pleasure I can imagine is to
die, or to see him dead!'

'There--that will do for the present!' said Heathcliff.  'If you are
called upon in a court of law, you'll remember her language, Nelly!  And
take a good look at that countenance: she's near the point which would
suit me.  No; you're not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, now; and
I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody, however
distasteful the obligation may be.  Go up-stairs; I have something to say
to Ellen Dean in private.  That's not the way: up-stairs, I tell you!
Why, this is the road upstairs, child!'

He seized, and thrust her from the room; and returned muttering--'I have
no pity!  I have no pity!  The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to
crush out their entrails!  It is a moral teething; and I grind with
greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain.'

'Do you understand what the word pity means?' I said, hastening to resume
my bonnet.  'Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life?'

'Put that down!' he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart.  'You
are not going yet.  Come here now, Nelly: I must either persuade or
compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine, and
that without delay.  I swear that I meditate no harm: I don't desire to
cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton; I only wish
to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill; and to ask if
anything that I could do would be of use to her.  Last night I was in the
Grange garden six hours, and I'll return there to-night; and every night
I'll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an opportunity of
entering.  If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him
down, and give him enough to insure his quiescence while I stay.  If his
servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with these pistols.  But
wouldn't it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their
master?  And you could do it so easily.  I'd warn you when I came, and
then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was alone, and watch
till I departed, your conscience quite calm: you would be hindering
mischief.'

I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer's house:
and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his destroying Mrs.
Linton's tranquillity for his satisfaction.  'The commonest occurrence
startles her painfully,' I said.  'She's all nerves, and she couldn't
bear the surprise, I'm positive.  Don't persist, sir! or else I shall be
obliged to inform my master of your designs; and he'll take measures to
secure his house and its inmates from any such unwarrantable intrusions!'

'In that case I'll take measures to secure you, woman!' exclaimed
Heathcliff; 'you shall not leave Wuthering Heights till to-morrow
morning.  It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear
to see me; and as to surprising her, I don't desire it: you must prepare
her--ask her if I may come.  You say she never mentions my name, and that
I am never mentioned to her.  To whom should she mention me if I am a
forbidden topic in the house?  She thinks you are all spies for her
husband.  Oh, I've no doubt she's in hell among you!  I guess by her
silence, as much as anything, what she feels.  You say she is often
restless, and anxious-looking: is that a proof of tranquillity?  You talk
of her mind being unsettled.  How the devil could it be otherwise in her
frightful isolation?  And that insipid, paltry creature attending her
from _duty_ and _humanity_!  From _pity_ and _charity_!  He might as well
plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can
restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares?  Let us settle it
at once: will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over
Linton and his footman?  Or will you be my friend, as you have been
hitherto, and do what I request?  Decide! because there is no reason for
my lingering another minute, if you persist in your stubborn ill-nature!'

Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him fifty
times; but in the long run he forced me to an agreement.  I engaged to
carry a letter from him to my mistress; and should she consent, I
promised to let him have intelligence of Linton's next absence from home,
when he might come, and get in as he was able: I wouldn't be there, and
my fellow-servants should be equally out of the way.  Was it right or
wrong?  I fear it was wrong, though expedient.  I thought I prevented
another explosion by my compliance; and I thought, too, it might create a
favourable crisis in Catherine's mental illness: and then I remembered
Mr. Edgar's stern rebuke of my carrying tales; and I tried to smooth away
all disquietude on the subject, by affirming, with frequent iteration,
that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh an appellation,
should be the last.  Notwithstanding, my journey homeward was sadder than
my journey thither; and many misgivings I had, ere I could prevail on
myself to put the missive into Mrs. Linton's hand.

But here is Kenneth; I'll go down, and tell him how much better you are.
My history is _dree_, as we say, and will serve to while away another
morning.

Dree, and dreary!  I reflected as the good woman descended to receive the
doctor: and not exactly of the kind which I should have chosen to amuse
me.  But never mind!  I'll extract wholesome medicines from Mrs. Dean's
bitter herbs; and firstly, let me beware of the fascination that lurks in
Catherine Heathcliff's brilliant eyes.  I should be in a curious taking
if I surrendered my heart to that young person, and the daughter turned
out a second edition of the mother.




CHAPTER XV


Another week over--and I am so many days nearer health, and spring!  I
have now heard all my neighbour's history, at different sittings, as the
housekeeper could spare time from more important occupations.  I'll
continue it in her own words, only a little condensed.  She is, on the
whole, a very fair narrator, and I don't think I could improve her style.

In the evening, she said, the evening of my visit to the Heights, I knew,
as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was about the place; and I
shunned going out, because I still carried his letter in my pocket, and
didn't want to be threatened or teased any more.  I had made up my mind
not to give it till my master went somewhere, as I could not guess how
its receipt would affect Catherine.  The consequence was, that it did not
reach her before the lapse of three days.  The fourth was Sunday, and I
brought it into her room after the family were gone to church.  There was
a manservant left to keep the house with me, and we generally made a
practice of locking the doors during the hours of service; but on that
occasion the weather was so warm and pleasant that I set them wide open,
and, to fulfil my engagement, as I knew who would be coming, I told my
companion that the mistress wished very much for some oranges, and he
must run over to the village and get a few, to be paid for on the morrow.
He departed, and I went up-stairs.

Mrs. Linton sat in a loose white dress, with a light shawl over her
shoulders, in the recess of the open window, as usual.  Her thick, long
hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and now she
wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples and neck.
Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff; but when she was
calm, there seemed unearthly beauty in the change.  The flash of her eyes
had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they no longer
gave the impression of looking at the objects around her: they appeared
always to gaze beyond, and far beyond--you would have said out of this
world.  Then, the paleness of her face--its haggard aspect having
vanished as she recovered flesh--and the peculiar expression arising from
her mental state, though painfully suggestive of their causes, added to
the touching interest which she awakened; and--invariably to me, I know,
and to any person who saw her, I should think--refuted more tangible
proofs of convalescence, and stamped her as one doomed to decay.

A book lay spread on the sill before her, and the scarcely perceptible
wind fluttered its leaves at intervals.  I believe Linton had laid it
there: for she never endeavoured to divert herself with reading, or
occupation of any kind, and he would spend many an hour in trying to
entice her attention to some subject which had formerly been her
amusement.  She was conscious of his aim, and in her better moods endured
his efforts placidly, only showing their uselessness by now and then
suppressing a wearied sigh, and checking him at last with the saddest of
smiles and kisses.  At other times, she would turn petulantly away, and
hide her face in her hands, or even push him off angrily; and then he
took care to let her alone, for he was certain of doing no good.

Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing; and the full, mellow flow of
the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear.  It was a sweet
substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned
that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf.  At Wuthering
Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great thaw or a
season of steady rain.  And of Wuthering Heights Catherine was thinking
as she listened: that is, if she thought or listened at all; but she had
the vague, distant look I mentioned before, which expressed no
recognition of material things either by ear or eye.

'There's a letter for you, Mrs. Linton,' I said, gently inserting it in
one hand that rested on her knee.  'You must read it immediately, because
it wants an answer.  Shall I break the seal?'  'Yes,' she answered,
without altering the direction of her eyes.  I opened it--it was very
short.  'Now,' I continued, 'read it.'  She drew away her hand, and let
it fall.  I replaced it in her lap, and stood waiting till it should
please her to glance down; but that movement was so long delayed that at
last I resumed--'Must I read it, ma'am?  It is from Mr. Heathcliff.'

There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a struggle to
arrange her ideas.  She lifted the letter, and seemed to peruse it; and
when she came to the signature she sighed: yet still I found she had not
gathered its import, for, upon my desiring to hear her reply, she merely
pointed to the name, and gazed at me with mournful and questioning
eagerness.

'Well, he wishes to see you,' said I, guessing her need of an
interpreter.  'He's in the garden by this time, and impatient to know
what answer I shall bring.'

As I spoke, I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath raise
its ears as if about to bark, and then smoothing them back, announce, by
a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did not consider a
stranger.  Mrs. Linton bent forward, and listened breathlessly.  The
minute after a step traversed the hall; the open house was too tempting
for Heathcliff to resist walking in: most likely he supposed that I was
inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to trust to his own
audacity.  With straining eagerness Catherine gazed towards the entrance
of her chamber.  He did not hit the right room directly: she motioned me
to admit him, but he found it out ere I could reach the door, and in a
stride or two was at her side, and had her grasped in his arms.

He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which
period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I
daresay: but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw
that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face!
The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld
her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there--she was
fated, sure to die.

'Oh, Cathy!  Oh, my life! how can I bear it?' was the first sentence he
uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair.  And now he
stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze
would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did
not melt.

'What now?' said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a
suddenly clouded brow: her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying
caprices.  'You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff!  And you both
come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied!  I
shall not pity you, not I.  You have killed me--and thriven on it, I
think.  How strong you are!  How many years do you mean to live after I
am gone?'

Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise,
but she seized his hair, and kept him down.

'I wish I could hold you,' she continued, bitterly, 'till we were both
dead!  I shouldn't care what you suffered.  I care nothing for your
sufferings.  Why shouldn't you suffer?  I do!  Will you forget me?  Will
you be happy when I am in the earth?  Will you say twenty years hence,
"That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw?  I loved her long ago, and was
wretched to lose her; but it is past.  I've loved many others since: my
children are dearer to me than she was; and, at death, I shall not
rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave
them!"  Will you say so, Heathcliff?'

'Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself,' cried he, wrenching his
head free, and grinding his teeth.

The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture.  Well
might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless
with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also.  Her present
countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless
lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a
portion of the locks she had been grasping.  As to her companion, while
raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and
so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her
condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left
blue in the colourless skin.

'Are you possessed with a devil,' he pursued, savagely, 'to talk in that
manner to me when you are dying?  Do you reflect that all those words
will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have
left me?  You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you
know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!  Is it not
sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I
shall writhe in the torments of hell?'

'I shall not be at peace,' moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of
physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which
beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation.  She said
nothing further till the paroxysm was over; then she continued, more
kindly--

'I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff.  I only
wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you
hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own
sake, forgive me!  Come here and kneel down again!  You never harmed me
in your life.  Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember
than my harsh words!  Won't you come here again?  Do!'

Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so far
as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion.  She bent round
to look at him; he would not permit it: turning abruptly, he walked to
the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards us.  Mrs.
Linton's glance followed him suspiciously: every movement woke a new
sentiment in her.  After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she resumed;
addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment:--

'Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the
grave.  _That_ is how I'm loved!  Well, never mind.  That is not _my_
Heathcliff.  I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my
soul.  And,' added she musingly, 'the thing that irks me most is this
shattered prison, after all.  I'm tired of being enclosed here.  I'm
wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not
seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of
an aching heart: but really with it, and in it.  Nelly, you think you are
better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength: you are
sorry for me--very soon that will be altered.  I shall be sorry for
_you_.  I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all.  I _wonder_ he
won't be near me!'  She went on to herself.  'I thought he wished it.
Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now.  Do come to me,
Heathcliff.'

In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair.
At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate.
His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his breast
heaved convulsively.  An instant they held asunder, and then how they met
I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they
were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be
released alive: in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible.  He
flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to
ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad
dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy.  I did not feel as if
I were in the company of a creature of my own species: it appeared that
he would not understand, though I spoke to him; so I stood off, and held
my tongue, in great perplexity.

A movement of Catherine's relieved me a little presently: she put up her
hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her; while
he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly--

'You teach me now how cruel you've been--cruel and false.  _Why_ did you
despise me?  _Why_ did you betray your own heart, Cathy?  I have not one
word of comfort.  You deserve this.  You have killed yourself.  Yes, you
may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight
you--they'll damn you.  You loved me--then what _right_ had you to leave
me?  What right--answer me--for the poor fancy you felt for Linton?
Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan
could inflict would have parted us, _you_, of your own will, did it.  I
have not broken your heart--_you_ have broken it; and in breaking it, you
have broken mine.  So much the worse for me that I am strong.  Do I want
to live?  What kind of living will it be when you--oh, God! would _you_
like to live with your soul in the grave?'

'Let me alone.  Let me alone,' sobbed Catherine.  'If I've done wrong,
I'm dying for it.  It is enough!  You left me too: but I won't upbraid
you!  I forgive you.  Forgive me!'

'It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted
hands,' he answered.  'Kiss me again; and don't let me see your eyes!  I
forgive what you have done to me.  I love _my_ murderer--but _yours_!  How
can I?'

They were silent--their faces hid against each other, and washed by each
other's tears.  At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides; as it
seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this.

I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile; for the afternoon wore fast away,
the man whom I had sent off returned from his errand, and I could
distinguish, by the shine of the western sun up the valley, a concourse
thickening outside Gimmerton chapel porch.

'Service is over,' I announced.  'My master will be here in half an
hour.'

Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer: she never
moved.

Ere long I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road towards
the kitchen wing.  Mr. Linton was not far behind; he opened the gate
himself and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely afternoon
that breathed as soft as summer.

'Now he is here,' I exclaimed.  'For heaven's sake, hurry down!  You'll
not meet any one on the front stairs.  Do be quick; and stay among the
trees till he is fairly in.'

'I must go, Cathy,' said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself from
his companion's arms.  'But if I live, I'll see you again before you are
asleep.  I won't stray five yards from your window.'

'You must not go!' she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength
allowed.  'You _shall_ not, I tell you.'

'For one hour,' he pleaded earnestly.

'Not for one minute,' she replied.

'I _must_--Linton will be up immediately,' persisted the alarmed
intruder.

He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the act--she clung fast,
gasping: there was mad resolution in her face.

'No!' she shrieked.  'Oh, don't, don't go.  It is the last time!  Edgar
will not hurt us.  Heathcliff, I shall die!  I shall die!'

'Damn the fool!  There he is,' cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his
seat.  'Hush, my darling!  Hush, hush, Catherine!  I'll stay.  If he shot
me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips.'

And there they were fast again.  I heard my master mounting the
stairs--the cold sweat ran from my forehead: I was horrified.

'Are you going to listen to her ravings?' I said, passionately.  'She
does not know what she says.  Will you ruin her, because she has not wit
to help herself?  Get up!  You could be free instantly.  That is the most
diabolical deed that ever you did.  We are all done for--master,
mistress, and servant.'

I wrung my hands, and cried out; and Mr. Linton hastened his step at the
noise.  In the midst of my agitation, I was sincerely glad to observe
that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung down.

'She's fainted, or dead,' I thought: 'so much the better.  Far better
that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to
all about her.'

Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and rage.
What he meant to do I cannot tell; however, the other stopped all
demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifeless-looking form in his
arms.

'Look there!' he said.  'Unless you be a fiend, help her first--then you
shall speak to me!'

He walked into the parlour, and sat down.  Mr. Linton summoned me, and
with great difficulty, and after resorting to many means, we managed to
restore her to sensation; but she was all bewildered; she sighed, and
moaned, and knew nobody.  Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her hated
friend.  I did not.  I went, at the earliest opportunity, and besought
him to depart; affirming that Catherine was better, and he should hear
from me in the morning how she passed the night.

'I shall not refuse to go out of doors,' he answered; 'but I shall stay
in the garden: and, Nelly, mind you keep your word to-morrow.  I shall be
under those larch-trees.  Mind! or I pay another visit, whether Linton be
in or not.'

He sent a rapid glance through the half-open door of the chamber, and,
ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the house
of his luckless presence.




CHAPTER XVI


About twelve o'clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at
Wuthering Heights: a puny, seven-months' child; and two hours after the
mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss
Heathcliff, or know Edgar.  The latter's distraction at his bereavement
is a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its after-effects showed how
deep the sorrow sunk.  A great addition, in my eyes, was his being left
without an heir.  I bemoaned that, as I gazed on the feeble orphan; and I
mentally abused old Linton for (what was only natural partiality) the
securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son's.  An
unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing!  It might have wailed out of life,
and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence.  We
redeemed the neglect afterwards; but its beginning was as friendless as
its end is likely to be.

Next morning--bright and cheerful out of doors--stole softened in through
the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its occupant
with a mellow, tender glow.  Edgar Linton had his head laid on the
pillow, and his eyes shut.  His young and fair features were almost as
deathlike as those of the form beside him, and almost as fixed: but _his_
was the hush of exhausted anguish, and _hers_ of perfect peace.  Her brow
smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile; no
angel in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared.  And I partook
of the infinite calm in which she lay: my mind was never in a holier
frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest.  I
instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before:
'Incomparably beyond and above us all!  Whether still on earth or now in
heaven, her spirit is at home with God!'

I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than
happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or
despairing mourner share the duty with me.  I see a repose that neither
earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and
shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they have entered--where life is
boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its
fulness.  I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even
in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so regretted Catherine's blessed
release!  To be sure, one might have doubted, after the wayward and
impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a haven of peace at
last.  One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in
the presence of her corpse.  It asserted its own tranquillity, which
seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant.

Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir?  I'd give a
great deal to know.

I declined answering Mrs. Dean's question, which struck me as something
heterodox.  She proceeded:

Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right to
think she is; but we'll leave her with her Maker.

The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sunrise to quit the
room and steal out to the pure refreshing air.  The servants thought me
gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch; in reality, my
chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff.  If he had remained among the
larches all night, he would have heard nothing of the stir at the Grange;
unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to
Gimmerton.  If he had come nearer, he would probably be aware, from the
lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the outer
doors, that all was not right within.  I wished, yet feared, to find him.
I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over; but
how to do it I did not know.  He was there--at least, a few yards further
in the park; leant against an old ash-tree, his hat off, and his hair
soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches, and fell
pattering round him.  He had been standing a long time in that position,
for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely three feet from
him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more
than that of a piece of timber.  They flew off at my approach, and he
raised his eyes and spoke:--'She's dead!' he said; 'I've not waited for
you to learn that.  Put your handkerchief away--don't snivel before me.
Damn you all! she wants none of your tears!'

I was weeping as much for him as her: we do sometimes pity creatures that
have none of the feeling either for themselves or others.  When I first
looked into his face, I perceived that he had got intelligence of the
catastrophe; and a foolish notion struck me that his heart was quelled
and he prayed, because his lips moved and his gaze was bent on the
ground.

'Yes, she's dead!' I answered, checking my sobs and drying my cheeks.
'Gone to heaven, I hope; where we may, every one, join her, if we take
due warning and leave our evil ways to follow good!'

'Did _she_ take due warning, then?' asked Heathcliff, attempting a sneer.
'Did she die like a saint?  Come, give me a true history of the event.
How did--?'

He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it; and
compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony,
defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching, ferocious stare.
'How did she die?' he resumed, at last--fain, notwithstanding his
hardihood, to have a support behind him; for, after the struggle, he
trembled, in spite of himself, to his very finger-ends.

'Poor wretch!' I thought; 'you have a heart and nerves the same as your
brother men!  Why should you be anxious to conceal them?  Your pride
cannot blind God!  You tempt him to wring them, till he forces a cry of
humiliation.'

'Quietly as a lamb!' I answered, aloud.  'She drew a sigh, and stretched
herself, like a child reviving, and sinking again to sleep; and five
minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing more!'

'And--did she ever mention me?' he asked, hesitating, as if he dreaded
the answer to his question would introduce details that he could not bear
to hear.

'Her senses never returned: she recognised nobody from the time you left
her,' I said.  'She lies with a sweet smile on her face; and her latest
ideas wandered back to pleasant early days.  Her life closed in a gentle
dream--may she wake as kindly in the other world!'

'May she wake in torment!' he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping
his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion.
'Why, she's a liar to the end!  Where is she?  Not _there_--not in
heaven--not perished--where?  Oh! you said you cared nothing for my
sufferings!  And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue
stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living;
you said I killed you--haunt me, then!  The murdered _do_ haunt their
murderers, I believe.  I know that ghosts _have_ wandered on earth.  Be
with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only _do_ not leave me in
this abyss, where I cannot find you!  Oh, God! it is unutterable!  I
_cannot_ live without my life!  I _cannot_ live without my soul!'

He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes,
howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death
with knives and spears.  I observed several splashes of blood about the
bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably
the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night.
It hardly moved my compassion--it appalled me: still, I felt reluctant to
quit him so.  But the moment he recollected himself enough to notice me
watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed.  He was
beyond my skill to quiet or console!

Mrs. Linton's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following
her decease; and till then her coffin remained uncovered, and strewn with
flowers and scented leaves, in the great drawing-room.  Linton spent his
days and nights there, a sleepless guardian; and--a circumstance
concealed from all but me--Heathcliff spent his nights, at least,
outside, equally a stranger to repose.  I held no communication with him:
still, I was conscious of his design to enter, if he could; and on the
Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master, from sheer fatigue, had
been compelled to retire a couple of hours, I went and opened one of the
windows; moved by his perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on
the faded image of his idol one final adieu.  He did not omit to avail
himself of the opportunity, cautiously and briefly; too cautiously to
betray his presence by the slightest noise.  Indeed, I shouldn't have
discovered that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the
drapery about the corpse's face, and for observing on the floor a curl of
light hair, fastened with a silver thread; which, on examination, I
ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung round Catherine's neck.
Heathcliff had opened the trinket and cast out its contents, replacing
them by a black lock of his own.  I twisted the two, and enclosed them
together.

Mr. Earnshaw was, of course, invited to attend the remains of his sister
to the grave; he sent no excuse, but he never came; so that, besides her
husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and servants.
Isabella was not asked.

The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the villagers, was
neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet
by the tombs of her own relations, outside.  It was dug on a green slope
in a corner of the kirk-yard, where the wall is so low that heath and
bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor; and peat-mould almost
buries it.  Her husband lies in the same spot now; and they have each a
simple headstone above, and a plain grey block at their feet, to mark the
graves.




CHAPTER XVII


That Friday made the last of our fine days for a month.  In the evening
the weather broke: the wind shifted from south to north-east, and brought
rain first, and then sleet and snow.  On the morrow one could hardly
imagine that there had been three weeks of summer: the primroses and
crocuses were hidden under wintry drifts; the larks were silent, the
young leaves of the early trees smitten and blackened.  And dreary, and
chill, and dismal, that morrow did creep over!  My master kept his room;
I took possession of the lonely parlour, converting it into a nursery:
and there I was, sitting with the moaning doll of a child laid on my
knee; rocking it to and fro, and watching, meanwhile, the still driving
flakes build up the uncurtained window, when the door opened, and some
person entered, out of breath and laughing!  My anger was greater than my
astonishment for a minute.  I supposed it one of the maids, and I
cried--'Have done!  How dare you show your giddiness here; What would Mr.
Linton say if he heard you?'

'Excuse me!' answered a familiar voice; 'but I know Edgar is in bed, and
I cannot stop myself.'

With that the speaker came forward to the fire, panting and holding her
hand to her side.

'I have run the whole way from Wuthering Heights!' she continued, after a
pause; 'except where I've flown.  I couldn't count the number of falls
I've had.  Oh, I'm aching all over!  Don't be alarmed!  There shall be an
explanation as soon as I can give it; only just have the goodness to step
out and order the carriage to take me on to Gimmerton, and tell a servant
to seek up a few clothes in my wardrobe.'

The intruder was Mrs. Heathcliff.  She certainly seemed in no laughing
predicament: her hair streamed on her shoulders, dripping with snow and
water; she was dressed in the girlish dress she commonly wore, befitting
her age more than her position: a low frock with short sleeves, and
nothing on either head or neck.  The frock was of light silk, and clung
to her with wet, and her feet were protected merely by thin slippers; add
to this a deep cut under one ear, which only the cold prevented from
bleeding profusely, a white face scratched and bruised, and a frame
hardly able to support itself through fatigue; and you may fancy my first
fright was not much allayed when I had had leisure to examine her.

'My dear young lady,' I exclaimed, 'I'll stir nowhere, and hear nothing,
till you have removed every article of your clothes, and put on dry
things; and certainly you shall not go to Gimmerton to-night, so it is
needless to order the carriage.'

'Certainly I shall,' she said; 'walking or riding: yet I've no objection
to dress myself decently.  And--ah, see how it flows down my neck now!
The fire does make it smart.'

She insisted on my fulfilling her directions, before she would let me
touch her; and not till after the coachman had been instructed to get
ready, and a maid set to pack up some necessary attire, did I obtain her
consent for binding the wound and helping to change her garments.

'Now, Ellen,' she said, when my task was finished and she was seated in
an easy-chair on the hearth, with a cup of tea before her, 'you sit down
opposite me, and put poor Catherine's baby away: I don't like to see it!
You mustn't think I care little for Catherine, because I behaved so
foolishly on entering: I've cried, too, bitterly--yes, more than any one
else has reason to cry.  We parted unreconciled, you remember, and I
sha'n't forgive myself.  But, for all that, I was not going to sympathise
with him--the brute beast!  Oh, give me the poker!  This is the last
thing of his I have about me:' she slipped the gold ring from her third
finger, and threw it on the floor.  'I'll smash it!' she continued,
striking it with childish spite, 'and then I'll burn it!' and she took
and dropped the misused article among the coals.  'There! he shall buy
another, if he gets me back again.  He'd be capable of coming to seek me,
to tease Edgar.  I dare not stay, lest that notion should possess his
wicked head!  And besides, Edgar has not been kind, has he?  And I won't
come suing for his assistance; nor will I bring him into more trouble.
Necessity compelled me to seek shelter here; though, if I had not learned
he was out of the way, I'd have halted at the kitchen, washed my face,
warmed myself, got you to bring what I wanted, and departed again to
anywhere out of the reach of my accursed--of that incarnate goblin!  Ah,
he was in such a fury!  If he had caught me!  It's a pity Earnshaw is not
his match in strength: I wouldn't have run till I'd seen him all but
demolished, had Hindley been able to do it!'

'Well, don't talk so fast, Miss!' I interrupted; 'you'll disorder the
handkerchief I have tied round your face, and make the cut bleed again.
Drink your tea, and take breath, and give over laughing: laughter is
sadly out of place under this roof, and in your condition!'

'An undeniable truth,' she replied.  'Listen to that child!  It maintains
a constant wail--send it out of my hearing for an hour; I sha'n't stay
any longer.'

I rang the bell, and committed it to a servant's care; and then I
inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an
unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining with
us.

'I ought, and I wished to remain,' answered she, 'to cheer Edgar and take
care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my right
home.  But I tell you he wouldn't let me!  Do you think he could bear to
see me grow fat and merry--could bear to think that we were tranquil, and
not resolve on poisoning our comfort?  Now, I have the satisfaction of
being sure that he detests me, to the point of its annoying him seriously
to have me within ear-shot or eyesight: I notice, when I enter his
presence, the muscles of his countenance are involuntarily distorted into
an expression of hatred; partly arising from his knowledge of the good
causes I have to feel that sentiment for him, and partly from original
aversion.  It is strong enough to make me feel pretty certain that he
would not chase me over England, supposing I contrived a clear escape;
and therefore I must get quite away.  I've recovered from my first desire
to be killed by him: I'd rather he'd kill himself!  He has extinguished
my love effectually, and so I'm at my ease.  I can recollect yet how I
loved him; and can dimly imagine that I could still be loving him, if--no,
no!  Even if he had doted on me, the devilish nature would have revealed
its existence somehow.  Catherine had an awfully perverted taste to
esteem him so dearly, knowing him so well.  Monster! would that he could
be blotted out of creation, and out of my memory!'

'Hush, hush!  He's a human being,' I said.  'Be more charitable: there
are worse men than he is yet!'

'He's not a human being,' she retorted; 'and he has no claim on my
charity.  I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and
flung it back to me.  People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he
has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him: and I would not,
though he groaned from this to his dying day, and wept tears of blood for
Catherine!  No, indeed, indeed, I wouldn't!'  And here Isabella began to
cry; but, immediately dashing the water from her lashes, she recommenced.
'You asked, what has driven me to flight at last?  I was compelled to
attempt it, because I had succeeded in rousing his rage a pitch above his
malignity.  Pulling out the nerves with red hot pincers requires more
coolness than knocking on the head.  He was worked up to forget the
fiendish prudence he boasted of, and proceeded to murderous violence.  I
experienced pleasure in being able to exasperate him: the sense of
pleasure woke my instinct of self-preservation, so I fairly broke free;
and if ever I come into his hands again he is welcome to a signal
revenge.

'Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral.  He
kept himself sober for the purpose--tolerably sober: not going to bed mad
at six o'clock and getting up drunk at twelve.  Consequently, he rose, in
suicidal low spirits, as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead,
he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls.

'Heathcliff--I shudder to name him! has been a stranger in the house from
last Sunday till to-day.  Whether the angels have fed him, or his kin
beneath, I cannot tell; but he has not eaten a meal with us for nearly a
week.  He has just come home at dawn, and gone up-stairs to his chamber;
locking himself in--as if anybody dreamt of coveting his company!  There
he has continued, praying like a Methodist: only the deity he implored is
senseless dust and ashes; and God, when addressed, was curiously
confounded with his own black father!  After concluding these precious
orisons--and they lasted generally till he grew hoarse and his voice was
strangled in his throat--he would be off again; always straight down to
the Grange!  I wonder Edgar did not send for a constable, and give him
into custody!  For me, grieved as I was about Catherine, it was
impossible to avoid regarding this season of deliverance from degrading
oppression as a holiday.

'I recovered spirits sufficient to bear Joseph's eternal lectures without
weeping, and to move up and down the house less with the foot of a
frightened thief than formerly.  You wouldn't think that I should cry at
anything Joseph could say; but he and Hareton are detestable companions.
I'd rather sit with Hindley, and hear his awful talk, than with "t'
little maister" and his staunch supporter, that odious old man!  When
Heathcliff is in, I'm often obliged to seek the kitchen and their
society, or starve among the damp uninhabited chambers; when he is not,
as was the case this week, I establish a table and chair at one corner of
the house fire, and never mind how Mr. Earnshaw may occupy himself; and
he does not interfere with my arrangements.  He is quieter now than he
used to be, if no one provokes him: more sullen and depressed, and less
furious.  Joseph affirms he's sure he's an altered man: that the Lord has
touched his heart, and he is saved "so as by fire."  I'm puzzled to
detect signs of the favourable change: but it is not my business.

'Yester-evening I sat in my nook reading some old books till late on
towards twelve.  It seemed so dismal to go up-stairs, with the wild snow
blowing outside, and my thoughts continually reverting to the kirk-yard
and the new-made grave!  I dared hardly lift my eyes from the page before
me, that melancholy scene so instantly usurped its place.  Hindley sat
opposite, his head leant on his hand; perhaps meditating on the same
subject.  He had ceased drinking at a point below irrationality, and had
neither stirred nor spoken during two or three hours.  There was no sound
through the house but the moaning wind, which shook the windows every now
and then, the faint crackling of the coals, and the click of my snuffers
as I removed at intervals the long wick of the candle.  Hareton and
Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed.  It was very, very sad: and
while I read I sighed, for it seemed as if all joy had vanished from the
world, never to be restored.

'The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the kitchen
latch: Heathcliff had returned from his watch earlier than usual; owing,
I suppose, to the sudden storm.  That entrance was fastened, and we heard
him coming round to get in by the other.  I rose with an irrepressible
expression of what I felt on my lips, which induced my companion, who had
been staring towards the door, to turn and look at me.

'"I'll keep him out five minutes," he exclaimed.  "You won't object?"

'"No, you may keep him out the whole night for me," I answered.  "Do! put
the key in the lock, and draw the bolts."

'Earnshaw accomplished this ere his guest reached the front; he then came
and brought his chair to the other side of my table, leaning over it, and
searching in my eyes for a sympathy with the burning hate that gleamed
from his: as he both looked and felt like an assassin, he couldn't
exactly find that; but he discovered enough to encourage him to speak.

'"You, and I," he said, "have each a great debt to settle with the man
out yonder!  If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine to
discharge it.  Are you as soft as your brother?  Are you willing to
endure to the last, and not once attempt a repayment?"

'"I'm weary of enduring now," I replied; "and I'd be glad of a
retaliation that wouldn't recoil on myself; but treachery and violence
are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them
worse than their enemies."

'"Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and violence!"
cried Hindley.  "Mrs. Heathcliff, I'll ask you to do nothing; but sit
still and be dumb.  Tell me now, can you?  I'm sure you would have as
much pleasure as I in witnessing the conclusion of the fiend's existence;
he'll be _your_ death unless you overreach him; and he'll be _my_ ruin.
Damn the hellish villain!  He knocks at the door as if he were master
here already!  Promise to hold your tongue, and before that clock
strikes--it wants three minutes of one--you're a free woman!"

'He took the implements which I described to you in my letter from his
breast, and would have turned down the candle.  I snatched it away,
however, and seized his arm.

'"I'll not hold my tongue!" I said; "you mustn't touch him.  Let the door
remain shut, and be quiet!"

'"No!  I've formed my resolution, and by God I'll execute it!" cried the
desperate being.  "I'll do you a kindness in spite of yourself, and
Hareton justice!  And you needn't trouble your head to screen me;
Catherine is gone.  Nobody alive would regret me, or be ashamed, though I
cut my throat this minute--and it's time to make an end!"

'I might as well have struggled with a bear, or reasoned with a lunatic.
The only resource left me was to run to a lattice and warn his intended
victim of the fate which awaited him.

'"You'd better seek shelter somewhere else to-night!" I exclaimed, in
rather a triumphant tone.  "Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you, if you
persist in endeavouring to enter."

'"You'd better open the door, you--" he answered, addressing me by some
elegant term that I don't care to repeat.

'"I shall not meddle in the matter," I retorted again.  "Come in and get
shot, if you please.  I've done my duty."

'With that I shut the window and returned to my place by the fire; having
too small a stock of hypocrisy at my command to pretend any anxiety for
the danger that menaced him.  Earnshaw swore passionately at me:
affirming that I loved the villain yet; and calling me all sorts of names
for the base spirit I evinced.  And I, in my secret heart (and conscience
never reproached me), thought what a blessing it would be for _him_
should Heathcliff put him out of misery; and what a blessing for _me_
should he send Heathcliff to his right abode!  As I sat nursing these
reflections, the casement behind me was banged on to the floor by a blow
from the latter individual, and his black countenance looked blightingly
through.  The stanchions stood too close to suffer his shoulders to
follow, and I smiled, exulting in my fancied security.  His hair and
clothes were whitened with snow, and his sharp cannibal teeth, revealed
by cold and wrath, gleamed through the dark.

'"Isabella, let me in, or I'll make you repent!" he "girned," as Joseph
calls it.

'"I cannot commit murder," I replied.  "Mr. Hindley stands sentinel with
a knife and loaded pistol."

'"Let me in by the kitchen door," he said.

'"Hindley will be there before me," I answered: "and that's a poor love
of yours that cannot bear a shower of snow!  We were left at peace in our
beds as long as the summer moon shone, but the moment a blast of winter
returns, you must run for shelter!  Heathcliff, if I were you, I'd go
stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog.  The world is
surely not worth living in now, is it?  You had distinctly impressed on
me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life: I can't
imagine how you think of surviving her loss."

'"He's there, is he?" exclaimed my companion, rushing to the gap.  "If I
can get my arm out I can hit him!"

'I'm afraid, Ellen, you'll set me down as really wicked; but you don't
know all, so don't judge.  I wouldn't have aided or abetted an attempt on
even _his_ life for anything.  Wish that he were dead, I must; and
therefore I was fearfully disappointed, and unnerved by terror for the
consequences of my taunting speech, when he flung himself on Earnshaw's
weapon and wrenched it from his grasp.

'The charge exploded, and the knife, in springing back, closed into its
owner's wrist.  Heathcliff pulled it away by main force, slitting up the
flesh as it passed on, and thrust it dripping into his pocket.  He then
took a stone, struck down the division between two windows, and sprang
in.  His adversary had fallen senseless with excessive pain and the flow
of blood, that gushed from an artery or a large vein.  The ruffian kicked
and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly against the flags,
holding me with one hand, meantime, to prevent me summoning Joseph.  He
exerted preterhuman self-denial in abstaining from finishing him
completely; but getting out of breath, he finally desisted, and dragged
the apparently inanimate body on to the settle.  There he tore off the
sleeve of Earnshaw's coat, and bound up the wound with brutal roughness;
spitting and cursing during the operation as energetically as he had
kicked before.  Being at liberty, I lost no time in seeking the old
servant; who, having gathered by degrees the purport of my hasty tale,
hurried below, gasping, as he descended the steps two at once.

'"What is ther to do, now? what is ther to do, now?"

'"There's this to do," thundered Heathcliff, "that your master's mad; and
should he last another month, I'll have him to an asylum.  And how the
devil did you come to fasten me out, you toothless hound?  Don't stand
muttering and mumbling there.  Come, I'm not going to nurse him.  Wash
that stuff away; and mind the sparks of your candle--it is more than half
brandy!"

'"And so ye've been murthering on him?" exclaimed Joseph, lifting his
hands and eyes in horror.  "If iver I seed a seeght loike this!  May the
Lord--"

'Heathcliff gave him a push on to his knees in the middle of the blood,
and flung a towel to him; but instead of proceeding to dry it up, he
joined his hands and began a prayer, which excited my laughter from its
odd phraseology.  I was in the condition of mind to be shocked at
nothing: in fact, I was as reckless as some malefactors show themselves
at the foot of the gallows.

'"Oh, I forgot you," said the tyrant.  "You shall do that.  Down with
you.  And you conspire with him against me, do you, viper?  There, that
is work fit for you!"

'He shook me till my teeth rattled, and pitched me beside Joseph, who
steadily concluded his supplications, and then rose, vowing he would set
off for the Grange directly.  Mr. Linton was a magistrate, and though he
had fifty wives dead, he should inquire into this.  He was so obstinate
in his resolution, that Heathcliff deemed it expedient to compel from my
lips a recapitulation of what had taken place; standing over me, heaving
with malevolence, as I reluctantly delivered the account in answer to his
questions.  It required a great deal of labour to satisfy the old man
that Heathcliff was not the aggressor; especially with my hardly-wrung
replies.  However, Mr. Earnshaw soon convinced him that he was alive
still; Joseph hastened to administer a dose of spirits, and by their
succour his master presently regained motion and consciousness.
Heathcliff, aware that his opponent was ignorant of the treatment
received while insensible, called him deliriously intoxicated; and said
he should not notice his atrocious conduct further, but advised him to
get to bed.  To my joy, he left us, after giving this judicious counsel,
and Hindley stretched himself on the hearthstone.  I departed to my own
room, marvelling that I had escaped so easily.

'This morning, when I came down, about half an hour before noon, Mr.
Earnshaw was sitting by the fire, deadly sick; his evil genius, almost as
gaunt and ghastly, leant against the chimney.  Neither appeared inclined
to dine, and, having waited till all was cold on the table, I commenced
alone.  Nothing hindered me from eating heartily, and I experienced a
certain sense of satisfaction and superiority, as, at intervals, I cast a
look towards my silent companions, and felt the comfort of a quiet
conscience within me.  After I had done, I ventured on the unusual
liberty of drawing near the fire, going round Earnshaw's seat, and
kneeling in the corner beside him.

'Heathcliff did not glance my way, and I gazed up, and contemplated his
features almost as confidently as if they had been turned to stone.  His
forehead, that I once thought so manly, and that I now think so
diabolical, was shaded with a heavy cloud; his basilisk eyes were nearly
quenched by sleeplessness, and weeping, perhaps, for the lashes were wet
then: his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an
expression of unspeakable sadness.  Had it been another, I would have
covered my face in the presence of such grief.  In _his_ case, I was
gratified; and, ignoble as it seems to insult a fallen enemy, I couldn't
miss this chance of sticking in a dart: his weakness was the only time
when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong.'

'Fie, fie, Miss!' I interrupted.  'One might suppose you had never opened
a Bible in your life.  If God afflict your enemies, surely that ought to
suffice you.  It is both mean and presumptuous to add your torture to
his!'

'In general I'll allow that it would be, Ellen,' she continued; 'but what
misery laid on Heathcliff could content me, unless I have a hand in it?
I'd rather he suffered less, if I might cause his sufferings and he might
_know_ that I was the cause.  Oh, I owe him so much.  On only one
condition can I hope to forgive him.  It is, if I may take an eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth; for every wrench of agony return a wrench:
reduce him to my level.  As he was the first to injure, make him the
first to implore pardon; and then--why then, Ellen, I might show you some
generosity.  But it is utterly impossible I can ever be revenged, and
therefore I cannot forgive him.  Hindley wanted some water, and I handed
him a glass, and asked him how he was.

'"Not as ill as I wish," he replied.  "But leaving out my arm, every inch
of me is as sore as if I had been fighting with a legion of imps!"

'"Yes, no wonder," was my next remark.  "Catherine used to boast that she
stood between you and bodily harm: she meant that certain persons would
not hurt you for fear of offending her.  It's well people don't _really_
rise from their grave, or, last night, she might have witnessed a
repulsive scene!  Are not you bruised, and cut over your chest and
shoulders?"

'"I can't say," he answered, "but what do you mean?  Did he dare to
strike me when I was down?"

'"He trampled on and kicked you, and dashed you on the ground," I
whispered.  "And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth; because
he's only half man: not so much, and the rest fiend."

'Mr. Earnshaw looked up, like me, to the countenance of our mutual foe;
who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around him:
the longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their blackness
through his features.

'"Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony,
I'd go to hell with joy," groaned the impatient man, writhing to rise,
and sinking back in despair, convinced of his inadequacy for the
struggle.

'"Nay, it's enough that he has murdered one of you," I observed aloud.
"At the Grange, every one knows your sister would have been living now
had it not been for Mr. Heathcliff.  After all, it is preferable to be
hated than loved by him.  When I recollect how happy we were--how happy
Catherine was before he came--I'm fit to curse the day."

'Most likely, Heathcliff noticed more the truth of what was said, than
the spirit of the person who said it.  His attention was roused, I saw,
for his eyes rained down tears among the ashes, and he drew his breath in
suffocating sighs.  I stared full at him, and laughed scornfully.  The
clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which
usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not
fear to hazard another sound of derision.

'"Get up, and begone out of my sight," said the mourner.

'I guessed he uttered those words, at least, though his voice was hardly
intelligible.

'"I beg your pardon," I replied.  "But I loved Catherine too; and her
brother requires attendance, which, for her sake, I shall supply.  Now,
that she's dead, I see her in Hindley: Hindley has exactly her eyes, if
you had not tried to gouge them out, and made them black and red; and
her--"

'"Get up, wretched idiot, before I stamp you to death!" he cried, making
a movement that caused me to make one also.

'"But then," I continued, holding myself ready to flee, "if poor
Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible,
degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she would soon have presented a
similar picture!  _She_ wouldn't have borne your abominable behaviour
quietly: her detestation and disgust must have found voice."

'The back of the settle and Earnshaw's person interposed between me and
him; so instead of endeavouring to reach me, he snatched a dinner-knife
from the table and flung it at my head.  It struck beneath my ear, and
stopped the sentence I was uttering; but, pulling it out, I sprang to the
door and delivered another; which I hope went a little deeper than his
missile.  The last glimpse I caught of him was a furious rush on his
part, checked by the embrace of his host; and both fell locked together
on the hearth.  In my flight through the kitchen I bid Joseph speed to
his master; I knocked over Hareton, who was hanging a litter of puppies
from a chair-back in the doorway; and, blessed as a soul escaped from
purgatory, I bounded, leaped, and flew down the steep road; then,
quitting its windings, shot direct across the moor, rolling over banks,
and wading through marshes: precipitating myself, in fact, towards the
beacon-light of the Grange.  And far rather would I be condemned to a
perpetual dwelling in the infernal regions than, even for one night,
abide beneath the roof of Wuthering Heights again.'

Isabella ceased speaking, and took a drink of tea; then she rose, and
bidding me put on her bonnet, and a great shawl I had brought, and
turning a deaf ear to my entreaties for her to remain another hour, she
stepped on to a chair, kissed Edgar's and Catherine's portraits, bestowed
a similar salute on me, and descended to the carriage, accompanied by
Fanny, who yelped wild with joy at recovering her mistress.  She was
driven away, never to revisit this neighbourhood: but a regular
correspondence was established between her and my master when things were
more settled.  I believe her new abode was in the south, near London;
there she had a son born a few months subsequent to her escape.  He was
christened Linton, and, from the first, she reported him to be an ailing,
peevish creature.

Mr. Heathcliff, meeting me one day in the village, inquired where she
lived.  I refused to tell.  He remarked that it was not of any moment,
only she must beware of coming to her brother: she should not be with
him, if he had to keep her himself.  Though I would give no information,
he discovered, through some of the other servants, both her place of
residence and the existence of the child.  Still, he didn't molest her:
for which forbearance she might thank his aversion, I suppose.  He often
asked about the infant, when he saw me; and on hearing its name, smiled
grimly, and observed: 'They wish me to hate it too, do they?'

'I don't think they wish you to know anything about it,' I answered.

'But I'll have it,' he said, 'when I want it.  They may reckon on that!'

Fortunately its mother died before the time arrived; some thirteen years
after the decease of Catherine, when Linton was twelve, or a little more.

On the day succeeding Isabella's unexpected visit I had no opportunity of
speaking to my master: he shunned conversation, and was fit for
discussing nothing.  When I could get him to listen, I saw it pleased him
that his sister had left her husband; whom he abhorred with an intensity
which the mildness of his nature would scarcely seem to allow.  So deep
and sensitive was his aversion, that he refrained from going anywhere
where he was likely to see or hear of Heathcliff.  Grief, and that
together, transformed him into a complete hermit: he threw up his office
of magistrate, ceased even to attend church, avoided the village on all
occasions, and spent a life of entire seclusion within the limits of his
park and grounds; only varied by solitary rambles on the moors, and
visits to the grave of his wife, mostly at evening, or early morning
before other wanderers were abroad.  But he was too good to be thoroughly
unhappy long.  _He_ didn't pray for Catherine's soul to haunt him.  Time
brought resignation, and a melancholy sweeter than common joy.  He
recalled her memory with ardent, tender love, and hopeful aspiring to the
better world; where he doubted not she was gone.

And he had earthly consolation and affections also.  For a few days, I
said, he seemed regardless of the puny successor to the departed: that
coldness melted as fast as snow in April, and ere the tiny thing could
stammer a word or totter a step it wielded a despot's sceptre in his
heart.  It was named Catherine; but he never called it the name in full,
as he had never called the first Catherine short: probably because
Heathcliff had a habit of doing so.  The little one was always Cathy: it
formed to him a distinction from the mother, and yet a connection with
her; and his attachment sprang from its relation to her, far more than
from its being his own.

I used to draw a comparison between him and Hindley Earnshaw, and perplex
myself to explain satisfactorily why their conduct was so opposite in
similar circumstances.  They had both been fond husbands, and were both
attached to their children; and I could not see how they shouldn't both
have taken the same road, for good or evil.  But, I thought in my mind,
Hindley, with apparently the stronger head, has shown himself sadly the
worse and the weaker man.  When his ship struck, the captain abandoned
his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her, rushed into riot
and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless vessel.  Linton, on the
contrary, displayed the true courage of a loyal and faithful soul: he
trusted God; and God comforted him.  One hoped, and the other despaired:
they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them.
But you'll not want to hear my moralising, Mr. Lockwood; you'll judge, as
well as I can, all these things: at least, you'll think you will, and
that's the same.  The end of Earnshaw was what might have been expected;
it followed fast on his sister's: there were scarcely six months between
them.  We, at the Grange, never got a very succinct account of his state
preceding it; all that I did learn was on occasion of going to aid in the
preparations for the funeral.  Mr. Kenneth came to announce the event to
my master.

'Well, Nelly,' said he, riding into the yard one morning, too early not
to alarm me with an instant presentiment of bad news, 'it's yours and my
turn to go into mourning at present.  Who's given us the slip now, do you
think?'

'Who?' I asked in a flurry.

'Why, guess!' he returned, dismounting, and slinging his bridle on a hook
by the door.  'And nip up the corner of your apron: I'm certain you'll
need it.'

'Not Mr. Heathcliff, surely?' I exclaimed.

'What! would you have tears for him?' said the doctor.  'No, Heathcliff's
a tough young fellow: he looks blooming to-day.  I've just seen him.  He's
rapidly regaining flesh since he lost his better half.'

'Who is it, then, Mr. Kenneth?' I repeated impatiently.

'Hindley Earnshaw!  Your old friend Hindley,' he replied, 'and my wicked
gossip: though he's been too wild for me this long while.  There!  I said
we should draw water.  But cheer up!  He died true to his character:
drunk as a lord.  Poor lad!  I'm sorry, too.  One can't help missing an
old companion: though he had the worst tricks with him that ever man
imagined, and has done me many a rascally turn.  He's barely
twenty-seven, it seems; that's your own age: who would have thought you
were born in one year?'

I confess this blow was greater to me than the shock of Mrs. Linton's
death: ancient associations lingered round my heart; I sat down in the
porch and wept as for a blood relation, desiring Mr. Kenneth to get
another servant to introduce him to the master.  I could not hinder
myself from pondering on the question--'Had he had fair play?'  Whatever
I did, that idea would bother me: it was so tiresomely pertinacious that
I resolved on requesting leave to go to Wuthering Heights, and assist in
the last duties to the dead.  Mr. Linton was extremely reluctant to
consent, but I pleaded eloquently for the friendless condition in which
he lay; and I said my old master and foster-brother had a claim on my
services as strong as his own.  Besides, I reminded him that the child
Hareton was his wife's nephew, and, in the absence of nearer kin, he
ought to act as its guardian; and he ought to and must inquire how the
property was left, and look over the concerns of his brother-in-law.  He
was unfit for attending to such matters then, but he bid me speak to his
lawyer; and at length permitted me to go.  His lawyer had been Earnshaw's
also: I called at the village, and asked him to accompany me.  He shook
his head, and advised that Heathcliff should be let alone; affirming, if
the truth were known, Hareton would be found little else than a beggar.

'His father died in debt,' he said; 'the whole property is mortgaged, and
the sole chance for the natural heir is to allow him an opportunity of
creating some interest in the creditor's heart, that he may be inclined
to deal leniently towards him.'

When I reached the Heights, I explained that I had come to see everything
carried on decently; and Joseph, who appeared in sufficient distress,
expressed satisfaction at my presence.  Mr. Heathcliff said he did not
perceive that I was wanted; but I might stay and order the arrangements
for the funeral, if I chose.

'Correctly,' he remarked, 'that fool's body should be buried at the
cross-roads, without ceremony of any kind. I happened to leave him ten
minutes yesterday afternoon, and in that interval he fastened the two
doors of the house against me, and he has spent the night in drinking
himself to death deliberately! We broke in this morning, for we heard
him sporting like a horse; and there he was, laid over the settle:
flaying and scalping would not have wakened him. I sent for Kenneth, and
he came; but not till the beast had changed into carrion: he was both
dead and cold, and stark; and so you'll allow it was useless making more
stir about him!'

The old servant confirmed this statement, but muttered:

'I'd rayther he'd goan hisseln for t' doctor!  I sud ha' taen tent o' t'
maister better nor him--and he warn't deead when I left, naught o' t'
soart!'

I insisted on the funeral being respectable.  Mr. Heathcliff said I might
have my own way there too: only, he desired me to remember that the money
for the whole affair came out of his pocket.  He maintained a hard,
careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow: if anything,
it expressed a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult work
successfully executed.  I observed once, indeed, something like
exultation in his aspect: it was just when the people were bearing the
coffin from the house.  He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner: and
previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to
the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, 'Now, my bonny lad, you are
_mine_!  And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with
the same wind to twist it!'  The unsuspecting thing was pleased at this
speech: he played with Heathcliff's whiskers, and stroked his cheek; but
I divined its meaning, and observed tartly, 'That boy must go back with
me to Thrushcross Grange, sir.  There is nothing in the world less yours
than he is!'

'Does Linton say so?' he demanded.

'Of course--he has ordered me to take him,' I replied.

'Well,' said the scoundrel, 'we'll not argue the subject now: but I have
a fancy to try my hand at rearing a young one; so intimate to your master
that I must supply the place of this with my own, if he attempt to remove
it.  I don't engage to let Hareton go undisputed; but I'll be pretty sure
to make the other come!  Remember to tell him.'

This hint was enough to bind our hands.  I repeated its substance on my
return; and Edgar Linton, little interested at the commencement, spoke no
more of interfering.  I'm not aware that he could have done it to any
purpose, had he been ever so willing.

The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights: he held firm
possession, and proved to the attorney--who, in his turn, proved it to
Mr. Linton--that Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned for
cash to supply his mania for gaming; and he, Heathcliff, was the
mortgagee.  In that manner Hareton, who should now be the first gentleman
in the neighbourhood, was reduced to a state of complete dependence on
his father's inveterate enemy; and lives in his own house as a servant,
deprived of the advantage of wages: quite unable to right himself,
because of his friendlessness, and his ignorance that he has been
wronged.




CHAPTER XVIII


The twelve years, continued Mrs. Dean, following that dismal period were
the happiest of my life: my greatest troubles in their passage rose from
our little lady's trifling illnesses, which she had to experience in
common with all children, rich and poor.  For the rest, after the first
six months, she grew like a larch, and could walk and talk too, in her
own way, before the heath blossomed a second time over Mrs. Linton's
dust.  She was the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a
desolate house: a real beauty in face, with the Earnshaws' handsome dark
eyes, but the Lintons' fair skin and small features, and yellow curling
hair.  Her spirit was high, though not rough, and qualified by a heart
sensitive and lively to excess in its affections.  That capacity for
intense attachments reminded me of her mother: still she did not resemble
her: for she could be soft and mild as a dove, and she had a gentle voice
and pensive expression: her anger was never furious; her love never
fierce: it was deep and tender.  However, it must be acknowledged, she
had faults to foil her gifts.  A propensity to be saucy was one; and a
perverse will, that indulged children invariably acquire, whether they be
good tempered or cross.  If a servant chanced to vex her, it was
always--'I shall tell papa!'  And if he reproved her, even by a look, you
would have thought it a heart-breaking business: I don't believe he ever
did speak a harsh word to her.  He took her education entirely on
himself, and made it an amusement.  Fortunately, curiosity and a quick
intellect made her an apt scholar: she learned rapidly and eagerly, and
did honour to his teaching.

Till she reached the age of thirteen she had not once been beyond the
range of the park by herself.  Mr. Linton would take her with him a mile
or so outside, on rare occasions; but he trusted her to no one else.
Gimmerton was an unsubstantial name in her ears; the chapel, the only
building she had approached or entered, except her own home.  Wuthering
Heights and Mr. Heathcliff did not exist for her: she was a perfect
recluse; and, apparently, perfectly contented.  Sometimes, indeed, while
surveying the country from her nursery window, she would observe--

'Ellen, how long will it be before I can walk to the top of those hills?
I wonder what lies on the other side--is it the sea?'

'No, Miss Cathy,' I would answer; 'it is hills again, just like these.'

'And what are those golden rocks like when you stand under them?' she
once asked.

The abrupt descent of Penistone Crags particularly attracted her notice;
especially when the setting sun shone on it and the topmost heights, and
the whole extent of landscape besides lay in shadow.  I explained that
they were bare masses of stone, with hardly enough earth in their clefts
to nourish a stunted tree.

'And why are they bright so long after it is evening here?' she pursued.

'Because they are a great deal higher up than we are,' replied I; 'you
could not climb them, they are too high and steep.  In winter the frost
is always there before it comes to us; and deep into summer I have found
snow under that black hollow on the north-east side!'

'Oh, you have been on them!' she cried gleefully.  'Then I can go, too,
when I am a woman.  Has papa been, Ellen?'

'Papa would tell you, Miss,' I answered, hastily, 'that they are not
worth the trouble of visiting.  The moors, where you ramble with him, are
much nicer; and Thrushcross Park is the finest place in the world.'

'But I know the park, and I don't know those,' she murmured to herself.
'And I should delight to look round me from the brow of that tallest
point: my little pony Minny shall take me some time.'

One of the maids mentioning the Fairy Cave, quite turned her head with a
desire to fulfil this project: she teased Mr. Linton about it; and he
promised she should have the journey when she got older.  But Miss
Catherine measured her age by months, and, 'Now, am I old enough to go to
Penistone Crags?' was the constant question in her mouth.  The road
thither wound close by Wuthering Heights.  Edgar had not the heart to
pass it; so she received as constantly the answer, 'Not yet, love: not
yet.'

I said Mrs. Heathcliff lived above a dozen years after quitting her
husband.  Her family were of a delicate constitution: she and Edgar both
lacked the ruddy health that you will generally meet in these parts.  What
her last illness was, I am not certain: I conjecture, they died of the
same thing, a kind of fever, slow at its commencement, but incurable, and
rapidly consuming life towards the close.  She wrote to inform her
brother of the probable conclusion of a four-months' indisposition under
which she had suffered, and entreated him to come to her, if possible;
for she had much to settle, and she wished to bid him adieu, and deliver
Linton safely into his hands.  Her hope was that Linton might be left
with him, as he had been with her: his father, she would fain convince
herself, had no desire to assume the burden of his maintenance or
education.  My master hesitated not a moment in complying with her
request: reluctant as he was to leave home at ordinary calls, he flew to
answer this; commanding Catherine to my peculiar vigilance, in his
absence, with reiterated orders that she must not wander out of the park,
even under my escort he did not calculate on her going unaccompanied.

He was away three weeks.  The first day or two my charge sat in a corner
of the library, too sad for either reading or playing: in that quiet
state she caused me little trouble; but it was succeeded by an interval
of impatient, fretful weariness; and being too busy, and too old then, to
run up and down amusing her, I hit on a method by which she might
entertain herself.  I used to send her on her travels round the
grounds--now on foot, and now on a pony; indulging her with a patient
audience of all her real and imaginary adventures when she returned.

The summer shone in full prime; and she took such a taste for this
solitary rambling that she often contrived to remain out from breakfast
till tea; and then the evenings were spent in recounting her fanciful
tales.  I did not fear her breaking bounds; because the gates were
generally locked, and I thought she would scarcely venture forth alone,
if they had stood wide open.  Unluckily, my confidence proved misplaced.
Catherine came to me, one morning, at eight o'clock, and said she was
that day an Arabian merchant, going to cross the Desert with his caravan;
and I must give her plenty of provision for herself and beasts: a horse,
and three camels, personated by a large hound and a couple of pointers.  I
got together good store of dainties, and slung them in a basket on one
side of the saddle; and she sprang up as gay as a fairy, sheltered by her
wide-brimmed hat and gauze veil from the July sun, and trotted off with a
merry laugh, mocking my cautious counsel to avoid galloping, and come
back early.  The naughty thing never made her appearance at tea.  One
traveller, the hound, being an old dog and fond of its ease, returned;
but neither Cathy, nor the pony, nor the two pointers were visible in any
direction: I despatched emissaries down this path, and that path, and at
last went wandering in search of her myself.  There was a labourer
working at a fence round a plantation, on the borders of the grounds.  I
inquired of him if he had seen our young lady.

'I saw her at morn,' he replied: 'she would have me to cut her a hazel
switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge yonder, where it
is lowest, and galloped out of sight.'

You may guess how I felt at hearing this news.  It struck me directly she
must have started for Penistone Crags.  'What will become of her?' I
ejaculated, pushing through a gap which the man was repairing, and making
straight to the high-road.  I walked as if for a wager, mile after mile,
till a turn brought me in view of the Heights; but no Catherine could I
detect, far or near.  The Crags lie about a mile and a half beyond Mr.
Heathcliff's place, and that is four from the Grange, so I began to fear
night would fall ere I could reach them.  'And what if she should have
slipped in clambering among them,' I reflected, 'and been killed, or
broken some of her bones?'  My suspense was truly painful; and, at first,
it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the farmhouse,
Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window, with swelled
head and bleeding ear.  I opened the wicket and ran to the door, knocking
vehemently for admittance.  A woman whom I knew, and who formerly lived
at Gimmerton, answered: she had been servant there since the death of Mr.
Earnshaw.

'Ah,' said she, 'you are come a-seeking your little mistress!  Don't be
frightened.  She's here safe: but I'm glad it isn't the master.'

'He is not at home then, is he?' I panted, quite breathless with quick
walking and alarm.

'No, no,' she replied: 'both he and Joseph are off, and I think they
won't return this hour or more.  Step in and rest you a bit.'

I entered, and beheld my stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking herself
in a little chair that had been her mother's when a child.  Her hat was
hung against the wall, and she seemed perfectly at home, laughing and
chattering, in the best spirits imaginable, to Hareton--now a great,
strong lad of eighteen--who stared at her with considerable curiosity and
astonishment: comprehending precious little of the fluent succession of
remarks and questions which her tongue never ceased pouring forth.

'Very well, Miss!' I exclaimed, concealing my joy under an angry
countenance.  'This is your last ride, till papa comes back.  I'll not
trust you over the threshold again, you naughty, naughty girl!'

'Aha, Ellen!' she cried, gaily, jumping up and running to my side.  'I
shall have a pretty story to tell to-night; and so you've found me out.
Have you ever been here in your life before?'

'Put that hat on, and home at once,' said I.  'I'm dreadfully grieved at
you, Miss Cathy: you've done extremely wrong!  It's no use pouting and
crying: that won't repay the trouble I've had, scouring the country after
you.  To think how Mr. Linton charged me to keep you in; and you stealing
off so!  It shows you are a cunning little fox, and nobody will put faith
in you any more.'

'What have I done?' sobbed she, instantly checked.  'Papa charged me
nothing: he'll not scold me, Ellen--he's never cross, like you!'

'Come, come!' I repeated.  'I'll tie the riband.  Now, let us have no
petulance.  Oh, for shame!  You thirteen years old, and such a baby!'

This exclamation was caused by her pushing the hat from her head, and
retreating to the chimney out of my reach.

'Nay,' said the servant, 'don't be hard on the bonny lass, Mrs. Dean.  We
made her stop: she'd fain have ridden forwards, afeard you should be
uneasy.  Hareton offered to go with her, and I thought he should: it's a
wild road over the hills.'

Hareton, during the discussion, stood with his hands in his pockets, too
awkward to speak; though he looked as if he did not relish my intrusion.

'How long am I to wait?' I continued, disregarding the woman's
interference.  'It will be dark in ten minutes.  Where is the pony, Miss
Cathy?  And where is Phoenix?  I shall leave you, unless you be quick; so
please yourself.'

'The pony is in the yard,' she replied, 'and Phoenix is shut in there.
He's bitten--and so is Charlie.  I was going to tell you all about it;
but you are in a bad temper, and don't deserve to hear.'

I picked up her hat, and approached to reinstate it; but perceiving that
the people of the house took her part, she commenced capering round the
room; and on my giving chase, ran like a mouse over and under and behind
the furniture, rendering it ridiculous for me to pursue.  Hareton and the
woman laughed, and she joined them, and waxed more impertinent still;
till I cried, in great irritation,--'Well, Miss Cathy, if you were aware
whose house this is you'd be glad enough to get out.'

'It's _your_ father's, isn't it?' said she, turning to Hareton.

'Nay,' he replied, looking down, and blushing bashfully.

He could not stand a steady gaze from her eyes, though they were just his
own.

'Whose then--your master's?' she asked.

He coloured deeper, with a different feeling, muttered an oath, and
turned away.

'Who is his master?' continued the tiresome girl, appealing to me.  'He
talked about "our house," and "our folk."  I thought he had been the
owner's son.  And he never said Miss: he should have done, shouldn't he,
if he's a servant?'

Hareton grew black as a thunder-cloud at this childish speech.  I
silently shook my questioner, and at last succeeded in equipping her for
departure.

'Now, get my horse,' she said, addressing her unknown kinsman as she
would one of the stable-boys at the Grange.  'And you may come with me.  I
want to see where the goblin-hunter rises in the marsh, and to hear about
the _fairishes_, as you call them: but make haste!  What's the matter?
Get my horse, I say.'

'I'll see thee damned before I be _thy_ servant!' growled the lad.

'You'll see me _what_!' asked Catherine in surprise.

'Damned--thou saucy witch!' he replied.

'There, Miss Cathy! you see you have got into pretty company,' I
interposed.  'Nice words to be used to a young lady!  Pray don't begin to
dispute with him.  Come, let us seek for Minny ourselves, and begone.'

'But, Ellen,' cried she, staring fixed in astonishment, 'how dare he
speak so to me?  Mustn't he be made to do as I ask him?  You wicked
creature, I shall tell papa what you said.--Now, then!'

Hareton did not appear to feel this threat; so the tears sprang into her
eyes with indignation.  'You bring the pony,' she exclaimed, turning to
the woman, 'and let my dog free this moment!'

'Softly, Miss,' answered she addressed; 'you'll lose nothing by being
civil.  Though Mr. Hareton, there, be not the master's son, he's your
cousin: and I was never hired to serve you.'

'_He_ my cousin!' cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh.

'Yes, indeed,' responded her reprover.

'Oh, Ellen! don't let them say such things,' she pursued in great
trouble.  'Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London: my cousin is a
gentleman's son.  That my--' she stopped, and wept outright; upset at the
bare notion of relationship with such a clown.

'Hush, hush!' I whispered; 'people can have many cousins and of all
sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it; only they needn't
keep their company, if they be disagreeable and bad.'

'He's not--he's not my cousin, Ellen!' she went on, gathering fresh grief
from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the
idea.

I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual revelations;
having no doubt of Linton's approaching arrival, communicated by the
former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff; and feeling as confident that
Catherine's first thought on her father's return would be to seek an
explanation of the latter's assertion concerning her rude-bred kindred.
Hareton, recovering from his disgust at being taken for a servant, seemed
moved by her distress; and, having fetched the pony round to the door, he
took, to propitiate her, a fine crooked-legged terrier whelp from the
kennel, and putting it into her hand, bid her whist! for he meant nought.
Pausing in her lamentations, she surveyed him with a glance of awe and
horror, then burst forth anew.

I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this antipathy to the poor
fellow; who was a well-made, athletic youth, good-looking in features,
and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily
occupations of working on the farm and lounging among the moors after
rabbits and game.  Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a
mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed.  Good things
lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far
over-topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a
wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable
circumstances.  Mr. Heathcliff, I believe, had not treated him physically
ill; thanks to his fearless nature, which offered no temptation to that
course of oppression: he had none of the timid susceptibility that would
have given zest to ill-treatment, in Heathcliff's judgment.  He appeared
to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute: he was never taught
to read or write; never rebuked for any bad habit which did not annoy his
keeper; never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single
precept against vice.  And from what I heard, Joseph contributed much to
his deterioration, by a narrow-minded partiality which prompted him to
flatter and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old family.
And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw and
Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience, and
compelling him to seek solace in drink by what he termed their 'offald
ways,' so at present he laid the whole burden of Hareton's faults on the
shoulders of the usurper of his property.  If the lad swore, he wouldn't
correct him: nor however culpably he behaved.  It gave Joseph
satisfaction, apparently, to watch him go the worst lengths: he allowed
that the lad was ruined: that his soul was abandoned to perdition; but
then he reflected that Heathcliff must answer for it.  Hareton's blood
would be required at his hands; and there lay immense consolation in that
thought.  Joseph had instilled into him a pride of name, and of his
lineage; he would, had he dared, have fostered hate between him and the
present owner of the Heights: but his dread of that owner amounted to
superstition; and he confined his feelings regarding him to muttered
innuendoes and private comminations.  I don't pretend to be intimately
acquainted with the mode of living customary in those days at Wuthering
Heights: I only speak from hearsay; for I saw little.  The villagers
affirmed Mr. Heathcliff was _near_, and a cruel hard landlord to his
tenants; but the house, inside, had regained its ancient aspect of
comfort under female management, and the scenes of riot common in
Hindley's time were not now enacted within its walls.  The master was too
gloomy to seek companionship with any people, good or bad; and he is yet.

This, however, is not making progress with my story.  Miss Cathy rejected
the peace-offering of the terrier, and demanded her own dogs, Charlie and
Phoenix.  They came limping and hanging their heads; and we set out for
home, sadly out of sorts, every one of us.  I could not wring from my
little lady how she had spent the day; except that, as I supposed, the
goal of her pilgrimage was Penistone Crags; and she arrived without
adventure to the gate of the farm-house, when Hareton happened to issue
forth, attended by some canine followers, who attacked her train.  They
had a smart battle, before their owners could separate them: that formed
an introduction.  Catherine told Hareton who she was, and where she was
going; and asked him to show her the way: finally, beguiling him to
accompany her.  He opened the mysteries of the Fairy Cave, and twenty
other queer places.  But, being in disgrace, I was not favoured with a
description of the interesting objects she saw.  I could gather, however,
that her guide had been a favourite till she hurt his feelings by
addressing him as a servant; and Heathcliff's housekeeper hurt hers by
calling him her cousin.  Then the language he had held to her rankled in
her heart; she who was always 'love,' and 'darling,' and 'queen,' and
'angel,' with everybody at the Grange, to be insulted so shockingly by a
stranger!  She did not comprehend it; and hard work I had to obtain a
promise that she would not lay the grievance before her father.  I
explained how he objected to the whole household at the Heights, and how
sorry he would be to find she had been there; but I insisted most on the
fact, that if she revealed my negligence of his orders, he would perhaps
be so angry that I should have to leave; and Cathy couldn't bear that
prospect: she pledged her word, and kept it for my sake.  After all, she
was a sweet little girl.




CHAPTER XIX


A letter, edged with black, announced the day of my master's return.
Isabella was dead; and he wrote to bid me get mourning for his daughter,
and arrange a room, and other accommodations, for his youthful nephew.
Catherine ran wild with joy at the idea of welcoming her father back; and
indulged most sanguine anticipations of the innumerable excellencies of
her 'real' cousin.  The evening of their expected arrival came.  Since
early morning she had been busy ordering her own small affairs; and now
attired in her new black frock--poor thing! her aunt's death impressed
her with no definite sorrow--she obliged me, by constant worrying, to
walk with her down through the grounds to meet them.

'Linton is just six months younger than I am,' she chattered, as we
strolled leisurely over the swells and hollows of mossy turf, under
shadow of the trees.  'How delightful it will be to have him for a
playfellow!  Aunt Isabella sent papa a beautiful lock of his hair; it was
lighter than mine--more flaxen, and quite as fine.  I have it carefully
preserved in a little glass box; and I've often thought what a pleasure
it would be to see its owner.  Oh! I am happy--and papa, dear, dear papa!
Come, Ellen, let us run! come, run.'

She ran, and returned and ran again, many times before my sober footsteps
reached the gate, and then she seated herself on the grassy bank beside
the path, and tried to wait patiently; but that was impossible: she
couldn't be still a minute.

'How long they are!' she exclaimed.  'Ah, I see, some dust on the
road--they are coming!  No!  When will they be here?  May we not go a
little way--half a mile, Ellen, only just half a mile?  Do say Yes: to
that clump of birches at the turn!'

I refused staunchly.  At length her suspense was ended: the travelling
carriage rolled in sight.  Miss Cathy shrieked and stretched out her arms
as soon as she caught her father's face looking from the window.  He
descended, nearly as eager as herself; and a considerable interval
elapsed ere they had a thought to spare for any but themselves.  While
they exchanged caresses I took a peep in to see after Linton.  He was
asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, fur-lined cloak, as if it had been
winter.  A pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been taken for
my master's younger brother, so strong was the resemblance: but there was
a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never had.  The
latter saw me looking; and having shaken hands, advised me to close the
door, and leave him undisturbed; for the journey had fatigued him.  Cathy
would fain have taken one glance, but her father told her to come, and
they walked together up the park, while I hastened before to prepare the
servants.

'Now, darling,' said Mr. Linton, addressing his daughter, as they halted
at the bottom of the front steps: 'your cousin is not so strong or so
merry as you are, and he has lost his mother, remember, a very short time
since; therefore, don't expect him to play and run about with you
directly.  And don't harass him much by talking: let him be quiet this
evening, at least, will you?'

'Yes, yes, papa,' answered Catherine: 'but I do want to see him; and he
hasn't once looked out.'

The carriage stopped; and the sleeper being roused, was lifted to the
ground by his uncle.

'This is your cousin Cathy, Linton,' he said, putting their little hands
together.  'She's fond of you already; and mind you don't grieve her by
crying to-night.  Try to be cheerful now; the travelling is at an end,
and you have nothing to do but rest and amuse yourself as you please.'

'Let me go to bed, then,' answered the boy, shrinking from Catherine's
salute; and he put his fingers to remove incipient tears.

'Come, come, there's a good child,' I whispered, leading him in.  'You'll
make her weep too--see how sorry she is for you!'

I do not know whether it was sorrow for him, but his cousin put on as sad
a countenance as himself, and returned to her father.  All three entered,
and mounted to the library, where tea was laid ready.  I proceeded to
remove Linton's cap and mantle, and placed him on a chair by the table;
but he was no sooner seated than he began to cry afresh.  My master
inquired what was the matter.

'I can't sit on a chair,' sobbed the boy.

'Go to the sofa, then, and Ellen shall bring you some tea,' answered his
uncle patiently.

He had been greatly tried, during the journey, I felt convinced, by his
fretful ailing charge.  Linton slowly trailed himself off, and lay down.
Cathy carried a footstool and her cup to his side.  At first she sat
silent; but that could not last: she had resolved to make a pet of her
little cousin, as she would have him to be; and she commenced stroking
his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her saucer,
like a baby.  This pleased him, for he was not much better: he dried his
eyes, and lightened into a faint smile.

'Oh, he'll do very well,' said the master to me, after watching them a
minute.  'Very well, if we can keep him, Ellen.  The company of a child
of his own age will instil new spirit into him soon, and by wishing for
strength he'll gain it.'

'Ay, if we can keep him!' I mused to myself; and sore misgivings came
over me that there was slight hope of that.  And then, I thought, how
ever will that weakling live at Wuthering Heights?  Between his father
and Hareton, what playmates and instructors they'll be.  Our doubts were
presently decided--even earlier than I expected.  I had just taken the
children up-stairs, after tea was finished, and seen Linton asleep--he
would not suffer me to leave him till that was the case--I had come down,
and was standing by the table in the hall, lighting a bedroom candle for
Mr. Edgar, when a maid stepped out of the kitchen and informed me that
Mr. Heathcliff's servant Joseph was at the door, and wished to speak with
the master.

'I shall ask him what he wants first,' I said, in considerable
trepidation.  'A very unlikely hour to be troubling people, and the
instant they have returned from a long journey.  I don't think the master
can see him.'

Joseph had advanced through the kitchen as I uttered these words, and now
presented himself in the hall.  He was donned in his Sunday garments,
with his most sanctimonious and sourest face, and, holding his hat in one
hand, and his stick in the other, he proceeded to clean his shoes on the
mat.

'Good-evening, Joseph,' I said, coldly.  'What business brings you here
to-night?'

'It's Maister Linton I mun spake to,' he answered, waving me disdainfully
aside.

'Mr. Linton is going to bed; unless you have something particular to say,
I'm sure he won't hear it now,' I continued.  'You had better sit down in
there, and entrust your message to me.'

'Which is his rahm?' pursued the fellow, surveying the range of closed
doors.

I perceived he was bent on refusing my mediation, so very reluctantly I
went up to the library, and announced the unseasonable visitor, advising
that he should be dismissed till next day.  Mr. Linton had no time to
empower me to do so, for Joseph mounted close at my heels, and, pushing
into the apartment, planted himself at the far side of the table, with
his two fists clapped on the head of his stick, and began in an elevated
tone, as if anticipating opposition--

'Hathecliff has sent me for his lad, and I munn't goa back 'bout him.'

Edgar Linton was silent a minute; an expression of exceeding sorrow
overcast his features: he would have pitied the child on his own account;
but, recalling Isabella's hopes and fears, and anxious wishes for her
son, and her commendations of him to his care, he grieved bitterly at the
prospect of yielding him up, and searched in his heart how it might be
avoided.  No plan offered itself: the very exhibition of any desire to
keep him would have rendered the claimant more peremptory: there was
nothing left but to resign him.  However, he was not going to rouse him
from his sleep.

'Tell Mr. Heathcliff,' he answered calmly, 'that his son shall come to
Wuthering Heights to-morrow.  He is in bed, and too tired to go the
distance now.  You may also tell him that the mother of Linton desired
him to remain under my guardianship; and, at present, his health is very
precarious.'

'Noa!' said Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and
assuming an authoritative air.  'Noa! that means naught.  Hathecliff maks
noa 'count o' t' mother, nor ye norther; but he'll heu' his lad; und I
mun tak' him--soa now ye knaw!'

'You shall not to-night!' answered Linton decisively.  'Walk down stairs
at once, and repeat to your master what I have said.  Ellen, show him
down.  Go--'

And, aiding the indignant elder with a lift by the arm, he rid the room
of him and closed the door.

'Varrah weell!' shouted Joseph, as he slowly drew off.  'To-morn, he's
come hisseln, and thrust _him_ out, if ye darr!'




CHAPTER XX


To obviate the danger of this threat being fulfilled, Mr. Linton
commissioned me to take the boy home early, on Catherine's pony; and,
said he--'As we shall now have no influence over his destiny, good or
bad, you must say nothing of where he is gone to my daughter: she cannot
associate with him hereafter, and it is better for her to remain in
ignorance of his proximity; lest she should be restless, and anxious to
visit the Heights.  Merely tell her his father sent for him suddenly, and
he has been obliged to leave us.'

Linton was very reluctant to be roused from his bed at five o'clock, and
astonished to be informed that he must prepare for further travelling;
but I softened off the matter by stating that he was going to spend some
time with his father, Mr. Heathcliff, who wished to see him so much, he
did not like to defer the pleasure till he should recover from his late
journey.

'My father!' he cried, in strange perplexity.  'Mamma never told me I had
a father.  Where does he live?  I'd rather stay with uncle.'

'He lives a little distance from the Grange,' I replied; 'just beyond
those hills: not so far, but you may walk over here when you get hearty.
And you should be glad to go home, and to see him.  You must try to love
him, as you did your mother, and then he will love you.'

'But why have I not heard of him before?' asked Linton.  'Why didn't
mamma and he live together, as other people do?'

'He had business to keep him in the north,' I answered, 'and your
mother's health required her to reside in the south.'

'And why didn't mamma speak to me about him?' persevered the child.  'She
often talked of uncle, and I learnt to love him long ago.  How am I to
love papa?  I don't know him.'

'Oh, all children love their parents,' I said.  'Your mother, perhaps,
thought you would want to be with him if she mentioned him often to you.
Let us make haste.  An early ride on such a beautiful morning is much
preferable to an hour's more sleep.'

'Is _she_ to go with us,' he demanded, 'the little girl I saw yesterday?'

'Not now,' replied I.

'Is uncle?' he continued.

'No, I shall be your companion there,' I said.

Linton sank back on his pillow and fell into a brown study.

'I won't go without uncle,' he cried at length: 'I can't tell where you
mean to take me.'

I attempted to persuade him of the naughtiness of showing reluctance to
meet his father; still he obstinately resisted any progress towards
dressing, and I had to call for my master's assistance in coaxing him out
of bed.  The poor thing was finally got off, with several delusive
assurances that his absence should be short: that Mr. Edgar and Cathy
would visit him, and other promises, equally ill-founded, which I
invented and reiterated at intervals throughout the way.  The pure
heather-scented air, the bright sunshine, and the gentle canter of Minny,
relieved his despondency after a while.  He began to put questions
concerning his new home, and its inhabitants, with greater interest and
liveliness.

'Is Wuthering Heights as pleasant a place as Thrushcross Grange?' he
inquired, turning to take a last glance into the valley, whence a light
mist mounted and formed a fleecy cloud on the skirts of the blue.

'It is not so buried in trees,' I replied, 'and it is not quite so large,
but you can see the country beautifully all round; and the air is
healthier for you--fresher and drier.  You will, perhaps, think the
building old and dark at first; though it is a respectable house: the
next best in the neighbourhood.  And you will have such nice rambles on
the moors.  Hareton Earnshaw--that is, Miss Cathy's other cousin, and so
yours in a manner--will show you all the sweetest spots; and you can
bring a book in fine weather, and make a green hollow your study; and,
now and then, your uncle may join you in a walk: he does, frequently,
walk out on the hills.'

'And what is my father like?' he asked.  'Is he as young and handsome as
uncle?'

'He's as young,' said I; 'but he has black hair and eyes, and looks
sterner; and he is taller and bigger altogether.  He'll not seem to you
so gentle and kind at first, perhaps, because it is not his way: still,
mind you, be frank and cordial with him; and naturally he'll be fonder of
you than any uncle, for you are his own.'

'Black hair and eyes!' mused Linton.  'I can't fancy him.  Then I am not
like him, am I?'

'Not much,' I answered: not a morsel, I thought, surveying with regret
the white complexion and slim frame of my companion, and his large
languid eyes--his mother's eyes, save that, unless a morbid touchiness
kindled them a moment, they had not a vestige of her sparkling spirit.

'How strange that he should never come to see mamma and me!' he murmured.
'Has he ever seen me?  If he has, I must have been a baby.  I remember
not a single thing about him!'

'Why, Master Linton,' said I, 'three hundred miles is a great distance;
and ten years seem very different in length to a grown-up person compared
with what they do to you.  It is probable Mr. Heathcliff proposed going
from summer to summer, but never found a convenient opportunity; and now
it is too late.  Don't trouble him with questions on the subject: it will
disturb him, for no good.'

The boy was fully occupied with his own cogitations for the remainder of
the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse garden-gate.  I watched to
catch his impressions in his countenance.  He surveyed the carved front
and low-browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry-bushes and crooked
firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head: his private
feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode.  But he
had sense to postpone complaining: there might be compensation within.
Before he dismounted, I went and opened the door.  It was half-past six;
the family had just finished breakfast: the servant was clearing and
wiping down the table.  Joseph stood by his master's chair telling some
tale concerning a lame horse; and Hareton was preparing for the hayfield.

'Hallo, Nelly!' said Mr. Heathcliff, when he saw me.  'I feared I should
have to come down and fetch my property myself.  You've brought it, have
you?  Let us see what we can make of it.'

He got up and strode to the door: Hareton and Joseph followed in gaping
curiosity.  Poor Linton ran a frightened eye over the faces of the three.

'Sure-ly,' said Joseph after a grave inspection, 'he's swopped wi' ye,
Maister, an' yon's his lass!'

Heathcliff, having stared his son into an ague of confusion, uttered a
scornful laugh.

'God! what a beauty! what a lovely, charming thing!' he exclaimed.
'Hav'n't they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly?  Oh, damn my
soul! but that's worse than I expected--and the devil knows I was not
sanguine!'

I bid the trembling and bewildered child get down, and enter.  He did not
thoroughly comprehend the meaning of his father's speech, or whether it
were intended for him: indeed, he was not yet certain that the grim,
sneering stranger was his father.  But he clung to me with growing
trepidation; and on Mr. Heathcliff's taking a seat and bidding him 'come
hither' he hid his face on my shoulder and wept.

'Tut, tut!' said Heathcliff, stretching out a hand and dragging him
roughly between his knees, and then holding up his head by the chin.
'None of that nonsense!  We're not going to hurt thee, Linton--isn't that
thy name?  Thou art thy mother's child, entirely!  Where is my share in
thee, puling chicken?'

He took off the boy's cap and pushed back his thick flaxen curls, felt
his slender arms and his small fingers; during which examination Linton
ceased crying, and lifted his great blue eyes to inspect the inspector.

'Do you know me?' asked Heathcliff, having satisfied himself that the
limbs were all equally frail and feeble.

'No,' said Linton, with a gaze of vacant fear.

'You've heard of me, I daresay?'

'No,' he replied again.

'No!  What a shame of your mother, never to waken your filial regard for
me!  You are my son, then, I'll tell you; and your mother was a wicked
slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed.  Now,
don't wince, and colour up!  Though it is something to see you have not
white blood.  Be a good lad; and I'll do for you.  Nelly, if you be tired
you may sit down; if not, get home again.  I guess you'll report what you
hear and see to the cipher at the Grange; and this thing won't be settled
while you linger about it.'

'Well,' replied I, 'I hope you'll be kind to the boy, Mr. Heathcliff, or
you'll not keep him long; and he's all you have akin in the wide world,
that you will ever know--remember.'

'I'll be very kind to him, you needn't fear,' he said, laughing.  'Only
nobody else must be kind to him: I'm jealous of monopolising his
affection.  And, to begin my kindness, Joseph, bring the lad some
breakfast.  Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your work.  Yes, Nell,'
he added, when they had departed, 'my son is prospective owner of your
place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain of being his
successor.  Besides, he's _mine_, and I want the triumph of seeing _my_
descendant fairly lord of their estates; my child hiring their children
to till their fathers' lands for wages.  That is the sole consideration
which can make me endure the whelp: I despise him for himself, and hate
him for the memories he revives!  But that consideration is sufficient:
he's as safe with me, and shall be tended as carefully as your master
tends his own.  I have a room up-stairs, furnished for him in handsome
style; I've engaged a tutor, also, to come three times a week, from
twenty miles' distance, to teach him what he pleases to learn.  I've
ordered Hareton to obey him: and in fact I've arranged everything with a
view to preserve the superior and the gentleman in him, above his
associates.  I do regret, however, that he so little deserves the
trouble: if I wished any blessing in the world, it was to find him a
worthy object of pride; and I'm bitterly disappointed with the
whey-faced, whining wretch!'

While he was speaking, Joseph returned bearing a basin of milk-porridge,
and placed it before Linton: who stirred round the homely mess with a
look of aversion, and affirmed he could not eat it. I saw the old
man-servant shared largely in his master's scorn of the child; though he
was compelled to retain the sentiment in his heart, because Heathcliff
plainly meant his underlings to hold him in honour.

'Cannot ate it?' repeated he, peering in Linton's face, and subduing his
voice to a whisper, for fear of being overheard.  'But Maister Hareton
nivir ate naught else, when he wer a little 'un; and what wer gooid
enough for him's gooid enough for ye, I's rayther think!'

'I _sha'n't_ eat it!' answered Linton, snappishly.  'Take it away.'

Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us.

'Is there aught ails th' victuals?' he asked, thrusting the tray under
Heathcliff's nose.

'What should ail them?' he said.

'Wah!' answered Joseph, 'yon dainty chap says he cannut ate 'em.  But I
guess it's raight!  His mother wer just soa--we wer a'most too mucky to
sow t' corn for makking her breead.'

'Don't mention his mother to me,' said the master, angrily.  'Get him
something that he can eat, that's all.  What is his usual food, Nelly?'

I suggested boiled milk or tea; and the housekeeper received instructions
to prepare some.  Come, I reflected, his father's selfishness may
contribute to his comfort.  He perceives his delicate constitution, and
the necessity of treating him tolerably.  I'll console Mr. Edgar by
acquainting him with the turn Heathcliff's humour has taken.  Having no
excuse for lingering longer, I slipped out, while Linton was engaged in
timidly rebuffing the advances of a friendly sheep-dog.  But he was too
much on the alert to be cheated: as I closed the door, I heard a cry, and
a frantic repetition of the words--

'Don't leave me!  I'll not stay here!  I'll not stay here!'

Then the latch was raised and fell: they did not suffer him to come
forth.  I mounted Minny, and urged her to a trot; and so my brief
guardianship ended.




CHAPTER XXI


We had sad work with little Cathy that day: she rose in high glee, eager
to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and lamentations followed
the news of his departure that Edgar himself was obliged to soothe her,
by affirming he should come back soon: he added, however, 'if I can get
him'; and there were no hopes of that.  This promise poorly pacified her;
but time was more potent; and though still at intervals she inquired of
her father when Linton would return, before she did see him again his
features had waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise him.

When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights, in
paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young master
got on; for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and was
never to be seen.  I could gather from her that he continued in weak
health, and was a tiresome inmate.  She said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to
dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to conceal
it: he had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at
all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes together.
There seldom passed much talk between them: Linton learnt his lessons and
spent his evenings in a small apartment they called the parlour: or else
lay in bed all day: for he was constantly getting coughs, and colds, and
aches, and pains of some sort.

'And I never know such a fainthearted creature,' added the woman; 'nor
one so careful of hisseln. He _will_ go on, if I leave the window open a
bit late in the evening. Oh! it's killing, a breath of night air! And he
must have a fire in the middle of summer; and Joseph's bacca-pipe is
poison; and he must always have sweets and dainties, and always milk,
milk for ever--heeding naught how the rest of us are pinched in winter;
and there he'll sit, wrapped in his furred cloak in his chair by the
fire, with some toast and water or other slop on the hob to sip at; and
if Hareton, for pity, comes to amuse him--Hareton is not bad-natured,
though he's rough--they're sure to part, one swearing and the other
crying. I believe the master would relish Earnshaw's thrashing him to a
mummy, if he were not his son; and I'm certain he would be fit to turn
him out of doors, if he knew half the nursing he gives hisseln. But then
he won't go into danger of temptation: he never enters the parlour, and
should Linton show those ways in the house where he is, he sends him
up-stairs directly.'

I divined, from this account, that utter lack of sympathy had rendered
young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so originally;
and my interest in him, consequently, decayed: though still I was moved
with a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had been left with
us.  Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information: he thought a great deal
about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk to see him; and he told
me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever came into the village?  She
said he had only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his father; and
both times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three or four days
afterwards.  That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly, two years
after he came; and another, whom I did not know, was her successor; she
lives there still.

Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss Cathy
reached sixteen.  On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested any
signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary of my late
mistress's death.  Her father invariably spent that day alone in the
library; and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he
would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight.  Therefore Catherine
was thrown on her own resources for amusement.  This twentieth of March
was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young
lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a ramble
on the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave, if we
went only a short distance and were back within the hour.

'So make haste, Ellen!' she cried.  'I know where I wish to go; where a
colony of moor-game are settled: I want to see whether they have made
their nests yet.'

'That must be a good distance up,' I answered; 'they don't breed on the
edge of the moor.'

'No, it's not,' she said.  'I've gone very near with papa.'

I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the matter.
She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a
young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in
listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm
sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden
ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in
its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure.
She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days.  It's a pity she
could not be content.

'Well,' said I, 'where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy?  We should be at
them: the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.'

'Oh, a little further--only a little further, Ellen,' was her answer,
continually.  'Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you
reach the other side I shall have raised the birds.'

But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at
length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our
steps.  I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way; she
either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was
compelled to follow.  Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I came
in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than
her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I
felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself.

Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting
out the nests of the grouse.  The Heights were Heathcliff's land, and he
was reproving the poacher.

'I've neither taken any nor found any,' she said, as I toiled to them,
expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement.  'I didn't mean to
take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I wished
to see the eggs.'

Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill-meaning smile, expressing his
acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards
it, and demanded who 'papa' was?

'Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange,' she replied.  'I thought you did not
know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that way.'

'You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?' he said,
sarcastically.

'And what are you?' inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the speaker.
'That man I've seen before.  Is he your son?'

She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained nothing but
increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his age: he
seemed as awkward and rough as ever.

'Miss Cathy,' I interrupted, 'it will be three hours instead of one that
we are out, presently.  We really must go back.'

'No, that man is not my son,' answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside.  'But
I have one, and you have seen him before too; and, though your nurse is
in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better for a little
rest.  Will you just turn this nab of heath, and walk into my house?
You'll get home earlier for the ease; and you shall receive a kind
welcome.'

I whispered Catherine that she mustn't, on any account, accede to the
proposal: it was entirely out of the question.

'Why?' she asked, aloud.  'I'm tired of running, and the ground is dewy:
I can't sit here.  Let us go, Ellen.  Besides, he says I have seen his
son.  He's mistaken, I think; but I guess where he lives: at the
farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone Crags.  Don't you?'

'I do.  Come, Nelly, hold your tongue--it will be a treat for her to look
in on us.  Hareton, get forwards with the lass.  You shall walk with me,
Nelly.'

'No, she's not going to any such place,' I cried, struggling to release
my arm, which he had seized: but she was almost at the door-stones
already, scampering round the brow at full speed.  Her appointed
companion did not pretend to escort her: he shied off by the road-side,
and vanished.

'Mr. Heathcliff, it's very wrong,' I continued: 'you know you mean no
good.  And there she'll see Linton, and all will be told as soon as ever
we return; and I shall have the blame.'

'I want her to see Linton,' he answered; 'he's looking better these few
days; it's not often he's fit to be seen.  And we'll soon persuade her to
keep the visit secret: where is the harm of it?'

'The harm of it is, that her father would hate me if he found I suffered
her to enter your house; and I am convinced you have a bad design in
encouraging her to do so,' I replied.

'My design is as honest as possible.  I'll inform you of its whole
scope,' he said.  'That the two cousins may fall in love, and get
married.  I'm acting generously to your master: his young chit has no
expectations, and should she second my wishes she'll be provided for at
once as joint successor with Linton.'

'If Linton died,' I answered, 'and his life is quite uncertain, Catherine
would be the heir.'

'No, she would not,' he said.  'There is no clause in the will to secure
it so: his property would go to me; but, to prevent disputes, I desire
their union, and am resolved to bring it about.'

'And I'm resolved she shall never approach your house with me again,' I
returned, as we reached the gate, where Miss Cathy waited our coming.

Heathcliff bade me be quiet; and, preceding us up the path, hastened to
open the door.  My young lady gave him several looks, as if she could not
exactly make up her mind what to think of him; but now he smiled when he
met her eye, and softened his voice in addressing her; and I was foolish
enough to imagine the memory of her mother might disarm him from desiring
her injury.  Linton stood on the hearth.  He had been out walking in the
fields, for his cap was on, and he was calling to Joseph to bring him dry
shoes.  He had grown tall of his age, still wanting some months of
sixteen.  His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion
brighter than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre
borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun.

'Now, who is that?' asked Mr. Heathcliff, turning to Cathy.  'Can you
tell?'

'Your son?' she said, having doubtfully surveyed, first one and then the
other.

'Yes, yes,' answered he: 'but is this the only time you have beheld him?
Think!  Ah! you have a short memory.  Linton, don't you recall your
cousin, that you used to tease us so with wishing to see?'

'What, Linton!' cried Cathy, kindling into joyful surprise at the name.
'Is that little Linton?  He's taller than I am!  Are you Linton?'

The youth stepped forward, and acknowledged himself: she kissed him
fervently, and they gazed with wonder at the change time had wrought in
the appearance of each.  Catherine had reached her full height; her
figure was both plump and slender, elastic as steel, and her whole aspect
sparkling with health and spirits.  Linton's looks and movements were
very languid, and his form extremely slight; but there was a grace in his
manner that mitigated these defects, and rendered him not unpleasing.
After exchanging numerous marks of fondness with him, his cousin went to
Mr. Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his attention between
the objects inside and those that lay without: pretending, that is, to
observe the latter, and really noting the former alone.

'And you are my uncle, then!' she cried, reaching up to salute him.  'I
thought I liked you, though you were cross at first.  Why don't you visit
at the Grange with Linton?  To live all these years such close
neighbours, and never see us, is odd: what have you done so for?'

'I visited it once or twice too often before you were born,' he answered.
'There--damn it!  If you have any kisses to spare, give them to Linton:
they are thrown away on me.'

'Naughty Ellen!' exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with her
lavish caresses.  'Wicked Ellen! to try to hinder me from entering.  But
I'll take this walk every morning in future: may I, uncle? and sometimes
bring papa.  Won't you be glad to see us?'

'Of course,' replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace,
resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors.  'But
stay,' he continued, turning towards the young lady.  'Now I think of it,
I'd better tell you.  Mr. Linton has a prejudice against me: we
quarrelled at one time of our lives, with unchristian ferocity; and, if
you mention coming here to him, he'll put a veto on your visits
altogether.  Therefore, you must not mention it, unless you be careless
of seeing your cousin hereafter: you may come, if you will, but you must
not mention it.'

'Why did you quarrel?' asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen.

'He thought me too poor to wed his sister,' answered Heathcliff, 'and was
grieved that I got her: his pride was hurt, and he'll never forgive it.'

'That's wrong!' said the young lady: 'some time I'll tell him so.  But
Linton and I have no share in your quarrel.  I'll not come here, then; he
shall come to the Grange.'

'It will be too far for me,' murmured her cousin: 'to walk four miles
would kill me.  No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then: not every
morning, but once or twice a week.'

The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt.

'I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour,' he muttered to me.  'Miss
Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him
to the devil.  Now, if it had been Hareton!--Do you know that, twenty
times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation?  I'd have loved
the lad had he been some one else.  But I think he's safe from _her_
love.  I'll pit him against that paltry creature, unless it bestir itself
briskly.  We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen.  Oh,
confound the vapid thing!  He's absorbed in drying his feet, and never
looks at her.--Linton!'

'Yes, father,' answered the boy.

'Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a rabbit
or a weasel's nest?  Take her into the garden, before you change your
shoes; and into the stable to see your horse.'

'Wouldn't you rather sit here?' asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a tone
which expressed reluctance to move again.

'I don't know,' she replied, casting a longing look to the door, and
evidently eager to be active.

He kept his seat, and shrank closer to the fire.  Heathcliff rose, and
went into the kitchen, and from thence to the yard, calling out for
Hareton.  Hareton responded, and presently the two re-entered.  The young
man had been washing himself, as was visible by the glow on his cheeks
and his wetted hair.

'Oh, I'll ask _you_, uncle,' cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the
housekeeper's assertion.  'That is not my cousin, is he?'

'Yes,' he, replied, 'your mother's nephew.  Don't you like him!'

Catherine looked queer.

'Is he not a handsome lad?' he continued.

The uncivil little thing stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in
Heathcliff's ear.  He laughed; Hareton darkened: I perceived he was very
sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his
inferiority.  But his master or guardian chased the frown by exclaiming--

'You'll be the favourite among us, Hareton!  She says you are a--What was
it?  Well, something very flattering.  Here! you go with her round the
farm.  And behave like a gentleman, mind!  Don't use any bad words; and
don't stare when the young lady is not looking at you, and be ready to
hide your face when she is; and, when you speak, say your words slowly,
and keep your hands out of your pockets.  Be off, and entertain her as
nicely as you can.'

He watched the couple walking past the window.  Earnshaw had his
countenance completely averted from his companion.  He seemed studying
the familiar landscape with a stranger's and an artist's interest.
Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small admiration.  She then
turned her attention to seeking out objects of amusement for herself, and
tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of conversation.

'I've tied his tongue,' observed Heathcliff.  'He'll not venture a single
syllable all the time!  Nelly, you recollect me at his age--nay, some
years younger.  Did I ever look so stupid: so "gaumless," as Joseph calls
it?'

'Worse,' I replied, 'because more sullen with it.'

'I've a pleasure in him,' he continued, reflecting aloud. 'He has
satisfied my expectations. If he were a born fool I should not enjoy it
half so much. But he's no fool; and I can sympathise with all his
feelings, having felt them myself. I know what he suffers now, for
instance, exactly: it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer,
though. And he'll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness
and ignorance. I've got him faster than his scoundrel of a father
secured me, and lower; for he takes a pride in his brutishness. I've
taught him to scorn everything extra-animal as silly and weak. Don't you
think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as
proud as I am of mine. But there's this difference; one is gold put to
the use of paving-stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service
of silver. _Mine_ has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the
merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. _His_ had
first-rate qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than unavailing.
I have nothing to regret; he would have more than any but I are aware
of. And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You'll own
that I've outmatched Hindley there. If the dead villain could rise from
his grave to abuse me for his offspring's wrongs, I should have the fun
of seeing the said offspring fight him back again, indignant that he
should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world!'

Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea.  I made no reply,
because I saw that he expected none.  Meantime, our young companion, who
sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began to evince symptoms
of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had denied himself the treat of
Catherine's society for fear of a little fatigue.  His father remarked
the restless glances wandering to the window, and the hand irresolutely
extended towards his cap.

'Get up, you idle boy!' he exclaimed, with assumed heartiness.

'Away after them! they are just at the corner, by the stand of hives.'

Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth.  The lattice was open,
and, as he stepped out, I heard Cathy inquiring of her unsociable
attendant what was that inscription over the door? Hareton stared up, and
scratched his head like a true clown.

'It's some damnable writing,' he answered.  'I cannot read it.'

'Can't read it?' cried Catherine; 'I can read it: it's English.  But I
want to know why it is there.'

Linton giggled: the first appearance of mirth he had exhibited.

'He does not know his letters,' he said to his cousin.  'Could you
believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce?'

'Is he all as he should be?' asked Miss Cathy, seriously; 'or is he
simple: not right?  I've questioned him twice now, and each time he
looked so stupid I think he does not understand me.  I can hardly
understand him, I'm sure!'

Linton repeated his laugh, and glanced at Hareton tauntingly; who
certainly did not seem quite clear of comprehension at that moment.

'There's nothing the matter but laziness; is there, Earnshaw?' he said.
'My cousin fancies you are an idiot.  There you experience the
consequence of scorning "book-larning," as you would say.  Have you
noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation?'

'Why, where the devil is the use on't?' growled Hareton, more ready in
answering his daily companion.  He was about to enlarge further, but the
two youngsters broke into a noisy fit of merriment: my giddy miss being
delighted to discover that she might turn his strange talk to matter of
amusement.

'Where is the use of the devil in that sentence?' tittered Linton.  'Papa
told you not to say any bad words, and you can't open your mouth without
one.  Do try to behave like a gentleman, now do!'

'If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I
would; pitiful lath of a crater!' retorted the angry boor, retreating,
while his face burnt with mingled rage and mortification! for he was
conscious of being insulted, and embarrassed how to resent it.

Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation, as well as I, smiled
when he saw him go; but immediately afterwards cast a look of singular
aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering in the door-way:
the boy finding animation enough while discussing Hareton's faults and
deficiencies, and relating anecdotes of his goings on; and the girl
relishing his pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the
ill-nature they evinced.  I began to dislike, more than to compassionate
Linton, and to excuse his father in some measure for holding him cheap.

We stayed till afternoon: I could not tear Miss Cathy away sooner; but
happily my master had not quitted his apartment, and remained ignorant of
our prolonged absence.  As we walked home, I would fain have enlightened
my charge on the characters of the people we had quitted: but she got it
into her head that I was prejudiced against them.

'Aha!' she cried, 'you take papa's side, Ellen: you are partial I know;
or else you wouldn't have cheated me so many years into the notion that
Linton lived a long way from here.  I'm really extremely angry; only I'm
so pleased I can't show it!  But you must hold your tongue about _my_
uncle; he's my uncle, remember; and I'll scold papa for quarrelling with
him.'

And so she ran on, till I relinquished the endeavour to convince her of
her mistake.  She did not mention the visit that night, because she did
not see Mr. Linton.  Next day it all came out, sadly to my chagrin; and
still I was not altogether sorry: I thought the burden of directing and
warning would be more efficiently borne by him than me.  But he was too
timid in giving satisfactory reasons for his wish that she should shun
connection with the household of the Heights, and Catherine liked good
reasons for every restraint that harassed her petted will.

'Papa!' she exclaimed, after the morning's salutations, 'guess whom I saw
yesterday, in my walk on the moors.  Ah, papa, you started! you've not
done right, have you, now?  I saw--but listen, and you shall hear how I
found you out; and Ellen, who is in league with you, and yet pretended to
pity me so, when I kept hoping, and was always disappointed about
Linton's coming back!'

She gave a faithful account of her excursion and its consequences; and my
master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me, said nothing
till she had concluded.  Then he drew her to him, and asked if she knew
why he had concealed Linton's near neighbourhood from her?  Could she
think it was to deny her a pleasure that she might harmlessly enjoy?

'It was because you disliked Mr. Heathcliff,' she answered.

'Then you believe I care more for my own feelings than yours, Cathy?' he
said.  'No, it was not because I disliked Mr. Heathcliff, but because Mr.
Heathcliff dislikes me; and is a most diabolical man, delighting to wrong
and ruin those he hates, if they give him the slightest opportunity.  I
knew that you could not keep up an acquaintance with your cousin without
being brought into contact with him; and I knew he would detest you on my
account; so for your own good, and nothing else, I took precautions that
you should not see Linton again.  I meant to explain this some time as
you grew older, and I'm sorry I delayed it.'

'But Mr. Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa,' observed Catherine, not at
all convinced; 'and he didn't object to our seeing each other: he said I
might come to his house when I pleased; only I must not tell you, because
you had quarrelled with him, and would not forgive him for marrying aunt
Isabella.  And you won't.  _You_ are the one to be blamed: he is willing
to let us be friends, at least; Linton and I; and you are not.'

My master, perceiving that she would not take his word for her
uncle-in-law's evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct to
Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his property.
He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic; for though he spoke
little of it, he still felt the same horror and detestation of his
ancient enemy that had occupied his heart ever since Mrs. Linton's
death. 'She might have been living yet, if it had not been for him!' was
his constant bitter reflection; and, in his eyes, Heathcliff seemed a
murderer. Miss Cathy--conversant with no bad deeds except her own slight
acts of disobedience, injustice, and passion, arising from hot temper
and thoughtlessness, and repented of on the day they were committed--was
amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on and cover revenge
for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans without a visitation of
remorse. She appeared so deeply impressed and shocked at this new view
of human nature--excluded from all her studies and all her ideas till
now--that Mr. Edgar deemed it unnecessary to pursue the subject. He
merely added: 'You will know hereafter, darling, why I wish you to avoid
his house and family; now return to your old employments and amusements,
and think no more about them.'

Catherine kissed her father, and sat down quietly to her lessons for a
couple of hours, according to custom; then she accompanied him into the
grounds, and the whole day passed as usual: but in the evening, when she
had retired to her room, and I went to help her to undress, I found her
crying, on her knees by the bedside.

'Oh, fie, silly child!' I exclaimed.  'If you had any real griefs you'd
be ashamed to waste a tear on this little contrariety.  You never had one
shadow of substantial sorrow, Miss Catherine.  Suppose, for a minute,
that master and I were dead, and you were by yourself in the world: how
would you feel, then?  Compare the present occasion with such an
affliction as that, and be thankful for the friends you have, instead of
coveting more.'

'I'm not crying for myself, Ellen,' she answered, 'it's for him.  He
expected to see me again to-morrow, and there he'll be so disappointed:
and he'll wait for me, and I sha'n't come!'

'Nonsense!' said I, 'do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you
have of him?  Hasn't he Hareton for a companion?  Not one in a hundred
would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice, for two
afternoons.  Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble himself no
further about you.'

'But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come?' she asked,
rising to her feet.  'And just send those books I promised to lend him?
His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to have them extremely,
when I told him how interesting they were.  May I not, Ellen?'

'No, indeed! no, indeed!' replied I with decision.  'Then he would write
to you, and there'd never be an end of it.  No, Miss Catherine, the
acquaintance must be dropped entirely: so papa expects, and I shall see
that it is done.'

'But how can one little note--?' she recommenced, putting on an imploring
countenance.

'Silence!' I interrupted.  'We'll not begin with your little notes.  Get
into bed.'

She threw at me a very naughty look, so naughty that I would not kiss her
good-night at first: I covered her up, and shut her door, in great
displeasure; but, repenting half-way, I returned softly, and lo! there
was Miss standing at the table with a bit of blank paper before her and a
pencil in her hand, which she guiltily slipped out of sight on my
entrance.

'You'll get nobody to take that, Catherine,' I said, 'if you write it;
and at present I shall put out your candle.'

I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap on my
hand and a petulant 'cross thing!'  I then quitted her again, and she
drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours.  The letter was
finished and forwarded to its destination by a milk-fetcher who came from
the village; but that I didn't learn till some time afterwards.  Weeks
passed on, and Cathy recovered her temper; though she grew wondrous fond
of stealing off to corners by herself and often, if I came near her
suddenly while reading, she would start and bend over the book, evidently
desirous to hide it; and I detected edges of loose paper sticking out
beyond the leaves.  She also got a trick of coming down early in the
morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the
arrival of something; and she had a small drawer in a cabinet in the
library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she took
special care to remove when she left it.

One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the playthings and
trinkets which recently formed its contents were transmuted into bits of
folded paper.  My curiosity and suspicions were roused; I determined to
take a peep at her mysterious treasures; so, at night, as soon as she and
my master were safe upstairs, I searched, and readily found among my
house keys one that would fit the lock.  Having opened, I emptied the
whole contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure
in my own chamber.  Though I could not but suspect, I was still surprised
to discover that they were a mass of correspondence--daily almost, it
must have been--from Linton Heathcliff: answers to documents forwarded by
her.  The earlier dated were embarrassed and short; gradually, however,
they expanded into copious love-letters, foolish, as the age of the
writer rendered natural, yet with touches here and there which I thought
were borrowed from a more experienced source.  Some of them struck me as
singularly odd compounds of ardour and flatness; commencing in strong
feeling, and concluding in the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy
might use to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart.  Whether they satisfied
Cathy I don't know; but they appeared very worthless trash to me.  After
turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief
and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer.

Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the
kitchen: I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain little
boy; and, while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked something into
his jacket pocket, and plucked something out.  I went round by the
garden, and laid wait for the messenger; who fought valorously to defend
his trust, and we spilt the milk between us; but I succeeded in
abstracting the epistle; and, threatening serious consequences if he did
not look sharp home, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's
affectionate composition.  It was more simple and more eloquent than her
cousin's: very pretty and very silly.  I shook my head, and went
meditating into the house.  The day being wet, she could not divert
herself with rambling about the park; so, at the conclusion of her
morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer.  Her father
sat reading at the table; and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in
some unripped fringes of the window-curtain, keeping my eye steadily
fixed on her proceedings.  Never did any bird flying back to a plundered
nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more
complete despair, in its anguished cries and flutterings, than she by her
single 'Oh!' and the change that transfigured her late happy countenance.
Mr. Linton looked up.

'What is the matter, love?  Have you hurt yourself?' he said.

His tone and look assured her _he_ had not been the discoverer of the
hoard.

'No, papa!' she gasped.  'Ellen! Ellen! come up-stairs--I'm sick!'

I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out.

'Oh, Ellen! you have got them,' she commenced immediately, dropping on
her knees, when we were enclosed alone.  'Oh, give them to me, and I'll
never, never do so again!  Don't tell papa.  You have not told papa,
Ellen? say you have not?  I've been exceedingly naughty, but I won't do
it any more!'

With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up.

'So,' I exclaimed, 'Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it seems:
you may well be ashamed of them!  A fine bundle of trash you study in
your leisure hours, to be sure: why, it's good enough to be printed!  And
what do you suppose the master will think when I display it before him?  I
hav'n't shown it yet, but you needn't imagine I shall keep your
ridiculous secrets.  For shame! and you must have led the way in writing
such absurdities: he would not have thought of beginning, I'm certain.'

'I didn't!  I didn't!' sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart.  'I didn't
once think of loving him till--'

'_Loving_!' cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word.  '_Loving_!
Did anybody ever hear the like!  I might just as well talk of loving the
miller who comes once a year to buy our corn.  Pretty loving, indeed! and
both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life!
Now here is the babyish trash.  I'm going with it to the library; and
we'll see what your father says to such _loving_.'

She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head; and
then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn them--do
anything rather than show them.  And being really fully as much inclined
to laugh as scold--for I esteemed it all girlish vanity--I at length
relented in a measure, and asked,--'If I consent to burn them, will you
promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book
(for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings,
nor playthings?'

'We don't send playthings,' cried Catherine, her pride overcoming her
shame.

'Nor anything at all, then, my lady?' I said.  'Unless you will, here I
go.'

'I promise, Ellen!' she cried, catching my dress.  'Oh, put them in the
fire, do, do!'

But when I proceeded to open a place with the poker the sacrifice was too
painful to be borne.  She earnestly supplicated that I would spare her
one or two.

'One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton's sake!'

I unknotted the handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from an
angle, and the flame curled up the chimney.

'I will have one, you cruel wretch!' she screamed, darting her hand into
the fire, and drawing forth some half-consumed fragments, at the expense
of her fingers.

'Very well--and I will have some to exhibit to papa!'  I answered,
shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the door.

She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me to
finish the immolation.  It was done; I stirred up the ashes, and interred
them under a shovelful of coals; and she mutely, and with a sense of
intense injury, retired to her private apartment.  I descended to tell my
master that the young lady's qualm of sickness was almost gone, but I
judged it best for her to lie down a while.  She wouldn't dine; but she
reappeared at tea, pale, and red about the eyes, and marvellously subdued
in outward aspect.  Next morning I answered the letter by a slip of
paper, inscribed, 'Master Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes
to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them.'  And, henceforth, the
little boy came with vacant pockets.




CHAPTER XXII


Summer drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas, but the
harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared.
Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers;
at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk, and the
evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold, that
settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors throughout the
whole of the winter, nearly without intermission.

Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably
sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her
reading less, and taking more exercise.  She had his companionship no
longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible,
with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or three
hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and
then my society was obviously less desirable than his.

On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November--a fresh watery
afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered
leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds--dark grey
streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rain--I
requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of
showers.  She refused; and I unwillingly donned a cloak, and took my
umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park: a formal
walk which she generally affected if low-spirited--and that she
invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing never
known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his
increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance.  She went sadly
on: there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might
well have tempted her to race.  And often, from the side of my eye, I
could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her cheek.  I
gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts.  On one side of the
road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their
roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure: the soil was too loose for the
latter; and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal.  In summer
Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the
branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her
agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to
scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew
there was no necessity for descending.  From dinner to tea she would lie
in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs--my
nursery lore--to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and
entice their young ones to fly: or nestling with closed lids, half
thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express.

'Look, Miss!' I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one
twisted tree.  'Winter is not here yet.  There's a little flower up
yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those
turf steps in July with a lilac mist.  Will you clamber up, and pluck it
to show to papa?'  Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom
trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, at length--'No, I'll not
touch it: but it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen?'

'Yes,' I observed, 'about as starved and suckless as you: your cheeks are
bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run.  You're so low, I daresay I
shall keep up with you.'

'No,' she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to
muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus
spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and, ever
and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face.

'Catherine, why are you crying, love?' I asked, approaching and putting
my arm over her shoulder.  'You mustn't cry because papa has a cold; be
thankful it is nothing worse.'

She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was stifled by
sobs.

'Oh, it will be something worse,' she said.  'And what shall I do when
papa and you leave me, and I am by myself?  I can't forget your words,
Ellen; they are always in my ear.  How life will be changed, how dreary
the world will be, when papa and you are dead.'

'None can tell whether you won't die before us,' I replied.  'It's wrong
to anticipate evil.  We'll hope there are years and years to come before
any of us go: master is young, and I am strong, and hardly forty-five.  My
mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last.  And suppose Mr.
Linton were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more years than you
have counted, Miss.  And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity
above twenty years beforehand?'

'But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa,' she remarked, gazing up with
timid hope to seek further consolation.

'Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her,' I replied.  'She wasn't
as happy as Master: she hadn't as much to live for.  All you need do, is
to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you
cheerful; and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject: mind that, Cathy!
I'll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and reckless,
and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a person who
would be glad to have him in his grave; and allowed him to discover that
you fretted over the separation he has judged it expedient to make.'

'I fret about nothing on earth except papa's illness,' answered my
companion.  'I care for nothing in comparison with papa.  And I'll
never--never--oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word
to vex him.  I love him better than myself, Ellen; and I know it by this:
I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be
miserable than that he should be: that proves I love him better than
myself.'

'Good words,' I replied.  'But deeds must prove it also; and after he is
well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.'

As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my young
lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on
the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that bloomed
scarlet on the summit branches of the wild-rose trees shadowing the
highway side: the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could touch
the upper, except from Cathy's present station.  In stretching to pull
them, her hat fell off; and as the door was locked, she proposed
scrambling down to recover it.  I bid her be cautious lest she got a
fall, and she nimbly disappeared.  But the return was no such easy
matter: the stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rose-bushes
and black-berry stragglers could yield no assistance in re-ascending.  I,
like a fool, didn't recollect that, till I heard her laughing and
exclaiming--'Ellen! you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run
round to the porter's lodge.  I can't scale the ramparts on this side!'

'Stay where you are,' I answered; 'I have my bundle of keys in my pocket:
perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I'll go.'

Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door, while I
tried all the large keys in succession.  I had applied the last, and
found that none would do; so, repeating my desire that she would remain
there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an approaching
sound arrested me.  It was the trot of a horse; Cathy's dance stopped
also.

'Who is that?' I whispered.

'Ellen, I wish you could open the door,' whispered back my companion,
anxiously.

'Ho, Miss Linton!' cried a deep voice (the rider's), 'I'm glad to meet
you.  Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and
obtain.'

'I sha'n't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,' answered Catherine.  'Papa says
you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says the
same.'

'That is nothing to the purpose,' said Heathcliff.  (He it was.)  'I
don't hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I demand your
attention.  Yes; you have cause to blush.  Two or three months since,
were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in play, eh?
You deserved, both of you, flogging for that!  You especially, the elder;
and less sensitive, as it turns out.  I've got your letters, and if you
give me any pertness I'll send them to your father.  I presume you grew
weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn't you?  Well, you dropped
Linton with it into a Slough of Despond.  He was in earnest: in love,
really.  As true as I live, he's dying for you; breaking his heart at
your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually.  Though Hareton has made
him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures,
and attempted to frighten him out of his idiotcy, he gets worse daily;
and he'll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him!'

'How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?' I called from the
inside.  'Pray ride on!  How can you deliberately get up such paltry
falsehoods?  Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone: you won't
believe that vile nonsense.  You can feel in yourself it is impossible
that a person should die for love of a stranger.'

'I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,' muttered the detected
villain. 'Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your
double-dealing,' he added aloud. 'How could _you_ lie so glaringly as to
affirm I hated the "poor child"? and invent bugbear stories to terrify
her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my
bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if have not
spoken truth: do, there's a darling! Just imagine your father in my
place, and Linton in yours; then think how you would value your careless
lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your father
himself entreated him; and don't, from pure stupidity, fall into the
same error. I swear, on my salvation, he's going to his grave, and none
but you can save him!'

The lock gave way and I issued out.

'I swear Linton is dying,' repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me.  'And
grief and disappointment are hastening his death.  Nelly, if you won't
let her go, you can walk over yourself.  But I shall not return till this
time next week; and I think your master himself would scarcely object to
her visiting her cousin.'

'Come in,' said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to
re-enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of
the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit.

He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed--'Miss Catherine,
I'll own to you that I have little patience with Linton; and Hareton and
Joseph have less.  I'll own that he's with a harsh set.  He pines for
kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from you would be his best
medicine.  Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel cautions; but be generous, and
contrive to see him.  He dreams of you day and night, and cannot be
persuaded that you don't hate him, since you neither write nor call.'

I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in
holding it; and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath: for
the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees, and
warned us to avoid delay.  Our hurry prevented any comment on the
encounter with Heathcliff, as we stretched towards home; but I divined
instinctively that Catherine's heart was clouded now in double darkness.
Her features were so sad, they did not seem hers: she evidently regarded
what she had heard as every syllable true.

The master had retired to rest before we came in.  Cathy stole to his
room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep.  She returned, and
asked me to sit with her in the library.  We took our tea together; and
afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she was
weary.  I got a book, and pretended to read.  As soon as she supposed me
absorbed in my occupation, she recommenced her silent weeping: it
appeared, at present, her favourite diversion.  I suffered her to enjoy
it a while; then I expostulated: deriding and ridiculing all Mr.
Heathcliff's assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would
coincide.  Alas!  I hadn't skill to counteract the effect his account had
produced: it was just what he intended.

'You may be right, Ellen,' she answered; 'but I shall never feel at ease
till I know.  And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I don't
write, and convince him that I shall not change.'

What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity?  We
parted that night--hostile; but next day beheld me on the road to
Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress's pony.  I
couldn't bear to witness her sorrow: to see her pale, dejected
countenance, and heavy eyes: and I yielded, in the faint hope that Linton
himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the tale was
founded on fact.




CHAPTER XXIII


The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning--half frost, half
drizzle--and temporary brooks crossed our path--gurgling from the
uplands.  My feet were thoroughly wetted; I was cross and low; exactly
the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things.  We
entered the farm-house by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr.
Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight faith in his own
affirmation.

Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring fire;
a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces of
toasted oat-cake; and his black, short pipe in his mouth.  Catherine ran
to the hearth to warm herself.  I asked if the master was in?  My
question remained so long unanswered, that I thought the old man had
grown deaf, and repeated it louder.

'Na--ay!' he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose.  'Na--ay! yah
muh goa back whear yah coom frough.'

'Joseph!' cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the inner
room.  'How often am I to call you?  There are only a few red ashes now.
Joseph! come this moment.'

Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he had no
ear for this appeal.  The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible; one
gone on an errand, and the other at his work, probably.  We knew Linton's
tones, and entered.

'Oh, I hope you'll die in a garret, starved to death!' said the boy,
mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant.

He stopped on observing his error: his cousin flew to him.

'Is that you, Miss Linton?' he said, raising his head from the arm of the
great chair, in which he reclined.  'No--don't kiss me: it takes my
breath.  Dear me!  Papa said you would call,' continued he, after
recovering a little from Catherine's embrace; while she stood by looking
very contrite.  'Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open;
and those--those _detestable_ creatures won't bring coals to the fire.
It's so cold!'

I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself.  The invalid
complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a tiresome cough, and
looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper.

'Well, Linton,' murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed,
'are you glad to see me?  Can I do you any good?'

'Why didn't you come before?' he asked.  'You should have come, instead
of writing.  It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters.  I'd far
rather have talked to you.  Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor anything
else.  I wonder where Zillah is!  Will you' (looking at me) 'step into
the kitchen and see?'

I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling to run
to and fro at his behest, I replied--'Nobody is out there but Joseph.'

'I want to drink,' he exclaimed fretfully, turning away.  'Zillah is
constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it's miserable!  And
I'm obliged to come down here--they resolved never to hear me up-stairs.'

'Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?' I asked, perceiving
Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances.

'Attentive?  He makes them a little more attentive at least,' he cried.
'The wretches!  Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at
me!  I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious beings.'

Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the
dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it.  He bid her add a spoonful of
wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a small portion,
appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.

'And are you glad to see me?' asked she, reiterating her former question
and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile.

'Yes, I am.  It's something new to hear a voice like yours!' he replied.
'But I have been vexed, because you wouldn't come.  And papa swore it was
owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing; and said
you despised me; and if he had been in my place, he would be more the
master of the Grange than your father by this time.  But you don't
despise me, do you, Miss--?'

'I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy,' interrupted my young lady.
'Despise you?  No!  Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than
anybody living.  I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not come
when he returns: will he stay away many days?'

'Not many,' answered Linton; 'but he goes on to the moors frequently,
since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two
with me in his absence.  Do say you will.  I think I should not be
peevish with you: you'd not provoke me, and you'd always be ready to help
me, wouldn't you?'

'Yes,' said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: 'if I could only get
papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you.  Pretty Linton!  I wish
you were my brother.'

'And then you would like me as well as your father?' observed he, more
cheerfully.  'But papa says you would love me better than him and all the
world, if you were my wife; so I'd rather you were that.'

'No, I should never love anybody better than papa,' she returned gravely.
'And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and
brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa
would be as fond of you as he is of me.'

Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they
did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father's aversion to her aunt.
I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue.  I couldn't succeed till
everything she knew was out.  Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted
her relation was false.

'Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,' she answered pertly.

'_My_ papa scorns yours!' cried Linton.  'He calls him a sneaking fool.'

'Yours is a wicked man,' retorted Catherine; 'and you are very naughty to
dare to repeat what he says.  He must be wicked to have made Aunt
Isabella leave him as she did.'

'She didn't leave him,' said the boy; 'you sha'n't contradict me.'

'She did,' cried my young lady.

'Well, I'll tell you something!' said Linton.  'Your mother hated your
father: now then.'

'Oh!' exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue.

'And she loved mine,' added he.

'You little liar!  I hate you now!' she panted, and her face grew red
with passion.

'She did! she did!' sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair,
and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other disputant,
who stood behind.

'Hush, Master Heathcliff!' I said; 'that's your father's tale, too, I
suppose.'

'It isn't: you hold your tongue!' he answered.  'She did, she did,
Catherine! she did, she did!'

Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to
fall against one arm.  He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough
that soon ended his triumph.  It lasted so long that it frightened even
me.  As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the
mischief she had done: though she said nothing.  I held him till the fit
exhausted itself.  Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down
silently.  Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat opposite,
and looked solemnly into the fire.

'How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired, after waiting ten
minutes.

'I wish _she_ felt as I do,' he replied: 'spiteful, cruel thing! Hareton
never touches me: he never struck me in his life. And I was better
to-day: and there--' his voice died in a whimper.

'_I_ didn't strike you!' muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent
another burst of emotion.

He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for a
quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for
whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and pathos
into the inflexions of his voice.

'I'm sorry I hurt you, Linton,' she said at length, racked beyond
endurance.  'But I couldn't have been hurt by that little push, and I had
no idea that you could, either: you're not much, are you, Linton?  Don't
let me go home thinking I've done you harm.  Answer! speak to me.'

'I can't speak to you,' he murmured; 'you've hurt me so that I shall lie
awake all night choking with this cough.  If you had it you'd know what
it was; but _you'll_ be comfortably asleep while I'm in agony, and nobody
near me.  I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful nights!'  And
he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself.

'Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights,' I said, 'it
won't be Miss who spoils your ease: you'd be the same had she never come.
However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you'll get quieter
when we leave you.'

'Must I go?' asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him.  'Do you want
me to go, Linton?'

'You can't alter what you've done,' he replied pettishly, shrinking from
her, 'unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a fever.'

'Well, then, I must go?' she repeated.

'Let me alone, at least,' said he; 'I can't bear your talking.'

She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while;
but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a movement to the
door, and I followed.  We were recalled by a scream.  Linton had slid
from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing in the mere
perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to be as
grievous and harassing as it can.  I thoroughly gauged his disposition
from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to attempt
humouring him.  Not so my companion: she ran back in terror, knelt down,
and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet from lack of
breath: by no means from compunction at distressing her.

'I shall lift him on to the settle,' I said, 'and he may roll about as he
pleases: we can't stop to watch him.  I hope you are satisfied, Miss
Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him; and that his condition
of health is not occasioned by attachment to you.  Now, then, there he
is!  Come away: as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care for his
nonsense, he'll be glad to lie still.'

She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he
rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a
stone or a block of wood.  She tried to put it more comfortably.

'I can't do with that,' he said; 'it's not high enough.'

Catherine brought another to lay above it.

'That's too high,' murmured the provoking thing.

'How must I arrange it, then?' she asked despairingly.

He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and
converted her shoulder into a support.

'No, that won't do,' I said.  'You'll be content with the cushion, Master
Heathcliff.  Miss has wasted too much time on you already: we cannot
remain five minutes longer.'

'Yes, yes, we can!' replied Cathy.  'He's good and patient now.  He's
beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will to-night,
if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I dare not come
again.  Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I musn't come, if I have
hurt you.'

'You must come, to cure me,' he answered.  'You ought to come, because
you have hurt me: you know you have extremely!  I was not as ill when you
entered as I am at present--was I?'

'But you've made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.--I didn't
do it all,' said his cousin.  'However, we'll be friends now.  And you
want me: you would wish to see me sometimes, really?'

'I told you I did,' he replied impatiently.  'Sit on the settle and let
me lean on your knee.  That's as mamma used to do, whole afternoons
together.  Sit quite still and don't talk: but you may sing a song, if
you can sing; or you may say a nice long interesting ballad--one of those
you promised to teach me; or a story.  I'd rather have a ballad, though:
begin.'

Catherine repeated the longest she could remember.  The employment
pleased both mightily.  Linton would have another, and after that
another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on
until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court,
returning for his dinner.

'And to-morrow, Catherine, will you be here to-morrow?' asked young
Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.

'No,' I answered, 'nor next day neither.'  She, however, gave a different
response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped and whispered
in his ear.

'You won't go to-morrow, recollect, Miss!' I commenced, when we were out
of the house.  'You are not dreaming of it, are you?'

She smiled.

'Oh, I'll take good care,' I continued: 'I'll have that lock mended, and
you can escape by no way else.'

'I can get over the wall,' she said laughing.  'The Grange is not a
prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler.  And besides, I'm almost
seventeen: I'm a woman.  And I'm certain Linton would recover quickly if
he had me to look after him.  I'm older than he is, you know, and wiser:
less childish, am I not?  And he'll soon do as I direct him, with some
slight coaxing.  He's a pretty little darling when he's good.  I'd make
such a pet of him, if he were mine.  We should never quarrel, should we
after we were used to each other?  Don't you like him, Ellen?'

'Like him!' I exclaimed.  'The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that
ever struggled into its teens.  Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured,
he'll not win twenty.  I doubt whether he'll see spring, indeed.  And
small loss to his family whenever he drops off.  And lucky it is for us
that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more tedious and
selfish he'd be.  I'm glad you have no chance of having him for a
husband, Miss Catherine.'

My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech.  To speak of his death
so regardlessly wounded her feelings.

'He's younger than I,' she answered, after a protracted pause of
meditation, 'and he ought to live the longest: he will--he must live as
long as I do.  He's as strong now as when he first came into the north;
I'm positive of that.  It's only a cold that ails him, the same as papa
has.  You say papa will get better, and why shouldn't he?'

'Well, well,' I cried, 'after all, we needn't trouble ourselves; for
listen, Miss,--and mind, I'll keep my word,--if you attempt going to
Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton,
and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be
revived.'

'It has been revived,' muttered Cathy, sulkily.

'Must not be continued, then,' I said.

'We'll see,' was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to
toil in the rear.

We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we had
been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no explanation
of our absence.  As soon as I entered I hastened to change my soaked
shoes and stockings; but sitting such awhile at the Heights had done the
mischief.  On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during three
weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties: a calamity
never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am thankful to say,
since.

My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and
cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low.  It is
wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for
complaint than I had.  The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton's room she
appeared at my bedside.  Her day was divided between us; no amusement
usurped a minute: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play; and
she was the fondest nurse that ever watched.  She must have had a warm
heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me.  I said her
days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I
generally needed nothing after six o'clock, thus the evening was her own.
Poor thing!  I never considered what she did with herself after tea.  And
though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I remarked a
fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender fingers,
instead of fancying the line borrowed from a cold ride across the moors,
I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library.




CHAPTER XXIV


At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move about
the house.  And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the evening I
asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak.  We were in the
library, the master having gone to bed: she consented, rather
unwillingly, I fancied; and imagining my sort of books did not suit her,
I bid her please herself in the choice of what she perused.  She selected
one of her own favourites, and got forward steadily about an hour; then
came frequent questions.

'Ellen, are not you tired?  Hadn't you better lie down now?  You'll be
sick, keeping up so long, Ellen.'

'No, no, dear, I'm not tired,' I returned, continually.

Perceiving me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her
disrelish for her occupation.  It changed to yawning, and stretching,
and--

'Ellen, I'm tired.'

'Give over then and talk,' I answered.

That was worse: she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till
eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with sleep;
judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she
inflicted on her eyes.  The following night she seemed more impatient
still; and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a
headache, and left me.  I thought her conduct odd; and having remained
alone a long while, I resolved on going and inquiring whether she were
better, and asking her to come and lie on the sofa, instead of up-stairs
in the dark.  No Catherine could I discover up-stairs, and none below.
The servants affirmed they had not seen her.  I listened at Mr. Edgar's
door; all was silence.  I returned to her apartment, extinguished my
candle, and seated myself in the window.

The moon shone bright; a sprinkling of snow covered the ground, and I
reflected that she might, possibly, have taken it into her head to walk
about the garden, for refreshment.  I did detect a figure creeping along
the inner fence of the park; but it was not my young mistress: on its
emerging into the light, I recognised one of the grooms.  He stood a
considerable period, viewing the carriage-road through the grounds; then
started off at a brisk pace, as if he had detected something, and
reappeared presently, leading Miss's pony; and there she was, just
dismounted, and walking by its side.  The man took his charge stealthily
across the grass towards the stable.  Cathy entered by the
casement-window of the drawing-room, and glided noiselessly up to where I
awaited her.  She put the door gently too, slipped off her snowy shoes,
untied her hat, and was proceeding, unconscious of my espionage, to lay
aside her mantle, when I suddenly rose and revealed myself.  The surprise
petrified her an instant: she uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and
stood fixed.

'My dear Miss Catherine,' I began, too vividly impressed by her recent
kindness to break into a scold, 'where have you been riding out at this
hour?  And why should you try to deceive me by telling a tale?  Where
have you been?  Speak!'

'To the bottom of the park,' she stammered.  'I didn't tell a tale.'

'And nowhere else?' I demanded.

'No,' was the muttered reply.

'Oh, Catherine!' I cried, sorrowfully.  'You know you have been doing
wrong, or you wouldn't be driven to uttering an untruth to me.  That does
grieve me.  I'd rather be three months ill, than hear you frame a
deliberate lie.'

She sprang forward, and bursting into tears, threw her arms round my
neck.

'Well, Ellen, I'm so afraid of you being angry,' she said.  'Promise not
to be angry, and you shall know the very truth: I hate to hide it.'

We sat down in the window-seat; I assured her I would not scold, whatever
her secret might be, and I guessed it, of course; so she commenced--

'I've been to Wuthering Heights, Ellen, and I've never missed going a day
since you fell ill; except thrice before, and twice after you left your
room.  I gave Michael books and pictures to prepare Minny every evening,
and to put her back in the stable: you mustn't scold him either, mind.  I
was at the Heights by half-past six, and generally stayed till half-past
eight, and then galloped home.  It was not to amuse myself that I went: I
was often wretched all the time.  Now and then I was happy: once in a
week perhaps.  At first, I expected there would be sad work persuading
you to let me keep my word to Linton: for I had engaged to call again
next day, when we quitted him; but, as you stayed up-stairs on the
morrow, I escaped that trouble.  While Michael was refastening the lock
of the park door in the afternoon, I got possession of the key, and told
him how my cousin wished me to visit him, because he was sick, and
couldn't come to the Grange; and how papa would object to my going: and
then I negotiated with him about the pony.  He is fond of reading, and he
thinks of leaving soon to get married; so he offered, if I would lend him
books out of the library, to do what I wished: but I preferred giving him
my own, and that satisfied him better.

'On my second visit Linton seemed in lively spirits; and Zillah (that is
their housekeeper) made us a clean room and a good fire, and told us
that, as Joseph was out at a prayer-meeting and Hareton Earnshaw was off
with his dogs--robbing our woods of pheasants, as I heard afterwards--we
might do what we liked.  She brought me some warm wine and gingerbread,
and appeared exceedingly good-natured, and Linton sat in the arm-chair,
and I in the little rocking chair on the hearth-stone, and we laughed and
talked so merrily, and found so much to say: we planned where we would
go, and what we would do in summer.  I needn't repeat that, because you
would call it silly.

'One time, however, we were near quarrelling.  He said the pleasantest
manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on
a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming
dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead,
and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly.  That
was his most perfect idea of heaven's happiness: mine was rocking in a
rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds
flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and
blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and
the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by
great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and woods
and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy.  He
wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and
dance in a glorious jubilee.  I said his heaven would be only half alive;
and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and
he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish.  At
last, we agreed to try both, as soon as the right weather came; and then
we kissed each other and were friends.

'After sitting still an hour, I looked at the great room with its smooth
uncarpeted floor, and thought how nice it would be to play in, if we
removed the table; and I asked Linton to call Zillah in to help us, and
we'd have a game at blindman's-buff; she should try to catch us: you used
to, you know, Ellen.  He wouldn't: there was no pleasure in it, he said;
but he consented to play at ball with me.  We found two in a cupboard,
among a heap of old toys, tops, and hoops, and battledores and
shuttlecocks.  One was marked C., and the other H.; I wished to have the
C., because that stood for Catherine, and the H. might be for Heathcliff,
his name; but the bran came out of H., and Linton didn't like it.  I beat
him constantly: and he got cross again, and coughed, and returned to his
chair.  That night, though, he easily recovered his good humour: he was
charmed with two or three pretty songs--_your_ songs, Ellen; and when I
was obliged to go, he begged and entreated me to come the following
evening; and I promised.  Minny and I went flying home as light as air;
and I dreamt of Wuthering Heights and my sweet, darling cousin, till
morning.

'On the morrow I was sad; partly because you were poorly, and partly that
I wished my father knew, and approved of my excursions: but it was
beautiful moonlight after tea; and, as I rode on, the gloom cleared.  I
shall have another happy evening, I thought to myself; and what delights
me more, my pretty Linton will.  I trotted up their garden, and was
turning round to the back, when that fellow Earnshaw met me, took my
bridle, and bid me go in by the front entrance.  He patted Minny's neck,
and said she was a bonny beast, and appeared as if he wanted me to speak
to him.  I only told him to leave my horse alone, or else it would kick
him.  He answered in his vulgar accent, "It wouldn't do mitch hurt if it
did;" and surveyed its legs with a smile.  I was half inclined to make it
try; however, he moved off to open the door, and, as he raised the latch,
he looked up to the inscription above, and said, with a stupid mixture of
awkwardness and elation: "Miss Catherine!  I can read yon, now."

'"Wonderful," I exclaimed.  "Pray let us hear you--you _are_ grown
clever!"

'He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name--"Hareton Earnshaw."

'"And the figures?" I cried, encouragingly, perceiving that he came to a
dead halt.

'"I cannot tell them yet," he answered.

'"Oh, you dunce!" I said, laughing heartily at his failure.

'The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl
gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join in my
mirth: whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it really was,
contempt.  I settled his doubts, by suddenly retrieving my gravity and
desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton, not him.  He
reddened--I saw that by the moonlight--dropped his hand from the latch,
and skulked off, a picture of mortified vanity.  He imagined himself to
be as accomplished as Linton, I suppose, because he could spell his own
name; and was marvellously discomfited that I didn't think the same.'

'Stop, Miss Catherine, dear!'--I interrupted.  'I shall not scold, but I
don't like your conduct there.  If you had remembered that Hareton was
your cousin as much as Master Heathcliff, you would have felt how
improper it was to behave in that way.  At least, it was praiseworthy
ambition for him to desire to be as accomplished as Linton; and probably
he did not learn merely to show off: you had made him ashamed of his
ignorance before, I have no doubt; and he wished to remedy it and please
you.  To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding.  Had you
been brought up in his circumstances, would you be less rude?  He was as
quick and as intelligent a child as ever you were; and I'm hurt that he
should be despised now, because that base Heathcliff has treated him so
unjustly.'

'Well, Ellen, you won't cry about it, will you?' she exclaimed, surprised
at my earnestness.  'But wait, and you shall hear if he conned his A B C
to please me; and if it were worth while being civil to the brute.  I
entered; Linton was lying on the settle, and half got up to welcome me.

'"I'm ill to-night, Catherine, love," he said; "and you must have all the
talk, and let me listen.  Come, and sit by me.  I was sure you wouldn't
break your word, and I'll make you promise again, before you go."

'I knew now that I mustn't tease him, as he was ill; and I spoke softly
and put no questions, and avoided irritating him in any way.  I had
brought some of my nicest books for him: he asked me to read a little of
one, and I was about to comply, when Earnshaw burst the door open: having
gathered venom with reflection.  He advanced direct to us, seized Linton
by the arm, and swung him off the seat.

'"Get to thy own room!" he said, in a voice almost inarticulate with
passion; and his face looked swelled and furious.  "Take her there if she
comes to see thee: thou shalln't keep me out of this.  Begone wi' ye
both!"

'He swore at us, and left Linton no time to answer, nearly throwing him
into the kitchen; and he clenched his fist as I followed, seemingly
longing to knock me down.  I was afraid for a moment, and I let one
volume fall; he kicked it after me, and shut us out.  I heard a
malignant, crackly laugh by the fire, and turning, beheld that odious
Joseph standing rubbing his bony hands, and quivering.

'"I wer sure he'd sarve ye out!  He's a grand lad!  He's getten t' raight
sperrit in him!  _He_ knaws--ay, he knaws, as weel as I do, who sud be t'
maister yonder--Ech, ech, ech!  He made ye skift properly!  Ech, ech,
ech!"

'"Where must we go?" I asked of my cousin, disregarding the old wretch's
mockery.

'Linton was white and trembling.  He was not pretty then, Ellen: oh, no!
he looked frightful; for his thin face and large eyes were wrought into
an expression of frantic, powerless fury.  He grasped the handle of the
door, and shook it: it was fastened inside.

'"If you don't let me in, I'll kill you!--If you don't let me in, I'll
kill you!" he rather shrieked than said.  "Devil! devil!--I'll kill
you--I'll kill you!"

Joseph uttered his croaking laugh again.

'"Thear, that's t' father!" he cried.  "That's father!  We've allas
summut o' either side in us.  Niver heed, Hareton, lad--dunnut be
'feard--he cannot get at thee!"

'I took hold of Linton's hands, and tried to pull him away; but he
shrieked so shockingly that I dared not proceed.  At last his cries were
choked by a dreadful fit of coughing; blood gushed from his mouth, and he
fell on the ground.  I ran into the yard, sick with terror; and called
for Zillah, as loud as I could.  She soon heard me: she was milking the
cows in a shed behind the barn, and hurrying from her work, she inquired
what there was to do?  I hadn't breath to explain; dragging her in, I
looked about for Linton.  Earnshaw had come out to examine the mischief
he had caused, and he was then conveying the poor thing up-stairs.  Zillah
and I ascended after him; but he stopped me at the top of the steps, and
said I shouldn't go in: I must go home.  I exclaimed that he had killed
Linton, and I _would_ enter.  Joseph locked the door, and declared I
should do "no sich stuff," and asked me whether I were "bahn to be as mad
as him."  I stood crying till the housekeeper reappeared.  She affirmed
he would be better in a bit, but he couldn't do with that shrieking and
din; and she took me, and nearly carried me into the house.

'Ellen, I was ready to tear my hair off my head!  I sobbed and wept so
that my eyes were almost blind; and the ruffian you have such sympathy
with stood opposite: presuming every now and then to bid me "wisht," and
denying that it was his fault; and, finally, frightened by my assertions
that I would tell papa, and that he should be put in prison and hanged,
he commenced blubbering himself, and hurried out to hide his cowardly
agitation.  Still, I was not rid of him: when at length they compelled me
to depart, and I had got some hundred yards off the premises, he suddenly
issued from the shadow of the road-side, and checked Minny and took hold
of me.

'"Miss Catherine, I'm ill grieved," he began, "but it's rayther too bad--"

'I gave him a cut with my whip, thinking perhaps he would murder me.  He
let go, thundering one of his horrid curses, and I galloped home more
than half out of my senses.

'I didn't bid you good-night that evening, and I didn't go to Wuthering
Heights the next: I wished to go exceedingly; but I was strangely
excited, and dreaded to hear that Linton was dead, sometimes; and
sometimes shuddered at the thought of encountering Hareton.  On the third
day I took courage: at least, I couldn't bear longer suspense, and stole
off once more.  I went at five o'clock, and walked; fancying I might
manage to creep into the house, and up to Linton's room, unobserved.
However, the dogs gave notice of my approach.  Zillah received me, and
saying "the lad was mending nicely," showed me into a small, tidy,
carpeted apartment, where, to my inexpressible joy, I beheld Linton laid
on a little sofa, reading one of my books.  But he would neither speak to
me nor look at me, through a whole hour, Ellen: he has such an unhappy
temper.  And what quite confounded me, when he did open his mouth, it was
to utter the falsehood that I had occasioned the uproar, and Hareton was
not to blame!  Unable to reply, except passionately, I got up and walked
from the room.  He sent after me a faint "Catherine!"  He did not reckon
on being answered so: but I wouldn't turn back; and the morrow was the
second day on which I stayed at home, nearly determined to visit him no
more.  But it was so miserable going to bed and getting up, and never
hearing anything about him, that my resolution melted into air before it
was properly formed.  It had appeared wrong to take the journey once; now
it seemed wrong to refrain.  Michael came to ask if he must saddle Minny;
I said "Yes," and considered myself doing a duty as she bore me over the
hills.  I was forced to pass the front windows to get to the court: it
was no use trying to conceal my presence.

'"Young master is in the house," said Zillah, as she saw me making for
the parlour.  I went in; Earnshaw was there also, but he quitted the room
directly.  Linton sat in the great arm-chair half asleep; walking up to
the fire, I began in a serious tone, partly meaning it to be true--

'"As you don't like me, Linton, and as you think I come on purpose to
hurt you, and pretend that I do so every time, this is our last meeting:
let us say good-bye; and tell Mr. Heathcliff that you have no wish to see
me, and that he mustn't invent any more falsehoods on the subject."

'"Sit down and take your hat off, Catherine," he answered.  "You are so
much happier than I am, you ought to be better.  Papa talks enough of my
defects, and shows enough scorn of me, to make it natural I should doubt
myself.  I doubt whether I am not altogether as worthless as he calls me,
frequently; and then I feel so cross and bitter, I hate everybody!  I am
worthless, and bad in temper, and bad in spirit, almost always; and, if
you choose, you may say good-bye: you'll get rid of an annoyance.  Only,
Catherine, do me this justice: believe that if I might be as sweet, and
as kind, and as good as you are, I would be; as willingly, and more so,
than as happy and as healthy.  And believe that your kindness has made me
love you deeper than if I deserved your love: and though I couldn't, and
cannot help showing my nature to you, I regret it and repent it; and
shall regret and repent it till I die!"

'I felt he spoke the truth; and I felt I must forgive him: and, though we
should quarrel the next moment, I must forgive him again.  We were
reconciled; but we cried, both of us, the whole time I stayed: not
entirely for sorrow; yet I _was_ sorry Linton had that distorted nature.
He'll never let his friends be at ease, and he'll never be at ease
himself!  I have always gone to his little parlour, since that night;
because his father returned the day after.

'About three times, I think, we have been merry and hopeful, as we were
the first evening; the rest of my visits were dreary and troubled: now
with his selfishness and spite, and now with his sufferings: but I've
learned to endure the former with nearly as little resentment as the
latter.  Mr. Heathcliff purposely avoids me: I have hardly seen him at
all.  Last Sunday, indeed, coming earlier than usual, I heard him abusing
poor Linton cruelly for his conduct of the night before.  I can't tell
how he knew of it, unless he listened.  Linton had certainly behaved
provokingly: however, it was the business of nobody but me, and I
interrupted Mr. Heathcliff's lecture by entering and telling him so.  He
burst into a laugh, and went away, saying he was glad I took that view of
the matter.  Since then, I've told Linton he must whisper his bitter
things.  Now, Ellen, you have heard all.  I can't be prevented from going
to Wuthering Heights, except by inflicting misery on two people; whereas,
if you'll only not tell papa, my going need disturb the tranquillity of
none.  You'll not tell, will you?  It will be very heartless, if you do.'

'I'll make up my mind on that point by to-morrow, Miss Catherine,' I
replied.  'It requires some study; and so I'll leave you to your rest,
and go think it over.'

I thought it over aloud, in my master's presence; walking straight from
her room to his, and relating the whole story: with the exception of her
conversations with her cousin, and any mention of Hareton.  Mr. Linton
was alarmed and distressed, more than he would acknowledge to me.  In the
morning, Catherine learnt my betrayal of her confidence, and she learnt
also that her secret visits were to end.  In vain she wept and writhed
against the interdict, and implored her father to have pity on Linton:
all she got to comfort her was a promise that he would write and give him
leave to come to the Grange when he pleased; but explaining that he must
no longer expect to see Catherine at Wuthering Heights.  Perhaps, had he
been aware of his nephew's disposition and state of health, he would have
seen fit to withhold even that slight consolation.




CHAPTER XXV


'These things happened last winter, sir,' said Mrs. Dean; 'hardly more
than a year ago.  Last winter, I did not think, at another twelve months'
end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family with relating them!
Yet, who knows how long you'll be a stranger?  You're too young to rest
always contented, living by yourself; and I some way fancy no one could
see Catherine Linton and not love her.  You smile; but why do you look so
lively and interested when I talk about her? and why have you asked me to
hang her picture over your fireplace? and why--?'

'Stop, my good friend!' I cried.  'It may be very possible that _I_
should love her; but would she love me?  I doubt it too much to venture
my tranquillity by running into temptation: and then my home is not here.
I'm of the busy world, and to its arms I must return.  Go on.  Was
Catherine obedient to her father's commands?'

'She was,' continued the housekeeper.  'Her affection for him was still
the chief sentiment in her heart; and he spoke without anger: he spoke in
the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils and
foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid that he could
bequeath to guide her.  He said to me, a few days afterwards, "I wish my
nephew would write, Ellen, or call.  Tell me, sincerely, what you think
of him: is he changed for the better, or is there a prospect of
improvement, as he grows a man?"

'"He's very delicate, sir," I replied; "and scarcely likely to reach
manhood: but this I can say, he does not resemble his father; and if Miss
Catherine had the misfortune to marry him, he would not be beyond her
control: unless she were extremely and foolishly indulgent.  However,
master, you'll have plenty of time to get acquainted with him and see
whether he would suit her: it wants four years and more to his being of
age."'

Edgar sighed; and, walking to the window, looked out towards Gimmerton
Kirk. It was a misty afternoon, but the February sun shone dimly, and we
could just distinguish the two fir-trees in the yard, and the
sparely-scattered gravestones.

'I've prayed often,' he half soliloquised, 'for the approach of what is
coming; and now I begin to shrink, and fear it.  I thought the memory of
the hour I came down that glen a bridegroom would be less sweet than the
anticipation that I was soon, in a few months, or, possibly, weeks, to be
carried up, and laid in its lonely hollow!  Ellen, I've been very happy
with my little Cathy: through winter nights and summer days she was a
living hope at my side.  But I've been as happy musing by myself among
those stones, under that old church: lying, through the long June
evenings, on the green mound of her mother's grave, and wishing--yearning
for the time when I might lie beneath it.  What can I do for Cathy?  How
must I quit her?  I'd not care one moment for Linton being Heathcliff's
son; nor for his taking her from me, if he could console her for my loss.
I'd not care that Heathcliff gained his ends, and triumphed in robbing me
of my last blessing!  But should Linton be unworthy--only a feeble tool
to his father--I cannot abandon her to him!  And, hard though it be to
crush her buoyant spirit, I must persevere in making her sad while I
live, and leaving her solitary when I die.  Darling!  I'd rather resign
her to God, and lay her in the earth before me.'

'Resign her to God as it is, sir,' I answered, 'and if we should lose
you--which may He forbid--under His providence, I'll stand her friend and
counsellor to the last.  Miss Catherine is a good girl: I don't fear that
she will go wilfully wrong; and people who do their duty are always
finally rewarded.'

Spring advanced; yet my master gathered no real strength, though he
resumed his walks in the grounds with his daughter.  To her inexperienced
notions, this itself was a sign of convalescence; and then his cheek was
often flushed, and his eyes were bright; she felt sure of his recovering.
On her seventeenth birthday, he did not visit the churchyard: it was
raining, and I observed--'You'll surely not go out to-night, sir?'

He answered,--'No, I'll defer it this year a little longer.'  He wrote
again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him; and, had the
invalid been presentable, I've no doubt his father would have permitted
him to come.  As it was, being instructed, he returned an answer,
intimating that Mr. Heathcliff objected to his calling at the Grange; but
his uncle's kind remembrance delighted him, and he hoped to meet him
sometimes in his rambles, and personally to petition that his cousin and
he might not remain long so utterly divided.

That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own.  Heathcliff
knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine's company, then.

'I do not ask,' he said, 'that she may visit here; but am I never to see
her, because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you forbid her
to come to mine?  Do, now and then, ride with her towards the Heights;
and let us exchange a few words, in your presence!  We have done nothing
to deserve this separation; and you are not angry with me: you have no
reason to dislike me, you allow, yourself.  Dear uncle! send me a kind
note to-morrow, and leave to join you anywhere you please, except at
Thrushcross Grange.  I believe an interview would convince you that my
father's character is not mine: he affirms I am more your nephew than his
son; and though I have faults which render me unworthy of Catherine, she
has excused them, and for her sake, you should also.  You inquire after
my health--it is better; but while I remain cut off from all hope, and
doomed to solitude, or the society of those who never did and never will
like me, how can I be cheerful and well?'

Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his
request; because he could not accompany Catherine.  He said, in summer,
perhaps, they might meet: meantime, he wished him to continue writing at
intervals, and engaged to give him what advice and comfort he was able by
letter; being well aware of his hard position in his family.  Linton
complied; and had he been unrestrained, would probably have spoiled all
by filling his epistles with complaints and lamentations: but his father
kept a sharp watch over him; and, of course, insisted on every line that
my master sent being shown; so, instead of penning his peculiar personal
sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly uppermost in his
thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being held asunder from
his friend and love; and gently intimated that Mr. Linton must allow an
interview soon, or he should fear he was purposely deceiving him with
empty promises.

Cathy was a powerful ally at home; and between them they at length
persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk
together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors
nearest the Grange: for June found him still declining.  Though he had
set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady's fortune, he
had a natural desire that she might retain--or at least return in a short
time to--the house of her ancestors; and he considered her only prospect
of doing that was by a union with his heir; he had no idea that the
latter was failing almost as fast as himself; nor had any one, I believe:
no doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master Heathcliff to make
report of his condition among us.  I, for my part, began to fancy my
forebodings were false, and that he must be actually rallying, when he
mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed so earnest in
pursuing his object.  I could not picture a father treating a dying child
as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned Heathcliff had
treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness: his efforts redoubling
the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling plans were threatened
with defeat by death.




CHAPTER XXVI


Summer was already past its prime, when Edgar reluctantly yielded his
assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first ride
to join her cousin.  It was a close, sultry day: devoid of sunshine, but
with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain: and our place of
meeting had been fixed at the guide-stone, by the cross-roads.  On
arriving there, however, a little herd-boy, despatched as a messenger,
told us that,--'Maister Linton wer just o' this side th' Heights: and
he'd be mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further.'

'Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle,' I
observed: 'he bid us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at
once.'

'Well, we'll turn our horses' heads round when we reach him,' answered my
companion; 'our excursion shall lie towards home.'

But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile from
his own door, we found he had no horse; and we were forced to dismount,
and leave ours to graze.  He lay on the heath, awaiting our approach, and
did not rise till we came within a few yards.  Then he walked so feebly,
and looked so pale, that I immediately exclaimed,--'Why, Master
Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying a ramble this morning.  How ill
you do look!'

Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment: she changed the
ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm; and the congratulation on
their long-postponed meeting to an anxious inquiry, whether he were worse
than usual?

'No--better--better!' he panted, trembling, and retaining her hand as if
he needed its support, while his large blue eyes wandered timidly over
her; the hollowness round them transforming to haggard wildness the
languid expression they once possessed.

'But you have been worse,' persisted his cousin; 'worse than when I saw
you last; you are thinner, and--'

'I'm tired,' he interrupted, hurriedly.  'It is too hot for walking, let
us rest here.  And, in the morning, I often feel sick--papa says I grow
so fast.'

Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined beside her.

'This is something like your paradise,' said she, making an effort at
cheerfulness.  'You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in the
place and way each thought pleasantest?  This is nearly yours, only there
are clouds; but then they are so soft and mellow: it is nicer than
sunshine.  Next week, if you can, we'll ride down to the Grange Park, and
try mine.'

Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had evidently
great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation.  His lack of
interest in the subjects she started, and his equal incapacity to
contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that she could not
conceal her disappointment.  An indefinite alteration had come over his
whole person and manner.  The pettishness that might be caressed into
fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy; there was less of the peevish
temper of a child which frets and teases on purpose to be soothed, and
more of the self-absorbed moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling
consolation, and ready to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an
insult.  Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a
punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company; and she made no
scruple of proposing, presently, to depart.  That proposal, unexpectedly,
roused Linton from his lethargy, and threw him into a strange state of
agitation.  He glanced fearfully towards the Heights, begging she would
remain another half-hour, at least.

'But I think,' said Cathy, 'you'd be more comfortable at home than
sitting here; and I cannot amuse you to-day, I see, by my tales, and
songs, and chatter: you have grown wiser than I, in these six months; you
have little taste for my diversions now: or else, if I could amuse you,
I'd willingly stay.'

'Stay to rest yourself,' he replied.  'And, Catherine, don't think or say
that I'm _very_ unwell: it is the heavy weather and heat that make me
dull; and I walked about, before you came, a great deal for me.  Tell
uncle I'm in tolerable health, will you?'

'I'll tell him that _you_ say so, Linton.  I couldn't affirm that you
are,' observed my young lady, wondering at his pertinacious assertion of
what was evidently an untruth.

'And be here again next Thursday,' continued he, shunning her puzzled
gaze.  'And give him my thanks for permitting you to come--my best
thanks, Catherine.  And--and, if you _did_ meet my father, and he asked
you about me, don't lead him to suppose that I've been extremely silent
and stupid: don't look sad and downcast, as you are doing--he'll be
angry.'

'I care nothing for his anger,' exclaimed Cathy, imagining she would be
its object.

'But I do,' said her cousin, shuddering.  '_Don't_ provoke him against
me, Catherine, for he is very hard.'

'Is he severe to you, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired.  'Has he grown
weary of indulgence, and passed from passive to active hatred?'

Linton looked at me, but did not answer; and, after keeping her seat by
his side another ten minutes, during which his head fell drowsily on his
breast, and he uttered nothing except suppressed moans of exhaustion or
pain, Cathy began to seek solace in looking for bilberries, and sharing
the produce of her researches with me: she did not offer them to him, for
she saw further notice would only weary and annoy.

'Is it half-an-hour now, Ellen?' she whispered in my ear, at last.  'I
can't tell why we should stay.  He's asleep, and papa will be wanting us
back.'

'Well, we must not leave him asleep,' I answered; 'wait till he wakes,
and be patient.  You were mighty eager to set off, but your longing to
see poor Linton has soon evaporated!'

'Why did _he_ wish to see me?' returned Catherine.  'In his crossest
humours, formerly, I liked him better than I do in his present curious
mood.  It's just as if it were a task he was compelled to perform--this
interview--for fear his father should scold him.  But I'm hardly going to
come to give Mr. Heathcliff pleasure; whatever reason he may have for
ordering Linton to undergo this penance.  And, though I'm glad he's
better in health, I'm sorry he's so much less pleasant, and so much less
affectionate to me.'

'You think _he is_ better in health, then?' I said.

'Yes,' she answered; 'because he always made such a great deal of his
sufferings, you know.  He is not tolerably well, as he told me to tell
papa; but he's better, very likely.'

'There you differ with me, Miss Cathy,' I remarked; 'I should conjecture
him to be far worse.'

Linton here started from his slumber in bewildered terror, and asked if
any one had called his name.

'No,' said Catherine; 'unless in dreams.  I cannot conceive how you
manage to doze out of doors, in the morning.'

'I thought I heard my father,' he gasped, glancing up to the frowning nab
above us.  'You are sure nobody spoke?'

'Quite sure,' replied his cousin.  'Only Ellen and I were disputing
concerning your health.  Are you truly stronger, Linton, than when we
separated in winter?  If you be, I'm certain one thing is not
stronger--your regard for me: speak,--are you?'

The tears gushed from Linton's eyes as he answered, 'Yes, yes, I am!'
And, still under the spell of the imaginary voice, his gaze wandered up
and down to detect its owner.

Cathy rose.  'For to-day we must part,' she said.  'And I won't conceal
that I have been sadly disappointed with our meeting; though I'll mention
it to nobody but you: not that I stand in awe of Mr. Heathcliff.'

'Hush,' murmured Linton; 'for God's sake, hush!  He's coming.'  And he
clung to Catherine's arm, striving to detain her; but at that
announcement she hastily disengaged herself, and whistled to Minny, who
obeyed her like a dog.

'I'll be here next Thursday,' she cried, springing to the saddle.
'Good-bye. Quick, Ellen!'

And so we left him, scarcely conscious of our departure, so absorbed was
he in anticipating his father's approach.

Before we reached home, Catherine's displeasure softened into a perplexed
sensation of pity and regret, largely blended with vague, uneasy doubts
about Linton's actual circumstances, physical and social: in which I
partook, though I counselled her not to say much; for a second journey
would make us better judges.  My master requested an account of our
ongoings.  His nephew's offering of thanks was duly delivered, Miss Cathy
gently touching on the rest: I also threw little light on his inquiries,
for I hardly knew what to hide and what to reveal.




CHAPTER XXVII


Seven days glided away, every one marking its course by the henceforth
rapid alteration of Edgar Linton's state.  The havoc that months had
previously wrought was now emulated by the inroads of hours.  Catherine
we would fain have deluded yet; but her own quick spirit refused to
delude her: it divined in secret, and brooded on the dreadful
probability, gradually ripening into certainty.  She had not the heart to
mention her ride, when Thursday came round; I mentioned it for her, and
obtained permission to order her out of doors: for the library, where her
father stopped a short time daily--the brief period he could bear to sit
up--and his chamber, had become her whole world.  She grudged each moment
that did not find her bending over his pillow, or seated by his side.  Her
countenance grew wan with watching and sorrow, and my master gladly
dismissed her to what he flattered himself would be a happy change of
scene and society; drawing comfort from the hope that she would not now
be left entirely alone after his death.

He had a fixed idea, I guessed by several observations he let fall, that,
as his nephew resembled him in person, he would resemble him in mind; for
Linton's letters bore few or no indications of his defective character.
And I, through pardonable weakness, refrained from correcting the error;
asking myself what good there would be in disturbing his last moments
with information that he had neither power nor opportunity to turn to
account.

We deferred our excursion till the afternoon; a golden afternoon of
August: every breath from the hills so full of life, that it seemed
whoever respired it, though dying, might revive.  Catherine's face was
just like the landscape--shadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid
succession; but the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine was more
transient; and her poor little heart reproached itself for even that
passing forgetfulness of its cares.

We discerned Linton watching at the same spot he had selected before.  My
young mistress alighted, and told me that, as she was resolved to stay a
very little while, I had better hold the pony and remain on horseback;
but I dissented: I wouldn't risk losing sight of the charge committed to
me a minute; so we climbed the slope of heath together.  Master
Heathcliff received us with greater animation on this occasion: not the
animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy; it looked more like
fear.

'It is late!' he said, speaking short and with difficulty.  'Is not your
father very ill?  I thought you wouldn't come.'

'_Why_ won't you be candid?' cried Catherine, swallowing her greeting.
'Why cannot you say at once you don't want me?  It is strange, Linton,
that for the second time you have brought me here on purpose, apparently
to distress us both, and for no reason besides!'

Linton shivered, and glanced at her, half supplicating, half ashamed; but
his cousin's patience was not sufficient to endure this enigmatical
behaviour.

'My father _is_ very ill,' she said; 'and why am I called from his
bedside?  Why didn't you send to absolve me from my promise, when you
wished I wouldn't keep it?  Come!  I desire an explanation: playing and
trifling are completely banished out of my mind; and I can't dance
attendance on your affectations now!'

'My affectations!' he murmured; 'what are they?  For heaven's sake,
Catherine, don't look so angry!  Despise me as much as you please; I am a
worthless, cowardly wretch: I can't be scorned enough; but I'm too mean
for your anger.  Hate my father, and spare me for contempt.'

'Nonsense!' cried Catherine in a passion.  'Foolish, silly boy!  And
there! he trembles: as if I were really going to touch him!  You needn't
bespeak contempt, Linton: anybody will have it spontaneously at your
service.  Get off!  I shall return home: it is folly dragging you from
the hearth-stone, and pretending--what do we pretend?  Let go my frock!
If I pitied you for crying and looking so very frightened, you should
spurn such pity.  Ellen, tell him how disgraceful this conduct is.  Rise,
and don't degrade yourself into an abject reptile--_don't_!'

With streaming face and an expression of agony, Linton had thrown his
nerveless frame along the ground: he seemed convulsed with exquisite
terror.

'Oh!' he sobbed, 'I cannot bear it!  Catherine, Catherine, I'm a traitor,
too, and I dare not tell you!  But leave me, and I shall be killed!
_Dear_ Catherine, my life is in your hands: and you have said you loved
me, and if you did, it wouldn't harm you.  You'll not go, then? kind,
sweet, good Catherine!  And perhaps you _will_ consent--and he'll let me
die with you!'

My young lady, on witnessing his intense anguish, stooped to raise him.
The old feeling of indulgent tenderness overcame her vexation, and she
grew thoroughly moved and alarmed.

'Consent to what?' she asked.  'To stay! tell me the meaning of this
strange talk, and I will.  You contradict your own words, and distract
me!  Be calm and frank, and confess at once all that weighs on your
heart.  You wouldn't injure me, Linton, would you?  You wouldn't let any
enemy hurt me, if you could prevent it?  I'll believe you are a coward,
for yourself, but not a cowardly betrayer of your best friend.'

'But my father threatened me,' gasped the boy, clasping his attenuated
fingers, 'and I dread him--I dread him!  I _dare_ not tell!'

'Oh, well!' said Catherine, with scornful compassion, 'keep your secret:
_I'm_ no coward.  Save yourself: I'm not afraid!'

Her magnanimity provoked his tears: he wept wildly, kissing her
supporting hands, and yet could not summon courage to speak out.  I was
cogitating what the mystery might be, and determined Catherine should
never suffer to benefit him or any one else, by my good will; when,
hearing a rustle among the ling, I looked up and saw Mr. Heathcliff
almost close upon us, descending the Heights.  He didn't cast a glance
towards my companions, though they were sufficiently near for Linton's
sobs to be audible; but hailing me in the almost hearty tone he assumed
to none besides, and the sincerity of which I couldn't avoid doubting, he
said--

'It is something to see you so near to my house, Nelly.  How are you at
the Grange?  Let us hear.  The rumour goes,' he added, in a lower tone,
'that Edgar Linton is on his death-bed: perhaps they exaggerate his
illness?'

'No; my master is dying,' I replied: 'it is true enough.  A sad thing it
will be for us all, but a blessing for him!'

'How long will he last, do you think?' he asked.

'I don't know,' I said.

'Because,' he continued, looking at the two young people, who were fixed
under his eye--Linton appeared as if he could not venture to stir or
raise his head, and Catherine could not move, on his account--'because
that lad yonder seems determined to beat me; and I'd thank his uncle to
be quick, and go before him!  Hallo! has the whelp been playing that game
long?  I _did_ give him some lessons about snivelling.  Is he pretty
lively with Miss Linton generally?'

'Lively? no--he has shown the greatest distress,' I answered.  'To see
him, I should say, that instead of rambling with his sweetheart on the
hills, he ought to be in bed, under the hands of a doctor.'

'He shall be, in a day or two,' muttered Heathcliff.  'But first--get up,
Linton!  Get up!' he shouted.  'Don't grovel on the ground there up, this
moment!'

Linton had sunk prostrate again in another paroxysm of helpless fear,
caused by his father's glance towards him, I suppose: there was nothing
else to produce such humiliation.  He made several efforts to obey, but
his little strength was annihilated for the time, and he fell back again
with a moan.  Mr. Heathcliff advanced, and lifted him to lean against a
ridge of turf.

'Now,' said he, with curbed ferocity, 'I'm getting angry and if you don't
command that paltry spirit of yours--_damn_ you! get up directly!'

'I will, father,' he panted.  'Only, let me alone, or I shall faint.  I've
done as you wished, I'm sure.  Catherine will tell you that I--that
I--have been cheerful.  Ah! keep by me, Catherine; give me your hand.'

'Take mine,' said his father; 'stand on your feet.  There now--she'll
lend you her arm: that's right, look at her.  You would imagine I was the
devil himself, Miss Linton, to excite such horror.  Be so kind as to walk
home with him, will you?  He shudders if I touch him.'

'Linton dear!' whispered Catherine, 'I can't go to Wuthering Heights:
papa has forbidden me.  He'll not harm you: why are you so afraid?'

'I can never re-enter that house,' he answered.  'I'm _not_ to re-enter
it without you!'

'Stop!' cried his father.  'We'll respect Catherine's filial scruples.
Nelly, take him in, and I'll follow your advice concerning the doctor,
without delay.'

'You'll do well,' replied I.  'But I must remain with my mistress: to
mind your son is not my business.'

'You are very stiff,' said Heathcliff, 'I know that: but you'll force me
to pinch the baby and make it scream before it moves your charity.  Come,
then, my hero.  Are you willing to return, escorted by me?'

He approached once more, and made as if he would seize the fragile being;
but, shrinking back, Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her to
accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial.
However I disapproved, I couldn't hinder her: indeed, how could she have
refused him herself?  What was filling him with dread we had no means of
discerning; but there he was, powerless under its grip, and any addition
seemed capable of shocking him into idiotcy.  We reached the threshold;
Catherine walked in, and I stood waiting till she had conducted the
invalid to a chair, expecting her out immediately; when Mr. Heathcliff,
pushing me forward, exclaimed--'My house is not stricken with the plague,
Nelly; and I have a mind to be hospitable to-day: sit down, and allow me
to shut the door.'

He shut and locked it also.  I started.

'You shall have tea before you go home,' he added.  'I am by myself.
Hareton is gone with some cattle to the Lees, and Zillah and Joseph are
off on a journey of pleasure; and, though I'm used to being alone, I'd
rather have some interesting company, if I can get it.  Miss Linton, take
your seat by _him_.  I give you what I have: the present is hardly worth
accepting; but I have nothing else to offer.  It is Linton, I mean.  How
she does stare!  It's odd what a savage feeling I have to anything that
seems afraid of me!  Had I been born where laws are less strict and
tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of those
two, as an evening's amusement.'

He drew in his breath, struck the table, and swore to himself, 'By hell!
I hate them.'

'I am not afraid of you!' exclaimed Catherine, who could not hear the
latter part of his speech.  She stepped close up; her black eyes flashing
with passion and resolution.  'Give me that key: I will have it!' she
said.  'I wouldn't eat or drink here, if I were starving.'

Heathcliff had the key in his hand that remained on the table.  He looked
up, seized with a sort of surprise at her boldness; or, possibly,
reminded, by her voice and glance, of the person from whom she inherited
it.  She snatched at the instrument, and half succeeded in getting it out
of his loosened fingers: but her action recalled him to the present; he
recovered it speedily.

'Now, Catherine Linton,' he said, 'stand off, or I shall knock you down;
and, that will make Mrs. Dean mad.'

Regardless of this warning, she captured his closed hand and its contents
again.  'We _will_ go!' she repeated, exerting her utmost efforts to cause
the iron muscles to relax; and finding that her nails made no impression,
she applied her teeth pretty sharply.  Heathcliff glanced at me a glance
that kept me from interfering a moment.  Catherine was too intent on his
fingers to notice his face.  He opened them suddenly, and resigned the
object of dispute; but, ere she had well secured it, he seized her with
the liberated hand, and, pulling her on his knee, administered with the
other a shower of terrific slaps on both sides of the head, each
sufficient to have fulfilled his threat, had she been able to fall.

At this diabolical violence I rushed on him furiously. 'You villain!' I
began to cry, 'you villain!' A touch on the chest silenced me: I am
stout, and soon put out of breath; and, what with that and the rage, I
staggered dizzily back and felt ready to suffocate, or to burst a
blood-vessel. The scene was over in two minutes; Catherine, released,
put her two hands to her temples, and looked just as if she were not
sure whether her ears were off or on. She trembled like a reed, poor
thing, and leant against the table perfectly bewildered.

'I know how to chastise children, you see,' said the scoundrel, grimly,
as he stooped to repossess himself of the key, which had dropped to the
floor.  'Go to Linton now, as I told you; and cry at your ease!  I shall
be your father, to-morrow--all the father you'll have in a few days--and
you shall have plenty of that.  You can bear plenty; you're no weakling:
you shall have a daily taste, if I catch such a devil of a temper in your
eyes again!'

Cathy ran to me instead of Linton, and knelt down and put her burning
cheek on my lap, weeping aloud.  Her cousin had shrunk into a corner of
the settle, as quiet as a mouse, congratulating himself, I dare say, that
the correction had alighted on another than him.  Mr. Heathcliff,
perceiving us all confounded, rose, and expeditiously made the tea
himself.  The cups and saucers were laid ready.  He poured it out, and
handed me a cup.

'Wash away your spleen,' he said.  'And help your own naughty pet and
mine.  It is not poisoned, though I prepared it.  I'm going out to seek
your horses.'

Our first thought, on his departure, was to force an exit somewhere.  We
tried the kitchen door, but that was fastened outside: we looked at the
windows--they were too narrow for even Cathy's little figure.

'Master Linton,' I cried, seeing we were regularly imprisoned, 'you know
what your diabolical father is after, and you shall tell us, or I'll box
your ears, as he has done your cousin's.'

'Yes, Linton, you must tell,' said Catherine.  'It was for your sake I
came; and it will be wickedly ungrateful if you refuse.'

'Give me some tea, I'm thirsty, and then I'll tell you,' he answered.
'Mrs. Dean, go away.  I don't like you standing over me.  Now, Catherine,
you are letting your tears fall into my cup.  I won't drink that.  Give
me another.'  Catherine pushed another to him, and wiped her face.  I
felt disgusted at the little wretch's composure, since he was no longer
in terror for himself.  The anguish he had exhibited on the moor subsided
as soon as ever he entered Wuthering Heights; so I guessed he had been
menaced with an awful visitation of wrath if he failed in decoying us
there; and, that accomplished, he had no further immediate fears.

'Papa wants us to be married,' he continued, after sipping some of the
liquid.  'And he knows your papa wouldn't let us marry now; and he's
afraid of my dying if we wait; so we are to be married in the morning,
and you are to stay here all night; and, if you do as he wishes, you
shall return home next day, and take me with you.'

'Take you with her, pitiful changeling!' I exclaimed.  '_You_ marry?  Why,
the man is mad! or he thinks us fools, every one.  And do you imagine
that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will tie herself to
a little perishing monkey like you?  Are you cherishing the notion that
anybody, let alone Miss Catherine Linton, would have you for a husband?
You want whipping for bringing us in here at all, with your dastardly
puling tricks: and--don't look so silly, now!  I've a very good mind to
shake you severely, for your contemptible treachery, and your imbecile
conceit.'

I did give him a slight shaking; but it brought on the cough, and he took
to his ordinary resource of moaning and weeping, and Catherine rebuked
me.

'Stay all night?  No,' she said, looking slowly round.  'Ellen, I'll burn
that door down but I'll get out.'

And she would have commenced the execution of her threat directly, but
Linton was up in alarm for his dear self again.  He clasped her in his
two feeble arms sobbing:--'Won't you have me, and save me? not let me
come to the Grange?  Oh, darling Catherine! you mustn't go and leave,
after all.  You _must_ obey my father--you _must_!'

'I must obey my own,' she replied, 'and relieve him from this cruel
suspense.  The whole night!  What would he think?  He'll be distressed
already.  I'll either break or burn a way out of the house.  Be quiet!
You're in no danger; but if you hinder me--Linton, I love papa better
than you!'  The mortal terror he felt of Mr. Heathcliff's anger restored
to the boy his coward's eloquence.  Catherine was near distraught: still,
she persisted that she must go home, and tried entreaty in her turn,
persuading him to subdue his selfish agony.  While they were thus
occupied, our jailor re-entered.

'Your beasts have trotted off,' he said, 'and--now Linton! snivelling
again?  What has she been doing to you?  Come, come--have done, and get
to bed.  In a month or two, my lad, you'll be able to pay her back her
present tyrannies with a vigorous hand.  You're pining for pure love, are
you not? nothing else in the world: and she shall have you!  There, to
bed!  Zillah won't be here to-night; you must undress yourself.  Hush!
hold your noise!  Once in your own room, I'll not come near you: you
needn't fear.  By chance, you've managed tolerably.  I'll look to the
rest.'

He spoke these words, holding the door open for his son to pass, and the
latter achieved his exit exactly as a spaniel might which suspected the
person who attended on it of designing a spiteful squeeze.  The lock was
re-secured.  Heathcliff approached the fire, where my mistress and I
stood silent.  Catherine looked up, and instinctively raised her hand to
her cheek: his neighbourhood revived a painful sensation.  Anybody else
would have been incapable of regarding the childish act with sternness,
but he scowled on her and muttered--'Oh! you are not afraid of me?  Your
courage is well disguised: you seem damnably afraid!'

'I _am_ afraid now,' she replied, 'because, if I stay, papa will be
miserable: and how can I endure making him miserable--when he--when
he--Mr. Heathcliff, let _me_ go home!  I promise to marry Linton: papa
would like me to: and I love him.  Why should you wish to force me to do
what I'll willingly do of myself?'

'Let him dare to force you,' I cried.  'There's law in the land, thank
God! there is; though we be in an out-of-the-way place.  I'd inform if he
were my own son: and it's felony without benefit of clergy!'

'Silence!' said the ruffian.  'To the devil with your clamour!  I don't
want _you_ to speak.  Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in
thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for
satisfaction.  You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your
residence under my roof for the next twenty-four hours than informing me
that such an event would follow.  As to your promise to marry Linton,
I'll take care you shall keep it; for you shall not quit this place till
it is fulfilled.'

'Send Ellen, then, to let papa know I'm safe!' exclaimed Catherine,
weeping bitterly.  'Or marry me now.  Poor papa!  Ellen, he'll think
we're lost.  What shall we do?'

'Not he!  He'll think you are tired of waiting on him, and run off for a
little amusement,' answered Heathcliff.  'You cannot deny that you
entered my house of your own accord, in contempt of his injunctions to
the contrary.  And it is quite natural that you should desire amusement
at your age; and that you would weary of nursing a sick man, and that man
_only_ your father.  Catherine, his happiest days were over when your
days began.  He cursed you, I dare say, for coming into the world (I did,
at least); and it would just do if he cursed you as _he_ went out of it.
I'd join him.  I don't love you!  How should I?  Weep away.  As far as I
can see, it will be your chief diversion hereafter; unless Linton make
amends for other losses: and your provident parent appears to fancy he
may.  His letters of advice and consolation entertained me vastly.  In
his last he recommended my jewel to be careful of his; and kind to her
when he got her.  Careful and kind--that's paternal.  But Linton requires
his whole stock of care and kindness for himself.  Linton can play the
little tyrant well.  He'll undertake to torture any number of cats, if
their teeth be drawn and their claws pared.  You'll be able to tell his
uncle fine tales of his _kindness_, when you get home again, I assure
you.'

'You're right there!' I said; 'explain your son's character.  Show his
resemblance to yourself: and then, I hope, Miss Cathy will think twice
before she takes the cockatrice!'

'I don't much mind speaking of his amiable qualities now,' he answered;
'because she must either accept him or remain a prisoner, and you along
with her, till your master dies.  I can detain you both, quite concealed,
here.  If you doubt, encourage her to retract her word, and you'll have
an opportunity of judging!'

'I'll not retract my word,' said Catherine.  'I'll marry him within this
hour, if I may go to Thrushcross Grange afterwards.  Mr. Heathcliff,
you're a cruel man, but you're not a fiend; and you won't, from _mere_
malice, destroy irrevocably all my happiness.  If papa thought I had left
him on purpose, and if he died before I returned, could I bear to live?
I've given over crying: but I'm going to kneel here, at your knee; and
I'll not get up, and I'll not take my eyes from your face till you look
back at me!  No, don't turn away! _do look_! you'll see nothing to
provoke you.  I don't hate you.  I'm not angry that you struck me.  Have
you never loved _anybody_ in all your life, uncle? _never_?  Ah! you must
look once.  I'm so wretched, you can't help being sorry and pitying me.'

'Keep your eft's fingers off; and move, or I'll kick you!' cried
Heathcliff, brutally repulsing her.  'I'd rather be hugged by a snake.
How the devil can you dream of fawning on me?  I _detest_ you!'

He shrugged his shoulders: shook himself, indeed, as if his flesh crept
with aversion; and thrust back his chair; while I got up, and opened my
mouth, to commence a downright torrent of abuse.  But I was rendered dumb
in the middle of the first sentence, by a threat that I should be shown
into a room by myself the very next syllable I uttered.  It was growing
dark--we heard a sound of voices at the garden-gate.  Our host hurried
out instantly: _he_ had his wits about him; _we_ had not.  There was a
talk of two or three minutes, and he returned alone.

'I thought it had been your cousin Hareton,' I observed to Catherine.  'I
wish he would arrive!  Who knows but he might take our part?'

'It was three servants sent to seek you from the Grange,' said
Heathcliff, overhearing me.  'You should have opened a lattice and called
out: but I could swear that chit is glad you didn't.  She's glad to be
obliged to stay, I'm certain.'

At learning the chance we had missed, we both gave vent to our grief
without control; and he allowed us to wail on till nine o'clock.  Then he
bid us go upstairs, through the kitchen, to Zillah's chamber; and I
whispered my companion to obey: perhaps we might contrive to get through
the window there, or into a garret, and out by its skylight.  The window,
however, was narrow, like those below, and the garret trap was safe from
our attempts; for we were fastened in as before.  We neither of us lay
down: Catherine took her station by the lattice, and watched anxiously
for morning; a deep sigh being the only answer I could obtain to my
frequent entreaties that she would try to rest.  I seated myself in a
chair, and rocked to and fro, passing harsh judgment on my many
derelictions of duty; from which, it struck me then, all the misfortunes
of my employers sprang.  It was not the case, in reality, I am aware; but
it was, in my imagination, that dismal night; and I thought Heathcliff
himself less guilty than I.

At seven o'clock he came, and inquired if Miss Linton had risen.  She ran
to the door immediately, and answered, 'Yes.'  'Here, then,' he said,
opening it, and pulling her out.  I rose to follow, but he turned the
lock again.  I demanded my release.

'Be patient,' he replied; 'I'll send up your breakfast in a while.'

I thumped on the panels, and rattled the latch angrily and Catherine
asked why I was still shut up?  He answered, I must try to endure it
another hour, and they went away.  I endured it two or three hours; at
length, I heard a footstep: not Heathcliff's.

'I've brought you something to eat,' said a voice; 'oppen t' door!'

Complying eagerly, I beheld Hareton, laden with food enough to last me
all day.

'Tak' it,' he added, thrusting the tray into my hand.

'Stay one minute,' I began.

'Nay,' cried he, and retired, regardless of any prayers I could pour
forth to detain him.

And there I remained enclosed the whole day, and the whole of the next
night; and another, and another.  Five nights and four days I remained,
altogether, seeing nobody but Hareton once every morning; and he was a
model of a jailor: surly, and dumb, and deaf to every attempt at moving
his sense of justice or compassion.




CHAPTER XXVIII


On the fifth morning, or rather afternoon, a different step
approached--lighter and shorter; and, this time, the person entered the
room.  It was Zillah; donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk
bonnet on her head, and a willow-basket swung to her arm.

'Eh, dear!  Mrs. Dean!' she exclaimed.  'Well! there is a talk about you
at Gimmerton.  I never thought but you were sunk in the Blackhorse marsh,
and missy with you, till master told me you'd been found, and he'd lodged
you here!  What! and you must have got on an island, sure?  And how long
were you in the hole?  Did master save you, Mrs. Dean?  But you're not so
thin--you've not been so poorly, have you?'

'Your master is a true scoundrel!' I replied.  'But he shall answer for
it.  He needn't have raised that tale: it shall all be laid bare!'

'What do you mean?' asked Zillah.  'It's not his tale: they tell that in
the village--about your being lost in the marsh; and I calls to Earnshaw,
when I come in--"Eh, they's queer things, Mr. Hareton, happened since I
went off.  It's a sad pity of that likely young lass, and cant Nelly
Dean."  He stared.  I thought he had not heard aught, so I told him the
rumour.  The master listened, and he just smiled to himself, and said,
"If they have been in the marsh, they are out now, Zillah.  Nelly Dean is
lodged, at this minute, in your room.  You can tell her to flit, when you
go up; here is the key.  The bog-water got into her head, and she would
have run home quite flighty; but I fixed her till she came round to her
senses.  You can bid her go to the Grange at once, if she be able, and
carry a message from me, that her young lady will follow in time to
attend the squire's funeral."'

'Mr. Edgar is not dead?' I gasped.  'Oh! Zillah, Zillah!'

'No, no; sit you down, my good mistress,' she replied; 'you're right
sickly yet.  He's not dead; Doctor Kenneth thinks he may last another
day.  I met him on the road and asked.'

Instead of sitting down, I snatched my outdoor things, and hastened
below, for the way was free.  On entering the house, I looked about for
some one to give information of Catherine.  The place was filled with
sunshine, and the door stood wide open; but nobody seemed at hand.  As I
hesitated whether to go off at once, or return and seek my mistress, a
slight cough drew my attention to the hearth.  Linton lay on the settle,
sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugar-candy, and pursuing my movements
with apathetic eyes.  'Where is Miss Catherine?' I demanded sternly,
supposing I could frighten him into giving intelligence, by catching him
thus, alone.  He sucked on like an innocent.

'Is she gone?' I said.

'No,' he replied; 'she's upstairs: she's not to go; we won't let her.'

'You won't let her, little idiot!' I exclaimed.  'Direct me to her room
immediately, or I'll make you sing out sharply.'

'Papa would make you sing out, if you attempted to get there,' he
answered.  'He says I'm not to be soft with Catherine: she's my wife, and
it's shameful that she should wish to leave me.  He says she hates me and
wants me to die, that she may have my money; but she shan't have it: and
she shan't go home!  She never shall!--she may cry, and be sick as much
as she pleases!'

He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids, as if he meant to
drop asleep.

'Master Heathcliff,' I resumed, 'have you forgotten all Catherine's
kindness to you last winter, when you affirmed you loved her, and when
she brought you books and sung you songs, and came many a time through
wind and snow to see you?  She wept to miss one evening, because you
would be disappointed; and you felt then that she was a hundred times too
good to you: and now you believe the lies your father tells, though you
know he detests you both.  And you join him against her.  That's fine
gratitude, is it not?'

The corner of Linton's mouth fell, and he took the sugar-candy from his
lips.

'Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you?' I continued.
'Think for yourself!  As to your money, she does not even know that you
will have any.  And you say she's sick; and yet you leave her alone, up
there in a strange house!  You who have felt what it is to be so
neglected!  You could pity your own sufferings; and she pitied them, too;
but you won't pity hers!  I shed tears, Master Heathcliff, you see--an
elderly woman, and a servant merely--and you, after pretending such
affection, and having reason to worship her almost, store every tear you
have for yourself, and lie there quite at ease.  Ah! you're a heartless,
selfish boy!'

'I can't stay with her,' he answered crossly.  'I'll not stay by myself.
She cries so I can't bear it.  And she won't give over, though I say I'll
call my father.  I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her
if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he left the room,
moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed for vexation that
I couldn't sleep.'

'Is Mr. Heathcliff out?' I inquired, perceiving that the wretched
creature had no power to sympathize with his cousin's mental tortures.

'He's in the court,' he replied, 'talking to Doctor Kenneth; who says
uncle is dying, truly, at last.  I'm glad, for I shall be master of the
Grange after him.  Catherine always spoke of it as her house.  It isn't
hers!  It's mine: papa says everything she has is mine.  All her nice
books are mine; she offered to give me them, and her pretty birds, and
her pony Minny, if I would get the key of our room, and let her out; but
I told her she had nothing to give, they were all, all mine.  And then
she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I should
have that; two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on
the other uncle, when they were young.  That was yesterday--I said they
were mine, too; and tried to get them from her.  The spiteful thing
wouldn't let me: she pushed me off, and hurt me.  I shrieked out--that
frightens her--she heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and
divided the case, and gave me her mother's portrait; the other she
attempted to hide: but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained
it.  He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me;
she refused, and he--he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain,
and crushed it with his foot.'

'And were you pleased to see her struck?' I asked: having my designs in
encouraging his talk.

'I winked,' he answered: 'I wink to see my father strike a dog or a
horse, he does it so hard.  Yet I was glad at first--she deserved
punishing for pushing me: but when papa was gone, she made me come to the
window and showed me her cheek cut on the inside, against her teeth, and
her mouth filling with blood; and then she gathered up the bits of the
picture, and went and sat down with her face to the wall, and she has
never spoken to me since: and I sometimes think she can't speak for pain.
I don't like to think so; but she's a naughty thing for crying
continually; and she looks so pale and wild, I'm afraid of her.'

'And you can get the key if you choose?' I said.

'Yes, when I am up-stairs,' he answered; 'but I can't walk up-stairs
now.'

'In what apartment is it?' I asked.

'Oh,' he cried, 'I shan't tell _you_ where it is.  It is our secret.
Nobody, neither Hareton nor Zillah, is to know.  There! you've tired
me--go away, go away!'  And he turned his face on to his arm, and shut
his eyes again.

I considered it best to depart without seeing Mr. Heathcliff, and bring a
rescue for my young lady from the Grange.  On reaching it, the
astonishment of my fellow-servants to see me, and their joy also, was
intense; and when they heard that their little mistress was safe, two or
three were about to hurry up and shout the news at Mr. Edgar's door: but
I bespoke the announcement of it myself.  How changed I found him, even
in those few days!  He lay an image of sadness and resignation awaiting
his death.  Very young he looked: though his actual age was thirty-nine,
one would have called him ten years younger, at least.  He thought of
Catherine; for he murmured her name.  I touched his hand, and spoke.

'Catherine is coming, dear master!' I whispered; 'she is alive and well;
and will be here, I hope, to-night.'

I trembled at the first effects of this intelligence: he half rose up,
looked eagerly round the apartment, and then sank back in a swoon.  As
soon as he recovered, I related our compulsory visit, and detention at
the Heights.  I said Heathcliff forced me to go in: which was not quite
true.  I uttered as little as possible against Linton; nor did I describe
all his father's brutal conduct--my intentions being to add no
bitterness, if I could help it, to his already over-flowing cup.

He divined that one of his enemy's purposes was to secure the personal
property, as well as the estate, to his son: or rather himself; yet why
he did not wait till his decease was a puzzle to my master, because
ignorant how nearly he and his nephew would quit the world together.
However, he felt that his will had better be altered: instead of leaving
Catherine's fortune at her own disposal, he determined to put it in the
hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her children, if she
had any, after her.  By that means, it could not fall to Mr. Heathcliff
should Linton die.

Having received his orders, I despatched a man to fetch the attorney, and
four more, provided with serviceable weapons, to demand my young lady of
her jailor.  Both parties were delayed very late.  The single servant
returned first.  He said Mr. Green, the lawyer, was out when he arrived
at his house, and he had to wait two hours for his re-entrance; and then
Mr. Green told him he had a little business in the village that must be
done; but he would be at Thrushcross Grange before morning.  The four men
came back unaccompanied also.  They brought word that Catherine was ill:
too ill to quit her room; and Heathcliff would not suffer them to see
her.  I scolded the stupid fellows well for listening to that tale, which
I would not carry to my master; resolving to take a whole bevy up to the
Heights, at day-light, and storm it literally, unless the prisoner were
quietly surrendered to us.  Her father _shall_ see her, I vowed, and
vowed again, if that devil be killed on his own doorstones in trying to
prevent it!

Happily, I was spared the journey and the trouble.  I had gone
down-stairs at three o'clock to fetch a jug of water; and was passing
through the hall with it in my hand, when a sharp knock at the front door
made me jump.  'Oh! it is Green,' I said, recollecting myself--'only
Green,' and I went on, intending to send somebody else to open it; but
the knock was repeated: not loud, and still importunately.  I put the jug
on the banister and hastened to admit him myself.  The harvest moon shone
clear outside.  It was not the attorney.  My own sweet little mistress
sprang on my neck sobbing, 'Ellen, Ellen!  Is papa alive?'

'Yes,' I cried: 'yes, my angel, he is, God be thanked, you are safe with
us again!'

She wanted to run, breathless as she was, up-stairs to Mr. Linton's room;
but I compelled her to sit down on a chair, and made her drink, and
washed her pale face, chafing it into a faint colour with my apron.  Then
I said I must go first, and tell of her arrival; imploring her to say,
she should be happy with young Heathcliff.  She stared, but soon
comprehending why I counselled her to utter the falsehood, she assured me
she would not complain.

I couldn't abide to be present at their meeting.  I stood outside the
chamber-door a quarter of an hour, and hardly ventured near the bed,
then.  All was composed, however: Catherine's despair was as silent as
her father's joy.  She supported him calmly, in appearance; and he fixed
on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy.

He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood: he died so.  Kissing her cheek, he
murmured,--'I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us!'
and never stirred or spoke again; but continued that rapt, radiant gaze,
till his pulse imperceptibly stopped and his soul departed.  None could
have noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely without a
struggle.

Whether Catherine had spent her tears, or whether the grief were too
weighty to let them flow, she sat there dry-eyed till the sun rose: she
sat till noon, and would still have remained brooding over that deathbed,
but I insisted on her coming away and taking some repose.  It was well I
succeeded in removing her, for at dinner-time appeared the lawyer, having
called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions how to behave.  He
had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff: that was the cause of his delay in
obeying my master's summons.  Fortunately, no thought of worldly affairs
crossed the latter's mind, to disturb him, after his daughter's arrival.

Mr. Green took upon himself to order everything and everybody about the
place.  He gave all the servants but me, notice to quit.  He would have
carried his delegated authority to the point of insisting that Edgar
Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in the chapel, with his
family.  There was the will, however, to hinder that, and my loud
protestations against any infringement of its directions.  The funeral
was hurried over; Catherine, Mrs. Linton Heathcliff now, was suffered to
stay at the Grange till her father's corpse had quitted it.

She told me that her anguish had at last spurred Linton to incur the risk
of liberating her.  She heard the men I sent disputing at the door, and
she gathered the sense of Heathcliff's answer.  It drove her desperate.
Linton who had been conveyed up to the little parlour soon after I left,
was terrified into fetching the key before his father re-ascended.  He
had the cunning to unlock and re-lock the door, without shutting it; and
when he should have gone to bed, he begged to sleep with Hareton, and his
petition was granted for once.  Catherine stole out before break of day.
She dared not try the doors lest the dogs should raise an alarm; she
visited the empty chambers and examined their windows; and, luckily,
lighting on her mother's, she got easily out of its lattice, and on to
the ground, by means of the fir-tree close by.  Her accomplice suffered
for his share in the escape, notwithstanding his timid contrivances.




CHAPTER XXIX


The evening after the funeral, my young lady and I were seated in the
library; now musing mournfully--one of us despairingly--on our loss, now
venturing conjectures as to the gloomy future.

We had just agreed the best destiny which could await Catherine would be
a permission to continue resident at the Grange; at least during Linton's
life: he being allowed to join her there, and I to remain as housekeeper.
That seemed rather too favourable an arrangement to be hoped for; and yet
I did hope, and began to cheer up under the prospect of retaining my home
and my employment, and, above all, my beloved young mistress; when a
servant--one of the discarded ones, not yet departed--rushed hastily in,
and said 'that devil Heathcliff' was coming through the court: should he
fasten the door in his face?

If we had been mad enough to order that proceeding, we had not time.  He
made no ceremony of knocking or announcing his name: he was master, and
availed himself of the master's privilege to walk straight in, without
saying a word.  The sound of our informant's voice directed him to the
library; he entered and motioning him out, shut the door.

It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteen
years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn
landscape lay outside.  We had not yet lighted a candle, but all the
apartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall: the splendid
head of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband.  Heathcliff
advanced to the hearth.  Time had little altered his person either.  There
was the same man: his dark face rather sallower and more composed, his
frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other difference.  Catherine
had risen with an impulse to dash out, when she saw him.

'Stop!' he said, arresting her by the arm.  'No more runnings away!  Where
would you go?  I'm come to fetch you home; and I hope you'll be a dutiful
daughter and not encourage my son to further disobedience.  I was
embarrassed how to punish him when I discovered his part in the business:
he's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him; but you'll see by his
look that he has received his due!  I brought him down one evening, the
day before yesterday, and just set him in a chair, and never touched him
afterwards.  I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to ourselves.  In
two hours, I called Joseph to carry him up again; and since then my
presence is as potent on his nerves as a ghost; and I fancy he sees me
often, though I am not near.  Hareton says he wakes and shrieks in the
night by the hour together, and calls you to protect him from me; and,
whether you like your precious mate, or not, you must come: he's your
concern now; I yield all my interest in him to you.'

'Why not let Catherine continue here,' I pleaded, 'and send Master Linton
to her?  As you hate them both, you'd not miss them: they can only be a
daily plague to your unnatural heart.'

'I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange,' he answered; 'and I want my
children about me, to be sure.  Besides, that lass owes me her services
for her bread.  I'm not going to nurture her in luxury and idleness after
Linton is gone.  Make haste and get ready, now; and don't oblige me to
compel you.'

'I shall,' said Catherine.  'Linton is all I have to love in the world,
and though you have done what you could to make him hateful to me, and me
to him, you cannot make us hate each other.  And I defy you to hurt him
when I am by, and I defy you to frighten me!'

'You are a boastful champion,' replied Heathcliff; 'but I don't like you
well enough to hurt him: you shall get the full benefit of the torment,
as long as it lasts.  It is not I who will make him hateful to you--it is
his own sweet spirit.  He's as bitter as gall at your desertion and its
consequences: don't expect thanks for this noble devotion.  I heard him
draw a pleasant picture to Zillah of what he would do if he were as
strong as I: the inclination is there, and his very weakness will sharpen
his wits to find a substitute for strength.'

'I know he has a bad nature,' said Catherine: 'he's your son.  But I'm
glad I've a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that
reason I love him.  Mr. Heathcliff _you_ have _nobody_ to love you; and,
however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of
thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery.  You _are_
miserable, are you not?  Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him?
_Nobody_ loves you--_nobody_ will cry for you when you die!  I wouldn't
be you!'

Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph: she seemed to have made up
her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasure
from the griefs of her enemies.

'You shall be sorry to be yourself presently,' said her father-in-law,
'if you stand there another minute.  Begone, witch, and get your things!'

She scornfully withdrew.  In her absence I began to beg for Zillah's
place at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her; but he would suffer
it on no account.  He bid me be silent; and then, for the first time,
allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the pictures.
Having studied Mrs. Linton's, he said--'I shall have that home.  Not
because I need it, but--'  He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued,
with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile--'I'll tell you
what I did yesterday!  I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave,
to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it.  I thought,
once, I would have stayed there: when I saw her face again--it is hers
yet!--he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the air
blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it
up: not Linton's side, damn him!  I wish he'd been soldered in lead.  And
I bribed the sexton to pull it away when I'm laid there, and slide mine
out too; I'll have it made so: and then by the time Linton gets to us
he'll not know which is which!'

'You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!' I exclaimed; 'were you not
ashamed to disturb the dead?'

'I disturbed nobody, Nelly,' he replied; 'and I gave some ease to myself.
I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you'll have a better
chance of keeping me underground, when I get there.  Disturbed her?  No!
she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen
years--incessantly--remorselessly--till yesternight; and yesternight I
was tranquil.  I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper,
with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers.'

'And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you have
dreamt of then?' I said.

'Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!' he answered.  'Do
you suppose I dread any change of that sort?  I expected such a
transformation on raising the lid--but I'm better pleased that it should
not commence till I share it.  Besides, unless I had received a distinct
impression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly
have been removed.  It began oddly.  You know I was wild after she died;
and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit!
I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and
do, exist among us!  The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow.
In the evening I went to the churchyard.  It blew bleak as winter--all
round was solitary.  I didn't fear that her fool of a husband would
wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them
there.  Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole
barrier between us, I said to myself--"I'll have her in my arms again!  If
she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills _me_; and if
she be motionless, it is sleep."  I got a spade from the tool-house, and
began to delve with all my might--it scraped the coffin; I fell to work
with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the
point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from
some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down.  "If I
can only get this off," I muttered, "I wish they may shovel in the earth
over us both!" and I wrenched at it more desperately still.  There was
another sigh, close at my ear.  I appeared to feel the warm breath of it
displacing the sleet-laden wind.  I knew no living thing in flesh and
blood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some
substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly
I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth.  A sudden
sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb.  I relinquished
my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled.
Her presence was with me: it remained while I re-filled the grave, and
led me home.  You may laugh, if you will; but I was sure I should see her
there.  I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her.
Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door.  It was
fastened; and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my wife opposed my
entrance.  I remember stopping to kick the breath out of him, and then
hurrying up-stairs, to my room and hers.  I looked round impatiently--I
felt her by me--I could _almost_ see her, and yet I _could not_!  I ought
to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning--from the
fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse!  I had not one.  She
showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me!  And, since
then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I've been the sport of that
intolerable torture!  Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that,
if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to the
feebleness of Linton's.  When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemed
that on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I should
meet her coming in.  When I went from home I hastened to return; she
_must_ be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain!  And when I slept in
her chamber--I was beaten out of that.  I couldn't lie there; for the
moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding
back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head
on the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to
see.  And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night--to be
always disappointed!  It racked me!  I've often groaned aloud, till that
old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the
fiend inside of me.  Now, since I've seen her, I'm pacified--a little.  It
was a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions of
hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen
years!'

Mr. Heathcliff paused and wiped his forehead; his hair clung to it, wet
with perspiration; his eyes were fixed on the red embers of the fire, the
brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grim
aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and
a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject.  He
only half addressed me, and I maintained silence.  I didn't like to hear
him talk!  After a short period he resumed his meditation on the picture,
took it down and leant it against the sofa to contemplate it at better
advantage; and while so occupied Catherine entered, announcing that she
was ready, when her pony should be saddled.

'Send that over to-morrow,' said Heathcliff to me; then turning to her,
he added: 'You may do without your pony: it is a fine evening, and you'll
need no ponies at Wuthering Heights; for what journeys you take, your own
feet will serve you.  Come along.'

'Good-bye, Ellen!' whispered my dear little mistress.

As she kissed me, her lips felt like ice.  'Come and see me, Ellen; don't
forget.'

'Take care you do no such thing, Mrs. Dean!' said her new father.  'When
I wish to speak to you I'll come here.  I want none of your prying at my
house!'

He signed her to precede him; and casting back a look that cut my heart,
she obeyed.  I watched them, from the window, walk down the garden.
Heathcliff fixed Catherine's arm under his: though she disputed the act
at first evidently; and with rapid strides he hurried her into the alley,
whose trees concealed them.




CHAPTER XXX


I have paid a visit to the Heights, but I have not seen her since she
left: Joseph held the door in his hand when I called to ask after her,
and wouldn't let me pass.  He said Mrs. Linton was 'thrang,' and the
master was not in.  Zillah has told me something of the way they go on,
otherwise I should hardly know who was dead and who living.  She thinks
Catherine haughty, and does not like her, I can guess by her talk.  My
young lady asked some aid of her when she first came; but Mr. Heathcliff
told her to follow her own business, and let his daughter-in-law look
after herself; and Zillah willingly acquiesced, being a narrow-minded,
selfish woman.  Catherine evinced a child's annoyance at this neglect;
repaid it with contempt, and thus enlisted my informant among her
enemies, as securely as if she had done her some great wrong.  I had a
long talk with Zillah about six weeks ago, a little before you came, one
day when we foregathered on the moor; and this is what she told me.

'The first thing Mrs. Linton did,' she said, 'on her arrival at the
Heights, was to run up-stairs, without even wishing good-evening to me
and Joseph; she shut herself into Linton's room, and remained till
morning.  Then, while the master and Earnshaw were at breakfast, she
entered the house, and asked all in a quiver if the doctor might be sent
for? her cousin was very ill.

'"We know that!" answered Heathcliff; "but his life is not worth a
farthing, and I won't spend a farthing on him."

'"But I cannot tell how to do," she said; "and if nobody will help me,
he'll die!"

'"Walk out of the room," cried the master, "and let me never hear a word
more about him!  None here care what becomes of him; if you do, act the
nurse; if you do not, lock him up and leave him."

'Then she began to bother me, and I said I'd had enough plague with the
tiresome thing; we each had our tasks, and hers was to wait on Linton:
Mr. Heathcliff bid me leave that labour to her.

'How they managed together, I can't tell.  I fancy he fretted a great
deal, and moaned hisseln night and day; and she had precious little rest:
one could guess by her white face and heavy eyes.  She sometimes came
into the kitchen all wildered like, and looked as if she would fain beg
assistance; but I was not going to disobey the master: I never dare
disobey him, Mrs. Dean; and, though I thought it wrong that Kenneth
should not be sent for, it was no concern of mine either to advise or
complain, and I always refused to meddle.  Once or twice, after we had
gone to bed, I've happened to open my door again and seen her sitting
crying on the stairs'-top; and then I've shut myself in quick, for fear
of being moved to interfere.  I did pity her then, I'm sure: still I
didn't wish to lose my place, you know.

'At last, one night she came boldly into my chamber, and frightened me
out of my wits, by saying, "Tell Mr. Heathcliff that his son is dying--I'm
sure he is, this time.  Get up, instantly, and tell him."

'Having uttered this speech, she vanished again.  I lay a quarter of an
hour listening and trembling.  Nothing stirred--the house was quiet.

'She's mistaken, I said to myself.  He's got over it.  I needn't disturb
them; and I began to doze.  But my sleep was marred a second time by a
sharp ringing of the bell--the only bell we have, put up on purpose for
Linton; and the master called to me to see what was the matter, and
inform them that he wouldn't have that noise repeated.

'I delivered Catherine's message.  He cursed to himself, and in a few
minutes came out with a lighted candle, and proceeded to their room.  I
followed.  Mrs. Heathcliff was seated by the bedside, with her hands
folded on her knees.  Her father-in-law went up, held the light to
Linton's face, looked at him, and touched him; afterwards he turned to
her.

'"Now--Catherine," he said, "how do you feel?"

'She was dumb.

'"How do you feel, Catherine?" he repeated.

'"He's safe, and I'm free," she answered: "I should feel well--but," she
continued, with a bitterness she couldn't conceal, "you have left me so
long to struggle against death alone, that I feel and see only death!  I
feel like death!"

'And she looked like it, too!  I gave her a little wine.  Hareton and
Joseph, who had been wakened by the ringing and the sound of feet, and
heard our talk from outside, now entered.  Joseph was fain, I believe, of
the lad's removal; Hareton seemed a thought bothered: though he was more
taken up with staring at Catherine than thinking of Linton.  But the
master bid him get off to bed again: we didn't want his help.  He
afterwards made Joseph remove the body to his chamber, and told me to
return to mine, and Mrs. Heathcliff remained by herself.

'In the morning, he sent me to tell her she must come down to breakfast:
she had undressed, and appeared going to sleep, and said she was ill; at
which I hardly wondered.  I informed Mr. Heathcliff, and he
replied,--"Well, let her be till after the funeral; and go up now and
then to get her what is needful; and, as soon as she seems better, tell
me."'

Cathy stayed upstairs a fortnight, according to Zillah; who visited her
twice a day, and would have been rather more friendly, but her attempts
at increasing kindness were proudly and promptly repelled.

Heathcliff went up once, to show her Linton's will.  He had bequeathed
the whole of his, and what had been her, moveable property, to his
father: the poor creature was threatened, or coaxed, into that act during
her week's absence, when his uncle died.  The lands, being a minor, he
could not meddle with.  However, Mr. Heathcliff has claimed and kept them
in his wife's right and his also: I suppose legally; at any rate,
Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession.

'Nobody,' said Zillah, 'ever approached her door, except that once, but
I; and nobody asked anything about her.  The first occasion of her coming
down into the house was on a Sunday afternoon.  She had cried out, when I
carried up her dinner, that she couldn't bear any longer being in the
cold; and I told her the master was going to Thrushcross Grange, and
Earnshaw and I needn't hinder her from descending; so, as soon as she
heard Heathcliff's horse trot off, she made her appearance, donned in
black, and her yellow curls combed back behind her ears as plain as a
Quaker: she couldn't comb them out.

'Joseph and I generally go to chapel on Sundays:' the kirk, you know, has
no minister now, explained Mrs. Dean; and they call the Methodists' or
Baptists' place (I can't say which it is) at Gimmerton, a chapel.  'Joseph
had gone,' she continued, 'but I thought proper to bide at home.  Young
folks are always the better for an elder's over-looking; and Hareton,
with all his bashfulness, isn't a model of nice behaviour.  I let him
know that his cousin would very likely sit with us, and she had been
always used to see the Sabbath respected; so he had as good leave his
guns and bits of indoor work alone, while she stayed.  He coloured up at
the news, and cast his eyes over his hands and clothes.  The train-oil
and gunpowder were shoved out of sight in a minute.  I saw he meant to
give her his company; and I guessed, by his way, he wanted to be
presentable; so, laughing, as I durst not laugh when the master is by, I
offered to help him, if he would, and joked at his confusion.  He grew
sullen, and began to swear.

'Now, Mrs. Dean,' Zillah went on, seeing me not pleased by her manner,
'you happen think your young lady too fine for Mr. Hareton; and happen
you're right: but I own I should love well to bring her pride a peg
lower.  And what will all her learning and her daintiness do for her,
now?  She's as poor as you or I: poorer, I'll be bound: you're saying,
and I'm doing my little all that road.'

Hareton allowed Zillah to give him her aid; and she flattered him into a
good humour; so, when Catherine came, half forgetting her former insults,
he tried to make himself agreeable, by the housekeeper's account.

'Missis walked in,' she said, 'as chill as an icicle, and as high as a
princess.  I got up and offered her my seat in the arm-chair.  No, she
turned up her nose at my civility.  Earnshaw rose, too, and bid her come
to the settle, and sit close by the fire: he was sure she was starved.

'"I've been starved a month and more," she answered, resting on the word
as scornful as she could.

'And she got a chair for herself, and placed it at a distance from both
of us.  Having sat till she was warm, she began to look round, and
discovered a number of books on the dresser; she was instantly upon her
feet again, stretching to reach them: but they were too high up.  Her
cousin, after watching her endeavours a while, at last summoned courage
to help her; she held her frock, and he filled it with the first that
came to hand.

'That was a great advance for the lad.  She didn't thank him; still, he
felt gratified that she had accepted his assistance, and ventured to
stand behind as she examined them, and even to stoop and point out what
struck his fancy in certain old pictures which they contained; nor was he
daunted by the saucy style in which she jerked the page from his finger:
he contented himself with going a bit farther back and looking at her
instead of the book.  She continued reading, or seeking for something to
read.  His attention became, by degrees, quite centred in the study of
her thick silky curls: her face he couldn't see, and she couldn't see
him.  And, perhaps, not quite awake to what he did, but attracted like a
child to a candle, at last he proceeded from staring to touching; he put
out his hand and stroked one curl, as gently as if it were a bird.  He
might have stuck a knife into her neck, she started round in such a
taking.

'"Get away this moment!  How dare you touch me?  Why are you stopping
there?" she cried, in a tone of disgust.  "I can't endure you!  I'll go
upstairs again, if you come near me."

'Mr. Hareton recoiled, looking as foolish as he could do: he sat down in
the settle very quiet, and she continued turning over her volumes another
half hour; finally, Earnshaw crossed over, and whispered to me.

'"Will you ask her to read to us, Zillah?  I'm stalled of doing naught;
and I do like--I could like to hear her!  Dunnot say I wanted it, but ask
of yourseln."

'"Mr. Hareton wishes you would read to us, ma'am," I said, immediately.
"He'd take it very kind--he'd be much obliged."

'She frowned; and looking up, answered--

'"Mr. Hareton, and the whole set of you, will be good enough to
understand that I reject any pretence at kindness you have the hypocrisy
to offer!  I despise you, and will have nothing to say to any of you!
When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of
your faces, you all kept off.  But I won't complain to you!  I'm driven
down here by the cold; not either to amuse you or enjoy your society."

'"What could I ha' done?" began Earnshaw.  "How was I to blame?"

'"Oh! you are an exception," answered Mrs. Heathcliff.  "I never missed
such a concern as you."

'"But I offered more than once, and asked," he said, kindling up at her
pertness, "I asked Mr. Heathcliff to let me wake for you--"

'"Be silent!  I'll go out of doors, or anywhere, rather than have your
disagreeable voice in my ear!" said my lady.

'Hareton muttered she might go to hell, for him! and unslinging his gun,
restrained himself from his Sunday occupations no longer.  He talked now,
freely enough; and she presently saw fit to retreat to her solitude: but
the frost had set in, and, in spite of her pride, she was forced to
condescend to our company, more and more.  However, I took care there
should be no further scorning at my good nature: ever since, I've been as
stiff as herself; and she has no lover or liker among us: and she does
not deserve one; for, let them say the least word to her, and she'll curl
back without respect of any one.  She'll snap at the master himself, and
as good as dares him to thrash her; and the more hurt she gets, the more
venomous she grows.'

At first, on hearing this account from Zillah, I determined to leave my
situation, take a cottage, and get Catherine to come and live with me:
but Mr. Heathcliff would as soon permit that as he would set up Hareton
in an independent house; and I can see no remedy, at present, unless she
could marry again; and that scheme it does not come within my province to
arrange.

* * * * *

Thus ended Mrs. Dean's story.  Notwithstanding the doctor's prophecy, I
am rapidly recovering strength; and though it be only the second week in
January, I propose getting out on horseback in a day or two, and riding
over to Wuthering Heights, to inform my landlord that I shall spend the
next six months in London; and, if he likes, he may look out for another
tenant to take the place after October.  I would not pass another winter
here for much.




CHAPTER XXXI


Yesterday was bright, calm, and frosty.  I went to the Heights as I
proposed: my housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note from her to
her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy woman was not
conscious of anything odd in her request.  The front door stood open, but
the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit; I knocked and invoked
Earnshaw from among the garden-beds; he unchained it, and I entered.  The
fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen.  I took particular notice
of him this time; but then he does his best apparently to make the least
of his advantages.

I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home?  He answered, No; but he would be
in at dinner-time.  It was eleven o'clock, and I announced my intention
of going in and waiting for him; at which he immediately flung down his
tools and accompanied me, in the office of watchdog, not as a substitute
for the host.

We entered together; Catherine was there, making herself useful in
preparing some vegetables for the approaching meal; she looked more
sulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first. She hardly
raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same
disregard to common forms of politeness as before; never returning my
bow and good-morning by the slightest acknowledgment.

'She does not seem so amiable,' I thought, 'as Mrs. Dean would persuade
me to believe.  She's a beauty, it is true; but not an angel.'

Earnshaw surlily bid her remove her things to the kitchen.  'Remove them
yourself,' she said, pushing them from her as soon as she had done; and
retiring to a stool by the window, where she began to carve figures of
birds and beasts out of the turnip-parings in her lap.  I approached her,
pretending to desire a view of the garden; and, as I fancied, adroitly
dropped Mrs. Dean's note on to her knee, unnoticed by Hareton--but she
asked aloud, 'What is that?'  And chucked it off.

'A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at the Grange,' I
answered; annoyed at her exposing my kind deed, and fearful lest it
should be imagined a missive of my own.  She would gladly have gathered
it up at this information, but Hareton beat her; he seized and put it in
his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first.  Thereat,
Catherine silently turned her face from us, and, very stealthily, drew
out her pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her eyes; and her cousin,
after struggling awhile to keep down his softer feelings, pulled out the
letter and flung it on the floor beside her, as ungraciously as he could.
Catherine caught and perused it eagerly; then she put a few questions to
me concerning the inmates, rational and irrational, of her former home;
and gazing towards the hills, murmured in soliloquy:

'I should like to be riding Minny down there!  I should like to be
climbing up there!  Oh!  I'm tired--I'm _stalled_, Hareton!'  And she
leant her pretty head back against the sill, with half a yawn and half a
sigh, and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness: neither caring nor
knowing whether we remarked her.

'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said, after sitting some time mute, 'you are not
aware that I am an acquaintance of yours? so intimate that I think it
strange you won't come and speak to me.  My housekeeper never wearies of
talking about and praising you; and she'll be greatly disappointed if I
return with no news of or from you, except that you received her letter
and said nothing!'

She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked,--

'Does Ellen like you?'

'Yes, very well,' I replied, hesitatingly.

'You must tell her,' she continued, 'that I would answer her letter, but
I have no materials for writing: not even a book from which I might tear
a leaf.'

'No books!' I exclaimed.  'How do you contrive to live here without them?
if I may take the liberty to inquire.  Though provided with a large
library, I'm frequently very dull at the Grange; take my books away, and
I should be desperate!'

'I was always reading, when I had them,' said Catherine; 'and Mr.
Heathcliff never reads; so he took it into his head to destroy my books.
I have not had a glimpse of one for weeks.  Only once, I searched through
Joseph's store of theology, to his great irritation; and once, Hareton, I
came upon a secret stock in your room--some Latin and Greek, and some
tales and poetry: all old friends.  I brought the last here--and you
gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of
stealing!  They are of no use to you; or else you concealed them in the
bad spirit that, as you cannot enjoy them, nobody else shall.  Perhaps
_your_ envy counselled Mr. Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures?  But
I've most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you
cannot deprive me of those!'

Earnshaw blushed crimson when his cousin made this revelation of his
private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignant denial of her
accusations.

'Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his amount of knowledge,' I said,
coming to his rescue.  'He is not _envious_, but _emulous_ of your
attainments.  He'll be a clever scholar in a few years.'

'And he wants me to sink into a dunce, meantime,' answered Catherine.
'Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself, and pretty blunders
he makes!  I wish you would repeat Chevy Chase as you did yesterday: it
was extremely funny.  I heard you; and I heard you turning over the
dictionary to seek out the hard words, and then cursing because you
couldn't read their explanations!'

The young man evidently thought it too bad that he should be laughed at
for his ignorance, and then laughed at for trying to remove it.  I had a
similar notion; and, remembering Mrs. Dean's anecdote of his first
attempt at enlightening the darkness in which he had been reared, I
observed,--'But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we have each had a commencement, and
each stumbled and tottered on the threshold; had our teachers scorned
instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet.'

'Oh!' she replied, 'I don't wish to limit his acquirements: still, he has
no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with
his vile mistakes and mispronunciations!  Those books, both prose and
verse, are consecrated to me by other associations; and I hate to have
them debased and profaned in his mouth!  Besides, of all, he has selected
my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of
deliberate malice.'

Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute: he laboured under a severe
sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress.
I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took
up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood.
He followed my example, and left the room; but presently reappeared,
bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into
Catherine's lap, exclaiming,--'Take them!  I never want to hear, or read,
or think of them again!'

'I won't have them now,' she answered.  'I shall connect them with you,
and hate them.'

She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a
portion in the drawling tone of a beginner; then laughed, and threw it
from her.  'And listen,' she continued, provokingly, commencing a verse
of an old ballad in the same fashion.

But his self-love would endure no further torment: I heard, and not
altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue.  The
little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin's sensitive though
uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had
of balancing the account, and repaying its effects on the inflictor.  He
afterwards gathered the books and hurled them on the fire.  I read in his
countenance what anguish it was to offer that sacrifice to spleen.  I
fancied that as they consumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already
imparted, and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated
from them; and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studies
also.  He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments,
till Catherine crossed his path.  Shame at her scorn, and hope of her
approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and instead of
guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to
raise himself had produced just the contrary result.

'Yes that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!'
cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching the conflagration
with indignant eyes.

'You'd _better_ hold your tongue, now,' he answered fiercely.

And his agitation precluded further speech; he advanced hastily to the
entrance, where I made way for him to pass.  But ere he had crossed the
door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and
laying hold of his shoulder asked,--'What's to do now, my lad?'

'Naught, naught,' he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief and anger in
solitude.

Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed.

'It will be odd if I thwart myself,' he muttered, unconscious that I was
behind him.  'But when I look for his father in his face, I find _her_
every day more!  How the devil is he so like?  I can hardly bear to see
him.'

He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in.  There was a
restless, anxious expression in his countenance.  I had never remarked
there before; and he looked sparer in person.  His daughter-in-law, on
perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so
that I remained alone.

'I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood,' he said, in reply
to my greeting; 'from selfish motives partly: I don't think I could
readily supply your loss in this desolation.  I've wondered more than
once what brought you here.'

'An idle whim, I fear, sir,' was my answer; 'or else an idle whim is
going to spirit me away.  I shall set out for London next week; and I
must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross
Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it.  I believe I shall
not live there any more.'

'Oh, indeed; you're tired of being banished from the world, are you?' he
said.  'But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won't
occupy, your journey is useless: I never relent in exacting my due from
any one.'

'I'm coming to plead off nothing about it,' I exclaimed, considerably
irritated.  'Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now,' and I drew my
note-book from my pocket.

'No, no,' he replied, coolly; 'you'll leave sufficient behind to cover
your debts, if you fail to return: I'm not in such a hurry.  Sit down and
take your dinner with us; a guest that is safe from repeating his visit
can generally be made welcome.  Catherine! bring the things in: where are
you?'

Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.

'You may get your dinner with Joseph,' muttered Heathcliff, aside, 'and
remain in the kitchen till he is gone.'

She obeyed his directions very punctually: perhaps she had no temptation
to transgress.  Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably
cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them.

With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and Hareton,
absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless meal, and bade
adieu early.  I would have departed by the back way, to get a last
glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton received orders to
lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could
not fulfil my wish.

'How dreary life gets over in that house!' I reflected, while riding down
the road.  'What a realisation of something more romantic than a fairy
tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck
up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into
the stirring atmosphere of the town!'




CHAPTER XXXII


1802.--This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in
the north, and on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within
fifteen miles of Gimmerton.  The ostler at a roadside public-house was
holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green
oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked,--'Yon's frough Gimmerton,
nah!  They're allas three wick' after other folk wi' ther harvest.'

'Gimmerton?' I repeated--my residence in that locality had already grown
dim and dreamy.  'Ah!  I know.  How far is it from this?'

'Happen fourteen mile o'er th' hills; and a rough road,' he answered.

A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange.  It was scarcely
noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own
roof as in an inn.  Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange
matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading
the neighbourhood again.  Having rested awhile, I directed my servant to
inquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we
managed the distance in some three hours.

I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone.  The grey church
looked greyer, and the lonely churchyard lonelier.  I distinguished a
moor-sheep cropping the short turf on the graves.  It was sweet, warm
weather--too warm for travelling; but the heat did not hinder me from
enjoying the delightful scenery above and below: had I seen it nearer
August, I'm sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its
solitudes.  In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine,
than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath.

I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but the
family had retreated into the back premises, I judged, by one thin, blue
wreath, curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear.  I rode
into the court.  Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and
an old woman reclined on the housesteps, smoking a meditative pipe.

'Is Mrs. Dean within?' I demanded of the dame.

'Mistress Dean?  Nay!' she answered, 'she doesn't bide here: shoo's up at
th' Heights.'

'Are you the housekeeper, then?' I continued.

'Eea, aw keep th' hause,' she replied.

'Well, I'm Mr. Lockwood, the master.  Are there any rooms to lodge me in,
I wonder?  I wish to stay all night.'

'T' maister!' she cried in astonishment.  'Whet, whoiver knew yah wur
coming?  Yah sud ha' send word.  They's nowt norther dry nor mensful
abaht t' place: nowt there isn't!'

She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered
too; soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had
almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition, I bade her be composed.
I would go out for a walk; and, meantime she must try to prepare a corner
of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bedroom to sleep in.  No
sweeping and dusting, only good fire and dry sheets were necessary.  She
seemed willing to do her best; though she thrust the hearth-brush into
the grates in mistake for the poker, and malappropriated several other
articles of her craft: but I retired, confiding in her energy for a
resting-place against my return.  Wuthering Heights was the goal of my
proposed excursion.  An afterthought brought me back, when I had quitted
the court.

'All well at the Heights?' I inquired of the woman.

'Eea, f'r owt ee knaw!' she answered, skurrying away with a pan of hot
cinders.

I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange, but it was
impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so I turned away and made my
exit, rambling leisurely along, with the glow of a sinking sun behind,
and the mild glory of a rising moon in front--one fading, and the other
brightening--as I quitted the park, and climbed the stony by-road
branching off to Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling.  Before I arrived in sight of
it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west:
but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by
that splendid moon.  I had neither to climb the gate nor to knock--it
yielded to my hand.  That is an improvement, I thought.  And I noticed
another, by the aid of my nostrils; a fragrance of stocks and wallflowers
wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees.

Both doors and lattices were open; and yet, as is usually the case in a
coal-district, a fine red fire illumined the chimney: the comfort which
the eye derives from it renders the extra heat endurable.  But the house
of Wuthering Heights is so large that the inmates have plenty of space
for withdrawing out of its influence; and accordingly what inmates there
were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows.  I could
both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and looked and
listened in consequence; being moved thereto by a mingled sense of
curiosity and envy, that grew as I lingered.

'Con-_trary_!' said a voice as sweet as a silver bell.  'That for the
third time, you dunce!  I'm not going to tell you again. Recollect, or
I'll pull your hair!'

'Contrary, then,' answered another, in deep but softened tones. 'And now,
kiss me, for minding so well.'

'No, read it over first correctly, without a single mistake.'

The male speaker began to read: he was a young man, respectably dressed
and seated at a table, having a book before him.  His handsome features
glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the
page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled him by a
smart slap on the cheek, whenever its owner detected such signs of
inattention.  Its owner stood behind; her light, shining ringlets
blending, at intervals, with his brown looks, as she bent to superintend
his studies; and her face--it was lucky he could not see her face, or he
would never have been so steady.  I could; and I bit my lip in spite, at
having thrown away the chance I might have had of doing something besides
staring at its smiting beauty.

The task was done, not free from further blunders; but the pupil claimed
a reward, and received at least five kisses; which, however, he
generously returned.  Then they came to the door, and from their
conversation I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on the
moors.  I supposed I should be condemned in Hareton Earnshaw's heart, if
not by his mouth, to the lowest pit in the infernal regions if I showed
my unfortunate person in his neighbourhood then; and feeling very mean
and malignant, I skulked round to seek refuge in the kitchen.  There was
unobstructed admittance on that side also; and at the door sat my old
friend Nelly Dean, sewing and singing a song; which was often interrupted
from within by harsh words of scorn and intolerance, uttered in far from
musical accents.

'I'd rayther, by th' haulf, hev' 'em swearing i' my lugs fro'h morn to
neeght, nor hearken ye hahsiver!' said the tenant of the kitchen, in
answer to an unheard speech of Nelly's.  'It's a blazing shame, that I
cannot oppen t' blessed Book, but yah set up them glories to sattan, and
all t' flaysome wickednesses that iver were born into th' warld!  Oh!
ye're a raight nowt; and shoo's another; and that poor lad 'll be lost
atween ye.  Poor lad!' he added, with a groan; 'he's witched: I'm sartin
on't.  Oh, Lord, judge 'em, for there's norther law nor justice among wer
rullers!'

'No! or we should be sitting in flaming fagots, I suppose,' retorted the
singer.  'But wisht, old man, and read your Bible like a Christian, and
never mind me.  This is "Fairy Annie's Wedding"--a bonny tune--it goes to
a dance.'

Mrs. Dean was about to recommence, when I advanced; and recognising me
directly, she jumped to her feet, crying--'Why, bless you, Mr. Lockwood!
How could you think of returning in this way?  All's shut up at
Thrushcross Grange.  You should have given us notice!'

'I've arranged to be accommodated there, for as long as I shall stay,' I
answered.  'I depart again to-morrow.  And how are you transplanted here,
Mrs. Dean? tell me that.'

'Zillah left, and Mr. Heathcliff wished me to come, soon after you went
to London, and stay till you returned.  But, step in, pray! Have you
walked from Gimmerton this evening?'

'From the Grange,' I replied; 'and while they make me lodging room there,
I want to finish my business with your master; because I don't think of
having another opportunity in a hurry.'

'What business, sir?' said Nelly, conducting me into the house. 'He's
gone out at present, and won't return soon.'

'About the rent,' I answered.

'Oh! then it is with Mrs. Heathcliff you must settle,' she observed; 'or
rather with me.  She has not learnt to manage her affairs yet, and I act
for her: there's nobody else.'

I looked surprised.

'Ah! you have not heard of Heathcliff's death, I see,' she continued.

'Heathcliff dead!' I exclaimed, astonished.  'How long ago?'

'Three months since: but sit down, and let me take your hat, and I'll
tell you all about it.  Stop, you have had nothing to eat, have you?'

'I want nothing: I have ordered supper at home.  You sit down too. I
never dreamt of his dying!  Let me hear how it came to pass.  You say you
don't expect them back for some time--the young people?'

'No--I have to scold them every evening for their late rambles: but they
don't care for me.  At least, have a drink of our old ale; it will do you
good: you seem weary.'

She hastened to fetch it before I could refuse, and I heard Joseph asking
whether 'it warn't a crying scandal that she should have followers at her
time of life?  And then, to get them jocks out o' t' maister's cellar!  He
fair shaamed to 'bide still and see it.'

She did not stay to retaliate, but re-entered in a minute, bearing a
reaming silver pint, whose contents I lauded with becoming earnestness.
And afterwards she furnished me with the sequel of Heathcliff's history.
He had a 'queer' end, as she expressed it.

I was summoned to Wuthering Heights, within a fortnight of your leaving
us, she said; and I obeyed joyfully, for Catherine's sake. My first
interview with her grieved and shocked me: she had altered so much since
our separation.  Mr. Heathcliff did not explain his reasons for taking a
new mind about my coming here; he only told me he wanted me, and he was
tired of seeing Catherine: I must make the little parlour my
sitting-room, and keep her with me. It was enough if he were obliged to
see her once or twice a day. She seemed pleased at this arrangement; and,
by degrees, I smuggled over a great number of books, and other articles,
that had formed her amusement at the Grange; and flattered myself we
should get on in tolerable comfort.  The delusion did not last long.
Catherine, contented at first, in a brief space grew irritable and
restless. For one thing, she was forbidden to move out of the garden, and
it fretted her sadly to be confined to its narrow bounds as spring drew
on; for another, in following the house, I was forced to quit her
frequently, and she complained of loneliness: she preferred quarrelling
with Joseph in the kitchen to sitting at peace in her solitude.  I did
not mind their skirmishes: but Hareton was often obliged to seek the
kitchen also, when the master wanted to have the house to himself! and
though in the beginning she either left it at his approach, or quietly
joined in my occupations, and shunned remarking or addressing him--and
though he was always as sullen and silent as possible--after a while, she
changed her behaviour, and became incapable of letting him alone: talking
at him; commenting on his stupidity and idleness; expressing her wonder
how he could endure the life he lived--how he could sit a whole evening
staring into the fire, and dozing.

'He's just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?' she once observed, 'or a
cart-horse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally! What
a blank, dreary mind he must have! Do you ever dream, Hareton? And, if
you do, what is it about? But you can't speak to me!'

Then she looked at him; but he would neither open his mouth nor look
again.

'He's, perhaps, dreaming now,' she continued.  'He twitched his shoulder
as Juno twitches hers.  Ask him, Ellen.'

'Mr. Hareton will ask the master to send you up-stairs, if you don't
behave!' I said.  He had not only twitched his shoulder but clenched his
fist, as if tempted to use it.

'I know why Hareton never speaks, when I am in the kitchen,' she
exclaimed, on another occasion.  'He is afraid I shall laugh at him.
Ellen, what do you think?  He began to teach himself to read once; and,
because I laughed, he burned his books, and dropped it: was he not a
fool?'

'Were not you naughty?' I said; 'answer me that.'

'Perhaps I was,' she went on; 'but I did not expect him to be so silly.
Hareton, if I gave you a book, would you take it now?  I'll try!'

She placed one she had been perusing on his hand; he flung it off, and
muttered, if she did not give over, he would break her neck.

'Well, I shall put it here,' she said, 'in the table-drawer; and I'm
going to bed.'

Then she whispered me to watch whether he touched it, and departed.  But
he would not come near it; and so I informed her in the morning, to her
great disappointment.  I saw she was sorry for his persevering sulkiness
and indolence: her conscience reproved her for frightening him off
improving himself: she had done it effectually.  But her ingenuity was at
work to remedy the injury: while I ironed, or pursued other such
stationary employments as I could not well do in the parlour, she would
bring some pleasant volume and read it aloud to me.  When Hareton was
there, she generally paused in an interesting part, and left the book
lying about: that she did repeatedly; but he was as obstinate as a mule,
and, instead of snatching at her bait, in wet weather he took to smoking
with Joseph; and they sat like automatons, one on each side of the fire,
the elder happily too deaf to understand her wicked nonsense, as he would
have called it, the younger doing his best to seem to disregard it.  On
fine evenings the latter followed his shooting expeditions, and Catherine
yawned and sighed, and teased me to talk to her, and ran off into the
court or garden the moment I began; and, as a last resource, cried, and
said she was tired of living: her life was useless.

Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had almost
banished Earnshaw from his apartment.  Owing to an accident at the
commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen.
His gun burst while out on the hills by himself; a splinter cut his arm,
and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home.  The
consequence was that, perforce, he was condemned to the fireside and
tranquillity, till he made it up again.  It suited Catherine to have him
there: at any rate, it made her hate her room up-stairs more than ever:
and she would compel me to find out business below, that she might
accompany me.

On Easter Monday, Joseph went to Gimmerton fair with some cattle; and, in
the afternoon, I was busy getting up linen in the kitchen.  Earnshaw sat,
morose as usual, at the chimney corner, and my little mistress was
beguiling an idle hour with drawing pictures on the window-panes, varying
her amusement by smothered bursts of songs, and whispered ejaculations,
and quick glances of annoyance and impatience in the direction of her
cousin, who steadfastly smoked, and looked into the grate.  At a notice
that I could do with her no longer intercepting my light, she removed to
the hearthstone.  I bestowed little attention on her proceedings, but,
presently, I heard her begin--'I've found out, Hareton, that I want--that
I'm glad--that I should like you to be my cousin now, if you had not
grown so cross to me, and so rough.'

Hareton returned no answer.

'Hareton, Hareton, Hareton! do you hear?' she continued.

'Get off wi' ye!' he growled, with uncompromising gruffness.

'Let me take that pipe,' she said, cautiously advancing her hand and
abstracting it from his mouth.

Before he could attempt to recover it, it was broken, and behind the
fire.  He swore at her and seized another.

'Stop,' she cried, 'you must listen to me first; and I can't speak while
those clouds are floating in my face.'

'Will you go to the devil!' he exclaimed, ferociously, 'and let me be!'

'No,' she persisted, 'I won't: I can't tell what to do to make you talk
to me; and you are determined not to understand.  When I call you stupid,
I don't mean anything: I don't mean that I despise you.  Come, you shall
take notice of me, Hareton: you are my cousin, and you shall own me.'

'I shall have naught to do wi' you and your mucky pride, and your damned
mocking tricks!' he answered.  'I'll go to hell, body and soul, before I
look sideways after you again.  Side out o' t' gate, now, this minute!'

Catherine frowned, and retreated to the window-seat chewing her lip, and
endeavouring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing tendency
to sob.

'You should be friends with your cousin, Mr. Hareton,' I interrupted,
'since she repents of her sauciness.  It would do you a great deal of
good: it would make you another man to have her for a companion.'

'A companion!' he cried; 'when she hates me, and does not think me fit to
wipe her shoon!  Nay, if it made me a king, I'd not be scorned for
seeking her good-will any more.'

'It is not I who hate you, it is you who hate me!' wept Cathy, no longer
disguising her trouble.  'You hate me as much as Mr. Heathcliff does, and
more.'

'You're a damned liar,' began Earnshaw: 'why have I made him angry, by
taking your part, then, a hundred times? and that when you sneered at and
despised me, and--Go on plaguing me, and I'll step in yonder, and say you
worried me out of the kitchen!'

'I didn't know you took my part,' she answered, drying her eyes; 'and I
was miserable and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and beg you
to forgive me: what can I do besides?'

She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand.  He blackened
and scowled like a thunder-cloud, and kept his fists resolutely clenched,
and his gaze fixed on the ground.  Catherine, by instinct, must have
divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that prompted this
dogged conduct; for, after remaining an instant undecided, she stooped
and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss.  The little rogue thought I had
not seen her, and, drawing back, she took her former station by the
window, quite demurely.  I shook my head reprovingly, and then she
blushed and whispered--'Well! what should I have done, Ellen?  He
wouldn't shake hands, and he wouldn't look: I must show him some way that
I like him--that I want to be friends.'

Whether the kiss convinced Hareton, I cannot tell: he was very careful,
for some minutes, that his face should not be seen, and when he did raise
it, he was sadly puzzled where to turn his eyes.

Catherine employed herself in wrapping a handsome book neatly in white
paper, and having tied it with a bit of ribbon, and addressed it to 'Mr.
Hareton Earnshaw,' she desired me to be her ambassadress, and convey the
present to its destined recipient.

'And tell him, if he'll take it, I'll come and teach him to read it
right,' she said; 'and, if he refuse it, I'll go upstairs, and never
tease him again.'

I carried it, and repeated the message; anxiously watched by my employer.
Hareton would not open his fingers, so I laid it on his knee.  He did not
strike it off, either.  I returned to my work.  Catherine leaned her head
and arms on the table, till she heard the slight rustle of the covering
being removed; then she stole away, and quietly seated herself beside her
cousin.  He trembled, and his face glowed: all his rudeness and all his
surly harshness had deserted him: he could not summon courage, at first,
to utter a syllable in reply to her questioning look, and her murmured
petition.

'Say you forgive me, Hareton, do.  You can make me so happy by speaking
that little word.'

He muttered something inaudible.

'And you'll be my friend?' added Catherine, interrogatively.

'Nay, you'll be ashamed of me every day of your life,' he answered; 'and
the more ashamed, the more you know me; and I cannot bide it.'

'So you won't be my friend?' she said, smiling as sweet as honey, and
creeping close up.

I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round again,
I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of the
accepted book, that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified on both
sides; and the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies.

The work they studied was full of costly pictures; and those and their
position had charm enough to keep them unmoved till Joseph came home.  He,
poor man, was perfectly aghast at the spectacle of Catherine seated on
the same bench with Hareton Earnshaw, leaning her hand on his shoulder;
and confounded at his favourite's endurance of her proximity: it affected
him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that night.  His
emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew, as he solemnly
spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with dirty
bank-notes from his pocket-book, the produce of the day's transactions.
At length he summoned Hareton from his seat.

'Tak' these in to t' maister, lad,' he said, 'and bide there.  I's gang
up to my own rahm.  This hoile's neither mensful nor seemly for us: we
mun side out and seearch another.'

'Come, Catherine,' I said, 'we must "side out" too: I've done my ironing.
Are you ready to go?'

'It is not eight o'clock!' she answered, rising unwillingly.

'Hareton, I'll leave this book upon the chimney-piece, and I'll bring
some more to-morrow.'

'Ony books that yah leave, I shall tak' into th' hahse,' said Joseph,
'and it'll be mitch if yah find 'em agean; soa, yah may plase yerseln!'

Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers; and, smiling as
she passed Hareton, went singing up-stairs: lighter of heart, I venture
to say, than ever she had been under that roof before; except, perhaps,
during her earliest visits to Linton.

The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly; though it encountered temporary
interruptions.  Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish, and my
young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their
minds tending to the same point--one loving and desiring to esteem, and
the other loving and desiring to be esteemed--they contrived in the end
to reach it.

You see, Mr. Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs. Heathcliff's heart.
But now, I'm glad you did not try.  The crown of all my wishes will be
the union of those two.  I shall envy no one on their wedding day: there
won't be a happier woman than myself in England!




CHAPTER XXXIII


On the morrow of that Monday, Earnshaw being still unable to follow his
ordinary employments, and therefore remaining about the house, I speedily
found it would be impracticable to retain my charge beside me, as
heretofore.  She got downstairs before me, and out into the garden, where
she had seen her cousin performing some easy work; and when I went to bid
them come to breakfast, I saw she had persuaded him to clear a large
space of ground from currant and gooseberry bushes, and they were busy
planning together an importation of plants from the Grange.

I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a brief
half-hour; the black-currant trees were the apple of Joseph's eye, and
she had just fixed her choice of a flower-bed in the midst of them.

'There!  That will be all shown to the master,' I exclaimed, 'the minute
it is discovered.  And what excuse have you to offer for taking such
liberties with the garden?  We shall have a fine explosion on the head of
it: see if we don't!  Mr. Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit
than to go and make that mess at her bidding!'

'I'd forgotten they were Joseph's,' answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled;
'but I'll tell him I did it.'

We always ate our meals with Mr. Heathcliff.  I held the mistress's post
in making tea and carving; so I was indispensable at table.  Catherine
usually sat by me, but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton; and I
presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship than
she had in her hostility.

'Now, mind you don't talk with and notice your cousin too much,' were my
whispered instructions as we entered the room.  'It will certainly annoy
Mr. Heathcliff, and he'll be mad at you both.'

'I'm not going to,' she answered.

The minute after, she had sidled to him, and was sticking primroses in
his plate of porridge.

He dared not speak to her there: he dared hardly look; and yet she went
on teasing, till he was twice on the point of being provoked to laugh.  I
frowned, and then she glanced towards the master: whose mind was occupied
on other subjects than his company, as his countenance evinced; and she
grew serious for an instant, scrutinizing him with deep gravity.
Afterwards she turned, and recommenced her nonsense; at last, Hareton
uttered a smothered laugh.  Mr. Heathcliff started; his eye rapidly
surveyed our faces, Catherine met it with her accustomed look of
nervousness and yet defiance, which he abhorred.

'It is well you are out of my reach,' he exclaimed.  'What fiend
possesses you to stare back at me, continually, with those infernal eyes?
Down with them! and don't remind me of your existence again.  I thought I
had cured you of laughing.'

'It was me,' muttered Hareton.

'What do you say?' demanded the master.

Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession.  Mr.
Heathcliff looked at him a bit, and then silently resumed his breakfast
and his interrupted musing.  We had nearly finished, and the two young
people prudently shifted wider asunder, so I anticipated no further
disturbance during that sitting: when Joseph appeared at the door,
revealing by his quivering lip and furious eyes that the outrage
committed on his precious shrubs was detected.  He must have seen Cathy
and her cousin about the spot before he examined it, for while his jaws
worked like those of a cow chewing its cud, and rendered his speech
difficult to understand, he began:--

'I mun hev' my wage, and I mun goa!  I _hed_ aimed to dee wheare I'd
sarved fur sixty year; and I thowt I'd lug my books up into t' garret,
and all my bits o' stuff, and they sud hev' t' kitchen to theirseln; for
t' sake o' quietness.  It wur hard to gie up my awn hearthstun, but I
thowt I _could_ do that!  But nah, shoo's taan my garden fro' me, and by
th' heart, maister, I cannot stand it!  Yah may bend to th' yoak an ye
will--I noan used to 't, and an old man doesn't sooin get used to new
barthens.  I'd rayther arn my bite an' my sup wi' a hammer in th' road!'

'Now, now, idiot!' interrupted Heathcliff, 'cut it short!  What's your
grievance?  I'll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly.  She may
thrust you into the coal-hole for anything I care.'

'It's noan Nelly!' answered Joseph.  'I sudn't shift for Nelly--nasty ill
nowt as shoo is.  Thank God! _shoo_ cannot stale t' sowl o' nob'dy!  Shoo
wer niver soa handsome, but what a body mud look at her 'bout winking.
It's yon flaysome, graceless quean, that's witched our lad, wi' her bold
een and her forrard ways--till--Nay! it fair brusts my heart!  He's
forgotten all I've done for him, and made on him, and goan and riven up a
whole row o' t' grandest currant-trees i' t' garden!' and here he
lamented outright; unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries, and
Earnshaw's ingratitude and dangerous condition.

'Is the fool drunk?' asked Mr. Heathcliff.  'Hareton, is it you he's
finding fault with?'

'I've pulled up two or three bushes,' replied the young man; 'but I'm
going to set 'em again.'

'And why have you pulled them up?' said the master.

Catherine wisely put in her tongue.

'We wanted to plant some flowers there,' she cried.  'I'm the only person
to blame, for I wished him to do it.'

'And who the devil gave _you_ leave to touch a stick about the place?'
demanded her father-in-law, much surprised.  'And who ordered _you_ to
obey her?' he added, turning to Hareton.

The latter was speechless; his cousin replied--'You shouldn't grudge a
few yards of earth for me to ornament, when you have taken all my land!'

'Your land, insolent slut!  You never had any,' said Heathcliff.

'And my money,' she continued; returning his angry glare, and meantime
biting a piece of crust, the remnant of her breakfast.

'Silence!' he exclaimed.  'Get done, and begone!'

'And Hareton's land, and his money,' pursued the reckless thing.  'Hareton
and I are friends now; and I shall tell him all about you!'

The master seemed confounded a moment: he grew pale, and rose up, eyeing
her all the while, with an expression of mortal hate.

'If you strike me, Hareton will strike you,' she said; 'so you may as
well sit down.'

'If Hareton does not turn you out of the room, I'll strike him to hell,'
thundered Heathcliff.  'Damnable witch! dare you pretend to rouse him
against me?  Off with her!  Do you hear?  Fling her into the kitchen!
I'll kill her, Ellen Dean, if you let her come into my sight again!'

Hareton tried, under his breath, to persuade her to go.

'Drag her away!' he cried, savagely.  'Are you staying to talk?'  And he
approached to execute his own command.

'He'll not obey you, wicked man, any more,' said Catherine; 'and he'll
soon detest you as much as I do.'

'Wisht! wisht!' muttered the young man, reproachfully; 'I will not hear
you speak so to him.  Have done.'

'But you won't let him strike me?' she cried.

'Come, then,' he whispered earnestly.

It was too late: Heathcliff had caught hold of her.

'Now, _you_ go!' he said to Earnshaw.  'Accursed witch! this time she has
provoked me when I could not bear it; and I'll make her repent it for
ever!'

He had his hand in her hair; Hareton attempted to release her locks,
entreating him not to hurt her that once.  Heathcliff's black eyes
flashed; he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces, and I was just
worked up to risk coming to the rescue, when of a sudden his fingers
relaxed; he shifted his grasp from her head to her arm, and gazed
intently in her face.  Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a
moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine,
said, with assumed calmness--'You must learn to avoid putting me in a
passion, or I shall really murder you some time!  Go with Mrs. Dean, and
keep with her; and confine your insolence to her ears.  As to Hareton
Earnshaw, if I see him listen to you, I'll send him seeking his bread
where he can get it!  Your love will make him an outcast and a beggar.
Nelly, take her; and leave me, all of you!  Leave me!'

I led my young lady out: she was too glad of her escape to resist; the
other followed, and Mr. Heathcliff had the room to himself till dinner.  I
had counselled Catherine to dine up-stairs; but, as soon as he perceived
her vacant seat, he sent me to call her.  He spoke to none of us, ate
very little, and went out directly afterwards, intimating that he should
not return before evening.

The two new friends established themselves in the house during his
absence; where I heard Hareton sternly check his cousin, on her offering
a revelation of her father-in-law's conduct to his father.  He said he
wouldn't suffer a word to be uttered in his disparagement: if he were the
devil, it didn't signify; he would stand by him; and he'd rather she
would abuse himself, as she used to, than begin on Mr. Heathcliff.
Catherine was waxing cross at this; but he found means to make her hold
her tongue, by asking how she would like _him_ to speak ill of her
father?  Then she comprehended that Earnshaw took the master's reputation
home to himself; and was attached by ties stronger than reason could
break--chains, forged by habit, which it would be cruel to attempt to
loosen.  She showed a good heart, thenceforth, in avoiding both
complaints and expressions of antipathy concerning Heathcliff; and
confessed to me her sorrow that she had endeavoured to raise a bad spirit
between him and Hareton: indeed, I don't believe she has ever breathed a
syllable, in the latter's hearing, against her oppressor since.

When this slight disagreement was over, they were friends again, and as
busy as possible in their several occupations of pupil and teacher.  I
came in to sit with them, after I had done my work; and I felt so soothed
and comforted to watch them, that I did not notice how time got on.  You
know, they both appeared in a measure my children: I had long been proud
of one; and now, I was sure, the other would be a source of equal
satisfaction.  His honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off rapidly
the clouds of ignorance and degradation in which it had been bred; and
Catherine's sincere commendations acted as a spur to his industry.  His
brightening mind brightened his features, and added spirit and nobility
to their aspect: I could hardly fancy it the same individual I had beheld
on the day I discovered my little lady at Wuthering Heights, after her
expedition to the Crags.  While I admired and they laboured, dusk drew
on, and with it returned the master.  He came upon us quite unexpectedly,
entering by the front way, and had a full view of the whole three, ere we
could raise our heads to glance at him.  Well, I reflected, there was
never a pleasanter, or more harmless sight; and it will be a burning
shame to scold them.  The red fire-light glowed on their two bonny heads,
and revealed their faces animated with the eager interest of children;
for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of
novelty to feel and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the
sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity.

They lifted their eyes together, to encounter Mr. Heathcliff: perhaps you
have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar, and they are
those of Catherine Earnshaw.  The present Catherine has no other likeness
to her, except a breadth of forehead, and a certain arch of the nostril
that makes her appear rather haughty, whether she will or not.  With
Hareton the resemblance is carried farther: it is singular at all times,
_then_ it was particularly striking; because his senses were alert, and
his mental faculties wakened to unwonted activity.  I suppose this
resemblance disarmed Mr. Heathcliff: he walked to the hearth in evident
agitation; but it quickly subsided as he looked at the young man: or, I
should say, altered its character; for it was there yet.  He took the
book from his hand, and glanced at the open page, then returned it
without any observation; merely signing Catherine away: her companion
lingered very little behind her, and I was about to depart also, but he
bid me sit still.

'It is a poor conclusion, is it not?' he observed, having brooded awhile
on the scene he had just witnessed: 'an absurd termination to my violent
exertions?  I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and
train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything
is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof
has vanished!  My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the
precise time to revenge myself on their representatives: I could do it;
and none could hinder me.  But where is the use?  I don't care for
striking: I can't take the trouble to raise my hand!  That sounds as if I
had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of
magnanimity.  It is far from being the case: I have lost the faculty of
enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.

'Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I'm in its shadow at
present.  I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly
remember to eat and drink.  Those two who have left the room are the only
objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me; and that
appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony.  About _her_ I won't
speak; and I don't desire to think; but I earnestly wish she were
invisible: her presence invokes only maddening sensations.  _He_ moves me
differently: and yet if I could do it without seeming insane, I'd never
see him again!  You'll perhaps think me rather inclined to become so,' he
added, making an effort to smile, 'if I try to describe the thousand
forms of past associations and ideas he awakens or embodies.  But you'll
not talk of what I tell you; and my mind is so eternally secluded in
itself, it is tempting at last to turn it out to another.

'Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a
human being; I felt to him in such a variety of ways, that it would have
been impossible to have accosted him rationally.  In the first place, his
startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with her.  That,
however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination,
is actually the least: for what is not connected with her to me? and what
does not recall her?  I cannot look down to this floor, but her features
are shaped in the flags!  In every cloud, in every tree--filling the air
at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day--I am surrounded
with her image!  The most ordinary faces of men and women--my own
features--mock me with a resemblance.  The entire world is a dreadful
collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!
Well, Hareton's aspect was the ghost of my immortal love; of my wild
endeavours to hold my right; my degradation, my pride, my happiness, and
my anguish--

'But it is frenzy to repeat these thoughts to you: only it will let you
know why, with a reluctance to be always alone, his society is no
benefit; rather an aggravation of the constant torment I suffer: and it
partly contributes to render me regardless how he and his cousin go on
together.  I can give them no attention any more.'

'But what do you mean by a _change_, Mr. Heathcliff?' I said, alarmed at
his manner: though he was neither in danger of losing his senses, nor
dying, according to my judgment: he was quite strong and healthy; and, as
to his reason, from childhood he had a delight in dwelling on dark
things, and entertaining odd fancies.  He might have had a monomania on
the subject of his departed idol; but on every other point his wits were
as sound as mine.

'I shall not know that till it comes,' he said; 'I'm only half conscious
of it now.'

'You have no feeling of illness, have you?' I asked.

'No, Nelly, I have not,' he answered.

'Then you are not afraid of death?' I pursued.

'Afraid?  No!' he replied.  'I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment,
nor a hope of death.  Why should I?  With my hard constitution and
temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to, and
probably _shall_, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair
on my head.  And yet I cannot continue in this condition!  I have to
remind myself to breathe--almost to remind my heart to beat!  And it is
like bending back a stiff spring: it is by compulsion that I do the
slightest act not prompted by one thought; and by compulsion that I
notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal
idea.  I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are
yearning to attain it.  They have yearned towards it so long, and so
unwaveringly, that I'm convinced it will be reached--and soon--because it
has devoured my existence: I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its
fulfilment.  My confessions have not relieved me; but they may account
for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humour which I show.  O God!
It is a long fight; I wish it were over!'

He began to pace the room, muttering terrible things to himself, till I
was inclined to believe, as he said Joseph did, that conscience had
turned his heart to an earthly hell.  I wondered greatly how it would
end.  Though he seldom before had revealed this state of mind, even by
looks, it was his habitual mood, I had no doubt: he asserted it himself;
but not a soul, from his general bearing, would have conjectured the
fact.  You did not when you saw him, Mr. Lockwood: and at the period of
which I speak, he was just the same as then; only fonder of continued
solitude, and perhaps still more laconic in company.




CHAPTER XXXIV


For some days after that evening Mr. Heathcliff shunned meeting us at
meals; yet he would not consent formally to exclude Hareton and Cathy.  He
had an aversion to yielding so completely to his feelings, choosing
rather to absent himself; and eating once in twenty-four hours seemed
sufficient sustenance for him.

One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs, and
out at the front door.  I did not hear him re-enter, and in the morning I
found he was still away.  We were in April then: the weather was sweet
and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it, and the
two dwarf apple-trees near the southern wall in full bloom.  After
breakfast, Catherine insisted on my bringing a chair and sitting with my
work under the fir-trees at the end of the house; and she beguiled
Hareton, who had perfectly recovered from his accident, to dig and
arrange her little garden, which was shifted to that corner by the
influence of Joseph's complaints.  I was comfortably revelling in the
spring fragrance around, and the beautiful soft blue overhead, when my
young lady, who had run down near the gate to procure some primrose roots
for a border, returned only half laden, and informed us that Mr.
Heathcliff was coming in.  'And he spoke to me,' she added, with a
perplexed countenance.

'What did he say?' asked Hareton.

'He told me to begone as fast as I could,' she answered.  'But he looked
so different from his usual look that I stopped a moment to stare at
him.'

'How?' he inquired.

'Why, almost bright and cheerful.  No, _almost_ nothing--_very much_
excited, and wild, and glad!' she replied.

'Night-walking amuses him, then,' I remarked, affecting a careless
manner: in reality as surprised as she was, and anxious to ascertain the
truth of her statement; for to see the master looking glad would not be
an every-day spectacle.  I framed an excuse to go in.  Heathcliff stood
at the open door; he was pale, and he trembled: yet, certainly, he had a
strange joyful glitter in his eyes, that altered the aspect of his whole
face.

'Will you have some breakfast?' I said.  'You must be hungry, rambling
about all night!'  I wanted to discover where he had been, but I did not
like to ask directly.

'No, I'm not hungry,' he answered, averting his head, and speaking rather
contemptuously, as if he guessed I was trying to divine the occasion of
his good humour.

I felt perplexed: I didn't know whether it were not a proper opportunity
to offer a bit of admonition.

'I don't think it right to wander out of doors,' I observed, 'instead of
being in bed: it is not wise, at any rate this moist season.  I daresay
you'll catch a bad cold or a fever: you have something the matter with
you now!'

'Nothing but what I can bear,' he replied; 'and with the greatest
pleasure, provided you'll leave me alone: get in, and don't annoy me.'

I obeyed: and, in passing, I noticed he breathed as fast as a cat.

'Yes!' I reflected to myself, 'we shall have a fit of illness.  I cannot
conceive what he has been doing.'

That noon he sat down to dinner with us, and received a heaped-up plate
from my hands, as if he intended to make amends for previous fasting.

'I've neither cold nor fever, Nelly,' he remarked, in allusion to my
morning's speech; 'and I'm ready to do justice to the food you give me.'

He took his knife and fork, and was going to commence eating, when the
inclination appeared to become suddenly extinct.  He laid them on the
table, looked eagerly towards the window, then rose and went out.  We saw
him walking to and fro in the garden while we concluded our meal, and
Earnshaw said he'd go and ask why he would not dine: he thought we had
grieved him some way.

'Well, is he coming?' cried Catherine, when her cousin returned.

'Nay,' he answered; 'but he's not angry: he seemed rarely pleased indeed;
only I made him impatient by speaking to him twice; and then he bid me be
off to you: he wondered how I could want the company of anybody else.'

I set his plate to keep warm on the fender; and after an hour or two he
re-entered, when the room was clear, in no degree calmer: the same
unnatural--it was unnatural--appearance of joy under his black brows; the
same bloodless hue, and his teeth visible, now and then, in a kind of
smile; his frame shivering, not as one shivers with chill or weakness,
but as a tight-stretched cord vibrates--a strong thrilling, rather than
trembling.

I will ask what is the matter, I thought; or who should?  And I
exclaimed--'Have you heard any good news, Mr. Heathcliff?  You look
uncommonly animated.'

'Where should good news come from to me?' he said.  'I'm animated with
hunger; and, seemingly, I must not eat.'

'Your dinner is here,' I returned; 'why won't you get it?'

'I don't want it now,' he muttered, hastily: 'I'll wait till supper.  And,
Nelly, once for all, let me beg you to warn Hareton and the other away
from me.  I wish to be troubled by nobody: I wish to have this place to
myself.'

'Is there some new reason for this banishment?' I inquired.  'Tell me why
you are so queer, Mr. Heathcliff?  Where were you last night?  I'm not
putting the question through idle curiosity, but--'

'You are putting the question through very idle curiosity,' he
interrupted, with a laugh.  'Yet I'll answer it.  Last night I was on the
threshold of hell.  To-day, I am within sight of my heaven.  I have my
eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me!  And now you'd better go!
You'll neither see nor hear anything to frighten you, if you refrain from
prying.'

Having swept the hearth and wiped the table, I departed; more perplexed
than ever.

He did not quit the house again that afternoon, and no one intruded on
his solitude; till, at eight o'clock, I deemed it proper, though
unsummoned, to carry a candle and his supper to him.  He was leaning
against the ledge of an open lattice, but not looking out: his face was
turned to the interior gloom.  The fire had smouldered to ashes; the room
was filled with the damp, mild air of the cloudy evening; and so still,
that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable,
but its ripples and its gurgling over the pebbles, or through the large
stones which it could not cover.  I uttered an ejaculation of discontent
at seeing the dismal grate, and commenced shutting the casements, one
after another, till I came to his.

'Must I close this?' I asked, in order to rouse him; for he would not
stir.

The light flashed on his features as I spoke.  Oh, Mr. Lockwood, I cannot
express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view!  Those deep
black eyes!  That smile, and ghastly paleness!  It appeared to me, not
Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin; and, in my terror, I let the candle bend
towards the wall, and it left me in darkness.

'Yes, close it,' he replied, in his familiar voice.  'There, that is pure
awkwardness!  Why did you hold the candle horizontally?  Be quick, and
bring another.'

I hurried out in a foolish state of dread, and said to Joseph--'The
master wishes you to take him a light and rekindle the fire.'  For I
dared not go in myself again just then.

Joseph rattled some fire into the shovel, and went: but he brought it
back immediately, with the supper-tray in his other hand, explaining that
Mr. Heathcliff was going to bed, and he wanted nothing to eat till
morning.  We heard him mount the stairs directly; he did not proceed to
his ordinary chamber, but turned into that with the panelled bed: its
window, as I mentioned before, is wide enough for anybody to get through;
and it struck me that he plotted another midnight excursion, of which he
had rather we had no suspicion.

'Is he a ghoul or a vampire?' I mused.  I had read of such hideous
incarnate demons.  And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him
in infancy, and watched him grow to youth, and followed him almost
through his whole course; and what absurd nonsense it was to yield to
that sense of horror.  'But where did he come from, the little dark
thing, harboured by a good man to his bane?' muttered Superstition, as I
dozed into unconsciousness.  And I began, half dreaming, to weary myself
with imagining some fit parentage for him; and, repeating my waking
meditations, I tracked his existence over again, with grim variations; at
last, picturing his death and funeral: of which, all I can remember is,
being exceedingly vexed at having the task of dictating an inscription
for his monument, and consulting the sexton about it; and, as he had no
surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content
ourselves with the single word, 'Heathcliff.'  That came true: we were.
If you enter the kirkyard, you'll read, on his headstone, only that, and
the date of his death.

Dawn restored me to common sense.  I rose, and went into the garden, as
soon as I could see, to ascertain if there were any footmarks under his
window.  There were none.  'He has stayed at home,' I thought, 'and he'll
be all right to-day.'  I prepared breakfast for the household, as was my
usual custom, but told Hareton and Catherine to get theirs ere the master
came down, for he lay late.  They preferred taking it out of doors, under
the trees, and I set a little table to accommodate them.

On my re-entrance, I found Mr. Heathcliff below.  He and Joseph were
conversing about some farming business; he gave clear, minute directions
concerning the matter discussed, but he spoke rapidly, and turned his
head continually aside, and had the same excited expression, even more
exaggerated.  When Joseph quitted the room he took his seat in the place
he generally chose, and I put a basin of coffee before him.  He drew it
nearer, and then rested his arms on the table, and looked at the opposite
wall, as I supposed, surveying one particular portion, up and down, with
glittering, restless eyes, and with such eager interest that he stopped
breathing during half a minute together.

'Come now,' I exclaimed, pushing some bread against his hand, 'eat and
drink that, while it is hot: it has been waiting near an hour.'

He didn't notice me, and yet he smiled.  I'd rather have seen him gnash
his teeth than smile so.

'Mr. Heathcliff! master!' I cried, 'don't, for God's sake, stare as if
you saw an unearthly vision.'

'Don't, for God's sake, shout so loud,' he replied.  'Turn round, and
tell me, are we by ourselves?'

'Of course,' was my answer; 'of course we are.'

Still, I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I was not quite sure.  With a
sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the breakfast
things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease.

Now, I perceived he was not looking at the wall; for when I regarded him
alone, it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards'
distance.  And whatever it was, it communicated, apparently, both
pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes: at least the anguished, yet
raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea.  The fancied
object was not fixed, either: his eyes pursued it with unwearied
diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away.  I vainly
reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to
touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand
out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it,
and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim.

I sat, a model of patience, trying to attract his absorbed attention from
its engrossing speculation; till he grew irritable, and got up, asking
why I would not allow him to have his own time in taking his meals? and
saying that on the next occasion I needn't wait: I might set the things
down and go.  Having uttered these words he left the house, slowly
sauntered down the garden path, and disappeared through the gate.

The hours crept anxiously by: another evening came.  I did not retire to
rest till late, and when I did, I could not sleep.  He returned after
midnight, and, instead of going to bed, shut himself into the room
beneath.  I listened, and tossed about, and, finally, dressed and
descended.  It was too irksome to lie there, harassing my brain with a
hundred idle misgivings.

I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff's step, restlessly measuring the floor,
and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration, resembling a
groan.  He muttered detached words also; the only one I could catch was
the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or
suffering; and spoken as one would speak to a person present; low and
earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul.  I had not courage to walk
straight into the apartment; but I desired to divert him from his
reverie, and therefore fell foul of the kitchen fire, stirred it, and
began to scrape the cinders.  It drew him forth sooner than I expected.
He opened the door immediately, and said--'Nelly, come here--is it
morning?  Come in with your light.'

'It is striking four,' I answered.  'You want a candle to take up-stairs:
you might have lit one at this fire.'

'No, I don't wish to go up-stairs,' he said.  'Come in, and kindle _me_ a
fire, and do anything there is to do about the room.'

'I must blow the coals red first, before I can carry any,' I replied,
getting a chair and the bellows.

He roamed to and fro, meantime, in a state approaching distraction; his
heavy sighs succeeding each other so thick as to leave no space for
common breathing between.

'When day breaks I'll send for Green,' he said; 'I wish to make some
legal inquiries of him while I can bestow a thought on those matters, and
while I can act calmly.  I have not written my will yet; and how to leave
my property I cannot determine.  I wish I could annihilate it from the
face of the earth.'

'I would not talk so, Mr. Heathcliff,' I interposed. 'Let your will be a
while: you'll be spared to repent of your many injustices yet! I never
expected that your nerves would be disordered: they are, at present,
marvellously so, however; and almost entirely through your own fault.
The way you've passed these three last days might knock up a Titan. Do
take some food, and some repose. You need only look at yourself in a
glass to see how you require both. Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes
blood-shot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss
of sleep.'

'It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest,' he replied.  'I assure
you it is through no settled designs.  I'll do both, as soon as I
possibly can.  But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water
rest within arms' length of the shore!  I must reach it first, and then
I'll rest.  Well, never mind Mr. Green: as to repenting of my injustices,
I've done no injustice, and I repent of nothing.  I'm too happy; and yet
I'm not happy enough.  My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not
satisfy itself.'

'Happy, master?' I cried.  'Strange happiness!  If you would hear me
without being angry, I might offer some advice that would make you
happier.'

'What is that?' he asked.  'Give it.'

'You are aware, Mr. Heathcliff,' I said, 'that from the time you were
thirteen years old you have lived a selfish, unchristian life; and
probably hardly had a Bible in your hands during all that period.  You
must have forgotten the contents of the book, and you may not have space
to search it now.  Could it be hurtful to send for some one--some
minister of any denomination, it does not matter which--to explain it,
and show you how very far you have erred from its precepts; and how unfit
you will be for its heaven, unless a change takes place before you die?'

'I'm rather obliged than angry, Nelly,' he said, 'for you remind me of
the manner in which I desire to be buried.  It is to be carried to the
churchyard in the evening.  You and Hareton may, if you please, accompany
me: and mind, particularly, to notice that the sexton obeys my directions
concerning the two coffins!  No minister need come; nor need anything be
said over me.--I tell you I have nearly attained _my_ heaven; and that of
others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me.'

'And supposing you persevered in your obstinate fast, and died by that
means, and they refused to bury you in the precincts of the kirk?' I
said, shocked at his godless indifference.  'How would you like it?'

'They won't do that,' he replied: 'if they did, you must have me removed
secretly; and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically, that the
dead are not annihilated!'

As soon as he heard the other members of the family stirring he retired
to his den, and I breathed freer.  But in the afternoon, while Joseph and
Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again, and, with a
wild look, bid me come and sit in the house: he wanted somebody with him.
I declined; telling him plainly that his strange talk and manner
frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be his
companion alone.

'I believe you think me a fiend,' he said, with his dismal laugh:
'something too horrible to live under a decent roof.'  Then turning to
Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he
added, half sneeringly,--'Will _you_ come, chuck?  I'll not hurt you.  No!
to you I've made myself worse than the devil.  Well, there is _one_ who
won't shrink from my company!  By God! she's relentless.  Oh, damn it!
It's unutterably too much for flesh and blood to bear--even mine.'

He solicited the society of no one more.  At dusk he went into his
chamber.  Through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him
groaning and murmuring to himself.  Hareton was anxious to enter; but I
bid him fetch Mr. Kenneth, and he should go in and see him.  When he
came, and I requested admittance and tried to open the door, I found it
locked; and Heathcliff bid us be damned.  He was better, and would be
left alone; so the doctor went away.

The following evening was very wet: indeed, it poured down till day-dawn;
and, as I took my morning walk round the house, I observed the master's
window swinging open, and the rain driving straight in.  He cannot be in
bed, I thought: those showers would drench him through.  He must either
be up or out.  But I'll make no more ado, I'll go boldly and look.'

Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key, I ran to unclose
the panels, for the chamber was vacant; quickly pushing them aside, I
peeped in.  Mr. Heathcliff was there--laid on his back.  His eyes met
mine so keen and fierce, I started; and then he seemed to smile.  I could
not think him dead: but his face and throat were washed with rain; the
bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still.  The lattice, flapping
to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill; no blood
trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could
doubt no more: he was dead and stark!

I hasped the window; I combed his black long hair from his forehead; I
tried to close his eyes: to extinguish, if possible, that frightful,
life-like gaze of exultation before any one else beheld it. They would
not shut: they seemed to sneer at my attempts; and his parted lips and
sharp white teeth sneered too! Taken with another fit of cowardice, I
cried out for Joseph. Joseph shuffled up and made a noise, but
resolutely refused to meddle with him.

'Th' divil's harried off his soul,' he cried, 'and he may hev' his
carcass into t' bargin, for aught I care!  Ech! what a wicked 'un he
looks, girning at death!' and the old sinner grinned in mockery.  I
thought he intended to cut a caper round the bed; but suddenly composing
himself, he fell on his knees, and raised his hands, and returned thanks
that the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their
rights.

I felt stunned by the awful event; and my memory unavoidably recurred to
former times with a sort of oppressive sadness.  But poor Hareton, the
most wronged, was the only one who really suffered much.  He sat by the
corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest.  He pressed its hand, and
kissed the sarcastic, savage face that every one else shrank from
contemplating; and bemoaned him with that strong grief which springs
naturally from a generous heart, though it be tough as tempered steel.

Mr. Kenneth was perplexed to pronounce of what disorder the master died.
I concealed the fact of his having swallowed nothing for four days,
fearing it might lead to trouble, and then, I am persuaded, he did not
abstain on purpose: it was the consequence of his strange illness, not
the cause.

We buried him, to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood, as he wished.
Earnshaw and I, the sexton, and six men to carry the coffin, comprehended
the whole attendance.  The six men departed when they had let it down
into the grave: we stayed to see it covered.  Hareton, with a streaming
face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself: at
present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds--and I hope
its tenant sleeps as soundly.  But the country folks, if you ask them,
would swear on the Bible that he _walks_: there are those who speak to
having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this
house.  Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I.  Yet that old man by the
kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on 'em looking out of his chamber
window on every rainy night since his death:--and an odd thing happened
to me about a month ago.  I was going to the Grange one evening--a dark
evening, threatening thunder--and, just at the turn of the Heights, I
encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was
crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be
guided.

'What is the matter, my little man?' I asked.

'There's Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t' nab,' he blubbered, 'un'
I darnut pass 'em.'

I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on so I bid him take
the road lower down.  He probably raised the phantoms from thinking, as
he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents
and companions repeat.  Yet, still, I don't like being out in the dark
now; and I don't like being left by myself in this grim house: I cannot
help it; I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange.

'They are going to the Grange, then?' I said.

'Yes,' answered Mrs. Dean, 'as soon as they are married, and that will be
on New Year's Day.'

'And who will live here then?'

'Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him
company.  They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut up.'

'For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it?' I observed.

'No, Mr. Lockwood,' said Nelly, shaking her head.  'I believe the dead
are at peace: but it is not right to speak of them with levity.'

At that moment the garden gate swung to; the ramblers were returning.

'_They_ are afraid of nothing,' I grumbled, watching their approach
through the window.  'Together, they would brave Satan and all his
legions.'

As they stepped on to the door-stones, and halted to take a last look at
the moon--or, more correctly, at each other by her light--I felt
irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and, pressing a remembrance
into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my
rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house-door;
and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his
fellow-servant's gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognised me
for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet.

My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk.
When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in
seven months: many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass; and
slates jutted off here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to
be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.

I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the
moor: the middle one grey, and half buried in the heath; Edgar Linton's
only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's
still bare.

I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths
fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind
breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine
unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.



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Title: The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana
       Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface,
       Introduction and Concluding Remarks

Author: Vatsyayana

Translator: Richard Burton
            Bhagavanlal Indrajit
            Shivaram Parashuram Bhide

Release Date: January 18, 2009 [EBook #27827]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KAMA SUTRA OF VATSYAYANA ***




Produced by Bruce Albrecht, Carla Foust, Jon Noring and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net









Transcriber's note


Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Printer
errors have been changed and are listed at the end.




   THE

   KAMA SUTRA

   OF

   VATSYAYANA.

   TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSCRIT.

   IN SEVEN PARTS,

   WITH

   PREFACE, INTRODUCTION,

   AND

   CONCLUDING REMARKS.

   Reprint:

   _Cosmopoli: MDCCCLXXXIII: for the Kama Shastra Society of
   London and Benares, and for private circulation only._




   DEDICATED

   TO THAT SMALL PORTION OF THE BRITISH PUBLIC
   WHICH TAKES ENLIGHTENED INTEREST IN
   STUDYING THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
   OF THE OLDEN EAST.




PREFACE.


In the literature of all countries there will be found a certain number
of works treating especially of love. Everywhere the subject is dealt
with differently, and from various points of view. In the present
publication it is proposed to give a complete translation of what is
considered the standard work on love in Sanscrit literature, and which
is called the 'Vatsyayana Kama Sutra,' or Aphorisms on Love, by
Vatsyayana.

While the introduction will bear with the evidence concerning the date
of the writing, and the commentaries written upon it, the chapters
following the introduction will give a translation of the work itself.
It is, however, advisable to furnish here a brief analysis of works of
the same nature, prepared by authors who lived and wrote years after
Vatsya had passed away, but who still considered him as a great
authority, and always quoted him as the chief guide to Hindoo erotic
literature.

Besides the treatise of Vatsyayana the following works on the same
subject are procurable in India:--

     1. The Ratirahasya, or secrets of love.

     2. The Panchasakya, or the five arrows.

     3. The Smara Pradipa, or the light of love.

     4. The Ratimanjari, or the garland of love.

     5. The Rasmanjari, or the sprout of love.

     6. The Anunga Runga, or the stage of love; also called
          Kamaledhiplava, or a boat in the ocean of love.

The author of the 'Secrets of Love' (No. 1) was a poet named Kukkoka. He
composed his work to please one Venudutta, who was perhaps a king. When
writing his own name at the end of each chapter he calls himself "Siddha
patiya pandita," _i.e._, an ingenious man among learned men. The work
was translated into Hindi years ago, and in this the author's name was
written as Koka. And as the same name crept into all the translations
into other languages in India, the book became generally known, and the
subject was popularly called Koka Shastra, or doctrines of Koka, which
is identical with the Kama Shastra, or doctrines of love, and the words
Koka Shastra and Kama Shastra are used indiscriminately.

The work contains nearly eight hundred verses, and is divided into ten
chapters, which are called Pachivedas. Some of the things treated of in
this work are not to be found in the Vatsyayana, such as the four
classes of women, viz., the Padmini, Chitrini, Shankini and Hastini, as
also the enumeration of the days and hours on which the women of the
different classes become subject to love. The author adds that he wrote
these things from the opinions of Gonikaputra and Nandikeshwara, both of
whom are mentioned by Vatsyayana, but their works are not now extant. It
is difficult to give any approximate idea as to the year in which the
work was composed. It is only to be presumed that it was written after
that of Vatsyayana, and previous to the other works on this subject that
are still extant. Vatsyayana gives the names of ten authors on the
subject, all of whose works he had consulted, but none of which are
extant, and does not mention this one. This would tend to show that
Kukkoka wrote after Vatsya, otherwise Vatsya would assuredly have
mentioned him as an author in this branch of literature along with the
others.

The author of the 'Five Arrows' (No. 2 in the list) was one Jyotirisha.
He is called the chief ornament of poets, the treasure of the sixty-four
arts, and the best teacher of the rules of music. He says that he
composed the work after reflecting on the aphorisms of love as revealed
by the gods, and studying the opinions of Gonikaputra, Muladeva,
Babhravya, Ramtideva, Nundikeshwara and Kshemandra. It is impossible to
say whether he had perused all the works of these authors, or had only
heard about them; anyhow, none of them appear to be in existence now.
This work contains nearly six hundred verses, and is divided into five
chapters, called Sayakas or Arrows.

The author of the 'Light of Love' (No. 3) was the poet Gunakara, the son
of Vechapati. The work contains four hundred verses, and gives only a
short account of the doctrines of love, dealing more with other
matters.

'The Garland of Love' (No. 4) is the work of the famous poet Jayadeva,
who said about himself that he is a writer on all subjects. This
treatise is, however, very short, containing only one hundred and
twenty-five verses.

The author of the 'Sprout of Love' (No. 5) was a poet called Bhanudatta.
It appears from the last verse of the manuscript that he was a resident
of the province of Tirhoot, the son of a Brahman named Ganeshwar, who
was also a poet. The work, written in Sanscrit, gives the descriptions
of different classes of men and women, their classes being made out from
their age, description, conduct, etc. It contains three chapters, and
its date is not known, and cannot be ascertained.

'The Stage of Love' (No. 6) was composed by the poet Kullianmull, for
the amusement of Ladkhan, the son of Ahmed Lodi, the same Ladkhan being
in some places spoken of as Ladana Mull, and in others as Ladanaballa.
He is supposed to have been a relation or connection of the house of
Lodi, which reigned in Hindostan from A.D. 1450-1526. The work would,
therefore, have been written in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. It
contains ten chapters, and has been translated into English, but only
six copies were printed for private circulation. This is supposed to be
the latest of the Sanscrit works on the subject, and the ideas in it
were evidently taken from previous writings of the same nature.

The contents of these works are in themselves a literary curiosity.
There are to be found both in Sanscrit poetry and in the Sanscrit drama
a certain amount of poetical sentiment and romance, which have, in every
country and in every language, thrown an immortal halo round the
subject. But here it is treated in a plain, simple, matter of fact sort
of way. Men and women are divided into classes and divisions in the same
way that Buffon and other writers on natural history have classified and
divided the animal world. As Venus was represented by the Greeks to
stand forth as the type of the beauty of woman, so the Hindoos describe
the Padmini or Lotus woman as the type of most perfect feminine
excellence, as follows:

She in whom the following signs and symptoms appear is called a Padmini.
Her face is pleasing as the full moon; her body, well clothed with
flesh, is soft as the Shiras or mustard flower, her skin is fine,
tender and fair as the yellow lotus, never dark coloured. Her eyes are
bright and beautiful as the orbs of the fawn, well cut, and with reddish
corners. Her bosom is hard, full and high; she has a good neck; her nose
is straight and lovely, and three folds or wrinkles cross her
middle--about the umbilical region. Her yoni resembles the opening lotus
bud, and her love seed (Kama salila) is perfumed like the lily that has
newly burst. She walks with swan-like gait, and her voice is low and
musical as the note of the Kokila bird, she delights in white raiments,
in fine jewels, and in rich dresses. She eats little, sleeps lightly,
and being as respectful and religious as she is clever and courteous,
she is ever anxious to worship the gods, and to enjoy the conversation
of Brahmans. Such, then, is the Padmini or Lotus woman.

Detailed descriptions then follow of the Chitrini or Art woman; the
Shankhini or Conch woman, and the Hastini or Elephant woman, their days
of enjoyment, their various seats of passion, the manner in which they
should be manipulated and treated in sexual intercourse, along with the
characteristics of the men and women of the various countries in
Hindostan. The details are so numerous, and the subjects so seriously
dealt with, and at such length, that neither time nor space will permit
of their being given here.

One work in the English language is somewhat similar to these works of
the Hindoos. It is called 'Kalogynomia: or the Laws of Female Beauty,'
being the elementary principles of that science, by T. Bell, M.D., with
twenty-four plates, and printed in London in 1821. It treats of Beauty,
of Love, of Sexual Intercourse, of the Laws regulating that Intercourse,
of Monogamy and Polygamy, of Prostitution, of Infidelity, ending with a
_catalogue raisonnée_ of the defects of female beauty.

Other works in English also enter into great details of private and
domestic life. 'The Elements of Social Science, or Physical, Sexual and
Natural Religion,' by a Doctor of Medicine, London, 1880, and 'Every
Woman's Book,' by Dr. Waters, 1826. To persons interested in the above
subjects these works will be found to contain such details as have been
seldom before published, and which ought to be thoroughly understood by
all philanthropists and benefactors of society.

After a perusal of the Hindoo work, and of the English books above
mentioned, the reader will understand the subject, at all events from a
materialistic, realistic and practical point of view. If all science is
founded more or less on a stratum of facts, there can be no harm in
making known to mankind generally certain matters intimately connected
with their private, domestic, and social life.

Alas! complete ignorance of them has unfortunately wrecked many a man
and many a woman, while a little knowledge of a subject generally
ignored by the masses would have enabled numbers of people to have
understood many things which they believed to be quite incomprehensible,
or which were not thought worthy of their consideration.




INTRODUCTION.


It may be interesting to some persons to learn how it came about that
Vatsyayana was first brought to light and translated into the English
language. It happened thus. While translating with the pundits the
'Anunga runga, or the stage of love,' reference was frequently found to
be made to one Vatsya. The sage Vatsya was of this opinion, or of that
opinion. The sage Vatsya said this, and so on. Naturally questions were
asked who the sage was, and the pundits replied that Vatsya was the
author of the standard work on love in Sanscrit literature, that no
Sanscrit library was complete without his work, and that it was most
difficult now to obtain in its entire state. The copy of the manuscript
obtained in Bombay was defective, and so the pundits wrote to Benares,
Calcutta and Jeypoor for copies of the manuscript from Sanscrit
libraries in those places. Copies having been obtained, they were then
compared with each other, and with the aid of a Commentary called
'Jayamangla' a revised copy of the entire manuscript was prepared, and
from this copy the English translation was made. The following is the
certificate of the chief pundit:--

"The accompanying manuscript is corrected by me after comparing four
different copies of the work. I had the assistance of a Commentary
called 'Jayamangla' for correcting the portion in the first five parts,
but found great difficulty in correcting the remaining portion, because,
with the exception of one copy thereof which was tolerably correct, all
the other copies I had were far too incorrect. However, I took that
portion as correct in which the majority of the copies agreed with each
other."

The 'Aphorisms on Love,' by Vatsyayana, contains about one thousand two
hundred and fifty slokas or verses, and are divided into parts, parts
into chapters, and chapters into paragraphs. The whole consists of
seven parts, thirty-six chapters, and sixty-four paragraphs. Hardly
anything is known about the author. His real name is supposed to be
Mallinaga or Mrillana, Vatsyayana being his family name. At the close of
the work this is what he writes about himself:

"After reading and considering the works of Babhravya and other ancient
authors, and thinking over the meaning of the rules given by them, this
treatise was composed, according to the precepts of the Holy Writ, for
the benefit of the world, by Vatsyayana, while leading the life of a
religious student at Benares, and wholly engaged in the contemplation of
the Deity. This work is not to be used merely as an instrument for
satisfying our desires. A person acquainted with the true principles of
this science, who preserves his Dharma (virtue or religious merit), his
Artha (worldly wealth) and his Kama (pleasure or sensual gratification),
and who has regard to the customs of the people, is sure to obtain the
mastery over his senses. In short, an intelligent and knowing person,
attending to Dharma and Artha and also to Kama, without becoming the
slave of his passions, will obtain success in everything that he may
do."

It is impossible to fix the exact date either of the life of Vatsyayana
or of his work. It is supposed that he must have lived between the first
and the sixth centuries of the Christian era, on the following
grounds:--He mentions that Satkarni Srtvahan, a king of Kuntal, killed
Malayevati his wife with an instrument called kartari by striking her in
the passion of love, and Vatsya quotes this case to warn people of the
danger arising from some old customs of striking women when under the
influence of this passion. Now this king of Kuntal is believed to have
lived and reigned during the first century A.C., and consequently Vatsya
must have lived after him. On the other hand, Virahamihira, in the
eighteenth chapter of his 'Brihatsanhita,' treats of the science of
love, and appears to have borrowed largely from Vatsyayana on the
subject. Now Virahamihira is said to have lived during the sixth century
A.D., and as Vatsya must have written his works previously, therefore
not earlier than the first century, A.C., and not later than the sixth
century A.D., must be considered as the approximate date of his
existence.

On the text of the 'Aphorisms on Love,' by Vatsyayana, only two
commentaries have been found. One called 'Jayamangla' or 'Sutrabashya,'
and the other 'Sutra vritti.' The date of the 'Jayamangla' is fixed
between the tenth and thirteenth centuries A.D., because while treating
of the sixty-four arts an example is taken from the 'Kávyaprakásha,'
which was written about the tenth century A.D. Again, the copy of the
commentary procured was evidently a transcript of a manuscript which
once had a place in the library of a Chaulukyan king named Vishaladeva,
a fact elicited from the following sentence at the end of it:--

"Here ends the part relating to the art of love in the commentary on the
'Vatsyayana Kama Sutra,' a copy from the library of the king of kings,
Vishaladeva, who was a powerful hero, as it were a second Arjuna, and
head jewel of the Chaulukya family."

Now it is well known that this king ruled in Guzerat from 1244 to 1262
A.D., and founded a city called Visalnagur. The date, therefore, of the
commentary is taken to be not earlier than the tenth and not later than
the thirteenth century. The author of it is supposed to be one
Yashodhara, the name given him by his preceptor being Indrapada. He
seems to have written it during the time of affliction caused by his
separation from a clever and shrewd woman, at least that is what he
himself says at the end of each chapter. It is presumed that he called
his work after the name of his absent mistress, or the word may have
some connection with the meaning of her name.

This commentary was most useful in explaining the true meaning of
Vatsyayana, for the commentator appears to have had a considerable
knowledge of the times of the older author, and gives in some places
very minute information. This cannot be said of the other commentary,
called "Sutra vritti," which was written about A.D., by Narsing Shastri,
a pupil of a Sarveshwar Shastri; the latter was a descendant of Bhaskur,
and so also was our author, for at the conclusion of every part he calls
himself Bhaskur Narsing Shastra. He was induced to write the work by
order of the learned Raja Vrijalala, while he was residing in Benares,
but as to the merits of this commentary it does not deserve much
commendation. In many cases the writer does not appear to have
understood the meaning of the original author, and has changed the text
in many places to fit in with his own explanations.

A complete translation of the original work now follows. It has been
prepared in complete accordance with the text of the manuscript, and is
given, without further comments, as made from it.




PART I.

THE VATSYAYANA SUTRA.

INTRODUCTORY PREFACE.

SALUTATION TO DHARMA, ARTHA AND KAMA.


In the beginning, the Lord of Beings created men and women, and in the
form of commandments in one hundred thousand chapters laid down rules
for regulating their existence with regard to Dharma,[1] Artha,[2] and
Kama.[3] Some of these commandments, namely those which treated of
Dharma, were separately written by Swayambhu Manu; those that related to
Artha were compiled by Brihaspati; and those that referred to Kama were
expounded by Nandi, the follower of Mahadeva, in one thousand chapters.

Now these 'Kama Sutra' (Aphorisms on Love), written by Nandi in one
thousand chapters, were reproduced by Shvetaketu, the son of Uddvalaka,
in an abbreviated form in five hundred chapters, and this work was again
similarly reproduced in an abridged form, in one hundred and fifty
chapters, by Babhravya, an inhabitant of the Punchala (South of Delhi)
country. These one hundred and fifty chapters were then put together
under seven heads or parts named severally--

1st. Sadharana (general topics).

2nd. Samprayogika (embraces, etc.).

3rd. Kanya Samprayuktaka (union of males and females).

4th. Bharyadhikarika (on one's own wife).

5th. Paradika (on the wives of other people).

6th. Vaisika (on courtesans).

7th. Aupamishadika (on the arts of seduction, tonic medicines, etc.).

The sixth part of this last work was separately expounded by Dattaka at
the request of the public women of Pataliputra (Patna), and in the same
way Charayana explained the first part of it. The remaining parts, viz.,
the second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh were each separately
expounded by--

Suvarnanabha (second part).

Ghotakamukha (third part).

Gonardiya (fourth part).

Gonikaputra (fifth part).

Kuchumara (seventh part), respectively.

Thus the work being written in parts by different authors was almost
unobtainable, and as the parts which were expounded by Dattaka and the
others treated only of the particular branches of the subject to which
each part related, and moreover as the original work of Babhravya was
difficult to be mastered on account of its length, Vatsyayana,
therefore, composed his work in a small volume as an abstract of the
whole of the works of the above-named authors.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Dharma is acquisition of religious merit, and is fully
described in Chapter 5, Volume III., of Talboys Wheeler's 'History of
India,' and in the edicts of Asoka.]

[Footnote 2: Artha is acquisition of wealth and property, etc.]

[Footnote 3: Kama is love, pleasure and sensual gratification.

These three words are retained throughout in their original, as
technical terms. They may also be defined as virtue, wealth and
pleasure, the three things repeatedly spoken of in the Laws of Manu.]




PART I.


CHAPTER I.

BEING THE INDEX TO OR CONTENTS OF THE WORK.


     Chapter II. Observations on the three worldly attainments of
                    Virtue, Wealth and Love.

        "   III. On the study of the Sixty-four Arts.

        "    IV. On the Arrangements of a House, and Household Furniture;
                    and about the Daily Life of a Citizen, his
                    Companions, Amusements, &c.

        "     V. About classes of Women fit and unfit for Congress with
                    the Citizen, and of Friends, and Messengers.


PART II.

ON SEXUAL UNION.

     Chapter I. Kinds of Union according to Dimensions, Force of Desire,
                   and Time; and on the different kinds of Love.

        "   II. Of the Embrace.

        "  III. On Kissing.

        "   IV. On Pressing or Marking with the Nails.

        "    V. On Biting, and the ways of Love to be employed with
                   regard to Women of different countries.

        "   VI. On the various ways of Lying Down, and the different
                   kinds of Congress.

        "  VII. On the various ways of Striking, and of the Sounds
                   appropriate to them.

        " VIII. About females acting the part of Males.

        "   IX. On holding the Lingam in the Mouth.

        "    X. How to begin and how to end the Congress. Different
                   kinds of Congress, and Love Quarrels.


PART III.

ABOUT THE ACQUISITION OF A WIFE.

     Chapter I. Observations on Betrothal and Marriage.

        "   II. About creating Confidence in the Girl.

        "  III. Courtship, and the manifestations of the feelings by
                   outward signs and deeds.

        "   IV. On things to be done only by the Man, and the
                   acquisition of the Girl thereby. Also what to be done
                   by a Girl to gain over a Man and subject him to her.

        "    V. On the different Forms of Marriage.


PART IV.

ABOUT A WIFE.

     Chapter I. On the manner of living of a virtuous Woman, and of her
                   behaviour during the absence of her Husband.

        "   II. On the conduct of the eldest Wife towards the other
                   Wives of her husband, and of the younger Wife towards
                   the elder ones. Also on the conduct of a Virgin Widow
                   re-married; of a Wife disliked by her Husband; of the
                   Women in the King's Harem; and of a Husband who has
                   more than one Wife.


PART V.

ABOUT THE WIVES OF OTHER PEOPLE.

     Chapter I. On the Characteristics of Men and Women, and the reason
                   why Women reject the Addresses of Men. About Men who
                   have Success with Women, and about Women who are
                   easily gained over.

        "   II. About making Acquaintance with the Woman, and of the
                   efforts to gain her over.

        "  III. Examination of the State of a Woman's mind.

        "   IV. The business of a Go-between.

        "    V. On the Love of Persons in authority with the Wives of
                   other People.

        "   VI. About the Women of the Royal Harem, and of the keeping
                   of one's own Wife.


PART VI.

ABOUT COURTESANS.

     Chapter I. Of the Causes of a Courtesan resorting to Men; of the
                   means of Attaching to herself the Man desired, and
                   the kind of Man that it is desirable to be acquainted
                   with.

        "   II. Of a Courtesan living with a Man as his Wife.

        "  III. Of the means of getting Money; of the Signs of a Lover
                   who is beginning to be weary, and of the way to get
                   rid of him.

        "   IV. About a Re-union with a former Lover.

        "    V. Of different kinds of Gain.

        "   VI. Of Gains and Losses, attendant Gains and Losses, and
                   Doubts; and lastly, the different kinds of
                   Courtesans.


PART VII.

ON THE MEANS OF ATTRACTING OTHERS TO ONE'S SELF.

     Chapter I. On Personal Adornment, subjugating the hearts of others,
                   and of tonic medicines.

        "   II. Of the Means of exciting Desire, and of the ways of
                   enlarging the Lingam. Miscellaneous Experiments and
                   Receipts.




PART I.




CHAPTER II.

ON THE ACQUISITION OF DHARMA, ARTHA AND KAMA.


Man, the period of whose life is one hundred years, should practise
Dharma, Artha, and Kama at different times and in such a manner that
they may harmonize together and not clash in any way. He should acquire
learning in his childhood, in his youth and middle age he should attend
to Artha and Kama, and in his old age he should perform Dharma, and thus
seek to gain Moksha, _i.e._, release from further transmigration. Or, on
account of the uncertainty of life, he may practise them at times when
they are enjoined to be practised. But one thing is to be noted, he
should lead the life of a religious student until he finishes his
education.

_Dharma_ is obedience to the command of the Shastra or Holy Writ of the
Hindoos to do certain things, such as the performance of sacrifices,
which are not generally done because they do not belong to this world,
and produce no visible effect; and not to do other things, such as
eating meat, which is often done because it belongs to this world, and
has visible effects.

Dharma should be learnt from the Shruti (Holy Writ), and from those
conversant with it.

_Artha_ is the acquisition of arts, land, gold, cattle, wealth,
equipages and friends. It is, further, the protection of what is
acquired, and the increase of what is protected.

Artha should be learnt from the king's officers, and from merchants who
may be versed in the ways of commerce.

_Kama_ is the enjoyment of appropriate objects by the five senses of
hearing, feeling, seeing, tasting, and smelling, assisted by the mind
together with the soul. The ingredient in this is a peculiar contact
between the organ of sense and its object, and the consciousness of
pleasure which arises from that contact is called Kama.

Kama is to be learnt from the Kama Sutra (aphorisms on love) and from
the practice of citizens.

When all the three, viz., Dharma, Artha, and Kama come together, the
former is better than the one which follows it, _i.e._, Dharma is better
than Artha, and Artha is better than Kama. But Artha should be always
first practised by the king, for the livelihood of men is to be obtained
from it only. Again, Kama being the occupation of public women, they
should prefer it to the other two, and these are exceptions to the
general rule.


_Objection 1._

Some learned men say that as Dharma is connected with things not
belonging to this world, it is appropriately treated of in a book; and
so also is Artha, because it is practised only by the application of
proper means, and a knowledge of those means can only be obtained by
study and from books. But Kama being a thing which is practised even by
the brute creation, and which is to be found everywhere, does not want
any work on the subject.


_Answer._

This is not so. Sexual intercourse being a thing dependent on man and
woman requires the application of proper means by them, and those means
are to be learnt from the Kama Shastra. The non-application of proper
means, which we see in the brute creation, is caused by their being
unrestrained, and by the females among them only being fit for sexual
intercourse at certain seasons and no more, and by their intercourse not
being preceded by thought of any kind.


_Objection 2._

The Lokayatikas[4] say:--Religious ordinances should not be observed,
for they bear a future fruit, and at the same time it is also doubtful
whether they will bear any fruit at all. What foolish person will give
away that which is in his own hands into the hands of another?
Moreover, it is better to have a pigeon to-day than a peacock to-morrow;
and a copper coin which we have the certainty of obtaining, is better
than a gold coin, the possession of which is doubtful.


_Answer._

It is not so. 1st. Holy Writ, which ordains the practice of Dharma, does
not admit of a doubt.

2nd. Sacrifices such as those made for the destruction of enemies, or
for the fall of rain, are seen to bear fruit.

3rd. The sun, moon, stars, planets and other heavenly bodies appear to
work intentionally for the good of the world.

4th. The existence of this world is effected by the observance of the
rules respecting the four classes[5] of men and their four stages of
life.

5th. We see that seed is thrown into the ground with the hope of future
crops.

Vatsyayana is therefore of opinion that the ordinances of religion must
be obeyed.


_Objection 3._

Those who believe that destiny is the prime mover of all things say:--We
should not exert ourselves to acquire wealth, for sometimes it is not
acquired although we strive to get it, while at other times it comes to
us of itself without any exertion on our part. Everything is therefore
in the power of destiny, who is the lord of gain and loss, of success
and defeat, of pleasure and pain. Thus we see the Bali[6] was raised to
the throne of Indra by destiny, and was also put down by the same power,
and it is destiny only that can re-instate him.


_Answer._

It is not right to say so. As the acquisition of every object
pre-supposes at all events some exertion on the part of man, the
application of proper means may be said to be the cause of gaining all
our ends, and this application of proper means being thus necessary
(even where a thing is destined to happen), it follows that a person who
does nothing will enjoy no happiness.


_Objection 4._

Those who are inclined to think that Artha is the chief object to be
obtained argue thus. Pleasures should not be sought for, because they
are obstacles to the practice of Dharma and Artha, which are both
superior to them, and are also disliked by meritorious persons.
Pleasures also bring a man into distress, and into contact with low
persons; they cause him to commit unrighteous deeds, and produce
impurity in him; they make him regardless of the future, and encourage
carelessness and levity. And lastly, they cause him to be disbelieved by
all, received by none, and despised by everybody, including himself. It
is notorious, moreover, that many men who have given themselves up to
pleasure alone, have been ruined along with their families and
relations. Thus, King Dandakya,[7] of the Bhoja dynasty, carried off a
Brahman's daughter with evil intent, and was eventually ruined and lost
his kingdom. Indra, too, having violated the chastity of Ahalya,[8] was
made to suffer for it. In a like manner the mighty Kichaka,[9] who tried
to seduce Draupadi, and Ravana,[10] who attempted to gain over Sita, were
punished for their crimes. These and many others fell by reason of their
pleasures.


_Answer._

This objection cannot be sustained, for pleasures, being as necessary
for the existence and well being of the body as food, are consequently
equally required. They are, moreover, the results of Dharma and Artha.
Pleasures are, therefore, to be followed with moderation and caution. No
one refrains from cooking food because there are beggars to ask for it,
or from sowing seed because there are deer to destroy the corn when it
is grown up.

Thus a man practising Dharma, Artha and Kama enjoys happiness both in
this world and in the world to come. The good perform those actions in
which there is no fear as to what is to result from them in the next
world, and in which there is no danger to their welfare. Any action
which conduces to the practice of Dharma, Artha and Kama together, or of
any two, or even one of them, should be performed, but an action which
conduces to the practice of one of them at the expense of the remaining
two should not be performed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: These were certainly materialists who seemed to think that
a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush.]

[Footnote 5: Among the Hindoos the four classes of men are the Brahmans
or priestly class, the Kshutrya or warlike class, the Vaishya or
agricultural and mercantile class, and the Shoodra or menial class. The
four stages of life are, the life of a religious student, the life of a
householder, the life of a hermit, and the life of a Sunyasi or
devotee.]

[Footnote 6: Bali was a demon who had conquered Indra and gained his
throne, but was afterwards overcome by Vishnu at the time of his fifth
incarnation.]

[Footnote 7: Dandakya is said to have abducted from the forest the
daughter of a Brahman, named Bhargava, and being cursed by the Brahman,
was buried with his kingdom under a shower of dust. The place was called
after his name the Dandaka forest, celebrated in the Ramayana, but now
unknown.]

[Footnote 8: Ahalya was the wife of the sage Gautama. Indra caused her
to believe that he was Gautama, and thus enjoyed her. He was cursed by
Gautama and subsequently afflicted with a thousand ulcers on his body.]

[Footnote 9: Kichaka was the brother-in-law of King Virata, with whom
the Pandavas had taken refuge for one year. Kichaka was killed by Bhima,
who assumed the disguise of Draupadi. For this story the Mahabarata
should be referred to.]

[Footnote 10: The story of Ravana is told in the Ramayana, which with the
Mahabarata form the two great epic poems of the Hindoos; the latter was
written by Vyasa, and the former by Valmiki.]




CHAPTER III.

ON THE ARTS AND SCIENCES TO BE STUDIED.


Man should study the Kama Sutra and the arts and sciences subordinate
thereto, in addition to the study of the arts and sciences contained in
Dharma and Artha. Even young maids should study this Kama Sutra along
with its arts and sciences before marriage, and after it they should
continue to do so with the consent of their husbands.

Here some learned men object, and say that females, not being allowed to
study any science, should not study the Kama Sutra.

But Vatsyayana is of opinion that this objection does not hold good, for
women already know the practice of Kama Sutra, and that practice is
derived from the Kama Shastra, or the science of Kama itself. Moreover,
it is not only in this but in many other cases that though the practice
of a science is known to all, only a few persons are acquainted with the
rules and laws on which the science is based. Thus the Yadnikas or
sacrificers, though ignorant of grammar, make use of appropriate words
when addressing the different Deities, and do not know how these words
are framed. Again, persons do the duties required of them on auspicious
days, which are fixed by astrology, though they are not acquainted with
the science of astrology. In a like manner riders of horses and
elephants train these animals without knowing the science of training
animals, but from practice only. And similarly the people of the most
distant provinces obey the laws of the kingdom from practice, and
because there is a king over them, and without further reason.[11] And
from experience we find that some women, such as daughters of princes
and their ministers, and public women, are actually versed in the Kama
Shastra.

A female, therefore, should learn the Kama Shastra, or at least a part
of it, by studying its practice from some confidential friend. She
should study alone in private the sixty-four practices that form a part
of the Kama Shastra. Her teacher should be one of the following persons,
viz., the daughter of a nurse brought up with her and already
married,[12] or a female friend who can be trusted in everything, or the
sister of her mother (_i.e._, her aunt), or an old female servant, or a
female beggar who may have formerly lived in the family, or her own
sister, who can always be trusted.

The following are the arts to be studied, together with the Kama
Sutra:--

1. Singing.

2. Playing on musical instruments.

3. Dancing.

4. Union of dancing, singing, and playing instrumental music.

5. Writing and drawing.

6. Tattooing.

7. Arraying and adorning an idol with rice and flowers.

8. Spreading and arraying beds or couches of flowers, or flowers upon
the ground.

9. Colouring the teeth, garments, hair, nails, and bodies, _i.e._,
staining, dyeing, colouring and painting the same.

10. Fixing stained glass into a floor.

11. The art of making beds, and spreading out carpets and cushions for
reclining.

12. Playing on musical glasses filled with water.

13. Storing and accumulating water in aqueducts, cisterns and
reservoirs.

14. Picture making, trimming and decorating.

15. Stringing of rosaries, necklaces, garlands and wreaths.

16. Binding of turbans and chaplets, and making crests and top-knots of
flowers.

17. Scenic representations. Stage playing.

18. Art of making ear ornaments.

19. Art of preparing perfumes and odours.

20. Proper disposition of jewels and decorations, and adornment in
dress.

21. Magic or sorcery.

22. Quickness of hand or manual skill.

23. Culinary art, _i.e._, cooking and cookery.

24. Making lemonades, sherbets, acidulated drinks, and spirituous
extracts with proper flavour and colour.

25. Tailor's work and sewing.

26. Making parrots, flowers, tufts, tassels, bunches, bosses, knobs,
&c., out of yarn or thread.

27. Solution of riddles, enigmas, covert speeches, verbal puzzles and
enigmatical questions.

28. A game, which consisted in repeating verses, and as one person
finished, another person had to commence at once, repeating another
verse, beginning with the same letter with which the last speaker's
verse ended, whoever failed to repeat was considered to have lost, and
to be subject to pay a forfeit or stake of some kind.

29. The art of mimicry or imitation.

30. Reading, including chanting and intoning.

31. Study of sentences difficult to pronounce. It is played as a game
chiefly by women and children, and consists of a difficult sentence
being given, and when repeated quickly, the words are often transposed
or badly pronounced.

32. Practice with sword, single stick, quarter staff, and bow and arrow.

33. Drawing inferences, reasoning or inferring.

34. Carpentry, or the work of a carpenter.

35. Architecture, or the art of building.

36. Knowledge about gold and silver coins, and jewels and gems.

37. Chemistry and mineralogy.

38. Colouring jewels, gems and beads.

39. Knowledge of mines and quarries.

40. Gardening; knowledge of treating the diseases of trees and plants,
of nourishing them, and determining their ages.

41. Art of cock fighting, quail fighting and ram fighting.

42. Art of teaching parrots and starlings to speak.

43. Art of applying perfumed ointments to the body, and of dressing the
hair with unguents and perfumes and braiding it.

44. The art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words
in a peculiar way.

45. The art of speaking by changing the forms of words. It is of various
kinds. Some speak by changing the beginning and end of words, others by
adding unnecessary letters between every syllable of a word, and so on.

46. Knowledge of language and of the vernacular dialects.

47. Art of making flower carriages.

48. Art of framing mystical diagrams, of addressing spells and charms,
and binding armlets.

49. Mental exercises, such as completing stanzas or verses on receiving
a part of them; or supplying one, two or three lines when the remaining
lines are given indiscriminately from different verses, so as to make
the whole an entire verse with regard to its meaning; or arranging the
words of a verse written irregularly by separating the vowels from the
consonants, or leaving them out altogether; or putting into verse or
prose sentences represented by signs or symbols. There are many other
such exercises.

50. Composing poems.

51. Knowledge of dictionaries and vocabularies.

52. Knowledge of ways of changing and disguising the appearance of
persons.

53. Knowledge of the art of changing the appearance of things, such as
making cotton to appear as silk, coarse and common things to appear as
fine and good.

54. Various ways of gambling.

55. Art of obtaining possession of the property of others by means of
muntras or incantations.

56. Skill in youthful sports.

57. Knowledge of the rules of society, and of how to pay respects and
compliments to others.

58. Knowledge of the art of war, of arms, of armies, &c.

59. Knowledge of gymnastics.

60. Art of knowing the character of a man from his features.

61. Knowledge of scanning or constructing verses.

62. Arithmetical recreations.

63. Making artificial flowers.

64. Making figures and images in clay.

A public woman, endowed with a good disposition, beauty and other
winning qualities, and also versed in the above arts, obtains the name
of a Ganika, or public woman of high quality, and receives a seat of
honour in an assemblage of men. She is, moreover, always respected by
the king, and praised by learned men, and her favour being sought for by
all, she becomes an object of universal regard. The daughter of a king
too, as well as the daughter of a minister, being learned in the above
arts, can make their husbands favourable to them, even though these may
have thousands of other wives besides themselves. And in the same
manner, if a wife becomes separated from her husband, and falls into
distress, she can support herself easily, even in a foreign country, by
means of her knowledge of these arts. Even the bare knowledge of them
gives attractiveness to a woman, though the practice of them may be only
possible or otherwise according to the circumstances of each case. A man
who is versed in these arts, who is loquacious and acquainted with the
arts of gallantry, gains very soon the hearts of women, even though he
is only acquainted with them for a short time.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 11: The author wishes to prove that a great many things are
done by people from practice and custom, without their being acquainted
with the reason of things, or the laws on which they are based, and this
is perfectly true.]

[Footnote 12: The proviso of being married applies to all the teachers.]




CHAPTER IV.

THE LIFE OF A CITIZEN.[13]


Having thus acquired learning, a man, with the wealth that he may have
gained by gift, conquest, purchase, deposit,[14] or inheritance from his
ancestors, should become a householder, and pass the life of a citizen.
He should take a house in a city, or large village, or in the vicinity
of good men, or in a place which is the resort of many persons. This
abode should be situated near some water, and divided into different
compartments for different purposes. It should be surrounded by a
garden, and also contain two rooms, an outer and an inner one. The inner
room should be occupied by the females, while the outer room, balmy with
rich perfumes, should contain a bed, soft, agreeable to the sight
covered with a clean white cloth, low in the middle part, having
garlands and bunches of flowers[15] upon it, and a canopy above it, and
two pillows, one at the top, another at the bottom. There should be also
a sort of couch besides, and at the head of this a sort of stool, on
which should be placed the fragrant ointments for the night, as well as
flowers, pots containing collyrium and other fragrant substances, things
used for perfuming the mouth, and the bark of the common citron tree.
Near the couch, on the ground, there should be a pot for spitting, a box
containing ornaments, and also a lute hanging from a peg made of the
tooth of an elephant, a board for drawing, a pot containing perfume,
some books, and some garlands of the yellow amaranth flowers. Not far
from the couch, and on the ground, there should be a round seat, a toy
cart, and a board for playing with dice; outside the outer room
there should be cages of birds,[16] and a separate place for spinning,
carving, and such like diversions. In the garden there should be a
whirling swing and a common swing, as also a bower of creepers covered
with flowers, in which a raised parterre should be made for sitting.

Now the householder having got up in the morning and performed his
necessary duties,[17] should wash his teeth, apply a limited quantity of
ointments and perfumes to his body, put some ornaments on his person and
collyrium on his eyelids and below his eyes, colour his lips with
alacktaka,[18] and look at himself in the glass. Having then eaten betel
leaves, with other things that give fragrance to the mouth, he should
perform his usual business. He should bathe daily, anoint his body with
oil every other day, apply a lathering[19] substance to his body every
three days, get his head (including face) shaved every four days, and
the other parts of his body every five or ten days.[20] All these things
should be done without fail, and the sweat of the armpits should also be
removed. Meals should be taken in the forenoon, in the afternoon, and
again at night, according to Charayana. After breakfast, parrots and
other birds should be taught to speak, and the fighting of cocks,
quails, and rams should follow. A limited time should be devoted to
diversions with Pithamardas, Vitas, and Vidushakas,[21] and then should
be taken the midday sleep.[22] After this the householder, having put on
his clothes and ornaments, should, during the afternoon, converse with
his friends. In the evening there should be singing, and after that the
householder, along with his friend, should await in his room, previously
decorated and perfumed, the arrival of the woman that may be attached to
him, or he may send a female messenger for her, or go for her himself.
After her arrival at his house, he and his friend should welcome her,
and entertain her with a loving and agreeable conversation. Thus end the
duties of the day.

The following are the things to be done occasionally as diversions or
amusements.

1. Holding festivals[23] in honour of different Deities.

2. Social gatherings of both sexes.

3. Drinking parties.

4. Picnics.

5. Other social diversions.


_Festivals._

On some particular auspicious day, an assembly of citizens should be
convened in the temple of Saraswati.[24] There the skill of singers, and
of others who may have come recently to the town, should be tested, and
on the following day they should always be given some rewards. After
that they may either be retained or dismissed, according as their
performances are liked or not by the assembly. The members of the
assembly should act in concert, both in times of distress as well as in
times of prosperity, and it is also the duty of these citizens to show
hospitality to strangers who may have come to the assembly. What is said
above should be understood to apply to all the other festivals which may
be held in honour of the different Deities, according to the present
rules.


_Social Gatherings._

When men of the same age, disposition and talents, fond of the same
diversions and with the same degree of education, sit together in
company with public women,[25] or in an assembly of citizens, or at the
abode of one among themselves, and engage in agreeable discourse with
each other, such is called a sitting in company or a social gathering.
The subjects of discourse are to be the completion of verses half
composed by others, and the testing the knowledge of one another in the
various arts. The women who may be the most beautiful, who may like the
same things that the men like, and who may have power to attract the
minds of others, are here done homage to.


_Drinking Parties._

Men and women should drink in one another's houses. And here the men
should cause the public women to drink, and should then drink
themselves, liquors such as the Madhu, Aireya, Sara, and Asawa, which
are of bitter and sour taste; also drinks concocted from the barks of
various trees, wild fruits and leaves.


_Going to Gardens or Picnics._

In the forenoon, men, having dressed themselves should go to gardens on
horseback, accompanied by public women and followed by servants. And
having done there all the duties of the day, and passed the time in
various agreeable diversions, such as the fighting of quails, cocks and
rams, and other spectacles, they should return home in the afternoon in
the same manner, bringing with them bunches of flowers, &c.

The same also applies to bathing in summer in water from which wicked or
dangerous animals have previously been taken out, and which has been
built in on all sides.


_Other Social Diversions._

Spending nights playing with dice. Going out on moonlight nights.
Keeping the festive day in honour of spring. Plucking the sprouts and
fruits of the mangoe trees. Eating the fibres of lotuses. Eating the
tender ears of corn. Picnicing in the forests when the trees get their
new foliage. The Udakakashvedika or sporting in the water. Decorating
each other with the flowers of some trees. Pelting each other with the
flowers of the Kadamba tree, and many other sports which may either be
known to the whole country, or may be peculiar to particular parts of
it. These and similar other amusements should always be carried on by
citizens.

The above amusements should be followed by a person who diverts himself
alone in company with a courtesan, as well as by a courtesan who can do
the same in company with her maid servants or with citizens.

A Pithamarda[26] is a man without wealth, alone in the world, whose only
property consists of his Mallika,[27] some lathering, substance and a
red cloth, who comes from a good country, and who is skilled in all the
arts; and by teaching these arts is received in the company of citizens,
and in the abode of public women.

A Vita[28] is a man who has enjoyed the pleasures of fortune, who is a
compatriot of the citizens with whom he associates, who is possessed of
the qualities of a householder, who has his wife with him, and who is
honoured in the assembly of citizens, and in the abodes of public women,
and lives on their means and on them.

A Vidushaka[29] (also called a Vaihasaka, _i.e._, one who provokes
laughter) is a person only acquainted with some of the arts who is a
jester, and who is trusted by all.

These persons are employed in matters of quarrels and reconciliations
between citizens and public women.

This remark applies also to female beggars, to women with their heads
shaved, to adulterous women, and to old public women skilled in all the
various arts.

Thus a citizen living in his town or village, respected by all, should
call on the persons of his own caste who may be worth knowing. He should
converse in company and gratify his friends by his society, and obliging
others by his assistance in various matters, he should cause them to
assist one another in the same way.

There are some verses on this subject as follows:--

A citizen discoursing, not entirely in the Sanscrit language,[30] nor
wholly in the dialects of the country, on various topics in society,
obtains great respect. The wise should not resort to a society disliked
by the public, governed by no rules, and intent on the destruction of
others. But a learned man living in a society which acts according to
the wishes of the people, and which has pleasure for its only object is
highly respected in this world.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 13: This term would appear to apply generally to an inhabitant
of Hindoostan. It is not meant only for a dweller in a city, like the
Latin Urbanus as opposed to Rusticus.]

[Footnote 14: Gift is peculiar to a Brahman, conquest to a Kshatrya,
while purchase, deposit, and other means of acquiring wealth belongs to
the Vaishya.]

[Footnote 15: Natural garden flowers.]

[Footnote 16: Such as quails, partridges, parrots, starlings, &c.]

[Footnote 17: The calls of nature always performed by the Hindoos the
first thing in the morning.]

[Footnote 18: A colour made from lac.]

[Footnote 19: This would act instead of soap, which was not introduced
until the rule of the Mahomedans.]

[Footnote 20: Ten days are allowed when the hair is taken out with a pair
of pincers.]

[Footnote 21: These are characters generally introduced in the Hindoo
drama; their characteristics will be explained further on.]

[Footnote 22: Noonday sleep is only allowed in summer, when the nights
are short.]

[Footnote 23: These are very common in all parts of India.]

[Footnote 24: In the 'Asiatic Miscellany,' and in Sir W. Jones's works,
will be found a spirited hymn addressed to this goddess, who is adored
as the patroness of the fine arts, especially of music and rhetoric, as
the inventress of the Sanscrit language, &c., &c. She is the goddess of
harmony, eloquence, and language, and is somewhat analogous to Minerva.
For further information about her, see Edward Moor's 'Hindoo Pantheon.']

[Footnote 25: The public women, or courtesans (Vesya), of the early
Hindoos have often been compared with the Hetera of the Greeks. The
subject is dealt with at some length in H. H. Wilson's 'Select Specimens
of the Theatre of the Hindoos,' in two volumes, Trubner & Co., 1871. It
may be fairly considered that the courtesan was one of the elements, and
an important element too, of early Hindoo society, and that her
education and intellect were both superior to that of the women of the
household. Wilson says, "By the Vesya or courtesan, however, we are not
to understand a female who has disregarded the obligation of law or the
precepts of virtue, but a character reared by a state of manners
unfriendly to the admission of wedded females into society, and opening
it only at the expense of reputation to women who were trained for
association with men by personal and mental acquirements to which the
matron was a stranger."]

[Footnote 26: According to this description a Pithamarda would be a sort
of professor of all the arts, and as such received as the friend and
confidant of the citizens.]

[Footnote 27: A seat in the form of the letter T.]

[Footnote 28: The Vita is supposed to represent somewhat the character
of the Parasite of the Greek comedy. It is possible that he was retained
about the person of the wealthy and dissipated as a kind of private
instructor, as well as an entertaining companion.]

[Footnote 29: Vidushaka is evidently the buffoon and jester. Wilson says
of him that he is the humble companion, not the servant, of a prince or
man of rank, and it is a curious peculiarity that he is always a
Brahman. He bears more affinity to Sancho Panza, perhaps, than any other
character in western fiction, imitating him in his combination of
shrewdness and simplicity, his fondness of good living and his love of
ease. In the dramas of intrigue he exhibits some of the talents of
Mercury, but with less activity and ingenuity, and occasionally suffers
by his interference. According to the technical definition of his
attributes he is to excite mirth by being ridiculous in person, age, and
attire.]

[Footnote 30: This means, it is presumed, that the citizen should be
acquainted with several languages. The middle part of this paragraph
might apply to the Nihilists and Fenians of the day, or to secret
societies. It was perhaps a reference to the Thugs.]




CHAPTER V.

ABOUT THE KINDS OF WOMEN RESORTED TO BY THE CITIZENS, AND OF FRIENDS AND
MESSENGERS.


When Kama is practised by men of the four castes according to the rules
of the Holy Writ (_i.e._, by lawful marriage) with virgins of their own
caste, it then becomes a means of acquiring lawful progeny and good
fame, and it is not also opposed to the customs of the world. On the
contrary the practice of Kama with women of the higher castes, and with
those previously enjoyed by others, even though they be of the same
caste, is prohibited. But the practice of Kama with women of the lower
castes, with women excommunicated from their own caste, with public
women, and with women twice married,[31] is neither enjoined nor
prohibited. The object of practising Kama with such women is pleasure
only.

Nayikas,[32] therefore, are of three kinds, viz., maids, women twice
married, and public women. Gonikaputra has expressed an opinion that
there is a fourth kind of Nayika, viz., a woman who is resorted to on
some special occasion even though she be previously married to another.
These special occasions are when a man thinks thus:--

     (_a_). This woman is self-willed, and has been previously enjoyed
              by many others besides myself. I may, therefore, safely
              resort to her as to a public woman though she belongs to a
              higher caste than mine, and in so doing I shall not be
              violating the ordinances of
              Dharma.

Or thus:--

     (_b_). This is a twice-married woman and has been enjoyed by others
              before me, there is, therefore, no objection to my
              resorting to her.

Or thus:--

     (_c_). This woman has gained the heart of her great and powerful
              husband, and exercises a mastery over him, who is a friend
              of my enemy; if, therefore, she becomes united with me,
              she will cause her husband to abandon my enemy.

Or thus:--

     (_d_). This woman will turn the mind of her husband, who is very
              powerful, in my favour, he being at present disaffected
              towards me, and intent on doing me some harm.

Or thus:--

     (_e_). By making this woman my friend I shall gain the object of
              some friend of mine, or shall be able to effect the ruin
              of some enemy, or shall accomplish some other difficult
              purpose.

Or thus:--

     (_f_). By being united with this woman, I shall kill her husband,
              and so obtain his vast riches which I covet.

Or thus:--

     (_g_). The union of this woman with me is not attended with any
              danger, and will bring me wealth, of which, on account of
              my poverty and inability to support myself, I am very much
              in need. I shall, therefore, obtain her vast riches in
              this way without any difficulty.

Or thus:--

     (_h_). This woman loves me ardently, and knows all my weak points,
              if therefore, I am unwilling to be united with her, she
              will make my faults public, and thus tarnish my character
              and reputation. Or she will bring some gross accusation
              against me, of which it may be hard to clear myself, and I
              shall be ruined. Or perhaps she will detach from me her
              husband, who is powerful, and yet under her control, and
              will unite him to my enemy, or will herself join the latter.

Or thus:--

     (_i_). The husband of this woman has violated the chastity of my
              wives, I shall therefore return that injury by seducing
              his wives.

Or thus:--

     (_j_). By the help of this woman I shall kill an enemy of the king,
              who has taken shelter with her, and whom I am ordered by
              the king to destroy.

Or thus:

     (_k_). The woman whom I love is under the control of this woman. I
              shall, through the influence of the latter, be able to get
              at the former.

Or thus:--

     (_l_). This woman will bring to me a maid, who possesses wealth and
              beauty, but who is hard to get at, and under the control
              of another.

Or, lastly, thus:--

     (_m_). My enemy is a friend of this woman's husband, I shall
              therefore cause her to join him, and will thus create an
              enmity between her husband and him.

For these and similar other reasons the wives of other men may be
resorted to, but it must be distinctly understood that is only allowed
for special reasons, and not for mere carnal desire.

Charayana thinks that under these circumstances there is also a fifth
kind of Nayika, viz., a woman who is kept by a minister, and who repairs
to him occasionally; or a widow who accomplishes the purpose of a man
with the person to whom she resorts.

Suvarnanabha adds that a woman who passes the life of an ascetic and in
the condition of a widow may be considered as a sixth kind of Nayika.

Ghotakamukha says that the daughter of a public woman, and a female
servant, who are still virgins, form a seventh kind of Nayika.

Gonardiya puts forth his doctrine that any woman born of good family,
after she has come of age, is an eighth kind of Nayika.

But these four latter kinds of Nayikas do not differ much from the first
four kinds of them, as there is no separate object in resorting to
them. Therefore Vatsyayana is of opinion that there are only four kinds
of Nayikas, _i.e._, the maid, the twice married woman, the public woman,
and the woman resorted to for a special purpose.

The following women are not to be enjoyed:--

A leper.

A lunatic.

A woman turned out of caste.

A woman who reveals secrets.

A woman who publicly expresses desire for sexual intercourse.

A woman who is extremely white.

A woman who is extremely black.

A bad-smelling woman.

A woman who is a near relation.

A woman who is a female friend.

A woman who leads the life of an ascetic.

And, lastly, the wife of a relation, of a friend, of a learned Brahman,
and of the king.

The followers of Babhravya say that any woman who has been enjoyed by
five men is a fit and proper person to be enjoyed. But Gonikaputra is of
opinion that even when this is the case, the wives of a relation, of a
learned Brahman and of a king should be excepted.

The following are the kind of friends:--

One who has played with you in the dust, _i.e._, in childhood.

One who is bound by an obligation.

One who is of the same disposition and fond of the same things.

One who is a fellow student.

One who is acquainted with your secrets and faults, and whose faults and
secrets are also known to you.

One who is a child of your nurse.

One who is brought up with you.

One who is an hereditary friend.

These friends should possess the following qualities:--

They should tell the truth.

They should not be changed by time.

They should be favourable to your designs.

They should be firm.

They should be free from covetousness.

They should not be capable of being gained over by others.

They should not reveal your secrets.

Charayana says that citizens form friendship with washermen, barbers,
cowherds, florists, druggists, betel-leaf sellers, tavern keepers,
beggars, Pithamardas, Vitas and Vidushekas, as also with the wives of
all these people.

A messenger should possess the following qualities:--

Skilfulness.

Boldness.

Knowledge of the intention of men by their outward signs.

Absence of confusion, _i.e._, no shyness.

Knowledge of the exact meaning of what others do or say.

Good manners.

Knowledge of appropriate times and places for doing different things.

Ingenuity in business.

Quick comprehension.

Quick application of remedies, _i.e._, quick and ready resources.

And this part ends with a verse:--

The man who is ingenious and wise, who is accompanied by a friend, and
who knows the intentions of others, as also the proper time and place
for doing everything, can gain over, very easily, even a woman who is
very hard to be obtained.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: This term does not apply to a widow, but to a woman who
had probably left her husband, and is living with some other person as a
married woman, maritalement, as they say in France.]

[Footnote 32: Any woman fit to be enjoyed without sin. The object of the
enjoyment of women is twofold, viz., pleasure and progeny. Any woman who
can be enjoyed without sin for the purpose of accomplishing either the
one or the other of these two objects is a Nayika. The fourth kind of
Nayika which Vatsya admits further on is neither enjoyed for pleasure or
for progeny, but merely for accomplishing some special purpose in hand.
The word Nayika is retained as a technical term throughout.]

=END OF PART I.=




PART II.

OF SEXUAL UNION.




CHAPTER I.

KINDS OF SEXUAL UNION ACCORDING TO

     (_a_) DIMENSIONS.
     (_b_) FORCE OF DESIRE OR PASSION.
     (_c_) TIME.

_Kinds of Union._

Man is divided into three classes, viz., the hare man, the bull man, and
the horse man, according to the size of his lingam.

Woman also, according to the depth of her yoni, is either a female deer,
a mare, or a female elephant.

There are thus three equal unions between persons of corresponding
dimensions, and there are six unequal unions, when the dimensions do not
correspond, or nine in all, as the following table shows:

   +--------------------+--------------------+
   |      EQUAL.        |      UNEQUAL.      |
   +--------------------+--------------------+
   |  MEN.  |   WOMEN.  |  MEN.  | WOMEN.    |
   +--------+-----------+--------|-----------+
   |        |           |        |           |
   | Hare.  | Deer.     | Hare.  | Mare.     |
   | Bull.  | Mare.     | Hare.  | Elephant. |
   | Horse. | Elephant. | Bull.  | Deer.     |
   |        |           | Bull.  | Elephant. |
   |        |           | Horse. | Deer.     |
   |        |           | Horse. | Mare.     |
   +--------+-----------+--------+-----------+

In these unequal unions, when the male exceeds the female in point of
size, his union with a woman who is immediately next to him in size is
called high union, and is of two kinds; while his union with the woman
most remote from him in size is called the highest union, and is of one
kind only. On the other hand when the female exceeds the male in point
of size, her union with a man immediately next to her in size is called
low union, and is of two kinds; while her union with a man most remote
from her in size is called the lowest union, and is of one kind only.

In other words, the horse and mare, the bull and deer, form the high
union, while the horse and deer form the highest union. On the female
side, the elephant and bull, the mare and hare, form low unions, while
the elephant and the hare make the lowest unions.

There are then, nine kinds of union according to dimensions. Amongst all
these, equal unions are the best, those of a superlative degree, _i.e._,
the highest and the lowest, are the worst, and the rest are middling,
and with them the high[33] are better than the low.

There are also nine kinds of union according to the force of passion or
carnal desire, as follows:

   +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
   |    MEN.   |   WOMEN.  |    MEN.   |   WOMEN.  |
   +-----------+-----------+-----------|-----------+
   |           |           |           |           |
   | Small.    | Small.    | Small.    | Middling. |
   | Middling. | Middling. | Small.    | Intense.  |
   | Intense.  | Intense.  | Middling. | Small.    |
   |           |           | Middling. | Intense.  |
   |           |           | Intense.  | Small.    |
   |           |           | Intense.  | Middling. |
   +-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+

A man is called a man of small passion whose desire at the time of
sexual union is not great, whose semen is scanty, and who cannot bear
the warm embraces of the female.

Those who differ from this temperament are called men of middling
passion, while those of intense passion are full of desire.

In the same way, women are supposed to have the three degrees of feeling
as specified above.

Lastly, according to time there are three kinds of men and women, viz.,
the short-timed, the moderate-timed, and the long-timed, and of these as
in the previous statements, there are nine kinds of union.

But on this last head there is a difference of opinion about the female,
which should be stated.

Auddalika says, "Females do not emit as males do. The males simply
remove their desire, while the females, from their consciousness of
desire, feel a certain kind of pleasure, which gives them satisfaction,
but it is impossible for them to tell you what kind of pleasure they
feel. The fact from which this becomes evident is, that males, when
engaged in coition, cease of themselves after emission, and are
satisfied, but it is not so with females."

This opinion is, however, objected to on the grounds that if a male be a
long-timed, the female loves him the more, but if he be short-timed, she
is dissatisfied with him. And this circumstance, some say, would prove
that the female emits also.

But this opinion does not hold good, for if it takes a long time to
allay a woman's desire, and during this time she is enjoying great
pleasure, it is quite natural then that she should wish for its
continuation. And on this subject there is a verse as follows:

"By union with men the lust, desire, or passion of women is satisfied,
and the pleasure derived from the consciousness of it is called their
satisfaction."

The followers of Babhravya, however, say that the semen of women
continues to fall from the beginning of the sexual union to its end, and
it is right that it should be so, for if they had no semen there would
be no embryo.

To this there is an objection. In the beginning of coition the passion
of the woman is middling, and she cannot bear the vigorous thrusts of
her lover, but by degrees her passion increases until she ceases to
think about her body, and then finally she wishes to stop from further
coition.

This objection, however, does not hold good, for even in ordinary things
that revolve with great force, such as a potter's wheel, or a top, we
find that the motion at first is slow, but by degrees it becomes very
rapid. In the same way the passion of the woman having gradually
increased, she has a desire to discontinue coition, when all the semen
has fallen away. And there is a verse with regard to this as follows:

"The fall of the semen of the man takes place only at the end of
coition, while the semen of the woman falls continually, and after the
semen of both has all fallen away then they wish for the discontinuance
of coition."[34]

Lastly, Vatsyayana is of opinion that the semen of the female falls in
the same way as that of the male.

Now some may ask here: If men and women are beings of the same kind, and
are engaged in bringing about the same result, why should they have
different works to do.

Vatsya says that this is so, because the ways of working as well as the
consciousness of pleasure in men and women are different. The difference
in the ways of working, by which men are the actors, and women are the
persons acted upon, is owing to the nature of the male and the female,
otherwise the actor would be sometimes the person acted upon, and vice
versâ. And from this difference in the ways of working follows the
difference in the consciousness of pleasure, for a man thinks, "this
woman is united with me," and a woman thinks, "I am united with this
man."

It may be said that if the ways of working in men and women are
different, why should not there be a difference, even in the pleasure
they feel, and which is the result of those ways.

But this objection is groundless, for the person acting and the person
acted upon being of different kinds, there is a reason for the
difference in their ways of working; but there is no reason for any
difference in the pleasure they feel, because they both naturally derive
pleasure from the act they perform.[35]

On this again some may say that when different persons are engaged in
doing the same work, we find that they accomplish the same end or
purpose: while, on the contrary, in the case of men and women we find
that each of them accomplishes his or her own end separately, and this
is inconsistent. But this is a mistake, for we find that sometimes two
things are done at the same time, as for instance in the fighting of
rams, both the rams receive the shock at the same time on their heads.
Again, in throwing one wood apple against another, and also in a fight
or struggle of wrestlers. If it be said that in these cases the things
employed are of the same kind, it is answered that even in the case of
men and women, the nature of the two persons is the same. And as the
difference in their ways of working arises from the difference of their
conformation only, it follows that men experience the same kind of
pleasure as women do.

There is also a verse on this subject as follows: "Men and women being
of the same nature, feel the same kind of pleasure, and therefore a man
should marry such a woman as will love him ever afterwards."

The pleasure of men and women being thus proved to be of the same kind,
it follows that in regard to time, there are nine kinds of sexual
intercourse, in the same way as there are nine kinds, according to the
force of passion.

There being thus nine kinds of union with regard to dimensions, force of
passion, and time, respectively, by making combinations of them,
innumerable kinds of union would be produced. Therefore in each
particular kind of sexual union, men should use such means as they may
think suitable for the occasion.[36]

At the first time of sexual union the passion of the male is intense,
and his time is short, but in subsequent unions on the same day the
reverse of this is the case. With the female, however, it is the
contrary, for at the first time her passion is weak, and then her time
long, but on subsequent occasions on the same day, her passion is
intense and her time short, until her passion is satisfied.


_On the different kinds of Love._

Men learned in the humanities are of opinion that love is of four kinds,
viz.:

1. Love acquired by continual habit.

2. Love resulting from the imagination.

3. Love resulting from belief.

4. Love resulting from the perception of external objects.

(1). Love resulting from the constant and continual performance and
habit, as for instance the love of sexual intercourse, the love of
hunting, the love of drinking, the love of gambling, etc., etc.

(2). Love which is felt for things to which we are not habituated, and
which proceeds entirely from ideas, is called love resulting from
imagination, as for instance, that love which some men and women and
eunuchs feel for the Auparishtaka or mouth congress, and that which is
felt by all for such things as embracing, kissing, etc., etc.

(3). The love which is mutual on both sides, and proved to be true, when
each looks upon the other as his or her very own, such is called love
resulting from belief by the learned.

(4). The love resulting from the perception of eternal objects is quite
evident and well-known to the world, because the pleasure which it
affords is superior to the pleasure of the other kinds of love, which
exists only for its sake.

What has been said in this chapter upon the subject of sexual union is
sufficient for the learned; but for the edification of the ignorant, the
same will now be treated of at length and in detail.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 33: High unions are said to be better than low ones, for in
the former it is possible for the male to satisfy his own passion
without injuring the female, while in the latter it is difficult for the
female to be satisfied by any means.]

[Footnote 34: The strength of passion with women varies a great deal,
some being easily satisfied, and others eager and willing to go on for a
long time. To satisfy these last thoroughly a man must have recourse to
art. It is certain that a fluid flows from the woman in larger or
smaller quantities, but her satisfaction is not complete until she has
experienced the "spasme génêsique," as described in a French work
recently published and called "Breviare de l'Amour Experimental par le
Dr. Jules Guyot."]

[Footnote 35: This is a long dissertation very common among Sanscrit
authors, both when writing and talking socially. They start certain
propositions, and then argue for and against them. What it is presumed
the author means, is, that though both men and women derive pleasure
from the act of coition, the way it is produced is brought about by
different means, each individual performing his own work in the matter,
irrespective of the other, and each deriving individually their own
consciousness of pleasure from the act they perform. There is a
difference in the work that each does, and a difference in the
consciousness of pleasure that each has, but no difference in the
pleasure they feel, for each feels that pleasure to a greater or lesser
degree.]

[Footnote 36: This paragraph should be particularly noted, for it
specially applies to married men and their wives. So many men utterly
ignore the feelings of the women, and never pay the slightest attention
to the passion of the latter. To understand the subject thoroughly, it
is absolutely necessary to study it, and then a person will know that,
as dough is prepared for baking, so must a woman be prepared for sexual
intercourse, if she is to derive satisfaction from it.]




CHAPTER II.

OF THE EMBRACE.


This part of the Kama Shastra, which treats of sexual union, is also
called "Sixty-four" (Chatushshashti). Some old authors say that it is
called so, because it contains sixty-four chapters. Others are of
opinion that the author of this part being a person named Panchala, and
the person who recited the part of the Rig Veda called Dashatapa, which
contains sixty-four verses, being also called Panchala, the name
"sixty-four" has been given to the part of the work in honour of the Rig
Vedas. The followers of Babhravya say on the other hand that this part
contains eight subjects, viz., the embrace, kissing, scratching with the
nails or fingers, biting, lying down, making various sounds, playing the
part of a man, and the Auparishtaka, or mouth congress. Each of these
subjects being of eight kinds, and eight multiplied by eight being
sixty-four, this part is therefore named "sixty-four." But Vatsyayana
affirms that as this part contains also the following subjects, viz.,
striking, crying, the acts of a man during congress, the various kinds
of congress, and other subjects, the name "sixty-four" is given to it
only accidentally. As, for instance, we say this tree is "Saptaparna,"
or seven-leaved, this offering of rice is "Panchavarna," or
five-coloured, but the tree has not seven leaves, neither has the rice
five colours.

However the part sixty-four is now treated of, and the embrace, being
the first subject, will now be considered.

Now the embrace which indicates the mutual love of a man and woman who
have come together is of four kinds, viz.:

   Touching.
   Piercing.
   Rubbing.
   Pressing.

The action in each case is denoted by the meaning of the word which
stands for it.

(1). When a man under some pretext or other goes in front or alongside
of a woman and touches her body with his own, it is called the "touching
embrace."

(2). When a woman in a lonely place bends down, as if to pick up
something, and pierces, as it were, a man sitting or standing, with her
breasts, and the man in return takes hold of them, it is called a
"piercing embrace."

The above two kinds of embrace takes place only between persons who do
not, as yet, speak freely with each other.

(3). When two lovers are walking slowly together, either in the dark, or
in a place of public resort, or in a lonely place, and rub their bodies
against each other, it is called a "rubbing embrace."

(4). When on the above occasion one of them presses the other's body
forcibly against a wall or pillar, it is called a "pressing embrace."

These two last embraces are peculiar to those who know the intentions of
each other.

At the time of the meeting the four following kinds of embrace are used,
viz.:

_Jataveshtitaka_, or the twining of a creeper.

_Vrikshadhirudhaka_, or climbing a tree.

_Tila-Tandulaka_, or the mixture of sesamum seed with rice.

_Kshiraniraka_, or milk and water embrace.

(1). When a woman, clinging to a man as a creeper twines round a tree,
bends his head down to hers with the desire of kissing him and slightly
makes the sound of sut sut, embraces him, and looks lovingly towards
him, it is called an embrace like the "twining of a creeper."

(2). When a woman, having placed one of her feet on the foot of her
lover, and the other on one of his thighs, passes one of her arms round
his back, and the other on his shoulders, makes slightly the sounds of
singing and cooing, and wishes, as it were, to climb up him in order to
have a kiss, it is called an embrace like the "climbing of a tree."

These two kinds of embrace take place when the lover is standing.

(3). When lovers lie on a bed, and embrace each other so closely that
the arms and thighs of the one are encircled by the arms and thighs of
the other, and are, as it were, rubbing up against them, this is called
an embrace like "the mixture of sesamum seed with rice."

(4). When a man and a woman are very much in love with each other, and
not thinking of any pain or hurt, embrace each other as if they were
entering into each other's bodies, either while the woman is sitting on
the lap of the man or in front of him, or on a bed, then it is called an
embrace like a "mixture of milk and water."

These two kinds of embrace take place at the time of sexual union.

Babhravya has thus related to us the above eight kinds of embraces.

Suvarnanabha, moreover, gives us four ways of embracing simple members
of the body, which are:

The embrace of the thighs.

The embrace of the jaghana, _i.e._, the part of the body from the navel
downwards to the thighs.

The embrace of the breasts.

The embrace of the forehead.

(1). When one of two lovers presses forcibly one or both of the thighs
of the other between his or her own, it is called the "embrace of
thighs."

(2). When a man presses the jaghana or middle part of the woman's body
against his own, and mounts upon her to practise, either scratching with
the nail or finger, or biting, or striking, or kissing, the hair of the
woman being loose and flowing, it is called the "embrace of the
jaghana."

(3). When a man places his breast between the breasts of a woman, and
presses her with it, it is called the "embrace of the breasts."

(4). When either of the lovers touches the mouth, the eyes and the
forehead of the other with his or her own, it is called the "embrace of
the forehead."

Some say that even shampooing is a kind of embrace, because there is a
touching of bodies in it. But Vatsyayana thinks that shampooing is
performed at a different time, and for a different purpose, and it is
also of a different character, it cannot be said to be included in the
embrace.

There are also some verses on the subject as follows: "The whole subject
of embracing is of such a nature that men who ask questions about it, or
who hear about it, or who talk about it, acquire thereby a desire for
enjoyment. Even those embraces that are not mentioned in the Kama
Shastra should be practised at the time of sexual enjoyment, if they are
in any way conducive to the increase of love or passion. The rules of
the Shastra apply so long as the passion of man is middling, but when
the wheel of love is once set in motion, there is then no Shastra and no
order."




CHAPTER III.

ON KISSING.


It is said by some that there is no fixed time or order between the
embrace, the kiss, and the pressing or scratching with the nails or
fingers, but that all these things should be done generally before
sexual union takes place, while striking and making the various sounds
generally takes place at the time of the union. Vatsyayana, however,
thinks that anything may take place at any time, for love does not care
for time or order.

On the occasion of the first congress, kissing and the other things
mentioned above should be done moderately, they should not be continued
for a long time, and should be done alternately. On subsequent
occasions, however, the reverse of all this may take place, and
moderation will not be necessary, they may continue for a long time, and
for the purpose of kindling love, they may be all done at the same time.

The following are the places for kissing, viz., the forehead, the eyes,
the cheeks, the throat, the bosom, the breasts, the lips, and the
interior of the mouth. Moreover, the people of the Lat country kiss also
on the following places, viz., the joints of the thighs, the arms, and
the navel. But Vatsyayana thinks that though kissing is practised by
these people in the above places on account of the intensity of their
love, and the customs of their country, it is not fit to be practised by
all.

Now in a case of a young girl there are three sort of kisses, viz.:

   The nominal kiss.
   The throbbing kiss.
   The touching kiss.

(1). When a girl only touches the mouth of her lover with her own, but
does not herself do anything, it is called the "nominal kiss."

(2). When a girl, setting aside her bashfulness a little, wishes to
touch the lip that is pressed into her mouth, and with that object
moves her lower lip, but not the upper one, it is called the "throbbing
kiss."

(3). When a girl touches her lover's lip with her tongue, and having
shut her eyes, places her hands on those of her lover, it is called the
"touching kiss."

Other authors describe four other kinds of kisses, viz.:

   The straight kiss.
   The bent kiss.
   The turned kiss.
   The pressed kiss.

(1). When the lips of two lovers are brought into direct contact with
each other, it is called a "straight kiss."

(2). When the heads of two lovers are bent towards each other, and when
so bent kissing takes place, it is called a "bent kiss."

(3). When one of them turns up the face of the other by holding the head
and chin, and then kissing, it is called a "turned kiss."

(4). Lastly, when the lower lip is pressed with much force, it is called
a "pressed kiss."

There is also a fifth kind of kiss called the "greatly pressed kiss,"
which is effected by taking hold of the lower lip between two fingers,
and then after touching it with the tongue, pressing it with great force
with the lip.

As regards kissing, a wager may be laid as to which will get hold of the
lips of the other first. If the woman loses, she should pretend to cry,
should keep her lover off by shaking her hands, and turn away from him
and dispute with him, saying "let another wager be laid." If she loses
this a second time, she should appear doubly distressed, and when her
lover is off his guard or asleep, she should get hold of his lower lip,
and hold it in her teeth, so that it should not slip away, and then she
should laugh, make a loud noise, deride him, dance about, and say
whatever she likes in a joking way, moving her eyebrows, and rolling her
eyes. Such are the wagers and quarrels as far as kissing is concerned,
but the same may be applied with regard to the pressing or scratching
with the nails and fingers, biting and striking. All these, however, are
only peculiar to men and women of intense passion.

When a man kisses the upper lip of a woman, while she in return kisses
his lower lip, it is called the "kiss of the upper lip."

When one of them takes both the lips of the other between his or her
own, it is called "a clasping kiss." A woman, however, only takes this
kind of kiss from a man who has no moustache. And on the occasion of
this kiss, if one of them touches the teeth, the tongue, and the palate
of the other, with his or her tongue, it is called the "fighting of the
tongue." In the same way, the pressing of the teeth of the one against
the mouth of the other is to be practised.

Kissing is of four kinds, viz., moderate, contracted, pressed, and soft,
according to the different parts of the body which are kissed, for
different kinds of kisses are appropriate for different parts of the
body.

When a woman looks at the face of her lover while he is asleep, and
kisses it to show her intention or desire, it is called a "kiss that
kindles love."

When a woman kisses her lover while he is engaged in business, or while
he is quarrelling with her, or while he is looking at something else, so
that his mind may be turned away, it is called a "kiss that turns away."

When a lover coming home late at night kisses his beloved, who is asleep
or in bed, in order to show her his desire, it is called a "kiss that
awakens." On such an occasion the woman may pretend to be asleep at the
time of her lover's arrival, so that she may know his intention and
obtain respect from him.

When a person kisses the reflection of the person he loves in a mirror,
in water, or on a wall, it is called a "kiss showing the intention."

When a person kisses a child sitting on his lap, or a picture, or an
image, or figure, in the presence of the person beloved by him, it is
called a "transferred kiss."

When at night at a theatre, or in an assembly of caste men, a man coming
up to a woman kisses a finger of her hand if she be standing, or a toe
of her foot if she be sitting, or when a woman is shampooing her lover's
body, places her face on his thigh (as if she was sleepy) so as to
inflame his passion, and kisses his thigh or great toe, it is called a
"demonstrative kiss."

There is also a verse on the subject as follows:--

"Whatever things may be done by one of the lovers to the other, the same
should be returned by the other, _i.e._, if the woman kisses him he should
kiss her in return, if she strikes him he should also strike her in
return."




CHAPTER IV.

ON PRESSING, OR MARKING, OR SCRATCHING WITH THE NAILS.


When love becomes intense, pressing with the nails or scratching the
body with them is practised, and it is done on the following occasions:
On the first visit; at the time of setting out on a journey; on the
return from a journey; at the time when an angry lover is reconciled;
and lastly when the woman is intoxicated.

But pressing with the nails is not an usual thing except with those who
are intensely passionate, _i.e._, full of passion. It is employed together
with biting, by those to whom the practice is agreeable.

Pressing with the nails is of the eight following kinds, according to
the forms of the marks which are produced, viz.:

1. Sounding.

2. Half moon.

3. A circle.

4. A line.

5. A tiger's nail or claw.

6. A peacock's foot.

7. The jump of a hare.

8. The leaf of a blue lotus.

The places that are to be pressed with the nails are as follows: the arm
pit, the throat, the breasts, the lips, the jaghana, or middle parts of
the body, and the thighs. But Suvarnanabha is of opinion that when the
impetuosity of passion is excessive, then the places need not be
considered.

The qualities of good nails are that they should be bright, well set,
clean, entire, convex, soft, and glossy in appearance. Nails are of
three kinds according to their size, viz.:

   Small.
   Middling.
   Large.

Large nails, which give grace to the hands, and attract the hearts of
women from their appearance, are possessed by the Bengalees.

Small nails, which can be used in various ways, and are to be applied
only with the object of giving pleasure, are possessed by the people of
the southern districts.

Middling nails, which contain the properties of both the above kinds,
belong to the people of the Maharashtra.

(1). When a person presses the chin, the breasts, the lower lip, or the
jaghana of another so softly that no scratch or mark is left, but only
the hair on the body becomes erect from the touch of the nails, and the
nails themselves make a sound, it is called a "sounding or pressing with
the nails."

This pressing is used in the case of a young girl when her lover
shampoos her, scratches her head, and wants to trouble or frighten her.

(2). The curved mark with the nails, which is impressed on the neck and
the breasts, is called the "half moon."

(3). When the half moons are impressed opposite to each other, it is
called a "circle." This mark with the nails is generally made on the
navel, the small cavities about the buttocks, and on the joints of the
thigh.

(4). A mark in the form of a small line, and which can be made on any
part of the body, is called a "line."

(5). This same line, when it is curved, and made on the breast, is
called a "tiger's nail."

(6). When a curved mark is made on the breast by means of the five
nails, it is called a "peacock's foot." This mark is made with the
object of being praised, for it requires a great deal of skill to make
it properly.

(7). When five marks with the nails are made close to one another near
the nipple of the breast, it is called "the jump of a hare."

(8). A mark made on the breast or on the hips in the form of a leaf of
the blue lotus, is called the "leaf of a blue lotus."

When a person is going on a journey, and makes a mark on the thighs, or
on the breast, it is called a "token of remembrance." On such an
occasion three or four lines are impressed close to one another with the
nails.

Here ends the marking with the nails. Marks of other kinds than the
above may also be made with the nails, for the ancient authors say,
that as there are innumerable degrees of skill among men (the practice
of this art being known to all), so there are innumerable ways of making
these marks. And as pressing or marking with the nails is independent of
love, no one can say with certainty how many different kinds of marks
with the nails do actually exist. The reason of this is, Vatsyayana
says, that as variety is necessary in love, so love is to be produced by
means of variety. It is on this account that courtezans, who are well
acquainted with various ways and means, become so desirable, for if
variety is sought in all the arts and amusements, such as archery and
others, how much more should it be sought after in the present case.

The marks of the nails should not be made on married women, but
particular kinds of marks may be made on their private parts for the
remembrance and increase of love.

There are also some verses on the subject, as follows:

"The love of a woman who sees the marks of nails on the private parts of
her body, even though they are old and almost worn out, becomes again
fresh and new. If there be no marks of nails to remind a person of the
passages of love, then love is lessened in the same way as when no union
takes place for a long time."

Even when a stranger sees at a distance a young woman with the marks of
nails on her breast,[37] he is filled with love and respect for her.

A man, also, who carries the marks of nails and teeth on some parts of
his body, influences the mind of a woman, even though it be ever so
firm. In short, nothing tends to increase love so much as the effects of
marking with the nails, and biting.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 37: From this it would appear that in ancient times the
breasts of women were not covered, and this is seen in the painting of
the Ajunta and other caves, where we find that the breasts of even royal
ladies and others are exposed.]




CHAPTER V.

ON BITING, AND THE MEANS TO BE EMPLOYED WITH REGARD TO WOMEN OF
DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.


All the places that can be kissed, are also the places that can be
bitten, except the upper lip, the interior of the mouth, and the eyes.

The qualities of good teeth are as follows: They should be equal,
possessed of a pleasing brightness, capable of being coloured, of proper
proportions, unbroken, and with sharp ends.

The defects of teeth on the other hand are, that they are blunt,
protruding from the gums, rough, soft, large, and loosely set.

The following are the different kinds of biting, viz.:

   The hidden bite.
   The swollen bite.
   The point.
   The line of points.
   The coral and the jewel.
   The line of jewels.
   The broken cloud.
   The biting of the boar.

(1). The biting which is shown only by the excessive redness of the skin
that is bitten, is called the "hidden bite."

(2). When the skin is pressed down on both sides, it is called the
"swollen bite."

(3). When a small portion of the skin is bitten with two teeth only, it
is called the "point."

(4). When such small portions of the skin are bitten with all the teeth,
it is called the "line of points."

(5). The biting which is done by bringing together the teeth and the
lips, is called the "coral and the jewel." The lip is the coral, and the
teeth the jewel.

(6). When biting is done with all the teeth, it is called the "line of
jewels."

(7). The biting which consists of unequal risings in a circle, and which
comes from the space between the teeth, is called the "broken cloud."
This is impressed on the breasts.

(8). The biting which consists of many broad rows of marks near to one
another, and with red intervals, is called the "biting of a boar." This
is impressed on the breasts and the shoulders; and these two last modes
of biting are peculiar to persons of intense passion.

The lower lip is the place on which the "hidden bite," the "swollen
bite," and the "point" are made; again the "swollen bite," and the
"coral and the jewel" bite are done on the cheek. Kissing, pressing with
the nails, and biting are the ornaments of the left cheek, and when the
word cheek is used it is to be understood as the left cheek.

Both the "line of points" and the "line of jewels" are to be impressed
on the throat, the arm pit, and the joints of the thighs; but the "line
of points" alone is to be impressed on the forehead and the thighs.

The marking with the nails, and the biting of the following things,
viz., an ornament of the forehead, an ear ornament, a bunch of flowers,
a betel leaf, or a tamala leaf, which are worn by, or belong to the
woman that is beloved, are signs of the desire of enjoyment.

Here end the different kinds of biting.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the affairs of love a man should do such things as are agreeable to
the women of different countries.

The women of the central countries (_i.e._, between the Ganges and the
Jumna) are noble in their character, not accustomed to disgraceful
practices, and dislike pressing the nails and biting.

The women of the Balhika country are gained over by striking.

The women of Avantika are fond of foul pleasures, and have not good
manners.

The women of the Maharashtra are fond of practising the sixty-four arts,
they utter low and harsh words, and like to be spoken to in the same
way, and have an impetuous desire of enjoyment.

The women of Pataliputra (_i.e._, the modern Patna) are of the same nature
as the women of the Maharashtra, but show their likings only in secret.

The women of the Dravida country, though they are rubbed and pressed
about at the time of sexual enjoyment, have a slow fall of semen, that
is they are very slow in the act of coition.

The women of Vanavasi are moderately passionate, they go through every
kind of enjoyment, cover their bodies, and abuse those who utter low,
mean and harsh words.

The women of Avanti hate kissing, marking with the nails, and biting,
but they have a fondness for various kinds of sexual union.

The women of Malwa like embracing and kissing, but not wounding, and
they are gained over by striking.

The women of Abhira, and those of the country about the Indus and five
rivers (_i.e._, the Punjab), are gained over by the Auparishtaka or mouth
congress.

The women of Aparatika are full of passion, and make slowly the sound
"Sit."

The women of the Lat country have even more impetuous desire, and also
make the sound "Sit."

The women of the Stri Rajya, and of Koshola (Oude), are full of
impetuous desire, their semen falls in large quantities, and they are
fond of taking medicine to make it do so.

The women of the Audhra country have tender bodies, they are fond of
enjoyment, and have a liking for voluptuous pleasures.

The women of Ganda have tender bodies, and speak sweetly.

Now Suvarnanabha is of opinion that that which is agreeable to the
nature of a particular person, is of more consequence than that which is
agreeable to a whole nation, and that therefore the peculiarities of the
country should not be observed in such cases. The various pleasures, the
dress, and the sports of one country are in time borrowed by another,
and in such a case these things must be considered as belonging
originally to that country.

Among the things mentioned above, viz., embracing, kissing, etc., those
which increase passion should be done first, and those which are only
for amusement or variety should be done afterwards.

There are also some verses on this subject as follows:

"When a man bites a woman forcibly, she should angrily do the same to
him with double force. Thus a 'point' should be returned with a 'line of
points,' and a 'line of points' with a 'broken cloud,' and if she be
excessively chafed, she should at once begin a love quarrel with him. At
such a time she should take hold of her lover by the hair, and bend his
head down, and kiss his lower lip, and then, being intoxicated with
love, she should shut her eyes and bite him in various places. Even by
day, and in a place of public resort, when her lover shows her any mark
that she may have inflicted on his body, she should smile at the sight
of it, and turning her face as if she were going to chide him, she
should show him with an angry look the marks on her own body that have
been made by him. Thus if men and women act according to each other's
liking, their love for each other will not be lessened even in one
hundred years."




CHAPTER VI.

OF THE DIFFERENT WAYS OF LYING DOWN, AND VARIOUS KINDS OF CONGRESS.


On the occasion of a "high congress" the Mrigi (Deer) woman should lie
down in such a way as to widen her yoni, while in a "low congress" the
Hastini (Elephant) woman should lie down so as to contract hers. But in
an "equal congress" they should lie down in the natural position. What
is said above concerning the Mrigi and the Hastini applies also to the
Vadawa (Mare) woman. In a "low congress" the women should particularly
make use of medicine, to cause her desires to be satisfied quickly.

The Deer-woman has the following three ways of lying down.

   The widely opened position.
   The yawning position.
   The position of the wife of Indra.

(1). When she lowers her head and raises her middle parts, it is called
the "widely opened position." At such a time the man should apply some
unguent, so as to make the entrance easy.

(2). When she raises her thighs and keeps them wide apart and engages in
congress, it is called the "yawning position."

(3). When she places her thighs with her legs doubled on them upon her
sides, and thus engages in congress, it is called the position of
Indrani, and this is learnt only by practice. The position is also
useful in the case of the "highest congress."

The "clasping position" is used in "low congress," and in the "lowest
congress," together with the "pressing position," the "twining
position", and the "mare's position."

When the legs of both the male and the female are stretched straight
out over each other, it is called the "clasping position." It is of two
kinds, the side position and the supine position, according to the way
in which they lie down. In the side position the male should invariably
lie on his left side, and cause the woman to lie on her right side, and
this rule is to be observed in lying down with all kinds of women.

When, after congress has begun in the clasping position, the woman
presses her lover with her thighs, it is called the "pressing position."

When the woman places one of her thighs across the thigh of her lover,
it is called the "twining position."

When a woman forcibly holds in her yoni the lingam after it is in, it is
called the "mare's position." This is learnt by practice only, and is
chiefly found among the women of the Andra country.

The above are the different ways of lying down, mentioned by Babhravya;
Suvarnanabha, however, gives the following in addition.

When the female raises both of her thighs straight up, it is called the
"rising position."

When she raises both of her legs, and places them on her lover's
shoulders, it is called the "yawning position."

When the legs are contracted, and thus held by the lover before his
bosom, it is called the "pressed position."

When only one of her legs is stretched out, it is called the "half
pressed position."

When the woman places one of her legs on her lover's shoulder, and
stretches the other out, and then places the latter on his shoulder, and
stretches out the other, and continues to do so alternately, it is
called the "splitting of a bamboo."

When one of her legs is placed on the head, and the other is stretched
out, it is called the "fixing of a nail." This is learnt by practice
only.

When both the legs of the woman are contracted, and placed on her
stomach, it is called the "crab's position."

When the thighs are raised and placed one upon the other, it is called
the "packed position."

When the shanks are placed one upon the other, it is called the
"lotus-like position."

When a man, during congress, turns round, and enjoys the woman without
leaving her, while she embraces him round the back all the time, it is
called the "turning position," and is learnt only by practice.

Thus says Suvarnanabha, these different ways of lying down, sitting, and
standing should be practised in water, because it is easy to do so
therein. But Vatsyayana is of opinion that congress in water is
improper, because it is prohibited by the religious law.

When a man and a woman support themselves on each other's bodies, or on
a wall, or pillar, and thus while standing engage in congress, it is
called the "supported congress."

When a man supports himself against a wall, and the woman, sitting on
his hands joined together and held underneath her, throws her arms round
his neck, and putting her thighs alongside his waist, moves herself by
her feet, which are touching the wall against which the man is leaning,
it is called the "suspended congress."

When a woman stands on her hands and feet like a quadruped, and her
lover mounts her like a bull, it is called the "congress of a cow." At
this time everything that is ordinarily done on the bosom should be done
on the back.

In the same way can be carried on the congress of a dog, the congress of
a goat, the congress of a deer, the forcible mounting of an ass, the
congress of a cat, the jump of a tiger, the pressing of an elephant, the
rubbing of a boar, and the mounting of a horse. And in all these cases
the characteristics of these different animals should be manifested by
acting like them.

When a man enjoys two women at the same time, both of whom love him
equally, it is called the "united congress."

When a man enjoys many women altogether, it is called the "congress of a
herd of cows."

The following kinds of congress, viz., sporting in water, or the
congress of an elephant with many female elephants, which is said to
take place only in the water, the congress of a collection of goats, the
congress of a collection of deer, take place in imitation of these
animals.

In Gramaneri many young men enjoy a woman that may be married to one of
them, either one after the other, or at the same time. Thus one of them
holds her, another enjoys her, a third uses her mouth, a fourth holds
her middle part, and in this way they go on enjoying her several parts
alternately.

The same things can be done when several men are sitting in company with
one courtesan, or when one courtesan is alone with many men. In the same
way this can be done by the women of the King's harem when they
accidentally get hold of a man.

The people in the Southern countries have also a congress in the anus,
that is called the "lower congress."

Thus ends the various kinds of congress. There are also two verses on
the subject as follows.

"An ingenious person should multiply the kinds of congress after the
fashion of the different kinds of beasts and of birds. For these
different kinds of congress, performed according to the usage of each
country, and the liking of each individual, generate love, friendship,
and respect in the hearts of women."




CHAPTER VII.

OF THE VARIOUS MODES OF STRIKING, AND OF THE SOUNDS APPROPRIATE TO THEM.


Sexual intercourse can be compared to a quarrel, on account of the
contrarieties of love and its tendency to dispute. The place of striking
with passion is the body, and on the body the special places are:

   The shoulders.
   The head.
   The space between the breasts.
   The back.
   The jaghana, or middle part of the body.
   The sides.

Striking is of four kinds, viz.:

   Striking with the back of the hand.
   Striking with the fingers a little contracted.
   Striking with the fist.
   Striking with the open palm of the hand.

On account of its causing pain, striking gives rise to the hissing
sound, which is of various kinds, and to the eight kinds of crying,
viz.:

   The sound Hin.
   The thundering sound.
   The cooing sound.
   The weeping sound.
   The sound Phut.
   The sound Phât.
   The sound Sût.
   The sound Plât.

Besides these, there are also words having a meaning, such as "mother,"
and those that are expressive of prohibition, sufficiency, desire of
liberation, pain or praise, and to which may be added sounds like those
of the dove, the cuckoo, the green pigeon, the parrot, the bee, the
sparrow, the flamingo, the duck, and the quail, which are all
occasionally made use of.

Blows with the fist should be given on the back of the woman, while she
is sitting on the lap of the man, and she should give blows in return,
abusing the man as if she were angry, and making the cooing and the
weeping sounds. While the woman is engaged in congress the space between
the breasts should be struck with the back of the hand, slowly at first,
and then proportionately to the increasing excitement, until the end.

At this time the sounds Hin and others may be made, alternately or
optionally, according to habit. When the man, making the sound Phât,
strikes the woman on the head, with the fingers of his hand a little
contracted, it is called Prasritaka, which means striking with the
fingers of the hand a little contracted. In this case the appropriate
sounds are the cooing sound, the sound Phât, and the sound Phut in the
interior of the mouth, and at the end of congress the sighing and
weeping sounds. The sound Phât is an imitation of the sound of a bamboo
being split, while the sound Phut is like the sound made by something
falling into water. At all times when kissing and such like things are
begun, the woman should give a reply with a hissing sound. During the
excitement when the woman is not accustomed to striking, she continually
utters words expressive of prohibition, sufficiently, or desire of
liberation, as well as the words "father," "mother," intermingled with
the sighing, weeping and thundering sounds.[38] Towards the conclusion
of the congress, the breasts, the jaghana, and the sides of the woman
should be pressed with the open palms of the hand, with some force,
until the end of it, and then sounds like those of the quail, or the
goose should be made.

There are also two verses on the subject as follows:

"The characteristics of manhood are said to consist of roughness and
impetuosity, while weakness, tenderness, sensibility, and an inclination
to turn away from unpleasant things are the distinguishing marks of
womanhood. The excitement of passion, and peculiarities of habit may
sometimes cause contrary results to appear, but these do not last long,
and in the end the natural state is resumed."

The wedge on the bosom, the scissors on the head, the piercing
instrument on the cheeks, and the pinchers on the breasts and sides, may
also be taken into consideration with the other four modes of striking,
and thus give eight ways altogether. But these four ways of striking
with instruments are peculiar to the people of the southern countries,
and the marks caused by them are seen on the breasts of their women.
They are local peculiarities, but Vatsyayana is of opinion that the
practice of them is painful, barbarous, and base, and quite unworthy of
imitation.

In the same way anything that is a local peculiarity should not always
be adopted elsewhere, and even in the place where the practice is
prevalent, excess of it should always be avoided. Instances of the
dangerous use of them may be given as follows. The King of the Panchalas
killed the courtezan Madhavasena by means of the wedge during congress.
King Shatakarni Shatavahana of the Kuntalas deprived his great Queen
Malayavati of her life by a pair of scissors, and Naradeva, whose hand
was deformed, blinded a dancing girl by directing a piercing instrument
in a wrong way.

There are also two verses on the subject as follows:

"About these things there cannot be either enumeration or any definite
rule. Congress having once commenced, passion alone gives birth to all
the acts of the parties."

Such passionate actions and amorous gesticulations or movements, which
arise on the spur of the moment, and during sexual intercourse, cannot
be defined, and are as irregular as dreams. A horse having once attained
the fifth degree of motion goes on with blind speed, regardless of pits,
ditches, and posts in his way; and in the same manner a loving pair
become blind with passion in the heat of congress, and go on with great
impetuosity, paying not the least regard to excess. For this reason one
who is well acquainted with the science of love, and knowing his own
strength, as also the tenderness, impetuosity, and strength of the young
woman, should act accordingly. The various modes of enjoyment are not
for all times or for all persons, but they should only be used at the
proper time, and in the proper countries and places.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 38: Men who are well acquainted with the art of love are well
aware how often one woman differs from another in her sighs and sounds
during the time of congress. Some women like to be talked to in the most
loving way, others in the most abusive way, and so on. Some women enjoy
themselves with closed eyes in silence, others make a great noise over
it, and some almost faint away. The great art is to ascertain what gives
them the greatest pleasure, and what specialities they like best.]




CHAPTER VIII.

ABOUT WOMEN ACTING THE PART OF A MAN; AND OF THE WORK OF A MAN.


When a woman sees that her lover is fatigued by constant congress,
without having his desire satisfied, she should, with his permission,
lay him down upon his back, and give him assistance by acting his part.
She may also do this to satisfy the curiosity of her lover, or her own
desire of novelty.

There are two ways of doing this, the first is when during congress she
turns round, and gets on the top of her lover, in such a manner as to
continue the congress, without obstructing the pleasure of it; and the
other is when she acts the man's part from the beginning. At such a
time, with flowers in her hair hanging loose, and her smiles broken by
hard breathings, she should press upon her lover's bosom with her own
breasts, and lowering her head frequently, should do in return the same
actions which he used to do before, returning his blows and chaffing
him, should say, "I was laid down by you, and fatigued with hard
congress, I shall now therefore lay you down in return." She should then
again manifest her own bashfulness, her fatigue, and her desire of
stopping the congress. In this way she should do the work of a man,
which we shall presently relate.

Whatever is done by a man for giving pleasure to a woman is called the
work of a man, and is as follows:--

While the woman is lying on his bed, and is as it were abstracted by his
conversation, he should loosen the knot of her under garments, and when
she begins to dispute with him, he should overwhelm her with kisses.
Then when his lingam is erect he should touch her with his hands in
various places, and gently manipulate various parts of the body. If the
woman is bashful, and if it is the first time that they have come
together, the man should place his hands between her thighs, which she
would probably keep close together, and if she is a very young girl, he
should first get his hands upon her breasts, which she would probably
cover with her own hands, and under her armpits and on her neck. If
however she is a seasoned woman, he should do whatever is agreeable
either to him or to her, and whatever is fitting for the occasion. After
this he should take hold of her hair, and hold her chin in his fingers
for the purpose of kissing her. On this, if she is a young girl, she
will become bashful and close her eyes. Any how he should gather from
the action of the woman what things would be pleasing to her during
congress.

Here Suvarnanabha says that while a man is doing to the woman what he
likes best during congress, he should always make a point of pressing
those parts of her body on which she turns her eyes.

The signs of the enjoyment and satisfaction of the women are as follows:
her body relaxes, she closes her eyes, she puts aside all bashfulness,
and shows increased willingness to unite the two organs as closely
together as possible. On the other hand, the signs of her want of
enjoyment and of failing to be satisfied are as follows: she shakes her
hands, she does not let the man get up, feels dejected, bites the man,
kicks him, and continues to go on moving after the man has finished. In
such cases the man should rub the yoni of the woman with his hand and
fingers (as the elephant rubs anything with his trunk) before engaging
in congress, until it is softened, and after that is done he should
proceed to put his lingam into her.

The acts to be done by the man are:

   Moving forward.
   Friction or churning.
   Piercing.
   Rubbing.
   Pressing.
   Giving a blow.
   The blow of a boar.
   The blow of a bull.
   The sporting of a sparrow.

(1). When the organs are brought together properly and directly it is
called "moving the organ forward."

(2). When the lingam is held with the hand, and turned all round in the
yoni, it is called "churning."

(3). When the yoni is lowered, and the upper part of it is struck with
the lingam, it is called "piercing."

(4). When the same thing is done on the lower part of the yoni, it is
called "rubbing."

(5). When the yoni is pressed by the lingam for a long time, it is
called "pressing."

(6). When the lingam is removed to some distance from the yoni, and then
forcibly strikes it, it is called "giving a blow."

(7). When only one part of the yoni is rubbed with the lingam, it is
called the "blow of a boar."

(8). When both sides of the yoni are rubbed in this way, it is called
the "blow of a bull."

(9). When the lingam is in the yoni, and moved up and down frequently,
and without being taken out, it is called the "sporting of a sparrow."
This takes place at the end of congress.

When a woman acts the part of a man, she has the following things to do
in addition to the nine given above, viz.

   The pair of tongs.
   The top.
   The swing.

(1). When the woman holds the lingam in her yoni, draws it in, presses
it, and keeps it thus in her for a long time, it is called the "pair of
tongs."

(2). When, while engaged in congress, she turns round like a wheel, it
is called the "top." This is learnt by practice only.

(3). When, on such an occasion, the man lifts up the middle part of his
body, and the woman turns round her middle part, it is called the
"swing."

When the woman is tired, she should place her forehead on that of her
lover, and should thus take rest without disturbing the union of the
organs, and when the woman has rested herself the man should turn round
and begin the congress again.

There are also some verses on the subject as follows:

"Though a woman is reserved, and keeps her feelings concealed, yet when
she gets on the top of a man, she then shows all her love and desire. A
man should gather from the actions of the woman of what disposition she
is, and in what way she likes to be enjoyed. A woman during her monthly
courses, a woman who has been lately confined, and a fat woman should
not be made to act the part of a man."




CHAPTER XI.

OF THE AUPARISHTAKA[39] OR MOUTH CONGRESS.


There are two kinds of eunuchs, those that are disguised as males, and
those that are disguised as females. Eunuchs disguised as females
imitate their dress, speech, gestures, tenderness, timidity, simplicity,
softness and bashfulness. The acts that are done on the jaghana or
middle parts of women, are done in the mouths of these eunuchs, and this
is called Auparishtaka. These eunuchs derive their imaginable pleasure,
and their livelihood from this kind of congress, and they lead the life
of courtezans. So much concerning eunuchs disguised as females.

Eunuchs disguised as males keep their desires secret, and when they wish
to do anything they lead the life of shampooers. Under the pretence of
shampooing, an eunuch of this kind embraces and draws towards himself
the thighs of the man whom he is shampooing, and after this he touches
the joints of his thighs and his jaghana, or central portions of his
body. Then, if he finds the lingam of the man erect, he presses it with
his hands, and chaffs him for getting into that state. If after this,
and after knowing his intention, the man does not tell the eunuch to
proceed, then the latter does it of his own accord and begins the
congress. If however he is ordered by the man to do it, then he disputes
with him, and only consents at last with difficulty.

The following eight things are then done by the eunuch one after the
other, viz.

   The nominal congress.
   Biting the sides.
   Pressing outside.
   Pressing inside.
   Kissing.
   Rubbing.
   Sucking a mangoe fruit.
   Swallowing up.

At the end of each of these the eunuch expresses his wish to stop, but
when one of them is finished, the man desires him to do another, and
after that is done, then the one that follows it, and so on.

(1). When, holding the man's lingam with his hand, and placing it
between his lips, the eunuch moves about his mouth, it is called the
"nominal congress."

(2). When, covering the end of the lingam with his fingers collected
together like the bud of a plant or flower, the eunuch presses the sides
of it with his lips, using his teeth also, it is called "biting the
sides."

(3). When, being desired to proceed, the eunuch presses the end of the
lingam with his lips closed together, and kisses it as if he were
drawing it out, it is called the "outside pressing."

(4). When, being asked to go on, he put the lingam further into his
mouth, and presses it with his lips and then takes it out, it is called
the "inside pressing."

(5). When, holding the lingam in his hand, the eunuch kisses it as if he
were kissing the lower lip, it is called "kissing."

(6). When, after kissing it, he touches it with his tongue everywhere,
and passes the tongue over the end of it, it is called "rubbing."

(7). When, in the same way, he puts the half of it into his mouth, and
forcibly kisses and sucks it, this is called "sucking a mangoe fruit."

(8). And lastly, when, with the consent of the man, the eunuch puts the
whole lingam into his mouth, and presses it to the very end, as if he
were going to swallow it up, it is called "swallowing up."

Striking, scratching, and other things may also be done during this kind
of congress.

The Auparishtaka is practised only by unchaste and wanton women, female
attendants and serving maids, _i.e._, those who are not married to
anybody, but who live by shampooing.

The Acharyas (_i.e._, ancient and venerable authors) are of opinion that
this Auparishtaka is the work of a dog and not of a man, because it is a
low practice, and opposed to the orders of the Holy Writ, and because
the man himself suffers by bringing his lingam into contact with the
mouths of eunuchs and women. But Vatsyayana says that the orders of the
Holy Writ do not affect those who resort to courtezans, and the law
prohibits the practice of the Auparishtaka with married women only. As
regards the injury to the male, that can be easily remedied.

The people of Eastern India do not resort to women who practise the
Auparishtaka.

The people of Ahichhatra resort to such women, but do nothing with them,
so far as the mouth is concerned.

The people of Saketa do with these women every kind of mouth congress,
while the people of Nagara do not practise this, but do every other
thing.

The people of the Shurasena country, on the southern bank of the Jumna,
do everything without any hesitation, for they say that women being
naturally unclean, no one can be certain about their character, their
purity, their conduct, their practices, their confidences, or their
speech. They are not however on this account to be abandoned, because
religious law, on the authority of which they are reckoned pure, lays
down that the udder of a cow is clean at the time of milking, though the
mouth of a cow, and also the mouth of her calf, are considered unclean
by the Hindoos. Again a dog is clean when he seizes a deer in hunting,
though food touched by a dog is otherwise considered very unclean. A
bird is clean when it causes a fruit to fall from a tree by pecking at
it, though things eaten by crows and other birds are considered unclean.
And the mouth of a woman is clean for kissing and such like things at
the time of sexual intercourse. Vatsyayana moreover thinks that in all
these things connected with love, everybody should act according to the
custom of his country, and his own inclination.

There are also the following verses on the subject.

"The male servants of some men carry on the mouth congress with their
masters. It is also practised by some citizens, who know each other
well, among themselves. Some women of the harem, when they are amorous,
do the acts of the mouth on the yonis of one another, and some men do
the same thing with women. The way of doing this (_i.e._, of kissing the
yoni) should be known from kissing the mouth. When a man and woman lie
down in an inverted order, _i.e._, with the head of the one towards the
feet of the other and carry on this congress, it is called the "congress
of a crow."

For the sake of such things courtezans abandon men possessed of good
qualities, liberal and clever, and become attached to low persons, such
as slaves and elephant drivers. The Auparishtaka, or mouth congress,
should never be done by a learned Brahman, by a minister that carries on
the business of a state, or by a man of good reputation, because though
the practice is allowed by the Shastras, there is no reason why it
should be carried on, and need only be practised in particular cases. As
for instance, the taste, and the strength, and the digestive qualities
of the flesh of dogs are mentioned in works on medicine, but it does not
therefore follow that it should be eaten by the wise. In the same way
there are some men, some places and some times, with respect to which
these practices can be made use of. A man should therefore pay regard to
the place, to the time, and to the practice which is to be carried out,
as also as to whether it is agreeable to his nature and to himself, and
then he may or may not practise these things according to circumstances.
But after all, these things being done secretly, and the mind of the man
being fickle, how can it be known what any person will do at any
particular time and for any particular purpose.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 39: This practice appears to have been prevalent in some parts
of India from a very ancient time. The "Shushruta," a work on medicine
some two thousand years old, describes the wounding of the lingam with
the teeth as one of the causes of a disease treated upon in that work.
Traces of the practice are found as far back as the eighth century, for
various kinds of the Auparishtaka are represented in the sculptures of
many Shaiva temples at Bhuvaneshwara, near Cuttack, in Orissa, and which
were built about that period. From these sculptures being found in such
places, it would seem that this practice was popular in that part of the
country at that time. It does not seem to be so prevalent now in
Hindustan, its place perhaps is filled up by the practice of sodomy,
introduced since the Mahomedan period.]




CHAPTER X.

OF THE WAY HOW TO BEGIN AND HOW TO END THE CONGRESS.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF CONGRESS AND LOVE QUARRELS.


In the pleasure-room, decorated with flowers, and fragrant with
perfumes, attended by his friends and servants, the citizen should
receive the woman, who will come bathed and dressed, and will invite her
to take refreshment and to drink freely. He should then seat her on his
left side, and holding her hair, and touching also the end and knot of
her garment, he should gently embrace her with his right arm. They
should then carry on an amusing conversation on various subjects, and
may also talk suggestively of things which would be considered as
coarse, or not to be mentioned generally in society. They may then sing,
either with or without gesticulations, and play on musical instruments,
talk about the arts, and persuade each other to drink. At last when the
woman is overcome with love and desire, the citizen should dismiss the
people that may be with him, giving them flowers, ointment, and betel
leaves, and then when the two are left alone, they should proceed as has
been already described in the previous chapters.

Such is the beginning of sexual union. At the end of the congress, the
lovers with modesty, and not looking at each other, should go separately
to the washing-room. After this, sitting in their own places, they
should eat some betel leaves, and the citizen should apply with his own
hand to the body of the woman some pure sandal wood ointment, or
ointment of some other kind. He should then embrace her with his left
arm, and with agreeable words should cause her to drink from a cup held
in his own hand, or he may give her water to drink. They can then eat
sweetmeats, or anything else, according to their likings, and may drink
fresh juice,[40] soup, gruel, extracts of meat, sherbet, the juice of
mangoe fruits, the extract of the juice of the citron tree mixed with
sugar, or anything that may be liked in different countries, and known
to be sweet, soft, and pure. The lovers may also sit on the terrace of
the palace or house, and enjoy the moonlight, and carry on an agreeable
conversation. At this time, too, while the woman lies in his lap, with
her face towards the moon, the citizen should show her the different
planets, the morning star, the polar star, and the seven Rishis, or
Great Bear.

This is the end of sexual union.

Congress is of the following kinds, viz.:

   Loving congress.
   Congress of subsequent love.
   Congress of artificial love.
   Congress of transferred love.
   Congress like that of eunuchs.
   Deceitful congress.
   Congress of spontaneous love.

(1). When a man and a woman, who have been in love with each other for
some time, come together with great difficulty, or when one of the two
returns from a journey, or is reconciled after having been separated on
account of a quarrel, then congress is called the "loving congress." It
is carried on according to the liking of the lovers, and as long as they
choose.

(2). When two persons come together, while their love for each other is
still in its infancy, their congress is called the "congress of
subsequent love."

(3). When a man carries on the congress by exciting himself by means of
the sixty-four ways, such as kissing, etc., etc., or when a man and a
woman come together, though in reality they are both attached to
different persons, their congress is then called "congress of artificial
love." At this time all the ways and means mentioned in the Kama Shastra
should be used.

(4). When a man, from the beginning to the end of the congress, though
having connection with the women, thinks all the time that he is
enjoying another one whom he loves, it is called the "congress of
transferred love."

(5). Congress between a man and a female water carrier, or a female
servant of a caste lower than his own, lasting only until the desire is
satisfied, is called "congress like that of eunuchs." Here external
touches, kisses, and manipulations are not to be employed.

(6). The congress between a courtezan and a rustic, and that between
citizens and the women of villages, and bordering countries, is called,
"deceitful congress."

(7). The congress that takes place between two persons who are attached
to one another, and which is done according to their own liking is
called "spontaneous congress."

Thus ends the kinds of congress.

We shall now speak of love quarrels.

A woman who is very much in love with a man cannot bear to hear the name
of her rival mentioned, or to have any conversation regarding her, or to
be addressed by her name through mistake. If such takes place, a great
quarrel arises, and the woman cries, becomes angry, tosses her hair
about, strikes her lover, falls from her bed or seat, and, casting aside
her garlands and ornaments, throws herself down on the ground.

At this time, the lover should attempt to reconcile her with
conciliatory words, and should take her up carefully and place her on
her bed. But she, not replying to his questions, and with increased
anger, should bend down his head by pulling his hair, and having kicked
him once, twice, or thrice on his arms, head, bosom or back, should then
proceed to the door of the room. Dattaka says that she should then sit
angrily near the door and shed tears, but should not go out, because she
would be found fault with for going away. After a time, when she thinks
that the conciliatory words and actions of her lover have reached their
utmost, she should then embrace him, talking to him with harsh and
reproachful words, but at the same time showing a loving desire for
congress.

When the woman is in her own house, and has quarrelled with her lover,
she should go to him and show how angry she is, and leave him.
Afterwards the citizen having sent the Vita,[41] the Vidushaka[41] or
the Pithamurda[41] to pacify her, she should accompany them back to the
house, and spend the night with her lover.

Thus end the love quarrels.

In conclusion.

A man, employing the sixty-four means mentioned by Babhravya, obtains
his object, and enjoys the woman of the first quality. Though he may
speak well on other subjects, if he does not know the sixty-four
divisions, no great respect is paid to him in the assembly of the
learned. A man, devoid of other knowledge, but well acquainted with the
sixty-four divisions, becomes a leader in any society of men and women.
What man will not respect the sixty-four parts,[42] considering they are
respected by the learned, by the cunning, and by the courtezans. As the
sixty-four parts are respected, are charming, and add to the talent of
women, they are called by the Acharyas dear to women. A man skilled in
the sixty-four parts is looked upon with love by his own wife, by the
wives of others, and by courtezans.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 40: The fresh juice of the cocoa nut tree, the date tree, and
other kinds of palm trees are drunk in India. It will not keep fresh
very long, but ferments rapidly, and is then distilled into liquor.]

[Footnote 41: The characteristics of these three individuals have been
given in Part I. page 31.]

[Footnote 42: A definition of the sixty-four parts, or divisions, is
given in Chapter II., page 45.]

=END OF PART II.=




PART III.

ABOUT THE ACQUISITION OF A WIFE.




CHAPTER I.

ON MARRIAGE.


When a girl of the same caste, and a virgin, is married in accordance
with the precepts of Holy Writ, the results of such an union are: the
acquisition of Dharma and Artha, offspring, affinity, increase of
friends, and untarnished love. For this reason a man should fix his
affections upon a girl who is of good family, whose parents are alive,
and who is three years or more younger than himself. She should be born
of a highly respectable family, possessed of wealth, well connected, and
with many relations and friends. She should also be beautiful, of a good
disposition, with lucky marks on her body, and with good hair, nails,
teeth, ears, eyes, and breasts, neither more nor less than they ought to
be, and no one of them entirely wanting, and not troubled with a sickly
body. The man should, of course, also possess these qualities himself.
But at all events, says Ghotakamukha, a girl who has been already joined
with others (_i.e._, no longer a maiden) should never be loved, for it
would be reproachable to do such a thing.

Now in order to bring about a marriage with such a girl as described
above, the parents and relations of the man should exert themselves, as
also such friends on both sides as may be desired to assist in the
matter. These friends should bring to the notice of the girl's parents,
the faults, both present and future, of all the other men that may wish
to marry her, and should at the same time extol even to exaggeration
all the excellencies, ancestral, and paternal, of their friend, so as to
endear him to them, and particularly to those that may be liked by the
girl's mother. One of the friends should also disguise himself as an
astrologer and declare the future good fortune and wealth of his friend
by showing the existence of all the lucky omens[43] and signs,[44] the
good influence of planets, the auspicious entrance of the sun into a
sign of the Zodiac, propitious stars and fortunate marks on his body.
Others again should rouse the jealousy of the girl's mother by telling
her that their friend has a chance of getting from some other quarter
even a better girl than hers.

A girl should be taken as a wife, as also given in marriage, when
fortune, signs, omens, and the words[45] of others are favourable, for,
says Ghotakamukha, a man should not marry at any time he likes. A girl
who is asleep, crying, or gone out of the house when sought in marriage,
or who is betrothed to another, should not be married. The following
also should be avoided:

   One who is kept concealed.
   One who has an ill-sounding name.
   One who has her nose depressed.
   One who has her nostril turned up.
   One who is formed like a male.
   One who is bent down.
   One who has crooked thighs.
   One who has a projecting forehead.
   One who has a bald head.
   One who does not like purity.
   One who has been polluted by another.
   One who is afflicted with the Gulma.[46]
   One who is disfigured in any way.
   One who has fully arrived at puberty.
   One who is a friend.
   One who is a younger sister.
   One who is a Varshakari.[47]

In the same way a girl who is called by the name of one of the
twenty-seven stars, or by the name of a tree, or of a river, is
considered worthless, as also a girl whose name ends in "r" or "l." But
some authors say that prosperity is gained only by marrying that girl to
whom one becomes attached, and that therefore no other girl but the one
who is loved should be married by anyone.

When a girl becomes marriageable her parents should dress her smartly,
and should place her where she can be easily seen by all. Every
afternoon, having dressed her and decorated her in a becoming manner,
they should send her with her female companions to sports, sacrifices,
and marriage ceremonies, and thus show her to advantage in society,
because she is a kind of merchandise. They should also receive with kind
words and signs of friendliness those of an auspicious appearance who
may come accompanied by their friends and relations for the purpose of
marrying their daughter, and under some pretext or other having first
dressed her becomingly, should then present her to them. After this they
should await the pleasure of fortune, and with this object should
appoint a future day on which a determination could be come to with
regard to their daughter's marriage. On this occasion when the persons
have come, the parents of the girl should ask them to bathe and dine,
and should say, "Everything will take place at the proper time," and
should not then comply with the request, but should settle the matter
later.

When a girl is thus acquired, either according to the custom of the
country, or according to his own desire, the man should marry her in
accordance with the precepts of the Holy Writ, according to one of the
four kinds of marriage.

Thus ends marriage.

There are also some verses on the subject as follows:--

Amusement in society, such as completing verses begun by others,
marriages, and auspicious ceremonies should be carried on neither with
superiors, nor inferiors, but with our equals. That should be known as a
high connection when a man, after marrying a girl, has to serve her and
her relations afterwards like a servant, and such a connection is
censured by the good. On the other hand, that reproachable connection,
where a man, together with his relations, lords it over his wife, is
called a low connection by the wise. But when both the man and the woman
afford mutual pleasure to each other, and when the relatives on both
sides pay respect to one another, such is called a connection in the
proper sense of the word. Therefore a man should contract neither a high
connection by which he is obliged to bow down afterwards to his kinsmen,
nor a low connection, which is universally reprehended by all.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 43: The flight of a blue jay on a person's left side is
considered a lucky omen when one starts on any business; the appearance
of a cat before anyone at such a time is looked on as a bad omen. There
are many omens of the same kind.]

[Footnote 44: Such as the throbbing of the right eye of men and the left
eye of women, etc.]

[Footnote 45: Before anything is begun it is a custom to go early in the
morning to a neighbour's house, and overhear the first words that may be
spoken in his family, and according as the words heard are of good or
bad import, so draw an inference as to the success or failure of the
undertaking.]

[Footnote 46: A disease consisting of any glandular enlargement in any
part of the body.]

[Footnote 47: A woman, the palms of whose hands and the soles of whose
feet are always perspiring.]




CHAPTER II.

OF CREATING CONFIDENCE IN THE GIRL.


For the first three days after marriage, the girl and her husband should
sleep on the floor, abstain from sexual pleasures, and eat their food
without seasoning it either with alkali or salt. For the next seven days
they should bathe amidst the sounds of auspicious musical instruments,
should decorate themselves, dine together, and pay attention to their
relations as well as to those who may have come to witness their
marriage. This is applicable to persons of all castes. On the night of
the tenth day the man should begin in a lonely place with soft words,
and thus create confidence in the girl. Some authors say that for the
purpose of winning her over he should not speak to her for three days,
but the followers of Babhravya are of opinion that if the man does not
speak with her for three days, the girl may be discouraged by seeing him
spiritless like a pillar, and, becoming dejected, she may begin to
despise him as an eunuch. Vatsyayana says that the man should begin to
win her over, and to create confidence in her, but should abstain at
first from sexual pleasures. Women being of a tender nature, want tender
beginnings, and when they are forcibly approached by men with whom they
are but slightly acquainted, they sometimes suddenly become haters of
sexual connection, and sometimes even haters of the male sex. The man
should therefore approach the girl according to her liking, and should
make use of those devices by which he may be able to establish himself
more and more into her confidence. These devices are as follows:--

He should embrace her first of all in a way she likes most, because it
does not last for a long time.

He should embrace her with the upper part of his body because that is
easier and simpler. If the girl is grown up, or if the man has known
her for some time, he may embrace her by the light of a lamp, but if he
is not well acquainted with her, or if she is a young girl, he should
then embrace her in darkness.

When the girl accepts the embrace, the man should put a "tambula" or
screw of betel nut and betel leaves in her mouth, and if she will not
take it, he should induce her to do so by conciliatory words,
entreaties, oaths, and kneeling at her feet, for it is an universal rule
that however bashful or angry a woman may be, she never disregards a man
kneeling at her feet. At the time of giving this "tambula" he should
kiss her mouth softly and gracefully without making any sound. When she
is gained over in this respect he should then make her talk, and so that
she may be induced to talk he should ask her questions about things of
which he knows or pretends to know nothing, and which can be answered in
a few words. If she does not speak to him, he should not frighten her,
but should ask her the same thing again and again in a conciliatory
manner. If she does not then speak he should urge her to give a reply,
because as Ghotakamukha says, "all girls hear everything said to them by
men, but do not themselves sometimes say a single word." When she is
thus importuned, the girl should give replies by shakes of the head, but
if she quarrelled with the man she should not even do that. When she is
asked by the man whether she wishes for him, and whether she likes him,
she should remain silent for a long time, and when at last importuned to
reply, should give him a favourable answer by a nod of the head. If the
man is previously acquainted with the girl he should converse with her
by means of a female friend, who may be favourable to him, and in the
confidence of both, and carry on the conversation on both sides. On such
an occasion the girl should smile with her head bent down, and if the
female friend say more on her part than she was desired to do, she
should chide her and dispute with her. The female friend should say in
jest even what she is not desired to say by the girl, and add, "she says
so," on which the girl should say indistinctly and prettily, "O no! I
did not say so," and she should then smile and throw an occasional
glance towards the man.

If the girl is familiar with the man, she should place near him,
without saying anything, the tambula, the ointment, or the garland that
he may have asked for, or she may tie them up in his upper garment.
While she is engaged in this, the man should touch her young breasts in
the sounding way of pressing with the nails, and if she prevents him
doing this he should say to her, "I will not do it again if you will
embrace me," and should in this way cause her to embrace him. While he
is being embraced by her he should pass his hand repeatedly over and
about her body. By and bye he should place her in his lap, and try more
and more to gain her consent, and if she will not yield to him he should
frighten her by saying, "I shall impress marks of my teeth and nails on
your lips and breasts, and then make similar marks on my own body, and
shall tell my friends that you did them. What will you say then?" In
this and other ways, as fear and confidence are created in the minds of
children, so should the man gain her over to his wishes.

On the second and third nights, after her confidence has increased still
more, he should feel the whole of her body with his hands, and kiss her
all over; he should also place his hands upon her thighs and shampoo
them, and if he succeed in this he should then shampoo the joints of her
thighs. If she tries to prevent him doing this he should say to her,
"What harm is there in doing it?" and should persuade her to let him do
it. After gaining this point he should touch her private parts, should
loosen her girdle and the knot of her dress, and turning up her lower
garment should shampoo the joints of her naked thighs. Under various
pretences he should do all these things, but he should not at that time
begin actual congress. After this he should teach her the sixty-four
arts, should tell her how much he loves her, and describe to her the
hopes which he formerly entertained regarding her. He should also
promise to be faithful to her in future, and should dispel all her fears
with respect to rival women, and, at last, after having overcome her
bashfulness, he should begin to enjoy her in a way so as not to frighten
her. So much about creating confidence in the girl; and there are,
moreover, some verses on the subject as follows:--

A man acting according to the inclinations of a girl should try and gain
her over so that she may love him and place her confidence in him. A
man does not succeed either by implicitly following the inclination of a
girl, or by wholly opposing her, and he should therefore adopt a middle
course. He who knows how to make himself beloved by women, as well as to
increase their honour and create confidence in them, this man becomes an
object of their love. But he, who neglects a girl thinking she is too
bashful, is despised by her as a beast ignorant of the working of the
female mind. Moreover, a girl forcibly enjoyed by one who does not
understand the hearts of girls becomes nervous, uneasy, and dejected,
and suddenly begins to hate the man who has taken advantage of her; and
then, when her love is not understood or returned, she sinks into
despondency, and becomes either a hater of mankind altogether, or,
hating her own man, she has recourse to other men.[48]

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 48: These last few lines have been exemplified in many ways in
many novels of this century.]




CHAPTER III.

ON COURTSHIP, AND THE MANIFESTATION OF THE FEELINGS BY OUTWARD SIGNS AND
DEEDS.


A poor man possessed of good qualities, a man born of a low family
possessed of mediocre qualities, a neighbour possessed of wealth, and
one under the control of his father, mother or brothers, should not
marry without endeavouring to gain over the girl from her childhood to
love and esteem them. Thus a boy separated from his parents, and living
in the house of his uncle, should try to gain over the daughter of his
uncle, or some other girl, even though she be previously betrothed to
another. And this way of gaining over a girl, says Ghotakamukha, is
unexceptional, because Dharma can be accomplished by means of it, as
well as by any other way of marriage.

When a boy has thus begun to woo the girl he loves, he should spend his
time with her and amuse her with various games and diversions fitted for
their age and acquaintanceship, such as picking and collecting flowers,
making garlands of flowers, playing the parts of members of a fictitious
family, cooking food, playing with dice, playing with cards, the game of
odd and even, the game of finding out the middle finger, the game of six
pebbles, and such other games as may be prevalent in the country, and
agreeable to the disposition of the girl. In addition to this, he should
carry on various amusing games played by several persons together, such
as hide and seek, playing with seeds, hiding things in several small
heaps of wheat and looking for them, blind-man's buff, gymnastic
exercises, and other games of the same sort, in company with the girl,
her friends and female attendants. The man should also show great
kindness to any woman whom the girl thinks fit to be trusted, and should
also make new acquaintances, but above all he should attach to himself
by kindness and little services the daughter of the girl's nurse, for
if she be gained over, even though she comes to know of his design, she
does not cause any obstruction, but is sometimes even able to effect an
union between him and the girl. And though she knows the true character
of the man, she always talks of his many excellent qualities to the
parents and relations of the girl, even though she may not be desired to
do so by him.

In this way the man should do whatever the girl takes most delight in,
and he should get for her whatever she may have a desire to possess.
Thus he should procure for her such playthings as may be hardly known to
other girls. He may also show her a ball dyed with various colours, and
other curiosities of the same sort; and should give her dolls made of
cloth, wood, buffalo-horn, ivory, wax, flour, or earth; also utensils
for cooking food, and figures in wood, such as a man and woman standing,
a pair of rams, or goats, or sheep; also temples made of earth, bamboo,
or wood, dedicated to various goddesses; and cages for parrots, cuckoos,
starlings, quails, cocks, and partridges; water-vessels of different
sorts and of elegant forms, machines for throwing water about, guitars,
stands for putting images upon, stools, lac, red arsenic, yellow
ointment, vermilion and collyrium, as well as sandal-wood, saffron,
betel nut and betel leaves. Such things should be given at different
times whenever he gets a good opportunity of meeting her, and some of
them should be given in private, and some in public, according to
circumstances. In short, he should try in every way to make her look
upon him as one who would do for her everything that she wanted to be
done.

In the next place he should get her to meet him in some place privately,
and should then tell her that the reason of his giving presents to her
in secret was the fear that the parents of both of them might be
displeased, and then he may add that the things which he had given her
had been much desired by other people. When her love begins to show
signs of increasing he should relate to her agreeable stories if she
expresses a wish to hear such narratives. Or if she takes delight in
legerdemain, he should amaze her by performing various tricks of
jugglery; or if she feels a great curiosity to see a performance of the
various arts, he should show his own skill in them. When she is
delighted with singing he should entertain her with music, and on
certain days, and at the time of going together to moonlight fairs and
festivals, and at the time of her return after being absent from home,
he should present her with bouquets of flowers, and with chaplets for
the head, and with ear ornaments and rings, for these are the proper
occasions on which such things should be presented.

He should also teach the daughter of the girl's nurse all the sixty-four
means of pleasure practised by men, and under this pretext should also
inform her of his great skill in the art of sexual enjoyment. All this
time he should wear a fine dress, and make as good an appearance as
possible, for young women love men who live with them, and who are
handsome, good looking and well dressed. As for the saying that though
women may fall in love, they still make no effort themselves to gain
over the object of their affections, that is only a matter of idle talk.

Now a girl always shows her love by outward signs and actions, such as
the following:--She never looks the man in the face, and becomes abashed
when she is looked at by him; under some pretext or other she shows her
limbs to him; she looks secretly at him though he has gone away from her
side; hangs down her head when she is asked some question by him, and
answers in indistinct words and unfinished sentences, delights to be in
his company for a long time, speaks to her attendants in a peculiar tone
with the hope of attracting his attention towards her when she is at a
distance from him, does not wish to go from the place where he is, under
some pretext or other she makes him look at different things, narrates
to him tales and stories very slowly so that she may continue conversing
with him for a long time, kisses and embraces before him a child sitting
in her lap, draws ornamental marks on the foreheads of her female
servants, performs sportive and graceful movements when her attendants
speak jestingly to her in the presence of her lover, confides in her
lover's friends, and respects and obeys them, shows kindness to his
servants, converses with them, and engages them to do her work as if she
were their mistress, and listens attentively to them when they tell
stories about her lover to somebody else, enters his house when induced
to do so by the daughter of her nurse, and by her assistance manages to
converse and play with him, avoids being seen by her lover when she is
not dressed and decorated, gives him by the hand of her female friend
her ear ornament, ring, or garland of flowers that he may have asked to
see, always wears anything that he may have presented to her, become
dejected when any other bridegroom is mentioned by her parents, and does
not mix with those who may be of her party, or who may support his
claims.

There are also some verses on the subject as follows:--

A man, who has seen and perceived the feelings of the girl towards him,
and who has noticed the outward signs and movements by which those
feelings are expressed, should do everything in his power to effect an
union with her. He should gain over a young girl by childlike sports, a
damsel come of age by his skill in the arts, and a girl that loves him
by having recourse to persons in whom she confides.




CHAPTER IV.

ABOUT THINGS TO BE DONE ONLY BY THE MAN, AND THE ACQUISITION OF THE GIRL
THEREBY. ALSO WHAT IS TO BE DONE BY A GIRL TO GAIN OVER A MAN, AND
SUBJECT HIM TO HER.


Now when the girl begins to show her love by outward signs and motions,
as described in the last chapter, the lover should try to gain her over
entirely by various ways and means, such as the following:--

When engaged with her in any game or sport he should intentionally hold
her hand. He should practise upon her the various kinds of embraces,
such as the touching embrace, and others already described in a
preceeding chapter (Part II. Chapter 2). He should show her a pair of
human beings cut out of the leaf of a tree, and such like things, at
intervals. When engaged in water sports, he should dive at a distance
from her, and come up close to her. He should show an increased liking
for the new foliage of trees and such like things. He should describe to
her the pangs he suffers on her account. He should relate to her the
beautiful dream that he has had with reference to other women. At
parties and assemblies of his caste he should sit near her, and touch
her under some pretence or other, and having placed his foot upon her's,
he should slowly touch each of her toes, and press the ends of the
nails; if successful in this, he should get hold of her foot with his
hand and repeat the same thing. He should also press a finger of her
hand between his toes when she happens to be washing his feet; and
whenever he gives anything to her or takes anything from her, he should
show her by his manner and look how much he loves her.

He should sprinkle upon her the water brought for rinsing his mouth; and
when alone with her in a lonely place, or in darkness, he should make
love to her, and tell her the true state of his mind without distressing
her in any way.

Whenever he sits with her on the same seat or bed he should say to her,
"I have something to tell you in private," and then, when she comes to
hear it in a quiet place, he should express his love to her more by
manner and signs than by words. When he comes to know the state of her
feelings towards him he should pretend to be ill, and should make her
come to his house to speak to him. There he should intentionally hold
her hand and place it on his eyes and forehead, and under the pretence
of preparing some medicine for him he should ask her to do work for his
sake in the following words: "This work must be done by you, and by
nobody else." When she wants to go away he should let her go, with an
earnest request to come and see him again. This device of illness should
be continued for three days and three nights. After this, when she
begins coming to see him frequently, he should carry on long
conversations with her, for, says Ghotakamukha, "though a man loves a
girl ever so much, he never succeeds in winning her without a great deal
of talking." At last, when the man finds the girl completely gained
over, he may then begin to enjoy her. As for the saying that women grow
less timid than usual during the evening, and in darkness, and are
desirous of congress at those times, and do not oppose men then and
should only be enjoyed at these hours, it is a matter of talk only.

When it is impossible for the man to carry on his endeavours alone, he
should, by means of the daughter of her nurse, or of a female friend in
whom she confides, cause the girl to be brought to him without making
known to her his design, and he should then proceed with her in the
manner above described. Or he should in the beginning send his own
female servant to live with the girl as her friend, and should then gain
her over by her means.

At last, when he knows the state of her feelings by her outward manner
and conduct towards him at religious ceremonies, marriage ceremonies,
fairs, festivals, theatres, public assemblies, and such like occasions,
he should begin to enjoy her when she is alone, for Vatsyayana lays it
down, that women, when resorted to at proper times and in proper
places, do not turn away from their lovers.

When a girl, possessed of good qualities and well-bred, though born in a
humble family, or destitute of wealth, and not therefore desired by her
equals, or an orphan girl, or one deprived of her parents, but observing
the rules of her family and caste, should wish to bring about her own
marriage when she comes of age, such a girl should endeavour to gain
over a strong and good looking young man, or a person whom she thinks
would marry her on account of the weakness of his mind, and even without
the consent of his parents. She should do this by such means as would
endear her to the said person, as well as by frequently seeing and
meeting him. Her mother also should constantly cause them to meet by
means of her female friends, and the daughter of her nurse. The girl
herself should try to get alone with her beloved in some quiet place,
and at odd times should give him flowers, betel nut, betel leaves and
perfumes. She should also show her skill in the practice of the arts, in
shampooing, in scratching and in pressing with the nails. She should
also talk to him on the subjects he likes best, and discuss with him the
ways and means of gaining over and winning the affections of a girl.

But old authors say that although the girl loves the man ever so much,
she should not offer herself, or make the first overtures, for a girl
who does this loses her dignity, and is liable to be scorned and
rejected. But when the man shows his wish to enjoy her, she should be
favourable to him and should show no change in her demeanour when he
embraces her, and should receive all the manifestations of his love as
if she were ignorant of the state of his mind. But when he tries to kiss
her she should oppose him; when he begs to be allowed to have sexual
intercourse with her she should let him touch her private parts only and
with considerable difficulty; and though importuned by him, she should
not yield herself up to him as if of her own accord, but should resists
his attempts to have her. It is only, moreover, when she is certain that
she is truly loved, and that her lover is indeed devoted to her, and
will not change his mind, that she should then give herself up to him,
and persuade him to marry her quickly. After losing her virginity she
should tell her confidential friends about it.

Here ends the efforts of a girl to gain over a man.

There are also some verses on the subject as follows: A girl who is much
sought after should marry the man that she likes, and whom she thinks
would be obedient to her, and capable of giving her pleasure. But when
from the desire of wealth a girl is married by her parents to a rich man
without taking into consideration the character or looks of the
bridegroom, or when given to a man who has several wives, she never
becomes attached to the man, even though he be endowed with good
qualities, obedient to her will, active, strong, and healthy, and
anxious to please her in every way.[49] A husband who is obedient but
yet master of himself, though he be poor and not good looking, is better
than one who is common to many women, even though he be handsome and
attractive. The wives of rich men, where there are many wives, are not
generally attached to their husbands, and are not confidential with
them, and even though they possess all the external enjoyments of life,
still have recourse to other men. A man who is of a low mind, who has
fallen from his social position, and who is much given to travelling,
does not deserve to be married; neither does one who has many wives and
children, or one who is devoted to sport and gambling, and who comes to
his wife only when he likes. Of all the lovers of a girl he only is her
true husband who possesses the qualities that are liked by her, and such
a husband only enjoys real superiority over her, because he is the
husband of love.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 49: There is a good deal of truth in the last few
observations. Woman is a monogamous animal, and loves but one, and likes
to feel herself alone in the affections of one man, and cannot bear
rivals. It may also be taken as a general rule that women either married
to, or kept by, rich men love them for their wealth, but not for
themselves.]




CHAPTER V.

ON CERTAIN FORMS OF MARRIAGE[50]


When a girl cannot meet her lover frequently in private, she should send
the daughter of her nurse to him, it being understood that she has
confidence in her, and had previously gained her over to her interests.
On seeing the man, the daughter of the nurse should, in the course of
conversation, describe to him the noble birth, the good disposition, the
beauty, talent, skill, knowledge of human nature and affection of the
girl in such a way as not to let him suppose that she has been sent by
the girl, and should thus create affection for the girl in the heart of
the man. To the girl also she should speak about the excellent qualities
of the man, especially of those qualities which she knows are pleasing
to the girl. She should, moreover, speak with disparagement of the other
lovers of the girl, and talk about the avarice and indiscretion of their
parents, and the fickleness of their relations. She should also quote
samples of many girls of ancient times, such as Sakuntala and others,
who, having united themselves with lovers of their own caste and their
own choice, were ever happy afterwards in their society. And she should
also tell of other girls who married into great families, and being
troubled by rival wives, became wretched and miserable, and were finally
abandoned. She should further speak of the good fortune, the continual
happiness, the chastity, obedience, and affection of the man, and if the
girl gets amorous about him, she should endeavour to allay her shame[51]
and her fear as well as her suspicions about any disaster that might
result from the marriage. In a word, she should act the whole part of a
female messenger by telling the girl all about the man's affection for
her, the places he frequented, and the endeavours he made to meet her,
and by frequently repeating, "It will be all right if the man will take
you away forcibly and unexpectedly."


_The Forms of Marriage._

When the girl is gained over, and acts openly with the man as his wife,
he should cause fire to be brought from the house of a Brahman, and
having spread the Kusha grass upon the ground, and offered an oblation
to the fire he should marry her according to the precepts of the
religious law. After this he should inform his parents of the fact,
because it is the opinion of ancient authors that a marriage solemnly
contracted in the presence of fire cannot afterwards be set aside.

After the consummation of the marriage, the relations of the man should
gradually be made acquainted with the affair, and the relations of the
girl should also be apprised of it in such a way that they may consent
to the marriage, and overlook the manner in which it was brought about,
and when this is done they should afterwards be reconciled by
affectionate presents and favourable conduct. In this manner the man
should marry the girl according to the Gandharva form of marriage.

When the girl cannot make up her mind, or will not express her readiness
to marry, the man should obtain her in any one of the following ways:--

(1). On a fitting occasion, and under some excuse, he should by means of
a female friend with whom he is well acquainted, and whom he can trust,
and who also is well known to the girl's family, get the girl brought
unexpectedly to his house, and he should then bring fire from the house
of a Brahman, and proceed as before described.

(2.) When the marriage of the girl with some other person draws near,
the man should disparage the future husband to the utmost in the mind of
the mother of the girl, and then having got the girl to come with her
mother's consent to a neighbouring house, he should bring fire from the
house of a Brahman, and proceed as above.

(3.) The man should become a great friend of the brother of the girl,
the said brother being of the same age as himself, and addicted to
courtesans, and to intrigues with the wives of other people, and should
give him assistance in such matters, and also give him occasional
presents. He should then tell him about his great love for his sister,
as young men will sacrifice even their lives for the sake of those who
may be of the same age, habits, and dispositions as themselves. After
this the man should get the girl brought by means of her brother to some
secure place, and having brought fire from the house of a Brahman,
should proceed as before.

(4.) The man should on the occasion of festivals get the daughter of the
nurse to give the girl some intoxicating substance, and then cause her
to be brought to some secure place under the pretence of some business,
and there having enjoyed her before she recovers from her intoxication,
should bring fire from the house of a Brahman, and proceed as before.

(5.) The man should, with the connivance of the daughter of the nurse,
carry off the girl from her house while she is asleep, and then, having
enjoyed her before she recovers from her sleep, should bring fire from
the house of a Brahman, and proceed as before.

(6.) When the girl goes to a garden, or to some village in the
neighbourhood, the man should, with his friends, fall on her guards, and
having killed them, or frightened them away, forcibly carry her off, and
proceed as before.

There are verses on the subject as follows:--In all the forms of
marriage given in this chapter of this work, the one that precedes is
better than the one that follows it, on account of its being more in
accordance with the commands of religion, and therefore it is only when
it is impossible to carry the former into practice that the latter
should be resorted to. As the fruit of all good marriages is love, the
Gandharva[52] form of marriage is respected, even though it is formed
under unfavourable circumstances, because it fulfils the object sought
for. Another cause of the respect accorded to the Gandharva form of
marriage is, that it brings forth happiness, causes less trouble in its
performance than any other forms of marriage, and is above all the
result of previous love.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 50: These forms of marriage differ from the four kinds of
marriage mentioned in Chapter I., and are only to be made use of when
the girl is gained over in the way mentioned in Chapters III. and IV.]

[Footnote 51: About this, see a story on the fatal effects of love at
page 114 of "Early Ideas; a Group of Hindoo Stories," collected and
collated by Anaryan. W. H. Allen and Co., London, 1881.]

[Footnote 52: About the Gandharvavivaha form of marriage, see note to
page 28 of Captain R. F. Burton's "Vickram and the Vampire; or Tales of
Hindu Devilry." Longman, Green & Co., London, 1870. This form of
matrimony was recognised by the ancient Hindus, and is frequent in
books. It is a kind of Scotch Wedding--ultra-Caledonian--taking place by
mutual consent without any form or ceremony. The Gandharvas are heavenly
minstrels of Indra's court, who are supposed to be witnesses.]

=END OF PART III.=




PART IV.

ABOUT A WIFE.




CHAPTER I.

ON THE MANNER OF LIVING OF A VIRTUOUS WOMAN, AND OF HER BEHAVIOUR DURING
THE ABSENCE OF HER HUSBAND.


A virtuous woman, who has affection for her husband, should act in
conformity with his wishes as if he were a divine being, and with his
consent should take upon herself the whole care of his family. She
should keep the whole house well cleaned, and arrange flowers of various
kinds in different parts of it, and make the floor smooth and polished
so as to give the whole a neat and becoming appearance. She should
surround the house with a garden, and place ready in it all the
materials required for the morning, noon and even sacrifices. Moreover
she should herself revere the sanctuary of the Household Gods, for says
Gonardiya, "nothing so much attracts the heart of a householder to his
wife as a careful observance of the things mentioned above."

Towards the parents, relations, friends, sisters, and servants of her
husband she should behave as they deserve. In the garden she should
plant beds of green vegetables, bunches of the sugar cane, and clumps of
the fig tree, the mustard plant, the parsley plant, the fennel plant,
and the xanthochymus pictorius. Clusters of various flowers, such as the
trapa bispinosa, the jasmine, the gasminum grandiflorum, the yellow
amaranth, the wild jasmine, the tabernamontana coronaria, the
nadyaworta, the china rose and others, should likewise be planted,
together with the fragrant grass andropogon schænanthus, and the
fragrant root of the plant andropogon miricatus. She should also have
seats and arbours made in the garden, in the middle of which a well,
tank, or pool should be dug.

The wife should always avoid the company of female beggars, female
buddish mendicants, unchaste and roguish women, female fortune tellers
and witches. As regards meals she should always consider what her
husband likes and dislikes, and what things are good for him, and what
are injurious to him. When she hears the sounds of his footsteps coming
home she should at once get up, and be ready to do whatever he may
command her, and either order her female servant to wash his feet, or
wash them herself. When going anywhere with her husband, she should put
on her ornaments, and without his consent she should not either give or
accept invitations, or attend marriages and sacrifices, or sit in the
company of female friends, or visit the temples of the Gods. And if she
wants to engage in any kind of games or sports, she should not do it
against his will. In the same way she should always sit down after him,
and get up before him, and should never awaken him when he is asleep.
The kitchen should be situated in a quiet and retired place, so as not
to be accessible to strangers, and should always look clean.

In the event of any misconduct on the part of her husband, she should
not blame him excessively though she be a little displeased. She should
not use abusive language towards him, but rebuke him with conciliatory
words, whether he be in the company of friends or alone. Moreover, she
should not be a scold, for says Gonardiya, "there is no cause of dislike
on the part of a husband so great as this characteristic in a wife."
Lastly she should avoid bad expressions, sulky looks, speaking aside,
standing in the doorway, and looking at passers-by, conversing in the
pleasure groves, and remaining in a lonely place for a long time; and
finally she should always keep her body, her teeth, her hair, and
everything belonging to her tidy, sweet, and clean.

When the wife wants to approach her husband in private her dress should
consist of many ornaments, various kinds of flowers, and a cloth
decorated with different colours, and some sweet-smelling ointments or
unguents. But her every-day dress should be composed of a thin,
close-textured cloth, a few ornaments and flowers, and a little scent,
not too much. She should also observe the fasts and vows of her husband,
and when he tries to prevent her doing this, she should persuade him to
let her do it.

At appropriate times of the year, and when they happen to be cheap, she
should buy earth, bamboos, firewood, skins, and iron pots, as also salt
and oil. Fragrant substances, vessels made of the fruit of the plant
wrightea antidysenterica, or oval leaved wrightea, medicines, and other
things which are always wanted, should be obtained when required and
kept in a secret place of the house. The seeds of the radish, the
potato, the common beet, the Indian wormwood, the mangoe, the cucumber,
the egg plant, the kushmanda, the pumpkin gourd, the surana, the
bignonia indica, the sandal wood, the premna spinosa, the garlic plant,
the onion, and other vegetables, should be bought and sown at the proper
seasons.

The wife, moreover, should not tell to strangers the amount of her
wealth, nor the secrets which her husband has confided to her. She
should surpass all the women of her own rank in life in her cleverness,
her appearance, her knowledge of cookery, her pride, and her manner of
serving her husband. The expenditure of the year should be regulated by
the profits. The milk that remains after the meals should be turned into
ghee or clarified butter. Oil and sugar should be prepared at home;
spinning and weaving should also be done there; and a store of ropes and
cords, and barks of trees for twisting into ropes should be kept. She
should also attend to the pounding and cleaning of rice, using its small
grain and chaff in some way or other. She should pay the salaries of the
servants, look after the tilling of the fields, and keeping of the
flocks and herds, superintend the making of vehicles, and take care of
the rams, cocks, quails, parrots, starlings, cuckoos, peacocks, monkeys,
and deer; and finally adjust the income and expenditure of the day. The
worn-out clothes should be given to those servants who have done good
work, in order to show them that their services have been appreciated,
or they may be applied to some other use. The vessels in which wine is
prepared, as well as those in which it is kept, should be carefully
looked after, and put away at the proper time. All sales and purchases
should also be well attended to. The friends of her husband she should
welcome by presenting them with flowers, ointment, incense, betel
leaves, and betel nut. Her father-in-law and mother-in law she should
treat as they deserve, always remaining dependant on their will, never
contradicting them, speaking to them in few and not harsh words, not
laughing loudly in their presence, and acting with their friends and
enemies as with her own. In addition to the above she should not be
vain, or too much taken up with her enjoyments. She should be liberal
towards her servants, and reward them on holidays and festivals; and not
give away anything without first making it known to her husband.

Thus ends the manner of living of a virtuous woman.

During the absence of her husband on a journey the virtuous woman should
wear only her auspicious ornaments, and observe the fasts in honour of
the Gods. While anxious to hear the news of her husband, she should
still look after her household affairs. She should sleep near the elder
women of the house, and make herself agreeable to them. She should look
after and keep in repair the things that are liked by her husband, and
continue the works that have been begun by him. To the abode of her
relations she should not go except on occasions of joy and sorrow, and
then she should go in her usual travelling dress, accompanied by her
husband's servants, and not remain there for a long time. The fasts and
feasts should be observed with the consent of the elders of the house.
The resources should be increased by making purchases and sales
according to the practice of the merchants, and by means of honest
servants, superintended by herself. The income should be increased, and
the expenditure diminished as much as possible. And when her husband
returns from his journey, she should receive him at first in her
ordinary clothes, so that he may know in what way she has lived during
his absence, and should bring to him some presents, as also materials
for the worship of the Deity.

Thus ends the part relating to the behaviour of a wife during the
absence of her husband on a journey.

There are also some verses on the subject as follows.

"The wife, whether she be a woman of noble family, or a virgin widow[53]
re-married, or a concubine, should lead a chaste life, devoted to her
husband, and doing every thing for his welfare. Women acting thus,
acquire Dharma, Artha, and Kama, obtain a high position, and generally
keep their husbands devoted to them."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 53: This probably refers to a girl married in her infancy, or
when very young, and whose husband had died before she arrived at the
age of puberty. Infant marriages are still the common custom of the
Hindoos.]




CHAPTER II.

ON THE CONDUCT OF THE ELDER WIFE TOWARDS THE OTHER WIVES OF HER HUSBAND,
AND ON THAT OF A YOUNGER WIFE TOWARDS THE ELDER ONES. ALSO ON THE
CONDUCT OF A VIRGIN WIDOW RE-MARRIED; OF A WIFE DISLIKED BY HER HUSBAND;
OF THE WOMEN IN THE KING'S HAREM; AND LASTLY ON THE CONDUCT OF A HUSBAND
TOWARDS MANY WIVES.


The causes of re-marrying during the lifetime of the wife are as
follows:

(1). The folly or ill temper of the wife.

(2). Her husband's dislike to her.

(3). The want of offspring.

(4). The continual birth of daughters.

(5). The incontinence of the husband.

From the very beginning the wife should endeavour to attract the heart
of her husband, by showing to him continually her devotion, her good
temper, and her wisdom. If however she bears him no children, she should
herself tell her husband to marry another woman. And when the second
wife is married, and brought to the house, the first wife should give
her a position superior to her own, and look upon her as a sister. In
the morning the elder wife should forcibly make the younger one decorate
herself in the presence of their husband, and should not mind all the
husband's favour being given to her. If the younger wife does anything
to displease her husband the elder one should not neglect her, but
should always be ready to give her most careful advice, and should teach
her to do various things in the presence of her husband. Her children
she should treat as her own, her attendants she should look upon with
more regard, even than on her own servants, her friends she should
cherish with love and kindness, and her relations with great honour.

When there are many other wives besides herself, the elder wife should
associate with the one who is immediately next to her in rank and age,
and should instigate the wife who has recently enjoyed her husband's
favour to quarrel with the present favourite. After this she should
sympathize with the former, and having collected all the other wives
together, should get them to denounce the favourite as a scheming and
wicked woman, without however committing herself in any way. If the
favourite wife happens to quarrel with the husband, then the elder wife
should take her part and give her false encouragement, and thus cause
the quarrel to be increased. If there be only a little quarrel between
the two, the elder wife should do all she can to work it up into a large
quarrel. But if after all this she finds the husband still continues to
love his favourite wife she should then change her tactics, and
endeavour to bring about a conciliation between them, so as to avoid her
husband's displeasure.

Thus ends the conduct of the elder wife.

The younger wife should regard the elder wife of her husband as her
mother, and should not give anything away, even to her own relations,
without her knowledge. She should tell her everything about herself, and
not approach her husband without her permission. Whatever is told to her
by the elder wife she should not reveal to others, and she should take
care of the children of the senior even more than of her own. When alone
with her husband she should serve him well, but should not tell him of
the pain she suffers from the existence of a rival wife. She may also
obtain secretly from her husband some marks of his particular regard for
her, and may tell him that she lives only for him, and for the regard
that he has for her. She should never reveal her love for her husband,
nor her husband's love for her to any person, either in pride or in
anger, for a wife that reveals the secrets of her husband is despised by
him. As for seeking to obtain the regard of her husband, Gonardiya says,
that it should always be done in private, for fear of the elder wife. If
the elder wife be disliked by her husband, or be childless, she should
sympathize with her, and should ask her husband to do the same, but
should surpass her in leading the life of a chaste woman.

Thus ends the conduct of the younger wife towards the elder.

A widow in poor circumstances, or of a weak nature, and who allies
herself again to a man, is called a widow re-married.

The followers of Babhravya say that a virgin widow should not marry a
person whom she may be obliged to leave on account of his bad character,
or of his being destitute of the excellent qualities of a man, she thus
being obliged to have recourse to another person. Gonardya is of opinion
that as the cause of a widow's marrying again is her desire for
happiness, and as happiness is secured by the possession of excellent
qualities in her husband, joined to love of enjoyment, it is better
therefore to secure a person endowed with such qualities in the first
instance. Vatsyayana however thinks that a widow may marry any person
that she likes, and that she thinks will suit her.

At the time of her marriage the widow should obtain from her husband the
money to pay the cost of drinking parties, and picnics with her
relations, and of giving them and her friends kindly gifts and presents;
or she may do these things at her own cost if she likes. In the same way
she may wear either her husband's ornaments or her own. As to the
presents of affection mutually exchanged between the husband and herself
there is no fixed rule about them. If she leaves her husband after
marriage of her own accord, she should restore to him whatever he may
have given her, with the exception of the mutual presents. If however
she is driven out of the house by her husband she should not return
anything to him.

After her marriage she should live in the house of her husband like one
of the chief members of the family, but should treat the other ladies of
the family with kindness, the servants with generosity, and all the
friends of the house with familiarity and good temper. She should show
that she is better acquainted with the sixty-four arts than the other
ladies of the house, and in any quarrels with her husband she should not
rebuke him severely, but in private do everything that he wishes, and
make use of the sixty-four ways of enjoyment. She should be obliging to
the other wives of her husband, and to their children she should give
presents, behave as their mistress, and make ornaments and play things
for their use. In the friends and servants of her husband she should
confide more than in his other wives, and finally she should have a
liking for drinking parties, going to picnics, attending fairs and
festivals, and for carrying out all kinds of games and amusements.

Thus ends the conduct of a virgin widow re-married.

A woman who is disliked by her husband, and annoyed and distressed by
his other wives, should associate with the wife who is liked most by her
husband, and who serves him more than the others, and should teach her
all the arts with which she is acquainted. She should act as the nurse
of her husband's children, and having gained over his friends to her
side, should through them make him acquainted of her devotion to him. In
religious ceremonies she should be a leader, as also in vows and fasts,
and should not hold too good an opinion of herself. When her husband is
lying on his bed she should only go near him when it is agreeable to
him, and should never rebuke him, or show obstinacy in any way. If her
husband happens to quarrel with any of his other wives, she should
reconcile them to each other, and if he desires to see any woman
secretly, she should manage to bring about the meeting between them. She
should moreover make herself acquainted with the weak points of her
husband's character, but always keep them secret, and on the whole
behave herself in such an way as may lead him to look upon her as a good
and devoted wife.

Here ends the conduct of a wife disliked by her husband.

The above sections will show how all the women of the King's seraglio
are to behave, and therefore we shall now speak separately only about
the king.

The female attendants in the harem (called severally Kanchukiyas,[54]
Mahallarikas,[55] and Mahallikas,[56]) should bring flowers, ointments
and clothes from the King's wives to the King, and he having received
these things should give them as presents to the servants, along with
the things worn by him the previous day. In the afternoon the King,
having dressed and put on his ornaments, should interview the women of
the harem, who should also be dressed and decorated with jewels. Then
having given to each of them such a place and such respect as may suit
the occasion and as they may deserve, he should carry on with them a
cheerful conversation. After that he should see such of his wives as may
be virgin widows re-married, and after them the concubines and dancing
girls. All of these should be visited in their own private rooms.

When the King rises from his noonday sleep, the woman whose duty it is
to inform the King regarding the wife who is to spend the night with him
should come to him accompanied by the female attendants of that wife
whose turn may have arrived in the regular course, and of her who may
have been accidentally passed over as her turn arrived, and of her who
may have been unwell at the time of her turn. These attendants should
place before the King the ointments and unguents sent by each of these
wives, marked with the seal of her ring, and their names and their
reasons for sending the ointments should be told to the King. After this
the King accepts the ointment of one of them, who then is informed that
her ointment has been accepted, and that her day has been settled.[57]

At festivals, singing parties and exhibitions, all the wives of the King
should be treated with respect and served with drinks.

But the women of the harem should not be allowed to go out alone,
neither should any women outside the harem be allowed to enter it except
those whose character is well known. And lastly the work which the
King's wives have to do should not be too fatiguing.

Thus ends the conduct of the King towards the women of the harem, and of
their own conduct.

A man marrying many wives should act fairly towards them all. He should
neither disregard nor pass over their faults, and should not reveal to
one wife the love, passion, bodily blemishes, and confidential
reproaches of the other. No opportunity should be given to any one of
them of speaking to him about their rivals, and if one of them should
begin to speak ill of another, he should chide her and tell her that she
has exactly the same blemishes in her character. One of them he should
please by secret confidence, another by secret respect, and another by
secret flattery, and he should please them all by going to gardens, by
amusements, by presents, by honouring their relations, by telling them
secrets, and lastly by loving unions. A young woman who is of a good
temper, and who conducts herself according to the precepts of the Holy
Writ, wins her husband's attachment, and obtains a superiority over her
rivals.

Thus ends the conduct of a husband towards many wives.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 54: A name given to the maid servants of the zenana of the
Kings in ancient times, on account of their always keeping their breasts
covered with a cloth called Kanchuki. It was customary in the olden time
for the maid servants to cover their breasts with a cloth, while the
Queens kept their breasts uncovered. This custom is distinctly to be
seen in the Ajunta cave paintings.]

[Footnote 55: The meaning of this word is a superior woman, so it would
seem that a Mahallarika must be a person in authority over the maid
servants of the house.]

[Footnote 56: This was also appertaining to the rank of women employed
in the harem. In latter times this place was given to eunuchs.]

[Footnote 57: As Kings generally had many wives, it was usual for them
to enjoy their wives by turns. But as it happened sometimes that some of
them lost their turns owing to the King's absence, or to their being
unwell, then in such cases the women whose turns had been passed over,
and those whose turns had come, used to have a sort of lottery, and the
ointment of all the claimants were sent to the King, who accepted the
ointment of one of them, and thus settled the question.]

=END OF PART IV.=




PART V.

ABOUT THE WIVES OF OTHER MEN.




CHAPTER I.

OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MEN AND WOMEN.--THE REASONS WHY WOMEN REJECT
THE ADDRESSES OF MEN.--ABOUT MEN WHO HAVE SUCCESS WITH WOMEN, AND ABOUT
WOMEN WHO ARE EASILY GAINED OVER.


The wives of other people may be resorted to on the occasions already
described in Part I., Chapter 5, of this work, but the possibility of
their acquisition, their fitness for cohabitation, the danger to oneself
in uniting with them, and the future effect of these unions, should
first of all be examined. A man may resort to the wife of another, for
the purpose of saving his own life, when he perceives that his love for
her proceeds from one degree of intensity to another. These degrees are
ten in number, and are distinguished by the following marks:

1. Love of the eye.

2. Attachment of the mind.

3. Constant reflection.

4. Destruction of sleep.

5. Emaciation of the body.

6. Turning away from objects of enjoyment.

7. Removal of shame.

8. Madness.

9. Fainting.

10. Death.

Ancient authors say that a man should know the disposition,
truthfulness, purity, and will of a young woman, as also the intensity,
or weakness of her passions, from the form of her body, and from her
characteristic marks and signs. But Vatsyayana is of opinion that the
forms of bodies, and the characteristic marks or signs are but erring
tests of character, and that women should be judged by their conduct, by
the outward expression of their thoughts, and by the movements of their
bodies.

Now as a general rule Gonikaputra says that a woman falls in love with
every handsome man she sees, and so does every man at the sight of a
beautiful woman, but frequently they do not take any further steps,
owing to various considerations. In love the following circumstances are
peculiar to the woman. She loves without regard to right or wrong,[58]
and does not try to gain over a man simply for the attainment of some
particular purpose. Moreover, when a man first makes up to her she
naturally shrinks from him, even though she may be willing to unite
herself with him. But when the attempts to gain her are repeated and
renewed, she at last consents. But with a man, even though he may have
begun to love, he conquers his feelings from a regard for morality and
wisdom, and although his thoughts are often on the woman, he does not
yield, even though an attempt be made to gain him over. He sometimes
makes an attempt or effort to win the object of his affections, and
having failed, he leaves her alone for the future. In the same way, when
a woman is once gained, he often becomes indifferent about her. As for
the saying that a man does not care for what is easily gained, and only
desires a thing which cannot be obtained without difficulty, it is only
a matter of talk.

The causes of a woman rejecting the addresses of a man are as follows:

1. Affection for her husband.

2. Desire of lawful progeny.

3. Want of opportunity.

4. Anger at being addressed by the man too familiarly.

5. Difference in rank of life.

6. Want of certainty on account of the man being devoted to travelling.

7. Thinking that the man may be attached to some other person.

8. Fear of the man's not keeping his intentions secret.

9. Thinking that the man is too devoted to his friends, and has too
great a regard for them.

10. The apprehension that he is not in earnest.

11. Bashfulness on account of his being an illustrious man.

12. Fear on account of his being powerful, or possessed of too impetuous
passion, in the case of the deer woman.

13. Bashfulness on account of his being too clever.

14. The thought of having once lived with him on friendly terms only.

15. Contempt of his want of knowledge of the world.

16. Distrust of his low character.

17. Disgust at his want of perception of her love for him.

18. In the case of an elephant woman, the thought that he is a hare man,
or a man of weak passion.

19. Compassion lest any thing should befall him on account of his
passion.

20. Despair at her own imperfections.

21. Fear of discovery.

22. Disillusion at seeing his grey hair or shabby appearance.

23. Fear that he may be employed by her husband to test her chastity.

24. The thought that he has too much regard for morality.

Whichever of the above causes a man may detect, he should endeavour to
remove it from the very beginning. Thus, the bashfulness that may arise
from his greatness or his ability, he should remove by showing his great
love and affection for her. The difficulty of the want of opportunity,
or if his inaccessibility, he should remove by showing her some easy way
of access. The excessive respect entertained by the woman for him should
be removed by making himself very familiar. The difficulties that arise
from his being thought a low character he should remove by showing his
valour and his wisdom; those that come from neglect by extra attention;
and those that arise from fear by giving her proper encouragement.

The following are the men who generally obtain success with women.

1. Men well versed in the science of love.

2. Men skilled in telling stories.

3. Men acquainted with women from their childhood.

4. Men who have secured their confidence.

5. Men who send presents to them.

6. Men who talk well.

7. Men who do things that they like.

8. Men who have not loved other women previously.

9. Men who act as messengers.

10. Men who knew their weak points.

11. Men who are desired by good women.

12. Men who are united with their female friends.

13. Men who are good looking.

14. Men who have been brought up with them.

15. Men who are their neighbours.

16. Men who are devoted to sexual pleasures, even though these be their
own servants.

17. The lovers of the daughters of their nurse.

18. Men who have been lately married.

19. Men who like picnics and pleasure parties.

20. Men who are liberal.

21. Men who are celebrated for being very strong (Bull men).

22. Enterprising and brave men.

23. Men who surpass their husbands in learning and good looks, in good
quality, and in liberality.

24. Men whose dress and manner of living are magnificent.

The following are the women who are easily gained over.

1. Women who stand at the doors of their houses.

2. Women who are always looking out on the street.

3. Women who sit conversing in their neighbour's house.

4. A woman who is always staring at you.

5. A female messenger.

6. A woman who looks sideways at you.

7. A woman whose husband has taken another wife without any just cause.

8. A woman who hates her husband or who is hated by him.

9. A woman who has nobody to look after her, or keep her in check.

10. A woman who has not had any children.

11. A woman whose family or caste is not well known.

12. A woman whose children are dead.

13. A woman who is very fond of society.

14. A woman who is apparently very affectionate with her husband.

15. The wife of an actor.

16. A widow.

17. A poor woman.

18. A woman fond of enjoyments.

19. The wife of a man with many younger brothers.

20. A vain woman.

21. A woman whose husband is inferior to her in rank or abilities.

22. A woman who is proud of her skill in the arts.

23. A woman disturbed in mind by the folly of her husband.

24. A woman who has been married in her infancy to a rich man, and not
liking him when she grows up, desires a man possessing a disposition,
talents, and wisdom suitable to her own tastes.

25. A woman who is slighted by her husband without any cause.

26. A woman who is not respected by other women of the same rank or
beauty as herself.

27. A woman whose husband is devoted to travelling.

28. The wife of a jeweller.

29. A jealous woman.

30. A covetous woman.

31. An immoral woman.

32. A barren woman.

33. A lazy woman.

34. A cowardly woman.

35. A humpbacked woman.

36. A dwarfish woman.

37. A deformed woman.

38. A vulgar woman.

39. An ill-smelling woman.

40. A sick woman.

41. An old woman.

There was also two verses on the subject as follows:

"Desire, which springs from nature, and which is increased by art, and
from which all danger is taken away by wisdom, becomes firm and secure.
A clever man, depending on his own ability, and observing carefully the
ideas and thoughts of women, and removing the causes of their turning
away from men, is generally successful with them."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 58: On peut tout attendre et tout supposer d'une femme
amoureuse.--Balzac.]




CHAPTER II.

ABOUT MAKING ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE WOMAN, AND OF THE EFFORTS TO GAIN HER
OVER.


Ancient authors are of opinion that girls are not so easily seduced by
employing female messengers as by the efforts of the man himself, but
that the wives of others are more easily got at by the aid of female
messengers than by the personal efforts of a man. But Vatsyayana lays it
down that whenever it is possible a man should always act himself in
these matters, and it is only when such is impracticable, or impossible,
that female messengers should be employed. As for the saying that women
who act and talk boldly and freely are to be won by the personal efforts
of the man, and that women who do not possess those qualities are to be
got at by female messengers, it is only a matter of talk.

Now when a man acts himself in the matter he should first of all make
the acquaintance of the woman he loves in the following manner.

1st. He should arrange to be seen by the woman either on a natural or
special opportunity. A natural opportunity is when one of them goes to
the house of the other, and a special opportunity is when they meet
either at the house of a friend, or a caste-fellow, or a minister, or a
physician, as also on the occasion of marriage ceremonies, sacrifices,
festivals, funerals, and garden parties.

2nd. When they do meet, the man should be careful to look at her in such
a way as to cause the state of his mind to be made known to her; he
should pull about his moustache, make a sound with his nails, cause his
own ornaments to tinkle, bite his lower lip, and make various other
signs of that description. When she is looking at him he should speak
to his friends about her and other women, and should show to her his
liberality and his appreciation of enjoyments. When sitting by the side
of a female friend he should yawn and twist his body, contract his
eyebrows, speak very slowly as if he were weary, and listen to her
indifferently. A conversation having two meanings should also be carried
on with a child or some other person, apparently having regard to a
third person, but really having reference to the woman he loves, and in
this way his love should be made manifest under the pretext of referring
to others rather than to herself. He should make marks that have
reference to her, on the earth with his nails, or with a stick, and
should embrace and kiss a child in her presence, and give it the mixture
of betel nut and betel leaves with his tongue, and press its chin with
his fingers in a caressing way. All these things should be done at the
proper time and in proper places.

3rd. The man should fondle a child that may be sitting on her lap, and
give it something to play with, and also take the same back again.
Conversation with respect to the child may also be held with her, and in
this manner he should gradually become well acquainted with her, and he
should also make himself agreeable to her relations. Afterwards, this
acquaintance should be made a pretext for visiting her house frequently,
and on such occasions he should converse on the subject of love in her
absence, but within her hearing. As his intimacy with her increases he
should place in her charge some kind of deposit or trust, and take away
from it a small portion at a time; or he may give her some fragrant
substances, or betel nuts to be kept for him by her. After this he
should endeavour to make her well acquainted with his own wife, and get
them to carry on confidential conversations, and to sit together in
lonely places. In order to see her frequently he should arrange that the
same goldsmith, the same jeweller, the same basket maker, the same dyer,
and the same washerman should be employed by the two families. And he
should also pay her long visits openly under the pretence of being
engaged with her on business, and one business should lead to another,
so as to keep up the intercourse between them. Whenever she wants
anything, or is in need of money, or wishes to acquire skill in one of
the arts, he should cause her to understand that he is willing and able
to do anything that she wants, to give her money, or teach her one of
the arts, all these things being quite within his ability and power. In
the same way he should hold discussions with her in company with other
people, and they should talk of the doings and sayings of other persons,
and examine different things, like jewellery, precious stones, etc. On
such occasions he should show her certain things with the values of
which she may be unacquainted, and if she begins to dispute with him
about the things or their value, he should not contradict her, but point
out that he agrees with her in every way.

Thus ends the ways of making the acquaintance of the woman desired.

Now after a girl has become acquainted with the man as above described,
and has manifested her love to him by the various outward signs; and by
the motions of her body, the man should make every effort to gain her
over. But as girls are not acquainted with sexual union, they should be
treated with the greatest delicacy, and the man should proceed with
considerable caution, though in the case of other women, accustomed to
sexual intercourse, this is not necessary. When the intentions of the
girl are known, and her bashfulness put aside, the man should begin to
make use of her money, and an interchange of clothes, rings, and flowers
should be made. In this the man should take particular care that the
things given by him are handsome and valuable. He should moreover
receive from her a mixture of betel nut and betel leaves, and when he is
going to a party he should ask for the flower in her hair, or for the
flower in her hand. If he himself gives her a flower it should be a
sweet smelling one, and marked with marks made by his nails or teeth.
With increasing assiduity he should dispel her fears, and by degrees get
her to go with him to some lonely place, and there he should embrace and
kiss her. And finally at the time of giving her some betel nut, or of
receiving the same from her, or at the time of making an exchange of
flowers, he should touch and press her private parts, thus bringing his
efforts to a satisfactory conclusion.

When a man is endeavouring to seduce one woman, he should not attempt to
seduce any other at the same time. But after he had succeeded with the
first, and enjoyed her for a considerable time, he can keep her
affections by giving her presents that she likes, and then commence
making up to another woman. When a man sees the husband of a woman going
to some place near his house, he should not enjoy the woman then, even
though she may be easily gained over at that time. A wise man having a
regard for his reputation should not think of seducing a woman who is
apprehensive, timid, not to be trusted, well guarded, or possessed of a
father-in-law, or mother-in-law.




CHAPTER III.

EXAMINATION OF THE STATE OF A WOMAN'S MIND.


When a man is trying to gain over a woman he should examine the state of
her mind, and acts as follows.

If she listens to him, but does not manifest to him in any way her own
intentions, he should then try to gain her over by means of a
go-between.

If she meets him once, and again comes to meet him better dressed than
before, or comes to him in some lonely place, he should be certain that
she is capable of being enjoyed by the use of a little force. A woman
who lets a man make up to her, but does not give herself up, even after
a long time, should be considered as a trifler in love, but owing to the
fickleness of the human mind, even such a woman can be conquered by
always keeping up a close acquaintance with her.

When a woman avoids the attentions of a man, and on account of respect
for him, and pride in herself, will not meet him or approach him, she
can be gained over with difficulty, either by endeavouring to keep on
familiar terms with her, or else by an exceedingly clever go-between.

When a man makes up to a woman, and she reproaches him with harsh words,
she should be abandoned at once.

When a woman reproaches a man, but at the same time acts affectionately
towards him, she should be made love to in every way.

A woman who meets a man in lonely places, and puts up with the touch of
his foot, but pretends, on account of the indecision of her mind, not to
be aware of it, should be conquered by patience, and by continued
efforts as follows:

If she happens to go to sleep in his vicinity he should put his left arm
round her, and see when she awakes whether she repulses him in reality,
or only repulses him in such a way as if she were desirous of the same
thing being done to her again. And what is done by the arm can also be
done by the foot. If the man succeeds in this point he should embrace
her more closely, and if she will not stand the embrace and gets up, but
behaves with him as usual the next day, he should consider then that she
is not unwilling to be enjoyed by him. If however she does not appear
again, the man should try to get over her by means of a go-between; and
if, after having disappeared for some time she again appears, and
behaves with him as usual, the man should then consider that she would
not object to be united with him.

When a woman gives a man an opportunity, and makes her own love manifest
to him, he should proceed to enjoy her. And the signs of a woman
manifesting her love are these:

1. She calls out to a man without being addressed by him in the first
instance.

2. She shows herself to him in secret places.

3. She speaks to him tremblingly and inarticulately.

4. She has the fingers of her hand, and the toes of her feet moistened
with perspiration, and her face blooming with delight.

5. She occupies herself with shampooing his body and pressing his head.

6. When shampooing him she works with one hand only, and with the other
she touches and embraces parts of his body.

7. She remains with both hands placed on his body motionless as if she
had been surprised by something, or was overcome by fatigue.

8. She sometimes bends down her face upon his thighs, and when asked to
shampoo them does not manifest any unwillingness to do so.

9. She places one of her hands quite motionless on his body, and even
though the man should press it between two members of his body, she does
not remove it for a long time.

10. Lastly, when she has resisted all the efforts of the man to gain her
over, she returns to him next day to shampoo his body as before.

When a woman neither gives encouragement to a man, nor avoids him, but
hides herself and remains in some lonely place, she must be got at by
means of the female servant who may be near her. If when called by the
man she acts in the same way, then she should be gained over by means of
a skilful go-between. But if she will have nothing to say to the man, he
should consider well about her before he begins any further attempts to
gain her over.

Thus ends the examination of the state of a woman's mind.

A man should first get himself introduced to a woman, and then carry on
a conversation with her. He should give her hints of his love for her,
and if he finds from her replies that she receives these hints
favourably, he should then set to work to gain her over without any
fear. A woman who shows her love by outward signs to the man at his
first interview should be gained over very easily. In the same way a
lascivious woman, who when addressed in loving words replies openly in
words expressive of her love, should be considered to have been gained
over at that very moment. With regard to all women, whether they be
wise, simple, or confiding, this rule is laid down that those who make
an open manifestation of their love are easily gained over.




CHAPTER IV.

ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF A GO-BETWEEN.


If a woman has manifested her love or desire, either by signs or by
motions of her body, and is afterwards rarely or never seen any where,
or if a woman is met for the first time, the man should get a go-between
to approach her.

Now the go-between, having wheedled herself into the confidence of the
woman by acting according to her disposition, should try to make her
hate or despise her husband by holding artful conversations with her, by
telling her about medicines for getting children, by talking to her
about other people, by tales of various kinds, by stories about the
wives of other men, and by praising her beauty, wisdom, generosity, and
good nature, and then saying to her: "It is indeed a pity that you, who
are so excellent a woman in every way, should be possessed of a husband
of this kind. Beautiful lady, he is not fit even to serve you." The
go-between should further talk to the woman about the weakness of the
passion of her husband, his jealousy, his roguery, his ingratitude, his
aversion to enjoyments, his dullness, his meanness, and all the other
faults that he may have, and with which she may be acquainted. She
should particularly harp upon that fault or that failing by which the
wife may appear to be the most affected. If the wife be a deer woman,
and the husband a hare man, then there would be no fault in that
direction, but in the event of his being a hare man, and she a mare
woman or elephant woman, then this fault should be pointed out to her.

Gonikaputra is of opinion that when it is the first affair of the woman,
or when her love has only been very secretly shown, the man should then
secure and send to her a go-between, with whom she may be already
acquainted, and in whom she confides.

But to return to our subject. The go-between should tell the woman about
the obedience and love of the man, and as her confidence and affection
increase, she should then explain to her the thing to be accomplished in
the following way. "Hear this, Oh beautiful lady, that this man, born of
a good family, having seen you, has gone mad on your account. The poor
young man, who is tender by nature, has never been distressed in such a
way before, and it is highly probable that he will succumb under his
present affliction, and experience the pains of death." If the woman
listens with a favourable ear, then on the following day the go-between,
having observed marks of good spirits in her face, in her eyes, and in
her manner of conversation, should again converse with her on the
subject of the man, and should tell her the stories of Ahalya[59] and
Indra, of Sakoontala[60] and Dushyanti, and such others as may be fitted
for the occasion. She should also describe to her the strength of the
man, his talents, his skill in the sixty-four sorts of enjoyments
mentioned by Babhravya, his good looks, and his liaison with some
praiseworthy woman, no matter whether this last ever took place or not.

In addition to this, the go-between should carefully note the behaviour
of the woman, which if favourable would be as follows: She would address
her with a smiling look, would seat herself close beside her, and ask
her, "Where have you been? What have you been doing? Where did you dine?
Where did you sleep? Where have you been sitting?" Moreover the woman
would meet the go-between in lonely places and tell her stories there,
would yawn contemplatively, draw long sighs, give her presents, remember
her on occasions of festivals, dismiss her with a wish to see her again,
and say to her jestingly, "Oh, well-speaking woman, why do you speak
these bad words to me?" would discourse on the sin of her union with the
man, would not tell her about any previous visits or conversations that
she may have had with him, but wish to be asked about these, and lastly
would laugh at the man's desire, but would not reproach him in any way.

Thus ends the behaviour of the woman with the go-between.

When the woman manifests her love in the manner above described, the
go-between should increase it by bringing to her love tokens from the
man. But if the woman be not acquainted with the man personally, the
go-between should win her over by extolling and praising his good
qualities, and by telling stories about his love for her. Here Auddalaka
says that when a man or woman are not personally acquainted with each
other, and have not shown each other any signs of affection, the
employment of a go-between is useless.

The followers of Babhravya on the other hand affirm that even though
they be personally unacquainted, but have shown each other signs of
affection there is an occasion for the employment of a go-between.
Gonikaputra asserts that a go-between should be employed, provided they
are acquainted with each other, even though no signs of affection may
have passed between them. Vatsyayana however lays it down that even
though they may not be personally acquainted with each other, and may
not have shown each other any signs of affection, still they are both
capable of placing confidence in a go-between.

Now the go-between should show the woman the presents, such as the betel
nut and betel leaves, the perfumes, the flowers, and the rings which the
man may have given to her for the sake of the woman, and on these
presents should be impressed the marks of the man's teeth, and nails,
and other signs. On the cloth that he may send he should draw with
saffron both his hands joined together as if in earnest entreaty.

The go-between should also show to the woman ornamental figures of
various kinds cut in leaves, together with ear ornaments, and chaplets
made of flowers containing love letters expressive of the desire of the
man,[61] and she should cause her to send affectionate presents to the
man in return. After they have mutually accepted each other's presents,
then a meeting should be arranged between them on the faith of the
go-between.

The followers of Babhravya say that this meeting should take place at
the time of going to the temple of a Deity, or on occasions of fairs,
garden parties, theatrical performances, marriages, sacrifices,
festivals and funerals, as also at the time of going to the river to
bathe, or at times of natural calamities,[62] fear of robbers or hostile
invasions of the country.

Gonikaputra is of opinion however that these meetings had better be
brought about in the abodes of female friends, mendicants, astrologers,
and ascetics. But Vatsyayana decides that that place is only well suited
for the purpose which has proper means of ingress and egress, and where
arrangements have been made to prevent any accidental occurrence, and
when a man who has once entered the house, can also leave it at the
proper time without any disagreeable encounter.

Now go-betweens or female messengers are of the following different
kinds, viz.:

(1). A go-between who takes upon herself the whole burden of the
business.

(2). A go-between who does only a limited part of the business.

(3). A go-between who is the bearer of a letter only.

(4). A go-between acting on her own account.

(5). The go-between of an innocent young woman.

(6). A wife serving as a go-between.

(7). A mute go-between.

(8). A go-between who acts the part of the wind.

(1). A woman who, having observed the mutual passion of a man and woman,
brings them together and arranges it by the power of her own intellect,
such an one is called a go-between who takes upon herself the whole
burden of the business. This kind of go-between is chiefly employed when
the man and the woman are already acquainted with each other, and have
conversed together, and in such cases she is sent not only by the man
(as is always done in all other cases) but by the woman also.--The above
name is also given to a go-between who, perceiving that the man and the
woman are suited to each other, tries to bring about a union between
them, even though they be not acquainted with each other.

(2). A go-between who, perceiving that some part of the affair is
already done, or that the advances on the part of the man are already
made, completes the rest of the business, is called a go-between who
performs only a limited part of the business.

(3). A go-between, who simply carries messages between a man and a
woman, who love each other, but who cannot frequently meet, is called
the bearer of a letter or message.

This name is also given to one who is sent by either of the lovers to
acquaint either the one or the other with the time and place of their
meeting.

(4). A woman who goes herself to a man, and tells him of her having
enjoyed sexual union with him in a dream, and expresses her anger at his
wife having rebuked him for calling her by the name of her rival instead
of by her own name, and gives him something bearing the marks of her
teeth and nails, and informs him that she knew she was formerly desired
by him, and asks him privately whether she or his wife is the best
looking, such a person is called a woman who is a go-between for
herself. Now such a woman should be met and interviewed by the man in
private and secretly.

The above name is also given to a woman who having made an agreement
with some other woman to act as her go-between, gains over the man to
herself, by the means of making him personally acquainted with herself,
and thus causes the other woman to fail. The same applies to a man who,
acting as a go-between for another, and having no previous connection
with the woman, gains her over for himself, and thus causes the failure
of the other man.

(5). A woman, who has gained the confidence of the innocent young wife
of any man, and who has learned her secrets without exercising any
pressure on her mind, and found out from her how her husband behaves to
her, if this woman then teaches her the art of securing his favour, and
decorates her so as to show her love, and instructs her how and when to
be angry, or to pretend to be so, and then, having herself made marks of
the nails and teeth on the body of the wife, gets the latter to send for
her husband to show these marks to him, and thus excite him for
enjoyment, such is called the go-between of an innocent young woman. In
such cases the man should send replies to his wife through the same
woman.

(6). When a man gets his wife to gain the confidence of a woman whom he
wants to enjoy, and to call on her and talk to her about the wisdom and
ability of her husband, that wife is called a wife serving as a
go-between. In this case the feelings of the woman with regard to the
man should also be made known through the wife.

(7). When any man sends a girl or a female servant to any woman under
some pretext or other, and places a letter in her bouquet of flowers, or
in her ear ornaments, or marks something about her with his teeth or
nails, that girl or female servant is called a mute go-between. In this
case the man should expect an answer from the woman through the same
person.

(8). A person, who carries a message to a woman, which has a double
meaning, or which relates to some past transactions, or which is
unintelligible to other people, is called a go-between who acts the part
of the wind. In this case the reply should be asked for through the same
woman.

Thus end the different kinds of go-betweens.

A female astrologer, a female servant, a female beggar, or a female
artist are well acquainted with the business of a go-between, and very
soon gain the confidence of other women. Any one of them can raise
enmity between any two persons if she wishes to do so, or extol the
loveliness of any woman that she wishes to praise, or describe the arts
practised by other women in sexual union. They can also speak highly of
the love of a man, of his skill in sexual enjoyment, and of the desire
of other women, more beautiful even than the woman they are addressing,
for him, and explain the restraint under which he may be at home.

Lastly a go-between can, by the artfulness of her conversation unite a
woman with a man, even though he may not have been thought of by her, or
may have been considered beyond his aspirations. She can also bring back
a man to a woman, who, owing to some cause or other, has separated
himself from her.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 59: The wife of the sage Gautama, she was seduced by Indra the
king of the Gods.]

[Footnote 60: The heroine of one of the best, if not the best, of Hindoo
plays, and the best known in Sanscrit dramatic literature. It was first
brought to notice by Sir William Jones, and has been well and poetically
translated by Dr. Monier Williams under the title of Sakoontala, or the
lost ring, an Indian drama, translated into English prose and verse from
the Sanscrit of Kalidasa.]

[Footnote 61: It is presumed that something like the following French
verses are intended.

   Quand on a juré le plus profond hommage
   Voulez-vous qu'infidè le on change de langage
   Vous seule captive mon esprit ou mon coeur
   Que je puisse dans vos bras seuls goûter le bonheur;
   Je voudrais, mais en vain, que mon coeur en délire
   Couche où ce papier n'oserait vous dire.
   Avec soin, de ces vers lisez leur premiers mots,
   Vous verrez quel remède il faut à tous mes maux.

Or these:

   Quand on vous voit, on vous aime;
   Quand on vous aime, où vous voit-on.]

[Footnote 62: It is supposed that storms, earthquakes, famines and
pestilent diseases are here alluded to.]




CHAPTER V.

ABOUT THE LOVE OF PERSONS IN AUTHORITY FOR THE WIVES OF OTHER MEN.


Kings and their ministers have no access to the abodes of others, and
moreover their mode of living is constantly watched and observed and
imitated by the people at large, just as the animal world, seeing the
sun rise, get up after him, and when he sits in the evening, lie down
again in the same way. Persons in authority should not therefore do any
improper act in public, as such are impossible from their position, and
would be deserving of censure. But if they find that such an act is
necessary to be done, they should make use of the proper means as
described in the following paragraphs.

The head man of the village, the King's officer employed there, and the
man[63] whose business it is to glean corn, can gain over female
villagers simply by asking them. It is on this account that this class
of woman are called unchaste women by voluptuaries.

The union of the above mentioned men with this class of woman takes
place on the occasions of unpaid labour, of filling the granaries in
their houses, of taking things in and out of the house, of cleaning the
houses, of working in the fields, and of purchasing cotton, wool, flax,
hemp, and thread, and at the season of the purchase, sale, and exchange
of various other articles, as well as at the time of doing various other
works. In the same way the superintendents of cow pens enjoy the women
in the cow pens; and the officers, who have the superintendence of
widows, of the women who are without supporters, and of women who have
left their husbands, have sexual intercourse with these women. The
intelligent accomplish their object by wandering at night in the
village, and while villagers also unite with the wives of their sons,
being much alone with them. Lastly the superintendents of markets have a
great deal to do with the female villagers at the time of their making
purchases in the market.

During the festival of the eighth moon, _i.e._, during the bright half
of the month of Nargashirsha, as also during the moonlight festival of
the month of Kartika, and the spring festival of Chaitra, the women of
cities and towns generally visit the women of the King's harem in the
royal palace. These visitors go to the several apartments of the women
of the harem, as they are acquainted with them, and pass the night in
conversation, and in proper sports, and amusement, and go away in the
morning. On such occasions a female attendant of the King (previously
acquainted with the woman whom the King desires), should loiter about,
and accost this woman when she sets out to go home, and induce her to
come and see the amusing things in the palace. Previous to these
festivals even, she should have caused it to be intimated to this woman
that on the occasion of this festival she would show her all the
interesting things in the royal palace. Accordingly she should show her
the bower of the coral creeper, the garden house with its floor inlaid
with precious stones, the bower of grapes, the building on the water,
the secret passages in the walls of the palace, the pictures, the
sporting animals, the machines, the birds, and the cages of the lions
and the tigers. After this, when alone with her, she should tell her
about the love of the King for her, and should describe to her the good
fortune which would attend upon her union with the King, giving her at
the time a strict promise of secrecy. If the woman does not accept the
offer, she should conciliate and please her with handsome presents
befitting the position of the King, and having accompanied her for some
distance should dismiss her with great affection.

(2). Or, having made the acquaintance of the husband of the woman whom
the King desires, the wives of the King should get the wife to pay them
a visit in the harem, and on this occasion a female attendant of the
King, having been sent thither, should act as above described.

(3). Or, one of the King's wives should get acquainted with the woman
that the King desires, by sending one of the female attendants to her,
who should, on their becoming more intimate, induce her to come and see
the royal abode. Afterwards, when she has visited the harem, and
acquired confidence, a female confidante of the King, sent thither,
should act as before described.

(4). Or, the King's wife should invite the woman, whom the King desires,
to come to the royal palace, so that she might see the practice of the
art in which the King's wife may be skilled, and after she has come to
the harem, a female attendant of the King, sent thither, should act as
before described.

(5). Or, a female beggar, in league with the King's wife, should say to
the woman desired by the King, and whose husband may have lost his
wealth, or may have some cause of fear from the King: "This wife of the
King has influence over him, and she is, moreover, naturally
kind-hearted, we must therefore go to her in this matter. I shall
arrange for your entrance into the harem, and she will do away with all
cause of danger and fear from the King." If the woman accepts this
offer, the female beggar should take her two or three times to the
harem, and the King's wife there should give her a promise of
protection. After this, when the woman, delighted with her reception and
promise of protection, again goes to the harem, then a female attendant
of the King, sent thither, should act as directed.

(6). What has been said above regarding the wife of one who has some
cause of fear from the King applies also to the wives of those who seek
service under the King, or who are oppressed by the King's ministers, or
who are poor, or who are not satisfied with their position, or who are
desirous of gaining the King's favour, or who wish to become famous
among the people, or who are oppressed by the members of their own
caste, or who want to injure their caste fellows, or who are spies of
the King, or who have any other object to attain.

(7). Lastly, if the woman desired by the King be living with some person
who is not her husband, then the King should cause her to be arrested,
and having made her a slave, on account of her crime, should place her
in the harem. Or the King should cause his ambassador to quarrel with
the husband of the woman desired by him, and should then imprison her as
the wife of an enemy of the King, and by this means should place her in
the harem.

Thus end the means of gaining over the wives of others secretly.

The above mentioned ways of gaining over the wives of other men are
chiefly practised in the palaces of Kings. But a King should never enter
the abode of another person, for Abhira,[64] the King of the Kottas was
killed by a washerman while in the house of another, and in the same way
Jayasana the King of the Kashis was slain by the commandment of his
cavalry.

But according to the customs of some countries there are facilities for
Kings to make love to the wives of other men. Thus in the country of the
Andras[65] the newly married daughters of the people thereof enter the
King's harem with some presents on the tenth day of their marriage, and
having been enjoyed by the King are then dismissed. In the country of
the Vatsagulmas[66] the wives of the chief ministers approach the King
at night to serve him. In the country of the Vaidarbhas[67] the
beautiful wives of the inhabitants pass a month in the King's harem
under the pretence of affection for the King. In the country of the
Aparatakas[68] the people gave their beautiful wives as presents to the
ministers and the Kings. And lastly in the country of the
Saurashtras[69] the women of the city and the country enter the royal
harem for the King's pleasure either together or separately.

There are also two verses on the subject as follows:

"The above and other ways are the means employed in different countries
by Kings with regard to the wives of other persons. But a King, who has
the welfare of his people at heart, should not on any account put them
into practice."

"A King who has conquered the six[70] enemies of mankind, becomes the
master of the whole earth."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 63: This is a phrase used for a man who does the work of
everybody, and who is fed by the whole village.]

[Footnote 64: The exact date of the reign of these kings is not known.
It is supposed to have been about the beginning of the Christian era.]

[Footnote 65: The modern country of Tailangam, which is to the South of
Rajamundry.]

[Footnote 66: Supposed to be a tract of the country to the south of
Malwa.]

[Footnote 67: Now known by the name of Berar. Its capital was
Kundinpura, which has been identified with the modern Oomravati.]

[Footnote 68: Also called Aparantakas, being the northern and southern
Concan.]

[Footnote 69: The modern provinces of Katteeawar. Its capital was called
Girinaguda, or the modern Junagurh.]

[Footnote 70: These are Lust, Anger, Avarice, Spiritual Ignorance,
Pride, and Envy.]




CHAPTER VI.

ABOUT THE WOMEN OF THE ROYAL HAREM; AND OF THE KEEPING OF ONE'S OWN
WIFE.


The women of the royal harem cannot see or meet any men on account of
their being strictly guarded, neither do they have their desires
satisfied, because their only husband is common to many wives. For this
reason among themselves they give pleasure to each other in various ways
as now described.

Having dressed the daughters of their nurses, or their female friends,
or their female attendants, like men, they accomplish their object by
means of bulbs, roots, and fruits having the form of the Lingam, or they
lie down upon the statue of a male figure, in which the Lingam is
visible and erect.

Some Kings, who are compassionate, take or apply certain medicines to
enable them to enjoy many wives in one night, simply for the purpose of
satisfying the desire of their women, though they perhaps have no desire
of their own. Others enjoy with great affection only those wives that
they particularly like, while others only take them according as the
turn of each wife arrives in due course. Such are the ways of enjoyment
prevalent in Eastern countries, and what is said about the means of
enjoyment of the female is also applicable to the male.

By means of their female attendants the ladies of the royal harem
generally get men into their apartments in the disguise or dress of
women. Their female attendants, and the daughters of their nurses, who
are acquainted with their secrets, should exert themselves to get men to
come to the harem in this way by telling them of the good fortune
attending it, and by describing the facilities of entering and leaving
the palace, the large size of the premises, the carelessness of the
sentinels, and the irregularities of the attendants about the persons of
the royal wives. But these women should never induce a man to enter the
harem by telling him falsehoods, for that would probably lead to his
destruction.

As for the man himself, he had better not enter a royal harem, even
though it may be easily accessible, on account of the numerous disasters
to which he may be exposed there. If however he wants to enter it, he
should first ascertain whether there is an easy way to get out, whether
it is closely surrounded by the pleasure garden, whether it has separate
enclosures belonging to it, whether the sentinels are careless, whether
the King has gone abroad, and then, when he is called by the women of
the harem, he should carefully observe the localities, and enter by the
way pointed out by them. If he is able to manage it, he should hang
about the harem every day, and, under some pretext or other, make
friends with the sentinels, and show himself attached to the female
attendants of the harem, who may have become acquainted with his design,
and to whom he should express his regret at not being able to obtain the
object of his desire. Lastly he should cause the whole business of a
go-between to be done by the woman who may have access to the harem, and
he should be careful to be able to recognize the emissaries of the King.

When a go-between has no access to the harem, then the man should stand
in some place where the lady, whom he loves, and whom he is anxious to
enjoy, can be seen.

If that place is occupied by the King's sentinels, he should then
disguise himself as a female attendant of the lady who comes to the
place, or passes by it. When she looks at him he should let her know his
feelings by outward signs and gestures, and should show her pictures,
things with double meanings, chaplets of flowers, and rings. He should
carefully mark the answer she gives, whether by word or by sign, or by
gesture, and should then try and get into the harem. If he is certain of
her coming to some particular place he should conceal himself there, and
at the appointed time should enter along with her as one of the guards.
He may also go in and out, concealed in a folded bed, or bed covering,
or with his body made invisible,[71] by means of external applications,
a receipt for one of which is as follows:

The heart of an ichneumon, the fruit of the long gourd (Tumbi), and the
eyes of the serpent, should all be burnt without letting out the smoke,
the ashes should then be ground and mixed in equal quantities with
water. By putting this mixture upon the eyes a man can go about unseen.

Other means of invisibility are prescribed by Duyana Brahmans and
Jogashiras.

Again the man may enter the harem during the festival of the eight moon
in the month of Nargashirsha, and during the moonlight festivals when
the female attendants of the harem are all busily occupied, or in
confusion.

The following principles are laid down on this subject.

The entrance of young men into harems, and their exit from them,
generally take place when things are being brought into the palace, or
when things are being taken out of it, or when drinking festivals are
going on, or when the female attendants are in a hurry, or when the
residence of some of the royal ladies is being changed, or when the
King's wives go to gardens, or to fairs, or when they enter the palace
on their return from them; or, lastly, when the King is absent on a long
pilgrimage. The women of the royal harem know each other's secrets, and
having but one object to attain, they give assistance to each other. A
young man, who enjoys all of them, and who is common to them all, can
continue enjoying his union with them so long as it is kept quiet, and
is not known abroad.

Now in the country of the Aparatakas the royal ladies are not well
protected, and consequently many young men are passed into the harem by
the women who have access to the royal palaces. The wives of the King of
the Ahira country accomplish their objects with those sentinels in the
harem who bear the name of Kashtriyas. The royal ladies in the country
of the Vatsagulmas cause such men as are suitable to enter into the
harem along with their female messengers. In the country of the
Vaidarbhas the sons of the royal ladies enter the royal harem when they
please, and enjoy the women, with the exception of their own mothers. In
the Stri-rajya the wives of the King are enjoyed by his caste fellows
and relations. In the Ganda country the royal wives are enjoyed by
Brahmans, friends, servants, and slaves. In the Samdhava country,
servants, foster children, and other persons like them enjoy the women
of the harem. In the country of the Haimavatas adventurous citizens
bribe the sentinels and enter the harem. In the country of the Vanyas
and the Kalmyas, Brahmans, with the knowledge of the King, enter the
harem under the pretence of giving flowers to the ladies, and speak with
them from behind a curtain, and from such conversation union afterwards
takes place. Lastly, the women in the harem of the King of the Prachyas
conceal one young man in the harem for every batch of nine or ten of the
women.

Thus act the wives of others.

For these reasons a man should guard his own wife. Old authors say that
a King should select for sentinels in his harem such men as have their
freedom from carnal desires well tested. But such men, though free
themselves from carnal desire, by reason of their fear or avarice, may
cause other persons to enter the harem, and therefore Gonikaputra says,
that Kings should place such men in the harem as may have had their
freedom from carnal desires, their fears, and their avarice well tested.
Lastly, Vatsyayana says that under the influence of Dharma[72] people
might be admitted, and therefore men should be selected who are free
from carnal desires, fear, avarice, and Dharma.[73]

The followers of Babhravya say that a man should cause his wife to
associate with a young woman who would tell him the secrets of other
people, and thus find out from her about his wife's chastity. But
Vatsyayana says, that as wicked persons are always successful with
women, a man should not cause his innocent wife to be corrupted by
bringing her into the company of a deceitful woman.

The following are the causes of the destruction of a woman's chastity:

Always going into society, and sitting in company.

Absence of restraint.

The loose habits of her husband.

Want of caution in her relations with other men.

Continued and long absence of her husband.

Living in a foreign country.

Destruction of her love and feelings by her husband.

The company of loose women.

The jealousy of her husband.

There are also the following verses on the subject.

"A clever man, learning from the Shastras the ways of winning over the
wives of other people, is never deceived in the case of his own wives.
No one, however, should make use of these ways for seducing the wives of
others, because they do not always succeed, and, moreover, often cause
disasters, and the destruction of Dharma and Artha. This book, which is
intended for the good of the people, and to teach them the ways of
guarding their own wives, should not be made use of merely for gaining
over the wives of others."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 71: The way to make oneself invisible; the knowledge of the
art of transmigration, or changing ourselves or others into any shape or
form by the use of charms and spells; the power of being in two places
at once, and other occult sciences are frequently referred to in all
Oriental literature.]

[Footnote 72: This may be considered as meaning religious influence, and
alludes to persons who may be gained over by that means.]

[Footnote 73: It may be noted from the above remarks that eunuchs do not
appear to have been employed in the King's harem in those days, though
they seem to have been employed for other purposes. See Part II., page
43.]

=END OF PART V.=




PART VI.

ABOUT COURTESANS.




INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.


This Part VI., about courtesans, was prepared by Vatsyayana, from a
treatise on the subject, that was written by Dattaka, for the women of
Pataliputra (the modern Patna), some two thousand years ago. Dattaka's
work does not appear to be extant now, but this abridgement of it is
very clever, and quite equal to any of the productions of Emile Zola,
and other writers of the realistic school of to-day.

Although a great deal has been written on the subject of the courtesan,
nowhere will be found a better description of her, of her belongings, of
her ideas, and of the working of her mind, than is contained in the
following pages.

The details of the domestic and social life of the early Hindoos would
not be complete without mention of the courtesan, and Part VI. is
entirely devoted to this subject. The Hindoos have ever had the good
sense to recognise courtesans as a part and portion of human society,
and so long as they behaved themselves with decency and propriety, they
were regarded with a certain respect. Anyhow, they have never been
treated in the East with that brutality and contempt so common in the
West, while their education has always been of a superior kind to that
bestowed upon the rest of womankind in Oriental countries.

In the earlier days the well-educated Hindoo dancing girl and courtesan
doubtless resembled the Hetera of the Greeks, and being educated and
amusing, were far more acceptable as companions than the generality of
the married or unmarried women of that period. At all times and in all
countries, there has ever been a little rivalry between the chaste and
the unchaste. But while some women are born courtesans, and follow the
instincts of their nature in every class of society, it has been truly
said by some authors that every woman has got an inkling of the
profession in her nature, and does her best, as a general rule, to make
herself agreeable to the male sex.

The subtlety of women, their wonderful perceptive powers, their
knowledge, and their intuitive appreciation of men and things, are all
shown in the following pages, which may be looked upon as a concentrated
essence that has been since worked up into detail by many writers in
every quarter of the globe.




CHAPTER I.

OF THE CAUSES OF A COURTESAN RESORTING TO MEN; OF THE MEANS OF ATTACHING
TO HERSELF THE MAN DESIRED; AND OF THE KIND OF MAN THAT IT IS DESIRABLE
TO BE ACQUAINTED WITH.


By having intercourse with men courtesans obtain sexual pleasure, as
well as their own maintenance. Now when a courtesan takes up with a man
from love, the action is natural; but when she resorts to him for the
purpose of getting money, her action is artificial or forced. Even in
the latter case, however, she should conduct herself as if her love were
indeed natural, because men repose their confidence on those women who
apparently love them. In making known her love to the man she should
show an entire freedom from avarice, and for the sake of her future
credit she should abstain from acquiring money from him by unlawful
means.

A courtesan, well dressed and wearing her ornaments, should sit or stand
at the door of her house, and without exposing herself too much, should
look on the public road so as to be seen by the passers by, she being
like an object on view for sale.[74] She should form friendships with
such persons as would enable her to separate men from other women, and
attach them to herself, and repair her own misfortunes, to acquire
wealth, and to protect her from being bullied, or set upon by persons
with whom she may have dealings of some kind or another.

These persons are:

The guards of the town, or the police.

The officers of the courts of justice.

Astrologers.

Powerful men, or men with interest.

Learned men.

Teachers of the sixty-four arts.

Pithamardas or confidants.

Vitas or parasites.

Vidushakas or jesters.

Flower sellers.

Perfumers.

Vendors of spirits.

Washermen.

Barbers.

Beggars.

And such other persons as may be found necessary for the particular
object to be acquired.

The following kinds of men may be taken up with simply for the purpose
of getting their money.

Men of independent income.

Young men.

Men who are free from any ties.

Men who hold places of authority under the King.

Men who have secured their means of livelihood without difficulty.

Men possessed of unfailing sources of income.

Men who consider themselves handsome.

Men who are always praising themselves.

One who is an eunuch, but wishes to be thought a man.

One who hates his equals.

One who is naturally liberal.

One who has influence with the King or his ministers.

One who is always fortunate.

One who is proud of his wealth.

One who disobeys the orders of his elders.

One upon whom the members of his caste keep an eye.

The only son whose father is wealthy.

An ascetic who is internally troubled with desire.

A brave man.

A physician of the King.

Previous acquaintance.

On the other hand, those who are possessed of excellent qualities are to
be resorted to for the sake of love, and fame. Such men are as follows:

Men of high birth, learned, with a good knowledge of the world, and
doing the proper things at the proper times, poets, good story tellers,
eloquent men, energetic men, skilled in various arts, far-seeing into
the future, possessed of great minds, full of perseverance, of a firm
devotion, free from anger, liberal, affectionate to their parents, and
with a liking for all social gatherings, skilled in completing verses
begun by others and in various other sports, free from all disease,
possessed of a perfect body, strong, and not addicted to drinking,
powerful in sexual enjoyment, sociable, showing love towards women and
attracting their hearts to himself, but not entirely devoted to them,
possessed of independent means of livelihood, free from envy, and last
of all free from suspicion.

Such are the good qualities of a man.

The woman also should have the following characteristics, viz.:

She should be possessed of beauty, and amiability, with auspicious body
marks. She should have a liking for good qualities in other people, as
also a liking for wealth. She should take delight in sexual unions
resulting from love, and should be of a firm mind, and of the same class
as the man with regard to sexual enjoyment.

She should always be anxious to acquire and obtain experience and
knowledge, be free from avarice, and always have a liking for social
gatherings, and for the arts.

The following are the ordinary qualities of all women, viz.:

To be possessed of intelligence, good disposition, and good manners; to
be straightforward in behaviour, and to be grateful; to consider well
the future before doing anything; to possess activity, to be of
consistent behaviour, and to have a knowledge of the proper times and
places for doing things; to speak always without meanness, loud
laughter, malignity, anger, avarice, dullness, or stupidity, to have a
knowledge of the Kama Sutra, and to be skilled in all the arts connected
with it.

The faults of the women are to be known by the absence of any of the
above mentioned good qualities.

The following kinds of men are not fit to be resorted to by courtesans,
viz.:

One who is consumptive; one who is sickly; one whose mouth contains
worms; one whose breath smells like human excrement; one whose wife is
dear to him; one who speaks harshly; one who is always suspicious; one
who is avaricious; one who is pitiless; one who is a thief; one who is
self-conceited; one who has a liking for sorcery; one who does not care
for respect or disrespect; one who can be gained over even by his
enemies by means of money; and lastly, one who is extremely bashful.

Ancient authors are of opinion that the causes of a courtesan resorting
to men are love, fear, money, pleasure, returning some act of enmity,
curiosity, sorrow, constant intercourse, Dharma, celebrity, compassion,
the desire of having a friend, shame, the likeness of the man to some
beloved person, the search after good fortune, the getting rid of the
love of somebody else, the being of the same class as the man with
respect to sexual union, living in the same place, constancy, and
poverty. But Vatsyayana decides that desire of wealth, freedom from
misfortune, and love, are the only causes that affect the union of
courtesans with men.

Now a courtesan should not sacrifice money to her love, because money is
the chief thing to be attended to. But in cases of fear, etc., she
should pay regard to strength and other qualities. Moreover, even though
she be invited by any man to join him, she should not at once consent to
an union, because men are apt to despise things which are easily
acquired. On such occasions she should first send the shampooers, and
the singers, and the jesters, who may be in her service, or, in their
absence the Pithamardas, or confidants, and others, to find out the
state of his feelings, and the condition of his mind. By means of these
persons she should ascertain whether the man is pure or impure,
affected, or the reverse, capable of attachment, or indifferent, liberal
or niggardly; and if she finds him to her liking, she should then
employ the Vita and others to attach his mind to her.

Accordingly, the Pithamarda should bring the man to her house, under the
pretence of seeing the fights of quails, cocks, and rams, of hearing the
maina (a kind of starling) talk, or of seeing some other spectacle, or
the practice of some art; or he may take the woman to the abode of the
man. After this, when the man comes to her house the woman should give
him something capable of producing curiosity, and love in his heart,
such as an affectionate present, telling him that it was specially
designed for his use. She should also amuse him for a long time by
telling him such stories, and doing such things as he may take most
delight in. When he goes away she should frequently send to him a female
attendant, skilled in carrying on a jesting conversation, and also a
small present at the same time. She should also sometimes go to him
herself under the pretence of some business, and accompanied by the
Pithamarda.

Thus end the means of attaching to herself the man desired.

There are also some verses on the subject as follows:

"When a lover comes to her abode, a courtesan should give him a mixture
of betel leaves and betel nut, garlands of flowers, and perfumed
ointments, and, showing her skill in arts, should entertain him with a
long conversation. She should also give him some loving presents, and
make an exchange of her own things with his, and at the same time should
show him her skill in sexual enjoyment. When a courtesan is thus united
with her lover she should always delight him by affectionate gifts, by
conversation, and by the application of tender means of enjoyment."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 74: In England the lower classes of courtesans walk the
streets; in India and other places in the East they sit at the windows,
or at the doors of their houses.]




CHAPTER II.

OF LIVING LIKE A WIFE.


When a courtesan is living as a wife with her lover, she should behave
like a chaste woman, and do everything to his satisfaction. Her duty in
this respect, in short, is, that she should give him pleasure, but
should not become attached to him, though behaving as if she were really
attached.

Now the following is the manner in which she is to conduct herself, so
as to accomplish the above mentioned purpose. She should have a mother
dependent on her, one who should be represented as very harsh, and who
looked upon money as her chief object in life. In the event of there
being no mother, then an old and confidential nurse should play the same
role. The mother or nurse, on their part, should appear to be displeased
with the lover, and forcibly take her away from him. The woman herself
should always show pretended anger, dejection, fear, and shame on this
account, but should not disobey the mother or nurse at any time.

She should make out to the mother or nurse that the man is suffering
from bad health, and making this a pretext for going to see him, she
should go on that account. She is, moreover, to do the following things
for the purpose of gaining the man's favour, viz.:

Sending her female attendant to bring the flowers used by him on the
previous day, in order that she may use them herself as a mark of
affection, also asking for the mixture of betel nut and leaves that have
remained uneaten by him; expressing wonder at his knowledge of sexual
intercourse, and the several means of enjoyment used by him; learning
from him the sixty-four kinds of pleasure mentioned by Babhravya;
continually practising the ways of enjoyment as taught by him, and
according to his liking; keeping his secrets; telling him her own
desires and secrets; concealing her anger; never neglecting him on the
bed when he turns his face towards her; touching any parts of his body
according to his wish; kissing and embracing him when he is asleep;
looking at him with apparent anxiety when he is wrapt in thought, or
thinking of some other subject than herself; showing neither complete
shamelessness, nor excessive bashfulness when he meets her, or sees her
standing on the terrace of her house from the public road; hating his
enemies; loving those who are dear to him; showing a liking for that
which he likes; being in high or low spirits according to the state that
he is in himself; expressing a curiosity to see his wives; not
continuing her anger for a long time; suspecting even the marks and
wounds made by herself with her nails and teeth on his body to have been
made by some other woman; keeping her love for him unexpressed by words,
but showing it by deeds, and signs, and hints; remaining silent when he
is asleep, intoxicated, or sick; being very attentive when he describes
his good actions, and reciting them afterwards to his praise and
benefit; giving witty replies to him if he be sufficiently attached to
her; listening to all his stories, except those that relate to her
rivals; expressing feelings of dejection and sorrow if he sighs, yawns,
or falls down; pronouncing the words "live long" when he sneezes;
pretending to be ill, or to have the desire of pregnancy, when she feels
dejected; abstaining from praising the good qualities of any body else,
and from censuring those who possess the same faults as her own man:
wearing anything that may have been given to her by him; abstaining from
putting on her ornaments, and from taking food when he is in pain, sick,
low-spirited, or suffering from misfortune, and condoling and lamenting
with him over the same; wishing to accompany him if he happens to leave
the country himself or if he be banished from it by the King; expressing
a desire not to live after him; telling him that the whole object and
desire of her life was to be united with him; offering previously
promised sacrifices to the Deity when he acquires wealth, or has some
desire fulfilled, or when he has recovered from some illness or disease;
putting on ornaments every day; not acting too freely with him; reciting
his name and the name of his family in her songs; placing his hand on
her loins, bosom and forehead, and falling asleep after feeling the
pleasure of his touch; sitting on his lap and falling asleep there;
wishing to have a child by him; desiring not to live longer than he
does; abstaining from revealing his secrets to others; dissuading him
from vows and fasts by saying "let the sin fall upon me;" keeping vows
and fasts along with him when it is impossible to change his mind on the
subject; telling him that vows and fasts are difficult to be observed,
even by herself, when she has any dispute with him about them; looking
on her own wealth and his without any distinction; abstaining from going
to public assemblies without him, and accompanying him when he desires
her to do so; taking delight in using things previously used by him, and
in eating food that he has left uneaten; venerating his family, his
disposition, his skill in the arts, his learning, his caste, his
complexion, his native country, his friends, his good qualities, his
age, and his sweet temper; asking him to sing, and to do other such like
things, if able to do them; going to him without paying any regard to
fear, to cold, to heat, or to rain; saying with regard to the next world
that he should be her lover even there; adapting her tastes, disposition
and actions to his liking; abstaining from sorcery; disputing
continually with her mother on the subject of going to him, and, when
forcibly taken by her mother to some other place, expressing her desire
to die by taking poison, by starving herself to death, by stabbing
herself with some weapon, or by hanging herself; and lastly assuring the
man of her constancy and love by means of her agents, and receiving
money herself, but abstaining from any dispute with her mother with
regard to pecuniary matters.

When the man sets out on a journey, she should make him swear that he
will return quickly, and in his absence should put aside her vows of
worshipping the Deity, and should wear no ornaments except those that
are lucky. If the time fixed for his return has passed, she should
endeavour to ascertain the real time of his return from omens, from the
reports of the people, and from the positions of the planets, the moon
and the stars. On occasions of amusement, and of auspicious dreams, she
should say "Let me be soon united to him." If, moreover, she feels
melancholy, or sees any inauspicious omen, she should perform some rite
to appease the Deity.

When the man does return home she should worship the God Kama (_i.e._,
the Indian Cupid), and offer oblations to other Deities, and having
caused a pot filled with water to be brought by her friends, she should
perform the worship in honour of the crow who eats the offerings which
we make to the manes of deceased relations. After the first visit is
over she should ask her lover also to perform certain rites, and this he
will do if he is sufficiently attached to her.

Now a man is said to be sufficiently attached to a woman when his love
is disinterested; when he has the same object in view as his beloved
one; when he is quite free from any suspicions on her account; and when
he is indifferent to money with regard to her.

Such is the manner of a courtesan living with a man like a wife, and set
forth here for the sake of guidance from the rules of Dattaka. What is
not laid down here should be practised according to the custom of the
people, and the nature of each individual man.

There are also two verses on the subject as follows:

"The extent of the love of women is not known, even to those who are the
objects of their affection, on account of its subtlety, and on account
of the avarice, and natural intelligence of womankind."

"Women are hardly ever known in their true light, though they may love
men, or become indifferent towards them; may give them delight, or
abandon them; or may extract from them all the wealth that they may
possess."




CHAPTER III.

OF THE MEANS OF GETTING MONEY. OF THE SIGNS OF THE CHANGE OF A LOVER'S
FEELINGS, AND OF THE WAY TO GET RID OF HIM.


Money is got out of a lover in two ways, viz.:

By natural or lawful means, and by artifices. Old authors are of opinion
that when a courtesan can get as much money as she wants from her lover,
she should not make use of artifice. But Vatsyayana lays down that
though she may get some money from him by natural means, yet when she
makes use of artifice he gives her doubly more, and therefore artifice
should be resorted to for the purpose of extorting money from him at all
events.

Now the artifices to be used for getting money from her lover are as
follows:

1st. Taking money from him on different occasions, for the purpose of
purchasing various articles, such as ornaments, food, drink, flowers,
perfumes and cloths, and either not buying them, or getting from him
more than their cost.

2nd. Praising his intelligence to his face.

3rd. Pretending to be obliged to make gifts on occasion of festivals
connected with vows, trees, gardens, temples, or tanks.[75]

4th. Pretending that at the time of going to his house, her jewels have
been stolen either by the King's guards, or by robbers.

5th. Alleging that her property has been destroyed by fire, by the
falling of her house, or by the carelessness of her servants.

6th. Pretending to have lost the ornaments of her lover along with her
own.

7th. Causing him to hear through other people of the expenses incurred
by her in coming to see him.

8th. Contracting debts for the sake of her lover.

9th. Disputing with her mother on account of some expense incurred by
her for her lover, and which was not approved of by her mother.

10th. Not going to parties and festivities in the houses of her friends
for the want of presents to make to them, she having previously informed
her lover of the valuable presents given to her by these very friends.

11th. Not performing certain festive rites under the pretence that she
has no money to perform them with.

12th. Engaging artists to do something for her lover.

13th. Entertaining physicians and ministers for the purpose of attaining
some object.

14th. Assisting friends and benefactors both on festive occasions, and
in misfortune.

15th. Performing household rites.

16th. Having to pay the expenses of the ceremony of marriage of the son
of a female friend.

17th. Having to satisfy curious wishes during her state of pregnancy.

18th. Pretending to be ill, and charging her cost of treatment.

19th. Having to remove the troubles of a friend.

20th. Selling some of her ornaments, so as to give her lover a present.

21st. Pretending to sell some of her ornaments, furniture, or cooking
utensils to a trader, who has been already tutored how to behave in the
matter.

22nd. Having to buy cooking utensils of greater value than those of
other people, so that they might be more easily distinguished, and not
changed for others of an inferior description.

23rd. Remembering the former favours of her lover, and causing them
always to be spoken of by her friends and followers.

24th. Informing her lover of the great gains of other courtezans.

25th. Describing before them, and in the presence of her lover, her own
great gains, and making them out to be greater even than theirs, though
such may not have been really the case.

26th. Openly opposing her mother when she endeavours to persuade her to
take up with men with whom she has been formerly acquainted, on account
of the great gains to be got from them.

27th. Lastly, pointing out to her lover the liberality of his rivals.

Thus end the ways and means of getting money.

       *       *       *       *       *

A woman should always know the state of the mind, of the feelings, and
of the disposition of her lover towards her, from the changes of his
temper, his manner, and the colour of his face.

The behaviour of a waning lover is as follows:

1st. He gives the woman either less than is wanted, or something else
than that which is asked for.

2nd. He keeps her in hopes by promises.

3rd. He pretends to do one thing, and does something else.

4th. He does not fulfil her desires.

5th. He forgets his promises, or does something else than that which he
has promised.

6th. He speaks with his own servants in a mysterious way.

7th. He sleeps in some other house under the pretence of having to do
something for a friend.

8th. Lastly, he speaks in private with the attendants of a woman with
whom he was formerly acquainted.

Now when a courtesan finds that her lover's disposition towards her is
changing, she should get possession of all his best things before he
becomes aware of her intentions, and allow a supposed creditor to take
them away forcibly from her in satisfaction of some pretended debt.
After this, if the lover is rich, and has always behaved well towards
her, she should ever treat him with respect; but if he is poor and
destitute, she should get rid of him as if she had never been acquainted
with him in any way before.

The means of getting rid of a lover are as follows:

1st. Describing the habits and vices of the lover as disagreeable and
censurable, with the sneer of the lip, and the stamp of the foot.

2nd. Speaking on a subject with which he is not acquainted.

3rd. Showing no admiration for his learning, and passing a censure upon
it.

4th. Putting down his pride.

5th. Seeking the company of men who are superior to him in learning and
wisdom.

6th. Showing a disregard for him on all occasions.

7th. Censuring men possessed of the same faults as her lover.

8th. Expressing dissatisfaction at the ways and means of enjoyment used
by him.

9th. Not giving him her mouth to kiss.

10th. Refusing access to her Jaghana, _i.e._, the part of the body
between the navel and the thighs.

11th. Showing a dislike for the wounds made by his nails and teeth.

12th. Not pressing close up against him at the time when he embraces
her.

13th. Keeping her limbs without movement at the time of congress.

14th. Desiring him to employ her when he is fatigued.

15th. Laughing at his attachment to her.

16th. Not responding to his embraces.

17th. Turning away from him when he begins to embrace her.

18th. Pretending to be sleepy.

19th. Going out visiting, or into company, when she perceives his desire
to enjoy her during the day time.

20th. Mis-constructing his words.

21st. Laughing without any joke, or at the time of any joke made by him,
laughing under some pretence.

22nd. Looking with side glances at her own attendants, and clapping her
hands when he says anything.

23rd. Interrupting him in the middle of his stories, and beginning to
tell other stories herself.

24th. Reciting his faults and his vices, and declaring them to be
incurable.

25th. Saying words to her female attendants calculated to cut the heart
of her lover to the quick.

26th. Taking care not to look at him when he comes to her.

27th. Asking him what cannot be granted.

28th. And, after all, finally dismissing him.

There are also two verses on this subject as follows:

"The duty of a courtesan consists in forming connections with suitable
men after due and full consideration, and attaching the person with whom
she is united to herself; in obtaining wealth from the person who is
attached to her, and then dismissing him after she has taken away all
his possessions."

"A courtesan leading in this manner the life of a wife is not troubled
with too many lovers, and yet obtains abundance of wealth."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 75: On the completion of a vow a festival takes place. Some
trees such as the Peepul and Banyan trees, are invested with sacred
threads like the Brahman's, and on the occasion of this ceremony a
festival is given. In the same way when gardens are made, and tanks or
temples built, then also festivals are observed.]




CHAPTER IV.

ABOUT RE-UNION WITH A FORMER LOVER.


When a courtesan abandons her present lover after all his wealth is
exhausted, she may then consider about her re-union with a former lover.
But she should return to him only if he has acquired fresh wealth, or is
still wealthy, and if he is still attached to her. And if this man be
living at the time with some other women she should consider well before
she acts.

Now such a man can only be in one of the six following conditions, viz.:

1st. He may have left the first woman of his own accord, and may even
have left another woman since then.

2nd. He may have been driven away from both women.

3rd. He may have left the one woman of his own accord, and be living
with another woman.

5th. He may have been driven away from the one woman, and left the other
of his own accord.

6th. He may have been driven away by the one woman, and may be living
with another.

(1). Now if the man has left both women of his own accord, he should not
be resorted to, on account of the fickleness of his mind, and his
indifference to the excellencies of both of them.

(2). As regards the man who may have been driven away from both women,
if he has been driven away from the last one because the woman could get
more money from some other man, then he should be resorted to, for if
attached to the first woman he would give her more money, through vanity
and emulation to spite the other woman. But if he has been driven away
by the woman on account of his poverty, or stinginess, he should not
then be resorted to.

(3). In the case of the man who may have left the one woman of his own
accord, and been driven away by the other, if he agrees to return to the
former and give her plenty of money beforehand, then he should be
resorted to.

(4). In the case of the man who may have left the one woman of his own
accord, and be living with another woman, the former (wishing to take up
with him again) should first ascertain if he left her in the first
instance in the hope of finding some particular excellence in the other
woman, and that not having found any such excellence, he was willing to
come back to her, and to give her much money on account of his conduct,
and on account of his affection still existing for her.

Or, whether, having discovered many faults in the other woman, he would
now see even more excellences in herself than actually exist, and would
be prepared to give her much money for these qualities.

Or, lastly, to consider whether he was a weak man, or a man fond of
enjoying many women, or one who liked a poor woman, or one who never did
anything for the woman that he was with. After maturely considering all
these things, she should resort to him or not, according to
circumstances.

(5). As regards the man who may have been driven away from the one
woman, and left the other of his own accord, the former woman (wishing
to re-unite with him) should first ascertain whether he still has any
affection for her, and would consequently spend much money upon her; or
whether, being attached to her excellent qualities, he did not take
delight in any other women; or whether, being driven away from her
formerly before completely satisfying his sexual desires, he wished to
get back to her, so as to be revenged for the injury done to him; or
whether he wished to create confidence in her mind, and then take back
from her the wealth which she formerly took from him, and finally
destroy her; or, lastly, whether he wished first to separate her from
her present lover, and then to break away from her himself. If, after
considering all these things, she is of opinion that his intentions are
really pure and honest, she can re-unite herself with him. But if his
mind be at all tainted with evil intentions, he should be avoided.

(6). In the case of the man who may have been driven away by one
woman, and be living with another, if the man makes overtures in return
to the first one, the courtesan should consider well before she acts,
and while the other woman is engaged in attracting him to herself, she
should try in her turn (through keeping herself behind the scenes) to
gain him over, on the grounds of any of the following considerations,
viz.:

1st. That he was driven away unjustly and for no proper reason, and now
that he has gone to another woman, every effort must be used to bring
him back to myself.

2nd. That if he were once to converse with me again, he would break away
from the other woman.

3rd. That the pride of my present lover would be put down by means of
the former one.

4th. That he has become wealthy, has secured a higher position, and
holds a place of authority under the King.

5th. That he is separate from his wife.

6th. That he is now independent.

7th. That he lives apart from his father, or brother.

8th. That by making peace with him I shall be able to get hold of a very
rich man, who is now prevented from coming to me by my present lover.

9th. That as he is not respected by his wife, I shall now be able to
separate him from her.

10th. That the friend of this man loves my rival, who hates me
cordially; I shall, therefore, by this means separate the friend from
his mistress.

11th. And lastly, I shall bring discredit upon him by bringing him back
to me, thus showing the fickleness of his mind.

When a courtesan is resolved to take up again with a former lover, her
Pithamurda and other servants should tell him that his former expulsion
from the woman's house was caused by the wickedness of her mother; that
the woman loved him just as much as ever at that time, but could not
help the occurrence on account of her deference to her mother's will;
that she hated the union of her present lover, and disliked him
excessively. In addition to this, they should create confidence in his
mind by speaking to him of her former love for him, and should allude to
the mark of that love that she has ever remembered. This mark of her
love should be connected with some kind of pleasure that may have been
practised by him, such as his way of kissing her, or manner of having
connection with her.

Thus end the ways of bringing about a re-union with a former lover.

When a woman has to choose between two lovers, one of whom was formerly
united with her, while the other is a stranger, the Acharyas (sages) are
of opinion that the first one is preferable, because his disposition and
character being already known by previous careful observation, he can be
easily pleased and satisfied; but Vatsyayana thinks that a former lover,
having already spent a great deal of his wealth, is not able or willing
to give much money again, and is not, therefore, to be relied upon so
much as a stranger. Particular cases may, however, arise differing from
this general rule on account of the different natures of men.

There are also verses on the subject as follows:

"Re-union with a former lover may be desirable so as to separate some
particular woman from some particular man, or some particular man from
some particular woman, or to have a certain effect upon the present
lover."

"When a man is excessively attached to a woman, he is afraid of her
coming into contact with other men; he does not then regard or notice
her faults; and he gives her much wealth through fear of her leaving
him."

"A courtesan should be agreeable to the man who is attached to her, and
despise the man who does not care for her. If while she is living with
one man a messenger comes to her from some other man, she may either
refuse to listen to any negotiations on his part, or appoint a fixed
time for him to visit her, but she should not leave the man who may be
living with her and who may be attached to her."

"A wise woman should only renew her connection with a former lover if
she is satisfied that good fortune, gain, love, and friendship, are
likely to be the result of such a re-union."




CHAPTER V.

OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF GAIN.


When a courtesan is able to realize much money every day, by reason of
many customers, she should not confine herself to a single lover; under
such circumstances, she should fix her rate for one night, after
considering the place, the season, and the condition of the people, and
having regard to her own good qualities and good looks, and after
comparing her rates with those of other courtesans. She can inform her
lovers, and friends, and acquaintances about these charges. If, however,
she can obtain a great gain from a single lover, she may resort to him
alone, and live with him like a wife.

Now, the Sages are of opinion that when a courtesan has the chance of an
equal gain from two lovers at the same time, a preference should be
given to the one who would give her the kind of thing which she wants.
But Vatsyayana says that the preference should be given to the one who
gives her gold, because it cannot be taken back like some other things,
it can be easily received, and is also the means of procuring anything
that may be wished for. Of such things as gold, silver, copper, bell
metal, iron, pots, furniture, beds, upper garments, under vestments,
fragrant substances, vessels made of gourds, ghee, oil, corn, cattle,
and other things of a like nature, the first, viz., gold, is superior to
all the others.

When the same labour is required to gain any two lovers, or when the
same kind of thing is to be got from each of them, the choice should be
made by the advice of a friend, or it may be made from their personal
qualities, or from the signs of good or bad fortune that may be
connected with them.

When there are two lovers, one of whom is attached to the courtesan, and
the other is simply very generous, the Sages say that the preference
should be given to the generous lover, but Vatsyayana is of opinion that
the one who is really attached to the courtesan should be preferred,
because he can be made to be generous, even as a miser gives money if he
becomes fond of a woman, but a man who is simply generous cannot be made
to love with real attachment. But among those who are attached to her,
if there is one who is poor, and one who is rich, the preference is of
course to be given to the latter.

When there are two lovers, one of whom is generous, and the other ready
to do any service for the courtesan, some Sages say that the one who is
ready to do the service should be preferred, but Vatsyayana is of
opinion that a man who does a service thinks that he has gained his
object when he has done something once, but a generous man does not care
for what he has given before. Even here the choice should be guided by
the likelihood of the future good to be derived from her union with
either of them.

When one of the two lovers is grateful, and the other liberal, some
Sages say that the liberal one should be preferred, but Vatsyayana is of
opinion that the former should be chosen, because liberal men are
generally haughty, plain spoken, and wanting in consideration towards
others. Even though these liberal men have been on friendly terms for a
long time, yet if they see any fault in the courtesan, or are told lies
about her by some other women, they do not care for past services, but
leave abruptly. On the other hand the grateful man does not at once
break off from her, on account of a regard for the pains she may have
taken to please him. In this case also the choice is to be guided with
respect to what may happen in future.

When an occasion for complying with the request of a friend, and a
chance of getting money come together, the Sages say that the chance of
getting money should be preferred. But Vatsyayana thinks that the money
can be obtained to-morrow as well as to-day, but if the request of a
friend be not at once complied with, he may become disaffected. Even
here, in making the choice, regard must be paid to future good fortune.

On such an occasion, however, the courtesan might pacify her friend by
pretending to have some work to do, and telling him that his request
will be complied with next day, and in this way secure the chance of
getting the money that has been offered her.

When the chance of getting money, and the chance of avoiding some
disaster come at the same time, the Sages are of opinion that the chance
of getting money should be preferred, but Vatsyayana says that money has
only a limited importance, while a disaster that is once averted may
never occur again. Here, however, the choice should be guided by the
greatness or smallness of the disaster.

The gains of the wealthiest and best kind of courtesans are to be spent
as follows:

Building temples, tanks, and gardens; giving a thousand cows to
different Brahmans; carrying on the worship of the Gods, and celebrating
festivals in their honour; and, lastly, performing such vows as may be
within their means.

The gains of other courtesans are to be spent as follows:

Having a white dress to wear every day; getting sufficient food and
drink to satisfy hunger and thirst; eating daily a perfumed Tambula,
_i.e._, a mixture of betel nut and betel leaves; and wearing ornaments
gilt with gold. The Sages say that these represent the gains of all the
middle and lower classes of courtesans, but Vatsyayana is of opinion
that their gains cannot be calculated, or fixed in any way, as these
depend on the influence of the place, the customs of the people, their
own appearance, and many other things.

When a courtesan wants to keep some particular man from some other
woman; or wants to get him away from some woman to whom he may be
attached; or to deprive some woman of the gains realized by her from
him; or if she thinks that she would raise her position; or enjoy some
great good fortune; or become desirable to all men by uniting herself
with this man; or if she wishes to get his assistance in averting some
misfortune; or is really attached to him and loves him; or wishes to
injure somebody through his means; or has regard to some former favour
conferred upon her by him; or wishes to be united with him merely from
desire; or any of the above reasons, she should agree to take from him
only a small sum of money in a friendly way.

When a courtesan intends to abandon a particular lover, and take up with
another one; or when she has reason to believe that her lover will
shortly leave her, and return to his wives; or that having squandered
all his money, and became penniless, his guardian, or master, or father
would come and take him away; or that her lover is about to lose his
position, or lastly, that he is of a very fickle mind, she should, under
any of these circumstances, endeavour to get as much money as she can
from him as soon as possible.

On the other hand, when the courtesan thinks that her lover is about to
receive valuable presents; or get a place of authority from the King; or
be near the time of inheriting a fortune; or that his ship would soon
arrive laden with merchandise; or that he has large stocks of corn and
other commodities; or that if anything was done for him it would not be
done in vain; or that he is always true to his word; then should she
have regard to her future welfare, and live with the man like a wife.

There are also verses on the subject as follows:

"In considering her present gains, and her future welfare, a courtesan
should avoid such persons as have gained their means of subsistence with
very great difficulty, as also those who have become selfish and
hard-hearted by becoming the favourites of Kings."

"She should make every endeavour to unite herself with prosperous and
well-to-do people, and with those whom it is dangerous to avoid, or to
slight in any way. Even at some cost to herself she should become
acquainted with energetic and liberal-minded men, who when pleased would
give her a large sum of money, even for very little service, or for some
small thing."




CHAPTER VI.

OF GAINS AND LOSSES; ATTENDANT GAINS AND LOSSES; AND DOUBTS; AS ALSO OF
THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF COURTESANS.


It sometimes happens that while gains are being sought for, or expected
to be realised, that losses only are the result of our efforts, the
causes of these losses are:

Weakness of intellect.

Excessive love.

Excessive pride.

Excessive self conceit.

Excessive simplicity.

Excessive confidence.

Excessive anger.

Carelessness.

Recklessness.

Influence of evil genius.

Accidental circumstances.

The results of these losses are:

Expense incurred without any result.

Destruction of future good fortune.

Stoppage of gains about to be realized.

Loss of what is already obtained.

Acquisition of a sour temper.

Becoming unaimiable to every body.

Injury to health.

Loss of hair and other accidents.

Now gain is of three kinds, viz.: gain of wealth, gain of religious
merit, and gain of pleasure; and similarly, loss is of three kinds,
viz.: loss of wealth, loss of religious merit, and loss of pleasure. At
the time when gains are sought for, if other gains come along with them,
these are called attendant gains. When gain is uncertain, the doubt of
its being a gain is called a simple doubt. When there is a doubt
whether either of two things will happen or not, it is called a mixed
doubt. If while one thing is being done two results take place, it is
called a combination of two results, and if several results follow from
the same action, it is called a combination of results on every side.

We shall now give examples of the above.

As already stated, gain is of three kinds, and loss, which is opposed to
gain, is also of three kinds.

(a). When by living with a great man a courtesan acquires present
wealth, and in addition to this becomes acquainted with other people,
and thus obtains a chance of future fortune, and an accession of wealth,
and becomes desirable to all, this is called a gain of wealth attended
by other gain.

(b). When by living with a man a courtesan simply gets money, this is
called a gain of wealth not attended by any other gain.

(c). When a courtesan receives money from other people besides her
lover, the results are: the chance of the loss of future good from her
present lover; the chance of disaffection of a man securely attached to
her; the hatred of all; and the chance of a union with some low person,
tending to destroy her future good. This gain is called a gain of wealth
attended by losses.

(d). When a courtesan, at her own expense, and without any results in
the shape of gain, has connected with a great man, or an avaricious
minister, for the sake of diverting some misfortune, or removing some
cause that may be threatening the destruction of a great gain, this loss
is said to be a loss of wealth attended by gains of the future good
which it may bring about.

(e). When a courtesan is kind, even at her own expense, to a man who is
very stingy, or to a man proud of his looks, or to an ungrateful man
skilled in gaining the heart of others, without any good resulting from
these connections to her in the end, this loss is called a loss of
wealth not attended by any gain.

(f). When a courtesan is kind to any such man as described above, but
who in addition are favourites of the King, and moreover cruel and
powerful, without any good result in the end, and with a chance of her
being turned away at any moment, this loss is called a loss of wealth
attended by other losses.

In this way gains and losses, and attendant gains and losses in
religious merit and pleasures may become known to the reader, and
combinations of all of them may also be made.

Thus end the remarks on gains and losses, and attendant gains and
losses.

In the next place we come to doubts, which are again of three kinds,
viz.: doubts about wealth, doubts about religious merit, and doubts
about pleasures.

The following are examples.

(a). When a courtesan is not certain how much a man may give her, or
spend upon her, this is called a doubt about wealth.

(b). When a courtesan feels doubtful whether she is right in entirely
abandoning a lover from whom she is unable to get money, she having
taken all his wealth from him in the first instance, this doubt is
called a doubt about religious merit.

(c). When a courtesan is unable to get hold of a lover to her liking,
and is uncertain whether she will derive any pleasure from a person
surrounded by his family, or from a low person, this is called a doubt
about pleasure.

(d). When a courtesan is uncertain whether some powerful but low
principled fellow would cause loss to her on account of her not being
civil to him, this is called a doubt about the loss of wealth.

(e). When a courtesan feels doubtful whether she would lose religious
merit by abandoning a man who is attached to her without giving him the
slightest favour, and thereby causing him unhappiness in this world and
the next,[76] this doubt is called a doubt about the loss of a religious
merit.

(f). When a courtesan is uncertain as to whether she might create
disaffection by speaking out, and revealing her love and thus not get
her desire satisfied, this is called a doubt about the loss of pleasure.

Thus end the remarks on doubts.


_Mixed Doubts_.

(a). The intercourse or connection with a stranger, whose disposition is
unknown, and who may have been introduced by a lover, or by one who
possessed authority, may be productive either of gain or loss, and
therefore this is called a mixed doubt about the gain and loss of
wealth.

(b). When a courtesan is requested by a friend, or is impelled by pity
to have intercourse with a learned Brahman, a religious student, a
sacrificer, a devotee, or an ascetic who may have all fallen in love
with her, and who may be consequently at the point of death, by doing
this she might either gain or lose religious merit, and therefore this
is called a mixed doubt about the gain and loss of religious merit.

(c). If a courtesan relies solely upon the report of other people (_i.e._,
hearsay) about a man, and goes to him without ascertaining herself
whether he possesses good qualities or not, she may either gain or lose
pleasure in proportion as he may be good or bad, and therefore this is
called a mixed doubt about the gain and loss of pleasure.

Uddalika has described the gains and losses on both sides as follows.

(a). If, when living with a lover, a courtesan gets both wealth and
pleasure from him, it is called a gain on both sides.

(b). When a courtesan lives with a lover at her own expense without
getting any profit out of it, and the lover even takes back from her
what he may have formerly given her, it is called a loss on both sides.

(c). When a courtesan is uncertain whether a new acquaintance would
become attached to her, and, moreover, if he became attached to her,
whether he would give her any thing, it is then called a doubt on both
sides about gains.

(d). When a courtesan is uncertain whether a former enemy, if made up by
her at her own expense, would do her some injury on account of his
grudge against her; or, if becoming attached to her, would take away
angrily from her any thing that he may have given to her, this is called
a doubt on both sides about loss.

Babhravya has described the gains and losses on both sides as follows.

(a). When a courtesan can get money from a man whom she may go to see,
and also money from a man whom she may not go to see, this is called a
gain on both sides.

(b). When a courtesan has to incur further expense if she goes to see a
man, and yet runs the risk of incurring an irremediable loss if she does
not go to see him, this is called a loss on both sides.

(c). When a courtesan is uncertain, whether a particular man would give
her anything on her going to see him, without incurring expense on her
part, or whether on her neglecting him another man would give her
something, this is called a doubt on both sides about gain.

(d.) When a courtesan is uncertain, whether, on going at her own expense
to see an old enemy, he would take back from her what he may have given
her, or whether by her not going to see him he would cause some disaster
to fall upon her, this is called a doubt on both sides about loss.

By combining the above, the following six kinds of mixed results are
produced, viz.:

(a). Gain on one side, and loss on the other.

(b). Gain on one side, and doubt of gain on the other.

(c). Gain on one side, and doubt of loss on the other.

(d). Loss on one side, and doubt of gain on the other.

(e). Doubt of gain on one side, and doubt of loss on the other.

(f). Doubt of loss on one side, and loss on the other.

A courtesan, having considered all the above things, and taken council
with her friends, should act so as to acquire gain, the chances of great
gain, and the warding off of any great disaster. Religious merit and
pleasure should also be formed into separate combinations like those of
wealth, and then all should be combined with each other, so as to form
new combinations.

When a courtesan consorts with men she should cause each of them to give
her money as well as pleasure. At particular times, such as the Spring
Festivals, etc., she should make her mother announce to the various men,
that on a certain day her daughter would remain with the man who would
gratify such and such a desire of hers.

When young men approach her with delight, she should think of what she
may accomplish through them.

The combination of gains and losses on all sides are: gain on one side,
and loss on all others; loss on one side and gain on all others; gain on
all sides, loss on all sides.

A courtesan should also consider doubts about gain and doubts about loss
with reference both to wealth, religious merit, and pleasure.

Thus ends the consideration of gain, loss, attendant gains, attendant
losses, and doubts.

The different kinds of courtesans are:

A bawd.

A female attendant.

An unchaste woman.

A dancing girl.

A female artisan.

A woman who has left her family.

A woman living on her beauty.

And, finally, a regular courtesan.

All the above kinds of courtesans are acquainted with various kinds of
men, and should consider the ways of getting money from them, of
pleasing them, of separating themselves from them, and of re-uniting
with them. They should also take into consideration particular gains and
losses, attendant gains and losses, and doubts in accordance with their
several conditions.

Thus end the considerations of courtesans.

There are also two verses on the subject as follows:

"Men want pleasure, while women want money, and therefore this Part,
which treats of the means of gaining wealth, should be studied."

"There are some women who seek for love, and there are others who seek
for money; for the former the ways of love are told in previous portions
of this work, while the ways of getting money, as practised by
courtesans, are described in this Part."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 76: The souls of men who die with their desires unfulfilled
are said to go to the world of the Manes, and not direct to the Supreme
Spirit.]

=END OF PART VI.=




PART VII.

ABOUT THE MEANS OF ATTRACTING OTHERS TO YOURSELF.




CHAPTER I.

ON PERSONAL ADORNMENT; ON SUBJUGATING THE HEARTS OF OTHERS; AND ON TONIC
MEDICINES.


When a person fails to obtain the object of his desires by any of the
ways previously related, he should then have recourse to other ways of
attracting others to himself.

Now, good looks, good qualities, youth, and liberality are the chief and
most natural means of making a person agreeable in the eyes of others.
But in the absence of these a man or a woman must have resort to
artificial means, or to art, and the following are some recipes that may
be found useful.

(a). An ointment made of the tabernamontana coronaria, the costus
speciosus or arabicus, and the flacourtia cataphracta, can be used as an
unguent of adornment.

(b). If a fine powder is made of the above plants, and applied to the
wick of a lamp, which is made to burn with the oil of blue vitrol, the
black pigment or lamp black produced therefrom, when applied to the
eye-lashes, has the effect of making a person look lovely.

(c). The oil of the hog weed, the echites putescens, the sarina plant,
the yellow amaranth, and the leaf of the nymphæ, if applied to the body,
has the same effect.

(d). A black pigment from the same plants produce a similar effect.

(e). By eating the powder of the nelumbrium speciosum, the blue lotus,
and the mesna roxburghii, with ghee and honey, a man becomes lovely in
the eyes of others.

(f). The above things, together with the tabernamontana coronaria, and
the xanthochymus pictorius, if used as an ointment, produce the same
results.

(g). If the bone of a peacock or of an hyena be covered with gold, and
tied on the right hand, it makes a man lovely in the eyes of other
people.

(h). In the same way, if a bead, made of the seed of the jujube, or of
the conch shell, be enchanted by the incantations mentioned in the
Atharvana Veda, or by the incantations of those well skilled in the
science of magic, and tied on the hand, it produces the same result as
described above.

(i). When a female attendant arrives at the age of puberty, her master
should keep her secluded, and when men ardently desire her on account of
her seclusion, and on account of the difficulty of approaching her, he
should then bestow her hand on such a person as may endow her with
wealth and happiness.

This is a means of increasing the loveliness of a person in the eyes of
others.

In the same way, when the daughter of a courtesan arrives at the age of
puberty, the mother should get together a lot of young men of the same
age, disposition, and knowledge as her daughter, and tell them that she
would give her in marriage to the person who would give her presents of
a particular kind.

After this the daughter should be kept in seclusion as far as possible,
and the mother should give her in marriage to the man who may be ready
to give her the presents agreed upon. If the mother is unable to get so
much out of the man, she should show some of her own things as having
been given to the daughter by the bridegroom.

Or, the mother may allow her daughter to be married to the man
privately, as if she was ignorant of the whole affair, and then
pretending that it has come to her knowledge, she may give her consent
to the union.

The daughter, too, should make herself attractive to the sons of wealthy
citizens, unknown to her mother, and make them attached to her, and for
this purpose should meet them at the time of learning to sing, and in
places where music is played, and at the houses of other people, and
then request her mother, through a female friend, or servant, to be
allowed to unite herself to the man who is most agreeable to her.[77]

When the daughter of a courtesan is thus given to a man, the ties of
marriage should be observed for one year, and after that she may do what
she likes. But even after the end of the year, when otherwise engaged,
if she should be now and then invited by her first husband to come and
see him, she should put aside her present gain, and go to him for the
night.

Such is the mode of temporary marriage among courtesans, and of
increasing their loveliness, and their value in the eyes of others. What
has been said about them should also be understood to apply to the
daughters of dancing women, whose mothers should give them only to such
persons as are likely to become useful to them in various ways.

Thus end the ways of making oneself lovely in the eyes of others.

(a). If a man, after anointing his lingam with a mixture of the powders
of the white thorn apple, the long pepper, and the black pepper, and
honey, engages in sexual union with a woman, he makes her subject to his
will.

(b). The application of a mixture of the leaf of the plant vatodbhranta,
of the flowers thrown on a human corpse when carried out to be burnt,
and the powder of the bones of the peacock, and of the jiwanjiva bird,
produces the same effect.

(c). The remains of a kite who has died a natural death, ground into
powder, and mixed with cowach and honey, has also the same effect.

(d). Anointing oneself with an ointment made of the plant emblica
myrabolans has the power of subjecting women to one's will.

(e). If a man cuts into small pieces the sprouts of the vajnasunhi
plant, and dips them into a mixture of red arsenic and sulphur, and then
dries them seven times, and applies this powder mixed with honey to his
lingam, he can subjugate a woman to his will directly that he has had
sexual union with her, or, if, by burning these very sprouts at night
and looking at the smoke, he sees a golden moon behind, he will then be
successful with any woman; or if he throws some of the powder of these
same sprouts mixed with the excrement of a monkey upon a maiden, she
will not be given in marriage to any body else.

(f). If pieces of the arris root are dressed with the oil of the mango,
and placed for six months in a hole made in the trunk of the sisu tree,
and are then taken out and made up into an ointment, and applied to the
lingam, this is said to serve as the means of subjugating women.

(g). If the bone of a camel is dipped into the juice of the plant
eclipta prostata, and then burnt, and the black pigment produced from
its ashes is placed in a box also made of the bone of a camel, and
applied together with antimony to the eye lashes with a pencil also made
of the bone of a camel, then that pigment is said to be very pure, and
wholesome for the eyes, and serves as a means of subjugating others to
the person who uses it. The same effect can be produced by black pigment
made of the bones of hawks, vultures, and peacocks.

Thus end the ways of subjugating others to one's own will.

Now the means of increasing sexual vigour are as follows:

(a). A man obtains sexual vigour by drinking milk mixed with sugar, the
root of the uchchata plant, the piper chaba, and liquorice.

(b). Drinking milk mixed with sugar, and having the testicle of a ram or
a goat boiled in it, is also productive of vigour.

(c). The drinking of the juice of the hedysarum gangeticum, the kuili,
and the kshirika plant mixed with milk, produces the same effect.

(d). The seed of the long pepper along with the seeds of the sanseviera
roxburghiana, and the hedysarum gangeticum plant, all pounded together,
and mixed with milk, is productive of a similar result.

(e). According to ancient authors, if a man pounds the seeds or roots of
the trapa bispinosa, the kasurika, the tuscan jasmine, and liquorice,
together with the kshirakapoli (a kind of onion), and puts the powder
into milk mixed with sugar and ghee, and having boiled the whole mixture
on a moderate fire, drinks the paste so formed, he will be able to enjoy
innumerable women.

(f). In the same way, if a man mixes rice with the eggs of the sparrow,
and having boiled this in milk, adds to it ghee and honey, and drinks as
much of it as necessary, this will produce the same effect.

(g). If a man takes the outer covering of sesamum seeds, and soaks them
with the eggs of sparrows, and then, having boiled them in milk, mixed
with sugar and ghee, along with the fruits of the trapa bispinosa and
the kasurika plant, and adding to it the flour of wheat and beans, and
then drinks this composition, he is said to be able to enjoy many women.

(h). If ghee, honey, sugar, and liquorice in equal quantities, the juice
of the fennel plant, and milk are mixed together, this nectar-like
composition is said to be holy, and provocative of sexual vigour, a
preservative of life, and sweet to the taste.

(i). The drinking of a paste composed of the asparagus racemosus, the
shvadaushtra plant, the guduchi plant, the long pepper, and liquorice,
boiled in milk, honey, and ghee, in the spring, is said to have the same
effect as the above.

(j). Boiling the asparagus racemosus, and the shvadaushtra plant, along
with the pounded fruits of the premna spinosa in water, and drinking the
same, is said to act in the same way.

(k). Drinking boiled ghee, or clarified butter in the morning during the
spring season, is said to be beneficial to health and strength, and
agreeable to the taste.

(l). If the powder of the seed of the shvadaushtra plant and the flower
of barley are mixed together in equal parts, and a portion of it, _i.e._,
two palas in weight, is eaten every morning on getting up, it has the
same effect as the preceding recipe.

There are also verses on the subject as follows:

"The means[78] of producing love and sexual vigour should be learnt from
the science of medicine, from the Vedas, from those who are learned in
the arts of magic, and from confidential relatives. No means should be
tried which are doubtful in their effects, which are likely to cause
injury to the body, which involve the death of animals, and which bring
us in contact with impure things. Such means should only be used as are
holy, acknowledged to be good, and approved of by Brahmans, and
friends."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 77: It is a custom of the courtesans of Oriental countries to
give their daughters temporarily in marriage when they come of age, and
after they have received an education in the Kama Sutra and other arts.
Full details are given of this at page 76 of "Early Ideas, a group of
Hindoo stories, collected and collated by Anaryan. W. H. Allen and Co.,
London, 1881."]

[Footnote 78: From the earliest times Oriental authors have occupied
themselves about aphrodisiacs. The following note on the subject is
taken from page 29 of a translation of the Hindoo Art of Love, otherwise
the Anunga Runga, alluded to in the preface of this work, Part I., pages
3 and 5:--"Most Eastern treatises divide aphrodisiacs into two different
kinds: 1., the mechanical or natural, such as scarification,
flagellation, etc.; and 2., the medicinal or artificial. To the former
belong the application of insects, as is practised by some savage races;
and all orientalists will remember the tale of the old Brahman, whose
young wife insisted upon his being again stung by a wasp."]




CHAPTER II.

OF THE WAYS OF EXCITING DESIRE, AND MISCELLANEOUS EXPERIMENTS, AND
RECIPES.


If a man is unable to satisfy a Hastini, or elephant woman, he should
have recourse to various means to excite her passion. At the
commencement he should rub her yoni with his hand or fingers, and not
begin to have intercourse with her until she becomes excited, or
experiences pleasure. This is one way of exciting a woman.

Or, he may make use of certain Apadravyas, or things which are put on or
around the lingam to supplement its length or its thickness, so as to
fit it to the yoni. In the opinion of Babhravya, these Apadravyas should
be made of gold, silver, copper, iron, ivory, buffalo's horn, various
kinds of wood, tin or lead, and should be soft, cool, provocative of
sexual vigour, and well fitted to serve the intended purpose.
Vatsyayana, however, says that they may be made according to the natural
liking of each individual.

The following are the different kinds of Apadravyas.

(1). "The armlet" (Valaya) should be of the same size as the lingam, and
should have its outer surface made rough with globules.

(2). "The couple" (Sanghati) is formed of two armlets.

(3). "The bracelet" (Chudaka) is made by joining three or more armlets,
until they come up to the required length of the lingam.

(4). "The single bracelet" is formed by wrapping a single wire around
the lingam, according to its dimensions.

(5). The Kantuka or Jalaka is a tube open at both ends, with a hole
through it, outwardly rough and studded with soft globules, and made to
fit the side of the yoni, and tied to the waist.

When such a thing cannot be obtained, then a tube made of the wood
apple, or tubular stalk of the bottle gourd, or a reed made soft with
oil and extracts of plants, and tied to the waist with strings, may be
made use of, as also a row of soft pieces of wood tied together.

The above are the things that can be used in connection with or in the
place of the lingam.

The people of the southern countries think that true sexual pleasure
cannot be obtained without perforating the lingam, and they therefore
cause it to be pierced like the lobes of the ears of an infant pierced
for earrings.

Now, when a young man perforates his lingam he should pierce it with a
sharp instrument, and then stand in water so long as the blood continues
to flow. At night he should engage in sexual intercourse, even with
vigour, so as to clean the hole. After this he should continue to wash
the hole with decoctions, and increase the size by putting into it small
pieces of cane, and the wrightia antidysenterica, and thus gradually
enlarging the orifice. It may also be washed with liquorice mixed with
honey, and the size of the hole increased by the fruit stalks of the
sima-patra plant. The hole should be annointed with a small quantity of
oil.

In the hole made in the lingam a man may put Apadravyas of various
forms, such as the "round," the "round on one side," the "wooden
mortar," the "flower," the "armlet," the "bone of the heron," the "goad
of the elephant," the "collection of eight balls," the "lock of hair,"
the "place where four roads meet," and other things named according to
their forms and means of using them. All these Apadravyas should be
rough on the outside according to their requirements.

The ways of enlarging the lingam must be now related.

When a man wishes to enlarge his lingam, he should rub it with the
bristles of certain insects that live in trees, and then, after rubbing
it for ten nights with oils, he should again rub it with the bristles as
before. By continuing to do this a swelling will be gradually produced
in the lingam, and he should then lie on a cot, and cause his lingam to
hang down through a hole in the cot. After this he should take away all
the pain from the swelling by using cool concoctions. The swelling,
which is called "Suka," and is often brought about among the people of
the Dravida country, lasts for life.

If the lingam is rubbed with the following things, viz., the plant
physalis flexuosa, the shavara-kandaka plant, the jalasuka plant, the
fruit of the egg plant, the butter of a she buffalo, the hastri-charma
plant, and the juice of the vajra-rasa plant, a swelling lasting for one
month will be produced.

By rubbing it with oil boiled in the concoctions of the above things,
the same effect will be produced, but lasting for six months.

The enlargement of the lingam is also effected by rubbing it or
moistening it with oil boiled on a moderate fire along with the seeds of
the pomegranate, and the cucumber, the juices of the valuka plant, the
hasti-charma plant, and the egg-plant.

In addition to the above, other means may be learnt from experienced and
confidential persons.

The miscellaneous experiments and recipes are as follows:

(a). If a man mixes the powder of the milk hedge plant, and the kantaka
plant with the excrement of a monkey, and the powdered root of the
lanjalalika plant, and throws this mixture on a woman, she will not love
any body else afterwards.

(b). If a man thickens the juice of the fruits of the cassia fistula,
and the eugenia jambolana by mixing them with the powder of the soma
plant, the vernonia anthelmintica, the eclipta prostata, and the
lohopa-jihirka, and applies this composition to the yoni of a woman, and
then has sexual intercourse with her, his love for her will be
destroyed.

(c). The same effect is produced if a man has connection with a woman
who has bathed in the butter-milk of a she-buffalo mixed with the
powders of the gopalika plant, the banu-padika plant, and the yellow
amaranth.

(d). An ointment made of the flowers of the nauclea cadamba, the hog
plum, and the eugenia jambolana, and used by a woman, causes her to be
disliked by her husband.

(e). Garlands made of the above flowers, when worn by the woman, produce
the same effect.

(f). An ointment made of the fruit of the asteracantha longifolia
(kokilaksha) will contract the yoni of a Hastini or elephant woman, and
this contraction lasts for one night.

(g). An ointment made by pounding the roots of the nelumbrium speciosum,
and of the blue lotus, and the powder of the plant physalis flexuosa
mixed with ghee and honey, will enlarge the yoni of the Mrigi or deer
woman.

(h). An ointment made of the fruit of the emblica myrabolans soaked in
the milky juice of the milk hedge plant, of the soma plant, the
calotropis gigantea, and the juice of the fruit of the vernonia
anthelmintica, will make the hair white.

(i). The juice of the roots of the madayantaka plant, the yellow
amaranth, the anjanika plant, the clitoria ternateea, and the
shlakshnaparni plant, used as a lotion, will make the hair grow.

(j). An ointment made by boiling the above roots in oil, and rubbed in,
will make the hair black, and will also gradually restore hair that has
fallen off.

(k) If lac is saturated seven times in the sweat of the testicle of a
white horse, and applied to a red lip, the lip will become white.

(l). The colour of the lips can be regained by means of the madayantika
and other plants mentioned above under (i).

(m). A woman who hears a man playing on a reed pipe which has been
dressed with the juices of the bahupadika plant, the tabernamontana
coronaria, the costus speciosus or arabicus, the pinus deodora, the
euphorbia antiquorum, the vajra and the kantaka plant, becomes his
slave.

(n). If food be mixed with the fruit of the thorn apple (Dathura) it
causes intoxication.

(o). If water be mixed with oil and the ashes of any kind of grass
except the kusha grass, it becomes the colour of milk.

(p). If yellow myrabolans, the hog plum, the shrawana plant, and the
priyangu plant be all pounded together, and applied to iron pots, these
pots become red.

(q). If a lamp, trimmed with oil extracted from the shrawana and
priyangn plants, its wick being made of cloth and the slough of the
skins of snakes, is lighted, and long pieces of wood placed near it,
those pieces of wood will resemble so many snakes.

(r). Drinking the milk of a white cow who has a white calf at her feet
is auspicious, produces fame, and preserves life.

(s). The blessings of venerable Brahmans, well propitiated, have the
same effect.

There are also some verses in conclusion:

"Thus have I written in a few words the 'Science of love,' after reading
the texts of ancient authors, and following the ways of enjoyment
mentioned in them."

"He who is acquainted with the true principles of this science pays
regard to Dharma, Artha, Kama, and to his own experiences, as well as to
the teachings of others, and does not act simply on the dictates of his
own desire. As for the errors in the science of love which I have
mentioned in this work, on my own authority as an author, I have,
immediately after mentioning them, carefully censured and prohibited
them."

"An act is never looked upon with indulgence for the simple reason that
it is authorised by the science, because it ought to be remembered that
it is the intention of the science, that the rules which it contains
should only be acted upon in particular cases. After reading and
considering the works of Babhravya and other ancient authors, and
thinking over the meaning of the rules given by them, the Kama Sutra was
composed, according to the precepts of Holy Writ, for the benefit of the
world, by Vatsyayana, while leading the life of a religious student, and
wholly engaged in the contemplation of the Deity."

"This work is not intended to be used merely as an instrument for
satisfying our desires. A person, acquainted with the true principles of
this science, and who preserves his Dharma, Artha, and Kama, and has
regard for the practices of the people, is sure to obtain the mastery
over his senses."

"In short, an intelligent and prudent person, attending to Dharma and
Artha, and attending to Kama also, without becoming the slave of his
passions, obtains success in everything that he may undertake."

=END OF PART VII.=




CONCLUDING REMARKS.


Thus ends, in seven parts, the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, which might
otherwise be called a treatise on men and women, their mutual
relationship, and connection with each other.

It is a work that should be studied by all, both old and young; the
former will find in it real truths, gathered by experience, and already
tested by themselves, while the latter will derive the great advantage
of learning things, which some perhaps may otherwise never learn at all,
or which they may only learn when it is too late ("too late" those
immortal words of Mirabeau) to profit by the learning.

It can also be fairly commended to the student of social science and of
humanity, and above all to the student of those early ideas, which have
gradually filtered down through the sands of time, and which seem to
prove that the human nature of to-day is much the same as the human
nature of the long ago.

It has been said of Balzac [the great, if not the greatest of French
novelists] that he seemed to have inherited a natural and intuitive
perception of the feelings of men and women, and has described them with
an analysis worthy of a man of science. The author of the present work
must also have had a considerable knowledge of the humanities. Many of
his remarks are so full of simplicity and truth, that they have stood
the test of time, and stand out still as clear and true as when they
were first written, some eighteen hundred years ago.

As a collection of facts, told in plain and simple language, it must be
remembered that in those early days there was apparently no idea of
embellishing the work, either with a literary style, a flow of
language, or a quantity of superfluous padding. The author tells the
world what he knows in very concise language, without any attempt to
produce an interesting story. From his facts how many novels could be
written! Indeed much of the matter contained in parts III. IV. V. and
VI., has formed the basis of many of the stories and the tales of past
centuries.

There will be found in part VII., some curious recipes. Many of them
appear to be as primitive as the book itself, but in later works of the
same nature these recipes and prescriptions appear to have increased,
both as regards quality and quantity. In the Anunga Runga or "The Stage
of Love," mentioned at page 5 of the Preface in Part I., there are found
no less than thirty-three different subjects for which one hundred and
thirty recipes and prescriptions are given.

As the details may be interesting, these subjects are described as
follows:

1. For hastening the paroxysm of the woman.

2. For delaying the organs of the man.

3. Aphrodisiacs.

4. For thickening and enlarging the lingam, rendering it sound and
strong, hard and lusty.

5. For narrowing and contracting the yoni.

6. For perfuming the yoni.

7. For removing and destroying the hair of the body.

8. For removing the sudden stopping of the monthly ailment.

9. For abating the immoderate appearance of the monthly ailment.

10. For purifying the womb.

11. For causing pregnancy.

12. For preventing miscarriage and other accidents.

13. For ensuring easy labour and ready deliverance.

14. For limiting the number of children.

15. For thickening and beautifying the hair.

16. For obtaining a good black colour to it.

17. For whitening and bleaching it.

18. For renewing it.

19. For clearing the skin of the face from eruptions that break out and
leave black spots upon it.

20. For removing the black colour of the epidermis.

21. For enlarging the breasts of women.

22. For raising and hardening pendulous breasts.

23. For giving a fragrance to the skin.

24. For removing the evil savour of perspiration.

25. For anointing the body after bathing.

26. For causing a pleasant smell to the breath.

27. Drugs and charms for the purposes of fascinating, overcoming, and
subduing either men or women.

28. Recipes for enabling a woman to attract and preserve her husband's
love.

29. Magical collyriums for winning love and friendship.

30. Prescriptions for reducing other persons to submission.

31. Philter pills, and other charms.

32. Fascinating incense, or fumigation.

33. Magical verses which have the power of fascination.

Of the one hundred and thirty recipes given, many of them are absurd,
but not more perhaps than many of the recipes and prescriptions in use
in Europe not so very long ago. Love-philters, charms, and herbal
remedies have been, in early days, as freely used in Europe as in Asia,
and doubtless some people believe in them still in many places.

And now, one word about the author of the work, the good old sage
Vatsyayana. It is much to be regretted that nothing can be discovered
about his life, his belongings, and his surroundings. At the end of Part
VII. he states that he wrote the work while leading the life of a
religious student [probably at Benares] and while wholly engaged in the
contemplation of the Deity. He must have arrived at a certain age at
that time, for throughout he gives us the benefit of his experience, and
of his opinions, and these bear the stamp of age rather than of youth;
indeed the work could hardly have been written by a young man.

In a beautiful verse of the Vedas of the Christians it has been said of
the peaceful dead, that they rest from their labours, and that their
works do follow them. Yes indeed, the works of men of genius do follow
them, and remain as a lasting treasure. And though there may be
disputes and discussions about the immortality of the body or the soul,
nobody can deny the immortality of genius, which ever remains as a
bright and guiding star to the struggling humanities of succeeding ages.
This work, then, which has stood the test of centuries, has placed
Vatsyayana among the immortals, and on This, and on Him no better elegy
or eulogy can be written than the following lines:

   "So long as lips shall kiss, and eyes shall see,
   So long lives This, and This gives life to Thee."

       *       *       *       *       *

_Works issued by the Council of the_ KAMA SHASTRA SOCIETY.


_DETAILED PROSPECTUSES CAN BE HAD._


II.

   ANANGA-RANGA,
   (_Stage of the Bodiless One_)
   OR THE
   HINDOO ART OF LOVE,
   (_Ars Amoris Indica_,)

   TRANSLATED FROM THE SANSKRIT AND ANNOTATED BY
   A. F. F. AND B. F. R.

   [_Ready._

This work may fairly be pronounced unique from the days of Sotades and
Ovid to our time. Western authors have treated the subject either
jocularly, or with a tendency to hymn the joys of immorality. The Indian
author has taken the opposite view, and it is impossible not to admire
the delicacy with which he has handled an exceedingly delicate theme.


III.

   THE
   PERFUMED GARDEN,
   OF THE
   SHEIK NEFZAOUI,
   OR THE
   _ARAB ART OF LOVE_,

   XVITH CENTURY.

   TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH VERSION OF THE ARABIAN MS.

   [_Ready._

*** This, the authorized version, is printed in purple and red ink, and
ornamented with Arabesque Initial Ornaments.

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's note

All occurrences of "i.e." have been italicized for consistency.

On Page 128 there is a paragraph listed as "(2)". However, there is
no preceding paragraph listed as "(1)". This is unchanged.

The following changes have been made to the text:

Page 3: "Sancrit literature" changed to "Sanscrit literature".

Page 4: "calied Pachivedas" changed to "called Pachivedas".

Page 9: "sensual grat fication" changed to "sensual gratification".

Page 12: "written by Nundi in one" changed to "written by Nandi in one".

Page 12: "Babhravya, an inheritant" changed to "Babhravya, an
inhabitant".

Page 22 (in this version), Footnote #7: "now nnknown" changed to "now
unknown".

Page 27: "at the botttom" changed to "at the bottom".

Page 29: "should be understand" changed to "should be understood".

Page 32: "heir heads shaved" changed to "their heads shaved".

Page 33 (in this version), Footnote #29: "fiction, imitiating him"
changed to "fiction, imitating him".

Page 37 (in this version), Footnote #32: "technical term throughont"
changed to "technical term throughout".

Page 39: "highesf union" changed to "highest union".

Page 41: "if ihe ways" changed to "if the ways".

Page 45: "neither has the rice seven colours" changed to "neither has
the rice five colours".

Page 51: "is is called a" changed to "it is called a".

Page 52: "passion is e ces ve" changed to "passion is excessive".

Page 52: "Middllng" changed to "Middling".

Page 53: "breasts, it is called the" changed to "breasts, is called
the".

Page 70: "the ennuch moves about" changed to "the eunuch moves about".

Page 70: "passes the tongue ever the end" changed to "passes the tongue
over the end".

Page 71: "sonthern bank of the Jumna" changed to "southern bank of the
Jumna".

Page 72: "be made nse of" changed to "be made use of".

Page 73: "can then eat sweatmeats" changed to "can then eat sweetmeats".

Page 76: "End of Part II" added.

Page 82: "he should them embrace" changed to "he should then embrace".

Page 93 (in this version), Footnote #49: "Woman is a monaganous animal"
to "Woman is a monogamous animal".

Page 101: "remarried, or a concubine" changed to "re-married, or a
concubine".

Page 104: "Tho followers of Babhravya says" changed to "The followers of
Babhravya say".

Page 106: "the ttme of her turn" changed to "the time of her turn".

Page 110: "if his inaccesibility" changed to "if his inaccessibility".

Page 112: "A covetuous woman" changed to "A covetous woman".

Page 117: "better dressed that before" changed to "better dressed than
before".

Page 127 (in this version), Footnote #61:

   "jurè" changed to "juré".

   "profound" changed to "profond".

   "Voulez vous qu'infidele" changed to "Voulez-vous qu'infidèle".

   "language" changed "langage".

   "seul" changed to "seule".

   "et" changed to "ou".

   "gouter" changed to "goûter".

   "delire" changed to "délire".

   "ou" changed to "où".

   "remede" changed to "remède".

   "a" changed to "à".

   "ou vous voit on" changed to "où vous voit-on".

Page 128: "moon-light" changed to "moonlight".

Page 131 (in this version), Footnote #68: "Apar ntakas" changed to
"Aparantakas".

Page 132: "t lling them" changed to "telling them".

Page 133: "easily accesible" changed to "easily accessible".

Page 133: "whem he is anxious" changed to "whom he is anxious".

Page 135: "fear of avarice" changed to "fear or avarice".

Page 136: "ways for seduciug" changed to "ways of seducing".

Page 138: "own maintainance" changed to "own maintenance".

Page 140: "beauty, and aimiability" changed to "beauty, and amiability".

Page 140: "to ssess activity" changed to "to possess activity".

Page 143 (in this version), Footnote #74: "In India" changed to "in
India".

Page 145: "him." f," changed to "him." If,".

Page 146: "account of its subtletly" changed to "account of its
subtlety".

Page 159: "aud well-to-do" changed to "and well-to-do".

Page 168: "incanations mentioned" changed to "incantations mentioned".

Page 171: "trapa bisqinosa" changed to "trapa bispinosa".

Page 173: "he of the same size" changed to "be of the same size".

Page 175: "seeds of the pomegranite" changed to "seeds of the
pomegranate".

Page 179: "ready deliverence" changed to "ready deliverance".








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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: Sense and Sensibility

Author: Jane Austen

Release Date: May 25, 2008 [EBook #161]
[Last updated: February 11, 2015]

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SENSE AND SENSIBILITY ***

Special thanks are due to Sharon Partridge for extensive
proofreading and correction of this etext.











SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

by Jane Austen

(1811)




CHAPTER 1


The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex.  Their estate
was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of
their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so
respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their
surrounding acquaintance.  The late owner of this estate was a single
man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his
life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister.  But her
death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great
alteration in his home; for to supply her loss, he invited and received
into his house the family of his nephew Mr. Henry Dashwood, the legal
inheritor of the Norland estate, and the person to whom he intended to
bequeath it.  In the society of his nephew and niece, and their
children, the old Gentleman's days were comfortably spent.  His
attachment to them all increased.  The constant attention of Mr. and
Mrs. Henry Dashwood to his wishes, which proceeded not merely from
interest, but from goodness of heart, gave him every degree of solid
comfort which his age could receive; and the cheerfulness of the
children added a relish to his existence.

By a former marriage, Mr. Henry Dashwood had one son: by his present
lady, three daughters.  The son, a steady respectable young man, was
amply provided for by the fortune of his mother, which had been large,
and half of which devolved on him on his coming of age.  By his own
marriage, likewise, which happened soon afterwards, he added to his
wealth.  To him therefore the succession to the Norland estate was not
so really important as to his sisters; for their fortune, independent
of what might arise to them from their father's inheriting that
property, could be but small.  Their mother had nothing, and their
father only seven thousand pounds in his own disposal; for the
remaining moiety of his first wife's fortune was also secured to her
child, and he had only a life-interest in it.

The old gentleman died: his will was read, and like almost every other
will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure.  He was neither so
unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew;--but
he left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the
bequest.  Mr. Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife
and daughters than for himself or his son;--but to his son, and his
son's son, a child of four years old, it was secured, in such a way, as
to leave to himself no power of providing for those who were most dear
to him, and who most needed a provision by any charge on the estate, or
by any sale of its valuable woods.  The whole was tied up for the
benefit of this child, who, in occasional visits with his father and
mother at Norland, had so far gained on the affections of his uncle, by
such attractions as are by no means unusual in children of two or three
years old; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his
own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh
all the value of all the attention which, for years, he had received
from his niece and her daughters.  He meant not to be unkind, however,
and, as a mark of his affection for the three girls, he left them a
thousand pounds a-piece.

Mr. Dashwood's disappointment was, at first, severe; but his temper was
cheerful and sanguine; and he might reasonably hope to live many years,
and by living economically, lay by a considerable sum from the produce
of an estate already large, and capable of almost immediate
improvement.  But the fortune, which had been so tardy in coming, was
his only one twelvemonth.  He survived his uncle no longer; and ten
thousand pounds, including the late legacies, was all that remained for
his widow and daughters.

His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him Mr.
Dashwood recommended, with all the strength and urgency which illness
could command, the interest of his mother-in-law and sisters.

Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the
family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at
such a time, and he promised to do every thing in his power to make
them comfortable.  His father was rendered easy by such an assurance,
and Mr. John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how much there might
prudently be in his power to do for them.

He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold hearted
and rather selfish is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general, well
respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge of
his ordinary duties.  Had he married a more amiable woman, he might
have been made still more respectable than he was:--he might even have
been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and
very fond of his wife.  But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature
of himself;--more narrow-minded and selfish.

When he gave his promise to his father, he meditated within himself to
increase the fortunes of his sisters by the present of a thousand
pounds a-piece.  He then really thought himself equal to it.  The
prospect of four thousand a-year, in addition to his present income,
besides the remaining half of his own mother's fortune, warmed his
heart, and made him feel capable of generosity.-- "Yes, he would give
them three thousand pounds: it would be liberal and handsome! It would
be enough to make them completely easy.  Three thousand pounds! he
could spare so considerable a sum with little inconvenience."-- He
thought of it all day long, and for many days successively, and he did
not repent.

No sooner was his father's funeral over, than Mrs. John Dashwood,
without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law,
arrived with her child and their attendants.  No one could dispute her
right to come; the house was her husband's from the moment of his
father's decease; but the indelicacy of her conduct was so much the
greater, and to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood's situation, with only common
feelings, must have been highly unpleasing;--but in HER mind there was
a sense of honor so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of
the kind, by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of
immovable disgust.  Mrs. John Dashwood had never been a favourite with
any of her husband's family; but she had had no opportunity, till the
present, of shewing them with how little attention to the comfort of
other people she could act when occasion required it.

So acutely did Mrs. Dashwood feel this ungracious behaviour, and so
earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the
arrival of the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had
not the entreaty of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the
propriety of going, and her own tender love for all her three children
determined her afterwards to stay, and for their sakes avoid a breach
with their brother.

Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed
a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified
her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and
enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all,
that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led
to imprudence.  She had an excellent heart;--her disposition was
affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern
them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn; and which
one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught.

Marianne's abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor's.
She was sensible and clever; but eager in everything: her sorrows, her
joys, could have no moderation.  She was generous, amiable,
interesting: she was everything but prudent.  The resemblance between
her and her mother was strikingly great.

Elinor saw, with concern, the excess of her sister's sensibility; but
by Mrs. Dashwood it was valued and cherished.  They encouraged each
other now in the violence of their affliction.  The agony of grief
which overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was sought
for, was created again and again.  They gave themselves up wholly to
their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that
could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in
future.  Elinor, too, was deeply afflicted; but still she could
struggle, she could exert herself.  She could consult with her brother,
could receive her sister-in-law on her arrival, and treat her with
proper attention; and could strive to rouse her mother to similar
exertion, and encourage her to similar forbearance.

Margaret, the other sister, was a good-humored, well-disposed girl; but
as she had already imbibed a good deal of Marianne's romance, without
having much of her sense, she did not, at thirteen, bid fair to equal
her sisters at a more advanced period of life.



CHAPTER 2


Mrs. John Dashwood now installed herself mistress of Norland; and her
mother and sisters-in-law were degraded to the condition of visitors.
As such, however, they were treated by her with quiet civility; and by
her husband with as much kindness as he could feel towards anybody
beyond himself, his wife, and their child.  He really pressed them,
with some earnestness, to consider Norland as their home; and, as no
plan appeared so eligible to Mrs. Dashwood as remaining there till she
could accommodate herself with a house in the neighbourhood, his
invitation was accepted.

A continuance in a place where everything reminded her of former
delight, was exactly what suited her mind.  In seasons of cheerfulness,
no temper could be more cheerful than hers, or possess, in a greater
degree, that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness
itself.  But in sorrow she must be equally carried away by her fancy,
and as far beyond consolation as in pleasure she was beyond alloy.

Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended
to do for his sisters.  To take three thousand pounds from the fortune
of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most
dreadful degree.  She begged him to think again on the subject.  How
could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too,
of so large a sum?  And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods,
who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no
relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount.  It
was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist
between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he
to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his
money to his half sisters?

"It was my father's last request to me," replied her husband, "that I
should assist his widow and daughters."

"He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he
was light-headed at the time.  Had he been in his right senses, he
could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half
your fortune from your own child."

"He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only
requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their
situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do.  Perhaps it
would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself.  He could
hardly suppose I should neglect them.  But as he required the promise,
I could not do less than give it; at least I thought so at the time.
The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed.  Something
must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new
home."

"Well, then, LET something be done for them; but THAT something need
not be three thousand pounds.  Consider," she added, "that when the
money is once parted with, it never can return.  Your sisters will
marry, and it will be gone for ever.  If, indeed, it could be restored
to our poor little boy--"

"Why, to be sure," said her husband, very gravely, "that would make
great difference.  The time may come when Harry will regret that so
large a sum was parted with.  If he should have a numerous family, for
instance, it would be a very convenient addition."

"To be sure it would."

"Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties, if the sum were
diminished one half.--Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious
increase to their fortunes!"

"Oh! beyond anything great!  What brother on earth would do half so
much for his sisters, even if REALLY his sisters!  And as it is--only
half blood!--But you have such a generous spirit!"

"I would not wish to do any thing mean," he replied.  "One had rather,
on such occasions, do too much than too little.  No one, at least, can
think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly
expect more."

"There is no knowing what THEY may expect," said the lady, "but we are
not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can
afford to do."

"Certainly--and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds
a-piece.  As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have
about three thousand pounds on their mother's death--a very comfortable
fortune for any young woman."

"To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no
addition at all.  They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst
them.  If they marry, they will be sure of doing well, and if they do
not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten
thousand pounds."

"That is very true, and, therefore, I do not know whether, upon the
whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother
while she lives, rather than for them--something of the annuity kind I
mean.--My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself.
A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable."

His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this
plan.

"To be sure," said she, "it is better than parting with fifteen hundred
pounds at once.  But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years
we shall be completely taken in."

"Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that
purchase."

"Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when
there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy,
and hardly forty.  An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over
and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it.  You are not
aware of what you are doing.  I have known a great deal of the trouble
of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to
old superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is amazing how
disagreeable she found it.  Twice every year these annuities were to be
paid; and then there was the trouble of getting it to them; and then
one of them was said to have died, and afterwards it turned out to be
no such thing.  My mother was quite sick of it.  Her income was not her
own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it; and it was the more
unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money would have been
entirely at my mother's disposal, without any restriction whatever.  It
has given me such an abhorrence of annuities, that I am sure I would
not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world."

"It is certainly an unpleasant thing," replied Mr. Dashwood, "to have
those kind of yearly drains on one's income.  One's fortune, as your
mother justly says, is NOT one's own.  To be tied down to the regular
payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it
takes away one's independence."

"Undoubtedly; and after all you have no thanks for it.  They think
themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises
no gratitude at all.  If I were you, whatever I did should be done at
my own discretion entirely.  I would not bind myself to allow them any
thing yearly.  It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a
hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses."

"I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should
be no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will
be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they
would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger
income, and would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the
year.  It will certainly be much the best way.  A present of fifty
pounds, now and then, will prevent their ever being distressed for
money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father."

"To be sure it will.  Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within
myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at
all.  The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might
be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a
comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things,
and sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they
are in season.  I'll lay my life that he meant nothing farther; indeed,
it would be very strange and unreasonable if he did.  Do but consider,
my dear Mr. Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law
and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds,
besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which
brings them in fifty pounds a year a-piece, and, of course, they will
pay their mother for their board out of it.  Altogether, they will have
five hundred a-year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want
for more than that?--They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will
be nothing at all.  They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly
any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of
any kind!  Only conceive how comfortable they will be!  Five hundred a
year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as
to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it.  They will
be much more able to give YOU something."

"Upon my word," said Mr. Dashwood, "I believe you are perfectly right.
My father certainly could mean nothing more by his request to me than
what you say.  I clearly understand it now, and I will strictly fulfil
my engagement by such acts of assistance and kindness to them as you
have described.  When my mother removes into another house my services
shall be readily given to accommodate her as far as I can.  Some little
present of furniture too may be acceptable then."

"Certainly," returned Mrs. John Dashwood.  "But, however, ONE thing
must be considered.  When your father and mother moved to Norland,
though the furniture of Stanhill was sold, all the china, plate, and
linen was saved, and is now left to your mother.  Her house will
therefore be almost completely fitted up as soon as she takes it."

"That is a material consideration undoubtedly.  A valuable legacy
indeed! And yet some of the plate would have been a very pleasant
addition to our own stock here."

"Yes; and the set of breakfast china is twice as handsome as what
belongs to this house.  A great deal too handsome, in my opinion, for
any place THEY can ever afford to live in.  But, however, so it is.
Your father thought only of THEM.  And I must say this: that you owe no
particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very
well know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the
world to THEM."

This argument was irresistible.  It gave to his intentions whatever of
decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved, that it would be
absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the
widow and children of his father, than such kind of neighbourly acts as
his own wife pointed out.



CHAPTER 3


Mrs. Dashwood remained at Norland several months; not from any
disinclination to move when the sight of every well known spot ceased
to raise the violent emotion which it produced for a while; for when
her spirits began to revive, and her mind became capable of some other
exertion than that of heightening its affliction by melancholy
remembrances, she was impatient to be gone, and indefatigable in her
inquiries for a suitable dwelling in the neighbourhood of Norland; for
to remove far from that beloved spot was impossible.  But she could
hear of no situation that at once answered her notions of comfort and
ease, and suited the prudence of her eldest daughter, whose steadier
judgment rejected several houses as too large for their income, which
her mother would have approved.

Mrs. Dashwood had been informed by her husband of the solemn promise on
the part of his son in their favour, which gave comfort to his last
earthly reflections.  She doubted the sincerity of this assurance no
more than he had doubted it himself, and she thought of it for her
daughters' sake with satisfaction, though as for herself she was
persuaded that a much smaller provision than 7000L would support her in
affluence.  For their brother's sake, too, for the sake of his own
heart, she rejoiced; and she reproached herself for being unjust to his
merit before, in believing him incapable of generosity.  His attentive
behaviour to herself and his sisters convinced her that their welfare
was dear to him, and, for a long time, she firmly relied on the
liberality of his intentions.

The contempt which she had, very early in their acquaintance, felt for
her daughter-in-law, was very much increased by the farther knowledge
of her character, which half a year's residence in her family afforded;
and perhaps in spite of every consideration of politeness or maternal
affection on the side of the former, the two ladies might have found it
impossible to have lived together so long, had not a particular
circumstance occurred to give still greater eligibility, according to
the opinions of Mrs. Dashwood, to her daughters' continuance at Norland.

This circumstance was a growing attachment between her eldest girl and
the brother of Mrs. John Dashwood, a gentleman-like and pleasing young
man, who was introduced to their acquaintance soon after his sister's
establishment at Norland, and who had since spent the greatest part of
his time there.

Some mothers might have encouraged the intimacy from motives of
interest, for Edward Ferrars was the eldest son of a man who had died
very rich; and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence,
for, except a trifling sum, the whole of his fortune depended on the
will of his mother.  But Mrs. Dashwood was alike uninfluenced by either
consideration.  It was enough for her that he appeared to be amiable,
that he loved her daughter, and that Elinor returned the partiality.
It was contrary to every doctrine of hers that difference of fortune
should keep any couple asunder who were attracted by resemblance of
disposition; and that Elinor's merit should not be acknowledged by
every one who knew her, was to her comprehension impossible.

Edward Ferrars was not recommended to their good opinion by any
peculiar graces of person or address.  He was not handsome, and his
manners required intimacy to make them pleasing.  He was too diffident
to do justice to himself; but when his natural shyness was overcome,
his behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart.
His understanding was good, and his education had given it solid
improvement.  But he was neither fitted by abilities nor disposition to
answer the wishes of his mother and sister, who longed to see him
distinguished--as--they hardly knew what.  They wanted him to make a
fine figure in the world in some manner or other.  His mother wished to
interest him in political concerns, to get him into parliament, or to
see him connected with some of the great men of the day.  Mrs. John
Dashwood wished it likewise; but in the mean while, till one of these
superior blessings could be attained, it would have quieted her
ambition to see him driving a barouche.  But Edward had no turn for
great men or barouches.  All his wishes centered in domestic comfort
and the quiet of private life.  Fortunately he had a younger brother
who was more promising.

Edward had been staying several weeks in the house before he engaged
much of Mrs. Dashwood's attention; for she was, at that time, in such
affliction as rendered her careless of surrounding objects.  She saw
only that he was quiet and unobtrusive, and she liked him for it.  He
did not disturb the wretchedness of her mind by ill-timed conversation.
She was first called to observe and approve him farther, by a
reflection which Elinor chanced one day to make on the difference
between him and his sister.  It was a contrast which recommended him
most forcibly to her mother.

"It is enough," said she; "to say that he is unlike Fanny is enough.
It implies everything amiable.  I love him already."

"I think you will like him," said Elinor, "when you know more of him."

"Like him!" replied her mother with a smile.  "I feel no sentiment of
approbation inferior to love."

"You may esteem him."

"I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem and love."

Mrs. Dashwood now took pains to get acquainted with him.  Her manners
were attaching, and soon banished his reserve.  She speedily
comprehended all his merits; the persuasion of his regard for Elinor
perhaps assisted her penetration; but she really felt assured of his
worth: and even that quietness of manner, which militated against all
her established ideas of what a young man's address ought to be, was no
longer uninteresting when she knew his heart to be warm and his temper
affectionate.

No sooner did she perceive any symptom of love in his behaviour to
Elinor, than she considered their serious attachment as certain, and
looked forward to their marriage as rapidly approaching.

"In a few months, my dear Marianne." said she, "Elinor will, in all
probability be settled for life.  We shall miss her; but SHE will be
happy."

"Oh! Mama, how shall we do without her?"

"My love, it will be scarcely a separation.  We shall live within a few
miles of each other, and shall meet every day of our lives.  You will
gain a brother, a real, affectionate brother.  I have the highest
opinion in the world of Edward's heart.  But you look grave, Marianne;
do you disapprove your sister's choice?"

"Perhaps," said Marianne, "I may consider it with some surprise.
Edward is very amiable, and I love him tenderly.  But yet--he is not
the kind of young man--there is something wanting--his figure is not
striking; it has none of that grace which I should expect in the man
who could seriously attach my sister.  His eyes want all that spirit,
that fire, which at once announce virtue and intelligence.  And besides
all this, I am afraid, Mama, he has no real taste.  Music seems
scarcely to attract him, and though he admires Elinor's drawings very
much, it is not the admiration of a person who can understand their
worth.  It is evident, in spite of his frequent attention to her while
she draws, that in fact he knows nothing of the matter.  He admires as
a lover, not as a connoisseur.  To satisfy me, those characters must be
united.  I could not be happy with a man whose taste did not in every
point coincide with my own.  He must enter into all my feelings; the
same books, the same music must charm us both.  Oh! mama, how
spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading to us last night!
I felt for my sister most severely.  Yet she bore it with so much
composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it.  I could hardly keep my
seat.  To hear those beautiful lines which have frequently almost
driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable calmness, such
dreadful indifference!"

"He would certainly have done more justice to simple and elegant prose.
I thought so at the time; but you WOULD give him Cowper."

"Nay, Mama, if he is not to be animated by Cowper!--but we must allow
for difference of taste.  Elinor has not my feelings, and therefore she
may overlook it, and be happy with him.  But it would have broke MY
heart, had I loved him, to hear him read with so little sensibility.
Mama, the more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I
shall never see a man whom I can really love.  I require so much!  He
must have all Edward's virtues, and his person and manners must
ornament his goodness with every possible charm."

"Remember, my love, that you are not seventeen.  It is yet too early in
life to despair of such a happiness.  Why should you be less fortunate
than your mother?  In one circumstance only, my Marianne, may your
destiny be different from hers!"



CHAPTER 4


"What a pity it is, Elinor," said Marianne, "that Edward should have no
taste for drawing."

"No taste for drawing!" replied Elinor, "why should you think so? He
does not draw himself, indeed, but he has great pleasure in seeing the
performances of other people, and I assure you he is by no means
deficient in natural taste, though he has not had opportunities of
improving it.  Had he ever been in the way of learning, I think he
would have drawn very well.  He distrusts his own judgment in such
matters so much, that he is always unwilling to give his opinion on any
picture; but he has an innate propriety and simplicity of taste, which
in general direct him perfectly right."

Marianne was afraid of offending, and said no more on the subject; but
the kind of approbation which Elinor described as excited in him by the
drawings of other people, was very far from that rapturous delight,
which, in her opinion, could alone be called taste.  Yet, though
smiling within herself at the mistake, she honoured her sister for that
blind partiality to Edward which produced it.

"I hope, Marianne," continued Elinor, "you do not consider him as
deficient in general taste.  Indeed, I think I may say that you cannot,
for your behaviour to him is perfectly cordial, and if THAT were your
opinion, I am sure you could never be civil to him."

Marianne hardly knew what to say.  She would not wound the feelings of
her sister on any account, and yet to say what she did not believe was
impossible.  At length she replied:

"Do not be offended, Elinor, if my praise of him is not in every thing
equal to your sense of his merits.  I have not had so many
opportunities of estimating the minuter propensities of his mind, his
inclinations and tastes, as you have; but I have the highest opinion in
the world of his goodness and sense.  I think him every thing that is
worthy and amiable."

"I am sure," replied Elinor, with a smile, "that his dearest friends
could not be dissatisfied with such commendation as that.  I do not
perceive how you could express yourself more warmly."

Marianne was rejoiced to find her sister so easily pleased.

"Of his sense and his goodness," continued Elinor, "no one can, I
think, be in doubt, who has seen him often enough to engage him in
unreserved conversation.  The excellence of his understanding and his
principles can be concealed only by that shyness which too often keeps
him silent.  You know enough of him to do justice to his solid worth.
But of his minuter propensities, as you call them you have from
peculiar circumstances been kept more ignorant than myself.  He and I
have been at times thrown a good deal together, while you have been
wholly engrossed on the most affectionate principle by my mother.  I
have seen a great deal of him, have studied his sentiments and heard
his opinion on subjects of literature and taste; and, upon the whole, I
venture to pronounce that his mind is well-informed, enjoyment of books
exceedingly great, his imagination lively, his observation just and
correct, and his taste delicate and pure.  His abilities in every
respect improve as much upon acquaintance as his manners and person.
At first sight, his address is certainly not striking; and his person
can hardly be called handsome, till the expression of his eyes, which
are uncommonly good, and the general sweetness of his countenance, is
perceived.  At present, I know him so well, that I think him really
handsome; or at least, almost so.  What say you, Marianne?"

"I shall very soon think him handsome, Elinor, if I do not now.  When
you tell me to love him as a brother, I shall no more see imperfection
in his face, than I now do in his heart."

Elinor started at this declaration, and was sorry for the warmth she
had been betrayed into, in speaking of him.  She felt that Edward stood
very high in her opinion.  She believed the regard to be mutual; but
she required greater certainty of it to make Marianne's conviction of
their attachment agreeable to her.  She knew that what Marianne and her
mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next--that with them,
to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.  She tried to explain
the real state of the case to her sister.

"I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of
him--that I greatly esteem, that I like him."

Marianne here burst forth with indignation--

"Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh!  worse than
cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise.  Use those words again, and I
will leave the room this moment."

Elinor could not help laughing.  "Excuse me," said she; "and be assured
that I meant no offence to you, by speaking, in so quiet a way, of my
own feelings.  Believe them to be stronger than I have declared;
believe them, in short, to be such as his merit, and the suspicion--the
hope of his affection for me may warrant, without imprudence or folly.
But farther than this you must not believe.  I am by no means assured
of his regard for me.  There are moments when the extent of it seems
doubtful; and till his sentiments are fully known, you cannot wonder at
my wishing to avoid any encouragement of my own partiality, by
believing or calling it more than it is.  In my heart I feel
little--scarcely any doubt of his preference.  But there are other
points to be considered besides his inclination.  He is very far from
being independent.  What his mother really is we cannot know; but, from
Fanny's occasional mention of her conduct and opinions, we have never
been disposed to think her amiable; and I am very much mistaken if
Edward is not himself aware that there would be many difficulties in
his way, if he were to wish to marry a woman who had not either a great
fortune or high rank."

Marianne was astonished to find how much the imagination of her mother
and herself had outstripped the truth.

"And you really are not engaged to him!" said she.  "Yet it certainly
soon will happen.  But two advantages will proceed from this delay.  I
shall not lose you so soon, and Edward will have greater opportunity of
improving that natural taste for your favourite pursuit which must be
so indispensably necessary to your future felicity.  Oh! if he should
be so far stimulated by your genius as to learn to draw himself, how
delightful it would be!"

Elinor had given her real opinion to her sister.  She could not
consider her partiality for Edward in so prosperous a state as Marianne
had believed it.  There was, at times, a want of spirits about him
which, if it did not denote indifference, spoke of something almost as
unpromising.  A doubt of her regard, supposing him to feel it, need not
give him more than inquietude.  It would not be likely to produce that
dejection of mind which frequently attended him.  A more reasonable
cause might be found in the dependent situation which forbade the
indulgence of his affection.  She knew that his mother neither behaved
to him so as to make his home comfortable at present, nor to give him
any assurance that he might form a home for himself, without strictly
attending to her views for his aggrandizement.  With such a knowledge
as this, it was impossible for Elinor to feel easy on the subject.  She
was far from depending on that result of his preference of her, which
her mother and sister still considered as certain.  Nay, the longer
they were together the more doubtful seemed the nature of his regard;
and sometimes, for a few painful minutes, she believed it to be no more
than friendship.

But, whatever might really be its limits, it was enough, when perceived
by his sister, to make her uneasy, and at the same time, (which was
still more common,) to make her uncivil.  She took the first
opportunity of affronting her mother-in-law on the occasion, talking to
her so expressively of her brother's great expectations, of Mrs.
Ferrars's resolution that both her sons should marry well, and of the
danger attending any young woman who attempted to DRAW HIM IN; that
Mrs. Dashwood could neither pretend to be unconscious, nor endeavor to
be calm.  She gave her an answer which marked her contempt, and
instantly left the room, resolving that, whatever might be the
inconvenience or expense of so sudden a removal, her beloved Elinor
should not be exposed another week to such insinuations.

In this state of her spirits, a letter was delivered to her from the
post, which contained a proposal particularly well timed.  It was the
offer of a small house, on very easy terms, belonging to a relation of
her own, a gentleman of consequence and property in Devonshire.  The
letter was from this gentleman himself, and written in the true spirit
of friendly accommodation.  He understood that she was in need of a
dwelling; and though the house he now offered her was merely a cottage,
he assured her that everything should be done to it which she might
think necessary, if the situation pleased her.  He earnestly pressed
her, after giving the particulars of the house and garden, to come with
her daughters to Barton Park, the place of his own residence, from
whence she might judge, herself, whether Barton Cottage, for the houses
were in the same parish, could, by any alteration, be made comfortable
to her.  He seemed really anxious to accommodate them and the whole of
his letter was written in so friendly a style as could not fail of
giving pleasure to his cousin; more especially at a moment when she was
suffering under the cold and unfeeling behaviour of her nearer
connections.  She needed no time for deliberation or inquiry.  Her
resolution was formed as she read.  The situation of Barton, in a
county so far distant from Sussex as Devonshire, which, but a few hours
before, would have been a sufficient objection to outweigh every
possible advantage belonging to the place, was now its first
recommendation.  To quit the neighbourhood of Norland was no longer an
evil; it was an object of desire; it was a blessing, in comparison of
the misery of continuing her daughter-in-law's guest; and to remove for
ever from that beloved place would be less painful than to inhabit or
visit it while such a woman was its mistress.  She instantly wrote Sir
John Middleton her acknowledgment of his kindness, and her acceptance
of his proposal; and then hastened to shew both letters to her
daughters, that she might be secure of their approbation before her
answer were sent.

Elinor had always thought it would be more prudent for them to settle
at some distance from Norland, than immediately amongst their present
acquaintance.  On THAT head, therefore, it was not for her to oppose
her mother's intention of removing into Devonshire.  The house, too, as
described by Sir John, was on so simple a scale, and the rent so
uncommonly moderate, as to leave her no right of objection on either
point; and, therefore, though it was not a plan which brought any charm
to her fancy, though it was a removal from the vicinity of Norland
beyond her wishes, she made no attempt to dissuade her mother from
sending a letter of acquiescence.



CHAPTER 5


No sooner was her answer dispatched, than Mrs. Dashwood indulged herself
in the pleasure of announcing to her son-in-law and his wife that she
was provided with a house, and should incommode them no longer than till
every thing were ready for her inhabiting it. They heard her with
surprise. Mrs. John Dashwood said nothing; but her husband civilly hoped
that she would not be settled far from Norland. She had great
satisfaction in replying that she was going into Devonshire.--Edward
turned hastily towards her, on hearing this, and, in a voice of surprise
and concern, which required no explanation to her, repeated,
"Devonshire! Are you, indeed, going there? So far from hence! And to
what part of it?" She explained the situation. It was within four miles
northward of Exeter.

"It is but a cottage," she continued, "but I hope to see many of my
friends in it.  A room or two can easily be added; and if my friends
find no difficulty in travelling so far to see me, I am sure I will
find none in accommodating them."

She concluded with a very kind invitation to Mr. and Mrs. John Dashwood
to visit her at Barton; and to Edward she gave one with still greater
affection.  Though her late conversation with her daughter-in-law had
made her resolve on remaining at Norland no longer than was
unavoidable, it had not produced the smallest effect on her in that
point to which it principally tended.  To separate Edward and Elinor
was as far from being her object as ever; and she wished to show Mrs.
John Dashwood, by this pointed invitation to her brother, how totally
she disregarded her disapprobation of the match.

Mr. John Dashwood told his mother again and again how exceedingly sorry
he was that she had taken a house at such a distance from Norland as to
prevent his being of any service to her in removing her furniture.  He
really felt conscientiously vexed on the occasion; for the very
exertion to which he had limited the performance of his promise to his
father was by this arrangement rendered impracticable.-- The furniture
was all sent around by water.  It chiefly consisted of household linen,
plate, china, and books, with a handsome pianoforte of Marianne's.
Mrs. John Dashwood saw the packages depart with a sigh: she could not
help feeling it hard that as Mrs. Dashwood's income would be so
trifling in comparison with their own, she should have any handsome
article of furniture.

Mrs. Dashwood took the house for a twelvemonth; it was ready furnished,
and she might have immediate possession.  No difficulty arose on either
side in the agreement; and she waited only for the disposal of her
effects at Norland, and to determine her future household, before she
set off for the west; and this, as she was exceedingly rapid in the
performance of everything that interested her, was soon done.--The
horses which were left her by her husband had been sold soon after his
death, and an opportunity now offering of disposing of her carriage,
she agreed to sell that likewise at the earnest advice of her eldest
daughter.  For the comfort of her children, had she consulted only her
own wishes, she would have kept it; but the discretion of Elinor
prevailed.  HER wisdom too limited the number of their servants to
three; two maids and a man, with whom they were speedily provided from
amongst those who had formed their establishment at Norland.

The man and one of the maids were sent off immediately into Devonshire,
to prepare the house for their mistress's arrival; for as Lady
Middleton was entirely unknown to Mrs. Dashwood, she preferred going
directly to the cottage to being a visitor at Barton Park; and she
relied so undoubtingly on Sir John's description of the house, as to
feel no curiosity to examine it herself till she entered it as her own.
Her eagerness to be gone from Norland was preserved from diminution by
the evident satisfaction of her daughter-in-law in the prospect of her
removal; a satisfaction which was but feebly attempted to be concealed
under a cold invitation to her to defer her departure.  Now was the
time when her son-in-law's promise to his father might with particular
propriety be fulfilled.  Since he had neglected to do it on first
coming to the estate, their quitting his house might be looked on as
the most suitable period for its accomplishment.  But Mrs. Dashwood
began shortly to give over every hope of the kind, and to be convinced,
from the general drift of his discourse, that his assistance extended
no farther than their maintenance for six months at Norland.  He so
frequently talked of the increasing expenses of housekeeping, and of
the perpetual demands upon his purse, which a man of any consequence in
the world was beyond calculation exposed to, that he seemed rather to
stand in need of more money himself than to have any design of giving
money away.

In a very few weeks from the day which brought Sir John Middleton's
first letter to Norland, every thing was so far settled in their future
abode as to enable Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters to begin their
journey.

Many were the tears shed by them in their last adieus to a place so
much beloved.  "Dear, dear Norland!" said Marianne, as she wandered
alone before the house, on the last evening of their being there; "when
shall I cease to regret you!--when learn to feel a home elsewhere!--Oh!
happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this
spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!--And you, ye
well-known trees!--but you will continue the same.--No leaf will decay
because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we
can observe you no longer!--No; you will continue the same; unconscious
of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any
change in those who walk under your shade!--But who will remain to
enjoy you?"



CHAPTER 6


The first part of their journey was performed in too melancholy a
disposition to be otherwise than tedious and unpleasant.  But as they
drew towards the end of it, their interest in the appearance of a
country which they were to inhabit overcame their dejection, and a view
of Barton Valley as they entered it gave them cheerfulness.  It was a
pleasant fertile spot, well wooded, and rich in pasture.  After winding
along it for more than a mile, they reached their own house.  A small
green court was the whole of its demesne in front; and a neat wicket
gate admitted them into it.

As a house, Barton Cottage, though small, was comfortable and compact;
but as a cottage it was defective, for the building was regular, the
roof was tiled, the window shutters were not painted green, nor were
the walls covered with honeysuckles.  A narrow passage led directly
through the house into the garden behind.  On each side of the entrance
was a sitting room, about sixteen feet square; and beyond them were the
offices and the stairs.  Four bed-rooms and two garrets formed the rest
of the house.  It had not been built many years and was in good repair.
In comparison of Norland, it was poor and small indeed!--but the tears
which recollection called forth as they entered the house were soon
dried away.  They were cheered by the joy of the servants on their
arrival, and each for the sake of the others resolved to appear happy.
It was very early in September; the season was fine, and from first
seeing the place under the advantage of good weather, they received an
impression in its favour which was of material service in recommending
it to their lasting approbation.

The situation of the house was good.  High hills rose immediately
behind, and at no great distance on each side; some of which were open
downs, the others cultivated and woody.  The village of Barton was
chiefly on one of these hills, and formed a pleasant view from the
cottage windows.  The prospect in front was more extensive; it
commanded the whole of the valley, and reached into the country beyond.
The hills which surrounded the cottage terminated the valley in that
direction; under another name, and in another course, it branched out
again between two of the steepest of them.

With the size and furniture of the house Mrs. Dashwood was upon the
whole well satisfied; for though her former style of life rendered many
additions to the latter indispensable, yet to add and improve was a
delight to her; and she had at this time ready money enough to supply
all that was wanted of greater elegance to the apartments.  "As for the
house itself, to be sure," said she, "it is too small for our family,
but we will make ourselves tolerably comfortable for the present, as it
is too late in the year for improvements.  Perhaps in the spring, if I
have plenty of money, as I dare say I shall, we may think about
building.  These parlors are both too small for such parties of our
friends as I hope to see often collected here; and I have some thoughts
of throwing the passage into one of them with perhaps a part of the
other, and so leave the remainder of that other for an entrance; this,
with a new drawing room which may be easily added, and a bed-chamber
and garret above, will make it a very snug little cottage.  I could
wish the stairs were handsome.  But one must not expect every thing;
though I suppose it would be no difficult matter to widen them.  I
shall see how much I am before-hand with the world in the spring, and
we will plan our improvements accordingly."

In the mean time, till all these alterations could be made from the
savings of an income of five hundred a-year by a woman who never saved
in her life, they were wise enough to be contented with the house as it
was; and each of them was busy in arranging their particular concerns,
and endeavoring, by placing around them books and other possessions, to
form themselves a home.  Marianne's pianoforte was unpacked and
properly disposed of; and Elinor's drawings were affixed to the walls
of their sitting room.

In such employments as these they were interrupted soon after breakfast
the next day by the entrance of their landlord, who called to welcome
them to Barton, and to offer them every accommodation from his own
house and garden in which theirs might at present be deficient.  Sir
John Middleton was a good looking man about forty.  He had formerly
visited at Stanhill, but it was too long for his young cousins to
remember him.  His countenance was thoroughly good-humoured; and his
manners were as friendly as the style of his letter.  Their arrival
seemed to afford him real satisfaction, and their comfort to be an
object of real solicitude to him.  He said much of his earnest desire
of their living in the most sociable terms with his family, and pressed
them so cordially to dine at Barton Park every day till they were
better settled at home, that, though his entreaties were carried to a
point of perseverance beyond civility, they could not give offence.
His kindness was not confined to words; for within an hour after he
left them, a large basket full of garden stuff and fruit arrived from
the park, which was followed before the end of the day by a present of
game.  He insisted, moreover, on conveying all their letters to and
from the post for them, and would not be denied the satisfaction of
sending them his newspaper every day.

Lady Middleton had sent a very civil message by him, denoting her
intention of waiting on Mrs. Dashwood as soon as she could be assured
that her visit would be no inconvenience; and as this message was
answered by an invitation equally polite, her ladyship was introduced
to them the next day.

They were, of course, very anxious to see a person on whom so much of
their comfort at Barton must depend; and the elegance of her appearance
was favourable to their wishes.  Lady Middleton was not more than six
or seven and twenty; her face was handsome, her figure tall and
striking, and her address graceful.  Her manners had all the elegance
which her husband's wanted.  But they would have been improved by some
share of his frankness and warmth; and her visit was long enough to
detract something from their first admiration, by shewing that, though
perfectly well-bred, she was reserved, cold, and had nothing to say for
herself beyond the most common-place inquiry or remark.

Conversation however was not wanted, for Sir John was very chatty, and
Lady Middleton had taken the wise precaution of bringing with her their
eldest child, a fine little boy about six years old, by which means
there was one subject always to be recurred to by the ladies in case of
extremity, for they had to enquire his name and age, admire his beauty,
and ask him questions which his mother answered for him, while he hung
about her and held down his head, to the great surprise of her
ladyship, who wondered at his being so shy before company, as he could
make noise enough at home.  On every formal visit a child ought to be
of the party, by way of provision for discourse.  In the present case
it took up ten minutes to determine whether the boy were most like his
father or mother, and in what particular he resembled either, for of
course every body differed, and every body was astonished at the
opinion of the others.

An opportunity was soon to be given to the Dashwoods of debating on the
rest of the children, as Sir John would not leave the house without
securing their promise of dining at the park the next day.



CHAPTER 7


Barton Park was about half a mile from the cottage.  The ladies had
passed near it in their way along the valley, but it was screened from
their view at home by the projection of a hill.  The house was large
and handsome; and the Middletons lived in a style of equal hospitality
and elegance.  The former was for Sir John's gratification, the latter
for that of his lady.  They were scarcely ever without some friends
staying with them in the house, and they kept more company of every
kind than any other family in the neighbourhood.  It was necessary to
the happiness of both; for however dissimilar in temper and outward
behaviour, they strongly resembled each other in that total want of
talent and taste which confined their employments, unconnected with
such as society produced, within a very narrow compass.  Sir John was a
sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother.  He hunted and shot, and she
humoured her children; and these were their only resources.  Lady
Middleton had the advantage of being able to spoil her children all the
year round, while Sir John's independent employments were in existence
only half the time.  Continual engagements at home and abroad, however,
supplied all the deficiencies of nature and education; supported the
good spirits of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good breeding of his
wife.

Lady Middleton piqued herself upon the elegance of her table, and of
all her domestic arrangements; and from this kind of vanity was her
greatest enjoyment in any of their parties.  But Sir John's
satisfaction in society was much more real; he delighted in collecting
about him more young people than his house would hold, and the noisier
they were the better was he pleased.  He was a blessing to all the
juvenile part of the neighbourhood, for in summer he was for ever
forming parties to eat cold ham and chicken out of doors, and in winter
his private balls were numerous enough for any young lady who was not
suffering under the unsatiable appetite of fifteen.

The arrival of a new family in the country was always a matter of joy
to him, and in every point of view he was charmed with the inhabitants
he had now procured for his cottage at Barton.  The Miss Dashwoods were
young, pretty, and unaffected.  It was enough to secure his good
opinion; for to be unaffected was all that a pretty girl could want to
make her mind as captivating as her person.  The friendliness of his
disposition made him happy in accommodating those, whose situation
might be considered, in comparison with the past, as unfortunate.  In
showing kindness to his cousins therefore he had the real satisfaction
of a good heart; and in settling a family of females only in his
cottage, he had all the satisfaction of a sportsman; for a sportsman,
though he esteems only those of his sex who are sportsmen likewise, is
not often desirous of encouraging their taste by admitting them to a
residence within his own manor.

Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were met at the door of the house by
Sir John, who welcomed them to Barton Park with unaffected sincerity;
and as he attended them to the drawing room repeated to the young
ladies the concern which the same subject had drawn from him the day
before, at being unable to get any smart young men to meet them.  They
would see, he said, only one gentleman there besides himself; a
particular friend who was staying at the park, but who was neither very
young nor very gay.  He hoped they would all excuse the smallness of
the party, and could assure them it should never happen so again.  He
had been to several families that morning in hopes of procuring some
addition to their number, but it was moonlight and every body was full
of engagements.  Luckily Lady Middleton's mother had arrived at Barton
within the last hour, and as she was a very cheerful agreeable woman,
he hoped the young ladies would not find it so very dull as they might
imagine.  The young ladies, as well as their mother, were perfectly
satisfied with having two entire strangers of the party, and wished for
no more.

Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton's mother, was a good-humoured, merry,
fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal, seemed very happy, and
rather vulgar.  She was full of jokes and laughter, and before dinner
was over had said many witty things on the subject of lovers and
husbands; hoped they had not left their hearts behind them in Sussex,
and pretended to see them blush whether they did or not.  Marianne was
vexed at it for her sister's sake, and turned her eyes towards Elinor
to see how she bore these attacks, with an earnestness which gave
Elinor far more pain than could arise from such common-place raillery
as Mrs. Jennings's.

Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John, seemed no more adapted by
resemblance of manner to be his friend, than Lady Middleton was to be
his wife, or Mrs. Jennings to be Lady Middleton's mother.  He was
silent and grave.  His appearance however was not unpleasing, in spite
of his being in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret an absolute old
bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty; but though
his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his
address was particularly gentlemanlike.

There was nothing in any of the party which could recommend them as
companions to the Dashwoods; but the cold insipidity of Lady Middleton
was so particularly repulsive, that in comparison of it the gravity of
Colonel Brandon, and even the boisterous mirth of Sir John and his
mother-in-law was interesting.  Lady Middleton seemed to be roused to
enjoyment only by the entrance of her four noisy children after dinner,
who pulled her about, tore her clothes, and put an end to every kind of
discourse except what related to themselves.

In the evening, as Marianne was discovered to be musical, she was
invited to play.  The instrument was unlocked, every body prepared to
be charmed, and Marianne, who sang very well, at their request went
through the chief of the songs which Lady Middleton had brought into
the family on her marriage, and which perhaps had lain ever since in
the same position on the pianoforte, for her ladyship had celebrated
that event by giving up music, although by her mother's account, she
had played extremely well, and by her own was very fond of it.

Marianne's performance was highly applauded.  Sir John was loud in his
admiration at the end of every song, and as loud in his conversation
with the others while every song lasted.  Lady Middleton frequently
called him to order, wondered how any one's attention could be diverted
from music for a moment, and asked Marianne to sing a particular song
which Marianne had just finished.  Colonel Brandon alone, of all the
party, heard her without being in raptures.  He paid her only the
compliment of attention; and she felt a respect for him on the
occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameless
want of taste.  His pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that
ecstatic delight which alone could sympathize with her own, was
estimable when contrasted against the horrible insensibility of the
others; and she was reasonable enough to allow that a man of five and
thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every
exquisite power of enjoyment.  She was perfectly disposed to make every
allowance for the colonel's advanced state of life which humanity
required.



CHAPTER 8


Mrs. Jennings was a widow with an ample jointure.  She had only two
daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and
she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the
world.  In the promotion of this object she was zealously active, as
far as her ability reached; and missed no opportunity of projecting
weddings among all the young people of her acquaintance.  She was
remarkably quick in the discovery of attachments, and had enjoyed the
advantage of raising the blushes and the vanity of many a young lady by
insinuations of her power over such a young man; and this kind of
discernment enabled her soon after her arrival at Barton decisively to
pronounce that Colonel Brandon was very much in love with Marianne
Dashwood.  She rather suspected it to be so, on the very first evening
of their being together, from his listening so attentively while she
sang to them; and when the visit was returned by the Middletons' dining
at the cottage, the fact was ascertained by his listening to her again.
It must be so.  She was perfectly convinced of it.  It would be an
excellent match, for HE was rich, and SHE was handsome.  Mrs. Jennings
had been anxious to see Colonel Brandon well married, ever since her
connection with Sir John first brought him to her knowledge; and she
was always anxious to get a good husband for every pretty girl.

The immediate advantage to herself was by no means inconsiderable, for
it supplied her with endless jokes against them both.  At the park she
laughed at the colonel, and in the cottage at Marianne.  To the former
her raillery was probably, as far as it regarded only himself,
perfectly indifferent; but to the latter it was at first
incomprehensible; and when its object was understood, she hardly knew
whether most to laugh at its absurdity, or censure its impertinence,
for she considered it as an unfeeling reflection on the colonel's
advanced years, and on his forlorn condition as an old bachelor.

Mrs. Dashwood, who could not think a man five years younger than
herself, so exceedingly ancient as he appeared to the youthful fancy of
her daughter, ventured to clear Mrs. Jennings from the probability of
wishing to throw ridicule on his age.

"But at least, Mama, you cannot deny the absurdity of the accusation,
though you may not think it intentionally ill-natured.  Colonel Brandon
is certainly younger than Mrs. Jennings, but he is old enough to be MY
father; and if he were ever animated enough to be in love, must have
long outlived every sensation of the kind.  It is too ridiculous!  When
is a man to be safe from such wit, if age and infirmity will not
protect him?"

"Infirmity!" said Elinor, "do you call Colonel Brandon infirm?  I can
easily suppose that his age may appear much greater to you than to my
mother; but you can hardly deceive yourself as to his having the use of
his limbs!"

"Did not you hear him complain of the rheumatism?  and is not that the
commonest infirmity of declining life?"

"My dearest child," said her mother, laughing, "at this rate you must
be in continual terror of MY decay; and it must seem to you a miracle
that my life has been extended to the advanced age of forty."

"Mama, you are not doing me justice.  I know very well that Colonel
Brandon is not old enough to make his friends yet apprehensive of
losing him in the course of nature.  He may live twenty years longer.
But thirty-five has nothing to do with matrimony."

"Perhaps," said Elinor, "thirty-five and seventeen had better not have
any thing to do with matrimony together.  But if there should by any
chance happen to be a woman who is single at seven and twenty, I should
not think Colonel Brandon's being thirty-five any objection to his
marrying HER."

"A woman of seven and twenty," said Marianne, after pausing a moment,
"can never hope to feel or inspire affection again, and if her home be
uncomfortable, or her fortune small, I can suppose that she might bring
herself to submit to the offices of a nurse, for the sake of the
provision and security of a wife.  In his marrying such a woman
therefore there would be nothing unsuitable.  It would be a compact of
convenience, and the world would be satisfied.  In my eyes it would be
no marriage at all, but that would be nothing.  To me it would seem
only a commercial exchange, in which each wished to be benefited at the
expense of the other."

"It would be impossible, I know," replied Elinor, "to convince you that
a woman of seven and twenty could feel for a man of thirty-five
anything near enough to love, to make him a desirable companion to her.
But I must object to your dooming Colonel Brandon and his wife to the
constant confinement of a sick chamber, merely because he chanced to
complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight rheumatic feel in
one of his shoulders."

"But he talked of flannel waistcoats," said Marianne; "and with me a
flannel waistcoat is invariably connected with aches, cramps,
rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and
the feeble."

"Had he been only in a violent fever, you would not have despised him
half so much.  Confess, Marianne, is not there something interesting to
you in the flushed cheek, hollow eye, and quick pulse of a fever?"

Soon after this, upon Elinor's leaving the room, "Mama," said
Marianne, "I have an alarm on the subject of illness which I cannot
conceal from you.  I am sure Edward Ferrars is not well.  We have now
been here almost a fortnight, and yet he does not come.  Nothing but
real indisposition could occasion this extraordinary delay.  What else
can detain him at Norland?"

"Had you any idea of his coming so soon?" said Mrs. Dashwood.  "I had
none.  On the contrary, if I have felt any anxiety at all on the
subject, it has been in recollecting that he sometimes showed a want of
pleasure and readiness in accepting my invitation, when I talked of his
coming to Barton.  Does Elinor expect him already?"

"I have never mentioned it to her, but of course she must."

"I rather think you are mistaken, for when I was talking to her
yesterday of getting a new grate for the spare bedchamber, she observed
that there was no immediate hurry for it, as it was not likely that the
room would be wanted for some time."

"How strange this is! what can be the meaning of it!  But the whole of
their behaviour to each other has been unaccountable! How cold, how
composed were their last adieus! How languid their conversation the
last evening of their being together! In Edward's farewell there was no
distinction between Elinor and me: it was the good wishes of an
affectionate brother to both.  Twice did I leave them purposely
together in the course of the last morning, and each time did he most
unaccountably follow me out of the room.  And Elinor, in quitting
Norland and Edward, cried not as I did.  Even now her self-command is
invariable.  When is she dejected or melancholy? When does she try to
avoid society, or appear restless and dissatisfied in it?"



CHAPTER 9


The Dashwoods were now settled at Barton with tolerable comfort to
themselves.  The house and the garden, with all the objects surrounding
them, were now become familiar, and the ordinary pursuits which had
given to Norland half its charms were engaged in again with far greater
enjoyment than Norland had been able to afford, since the loss of their
father.  Sir John Middleton, who called on them every day for the first
fortnight, and who was not in the habit of seeing much occupation at
home, could not conceal his amazement on finding them always employed.

Their visitors, except those from Barton Park, were not many; for, in
spite of Sir John's urgent entreaties that they would mix more in the
neighbourhood, and repeated assurances of his carriage being always at
their service, the independence of Mrs. Dashwood's spirit overcame the
wish of society for her children; and she was resolute in declining to
visit any family beyond the distance of a walk.  There were but few who
could be so classed; and it was not all of them that were attainable.
About a mile and a half from the cottage, along the narrow winding
valley of Allenham, which issued from that of Barton, as formerly
described, the girls had, in one of their earliest walks, discovered an
ancient respectable looking mansion which, by reminding them a little
of Norland, interested their imagination and made them wish to be
better acquainted with it.  But they learnt, on enquiry, that its
possessor, an elderly lady of very good character, was unfortunately
too infirm to mix with the world, and never stirred from home.

The whole country about them abounded in beautiful walks.  The high
downs which invited them from almost every window of the cottage to
seek the exquisite enjoyment of air on their summits, were a happy
alternative when the dirt of the valleys beneath shut up their superior
beauties; and towards one of these hills did Marianne and Margaret one
memorable morning direct their steps, attracted by the partial sunshine
of a showery sky, and unable longer to bear the confinement which the
settled rain of the two preceding days had occasioned.  The weather was
not tempting enough to draw the two others from their pencil and their
book, in spite of Marianne's declaration that the day would be
lastingly fair, and that every threatening cloud would be drawn off
from their hills; and the two girls set off together.

They gaily ascended the downs, rejoicing in their own penetration at
every glimpse of blue sky; and when they caught in their faces the
animating gales of a high south-westerly wind, they pitied the fears
which had prevented their mother and Elinor from sharing such
delightful sensations.

"Is there a felicity in the world," said Marianne, "superior to
this?--Margaret, we will walk here at least two hours."

Margaret agreed, and they pursued their way against the wind, resisting
it with laughing delight for about twenty minutes longer, when suddenly
the clouds united over their heads, and a driving rain set full in
their face.-- Chagrined and surprised, they were obliged, though
unwillingly, to turn back, for no shelter was nearer than their own
house.  One consolation however remained for them, to which the
exigence of the moment gave more than usual propriety; it was that of
running with all possible speed down the steep side of the hill which
led immediately to their garden gate.

They set off.  Marianne had at first the advantage, but a false step
brought her suddenly to the ground; and Margaret, unable to stop
herself to assist her, was involuntarily hurried along, and reached the
bottom in safety.

A gentleman carrying a gun, with two pointers playing round him, was
passing up the hill and within a few yards of Marianne, when her
accident happened.  He put down his gun and ran to her assistance.  She
had raised herself from the ground, but her foot had been twisted in
her fall, and she was scarcely able to stand.  The gentleman offered
his services; and perceiving that her modesty declined what her
situation rendered necessary, took her up in his arms without farther
delay, and carried her down the hill.  Then passing through the garden,
the gate of which had been left open by Margaret, he bore her directly
into the house, whither Margaret was just arrived, and quitted not his
hold till he had seated her in a chair in the parlour.

Elinor and her mother rose up in amazement at their entrance, and while
the eyes of both were fixed on him with an evident wonder and a secret
admiration which equally sprung from his appearance, he apologized for
his intrusion by relating its cause, in a manner so frank and so
graceful that his person, which was uncommonly handsome, received
additional charms from his voice and expression.  Had he been even old,
ugly, and vulgar, the gratitude and kindness of Mrs. Dashwood would
have been secured by any act of attention to her child; but the
influence of youth, beauty, and elegance, gave an interest to the
action which came home to her feelings.

She thanked him again and again; and, with a sweetness of address which
always attended her, invited him to be seated.  But this he declined,
as he was dirty and wet.  Mrs. Dashwood then begged to know to whom she
was obliged.  His name, he replied, was Willoughby, and his present
home was at Allenham, from whence he hoped she would allow him the
honour of calling tomorrow to enquire after Miss Dashwood.  The honour
was readily granted, and he then departed, to make himself still more
interesting, in the midst of a heavy rain.

His manly beauty and more than common gracefulness were instantly the
theme of general admiration, and the laugh which his gallantry raised
against Marianne received particular spirit from his exterior
attractions.-- Marianne herself had seen less of his Mama the
rest, for the confusion which crimsoned over her face, on his lifting
her up, had robbed her of the power of regarding him after their
entering the house.  But she had seen enough of him to join in all the
admiration of the others, and with an energy which always adorned her
praise.  His person and air were equal to what her fancy had ever drawn
for the hero of a favourite story; and in his carrying her into the
house with so little previous formality, there was a rapidity of
thought which particularly recommended the action to her.  Every
circumstance belonging to him was interesting.  His name was good, his
residence was in their favourite village, and she soon found out that
of all manly dresses a shooting-jacket was the most becoming.  Her
imagination was busy, her reflections were pleasant, and the pain of a
sprained ankle was disregarded.

Sir John called on them as soon as the next interval of fair weather
that morning allowed him to get out of doors; and Marianne's accident
being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any
gentleman of the name of Willoughby at Allenham.

"Willoughby!" cried Sir John; "what, is HE in the country? That is good
news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner on
Thursday."

"You know him then," said Mrs. Dashwood.

"Know him! to be sure I do.  Why, he is down here every year."

"And what sort of a young man is he?"

"As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you.  A very decent
shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England."

"And is that all you can say for him?" cried Marianne, indignantly.
"But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his
pursuits, his talents, and genius?"

Sir John was rather puzzled.

"Upon my soul," said he, "I do not know much about him as to all THAT.
But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest
little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw.  Was she out with him
today?"

But Marianne could no more satisfy him as to the colour of Mr.
Willoughby's pointer, than he could describe to her the shades of his
mind.

"But who is he?" said Elinor.  "Where does he come from?  Has he a
house at Allenham?"

On this point Sir John could give more certain intelligence; and he
told them that Mr. Willoughby had no property of his own in the
country; that he resided there only while he was visiting the old lady
at Allenham Court, to whom he was related, and whose possessions he was
to inherit; adding, "Yes, yes, he is very well worth catching I can
tell you, Miss Dashwood; he has a pretty little estate of his own in
Somersetshire besides; and if I were you, I would not give him up to my
younger sister, in spite of all this tumbling down hills.  Miss
Marianne must not expect to have all the men to herself.  Brandon will
be jealous, if she does not take care."

"I do not believe," said Mrs. Dashwood, with a good humoured smile,
"that Mr. Willoughby will be incommoded by the attempts of either of MY
daughters towards what you call CATCHING him.  It is not an employment
to which they have been brought up.  Men are very safe with us, let
them be ever so rich.  I am glad to find, however, from what you say,
that he is a respectable young man, and one whose acquaintance will not
be ineligible."

"He is as good a sort of fellow, I believe, as ever lived," repeated
Sir John.  "I remember last Christmas at a little hop at the park, he
danced from eight o'clock till four, without once sitting down."

"Did he indeed?" cried Marianne with sparkling eyes, "and with
elegance, with spirit?"

"Yes; and he was up again at eight to ride to covert."

"That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be.  Whatever
be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and
leave him no sense of fatigue."

"Aye, aye, I see how it will be," said Sir John, "I see how it will be.
You will be setting your cap at him now, and never think of poor
Brandon."

"That is an expression, Sir John," said Marianne, warmly, "which I
particularly dislike.  I abhor every common-place phrase by which wit
is intended; and 'setting one's cap at a man,' or 'making a conquest,'
are the most odious of all.  Their tendency is gross and illiberal; and
if their construction could ever be deemed clever, time has long ago
destroyed all its ingenuity."

Sir John did not much understand this reproof; but he laughed as
heartily as if he did, and then replied,

"Ay, you will make conquests enough, I dare say, one way or other.
Poor Brandon! he is quite smitten already, and he is very well worth
setting your cap at, I can tell you, in spite of all this tumbling
about and spraining of ankles."



CHAPTER 10


Marianne's preserver, as Margaret, with more elegance than precision,
styled Willoughby, called at the cottage early the next morning to make
his personal enquiries.  He was received by Mrs. Dashwood with more
than politeness; with a kindness which Sir John's account of him and
her own gratitude prompted; and every thing that passed during the
visit tended to assure him of the sense, elegance, mutual affection,
and domestic comfort of the family to whom accident had now introduced
him.  Of their personal charms he had not required a second interview
to be convinced.

Miss Dashwood had a delicate complexion, regular features, and a
remarkably pretty figure.  Marianne was still handsomer.  Her form,
though not so correct as her sister's, in having the advantage of
height, was more striking; and her face was so lovely, that when in the
common cant of praise, she was called a beautiful girl, truth was less
violently outraged than usually happens.  Her skin was very brown, but,
from its transparency, her complexion was uncommonly brilliant; her
features were all good; her smile was sweet and attractive; and in her
eyes, which were very dark, there was a life, a spirit, an eagerness,
which could hardily be seen without delight.  From Willoughby their
expression was at first held back, by the embarrassment which the
remembrance of his assistance created.  But when this passed away, when
her spirits became collected, when she saw that to the perfect
good-breeding of the gentleman, he united frankness and vivacity, and
above all, when she heard him declare, that of music and dancing he was
passionately fond, she gave him such a look of approbation as secured
the largest share of his discourse to herself for the rest of his stay.

It was only necessary to mention any favourite amusement to engage her
to talk.  She could not be silent when such points were introduced, and
she had neither shyness nor reserve in their discussion.  They speedily
discovered that their enjoyment of dancing and music was mutual, and
that it arose from a general conformity of judgment in all that related
to either.  Encouraged by this to a further examination of his
opinions, she proceeded to question him on the subject of books; her
favourite authors were brought forward and dwelt upon with so rapturous
a delight, that any young man of five and twenty must have been
insensible indeed, not to become an immediate convert to the excellence
of such works, however disregarded before.  Their taste was strikingly
alike.  The same books, the same passages were idolized by each--or if
any difference appeared, any objection arose, it lasted no longer than
till the force of her arguments and the brightness of her eyes could be
displayed.  He acquiesced in all her decisions, caught all her
enthusiasm; and long before his visit concluded, they conversed with
the familiarity of a long-established acquaintance.

"Well, Marianne," said Elinor, as soon as he had left them, "for ONE
morning I think you have done pretty well.  You have already
ascertained Mr. Willoughby's opinion in almost every matter of
importance.  You know what he thinks of Cowper and Scott; you are
certain of his estimating their beauties as he ought, and you have
received every assurance of his admiring Pope no more than is proper.
But how is your acquaintance to be long supported, under such
extraordinary despatch of every subject for discourse?  You will soon
have exhausted each favourite topic.  Another meeting will suffice to
explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty, and second marriages, and
then you can have nothing farther to ask."--

"Elinor," cried Marianne, "is this fair? is this just? are my ideas so
scanty?  But I see what you mean.  I have been too much at my ease, too
happy, too frank.  I have erred against every common-place notion of
decorum; I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been
reserved, spiritless, dull, and deceitful--had I talked only of the
weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this
reproach would have been spared."

"My love," said her mother, "you must not be offended with Elinor--she
was only in jest.  I should scold her myself, if she were capable of
wishing to check the delight of your conversation with our new
friend."-- Marianne was softened in a moment.

Willoughby, on his side, gave every proof of his pleasure in their
acquaintance, which an evident wish of improving it could offer.  He
came to them every day.  To enquire after Marianne was at first his
excuse; but the encouragement of his reception, to which every day gave
greater kindness, made such an excuse unnecessary before it had ceased
to be possible, by Marianne's perfect recovery.  She was confined for
some days to the house; but never had any confinement been less
irksome.  Willoughby was a young man of good abilities, quick
imagination, lively spirits, and open, affectionate manners.  He was
exactly formed to engage Marianne's heart, for with all this, he joined
not only a captivating person, but a natural ardour of mind which was
now roused and increased by the example of her own, and which
recommended him to her affection beyond every thing else.

His society became gradually her most exquisite enjoyment.  They read,
they talked, they sang together; his musical talents were considerable;
and he read with all the sensibility and spirit which Edward had
unfortunately wanted.

In Mrs. Dashwood's estimation he was as faultless as in Marianne's; and
Elinor saw nothing to censure in him but a propensity, in which he
strongly resembled and peculiarly delighted her sister, of saying too
much what he thought on every occasion, without attention to persons or
circumstances.  In hastily forming and giving his opinion of other
people, in sacrificing general politeness to the enjoyment of undivided
attention where his heart was engaged, and in slighting too easily the
forms of worldly propriety, he displayed a want of caution which Elinor
could not approve, in spite of all that he and Marianne could say in
its support.

Marianne began now to perceive that the desperation which had seized
her at sixteen and a half, of ever seeing a man who could satisfy her
ideas of perfection, had been rash and unjustifiable.  Willoughby was
all that her fancy had delineated in that unhappy hour and in every
brighter period, as capable of attaching her; and his behaviour
declared his wishes to be in that respect as earnest, as his abilities
were strong.

Her mother too, in whose mind not one speculative thought of their
marriage had been raised, by his prospect of riches, was led before the
end of a week to hope and expect it; and secretly to congratulate
herself on having gained two such sons-in-law as Edward and Willoughby.

Colonel Brandon's partiality for Marianne, which had so early been
discovered by his friends, now first became perceptible to Elinor, when
it ceased to be noticed by them.  Their attention and wit were drawn
off to his more fortunate rival; and the raillery which the other had
incurred before any partiality arose, was removed when his feelings
began really to call for the ridicule so justly annexed to sensibility.
Elinor was obliged, though unwillingly, to believe that the sentiments
which Mrs. Jennings had assigned him for her own satisfaction, were now
actually excited by her sister; and that however a general resemblance
of disposition between the parties might forward the affection of Mr.
Willoughby, an equally striking opposition of character was no
hindrance to the regard of Colonel Brandon.  She saw it with concern;
for what could a silent man of five and thirty hope, when opposed to a
very lively one of five and twenty? and as she could not even wish him
successful, she heartily wished him indifferent.  She liked him--in
spite of his gravity and reserve, she beheld in him an object of
interest.  His manners, though serious, were mild; and his reserve
appeared rather the result of some oppression of spirits than of any
natural gloominess of temper.  Sir John had dropped hints of past
injuries and disappointments, which justified her belief of his being
an unfortunate man, and she regarded him with respect and compassion.

Perhaps she pitied and esteemed him the more because he was slighted by
Willoughby and Marianne, who, prejudiced against him for being neither
lively nor young, seemed resolved to undervalue his merits.

"Brandon is just the kind of man," said Willoughby one day, when they
were talking of him together, "whom every body speaks well of, and
nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers
to talk to."

"That is exactly what I think of him," cried Marianne.

"Do not boast of it, however," said Elinor, "for it is injustice in
both of you.  He is highly esteemed by all the family at the park, and
I never see him myself without taking pains to converse with him."

"That he is patronised by YOU," replied Willoughby, "is certainly in
his favour; but as for the esteem of the others, it is a reproach in
itself.  Who would submit to the indignity of being approved by such a
woman as Lady Middleton and Mrs. Jennings, that could command the
indifference of any body else?"

"But perhaps the abuse of such people as yourself and Marianne will
make amends for the regard of Lady Middleton and her mother.  If their
praise is censure, your censure may be praise, for they are not more
undiscerning, than you are prejudiced and unjust."

"In defence of your protege you can even be saucy."

"My protege, as you call him, is a sensible man; and sense will always
have attractions for me.  Yes, Marianne, even in a man between thirty
and forty.  He has seen a great deal of the world; has been abroad, has
read, and has a thinking mind.  I have found him capable of giving me
much information on various subjects; and he has always answered my
inquiries with readiness of good-breeding and good nature."

"That is to say," cried Marianne contemptuously, "he has told you, that
in the East Indies the climate is hot, and the mosquitoes are
troublesome."

"He WOULD have told me so, I doubt not, had I made any such inquiries,
but they happened to be points on which I had been previously informed."

"Perhaps," said Willoughby, "his observations may have extended to the
existence of nabobs, gold mohrs, and palanquins."

"I may venture to say that HIS observations have stretched much further
than your candour.  But why should you dislike him?"

"I do not dislike him.  I consider him, on the contrary, as a very
respectable man, who has every body's good word, and nobody's notice;
who, has more money than he can spend, more time than he knows how to
employ, and two new coats every year."

"Add to which," cried Marianne, "that he has neither genius, taste, nor
spirit.  That his understanding has no brilliancy, his feelings no
ardour, and his voice no expression."

"You decide on his imperfections so much in the mass," replied Elinor,
"and so much on the strength of your own imagination, that the
commendation I am able to give of him is comparatively cold and
insipid.  I can only pronounce him to be a sensible man, well-bred,
well-informed, of gentle address, and, I believe, possessing an amiable
heart."

"Miss Dashwood," cried Willoughby, "you are now using me unkindly.  You
are endeavouring to disarm me by reason, and to convince me against my
will.  But it will not do.  You shall find me as stubborn as you can be
artful.  I have three unanswerable reasons for disliking Colonel
Brandon; he threatened me with rain when I wanted it to be fine; he has
found fault with the hanging of my curricle, and I cannot persuade him
to buy my brown mare.  If it will be any satisfaction to you, however,
to be told, that I believe his character to be in other respects
irreproachable, I am ready to confess it.  And in return for an
acknowledgment, which must give me some pain, you cannot deny me the
privilege of disliking him as much as ever."



CHAPTER 11


Little had Mrs. Dashwood or her daughters imagined when they first came
into Devonshire, that so many engagements would arise to occupy their
time as shortly presented themselves, or that they should have such
frequent invitations and such constant visitors as to leave them little
leisure for serious employment.  Yet such was the case.  When Marianne
was recovered, the schemes of amusement at home and abroad, which Sir
John had been previously forming, were put into execution.  The private
balls at the park then began; and parties on the water were made and
accomplished as often as a showery October would allow.  In every
meeting of the kind Willoughby was included; and the ease and
familiarity which naturally attended these parties were exactly
calculated to give increasing intimacy to his acquaintance with the
Dashwoods, to afford him opportunity of witnessing the excellencies of
Marianne, of marking his animated admiration of her, and of receiving,
in her behaviour to himself, the most pointed assurance of her
affection.

Elinor could not be surprised at their attachment.  She only wished
that it were less openly shewn; and once or twice did venture to
suggest the propriety of some self-command to Marianne.  But Marianne
abhorred all concealment where no real disgrace could attend unreserve;
and to aim at the restraint of sentiments which were not in themselves
illaudable, appeared to her not merely an unnecessary effort, but a
disgraceful subjection of reason to common-place and mistaken notions.
Willoughby thought the same; and their behaviour at all times, was an
illustration of their opinions.

When he was present she had no eyes for any one else.  Every thing he
did, was right.  Every thing he said, was clever.  If their evenings at
the park were concluded with cards, he cheated himself and all the rest
of the party to get her a good hand.  If dancing formed the amusement
of the night, they were partners for half the time; and when obliged to
separate for a couple of dances, were careful to stand together and
scarcely spoke a word to any body else.  Such conduct made them of
course most exceedingly laughed at; but ridicule could not shame, and
seemed hardly to provoke them.

Mrs. Dashwood entered into all their feelings with a warmth which left
her no inclination for checking this excessive display of them.  To her
it was but the natural consequence of a strong affection in a young and
ardent mind.

This was the season of happiness to Marianne.  Her heart was devoted to
Willoughby, and the fond attachment to Norland, which she brought with
her from Sussex, was more likely to be softened than she had thought it
possible before, by the charms which his society bestowed on her
present home.

Elinor's happiness was not so great.  Her heart was not so much at
ease, nor her satisfaction in their amusements so pure.  They afforded
her no companion that could make amends for what she had left behind,
nor that could teach her to think of Norland with less regret than
ever.  Neither Lady Middleton nor Mrs. Jennings could supply to her the
conversation she missed; although the latter was an everlasting talker,
and from the first had regarded her with a kindness which ensured her a
large share of her discourse.  She had already repeated her own history
to Elinor three or four times; and had Elinor's memory been equal to
her means of improvement, she might have known very early in their
acquaintance all the particulars of Mr. Jennings's last illness, and
what he said to his wife a few minutes before he died.  Lady Middleton
was more agreeable than her mother only in being more silent.  Elinor
needed little observation to perceive that her reserve was a mere
calmness of manner with which sense had nothing to do.  Towards her
husband and mother she was the same as to them; and intimacy was
therefore neither to be looked for nor desired.  She had nothing to say
one day that she had not said the day before.  Her insipidity was
invariable, for even her spirits were always the same; and though she
did not oppose the parties arranged by her husband, provided every
thing were conducted in style and her two eldest children attended her,
she never appeared to receive more enjoyment from them than she might
have experienced in sitting at home;--and so little did her presence
add to the pleasure of the others, by any share in their conversation,
that they were sometimes only reminded of her being amongst them by her
solicitude about her troublesome boys.

In Colonel Brandon alone, of all her new acquaintance, did Elinor find
a person who could in any degree claim the respect of abilities, excite
the interest of friendship, or give pleasure as a companion.
Willoughby was out of the question.  Her admiration and regard, even
her sisterly regard, was all his own; but he was a lover; his
attentions were wholly Marianne's, and a far less agreeable man might
have been more generally pleasing.  Colonel Brandon, unfortunately for
himself, had no such encouragement to think only of Marianne, and in
conversing with Elinor he found the greatest consolation for the
indifference of her sister.

Elinor's compassion for him increased, as she had reason to suspect
that the misery of disappointed love had already been known to him.
This suspicion was given by some words which accidentally dropped from
him one evening at the park, when they were sitting down together by
mutual consent, while the others were dancing.  His eyes were fixed on
Marianne, and, after a silence of some minutes, he said, with a faint
smile, "Your sister, I understand, does not approve of second
attachments."

"No," replied Elinor, "her opinions are all romantic."

"Or rather, as I believe, she considers them impossible to exist."

"I believe she does.  But how she contrives it without reflecting on
the character of her own father, who had himself two wives, I know not.
A few years however will settle her opinions on the reasonable basis of
common sense and observation; and then they may be more easy to define
and to justify than they now are, by any body but herself."

"This will probably be the case," he replied; "and yet there is
something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is
sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions."

"I cannot agree with you there," said Elinor.  "There are
inconveniences attending such feelings as Marianne's, which all the
charms of enthusiasm and ignorance of the world cannot atone for.  Her
systems have all the unfortunate tendency of setting propriety at
nought; and a better acquaintance with the world is what I look forward
to as her greatest possible advantage."

After a short pause he resumed the conversation by saying,--

"Does your sister make no distinction in her objections against a
second attachment? or is it equally criminal in every body?  Are those
who have been disappointed in their first choice, whether from the
inconstancy of its object, or the perverseness of circumstances, to be
equally indifferent during the rest of their lives?"

"Upon my word, I am not acquainted with the minutiae of her principles.
I only know that I never yet heard her admit any instance of a second
attachment's being pardonable."

"This," said he, "cannot hold; but a change, a total change of
sentiments--No, no, do not desire it; for when the romantic refinements
of a young mind are obliged to give way, how frequently are they
succeeded by such opinions as are but too common, and too dangerous!  I
speak from experience.  I once knew a lady who in temper and mind
greatly resembled your sister, who thought and judged like her, but who
from an inforced change--from a series of unfortunate circumstances"--
Here he stopt suddenly; appeared to think that he had said too much,
and by his countenance gave rise to conjectures, which might not
otherwise have entered Elinor's head.  The lady would probably have
passed without suspicion, had he not convinced Miss Dashwood that what
concerned her ought not to escape his lips.  As it was, it required but
a slight effort of fancy to connect his emotion with the tender
recollection of past regard.  Elinor attempted no more.  But Marianne,
in her place, would not have done so little.  The whole story would
have been speedily formed under her active imagination; and every thing
established in the most melancholy order of disastrous love.



CHAPTER 12


As Elinor and Marianne were walking together the next morning the
latter communicated a piece of news to her sister, which in spite of
all that she knew before of Marianne's imprudence and want of thought,
surprised her by its extravagant testimony of both.  Marianne told her,
with the greatest delight, that Willoughby had given her a horse, one
that he had bred himself on his estate in Somersetshire, and which was
exactly calculated to carry a woman.  Without considering that it was
not in her mother's plan to keep any horse, that if she were to alter
her resolution in favour of this gift, she must buy another for the
servant, and keep a servant to ride it, and after all, build a stable
to receive them, she had accepted the present without hesitation, and
told her sister of it in raptures.

"He intends to send his groom into Somersetshire immediately for it,"
she added, "and when it arrives we will ride every day.  You shall
share its use with me.  Imagine to yourself, my dear Elinor, the
delight of a gallop on some of these downs."

Most unwilling was she to awaken from such a dream of felicity to
comprehend all the unhappy truths which attended the affair; and for
some time she refused to submit to them.  As to an additional servant,
the expense would be a trifle; Mama she was sure would never object to
it; and any horse would do for HIM; he might always get one at the
park; as to a stable, the merest shed would be sufficient.  Elinor then
ventured to doubt the propriety of her receiving such a present from a
man so little, or at least so lately known to her.  This was too much.

"You are mistaken, Elinor," said she warmly, "in supposing I know very
little of Willoughby.  I have not known him long indeed, but I am much
better acquainted with him, than I am with any other creature in the
world, except yourself and mama.  It is not time or opportunity that is
to determine intimacy;--it is disposition alone.  Seven years would be
insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven
days are more than enough for others.  I should hold myself guilty of
greater impropriety in accepting a horse from my brother, than from
Willoughby.  Of John I know very little, though we have lived together
for years; but of Willoughby my judgment has long been formed."

Elinor thought it wisest to touch that point no more.  She knew her
sister's temper.  Opposition on so tender a subject would only attach
her the more to her own opinion.  But by an appeal to her affection for
her mother, by representing the inconveniences which that indulgent
mother must draw on herself, if (as would probably be the case) she
consented to this increase of establishment, Marianne was shortly
subdued; and she promised not to tempt her mother to such imprudent
kindness by mentioning the offer, and to tell Willoughby when she saw
him next, that it must be declined.

She was faithful to her word; and when Willoughby called at the
cottage, the same day, Elinor heard her express her disappointment to
him in a low voice, on being obliged to forego the acceptance of his
present.  The reasons for this alteration were at the same time
related, and they were such as to make further entreaty on his side
impossible.  His concern however was very apparent; and after
expressing it with earnestness, he added, in the same low voice,--"But,
Marianne, the horse is still yours, though you cannot use it now.  I
shall keep it only till you can claim it.  When you leave Barton to
form your own establishment in a more lasting home, Queen Mab shall
receive you."

This was all overheard by Miss Dashwood; and in the whole of the
sentence, in his manner of pronouncing it, and in his addressing her
sister by her Christian name alone, she instantly saw an intimacy so
decided, a meaning so direct, as marked a perfect agreement between
them.  From that moment she doubted not of their being engaged to each
other; and the belief of it created no other surprise than that she, or
any of their friends, should be left by tempers so frank, to discover
it by accident.

Margaret related something to her the next day, which placed this
matter in a still clearer light.  Willoughby had spent the preceding
evening with them, and Margaret, by being left some time in the parlour
with only him and Marianne, had had opportunity for observations,
which, with a most important face, she communicated to her eldest
sister, when they were next by themselves.

"Oh, Elinor!" she cried, "I have such a secret to tell you about
Marianne.  I am sure she will be married to Mr. Willoughby very soon."

"You have said so," replied Elinor, "almost every day since they first
met on High-church Down; and they had not known each other a week, I
believe, before you were certain that Marianne wore his picture round
her neck; but it turned out to be only the miniature of our great
uncle."

"But indeed this is quite another thing.  I am sure they will be
married very soon, for he has got a lock of her hair."

"Take care, Margaret.  It may be only the hair of some great uncle of
HIS."

"But, indeed, Elinor, it is Marianne's. I am almost sure it is, for I
saw him cut it off.  Last night after tea, when you and mama went out
of the room, they were whispering and talking together as fast as could
be, and he seemed to be begging something of her, and presently he took
up her scissors and cut off a long lock of her hair, for it was all
tumbled down her back; and he kissed it, and folded it up in a piece of
white paper; and put it into his pocket-book."

For such particulars, stated on such authority, Elinor could not
withhold her credit; nor was she disposed to it, for the circumstance
was in perfect unison with what she had heard and seen herself.

Margaret's sagacity was not always displayed in a way so satisfactory
to her sister.  When Mrs. Jennings attacked her one evening at the
park, to give the name of the young man who was Elinor's particular
favourite, which had been long a matter of great curiosity to her,
Margaret answered by looking at her sister, and saying, "I must not
tell, may I, Elinor?"

This of course made every body laugh; and Elinor tried to laugh too.
But the effort was painful.  She was convinced that Margaret had fixed
on a person whose name she could not bear with composure to become a
standing joke with Mrs. Jennings.

Marianne felt for her most sincerely; but she did more harm than good
to the cause, by turning very red and saying in an angry manner to
Margaret,

"Remember that whatever your conjectures may be, you have no right to
repeat them."

"I never had any conjectures about it," replied Margaret; "it was you
who told me of it yourself."

This increased the mirth of the company, and Margaret was eagerly
pressed to say something more.

"Oh! pray, Miss Margaret, let us know all about it," said Mrs.
Jennings.  "What is the gentleman's name?"

"I must not tell, ma'am. But I know very well what it is; and I know
where he is too."

"Yes, yes, we can guess where he is; at his own house at Norland to be
sure.  He is the curate of the parish I dare say."

"No, THAT he is not.  He is of no profession at all."

"Margaret," said Marianne with great warmth, "you know that all this is
an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in
existence."

"Well, then, he is lately dead, Marianne, for I am sure there was such
a man once, and his name begins with an F."

Most grateful did Elinor feel to Lady Middleton for observing, at this
moment, "that it rained very hard," though she believed the
interruption to proceed less from any attention to her, than from her
ladyship's great dislike of all such inelegant subjects of raillery as
delighted her husband and mother.  The idea however started by her, was
immediately pursued by Colonel Brandon, who was on every occasion
mindful of the feelings of others; and much was said on the subject of
rain by both of them.  Willoughby opened the piano-forte, and asked
Marianne to sit down to it; and thus amidst the various endeavours of
different people to quit the topic, it fell to the ground.  But not so
easily did Elinor recover from the alarm into which it had thrown her.

A party was formed this evening for going on the following day to see a
very fine place about twelve miles from Barton, belonging to a
brother-in-law of Colonel Brandon, without whose interest it could not
be seen, as the proprietor, who was then abroad, had left strict orders
on that head.  The grounds were declared to be highly beautiful, and
Sir John, who was particularly warm in their praise, might be allowed
to be a tolerable judge, for he had formed parties to visit them, at
least, twice every summer for the last ten years.  They contained a
noble piece of water; a sail on which was to a form a great part of the
morning's amusement; cold provisions were to be taken, open carriages
only to be employed, and every thing conducted in the usual style of a
complete party of pleasure.

To some few of the company it appeared rather a bold undertaking,
considering the time of year, and that it had rained every day for the
last fortnight;--and Mrs. Dashwood, who had already a cold, was
persuaded by Elinor to stay at home.



CHAPTER 13


Their intended excursion to Whitwell turned out very different from
what Elinor had expected.  She was prepared to be wet through,
fatigued, and frightened; but the event was still more unfortunate, for
they did not go at all.

By ten o'clock the whole party was assembled at the park, where they
were to breakfast.  The morning was rather favourable, though it had
rained all night, as the clouds were then dispersing across the sky,
and the sun frequently appeared.  They were all in high spirits and
good humour, eager to be happy, and determined to submit to the
greatest inconveniences and hardships rather than be otherwise.

While they were at breakfast the letters were brought in.  Among the
rest there was one for Colonel Brandon;--he took it, looked at the
direction, changed colour, and immediately left the room.

"What is the matter with Brandon?" said Sir John.

Nobody could tell.

"I hope he has had no bad news," said Lady Middleton.  "It must be
something extraordinary that could make Colonel Brandon leave my
breakfast table so suddenly."

In about five minutes he returned.

"No bad news, Colonel, I hope;" said Mrs. Jennings, as soon as he
entered the room.

"None at all, ma'am, I thank you."

"Was it from Avignon?  I hope it is not to say that your sister is
worse."

"No, ma'am. It came from town, and is merely a letter of business."

"But how came the hand to discompose you so much, if it was only a
letter of business?  Come, come, this won't do, Colonel; so let us hear
the truth of it."

"My dear madam," said Lady Middleton, "recollect what you are saying."

"Perhaps it is to tell you that your cousin Fanny is married?" said
Mrs. Jennings, without attending to her daughter's reproof.

"No, indeed, it is not."

"Well, then, I know who it is from, Colonel.  And I hope she is well."

"Whom do you mean, ma'am?" said he, colouring a little.

"Oh! you know who I mean."

"I am particularly sorry, ma'am," said he, addressing Lady Middleton,
"that I should receive this letter today, for it is on business which
requires my immediate attendance in town."

"In town!" cried Mrs. Jennings.  "What can you have to do in town at
this time of year?"

"My own loss is great," he continued, "in being obliged to leave so
agreeable a party; but I am the more concerned, as I fear my presence
is necessary to gain your admittance at Whitwell."

What a blow upon them all was this!

"But if you write a note to the housekeeper, Mr. Brandon," said
Marianne, eagerly, "will it not be sufficient?"

He shook his head.

"We must go," said Sir John.--"It shall not be put off when we are so
near it.  You cannot go to town till tomorrow, Brandon, that is all."

"I wish it could be so easily settled.  But it is not in my power to
delay my journey for one day!"

"If you would but let us know what your business is," said Mrs.
Jennings, "we might see whether it could be put off or not."

"You would not be six hours later," said Willoughby, "if you were to
defer your journey till our return."

"I cannot afford to lose ONE hour."--

Elinor then heard Willoughby say, in a low voice to Marianne, "There
are some people who cannot bear a party of pleasure.  Brandon is one of
them.  He was afraid of catching cold I dare say, and invented this
trick for getting out of it.  I would lay fifty guineas the letter was
of his own writing."

"I have no doubt of it," replied Marianne.

"There is no persuading you to change your mind, Brandon, I know of
old," said Sir John, "when once you are determined on anything.  But,
however, I hope you will think better of it.  Consider, here are the
two Miss Careys come over from Newton, the three Miss Dashwoods walked
up from the cottage, and Mr. Willoughby got up two hours before his
usual time, on purpose to go to Whitwell."

Colonel Brandon again repeated his sorrow at being the cause of
disappointing the party; but at the same time declared it to be
unavoidable.

"Well, then, when will you come back again?"

"I hope we shall see you at Barton," added her ladyship, "as soon as
you can conveniently leave town; and we must put off the party to
Whitwell till you return."

"You are very obliging.  But it is so uncertain, when I may have it in
my power to return, that I dare not engage for it at all."

"Oh! he must and shall come back," cried Sir John.  "If he is not here
by the end of the week, I shall go after him."

"Ay, so do, Sir John," cried Mrs. Jennings, "and then perhaps you may
find out what his business is."

"I do not want to pry into other men's concerns.  I suppose it is
something he is ashamed of."

Colonel Brandon's horses were announced.

"You do not go to town on horseback, do you?" added Sir John.

"No. Only to Honiton.  I shall then go post."

"Well, as you are resolved to go, I wish you a good journey.  But you
had better change your mind."

"I assure you it is not in my power."

He then took leave of the whole party.

"Is there no chance of my seeing you and your sisters in town this
winter, Miss Dashwood?"

"I am afraid, none at all."

"Then I must bid you farewell for a longer time than I should wish to
do."

To Marianne, he merely bowed and said nothing.

"Come Colonel," said Mrs. Jennings, "before you go, do let us know what
you are going about."

He wished her a good morning, and, attended by Sir John, left the room.

The complaints and lamentations which politeness had hitherto
restrained, now burst forth universally; and they all agreed again and
again how provoking it was to be so disappointed.

"I can guess what his business is, however," said Mrs. Jennings
exultingly.

"Can you, ma'am?" said almost every body.

"Yes; it is about Miss Williams, I am sure."

"And who is Miss Williams?" asked Marianne.

"What! do not you know who Miss Williams is? I am sure you must have
heard of her before.  She is a relation of the Colonel's, my dear; a
very near relation.  We will not say how near, for fear of shocking the
young ladies." Then, lowering her voice a little, she said to Elinor,
"She is his natural daughter."

"Indeed!"

"Oh, yes; and as like him as she can stare.  I dare say the Colonel
will leave her all his fortune."

When Sir John returned, he joined most heartily in the general regret
on so unfortunate an event; concluding however by observing, that as
they were all got together, they must do something by way of being
happy; and after some consultation it was agreed, that although
happiness could only be enjoyed at Whitwell, they might procure a
tolerable composure of mind by driving about the country.  The
carriages were then ordered; Willoughby's was first, and Marianne never
looked happier than when she got into it.  He drove through the park
very fast, and they were soon out of sight; and nothing more of them
was seen till their return, which did not happen till after the return
of all the rest.  They both seemed delighted with their drive; but said
only in general terms that they had kept in the lanes, while the others
went on the downs.

It was settled that there should be a dance in the evening, and that
every body should be extremely merry all day long.  Some more of the
Careys came to dinner, and they had the pleasure of sitting down nearly
twenty to table, which Sir John observed with great contentment.
Willoughby took his usual place between the two elder Miss Dashwoods.
Mrs. Jennings sat on Elinor's right hand; and they had not been long
seated, before she leant behind her and Willoughby, and said to
Marianne, loud enough for them both to hear, "I have found you out in
spite of all your tricks.  I know where you spent the morning."

Marianne coloured, and replied very hastily, "Where, pray?"--

"Did not you know," said Willoughby, "that we had been out in my
curricle?"

"Yes, yes, Mr. Impudence, I know that very well, and I was determined
to find out WHERE you had been to.-- I hope you like your house, Miss
Marianne.  It is a very large one, I know; and when I come to see you,
I hope you will have new-furnished it, for it wanted it very much when
I was there six years ago."

Marianne turned away in great confusion.  Mrs. Jennings laughed
heartily; and Elinor found that in her resolution to know where they
had been, she had actually made her own woman enquire of Mr.
Willoughby's groom; and that she had by that method been informed that
they had gone to Allenham, and spent a considerable time there in
walking about the garden and going all over the house.

Elinor could hardly believe this to be true, as it seemed very unlikely
that Willoughby should propose, or Marianne consent, to enter the house
while Mrs. Smith was in it, with whom Marianne had not the smallest
acquaintance.

As soon as they left the dining-room, Elinor enquired of her about it;
and great was her surprise when she found that every circumstance
related by Mrs. Jennings was perfectly true.  Marianne was quite angry
with her for doubting it.

"Why should you imagine, Elinor, that we did not go there, or that we
did not see the house?  Is not it what you have often wished to do
yourself?"

"Yes, Marianne, but I would not go while Mrs. Smith was there, and with
no other companion than Mr. Willoughby."

"Mr. Willoughby however is the only person who can have a right to shew
that house; and as he went in an open carriage, it was impossible to
have any other companion.  I never spent a pleasanter morning in my
life."

"I am afraid," replied Elinor, "that the pleasantness of an employment
does not always evince its propriety."

"On the contrary, nothing can be a stronger proof of it, Elinor; for if
there had been any real impropriety in what I did, I should have been
sensible of it at the time, for we always know when we are acting
wrong, and with such a conviction I could have had no pleasure."

"But, my dear Marianne, as it has already exposed you to some very
impertinent remarks, do you not now begin to doubt the discretion of
your own conduct?"

"If the impertinent remarks of Mrs. Jennings are to be the proof of
impropriety in conduct, we are all offending every moment of our lives.
I value not her censure any more than I should do her commendation.  I
am not sensible of having done anything wrong in walking over Mrs.
Smith's grounds, or in seeing her house.  They will one day be Mr.
Willoughby's, and--"

"If they were one day to be your own, Marianne, you would not be
justified in what you have done."

She blushed at this hint; but it was even visibly gratifying to her;
and after a ten minutes' interval of earnest thought, she came to her
sister again, and said with great good humour, "Perhaps, Elinor, it WAS
rather ill-judged in me to go to Allenham; but Mr. Willoughby wanted
particularly to shew me the place; and it is a charming house, I assure
you.--There is one remarkably pretty sitting room up stairs; of a nice
comfortable size for constant use, and with modern furniture it would
be delightful.  It is a corner room, and has windows on two sides.  On
one side you look across the bowling-green, behind the house, to a
beautiful hanging wood, and on the other you have a view of the church
and village, and, beyond them, of those fine bold hills that we have so
often admired.  I did not see it to advantage, for nothing could be
more forlorn than the furniture,--but if it were newly fitted up--a
couple of hundred pounds, Willoughby says, would make it one of the
pleasantest summer-rooms in England."

Could Elinor have listened to her without interruption from the others,
she would have described every room in the house with equal delight.



CHAPTER 14


The sudden termination of Colonel Brandon's visit at the park, with his
steadiness in concealing its cause, filled the mind, and raised the
wonder of Mrs. Jennings for two or three days; she was a great
wonderer, as every one must be who takes a very lively interest in all
the comings and goings of all their acquaintance.  She wondered, with
little intermission what could be the reason of it; was sure there must
be some bad news, and thought over every kind of distress that could
have befallen him, with a fixed determination that he should not escape
them all.

"Something very melancholy must be the matter, I am sure," said she.
"I could see it in his face.  Poor man!  I am afraid his circumstances
may be bad.  The estate at Delaford was never reckoned more than two
thousand a year, and his brother left everything sadly involved.  I do
think he must have been sent for about money matters, for what else can
it be?  I wonder whether it is so.  I would give anything to know the
truth of it.  Perhaps it is about Miss Williams and, by the bye, I dare
say it is, because he looked so conscious when I mentioned her.  May be
she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a
notion she is always rather sickly.  I would lay any wager it is about
Miss Williams.  It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his
circumstances NOW, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must
have cleared the estate by this time.  I wonder what it can be!  May be
his sister is worse at Avignon, and has sent for him over.  His setting
off in such a hurry seems very like it.  Well, I wish him out of all
his trouble with all my heart, and a good wife into the bargain."

So wondered, so talked Mrs. Jennings.  Her opinion varying with every
fresh conjecture, and all seeming equally probable as they arose.
Elinor, though she felt really interested in the welfare of Colonel
Brandon, could not bestow all the wonder on his going so suddenly away,
which Mrs. Jennings was desirous of her feeling; for besides that the
circumstance did not in her opinion justify such lasting amazement or
variety of speculation, her wonder was otherwise disposed of.  It was
engrossed by the extraordinary silence of her sister and Willoughby on
the subject, which they must know to be peculiarly interesting to them
all.  As this silence continued, every day made it appear more strange
and more incompatible with the disposition of both.  Why they should
not openly acknowledge to her mother and herself, what their constant
behaviour to each other declared to have taken place, Elinor could not
imagine.

She could easily conceive that marriage might not be immediately in
their power; for though Willoughby was independent, there was no reason
to believe him rich.  His estate had been rated by Sir John at about
six or seven hundred a year; but he lived at an expense to which that
income could hardly be equal, and he had himself often complained of
his poverty.  But for this strange kind of secrecy maintained by them
relative to their engagement, which in fact concealed nothing at all,
she could not account; and it was so wholly contradictory to their
general opinions and practice, that a doubt sometimes entered her mind
of their being really engaged, and this doubt was enough to prevent her
making any inquiry of Marianne.

Nothing could be more expressive of attachment to them all, than
Willoughby's behaviour.  To Marianne it had all the distinguishing
tenderness which a lover's heart could give, and to the rest of the
family it was the affectionate attention of a son and a brother.  The
cottage seemed to be considered and loved by him as his home; many more
of his hours were spent there than at Allenham; and if no general
engagement collected them at the park, the exercise which called him
out in the morning was almost certain of ending there, where the rest
of the day was spent by himself at the side of Marianne, and by his
favourite pointer at her feet.

One evening in particular, about a week after Colonel Brandon left the
country, his heart seemed more than usually open to every feeling of
attachment to the objects around him; and on Mrs. Dashwood's happening
to mention her design of improving the cottage in the spring, he warmly
opposed every alteration of a place which affection had established as
perfect with him.

"What!" he exclaimed--"Improve this dear cottage!  No. THAT I will
never consent to.  Not a stone must be added to its walls, not an inch
to its size, if my feelings are regarded."

"Do not be alarmed," said Miss Dashwood, "nothing of the kind will be
done; for my mother will never have money enough to attempt it."

"I am heartily glad of it," he cried.  "May she always be poor, if she
can employ her riches no better."

"Thank you, Willoughby.  But you may be assured that I would not
sacrifice one sentiment of local attachment of yours, or of any one
whom I loved, for all the improvements in the world.  Depend upon it
that whatever unemployed sum may remain, when I make up my accounts in
the spring, I would even rather lay it uselessly by than dispose of it
in a manner so painful to you.  But are you really so attached to this
place as to see no defect in it?"

"I am," said he.  "To me it is faultless.  Nay, more, I consider it as
the only form of building in which happiness is attainable, and were I
rich enough I would instantly pull Combe down, and build it up again in
the exact plan of this cottage."

"With dark narrow stairs and a kitchen that smokes, I suppose," said
Elinor.

"Yes," cried he in the same eager tone, "with all and every thing
belonging to it;--in no one convenience or INconvenience about it,
should the least variation be perceptible.  Then, and then only, under
such a roof, I might perhaps be as happy at Combe as I have been at
Barton."

"I flatter myself," replied Elinor, "that even under the disadvantage
of better rooms and a broader staircase, you will hereafter find your
own house as faultless as you now do this."

"There certainly are circumstances," said Willoughby, "which might
greatly endear it to me; but this place will always have one claim of
my affection, which no other can possibly share."

Mrs. Dashwood looked with pleasure at Marianne, whose fine eyes were
fixed so expressively on Willoughby, as plainly denoted how well she
understood him.

"How often did I wish," added he, "when I was at Allenham this time
twelvemonth, that Barton cottage were inhabited!  I never passed within
view of it without admiring its situation, and grieving that no one
should live in it.  How little did I then think that the very first
news I should hear from Mrs. Smith, when I next came into the country,
would be that Barton cottage was taken: and I felt an immediate
satisfaction and interest in the event, which nothing but a kind of
prescience of what happiness I should experience from it, can account
for.  Must it not have been so, Marianne?" speaking to her in a lowered
voice.  Then continuing his former tone, he said, "And yet this house
you would spoil, Mrs. Dashwood?  You would rob it of its simplicity by
imaginary improvement! and this dear parlour in which our acquaintance
first began, and in which so many happy hours have been since spent by
us together, you would degrade to the condition of a common entrance,
and every body would be eager to pass through the room which has
hitherto contained within itself more real accommodation and comfort
than any other apartment of the handsomest dimensions in the world
could possibly afford."

Mrs. Dashwood again assured him that no alteration of the kind should
be attempted.

"You are a good woman," he warmly replied.  "Your promise makes me
easy.  Extend it a little farther, and it will make me happy.  Tell me
that not only your house will remain the same, but that I shall ever
find you and yours as unchanged as your dwelling; and that you will
always consider me with the kindness which has made everything
belonging to you so dear to me."

The promise was readily given, and Willoughby's behaviour during the
whole of the evening declared at once his affection and happiness.

"Shall we see you tomorrow to dinner?" said Mrs. Dashwood, when he was
leaving them.  "I do not ask you to come in the morning, for we must
walk to the park, to call on Lady Middleton."

He engaged to be with them by four o'clock.



CHAPTER 15


Mrs. Dashwood's visit to Lady Middleton took place the next day, and
two of her daughters went with her; but Marianne excused herself from
being of the party, under some trifling pretext of employment; and her
mother, who concluded that a promise had been made by Willoughby the
night before of calling on her while they were absent, was perfectly
satisfied with her remaining at home.

On their return from the park they found Willoughby's curricle and
servant in waiting at the cottage, and Mrs. Dashwood was convinced that
her conjecture had been just.  So far it was all as she had foreseen;
but on entering the house she beheld what no foresight had taught her
to expect.  They were no sooner in the passage than Marianne came
hastily out of the parlour apparently in violent affliction, with her
handkerchief at her eyes; and without noticing them ran up stairs.
Surprised and alarmed they proceeded directly into the room she had
just quitted, where they found only Willoughby, who was leaning against
the mantel-piece with his back towards them.  He turned round on their
coming in, and his countenance shewed that he strongly partook of the
emotion which over-powered Marianne.

"Is anything the matter with her?" cried Mrs. Dashwood as she
entered--"is she ill?"

"I hope not," he replied, trying to look cheerful; and with a forced
smile presently added, "It is I who may rather expect to be ill--for I
am now suffering under a very heavy disappointment!"

"Disappointment?"

"Yes, for I am unable to keep my engagement with you.  Mrs. Smith has
this morning exercised the privilege of riches upon a poor dependent
cousin, by sending me on business to London.  I have just received my
dispatches, and taken my farewell of Allenham; and by way of
exhilaration I am now come to take my farewell of you."

"To London!--and are you going this morning?"

"Almost this moment."

"This is very unfortunate.  But Mrs. Smith must be obliged;--and her
business will not detain you from us long I hope."

He coloured as he replied, "You are very kind, but I have no idea of
returning into Devonshire immediately.  My visits to Mrs. Smith are
never repeated within the twelvemonth."

"And is Mrs. Smith your only friend?  Is Allenham the only house in the
neighbourhood to which you will be welcome?  For shame, Willoughby, can
you wait for an invitation here?"

His colour increased; and with his eyes fixed on the ground he only
replied, "You are too good."

Mrs. Dashwood looked at Elinor with surprise.  Elinor felt equal
amazement.  For a few moments every one was silent.  Mrs. Dashwood
first spoke.

"I have only to add, my dear Willoughby, that at Barton cottage you
will always be welcome; for I will not press you to return here
immediately, because you only can judge how far THAT might be pleasing
to Mrs. Smith; and on this head I shall be no more disposed to question
your judgment than to doubt your inclination."

"My engagements at present," replied Willoughby, confusedly, "are of
such a nature--that--I dare not flatter myself"--

He stopt.  Mrs. Dashwood was too much astonished to speak, and another
pause succeeded.  This was broken by Willoughby, who said with a faint
smile, "It is folly to linger in this manner.  I will not torment
myself any longer by remaining among friends whose society it is
impossible for me now to enjoy."

He then hastily took leave of them all and left the room.  They saw him
step into his carriage, and in a minute it was out of sight.

Mrs. Dashwood felt too much for speech, and instantly quitted the
parlour to give way in solitude to the concern and alarm which this
sudden departure occasioned.

Elinor's uneasiness was at least equal to her mother's.  She thought of
what had just passed with anxiety and distrust.  Willoughby's behaviour
in taking leave of them, his embarrassment, and affectation of
cheerfulness, and, above all, his unwillingness to accept her mother's
invitation, a backwardness so unlike a lover, so unlike himself,
greatly disturbed her.  One moment she feared that no serious design
had ever been formed on his side; and the next that some unfortunate
quarrel had taken place between him and her sister;--the distress in
which Marianne had quitted the room was such as a serious quarrel could
most reasonably account for, though when she considered what Marianne's
love for him was, a quarrel seemed almost impossible.

But whatever might be the particulars of their separation, her sister's
affliction was indubitable; and she thought with the tenderest
compassion of that violent sorrow which Marianne was in all probability
not merely giving way to as a relief, but feeding and encouraging as a
duty.

In about half an hour her mother returned, and though her eyes were
red, her countenance was not uncheerful.

"Our dear Willoughby is now some miles from Barton, Elinor," said she,
as she sat down to work, "and with how heavy a heart does he travel?"

"It is all very strange.  So suddenly to be gone! It seems but the work
of a moment.  And last night he was with us so happy, so cheerful, so
affectionate?  And now, after only ten minutes notice--Gone too without
intending to return!--Something more than what he owned to us must have
happened.  He did not speak, he did not behave like himself.  YOU must
have seen the difference as well as I.  What can it be?  Can they have
quarrelled?  Why else should he have shewn such unwillingness to accept
your invitation here?"--

"It was not inclination that he wanted, Elinor; I could plainly see
THAT.  He had not the power of accepting it.  I have thought it all
over I assure you, and I can perfectly account for every thing that at
first seemed strange to me as well as to you."

"Can you, indeed!"

"Yes. I have explained it to myself in the most satisfactory way;--but
you, Elinor, who love to doubt where you can--it will not satisfy YOU,
I know; but you shall not talk ME out of my trust in it.  I am
persuaded that Mrs. Smith suspects his regard for Marianne, disapproves
of it, (perhaps because she has other views for him,) and on that
account is eager to get him away;--and that the business which she
sends him off to transact is invented as an excuse to dismiss him.
This is what I believe to have happened.  He is, moreover, aware that
she DOES disapprove the connection, he dares not therefore at present
confess to her his engagement with Marianne, and he feels himself
obliged, from his dependent situation, to give into her schemes, and
absent himself from Devonshire for a while.  You will tell me, I know,
that this may or may NOT have happened; but I will listen to no cavil,
unless you can point out any other method of understanding the affair
as satisfactory at this.  And now, Elinor, what have you to say?"

"Nothing, for you have anticipated my answer."

"Then you would have told me, that it might or might not have happened.
Oh, Elinor, how incomprehensible are your feelings!  You had rather
take evil upon credit than good.  You had rather look out for misery
for Marianne, and guilt for poor Willoughby, than an apology for the
latter.  You are resolved to think him blameable, because he took leave
of us with less affection than his usual behaviour has shewn.  And is
no allowance to be made for inadvertence, or for spirits depressed by
recent disappointment?  Are no probabilities to be accepted, merely
because they are not certainties?  Is nothing due to the man whom we
have all such reason to love, and no reason in the world to think ill
of?  To the possibility of motives unanswerable in themselves, though
unavoidably secret for a while?  And, after all, what is it you suspect
him of?"

"I can hardly tell myself.  But suspicion of something unpleasant is
the inevitable consequence of such an alteration as we just witnessed
in him.  There is great truth, however, in what you have now urged of
the allowances which ought to be made for him, and it is my wish to be
candid in my judgment of every body.  Willoughby may undoubtedly have
very sufficient reasons for his conduct, and I will hope that he has.
But it would have been more like Willoughby to acknowledge them at
once.  Secrecy may be advisable; but still I cannot help wondering at
its being practiced by him."

"Do not blame him, however, for departing from his character, where the
deviation is necessary.  But you really do admit the justice of what I
have said in his defence?--I am happy--and he is acquitted."

"Not entirely.  It may be proper to conceal their engagement (if they
ARE engaged) from Mrs. Smith--and if that is the case, it must be
highly expedient for Willoughby to be but little in Devonshire at
present.  But this is no excuse for their concealing it from us."

"Concealing it from us! my dear child, do you accuse Willoughby and
Marianne of concealment? This is strange indeed, when your eyes have
been reproaching them every day for incautiousness."

"I want no proof of their affection," said Elinor; "but of their
engagement I do."

"I am perfectly satisfied of both."

"Yet not a syllable has been said to you on the subject, by either of
them."

"I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.  Has
not his behaviour to Marianne and to all of us, for at least the last
fortnight, declared that he loved and considered her as his future
wife, and that he felt for us the attachment of the nearest relation?
Have we not perfectly understood each other?  Has not my consent been
daily asked by his looks, his manner, his attentive and affectionate
respect?  My Elinor, is it possible to doubt their engagement?  How
could such a thought occur to you?  How is it to be supposed that
Willoughby, persuaded as he must be of your sister's love, should leave
her, and leave her perhaps for months, without telling her of his
affection;--that they should part without a mutual exchange of
confidence?"

"I confess," replied Elinor, "that every circumstance except ONE is in
favour of their engagement; but that ONE is the total silence of both
on the subject, and with me it almost outweighs every other."

"How strange this is!  You must think wretchedly indeed of Willoughby,
if, after all that has openly passed between them, you can doubt the
nature of the terms on which they are together.  Has he been acting a
part in his behaviour to your sister all this time?  Do you suppose him
really indifferent to her?"

"No, I cannot think that.  He must and does love her I am sure."

"But with a strange kind of tenderness, if he can leave her with such
indifference, such carelessness of the future, as you attribute to him."

"You must remember, my dear mother, that I have never considered this
matter as certain.  I have had my doubts, I confess; but they are
fainter than they were, and they may soon be entirely done away.  If we
find they correspond, every fear of mine will be removed."

"A mighty concession indeed!  If you were to see them at the altar, you
would suppose they were going to be married.  Ungracious girl!  But I
require no such proof.  Nothing in my opinion has ever passed to
justify doubt; no secrecy has been attempted; all has been uniformly
open and unreserved.  You cannot doubt your sister's wishes.  It must
be Willoughby therefore whom you suspect.  But why?  Is he not a man of
honour and feeling? Has there been any inconsistency on his side to
create alarm? can he be deceitful?"

"I hope not, I believe not," cried Elinor.  "I love Willoughby,
sincerely love him; and suspicion of his integrity cannot be more
painful to yourself than to me.  It has been involuntary, and I will
not encourage it.  I was startled, I confess, by the alteration in his
manners this morning;--he did not speak like himself, and did not
return your kindness with any cordiality.  But all this may be
explained by such a situation of his affairs as you have supposed.  He
had just parted from my sister, had seen her leave him in the greatest
affliction; and if he felt obliged, from a fear of offending Mrs.
Smith, to resist the temptation of returning here soon, and yet aware
that by declining your invitation, by saying that he was going away for
some time, he should seem to act an ungenerous, a suspicious part by
our family, he might well be embarrassed and disturbed.  In such a
case, a plain and open avowal of his difficulties would have been more
to his honour I think, as well as more consistent with his general
character;--but I will not raise objections against any one's conduct
on so illiberal a foundation, as a difference in judgment from myself,
or a deviation from what I may think right and consistent."

"You speak very properly.  Willoughby certainly does not deserve to be
suspected.  Though WE have not known him long, he is no stranger in
this part of the world; and who has ever spoken to his disadvantage?
Had he been in a situation to act independently and marry immediately,
it might have been odd that he should leave us without acknowledging
everything to me at once: but this is not the case.  It is an
engagement in some respects not prosperously begun, for their marriage
must be at a very uncertain distance; and even secrecy, as far as it
can be observed, may now be very advisable."

They were interrupted by the entrance of Margaret; and Elinor was then
at liberty to think over the representations of her mother, to
acknowledge the probability of many, and hope for the justice of all.

They saw nothing of Marianne till dinner time, when she entered the
room and took her place at the table without saying a word.  Her eyes
were red and swollen; and it seemed as if her tears were even then
restrained with difficulty.  She avoided the looks of them all, could
neither eat nor speak, and after some time, on her mother's silently
pressing her hand with tender compassion, her small degree of fortitude
was quite overcome, she burst into tears and left the room.

This violent oppression of spirits continued the whole evening.  She
was without any power, because she was without any desire of command
over herself.  The slightest mention of anything relative to Willoughby
overpowered her in an instant; and though her family were most
anxiously attentive to her comfort, it was impossible for them, if they
spoke at all, to keep clear of every subject which her feelings
connected with him.



CHAPTER 16


Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able
to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby.  She
would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next
morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than
when she lay down in it.  But the feelings which made such composure a
disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it.  She was awake the
whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it.  She got up with a
headache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment;
giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all
attempt at consolation from either.  Her sensibility was potent enough!

When breakfast was over she walked out by herself, and wandered about
the village of Allenham, indulging the recollection of past enjoyment
and crying over the present reverse for the chief of the morning.

The evening passed off in the equal indulgence of feeling.  She played
over every favourite song that she had been used to play to Willoughby,
every air in which their voices had been oftenest joined, and sat at
the instrument gazing on every line of music that he had written out
for her, till her heart was so heavy that no farther sadness could be
gained; and this nourishment of grief was every day applied.  She spent
whole hours at the pianoforte alternately singing and crying; her voice
often totally suspended by her tears.  In books too, as well as in
music, she courted the misery which a contrast between the past and
present was certain of giving.  She read nothing but what they had been
used to read together.

Such violence of affliction indeed could not be supported for ever; it
sunk within a few days into a calmer melancholy; but these employments,
to which she daily recurred, her solitary walks and silent meditations,
still produced occasional effusions of sorrow as lively as ever.

No letter from Willoughby came; and none seemed expected by Marianne.
Her mother was surprised, and Elinor again became uneasy.  But Mrs.
Dashwood could find explanations whenever she wanted them, which at
least satisfied herself.

"Remember, Elinor," said she, "how very often Sir John fetches our
letters himself from the post, and carries them to it.  We have already
agreed that secrecy may be necessary, and we must acknowledge that it
could not be maintained if their correspondence were to pass through
Sir John's hands."

Elinor could not deny the truth of this, and she tried to find in it a
motive sufficient for their silence.  But there was one method so
direct, so simple, and in her opinion so eligible of knowing the real
state of the affair, and of instantly removing all mystery, that she
could not help suggesting it to her mother.

"Why do you not ask Marianne at once," said she, "whether she is or she
is not engaged to Willoughby?  From you, her mother, and so kind, so
indulgent a mother, the question could not give offence.  It would be
the natural result of your affection for her.  She used to be all
unreserve, and to you more especially."

"I would not ask such a question for the world.  Supposing it possible
that they are not engaged, what distress would not such an enquiry
inflict!  At any rate it would be most ungenerous.  I should never
deserve her confidence again, after forcing from her a confession of
what is meant at present to be unacknowledged to any one.  I know
Marianne's heart: I know that she dearly loves me, and that I shall not
be the last to whom the affair is made known, when circumstances make
the revealment of it eligible.  I would not attempt to force the
confidence of any one; of a child much less; because a sense of duty
would prevent the denial which her wishes might direct."

Elinor thought this generosity overstrained, considering her sister's
youth, and urged the matter farther, but in vain; common sense, common
care, common prudence, were all sunk in Mrs. Dashwood's romantic
delicacy.

It was several days before Willoughby's name was mentioned before
Marianne by any of her family; Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, indeed, were
not so nice; their witticisms added pain to many a painful hour;--but
one evening, Mrs. Dashwood, accidentally taking up a volume of
Shakespeare, exclaimed,

"We have never finished Hamlet, Marianne; our dear Willoughby went away
before we could get through it.  We will put it by, that when he comes
again...But it may be months, perhaps, before THAT happens."

"Months!" cried Marianne, with strong surprise.  "No--nor many weeks."

Mrs. Dashwood was sorry for what she had said; but it gave Elinor
pleasure, as it produced a reply from Marianne so expressive of
confidence in Willoughby and knowledge of his intentions.

One morning, about a week after his leaving the country, Marianne was
prevailed on to join her sisters in their usual walk, instead of
wandering away by herself.  Hitherto she had carefully avoided every
companion in her rambles.  If her sisters intended to walk on the
downs, she directly stole away towards the lanes; if they talked of the
valley, she was as speedy in climbing the hills, and could never be
found when the others set off.  But at length she was secured by the
exertions of Elinor, who greatly disapproved such continual seclusion.
They walked along the road through the valley, and chiefly in silence,
for Marianne's MIND could not be controlled, and Elinor, satisfied with
gaining one point, would not then attempt more.  Beyond the entrance of
the valley, where the country, though still rich, was less wild and
more open, a long stretch of the road which they had travelled on first
coming to Barton, lay before them; and on reaching that point, they
stopped to look around them, and examine a prospect which formed the
distance of their view from the cottage, from a spot which they had
never happened to reach in any of their walks before.

Amongst the objects in the scene, they soon discovered an animated one;
it was a man on horseback riding towards them.  In a few minutes they
could distinguish him to be a gentleman; and in a moment afterwards
Marianne rapturously exclaimed,

"It is he; it is indeed;--I know it is!"--and was hastening to meet
him, when Elinor cried out,

"Indeed, Marianne, I think you are mistaken.  It is not Willoughby.
The person is not tall enough for him, and has not his air."

"He has, he has," cried Marianne, "I am sure he has.  His air, his
coat, his horse.  I knew how soon he would come."

She walked eagerly on as she spoke; and Elinor, to screen Marianne from
particularity, as she felt almost certain of its not being Willoughby,
quickened her pace and kept up with her.  They were soon within thirty
yards of the gentleman.  Marianne looked again; her heart sunk within
her; and abruptly turning round, she was hurrying back, when the voices
of both her sisters were raised to detain her; a third, almost as well
known as Willoughby's, joined them in begging her to stop, and she
turned round with surprise to see and welcome Edward Ferrars.

He was the only person in the world who could at that moment be
forgiven for not being Willoughby; the only one who could have gained a
smile from her; but she dispersed her tears to smile on HIM, and in her
sister's happiness forgot for a time her own disappointment.

He dismounted, and giving his horse to his servant, walked back with
them to Barton, whither he was purposely coming to visit them.

He was welcomed by them all with great cordiality, but especially by
Marianne, who showed more warmth of regard in her reception of him than
even Elinor herself.  To Marianne, indeed, the meeting between Edward
and her sister was but a continuation of that unaccountable coldness
which she had often observed at Norland in their mutual behaviour.  On
Edward's side, more particularly, there was a deficiency of all that a
lover ought to look and say on such an occasion.  He was confused,
seemed scarcely sensible of pleasure in seeing them, looked neither
rapturous nor gay, said little but what was forced from him by
questions, and distinguished Elinor by no mark of affection.  Marianne
saw and listened with increasing surprise.  She began almost to feel a
dislike of Edward; and it ended, as every feeling must end with her, by
carrying back her thoughts to Willoughby, whose manners formed a
contrast sufficiently striking to those of his brother elect.

After a short silence which succeeded the first surprise and enquiries
of meeting, Marianne asked Edward if he came directly from London.  No,
he had been in Devonshire a fortnight.

"A fortnight!" she repeated, surprised at his being so long in the same
county with Elinor without seeing her before.

He looked rather distressed as he added, that he had been staying with
some friends near Plymouth.

"Have you been lately in Sussex?" said Elinor.

"I was at Norland about a month ago."

"And how does dear, dear Norland look?" cried Marianne.

"Dear, dear Norland," said Elinor, "probably looks much as it always
does at this time of the year.  The woods and walks thickly covered
with dead leaves."

"Oh," cried Marianne, "with what transporting sensation have I formerly
seen them fall!  How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven
in showers about me by the wind!  What feelings have they, the season,
the air altogether inspired!  Now there is no one to regard them.  They
are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as
possible from the sight."

"It is not every one," said Elinor, "who has your passion for dead
leaves."

"No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood.  But
SOMETIMES they are."--As she said this, she sunk into a reverie for a
few moments;--but rousing herself again, "Now, Edward," said she,
calling his attention to the prospect, "here is Barton valley.  Look up
to it, and be tranquil if you can.  Look at those hills!  Did you ever
see their equals?  To the left is Barton park, amongst those woods and
plantations.  You may see the end of the house.  And there, beneath
that farthest hill, which rises with such grandeur, is our cottage."

"It is a beautiful country," he replied; "but these bottoms must be
dirty in winter."

"How can you think of dirt, with such objects before you?"

"Because," replied he, smiling, "among the rest of the objects before
me, I see a very dirty lane."

"How strange!" said Marianne to herself as she walked on.

"Have you an agreeable neighbourhood here?  Are the Middletons pleasant
people?"

"No, not all," answered Marianne; "we could not be more unfortunately
situated."

"Marianne," cried her sister, "how can you say so? How can you be so
unjust?  They are a very respectable family, Mr. Ferrars; and towards
us have behaved in the friendliest manner.  Have you forgot, Marianne,
how many pleasant days we have owed to them?"

"No," said Marianne, in a low voice, "nor how many painful moments."

Elinor took no notice of this; and directing her attention to their
visitor, endeavoured to support something like discourse with him, by
talking of their present residence, its conveniences, &c. extorting
from him occasional questions and remarks.  His coldness and reserve
mortified her severely; she was vexed and half angry; but resolving to
regulate her behaviour to him by the past rather than the present, she
avoided every appearance of resentment or displeasure, and treated him
as she thought he ought to be treated from the family connection.



CHAPTER 17


Mrs. Dashwood was surprised only for a moment at seeing him; for his
coming to Barton was, in her opinion, of all things the most natural.
Her joy and expression of regard long outlived her wonder.  He received
the kindest welcome from her; and shyness, coldness, reserve could not
stand against such a reception.  They had begun to fail him before he
entered the house, and they were quite overcome by the captivating
manners of Mrs. Dashwood.  Indeed a man could not very well be in love
with either of her daughters, without extending the passion to her; and
Elinor had the satisfaction of seeing him soon become more like
himself.  His affections seemed to reanimate towards them all, and his
interest in their welfare again became perceptible.  He was not in
spirits, however; he praised their house, admired its prospect, was
attentive, and kind; but still he was not in spirits.  The whole family
perceived it, and Mrs. Dashwood, attributing it to some want of
liberality in his mother, sat down to table indignant against all
selfish parents.

"What are Mrs. Ferrars's views for you at present, Edward?" said she,
when dinner was over and they had drawn round the fire; "are you still
to be a great orator in spite of yourself?"

"No. I hope my mother is now convinced that I have no more talents than
inclination for a public life!"

"But how is your fame to be established? for famous you must be to
satisfy all your family; and with no inclination for expense, no
affection for strangers, no profession, and no assurance, you may find
it a difficult matter."

"I shall not attempt it.  I have no wish to be distinguished; and have
every reason to hope I never shall.  Thank Heaven! I cannot be forced
into genius and eloquence."

"You have no ambition, I well know.  Your wishes are all moderate."

"As moderate as those of the rest of the world, I believe.  I wish as
well as every body else to be perfectly happy; but, like every body
else it must be in my own way.  Greatness will not make me so."

"Strange that it would!" cried Marianne.  "What have wealth or grandeur
to do with happiness?"

"Grandeur has but little," said Elinor, "but wealth has much to do with
it."

"Elinor, for shame!" said Marianne, "money can only give happiness
where there is nothing else to give it.  Beyond a competence, it can
afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned."

"Perhaps," said Elinor, smiling, "we may come to the same point.  YOUR
competence and MY wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without
them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of
external comfort must be wanting.  Your ideas are only more noble than
mine.  Come, what is your competence?"

"About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than THAT."

Elinor laughed.  "TWO thousand a year! ONE is my wealth! I guessed how
it would end."

"And yet two thousand a-year is a very moderate income," said Marianne.
"A family cannot well be maintained on a smaller.  I am sure I am not
extravagant in my demands.  A proper establishment of servants, a
carriage, perhaps two, and hunters, cannot be supported on less."

Elinor smiled again, to hear her sister describing so accurately their
future expenses at Combe Magna.

"Hunters!" repeated Edward--"but why must you have hunters?  Every body
does not hunt."

Marianne coloured as she replied, "But most people do."

"I wish," said Margaret, striking out a novel thought, "that somebody
would give us all a large fortune apiece!"

"Oh that they would!" cried Marianne, her eyes sparkling with
animation, and her cheeks glowing with the delight of such imaginary
happiness.

"We are all unanimous in that wish, I suppose," said Elinor, "in spite
of the insufficiency of wealth."

"Oh dear!" cried Margaret, "how happy I should be!  I wonder what I
should do with it!"

Marianne looked as if she had no doubt on that point.

"I should be puzzled to spend so large a fortune myself," said Mrs.
Dashwood, "if my children were all to be rich without my help."

"You must begin your improvements on this house," observed Elinor, "and
your difficulties will soon vanish."

"What magnificent orders would travel from this family to London," said
Edward, "in such an event!  What a happy day for booksellers,
music-sellers, and print-shops!  You, Miss Dashwood, would give a
general commission for every new print of merit to be sent you--and as
for Marianne, I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music
enough in London to content her.  And books!--Thomson, Cowper,
Scott--she would buy them all over and over again: she would buy up
every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands;
and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old
twisted tree.  Should not you, Marianne?  Forgive me, if I am very
saucy.  But I was willing to shew you that I had not forgot our old
disputes."

"I love to be reminded of the past, Edward--whether it be melancholy or
gay, I love to recall it--and you will never offend me by talking of
former times.  You are very right in supposing how my money would be
spent--some of it, at least--my loose cash would certainly be employed
in improving my collection of music and books."

"And the bulk of your fortune would be laid out in annuities on the
authors or their heirs."

"No, Edward, I should have something else to do with it."

"Perhaps, then, you would bestow it as a reward on that person who
wrote the ablest defence of your favourite maxim, that no one can ever
be in love more than once in their life--your opinion on that point is
unchanged, I presume?"

"Undoubtedly. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed.  It is
not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them."

"Marianne is as steadfast as ever, you see," said Elinor, "she is not
at all altered."

"She is only grown a little more grave than she was."

"Nay, Edward," said Marianne, "you need not reproach me.  You are not
very gay yourself."

"Why should you think so!" replied he, with a sigh.  "But gaiety never
was a part of MY character."

"Nor do I think it a part of Marianne's," said Elinor; "I should hardly
call her a lively girl--she is very earnest, very eager in all she
does--sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation--but she
is not often really merry."

"I believe you are right," he replied, "and yet I have always set her
down as a lively girl."

"I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes," said
Elinor, "in a total misapprehension of character in some point or
other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or
stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why or in what the
deception originated.  Sometimes one is guided by what they say of
themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them,
without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge."

"But I thought it was right, Elinor," said Marianne, "to be guided
wholly by the opinion of other people.  I thought our judgments were
given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours.  This has
always been your doctrine, I am sure."

"No, Marianne, never.  My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of
the understanding.  All I have ever attempted to influence has been the
behaviour.  You must not confound my meaning.  I am guilty, I confess,
of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with
greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their
sentiments or to conform to their judgment in serious matters?"

"You have not been able to bring your sister over to your plan of
general civility," said Edward to Elinor.  "Do you gain no ground?"

"Quite the contrary," replied Elinor, looking expressively at Marianne.

"My judgment," he returned, "is all on your side of the question; but I
am afraid my practice is much more on your sister's.  I never wish to
offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I
am only kept back by my natural awkwardness.  I have frequently thought
that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I
am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility!"

"Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers," said
Elinor.

"She knows her own worth too well for false shame," replied Edward.
"Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or
other.  If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy
and graceful, I should not be shy."

"But you would still be reserved," said Marianne, "and that is worse."

Edward started--"Reserved! Am I reserved, Marianne?"

"Yes, very."

"I do not understand you," replied he, colouring.  "Reserved!--how, in
what manner?  What am I to tell you?  What can you suppose?"

Elinor looked surprised at his emotion; but trying to laugh off the
subject, she said to him, "Do not you know my sister well enough to
understand what she means?  Do not you know she calls every one
reserved who does not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as
rapturously as herself?"

Edward made no answer.  His gravity and thoughtfulness returned on him
in their fullest extent--and he sat for some time silent and dull.



CHAPTER 18


Elinor saw, with great uneasiness the low spirits of her friend.  His
visit afforded her but a very partial satisfaction, while his own
enjoyment in it appeared so imperfect.  It was evident that he was
unhappy; she wished it were equally evident that he still distinguished
her by the same affection which once she had felt no doubt of
inspiring; but hitherto the continuance of his preference seemed very
uncertain; and the reservedness of his manner towards her contradicted
one moment what a more animated look had intimated the preceding one.

He joined her and Marianne in the breakfast-room the next morning
before the others were down; and Marianne, who was always eager to
promote their happiness as far as she could, soon left them to
themselves.  But before she was half way upstairs she heard the parlour
door open, and, turning round, was astonished to see Edward himself
come out.

"I am going into the village to see my horses," said he, "as you are
not yet ready for breakfast; I shall be back again presently."

                    ***

Edward returned to them with fresh admiration of the surrounding
country; in his walk to the village, he had seen many parts of the
valley to advantage; and the village itself, in a much higher situation
than the cottage, afforded a general view of the whole, which had
exceedingly pleased him.  This was a subject which ensured Marianne's
attention, and she was beginning to describe her own admiration of
these scenes, and to question him more minutely on the objects that had
particularly struck him, when Edward interrupted her by saying, "You
must not enquire too far, Marianne--remember I have no knowledge in the
picturesque, and I shall offend you by my ignorance and want of taste
if we come to particulars.  I shall call hills steep, which ought to be
bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which ought to be irregular and
rugged; and distant objects out of sight, which ought only to be
indistinct through the soft medium of a hazy atmosphere.  You must be
satisfied with such admiration as I can honestly give.  I call it a
very fine country--the hills are steep, the woods seem full of fine
timber, and the valley looks comfortable and snug--with rich meadows
and several neat farm houses scattered here and there.  It exactly
answers my idea of a fine country, because it unites beauty with
utility--and I dare say it is a picturesque one too, because you admire
it; I can easily believe it to be full of rocks and promontories, grey
moss and brush wood, but these are all lost on me.  I know nothing of
the picturesque."

"I am afraid it is but too true," said Marianne; "but why should you
boast of it?"

"I suspect," said Elinor, "that to avoid one kind of affectation,
Edward here falls into another.  Because he believes many people
pretend to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really
feel, and is disgusted with such pretensions, he affects greater
indifference and less discrimination in viewing them himself than he
possesses.  He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own."

"It is very true," said Marianne, "that admiration of landscape scenery
is become a mere jargon.  Every body pretends to feel and tries to
describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what
picturesque beauty was.  I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I
have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to
describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and
meaning."

"I am convinced," said Edward, "that you really feel all the delight in
a fine prospect which you profess to feel.  But, in return, your sister
must allow me to feel no more than I profess.  I like a fine prospect,
but not on picturesque principles.  I do not like crooked, twisted,
blasted trees.  I admire them much more if they are tall, straight, and
flourishing.  I do not like ruined, tattered cottages.  I am not fond
of nettles or thistles, or heath blossoms.  I have more pleasure in a
snug farm-house than a watch-tower--and a troop of tidy, happy villages
please me better than the finest banditti in the world."

Marianne looked with amazement at Edward, with compassion at her
sister.  Elinor only laughed.

The subject was continued no farther; and Marianne remained
thoughtfully silent, till a new object suddenly engaged her attention.
She was sitting by Edward, and in taking his tea from Mrs. Dashwood,
his hand passed so directly before her, as to make a ring, with a plait
of hair in the centre, very conspicuous on one of his fingers.

"I never saw you wear a ring before, Edward," she cried.  "Is that
Fanny's hair? I remember her promising to give you some.  But I should
have thought her hair had been darker."

Marianne spoke inconsiderately what she really felt--but when she saw
how much she had pained Edward, her own vexation at her want of thought
could not be surpassed by his.  He coloured very deeply, and giving a
momentary glance at Elinor, replied, "Yes; it is my sister's hair.  The
setting always casts a different shade on it, you know."

Elinor had met his eye, and looked conscious likewise.  That the hair
was her own, she instantaneously felt as well satisfied as Marianne;
the only difference in their conclusions was, that what Marianne
considered as a free gift from her sister, Elinor was conscious must
have been procured by some theft or contrivance unknown to herself.
She was not in a humour, however, to regard it as an affront, and
affecting to take no notice of what passed, by instantly talking of
something else, she internally resolved henceforward to catch every
opportunity of eyeing the hair and of satisfying herself, beyond all
doubt, that it was exactly the shade of her own.

Edward's embarrassment lasted some time, and it ended in an absence of
mind still more settled.  He was particularly grave the whole morning.
Marianne severely censured herself for what she had said; but her own
forgiveness might have been more speedy, had she known how little
offence it had given her sister.

Before the middle of the day, they were visited by Sir John and Mrs.
Jennings, who, having heard of the arrival of a gentleman at the
cottage, came to take a survey of the guest.  With the assistance of
his mother-in-law, Sir John was not long in discovering that the name
of Ferrars began with an F. and this prepared a future mine of raillery
against the devoted Elinor, which nothing but the newness of their
acquaintance with Edward could have prevented from being immediately
sprung.  But, as it was, she only learned, from some very significant
looks, how far their penetration, founded on Margaret's instructions,
extended.

Sir John never came to the Dashwoods without either inviting them to
dine at the park the next day, or to drink tea with them that evening.
On the present occasion, for the better entertainment of their visitor,
towards whose amusement he felt himself bound to contribute, he wished
to engage them for both.

"You MUST drink tea with us to night," said he, "for we shall be quite
alone--and tomorrow you must absolutely dine with us, for we shall be a
large party."

Mrs. Jennings enforced the necessity.  "And who knows but you may raise
a dance," said she.  "And that will tempt YOU, Miss Marianne."

"A dance!" cried Marianne.  "Impossible! Who is to dance?"

"Who! why yourselves, and the Careys, and Whitakers to be sure.--What!
you thought nobody could dance because a certain person that shall be
nameless is gone!"

"I wish with all my soul," cried Sir John, "that Willoughby were among
us again."

This, and Marianne's blushing, gave new suspicions to Edward.  "And who
is Willoughby?" said he, in a low voice, to Miss Dashwood, by whom he
was sitting.

She gave him a brief reply.  Marianne's countenance was more
communicative.  Edward saw enough to comprehend, not only the meaning
of others, but such of Marianne's expressions as had puzzled him
before; and when their visitors left them, he went immediately round
her, and said, in a whisper, "I have been guessing.  Shall I tell you
my guess?"

"What do you mean?"

"Shall I tell you."

"Certainly."

"Well then; I guess that Mr. Willoughby hunts."

Marianne was surprised and confused, yet she could not help smiling at
the quiet archness of his manner, and after a moment's silence, said,

"Oh, Edward! How can you?--But the time will come I hope...I am sure
you will like him."

"I do not doubt it," replied he, rather astonished at her earnestness
and warmth; for had he not imagined it to be a joke for the good of her
acquaintance in general, founded only on a something or a nothing
between Mr. Willoughby and herself, he would not have ventured to
mention it.



CHAPTER 19


Edward remained a week at the cottage; he was earnestly pressed by Mrs.
Dashwood to stay longer; but, as if he were bent only on
self-mortification, he seemed resolved to be gone when his enjoyment
among his friends was at the height.  His spirits, during the last two
or three days, though still very unequal, were greatly improved--he
grew more and more partial to the house and environs--never spoke of
going away without a sigh--declared his time to be wholly
disengaged--even doubted to what place he should go when he left
them--but still, go he must.  Never had any week passed so quickly--he
could hardly believe it to be gone.  He said so repeatedly; other
things he said too, which marked the turn of his feelings and gave the
lie to his actions.  He had no pleasure at Norland; he detested being
in town; but either to Norland or London, he must go.  He valued their
kindness beyond any thing, and his greatest happiness was in being with
them.  Yet, he must leave them at the end of a week, in spite of their
wishes and his own, and without any restraint on his time.

Elinor placed all that was astonishing in this way of acting to his
mother's account; and it was happy for her that he had a mother whose
character was so imperfectly known to her, as to be the general excuse
for every thing strange on the part of her son.  Disappointed, however,
and vexed as she was, and sometimes displeased with his uncertain
behaviour to herself, she was very well disposed on the whole to regard
his actions with all the candid allowances and generous qualifications,
which had been rather more painfully extorted from her, for
Willoughby's service, by her mother.  His want of spirits, of openness,
and of consistency, were most usually attributed to his want of
independence, and his better knowledge of Mrs. Ferrars's disposition
and designs.  The shortness of his visit, the steadiness of his purpose
in leaving them, originated in the same fettered inclination, the same
inevitable necessity of temporizing with his mother.  The old
well-established grievance of duty against will, parent against child,
was the cause of all.  She would have been glad to know when these
difficulties were to cease, this opposition was to yield,--when Mrs.
Ferrars would be reformed, and her son be at liberty to be happy.  But
from such vain wishes she was forced to turn for comfort to the renewal
of her confidence in Edward's affection, to the remembrance of every
mark of regard in look or word which fell from him while at Barton, and
above all to that flattering proof of it which he constantly wore round
his finger.

"I think, Edward," said Mrs. Dashwood, as they were at breakfast the
last morning, "you would be a happier man if you had any profession to
engage your time and give an interest to your plans and actions.  Some
inconvenience to your friends, indeed, might result from it--you would
not be able to give them so much of your time.  But (with a smile) you
would be materially benefited in one particular at least--you would
know where to go when you left them."

"I do assure you," he replied, "that I have long thought on this point,
as you think now.  It has been, and is, and probably will always be a
heavy misfortune to me, that I have had no necessary business to engage
me, no profession to give me employment, or afford me any thing like
independence.  But unfortunately my own nicety, and the nicety of my
friends, have made me what I am, an idle, helpless being.  We never
could agree in our choice of a profession.  I always preferred the
church, as I still do.  But that was not smart enough for my family.
They recommended the army.  That was a great deal too smart for me.
The law was allowed to be genteel enough; many young men, who had
chambers in the Temple, made a very good appearance in the first
circles, and drove about town in very knowing gigs.  But I had no
inclination for the law, even in this less abstruse study of it, which
my family approved.  As for the navy, it had fashion on its side, but I
was too old when the subject was first started to enter it--and, at
length, as there was no necessity for my having any profession at all,
as I might be as dashing and expensive without a red coat on my back as
with one, idleness was pronounced on the whole to be most advantageous
and honourable, and a young man of eighteen is not in general so
earnestly bent on being busy as to resist the solicitations of his
friends to do nothing.  I was therefore entered at Oxford and have been
properly idle ever since."

"The consequence of which, I suppose, will be," said Mrs. Dashwood,
"since leisure has not promoted your own happiness, that your sons will
be brought up to as many pursuits, employments, professions, and trades
as Columella's."

"They will be brought up," said he, in a serious accent, "to be as
unlike myself as is possible.  In feeling, in action, in condition, in
every thing."

"Come, come; this is all an effusion of immediate want of spirits,
Edward.  You are in a melancholy humour, and fancy that any one unlike
yourself must be happy.  But remember that the pain of parting from
friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their
education or state.  Know your own happiness.  You want nothing but
patience--or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.  Your
mother will secure to you, in time, that independence you are so
anxious for; it is her duty, and it will, it must ere long become her
happiness to prevent your whole youth from being wasted in discontent.
How much may not a few months do?"

"I think," replied Edward, "that I may defy many months to produce any
good to me."

This desponding turn of mind, though it could not be communicated to
Mrs. Dashwood, gave additional pain to them all in the parting, which
shortly took place, and left an uncomfortable impression on Elinor's
feelings especially, which required some trouble and time to subdue.
But as it was her determination to subdue it, and to prevent herself
from appearing to suffer more than what all her family suffered on his
going away, she did not adopt the method so judiciously employed by
Marianne, on a similar occasion, to augment and fix her sorrow, by
seeking silence, solitude and idleness.  Their means were as different
as their objects, and equally suited to the advancement of each.

Elinor sat down to her drawing-table as soon as he was out of the
house, busily employed herself the whole day, neither sought nor
avoided the mention of his name, appeared to interest herself almost as
much as ever in the general concerns of the family, and if, by this
conduct, she did not lessen her own grief, it was at least prevented
from unnecessary increase, and her mother and sisters were spared much
solicitude on her account.

Such behaviour as this, so exactly the reverse of her own, appeared no
more meritorious to Marianne, than her own had seemed faulty to her.
The business of self-command she settled very easily;--with strong
affections it was impossible, with calm ones it could have no merit.
That her sister's affections WERE calm, she dared not deny, though she
blushed to acknowledge it; and of the strength of her own, she gave a
very striking proof, by still loving and respecting that sister, in
spite of this mortifying conviction.

Without shutting herself up from her family, or leaving the house in
determined solitude to avoid them, or lying awake the whole night to
indulge meditation, Elinor found every day afforded her leisure enough
to think of Edward, and of Edward's behaviour, in every possible
variety which the different state of her spirits at different times
could produce,--with tenderness, pity, approbation, censure, and doubt.
There were moments in abundance, when, if not by the absence of her
mother and sisters, at least by the nature of their employments,
conversation was forbidden among them, and every effect of solitude was
produced.  Her mind was inevitably at liberty; her thoughts could not
be chained elsewhere; and the past and the future, on a subject so
interesting, must be before her, must force her attention, and engross
her memory, her reflection, and her fancy.

From a reverie of this kind, as she sat at her drawing-table, she was
roused one morning, soon after Edward's leaving them, by the arrival of
company.  She happened to be quite alone.  The closing of the little
gate, at the entrance of the green court in front of the house, drew
her eyes to the window, and she saw a large party walking up to the
door.  Amongst them were Sir John and Lady Middleton and Mrs. Jennings,
but there were two others, a gentleman and lady, who were quite unknown
to her.  She was sitting near the window, and as soon as Sir John
perceived her, he left the rest of the party to the ceremony of
knocking at the door, and stepping across the turf, obliged her to open
the casement to speak to him, though the space was so short between the
door and the window, as to make it hardly possible to speak at one
without being heard at the other.

"Well," said he, "we have brought you some strangers.  How do you like
them?"

"Hush! they will hear you."

"Never mind if they do.  It is only the Palmers.  Charlotte is very
pretty, I can tell you.  You may see her if you look this way."

As Elinor was certain of seeing her in a couple of minutes, without
taking that liberty, she begged to be excused.

"Where is Marianne? Has she run away because we are come? I see her
instrument is open."

"She is walking, I believe."

They were now joined by Mrs. Jennings, who had not patience enough to
wait till the door was opened before she told HER story.  She came
hallooing to the window, "How do you do, my dear?  How does Mrs.
Dashwood do?  And where are your sisters?  What! all alone! you will be
glad of a little company to sit with you.  I have brought my other son
and daughter to see you.  Only think of their coming so suddenly!  I
thought I heard a carriage last night, while we were drinking our tea,
but it never entered my head that it could be them.  I thought of
nothing but whether it might not be Colonel Brandon come back again; so
I said to Sir John, I do think I hear a carriage; perhaps it is Colonel
Brandon come back again"--

Elinor was obliged to turn from her, in the middle of her story, to
receive the rest of the party; Lady Middleton introduced the two
strangers; Mrs. Dashwood and Margaret came down stairs at the same
time, and they all sat down to look at one another, while Mrs. Jennings
continued her story as she walked through the passage into the parlour,
attended by Sir John.

Mrs. Palmer was several years younger than Lady Middleton, and totally
unlike her in every respect.  She was short and plump, had a very
pretty face, and the finest expression of good humour in it that could
possibly be.  Her manners were by no means so elegant as her sister's,
but they were much more prepossessing.  She came in with a smile,
smiled all the time of her visit, except when she laughed, and smiled
when she went away.  Her husband was a grave looking young man of five
or six and twenty, with an air of more fashion and sense than his wife,
but of less willingness to please or be pleased.  He entered the room
with a look of self-consequence, slightly bowed to the ladies, without
speaking a word, and, after briefly surveying them and their
apartments, took up a newspaper from the table, and continued to read
it as long as he staid.

Mrs. Palmer, on the contrary, who was strongly endowed by nature with a
turn for being uniformly civil and happy, was hardly seated before her
admiration of the parlour and every thing in it burst forth.

"Well! what a delightful room this is! I never saw anything so
charming!  Only think, Mama, how it is improved since I was here last!
I always thought it such a sweet place, ma'am! (turning to Mrs.
Dashwood) but you have made it so charming!  Only look, sister, how
delightful every thing is! How I should like such a house for myself!
Should not you, Mr. Palmer?"

Mr. Palmer made her no answer, and did not even raise his eyes from the
newspaper.

"Mr. Palmer does not hear me," said she, laughing; "he never does
sometimes.  It is so ridiculous!"

This was quite a new idea to Mrs. Dashwood; she had never been used to
find wit in the inattention of any one, and could not help looking with
surprise at them both.

Mrs. Jennings, in the meantime, talked on as loud as she could, and
continued her account of their surprise, the evening before, on seeing
their friends, without ceasing till every thing was told.  Mrs. Palmer
laughed heartily at the recollection of their astonishment, and every
body agreed, two or three times over, that it had been quite an
agreeable surprise.

"You may believe how glad we all were to see them," added Mrs.
Jennings, leaning forward towards Elinor, and speaking in a low voice
as if she meant to be heard by no one else, though they were seated on
different sides of the room; "but, however, I can't help wishing they
had not travelled quite so fast, nor made such a long journey of it,
for they came all round by London upon account of some business, for
you know (nodding significantly and pointing to her daughter) it was
wrong in her situation.  I wanted her to stay at home and rest this
morning, but she would come with us; she longed so much to see you all!"

Mrs. Palmer laughed, and said it would not do her any harm.

"She expects to be confined in February," continued Mrs. Jennings.

Lady Middleton could no longer endure such a conversation, and
therefore exerted herself to ask Mr. Palmer if there was any news in
the paper.

"No, none at all," he replied, and read on.

"Here comes Marianne," cried Sir John.  "Now, Palmer, you shall see a
monstrous pretty girl."

He immediately went into the passage, opened the front door, and
ushered her in himself.  Mrs. Jennings asked her, as soon as she
appeared, if she had not been to Allenham; and Mrs. Palmer laughed so
heartily at the question, as to show she understood it.  Mr. Palmer
looked up on her entering the room, stared at her some minutes, and
then returned to his newspaper.  Mrs. Palmer's eye was now caught by
the drawings which hung round the room.  She got up to examine them.

"Oh! dear, how beautiful these are!  Well! how delightful!  Do but
look, mama, how sweet! I declare they are quite charming; I could look
at them for ever." And then sitting down again, she very soon forgot
that there were any such things in the room.

When Lady Middleton rose to go away, Mr. Palmer rose also, laid down
the newspaper, stretched himself and looked at them all around.

"My love, have you been asleep?" said his wife, laughing.

He made her no answer; and only observed, after again examining the
room, that it was very low pitched, and that the ceiling was crooked.
He then made his bow, and departed with the rest.

Sir John had been very urgent with them all to spend the next day at
the park.  Mrs. Dashwood, who did not chuse to dine with them oftener
than they dined at the cottage, absolutely refused on her own account;
her daughters might do as they pleased.  But they had no curiosity to
see how Mr. and Mrs. Palmer ate their dinner, and no expectation of
pleasure from them in any other way.  They attempted, therefore,
likewise, to excuse themselves; the weather was uncertain, and not
likely to be good.  But Sir John would not be satisfied--the carriage
should be sent for them and they must come.  Lady Middleton too, though
she did not press their mother, pressed them.  Mrs. Jennings and Mrs.
Palmer joined their entreaties, all seemed equally anxious to avoid a
family party; and the young ladies were obliged to yield.

"Why should they ask us?" said Marianne, as soon as they were gone.
"The rent of this cottage is said to be low; but we have it on very
hard terms, if we are to dine at the park whenever any one is staying
either with them, or with us."

"They mean no less to be civil and kind to us now," said Elinor, "by
these frequent invitations, than by those which we received from them a
few weeks ago.  The alteration is not in them, if their parties are
grown tedious and dull.  We must look for the change elsewhere."



CHAPTER 20


As the Miss Dashwoods entered the drawing-room of the park the next
day, at one door, Mrs. Palmer came running in at the other, looking as
good humoured and merry as before.  She took them all most
affectionately by the hand, and expressed great delight in seeing them
again.

"I am so glad to see you!" said she, seating herself between Elinor and
Marianne, "for it is so bad a day I was afraid you might not come,
which would be a shocking thing, as we go away again tomorrow. We must
go, for the Westons come to us next week you know.  It was quite a
sudden thing our coming at all, and I knew nothing of it till the
carriage was coming to the door, and then Mr. Palmer asked me if I
would go with him to Barton.  He is so droll! He never tells me any
thing! I am so sorry we cannot stay longer; however we shall meet again
in town very soon, I hope."

They were obliged to put an end to such an expectation.

"Not go to town!" cried Mrs. Palmer, with a laugh, "I shall be quite
disappointed if you do not.  I could get the nicest house in the world for
you, next door to ours, in Hanover-square.  You must come, indeed.  I
am sure I shall be very happy to chaperon you at any time till I am
confined, if Mrs. Dashwood should not like to go into public."

They thanked her; but were obliged to resist all her entreaties.

"Oh, my love," cried Mrs. Palmer to her husband, who just then entered
the room--"you must help me to persuade the Miss Dashwoods to go to
town this winter."

Her love made no answer; and after slightly bowing to the ladies, began
complaining of the weather.

"How horrid all this is!" said he.  "Such weather makes every thing and
every body disgusting.  Dullness is as much produced within doors as
without, by rain.  It makes one detest all one's acquaintance.  What
the devil does Sir John mean by not having a billiard room in his
house?  How few people know what comfort is!  Sir John is as stupid as
the weather."

The rest of the company soon dropt in.

"I am afraid, Miss Marianne," said Sir John, "you have not been able to
take your usual walk to Allenham today."

Marianne looked very grave and said nothing.

"Oh, don't be so sly before us," said Mrs. Palmer; "for we know all
about it, I assure you; and I admire your taste very much, for I think
he is extremely handsome.  We do not live a great way from him in the
country, you know.  Not above ten miles, I dare say."

"Much nearer thirty," said her husband.

"Ah, well! there is not much difference.  I never was at his house; but
they say it is a sweet pretty place."

"As vile a spot as I ever saw in my life," said Mr. Palmer.

Marianne remained perfectly silent, though her countenance betrayed her
interest in what was said.

"Is it very ugly?" continued Mrs. Palmer--"then it must be some other
place that is so pretty I suppose."

When they were seated in the dining room, Sir John observed with regret
that they were only eight all together.

"My dear," said he to his lady, "it is very provoking that we should be
so few.  Why did not you ask the Gilberts to come to us today?"

"Did not I tell you, Sir John, when you spoke to me about it before,
that it could not be done?  They dined with us last."

"You and I, Sir John," said Mrs. Jennings, "should not stand upon such
ceremony."

"Then you would be very ill-bred," cried Mr. Palmer.

"My love you contradict every body," said his wife with her usual
laugh.  "Do you know that you are quite rude?"

"I did not know I contradicted any body in calling your mother
ill-bred."

"Ay, you may abuse me as you please," said the good-natured old lady,
"you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again.
So there I have the whip hand of you."

Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid
of her; and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her,
as they must live together.  It was impossible for any one to be more
thoroughly good-natured, or more determined to be happy than Mrs.
Palmer.  The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her
husband gave her no pain; and when he scolded or abused her, she was
highly diverted.

"Mr. Palmer is so droll!" said she, in a whisper, to Elinor.  "He is
always out of humour."

Elinor was not inclined, after a little observation, to give him credit
for being so genuinely and unaffectedly ill-natured or ill-bred as he
wished to appear.  His temper might perhaps be a little soured by
finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable
bias in favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly
woman,--but she knew that this kind of blunder was too common for any
sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it.-- It was rather a wish of
distinction, she believed, which produced his contemptuous treatment of
every body, and his general abuse of every thing before him.  It was
the desire of appearing superior to other people.  The motive was too
common to be wondered at; but the means, however they might succeed by
establishing his superiority in ill-breeding, were not likely to attach
any one to him except his wife.

"Oh, my dear Miss Dashwood," said Mrs. Palmer soon afterwards, "I have
got such a favour to ask of you and your sister.  Will you come and
spend some time at Cleveland this Christmas?  Now, pray do,--and come
while the Westons are with us.  You cannot think how happy I shall be!
It will be quite delightful!--My love," applying to her husband, "don't
you long to have the Miss Dashwoods come to Cleveland?"

"Certainly," he replied, with a sneer--"I came into Devonshire with no
other view."

"There now,"--said his lady, "you see Mr. Palmer expects you; so you
cannot refuse to come."

They both eagerly and resolutely declined her invitation.

"But indeed you must and shall come.  I am sure you will like it of all
things.  The Westons will be with us, and it will be quite delightful.
You cannot think what a sweet place Cleveland is; and we are so gay
now, for Mr. Palmer is always going about the country canvassing
against the election; and so many people came to dine with us that I
never saw before, it is quite charming!  But, poor fellow! it is very
fatiguing to him! for he is forced to make every body like him."

Elinor could hardly keep her countenance as she assented to the
hardship of such an obligation.

"How charming it will be," said Charlotte, "when he is in
Parliament!--won't it? How I shall laugh!  It will be so ridiculous to
see all his letters directed to him with an M.P.--But do you know, he
says, he will never frank for me?  He declares he won't.  Don't you,
Mr. Palmer?"

Mr. Palmer took no notice of her.

"He cannot bear writing, you know," she continued--"he says it is quite
shocking."

"No," said he, "I never said any thing so irrational.  Don't palm all
your abuses of languages upon me."

"There now; you see how droll he is.  This is always the way with him!
Sometimes he won't speak to me for half a day together, and then he
comes out with something so droll--all about any thing in the world."

She surprised Elinor very much as they returned into the drawing-room,
by asking her whether she did not like Mr. Palmer excessively.

"Certainly," said Elinor; "he seems very agreeable."

"Well--I am so glad you do.  I thought you would, he is so pleasant;
and Mr. Palmer is excessively pleased with you and your sisters I can
tell you, and you can't think how disappointed he will be if you don't
come to Cleveland.--I can't imagine why you should object to it."

Elinor was again obliged to decline her invitation; and by changing the
subject, put a stop to her entreaties.  She thought it probable that as
they lived in the same county, Mrs. Palmer might be able to give some
more particular account of Willoughby's general character, than could
be gathered from the Middletons' partial acquaintance with him; and she
was eager to gain from any one, such a confirmation of his merits as
might remove the possibility of fear from Marianne.  She began by
inquiring if they saw much of Mr. Willoughby at Cleveland, and whether
they were intimately acquainted with him.

"Oh dear, yes; I know him extremely well," replied Mrs. Palmer;--"Not
that I ever spoke to him, indeed; but I have seen him for ever in town.
Somehow or other I never happened to be staying at Barton while he was
at Allenham.  Mama saw him here once before;--but I was with my uncle
at Weymouth.  However, I dare say we should have seen a great deal of
him in Somersetshire, if it had not happened very unluckily that we
should never have been in the country together.  He is very little at
Combe, I believe; but if he were ever so much there, I do not think Mr.
Palmer would visit him, for he is in the opposition, you know, and
besides it is such a way off.  I know why you inquire about him, very
well; your sister is to marry him.  I am monstrous glad of it, for then
I shall have her for a neighbour you know."

"Upon my word," replied Elinor, "you know much more of the matter than
I do, if you have any reason to expect such a match."

"Don't pretend to deny it, because you know it is what every body talks
of.  I assure you I heard of it in my way through town."

"My dear Mrs. Palmer!"

"Upon my honour I did.--I met Colonel Brandon Monday morning in
Bond-street, just before we left town, and he told me of it directly."

"You surprise me very much.  Colonel Brandon tell you of it!  Surely
you must be mistaken.  To give such intelligence to a person who could
not be interested in it, even if it were true, is not what I should
expect Colonel Brandon to do."

"But I do assure you it was so, for all that, and I will tell you how
it happened.  When we met him, he turned back and walked with us; and
so we began talking of my brother and sister, and one thing and
another, and I said to him, 'So, Colonel, there is a new family come to
Barton cottage, I hear, and mama sends me word they are very pretty,
and that one of them is going to be married to Mr. Willoughby of Combe
Magna.  Is it true, pray? for of course you must know, as you have been
in Devonshire so lately.'"

"And what did the Colonel say?"

"Oh--he did not say much; but he looked as if he knew it to be true, so
from that moment I set it down as certain.  It will be quite
delightful, I declare!  When is it to take place?"

"Mr. Brandon was very well I hope?"

"Oh! yes, quite well; and so full of your praises, he did nothing but
say fine things of you."

"I am flattered by his commendation.  He seems an excellent man; and I
think him uncommonly pleasing."

"So do I.--He is such a charming man, that it is quite a pity he should
be so grave and so dull.  Mama says HE was in love with your sister
too.-- I assure you it was a great compliment if he was, for he hardly
ever falls in love with any body."

"Is Mr. Willoughby much known in your part of Somersetshire?" said
Elinor.

"Oh! yes, extremely well; that is, I do not believe many people are
acquainted with him, because Combe Magna is so far off; but they all
think him extremely agreeable I assure you.  Nobody is more liked than
Mr. Willoughby wherever he goes, and so you may tell your sister.  She
is a monstrous lucky girl to get him, upon my honour; not but that he
is much more lucky in getting her, because she is so very handsome and
agreeable, that nothing can be good enough for her.  However, I don't
think her hardly at all handsomer than you, I assure you; for I think
you both excessively pretty, and so does Mr. Palmer too I am sure,
though we could not get him to own it last night."

Mrs. Palmer's information respecting Willoughby was not very material;
but any testimony in his favour, however small, was pleasing to her.

"I am so glad we are got acquainted at last," continued
Charlotte.--"And now I hope we shall always be great friends.  You
can't think how much I longed to see you!  It is so delightful that you
should live at the cottage!  Nothing can be like it, to be sure!  And I
am so glad your sister is going to be well married!  I hope you will be
a great deal at Combe Magna.  It is a sweet place, by all accounts."

"You have been long acquainted with Colonel Brandon, have not you?"

"Yes, a great while; ever since my sister married.-- He was a
particular friend of Sir John's. I believe," she added in a low voice,
"he would have been very glad to have had me, if he could.  Sir John
and Lady Middleton wished it very much.  But mama did not think the
match good enough for me, otherwise Sir John would have mentioned it to
the Colonel, and we should have been married immediately."

"Did not Colonel Brandon know of Sir John's proposal to your mother
before it was made?  Had he never owned his affection to yourself?"

"Oh, no; but if mama had not objected to it, I dare say he would have
liked it of all things.  He had not seen me then above twice, for it
was before I left school.  However, I am much happier as I am.  Mr.
Palmer is the kind of man I like."



CHAPTER 21


The Palmers returned to Cleveland the next day, and the two families at
Barton were again left to entertain each other.  But this did not last
long; Elinor had hardly got their last visitors out of her head, had
hardly done wondering at Charlotte's being so happy without a cause, at
Mr. Palmer's acting so simply, with good abilities, and at the strange
unsuitableness which often existed between husband and wife, before Sir
John's and Mrs. Jennings's active zeal in the cause of society,
procured her some other new acquaintance to see and observe.

In a morning's excursion to Exeter, they had met with two young ladies,
whom Mrs. Jennings had the satisfaction of discovering to be her
relations, and this was enough for Sir John to invite them directly to
the park, as soon as their present engagements at Exeter were over.
Their engagements at Exeter instantly gave way before such an
invitation, and Lady Middleton was thrown into no little alarm on the
return of Sir John, by hearing that she was very soon to receive a
visit from two girls whom she had never seen in her life, and of whose
elegance,--whose tolerable gentility even, she could have no proof; for
the assurances of her husband and mother on that subject went for
nothing at all.  Their being her relations too made it so much the
worse; and Mrs. Jennings's attempts at consolation were therefore
unfortunately founded, when she advised her daughter not to care about
their being so fashionable; because they were all cousins and must put
up with one another.  As it was impossible, however, now to prevent
their coming, Lady Middleton resigned herself to the idea of it, with
all the philosophy of a well-bred woman, contenting herself with merely
giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject five or six times
every day.

The young ladies arrived: their appearance was by no means ungenteel or
unfashionable.  Their dress was very smart, their manners very civil,
they were delighted with the house, and in raptures with the furniture,
and they happened to be so doatingly fond of children that Lady
Middleton's good opinion was engaged in their favour before they had
been an hour at the Park.  She declared them to be very agreeable girls
indeed, which for her ladyship was enthusiastic admiration.  Sir John's
confidence in his own judgment rose with this animated praise, and he
set off directly for the cottage to tell the Miss Dashwoods of the Miss
Steeles' arrival, and to assure them of their being the sweetest girls
in the world.  From such commendation as this, however, there was not
much to be learned; Elinor well knew that the sweetest girls in the
world were to be met with in every part of England, under every
possible variation of form, face, temper and understanding.  Sir John
wanted the whole family to walk to the Park directly and look at his
guests.  Benevolent, philanthropic man!  It was painful to him even to
keep a third cousin to himself.

"Do come now," said he--"pray come--you must come--I declare you shall
come--You can't think how you will like them.  Lucy is monstrous
pretty, and so good humoured and agreeable!  The children are all
hanging about her already, as if she was an old acquaintance.  And they
both long to see you of all things, for they have heard at Exeter that
you are the most beautiful creatures in the world; and I have told them
it is all very true, and a great deal more.  You will be delighted with
them I am sure.  They have brought the whole coach full of playthings
for the children.  How can you be so cross as not to come?  Why they
are your cousins, you know, after a fashion.  YOU are my cousins, and
they are my wife's, so you must be related."

But Sir John could not prevail.  He could only obtain a promise of
their calling at the Park within a day or two, and then left them in
amazement at their indifference, to walk home and boast anew of their
attractions to the Miss Steeles, as he had been already boasting of the
Miss Steeles to them.

When their promised visit to the Park and consequent introduction to
these young ladies took place, they found in the appearance of the
eldest, who was nearly thirty, with a very plain and not a sensible
face, nothing to admire; but in the other, who was not more than two or
three and twenty, they acknowledged considerable beauty; her features
were pretty, and she had a sharp quick eye, and a smartness of air,
which though it did not give actual elegance or grace, gave distinction
to her person.-- Their manners were particularly civil, and Elinor soon
allowed them credit for some kind of sense, when she saw with what
constant and judicious attention they were making themselves agreeable
to Lady Middleton.  With her children they were in continual raptures,
extolling their beauty, courting their notice, and humouring their
whims; and such of their time as could be spared from the importunate
demands which this politeness made on it, was spent in admiration of
whatever her ladyship was doing, if she happened to be doing any thing,
or in taking patterns of some elegant new dress, in which her
appearance the day before had thrown them into unceasing delight.
Fortunately for those who pay their court through such foibles, a fond
mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most
rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands
are exorbitant; but she will swallow any thing; and the excessive
affection and endurance of the Miss Steeles towards her offspring were
viewed therefore by Lady Middleton without the smallest surprise or
distrust.  She saw with maternal complacency all the impertinent
encroachments and mischievous tricks to which her cousins submitted.
She saw their sashes untied, their hair pulled about their ears, their
work-bags searched, and their knives and scissors stolen away, and felt
no doubt of its being a reciprocal enjoyment.  It suggested no other
surprise than that Elinor and Marianne should sit so composedly by,
without claiming a share in what was passing.

"John is in such spirits today!" said she, on his taking Miss Steeles's
pocket handkerchief, and throwing it out of window--"He is full of
monkey tricks."

And soon afterwards, on the second boy's violently pinching one of the
same lady's fingers, she fondly observed, "How playful William is!"

"And here is my sweet little Annamaria," she added, tenderly caressing
a little girl of three years old, who had not made a noise for the last
two minutes; "And she is always so gentle and quiet--Never was there
such a quiet little thing!"

But unfortunately in bestowing these embraces, a pin in her ladyship's
head dress slightly scratching the child's neck, produced from this
pattern of gentleness such violent screams, as could hardly be outdone
by any creature professedly noisy.  The mother's consternation was
excessive; but it could not surpass the alarm of the Miss Steeles, and
every thing was done by all three, in so critical an emergency, which
affection could suggest as likely to assuage the agonies of the little
sufferer.  She was seated in her mother's lap, covered with kisses, her
wound bathed with lavender-water, by one of the Miss Steeles, who was
on her knees to attend her, and her mouth stuffed with sugar plums by
the other.  With such a reward for her tears, the child was too wise to
cease crying.  She still screamed and sobbed lustily, kicked her two
brothers for offering to touch her, and all their united soothings were
ineffectual till Lady Middleton luckily remembering that in a scene of
similar distress last week, some apricot marmalade had been
successfully applied for a bruised temple, the same remedy was eagerly
proposed for this unfortunate scratch, and a slight intermission of
screams in the young lady on hearing it, gave them reason to hope that
it would not be rejected.-- She was carried out of the room therefore
in her mother's arms, in quest of this medicine, and as the two boys
chose to follow, though earnestly entreated by their mother to stay
behind, the four young ladies were left in a quietness which the room
had not known for many hours.

"Poor little creatures!" said Miss Steele, as soon as they were gone.
"It might have been a very sad accident."

"Yet I hardly know how," cried Marianne, "unless it had been under
totally different circumstances.  But this is the usual way of
heightening alarm, where there is nothing to be alarmed at in reality."

"What a sweet woman Lady Middleton is!" said Lucy Steele.

Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not
feel, however trivial the occasion; and upon Elinor therefore the whole
task of telling lies when politeness required it, always fell.  She did
her best when thus called on, by speaking of Lady Middleton with more
warmth than she felt, though with far less than Miss Lucy.

"And Sir John too," cried the elder sister, "what a charming man he is!"

Here too, Miss Dashwood's commendation, being only simple and just,
came in without any eclat.  She merely observed that he was perfectly
good humoured and friendly.

"And what a charming little family they have!  I never saw such fine
children in my life.--I declare I quite doat upon them already, and
indeed I am always distractedly fond of children."

"I should guess so," said Elinor, with a smile, "from what I have
witnessed this morning."

"I have a notion," said Lucy, "you think the little Middletons rather
too much indulged; perhaps they may be the outside of enough; but it is
so natural in Lady Middleton; and for my part, I love to see children
full of life and spirits; I cannot bear them if they are tame and
quiet."

"I confess," replied Elinor, "that while I am at Barton Park, I never
think of tame and quiet children with any abhorrence."

A short pause succeeded this speech, which was first broken by Miss
Steele, who seemed very much disposed for conversation, and who now
said rather abruptly, "And how do you like Devonshire, Miss Dashwood?
I suppose you were very sorry to leave Sussex."

In some surprise at the familiarity of this question, or at least of
the manner in which it was spoken, Elinor replied that she was.

"Norland is a prodigious beautiful place, is not it?" added Miss Steele.

"We have heard Sir John admire it excessively," said Lucy, who seemed
to think some apology necessary for the freedom of her sister.

"I think every one MUST admire it," replied Elinor, "who ever saw the
place; though it is not to be supposed that any one can estimate its
beauties as we do."

"And had you a great many smart beaux there?  I suppose you have not so
many in this part of the world; for my part, I think they are a vast
addition always."

"But why should you think," said Lucy, looking ashamed of her sister,
"that there are not as many genteel young men in Devonshire as Sussex?"

"Nay, my dear, I'm sure I don't pretend to say that there an't.  I'm
sure there's a vast many smart beaux in Exeter; but you know, how could
I tell what smart beaux there might be about Norland; and I was only
afraid the Miss Dashwoods might find it dull at Barton, if they had not
so many as they used to have.  But perhaps you young ladies may not
care about the beaux, and had as lief be without them as with them.
For my part, I think they are vastly agreeable, provided they dress
smart and behave civil.  But I can't bear to see them dirty and nasty.
Now there's Mr. Rose at Exeter, a prodigious smart young man, quite a
beau, clerk to Mr. Simpson, you know, and yet if you do but meet him of
a morning, he is not fit to be seen.-- I suppose your brother was quite
a beau, Miss Dashwood, before he married, as he was so rich?"

"Upon my word," replied Elinor, "I cannot tell you, for I do not
perfectly comprehend the meaning of the word.  But this I can say, that
if he ever was a beau before he married, he is one still for there is
not the smallest alteration in him."

"Oh! dear! one never thinks of married men's being beaux--they have
something else to do."

"Lord! Anne," cried her sister, "you can talk of nothing but
beaux;--you will make Miss Dashwood believe you think of nothing else."
And then to turn the discourse, she began admiring the house and the
furniture.

This specimen of the Miss Steeles was enough.  The vulgar freedom and
folly of the eldest left her no recommendation, and as Elinor was not
blinded by the beauty, or the shrewd look of the youngest, to her want
of real elegance and artlessness, she left the house without any wish
of knowing them better.

Not so the Miss Steeles.--They came from Exeter, well provided with
admiration for the use of Sir John Middleton, his family, and all his
relations, and no niggardly proportion was now dealt out to his fair
cousins, whom they declared to be the most beautiful, elegant,
accomplished, and agreeable girls they had ever beheld, and with whom
they were particularly anxious to be better acquainted.-- And to be
better acquainted therefore, Elinor soon found was their inevitable
lot, for as Sir John was entirely on the side of the Miss Steeles,
their party would be too strong for opposition, and that kind of
intimacy must be submitted to, which consists of sitting an hour or two
together in the same room almost every day.  Sir John could do no more;
but he did not know that any more was required: to be together was, in
his opinion, to be intimate, and while his continual schemes for their
meeting were effectual, he had not a doubt of their being established
friends.

To do him justice, he did every thing in his power to promote their
unreserve, by making the Miss Steeles acquainted with whatever he knew
or supposed of his cousins' situations in the most delicate
particulars,--and Elinor had not seen them more than twice, before the
eldest of them wished her joy on her sister's having been so lucky as
to make a conquest of a very smart beau since she came to Barton.

"'Twill be a fine thing to have her married so young to be sure," said
she, "and I hear he is quite a beau, and prodigious handsome.  And I
hope you may have as good luck yourself soon,--but perhaps you may have
a friend in the corner already."

Elinor could not suppose that Sir John would be more nice in
proclaiming his suspicions of her regard for Edward, than he had been
with respect to Marianne; indeed it was rather his favourite joke of
the two, as being somewhat newer and more conjectural; and since
Edward's visit, they had never dined together without his drinking to
her best affections with so much significancy and so many nods and
winks, as to excite general attention.  The letter F--had been likewise
invariably brought forward, and found productive of such countless
jokes, that its character as the wittiest letter in the alphabet had
been long established with Elinor.

The Miss Steeles, as she expected, had now all the benefit of these
jokes, and in the eldest of them they raised a curiosity to know the
name of the gentleman alluded to, which, though often impertinently
expressed, was perfectly of a piece with her general inquisitiveness
into the concerns of their family.  But Sir John did not sport long
with the curiosity which he delighted to raise, for he had at least as
much pleasure in telling the name, as Miss Steele had in hearing it.

"His name is Ferrars," said he, in a very audible whisper; "but pray do
not tell it, for it's a great secret."

"Ferrars!" repeated Miss Steele; "Mr. Ferrars is the happy man, is he?
What! your sister-in-law's brother, Miss Dashwood? a very agreeable
young man to be sure; I know him very well."

"How can you say so, Anne?" cried Lucy, who generally made an amendment
to all her sister's assertions.  "Though we have seen him once or twice
at my uncle's, it is rather too much to pretend to know him very well."

Elinor heard all this with attention and surprise.  "And who was this
uncle?  Where did he live?  How came they acquainted?"  She wished very
much to have the subject continued, though she did not chuse to join in
it herself; but nothing more of it was said, and for the first time in
her life, she thought Mrs. Jennings deficient either in curiosity after
petty information, or in a disposition to communicate it.  The manner
in which Miss Steele had spoken of Edward, increased her curiosity; for
it struck her as being rather ill-natured, and suggested the suspicion
of that lady's knowing, or fancying herself to know something to his
disadvantage.--But her curiosity was unavailing, for no farther notice
was taken of Mr. Ferrars's name by Miss Steele when alluded to, or even
openly mentioned by Sir John.



CHAPTER 22


Marianne, who had never much toleration for any thing like
impertinence, vulgarity, inferiority of parts, or even difference of
taste from herself, was at this time particularly ill-disposed, from
the state of her spirits, to be pleased with the Miss Steeles, or to
encourage their advances; and to the invariable coldness of her
behaviour towards them, which checked every endeavour at intimacy on
their side, Elinor principally attributed that preference of herself
which soon became evident in the manners of both, but especially of
Lucy, who missed no opportunity of engaging her in conversation, or of
striving to improve their acquaintance by an easy and frank
communication of her sentiments.

Lucy was naturally clever; her remarks were often just and amusing; and
as a companion for half an hour Elinor frequently found her agreeable;
but her powers had received no aid from education: she was ignorant and
illiterate; and her deficiency of all mental improvement, her want of
information in the most common particulars, could not be concealed from
Miss Dashwood, in spite of her constant endeavour to appear to
advantage.  Elinor saw, and pitied her for, the neglect of abilities
which education might have rendered so respectable; but she saw, with
less tenderness of feeling, the thorough want of delicacy, of
rectitude, and integrity of mind, which her attentions, her
assiduities, her flatteries at the Park betrayed; and she could have no
lasting satisfaction in the company of a person who joined insincerity
with ignorance; whose want of instruction prevented their meeting in
conversation on terms of equality, and whose conduct toward others made
every shew of attention and deference towards herself perfectly
valueless.

"You will think my question an odd one, I dare say," said Lucy to her
one day, as they were walking together from the park to the
cottage--"but pray, are you personally acquainted with your
sister-in-law's mother, Mrs. Ferrars?"

Elinor DID think the question a very odd one, and her countenance
expressed it, as she answered that she had never seen Mrs. Ferrars.

"Indeed!" replied Lucy; "I wonder at that, for I thought you must have
seen her at Norland sometimes.  Then, perhaps, you cannot tell me what
sort of a woman she is?"

"No," returned Elinor, cautious of giving her real opinion of Edward's
mother, and not very desirous of satisfying what seemed impertinent
curiosity-- "I know nothing of her."

"I am sure you think me very strange, for enquiring about her in such a
way," said Lucy, eyeing Elinor attentively as she spoke; "but perhaps
there may be reasons--I wish I might venture; but however I hope you
will do me the justice of believing that I do not mean to be
impertinent."

Elinor made her a civil reply, and they walked on for a few minutes in
silence.  It was broken by Lucy, who renewed the subject again by
saying, with some hesitation,

"I cannot bear to have you think me impertinently curious.  I am sure I
would rather do any thing in the world than be thought so by a person
whose good opinion is so well worth having as yours.  And I am sure I
should not have the smallest fear of trusting YOU; indeed, I should be
very glad of your advice how to manage in such an uncomfortable
situation as I am; but, however, there is no occasion to trouble YOU.
I am sorry you do not happen to know Mrs. Ferrars."

"I am sorry I do NOT," said Elinor, in great astonishment, "if it could
be of any use to YOU to know my opinion of her.  But really I never
understood that you were at all connected with that family, and
therefore I am a little surprised, I confess, at so serious an inquiry
into her character."

"I dare say you are, and I am sure I do not at all wonder at it.  But
if I dared tell you all, you would not be so much surprised.  Mrs.
Ferrars is certainly nothing to me at present--but the time MAY
come--how soon it will come must depend upon herself--when we may be
very intimately connected."

She looked down as she said this, amiably bashful, with only one side
glance at her companion to observe its effect on her.

"Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "what do you mean?  Are you acquainted
with Mr. Robert Ferrars?  Can you be?" And she did not feel much
delighted with the idea of such a sister-in-law.

"No," replied Lucy, "not to Mr. ROBERT Ferrars--I never saw him in my
life; but," fixing her eyes upon Elinor, "to his eldest brother."

What felt Elinor at that moment? Astonishment, that would have been as
painful as it was strong, had not an immediate disbelief of the
assertion attended it.  She turned towards Lucy in silent amazement,
unable to divine the reason or object of such a declaration; and though
her complexion varied, she stood firm in incredulity, and felt in no
danger of an hysterical fit, or a swoon.

"You may well be surprised," continued Lucy; "for to be sure you could
have had no idea of it before; for I dare say he never dropped the
smallest hint of it to you or any of your family; because it was always
meant to be a great secret, and I am sure has been faithfully kept so
by me to this hour.  Not a soul of all my relations know of it but
Anne, and I never should have mentioned it to you, if I had not felt
the greatest dependence in the world upon your secrecy; and I really
thought my behaviour in asking so many questions about Mrs. Ferrars
must seem so odd, that it ought to be explained.  And I do not think
Mr. Ferrars can be displeased, when he knows I have trusted you,
because I know he has the highest opinion in the world of all your
family, and looks upon yourself and the other Miss Dashwoods quite as
his own sisters."--She paused.

Elinor for a few moments remained silent.  Her astonishment at what she
heard was at first too great for words; but at length forcing herself
to speak, and to speak cautiously, she said, with calmness of manner,
which tolerably well concealed her surprise and solicitude-- "May I ask
if your engagement is of long standing?"

"We have been engaged these four years."

"Four years!"

"Yes."

Elinor, though greatly shocked, still felt unable to believe it.

"I did not know," said she, "that you were even acquainted till the
other day."

"Our acquaintance, however, is of many years date.  He was under my
uncle's care, you know, a considerable while."

"Your uncle!"

"Yes; Mr. Pratt.  Did you never hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?"

"I think I have," replied Elinor, with an exertion of spirits, which
increased with her increase of emotion.

"He was four years with my uncle, who lives at Longstaple, near
Plymouth.  It was there our acquaintance begun, for my sister and me
was often staying with my uncle, and it was there our engagement was
formed, though not till a year after he had quitted as a pupil; but he
was almost always with us afterwards.  I was very unwilling to enter
into it, as you may imagine, without the knowledge and approbation of
his mother; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so
prudent as I ought to have been.-- Though you do not know him so well
as me, Miss Dashwood, you must have seen enough of him to be sensible
he is very capable of making a woman sincerely attached to him."

"Certainly," answered Elinor, without knowing what she said; but after
a moment's reflection, she added, with revived security of Edward's
honour and love, and her companion's falsehood--"Engaged to Mr. Edward
Ferrars!--I confess myself so totally surprised at what you tell me,
that really--I beg your pardon; but surely there must be some mistake
of person or name.  We cannot mean the same Mr. Ferrars."

"We can mean no other," cried Lucy, smiling.  "Mr. Edward Ferrars, the
eldest son of Mrs. Ferrars, of Park Street, and brother of your
sister-in-law, Mrs. John Dashwood, is the person I mean; you must allow
that I am not likely to be deceived as to the name of the man on who
all my happiness depends."

"It is strange," replied Elinor, in a most painful perplexity, "that I
should never have heard him even mention your name."

"No; considering our situation, it was not strange.  Our first care has
been to keep the matter secret.-- You knew nothing of me, or my family,
and, therefore, there could be no OCCASION for ever mentioning my name
to you; and, as he was always particularly afraid of his sister's
suspecting any thing, THAT was reason enough for his not mentioning it."

She was silent.--Elinor's security sunk; but her self-command did not
sink with it.

"Four years you have been engaged," said she with a firm voice.

"Yes; and heaven knows how much longer we may have to wait.  Poor
Edward!  It puts him quite out of heart." Then taking a small miniature
from her pocket, she added, "To prevent the possibility of mistake, be
so good as to look at this face.  It does not do him justice, to be
sure, but yet I think you cannot be deceived as to the person it was
drew for.--I have had it above these three years."

She put it into her hands as she spoke; and when Elinor saw the
painting, whatever other doubts her fear of a too hasty decision, or
her wish of detecting falsehood might suffer to linger in her mind, she
could have none of its being Edward's face.  She returned it almost
instantly, acknowledging the likeness.

"I have never been able," continued Lucy, "to give him my picture in
return, which I am very much vexed at, for he has been always so
anxious to get it!  But I am determined to set for it the very first
opportunity."

"You are quite in the right," replied Elinor calmly.  They then
proceeded a few paces in silence.  Lucy spoke first.

"I am sure," said she, "I have no doubt in the world of your faithfully
keeping this secret, because you must know of what importance it is to
us, not to have it reach his mother; for she would never approve of it,
I dare say.  I shall have no fortune, and I fancy she is an exceeding
proud woman."

"I certainly did not seek your confidence," said Elinor; "but you do me
no more than justice in imagining that I may be depended on.  Your
secret is safe with me; but pardon me if I express some surprise at so
unnecessary a communication.  You must at least have felt that my being
acquainted with it could not add to its safety."

As she said this, she looked earnestly at Lucy, hoping to discover
something in her countenance; perhaps the falsehood of the greatest
part of what she had been saying; but Lucy's countenance suffered no
change.

"I was afraid you would think I was taking a great liberty with you,"
said she, "in telling you all this.  I have not known you long to be
sure, personally at least, but I have known you and all your family by
description a great while; and as soon as I saw you, I felt almost as
if you was an old acquaintance.  Besides in the present case, I really
thought some explanation was due to you after my making such particular
inquiries about Edward's mother; and I am so unfortunate, that I have
not a creature whose advice I can ask.  Anne is the only person that
knows of it, and she has no judgment at all; indeed, she does me a
great deal more harm than good, for I am in constant fear of her
betraying me.  She does not know how to hold her tongue, as you must
perceive, and I am sure I was in the greatest fright in the world
t'other day, when Edward's name was mentioned by Sir John, lest she
should out with it all.  You can't think how much I go through in my
mind from it altogether.  I only wonder that I am alive after what I
have suffered for Edward's sake these last four years.  Every thing in
such suspense and uncertainty; and seeing him so seldom--we can hardly
meet above twice a-year.  I am sure I wonder my heart is not quite
broke."

Here she took out her handkerchief; but Elinor did not feel very
compassionate.

"Sometimes." continued Lucy, after wiping her eyes, "I think whether it
would not be better for us both to break off the matter entirely."  As
she said this, she looked directly at her companion.  "But then at
other times I have not resolution enough for it.-- I cannot bear the
thoughts of making him so miserable, as I know the very mention of such
a thing would do.  And on my own account too--so dear as he is to me--I
don't think I could be equal to it.  What would you advise me to do in
such a case, Miss Dashwood?  What would you do yourself?"

"Pardon me," replied Elinor, startled by the question; "but I can give
you no advice under such circumstances.  Your own judgment must direct
you."

"To be sure," continued Lucy, after a few minutes silence on both
sides, "his mother must provide for him sometime or other; but poor
Edward is so cast down by it!  Did you not think him dreadful
low-spirited when he was at Barton?  He was so miserable when he left
us at Longstaple, to go to you, that I was afraid you would think him
quite ill."

"Did he come from your uncle's, then, when he visited us?"

"Oh, yes; he had been staying a fortnight with us.  Did you think he
came directly from town?"

"No," replied Elinor, most feelingly sensible of every fresh
circumstance in favour of Lucy's veracity; "I remember he told us, that
he had been staying a fortnight with some friends near Plymouth." She
remembered too, her own surprise at the time, at his mentioning nothing
farther of those friends, at his total silence with respect even to
their names.

"Did not you think him sadly out of spirits?" repeated Lucy.

"We did, indeed, particularly so when he first arrived."

"I begged him to exert himself for fear you should suspect what was the
matter; but it made him so melancholy, not being able to stay more than
a fortnight with us, and seeing me so much affected.-- Poor fellow!--I
am afraid it is just the same with him now; for he writes in wretched
spirits.  I heard from him just before I left Exeter;" taking a letter
from her pocket and carelessly showing the direction to Elinor.  "You
know his hand, I dare say, a charming one it is; but that is not
written so well as usual.--He was tired, I dare say, for he had just
filled the sheet to me as full as possible."

Elinor saw that it WAS his hand, and she could doubt no longer.  This
picture, she had allowed herself to believe, might have been
accidentally obtained; it might not have been Edward's gift; but a
correspondence between them by letter, could subsist only under a
positive engagement, could be authorised by nothing else; for a few
moments, she was almost overcome--her heart sunk within her, and she
could hardly stand; but exertion was indispensably necessary; and she
struggled so resolutely against the oppression of her feelings, that
her success was speedy, and for the time complete.

"Writing to each other," said Lucy, returning the letter into her
pocket, "is the only comfort we have in such long separations.  Yes, I
have one other comfort in his picture, but poor Edward has not even
THAT.  If he had but my picture, he says he should be easy.  I gave him
a lock of my hair set in a ring when he was at Longstaple last, and
that was some comfort to him, he said, but not equal to a picture.
Perhaps you might notice the ring when you saw him?"

"I did," said Elinor, with a composure of voice, under which was
concealed an emotion and distress beyond any thing she had ever felt
before.  She was mortified, shocked, confounded.

Fortunately for her, they had now reached the cottage, and the
conversation could be continued no farther.  After sitting with them a
few minutes, the Miss Steeles returned to the Park, and Elinor was then
at liberty to think and be wretched.





[At this point in the first and second editions, Volume 1 ends.]





CHAPTER 23


However small Elinor's general dependence on Lucy's veracity might be,
it was impossible for her on serious reflection to suspect it in the
present case, where no temptation could be answerable to the folly of
inventing a falsehood of such a description.  What Lucy had asserted to
be true, therefore, Elinor could not, dared not longer doubt; supported
as it was too on every side by such probabilities and proofs, and
contradicted by nothing but her own wishes.  Their opportunity of
acquaintance in the house of Mr. Pratt was a foundation for the rest,
at once indisputable and alarming; and Edward's visit near Plymouth,
his melancholy state of mind, his dissatisfaction at his own prospects,
his uncertain behaviour towards herself, the intimate knowledge of the
Miss Steeles as to Norland and their family connections, which had
often surprised her, the picture, the letter, the ring, formed
altogether such a body of evidence, as overcame every fear of
condemning him unfairly, and established as a fact, which no partiality
could set aside, his ill-treatment of herself.--Her resentment of such
behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe, for a short time
made her feel only for herself; but other ideas, other considerations,
soon arose.  Had Edward been intentionally deceiving her?  Had he
feigned a regard for her which he did not feel?  Was his engagement to
Lucy an engagement of the heart?  No; whatever it might once have been,
she could not believe it such at present.  His affection was all her
own.  She could not be deceived in that.  Her mother, sisters, Fanny,
all had been conscious of his regard for her at Norland; it was not an
illusion of her own vanity.  He certainly loved her.  What a softener
of the heart was this persuasion!  How much could it not tempt her to
forgive!  He had been blamable, highly blamable, in remaining at
Norland after he first felt her influence over him to be more than it
ought to be.  In that, he could not be defended; but if he had injured
her, how much more had he injured himself; if her case were pitiable,
his was hopeless.  His imprudence had made her miserable for a while;
but it seemed to have deprived himself of all chance of ever being
otherwise.  She might in time regain tranquillity; but HE, what had he
to look forward to?  Could he ever be tolerably happy with Lucy Steele;
could he, were his affection for herself out of the question, with his
integrity, his delicacy, and well-informed mind, be satisfied with a
wife like her--illiterate, artful, and selfish?

The youthful infatuation of nineteen would naturally blind him to every
thing but her beauty and good nature; but the four succeeding
years--years, which if rationally spent, give such improvement to the
understanding, must have opened his eyes to her defects of education,
while the same period of time, spent on her side in inferior society
and more frivolous pursuits, had perhaps robbed her of that simplicity
which might once have given an interesting character to her beauty.

If in the supposition of his seeking to marry herself, his difficulties
from his mother had seemed great, how much greater were they now likely
to be, when the object of his engagement was undoubtedly inferior in
connections, and probably inferior in fortune to herself.  These
difficulties, indeed, with a heart so alienated from Lucy, might not
press very hard upon his patience; but melancholy was the state of the
person by whom the expectation of family opposition and unkindness,
could be felt as a relief!

As these considerations occurred to her in painful succession, she wept
for him, more than for herself.  Supported by the conviction of having
done nothing to merit her present unhappiness, and consoled by the
belief that Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem, she thought
she could even now, under the first smart of the heavy blow, command
herself enough to guard every suspicion of the truth from her mother
and sisters.  And so well was she able to answer her own expectations,
that when she joined them at dinner only two hours after she had first
suffered the extinction of all her dearest hopes, no one would have
supposed from the appearance of the sisters, that Elinor was mourning
in secret over obstacles which must divide her for ever from the object
of her love, and that Marianne was internally dwelling on the
perfections of a man, of whose whole heart she felt thoroughly
possessed, and whom she expected to see in every carriage which drove
near their house.

The necessity of concealing from her mother and Marianne, what had been
entrusted in confidence to herself, though it obliged her to unceasing
exertion, was no aggravation of Elinor's distress.  On the contrary it
was a relief to her, to be spared the communication of what would give
such affliction to them, and to be saved likewise from hearing that
condemnation of Edward, which would probably flow from the excess of
their partial affection for herself, and which was more than she felt
equal to support.

From their counsel, or their conversation, she knew she could receive
no assistance, their tenderness and sorrow must add to her distress,
while her self-command would neither receive encouragement from their
example nor from their praise.  She was stronger alone, and her own
good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken,
her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as with regrets so
poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be.

Much as she had suffered from her first conversation with Lucy on the
subject, she soon felt an earnest wish of renewing it; and this for
more reasons than one.  She wanted to hear many particulars of their
engagement repeated again, she wanted more clearly to understand what
Lucy really felt for Edward, whether there were any sincerity in her
declaration of tender regard for him, and she particularly wanted to
convince Lucy, by her readiness to enter on the matter again, and her
calmness in conversing on it, that she was no otherwise interested in
it than as a friend, which she very much feared her involuntary
agitation, in their morning discourse, must have left at least
doubtful.  That Lucy was disposed to be jealous of her appeared very
probable: it was plain that Edward had always spoken highly in her
praise, not merely from Lucy's assertion, but from her venturing to
trust her on so short a personal acquaintance, with a secret so
confessedly and evidently important.  And even Sir John's joking
intelligence must have had some weight.  But indeed, while Elinor
remained so well assured within herself of being really beloved by
Edward, it required no other consideration of probabilities to make it
natural that Lucy should be jealous; and that she was so, her very
confidence was a proof.  What other reason for the disclosure of the
affair could there be, but that Elinor might be informed by it of
Lucy's superior claims on Edward, and be taught to avoid him in future?
She had little difficulty in understanding thus much of her rival's
intentions, and while she was firmly resolved to act by her as every
principle of honour and honesty directed, to combat her own affection
for Edward and to see him as little as possible; she could not deny
herself the comfort of endeavouring to convince Lucy that her heart was
unwounded.  And as she could now have nothing more painful to hear on
the subject than had already been told, she did not mistrust her own
ability of going through a repetition of particulars with composure.

But it was not immediately that an opportunity of doing so could be
commanded, though Lucy was as well disposed as herself to take
advantage of any that occurred; for the weather was not often fine
enough to allow of their joining in a walk, where they might most
easily separate themselves from the others; and though they met at
least every other evening either at the park or cottage, and chiefly at
the former, they could not be supposed to meet for the sake of
conversation.  Such a thought would never enter either Sir John or Lady
Middleton's head; and therefore very little leisure was ever given for
a general chat, and none at all for particular discourse.  They met for
the sake of eating, drinking, and laughing together, playing at cards,
or consequences, or any other game that was sufficiently noisy.

One or two meetings of this kind had taken place, without affording
Elinor any chance of engaging Lucy in private, when Sir John called at
the cottage one morning, to beg, in the name of charity, that they
would all dine with Lady Middleton that day, as he was obliged to
attend the club at Exeter, and she would otherwise be quite alone,
except her mother and the two Miss Steeles.  Elinor, who foresaw a
fairer opening for the point she had in view, in such a party as this
was likely to be, more at liberty among themselves under the tranquil
and well-bred direction of Lady Middleton than when her husband united
them together in one noisy purpose, immediately accepted the
invitation; Margaret, with her mother's permission, was equally
compliant, and Marianne, though always unwilling to join any of their
parties, was persuaded by her mother, who could not bear to have her
seclude herself from any chance of amusement, to go likewise.

The young ladies went, and Lady Middleton was happily preserved from
the frightful solitude which had threatened her.  The insipidity of the
meeting was exactly such as Elinor had expected; it produced not one
novelty of thought or expression, and nothing could be less interesting
than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and
drawing room: to the latter, the children accompanied them, and while
they remained there, she was too well convinced of the impossibility of
engaging Lucy's attention to attempt it.  They quitted it only with the
removal of the tea-things.  The card-table was then placed, and Elinor
began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of
finding time for conversation at the park.  They all rose up in
preparation for a round game.

"I am glad," said Lady Middleton to Lucy, "you are not going to finish
poor little Annamaria's basket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt
your eyes to work filigree by candlelight.  And we will make the dear
little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and then I
hope she will not much mind it."

This hint was enough, Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied,
"Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton; I am only waiting
to know whether you can make your party without me, or I should have
been at my filigree already.  I would not disappoint the little angel
for all the world: and if you want me at the card-table now, I am
resolved to finish the basket after supper."

"You are very good, I hope it won't hurt your eyes--will you ring the
bell for some working candles?  My poor little girl would be sadly
disappointed, I know, if the basket was not finished tomorrow, for
though I told her it certainly would not, I am sure she depends upon
having it done."

Lucy directly drew her work table near her and reseated herself with an
alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could taste no
greater delight than in making a filigree basket for a spoilt child.

Lady Middleton proposed a rubber of Casino to the others.  No one made
any objection but Marianne, who with her usual inattention to the forms
of general civility, exclaimed, "Your Ladyship will have the goodness
to excuse ME--you know I detest cards.  I shall go to the piano-forte;
I have not touched it since it was tuned."  And without farther
ceremony, she turned away and walked to the instrument.

Lady Middleton looked as if she thanked heaven that SHE had never made
so rude a speech.

"Marianne can never keep long from that instrument you know, ma'am,"
said Elinor, endeavouring to smooth away the offence; "and I do not
much wonder at it; for it is the very best toned piano-forte I ever
heard."

The remaining five were now to draw their cards.

"Perhaps," continued Elinor, "if I should happen to cut out, I may be
of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and
there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be
impossible I think for her labour singly, to finish it this evening.  I
should like the work exceedingly, if she would allow me a share in it."

"Indeed I shall be very much obliged to you for your help," cried Lucy,
"for I find there is more to be done to it than I thought there was;
and it would be a shocking thing to disappoint dear Annamaria after
all."

"Oh! that would be terrible, indeed," said Miss Steele-- "Dear little
soul, how I do love her!"

"You are very kind," said Lady Middleton to Elinor; "and as you really
like the work, perhaps you will be as well pleased not to cut in till
another rubber, or will you take your chance now?"

Elinor joyfully profited by the first of these proposals, and thus by a
little of that address which Marianne could never condescend to
practise, gained her own end, and pleased Lady Middleton at the same
time.  Lucy made room for her with ready attention, and the two fair
rivals were thus seated side by side at the same table, and, with the
utmost harmony, engaged in forwarding the same work.  The pianoforte at
which Marianne, wrapped up in her own music and her own thoughts, had
by this time forgotten that any body was in the room besides herself,
was luckily so near them that Miss Dashwood now judged she might
safely, under the shelter of its noise, introduce the interesting
subject, without any risk of being heard at the card-table.



CHAPTER 24


In a firm, though cautious tone, Elinor thus began.

"I should be undeserving of the confidence you have honoured me with,
if I felt no desire for its continuance, or no farther curiosity on its
subject.  I will not apologize therefore for bringing it forward again."

"Thank you," cried Lucy warmly, "for breaking the ice; you have set my
heart at ease by it; for I was somehow or other afraid I had offended
you by what I told you that Monday."

"Offended me! How could you suppose so? Believe me," and Elinor spoke
it with the truest sincerity, "nothing could be farther from my
intention than to give you such an idea.  Could you have a motive for
the trust, that was not honourable and flattering to me?"

"And yet I do assure you," replied Lucy, her little sharp eyes full of
meaning, "there seemed to me to be a coldness and displeasure in your
manner that made me quite uncomfortable.  I felt sure that you was
angry with me; and have been quarrelling with myself ever since, for
having took such a liberty as to trouble you with my affairs.  But I am
very glad to find it was only my own fancy, and that you really do not
blame me.  If you knew what a consolation it was to me to relieve my
heart speaking to you of what I am always thinking of every moment of
my life, your compassion would make you overlook every thing else I am
sure."

"Indeed, I can easily believe that it was a very great relief to you,
to acknowledge your situation to me, and be assured that you shall
never have reason to repent it.  Your case is a very unfortunate one;
you seem to me to be surrounded with difficulties, and you will have
need of all your mutual affection to support you under them.  Mr.
Ferrars, I believe, is entirely dependent on his mother."

"He has only two thousand pounds of his own; it would be madness to
marry upon that, though for my own part, I could give up every prospect
of more without a sigh.  I have been always used to a very small
income, and could struggle with any poverty for him; but I love him too
well to be the selfish means of robbing him, perhaps, of all that his
mother might give him if he married to please her.  We must wait, it
may be for many years.  With almost every other man in the world, it
would be an alarming prospect; but Edward's affection and constancy
nothing can deprive me of I know."

"That conviction must be every thing to you; and he is undoubtedly
supported by the same trust in your's.  If the strength of your
reciprocal attachment had failed, as between many people, and under
many circumstances it naturally would during a four years' engagement,
your situation would have been pitiable, indeed."

Lucy here looked up; but Elinor was careful in guarding her countenance
from every expression that could give her words a suspicious tendency.

"Edward's love for me," said Lucy, "has been pretty well put to the
test, by our long, very long absence since we were first engaged, and
it has stood the trial so well, that I should be unpardonable to doubt
it now.  I can safely say that he has never gave me one moment's alarm
on that account from the first."

Elinor hardly knew whether to smile or sigh at this assertion.

Lucy went on.  "I am rather of a jealous temper too by nature, and from
our different situations in life, from his being so much more in the
world than me, and our continual separation, I was enough inclined for
suspicion, to have found out the truth in an instant, if there had been
the slightest alteration in his behaviour to me when we met, or any
lowness of spirits that I could not account for, or if he had talked
more of one lady than another, or seemed in any respect less happy at
Longstaple than he used to be.  I do not mean to say that I am
particularly observant or quick-sighted in general, but in such a case
I am sure I could not be deceived."

"All this," thought Elinor, "is very pretty; but it can impose upon
neither of us."

"But what," said she after a short silence, "are your views? or have
you none but that of waiting for Mrs. Ferrars's death, which is a
melancholy and shocking extremity?--Is her son determined to submit to
this, and to all the tediousness of the many years of suspense in which
it may involve you, rather than run the risk of her displeasure for a
while by owning the truth?"

"If we could be certain that it would be only for a while!  But Mrs.
Ferrars is a very headstrong proud woman, and in her first fit of anger
upon hearing it, would very likely secure every thing to Robert, and
the idea of that, for Edward's sake, frightens away all my inclination
for hasty measures."

"And for your own sake too, or you are carrying your disinterestedness
beyond reason."

Lucy looked at Elinor again, and was silent.

"Do you know Mr. Robert Ferrars?" asked Elinor.

"Not at all--I never saw him; but I fancy he is very unlike his
brother--silly and a great coxcomb."

"A great coxcomb!" repeated Miss Steele, whose ear had caught those
words by a sudden pause in Marianne's music.-- "Oh, they are talking of
their favourite beaux, I dare say."

"No sister," cried Lucy, "you are mistaken there, our favourite beaux
are NOT great coxcombs."

"I can answer for it that Miss Dashwood's is not," said Mrs. Jennings,
laughing heartily; "for he is one of the modestest, prettiest behaved
young men I ever saw; but as for Lucy, she is such a sly little
creature, there is no finding out who SHE likes."

"Oh," cried Miss Steele, looking significantly round at them, "I dare
say Lucy's beau is quite as modest and pretty behaved as Miss
Dashwood's."

Elinor blushed in spite of herself.  Lucy bit her lip, and looked
angrily at her sister.  A mutual silence took place for some time.
Lucy first put an end to it by saying in a lower tone, though Marianne
was then giving them the powerful protection of a very magnificent
concerto--

"I will honestly tell you of one scheme which has lately come into my
head, for bringing matters to bear; indeed I am bound to let you into
the secret, for you are a party concerned.  I dare say you have seen
enough of Edward to know that he would prefer the church to every other
profession; now my plan is that he should take orders as soon as he
can, and then through your interest, which I am sure you would be kind
enough to use out of friendship for him, and I hope out of some regard
to me, your brother might be persuaded to give him Norland living;
which I understand is a very good one, and the present incumbent not
likely to live a great while.  That would be enough for us to marry
upon, and we might trust to time and chance for the rest."

"I should always be happy," replied Elinor, "to show any mark of my
esteem and friendship for Mr. Ferrars; but do you not perceive that my
interest on such an occasion would be perfectly unnecessary?  He is
brother to Mrs. John Dashwood--THAT must be recommendation enough to
her husband."

"But Mrs. John Dashwood would not much approve of Edward's going into
orders."

"Then I rather suspect that my interest would do very little."

They were again silent for many minutes.  At length Lucy exclaimed with
a deep sigh,

"I believe it would be the wisest way to put an end to the business at
once by dissolving the engagement.  We seem so beset with difficulties
on every side, that though it would make us miserable for a time, we
should be happier perhaps in the end.  But you will not give me your
advice, Miss Dashwood?"

"No," answered Elinor, with a smile, which concealed very agitated
feelings, "on such a subject I certainly will not.  You know very well
that my opinion would have no weight with you, unless it were on the
side of your wishes."

"Indeed you wrong me," replied Lucy, with great solemnity; "I know
nobody of whose judgment I think so highly as I do of yours; and I do
really believe, that if you was to say to me, 'I advise you by all
means to put an end to your engagement with Edward Ferrars, it will be
more for the happiness of both of you,' I should resolve upon doing it
immediately."

Elinor blushed for the insincerity of Edward's future wife, and
replied, "This compliment would effectually frighten me from giving any
opinion on the subject had I formed one.  It raises my influence much
too high; the power of dividing two people so tenderly attached is too
much for an indifferent person."

"'Tis because you are an indifferent person," said Lucy, with some
pique, and laying a particular stress on those words, "that your
judgment might justly have such weight with me.  If you could be
supposed to be biased in any respect by your own feelings, your opinion
would not be worth having."

Elinor thought it wisest to make no answer to this, lest they might
provoke each other to an unsuitable increase of ease and unreserve; and
was even partly determined never to mention the subject again.  Another
pause therefore of many minutes' duration, succeeded this speech, and
Lucy was still the first to end it.

"Shall you be in town this winter, Miss Dashwood?" said she with all
her accustomary complacency.

"Certainly not."

"I am sorry for that," returned the other, while her eyes brightened at
the information, "it would have gave me such pleasure to meet you
there!  But I dare say you will go for all that.  To be sure, your
brother and sister will ask you to come to them."

"It will not be in my power to accept their invitation if they do."

"How unlucky that is! I had quite depended upon meeting you there.
Anne and me are to go the latter end of January to some relations who
have been wanting us to visit them these several years!  But I only go
for the sake of seeing Edward.  He will be there in February, otherwise
London would have no charms for me; I have not spirits for it."

Elinor was soon called to the card-table by the conclusion of the first
rubber, and the confidential discourse of the two ladies was therefore
at an end, to which both of them submitted without any reluctance, for
nothing had been said on either side to make them dislike each other
less than they had done before; and Elinor sat down to the card table
with the melancholy persuasion that Edward was not only without
affection for the person who was to be his wife; but that he had not
even the chance of being tolerably happy in marriage, which sincere
affection on HER side would have given, for self-interest alone could
induce a woman to keep a man to an engagement, of which she seemed so
thoroughly aware that he was weary.

From this time the subject was never revived by Elinor, and when
entered on by Lucy, who seldom missed an opportunity of introducing it,
and was particularly careful to inform her confidante, of her happiness
whenever she received a letter from Edward, it was treated by the
former with calmness and caution, and dismissed as soon as civility
would allow; for she felt such conversations to be an indulgence which
Lucy did not deserve, and which were dangerous to herself.

The visit of the Miss Steeles at Barton Park was lengthened far beyond
what the first invitation implied.  Their favour increased; they could
not be spared; Sir John would not hear of their going; and in spite of
their numerous and long arranged engagements in Exeter, in spite of the
absolute necessity of returning to fulfill them immediately, which was
in full force at the end of every week, they were prevailed on to stay
nearly two months at the park, and to assist in the due celebration of
that festival which requires a more than ordinary share of private
balls and large dinners to proclaim its importance.



CHAPTER 25


Though Mrs. Jennings was in the habit of spending a large portion of
the year at the houses of her children and friends, she was not without
a settled habitation of her own.  Since the death of her husband, who
had traded with success in a less elegant part of the town, she had
resided every winter in a house in one of the streets near Portman
Square.  Towards this home, she began on the approach of January to
turn her thoughts, and thither she one day abruptly, and very
unexpectedly by them, asked the elder Misses Dashwood to accompany her.
Elinor, without observing the varying complexion of her sister, and the
animated look which spoke no indifference to the plan, immediately gave
a grateful but absolute denial for both, in which she believed herself
to be speaking their united inclinations.  The reason alleged was their
determined resolution of not leaving their mother at that time of the
year.  Mrs. Jennings received the refusal with some surprise, and
repeated her invitation immediately.

"Oh, Lord! I am sure your mother can spare you very well, and I DO beg
you will favour me with your company, for I've quite set my heart upon
it.  Don't fancy that you will be any inconvenience to me, for I shan't
put myself at all out of my way for you.  It will only be sending Betty
by the coach, and I hope I can afford THAT.  We three shall be able to
go very well in my chaise; and when we are in town, if you do not like
to go wherever I do, well and good, you may always go with one of my
daughters.  I am sure your mother will not object to it; for I have had
such good luck in getting my own children off my hands that she will
think me a very fit person to have the charge of you; and if I don't
get one of you at least well married before I have done with you, it
shall not be my fault.  I shall speak a good word for you to all the
young men, you may depend upon it."

"I have a notion," said Sir John, "that Miss Marianne would not object
to such a scheme, if her elder sister would come into it.  It is very
hard indeed that she should not have a little pleasure, because Miss
Dashwood does not wish it.  So I would advise you two, to set off for
town, when you are tired of Barton, without saying a word to Miss
Dashwood about it."

"Nay," cried Mrs. Jennings, "I am sure I shall be monstrous glad of
Miss Marianne's company, whether Miss Dashwood will go or not, only the
more the merrier say I, and I thought it would be more comfortable for
them to be together; because, if they got tired of me, they might talk
to one another, and laugh at my old ways behind my back.  But one or
the other, if not both of them, I must have.  Lord bless me! how do you
think I can live poking by myself, I who have been always used till
this winter to have Charlotte with me.  Come, Miss Marianne, let us
strike hands upon the bargain, and if Miss Dashwood will change her
mind by and bye, why so much the better."

"I thank you, ma'am, sincerely thank you," said Marianne, with warmth:
"your invitation has insured my gratitude for ever, and it would give
me such happiness, yes, almost the greatest happiness I am capable of,
to be able to accept it.  But my mother, my dearest, kindest mother,--I
feel the justice of what Elinor has urged, and if she were to be made
less happy, less comfortable by our absence--Oh! no, nothing should
tempt me to leave her.  It should not, must not be a struggle."

Mrs. Jennings repeated her assurance that Mrs. Dashwood could spare
them perfectly well; and Elinor, who now understood her sister, and saw
to what indifference to almost every thing else she was carried by her
eagerness to be with Willoughby again, made no farther direct
opposition to the plan, and merely referred it to her mother's
decision, from whom however she scarcely expected to receive any
support in her endeavour to prevent a visit, which she could not
approve of for Marianne, and which on her own account she had
particular reasons to avoid.  Whatever Marianne was desirous of, her
mother would be eager to promote--she could not expect to influence the
latter to cautiousness of conduct in an affair respecting which she had
never been able to inspire her with distrust; and she dared not explain
the motive of her own disinclination for going to London.  That
Marianne, fastidious as she was, thoroughly acquainted with Mrs.
Jennings' manners, and invariably disgusted by them, should overlook
every inconvenience of that kind, should disregard whatever must be
most wounding to her irritable feelings, in her pursuit of one object,
was such a proof, so strong, so full, of the importance of that object
to her, as Elinor, in spite of all that had passed, was not prepared to
witness.

On being informed of the invitation, Mrs. Dashwood, persuaded that such
an excursion would be productive of much amusement to both her
daughters, and perceiving through all her affectionate attention to
herself, how much the heart of Marianne was in it, would not hear of
their declining the offer upon HER account; insisted on their both
accepting it directly; and then began to foresee, with her usual
cheerfulness, a variety of advantages that would accrue to them all,
from this separation.

"I am delighted with the plan," she cried, "it is exactly what I could
wish.  Margaret and I shall be as much benefited by it as yourselves.
When you and the Middletons are gone, we shall go on so quietly and
happily together with our books and our music! You will find Margaret
so improved when you come back again!  I have a little plan of
alteration for your bedrooms too, which may now be performed without
any inconvenience to any one.  It is very right that you SHOULD go to
town; I would have every young woman of your condition in life
acquainted with the manners and amusements of London.  You will be
under the care of a motherly good sort of woman, of whose kindness to
you I can have no doubt.  And in all probability you will see your
brother, and whatever may be his faults, or the faults of his wife,
when I consider whose son he is, I cannot bear to have you so wholly
estranged from each other."

"Though with your usual anxiety for our happiness," said Elinor, "you
have been obviating every impediment to the present scheme which
occurred to you, there is still one objection which, in my opinion,
cannot be so easily removed."

Marianne's countenance sunk.

"And what," said Mrs. Dashwood, "is my dear prudent Elinor going to
suggest?  What formidable obstacle is she now to bring forward?  Do let
me hear a word about the expense of it."

"My objection is this; though I think very well of Mrs. Jennings's
heart, she is not a woman whose society can afford us pleasure, or
whose protection will give us consequence."

"That is very true," replied her mother, "but of her society,
separately from that of other people, you will scarcely have any thing
at all, and you will almost always appear in public with Lady
Middleton."

"If Elinor is frightened away by her dislike of Mrs. Jennings," said
Marianne, "at least it need not prevent MY accepting her invitation.  I
have no such scruples, and I am sure I could put up with every
unpleasantness of that kind with very little effort."

Elinor could not help smiling at this display of indifference towards
the manners of a person, to whom she had often had difficulty in
persuading Marianne to behave with tolerable politeness; and resolved
within herself, that if her sister persisted in going, she would go
likewise, as she did not think it proper that Marianne should be left
to the sole guidance of her own judgment, or that Mrs. Jennings should
be abandoned to the mercy of Marianne for all the comfort of her
domestic hours.  To this determination she was the more easily
reconciled, by recollecting that Edward Ferrars, by Lucy's account, was
not to be in town before February; and that their visit, without any
unreasonable abridgement, might be previously finished.

"I will have you BOTH go," said Mrs. Dashwood; "these objections are
nonsensical.  You will have much pleasure in being in London, and
especially in being together; and if Elinor would ever condescend to
anticipate enjoyment, she would foresee it there from a variety of
sources; she would, perhaps, expect some from improving her
acquaintance with her sister-in-law's family."

Elinor had often wished for an opportunity of attempting to weaken her
mother's dependence on the attachment of Edward and herself, that the
shock might be less when the whole truth were revealed, and now on this
attack, though almost hopeless of success, she forced herself to begin
her design by saying, as calmly as she could, "I like Edward Ferrars
very much, and shall always be glad to see him; but as to the rest of
the family, it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, whether I am
ever known to them or not."

Mrs. Dashwood smiled, and said nothing.  Marianne lifted up her eyes in
astonishment, and Elinor conjectured that she might as well have held
her tongue.

After very little farther discourse, it was finally settled that the
invitation should be fully accepted.  Mrs. Jennings received the
information with a great deal of joy, and many assurances of kindness
and care; nor was it a matter of pleasure merely to her.  Sir John was
delighted; for to a man, whose prevailing anxiety was the dread of
being alone, the acquisition of two, to the number of inhabitants in
London, was something.  Even Lady Middleton took the trouble of being
delighted, which was putting herself rather out of her way; and as for
the Miss Steeles, especially Lucy, they had never been so happy in
their lives as this intelligence made them.

Elinor submitted to the arrangement which counteracted her wishes with
less reluctance than she had expected to feel.  With regard to herself,
it was now a matter of unconcern whether she went to town or not, and
when she saw her mother so thoroughly pleased with the plan, and her
sister exhilarated by it in look, voice, and manner, restored to all
her usual animation, and elevated to more than her usual gaiety, she
could not be dissatisfied with the cause, and would hardly allow
herself to distrust the consequence.

Marianne's joy was almost a degree beyond happiness, so great was the
perturbation of her spirits and her impatience to be gone.  Her
unwillingness to quit her mother was her only restorative to calmness;
and at the moment of parting her grief on that score was excessive.
Her mother's affliction was hardly less, and Elinor was the only one of
the three, who seemed to consider the separation as any thing short of
eternal.

Their departure took place in the first week in January.  The
Middletons were to follow in about a week.  The Miss Steeles kept their
station at the park, and were to quit it only with the rest of the
family.



CHAPTER 26


Elinor could not find herself in the carriage with Mrs. Jennings, and
beginning a journey to London under her protection, and as her guest,
without wondering at her own situation, so short had their acquaintance
with that lady been, so wholly unsuited were they in age and
disposition, and so many had been her objections against such a measure
only a few days before! But these objections had all, with that happy
ardour of youth which Marianne and her mother equally shared, been
overcome or overlooked; and Elinor, in spite of every occasional doubt
of Willoughby's constancy, could not witness the rapture of delightful
expectation which filled the whole soul and beamed in the eyes of
Marianne, without feeling how blank was her own prospect, how cheerless
her own state of mind in the comparison, and how gladly she would
engage in the solicitude of Marianne's situation to have the same
animating object in view, the same possibility of hope.  A short, a
very short time however must now decide what Willoughby's intentions
were; in all probability he was already in town.  Marianne's eagerness
to be gone declared her dependence on finding him there; and Elinor was
resolved not only upon gaining every new light as to his character
which her own observation or the intelligence of others could give her,
but likewise upon watching his behaviour to her sister with such
zealous attention, as to ascertain what he was and what he meant,
before many meetings had taken place.  Should the result of her
observations be unfavourable, she was determined at all events to open
the eyes of her sister; should it be otherwise, her exertions would be
of a different nature--she must then learn to avoid every selfish
comparison, and banish every regret which might lessen her satisfaction
in the happiness of Marianne.

They were three days on their journey, and Marianne's behaviour as they
travelled was a happy specimen of what future complaisance and
companionableness to Mrs. Jennings might be expected to be.  She sat in
silence almost all the way, wrapt in her own meditations, and scarcely
ever voluntarily speaking, except when any object of picturesque beauty
within their view drew from her an exclamation of delight exclusively
addressed to her sister.  To atone for this conduct therefore, Elinor
took immediate possession of the post of civility which she had
assigned herself, behaved with the greatest attention to Mrs. Jennings,
talked with her, laughed with her, and listened to her whenever she
could; and Mrs. Jennings on her side treated them both with all
possible kindness, was solicitous on every occasion for their ease and
enjoyment, and only disturbed that she could not make them choose their
own dinners at the inn, nor extort a confession of their preferring
salmon to cod, or boiled fowls to veal cutlets.  They reached town by
three o'clock the third day, glad to be released, after such a journey,
from the confinement of a carriage, and ready to enjoy all the luxury
of a good fire.

The house was handsome, and handsomely fitted up, and the young ladies
were immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apartment.  It
had formerly been Charlotte's, and over the mantelpiece still hung a
landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her having
spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect.

As dinner was not to be ready in less than two hours from their
arrival, Elinor determined to employ the interval in writing to her
mother, and sat down for that purpose.  In a few moments Marianne did
the same.  "I am writing home, Marianne," said Elinor; "had not you
better defer your letter for a day or two?"

"I am NOT going to write to my mother," replied Marianne, hastily, and
as if wishing to avoid any farther inquiry.  Elinor said no more; it
immediately struck her that she must then be writing to Willoughby; and
the conclusion which as instantly followed was, that, however
mysteriously they might wish to conduct the affair, they must be
engaged.  This conviction, though not entirely satisfactory, gave her
pleasure, and she continued her letter with greater alacrity.
Marianne's was finished in a very few minutes; in length it could be no
more than a note; it was then folded up, sealed, and directed with
eager rapidity.  Elinor thought she could distinguish a large W in the
direction; and no sooner was it complete than Marianne, ringing the
bell, requested the footman who answered it to get that letter conveyed
for her to the two-penny post.  This decided the matter at once.

Her spirits still continued very high; but there was a flutter in them
which prevented their giving much pleasure to her sister, and this
agitation increased as the evening drew on.  She could scarcely eat any
dinner, and when they afterwards returned to the drawing room, seemed
anxiously listening to the sound of every carriage.

It was a great satisfaction to Elinor that Mrs. Jennings, by being much
engaged in her own room, could see little of what was passing.  The tea
things were brought in, and already had Marianne been disappointed more
than once by a rap at a neighbouring door, when a loud one was suddenly
heard which could not be mistaken for one at any other house, Elinor
felt secure of its announcing Willoughby's approach, and Marianne,
starting up, moved towards the door.  Every thing was silent; this
could not be borne many seconds; she opened the door, advanced a few
steps towards the stairs, and after listening half a minute, returned
into the room in all the agitation which a conviction of having heard
him would naturally produce; in the ecstasy of her feelings at that
instant she could not help exclaiming, "Oh, Elinor, it is Willoughby,
indeed it is!" and seemed almost ready to throw herself into his arms,
when Colonel Brandon appeared.

It was too great a shock to be borne with calmness, and she immediately
left the room.  Elinor was disappointed too; but at the same time her
regard for Colonel Brandon ensured his welcome with her; and she felt
particularly hurt that a man so partial to her sister should perceive
that she experienced nothing but grief and disappointment in seeing
him.  She instantly saw that it was not unnoticed by him, that he even
observed Marianne as she quitted the room, with such astonishment and
concern, as hardly left him the recollection of what civility demanded
towards herself.

"Is your sister ill?" said he.

Elinor answered in some distress that she was, and then talked of
head-aches, low spirits, and over fatigues; and of every thing to which
she could decently attribute her sister's behaviour.

He heard her with the most earnest attention, but seeming to recollect
himself, said no more on the subject, and began directly to speak of
his pleasure at seeing them in London, making the usual inquiries about
their journey, and the friends they had left behind.

In this calm kind of way, with very little interest on either side,
they continued to talk, both of them out of spirits, and the thoughts
of both engaged elsewhere.  Elinor wished very much to ask whether
Willoughby were then in town, but she was afraid of giving him pain by
any enquiry after his rival; and at length, by way of saying something,
she asked if he had been in London ever since she had seen him last.
"Yes," he replied, with some embarrassment, "almost ever since; I have
been once or twice at Delaford for a few days, but it has never been in
my power to return to Barton."

This, and the manner in which it was said, immediately brought back to
her remembrance all the circumstances of his quitting that place, with
the uneasiness and suspicions they had caused to Mrs. Jennings, and she
was fearful that her question had implied much more curiosity on the
subject than she had ever felt.

Mrs. Jennings soon came in.  "Oh! Colonel," said she, with her usual
noisy cheerfulness, "I am monstrous glad to see you--sorry I could not
come before--beg your pardon, but I have been forced to look about me a
little, and settle my matters; for it is a long while since I have been
at home, and you know one has always a world of little odd things to do
after one has been away for any time; and then I have had Cartwright to
settle with-- Lord, I have been as busy as a bee ever since dinner!
But pray, Colonel, how came you to conjure out that I should be in town
today?"

"I had the pleasure of hearing it at Mr. Palmer's, where I have been
dining."

"Oh, you did; well, and how do they all do at their house?  How does
Charlotte do?  I warrant you she is a fine size by this time."

"Mrs. Palmer appeared quite well, and I am commissioned to tell you,
that you will certainly see her to-morrow."

"Ay, to be sure, I thought as much.  Well, Colonel, I have brought two
young ladies with me, you see--that is, you see but one of them now,
but there is another somewhere.  Your friend, Miss Marianne, too--which
you will not be sorry to hear.  I do not know what you and Mr.
Willoughby will do between you about her.  Ay, it is a fine thing to be
young and handsome.  Well! I was young once, but I never was very
handsome--worse luck for me.  However, I got a very good husband, and I
don't know what the greatest beauty can do more.  Ah! poor man! he has
been dead these eight years and better.  But Colonel, where have you
been to since we parted?  And how does your business go on?  Come,
come, let's have no secrets among friends."

He replied with his accustomary mildness to all her inquiries, but
without satisfying her in any.  Elinor now began to make the tea, and
Marianne was obliged to appear again.

After her entrance, Colonel Brandon became more thoughtful and silent
than he had been before, and Mrs. Jennings could not prevail on him to
stay long.  No other visitor appeared that evening, and the ladies were
unanimous in agreeing to go early to bed.

Marianne rose the next morning with recovered spirits and happy looks.
The disappointment of the evening before seemed forgotten in the
expectation of what was to happen that day.  They had not long finished
their breakfast before Mrs. Palmer's barouche stopped at the door, and
in a few minutes she came laughing into the room: so delighted to see
them all, that it was hard to say whether she received most pleasure
from meeting her mother or the Miss Dashwoods again.  So surprised at
their coming to town, though it was what she had rather expected all
along; so angry at their accepting her mother's invitation after having
declined her own, though at the same time she would never have forgiven
them if they had not come!

"Mr. Palmer will be so happy to see you," said she; "What do you think
he said when he heard of your coming with Mama?  I forget what it was
now, but it was something so droll!"

After an hour or two spent in what her mother called comfortable chat,
or in other words, in every variety of inquiry concerning all their
acquaintance on Mrs. Jennings's side, and in laughter without cause on
Mrs. Palmer's, it was proposed by the latter that they should all
accompany her to some shops where she had business that morning, to
which Mrs. Jennings and Elinor readily consented, as having likewise
some purchases to make themselves; and Marianne, though declining it at
first was induced to go likewise.

Wherever they went, she was evidently always on the watch.  In Bond
Street especially, where much of their business lay, her eyes were in
constant inquiry; and in whatever shop the party were engaged, her mind
was equally abstracted from every thing actually before them, from all
that interested and occupied the others.  Restless and dissatisfied
every where, her sister could never obtain her opinion of any article
of purchase, however it might equally concern them both: she received
no pleasure from anything; was only impatient to be at home again, and
could with difficulty govern her vexation at the tediousness of Mrs.
Palmer, whose eye was caught by every thing pretty, expensive, or new;
who was wild to buy all, could determine on none, and dawdled away her
time in rapture and indecision.

It was late in the morning before they returned home; and no sooner had
they entered the house than Marianne flew eagerly up stairs, and when
Elinor followed, she found her turning from the table with a sorrowful
countenance, which declared that no Willoughby had been there.

"Has no letter been left here for me since we went out?" said she to
the footman who then entered with the parcels.  She was answered in the
negative.  "Are you quite sure of it?" she replied.  "Are you certain
that no servant, no porter has left any letter or note?"

The man replied that none had.

"How very odd!" said she, in a low and disappointed voice, as she
turned away to the window.

"How odd, indeed!" repeated Elinor within herself, regarding her sister
with uneasiness.  "If she had not known him to be in town she would not
have written to him, as she did; she would have written to Combe Magna;
and if he is in town, how odd that he should neither come nor write!
Oh! my dear mother, you must be wrong in permitting an engagement
between a daughter so young, a man so little known, to be carried on in
so doubtful, so mysterious a manner!  I long to inquire; and how will
MY interference be borne."

She determined, after some consideration, that if appearances continued
many days longer as unpleasant as they now were, she would represent in
the strongest manner to her mother the necessity of some serious
enquiry into the affair.

Mrs. Palmer and two elderly ladies of Mrs. Jennings's intimate
acquaintance, whom she had met and invited in the morning, dined with
them.  The former left them soon after tea to fulfill her evening
engagements; and Elinor was obliged to assist in making a whist table
for the others.  Marianne was of no use on these occasions, as she
would never learn the game; but though her time was therefore at her
own disposal, the evening was by no means more productive of pleasure
to her than to Elinor, for it was spent in all the anxiety of
expectation and the pain of disappointment.  She sometimes endeavoured
for a few minutes to read; but the book was soon thrown aside, and she
returned to the more interesting employment of walking backwards and
forwards across the room, pausing for a moment whenever she came to the
window, in hopes of distinguishing the long-expected rap.



CHAPTER 27


"If this open weather holds much longer," said Mrs. Jennings, when they
met at breakfast the following morning, "Sir John will not like leaving
Barton next week; 'tis a sad thing for sportsmen to lose a day's
pleasure.  Poor souls!  I always pity them when they do; they seem to
take it so much to heart."

"That is true," cried Marianne, in a cheerful voice, and walking to the
window as she spoke, to examine the day.  "I had not thought of that.
This weather will keep many sportsmen in the country."

It was a lucky recollection, all her good spirits were restored by it.
"It is charming weather for THEM indeed," she continued, as she sat
down to the breakfast table with a happy countenance.  "How much they
must enjoy it! But" (with a little return of anxiety) "it cannot be
expected to last long.  At this time of the year, and after such a
series of rain, we shall certainly have very little more of it.  Frosts
will soon set in, and in all probability with severity.  In another day
or two perhaps; this extreme mildness can hardly last longer--nay,
perhaps it may freeze tonight!"

"At any rate," said Elinor, wishing to prevent Mrs. Jennings from
seeing her sister's thoughts as clearly as she did, "I dare say we
shall have Sir John and Lady Middleton in town by the end of next week."

"Ay, my dear, I'll warrant you we do.  Mary always has her own way."

"And now," silently conjectured Elinor, "she will write to Combe by
this day's post."

But if she DID, the letter was written and sent away with a privacy
which eluded all her watchfulness to ascertain the fact.  Whatever the
truth of it might be, and far as Elinor was from feeling thorough
contentment about it, yet while she saw Marianne in spirits, she could
not be very uncomfortable herself.  And Marianne was in spirits; happy
in the mildness of the weather, and still happier in her expectation of
a frost.

The morning was chiefly spent in leaving cards at the houses of Mrs.
Jennings's acquaintance to inform them of her being in town; and
Marianne was all the time busy in observing the direction of the wind,
watching the variations of the sky and imagining an alteration in the
air.

"Don't you find it colder than it was in the morning, Elinor? There
seems to me a very decided difference.  I can hardly keep my hands warm
even in my muff.  It was not so yesterday, I think.  The clouds seem
parting too, the sun will be out in a moment, and we shall have a clear
afternoon."

Elinor was alternately diverted and pained; but Marianne persevered,
and saw every night in the brightness of the fire, and every morning in
the appearance of the atmosphere, the certain symptoms of approaching
frost.

The Miss Dashwoods had no greater reason to be dissatisfied with Mrs.
Jennings's style of living, and set of acquaintance, than with her
behaviour to themselves, which was invariably kind.  Every thing in her
household arrangements was conducted on the most liberal plan, and
excepting a few old city friends, whom, to Lady Middleton's regret, she
had never dropped, she visited no one to whom an introduction could at
all discompose the feelings of her young companions.  Pleased to find
herself more comfortably situated in that particular than she had
expected, Elinor was very willing to compound for the want of much real
enjoyment from any of their evening parties, which, whether at home or
abroad, formed only for cards, could have little to amuse her.

Colonel Brandon, who had a general invitation to the house, was with
them almost every day; he came to look at Marianne and talk to Elinor,
who often derived more satisfaction from conversing with him than from
any other daily occurrence, but who saw at the same time with much
concern his continued regard for her sister.  She feared it was a
strengthening regard.  It grieved her to see the earnestness with which
he often watched Marianne, and his spirits were certainly worse than
when at Barton.

About a week after their arrival, it became certain that Willoughby was
also arrived.  His card was on the table when they came in from the
morning's drive.

"Good God!" cried Marianne, "he has been here while we were out."
Elinor, rejoiced to be assured of his being in London, now ventured to
say, "Depend upon it, he will call again tomorrow."  But Marianne
seemed hardly to hear her, and on Mrs. Jennings's entrance, escaped with
the precious card.

This event, while it raised the spirits of Elinor, restored to those of
her sister all, and more than all, their former agitation.  From this
moment her mind was never quiet; the expectation of seeing him every
hour of the day, made her unfit for any thing.  She insisted on being
left behind, the next morning, when the others went out.

Elinor's thoughts were full of what might be passing in Berkeley Street
during their absence; but a moment's glance at her sister when they
returned was enough to inform her, that Willoughby had paid no second
visit there.  A note was just then brought in, and laid on the table.

"For me!" cried Marianne, stepping hastily forward.

"No, ma'am, for my mistress."

But Marianne, not convinced, took it instantly up.

"It is indeed for Mrs. Jennings; how provoking!"

"You are expecting a letter, then?" said Elinor, unable to be longer
silent.

"Yes, a little--not much."

After a short pause.  "You have no confidence in me, Marianne."

"Nay, Elinor, this reproach from YOU--you who have confidence in no
one!"

"Me!" returned Elinor in some confusion; "indeed, Marianne, I have
nothing to tell."

"Nor I," answered Marianne with energy, "our situations then are alike.
We have neither of us any thing to tell; you, because you do not
communicate, and I, because I conceal nothing."

Elinor, distressed by this charge of reserve in herself, which she was
not at liberty to do away, knew not how, under such circumstances, to
press for greater openness in Marianne.

Mrs. Jennings soon appeared, and the note being given her, she read it
aloud.  It was from Lady Middleton, announcing their arrival in Conduit
Street the night before, and requesting the company of her mother and
cousins the following evening.  Business on Sir John's part, and a
violent cold on her own, prevented their calling in Berkeley Street.
The invitation was accepted; but when the hour of appointment drew
near, necessary as it was in common civility to Mrs. Jennings, that
they should both attend her on such a visit, Elinor had some difficulty
in persuading her sister to go, for still she had seen nothing of
Willoughby; and therefore was not more indisposed for amusement abroad,
than unwilling to run the risk of his calling again in her absence.

Elinor found, when the evening was over, that disposition is not
materially altered by a change of abode, for although scarcely settled
in town, Sir John had contrived to collect around him, nearly twenty
young people, and to amuse them with a ball.  This was an affair,
however, of which Lady Middleton did not approve.  In the country, an
unpremeditated dance was very allowable; but in London, where the
reputation of elegance was more important and less easily attained, it
was risking too much for the gratification of a few girls, to have it
known that Lady Middleton had given a small dance of eight or nine
couple, with two violins, and a mere side-board collation.

Mr. and Mrs. Palmer were of the party; from the former, whom they had
not seen before since their arrival in town, as he was careful to avoid
the appearance of any attention to his mother-in-law, and therefore
never came near her, they received no mark of recognition on their
entrance.  He looked at them slightly, without seeming to know who they
were, and merely nodded to Mrs. Jennings from the other side of the
room.  Marianne gave one glance round the apartment as she entered: it
was enough--HE was not there--and she sat down, equally ill-disposed to
receive or communicate pleasure.  After they had been assembled about
an hour, Mr. Palmer sauntered towards the Miss Dashwoods to express his
surprise on seeing them in town, though Colonel Brandon had been first
informed of their arrival at his house, and he had himself said
something very droll on hearing that they were to come.

"I thought you were both in Devonshire," said he.

"Did you?" replied Elinor.

"When do you go back again?"

"I do not know." And thus ended their discourse.

Never had Marianne been so unwilling to dance in her life, as she was
that evening, and never so much fatigued by the exercise.  She
complained of it as they returned to Berkeley Street.

"Aye, aye," said Mrs. Jennings, "we know the reason of all that very
well; if a certain person who shall be nameless, had been there, you
would not have been a bit tired: and to say the truth it was not very
pretty of him not to give you the meeting when he was invited."

"Invited!" cried Marianne.

"So my daughter Middleton told me, for it seems Sir John met him
somewhere in the street this morning." Marianne said no more, but
looked exceedingly hurt.  Impatient in this situation to be doing
something that might lead to her sister's relief, Elinor resolved to
write the next morning to her mother, and hoped by awakening her fears
for the health of Marianne, to procure those inquiries which had been
so long delayed; and she was still more eagerly bent on this measure by
perceiving after breakfast on the morrow, that Marianne was again
writing to Willoughby, for she could not suppose it to be to any other
person.

About the middle of the day, Mrs. Jennings went out by herself on
business, and Elinor began her letter directly, while Marianne, too
restless for employment, too anxious for conversation, walked from one
window to the other, or sat down by the fire in melancholy meditation.
Elinor was very earnest in her application to her mother, relating all
that had passed, her suspicions of Willoughby's inconstancy, urging her
by every plea of duty and affection to demand from Marianne an account
of her real situation with respect to him.

Her letter was scarcely finished, when a rap foretold a visitor, and
Colonel Brandon was announced.  Marianne, who had seen him from the
window, and who hated company of any kind, left the room before he
entered it.  He looked more than usually grave, and though expressing
satisfaction at finding Miss Dashwood alone, as if he had somewhat in
particular to tell her, sat for some time without saying a word.
Elinor, persuaded that he had some communication to make in which her
sister was concerned, impatiently expected its opening.  It was not the
first time of her feeling the same kind of conviction; for, more than
once before, beginning with the observation of "your sister looks
unwell to-day," or "your sister seems out of spirits," he had appeared
on the point, either of disclosing, or of inquiring, something
particular about her.  After a pause of several minutes, their silence
was broken, by his asking her in a voice of some agitation, when he was
to congratulate her on the acquisition of a brother?  Elinor was not
prepared for such a question, and having no answer ready, was obliged
to adopt the simple and common expedient, of asking what he meant?  He
tried to smile as he replied, "your sister's engagement to Mr.
Willoughby is very generally known."

"It cannot be generally known," returned Elinor, "for her own family do
not know it."

He looked surprised and said, "I beg your pardon, I am afraid my
inquiry has been impertinent; but I had not supposed any secrecy
intended, as they openly correspond, and their marriage is universally
talked of."

"How can that be? By whom can you have heard it mentioned?"

"By many--by some of whom you know nothing, by others with whom you are
most intimate, Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, and the Middletons.  But
still I might not have believed it, for where the mind is perhaps
rather unwilling to be convinced, it will always find something to
support its doubts, if I had not, when the servant let me in today,
accidentally seen a letter in his hand, directed to Mr. Willoughby in
your sister's writing.  I came to inquire, but I was convinced before I
could ask the question.  Is every thing finally settled?  Is it
impossible to-?  But I have no right, and I could have no chance of
succeeding.  Excuse me, Miss Dashwood.  I believe I have been wrong in
saying so much, but I hardly know what to do, and on your prudence I
have the strongest dependence.  Tell me that it is all absolutely
resolved on, that any attempt, that in short concealment, if
concealment be possible, is all that remains."

These words, which conveyed to Elinor a direct avowal of his love for
her sister, affected her very much.  She was not immediately able to
say anything, and even when her spirits were recovered, she debated for
a short time, on the answer it would be most proper to give.  The real
state of things between Willoughby and her sister was so little known
to herself, that in endeavouring to explain it, she might be as liable
to say too much as too little.  Yet as she was convinced that
Marianne's affection for Willoughby, could leave no hope of Colonel
Brandon's success, whatever the event of that affection might be, and
at the same time wished to shield her conduct from censure, she thought
it most prudent and kind, after some consideration, to say more than
she really knew or believed.  She acknowledged, therefore, that though
she had never been informed by themselves of the terms on which they
stood with each other, of their mutual affection she had no doubt, and
of their correspondence she was not astonished to hear.

He listened to her with silent attention, and on her ceasing to speak,
rose directly from his seat, and after saying in a voice of emotion,
"to your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby that he
may endeavour to deserve her,"--took leave, and went away.

Elinor derived no comfortable feelings from this conversation, to
lessen the uneasiness of her mind on other points; she was left, on the
contrary, with a melancholy impression of Colonel Brandon's
unhappiness, and was prevented even from wishing it removed, by her
anxiety for the very event that must confirm it.



CHAPTER 28


Nothing occurred during the next three or four days, to make Elinor
regret what she had done, in applying to her mother; for Willoughby
neither came nor wrote.  They were engaged about the end of that time
to attend Lady Middleton to a party, from which Mrs. Jennings was kept
away by the indisposition of her youngest daughter; and for this party,
Marianne, wholly dispirited, careless of her appearance, and seeming
equally indifferent whether she went or staid, prepared, without one
look of hope or one expression of pleasure.  She sat by the
drawing-room fire after tea, till the moment of Lady Middleton's
arrival, without once stirring from her seat, or altering her attitude,
lost in her own thoughts, and insensible of her sister's presence; and
when at last they were told that Lady Middleton waited for them at the
door, she started as if she had forgotten that any one was expected.

They arrived in due time at the place of destination, and as soon as
the string of carriages before them would allow, alighted, ascended the
stairs, heard their names announced from one landing-place to another
in an audible voice, and entered a room splendidly lit up, quite full
of company, and insufferably hot.  When they had paid their tribute of
politeness by curtsying to the lady of the house, they were permitted
to mingle in the crowd, and take their share of the heat and
inconvenience, to which their arrival must necessarily add.  After some
time spent in saying little or doing less, Lady Middleton sat down to
Cassino, and as Marianne was not in spirits for moving about, she and
Elinor luckily succeeding to chairs, placed themselves at no great
distance from the table.

They had not remained in this manner long, before Elinor perceived
Willoughby, standing within a few yards of them, in earnest
conversation with a very fashionable looking young woman.  She soon
caught his eye, and he immediately bowed, but without attempting to
speak to her, or to approach Marianne, though he could not but see her;
and then continued his discourse with the same lady.  Elinor turned
involuntarily to Marianne, to see whether it could be unobserved by
her.  At that moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance
glowing with sudden delight, she would have moved towards him
instantly, had not her sister caught hold of her.

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "he is there--he is there--Oh! why does
he not look at me? why cannot I speak to him?"

"Pray, pray be composed," cried Elinor, "and do not betray what you
feel to every body present.  Perhaps he has not observed you yet."

This however was more than she could believe herself; and to be
composed at such a moment was not only beyond the reach of Marianne, it
was beyond her wish.  She sat in an agony of impatience which affected
every feature.

At last he turned round again, and regarded them both; she started up,
and pronouncing his name in a tone of affection, held out her hand to
him.  He approached, and addressing himself rather to Elinor than
Marianne, as if wishing to avoid her eye, and determined not to observe
her attitude, inquired in a hurried manner after Mrs. Dashwood, and
asked how long they had been in town.  Elinor was robbed of all
presence of mind by such an address, and was unable to say a word.  But
the feelings of her sister were instantly expressed.  Her face was
crimsoned over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion,
"Good God! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this?  Have you not
received my letters?  Will you not shake hands with me?"

He could not then avoid it, but her touch seemed painful to him, and he
held her hand only for a moment.  During all this time he was evidently
struggling for composure.  Elinor watched his countenance and saw its
expression becoming more tranquil.  After a moment's pause, he spoke
with calmness.

"I did myself the honour of calling in Berkeley Street last Tuesday,
and very much regretted that I was not fortunate enough to find
yourselves and Mrs. Jennings at home.  My card was not lost, I hope."

"But have you not received my notes?" cried Marianne in the wildest
anxiety.  "Here is some mistake I am sure--some dreadful mistake.  What
can be the meaning of it?  Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven's sake tell
me, what is the matter?"

He made no reply; his complexion changed and all his embarrassment
returned; but as if, on catching the eye of the young lady with whom he
had been previously talking, he felt the necessity of instant exertion,
he recovered himself again, and after saying, "Yes, I had the pleasure
of receiving the information of your arrival in town, which you were so
good as to send me," turned hastily away with a slight bow and joined
his friend.

Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into
her chair, and Elinor, expecting every moment to see her faint, tried
to screen her from the observation of others, while reviving her with
lavender water.

"Go to him, Elinor," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "and force
him to come to me.  Tell him I must see him again--must speak to him
instantly.-- I cannot rest--I shall not have a moment's peace till this
is explained--some dreadful misapprehension or other.-- Oh go to him
this moment."

"How can that be done? No, my dearest Marianne, you must wait.  This is
not the place for explanations.  Wait only till tomorrow."

With difficulty however could she prevent her from following him
herself; and to persuade her to check her agitation, to wait, at least,
with the appearance of composure, till she might speak to him with more
privacy and more effect, was impossible; for Marianne continued
incessantly to give way in a low voice to the misery of her feelings,
by exclamations of wretchedness.  In a short time Elinor saw Willoughby
quit the room by the door towards the staircase, and telling Marianne
that he was gone, urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that
evening, as a fresh argument for her to be calm.  She instantly begged
her sister would entreat Lady Middleton to take them home, as she was
too miserable to stay a minute longer.

Lady Middleton, though in the middle of a rubber, on being informed
that Marianne was unwell, was too polite to object for a moment to her
wish of going away, and making over her cards to a friend, they
departed as soon the carriage could be found.  Scarcely a word was
spoken during their return to Berkeley Street.  Marianne was in a
silent agony, too much oppressed even for tears; but as Mrs. Jennings
was luckily not come home, they could go directly to their own room,
where hartshorn restored her a little to herself.  She was soon
undressed and in bed, and as she seemed desirous of being alone, her
sister then left her, and while she waited the return of Mrs. Jennings,
had leisure enough for thinking over the past.

That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and
Marianne she could not doubt, and that Willoughby was weary of it,
seemed equally clear; for however Marianne might still feed her own
wishes, SHE could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or
misapprehension of any kind.  Nothing but a thorough change of
sentiment could account for it.  Her indignation would have been still
stronger than it was, had she not witnessed that embarrassment which
seemed to speak a consciousness of his own misconduct, and prevented
her from believing him so unprincipled as to have been sporting with
the affections of her sister from the first, without any design that
would bear investigation.  Absence might have weakened his regard, and
convenience might have determined him to overcome it, but that such a
regard had formerly existed she could not bring herself to doubt.

As for Marianne, on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already
have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in
its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest
concern.  Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she
could ESTEEM Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in
future, her mind might be always supported.  But every circumstance
that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery
of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby--in an immediate and
irreconcilable rupture with him.



CHAPTER 29


Before the house-maid had lit their fire the next day, or the sun
gained any power over a cold, gloomy morning in January, Marianne, only
half dressed, was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake
of all the little light she could command from it, and writing as fast
as a continual flow of tears would permit her.  In this situation,
Elinor, roused from sleep by her agitation and sobs, first perceived
her; and after observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety,
said, in a tone of the most considerate gentleness,

"Marianne, may I ask-?"

"No, Elinor," she replied, "ask nothing; you will soon know all."

The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said, lasted no
longer than while she spoke, and was immediately followed by a return
of the same excessive affliction.  It was some minutes before she could
go on with her letter, and the frequent bursts of grief which still
obliged her, at intervals, to withhold her pen, were proofs enough of
her feeling how more than probable it was that she was writing for the
last time to Willoughby.

Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power; and
she would have tried to sooth and tranquilize her still more, had not
Marianne entreated her, with all the eagerness of the most nervous
irritability, not to speak to her for the world.  In such
circumstances, it was better for both that they should not be long
together; and the restless state of Marianne's mind not only prevented
her from remaining in the room a moment after she was dressed, but
requiring at once solitude and continual change of place, made her
wander about the house till breakfast time, avoiding the sight of every
body.

At breakfast she neither ate, nor attempted to eat any thing; and
Elinor's attention was then all employed, not in urging her, not in
pitying her, nor in appearing to regard her, but in endeavouring to
engage Mrs. Jennings's notice entirely to herself.

As this was a favourite meal with Mrs. Jennings, it lasted a
considerable time, and they were just setting themselves, after it,
round the common working table, when a letter was delivered to
Marianne, which she eagerly caught from the servant, and, turning of a
death-like paleness, instantly ran out of the room.  Elinor, who saw as
plainly by this, as if she had seen the direction, that it must come
from Willoughby, felt immediately such a sickness at heart as made her
hardly able to hold up her head, and sat in such a general tremour as
made her fear it impossible to escape Mrs. Jennings's notice.  That good
lady, however, saw only that Marianne had received a letter from
Willoughby, which appeared to her a very good joke, and which she
treated accordingly, by hoping, with a laugh, that she would find it to
her liking.  Of Elinor's distress, she was too busily employed in
measuring lengths of worsted for her rug, to see any thing at all; and
calmly continuing her talk, as soon as Marianne disappeared, she said,

"Upon my word, I never saw a young woman so desperately in love in my
life!  MY girls were nothing to her, and yet they used to be foolish
enough; but as for Miss Marianne, she is quite an altered creature.  I
hope, from the bottom of my heart, he won't keep her waiting much
longer, for it is quite grievous to see her look so ill and forlorn.
Pray, when are they to be married?"

Elinor, though never less disposed to speak than at that moment,
obliged herself to answer such an attack as this, and, therefore,
trying to smile, replied, "And have you really, Ma'am, talked yourself
into a persuasion of my sister's being engaged to Mr. Willoughby?  I
thought it had been only a joke, but so serious a question seems to
imply more; and I must beg, therefore, that you will not deceive
yourself any longer.  I do assure you that nothing would surprise me
more than to hear of their being going to be married."

"For shame, for shame, Miss Dashwood! how can you talk so?  Don't we
all know that it must be a match, that they were over head and ears in
love with each other from the first moment they met?  Did not I see
them together in Devonshire every day, and all day long; and did not I
know that your sister came to town with me on purpose to buy wedding
clothes?  Come, come, this won't do.  Because you are so sly about it
yourself, you think nobody else has any senses; but it is no such
thing, I can tell you, for it has been known all over town this ever so
long.  I tell every body of it and so does Charlotte."

"Indeed, Ma'am," said Elinor, very seriously, "you are mistaken.
Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report, and
you will find that you have though you will not believe me now."

Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had not spirits to say more,
and eager at all events to know what Willoughby had written, hurried
away to their room, where, on opening the door, she saw Marianne
stretched on the bed, almost choked by grief, one letter in her hand,
and two or three others laying by her.  Elinor drew near, but without
saying a word; and seating herself on the bed, took her hand, kissed
her affectionately several times, and then gave way to a burst of
tears, which at first was scarcely less violent than Marianne's. The
latter, though unable to speak, seemed to feel all the tenderness of
this behaviour, and after some time thus spent in joint affliction, she
put all the letters into Elinor's hands; and then covering her face
with her handkerchief, almost screamed with agony.  Elinor, who knew
that such grief, shocking as it was to witness it, must have its
course, watched by her till this excess of suffering had somewhat spent
itself, and then turning eagerly to Willoughby's letter, read as
follows:

                              "Bond Street, January.
     "MY DEAR MADAM,

     "I have just had the honour of receiving your
     letter, for which I beg to return my sincere
     acknowledgments.  I am much concerned to find there
     was anything in my behaviour last night that did
     not meet your approbation; and though I am quite at
     a loss to discover in what point I could be so
     unfortunate as to offend you, I entreat your
     forgiveness of what I can assure you to have been
     perfectly unintentional.  I shall never reflect on
     my former acquaintance with your family in Devonshire
     without the most grateful pleasure, and flatter
     myself it will not be broken by any mistake or
     misapprehension of my actions.  My esteem for your
     whole family is very sincere; but if I have been so
     unfortunate as to give rise to a belief of more than
     I felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach myself
     for not having been more guarded in my professions
     of that esteem.  That I should ever have meant more
     you will allow to be impossible, when you understand
     that my affections have been long engaged elsewhere,
     and it will not be many weeks, I believe, before
     this engagement is fulfilled.  It is with great
     regret that I obey your commands in returning the
     letters with which I have been honoured from you,
     and the lock of hair, which you so obligingly bestowed
     on me.

     "I am, dear Madam,
               "Your most obedient
                    "humble servant,
                                        "JOHN WILLOUGHBY."


With what indignation such a letter as this must be read by Miss
Dashwood, may be imagined.  Though aware, before she began it, that it
must bring a confession of his inconstancy, and confirm their
separation for ever, she was not aware that such language could be
suffered to announce it; nor could she have supposed Willoughby capable
of departing so far from the appearance of every honourable and
delicate feeling--so far from the common decorum of a gentleman, as to
send a letter so impudently cruel: a letter which, instead of bringing
with his desire of a release any professions of regret, acknowledged no
breach of faith, denied all peculiar affection whatever--a letter of
which every line was an insult, and which proclaimed its writer to be
deep in hardened villainy.

She paused over it for some time with indignant astonishment; then read
it again and again; but every perusal only served to increase her
abhorrence of the man, and so bitter were her feelings against him,
that she dared not trust herself to speak, lest she might wound
Marianne still deeper by treating their disengagement, not as a loss to
her of any possible good but as an escape from the worst and most
irremediable of all evils, a connection, for life, with an unprincipled
man, as a deliverance the most real, a blessing the most important.

In her earnest meditations on the contents of the letter, on the
depravity of that mind which could dictate it, and probably, on the
very different mind of a very different person, who had no other
connection whatever with the affair than what her heart gave him with
every thing that passed, Elinor forgot the immediate distress of her
sister, forgot that she had three letters on her lap yet unread, and so
entirely forgot how long she had been in the room, that when on hearing
a carriage drive up to the door, she went to the window to see who
could be coming so unreasonably early, she was all astonishment to
perceive Mrs. Jennings's chariot, which she knew had not been ordered
till one.  Determined not to quit Marianne, though hopeless of
contributing, at present, to her ease, she hurried away to excuse
herself from attending Mrs. Jennings, on account of her sister being
indisposed.  Mrs. Jennings, with a thoroughly good-humoured concern for
its cause, admitted the excuse most readily, and Elinor, after seeing
her safe off, returned to Marianne, whom she found attempting to rise
from the bed, and whom she reached just in time to prevent her from
falling on the floor, faint and giddy from a long want of proper rest
and food; for it was many days since she had any appetite, and many
nights since she had really slept; and now, when her mind was no longer
supported by the fever of suspense, the consequence of all this was
felt in an aching head, a weakened stomach, and a general nervous
faintness.  A glass of wine, which Elinor procured for her directly,
made her more comfortable, and she was at last able to express some
sense of her kindness, by saying,

"Poor Elinor! how unhappy I make you!"

"I only wish," replied her sister, "there were any thing I COULD do,
which might be of comfort to you."

This, as every thing else would have been, was too much for Marianne,
who could only exclaim, in the anguish of her heart, "Oh! Elinor, I am
miserable, indeed," before her voice was entirely lost in sobs.

Elinor could no longer witness this torrent of unresisted grief in
silence.

"Exert yourself, dear Marianne," she cried, "if you would not kill
yourself and all who love you.  Think of your mother; think of her
misery while YOU suffer: for her sake you must exert yourself."

"I cannot, I cannot," cried Marianne; "leave me, leave me, if I
distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me!  but do not torture me so.
Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of
exertion!  Happy, happy Elinor, YOU cannot have an idea of what I
suffer."

"Do you call ME happy, Marianne?  Ah! if you knew!--And can you believe
me to be so, while I see you so wretched!"

"Forgive me, forgive me," throwing her arms round her sister's neck; "I
know you feel for me; I know what a heart you have; but yet you
are--you must be happy; Edward loves you--what, oh what, can do away
such happiness as that?"

"Many, many circumstances," said Elinor, solemnly.

"No, no, no," cried Marianne wildly, "he loves you, and only you.  You
CAN have no grief."

"I can have no pleasure while I see you in this state."

"And you will never see me otherwise.  Mine is a misery which nothing
can do away."

"You must not talk so, Marianne.  Have you no comforts? no friends?  Is
your loss such as leaves no opening for consolation?  Much as you
suffer now, think of what you would have suffered if the discovery of
his character had been delayed to a later period--if your engagement
had been carried on for months and months, as it might have been,
before he chose to put an end to it.  Every additional day of unhappy
confidence, on your side, would have made the blow more dreadful."

"Engagement!" cried Marianne, "there has been no engagement."

"No engagement!"

"No, he is not so unworthy as you believe him.  He has broken no faith
with me."

"But he told you that he loved you."

"Yes--no--never absolutely.  It was every day implied, but never
professedly declared.  Sometimes I thought it had been--but it never
was."

"Yet you wrote to him?"--

"Yes--could that be wrong after all that had passed?-- But I cannot
talk."

Elinor said no more, and turning again to the three letters which now
raised a much stronger curiosity than before, directly ran over the
contents of all.  The first, which was what her sister had sent him on
their arrival in town, was to this effect.

                         Berkeley Street, January.

     "How surprised you will be, Willoughby, on
     receiving this; and I think you will feel something
     more than surprise, when you know that I am in town.
     An opportunity of coming hither, though with Mrs.
     Jennings, was a temptation we could not resist.
     I wish you may receive this in time to come here
     to-night, but I will not depend on it.  At any rate
     I shall expect you to-morrow. For the present, adieu.

                                             "M.D."

Her second note, which had been written on the morning after the dance
at the Middletons', was in these words:--

     "I cannot express my disappointment in having
     missed you the day before yesterday, nor my astonishment
     at not having received any answer to a note which
     I sent you above a week ago.  I have been expecting
     to hear from you, and still more to see you, every
     hour of the day.  Pray call again as soon as possible,
     and explain the reason of my having expected this
     in vain.  You had better come earlier another time,
     because we are generally out by one.  We were last
     night at Lady Middleton's, where there was a dance.
     I have been told that you were asked to be of the
     party.  But could it be so?  You must be very much
     altered indeed since we parted, if that could be
     the case, and you not there.  But I will not suppose
     this possible, and I hope very soon to receive your
     personal assurance of its being otherwise.

                                            "M.D."

The contents of her last note to him were these:--

     "What am I to imagine, Willoughby, by your
     behaviour last night?  Again I demand an explanation
     of it.  I was prepared to meet you with the pleasure
     which our separation naturally produced, with the
     familiarity which our intimacy at Barton appeared
     to me to justify.  I was repulsed indeed! I have
     passed a wretched night in endeavouring to excuse
     a conduct which can scarcely be called less than
     insulting; but though I have not yet been able to
     form any reasonable apology for your behaviour,
     I am perfectly ready to hear your justification of
     it.  You have perhaps been misinformed, or purposely
     deceived, in something concerning me, which may have
     lowered me in your opinion.  Tell me what it is,
     explain the grounds on which you acted, and I shall
     be satisfied, in being able to satisfy you.  It
     would grieve me indeed to be obliged to think ill
     of you; but if I am to do it, if I am to learn that
     you are not what we have hitherto believed you, that
     your regard for us all was insincere, that your
     behaviour to me was intended only to deceive, let
     it be told as soon as possible.  My feelings are at
     present in a state of dreadful indecision; I wish
     to acquit you, but certainty on either side will be
     ease to what I now suffer.  If your sentiments are
     no longer what they were, you will return my notes,
     and the lock of my hair which is in your possession.

                                             "M.D."

That such letters, so full of affection and confidence, could have been
so answered, Elinor, for Willoughby's sake, would have been unwilling
to believe.  But her condemnation of him did not blind her to the
impropriety of their having been written at all; and she was silently
grieving over the imprudence which had hazarded such unsolicited proofs
of tenderness, not warranted by anything preceding, and most severely
condemned by the event, when Marianne, perceiving that she had finished
the letters, observed to her that they contained nothing but what any
one would have written in the same situation.

"I felt myself," she added, "to be as solemnly engaged to him, as if
the strictest legal covenant had bound us to each other."

"I can believe it," said Elinor; "but unfortunately he did not feel the
same."

"He DID feel the same, Elinor--for weeks and weeks he felt it.  I know
he did.  Whatever may have changed him now, (and nothing but the
blackest art employed against me can have done it), I was once as dear
to him as my own soul could wish.  This lock of hair, which now he can
so readily give up, was begged of me with the most earnest
supplication.  Had you seen his look, his manner, had you heard his
voice at that moment!  Have you forgot the last evening of our being
together at Barton?  The morning that we parted too!  When he told me
that it might be many weeks before we met again--his distress--can I
ever forget his distress?"

For a moment or two she could say no more; but when this emotion had
passed away, she added, in a firmer tone,

"Elinor, I have been cruelly used; but not by Willoughby."

"Dearest Marianne, who but himself?  By whom can he have been
instigated?"

"By all the world, rather than by his own heart.  I could rather
believe every creature of my acquaintance leagued together to ruin me
in his opinion, than believe his nature capable of such cruelty.  This
woman of whom he writes--whoever she be--or any one, in short, but your
own dear self, mama, and Edward, may have been so barbarous to bely me.
Beyond you three, is there a creature in the world whom I would not
rather suspect of evil than Willoughby, whose heart I know so well?"

Elinor would not contend, and only replied, "Whoever may have been so
detestably your enemy, let them be cheated of their malignant triumph,
my dear sister, by seeing how nobly the consciousness of your own
innocence and good intentions supports your spirits.  It is a
reasonable and laudable pride which resists such malevolence."

"No, no," cried Marianne, "misery such as mine has no pride.  I care
not who knows that I am wretched.  The triumph of seeing me so may be
open to all the world.  Elinor, Elinor, they who suffer little may be
proud and independent as they like--may resist insult, or return
mortification--but I cannot.  I must feel--I must be wretched--and they
are welcome to enjoy the consciousness of it that can."

"But for my mother's sake and mine--"

"I would do more than for my own.  But to appear happy when I am so
miserable--Oh! who can require it?"

Again they were both silent.  Elinor was employed in walking
thoughtfully from the fire to the window, from the window to the fire,
without knowing that she received warmth from one, or discerning
objects through the other; and Marianne, seated at the foot of the bed,
with her head leaning against one of its posts, again took up
Willoughby's letter, and, after shuddering over every sentence,
exclaimed--

"It is too much! Oh, Willoughby, Willoughby, could this be yours!
Cruel, cruel--nothing can acquit you.  Elinor, nothing can.  Whatever
he might have heard against me--ought he not to have suspended his
belief? ought he not to have told me of it, to have given me the power
of clearing myself? 'The lock of hair, (repeating it from the letter,)
which you so obligingly bestowed on me'--That is unpardonable.
Willoughby, where was your heart when you wrote those words?  Oh,
barbarously insolent!--Elinor, can he be justified?"

"No, Marianne, in no possible way."

"And yet this woman--who knows what her art may have been?--how long it
may have been premeditated, and how deeply contrived by her!--Who is
she?--Who can she be?--Whom did I ever hear him talk of as young and
attractive among his female acquaintance?--Oh! no one, no one--he
talked to me only of myself."

Another pause ensued; Marianne was greatly agitated, and it ended thus.

"Elinor, I must go home.  I must go and comfort mama.  Can not we be
gone to-morrow?"

"To-morrow, Marianne!"

"Yes, why should I stay here? I came only for Willoughby's sake--and
now who cares for me? Who regards me?"

"It would be impossible to go to-morrow. We owe Mrs. Jennings much more
than civility; and civility of the commonest kind must prevent such a
hasty removal as that."

"Well then, another day or two, perhaps; but I cannot stay here long, I
cannot stay to endure the questions and remarks of all these people.
The Middletons and Palmers--how am I to bear their pity?  The pity of
such a woman as Lady Middleton!  Oh, what would HE say to that!"

Elinor advised her to lie down again, and for a moment she did so; but
no attitude could give her ease; and in restless pain of mind and body
she moved from one posture to another, till growing more and more
hysterical, her sister could with difficulty keep her on the bed at
all, and for some time was fearful of being constrained to call for
assistance.  Some lavender drops, however, which she was at length
persuaded to take, were of use; and from that time till Mrs. Jennings
returned, she continued on the bed quiet and motionless.



CHAPTER 30


Mrs. Jennings came immediately to their room on her return, and without
waiting to have her request of admittance answered, opened the door and
walked in with a look of real concern.

"How do you do my dear?"--said she in a voice of great compassion to
Marianne, who turned away her face without attempting to answer.

"How is she, Miss Dashwood?--Poor thing! she looks very bad.-- No
wonder.  Ay, it is but too true.  He is to be married very soon--a
good-for-nothing fellow!  I have no patience with him.  Mrs. Taylor
told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular
friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I should not have believed
it; and I was almost ready to sink as it was.  Well, said I, all I can
say is, that if this be true, he has used a young lady of my
acquaintance abominably ill, and I wish with all my soul his wife may
plague his heart out.  And so I shall always say, my dear, you may
depend on it.  I have no notion of men's going on in this way; and if
ever I meet him again, I will give him such a dressing as he has not
had this many a day.  But there is one comfort, my dear Miss Marianne;
he is not the only young man in the world worth having; and with your
pretty face you will never want admirers.  Well, poor thing!  I won't
disturb her any longer, for she had better have her cry out at once and
have done with.  The Parrys and Sandersons luckily are coming tonight
you know, and that will amuse her."

She then went away, walking on tiptoe out of the room, as if she
supposed her young friend's affliction could be increased by noise.

Marianne, to the surprise of her sister, determined on dining with
them.  Elinor even advised her against it.  But "no, she would go down;
she could bear it very well, and the bustle about her would be less."
Elinor, pleased to have her governed for a moment by such a motive,
though believing it hardly possible that she could sit out the dinner,
said no more; and adjusting her dress for her as well as she could,
while Marianne still remained on the bed, was ready to assist her into
the dining room as soon as they were summoned to it.

When there, though looking most wretchedly, she ate more and was calmer
than her sister had expected.  Had she tried to speak, or had she been
conscious of half Mrs. Jennings's well-meant but ill-judged attentions
to her, this calmness could not have been maintained; but not a
syllable escaped her lips; and the abstraction of her thoughts
preserved her in ignorance of every thing that was passing before her.

Elinor, who did justice to Mrs. Jennings's kindness, though its
effusions were often distressing, and sometimes almost ridiculous, made
her those acknowledgments, and returned her those civilities, which her
sister could not make or return for herself.  Their good friend saw
that Marianne was unhappy, and felt that every thing was due to her
which might make her at all less so.  She treated her therefore, with
all the indulgent fondness of a parent towards a favourite child on the
last day of its holidays.  Marianne was to have the best place by the
fire, was to be tempted to eat by every delicacy in the house, and to
be amused by the relation of all the news of the day.  Had not Elinor,
in the sad countenance of her sister, seen a check to all mirth, she
could have been entertained by Mrs. Jennings's endeavours to cure a
disappointment in love, by a variety of sweetmeats and olives, and a
good fire.  As soon, however, as the consciousness of all this was
forced by continual repetition on Marianne, she could stay no longer.
With a hasty exclamation of Misery, and a sign to her sister not to
follow her, she directly got up and hurried out of the room.

"Poor soul!" cried Mrs. Jennings, as soon as she was gone, "how it
grieves me to see her!  And I declare if she is not gone away without
finishing her wine!  And the dried cherries too!  Lord! nothing seems
to do her any good.  I am sure if I knew of any thing she would like, I
would send all over the town for it.  Well, it is the oddest thing to
me, that a man should use such a pretty girl so ill!  But when there is
plenty of money on one side, and next to none on the other, Lord bless
you! they care no more about such things!--"

"The lady then--Miss Grey I think you called her--is very rich?"

"Fifty thousand pounds, my dear.  Did you ever see her? a smart,
stylish girl they say, but not handsome.  I remember her aunt very
well, Biddy Henshawe; she married a very wealthy man.  But the family
are all rich together.  Fifty thousand pounds! and by all accounts, it
won't come before it's wanted; for they say he is all to pieces.  No
wonder! dashing about with his curricle and hunters!  Well, it don't
signify talking; but when a young man, be who he will, comes and makes
love to a pretty girl, and promises marriage, he has no business to fly
off from his word only because he grows poor, and a richer girl is
ready to have him.  Why don't he, in such a case, sell his horses, let
his house, turn off his servants, and make a thorough reform at once? I
warrant you, Miss Marianne would have been ready to wait till matters
came round.  But that won't do now-a-days; nothing in the way of
pleasure can ever be given up by the young men of this age."

"Do you know what kind of a girl Miss Grey is?  Is she said to be
amiable?"

"I never heard any harm of her; indeed I hardly ever heard her
mentioned; except that Mrs. Taylor did say this morning, that one day
Miss Walker hinted to her, that she believed Mr. and Mrs. Ellison would
not be sorry to have Miss Grey married, for she and Mrs. Ellison could
never agree."--

"And who are the Ellisons?"

"Her guardians, my dear.  But now she is of age and may choose for
herself; and a pretty choice she has made!--What now," after pausing a
moment--"your poor sister is gone to her own room, I suppose, to moan
by herself.  Is there nothing one can get to comfort her?  Poor dear,
it seems quite cruel to let her be alone.  Well, by-and-by we shall
have a few friends, and that will amuse her a little.  What shall we
play at?  She hates whist I know; but is there no round game she cares
for?"

"Dear ma'am, this kindness is quite unnecessary.  Marianne, I dare say,
will not leave her room again this evening.  I shall persuade her if I
can to go early to bed, for I am sure she wants rest."

"Aye, I believe that will be best for her.  Let her name her own
supper, and go to bed.  Lord! no wonder she has been looking so bad and
so cast down this last week or two, for this matter I suppose has been
hanging over her head as long as that.  And so the letter that came
today finished it!  Poor soul!  I am sure if I had had a notion of it,
I would not have joked her about it for all my money.  But then you
know, how should I guess such a thing?  I made sure of its being
nothing but a common love letter, and you know young people like to be
laughed at about them.  Lord!  how concerned Sir John and my daughters
will be when they hear it!  If I had my senses about me I might have
called in Conduit Street in my way home, and told them of it.  But I
shall see them tomorrow."

"It would be unnecessary I am sure, for you to caution Mrs. Palmer and
Sir John against ever naming Mr. Willoughby, or making the slightest
allusion to what has passed, before my sister.  Their own good-nature
must point out to them the real cruelty of appearing to know any thing
about it when she is present; and the less that may ever be said to
myself on the subject, the more my feelings will be spared, as you my
dear madam will easily believe."

"Oh! Lord! yes, that I do indeed.  It must be terrible for you to hear
it talked of; and as for your sister, I am sure I would not mention a
word about it to her for the world.  You saw I did not all dinner time.
No more would Sir John, nor my daughters, for they are all very
thoughtful and considerate; especially if I give them a hint, as I
certainly will.  For my part, I think the less that is said about such
things, the better, the sooner 'tis blown over and forgot.  And what
does talking ever do you know?"

"In this affair it can only do harm; more so perhaps than in many cases
of a similar kind, for it has been attended by circumstances which, for
the sake of every one concerned in it, make it unfit to become the
public conversation.  I must do THIS justice to Mr. Willoughby--he has
broken no positive engagement with my sister."

"Law, my dear!  Don't pretend to defend him.  No positive engagement
indeed! after taking her all over Allenham House, and fixing on the
very rooms they were to live in hereafter!"

Elinor, for her sister's sake, could not press the subject farther, and
she hoped it was not required of her for Willoughby's; since, though
Marianne might lose much, he could gain very little by the enforcement
of the real truth.  After a short silence on both sides, Mrs. Jennings,
with all her natural hilarity, burst forth again.

"Well, my dear, 'tis a true saying about an ill-wind, for it will be
all the better for Colonel Brandon.  He will have her at last; aye,
that he will.  Mind me, now, if they an't married by Mid-summer.  Lord!
how he'll chuckle over this news!  I hope he will come tonight.  It
will be all to one a better match for your sister.  Two thousand a year
without debt or drawback--except the little love-child, indeed; aye, I
had forgot her; but she may be 'prenticed out at a small cost, and then
what does it signify?  Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you;
exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and
conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered
with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in
one corner!  Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were
there!  Then, there is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a
very pretty canal; and every thing, in short, that one could wish for;
and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile
from the turnpike-road, so 'tis never dull, for if you only go and sit
up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the carriages
that pass along.  Oh! 'tis a nice place!  A butcher hard by in the
village, and the parsonage-house within a stone's throw.  To my fancy,
a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are forced to
send three miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour nearer than
your mother.  Well, I shall spirit up the Colonel as soon as I can.
One shoulder of mutton, you know, drives another down.  If we CAN but
put Willoughby out of her head!"

"Ay, if we can do THAT, Ma'am," said Elinor, "we shall do very well
with or without Colonel Brandon." And then rising, she went away to
join Marianne, whom she found, as she expected, in her own room,
leaning, in silent misery, over the small remains of a fire, which,
till Elinor's entrance, had been her only light.

"You had better leave me," was all the notice that her sister received
from her.

"I will leave you," said Elinor, "if you will go to bed." But this,
from the momentary perverseness of impatient suffering, she at first
refused to do.  Her sister's earnest, though gentle persuasion,
however, soon softened her to compliance, and Elinor saw her lay her
aching head on the pillow, and as she hoped, in a way to get some quiet
rest before she left her.

In the drawing-room, whither she then repaired, she was soon joined by
Mrs. Jennings, with a wine-glass, full of something, in her hand.

"My dear," said she, entering, "I have just recollected that I have
some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was
tasted, so I have brought a glass of it for your sister.  My poor
husband! how fond he was of it!  Whenever he had a touch of his old
colicky gout, he said it did him more good than any thing else in the
world.  Do take it to your sister."

"Dear Ma'am," replied Elinor, smiling at the difference of the
complaints for which it was recommended, "how good you are!  But I have
just left Marianne in bed, and, I hope, almost asleep; and as I think
nothing will be of so much service to her as rest, if you will give me
leave, I will drink the wine myself."

Mrs. Jennings, though regretting that she had not been five minutes
earlier, was satisfied with the compromise; and Elinor, as she
swallowed the chief of it, reflected, that though its effects on a
colicky gout were, at present, of little importance to her, its healing
powers, on a disappointed heart might be as reasonably tried on herself
as on her sister.

Colonel Brandon came in while the party were at tea, and by his manner
of looking round the room for Marianne, Elinor immediately fancied that
he neither expected nor wished to see her there, and, in short, that he
was already aware of what occasioned her absence.  Mrs. Jennings was
not struck by the same thought; for soon after his entrance, she walked
across the room to the tea-table where Elinor presided, and whispered--
"The Colonel looks as grave as ever you see.  He knows nothing of it;
do tell him, my dear."

He shortly afterwards drew a chair close to hers, and, with a look
which perfectly assured her of his good information, inquired after her
sister.

"Marianne is not well," said she.  "She has been indisposed all day,
and we have persuaded her to go to bed."

"Perhaps, then," he hesitatingly replied, "what I heard this morning
may be--there may be more truth in it than I could believe possible at
first."

"What did you hear?"

"That a gentleman, whom I had reason to think--in short, that a man,
whom I KNEW to be engaged--but how shall I tell you?  If you know it
already, as surely you must, I may be spared."

"You mean," answered Elinor, with forced calmness, "Mr. Willoughby's
marriage with Miss Grey.  Yes, we DO know it all.  This seems to have
been a day of general elucidation, for this very morning first unfolded
it to us.  Mr. Willoughby is unfathomable!  Where did you hear it?"

"In a stationer's shop in Pall Mall, where I had business.  Two ladies
were waiting for their carriage, and one of them was giving the other
an account of the intended match, in a voice so little attempting
concealment, that it was impossible for me not to hear all.  The name
of Willoughby, John Willoughby, frequently repeated, first caught my
attention; and what followed was a positive assertion that every thing
was now finally settled respecting his marriage with Miss Grey--it was
no longer to be a secret--it would take place even within a few weeks,
with many particulars of preparations and other matters.  One thing,
especially, I remember, because it served to identify the man still
more:--as soon as the ceremony was over, they were to go to Combe
Magna, his seat in Somersetshire.  My astonishment!--but it would be
impossible to describe what I felt.  The communicative lady I learnt,
on inquiry, for I stayed in the shop till they were gone, was a Mrs.
Ellison, and that, as I have been since informed, is the name of Miss
Grey's guardian."

"It is.  But have you likewise heard that Miss Grey has fifty thousand
pounds?  In that, if in any thing, we may find an explanation."

"It may be so; but Willoughby is capable--at least I think"--he stopped
a moment; then added in a voice which seemed to distrust itself, "And
your sister--how did she--"

"Her sufferings have been very severe.  I have only to hope that they
may be proportionately short.  It has been, it is a most cruel
affliction.  Till yesterday, I believe, she never doubted his regard;
and even now, perhaps--but I am almost convinced that he never was
really attached to her.  He has been very deceitful! and, in some
points, there seems a hardness of heart about him."

"Ah!" said Colonel Brandon, "there is, indeed!  But your sister does
not--I think you said so--she does not consider quite as you do?"

"You know her disposition, and may believe how eagerly she would still
justify him if she could."

He made no answer; and soon afterwards, by the removal of the
tea-things, and the arrangement of the card parties, the subject was
necessarily dropped.  Mrs. Jennings, who had watched them with pleasure
while they were talking, and who expected to see the effect of Miss
Dashwood's communication, in such an instantaneous gaiety on Colonel
Brandon's side, as might have become a man in the bloom of youth, of
hope and happiness, saw him, with amazement, remain the whole evening
more serious and thoughtful than usual.



CHAPTER 31


From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the
next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had
closed her eyes.

Elinor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt; and
before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and
again; and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on
Elinor's side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on
Marianne's, as before.  Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as
unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every
consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him.  At one moment she
was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at
another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third
could resist it with energy.  In one thing, however, she was uniform,
when it came to the point, in avoiding, where it was possible, the
presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to
endure it.  Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs.
Jennings's entering into her sorrows with any compassion.

"No, no, no, it cannot be," she cried; "she cannot feel.  Her kindness
is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness.  All that she wants
is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it."

Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her
sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable
refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her
on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished
manner.  Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be
that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an
excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid.  She expected
from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she
judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on
herself.  Thus a circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together
in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs.
Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own
weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though
Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.

With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling,
from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying,

"Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good."

Marianne heard enough.  In one moment her imagination placed before her
a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition,
explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and
instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room
to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances
of his letter.  The work of one moment was destroyed by the next.  The
hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her;
and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an
ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had
never suffered.

The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her
moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could
reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with
passionate violence--a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its
object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still
referring her to the letter of comfort.  But the letter, when she was
calm enough to read it, brought little comfort.  Willoughby filled
every page.  Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and
relying as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by
Elinor's application, to intreat from Marianne greater openness towards
them both; and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection
for Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each
other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it.

All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was
dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken
confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone.
Elinor, unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne
to be in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of
patience till their mother's wishes could be known; and at length she
obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge.

Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy
till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself;
and positively refusing Elinor's offered attendance, went out alone for
the rest of the morning.  Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the
pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne's
letter, how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then
sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat
her directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the
drawing-room on Mrs. Jennings's going away, remained fixed at the table
where Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over
her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly
over its effect on her mother.

In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when
Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was
startled by a rap at the door.

"Who can this be?" cried Elinor.  "So early too! I thought we HAD been
safe."

Marianne moved to the window--

"It is Colonel Brandon!" said she, with vexation.  "We are never safe
from HIM."

"He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home."

"I will not trust to THAT," retreating to her own room.  "A man who has
nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on
that of others."

The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on
injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon DID come in; and Elinor, who
was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who
saw THAT solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his
anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister
for esteeming him so lightly.

"I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street," said he, after the first
salutation, "and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more
easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you
alone, which I was very desirous of doing.  My object--my wish--my sole
wish in desiring it--I hope, I believe it is--is to be a means of
giving comfort;--no, I must not say comfort--not present comfort--but
conviction, lasting conviction to your sister's mind.  My regard for
her, for yourself, for your mother--will you allow me to prove it, by
relating some circumstances which nothing but a VERY sincere
regard--nothing but an earnest desire of being useful--I think I am
justified--though where so many hours have been spent in convincing
myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be
wrong?" He stopped.

"I understand you," said Elinor.  "You have something to tell me of Mr.
Willoughby, that will open his character farther.  Your telling it will
be the greatest act of friendship that can be shewn Marianne.  MY
gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to
that end, and HERS must be gained by it in time.  Pray, pray let me
hear it."

"You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,--but
this will give you no idea--I must go farther back.  You will find me a
very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin.  A
short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it SHALL be
a short one.  On such a subject," sighing heavily, "can I have little
temptation to be diffuse."

He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went
on.

"You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation--(it is not to be
supposed that it could make any impression on you)--a conversation
between us one evening at Barton Park--it was the evening of a
dance--in which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling, in
some measure, your sister Marianne."

"Indeed," answered Elinor, "I have NOT forgotten it." He looked pleased
by this remembrance, and added,

"If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender
recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well
in mind as person.  The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of
fancy and spirits.  This lady was one of my nearest relations, an
orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father.  Our
ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were
playfellows and friends.  I cannot remember the time when I did not
love Eliza; and my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as
perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you
might think me incapable of having ever felt.  Hers, for me, was, I
believe, fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and
it was, though from a different cause, no less unfortunate.  At
seventeen she was lost to me for ever.  She was married--married
against her inclination to my brother.  Her fortune was large, and our
family estate much encumbered.  And this, I fear, is all that can be
said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian.
My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her.  I had hoped
that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for
some time it did; but at last the misery of her situation, for she
experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though
she had promised me that nothing--but how blindly I relate!  I have
never told you how this was brought on.  We were within a few hours of
eloping together for Scotland.  The treachery, or the folly, of my
cousin's maid betrayed us.  I was banished to the house of a relation
far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement,
till my father's point was gained.  I had depended on her fortitude too
far, and the blow was a severe one--but had her marriage been happy, so
young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at
least I should not have now to lament it.  This however was not the
case.  My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what
they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly.
The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so
inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural.  She resigned
herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it
been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the
remembrance of me occasioned.  But can we wonder that, with such a
husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or
restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after their
marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should
fall?  Had I remained in England, perhaps--but I meant to promote the
happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose
had procured my exchange.  The shock which her marriage had given me,"
he continued, in a voice of great agitation, "was of trifling
weight--was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years
afterwards, of her divorce.  It was THAT which threw this gloom,--even
now the recollection of what I suffered--"

He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about
the room.  Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his
distress, could not speak.  He saw her concern, and coming to her, took
her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect.  A few
minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure.

"It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned
to England.  My first care, when I DID arrive, was of course to seek
for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy.  I could
not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to
fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of
sin.  Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor
sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my
brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months
before to another person.  He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it,
that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to
dispose of it for some immediate relief.  At last, however, and after I
had been six months in England, I DID find her.  Regard for a former
servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to
visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and
there, in the same house, under a similar confinement, was my unfortunate
sister.  So altered--so faded--worn down by acute suffering of every
kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before
me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom
I had once doted.  What I endured in so beholding her--but I have no
right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it--I have
pained you too much already.  That she was, to all appearance, in the
last stage of a consumption, was--yes, in such a situation it was my
greatest comfort.  Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time
for a better preparation for death; and that was given.  I saw her
placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited
her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her
last moments."

Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in
an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate friend.

"Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended," said he, "by the resemblance
I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation.  Their
fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet
disposition of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier
marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other
be.  But to what does all this lead?  I seem to have been distressing
you for nothing.  Ah! Miss Dashwood--a subject such as this--untouched
for fourteen years--it is dangerous to handle it at all!  I WILL be
more collected--more concise.  She left to my care her only child, a
little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then
about three years old.  She loved the child, and had always kept it
with her.  It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I
have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her
education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I
had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at
school.  I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my
brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the
possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford.  I
called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in
general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her.  It is now
three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I
removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very
respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four
or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I
had every reason to be pleased with her situation.  But last February,
almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared.  I had allowed
her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire,
to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her
father there for his health.  I knew him to be a very good sort of man,
and I thought well of his daughter--better than she deserved, for, with
a most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would
give no clue, though she certainly knew all.  He, her father, a
well-meaning, but not a quick-sighted man, could really, I believe,
give no information; for he had been generally confined to the house,
while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance
they chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was
convinced himself, of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the
business.  In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone; all
the rest, for eight long months, was left to conjecture.  What I
thought, what I feared, may be imagined; and what I suffered too."

"Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "could it be--could Willoughby!"--

"The first news that reached me of her," he continued, "came in a
letter from herself, last October.  It was forwarded to me from
Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party
to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly,
which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body,
and which I believe gave offence to some.  Little did Mr. Willoughby
imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in
breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom
he had made poor and miserable; but HAD he known it, what would it have
availed?  Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of
your sister?  No, he had already done that, which no man who CAN feel
for another would do.  He had left the girl whose youth and innocence
he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no
creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address!  He had
left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor
relieved her."

"This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor.

"His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than
both.  Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what
I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on
being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have felt
for all your sakes.  When I came to you last week and found you alone,
I came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to do when
it WAS known.  My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then; but
now you will comprehend it.  To suffer you all to be so deceived; to
see your sister--but what could I do?  I had no hope of interfering
with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet
reclaim him.  But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what
were his designs on her.  Whatever they may have been, however, she may
now, and hereafter doubtless WILL turn with gratitude towards her own
condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she
considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and
pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as
strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which
must attend her through life.  Surely this comparison must have its use
with her.  She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing.  They
proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace.  On the
contrary, every friend must be made still more her friend by them.
Concern for her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it,
must strengthen every attachment.  Use your own discretion, however, in
communicating to her what I have told you.  You must know best what
will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed
it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have
suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family
afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to
raise myself at the expense of others."

Elinor's thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness;
attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to
Marianne, from the communication of what had passed.

"I have been more pained," said she, "by her endeavors to acquit him
than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most
perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do.  Now, though at first
she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier.  Have
you," she continued, after a short silence, "ever seen Mr. Willoughby
since you left him at Barton?"

"Yes," he replied gravely, "once I have.  One meeting was unavoidable."

Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying,

"What? have you met him to--"

"I could meet him no other way.  Eliza had confessed to me, though most
reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town, which
was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to
defend, I to punish his conduct.  We returned unwounded, and the
meeting, therefore, never got abroad."

Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a
soldier she presumed not to censure it.

"Such," said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, "has been the unhappy
resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imperfectly
have I discharged my trust!"

"Is she still in town?"

"No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near
her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there
she remains."

Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor
from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again
the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion
and esteem for him.



CHAPTER 32


When the particulars of this conversation were repeated by Miss
Dashwood to her sister, as they very soon were, the effect on her was
not entirely such as the former had hoped to see.  Not that Marianne
appeared to distrust the truth of any part of it, for she listened to
it all with the most steady and submissive attention, made neither
objection nor remark, attempted no vindication of Willoughby, and
seemed to shew by her tears that she felt it to be impossible.  But
though this behaviour assured Elinor that the conviction of this guilt
WAS carried home to her mind, though she saw with satisfaction the
effect of it, in her no longer avoiding Colonel Brandon when he called,
in her speaking to him, even voluntarily speaking, with a kind of
compassionate respect, and though she saw her spirits less violently
irritated than before, she did not see her less wretched.  Her mind did
become settled, but it was settled in a gloomy dejection.  She felt the
loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the
loss of his heart; his seduction and desertion of Miss Williams, the
misery of that poor girl, and the doubt of what his designs might ONCE
have been on herself, preyed altogether so much on her spirits, that
she could not bring herself to speak of what she felt even to Elinor;
and, brooding over her sorrows in silence, gave more pain to her sister
than could have been communicated by the most open and most frequent
confession of them.

To give the feelings or the language of Mrs. Dashwood on receiving and
answering Elinor's letter would be only to give a repetition of what
her daughters had already felt and said; of a disappointment hardly
less painful than Marianne's, and an indignation even greater than
Elinor's.  Long letters from her, quickly succeeding each other,
arrived to tell all that she suffered and thought; to express her
anxious solicitude for Marianne, and entreat she would bear up with
fortitude under this misfortune.  Bad indeed must the nature of
Marianne's affliction be, when her mother could talk of fortitude!
mortifying and humiliating must be the origin of those regrets, which
SHE could wish her not to indulge!

Against the interest of her own individual comfort, Mrs. Dashwood had
determined that it would be better for Marianne to be any where, at
that time, than at Barton, where every thing within her view would be
bringing back the past in the strongest and most afflicting manner, by
constantly placing Willoughby before her, such as she had always seen
him there.  She recommended it to her daughters, therefore, by all
means not to shorten their visit to Mrs. Jennings; the length of which,
though never exactly fixed, had been expected by all to comprise at
least five or six weeks.  A variety of occupations, of objects, and of
company, which could not be procured at Barton, would be inevitable
there, and might yet, she hoped, cheat Marianne, at times, into some
interest beyond herself, and even into some amusement, much as the
ideas of both might now be spurned by her.

From all danger of seeing Willoughby again, her mother considered her
to be at least equally safe in town as in the country, since his
acquaintance must now be dropped by all who called themselves her
friends.  Design could never bring them in each other's way: negligence
could never leave them exposed to a surprise; and chance had less in
its favour in the crowd of London than even in the retirement of
Barton, where it might force him before her while paying that visit at
Allenham on his marriage, which Mrs. Dashwood, from foreseeing at first
as a probable event, had brought herself to expect as a certain one.

She had yet another reason for wishing her children to remain where
they were; a letter from her son-in-law had told her that he and his
wife were to be in town before the middle of February, and she judged
it right that they should sometimes see their brother.

Marianne had promised to be guided by her mother's opinion, and she
submitted to it therefore without opposition, though it proved
perfectly different from what she wished and expected, though she felt
it to be entirely wrong, formed on mistaken grounds, and that by
requiring her longer continuance in London it deprived her of the only
possible alleviation of her wretchedness, the personal sympathy of her
mother, and doomed her to such society and such scenes as must prevent
her ever knowing a moment's rest.

But it was a matter of great consolation to her, that what brought evil
to herself would bring good to her sister; and Elinor, on the other
hand, suspecting that it would not be in her power to avoid Edward
entirely, comforted herself by thinking, that though their longer stay
would therefore militate against her own happiness, it would be better
for Marianne than an immediate return into Devonshire.

Her carefulness in guarding her sister from ever hearing Willoughby's
name mentioned, was not thrown away.  Marianne, though without knowing
it herself, reaped all its advantage; for neither Mrs. Jennings, nor
Sir John, nor even Mrs. Palmer herself, ever spoke of him before her.
Elinor wished that the same forbearance could have extended towards
herself, but that was impossible, and she was obliged to listen day
after day to the indignation of them all.

Sir John, could not have thought it possible.  "A man of whom he had
always had such reason to think well!  Such a good-natured fellow!  He
did not believe there was a bolder rider in England!  It was an
unaccountable business.  He wished him at the devil with all his heart.
He would not speak another word to him, meet him where he might, for
all the world!  No, not if it were to be by the side of Barton covert,
and they were kept watching for two hours together.  Such a scoundrel
of a fellow! such a deceitful dog!  It was only the last time they met
that he had offered him one of Folly's puppies! and this was the end of
it!"

Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equally angry.  "She was determined to
drop his acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she
had never been acquainted with him at all.  She wished with all her
heart Combe Magna was not so near Cleveland; but it did not signify,
for it was a great deal too far off to visit; she hated him so much
that she was resolved never to mention his name again, and she should
tell everybody she saw, how good-for-nothing he was."

The rest of Mrs. Palmer's sympathy was shewn in procuring all the
particulars in her power of the approaching marriage, and communicating
them to Elinor.  She could soon tell at what coachmaker's the new
carriage was building, by what painter Mr. Willoughby's portrait was
drawn, and at what warehouse Miss Grey's clothes might be seen.

The calm and polite unconcern of Lady Middleton on the occasion was a
happy relief to Elinor's spirits, oppressed as they often were by the
clamorous kindness of the others.  It was a great comfort to her to be
sure of exciting no interest in ONE person at least among their circle
of friends: a great comfort to know that there was ONE who would meet
her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any anxiety for
her sister's health.

Every qualification is raised at times, by the circumstances of the
moment, to more than its real value; and she was sometimes worried down
by officious condolence to rate good-breeding as more indispensable to
comfort than good-nature.

Lady Middleton expressed her sense of the affair about once every day,
or twice, if the subject occurred very often, by saying, "It is very
shocking, indeed!" and by the means of this continual though gentle
vent, was able not only to see the Miss Dashwoods from the first
without the smallest emotion, but very soon to see them without
recollecting a word of the matter; and having thus supported the
dignity of her own sex, and spoken her decided censure of what was
wrong in the other, she thought herself at liberty to attend to the
interest of her own assemblies, and therefore determined (though rather
against the opinion of Sir John) that as Mrs. Willoughby would at once
be a woman of elegance and fortune, to leave her card with her as soon
as she married.

Colonel Brandon's delicate, unobtrusive enquiries were never unwelcome
to Miss Dashwood.  He had abundantly earned the privilege of intimate
discussion of her sister's disappointment, by the friendly zeal with
which he had endeavoured to soften it, and they always conversed with
confidence.  His chief reward for the painful exertion of disclosing
past sorrows and present humiliations, was given in the pitying eye
with which Marianne sometimes observed him, and the gentleness of her
voice whenever (though it did not often happen) she was obliged, or
could oblige herself to speak to him.  THESE assured him that his
exertion had produced an increase of good-will towards himself, and
THESE gave Elinor hopes of its being farther augmented hereafter; but
Mrs. Jennings, who knew nothing of all this, who knew only that the
Colonel continued as grave as ever, and that she could neither prevail
on him to make the offer himself, nor commission her to make it for
him, began, at the end of two days, to think that, instead of
Midsummer, they would not be married till Michaelmas, and by the end of
a week that it would not be a match at all.  The good understanding
between the Colonel and Miss Dashwood seemed rather to declare that the
honours of the mulberry-tree, the canal, and the yew arbour, would all
be made over to HER; and Mrs. Jennings had, for some time ceased to
think at all of Mrs. Ferrars.

Early in February, within a fortnight from the receipt of Willoughby's
letter, Elinor had the painful office of informing her sister that he
was married.  She had taken care to have the intelligence conveyed to
herself, as soon as it was known that the ceremony was over, as she was
desirous that Marianne should not receive the first notice of it from
the public papers, which she saw her eagerly examining every morning.

She received the news with resolute composure; made no observation on
it, and at first shed no tears; but after a short time they would burst
out, and for the rest of the day, she was in a state hardly less
pitiable than when she first learnt to expect the event.

The Willoughbys left town as soon as they were married; and Elinor now
hoped, as there could be no danger of her seeing either of them, to
prevail on her sister, who had never yet left the house since the blow
first fell, to go out again by degrees as she had done before.

About this time the two Miss Steeles, lately arrived at their cousin's
house in Bartlett's Buildings, Holburn, presented themselves again
before their more grand relations in Conduit and Berkeley Streets; and
were welcomed by them all with great cordiality.

Elinor only was sorry to see them.  Their presence always gave her
pain, and she hardly knew how to make a very gracious return to the
overpowering delight of Lucy in finding her STILL in town.

"I should have been quite disappointed if I had not found you here
STILL," said she repeatedly, with a strong emphasis on the word.  "But
I always thought I SHOULD.  I was almost sure you would not leave
London yet awhile; though you TOLD me, you know, at Barton, that you
should not stay above a MONTH.  But I thought, at the time, that you
would most likely change your mind when it came to the point.  It would
have been such a great pity to have went away before your brother and
sister came.  And now to be sure you will be in no hurry to be gone.  I
am amazingly glad you did not keep to YOUR WORD."

Elinor perfectly understood her, and was forced to use all her
self-command to make it appear that she did NOT.

"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Jennings, "and how did you travel?"

"Not in the stage, I assure you," replied Miss Steele, with quick
exultation; "we came post all the way, and had a very smart beau to
attend us.  Dr. Davies was coming to town, and so we thought we'd join
him in a post-chaise; and he behaved very genteelly, and paid ten or
twelve shillings more than we did."

"Oh, oh!" cried Mrs. Jennings; "very pretty, indeed! and the Doctor is
a single man, I warrant you."

"There now," said Miss Steele, affectedly simpering, "everybody laughs
at me so about the Doctor, and I cannot think why.  My cousins say they
are sure I have made a conquest; but for my part I declare I never
think about him from one hour's end to another.  'Lord! here comes your
beau, Nancy,' my cousin said t'other day, when she saw him crossing the
street to the house.  My beau, indeed! said I--I cannot think who you
mean.  The Doctor is no beau of mine."

"Aye, aye, that is very pretty talking--but it won't do--the Doctor is
the man, I see."

"No, indeed!" replied her cousin, with affected earnestness, "and I beg
you will contradict it, if you ever hear it talked of."

Mrs. Jennings directly gave her the gratifying assurance that she
certainly would NOT, and Miss Steele was made completely happy.

"I suppose you will go and stay with your brother and sister, Miss
Dashwood, when they come to town," said Lucy, returning, after a
cessation of hostile hints, to the charge.

"No, I do not think we shall."

"Oh, yes, I dare say you will."

Elinor would not humour her by farther opposition.

"What a charming thing it is that Mrs. Dashwood can spare you both for
so long a time together!"

"Long a time, indeed!" interposed Mrs. Jennings.  "Why, their visit is
but just begun!"

Lucy was silenced.

"I am sorry we cannot see your sister, Miss Dashwood," said Miss
Steele.  "I am sorry she is not well--" for Marianne had left the room
on their arrival.

"You are very good.  My sister will be equally sorry to miss the
pleasure of seeing you; but she has been very much plagued lately with
nervous head-aches, which make her unfit for company or conversation."

"Oh, dear, that is a great pity! but such old friends as Lucy and
me!--I think she might see US; and I am sure we would not speak a word."

Elinor, with great civility, declined the proposal.  Her sister was
perhaps laid down upon the bed, or in her dressing gown, and therefore
not able to come to them.

"Oh, if that's all," cried Miss Steele, "we can just as well go and see
HER."

Elinor began to find this impertinence too much for her temper; but she
was saved the trouble of checking it, by Lucy's sharp reprimand, which
now, as on many occasions, though it did not give much sweetness to the
manners of one sister, was of advantage in governing those of the other.



CHAPTER 33


After some opposition, Marianne yielded to her sister's entreaties, and
consented to go out with her and Mrs. Jennings one morning for half an
hour. She expressly conditioned, however, for paying no visits, and
would do no more than accompany them to Gray's in Sackville Street,
where Elinor was carrying on a negotiation for the exchange of a few
old-fashioned jewels of her mother.

When they stopped at the door, Mrs. Jennings recollected that there was
a lady at the other end of the street on whom she ought to call; and as
she had no business at Gray's, it was resolved, that while her young
friends transacted their's, she should pay her visit and return for
them.

On ascending the stairs, the Miss Dashwoods found so many people before
them in the room, that there was not a person at liberty to tend to
their orders; and they were obliged to wait.  All that could be done
was, to sit down at that end of the counter which seemed to promise the
quickest succession; one gentleman only was standing there, and it is
probable that Elinor was not without hope of exciting his politeness to
a quicker despatch.  But the correctness of his eye, and the delicacy
of his taste, proved to be beyond his politeness.  He was giving orders
for a toothpick-case for himself, and till its size, shape, and
ornaments were determined, all of which, after examining and debating
for a quarter of an hour over every toothpick-case in the shop, were
finally arranged by his own inventive fancy, he had no leisure to
bestow any other attention on the two ladies, than what was comprised
in three or four very broad stares; a kind of notice which served to
imprint on Elinor the remembrance of a person and face, of strong,
natural, sterling insignificance, though adorned in the first style of
fashion.

Marianne was spared from the troublesome feelings of contempt and
resentment, on this impertinent examination of their features, and on
the puppyism of his manner in deciding on all the different horrors of
the different toothpick-cases presented to his inspection, by remaining
unconscious of it all; for she was as well able to collect her thoughts
within herself, and be as ignorant of what was passing around her, in
Mr. Gray's shop, as in her own bedroom.

At last the affair was decided.  The ivory, the gold, and the pearls,
all received their appointment, and the gentleman having named the last
day on which his existence could be continued without the possession of
the toothpick-case, drew on his gloves with leisurely care, and
bestowing another glance on the Miss Dashwoods, but such a one as
seemed rather to demand than express admiration, walked off with a
happy air of real conceit and affected indifference.

Elinor lost no time in bringing her business forward, was on the point
of concluding it, when another gentleman presented himself at her side.
She turned her eyes towards his face, and found him with some surprise
to be her brother.

Their affection and pleasure in meeting was just enough to make a very
creditable appearance in Mr. Gray's shop.  John Dashwood was really far
from being sorry to see his sisters again; it rather gave them
satisfaction; and his inquiries after their mother were respectful and
attentive.

Elinor found that he and Fanny had been in town two days.

"I wished very much to call upon you yesterday," said he, "but it was
impossible, for we were obliged to take Harry to see the wild beasts at
Exeter Exchange; and we spent the rest of the day with Mrs. Ferrars.
Harry was vastly pleased.  THIS morning I had fully intended to call on
you, if I could possibly find a spare half hour, but one has always so
much to do on first coming to town.  I am come here to bespeak Fanny a
seal.  But tomorrow I think I shall certainly be able to call in
Berkeley Street, and be introduced to your friend Mrs. Jennings.  I
understand she is a woman of very good fortune.  And the Middletons
too, you must introduce me to THEM.  As my mother-in-law's relations, I
shall be happy to show them every respect.  They are excellent
neighbours to you in the country, I understand."

"Excellent indeed.  Their attention to our comfort, their friendliness
in every particular, is more than I can express."

"I am extremely glad to hear it, upon my word; extremely glad indeed.
But so it ought to be; they are people of large fortune, they are
related to you, and every civility and accommodation that can serve to
make your situation pleasant might be reasonably expected.  And so you
are most comfortably settled in your little cottage and want for
nothing!  Edward brought us a most charming account of the place: the
most complete thing of its kind, he said, that ever was, and you all
seemed to enjoy it beyond any thing.  It was a great satisfaction to us
to hear it, I assure you."

Elinor did feel a little ashamed of her brother; and was not sorry to
be spared the necessity of answering him, by the arrival of Mrs.
Jennings's servant, who came to tell her that his mistress waited for
them at the door.

Mr. Dashwood attended them down stairs, was introduced to Mrs. Jennings
at the door of her carriage, and repeating his hope of being able to
call on them the next day, took leave.

His visit was duly paid.  He came with a pretence at an apology from
their sister-in-law, for not coming too; "but she was so much engaged
with her mother, that really she had no leisure for going any where."
Mrs. Jennings, however, assured him directly, that she should not stand
upon ceremony, for they were all cousins, or something like it, and she
should certainly wait on Mrs. John Dashwood very soon, and bring her
sisters to see her.  His manners to THEM, though calm, were perfectly
kind; to Mrs. Jennings, most attentively civil; and on Colonel
Brandon's coming in soon after himself, he eyed him with a curiosity
which seemed to say, that he only wanted to know him to be rich, to be
equally civil to HIM.

After staying with them half an hour, he asked Elinor to walk with him
to Conduit Street, and introduce him to Sir John and Lady Middleton.
The weather was remarkably fine, and she readily consented.  As soon as
they were out of the house, his enquiries began.

"Who is Colonel Brandon?  Is he a man of fortune?"

"Yes; he has very good property in Dorsetshire."

"I am glad of it.  He seems a most gentlemanlike man; and I think,
Elinor, I may congratulate you on the prospect of a very respectable
establishment in life."

"Me, brother! what do you mean?"

"He likes you.  I observed him narrowly, and am convinced of it.  What
is the amount of his fortune?"

"I believe about two thousand a year."

"Two thousand a-year;" and then working himself up to a pitch of
enthusiastic generosity, he added, "Elinor, I wish with all my heart it
were TWICE as much, for your sake."

"Indeed I believe you," replied Elinor; "but I am very sure that
Colonel Brandon has not the smallest wish of marrying ME."

"You are mistaken, Elinor; you are very much mistaken.  A very little
trouble on your side secures him.  Perhaps just at present he may be
undecided; the smallness of your fortune may make him hang back; his
friends may all advise him against it.  But some of those little
attentions and encouragements which ladies can so easily give will fix
him, in spite of himself.  And there can be no reason why you should
not try for him.  It is not to be supposed that any prior attachment on
your side--in short, you know as to an attachment of that kind, it is
quite out of the question, the objections are insurmountable--you have
too much sense not to see all that.  Colonel Brandon must be the man;
and no civility shall be wanting on my part to make him pleased with
you and your family.  It is a match that must give universal
satisfaction.  In short, it is a kind of thing that"--lowering his
voice to an important whisper--"will be exceedingly welcome to ALL
PARTIES." Recollecting himself, however, he added, "That is, I mean to
say--your friends are all truly anxious to see you well settled; Fanny
particularly, for she has your interest very much at heart, I assure
you.  And her mother too, Mrs. Ferrars, a very good-natured woman, I am
sure it would give her great pleasure; she said as much the other day."

Elinor would not vouchsafe any answer.

"It would be something remarkable, now," he continued, "something
droll, if Fanny should have a brother and I a sister settling at the
same time.  And yet it is not very unlikely."

"Is Mr. Edward Ferrars," said Elinor, with resolution, "going to be
married?"

"It is not actually settled, but there is such a thing in agitation.
He has a most excellent mother.  Mrs. Ferrars, with the utmost
liberality, will come forward, and settle on him a thousand a year, if
the match takes place.  The lady is the Hon. Miss Morton, only daughter
of the late Lord Morton, with thirty thousand pounds.  A very desirable
connection on both sides, and I have not a doubt of its taking place in
time.  A thousand a-year is a great deal for a mother to give away, to
make over for ever; but Mrs. Ferrars has a noble spirit.  To give you
another instance of her liberality:--The other day, as soon as we came
to town, aware that money could not be very plenty with us just now,
she put bank-notes into Fanny's hands to the amount of two hundred
pounds.  And extremely acceptable it is, for we must live at a great
expense while we are here."

He paused for her assent and compassion; and she forced herself to say,

"Your expenses both in town and country must certainly be considerable;
but your income is a large one."

"Not so large, I dare say, as many people suppose.  I do not mean to
complain, however; it is undoubtedly a comfortable one, and I hope will
in time be better.  The enclosure of Norland Common, now carrying on,
is a most serious drain.  And then I have made a little purchase within
this half year; East Kingham Farm, you must remember the place, where
old Gibson used to live.  The land was so very desirable for me in
every respect, so immediately adjoining my own property, that I felt it
my duty to buy it.  I could not have answered it to my conscience to
let it fall into any other hands.  A man must pay for his convenience;
and it HAS cost me a vast deal of money."

"More than you think it really and intrinsically worth."

"Why, I hope not that.  I might have sold it again, the next day, for
more than I gave: but, with regard to the purchase-money, I might have
been very unfortunate indeed; for the stocks were at that time so low,
that if I had not happened to have the necessary sum in my banker's
hands, I must have sold out to very great loss."

Elinor could only smile.

"Other great and inevitable expenses too we have had on first coming to
Norland.  Our respected father, as you well know, bequeathed all the
Stanhill effects that remained at Norland (and very valuable they were)
to your mother.  Far be it from me to repine at his doing so; he had an
undoubted right to dispose of his own property as he chose, but, in
consequence of it, we have been obliged to make large purchases of
linen, china, &c. to supply the place of what was taken away.  You may
guess, after all these expenses, how very far we must be from being
rich, and how acceptable Mrs. Ferrars's kindness is."

"Certainly," said Elinor; "and assisted by her liberality, I hope you
may yet live to be in easy circumstances."

"Another year or two may do much towards it," he gravely replied; "but
however there is still a great deal to be done.  There is not a stone
laid of Fanny's green-house, and nothing but the plan of the
flower-garden marked out."

"Where is the green-house to be?"

"Upon the knoll behind the house.  The old walnut trees are all come
down to make room for it.  It will be a very fine object from many
parts of the park, and the flower-garden will slope down just before
it, and be exceedingly pretty.  We have cleared away all the old thorns
that grew in patches over the brow."

Elinor kept her concern and her censure to herself; and was very
thankful that Marianne was not present, to share the provocation.

Having now said enough to make his poverty clear, and to do away the
necessity of buying a pair of ear-rings for each of his sisters, in his
next visit at Gray's his thoughts took a cheerfuller turn, and he began
to congratulate Elinor on having such a friend as Mrs. Jennings.

"She seems a most valuable woman indeed--Her house, her style of
living, all bespeak an exceeding good income; and it is an acquaintance
that has not only been of great use to you hitherto, but in the end may
prove materially advantageous.--Her inviting you to town is certainly a
vast thing in your favour; and indeed, it speaks altogether so great a
regard for you, that in all probability when she dies you will not be
forgotten.-- She must have a great deal to leave."

"Nothing at all, I should rather suppose; for she has only her
jointure, which will descend to her children."

"But it is not to be imagined that she lives up to her income.  Few
people of common prudence will do THAT; and whatever she saves, she
will be able to dispose of."

"And do you not think it more likely that she should leave it to her
daughters, than to us?"

"Her daughters are both exceedingly well married, and therefore I
cannot perceive the necessity of her remembering them farther.
Whereas, in my opinion, by her taking so much notice of you, and
treating you in this kind of way, she has given you a sort of claim on
her future consideration, which a conscientious woman would not
disregard.  Nothing can be kinder than her behaviour; and she can
hardly do all this, without being aware of the expectation it raises."

"But she raises none in those most concerned.  Indeed, brother, your
anxiety for our welfare and prosperity carries you too far."

"Why, to be sure," said he, seeming to recollect himself, "people have
little, have very little in their power.  But, my dear Elinor, what is
the matter with Marianne?-- she looks very unwell, has lost her colour,
and is grown quite thin.  Is she ill?"

"She is not well, she has had a nervous complaint on her for several
weeks."

"I am sorry for that.  At her time of life, any thing of an illness
destroys the bloom for ever!  Hers has been a very short one!  She was
as handsome a girl last September, as I ever saw; and as likely to
attract the man.  There was something in her style of beauty, to please
them particularly.  I remember Fanny used to say that she would marry
sooner and better than you did; not but what she is exceedingly fond of
YOU, but so it happened to strike her.  She will be mistaken, however.
I question whether Marianne NOW, will marry a man worth more than five
or six hundred a-year, at the utmost, and I am very much deceived if
YOU do not do better.  Dorsetshire!  I know very little of Dorsetshire;
but, my dear Elinor, I shall be exceedingly glad to know more of it;
and I think I can answer for your having Fanny and myself among the
earliest and best pleased of your visitors."

Elinor tried very seriously to convince him that there was no
likelihood of her marrying Colonel Brandon; but it was an expectation
of too much pleasure to himself to be relinquished, and he was really
resolved on seeking an intimacy with that gentleman, and promoting the
marriage by every possible attention.  He had just compunction enough
for having done nothing for his sisters himself, to be exceedingly
anxious that everybody else should do a great deal; and an offer from
Colonel Brandon, or a legacy from Mrs. Jennings, was the easiest means
of atoning for his own neglect.

They were lucky enough to find Lady Middleton at home, and Sir John
came in before their visit ended.  Abundance of civilities passed on
all sides.  Sir John was ready to like anybody, and though Mr. Dashwood
did not seem to know much about horses, he soon set him down as a very
good-natured fellow: while Lady Middleton saw enough of fashion in his
appearance to think his acquaintance worth having; and Mr. Dashwood
went away delighted with both.

"I shall have a charming account to carry to Fanny," said he, as he
walked back with his sister.  "Lady Middleton is really a most elegant
woman!  Such a woman as I am sure Fanny will be glad to know.  And Mrs.
Jennings too, an exceedingly well-behaved woman, though not so elegant
as her daughter.  Your sister need not have any scruple even of
visiting HER, which, to say the truth, has been a little the case, and
very naturally; for we only knew that Mrs. Jennings was the widow of a
man who had got all his money in a low way; and Fanny and Mrs. Ferrars
were both strongly prepossessed, that neither she nor her daughters
were such kind of women as Fanny would like to associate with.  But now
I can carry her a most satisfactory account of both."



CHAPTER 34


Mrs. John Dashwood had so much confidence in her husband's judgment,
that she waited the very next day both on Mrs. Jennings and her
daughter; and her confidence was rewarded by finding even the former,
even the woman with whom her sisters were staying, by no means unworthy
her notice; and as for Lady Middleton, she found her one of the most
charming women in the world!

Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood.  There was a
kind of cold hearted selfishness on both sides, which mutually
attracted them; and they sympathised with each other in an insipid
propriety of demeanor, and a general want of understanding.

The same manners, however, which recommended Mrs. John Dashwood to the
good opinion of Lady Middleton did not suit the fancy of Mrs. Jennings,
and to HER she appeared nothing more than a little proud-looking woman
of uncordial address, who met her husband's sisters without any
affection, and almost without having anything to say to them; for of
the quarter of an hour bestowed on Berkeley Street, she sat at least
seven minutes and a half in silence.

Elinor wanted very much to know, though she did not chuse to ask,
whether Edward was then in town; but nothing would have induced Fanny
voluntarily to mention his name before her, till able to tell her that
his marriage with Miss Morton was resolved on, or till her husband's
expectations on Colonel Brandon were answered; because she believed
them still so very much attached to each other, that they could not be
too sedulously divided in word and deed on every occasion.  The
intelligence however, which SHE would not give, soon flowed from
another quarter.  Lucy came very shortly to claim Elinor's compassion
on being unable to see Edward, though he had arrived in town with Mr.
and Mrs. Dashwood.  He dared not come to Bartlett's Buildings for fear
of detection, and though their mutual impatience to meet, was not to be
told, they could do nothing at present but write.

Edward assured them himself of his being in town, within a very short
time, by twice calling in Berkeley Street.  Twice was his card found on
the table, when they returned from their morning's engagements.  Elinor
was pleased that he had called; and still more pleased that she had
missed him.

The Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons, that,
though not much in the habit of giving anything, they determined to
give them--a dinner; and soon after their acquaintance began, invited
them to dine in Harley Street, where they had taken a very good house
for three months.  Their sisters and Mrs. Jennings were invited
likewise, and John Dashwood was careful to secure Colonel Brandon, who,
always glad to be where the Miss Dashwoods were, received his eager
civilities with some surprise, but much more pleasure.  They were to
meet Mrs. Ferrars; but Elinor could not learn whether her sons were to
be of the party.  The expectation of seeing HER, however, was enough to
make her interested in the engagement; for though she could now meet
Edward's mother without that strong anxiety which had once promised to
attend such an introduction, though she could now see her with perfect
indifference as to her opinion of herself, her desire of being in
company with Mrs. Ferrars, her curiosity to know what she was like, was
as lively as ever.

The interest with which she thus anticipated the party, was soon
afterwards increased, more powerfully than pleasantly, by her hearing
that the Miss Steeles were also to be at it.

So well had they recommended themselves to Lady Middleton, so agreeable
had their assiduities made them to her, that though Lucy was certainly
not so elegant, and her sister not even genteel, she was as ready as
Sir John to ask them to spend a week or two in Conduit Street; and it
happened to be particularly convenient to the Miss Steeles, as soon as
the Dashwoods' invitation was known, that their visit should begin a
few days before the party took place.

Their claims to the notice of Mrs. John Dashwood, as the nieces of the
gentleman who for many years had had the care of her brother, might not
have done much, however, towards procuring them seats at her table; but
as Lady Middleton's guests they must be welcome; and Lucy, who had long
wanted to be personally known to the family, to have a nearer view of
their characters and her own difficulties, and to have an opportunity
of endeavouring to please them, had seldom been happier in her life,
than she was on receiving Mrs. John Dashwood's card.

On Elinor its effect was very different.  She began immediately to
determine, that Edward who lived with his mother, must be asked as his
mother was, to a party given by his sister; and to see him for the
first time, after all that passed, in the company of Lucy!--she hardly
knew how she could bear it!

These apprehensions, perhaps, were not founded entirely on reason, and
certainly not at all on truth.  They were relieved however, not by her
own recollection, but by the good will of Lucy, who believed herself to
be inflicting a severe disappointment when she told her that Edward
certainly would not be in Harley Street on Tuesday, and even hoped to
be carrying the pain still farther by persuading her that he was kept
away by the extreme affection for herself, which he could not conceal
when they were together.

The important Tuesday came that was to introduce the two young ladies
to this formidable mother-in-law.

"Pity me, dear Miss Dashwood!" said Lucy, as they walked up the stairs
together--for the Middletons arrived so directly after Mrs. Jennings,
that they all followed the servant at the same time--"There is nobody
here but you, that can feel for me.--I declare I can hardly stand.
Good gracious!--In a moment I shall see the person that all my
happiness depends on--that is to be my mother!"--

Elinor could have given her immediate relief by suggesting the
possibility of its being Miss Morton's mother, rather than her own,
whom they were about to behold; but instead of doing that, she assured
her, and with great sincerity, that she did pity her--to the utter
amazement of Lucy, who, though really uncomfortable herself, hoped at
least to be an object of irrepressible envy to Elinor.

Mrs. Ferrars was a little, thin woman, upright, even to formality, in
her figure, and serious, even to sourness, in her aspect.  Her
complexion was sallow; and her features small, without beauty, and
naturally without expression; but a lucky contraction of the brow had
rescued her countenance from the disgrace of insipidity, by giving it
the strong characters of pride and ill nature.  She was not a woman of
many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the
number of her ideas; and of the few syllables that did escape her, not
one fell to the share of Miss Dashwood, whom she eyed with the spirited
determination of disliking her at all events.

Elinor could not NOW be made unhappy by this behaviour.-- A few months
ago it would have hurt her exceedingly; but it was not in Mrs. Ferrars'
power to distress her by it now;--and the difference of her manners to
the Miss Steeles, a difference which seemed purposely made to humble
her more, only amused her.  She could not but smile to see the
graciousness of both mother and daughter towards the very person-- for
Lucy was particularly distinguished--whom of all others, had they known
as much as she did, they would have been most anxious to mortify; while
she herself, who had comparatively no power to wound them, sat
pointedly slighted by both.  But while she smiled at a graciousness so
misapplied, she could not reflect on the mean-spirited folly from which
it sprung, nor observe the studied attentions with which the Miss
Steeles courted its continuance, without thoroughly despising them all
four.

Lucy was all exultation on being so honorably distinguished; and Miss
Steele wanted only to be teazed about Dr. Davies to be perfectly happy.

The dinner was a grand one, the servants were numerous, and every thing
bespoke the Mistress's inclination for show, and the Master's ability
to support it.  In spite of the improvements and additions which were
making to the Norland estate, and in spite of its owner having once
been within some thousand pounds of being obliged to sell out at a
loss, nothing gave any symptom of that indigence which he had tried to
infer from it;--no poverty of any kind, except of conversation,
appeared--but there, the deficiency was considerable.  John Dashwood
had not much to say for himself that was worth hearing, and his wife
had still less.  But there was no peculiar disgrace in this; for it was
very much the case with the chief of their visitors, who almost all
laboured under one or other of these disqualifications for being
agreeable--Want of sense, either natural or improved--want of
elegance--want of spirits--or want of temper.

When the ladies withdrew to the drawing-room after dinner, this poverty
was particularly evident, for the gentlemen HAD supplied the discourse
with some variety--the variety of politics, inclosing land, and
breaking horses--but then it was all over; and one subject only engaged
the ladies till coffee came in, which was the comparative heights of
Harry Dashwood, and Lady Middleton's second son William, who were
nearly of the same age.

Had both the children been there, the affair might have been determined
too easily by measuring them at once; but as Harry only was present, it
was all conjectural assertion on both sides; and every body had a right
to be equally positive in their opinion, and to repeat it over and over
again as often as they liked.

The parties stood thus:

The two mothers, though each really convinced that her own son was the
tallest, politely decided in favour of the other.

The two grandmothers, with not less partiality, but more sincerity,
were equally earnest in support of their own descendant.

Lucy, who was hardly less anxious to please one parent than the other,
thought the boys were both remarkably tall for their age, and could not
conceive that there could be the smallest difference in the world
between them; and Miss Steele, with yet greater address gave it, as
fast as she could, in favour of each.

Elinor, having once delivered her opinion on William's side, by which
she offended Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny still more, did not see the
necessity of enforcing it by any farther assertion; and Marianne, when
called on for hers, offended them all, by declaring that she had no
opinion to give, as she had never thought about it.

Before her removing from Norland, Elinor had painted a very pretty pair
of screens for her sister-in-law, which being now just mounted and
brought home, ornamented her present drawing room; and these screens,
catching the eye of John Dashwood on his following the other gentlemen
into the room, were officiously handed by him to Colonel Brandon for
his admiration.

"These are done by my eldest sister," said he; "and you, as a man of
taste, will, I dare say, be pleased with them.  I do not know whether
you have ever happened to see any of her performances before, but she
is in general reckoned to draw extremely well."

The Colonel, though disclaiming all pretensions to connoisseurship,
warmly admired the screens, as he would have done any thing painted by
Miss Dashwood; and on the curiosity of the others being of course
excited, they were handed round for general inspection.  Mrs. Ferrars,
not aware of their being Elinor's work, particularly requested to look
at them; and after they had received gratifying testimony of Lady
Middletons's approbation, Fanny presented them to her mother,
considerately informing her, at the same time, that they were done by
Miss Dashwood.

"Hum"--said Mrs. Ferrars--"very pretty,"--and without regarding them at
all, returned them to her daughter.

Perhaps Fanny thought for a moment that her mother had been quite rude
enough,--for, colouring a little, she immediately said,

"They are very pretty, ma'am--an't they?" But then again, the dread of
having been too civil, too encouraging herself, probably came over her,
for she presently added,

"Do you not think they are something in Miss Morton's style of
painting, Ma'am?--She DOES paint most delightfully!--How beautifully
her last landscape is done!"

"Beautifully indeed!  But SHE does every thing well."

Marianne could not bear this.--She was already greatly displeased with
Mrs. Ferrars; and such ill-timed praise of another, at Elinor's
expense, though she had not any notion of what was principally meant by
it, provoked her immediately to say with warmth,

"This is admiration of a very particular kind!--what is Miss Morton to
us?--who knows, or who cares, for her?--it is Elinor of whom WE think
and speak."

And so saying, she took the screens out of her sister-in-law's hands,
to admire them herself as they ought to be admired.

Mrs. Ferrars looked exceedingly angry, and drawing herself up more
stiffly than ever, pronounced in retort this bitter philippic, "Miss
Morton is Lord Morton's daughter."

Fanny looked very angry too, and her husband was all in a fright at his
sister's audacity.  Elinor was much more hurt by Marianne's warmth than
she had been by what produced it; but Colonel Brandon's eyes, as they
were fixed on Marianne, declared that he noticed only what was amiable
in it, the affectionate heart which could not bear to see a sister
slighted in the smallest point.

Marianne's feelings did not stop here.  The cold insolence of Mrs.
Ferrars's general behaviour to her sister, seemed, to her, to foretell
such difficulties and distresses to Elinor, as her own wounded heart
taught her to think of with horror; and urged by a strong impulse of
affectionate sensibility, she moved after a moment, to her sister's
chair, and putting one arm round her neck, and one cheek close to hers,
said in a low, but eager, voice,

"Dear, dear Elinor, don't mind them.  Don't let them make YOU unhappy."

She could say no more; her spirits were quite overcome, and hiding her
face on Elinor's shoulder, she burst into tears.  Every body's
attention was called, and almost every body was concerned.--Colonel
Brandon rose up and went to them without knowing what he did.--Mrs.
Jennings, with a very intelligent "Ah! poor dear," immediately gave her
her salts; and Sir John felt so desperately enraged against the author
of this nervous distress, that he instantly changed his seat to one
close by Lucy Steele, and gave her, in a whisper, a brief account of
the whole shocking affair.

In a few minutes, however, Marianne was recovered enough to put an end
to the bustle, and sit down among the rest; though her spirits retained
the impression of what had passed, the whole evening.

"Poor Marianne!" said her brother to Colonel Brandon, in a low voice,
as soon as he could secure his attention,-- "She has not such good
health as her sister,--she is very nervous,--she has not Elinor's
constitution;--and one must allow that there is something very trying
to a young woman who HAS BEEN a beauty in the loss of her personal
attractions.  You would not think it perhaps, but Marianne WAS
remarkably handsome a few months ago; quite as handsome as Elinor.--
Now you see it is all gone."



CHAPTER 35


Elinor's curiosity to see Mrs. Ferrars was satisfied.-- She had found
in her every thing that could tend to make a farther connection between
the families undesirable.-- She had seen enough of her pride, her
meanness, and her determined prejudice against herself, to comprehend
all the difficulties that must have perplexed the engagement, and
retarded the marriage, of Edward and herself, had he been otherwise
free;--and she had seen almost enough to be thankful for her OWN sake,
that one greater obstacle preserved her from suffering under any other
of Mrs. Ferrars's creation, preserved her from all dependence upon her
caprice, or any solicitude for her good opinion.  Or at least, if she
did not bring herself quite to rejoice in Edward's being fettered to
Lucy, she determined, that had Lucy been more amiable, she OUGHT to
have rejoiced.

She wondered that Lucy's spirits could be so very much elevated by the
civility of Mrs. Ferrars;--that her interest and her vanity should so
very much blind her as to make the attention which seemed only paid her
because she was NOT ELINOR, appear a compliment to herself--or to allow
her to derive encouragement from a preference only given her, because
her real situation was unknown.  But that it was so, had not only been
declared by Lucy's eyes at the time, but was declared over again the
next morning more openly, for at her particular desire, Lady Middleton
set her down in Berkeley Street on the chance of seeing Elinor alone,
to tell her how happy she was.

The chance proved a lucky one, for a message from Mrs. Palmer soon
after she arrived, carried Mrs. Jennings away.

"My dear friend," cried Lucy, as soon as they were by themselves, "I
come to talk to you of my happiness.  Could anything be so flattering
as Mrs. Ferrars's way of treating me yesterday?  So exceeding affable
as she was!--You know how I dreaded the thoughts of seeing her;--but
the very moment I was introduced, there was such an affability in her
behaviour as really should seem to say, she had quite took a fancy to
me.  Now was not it so?-- You saw it all; and was not you quite struck
with it?"

"She was certainly very civil to you."

"Civil!--Did you see nothing but only civility?-- I saw a vast deal
more.  Such kindness as fell to the share of nobody but me!--No pride,
no hauteur, and your sister just the same--all sweetness and
affability!"

Elinor wished to talk of something else, but Lucy still pressed her to
own that she had reason for her happiness; and Elinor was obliged to go
on.--

"Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement," said she, "nothing
could be more flattering than their treatment of you;--but as that was
not the case"--

"I guessed you would say so,"--replied Lucy quickly--"but there was no
reason in the world why Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she did
not, and her liking me is every thing.  You shan't talk me out of my
satisfaction.  I am sure it will all end well, and there will be no
difficulties at all, to what I used to think.  Mrs. Ferrars is a
charming woman, and so is your sister.  They are both delightful women,
indeed!--I wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs.
Dashwood was!"

To this Elinor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any.

"Are you ill, Miss Dashwood?--you seem low--you don't speak;--sure you
an't well."

"I never was in better health."

"I am glad of it with all my heart; but really you did not look it.  I
should be sorry to have YOU ill; you, that have been the greatest
comfort to me in the world!--Heaven knows what I should have done
without your friendship."--

Elinor tried to make a civil answer, though doubting her own success.
But it seemed to satisfy Lucy, for she directly replied,

"Indeed I am perfectly convinced of your regard for me, and next to
Edward's love, it is the greatest comfort I have.--Poor Edward!--But
now there is one good thing, we shall be able to meet, and meet pretty
often, for Lady Middleton's delighted with Mrs. Dashwood, so we shall
be a good deal in Harley Street, I dare say, and Edward spends half his
time with his sister--besides, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Ferrars will
visit now;--and Mrs. Ferrars and your sister were both so good to say
more than once, they should always be glad to see me.-- They are such
charming women!--I am sure if ever you tell your sister what I think of
her, you cannot speak too high."

But Elinor would not give her any encouragement to hope that she SHOULD
tell her sister.  Lucy continued.

"I am sure I should have seen it in a moment, if Mrs. Ferrars had took
a dislike to me.  If she had only made me a formal courtesy, for
instance, without saying a word, and never after had took any notice of
me, and never looked at me in a pleasant way--you know what I mean--if
I had been treated in that forbidding sort of way, I should have gave
it all up in despair.  I could not have stood it.  For where she DOES
dislike, I know it is most violent."

Elinor was prevented from making any reply to this civil triumph, by
the door's being thrown open, the servant's announcing Mr. Ferrars, and
Edward's immediately walking in.

It was a very awkward moment; and the countenance of each shewed that
it was so.  They all looked exceedingly foolish; and Edward seemed to
have as great an inclination to walk out of the room again, as to
advance farther into it.  The very circumstance, in its unpleasantest
form, which they would each have been most anxious to avoid, had fallen
on them.--They were not only all three together, but were together
without the relief of any other person.  The ladies recovered
themselves first.  It was not Lucy's business to put herself forward,
and the appearance of secrecy must still be kept up.  She could
therefore only LOOK her tenderness, and after slightly addressing him,
said no more.

But Elinor had more to do; and so anxious was she, for his sake and her
own, to do it well, that she forced herself, after a moment's
recollection, to welcome him, with a look and manner that were almost
easy, and almost open; and another struggle, another effort still
improved them.  She would not allow the presence of Lucy, nor the
consciousness of some injustice towards herself, to deter her from
saying that she was happy to see him, and that she had very much
regretted being from home, when he called before in Berkeley Street.
She would not be frightened from paying him those attentions which, as
a friend and almost a relation, were his due, by the observant eyes of
Lucy, though she soon perceived them to be narrowly watching her.

Her manners gave some re-assurance to Edward, and he had courage enough
to sit down; but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the ladies in
a proportion, which the case rendered reasonable, though his sex might
make it rare; for his heart had not the indifference of Lucy's, nor
could his conscience have quite the ease of Elinor's.

Lucy, with a demure and settled air, seemed determined to make no
contribution to the comfort of the others, and would not say a word;
and almost every thing that WAS said, proceeded from Elinor, who was
obliged to volunteer all the information about her mother's health,
their coming to town, &c. which Edward ought to have inquired about,
but never did.

Her exertions did not stop here; for she soon afterwards felt herself
so heroically disposed as to determine, under pretence of fetching
Marianne, to leave the others by themselves; and she really did it, and
THAT in the handsomest manner, for she loitered away several minutes on
the landing-place, with the most high-minded fortitude, before she went
to her sister.  When that was once done, however, it was time for the
raptures of Edward to cease; for Marianne's joy hurried her into the
drawing-room immediately.  Her pleasure in seeing him was like every
other of her feelings, strong in itself, and strongly spoken.  She met
him with a hand that would be taken, and a voice that expressed the
affection of a sister.

"Dear Edward!" she cried, "this is a moment of great happiness!--This
would almost make amends for every thing!"

Edward tried to return her kindness as it deserved, but before such
witnesses he dared not say half what he really felt.  Again they all
sat down, and for a moment or two all were silent; while Marianne was
looking with the most speaking tenderness, sometimes at Edward and
sometimes at Elinor, regretting only that their delight in each other
should be checked by Lucy's unwelcome presence.  Edward was the first
to speak, and it was to notice Marianne's altered looks, and express
his fear of her not finding London agree with her.

"Oh, don't think of me!" she replied with spirited earnestness, though
her eyes were filled with tears as she spoke, "don't think of MY
health.  Elinor is well, you see.  That must be enough for us both."

This remark was not calculated to make Edward or Elinor more easy, nor
to conciliate the good will of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with no
very benignant expression.

"Do you like London?" said Edward, willing to say any thing that might
introduce another subject.

"Not at all.  I expected much pleasure in it, but I have found none.
The sight of you, Edward, is the only comfort it has afforded; and
thank Heaven! you are what you always were!"

She paused--no one spoke.

"I think, Elinor," she presently added, "we must employ Edward to take
care of us in our return to Barton.  In a week or two, I suppose, we
shall be going; and, I trust, Edward will not be very unwilling to
accept the charge."

Poor Edward muttered something, but what it was, nobody knew, not even
himself.  But Marianne, who saw his agitation, and could easily trace
it to whatever cause best pleased herself, was perfectly satisfied, and
soon talked of something else.

"We spent such a day, Edward, in Harley Street yesterday!  So dull, so
wretchedly dull!--But I have much to say to you on that head, which
cannot be said now."

And with this admirable discretion did she defer the assurance of her
finding their mutual relatives more disagreeable than ever, and of her
being particularly disgusted with his mother, till they were more in
private.

"But why were you not there, Edward?--Why did you not come?"

"I was engaged elsewhere."

"Engaged!  But what was that, when such friends were to be met?"

"Perhaps, Miss Marianne," cried Lucy, eager to take some revenge on
her, "you think young men never stand upon engagements, if they have no
mind to keep them, little as well as great."

Elinor was very angry, but Marianne seemed entirely insensible of the
sting; for she calmly replied,

"Not so, indeed; for, seriously speaking, I am very sure that
conscience only kept Edward from Harley Street.  And I really believe
he HAS the most delicate conscience in the world; the most scrupulous
in performing every engagement, however minute, and however it may make
against his interest or pleasure.  He is the most fearful of giving
pain, of wounding expectation, and the most incapable of being selfish,
of any body I ever saw.  Edward, it is so, and I will say it.  What!
are you never to hear yourself praised!--Then you must be no friend of
mine; for those who will accept of my love and esteem, must submit to
my open commendation."

The nature of her commendation, in the present case, however, happened
to be particularly ill-suited to the feelings of two thirds of her
auditors, and was so very unexhilarating to Edward, that he very soon
got up to go away.

"Going so soon!" said Marianne; "my dear Edward, this must not be."

And drawing him a little aside, she whispered her persuasion that Lucy
could not stay much longer.  But even this encouragement failed, for he
would go; and Lucy, who would have outstaid him, had his visit lasted
two hours, soon afterwards went away.

"What can bring her here so often?" said Marianne, on her leaving them.
"Could not she see that we wanted her gone!--how teazing to Edward!"

"Why so?--we were all his friends, and Lucy has been the longest known
to him of any.  It is but natural that he should like to see her as
well as ourselves."

Marianne looked at her steadily, and said, "You know, Elinor, that this
is a kind of talking which I cannot bear.  If you only hope to have
your assertion contradicted, as I must suppose to be the case, you
ought to recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it.  I
cannot descend to be tricked out of assurances, that are not really
wanted."

She then left the room; and Elinor dared not follow her to say more,
for bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy, she could give
no information that would convince Marianne; and painful as the
consequences of her still continuing in an error might be, she was
obliged to submit to it.  All that she could hope, was that Edward
would not often expose her or himself to the distress of hearing
Marianne's mistaken warmth, nor to the repetition of any other part of
the pain that had attended their recent meeting--and this she had every
reason to expect.



CHAPTER 36


Within a few days after this meeting, the newspapers announced to the
world, that the lady of Thomas Palmer, Esq. was safely delivered of a
son and heir; a very interesting and satisfactory paragraph, at least
to all those intimate connections who knew it before.

This event, highly important to Mrs. Jennings's happiness, produced a
temporary alteration in the disposal of her time, and influenced, in a
like degree, the engagements of her young friends; for as she wished to
be as much as possible with Charlotte, she went thither every morning as
soon as she was dressed, and did not return till late in the evening;
and the Miss Dashwoods, at the particular request of the Middletons,
spent the whole of every day in Conduit Street. For their own comfort
they would much rather have remained, at least all the morning, in Mrs.
Jennings's house; but it was not a thing to be urged against the wishes
of everybody. Their hours were therefore made over to Lady Middleton and
the two Miss Steeles, by whom their company, in fact was as little
valued, as it was professedly sought.

They had too much sense to be desirable companions to the former; and
by the latter they were considered with a jealous eye, as intruding on
THEIR ground, and sharing the kindness which they wanted to monopolize.
Though nothing could be more polite than Lady Middleton's behaviour to
Elinor and Marianne, she did not really like them at all.  Because they
neither flattered herself nor her children, she could not believe them
good-natured; and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them
satirical: perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical;
but THAT did not signify.  It was censure in common use, and easily
given.

Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy.  It checked the
idleness of one, and the business of the other.  Lady Middleton was
ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was
proud to think of and administer at other times, she feared they would
despise her for offering.  Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the
three, by their presence; and it was in their power to reconcile her to
it entirely.  Would either of them only have given her a full and
minute account of the whole affair between Marianne and Mr. Willoughby,
she would have thought herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of the
best place by the fire after dinner, which their arrival occasioned.
But this conciliation was not granted; for though she often threw out
expressions of pity for her sister to Elinor, and more than once dropt
a reflection on the inconstancy of beaux before Marianne, no effect was
produced, but a look of indifference from the former, or of disgust in
the latter.  An effort even yet lighter might have made her their
friend.  Would they only have laughed at her about the Doctor!  But so
little were they, anymore than the others, inclined to oblige her, that
if Sir John dined from home, she might spend a whole day without
hearing any other raillery on the subject, than what she was kind
enough to bestow on herself.

All these jealousies and discontents, however, were so totally
unsuspected by Mrs. Jennings, that she thought it a delightful thing
for the girls to be together; and generally congratulated her young
friends every night, on having escaped the company of a stupid old
woman so long.  She joined them sometimes at Sir John's, sometimes at
her own house; but wherever it was, she always came in excellent
spirits, full of delight and importance, attributing Charlotte's well
doing to her own care, and ready to give so exact, so minute a detail
of her situation, as only Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire.
One thing DID disturb her; and of that she made her daily complaint.
Mr. Palmer maintained the common, but unfatherly opinion among his sex,
of all infants being alike; and though she could plainly perceive, at
different times, the most striking resemblance between this baby and
every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his
father of it; no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like
every other baby of the same age; nor could he even be brought to
acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the
world.

I come now to the relation of a misfortune, which about this time
befell Mrs. John Dashwood.  It so happened that while her two sisters
with Mrs. Jennings were first calling on her in Harley Street, another
of her acquaintance had dropt in--a circumstance in itself not
apparently likely to produce evil to her.  But while the imaginations
of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgments of our
conduct, and to decide on it by slight appearances, one's happiness
must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance.  In the present
instance, this last-arrived lady allowed her fancy to so far outrun
truth and probability, that on merely hearing the name of the Miss
Dashwoods, and understanding them to be Mr. Dashwood's sisters, she
immediately concluded them to be staying in Harley Street; and this
misconstruction produced within a day or two afterwards, cards of
invitation for them as well as for their brother and sister, to a small
musical party at her house.  The consequence of which was, that Mrs.
John Dashwood was obliged to submit not only to the exceedingly great
inconvenience of sending her carriage for the Miss Dashwoods, but, what
was still worse, must be subject to all the unpleasantness of appearing
to treat them with attention: and who could tell that they might not
expect to go out with her a second time?  The power of disappointing
them, it was true, must always be hers.  But that was not enough; for
when people are determined on a mode of conduct which they know to be
wrong, they feel injured by the expectation of any thing better from
them.

Marianne had now been brought by degrees, so much into the habit of
going out every day, that it was become a matter of indifference to
her, whether she went or not: and she prepared quietly and mechanically
for every evening's engagement, though without expecting the smallest
amusement from any, and very often without knowing, till the last
moment, where it was to take her.

To her dress and appearance she was grown so perfectly indifferent, as
not to bestow half the consideration on it, during the whole of her
toilet, which it received from Miss Steele in the first five minutes of
their being together, when it was finished.  Nothing escaped HER minute
observation and general curiosity; she saw every thing, and asked every
thing; was never easy till she knew the price of every part of
Marianne's dress; could have guessed the number of her gowns altogether
with better judgment than Marianne herself, and was not without hopes
of finding out before they parted, how much her washing cost per week,
and how much she had every year to spend upon herself.  The
impertinence of these kind of scrutinies, moreover, was generally
concluded with a compliment, which though meant as its douceur, was
considered by Marianne as the greatest impertinence of all; for after
undergoing an examination into the value and make of her gown, the
colour of her shoes, and the arrangement of her hair, she was almost
sure of being told that upon "her word she looked vastly smart, and she
dared to say she would make a great many conquests."

With such encouragement as this, was she dismissed on the present
occasion, to her brother's carriage; which they were ready to enter
five minutes after it stopped at the door, a punctuality not very
agreeable to their sister-in-law, who had preceded them to the house of
her acquaintance, and was there hoping for some delay on their part
that might inconvenience either herself or her coachman.

The events of this evening were not very remarkable.  The party, like
other musical parties, comprehended a great many people who had real
taste for the performance, and a great many more who had none at all;
and the performers themselves were, as usual, in their own estimation,
and that of their immediate friends, the first private performers in
England.

As Elinor was neither musical, nor affecting to be so, she made no
scruple of turning her eyes from the grand pianoforte, whenever it
suited her, and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp, and
violoncello, would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the
room.  In one of these excursive glances she perceived among a group of
young men, the very he, who had given them a lecture on toothpick-cases
at Gray's.  She perceived him soon afterwards looking at herself, and
speaking familiarly to her brother; and had just determined to find out
his name from the latter, when they both came towards her, and Mr.
Dashwood introduced him to her as Mr. Robert Ferrars.

He addressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow
which assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was
exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy.  Happy
had it been for her, if her regard for Edward had depended less on his
own merit, than on the merit of his nearest relations!  For then his
brother's bow must have given the finishing stroke to what the
ill-humour of his mother and sister would have begun.  But while she
wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that
the emptiness of conceit of the one, put her out of all charity with
the modesty and worth of the other.  Why they WERE different, Robert
exclaimed to her himself in the course of a quarter of an hour's
conversation; for, talking of his brother, and lamenting the extreme
GAUCHERIE which he really believed kept him from mixing in proper
society, he candidly and generously attributed it much less to any
natural deficiency, than to the misfortune of a private education;
while he himself, though probably without any particular, any material
superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school,
was as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man.

"Upon my soul," he added, "I believe it is nothing more; and so I often
tell my mother, when she is grieving about it.  'My dear Madam,' I
always say to her, 'you must make yourself easy.  The evil is now
irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing.  Why would you
be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to
place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his
life?  If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself,
instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been
prevented.' This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and
my mother is perfectly convinced of her error."

Elinor would not oppose his opinion, because, whatever might be her
general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not
think of Edward's abode in Mr. Pratt's family, with any satisfaction.

"You reside in Devonshire, I think,"--was his next observation, "in a
cottage near Dawlish."

Elinor set him right as to its situation; and it seemed rather
surprising to him that anybody could live in Devonshire, without living
near Dawlish.  He bestowed his hearty approbation however on their
species of house.

"For my own part," said he, "I am excessively fond of a cottage; there
is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them.  And I protest,
if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one
myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself
down at any time, and collect a few friends about me, and be happy.  I
advise every body who is going to build, to build a cottage.  My friend
Lord Courtland came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice,
and laid before me three different plans of Bonomi's.  I was to decide
on the best of them.  'My dear Courtland,' said I, immediately throwing
them all into the fire, 'do not adopt either of them, but by all means
build a cottage.' And that I fancy, will be the end of it.

"Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no space in a
cottage; but this is all a mistake.  I was last month at my friend
Elliott's, near Dartford.  Lady Elliott wished to give a dance.  'But
how can it be done?' said she; 'my dear Ferrars, do tell me how it is
to be managed.  There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten
couple, and where can the supper be?' I immediately saw that there
could be no difficulty in it, so I said, 'My dear Lady Elliott, do not
be uneasy.  The dining parlour will admit eighteen couple with ease;
card-tables may be placed in the drawing-room; the library may be open
for tea and other refreshments; and let the supper be set out in the
saloon.'  Lady Elliott was delighted with the thought.  We measured the
dining-room, and found it would hold exactly eighteen couple, and the
affair was arranged precisely after my plan.  So that, in fact, you
see, if people do but know how to set about it, every comfort may be as
well enjoyed in a cottage as in the most spacious dwelling."

Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the
compliment of rational opposition.

As John Dashwood had no more pleasure in music than his eldest sister,
his mind was equally at liberty to fix on any thing else; and a thought
struck him during the evening, which he communicated to his wife, for
her approbation, when they got home.  The consideration of Mrs.
Dennison's mistake, in supposing his sisters their guests, had
suggested the propriety of their being really invited to become such,
while Mrs. Jennings's engagements kept her from home.  The expense would
be nothing, the inconvenience not more; and it was altogether an
attention which the delicacy of his conscience pointed out to be
requisite to its complete enfranchisement from his promise to his
father.  Fanny was startled at the proposal.

"I do not see how it can be done," said she, "without affronting Lady
Middleton, for they spend every day with her; otherwise I should be
exceedingly glad to do it.  You know I am always ready to pay them any
attention in my power, as my taking them out this evening shews.  But
they are Lady Middleton's visitors.  How can I ask them away from her?"

Her husband, but with great humility, did not see the force of her
objection.  "They had already spent a week in this manner in Conduit
Street, and Lady Middleton could not be displeased at their giving the
same number of days to such near relations."

Fanny paused a moment, and then, with fresh vigor, said,

"My love I would ask them with all my heart, if it was in my power.
But I had just settled within myself to ask the Miss Steeles to spend a
few days with us.  They are very well behaved, good kind of girls; and
I think the attention is due to them, as their uncle did so very well
by Edward.  We can ask your sisters some other year, you know; but the
Miss Steeles may not be in town any more.  I am sure you will like
them; indeed, you DO like them, you know, very much already, and so
does my mother; and they are such favourites with Harry!"

Mr. Dashwood was convinced.  He saw the necessity of inviting the Miss
Steeles immediately, and his conscience was pacified by the resolution
of inviting his sisters another year; at the same time, however, slyly
suspecting that another year would make the invitation needless, by
bringing Elinor to town as Colonel Brandon's wife, and Marianne as
THEIR visitor.

Fanny, rejoicing in her escape, and proud of the ready wit that had
procured it, wrote the next morning to Lucy, to request her company and
her sister's, for some days, in Harley Street, as soon as Lady
Middleton could spare them.  This was enough to make Lucy really and
reasonably happy.  Mrs. Dashwood seemed actually working for her,
herself; cherishing all her hopes, and promoting all her views!  Such
an opportunity of being with Edward and his family was, above all
things, the most material to her interest, and such an invitation the
most gratifying to her feelings!  It was an advantage that could not be
too gratefully acknowledged, nor too speedily made use of; and the
visit to Lady Middleton, which had not before had any precise limits,
was instantly discovered to have been always meant to end in two days'
time.

When the note was shown to Elinor, as it was within ten minutes after
its arrival, it gave her, for the first time, some share in the
expectations of Lucy; for such a mark of uncommon kindness, vouchsafed
on so short an acquaintance, seemed to declare that the good-will
towards her arose from something more than merely malice against
herself; and might be brought, by time and address, to do every thing
that Lucy wished.  Her flattery had already subdued the pride of Lady
Middleton, and made an entry into the close heart of Mrs. John
Dashwood; and these were effects that laid open the probability of
greater.

The Miss Steeles removed to Harley Street, and all that reached Elinor
of their influence there, strengthened her expectation of the event.
Sir John, who called on them more than once, brought home such accounts
of the favour they were in, as must be universally striking.  Mrs.
Dashwood had never been so much pleased with any young women in her
life, as she was with them; had given each of them a needle book made
by some emigrant; called Lucy by her Christian name; and did not know
whether she should ever be able to part with them.





[At this point in the first and second editions, Volume II ended.]




CHAPTER 37


Mrs. Palmer was so well at the end of a fortnight, that her mother felt
it no longer necessary to give up the whole of her time to her; and,
contenting herself with visiting her once or twice a day, returned from
that period to her own home, and her own habits, in which she found the
Miss Dashwoods very ready to resume their former share.

About the third or fourth morning after their being thus resettled in
Berkeley Street, Mrs. Jennings, on returning from her ordinary visit to
Mrs. Palmer, entered the drawing-room, where Elinor was sitting by
herself, with an air of such hurrying importance as prepared her to
hear something wonderful; and giving her time only to form that idea,
began directly to justify it, by saying,

"Lord! my dear Miss Dashwood! have you heard the news?"

"No, ma'am.  What is it?"

"Something so strange!  But you shall hear it all.-- When I got to Mr.
Palmer's, I found Charlotte quite in a fuss about the child.  She was
sure it was very ill--it cried, and fretted, and was all over pimples.
So I looked at it directly, and, 'Lord! my dear,' says I, 'it is
nothing in the world, but the red gum--' and nurse said just the same.
But Charlotte, she would not be satisfied, so Mr. Donavan was sent for;
and luckily he happened to just come in from Harley Street, so he
stepped over directly, and as soon as ever Mama, he said
just as we did, that it was nothing in the world but the red gum, and
then Charlotte was easy.  And so, just as he was going away again, it
came into my head, I am sure I do not know how I happened to think of
it, but it came into my head to ask him if there was any news.  So upon
that, he smirked, and simpered, and looked grave, and seemed to know
something or other, and at last he said in a whisper, 'For fear any
unpleasant report should reach the young ladies under your care as to
their sister's indisposition, I think it advisable to say, that I
believe there is no great reason for alarm; I hope Mrs. Dashwood will
do very well.'"

"What! is Fanny ill?"

"That is exactly what I said, my dear.  'Lord!' says I, 'is Mrs.
Dashwood ill?' So then it all came out; and the long and the short of
the matter, by all I can learn, seems to be this.  Mr. Edward Ferrars,
the very young man I used to joke with you about (but however, as it
turns out, I am monstrous glad there was never any thing in it), Mr.
Edward Ferrars, it seems, has been engaged above this twelvemonth to my
cousin Lucy!--There's for you, my dear!--And not a creature knowing a
syllable of the matter, except Nancy!--Could you have believed such a
thing possible?-- There is no great wonder in their liking one another;
but that matters should be brought so forward between them, and nobody
suspect it!--THAT is strange!--I never happened to see them together,
or I am sure I should have found it out directly.  Well, and so this
was kept a great secret, for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, and neither she nor
your brother or sister suspected a word of the matter;--till this very
morning, poor Nancy, who, you know, is a well-meaning creature, but no
conjurer, popt it all out.  'Lord!' thinks she to herself, 'they are
all so fond of Lucy, to be sure they will make no difficulty about it;'
and so, away she went to your sister, who was sitting all alone at her
carpet-work, little suspecting what was to come--for she had just been
saying to your brother, only five minutes before, that she thought to
make a match between Edward and some Lord's daughter or other, I forget
who.  So you may think what a blow it was to all her vanity and pride.
She fell into violent hysterics immediately, with such screams as
reached your brother's ears, as he was sitting in his own dressing-room
down stairs, thinking about writing a letter to his steward in the
country.  So up he flew directly, and a terrible scene took place, for
Lucy was come to them by that time, little dreaming what was going on.
Poor soul!  I pity HER.  And I must say, I think she was used very
hardly; for your sister scolded like any fury, and soon drove her into
a fainting fit.  Nancy, she fell upon her knees, and cried bitterly;
and your brother, he walked about the room, and said he did not know
what to do.  Mrs. Dashwood declared they should not stay a minute
longer in the house, and your brother was forced to go down upon HIS
knees too, to persuade her to let them stay till they had packed up
their clothes.  THEN she fell into hysterics again, and he was so
frightened that he would send for Mr. Donavan, and Mr. Donavan found
the house in all this uproar.  The carriage was at the door ready to
take my poor cousins away, and they were just stepping in as he came
off; poor Lucy in such a condition, he says, she could hardly walk; and
Nancy, she was almost as bad.  I declare, I have no patience with your
sister; and I hope, with all my heart, it will be a match in spite of
her.  Lord! what a taking poor Mr. Edward will be in when he hears of
it!  To have his love used so scornfully! for they say he is monstrous
fond of her, as well he may.  I should not wonder, if he was to be in
the greatest passion!--and Mr. Donavan thinks just the same.  He and I
had a great deal of talk about it; and the best of all is, that he is
gone back again to Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs.
Ferrars is told of it, for she was sent for as soon as ever my cousins
left the house, for your sister was sure SHE would be in hysterics too;
and so she may, for what I care.  I have no pity for either of them.  I
have no notion of people's making such a to-do about money and
greatness.  There is no reason on earth why Mr. Edward and Lucy should
not marry; for I am sure Mrs. Ferrars may afford to do very well by her
son, and though Lucy has next to nothing herself, she knows better than
any body how to make the most of every thing; I dare say, if Mrs.
Ferrars would only allow him five hundred a-year, she would make as
good an appearance with it as any body else would with eight.  Lord!
how snug they might live in such another cottage as yours--or a little
bigger--with two maids, and two men; and I believe I could help them to
a housemaid, for my Betty has a sister out of place, that would fit
them exactly."

Here Mrs. Jennings ceased, and as Elinor had had time enough to collect
her thoughts, she was able to give such an answer, and make such
observations, as the subject might naturally be supposed to produce.
Happy to find that she was not suspected of any extraordinary interest
in it; that Mrs. Jennings (as she had of late often hoped might be the
case) had ceased to imagine her at all attached to Edward; and happy
above all the rest, in the absence of Marianne, she felt very well able
to speak of the affair without embarrassment, and to give her judgment,
as she believed, with impartiality on the conduct of every one
concerned in it.

She could hardly determine what her own expectation of its event really
was; though she earnestly tried to drive away the notion of its being
possible to end otherwise at last, than in the marriage of Edward and
Lucy.  What Mrs. Ferrars would say and do, though there could not be a
doubt of its nature, she was anxious to hear; and still more anxious to
know how Edward would conduct himself.  For HIM she felt much
compassion;--for Lucy very little--and it cost her some pains to
procure that little;--for the rest of the party none at all.

As Mrs. Jennings could talk on no other subject, Elinor soon saw the
necessity of preparing Marianne for its discussion.  No time was to be
lost in undeceiving her, in making her acquainted with the real truth,
and in endeavouring to bring her to hear it talked of by others,
without betraying that she felt any uneasiness for her sister, or any
resentment against Edward.

Elinor's office was a painful one.--She was going to remove what she
really believed to be her sister's chief consolation,--to give such
particulars of Edward as she feared would ruin him for ever in her good
opinion,-and to make Marianne, by a resemblance in their situations,
which to HER fancy would seem strong, feel all her own disappointment
over again.  But unwelcome as such a task must be, it was necessary to
be done, and Elinor therefore hastened to perform it.

She was very far from wishing to dwell on her own feelings, or to
represent herself as suffering much, any otherwise than as the
self-command she had practised since her first knowledge of Edward's
engagement, might suggest a hint of what was practicable to Marianne.
Her narration was clear and simple; and though it could not be given
without emotion, it was not accompanied by violent agitation, nor
impetuous grief.--THAT belonged rather to the hearer, for Marianne
listened with horror, and cried excessively.  Elinor was to be the
comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and
all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure
of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but
of imprudence, was readily offered.

But Marianne for some time would give credit to neither.  Edward seemed
a second Willoughby; and acknowledging as Elinor did, that she HAD
loved him most sincerely, could she feel less than herself!  As for
Lucy Steele, she considered her so totally unamiable, so absolutely
incapable of attaching a sensible man, that she could not be persuaded
at first to believe, and afterwards to pardon, any former affection of
Edward for her.  She would not even admit it to have been natural; and
Elinor left her to be convinced that it was so, by that which only
could convince her, a better knowledge of mankind.

Her first communication had reached no farther than to state the fact
of the engagement, and the length of time it had existed.--Marianne's
feelings had then broken in, and put an end to all regularity of
detail; and for some time all that could be done was to soothe her
distress, lessen her alarms, and combat her resentment.  The first
question on her side, which led to farther particulars, was,--

"How long has this been known to you, Elinor? has he written to you?"

"I have known it these four months.  When Lucy first came to Barton
Park last November, she told me in confidence of her engagement."

At these words, Marianne's eyes expressed the astonishment which her
lips could not utter.  After a pause of wonder, she exclaimed--

"Four months!--Have you known of this four months?"

Elinor confirmed it.

"What!--while attending me in all my misery, has this been on your
heart?--And I have reproached you for being happy!"--

"It was not fit that you should then know how much I was the reverse!"

"Four months!"--cried Marianne again.--"So calm!--so cheerful!--how
have you been supported?"--

"By feeling that I was doing my duty.--My promise to Lucy, obliged me
to be secret.  I owed it to her, therefore, to avoid giving any hint of
the truth; and I owed it to my family and friends, not to create in
them a solicitude about me, which it could not be in my power to
satisfy."

Marianne seemed much struck.

"I have very often wished to undeceive yourself and my mother," added
Elinor; "and once or twice I have attempted it;--but without betraying
my trust, I never could have convinced you."

"Four months!--and yet you loved him!"--

"Yes. But I did not love only him;--and while the comfort of others was
dear to me, I was glad to spare them from knowing how much I felt.
Now, I can think and speak of it with little emotion.  I would not have
you suffer on my account; for I assure you I no longer suffer
materially myself.  I have many things to support me.  I am not
conscious of having provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my
own, I have borne it as much as possible without spreading it farther.
I acquit Edward of essential misconduct.  I wish him very happy; and I
am so sure of his always doing his duty, that though now he may harbour
some regret, in the end he must become so.  Lucy does not want sense,
and that is the foundation on which every thing good may be built.--And
after all, Marianne, after all that is bewitching in the idea of a
single and constant attachment, and all that can be said of one's
happiness depending entirely on any particular person, it is not
meant--it is not fit--it is not possible that it should be so.-- Edward
will marry Lucy; he will marry a woman superior in person and
understanding to half her sex; and time and habit will teach him to
forget that he ever thought another superior to HER."--

"If such is your way of thinking," said Marianne, "if the loss of what
is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your
resolution, your self-command, are, perhaps, a little less to be
wondered at.--They are brought more within my comprehension."

"I understand you.--You do not suppose that I have ever felt much.--For
four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without
being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it
would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to
you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least.-- It was told
me,--it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose
prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought,
with triumph.-- This person's suspicions, therefore, I have had to
oppose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most
deeply interested;--and it has not been only once;--I have had her
hopes and exultation to listen to again and again.-- I have known
myself to be divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one
circumstance that could make me less desire the connection.--Nothing
has proved him unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to
me.-- I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and
the insolence of his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an
attachment, without enjoying its advantages.-- And all this has been
going on at a time, when, as you know too well, it has not been my only
unhappiness.-- If you can think me capable of ever feeling--surely you
may suppose that I have suffered NOW.  The composure of mind with which
I have brought myself at present to consider the matter, the
consolation that I have been willing to admit, have been the effect of
constant and painful exertion;--they did not spring up of
themselves;--they did not occur to relieve my spirits at first.-- No,
Marianne.--THEN, if I had not been bound to silence, perhaps nothing
could have kept me entirely--not even what I owed to my dearest
friends--from openly shewing that I was VERY unhappy."--

Marianne was quite subdued.--

"Oh! Elinor," she cried, "you have made me hate myself for ever.--How
barbarous have I been to you!--you, who have been my only comfort, who
have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be only
suffering for me!--Is this my gratitude?--Is this the only return I can
make you?--Because your merit cries out upon myself, I have been trying
to do it away."

The tenderest caresses followed this confession.  In such a frame of
mind as she was now in, Elinor had no difficulty in obtaining from her
whatever promise she required; and at her request, Marianne engaged
never to speak of the affair to any one with the least appearance of
bitterness;--to meet Lucy without betraying the smallest increase of
dislike to her;--and even to see Edward himself, if chance should bring
them together, without any diminution of her usual cordiality.-- These
were great concessions;--but where Marianne felt that she had injured,
no reparation could be too much for her to make.

She performed her promise of being discreet, to admiration.--She
attended to all that Mrs. Jennings had to say upon the subject, with an
unchanging complexion, dissented from her in nothing, and was heard
three times to say, "Yes, ma'am."--She listened to her praise of Lucy
with only moving from one chair to another, and when Mrs. Jennings
talked of Edward's affection, it cost her only a spasm in her
throat.--Such advances towards heroism in her sister, made Elinor feel
equal to any thing herself.

The next morning brought a farther trial of it, in a visit from their
brother, who came with a most serious aspect to talk over the dreadful
affair, and bring them news of his wife.

"You have heard, I suppose," said he with great solemnity, as soon as
he was seated, "of the very shocking discovery that took place under
our roof yesterday."

They all looked their assent; it seemed too awful a moment for speech.

"Your sister," he continued, "has suffered dreadfully.  Mrs. Ferrars
too--in short it has been a scene of such complicated distress--but I
will hope that the storm may be weathered without our being any of us
quite overcome.  Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday.  But I
would not alarm you too much.  Donavan says there is nothing materially
to be apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution
equal to any thing.  She has borne it all, with the fortitude of an
angel!  She says she never shall think well of anybody again; and one
cannot wonder at it, after being so deceived!--meeting with such
ingratitude, where so much kindness had been shewn, so much confidence
had been placed!  It was quite out of the benevolence of her heart,
that she had asked these young women to her house; merely because she
thought they deserved some attention, were harmless, well-behaved
girls, and would be pleasant companions; for otherwise we both wished
very much to have invited you and Marianne to be with us, while your
kind friend there, was attending her daughter.  And now to be so
rewarded!  'I wish, with all my heart,' says poor Fanny in her
affectionate way, 'that we had asked your sisters instead of them.'"

Here he stopped to be thanked; which being done, he went on.

"What poor Mrs. Ferrars suffered, when first Fanny broke it to her, is
not to be described.  While she with the truest affection had been
planning a most eligible connection for him, was it to be supposed that
he could be all the time secretly engaged to another person!--such a
suspicion could never have entered her head!  If she suspected ANY
prepossession elsewhere, it could not be in THAT quarter.  'THERE, to
be sure,' said she, 'I might have thought myself safe.' She was quite
in an agony.  We consulted together, however, as to what should be
done, and at last she determined to send for Edward.  He came.  But I
am sorry to relate what ensued.  All that Mrs. Ferrars could say to
make him put an end to the engagement, assisted too as you may well
suppose by my arguments, and Fanny's entreaties, was of no avail.
Duty, affection, every thing was disregarded.  I never thought Edward
so stubborn, so unfeeling before.  His mother explained to him her
liberal designs, in case of his marrying Miss Morton; told him she
would settle on him the Norfolk estate, which, clear of land-tax,
brings in a good thousand a-year; offered even, when matters grew
desperate, to make it twelve hundred; and in opposition to this, if he
still persisted in this low connection, represented to him the certain
penury that must attend the match.  His own two thousand pounds she
protested should be his all; she would never see him again; and so far
would she be from affording him the smallest assistance, that if he
were to enter into any profession with a view of better support, she
would do all in her power to prevent him advancing in it."

Here Marianne, in an ecstasy of indignation, clapped her hands
together, and cried, "Gracious God!  can this be possible!"

"Well may you wonder, Marianne," replied her brother, "at the obstinacy
which could resist such arguments as these.  Your exclamation is very
natural."

Marianne was going to retort, but she remembered her promises, and
forbore.

"All this, however," he continued, "was urged in vain.  Edward said
very little; but what he did say, was in the most determined manner.
Nothing should prevail on him to give up his engagement.  He would
stand to it, cost him what it might."

"Then," cried Mrs. Jennings with blunt sincerity, no longer able to be
silent, "he has acted like an honest man! I beg your pardon, Mr.
Dashwood, but if he had done otherwise, I should have thought him a
rascal.  I have some little concern in the business, as well as
yourself, for Lucy Steele is my cousin, and I believe there is not a
better kind of girl in the world, nor one who more deserves a good
husband."

John Dashwood was greatly astonished; but his nature was calm, not open
to provocation, and he never wished to offend anybody, especially
anybody of good fortune.  He therefore replied, without any resentment,

"I would by no means speak disrespectfully of any relation of yours,
madam.  Miss Lucy Steele is, I dare say, a very deserving young woman,
but in the present case you know, the connection must be impossible.
And to have entered into a secret engagement with a young man under her
uncle's care, the son of a woman especially of such very large fortune
as Mrs. Ferrars, is perhaps, altogether a little extraordinary. In
short, I do not mean to reflect upon the behaviour of any person whom
you have a regard for, Mrs. Jennings.  We all wish her extremely happy;
and Mrs. Ferrars's conduct throughout the whole, has been such as every
conscientious, good mother, in like circumstances, would adopt.  It has
been dignified and liberal.  Edward has drawn his own lot, and I fear
it will be a bad one."

Marianne sighed out her similar apprehension; and Elinor's heart wrung
for the feelings of Edward, while braving his mother's threats, for a
woman who could not reward him.

"Well, sir," said Mrs. Jennings, "and how did it end?"

"I am sorry to say, ma'am, in a most unhappy rupture:-- Edward is
dismissed for ever from his mother's notice.  He left her house
yesterday, but where he is gone, or whether he is still in town, I do
not know; for WE of course can make no inquiry."

"Poor young man!--and what is to become of him?"

"What, indeed, ma'am!  It is a melancholy consideration.  Born to the
prospect of such affluence!  I cannot conceive a situation more
deplorable.  The interest of two thousand pounds--how can a man live on
it?--and when to that is added the recollection, that he might, but for
his own folly, within three months have been in the receipt of two
thousand, five hundred a-year (for Miss Morton has thirty thousand
pounds,) I cannot picture to myself a more wretched condition.  We must
all feel for him; and the more so, because it is totally out of our
power to assist him."

"Poor young man!" cried Mrs. Jennings, "I am sure he should be very
welcome to bed and board at my house; and so I would tell him if I
could see him.  It is not fit that he should be living about at his own
charge now, at lodgings and taverns."

Elinor's heart thanked her for such kindness towards Edward, though she
could not forbear smiling at the form of it.

"If he would only have done as well by himself," said John Dashwood,
"as all his friends were disposed to do by him, he might now have been
in his proper situation, and would have wanted for nothing.  But as it
is, it must be out of anybody's power to assist him.  And there is one
thing more preparing against him, which must be worse than all--his
mother has determined, with a very natural kind of spirit, to settle
THAT estate upon Robert immediately, which might have been Edward's, on
proper conditions.  I left her this morning with her lawyer, talking
over the business."

"Well!" said Mrs. Jennings, "that is HER revenge.  Everybody has a way
of their own.  But I don't think mine would be, to make one son
independent, because another had plagued me."

Marianne got up and walked about the room.

"Can anything be more galling to the spirit of a man," continued John,
"than to see his younger brother in possession of an estate which might
have been his own?  Poor Edward!  I feel for him sincerely."

A few minutes more spent in the same kind of effusion, concluded his
visit; and with repeated assurances to his sisters that he really
believed there was no material danger in Fanny's indisposition, and
that they need not therefore be very uneasy about it, he went away;
leaving the three ladies unanimous in their sentiments on the present
occasion, as far at least as it regarded Mrs. Ferrars's conduct, the
Dashwoods', and Edward's.

Marianne's indignation burst forth as soon as he quitted the room; and
as her vehemence made reserve impossible in Elinor, and unnecessary in
Mrs. Jennings, they all joined in a very spirited critique upon the
party.



CHAPTER 38


Mrs. Jennings was very warm in her praise of Edward's conduct, but only
Elinor and Marianne understood its true merit.  THEY only knew how
little he had had to tempt him to be disobedient, and how small was the
consolation, beyond the consciousness of doing right, that could remain
to him in the loss of friends and fortune.  Elinor gloried in his
integrity; and Marianne forgave all his offences in compassion for his
punishment.  But though confidence between them was, by this public
discovery, restored to its proper state, it was not a subject on which
either of them were fond of dwelling when alone.  Elinor avoided it
upon principle, as tending to fix still more upon her thoughts, by the
too warm, too positive assurances of Marianne, that belief of Edward's
continued affection for herself which she rather wished to do away; and
Marianne's courage soon failed her, in trying to converse upon a topic
which always left her more dissatisfied with herself than ever, by the
comparison it necessarily produced between Elinor's conduct and her own.

She felt all the force of that comparison; but not as her sister had
hoped, to urge her to exertion now; she felt it with all the pain of
continual self-reproach, regretted most bitterly that she had never
exerted herself before; but it brought only the torture of penitence,
without the hope of amendment.  Her mind was so much weakened that she
still fancied present exertion impossible, and therefore it only
dispirited her more.

Nothing new was heard by them, for a day or two afterwards, of affairs
in Harley Street, or Bartlett's Buildings.  But though so much of the
matter was known to them already, that Mrs. Jennings might have had
enough to do in spreading that knowledge farther, without seeking after
more, she had resolved from the first to pay a visit of comfort and
inquiry to her cousins as soon as she could; and nothing but the
hindrance of more visitors than usual, had prevented her going to them
within that time.

The third day succeeding their knowledge of the particulars, was so
fine, so beautiful a Sunday as to draw many to Kensington Gardens,
though it was only the second week in March.  Mrs. Jennings and Elinor
were of the number; but Marianne, who knew that the Willoughbys were
again in town, and had a constant dread of meeting them, chose rather
to stay at home, than venture into so public a place.

An intimate acquaintance of Mrs. Jennings joined them soon after they
entered the Gardens, and Elinor was not sorry that by her continuing
with them, and engaging all Mrs. Jennings's conversation, she was
herself left to quiet reflection.  She saw nothing of the Willoughbys,
nothing of Edward, and for some time nothing of anybody who could by
any chance whether grave or gay, be interesting to her.  But at last
she found herself with some surprise, accosted by Miss Steele, who,
though looking rather shy, expressed great satisfaction in meeting
them, and on receiving encouragement from the particular kindness of
Mrs. Jennings, left her own party for a short time, to join their's.
Mrs. Jennings immediately whispered to Elinor,

"Get it all out of her, my dear.  She will tell you any thing if you
ask.  You see I cannot leave Mrs. Clarke."

It was lucky, however, for Mrs. Jennings's curiosity and Elinor's too,
that she would tell any thing WITHOUT being asked; for nothing would
otherwise have been learnt.

"I am so glad to meet you;" said Miss Steele, taking her familiarly by
the arm--"for I wanted to see you of all things in the world."  And
then lowering her voice, "I suppose Mrs. Jennings has heard all about
it.  Is she angry?"

"Not at all, I believe, with you."

"That is a good thing.  And Lady Middleton, is SHE angry?"

"I cannot suppose it possible that she should be."

"I am monstrous glad of it.  Good gracious!  I have had such a time of
it!  I never saw Lucy in such a rage in my life.  She vowed at first
she would never trim me up a new bonnet, nor do any thing else for me
again, so long as she lived; but now she is quite come to, and we are
as good friends as ever.  Look, she made me this bow to my hat, and put
in the feather last night.  There now, YOU are going to laugh at me
too.  But why should not I wear pink ribbons?  I do not care if it IS
the Doctor's favourite colour.  I am sure, for my part, I should never
have known he DID like it better than any other colour, if he had not
happened to say so.  My cousins have been so plaguing me!  I declare
sometimes I do not know which way to look before them."

She had wandered away to a subject on which Elinor had nothing to say,
and therefore soon judged it expedient to find her way back again to
the first.

"Well, but Miss Dashwood," speaking triumphantly, "people may say what
they chuse about Mr. Ferrars's declaring he would not have Lucy, for it
is no such thing I can tell you; and it is quite a shame for such
ill-natured reports to be spread abroad.  Whatever Lucy might think
about it herself, you know, it was no business of other people to set
it down for certain."

"I never heard any thing of the kind hinted at before, I assure you,"
said Elinor.

"Oh, did not you?  But it WAS said, I know, very well, and by more than
one; for Miss Godby told Miss Sparks, that nobody in their senses could
expect Mr. Ferrars to give up a woman like Miss Morton, with thirty
thousand pounds to her fortune, for Lucy Steele that had nothing at
all; and I had it from Miss Sparks myself.  And besides that, my cousin
Richard said himself, that when it came to the point he was afraid Mr.
Ferrars would be off; and when Edward did not come near us for three
days, I could not tell what to think myself; and I believe in my heart
Lucy gave it up all for lost; for we came away from your brother's
Wednesday, and we saw nothing of him not all Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday, and did not know what was become of him.  Once Lucy thought
to write to him, but then her spirits rose against that.  However this
morning he came just as we came home from church; and then it all came
out, how he had been sent for Wednesday to Harley Street, and been
talked to by his mother and all of them, and how he had declared before
them all that he loved nobody but Lucy, and nobody but Lucy would he
have.  And how he had been so worried by what passed, that as soon as
he had went away from his mother's house, he had got upon his horse,
and rid into the country, some where or other; and how he had stayed
about at an inn all Thursday and Friday, on purpose to get the better
of it.  And after thinking it all over and over again, he said, it
seemed to him as if, now he had no fortune, and no nothing at all, it
would be quite unkind to keep her on to the engagement, because it must
be for her loss, for he had nothing but two thousand pounds, and no
hope of any thing else; and if he was to go into orders, as he had some
thoughts, he could get nothing but a curacy, and how was they to live
upon that?--He could not bear to think of her doing no better, and so
he begged, if she had the least mind for it, to put an end to the
matter directly, and leave him shift for himself.  I heard him say all
this as plain as could possibly be.  And it was entirely for HER sake,
and upon HER account, that he said a word about being off, and not upon
his own.  I will take my oath he never dropt a syllable of being tired
of her, or of wishing to marry Miss Morton, or any thing like it.  But,
to be sure, Lucy would not give ear to such kind of talking; so she
told him directly (with a great deal about sweet and love, you know,
and all that--Oh, la! one can't repeat such kind of things you
know)--she told him directly, she had not the least mind in the world
to be off, for she could live with him upon a trifle, and how little so
ever he might have, she should be very glad to have it all, you know,
or something of the kind.  So then he was monstrous happy, and talked
on some time about what they should do, and they agreed he should take
orders directly, and they must wait to be married till he got a living.
And just then I could not hear any more, for my cousin called from
below to tell me Mrs. Richardson was come in her coach, and would take
one of us to Kensington Gardens; so I was forced to go into the room
and interrupt them, to ask Lucy if she would like to go, but she did
not care to leave Edward; so I just run up stairs and put on a pair of
silk stockings and came off with the Richardsons."

"I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them," said Elinor;
"you were all in the same room together, were not you?"

"No, indeed, not us.  La! Miss Dashwood, do you think people make love
when any body else is by?  Oh, for shame!--To be sure you must know
better than that.  (Laughing affectedly.)--No, no; they were shut up in
the drawing-room together, and all I heard was only by listening at the
door."

"How!" cried Elinor; "have you been repeating to me what you only
learnt yourself by listening at the door?  I am sorry I did not know it
before; for I certainly would not have suffered you to give me
particulars of a conversation which you ought not to have known
yourself.  How could you behave so unfairly by your sister?"

"Oh, la! there is nothing in THAT.  I only stood at the door, and heard
what I could.  And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me;
for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets
together, she never made any bones of hiding in a closet, or behind a
chimney-board, on purpose to hear what we said."

Elinor tried to talk of something else; but Miss Steele could not be
kept beyond a couple of minutes, from what was uppermost in her mind.

"Edward talks of going to Oxford soon," said she; "but now he is
lodging at No. --, Pall Mall.  What an ill-natured woman his mother is,
an't she? And your brother and sister were not very kind! However, I
shan't say anything against them to YOU; and to be sure they did send
us home in their own chariot, which was more than I looked for.  And
for my part, I was all in a fright for fear your sister should ask us
for the huswifes she had gave us a day or two before; but, however,
nothing was said about them, and I took care to keep mine out of sight.
Edward have got some business at Oxford, he says; so he must go there
for a time; and after THAT, as soon as he can light upon a Bishop, he
will be ordained.  I wonder what curacy he will get!--Good gracious!
(giggling as she spoke) I'd lay my life I know what my cousins will
say, when they hear of it.  They will tell me I should write to the
Doctor, to get Edward the curacy of his new living.  I know they will;
but I am sure I would not do such a thing for all the world.-- 'La!' I
shall say directly, 'I wonder how you could think of such a thing?  I
write to the Doctor, indeed!'"

"Well," said Elinor, "it is a comfort to be prepared against the worst.
You have got your answer ready."

Miss Steele was going to reply on the same subject, but the approach of
her own party made another more necessary.

"Oh, la! here come the Richardsons.  I had a vast deal more to say to
you, but I must not stay away from them not any longer.  I assure you
they are very genteel people.  He makes a monstrous deal of money, and
they keep their own coach.  I have not time to speak to Mrs. Jennings
about it myself, but pray tell her I am quite happy to hear she is not
in anger against us, and Lady Middleton the same; and if anything
should happen to take you and your sister away, and Mrs. Jennings
should want company, I am sure we should be very glad to come and stay
with her for as long a time as she likes.  I suppose Lady Middleton
won't ask us any more this bout.  Good-by; I am sorry Miss Marianne was
not here.  Remember me kindly to her.  La! if you have not got your
spotted muslin on!--I wonder you was not afraid of its being torn."

Such was her parting concern; for after this, she had time only to pay
her farewell compliments to Mrs. Jennings, before her company was
claimed by Mrs. Richardson; and Elinor was left in possession of
knowledge which might feed her powers of reflection some time, though
she had learnt very little more than what had been already foreseen and
foreplanned in her own mind.  Edward's marriage with Lucy was as firmly
determined on, and the time of its taking place remained as absolutely
uncertain, as she had concluded it would be;--every thing depended,
exactly after her expectation, on his getting that preferment, of
which, at present, there seemed not the smallest chance.

As soon as they returned to the carriage, Mrs. Jennings was eager for
information; but as Elinor wished to spread as little as possible
intelligence that had in the first place been so unfairly obtained, she
confined herself to the brief repetition of such simple particulars, as
she felt assured that Lucy, for the sake of her own consequence, would
choose to have known.  The continuance of their engagement, and the
means that were able to be taken for promoting its end, was all her
communication; and this produced from Mrs. Jennings the following
natural remark.

"Wait for his having a living!--ay, we all know how THAT will
end:--they will wait a twelvemonth, and finding no good comes of it,
will set down upon a curacy of fifty pounds a-year, with the interest
of his two thousand pounds, and what little matter Mr. Steele and Mr.
Pratt can give her.--Then they will have a child every year! and Lord
help 'em! how poor they will be!--I must see what I can give them
towards furnishing their house.  Two maids and two men, indeed!--as I
talked of t'other day.--No, no, they must get a stout girl of all
works.-- Betty's sister would never do for them NOW."

The next morning brought Elinor a letter by the two-penny post from
Lucy herself.  It was as follows:

                    "Bartlett's Building, March.

     "I hope my dear Miss Dashwood will excuse the
     liberty I take of writing to her; but I know your
     friendship for me will make you pleased to hear such
     a good account of myself and my dear Edward, after
     all the troubles we have went through lately,
     therefore will make no more apologies, but proceed
     to say that, thank God! though we have suffered
     dreadfully, we are both quite well now, and as happy
     as we must always be in one another's love.  We have
     had great trials, and great persecutions, but
     however, at the same time, gratefully acknowledge
     many friends, yourself not the least among them,
     whose great kindness I shall always thankfully
     remember, as will Edward too, who I have told of
     it.  I am sure you will be glad to hear, as likewise
     dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent two happy hours with
     him yesterday afternoon, he would not hear of our
     parting, though earnestly did I, as I thought my
     duty required, urge him to it for prudence sake,
     and would have parted for ever on the spot, would
     he consent to it; but he said it should never be,
     he did not regard his mother's anger, while he could
     have my affections; our prospects are not very
     bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for
     the best; he will be ordained shortly; and should
     it ever be in your power to recommend him to any
     body that has a living to bestow, am very sure you
     will not forget us, and dear Mrs. Jennings too,
     trust she will speak a good word for us to Sir John,
     or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be able to
     assist us.--Poor Anne was much to blame for what
     she did, but she did it for the best, so I say
     nothing; hope Mrs. Jennings won't think it too much
     trouble to give us a call, should she come this way
     any morning, 'twould be a great kindness, and my
     cousins would be proud to know her.--My paper reminds
     me to conclude; and begging to be most gratefully
     and respectfully remembered to her, and to Sir John,
     and Lady Middleton, and the dear children, when you
     chance to see them, and love to Miss Marianne,

                                      "I am, &c."

As soon as Elinor had finished it, she performed what she concluded to
be its writer's real design, by placing it in the hands of Mrs.
Jennings, who read it aloud with many comments of satisfaction and
praise.

"Very well indeed!--how prettily she writes!--aye, that was quite
proper to let him be off if he would.  That was just like Lucy.--Poor
soul! I wish I COULD get him a living, with all my heart.--She calls me
dear Mrs. Jennings, you see.  She is a good-hearted girl as ever
lived.--Very well upon my word.  That sentence is very prettily turned.
Yes, yes, I will go and see her, sure enough.  How attentive she is, to
think of every body!--Thank you, my dear, for shewing it me.  It is as
pretty a letter as ever I saw, and does Lucy's head and heart great
credit."



CHAPTER 39


The Miss Dashwoods had now been rather more than two months in town,
and Marianne's impatience to be gone increased every day.  She sighed
for the air, the liberty, the quiet of the country; and fancied that if
any place could give her ease, Barton must do it.  Elinor was hardly
less anxious than herself for their removal, and only so much less bent
on its being effected immediately, as that she was conscious of the
difficulties of so long a journey, which Marianne could not be brought
to acknowledge.  She began, however, seriously to turn her thoughts
towards its accomplishment, and had already mentioned their wishes to
their kind hostess, who resisted them with all the eloquence of her
good-will, when a plan was suggested, which, though detaining them from
home yet a few weeks longer, appeared to Elinor altogether much more
eligible than any other. The Palmers were to remove to Cleveland about
the end of March, for the Easter holidays; and Mrs. Jennings, with both
her friends, received a very warm invitation from Charlotte to go with
them.  This would not, in itself, have been sufficient for the delicacy
of Miss Dashwood;--but it was inforced with so much real politeness by
Mr. Palmer himself, as, joined to the very great amendment of his
manners towards them since her sister had been known to be unhappy,
induced her to accept it with pleasure.

When she told Marianne what she had done, however, her first reply was
not very auspicious.

"Cleveland!"--she cried, with great agitation.  "No, I cannot go to
Cleveland."--

"You forget," said Elinor gently, "that its situation is not...that it
is not in the neighbourhood of..."

"But it is in Somersetshire.--I cannot go into Somersetshire.--There,
where I looked forward to going...No, Elinor, you cannot expect me to
go there."

Elinor would not argue upon the propriety of overcoming such
feelings;--she only endeavoured to counteract them by working on
others;--represented it, therefore, as a measure which would fix the
time of her returning to that dear mother, whom she so much wished to
see, in a more eligible, more comfortable manner, than any other plan
could do, and perhaps without any greater delay.  From Cleveland, which
was within a few miles of Bristol, the distance to Barton was not
beyond one day, though a long day's journey; and their mother's servant
might easily come there to attend them down; and as there could be no
occasion of their staying above a week at Cleveland, they might now be
at home in little more than three weeks' time.  As Marianne's affection
for her mother was sincere, it must triumph with little difficulty,
over the imaginary evils she had started.

Mrs. Jennings was so far from being weary of her guests, that she
pressed them very earnestly to return with her again from Cleveland.
Elinor was grateful for the attention, but it could not alter her
design; and their mother's concurrence being readily gained, every
thing relative to their return was arranged as far as it could be;--and
Marianne found some relief in drawing up a statement of the hours that
were yet to divide her from Barton.

"Ah! Colonel, I do not know what you and I shall do without the Miss
Dashwoods;"--was Mrs. Jennings's address to him when he first called on
her, after their leaving her was settled--"for they are quite resolved
upon going home from the Palmers;--and how forlorn we shall be, when I
come back!--Lord! we shall sit and gape at one another as dull as two
cats."

Perhaps Mrs. Jennings was in hopes, by this vigorous sketch of their
future ennui, to provoke him to make that offer, which might give
himself an escape from it;--and if so, she had soon afterwards good
reason to think her object gained; for, on Elinor's moving to the
window to take more expeditiously the dimensions of a print, which she
was going to copy for her friend, he followed her to it with a look of
particular meaning, and conversed with her there for several minutes.
The effect of his discourse on the lady too, could not escape her
observation, for though she was too honorable to listen, and had even
changed her seat, on purpose that she might NOT hear, to one close by
the piano forte on which Marianne was playing, she could not keep
herself from seeing that Elinor changed colour, attended with
agitation, and was too intent on what he said to pursue her
employment.-- Still farther in confirmation of her hopes, in the
interval of Marianne's turning from one lesson to another, some words
of the Colonel's inevitably reached her ear, in which he seemed to be
apologising for the badness of his house.  This set the matter beyond a
doubt.  She wondered, indeed, at his thinking it necessary to do so;
but supposed it to be the proper etiquette.  What Elinor said in reply
she could not distinguish, but judged from the motion of her lips, that
she did not think THAT any material objection;--and Mrs. Jennings
commended her in her heart for being so honest.  They then talked on
for a few minutes longer without her catching a syllable, when another
lucky stop in Marianne's performance brought her these words in the
Colonel's calm voice,--

"I am afraid it cannot take place very soon."

Astonished and shocked at so unlover-like a speech, she was almost
ready to cry out, "Lord! what should hinder it?"--but checking her
desire, confined herself to this silent ejaculation.

"This is very strange!--sure he need not wait to be older."

This delay on the Colonel's side, however, did not seem to offend or
mortify his fair companion in the least, for on their breaking up the
conference soon afterwards, and moving different ways, Mrs. Jennings
very plainly heard Elinor say, and with a voice which shewed her to
feel what she said,

"I shall always think myself very much obliged to you."

Mrs. Jennings was delighted with her gratitude, and only wondered that
after hearing such a sentence, the Colonel should be able to take leave
of them, as he immediately did, with the utmost sang-froid, and go away
without making her any reply!--She had not thought her old friend could
have made so indifferent a suitor.

What had really passed between them was to this effect.

"I have heard," said he, with great compassion, "of the injustice your
friend Mr. Ferrars has suffered from his family; for if I understand
the matter right, he has been entirely cast off by them for persevering
in his engagement with a very deserving young woman.-- Have I been
rightly informed?--Is it so?--"

Elinor told him that it was.

"The cruelty, the impolitic cruelty,"--he replied, with great
feeling,--"of dividing, or attempting to divide, two young people long
attached to each other, is terrible.-- Mrs. Ferrars does not know what
she may be doing--what she may drive her son to.  I have seen Mr.
Ferrars two or three times in Harley Street, and am much pleased with
him.  He is not a young man with whom one can be intimately acquainted
in a short time, but I have seen enough of him to wish him well for his
own sake, and as a friend of yours, I wish it still more.  I understand
that he intends to take orders.  Will you be so good as to tell him
that the living of Delaford, now just vacant, as I am informed by this
day's post, is his, if he think it worth his acceptance--but THAT,
perhaps, so unfortunately circumstanced as he is now, it may be
nonsense to appear to doubt; I only wish it were more  valuable.-- It
is a rectory, but a small one; the late incumbent, I believe, did not
make more than 200 L per annum, and though it is certainly capable of
improvement, I fear, not to such an amount as to afford him a very
comfortable income.  Such as it is, however, my pleasure in presenting
it to him, will be very great.  Pray assure him of it."

Elinor's astonishment at this commission could hardly have been
greater, had the Colonel been really making her an offer of his hand.
The preferment, which only two days before she had considered as
hopeless for Edward, was already provided to enable him to marry;--and
SHE, of all people in the world, was fixed on to bestow it!--Her
emotion was such as Mrs. Jennings had attributed to a very different
cause;--but whatever minor feelings less pure, less pleasing, might
have a share in that emotion, her esteem for the general benevolence,
and her gratitude for the particular friendship, which together
prompted Colonel Brandon to this act, were strongly felt, and warmly
expressed.  She thanked him for it with all her heart, spoke of
Edward's principles and disposition with that praise which she knew
them to deserve; and promised to undertake the commission with
pleasure, if it were really his wish to put off so agreeable an office
to another.  But at the same time, she could not help thinking that no
one could so well perform it as himself.  It was an office in short,
from which, unwilling to give Edward the pain of receiving an
obligation from HER, she would have been very glad to be spared
herself;-- but Colonel Brandon, on motives of equal delicacy, declining
it likewise, still seemed so desirous of its being given through her
means, that she would not on any account make farther opposition.
Edward, she believed, was still in town, and fortunately she had heard
his address from Miss Steele.  She could undertake therefore to inform
him of it, in the course of the day.  After this had been settled,
Colonel Brandon began to talk of his own advantage in securing so
respectable and agreeable a neighbour, and THEN it was that he
mentioned with regret, that the house was small and indifferent;--an
evil which Elinor, as Mrs. Jennings had supposed her to do, made very
light of, at least as far as regarded its size.

"The smallness of the house," said she, "I cannot imagine any
inconvenience to them, for it will be in proportion to their family and
income."

By which the Colonel was surprised to find that SHE was considering Mr.
Ferrars's marriage as the certain consequence of the presentation; for
he did not suppose it possible that Delaford living could supply such
an income, as anybody in his style of life would venture to settle
on--and he said so.

"This little rectory CAN do no more than make Mr. Ferrars comfortable
as a bachelor; it cannot enable him to marry.  I am sorry to say that
my patronage ends with this; and my interest is hardly more extensive.
If, however, by an unforeseen chance it should be in my power to serve
him farther, I must think very differently of him from what I now do,
if I am not as ready to be useful to him then as I sincerely wish I
could be at present.  What I am now doing indeed, seems nothing at all,
since it can advance him so little towards what must be his principal,
his only object of happiness.  His marriage must still be a distant
good;--at least, I am afraid it cannot take place very soon.--"

Such was the sentence which, when misunderstood, so justly offended the
delicate feelings of Mrs. Jennings; but after this narration of what
really passed between Colonel Brandon and Elinor, while they stood at
the window, the gratitude expressed by the latter on their parting, may
perhaps appear in general, not less reasonably excited, nor less
properly worded than if it had arisen from an offer of marriage.



CHAPTER 40


"Well, Miss Dashwood," said Mrs. Jennings, sagaciously smiling, as soon
as the gentleman had withdrawn, "I do not ask you what the Colonel has
been saying to you; for though, upon my honour, I TRIED to keep out of
hearing, I could not help catching enough to understand his business.
And I assure you I never was better pleased in my life, and I wish you
joy of it with all my heart."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Elinor.  "It is a matter of great joy to me;
and I feel the goodness of Colonel Brandon most sensibly.  There are
not many men who would act as he has done.  Few people who have so
compassionate a heart!  I never was more astonished in my life."

"Lord! my dear, you are very modest.  I an't the least astonished at it
in the world, for I have often thought of late, there was nothing more
likely to happen."

"You judged from your knowledge of the Colonel's general benevolence;
but at least you could not foresee that the opportunity would so very
soon occur."

"Opportunity!" repeated Mrs. Jennings--"Oh! as to that, when a man has
once made up his mind to such a thing, somehow or other he will soon
find an opportunity.  Well, my dear, I wish you joy of it again and
again; and if ever there was a happy couple in the world, I think I
shall soon know where to look for them."

"You mean to go to Delaford after them I suppose," said Elinor, with a
faint smile.

"Aye, my dear, that I do, indeed.  And as to the house being a bad one,
I do not know what the Colonel would be at, for it is as good a one as
ever I saw."

"He spoke of its being out of repair."

"Well, and whose fault is that? why don't he repair it?--who should do
it but himself?"

They were interrupted by the servant's coming in to announce the
carriage being at the door; and Mrs. Jennings immediately preparing to
go, said,--

"Well, my dear, I must be gone before I have had half my talk out.
But, however, we may have it all over in the evening; for we shall be
quite alone.  I do not ask you to go with me, for I dare say your mind
is too full of the matter to care for company; and besides, you must
long to tell your sister all about it."

Marianne had left the room before the conversation began.

"Certainly, ma'am, I shall tell Marianne of it; but I shall not mention
it at present to any body else."

"Oh! very well," said Mrs. Jennings rather disappointed.  "Then you
would not have me tell it to Lucy, for I think of going as far as
Holborn to-day."

"No, ma'am, not even Lucy if you please.  One day's delay will not be
very material; and till I have written to Mr. Ferrars, I think it ought
not to be mentioned to any body else.  I shall do THAT directly.  It is
of importance that no time should be lost with him, for he will of
course have much to do relative to his ordination."

This speech at first puzzled Mrs. Jennings exceedingly.  Why Mr.
Ferrars was to have been written to about it in such a hurry, she could
not immediately comprehend.  A few moments' reflection, however,
produced a very happy idea, and she exclaimed;--

"Oh, ho!--I understand you.  Mr. Ferrars is to be the man.  Well, so
much the better for him.  Ay, to be sure, he must be ordained in
readiness; and I am very glad to find things are so forward between
you.  But, my dear, is not this rather out of character?  Should not
the Colonel write himself?--sure, he is the proper person."

Elinor did not quite understand the beginning of Mrs. Jennings's
speech, neither did she think it worth inquiring into; and therefore
only replied to its conclusion.

"Colonel Brandon is so delicate a man, that he rather wished any one to
announce his intentions to Mr. Ferrars than himself."

"And so YOU are forced to do it.  Well THAT is an odd kind of delicacy!
However, I will not disturb you (seeing her preparing to write.)  You
know your own concerns best.  So goodby, my dear.  I have not heard of
any thing to please me so well since Charlotte was brought to bed."

And away she went; but returning again in a moment,

"I have just been thinking of Betty's sister, my dear.  I should be
very glad to get her so good a mistress.  But whether she would do for
a lady's maid, I am sure I can't tell.  She is an excellent housemaid,
and works very well at her needle.  However, you will think of all that
at your leisure."

"Certainly, ma'am," replied Elinor, not hearing much of what she said,
and more anxious to be alone, than to be mistress of the subject.

How she should begin--how she should express herself in her note to
Edward, was now all her concern.  The particular circumstances between
them made a difficulty of that which to any other person would have
been the easiest thing in the world; but she equally feared to say too
much or too little, and sat deliberating over her paper, with the pen
in her hand, till broken in on by the entrance of Edward himself.

He had met Mrs. Jennings at the door in her way to the carriage, as he
came to leave his farewell card; and she, after apologising for not
returning herself, had obliged him to enter, by saying that Miss
Dashwood was above, and wanted to speak with him on very particular
business.

Elinor had just been congratulating herself, in the midst of her
perplexity, that however difficult it might be to express herself
properly by letter, it was at least preferable to giving the
information by word of mouth, when her visitor entered, to force her
upon this greatest exertion of all.  Her astonishment and confusion
were very great on his so sudden appearance.  She had not seen him
before since his engagement became public, and therefore not since his
knowing her to be acquainted with it; which, with the consciousness of
what she had been thinking of, and what she had to tell him, made her
feel particularly uncomfortable for some minutes.  He too was much
distressed; and they sat down together in a most promising state of
embarrassment.--Whether he had asked her pardon for his intrusion on
first coming into the room, he could not recollect; but determining to
be on the safe side, he made his apology in form as soon as he could
say any thing, after taking a chair.

"Mrs. Jennings told me," said he, "that you wished to speak with me, at
least I understood her so--or I certainly should not have intruded on
you in such a manner; though at the same time, I should have been
extremely sorry to leave London without seeing you and your sister;
especially as it will most likely be some time--it is not probable that
I should soon have the pleasure of meeting you again.  I go to Oxford
tomorrow."

"You would not have gone, however," said Elinor, recovering herself,
and determined to get over what she so much dreaded as soon as
possible, "without receiving our good wishes, even if we had not been
able to give them in person.  Mrs. Jennings was quite right in what she
said.  I have something of consequence to inform you of, which I was on
the point of communicating by paper.  I am charged with a most
agreeable office (breathing rather faster than usual as she spoke.)
Colonel Brandon, who was here only ten minutes ago, has desired me to
say, that understanding you mean to take orders, he has great pleasure
in offering you the living of Delaford now just vacant, and only wishes
it were more valuable.  Allow me to congratulate you on having so
respectable and well-judging a friend, and to join in his wish that the
living--it is about two hundred a-year--were much more considerable,
and such as might better enable you to--as might be more than a
temporary accommodation to yourself--such, in short, as might establish
all your views of happiness."

What Edward felt, as he could not say it himself, it cannot be expected
that any one else should say for him.  He LOOKED all the astonishment
which such unexpected, such unthought-of information could not fail of
exciting; but he said only these two words,

"Colonel Brandon!"

"Yes," continued Elinor, gathering more resolution, as some of the
worst was over, "Colonel Brandon means it as a testimony of his concern
for what has lately passed--for the cruel situation in which the
unjustifiable conduct of your family has placed you--a concern which I
am sure Marianne, myself, and all your friends, must share; and
likewise as a proof of his high esteem for your general character, and
his particular approbation of your behaviour on the present occasion."

"Colonel Brandon give ME a living!--Can it be possible?"

"The unkindness of your own relations has made you astonished to find
friendship any where."

"No," replied he, with sudden consciousness, "not to find it in YOU;
for I cannot be ignorant that to you, to your goodness, I owe it
all.--I feel it--I would express it if I could--but, as you well know,
I am no orator."

"You are very much mistaken.  I do assure you that you owe it entirely,
at least almost entirely, to your own merit, and Colonel Brandon's
discernment of it.  I have had no hand in it.  I did not even know,
till I understood his design, that the living was vacant; nor had it
ever occurred to me that he might have had such a living in his gift.
As a friend of mine, of my family, he may, perhaps--indeed I know he
HAS, still greater pleasure in bestowing it; but, upon my word, you owe
nothing to my solicitation."

Truth obliged her to acknowledge some small share in the action, but
she was at the same time so unwilling to appear as the benefactress of
Edward, that she acknowledged it with hesitation; which probably
contributed to fix that suspicion in his mind which had recently
entered it.  For a short time he sat deep in thought, after Elinor had
ceased to speak;--at last, and as if it were rather an effort, he said,

"Colonel Brandon seems a man of great worth and respectability.  I have
always heard him spoken of as such, and your brother I know esteems him
highly.  He is undoubtedly a sensible man, and in his manners perfectly
the gentleman."

"Indeed," replied Elinor, "I believe that you will find him, on farther
acquaintance, all that you have heard him to be, and as you will be
such very near neighbours (for I understand the parsonage is almost
close to the mansion-house,) it is particularly important that he
SHOULD be all this."

Edward made no answer; but when she had turned away her head, gave her
a look so serious, so earnest, so uncheerful, as seemed to say, that he
might hereafter wish the distance between the parsonage and the
mansion-house much greater.

"Colonel Brandon, I think, lodges in St. James Street," said he, soon
afterwards, rising from his chair.

Elinor told him the number of the house.

"I must hurry away then, to give him those thanks which you will not
allow me to give YOU; to assure him that he has made me a very--an
exceedingly happy man."

Elinor did not offer to detain him; and they parted, with a very
earnest assurance on HER side of her unceasing good wishes for his
happiness in every change of situation that might befall him; on HIS,
with rather an attempt to return the same good will, than the power of
expressing it.

"When I see him again," said Elinor to herself, as the door shut him
out, "I shall see him the husband of Lucy."

And with this pleasing anticipation, she sat down to reconsider the
past, recall the words and endeavour to comprehend all the feelings of
Edward; and, of course, to reflect on her own with discontent.

When Mrs. Jennings came home, though she returned from seeing people
whom she had never seen before, and of whom therefore she must have a
great deal to say, her mind was so much more occupied by the important
secret in her possession, than by anything else, that she reverted to
it again as soon as Elinor appeared.

"Well, my dear," she cried, "I sent you up the young man.  Did not I
do right?--And I suppose you had no great difficulty--You did not find
him very unwilling to accept your proposal?"

"No, ma'am; THAT was not very likely."

"Well, and how soon will he be ready?--For it seems all to depend upon
that."

"Really," said Elinor, "I know so little of these kind of forms, that I
can hardly even conjecture as to the time, or the preparation
necessary; but I suppose two or three months will complete his
ordination."

"Two or three months!" cried Mrs. Jennings; "Lord! my dear, how calmly
you talk of it; and can the Colonel wait two or three months! Lord
bless me!--I am sure it would put ME quite out of patience!--And though
one would be very glad to do a kindness by poor Mr. Ferrars, I do think
it is not worth while to wait two or three months for him.  Sure
somebody else might be found that would do as well; somebody that is in
orders already."

"My dear ma'am," said Elinor, "what can you be thinking of?-- Why,
Colonel Brandon's only object is to be of use to Mr. Ferrars."

"Lord bless you, my dear!--Sure you do not mean to persuade me that the
Colonel only marries you for the sake of giving ten guineas to Mr.
Ferrars!"

The deception could not continue after this; and an explanation
immediately took place, by which both gained considerable amusement for
the moment, without any material loss of happiness to either, for Mrs.
Jennings only exchanged one form of delight for another, and still
without forfeiting her expectation of the first.

"Aye, aye, the parsonage is but a small one," said she, after the first
ebullition of surprise and satisfaction was over, "and very likely MAY
be out of repair; but to hear a man apologising, as I thought, for a
house that to my knowledge has five sitting rooms on the ground-floor,
and I think the housekeeper told me could make up fifteen beds!--and to
you too, that had been used to live in Barton cottage!-- It seems quite
ridiculous.  But, my dear, we must touch up the Colonel to do some
thing to the parsonage, and make it comfortable for them, before Lucy
goes to it."

"But Colonel Brandon does not seem to have any idea of the living's
being enough to allow them to marry."

"The Colonel is a ninny, my dear; because he has two thousand a-year
himself, he thinks that nobody else can marry on less.  Take my word
for it, that, if I am alive, I shall be paying a visit at Delaford
Parsonage before Michaelmas; and I am sure I shan't go if Lucy an't
there."

Elinor was quite of her opinion, as to the probability of their not
waiting for any thing more.



CHAPTER 41


Edward, having carried his thanks to Colonel Brandon, proceeded with
his happiness to Lucy; and such was the excess of it by the time he
reached Bartlett's Buildings, that she was able to assure Mrs.
Jennings, who called on her again the next day with her
congratulations, that she had never seen him in such spirits before in
her life.

Her own happiness, and her own spirits, were at least very certain; and
she joined Mrs. Jennings most heartily in her expectation of their
being all comfortably together in Delaford Parsonage before Michaelmas.
So far was she, at the same time, from any backwardness to give Elinor
that credit which Edward WOULD give her, that she spoke of her
friendship for them both with the most grateful warmth, was ready to
own all their obligation to her, and openly declared that no exertion
for their good on Miss Dashwood's part, either present or future, would
ever surprise her, for she believed her capable of doing any thing in
the world for those she really valued.  As for Colonel Brandon, she was
not only ready to worship him as a saint, but was moreover truly
anxious that he should be treated as one in all worldly concerns;
anxious that his tithes should be raised to the utmost; and scarcely
resolved to avail herself, at Delaford, as far as she possibly could,
of his servants, his carriage, his cows, and his poultry.

It was now above a week since John Dashwood had called in Berkeley
Street, and as since that time no notice had been taken by them of his
wife's indisposition, beyond one verbal enquiry, Elinor began to feel
it necessary to pay her a visit.--This was an obligation, however,
which not only opposed her own inclination, but which had not the
assistance of any encouragement from her companions.  Marianne, not
contented with absolutely refusing to go herself, was very urgent to
prevent her sister's going at all; and Mrs. Jennings, though her
carriage was always at Elinor's service, so very much disliked Mrs.
John Dashwood, that not even her curiosity to see how she looked after
the late discovery, nor her strong desire to affront her by taking
Edward's part, could overcome her unwillingness to be in her company
again.  The consequence was, that Elinor set out by herself to pay a
visit, for which no one could really have less inclination, and to run
the risk of a tete-a-tete with a woman, whom neither of the others had
so much reason to dislike.

Mrs. Dashwood was denied; but before the carriage could turn from the
house, her husband accidentally came out.  He expressed great pleasure
in meeting Elinor, told her that he had been just going to call in
Berkeley Street, and, assuring her that Fanny would be very glad to see
her, invited her to come in.

They walked up stairs in to the drawing-room.--Nobody was there.

"Fanny is in her own room, I suppose," said he:--"I will go to her
presently, for I am sure she will not have the least objection in the
world to seeing YOU.-- Very far from it, indeed.  NOW especially there
cannot be--but however, you and Marianne were always great
favourites.--Why would not Marianne come?"--

Elinor made what excuse she could for her.

"I am not sorry to see you alone," he replied, "for I have a good deal
to say to you.  This living of Colonel Brandon's--can it be true?--has
he really given it to Edward?--I heard it yesterday by chance, and was
coming to you on purpose to enquire farther about it."

"It is perfectly true.--Colonel Brandon has given the living of
Delaford to Edward."

"Really!--Well, this is very astonishing!--no relationship!--no
connection between them!--and now that livings fetch such a
price!--what was the value of this?"

"About two hundred a year."

"Very well--and for the next presentation to a living of that
value--supposing the late incumbent to have been old and sickly, and
likely to vacate it soon--he might have got I dare say--fourteen
hundred pounds.  And how came he not to have settled that matter before
this person's death?--NOW indeed it would be too late to sell it, but a
man of Colonel Brandon's sense!--I wonder he should be so improvident
in a point of such common, such natural, concern!--Well, I am convinced
that there is a vast deal of inconsistency in almost every human
character.  I suppose, however--on recollection--that the case may
probably be THIS.  Edward is only to hold the living till the person to
whom the Colonel has really sold the presentation, is old enough to
take it.--Aye, aye, that is the fact, depend upon it."

Elinor contradicted it, however, very positively; and by relating that
she had herself been employed in conveying the offer from Colonel
Brandon to Edward, and, therefore, must understand the terms on which
it was given, obliged him to submit to her authority.

"It is truly astonishing!"--he cried, after hearing what she
said--"what could be the Colonel's motive?"

"A very simple one--to be of use to Mr. Ferrars."

"Well, well; whatever Colonel Brandon may be, Edward is a very lucky
man.--You will not mention the matter to Fanny, however, for though I
have broke it to her, and she bears it vastly well,--she will not like
to hear it much talked of."

Elinor had some difficulty here to refrain from observing, that she
thought Fanny might have borne with composure, an acquisition of wealth
to her brother, by which neither she nor her child could be possibly
impoverished.

"Mrs. Ferrars," added he, lowering his voice to the tone becoming so
important a subject, "knows nothing about it at present, and I believe
it will be best to keep it entirely concealed from her as long as may
be.-- When the marriage takes place, I fear she must hear of it all."

"But why should such precaution be used?--Though it is not to be
supposed that Mrs. Ferrars can have the smallest satisfaction in
knowing that her son has money enough to live upon,--for THAT must be
quite out of the question; yet why, upon her late behaviour, is she
supposed to feel at all?--She has done with her son, she cast him off
for ever, and has made all those over whom she had any influence, cast
him off likewise.  Surely, after doing so, she cannot be imagined
liable to any impression of sorrow or of joy on his account--she cannot
be interested in any thing that befalls him.-- She would not be so weak
as to throw away the comfort of a child, and yet retain the anxiety of
a parent!"

"Ah! Elinor," said John, "your reasoning is very good, but it is
founded on ignorance of human nature.  When Edward's unhappy match
takes place, depend upon it his mother will feel as much as if she had
never discarded him; and, therefore every circumstance that may
accelerate that dreadful event, must be concealed from her as much as
possible.  Mrs. Ferrars can never forget that Edward is her son."

"You surprise me; I should think it must nearly have escaped her memory
by THIS time."

"You wrong her exceedingly.  Mrs. Ferrars is one of the most
affectionate mothers in the world."

Elinor was silent.

"We think NOW,"--said Mr. Dashwood, after a short pause, "of ROBERT'S
marrying Miss Morton."

Elinor, smiling at the grave and decisive importance of her brother's
tone, calmly replied,

"The lady, I suppose, has no choice in the affair."

"Choice!--how do you mean?"

"I only mean that I suppose, from your manner of speaking, it must be
the same to Miss Morton whether she marry Edward or Robert."

"Certainly, there can be no difference; for Robert will now to all
intents and purposes be considered as the eldest son;--and as to any
thing else, they are both very agreeable young men: I do not know that
one is superior to the other."

Elinor said no more, and John was also for a short time silent.--His
reflections ended thus.

"Of ONE thing, my dear sister," kindly taking her hand, and speaking in
an awful whisper,--"I may assure you;--and I WILL do it, because I know
it must gratify you.  I have good reason to think--indeed I have it
from the best authority, or I should not repeat it, for otherwise it
would be very wrong to say any thing about it--but I have it from the
very best authority--not that I ever precisely heard Mrs. Ferrars say
it herself--but her daughter DID, and I have it from her--That in
short, whatever objections there might be against a certain--a certain
connection--you understand me--it would have been far preferable to
her, it would not have given her half the vexation that THIS does.  I
was exceedingly pleased to hear that Mrs. Ferrars considered it in that
light--a very gratifying circumstance you know to us all.  'It would
have been beyond comparison,' she said, 'the least evil of the two, and
she would be glad to compound NOW for nothing worse.' But however, all
that is quite out of the question--not to be thought of or
mentioned--as to any attachment you know--it never could be--all that
is gone by.  But I thought I would just tell you of this, because I
knew how much it must please you.  Not that you have any reason to
regret, my dear Elinor.  There is no doubt of your doing exceedingly
well--quite as well, or better, perhaps, all things considered.  Has
Colonel Brandon been with you lately?"

Elinor had heard enough, if not to gratify her vanity, and raise her
self-importance, to agitate her nerves and fill her mind;--and she was
therefore glad to be spared from the necessity of saying much in reply
herself, and from the danger of hearing any thing more from her
brother, by the entrance of Mr. Robert Ferrars.  After a few moments'
chat, John Dashwood, recollecting that Fanny was yet uninformed of her
sister's being there, quitted the room in quest of her; and Elinor was
left to improve her acquaintance with Robert, who, by the gay
unconcern, the happy self-complacency of his manner while enjoying so
unfair a division of his mother's love and liberality, to the prejudice
of his banished brother, earned only by his own dissipated course of
life, and that brother's integrity, was confirming her most
unfavourable opinion of his head and heart.

They had scarcely been two minutes by themselves, before he began to
speak of Edward; for he, too, had heard of the living, and was very
inquisitive on the subject.  Elinor repeated the particulars of it, as
she had given them to John; and their effect on Robert, though very
different, was not less striking than it had been on HIM.  He laughed
most immoderately.  The idea of Edward's being a clergyman, and living
in a small parsonage-house, diverted him beyond measure;--and when to
that was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a
white surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith
and Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous.

Elinor, while she waited in silence and immovable gravity, the
conclusion of such folly, could not restrain her eyes from being fixed
on him with a look that spoke all the contempt it excited.  It was a
look, however, very well bestowed, for it relieved her own feelings,
and gave no intelligence to him.  He was recalled from wit to wisdom,
not by any reproof of hers, but by his own sensibility.

"We may treat it as a joke," said he, at last, recovering from the
affected laugh which had considerably lengthened out the genuine gaiety
of the moment--"but, upon my soul, it is a most serious business.  Poor
Edward!  he is ruined for ever.  I am extremely sorry for it--for I
know him to be a very good-hearted creature; as well-meaning a fellow
perhaps, as any in the world.  You must not judge of him, Miss
Dashwood, from YOUR slight acquaintance.--Poor Edward!--His manners are
certainly not the happiest in nature.--But we are not all born, you
know, with the same powers,--the same address.-- Poor fellow!--to see
him in a circle of strangers!--to be sure it was pitiable enough!--but
upon my soul, I believe he has as good a heart as any in the kingdom;
and I declare and protest to you I never was so shocked in my life, as
when it all burst forth.  I could not believe it.-- My mother was the
first person who told me of it; and I, feeling myself called on to act
with resolution, immediately said to her, 'My dear madam, I do not know
what you may intend to do on the occasion, but as for myself, I must
say, that if Edward does marry this young woman, I never will see him
again.' That was what I said immediately.-- I was most uncommonly
shocked, indeed!--Poor Edward!--he has done for himself
completely--shut himself out for ever from all decent society!--but, as
I directly said to my mother, I am not in the least surprised at it;
from his style of education, it was always to be expected.  My poor
mother was half frantic."

"Have you ever seen the lady?"

"Yes; once, while she was staying in this house, I happened to drop in
for ten minutes; and I saw quite enough of her.  The merest awkward
country girl, without style, or elegance, and almost without beauty.--
I remember her perfectly.  Just the kind of girl I should suppose
likely to captivate poor Edward.  I offered immediately, as soon as my
mother related the affair to me, to talk to him myself, and dissuade
him from the match; but it was too late THEN, I found, to do any thing,
for unluckily, I was not in the way at first, and knew nothing of it
till after the breach had taken place, when it was not for me, you
know, to interfere.  But had I been informed of it a few hours
earlier--I think it is most probable--that something might have been
hit on.  I certainly should have represented it to Edward in a very
strong light.  'My dear fellow,' I should have said, 'consider what you
are doing.  You are making a most disgraceful connection, and such a
one as your family are unanimous in disapproving.' I cannot help
thinking, in short, that means might have been found.  But now it is
all too late.  He must be starved, you know;--that is certain;
absolutely starved."

He had just settled this point with great composure, when the entrance
of Mrs. John Dashwood put an end to the subject.  But though SHE never
spoke of it out of her own family, Elinor could see its influence on
her mind, in the something like confusion of countenance with which she
entered, and an attempt at cordiality in her behaviour to herself.  She
even proceeded so far as to be concerned to find that Elinor and her
sister were so soon to leave town, as she had hoped to see more of
them;--an exertion in which her husband, who attended her into the
room, and hung enamoured over her accents, seemed to distinguish every
thing that was most affectionate and graceful.



CHAPTER 42


One other short call in Harley Street, in which Elinor received her
brother's congratulations on their travelling so far towards Barton
without any expense, and on Colonel Brandon's being to follow them to
Cleveland in a day or two, completed the intercourse of the brother and
sisters in town;--and a faint invitation from Fanny, to come to Norland
whenever it should happen to be in their way, which of all things was
the most unlikely to occur, with a more warm, though less public,
assurance, from John to Elinor, of the promptitude with which he should
come to see her at Delaford, was all that foretold any meeting in the
country.

It amused her to observe that all her friends seemed determined to send
her to Delaford;--a place, in which, of all others, she would now least
chuse to visit, or wish to reside; for not only was it considered as
her future home by her brother and Mrs. Jennings, but even Lucy, when
they parted, gave her a pressing invitation to visit her there.

Very early in April, and tolerably early in the day, the two parties
from Hanover Square and Berkeley Street set out from their respective
homes, to meet, by appointment, on the road.  For the convenience of
Charlotte and her child, they were to be more than two days on their
journey, and Mr. Palmer, travelling more expeditiously with Colonel
Brandon, was to join them at Cleveland soon after their arrival.

Marianne, few as had been her hours of comfort in London, and eager as
she had long been to quit it, could not, when it came to the point, bid
adieu to the house in which she had for the last time enjoyed those
hopes, and that confidence, in Willoughby, which were now extinguished
for ever, without great pain.  Nor could she leave the place in which
Willoughby remained, busy in new engagements, and new schemes, in which
SHE could have no share, without shedding many tears.

Elinor's satisfaction, at the moment of removal, was more positive.
She had no such object for her lingering thoughts to fix on, she left
no creature behind, from whom it would give her a moment's regret to be
divided for ever, she was pleased to be free herself from the
persecution of Lucy's friendship, she was grateful for bringing her
sister away unseen by Willoughby since his marriage, and she looked
forward with hope to what a few months of tranquility at Barton might
do towards restoring Marianne's peace of mind, and confirming her own.

Their journey was safely performed.  The second day brought them into
the cherished, or the prohibited, county of Somerset, for as such was
it dwelt on by turns in Marianne's imagination; and in the forenoon of
the third they drove up to Cleveland.

Cleveland was a spacious, modern-built house, situated on a sloping
lawn.  It had no park, but the pleasure-grounds were tolerably
extensive; and like every other place of the same degree of importance,
it had its open shrubbery, and closer wood walk, a road of smooth
gravel winding round a plantation, led to the front, the lawn was
dotted over with timber, the house itself was under the guardianship of
the fir, the mountain-ash, and the acacia, and a thick screen of them
altogether, interspersed with tall Lombardy poplars, shut out the
offices.

Marianne entered the house with a heart swelling with emotion from the
consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton, and not thirty
from Combe Magna; and before she had been five minutes within its
walls, while the others were busily helping Charlotte to show her child
to the housekeeper, she quitted it again, stealing away through the
winding shrubberies, now just beginning to be in beauty, to gain a
distant eminence; where, from its Grecian temple, her eye, wandering
over a wide tract of country to the south-east, could fondly rest on
the farthest ridge of hills in the horizon, and fancy that from their
summits Combe Magna might be seen.

In such moments of precious, invaluable misery, she rejoiced in tears
of agony to be at Cleveland; and as she returned by a different circuit
to the house, feeling all the happy privilege of country liberty, of
wandering from place to place in free and luxurious solitude, she
resolved to spend almost every hour of every day while she remained
with the Palmers, in the indulgence of such solitary rambles.

She returned just in time to join the others as they quitted the house,
on an excursion through its more immediate premises; and the rest of
the morning was easily whiled away, in lounging round the kitchen
garden, examining the bloom upon its walls, and listening to the
gardener's lamentations upon blights, in dawdling through the
green-house, where the loss of her favourite plants, unwarily exposed,
and nipped by the lingering frost, raised the laughter of
Charlotte,--and in visiting her poultry-yard, where, in the
disappointed hopes of her dairy-maid, by hens forsaking their nests, or
being stolen by a fox, or in the rapid decrease of a promising young
brood, she found fresh sources of merriment.

The morning was fine and dry, and Marianne, in her plan of employment
abroad, had not calculated for any change of weather during their stay
at Cleveland.  With great surprise therefore, did she find herself
prevented by a settled rain from going out again after dinner.  She had
depended on a twilight walk to the Grecian temple, and perhaps all over
the grounds, and an evening merely cold or damp would not have deterred
her from it; but a heavy and settled rain even SHE could not fancy dry
or pleasant weather for walking.

Their party was small, and the hours passed quietly away.  Mrs. Palmer
had her child, and Mrs. Jennings her carpet-work; they talked of the
friends they had left behind, arranged Lady Middleton's engagements,
and wondered whether Mr. Palmer and Colonel Brandon would get farther
than Reading that night.  Elinor, however little concerned in it,
joined in their discourse; and Marianne, who had the knack of finding
her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by
the family in general, soon procured herself a book.

Nothing was wanting on Mrs. Palmer's side that constant and friendly
good humour could do, to make them feel themselves welcome.  The
openness and heartiness of her manner more than atoned for that want of
recollection and elegance which made her often deficient in the forms
of politeness; her kindness, recommended by so pretty a face, was
engaging; her folly, though evident was not disgusting, because it was
not conceited; and Elinor could have forgiven every thing but her laugh.

The two gentlemen arrived the next day to a very late dinner, affording
a pleasant enlargement of the party, and a very welcome variety to
their conversation, which a long morning of the same continued rain had
reduced very low.

Elinor had seen so little of Mr. Palmer, and in that little had seen so
much variety in his address to her sister and herself, that she knew
not what to expect to find him in his own family.  She found him,
however, perfectly the gentleman in his behaviour to all his visitors,
and only occasionally rude to his wife and her mother; she found him
very capable of being a pleasant companion, and only prevented from
being so always, by too great an aptitude to fancy himself as much
superior to people in general, as he must feel himself to be to Mrs.
Jennings and Charlotte.  For the rest of his character and habits, they
were marked, as far as Elinor could perceive, with no traits at all
unusual in his sex and time of life.  He was nice in his eating,
uncertain in his hours; fond of his child, though affecting to slight
it; and idled away the mornings at billiards, which ought to have been
devoted to business.  She liked him, however, upon the whole, much
better than she had expected, and in her heart was not sorry that she
could like him no more;--not sorry to be driven by the observation of
his Epicurism, his selfishness, and his conceit, to rest with
complacency on the remembrance of Edward's generous temper, simple
taste, and diffident feelings.

Of Edward, or at least of some of his concerns, she now received
intelligence from Colonel Brandon, who had been into Dorsetshire
lately; and who, treating her at once as the disinterested friend of
Mr. Ferrars, and the kind confidante of himself, talked to her a
great deal of the parsonage at Delaford, described its deficiencies,
and told her what he meant to do himself towards removing them.--His
behaviour to her in this, as well as in every other particular, his
open pleasure in meeting her after an absence of only ten days, his
readiness to converse with her, and his deference for her opinion,
might very well justify Mrs. Jennings's persuasion of his attachment,
and would have been enough, perhaps, had not Elinor still, as from the
first, believed Marianne his real favourite, to make her suspect it
herself.  But as it was, such a notion had scarcely ever entered her
head, except by Mrs. Jennings's suggestion; and she could not help
believing herself the nicest observer of the two;--she watched his
eyes, while Mrs. Jennings thought only of his behaviour;--and while his
looks of anxious solicitude on Marianne's feeling, in her head and
throat, the beginning of a heavy cold, because unexpressed by words,
entirely escaped the latter lady's observation;--SHE could discover in
them the quick feelings, and needless alarm of a lover.

Two delightful twilight walks on the third and fourth evenings of her
being there, not merely on the dry gravel of the shrubbery, but all
over the grounds, and especially in the most distant parts of them,
where there was something more of wildness than in the rest, where the
trees were the oldest, and the grass was the longest and wettest,
had--assisted by the still greater imprudence of sitting in her wet
shoes and stockings--given Marianne a cold so violent as, though for a
day or two trifled with or denied, would force itself by increasing
ailments on the concern of every body, and the notice of herself.
Prescriptions poured in from all quarters, and as usual, were all
declined.  Though heavy and feverish, with a pain in her limbs, and a
cough, and a sore throat, a good night's rest was to cure her entirely;
and it was with difficulty that Elinor prevailed on her, when she went
to bed, to try one or two of the simplest of the remedies.



CHAPTER 43


Marianne got up the next morning at her usual time; to every inquiry
replied that she was better, and tried to prove herself so, by engaging
in her accustomary employments.  But a day spent in sitting shivering
over the fire with a book in her hand, which she was unable to read, or
in lying, weary and languid, on a sofa, did not speak much in favour of
her amendment; and when, at last, she went early to bed, more and more
indisposed, Colonel Brandon was only astonished at her sister's
composure, who, though attending and nursing her the whole day, against
Marianne's inclination, and forcing proper medicines on her at night,
trusted, like Marianne, to the certainty and efficacy of sleep, and
felt no real alarm.

A very restless and feverish night, however, disappointed the
expectation of both; and when Marianne, after persisting in rising,
confessed herself unable to sit up, and returned voluntarily to her
bed, Elinor was very ready to adopt Mrs. Jennings's advice, of sending
for the Palmers' apothecary.

He came, examined his patient, and though encouraging Miss Dashwood to
expect that a very few days would restore her sister to health, yet, by
pronouncing her disorder to have a putrid tendency, and allowing the
word "infection" to pass his lips, gave instant alarm to Mrs. Palmer,
on her baby's account.  Mrs. Jennings, who had been inclined from the
first to think Marianne's complaint more serious than Elinor, now
looked very grave on Mr. Harris's report, and confirming Charlotte's
fears and caution, urged the necessity of her immediate removal with
her infant; and Mr. Palmer, though treating their apprehensions as
idle, found the anxiety and importunity of his wife too great to be
withstood.  Her departure, therefore, was fixed on; and within an hour
after Mr. Harris's arrival, she set off, with her little boy and his
nurse, for the house of a near relation of Mr. Palmer's, who lived a
few miles on the other side of Bath; whither her husband promised, at
her earnest entreaty, to join her in a day or two; and whither she was
almost equally urgent with her mother to accompany her.  Mrs. Jennings,
however, with a kindness of heart which made Elinor really love her,
declared her resolution of not stirring from Cleveland as long as
Marianne remained ill, and of endeavouring, by her own attentive care,
to supply to her the place of the mother she had taken her from; and
Elinor found her on every occasion a most willing and active helpmate,
desirous to share in all her fatigues, and often by her better
experience in nursing, of material use.

Poor Marianne, languid and low from the nature of her malady, and
feeling herself universally ill, could no longer hope that tomorrow
would find her recovered; and the idea of what tomorrow would have
produced, but for this unlucky illness, made every ailment severe; for
on that day they were to have begun their journey home; and, attended
the whole way by a servant of Mrs. Jennings, were to have taken their
mother by surprise on the following forenoon.  The little she said was
all in lamentation of this inevitable delay; though Elinor tried to
raise her spirits, and make her believe, as she THEN really believed
herself, that it would be a very short one.

The next day produced little or no alteration in the state of the
patient; she certainly was not better, and, except that there was no
amendment, did not appear worse.  Their party was now farther reduced;
for Mr. Palmer, though very unwilling to go as well from real humanity
and good-nature, as from a dislike of appearing to be frightened away
by his wife, was persuaded at last by Colonel Brandon to perform his
promise of following her; and while he was preparing to go, Colonel
Brandon himself, with a much greater exertion, began to talk of going
likewise.--Here, however, the kindness of Mrs. Jennings interposed most
acceptably; for to send the Colonel away while his love was in so much
uneasiness on her sister's account, would be to deprive them both, she
thought, of every comfort; and therefore telling him at once that his
stay at Cleveland was necessary to herself, that she should want him to
play at piquet of an evening, while Miss Dashwood was above with her
sister, &c. she urged him so strongly to remain, that he, who was
gratifying the first wish of his own heart by a compliance, could not
long even affect to demur; especially as Mrs. Jennings's entreaty was
warmly seconded by Mr. Palmer, who seemed to feel a relief to himself,
in leaving behind him a person so well able to assist or advise Miss
Dashwood in any emergence.

Marianne was, of course, kept in ignorance of all these arrangements.
She knew not that she had been the means of sending the owners of
Cleveland away, in about seven days from the time of their arrival.  It
gave her no surprise that she saw nothing of Mrs. Palmer; and as it
gave her likewise no concern, she never mentioned her name.

Two days passed away from the time of Mr. Palmer's departure, and her
situation continued, with little variation, the same.  Mr. Harris, who
attended her every day, still talked boldly of a speedy recovery, and
Miss Dashwood was equally sanguine; but the expectation of the others
was by no means so cheerful.  Mrs. Jennings had determined very early
in the seizure that Marianne would never get over it, and Colonel
Brandon, who was chiefly of use in listening to Mrs. Jennings's
forebodings, was not in a state of mind to resist their influence.  He
tried to reason himself out of fears, which the different judgment of
the apothecary seemed to render absurd; but the many hours of each day
in which he was left entirely alone, were but too favourable for the
admission of every melancholy idea, and he could not expel from his
mind the persuasion that he should see Marianne no more.

On the morning of the third day however, the gloomy anticipations of
both were almost done away; for when Mr. Harris arrived, he declared
his patient materially better.  Her pulse was much stronger, and every
symptom more favourable than on the preceding visit.  Elinor, confirmed
in every pleasant hope, was all cheerfulness; rejoicing that in her
letters to her mother, she had pursued her own judgment rather than her
friend's, in making very light of the indisposition which delayed them
at Cleveland; and almost fixing on the time when Marianne would be able
to travel.

But the day did not close so auspiciously as it began.-- Towards the
evening Marianne became ill again, growing more heavy, restless, and
uncomfortable than before.  Her sister, however, still sanguine, was
willing to attribute the change to nothing more than the fatigue of
having sat up to have her bed made; and carefully administering the
cordials prescribed, saw her, with satisfaction, sink at last into a
slumber, from which she expected the most beneficial effects.  Her
sleep, though not so quiet as Elinor wished to see it, lasted a
considerable time; and anxious to observe the result of it herself, she
resolved to sit with her during the whole of it.  Mrs. Jennings,
knowing nothing of any change in the patient, went unusually early to
bed; her maid, who was one of the principal nurses, was recreating
herself in the housekeeper's room, and Elinor remained alone with
Marianne.

The repose of the latter became more and more disturbed; and her
sister, who watched, with unremitting attention her continual change of
posture, and heard the frequent but inarticulate sounds of complaint
which passed her lips, was almost wishing to rouse her from so painful
a slumber, when Marianne, suddenly awakened by some accidental noise in
the house, started hastily up, and, with feverish wildness, cried out,--

"Is mama coming?--"

"Not yet," cried the other, concealing her terror, and assisting
Marianne to lie down again, "but she will be here, I hope, before it is
long.  It is a great way, you know, from hence to Barton."

"But she must not go round by London," cried Marianne, in the same
hurried manner.  "I shall never see her, if she goes by London."

Elinor perceived with alarm that she was not quite herself, and, while
attempting to soothe her, eagerly felt her pulse.  It was lower and
quicker than ever!  and Marianne, still talking wildly of mama, her
alarm increased so rapidly, as to determine her on sending instantly
for Mr. Harris, and despatching a messenger to Barton for her mother.
To consult with Colonel Brandon on the best means of effecting the
latter, was a thought which immediately followed the resolution of its
performance; and as soon she had rung up the maid to take her place by
her sister, she hastened down to the drawing-room, where she knew he
was generally to be found at a much later hour than the present.

It was no time for hesitation.  Her fears and her difficulties were
immediately before him.  Her fears, he had no courage, no confidence to
attempt the removal of:--he listened to them in silent despondence;--but
her difficulties were instantly obviated, for with a readiness that
seemed to speak the occasion, and the service pre-arranged in his mind,
he offered himself as the messenger who should fetch Mrs. Dashwood.
Elinor made no resistance that was not easily overcome. She thanked him
with brief, though fervent gratitude, and while he went to hurry off his
servant with a message to Mr. Harris, and an order for post-horses
directly, she wrote a few lines to her mother.

The comfort of such a friend at that moment as Colonel Brandon--or such
a companion for her mother,--how gratefully was it felt!--a companion
whose judgment would guide, whose attendance must relieve, and whose
friendship might soothe her!--as far as the shock of such a summons
COULD be lessened to her, his presence, his manners, his assistance,
would lessen it.

HE, meanwhile, whatever he might feel, acted with all the firmness of a
collected mind, made every necessary arrangement with the utmost
despatch, and calculated with exactness the time in which she might
look for his return.  Not a moment was lost in delay of any kind.  The
horses arrived, even before they were expected, and Colonel Brandon
only pressing her hand with a look of solemnity, and a few words spoken
too low to reach her ear, hurried into the carriage.  It was then about
twelve o'clock, and she returned to her sister's apartment to wait for
the arrival of the apothecary, and to watch by her the rest of the
night.  It was a night of almost equal suffering to both.  Hour after
hour passed away in sleepless pain and delirium on Marianne's side, and
in the most cruel anxiety on Elinor's, before Mr. Harris appeared.  Her
apprehensions once raised, paid by their excess for all her former
security; and the servant who sat up with her, for she would not allow
Mrs. Jennings to be called, only tortured her more, by hints of what
her mistress had always thought.

Marianne's ideas were still, at intervals, fixed incoherently on her
mother, and whenever she mentioned her name, it gave a pang to the
heart of poor Elinor, who, reproaching herself for having trifled with
so many days of illness, and wretched for some immediate relief,
fancied that all relief might soon be in vain, that every thing had
been delayed too long, and pictured to herself her suffering mother
arriving too late to see this darling child, or to see her rational.

She was on the point of sending again for Mr. Harris, or if HE could
not come, for some other advice, when the former--but not till after
five o'clock--arrived.  His opinion, however, made some little amends
for his delay, for though acknowledging a very unexpected and
unpleasant alteration in his patient, he would not allow the danger to
be material, and talked of the relief which a fresh mode of treatment
must procure, with a confidence which, in a lesser degree, was
communicated to Elinor.  He promised to call again in the course of
three or four hours, and left both the patient and her anxious
attendant more composed than he had found them.

With strong concern, and with many reproaches for not being called to
their aid, did Mrs. Jennings hear in the morning of what had passed.
Her former apprehensions, now with greater reason restored, left her no
doubt of the event; and though trying to speak comfort to Elinor, her
conviction of her sister's danger would not allow her to offer the
comfort of hope.  Her heart was really grieved.  The rapid decay, the
early death of a girl so young, so lovely as Marianne, must have struck
a less interested person with concern.  On Mrs. Jennings's compassion
she had other claims.  She had been for three months her companion, was
still under her care, and she was known to have been greatly injured,
and long unhappy.  The distress of her sister too, particularly a
favourite, was before her;--and as for their mother, when Mrs. Jennings
considered that Marianne might probably be to HER what Charlotte was to
herself, her sympathy in HER sufferings was very sincere.

Mr. Harris was punctual in his second visit;--but he came to be
disappointed in his hopes of what the last would produce.  His
medicines had failed;--the fever was unabated; and Marianne only more
quiet--not more herself--remained in a heavy stupor.  Elinor, catching
all, and more than all, his fears in a moment, proposed to call in
further advice.  But he judged it unnecessary: he had still something
more to try, some more fresh application, of whose success he was as
confident as the last, and his visit concluded with encouraging
assurances which reached the ear, but could not enter the heart of Miss
Dashwood.  She was calm, except when she thought of her mother; but she
was almost hopeless; and in this state she continued till noon,
scarcely stirring from her sister's bed, her thoughts wandering from
one image of grief, one suffering friend to another, and her spirits
oppressed to the utmost by the conversation of Mrs. Jennings, who
scrupled not to attribute the severity and danger of this attack to the
many weeks of previous indisposition which Marianne's disappointment
had brought on.  Elinor felt all the reasonableness of the idea, and it
gave fresh misery to her reflections.

About noon, however, she began--but with a caution--a dread of
disappointment which for some time kept her silent, even to her
friend--to fancy, to hope she could perceive a slight amendment in her
sister's pulse;--she waited, watched, and examined it again and
again;--and at last, with an agitation more difficult to bury under
exterior calmness, than all her foregoing distress, ventured to
communicate her hopes.  Mrs. Jennings, though forced, on examination,
to acknowledge a temporary revival, tried to keep her young friend from
indulging a thought of its continuance;--and Elinor, conning over every
injunction of distrust, told herself likewise not to hope.  But it was
too late.  Hope had already entered; and feeling all its anxious
flutter, she bent over her sister to watch--she hardly knew for what.
Half an hour passed away, and the favourable symptom yet blessed her.
Others even arose to confirm it.  Her breath, her skin, her lips, all
flattered Elinor with signs of amendment; and Marianne fixed her eyes
on her with a rational, though languid, gaze.  Anxiety and hope now
oppressed her in equal degrees, and left her no moment of tranquillity
till the arrival of Mr. Harris at four o'clock;--when his assurances,
his felicitations on a recovery in her sister even surpassing his
expectation, gave her confidence, comfort, and tears of joy.

Marianne was in every respect materially better, and he declared her
entirely out of danger.  Mrs. Jennings, perhaps satisfied with the
partial justification of her forebodings which had been found in their
late alarm, allowed herself to trust in his judgment, and admitted,
with unfeigned joy, and soon with unequivocal cheerfulness, the
probability of an entire recovery.

Elinor could not be cheerful.  Her joy was of a different kind, and led
to any thing rather than to gaiety.  Marianne restored to life, health,
friends, and to her doting mother, was an idea to fill her heart with
sensations of exquisite comfort, and expand it in fervent
gratitude;--but it led to no outward demonstrations of joy, no words,
no smiles.  All within Elinor's breast was satisfaction, silent and
strong.

She continued by the side of her sister, with little intermission the
whole afternoon, calming every fear, satisfying every inquiry of her
enfeebled spirits, supplying every succour, and watching almost every
look and every breath.  The possibility of a relapse would of course,
in some moments, occur to remind her of what anxiety was--but when she
saw, on her frequent and minute examination, that every symptom of
recovery continued, and saw Marianne at six o'clock sink into a quiet,
steady, and to all appearance comfortable, sleep, she silenced every
doubt.

The time was now drawing on, when Colonel Brandon might be expected
back.  At ten o'clock, she trusted, or at least not much later her
mother would be relieved from the dreadful suspense in which she must
now be travelling towards them.  The Colonel, too!--perhaps scarcely
less an object of pity!--Oh!--how slow was the progress of time which
yet kept them in ignorance!

At seven o'clock, leaving Marianne still sweetly asleep, she joined
Mrs. Jennings in the drawing-room to tea.  Of breakfast she had been
kept by her fears, and of dinner by their sudden reverse, from eating
much;--and the present refreshment, therefore, with such feelings of
content as she brought to it, was particularly welcome.  Mrs. Jennings
would have persuaded her, at its conclusion, to take some rest before
her mother's arrival, and allow HER to take her place by Marianne; but
Elinor had no sense of fatigue, no capability of sleep at that moment
about her, and she was not to be kept away from her sister an
unnecessary instant.  Mrs. Jennings therefore attending her up stairs
into the sick chamber, to satisfy herself that all continued right,
left her there again to her charge and her thoughts, and retired to her
own room to write letters and sleep.

The night was cold and stormy.  The wind roared round the house, and
the rain beat against the windows; but Elinor, all happiness within,
regarded it not.  Marianne slept through every blast; and the
travellers--they had a rich reward in store, for every present
inconvenience.

The clock struck eight.  Had it been ten, Elinor would have been
convinced that at that moment she heard a carriage driving up to the
house; and so strong was the persuasion that she DID, in spite of the
ALMOST impossibility of their being already come, that she moved into
the adjoining dressing-closet and opened a window shutter, to be
satisfied of the truth.  She instantly saw that her ears had not
deceived her.  The flaring lamps of a carriage were immediately in
view.  By their uncertain light she thought she could discern it to be
drawn by four horses; and this, while it told the excess of her poor
mother's alarm, gave some explanation to such unexpected rapidity.

Never in her life had Elinor found it so difficult to be calm, as at
that moment.  The knowledge of what her mother must be feeling as the
carriage stopt at the door--of her doubt--her dread--perhaps her
despair!--and of what SHE had to tell!--with such knowledge it was
impossible to be calm.  All that remained to be done was to be speedy;
and, therefore staying only till she could leave Mrs. Jennings's maid
with her sister, she hurried down stairs.

The bustle in the vestibule, as she passed along an inner lobby,
assured her that they were already in the house.  She rushed to the
drawing-room,--she entered it,--and saw only Willoughby.



CHAPTER 44


Elinor, starting back with a look of horror at the sight of him, obeyed
the first impulse of her heart in turning instantly to quit the room,
and her hand was already on the lock, when its action was suspended by
his hastily advancing, and saying, in a voice rather of command than
supplication,

"Miss Dashwood, for half an hour--for ten minutes--I entreat you to
stay."

"No, sir," she replied with firmness, "I shall NOT stay.  Your business
cannot be with ME.  The servants, I suppose, forgot to tell you that
Mr. Palmer was not in the house."

"Had they told me," he cried with vehemence, "that Mr. Palmer and all
his relations were at the devil, it would not have turned me from the
door.  My business is with you, and only you."

"With me!"--in the utmost amazement--"well, sir,--be quick--and if you
can--less violent."

"Sit down, and I will be both."

She hesitated; she knew not what to do.  The possibility of Colonel
Brandon's arriving and finding her there, came across her.  But she had
promised to hear him, and her curiosity no less than her honor was
engaged.  After a moment's recollection, therefore, concluding that
prudence required dispatch, and that her acquiescence would best
promote it, she walked silently towards the table, and sat down.  He
took the opposite chair, and for half a minute not a word was said by
either.

"Pray be quick, sir,"--said Elinor, impatiently;--"I have no time to
spare."

He was sitting in an attitude of deep meditation, and seemed not to
hear her.

"Your sister," said he, with abruptness, a moment afterwards--"is out
of danger.  I heard it from the servant.  God be praised!--But is it
true? is it really true?"

Elinor would not speak.  He repeated the inquiry with yet greater
eagerness.

"For God's sake tell me, is she out of danger, or is she not?"

"We hope she is."

He rose up, and walked across the room.

"Had I known as much half an hour ago--But since I AM here,"--speaking
with a forced vivacity as he returned to his seat--"what does it
signify?--For once, Miss Dashwood--it will be the last time,
perhaps--let us be cheerful together.--I am in a fine mood for
gaiety.-- Tell me honestly"--a deeper glow overspreading his
cheeks--"do you think me most a knave or a fool?"

Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever.  She began to
think that he must be in liquor;--the strangeness of such a visit, and
of such manners, seemed no otherwise intelligible; and with this
impression she immediately rose, saying,

"Mr. Willoughby, I advise you at present to return to Combe--I am not
at leisure to remain with you longer.-- Whatever your business may be
with me, it will be better recollected and explained to-morrow."

"I understand you," he replied, with an expressive smile, and a voice
perfectly calm; "yes, I am very drunk.-- A pint of porter with my cold
beef at Marlborough was enough to over-set me."

"At Marlborough!"--cried Elinor, more and more at a loss to understand
what he would be at.

"Yes,--I left London this morning at eight o'clock, and the only ten
minutes I have spent out of my chaise since that time procured me a
nuncheon at Marlborough."

The steadiness of his manner, and the intelligence of his eye as he
spoke, convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might
bring him to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she
said, after a moment's recollection,

"Mr. Willoughby, you OUGHT to feel, and I certainly DO--that after what
has passed--your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon
my notice, requires a very particular excuse.--What is it, that you
mean by it?"--

"I mean,"--said he, with serious energy--"if I can, to make you hate me
one degree less than you do NOW.  I mean to offer some kind of
explanation, some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart
to you, and by convincing you, that though I have been always a
blockhead, I have not been always a rascal, to obtain something like
forgiveness from Ma--from your sister."

"Is this the real reason of your coming?"

"Upon my soul it is,"--was his answer, with a warmth which brought all
the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made
her think him sincere.

"If that is all, you may be satisfied already,--for Marianne DOES--she
has LONG forgiven you."

"Has she?"--he cried, in the same eager tone.-- "Then she has forgiven
me before she ought to have done it.  But she shall forgive me again,
and on more reasonable grounds.--NOW will you listen to me?"

Elinor bowed her assent.

"I do not know," said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and
thoughtfulness on his own,--"how YOU may have accounted for my
behaviour to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have
imputed to me.-- Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me,--it is
worth the trial however, and you shall hear every thing.  When I first
became intimate in your family, I had no other intention, no other view
in the acquaintance than to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged
to remain in Devonshire, more pleasantly than I had ever done before.
Your sister's lovely person and interesting manners could not but
please me; and her behaviour to me almost from the first, was of a
kind--It is astonishing, when I reflect on what it was, and what SHE
was, that my heart should have been so insensible!  But at first I must
confess, my vanity only was elevated by it.  Careless of her happiness,
thinking only of my own amusement, giving way to feelings which I had
always been too much in the habit of indulging, I endeavoured, by every
means in my power, to make myself pleasing to her, without any design
of returning her affection."

Miss Dashwood, at this point, turning her eyes on him with the most
angry contempt, stopped him, by saying,

"It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me
to listen any longer.  Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by
any thing.-- Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the
subject."

"I insist on you hearing the whole of it," he replied, "My fortune was
never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of
associating with people of better income than myself.  Every year since
my coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and
though the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet
that event being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for
some time my intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a
woman of fortune.  To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not
a thing to be thought of;--and with a meanness, selfishness,
cruelty--which no indignant, no contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss
Dashwood, can ever reprobate too much--I was acting in this manner,
trying to engage her regard, without a thought of returning it.--But
one thing may be said for me: even in that horrid state of selfish
vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury I meditated, because I
did not THEN know what it was to love.  But have I ever known it?--Well
may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have sacrificed my
feelings to vanity, to avarice?--or, what is more, could I have
sacrificed hers?-- But I have done it.  To avoid a comparative poverty,
which her affection and her society would have deprived of all its
horrors, I have, by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that
could make it a blessing."

"You did then," said Elinor, a little softened, "believe yourself at
one time attached to her?"

"To have resisted such attractions, to have withstood such
tenderness!--Is there a man on earth who could have done it?--Yes, I
found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the
happiest hours of my life were what I spent with her when I felt my
intentions were strictly honourable, and my feelings blameless.  Even
THEN, however, when fully determined on paying my addresses to her, I
allowed myself most improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment
of doing it, from an unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my
circumstances were so greatly embarrassed.  I will not reason here--nor
will I stop for YOU to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than
absurdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already
bound.  The event has proved, that I was a cunning fool, providing with
great circumspection for a possible opportunity of making myself
contemptible and wretched for ever.  At last, however, my resolution
was taken, and I had determined, as soon as I could engage her alone,
to justify the attentions I had so invariably paid her, and openly
assure her of an affection which I had already taken such pains to
display.  But in the interim--in the interim of the very few hours that
were to pass, before I could have an opportunity of speaking with her
in private--a circumstance occurred--an unlucky circumstance, to ruin
all my resolution, and with it all my comfort.  A discovery took
place,"--here he hesitated and looked down.--"Mrs. Smith had somehow or
other been informed, I imagine by some distant relation, whose interest
it was to deprive me of her favour, of an affair, a connection--but I
need not explain myself farther," he added, looking at her with an
heightened colour and an enquiring eye--"your particular intimacy--you
have probably heard the whole story long ago."

"I have," returned Elinor, colouring likewise, and hardening her heart
anew against any compassion for him, "I have heard it all.  And how you
will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business, I
confess is beyond my comprehension."

"Remember," cried Willoughby, "from whom you received the account.
Could it be an impartial one?  I acknowledge that her situation and her
character ought to have been respected by me.  I do not mean to justify
myself, but at the same time cannot leave you to suppose that I have
nothing to urge--that because she was injured she was irreproachable,
and because I was a libertine, SHE must be a saint.  If the violence of
her passions, the weakness of her understanding--I do not mean,
however, to defend myself.  Her affection for me deserved better
treatment, and I often, with great self-reproach, recall the tenderness
which, for a very short time, had the power of creating any return.  I
wish--I heartily wish it had never been.  But I have injured more than
herself; and I have injured one, whose affection for me--(may I say
it?) was scarcely less warm than hers; and whose mind--Oh! how
infinitely superior!"--

"Your indifference, however, towards that unfortunate girl--I must say
it, unpleasant to me as the discussion of such a subject may well
be--your indifference is no apology for your cruel neglect of her.  Do
not think yourself excused by any weakness, any natural defect of
understanding on her side, in the wanton cruelty so evident on yours.
You must have known, that while you were enjoying yourself in
Devonshire pursuing fresh schemes, always gay, always happy, she was
reduced to the extremest indigence."

"But, upon my soul, I did NOT know it," he warmly replied; "I did not
recollect that I had omitted to give her my direction; and common sense
might have told her how to find it out."

"Well, sir, and what said Mrs. Smith?"

"She taxed me with the offence at once, and my confusion may be
guessed.  The purity of her life, the formality of her notions, her
ignorance of the world--every thing was against me.  The matter itself
I could not deny, and vain was every endeavour to soften it.  She was
previously disposed, I believe, to doubt the morality of my conduct in
general, and was moreover discontented with the very little attention,
the very little portion of my time that I had bestowed on her, in my
present visit.  In short, it ended in a total breach.  By one measure I
might have saved myself.  In the height of her morality, good woman!
she offered to forgive the past, if I would marry Eliza.  That could
not be--and I was formally dismissed from her favour and her house.
The night following this affair--I was to go the next morning--was
spent by me in deliberating on what my future conduct should be.  The
struggle was great--but it ended too soon.  My affection for Marianne,
my thorough conviction of her attachment to me--it was all insufficient
to outweigh that dread of poverty, or get the better of those false
ideas of the necessity of riches, which I was naturally inclined to
feel, and expensive society had increased.  I had reason to believe
myself secure of my present wife, if I chose to address her, and I
persuaded myself to think that nothing else in common prudence remained
for me to do.  A heavy scene however awaited me, before I could leave
Devonshire;--I was engaged to dine with you on that very day; some
apology was therefore necessary for my breaking this engagement.  But
whether I should write this apology, or deliver it in person, was a
point of long debate.  To see Marianne, I felt, would be dreadful, and
I even doubted whether I could see her again, and keep to my
resolution.  In that point, however, I undervalued my own magnanimity,
as the event declared; for I went, I saw her, and saw her miserable,
and left her miserable--and left her hoping never to see her again."

"Why did you call, Mr. Willoughby?" said Elinor, reproachfully; "a note
would have answered every purpose.-- Why was it necessary to call?"

"It was necessary to my own pride.  I could not bear to leave the
country in a manner that might lead you, or the rest of the
neighbourhood, to suspect any part of what had really passed between
Mrs. Smith and myself--and I resolved therefore on calling at the
cottage, in my way to Honiton.  The sight of your dear sister, however,
was really dreadful; and, to heighten the matter, I found her alone.
You were all gone I do not know where.  I had left her only the evening
before, so fully, so firmly resolved within my self on doing right!  A
few hours were to have engaged her to me for ever; and I remember how
happy, how gay were my spirits, as I walked from the cottage to
Allenham, satisfied with myself, delighted with every body!  But in
this, our last interview of friendship, I approached her with a sense
of guilt that almost took from me the power of dissembling.  Her
sorrow, her disappointment, her deep regret, when I told her that I was
obliged to leave Devonshire so immediately--I never shall forget
it--united too with such reliance, such confidence in me!--Oh,
God!--what a hard-hearted rascal I was!"

They were both silent for a few moments.  Elinor first spoke.

"Did you tell her that you should soon return?"

"I do not know what I told her," he replied, impatiently; "less than
was due to the past, beyond a doubt, and in all likelihood much more
than was justified by the future.  I cannot think of it.--It won't
do.--Then came your dear mother to torture me farther, with all her
kindness and confidence.  Thank Heaven! it DID torture me.  I was
miserable.  Miss Dashwood, you cannot have an idea of the comfort it
gives me to look back on my own misery.  I owe such a grudge to myself
for the stupid, rascally folly of my own heart, that all my past
sufferings under it are only triumph and exultation to me now.  Well, I
went, left all that I loved, and went to those to whom, at best, I was
only indifferent.  My journey to town--travelling with my own horses,
and therefore so tediously--no creature to speak to--my own reflections
so cheerful--when I looked forward every thing so inviting!--when I
looked back at Barton, the picture so soothing!--oh, it was a blessed
journey!"

He stopped.

"Well, sir," said Elinor, who, though pitying him, grew impatient for
his departure, "and this is all?"

"Ah!--no,--have you forgot what passed in town?-- That infamous
letter--Did she shew it you?"

"Yes, I saw every note that passed."

"When the first of hers reached me (as it immediately did, for I was in
town the whole time,) what I felt is--in the common phrase, not to be
expressed; in a more simple one--perhaps too simple to raise any
emotion--my feelings were very, very painful.--Every line, every word
was--in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here,
would forbid--a dagger to my heart.  To know that Marianne was in town
was--in the same language--a thunderbolt.--Thunderbolts and
daggers!--what a reproof would she have given me!--her taste, her
opinions--I believe they are better known to me than my own,--and I am
sure they are dearer."

Elinor's heart, which had undergone many changes in the course of this
extraordinary conversation, was now softened again;--yet she felt it
her duty to check such ideas in her companion as the last.

"This is not right, Mr. Willoughby.--Remember that you are married.
Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear."

"Marianne's note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in
former days, that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been
separated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of
faith in the constancy of mine as ever, awakened all my remorse.  I say
awakened, because time and London, business and dissipation, had in
some measure quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened
villain, fancying myself indifferent to her, and chusing to fancy that
she too must have become indifferent to me; talking to myself of our
past attachment as a mere idle, trifling business, shrugging up my
shoulders in proof of its being so, and silencing every reproach,
overcoming every scruple, by secretly saying now and then, 'I shall be
heartily glad to hear she is well married.'-- But this note made me
know myself better.  I felt that she was infinitely dearer to me than
any other woman in the world, and that I was using her infamously.  But
every thing was then just settled between Miss Grey and me.  To retreat
was impossible.  All that I had to do, was to avoid you both.  I sent
no answer to Marianne, intending by that to preserve myself from her
farther notice; and for some time I was even determined not to call in
Berkeley Street;--but at last, judging it wiser to affect the air of a
cool, common acquaintance than anything else, I watched you all safely
out of the house one morning, and left my name."

"Watched us out of the house!"

"Even so.  You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you, how
often I was on the point of falling in with you.  I have entered many a
shop to avoid your sight, as the carriage drove by.  Lodging as I did
in Bond Street, there was hardly a day in which I did not catch a
glimpse of one or other of you; and nothing but the most constant
watchfulness on my side, a most invariably prevailing desire to keep
out of your sight, could have separated us so long.  I avoided the
Middletons as much as possible, as well as everybody else who was
likely to prove an acquaintance in common.  Not aware of their being in
town, however, I blundered on Sir John, I believe, the first day of his
coming, and the day after I had called at Mrs. Jennings's.  He asked me
to a party, a dance at his house in the evening.--Had he NOT told me as
an inducement that you and your sister were to be there, I should have
felt it too certain a thing, to trust myself near him.  The next
morning brought another short note from Marianne--still affectionate,
open, artless, confiding--everything that could make MY conduct most
hateful.  I could not answer it.  I tried--but could not frame a
sentence.  But I thought of her, I believe, every moment of the day.
If you CAN pity me, Miss Dashwood, pity my situation as it was THEN.
With my head and heart full of your sister, I was forced to play the
happy lover to another woman!--Those three or four weeks were worse
than all.  Well, at last, as I need not tell you, you were forced on
me; and what a sweet figure I cut!--what an evening of agony it was!--
Marianne, beautiful as an angel on one side, calling me Willoughby in
such a tone!--Oh, God!--holding out her hand to me, asking me for an
explanation, with those bewitching eyes fixed in such speaking
solicitude on my face!--and Sophia, jealous as the devil on the other
hand, looking all that was--Well, it does not signify; it is over
now.-- Such an evening!--I ran away from you all as soon as I could;
but not before I had seen Marianne's sweet face as white as
death.--THAT was the last, last look I ever had of her;--the last
manner in which she appeared to me.  It was a horrid sight!--yet when I
thought of her to-day as really dying, it was a kind of comfort to me
to imagine that I knew exactly how she would appear to those, who saw
her last in this world.  She was before me, constantly before me, as I
travelled, in the same look and hue."

A short pause of mutual thoughtfulness succeeded.  Willoughby first
rousing himself, broke it thus:

"Well, let me make haste and be gone.  Your sister is certainly better,
certainly out of danger?"

"We are assured of it."

"Your poor mother, too!--doting on Marianne."

"But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you any thing to
say about that?"

"Yes, yes, THAT in particular.  Your sister wrote to me again, you
know, the very next morning.  You saw what she said.  I was
breakfasting at the Ellisons,--and her letter, with some others, was
brought to me there from my lodgings.  It happened to catch Sophia's
eye before it caught mine--and its size, the elegance of the paper, the
hand-writing altogether, immediately gave her a suspicion.  Some vague
report had reached her before of my attachment to some young lady in
Devonshire, and what had passed within her observation the preceding
evening had marked who the young lady was, and made her more jealous
than ever.  Affecting that air of playfulness, therefore, which is
delightful in a woman one loves, she opened the letter directly,
and read its contents.  She was well paid for her impudence.
She read what made her wretched.  Her wretchedness I could have
borne, but her passion--her malice--At all events it must be appeased.
And, in short--what do you think of my wife's style of
letter-writing?--delicate--tender--truly feminine--was it not?"

"Your wife!--The letter was in your own hand-writing."

"Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences as
I was ashamed to put my name to.  The original was all her own--her own
happy thoughts and gentle diction.  But what could I do!--we were
engaged, every thing in preparation, the day almost fixed--But I am
talking like a fool.  Preparation!--day!--In honest words, her money
was necessary to me, and in a situation like mine, any thing was to be
done to prevent a rupture.  And after all, what did it signify to my
character in the opinion of Marianne and her friends, in what language
my answer was couched?--It must have been only to one end.  My business
was to declare myself a scoundrel, and whether I did it with a bow or a
bluster was of little importance.-- 'I am ruined for ever in their
opinion--' said I to myself--'I am shut out for ever from their
society, they already think me an unprincipled fellow, this letter will
only make them think me a blackguard one.' Such were my reasonings, as,
in a sort of desperate carelessness, I copied my wife's words, and
parted with the last relics of Marianne.  Her three notes--unluckily
they were all in my pocketbook, or I should have denied their
existence, and hoarded them for ever--I was forced to put them up, and
could not even kiss them.  And the lock of hair--that too I had always
carried about me in the same pocket-book, which was now searched by
Madam with the most ingratiating virulence,--the dear lock--all, every
memento was torn from me."

"You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blamable," said Elinor, while
her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion;
"you ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my
sister.  You had made your own choice.  It was not forced on you.  Your
wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least.  She
must be attached to you, or she would not have married you.  To treat
her with unkindness, to speak of her slightingly is no atonement to
Marianne--nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience."

"Do not talk to me of my wife," said he with a heavy sigh.-- "She does
not deserve your compassion.--She knew I had no regard for her when we
married.--Well, married we were, and came down to Combe Magna to be
happy, and afterwards returned to town to be gay.--And now do you pity
me, Miss Dashwood?--or have I said all this to no purpose?-- Am I--be
it only one degree--am I less guilty in your opinion than I was
before?--My intentions were not always wrong.  Have I explained away
any part of my guilt?"

"Yes, you have certainly removed something--a little.-- You have proved
yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you.  You have
proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked.  But I hardly
know--the misery that you have inflicted--I hardly know what could have
made it worse."

"Will you repeat to your sister when she is recovered, what I have been
telling you?--Let me be a little lightened too in her opinion as well
as in yours.  You tell me that she has forgiven me already.  Let me be
able to fancy that a better knowledge of my heart, and of my present
feelings, will draw from her a more spontaneous, more natural, more
gentle, less dignified, forgiveness.  Tell her of my misery and my
penitence--tell her that my heart was never inconstant to her, and if
you will, that at this moment she is dearer to me than ever."

"I will tell her all that is necessary to what may comparatively be
called, your justification.  But you have not explained to me the
particular reason of your coming now, nor how you heard of her illness."

"Last night, in Drury Lane lobby, I ran against Sir John Middleton, and
when he saw who I was--for the first time these two months--he spoke to
me.--That he had cut me ever since my marriage, I had seen without
surprise or resentment.  Now, however, his good-natured, honest, stupid
soul, full of indignation against me, and concern for your sister,
could not resist the temptation of telling me what he knew ought
to--though probably he did not think it WOULD--vex me horridly.  As
bluntly as he could speak it, therefore, he told me that Marianne
Dashwood was dying of a putrid fever at Cleveland--a letter that
morning received from Mrs. Jennings declared her danger most
imminent--the Palmers are all gone off in a fright, &c.--I was too much
shocked to be able to pass myself off as insensible even to the
undiscerning Sir John.  His heart was softened in seeing mine suffer;
and so much of his ill-will was done away, that when we parted, he
almost shook me by the hand while he reminded me of an old promise
about a pointer puppy.  What I felt on hearing that your sister was
dying--and dying too, believing me the greatest villain upon earth,
scorning, hating me in her latest moments--for how could I tell what
horrid projects might not have been imputed?  ONE person I was sure
would represent me as capable of any thing-- What I felt was
dreadful!--My resolution was soon made, and at eight o'clock this
morning I was in my carriage.  Now you know all."

Elinor made no answer.  Her thoughts were silently fixed on the
irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent
habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the
character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person
and talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a
feeling, affectionate temper.  The world had made him extravagant and
vain--Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish.
Vanity, while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another,
had involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least
its offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed.  Each faulty
propensity in leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment.
The attachment, from which against honour, against feeling, against
every better interest he had outwardly torn himself, now, when no
longer allowable, governed every thought; and the connection, for the
sake of which he had, with little scruple, left her sister to misery,
was likely to prove a source of unhappiness to himself of a far more
incurable nature.  From a reverie of this kind she was recalled at the
end of some minutes by Willoughby, who, rousing himself from a reverie
at least equally painful, started up in preparation for going, and
said--

"There is no use in staying here; I must be off."

"Are you going back to town?"

"No--to Combe Magna.  I have business there; from thence to town in a
day or two.  Good bye."

He held out his hand.  She could not refuse to give him hers;--he
pressed it with affection.

"And you DO think something better of me than you did?"--said he,
letting it fall, and leaning against the mantel-piece as if forgetting
he was to go.

Elinor assured him that she did;--that she forgave, pitied, wished him
well--was even interested in his happiness--and added some gentle
counsel as to the behaviour most likely to promote it.  His answer was
not very encouraging.

"As to that," said he, "I must rub through the world as well as I can.
Domestic happiness is out of the question.  If, however, I am allowed
to think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it
may be the means--it may put me on my guard--at least, it may be
something to live for.  Marianne to be sure is lost to me for ever.
Were I even by any blessed chance at liberty again--"

Elinor stopped him with a reproof.

"Well,"--he replied--"once more good bye. I shall now go away and live
in dread of one event."

"What do you mean?"

"Your sister's marriage."

"You are very wrong.  She can never be more lost to you than she is
now."

"But she will be gained by some one else.  And if that some one should
be the very he whom, of all others, I could least bear--but I will not
stay to rob myself of all your compassionate goodwill, by shewing that
where I have most injured I can least forgive.  Good bye,--God bless
you!"

And with these words, he almost ran out of the room.



CHAPTER 45


Elinor, for some time after he left her, for some time even after the
sound of his carriage had died away, remained too much oppressed by a
crowd of ideas, widely differing in themselves, but of which sadness
was the general result, to think even of her sister.

Willoughby, he, whom only half an hour ago she had abhorred as the most
worthless of men, Willoughby, in spite of all his faults, excited a
degree of commiseration for the sufferings produced by them, which made
her think of him as now separated for ever from her family, with a
tenderness, a regret, rather in proportion, as she soon acknowledged
within herself--to his wishes than to his merits.  She felt that his
influence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not
in reason to have weight; by that person of uncommon attraction, that
open, affectionate, and lively manner which it was no merit to possess;
and by that still ardent love for Marianne, which it was not even
innocent to indulge.  But she felt that it was so, long, long before
she could feel his influence less.

When at last she returned to the unconscious Marianne, she found her
just awaking, refreshed by so long and sweet a sleep to the extent of
her hopes.  Elinor's heart was full.  The past, the present, the
future, Willoughby's visit, Marianne's safety, and her mother's
expected arrival, threw her altogether into an agitation of spirits
which kept off every indication of fatigue, and made her only fearful
of betraying herself to her sister.  Short was the time, however, in
which that fear could affect her, for within half an hour after
Willoughby's leaving the house, she was again called down stairs by the
sound of another carriage.--Eager to save her mother from every
unnecessary moment's horrible suspense, she ran immediately into the
hall, and reached the outward door just in time to receive and support
her as she entered it.

Mrs. Dashwood, whose terror as they drew near the house had produced
almost the conviction of Marianne's being no more, had no voice to
inquire after her, no voice even for Elinor; but SHE, waiting neither
for salutation nor inquiry, instantly gave the joyful relief;--and her
mother, catching it with all her usual warmth, was in a moment as much
overcome by her happiness, as she had been before by her fears.  She
was supported into the drawing-room between her daughter and her
friend;--and there, shedding tears of joy, though still unable to
speak, embraced Elinor again and again, turning from her at intervals
to press Colonel Brandon's hand, with a look which spoke at once her
gratitude, and her conviction of his sharing with herself in the bliss
of the moment.  He shared it, however, in a silence even greater than
her own.

As soon as Mrs. Dashwood had recovered herself, to see Marianne was her
first desire; and in two minutes she was with her beloved child,
rendered dearer to her than ever by absence, unhappiness, and danger.
Elinor's delight, as she saw what each felt in the meeting, was only
checked by an apprehension of its robbing Marianne of farther
sleep;--but Mrs. Dashwood could be calm, could be even prudent, when
the life of a child was at stake, and Marianne, satisfied in knowing
her mother was near her, and conscious of being too weak for
conversation, submitted readily to the silence and quiet prescribed by
every nurse around her.  Mrs. Dashwood WOULD sit up with her all night;
and Elinor, in compliance with her mother's entreaty, went to bed.  But
the rest, which one night entirely sleepless, and many hours of the
most wearing anxiety seemed to make requisite, was kept off by
irritation of spirits.  Willoughby, "poor Willoughby," as she now
allowed herself to call him, was constantly in her thoughts; she would
not but have heard his vindication for the world, and now blamed, now
acquitted herself for having judged him so harshly before.  But her
promise of relating it to her sister was invariably painful.  She
dreaded the performance of it, dreaded what its effect on Marianne
might be; doubted whether after such an explanation she could ever be
happy with another; and for a moment wished Willoughby a widower.
Then, remembering Colonel Brandon, reproved herself, felt that to HIS
sufferings and his constancy far more than to his rival's, the reward
of her sister was due, and wished any thing rather than Mrs.
Willoughby's death.

The shock of Colonel Brandon's errand at Barton had been much softened
to Mrs. Dashwood by her own previous alarm; for so great was her
uneasiness about Marianne, that she had already determined to set out
for Cleveland on that very day, without waiting for any further
intelligence, and had so far settled her journey before his arrival,
that the Careys were then expected every moment to fetch Margaret away,
as her mother was unwilling to take her where there might be infection.

Marianne continued to mend every day, and the brilliant cheerfulness of
Mrs. Dashwood's looks and spirits proved her to be, as she repeatedly
declared herself, one of the happiest women in the world.  Elinor could
not hear the declaration, nor witness its proofs without sometimes
wondering whether her mother ever recollected Edward.  But Mrs.
Dashwood, trusting to the temperate account of her own disappointment
which Elinor had sent her, was led away by the exuberance of her joy to
think only of what would increase it.  Marianne was restored to her
from a danger in which, as she now began to feel, her own mistaken
judgment in encouraging the unfortunate attachment to Willoughby, had
contributed to place her;--and in her recovery she had yet another
source of joy unthought of by Elinor.  It was thus imparted to her, as
soon as any opportunity of private conference between them occurred.

"At last we are alone.  My Elinor, you do not yet know all my
happiness.  Colonel Brandon loves Marianne.  He has told me so himself."

Her daughter, feeling by turns both pleased and pained, surprised and
not surprised, was all silent attention.

"You are never like me, dear Elinor, or I should wonder at your
composure now.  Had I sat down to wish for any possible good to my
family, I should have fixed on Colonel Brandon's marrying one of you as
the object most desirable.  And I believe Marianne will be the most
happy with him of the two."

Elinor was half inclined to ask her reason for thinking so, because
satisfied that none founded on an impartial consideration of their age,
characters, or feelings, could be given;--but her mother must always be
carried away by her imagination on any interesting subject, and
therefore instead of an inquiry, she passed it off with a smile.

"He opened his whole heart to me yesterday as we travelled.  It came
out quite unawares, quite undesignedly.  I, you may well believe, could
talk of nothing but my child;--he could not conceal his distress; I saw
that it equalled my own, and he perhaps, thinking that mere friendship,
as the world now goes, would not justify so warm a sympathy--or rather,
not thinking at all, I suppose--giving way to irresistible feelings,
made me acquainted with his earnest, tender, constant, affection for
Marianne.  He has loved her, my Elinor, ever since the first moment of
seeing her."

Here, however, Elinor perceived,--not the language, not the professions
of Colonel Brandon, but the natural embellishments of her mother's
active fancy, which fashioned every thing delightful to her as it chose.

"His regard for her, infinitely surpassing anything that Willoughby
ever felt or feigned, as much more warm, as more sincere or
constant--which ever we are to call it--has subsisted through all the
knowledge of dear Marianne's unhappy prepossession for that worthless
young man!--and without selfishness--without encouraging a hope!--could
he have seen her happy with another--Such a noble mind!--such openness,
such sincerity!--no one can be deceived in HIM."

"Colonel Brandon's character," said Elinor, "as an excellent man, is
well established."

"I know it is,"--replied her mother seriously, "or after such a warning,
I should be the last to encourage such affection, or even to be pleased
by it.  But his coming for me as he did, with such active, such ready
friendship, is enough to prove him one of the worthiest of men."

"His character, however," answered Elinor, "does not rest on ONE act of
kindness, to which his affection for Marianne, were humanity out of the
case, would have prompted him.  To Mrs. Jennings, to the Middletons, he
has been long and intimately known; they equally love and respect him;
and even my own knowledge of him, though lately acquired, is very
considerable; and so highly do I value and esteem him, that if Marianne
can be happy with him, I shall be as ready as yourself to think our
connection the greatest blessing to us in the world.  What answer did
you give him?--Did you allow him to hope?"

"Oh! my love, I could not then talk of hope to him or to myself.
Marianne might at that moment be dying.  But he did not ask for hope or
encouragement.  His was an involuntary confidence, an irrepressible
effusion to a soothing friend--not an application to a parent.  Yet
after a time I DID say, for at first I was quite overcome--that if she
lived, as I trusted she might, my greatest happiness would lie in
promoting their marriage; and since our arrival, since our delightful
security, I have repeated it to him more fully, have given him every
encouragement in my power.  Time, a very little time, I tell him, will
do everything;--Marianne's heart is not to be wasted for ever on such a
man as Willoughby.-- His own merits must soon secure it."

"To judge from the Colonel's spirits, however, you have not yet made
him equally sanguine."

"No.--He thinks Marianne's affection too deeply rooted for any change
in it under a great length of time, and even supposing her heart again
free, is too diffident of himself to believe, that with such a
difference of age and disposition he could ever attach her.  There,
however, he is quite mistaken.  His age is only so much beyond hers as
to be an advantage, as to make his character and principles fixed;--and
his disposition, I am well convinced, is exactly the very one to make
your sister happy.  And his person, his manners too, are all in his
favour.  My partiality does not blind me; he certainly is not so
handsome as Willoughby--but at the same time, there is something much
more pleasing in his countenance.-- There was always a something,--if
you remember,--in Willoughby's eyes at times, which I did not like."

Elinor could NOT remember it;--but her mother, without waiting for her
assent, continued,

"And his manners, the Colonel's manners are not only more pleasing to
me than Willoughby's ever were, but they are of a kind I well know to
be more solidly attaching to Marianne.  Their gentleness, their genuine
attention to other people, and their manly unstudied simplicity is much
more accordant with her real disposition, than the liveliness--often
artificial, and often ill-timed of the other.  I am very sure myself,
that had Willoughby turned out as really amiable, as he has proved
himself the contrary, Marianne would yet never have been so happy with
HIM, as she will be with Colonel Brandon."

She paused.--Her daughter could not quite agree with her, but her
dissent was not heard, and therefore gave no offence.

"At Delaford, she will be within an easy distance of me," added Mrs.
Dashwood, "even if I remain at Barton; and in all probability,--for I
hear it is a large village,--indeed there certainly MUST be some small
house or cottage close by, that would suit us quite as well as our
present situation."

Poor Elinor!--here was a new scheme for getting her to Delaford!--but
her spirit was stubborn.

"His fortune too!--for at my time of life you know, everybody cares
about THAT;--and though I neither know nor desire to know, what it
really is, I am sure it must be a good one."

Here they were interrupted by the entrance of a third person, and
Elinor withdrew to think it all over in private, to wish success to her
friend, and yet in wishing it, to feel a pang for Willoughby.



CHAPTER 46


Marianne's illness, though weakening in its kind, had not been long
enough to make her recovery slow; and with youth, natural strength, and
her mother's presence in aid, it proceeded so smoothly as to enable her
to remove, within four days after the arrival of the latter, into Mrs.
Palmer's dressing-room.  When there, at her own particular request, for
she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to him for fetching her
mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit her.

His emotion on entering the room, in seeing her altered looks, and in
receiving the pale hand which she immediately held out to him, was
such, as, in Elinor's conjecture, must arise from something more than
his affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its being known to
others; and she soon discovered in his melancholy eye and varying
complexion as he looked at her sister, the probable recurrence of many
past scenes of misery to his mind, brought back by that resemblance
between Marianne and Eliza already acknowledged, and now strengthened
by the hollow eye, the sickly skin, the posture of reclining weakness,
and the warm acknowledgment of peculiar obligation.

Mrs. Dashwood, not less watchful of what passed than her daughter, but
with a mind very differently influenced, and therefore watching to very
different effect, saw nothing in the Colonel's behaviour but what arose
from the most simple and self-evident sensations, while in the actions
and words of Marianne she persuaded herself to think that something
more than gratitude already dawned.

At the end of another day or two, Marianne growing visibly stronger
every twelve hours, Mrs. Dashwood, urged equally by her own and her
daughter's wishes, began to talk of removing to Barton.  On HER
measures depended those of her two friends; Mrs. Jennings could not
quit Cleveland during the Dashwoods' stay; and Colonel Brandon was soon
brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode there as
equally determinate, if not equally indispensable.  At his and Mrs.
Jennings's united request in return, Mrs. Dashwood was prevailed on to
accept the use of his carriage on her journey back, for the better
accommodation of her sick child; and the Colonel, at the joint
invitation of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, whose active good-nature
made her friendly and hospitable for other people as well as herself,
engaged with pleasure to redeem it by a visit at the cottage, in the
course of a few weeks.

The day of separation and departure arrived; and Marianne, after taking
so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so earnestly
grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due to her own
heart from a secret acknowledgment of past inattention, and bidding
Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of a friend, was carefully
assisted by him into the carriage, of which he seemed anxious that she
should engross at least half.  Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then followed,
and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers, and
feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her chaise
to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two young
companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his
solitary way to Delaford.

The Dashwoods were two days on the road, and Marianne bore her journey
on both, without essential fatigue.  Every thing that the most zealous
affection, the most solicitous care could do to render her comfortable,
was the office of each watchful companion, and each found their reward
in her bodily ease, and her calmness of spirits.  To Elinor, the
observation of the latter was particularly grateful.  She, who had seen
her week after week so constantly suffering, oppressed by anguish of
heart which she had neither courage to speak of, nor fortitude to
conceal, now saw with a joy, which no other could equally share, an
apparent composure of mind, which, in being the result as she trusted
of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and
cheerfulness.

As they approached Barton, indeed, and entered on scenes of which every
field and every tree brought some peculiar, some painful recollection,
she grew silent and thoughtful, and turning away her face from their
notice, sat earnestly gazing through the window.  But here, Elinor
could neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she assisted
Marianne from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw only an
emotion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender than pity,
and in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise.  In the whole of her
subsequent manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened to
reasonable exertion; for no sooner had they entered their common
sitting-room, than Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of
resolute firmness, as if determined at once to accustom herself to the
sight of every object with which the remembrance of Willoughby could be
connected.--She said little, but every sentence aimed at cheerfulness,
and though a sigh sometimes escaped her, it never passed away without
the atonement of a smile.  After dinner she would try her piano-forte.
She went to it; but the music on which her eye first rested was an
opera, procured for her by Willoughby, containing some of their
favourite duets, and bearing on its outward leaf her own name in his
hand-writing.--That would not do.--She shook her head, put the music
aside, and after running over the keys for a minute, complained of
feebleness in her fingers, and closed the instrument again; declaring
however with firmness as she did so, that she should in future practice
much.

The next morning produced no abatement in these happy symptoms.  On the
contrary, with a mind and body alike strengthened by rest, she looked
and spoke with more genuine spirit, anticipating the pleasure of
Margaret's return, and talking of the dear family party which would
then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as the
only happiness worth a wish.

"When the weather is settled, and I have recovered my strength," said
she, "we will take long walks together every day.  We will walk to the
farm at the edge of the down, and see how the children go on; we will
walk to Sir John's new plantations at Barton Cross, and the Abbeyland;
and we will often go to the old ruins of the Priory, and try to trace its
foundations as far as we are told they once reached.  I know we shall
be happy.  I know the summer will pass happily away.  I mean never to
be later in rising than six, and from that time till dinner I shall
divide every moment between music and reading.  I have formed my plan,
and am determined to enter on a course of serious study.  Our own
library is too well known to me, to be resorted to for any thing beyond
mere amusement.  But there are many works well worth reading at the
Park; and there are others of more modern production which I know I can
borrow of Colonel Brandon.  By reading only six hours a-day, I shall
gain in the course of a twelve-month a great deal of instruction which
I now feel myself to want."

Elinor honoured her for a plan which originated so nobly as this;
though smiling to see the same eager fancy which had been leading her
to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining, now at work
in introducing excess into a scheme of such rational employment and
virtuous self-control. Her smile however changed to a sigh when she
remembered that promise to Willoughby was yet unfulfilled, and feared
she had that to communicate which might again unsettle the mind of
Marianne, and ruin at least for a time this fair prospect of busy
tranquillity.  Willing therefore to delay the evil hour, she resolved
to wait till her sister's health were more secure, before she appointed
it.  But the resolution was made only to be broken.

Marianne had been two or three days at home, before the weather was
fine enough for an invalid like herself to venture out.  But at last a
soft, genial morning appeared; such as might tempt the daughter's
wishes and the mother's confidence; and Marianne, leaning on Elinor's
arm, was authorised to walk as long as she could without fatigue, in
the lane before the house.

The sisters set out at a pace, slow as the feebleness of Marianne in an
exercise hitherto untried since her illness required;--and they had
advanced only so far beyond the house as to admit a full view of the
hill, the important hill behind, when pausing with her eyes turned
towards it, Marianne calmly said,

"There, exactly there,"--pointing with one hand, "on that projecting
mound,--there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby."

Her voice sunk with the word, but presently reviving she added,

"I am thankful to find that I can look with so little pain on the
spot!--shall we ever talk on that subject, Elinor?"--hesitatingly it
was said.--"Or will it be wrong?--I can talk of it now, I hope, as I
ought to do."--

Elinor tenderly invited her to be open.

"As for regret," said Marianne, "I have done with that, as far as HE is
concerned.  I do not mean to talk to you of what my feelings have been
for him, but what they are NOW.--At present, if I could be satisfied on
one point, if I could be allowed to think that he was not ALWAYS acting
a part, not ALWAYS deceiving me;--but above all, if I could be assured
that he never was so VERY wicked as my fears have sometimes fancied
him, since the story of that unfortunate girl"--

She stopt.  Elinor joyfully treasured her words as she answered,

"If you could be assured of that, you think you should be easy."

"Yes. My peace of mind is doubly involved in it;--for not only is it
horrible to suspect a person, who has been what HE has been to ME, of
such designs,--but what must it make me appear to myself?--What in a
situation like mine, but a most shamefully unguarded affection could
expose me to"--

"How then," asked her sister, "would you account for his behaviour?"

"I would suppose him,--Oh, how gladly would I suppose him, only fickle,
very, very fickle."

Elinor said no more.  She was debating within herself on the
eligibility of beginning her story directly, or postponing it till
Marianne were in stronger health;--and they crept on for a few minutes
in silence.

"I am not wishing him too much good," said Marianne at last with a
sigh, "when I wish his secret reflections may be no more unpleasant
than my own.  He will suffer enough in them."

"Do you compare your conduct with his?"

"No. I compare it with what it ought to have been; I compare it with
yours."

"Our situations have borne little resemblance."

"They have borne more than our conduct.--Do not, my dearest Elinor, let
your kindness defend what I know your judgment must censure.  My
illness has made me think-- It has given me leisure and calmness for
serious recollection.  Long before I was enough recovered to talk, I
was perfectly able to reflect.  I considered the past: I saw in my own
behaviour, since the beginning of our acquaintance with him last
autumn, nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and want of
kindness to others.  I saw that my own feelings had prepared my
sufferings, and that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me
to the grave.  My illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by
myself by such negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the
time to be wrong.  Had I died,--it would have been self-destruction. I
did not know my danger till the danger was removed; but with such
feelings as these reflections gave me, I wonder at my recovery,--wonder
that the very eagerness of my desire to live, to have time for
atonement to my God, and to you all, did not kill me at once.  Had I
died,--in what peculiar misery should I have left you, my nurse, my
friend, my sister!--You, who had seen all the fretful selfishness of my
latter days; who had known all the murmurings of my heart!--How should
I have lived in YOUR remembrance!--My mother too! How could you have
consoled her!--I cannot express my own abhorrence of myself.  Whenever
I looked towards the past, I saw some duty neglected, or some failing
indulged.  Every body seemed injured by me.  The kindness, the
unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful
contempt.  To the Middletons, to the Palmers, the Steeles, to every
common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and unjust; with a heart
hardened against their merits, and a temper irritated by their very
attention.--To John, to Fanny,--yes, even to them, little as they
deserve, I had given less than their due.  But you,--you above all,
above my mother, had been wronged by me.  I, and only I, knew your
heart and its sorrows; yet to what did it influence me?--not to any
compassion that could benefit you or myself.--Your example was before
me; but to what avail?--Was I more considerate of you and your comfort?
Did I imitate your forbearance, or lessen your restraints, by taking
any part in those offices of general complaisance or particular
gratitude which you had hitherto been left to discharge
alone?--No;--not less when I knew you to be unhappy, than when I had
believed you at ease, did I turn away from every exertion of duty or
friendship; scarcely allowing sorrow to exist but with me, regretting
only THAT heart which had deserted and wronged me, and leaving you, for
whom I professed an unbounded affection, to be miserable for my sake."

Here ceased the rapid flow of her self-reproving spirit; and Elinor,
impatient to soothe, though too honest to flatter, gave her instantly
that praise and support which her frankness and her contrition so well
deserved.  Marianne pressed her hand and replied,

"You are very good.--The future must be my proof.  I have laid down my
plan, and if I am capable of adhering to it--my feelings shall be
governed and my temper improved.  They shall no longer worry others,
nor torture myself.  I shall now live solely for my family.  You, my
mother, and Margaret, must henceforth be all the world to me; you will
share my affections entirely between you.  From you, from my home, I
shall never again have the smallest incitement to move; and if I do mix
in other society, it will be only to shew that my spirit is humbled, my
heart amended, and that I can practise the civilities, the lesser
duties of life, with gentleness and forbearance.  As for Willoughby--to
say that I shall soon or that I shall ever forget him, would be idle.
His remembrance can be overcome by no change of circumstances or
opinions.  But it shall be regulated, it shall be checked by religion,
by reason, by constant employment."

She paused--and added in a low voice, "If I could but know HIS heart,
everything would become easy."

Elinor, who had now been for some time reflecting on the propriety or
impropriety of speedily hazarding her narration, without feeling at all
nearer decision than at first, heard this; and perceiving that as
reflection did nothing, resolution must do all, soon found herself
leading to the fact.

She managed the recital, as she hoped, with address; prepared her
anxious listener with caution; related simply and honestly the chief
points on which Willoughby grounded his apology; did justice to his
repentance, and softened only his protestations of present regard.
Marianne said not a word.--She trembled, her eyes were fixed on the
ground, and her lips became whiter than even sickness had left them.  A
thousand inquiries sprung up from her heart, but she dared not urge
one.  She caught every syllable with panting eagerness; her hand,
unknowingly to herself, closely pressed her sister's, and tears covered
her cheeks.

Elinor, dreading her being tired, led her towards home; and till they
reached the door of the cottage, easily conjecturing what her curiosity
must be though no question was suffered to speak it, talked of nothing
but Willoughby, and their conversation together; and was carefully
minute in every particular of speech and look, where minuteness could
be safely indulged.  As soon as they entered the house, Marianne with a
kiss of gratitude and these two words just articulate through her
tears, "Tell mama," withdrew from her sister and walked slowly up
stairs.  Elinor would not attempt to disturb a solitude so reasonable
as what she now sought; and with a mind anxiously pre-arranging its
result, and a resolution of reviving the subject again, should Marianne
fail to do it, she turned into the parlour to fulfill her parting
injunction.



CHAPTER 47


Mrs. Dashwood did not hear unmoved the vindication of her former
favourite.  She rejoiced in his being cleared from some part of his
imputed guilt;--she was sorry for him;--she wished him happy.  But the
feelings of the past could not be recalled.--Nothing could restore him
with a faith unbroken--a character unblemished, to Marianne.  Nothing
could do away the knowledge of what the latter had suffered through his
means, nor remove the guilt of his conduct towards Eliza.  Nothing
could replace him, therefore, in her former esteem, nor injure the
interests of Colonel Brandon.

Had Mrs. Dashwood, like her daughter, heard Willoughby's story from
himself--had she witnessed his distress, and been under the influence
of his countenance and his manner, it is probable that her compassion
would have been greater.  But it was neither in Elinor's power, nor in
her wish, to rouse such feelings in another, by her retailed
explanation, as had at first been called forth in herself.  Reflection
had given calmness to her judgment, and sobered her own opinion of
Willoughby's deserts;--she wished, therefore, to declare only the
simple truth, and lay open such facts as were really due to his
character, without any embellishment of tenderness to lead the fancy
astray.

In the evening, when they were all three together, Marianne began
voluntarily to speak of him again;--but that it was not without an
effort, the restless, unquiet thoughtfulness in which she had been for
some time previously sitting--her rising colour, as she spoke,--and her
unsteady voice, plainly shewed.

"I wish to assure you both," said she, "that I see every thing--as you
can desire me to do."

Mrs. Dashwood would have interrupted her instantly with soothing
tenderness, had not Elinor, who really wished to hear her sister's
unbiased opinion, by an eager sign, engaged her silence.  Marianne
slowly continued--

"It is a great relief to me--what Elinor told me this morning--I have
now heard exactly what I wished to hear."--For some moments her voice
was lost; but recovering herself, she added, and with greater calmness
than before--"I am now perfectly satisfied, I wish for no change.  I
never could have been happy with him, after knowing, as sooner or later
I must have known, all this.--I should have had no confidence, no
esteem.  Nothing could have done it away to my feelings."

"I know it--I know it," cried her mother.  "Happy with a man of
libertine practices!--With one who so injured the peace of the dearest
of our friends, and the best of men!--No--my Marianne has not a heart
to be made happy with such a man!--Her conscience, her sensitive
conscience, would have felt all that the conscience of her husband
ought to have felt."

Marianne sighed, and repeated, "I wish for no change."

"You consider the matter," said Elinor, "exactly as a good mind and a
sound understanding must consider it; and I dare say you perceive, as
well as myself, not only in this, but in many other circumstances,
reason enough to be convinced that your marriage must have involved you
in many certain troubles and disappointments, in which you would have
been poorly supported by an affection, on his side, much less certain.
Had you married, you must have been always poor.  His expensiveness is
acknowledged even by himself, and his whole conduct declares that
self-denial is a word hardly understood by him.  His demands and your
inexperience together, on a small, very small income, must have brought
on distresses which would not be the LESS grievous to you, from having
been entirely unknown and unthought of before.  YOUR sense of honour
and honesty would have led you, I know, when aware of your situation,
to attempt all the economy that would appear to you possible: and,
perhaps, as long as your frugality retrenched only on your own comfort,
you might have been suffered to practice it, but beyond that--and how
little could the utmost of your single management do to stop the ruin
which had begun before your marriage?-- Beyond THAT, had you
endeavoured, however reasonably, to abridge HIS enjoyments, is it not
to be feared, that instead of prevailing on feelings so selfish to
consent to it, you would have lessened your own influence on his heart,
and made him regret the connection which had involved him in such
difficulties?"

Marianne's lips quivered, and she repeated the word "Selfish?" in a
tone that implied--"do you really think him selfish?"

"The whole of his behaviour," replied Elinor, "from the beginning to
the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness.  It was
selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which
afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of
it, and which finally carried him from Barton.  His own enjoyment, or
his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle."

"It is very true.  MY happiness never was his object."

"At present," continued Elinor, "he regrets what he has done.  And why
does he regret it?--Because he finds it has not answered towards
himself.  It has not made him happy.  His circumstances are now
unembarrassed--he suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks only
that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself.
But does it follow that had he married you, he would have been
happy?--The inconveniences would have been different.  He would then
have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are
removed, he now reckons as nothing.  He would have had a wife of whose
temper he could make no complaint, but he would have been always
necessitous--always poor; and probably would soon have learned to rank
the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far
more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a
wife."

"I have not a doubt of it," said Marianne; "and I have nothing to
regret--nothing but my own folly."

"Rather say your mother's imprudence, my child," said Mrs. Dashwood;
"SHE must be answerable."

Marianne would not let her proceed;--and Elinor, satisfied that each
felt their own error, wished to avoid any survey of the past that might
weaken her sister's spirits; she, therefore, pursuing the first
subject, immediately continued,

"One observation may, I think, be fairly drawn from the whole of the
story--that all Willoughby's difficulties have arisen from the first
offence against virtue, in his behaviour to Eliza Williams.  That crime
has been the origin of every lesser one, and of all his present
discontents."

Marianne assented most feelingly to the remark; and her mother was led
by it to an enumeration of Colonel Brandon's injuries and merits, warm
as friendship and design could unitedly dictate.  Her daughter did not
look, however, as if much of it were heard by her.

Elinor, according to her expectation, saw on the two or three following
days, that Marianne did not continue to gain strength as she had done;
but while her resolution was unsubdued, and she still tried to appear
cheerful and easy, her sister could safely trust to the effect of time
upon her health.

Margaret returned, and the family were again all restored to each
other, again quietly settled at the cottage; and if not pursuing their
usual studies with quite so much vigour as when they first came to
Barton, at least planning a vigorous prosecution of them in future.

Elinor grew impatient for some tidings of Edward.  She had heard
nothing of him since her leaving London, nothing new of his plans,
nothing certain even of his present abode.  Some letters had passed
between her and her brother, in consequence of Marianne's illness; and
in the first of John's, there had been this sentence:-- "We know
nothing of our unfortunate Edward, and can make no enquiries on so
prohibited a subject, but conclude him to be still at Oxford;" which
was all the intelligence of Edward afforded her by the correspondence,
for his name was not even mentioned in any of the succeeding letters.
She was not doomed, however, to be long in ignorance of his measures.

Their man-servant had been sent one morning to Exeter on business; and
when, as he waited at table, he had satisfied the inquiries of his
mistress as to the event of his errand, this was his voluntary
communication--

"I suppose you know, ma'am, that Mr. Ferrars is married."

Marianne gave a violent start, fixed her eyes upon Elinor, saw her
turning pale, and fell back in her chair in hysterics.  Mrs. Dashwood,
whose eyes, as she answered the servant's inquiry, had intuitively
taken the same direction, was shocked to perceive by Elinor's
countenance how much she really suffered, and a moment afterwards,
alike distressed by Marianne's situation, knew not on which child to
bestow her principal attention.

The servant, who saw only that Miss Marianne was taken ill, had sense
enough to call one of the maids, who, with Mrs. Dashwood's assistance,
supported her into the other room.  By that time, Marianne was rather
better, and her mother leaving her to the care of Margaret and the
maid, returned to Elinor, who, though still much disordered, had so far
recovered the use of her reason and voice as to be just beginning an
inquiry of Thomas, as to the source of his intelligence.  Mrs. Dashwood
immediately took all that trouble on herself; and Elinor had the
benefit of the information without the exertion of seeking it.

"Who told you that Mr. Ferrars was married, Thomas?"

"I see Mr. Ferrars myself, ma'am, this morning in Exeter, and his lady
too, Miss Steele as was.  They was stopping in a chaise at the door of
the New London Inn, as I went there with a message from Sally at the
Park to her brother, who is one of the post-boys. I happened to look up
as I went by the chaise, and so I see directly it was the youngest Miss
Steele; so I took off my hat, and she knew me and called to me, and
inquired after you, ma'am, and the young ladies, especially Miss
Marianne, and bid me I should give her compliments and Mr. Ferrars's,
their best compliments and service, and how sorry they was they had not
time to come on and see you, but they was in a great hurry to go
forwards, for they was going further down for a little while, but
howsever, when they come back, they'd make sure to come and see you."

"But did she tell you she was married, Thomas?"

"Yes, ma'am. She smiled, and said how she had changed her name since
she was in these parts.  She was always a very affable and free-spoken
young lady, and very civil behaved.  So, I made free to wish her joy."

"Was Mr. Ferrars in the carriage with her?"

"Yes, ma'am, I just see him leaning back in it, but he did not look
up;--he never was a gentleman much for talking."

Elinor's heart could easily account for his not putting himself
forward; and Mrs. Dashwood probably found the same explanation.

"Was there no one else in the carriage?"

"No, ma'am, only they two."

"Do you know where they came from?"

"They come straight from town, as Miss Lucy--Mrs. Ferrars told me."

"And are they going farther westward?"

"Yes, ma'am--but not to bide long.  They will soon be back again, and
then they'd be sure and call here."

Mrs. Dashwood now looked at her daughter; but Elinor knew better than
to expect them.  She recognised the whole of Lucy in the message, and
was very confident that Edward would never come near them.  She
observed in a low voice, to her mother, that they were probably going
down to Mr. Pratt's, near Plymouth.

Thomas's intelligence seemed over.  Elinor looked as if she wished to
hear more.

"Did you see them off, before you came away?"

"No, ma'am--the horses were just coming out, but I could not bide any
longer; I was afraid of being late."

"Did Mrs. Ferrars look well?"

"Yes, ma'am, she said how she was very well; and to my mind she was
always a very handsome young lady--and she seemed vastly contented."

Mrs. Dashwood could think of no other question, and Thomas and the
tablecloth, now alike needless, were soon afterwards dismissed.
Marianne had already sent to say, that she should eat nothing more.
Mrs. Dashwood's and Elinor's appetites were equally lost, and Margaret
might think herself very well off, that with so much uneasiness as both
her sisters had lately experienced, so much reason as they had often
had to be careless of their meals, she had never been obliged to go
without her dinner before.

When the dessert and the wine were arranged, and Mrs. Dashwood and
Elinor were left by themselves, they remained long together in a
similarity of thoughtfulness and silence.  Mrs. Dashwood feared to
hazard any remark, and ventured not to offer consolation.  She now
found that she had erred in relying on Elinor's representation of
herself; and justly concluded that every thing had been expressly
softened at the time, to spare her from an increase of unhappiness,
suffering as she then had suffered for Marianne.  She found that she
had been misled by the careful, the considerate attention of her
daughter, to think the attachment, which once she had so well
understood, much slighter in reality, than she had been wont to
believe, or than it was now proved to be.  She feared that under this
persuasion she had been unjust, inattentive, nay, almost unkind, to her
Elinor;--that Marianne's affliction, because more acknowledged, more
immediately before her, had too much engrossed her tenderness, and led
her away to forget that in Elinor she might have a daughter suffering
almost as much, certainly with less self-provocation, and greater
fortitude.



CHAPTER 48


Elinor now found the difference between the expectation of an
unpleasant event, however certain the mind may be told to consider it,
and certainty itself.  She now found, that in spite of herself, she had
always admitted a hope, while Edward remained single, that something
would occur to prevent his marrying Lucy; that some resolution of his
own, some mediation of friends, or some more eligible opportunity of
establishment for the lady, would arise to assist the happiness of all.
But he was now married; and she condemned her heart for the lurking
flattery, which so much heightened the pain of the intelligence.

That he should be married soon, before (as she imagined) he could be in
orders, and consequently before he could be in possession of the
living, surprised her a little at first.  But she soon saw how likely
it was that Lucy, in her self-provident care, in her haste to secure
him, should overlook every thing but the risk of delay.  They were
married, married in town, and now hastening down to her uncle's.  What
had Edward felt on being within four miles from Barton, on seeing her
mother's servant, on hearing Lucy's message!

They would soon, she supposed, be settled at Delaford.--Delaford,--that
place in which so much conspired to give her an interest; which she
wished to be acquainted with, and yet desired to avoid.  She saw them
in an instant in their parsonage-house; saw in Lucy, the active,
contriving manager, uniting at once a desire of smart appearance with
the utmost frugality, and ashamed to be suspected of half her
economical practices;--pursuing her own interest in every thought,
courting the favour of Colonel Brandon, of Mrs. Jennings, and of every
wealthy friend.  In Edward--she knew not what she saw, nor what she
wished to see;--happy or unhappy,--nothing pleased her; she turned away
her head from every sketch of him.

Elinor flattered herself that some one of their connections in London
would write to them to announce the event, and give farther
particulars,--but day after day passed off, and brought no letter, no
tidings.  Though uncertain that any one were to blame, she found fault
with every absent friend.  They were all thoughtless or indolent.

"When do you write to Colonel Brandon, ma'am?" was an inquiry which
sprung from the impatience of her mind to have something going on.

"I wrote to him, my love, last week, and rather expect to see, than to
hear from him again.  I earnestly pressed his coming to us, and should
not be surprised to see him walk in today or tomorrow, or any day."

This was gaining something, something to look forward to.  Colonel
Brandon must have some information to give.

Scarcely had she so determined it, when the figure of a man on
horseback drew her eyes to the window.  He stopt at their gate.  It was
a gentleman, it was Colonel Brandon himself.  Now she could hear more;
and she trembled in expectation of it.  But--it was NOT Colonel
Brandon--neither his air--nor his height.  Were it possible, she must
say it must be Edward.  She looked again.  He had just dismounted;--she
could not be mistaken,--it WAS Edward.  She moved away and sat down.
"He comes from Mr. Pratt's purposely to see us.  I WILL be calm; I WILL
be mistress of myself."

In a moment she perceived that the others were likewise aware of the
mistake.  She saw her mother and Marianne change colour; saw them look
at herself, and whisper a few sentences to each other.  She would have
given the world to be able to speak--and to make them understand that
she hoped no coolness, no slight, would appear in their behaviour to
him;--but she had no utterance, and was obliged to leave all to their
own discretion.

Not a syllable passed aloud.  They all waited in silence for the
appearance of their visitor.  His footsteps were heard along the gravel
path; in a moment he was in the passage, and in another he was before
them.

His countenance, as he entered the room, was not too happy, even for
Elinor.  His complexion was white with agitation, and he looked as if
fearful of his reception, and conscious that he merited no kind one.
Mrs. Dashwood, however, conforming, as she trusted, to the wishes of
that daughter, by whom she then meant in the warmth of her heart to be
guided in every thing, met with a look of forced complacency, gave him
her hand, and wished him joy.

He coloured, and stammered out an unintelligible reply.  Elinor's lips
had moved with her mother's, and, when the moment of action was over,
she wished that she had shaken hands with him too.  But it was then too
late, and with a countenance meaning to be open, she sat down again and
talked of the weather.

Marianne had retreated as much as possible out of sight, to conceal her
distress; and Margaret, understanding some part, but not the whole of
the case, thought it incumbent on her to be dignified, and therefore
took a seat as far from him as she could, and maintained a strict
silence.

When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very
awful pause took place.  It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who
felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well.  In a
hurried manner, he replied in the affirmative.

Another pause.

Elinor resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own
voice, now said,

"Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?"

"At Longstaple!" he replied, with an air of surprise.-- "No, my mother
is in town."

"I meant," said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, "to inquire
for Mrs. EDWARD Ferrars."

She dared not look up;--but her mother and Marianne both turned their
eyes on him.  He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and,
after some hesitation, said,--

"Perhaps you mean--my brother--you mean Mrs.--Mrs. ROBERT Ferrars."

"Mrs. Robert Ferrars!"--was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an
accent of the utmost amazement;--and though Elinor could not speak,
even HER eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder.  He
rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not
knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and
while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to
pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice,

"Perhaps you do not know--you may not have heard that my brother is
lately married to--to the youngest--to Miss Lucy Steele."

His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor,
who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such
agitation as made her hardly know where she was.

"Yes," said he, "they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish."

Elinor could sit it no longer.  She almost ran out of the room, and as
soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first
she thought would never cease.  Edward, who had till then looked any
where, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw--or even
heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie,
which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs.
Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted
the room, and walked out towards the village--leaving the others in the
greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so
wonderful and so sudden;--a perplexity which they had no means of
lessening but by their own conjectures.



CHAPTER 49


Unaccountable, however, as the circumstances of his release might
appear to the whole family, it was certain that Edward was free; and to
what purpose that freedom would be employed was easily pre-determined
by all;--for after experiencing the blessings of ONE imprudent
engagement, contracted without his mother's consent, as he had already
done for more than four years, nothing less could be expected of him in
the failure of THAT, than the immediate contraction of another.

His errand at Barton, in fact, was a simple one.  It was only to ask
Elinor to marry him;--and considering that he was not altogether
inexperienced in such a question, it might be strange that he should
feel so uncomfortable in the present case as he really did, so much in
need of encouragement and fresh air.

How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution, however, how
soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, in what manner he
expressed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly
told.  This only need be said;--that when they all sat down to table at
four o'clock, about three hours after his arrival, he had secured his
lady, engaged her mother's consent, and was not only in the rapturous
profession of the lover, but, in the reality of reason and truth, one
of the happiest of men.  His situation indeed was more than commonly
joyful.  He had more than the ordinary triumph of accepted love to
swell his heart, and raise his spirits.  He was released without any
reproach to himself, from an entanglement which had long formed his
misery, from a woman whom he had long ceased to love;--and elevated at
once to that security with another, which he must have thought of
almost with despair, as soon as he had learnt to consider it with
desire.  He was brought, not from doubt or suspense, but from misery to
happiness;--and the change was openly spoken in such a genuine,
flowing, grateful cheerfulness, as his friends had never witnessed in
him before.

His heart was now open to Elinor, all its weaknesses, all its errors
confessed, and his first boyish attachment to Lucy treated with all the
philosophic dignity of twenty-four.

"It was a foolish, idle inclination on my side," said he, "the
consequence of ignorance of the world--and want of employment.  Had my
mother given me some active profession when I was removed at eighteen
from the care of Mr. Pratt, I think--nay, I am sure, it would never
have happened; for though I left Longstaple with what I thought, at the
time, a most unconquerable preference for his niece, yet had I then had
any pursuit, any object to engage my time and keep me at a distance
from her for a few months, I should very soon have outgrown the fancied
attachment, especially by mixing more with the world, as in such case I
must have done.  But instead of having any thing to do, instead of
having any profession chosen for me, or being allowed to chuse any
myself, I returned home to be completely idle; and for the first
twelvemonth afterwards I had not even the nominal employment, which
belonging to the university would have given me; for I was not entered
at Oxford till I was nineteen.  I had therefore nothing in the world to
do, but to fancy myself in love; and as my mother did not make my home
in every respect comfortable, as I had no friend, no companion in my
brother, and disliked new acquaintance, it was not unnatural for me to
be very often at Longstaple, where I always felt myself at home, and
was always sure of a welcome; and accordingly I spent the greatest part
of my time there from eighteen to nineteen: Lucy appeared everything
that was amiable and obliging.  She was pretty too--at least I thought
so THEN; and I had seen so little of other women, that I could make no
comparisons, and see no defects.  Considering everything, therefore, I
hope, foolish as our engagement was, foolish as it has since in every
way been proved, it was not at the time an unnatural or an inexcusable
piece of folly."

The change which a few hours had wrought in the minds and the happiness
of the Dashwoods, was such--so great--as promised them all, the
satisfaction of a sleepless night.  Mrs. Dashwood, too happy to be
comfortable, knew not how to love Edward, nor praise Elinor enough, how
to be enough thankful for his release without wounding his delicacy,
nor how at once to give them leisure for unrestrained conversation
together, and yet enjoy, as she wished, the sight and society of both.

Marianne could speak HER happiness only by tears.  Comparisons would
occur--regrets would arise;--and her joy, though sincere as her love
for her sister, was of a kind to give her neither spirits nor language.

But Elinor--how are HER feelings to be described?--From the moment of
learning that Lucy was married to another, that Edward was free, to the
moment of his justifying the hopes which had so instantly followed, she
was every thing by turns but tranquil.  But when the second moment had
passed, when she found every doubt, every solicitude removed, compared
her situation with what so lately it had been,--saw him honourably
released from his former engagement, saw him instantly profiting by the
release, to address herself and declare an affection as tender, as
constant as she had ever supposed it to be,--she was oppressed, she was
overcome by her own felicity;--and happily disposed as is the human
mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it
required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree
of tranquillity to her heart.

Edward was now fixed at the cottage at least for a week;--for whatever
other claims might be made on him, it was impossible that less than a
week should be given up to the enjoyment of Elinor's company, or
suffice to say half that was to be said of the past, the present, and
the future;--for though a very few hours spent in the hard labor of
incessant talking will despatch more subjects than can really be in
common between any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is
different.  Between THEM no subject is finished, no communication is
even made, till it has been made at least twenty times over.

Lucy's marriage, the unceasing and reasonable wonder among them all,
formed of course one of the earliest discussions of the lovers;--and
Elinor's particular knowledge of each party made it appear to her in
every view, as one of the most extraordinary and unaccountable
circumstances she had ever heard.  How they could be thrown together,
and by what attraction Robert could be drawn on to marry a girl, of
whose beauty she had herself heard him speak without any admiration,--a
girl too already engaged to his brother, and on whose account that
brother had been thrown off by his family--it was beyond her
comprehension to make out.  To her own heart it was a delightful
affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but to her
reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.

Edward could only attempt an explanation by supposing, that, perhaps,
at first accidentally meeting, the vanity of the one had been so worked
on by the flattery of the other, as to lead by degrees to all the rest.
Elinor remembered what Robert had told her in Harley Street, of his
opinion of what his own mediation in his brother's affairs might have
done, if applied to in time.  She repeated it to Edward.

"THAT was exactly like Robert,"--was his immediate observation.--"And
THAT," he presently added, "might perhaps be in HIS head when the
acquaintance between them first began.  And Lucy perhaps at first might
think only of procuring his good offices in my favour.  Other designs
might afterward arise."

How long it had been carrying on between them, however, he was equally
at a loss with herself to make out; for at Oxford, where he had
remained for choice ever since his quitting London, he had had no means
of hearing of her but from herself, and her letters to the very last
were neither less frequent, nor less affectionate than usual.  Not the
smallest suspicion, therefore, had ever occurred to prepare him for
what followed;--and when at last it burst on him in a letter from Lucy
herself, he had been for some time, he believed, half stupified between
the wonder, the horror, and the joy of such a deliverance.  He put the
letter into Elinor's hands.

     "DEAR SIR,

     "Being very sure I have long lost your affections,
     I have thought myself at liberty to bestow my own
     on another, and have no doubt of being as happy with
     him as I once used to think I might be with you;
     but I scorn to accept a hand while the heart was
     another's.  Sincerely wish you happy in your choice,
     and it shall not be my fault if we are not always
     good friends, as our near relationship now makes
     proper.  I can safely say I owe you no ill-will,
     and am sure you will be too generous to do us any
     ill offices.  Your brother has gained my affections
     entirely, and as we could not live without one
     another, we are just returned from the altar, and
     are now on our way to Dawlish for a few weeks, which
     place your dear brother has great curiosity to see,
     but thought I would first trouble you with these
     few lines, and shall always remain,

     "Your sincere well-wisher, friend, and sister,
                                        "LUCY FERRARS.

     "I have burnt all your letters, and will return
     your picture the first opportunity.  Please to destroy
     my scrawls--but the ring with my hair you are very
     welcome to keep."

Elinor read and returned it without any comment.

"I will not ask your opinion of it as a composition," said
Edward.--"For worlds would not I have had a letter of hers seen by YOU
in former days.--In a sister it is bad enough, but in a wife!--how I
have blushed over the pages of her writing!--and I believe I may say
that since the first half year of our foolish--business--this is the
only letter I ever received from her, of which the substance made me
any amends for the defect of the style."

"However it may have come about," said Elinor, after a pause,--"they
are certainly married.  And your mother has brought on herself a most
appropriate punishment.  The independence she settled on Robert,
through resentment against you, has put it in his power to make his own
choice; and she has actually been bribing one son with a thousand
a-year, to do the very deed which she disinherited the other for
intending to do.  She will hardly be less hurt, I suppose, by Robert's
marrying Lucy, than she would have been by your marrying her."

"She will be more hurt by it, for Robert always was her favourite.--She
will be more hurt by it, and on the same principle will forgive him
much sooner."

In what state the affair stood at present between them, Edward knew
not, for no communication with any of his family had yet been attempted
by him.  He had quitted Oxford within four and twenty hours after
Lucy's letter arrived, and with only one object before him, the nearest
road to Barton, had had no leisure to form any scheme of conduct, with
which that road did not hold the most intimate connection.  He could do
nothing till he were assured of his fate with Miss Dashwood; and by his
rapidity in seeking THAT fate, it is to be supposed, in spite of the
jealousy with which he had once thought of Colonel Brandon, in spite of
the modesty with which he rated his own deserts, and the politeness
with which he talked of his doubts, he did not, upon the whole, expect
a very cruel reception.  It was his business, however, to say that he
DID, and he said it very prettily.  What he might say on the subject a
twelvemonth after, must be referred to the imagination of husbands and
wives.

That Lucy had certainly meant to deceive, to go off with a flourish of
malice against him in her message by Thomas, was perfectly clear to
Elinor; and Edward himself, now thoroughly enlightened on her
character, had no scruple in believing her capable of the utmost
meanness of wanton ill-nature. Though his eyes had been long opened,
even before his acquaintance with Elinor began, to her ignorance and a
want of liberality in some of her opinions--they had been equally
imputed, by him, to her want of education; and till her last letter
reached him, he had always believed her to be a well-disposed,
good-hearted girl, and thoroughly attached to himself.  Nothing but
such a persuasion could have prevented his putting an end to an
engagement, which, long before the discovery of it laid him open to his
mother's anger, had been a continual source of disquiet and regret to
him.

"I thought it my duty," said he, "independent of my feelings, to give
her the option of continuing the engagement or not, when I was
renounced by my mother, and stood to all appearance without a friend in
the world to assist me.  In such a situation as that, where there
seemed nothing to tempt the avarice or the vanity of any living
creature, how could I suppose, when she so earnestly, so warmly
insisted on sharing my fate, whatever it might be, that any thing but
the most disinterested affection was her inducement?  And even now, I
cannot comprehend on what motive she acted, or what fancied advantage
it could be to her, to be fettered to a man for whom she had not the
smallest regard, and who had only two thousand pounds in the world.
She could not foresee that Colonel Brandon would give me a living."

"No; but she might suppose that something would occur in your favour;
that your own family might in time relent.  And at any rate, she lost
nothing by continuing the engagement, for she has proved that it
fettered neither her inclination nor her actions.  The connection was
certainly a respectable one, and probably gained her consideration
among her friends; and, if nothing more advantageous occurred, it would
be better for her to marry YOU than be single."

Edward was, of course, immediately convinced that nothing could have
been more natural than Lucy's conduct, nor more self-evident than the
motive of it.

Elinor scolded him, harshly as ladies always scold the imprudence which
compliments themselves, for having spent so much time with them at
Norland, when he must have felt his own inconstancy.

"Your behaviour was certainly very wrong," said she; "because--to say
nothing of my own conviction, our relations were all led away by it to
fancy and expect WHAT, as you were THEN situated, could never be."

He could only plead an ignorance of his own heart, and a mistaken
confidence in the force of his engagement.

"I was simple enough to think, that because my FAITH was plighted to
another, there could be no danger in my being with you; and that the
consciousness of my engagement was to keep my heart as safe and sacred
as my honour.  I felt that I admired you, but I told myself it was only
friendship; and till I began to make comparisons between yourself and
Lucy, I did not know how far I was got.  After that, I suppose, I WAS
wrong in remaining so much in Sussex, and the arguments with which I
reconciled myself to the expediency of it, were no better than
these:--The danger is my own; I am doing no injury to anybody but
myself."

Elinor smiled, and shook her head.

Edward heard with pleasure of Colonel Brandon's being expected at the
Cottage, as he really wished not only to be better acquainted with him,
but to have an opportunity of convincing him that he no longer resented
his giving him the living of Delaford--"Which, at present," said he,
"after thanks so ungraciously delivered as mine were on the occasion,
he must think I have never forgiven him for offering."

NOW he felt astonished himself that he had never yet been to the place.
But so little interest had he taken in the matter, that he owed all his
knowledge of the house, garden, and glebe, extent of the parish,
condition of the land, and rate of the tithes, to Elinor herself, who
had heard so much of it from Colonel Brandon, and heard it with so much
attention, as to be entirely mistress of the subject.

One question after this only remained undecided, between them, one
difficulty only was to be overcome.  They were brought together by
mutual affection, with the warmest approbation of their real friends;
their intimate knowledge of each other seemed to make their happiness
certain--and they only wanted something to live upon.  Edward had two
thousand pounds, and Elinor one, which, with Delaford living, was all
that they could call their own; for it was impossible that Mrs.
Dashwood should advance anything; and they were neither of them quite
enough in love to think that three hundred and fifty pounds a-year
would supply them with the comforts of life.

Edward was not entirely without hopes of some favourable change in his
mother towards him; and on THAT he rested for the residue of their
income.  But Elinor had no such dependence; for since Edward would
still be unable to marry Miss Morton, and his chusing herself had been
spoken of in Mrs. Ferrars's flattering language as only a lesser evil
than his chusing Lucy Steele, she feared that Robert's offence would
serve no other purpose than to enrich Fanny.

About four days after Edward's arrival Colonel Brandon appeared, to
complete Mrs. Dashwood's satisfaction, and to give her the dignity of
having, for the first time since her living at Barton, more company
with her than her house would hold.  Edward was allowed to retain the
privilege of first comer, and Colonel Brandon therefore walked every
night to his old quarters at the Park; from whence he usually returned
in the morning, early enough to interrupt the lovers' first tete-a-tete
before breakfast.

A three weeks' residence at Delaford, where, in his evening hours at
least, he had little to do but to calculate the disproportion between
thirty-six and seventeen, brought him to Barton in a temper of mind
which needed all the improvement in Marianne's looks, all the kindness
of her welcome, and all the encouragement of her mother's language, to
make it cheerful.  Among such friends, however, and such flattery, he
did revive.  No rumour of Lucy's marriage had yet reached him:--he knew
nothing of what had passed; and the first hours of his visit were
consequently spent in hearing and in wondering.  Every thing was
explained to him by Mrs. Dashwood, and he found fresh reason to rejoice
in what he had done for Mr. Ferrars, since eventually it promoted the
interest of Elinor.

It would be needless to say, that the gentlemen advanced in the good
opinion of each other, as they advanced in each other's acquaintance,
for it could not be otherwise.  Their resemblance in good principles
and good sense, in disposition and manner of thinking, would probably
have been sufficient to unite them in friendship, without any other
attraction; but their being in love with two sisters, and two sisters
fond of each other, made that mutual regard inevitable and immediate,
which might otherwise have waited the effect of time and judgment.

The letters from town, which a few days before would have made every
nerve in Elinor's body thrill with transport, now arrived to be read
with less emotion than mirth.  Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the
wonderful tale, to vent her honest indignation against the jilting
girl, and pour forth her compassion towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she
was sure, had quite doted upon the worthless hussy, and was now, by all
accounts, almost broken-hearted, at Oxford.-- "I do think," she
continued, "nothing was ever carried on so sly; for it was but two days
before Lucy called and sat a couple of hours with me.  Not a soul
suspected anything of the matter, not even Nancy, who, poor soul!  came
crying to me the day after, in a great fright for fear of Mrs. Ferrars,
as well as not knowing how to get to Plymouth; for Lucy it seems
borrowed all her money before she went off to be married, on purpose we
suppose to make a show with, and poor Nancy had not seven shillings in
the world;--so I was very glad to give her five guineas to take her
down to Exeter, where she thinks of staying three or four weeks with
Mrs. Burgess, in hopes, as I tell her, to fall in with the Doctor
again.  And I must say that Lucy's crossness not to take them along
with them in the chaise is worse than all.  Poor Mr. Edward! I cannot
get him out of my head, but you must send for him to Barton, and Miss
Marianne must try to comfort him."

Mr. Dashwood's strains were more solemn.  Mrs. Ferrars was the most
unfortunate of women--poor Fanny had suffered agonies of
sensibility--and he considered the existence of each, under such a
blow, with grateful wonder.  Robert's offence was unpardonable, but
Lucy's was infinitely worse.  Neither of them were ever again to be
mentioned to Mrs. Ferrars; and even, if she might hereafter be induced
to forgive her son, his wife should never be acknowledged as her
daughter, nor be permitted to appear in her presence.  The secrecy with
which everything had been carried on between them, was rationally
treated as enormously heightening the crime, because, had any suspicion
of it occurred to the others, proper measures would have been taken to
prevent the marriage; and he called on Elinor to join with him in
regretting that Lucy's engagement with Edward had not rather been
fulfilled, than that she should thus be the means of spreading misery
farther in the family.-- He thus continued:

"Mrs. Ferrars has never yet mentioned Edward's name, which does not
surprise us; but, to our great astonishment, not a line has been
received from him on the occasion.  Perhaps, however, he is kept silent
by his fear of offending, and I shall, therefore, give him a hint, by a
line to Oxford, that his sister and I both think a letter of proper
submission from him, addressed perhaps to Fanny, and by her shewn to
her mother, might not be taken amiss; for we all know the tenderness of
Mrs. Ferrars's heart, and that she wishes for nothing so much as to be
on good terms with her children."

This paragraph was of some importance to the prospects and conduct of
Edward.  It determined him to attempt a reconciliation, though not
exactly in the manner pointed out by their brother and sister.

"A letter of proper submission!" repeated he; "would they have me beg
my mother's pardon for Robert's ingratitude to HER, and breach of
honour to ME?--I can make no submission--I am grown neither humble nor
penitent by what has passed.--I am grown very happy; but that would not
interest.--I know of no submission that IS proper for me to make."

"You may certainly ask to be forgiven," said Elinor, "because you have
offended;--and I should think you might NOW venture so far as to
profess some concern for having ever formed the engagement which drew
on you your mother's anger."

He agreed that he might.

"And when she has forgiven you, perhaps a little humility may be
convenient while acknowledging a second engagement, almost as imprudent
in HER eyes as the first."

He had nothing to urge against it, but still resisted the idea of a
letter of proper submission; and therefore, to make it easier to him,
as he declared a much greater willingness to make mean concessions by
word of mouth than on paper, it was resolved that, instead of writing
to Fanny, he should go to London, and personally intreat her good
offices in his favour.-- "And if they really DO interest themselves,"
said Marianne, in her new character of candour, "in bringing about a
reconciliation, I shall think that even John and Fanny are not entirely
without merit."

After a visit on Colonel Brandon's side of only three or four days, the
two gentlemen quitted Barton together.-- They were to go immediately to
Delaford, that Edward might have some personal knowledge of his future
home, and assist his patron and friend in deciding on what improvements
were needed to it; and from thence, after staying there a couple of
nights, he was to proceed on his journey to town.



CHAPTER 50


After a proper resistance on the part of Mrs. Ferrars, just so violent
and so steady as to preserve her from that reproach which she always
seemed fearful of incurring, the reproach of being too amiable, Edward
was admitted to her presence, and pronounced to be again her son.

Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating.  For many years of
her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward
a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of
Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the
resuscitation of Edward, she had one again.

In spite of his being allowed once more to live, however, he did not
feel the continuance of his existence secure, till he had revealed his
present engagement; for the publication of that circumstance, he
feared, might give a sudden turn to his constitution, and carry him off
as rapidly as before.  With apprehensive caution therefore it was
revealed, and he was listened to with unexpected calmness.  Mrs.
Ferrars at first reasonably endeavoured to dissuade him from marrying
Miss Dashwood, by every argument in her power;--told him, that in Miss
Morton he would have a woman of higher rank and larger fortune;--and
enforced the assertion, by observing that Miss Morton was the daughter
of a nobleman with thirty thousand pounds, while Miss Dashwood was only
the daughter of a private gentleman with no more than THREE; but when
she found that, though perfectly admitting the truth of her
representation, he was by no means inclined to be guided by it, she
judged it wisest, from the experience of the past, to submit--and
therefore, after such an ungracious delay as she owed to her own
dignity, and as served to prevent every suspicion of good-will, she
issued her decree of consent to the marriage of Edward and Elinor.

What she would engage to do towards augmenting their income was next to
be considered; and here it plainly appeared, that though Edward was now
her only son, he was by no means her eldest; for while Robert was
inevitably endowed with a thousand pounds a-year, not the smallest
objection was made against Edward's taking orders for the sake of two
hundred and fifty at the utmost; nor was anything promised either for
the present or in future, beyond the ten thousand pounds, which had
been given with Fanny.

It was as much, however, as was desired, and more than was expected, by
Edward and Elinor; and Mrs. Ferrars herself, by her shuffling excuses,
seemed the only person surprised at her not giving more.

With an income quite sufficient to their wants thus secured to them,
they had nothing to wait for after Edward was in possession of the
living, but the readiness of the house, to which Colonel Brandon, with
an eager desire for the accommodation of Elinor, was making
considerable improvements; and after waiting some time for their
completion, after experiencing, as usual, a thousand disappointments
and delays from the unaccountable dilatoriness of the workmen, Elinor,
as usual, broke through the first positive resolution of not marrying
till every thing was ready, and the ceremony took place in Barton
church early in the autumn.

The first month after their marriage was spent with their friend at the
Mansion-house; from whence they could superintend the progress of the
Parsonage, and direct every thing as they liked on the spot;--could
chuse papers, project shrubberies, and invent a sweep.  Mrs. Jennings's
prophecies, though rather jumbled together, were chiefly fulfilled; for
she was able to visit Edward and his wife in their Parsonage by
Michaelmas, and she found in Elinor and her husband, as she really
believed, one of the happiest couples in the world.  They had in fact
nothing to wish for, but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne,
and rather better pasturage for their cows.

They were visited on their first settling by almost all their relations
and friends.  Mrs. Ferrars came to inspect the happiness which she was
almost ashamed of having authorised; and even the Dashwoods were at the
expense of a journey from Sussex to do them honour.

"I will not say that I am disappointed, my dear sister," said John, as
they were walking together one morning before the gates of Delaford
House, "THAT would be saying too much, for certainly you have been one
of the most fortunate young women in the world, as it is.  But, I
confess, it would give me great pleasure to call Colonel Brandon
brother.  His property here, his place, his house, every thing is in
such respectable and excellent condition!--and his woods!--I have not
seen such timber any where in Dorsetshire, as there is now standing in
Delaford Hanger!--And though, perhaps, Marianne may not seem exactly
the person to attract him--yet I think it would altogether be advisable
for you to have them now frequently staying with you, for as Colonel
Brandon seems a great deal at home, nobody can tell what may
happen--for, when people are much thrown together, and see little of
anybody else--and it will always be in your power to set her off to
advantage, and so forth;--in short, you may as well give her a
chance--You understand me."--

But though Mrs. Ferrars DID come to see them, and always treated them
with the make-believe of decent affection, they were never insulted by
her real favour and preference.  THAT was due to the folly of Robert,
and the cunning of his wife; and it was earned by them before many
months had passed away.  The selfish sagacity of the latter, which had
at first drawn Robert into the scrape, was the principal instrument of
his deliverance from it; for her respectful humility, assiduous
attentions, and endless flatteries, as soon as the smallest opening was
given for their exercise, reconciled Mrs. Ferrars to his choice, and
re-established him completely in her favour.

The whole of Lucy's behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which
crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance
of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest, however
its progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every
advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and
conscience.  When Robert first sought her acquaintance, and privately
visited her in Bartlett's Buildings, it was only with the view imputed
to him by his brother.  He merely meant to persuade her to give up the
engagement; and as there could be nothing to overcome but the affection
of both, he naturally expected that one or two interviews would settle
the matter.  In that point, however, and that only, he erred;--for
though Lucy soon gave him hopes that his eloquence would convince her
in TIME, another visit, another conversation, was always wanted to
produce this conviction.  Some doubts always lingered in her mind when
they parted, which could only be removed by another half hour's
discourse with himself.  His attendance was by this means secured, and
the rest followed in course.  Instead of talking of Edward, they came
gradually to talk only of Robert,--a subject on which he had always
more to say than on any other, and in which she soon betrayed an
interest even equal to his own; and in short, it became speedily
evident to both, that he had entirely supplanted his brother.  He was
proud of his conquest, proud of tricking Edward, and very proud of
marrying privately without his mother's consent.  What immediately
followed is known.  They passed some months in great happiness at
Dawlish; for she had many relations and old acquaintances to cut--and
he drew several plans for magnificent cottages;--and from thence
returning to town, procured the forgiveness of Mrs. Ferrars, by the
simple expedient of asking it, which, at Lucy's instigation, was
adopted.  The forgiveness, at first, indeed, as was reasonable,
comprehended only Robert; and Lucy, who had owed his mother no duty and
therefore could have transgressed none, still remained some weeks
longer unpardoned.  But perseverance in humility of conduct and
messages, in self-condemnation for Robert's offence, and gratitude for
the unkindness she was treated with, procured her in time the haughty
notice which overcame her by its graciousness, and led soon afterwards,
by rapid degrees, to the highest state of affection and influence.
Lucy became as necessary to Mrs. Ferrars, as either Robert or Fanny;
and while Edward was never cordially forgiven for having once intended
to marry her, and Elinor, though superior to her in fortune and birth,
was spoken of as an intruder, SHE was in every thing considered, and
always openly acknowledged, to be a favourite child.  They settled in
town, received very liberal assistance from Mrs. Ferrars, were on the
best terms imaginable with the Dashwoods; and setting aside the
jealousies and ill-will continually subsisting between Fanny and Lucy,
in which their husbands of course took a part, as well as the frequent
domestic disagreements between Robert and Lucy themselves, nothing
could exceed the harmony in which they all lived together.

What Edward had done to forfeit the right of eldest son, might have
puzzled many people to find out; and what Robert had done to succeed to
it, might have puzzled them still more.  It was an arrangement,
however, justified in its effects, if not in its cause; for nothing
ever appeared in Robert's style of living or of talking to give a
suspicion of his regretting the extent of his income, as either leaving
his brother too little, or bringing himself too much;--and if Edward
might be judged from the ready discharge of his duties in every
particular, from an increasing attachment to his wife and his home, and
from the regular cheerfulness of his spirits, he might be supposed no
less contented with his lot, no less free from every wish of an
exchange.

Elinor's marriage divided her as little from her family as could well
be contrived, without rendering the cottage at Barton entirely useless,
for her mother and sisters spent much more than half their time with
her.  Mrs. Dashwood was acting on motives of policy as well as pleasure
in the frequency of her visits at Delaford; for her wish of bringing
Marianne and Colonel Brandon together was hardly less earnest, though
rather more liberal than what John had expressed.  It was now her
darling object.  Precious as was the company of her daughter to her,
she desired nothing so much as to give up its constant enjoyment to her
valued friend; and to see Marianne settled at the mansion-house was
equally the wish of Edward and Elinor.  They each felt his sorrows, and
their own obligations, and Marianne, by general consent, was to be the
reward of all.

With such a confederacy against her--with a knowledge so intimate of
his goodness--with a conviction of his fond attachment to herself,
which at last, though long after it was observable to everybody
else--burst on her--what could she do?

Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate.  She was born to
discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract, by her
conduct, her most favourite maxims.  She was born to overcome an
affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment
superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give
her hand to another!--and THAT other, a man who had suffered no less
than herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years
before, she had considered too old to be married,--and who still sought
the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!

But so it was.  Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible
passion, as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting,--instead
of remaining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only
pleasures in retirement and study, as afterwards in her more calm and
sober judgment she had determined on,--she found herself at nineteen,
submitting to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new
home, a wife, the mistress of a family, and the patroness of a village.

Colonel Brandon was now as happy, as all those who best loved him,
believed he deserved to be;--in Marianne he was consoled for every past
affliction;--her regard and her society restored his mind to animation,
and his spirits to cheerfulness; and that Marianne found her own
happiness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of
each observing friend.  Marianne could never love by halves; and her
whole heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had
once been to Willoughby.

Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; and his
punishment was soon afterwards complete in the voluntary forgiveness of
Mrs. Smith, who, by stating his marriage with a woman of character, as
the source of her clemency, gave him reason for believing that had he
behaved with honour towards Marianne, he might at once have been happy
and rich.  That his repentance of misconduct, which thus brought its
own punishment, was sincere, need not be doubted;--nor that he long
thought of Colonel Brandon with envy, and of Marianne with regret.  But
that he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or
contracted an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must
not be depended on--for he did neither.  He lived to exert, and
frequently to enjoy himself.  His wife was not always out of humour,
nor his home always uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs,
and in sporting of every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of
domestic felicity.

For Marianne, however--in spite of his incivility in surviving her
loss--he always retained that decided regard which interested him in
every thing that befell her, and made her his secret standard of
perfection in woman;--and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him
in after-days as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon.

Mrs. Dashwood was prudent enough to remain at the cottage, without
attempting a removal to Delaford; and fortunately for Sir John and Mrs.
Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had reached an
age highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for being
supposed to have a lover.

Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communication
which strong family affection would naturally dictate;--and among the
merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked
as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost
within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement
between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.



THE END









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Project Gutenberg’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by William
Shakespeare

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See at the end of this file: * CONTENT NOTE (added in 2017) *


Title: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Author: William Shakespeare

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Last Updated: June 14, 2018

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ***




The Complete Works of William Shakespeare



by William Shakespeare




      Contents



               THE SONNETS

               ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

               THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

               AS YOU LIKE IT

               THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

               THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS

               CYMBELINE

               THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

               THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

               THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

               THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH

               THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

               THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

               THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

               KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

               KING JOHN

               THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR

               THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR

               LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

               THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

               MEASURE FOR MEASURE

               THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

               THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

               A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

               MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

               THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE

               PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE

               KING RICHARD THE SECOND

               KING RICHARD THE THIRD

               THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET

               THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

               THE TEMPEST

               THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS

               THE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS

               THE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

               TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL

               THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

               THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN

               THE WINTER’S TALE

               A LOVER’S COMPLAINT

               THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

               THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE

               THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

               VENUS AND ADONIS






THE SONNETS

                    1

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding:
  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
  To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.


                    2

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine.
  This were to be new made when thou art old,
  And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.


                    3

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother’s glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime,
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.
  But if thou live remembered not to be,
  Die single and thine image dies with thee.


                    4

Unthrifty loveliness why dost thou spend,
Upon thy self thy beauty’s legacy?
Nature’s bequest gives nothing but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free:
Then beauteous niggard why dost thou abuse,
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thy self alone,
Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive,
Then how when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
  Thy unused beauty must be tombed with thee,
  Which used lives th’ executor to be.


                    5

Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o’er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer’s distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty’s effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
  But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,
  Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet.


                    6

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,
With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-killed:
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
  Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,
  To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.


                    7

Lo in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty,
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch with weary car,
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,
The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are
From his low tract and look another way:
  So thou, thy self out-going in thy noon:
  Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.


                    8

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear:
Mark how one string sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire, and child, and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
  Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
  Sings this to thee, ‘Thou single wilt prove none’.


                    9

Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye,
That thou consum’st thy self in single life?
Ah, if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife,
The world will be thy widow and still weep,
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep,
By children’s eyes, her husband’s shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty’s waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it:
  No love toward others in that bosom sits
  That on himself such murd’rous shame commits.


                    10

For shame deny that thou bear’st love to any
Who for thy self art so unprovident.
Grant if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,
But that thou none lov’st is most evident:
For thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate,
That ’gainst thy self thou stick’st not to conspire,
Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate
Which to repair should be thy chief desire:
O change thy thought, that I may change my mind,
Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?
Be as thy presence is gracious and kind,
Or to thy self at least kind-hearted prove,
  Make thee another self for love of me,
  That beauty still may live in thine or thee.


                    11

As fast as thou shalt wane so fast thou grow’st,
In one of thine, from that which thou departest,
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow’st,
Thou mayst call thine, when thou from youth convertest,
Herein lives wisdom, beauty, and increase,
Without this folly, age, and cold decay,
If all were minded so, the times should cease,
And threescore year would make the world away:
Let those whom nature hath not made for store,
Harsh, featureless, and rude, barrenly perish:
Look whom she best endowed, she gave thee more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
  She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby,
  Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.


                    12

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night,
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silvered o’er with white:
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd
And summer’s green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard:
Then of thy beauty do I question make
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow,
  And nothing ’gainst Time’s scythe can make defence
  Save breed to brave him, when he takes thee hence.


                    13

O that you were your self, but love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live,
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give.
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination, then you were
Your self again after your self’s decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
  O none but unthrifts, dear my love you know,
  You had a father, let your son say so.


                    14

Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy,
But not to tell of good, or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality,
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell;
Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And constant stars in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thy self, to store thou wouldst convert:
  Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
  Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.


                    15

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory.
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,
  And all in war with Time for love of you,
  As he takes from you, I engraft you new.


                    16

But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?
And fortify your self in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?
Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:
So should the lines of life that life repair
Which this (Time’s pencil) or my pupil pen
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live your self in eyes of men.
  To give away your self, keeps your self still,
  And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.


                    17

Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say this poet lies,
Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.
So should my papers (yellowed with their age)
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage,
And stretched metre of an antique song.
  But were some child of yours alive that time,
  You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.


                    18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,
  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


                    19

Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do whate’er thou wilt swift-footed Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
O carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted do allow,
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
  Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
  My love shall in my verse ever live young.


                    20

A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted,
Hast thou the master mistress of my passion,
A woman’s gentle heart but not acquainted
With shifting change as is false women’s fashion,
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling:
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth,
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
  But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,
  Mine be thy love and thy love’s use their treasure.


                    21

So is it not with me as with that muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven it self for ornament doth use,
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea’s rich gems:
With April’s first-born flowers and all things rare,
That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.
O let me true in love but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair,
As any mother’s child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven’s air:
  Let them say more that like of hearsay well,
  I will not praise that purpose not to sell.


                    22

My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date,
But when in thee time’s furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me,
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O therefore love be of thyself so wary,
As I not for my self, but for thee will,
Bearing thy heart which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
  Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
  Thou gav’st me thine not to give back again.


                    23

As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart;
So I for fear of trust, forget to say,
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite,
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay,
O’ercharged with burthen of mine own love’s might:
O let my looks be then the eloquence,
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.
  O learn to read what silent love hath writ,
  To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.


                    24

Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled,
Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart,
My body is the frame wherein ’tis held,
And perspective it is best painter’s art.
For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom’s shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes:
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done,
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
  Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
  They draw but what they see, know not the heart.


                    25

Let those who are in favour with their stars,
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlooked for joy in that I honour most;
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread,
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled:
  Then happy I that love and am beloved
  Where I may not remove nor be removed.


                    26

Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit;
To thee I send this written embassage
To witness duty, not to show my wit.
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it;
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul’s thought (all naked) will bestow it:
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving,
Points on me graciously with fair aspect,
And puts apparel on my tattered loving,
To show me worthy of thy sweet respect,
  Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,
  Till then, not show my head where thou mayst prove me.


                    27

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear respose for limbs with travel tired,
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired.
For then my thoughts (from far where I abide)
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see.
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which like a jewel (hung in ghastly night)
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
  Lo thus by day my limbs, by night my mind,
  For thee, and for my self, no quiet find.


                    28

How can I then return in happy plight
That am debarred the benefit of rest?
When day’s oppression is not eased by night,
But day by night and night by day oppressed.
And each (though enemies to either’s reign)
Do in consent shake hands to torture me,
The one by toil, the other to complain
How far I toil, still farther off from thee.
I tell the day to please him thou art bright,
And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:
So flatter I the swart-complexioned night,
When sparkling stars twire not thou gild’st the even.
  But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer,
  And night doth nightly make grief’s length seem stronger


                    29

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon my self and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate,
  For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.


                    30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye (unused to flow)
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanished sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
  But if the while I think on thee (dear friend)
  All losses are restored, and sorrows end.


                    31

Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead,
And there reigns love and all love’s loving parts,
And all those friends which I thought buried.
How many a holy and obsequious tear
Hath dear religious love stol’n from mine eye,
As interest of the dead, which now appear,
But things removed that hidden in thee lie.
Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,
Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,
Who all their parts of me to thee did give,
That due of many, now is thine alone.
  Their images I loved, I view in thee,
  And thou (all they) hast all the all of me.


                    32

If thou survive my well-contented day,
When that churl death my bones with dust shall cover
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover:
Compare them with the bett’ring of the time,
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought,
’Had my friend’s Muse grown with this growing age,
A dearer birth than this his love had brought
To march in ranks of better equipage:
  But since he died and poets better prove,
  Theirs for their style I’ll read, his for his love’.


                    33

Full many a glorious morning have I seen,
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green;
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy:
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride,
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendour on my brow,
But out alack, he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.
  Yet him for this, my love no whit disdaineth,
  Suns of the world may stain, when heaven’s sun staineth.


                    34

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy brav’ry in their rotten smoke?
’Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief,
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss,
Th’ offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.
  Ah but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
  And they are rich, and ransom all ill deeds.


                    35

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done,
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud,
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
My self corrupting salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are:
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense,
Thy adverse party is thy advocate,
And ’gainst my self a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate,
  That I an accessary needs must be,
  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.


                    36

Let me confess that we two must be twain,
Although our undivided loves are one:
So shall those blots that do with me remain,
Without thy help, by me be borne alone.
In our two loves there is but one respect,
Though in our lives a separable spite,
Which though it alter not love’s sole effect,
Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.
I may not evermore acknowledge thee,
Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,
Nor thou with public kindness honour me,
Unless thou take that honour from thy name:
  But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


                    37

As a decrepit father takes delight,
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune’s dearest spite
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more
Entitled in thy parts, do crowned sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store:
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give,
That I in thy abundance am sufficed,
And by a part of all thy glory live:
  Look what is best, that best I wish in thee,
  This wish I have, then ten times happy me.


                    38

How can my muse want subject to invent
While thou dost breathe that pour’st into my verse,
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent,
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O give thy self the thanks if aught in me,
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight,
For who’s so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thy self dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate,
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
  If my slight muse do please these curious days,
  The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.


                    39

O how thy worth with manners may I sing,
When thou art all the better part of me?
What can mine own praise to mine own self bring:
And what is’t but mine own when I praise thee?
Even for this, let us divided live,
And our dear love lose name of single one,
That by this separation I may give:
That due to thee which thou deserv’st alone:
O absence what a torment wouldst thou prove,
Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave,
To entertain the time with thoughts of love,
Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive.
  And that thou teachest how to make one twain,
  By praising him here who doth hence remain.


                    40

Take all my loves, my love, yea take them all,
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call,
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more:
Then if for my love, thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee, for my love thou usest,
But yet be blamed, if thou thy self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thy self refusest.
I do forgive thy robbery gentle thief
Although thou steal thee all my poverty:
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear greater wrong, than hate’s known injury.
  Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
  Kill me with spites yet we must not be foes.


                    41

Those pretty wrongs that liberty commits,
When I am sometime absent from thy heart,
Thy beauty, and thy years full well befits,
For still temptation follows where thou art.
Gentle thou art, and therefore to be won,
Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed.
And when a woman woos, what woman’s son,
Will sourly leave her till he have prevailed?
Ay me, but yet thou mightst my seat forbear,
And chide thy beauty, and thy straying youth,
Who lead thee in their riot even there
Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth:
  Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,
  Thine by thy beauty being false to me.


                    42

That thou hast her it is not all my grief,
And yet it may be said I loved her dearly,
That she hath thee is of my wailing chief,
A loss in love that touches me more nearly.
Loving offenders thus I will excuse ye,
Thou dost love her, because thou know’st I love her,
And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
Suff’ring my friend for my sake to approve her.
If I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,
And losing her, my friend hath found that loss,
Both find each other, and I lose both twain,
And both for my sake lay on me this cross,
  But here’s the joy, my friend and I are one,
  Sweet flattery, then she loves but me alone.


                    43

When most I wink then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected,
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Then thou whose shadow shadows doth make bright
How would thy shadow’s form, form happy show,
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would (I say) mine eyes be blessed made,
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade,
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
  All days are nights to see till I see thee,
  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.


                    44

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way,
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay,
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee,
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But ah, thought kills me that I am not thought
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend, time’s leisure with my moan.
  Receiving nought by elements so slow,
  But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.


                    45

The other two, slight air, and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide,
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.
For when these quicker elements are gone
In tender embassy of love to thee,
My life being made of four, with two alone,
Sinks down to death, oppressed with melancholy.
Until life’s composition be recured,
By those swift messengers returned from thee,
Who even but now come back again assured,
Of thy fair health, recounting it to me.
  This told, I joy, but then no longer glad,
  I send them back again and straight grow sad.


                    46

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight,
Mine eye, my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,
My heart, mine eye the freedom of that right,
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
(A closet never pierced with crystal eyes)
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To side this title is impanelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part.
  As thus, mine eye’s due is thy outward part,
  And my heart’s right, thy inward love of heart.


                    47

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other,
When that mine eye is famished for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother;
With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart:
Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part.
So either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me,
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee.
  Or if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
  Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eye’s delight.


                    48

How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not locked up in any chest,
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my breast,
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part,
  And even thence thou wilt be stol’n I fear,
  For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.


                    49

Against that time (if ever that time come)
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Called to that audit by advised respects,
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,
When love converted from the thing it was
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part,
  To leave poor me, thou hast the strength of laws,
  Since why to love, I can allege no cause.


                    50

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek (my weary travel’s end)
Doth teach that case and that repose to say
’Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend.’
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider loved not speed being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side,
  For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
  My grief lies onward and my joy behind.


                    51

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence,
Of my dull bearer, when from thee I speed,
From where thou art, why should I haste me thence?
Till I return of posting is no need.
O what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur though mounted on the wind,
In winged speed no motion shall I know,
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace,
Therefore desire (of perfect’st love being made)
Shall neigh (no dull flesh) in his fiery race,
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade,
  Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,
  Towards thee I’ll run, and give him leave to go.


                    52

So am I as the rich whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since seldom coming in that long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest,
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.
  Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
  Being had to triumph, being lacked to hope.


                    53

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one, hath every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend:
Describe Adonis and the counterfeit,
Is poorly imitated after you,
On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessed shape we know.
  In all external grace you have some part,
  But you like none, none you for constant heart.


                    54

O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour, which doth in it live:
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye,
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses:
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwooed, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so,
Of their sweet deaths, are sweetest odours made:
  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
  When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.


                    55

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war’s quick fire shall burn:
The living record of your memory.
’Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
  So till the judgment that your self arise,
  You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.


                    56

Sweet love renew thy force, be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,
Which but to-day by feeding is allayed,
To-morrow sharpened in his former might.
So love be thou, although to-day thou fill
Thy hungry eyes, even till they wink with fulness,
To-morrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love, with a perpetual dulness:
Let this sad interim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contracted new,
Come daily to the banks, that when they see:
Return of love, more blest may be the view.
  Or call it winter, which being full of care,
  Makes summer’s welcome, thrice more wished, more rare.


                    57

Being your slave what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I (my sovereign) watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought,
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But like a sad slave stay and think of nought
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
  So true a fool is love, that in your will,
  (Though you do any thing) he thinks no ill.


                    58

That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand th’ account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.
O let me suffer (being at your beck)
Th’ imprisoned absence of your liberty,
And patience tame to sufferance bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong,
That you your self may privilage your time
To what you will, to you it doth belong,
Your self to pardon of self-doing crime.
  I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
  Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.


                    59

If there be nothing new, but that which is,
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which labouring for invention bear amis
The second burthen of a former child!
O that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done.
That I might see what the old world could say,
To this composed wonder of your frame,
Whether we are mended, or whether better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
  O sure I am the wits of former days,
  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.


                    60

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end,
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned,
Crooked eclipses ’gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave, doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
  And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.


                    61

Is it thy will, thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,
While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send’st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenure of thy jealousy?
O no, thy love though much, is not so great,
It is my love that keeps mine eye awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
  For thee watch I, whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
  From me far off, with others all too near.


                    62

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account,
And for my self mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me my self indeed
beated and chopt with tanned antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read:
Self, so self-loving were iniquity.
  ’Tis thee (my self) that for my self I praise,
  Painting my age with beauty of thy days.


                    63

Against my love shall be as I am now
With Time’s injurious hand crushed and o’erworn,
When hours have drained his blood and filled his brow
With lines and wrinkles, when his youthful morn
Hath travelled on to age’s steepy night,
And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring:
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life.
  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
  And they shall live, and he in them still green.


                    64

When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.
When I have seen such interchange of State,
Or state it self confounded, to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
  This thought is as a death which cannot choose
  But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.


                    65

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O how shall summer’s honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but time decays?
O fearful meditation, where alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back,
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
  O none, unless this miracle have might,
  That in black ink my love may still shine bright.


                    66

Tired with all these for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill.
  Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
  Save that to die, I leave my love alone.


                    67

Ah wherefore with infection should he live,
And with his presence grace impiety,
That sin by him advantage should achieve,
And lace it self with his society?
Why should false painting imitate his cheek,
And steal dead seeming of his living hue?
Why should poor beauty indirectly seek,
Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?
Why should he live, now nature bankrupt is,
Beggared of blood to blush through lively veins,
For she hath no exchequer now but his,
And proud of many, lives upon his gains?
  O him she stores, to show what wealth she had,
  In days long since, before these last so bad.


                    68

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before these bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow:
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head,
Ere beauty’s dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, it self and true,
Making no summer of another’s green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new,
  And him as for a map doth Nature store,
  To show false Art what beauty was of yore.


                    69

Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view,
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend:
All tongues (the voice of souls) give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crowned,
But those same tongues that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds,
Then churls their thoughts (although their eyes were kind)
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
  But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
  The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.


                    70

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander’s mark was ever yet the fair,
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven’s sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve,
Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present’st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
Either not assailed, or victor being charged,
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged,
  If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.


                    71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay if you read this line, remember not,
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I (perhaps) compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay.
  Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
  And mock you with me after I am gone.


                    72

O lest the world should task you to recite,
What merit lived in me that you should love
After my death (dear love) forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove.
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I,
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me, nor you.
  For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
  And so should you, to love things nothing worth.


                    73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
  This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
  To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.


                    74

But be contented when that fell arrest,
Without all bail shall carry me away,
My life hath in this line some interest,
Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.
When thou reviewest this, thou dost review,
The very part was consecrate to thee,
The earth can have but earth, which is his due,
My spirit is thine the better part of me,
So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,
The prey of worms, my body being dead,
The coward conquest of a wretch’s knife,
Too base of thee to be remembered,
  The worth of that, is that which it contains,
  And that is this, and this with thee remains.


                    75

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then bettered that the world may see my pleasure,
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look,
Possessing or pursuing no delight
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.


                    76

Why is my verse so barren of new pride?
So far from variation or quick change?
Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O know sweet love I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument:
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
  For as the sun is daily new and old,
  So is my love still telling what is told.


                    77

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste,
These vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear,
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.
The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show,
Of mouthed graves will give thee memory,
Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know,
Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
Look what thy memory cannot contain,
Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
  Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.


                    78

So oft have I invoked thee for my muse,
And found such fair assistance in my verse,
As every alien pen hath got my use,
And under thee their poesy disperse.
Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing,
And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,
Have added feathers to the learned’s wing,
And given grace a double majesty.
Yet be most proud of that which I compile,
Whose influence is thine, and born of thee,
In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,
And arts with thy sweet graces graced be.
  But thou art all my art, and dost advance
  As high as learning, my rude ignorance.


                    79

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,
My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,
But now my gracious numbers are decayed,
And my sick muse doth give an other place.
I grant (sweet love) thy lovely argument
Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,
Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent,
He robs thee of, and pays it thee again,
He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word,
From thy behaviour, beauty doth he give
And found it in thy cheek: he can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.
  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,
  Since what he owes thee, thou thy self dost pay.


                    80

O how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame.
But since your worth (wide as the ocean is)
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark (inferior far to his)
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride,
Or (being wrecked) I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride.
  Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
  The worst was this, my love was my decay.


                    81

Or I shall live your epitaph to make,
Or you survive when I in earth am rotten,
From hence your memory death cannot take,
Although in me each part will be forgotten.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have,
Though I (once gone) to all the world must die,
The earth can yield me but a common grave,
When you entombed in men’s eyes shall lie,
Your monument shall be my gentle verse,
Which eyes not yet created shall o’er-read,
And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead,
  You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen)
  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.


                    82

I grant thou wert not married to my muse,
And therefore mayst without attaint o’erlook
The dedicated words which writers use
Of their fair subject, blessing every book.
Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,
Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,
And therefore art enforced to seek anew,
Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days.
And do so love, yet when they have devised,
What strained touches rhetoric can lend,
Thou truly fair, wert truly sympathized,
In true plain words, by thy true-telling friend.
  And their gross painting might be better used,
  Where cheeks need blood, in thee it is abused.


                    83

I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set,
I found (or thought I found) you did exceed,
That barren tender of a poet’s debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you your self being extant well might show,
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory being dumb,
For I impair not beauty being mute,
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes,
  Than both your poets can in praise devise.


                    84

Who is it that says most, which can say more,
Than this rich praise, that you alone, are you?
In whose confine immured is the store,
Which should example where your equal grew.
Lean penury within that pen doth dwell,
That to his subject lends not some small glory,
But he that writes of you, if he can tell,
That you are you, so dignifies his story.
Let him but copy what in you is writ,
Not making worse what nature made so clear,
And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,
Making his style admired every where.
  You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,
  Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.


                    85

My tongue-tied muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compiled,
Reserve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.
I think good thoughts, whilst other write good words,
And like unlettered clerk still cry Amen,
To every hymn that able spirit affords,
In polished form of well refined pen.
Hearing you praised, I say ’tis so, ’tis true,
And to the most of praise add something more,
But that is in my thought, whose love to you
(Though words come hindmost) holds his rank before,
  Then others, for the breath of words respect,
  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.


                    86

Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of (all too precious) you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write,
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?
No, neither he, nor his compeers by night
Giving him aid, my verse astonished.
He nor that affable familiar ghost
Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,
As victors of my silence cannot boast,
I was not sick of any fear from thence.
  But when your countenance filled up his line,
  Then lacked I matter, that enfeebled mine.


                    87

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing:
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting,
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thy self thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking,
So thy great gift upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
  Thus have I had thee as a dream doth flatter,
  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.


                    88

When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side, against my self I’ll fight,
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn:
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults concealed, wherein I am attainted:
That thou in losing me, shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too,
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to my self I do,
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
  Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
  That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.


                    89

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence,
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt:
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not (love) disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I’ll my self disgrace, knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle and look strange:
Be absent from thy walks and in my tongue,
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
Lest I (too much profane) should do it wronk:
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
  For thee, against my self I’ll vow debate,
  For I must ne’er love him whom thou dost hate.


                    90

Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross,
join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah do not, when my heart hath ’scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe,
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come, so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune’s might.
  And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
  Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.


                    91

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,
Some in their garments though new-fangled ill:
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.
And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest,
But these particulars are not my measure,
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ costs,
Of more delight than hawks and horses be:
And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast.
  Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take,
  All this away, and me most wretchcd make.


                    92

But do thy worst to steal thy self away,
For term of life thou art assured mine,
And life no longer than thy love will stay,
For it depends upon that love of thine.
Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,
When in the least of them my life hath end,
I see, a better state to me belongs
Than that, which on thy humour doth depend.
Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,
Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie,
O what a happy title do I find,
Happy to have thy love, happy to die!
  But what’s so blessed-fair that fears no blot?
  Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.


                    93

So shall I live, supposing thou art true,
Like a deceived husband, so love’s face,
May still seem love to me, though altered new:
Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place.
For there can live no hatred in thine eye,
Therefore in that I cannot know thy change,
In many’s looks, the false heart’s history
Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange.
But heaven in thy creation did decree,
That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell,
Whate’er thy thoughts, or thy heart’s workings be,
Thy looks should nothing thence, but sweetness tell.
  How like Eve’s apple doth thy beauty grow,
  If thy sweet virtue answer not thy show.


                    94

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing, they most do show,
Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces,
And husband nature’s riches from expense,
Tibey are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence:
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to it self, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds,
  Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.


                    95

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame,
Which like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!
O in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
(Making lascivious comments on thy sport)
Cannot dispraise, but in a kind of praise,
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
O what a mansion have those vices got,
Which for their habitation chose out thee,
Where beauty’s veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turns to fair, that eyes can see!
  Take heed (dear heart) of this large privilege,
  The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.


                    96

Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness,
Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport,
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
Thou mak’st faults graces, that to thee resort:
As on the finger of a throned queen,
The basest jewel will be well esteemed:
So are those errors that in thee are seen,
To truths translated, and for true things deemed.
How many lambs might the stern wolf betray,
If like a lamb he could his looks translate!
How many gazers mightst thou lead away,
if thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!
  But do not so, I love thee in such sort,
  As thou being mine, mine is thy good report.


                    97

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time removed was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
Like widowed wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute.
  Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,
  That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.


                    98

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April (dressed in all his trim)
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing:
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell:
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:
Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose,
They were but sweet, but figures of delight:
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
  Yet seemed it winter still, and you away,
  As with your shadow I with these did play.


                    99

The forward violet thus did I chide,
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love’s breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft check for complexion dwells,
In my love’s veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol’n thy hair,
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair:
A third nor red, nor white, had stol’n of both,
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,
But for his theft in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death.
  More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
  But sweet, or colour it had stol’n from thee.


                    100

Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent,
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem,
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
If time have any wrinkle graven there,
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make time’s spoils despised everywhere.
  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
  So thou prevent’st his scythe, and crooked knife.


                    101

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends,
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends:
So dost thou too, and therein dignified:
Make answer Muse, wilt thou not haply say,
’Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay:
But best is best, if never intermixed’?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee,
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb:
And to be praised of ages yet to be.
  Then do thy office Muse, I teach thee how,
  To make him seem long hence, as he shows now.


                    102

My love is strengthened though more weak in seeming,
I love not less, though less the show appear,
That love is merchandized, whose rich esteeming,
The owner’s tongue doth publish every where.
Our love was new, and then but in the spring,
When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
As Philomel in summer’s front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burthens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
  Therefore like her, I sometime hold my tongue:
  Because I would not dull you with my song.


                    103

Alack what poverty my muse brings forth,
That having such a scope to show her pride,
The argument all bare is of more worth
Than when it hath my added praise beside.
O blame me not if I no more can write!
Look in your glass and there appears a face,
That over-goes my blunt invention quite,
Dulling my lines, and doing me disgrace.
Were it not sinful then striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?
For to no other pass my verses tend,
Than of your graces and your gifts to tell.
  And more, much more than in my verse can sit,
  Your own glass shows you, when you look in it.


                    104

To me fair friend you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still: three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
Ah yet doth beauty like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived.
  For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred,
  Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.


                    105

Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence,
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words,
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
  Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone.
  Which three till now, never kept seat in one.


                    106

When in the chronicle of wasted time,
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead, and lovely knights,
Then in the blazon of sweet beauty’s best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed,
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring,
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
  For we which now behold these present days,
  Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.


                    107

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul,
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage,
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,
Since spite of him I’ll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o’er dull and speechless tribes.
  And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
  When tyrants’ crests and tombs of brass are spent.


                    108

What’s in the brain that ink may character,
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit,
What’s new to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing sweet boy, but yet like prayers divine,
I must each day say o’er the very same,
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love’s fresh case,
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page,
  Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
  Where time and outward form would show it dead.


                    109

O never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from my self depart,
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love, if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that my self bring water for my stain,
Never believe though in my nature reigned,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good:
  For nothing this wide universe I call,
  Save thou my rose, in it thou art my all.


                    110

Alas ’tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made my self a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new.
Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely: but by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end,
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confined.
  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.


                    111

O for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
That did not better for my life provide,
Than public means which public manners breeds.
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost thence my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:
Pity me then, and wish I were renewed,
Whilst like a willing patient I will drink,
Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection,
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance to correct correction.
  Pity me then dear friend, and I assure ye,
  Even that your pity is enough to cure me.


                    112

Your love and pity doth th’ impression fill,
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow,
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all the world, and I must strive,
To know my shames and praises from your tongue,
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others’ voices, that my adder’s sense,
To critic and to flatterer stopped are:
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense.
  You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
  That all the world besides methinks are dead.


                    113

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,
And that which governs me to go about,
Doth part his function, and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out:
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch,
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:
For if it see the rud’st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed’st creature,
The mountain, or the sea, the day, or night:
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
  Incapable of more, replete with you,
  My most true mind thus maketh mine untrue.


                    114

Or whether doth my mind being crowned with you
Drink up the monarch’s plague this flattery?
Or whether shall I say mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy?
To make of monsters, and things indigest,
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best
As fast as objects to his beams assemble:
O ’tis the first, ’tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up,
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is ’greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup.
  If it be poisoned, ’tis the lesser sin,
  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.


                    115

Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer,
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why,
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer,
But reckoning time, whose millioned accidents
Creep in ’twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp’st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of alt’ring things:
Alas why fearing of time’s tyranny,
Might I not then say ‘Now I love you best,’
When I was certain o’er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
  Love is a babe, then might I not say so
  To give full growth to that which still doth grow.


                    116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
  If this be error and upon me proved,
  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


                    117

Accuse me thus, that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day,
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchased right,
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise, accumulate,
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate:
  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
  The constancy and virtue of your love.


                    118

Like as to make our appetite more keen
With eager compounds we our palate urge,
As to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge.
Even so being full of your ne’er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And sick of welfare found a kind of meetness,
To be diseased ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love t’ anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which rank of goodness would by ill be cured.
  But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
  Drugs poison him that so feil sick of you.


                    119

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw my self to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought it self so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill, now I find true
That better is, by evil still made better.
And ruined love when it is built anew
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
  So I return rebuked to my content,
  And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.


                    120

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken
As I by yours, y’have passed a hell of time,
And I a tyrant have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me then tendered
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
  But that your trespass now becomes a fee,
  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.


                    121

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be, receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,
Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing.
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses, reckon up their own,
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown
  Unless this general evil they maintain,
  All men are bad and in their badness reign.


                    122

Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date even to eternity.
Or at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist,
Till each to razed oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed:
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score,
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more:
  To keep an adjunct to remember thee
  Were to import forgetfulness in me.


                    123

No! Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change,
Thy pyramids built up with newer might
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange,
They are but dressings Of a former sight:
Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire,
What thou dost foist upon us that is old,
And rather make them born to our desire,
Than think that we before have heard them told:
Thy registers and thee I both defy,
Not wond’ring at the present, nor the past,
For thy records, and what we see doth lie,
Made more or less by thy continual haste:
  This I do vow and this shall ever be,
  I will be true despite thy scythe and thee.


                    124

If my dear love were but the child of state,
It might for Fortune’s bastard be unfathered,
As subject to time’s love or to time’s hate,
Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gathered.
No it was builded far from accident,
It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls
Under the blow of thralled discontent,
Whereto th’ inviting time our fashion calls:
It fears not policy that heretic,
Which works on leases of short-numbered hours,
But all alone stands hugely politic,
That it nor grows with heat, nor drowns with showers.
  To this I witness call the fools of time,
  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.


                    125

Were’t aught to me I bore the canopy,
With my extern the outward honouring,
Or laid great bases for eternity,
Which proves more short than waste or ruining?
Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour
Lose all, and more by paying too much rent
For compound sweet; forgoing simple savour,
Pitiful thrivers in their gazing spent?
No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,
And take thou my oblation, poor but free,
Which is not mixed with seconds, knows no art,
But mutual render, only me for thee.
  Hence, thou suborned informer, a true soul
  When most impeached, stands least in thy control.


                    126

O thou my lovely boy who in thy power,
Dost hold Time’s fickle glass his fickle hour:
Who hast by waning grown, and therein show’st,
Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self grow’st.
If Nature (sovereign mistress over wrack)
As thou goest onwards still will pluck thee back,
She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill
May time disgrace, and wretched minutes kill.
Yet fear her O thou minion of her pleasure,
She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!
  Her audit (though delayed) answered must be,
  And her quietus is to render thee.


                    127

In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were it bore not beauty’s name:
But now is black beauty’s successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame,
For since each hand hath put on nature’s power,
Fairing the foul with art’s false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem,
At such who not born fair no beauty lack,
Slandering creation with a false esteem,
  Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
  That every tongue says beauty should look so.


                    128

How oft when thou, my music, music play’st,
Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st
The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,
Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap,
To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,
Whilst my poor lips which should that harvest reap,
At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand.
To be so tickled they would change their state
And situation with those dancing chips,
O’er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,
Making dead wood more blest than living lips,
  Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,
  Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.


                    129

Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest, to have extreme,
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe,
Before a joy proposed behind a dream.
  All this the world well knows yet none knows well,
  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.


                    130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
  And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
  As any she belied with false compare.


                    131

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,
As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;
For well thou know’st to my dear doting heart
Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.
Yet in good faith some say that thee behold,
Thy face hath not the power to make love groan;
To say they err, I dare not be so bold,
Although I swear it to my self alone.
And to be sure that is not false I swear,
A thousand groans but thinking on thy face,
One on another’s neck do witness bear
Thy black is fairest in my judgment’s place.
  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,
  And thence this slander as I think proceeds.


                    132

Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black, and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even
Doth half that glory to the sober west
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
  Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
  And all they foul that thy complexion lack.


                    133

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan
For that deep wound it gives my friend and me;
Is’t not enough to torture me alone,
But slave to slavery my sweet’st friend must be?
Me from my self thy cruel eye hath taken,
And my next self thou harder hast engrossed,
Of him, my self, and thee I am forsaken,
A torment thrice three-fold thus to be crossed:
Prison my heart in thy steel bosom’s ward,
But then my friend’s heart let my poor heart bail,
Whoe’er keeps me, let my heart be his guard,
Thou canst not then use rigour in my gaol.
  And yet thou wilt, for I being pent in thee,
  Perforce am thine and all that is in me.


                    134

So now I have confessed that he is thine,
And I my self am mortgaged to thy will,
My self I’ll forfeit, so that other mine,
Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still:
But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,
For thou art covetous, and he is kind,
He learned but surety-like to write for me,
Under that bond that him as fist doth bind.
The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,
Thou usurer that put’st forth all to use,
And sue a friend, came debtor for my sake,
So him I lose through my unkind abuse.
  Him have I lost, thou hast both him and me,
  He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.


                    135

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will,
And Will to boot, and Will in overplus,
More than enough am I that vex thee still,
To thy sweet will making addition thus.
Wilt thou whose will is large and spacious,
Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?
Shall will in others seem right gracious,
And in my will no fair acceptance shine?
The sea all water, yet receives rain still,
And in abundance addeth to his store,
So thou being rich in will add to thy will
One will of mine to make thy large will more.
  Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill,
  Think all but one, and me in that one Will.


                    136

If thy soul check thee that I come so near,
Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy Will,
And will thy soul knows is admitted there,
Thus far for love, my love-suit sweet fulfil.
Will will fulfil the treasure of thy love,
Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one,
In things of great receipt with case we prove,
Among a number one is reckoned none.
Then in the number let me pass untold,
Though in thy store’s account I one must be,
For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold,
That nothing me, a something sweet to thee.
  Make but my name thy love, and love that still,
  And then thou lov’st me for my name is Will.


                    137

Thou blind fool Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
That they behold and see not what they see?
They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
Yet what the best is, take the worst to be.
If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes’ falsehood hast thou forged hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?
Why should my heart think that a several plot,
Which my heart knows the wide world’s common place?
Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?
  In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,
  And to this false plague are they now transferred.


                    138

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue,
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told.
  Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
  And in our faults by lies we flattered be.


                    139

O call not me to justify the wrong,
That thy unkindness lays upon my heart,
Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue,
Use power with power, and slay me not by art,
Tell me thou lov’st elsewhere; but in my sight,
Dear heart forbear to glance thine eye aside,
What need’st thou wound with cunning when thy might
Is more than my o’erpressed defence can bide?
Let me excuse thee, ah my love well knows,
Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,
And therefore from my face she turns my foes,
That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:
  Yet do not so, but since I am near slain,
  Kill me outright with looks, and rid my pain.


                    140

Be wise as thou art cruel, do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain:
Lest sorrow lend me words and words express,
The manner of my pity-wanting pain.
If I might teach thee wit better it were,
Though not to love, yet love to tell me so,
As testy sick men when their deaths be near,
No news but health from their physicians know.
For if I should despair I should grow mad,
And in my madness might speak ill of thee,
Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,
Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be.
  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,
  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.


                    141

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note,
But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine cars with thy tongue’s tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits, nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be:
  Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
  That she that makes me sin, awards me pain.


                    142

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,
O but with mine, compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving,
Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profaned their scarlet ornaments,
And sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robbed others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee as thou lov’st those,
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee,
Root pity in thy heart that when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
  By self-example mayst thou be denied.


                    143

Lo as a careful huswife runs to catch,
One of her feathered creatures broke away,
Sets down her babe and makes all swift dispatch
In pursuit of the thing she would have stay:
Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,
Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent,
To follow that which flies before her face:
Not prizing her poor infant’s discontent;
So run’st thou after that which flies from thee,
Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind,
But if thou catch thy hope turn back to me:
And play the mother’s part, kiss me, be kind.
  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy Will,
  If thou turn back and my loud crying still.


                    144

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still,
The better angel is a man right fair:
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell my female evil,
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil:
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turned fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
  Yet this shall I ne’er know but live in doubt,
  Till my bad angel fire my good one out.


                    145

Those lips that Love’s own hand did make,
Breathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate’,
To me that languished for her sake:
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet,
Was used in giving gentle doom:
And taught it thus anew to greet:
‘I hate’ she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day,
Doth follow night who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
  ‘I hate’, from hate away she threw,
  And saved my life saying ‘not you’.


                    146

Poor soul the centre of my sinful earth,
My sinful earth these rebel powers array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms inheritors of this excess
Eat up thy charge? is this thy body’s end?
Then soul live thou upon thy servant’s loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more,
  So shall thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
  And death once dead, there’s no more dying then.


                    147

My love is as a fever longing still,
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th’ uncertain sickly appetite to please:
My reason the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest,
My thoughts and my discourse as mad men’s are,
At random from the truth vainly expressed.
  For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
  Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.


                    148

O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight,
Or if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote,
Love’s eye is not so true as all men’s: no,
How can it? O how can love’s eye be true,
That is so vexed with watching and with tears?
No marvel then though I mistake my view,
The sun it self sees not, till heaven clears.
  O cunning love, with tears thou keep’st me blind,
  Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.


                    149

Canst thou O cruel, say I love thee not,
When I against my self with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee when I forgot
Am of my self, all-tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend,
On whom frown’st thou that I do fawn upon,
Nay if thou lour’st on me do I not spend
Revenge upon my self with present moan?
What merit do I in my self respect,
That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?
  But love hate on for now I know thy mind,
  Those that can see thou lov’st, and I am blind.


                    150

O from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway,
To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,
That in the very refuse of thy deeds,
There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou shouldst not abhor my state.
  If thy unworthiness raised love in me,
  More worthy I to be beloved of thee.


                    151

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then gentle cheater urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove.
For thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body’s treason,
My soul doth tell my body that he may,
Triumph in love, flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize, proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
  No want of conscience hold it that I call,
  Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.


                    152

In loving thee thou know’st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn to me love swearing,
In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oaths’ breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjured most,
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee:
And all my honest faith in thee is lost.
For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness:
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,
And to enlighten thee gave eyes to blindness,
Or made them swear against the thing they see.
  For I have sworn thee fair: more perjured I,
  To swear against the truth so foul a be.


                    153

Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep,
A maid of Dian’s this advantage found,
And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep
In a cold valley-fountain of that ground:
Which borrowed from this holy fire of Love,
A dateless lively heat still to endure,
And grew a seeting bath which yet men prove,
Against strange maladies a sovereign cure:
But at my mistress’ eye Love’s brand new-fired,
The boy for trial needs would touch my breast,
I sick withal the help of bath desired,
And thither hied a sad distempered guest.
  But found no cure, the bath for my help lies,
  Where Cupid got new fire; my mistress’ eyes.


                    154

The little Love-god lying once asleep,
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vowed chaste life to keep,
Came tripping by, but in her maiden hand,
The fairest votary took up that fire,
Which many legions of true hearts had warmed,
And so the general of hot desire,
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarmed.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy,
For men discased, but I my mistress’ thrall,
  Came there for cure and this by that I prove,
  Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.


THE END




ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

Dramatis Personae

  KING OF FRANCE
  THE DUKE OF FLORENCE
  BERTRAM, Count of Rousillon
  LAFEU, an old lord
  PAROLLES, a follower of Bertram
  TWO FRENCH LORDS, serving with Bertram

  STEWARD, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon
  LAVACHE, a clown and Servant to the Countess of Rousillon
  A PAGE, Servant to the Countess of Rousillon

  COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, mother to Bertram
  HELENA, a gentlewoman protected by the Countess
  A WIDOW OF FLORENCE.
  DIANA, daughter to the Widow

 VIOLENTA, neighbour and friend to the Widow
  MARIANA, neighbour and friend to the Widow

  Lords, Officers, Soldiers, etc., French and Florentine

SCENE: Rousillon; Paris; Florence; Marseilles

ACT I. SCENE 1. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter BERTRAM, the COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, HELENA, and LAFEU, all in
black

  COUNTESS. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.
  BERTRAM. And I in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew;
    but I must attend his Majesty's command, to whom I am now in
    ward, evermore in subjection.
  LAFEU. You shall find of the King a husband, madam; you, sir, a
    father. He that so generally is at all times good must of
    necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir it
    up where it wanted, rather than lack it where there is such
    abundance.
  COUNTESS. What hope is there of his Majesty's amendment?
  LAFEU. He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose
    practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other
    advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.
  COUNTESS. This young gentlewoman had a father- O, that 'had,' how
    sad a passage 'tis!-whose skill was almost as great as his
    honesty; had it stretch'd so far, would have made nature
    immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would, for
    the King's sake, he were living! I think it would be the death of
    the King's disease.
  LAFEU. How call'd you the man you speak of, madam?
  COUNTESS. He was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his
    great right to be so- Gerard de Narbon.
  LAFEU. He was excellent indeed, madam; the King very lately spoke
    of him admiringly and mourningly; he was skilful enough to have
    liv'd still, if knowledge could be set up against mortality.
  BERTRAM. What is it, my good lord, the King languishes of?
  LAFEU. A fistula, my lord.
  BERTRAM. I heard not of it before.
  LAFEU. I would it were not notorious. Was this gentlewoman the
    daughter of Gerard de Narbon?
  COUNTESS. His sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my
    overlooking. I have those hopes of her good that her education
    promises; her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts
    fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous qualities,
    there commendations go with pity-they are virtues and traitors
    too. In her they are the better for their simpleness; she derives
    her honesty, and achieves her goodness.
  LAFEU. Your commendations, madam, get from her tears.
  COUNTESS. 'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.
    The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the
    tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood from her cheek. No
    more of this, Helena; go to, no more, lest it be rather thought
    you affect a sorrow than to have-
  HELENA. I do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.
  LAFEU. Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead: excessive
    grief the enemy to the living.
  COUNTESS. If the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it
    soon mortal.
  BERTRAM. Madam, I desire your holy wishes.
  LAFEU. How understand we that?
  COUNTESS. Be thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father
    In manners, as in shape! Thy blood and virtue
    Contend for empire in thee, and thy goodness
    Share with thy birthright! Love all, trust a few,
    Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy
    Rather in power than use, and keep thy friend
    Under thy own life's key; be check'd for silence,
    But never tax'd for speech. What heaven more will,
    That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
    Fall on thy head! Farewell. My lord,
    'Tis an unseason'd courtier; good my lord,
    Advise him.
  LAFEU. He cannot want the best
    That shall attend his love.
  COUNTESS. Heaven bless him! Farewell, Bertram.            Exit
  BERTRAM. The best wishes that can be forg'd in your thoughts be
    servants to you!  [To HELENA]  Be comfortable to my mother, your
    mistress, and make much of her.
  LAFEU. Farewell, pretty lady; you must hold the credit of your
    father.                             Exeunt BERTRAM and LAFEU
  HELENA. O, were that all! I think not on my father;
    And these great tears grace his remembrance more
    Than those I shed for him. What was he like?
    I have forgot him; my imagination
    Carries no favour in't but Bertram's.
    I am undone; there is no living, none,
    If Bertram be away. 'Twere all one
    That I should love a bright particular star
    And think to wed it, he is so above me.
    In his bright radiance and collateral light
    Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
    Th' ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
    The hind that would be mated by the lion
    Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague,
    To see him every hour; to sit and draw
    His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
    In our heart's table-heart too capable
    Of every line and trick of his sweet favour.
    But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
    Must sanctify his relics. Who comes here?

                       Enter PAROLLES

    [Aside]  One that goes with him. I love him for his sake;
    And yet I know him a notorious liar,
    Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
    Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him
    That they take place when virtue's steely bones
    Looks bleak i' th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see
    Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
  PAROLLES. Save you, fair queen!
  HELENA. And you, monarch!
  PAROLLES. No.
  HELENA. And no.
  PAROLLES. Are you meditating on virginity?
  HELENA. Ay. You have some stain of soldier in you; let me ask you a
    question. Man is enemy to virginity; how may we barricado it
    against him?
  PAROLLES. Keep him out.
  HELENA. But he assails; and our virginity, though valiant in the
    defence, yet is weak. Unfold to us some warlike resistance.
  PAROLLES. There is none. Man, setting down before you, will
    undermine you and blow you up.
  HELENA. Bless our poor virginity from underminers and blowers-up!
    Is there no military policy how virgins might blow up men?
  PAROLLES. Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown
    up; marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves
     made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth
    of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational
    increase; and there was never virgin got till virginity was first
    lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity
    by being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it
    is ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion; away with't.
  HELENA. I will stand for 't a little, though therefore I die a
    virgin.
  PAROLLES. There's little can be said in 't; 'tis against the rule
    of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to accuse your
    mothers; which is most infallible disobedience. He that hangs
    himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself, and should be
    buried in highways, out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate
    offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a
    cheese; consumes itself to the very paring, and so dies with
    feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud,
    idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the
    canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose but lose by't. Out with't.
    Within ten year it will make itself ten, which is a goodly
    increase; and the principal itself not much the worse. Away
    with't.
  HELENA. How might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?
  PAROLLES. Let me see. Marry, ill to like him that ne'er it likes.
    'Tis a commodity will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept,
    the less worth. Off with't while 'tis vendible; answer the time
    of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of
    fashion, richly suited but unsuitable; just like the brooch and
    the toothpick, which wear not now. Your date is better in your
    pie and your porridge than in your cheek. And your virginity,
    your old virginity, is like one of our French wither'd pears: it
    looks ill, it eats drily; marry, 'tis a wither'd pear; it was
    formerly better; marry, yet 'tis a wither'd pear. Will you
    anything with it?
  HELENA. Not my virginity yet.
    There shall your master have a thousand loves,
    A mother, and a mistress, and a friend,
    A phoenix, captain, and an enemy,
    A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,
    A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear;
    His humble ambition, proud humility,
    His jarring concord, and his discord dulcet,
    His faith, his sweet disaster; with a world
    Of pretty, fond, adoptious christendoms
    That blinking Cupid gossips. Now shall he-
    I know not what he shall. God send him well!
    The court's a learning-place, and he is one-
  PAROLLES. What one, i' faith?
  HELENA. That I wish well. 'Tis pity-
  PAROLLES. What's pity?
  HELENA. That wishing well had not a body in't
    Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born,
    Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes,
    Might with effects of them follow our friends
    And show what we alone must think, which never
    Returns us thanks.

                      Enter PAGE

  PAGE. Monsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.      Exit PAGE
  PAROLLES. Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will
    think of thee at court.
  HELENA. Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.
  PAROLLES. Under Mars, I.
  HELENA. I especially think, under Mars.
  PAROLLES. Why under Man?
  HELENA. The wars hath so kept you under that you must needs be born
    under Mars.
  PAROLLES. When he was predominant.
  HELENA. When he was retrograde, I think, rather.
  PAROLLES. Why think you so?
  HELENA. You go so much backward when you fight.
  PAROLLES. That's for advantage.
  HELENA. So is running away, when fear proposes the safety: but the
    composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of
    a good wing, and I like the wear well.
  PAROLLES. I am so full of business I cannot answer thee acutely. I
    will return perfect courtier; in the which my instruction shall
    serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier's
    counsel, and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else
    thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes
    thee away. Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers;
    when thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good
    husband and use him as he uses thee. So, farewell.
 Exit
  HELENA. Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
    Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky
    Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull
    Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
    What power is it which mounts my love so high,
    That makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?
    The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
    To join like likes, and kiss like native things.
    Impossible be strange attempts to those
    That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose
    What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove
    To show her merit that did miss her love?
    The King's disease-my project may deceive me,
    But my intents are fix'd, and will not leave me.        Exit

ACT I. SCENE 2. Paris. The KING'S palace

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING OF FRANCE, with letters, and divers
ATTENDANTS

  KING. The Florentines and Senoys are by th' ears;
    Have fought with equal fortune, and continue
    A braving war.
  FIRST LORD. So 'tis reported, sir.
  KING. Nay, 'tis most credible. We here receive it,
    A certainty, vouch'd from our cousin Austria,
    With caution, that the Florentine will move us
    For speedy aid; wherein our dearest friend
    Prejudicates the business, and would seem
    To have us make denial.
  FIRST LORD. His love and wisdom,
    Approv'd so to your Majesty, may plead
    For amplest credence.
  KING. He hath arm'd our answer,
    And Florence is denied before he comes;
    Yet, for our gentlemen that mean to see
    The Tuscan service, freely have they leave
    To stand on either part.
  SECOND LORD. It well may serve
    A nursery to our gentry, who are sick
    For breathing and exploit.
  KING. What's he comes here?

              Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

  FIRST LORD. It is the Count Rousillon, my good lord,
    Young Bertram.
  KING. Youth, thou bear'st thy father's face;
    Frank nature, rather curious than in haste,
    Hath well compos'd thee. Thy father's moral parts
    Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.
  BERTRAM. My thanks and duty are your Majesty's.
  KING. I would I had that corporal soundness now,
    As when thy father and myself in friendship
    First tried our soldiership. He did look far
    Into the service of the time, and was
    Discipled of the bravest. He lasted long;
    But on us both did haggish age steal on,
    And wore us out of act. It much repairs me
    To talk of your good father. In his youth
    He had the wit which I can well observe
    To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
    Till their own scorn return to them unnoted
    Ere they can hide their levity in honour.
    So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
    Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
    His equal had awak'd them; and his honour,
    Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
    Exception bid him speak, and at this time
    His tongue obey'd his hand. Who were below him
    He us'd as creatures of another place;
    And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
    Making them proud of his humility
    In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
    Might be a copy to these younger times;
    Which, followed well, would demonstrate them now
    But goers backward.
  BERTRAM. His good remembrance, sir,
    Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb;
    So in approof lives not his epitaph
    As in your royal speech.
  KING. Would I were with him! He would always say-
    Methinks I hear him now; his plausive words
    He scatter'd not in ears, but grafted them
    To grow there, and to bear- 'Let me not live'-
    This his good melancholy oft began,
    On the catastrophe and heel of pastime,
    When it was out-'Let me not live' quoth he
    'After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff
    Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive senses
    All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
    Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
    Expire before their fashions.' This he wish'd.
    I, after him, do after him wish too,
    Since I nor wax nor honey can bring home,
    I quickly were dissolved from my hive,
    To give some labourers room.
  SECOND LORD. You're loved, sir;
    They that least lend it you shall lack you first.
  KING. I fill a place, I know't. How long is't, Count,
    Since the physician at your father's died?
    He was much fam'd.
  BERTRAM. Some six months since, my lord.
  KING. If he were living, I would try him yet-
    Lend me an arm-the rest have worn me out
    With several applications. Nature and sickness
    Debate it at their leisure. Welcome, Count;
    My son's no dearer.
  BERTRAM. Thank your Majesty.                 Exeunt [Flourish]

ACT I. SCENE 3. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS, STEWARD, and CLOWN

  COUNTESS. I will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?
  STEWARD. Madam, the care I have had to even your content I wish
    might be found in the calendar of my past endeavours; for then we
    wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness of our deservings,
    when of ourselves we publish them.
  COUNTESS. What does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah. The
    complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe; 'tis my
    slowness that I do not, for I know you lack not folly to commit
    them and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.
  CLOWN. 'Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor fellow.
  COUNTESS. Well, sir.
  CLOWN. No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of
    the rich are damn'd; but if I may have your ladyship's good will
    to go to the world, Isbel the woman and I will do as we may.
  COUNTESS. Wilt thou needs be a beggar?
  CLOWN. I do beg your good will in this case.
  COUNTESS. In what case?
  CLOWN. In Isbel's case and mine own. Service is no heritage; and I
    think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue o'
    my body; for they say bames are blessings.
  COUNTESS. Tell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.
  CLOWN. My poor body, madam, requires it. I am driven on by the
    flesh; and he must needs go that the devil drives.
  COUNTESS. Is this all your worship's reason?
  CLOWN. Faith, madam, I have other holy reasons, such as they are.
  COUNTESS. May the world know them?
  CLOWN. I have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh
    and blood are; and, indeed, I do marry that I may repent.
  COUNTESS. Thy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.
  CLOWN. I am out o' friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for
    my wife's sake.
  COUNTESS. Such friends are thine enemies, knave.
  CLOWN. Y'are shallow, madam-in great friends; for the knaves come
    to do that for me which I am aweary of. He that ears my land
    spares my team, and gives me leave to in the crop. If I be his
    cuckold, he's my drudge. He that comforts my wife is the
    cherisher of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and
    blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood
    is my friend; ergo, he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men
    could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in
    marriage; for young Charbon the puritan and old Poysam the
    papist, howsome'er their hearts are sever'd in religion, their
    heads are both one; they may jowl horns together like any deer
    i' th' herd.
  COUNTESS. Wilt thou ever be a foul-mouth'd and calumnious knave?
  CLOWN. A prophet I, madam; and I speak the truth the next way:

              For I the ballad will repeat,
                Which men full true shall find:
              Your marriage comes by destiny,
                Your cuckoo sings by kind.

  COUNTESS. Get you gone, sir; I'll talk with you more anon.
  STEWARD. May it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you.
    Of her I am to speak.
  COUNTESS. Sirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her; Helen
    I mean.
  CLOWN.  [Sings]

               'Was this fair face the cause' quoth she
                 'Why the Grecians sacked Troy?
               Fond done, done fond,
                 Was this King Priam's joy?'
               With that she sighed as she stood,
               With that she sighed as she stood,
                 And gave this sentence then:
               'Among nine bad if one be good,
               Among nine bad if one be good,
                 There's yet one good in ten.'

  COUNTESS. What, one good in ten? You corrupt the song, sirrah.
  CLOWN. One good woman in ten, madam, which is a purifying o' th'
    song. Would God would serve the world so all the year! We'd find
    no fault with the tithe-woman, if I were the parson. One in ten,
    quoth 'a! An we might have a good woman born before every blazing
    star, or at an earthquake, 'twould mend the lottery well: a man
    may draw his heart out ere 'a pluck one.
  COUNTESS. You'll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you.
  CLOWN. That man should be at woman's command, and yet no hurt done!
    Though honesty be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt; it will
    wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart.
    I am going, forsooth. The business is for Helen to come hither.
 Exit
  COUNTESS. Well, now.
  STEWARD. I know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.
  COUNTESS. Faith I do. Her father bequeath'd her to me; and she
    herself, without other advantage, may lawfully make title to as
    much love as she finds. There is more owing her than is paid; and
    more shall be paid her than she'll demand.
  STEWARD. Madam, I was very late more near her than I think she
    wish'd me. Alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own
    words to her own ears; she thought, I dare vow for her, they
    touch'd not any stranger sense. Her matter was, she loved your
    son. Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such
    difference betwixt their two estates; Love no god, that would not
    extend his might only where qualities were level; Diana no queen
    of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surpris'd without
    rescue in the first assault, or ransom afterward. This she
    deliver'd in the most bitter touch of sorrow that e'er I heard
    virgin exclaim in; which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you
    withal; sithence, in the loss that may happen, it concerns you
    something to know it.
  COUNTESS. YOU have discharg'd this honestly; keep it to yourself.
    Many likelihoods inform'd me of this before, which hung so
    tott'ring in the balance that I could neither believe nor
    misdoubt. Pray you leave me. Stall this in your bosom; and I
    thank you for your honest care. I will speak with you further
    anon.                                           Exit STEWARD

                            Enter HELENA

    Even so it was with me when I was young.
    If ever we are nature's, these are ours; this thorn
    Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong;
    Our blood to us, this to our blood is born.
    It is the show and seal of nature's truth,
    Where love's strong passion is impress'd in youth.
    By our remembrances of days foregone,
    Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
    Her eye is sick on't; I observe her now.
  HELENA. What is your pleasure, madam?
  COUNTESS. You know, Helen,
    I am a mother to you.
  HELENA. Mine honourable mistress.
  COUNTESS. Nay, a mother.
    Why not a mother? When I said 'a mother,'
    Methought you saw a serpent. What's in 'mother'
    That you start at it? I say I am your mother,
    And put you in the catalogue of those
    That were enwombed mine. 'Tis often seen
    Adoption strives with nature, and choice breeds
    A native slip to us from foreign seeds.
    You ne'er oppress'd me with a mother's groan,
    Yet I express to you a mother's care.
    God's mercy, maiden! does it curd thy blood
    To say I am thy mother? What's the matter,
    That this distempered messenger of wet,
    The many-colour'd Iris, rounds thine eye?
    Why, that you are my daughter?
  HELENA. That I am not.
  COUNTESS. I say I am your mother.
  HELENA. Pardon, madam.
    The Count Rousillon cannot be my brother:
    I am from humble, he from honoured name;
    No note upon my parents, his all noble.
    My master, my dear lord he is; and I
    His servant live, and will his vassal die.
    He must not be my brother.
  COUNTESS. Nor I your mother?
  HELENA. You are my mother, madam; would you were-
    So that my lord your son were not my brother-
    Indeed my mother! Or were you both our mothers,
    I care no more for than I do for heaven,
    So I were not his sister. Can't no other,
    But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?
  COUNTESS. Yes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.
    God shield you mean it not! 'daughter' and 'mother'
    So strive upon your pulse. What! pale again?
    My fear hath catch'd your fondness. Now I see
    The myst'ry of your loneliness, and find
    Your salt tears' head. Now to all sense 'tis gross
    You love my son; invention is asham'd,
    Against the proclamation of thy passion,
    To say thou dost not. Therefore tell me true;
    But tell me then, 'tis so; for, look, thy cheeks
    Confess it, th' one to th' other; and thine eyes
    See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours
    That in their kind they speak it; only sin
    And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,
    That truth should be suspected. Speak, is't so?
    If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew;
    If it be not, forswear't; howe'er, I charge thee,
    As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,
    To tell me truly.
  HELENA. Good madam, pardon me.
  COUNTESS. Do you love my son?
  HELENA. Your pardon, noble mistress.
  COUNTESS. Love you my son?
  HELENA. Do not you love him, madam?
  COUNTESS. Go not about; my love hath in't a bond
    Whereof the world takes note. Come, come, disclose
    The state of your affection; for your passions
    Have to the full appeach'd.
  HELENA. Then I confess,
    Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,
    That before you, and next unto high heaven,
    I love your son.
    My friends were poor, but honest; so's my love.
    Be not offended, for it hurts not him
    That he is lov'd of me; I follow him not
    By any token of presumptuous suit,
    Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
    Yet never know how that desert should be.
    I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
    Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
    I still pour in the waters of my love,
    And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,
    Religious in mine error, I adore
    The sun that looks upon his worshipper
    But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
    Let not your hate encounter with my love,
    For loving where you do; but if yourself,
    Whose aged honour cites a virtuous youth,
    Did ever in so true a flame of liking
    Wish chastely and love dearly that your Dian
    Was both herself and Love; O, then, give pity
    To her whose state is such that cannot choose
    But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
    That seeks not to find that her search implies,
    But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies!
  COUNTESS. Had you not lately an intent-speak truly-
    To go to Paris?
  HELENA. Madam, I had.
  COUNTESS. Wherefore? Tell true.
  HELENA. I will tell truth; by grace itself I swear.
    You know my father left me some prescriptions
    Of rare and prov'd effects, such as his reading
    And manifest experience had collected
    For general sovereignty; and that he will'd me
    In heedfull'st reservation to bestow them,
    As notes whose faculties inclusive were
    More than they were in note. Amongst the rest
    There is a remedy, approv'd, set down,
    To cure the desperate languishings whereof
    The King is render'd lost.
  COUNTESS. This was your motive
    For Paris, was it? Speak.
  HELENA. My lord your son made me to think of this,
    Else Paris, and the medicine, and the King,
    Had from the conversation of my thoughts
    Haply been absent then.
  COUNTESS. But think you, Helen,
    If you should tender your supposed aid,
    He would receive it? He and his physicians
    Are of a mind: he, that they cannot help him;
    They, that they cannot help. How shall they credit
    A poor unlearned virgin, when the schools,
    Embowell'd of their doctrine, have let off
    The danger to itself?
  HELENA. There's something in't
    More than my father's skill, which was the great'st
    Of his profession, that his good receipt
    Shall for my legacy be sanctified
    By th' luckiest stars in heaven; and, would your honour
    But give me leave to try success, I'd venture
    The well-lost life of mine on his Grace's cure.
    By such a day and hour.
  COUNTESS. Dost thou believe't?
  HELENA. Ay, madam, knowingly.
  COUNTESS. Why, Helen, thou shalt have my leave and love,
    Means and attendants, and my loving greetings
    To those of mine in court. I'll stay at home,
    And pray God's blessing into thy attempt.
    Be gone to-morrow; and be sure of this,
    What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.          Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 1. Paris. The KING'S palace

Flourish of cornets. Enter the KING with divers young LORDS taking
leave for the Florentine war; BERTRAM and PAROLLES; ATTENDANTS

  KING. Farewell, young lords; these war-like principles
    Do not throw from you. And you, my lords, farewell;
    Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all,
    The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis receiv'd,
    And is enough for both.
  FIRST LORD. 'Tis our hope, sir,
    After well-ent'red soldiers, to return
    And find your Grace in health.
  KING. No, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart
    Will not confess he owes the malady
    That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords;
    Whether I live or die, be you the sons
    Of worthy Frenchmen; let higher Italy-
    Those bated that inherit but the fall
    Of the last monarchy-see that you come
    Not to woo honour, but to wed it; when
    The bravest questant shrinks, find what you seek,
    That fame may cry you aloud. I say farewell.
  SECOND LORD. Health, at your bidding, serve your Majesty!
  KING. Those girls of Italy, take heed of them;
    They say our French lack language to deny,
    If they demand; beware of being captives
    Before you serve.
    BOTH. Our hearts receive your warnings.
  KING. Farewell.  [To ATTENDANTS]  Come hither to me.
                                       The KING retires attended
  FIRST LORD. O my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us!
  PAROLLES. 'Tis not his fault, the spark.
    SECOND LORD. O, 'tis brave wars!
  PAROLLES. Most admirable! I have seen those wars.
  BERTRAM. I am commanded here and kept a coil with
    'Too young' and next year' and "Tis too early.'
  PAROLLES. An thy mind stand to 't, boy, steal away bravely.
  BERTRAM. I shall stay here the forehorse to a smock,
    Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,
    Till honour be bought up, and no sword worn
    But one to dance with. By heaven, I'll steal away.
  FIRST LORD. There's honour in the theft.
  PAROLLES. Commit it, Count.
  SECOND LORD. I am your accessary; and so farewell.
  BERTRAM. I grow to you, and our parting is a tortur'd body.
  FIRST LORD. Farewell, Captain.
  SECOND LORD. Sweet Monsieur Parolles!
  PAROLLES. Noble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and
    lustrous, a word, good metals: you shall find in the regiment of
    the Spinii one Captain Spurio, with his cicatrice, an emblem of
    war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword
    entrench'd it. Say to him I live; and observe his reports for me.
  FIRST LORD. We shall, noble Captain.
  PAROLLES. Mars dote on you for his novices!       Exeunt LORDS
    What will ye do?

                            Re-enter the KING

  BERTRAM. Stay; the King!
  PAROLLES. Use a more spacious ceremony to the noble lords; you have
    restrain'd yourself within the list of too cold an adieu. Be more
    expressive to them; for they wear themselves in the cap of the
    time; there do muster true gait; eat, speak, and move, under the
    influence of the most receiv'd star; and though the devil lead
    the measure, such are to be followed. After them, and take a more
    dilated farewell.
  BERTRAM. And I will do so.
  PAROLLES. Worthy fellows; and like to prove most sinewy sword-men.
                                     Exeunt BERTRAM and PAROLLES

                              Enter LAFEU

  LAFEU.  [Kneeling]  Pardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.
  KING. I'll fee thee to stand up.
  LAFEU. Then here's a man stands that has brought his pardon.
    I would you had kneel'd, my lord, to ask me mercy;
    And that at my bidding you could so stand up.
  KING. I would I had; so I had broke thy pate,
    And ask'd thee mercy for't.
  LAFEU. Good faith, across!
    But, my good lord, 'tis thus: will you be cur'd
    Of your infirmity?
  KING. No.
  LAFEU. O, will you eat
    No grapes, my royal fox? Yes, but you will
    My noble grapes, an if my royal fox
    Could reach them: I have seen a medicine
    That's able to breathe life into a stone,
    Quicken a rock, and make you dance canary
    With spritely fire and motion; whose simple touch
    Is powerful to araise King Pepin, nay,
    To give great Charlemain a pen in's hand
    And write to her a love-line.
  KING. What her is this?
  LAFEU. Why, Doctor She! My lord, there's one arriv'd,
    If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,
    If seriously I may convey my thoughts
    In this my light deliverance, I have spoke
    With one that in her sex, her years, profession,
    Wisdom, and constancy, hath amaz'd me more
    Than I dare blame my weakness. Will you see her,
    For that is her demand, and know her business?
    That done, laugh well at me.
  KING. Now, good Lafeu,
    Bring in the admiration, that we with the
    May spend our wonder too, or take off thine
    By wond'ring how thou took'st it.
  LAFEU. Nay, I'll fit you,
    And not be all day neither.                       Exit LAFEU
  KING. Thus he his special nothing ever prologues.

                   Re-enter LAFEU with HELENA

  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways.
  KING. This haste hath wings indeed.
  LAFEU. Nay, come your ways;
    This is his Majesty; say your mind to him.
    A traitor you do look like; but such traitors
    His Majesty seldom fears. I am Cressid's uncle,
    That dare leave two together. Fare you well.            Exit
  KING. Now, fair one, does your business follow us?
  HELENA. Ay, my good lord.
    Gerard de Narbon was my father,
    In what he did profess, well found.
  KING. I knew him.
  HELENA. The rather will I spare my praises towards him;
    Knowing him is enough. On's bed of death
    Many receipts he gave me; chiefly one,
    Which, as the dearest issue of his practice,
    And of his old experience th' only darling,
    He bade me store up as a triple eye,
    Safer than mine own two, more dear. I have so:
    And, hearing your high Majesty is touch'd
    With that malignant cause wherein the honour
    Of my dear father's gift stands chief in power,
    I come to tender it, and my appliance,
    With all bound humbleness.
  KING. We thank you, maiden;
    But may not be so credulous of cure,
    When our most learned doctors leave us, and
    The congregated college have concluded
    That labouring art can never ransom nature
    From her inaidable estate-I say we must not
    So stain our judgment, or corrupt our hope,
    To prostitute our past-cure malady
    To empirics; or to dissever so
    Our great self and our credit to esteem
    A senseless help, when help past sense we deem.
  HELENA. My duty then shall pay me for my pains.
    I will no more enforce mine office on you;
    Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts
    A modest one to bear me back again.
  KING. I cannot give thee less, to be call'd grateful.
    Thou thought'st to help me; and such thanks I give
    As one near death to those that wish him live.
    But what at full I know, thou know'st no part;
    I knowing all my peril, thou no art.
  HELENA. What I can do can do no hurt to try,
    Since you set up your rest 'gainst remedy.
    He that of greatest works is finisher
    Oft does them by the weakest minister.
    So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown,
    When judges have been babes. Great floods have flown
    From simple sources, and great seas have dried
    When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
    Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
    Where most it promises; and oft it hits
    Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
  KING. I must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid;
    Thy pains, not us'd, must by thyself be paid;
    Proffers not took reap thanks for their reward.
  HELENA. Inspired merit so by breath is barr'd.
    It is not so with Him that all things knows,
    As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows;
    But most it is presumption in us when
    The help of heaven we count the act of men.
    Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent;
    Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.
    I am not an impostor, that proclaim
    Myself against the level of mine aim;
    But know I think, and think I know most sure,
    My art is not past power nor you past cure.
  KING. Art thou so confident? Within what space
    Hop'st thou my cure?
  HELENA. The greatest Grace lending grace.
    Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring
    Their fiery torcher his diurnal ring,
    Ere twice in murk and occidental damp
    Moist Hesperus hath quench'd his sleepy lamp,
    Or four and twenty times the pilot's glass
    Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,
    What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,
    Health shall live free, and sickness freely die.
  KING. Upon thy certainty and confidence
    What dar'st thou venture?
  HELENA. Tax of impudence,
    A strumpet's boldness, a divulged shame,
    Traduc'd by odious ballads; my maiden's name
    Sear'd otherwise; ne worse of worst-extended
    With vilest torture let my life be ended.
  KING. Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
    His powerful sound within an organ weak;
    And what impossibility would slay
    In common sense, sense saves another way.
    Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
    Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:
    Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all
    That happiness and prime can happy call.
    Thou this to hazard needs must intimate
    Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.
    Sweet practiser, thy physic I will try,
    That ministers thine own death if I die.
  HELENA. If I break time, or flinch in property
    Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die;
    And well deserv'd. Not helping, death's my fee;
    But, if I help, what do you promise me?
  KING. Make thy demand.
  HELENA. But will you make it even?
  KING. Ay, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.
  HELENA. Then shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand
    What husband in thy power I will command.
    Exempted be from me the arrogance
    To choose from forth the royal blood of France,
    My low and humble name to propagate
    With any branch or image of thy state;
    But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know
    Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.
  KING. Here is my hand; the premises observ'd,
    Thy will by my performance shall be serv'd.
    So make the choice of thy own time, for I,
    Thy resolv'd patient, on thee still rely.
    More should I question thee, and more I must,
    Though more to know could not be more to trust,
    From whence thou cam'st, how tended on. But rest
    Unquestion'd welcome and undoubted blest.
    Give me some help here, ho! If thou proceed
    As high as word, my deed shall match thy deed.
                                              [Flourish. Exeunt]

ACT II. SCENE 2. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN

  COUNTESS. Come on, sir; I shall now put you to the height of your
    breeding.
  CLOWN. I will show myself highly fed and lowly taught. I know my
    business is but to the court.
  COUNTESS. To the court! Why, what place make you special, when you
    put off that with such contempt? But to the court!
  CLOWN. Truly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may
    easily put it off at court. He that cannot make a leg, put off's
    cap, kiss his hand, and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip,
    nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for
    the court; but for me, I have an answer will serve all men.
  COUNTESS. Marry, that's a bountiful answer that fits all questions.
  CLOWN. It is like a barber's chair, that fits all buttocks-the pin
    buttock, the quatch buttock, the brawn buttock, or any buttock.
  COUNTESS. Will your answer serve fit to all questions?
  CLOWN. As fit as ten groats is for the hand of an attorney, as your
    French crown for your taffety punk, as Tib's rush for Tom's
    forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris for Mayday,
    as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding
    quean to a wrangling knave, as the nun's lip to the friar's
    mouth; nay, as the pudding to his skin.
  COUNTESS. Have you, I, say, an answer of such fitness for all
    questions?
  CLOWN. From below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit
    any question.
  COUNTESS. It must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit
    all demands.
  CLOWN. But a trifle neither, in good faith, if the learned should
    speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to't. Ask me
    if I am a courtier: it shall do you no harm to learn.
  COUNTESS. To be young again, if we could, I will be a fool in
    question, hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir,
    are you a courtier?
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-There's a simple putting off. More, more, a
    hundred of them.
  COUNTESS. Sir, I am a poor friend of yours, that loves you.
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Thick, thick; spare not me.
  COUNTESS. I think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Nay, put me to't, I warrant you.
  COUNTESS. You were lately whipp'd, sir, as I think.
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Spare not me.
  COUNTESS. Do you cry 'O Lord, sir!' at your whipping, and 'spare
    not me'? Indeed your 'O Lord, sir!' is very sequent to your
    whipping. You would answer very well to a whipping, if you were
    but bound to't.
  CLOWN. I ne'er had worse luck in my life in my 'O Lord, sir!' I see
    thing's may serve long, but not serve ever.
  COUNTESS. I play the noble housewife with the time,
    To entertain it so merrily with a fool.
  CLOWN. O Lord, sir!-Why, there't serves well again.
  COUNTESS. An end, sir! To your business: give Helen this,
    And urge her to a present answer back;
    Commend me to my kinsmen and my son. This is not much.
  CLOWN. Not much commendation to them?
  COUNTESS. Not much employment for you. You understand me?
  CLOWN. Most fruitfully; I am there before my legs.
  COUNTESS. Haste you again.                              Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 3. Paris. The KING'S palace

Enter BERTRAM, LAFEU, and PAROLLES

  LAFEU. They say miracles are past; and we have our philosophical
    persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and
    causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors,
    ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit
    ourselves to an unknown fear.
  PAROLLES. Why, 'tis the rarest argument of wonder that hath shot
    out in our latter times.
  BERTRAM. And so 'tis.
  LAFEU. To be relinquish'd of the artists-
  PAROLLES. So I say-both of Galen and Paracelsus.
  LAFEU. Of all the learned and authentic fellows-
  PAROLLES. Right; so I say.
  LAFEU. That gave him out incurable-
  PAROLLES. Why, there 'tis; so say I too.
  LAFEU. Not to be help'd-
  PAROLLES. Right; as 'twere a man assur'd of a-
  LAFEU. Uncertain life and sure death.
  PAROLLES. Just; you say well; so would I have said.
  LAFEU. I may truly say it is a novelty to the world.
  PAROLLES. It is indeed. If you will have it in showing, you shall
    read it in what-do-ye-call't here.
  LAFEU.  [Reading the ballad title]  'A Showing of a Heavenly
    Effect in an Earthly Actor.'
  PAROLLES. That's it; I would have said the very same.
  LAFEU. Why, your dolphin is not lustier. 'Fore me, I speak in
    respect-
  PAROLLES. Nay, 'tis strange, 'tis very strange; that is the brief
    and the tedious of it; and he's of a most facinerious spirit that
    will not acknowledge it to be the-
  LAFEU. Very hand of heaven.
  PAROLLES. Ay; so I say.
  LAFEU. In a most weak-
  PAROLLES. And debile minister, great power, great transcendence;
    which should, indeed, give us a further use to be made than alone
    the recov'ry of the King, as to be-
  LAFEU. Generally thankful.

                 Enter KING, HELENA, and ATTENDANTS

  PAROLLES. I would have said it; you say well. Here comes the King.
  LAFEU. Lustig, as the Dutchman says. I'll like a maid the better,
    whilst I have a tooth in my head. Why, he's able to lead her a
    coranto.
  PAROLLES. Mort du vinaigre! Is not this Helen?
  LAFEU. 'Fore God, I think so.
  KING. Go, call before me all the lords in court.
                                               Exit an ATTENDANT
    Sit, my preserver, by thy patient's side;
    And with this healthful hand, whose banish'd sense
    Thou has repeal'd, a second time receive
    The confirmation of my promis'd gift,
    Which but attends thy naming.

                     Enter three or four LORDS

    Fair maid, send forth thine eye. This youthful parcel
    Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,
    O'er whom both sovereign power and father's voice
    I have to use. Thy frank election make;
    Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.
  HELENA. To each of you one fair and virtuous mistress
    Fall, when love please. Marry, to each but one!
  LAFEU. I'd give bay Curtal and his furniture
    My mouth no more were broken than these boys',
    And writ as little beard.
  KING. Peruse them well.
    Not one of those but had a noble father.
  HELENA. Gentlemen,
    Heaven hath through me restor'd the King to health.
  ALL. We understand it, and thank heaven for you.
  HELENA. I am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest
    That I protest I simply am a maid.
    Please it your Majesty, I have done already.
    The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper me:
    'We blush that thou shouldst choose; but, be refused,
    Let the white death sit on thy cheek for ever,
    We'll ne'er come there again.'
  KING. Make choice and see:
    Who shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.
  HELENA. Now, Dian, from thy altar do I fly,
    And to imperial Love, that god most high,
    Do my sighs stream. Sir, will you hear my suit?
  FIRST LORD. And grant it.
  HELENA. Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.
  LAFEU. I had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace for my
    life.
  HELENA. The honour, sir, that flames in your fair eyes,
    Before I speak, too threat'ningly replies.
    Love make your fortunes twenty times above
    Her that so wishes, and her humble love!
  SECOND LORD. No better, if you please.
  HELENA. My wish receive,
    Which great Love grant; and so I take my leave.
  LAFEU. Do all they deny her? An they were sons of mine I'd have
    them whipt; or I would send them to th' Turk to make eunuchs of.
  HELENA. Be not afraid that I your hand should take;
    I'll never do you wrong for your own sake.
    Blessing upon your vows; and in your bed
    Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!
  LAFEU. These boys are boys of ice; they'll none have her.
    Sure, they are bastards to the English; the French ne'er got 'em.
  HELENA. You are too young, too happy, and too good,
    To make yourself a son out of my blood.
  FOURTH LORD. Fair one, I think not so.
  LAFEU. There's one grape yet; I am sure thy father drunk wine-but
    if thou be'st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen; I have known
    thee already.
  HELENA.  [To BERTRAM]  I dare not say I take you; but I give
    Me and my service, ever whilst I live,
    Into your guiding power. This is the man.
  KING. Why, then, young Bertram, take her; she's thy wife.
  BERTRAM. My wife, my liege! I shall beseech your Highness,
    In such a business give me leave to use
    The help of mine own eyes.
  KING. Know'st thou not, Bertram,
    What she has done for me?
  BERTRAM. Yes, my good lord;
    But never hope to know why I should marry her.
  KING. Thou know'st she has rais'd me from my sickly bed.
  BERTRAM. But follows it, my lord, to bring me down
    Must answer for your raising? I know her well:
    She had her breeding at my father's charge.
    A poor physician's daughter my wife! Disdain
    Rather corrupt me ever!
  KING. 'Tis only title thou disdain'st in her, the which
    I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,
    Of colour, weight, and heat, pour'd all together,
    Would quite confound distinction, yet stand off
    In differences so mighty. If she be
    All that is virtuous-save what thou dislik'st,
    A poor physician's daughter-thou dislik'st
    Of virtue for the name; but do not so.
    From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
    The place is dignified by the doer's deed;
    Where great additions swell's, and virtue none,
    It is a dropsied honour. Good alone
    Is good without a name. Vileness is so:
    The property by what it is should go,
    Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
    In these to nature she's immediate heir;
    And these breed honour. That is honour's scorn
    Which challenges itself as honour's born
    And is not like the sire. Honours thrive
    When rather from our acts we them derive
    Than our fore-goers. The mere word's a slave,
    Debauch'd on every tomb, on every grave
    A lying trophy; and as oft is dumb
    Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
    Of honour'd bones indeed. What should be said?
    If thou canst like this creature as a maid,
    I can create the rest. Virtue and she
    Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me.
  BERTRAM. I cannot love her, nor will strive to do 't.
  KING. Thou wrong'st thyself, if thou shouldst strive to choose.
  HELENA. That you are well restor'd, my lord, I'm glad.
    Let the rest go.
  KING. My honour's at the stake; which to defeat,
    I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,
    Proud scornful boy, unworthy this good gift,
    That dost in vile misprision shackle up
    My love and her desert; that canst not dream
    We, poising us in her defective scale,
    Shall weigh thee to the beam; that wilt not know
    It is in us to plant thine honour where
    We please to have it grow. Check thy contempt;
    Obey our will, which travails in thy good;
    Believe not thy disdain, but presently
    Do thine own fortunes that obedient right
    Which both thy duty owes and our power claims;
    Or I will throw thee from my care for ever
    Into the staggers and the careless lapse
    Of youth and ignorance; both my revenge and hate
    Loosing upon thee in the name of justice,
    Without all terms of pity. Speak; thine answer.
  BERTRAM. Pardon, my gracious lord; for I submit
    My fancy to your eyes. When I consider
    What great creation and what dole of honour
    Flies where you bid it, I find that she which late
    Was in my nobler thoughts most base is now
    The praised of the King; who, so ennobled,
    Is as 'twere born so.
  KING. Take her by the hand,
    And tell her she is thine; to whom I promise
    A counterpoise, if not to thy estate
    A balance more replete.
  BERTRAM. I take her hand.
  KING. Good fortune and the favour of the King
    Smile upon this contract; whose ceremony
    Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,
    And be perform'd to-night. The solemn feast
    Shall more attend upon the coming space,
    Expecting absent friends. As thou lov'st her,
    Thy love's to me religious; else, does err.
              Exeunt all but LAFEU and PAROLLES who stay behind,
                                      commenting of this wedding
  LAFEU. Do you hear, monsieur? A word with you.
  PAROLLES. Your pleasure, sir?
  LAFEU. Your lord and master did well to make his recantation.
  PAROLLES. Recantation! My Lord! my master!
  LAFEU. Ay; is it not a language I speak?
  PAROLLES. A most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody
    succeeding. My master!
  LAFEU. Are you companion to the Count Rousillon?
  PAROLLES. To any count; to all counts; to what is man.
  LAFEU. To what is count's man: count's master is of another style.
  PAROLLES. You are too old, sir; let it satisfy you, you are too
    old.
  LAFEU. I must tell thee, sirrah, I write man; to which title age
    cannot bring thee.
  PAROLLES. What I dare too well do, I dare not do.
  LAFEU. I did think thee, for two ordinaries, to be a pretty wise
    fellow; thou didst make tolerable vent of thy travel; it might
    pass. Yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly
    dissuade me from believing thee a vessel of too great a burden. I
    have now found thee; when I lose thee again I care not; yet art
    thou good for nothing but taking up; and that thou'rt scarce
    worth.
  PAROLLES. Hadst thou not the privilege of antiquity upon thee-
  LAFEU. Do not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy
    trial; which if-Lord have mercy on thee for a hen! So, my good
    window of lattice, fare thee well; thy casement I need not open,
    for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.
  PAROLLES. My lord, you give me most egregious indignity.
  LAFEU. Ay, with all my heart; and thou art worthy of it.
  PAROLLES. I have not, my lord, deserv'd it.
  LAFEU. Yes, good faith, ev'ry dram of it; and I will not bate thee
    a scruple.
  PAROLLES. Well, I shall be wiser.
  LAFEU. Ev'n as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull at a smack
    o' th' contrary. If ever thou be'st bound in thy scarf and
    beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage. I
    have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my
    knowledge, that I may say in the default 'He is a man I know.'
  PAROLLES. My lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.
  LAFEU. I would it were hell pains for thy sake, and my poor doing
    eternal; for doing I am past, as I will by thee, in what motion
    age will give me leave.                                 Exit
  PAROLLES. Well, thou hast a son shall take this disgrace off me:
    scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient; there
    is no fettering of authority. I'll beat him, by my life, if I can
    meet him with any convenience, an he were double and double a
    lord. I'll have no more pity of his age than I would have of-
    I'll beat him, and if I could but meet him again.

                         Re-enter LAFEU

  LAFEU. Sirrah, your lord and master's married; there's news for
    you; you have a new mistress.
  PAROLLES. I most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some
    reservation of your wrongs. He is my good lord: whom I serve
    above is my master.
  LAFEU. Who? God?
  PAROLLES. Ay, sir.
  LAFEU. The devil it is that's thy master. Why dost thou garter up
    thy arms o' this fashion? Dost make hose of thy sleeves? Do other
    servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose
    stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I'd beat
    thee. Methink'st thou art a general offence, and every man should
    beat thee. I think thou wast created for men to breathe
    themselves upon thee.
  PAROLLES. This is hard and undeserved measure, my lord.
  LAFEU. Go to, sir; you were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel
    out of a pomegranate; you are a vagabond, and no true traveller;
    you are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the
    commission of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry. You are
    not worth another word, else I'd call you knave. I leave you.
 Exit

                           Enter BERTRAM

  PAROLLES. Good, very, good, it is so then. Good, very good; let it
    be conceal'd awhile.
  BERTRAM. Undone, and forfeited to cares for ever!
  PAROLLES. What's the matter, sweetheart?
  BERTRAM. Although before the solemn priest I have sworn,
    I will not bed her.
  PAROLLES. What, what, sweetheart?
  BERTRAM. O my Parolles, they have married me!
    I'll to the Tuscan wars, and never bed her.
  PAROLLES. France is a dog-hole, and it no more merits
    The tread of a man's foot. To th' wars!
  BERTRAM. There's letters from my mother; what th' import is I know
    not yet.
  PAROLLES. Ay, that would be known. To th' wars, my boy, to th'
      wars!
    He wears his honour in a box unseen
    That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,
    Spending his manly marrow in her arms,
    Which should sustain the bound and high curvet
    Of Mars's fiery steed. To other regions!
    France is a stable; we that dwell in't jades;
    Therefore, to th' war!
  BERTRAM. It shall be so; I'll send her to my house,
    Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,
    And wherefore I am fled; write to the King
    That which I durst not speak. His present gift
    Shall furnish me to those Italian fields
    Where noble fellows strike. War is no strife
    To the dark house and the detested wife.
  PAROLLES. Will this capriccio hold in thee, art sure?
  BERTRAM. Go with me to my chamber and advise me.
    I'll send her straight away. To-morrow
    I'll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.
  PAROLLES. Why, these balls bound; there's noise in it. 'Tis hard:
    A young man married is a man that's marr'd.
    Therefore away, and leave her bravely; go.
    The King has done you wrong; but, hush, 'tis so.      Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 4. Paris. The KING'S palace

Enter HELENA and CLOWN

  HELENA. My mother greets me kindly; is she well?
  CLOWN. She is not well, but yet she has her health; she's very
    merry, but yet she is not well. But thanks be given, she's very
    well, and wants nothing i' th' world; but yet she is not well.
  HELENA. If she be very well, what does she ail that she's not very
    well?
  CLOWN. Truly, she's very well indeed, but for two things.
  HELENA. What two things?
  CLOWN. One, that she's not in heaven, whither God send her quickly!
    The other, that she's in earth, from whence God send her quickly!

                        Enter PAROLLES

  PAROLLES. Bless you, my fortunate lady!
  HELENA. I hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good
    fortunes.
  PAROLLES. You had my prayers to lead them on; and to keep them on,
    have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?
  CLOWN. So that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she
    did as you say.
  PAROLLES. Why, I say nothing.
  CLOWN. Marry, you are the wiser man; for many a man's tongue shakes
    out his master's undoing. To say nothing, to do nothing, to know
    nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your
    title, which is within a very little of nothing.
  PAROLLES. Away! th'art a knave.
  CLOWN. You should have said, sir, 'Before a knave th'art a knave';
    that's 'Before me th'art a knave.' This had been truth, sir.
  PAROLLES. Go to, thou art a witty fool; I have found thee.
  CLOWN. Did you find me in yourself, sir, or were you taught to find
    me? The search, sir, was profitable; and much fool may you find
    in you, even to the world's pleasure and the increase of
    laughter.
  PAROLLES. A good knave, i' faith, and well fed.
    Madam, my lord will go away to-night:
    A very serious business calls on him.
    The great prerogative and rite of love,
    Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge;
    But puts it off to a compell'd restraint;
    Whose want, and whose delay, is strew'd with sweets,
    Which they distil now in the curbed time,
    To make the coming hour o'erflow with joy
    And pleasure drown the brim.
  HELENA. What's his else?
  PAROLLES. That you will take your instant leave o' th' King,
    And make this haste as your own good proceeding,
    Strength'ned with what apology you think
    May make it probable need.
  HELENA. What more commands he?
  PAROLLES. That, having this obtain'd, you presently
    Attend his further pleasure.
  HELENA. In everything I wait upon his will.
  PAROLLES. I shall report it so.
  HELENA. I pray you.                              Exit PAROLLES
    Come, sirrah.                                         Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 5. Paris. The KING'S palace

Enter LAFEU and BERTRAM

  LAFEU. But I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.
  BERTRAM. Yes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.
  LAFEU. You have it from his own deliverance.
  BERTRAM. And by other warranted testimony.
  LAFEU. Then my dial goes not true; I took this lark for a bunting.
  BERTRAM. I do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge,
    and accordingly valiant.
  LAFEU. I have then sinn'd against his experience and transgress'd
    against his valour; and my state that way is dangerous, since I
    cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes; I pray you
    make us friends; I will pursue the amity

                         Enter PAROLLES

  PAROLLES.  [To BERTRAM]  These things shall be done, sir.
  LAFEU. Pray you, sir, who's his tailor?
  PAROLLES. Sir!
  LAFEU. O, I know him well. Ay, sir; he, sir, 's a good workman, a
    very good tailor.
  BERTRAM.  [Aside to PAROLLES]  Is she gone to the King?
  PAROLLES. She is.
  BERTRAM. Will she away to-night?
  PAROLLES. As you'll have her.
  BERTRAM. I have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,
    Given order for our horses; and to-night,
    When I should take possession of the bride,
    End ere I do begin.
  LAFEU. A good traveller is something at the latter end of a dinner;
    but one that lies three-thirds and uses a known truth to pass a
    thousand nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten.
    God save you, Captain.
  BERTRAM. Is there any unkindness between my lord and you, monsieur?
  PAROLLES. I know not how I have deserved to run into my lord's
    displeasure.
  LAFEU. You have made shift to run into 't, boots and spurs and all,
    like him that leapt into the custard; and out of it you'll run
    again, rather than suffer question for your residence.
  BERTRAM. It may be you have mistaken him, my lord.
  LAFEU. And shall do so ever, though I took him at's prayers.
    Fare you well, my lord; and believe this of me: there can be no
    kernal in this light nut; the soul of this man is his clothes;
    trust him not in matter of heavy consequence; I have kept of them
    tame, and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur; I have spoken
    better of you than you have or will to deserve at my hand; but we
    must do good against evil.                              Exit
  PAROLLES. An idle lord, I swear.
  BERTRAM. I think so.
  PAROLLES. Why, do you not know him?
  BERTRAM. Yes, I do know him well; and common speech
    Gives him a worthy pass. Here comes my clog.

                          Enter HELENA

  HELENA. I have, sir, as I was commanded from you,
    Spoke with the King, and have procur'd his leave
    For present parting; only he desires
    Some private speech with you.
  BERTRAM. I shall obey his will.
    You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,
    Which holds not colour with the time, nor does
    The ministration and required office
    On my particular. Prepar'd I was not
    For such a business; therefore am I found
    So much unsettled. This drives me to entreat you
    That presently you take your way for home,
    And rather muse than ask why I entreat you;
    For my respects are better than they seem,
    And my appointments have in them a need
    Greater than shows itself at the first view
    To you that know them not. This to my mother.
                                               [Giving a letter]
    'Twill be two days ere I shall see you; so
    I leave you to your wisdom.
  HELENA. Sir, I can nothing say
    But that I am your most obedient servant.
  BERTRAM. Come, come, no more of that.
  HELENA. And ever shall
    With true observance seek to eke out that
    Wherein toward me my homely stars have fail'd
    To equal my great fortune.
  BERTRAM. Let that go.
    My haste is very great. Farewell; hie home.
  HELENA. Pray, sir, your pardon.
  BERTRAM. Well, what would you say?
  HELENA. I am not worthy of the wealth I owe,
    Nor dare I say 'tis mine, and yet it is;
    But, like a timorous thief, most fain would steal
    What law does vouch mine own.
  BERTRAM. What would you have?
  HELENA. Something; and scarce so much; nothing, indeed.
    I would not tell you what I would, my lord.
    Faith, yes:
    Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss.
  BERTRAM. I pray you, stay not, but in haste to horse.
  HELENA. I shall not break your bidding, good my lord.
  BERTRAM. Where are my other men, monsieur?
    Farewell!                                        Exit HELENA
    Go thou toward home, where I will never come
    Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.
    Away, and for our flight.
  PAROLLES. Bravely, coragio!                             Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 1. Florence. The DUKE's palace

        Flourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, attended; two
               FRENCH LORDS, with a TROOP OF SOLDIERS

  DUKE. So that, from point to point, now have you hear
    The fundamental reasons of this war;
    Whose great decision hath much blood let forth
    And more thirsts after.
  FIRST LORD. Holy seems the quarrel
    Upon your Grace's part; black and fearful
    On the opposer.
  DUKE. Therefore we marvel much our cousin France
    Would in so just a business shut his bosom
    Against our borrowing prayers.
  SECOND LORD. Good my lord,
    The reasons of our state I cannot yield,
    But like a common and an outward man
    That the great figure of a council frames
    By self-unable motion; therefore dare not
    Say what I think of it, since I have found
    Myself in my incertain grounds to fail
    As often as I guess'd.
  DUKE. Be it his pleasure.
  FIRST LORD. But I am sure the younger of our nature,
    That surfeit on their ease, will day by day
    Come here for physic.
  DUKE. Welcome shall they be
    And all the honours that can fly from us
    Shall on them settle. You know your places well;
    When better fall, for your avails they fell.
    To-morrow to th' field. Flourish.                     Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 2. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS and CLOWN

  COUNTESS. It hath happen'd all as I would have had it, save that he
    comes not along with her.
  CLOWN. By my troth, I take my young lord to be a very melancholy
    man.
  COUNTESS. By what observance, I pray you?
  CLOWN. Why, he will look upon his boot and sing; mend the ruff and
    sing; ask questions and sing; pick his teeth and sing. I know a
    man that had this trick of melancholy sold a goodly manor for a
    song.
  COUNTESS. Let me see what he writes, and when he means to come.
                                              [Opening a letter]
  CLOWN. I have no mind to Isbel since I was at court. Our old ling
    and our Isbels o' th' country are nothing like your old ling and
    your Isbels o' th' court. The brains of my Cupid's knock'd out;
    and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.
  COUNTESS. What have we here?
  CLOWN. E'en that you have there.                          Exit
  COUNTESS.  [Reads]  'I have sent you a daughter-in-law; she hath
    recovered the King and undone me. I have wedded her, not bedded
    her; and sworn to make the "not" eternal. You shall hear I am run
    away; know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough
    in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you.
                                           Your unfortunate son,
                                                       BERTRAM.'
    This is not well, rash and unbridled boy,
    To fly the favours of so good a king,
    To pluck his indignation on thy head
    By the misprizing of a maid too virtuous
    For the contempt of empire.

                           Re-enter CLOWN

  CLOWN. O madam, yonder is heavy news within between two soldiers
    and my young lady.
  COUNTESS. What is the -matter?
  CLOWN. Nay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort; your
    son will not be kill'd so soon as I thought he would.
  COUNTESS. Why should he be kill'd?
  CLOWN. So say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does the
    danger is in standing to 't; that's the loss of men, though it be
    the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more. For my
    part, I only hear your son was run away.                Exit

              Enter HELENA and the two FRENCH GENTLEMEN

  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Save you, good madam.
  HELENA. Madam, my lord is gone, for ever gone.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Do not say so.
  COUNTESS. Think upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen-
    I have felt so many quirks of joy and grief
    That the first face of neither, on the start,
    Can woman me unto 't. Where is my son, I pray you?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Madam, he's gone to serve the Duke of Florence.
    We met him thitherward; for thence we came,
    And, after some dispatch in hand at court,
    Thither we bend again.
  HELENA. Look on this letter, madam; here's my passport.
    [Reads]  'When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which
    never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body
    that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a "then" I
    write a "never."
    This is a dreadful sentence.
  COUNTESS. Brought you this letter, gentlemen?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam;
    And for the contents' sake are sorry for our pains.
  COUNTESS. I prithee, lady, have a better cheer;
    If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,
    Thou robb'st me of a moiety. He was my son;
    But I do wash his name out of my blood,
    And thou art all my child. Towards Florence is he?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam.
  COUNTESS. And to be a soldier?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Such is his noble purpose; and, believe 't,
    The Duke will lay upon him all the honour
    That good convenience claims.
  COUNTESS. Return you thither?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.
  HELENA.  [Reads]  'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'
    'Tis bitter.
  COUNTESS. Find you that there?
  HELENA. Ay, madam.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis but the boldness of his hand haply, which
    his heart was not consenting to.
  COUNTESS. Nothing in France until he have no wife!
    There's nothing here that is too good for him
    But only she; and she deserves a lord
    That twenty such rude boys might tend upon,
    And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A servant only, and a gentleman
    Which I have sometime known.
  COUNTESS. Parolles, was it not?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Ay, my good lady, he.
  COUNTESS. A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.
    My son corrupts a well-derived nature
    With his inducement.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Indeed, good lady,
    The fellow has a deal of that too much
    Which holds him much to have.
  COUNTESS. Y'are welcome, gentlemen.
    I will entreat you, when you see my son,
    To tell him that his sword can never win
    The honour that he loses. More I'll entreat you
    Written to bear along.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. We serve you, madam,
    In that and all your worthiest affairs.
  COUNTESS. Not so, but as we change our courtesies.
    Will you draw near?            Exeunt COUNTESS and GENTLEMEN
  HELENA. 'Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.'
    Nothing in France until he has no wife!
    Thou shalt have none, Rousillon, none in France
    Then hast thou all again. Poor lord! is't
    That chase thee from thy country, and expose
    Those tender limbs of thine to the event
    Of the non-sparing war? And is it I
    That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou
    Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark
    Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,
    That ride upon the violent speed of fire,
    Fly with false aim; move the still-piecing air,
    That sings with piercing; do not touch my lord.
    Whoever shoots at him, I set him there;
    Whoever charges on his forward breast,
    I am the caitiff that do hold him to't;
    And though I kill him not, I am the cause
    His death was so effected. Better 'twere
    I met the ravin lion when he roar'd
    With sharp constraint of hunger; better 'twere
    That all the miseries which nature owes
    Were mine at once. No; come thou home, Rousillon,
    Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,
    As oft it loses all. I will be gone.
    My being here it is that holds thee hence.
    Shall I stay here to do 't? No, no, although
    The air of paradise did fan the house,
    And angels offic'd all. I will be gone,
    That pitiful rumour may report my flight
    To consolate thine ear. Come, night; end, day.
    For with the dark, poor thief, I'll steal away.         Exit

ACT III. SCENE 3. Florence. Before the DUKE's palace

Flourish. Enter the DUKE OF FLORENCE, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, SOLDIERS, drum
and trumpets

  DUKE. The General of our Horse thou art; and we,
    Great in our hope, lay our best love and credence
    Upon thy promising fortune.
  BERTRAM. Sir, it is
    A charge too heavy for my strength; but yet
    We'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake
    To th' extreme edge of hazard.
  DUKE. Then go thou forth;
    And Fortune play upon thy prosperous helm,
    As thy auspicious mistress!
  BERTRAM. This very day,
    Great Mars, I put myself into thy file;
    Make me but like my thoughts, and I shall prove
    A lover of thy drum, hater of love.                   Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 4. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS and STEWARD

  COUNTESS. Alas! and would you take the letter of her?
    Might you not know she would do as she has done
    By sending me a letter? Read it again.
  STEWARD.  [Reads]  'I am Saint Jaques' pilgrim, thither gone.
    Ambitious love hath so in me offended
    That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,
    With sainted vow my faults to have amended.
    Write, write, that from the bloody course of war
    My dearest master, your dear son, may hie.
    Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far
    His name with zealous fervour sanctify.
    His taken labours bid him me forgive;
    I, his despiteful Juno, sent him forth
    From courtly friends, with camping foes to live,
    Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth.
    He is too good and fair for death and me;
    Whom I myself embrace to set him free.'
  COUNTESS. Ah, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!
    Rinaldo, you did never lack advice so much
    As letting her pass so; had I spoke with her,
    I could have well diverted her intents,
    Which thus she hath prevented.
  STEWARD. Pardon me, madam;
    If I had given you this at over-night,
    She might have been o'er ta'en; and yet she writes
    Pursuit would be but vain.
  COUNTESS. What angel shall
    Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive,
    Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear
    And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath
    Of greatest justice. Write, write, Rinaldo,
    To this unworthy husband of his wife;
    Let every word weigh heavy of her worth
    That he does weigh too light. My greatest grief,
    Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.
    Dispatch the most convenient messenger.
    When haply he shall hear that she is gone
    He will return; and hope I may that she,
    Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,
    Led hither by pure love. Which of them both
    Is dearest to me I have no skill in sense
    To make distinction. Provide this messenger.
    My heart is heavy, and mine age is weak;
    Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.     Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 5.

Without the walls of Florence
A tucket afar off. Enter an old WIDOW OF FLORENCE, her daughter DIANA,
VIOLENTA, and MARIANA, with other CITIZENS

  WIDOW. Nay, come; for if they do approach the city we shall lose
    all the sight.
  DIANA. They say the French count has done most honourable service.
  WIDOW. It is reported that he has taken their great'st commander;
    and that with his own hand he slew the Duke's brother.  [Tucket]
    We have lost our labour; they are gone a contrary way. Hark! you
    may know by their trumpets.
  MARIANA. Come, let's return again, and suffice ourselves with the
    report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl; the
    honour of a maid is her name, and no legacy is so rich as
    honesty.
  WIDOW. I have told my neighbour how you have been solicited by a
    gentleman his companion.
  MARIANA. I know that knave, hang him! one Parolles; a filthy
    officer he is in those suggestions for the young earl. Beware of
    them, Diana: their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens, and all
    these engines of lust, are not the things they go under; many a
    maid hath been seduced by them; and the misery is, example, that
    so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood, cannot for all that
    dissuade succession, but that they are limed with the twigs that
    threatens them. I hope I need not to advise you further; but I
    hope your own grace will keep you where you are, though there
    were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost.
  DIANA. You shall not need to fear me.

            Enter HELENA in the dress of a pilgrim

  WIDOW. I hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know she will lie
    at my house: thither they send one another. I'll question her.
    God save you, pilgrim! Whither are bound?
  HELENA. To Saint Jaques le Grand.
    Where do the palmers lodge, I do beseech you?
  WIDOW. At the Saint Francis here, beside the port.
  HELENA. Is this the way?
                                                  [A march afar]
  WIDOW. Ay, marry, is't. Hark you! They come this way.
    If you will tarry, holy pilgrim,
    But till the troops come by,
    I will conduct you where you shall be lodg'd;
    The rather for I think I know your hostess
    As ample as myself.
  HELENA. Is it yourself?
  WIDOW. If you shall please so, pilgrim.
  HELENA. I thank you, and will stay upon your leisure.
  WIDOW. You came, I think, from France?
  HELENA. I did so.
  WIDOW. Here you shall see a countryman of yours
    That has done worthy service.
  HELENA. His name, I pray you.
  DIANA. The Count Rousillon. Know you such a one?
  HELENA. But by the ear, that hears most nobly of him;
    His face I know not.
  DIANA. What some'er he is,
    He's bravely taken here. He stole from France,
    As 'tis reported, for the King had married him
    Against his liking. Think you it is so?
  HELENA. Ay, surely, mere the truth; I know his lady.
  DIANA. There is a gentleman that serves the Count
    Reports but coarsely of her.
  HELENA. What's his name?
  DIANA. Monsieur Parolles.
  HELENA. O, I believe with him,
    In argument of praise, or to the worth
    Of the great Count himself, she is too mean
    To have her name repeated; all her deserving
    Is a reserved honesty, and that
    I have not heard examin'd.
  DIANA. Alas, poor lady!
    'Tis a hard bondage to become the wife
    Of a detesting lord.
  WIDOW. I sweet, good creature, wheresoe'er she is
    Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her
    A shrewd turn, if she pleas'd.
  HELENA. How do you mean?
    May be the amorous Count solicits her
    In the unlawful purpose.
  WIDOW. He does, indeed;
    And brokes with all that can in such a suit
    Corrupt the tender honour of a maid;
    But she is arm'd for him, and keeps her guard
    In honestest defence.

    Enter, with drum and colours, BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and the
                          whole ARMY

  MARIANA. The gods forbid else!
  WIDOW. So, now they come.
    That is Antonio, the Duke's eldest son;
    That, Escalus.
  HELENA. Which is the Frenchman?
  DIANA. He-
    That with the plume; 'tis a most gallant fellow.
    I would he lov'd his wife; if he were honester
    He were much goodlier. Is't not a handsome gentleman?
  HELENA. I like him well.
  DIANA. 'Tis pity he is not honest. Yond's that same knave
    That leads him to these places; were I his lady
    I would poison that vile rascal.
  HELENA. Which is he?
  DIANA. That jack-an-apes with scarfs. Why is he melancholy?
  HELENA. Perchance he's hurt i' th' battle.
  PAROLLES. Lose our drum! well.
  MARIANA. He's shrewdly vex'd at something.
    Look, he has spied us.
  WIDOW. Marry, hang you!
  MARIANA. And your courtesy, for a ring-carrier!
                              Exeunt BERTRAM, PAROLLES, and ARMY
  WIDOW. The troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you
    Where you shall host. Of enjoin'd penitents
    There's four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,
    Already at my house.
  HELENA. I humbly thank you.
    Please it this matron and this gentle maid
    To eat with us to-night; the charge and thanking
    Shall be for me, and, to requite you further,
    I will bestow some precepts of this virgin,
    Worthy the note.
    BOTH. We'll take your offer kindly.                   Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 6. Camp before Florence

Enter BERTRAM, and the two FRENCH LORDS

  SECOND LORD. Nay, good my lord, put him to't; let him have his way.
  FIRST LORD. If your lordship find him not a hiding, hold me no more
    in your respect.
  SECOND LORD. On my life, my lord, a bubble.
  BERTRAM. Do you think I am so far deceived in him?
  SECOND LORD. Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge,
    without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman, he's a
    most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly
    promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your
    lordship's entertainment.
  FIRST LORD. It were fit you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his
    virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty
    business in a main danger fail you.
  BERTRAM. I would I knew in what particular action to try him.
  FIRST LORD. None better than to let him fetch off his drum, which
    you hear him so confidently undertake to do.
  SECOND LORD. I with a troop of Florentines will suddenly surprise
    him; such I will have whom I am sure he knows not from the enemy.
    We will bind and hoodwink him so that he shall suppose no other
    but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries when
    we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at
    his examination; if he do not, for the promise of his life and in
    the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and
    deliver all the intelligence in his power against you, and that
    with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my
    judgment in anything.
  FIRST LORD. O, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum; he
    says he has a stratagem for't. When your lordship sees the bottom
    of his success in't, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of
    ore will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's
    entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he comes.

                      Enter PAROLLES

  SECOND LORD. O, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of
    his design; let him fetch off his drum in any hand.
  BERTRAM. How now, monsieur! This drum sticks sorely in your
    disposition.
  FIRST LORD. A pox on 't; let it go; 'tis but a drum.
  PAROLLES. But a drum! Is't but a drum? A drum so lost! There was
    excellent command: to charge in with our horse upon our own
    wings, and to rend our own soldiers!
  FIRST LORD. That was not to be blam'd in the command of the
    service; it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not
    have prevented, if he had been there to command.
  BERTRAM. Well, we cannot greatly condemn our success.
    Some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum; but it is not to
    be recovered.
  PAROLLES. It might have been recovered.
  BERTRAM. It might, but it is not now.
  PAROLLES. It is to be recovered. But that the merit of service is
    seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have
    that drum or another, or 'hic jacet.'
  BERTRAM. Why, if you have a stomach, to't, monsieur. If you think
    your mystery in stratagem can bring this instrument of honour
    again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise,
    and go on; I will grace the attempt for a worthy exploit. If you
    speed well in it, the Duke shall both speak of it and extend to
    you what further becomes his greatness, even to the utmost
    syllable of our worthiness.
  PAROLLES. By the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.
  BERTRAM. But you must not now slumber in it.
  PAROLLES. I'll about it this evening; and I will presently pen
    down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself
    into my mortal preparation; and by midnight look to hear further
    from me.
  BERTRAM. May I be bold to acquaint his Grace you are gone about it?
  PAROLLES. I know not what the success will be, my lord, but the
    attempt I vow.
  BERTRAM. I know th' art valiant; and, to the of thy soldiership,
    will subscribe for thee. Farewell.
  PAROLLES. I love not many words.                          Exit
  SECOND LORD. No more than a fish loves water. Is not this a strange
    fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this
    business, which he knows is not to be done; damns himself to do,
    and dares better be damn'd than to do 't.
  FIRST LORD. You do not know him, my lord, as we do. Certain it is
    that he will steal himself into a man's favour, and for a week
    escape a great deal of discoveries; but when you find him out,
    you have him ever after.
  BERTRAM. Why, do you think he will make no deed at all of this that
    so seriously he does address himself unto?
  SECOND LORD. None in the world; but return with an invention, and
    clap upon you two or three probable lies. But we have almost
    emboss'd him. You shall see his fall to-night; for indeed he is
    not for your lordship's respect.
  FIRST LORD. We'll make you some sport with the fox ere we case him.
    He was first smok'd by the old Lord Lafeu. When his disguise and
    he is parted, tell me what a sprat you shall find him; which you
    shall see this very night.
  SECOND LORD. I must go look my twigs; he shall be caught.
  BERTRAM. Your brother, he shall go along with me.
  SECOND LORD. As't please your lordship. I'll leave you.   Exit
  BERTRAM. Now will I lead you to the house, and show you
    The lass I spoke of.
  FIRST LORD. But you say she's honest.
  BERTRAM. That's all the fault. I spoke with her but once,
    And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,
    By this same coxcomb that we have i' th' wind,
    Tokens and letters which she did re-send;
    And this is all I have done. She's a fair creature;
    Will you go see her?
  FIRST LORD. With all my heart, my lord.                 Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 7. Florence. The WIDOW'S house

Enter HELENA and WIDOW

  HELENA. If you misdoubt me that I am not she,
    I know not how I shall assure you further
    But I shall lose the grounds I work upon.
  WIDOW. Though my estate be fall'n, I was well born,
    Nothing acquainted with these businesses;
    And would not put my reputation now
    In any staining act.
  HELENA. Nor would I wish you.
  FIRST give me trust the Count he is my husband,
    And what to your sworn counsel I have spoken
    Is so from word to word; and then you cannot,
    By the good aid that I of you shall borrow,
    Err in bestowing it.
  WIDOW. I should believe you;
    For you have show'd me that which well approves
    Y'are great in fortune.
  HELENA. Take this purse of gold,
    And let me buy your friendly help thus far,
    Which I will over-pay and pay again
    When I have found it. The Count he woos your daughter
    Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty,
    Resolv'd to carry her. Let her in fine consent,
    As we'll direct her how 'tis best to bear it.
    Now his important blood will nought deny
    That she'll demand. A ring the County wears
    That downward hath succeeded in his house
    From son to son some four or five descents
    Since the first father wore it. This ring he holds
    In most rich choice; yet, in his idle fire,
    To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,
    Howe'er repented after.
  WIDOW. Now I see
    The bottom of your purpose.
  HELENA. You see it lawful then. It is no more
    But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,
    Desires this ring; appoints him an encounter;
    In fine, delivers me to fill the time,
    Herself most chastely absent. After this,
    To marry her, I'll add three thousand crowns
    To what is pass'd already.
  WIDOW. I have yielded.
    Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,
    That time and place with this deceit so lawful
    May prove coherent. Every night he comes
    With musics of all sorts, and songs compos'd
    To her unworthiness. It nothing steads us
    To chide him from our eaves, for he persists
    As if his life lay on 't.
  HELENA. Why then to-night
    Let us assay our plot; which, if it speed,
    Is wicked meaning in a lawful deed,
    And lawful meaning in a lawful act;
    Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.
    But let's about it.                                   Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1. Without the Florentine camp

Enter SECOND FRENCH LORD with five or six other SOLDIERS in ambush

  SECOND LORD. He can come no other way but by this hedge-corner.
    When you sally upon him, speak what terrible language you will;
    though you understand it not yourselves, no matter; for we must
    not seem to understand him, unless some one among us, whom we
    must produce for an interpreter.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Good captain, let me be th' interpreter.
  SECOND LORD. Art not acquainted with him? Knows he not thy voice?
  FIRST SOLDIER. No, sir, I warrant you.
  SECOND LORD. But what linsey-woolsey has thou to speak to us again?
  FIRST SOLDIER. E'en such as you speak to me.
  SECOND LORD. He must think us some band of strangers i' th'
    adversary's entertainment. Now he hath a smack of all
    neighbouring languages, therefore we must every one be a man of
    his own fancy; not to know what we speak one to another, so we
    seem to know, is to know straight our purpose: choughs' language,
    gabble enough, and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must
    seem very politic. But couch, ho! here he comes; to beguile two
    hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges.

                         Enter PAROLLES

  PAROLLES. Ten o'clock. Within these three hours 'twill be time
    enough to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a
    very plausive invention that carries it. They begin to smoke me;
    and disgraces have of late knock'd to often at my door. I find my
    tongue is too foolhardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars
    before it, and of his creatures, not daring the reports of my
    tongue.
  SECOND LORD. This is the first truth that e'er thine own tongue was
    guilty of.
  PAROLLES. What the devil should move me to undertake the recovery
    of this drum, being not ignorant of the impossibility, and
    knowing I had no such purpose? I must give myself some hurts, and
    say I got them in exploit. Yet slight ones will not carry it.
    They will say 'Came you off with so little?' And great ones I
    dare not give. Wherefore, what's the instance? Tongue, I must put
    you into a butterwoman's mouth, and buy myself another of
    Bajazet's mule, if you prattle me into these perils.
  SECOND LORD. Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that
    he is?
  PAROLLES. I would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn,
    or the breaking of my Spanish sword.
  SECOND LORD. We cannot afford you so.
  PAROLLES. Or the baring of my beard; and to say it was in
    stratagem.
  SECOND LORD. 'Twould not do.
  PAROLLES. Or to drown my clothes, and say I was stripp'd.
  SECOND LORD. Hardly serve.
  PAROLLES. Though I swore I leap'd from the window of the citadel-
  SECOND LORD. How deep?
  PAROLLES. Thirty fathom.
  SECOND LORD. Three great oaths would scarce make that be believed.
  PAROLLES. I would I had any drum of the enemy's; I would swear I
    recover'd it.
  SECOND LORD. You shall hear one anon.          [Alarum within]
  PAROLLES. A drum now of the enemy's!
  SECOND LORD. Throca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo.
  ALL. Cargo, cargo, cargo, villianda par corbo, cargo.
  PAROLLES. O, ransom, ransom! Do not hide mine eyes.
                                            [They blindfold him]
  FIRST SOLDIER. Boskos thromuldo boskos.
  PAROLLES. I know you are the Muskos' regiment,
    And I shall lose my life for want of language.
    If there be here German, or Dane, Low Dutch,
    Italian, or French, let him speak to me;
    I'll discover that which shall undo the Florentine.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Boskos vauvado. I understand thee, and can speak thy
    tongue. Kerely-bonto, sir, betake thee to thy faith, for
    seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.
  PAROLLES. O!
  FIRST SOLDIER. O, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.
  SECOND LORD. Oscorbidulchos volivorco.
  FIRST SOLDIER. The General is content to spare thee yet;
    And, hoodwink'd as thou art, will lead thee on
    To gather from thee. Haply thou mayst inform
    Something to save thy life.
  PAROLLES. O, let me live,
    And all the secrets of our camp I'll show,
    Their force, their purposes. Nay, I'll speak that
    Which you will wonder at.
  FIRST SOLDIER. But wilt thou faithfully?
  PAROLLES. If I do not, damn me.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Acordo linta.
    Come on; thou art granted space.
                   Exit, PAROLLES guarded. A short alarum within
  SECOND LORD. Go, tell the Count Rousillon and my brother
    We have caught the woodcock, and will keep him muffled
    Till we do hear from them.
  SECOND SOLDIER. Captain, I will.
  SECOND LORD. 'A will betray us all unto ourselves-
    Inform on that.
  SECOND SOLDIER. So I will, sir.
  SECOND LORD. Till then I'll keep him dark and safely lock'd.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 2. Florence. The WIDOW'S house

Enter BERTRAM and DIANA

  BERTRAM. They told me that your name was Fontibell.
  DIANA. No, my good lord, Diana.
  BERTRAM. Titled goddess;
    And worth it, with addition! But, fair soul,
    In your fine frame hath love no quality?
    If the quick fire of youth light not your mind,
    You are no maiden, but a monument;
    When you are dead, you should be such a one
    As you are now, for you are cold and stern;
    And now you should be as your mother was
    When your sweet self was got.
  DIANA. She then was honest.
  BERTRAM. So should you be.
  DIANA. No.
    My mother did but duty; such, my lord,
    As you owe to your wife.
  BERTRAM. No more o'that!
    I prithee do not strive against my vows.
    I was compell'd to her; but I love the
    By love's own sweet constraint, and will for ever
    Do thee all rights of service.
  DIANA. Ay, so you serve us
    Till we serve you; but when you have our roses
    You barely leave our thorns to prick ourselves,
    And mock us with our bareness.
  BERTRAM. How have I sworn!
  DIANA. 'Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
    But the plain single vow that is vow'd true.
    What is not holy, that we swear not by,
    But take the High'st to witness. Then, pray you, tell me:
    If I should swear by Jove's great attributes
    I lov'd you dearly, would you believe my oaths
    When I did love you ill? This has no holding,
    To swear by him whom I protest to love
    That I will work against him. Therefore your oaths
    Are words and poor conditions, but unseal'd-
    At least in my opinion.
  BERTRAM. Change it, change it;
    Be not so holy-cruel. Love is holy;
    And my integrity ne'er knew the crafts
    That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,
    But give thyself unto my sick desires,
    Who then recovers. Say thou art mine, and ever
    My love as it begins shall so persever.
  DIANA. I see that men make ropes in such a scarre
    That we'll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.
  BERTRAM. I'll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power
    To give it from me.
  DIANA. Will you not, my lord?
  BERTRAM. It is an honour 'longing to our house,
    Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
    Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world
    In me to lose.
  DIANA. Mine honour's such a ring:
    My chastity's the jewel of our house,
    Bequeathed down from many ancestors;
    Which were the greatest obloquy i' th' world
    In me to lose. Thus your own proper wisdom
    Brings in the champion Honour on my part
    Against your vain assault.
  BERTRAM. Here, take my ring;
    My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,
    And I'll be bid by thee.
  DIANA. When midnight comes, knock at my chamber window;
    I'll order take my mother shall not hear.
    Now will I charge you in the band of truth,
    When you have conquer'd my yet maiden bed,
    Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me:
    My reasons are most strong; and you shall know them
    When back again this ring shall be deliver'd.
    And on your finger in the night I'll put
    Another ring, that what in time proceeds
    May token to the future our past deeds.
    Adieu till then; then fail not. You have won
    A wife of me, though there my hope be done.
  BERTRAM. A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.
 Exit
  DIANA. For which live long to thank both heaven and me!
    You may so in the end.
    My mother told me just how he would woo,
    As if she sat in's heart; she says all men
    Have the like oaths. He had sworn to marry me
    When his wife's dead; therefore I'll lie with him
    When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,
    Marry that will, I live and die a maid.
    Only, in this disguise, I think't no sin
    To cozen him that would unjustly win.                   Exit

ACT IV. SCENE 3. The Florentine camp

Enter the two FRENCH LORDS, and two or three SOLDIERS

  SECOND LORD. You have not given him his mother's letter?
  FIRST LORD. I have deliv'red it an hour since. There is something
    in't that stings his nature; for on the reading it he chang'd
    almost into another man.
  SECOND LORD. He has much worthy blame laid upon him for shaking off
    so good a wife and so sweet a lady.
  FIRST LORD. Especially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure
    of the King, who had even tun'd his bounty to sing happiness to
    him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly
    with you.
  SECOND LORD. When you have spoken it, 'tis dead, and I am the grave
    of it.
  FIRST LORD. He hath perverted a young gentlewoman here in Florence,
    of a most chaste renown; and this night he fleshes his will in
    the spoil of her honour. He hath given her his monumental ring,
    and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition.
  SECOND LORD. Now, God delay our rebellion! As we are ourselves,
    what things are we!
  FIRST LORD. Merely our own traitors. And as in the common course of
    all treasons we still see them reveal themselves till they attain
    to their abhorr'd ends; so he that in this action contrives
    against his own nobility, in his proper stream, o'erflows
    himself.
  SECOND LORD. Is it not meant damnable in us to be trumpeters of our
    unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company to-night?
  FIRST LORD. Not till after midnight; for he is dieted to his hour.
  SECOND LORD. That approaches apace. I would gladly have him see his
    company anatomiz'd, that he might take a measure of his own
    judgments, wherein so curiously he had set this counterfeit.
  FIRST LORD. We will not meddle with him till he come; for his
    presence must be the whip of the other.
  SECOND LORD. In the meantime, what hear you of these wars?
  FIRST LORD. I hear there is an overture of peace.
  SECOND LORD. Nay, I assure you, a peace concluded.
  FIRST LORD. What will Count Rousillon do then? Will he travel
    higher, or return again into France?
  SECOND LORD. I perceive, by this demand, you are not altogether
    of his counsel.
  FIRST LORD. Let it be forbid, sir! So should I be a great deal
    of his act.
  SECOND LORD. Sir, his wife, some two months since, fled from his
    house. Her pretence is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand;
    which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony she
    accomplish'd; and, there residing, the tenderness of her nature
    became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last
    breath, and now she sings in heaven.
  FIRST LORD. How is this justified?
  SECOND LORD. The stronger part of it by her own letters, which
    makes her story true even to the point of her death. Her death
    itself, which could not be her office to say is come, was
    faithfully confirm'd by the rector of the place.
  FIRST LORD. Hath the Count all this intelligence?
  SECOND LORD. Ay, and the particular confirmations, point from
    point, to the full arming of the verity.
  FIRST LORD. I am heartily sorry that he'll be glad of this.
  SECOND LORD. How mightily sometimes we make us comforts of our
    losses!
  FIRST LORD. And how mightily some other times we drown our gain in
    tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquir'd for
    him shall at home be encount'red with a shame as ample.
  SECOND LORD. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill
    together. Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipt them
    not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherish'd by
    our virtues.

                      Enter a MESSENGER

    How now? Where's your master?
  SERVANT. He met the Duke in the street, sir; of whom he hath taken
    a solemn leave. His lordship will next morning for France. The
    Duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the King.
  SECOND LORD. They shall be no more than needful there, if they were
    more than they can commend.
  FIRST LORD. They cannot be too sweet for the King's tartness.
    Here's his lordship now.

                        Enter BERTRAM

    How now, my lord, is't not after midnight?
  BERTRAM. I have to-night dispatch'd sixteen businesses, a month's
    length apiece; by an abstract of success: I have congied with the
    Duke, done my adieu with his nearest; buried a wife, mourn'd for
    her; writ to my lady mother I am returning; entertain'd my
    convoy; and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many
    nicer needs. The last was the greatest, but that I have not ended
    yet.
  SECOND LORD. If the business be of any difficulty and this morning
    your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship.
  BERTRAM. I mean the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of it
    hereafter. But shall we have this dialogue between the Fool and
    the Soldier? Come, bring forth this counterfeit module has
    deceiv'd me like a double-meaning prophesier.
  SECOND LORD. Bring him forth.  [Exeunt SOLDIERS]  Has sat i' th'
    stocks all night, poor gallant knave.
  BERTRAM. No matter; his heels have deserv'd it, in usurping his
    spurs so long. How does he carry himself?
  SECOND LORD. I have told your lordship already the stocks carry
    him. But to answer you as you would be understood: he weeps like
    a wench that had shed her milk; he hath confess'd himself to
    Morgan, whom he supposes to be a friar, from the time of his
    remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i' th'
    stocks. And what think you he hath confess'd?
  BERTRAM. Nothing of me, has 'a?
  SECOND LORD. His confession is taken, and it shall be read to his
    face; if your lordship be in't, as I believe you are, you must
    have the patience to hear it.

                   Enter PAROLLES guarded, and
                  FIRST SOLDIER as interpreter

  BERTRAM. A plague upon him! muffled! He can say nothing of me.
  SECOND LORD. Hush, hush! Hoodman comes. Portotartarossa.
  FIRST SOLDIER. He calls for the tortures. What will you say without
    'em?
  PAROLLES. I will confess what I know without constraint; if ye
    pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Bosko chimurcho.
  SECOND LORD. Boblibindo chicurmurco.
  FIRST SOLDIER. YOU are a merciful general. Our General bids you
    answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.
  PAROLLES. And truly, as I hope to live.
  FIRST SOLDIER. 'First demand of him how many horse the Duke is
    strong.' What say you to that?
  PAROLLES. Five or six thousand; but very weak and unserviceable.
    The troops are all scattered, and the commanders very poor
    rogues, upon my reputation and credit, and as I hope to live.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Shall I set down your answer so?
  PAROLLES. Do; I'll take the sacrament on 't, how and which way you
    will.
  BERTRAM. All's one to him. What a past-saving slave is this!
  SECOND LORD. Y'are deceiv'd, my lord; this is Monsieur Parolles,
    the gallant militarist-that was his own phrase-that had the whole
    theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the
    chape of his dagger.
  FIRST LORD. I will never trust a man again for keeping his sword
    clean; nor believe he can have everything in him by wearing his
    apparel neatly.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down.
  PAROLLES. 'Five or six thousand horse' I said-I will say true- 'or
    thereabouts' set down, for I'll speak truth.
  SECOND LORD. He's very near the truth in this.
  BERTRAM. But I con him no thanks for't in the nature he delivers it.
  PAROLLES. 'Poor rogues' I pray you say.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down.
  PAROLLES. I humbly thank you, sir. A truth's a truth-the rogues are
    marvellous poor.
  FIRST SOLDIER. 'Demand of him of what strength they are a-foot.'
    What say you to that?
  PAROLLES. By my troth, sir, if I were to live this present hour, I
    will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a hundred and fifty;
    Sebastian, so many; Corambus, so many; Jaques, so many; Guiltian,
    Cosmo, Lodowick, and Gratii, two hundred fifty each; mine own
    company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred fifty each; so
    that the muster-file, rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not
    to fifteen thousand poll; half of the which dare not shake the
    snow from off their cassocks lest they shake themselves to
    pieces.
  BERTRAM. What shall be done to him?
  SECOND LORD. Nothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my
    condition, and what credit I have with the Duke.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, that's set down. 'You shall demand of him
    whether one Captain Dumain be i' th' camp, a Frenchman; what his
    reputation is with the Duke, what his valour, honesty, expertness
    in wars; or whether he thinks it were not possible, with
    well-weighing sums of gold, to corrupt him to a revolt.' What say
    you to this? What do you know of it?
  PAROLLES. I beseech you, let me answer to the particular of the
    inter'gatories. Demand them singly.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Do you know this Captain Dumain?
  PAROLLES. I know him: 'a was a botcher's prentice in Paris, from
    whence he was whipt for getting the shrieve's fool with child-a
    dumb innocent that could not say him nay.
  BERTRAM. Nay, by your leave, hold your hands; though I know his
    brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, is this captain in the Duke of Florence's
    camp?
  PAROLLES. Upon my knowledge, he is, and lousy.
  SECOND LORD. Nay, look not so upon me; we shall hear of your
    lordship anon.
  FIRST SOLDIER. What is his reputation with the Duke?
  PAROLLES. The Duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of
    mine; and writ to me this other day to turn him out o' th' band.
    I think I have his letter in my pocket.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Marry, we'll search.
  PAROLLES. In good sadness, I do not know; either it is there or it
    is upon a file with the Duke's other letters in my tent.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Here 'tis; here's a paper. Shall I read it to you?
  PAROLLES. I do not know if it be it or no.
  BERTRAM. Our interpreter does it well.
  SECOND LORD. Excellently.
  FIRST SOLDIER.  [Reads]  'Dian, the Count's a fool, and full of
    gold.'
  PAROLLES. That is not the Duke's letter, sir; that is an
    advertisement to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take
    heed of the allurement of one Count Rousillon, a foolish idle
    boy, but for all that very ruttish. I pray you, sir, put it up
    again.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Nay, I'll read it first by your favour.
  PAROLLES. My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf
    of the maid; for I knew the young Count to be a dangerous and
    lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity, and devours up all
    the fry it finds.
  BERTRAM. Damnable both-sides rogue!
  FIRST SOLDIER.                                         [Reads]
    'When he swears oaths, bid him drop gold, and take it;
    After he scores, he never pays the score.
    Half won is match well made; match, and well make it;
    He ne'er pays after-debts, take it before.
    And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this:
    Men are to mell with, boys are not to kiss;
    For count of this, the Count's a fool, I know it,
    Who pays before, but not when he does owe it.
    Thine, as he vow'd to thee in thine ear,
                                                   PAROLLES.'
  BERTRAM. He shall be whipt through the army with this rhyme in's
    forehead.
  FIRST LORD. This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold
    linguist, and the amnipotent soldier.
  BERTRAM. I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he's a
    cat to me.
  FIRST SOLDIER. I perceive, sir, by our General's looks we shall be
    fain to hang you.
  PAROLLES. My life, sir, in any case! Not that I am afraid to die,
    but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the
    remainder of nature. Let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i' th'
    stocks, or anywhere, so I may live.
  FIRST SOLDIER. We'll see what may be done, so you confess freely;
    therefore, once more to this Captain Dumain: you have answer'd to
    his reputation with the Duke, and to his valour; what is his
    honesty?
  PAROLLES. He will steal, sir, an egg out of a cloister; for rapes
    and ravishments he parallels Nessus. He professes not keeping of
    oaths; in breaking 'em he is stronger than Hercules. He will lie,
    sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool.
    Drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk; and
    in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bedclothes about
    him; but they know his conditions and lay him in straw. I have
    but little more to say, sir, of his honesty. He has everything
    that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should
    have he has nothing.
  SECOND LORD. I begin to love him for this.
  BERTRAM. For this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him! For
    me, he's more and more a cat.
  FIRST SOLDIER. What say you to his expertness in war?
  PAROLLES. Faith, sir, has led the drum before the English
    tragedians-to belie him I will not-and more of his soldier-ship
    I know not, except in that country he had the honour to be the
    officer at a place there called Mile-end to instruct for the
    doubling of files-I would do the man what honour I can-but of
    this I am not certain.
  SECOND LORD. He hath out-villain'd villainy so far that the rarity
    redeems him.
  BERTRAM. A pox on him! he's a cat still.
  FIRST SOLDIER. His qualities being at this poor price, I need not
    to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt.
  PAROLLES. Sir, for a cardecue he will sell the fee-simple of his
    salvation, the inheritance of it; and cut th' entail from all
    remainders and a perpetual succession for it perpetually.
  FIRST SOLDIER. What's his brother, the other Captain Dumain?
  FIRST LORD. Why does he ask him of me?
  FIRST SOLDIER. What's he?
  PAROLLES. E'en a crow o' th' same nest; not altogether so great as
    the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He
    excels his brother for a coward; yet his brother is reputed one
    of the best that is. In a retreat he outruns any lackey: marry,
    in coming on he has the cramp.
  FIRST SOLDIER. If your life be saved, will you undertake to betray
    the Florentine?
  PAROLLES. Ay, and the Captain of his Horse, Count Rousillon.
  FIRST SOLDIER. I'll whisper with the General, and know his
    pleasure.
  PAROLLES.  [Aside]  I'll no more drumming. A plague of all drums!
    Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition of
    that lascivious young boy the Count, have I run into this danger.
    Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?
  FIRST SOLDIER. There is no remedy, sir, but you must die.
    The General says you that have so traitorously discover'd the
    secrets of your army, and made such pestiferous reports of men
    very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use; therefore
    you must die. Come, headsman, of with his head.
  PAROLLES. O Lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!
  FIRST SOLDIER. That shall you, and take your leave of all your
    friends.  [Unmuffling him]  So look about you; know you any here?
  BERTRAM. Good morrow, noble Captain.
  FIRST LORD. God bless you, Captain Parolles.
  SECOND LORD. God save you, noble Captain.
  FIRST LORD. Captain, what greeting will you to my Lord Lafeu? I am
    for France.
  SECOND LORD. Good Captain, will you give me a copy of the sonnet
    you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rousillon? An I were not
    a very coward I'd compel it of you; but fare you well.
                                        Exeunt BERTRAM and LORDS
  FIRST SOLDIER. You are undone, Captain, all but your scarf; that
    has a knot on 't yet.
  PAROLLES. Who cannot be crush'd with a plot?
  FIRST SOLDIER. If you could find out a country where but women were
    that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent
    nation. Fare ye well, sir; I am for France too; we shall speak of
    you there.                                Exit with SOLDIERS
  PAROLLES. Yet am I thankful. If my heart were great,
    'Twould burst at this. Captain I'll be no more;
    But I will eat, and drink, and sleep as soft
    As captain shall. Simply the thing I am
    Shall make me live. Who knows himself a braggart,
    Let him fear this; for it will come to pass
    That every braggart shall be found an ass.
    Rust, sword; cool, blushes; and, Parolles, live
    Safest in shame. Being fool'd, by fool'ry thrive.
    There's place and means for every man alive.
    I'll after them.                                        Exit

ACT IV SCENE 4. The WIDOW'S house

Enter HELENA, WIDOW, and DIANA

  HELENA. That you may well perceive I have not wrong'd you!
    One of the greatest in the Christian world
    Shall be my surety; fore whose throne 'tis needful,
    Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel.
    Time was I did him a desired office,
    Dear almost as his life; which gratitude
    Through flinty Tartar's bosom would peep forth,
    And answer 'Thanks.' I duly am inform'd
    His Grace is at Marseilles, to which place
    We have convenient convoy. You must know
    I am supposed dead. The army breaking,
    My husband hies him home; where, heaven aiding,
    And by the leave of my good lord the King,
    We'll be before our welcome.
  WIDOW. Gentle madam,
    You never had a servant to whose trust
    Your business was more welcome.
  HELENA. Nor you, mistress,
    Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour
    To recompense your love. Doubt not but heaven
    Hath brought me up to be your daughter's dower,
    As it hath fated her to be my motive
    And helper to a husband. But, O strange men!
    That can such sweet use make of what they hate,
    When saucy trusting of the cozen'd thoughts
    Defiles the pitchy night. So lust doth play
    With what it loathes, for that which is away.
    But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,
    Under my poor instructions yet must suffer
    Something in my behalf.
  DIANA. Let death and honesty
    Go with your impositions, I am yours
    Upon your will to suffer.
  HELENA. Yet, I pray you:
    But with the word the time will bring on summer,
    When briers shall have leaves as well as thorns
    And be as sweet as sharp. We must away;
    Our waggon is prepar'd, and time revives us.
    All's Well that Ends Well. Still the fine's the crown.
    Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.           Exeunt

ACT IV SCENE 5. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Enter COUNTESS, LAFEU, and CLOWN

  LAFEU. No, no, no, son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow
    there, whose villainous saffron would have made all the unbak'd
    and doughy youth of a nation in his colour. Your daughter-in-law
    had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more
    advanc'd by the King than by that red-tail'd humble-bee I speak
    of.
  COUNTESS. I would I had not known him. It was the death of the most
    virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If
    she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a
    mother. I could not have owed her a more rooted love.
  LAFEU. 'Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand
    sallets ere we light on such another herb.
  CLOWN. Indeed, sir, she was the sweet-marjoram of the sallet, or,
    rather, the herb of grace.
  LAFEU. They are not sallet-herbs, you knave; they are nose-herbs.
  CLOWN. I am no great Nebuchadnezzar, sir; I have not much skill in
    grass.
  LAFEU. Whether dost thou profess thyself-a knave or a fool?
  CLOWN. A fool, sir, at a woman's service, and a knave at a man's.
  LAFEU. Your distinction?
  CLOWN. I would cozen the man of his wife, and do his service.
  LAFEU. So you were a knave at his service, indeed.
  CLOWN. And I would give his wife my bauble, sir, to do her service.
  LAFEU. I will subscribe for thee; thou art both knave and fool.
  CLOWN. At your service.
  LAFEU. No, no, no.
  CLOWN. Why, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a
    prince as you are.
  LAFEU. Who's that? A Frenchman?
  CLOWN. Faith, sir, 'a has an English name; but his fisnomy is more
    hotter in France than there.
  LAFEU. What prince is that?
  CLOWN. The Black Prince, sir; alias, the Prince of Darkness; alias,
    the devil.
  LAFEU. Hold thee, there's my purse. I give thee not this to suggest
    thee from thy master thou talk'st of; serve him still.
  CLOWN. I am a woodland fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire;
    and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But, sure, he
    is the prince of the world; let his nobility remain in's court. I
    am for the house with the narrow gate, which I take to be too
    little for pomp to enter. Some that humble themselves may; but
    the many will be too chill and tender: and they'll be for the
    flow'ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.
  LAFEU. Go thy ways, I begin to be aweary of thee; and I tell thee
    so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways;
    let my horses be well look'd to, without any tricks.
  CLOWN. If I put any tricks upon 'em, sir, they shall be jades'
    tricks, which are their own right by the law of nature.
 Exit
  LAFEU. A shrewd knave, and an unhappy.
  COUNTESS. So 'a is. My lord that's gone made himself much  sport
    out of him. By his authority he remains here, which he thinks is
    a patent for his sauciness; and indeed he has no pace, but runs
    where he will.
  LAFEU. I like him well; 'tis not amiss. And I was about to tell
    you, since I heard of the good lady's death, and that my lord
    your son was upon his return home, I moved the King my master to
    speak in the behalf of my daughter; which, in the minority of
    them both, his Majesty out of a self-gracious remembrance did
    first propose. His Highness hath promis'd me to do it; and, to
    stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there
    is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it?
  COUNTESS. With very much content, my lord; and I wish it happily
    effected.
  LAFEU. His Highness comes post from Marseilles, of as able body as
    when he number'd thirty; 'a will be here to-morrow, or I am
    deceiv'd by him that in such intelligence hath seldom fail'd.
  COUNTESS. It rejoices me that I hope I shall see him ere I die.
    I have letters that my son will be here to-night. I shall beseech
    your lordship to remain with me tal they meet together.
  LAFEU. Madam, I was thinking with what manners I might safely be
    admitted.
  COUNTESS. You need but plead your honourable privilege.
  LAFEU. Lady, of that I have made a bold charter; but, I thank my
    God, it holds yet.

                         Re-enter CLOWN

  CLOWN. O madam, yonder's my lord your son with a patch of velvet
    on's face; whether there be a scar under 't or no, the velvet
    knows; but 'tis a goodly patch of velvet. His left cheek is a
    cheek of two pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.
  LAFEU. A scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good liv'ry of
    honour; so belike is that.
  CLOWN. But it is your carbonado'd face.
  LAFEU. Let us go see your son, I pray you;
    I long to talk with the young noble soldier.
  CLOWN. Faith, there's a dozen of 'em, with delicate fine hats, and
    most courteous feathers, which bow the head and nod at every man.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1. Marseilles. A street

Enter HELENA, WIDOW, and DIANA, with two ATTENDANTS

  HELENA. But this exceeding posting day and night
    Must wear your spirits low; we cannot help it.
    But since you have made the days and nights as one,
    To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,
    Be bold you do so grow in my requital
    As nothing can unroot you.

                      Enter a GENTLEMAN

    In happy time!
    This man may help me to his Majesty's ear,
    If he would spend his power. God save you, sir.
  GENTLEMAN. And you.
  HELENA. Sir, I have seen you in the court of France.
  GENTLEMAN. I have been sometimes there.
  HELENA. I do presume, sir, that you are not fall'n
    From the report that goes upon your goodness;
    And therefore, goaded with most sharp occasions,
    Which lay nice manners by, I put you to
    The use of your own virtues, for the which
    I shall continue thankful.
  GENTLEMAN. What's your will?
  HELENA. That it will please you
    To give this poor petition to the King;
    And aid me with that store of power you have
    To come into his presence.
  GENTLEMAN. The King's not here.
  HELENA. Not here, sir?
  GENTLEMAN. Not indeed.
    He hence remov'd last night, and with more haste
    Than is his use.
  WIDOW. Lord, how we lose our pains!
  HELENA. All's Well That Ends Well yet,
    Though time seem so adverse and means unfit.
    I do beseech you, whither is he gone?
  GENTLEMAN. Marry, as I take it, to Rousillon;
    Whither I am going.
  HELENA. I do beseech you, sir,
    Since you are like to see the King before me,
    Commend the paper to his gracious hand;
    Which I presume shall render you no blame,
    But rather make you thank your pains for it.
    I will come after you with what good speed
    Our means will make us means.
  GENTLEMAN. This I'll do for you.
  HELENA. And you shall find yourself to be well thank'd,
    Whate'er falls more. We must to horse again;
    Go, go, provide.                                      Exeunt

ACT V SCENE 2. Rousillon. The inner court of the COUNT'S palace

Enter CLOWN and PAROLLES

  PAROLLES. Good Monsieur Lavache, give my Lord Lafeu this letter. I
    have ere now, sir, been better known to you, when I have held
    familiarity with fresher clothes; but I am now, sir, muddied in
    Fortune's mood, and smell somewhat strong of her strong
    displeasure.
  CLOWN. Truly, Fortune's displeasure is but sluttish, if it smell
    so strongly as thou speak'st of. I will henceforth eat no fish
    of Fortune's butt'ring. Prithee, allow the wind.
  PAROLLES. Nay, you need not to stop your nose, sir; I spake but by
    a metaphor.
  CLOWN. Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose; or
    against any man's metaphor. Prithee, get thee further.
  PAROLLES. Pray you, sir, deliver me this paper.
  CLOWN. Foh! prithee stand away. A paper from Fortune's close-stool
    to give to a nobleman! Look here he comes himself.

                           Enter LAFEU

    Here is a pur of Fortune's, sir, or of Fortune's cat, but not
    a musk-cat, that has fall'n into the unclean fishpond of her
    displeasure, and, as he says, is muddied withal. Pray you, sir,
    use the carp as you may; for he looks like a poor, decayed,
    ingenious, foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his distress
    in my similes of comfort, and leave him to your lordship.
 Exit
  PAROLLES. My lord, I am a man whom Fortune hath cruelly scratch'd.
  LAFEU. And what would you have me to do? 'Tis too late to pare her
    nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with Fortune, that
    she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady and would
    not have knaves thrive long under her? There's a cardecue for
    you. Let the justices make you and Fortune friends; I am for
    other business.
  PAROLLES. I beseech your honour to hear me one single word.
  LAFEU. You beg a single penny more; come, you shall ha't; save your
    word.
  PAROLLES. My name, my good lord, is Parolles.
  LAFEU. You beg more than word then. Cox my passion! give me your
    hand. How does your drum?
  PAROLLES. O my good lord, you were the first that found me.
  LAFEU. Was I, in sooth? And I was the first that lost thee.
  PAROLLES. It lies in you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for
    you did bring me out.
  LAFEU. Out upon thee, knave! Dost thou put upon me at once both the
    office of God and the devil? One brings the in grace, and the
    other brings thee out.    [Trumpets sound]  The King's coming; I
    know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire further after me; I had
    talk of you last night. Though you are a fool and a knave, you
    shall eat. Go to; follow.
  PAROLLES. I praise God for you.                         Exeunt

ACT V SCENE 3. Rousillon. The COUNT'S palace

Flourish. Enter KING, COUNTESS, LAFEU, the two FRENCH LORDS, with
ATTENDANTS

  KING. We lost a jewel of her, and our esteem
    Was made much poorer by it; but your son,
    As mad in folly, lack'd the sense to know
    Her estimation home.
  COUNTESS. 'Tis past, my liege;
    And I beseech your Majesty to make it
    Natural rebellion, done i' th' blaze of youth,
    When oil and fire, too strong for reason's force,
    O'erbears it and burns on.
  KING. My honour'd lady,
    I have forgiven and forgotten all;
    Though my revenges were high bent upon him
    And watch'd the time to shoot.
  LAFEU. This I must say-
    But first, I beg my pardon: the young lord
    Did to his Majesty, his mother, and his lady,
    Offence of mighty note; but to himself
    The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife
    Whose beauty did astonish the survey
    Of richest eyes; whose words all ears took captive;
    Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn'd to serve
    Humbly call'd mistress.
  KING. Praising what is lost
    Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither;
    We are reconcil'd, and the first view shall kill
    All repetition. Let him not ask our pardon;
    The nature of his great offence is dead,
    And deeper than oblivion do we bury
    Th' incensing relics of it; let him approach,
    A stranger, no offender; and inform him
    So 'tis our will he should.
  GENTLEMAN. I shall, my liege.                 Exit GENTLEMAN
  KING. What says he to your daughter? Have you spoke?
  LAFEU. All that he is hath reference to your Highness.
  KING. Then shall we have a match. I have letters sent me
    That sets him high in fame.

                          Enter BERTRAM

  LAFEU. He looks well on 't.
  KING. I am not a day of season,
    For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail
    In me at once. But to the brightest beams
    Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;
    The time is fair again.
  BERTRAM. My high-repented blames,
    Dear sovereign, pardon to me.
  KING. All is whole;
    Not one word more of the consumed time.
    Let's take the instant by the forward top;
    For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
    Th' inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
    Steals ere we can effect them. You remember
    The daughter of this lord?
  BERTRAM. Admiringly, my liege. At first
    I stuck my choice upon her, ere my heart
    Durst make too bold herald of my tongue;
    Where the impression of mine eye infixing,
    Contempt his scornful perspective did lend me,
    Which warp'd the line of every other favour,
    Scorn'd a fair colour or express'd it stol'n,
    Extended or contracted all proportions
    To a most hideous object. Thence it came
    That she whom all men prais'd, and whom myself,
    Since I have lost, have lov'd, was in mine eye
    The dust that did offend it.
  KING. Well excus'd.
    That thou didst love her, strikes some scores away
    From the great compt; but love that comes too late,
    Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried,
    To the great sender turns a sour offence,
    Crying 'That's good that's gone.' Our rash faults
    Make trivial price of serious things we have,
    Not knowing them until we know their grave.
    Oft our displeasures, to ourselves unjust,
    Destroy our friends, and after weep their dust;
    Our own love waking cries to see what's done,
    While shameful hate sleeps out the afternoon.
    Be this sweet Helen's knell. And now forget her.
    Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin.
    The main consents are had; and here we'll stay
    To see our widower's second marriage-day.
  COUNTESS. Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!
    Or, ere they meet, in me, O nature, cesse!
  LAFEU. Come on, my son, in whom my house's name
    Must be digested; give a favour from you,
    To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,
    That she may quickly come.
                                          [BERTRAM gives a ring]
    By my old beard,
    And ev'ry hair that's on 't, Helen, that's dead,
    Was a sweet creature; such a ring as this,
    The last that e'er I took her leave at court,
    I saw upon her finger.
  BERTRAM. Hers it was not.
  KING. Now, pray you, let me see it; for mine eye,
    While I was speaking, oft was fasten'd to't.
    This ring was mine; and when I gave it Helen
    I bade her, if her fortunes ever stood
    Necessitied to help, that by this token
    I would relieve her. Had you that craft to reave her
    Of what should stead her most?
  BERTRAM. My gracious sovereign,
    Howe'er it pleases you to take it so,
    The ring was never hers.
  COUNTESS. Son, on my life,
    I have seen her wear it; and she reckon'd it
    At her life's rate.
  LAFEU. I am sure I saw her wear it.
  BERTRAM. You are deceiv'd, my lord; she never saw it.
    In Florence was it from a casement thrown me,
    Wrapp'd in a paper, which contain'd the name
    Of her that threw it. Noble she was, and thought
    I stood engag'd; but when I had subscrib'd
    To mine own fortune, and inform'd her fully
    I could not answer in that course of honour
    As she had made the overture, she ceas'd,
    In heavy satisfaction, and would never
    Receive the ring again.
  KING. Plutus himself,
    That knows the tinct and multiplying med'cine,
    Hath not in nature's mystery more science
    Than I have in this ring. 'Twas mine, 'twas Helen's,
    Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know
    That you are well acquainted with yourself,
    Confess 'twas hers, and by what rough enforcement
    You got it from her. She call'd the saints to surety
    That she would never put it from her finger
    Unless she gave it to yourself in bed-
    Where you have never come- or sent it us
    Upon her great disaster.
  BERTRAM. She never saw it.
  KING. Thou speak'st it falsely, as I love mine honour;
    And mak'st conjectural fears to come into me
    Which I would fain shut out. If it should prove
    That thou art so inhuman- 'twill not prove so.
    And yet I know not- thou didst hate her deadly,
    And she is dead; which nothing, but to close
    Her eyes myself, could win me to believe
    More than to see this ring. Take him away.
                                          [GUARDS seize BERTRAM]
    My fore-past proofs, howe'er the matter fall,
    Shall tax my fears of little vanity,
    Having vainly fear'd too little. Away with him.
    We'll sift this matter further.
  BERTRAM. If you shall prove
    This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy
    Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,
    Where she yet never was.                       Exit, guarded
  KING. I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings.

                        Enter a GENTLEMAN

  GENTLEMAN. Gracious sovereign,
    Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:
    Here's a petition from a Florentine,
    Who hath, for four or five removes, come short
    To tender it herself. I undertook it,
    Vanquish'd thereto by the fair grace and speech
    Of the poor suppliant, who by this, I know,
    Is here attending; her business looks in her
    With an importing visage; and she told me
    In a sweet verbal brief it did concern
    Your Highness with herself.
  KING.  [Reads the letter]  'Upon his many protestations to marry me
    when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the
    Count Rousillon a widower; his vows are forfeited to me, and my
    honour's paid to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave,
    and I follow him to his country for justice. Grant it me, O King!
    in you it best lies; otherwise a seducer flourishes, and a poor
    maid is undone.
                                                DIANA CAPILET.'
  LAFEU. I will buy me a son-in-law in a fair, and toll for this.
    I'll none of him.
  KING. The heavens have thought well on thee, Lafeu,
    To bring forth this discov'ry. Seek these suitors.
    Go speedily, and bring again the Count.
                                               Exeunt ATTENDANTS
    I am afeard the life of Helen, lady,
    Was foully snatch'd.
  COUNTESS. Now, justice on the doers!

                       Enter BERTRAM, guarded

  KING. I wonder, sir, sith wives are monsters to you.
    And that you fly them as you swear them lordship,
    Yet you desire to marry.
                                           Enter WIDOW and DIANA
    What woman's that?
  DIANA. I am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,
    Derived from the ancient Capilet.
    My suit, as I do understand, you know,
    And therefore know how far I may be pitied.
  WIDOW. I am her mother, sir, whose age and honour
    Both suffer under this complaint we bring,
    And both shall cease, without your remedy.
  KING. Come hither, Count; do you know these women?
  BERTRAM. My lord, I neither can nor will deny
    But that I know them. Do they charge me further?
  DIANA. Why do you look so strange upon your wife?
  BERTRAM. She's none of mine, my lord.
  DIANA. If you shall marry,
    You give away this hand, and that is mine;
    You give away heaven's vows, and those are mine;
    You give away myself, which is known mine;
    For I by vow am so embodied yours
    That she which marries you must marry me,
    Either both or none.
  LAFEU.  [To BERTRAM]  Your reputation comes too short for
    my daughter; you are no husband for her.
  BERTRAM. My lord, this is a fond and desp'rate creature
    Whom sometime I have laugh'd with. Let your Highness
    Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour
    Than for to think that I would sink it here.
  KING. Sir, for my thoughts, you have them ill to friend
    Till your deeds gain them. Fairer prove your honour
    Than in my thought it lies!
  DIANA. Good my lord,
    Ask him upon his oath if he does think
    He had not my virginity.
  KING. What say'st thou to her?
  BERTRAM. She's impudent, my lord,
    And was a common gamester to the camp.
  DIANA. He does me wrong, my lord; if I were so
    He might have bought me at a common price.
    Do not believe him. o, behold this ring,
    Whose high respect and rich validity
    Did lack a parallel; yet, for all that,
    He gave it to a commoner o' th' camp,
    If I be one.
  COUNTESS. He blushes, and 'tis it.
    Of six preceding ancestors, that gem
    Conferr'd by testament to th' sequent issue,
    Hath it been ow'd and worn. This is his wife:
    That ring's a thousand proofs.
  KING. Methought you said
    You saw one here in court could witness it.
  DIANA. I did, my lord, but loath am to produce
    So bad an instrument; his name's Parolles.
  LAFEU. I saw the man to-day, if man he be.
  KING. Find him, and bring him hither.        Exit an ATTENDANT
  BERTRAM. What of him?
    He's quoted for a most perfidious slave,
    With all the spots o' th' world tax'd and debauch'd,
    Whose nature sickens but to speak a truth.
    Am I or that or this for what he'll utter
    That will speak anything?
  KING. She hath that ring of yours.
  BERTRAM. I think she has. Certain it is I lik'd her,
    And boarded her i' th' wanton way of youth.
    She knew her distance, and did angle for me,
    Madding my eagerness with her restraint,
    As all impediments in fancy's course
    Are motives of more fancy; and, in fine,
    Her infinite cunning with her modern grace
    Subdu'd me to her rate. She got the ring;
    And I had that which any inferior might
    At market-price have bought.
  DIANA. I must be patient.
    You that have turn'd off a first so noble wife
    May justly diet me. I pray you yet-
    Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband-
    Send for your ring, I will return it home,
    And give me mine again.
  BERTRAM. I have it not.
  KING. What ring was yours, I pray you?
  DIANA. Sir, much like
    The same upon your finger.
  KING. Know you this ring? This ring was his of late.
  DIANA. And this was it I gave him, being abed.
  KING. The story, then, goes false you threw it him
    Out of a casement.
  DIANA. I have spoke the truth.

                       Enter PAROLLES

  BERTRAM. My lord, I do confess the ring was hers.
  KING. You boggle shrewdly; every feather starts you.
    Is this the man you speak of?
  DIANA. Ay, my lord.
  KING. Tell me, sirrah-but tell me true I charge you,
    Not fearing the displeasure of your master,
    Which, on your just proceeding, I'll keep off-
    By him and by this woman here what know you?
  PAROLLES. So please your Majesty, my master hath been an honourable
    gentleman; tricks he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.
  KING. Come, come, to th' purpose. Did he love this woman?
  PAROLLES. Faith, sir, he did love her; but how?
  KING. How, I pray you?
  PAROLLES. He did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman.
  KING. How is that?
  PAROLLES. He lov'd her, sir, and lov'd her not.
  KING. As thou art a knave and no knave.
    What an equivocal companion is this!
  PAROLLES. I am a poor man, and at your Majesty's command.
  LAFEU. He's a good drum, my lord, but a naughty orator.
  DIANA. Do you know he promis'd me marriage?
  PAROLLES. Faith, I know more than I'll speak.
  KING. But wilt thou not speak all thou know'st?
  PAROLLES. Yes, so please your Majesty. I did go between them, as I
    said; but more than that, he loved her-for indeed he was mad for
    her, and talk'd of Satan, and of Limbo, and of Furies, and I know
    not what. Yet I was in that credit with them at that time that I
    knew of their going to bed; and of other motions, as promising
    her marriage, and things which would derive me ill will to speak
    of; therefore I will not speak what I know.
  KING. Thou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are
    married; but thou art too fine in thy evidence; therefore stand
    aside.
    This ring, you say, was yours?
  DIANA. Ay, my good lord.
  KING. Where did you buy it? Or who gave it you?
  DIANA. It was not given me, nor I did not buy it.
  KING. Who lent it you?
  DIANA. It was not lent me neither.
  KING. Where did you find it then?
  DIANA. I found it not.
  KING. If it were yours by none of all these ways,
    How could you give it him?
  DIANA. I never gave it him.
  LAFEU. This woman's an easy glove, my lord; she goes of and on at
    pleasure.
  KING. This ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.
  DIANA. It might be yours or hers, for aught I know.
  KING. Take her away, I do not like her now;
    To prison with her. And away with him.
    Unless thou tell'st me where thou hadst this ring,
    Thou diest within this hour.
  DIANA. I'll never tell you.
  KING. Take her away.
  DIANA. I'll put in bail, my liege.
  KING. I think thee now some common customer.
  DIANA. By Jove, if ever I knew man, 'twas you.
  KING. Wherefore hast thou accus'd him all this while?
  DIANA. Because he's guilty, and he is not guilty.
    He knows I am no maid, and he'll swear to't:
    I'll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.
    Great King, I am no strumpet, by my life;
    I am either maid, or else this old man's wife.
                                             [Pointing to LAFEU]
  KING. She does abuse our ears; to prison with her.
  DIANA. Good mother, fetch my bail. Stay, royal sir;
                                                      Exit WIDOW
    The jeweller that owes the ring is sent for,
    And he shall surety me. But for this lord
    Who hath abus'd me as he knows himself,
    Though yet he never harm'd me, here I quit him.
    He knows himself my bed he hath defil'd;
    And at that time he got his wife with child.
    Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick;
    So there's my riddle: one that's dead is quick-
    And now behold the meaning.

                     Re-enter WIDOW with HELENA

  KING. Is there no exorcist
    Beguiles the truer office of mine eyes?
    Is't real that I see?
  HELENA. No, my good lord;
    'Tis but the shadow of a wife you see,
    The name and not the thing.
  BERTRAM. Both, both; o, pardon!
  HELENA. O, my good lord, when I was like this maid,
    I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,
    And, look you, here's your letter. This it says:
    'When from my finger you can get this ring,
    And are by me with child,' etc. This is done.
    Will you be mine now you are doubly won?
  BERTRAM. If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly,
    I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.
  HELENA. If it appear not plain, and prove untrue,
    Deadly divorce step between me and you!
    O my dear mother, do I see you living?
  LAFEU. Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon. [To PAROLLES]
    Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher. So, I
    thank thee. Wait on me home, I'll make sport with thee;
    let thy curtsies alone, they are scurvy ones.
  KING. Let us from point to point this story know,
    To make the even truth in pleasure flow.
    [To DIANA]  If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower,
    Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;
    For I can guess that by thy honest aid
    Thou kept'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.-
    Of that and all the progress, more and less,
    Resolvedly more leisure shall express.
    All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,
    The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.       [Flourish]

EPILOGUE EPILOGUE.

  KING. The King's a beggar, now the play is done.
    All is well ended if this suit be won,
    That you express content; which we will pay
    With strife to please you, day exceeding day.
    Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
    Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.
                                                    Exeunt omnes

THE END

1607




THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  MARK ANTONY,         Triumvirs
  OCTAVIUS CAESAR,         "
  M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS,     "
  SEXTUS POMPEIUS,         "
  DOMITIUS ENOBARBUS, friend to Antony
  VENTIDIUS,             "    "   "
  EROS,                  "    "   "
  SCARUS,                "    "   "
  DERCETAS,              "    "   "
  DEMETRIUS,             "    "   "
  PHILO,                 "    "   "
  MAECENAS,   friend to Caesar
  AGRIPPA,       "    "   "
  DOLABELLA,     "    "   "
  PROCULEIUS,    "    "   "
  THYREUS,       "    "   "
  GALLUS,        "    "   "
  MENAS,      friend to Pompey
  MENECRATES,    "    "    "
  VARRIUS,       "    "    "
  TAURUS, Lieutenant-General to Caesar
  CANIDIUS, Lieutenant-General to Antony
  SILIUS, an Officer in Ventidius's army
  EUPHRONIUS, an Ambassador from Antony to Caesar
  ALEXAS,   attendant on Cleopatra
  MARDIAN,      "     "      "
  SELEUCUS,     "     "      "
  DIOMEDES,     "     "      "
  A SOOTHSAYER
  A CLOWN

  CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt
  OCTAVIA, sister to Caesar and wife to Antony
  CHARMIAN, lady attending on Cleopatra
  IRAS,       "      "      "     "

  Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants

SCENE: The Roman Empire

ACT I. SCENE I. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

Enter DEMETRIUS and PHILO

  PHILO. Nay, but this dotage of our general's
    O'erflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes,
    That o'er the files and musters of the war
    Have glow'd like plated Mars, now bend, now turn,
    The office and devotion of their view
    Upon a tawny front. His captain's heart,
    Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
    The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
    And is become the bellows and the fan
    To cool a gipsy's lust.

     Flourish. Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, her LADIES, the train,
                    with eunuchs fanning her

    Look where they come!
    Take but good note, and you shall see in him
    The triple pillar of the world transform'd
    Into a strumpet's fool. Behold and see.
  CLEOPATRA. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
  ANTONY. There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.
  CLEOPATRA. I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.
  ANTONY. Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

                       Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. News, my good lord, from Rome.
  ANTONY. Grates me the sum.
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, hear them, Antony.
    Fulvia perchance is angry; or who knows
    If the scarce-bearded Caesar have not sent
    His pow'rful mandate to you: 'Do this or this;
    Take in that kingdom and enfranchise that;
    Perform't, or else we damn thee.'
  ANTONY. How, my love?
  CLEOPATRA. Perchance? Nay, and most like,
    You must not stay here longer; your dismission
    Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.
    Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? Both?
    Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's Queen,
    Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine
    Is Caesar's homager. Else so thy cheek pays shame
    When shrill-tongu'd Fulvia scolds. The messengers!
  ANTONY. Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
    Of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space.
    Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
    Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life
    Is to do thus [emhracing], when such a mutual pair
    And such a twain can do't, in which I bind,
    On pain of punishment, the world to weet
    We stand up peerless.
  CLEOPATRA. Excellent falsehood!
    Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her?
    I'll seem the fool I am not. Antony
    Will be himself.
  ANTONY. But stirr'd by Cleopatra.
    Now for the love of Love and her soft hours,
    Let's not confound the time with conference harsh;
    There's not a minute of our lives should stretch
    Without some pleasure now. What sport to-night?
  CLEOPATRA. Hear the ambassadors.
  ANTONY. Fie, wrangling queen!
    Whom everything becomes- to chide, to laugh,
    To weep; whose every passion fully strives
    To make itself in thee fair and admir'd.
    No messenger but thine, and all alone
    To-night we'll wander through the streets and note
    The qualities of people. Come, my queen;
    Last night you did desire it. Speak not to us.
                     Exeunt ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, with the train
  DEMETRIUS. Is Caesar with Antonius priz'd so slight?
  PHILO. Sir, sometimes when he is not Antony,
    He comes too short of that great property
    Which still should go with Antony.
  DEMETRIUS. I am full sorry
    That he approves the common liar, who
    Thus speaks of him at Rome; but I will hope
    Of better deeds to-morrow. Rest you happy!            Exeunt

SCENE II. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

Enter CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, and a SOOTHSAYER

  CHARMIAN. Lord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost
    most absolute Alexas, where's the soothsayer that you prais'd so
    to th' Queen? O that I knew this husband, which you say must
    charge his horns with garlands!
  ALEXAS. Soothsayer!
  SOOTHSAYER. Your will?
  CHARMIAN. Is this the man? Is't you, sir, that know things?
  SOOTHSAYER. In nature's infinite book of secrecy
    A little I can read.
  ALEXAS. Show him your hand.

                       Enter ENOBARBUS

  ENOBARBUS. Bring in the banquet quickly; wine enough
    Cleopatra's health to drink.
  CHARMIAN. Good, sir, give me good fortune.
  SOOTHSAYER. I make not, but foresee.
  CHARMIAN. Pray, then, foresee me one.
  SOOTHSAYER. You shall be yet far fairer than you are.
  CHARMIAN. He means in flesh.
  IRAS. No, you shall paint when you are old.
  CHARMIAN. Wrinkles forbid!
  ALEXAS. Vex not his prescience; be attentive.
  CHARMIAN. Hush!
  SOOTHSAYER. You shall be more beloving than beloved.
  CHARMIAN. I had rather heat my liver with drinking.
  ALEXAS. Nay, hear him.
  CHARMIAN. Good now, some excellent fortune! Let me be married to
    three kings in a forenoon, and widow them all. Let me have a
    child at fifty, to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage. Find me to
    marry me with Octavius Caesar, and companion me with my mistress.
  SOOTHSAYER. You shall outlive the lady whom you serve.
  CHARMIAN. O, excellent! I love long life better than figs.
  SOOTHSAYER. You have seen and prov'd a fairer former fortune
    Than that which is to approach.
  CHARMIAN. Then belike my children shall have no names.
    Prithee, how many boys and wenches must I have?
  SOOTHSAYER. If every of your wishes had a womb,
    And fertile every wish, a million.
  CHARMIAN. Out, fool! I forgive thee for a witch.
  ALEXAS. You think none but your sheets are privy to your wishes.
  CHARMIAN. Nay, come, tell Iras hers.
  ALEXAS. We'll know all our fortunes.
  ENOBARBUS. Mine, and most of our fortunes, to-night, shall be-
    drunk to bed.
  IRAS. There's a palm presages chastity, if nothing else.
  CHARMIAN. E'en as the o'erflowing Nilus presageth famine.
  IRAS. Go, you wild bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.
  CHARMIAN. Nay, if an oily palm be not a fruitful prognostication, I
    cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee, tell her but worky-day fortune.
  SOOTHSAYER. Your fortunes are alike.
  IRAS. But how, but how? Give me particulars.
  SOOTHSAYER. I have said.
  IRAS. Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?
  CHARMIAN. Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I,
    where would you choose it?
  IRAS. Not in my husband's nose.
  CHARMIAN. Our worser thoughts heavens mend! Alexas- come, his
    fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman that cannot go,
    sweet Isis, I beseech thee! And let her die too, and give him a
    worse! And let worse follow worse, till the worst of all follow
    him laughing to his grave, fiftyfold a cuckold! Good Isis, hear
    me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter of more weight; good
    Isis, I beseech thee!
  IRAS. Amen. Dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! For, as
    it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man loose-wiv'd, so it is
    a deadly sorrow to behold a foul knave uncuckolded. Therefore,
    dear Isis, keep decorum, and fortune him accordingly!
  CHARMIAN. Amen.
  ALEXAS. Lo now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they
    would make themselves whores but they'ld do't!

                          Enter CLEOPATRA

  ENOBARBUS. Hush! Here comes Antony.
  CHARMIAN. Not he; the Queen.
  CLEOPATRA. Saw you my lord?
  ENOBARBUS. No, lady.
  CLEOPATRA. Was he not here?
  CHARMIAN. No, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. He was dispos'd to mirth; but on the sudden
    A Roman thought hath struck him. Enobarbus!
  ENOBARBUS. Madam?
  CLEOPATRA. Seek him, and bring him hither. Where's Alexas?
  ALEXAS. Here, at your service. My lord approaches.

          Enter ANTONY, with a MESSENGER and attendants

  CLEOPATRA. We will not look upon him. Go with us.
                       Exeunt CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, and the rest
  MESSENGER. Fulvia thy wife first came into the field.
  ANTONY. Against my brother Lucius?
  MESSENGER. Ay.
    But soon that war had end, and the time's state
    Made friends of them, jointing their force 'gainst Caesar,
    Whose better issue in the war from Italy
    Upon the first encounter drave them.
  ANTONY. Well, what worst?
  MESSENGER. The nature of bad news infects the teller.
  ANTONY. When it concerns the fool or coward. On!
    Things that are past are done with me. 'Tis thus:
    Who tells me true, though in his tale lie death,
    I hear him as he flatter'd.
  MESSENGER. Labienus-
    This is stiff news- hath with his Parthian force
    Extended Asia from Euphrates,
    His conquering banner shook from Syria
    To Lydia and to Ionia,
    Whilst-
  ANTONY. Antony, thou wouldst say.
  MESSENGER. O, my lord!
  ANTONY. Speak to me home; mince not the general tongue;
    Name Cleopatra as she is call'd in Rome.
    Rail thou in Fulvia's phrase, and taunt my faults
    With such full licence as both truth and malice
    Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds
    When our quick minds lie still, and our ills told us
    Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.
  MESSENGER. At your noble pleasure.                        Exit
  ANTONY. From Sicyon, ho, the news! Speak there!
  FIRST ATTENDANT. The man from Sicyon- is there such an one?
  SECOND ATTENDANT. He stays upon your will.
  ANTONY. Let him appear.
    These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,
    Or lose myself in dotage.

                 Enter another MESSENGER with a letter

    What are you?
  SECOND MESSENGER. Fulvia thy wife is dead.
  ANTONY. Where died she?
  SECOND MESSENGER. In Sicyon.
    Her length of sickness, with what else more serious
    Importeth thee to know, this bears.       [Gives the letter]
  ANTONY. Forbear me.                             Exit MESSENGER
    There's a great spirit gone! Thus did I desire it.
    What our contempts doth often hurl from us
    We wish it ours again; the present pleasure,
    By revolution low'ring, does become
    The opposite of itself. She's good, being gone;
    The hand could pluck her back that shov'd her on.
    I must from this enchanting queen break off.
    Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
    My idleness doth hatch. How now, Enobarbus!

                    Re-enter ENOBARBUS

  ENOBARBUS. What's your pleasure, sir?
  ANTONY. I must with haste from hence.
  ENOBARBUS. Why, then we kill all our women. We see how mortal an
    unkindness is to them; if they suffer our departure, death's the
    word.
  ANTONY. I must be gone.
  ENOBARBUS. Under a compelling occasion, let women die. It were pity
    to cast them away for nothing, though between them and a great
    cause they should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but
    the least noise of this, dies instantly; I have seen her die
    twenty times upon far poorer moment. I do think there is mettle
    in death, which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a
    celerity in dying.
  ANTONY. She is cunning past man's thought.
  ENOBARBUS. Alack, sir, no! Her passions are made of nothing but the
    finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters
    sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than
    almanacs can report. This cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she
    makes a show'r of rain as well as Jove.
  ANTONY. Would I had never seen her!
  ENOBARBUS. O Sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of
    work, which not to have been blest withal would have discredited
    your travel.
  ANTONY. Fulvia is dead.
  ENOBARBUS. Sir?
  ANTONY. Fulvia is dead.
  ENOBARBUS. Fulvia?
  ANTONY. Dead.
  ENOBARBUS. Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it
    pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it
    shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein that
    when old robes are worn out there are members to make new. If
    there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,
    and the case to be lamented. This grief is crown'd with
    consolation: your old smock brings forth a new petticoat; and
    indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.
  ANTONY. The business she hath broached in the state
    Cannot endure my absence.
  ENOBARBUS. And the business you have broach'd here cannot be
    without you; especially that of Cleopatra's, which wholly depends
    on your abode.
  ANTONY. No more light answers. Let our officers
    Have notice what we purpose. I shall break
    The cause of our expedience to the Queen,
    And get her leave to part. For not alone
    The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,
    Do strongly speak to us; but the letters to
    Of many our contriving friends in Rome
    Petition us at home. Sextus Pompeius
    Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands
    The empire of the sea; our slippery people,
    Whose love is never link'd to the deserver
    Till his deserts are past, begin to throw
    Pompey the Great and all his dignities
    Upon his son; who, high in name and power,
    Higher than both in blood and life, stands up
    For the main soldier; whose quality, going on,
    The sides o' th' world may danger. Much is breeding
    Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life
    And not a serpent's poison. Say our pleasure,
    To such whose place is under us, requires
    Our quick remove from hence.
  ENOBARBUS. I shall do't.                                Exeunt

SCENE III. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS

  CLEOPATRA. Where is he?
  CHARMIAN. I did not see him since.
  CLEOPATRA. See where he is, who's with him, what he does.
    I did not send you. If you find him sad,
    Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report
    That I am sudden sick. Quick, and return.        Exit ALEXAS
  CHARMIAN. Madam, methinks, if you did love him dearly,
    You do not hold the method to enforce
    The like from him.
  CLEOPATRA. What should I do I do not?
  CHARMIAN. In each thing give him way; cross him in nothing.
  CLEOPATRA. Thou teachest like a fool- the way to lose him.
  CHARMIAN. Tempt him not so too far; I wish, forbear;
    In time we hate that which we often fear.

                            Enter ANTONY

    But here comes Antony.
  CLEOPATRA. I am sick and sullen.
  ANTONY. I am sorry to give breathing to my purpose-
  CLEOPATRA. Help me away, dear Charmian; I shall fall.
    It cannot be thus long; the sides of nature
    Will not sustain it.
  ANTONY. Now, my dearest queen-
  CLEOPATRA. Pray you, stand farther from me.
  ANTONY. What's the matter?
  CLEOPATRA. I know by that same eye there's some good news.
    What says the married woman? You may go.
    Would she had never given you leave to come!
    Let her not say 'tis I that keep you here-
    I have no power upon you; hers you are.
  ANTONY. The gods best know-
  CLEOPATRA. O, never was there queen
    So mightily betray'd! Yet at the first
    I saw the treasons planted.
  ANTONY. Cleopatra-
  CLEOPATRA. Why should I think you can be mine and true,
    Though you in swearing shake the throned gods,
    Who have been false to Fulvia? Riotous madness,
    To be entangled with those mouth-made vows,
    Which break themselves in swearing!
  ANTONY. Most sweet queen-
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, pray you seek no colour for your going,
    But bid farewell, and go. When you sued staying,
    Then was the time for words. No going then!
    Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
    Bliss in our brows' bent, none our parts so poor
    But was a race of heaven. They are so still,
    Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,
    Art turn'd the greatest liar.
  ANTONY. How now, lady!
  CLEOPATRA. I would I had thy inches. Thou shouldst know
    There were a heart in Egypt.
  ANTONY. Hear me, queen:
    The strong necessity of time commands
    Our services awhile; but my full heart
    Remains in use with you. Our Italy
    Shines o'er with civil swords: Sextus Pompeius
    Makes his approaches to the port of Rome;
    Equality of two domestic powers
    Breed scrupulous faction; the hated, grown to strength,
    Are newly grown to love. The condemn'd Pompey,
    Rich in his father's honour, creeps apace
    Into the hearts of such as have not thrived
    Upon the present state, whose numbers threaten;
    And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge
    By any desperate change. My more particular,
    And that which most with you should safe my going,
    Is Fulvia's death.
  CLEOPATRA. Though age from folly could not give me freedom,
     It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?
  ANTONY. She's dead, my Queen.
    Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read
    The garboils she awak'd. At the last, best.
    See when and where she died.
  CLEOPATRA. O most false love!
    Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
    With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,
    In Fulvia's death how mine receiv'd shall be.
  ANTONY. Quarrel no more, but be prepar'd to know
    The purposes I bear; which are, or cease,
    As you shall give th' advice. By the fire
    That quickens Nilus' slime, I go from hence
    Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war
    As thou affects.
  CLEOPATRA. Cut my lace, Charmian, come!
    But let it be; I am quickly ill and well-
    So Antony loves.
  ANTONY. My precious queen, forbear,
    And give true evidence to his love, which stands
    An honourable trial.
  CLEOPATRA. So Fulvia told me.
    I prithee turn aside and weep for her;
    Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears
    Belong to Egypt. Good now, play one scene
    Of excellent dissembling, and let it look
    Like perfect honour.
  ANTONY. You'll heat my blood; no more.
  CLEOPATRA. You can do better yet; but this is meetly.
  ANTONY. Now, by my sword-
  CLEOPATRA. And target. Still he mends;
    But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,
    How this Herculean Roman does become
    The carriage of his chafe.
  ANTONY. I'll leave you, lady.
  CLEOPATRA. Courteous lord, one word.
    Sir, you and I must part- but that's not it.
    Sir, you and I have lov'd- but there's not it.
    That you know well. Something it is I would-
    O, my oblivion is a very Antony,
    And I am all forgotten!
  ANTONY. But that your royalty
    Holds idleness your subject, I should take you
    For idleness itself.
  CLEOPATRA. 'Tis sweating labour
    To bear such idleness so near the heart
    As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me;
    Since my becomings kill me when they do not
    Eye well to you. Your honour calls you hence;
    Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,
    And all the gods go with you! Upon your sword
    Sit laurel victory, and smooth success
    Be strew'd before your feet!
  ANTONY. Let us go. Come.
    Our separation so abides and flies
    That thou, residing here, goes yet with me,
    And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.
    Away!                                                 Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. CAESAR'S house

Enter OCTAVIUS CAESAR, reading a letter; LEPIDUS, and their train

  CAESAR. You may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know,
    It is not Caesar's natural vice to hate
    Our great competitor. From Alexandria
    This is the news: he fishes, drinks, and wastes
    The lamps of night in revel; is not more manlike
    Than Cleopatra, nor the queen of Ptolemy
    More womanly than he; hardly gave audience, or
    Vouchsaf'd to think he had partners. You shall find there
    A man who is the abstract of all faults
    That all men follow.
  LEPIDUS. I must not think there are
    Evils enow to darken all his goodness.
    His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven,
    More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary
    Rather than purchas'd; what he cannot change
    Than what he chooses.
  CAESAR. You are too indulgent. Let's grant it is not
    Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy,
    To give a kingdom for a mirth, to sit
    And keep the turn of tippling with a slave,
    To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet
    With knaves that smell of sweat. Say this becomes him-
    As his composure must be rare indeed
    Whom these things cannot blemish- yet must Antony
    No way excuse his foils when we do bear
    So great weight in his lightness. If he fill'd
    His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
    Full surfeits and the dryness of his bones
    Call on him for't! But to confound such time
    That drums him from his sport and speaks as loud
    As his own state and ours- 'tis to be chid
    As we rate boys who, being mature in knowledge,
    Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
    And so rebel to judgment.

                   Enter a MESSENGER

  LEPIDUS. Here's more news.
  MESSENGER. Thy biddings have been done; and every hour,
    Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report
    How 'tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,
    And it appears he is belov'd of those
    That only have fear'd Caesar. To the ports
    The discontents repair, and men's reports
    Give him much wrong'd.
  CAESAR. I should have known no less.
    It hath been taught us from the primal state
    That he which is was wish'd until he were;
    And the ebb'd man, ne'er lov'd till ne'er worth love,
    Comes dear'd by being lack'd. This common body,
    Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
    Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
    To rot itself with motion.
  MESSENGER. Caesar, I bring thee word
    Menecrates and Menas, famous pirates,
    Make the sea serve them, which they ear and wound
    With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads
    They make in Italy; the borders maritime
    Lack blood to think on't, and flush youth revolt.
    No vessel can peep forth but 'tis as soon
    Taken as seen; for Pompey's name strikes more
    Than could his war resisted.
  CAESAR. Antony,
    Leave thy lascivious wassails. When thou once
    Was beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
    Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel
    Did famine follow; whom thou fought'st against,
    Though daintily brought up, with patience more
    Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink
    The stale of horses and the gilded puddle
    Which beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deign
    The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
    Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets,
    The barks of trees thou brows'd. On the Alps
    It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh,
    Which some did die to look on. And all this-
    It wounds thine honour that I speak it now-
    Was borne so like a soldier that thy cheek
    So much as lank'd not.
  LEPIDUS. 'Tis pity of him.
  CAESAR. Let his shames quickly
    Drive him to Rome. 'Tis time we twain
    Did show ourselves i' th' field; and to that end
    Assemble we immediate council. Pompey
    Thrives in our idleness.
  LEPIDUS. To-morrow, Caesar,
    I shall be furnish'd to inform you rightly
    Both what by sea and land I can be able
    To front this present time.
  CAESAR. Till which encounter
    It is my business too. Farewell.
  LEPIDUS. Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime
    Of stirs abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,
    To let me be partaker.
  CAESAR. Doubt not, sir;
    I knew it for my bond.                                Exeunt

SCENE V. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN

  CLEOPATRA. Charmian!
  CHARMIAN. Madam?
  CLEOPATRA. Ha, ha!
    Give me to drink mandragora.
  CHARMIAN. Why, madam?
  CLEOPATRA. That I might sleep out this great gap of time
    My Antony is away.
  CHARMIAN. You think of him too much.
  CLEOPATRA. O, 'tis treason!
  CHARMIAN. Madam, I trust, not so.
  CLEOPATRA. Thou, eunuch Mardian!
  MARDIAN. What's your Highness' pleasure?
  CLEOPATRA. Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure
    In aught an eunuch has. 'Tis well for thee
    That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts
    May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?
  MARDIAN. Yes, gracious madam.
  CLEOPATRA. Indeed?
  MARDIAN. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing
    But what indeed is honest to be done.
    Yet have I fierce affections, and think
    What Venus did with Mars.
  CLEOPATRA. O Charmian,
    Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he or sits he?
    Or does he walk? or is he on his horse?
    O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!
    Do bravely, horse; for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st?
    The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
    And burgonet of men. He's speaking now,
    Or murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?'
    For so he calls me. Now I feed myself
    With most delicious poison. Think on me,
    That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black,
    And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar,
    When thou wast here above the ground, I was
    A morsel for a monarch; and great Pompey
    Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow;
    There would he anchor his aspect and die
    With looking on his life.

                         Enter ALEXAS

  ALEXAS. Sovereign of Egypt, hail!
  CLEOPATRA. How much unlike art thou Mark Antony!
    Yet, coming from him, that great med'cine hath
    With his tinct gilded thee.
    How goes it with my brave Mark Antony?
  ALEXAS. Last thing he did, dear Queen,
    He kiss'd- the last of many doubled kisses-
    This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.
  CLEOPATRA. Mine ear must pluck it thence.
  ALEXAS. 'Good friend,' quoth he
    'Say the firm Roman to great Egypt sends
    This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot,
    To mend the petty present, I will piece
    Her opulent throne with kingdoms. All the East,
    Say thou, shall call her mistress.' So he nodded,
    And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed,
    Who neigh'd so high that what I would have spoke
    Was beastly dumb'd by him.
  CLEOPATRA. What, was he sad or merry?
  ALEXAS. Like to the time o' th' year between the extremes
    Of hot and cold; he was nor sad nor merry.
  CLEOPATRA. O well-divided disposition! Note him,
    Note him, good Charmian; 'tis the man; but note him!
    He was not sad, for he would shine on those
    That make their looks by his; he was not merry,
    Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay
    In Egypt with his joy; but between both.
    O heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry,
    The violence of either thee becomes,
    So does it no man else. Met'st thou my posts?
  ALEXAS. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers.
    Why do you send so thick?
  CLEOPATRA. Who's born that day
    When I forget to send to Antony
    Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.
    Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,
    Ever love Caesar so?
  CHARMIAN. O that brave Caesar!
  CLEOPATRA. Be chok'd with such another emphasis!
    Say 'the brave Antony.'
  CHARMIAN. The valiant Caesar!
  CLEOPATRA. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth
    If thou with Caesar paragon again
    My man of men.
  CHARMIAN. By your most gracious pardon,
    I sing but after you.
  CLEOPATRA. My salad days,
    When I was green in judgment, cold in blood,
    To say as I said then. But come, away!
    Get me ink and paper.
    He shall have every day a several greeting,
    Or I'll unpeople Egypt.                               Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Messina. POMPEY'S house

Enter POMPEY, MENECRATES, and MENAS, in warlike manner

  POMPEY. If the great gods be just, they shall assist
    The deeds of justest men.
  MENECRATES. Know, worthy Pompey,
    That what they do delay they not deny.
  POMPEY. Whiles we are suitors to their throne, decays
    The thing we sue for.
  MENECRATES. We, ignorant of ourselves,
    Beg often our own harms, which the wise pow'rs
    Deny us for our good; so find we profit
    By losing of our prayers.
  POMPEY. I shall do well.
    The people love me, and the sea is mine;
    My powers are crescent, and my auguring hope
    Says it will come to th' full. Mark Antony
    In Egypt sits at dinner, and will make
    No wars without doors. Caesar gets money where
    He loses hearts. Lepidus flatters both,
    Of both is flatter'd; but he neither loves,
    Nor either cares for him.
  MENAS. Caesar and Lepidus
    Are in the field. A mighty strength they carry.
  POMPEY. Where have you this? 'Tis false.
  MENAS. From Silvius, sir.
  POMPEY. He dreams. I know they are in Rome together,
    Looking for Antony. But all the charms of love,
    Salt Cleopatra, soften thy wan'd lip!
    Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both;
    Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts,
    Keep his brain fuming. Epicurean cooks
    Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite,
    That sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour
    Even till a Lethe'd dullness-

                       Enter VARRIUS

    How now, Varrius!
  VARRIUS. This is most certain that I shall deliver:
    Mark Antony is every hour in Rome
    Expected. Since he went from Egypt 'tis
    A space for farther travel.
  POMPEY. I could have given less matter
    A better ear. Menas, I did not think
    This amorous surfeiter would have donn'd his helm
    For such a petty war; his soldiership
    Is twice the other twain. But let us rear
    The higher our opinion, that our stirring
    Can from the lap of Egypt's widow pluck
    The ne'er-lust-wearied Antony.
  MENAS. I cannot hope
    Caesar and Antony shall well greet together.
    His wife that's dead did trespasses to Caesar;
    His brother warr'd upon him; although, I think,
    Not mov'd by Antony.
  POMPEY. I know not, Menas,
    How lesser enmities may give way to greater.
    Were't not that we stand up against them all,
    'Twere pregnant they should square between themselves;
    For they have entertained cause enough
    To draw their swords. But how the fear of us
    May cement their divisions, and bind up
    The petty difference we yet not know.
    Be't as our gods will have't! It only stands
    Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.
    Come, Menas.                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. The house of LEPIDUS

Enter ENOBARBUS and LEPIDUS

  LEPIDUS. Good Enobarbus, 'tis a worthy deed,
    And shall become you well, to entreat your captain
    To soft and gentle speech.
  ENOBARBUS. I shall entreat him
    To answer like himself. If Caesar move him,
    Let Antony look over Caesar's head
    And speak as loud as Mars. By Jupiter,
    Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard,
    I would not shave't to-day.
  LEPIDUS. 'Tis not a time
    For private stomaching.
  ENOBARBUS. Every time
    Serves for the matter that is then born in't.
  LEPIDUS. But small to greater matters must give way.
  ENOBARBUS. Not if the small come first.
  LEPIDUS. Your speech is passion;
    But pray you stir no embers up. Here comes
    The noble Antony.

                Enter ANTONY and VENTIDIUS

  ENOBARBUS. And yonder, Caesar.

            Enter CAESAR, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA

  ANTONY. If we compose well here, to Parthia.
    Hark, Ventidius.
  CAESAR. I do not know, Maecenas. Ask Agrippa.
  LEPIDUS. Noble friends,
    That which combin'd us was most great, and let not
    A leaner action rend us. What's amiss,
    May it be gently heard. When we debate
    Our trivial difference loud, we do commit
    Murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,
    The rather for I earnestly beseech,
    Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,
    Nor curstness grow to th' matter.
  ANTONY. 'Tis spoken well.
    Were we before our arinies, and to fight,
    I should do thus.                                 [Flourish]
  CAESAR. Welcome to Rome.
  ANTONY. Thank you.
  CAESAR. Sit.
  ANTONY. Sit, sir.
  CAESAR. Nay, then.                                  [They sit]
  ANTONY. I learn you take things ill which are not so,
    Or being, concern you not.
  CAESAR. I must be laugh'd at
    If, or for nothing or a little,
    Should say myself offended, and with you
    Chiefly i' the world; more laugh'd at that I should
    Once name you derogately when to sound your name
    It not concern'd me.
  ANTONY. My being in Egypt, Caesar,
    What was't to you?
  CAESAR. No more than my residing here at Rome
    Might be to you in Egypt. Yet, if you there
    Did practise on my state, your being in Egypt
    Might be my question.
  ANTONY. How intend you- practis'd?
  CAESAR. You may be pleas'd to catch at mine intent
    By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother
    Made wars upon me, and their contestation
    Was theme for you; you were the word of war.
  ANTONY. You do mistake your business; my brother never
    Did urge me in his act. I did inquire it,
    And have my learning from some true reports
    That drew their swords with you. Did he not rather
    Discredit my authority with yours,
    And make the wars alike against my stomach,
    Having alike your cause? Of this my letters
    Before did satisfy you. If you'll patch a quarrel,
    As matter whole you have not to make it with,
    It must not be with this.
  CAESAR. You praise yourself
    By laying defects of judgment to me; but
    You patch'd up your excuses.
  ANTONY. Not so, not so;
    I know you could not lack, I am certain on't,
    Very necessity of this thought, that I,
    Your partner in the cause 'gainst which he fought,
    Could not with graceful eyes attend those wars
    Which fronted mine own peace. As for my wife,
    I would you had her spirit in such another!
    The third o' th' world is yours, which with a snaffle
    You may pace easy, but not such a wife.
  ENOBARBUS. Would we had all such wives, that the men might go to
    wars with the women!
  ANTONY. So much uncurbable, her garboils, Caesar,
    Made out of her impatience- which not wanted
    Shrewdness of policy too- I grieving grant
    Did you too much disquiet. For that you must
    But say I could not help it.
  CAESAR. I wrote to you
    When rioting in Alexandria; you
    Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts
    Did gibe my missive out of audience.
  ANTONY. Sir,
    He fell upon me ere admitted. Then
    Three kings I had newly feasted, and did want
    Of what I was i' th' morning; but next day
    I told him of myself, which was as much
    As to have ask'd him pardon. Let this fellow
    Be nothing of our strife; if we contend,
    Out of our question wipe him.
  CAESAR. You have broken
    The article of your oath, which you shall never
    Have tongue to charge me with.
  LEPIDUS. Soft, Caesar!
  ANTONY. No;
    Lepidus, let him speak.
    The honour is sacred which he talks on now,
    Supposing that I lack'd it. But on, Caesar:
    The article of my oath-
  CAESAR. To lend me arms and aid when I requir'd them,
    The which you both denied.
  ANTONY. Neglected, rather;
    And then when poisoned hours had bound me up
    From mine own knowledge. As nearly as I may,
    I'll play the penitent to you; but mine honesty
    Shall not make poor my greatness, nor my power
    Work without it. Truth is, that Fulvia,
    To have me out of Egypt, made wars here;
    For which myself, the ignorant motive, do
    So far ask pardon as befits mine honour
    To stoop in such a case.
  LEPIDUS. 'Tis noble spoken.
  MAECENAS. If it might please you to enforce no further
    The griefs between ye- to forget them quite
    Were to remember that the present need
    Speaks to atone you.
  LEPIDUS. Worthily spoken, Maecenas.
  ENOBARBUS. Or, if you borrow one another's love for the instant,
    you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again.
    You shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to
    do.
  ANTONY. Thou art a soldier only. Speak no more.
  ENOBARBUS. That truth should be silent I had almost forgot.
  ANTONY. You wrong this presence; therefore speak no more.
  ENOBARBUS. Go to, then- your considerate stone!
  CAESAR. I do not much dislike the matter, but
    The manner of his speech; for't cannot be
    We shall remain in friendship, our conditions
    So diff'ring in their acts. Yet if I knew
    What hoop should hold us stanch, from edge to edge
    O' th' world, I would pursue it.
  AGRIPPA. Give me leave, Caesar.
  CAESAR. Speak, Agrippa.
  AGRIPPA. Thou hast a sister by the mother's side,
    Admir'd Octavia. Great Mark Antony
    Is now a widower.
  CAESAR. Say not so, Agrippa.
    If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof
    Were well deserv'd of rashness.
  ANTONY. I am not married, Caesar. Let me hear
    Agrippa further speak.
  AGRIPPA. To hold you in perpetual amity,
    To make you brothers, and to knit your hearts
    With an unslipping knot, take Antony
    Octavia to his wife; whose beauty claims
    No worse a husband than the best of men;
    Whose virtue and whose general graces speak
    That which none else can utter. By this marriage
    All little jealousies, which now seem great,
    And all great fears, which now import their dangers,
    Would then be nothing. Truths would be tales,
    Where now half tales be truths. Her love to both
    Would each to other, and all loves to both,
    Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke;
    For 'tis a studied, not a present thought,
    By duty ruminated.
  ANTONY. Will Caesar speak?
  CAESAR. Not till he hears how Antony is touch'd
    With what is spoke already.
  ANTONY. What power is in Agrippa,
    If I would say 'Agrippa, be it so,'
    To make this good?
  CAESAR. The power of Caesar, and
    His power unto Octavia.
  ANTONY. May I never
    To this good purpose, that so fairly shows,
    Dream of impediment! Let me have thy hand.
    Further this act of grace; and from this hour
    The heart of brothers govern in our loves
    And sway our great designs!
  CAESAR. There is my hand.
    A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother
    Did ever love so dearly. Let her live
    To join our kingdoms and our hearts; and never
    Fly off our loves again!
  LEPIDUS. Happily, amen!
  ANTONY. I did not think to draw my sword 'gainst Pompey;
    For he hath laid strange courtesies and great
    Of late upon me. I must thank him only,
    Lest my remembrance suffer ill report;
    At heel of that, defy him.
  LEPIDUS. Time calls upon's.
    Of us must Pompey presently be sought,
    Or else he seeks out us.
  ANTONY. Where lies he?
  CAESAR. About the Mount Misenum.
  ANTONY. What is his strength by land?
  CAESAR. Great and increasing; but by sea
    He is an absolute master.
  ANTONY. So is the fame.
    Would we had spoke together! Haste we for it.
    Yet, ere we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we
    The business we have talk'd of.
  CAESAR. With most gladness;
    And do invite you to my sister's view,
    Whither straight I'll lead you.
  ANTONY. Let us, Lepidus,
    Not lack your company.
  LEPIDUS. Noble Antony,
    Not sickness should detain me.                    [Flourish]
                     Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS
  MAECENAS. Welcome from Egypt, sir.
  ENOBARBUS. Half the heart of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable
    friend, Agrippa!
  AGRIPPA. Good Enobarbus!
  MAECENAS. We have cause to be glad that matters are so well
    digested. You stay'd well by't in Egypt.
  ENOBARBUS. Ay, sir; we did sleep day out of countenance and made
    the night light with drinking.
  MAECENAS. Eight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but
    twelve persons there. Is this true?
  ENOBARBUS. This was but as a fly by an eagle. We had much more
    monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.
  MAECENAS. She's a most triumphant lady, if report be square to her.
  ENOBARBUS. When she first met Mark Antony she purs'd up his heart,
    upon the river of Cydnus.
  AGRIPPA. There she appear'd indeed! Or my reporter devis'd well for
    her.
  ENOBARBUS. I will tell you.
    The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
    Burn'd on the water. The poop was beaten gold;
    Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
    The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
    Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
    The water which they beat to follow faster,
    As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
    It beggar'd all description. She did lie
    In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold, of tissue,
    O'erpicturing that Venus where we see
    The fancy out-work nature. On each side her
    Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
    With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
    To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
    And what they undid did.
  AGRIPPA. O, rare for Antony!
  ENOBARBUS. Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
    So many mermaids, tended her i' th' eyes,
    And made their bends adornings. At the helm
    A seeming mermaid steers. The silken tackle
    Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
    That yarely frame the office. From the barge
    A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
    Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
    Her people out upon her; and Antony,
    Enthron'd i' th' market-place, did sit alone,
    Whistling to th' air; which, but for vacancy,
    Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
    And made a gap in nature.
  AGRIPPA. Rare Egyptian!
  ENOBARBUS. Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
    Invited her to supper. She replied
    It should be better he became her guest;
    Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,
    Whom ne'er the word of 'No' woman heard speak,
    Being barber'd ten times o'er, goes to the feast,
    And for his ordinary pays his heart
    For what his eyes eat only.
  AGRIPPA. Royal wench!
    She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed.
    He ploughed her, and she cropp'd.
  ENOBARBUS. I saw her once
    Hop forty paces through the public street;
    And, having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted,
    That she did make defect perfection,
    And, breathless, pow'r breathe forth.
  MAECENAS. Now Antony must leave her utterly.
  ENOBARBUS. Never! He will not.
    Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
    Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
    The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
    Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
    Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
    Bless her when she is riggish.
  MAECENAS. If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
    The heart of Antony, Octavia is
    A blessed lottery to him.
  AGRIPPA. Let us go.
    Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
    Whilst you abide here.
  ENOBARBUS. Humbly, sir, I thank you.                    Exeunt

SCENE III. Rome. CAESAR'S house

Enter ANTONY, CAESAR, OCTAVIA between them

  ANTONY. The world and my great office will sometimes
    Divide me from your bosom.
  OCTAVIA. All which time
    Before the gods my knee shall bow my prayers
    To them for you.
  ANTONY. Good night, sir. My Octavia,
    Read not my blemishes in the world's report.
    I have not kept my square; but that to come
    Shall all be done by th' rule. Good night, dear lady.
  OCTAVIA. Good night, sir.
  CAESAR. Good night.                  Exeunt CAESAR and OCTAVIA

                        Enter SOOTHSAYER

  ANTONY. Now, sirrah, you do wish yourself in Egypt?
  SOOTHSAYER. Would I had never come from thence, nor you thither!
  ANTONY. If you can- your reason.
  SOOTHSAYER. I see it in my motion, have it not in my tongue; but
    yet hie you to Egypt again.
  ANTONY. Say to me,
    Whose fortunes shall rise higher, Caesar's or mine?
  SOOTHSAYER. Caesar's.
    Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side.
    Thy daemon, that thy spirit which keeps thee, is
    Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,
    Where Caesar's is not; but near him thy angel
    Becomes a fear, as being o'erpow'r'd. Therefore
    Make space enough between you.
  ANTONY. Speak this no more.
  SOOTHSAYER. To none but thee; no more but when to thee.
    If thou dost play with him at any game,
    Thou art sure to lose; and of that natural luck
    He beats thee 'gainst the odds. Thy lustre thickens
    When he shines by. I say again, thy spirit
    Is all afraid to govern thee near him;
    But, he away, 'tis noble.
  ANTONY. Get thee gone.
    Say to Ventidius I would speak with him.
                                                 Exit SOOTHSAYER
    He shall to Parthia.- Be it art or hap,
    He hath spoken true. The very dice obey him;
    And in our sports my better cunning faints
    Under his chance. If we draw lots, he speeds;
    His cocks do win the battle still of mine,
    When it is all to nought, and his quails ever
    Beat mine, inhoop'd, at odds. I will to Egypt;
    And though I make this marriage for my peace,
    I' th' East my pleasure lies.

                       Enter VENTIDIUS

    O, come, Ventidius,
    You must to Parthia. Your commission's ready;
    Follow me and receive't.                              Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. A street

Enter LEPIDUS, MAECENAS, and AGRIPPA

  LEPIDUS. Trouble yourselves no further. Pray you hasten
    Your generals after.
  AGRIPPA. Sir, Mark Antony
    Will e'en but kiss Octavia, and we'll follow.
  LEPIDUS. Till I shall see you in your soldier's dress,
    Which will become you both, farewell.
  MAECENAS. We shall,
    As I conceive the journey, be at th' Mount
    Before you, Lepidus.
  LEPIDUS. Your way is shorter;
    My purposes do draw me much about.
    You'll win two days upon me.
  BOTH. Sir, good success!
  LEPIDUS. Farewell.                                      Exeunt

SCENE V. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS

  CLEOPATRA. Give me some music- music, moody food
    Of us that trade in love.
  ALL. The music, ho!

                    Enter MARDIAN the eunuch

  CLEOPATRA. Let it alone! Let's to billiards. Come, Charmian.
  CHARMIAN. My arm is sore; best play with Mardian.
  CLEOPATRA. As well a woman with an eunuch play'd
    As with a woman. Come, you'll play with me, sir?
  MARDIAN. As well as I can, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. And when good will is show'd, though't come too short,
    The actor may plead pardon. I'll none now.
    Give me mine angle- we'll to th' river. There,
    My music playing far off, I will betray
    Tawny-finn'd fishes; my bended hook shall pierce
    Their slimy jaws; and as I draw them up
    I'll think them every one an Antony,
    And say 'Ah ha! Y'are caught.'
  CHARMIAN. 'Twas merry when
    You wager'd on your angling; when your diver
    Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he
    With fervency drew up.
  CLEOPATRA. That time? O times
    I laughed him out of patience; and that night
    I laugh'd him into patience; and next morn,
    Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed,
    Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst
    I wore his sword Philippan.

                    Enter a MESSENGER

    O! from Italy?
    Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,
    That long time have been barren.
  MESSENGER. Madam, madam-
  CLEOPATRA. Antony's dead! If thou say so, villain,
    Thou kill'st thy mistress; but well and free,
    If thou so yield him, there is gold, and here
    My bluest veins to kiss- a hand that kings
    Have lipp'd, and trembled kissing.
  MESSENGER. First, madam, he is well.
  CLEOPATRA. Why, there's more gold.
    But, sirrah, mark, we use
    To say the dead are well. Bring it to that,
    The gold I give thee will I melt and pour
    Down thy ill-uttering throat.
  MESSENGER. Good madam, hear me.
  CLEOPATRA. Well, go to, I will.
    But there's no goodness in thy face. If Antony
    Be free and healthful- why so tart a favour
    To trumpet such good tidings? If not well,
    Thou shouldst come like a Fury crown'd with snakes,
    Not like a formal man.
  MESSENGER. Will't please you hear me?
  CLEOPATRA. I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak'st.
    Yet, if thou say Antony lives, is well,
    Or friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,
    I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
    Rich pearls upon thee.
  MESSENGER. Madam, he's well.
  CLEOPATRA. Well said.
  MESSENGER. And friends with Caesar.
  CLEOPATRA. Th'art an honest man.
  MESSENGER. Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.
  CLEOPATRA. Make thee a fortune from me.
  MESSENGER. But yet, madam-
  CLEOPATRA. I do not like 'but yet.' It does allay
    The good precedence; fie upon 'but yet'!
    'But yet' is as a gaoler to bring forth
    Some monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,
    Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear,
    The good and bad together. He's friends with Caesar;
    In state of health, thou say'st; and, thou say'st, free.
  MESSENGER. Free, madam! No; I made no such report.
    He's bound unto Octavia.
  CLEOPATRA. For what good turn?
  MESSENGER. For the best turn i' th' bed.
  CLEOPATRA. I am pale, Charmian.
  MESSENGER. Madam, he's married to Octavia.
  CLEOPATRA. The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
                                              [Strikes him down]
  MESSENGER. Good madam, patience.
  CLEOPATRA. What say you? Hence,                  [Strikes him]
    Horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes
    Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head;
                                     [She hales him up and down]
    Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire and stew'd in brine,
    Smarting in ling'ring pickle.
  MESSENGER. Gracious madam,
    I that do bring the news made not the match.
  CLEOPATRA. Say 'tis not so, a province I will give thee,
    And make thy fortunes proud. The blow thou hadst
    Shall make thy peace for moving me to rage;
    And I will boot thee with what gift beside
    Thy modesty can beg.
  MESSENGER. He's married, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. Rogue, thou hast liv'd too long.    [Draws a knife]
  MESSENGER. Nay, then I'll run.
    What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.             Exit
  CHARMIAN. Good madam, keep yourself within yourself:
    The man is innocent.
  CLEOPATRA. Some innocents scape not the thunderbolt.
    Melt Egypt into Nile! and kindly creatures
    Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again.
    Though I am mad, I will not bite him. Call!
  CHARMIAN. He is afear'd to come.
  CLEOPATRA. I will not hurt him.
    These hands do lack nobility, that they strike
    A meaner than myself; since I myself
    Have given myself the cause.

                    Enter the MESSENGER again

    Come hither, sir.
    Though it be honest, it is never good
    To bring bad news. Give to a gracious message
    An host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell
    Themselves when they be felt.
  MESSENGER. I have done my duty.
  CLEOPATRA. Is he married?
    I cannot hate thee worser than I do
    If thou again say 'Yes.'
  MESSENGER. He's married, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. The gods confound thee! Dost thou hold there still?
  MESSENGER. Should I lie, madam?
  CLEOPATRA. O, I would thou didst,
    So half my Egypt were submerg'd and made
    A cistern for scal'd snakes! Go, get thee hence.
    Hadst thou Narcissus in thy face, to me
    Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married?
  MESSENGER. I crave your Highness' pardon.
  CLEOPATRA. He is married?
  MESSENGER. Take no offence that I would not offend you;
    To punish me for what you make me do
    Seems much unequal. He's married to Octavia.
  CLEOPATRA. O, that his fault should make a knave of thee
    That art not what th'art sure of! Get thee hence.
    The merchandise which thou hast brought from Rome
    Are all too dear for me. Lie they upon thy hand,
    And be undone by 'em!                         Exit MESSENGER
  CHARMIAN. Good your Highness, patience.
  CLEOPATRA. In praising Antony I have disprais'd Caesar.
  CHARMIAN. Many times, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. I am paid for't now. Lead me from hence,
    I faint. O Iras, Charmian! 'Tis no matter.
    Go to the fellow, good Alexas; bid him
    Report the feature of Octavia, her years,
    Her inclination; let him not leave out
    The colour of her hair. Bring me word quickly.
                                                     Exit ALEXAS
    Let him for ever go- let him not, Charmian-
    Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon,
    The other way's a Mars.                         [To MARDIAN]
    Bid you Alexas
    Bring me word how tall she is.- Pity me, Charmian,
    But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.        Exeunt

SCENE VI. Near Misenum

Flourish. Enter POMPEY and MENAS at one door, with drum and trumpet; at
another, CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, ENOBARBUS, MAECENAS, AGRIPPA, with
soldiers marching

  POMPEY. Your hostages I have, so have you mine;
    And we shall talk before we fight.
  CAESAR. Most meet
    That first we come to words; and therefore have we
    Our written purposes before us sent;
    Which if thou hast considered, let us know
    If 'twill tie up thy discontented sword
    And carry back to Sicily much tall youth
    That else must perish here.
  POMPEY. To you all three,
    The senators alone of this great world,
    Chief factors for the gods: I do not know
    Wherefore my father should revengers want,
    Having a son and friends, since Julius Caesar,
    Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,
    There saw you labouring for him. What was't
    That mov'd pale Cassius to conspire? and what
    Made the all-honour'd honest Roman, Brutus,
    With the arm'd rest, courtiers of beauteous freedom,
    To drench the Capitol, but that they would
    Have one man but a man? And that is it
    Hath made me rig my navy, at whose burden
    The anger'd ocean foams; with which I meant
    To scourge th' ingratitude that despiteful Rome
    Cast on my noble father.
  CAESAR. Take your time.
  ANTONY. Thou canst not fear us, Pompey, with thy sails;
    We'll speak with thee at sea; at land thou know'st
    How much we do o'er-count thee.
  POMPEY. At land, indeed,
    Thou dost o'er-count me of my father's house.
    But since the cuckoo builds not for himself,
    Remain in't as thou mayst.
  LEPIDUS. Be pleas'd to tell us-
    For this is from the present- how you take
    The offers we have sent you.
  CAESAR. There's the point.
  ANTONY. Which do not be entreated to, but weigh
    What it is worth embrac'd.
  CAESAR. And what may follow,
    To try a larger fortune.
  POMPEY. You have made me offer
    Of Sicily, Sardinia; and I must
    Rid all the sea of pirates; then to send
    Measures of wheat to Rome; this 'greed upon,
    To part with unhack'd edges and bear back
    Our targes undinted.
  ALL. That's our offer.
  POMPEY. Know, then,
    I came before you here a man prepar'd
    To take this offer; but Mark Antony
    Put me to some impatience. Though I lose
    The praise of it by telling, you must know,
    When Caesar and your brother were at blows,
    Your mother came to Sicily and did find
    Her welcome friendly.
  ANTONY. I have heard it, Pompey,
    And am well studied for a liberal thanks
    Which I do owe you.
  POMPEY. Let me have your hand.
    I did not think, sir, to have met you here.
  ANTONY. The beds i' th' East are soft; and thanks to you,
    That call'd me timelier than my purpose hither;
    For I have gained by't.
  CAESAR. Since I saw you last
    There is a change upon you.
  POMPEY. Well, I know not
    What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face;
    But in my bosom shall she never come
    To make my heart her vassal.
  LEPIDUS. Well met here.
  POMPEY. I hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed.
    I crave our composition may be written,
    And seal'd between us.
  CAESAR. That's the next to do.
  POMPEY. We'll feast each other ere we part, and let's
    Draw lots who shall begin.
  ANTONY. That will I, Pompey.
  POMPEY. No, Antony, take the lot;
    But, first or last, your fine Egyptian cookery
    Shall have the fame. I have heard that Julius Caesar
    Grew fat with feasting there.
  ANTONY. You have heard much.
  POMPEY. I have fair meanings, sir.
  ANTONY. And fair words to them.
  POMPEY. Then so much have I heard;
    And I have heard Apollodorus carried-
  ENOBARBUS. No more of that! He did so.
  POMPEY. What, I pray you?
  ENOBARBUS. A certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.
  POMPEY. I know thee now. How far'st thou, soldier?
  ENOBARBUS. Well;
    And well am like to do, for I perceive
    Four feasts are toward.
  POMPEY. Let me shake thy hand.
    I never hated thee; I have seen thee fight,
    When I have envied thy behaviour.
  ENOBARBUS. Sir,
    I never lov'd you much; but I ha' prais'd ye
    When you have well deserv'd ten times as much
    As I have said you did.
  POMPEY. Enjoy thy plainness;
    It nothing ill becomes thee.
    Aboard my galley I invite you all.
    Will you lead, lords?
  ALL. Show's the way, sir.
  POMPEY. Come.               Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS
  MENAS. [Aside] Thy father, Pompey, would ne'er have made this
    treaty.- You and I have known, sir.
  ENOBARBUS. At sea, I think.
  MENAS. We have, sir.
  ENOBARBUS. You have done well by water.
  MENAS. And you by land.
  ENOBARBUS. I Will praise any man that will praise me; though it
    cannot be denied what I have done by land.
  MENAS. Nor what I have done by water.
  ENOBARBUS. Yes, something you can deny for your own safety: you
    have been a great thief by sea.
  MENAS. And you by land.
  ENOBARBUS. There I deny my land service. But give me your hand,
    Menas; if our eyes had authority, here they might take two
    thieves kissing.
  MENAS. All men's faces are true, whatsome'er their hands are.
  ENOBARBUS. But there is never a fair woman has a true face.
  MENAS. No slander: they steal hearts.
  ENOBARBUS. We came hither to fight with you.
  MENAS. For my part, I am sorry it is turn'd to a drinking.
    Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.
  ENOBARBUS. If he do, sure he cannot weep't back again.
  MENAS. Y'have said, sir. We look'd not for Mark Antony here. Pray
    you, is he married to Cleopatra?
  ENOBARBUS. Caesar' sister is call'd Octavia.
  MENAS. True, sir; she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.
  ENOBARBUS. But she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.
  MENAS. Pray ye, sir?
  ENOBARBUS. 'Tis true.
  MENAS. Then is Caesar and he for ever knit together.
  ENOBARBUS. If I were bound to divine of this unity, I would not
    prophesy so.
  MENAS. I think the policy of that purpose made more in the marriage
    than the love of the parties.
  ENOBARBUS. I think so too. But you shall find the band that seems
    to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of
    their amity: Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.
  MENAS. Who would not have his wife so?
  ENOBARBUS. Not he that himself is not so; which is Mark Antony. He
    will to his Egyptian dish again; then shall the sighs of Octavia
    blow the fire up in Caesar, and, as I said before, that which is
    the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author of
    their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is; he
    married but his occasion here.
  MENAS. And thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a
    health for you.
  ENOBARBUS. I shall take it, sir. We have us'd our throats in Egypt.
  MENAS. Come, let's away.                                Exeunt

ACT_2|SC_7
                           SCENE VII.
             On board POMPEY'S galley, off Misenum

     Music plays. Enter two or three SERVANTS with a banquet

  FIRST SERVANT. Here they'll be, man. Some o' their plants are
    ill-rooted already; the least wind i' th' world will blow them
    down.
  SECOND SERVANT. Lepidus is high-colour'd.
  FIRST SERVANT. They have made him drink alms-drink.
  SECOND SERVANT. As they pinch one another by the disposition, he
    cries out 'No more!'; reconciles them to his entreaty and himself
    to th' drink.
  FIRST SERVANT. But it raises the greater war between him and his
    discretion.
  SECOND SERVANT. Why, this it is to have a name in great men's
    fellowship. I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service
    as a partizan I could not heave.
  FIRST SERVANT. To be call'd into a huge sphere, and not to be seen
    to move in't, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully
    disaster the cheeks.

           A sennet sounded. Enter CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS,
            POMPEY, AGRIPPA, MAECENAS, ENOBARBUS, MENAS,
                         with other CAPTAINS

  ANTONY. [To CAESAR] Thus do they, sir: they take the flow o' th'
      Nile
    By certain scales i' th' pyramid; they know
    By th' height, the lowness, or the mean, if dearth
    Or foison follow. The higher Nilus swells
    The more it promises; as it ebbs, the seedsman
    Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain,
    And shortly comes to harvest.
  LEPIDUS. Y'have strange serpents there.
  ANTONY. Ay, Lepidus.
  LEPIDUS. Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the
    operation of your sun; so is your crocodile.
  ANTONY. They are so.
  POMPEY. Sit- and some wine! A health to Lepidus!
  LEPIDUS. I am not so well as I should be, but I'll ne'er out.
  ENOBARBUS. Not till you have slept. I fear me you'll be in till
    then.
  LEPIDUS. Nay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies' pyramises are
    very goodly things. Without contradiction I have heard that.
  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] Pompey, a word.
  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Say in mine ear; what is't?
  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] Forsake thy seat, I do beseech thee,
      Captain,
    And hear me speak a word.
  POMPEY. [ Whispers in's ear ] Forbear me till anon-
    This wine for Lepidus!
  LEPIDUS. What manner o' thing is your crocodile?
  ANTONY. It is shap'd, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it
    hath breadth; it is just so high as it is, and moves with it own
    organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements
    once out of it, it transmigrates.
  LEPIDUS. What colour is it of?
  ANTONY. Of it own colour too.
  LEPIDUS. 'Tis a strange serpent.
  ANTONY. 'Tis so. And the tears of it are wet.
  CAESAR. Will this description satisfy him?
  ANTONY. With the health that Pompey gives him, else he is a very
    epicure.
  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] Go, hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that!
      Away!
    Do as I bid you.- Where's this cup I call'd for?
  MENAS. [Aside to POMPEY] If for the sake of merit thou wilt hear
      me,
    Rise from thy stool.
  POMPEY. [Aside to MENAS] I think th'art mad. [Rises and walks
    aside] The matter?
  MENAS. I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes.
  POMPEY. Thou hast serv'd me with much faith. What's else to say?-
    Be jolly, lords.
  ANTONY. These quicksands, Lepidus,
    Keep off them, for you sink.
  MENAS. Wilt thou be lord of all the world?
  POMPEY. What say'st thou?
  MENAS. Wilt thou be lord of the whole world? That's twice.
  POMPEY. How should that be?
  MENAS. But entertain it,
    And though you think me poor, I am the man
    Will give thee all the world.
  POMPEY. Hast thou drunk well?
  MENAS. No, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.
    Thou art, if thou dar'st be, the earthly Jove;
    Whate'er the ocean pales or sky inclips
    Is thine, if thou wilt ha't.
  POMPEY. Show me which way.
  MENAS. These three world-sharers, these competitors,
    Are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable;
    And when we are put off, fall to their throats.
    All there is thine.
  POMPEY. Ah, this thou shouldst have done,
    And not have spoke on't. In me 'tis villainy:
    In thee't had been good service. Thou must know
    'Tis not my profit that does lead mine honour:
    Mine honour, it. Repent that e'er thy tongue
    Hath so betray'd thine act. Being done unknown,
    I should have found it afterwards well done,
    But must condemn it now. Desist, and drink.
  MENAS. [Aside] For this,
    I'll never follow thy pall'd fortunes more.
    Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd,
    Shall never find it more.
  POMPEY. This health to Lepidus!
  ANTONY. Bear him ashore. I'll pledge it for him, Pompey.
  ENOBARBUS. Here's to thee, Menas!
  MENAS. Enobarbus, welcome!
  POMPEY. Fill till the cup be hid.
  ENOBARBUS. There's a strong fellow, Menas.
               [Pointing to the servant who carries off LEPIDUS]
  MENAS. Why?
  ENOBARBUS. 'A bears the third part of the world, man; see'st not?
  MENAS. The third part, then, is drunk. Would it were all,
    That it might go on wheels!
  ENOBARBUS. Drink thou; increase the reels.
  MENAS. Come.
  POMPEY. This is not yet an Alexandrian feast.
  ANTONY. It ripens towards it. Strike the vessels, ho!
    Here's to Caesar!
  CAESAR. I could well forbear't.
    It's monstrous labour when I wash my brain
    And it grows fouler.
  ANTONY. Be a child o' th' time.
  CAESAR. Possess it, I'll make answer.
    But I had rather fast from all four days
    Than drink so much in one.
  ENOBARBUS. [To ANTONY] Ha, my brave emperor!
    Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals
    And celebrate our drink?
  POMPEY. Let's ha't, good soldier.
  ANTONY. Come, let's all take hands,
    Till that the conquering wine hath steep'd our sense
    In soft and delicate Lethe.
  ENOBARBUS. All take hands.
    Make battery to our ears with the loud music,
    The while I'll place you; then the boy shall sing;
    The holding every man shall bear as loud
    As his strong sides can volley.
               [Music plays. ENOBARBUS places them hand in hand]

                        THE SONG
            Come, thou monarch of the vine,
            Plumpy Bacchus with pink eyne!
            In thy fats our cares be drown'd,
            With thy grapes our hairs be crown'd.
            Cup us till the world go round,
            Cup us till the world go round!

  CAESAR. What would you more? Pompey, good night. Good brother,
    Let me request you off; our graver business
    Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let's part;
    You see we have burnt our cheeks. Strong Enobarb
    Is weaker than the wine, and mine own tongue
    Splits what it speaks. The wild disguise hath almost
    Antick'd us all. What needs more words? Good night.
    Good Antony, your hand.
  POMPEY. I'll try you on the shore.
  ANTONY. And shall, sir. Give's your hand.
  POMPEY. O Antony,
    You have my father's house- but what? We are friends.
    Come, down into the boat.
  ENOBARBUS. Take heed you fall not.
                              Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS and MENAS
    Menas, I'll not on shore.
  MENAS. No, to my cabin.
    These drums! these trumpets, flutes! what!
    Let Neptune hear we bid a loud farewell
    To these great fellows. Sound and be hang'd, sound out!
                                  [Sound a flourish, with drums]
  ENOBARBUS. Hoo! says 'a. There's my cap.
  MENAS. Hoo! Noble Captain, come.                        Exeunt
ACT_3|SC_1
                     ACT III. SCENE I.
                     A plain in Syria

       Enter VENTIDIUS, as it were in triumph, with SILIUS
      and other Romans, OFFICERS and soldiers; the dead body
                of PACORUS borne before him

  VENTIDIUS. Now, darting Parthia, art thou struck, and now
    Pleas'd fortune does of Marcus Crassus' death
    Make me revenger. Bear the King's son's body
    Before our army. Thy Pacorus, Orodes,
    Pays this for Marcus Crassus.
  SILIUS. Noble Ventidius,
    Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm
    The fugitive Parthians follow; spur through Media,
    Mesopotamia, and the shelters whither
    The routed fly. So thy grand captain, Antony,
    Shall set thee on triumphant chariots and
    Put garlands on thy head.
  VENTIDIUS. O Silius, Silius,
    I have done enough. A lower place, note well,
    May make too great an act; for learn this, Silius:
    Better to leave undone than by our deed
    Acquire too high a fame when him we serve's away.
    Caesar and Antony have ever won
    More in their officer, than person. Sossius,
    One of my place in Syria, his lieutenant,
    For quick accumulation of renown,
    Which he achiev'd by th' minute, lost his favour.
    Who does i' th' wars more than his captain can
    Becomes his captain's captain; and ambition,
    The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss
    Than gain which darkens him.
    I could do more to do Antonius good,
    But 'twould offend him; and in his offence
    Should my performance perish.
  SILIUS. Thou hast, Ventidius, that
    Without the which a soldier and his sword
    Grants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony?
  VENTIDIUS. I'll humbly signify what in his name,
    That magical word of war, we have effected;
    How, with his banners, and his well-paid ranks,
    The ne'er-yet-beaten horse of Parthia
    We have jaded out o' th' field.
  SILIUS. Where is he now?
  VENTIDIUS. He purposeth to Athens; whither, with what haste
    The weight we must convey with's will permit,
    We shall appear before him.- On, there; pass along.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_2
                            SCENE II. Rome. CAESAR'S house

        Enter AGRIPPA at one door, ENOBARBUS at another

  AGRIPPA. What, are the brothers parted?
  ENOBARBUS. They have dispatch'd with Pompey; he is gone;
    The other three are sealing. Octavia weeps
    To part from Rome; Caesar is sad; and Lepidus,
    Since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled
    With the green sickness.
  AGRIPPA. 'Tis a noble Lepidus.
  ENOBARBUS. A very fine one. O, how he loves Caesar!
  AGRIPPA. Nay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!
  ENOBARBUS. Caesar? Why he's the Jupiter of men.
  AGRIPPA. What's Antony? The god of Jupiter.
  ENOBARBUS. Spake you of Caesar? How! the nonpareil!
  AGRIPPA. O, Antony! O thou Arabian bird!
  ENOBARBUS. Would you praise Caesar, say 'Caesar'- go no further.
  AGRIPPA. Indeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.
  ENOBARBUS. But he loves Caesar best. Yet he loves Antony.
    Hoo! hearts, tongues, figures, scribes, bards, poets, cannot
    Think, speak, cast, write, sing, number- hoo!-
    His love to Antony. But as for Caesar,
    Kneel down, kneel down, and wonder.
  AGRIPPA. Both he loves.
  ENOBARBUS. They are his shards, and he their beetle. [Trumpets
      within] So-
    This is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.
  AGRIPPA. Good fortune, worthy soldier, and farewell.

           Enter CAESAR, ANTONY, LEPIDUS, and OCTAVIA

  ANTONY. No further, sir.
  CAESAR. You take from me a great part of myself;
    Use me well in't. Sister, prove such a wife
    As my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest band
    Shall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,
    Let not the piece of virtue which is set
    Betwixt us as the cement of our love
    To keep it builded be the ram to batter
    The fortress of it; for better might we
    Have lov'd without this mean, if on both parts
    This be not cherish'd.
  ANTONY. Make me not offended
    In your distrust.
  CAESAR. I have said.
  ANTONY. You shall not find,
    Though you be therein curious, the least cause
    For what you seem to fear. So the gods keep you,
    And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends!
    We will here part.
  CAESAR. Farewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well.
    The elements be kind to thee and make
    Thy spirits all of comfort! Fare thee well.
  OCTAVIA. My noble brother!
  ANTONY. The April's in her eyes. It is love's spring,
    And these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.
  OCTAVIA. Sir, look well to my husband's house; and-
  CAESAR. What, Octavia?
  OCTAVIA. I'll tell you in your ear.
  ANTONY. Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can
    Her heart inform her tongue- the swan's down feather,
    That stands upon the swell at the full of tide,
    And neither way inclines.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] Will Caesar weep?
  AGRIPPA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] He has a cloud in's face.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] He were the worse for that, were he a
      horse;
    So is he, being a man.
  AGRIPPA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] Why, Enobarbus,
    When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,
    He cried almost to roaring; and he wept
    When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to AGRIPPA] That year, indeed, he was troubled
      with a rheum;
    What willingly he did confound he wail'd,
    Believe't- till I weep too.
  CAESAR. No, sweet Octavia,
    You shall hear from me still; the time shall not
    Out-go my thinking on you.
  ANTONY. Come, sir, come;
    I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love.
    Look, here I have you; thus I let you go,
    And give you to the gods.
  CAESAR. Adieu; be happy!
  LEPIDUS. Let all the number of the stars give light
    To thy fair way!
  CAESAR. Farewell, farewell!                   [Kisses OCTAVIA]
  ANTONY. Farewell!                       Trumpets sound. Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_3
                          SCENE III.
              Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

         Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and ALEXAS

  CLEOPATRA. Where is the fellow?
  ALEXAS. Half afeard to come.
  CLEOPATRA. Go to, go to.

                Enter the MESSENGER as before

    Come hither, sir.
  ALEXAS. Good Majesty,
    Herod of Jewry dare not look upon you
    But when you are well pleas'd.
  CLEOPATRA. That Herod's head
    I'll have. But how, when Antony is gone,
    Through whom I might command it? Come thou near.
  MESSENGER. Most gracious Majesty!
  CLEOPATRA. Didst thou behold Octavia?
  MESSENGER. Ay, dread Queen.
  CLEOPATRA. Where?
  MESSENGER. Madam, in Rome
    I look'd her in the face, and saw her led
    Between her brother and Mark Antony.
  CLEOPATRA. Is she as tall as me?
  MESSENGER. She is not, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. Didst hear her speak? Is she shrill-tongu'd or low?
  MESSENGER. Madam, I heard her speak: she is low-voic'd.
  CLEOPATRA. That's not so good. He cannot like her long.
  CHARMIAN. Like her? O Isis! 'tis impossible.
  CLEOPATRA. I think so, Charmian. Dull of tongue and dwarfish!
    What majesty is in her gait? Remember,
    If e'er thou look'dst on majesty.
  MESSENGER. She creeps.
    Her motion and her station are as one;
    She shows a body rather than a life,
    A statue than a breather.
  CLEOPATRA. Is this certain?
  MESSENGER. Or I have no observance.
  CHARMIAN. Three in Egypt
    Cannot make better note.
  CLEOPATRA. He's very knowing;
    I do perceive't. There's nothing in her yet.
    The fellow has good judgment.
  CHARMIAN. Excellent.
  CLEOPATRA. Guess at her years, I prithee.
  MESSENGER. Madam,
    She was a widow.
  CLEOPATRA. Widow? Charmian, hark!
  MESSENGER. And I do think she's thirty.
  CLEOPATRA. Bear'st thou her face in mind? Is't long or round?
  MESSENGER. Round even to faultiness.
  CLEOPATRA. For the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.
    Her hair, what colour?
  MESSENGER. Brown, madam; and her forehead
    As low as she would wish it.
  CLEOPATRA. There's gold for thee.
    Thou must not take my former sharpness ill.
    I will employ thee back again; I find thee
    Most fit for business. Go make thee ready;
    Our letters are prepar'd.                   Exeunt MESSENGER
  CHARMIAN. A proper man.
  CLEOPATRA. Indeed, he is so. I repent me much
    That so I harried him. Why, methinks, by him,
    This creature's no such thing.
  CHARMIAN. Nothing, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. The man hath seen some majesty, and should know.
  CHARMIAN. Hath he seen majesty? Isis else defend,
    And serving you so long!
  CLEOPATRA. I have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian.
    But 'tis no matter; thou shalt bring him to me
    Where I will write. All may be well enough.
  CHARMIAN. I warrant you, madam.                         Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_4
                          SCENE IV.
                  Athens. ANTONY'S house

                 Enter ANTONY and OCTAVIA

  ANTONY. Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that-
    That were excusable, that and thousands more
    Of semblable import- but he hath wag'd
    New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it
    To public ear;
    Spoke scandy of me; when perforce he could not
    But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly
    He vented them, most narrow measure lent me;
    When the best hint was given him, he not took't,
    Or did it from his teeth.
  OCTAVIA. O my good lord,
    Believe not all; or if you must believe,
    Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady,
    If this division chance, ne'er stood between,
    Praying for both parts.
    The good gods will mock me presently
    When I shall pray 'O, bless my lord and husband!'
    Undo that prayer by crying out as loud
    'O, bless my brother!' Husband win, win brother,
    Prays, and destroys the prayer; no mid-way
    'Twixt these extremes at all.
  ANTONY. Gentle Octavia,
    Let your best love draw to that point which seeks
    Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honour,
    I lose myself; better I were not yours
    Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested,
    Yourself shall go between's. The meantime, lady,
    I'll raise the preparation of a war
    Shall stain your brother. Make your soonest haste;
    So your desires are yours.
  OCTAVIA. Thanks to my lord.
    The Jove of power make me, most weak, most weak,
    Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be
    As if the world should cleave, and that slain men
    Should solder up the rift.
  ANTONY. When it appears to you where this begins,
    Turn your displeasure that way, for our faults
    Can never be so equal that your love
    Can equally move with them. Provide your going;
    Choose your own company, and command what cost
    Your heart has mind to.                               Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_5
                           SCENE V.
                   Athens. ANTONY'S house

             Enter ENOBARBUS and EROS, meeting

  ENOBARBUS. How now, friend Eros!
  EROS. There's strange news come, sir.
  ENOBARBUS. What, man?
  EROS. Caesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.
  ENOBARBUS. This is old. What is the success?
  EROS. Caesar, having made use of him in the wars 'gainst Pompey,
    presently denied him rivality, would not let him partake in the
    glory of the action; and not resting here, accuses him of letters
    he had formerly wrote to Pompey; upon his own appeal, seizes him.
    So the poor third is up, till death enlarge his confine.
  ENOBARBUS. Then, world, thou hast a pair of chaps- no more;
    And throw between them all the food thou hast,
    They'll grind the one the other. Where's Antony?
  EROS. He's walking in the garden- thus, and spurns
    The rush that lies before him; cries 'Fool Lepidus!'
    And threats the throat of that his officer
    That murd'red Pompey.
  ENOBARBUS. Our great navy's rigg'd.
  EROS. For Italy and Caesar. More, Domitius:
    My lord desires you presently; my news
    I might have told hereafter.
  ENOBARBUS. 'Twill be naught;
    But let it be. Bring me to Antony.
  EROS. Come, sir.                                        Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_6
                          SCENE VI.
                   Rome. CAESAR'S house

             Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS

  CAESAR. Contemning Rome, he has done all this and more
    In Alexandria. Here's the manner of't:
    I' th' market-place, on a tribunal silver'd,
    Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold
    Were publicly enthron'd; at the feet sat
    Caesarion, whom they call my father's son,
    And all the unlawful issue that their lust
    Since then hath made between them. Unto her
    He gave the stablishment of Egypt; made her
    Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,
    Absolute queen.
  MAECENAS. This in the public eye?
  CAESAR. I' th' common show-place, where they exercise.
    His sons he there proclaim'd the kings of kings:
    Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia,
    He gave to Alexander; to Ptolemy he assign'd
    Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia. She
    In th' habiliments of the goddess Isis
    That day appear'd; and oft before gave audience,
    As 'tis reported, so.
  MAECENAS. Let Rome be thus
    Inform'd.
  AGRIPPA. Who, queasy with his insolence
    Already, will their good thoughts call from him.
  CAESAR. The people knows it, and have now receiv'd
    His accusations.
  AGRIPPA. Who does he accuse?
  CAESAR. Caesar; and that, having in Sicily
    Sextus Pompeius spoil'd, we had not rated him
    His part o' th' isle. Then does he say he lent me
    Some shipping, unrestor'd. Lastly, he frets
    That Lepidus of the triumvirate
    Should be depos'd; and, being, that we detain
    All his revenue.
  AGRIPPA. Sir, this should be answer'd.
  CAESAR. 'Tis done already, and messenger gone.
    I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel,
    That he his high authority abus'd,
    And did deserve his change. For what I have conquer'd
    I grant him part; but then, in his Armenia
    And other of his conquer'd kingdoms,
    Demand the like.
  MAECENAS. He'll never yield to that.
  CAESAR. Nor must not then be yielded to in this.

                Enter OCTAVIA, with her train

  OCTAVIA. Hail, Caesar, and my lord! hail, most dear Caesar!
  CAESAR. That ever I should call thee cast-away!
  OCTAVIA. You have not call'd me so, nor have you cause.
  CAESAR. Why have you stol'n upon us thus? You come not
    Like Caesar's sister. The wife of Antony
    Should have an army for an usher, and
    The neighs of horse to tell of her approach
    Long ere she did appear. The trees by th' way
    Should have borne men, and expectation fainted,
    Longing for what it had not. Nay, the dust
    Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,
    Rais'd by your populous troops. But you are come
    A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented
    The ostentation of our love, which left unshown
    Is often left unlov'd. We should have met you
    By sea and land, supplying every stage
    With an augmented greeting.
  OCTAVIA. Good my lord,
    To come thus was I not constrain'd, but did it
    On my free will. My lord, Mark Antony,
    Hearing that you prepar'd for war, acquainted
    My grieved ear withal; whereon I begg'd
    His pardon for return.
  CAESAR. Which soon he granted,
    Being an obstruct 'tween his lust and him.
  OCTAVIA. Do not say so, my lord.
  CAESAR. I have eyes upon him,
    And his affairs come to me on the wind.
    Where is he now?
  OCTAVIA. My lord, in Athens.
  CAESAR. No, my most wronged sister: Cleopatra
    Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire
    Up to a whore, who now are levying
    The kings o' th' earth for war. He hath assembled
    Bocchus, the king of Libya; Archelaus
    Of Cappadocia; Philadelphos, king
    Of Paphlagonia; the Thracian king, Adallas;
    King Manchus of Arabia; King of Pont;
    Herod of Jewry; Mithridates, king
    Of Comagene; Polemon and Amyntas,
    The kings of Mede and Lycaonia, with
    More larger list of sceptres.
  OCTAVIA. Ay me most wretched,
    That have my heart parted betwixt two friends,
    That does afflict each other!
  CAESAR. Welcome hither.
    Your letters did withhold our breaking forth,
    Till we perceiv'd both how you were wrong led
    And we in negligent danger. Cheer your heart;
    Be you not troubled with the time, which drives
    O'er your content these strong necessities,
    But let determin'd things to destiny
    Hold unbewail'd their way. Welcome to Rome;
    Nothing more dear to me. You are abus'd
    Beyond the mark of thought, and the high gods,
    To do you justice, make their ministers
    Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort,
    And ever welcome to us.
  AGRIPPA. Welcome, lady.
  MAECENAS. Welcome, dear madam.
    Each heart in Rome does love and pity you;
    Only th' adulterous Antony, most large
    In his abominations, turns you off,
    And gives his potent regiment to a trull
    That noises it against us.
  OCTAVIA. Is it so, sir?
  CAESAR. Most certain. Sister, welcome. Pray you
    Be ever known to patience. My dear'st sister!         Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_7
                          SCENE VII.
                  ANTONY'S camp near Actium

                Enter CLEOPATRA and ENOBARBUS

  CLEOPATRA. I will be even with thee, doubt it not.
  ENOBARBUS. But why, why,
  CLEOPATRA. Thou hast forspoke my being in these wars,
    And say'st it is not fit.
  ENOBARBUS. Well, is it, is it?
  CLEOPATRA. Is't not denounc'd against us? Why should not we
    Be there in person?
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Well, I could reply:
    If we should serve with horse and mares together
    The horse were merely lost; the mares would bear
    A soldier and his horse.
  CLEOPATRA. What is't you say?
  ENOBARBUS. Your presence needs must puzzle Antony;
    Take from his heart, take from his brain, from's time,
    What should not then be spar'd. He is already
    Traduc'd for levity; and 'tis said in Rome
    That Photinus an eunuch and your maids
    Manage this war.
  CLEOPATRA. Sink Rome, and their tongues rot
    That speak against us! A charge we bear i' th' war,
    And, as the president of my kingdom, will
    Appear there for a man. Speak not against it;
    I will not stay behind.

                   Enter ANTONY and CANIDIUS

  ENOBARBUS. Nay, I have done.
    Here comes the Emperor.
  ANTONY. Is it not strange, Canidius,
    That from Tarentum and Brundusium
    He could so quickly cut the Ionian sea,
    And take in Toryne?- You have heard on't, sweet?
  CLEOPATRA. Celerity is never more admir'd
    Than by the negligent.
  ANTONY. A good rebuke,
    Which might have well becom'd the best of men
    To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we
    Will fight with him by sea.
  CLEOPATRA. By sea! What else?
  CANIDIUS. Why will my lord do so?
  ANTONY. For that he dares us to't.
  ENOBARBUS. So hath my lord dar'd him to single fight.
  CANIDIUS. Ay, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia,
    Where Caesar fought with Pompey. But these offers,
    Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off;
    And so should you.
  ENOBARBUS. Your ships are not well mann'd;
    Your mariners are muleteers, reapers, people
    Ingross'd by swift impress. In Caesar's fleet
    Are those that often have 'gainst Pompey fought;
    Their ships are yare; yours heavy. No disgrace
    Shall fall you for refusing him at sea,
    Being prepar'd for land.
  ANTONY. By sea, by sea.
  ENOBARBUS. Most worthy sir, you therein throw away
    The absolute soldiership you have by land;
    Distract your army, which doth most consist
    Of war-mark'd footmen; leave unexecuted
    Your own renowned knowledge; quite forgo
    The way which promises assurance; and
    Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard
    From firm security.
  ANTONY. I'll fight at sea.
  CLEOPATRA. I have sixty sails, Caesar none better.
  ANTONY. Our overplus of shipping will we burn,
    And, with the rest full-mann'd, from th' head of Actium
    Beat th' approaching Caesar. But if we fail,
    We then can do't at land.

                       Enter a MESSENGER

    Thy business?
  MESSENGER. The news is true, my lord: he is descried;
    Caesar has taken Toryne.
  ANTONY. Can he be there in person? 'Tis impossible-
    Strange that his power should be. Canidius,
    Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land,
    And our twelve thousand horse. We'll to our ship.
    Away, my Thetis!

                       Enter a SOLDIER

    How now, worthy soldier?
  SOLDIER. O noble Emperor, do not fight by sea;
    Trust not to rotten planks. Do you misdoubt
    This sword and these my wounds? Let th' Egyptians
    And the Phoenicians go a-ducking; we
    Have us'd to conquer standing on the earth
    And fighting foot to foot.
  ANTONY. Well, well- away.
                         Exeunt ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, and ENOBARBUS
  SOLDIER. By Hercules, I think I am i' th' right.
  CANIDIUS. Soldier, thou art; but his whole action grows
    Not in the power on't. So our leader's led,
    And we are women's men.
  SOLDIER. You keep by land
    The legions and the horse whole, do you not?
  CANIDIUS. Marcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius,
    Publicola, and Caelius are for sea;
    But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar's
    Carries beyond belief.
  SOLDIER. While he was yet in Rome,
    His power went out in such distractions as
    Beguil'd all spies.
  CANIDIUS. Who's his lieutenant, hear you?
  SOLDIER. They say one Taurus.
  CANIDIUS. Well I know the man.

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. The Emperor calls Canidius.
  CANIDIUS. With news the time's with labour and throes forth
    Each minute some.                                     Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_8
                          SCENE VIII.
                      A plain near Actium

             Enter CAESAR, with his army, marching

  CAESAR. Taurus!
  TAURUS. My lord?
  CAESAR. Strike not by land; keep whole; provoke not battle
    Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed
    The prescript of this scroll. Our fortune lies
    Upon this jump.                                       Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_9
                           SCENE IX.
                  Another part of the plain

                  Enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS

  ANTONY. Set we our squadrons on yon side o' th' hill,
    In eye of Caesar's battle; from which place
    We may the number of the ships behold,
    And so proceed accordingly.                           Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_10
                           SCENE X.
                 Another part of the plain

        CANIDIUS marcheth with his land army one way
        over the stage, and TAURUS, the Lieutenant of
      CAESAR, the other way. After their going in is heard
                   the noise of a sea-fight

                    Alarum. Enter ENOBARBUS

  ENOBARBUS. Naught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer.
    Th' Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,
    With all their sixty, fly and turn the rudder.
    To see't mine eyes are blasted.

                        Enter SCARUS

  SCARUS. Gods and goddesses,
    All the whole synod of them!
  ENOBARBUS. What's thy passion?
  SCARUS. The greater cantle of the world is lost
    With very ignorance; we have kiss'd away
    Kingdoms and provinces.
  ENOBARBUS. How appears the fight?
  SCARUS. On our side like the token'd pestilence,
    Where death is sure. Yon ribaudred nag of Egypt-
    Whom leprosy o'ertake!- i' th' midst o' th' fight,
    When vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,
    Both as the same, or rather ours the elder-
    The breese upon her, like a cow in June-
    Hoists sails and flies.
  ENOBARBUS. That I beheld;
    Mine eyes did sicken at the sight and could not
    Endure a further view.
  SCARUS. She once being loof'd,
    The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,
    Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard,
    Leaving the fight in height, flies after her.
    I never saw an action of such shame;
    Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er before
    Did violate so itself.
  ENOBARBUS. Alack, alack!

                       Enter CANIDIUS

  CANIDIUS. Our fortune on the sea is out of breath,
    And sinks most lamentably. Had our general
    Been what he knew himself, it had gone well.
    O, he has given example for our flight
    Most grossly by his own!
  ENOBARBUS. Ay, are you thereabouts?
    Why then, good night indeed.
  CANIDIUS. Toward Peloponnesus are they fled.
  SCARUS. 'Tis easy to't; and there I will attend
    What further comes.
  CANIDIUS. To Caesar will I render
    My legions and my horse; six kings already
    Show me the way of yielding.
  ENOBARBUS. I'll yet follow
    The wounded chance of Antony, though my reason
    Sits in the wind against me.                          Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_11
                         SCENE XI.
              Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

               Enter ANTONY With attendants

  ANTONY. Hark! the land bids me tread no more upon't;
    It is asham'd to bear me. Friends, come hither.
    I am so lated in the world that I
    Have lost my way for ever. I have a ship
    Laden with gold; take that; divide it. Fly,
    And make your peace with Caesar.
  ALL. Fly? Not we!
  ANTONY. I have fled myself, and have instructed cowards
    To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone;
    I have myself resolv'd upon a course
    Which has no need of you; be gone.
    My treasure's in the harbour, take it. O,
    I follow'd that I blush to look upon.
    My very hairs do mutiny; for the white
    Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them
    For fear and doting. Friends, be gone; you shall
    Have letters from me to some friends that will
    Sweep your way for you. Pray you look not sad,
    Nor make replies of loathness; take the hint
    Which my despair proclaims. Let that be left
    Which leaves itself. To the sea-side straight way.
    I will possess you of that ship and treasure.
    Leave me, I pray, a little; pray you now;
    Nay, do so, for indeed I have lost command;
    Therefore I pray you. I'll see you by and by.    [Sits down]

            Enter CLEOPATRA, led by CHARMIAN and IRAS,
                         EROS following

  EROS. Nay, gentle madam, to him! Comfort him.
  IRAS. Do, most dear Queen.
  CHARMIAN. Do? Why, what else?
  CLEOPATRA. Let me sit down. O Juno!
  ANTONY. No, no, no, no, no.
  EROS. See you here, sir?
  ANTONY. O, fie, fie, fie!
  CHARMIAN. Madam!
  IRAS. Madam, O good Empress!
  EROS. Sir, sir!
  ANTONY. Yes, my lord, yes. He at Philippi kept
    His sword e'en like a dancer, while I struck
    The lean and wrinkled Cassius; and 'twas I
    That the mad Brutus ended; he alone
    Dealt on lieutenantry, and no practice had
    In the brave squares of war. Yet now- no matter.
  CLEOPATRA. Ah, stand by!
  EROS. The Queen, my lord, the Queen!
  IRAS. Go to him, madam, speak to him.
    He is unqualitied with very shame.
  CLEOPATRA. Well then, sustain me. O!
 EROS. Most noble sir, arise; the Queen approaches.
    Her head's declin'd, and death will seize her but
    Your comfort makes the rescue.
  ANTONY. I have offended reputation-
    A most unnoble swerving.
  EROS. Sir, the Queen.
  ANTONY. O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See
    How I convey my shame out of thine eyes
    By looking back what I have left behind
    'Stroy'd in dishonour.
  CLEOPATRA. O my lord, my lord,
    Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought
    You would have followed.
  ANTONY. Egypt, thou knew'st too well
    My heart was to thy rudder tied by th' strings,
    And thou shouldst tow me after. O'er my spirit
    Thy full supremacy thou knew'st, and that
    Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
    Command me.
  CLEOPATRA. O, my pardon!
  ANTONY. Now I must
    To the young man send humble treaties, dodge
    And palter in the shifts of lowness, who
    With half the bulk o' th' world play'd as I pleas'd,
    Making and marring fortunes. You did know
    How much you were my conqueror, and that
    My sword, made weak by my affection, would
    Obey it on all cause.
  CLEOPATRA. Pardon, pardon!
  ANTONY. Fall not a tear, I say; one of them rates
    All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss;
    Even this repays me.
    We sent our schoolmaster; is 'a come back?
    Love, I am full of lead. Some wine,
    Within there, and our viands! Fortune knows
    We scorn her most when most she offers blows.         Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_12
                         SCENE XII.
                   CAESAR'S camp in Egypt

   Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, THYREUS, with others

  CAESAR. Let him appear that's come from Antony.
    Know you him?
  DOLABELLA. Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster:
    An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither
    He sends so poor a pinion of his wing,
    Which had superfluous kings for messengers
    Not many moons gone by.

            Enter EUPHRONIUS, Ambassador from ANTONY

  CAESAR. Approach, and speak.
  EUPHRONIUS. Such as I am, I come from Antony.
    I was of late as petty to his ends
    As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf
    To his grand sea.
  CAESAR. Be't so. Declare thine office.
  EUPHRONIUS. Lord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and
    Requires to live in Egypt; which not granted,
    He lessens his requests and to thee sues
    To let him breathe between the heavens and earth,
    A private man in Athens. This for him.
    Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness,
    Submits her to thy might, and of thee craves
    The circle of the Ptolemies for her heirs,
    Now hazarded to thy grace.
  CAESAR. For Antony,
    I have no ears to his request. The Queen
    Of audience nor desire shall fail, so she
    From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend,
    Or take his life there. This if she perform,
    She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.
  EUPHRONIUS. Fortune pursue thee!
  CAESAR. Bring him through the bands.           Exit EUPHRONIUS
    [To THYREUS] To try thy eloquence, now 'tis time. Dispatch;
    From Antony win Cleopatra. Promise,
    And in our name, what she requires; add more,
    From thine invention, offers. Women are not
    In their best fortunes strong; but want will perjure
    The ne'er-touch'd vestal. Try thy cunning, Thyreus;
    Make thine own edict for thy pains, which we
    Will answer as a law.
  THYREUS. Caesar, I go.
  CAESAR. Observe how Antony becomes his flaw,
    And what thou think'st his very action speaks
    In every power that moves.
  THYREUS. Caesar, I shall.                               Exeunt

ACT_3|SC_13
                           SCENE XIII.
               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace

        Enter CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, and IRAS

  CLEOPATRA. What shall we do, Enobarbus?
  ENOBARBUS. Think, and die.
  CLEOPATRA. Is Antony or we in fault for this?
  ENOBARBUS. Antony only, that would make his will
    Lord of his reason. What though you fled
    From that great face of war, whose several ranges
    Frighted each other? Why should he follow?
    The itch of his affection should not then
    Have nick'd his captainship, at such a point,
    When half to half the world oppos'd, he being
    The mered question. 'Twas a shame no less
    Than was his loss, to course your flying flags
    And leave his navy gazing.
  CLEOPATRA. Prithee, peace.

          Enter EUPHRONIUS, the Ambassador; with ANTONY

  ANTONY. Is that his answer?
  EUPHRONIUS. Ay, my lord.
  ANTONY. The Queen shall then have courtesy, so she
    Will yield us up.
  EUPHRONIUS. He says so.
  ANTONY. Let her know't.
    To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,
    And he will fill thy wishes to the brim
    With principalities.
  CLEOPATRA. That head, my lord?
  ANTONY. To him again. Tell him he wears the rose
    Of youth upon him; from which the world should note
    Something particular. His coin, ships, legions,
    May be a coward's whose ministers would prevail
    Under the service of a child as soon
    As i' th' command of Caesar. I dare him therefore
    To lay his gay comparisons apart,
    And answer me declin'd, sword against sword,
    Ourselves alone. I'll write it. Follow me.
                                    Exeunt ANTONY and EUPHRONIUS
  EUPHRONIUS. [Aside] Yes, like enough high-battled Caesar will
    Unstate his happiness, and be stag'd to th' show
    Against a sworder! I see men's judgments are
    A parcel of their fortunes, and things outward
    Do draw the inward quality after them,
    To suffer all alike. That he should dream,
    Knowing all measures, the full Caesar will
    Answer his emptiness! Caesar, thou hast subdu'd
    His judgment too.

                       Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. A messenger from Caesar.
  CLEOPATRA. What, no more ceremony? See, my women!
    Against the blown rose may they stop their nose
    That kneel'd unto the buds. Admit him, sir.     Exit SERVANT
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] Mine honesty and I begin to square.
    The loyalty well held to fools does make
    Our faith mere folly. Yet he that can endure
    To follow with allegiance a fall'n lord
    Does conquer him that did his master conquer,
    And earns a place i' th' story.

                       Enter THYREUS

  CLEOPATRA. Caesar's will?
  THYREUS. Hear it apart.
  CLEOPATRA. None but friends: say boldly.
  THYREUS. So, haply, are they friends to Antony.
  ENOBARBUS. He needs as many, sir, as Caesar has,
    Or needs not us. If Caesar please, our master
    Will leap to be his friend. For us, you know
    Whose he is we are, and that is Caesar's.
  THYREUS. So.
    Thus then, thou most renown'd: Caesar entreats
    Not to consider in what case thou stand'st
    Further than he is Caesar.
  CLEOPATRA. Go on. Right royal!
  THYREUS. He knows that you embrace not Antony
    As you did love, but as you fear'd him.
  CLEOPATRA. O!
  THYREUS. The scars upon your honour, therefore, he
    Does pity, as constrained blemishes,
    Not as deserv'd.
  CLEOPATRA. He is a god, and knows
    What is most right. Mine honour was not yielded,
    But conquer'd merely.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] To be sure of that,
    I will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky
    That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for
    Thy dearest quit thee.                                  Exit
  THYREUS. Shall I say to Caesar
    What you require of him? For he partly begs
    To be desir'd to give. It much would please him
    That of his fortunes you should make a staff
    To lean upon. But it would warm his spirits
    To hear from me you had left Antony,
    And put yourself under his shroud,
    The universal landlord.
  CLEOPATRA. What's your name?
  THYREUS. My name is Thyreus.
  CLEOPATRA. Most kind messenger,
    Say to great Caesar this: in deputation
    I kiss his conquring hand. Tell him I am prompt
    To lay my crown at 's feet, and there to kneel.
    Tell him from his all-obeying breath I hear
    The doom of Egypt.
  THYREUS. 'Tis your noblest course.
    Wisdom and fortune combating together,
    If that the former dare but what it can,
    No chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay
    My duty on your hand.
  CLEOPATRA. Your Caesar's father oft,
    When he hath mus'd of taking kingdoms in,
    Bestow'd his lips on that unworthy place,
    As it rain'd kisses.

                Re-enter ANTONY and ENOBARBUS

  ANTONY. Favours, by Jove that thunders!
    What art thou, fellow?
  THYREUS. One that but performs
    The bidding of the fullest man, and worthiest
    To have command obey'd.
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside] You will be whipt.
  ANTONY. Approach there.- Ah, you kite!- Now, gods and devils!
    Authority melts from me. Of late, when I cried 'Ho!'
    Like boys unto a muss, kings would start forth
    And cry 'Your will?' Have you no ears? I am
    Antony yet.

                       Enter servants

    Take hence this Jack and whip him.
  ENOBARBUS. 'Tis better playing with a lion's whelp
    Than with an old one dying.
  ANTONY. Moon and stars!
    Whip him. Were't twenty of the greatest tributaries
    That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them
    So saucy with the hand of she here- what's her name
    Since she was Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,
    Till like a boy you see him cringe his face,
    And whine aloud for mercy. Take him hence.
  THYMUS. Mark Antony-
  ANTONY. Tug him away. Being whipt,
    Bring him again: the Jack of Caesar's shall
    Bear us an errand to him.       Exeunt servants with THYREUS
    You were half blasted ere I knew you. Ha!
    Have I my pillow left unpress'd in Rome,
    Forborne the getting of a lawful race,
    And by a gem of women, to be abus'd
    By one that looks on feeders?
  CLEOPATRA. Good my lord-
  ANTONY. You have been a boggler ever.
    But when we in our viciousness grow hard-
    O misery on't!- the wise gods seel our eyes,
    In our own filth drop our clear judgments, make us
    Adore our errors, laugh at's while we strut
    To our confusion.
  CLEOPATRA. O, is't come to this?
  ANTONY. I found you as a morsel cold upon
    Dead Caesar's trencher. Nay, you were a fragment
    Of Cneius Pompey's, besides what hotter hours,
    Unregist'red in vulgar fame, you have
    Luxuriously pick'd out; for I am sure,
    Though you can guess what temperance should be,
    You know not what it is.
  CLEOPATRA. Wherefore is this?
  ANTONY. To let a fellow that will take rewards,
    And say 'God quit you!' be familiar with
    My playfellow, your hand, this kingly seal
    And plighter of high hearts! O that I were
    Upon the hill of Basan to outroar
    The horned herd! For I have savage cause,
    And to proclaim it civilly were like
    A halter'd neck which does the hangman thank
    For being yare about him.

              Re-enter a SERVANT with THYREUS

    Is he whipt?
  SERVANT. Soundly, my lord.
  ANTONY. Cried he? and begg'd 'a pardon?
  SERVANT. He did ask favour.
  ANTONY. If that thy father live, let him repent
    Thou wast not made his daughter; and be thou sorry
    To follow Caesar in his triumph, since
    Thou hast been whipt for following him. Henceforth
    The white hand of a lady fever thee!
    Shake thou to look on't. Get thee back to Caesar;
    Tell him thy entertainment; look thou say
    He makes me angry with him; for he seems
    Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,
    Not what he knew I was. He makes me angry;
    And at this time most easy 'tis to do't,
    When my good stars, that were my former guides,
    Have empty left their orbs and shot their fires
    Into th' abysm of hell. If he mislike
    My speech and what is done, tell him he has
    Hipparchus, my enfranched bondman, whom
    He may at pleasure whip or hang or torture,
    As he shall like, to quit me. Urge it thou.
    Hence with thy stripes, be gone.                Exit THYREUS
  CLEOPATRA. Have you done yet?
  ANTONY. Alack, our terrene moon
    Is now eclips'd, and it portends alone
    The fall of Antony.
  CLEOPATRA. I must stay his time.
  ANTONY. To flatter Caesar, would you mingle eyes
    With one that ties his points?
  CLEOPATRA. Not know me yet?
  ANTONY. Cold-hearted toward me?
  CLEOPATRA. Ah, dear, if I be so,
    From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,
    And poison it in the source, and the first stone
    Drop in my neck; as it determines, so
    Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite!
    Till by degrees the memory of my womb,
    Together with my brave Egyptians all,
    By the discandying of this pelleted storm,
    Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile
    Have buried them for prey.
  ANTONY. I am satisfied.
    Caesar sits down in Alexandria, where
    I will oppose his fate. Our force by land
    Hath nobly held; our sever'd navy to
    Have knit again, and fleet, threat'ning most sea-like.
    Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?
    If from the field I shall return once more
    To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood.
    I and my sword will earn our chronicle.
    There's hope in't yet.
  CLEOPATRA. That's my brave lord!
  ANTONY. I will be treble-sinew'd, hearted, breath'd,
    And fight maliciously. For when mine hours
    Were nice and lucky, men did ransom lives
    Of me for jests; but now I'll set my teeth,
    And send to darkness all that stop me. Come,
    Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me
    All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more;
    Let's mock the midnight bell.
  CLEOPATRA. It is my birthday.
    I had thought t'have held it poor; but since my lord
    Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.
  ANTONY. We will yet do well.
  CLEOPATRA. Call all his noble captains to my lord.
  ANTONY. Do so, we'll speak to them; and to-night I'll force
    The wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen,
    There's sap in't yet. The next time I do fight
    I'll make death love me; for I will contend
    Even with his pestilent scythe.     Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS
  ENOBARBUS. Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious
    Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood
    The dove will peck the estridge; and I see still
    A diminution in our captain's brain
    Restores his heart. When valour preys on reason,
    It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek
    Some way to leave him.                                  Exit

ACT_4|SC_1
                      ACT IV. SCENE I.
              CAESAR'S camp before Alexandria

      Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, and MAECENAS, with his army;
                 CAESAR reading a letter

  CAESAR. He calls me boy, and chides as he had power
    To beat me out of Egypt. My messenger
    He hath whipt with rods; dares me to personal combat,
    Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian know
    I have many other ways to die, meantime
    Laugh at his challenge.
  MAECENAS. Caesar must think
    When one so great begins to rage, he's hunted
    Even to falling. Give him no breath, but now
    Make boot of his distraction. Never anger
    Made good guard for itself.
  CAESAR. Let our best heads
    Know that to-morrow the last of many battles
    We mean to fight. Within our files there are
    Of those that serv'd Mark Antony but late
    Enough to fetch him in. See it done;
    And feast the army; we have store to do't,
    And they have earn'd the waste. Poor Antony!          Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_2
                          SCENE II.
               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace

      Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, IRAS,
                     ALEXAS, with others

  ANTONY. He will not fight with me, Domitius?
  ENOBARBUS. No.
  ANTONY. Why should he not?
  ENOBARBUS. He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,
    He is twenty men to one.
  ANTONY. To-morrow, soldier,
    By sea and land I'll fight. Or I will live,
    Or bathe my dying honour in the blood
    Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well?
  ENOBARBUS. I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.'
  ANTONY. Well said; come on.
    Call forth my household servants; let's to-night
    Be bounteous at our meal.

                Enter three or four servitors

    Give me thy hand,
    Thou has been rightly honest. So hast thou;
    Thou, and thou, and thou. You have serv'd me well,
    And kings have been your fellows.
  CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What means this?
  ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] 'Tis one of those odd tricks which
      sorrow shoots
    Out of the mind.
  ANTONY. And thou art honest too.
    I wish I could be made so many men,
    And all of you clapp'd up together in
    An Antony, that I might do you service
    So good as you have done.
  SERVANT. The gods forbid!
  ANTONY. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night.
    Scant not my cups, and make as much of me
    As when mine empire was your fellow too,
    And suffer'd my command.
  CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What does he mean?
    ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] To make his followers weep.
  ANTONY. Tend me to-night;
    May be it is the period of your duty.
    Haply you shall not see me more; or if,
    A mangled shadow. Perchance to-morrow
    You'll serve another master. I look on you
    As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,
    I turn you not away; but, like a master
    Married to your good service, stay till death.
    Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more,
    And the gods yield you for't!
  ENOBARBUS. What mean you, sir,
    To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep;
    And I, an ass, am onion-ey'd. For shame!
    Transform us not to women.
  ANTONY. Ho, ho, ho!
    Now the witch take me if I meant it thus!
    Grace grow where those drops fall! My hearty friends,
    You take me in too dolorous a sense;
    For I spake to you for your comfort, did desire you
    To burn this night with torches. Know, my hearts,
    I hope well of to-morrow, and will lead you
    Where rather I'll expect victorious life
    Than death and honour. Let's to supper, come,
    And drown consideration.                              Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_3
                          SCENE III.
             Alexandria. Before CLEOPATRA's palace

                 Enter a company of soldiers

  FIRST SOLDIER. Brother, good night. To-morrow is the day.
  SECOND SOLDIER. It will determine one way. Fare you well.
    Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?
  FIRST SOLDIER. Nothing. What news?
  SECOND SOLDIER. Belike 'tis but a rumour. Good night to you.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Well, sir, good night.
                                      [They meet other soldiers]
  SECOND SOLDIER. Soldiers, have careful watch.
  FIRST SOLDIER. And you. Good night, good night.
                [The two companies separate and place themselves
                                   in every corner of the stage]
  SECOND SOLDIER. Here we. And if to-morrow
    Our navy thrive, I have an absolute hope
    Our landmen will stand up.
  THIRD SOLDIER. 'Tis a brave army,
    And full of purpose.
                      [Music of the hautboys is under the stage]
  SECOND SOLDIER. Peace, what noise?
  THIRD SOLDIER. List, list!
  SECOND SOLDIER. Hark!
  THIRD SOLDIER. Music i' th' air.
  FOURTH SOLDIER. Under the earth.
  THIRD SOLDIER. It signs well, does it not?
  FOURTH SOLDIER. No.
  THIRD SOLDIER. Peace, I say!
    What should this mean?
  SECOND SOLDIER. 'Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony lov'd,
    Now leaves him.
  THIRD SOLDIER. Walk; let's see if other watchmen
    Do hear what we do.
  SECOND SOLDIER. How now, masters!
  SOLDIERS. [Speaking together] How now!
    How now! Do you hear this?
  FIRST SOLDIER. Ay; is't not strange?
  THIRD SOLDIER. Do you hear, masters? Do you hear?
  FIRST SOLDIER. Follow the noise so far as we have quarter;
    Let's see how it will give off.
  SOLDIERS. Content. 'Tis strange.                        Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_4
                           SCENE IV.
               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace

         Enter ANTONY and CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS,
                          with others

  ANTONY. Eros! mine armour, Eros!
  CLEOPATRA. Sleep a little.
  ANTONY. No, my chuck. Eros! Come, mine armour, Eros!

                   Enter EROS with armour

    Come, good fellow, put mine iron on.
    If fortune be not ours to-day, it is
    Because we brave her. Come.
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, I'll help too.
    What's this for?
  ANTONY. Ah, let be, let be! Thou art
    The armourer of my heart. False, false; this, this.
  CLEOPATRA. Sooth, la, I'll help. Thus it must be.
  ANTONY. Well, well;
    We shall thrive now. Seest thou, my good fellow?
    Go put on thy defences.
  EROS. Briefly, sir.
  CLEOPATRA. Is not this buckled well?
  ANTONY. Rarely, rarely!
    He that unbuckles this, till we do please
    To daff't for our repose, shall hear a storm.
    Thou fumblest, Eros, and my queen's a squire
    More tight at this than thou. Dispatch. O love,
    That thou couldst see my wars to-day, and knew'st
    The royal occupation! Thou shouldst see
    A workman in't.

                   Enter an armed SOLDIER

    Good-morrow to thee. Welcome.
    Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge.
    To business that we love we rise betime,
    And go to't with delight.
  SOLDIER. A thousand, sir,
    Early though't be, have on their riveted trim,
    And at the port expect you.
                            [Shout. Flourish of trumpets within]

                 Enter CAPTAINS and soldiers

  CAPTAIN. The morn is fair. Good morrow, General.
  ALL. Good morrow, General.
  ANTONY. 'Tis well blown, lads.
    This morning, like the spirit of a youth
    That means to be of note, begins betimes.
    So, so. Come, give me that. This way. Well said.
    Fare thee well, dame, whate'er becomes of me.
    This is a soldier's kiss. Rebukeable,
    And worthy shameful check it were, to stand
    On more mechanic compliment; I'll leave thee
    Now like a man of steel. You that will fight,
    Follow me close; I'll bring you to't. Adieu.
                      Exeunt ANTONY, EROS, CAPTAINS and soldiers
  CHARMIAN. Please you retire to your chamber?
  CLEOPATRA. Lead me.
    He goes forth gallantly. That he and Caesar might
    Determine this great war in single fight!
    Then, Antony- but now. Well, on.                      Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_5
                          SCENE V.
                  Alexandria. ANTONY'S camp

        Trumpets sound. Enter ANTONY and EROS, a SOLDIER
                       meeting them

  SOLDIER. The gods make this a happy day to Antony!
  ANTONY. Would thou and those thy scars had once prevail'd
    To make me fight at land!
  SOLDIER. Hadst thou done so,
    The kings that have revolted, and the soldier
    That has this morning left thee, would have still
    Followed thy heels.
  ANTONY. Who's gone this morning?
  SOLDIER. Who?
    One ever near thee. Call for Enobarbus,
    He shall not hear thee; or from Caesar's camp
    Say 'I am none of thine.'
  ANTONY. What say'st thou?
  SOLDIER. Sir,
    He is with Caesar.
  EROS. Sir, his chests and treasure
    He has not with him.
  ANTONY. Is he gone?
  SOLDIER. Most certain.
  ANTONY. Go, Eros, send his treasure after; do it;
    Detain no jot, I charge thee. Write to him-
    I will subscribe- gentle adieus and greetings;
    Say that I wish he never find more cause
    To change a master. O, my fortunes have
    Corrupted honest men! Dispatch. Enobarbus!            Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_6
                         SCENE VI.
                 Alexandria. CAESAR'S camp

       Flourish. Enter AGRIPPA, CAESAR, With DOLABELLA
                       and ENOBARBUS

  CAESAR. Go forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight.
    Our will is Antony be took alive;
    Make it so known.
  AGRIPPA. Caesar, I shall.                                 Exit
  CAESAR. The time of universal peace is near.
    Prove this a prosp'rous day, the three-nook'd world
    Shall bear the olive freely.

                     Enter A MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Antony
    Is come into the field.
  CAESAR. Go charge Agrippa
    Plant those that have revolted in the vant,
    That Antony may seem to spend his fury
    Upon himself.                       Exeunt all but ENOBARBUS
  ENOBARBUS. Alexas did revolt and went to Jewry on
    Affairs of Antony; there did dissuade
    Great Herod to incline himself to Caesar
    And leave his master Antony. For this pains
    Casaer hath hang'd him. Canidius and the rest
    That fell away have entertainment, but
    No honourable trust. I have done ill,
    Of which I do accuse myself so sorely
    That I will joy no more.

                  Enter a SOLDIER of CAESAR'S

  SOLDIER. Enobarbus, Antony
    Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with
    His bounty overplus. The messenger
    Came on my guard, and at thy tent is now
    Unloading of his mules.
  ENOBARBUS. I give it you.
  SOLDIER. Mock not, Enobarbus.
    I tell you true. Best you saf'd the bringer
    Out of the host. I must attend mine office,
    Or would have done't myself. Your emperor
    Continues still a Jove.                                 Exit
  ENOBARBUS. I am alone the villain of the earth,
    And feel I am so most. O Antony,
    Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid
    My better service, when my turpitude
    Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows my heart.
    If swift thought break it not, a swifter mean
    Shall outstrike thought; but thought will do't, I feel.
    I fight against thee? No! I will go seek
    Some ditch wherein to die; the foul'st best fits
    My latter part of life.                                 Exit

ACT_4|SC_7
                          SCENE VII.
             Field of battle between the camps

         Alarum. Drums and trumpets. Enter AGRIPPA
                        and others

  AGRIPPA. Retire. We have engag'd ourselves too far.
    Caesar himself has work, and our oppression
    Exceeds what we expected.                             Exeunt

          Alarums. Enter ANTONY, and SCARUS wounded

  SCARUS. O my brave Emperor, this is fought indeed!
    Had we done so at first, we had droven them home
    With clouts about their heads.
  ANTONY. Thou bleed'st apace.
  SCARUS. I had a wound here that was like a T,
    But now 'tis made an H.
  ANTONY. They do retire.
  SCARUS. We'll beat'em into bench-holes. I have yet
    Room for six scotches more.

                        Enter EROS

  EROS. They are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves
    For a fair victory.
  SCARUS. Let us score their backs
    And snatch 'em up, as we take hares, behind.
    'Tis sport to maul a runner.
  ANTONY. I will reward thee
    Once for thy sprightly comfort, and tenfold
    For thy good valour. Come thee on.
    SCARUS. I'll halt after.                              Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_8
                         SCENE VIII.
               Under the walls of Alexandria

        Alarum. Enter ANTONY, again in a march; SCARUS
                        with others

  ANTONY. We have beat him to his camp. Run one before
    And let the Queen know of our gests. To-morrow,
    Before the sun shall see's, we'll spill the blood
    That has to-day escap'd. I thank you all;
    For doughty-handed are you, and have fought
    Not as you serv'd the cause, but as't had been
    Each man's like mine; you have shown all Hectors.
    Enter the city, clip your wives, your friends,
    Tell them your feats; whilst they with joyful tears
    Wash the congealment from your wounds and kiss
    The honour'd gashes whole.

                 Enter CLEOPATRA, attended

    [To SCARUS] Give me thy hand-
    To this great fairy I'll commend thy acts,
    Make her thanks bless thee. O thou day o' th' world,
    Chain mine arm'd neck. Leap thou, attire and all,
    Through proof of harness to my heart, and there
    Ride on the pants triumphing.
  CLEOPATRA. Lord of lords!
    O infinite virtue, com'st thou smiling from
    The world's great snare uncaught?
  ANTONY. Mine nightingale,
    We have beat them to their beds. What, girl! though grey
    Do something mingle with our younger brown, yet ha' we
    A brain that nourishes our nerves, and can
    Get goal for goal of youth. Behold this man;
    Commend unto his lips thy favouring hand-
    Kiss it, my warrior- he hath fought to-day
    As if a god in hate of mankind had
    Destroyed in such a shape.
  CLEOPATRA. I'll give thee, friend,
    An armour all of gold; it was a king's.
  ANTONY. He has deserv'd it, were it carbuncled
    Like holy Phoebus' car. Give me thy hand.
    Through Alexandria make a jolly march;
    Bear our hack'd targets like the men that owe them.
    Had our great palace the capacity
    To camp this host, we all would sup together,
    And drink carouses to the next day's fate,
    Which promises royal peril. Trumpeters,
    With brazen din blast you the city's ear;
    Make mingle with our rattling tabourines,
    That heaven and earth may strike their sounds together
    Applauding our approach.                              Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_9
                         SCENE IX.
                      CAESAR'S camp

      Enter a CENTURION and his company; ENOBARBUS follows

  CENTURION. If we be not reliev'd within this hour,
    We must return to th' court of guard. The night
    Is shiny, and they say we shall embattle
    By th' second hour i' th' morn.
  FIRST WATCH. This last day was
    A shrewd one to's.
  ENOBARBUS. O, bear me witness, night-
  SECOND WATCH. What man is this?
  FIRST WATCH. Stand close and list him.
  ENOBARBUS. Be witness to me, O thou blessed moon,
    When men revolted shall upon record
    Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did
    Before thy face repent!
  CENTURION. Enobarbus?
  SECOND WATCH. Peace!
    Hark further.
  ENOBARBUS. O sovereign mistress of true melancholy,
    The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me,
    That life, a very rebel to my will,
    May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart
    Against the flint and hardness of my fault,
    Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder,
    And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,
    Nobler than my revolt is infamous,
    Forgive me in thine own particular,
    But let the world rank me in register
    A master-leaver and a fugitive!
    O Antony! O Antony!                                   [Dies]
  FIRST WATCH. Let's speak to him.
  CENTURION. Let's hear him, for the things he speaks
    May concern Caesar.
  SECOND WATCH. Let's do so. But he sleeps.
  CENTURION. Swoons rather; for so bad a prayer as his
    Was never yet for sleep.
  FIRST WATCH. Go we to him.
  SECOND WATCH. Awake, sir, awake; speak to us.
  FIRST WATCH. Hear you, sir?
  CENTURION. The hand of death hath raught him.
    [Drums afar off ] Hark! the drums
    Demurely wake the sleepers. Let us bear him
    To th' court of guard; he is of note. Our hour
    Is fully out.
  SECOND WATCH. Come on, then;
    He may recover yet.                     Exeunt with the body

ACT_4|SC_10
                          SCENE X.
                    Between the two camps

            Enter ANTONY and SCARUS, with their army

  ANTONY. Their preparation is to-day by sea;
    We please them not by land.
  SCARUS. For both, my lord.
  ANTONY. I would they'd fight i' th' fire or i' th' air;
    We'd fight there too. But this it is, our foot
    Upon the hills adjoining to the city
    Shall stay with us- Order for sea is given;
    They have put forth the haven-
    Where their appointment we may best discover
    And look on their endeavour.                          Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_11
                         SCENE XI.
                    Between the camps

                Enter CAESAR and his army

  CAESAR. But being charg'd, we will be still by land,
    Which, as I take't, we shall; for his best force
    Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales,
    And hold our best advantage.                          Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_12
                         SCENE XII.
                  A hill near Alexandria

                  Enter ANTONY and SCARUS

  ANTONY. Yet they are not join'd. Where yond pine does stand
    I shall discover all. I'll bring thee word
    Straight how 'tis like to go.                           Exit
  SCARUS. Swallows have built
    In Cleopatra's sails their nests. The augurers
    Say they know not, they cannot tell; look grimly,
    And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony
    Is valiant and dejected; and by starts
    His fretted fortunes give him hope and fear
    Of what he has and has not.
                            [Alarum afar off, as at a sea-fight]

                      Re-enter ANTONY

  ANTONY. All is lost!
    This foul Egyptian hath betrayed me.
    My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder
    They cast their caps up and carouse together
    Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore! 'tis thou
    Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart
    Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
    For when I am reveng'd upon my charm,
    I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.       Exit SCARUS
    O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more!
    Fortune and Antony part here; even here
    Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
    That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
    Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
    On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd
    That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am.
    O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm-
    Whose eye beck'd forth my wars and call'd them home,
    Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end-
    Like a right gypsy hath at fast and loose
    Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.
    What, Eros, Eros!

                      Enter CLEOPATRA

    Ah, thou spell! Avaunt!
  CLEOPATRA. Why is my lord enrag'd against his love?
  ANTONY. Vanish, or I shall give thee thy deserving
    And blemish Caesar's triumph. Let him take thee
    And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians;
    Follow his chariot, like the greatest spot
    Of all thy sex; most monster-like, be shown
    For poor'st diminutives, for doits, and let
    Patient Octavia plough thy visage up
    With her prepared nails.                      Exit CLEOPATRA
    'Tis well th'art gone,
    If it be well to live; but better 'twere
    Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death
    Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!
    The shirt of Nessus is upon me; teach me,
    Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage;
    Let me lodge Lichas on the horns o' th' moon,
    And with those hands that grasp'd the heaviest club
    Subdue my worthiest self. The witch shall die.
    To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall
    Under this plot. She dies for't. Eros, ho!              Exit

ACT_4|SC_13
                          SCENE XIII.
               Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace

      Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN

  CLEOPATRA. Help me, my women. O, he is more mad
    Than Telamon for his shield; the boar of Thessaly
    Was never so emboss'd.
  CHARMIAN. To th'monument!
    There lock yourself, and send him word you are dead.
    The soul and body rive not more in parting
    Than greatness going off.
  CLEOPATRA. To th' monument!
    Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself;
    Say that the last I spoke was 'Antony'
    And word it, prithee, piteously. Hence, Mardian,
    And bring me how he takes my death. To th' monument!
                                                          Exeunt

ACT_4|SC_14
                          SCENE XIV.
                     CLEOPATRA'S palace

                   Enter ANTONY and EROS

  ANTONY. Eros, thou yet behold'st me?
  EROS. Ay, noble lord.
  ANTONY. Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish;
    A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
    A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,
    A forked mountain, or blue promontory
    With trees upon't that nod unto the world
    And mock our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs;
    They are black vesper's pageants.
  EROS. Ay, my lord.
  ANTONY. That which is now a horse, even with a thought
    The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,
    As water is in water.
  EROS. It does, my lord.
  ANTONY. My good knave Eros, now thy captain is
    Even such a body. Here I am Antony;
    Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.
    I made these wars for Egypt; and the Queen-
    Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,
    Which, whilst it was mine, had annex'd unto't
    A million moe, now lost- she, Eros, has
    Pack'd cards with Caesar, and false-play'd my glory
    Unto an enemy's triumph.
    Nay, weep not, gentle Eros; there is left us
    Ourselves to end ourselves.

                         Enter MARDIAN

    O, thy vile lady!
    She has robb'd me of my sword.
  MARDIAN. No, Antony;
    My mistress lov'd thee, and her fortunes mingled
    With thine entirely.
  ANTONY. Hence, saucy eunuch; peace!
    She hath betray'd me, and shall die the death.
  MARDIAN. Death of one person can be paid but once,
    And that she has discharg'd. What thou wouldst do
    Is done unto thy hand. The last she spake
    Was 'Antony! most noble Antony!'
    Then in the midst a tearing groan did break
    The name of Antony; it was divided
    Between her heart and lips. She rend'red life,
    Thy name so buried in her.
  ANTONY. Dead then?
  MARDIAN. Dead.
  ANTONY. Unarm, Eros; the long day's task is done,
    And we must sleep. That thou depart'st hence safe
    Does pay thy labour richly. Go.                 Exit MARDIAN
    Off, pluck off!
    The sevenfold shield of Ajax cannot keep
    The battery from my heart. O, cleave, my sides!
    Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,
    Crack thy frail case. Apace, Eros, apace.-
    No more a soldier. Bruised pieces, go;
    You have been nobly borne.- From me awhile.        Exit EROS
    I will o'ertake thee, Cleopatra, and
    Weep for my pardon. So it must be, for now
    All length is torture. Since the torch is out,
    Lie down, and stray no farther. Now all labour
    Mars what it does; yea, very force entangles
    Itself with strength. Seal then, and all is done.
    Eros!- I come, my queen.- Eros!- Stay for me;
    Where souls do couch on flowers, we'll hand in hand,
    And with our sprightly port make the ghosts gaze.
    Dido and her Aeneas shall want troops,
    And all the haunt be ours.- Come, Eros, Eros!

                       Re-enter EROS

  EROS. What would my lord?
  ANTONY. Since Cleopatra died,
    I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods
    Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword
    Quarter'd the world, and o'er green Neptune's back
    With ships made cities, condemn myself to lack
    The courage of a woman; less noble mind
    Than she which by her death our Caesar tells
    'I am conqueror of myself.' Thou art sworn, Eros,
    That, when the exigent should come- which now
    Is come indeed- when I should see behind me
    Th' inevitable prosecution of
    Disgrace and horror, that, on my command,
    Thou then wouldst kill me. Do't; the time is come.
    Thou strik'st not me; 'tis Caesar thou defeat'st.
    Put colour in thy cheek.
  EROS. The gods withhold me!
    Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts,
    Though enemy, lost aim and could not?
  ANTONY. Eros,
    Wouldst thou be window'd in great Rome and see
    Thy master thus with pleach'd arms, bending down
    His corrigible neck, his face subdu'd
    To penetrative shame, whilst the wheel'd seat
    Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded
    His baseness that ensued?
  EROS. I would not see't.
  ANTONY. Come, then; for with a wound I must be cur'd.
    Draw that thy honest sword, which thou hast worn
    Most useful for thy country.
  EROS. O, sir, pardon me!
  ANTONY. When I did make thee free, swor'st thou not then
    To do this when I bade thee? Do it at once,
    Or thy precedent services are all
    But accidents unpurpos'd. Draw, and come.
  EROS. Turn from me then that noble countenance,
    Wherein the worship of the whole world lies.
  ANTONY. Lo thee!                            [Turning from him]
  EROS. My sword is drawn.
  ANTONY. Then let it do at once
    The thing why thou hast drawn it.
  EROS. My dear master,
    My captain and my emperor, let me say,
    Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.
  ANTONY. 'Tis said, man; and farewell.
  EROS. Farewell, great chief. Shall I strike now?
  ANTONY. Now, Eros.
  EROS. Why, there then! Thus do I escape the sorrow
    Of Antony's death.                            [Kills himself
  ANTONY. Thrice nobler than myself!
    Thou teachest me, O valiant Eros, what
    I should, and thou couldst not. My queen and Eros
    Have, by their brave instruction, got upon me
    A nobleness in record. But I will be
    A bridegroom in my death, and run into't
    As to a lover's bed. Come, then; and, Eros,
    Thy master dies thy scholar. To do thus
                                          [Falling on his sword]
    I learn'd of thee. How? not dead? not dead?-
    The guard, ho! O, dispatch me!

                  Enter DERCETAS and a guard

  FIRST GUARD. What's the noise?
  ANTONY. I have done my work ill, friends. O, make an end
    Of what I have begun.
  SECOND GUARD. The star is fall'n.
  FIRST GUARD. And time is at his period.
  ALL. Alas, and woe!
  ANTONY. Let him that loves me, strike me dead.
  FIRST GUARD. Not I.
  SECOND GUARD. Nor I.
  THIRD GUARD. Nor any one.                         Exeunt guard
  DERCETAS. Thy death and fortunes bid thy followers fly.
    This sword but shown to Caesar, with this tidings,
    Shall enter me with him.

                       Enter DIOMEDES

  DIOMEDES. Where's Antony?
  DERCETAS. There, Diomed, there.
  DIOMEDES. Lives he?
    Wilt thou not answer, man?                     Exit DERCETAS
  ANTONY. Art thou there, Diomed? Draw thy sword and give me
    Sufficing strokes for death.
  DIOMEDES. Most absolute lord,
    My mistress Cleopatra sent me to thee.
  ANTONY. When did she send thee?
  DIOMEDES. Now, my lord.
  ANTONY. Where is she?
  DIOMEDES. Lock'd in her monument. She had a prophesying fear
    Of what hath come to pass; for when she saw-
    Which never shall be found- you did suspect
    She had dispos'd with Caesar, and that your rage
    Would not be purg'd, she sent you word she was dead;
    But fearing since how it might work, hath sent
    Me to proclaim the truth; and I am come,
    I dread, too late.
  ANTONY. Too late, good Diomed. Call my guard, I prithee.
  DIOMEDES. What, ho! the Emperor's guard! The guard, what ho!
    Come, your lord calls!

             Enter four or five of the guard of ANTONY

  ANTONY. Bear me, good friends, where Cleopatra bides;
    'Tis the last service that I shall command you.
  FIRST GUARD. Woe, woe are we, sir, you may not live to wear
    All your true followers out.
  ALL. Most heavy day!
  ANTONY. Nay, good my fellows, do not please sharp fate
    To grace it with your sorrows. Bid that welcome
    Which comes to punish us, and we punish it,
    Seeming to bear it lightly. Take me up.
    I have led you oft; carry me now, good friends,
    And have my thanks for all.           Exeunt, hearing ANTONY
ACT_4|SC_15
                         SCENE XV.
                   Alexandria. A monument

      Enter CLEOPATRA and her maids aloft, with CHARMIAN
                         and IRAS

  CLEOPATRA. O Charmian, I will never go from hence!
  CHARMIAN. Be comforted, dear madam.
  CLEOPATRA. No, I will not.
    All strange and terrible events are welcome,
    But comforts we despise; our size of sorrow,
    Proportion'd to our cause, must be as great
    As that which makes it.

                   Enter DIOMEDES, below

    How now! Is he dead?
  DIOMEDES. His death's upon him, but not dead.
    Look out o' th' other side your monument;
    His guard have brought him thither.

            Enter, below, ANTONY, borne by the guard

  CLEOPATRA. O sun,
    Burn the great sphere thou mov'st in! Darkling stand
    The varying shore o' th' world. O Antony,
    Antony, Antony! Help, Charmian; help, Iras, help;
    Help, friends below! Let's draw him hither.
  ANTONY. Peace!
    Not Caesar's valour hath o'erthrown Antony,
    But Antony's hath triumph'd on itself.
  CLEOPATRA. So it should be, that none but Antony
    Should conquer Antony; but woe 'tis so!
  ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying; only
    I here importune death awhile, until
    Of many thousand kisses the poor last
    I lay upon thy lips.
  CLEOPATRA. I dare not, dear.
    Dear my lord, pardon! I dare not,
    Lest I be taken. Not th' imperious show
    Of the full-fortun'd Caesar ever shall
    Be brooch'd with me. If knife, drugs, serpents, have
    Edge, sting, or operation, I am safe.
    Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes
    And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour
    Demuring upon me. But come, come, Antony-
    Help me, my women- we must draw thee up;
    Assist, good friends.
  ANTONY. O, quick, or I am gone.
  CLEOPATRA. Here's sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord!
    Our strength is all gone into heaviness;
    That makes the weight. Had I great Juno's power,
    The strong-wing'd Mercury should fetch thee up,
    And set thee by Jove's side. Yet come a little.
    Wishers were ever fools. O come, come,
                          [They heave ANTONY aloft to CLEOPATRA]
    And welcome, welcome! Die where thou hast liv'd.
    Quicken with kissing. Had my lips that power,
    Thus would I wear them out.
  ALL. A heavy sight!
  ANTONY. I am dying, Egypt, dying.
    Give me some wine, and let me speak a little.
  CLEOPATRA. No, let me speak; and let me rail so high
    That the false huswife Fortune break her wheel,
    Provok'd by my offence.
  ANTONY. One word, sweet queen:
    Of Caesar seek your honour, with your safety. O!
  CLEOPATRA. They do not go together.
  ANTONY. Gentle, hear me:
    None about Caesar trust but Proculeius.
  CLEOPATRA. My resolution and my hands I'll trust;
    None about Caesar
  ANTONY. The miserable change now at my end
    Lament nor sorrow at; but please your thoughts
    In feeding them with those my former fortunes
    Wherein I liv'd the greatest prince o' th' world,
    The noblest; and do now not basely die,
    Not cowardly put off my helmet to
    My countryman- a Roman by a Roman
    Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my spirit is going
    I can no more.
  CLEOPATRA. Noblest of men, woo't die?
    Hast thou no care of me? Shall I abide
    In this dull world, which in thy absence is
    No better than a sty? O, see, my women,        [Antony dies]
    The crown o' th' earth doth melt. My lord!
    O, wither'd is the garland of the war,
    The soldier's pole is fall'n! Young boys and girls
    Are level now with men. The odds is gone,
    And there is nothing left remarkable
    Beneath the visiting moon.                          [Swoons]
  CHARMIAN. O, quietness, lady!
  IRAS. She's dead too, our sovereign.
  CHARMIAN. Lady!
  IRAS. Madam!
  CHARMIAN. O madam, madam, madam!
  IRAS. Royal Egypt, Empress!
  CHARMIAN. Peace, peace, Iras!
  CLEOPATRA. No more but e'en a woman, and commanded
    By such poor passion as the maid that milks
    And does the meanest chares. It were for me
    To throw my sceptre at the injurious gods;
    To tell them that this world did equal theirs
    Till they had stol'n our jewel. All's but nought;
    Patience is sottish, and impatience does
    Become a dog that's mad. Then is it sin
    To rush into the secret house of death
    Ere death dare come to us? How do you, women?
    What, what! good cheer! Why, how now, Charmian!
    My noble girls! Ah, women, women, look,
    Our lamp is spent, it's out! Good sirs, take heart.
    We'll bury him; and then, what's brave, what's noble,
    Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
    And make death proud to take us. Come, away;
    This case of that huge spirit now is cold.
    Ah, women, women! Come; we have no friend
    But resolution and the briefest end.
                   Exeunt; those above hearing off ANTONY'S body

ACT_5|SC_1
                       ACT V. SCENE I.
                  Alexandria. CAESAR'S camp

      Enter CAESAR, AGRIPPA, DOLABELLA, MAECENAS, GALLUS,
          PROCULEIUS, and others, his Council of War

  CAESAR. Go to him, Dolabella, bid him yield;
    Being so frustrate, tell him he mocks
    The pauses that he makes.
  DOLABELLA. Caesar, I shall.                               Exit

             Enter DERCETAS With the sword of ANTONY

  CAESAR. Wherefore is that? And what art thou that dar'st
    Appear thus to us?
  DERCETAS. I am call'd Dercetas;
    Mark Antony I serv'd, who best was worthy
    Best to be serv'd. Whilst he stood up and spoke,
    He was my master, and I wore my life
    To spend upon his haters. If thou please
    To take me to thee, as I was to him
    I'll be to Caesar; if thou pleasest not,
    I yield thee up my life.
  CAESAR. What is't thou say'st?
  DERCETAS. I say, O Caesar, Antony is dead.
  CAESAR. The breaking of so great a thing should make
    A greater crack. The round world
    Should have shook lions into civil streets,
    And citizens to their dens. The death of Antony
    Is not a single doom; in the name lay
    A moiety of the world.
  DERCETAS. He is dead, Caesar,
    Not by a public minister of justice,
    Nor by a hired knife; but that self hand
    Which writ his honour in the acts it did
    Hath, with the courage which the heart did lend it,
    Splitted the heart. This is his sword;
    I robb'd his wound of it; behold it stain'd
    With his most noble blood.
  CAESAR. Look you sad, friends?
    The gods rebuke me, but it is tidings
    To wash the eyes of kings.
  AGRIPPA. And strange it is
    That nature must compel us to lament
    Our most persisted deeds.
  MAECENAS. His taints and honours
    Wag'd equal with him.
  AGRIPPA. A rarer spirit never
    Did steer humanity. But you gods will give us
    Some faults to make us men. Caesar is touch'd.
  MAECENAS. When such a spacious mirror's set before him,
    He needs must see himself.
  CAESAR. O Antony,
    I have follow'd thee to this! But we do lance
    Diseases in our bodies. I must perforce
    Have shown to thee such a declining day
    Or look on thine; we could not stall together
    In the whole world. But yet let me lament,
    With tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts,
    That thou, my brother, my competitor
    In top of all design, my mate in empire,
    Friend and companion in the front of war,
    The arm of mine own body, and the heart
    Where mine his thoughts did kindle- that our stars,
    Unreconciliable, should divide
    Our equalness to this. Hear me, good friends-

                    Enter an EGYPTIAN

    But I will tell you at some meeter season.
    The business of this man looks out of him;
    We'll hear him what he says. Whence are you?
  EGYPTIAN. A poor Egyptian, yet the Queen, my mistress,
    Confin'd in all she has, her monument,
    Of thy intents desires instruction,
    That she preparedly may frame herself
    To th' way she's forc'd to.
  CAESAR. Bid her have good heart.
    She soon shall know of us, by some of ours,
    How honourable and how kindly we
    Determine for her; for Caesar cannot learn
    To be ungentle.
  EGYPTIAN. So the gods preserve thee!                      Exit
  CAESAR. Come hither, Proculeius. Go and say
    We purpose her no shame. Give her what comforts
    The quality of her passion shall require,
    Lest, in her greatness, by some mortal stroke
    She do defeat us; for her life in Rome
    Would be eternal in our triumph. Go,
    And with your speediest bring us what she says,
    And how you find her.
  PROCULEIUS. Caesar, I shall.                              Exit
  CAESAR. Gallus, go you along.                      Exit GALLUS
    Where's Dolabella, to second Proculeius?
  ALL. Dolabella!
  CAESAR. Let him alone, for I remember now
    How he's employ'd; he shall in time be ready.
    Go with me to my tent, where you shall see
    How hardly I was drawn into this war,
    How calm and gentle I proceeded still
    In all my writings. Go with me, and see
    What I can show in this.                              Exeunt

ACT_5|SC_2
                         SCENE II.
                Alexandria. The monument

      Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN

  CLEOPATRA. My desolation does begin to make
    A better life. 'Tis paltry to be Caesar:
    Not being Fortune, he's but Fortune's knave,
    A minister of her will; and it is great
    To do that thing that ends all other deeds,
    Which shackles accidents and bolts up change,
    Which sleeps, and never palates more the dug,
    The beggar's nurse and Caesar's.

       Enter, to the gates of the monument, PROCULEIUS, GALLUS,
                          and soldiers

  PROCULEIUS. Caesar sends greetings to the Queen of Egypt,
    And bids thee study on what fair demands
    Thou mean'st to have him grant thee.
  CLEOPATRA. What's thy name?
  PROCULEIUS. My name is Proculeius.
  CLEOPATRA. Antony
    Did tell me of you, bade me trust you; but
    I do not greatly care to be deceiv'd,
    That have no use for trusting. If your master
    Would have a queen his beggar, you must tell him
    That majesty, to keep decorum, must
    No less beg than a kingdom. If he please
    To give me conquer'd Egypt for my son,
    He gives me so much of mine own as I
    Will kneel to him with thanks.
  PROCULEIUS. Be of good cheer;
    Y'are fall'n into a princely hand; fear nothing.
    Make your full reference freely to my lord,
    Who is so full of grace that it flows over
    On all that need. Let me report to him
    Your sweet dependency, and you shall find
    A conqueror that will pray in aid for kindness
    Where he for grace is kneel'd to.
  CLEOPATRA. Pray you tell him
    I am his fortune's vassal and I send him
    The greatness he has got. I hourly learn
    A doctrine of obedience, and would gladly
    Look him i' th' face.
  PROCULEIUS. This I'll report, dear lady.
    Have comfort, for I know your plight is pitied
    Of him that caus'd it.
  GALLUS. You see how easily she may be surpris'd.

      Here PROCULEIUS and two of the guard ascend the
       monument by a ladder placed against a window,
       and come behind CLEOPATRA. Some of the guard
                unbar and open the gates

    Guard her till Caesar come.                             Exit
  IRAS. Royal Queen!
  CHARMIAN. O Cleopatra! thou art taken, Queen!
  CLEOPATRA. Quick, quick, good hands.        [Drawing a dagger]
  PROCULEIUS. Hold, worthy lady, hold,             [Disarms her]
    Do not yourself such wrong, who are in this
    Reliev'd, but not betray'd.
  CLEOPATRA. What, of death too,
    That rids our dogs of languish?
  PROCULEIUS. Cleopatra,
    Do not abuse my master's bounty by
    Th' undoing of yourself. Let the world see
    His nobleness well acted, which your death
    Will never let come forth.
  CLEOPATRA. Where art thou, death?
    Come hither, come! Come, come, and take a queen
    Worth many babes and beggars!
  PROCULEIUS. O, temperance, lady!
  CLEOPATRA. Sir, I will eat no meat; I'll not drink, sir;
    If idle talk will once be necessary,
    I'll not sleep neither. This mortal house I'll ruin,
    Do Caesar what he can. Know, sir, that I
    Will not wait pinion'd at your master's court,
    Nor once be chastis'd with the sober eye
    Of dull Octavia. Shall they hoist me up,
    And show me to the shouting varletry
    Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
    Be gentle grave unto me! Rather on Nilus' mud
    Lay me stark-nak'd, and let the water-flies
    Blow me into abhorring! Rather make
    My country's high pyramides my gibbet,
    And hang me up in chains!
  PROCULEIUS. You do extend
    These thoughts of horror further than you shall
    Find cause in Caesar.

                      Enter DOLABELLA

  DOLABELLA. Proculeius,
    What thou hast done thy master Caesar knows,
    And he hath sent for thee. For the Queen,
    I'll take her to my guard.
  PROCULEIUS. So, Dolabella,
    It shall content me best. Be gentle to her.
    [To CLEOPATRA] To Caesar I will speak what you shall please,
    If you'll employ me to him.
  CLEOPATRA. Say I would die.
                                  Exeunt PROCULEIUS and soldiers
  DOLABELLA. Most noble Empress, you have heard of me?
  CLEOPATRA. I cannot tell.
  DOLABELLA. Assuredly you know me.
  CLEOPATRA. No matter, sir, what I have heard or known.
    You laugh when boys or women tell their dreams;
    Is't not your trick?
  DOLABELLA. I understand not, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. I dreamt there was an Emperor Antony-
    O, such another sleep, that I might see
    But such another man!
  DOLABELLA. If it might please ye-
  CLEOPATRA. His face was as the heav'ns, and therein stuck
    A sun and moon, which kept their course and lighted
    The little O, the earth.
  DOLABELLA. Most sovereign creature-
  CLEOPATRA. His legs bestrid the ocean; his rear'd arm
    Crested the world. His voice was propertied
    As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;
    But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,
    He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty,
    There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas
    That grew the more by reaping. His delights
    Were dolphin-like: they show'd his back above
    The element they liv'd in. In his livery
    Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands were
    As plates dropp'd from his pocket.
  DOLABELLA. Cleopatra-
  CLEOPATRA. Think you there was or might be such a man
    As this I dreamt of?
  DOLABELLA. Gentle madam, no.
  CLEOPATRA. You lie, up to the hearing of the gods.
    But if there be nor ever were one such,
    It's past the size of drearning. Nature wants stuff
    To vie strange forms with fancy; yet t' imagine
    An Antony were nature's piece 'gainst fancy,
    Condemning shadows quite.
  DOLABELLA. Hear me, good madam.
    Your loss is, as yourself, great; and you bear it
    As answering to the weight. Would I might never
    O'ertake pursu'd success, but I do feel,
    By the rebound of yours, a grief that smites
    My very heart at root.
  CLEOPATRA. I thank you, sir.
    Know you what Caesar means to do with me?
  DOLABELLA. I am loath to tell you what I would you knew.
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, pray you, sir.
  DOLABELLA. Though he be honourable-
  CLEOPATRA. He'll lead me, then, in triumph?
  DOLABELLA. Madam, he will. I know't.                [Flourish]
                              [Within: 'Make way there-Caesar!']

       Enter CAESAR; GALLUS, PROCULEIUS, MAECENAS, SELEUCUS,
                     and others of his train

  CAESAR. Which is the Queen of Egypt?
  DOLABELLA. It is the Emperor, madam.        [CLEOPATPA kneels]
  CAESAR. Arise, you shall not kneel.
    I pray you, rise; rise, Egypt.
  CLEOPATRA. Sir, the gods
    Will have it thus; my master and my lord
    I must obey.
  CAESAR. Take to you no hard thoughts.
    The record of what injuries you did us,
    Though written in our flesh, we shall remember
    As things but done by chance.
  CLEOPATRA. Sole sir o' th' world,
    I cannot project mine own cause so well
    To make it clear, but do confess I have
    Been laden with like frailties which before
    Have often sham'd our sex.
  CAESAR. Cleopatra, know
    We will extenuate rather than enforce.
    If you apply yourself to our intents-
    Which towards you are most gentle- you shall find
    A benefit in this change; but if you seek
    To lay on me a cruelty by taking
    Antony's course, you shall bereave yourself
    Of my good purposes, and put your children
    To that destruction which I'll guard them from,
    If thereon you rely. I'll take my leave.
  CLEOPATRA. And may, through all the world. 'Tis yours, and we,
    Your scutcheons and your signs of conquest, shall
    Hang in what place you please. Here, my good lord.
  CAESAR. You shall advise me in all for Cleopatra.
  CLEOPATRA. This is the brief of money, plate, and jewels,
    I am possess'd of. 'Tis exactly valued,
    Not petty things admitted. Where's Seleucus?
  SELEUCUS. Here, madam.
  CLEOPATRA. This is my treasurer; let him speak, my lord,
    Upon his peril, that I have reserv'd
    To myself nothing. Speak the truth, Seleucus.
  SELEUCUS. Madam,
    I had rather seal my lips than to my peril
    Speak that which is not.
  CLEOPATRA. What have I kept back?
  SELEUCUS. Enough to purchase what you have made known.
  CAESAR. Nay, blush not, Cleopatra; I approve
    Your wisdom in the deed.
  CLEOPATRA. See, Caesar! O, behold,
    How pomp is followed! Mine will now be yours;
    And, should we shift estates, yours would be mine.
    The ingratitude of this Seleucus does
    Even make me wild. O slave, of no more trust
    Than love that's hir'd! What, goest thou back? Thou shalt
    Go back, I warrant thee; but I'll catch thine eyes
    Though they had wings. Slave, soulless villain, dog!
    O rarely base!
  CAESAR. Good Queen, let us entreat you.
  CLEOPATRA. O Caesar, what a wounding shame is this,
    That thou vouchsafing here to visit me,
    Doing the honour of thy lordliness
    To one so meek, that mine own servant should
    Parcel the sum of my disgraces by
    Addition of his envy! Say, good Caesar,
    That I some lady trifles have reserv'd,
    Immoment toys, things of such dignity
    As we greet modern friends withal; and say
    Some nobler token I have kept apart
    For Livia and Octavia, to induce
    Their mediation- must I be unfolded
    With one that I have bred? The gods! It smites me
    Beneath the fall I have. [To SELEUCUS] Prithee go hence;
    Or I shall show the cinders of my spirits
    Through th' ashes of my chance. Wert thou a man,
    Thou wouldst have mercy on me.
  CAESAR. Forbear, Seleucus.                       Exit SELEUCUS
  CLEOPATRA. Be it known that we, the greatest, are misthought
    For things that others do; and when we fall
    We answer others' merits in our name,
    Are therefore to be pitied.
  CAESAR. Cleopatra,
    Not what you have reserv'd, nor what acknowledg'd,
    Put we i' th' roll of conquest. Still be't yours,
    Bestow it at your pleasure; and believe
    Caesar's no merchant, to make prize with you
    Of things that merchants sold. Therefore be cheer'd;
    Make not your thoughts your prisons. No, dear Queen;
    For we intend so to dispose you as
    Yourself shall give us counsel. Feed and sleep.
    Our care and pity is so much upon you
    That we remain your friend; and so, adieu.
  CLEOPATRA. My master and my lord!
  CAESAR. Not so. Adieu.
                           Flourish. Exeunt CAESAR and his train
  CLEOPATRA. He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
    Be noble to myself. But hark thee, Charmian!
                                             [Whispers CHARMIAN]
  IRAS. Finish, good lady; the bright day is done,
    And we are for the dark.
  CLEOPATRA. Hie thee again.
    I have spoke already, and it is provided;
    Go put it to the haste.
  CHARMIAN. Madam, I will.

                      Re-enter DOLABELLA

  DOLABELLA. Where's the Queen?
  CHARMIAN. Behold, sir.                                    Exit
  CLEOPATRA. Dolabella!
  DOLABELLA. Madam, as thereto sworn by your command,
    Which my love makes religion to obey,
    I tell you this: Caesar through Syria
    Intends his journey, and within three days
    You with your children will he send before.
    Make your best use of this; I have perform'd
    Your pleasure and my promise.
  CLEOPATRA. Dolabella,
    I shall remain your debtor.
  DOLABELLA. I your servant.
    Adieu, good Queen; I must attend on Caesar.
  CLEOPATRA. Farewell, and thanks.                Exit DOLABELLA
    Now, Iras, what think'st thou?
    Thou an Egyptian puppet shall be shown
    In Rome as well as I. Mechanic slaves,
    With greasy aprons, rules, and hammers, shall
    Uplift us to the view; in their thick breaths,
    Rank of gross diet, shall we be enclouded,
    And forc'd to drink their vapour.
  IRAS. The gods forbid!
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, 'tis most certain, Iras. Saucy lictors
    Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers
    Ballad us out o' tune; the quick comedians
    Extemporally will stage us, and present
    Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
    Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
    Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
    I' th' posture of a whore.
  IRAS. O the good gods!
  CLEOPATRA. Nay, that's certain.
  IRAS. I'll never see't, for I am sure mine nails
    Are stronger than mine eyes.
  CLEOPATRA. Why, that's the way
    To fool their preparation and to conquer
    Their most absurd intents.

                      Enter CHARMIAN

    Now, Charmian!
    Show me, my women, like a queen. Go fetch
    My best attires. I am again for Cydnus,
    To meet Mark Antony. Sirrah, Iras, go.
    Now, noble Charmian, we'll dispatch indeed;
    And when thou hast done this chare, I'll give thee leave
    To play till doomsday. Bring our crown and all.
                                       Exit IRAS. A noise within
    Wherefore's this noise?

                     Enter a GUARDSMAN

  GUARDSMAN. Here is a rural fellow
    That will not be denied your Highness' presence.
    He brings you figs.
  CLEOPATRA. Let him come in.                     Exit GUARDSMAN
    What poor an instrument
    May do a noble deed! He brings me liberty.
    My resolution's plac'd, and I have nothing
    Of woman in me. Now from head to foot
    I am marble-constant; now the fleeting moon
    No planet is of mine.

          Re-enter GUARDSMAN and CLOWN, with a basket

  GUARDSMAN. This is the man.
  CLEOPATRA. Avoid, and leave him.                Exit GUARDSMAN
    Hast thou the pretty worm of Nilus there
    That kills and pains not?
  CLOWN. Truly, I have him. But I would not be the party that should
    desire you to touch him, for his biting is immortal; those that
    do die of it do seldom or never recover.
  CLEOPATRA. Remember'st thou any that have died on't?
  CLOWN. Very many, men and women too. I heard of one of them no
    longer than yesterday: a very honest woman, but something given
    to lie, as a woman should not do but in the way of honesty; how
    she died of the biting of it, what pain she felt- truly she makes
    a very good report o' th' worm. But he that will believe all that
    they say shall never be saved by half that they do. But this is
    most falliable, the worm's an odd worm.
  CLEOPATRA. Get thee hence; farewell.
  CLOWN. I wish you all joy of the worm.
                                          [Sets down the basket]
  CLEOPATRA. Farewell.
  CLOWN. You must think this, look you, that the worm will do his
    kind.
  CLEOPATRA. Ay, ay; farewell.
  CLOWN. Look you, the worm is not to be trusted but in the keeping
    of wise people; for indeed there is no goodness in the worm.
  CLEOPATRA. Take thou no care; it shall be heeded.
  CLOWN. Very good. Give it nothing, I pray you, for it is not worth
    the feeding.
  CLEOPATRA. Will it eat me?
  CLOWN. You must not think I am so simple but I know the devil
    himself will not eat a woman. I know that a woman is a dish for
    the gods, if the devil dress her not. But truly, these same
    whoreson devils do the gods great harm in their women, for in
    every ten that they make the devils mar five.
  CLEOPATRA. Well, get thee gone; farewell.
  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth. I wish you joy o' th' worm.         Exit

             Re-enter IRAS, with a robe, crown, &c.

  CLEOPATRA. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
    Immortal longings in me. Now no more
    The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip.
    Yare, yare, good Iras; quick. Methinks I hear
    Antony call. I see him rouse himself
    To praise my noble act. I hear him mock
    The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men
    To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come.
    Now to that name my courage prove my title!
    I am fire and air; my other elements
    I give to baser life. So, have you done?
    Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
    Farewell, kind Charmian. Iras, long farewell.
                              [Kisses them. IRAS falls and dies]
    Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall?
    If thus thou and nature can so gently part,
    The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
    Which hurts and is desir'd. Dost thou lie still?
    If thou vanishest, thou tell'st the world
    It is not worth leave-taking.
  CHARMIAN. Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain, that I may say
    The gods themselves do weep.
  CLEOPATRA. This proves me base.
    If she first meet the curled Antony,
    He'll make demand of her, and spend that kiss
    Which is my heaven to have. Come, thou mortal wretch,
                    [To an asp, which she applies to her breast]
    With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
    Of life at once untie. Poor venomous fool,
    Be angry and dispatch. O couldst thou speak,
    That I might hear thee call great Caesar ass
    Unpolicied!
  CHARMIAN. O Eastern star!
  CLEOPATRA. Peace, peace!
    Dost thou not see my baby at my breast
    That sucks the nurse asleep?
  CHARMIAN. O, break! O, break!
  CLEOPATRA. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle-
    O Antony! Nay, I will take thee too:
                               [Applying another asp to her arm]
    What should I stay-                                   [Dies]
  CHARMIAN. In this vile world? So, fare thee well.
    Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies
    A lass unparallel'd. Downy windows, close;
    And golden Phoebus never be beheld
    Of eyes again so royal! Your crown's awry;
    I'll mend it and then play-

                  Enter the guard, rushing in

  FIRST GUARD. Where's the Queen?
  CHARMIAN. Speak softly, wake her not.
  FIRST GUARD. Caesar hath sent-
  CHARMIAN. Too slow a messenger.               [Applies an asp]
    O, come apace, dispatch. I partly feel thee.
  FIRST GUARD. Approach, ho! All's not well: Caesar's beguil'd.
  SECOND GUARD. There's Dolabella sent from Caesar; call him.
  FIRST GUARD. What work is here! Charmian, is this well done?
  CHARMIAN. It is well done, and fitting for a princes
    Descended of so many royal kings.
    Ah, soldier!                                 [CHARMIAN dies]

                      Re-enter DOLABELLA

  DOLABELLA. How goes it here?
  SECOND GUARD. All dead.
  DOLABELLA. Caesar, thy thoughts
    Touch their effects in this. Thyself art coming
    To see perform'd the dreaded act which thou
    So sought'st to hinder.
                      [Within: 'A way there, a way for Caesar!']

              Re-enter CAESAR and all his train

  DOLABELLA. O sir, you are too sure an augurer:
    That you did fear is done.
  CAESAR. Bravest at the last,
    She levell'd at our purposes, and being royal,
    Took her own way. The manner of their deaths?
    I do not see them bleed.
  DOLABELLA. Who was last with them?
  FIRST GUARD. A simple countryman that brought her figs.
    This was his basket.
  CAESAR. Poison'd then.
  FIRST GUARD. O Caesar,
    This Charmian liv'd but now; she stood and spake.
    I found her trimming up the diadem
    On her dead mistress. Tremblingly she stood,
    And on the sudden dropp'd.
  CAESAR. O noble weakness!
    If they had swallow'd poison 'twould appear
    By external swelling; but she looks like sleep,
    As she would catch another Antony
    In her strong toil of grace.
  DOLABELLA. Here on her breast
    There is a vent of blood, and something blown;
    The like is on her arm.
  FIRST GUARD. This is an aspic's trail; and these fig-leaves
    Have slime upon them, such as th' aspic leaves
    Upon the caves of Nile.
  CAESAR. Most probable
    That so she died; for her physician tells me
    She hath pursu'd conclusions infinite
    Of easy ways to die. Take up her bed,
    And bear her women from the monument.
    She shall be buried by her Antony;
    No grave upon the earth shall clip in it
    A pair so famous. High events as these
    Strike those that make them; and their story is
    No less in pity than his glory which
    Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall
    In solemn show attend this funeral,
    And then to Rome. Come, Dolabella, see
    High order in this great solemnity.                   Exeunt

THE END

1601




AS YOU LIKE IT

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

  DUKE, living in exile
  FREDERICK, his brother, and usurper of his dominions
  AMIENS, lord attending on the banished Duke
  JAQUES,   "      "       "  "     "      "
  LE BEAU, a courtier attending upon Frederick
  CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick
  OLIVER, son of Sir Rowland de Boys
  JAQUES,   "   "  "    "     "  "
  ORLANDO,  "   "  "    "     "  "
  ADAM,   servant to Oliver
  DENNIS,     "     "   "
  TOUCHSTONE, the court jester
  SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a vicar
  CORIN,    shepherd
  SILVIUS,     "
  WILLIAM, a country fellow, in love with Audrey
  A person representing HYMEN

  ROSALIND, daughter to the banished Duke
  CELIA, daughter to Frederick
  PHEBE, a shepherdes
  AUDREY, a country wench

  Lords, Pages, Foresters, and Attendants

SCENE: OLIVER'S house; FREDERICK'S court; and the Forest of Arden

ACT I. SCENE I. Orchard of OLIVER'S house

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM

  ORLANDO. As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me
  by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou say'st, charged my
  brother, on his blessing, to breed me well; and there begins my
  sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks
  goldenly of his profit. For my part, he keeps me rustically at home,
  or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call
  you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth that differs not from
  the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that
  they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and
  to that end riders dearly hir'd; but I, his brother, gain nothing
  under him but growth; for the which his animals on his dunghills are
  as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so
  plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me his
  countenance seems to take from me. He lets me feed with his hinds,
  bars me the place of a brother, and as much as in him lies, mines my
  gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and
  the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny
  against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know
  no wise remedy how to avoid it.

                           Enter OLIVER

  ADAM. Yonder comes my master, your brother.
  ORLANDO. Go apart, Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me
    up.                                           [ADAM retires]
  OLIVER. Now, sir! what make you here?
  ORLANDO. Nothing; I am not taught to make any thing.
  OLIVER. What mar you then, sir?
  ORLANDO. Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a
    poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
  OLIVER. Marry, sir, be better employed, and be nought awhile.
  ORLANDO. Shall I keep your hogs, and eat husks with them? What
    prodigal portion have I spent that I should come to such penury?
  OLIVER. Know you where you are, sir?
  ORLANDO. O, sir, very well; here in your orchard.
  OLIVER. Know you before whom, sir?
  ORLANDO. Ay, better than him I am before knows me. I know you are
    my eldest brother; and in the gentle condition of blood, you
    should so know me. The courtesy of nations allows you my better
    in that you are the first-born; but the same tradition takes not
    away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us. I have as
    much of my father in me as you, albeit I confess your coming
    before me is nearer to his reverence.
  OLIVER. What, boy!                               [Strikes him]
  ORLANDO. Come, come, elder brother, you are too young in this.
  OLIVER. Wilt thou lay hands on me, villain?
  ORLANDO. I am no villain; I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de
    Boys. He was my father; and he is thrice a villain that says such
    a father begot villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not
    take this hand from thy throat till this other had pull'd out thy
    tongue for saying so. Thou has rail'd on thyself.
  ADAM. [Coming forward] Sweet masters, be patient; for your father's
    remembrance, be at accord.
  OLIVER. Let me go, I say.
  ORLANDO. I will not, till I please; you shall hear me. My father
    charg'd you in his will to give me good education: you have
    train'd me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all
    gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in
    me, and I will no longer endure it; therefore allow me such
    exercises as may become a gentleman, or give me the poor
    allottery my father left me by testament; with that I will go buy
    my fortunes.
  OLIVER. And what wilt thou do? Beg, when that is spent? Well, sir,
    get you in. I will not long be troubled with you; you shall have
    some part of your will. I pray you leave me.
  ORLANDO. I no further offend you than becomes me for my good.
  OLIVER. Get you with him, you old dog.
  ADAM. Is 'old dog' my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in
    your service. God be with my old master! He would not have spoke
    such a word.
                                         Exeunt ORLANDO and ADAM
  OLIVER. Is it even so? Begin you to grow upon me? I will physic
    your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither. Holla,
    Dennis!

                          Enter DENNIS

  DENNIS. Calls your worship?
  OLIVER. not Charles, the Duke's wrestler, here to speak with me?
  DENNIS. So please you, he is here at the door and importunes access
    to you.
  OLIVER. Call him in. [Exit DENNIS] 'Twill be a good way; and
    to-morrow the wrestling is.

                          Enter CHARLES

  CHARLES. Good morrow to your worship.
  OLIVER. Good Monsieur Charles! What's the new news at the new
    court?
  CHARLES. There's no news at the court, sir, but the old news; that
    is, the old Duke is banished by his younger brother the new Duke;
    and three or four loving lords have put themselves into voluntary
    exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new Duke;
    therefore he gives them good leave to wander.
  OLIVER. Can you tell if Rosalind, the Duke's daughter, be banished
    with her father?
  CHARLES. O, no; for the Duke's daughter, her cousin, so loves her,
    being ever from their cradles bred together, that she would have
    followed her exile, or have died to stay behind her. She is at
    the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own
    daughter; and never two ladies loved as they do.
  OLIVER. Where will the old Duke live?
  CHARLES. They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many
    merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood
    of England. They say many young gentlemen flock to him every day,
    and fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.
  OLIVER. What, you wrestle to-morrow before the new Duke?
  CHARLES. Marry, do I, sir; and I came to acquaint you with a
    matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger
    brother, Orlando, hath a disposition to come in disguis'd against
    me to try a fall. To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit; and he
    that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well.
    Your brother is but young and tender; and, for your love, I would
    be loath to foil him, as I must, for my own honour, if he come
    in; therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint
    you withal, that either you might stay him from his intendment,
    or brook such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is
    thing of his own search and altogether against my will.
  OLIVER. Charles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt
    find I will most kindly requite. I had myself notice of my
    brother's purpose herein, and have by underhand means laboured to
    dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I'll tell thee,
    Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of
    ambition, an envious emulator of every man's good parts, a secret
    and villainous contriver against me his natural brother.
    Therefore use thy discretion: I had as lief thou didst break his
    neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to't; for if thou
    dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace
    himself on thee, he will practise against thee by poison, entrap
    thee by some treacherous device, and never leave thee till he
    hath ta'en thy life by some indirect means or other; for, I
    assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one
    so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly
    of him; but should I anatomize him to thee as he is, I must blush
    and weep, and thou must look pale and wonder.
  CHARLES. I am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come
    to-morrow I'll give him his payment. If ever he go alone again,
    I'll never wrestle for prize more. And so, God keep your worship!
 Exit
  OLIVER. Farewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester. I
    hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why,
    hates nothing more than he. Yet he's gentle; never school'd and
    yet learned; full of noble device; of all sorts enchantingly
    beloved; and, indeed, so much in the heart of the world, and
    especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am
    altogether misprised. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler
    shall clear all. Nothing remains but that I kindle the boy
    thither, which now I'll go about.                       Exit

SCENE II. A lawn before the DUKE'S palace

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA

  CELIA. I pray thee, Rosalind, sweet my coz, be merry.
  ROSALIND. Dear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of; and
    would you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget
    a banished father, you must not learn me how to remember any
    extraordinary pleasure.
  CELIA. Herein I see thou lov'st me not with the full weight that I
    love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy
    uncle, the Duke my father, so thou hadst been still with me, I
    could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; so wouldst
    thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously temper'd
    as mine is to thee.
  ROSALIND. Well, I will forget the condition of my estate, to
    rejoice in yours.
  CELIA. You know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like to
    have; and, truly, when he dies thou shalt be his heir; for what
    he hath taken away from thy father perforce, I will render thee
    again in affection. By mine honour, I will; and when I break that
    oath, let me turn monster; therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear
    Rose, be merry.
  ROSALIND. From henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports.
    Let me see; what think you of falling in love?
  CELIA. Marry, I prithee, do, to make sport withal; but love no man
    in good earnest, nor no further in sport neither than with safety
    of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again.
  ROSALIND. What shall be our sport, then?
  CELIA. Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her
    wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.
  ROSALIND. I would we could do so; for her benefits are mightily
    misplaced; and the bountiful blind woman doth most mistake in her
    gifts to women.
  CELIA. 'Tis true; for those that she makes fair she scarce makes
    honest; and those that she makes honest she makes very
    ill-favouredly.
  ROSALIND. Nay; now thou goest from Fortune's office to Nature's:
    Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments of
    Nature.

                         Enter TOUCHSTONE

  CELIA. No; when Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by
    Fortune fall into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit to
    flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool to cut off
    the argument?
  ROSALIND. Indeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when
    Fortune makes Nature's natural the cutter-off of Nature's wit.
  CELIA. Peradventure this is not Fortune's work neither, but
    Nature's, who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of
    such goddesses, and hath sent this natural for our whetstone; for
    always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits. How
    now, wit! Whither wander you?
  TOUCHSTONE. Mistress, you must come away to your father.
  CELIA. Were you made the messenger?
  TOUCHSTONE. No, by mine honour; but I was bid to come for you.
  ROSALIND. Where learned you that oath, fool?
  TOUCHSTONE. Of a certain knight that swore by his honour they were
    good pancakes, and swore by his honour the mustard was naught.
    Now I'll stand to it, the pancakes were naught and the mustard
    was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.
  CELIA. How prove you that, in the great heap of your knowledge?
  ROSALIND. Ay, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.
  TOUCHSTONE. Stand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear
    by your beards that I am a knave.
  CELIA. By our beards, if we had them, thou art.
  TOUCHSTONE. By my knavery, if I had it, then I were. But if you
    swear by that that not, you are not forsworn; no more was this
    knight, swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he
    had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancackes or
    that mustard.
  CELIA. Prithee, who is't that thou mean'st?
  TOUCHSTONE. One that old Frederick, your father, loves.
  CELIA. My father's love is enough to honour him. Enough, speak no
    more of him; you'll be whipt for taxation one of these days.
  TOUCHSTONE. The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise
    men do foolishly.
  CELIA. By my troth, thou sayest true; for since the little wit that
    fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have
    makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur Le Beau.

                           Enter LE BEAU

  ROSALIND. With his mouth full of news.
  CELIA. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.
  ROSALIND. Then shall we be news-cramm'd.
  CELIA. All the better; we shall be the more marketable. Bon jour,
    Monsieur Le Beau. What's the news?
  LE BEAU. Fair Princess, you have lost much good sport.
  CELIA. Sport! of what colour?
  LE BEAU. What colour, madam? How shall I answer you?
  ROSALIND. As wit and fortune will.
  TOUCHSTONE. Or as the Destinies decrees.
  CELIA. Well said; that was laid on with a trowel.
  TOUCHSTONE. Nay, if I keep not my rank-
  ROSALIND. Thou losest thy old smell.
  LE BEAU. You amaze me, ladies. I would have told you of good
    wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.
  ROSALIND. Yet tell us the manner of the wrestling.
  LE BEAU. I will tell you the beginning, and, if it please your
    ladyships, you may see the end; for the best is yet to do; and
    here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.
  CELIA. Well, the beginning, that is dead and buried.
  LE BEAU. There comes an old man and his three sons-
  CELIA. I could match this beginning with an old tale.
  LE BEAU. Three proper young men, of excellent growth and presence.
  ROSALIND. With bills on their necks: 'Be it known unto all men by
    these presents'-
  LE BEAU. The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the Duke's
    wrestler; which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of
    his ribs, that there is little hope of life in him. So he serv'd
    the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie; the poor old man,
    their father, making such pitiful dole over them that all the
    beholders take his part with weeping.
  ROSALIND. Alas!
  TOUCHSTONE. But what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have
    lost?
  LE BEAU. Why, this that I speak of.
  TOUCHSTONE. Thus men may grow wiser every day. It is the first time
    that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.
  CELIA. Or I, I promise thee.
  ROSALIND. But is there any else longs to see this broken music in
    his sides? Is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we
    see this wrestling, cousin?
  LE BEAU. You must, if you stay here; for here is the place
    appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.
  CELIA. Yonder, sure, they are coming. Let us now stay and see it.

           Flourish. Enter DUKE FREDERICK, LORDS, ORLANDO,
                     CHARLES, and ATTENDANTS

  FREDERICK. Come on; since the youth will not be entreated, his own
    peril on his forwardness.
  ROSALIND. Is yonder the man?
  LE BEAU. Even he, madam.
  CELIA. Alas, he is too young; yet he looks successfully.
  FREDERICK. How now, daughter and cousin! Are you crept hither to
    see the wrestling?
  ROSALIND. Ay, my liege; so please you give us leave.
  FREDERICK. You will take little delight in it, I can tell you,
    there is such odds in the man. In pity of the challenger's youth
    I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to
    him, ladies; see if you can move him.
  CELIA. Call him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.
  FREDERICK. Do so; I'll not be by.
                                     [DUKE FREDERICK goes apart]
  LE BEAU. Monsieur the Challenger, the Princess calls for you.
  ORLANDO. I attend them with all respect and duty.
  ROSALIND. Young man, have you challeng'd Charles the wrestler?
  ORLANDO. No, fair Princess; he is the general challenger. I come
    but in, as others do, to try with him the strength of my youth.
  CELIA. Young gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years.
    You have seen cruel proof of this man's strength; if you saw
    yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judgment, the
    fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal
    enterprise. We pray you, for your own sake, to embrace your own
    safety and give over this attempt.
  ROSALIND. Do, young sir; your reputation shall not therefore be
    misprised: we will make it our suit to the Duke that the
    wrestling might not go forward.
  ORLANDO. I beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts,
    wherein I confess me much guilty to deny so fair and excellent
    ladies any thing. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go
    with me to my trial; wherein if I be foil'd there is but one
    sham'd that was never gracious; if kill'd, but one dead that is
    willing to be so. I shall do my friends no wrong, for I have none
    to lament me; the world no injury, for in it I have nothing; only
    in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when
    I have made it empty.
  ROSALIND. The little strength that I have, I would it were with
    you.
  CELIA. And mine to eke out hers.
  ROSALIND. Fare you well. Pray heaven I be deceiv'd in you!
  CELIA. Your heart's desires be with you!
  CHARLES. Come, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to
    lie with his mother earth?
  ORLANDO. Ready, sir; but his will hath in it a more modest working.
  FREDERICK. You shall try but one fall.
  CHARLES. No, I warrant your Grace, you shall not entreat him to a
    second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.
  ORLANDO. You mean to mock me after; you should not have mock'd me
    before; but come your ways.
  ROSALIND. Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man!
  CELIA. I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the
    leg.                                          [They wrestle]
  ROSALIND. O excellent young man!
  CELIA. If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should
    down.
                                      [CHARLES is thrown. Shout]
  FREDERICK. No more, no more.
  ORLANDO. Yes, I beseech your Grace; I am not yet well breath'd.
  FREDERICK. How dost thou, Charles?
  LE BEAU. He cannot speak, my lord.
  FREDERICK. Bear him away. What is thy name, young man?
  ORLANDO. Orlando, my liege; the youngest son of Sir Rowland de
    Boys.
  FREDERICK. I would thou hadst been son to some man else.
    The world esteem'd thy father honourable,
    But I did find him still mine enemy.
    Thou shouldst have better pleas'd me with this deed,
    Hadst thou descended from another house.
    But fare thee well; thou art a gallant youth;
    I would thou hadst told me of another father.
                                 Exeunt DUKE, train, and LE BEAU
  CELIA. Were I my father, coz, would I do this?
  ORLANDO. I am more proud to be Sir Rowland's son,
    His youngest son- and would not change that calling
    To be adopted heir to Frederick.
  ROSALIND. My father lov'd Sir Rowland as his soul,
    And all the world was of my father's mind;
    Had I before known this young man his son,
    I should have given him tears unto entreaties
    Ere he should thus have ventur'd.
  CELIA. Gentle cousin,
    Let us go thank him, and encourage him;
    My father's rough and envious disposition
    Sticks me at heart. Sir, you have well deserv'd;
    If you do keep your promises in love
    But justly as you have exceeded all promise,
    Your mistress shall be happy.
  ROSALIND. Gentleman,        [Giving him a chain from her neck]
    Wear this for me; one out of suits with fortune,
    That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.
    Shall we go, coz?
  CELIA. Ay. Fare you well, fair gentleman.
  ORLANDO. Can I not say 'I thank you'? My better parts
    Are all thrown down; and that which here stands up
    Is but a quintain, a mere lifeless block.
  ROSALIND. He calls us back. My pride fell with my fortunes;
    I'll ask him what he would. Did you call, sir?
    Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown
    More than your enemies.
  CELIA. Will you go, coz?
  ROSALIND. Have with you. Fare you well.
                                       Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA
  ORLANDO. What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue?
    I cannot speak to her, yet she urg'd conference.
    O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!
    Or Charles or something weaker masters thee.

                      Re-enter LE BEAU

  LE BEAU. Good sir, I do in friendship counsel you
    To leave this place. Albeit you have deserv'd
    High commendation, true applause, and love,
    Yet such is now the Duke's condition
    That he misconstrues all that you have done.
    The Duke is humorous; what he is, indeed,
    More suits you to conceive than I to speak of.
  ORLANDO. I thank you, sir; and pray you tell me this:
    Which of the two was daughter of the Duke
    That here was at the wrestling?
  LE BEAU. Neither his daughter, if we judge by manners;
    But yet, indeed, the smaller is his daughter;
    The other is daughter to the banish'd Duke,
    And here detain'd by her usurping uncle,
    To keep his daughter company; whose loves
    Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.
    But I can tell you that of late this Duke
    Hath ta'en displeasure 'gainst his gentle niece,
    Grounded upon no other argument
    But that the people praise her for her virtues
    And pity her for her good father's sake;
    And, on my life, his malice 'gainst the lady
    Will suddenly break forth. Sir, fare you well.
    Hereafter, in a better world than this,
    I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.
  ORLANDO. I rest much bounden to you; fare you well.
                                                    Exit LE BEAU
    Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;
    From tyrant Duke unto a tyrant brother.
    But heavenly Rosalind!                                  Exit

SCENE III. The DUKE's palace

Enter CELIA and ROSALIND

  CELIA. Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy!
    Not a word?
  ROSALIND. Not one to throw at a dog.
  CELIA. No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs;
    throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.
  ROSALIND. Then there were two cousins laid up, when the one should
    be lam'd with reasons and the other mad without any.
  CELIA. But is all this for your father?
  ROSALIND. No, some of it is for my child's father. O, how full of
    briers is this working-day world!
  CELIA. They are but burs, cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday
    foolery; if we walk not in the trodden paths, our very petticoats
    will catch them.
  ROSALIND. I could shake them off my coat: these burs are in my
    heart.
  CELIA. Hem them away.
  ROSALIND. I would try, if I could cry 'hem' and have him.
  CELIA. Come, come, wrestle with thy affections.
  ROSALIND. O, they take the part of a better wrestler than myself.
  CELIA. O, a good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of
    a fall. But, turning these jests out of service, let us talk in
    good earnest. Is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall
    into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland's youngest son?
  ROSALIND. The Duke my father lov'd his father dearly.
  CELIA. Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly?
    By this kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his
    father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.
  ROSALIND. No, faith, hate him not, for my sake.
  CELIA. Why should I not? Doth he not deserve well?

                    Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with LORDS

  ROSALIND. Let me love him for that; and do you love him because I
    do. Look, here comes the Duke.
  CELIA. With his eyes full of anger.
  FREDERICK. Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste,
    And get you from our court.
  ROSALIND. Me, uncle?
  FREDERICK. You, cousin.
    Within these ten days if that thou beest found
    So near our public court as twenty miles,
    Thou diest for it.
  ROSALIND. I do beseech your Grace,
    Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me.
    If with myself I hold intelligence,
    Or have acquaintance with mine own desires;
    If that I do not dream, or be not frantic-
    As I do trust I am not- then, dear uncle,
    Never so much as in a thought unborn
    Did I offend your Highness.
  FREDERICK. Thus do all traitors;
    If their purgation did consist in words,
    They are as innocent as grace itself.
    Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.
  ROSALIND. Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor.
    Tell me whereon the likelihood depends.
  FREDERICK. Thou art thy father's daughter; there's enough.
  ROSALIND. SO was I when your Highness took his dukedom;
    So was I when your Highness banish'd him.
    Treason is not inherited, my lord;
    Or, if we did derive it from our friends,
    What's that to me? My father was no traitor.
    Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much
    To think my poverty is treacherous.
  CELIA. Dear sovereign, hear me speak.
  FREDERICK. Ay, Celia; we stay'd her for your sake,
    Else had she with her father rang'd along.
  CELIA. I did not then entreat to have her stay;
    It was your pleasure, and your own remorse;
    I was too young that time to value her,
    But now I know her. If she be a traitor,
    Why so am I: we still have slept together,
    Rose at an instant, learn'd, play'd, eat together;
    And wheresoe'er we went, like Juno's swans,
    Still we went coupled and inseparable.
  FREDERICK. She is too subtle for thee; and her smoothness,
    Her very silence and her patience,
    Speak to the people, and they pity her.
    Thou art a fool. She robs thee of thy name;
    And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous
    When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.
    Firm and irrevocable is my doom
    Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.
  CELIA. Pronounce that sentence, then, on me, my liege;
    I cannot live out of her company.
  FREDERICK. You are a fool. You, niece, provide yourself.
    If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,
    And in the greatness of my word, you die.
                                           Exeunt DUKE and LORDS
  CELIA. O my poor Rosalind! Whither wilt thou go?
    Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine.
    I charge thee be not thou more griev'd than I am.
  ROSALIND. I have more cause.
  CELIA. Thou hast not, cousin.
    Prithee be cheerful. Know'st thou not the Duke
    Hath banish'd me, his daughter?
  ROSALIND. That he hath not.
  CELIA. No, hath not? Rosalind lacks, then, the love
    Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.
    Shall we be sund'red? Shall we part, sweet girl?
    No; let my father seek another heir.
    Therefore devise with me how we may fly,
    Whither to go, and what to bear with us;
    And do not seek to take your charge upon you,
    To bear your griefs yourself, and leave me out;
    For, by this heaven, now at our sorrows pale,
    Say what thou canst, I'll go along with thee.
  ROSALIND. Why, whither shall we go?
  CELIA. To seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.
  ROSALIND. Alas, what danger will it be to us,
    Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!
    Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
  CELIA. I'll put myself in poor and mean attire,
    And with a kind of umber smirch my face;
    The like do you; so shall we pass along,
    And never stir assailants.
  ROSALIND. Were it not better,
    Because that I am more than common tall,
    That I did suit me all points like a man?
    A gallant curtle-axe upon my thigh,
    A boar spear in my hand; and- in my heart
    Lie there what hidden woman's fear there will-
    We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
    As many other mannish cowards have
    That do outface it with their semblances.
  CELIA. What shall I call thee when thou art a man?
  ROSALIND. I'll have no worse a name than Jove's own page,
    And therefore look you call me Ganymede.
    But what will you be call'd?
  CELIA. Something that hath a reference to my state:
    No longer Celia, but Aliena.
  ROSALIND. But, cousin, what if we assay'd to steal
    The clownish fool out of your father's court?
    Would he not be a comfort to our travel?
  CELIA. He'll go along o'er the wide world with me;
    Leave me alone to woo him. Let's away,
    And get our jewels and our wealth together;
    Devise the fittest time and safest way
    To hide us from pursuit that will be made
    After my flight. Now go we in content
    To liberty, and not to banishment.                    Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. The Forest of Arden

Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and two or three LORDS, like foresters

  DUKE SENIOR. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
    Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
    Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
    More free from peril than the envious court?
    Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,
    The seasons' difference; as the icy fang
    And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
    Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
    Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
    'This is no flattery; these are counsellors
    That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
    Sweet are the uses of adversity,
    Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
    Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
    And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
    Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
    Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
    I would not change it.
  AMIENS. Happy is your Grace,
    That can translate the stubbornness of fortune
    Into so quiet and so sweet a style.
  DUKE SENIOR. Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
    And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
    Being native burghers of this desert city,
    Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
    Have their round haunches gor'd.
  FIRST LORD. Indeed, my lord,
    The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
    And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
    Than doth your brother that hath banish'd you.
    To-day my Lord of Amiens and myself
    Did steal behind him as he lay along
    Under an oak whose antique root peeps out
    Upon the brook that brawls along this wood!
    To the which place a poor sequest'red stag,
    That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
    Did come to languish; and, indeed, my lord,
    The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans
    That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
    Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
    Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
    In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,
    Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
    Stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook,
    Augmenting it with tears.
  DUKE SENIOR. But what said Jaques?
    Did he not moralize this spectacle?
  FIRST LORD. O, yes, into a thousand similes.
    First, for his weeping into the needless stream:
    'Poor deer,' quoth he 'thou mak'st a testament
    As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more
    To that which had too much.' Then, being there alone,
    Left and abandoned of his velvet friends:
    ''Tis right'; quoth he 'thus misery doth part
    The flux of company.' Anon, a careless herd,
    Full of the pasture, jumps along by him
    And never stays to greet him. 'Ay,' quoth Jaques
    'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;
    'Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
    Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?'
    Thus most invectively he pierceth through
    The body of the country, city, court,
    Yea, and of this our life; swearing that we
    Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
    To fright the animals, and to kill them up
    In their assign'd and native dwelling-place.
  DUKE SENIOR. And did you leave him in this contemplation?
  SECOND LORD. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting
    Upon the sobbing deer.
  DUKE SENIOR. Show me the place;
    I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
    For then he's full of matter.
  FIRST LORD. I'll bring you to him straight.             Exeunt

SCENE II. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE FREDERICK, with LORDS

  FREDERICK. Can it be possible that no man saw them?
    It cannot be; some villains of my court
    Are of consent and sufferance in this.
  FIRST LORD. I cannot hear of any that did see her.
    The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,
    Saw her abed, and in the morning early
    They found the bed untreasur'd of their mistress.
  SECOND LORD. My lord, the roynish clown, at whom so oft
    Your Grace was wont to laugh, is also missing.
    Hisperia, the Princess' gentlewoman,
    Confesses that she secretly o'erheard
    Your daughter and her cousin much commend
    The parts and graces of the wrestler
    That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles;
    And she believes, wherever they are gone,
    That youth is surely in their company.
  FREDERICK. Send to his brother; fetch that gallant hither.
    If he be absent, bring his brother to me;
    I'll make him find him. Do this suddenly;
    And let not search and inquisition quail
    To bring again these foolish runaways.                Exeunt

SCENE III. Before OLIVER'S house

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting

  ORLANDO. Who's there?
  ADAM. What, my young master? O my gentle master!
    O my sweet master! O you memory
    Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you here?
    Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?
    And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
    Why would you be so fond to overcome
    The bonny prizer of the humorous Duke?
    Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
    Know you not, master, to some kind of men
    Their graces serve them but as enemies?
    No more do yours. Your virtues, gentle master,
    Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.
    O, what a world is this, when what is comely
    Envenoms him that bears it!
  ORLANDO. Why, what's the matter?
  ADAM. O unhappy youth!
    Come not within these doors; within this roof
    The enemy of all your graces lives.
    Your brother- no, no brother; yet the son-
    Yet not the son; I will not call him son
    Of him I was about to call his father-
    Hath heard your praises; and this night he means
    To burn the lodging where you use to lie,
    And you within it. If he fail of that,
    He will have other means to cut you off;
    I overheard him and his practices.
    This is no place; this house is but a butchery;
    Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.
  ORLANDO. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?
  ADAM. No matter whither, so you come not here.
  ORLANDO. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food,
    Or with a base and boist'rous sword enforce
    A thievish living on the common road?
    This I must do, or know not what to do;
    Yet this I will not do, do how I can.
    I rather will subject me to the malice
    Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.
  ADAM. But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
    The thrifty hire I sav'd under your father,
    Which I did store to be my foster-nurse,
    When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
    And unregarded age in corners thrown.
    Take that, and He that doth the ravens feed,
    Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
    Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
    All this I give you. Let me be your servant;
    Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
    For in my youth I never did apply
    Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
    Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
    The means of weakness and debility;
    Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
    Frosty, but kindly. Let me go with you;
    I'll do the service of a younger man
    In all your business and necessities.
  ORLANDO. O good old man, how well in thee appears
    The constant service of the antique world,
    When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
    Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
    Where none will sweat but for promotion,
    And having that do choke their service up
    Even with the having; it is not so with thee.
    But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree
    That cannot so much as a blossom yield
    In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry.
    But come thy ways, we'll go along together,
    And ere we have thy youthful wages spent
    We'll light upon some settled low content.
  ADAM. Master, go on; and I will follow the
    To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
    From seventeen years till now almost four-score
    Here lived I, but now live here no more.
    At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,
    But at fourscore it is too late a week;
    Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
    Than to die well and not my master's debtor.          Exeunt

SCENE IV. The Forest of Arden

Enter ROSALIND for GANYMEDE, CELIA for ALIENA, and CLOWN alias
TOUCHSTONE

  ROSALIND. O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!
  TOUCHSTONE. I Care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.
  ROSALIND. I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel,
    and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as
    doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat;
    therefore, courage, good Aliena.
  CELIA. I pray you bear with me; I cannot go no further.
  TOUCHSTONE. For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you;
    yet I should bear no cross if I did bear you; for I think you
    have no money in your purse.
  ROSALIND. Well,. this is the Forest of Arden.
  TOUCHSTONE. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I; when I was at
    home I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.

                        Enter CORIN and SILVIUS

  ROSALIND. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here, a
    young man and an old in solemn talk.
  CORIN. That is the way to make her scorn you still.
  SILVIUS. O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her!
  CORIN. I partly guess; for I have lov'd ere now.
  SILVIUS. No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,
    Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover
    As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow.
    But if thy love were ever like to mine,
    As sure I think did never man love so,
    How many actions most ridiculous
    Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?
  CORIN. Into a thousand that I have forgotten.
  SILVIUS. O, thou didst then never love so heartily!
    If thou rememb'rest not the slightest folly
    That ever love did make thee run into,
    Thou hast not lov'd;
    Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
    Wearing thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,
    Thou hast not lov'd;
    Or if thou hast not broke from company
    Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,
    Thou hast not lov'd.
    O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe!                          Exit Silvius
  ROSALIND. Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound,
    I have by hard adventure found mine own.
  TOUCHSTONE. And I mine. I remember, when I was in love, I broke my
    sword upon a stone, and bid him take that for coming a-night to
    Jane Smile; and I remember the kissing of her batler, and the
    cow's dugs that her pretty chopt hands had milk'd; and I remember
    the wooing of  peascod instead of her; from whom I took two cods,
    and giving her them again, said with weeping tears 'Wear these
    for my sake.' We that are true lovers run into strange capers;
    but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal
    in folly.
  ROSALIND. Thou speak'st wiser than thou art ware of.
  TOUCHSTONE. Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break
    my shins against it.
  ROSALIND. Jove, Jove! this shepherd's passion
    Is much upon my fashion.
  TOUCHSTONE. And mine; but it grows something stale with me.
  CELIA. I pray you, one of you question yond man
    If he for gold will give us any food;
    I faint almost to death.
  TOUCHSTONE. Holla, you clown!
  ROSALIND. Peace, fool; he's not thy Ensman.
  CORIN. Who calls?
  TOUCHSTONE. Your betters, sir.
  CORIN. Else are they very wretched.
  ROSALIND. Peace, I say. Good even to you, friend.
  CORIN. And to you, gentle sir, and to you all.
  ROSALIND. I prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold
    Can in this desert place buy entertainment,
    Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed.
    Here's a young maid with travel much oppress'd,
    And faints for succour.
  CORIN. Fair sir, I pity her,
    And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,
    My fortunes were more able to relieve her;
    But I am shepherd to another man,
    And do not shear the fleeces that I graze.
    My master is of churlish disposition,
    And little recks to find the way to heaven
    By doing deeds of hospitality.
    Besides, his cote, his flocks, and bounds of feed,
    Are now on sale; and at our sheepcote now,
    By reason of his absence, there is nothing
    That you will feed on; but what is, come see,
    And in my voice most welcome shall you be.
  ROSALIND. What is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?
  CORIN. That young swain that you saw here but erewhile,
    That little cares for buying any thing.
  ROSALIND. I pray thee, if it stand with honesty,
    Buy thou the cottage, pasture, and the flock,
    And thou shalt have to pay for it of us.
  CELIA. And we will mend thy wages. I like this place,
    And willingly could waste my time in it.
  CORIN. Assuredly the thing is to be sold.
    Go with me; if you like upon report
    The soil, the profit, and this kind of life,
    I will your very faithful feeder be,
    And buy it with your gold right suddenly.             Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the forest

Enter AMIENS, JAQUES, and OTHERS

                       SONG
  AMIENS.    Under the greenwood tree
               Who loves to lie with me,
               And turn his merry note
               Unto the sweet bird's throat,
             Come hither, come hither, come hither.
               Here shall he see
               No enemy
             But winter and rough weather.

  JAQUES. More, more, I prithee, more.
  AMIENS. It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.
  JAQUES. I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy
    out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee, more.
  AMIENS. My voice is ragged; I know I cannot please you.
  JAQUES. I do not desire you to please me; I do desire you to sing.
    Come, more; another stanzo. Call you 'em stanzos?
  AMIENS. What you will, Monsieur Jaques.
  JAQUES. Nay, I care not for their names; they owe me nothing. Will
    you sing?
  AMIENS. More at your request than to please myself.
  JAQUES. Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you; but
    that they call compliment is like th' encounter of two dog-apes;
    and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks have given him a
    penny, and he renders me the beggarly thanks. Come, sing; and you
    that will not, hold your tongues.
  AMIENS. Well, I'll end the song. Sirs, cover the while; the Duke
    will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look
    you.
  JAQUES. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is to
    disputable for my company. I think of as many matters as he; but
    I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble,
    come.

                       SONG
              [All together here]

           Who doth ambition shun,
           And loves to live i' th' sun,
           Seeking the food he eats,
           And pleas'd with what he gets,
         Come hither, come hither, come hither.
           Here shall he see
           No enemy
           But winter and rough weather.

  JAQUES. I'll give you a verse to this note that I made yesterday in
    despite of my invention.
  AMIENS. And I'll sing it.
  JAQUES. Thus it goes:

             If it do come to pass
             That any man turn ass,
             Leaving his wealth and ease
             A stubborn will to please,
           Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame;
             Here shall he see
             Gross fools as he,
             An if he will come to me.

  AMIENS. What's that 'ducdame'?
  JAQUES. 'Tis a Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle. I'll
    go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the
    first-born of Egypt.
  AMIENS. And I'll go seek the Duke; his banquet is prepar'd.
                                                Exeunt severally

SCENE VI. The forest

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM

  ADAM. Dear master, I can go no further. O, I die for food! Here lie
    I down, and measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master.
  ORLANDO. Why, how now, Adam! No greater heart in thee? Live a
    little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth
    forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it or
    bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit is nearer death than thy
    powers. For my sake be comfortable; hold death awhile at the
    arm's end. I will here be with the presently; and if I bring thee
    not something to eat, I will give thee leave to die; but if thou
    diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said!
    thou look'st cheerly; and I'll be with thee quickly. Yet thou
    liest in the bleak air. Come, I will bear thee to some shelter;
    and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live
    anything in this desert. Cheerly, good Adam!          Exeunt

SCENE VII. The forest

A table set out. Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, and LORDS, like outlaws

  DUKE SENIOR. I think he be transform'd into a beast;
    For I can nowhere find him like a man.
  FIRST LORD. My lord, he is but even now gone hence;
    Here was he merry, hearing of a song.
  DUKE SENIOR. If he, compact of jars, grow musical,
    We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.
    Go seek him; tell him I would speak with him.

                         Enter JAQUES

  FIRST LORD. He saves my labour by his own approach.
  DUKE SENIOR. Why, how now, monsieur! what a life is this,
    That your poor friends must woo your company?
    What, you look merrily!
  JAQUES. A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' th' forest,
    A motley fool. A miserable world!
    As I do live by food, I met a fool,
    Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
    And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
    In good set terms- and yet a motley fool.
    'Good morrow, fool,' quoth I; 'No, sir,' quoth he,
    'Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.'
    And then he drew a dial from his poke,
    And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
    Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock;
    Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags;
    'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;
    And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
    And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
    And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
    And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
    The motley fool thus moral on the time,
    My lungs began to crow like chanticleer
    That fools should be so deep contemplative;
    And I did laugh sans intermission
    An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
    A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.
  DUKE SENIOR. What fool is this?
  JAQUES. O worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,
    And says, if ladies be but young and fair,
    They have the gift to know it; and in his brain,
    Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit
    After a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd
    With observation, the which he vents
    In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!
    I am ambitious for a motley coat.
  DUKE SENIOR. Thou shalt have one.
  JAQUES. It is my only suit,
    Provided that you weed your better judgments
    Of all opinion that grows rank in them
    That I am wise. I must have liberty
    Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
    To blow on whom I please, for so fools have;
    And they that are most galled with my folly,
    They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?
    The why is plain as way to parish church:
    He that a fool doth very wisely hit
    Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
    Not to seem senseless of the bob; if not,
    The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd
    Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.
    Invest me in my motley; give me leave
    To speak my mind, and I will through and through
    Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world,
    If they will patiently receive my medicine.
  DUKE SENIOR. Fie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.
  JAQUES. What, for a counter, would I do but good?
  DUKE SENIOR. Most Mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin;
    For thou thyself hast been a libertine,
    As sensual as the brutish sting itself;
    And all th' embossed sores and headed evils
    That thou with license of free foot hast caught
    Wouldst thou disgorge into the general world.
  JAQUES. Why, who cries out on pride
    That can therein tax any private party?
    Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
    Till that the wearer's very means do ebb?
    What woman in the city do I name
    When that I say the city-woman bears
    The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
    Who can come in and say that I mean her,
    When such a one as she such is her neighbour?
    Or what is he of basest function
    That says his bravery is not on my cost,
    Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits
    His folly to the mettle of my speech?
    There then! how then? what then? Let me see wherein
    My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
    Then he hath wrong'd himself; if he be free,
    Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies,
    Unclaim'd of any man. But who comes here?

             Enter ORLANDO with his sword drawn

  ORLANDO. Forbear, and eat no more.
  JAQUES. Why, I have eat none yet.
  ORLANDO. Nor shalt not, till necessity be serv'd.
  JAQUES. Of what kind should this cock come of?
  DUKE SENIOR. Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress?
    Or else a rude despiser of good manners,
    That in civility thou seem'st so empty?
  ORLANDO. You touch'd my vein at first: the thorny point
    Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
    Of smooth civility; yet arn I inland bred,
    And know some nurture. But forbear, I say;
    He dies that touches any of this fruit
    Till I and my affairs are answered.
  JAQUES. An you will not be answer'd with reason, I must die.
  DUKE SENIOR. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force
    More than your force move us to gentleness.
  ORLANDO. I almost die for food, and let me have it.
  DUKE SENIOR. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.
  ORLANDO. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you;
    I thought that all things had been savage here,
    And therefore put I on the countenance
    Of stern commandment. But whate'er you are
    That in this desert inaccessible,
    Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
    Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
    If ever you have look'd on better days,
    If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church,
    If ever sat at any good man's feast,
    If ever from your eyelids wip'd a tear,
    And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,
    Let gentleness my strong enforcement be;
    In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.
  DUKE SENIOR. True is it that we have seen better days,
    And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church,
    And sat at good men's feasts, and wip'd our eyes
    Of drops that sacred pity hath engend'red;
    And therefore sit you down in gentleness,
    And take upon command what help we have
    That to your wanting may be minist'red.
  ORLANDO. Then but forbear your food a little while,
    Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
    And give it food. There is an old poor man
    Who after me hath many a weary step
    Limp'd in pure love; till he be first suffic'd,
    Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger,
    I will not touch a bit.
  DUKE SENIOR. Go find him out.
    And we will nothing waste till you return.
  ORLANDO. I thank ye; and be blest for your good comfort!
 Exit
  DUKE SENIOR. Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
    This wide and universal theatre
    Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
    Wherein we play in.
  JAQUES. All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players;
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
    Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
    And shining morning face, creeping like snail
    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
    Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
    Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
    Seeking the bubble reputation
    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
    In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
    Full of wise saws and modern instances;
    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
    His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

                  Re-enter ORLANDO with ADAM

  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome. Set down your venerable burden.
    And let him feed.
  ORLANDO. I thank you most for him.
  ADAM. So had you need;
    I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.
  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome; fall to. I will not trouble you
    As yet to question you about your fortunes.
    Give us some music; and, good cousin, sing.

                         SONG
            Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
            Thou art not so unkind
              As man's ingratitude;
            Thy tooth is not so keen,
            Because thou art not seen,
              Although thy breath be rude.
    Heigh-ho! sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly.
    Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
            Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
              This life is most jolly.

            Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
            That dost not bite so nigh
              As benefits forgot;
            Though thou the waters warp,
            Thy sting is not so sharp
              As friend rememb'red not.
    Heigh-ho! sing, &c.

  DUKE SENIOR. If that you were the good Sir Rowland's son,
    As you have whisper'd faithfully you were,
    And as mine eye doth his effigies witness
    Most truly limn'd and living in your face,
    Be truly welcome hither. I am the Duke
    That lov'd your father. The residue of your fortune,
    Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,
    Thou art right welcome as thy master is.
    Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,
    And let me all your fortunes understand.              Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. The palace

Enter DUKE FREDERICK, OLIVER, and LORDS

  FREDERICK. Not see him since! Sir, sir, that cannot be.
    But were I not the better part made mercy,
    I should not seek an absent argument
    Of my revenge, thou present. But look to it:
    Find out thy brother wheresoe'er he is;
    Seek him with candle; bring him dead or living
    Within this twelvemonth, or turn thou no more
    To seek a living in our territory.
    Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine
    Worth seizure do we seize into our hands,
    Till thou canst quit thee by thy brother's mouth
    Of what we think against thee.
  OLIVER. O that your Highness knew my heart in this!
    I never lov'd my brother in my life.
  FREDERICK. More villain thou. Well, push him out of doors;
    And let my officers of such a nature
    Make an extent upon his house and lands.
    Do this expediently, and turn him going.              Exeunt

SCENE II. The forest

Enter ORLANDO, with a paper

  ORLANDO. Hang there, my verse, in witness of my love;
    And thou, thrice-crowned Queen of Night, survey
    With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,
    Thy huntress' name that my full life doth sway.
    O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books,
    And in their barks my thoughts I'll character,
    That every eye which in this forest looks
    Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where.
    Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree,
    The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.             Exit

                     Enter CORIN and TOUCHSTONE

  CORIN. And how like you this shepherd's life, Master Touchstone?
  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good
    life; but in respect that it is a shepherd's life, it is nought.
    In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in
    respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now in
    respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect
    it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare life,
    look you, it fits my humour well; but as there is no more plenty
    in it, it goes much against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in
    thee, shepherd?
  CORIN. No more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at
    ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is
    without three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet,
    and fire to burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a
    great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that he that hath
    learned no wit by nature nor art may complain of good breeding,
    or comes of a very dull kindred.
  TOUCHSTONE. Such a one is a natural philosopher. Wast ever in
    court, shepherd?
  CORIN. No, truly.
  TOUCHSTONE. Then thou art damn'd.
  CORIN. Nay, I hope.
  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, thou art damn'd, like an ill-roasted egg, all on
    one side.
  CORIN. For not being at court? Your reason.
  TOUCHSTONE. Why, if thou never wast at court thou never saw'st good
    manners; if thou never saw'st good manners, then thy manners must
    be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art
    in a parlous state, shepherd.
  CORIN. Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the
    court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the
    country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not
    at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be
    uncleanly if courtiers were shepherds.
  TOUCHSTONE. Instance, briefly; come, instance.
  CORIN. Why, we are still handling our ewes; and their fells, you
    know, are greasy.
  TOUCHSTONE. Why, do not your courtier's hands sweat? And is not the
    grease of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow,
    shallow. A better instance, I say; come.
  CORIN. Besides, our hands are hard.
  TOUCHSTONE. Your lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A
    more sounder instance; come.
  CORIN. And they are often tarr'd over with the surgery of our
    sheep; and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier's hands are
    perfum'd with civet.
  TOUCHSTONE. Most shallow man! thou worm's meat in respect of a good
    piece of flesh indeed! Learn of the wise, and perpend: civet is
    of a baser birth than tar- the very uncleanly flux of a cat. Mend
    the instance, shepherd.
  CORIN. You have too courtly a wit for me; I'll rest.
  TOUCHSTONE. Wilt thou rest damn'd? God help thee, shallow man! God
    make incision in thee! thou art raw.
  CORIN. Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get that I
    wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other
    men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is
    to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.
  TOUCHSTONE. That is another simple sin in you: to bring the ewes
    and the rams together, and to offer to get your living by the
    copulation of cattle; to be bawd to a bell-wether, and to betray
    a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly ram,
    out of all reasonable match. If thou beest not damn'd for this,
    the devil himself will have no shepherds; I cannot see else how
    thou shouldst scape.
  CORIN. Here comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress's brother.

                  Enter ROSALIND, reading a paper

  ROSALIND.   'From the east to western Inde,
              No jewel is like Rosalinde.
              Her worth, being mounted on the wind,
              Through all the world bears Rosalinde.
              All the pictures fairest lin'd
              Are but black to Rosalinde.
              Let no face be kept in mind
              But the fair of Rosalinde.'
  TOUCHSTONE. I'll rhyme you so eight years together, dinners, and
    suppers, and sleeping hours, excepted. It is the right
    butter-women's rank to market.
  ROSALIND. Out, fool!
  TOUCHSTONE.   For a taste:
                If a hart do lack a hind,
                Let him seek out Rosalinde.
                If the cat will after kind,
                So be sure will Rosalinde.
                Winter garments must be lin'd,
                So must slender Rosalinde.
                They that reap must sheaf and bind,
                Then to cart with Rosalinde.
                Sweetest nut hath sourest rind,
                Such a nut is Rosalinde.
                He that sweetest rose will find
                Must find love's prick and Rosalinde.
    This is the very false gallop of verses; why do you infect
    yourself with them?
  ROSALIND. Peace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.
  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, the tree yields bad fruit.
  ROSALIND. I'll graff it with you, and then I shall graff it with a
    medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit i' th' country; for
    you'll be rotten ere you be half ripe, and that's the right
    virtue of the medlar.
  TOUCHSTONE. You have said; but whether wisely or no, let the forest
    judge.

                      Enter CELIA, with a writing

  ROSALIND. Peace!
    Here comes my sister, reading; stand aside.
  CELIA.   'Why should this a desert be?
             For it is unpeopled? No;
           Tongues I'll hang on every tree
             That shall civil sayings show.
           Some, how brief the life of man
             Runs his erring pilgrimage,
           That the streching of a span
             Buckles in his sum of age;
           Some, of violated vows
             'Twixt the souls of friend and friend;
           But upon the fairest boughs,
             Or at every sentence end,
           Will I Rosalinda write,
             Teaching all that read to know
           The quintessence of every sprite
             Heaven would in little show.
           Therefore heaven Nature charg'd
             That one body should be fill'd
           With all graces wide-enlarg'd.
             Nature presently distill'd
           Helen's cheek, but not her heart,
             Cleopatra's majesty,
           Atalanta's better part,
             Sad Lucretia's modesty.
           Thus Rosalinde of many parts
             By heavenly synod was devis'd,
           Of many faces, eyes, and hearts,
             To have the touches dearest priz'd.
           Heaven would that she these gifts should have,
           And I to live and die her slave.'
  ROSALIND. O most gentle pulpiter! What tedious homily of love have
    you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried 'Have
    patience, good people.'
  CELIA. How now! Back, friends; shepherd, go off a little; go with
    him, sirrah.
  TOUCHSTONE. Come, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat;
    though not with bag and baggage, yet with scrip and scrippage.
                                     Exeunt CORIN and TOUCHSTONE
  CELIA. Didst thou hear these verses?
  ROSALIND. O, yes, I heard them all, and more too; for some of them
    had in them more feet than the verses would bear.
  CELIA. That's no matter; the feet might bear the verses.
  ROSALIND. Ay, but the feet were lame, and could not bear themselves
    without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.
  CELIA. But didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be
    hang'd and carved upon these trees?
  ROSALIND. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder before you
    came; for look here what I found on a palm-tree. I was never so
    berhym'd since Pythagoras' time that I was an Irish rat, which I
    can hardly remember.
  CELIA. Trow you who hath done this?
  ROSALIND. Is it a man?
  CELIA. And a chain, that you once wore, about his neck.
    Change you colour?
  ROSALIND. I prithee, who?
  CELIA. O Lord, Lord! it is a hard matter for friends to meet; but
    mountains may be remov'd with earthquakes, and so encounter.
  ROSALIND. Nay, but who is it?
  CELIA. Is it possible?
  ROSALIND. Nay, I prithee now, with most petitionary vehemence, tell
    me who it is.
  CELIA. O wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful wonderful, and yet
    again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!
  ROSALIND. Good my complexion! dost thou think, though I am
    caparison'd like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my
    disposition? One inch of delay more is a South Sea of discovery.
    I prithee tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I would
    thou could'st stammer, that thou mightst pour this conceal'd man
    out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of narrow-mouth'd bottle-
    either too much at once or none at all. I prithee take the cork
    out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.
  CELIA. So you may put a man in your belly.
  ROSALIND. Is he of God's making? What manner of man?
    Is his head worth a hat or his chin worth a beard?
  CELIA. Nay, he hath but a little beard.
  ROSALIND. Why, God will send more if the man will be thankful. Let
    me stay the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the
    knowledge of his chin.
  CELIA. It is young Orlando, that tripp'd up the wrestler's heels
    and your heart both in an instant.
  ROSALIND. Nay, but the devil take mocking! Speak sad brow and true
    maid.
  CELIA. I' faith, coz, 'tis he.
  ROSALIND. Orlando?
  CELIA. Orlando.
  ROSALIND. Alas the day! what shall I do with my doublet and hose?
    What did he when thou saw'st him? What said he? How look'd he?
    Wherein went he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where
    remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him
    again? Answer me in one word.
  CELIA. You must borrow me Gargantua's mouth first; 'tis a word too
    great for any mouth of this age's size. To say ay and no to these
    particulars is more than to answer in a catechism.
  ROSALIND. But doth he know that I am in this forest, and in man's
    apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?
  CELIA. It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the
    propositions of a lover; but take a taste of my finding him, and
    relish it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a
    dropp'd acorn.
  ROSALIND. It may well be call'd Jove's tree, when it drops forth
    such fruit.
  CELIA. Give me audience, good madam.
  ROSALIND. Proceed.
  CELIA. There lay he, stretch'd along like a wounded knight.
  ROSALIND. Though it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes
    the ground.
  CELIA. Cry 'Holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets
    unseasonably. He was furnish'd like a hunter.
  ROSALIND. O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.
  CELIA. I would sing my song without a burden; thou bring'st me out
    of tune.
  ROSALIND. Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.
    Sweet, say on.
  CELIA. You bring me out. Soft! comes he not here?

                   Enter ORLANDO and JAQUES

  ROSALIND. 'Tis he; slink by, and note him. JAQUES. I thank you for
  your company; but, good faith, I had as lief have been myself alone.
  ORLANDO. And so had I; but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for
  your society. JAQUES. God buy you; let's meet as little as we can.
  ORLANDO. I do desire we may be better strangers. JAQUES. I pray you
  mar no more trees with writing love songs in their barks. ORLANDO. I
  pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
  JAQUES. Rosalind is your love's name? ORLANDO. Yes, just. JAQUES. I
  do not like her name. ORLANDO. There was no thought of pleasing you
  when she was christen'd. JAQUES. What stature is she of? ORLANDO.
  Just as high as my heart. JAQUES. You are full of pretty answers.
  Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conn'd them
  out of rings? ORLANDO. Not so; but I answer you right painted cloth,
  from whence you have studied your questions. JAQUES. You have a
  nimble wit; I think 'twas made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down
  with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all
  our misery. ORLANDO. I will chide no breather in the world but
  myself, against whom I know most faults. JAQUES. The worst fault you
  have is to be in love. ORLANDO. 'Tis a fault I will not change for
  your best virtue. I am weary of you. JAQUES. By my troth, I was
  seeking for a fool when I found you. ORLANDO. He is drown'd in the
  brook; look but in, and you shall see him. JAQUES. There I shall see
  mine own figure. ORLANDO. Which I take to be either a fool or a
  cipher. JAQUES. I'll tarry no longer with you; farewell, good Signior
  Love. ORLANDO. I am glad of your departure; adieu, good Monsieur
  Melancholy. Exit JAQUES ROSALIND. [Aside to CELIA] I will speak to
  him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the knave with
  him.- Do you hear, forester? ORLANDO. Very well; what would you?
  ROSALIND. I pray you, what is't o'clock? ORLANDO. You should ask me
  what time o' day; there's no clock in the forest. ROSALIND. Then
  there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute and
  groaning every hour would detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a
  clock. ORLANDO. And why not the swift foot of Time? Had not that been
  as proper? ROSALIND. By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces
  with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time
  trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still
  withal. ORLANDO. I prithee, who doth he trot withal? ROSALIND. Marry,
  he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage
  and the day it is solemniz'd; if the interim be but a se'nnight,
  Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year.
  ORLANDO. Who ambles Time withal? ROSALIND. With a priest that lacks
  Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout; for the one sleeps
  easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because
  he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful
  learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury. These
  Time ambles withal. ORLANDO. Who doth he gallop withal? ROSALIND.
  With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can
  fall, he thinks himself too soon there. ORLANDO. Who stays it still
  withal? ROSALIND. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep
  between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.
  ORLANDO. Where dwell you, pretty youth? ROSALIND. With this
  shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe
  upon a petticoat. ORLANDO. Are you native of this place? ROSALIND. As
  the coney that you see dwell where she is kindled. ORLANDO. Your
  accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a
  dwelling. ROSALIND. I have been told so of many; but indeed an old
  religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an
  inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in
  love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God
  I am not a woman, to be touch'd with so many giddy offences as he
  hath generally tax'd their whole sex withal. ORLANDO. Can you
  remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of
  women? ROSALIND. There were none principal; they were all like one
  another as halfpence are; every one fault seeming monstrous till his
  fellow-fault came to match it. ORLANDO. I prithee recount some of
  them. ROSALIND. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that
  are sick. There is a man haunts the forest that abuses our young
  plants with carving 'Rosalind' on their barks; hangs odes upon
  hawthorns and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name
  of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give him some
  good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.
  ORLANDO. I am he that is so love-shak'd; I pray you tell me your
  remedy. ROSALIND. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you; he
  taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am
  sure you are not prisoner. ORLANDO. What were his marks? ROSALIND. A
  lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye and sunken, which you have
  not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not; a beard neglected,
  which you have not; but I pardon you for that, for simply your having
  in beard is a younger brother's revenue. Then your hose should be
  ungarter'd, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbutton'd, your shoe
  untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless
  desolation. But you are no such man; you are rather point-device in
  your accoutrements, as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any
  other. ORLANDO. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.
  ROSALIND. Me believe it! You may as soon make her that you love
  believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess she
  does. That is one of the points in the which women still give the lie
  to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the
  verses on the trees wherein Rosalind is so admired? ORLANDO. I swear
  to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that
  unfortunate he. ROSALIND. But are you so much in love as your rhymes
  speak? ORLANDO. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.
  ROSALIND. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well
  a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not
  so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the
  whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.
  ORLANDO. Did you ever cure any so? ROSALIND. Yes, one; and in this
  manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him
  every day to woo me; at which time would I, being but a moonish
  youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud,
  fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of
  smiles; for every passion something and for no passion truly
  anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this
  colour; would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then
  forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my
  suitor from his mad humour of love to a living humour of madness;
  which was, to forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a
  nook merely monastic. And thus I cur'd him; and this way will I take
  upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that
  there shall not be one spot of love in 't. ORLANDO. I would not be
  cured, youth. ROSALIND. I would cure you, if you would but call me
  Rosalind, and come every day to my cote and woo me. ORLANDO. Now, by
  the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is. ROSALIND. Go with
  me to it, and I'll show it you; and, by the way, you shall tell me
  where in the forest you live. Will you go? ORLANDO. With all my
  heart, good youth. ROSALIND. Nay, you must call me Rosalind. Come,
  sister, will you go?                                                 
   Exeunt

SCENE III. The forest

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY; JAQUES behind

  TOUCHSTONE. Come apace, good Audrey; I will fetch up your goats,
    Audrey. And how, Audrey, am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature
    content you?
  AUDREY. Your features! Lord warrant us! What features?
  TOUCHSTONE. I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most
    capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.
  JAQUES. [Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a
    thatch'd house!
  TOUCHSTONE. When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's
    good wit seconded with the forward child understanding, it
    strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room.
    Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.
  AUDREY. I do not know what 'poetical' is. Is it honest in deed and
    word? Is it a true thing?
  TOUCHSTONE. No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning,
    and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry may
    be said as lovers they do feign.
  AUDREY. Do you wish, then, that the gods had made me poetical?
  TOUCHSTONE. I do, truly, for thou swear'st to me thou art honest;
    now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst
    feign.
  AUDREY. Would you not have me honest?
  TOUCHSTONE. No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favour'd; for honesty
    coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
  JAQUES. [Aside] A material fool!
  AUDREY. Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me
    honest.
  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were
    to put good meat into an unclean dish.
  AUDREY. I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
  TOUCHSTONE. Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness;
    sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will
    marry thee; and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext,
    the vicar of the next village, who hath promis'd to meet me in
    this place of the forest, and to couple us.
  JAQUES. [Aside] I would fain see this meeting.
  AUDREY. Well, the gods give us joy!
  TOUCHSTONE. Amen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger
    in this attempt; for here we have no temple but the wood, no
    assembly but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are
    odious, they are necessary. It is said: 'Many a man knows no end
    of his goods.' Right! Many a man has good horns and knows no end
    of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife; 'tis none of his
    own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no; the noblest
    deer hath them as huge as the rascal. Is the single man therefore
    blessed? No; as a wall'd town is more worthier than a village, so
    is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare
    brow of a bachelor; and by how much defence is better than no
    skill, by so much is horn more precious than to want. Here comes
    Sir Oliver.

                       Enter SIR OLIVER MARTEXT

    Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you dispatch us here
    under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?
  MARTEXT. Is there none here to give the woman?
  TOUCHSTONE. I will not take her on gift of any man.
  MARTEXT. Truly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.
  JAQUES. [Discovering himself] Proceed, proceed; I'll give her.
  TOUCHSTONE. Good even, good Master What-ye-call't; how do you, sir?
    You are very well met. Goddild you for your last company. I am
    very glad to see you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay; pray be
    cover'd.
  JAQUES. Will you be married, motley?
  TOUCHSTONE. As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and
    the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons
    bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.
  JAQUES. And will you, being a man of your breeding, be married
    under a bush, like a beggar? Get you to church and have a good
    priest that can tell you what marriage is; this fellow will but
    join you together as they join wainscot; then one of you will
    prove a shrunk panel, and like green timber warp, warp.
  TOUCHSTONE. [Aside] I am not in the mind but I were better to be
    married of him than of another; for he is not like to marry me
    well; and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me
    hereafter to leave my wife.
  JAQUES. Go thou with me, and let me counsel thee.
  TOUCHSTONE. Come, sweet Audrey;
    We must be married or we must live in bawdry.
    Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not-
               O sweet Oliver,
               O brave Oliver,
           Leave me not behind thee.
    But-
                 Wind away,
               Begone, I say,
           I will not to wedding with thee.
                           Exeunt JAQUES, TOUCHSTONE, and AUDREY
  MARTEXT. 'Tis no matter; ne'er a fantastical knave of them all
    shall flout me out of my calling.                       Exit

SCENE IV. The forest

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA

  ROSALIND. Never talk to me; I will weep.
  CELIA. Do, I prithee; but yet have the grace to consider that tears
    do not become a man.
  ROSALIND. But have I not cause to weep?
  CELIA. As good cause as one would desire; therefore weep.
  ROSALIND. His very hair is of the dissembling colour.
  CELIA. Something browner than Judas's.
    Marry, his kisses are Judas's own children.
  ROSALIND. I' faith, his hair is of a good colour.
  CELIA. An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour.
  ROSALIND. And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of
    holy bread.
  CELIA. He hath bought a pair of cast lips of Diana. A nun of
    winter's sisterhood kisses not more religiously; the very ice of
    chastity is in them.
  ROSALIND. But why did he swear he would come this morning, and
    comes not?
  CELIA. Nay, certainly, there is no truth in him.
  ROSALIND. Do you think so?
  CELIA. Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer; but
    for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as covered
    goblet or a worm-eaten nut.
  ROSALIND. Not true in love?
  CELIA. Yes, when he is in; but I think he is not in.
  ROSALIND. You have heard him swear downright he was.
  CELIA. 'Was' is not 'is'; besides, the oath of a lover is no
    stronger than the word of a tapster; they are both the confirmer
    of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the Duke,
    your father.
  ROSALIND. I met the Duke yesterday, and had much question with him.
    He asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as
    he; so he laugh'd and let me go. But what talk we of fathers when
    there is such a man as Orlando?
  CELIA. O, that's a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave
    words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite
    traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puny tilter, that
    spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble
    goose. But all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who
    comes here?

                         Enter CORIN

  CORIN. Mistress and master, you have oft enquired
    After the shepherd that complain'd of love,
    Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,
    Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess
    That was his mistress.
  CELIA. Well, and what of him?
  CORIN. If you will see a pageant truly play'd
    Between the pale complexion of true love
    And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,
    Go hence a little, and I shall conduct you,
    If you will mark it.
  ROSALIND. O, come, let us remove!
    The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
    Bring us to this sight, and you shall say
    I'll prove a busy actor in their play.                Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the forest

Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE

  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phebe.
    Say that you love me not; but say not so
    In bitterness. The common executioner,
    Whose heart th' accustom'd sight of death makes hard,
    Falls not the axe upon the humbled neck
    But first begs pardon. Will you sterner be
    Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?

          Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN, at a distance

  PHEBE. I would not be thy executioner;
    I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.
    Thou tell'st me there is murder in mine eye.
    'Tis pretty, sure, and very probable,
    That eyes, that are the frail'st and softest things,
    Who shut their coward gates on atomies,
    Should be call'd tyrants, butchers, murderers!
    Now I do frown on thee with all my heart;
    And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.
    Now counterfeit to swoon; why, now fall down;
    Or, if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,
    Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.
    Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee.
    Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains
    Some scar of it; lean upon a rush,
    The cicatrice and capable impressure
    Thy palm some moment keeps; but now mine eyes,
    Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not;
    Nor, I am sure, there is not force in eyes
    That can do hurt.
  SILVIUS. O dear Phebe,
    If ever- as that ever may be near-
    You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,
    Then shall you know the wounds invisible
    That love's keen arrows make.
  PHEBE. But till that time
    Come not thou near me; and when that time comes,
    Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not;
    As till that time I shall not pity thee.
  ROSALIND. [Advancing] And why, I pray you? Who might be your
      mother,
    That you insult, exult, and all at once,
    Over the wretched? What though you have no beauty-
    As, by my faith, I see no more in you
    Than without candle may go dark to bed-
    Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?
    Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?
    I see no more in you than in the ordinary
    Of nature's sale-work. 'Od's my little life,
    I think she means to tangle my eyes too!
    No faith, proud mistress, hope not after it;
    'Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,
    Your bugle eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream,
    That can entame my spirits to your worship.
    You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her,
    Like foggy south, puffing with wind and rain?
    You are a thousand times a properer man
    Than she a woman. 'Tis such fools as you
    That makes the world full of ill-favour'd children.
    'Tis not her glass, but you, that flatters her;
    And out of you she sees herself more proper
    Than any of her lineaments can show her.
    But, mistress, know yourself. Down on your knees,
    And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love;
    For I must tell you friendly in your ear:
    Sell when you can; you are not for all markets.
    Cry the man mercy, love him, take his offer;
    Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
    So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.
  PHEBE. Sweet youth, I pray you chide a year together;
    I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.
  ROSALIND. He's fall'n in love with your foulness, and she'll fall
    in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee
    with frowning looks, I'll sauce her with bitter words. Why look
    you so upon me?
  PHEBE. For no ill will I bear you.
  ROSALIND. I pray you do not fall in love with me,
    For I am falser than vows made in wine;
    Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,
    'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
    Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply her hard.
    Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,
    And be not proud; though all the world could see,
    None could be so abus'd in sight as he.
    Come, to our flock.        Exeunt ROSALIND, CELIA, and CORIN
  PHEBE. Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might:
    'Who ever lov'd that lov'd not at first sight?'
  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe.
  PHEBE. Ha! what say'st thou, Silvius?
  SILVIUS. Sweet Phebe, pity me.
  PHEBE. Why, I arn sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.
  SILVIUS. Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
    If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
    By giving love, your sorrow and my grief
    Were both extermin'd.
  PHEBE. Thou hast my love; is not that neighbourly?
  SILVIUS. I would have you.
  PHEBE. Why, that were covetousness.
    Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;
    And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
    But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
    Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
    I will endure; and I'll employ thee too.
    But do not look for further recompense
    Than thine own gladness that thou art employ'd.
  SILVIUS. So holy and so perfect is my love,
    And I in such a poverty of grace,
    That I shall think it a most plenteous crop
    To glean the broken ears after the man
    That the main harvest reaps; loose now and then
    A scatt'red smile, and that I'll live upon.
  PHEBE. Know'st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?
  SILVIUS. Not very well; but I have met him oft;
    And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds
    That the old carlot once was master of.
  PHEBE. Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
    'Tis but a peevish boy; yet he talks well.
    But what care I for words? Yet words do well
    When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
    It is a pretty youth- not very pretty;
    But, sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.
    He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him
    Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
    Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
    He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall;
    His leg is but so-so; and yet 'tis well.
    There was a pretty redness in his lip,
    A little riper and more lusty red
    Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the difference
    Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.
    There be some women, Silvius, had they mark'd him
    In parcels as I did, would have gone near
    To fall in love with him; but, for my part,
    I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet
    I have more cause to hate him than to love him;
    For what had he to do to chide at me?
    He said mine eyes were black, and my hair black,
    And, now I am rememb'red, scorn'd at me.
    I marvel why I answer'd not again;
    But that's all one: omittance is no quittance.
    I'll write to him a very taunting letter,
    And thou shalt bear it; wilt thou, Silvius?
  SILVIUS. Phebe, with all my heart.
  PHEBE. I'll write it straight;
    The matter's in my head and in my heart;
    I will be bitter with him and passing short.
    Go with me, Silvius.                                  Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. The forest

Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES

  JAQUES. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with
    thee.
  ROSALIND. They say you are a melancholy fellow.
  JAQUES. I am so; I do love it better than laughing.
  ROSALIND. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable
    fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than
    drunkards.
  JAQUES. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
  ROSALIND. Why then, 'tis good to be a post.
  JAQUES. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is
    emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the
    courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is
    ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's,
    which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a
    melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted
    from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my
    travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous
    sadness.
  ROSALIND. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be
    sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then
    to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and
    poor hands.
  JAQUES. Yes, I have gain'd my experience.

                        Enter ORLANDO

  ROSALIND. And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a
    fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad- and to
    travel for it too.
  ORLANDO. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind!
  JAQUES. Nay, then, God buy you, an you talk in blank verse.
  ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; look you lisp and wear
    strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be
    out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making
    you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have
    swam in a gondola. [Exit JAQUES] Why, how now, Orlando! where
    have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such
    another trick, never come in my sight more.
  ORLANDO. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.
  ROSALIND. Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a
    minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the
    thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said
    of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' th' shoulder, but I'll
    warrant him heart-whole.
  ORLANDO. Pardon me, dear Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had
    as lief be woo'd of a snail.
  ORLANDO. Of a snail!
  ROSALIND. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries
    his house on his head- a better jointure, I think, than you make
    a woman; besides, he brings his destiny with him.
  ORLANDO. What's that?
  ROSALIND. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to
    your wives for; but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents
    the slander of his wife.
  ORLANDO. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous.
  ROSALIND. And I am your Rosalind.
  CELIA. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a
    better leer than you.
  ROSALIND. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour,
    and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I
    were your very very Rosalind?
  ORLANDO. I would kiss before I spoke.
  ROSALIND. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were
    gravell'd for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss.
    Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for
    lovers lacking- God warn us!- matter, the cleanliest shift is to
    kiss.
  ORLANDO. How if the kiss be denied?
  ROSALIND. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new
    matter.
  ORLANDO. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress?
  ROSALIND. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I
    should think my honesty ranker than my wit.
  ORLANDO. What, of my suit?
  ROSALIND. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit.
    Am not I your Rosalind?
  ORLANDO. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking
    of her.
  ROSALIND. Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.
  ORLANDO. Then, in mine own person, I die.
  ROSALIND. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six
    thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man
    died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had
    his brains dash'd out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
    could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love.
    Leander, he would have liv'd many a fair year, though Hero had
    turn'd nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for,
    good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and,
    being taken with the cramp, was drown'd; and the foolish
    chroniclers of that age found it was- Hero of Sestos. But these
    are all lies: men have died from time to time, and worms have
    eaten them, but not for love.
  ORLANDO. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I
    protest, her frown might kill me.
  ROSALIND. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I
    will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me
    what you will, I will grant it.
  ORLANDO. Then love me, Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all.
  ORLANDO. And wilt thou have me?
  ROSALIND. Ay, and twenty such.
  ORLANDO. What sayest thou?
  ROSALIND. Are you not good?
  ORLANDO. I hope so.
  ROSALIND. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come,
    sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand,
    Orlando. What do you say, sister?
  ORLANDO. Pray thee, marry us.
  CELIA. I cannot say the words.
  ROSALIND. You must begin 'Will you, Orlando'-
  CELIA. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?
  ORLANDO. I will.
  ROSALIND. Ay, but when?
  ORLANDO. Why, now; as fast as she can marry us.
  ROSALIND. Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.'
  ORLANDO. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.
  ROSALIND. I might ask you for your commission; but- I do take thee,
    Orlando, for my husband. There's a girl goes before the priest;
    and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions.
  ORLANDO. So do all thoughts; they are wing'd.
  ROSALIND. Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have
    possess'd her.
  ORLANDO. For ever and a day.
  ROSALIND. Say 'a day' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are
    April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when
    they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will
    be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,
    more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than
    an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for
    nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you
    are dispos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when
    thou are inclin'd to sleep.
  ORLANDO. But will my Rosalind do so?
  ROSALIND. By my life, she will do as I do.
  ORLANDO. O, but she is wise.
  ROSALIND. Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser,
    the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out
    at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop
    that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.
  ORLANDO. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit,
    whither wilt?' ROSALIND. Nay, you might keep that check for it,
    till you met your
    wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed.
  ORLANDO. And what wit could wit have to excuse that?
  ROSALIND. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never
    take her without her answer, unless you take her without her
    tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's
    occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will
    breed it like a fool!
  ORLANDO. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.
  ROSALIND. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours!
  ORLANDO. I must attend the Duke at dinner; by two o'clock I will be
    with thee again.
  ROSALIND. Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would
    prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less. That
    flattering tongue of yours won me. 'Tis but one cast away, and
    so, come death! Two o'clock is your hour?
  ORLANDO. Ay, sweet Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and
    by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot
    of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will
    think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow
    lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may
    be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful. Therefore
    beware my censure, and keep your promise.
  ORLANDO. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my
    Rosalind; so, adieu.
  ROSALIND. Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
    offenders, and let Time try. Adieu.             Exit ORLANDO
  CELIA. You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate. We must
    have your doublet and hose pluck'd over your head, and show the
    world what the bird hath done to her own nest.
  ROSALIND. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst
    know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded;
    my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.
  CELIA. Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection
    in, it runs out.
  ROSALIND. No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of
    thought, conceiv'd of spleen, and born of madness; that blind
    rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are
    out- let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell thee,
    Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I'll go find a
    shadow, and sigh till he come.
  CELIA. And I'll sleep.                                  Exeunt

SCENE II. The forest

        Enter JAQUES and LORDS, in the habit of foresters

  JAQUES. Which is he that killed the deer?
  LORD. Sir, it was I.
  JAQUES. Let's present him to the Duke, like a Roman conqueror; and
    it would do well to set the deer's horns upon his head for a
    branch of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?
  LORD. Yes, sir.
  JAQUES. Sing it; 'tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise
    enough.

                    SONG.

      What shall he have that kill'd the deer?
      His leather skin and horns to wear.
                              [The rest shall hear this burden:]
           Then sing him home.

      Take thou no scorn to wear the horn;
      It was a crest ere thou wast born.
           Thy father's father wore it;
           And thy father bore it.
      The horn, the horn, the lusty horn,
      Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.                   Exeunt

SCENE III. The forest

Enter ROSALIND and CELIA

  ROSALIND. How say you now? Is it not past two o'clock?
    And here much Orlando!
  CELIA. I warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath
    ta'en his bow and arrows, and is gone forth- to sleep. Look, who
    comes here.

                      Enter SILVIUS

  SILVIUS. My errand is to you, fair youth;
    My gentle Phebe did bid me give you this.
    I know not the contents; but, as I guess
    By the stern brow and waspish action
    Which she did use as she was writing of it,
    It bears an angry tenour. Pardon me,
    I am but as a guiltless messenger.
  ROSALIND. Patience herself would startle at this letter,
    And play the swaggerer. Bear this, bear all.
    She says I am not fair, that I lack manners;
    She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,
    Were man as rare as Phoenix. 'Od's my will!
    Her love is not the hare that I do hunt;
    Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,
    This is a letter of your own device.
  SILVIUS. No, I protest, I know not the contents;
    Phebe did write it.
  ROSALIND. Come, come, you are a fool,
    And turn'd into the extremity of love.
    I saw her hand; she has a leathern hand,
    A freestone-colour'd hand; I verily did think
    That her old gloves were on, but 'twas her hands;
    She has a huswife's hand- but that's no matter.
    I say she never did invent this letter:
    This is a man's invention, and his hand.
  SILVIUS. Sure, it is hers.
  ROSALIND. Why, 'tis a boisterous and a cruel style;
    A style for challengers. Why, she defies me,
    Like Turk to Christian. Women's gentle brain
    Could not drop forth such giant-rude invention,
    Such Ethiope words, blacker in their effect
    Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?
  SILVIUS. So please you, for I never heard it yet;
    Yet heard too much of Phebe's cruelty.
  ROSALIND. She Phebes me: mark how the tyrant writes.
                                                         [Reads]

            'Art thou god to shepherd turn'd,
            That a maiden's heart hath burn'd?'

    Can a woman rail thus?
  SILVIUS. Call you this railing?
  ROSALIND. 'Why, thy godhead laid apart,
             Warr'st thou with a woman's heart?'

    Did you ever hear such railing?

            'Whiles the eye of man did woo me,
            That could do no vengeance to me.'

    Meaning me a beast.

            'If the scorn of your bright eyne
            Have power to raise such love in mine,
            Alack, in me what strange effect
            Would they work in mild aspect!
            Whiles you chid me, I did love;
            How then might your prayers move!
            He that brings this love to the
            Little knows this love in me;
            And by him seal up thy mind,
            Whether that thy youth and kind
            Will the faithful offer take
            Of me and all that I can make;
            Or else by him my love deny,
            And then I'll study how to die.'
  SILVIUS. Call you this chiding?
  CELIA. Alas, poor shepherd!
  ROSALIND. Do you pity him? No, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love
    such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument, and play false
    strains upon thee! Not to be endur'd! Well, go your way to her,
    for I see love hath made thee tame snake, and say this to her-
    that if she love me, I charge her to love thee; if she will not,
    I will never have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a
    true lover, hence, and not a word; for here comes more company.
                                                    Exit SILVIUS

                         Enter OLIVER

  OLIVER. Good morrow, fair ones; pray you, if you know,
    Where in the purlieus of this forest stands
    A sheep-cote fenc'd about with olive trees?
  CELIA. West of this place, down in the neighbour bottom.
    The rank of osiers by the murmuring stream
    Left on your right hand brings you to the place.
    But at this hour the house doth keep itself;
    There's none within.
  OLIVER. If that an eye may profit by a tongue,
    Then should I know you by description-
    Such garments, and such years: 'The boy is fair,
    Of female favour, and bestows himself
    Like a ripe sister; the woman low,
    And browner than her brother.' Are not you
    The owner of the house I did inquire for?
  CELIA. It is no boast, being ask'd, to say we are.
  OLIVER. Orlando doth commend him to you both;
    And to that youth he calls his Rosalind
    He sends this bloody napkin. Are you he?
  ROSALIND. I am. What must we understand by this?
  OLIVER. Some of my shame; if you will know of me
    What man I am, and how, and why, and where,
    This handkercher was stain'd.
  CELIA. I pray you, tell it.
  OLIVER. When last the young Orlando parted from you,
    He left a promise to return again
    Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest,
    Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
    Lo, what befell! He threw his eye aside,
    And mark what object did present itself.
    Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,
    And high top bald with dry antiquity,
    A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
    Lay sleeping on his back. About his neck
    A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself,
    Who with her head nimble in threats approach'd
    The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
    Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
    And with indented glides did slip away
    Into a bush; under which bush's shade
    A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
    Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
    When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis
    The royal disposition of that beast
    To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.
    This seen, Orlando did approach the man,
    And found it was his brother, his elder brother.
  CELIA. O, I have heard him speak of that same brother;
    And he did render him the most unnatural
    That liv'd amongst men.
  OLIVER. And well he might so do,
    For well I know he was unnatural.
  ROSALIND. But, to Orlando: did he leave him there,
    Food to the suck'd and hungry lioness?
  OLIVER. Twice did he turn his back, and purpos'd so;
    But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,
    And nature, stronger than his just occasion,
    Made him give battle to the lioness,
    Who quickly fell before him; in which hurtling
    From miserable slumber I awak'd.
  CELIA. Are you his brother?
  ROSALIND. Was't you he rescu'd?
  CELIA. Was't you that did so oft contrive to kill him?
  OLIVER. 'Twas I; but 'tis not I. I do not shame
    To tell you what I was, since my conversion
    So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.
  ROSALIND. But for the bloody napkin?
  OLIVER. By and by.
    When from the first to last, betwixt us two,
    Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd,
    As how I came into that desert place-
    In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,
    Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,
    Committing me unto my brother's love;
    Who led me instantly unto his cave,
    There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm
    The lioness had torn some flesh away,
    Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,
    And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.
    Brief, I recover'd him, bound up his wound,
    And, after some small space, being strong at heart,
    He sent me hither, stranger as I am,
    To tell this story, that you might excuse
    His broken promise, and to give this napkin,
    Dy'd in his blood, unto the shepherd youth
    That he in sport doth call his Rosalind.
                                               [ROSALIND swoons]
  CELIA. Why, how now, Ganymede! sweet Ganymede!
  OLIVER. Many will swoon when they do look on blood.
  CELIA. There is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!
  OLIVER. Look, he recovers.
  ROSALIND. I would I were at home.
  CELIA. We'll lead you thither.
    I pray you, will you take him by the arm?
  OLIVER. Be of good cheer, youth. You a man!
    You lack a man's heart.
  ROSALIND. I do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body would think
    this was well counterfeited. I pray you tell your brother how
    well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!
  OLIVER. This was not counterfeit; there is too great testimony in
    your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.
  ROSALIND. Counterfeit, I assure you.
  OLIVER. Well then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.
  ROSALIND. So I do; but, i' faith, I should have been a woman by
    right.
  CELIA. Come, you look paler and paler; pray you draw homewards.
    Good sir, go with us.
  OLIVER. That will I, for I must bear answer back
    How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. I shall devise something; but, I pray you, commend my
    counterfeiting to him. Will you go?                   Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. The forest

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY

  TOUCHSTONE. We shall find a time, Audrey; patience, gentle Audrey.
  AUDREY. Faith, the priest was good enough, for all the old
    gentleman's saying.
  TOUCHSTONE. A most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext.
    But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to
    you.
  AUDREY. Ay, I know who 'tis; he hath no interest in me in the
    world; here comes the man you mean.

                         Enter WILLIAM

  TOUCHSTONE. It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. By my troth,
    we that have good wits have much to answer for: we shall be
    flouting; we cannot hold.
  WILLIAM. Good ev'n, Audrey.
  AUDREY. God ye good ev'n, William.
  WILLIAM. And good ev'n to you, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. Good ev'n, gentle friend. Cover thy head, cover thy
    head; nay, prithee be cover'd. How old are you, friend?
  WILLIAM. Five and twenty, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. A ripe age. Is thy name William?
  WILLIAM. William, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. A fair name. Wast born i' th' forest here?
  WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I thank God.
  TOUCHSTONE. 'Thank God.' A good answer.
    Art rich?
  WILLIAM. Faith, sir, so so.
  TOUCHSTONE. 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good; and
    yet it is not; it is but so so. Art thou wise?
  WILLIAM. Ay, sir, I have a pretty wit.
  TOUCHSTONE. Why, thou say'st well. I do now remember a saying: 'The
    fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be
    a fool.' The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a
    grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth; meaning
    thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do
    love this maid?
  WILLIAM. I do, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. Give me your hand. Art thou learned?
  WILLIAM. No, sir.
  TOUCHSTONE. Then learn this of me: to have is to have; for it is a
    figure in rhetoric that drink, being pour'd out of cup into a
    glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your
    writers do consent that ipse is he; now, you are not ipse, for I
    am he.
  WILLIAM. Which he, sir?
  TOUCHSTONE. He, sir, that must marry this woman. Therefore, you
    clown, abandon- which is in the vulgar leave- the society- which
    in the boorish is company- of this female- which in the common is
    woman- which together is: abandon the society of this female; or,
    clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest;
    or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into
    death, thy liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee,
    or in bastinado, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction;
    will o'er-run thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and
    fifty ways; therefore tremble and depart.
  AUDREY. Do, good William.
  WILLIAM. God rest you merry, sir.                         Exit

                          Enter CORIN

  CORIN. Our master and mistress seeks you; come away, away.
  TOUCHSTONE. Trip, Audrey, trip, Audrey. I attend, I attend.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. The forest

Enter ORLANDO and OLIVER

  ORLANDO. Is't possible that on so little acquaintance you should
    like her? that but seeing you should love her? and loving woo?
    and, wooing, she should grant? and will you persever to enjoy
    her?
  OLIVER. Neither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty
    of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden
    consenting; but say with me, I love Aliena; say with her that she
    loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It
    shall be to your good; for my father's house and all the revenue
    that was old Sir Rowland's will I estate upon you, and here live
    and die a shepherd.
  ORLANDO. You have my consent. Let your wedding be to-morrow.
    Thither will I invite the Duke and all's contented followers. Go
    you and prepare Aliena; for, look you, here comes my Rosalind.

                        Enter ROSALIND

  ROSALIND. God save you, brother.
  OLIVER. And you, fair sister.                             Exit
  ROSALIND. O, my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear
    thy heart in a scarf!
  ORLANDO. It is my arm.
  ROSALIND. I thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a
    lion.
  ORLANDO. Wounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.
  ROSALIND. Did your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon
    when he show'd me your handkercher?
  ORLANDO. Ay, and greater wonders than that.
  ROSALIND. O, I know where you are. Nay, 'tis true. There was never
    any thing so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar's
    thrasonical brag of 'I came, saw, and overcame.' For your brother
    and my sister no sooner met but they look'd; no sooner look'd but
    they lov'd; no sooner lov'd but they sigh'd; no sooner sigh'd but
    they ask'd one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but
    they sought the remedy- and in these degrees have they made pair
    of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else
    be incontinent before marriage. They are in the very wrath of
    love, and they will together. Clubs cannot part them.
  ORLANDO. They shall be married to-morrow; and I will bid the Duke
    to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into
    happiness through another man's eyes! By so much the more shall I
    to-morrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I
    shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.
  ROSALIND. Why, then, to-morrow I cannot serve your turn for
    Rosalind?
  ORLANDO. I can live no longer by thinking.
  ROSALIND. I will weary you, then, no longer with idle talking. Know
    of me then- for now I speak to some purpose- that I know you are
    a gentleman of good conceit. I speak not this that you should
    bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch I say I know you
    are; neither do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some
    little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good, and
    not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do
    strange things. I have, since I was three year old, convers'd
    with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable.
    If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture cries
    it out, when your brother marries Aliena shall you marry her. I
    know into what straits of fortune she is driven; and it is not
    impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient to you, to set
    her before your eyes to-morrow, human as she is, and without any
    danger.
  ORLANDO. Speak'st thou in sober meanings?
  ROSALIND. By my life, I do; which I tender dearly, though I say I
    am a magician. Therefore put you in your best array, bid your
    friends; for if you will be married to-morrow, you shall; and to
    Rosalind, if you will.

                     Enter SILVIUS and PHEBE

    Look, here comes a lover of mine, and a lover of hers.
  PHEBE. Youth, you have done me much ungentleness
    To show the letter that I writ to you.
  ROSALIND. I care not if I have. It is my study
    To seem despiteful and ungentle to you.
    You are there follow'd by a faithful shepherd;
    Look upon him, love him; he worships you.
  PHEBE. Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.
  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;
    And so am I for Phebe.
  PHEBE. And I for Ganymede.
  ORLANDO. And I for Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. And I for no woman.
  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of faith and service;
    And so am I for Phebe.
  PHEBE. And I for Ganymede.
  ORLANDO. And I for Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. And I for no woman.
  SILVIUS. It is to be all made of fantasy,
    All made of passion, and all made of wishes;
    All adoration, duty, and observance,
    All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
    All purity, all trial, all obedience;
    And so am I for Phebe.
  PHEBE. And so am I for Ganymede.
  ORLANDO. And so am I for Rosalind.
  ROSALIND. And so am I for no woman.
  PHEBE. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
  SILVIUS. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
  ORLANDO. If this be so, why blame you me to love you?
  ROSALIND. Why do you speak too, 'Why blame you me to love you?'
  ORLANDO. To her that is not here, nor doth not hear.
  ROSALIND. Pray you, no more of this; 'tis like the howling of Irish
    wolves against the moon. [To SILVIUS] I will help you if I can.
    [To PHEBE] I would love you if I could.- To-morrow meet me all
    together. [ To PHEBE ] I will marry you if ever I marry woman,
    and I'll be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] I will satisfy you if
    ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married to-morrow. [To
    Silvius] I will content you if what pleases you contents you, and
    you shall be married to-morrow. [To ORLANDO] As you love
    Rosalind, meet. [To SILVIUS] As you love Phebe, meet;- and as I
    love no woman, I'll meet. So, fare you well; I have left you
    commands.
  SILVIUS. I'll not fail, if I live.
  PHEBE. Nor I.
  ORLANDO. Nor I.                                         Exeunt

SCENE III. The forest

Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY

  TOUCHSTONE. To-morrow is the joyful day, Audre'y; to-morrow will we
    be married.
  AUDREY. I do desire it with all my heart; and I hope it is no
    dishonest desire to desire to be a woman of the world. Here come
    two of the banish'd Duke's pages.

                            Enter two PAGES

  FIRST PAGE. Well met, honest gentleman.
  TOUCHSTONE. By my troth, well met. Come sit, sit, and a song.
  SECOND PAGE. We are for you; sit i' th' middle.
  FIRST PAGE. Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking, or
    spitting, or saying we are hoarse, which are the only prologues
    to a bad voice?
  SECOND PAGE. I'faith, i'faith; and both in a tune, like two gipsies
    on a horse.

                      SONG.
        It was a lover and his lass,
          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
        That o'er the green corn-field did pass
          In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
        When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.
        Sweet lovers love the spring.

        Between the acres of the rye,
          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
        These pretty country folks would lie,
          In the spring time, &c.

        This carol they began that hour,
          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
        How that a life was but a flower,
          In the spring time, &c.

        And therefore take the present time,
          With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
        For love is crowned with the prime,
          In the spring time, &c.

  TOUCHSTONE. Truly, young gentlemen, though there was no great
    matter in the ditty, yet the note was very untuneable.
  FIRST PAGE. YOU are deceiv'd, sir; we kept time, we lost not our
    time.
  TOUCHSTONE. By my troth, yes; I count it but time lost to hear such
    a foolish song. God buy you; and God mend your voices. Come,
    Audrey.                                               Exeunt

SCENE IV. The forest

Enter DUKE SENIOR, AMIENS, JAQUES, ORLANDO, OLIVER, and CELIA

  DUKE SENIOR. Dost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy
    Can do all this that he hath promised?
  ORLANDO. I sometimes do believe and sometimes do not:
    As those that fear they hope, and know they fear.

               Enter ROSALIND, SILVIUS, and PHEBE

  ROSALIND. Patience once more, whiles our compact is urg'd:
    You say, if I bring in your Rosalind,
    You will bestow her on Orlando here?
  DUKE SENIOR. That would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.
  ROSALIND. And you say you will have her when I bring her?
  ORLANDO. That would I, were I of all kingdoms king.
  ROSALIND. You say you'll marry me, if I be willing?
  PHEBE. That will I, should I die the hour after.
  ROSALIND. But if you do refuse to marry me,
    You'll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?
  PHEBE. So is the bargain.
  ROSALIND. You say that you'll have Phebe, if she will?
  SILVIUS. Though to have her and death were both one thing.
  ROSALIND. I have promis'd to make all this matter even.
    Keep you your word, O Duke, to give your daughter;
    You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter;
    Keep your word, Phebe, that you'll marry me,
    Or else, refusing me, to wed this shepherd;
    Keep your word, Silvius, that you'll marry her
    If she refuse me; and from hence I go,
    To make these doubts all even.
                                       Exeunt ROSALIND and CELIA
  DUKE SENIOR. I do remember in this shepherd boy
    Some lively touches of my daughter's favour.
  ORLANDO. My lord, the first time that I ever saw him
    Methought he was a brother to your daughter.
    But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,
    And hath been tutor'd in the rudiments
    Of many desperate studies by his uncle,
    Whom he reports to be a great magician,
    Obscured in the circle of this forest.

                    Enter TOUCHSTONE and AUDREY

  JAQUES. There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are
    coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts which
    in all tongues are call'd fools.
  TOUCHSTONE. Salutation and greeting to you all!
  JAQUES. Good my lord, bid him welcome. This is the motley-minded
    gentleman that I have so often met in the forest. He hath been a
     courtier, he swears.
  TOUCHSTONE. If any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation.
    I have trod a measure; I have flatt'red a lady; I have been
    politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy; I have undone
    three tailors; I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought
    one.
  JAQUES. And how was that ta'en up?
  TOUCHSTONE. Faith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the
    seventh cause.
  JAQUES. How seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.
  DUKE SENIOR. I like him very well.
  TOUCHSTONE. God 'ild you, sir; I desire you of the like. I press in
    here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives, to swear
    and to forswear, according as marriage binds and blood breaks. A
    poor virgin, sir, an ill-favour'd thing, sir, but mine own; a
    poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that man else will. Rich
    honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl
    in your foul oyster.
  DUKE SENIOR. By my faith, he is very swift and sententious.
  TOUCHSTONE. According to the fool's bolt, sir, and such dulcet
    diseases.
  JAQUES. But, for the seventh cause: how did you find the quarrel on
    the seventh cause?
  TOUCHSTONE. Upon a lie seven times removed- bear your body more
    seeming, Audrey- as thus, sir. I did dislike the cut of a certain
    courtier's beard; he sent me word, if I said his beard was not
    cut well, he was in the mind it was. This is call'd the Retort
    Courteous. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would
    send me word he cut it to please himself. This is call'd the Quip
    Modest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled my judgment.
    This is call'd the Reply Churlish. If again it was not well cut,
    he would answer I spake not true. This is call'd the Reproof
    Valiant. If again it was not well cut, he would say I lie. This
    is call'd the Countercheck Quarrelsome. And so to the Lie
    Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.
  JAQUES. And how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?
  TOUCHSTONE. I durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, nor
    he durst not give me the Lie Direct; and so we measur'd swords
    and parted.
  JAQUES. Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?
  TOUCHSTONE. O, sir, we quarrel in print by the book, as you have
    books for good manners. I will name you the degrees. The first,
    the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the
    Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
    Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance;
    the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie
    Direct; and you may avoid that too with an If. I knew when seven
    justices could not take up a quarrel; but when the parties were
    met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as: 'If you
    said so, then I said so.' And they shook hands, and swore
    brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If.
  JAQUES. Is not this a rare fellow, my lord?
    He's as good at any thing, and yet a fool.
  DUKE SENIOR. He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the
    presentation of that he shoots his wit:

          Enter HYMEN, ROSALIND, and CELIA. Still MUSIC

    HYMEN.    Then is there mirth in heaven,
              When earthly things made even
                Atone together.
              Good Duke, receive thy daughter;
              Hymen from heaven brought her,
                Yea, brought her hither,
              That thou mightst join her hand with his,
              Whose heart within his bosom is.
  ROSALIND. [To DUKE] To you I give myself, for I am yours.
    [To ORLANDO] To you I give myself, for I am yours.
  DUKE SENIOR. If there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.
  ORLANDO. If there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.
  PHEBE. If sight and shape be true,
    Why then, my love adieu!
  ROSALIND. I'll have no father, if you be not he;
    I'll have no husband, if you be not he;
    Nor ne'er wed woman, if you be not she.
  HYMEN.    Peace, ho! I bar confusion;
            'Tis I must make conclusion
              Of these most strange events.
            Here's eight that must take hands
            To join in Hymen's bands,
              If truth holds true contents.
            You and you no cross shall part;
            You and you are heart in heart;
            You to his love must accord,
            Or have a woman to your lord;
            You and you are sure together,
            As the winter to foul weather.
            Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,
            Feed yourselves with questioning,
            That reason wonder may diminish,
            How thus we met, and these things finish.

                       SONG
            Wedding is great Juno's crown;
              O blessed bond of board and bed!
            'Tis Hymen peoples every town;
              High wedlock then be honoured.
            Honour, high honour, and renown,
            To Hymen, god of every town!

  DUKE SENIOR. O my dear niece, welcome thou art to me!
    Even daughter, welcome in no less degree.
  PHEBE. I will not eat my word, now thou art mine;
    Thy faith my fancy to thee doth combine.

                 Enter JAQUES de BOYS

  JAQUES de BOYS. Let me have audience for a word or two.
    I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,
    That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.
    Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day
    Men of great worth resorted to this forest,
    Address'd a mighty power; which were on foot,
    In his own conduct, purposely to take
    His brother here, and put him to the sword;
    And to the skirts of this wild wood he came,
    Where, meeting with an old religious man,
    After some question with him, was converted
    Both from his enterprise and from the world;
    His crown bequeathing to his banish'd brother,
    And all their lands restor'd to them again
    That were with him exil'd. This to be true
    I do engage my life.
  DUKE SENIOR. Welcome, young man.
    Thou offer'st fairly to thy brothers' wedding:
    To one, his lands withheld; and to the other,
    A land itself at large, a potent dukedom.
    First, in this forest let us do those ends
    That here were well begun and well begot;
    And after, every of this happy number,
    That have endur'd shrewd days and nights with us,
    Shall share the good of our returned fortune,
    According to the measure of their states.
    Meantime, forget this new-fall'n dignity,
    And fall into our rustic revelry.
    Play, music; and you brides and bridegrooms all,
    With measure heap'd in joy, to th' measures fall.
  JAQUES. Sir, by your patience. If I heard you rightly,
    The Duke hath put on a religious life,
    And thrown into neglect the pompous court.
  JAQUES DE BOYS. He hath.
  JAQUES. To him will I. Out of these convertites
    There is much matter to be heard and learn'd.
    [To DUKE] You to your former honour I bequeath;
    Your patience and your virtue well deserves it.
    [To ORLANDO] You to a love that your true faith doth merit;
    [To OLIVER] You to your land, and love, and great allies
    [To SILVIUS] You to a long and well-deserved bed;
    [To TOUCHSTONE] And you to wrangling; for thy loving voyage
    Is but for two months victuall'd.- So to your pleasures;
    I am for other than for dancing measures.
  DUKE SENIOR. Stay, Jaques, stay.
  JAQUES. To see no pastime I. What you would have
    I'll stay to know at your abandon'd cave.               Exit
  DUKE SENIOR. Proceed, proceed. We will begin these rites,
    As we do trust they'll end, in true delights.    [A dance] Exeunt

EPILOGUE
                           EPILOGUE.
  ROSALIND. It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but
    it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue. If it
    be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play
    needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and
    good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a
    case am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue, nor cannot
    insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not
    furnish'd like a beggar; therefore to beg will not become me. My
    way is to conjure you; and I'll begin with the women. I charge
    you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of
    this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love
    you bear to women- as I perceive by your simp'ring none of you
    hates them- that between you and the women the play may please.
    If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that
    pleas'd me, complexions that lik'd me, and breaths that I defied
    not; and, I am sure, as many as have good beards, or good faces,
    or sweet breaths, will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy,
    bid me farewell.

THE END

1593



THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

SOLINUS, Duke of Ephesus
AEGEON, a merchant of Syracuse

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS twin brothers and sons to
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Aegion and Aemelia

DROMIO OF EPHESUS twin brothers, and attendants on
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE the two Antipholuses

BALTHAZAR, a merchant
ANGELO, a goldsmith
FIRST MERCHANT, friend to Antipholus of Syracuse
SECOND MERCHANT, to whom Angelo is a debtor
PINCH, a schoolmaster

AEMILIA, wife to AEgeon; an abbess at Ephesus
ADRIANA, wife to Antipholus of Ephesus
LUCIANA, her sister
LUCE, servant to Adriana

A COURTEZAN

Gaoler, Officers, Attendants

SCENE: Ephesus

ACT I. SCENE 1

A hall in the DUKE'S palace

Enter the DUKE OF EPHESUS, AEGEON, the Merchant of Syracuse, GAOLER,
OFFICERS, and other ATTENDANTS

AEGEON. Proceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,
  And by the doom of death end woes and all.
DUKE. Merchant of Syracuse, plead no more;
  I am not partial to infringe our laws.
  The enmity and discord which of late
  Sprung from the rancorous outrage of your duke
  To merchants, our well-dealing countrymen,
  Who, wanting guilders to redeem their lives,
  Have seal'd his rigorous statutes with their bloods,
  Excludes all pity from our threat'ning looks.
  For, since the mortal and intestine jars
  'Twixt thy seditious countrymen and us,
  It hath in solemn synods been decreed,
  Both by the Syracusians and ourselves,
  To admit no traffic to our adverse towns;
  Nay, more: if any born at Ephesus
  Be seen at any Syracusian marts and fairs;
  Again, if any Syracusian born
  Come to the bay of Ephesus-he dies,
  His goods confiscate to the Duke's dispose,
  Unless a thousand marks be levied,
  To quit the penalty and to ransom him.
  Thy substance, valued at the highest rate,
  Cannot amount unto a hundred marks;
  Therefore by law thou art condemn'd to die.
AEGEON. Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,
  My woes end likewise with the evening sun.
DUKE. Well, Syracusian, say in brief the cause
  Why thou departed'st from thy native home,
  And for what cause thou cam'st to Ephesus.
AEGEON. A heavier task could not have been impos'd
  Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable;
  Yet, that the world may witness that my end
  Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
  I'll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.
  In Syracuse was I born, and wed
  Unto a woman, happy but for me,
  And by me, had not our hap been bad.
  With her I liv'd in joy; our wealth increas'd
  By prosperous voyages I often made
  To Epidamnum; till my factor's death,
  And the great care of goods at random left,
  Drew me from kind embracements of my spouse:
  From whom my absence was not six months old,
  Before herself, almost at fainting under
  The pleasing punishment that women bear,
  Had made provision for her following me,
  And soon and safe arrived where I was.
  There had she not been long but she became
  A joyful mother of two goodly sons;
  And, which was strange, the one so like the other
  As could not be disdnguish'd but by names.
  That very hour, and in the self-same inn,
  A mean woman was delivered
  Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.
  Those, for their parents were exceeding poor,
  I bought, and brought up to attend my sons.
  My wife, not meanly proud of two such boys,
  Made daily motions for our home return;
  Unwilling, I agreed. Alas! too soon
  We came aboard.
  A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd
  Before the always-wind-obeying deep
  Gave any tragic instance of our harm:
  But longer did we not retain much hope,
  For what obscured light the heavens did grant
  Did but convey unto our fearful minds
  A doubtful warrant of immediate death;
  Which though myself would gladly have embrac'd,
  Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,
  Weeping before for what she saw must come,
  And piteous plainings of the pretty babes,
  That mourn'd for fashion, ignorant what to fear,
  Forc'd me to seek delays for them and me.
  And this it was, for other means was none:
  The sailors sought for safety by our boat,
  And left the ship, then sinking-ripe, to us;
  My wife, more careful for the latter-born,
  Had fast'ned him unto a small spare mast,
  Such as sea-faring men provide for storms;
  To him one of the other twins was bound,
  Whilst I had been like heedful of the other.
  The children thus dispos'd, my wife and I,
  Fixing our eyes on whom our care was fix'd,
  Fast'ned ourselves at either end the mast,
  And, floating straight, obedient to the stream,
  Was carried towards Corinth, as we thought.
  At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,
  Dispers'd those vapours that offended us;
  And, by the benefit of his wished light,
  The seas wax'd calm, and we discovered
  Two ships from far making amain to us-
  Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus this.
  But ere they came-O, let me say no more!
  Gather the sequel by that went before.
DUKE. Nay, forward, old man, do not break off so;
  For we may pity, though not pardon thee.
AEGEON. O, had the gods done so, I had not now
  Worthily term'd them merciless to us!
  For, ere the ships could meet by twice five leagues,
  We were encount'red by a mighty rock,
  Which being violently borne upon,
  Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst;
  So that, in this unjust divorce of us,
  Fortune had left to both of us alike
  What to delight in, what to sorrow for.
  Her part, poor soul, seeming as burdened
  With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe,
  Was carried with more speed before the wind;
  And in our sight they three were taken up
  By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.
  At length another ship had seiz'd on us;
  And, knowing whom it was their hap to save,
  Gave healthful welcome to their ship-wreck'd guests,
  And would have reft the fishers of their prey,
  Had not their bark been very slow of sail;
  And therefore homeward did they bend their course.
  Thus have you heard me sever'd from my bliss,
  That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd,
  To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.
DUKE. And, for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,
  Do me the favour to dilate at full
  What have befall'n of them and thee till now.
AEGEON. My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,
  At eighteen years became inquisitive
  After his brother, and importun'd me
  That his attendant-so his case was like,
  Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-
  Might bear him company in the quest of him;
  Whom whilst I laboured of a love to see,
  I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd.
  Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,
  Roaming clean through the bounds of Asia,
  And, coasting homeward, came to Ephesus;
  Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought
  Or that or any place that harbours men.
  But here must end the story of my life;
  And happy were I in my timely death,
  Could all my travels warrant me they live.
DUKE. Hapless, Aegeon, whom the fates have mark'd
  To bear the extremity of dire mishap!
  Now, trust me, were it not against our laws,
  Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,
  Which princes, would they, may not disannul,
  My soul should sue as advocate for thee.
  But though thou art adjudged to the death,
  And passed sentence may not be recall'd
  But to our honour's great disparagement,
  Yet will I favour thee in what I can.
  Therefore, merchant, I'll limit thee this day
  To seek thy help by beneficial hap.
  Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus;
  Beg thou, or borrow, to make up the sum,
  And live; if no, then thou art doom'd to die.
  Gaoler, take him to thy custody.
GAOLER. I will, my lord.
AEGEON. Hopeless and helpless doth Aegeon wend,
  But to procrastinate his lifeless end.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE 2

The mart

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and FIRST MERCHANT

FIRST MERCHANT. Therefore, give out you are of Epidamnum,
  Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.
  This very day a Syracusian merchant
  Is apprehended for arrival here;
  And, not being able to buy out his life,
  According to the statute of the town,
  Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.
  There is your money that I had to keep.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go bear it to the Centaur, where we host.
  And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.
  Within this hour it will be dinner-time;
  Till that, I'll view the manners of the town,
  Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings,
  And then return and sleep within mine inn;
  For with long travel I am stiff and weary.
  Get thee away.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Many a man would take you at your word,
  And go indeed, having so good a mean.

 [_Exit._]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. A trusty villain, sir, that very oft,
  When I am dull with care and melancholy,
  Lightens my humour with his merry jests.
  What, will you walk with me about the town,
  And then go to my inn and dine with me?
FIRST MERCHANT. I am invited, sir, to certain merchants,
  Of whom I hope to make much benefit;
  I crave your pardon. Soon at five o'clock,
  Please you, I'll meet with you upon the mart,
  And afterward consort you till bed time.
  My present business calls me from you now.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Farewell till then. I will go lose myself,
  And wander up and down to view the city.
FIRST MERCHANT. Sir, I commend you to your own content.

 [_Exit FIRST MERCHANT._]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He that commends me to mine own content
  Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
  I to the world am like a drop of water
  That in the ocean seeks another drop,
  Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
  Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.
  So I, to find a mother and a brother,
  In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.

Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS

  Here comes the almanac of my true date.
  What now? How chance thou art return'd so soon?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Return'd so soon! rather approach'd too late.
  The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit;
  The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell-
  My mistress made it one upon my cheek;
  She is so hot because the meat is cold,
  The meat is cold because you come not home,
  You come not home because you have no stomach,
  You have no stomach, having broke your fast;
  But we, that know what 'tis to fast and pray,
  Are penitent for your default to-day.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Stop in your wind, sir; tell me this, I pray:
  Where have you left the money that I gave you?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. O-Sixpence that I had a Wednesday last
  To pay the saddler for my mistress' crupper?
  The saddler had it, sir; I kept it not.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I am not in a sportive humour now;
  Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?
  We being strangers here, how dar'st thou trust
  So great a charge from thine own custody?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.
  I from my mistress come to you in post;
  If I return, I shall be post indeed,
  For she will score your fault upon my pate.
  Methinks your maw, like mine, should be your clock,
  And strike you home without a messenger.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come, Dromio, come, these jests are out of
season;
  Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.
  Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. To me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.
  ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Come on, sir knave, have done your
  foolishness,
  And tell me how thou hast dispos'd thy charge.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. My charge was but to fetch you from the mart
  Home to your house, the Phoenix, sir, to dinner.
  My mistress and her sister stays for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Now, as I am a Christian, answer me
  In what safe place you have bestow'd my money,
  Or I shall break that merry sconce of yours,
  That stands on tricks when I am undispos'd.
  Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I have some marks of yours upon my pate,
  Some of my mistress' marks upon my shoulders,
  But not a thousand marks between you both.
  If I should pay your worship those again,
  Perchance you will not bear them patiently.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy mistress' marks! What mistress, slave, hast
thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Your worship's wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;
  She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,
  And prays that you will hie you home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face,
  Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave.
[Beats him]
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. What mean you, sir? For God's sake hold your hands!
  Nay, an you will not, sir, I'll take my heels.

 [_Exit._]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Upon my life, by some device or other
  The villain is o'erraught of all my money.
  They say this town is full of cozenage;
  As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
  Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
  Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
  Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
  And many such-like liberties of sin;
  If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.
  I'll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.
  I greatly fear my money is not safe.

 [_Exit._]

ACT II. SCENE 1

The house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter ADRIANA, wife to ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, with LUCIANA, her sister

ADRIANA. Neither my husband nor the slave return'd
  That in such haste I sent to seek his master!
  Sure, Luciana, it is two o'clock.
LUCIANA. Perhaps some merchant hath invited him,
  And from the mart he's somewhere gone to dinner;
  Good sister, let us dine, and never fret.
  A man is master of his liberty;
  Time is their master, and when they see time,
  They'll go or come. If so, be patient, sister.
ADRIANA. Why should their liberty than ours be more?
LUCIANA. Because their business still lies out o' door.
ADRIANA. Look when I serve him so, he takes it ill.
LUCIANA. O, know he is the bridle of your will.
ADRIANA. There's none but asses will be bridled so.
LUCIANA. Why, headstrong liberty is lash'd with woe.
  There's nothing situate under heaven's eye
  But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.
  The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
  Are their males' subjects, and at their controls.
  Man, more divine, the master of all these,
  Lord of the wide world and wild wat'ry seas,
  Indu'd with intellectual sense and souls,
  Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
  Are masters to their females, and their lords;
  Then let your will attend on their accords.
ADRIANA. This servitude makes you to keep unwed.
LUCIANA. Not this, but troubles of the marriage-bed.
ADRIANA. But, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.
LUCIANA. Ere I learn love, I'll practise to obey.
ADRIANA. How if your husband start some other where?
LUCIANA. Till he come home again, I would forbear.
ADRIANA. Patience unmov'd! no marvel though she pause:
  They can be meek that have no other cause.
  A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,
  We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
  But were we burd'ned with like weight of pain,
  As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
  So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,
  With urging helpless patience would relieve me;
  But if thou live to see like right bereft,
  This fool-begg'd patience in thee will be left.
LUCIANA. Well, I will marry one day, but to try.
  Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.

Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS

ADRIANA. Say, is your tardy master now at hand?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he's at two hands with me, and that my two
  ears can witness.
ADRIANA. Say, didst thou speak with him? Know'st thou his mind?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, ay, he told his mind upon mine ear.
  Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.
LUCIANA. Spake he so doubtfully thou could'st not feel his meaning?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, he struck so plainly I could to
  well feel his blows; and withal so doubtfully that I could
  scarce understand them.
ADRIANA. But say, I prithee, is he coming home?
  It seems he hath great care to please his wife.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.
ADRIANA. Horn-mad, thou villain!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I mean not cuckold-mad;
  But, sure, he is stark mad.
  When I desir'd him to come home to dinner,
  He ask'd me for a thousand marks in gold.
  "Tis dinner time' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.
  'Your meat doth burn' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.
  'Will you come home?' quoth I; 'My gold!' quoth he.
  'Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?'
  'The pig' quoth I 'is burn'd'; 'My gold!' quoth he.
  'My mistress, sir,' quoth I; 'Hang up thy mistress;
  I know not thy mistress; out on thy mistress.'
LUCIANA. Quoth who?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Quoth my master.
  'I know' quoth he 'no house, no wife, no mistress.'
  So that my errand, due unto my tongue,
  I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders;
  For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.
ADRIANA. Go back again, thou slave, and fetch him home.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Go back again, and be new beaten home?
  For God's sake, send some other messenger.
ADRIANA. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. And he will bless that cross with other beating;
  Between you I shall have a holy head.
ADRIANA. Hence, prating peasant! Fetch thy master home.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Am I so round with you, as you with me,
  That like a football you do spurn me thus?
  You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither;
  If I last in this service, you must case me in leather.

 [_Exit._]

LUCIANA. Fie, how impatience loureth in your face!
ADRIANA. His company must do his minions grace,
  Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.
  Hath homely age th' alluring beauty took
  From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it.
  Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?
  If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
  Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.
  Do their gay vestments his affections bait?
  That's not my fault; he's master of my state.
  What ruins are in me that can be found
  By him not ruin'd? Then is he the ground
  Of my defeatures. My decayed fair
  A sunny look of his would soon repair.
  But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,
  And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale.
LUCIANA. Self-harming jealousy! fie, beat it hence.
ADRIANA. Unfeeling fools can with such wrongs dispense.
  I know his eye doth homage otherwhere;
  Or else what lets it but he would be here?
  Sister, you know he promis'd me a chain;
  Would that alone a love he would detain,
  So he would keep fair quarter with his bed!
  I see the jewel best enamelled
  Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still
  That others touch and, often touching, will
  Where gold; and no man that hath a name
  By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.
  Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,
  I'll weep what's left away, and weeping die.
LUCIANA. How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE 2

The mart

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The gold I gave to Dromio is laid up
  Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful slave
  Is wand'red forth in care to seek me out.
  By computation and mine host's report
  I could not speak with Dromio since at first
  I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

  How now, sir, is your merry humour alter'd?
  As you love strokes, so jest with me again.
  You know no Centaur! You receiv'd no gold!
  Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner!
  My house was at the Phoenix! Wast thou mad,
  That thus so madly thou didst answer me?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. What answer, sir? When spake I such a word?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Even now, even here, not half an hour since.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I did not see you since you sent me hence,
  Home to the Centaur, with the gold you gave me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou didst deny the gold's receipt,
  And told'st me of a mistress and a dinner;
  For which, I hope, thou felt'st I was displeas'd.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am glad to see you in this merry vein.
  What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?
  Think'st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.
[Beating him]
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Hold, sir, for God's sake! Now your jest is
earnest.
  Upon what bargain do you give it me?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Because that I familiarly sometimes
  Do use you for my fool and chat with you,
  Your sauciness will jest upon my love,
  And make a common of my serious hours.
  When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,
  But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.
  If you will jest with me, know my aspect,
  And fashion your demeanour to my looks,
  Or I will beat this method in your sconce.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sconce, call you it? So you would
  leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An you use
  these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head, and
  insconce it too; or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders.
  But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Dost thou not know?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nothing, sir, but that I am beaten.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Shall I tell you why?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, and wherefore; for they say
  every why hath a wherefore.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, first for flouting me; and then wherefore,
  For urging it the second time to me.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Was there ever any man thus beaten out of season,
  When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason?
  Well, sir, I thank you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thank me, sir! for what?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, for this something that you gave
  me for nothing.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I'll make you amends next, to
  give you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinnertime?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir; I think the meat wants that I have.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In good time, sir, what's that?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Basting.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, then 'twill be dry.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. If it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Your reason?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Lest it make you choleric, and purchase me
  another dry basting.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, learn to jest in good time;
  there's a time for all things.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I durst have denied that, before you
  were so choleric.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By what rule, sir?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the
  plain bald pate of Father Time himself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Let's hear it.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There's no time for a man to recover
  his hair that grows bald by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. May he not do it by fine and recovery?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Yes, to pay a fine for a periwig, and
  recover the lost hair of another man.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why is Time such a niggard of
  hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Because it is a blessing that he bestows
  on beasts, and what he hath scanted men in hair he hath
  given them in wit.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, but there's many a man
  hath more hair than wit.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not a man of those but he hath the
  wit to lose his hair.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, thou didst conclude hairy
  men plain dealers without wit.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The plainer dealer, the sooner lost;
  yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For what reason?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. For two; and sound ones too.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sound I pray you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Sure ones, then.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Nay, not sure, in a thing falsing.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Certain ones, then.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Name them.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. The one, to save the money that he spends in
  tiring; the other, that at dinner they should not drop in his
  porridge.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. You would all this time have prov'd there
  is no time for all things.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, and did, sir; namely, no time to recover
  hair lost by nature.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. But your reason was not substantial, why
  there is no time to recover.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Thus I mend it: Time himself is bald,
  and therefore to the world's end will have bald followers.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I knew 't'would be a bald conclusion. But,
  soft, who wafts us yonder?

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA

ADRIANA. Ay, ay, Antipholus, look strange and frown.
  Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects;
  I am not Adriana, nor thy wife.
  The time was once when thou unurg'd wouldst vow
  That never words were music to thine ear,
  That never object pleasing in thine eye,
  That never touch well welcome to thy hand,
  That never meat sweet-savour'd in thy taste,
  Unless I spake, or look'd, or touch'd, or carv'd to thee.
  How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,
  That thou art then estranged from thyself?
  Thyself I call it, being strange to me,
  That, undividable, incorporate,
  Am better than thy dear self's better part.
  Ah, do not tear away thyself from me;
  For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall
  A drop of water in the breaking gulf,
  And take unmingled thence that drop again
  Without addition or diminishing,
  As take from me thyself, and not me too.
  How dearly would it touch thee to the quick,
  Should'st thou but hear I were licentious,
  And that this body, consecrate to thee,
  By ruffian lust should be contaminate!
  Wouldst thou not spit at me and spurn at me,
  And hurl the name of husband in my face,
  And tear the stain'd skin off my harlot-brow,
  And from my false hand cut the wedding-ring,
  And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?
  I know thou canst, and therefore see thou do it.
  I am possess'd with an adulterate blot;
  My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;
  For if we two be one, and thou play false,
  I do digest the poison of thy flesh,
  Being strumpeted by thy contagion.
  Keep then fair league and truce with thy true bed;
  I live dis-stain'd, thou undishonoured.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:
  In Ephesus I am but two hours old,
  As strange unto your town as to your talk,
  Who, every word by all my wit being scann'd,
  Wants wit in all one word to understand.
LUCIANA. Fie, brother, how the world is chang'd with you!
  When were you wont to use my sister thus?
  She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. By Dromio?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By me?
ADRIANA. By thee; and this thou didst return from him-
  That he did buffet thee, and in his blows
  Denied my house for his, me for his wife.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Did you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?
  What is the course and drift of your compact?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, Sir? I never saw her till this time.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Villain, thou liest; for even her very words
  Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I never spake with her in all my life.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How can she thus, then, call us by our names,
  Unless it be by inspiration?
ADRIANA. How ill agrees it with your gravity
  To counterfeit thus grossly with your slave,
  Abetting him to thwart me in my mood!
  Be it my wrong you are from me exempt,
  But wrong not that wrong with a more contempt.
  Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine;
  Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,
  Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,
  Makes me with thy strength to communicate.
  If aught possess thee from me, it is dross,
  Usurping ivy, brier, or idle moss;
  Who all, for want of pruning, with intrusion
  Infect thy sap, and live on thy confusion.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme.
  What, was I married to her in my dream?
  Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?
  What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
  Until I know this sure uncertainty,
  I'll entertain the offer'd fallacy.
LUCIANA. Dromio, go bid the servants spread for dinner.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, for my beads! I cross me for sinner.
  This is the fairy land. O spite of spites!
  We talk with goblins, owls, and sprites.
  If we obey them not, this will ensue:
  They'll suck our breath, or pinch us black and blue.
LUCIANA. Why prat'st thou to thyself, and answer'st not?
  Dromio, thou drone, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am transformed, master, am not I?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think thou art in mind, and so am I.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, master, both in mind and in my shape.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou hast thine own form.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, I am an ape.
LUCIANA. If thou art chang'd to aught, 'tis to an ass.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Tis true; she rides me, and I long for grass.
  'Tis so, I am an ass; else it could never be
  But I should know her as well as she knows me.
ADRIANA. Come, come, no longer will I be a fool,
  To put the finger in the eye and weep,
  Whilst man and master laughs my woes to scorn.
  Come, sir, to dinner. Dromio, keep the gate.
  Husband, I'll dine above with you to-day,
  And shrive you of a thousand idle pranks.
  Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,
  Say he dines forth, and let no creature enter.
  Come, sister. Dromio, play the porter well.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell?
  Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advis'd?
  Known unto these, and to myself disguis'd!
  I'll say as they say, and persever so,
  And in this mist at all adventures go.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I be porter at the gate?
ADRIANA. Ay; and let none enter, lest I break your pate.
LUCIANA. Come, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.

 [_Exeunt._]

ACT III. SCENE 1

Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, DROMIO OF EPHESUS, ANGELO, and BALTHAZAR

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all;
  My wife is shrewish when I keep not hours.
  Say that I linger'd with you at your shop
  To see the making of her carcanet,
  And that to-morrow you will bring it home.
  But here's a villain that would face me down
  He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,
  And charg'd him with a thousand marks in gold,
  And that I did deny my wife and house.
  Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Say what you will, sir, but I know what I know.
  That you beat me at the mart I have your hand to show;
  If the skin were parchment, and the blows you gave were ink,
  Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I think thou art an ass.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Marry, so it doth appear
  By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.
  I should kick, being kick'd; and being at that pass,
  You would keep from my heels, and beware of an ass.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Y'are sad, Signior Balthazar; pray God our cheer
  May answer my good will and your good welcome here.
BALTHAZAR. I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O, Signior Balthazar, either at flesh or fish,
  A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.
BALTHAZAR. Good meat, sir, is common; that every churl affords.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And welcome more common; for that's nothing
  but words.
BALTHAZAR. Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Ay, to a niggardly host and more sparing guest.
  But though my cates be mean, take them in good part;
  Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart.
  But, soft, my door is lock'd; go bid them let us in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Maud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Ginn!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. [Within] Mome, malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot,
patch!
  Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch.
  Dost thou conjure for wenches, that thou call'st for such store,
  When one is one too many? Go get thee from the door.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. What patch is made our porter?
  My master stays in the street.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Let him walk from whence he came,
    lest he catch cold on's feet.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Who talks within there? Ho, open the door!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Right, sir; I'll tell you when,
    an you'll tell me wherefore.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wherefore? For my dinner;
    I have not din'd to-day.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Nor to-day here you must not;
    come again when you may.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What art thou that keep'st me out
    from the house I owe?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  The porter for this time,
    sir, and my name is Dromio.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Villain, thou hast stol'n both mine
    office and my name!
  The one ne'er got me credit, the other mickle blame.
  If thou hadst been Dromio to-day in my place,
  Thou wouldst have chang'd thy face for a name, or thy name for an
  ass.

Enter LUCE, within

LUCE.  [Within]  What a coil is there, Dromio? Who are those at the
gate?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Let my master in, Luce.
LUCE.  [Within]  Faith, no, he comes too late;
  And so tell your master.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. O Lord, I must laugh!
  Have at you with a proverb: Shall I set in my staff?
LUCE.  [Within]  Have at you with another: that's-when? can you tell?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  If thy name be called Luce
    -Luce, thou hast answer'd him well.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do you hear, you minion? You'll let us in, I
hope?
LUCE.  [Within]  I thought to have ask'd you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  And you said no.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. SO, Come, help: well struck! there was blow for
blow.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou baggage, let me in.
LUCE.  [Within]  Can you tell for whose sake?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, knock the door hard.
LUCE.  [Within]  Let him knock till it ache.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You'll cry for this, minion, if beat the door
down.
LUCE.  [Within] What needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?

Enter ADRIANA, within

ADRIANA.  [Within]  Who is that at the door, that keeps all this noise?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  By my troth, your town is
    troubled with unruly boys.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Are you there, wife? You might
    have come before.
ADRIANA.  [Within]  Your wife, sir knave! Go get you from the door.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. If YOU went in pain, master, this 'knave' would go
sore.
ANGELO. Here is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome; we would fain have
either.
BALTHAZAR. In debating which was best, we shall part with neither.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. They stand at the door, master; bid them welcome
hither.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is something in the wind, that we cannot
get in.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. You would say so, master, if your garments were
thin.
  Your cake here is warm within; you stand here in the cold;
  It would make a man mad as a buck to be so bought and sold.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go fetch me something; I'll break ope the gate.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Break any breaking here,
    and I'll break your knave's pate.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. A man may break a word with you,
    sir; and words are but wind;
  Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  It seems thou want'st breaking;
    out upon thee, hind!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's too much 'out upon thee!' pray thee let me
in.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.  [Within]  Ay, when fowls have no
    feathers and fish have no fin.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Well, I'll break in; go borrow me a crow.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. A crow without feather? Master, mean you so?
  For a fish without a fin, there's a fowl without a feather;
  If a crow help us in, sirrah, we'll pluck a crow together.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Go get thee gone; fetch me an iron crow.
BALTHAZAR. Have patience, sir; O, let it not be so!
  Herein you war against your reputation,
  And draw within the compass of suspect
  Th' unviolated honour of your wife.
  Once this-your long experience of her wisdom,
  Her sober virtue, years, and modesty,
  Plead on her part some cause to you unknown;
  And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse
  Why at this time the doors are made against you.
  Be rul'd by me: depart in patience,
  And let us to the Tiger all to dinner;
  And, about evening, come yourself alone
  To know the reason of this strange restraint.
  If by strong hand you offer to break in
  Now in the stirring passage of the day,
  A vulgar comment will be made of it,
  And that supposed by the common rout
  Against your yet ungalled estimation
  That may with foul intrusion enter in
  And dwell upon your grave when you are dead;
  For slander lives upon succession,
  For ever hous'd where it gets possession.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You have prevail'd. I will depart in quiet,
  And in despite of mirth mean to be merry.
  I know a wench of excellent discourse,
  Pretty and witty; wild, and yet, too, gentle;
  There will we dine. This woman that I mean,
  My wife-but, I protest, without desert-
  Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal;
  To her will we to dinner.  [To ANGELO]  Get you home
  And fetch the chain; by this I know 'tis made.
  Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine;
  For there's the house. That chain will I bestow-
  Be it for nothing but to spite my wife-
  Upon mine hostess there; good sir, make haste.
  Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
  I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me.
ANGELO. I'll meet you at that place some hour hence.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Do so; this jest shall cost me some expense.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE 2

Before the house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter LUCIANA with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

LUCIANA. And may it be that you have quite forgot
  A husband's office? Shall, Antipholus,
  Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
  Shall love, in building, grow so ruinous?
  If you did wed my sister for her wealth,
  Then for her wealth's sake use her with more kindness;
  Or, if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth;
  Muffle your false love with some show of blindness;
  Let not my sister read it in your eye;
  Be not thy tongue thy own shame's orator;
  Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty;
  Apparel vice like virtue's harbinger;
  Bear a fair presence, though your heart be tainted;
  Teach sin the carriage of a holy saint;
  Be secret-false. What need she be acquainted?
  What simple thief brags of his own attaint?
  'Tis double wrong to truant with your bed
  And let her read it in thy looks at board;
  Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed;
  Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.
  Alas, poor women! make us but believe,
  Being compact of credit, that you love us;
  Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve;
  We in your motion turn, and you may move us.
  Then, gentle brother, get you in again;
  Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife.
  'Tis holy sport to be a little vain
  When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Sweet mistress-what your name is else, I know
not,
  Nor by what wonder you do hit of mine-
  Less in your knowledge and your grace you show not
  Than our earth's wonder-more than earth, divine.
  Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak;
  Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,
  Smoth'red in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,
  The folded meaning of your words' deceit.
  Against my soul's pure truth why labour you
  To make it wander in an unknown field?
  Are you a god? Would you create me new?
  Transform me, then, and to your pow'r I'll yield.
  But if that I am I, then well I know
  Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
  Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;
  Far more, far more, to you do I decline.
  O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,
  To drown me in thy sister's flood of tears.
  Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;
  Spread o'er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
  And as a bed I'll take them, and there he;
  And in that glorious supposition think
  He gains by death that hath such means to die.
  Let Love, being light, be drowned if she sink.
LUCIANA. What, are you mad, that you do reason so?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Not mad, but mated; how, I do not know.
LUCIANA. It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
LUCIANA. Gaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
LUCIANA. Why call you me love? Call my sister so.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thy sister's sister.
LUCIANA. That's my sister.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No;
  It is thyself, mine own self's better part;
  Mine eye's clear eye, my dear heart's dearer heart,
  My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope's aim,
  My sole earth's heaven, and my heaven's claim.
LUCIANA. All this my sister is, or else should be.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee;
  Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
  Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife.
  Give me thy hand.
LUCIANA. O, soft, sir, hold you still;
  I'll fetch my sister to get her good will.

 [_Exit LUCIANA._]

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, how now, Dromio! Where run'st thou
  so fast?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Do you know me, sir? Am I Dromio?
  Am I your man? Am I myself?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art Dromio, thou art my
  man, thou art thyself.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I am an ass, I am a woman's man, and besides
  myself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What woman's man, and how besides thyself?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due
  to a woman-one that claims me, one that haunts me, one
  that will have me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What claim lays she to thee?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, such claim as you would
  lay to your horse; and she would have me as a beast: not
  that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she,
  being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is she?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A very reverent body; ay, such a one
  as a man may not speak of without he say 'Sir-reverence.'
  I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a
  wondrous fat marriage.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. How dost thou mean a fat marriage?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, she's the kitchen-wench,
  and all grease; and I know not what use to put her to but
  to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light.
  I warrant, her rags and the tallow in them will burn
  Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she'll burn
  week longer than the whole world.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What complexion is she of?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Swart, like my shoe; but her face
  nothing like so clean kept; for why, she sweats, a man may
  go over shoes in the grime of it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. That's a fault that water will mend.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, 'tis in grain; Noah's flood
  could not do it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What's her name?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nell, sir; but her name and three
  quarters, that's an ell and three quarters, will not measure
  her from hip to hip.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Then she bears some breadth?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No longer from head to foot than
  from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe; I could find
  out countries in her.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. In what part of her body stands Ireland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by
  the bogs.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Scotland?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I found it by the barrenness, hard in
  the palm of the hand.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where France?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. In her forehead, arm'd and reverted,
  making war against her heir.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where England?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I look'd for the chalky cliffs, but I
  could find no whiteness in them; but I guess it stood in her
  chin, by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where Spain?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot in
  her breath.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where America, the Indies?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, sir, upon her nose, an o'er embellished with
  rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich aspect to the
  hot breath of Spain; who sent whole armadoes of caracks to be
  ballast at her nose.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, Sir, I did not look so low. To
  conclude: this drudge or diviner laid claim to me; call'd me
  Dromio; swore I was assur'd to her; told me what privy
  marks I had about me, as, the mark of my shoulder, the
  mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I,
  amaz'd, ran from her as a witch.
  And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith,
    and my heart of steel,
  She had transform'd me to a curtal dog, and made me turn i' th'
  wheel.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Go hie thee presently post to the road;
  An if the wind blow any way from shore,
  I will not harbour in this town to-night.
  If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
  Where I will walk till thou return to me.
  If every one knows us, and we know none,
  'Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. As from a bear a man would run for life,
  So fly I from her that would be my wife.

 [_Exit._]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's none but witches do inhabit here,
  And therefore 'tis high time that I were hence.
  She that doth call me husband, even my soul
  Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,
  Possess'd with such a gentle sovereign grace,
  Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
  Hath almost made me traitor to myself;
  But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong,
  I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song.

Enter ANGELO with the chain

ANGELO. Master Antipholus!
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Ay, that's my name.
ANGELO. I know it well, sir. Lo, here is the chain.
  I thought to have ta'en you at the Porpentine;
  The chain unfinish'd made me stay thus long.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What is your will that I shall do with this?
ANGELO. What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Made it for me, sir! I bespoke it not.
ANGELO. Not once nor twice, but twenty times you have.
  Go home with it, and please your wife withal;
  And soon at supper-time I'll visit you,
  And then receive my money for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
  For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more.
ANGELO. You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.
[Exit]
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What I should think of this cannot tell:
  But this I think, there's no man is so vain
  That would refuse so fair an offer'd chain.
  I see a man here needs not live by shifts,
  When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.
  I'll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;
  If any ship put out, then straight away.
[Exit]

ACT IV. SCENE 1

A public place

Enter SECOND MERCHANT, ANGELO, and an OFFICER

SECOND MERCHANT. You know since Pentecost the sum is due,
  And since I have not much importun'd you;
  Nor now I had not, but that I am bound
  To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage.
  Therefore make present satisfaction,
  Or I'll attach you by this officer.
ANGELO. Even just the sum that I do owe to you
  Is growing to me by Antipholus;
  And in the instant that I met with you
  He had of me a chain; at five o'clock
  I shall receive the money for the same.
  Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,
  I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS, from the
COURTEZAN'S

OFFICER. That labour may you save; see where he comes.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. While I go to the goldsmith's house, go thou
  And buy a rope's end; that will I bestow
  Among my wife and her confederates,
  For locking me out of my doors by day.
  But, soft, I see the goldsmith. Get thee gone;
  Buy thou a rope, and bring it home to me.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I buy a thousand pound a year; I buy a rope.
[Exit DROMIO]
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. A man is well holp up that trusts to you!
  I promised your presence and the chain;
  But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.
  Belike you thought our love would last too long,
  If it were chain'd together, and therefore came not.
ANGELO. Saving your merry humour, here's the note
  How much your chain weighs to the utmost carat,
  The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,
  Which doth amount to three odd ducats more
  Than I stand debted to this gentleman.
  I pray you see him presently discharg'd,
  For he is bound to sea, and stays but for it.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I am not furnish'd with the present money;
  Besides, I have some business in the town.
  Good signior, take the stranger to my house,
  And with you take the chain, and bid my wife
  Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof.
  Perchance I will be there as soon as you.
ANGELO. Then you will bring the chain to her yourself?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; bear it with you, lest I come not time
enough.
ANGELO. Well, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. An if I have not, sir, I hope you have;
  Or else you may return without your money.
ANGELO. Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;
  Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,
  And I, to blame, have held him here too long.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Good Lord! you use this dalliance to excuse
  Your breach of promise to the Porpentine;
  I should have chid you for not bringing it,
  But, like a shrew, you first begin to brawl.
SECOND MERCHANT. The hour steals on; I pray you, sir, dispatch.
ANGELO. You hear how he importunes me-the chain!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Why, give it to my wife, and fetch your money.
ANGELO. Come, come, you know I gave it you even now.
  Either send the chain or send by me some token.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fie, now you run this humour out of breath!
  Come, where's the chain? I pray you let me see it.
SECOND MERCHANT. My business cannot brook this dalliance.
  Good sir, say whe'r you'll answer me or no;
  If not, I'll leave him to the officer.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I answer you! What should I answer you?
ANGELO. The money that you owe me for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I owe you none till I receive the chain.
ANGELO. You know I gave it you half an hour since.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You gave me none; you wrong me much to say so.
ANGELO. You wrong me more, sir, in denying it.
  Consider how it stands upon my credit.
SECOND MERCHANT. Well, officer, arrest him at my suit.
OFFICER. I do; and charge you in the Duke's name to obey me.
ANGELO. This touches me in reputation.
  Either consent to pay this sum for me,
  Or I attach you by this officer.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Consent to pay thee that I never had!
  Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar'st.
ANGELO. Here is thy fee; arrest him, officer.
  I would not spare my brother in this case,
  If he should scorn me so apparently.
OFFICER. I do arrest you, sir; you hear the suit.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I do obey thee till I give thee bail.
  But, sirrah, you shall buy this sport as dear
  As all the metal in your shop will answer.
ANGELO. Sir, sir, I shall have law in Ephesus,
  To your notorious shame, I doubt it not.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, from the bay

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, there's a bark of Epidamnum
  That stays but till her owner comes aboard,
  And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage, sir,
  I have convey'd aboard; and I have bought
  The oil, the balsamum, and aqua-vitx.
  The ship is in her trim; the merry wind
  Blows fair from land; they stay for nought at an
  But for their owner, master, and yourself.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. How now! a madman? Why, thou peevish sheep,
  What ship of Epidamnum stays for me?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. THOU drunken slave! I sent the for a rope;
  And told thee to what purpose and what end.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. YOU sent me for a rope's end as soon-
  You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I Will debate this matter at more leisure,
  And teach your ears to list me with more heed.
  To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight;
  Give her this key, and tell her in the desk
  That's cover'd o'er with Turkish tapestry
  There is a purse of ducats; let her send it.
  Tell her I am arrested in the street,
  And that shall bail me; hie thee, slave, be gone.
  On, officer, to prison till it come.
[Exeunt all but DROMIO]
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. To Adriana! that is where we din'd,
  Where Dowsabel did claim me for her husband.
  She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.
  Thither I must, although against my will,
  For servants must their masters' minds fulfil.
[Exit]

SCENE 2

The house of ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS

Enter ADRIANA and LUCIANA

ADRIANA. Ah, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?
  Might'st thou perceive austerely in his eye
  That he did plead in earnest? Yea or no?
  Look'd he or red or pale, or sad or merrily?
  What observation mad'st thou in this case
  Of his heart's meteors tilting in his face?
LUCIANA. First he denied you had in him no right.
ADRIANA. He meant he did me none-the more my spite.
LUCIANA. Then swore he that he was a stranger here.
ADRIANA. And true he swore, though yet forsworn he were.
LUCIANA. Then pleaded I for you.
ADRIANA. And what said he?
LUCIANA. That love I begg'd for you he begg'd of me.
ADRIANA. With what persuasion did he tempt thy love?
LUCIANA. With words that in an honest suit might move.
  First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.
ADRIANA. Didst speak him fair?
LUCIANA. Have patience, I beseech.
ADRIANA. I cannot, nor I will not hold me still;
  My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.
  He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere,
  Ill-fac'd, worse bodied, shapeless everywhere;
  Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind;
  Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.
LUCIANA. Who would be jealous then of such a one?
  No evil lost is wail'd when it is gone.
ADRIANA. Ah, but I think him better than I say,
  And yet would herein others' eyes were worse.
  Far from her nest the lapwing cries away;
  My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Here go-the desk, the purse. Sweet
  now, make haste.
LUCIANA. How hast thou lost thy breath?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. By running fast.
ADRIANA. Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, he's in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
  A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;
  One whose hard heart is button'd up with steel;
  A fiend, a fairy, pitiless and rough;
  A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff;
  A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands
  The passages of alleys, creeks, and narrow lands;
  A hound that runs counter, and yet draws dry-foot well;
  One that, before the Judgment, carries poor souls to hell.
ADRIANA. Why, man, what is the matter?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I do not know the matter; he is rested on the case.
ADRIANA. What, is he arrested? Tell me, at whose suit?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I know not at whose suit he is arrested well;
  But he's in a suit of buff which 'rested him, that can I tell.
  Will you send him, mistress, redemption, the money in his desk?
ADRIANA. Go fetch it, sister.  [Exit LUCIANA]  This I wonder at:
  Thus he unknown to me should be in debt.
  Tell me, was he arrested on a band?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. on a band, but on a stronger thing,
  A chain, a chain. Do you not hear it ring?
ADRIANA. What, the chain?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No, no, the bell; 'tis time that I were gone.
  It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.
ADRIANA. The hours come back! That did I never hear.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O yes. If any hour meet a sergeant,
    'a turns back for very fear.
ADRIANA. As if Time were in debt! How fondly dost thou reason!
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Time is a very bankrupt, and owes
    more than he's worth to season.
  Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say
  That Time comes stealing on by night and day?
  If 'a be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way,
  Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day?

Re-enter LUCIANA with a purse

ADRIANA. Go, Dromio, there's the money; bear it straight,
  And bring thy master home immediately.
  Come, sister; I am press'd down with conceit-
  Conceit, my comfort and my injury.
[Exeunt]

SCENE 3

The mart

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
  As if I were their well-acquainted friend;
  And every one doth call me by my name.
  Some tender money to me, some invite me,
  Some other give me thanks for kindnesses,
  Some offer me commodities to buy;
  Even now a tailor call'd me in his shop,
  And show'd me silks that he had bought for me,
  And therewithal took measure of my body.
  Sure, these are but imaginary wiles,
  And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here.

Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, here's the gold you sent me
  for. What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparell'd?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What gold is this? What Adam dost thou mean?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not that Adam that kept the Paradise,
  but that Adam that keeps the prison; he that goes in the
  calf's skin that was kill'd for the Prodigal; he that came behind
  you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I understand thee not.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. No? Why, 'tis a plain case: he that
  went, like a bass-viol, in a case of leather; the man, sir,
  that, when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob, and rest
  them; he, sir, that takes pity on decayed men, and give
  them suits of durance; he that sets up his rest to do more
  exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. What, thou mean'st an officer?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Ay, sir, the sergeant of the band;
  that brings any man to answer it that breaks his band; on
  that thinks a man always going to bed, and says 'God give
  you good rest!'
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Well, sir, there rest in your foolery. Is
  there any ship puts forth to-night? May we be gone?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Why, sir, I brought you word an
  hour since that the bark Expedition put forth to-night; and
  then were you hind'red by the sergeant, to tarry for the
  boy Delay. Here are the angels that you sent for to deliver you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. The fellow is distract, and so am I;
  And here we wander in illusions.
  Some blessed power deliver us from hence!

Enter a COURTEZAN

COURTEZAN. Well met, well met, Master Antipholus.
  I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now.
  Is that the chain you promis'd me to-day?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Satan, avoid! I charge thee, tempt me not.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, is this Mistress Satan?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. It is the devil.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Nay, she is worse, she is the devil's
  dam, and here she comes in the habit of a light wench; and
  thereof comes that the wenches say 'God damn me!' That's
  as much to say 'God make me a light wench!' It is written
  they appear to men like angels of light; light is an effect
  of fire, and fire will burn; ergo, light wenches will burn.
  Come not near her.
COURTEZAN. Your man and you are marvellous merry, sir.
  Will you go with me? We'll mend our dinner here.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, if you do, expect spoon-meat,
  or bespeak a long spoon.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Why, Dromio?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Marry, he must have a long spoon
  that must eat with the devil.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avoid then, fiend! What tell'st thou me of
supping?
  Thou art, as you are all, a sorceress;
  I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.
COURTEZAN. Give me the ring of mine you had at dinner,
  Or, for my diamond, the chain you promis'd,
  And I'll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail,
  A rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,
  A nut, a cherry-stone;
  But she, more covetous, would have a chain.
  Master, be wise; an if you give it her,
  The devil will shake her chain, and fright us with it.
COURTEZAN. I pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain;
  I hope you do not mean to cheat me so.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Avaunt, thou witch! Come, Dromio, let us go.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. 'Fly pride' says the peacock. Mistress, that you
know.
[Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE
COURTEZAN. Now, out of doubt, Antipholus is mad,
  Else would he never so demean himself.
  A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,
  And for the same he promis'd me a chain;
  Both one and other he denies me now.
  The reason that I gather he is mad,
  Besides this present instance of his rage,
  Is a mad tale he told to-day at dinner
  Of his own doors being shut against his entrance.
  Belike his wife, acquainted with his fits,
  On purpose shut the doors against his way.
  My way is now to hie home to his house,
  And tell his wife that, being lunatic,
  He rush'd into my house and took perforce
  My ring away. This course I fittest choose,
  For forty ducats is too much to lose.
[Exit]

SCENE 4

A street

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS with the OFFICER

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Fear me not, man; I will not break away.
  I'll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money,
  To warrant thee, as I am 'rested for.
  My wife is in a wayward mood to-day,
  And will not lightly trust the messenger.
  That I should be attach'd in Ephesus,
  I tell you 'twill sound harshly in her cars.

Enter DROMIO OF EPHESUS, with a rope's-end

  Here comes my man; I think he brings the money. How now, sir! Have
  you that I sent you for? DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Here's that, I warrant
  you, will pay them all. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. But where's the money?
  DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Why, sir, I gave the money for the rope.
  ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Five hundred ducats, villain, for rope? DROMIO
  OF EPHESUS. I'll serve you, sir, five hundred at the rate. ANTIPHOLUS
  OF EPHESUS. To what end did I bid thee hie thee home? DROMIO OF
  EPHESUS. To a rope's-end, sir; and to that end am I return'd.
  ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And to that end, sir, I will welcome you.
  [Beating him] OFFICER. Good sir, be patient. DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay,
  'tis for me to be patient; I am in adversity. OFFICER. Good now, hold
  thy tongue. DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, rather persuade him to hold his
  hands. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou whoreson, senseless villain!
  DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I would I were senseless, sir, that I might not
  feel your blows. ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou art sensible in nothing
  but blows, and so is an ass. DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I am an ass indeed;
  you may prove it by my long 'ears. I have served him from the hour of
  my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my
  service but blows. When I am cold he heats me with beating; when I am
  warm he cools me with beating. I am wak'd with it when I sleep;
  rais'd with it when I sit; driven out of doors with it when I go from
  home; welcom'd home with it when I return; nay, I bear it on my
  shoulders as beggar wont her brat; and I think, when he hath lam'd
  me, I shall beg with it from door to door.

Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and a SCHOOLMASTER call'd PINCH

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Come, go along; my wife is coming yonder.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Mistress, 'respice finem,' respect your end; or
  rather, to prophesy like the parrot, 'Beware the rope's-end.'
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Wilt thou still talk?
[Beating him]
COURTEZAN. How say you now? Is not your husband mad?
ADRIANA. His incivility confirms no less.
  Good Doctor Pinch, you are a conjurer:
  Establish him in his true sense again,
  And I will please you what you will demand.
LUCIANA. Alas, how fiery and how sharp he looks!
COURTEZAN. Mark how he trembles in his ecstasy.
PINCH. Give me your hand, and let me feel your pulse.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There is my hand, and let it feel your ear.
[Striking him]
PINCH. I charge thee, Satan, hous'd within this man,
  To yield possession to my holy prayers,
  And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight.
  I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Peace, doting wizard, peace! I am not mad.
ADRIANA. O, that thou wert not, poor distressed soul!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. You minion, you, are these your customers?
  Did this companion with the saffron face
  Revel and feast it at my house to-day,
  Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,
  And I denied to enter in my house?
ADRIANA. O husband, God doth know you din'd at home,
  Where would you had remain'd until this time,
  Free from these slanders and this open shame!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Din'd at home! Thou villain, what sayest thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, Sooth to say, you did not dine at home.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Were not my doors lock'd up and I shut out?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Perdie, your doors were lock'd and you shut out.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not she herself revile me there?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sans fable, she herself revil'd you there.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Did not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt, and scorn
me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Certes, she did; the kitchen-vestal scorn'd you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And did not I in rage depart from thence?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. In verity, you did. My bones bear witness,
  That since have felt the vigour of his rage.
ADRIANA. Is't good to soothe him in these contraries?
PINCH. It is no shame; the fellow finds his vein,
  And, yielding to him, humours well his frenzy.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou hast suborn'd the goldsmith to arrest me.
ADRIANA. Alas, I sent you money to redeem you,
  By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Money by me! Heart and goodwill you might,
  But surely, master, not a rag of money.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Went'st not thou to her for purse of ducats?
ADRIANA. He came to me, and I deliver'd it.
LUCIANA. And I am witness with her that she did.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. God and the rope-maker bear me witness
  That I was sent for nothing but a rope!
PINCH. Mistress, both man and master is possess'd;
  I know it by their pale and deadly looks.
  They must be bound, and laid in some dark room.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Say, wherefore didst thou lock me forth to-day?
  And why dost thou deny the bag of gold?
ADRIANA. I did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. And, gentle master, I receiv'd no gold;
  But I confess, sir, that we were lock'd out.
ADRIANA. Dissembling villain, thou speak'st false in both.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dissembling harlot, thou art false in all,
  And art confederate with a damned pack
  To make a loathsome abject scorn of me;
  But with these nails I'll pluck out these false eyes
  That would behold in me this shameful sport.
ADRIANA. O, bind him, bind him; let him not come near me.
PINCH. More company! The fiend is strong within him.

Enter three or four, and offer to bind him. He strives

LUCIANA. Ay me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. What, will you murder me? Thou gaoler, thou,
  I am thy prisoner. Wilt thou suffer them
  To make a rescue?
OFFICER. Masters, let him go;
  He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.
PINCH. Go bind this man, for he is frantic too.
[They bind DROMIO]
ADRIANA. What wilt thou do, thou peevish officer?
  Hast thou delight to see a wretched man
  Do outrage and displeasure to himself?
OFFICER. He is my prisoner; if I let him go,
  The debt he owes will be requir'd of me.
ADRIANA. I will discharge thee ere I go from thee;
  Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,
  And, knowing how the debt grows, I will pay it.
  Good Master Doctor, see him safe convey'd
  Home to my house. O most unhappy day!
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. O most unhappy strumpet!
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Master, I am here ent'red in bond for you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Out on thee, villian! Wherefore
  dost thou mad me?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Will you be bound for nothing?
  Be mad, good master; cry 'The devil!'
LUCIANA. God help, poor souls, how idly do they talk!
ADRIANA. Go bear him hence. Sister, go you with me.
[Exeunt all but ADRIANA, LUCIANA, OFFICERS, and COURTEZAN
  Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?
OFFICER. One Angelo, a goldsmith; do you know him?
ADRIANA. I know the man. What is the sum he owes?
OFFICER. Two hundred ducats.
ADRIANA. Say, how grows it due?
OFFICER. Due for a chain your husband had of him.
ADRIANA. He did bespeak a chain for me, but had it not.
COURTEZAN. When as your husband, all in rage, to-day
  Came to my house, and took away my ring-
  The ring I saw upon his finger now-
  Straight after did I meet him with a chain.
ADRIANA. It may be so, but I did never see it.
  Come, gaoler, bring me where the goldsmith is;
  I long to know the truth hereof at large.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, with his rapier drawn, and
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.

LUCIANA. God, for thy mercy! they are loose again. ADRIANA. And come
with naked swords. Let's call more help to have them bound again.
OFFICER. Away, they'll kill us! [Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE
and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE as fast as may be, frighted ANTIPHOLUS OF
SYRACUSE. I see these witches are afraid of swords. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
She that would be your wife now ran from you. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE.
Come to the Centaur; fetch our stuff from thence. I long that we were
safe and sound aboard. DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Faith, stay here this night;
they will surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us
gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for the mountain
of mad flesh that claims marriage of me, could find in my heart to stay
here still and turn witch. ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I will not stay
to-night for all the town; Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.
[Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1

A street before a priory

Enter SECOND MERCHANT and ANGELO

ANGELO. I am sorry, sir, that I have hind'red you;
  But I protest he had the chain of me,
  Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.
SECOND MERCHANT. How is the man esteem'd here in the city?
ANGELO. Of very reverend reputation, sir,
  Of credit infinite, highly belov'd,
  Second to none that lives here in the city;
  His word might bear my wealth at any time.
SECOND MERCHANT. Speak softly; yonder, as I think, he walks.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

ANGELO. 'Tis so; and that self chain about his neck
  Which he forswore most monstrously to have.
  Good sir, draw near to me, I'll speak to him.
  Signior Andpholus, I wonder much
  That you would put me to this shame and trouble;
  And, not without some scandal to yourself,
  With circumstance and oaths so to deny
  This chain, which now you wear so openly.
  Beside the charge, the shame, imprisonment,
  You have done wrong to this my honest friend;
  Who, but for staying on our controversy,
  Had hoisted sail and put to sea to-day.
  This chain you had of me; can you deny it?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think I had; I never did deny it.
SECOND MERCHANT. Yes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Who heard me to deny it or forswear it?
SECOND MERCHANT. These ears of mine, thou know'st, did hear thee.
  Fie on thee, wretch! 'tis pity that thou liv'st
  To walk where any honest men resort.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Thou art a villain to impeach me thus;
  I'll prove mine honour and mine honesty
  Against thee presently, if thou dar'st stand.
SECOND MERCHANT. I dare, and do defy thee for a villain.
[They draw]

Enter ADRIANA, LUCIANA, the COURTEZAN, and OTHERS

ADRIANA. Hold, hurt him not, for God's sake! He is mad.
  Some get within him, take his sword away;
  Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Run, master, run; for God's sake take a house.
  This is some priory. In, or we are spoil'd.
[Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE to the priory

Enter the LADY ABBESS

ABBESS. Be quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?
ADRIANA. To fetch my poor distracted husband hence.
  Let us come in, that we may bind him fast,
  And bear him home for his recovery.
ANGELO. I knew he was not in his perfect wits.
SECOND MERCHANT. I am sorry now that I did draw on him.
ABBESS. How long hath this possession held the man?
ADRIANA. This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad,
  And much different from the man he was;
  But till this afternoon his passion
  Ne'er brake into extremity of rage.
ABBESS. Hath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?
  Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye
  Stray'd his affection in unlawful love?
  A sin prevailing much in youthful men
  Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing.
  Which of these sorrows is he subject to?
ADRIANA. To none of these, except it be the last;
  Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.
ABBESS. You should for that have reprehended him.
ADRIANA. Why, so I did.
ABBESS. Ay, but not rough enough.
ADRIANA. As roughly as my modesty would let me.
ABBESS. Haply in private.
ADRIANA. And in assemblies too.
ABBESS. Ay, but not enough.
ADRIANA. It was the copy of our conference.
  In bed, he slept not for my urging it;
  At board, he fed not for my urging it;
  Alone, it was the subject of my theme;
  In company, I often glanced it;
  Still did I tell him it was vile and bad.
ABBESS. And thereof came it that the man was mad.
  The venom clamours of a jealous woman
  Poisons more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
  It seems his sleeps were hind'red by thy railing,
  And thereof comes it that his head is light.
  Thou say'st his meat was sauc'd with thy upbraidings:
  Unquiet meals make ill digestions;
  Thereof the raging fire of fever bred;
  And what's a fever but a fit of madness?
  Thou say'st his sports were hind'red by thy brawls.
  Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue
  But moody and dull melancholy,
  Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,
  And at her heels a huge infectious troop
  Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?
  In food, in sport, and life-preserving rest,
  To be disturb'd would mad or man or beast.
  The consequence is, then, thy jealous fits
  Hath scar'd thy husband from the use of wits.
LUCIANA. She never reprehended him but mildly,
  When he demean'd himself rough, rude, and wildly.
  Why bear you these rebukes, and answer not?
ADRIANA. She did betray me to my own reproof.
  Good people, enter, and lay hold on him.
ABBESS. No, not a creature enters in my house.
ADRIANA. Then let your servants bring my husband forth.
ABBESS. Neither; he took this place for sanctuary,
  And it shall privilege him from your hands
  Till I have brought him to his wits again,
  Or lose my labour in assaying it.
ADRIANA. I will attend my husband, be his nurse,
  Diet his sickness, for it is my office,
  And will have no attorney but myself;
  And therefore let me have him home with me.
ABBESS. Be patient; for I will not let him stir
  Till I have us'd the approved means I have,
  With wholesome syrups, drugs, and holy prayers,
  To make of him a formal man again.
  It is a branch and parcel of mine oath,
  A charitable duty of my order;
  Therefore depart, and leave him here with me.
ADRIANA. I will not hence and leave my husband here;
  And ill it doth beseem your holiness
  To separate the husband and the wife.
ABBESS. Be quiet, and depart; thou shalt not have him.
[Exit]
LUCIANA. Complain unto the Duke of this indignity.
ADRIANA. Come, go; I will fall prostrate at his feet,
  And never rise until my tears and prayers
  Have won his Grace to come in person hither
  And take perforce my husband from the Abbess.
SECOND MERCHANT. By this, I think, the dial points at five;
  Anon, I'm sure, the Duke himself in person
  Comes this way to the melancholy vale,
  The place of death and sorry execution,
  Behind the ditches of the abbey here.
ANGELO. Upon what cause?
SECOND MERCHANT. To see a reverend Syracusian merchant,
  Who put unluckily into this bay
  Against the laws and statutes of this town,
  Beheaded publicly for his offence.
ANGELO. See where they come; we will behold his death.
LUCIANA. Kneel to the Duke before he pass the abbey.

Enter the DUKE, attended; AEGEON, bareheaded; with the HEADSMAN and
other OFFICERS

DUKE. Yet once again proclaim it publicly,
  If any friend will pay the sum for him,
  He shall not die; so much we tender him.
ADRIANA. Justice, most sacred Duke, against the Abbess!
DUKE. She is a virtuous and a reverend lady;
  It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.
ADRIANA. May it please your Grace, Antipholus, my husband,
  Who I made lord of me and all I had
  At your important letters-this ill day
  A most outrageous fit of madness took him,
  That desp'rately he hurried through the street,
  With him his bondman all as mad as he,
  Doing displeasure to the citizens
  By rushing in their houses, bearing thence
  Rings, jewels, anything his rage did like.
  Once did I get him bound and sent him home,
  Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went,
  That here and there his fury had committed.
  Anon, I wot not by what strong escape,
  He broke from those that had the guard of him,
  And with his mad attendant and himself,
  Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,
  Met us again and, madly bent on us,
  Chas'd us away; till, raising of more aid,
  We came again to bind them. Then they fled
  Into this abbey, whither we pursu'd them;
  And here the Abbess shuts the gates on us,
  And will not suffer us to fetch him out,
  Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.
  Therefore, most gracious Duke, with thy command
  Let him be brought forth and borne hence for help.
DUKE. Long since thy husband serv'd me in my wars,
  And I to thee engag'd a prince's word,
  When thou didst make him master of thy bed,
  To do him all the grace and good I could.
  Go, some of you, knock at the abbey gate,
  And bid the Lady Abbess come to me,
  I will determine this before I stir.

Enter a MESSENGER

MESSENGER. O mistress, mistress, shift and save yourself!
  My master and his man are both broke loose,
  Beaten the maids a-row and bound the doctor,
  Whose beard they have sing'd off with brands of fire;
  And ever, as it blaz'd, they threw on him
  Great pails of puddled mire to quench the hair.
  My master preaches patience to him, and the while
  His man with scissors nicks him like a fool;
  And sure, unless you send some present help,
  Between them they will kill the conjurer.
ADRIANA. Peace, fool! thy master and his man are here,
  And that is false thou dost report to us.
MESSENGER. Mistress, upon my life, I tell you true;
  I have not breath'd almost since I did see it.
  He cries for you, and vows, if he can take you,
  To scorch your face, and to disfigure you.
[Cry within]
  Hark, hark, I hear him, mistress; fly, be gone!
DUKE. Come, stand by me; fear nothing. Guard with halberds.
ADRIANA. Ay me, it is my husband! Witness you
  That he is borne about invisible.
  Even now we hous'd him in the abbey here,
  And now he's there, past thought of human reason.

Enter ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS and DROMIO OFEPHESUS

ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, most gracious Duke; O, grant me justice!
  Even for the service that long since I did thee,
  When I bestrid thee in the wars, and took
  Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood
  That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.
AEGEON. Unless the fear of death doth make me dote,
  I see my son Antipholus, and Dromio.
ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. Justice, sweet Prince, against that woman there!
  She whom thou gav'st to me to be my wife,
  That hath abused and dishonoured me
  Even in the strength and height of injury.
  Beyond imagination is the wrong
  That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.
DUKE. Discover how, and thou shalt find me just.
ANTIPHOLUS OFEPHESUS. This day, great Duke, she shut the doors upon me,
  While she with harlots feasted in my house.
DUKE. A grievous fault. Say, woman, didst thou so?
ADRIANA. No, my good lord. Myself, he, and my sister,
  To-day did dine together. So befall my soul
  As this is false he burdens me withal!
LUCIANA. Ne'er may I look on day nor sleep on night
  But she tells to your Highness simple truth!
ANGELO. O peflur'd woman! They are both forsworn.
  In this the madman justly chargeth them.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. My liege, I am advised what I say;
  Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,
  Nor heady-rash, provok'd with raging ire,
  Albeit my wrongs might make one wiser mad.
  This woman lock'd me out this day from dinner;
  That goldsmith there, were he not pack'd with her,
  Could witness it, for he was with me then;
  Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,
  Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,
  Where Balthazar and I did dine together.
  Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,
  I went to seek him. In the street I met him,
  And in his company that gentleman.
  There did this perjur'd goldsmith swear me down
  That I this day of him receiv'd the chain,
  Which, God he knows, I saw not; for the which
  He did arrest me with an officer.
  I did obey, and sent my peasant home
  For certain ducats; he with none return'd.
  Then fairly I bespoke the officer
  To go in person with me to my house.
  By th' way we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more
  Of vile confederates. Along with them
  They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-fac'd villain,
  A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
  A threadbare juggler, and a fortune-teller,
  A needy, hollow-ey'd, sharp-looking wretch,
  A living dead man. This pernicious slave,
  Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer,
  And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,
  And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me,
  Cries out I was possess'd. Then all together
  They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,
  And in a dark and dankish vault at home
  There left me and my man, both bound together;
  Till, gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,
  I gain'd my freedom, and immediately
  Ran hither to your Grace; whom I beseech
  To give me ample satisfaction
  For these deep shames and great indignities.
ANGELO. My lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,
  That he din'd not at home, but was lock'd out.
DUKE. But had he such a chain of thee, or no?
ANGELO. He had, my lord, and when he ran in here,
  These people saw the chain about his neck.
SECOND MERCHANT. Besides, I will be sworn these ears of mine
  Heard you confess you had the chain of him,
  After you first forswore it on the mart;
  And thereupon I drew my sword on you,
  And then you fled into this abbey here,
  From whence, I think, you are come by miracle.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never came within these abbey walls,
  Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me;
  I never saw the chain, so help me Heaven!
  And this is false you burden me withal.
DUKE. Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
  I think you all have drunk of Circe's cup.
  If here you hous'd him, here he would have been;
  If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.
  You say he din'd at home: the goldsmith here
  Denies that saying. Sirrah, what say you?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Sir, he din'd with her there, at the Porpentine.
COURTEZAN. He did; and from my finger snatch'd that ring.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. 'Tis true, my liege; this ring I had of her.
DUKE. Saw'st thou him enter at the abbey here?
COURTEZAN. As sure, my liege, as I do see your Grace.
DUKE. Why, this is strange. Go call the Abbess hither.
  I think you are all mated or stark mad.
[Exit one to the ABBESS
AEGEON. Most mighty Duke, vouchsafe me speak a word:
  Haply I see a friend will save my life
  And pay the sum that may deliver me.
DUKE. Speak freely, Syracusian, what thou wilt.
AEGEON. Is not your name, sir, call'd Antipholus?
  And is not that your bondman Dromio?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Within this hour I was his bondman, sir,
  But he, I thank him, gnaw'd in two my cords
  Now am I Dromio and his man unbound.
AEGEON. I am sure you both of you remember me.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ourselves we do remember, sir, by you;
  For lately we were bound as you are now.
  You are not Pinch's patient, are you, sir?
AEGEON. Why look you strange on me? You know me well.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw you in my life till now.
AEGEON. O! grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last;
  And careful hours with time's deformed hand
  Have written strange defeatures in my face.
  But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Neither.
AEGEON. Dromio, nor thou?
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, trust me, sir, nor I.
AEGEON. I am sure thou dost.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Ay, sir, but I am sure I do not; and
  whatsoever a man denies, you are now bound to believe him.
AEGEON. Not know my voice! O time's extremity,
  Hast thou so crack'd and splitted my poor tongue
  In seven short years that here my only son
  Knows not my feeble key of untun'd cares?
  Though now this grained face of mine be hid
  In sap-consuming winter's drizzled snow,
  And all the conduits of my blood froze up,
  Yet hath my night of life some memory,
  My wasting lamps some fading glimmer left,
  My dull deaf ears a little use to hear;
  All these old witnesses-I cannot err-
  Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I never saw my father in my life.
AEGEON. But seven years since, in Syracuse, boy,
  Thou know'st we parted; but perhaps, my son,
  Thou sham'st to acknowledge me in misery.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. The Duke and all that know me in
  the city Can witness with me that it is not so:
  I ne'er saw Syracuse in my life.
DUKE. I tell thee, Syracusian, twenty years
  Have I been patron to Antipholus,
  During which time he ne'er saw Syracuse.
  I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.

Re-enter the ABBESS, with ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

ABBESS. Most mighty Duke, behold a man much wrong'd.
[All gather to see them]
ADRIANA. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.
DUKE. One of these men is genius to the other;
  And so of these. Which is the natural man,
  And which the spirit? Who deciphers them?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. I, sir, am Dromio; command him away.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. I, Sir, am Dromio; pray let me stay.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. Aegeon, art thou not? or else his
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. O, my old master! who hath bound
ABBESS. Whoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,
  And gain a husband by his liberty.
  Speak, old Aegeon, if thou be'st the man
  That hadst a wife once call'd Aemilia,
  That bore thee at a burden two fair sons.
  O, if thou be'st the same Aegeon, speak,
  And speak unto the same Aemilia!
AEGEON. If I dream not, thou art Aemilia.
  If thou art she, tell me where is that son
  That floated with thee on the fatal raft?
ABBESS. By men of Epidamnum he and I
  And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;
  But by and by rude fishermen of Corinth
  By force took Dromio and my son from them,
  And me they left with those of Epidamnum.
  What then became of them I cannot tell;
  I to this fortune that you see me in.
DUKE. Why, here begins his morning story right.
  These two Antipholus', these two so like,
  And these two Dromios, one in semblance-
  Besides her urging of her wreck at sea-
  These are the parents to these children,
  Which accidentally are met together.
  Antipholus, thou cam'st from Corinth first?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. No, sir, not I; I came from Syracuse.
DUKE. Stay, stand apart; I know not which is which.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I came from Corinth, my most gracious lord.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. And I with him.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Brought to this town by that most famous
warrior,
  Duke Menaphon, your most renowned uncle.
ADRIANA. Which of you two did dine with me to-day?
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I, gentle mistress.
ADRIANA. And are not you my husband?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. No; I say nay to that.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. And so do I, yet did she call me so;
  And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,
  Did call me brother.  [To LUCIANA]  What I told you then,
  I hope I shall have leisure to make good;
  If this be not a dream I see and hear.
ANGELO. That is the chain, sir, which you had of me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. I think it be, sir; I deny it not.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. And you, sir, for this chain arrested me.
ANGELO. I think I did, sir; I deny it not.
ADRIANA. I sent you money, sir, to be your bail,
  By Dromio; but I think he brought it not.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. No, none by me.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. This purse of ducats I receiv'd from you,
  And Dromio my man did bring them me.
  I see we still did meet each other's man,
  And I was ta'en for him, and he for me,
  And thereupon these ERRORS are arose.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. These ducats pawn I for my father here.
DUKE. It shall not need; thy father hath his life.
COURTEZAN. Sir, I must have that diamond from you.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. There, take it; and much thanks for my
  good cheer.
ABBESS. Renowned Duke, vouchsafe to take the pains
  To go with us into the abbey here,
  And hear at large discoursed all our fortunes;
  And all that are assembled in this place
  That by this sympathized one day's error
  Have suffer'd wrong, go keep us company,
  And we shall make full satisfaction.
  Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail
  Of you, my sons; and till this present hour
  My heavy burden ne'er delivered.
  The Duke, my husband, and my children both,
  And you the calendars of their nativity,
  Go to a gossips' feast, and go with me;
  After so long grief, such nativity!
DUKE. With all my heart, I'll gossip at this feast.
[Exeunt all but ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE, ANTIPHOLUS OF
EPHESUS, DROMIO OF SYRACUSE, and DROMIO OF EPHESUS
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Master, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard?
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Dromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embark'd?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Your goods that lay at host, sir, in the Centaur.
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He speaks to me. I am your master, Dromio.
  Come, go with us; we'll look to that anon.
  Embrace thy brother there; rejoice with him.
[Exeunt ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE and ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. There is a fat friend at your master's house,
  That kitchen'd me for you to-day at dinner;
  She now shall be my sister, not my wife.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother;
  I see by you I am a sweet-fac'd youth.
  Will you walk in to see their gossiping?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. Not I, sir; you are my elder.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. That's a question; how shall we try it?
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. We'll draw cuts for the senior; till then,
    lead thou first.
DROMIO OF EPHESUS. Nay, then, thus:
  We came into the world like brother and brother,
  And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.
[Exeunt

THE END

1608



THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS

Dramatis Personae

  CAIUS MARCIUS, afterwards CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS

    Generals against the Volscians
  TITUS LARTIUS
  COMINIUS

  MENENIUS AGRIPPA, friend to Coriolanus

    Tribunes of the People
  SICINIUS VELUTUS
  JUNIUS BRUTUS

  YOUNG MARCIUS, son to Coriolanus
  A ROMAN HERALD
  NICANOR, a Roman
  TULLUS AUFIDIUS, General of the Volscians
  LIEUTENANT, to Aufidius
  CONSPIRATORS, With Aufidius
  ADRIAN, a Volscian
  A CITIZEN of Antium
  TWO VOLSCIAN GUARDS

  VOLUMNIA, mother to Coriolanus
  VIRGILIA, wife to Coriolanus
  VALERIA, friend to Virgilia
  GENTLEWOMAN attending on Virgilia

  Roman and Volscian Senators, Patricians, Aediles, Lictors,
    Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, Servants to Aufidius, and other
    Attendants

SCENE: Rome and the neighbourhood; Corioli and the neighbourhood;
Antium

ACT I. SCENE I. Rome. A street

Enter a company of mutinous citizens, with staves, clubs, and other
weapons

  FIRST CITIZEN. Before we proceed any further, hear me speak.
  ALL. Speak, speak.
  FIRST CITIZEN. YOU are all resolv'd rather to die than to famish?
  ALL. Resolv'd, resolv'd.
  FIRST CITIZEN. First, you know Caius Marcius is chief enemy to the
    people.
  ALL. We know't, we know't.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Let us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own
    price. Is't a verdict?
  ALL. No more talking on't; let it be done. Away, away!
  SECOND CITIZEN. One word, good citizens.
  FIRST CITIZEN. We are accounted poor citizens, the patricians good.
    What authority surfeits on would relieve us; if they would yield
    us but the superfluity while it were wholesome, we might guess
    they relieved us humanely; but they think we are too dear. The
    leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an
    inventory to particularize their abundance; our sufferance is a
    gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes ere we become
    rakes; for the gods know I speak this in hunger for bread, not in
    thirst for revenge.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Would you proceed especially against Caius Marcius?
  FIRST CITIZEN. Against him first; he's a very dog to the
    commonalty.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Consider you what services he has done for his
    country?
  FIRST CITIZEN. Very well, and could be content to give him good
    report for't but that he pays himself with being proud.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Nay, but speak not maliciously.
  FIRST CITIZEN. I say unto you, what he hath done famously he did it
    to that end; though soft-conscienc'd men can be content to say it
    was for his country, he did it to please his mother and to be
    partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.
  SECOND CITIZEN. What he cannot help in his nature you account a
    vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.
  FIRST CITIZEN. If I must not, I need not be barren of accusations;
    he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition.  [Shouts
    within]  What shouts are these? The other side o' th' city is
    risen. Why stay we prating here? To th' Capitol!
  ALL. Come, come.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Soft! who comes here?

                       Enter MENENIUS AGRIPPA

  SECOND CITIZEN. Worthy Menenius Agrippa; one that hath always lov'd
    the people.
  FIRST CITIZEN. He's one honest enough; would all the rest were so!
  MENENIUS. What work's, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you
    With bats and clubs? The matter? Speak, I pray you.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Our business is not unknown to th' Senate; they have
    had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll
    show 'em in deeds. They say poor suitors have strong breaths;
    they shall know we have strong arms too.
  MENENIUS. Why, masters, my good friends, mine honest neighbours,
    Will you undo yourselves?
  FIRST CITIZEN. We cannot, sir; we are undone already.
  MENENIUS. I tell you, friends, most charitable care
    Have the patricians of you. For your wants,
    Your suffering in this dearth, you may as well
    Strike at the heaven with your staves as lift them
    Against the Roman state; whose course will on
    The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs
    Of more strong link asunder than can ever
    Appear in your impediment. For the dearth,
    The gods, not the patricians, make it, and
    Your knees to them, not arms, must help. Alack,
    You are transported by calamity
    Thither where more attends you; and you slander
    The helms o' th' state, who care for you like fathers,
    When you curse them as enemies.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Care for us! True, indeed! They ne'er car'd for us
    yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses cramm'd with
    grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily
    any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more
    piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor. If the
    wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear
    us.
  MENENIUS. Either you must
    Confess yourselves wondrous malicious,
    Or be accus'd of folly. I shall tell you
    A pretty tale. It may be you have heard it;
    But, since it serves my purpose, I will venture
    To stale't a little more.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, I'll hear it, sir; yet you must not think to
    fob off our disgrace with a tale. But, an't please you, deliver.
  MENENIUS. There was a time when all the body's members
    Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it:
    That only like a gulf it did remain
    I' th' midst o' th' body, idle and unactive,
    Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
    Like labour with the rest; where th' other instruments
    Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
    And, mutually participate, did minister
    Unto the appetite and affection common
    Of the whole body. The belly answer'd-
  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, sir, what answer made the belly?
  MENENIUS. Sir, I shall tell you. With a kind of smile,
    Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus-
    For look you, I may make the belly smile
    As well as speak- it tauntingly replied
    To th' discontented members, the mutinous parts
    That envied his receipt; even so most fitly
    As you malign our senators for that
    They are not such as you.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Your belly's answer- What?
    The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye,
    The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,
    Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,
    With other muniments and petty helps
    Is this our fabric, if that they-
  MENENIUS. What then?
    Fore me, this fellow speaks! What then? What then?
  FIRST CITIZEN. Should by the cormorant belly be restrain'd,
    Who is the sink o' th' body-
  MENENIUS. Well, what then?
  FIRST CITIZEN. The former agents, if they did complain,
    What could the belly answer?
  MENENIUS. I will tell you;
    If you'll bestow a small- of what you have little-
    Patience awhile, you'st hear the belly's answer.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Y'are long about it.
  MENENIUS. Note me this, good friend:
    Your most grave belly was deliberate,
    Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered.
    'True is it, my incorporate friends,' quoth he
    'That I receive the general food at first
    Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
    Because I am the storehouse and the shop
    Of the whole body. But, if you do remember,
    I send it through the rivers of your blood,
    Even to the court, the heart, to th' seat o' th' brain;
    And, through the cranks and offices of man,
    The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
    From me receive that natural competency
    Whereby they live. And though that all at once
    You, my good friends'- this says the belly; mark me.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Ay, sir; well, well.
  MENENIUS. 'Though all at once cannot
    See what I do deliver out to each,
    Yet I can make my audit up, that all
    From me do back receive the flour of all,
    And leave me but the bran.' What say you to' t?
  FIRST CITIZEN. It was an answer. How apply you this?
  MENENIUS. The senators of Rome are this good belly,
    And you the mutinous members; for, examine
    Their counsels and their cares, digest things rightly
    Touching the weal o' th' common, you shall find
    No public benefit which you receive
    But it proceeds or comes from them to you,
    And no way from yourselves. What do you think,
    You, the great toe of this assembly?
  FIRST CITIZEN. I the great toe? Why the great toe?
  MENENIUS. For that, being one o' th' lowest, basest, poorest,
    Of this most wise rebellion, thou goest foremost.
    Thou rascal, that art worst in blood to run,
    Lead'st first to win some vantage.
    But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs.
    Rome and her rats are at the point of battle;
    The one side must have bale.

                      Enter CAIUS MARCIUS

    Hail, noble Marcius!
  MARCIUS. Thanks. What's the matter, you dissentious rogues
    That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,
    Make yourselves scabs?
  FIRST CITIZEN. We have ever your good word.
  MARCIUS. He that will give good words to thee will flatter
    Beneath abhorring. What would you have, you curs,
    That like nor peace nor war? The one affrights you,
    The other makes you proud. He that trusts to you,
    Where he should find you lions, finds you hares;
    Where foxes, geese; you are no surer, no,
    Than is the coal of fire upon the ice
    Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue is
    To make him worthy whose offence subdues him,
    And curse that justice did it. Who deserves greatness
    Deserves your hate; and your affections are
    A sick man's appetite, who desires most that
    Which would increase his evil. He that depends
    Upon your favours swims with fins of lead,
    And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?
    With every minute you do change a mind
    And call him noble that was now your hate,
    Him vile that was your garland. What's the matter
    That in these several places of the city
    You cry against the noble Senate, who,
    Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else
    Would feed on one another? What's their seeking?
  MENENIUS. For corn at their own rates, whereof they say
    The city is well stor'd.
  MARCIUS. Hang 'em! They say!
    They'll sit by th' fire and presume to know
    What's done i' th' Capitol, who's like to rise,
    Who thrives and who declines; side factions, and give out
    Conjectural marriages, making parties strong,
    And feebling such as stand not in their liking
    Below their cobbled shoes. They say there's grain enough!
    Would the nobility lay aside their ruth
    And let me use my sword, I'd make a quarry
    With thousands of these quarter'd slaves, as high
    As I could pick my lance.
  MENENIUS. Nay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded;
    For though abundantly they lack discretion,
    Yet are they passing cowardly. But, I beseech you,
    What says the other troop?
  MARCIUS. They are dissolv'd. Hang 'em!
    They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs-
    That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,
    That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not
    Corn for the rich men only. With these shreds
    They vented their complainings; which being answer'd,
    And a petition granted them- a strange one,
    To break the heart of generosity
    And make bold power look pale- they threw their caps
    As they would hang them on the horns o' th' moon,
    Shouting their emulation.
  MENENIUS. What is granted them?
  MARCIUS. Five tribunes, to defend their vulgar wisdoms,
    Of their own choice. One's Junius Brutus-
    Sicinius Velutus, and I know not. 'Sdeath!
    The rabble should have first unroof'd the city
    Ere so prevail'd with me; it will in time
    Win upon power and throw forth greater themes
    For insurrection's arguing.
  MENENIUS. This is strange.
  MARCIUS. Go get you home, you fragments.

                     Enter a MESSENGER, hastily

  MESSENGER. Where's Caius Marcius?
  MARCIUS. Here. What's the matter?
  MESSENGER. The news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.
  MARCIUS. I am glad on't; then we shall ha' means to vent
    Our musty superfluity. See, our best elders.

         Enter COMINIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, with other SENATORS;
                  JUNIUS BRUTUS and SICINIUS VELUTUS

  FIRST SENATOR. Marcius, 'tis true that you have lately told us:
    The Volsces are in arms.
  MARCIUS. They have a leader,
    Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to't.
    I sin in envying his nobility;
    And were I anything but what I am,
    I would wish me only he.
  COMINIUS. You have fought together?
  MARCIUS. Were half to half the world by th' ears, and he
    Upon my party, I'd revolt, to make
    Only my wars with him. He is a lion
    That I am proud to hunt.
  FIRST SENATOR. Then, worthy Marcius,
    Attend upon Cominius to these wars.
  COMINIUS. It is your former promise.
  MARCIUS. Sir, it is;
    And I am constant. Titus Lartius, thou
    Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus' face.
    What, art thou stiff? Stand'st out?
  LARTIUS. No, Caius Marcius;
    I'll lean upon one crutch and fight with t'other
    Ere stay behind this business.
  MENENIUS. O, true bred!
  FIRST SENATOR. Your company to th' Capitol; where, I know,
    Our greatest friends attend us.
  LARTIUS.  [To COMINIUS]  Lead you on.
    [To MARCIUS]  Follow Cominius; we must follow you;
    Right worthy you priority.
  COMINIUS. Noble Marcius!
  FIRST SENATOR.  [To the Citizens]  Hence to your homes; be gone.
  MARCIUS. Nay, let them follow.
    The Volsces have much corn: take these rats thither
    To gnaw their garners. Worshipful mutineers,
    Your valour puts well forth; pray follow.
         Ciitzens steal away. Exeunt all but SICINIUS and BRUTUS
  SICINIUS. Was ever man so proud as is this Marcius?
  BRUTUS. He has no equal.
  SICINIUS. When we were chosen tribunes for the people-
  BRUTUS. Mark'd you his lip and eyes?
  SICINIUS. Nay, but his taunts!
  BRUTUS. Being mov'd, he will not spare to gird the gods.
  SICINIUS. Bemock the modest moon.
  BRUTUS. The present wars devour him! He is grown
    Too proud to be so valiant.
  SICINIUS. Such a nature,
    Tickled with good success, disdains the shadow
    Which he treads on at noon. But I do wonder
    His insolence can brook to be commanded
    Under Cominius.
  BRUTUS. Fame, at the which he aims-
    In whom already he is well grac'd- cannot
    Better be held nor more attain'd than by
    A place below the first; for what miscarries
    Shall be the general's fault, though he perform
    To th' utmost of a man, and giddy censure
    Will then cry out of Marcius 'O, if he
    Had borne the business!'
  SICINIUS. Besides, if things go well,
    Opinion, that so sticks on Marcius, shall
    Of his demerits rob Cominius.
  BRUTUS. Come.
    Half all Cominius' honours are to Marcius,
    Though Marcius earn'd them not; and all his faults
    To Marcius shall be honours, though indeed
    In aught he merit not.
  SICINIUS. Let's hence and hear
    How the dispatch is made, and in what fashion,
    More than his singularity, he goes
    Upon this present action.
  BRUTUS. Let's along.                                    Exeunt

SCENE II. Corioli. The Senate House.

Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with SENATORS of Corioli

  FIRST SENATOR. So, your opinion is, Aufidius,
    That they of Rome are ent'red in our counsels
    And know how we proceed.
  AUFIDIUS. Is it not yours?
    What ever have been thought on in this state
    That could be brought to bodily act ere Rome
    Had circumvention? 'Tis not four days gone
    Since I heard thence; these are the words- I think
    I have the letter here;.yes, here it is:
    [Reads]  'They have press'd a power, but it is not known
    Whether for east or west. The dearth is great;
    The people mutinous; and it is rumour'd,
    Cominius, Marcius your old enemy,
    Who is of Rome worse hated than of you,
    And Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,
    These three lead on this preparation
    Whither 'tis bent. Most likely 'tis for you;
    Consider of it.'
  FIRST SENATOR. Our army's in the field;
    We never yet made doubt but Rome was ready
    To answer us.
  AUFIDIUS. Nor did you think it folly
    To keep your great pretences veil'd till when
    They needs must show themselves; which in the hatching,
    It seem'd, appear'd to Rome. By the discovery
    We shall be short'ned in our aim, which was
    To take in many towns ere almost Rome
    Should know we were afoot.
  SECOND SENATOR. Noble Aufidius,
    Take your commission; hie you to your bands;
    Let us alone to guard Corioli.
    If they set down before's, for the remove
    Bring up your army; but I think you'll find
    Th' have not prepar'd for us.
  AUFIDIUS. O, doubt not that!
    I speak from certainties. Nay more,
    Some parcels of their power are forth already,
    And only hitherward. I leave your honours.
    If we and Caius Marcius chance to meet,
    'Tis sworn between us we shall ever strike
    Till one can do no more.
  ALL. The gods assist you!
  AUFIDIUS. And keep your honours safe!
  FIRST SENATOR. Farewell.
  SECOND SENATOR. Farewell.
  ALL. Farewell.                                           Exeunt

SCENE III. Rome. MARCIUS' house

Enter VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA, mother and wife to MARCIUS; they set them
down on two low stools and sew

  VOLUMNIA. I pray you, daughter, sing, or express yourself in a more
    comfortable sort. If my son were my husband, I should freelier
    rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the
    embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When yet
    he was but tender-bodied, and the only son of my womb; when youth
    with comeliness pluck'd all gaze his way; when, for a day of
    kings' entreaties, a mother should not sell him an hour from her
    beholding; I, considering how honour would become such a person-
    that it was no better than picture-like to hang by th' wall, if
    renown made it not stir- was pleas'd to let him seek danger where
    he was to find fame. To a cruel war I sent him, from whence he
    return'd his brows bound with oak. I tell thee, daughter, I
    sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than
    now in first seeing he had proved himself a man.
  VIRGILIA. But had he died in the business, madam, how then?
  VOLUMNIA. Then his good report should have been my son; I therein
    would have found issue. Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen
    sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my
    good Marcius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country
    than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.

                        Enter a GENTLEWOMAN

  GENTLEWOMAN. Madam, the Lady Valeria is come to visit you.
  VIRGILIA. Beseech you give me leave to retire myself.
  VOLUMNIA. Indeed you shall not.
    Methinks I hear hither your husband's drum;
    See him pluck Aufidius down by th' hair;
    As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him.
    Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus:
    'Come on, you cowards! You were got in fear,
    Though you were born in Rome.' His bloody brow
    With his mail'd hand then wiping, forth he goes,
    Like to a harvest-man that's task'd to mow
    Or all or lose his hire.
  VIRGILIA. His bloody brow? O Jupiter, no blood!
  VOLUMNIA. Away, you fool! It more becomes a man
    Than gilt his trophy. The breasts of Hecuba,
    When she did suckle Hector, look'd not lovelier
    Than Hector's forehead when it spit forth blood
    At Grecian sword, contemning. Tell Valeria
    We are fit to bid her welcome.              Exit GENTLEWOMAN
  VIRGILIA. Heavens bless my lord from fell Aufidius!
  VOLUMNIA. He'll beat Aufidius' head below his knee
    And tread upon his neck.

         Re-enter GENTLEWOMAN, With VALERIA and an usher

  VALERIA. My ladies both, good day to you.
  VOLUMNIA. Sweet madam!
  VIRGILIA. I am glad to see your ladyship.
  VALERIA. How do you both? You are manifest housekeepers. What are
    you sewing here? A fine spot, in good faith. How does your little
    son?
  VIRGILIA. I thank your ladyship; well, good madam.
  VOLUMNIA. He had rather see the swords and hear a drum than look
    upon his schoolmaster.
  VALERIA. O' my word, the father's son! I'll swear 'tis a very
    pretty boy. O' my troth, I look'd upon him a Wednesday half an
    hour together; has such a confirm'd countenance! I saw him run
    after a gilded butterfly; and when he caught it he let it go
    again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and up
    again, catch'd it again; or whether his fall enrag'd him, or how
    'twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it. O, I warrant, how he
    mammock'd it!
  VOLUMNIA. One on's father's moods.
  VALERIA. Indeed, la, 'tis a noble child.
  VIRGILIA. A crack, madam.
  VALERIA. Come, lay aside your stitchery; I must have you play the
    idle huswife with me this afternoon.
  VIRGILIA. No, good madam; I will not out of doors.
  VALERIA. Not out of doors!
  VOLUMNIA. She shall, she shall.
  VIRGILIA. Indeed, no, by your patience; I'll not over the threshold
    till my lord return from the wars.
  VALERIA. Fie, you confine yourself most unreasonably; come, you
    must go visit the good lady that lies in.
  VIRGILIA. I will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with my
    prayers; but I cannot go thither.
  VOLUMNIA. Why, I pray you?
  VIRGILIA. 'Tis not to save labour, nor that I want love.
  VALERIA. You would be another Penelope; yet they say all the yarn
    she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths.
    Come, I would your cambric were sensible as your finger, that you
    might leave pricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.
  VIRGILIA. No, good madam, pardon me; indeed I will not forth.
  VALERIA. In truth, la, go with me; and I'll tell you excellent news
    of your husband.
  VIRGILIA. O, good madam, there can be none yet.
  VALERIA. Verily, I do not jest with you; there came news from him
    last night.
  VIRGILIA. Indeed, madam?
  VALERIA. In earnest, it's true; I heard a senator speak it. Thus it
    is: the Volsces have an army forth; against whom Cominius the
    general is gone, with one part of our Roman power. Your lord and
    Titus Lartius are set down before their city Corioli; they
    nothing doubt prevailing and to make it brief wars. This is true,
    on mine honour; and so, I pray, go with us.
  VIRGILIA. Give me excuse, good madam; I will obey you in everything
    hereafter.
  VOLUMNIA. Let her alone, lady; as she is now, she will but disease
    our better mirth.
  VALERIA. In troth, I think she would. Fare you well, then. Come,
    good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy solemness out o'
    door and go along with us.
  VIRGILIA. No, at a word, madam; indeed I must not. I wish you much
    mirth.
  VALERIA. Well then, farewell.                           Exeunt

SCENE IV. Before Corioli

Enter MARCIUS, TITUS LARTIUS, with drum and colours, with CAPTAINS and
soldiers. To them a MESSENGER

  MARCIUS. Yonder comes news; a wager- they have met.
  LARTIUS. My horse to yours- no.
  MARCIUS. 'Tis done.
  LARTIUS. Agreed.
  MARCIUS. Say, has our general met the enemy?
  MESSENGER. They lie in view, but have not spoke as yet.
  LARTIUS. So, the good horse is mine.
  MARCIUS. I'll buy him of you.
  LARTIUS. No, I'll nor sell nor give him; lend you him I will
    For half a hundred years. Summon the town.
  MARCIUS. How far off lie these armies?
  MESSENGER. Within this mile and half.
  MARCIUS. Then shall we hear their 'larum, and they ours.
    Now, Mars, I prithee, make us quick in work,
    That we with smoking swords may march from hence
    To help our fielded friends! Come, blow thy blast.

          They sound a parley. Enter two SENATORS with others,
                      on the walls of Corioli

    Tullus Aufidius, is he within your walls?
  FIRST SENATOR. No, nor a man that fears you less than he:
    That's lesser than a little.  [Drum afar off]  Hark, our drums
    Are bringing forth our youth. We'll break our walls
    Rather than they shall pound us up; our gates,
    Which yet seem shut, we have but pinn'd with rushes;
    They'll open of themselves.  [Alarum far off]  Hark you far off!
    There is Aufidius. List what work he makes
    Amongst your cloven army.
  MARCIUS. O, they are at it!
  LARTIUS. Their noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho!

                   Enter the army of the Volsces

  MARCIUS. They fear us not, but issue forth their city.
    Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight
    With hearts more proof than shields. Advance, brave Titus.
    They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,
    Which makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows.
    He that retires, I'll take him for a Volsce,
    And he shall feel mine edge.

          Alarum. The Romans are beat back to their trenches.
                      Re-enter MARCIUS, cursing

  MARCIUS. All the contagion of the south light on you,
    You shames of Rome! you herd of- Boils and plagues
    Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd
    Farther than seen, and one infect another
    Against the wind a mile! You souls of geese
    That bear the shapes of men, how have you run
    From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto and hell!
    All hurt behind! Backs red, and faces pale
    With flight and agued fear! Mend and charge home,
    Or, by the fires of heaven, I'll leave the foe
    And make my wars on you. Look to't. Come on;
    If you'll stand fast we'll beat them to their wives,
    As they us to our trenches. Follow me.

         Another alarum. The Volsces fly, and MARCIUS follows
                          them to the gates

    So, now the gates are ope; now prove good seconds;
    'Tis for the followers fortune widens them,
    Not for the fliers. Mark me, and do the like.

                    [MARCIUS enters the gates]

  FIRST SOLDIER. Fool-hardiness; not I.
  SECOND SOLDIER. Not I.                    [MARCIUS is shut in]
  FIRST SOLDIER. See, they have shut him in.
  ALL. To th' pot, I warrant him.             [Alarum continues]

                      Re-enter TITUS LARTIUS

  LARTIUS. What is become of Marcius?
  ALL. Slain, sir, doubtless.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Following the fliers at the very heels,
    With them he enters; who, upon the sudden,
    Clapp'd to their gates. He is himself alone,
    To answer all the city.
  LARTIUS. O noble fellow!
    Who sensibly outdares his senseless sword,
    And when it bows stand'st up. Thou art left, Marcius;
    A carbuncle entire, as big as thou art,
    Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier
    Even to Cato's wish, not fierce and terrible
    Only in strokes; but with thy grim looks and
    The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds
    Thou mad'st thine enemies shake, as if the world
    Were feverous and did tremble.

          Re-enter MARCIUS, bleeding, assaulted by the enemy

  FIRST SOLDIER. Look, sir.
  LARTIUS. O, 'tis Marcius!
    Let's fetch him off, or make remain alike.
                            [They fight, and all enter the city]

SCENE V. Within Corioli. A street

Enter certain Romans, with spoils

  FIRST ROMAN. This will I carry to Rome.
  SECOND ROMAN. And I this.
  THIRD ROMAN. A murrain on 't! I took this for silver.
                               [Alarum continues still afar off]

          Enter MARCIUS and TITUS LARTIUS With a trumpeter

  MARCIUS. See here these movers that do prize their hours
    At a crack'd drachma! Cushions, leaden spoons,
    Irons of a doit, doublets that hangmen would
    Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,
    Ere yet the fight be done, pack up. Down with them!
                                                Exeunt pillagers
    And hark, what noise the general makes! To him!
    There is the man of my soul's hate, Aufidius,
    Piercing our Romans; then, valiant Titus, take
    Convenient numbers to make good the city;
    Whilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste
    To help Cominius.
  LARTIUS. Worthy sir, thou bleed'st;
    Thy exercise hath been too violent
    For a second course of fight.
  MARCIUS. Sir, praise me not;
    My work hath yet not warm'd me. Fare you well;
    The blood I drop is rather physical
    Than dangerous to me. To Aufidius thus
    I will appear, and fight.
  LARTIUS. Now the fair goddess, Fortune,
    Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms
    Misguide thy opposers' swords! Bold gentleman,
    Prosperity be thy page!
  MARCIUS. Thy friend no less
    Than those she placeth highest! So farewell.
  LARTIUS. Thou worthiest Marcius!                  Exit MARCIUS
    Go sound thy trumpet in the market-place;
    Call thither all the officers o' th' town,
    Where they shall know our mind. Away!                 Exeunt

SCENE VI. Near the camp of COMINIUS

Enter COMINIUS, as it were in retire, with soldiers

  COMINIUS. Breathe you, my friends. Well fought; we are come off
    Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands
    Nor cowardly in retire. Believe me, sirs,
    We shall be charg'd again. Whiles we have struck,
    By interims and conveying gusts we have heard
    The charges of our friends. The Roman gods,
    Lead their successes as we wish our own,
    That both our powers, with smiling fronts encount'ring,
    May give you thankful sacrifice!

                         Enter A MESSENGER

    Thy news?
  MESSENGER. The citizens of Corioli have issued
    And given to Lartius and to Marcius battle;
    I saw our party to their trenches driven,
    And then I came away.
  COMINIUS. Though thou speak'st truth,
    Methinks thou speak'st not well. How long is't since?
  MESSENGER. Above an hour, my lord.
  COMINIUS. 'Tis not a mile; briefly we heard their drums.
    How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour,
    And bring thy news so late?
  MESSENGER. Spies of the Volsces
    Held me in chase, that I was forc'd to wheel
    Three or four miles about; else had I, sir,
    Half an hour since brought my report.

                           Enter MARCIUS

  COMINIUS. Who's yonder
    That does appear as he were flay'd? O gods!
    He has the stamp of Marcius, and I have
    Before-time seen him thus.
  MARCIUS. Come I too late?
  COMINIUS. The shepherd knows not thunder from a tabor
    More than I know the sound of Marcius' tongue
    From every meaner man.
  MARCIUS. Come I too late?
  COMINIUS. Ay, if you come not in the blood of others,
    But mantled in your own.
  MARCIUS. O! let me clip ye
    In arms as sound as when I woo'd, in heart
    As merry as when our nuptial day was done,
    And tapers burn'd to bedward.
  COMINIUS. Flower of warriors,
    How is't with Titus Lartius?
  MARCIUS. As with a man busied about decrees:
    Condemning some to death and some to exile;
    Ransoming him or pitying, threat'ning th' other;
    Holding Corioli in the name of Rome
    Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,
    To let him slip at will.
  COMINIUS. Where is that slave
    Which told me they had beat you to your trenches?
    Where is he? Call him hither.
  MARCIUS. Let him alone;
    He did inform the truth. But for our gentlemen,
    The common file- a plague! tribunes for them!
    The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat as they did budge
    From rascals worse than they.
  COMINIUS. But how prevail'd you?
  MARCIUS. Will the time serve to tell? I do not think.
    Where is the enemy? Are you lords o' th' field?
    If not, why cease you till you are so?
  COMINIUS. Marcius,
    We have at disadvantage fought, and did
    Retire to win our purpose.
  MARCIUS. How lies their battle? Know you on which side
    They have plac'd their men of trust?
  COMINIUS. As I guess, Marcius,
    Their bands i' th' vaward are the Antiates,
    Of their best trust; o'er them Aufidius,
    Their very heart of hope.
  MARCIUS. I do beseech you,
    By all the battles wherein we have fought,
    By th' blood we have shed together, by th' vows
    We have made to endure friends, that you directly
    Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates;
    And that you not delay the present, but,
    Filling the air with swords advanc'd and darts,
    We prove this very hour.
  COMINIUS. Though I could wish
    You were conducted to a gentle bath
    And balms applied to you, yet dare I never
    Deny your asking: take your choice of those
    That best can aid your action.
  MARCIUS. Those are they
    That most are willing. If any such be here-
    As it were sin to doubt- that love this painting
    Wherein you see me smear'd; if any fear
    Lesser his person than an ill report;
    If any think brave death outweighs bad life
    And that his country's dearer than himself;
    Let him alone, or so many so minded,
    Wave thus to express his disposition,
    And follow Marcius.           [They all shout and wave their
       swords, take him up in their arms and cast up their caps]
    O, me alone! Make you a sword of me?
    If these shows be not outward, which of you
    But is four Volsces? None of you but is
    Able to bear against the great Aufidius
    A shield as hard as his. A certain number,
    Though thanks to all, must I select from all; the rest
    Shall bear the business in some other fight,
    As cause will be obey'd. Please you to march;
    And four shall quickly draw out my command,
    Which men are best inclin'd.
  COMINIUS. March on, my fellows;
    Make good this ostentation, and you shall
    Divide in all with us.                                Exeunt

SCENE VII. The gates of Corioli

TITUS LARTIUS, having set a guard upon Corioli, going with drum and
trumpet toward COMINIUS and CAIUS MARCIUS, enters with a LIEUTENANT,
other soldiers, and a scout

  LARTIUS. So, let the ports be guarded; keep your duties
    As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch
    Those centuries to our aid; the rest will serve
    For a short holding. If we lose the field
    We cannot keep the town.
  LIEUTENANT. Fear not our care, sir.
  LARTIUS. Hence, and shut your gates upon's.
    Our guider, come; to th' Roman camp conduct us.       Exeunt

SCENE VIII. A field of battle between the Roman and the Volscian camps

Alarum, as in battle. Enter MARCIUS and AUFIDIUS at several doors

  MARCIUS. I'll fight with none but thee, for I do hate thee
    Worse than a promise-breaker.
  AUFIDIUS. We hate alike:
    Not Afric owns a serpent I abhor
    More than thy fame and envy. Fix thy foot.
  MARCIUS. Let the first budger die the other's slave,
    And the gods doom him after!
  AUFIDIUS. If I fly, Marcius,
    Halloa me like a hare.
  MARCIUS. Within these three hours, Tullus,
    Alone I fought in your Corioli walls,
    And made what work I pleas'd. 'Tis not my blood
    Wherein thou seest me mask'd. For thy revenge
    Wrench up thy power to th' highest.
  AUFIDIUS. Wert thou the Hector
    That was the whip of your bragg'd progeny,
    Thou shouldst not scape me here.

       Here they fight, and certain Volsces come in the aid
        of AUFIDIUS. MARCIUS fights till they be driven in
                             breathless

    Officious, and not valiant, you have sham'd me
    In your condemned seconds.                            Exeunt

SCENE IX. The Roman camp

Flourish. Alarum. A retreat is sounded. Enter, at one door,
COMINIUS with the Romans; at another door, MARCIUS, with his arm in a
scarf

  COMINIUS. If I should tell thee o'er this thy day's work,
    Thou't not believe thy deeds; but I'll report it
    Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles;
    Where great patricians shall attend, and shrug,
    I' th' end admire; where ladies shall be frighted
    And, gladly quak'd, hear more; where the dull tribunes,
    That with the fusty plebeians hate thine honours,
    Shall say against their hearts 'We thank the gods
    Our Rome hath such a soldier.'
    Yet cam'st thou to a morsel of this feast,
    Having fully din'd before.

         Enter TITUS LARTIUS, with his power, from the pursuit

  LARTIUS. O General,
    Here is the steed, we the caparison.
    Hadst thou beheld-
  MARCIUS. Pray now, no more; my mother,
    Who has a charter to extol her blood,
    When she does praise me grieves me. I have done
    As you have done- that's what I can; induc'd
    As you have been- that's for my country.
    He that has but effected his good will
    Hath overta'en mine act.
  COMINIUS. You shall not be
    The grave of your deserving; Rome must know
    The value of her own. 'Twere a concealment
    Worse than a theft, no less than a traducement,
    To hide your doings and to silence that
    Which, to the spire and top of praises vouch'd,
    Would seem but modest. Therefore, I beseech you,
    In sign of what you are, not to reward
    What you have done, before our army hear me.
  MARCIUS. I have some wounds upon me, and they smart
    To hear themselves rememb'red.
  COMINIUS. Should they not,
    Well might they fester 'gainst ingratitude
    And tent themselves with death. Of all the horses-
    Whereof we have ta'en good, and good store- of all
    The treasure in this field achiev'd and city,
    We render you the tenth; to be ta'en forth
    Before the common distribution at
    Your only choice.
  MARCIUS. I thank you, General,
    But cannot make my heart consent to take
    A bribe to pay my sword. I do refuse it,
    And stand upon my common part with those
    That have beheld the doing.

           A long flourish. They all cry 'Marcius, Marcius!'
   cast up their caps and lances. COMINIUS and LARTIUS stand bare

    May these same instruments which you profane
    Never sound more! When drums and trumpets shall
    I' th' field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be
    Made all of false-fac'd soothing. When steel grows
    Soft as the parasite's silk, let him be made
    An overture for th' wars. No more, I say.
    For that I have not wash'd my nose that bled,
    Or foil'd some debile wretch, which without note
    Here's many else have done, you shout me forth
    In acclamations hyperbolical,
    As if I lov'd my little should be dieted
    In praises sauc'd with lies.
  COMINIUS. Too modest are you;
    More cruel to your good report than grateful
    To us that give you truly. By your patience,
    If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you-
    Like one that means his proper harm- in manacles,
    Then reason safely with you. Therefore be it known,
    As to us, to all the world, that Caius Marcius
    Wears this war's garland; in token of the which,
    My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,
    With all his trim belonging; and from this time,
    For what he did before Corioli, can him
    With all th' applause-and clamour of the host,
    Caius Marcius Coriolanus.
    Bear th' addition nobly ever!
                           [Flourish. Trumpets sound, and drums]
  ALL. Caius Marcius Coriolanus!
  CORIOLANUS. I will go wash;
    And when my face is fair you shall perceive
    Whether I blush or no. Howbeit, I thank you;
    I mean to stride your steed, and at all times
    To undercrest your good addition
    To th' fairness of my power.
  COMINIUS. So, to our tent;
    Where, ere we do repose us, we will write
    To Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,
    Must to Corioli back. Send us to Rome
    The best, with whom we may articulate
    For their own good and ours.
  LARTIUS. I shall, my lord.
  CORIOLANUS. The gods begin to mock me. I, that now
    Refus'd most princely gifts, am bound to beg
    Of my Lord General.
  COMINIUS. Take't- 'tis yours; what is't?
  CORIOLANUS. I sometime lay here in Corioli
    At a poor man's house; he us'd me kindly.
    He cried to me; I saw him prisoner;
    But then Aufidius was within my view,
    And wrath o'erwhelm'd my pity. I request you
    To give my poor host freedom.
  COMINIUS. O, well begg'd!
    Were he the butcher of my son, he should
    Be free as is the wind. Deliver him, Titus.
  LARTIUS. Marcius, his name?
  CORIOLANUS. By Jupiter, forgot!
    I am weary; yea, my memory is tir'd.
    Have we no wine here?
  COMINIUS. Go we to our tent.
    The blood upon your visage dries; 'tis time
    It should be look'd to. Come.                         Exeunt

SCENE X. The camp of the Volsces

A flourish. Cornets. Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS bloody, with two or three
soldiers

  AUFIDIUS. The town is ta'en.
  FIRST SOLDIER. 'Twill be deliver'd back on good condition.
  AUFIDIUS. Condition!
    I would I were a Roman; for I cannot,
    Being a Volsce, be that I am. Condition?
    What good condition can a treaty find
    I' th' part that is at mercy? Five times, Marcius,
    I have fought with thee; so often hast thou beat me;
    And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter
    As often as we eat. By th' elements,
    If e'er again I meet him beard to beard,
    He's mine or I am his. Mine emulation
    Hath not that honour in't it had; for where
    I thought to crush him in an equal force,
    True sword to sword, I'll potch at him some way,
    Or wrath or craft may get him.
  FIRST SOLDIER. He's the devil.
  AUFIDIUS. Bolder, though not so subtle. My valour's poison'd
    With only suff'ring stain by him; for him
    Shall fly out of itself. Nor sleep nor sanctuary,
    Being naked, sick, nor fane nor Capitol,
    The prayers of priests nor times of sacrifice,
    Embarquements all of fury, shall lift up
    Their rotten privilege and custom 'gainst
    My hate to Marcius. Where I find him, were it
    At home, upon my brother's guard, even there,
    Against the hospitable canon, would I
    Wash my fierce hand in's heart. Go you to th' city;
    Learn how 'tis held, and what they are that must
    Be hostages for Rome.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Will not you go?
  AUFIDIUS. I am attended at the cypress grove; I pray you-
    'Tis south the city mills- bring me word thither
    How the world goes, that to the pace of it
    I may spur on my journey.
  FIRST SOLDIER. I shall, sir.                            Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Rome. A public place

Enter MENENIUS, with the two Tribunes of the people, SICINIUS and
BRUTUS

  MENENIUS. The augurer tells me we shall have news tonight.
  BRUTUS. Good or bad?
  MENENIUS. Not according to the prayer of the people, for they love
    not Marcius.
  SICINIUS. Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
  MENENIUS. Pray you, who does the wolf love?
  SICINIUS. The lamb.
  MENENIUS. Ay, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the
    noble Marcius.
  BRUTUS. He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.
  MENENIUS. He's a bear indeed, that lives fike a lamb. You two are
    old men; tell me one thing that I shall ask you.
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, sir.
  MENENIUS. In what enormity is Marcius poor in that you two have not
    in abundance?
  BRUTUS. He's poor in no one fault, but stor'd with all.
  SICINIUS. Especially in pride.
  BRUTUS. And topping all others in boasting.
  MENENIUS. This is strange now. Do you two know how you are censured
    here in the city- I mean of us o' th' right-hand file? Do you?
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Why, how are we censur'd?
  MENENIUS. Because you talk of pride now- will you not be angry?
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, well, sir, well.
  MENENIUS. Why, 'tis no great matter; for a very little thief of
    occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience. Give your
    dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures- at the
    least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so. You blame
    Marcius for being proud?
  BRUTUS. We do it not alone, sir.
  MENENIUS. I know you can do very little alone; for your helps are
    many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single: your
    abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of
    pride. O that you could turn your eyes toward the napes of your
    necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O
    that you could!
  BOTH TRIBUNES. What then, sir?
  MENENIUS. Why, then you should discover a brace of unmeriting,
    proud, violent, testy magistrates-alias fools- as any in Rome.
  SICINIUS. Menenius, you are known well enough too.
  MENENIUS. I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves
    a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't; said to
    be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint, hasty
    and tinder-like upon too trivial motion; one that converses more
    with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the
    morning. What I think I utter, and spend my malice in my breath.
    Meeting two such wealsmen as you are- I cannot call you
    Lycurguses- if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I
    make a crooked face at it. I cannot say your worships have
    deliver'd the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with
    the major part of your syllables; and though I must be content to
    bear with those that say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie
    deadly that tell you you have good faces. If you see this in the
    map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too?
    What harm can your bisson conspectuities glean out of this
    character, if I be known well enough too?
  BRUTUS. Come, sir, come, we know you well enough.
  MENENIUS. You know neither me, yourselves, nor any thing. You are
    ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs; you wear out a good
    wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and
    a fosset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence
    to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter
    between party and party, if you chance to be pinch'd with the
    colic, you make faces like mummers, set up the bloody flag
    against all patience, and, in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss
    the controversy bleeding, the more entangled by your hearing. All
    the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties
    knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.
  BRUTUS. Come, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber
    for the table than a necessary bencher in the Capitol.
  MENENIUS. Our very priests must become mockers, if they shall
    encounter such ridiculous subjects as you are. When you speak
    best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your
    beards; and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to
    stuff a botcher's cushion or to be entomb'd in an ass's
    pack-saddle. Yet you must be saying Marcius is proud; who, in a
    cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion;
    though peradventure some of the best of 'em were hereditary
    hangmen. God-den to your worships. More of your conversation
    would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly
    plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.
                                  [BRUTUS and SICINIUS go aside]

               Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and VALERIA

    How now, my as fair as noble ladies- and the moon, were she
    earthly, no nobler- whither do you follow your eyes so fast?
  VOLUMNIA. Honourable Menenius, my boy Marcius approaches; for the
    love of Juno, let's go.
  MENENIUS. Ha! Marcius coming home?
  VOLUMNIA. Ay, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous
    approbation.
  MENENIUS. Take my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. Hoo!
    Marcius coming home!
  VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA. Nay, 'tis true.
  VOLUMNIA. Look, here's a letter from him; the state hath another,
    his wife another; and I think there's one at home for you.
  MENENIUS. I will make my very house reel to-night. A letter for me?
  VIRGILIA. Yes, certain, there's a letter for you; I saw't.
  MENENIUS. A letter for me! It gives me an estate of seven years'
    health; in which time I will make a lip at the physician. The
    most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic and, to
    this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he
    not wounded? He was wont to come home wounded.
  VIRGILIA. O, no, no, no.
  VOLUMNIA. O, he is wounded, I thank the gods for't.
  MENENIUS. So do I too, if it be not too much. Brings a victory in
    his pocket? The wounds become him.
  VOLUMNIA. On's brows, Menenius, he comes the third time home with
    the oaken garland.
  MENENIUS. Has he disciplin'd Aufidius soundly?
  VOLUMNIA. Titus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius
    got off.
  MENENIUS. And 'twas time for him too, I'll warrant him that; an he
    had stay'd by him, I would not have been so fidius'd for all the
    chests in Corioli and the gold that's in them. Is the Senate
    possess'd of this?
  VOLUMNIA. Good ladies, let's go. Yes, yes, yes: the Senate has
    letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name
    of the war; he hath in this action outdone his former deeds
    doubly.
  VALERIA. In troth, there's wondrous things spoke of him.
  MENENIUS. Wondrous! Ay, I warrant you, and not without his true
    purchasing.
  VIRGILIA. The gods grant them true!
  VOLUMNIA. True! pow, waw.
  MENENIUS. True! I'll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded?
    [To the TRIBUNES]  God save your good worships! Marcius is coming
    home; he has more cause to be proud. Where is he wounded?
  VOLUMNIA. I' th' shoulder and i' th' left arm; there will be large
    cicatrices to show the people when he shall stand for his place.
    He received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i' th' body.
  MENENIUS. One i' th' neck and two i' th' thigh- there's nine that I
    know.
  VOLUMNIA. He had before this last expedition twenty-five wounds
    upon him.
  MENENIUS. Now it's twenty-seven; every gash was an enemy's grave.
    [A shout and flourish]  Hark! the trumpets.
  VOLUMNIA. These are the ushers of Marcius. Before him he carries
      noise, and behind him he leaves tears;
    Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie,
    Which, being advanc'd, declines, and then men die.

            A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter COMINIUS the
              GENERAL, and TITUS LARTIUS; between them,
           CORIOLANUS, crown'd with an oaken garland; with
                   CAPTAINS and soldiers and a HERALD

  HERALD. Know, Rome, that all alone Marcius did fight
    Within Corioli gates, where he hath won,
    With fame, a name to Caius Marcius; these
    In honour follows Coriolanus.
    Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!             [Flourish]
  ALL. Welcome to Rome, renowned Coriolanus!
  CORIOLANUS. No more of this, it does offend my heart.
    Pray now, no more.
  COMINIUS. Look, sir, your mother!
  CORIOLANUS. O,
    You have, I know, petition'd all the gods
    For my prosperity!                                  [Kneels]
  VOLUMNIA. Nay, my good soldier, up;
    My gentle Marcius, worthy Caius, and
    By deed-achieving honour newly nam'd-
    What is it? Coriolanus must I can thee?
    But, O, thy wife!
  CORIOLANUS. My gracious silence, hail!
    Wouldst thou have laugh'd had I come coffin'd home,
    That weep'st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,
    Such eyes the widows in Corioli wear,
    And mothers that lack sons.
  MENENIUS. Now the gods crown thee!
  CORIOLANUS. And live you yet?  [To VALERIA]  O my sweet lady,
    pardon.
  VOLUMNIA. I know not where to turn.
    O, welcome home! And welcome, General.
    And y'are welcome all.
  MENENIUS. A hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep
    And I could laugh; I am light and heavy. Welcome!
    A curse begin at very root on's heart
    That is not glad to see thee! You are three
    That Rome should dote on; yet, by the faith of men,
    We have some old crab trees here at home that will not
    Be grafted to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors.
    We call a nettle but a nettle, and
    The faults of fools but folly.
  COMINIUS. Ever right.
  CORIOLANUS. Menenius ever, ever.
  HERALD. Give way there, and go on.
  CORIOLANUS.  [To his wife and mother]  Your hand, and yours.
    Ere in our own house I do shade my head,
    The good patricians must be visited;
    From whom I have receiv'd not only greetings,
    But with them change of honours.
  VOLUMNIA. I have lived
    To see inherited my very wishes,
    And the buildings of my fancy; only
    There's one thing wanting, which I doubt not but
    Our Rome will cast upon thee.
  CORIOLANUS. Know, good mother,
    I had rather be their servant in my way
    Than sway with them in theirs.
  COMINIUS. On, to the Capitol.
                 [Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before]

                BRUTUS and SICINIUS come forward

  BRUTUS. All tongues speak of him and the bleared sights
    Are spectacled to see him. Your prattling nurse
    Into a rapture lets her baby cry
    While she chats him; the kitchen malkin pins
    Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,
    Clamb'ring the walls to eye him; stalls, bulks, windows,
    Are smother'd up, leads fill'd and ridges hors'd
    With variable complexions, all agreeing
    In earnestness to see him. Seld-shown flamens
    Do press among the popular throngs and puff
    To win a vulgar station; our veil'd dames
    Commit the war of white and damask in
    Their nicely gawded cheeks to th' wanton spoil
    Of Phoebus' burning kisses. Such a pother,
    As if that whatsoever god who leads him
    Were slily crept into his human powers,
    And gave him graceful posture.
  SICINIUS. On the sudden
    I warrant him consul.
  BRUTUS. Then our office may
    During his power go sleep.
  SICINIUS. He cannot temp'rately transport his honours
    From where he should begin and end, but will
    Lose those he hath won.
  BRUTUS. In that there's comfort.
  SICINIUS. Doubt not
    The commoners, for whom we stand, but they
    Upon their ancient malice will forget
    With the least cause these his new honours; which
    That he will give them make I as little question
    As he is proud to do't.
  BRUTUS. I heard him swear,
    Were he to stand for consul, never would he
    Appear i' th' market-place, nor on him put
    The napless vesture of humility;
    Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds
    To th' people, beg their stinking breaths.
  SICINIUS. 'Tis right.
  BRUTUS. It was his word. O, he would miss it rather
    Than carry it but by the suit of the gentry to him
    And the desire of the nobles.
  SICINIUS. I wish no better
    Than have him hold that purpose, and to put it
    In execution.
  BRUTUS. 'Tis most like he will.
  SICINIUS. It shall be to him then as our good wills:
    A sure destruction.
  BRUTUS. So it must fall out
    To him or our authorities. For an end,
    We must suggest the people in what hatred
    He still hath held them; that to's power he would
    Have made them mules, silenc'd their pleaders, and
    Dispropertied their freedoms; holding them
    In human action and capacity
    Of no more soul nor fitness for the world
    Than camels in their war, who have their provand
    Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows
    For sinking under them.
  SICINIUS. This, as you say, suggested
    At some time when his soaring insolence
    Shall touch the people- which time shall not want,
    If he be put upon't, and that's as easy
    As to set dogs on sheep- will be his fire
    To kindle their dry stubble; and their blaze
    Shall darken him for ever.

                           Enter A MESSENGER

  BRUTUS. What's the matter?
  MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Capitol. 'Tis thought
    That Marcius shall be consul.
    I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and
    The blind to hear him speak; matrons flung gloves,
    Ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers,
    Upon him as he pass'd; the nobles bended
    As to Jove's statue, and the commons made
    A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts.
    I never saw the like.
  BRUTUS. Let's to the Capitol,
    And carry with us ears and eyes for th' time,
    But hearts for the event.
  SICINIUS. Have with you.                                Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. The Capitol

Enter two OFFICERS, to lay cushions, as it were in the Capitol

  FIRST OFFICER. Come, come, they are almost here. How many stand for
    consulships?
  SECOND OFFICER. Three, they say; but 'tis thought of every one
    Coriolanus will carry it.
  FIRST OFFICER. That's a brave fellow; but he's vengeance proud and
    loves not the common people.
  SECOND OFFICER. Faith, there have been many great men that have
    flatter'd the people, who ne'er loved them; and there be many
    that they have loved, they know not wherefore; so that, if they
    love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground.
    Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or
    hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their
    disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly
    see't.
  FIRST OFFICER. If he did not care whether he had their love or no,
    he waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm;
    but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can
    render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover
    him their opposite. Now to seem to affect the malice and
    displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes- to
    flatter them for their love.
  SECOND OFFICER. He hath deserved worthily of his country; and his
    ascent is not by such easy degrees as those who, having been
    supple and courteous to the people, bonneted, without any further
    deed to have them at all, into their estimation and report; but
    he hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his actions in
    their hearts that for their tongues to be silent and not confess
    so much were a kind of ingrateful injury; to report otherwise
    were a malice that, giving itself the lie, would pluck reproof
    and rebuke from every car that heard it.
  FIRST OFFICER. No more of him; he's a worthy man. Make way, they
    are coming.

         A sennet. Enter the PATRICIANS and the TRIBUNES
         OF THE PEOPLE, LICTORS before them; CORIOLANUS,
            MENENIUS, COMINIUS the Consul. SICINIUS and
               BRUTUS take their places by themselves.
                         CORIOLANUS stands

  MENENIUS. Having determin'd of the Volsces, and
    To send for Titus Lartius, it remains,
    As the main point of this our after-meeting,
    To gratify his noble service that
    Hath thus stood for his country. Therefore please you,
    Most reverend and grave elders, to desire
    The present consul and last general
    In our well-found successes to report
    A little of that worthy work perform'd
    By Caius Marcius Coriolanus; whom
    We met here both to thank and to remember
    With honours like himself.                 [CORIOLANUS sits]
  FIRST SENATOR. Speak, good Cominius.
    Leave nothing out for length, and make us think
    Rather our state's defective for requital
    Than we to stretch it out. Masters o' th' people,
    We do request your kindest ears; and, after,
    Your loving motion toward the common body,
    To yield what passes here.
  SICINIUS. We are convented
    Upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts
    Inclinable to honour and advance
    The theme of our assembly.
  BRUTUS. Which the rather
    We shall be bless'd to do, if he remember
    A kinder value of the people than
    He hath hereto priz'd them at.
  MENENIUS. That's off, that's off;
    I would you rather had been silent. Please you
    To hear Cominius speak?
  BRUTUS. Most willingly.
    But yet my caution was more pertinent
    Than the rebuke you give it.
  MENENIUS. He loves your people;
    But tie him not to be their bedfellow.
    Worthy Cominius, speak.
                       [CORIOLANUS rises, and offers to go away]
    Nay, keep your place.
  FIRST SENATOR. Sit, Coriolanus, never shame to hear
    What you have nobly done.
  CORIOLANUS. Your Honours' pardon.
    I had rather have my wounds to heal again
    Than hear say how I got them.
  BRUTUS. Sir, I hope
    My words disbench'd you not.
  CORIOLANUS. No, sir; yet oft,
    When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.
    You sooth'd not, therefore hurt not. But your people,
    I love them as they weigh-
  MENENIUS. Pray now, sit down.
  CORIOLANUS. I had rather have one scratch my head i' th' sun
    When the alarum were struck than idly sit
    To hear my nothings monster'd.                          Exit
  MENENIUS. Masters of the people,
    Your multiplying spawn how can he flatter-
    That's thousand to one good one- when you now see
    He had rather venture all his limbs for honour
    Than one on's ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.
  COMINIUS. I shall lack voice; the deeds of Coriolanus
    Should not be utter'd feebly. It is held
    That valour is the chiefest virtue and
    Most dignifies the haver. If it be,
    The man I speak of cannot in the world
    Be singly counterpois'd. At sixteen years,
    When Tarquin made a head for Rome, he fought
    Beyond the mark of others; our then Dictator,
    Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight
    When with his Amazonian chin he drove
    The bristled lips before him; he bestrid
    An o'erpress'd Roman and i' th' consul's view
    Slew three opposers; Tarquin's self he met,
    And struck him on his knee. In that day's feats,
    When he might act the woman in the scene,
    He prov'd best man i' th' field, and for his meed
    Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age
    Man-ent'red thus, he waxed like a sea,
    And in the brunt of seventeen battles since
    He lurch'd all swords of the garland. For this last,
    Before and in Corioli, let me say
    I cannot speak him home. He stopp'd the fliers,
    And by his rare example made the coward
    Turn terror into sport; as weeds before
    A vessel under sail, so men obey'd
    And fell below his stem. His sword, death's stamp,
    Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot
    He was a thing of blood, whose every motion
    Was tim'd with dying cries. Alone he ent'red
    The mortal gate of th' city, which he painted
    With shunless destiny; aidless came off,
    And with a sudden re-enforcement struck
    Corioli like a planet. Now all's his.
    When by and by the din of war 'gan pierce
    His ready sense, then straight his doubled spirit
    Re-quick'ned what in flesh was fatigate,
    And to the battle came he; where he did
    Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if
    'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we call'd
    Both field and city ours he never stood
    To ease his breast with panting.
  MENENIUS. Worthy man!
  FIRST SENATOR. He cannot but with measure fit the honours
    Which we devise him.
  COMINIUS. Our spoils he kick'd at,
    And look'd upon things precious as they were
    The common muck of the world. He covets less
    Than misery itself would give, rewards
    His deeds with doing them, and is content
    To spend the time to end it.
  MENENIUS. He's right noble;
    Let him be call'd for.
  FIRST SENATOR. Call Coriolanus.
    OFFICER. He doth appear.

                            Re-enter CORIOLANUS

  MENENIUS. The Senate, Coriolanus, are well pleas'd
    To make thee consul.
  CORIOLANUS. I do owe them still
    My life and services.
  MENENIUS. It then remains
    That you do speak to the people.
  CORIOLANUS. I do beseech you
    Let me o'erleap that custom; for I cannot
    Put on the gown, stand naked, and entreat them
    For my wounds' sake to give their suffrage. Please you
    That I may pass this doing.
  SICINIUS. Sir, the people
    Must have their voices; neither will they bate
    One jot of ceremony.
  MENENIUS. Put them not to't.
    Pray you go fit you to the custom, and
    Take to you, as your predecessors have,
    Your honour with your form.
  CORIOLANUS. It is a part
    That I shall blush in acting, and might well
    Be taken from the people.
  BRUTUS. Mark you that?
  CORIOLANUS. To brag unto them 'Thus I did, and thus!'
    Show them th' unaching scars which I should hide,
    As if I had receiv'd them for the hire
    Of their breath only!
  MENENIUS. Do not stand upon't.
    We recommend to you, Tribunes of the People,
    Our purpose to them; and to our noble consul
    Wish we all joy and honour.
  SENATORS. To Coriolanus come all joy and honour!
                             [Flourish. Cornets. Then exeunt all
                                        but SICINIUS and BRUTUS]
  BRUTUS. You see how he intends to use the people.
  SICINIUS. May they perceive's intent! He will require them
    As if he did contemn what he requested
    Should be in them to give.
  BRUTUS. Come, we'll inform them
    Of our proceedings here. On th' market-place
    I know they do attend us.                             Exeunt

SCENE III. Rome. The Forum

Enter seven or eight citizens

  FIRST CITIZEN. Once, if he do require our voices, we ought not to
    deny him.
  SECOND CITIZEN. We may, sir, if we will.
  THIRD CITIZEN. We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a
    power that we have no power to do; for if he show us his wounds
    and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those
    wounds and speak for them; so, if he tell us his noble deeds, we
    must also tell him our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is
    monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful were to make a
    monster of the multitude; of the which we being members should
    bring ourselves to be monstrous members.
  FIRST CITIZEN. And to make us no better thought of, a little help
    will serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck
    not to call us the many-headed multitude.
  THIRD CITIZEN. We have been call'd so of many; not that our heads
    are some brown, some black, some abram, some bald, but that our
    wits are so diversely colour'd; and truly I think if all our wits
    were to issue out of one skull, they would fly east, west, north,
    south, and their consent of one direct way should be at once to
    all the points o' th' compass.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Think you so? Which way do you judge my wit would
    fly?
  THIRD CITIZEN. Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's
    will- 'tis strongly wedg'd up in a block-head; but if it were at
    liberty 'twould sure southward.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Why that way?
  THIRD CITIZEN. To lose itself in a fog; where being three parts
   melted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return for
    conscience' sake, to help to get thee a wife.
  SECOND CITIZEN. YOU are never without your tricks; you may, you
    may.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Are you all resolv'd to give your voices? But that's
    no matter, the greater part carries it. I say, if he would
    incline to the people, there was never a worthier man.

                Enter CORIOLANUS, in a gown of humility,
                               with MENENIUS

    Here he comes, and in the gown of humility. Mark his behaviour.
    We are not to stay all together, but to come by him where he
    stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He's to make his
    requests by particulars, wherein every one of us has a single
    honour, in giving him our own voices with our own tongues;
    therefore follow me, and I'll direct you how you shall go by him.
  ALL. Content, content.                         Exeunt citizens
  MENENIUS. O sir, you are not right; have you not known
    The worthiest men have done't?
  CORIOLANUS. What must I say?
    'I pray, sir'- Plague upon't! I cannot bring
    My tongue to such a pace. 'Look, sir, my wounds
    I got them in my country's service, when
    Some certain of your brethren roar'd and ran
    From th' noise of our own drums.'
  MENENIUS. O me, the gods!
    You must not speak of that. You must desire them
    To think upon you.
  CORIOLANUS. Think upon me? Hang 'em!
    I would they would forget me, like the virtues
    Which our divines lose by 'em.
  MENENIUS. You'll mar all.
    I'll leave you. Pray you speak to 'em, I pray you,
    In wholesome manner.                                    Exit

                       Re-enter three of the citizens

  CORIOLANUS. Bid them wash their faces
    And keep their teeth clean. So, here comes a brace.
    You know the cause, sir, of my standing here.
  THIRD CITIZEN. We do, sir; tell us what hath brought you to't.
  CORIOLANUS. Mine own desert.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Your own desert?
  CORIOLANUS. Ay, not mine own desire.
  THIRD CITIZEN. How, not your own desire?
  CORIOLANUS. No, sir, 'twas never my desire yet to trouble the poor
    with begging.
  THIRD CITIZEN. YOU MUST think, if we give you anything, we hope to
    gain by you.
  CORIOLANUS. Well then, I pray, your price o' th' consulship?
  FIRST CITIZEN. The price is to ask it kindly.
  CORIOLANUS. Kindly, sir, I pray let me ha't. I have wounds to show
    you, which shall be yours in private. Your good voice, sir; what
    say you?
  SECOND CITIZEN. You shall ha' it, worthy sir.
  CORIOLANUS. A match, sir. There's in all two worthy voices begg'd.
    I have your alms. Adieu.
  THIRD CITIZEN. But this is something odd.
  SECOND CITIZEN. An 'twere to give again- but 'tis no matter.
                                       Exeunt the three citizens

                      Re-enter two other citizens

  CORIOLANUS. Pray you now, if it may stand with the tune of your
    voices that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown.
  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have deserved nobly of your country, and you
    have not deserved nobly.
  CORIOLANUS. Your enigma?
  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have been a scourge to her enemies; you have
    been a rod to her friends. You have not indeed loved the common
    people.
  CORIOLANUS. You should account me the more virtuous, that I have
    not been common in my love. I will, sir, flatter my sworn
    brother, the people, to earn a dearer estimation of them; 'tis a
    condition they account gentle; and since the wisdom of their
    choice is rather to have my hat than my heart, I will practise
    the insinuating nod and be off to them most counterfeitly. That
    is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment of some popular man
    and give it bountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you I
    may be consul.
  FIFTH CITIZEN. We hope to find you our friend; and therefore give
    you our voices heartily.
  FOURTH CITIZEN. You have received many wounds for your country.
  CORIOLANUS. I will not seal your knowledge with showing them. I
    will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no farther.
  BOTH CITIZENS. The gods give you joy, sir, heartily!
                                                 Exeunt citizens
  CORIOLANUS. Most sweet voices!
    Better it is to die, better to starve,
    Than crave the hire which first we do deserve.
    Why in this wolvish toge should I stand here
    To beg of Hob and Dick that do appear
    Their needless vouches? Custom calls me to't.
    What custom wills, in all things should we do't,
    The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
    And mountainous error be too highly heap'd
    For truth to o'erpeer. Rather than fool it so,
    Let the high office and the honour go
    To one that would do thus. I am half through:
    The one part suffered, the other will I do.

                      Re-enter three citizens more

    Here come moe voices.
    Your voices. For your voices I have fought;
    Watch'd for your voices; for your voices bear
    Of wounds two dozen odd; battles thrice six
    I have seen and heard of; for your voices have
    Done many things, some less, some more. Your voices?
    Indeed, I would be consul.
  SIXTH CITIZEN. He has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest
    man's voice.
  SEVENTH CITIZEN. Therefore let him be consul. The gods give him
    joy, and make him good friend to the people!
  ALL. Amen, amen. God save thee, noble consul!
                                                 Exeunt citizens
  CORIOLANUS. Worthy voices!

             Re-enter MENENIUS with BRUTUS and SICINIUS

  MENENIUS. You have stood your limitation, and the tribunes
    Endue you with the people's voice. Remains
    That, in th' official marks invested, you
    Anon do meet the Senate.
  CORIOLANUS. Is this done?
  SICINIUS. The custom of request you have discharg'd.
    The people do admit you, and are summon'd
    To meet anon, upon your approbation.
  CORIOLANUS. Where? At the Senate House?
  SICINIUS. There, Coriolanus.
  CORIOLANUS. May I change these garments?
  SICINIUS. You may, sir.
  CORIOLANUS. That I'll straight do, and, knowing myself again,
    Repair to th' Senate House.
  MENENIUS. I'll keep you company. Will you along?
  BRUTUS. We stay here for the people.
  SICINIUS. Fare you well.
                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and MENENIUS
    He has it now; and by his looks methinks
    'Tis warm at's heart.
  BRUTUS. With a proud heart he wore
    His humble weeds. Will you dismiss the people?

                            Re-enter citizens

  SICINIUS. How now, my masters! Have you chose this man?
  FIRST CITIZEN. He has our voices, sir.
  BRUTUS. We pray the gods he may deserve your loves.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Amen, sir. To my poor unworthy notice,
    He mock'd us when he begg'd our voices.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Certainly;
    He flouted us downright.
  FIRST CITIZEN. No, 'tis his kind of speech- he did not mock us.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Not one amongst us, save yourself, but says
    He us'd us scornfully. He should have show'd us
    His marks of merit, wounds receiv'd for's country.
  SICINIUS. Why, so he did, I am sure.
  ALL. No, no; no man saw 'em.
  THIRD CITIZEN. He said he had wounds which he could show in
      private,
    And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,
    'I would be consul,' says he; 'aged custom
    But by your voices will not so permit me;
    Your voices therefore.' When we granted that,
    Here was 'I thank you for your voices. Thank you,
    Your most sweet voices. Now you have left your voices,
    I have no further with you.' Was not this mockery?
  SICINIUS. Why either were you ignorant to see't,
    Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness
    To yield your voices?
  BRUTUS. Could you not have told him-
    As you were lesson'd- when he had no power
    But was a petty servant to the state,
    He was your enemy; ever spake against
    Your liberties and the charters that you bear
    I' th' body of the weal; and now, arriving
    A place of potency and sway o' th' state,
    If he should still malignantly remain
    Fast foe to th' plebeii, your voices might
    Be curses to yourselves? You should have said
    That as his worthy deeds did claim no less
    Than what he stood for, so his gracious nature
    Would think upon you for your voices, and
    Translate his malice towards you into love,
    Standing your friendly lord.
  SICINIUS. Thus to have said,
    As you were fore-advis'd, had touch'd his spirit
    And tried his inclination; from him pluck'd
    Either his gracious promise, which you might,
    As cause had call'd you up, have held him to;
    Or else it would have gall'd his surly nature,
    Which easily endures not article
    Tying him to aught. So, putting him to rage,
    You should have ta'en th' advantage of his choler
    And pass'd him unelected.
  BRUTUS. Did you perceive
    He did solicit you in free contempt
    When he did need your loves; and do you think
    That his contempt shall not be bruising to you
    When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies
    No heart among you? Or had you tongues to cry
    Against the rectorship of judgment?
  SICINIUS. Have you
    Ere now denied the asker, and now again,
    Of him that did not ask but mock, bestow
    Your su'd-for tongues?
  THIRD CITIZEN. He's not confirm'd: we may deny him yet.
  SECOND CITIZENS. And will deny him;
    I'll have five hundred voices of that sound.
  FIRST CITIZEN. I twice five hundred, and their friends to piece
    'em.
  BRUTUS. Get you hence instantly, and tell those friends
    They have chose a consul that will from them take
    Their liberties, make them of no more voice
    Than dogs, that are as often beat for barking
    As therefore kept to do so.
  SICINIUS. Let them assemble;
    And, on a safer judgment, all revoke
    Your ignorant election. Enforce his pride
    And his old hate unto you; besides, forget not
    With what contempt he wore the humble weed;
    How in his suit he scorn'd you; but your loves,
    Thinking upon his services, took from you
    Th' apprehension of his present portance,
    Which, most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion
    After the inveterate hate he bears you.
  BRUTUS. Lay
    A fault on us, your tribunes, that we labour'd,
    No impediment between, but that you must
    Cast your election on him.
  SICINIUS. Say you chose him
    More after our commandment than as guided
    By your own true affections; and that your minds,
    Pre-occupied with what you rather must do
    Than what you should, made you against the grain
    To voice him consul. Lay the fault on us.
  BRUTUS. Ay, spare us not. Say we read lectures to you,
    How youngly he began to serve his country,
    How long continued; and what stock he springs of-
    The noble house o' th' Marcians; from whence came
    That Ancus Marcius, Numa's daughter's son,
    Who, after great Hostilius, here was king;
    Of the same house Publius and Quintus were,
    That our best water brought by conduits hither;
    And Censorinus, nobly named so,
    Twice being by the people chosen censor,
    Was his great ancestor.
  SICINIUS. One thus descended,
    That hath beside well in his person wrought
    To be set high in place, we did commend
    To your remembrances; but you have found,
    Scaling his present bearing with his past,
    That he's your fixed enemy, and revoke
    Your sudden approbation.
  BRUTUS. Say you ne'er had done't-
    Harp on that still- but by our putting on;
    And presently, when you have drawn your number,
    Repair to th' Capitol.
  CITIZENS. will will so; almost all
    Repent in their election.                   Exeunt plebeians
  BRUTUS. Let them go on;
    This mutiny were better put in hazard
    Than stay, past doubt, for greater.
    If, as his nature is, he fall in rage
    With their refusal, both observe and answer
    The vantage of his anger.
  SICINIUS. To th' Capitol, come.
    We will be there before the stream o' th' people;
    And this shall seem, as partly 'tis, their own,
    Which we have goaded onward.                          Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Rome. A street

Cornets. Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS, all the GENTRY, COMINIUS,
TITUS LARTIUS, and other SENATORS

  CORIOLANUS. Tullus Aufidius, then, had made new head?
  LARTIUS. He had, my lord; and that it was which caus'd
    Our swifter composition.
  CORIOLANUS. So then the Volsces stand but as at first,
    Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road
    Upon's again.
  COMINIUS. They are worn, Lord Consul, so
    That we shall hardly in our ages see
    Their banners wave again.
  CORIOLANUS. Saw you Aufidius?
  LARTIUS. On safeguard he came to me, and did curse
    Against the Volsces, for they had so vilely
    Yielded the town. He is retir'd to Antium.
  CORIOLANUS. Spoke he of me?
  LARTIUS. He did, my lord.
  CORIOLANUS. How? What?
  LARTIUS. How often he had met you, sword to sword;
    That of all things upon the earth he hated
    Your person most; that he would pawn his fortunes
    To hopeless restitution, so he might
    Be call'd your vanquisher.
  CORIOLANUS. At Antium lives he?
  LARTIUS. At Antium.
  CORIOLANUS. I wish I had a cause to seek him there,
    To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.

                       Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS

    Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,
    The tongues o' th' common mouth. I do despise them,
    For they do prank them in authority,
    Against all noble sufferance.
  SICINIUS. Pass no further.
  CORIOLANUS. Ha! What is that?
  BRUTUS. It will be dangerous to go on- no further.
  CORIOLANUS. What makes this change?
  MENENIUS. The matter?
  COMINIUS. Hath he not pass'd the noble and the common?
  BRUTUS. Cominius, no.
  CORIOLANUS. Have I had children's voices?
  FIRST SENATOR. Tribunes, give way: he shall to th' market-place.
  BRUTUS. The people are incens'd against him.
  SICINIUS. Stop,
    Or all will fall in broil.
  CORIOLANUS. Are these your herd?
    Must these have voices, that can yield them now
    And straight disclaim their tongues? What are your offices?
    You being their mouths, why rule you not their teeth?
    Have you not set them on?
  MENENIUS. Be calm, be calm.
  CORIOLANUS. It is a purpos'd thing, and grows by plot,
    To curb the will of the nobility;
    Suffer't, and live with such as cannot rule
    Nor ever will be rul'd.
  BRUTUS. Call't not a plot.
    The people cry you mock'd them; and of late,
    When corn was given them gratis, you repin'd;
    Scandal'd the suppliants for the people, call'd them
    Time-pleasers, flatterers, foes to nobleness.
  CORIOLANUS. Why, this was known before.
  BRUTUS. Not to them all.
  CORIOLANUS. Have you inform'd them sithence?
  BRUTUS. How? I inform them!
  COMINIUS. You are like to do such business.
  BRUTUS. Not unlike
    Each way to better yours.
  CORIOLANUS. Why then should I be consul? By yond clouds,
    Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me
    Your fellow tribune.
  SICINIUS. You show too much of that
    For which the people stir; if you will pass
    To where you are bound, you must enquire your way,
    Which you are out of, with a gentler spirit,
    Or never be so noble as a consul,
    Nor yoke with him for tribune.
  MENENIUS. Let's be calm.
  COMINIUS. The people are abus'd; set on. This palt'ring
    Becomes not Rome; nor has Coriolanus
    Deserved this so dishonour'd rub, laid falsely
    I' th' plain way of his merit.
  CORIOLANUS. Tell me of corn!
    This was my speech, and I will speak't again-
  MENENIUS. Not now, not now.
  FIRST SENATOR. Not in this heat, sir, now.
  CORIOLANUS. Now, as I live, I will.
    My nobler friends, I crave their pardons.
    For the mutable, rank-scented meiny, let them
    Regard me as I do not flatter, and
    Therein behold themselves. I say again,
    In soothing them we nourish 'gainst our Senate
    The cockle of rebellion, insolence, sedition,
    Which we ourselves have plough'd for, sow'd, and scatter'd,
    By mingling them with us, the honour'd number,
    Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that
    Which they have given to beggars.
  MENENIUS. Well, no more.
  FIRST SENATOR. No more words, we beseech you.
  CORIOLANUS. How? no more!
    As for my country I have shed my blood,
    Not fearing outward force, so shall my lungs
    Coin words till their decay against those measles
    Which we disdain should tetter us, yet sought
    The very way to catch them.
  BRUTUS. You speak o' th' people
    As if you were a god, to punish; not
    A man of their infirmity.
  SICINIUS. 'Twere well
    We let the people know't.
  MENENIUS. What, what? his choler?
  CORIOLANUS. Choler!
    Were I as patient as the midnight sleep,
    By Jove, 'twould be my mind!
  SICINIUS. It is a mind
    That shall remain a poison where it is,
    Not poison any further.
  CORIOLANUS. Shall remain!
    Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you
    His absolute 'shall'?
  COMINIUS. 'Twas from the canon.
  CORIOLANUS. 'Shall'!
    O good but most unwise patricians! Why,
    You grave but reckless senators, have you thus
    Given Hydra here to choose an officer
    That with his peremptory 'shall,' being but
    The horn and noise o' th' monster's, wants not spirit
    To say he'll turn your current in a ditch,
    And make your channel his? If he have power,
    Then vail your ignorance; if none, awake
    Your dangerous lenity. If you are learn'd,
    Be not as common fools; if you are not,
    Let them have cushions by you. You are plebeians,
    If they be senators; and they are no less,
    When, both your voices blended, the great'st taste
    Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate;
    And such a one as he, who puts his 'shall,'
    His popular 'shall,' against a graver bench
    Than ever frown'd in Greece. By Jove himself,
    It makes the consuls base; and my soul aches
    To know, when two authorities are up,
    Neither supreme, how soon confusion
    May enter 'twixt the gap of both and take
    The one by th' other.
  COMINIUS. Well, on to th' market-place.
  CORIOLANUS. Whoever gave that counsel to give forth
    The corn o' th' storehouse gratis, as 'twas us'd
    Sometime in Greece-
  MENENIUS. Well, well, no more of that.
  CORIOLANUS. Though there the people had more absolute pow'r-
    I say they nourish'd disobedience, fed
    The ruin of the state.
  BRUTUS. Why shall the people give
    One that speaks thus their voice?
  CORIOLANUS. I'll give my reasons,
    More worthier than their voices. They know the corn
    Was not our recompense, resting well assur'd
    They ne'er did service for't; being press'd to th' war
    Even when the navel of the state was touch'd,
    They would not thread the gates. This kind of service
    Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i' th' war,
    Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they show'd
    Most valour, spoke not for them. Th' accusation
    Which they have often made against the Senate,
    All cause unborn, could never be the native
    Of our so frank donation. Well, what then?
    How shall this bosom multiplied digest
    The Senate's courtesy? Let deeds express
    What's like to be their words: 'We did request it;
    We are the greater poll, and in true fear
    They gave us our demands.' Thus we debase
    The nature of our seats, and make the rabble
    Call our cares fears; which will in time
    Break ope the locks o' th' Senate and bring in
    The crows to peck the eagles.
  MENENIUS. Come, enough.
  BRUTUS. Enough, with over measure.
  CORIOLANUS. No, take more.
    What may be sworn by, both divine and human,
    Seal what I end withal! This double worship,
    Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
    Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom,
    Cannot conclude but by the yea and no
    Of general ignorance- it must omit
    Real necessities, and give way the while
    To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows
    Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore, beseech you-
    You that will be less fearful than discreet;
    That love the fundamental part of state
    More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer
    A noble life before a long, and wish
    To jump a body with a dangerous physic
    That's sure of death without it- at once pluck out
    The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
    The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonour
    Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state
    Of that integrity which should become't,
    Not having the power to do the good it would,
    For th' ill which doth control't.
  BRUTUS. Has said enough.
  SICINIUS. Has spoken like a traitor and shall answer
    As traitors do.
  CORIOLANUS. Thou wretch, despite o'erwhelm thee!
    What should the people do with these bald tribunes,
    On whom depending, their obedience fails
    To the greater bench? In a rebellion,
    When what's not meet, but what must be, was law,
    Then were they chosen; in a better hour
    Let what is meet be said it must be meet,
    And throw their power i' th' dust.
  BRUTUS. Manifest treason!
  SICINIUS. This a consul? No.
  BRUTUS. The aediles, ho!

                           Enter an AEDILE

    Let him be apprehended.
  SICINIUS. Go call the people,  [Exit AEDILE]  in whose name myself
    Attach thee as a traitorous innovator,
    A foe to th' public weal. Obey, I charge thee,
    And follow to thine answer.
  CORIOLANUS. Hence, old goat!
  PATRICIANS. We'll surety him.
  COMINIUS. Ag'd sir, hands off.
  CORIOLANUS. Hence, rotten thing! or I shall shake thy bones
    Out of thy garments.
  SICINIUS. Help, ye citizens!

              Enter a rabble of plebeians, with the AEDILES

  MENENIUS. On both sides more respect.
  SICINIUS. Here's he that would take from you all your power.
  BRUTUS. Seize him, aediles.
    PLEBEIANS. Down with him! down with him!
  SECOND SENATOR. Weapons, weapons, weapons!
                              [They all bustle about CORIOLANUS]
  ALL. Tribunes! patricians! citizens! What, ho! Sicinius!
    Brutus! Coriolanus! Citizens!
  PATRICIANS. Peace, peace, peace; stay, hold, peace!
  MENENIUS. What is about to be? I am out of breath;
    Confusion's near; I cannot speak. You tribunes
    To th' people- Coriolanus, patience!
    Speak, good Sicinius.
  SICINIUS. Hear me, people; peace!
  PLEBEIANS. Let's hear our tribune. Peace! Speak, speak, speak.
  SICINIUS. You are at point to lose your liberties.
    Marcius would have all from you; Marcius,
    Whom late you have nam'd for consul.
  MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!
    This is the way to kindle, not to quench.
  FIRST SENATOR. To unbuild the city, and to lay all flat.
  SICINIUS. What is the city but the people?
  PLEBEIANS. True,
    The people are the city.
  BRUTUS. By the consent of all we were establish'd
    The people's magistrates.
  PLEBEIANS. You so remain.
  MENENIUS. And so are like to do.
  COMINIUS. That is the way to lay the city flat,
    To bring the roof to the foundation,
    And bury all which yet distinctly ranges
    In heaps and piles of ruin.
  SICINIUS. This deserves death.
  BRUTUS. Or let us stand to our authority
    Or let us lose it. We do here pronounce,
    Upon the part o' th' people, in whose power
    We were elected theirs: Marcius is worthy
    Of present death.
  SICINIUS. Therefore lay hold of him;
    Bear him to th' rock Tarpeian, and from thence
    Into destruction cast him.
  BRUTUS. AEdiles, seize him.
  PLEBEIANS. Yield, Marcius, yield.
  MENENIUS. Hear me one word; beseech you, Tribunes,
    Hear me but a word.
  AEDILES. Peace, peace!
  MENENIUS. Be that you seem, truly your country's friend,
    And temp'rately proceed to what you would
    Thus violently redress.
  BRUTUS. Sir, those cold ways,
    That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous
    Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him
    And bear him to the rock.
                                    [CORIOLANUS draws his sword]
  CORIOLANUS. No: I'll die here.
    There's some among you have beheld me fighting;
    Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.
  MENENIUS. Down with that sword! Tribunes, withdraw awhile.
  BRUTUS. Lay hands upon him.
  MENENIUS. Help Marcius, help,
    You that be noble; help him, young and old.
  PLEBEIANS. Down with him, down with him!
                      [In this mutiny the TRIBUNES, the AEDILES,
                                     and the people are beat in]
  MENENIUS. Go, get you to your house; be gone, away.
    All will be nought else.
  SECOND SENATOR. Get you gone.
  CORIOLANUS. Stand fast;
    We have as many friends as enemies.
  MENENIUS. Shall it be put to that?
  FIRST SENATOR. The gods forbid!
    I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house;
    Leave us to cure this cause.
  MENENIUS. For 'tis a sore upon us
    You cannot tent yourself; be gone, beseech you.
  COMINIUS. Come, sir, along with us.
  CORIOLANUS. I would they were barbarians, as they are,
    Though in Rome litter'd; not Romans, as they are not,
    Though calved i' th' porch o' th' Capitol.
  MENENIUS. Be gone.
    Put not your worthy rage into your tongue;
    One time will owe another.
  CORIOLANUS. On fair ground
    I could beat forty of them.
  MENENIUS. I could myself
    Take up a brace o' th' best of them; yea, the two tribunes.
  COMINIUS. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic,
    And manhood is call'd foolery when it stands
    Against a falling fabric. Will you hence,
    Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend
    Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear
    What they are us'd to bear.
  MENENIUS. Pray you be gone.
    I'll try whether my old wit be in request
    With those that have but little; this must be patch'd
    With cloth of any colour.
  COMINIUS. Nay, come away.
                     Exeunt CORIOLANUS and COMINIUS, with others
  PATRICIANS. This man has marr'd his fortune.
  MENENIUS. His nature is too noble for the world:
    He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
    Or Jove for's power to thunder. His heart's his mouth;
    What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent;
    And, being angry, does forget that ever
    He heard the name of death.                 [A noise within]
    Here's goodly work!
  PATRICIANS. I would they were a-bed.
  MENENIUS. I would they were in Tiber.
    What the vengeance, could he not speak 'em fair?

            Re-enter BRUTUS and SICINIUS, the rabble again

  SICINIUS. Where is this viper
    That would depopulate the city and
    Be every man himself?
  MENENIUS. You worthy Tribunes-
  SICINIUS. He shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock
    With rigorous hands; he hath resisted law,
    And therefore law shall scorn him further trial
    Than the severity of the public power,
    Which he so sets at nought.
  FIRST CITIZEN. He shall well know
    The noble tribunes are the people's mouths,
    And we their hands.
  PLEBEIANS. He shall, sure on't.
  MENENIUS. Sir, sir-
  SICINIUS. Peace!
  MENENIUS. Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt
    With modest warrant.
  SICINIUS. Sir, how comes't that you
    Have holp to make this rescue?
  MENENIUS. Hear me speak.
    As I do know the consul's worthiness,
    So can I name his faults.
  SICINIUS. Consul! What consul?
  MENENIUS. The consul Coriolanus.
  BRUTUS. He consul!
  PLEBEIANS. No, no, no, no, no.
  MENENIUS. If, by the tribunes' leave, and yours, good people,
    I may be heard, I would crave a word or two;
    The which shall turn you to no further harm
    Than so much loss of time.
  SICINIUS. Speak briefly, then,
    For we are peremptory to dispatch
    This viperous traitor; to eject him hence
    Were but one danger, and to keep him here
    Our certain death; therefore it is decreed
    He dies to-night.
  MENENIUS. Now the good gods forbid
    That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude
    Towards her deserved children is enroll'd
    In Jove's own book, like an unnatural dam
    Should now eat up her own!
  SICINIUS. He's a disease that must be cut away.
  MENENIUS. O, he's a limb that has but a disease-
    Mortal, to cut it off: to cure it, easy.
    What has he done to Rome that's worthy death?
    Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost-
    Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath
    By many an ounce- he dropt it for his country;
    And what is left, to lose it by his country
    Were to us all that do't and suffer it
    A brand to th' end o' th' world.
  SICINIUS. This is clean kam.
  BRUTUS. Merely awry. When he did love his country,
    It honour'd him.
  SICINIUS. The service of the foot,
    Being once gangren'd, is not then respected
    For what before it was.
  BRUTUS. We'll hear no more.
    Pursue him to his house and pluck him thence,
    Lest his infection, being of catching nature,
    Spread further.
  MENENIUS. One word more, one word
    This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find
    The harm of unscann'd swiftness, will, too late,
    Tie leaden pounds to's heels. Proceed by process,
    Lest parties- as he is belov'd- break out,
    And sack great Rome with Romans.
  BRUTUS. If it were so-
  SICINIUS. What do ye talk?
    Have we not had a taste of his obedience-
    Our aediles smote, ourselves resisted? Come!
  MENENIUS. Consider this: he has been bred i' th' wars
    Since 'a could draw a sword, and is ill school'd
    In bolted language; meal and bran together
    He throws without distinction. Give me leave,
    I'll go to him and undertake to bring him
    Where he shall answer by a lawful form,
    In peace, to his utmost peril.
  FIRST SENATOR. Noble Tribunes,
    It is the humane way; the other course
    Will prove too bloody, and the end of it
    Unknown to the beginning.
  SICINIUS. Noble Menenius,
    Be you then as the people's officer.
    Masters, lay down your weapons.
  BRUTUS. Go not home.
  SICINIUS. Meet on the market-place. We'll attend you there;
    Where, if you bring not Marcius, we'll proceed
    In our first way.
  MENENIUS. I'll bring him to you.
    [To the SENATORS]  Let me desire your company; he must come,
    Or what is worst will follow.
  FIRST SENATOR. Pray you let's to him.                   Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. The house of CORIOLANUS

Enter CORIOLANUS with NOBLES

  CORIOLANUS. Let them pull all about mine ears, present me
    Death on the wheel or at wild horses' heels;
    Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,
    That the precipitation might down stretch
    Below the beam of sight; yet will I still
    Be thus to them.
  FIRST PATRICIAN. You do the nobler.
  CORIOLANUS. I muse my mother
    Does not approve me further, who was wont
    To call them woollen vassals, things created
    To buy and sell with groats; to show bare heads
    In congregations, to yawn, be still, and wonder,
    When one but of my ordinance stood up
    To speak of peace or war.

                          Enter VOLUMNIA

    I talk of you:
    Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me
    False to my nature? Rather say I play
    The man I am.
  VOLUMNIA. O, sir, sir, sir,
    I would have had you put your power well on
    Before you had worn it out.
  CORIOLANUS. Let go.
  VOLUMNIA. You might have been enough the man you are
    With striving less to be so; lesser had been
    The thwartings of your dispositions, if
    You had not show'd them how ye were dispos'd,
    Ere they lack'd power to cross you.
  CORIOLANUS. Let them hang.
  VOLUMNIA. Ay, and burn too.

                    Enter MENENIUS with the SENATORS

  MENENIUS. Come, come, you have been too rough, something too rough;
    You must return and mend it.
  FIRST SENATOR. There's no remedy,
    Unless, by not so doing, our good city
    Cleave in the midst and perish.
  VOLUMNIA. Pray be counsell'd;
    I have a heart as little apt as yours,
    But yet a brain that leads my use of anger
    To better vantage.
  MENENIUS. Well said, noble woman!
    Before he should thus stoop to th' herd, but that
    The violent fit o' th' time craves it as physic
    For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,
    Which I can scarcely bear.
  CORIOLANUS. What must I do?
  MENENIUS. Return to th' tribunes.
  CORIOLANUS. Well, what then, what then?
  MENENIUS. Repent what you have spoke.
  CORIOLANUS. For them! I cannot do it to the gods;
    Must I then do't to them?
  VOLUMNIA. You are too absolute;
    Though therein you can never be too noble
    But when extremities speak. I have heard you say
    Honour and policy, like unsever'd friends,
    I' th' war do grow together; grant that, and tell me
    In peace what each of them by th' other lose
    That they combine not there.
  CORIOLANUS. Tush, tush!
  MENENIUS. A good demand.
  VOLUMNIA. If it be honour in your wars to seem
    The same you are not, which for your best ends
    You adopt your policy, how is it less or worse
    That it shall hold companionship in peace
    With honour as in war; since that to both
    It stands in like request?
  CORIOLANUS. Why force you this?
  VOLUMNIA. Because that now it lies you on to speak
    To th' people, not by your own instruction,
    Nor by th' matter which your heart prompts you,
    But with such words that are but roted in
    Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables
    Of no allowance to your bosom's truth.
    Now, this no more dishonours you at all
    Than to take in a town with gentle words,
    Which else would put you to your fortune and
    The hazard of much blood.
    I would dissemble with my nature where
    My fortunes and my friends at stake requir'd
    I should do so in honour. I am in this
    Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles;
    And you will rather show our general louts
    How you can frown, than spend a fawn upon 'em
    For the inheritance of their loves and safeguard
    Of what that want might ruin.
  MENENIUS. Noble lady!
    Come, go with us, speak fair; you may salve so,
    Not what is dangerous present, but the los
    Of what is past.
  VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, My son,
    Go to them with this bonnet in thy hand;
    And thus far having stretch'd it- here be with them-
    Thy knee bussing the stones- for in such busines
    Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th' ignorant
    More learned than the ears- waving thy head,
    Which often thus correcting thy-stout heart,
    Now humble as the ripest mulberry
    That will not hold the handling. Or say to them
    Thou art their soldier and, being bred in broils,
    Hast not the soft way which, thou dost confess,
    Were fit for thee to use, as they to claim,
    In asking their good loves; but thou wilt frame
    Thyself, forsooth, hereafter theirs, so far
    As thou hast power and person.
  MENENIUS. This but done
    Even as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours;
    For they have pardons, being ask'd, as free
    As words to little purpose.
  VOLUMNIA. Prithee now,
    Go, and be rul'd; although I know thou hadst rather
    Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf
    Than flatter him in a bower.

                           Enter COMINIUS

    Here is Cominius.
  COMINIUS. I have been i' th' market-place; and, sir, 'tis fit
    You make strong party, or defend yourself
    By calmness or by absence; all's in anger.
  MENENIUS. Only fair speech.
  COMINIUS. I think 'twill serve, if he
    Can thereto frame his spirit.
  VOLUMNIA. He must and will.
    Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.
  CORIOLANUS. Must I go show them my unbarb'd sconce? Must I
    With my base tongue give to my noble heart
    A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do't;
    Yet, were there but this single plot to lose,
    This mould of Marcius, they to dust should grind it,
    And throw't against the wind. To th' market-place!
    You have put me now to such a part which never
    I shall discharge to th' life.
  COMINIUS. Come, come, we'll prompt you.
  VOLUMNIA. I prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said
    My praises made thee first a soldier, so,
    To have my praise for this, perform a part
    Thou hast not done before.
  CORIOLANUS. Well, I must do't.
    Away, my disposition, and possess me
    Some harlot's spirit! My throat of war be turn'd,
    Which quier'd with my drum, into a pipe
    Small as an eunuch or the virgin voice
    That babies lulls asleep! The smiles of knaves
    Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys' tears take up
    The glasses of my sight! A beggar's tongue
    Make motion through my lips, and my arm'd knees,
    Who bow'd but in my stirrup, bend like his
    That hath receiv'd an alms! I will not do't,
    Lest I surcease to honour mine own truth,
    And by my body's action teach my mind
    A most inherent baseness.
  VOLUMNIA. At thy choice, then.
    To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour
    Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let
    Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear
    Thy dangerous stoutness; for I mock at death
    With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.
    Thy valiantness was mine, thou suck'dst it from me;
    But owe thy pride thyself.
  CORIOLANUS. Pray be content.
    Mother, I am going to the market-place;
    Chide me no more. I'll mountebank their loves,
    Cog their hearts from them, and come home belov'd
    Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going.
    Commend me to my wife. I'll return consul,
    Or never trust to what my tongue can do
    I' th' way of flattery further.
  VOLUMNIA. Do your will.                                   Exit
  COMINIUS. Away! The tribunes do attend you. Arm yourself
    To answer mildly; for they are prepar'd
    With accusations, as I hear, more strong
    Than are upon you yet.
  CORIOLANUS. The word is 'mildly.' Pray you let us go.
    Let them accuse me by invention; I
    Will answer in mine honour.
  MENENIUS. Ay, but mildly.
  CORIOLANUS. Well, mildly be it then- mildly.            Exeunt

SCENE III. Rome. The Forum

Enter SICINIUS and BRUTUS

  BRUTUS. In this point charge him home, that he affects
    Tyrannical power. If he evade us there,
    Enforce him with his envy to the people,
    And that the spoil got on the Antiates
    Was ne'er distributed.

                           Enter an AEDILE

    What, will he come?
  AEDILE. He's coming.
  BRUTUS. How accompanied?
  AEDILE. With old Menenius, and those senators
    That always favour'd him.
  SICINIUS. Have you a catalogue
    Of all the voices that we have procur'd,
    Set down by th' poll?
  AEDILE. I have; 'tis ready.
  SICINIUS. Have you corrected them by tribes?
  AEDILE. I have.
  SICINIUS. Assemble presently the people hither;
    And when they hear me say 'It shall be so
    I' th' right and strength o' th' commons' be it either
    For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them,
    If I say fine, cry 'Fine!'- if death, cry 'Death!'
    Insisting on the old prerogative
    And power i' th' truth o' th' cause.
  AEDILE. I shall inform them.
  BRUTUS. And when such time they have begun to cry,
    Let them not cease, but with a din confus'd
    Enforce the present execution
    Of what we chance to sentence.
  AEDILE. Very well.
  SICINIUS. Make them be strong, and ready for this hint,
    When we shall hap to give't them.
  BRUTUS. Go about it.                               Exit AEDILE
    Put him to choler straight. He hath been us'd
    Ever to conquer, and to have his worth
    Of contradiction; being once chaf'd, he cannot
    Be rein'd again to temperance; then he speaks
    What's in his heart, and that is there which looks
    With us to break his neck.

          Enter CORIOLANUS, MENENIUS and COMINIUS, with others

  SICINIUS. Well, here he comes.
  MENENIUS. Calmly, I do beseech you.
  CORIOLANUS. Ay, as an ostler, that for th' poorest piece
    Will bear the knave by th' volume. Th' honour'd gods
    Keep Rome in safety, and the chairs of justice
    Supplied with worthy men! plant love among's!
    Throng our large temples with the shows of peace,
    And not our streets with war!
  FIRST SENATOR. Amen, amen!
  MENENIUS. A noble wish.

                  Re-enter the.AEDILE,with the plebeians

  SICINIUS. Draw near, ye people.
  AEDILE. List to your tribunes. Audience! peace, I say!
  CORIOLANUS. First, hear me speak.
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Well, say. Peace, ho!
  CORIOLANUS. Shall I be charg'd no further than this present?
    Must all determine here?
  SICINIUS. I do demand,
    If you submit you to the people's voices,
    Allow their officers, and are content
    To suffer lawful censure for such faults
    As shall be prov'd upon you.
  CORIOLANUS. I am content.
  MENENIUS. Lo, citizens, he says he is content.
    The warlike service he has done, consider; think
    Upon the wounds his body bears, which show
    Like graves i' th' holy churchyard.
  CORIOLANUS. Scratches with briers,
    Scars to move laughter only.
  MENENIUS. Consider further,
    That when he speaks not like a citizen,
    You find him like a soldier; do not take
    His rougher accents for malicious sounds,
    But, as I say, such as become a soldier
    Rather than envy you.
  COMINIUS. Well, well! No more.
  CORIOLANUS. What is the matter,
    That being pass'd for consul with full voice,
    I am so dishonour'd that the very hour
    You take it off again?
  SICINIUS. Answer to us.
  CORIOLANUS. Say then; 'tis true, I ought so.
  SICINIUS. We charge you that you have contriv'd to take
    From Rome all season'd office, and to wind
    Yourself into a power tyrannical;
    For which you are a traitor to the people.
  CORIOLANUS. How- traitor?
  MENENIUS. Nay, temperately! Your promise.
  CORIOLANUS. The fires i' th' lowest hell fold in the people!
    Call me their traitor! Thou injurious tribune!
    Within thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,
    In thy hands clutch'd as many millions, in
    Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say
    'Thou liest' unto thee with a voice as free
    As I do pray the gods.
  SICINIUS. Mark you this, people?
  PLEBEIANS. To th' rock, to th' rock, with him!
  SICINIUS. Peace!
    We need not put new matter to his charge.
    What you have seen him do and heard him speak,
    Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,
    Opposing laws with strokes, and here defying
    Those whose great power must try him- even this,
    So criminal and in such capital kind,
    Deserves th' extremest death.
  BRUTUS. But since he hath
    Serv'd well for Rome-
  CORIOLANUS. What do you prate of service?
  BRUTUS. I talk of that that know it.
  CORIOLANUS. You!
  MENENIUS. Is this the promise that you made your mother?
  COMINIUS. Know, I pray you-
  CORIOLANUS. I'll know no further.
    Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,
    Vagabond exile, flaying, pent to linger
    But with a grain a day, I would not buy
    Their mercy at the price of one fair word,
    Nor check my courage for what they can give,
    To have't with saying 'Good morrow.'
  SICINIUS. For that he has-
    As much as in him lies- from time to time
    Envied against the people, seeking means
    To pluck away their power; as now at last
    Given hostile strokes, and that not in the presence
    Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers
    That do distribute it- in the name o' th' people,
    And in the power of us the tribunes, we,
    Ev'n from this instant, banish him our city,
    In peril of precipitation
    From off the rock Tarpeian, never more
    To enter our Rome gates. I' th' people's name,
    I say it shall be so.
  PLEBEIANS. It shall be so, it shall be so! Let him away!
    He's banish'd, and it shall be so.
  COMINIUS. Hear me, my masters and my common friends-
  SICINIUS. He's sentenc'd; no more hearing.
  COMINIUS. Let me speak.
    I have been consul, and can show for Rome
    Her enemies' marks upon me. I do love
    My country's good with a respect more tender,
    More holy and profound, than mine own life,
    My dear wife's estimate, her womb's increase
    And treasure of my loins. Then if I would
    Speak that-
  SICINIUS. We know your drift. Speak what?
  BRUTUS. There's no more to be said, but he is banish'd,
    As enemy to the people and his country.
    It shall be so.
  PLEBEIANS. It shall be so, it shall be so.
  CORIOLANUS. YOU common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
    As reek o' th' rotten fens, whose loves I prize
    As the dead carcasses of unburied men
    That do corrupt my air- I banish you.
    And here remain with your uncertainty!
    Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts;
    Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,
    Fan you into despair! Have the power still
    To banish your defenders, till at length
    Your ignorance- which finds not till it feels,
    Making but reservation of yourselves
    Still your own foes- deliver you
    As most abated captives to some nation
    That won you without blows! Despising
    For you the city, thus I turn my back;
    There is a world elsewhere.
                                              Exeunt CORIOLANUS,
                   COMINIUS, MENENIUS, with the other PATRICIANS
  AEDILE. The people's enemy is gone, is gone!
                        [They all shout and throw up their caps]
  PLEBEIANS. Our enemy is banish'd, he is gone! Hoo-oo!
  SICINIUS. Go see him out at gates, and follow him,
    As he hath follow'd you, with all despite;
    Give him deserv'd vexation. Let a guard
    Attend us through the city.
  PLEBEIANS. Come, come, let's see him out at gates; come!
    The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.           Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Rome. Before a gate of the city

Enter CORIOLANUS, VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, MENENIUS, COMINIUS, with the
young NOBILITY of Rome

  CORIOLANUS. Come, leave your tears; a brief farewell. The beast
    With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,
    Where is your ancient courage? You were us'd
    To say extremities was the trier of spirits;
    That common chances common men could bear;
    That when the sea was calm all boats alike
    Show'd mastership in floating; fortune's blows,
    When most struck home, being gentle wounded craves
    A noble cunning. You were us'd to load me
    With precepts that would make invincible
    The heart that conn'd them.
  VIRGILIA. O heavens! O heavens!
  CORIOLANUS. Nay, I prithee, woman-
  VOLUMNIA. Now the red pestilence strike all trades in Rome,
    And occupations perish!
  CORIOLANUS. What, what, what!
    I shall be lov'd when I am lack'd. Nay, mother,
    Resume that spirit when you were wont to say,
    If you had been the wife of Hercules,
    Six of his labours you'd have done, and sav'd
    Your husband so much sweat. Cominius,
    Droop not; adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother.
    I'll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,
    Thy tears are salter than a younger man's
    And venomous to thine eyes. My sometime General,
    I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld
    Heart-hard'ning spectacles; tell these sad women
    'Tis fond to wail inevitable strokes,
    As 'tis to laugh at 'em. My mother, you wot well
    My hazards still have been your solace; and
    Believe't not lightly- though I go alone,
    Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen
    Makes fear'd and talk'd of more than seen- your son
    Will or exceed the common or be caught
    With cautelous baits and practice.
  VOLUMNIA. My first son,
    Whither wilt thou go? Take good Cominius
    With thee awhile; determine on some course
    More than a wild exposture to each chance
    That starts i' th' way before thee.
  VIRGILIA. O the gods!
  COMINIUS. I'll follow thee a month, devise with the
    Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us,
    And we of thee; so, if the time thrust forth
    A cause for thy repeal, we shall not send
    O'er the vast world to seek a single man,
    And lose advantage, which doth ever cool
    I' th' absence of the needer.
  CORIOLANUS. Fare ye well;
    Thou hast years upon thee, and thou art too full
    Of the wars' surfeits to go rove with one
    That's yet unbruis'd; bring me but out at gate.
    Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and
    My friends of noble touch; when I am forth,
    Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you come.
    While I remain above the ground you shall
    Hear from me still, and never of me aught
    But what is like me formerly.
  MENENIUS. That's worthily
    As any ear can hear. Come, let's not weep.
    If I could shake off but one seven years
    From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,
    I'd with thee every foot.
  CORIOLANUS. Give me thy hand.
    Come.                                                 Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. A street near the gate

Enter the two Tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS with the AEDILE

  SICINIUS. Bid them all home; he's gone, and we'll no further.
    The nobility are vex'd, whom we see have sided
    In his behalf.
  BRUTUS. Now we have shown our power,
    Let us seem humbler after it is done
    Than when it was a-doing.
  SICINIUS. Bid them home.
    Say their great enemy is gone, and they
    Stand in their ancient strength.
  BRUTUS. Dismiss them home.                         Exit AEDILE
    Here comes his mother.

                   Enter VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, and MENENIUS

  SICINIUS. Let's not meet her.
  BRUTUS. Why?
  SICINIUS. They say she's mad.
  BRUTUS. They have ta'en note of us; keep on your way.
  VOLUMNIA. O, Y'are well met; th' hoarded plague o' th' gods
    Requite your love!
  MENENIUS. Peace, peace, be not so loud.
  VOLUMNIA. If that I could for weeping, you should hear-
    Nay, and you shall hear some.  [To BRUTUS] Will you be gone?
  VIRGILIA.  [To SICINIUS]  You shall stay too. I would I had the
      power
    To say so to my husband.
  SICINIUS. Are you mankind?
  VOLUMNIA. Ay, fool; is that a shame? Note but this, fool:
    Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship
    To banish him that struck more blows for Rome
    Than thou hast spoken words?
  SICINIUS. O blessed heavens!
  VOLUMNIA. Moe noble blows than ever thou wise words;
    And for Rome's good. I'll tell thee what- yet go!
    Nay, but thou shalt stay too. I would my son
    Were in Arabia, and thy tribe before him,
    His good sword in his hand.
  SICINIUS. What then?
  VIRGILIA. What then!
    He'd make an end of thy posterity.
  VOLUMNIA. Bastards and all.
    Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!
  MENENIUS. Come, come, peace.
  SICINIUS. I would he had continued to his country
    As he began, and not unknit himself
    The noble knot he made.
  BRUTUS. I would he had.
  VOLUMNIA. 'I would he had!' 'Twas you incens'd the rabble-
    Cats that can judge as fitly of his worth
    As I can of those mysteries which heaven
    Will not have earth to know.
  BRUTUS. Pray, let's go.
  VOLUMNIA. Now, pray, sir, get you gone;
    You have done a brave deed. Ere you go, hear this:
    As far as doth the Capitol exceed
    The meanest house in Rome, so far my son-
    This lady's husband here, this, do you see?-
    Whom you have banish'd does exceed you an.
  BRUTUS. Well, well, we'll leave you.
  SICINIUS. Why stay we to be baited
    With one that wants her wits?                Exeunt TRIBUNES
  VOLUMNIA. Take my prayers with you.
    I would the gods had nothing else to do
    But to confirm my curses. Could I meet 'em
    But once a day, it would unclog my heart
    Of what lies heavy to't.
  MENENIUS. You have told them home,
    And, by my troth, you have cause. You'll sup with me?
  VOLUMNIA. Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
    And so shall starve with feeding. Come, let's go.
    Leave this faint puling and lament as I do,
    In anger, Juno-like. Come, come, come.
                                    Exeunt VOLUMNIA and VIRGILIA
  MENENIUS. Fie, fie, fie!                                  Exit

SCENE III. A highway between Rome and Antium

Enter a ROMAN and a VOLSCE, meeting

  ROMAN. I know you well, sir, and you know me; your name, I think,
    is Adrian.
  VOLSCE. It is so, sir. Truly, I have forgot you.
  ROMAN. I am a Roman; and my services are, as you are, against 'em.
    Know you me yet?
  VOLSCE. Nicanor? No!
  ROMAN. The same, sir.
  VOLSCE. YOU had more beard when I last saw you, but your favour is
    well appear'd by your tongue. What's the news in Rome? I have a
    note from the Volscian state, to find you out there. You have
    well saved me a day's journey.
  ROMAN. There hath been in Rome strange insurrections: the people
    against the senators, patricians, and nobles.
  VOLSCE. Hath been! Is it ended, then? Our state thinks not so; they
    are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to come upon them in
    the heat of their division.
  ROMAN. The main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make
    it flame again; for the nobles receive so to heart the banishment
    of that worthy Coriolanus that they are in a ripe aptness to take
    all power from the people, and to pluck from them their tribunes
    for ever. This lies glowing, I can tell you, and is almost mature
    for the violent breaking out.
  VOLSCE. Coriolanus banish'd!
  ROMAN. Banish'd, sir.
  VOLSCE. You will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.
  ROMAN. The day serves well for them now. I have heard it said the
    fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's fall'n out
    with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in
    these wars, his great opposer, Coriolanus, being now in no
    request of his country.
  VOLSCE. He cannot choose. I am most fortunate thus accidentally to
    encounter you; you have ended my business, and I will merrily
    accompany you home.
  ROMAN. I shall between this and supper tell you most strange things
    from Rome, all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you
    an army ready, say you?
  VOLSCE. A most royal one: the centurions and their charges,
    distinctly billeted, already in th' entertainment, and to be on
    foot at an hour's warning.
  ROMAN. I am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the man, I
    think, that shall set them in present action. So, sir, heartily
    well met, and most glad of your company.
  VOLSCE. You take my part from me, sir. I have the most cause to be
    glad of yours.
  ROMAN. Well, let us go together.

SCENE IV. Antium. Before AUFIDIUS' house

Enter CORIOLANUS, in mean apparel, disguis'd and muffled

  CORIOLANUS. A goodly city is this Antium. City,
    'Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir
    Of these fair edifices fore my wars
    Have I heard groan and drop. Then know me not.
    Lest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones,
    In puny battle slay me.

                           Enter A CITIZEN

    Save you, sir.
  CITIZEN. And you.
  CORIOLANUS. Direct me, if it be your will,
    Where great Aufidius lies. Is he in Antium?
  CITIZEN. He is, and feasts the nobles of the state
    At his house this night.
  CORIOLANUS. Which is his house, beseech you?
  CITIZEN. This here before you.
  CORIOLANUS. Thank you, sir; farewell.             Exit CITIZEN
    O world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,
    Whose double bosoms seems to wear one heart,
    Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise
    Are still together, who twin, as 'twere, in love,
    Unseparable, shall within this hour,
    On a dissension of a doit, break out
    To bitterest enmity; so fellest foes,
    Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep
    To take the one the other, by some chance,
    Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends
    And interjoin their issues. So with me:
    My birthplace hate I, and my love's upon
    This enemy town. I'll enter. If he slay me,
    He does fair justice: if he give me way,
    I'll do his country service.

SCENE V. Antium. AUFIDIUS' house

Music plays. Enter A SERVINGMAN

  FIRST SERVANT. Wine, wine, wine! What service is here! I think our
  fellows are asleep.                                     Exit

                     Enter another SERVINGMAN

  SECOND SERVANT.Where's Cotus? My master calls for him.
    Cotus!                                                  Exit

                       Enter CORIOLANUS

  CORIOLANUS. A goodly house. The feast smells well, but I
    Appear not like a guest.

                 Re-enter the first SERVINGMAN

  FIRST SERVANT. What would you have, friend?
    Whence are you? Here's no place for you: pray go to the door.
 Exit
  CORIOLANUS. I have deserv'd no better entertainment
    In being Coriolanus.

                   Re-enter second SERVINGMAN

  SECOND SERVANT. Whence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his
    head that he gives entrance to such companions? Pray get you out.
  CORIOLANUS. Away!
  SECOND SERVANT. Away? Get you away.
  CORIOLANUS. Now th' art troublesome.
  SECOND SERVANT. Are you so brave? I'll have you talk'd with anon.

          Enter a third SERVINGMAN. The first meets him

  THIRD SERVANT. What fellow's this?
  FIRST SERVANT. A strange one as ever I look'd on. I cannot get him
    out o' th' house. Prithee call my master to him.
  THIRD SERVANT. What have you to do here, fellow? Pray you avoid the
    house.
  CORIOLANUS. Let me but stand- I will not hurt your hearth.
  THIRD SERVANT. What are you?
  CORIOLANUS. A gentleman.
  THIRD SERVANT. A marv'llous poor one.
  CORIOLANUS. True, so I am.
  THIRD SERVANT. Pray you, poor gentleman, take up some other
    station; here's no place for you. Pray you avoid. Come.
  CORIOLANUS. Follow your function, go and batten on cold bits.
                                      [Pushes him away from him]
  THIRD SERVANT. What, you will not? Prithee tell my master what a
    strange guest he has here.
  SECOND SERVANT. And I shall.                              Exit
  THIRD SERVANT. Where dwell'st thou?
  CORIOLANUS. Under the canopy.
  THIRD SERVANT. Under the canopy?
  CORIOLANUS. Ay.
  THIRD SERVANT. Where's that?
  CORIOLANUS. I' th' city of kites and crows.
  THIRD SERVANT. I' th' city of kites and crows!
    What an ass it is! Then thou dwell'st with daws too?
  CORIOLANUS. No, I serve not thy master.
  THIRD SERVANT. How, sir! Do you meddle with my master?
  CORIOLANUS. Ay; 'tis an honester service than to meddle with thy
    mistress. Thou prat'st and prat'st; serve with thy trencher;
    hence!                                      [Beats him away]

             Enter AUFIDIUS with the second SERVINGMAN

  AUFIDIUS. Where is this fellow?
  SECOND SERVANT. Here, sir; I'd have beaten him like a dog, but for
    disturbing the lords within.
  AUFIDIUS. Whence com'st thou? What wouldst thou? Thy name?
    Why speak'st not? Speak, man. What's thy name?
  CORIOLANUS.  [Unmuffling]  If, Tullus,
    Not yet thou know'st me, and, seeing me, dost not
    Think me for the man I am, necessity
    Commands me name myself.
  AUFIDIUS. What is thy name?
  CORIOLANUS. A name unmusical to the Volscians' ears,
    And harsh in sound to thine.
  AUFIDIUS. Say, what's thy name?
    Thou has a grim appearance, and thy face
    Bears a command in't; though thy tackle's torn,
    Thou show'st a noble vessel. What's thy name?
  CORIOLANUS. Prepare thy brow to frown- know'st thou me yet?
  AUFIDIUS. I know thee not. Thy name?
  CORIOLANUS. My name is Caius Marcius, who hath done
    To thee particularly, and to all the Volsces,
    Great hurt and mischief; thereto witness may
    My surname, Coriolanus. The painful service,
    The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood
    Shed for my thankless country, are requited
    But with that surname- a good memory
    And witness of the malice and displeasure
    Which thou shouldst bear me. Only that name remains;
    The cruelty and envy of the people,
    Permitted by our dastard nobles, who
    Have all forsook me, hath devour'd the rest,
    An suffer'd me by th' voice of slaves to be
    Whoop'd out of Rome. Now this extremity
    Hath brought me to thy hearth; not out of hope,
    Mistake me not, to save my life; for if
    I had fear'd death, of all the men i' th' world
    I would have 'voided thee; but in mere spite,
    To be full quit of those my banishers,
    Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast
    A heart of wreak in thee, that wilt revenge
    Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims
    Of shame seen through thy country, speed thee straight
    And make my misery serve thy turn. So use it
    That my revengeful services may prove
    As benefits to thee; for I will fight
    Against my cank'red country with the spleen
    Of all the under fiends. But if so be
    Thou dar'st not this, and that to prove more fortunes
    Th'art tir'd, then, in a word, I also am
    Longer to live most weary, and present
    My throat to thee and to thy ancient malice;
    Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,
    Since I have ever followed thee with hate,
    Drawn tuns of blood out of thy country's breast,
    And cannot live but to thy shame, unless
    It be to do thee service.
  AUFIDIUS. O Marcius, Marcius!
    Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart
    A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter
    Should from yond cloud speak divine things,
    And say ''Tis true,' I'd not believe them more
    Than thee, all noble Marcius. Let me twine
    Mine arms about that body, where against
    My grained ash an hundred times hath broke
    And scarr'd the moon with splinters; here I clip
    The anvil of my sword, and do contest
    As hotly and as nobly with thy love
    As ever in ambitious strength I did
    Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,
    I lov'd the maid I married; never man
    Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,
    Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart
    Than when I first my wedded mistress saw
    Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell the
    We have a power on foot, and I had purpose
    Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,
    Or lose mine arm for't. Thou hast beat me out
    Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
    Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me-
    We have been down together in my sleep,
    Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat-
    And wak'd half dead with nothing. Worthy Marcius,
    Had we no other quarrel else to Rome but that
    Thou art thence banish'd, we would muster all
    From twelve to seventy, and, pouring war
    Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,
    Like a bold flood o'erbeat. O, come, go in,
    And take our friendly senators by th' hands,
    Who now are here, taking their leaves of me
    Who am prepar'd against your territories,
    Though not for Rome itself.
  CORIOLANUS. You bless me, gods!
  AUFIDIUS. Therefore, most. absolute sir, if thou wilt have
    The leading of thine own revenges, take
    Th' one half of my commission, and set down-
    As best thou art experienc'd, since thou know'st
    Thy country's strength and weakness- thine own ways,
    Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,
    Or rudely visit them in parts remote
    To fright them ere destroy. But come in;
    Let me commend thee first to those that shall
    Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!
    And more a friend than e'er an enemy;
    Yet, Marcius, that was much. Your hand; most welcome!
                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and AUFIDIUS

                    The two SERVINGMEN come forward

  FIRST SERVANT. Here's a strange alteration!
  SECOND SERVANT. By my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with
    a cudgel; and yet my mind gave me his clothes made a false report
    of him.
  FIRST SERVANT. What an arm he has! He turn'd me about with his
    finger and his thumb, as one would set up a top.
  SECOND SERVANT. Nay, I knew by his face that there was something in
    him; he had, sir, a kind of face, methought- I cannot tell how to
    term it.
  FIRST SERVANT. He had so, looking as it were- Would I were hang'd,
    but I thought there was more in him than I could think.
  SECOND SERVANT. So did I, I'll be sworn. He is simply the rarest
    man i' th' world.
  FIRST SERVANT. I think he is; but a greater soldier than he you wot
    on.
  SECOND SERVANT. Who, my master?
  FIRST SERVANT. Nay, it's no matter for that.
  SECOND SERVANT. Worth six on him.
  FIRST SERVANT. Nay, not so neither; but I take him to be the
    greater soldier.
  SECOND SERVANT. Faith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that;
    for the defence of a town our general is excellent.
  FIRST SERVANT. Ay, and for an assault too.

                       Re-enter the third SERVINGMAN

  THIRD SERVANT. O slaves, I can tell you news- news, you rascals!
  BOTH. What, what, what? Let's partake.
  THIRD SERVANT. I would not be a Roman, of all nations;
    I had as lief be a condemn'd man.
  BOTH. Wherefore? wherefore?
  THIRD SERVANT. Why, here's he that was wont to thwack our general-
    Caius Marcius.
  FIRST SERVANT. Why do you say 'thwack our general'?
  THIRD SERVANT. I do not say 'thwack our general,' but he was always
    good enough for him.
  SECOND SERVANT. Come, we are fellows and friends. He was ever too
    hard for him, I have heard him say so himself.
  FIRST SERVANT. He was too hard for him directly, to say the troth
    on't; before Corioli he scotch'd him and notch'd him like a
    carbonado.
  SECOND SERVANT. An he had been cannibally given, he might have
    broil'd and eaten him too.
  FIRST SERVANT. But more of thy news!
  THIRD SERVANT. Why, he is so made on here within as if he were son
    and heir to Mars; set at upper end o' th' table; no question
    asked him by any of the senators but they stand bald before him.
    Our general himself makes a mistress of him, sanctifies himself
    with's hand, and turns up the white o' th' eye to his discourse.
    But the bottom of the news is, our general is cut i' th' middle
    and but one half of what he was yesterday, for the other has half
    by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He'll go, he says,
    and sowl the porter of Rome gates by th' ears; he will mow all
    down before him, and leave his passage poll'd.
  SECOND SERVANT. And he's as like to do't as any man I can imagine.
  THIRD SERVANT. Do't! He will do't; for look you, sir, he has as
    many friends as enemies; which friends, sir, as it were, durst
    not- look you, sir- show themselves, as we term it, his friends,
    whilst he's in directitude.
  FIRST SERVANT. Directitude? What's that?
  THIRD SERVANT. But when they shall see, sir, his crest up again and
    the man in blood, they will out of their burrows, like conies
    after rain, and revel an with him.
  FIRST SERVANT. But when goes this forward?
  THIRD SERVANT. To-morrow, to-day, presently. You shall have the
    drum struck up this afternoon; 'tis as it were parcel of their
    feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.
  SECOND SERVANT. Why, then we shall have a stirring world again.
    This peace is nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and
    breed ballad-makers.
  FIRST SERVANT. Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as
    day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.
    Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mull'd, deaf, sleepy,
    insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a
    destroyer of men.
  SECOND SERVANT. 'Tis so; and as war in some sort may be said to be
    a ravisher, so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of
    cuckolds.
  FIRST SERVANT. Ay, and it makes men hate one another.
  THIRD SERVANT. Reason: because they then less need one another. The
    wars for my money. I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians.
    They are rising, they are rising.
  BOTH. In, in, in, in!                                   Exeunt

SCENE VI. Rome. A public place

Enter the two Tribunes, SICINIUS and BRUTUS

  SICINIUS. We hear not of him, neither need we fear him.
    His remedies are tame. The present peace
    And quietness of the people, which before
    Were in wild hurry, here do make his friends
    Blush that the world goes well; who rather had,
    Though they themselves did suffer by't, behold
    Dissentious numbers pest'ring streets than see
    Our tradesmen singing in their shops, and going
    About their functions friendly.

                          Enter MENENIUS

  BRUTUS. We stood to't in good time. Is this Menenius?
  SICINIUS. 'Tis he, 'tis he. O, he is grown most kind
    Of late. Hail, sir!
  MENENIUS. Hail to you both!
  SICINIUS. Your Coriolanus is not much miss'd
    But with his friends. The commonwealth doth stand,
    And so would do, were he more angry at it.
  MENENIUS. All's well, and might have been much better
    He could have temporiz'd.
  SICINIUS. Where is he, hear you?
  MENENIUS. Nay, I hear nothing; his mother and his wife
    Hear nothing from him.

                     Enter three or four citizens

  CITIZENS. The gods preserve you both!
  SICINIUS. God-den, our neighbours.
  BRUTUS. God-den to you all, god-den to you an.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Ourselves, our wives, and children, on our knees
    Are bound to pray for you both.
  SICINIUS. Live and thrive!
  BRUTUS. Farewell, kind neighbours; we wish'd Coriolanus
    Had lov'd you as we did.
  CITIZENS. Now the gods keep you!
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Farewell, farewell.             Exeunt citizens
  SICINIUS. This is a happier and more comely time
    Than when these fellows ran about the streets
    Crying confusion.
  BRUTUS. Caius Marcius was
    A worthy officer i' the war, but insolent,
    O'ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,
    Self-loving-
  SICINIUS. And affecting one sole throne,
    Without assistance.
  MENENIUS. I think not so.
  SICINIUS. We should by this, to all our lamentation,
    If he had gone forth consul, found it so.
  BRUTUS. The gods have well prevented it, and Rome
    Sits safe and still without him.

                             Enter an AEDILE

  AEDILE. Worthy tribunes,
    There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,
    Reports the Volsces with several powers
    Are ent'red in the Roman territories,
    And with the deepest malice of the war
    Destroy what lies before 'em.
  MENENIUS. 'Tis Aufidius,
    Who, hearing of our Marcius' banishment,
    Thrusts forth his horns again into the world,
    Which were inshell'd when Marcius stood for Rome,
    And durst not once peep out.
  SICINIUS. Come, what talk you of Marcius?
  BRUTUS. Go see this rumourer whipp'd. It cannot be
    The Volsces dare break with us.
  MENENIUS. Cannot be!
    We have record that very well it can;
    And three examples of the like hath been
    Within my age. But reason with the fellow
    Before you punish him, where he heard this,
    Lest you shall chance to whip your information
    And beat the messenger who bids beware
    Of what is to be dreaded.
  SICINIUS. Tell not me.
    I know this cannot be.
  BRUTUS. Not Possible.

                           Enter A MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. The nobles in great earnestness are going
    All to the Senate House; some news is come
    That turns their countenances.
  SICINIUS. 'Tis this slave-
    Go whip him fore the people's eyes- his raising,
    Nothing but his report.
  MESSENGER. Yes, worthy sir,
    The slave's report is seconded, and more,
    More fearful, is deliver'd.
  SICINIUS. What more fearful?
  MESSENGER. It is spoke freely out of many mouths-
    How probable I do not know- that Marcius,
    Join'd with Aufidius, leads a power 'gainst Rome,
    And vows revenge as spacious as between
    The young'st and oldest thing.
  SICINIUS. This is most likely!
  BRUTUS. Rais'd only that the weaker sort may wish
    Good Marcius home again.
  SICINIUS. The very trick on 't.
  MENENIUS. This is unlikely.
    He and Aufidius can no more atone
    Than violent'st contrariety.

                      Enter a second MESSENGER

  SECOND MESSENGER. You are sent for to the Senate.
    A fearful army, led by Caius Marcius
    Associated with Aufidius, rages
    Upon our territories, and have already
    O'erborne their way, consum'd with fire and took
    What lay before them.

                            Enter COMINIUS

  COMINIUS. O, you have made good work!
  MENENIUS. What news? what news?
  COMINIUS. You have holp to ravish your own daughters and
    To melt the city leads upon your pates,
    To see your wives dishonour'd to your noses-
  MENENIUS. What's the news? What's the news?
  COMINIUS. Your temples burned in their cement, and
    Your franchises, whereon you stood, confin'd
    Into an auger's bore.
  MENENIUS. Pray now, your news?
    You have made fair work, I fear me. Pray, your news.
    If Marcius should be join'd wi' th' Volscians-
  COMINIUS. If!
    He is their god; he leads them like a thing
    Made by some other deity than Nature,
    That shapes man better; and they follow him
    Against us brats with no less confidence
    Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,
    Or butchers killing flies.
  MENENIUS. You have made good work,
    You and your apron men; you that stood so much
    Upon the voice of occupation and
    The breath of garlic-eaters!
  COMINIUS. He'll shake
    Your Rome about your ears.
  MENENIUS. As Hercules
    Did shake down mellow fruit. You have made fair work!
  BRUTUS. But is this true, sir?
  COMINIUS. Ay; and you'll look pale
    Before you find it other. All the regions
    Do smilingly revolt, and who resists
    Are mock'd for valiant ignorance,
    And perish constant fools. Who is't can blame him?
    Your enemies and his find something in him.
  MENENIUS. We are all undone unless
    The noble man have mercy.
  COMINIUS. Who shall ask it?
    The tribunes cannot do't for shame; the people
    Deserve such pity of him as the wolf
    Does of the shepherds; for his best friends, if they
    Should say 'Be good to Rome'- they charg'd him even
    As those should do that had deserv'd his hate,
    And therein show'd fike enemies.
  MENENIUS. 'Tis true;
    If he were putting to my house the brand
    That should consume it, I have not the face
    To say 'Beseech you, cease.' You have made fair hands,
    You and your crafts! You have crafted fair!
  COMINIUS. You have brought
    A trembling upon Rome, such as was never
    S' incapable of help.
  BOTH TRIBUNES. Say not we brought it.
  MENENIUS. How! Was't we? We lov'd him, but, like beasts
    And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
    Who did hoot him out o' th' city.
  COMINIUS. But I fear
    They'll roar him in again. Tullus Aufidius,
    The second name of men, obeys his points
    As if he were his officer. Desperation
    Is all the policy, strength, and defence,
    That Rome can make against them.

                       Enter a troop of citizens

  MENENIUS. Here comes the clusters.
    And is Aufidius with him? You are they
    That made the air unwholesome when you cast
    Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at
    Coriolanus' exile. Now he's coming,
    And not a hair upon a soldier's head
    Which will not prove a whip; as many coxcombs
    As you threw caps up will he tumble down,
    And pay you for your voices. 'Tis no matter;
    If he could burn us all into one coal
    We have deserv'd it.
  PLEBEIANS. Faith, we hear fearful news.
  FIRST CITIZEN. For mine own part,
    When I said banish him, I said 'twas pity.
  SECOND CITIZEN. And so did I.
  THIRD CITIZEN. And so did I; and, to say the truth, so did very
    many of us. That we did, we did for the best; and though we
    willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our
    will.
  COMINIUS. Y'are goodly things, you voices!
  MENENIUS. You have made
    Good work, you and your cry! Shall's to the Capitol?
  COMINIUS. O, ay, what else?
                                    Exeunt COMINIUS and MENENIUS
  SICINIUS. Go, masters, get you be not dismay'd;
    These are a side that would be glad to have
    This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,
    And show no sign of fear.
  FIRST CITIZEN. The gods be good to us! Come, masters, let's home. I
    ever said we were i' th' wrong when we banish'd him.
  SECOND CITIZEN. So did we all. But come, let's home.
                                                 Exeunt citizens
  BRUTUS. I do not like this news.
  SICINIUS. Nor I.
  BRUTUS. Let's to the Capitol. Would half my wealth
    Would buy this for a lie!
  SICINIUS. Pray let's go.                                Exeunt

SCENE VII. A camp at a short distance from Rome

Enter AUFIDIUS with his LIEUTENANT

  AUFIDIUS. Do they still fly to th' Roman?
  LIEUTENANT. I do not know what witchcraft's in him, but
    Your soldiers use him as the grace fore meat,
    Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;
    And you are dark'ned in this action, sir,
    Even by your own.
  AUFIDIUS. I cannot help it now,
    Unless by using means I lame the foot
    Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,
    Even to my person, than I thought he would
    When first I did embrace him; yet his nature
    In that's no changeling, and I must excuse
    What cannot be amended.
  LIEUTENANT. Yet I wish, sir-
    I mean, for your particular- you had not
    Join'd in commission with him, but either
    Had borne the action of yourself, or else
    To him had left it solely.
  AUFIDIUS. I understand thee well; and be thou sure,
    When he shall come to his account, he knows not
    What I can urge against him. Although it seems,
    And so he thinks, and is no less apparent
    To th' vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly
    And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state,
    Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon
    As draw his sword; yet he hath left undone
    That which shall break his neck or hazard mine
    Whene'er we come to our account.
  LIEUTENANT. Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?
  AUFIDIUS. All places yield to him ere he sits down,
    And the nobility of Rome are his;
    The senators and patricians love him too.
    The tribunes are no soldiers, and their people
    Will be as rash in the repeal as hasty
    To expel him thence. I think he'll be to Rome
    As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it
    By sovereignty of nature. First he was
    A noble servant to them, but he could not
    Carry his honours even. Whether 'twas pride,
    Which out of daily fortune ever taints
    The happy man; whether defect of judgment,
    To fail in the disposing of those chances
    Which he was lord of; or whether nature,
    Not to be other than one thing, not moving
    From th' casque to th' cushion, but commanding peace
    Even with the same austerity and garb
    As he controll'd the war; but one of these-
    As he hath spices of them all- not all,
    For I dare so far free him- made him fear'd,
    So hated, and so banish'd. But he has a merit
    To choke it in the utt'rance. So our virtues
    Lie in th' interpretation of the time;
    And power, unto itself most commendable,
    Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair
    T' extol what it hath done.
    One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail;
    Rights by rights falter, strengths by strengths do fail.
    Come, let's away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,
    Thou art poor'st of all; then shortly art thou mine.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Rome. A public place

Enter MENENIUS, COMINIUS, SICINIUS and BRUTUS, the two Tribunes, with
others

  MENENIUS. No, I'll not go. You hear what he hath said
    Which was sometime his general, who lov'd him
    In a most dear particular. He call'd me father;
    But what o' that? Go, you that banish'd him:
    A mile before his tent fall down, and knee
    The way into his mercy. Nay, if he coy'd
    To hear Cominius speak, I'll keep at home.
  COMINIUS. He would not seem to know me.
  MENENIUS. Do you hear?
  COMINIUS. Yet one time he did call me by my name.
    I urg'd our old acquaintance, and the drops
    That we have bled together. 'Coriolanus'
    He would not answer to; forbid all names;
    He was a kind of nothing, titleless,
    Till he had forg'd himself a name i' th' fire
    Of burning Rome.
  MENENIUS. Why, so! You have made good work.
    A pair of tribunes that have wrack'd for Rome
    To make coals cheap- a noble memory!
  COMINIUS. I minded him how royal 'twas to pardon
    When it was less expected; he replied,
    It was a bare petition of a state
    To one whom they had punish'd.
  MENENIUS. Very well.
    Could he say less?
  COMINIUS. I offer'd to awaken his regard
    For's private friends; his answer to me was,
    He could not stay to pick them in a pile
    Of noisome musty chaff. He said 'twas folly,
    For one poor grain or two, to leave unburnt
    And still to nose th' offence.
  MENENIUS. For one poor grain or two!
    I am one of those. His mother, wife, his child,
    And this brave fellow too- we are the grains:
    You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt
    Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.
  SICINIUS. Nay, pray be patient; if you refuse your aid
    In this so never-needed help, yet do not
    Upbraid's with our distress. But sure, if you
    Would be your country's pleader, your good tongue,
    More than the instant army we can make,
    Might stop our countryman.
  MENENIUS. No; I'll not meddle.
  SICINIUS. Pray you go to him.
  MENENIUS. What should I do?
  BRUTUS. Only make trial what your love can do
    For Rome, towards Marcius.
  MENENIUS. Well, and say that Marcius
    Return me, as Cominius is return'd,
    Unheard- what then?
    But as a discontented friend, grief-shot
    With his unkindness? Say't be so?
  SICINIUS. Yet your good will
    Must have that thanks from Rome after the measure
    As you intended well.
  MENENIUS. I'll undertake't;
    I think he'll hear me. Yet to bite his lip
    And hum at good Cominius much unhearts me.
    He was not taken well: he had not din'd;
    The veins unfill'd, our blood is cold, and then
    We pout upon the morning, are unapt
    To give or to forgive; but when we have stuff'd
    These pipes and these conveyances of our blood
    With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls
    Than in our priest-like fasts. Therefore I'll watch him
    Till he be dieted to my request,
    And then I'll set upon him.
  BRUTUS. You know the very road into his kindness
    And cannot lose your way.
  MENENIUS. Good faith, I'll prove him,
    Speed how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge
    Of my success.                                          Exit
  COMINIUS. He'll never hear him.
  SICINIUS. Not?
  COMINIUS. I tell you he does sit in gold, his eye
    Red as 'twould burn Rome, and his injury
    The gaoler to his pity. I kneel'd before him;
    'Twas very faintly he said 'Rise'; dismiss'd me
    Thus with his speechless hand. What he would do,
    He sent in writing after me; what he would not,
    Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions;
    So that all hope is vain,
    Unless his noble mother and his wife,
    Who, as I hear, mean to solicit him
    For mercy to his country. Therefore let's hence,
    And with our fair entreaties haste them on.           Exeunt

SCENE II. The Volscian camp before Rome

Enter MENENIUS to the WATCH on guard

  FIRST WATCH. Stay. Whence are you?
  SECOND WATCH. Stand, and go back.
  MENENIUS. You guard like men, 'tis well; but, by your leave,
    I am an officer of state and come
    To speak with Coriolanus.
  FIRST WATCH. From whence?
  MENENIUS. From Rome.
  FIRST WATCH. YOU may not pass; you must return. Our general
    Will no more hear from thence.
  SECOND WATCH. You'll see your Rome embrac'd with fire before
    You'll speak with Coriolanus.
  MENENIUS. Good my friends,
    If you have heard your general talk of Rome
    And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks
    My name hath touch'd your ears: it is Menenius.
  FIRST WATCH. Be it so; go back. The virtue of your name
    Is not here passable.
  MENENIUS. I tell thee, fellow,
    Thy general is my lover. I have been
    The book of his good acts whence men have read
    His fame unparallel'd haply amplified;
    For I have ever verified my friends-
    Of whom he's chief- with all the size that verity
    Would without lapsing suffer. Nay, sometimes,
    Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground,
    I have tumbled past the throw, and in his praise
    Have almost stamp'd the leasing; therefore, fellow,
    I must have leave to pass.
  FIRST WATCH. Faith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf
    as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here;
    no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely.
    Therefore go back.
  MENENIUS. Prithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always
    factionary on the party of your general.
  SECOND WATCH. Howsoever you have been his liar, as you say you
    have, I am one that, telling true under him, must say you cannot
    pass. Therefore go back.
  MENENIUS. Has he din'd, canst thou tell? For I would not speak with
    him till after dinner.
  FIRST WATCH. You are a Roman, are you?
  MENENIUS. I am as thy general is.
  FIRST WATCH. Then you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you, when
    you have push'd out your gates the very defender of them, and in
    a violent popular ignorance given your enemy your shield, think
    to front his revenges with the easy groans of old women, the
    virginal palms of your daughters, or with the palsied
    intercession of such a decay'd dotant as you seem to be? Can you
    think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame
    in with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceiv'd; therefore
    back to Rome and prepare for your execution. You are condemn'd;
    our general has sworn you out of reprieve and pardon.
  MENENIUS. Sirrah, if thy captain knew I were here, he would use me
    with estimation.
  FIRST WATCH. Come, my captain knows you not.
  MENENIUS. I mean thy general.
  FIRST WATCH. My general cares not for you. Back, I say; go, lest I
    let forth your half pint of blood. Back- that's the utmost of
    your having. Back.
  MENENIUS. Nay, but fellow, fellow-

                      Enter CORIOLANUS with AUFIDIUS

  CORIOLANUS. What's the matter?
  MENENIUS. Now, you companion, I'll say an errand for you; you shall
    know now that I am in estimation; you shall perceive that a Jack
    guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus. Guess but by my
    entertainment with him if thou stand'st not i' th' state of
    hanging, or of some death more long in spectatorship and crueller
    in suffering; behold now presently, and swoon for what's to come
    upon thee. The glorious gods sit in hourly synod about thy
    particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father
    Menenius does! O my son! my son! thou art preparing fire for us;
    look thee, here's water to quench it. I was hardly moved to come
    to thee; but being assured none but myself could move thee, I
    have been blown out of your gates with sighs, and conjure thee to
    pardon Rome and thy petitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage
    thy wrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet here; this,
    who, like a block, hath denied my access to thee.
  CORIOLANUS. Away!
  MENENIUS. How! away!
  CORIOLANUS. Wife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs
    Are servanted to others. Though I owe
    My revenge properly, my remission lies
    In Volscian breasts. That we have been familiar,
    Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison rather
    Than pity note how much. Therefore be gone.
    Mine ears against your suits are stronger than
    Your gates against my force. Yet, for I lov'd thee,
    Take this along; I writ it for thy sake     [Gives a letter]
    And would have sent it. Another word, Menenius,
    I will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,
    Was my belov'd in Rome; yet thou behold'st.
  AUFIDIUS. You keep a constant temper.
                                  Exeunt CORIOLANUS and Aufidius
  FIRST WATCH. Now, sir, is your name Menenius?
  SECOND WATCH. 'Tis a spell, you see, of much power! You know the
    way home again.
  FIRST WATCH. Do you hear how we are shent for keeping your
    greatness back?
  SECOND WATCH. What cause, do you think, I have to swoon?
  MENENIUS. I neither care for th' world nor your general; for such
    things as you, I can scarce think there's any, y'are so slight.
    He that hath a will to die by himself fears it not from another.
    Let your general do his worst. For you, be that you are, long;
    and your misery increase with your age! I say to you, as I was
    said to: Away!                                          Exit
  FIRST WATCH. A noble fellow, I warrant him.
  SECOND WATCH. The worthy fellow is our general; he's the rock, the
    oak not to be wind-shaken.                            Exeunt

SCENE III. The tent of CORIOLANUS

Enter CORIOLANUS, AUFIDIUS, and others

  CORIOLANUS. We will before the walls of Rome to-morrow
    Set down our host. My partner in this action,
    You must report to th' Volscian lords how plainly
    I have borne this business.
  AUFIDIUS. Only their ends
    You have respected; stopp'd your ears against
    The general suit of Rome; never admitted
    A private whisper- no, not with such friends
    That thought them sure of you.
  CORIOLANUS. This last old man,
    Whom with crack'd heart I have sent to Rome,
    Lov'd me above the measure of a father;
    Nay, godded me indeed. Their latest refuge
    Was to send him; for whose old love I have-
    Though I show'd sourly to him- once more offer'd
    The first conditions, which they did refuse
    And cannot now accept. To grace him only,
    That thought he could do more, a very little
    I have yielded to; fresh embassies and suits,
    Nor from the state nor private friends, hereafter
    Will I lend ear to.  [Shout within]  Ha! what shout is this?
    Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow
    In the same time 'tis made? I will not.

       Enter, in mourning habits, VIRGILIA, VOLUMNIA, VALERIA,
                   YOUNG MARCIUS, with attendants

    My wife comes foremost, then the honour'd mould
    Wherein this trunk was fram'd, and in her hand
    The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection!
    All bond and privilege of nature, break!
    Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.
    What is that curtsy worth? or those doves' eyes,
    Which can make gods forsworn? I melt, and am not
    Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows,
    As if Olympus to a molehill should
    In supplication nod; and my young boy
    Hath an aspect of intercession which
    Great nature cries 'Deny not.' Let the Volsces
    Plough Rome and harrow Italy; I'll never
    Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand
    As if a man were author of himself
    And knew no other kin.
  VIRGILIA. My lord and husband!
  CORIOLANUS. These eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.
  VIRGILIA. The sorrow that delivers us thus chang'd
    Makes you think so.
  CORIOLANUS. Like a dull actor now
    I have forgot my part and I am out,
    Even to a full disgrace. Best of my flesh,
    Forgive my tyranny; but do not say,
    For that, 'Forgive our Romans.' O, a kiss
    Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
    Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss
    I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip
    Hath virgin'd it e'er since. You gods! I prate,
    And the most noble mother of the world
    Leave unsaluted. Sink, my knee, i' th' earth;       [Kneels]
    Of thy deep duty more impression show
    Than that of common sons.
  VOLUMNIA. O, stand up blest!
    Whilst with no softer cushion than the flint
    I kneel before thee, and unproperly
    Show duty, as mistaken all this while
    Between the child and parent.                       [Kneels]
  CORIOLANUS. What's this?
    Your knees to me, to your corrected son?
    Then let the pebbles on the hungry beach
    Fillip the stars; then let the mutinous winds
    Strike the proud cedars 'gainst the fiery sun,
    Murd'ring impossibility, to make
    What cannot be slight work.
  VOLUMNIA. Thou art my warrior;
    I holp to frame thee. Do you know this lady?
  CORIOLANUS. The noble sister of Publicola,
    The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle
    That's curdied by the frost from purest snow,
    And hangs on Dian's temple- dear Valeria!
  VOLUMNIA. This is a poor epitome of yours,
    Which by th' interpretation of full time
    May show like all yourself.
  CORIOLANUS. The god of soldiers,
    With the consent of supreme Jove, inform
    Thy thoughts with nobleness, that thou mayst prove
    To shame unvulnerable, and stick i' th' wars
    Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw,
    And saving those that eye thee!
  VOLUMNIA. Your knee, sirrah.
  CORIOLANUS. That's my brave boy.
  VOLUMNIA. Even he, your wife, this lady, and myself,
    Are suitors to you.
  CORIOLANUS. I beseech you, peace!
    Or, if you'd ask, remember this before:
    The thing I have forsworn to grant may never
    Be held by you denials. Do not bid me
    Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate
    Again with Rome's mechanics. Tell me not
    Wherein I seem unnatural; desire not
    T'allay my rages and revenges with
    Your colder reasons.
  VOLUMNIA. O, no more, no more!
    You have said you will not grant us any thing-
    For we have nothing else to ask but that
    Which you deny already; yet we will ask,
    That, if you fail in our request, the blame
    May hang upon your hardness; therefore hear us.
  CORIOLANUS. Aufidius, and you Volsces, mark; for we'll
    Hear nought from Rome in private. Your request?
  VOLUMNIA. Should we be silent and not speak, our raiment
    And state of bodies would bewray what life
    We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself
    How more unfortunate than all living women
    Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should
    Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,
    Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow,
    Making the mother, wife, and child, to see
    The son, the husband, and the father, tearing
    His country's bowels out. And to poor we
    Thine enmity's most capital: thou bar'st us
    Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort
    That all but we enjoy. For how can we,
    Alas, how can we for our country pray,
    Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,
    Whereto we are bound? Alack, or we must lose
    The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,
    Our comfort in the country. We must find
    An evident calamity, though we had
    Our wish, which side should win; for either thou
    Must as a foreign recreant be led
    With manacles through our streets, or else
    Triumphantly tread on thy country's ruin,
    And bear the palm for having bravely shed
    Thy wife and children's blood. For myself, son,
    I purpose not to wait on fortune till
    These wars determine; if I can not persuade thee
    Rather to show a noble grace to both parts
    Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner
    March to assault thy country than to tread-
    Trust to't, thou shalt not- on thy mother's womb
    That brought thee to this world.
  VIRGILIA. Ay, and mine,
    That brought you forth this boy to keep your name
    Living to time.
  BOY. 'A shall not tread on me!
    I'll run away till I am bigger, but then I'll fight.
  CORIOLANUS. Not of a woman's tenderness to be
    Requires nor child nor woman's face to see.
    I have sat too long.                                [Rising]
  VOLUMNIA. Nay, go not from us thus.
    If it were so that our request did tend
    To save the Romans, thereby to destroy
    The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us
    As poisonous of your honour. No, our suit
    Is that you reconcile them: while the Volsces
    May say 'This mercy we have show'd,' the Romans
    'This we receiv'd,' and each in either side
    Give the all-hail to thee, and cry 'Be blest
    For making up this peace!' Thou know'st, great son,
    The end of war's uncertain; but this certain,
    That, if thou conquer Rome, the benefit
    Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name
    Whose repetition will be dogg'd with curses;
    Whose chronicle thus writ: 'The man was noble,
    But with his last attempt he wip'd it out,
    Destroy'd his country, and his name remains
    To th' ensuing age abhorr'd.' Speak to me, son.
    Thou hast affected the fine strains of honour,
    To imitate the graces of the gods,
    To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o' th' air,
    And yet to charge thy sulphur with a bolt
    That should but rive an oak. Why dost not speak?
    Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man
    Still to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:
    He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy;
    Perhaps thy childishness will move him more
    Than can our reasons. There's no man in the world
    More bound to's mother, yet here he lets me prate
    Like one i' th' stocks. Thou hast never in thy life
    Show'd thy dear mother any courtesy,
    When she, poor hen, fond of no second brood,
    Has cluck'd thee to the wars, and safely home
    Loaden with honour. Say my request's unjust,
    And spurn me back; but if it he not so,
    Thou art not honest, and the gods will plague thee,
    That thou restrain'st from me the duty which
    To a mother's part belongs. He turns away.
    Down, ladies; let us shame him with our knees.
    To his surname Coriolanus 'longs more pride
    Than pity to our prayers. Down. An end;
    This is the last. So we will home to Rome,
    And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold's!
    This boy, that cannot tell what he would have
    But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship,
    Does reason our petition with more strength
    Than thou hast to deny't. Come, let us go.
    This fellow had a Volscian to his mother;
    His wife is in Corioli, and his child
    Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch.
    I am hush'd until our city be afire,
    And then I'll speak a little.
                              [He holds her by the hand, silent]
  CORIOLANUS. O mother, mother!
    What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,
    The gods look down, and this unnatural scene
    They laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!
    You have won a happy victory to Rome;
    But for your son- believe it, O, believe it!-
    Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd,
    If not most mortal to him. But let it come.
    Aufidius, though I cannot make true wars,
    I'll frame convenient peace. Now, good Aufidius,
    Were you in my stead, would you have heard
    A mother less, or granted less, Aufidius?
  AUFIDIUS. I was mov'd withal.
  CORIOLANUS. I dare be sworn you were!
    And, sir, it is no little thing to make
    Mine eyes to sweat compassion. But, good sir,
    What peace you'fl make, advise me. For my part,
    I'll not to Rome, I'll back with you; and pray you
    Stand to me in this cause. O mother! wife!
  AUFIDIUS.  [Aside]  I am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy
      honour
    At difference in thee. Out of that I'll work
    Myself a former fortune.
  CORIOLANUS.  [To the ladies]  Ay, by and by;
    But we will drink together; and you shall bear
    A better witness back than words, which we,
    On like conditions, will have counter-seal'd.
    Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve
    To have a temple built you. All the swords
    In Italy, and her confederate arms,
    Could not have made this peace.                       Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. A public place

Enter MENENIUS and SICINIUS

  MENENIUS. See you yond coign o' th' Capitol, yond cornerstone?
  SICINIUS. Why, what of that?
  MENENIUS. If it be possible for you to displace it with your little
    finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially his
    mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope in't;
    our throats are sentenc'd, and stay upon execution.
  SICINIUS. Is't possible that so short a time can alter the
    condition of a man?
  MENENIUS. There is differency between a grub and a butterfly; yet
    your butterfly was a grub. This Marcius is grown from man to
    dragon; he has wings, he's more than a creeping thing.
  SICINIUS. He lov'd his mother dearly.
  MENENIUS. So did he me; and he no more remembers his mother now
    than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe
    grapes; when he walks, he moves like an engine and the ground
    shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a corslet with
    his eye, talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in
    his state as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is
    finish'd with his bidding. He wants nothing of a god but
    eternity, and a heaven to throne in.
  SICINIUS. Yes- mercy, if you report him truly.
  MENENIUS. I paint him in the character. Mark what mercy his mother
    shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than there is
    milk in a male tiger; that shall our poor city find. And all this
    is 'long of you.
  SICINIUS. The gods be good unto us!
  MENENIUS. No, in such a case the gods will not be good unto us.
    When we banish'd him we respected not them; and, he returning to
    break our necks, they respect not us.

                           Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Sir, if you'd save your life, fly to your house.
    The plebeians have got your fellow tribune
    And hale him up and down; all swearing if
    The Roman ladies bring not comfort home
    They'll give him death by inches.

                         Enter another MESSENGER

  SICINIUS. What's the news?
  SECOND MESSENGER. Good news, good news! The ladies have prevail'd,
    The Volscians are dislodg'd, and Marcius gone.
    A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,
    No, not th' expulsion of the Tarquins.
  SICINIUS. Friend,
    Art thou certain this is true? Is't most certain?
  SECOND MESSENGER. As certain as I know the sun is fire.
    Where have you lurk'd, that you make doubt of it?
    Ne'er through an arch so hurried the blown tide
    As the recomforted through th' gates. Why, hark you!
                  [Trumpets, hautboys, drums beat, all together]
    The trumpets, sackbuts, psalteries, and fifes,
    Tabors and cymbals, and the shouting Romans,
    Make the sun dance. Hark you!               [A shout within]
  MENENIUS. This is good news.
    I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia
    Is worth of consuls, senators, patricians,
    A city full; of tribunes such as you,
    A sea and land full. You have pray'd well to-day:
    This morning for ten thousand of your throats
    I'd not have given a doit. Hark, how they joy!
                                   [Sound still with the shouts]
  SICINIUS. First, the gods bless you for your tidings; next,
    Accept my thankfulness.
  SECOND MESSENGER. Sir, we have all
    Great cause to give great thanks.
  SICINIUS. They are near the city?
  MESSENGER. Almost at point to enter.
  SICINIUS. We'll meet them,
    And help the joy.                                     Exeunt

SCENE V. Rome. A street near the gate

Enter two SENATORS With VOLUMNIA, VIRGILIA, VALERIA, passing over the
stage,
'With other LORDS

  FIRST SENATOR. Behold our patroness, the life of Rome!
    Call all your tribes together, praise the gods,
    And make triumphant fires; strew flowers before them.
    Unshout the noise that banish'd Marcius,
    Repeal him with the welcome of his mother;
  ALL. Welcome, ladies, welcome!
                    [A flourish with drums and trumpets. Exeunt]

SCENE VI. Corioli. A public place

Enter TULLUS AUFIDIUS with attendents

  AUFIDIUS. Go tell the lords o' th' city I am here;
    Deliver them this paper' having read it,
    Bid them repair to th' market-place, where I,
    Even in theirs and in the commons' ears,
    Will vouch the truth of it. Him I accuse
    The city ports by this hath enter'd and
    Intends t' appear before the people, hoping
    To purge himself with words. Dispatch.
                                               Exeunt attendants

           Enter three or four CONSPIRATORS of AUFIDIUS' faction

    Most welcome!
  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. How is it with our general?
  AUFIDIUS. Even so
    As with a man by his own alms empoison'd,
    And with his charity slain.
  SECOND CONSPIRATOR. Most noble sir,
    If you do hold the same intent wherein
    You wish'd us parties, we'll deliver you
    Of your great danger.
  AUFIDIUS. Sir, I cannot tell;
    We must proceed as we do find the people.
  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. The people will remain uncertain whilst
    'Twixt you there's difference; but the fall of either
    Makes the survivor heir of all.
  AUFIDIUS. I know it;
    And my pretext to strike at him admits
    A good construction. I rais'd him, and I pawn'd
    Mine honour for his truth; who being so heighten'd,
    He watered his new plants with dews of flattery,
    Seducing so my friends; and to this end
    He bow'd his nature, never known before
    But to be rough, unswayable, and free.
  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Sir, his stoutness
    When he did stand for consul, which he lost
    By lack of stooping-
  AUFIDIUS. That I would have spoken of.
    Being banish'd for't, he came unto my hearth,
    Presented to my knife his throat. I took him;
    Made him joint-servant with me; gave him way
    In all his own desires; nay, let him choose
    Out of my files, his projects to accomplish,
    My best and freshest men; serv'd his designments
    In mine own person; holp to reap the fame
    Which he did end all his, and took some pride
    To do myself this wrong. Till, at the last,
    I seem'd his follower, not partner; and
    He wag'd me with his countenance as if
    I had been mercenary.
  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. So he did, my lord.
    The army marvell'd at it; and, in the last,
    When he had carried Rome and that we look'd
    For no less spoil than glory-
  AUFIDIUS. There was it;
    For which my sinews shall be stretch'd upon him.
    At a few drops of women's rheum, which are
    As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour
    Of our great action; therefore shall he die,
    And I'll renew me in his fall. But, hark!
                                                      [Drums and
                trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people]
  FIRST CONSPIRATOR. Your native town you enter'd like a post,
    And had no welcomes home; but he returns
    Splitting the air with noise.
  SECOND CONSPIRATOR. And patient fools,
    Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear
    With giving him glory.
  THIRD CONSPIRATOR. Therefore, at your vantage,
    Ere he express himself or move the people
    With what he would say, let him feel your sword,
    Which we will second. When he lies along,
    After your way his tale pronounc'd shall bury
    His reasons with his body.
  AUFIDIUS. Say no more:
    Here come the lords.

                     Enter the LORDS of the city

  LORDS. You are most welcome home.
  AUFIDIUS. I have not deserv'd it.
    But, worthy lords, have you with heed perused
    What I have written to you?
  LORDS. We have.
  FIRST LORD. And grieve to hear't.
    What faults he made before the last, I think
    Might have found easy fines; but there to end
    Where he was to begin, and give away
    The benefit of our levies, answering us
    With our own charge, making a treaty where
    There was a yielding- this admits no excuse.
  AUFIDIUS. He approaches; you shall hear him.

            Enter CORIOLANUS, marching with drum and colours;
                      the commoners being with him

  CORIOLANUS. Hail, lords! I am return'd your soldier;
    No more infected with my country's love
    Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting
    Under your great command. You are to know
    That prosperously I have attempted, and
    With bloody passage led your wars even to
    The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home
    Doth more than counterpoise a full third part
    The charges of the action. We have made peace
    With no less honour to the Antiates
    Than shame to th' Romans; and we here deliver,
    Subscrib'd by th' consuls and patricians,
    Together with the seal o' th' Senate, what
    We have compounded on.
  AUFIDIUS. Read it not, noble lords;
    But tell the traitor in the highest degree
    He hath abus'd your powers.
  CORIOLANUS. Traitor! How now?
  AUFIDIUS. Ay, traitor, Marcius.
  CORIOLANUS. Marcius!
  AUFIDIUS. Ay, Marcius, Caius Marcius! Dost thou think
    I'll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol'n name
    Coriolanus, in Corioli?
    You lords and heads o' th' state, perfidiously
    He has betray'd your business and given up,
    For certain drops of salt, your city Rome-
    I say your city- to his wife and mother;
    Breaking his oath and resolution like
    A twist of rotten silk; never admitting
    Counsel o' th' war; but at his nurse's tears
    He whin'd and roar'd away your victory,
    That pages blush'd at him, and men of heart
    Look'd wond'ring each at others.
  CORIOLANUS. Hear'st thou, Mars?
  AUFIDIUS. Name not the god, thou boy of tears-
  CORIOLANUS. Ha!
  AUFIDIUS. -no more.
  CORIOLANUS. Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart
    Too great for what contains it. 'Boy'! O slave!
    Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever
    I was forc'd to scold. Your judgments, my grave lords,
    Must give this cur the lie; and his own notion-
    Who wears my stripes impress'd upon him, that
    Must bear my beating to his grave- shall join
    To thrust the lie unto him.
  FIRST LORD. Peace, both, and hear me speak.
  CORIOLANUS. Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads,
    Stain all your edges on me. 'Boy'! False hound!
    If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there
    That, like an eagle in a dove-cote, I
    Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli.
    Alone I did it. 'Boy'!
  AUFIDIUS. Why, noble lords,
    Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,
    Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,
    Fore your own eyes and ears?
  CONSPIRATORS. Let him die for't.
  ALL THE PEOPLE. Tear him to pieces. Do it presently. He kill'd my
    son. My daughter. He kill'd my cousin Marcus. He kill'd my
    father.
  SECOND LORD. Peace, ho! No outrage- peace!
    The man is noble, and his fame folds in
    This orb o' th' earth. His last offences to us
    Shall have judicious hearing. Stand, Aufidius,
    And trouble not the peace.
  CORIOLANUS. O that I had him,
    With six Aufidiuses, or more- his tribe,
    To use my lawful sword!
  AUFIDIUS. Insolent villain!
  CONSPIRATORS. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!
           [The CONSPIRATORS draw and kill CORIOLANUS,who falls.
                                         AUFIDIUS stands on him]
  LORDS. Hold, hold, hold, hold!
  AUFIDIUS. My noble masters, hear me speak.
  FIRST LORD. O Tullus!
  SECOND LORD. Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.
  THIRD LORD. Tread not upon him. Masters all, be quiet;
    Put up your swords.
  AUFIDIUS. My lords, when you shall know- as in this rage,
    Provok'd by him, you cannot- the great danger
    Which this man's life did owe you, you'll rejoice
    That he is thus cut off. Please it your honours
    To call me to your Senate, I'll deliver
    Myself your loyal servant, or endure
    Your heaviest censure.
  FIRST LORD. Bear from hence his body,
    And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded
    As the most noble corse that ever herald
    Did follow to his um.
  SECOND LORD. His own impatience
    Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.
    Let's make the best of it.
  AUFIDIUS. My rage is gone,
    And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.
    Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.
    Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully;
    Trail your steel pikes. Though in this city he
    Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,
    Which to this hour bewail the injury,
    Yet he shall have a noble memory.
    Assist.               Exeunt, bearing the body of CORIOLANUS
                                          [A dead march sounded]

THE END

1609



CYMBELINE

Dramatis Personae

  CYMBELINE, King of Britain
  CLOTEN, son to the Queen by a former husband
  POSTHUMUS LEONATUS, a gentleman, husband to Imogen
  BELARIUS, a banished lord, disguised under the name of Morgan

  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS, sons to Cymbeline, disguised under the
            names of POLYDORE and CADWAL, supposed sons to Belarius
  PHILARIO, Italian, friend to Posthumus
  IACHIMO,  Italian, friend to Philario
  A FRENCH GENTLEMAN, friend to Philario
  CAIUS LUCIUS, General of the Roman Forces
  A ROMAN CAPTAIN
  TWO BRITISH CAPTAINS
  PISANIO, servant to Posthumus
  CORNELIUS, a physician
  TWO LORDS of Cymbeline's court
  TWO GENTLEMEN of the same
  TWO GAOLERS

  QUEEN, wife to Cymbeline
  IMOGEN, daughter to Cymbeline by a former queen
  HELEN, a lady attending on Imogen

  APPARITIONS

  Lords, Ladies, Roman Senators, Tribunes, a Soothsayer, a
    Dutch Gentleman, a Spanish Gentleman, Musicians, Officers,
    Captains, Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants

SCENE: Britain; Italy

ACT I. SCENE I. Britain. The garden of CYMBELINE'S palace

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You do not meet a man but frowns; our bloods
    No more obey the heavens than our courtiers
    Still seem as does the King's.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what's the matter?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His daughter, and the heir of's kingdom, whom
    He purpos'd to his wife's sole son- a widow
    That late he married- hath referr'd herself
    Unto a poor but worthy gentleman. She's wedded;
    Her husband banish'd; she imprison'd. All
    Is outward sorrow, though I think the King
    Be touch'd at very heart.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. None but the King?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. He that hath lost her too. So is the Queen,
    That most desir'd the match. But not a courtier,
    Although they wear their faces to the bent
    Of the King's looks, hath a heart that is not
    Glad at the thing they scowl at.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And why so?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. He that hath miss'd the Princess is a thing
    Too bad for bad report; and he that hath her-
    I mean that married her, alack, good man!
    And therefore banish'd- is a creature such
    As, to seek through the regions of the earth
    For one his like, there would be something failing
    In him that should compare. I do not think
    So fair an outward and such stuff within
    Endows a man but he.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. You speak him far.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I do extend him, sir, within himself;
    Crush him together rather than unfold
    His measure duly.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What's his name and birth?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I cannot delve him to the root; his father
    Was call'd Sicilius, who did join his honour
    Against the Romans with Cassibelan,
    But had his titles by Tenantius, whom
    He serv'd with glory and admir'd success,
    So gain'd the sur-addition Leonatus;
    And had, besides this gentleman in question,
    Two other sons, who, in the wars o' th' time,
    Died with their swords in hand; for which their father,
    Then old and fond of issue, took such sorrow
    That he quit being; and his gentle lady,
    Big of this gentleman, our theme, deceas'd
    As he was born. The King he takes the babe
    To his protection, calls him Posthumus Leonatus,
    Breeds him and makes him of his bed-chamber,
    Puts to him all the learnings that his time
    Could make him the receiver of; which he took,
    As we do air, fast as 'twas minist'red,
    And in's spring became a harvest, liv'd in court-
    Which rare it is to do- most prais'd, most lov'd,
    A sample to the youngest; to th' more mature
    A glass that feated them; and to the graver
    A child that guided dotards. To his mistress,
    For whom he now is banish'd- her own price
    Proclaims how she esteem'd him and his virtue;
    By her election may be truly read
    What kind of man he is.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I honour him
    Even out of your report. But pray you tell me,
    Is she sole child to th' King?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. His only child.
    He had two sons- if this be worth your hearing,
    Mark it- the eldest of them at three years old,
    I' th' swathing clothes the other, from their nursery
    Were stol'n; and to this hour no guess in knowledge
    Which way they went.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. How long is this ago?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Some twenty years.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That a king's children should be so convey'd,
    So slackly guarded, and the search so slow
    That could not trace them!
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Howsoe'er 'tis strange,
    Or that the negligence may well be laugh'd at,
    Yet is it true, sir.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I do well believe you.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. We must forbear; here comes the gentleman,
    The Queen, and Princess.                              Exeunt

              Enter the QUEEN, POSTHUMUS, and IMOGEN

  QUEEN. No, be assur'd you shall not find me, daughter,
    After the slander of most stepmothers,
    Evil-ey'd unto you. You're my prisoner, but
    Your gaoler shall deliver you the keys
    That lock up your restraint. For you, Posthumus,
    So soon as I can win th' offended King,
    I will be known your advocate. Marry, yet
    The fire of rage is in him, and 'twere good
    You lean'd unto his sentence with what patience
    Your wisdom may inform you.
  POSTHUMUS. Please your Highness,
    I will from hence to-day.
  QUEEN. You know the peril.
    I'll fetch a turn about the garden, pitying
    The pangs of barr'd affections, though the King
    Hath charg'd you should not speak together.             Exit
  IMOGEN. O dissembling courtesy! How fine this tyrant
    Can tickle where she wounds! My dearest husband,
    I something fear my father's wrath, but nothing-
    Always reserv'd my holy duty- what
    His rage can do on me. You must be gone;
    And I shall here abide the hourly shot
    Of angry eyes, not comforted to live
    But that there is this jewel in the world
    That I may see again.
  POSTHUMUS. My queen! my mistress!
    O lady, weep no more, lest I give cause
    To be suspected of more tenderness
    Than doth become a man. I will remain
    The loyal'st husband that did e'er plight troth;
    My residence in Rome at one Philario's,
    Who to my father was a friend, to me
    Known but by letter; thither write, my queen,
    And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you send,
    Though ink be made of gall.

                     Re-enter QUEEN

  QUEEN. Be brief, I pray you.
    If the King come, I shall incur I know not
    How much of his displeasure. [Aside] Yet I'll move him
    To walk this way. I never do him wrong
    But he does buy my injuries, to be friends;
    Pays dear for my offences.                              Exit
  POSTHUMUS. Should we be taking leave
    As long a term as yet we have to live,
    The loathness to depart would grow. Adieu!
  IMOGEN. Nay, stay a little.
    Were you but riding forth to air yourself,
    Such parting were too petty. Look here, love:
    This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart;
    But keep it till you woo another wife,
    When Imogen is dead.
  POSTHUMUS. How, how? Another?
    You gentle gods, give me but this I have,
    And sear up my embracements from a next
    With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here
                                              [Puts on the ring]
    While sense can keep it on. And, sweetest, fairest,
    As I my poor self did exchange for you,
    To your so infinite loss, so in our trifles
    I still win of you. For my sake wear this;
    It is a manacle of love; I'll place it
    Upon this fairest prisoner.     [Puts a bracelet on her arm]
  IMOGEN. O the gods!
    When shall we see again?

                  Enter CYMBELINE and LORDS

  POSTHUMUS. Alack, the King!
  CYMBELINE. Thou basest thing, avoid; hence from my sight
    If after this command thou fraught the court
    With thy unworthiness, thou diest. Away!
    Thou'rt poison to my blood.
  POSTHUMUS. The gods protect you,
    And bless the good remainders of the court!
    I am gone.                                              Exit
  IMOGEN. There cannot be a pinch in death
    More sharp than this is.
  CYMBELINE. O disloyal thing,
    That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap'st
    A year's age on me!
  IMOGEN. I beseech you, sir,
    Harm not yourself with your vexation.
    I am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare
    Subdues all pangs, all fears.
  CYMBELINE. Past grace? obedience?
  IMOGEN. Past hope, and in despair; that way past grace.
  CYMBELINE. That mightst have had the sole son of my queen!
  IMOGEN. O blessed that I might not! I chose an eagle,
    And did avoid a puttock.
  CYMBELINE. Thou took'st a beggar, wouldst have made my throne
    A seat for baseness.
  IMOGEN. No; I rather added
    A lustre to it.
  CYMBELINE. O thou vile one!
  IMOGEN. Sir,
    It is your fault that I have lov'd Posthumus.
    You bred him as my playfellow, and he is
    A man worth any woman; overbuys me
    Almost the sum he pays.
  CYMBELINE. What, art thou mad?
  IMOGEN. Almost, sir. Heaven restore me! Would I were
    A neat-herd's daughter, and my Leonatus
    Our neighbour shepherd's son!

                          Re-enter QUEEN

  CYMBELINE. Thou foolish thing!
    [To the QUEEN] They were again together. You have done
    Not after our command. Away with her,
    And pen her up.
  QUEEN. Beseech your patience.- Peace,
    Dear lady daughter, peace!- Sweet sovereign,
    Leave us to ourselves, and make yourself some comfort
    Out of your best advice.
  CYMBELINE. Nay, let her languish
    A drop of blood a day and, being aged,
    Die of this folly.                          Exit, with LORDS

                          Enter PISANIO

  QUEEN. Fie! you must give way.
    Here is your servant. How now, sir! What news?
  PISANIO. My lord your son drew on my master.
  QUEEN. Ha!
    No harm, I trust, is done?
  PISANIO. There might have been,
    But that my master rather play'd than fought,
    And had no help of anger; they were parted
    By gentlemen at hand.
  QUEEN. I am very glad on't.
  IMOGEN. Your son's my father's friend; he takes his part
    To draw upon an exile! O brave sir!
    I would they were in Afric both together;
    Myself by with a needle, that I might prick
    The goer-back. Why came you from your master?
  PISANIO. On his command. He would not suffer me
    To bring him to the haven; left these notes
    Of what commands I should be subject to,
    When't pleas'd you to employ me.
  QUEEN. This hath been
    Your faithful servant. I dare lay mine honour
    He will remain so.
  PISANIO. I humbly thank your Highness.
  QUEEN. Pray walk awhile.
  IMOGEN. About some half-hour hence,
    Pray you speak with me. You shall at least
    Go see my lord aboard. For this time leave me.        Exeunt

SCENE II. Britain. A public place

Enter CLOTEN and two LORDS

  FIRST LORD. Sir, I would advise you to shift a shirt; the violence
    of action hath made you reek as a sacrifice. Where air comes out,
    air comes in; there's none abroad so wholesome as that you vent.
  CLOTEN. If my shirt were bloody, then to shift it. Have I hurt him?
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] No, faith; not so much as his patience.
  FIRST LORD. Hurt him! His body's a passable carcass if he be not
    hurt. It is a throughfare for steel if it be not hurt.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] His steel was in debt; it went o' th' back
    side the town.
  CLOTEN. The villain would not stand me.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] No; but he fled forward still, toward your
    face.
  FIRST LORD. Stand you? You have land enough of your own; but he
    added to your having, gave you some ground.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] As many inches as you have oceans.
    Puppies!
  CLOTEN. I would they had not come between us.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] So would I, till you had measur'd how long a
    fool you were upon the ground.
  CLOTEN. And that she should love this fellow, and refuse me!
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] If it be a sin to make a true election, she is
    damn'd.
  FIRST LORD. Sir, as I told you always, her beauty and her brain go
    not together; she's a good sign, but I have seen small reflection
    of her wit.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] She shines not upon fools, lest the reflection
    should hurt her.
  CLOTEN. Come, I'll to my chamber. Would there had been some hurt
    done!
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] I wish not so; unless it had been the fall of
    an ass, which is no great hurt.
  CLOTEN. You'll go with us?
  FIRST LORD. I'll attend your lordship.
  CLOTEN. Nay, come, let's go together.
  SECOND LORD. Well, my lord.                             Exeunt

SCENE III. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter IMOGEN and PISANIO

  IMOGEN. I would thou grew'st unto the shores o' th' haven,
    And questioned'st every sail; if he should write,
    And I not have it, 'twere a paper lost,
    As offer'd mercy is. What was the last
    That he spake to thee?
  PISANIO. It was: his queen, his queen!
  IMOGEN. Then wav'd his handkerchief?
  PISANIO. And kiss'd it, madam.
  IMOGEN. Senseless linen, happier therein than I!
    And that was all?
  PISANIO. No, madam; for so long
    As he could make me with his eye, or care
    Distinguish him from others, he did keep
    The deck, with glove, or hat, or handkerchief,
    Still waving, as the fits and stirs of's mind
    Could best express how slow his soul sail'd on,
    How swift his ship.
  IMOGEN. Thou shouldst have made him
    As little as a crow, or less, ere left
    To after-eye him.
  PISANIO. Madam, so I did.
  IMOGEN. I would have broke mine eyestrings, crack'd them but
    To look upon him, till the diminution
    Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
    Nay, followed him till he had melted from
    The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
    Have turn'd mine eye and wept. But, good Pisanio,
    When shall we hear from him?
  PISANIO. Be assur'd, madam,
    With his next vantage.
  IMOGEN. I did not take my leave of him, but had
    Most pretty things to say. Ere I could tell him
    How I would think on him at certain hours
    Such thoughts and such; or I could make him swear
    The shes of Italy should not betray
    Mine interest and his honour; or have charg'd him,
    At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,
    T' encounter me with orisons, for then
    I am in heaven for him; or ere I could
    Give him that parting kiss which I had set
    Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,
    And like the tyrannous breathing of the north
    Shakes all our buds from growing.

                        Enter a LADY

  LADY. The Queen, madam,
    Desires your Highness' company.
  IMOGEN. Those things I bid you do, get them dispatch'd.
    I will attend the Queen.
  PISANIO. Madam, I shall.                                Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. PHILARIO'S house

Enter PHILARIO, IACHIMO, a FRENCHMAN, a DUTCHMAN, and a SPANIARD

  IACHIMO. Believe it, sir, I have seen him in Britain. He was then
    of a crescent note, expected to prove so worthy as since he hath
    been allowed the name of. But I could then have look'd on him
    without the help of admiration, though the catalogue of his
    endowments had been tabled by his side, and I to peruse him by
    items.
  PHILARIO. You speak of him when he was less furnish'd than now he
    is with that which makes him both without and within.
  FRENCHMAN. I have seen him in France; we had very many there could
    behold the sun with as firm eyes as he.
  IACHIMO. This matter of marrying his king's daughter, wherein he
    must be weighed rather by her value than his own, words him, I
    doubt not, a great deal from the matter.
  FRENCHMAN. And then his banishment.
  IACHIMO. Ay, and the approbation of those that weep this lamentable
    divorce under her colours are wonderfully to extend him, be it
    but to fortify her judgment, which else an easy battery might lay
    flat, for taking a beggar, without less quality. But how comes it
    he is to sojourn with you? How creeps acquaintance?
  PHILARIO. His father and I were soldiers together, to whom I have
    been often bound for no less than my life.

                       Enter POSTHUMUS

    Here comes the Briton. Let him be so entertained amongst you as
    suits with gentlemen of your knowing to a stranger of his quality.
    I beseech you all be better known to this gentleman, whom I commend
    to you as a noble friend of mine. How worthy he is I will leave to
    appear hereafter, rather than story him in his own hearing.
    FRENCHMAN. Sir, we have known together in Orleans. POSTHUMUS. Since
    when I have been debtor to you for courtesies, which I will be ever
    to pay and yet pay still. FRENCHMAN. Sir, you o'errate my poor
    kindness. I was glad I did atone my countryman and you; it had been
    pity you should have been put together with so mortal a purpose as
    then each bore, upon importance of so slight and trivial a nature.
    POSTHUMUS. By your pardon, sir. I was then a young traveller;
    rather shunn'd to go even with what I heard than in my every action
    to be guided by others' experiences; but upon my mended judgment-
    if I offend not to say it is mended- my quarrel was not altogether
    slight. FRENCHMAN. Faith, yes, to be put to the arbitrement of
    swords, and by such two that would by all likelihood have
    confounded one the other or have fall'n both. IACHIMO. Can we, with
    manners, ask what was the difference? FRENCHMAN. Safely, I think.
    'Twas a contention in public, which may, without contradiction,
    suffer the report. It was much like an argument that fell out last
    night, where each of us fell in praise of our country mistresses;
    this gentleman at that time vouching- and upon warrant of bloody
    affirmation- his to be more fair, virtuous, wise, chaste, constant,
    qualified, and less attemptable, than any the rarest of our ladies
    in France. IACHIMO. That lady is not now living, or this
    gentleman's opinion, by this, worn out. POSTHUMUS. She holds her
    virtue still, and I my mind. IACHIMO. You must not so far prefer
    her fore ours of Italy. POSTHUMUS. Being so far provok'd as I was
    in France, I would abate her nothing, though I profess myself her
    adorer, not her friend. IACHIMO. As fair and as good- a kind of
    hand-in-hand comparison- had been something too fair and too good
    for any lady in Britain. If she went before others I have seen as
    that diamond of yours outlustres many I have beheld, I could not
    but believe she excelled many; but I have not seen the most
    precious diamond that is, nor you the lady. POSTHUMUS. I prais'd
    her as I rated her. So do I my stone. IACHIMO. What do you esteem
    it at? POSTHUMUS. More than the world enjoys. IACHIMO. Either your
    unparagon'd mistress is dead, or she's outpriz'd by a trifle.
    POSTHUMUS. You are mistaken: the one may be sold or given, if there
    were wealth enough for the purchase or merit for the gift; the
    other is not a thing for sale, and only the gift of the gods.
    IACHIMO. Which the gods have given you? POSTHUMUS. Which by their
    graces I will keep. IACHIMO. You may wear her in title yours; but
    you know strange fowl light upon neighbouring ponds. Your ring may
    be stol'n too. So your brace of unprizable estimations, the one is
    but frail and the other casual; a cunning thief, or a
    that-way-accomplish'd courtier, would hazard the winning both of
    first and last. POSTHUMUS. Your Italy contains none so accomplish'd
    a courtier to convince the honour of my mistress, if in the holding
    or loss of that you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have
    store of thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not my ring. PHILARIO.
    Let us leave here, gentlemen. POSTHUMUS. Sir, with all my heart.
    This worthy signior, I thank him, makes no stranger of me; we are
    familiar at first. IACHIMO. With five times so much conversation I
    should get ground of your fair mistress; make her go back even to
    the yielding, had I admittance and opportunity to friend.
    POSTHUMUS. No, no. IACHIMO. I dare thereupon pawn the moiety of my
    estate to your ring, which, in my opinion, o'ervalues it something.
    But I make my wager rather against your confidence than her
    reputation; and, to bar your offence herein too, I durst attempt it
    against any lady in the world. POSTHUMUS. You are a great deal
    abus'd in too bold a persuasion, and I doubt not you sustain what
    y'are worthy of by your attempt. IACHIMO. What's that? POSTHUMUS. A
    repulse; though your attempt, as you call it, deserve more- a
    punishment too. PHILARIO. Gentlemen, enough of this. It came in too
    suddenly; let it die as it was born, and I pray you be better
    acquainted. IACHIMO. Would I had put my estate and my neighbour's
    on th' approbation of what I have spoke! POSTHUMUS. What lady would
    you choose to assail? IACHIMO. Yours, whom in constancy you think
    stands so safe. I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring
    that, commend me to the court where your lady is, with no more
    advantage than the opportunity of a second conference, and I will
    bring from thence that honour of hers which you imagine so
    reserv'd. POSTHUMUS. I will wage against your gold, gold to it. My
    ring I hold dear as my finger; 'tis part of it. IACHIMO. You are a
    friend, and therein the wiser. If you buy ladies' flesh at a
    million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting. But I see you
    have some religion in you, that you fear. POSTHUMUS. This is but a
    custom in your tongue; you bear a graver purpose, I hope. IACHIMO.
    I am the master of my speeches, and would undergo what's spoken, I
    swear. POSTHUMUS. Will you? I Shall but lend my diamond till your
    return. Let there be covenants drawn between's. My mistress exceeds
    in goodness the hugeness of your unworthy thinking. I dare you to
    this match: here's my ring. PHILARIO. I will have it no lay.
    IACHIMO. By the gods, it is one. If I bring you no sufficient
    testimony that I have enjoy'd the dearest bodily part of your
    mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond too.
    If I come off, and leave her in such honour as you have trust in,
    she your jewel, this your jewel, and my gold are yours- provided I
    have your commendation for my more free entertainment. POSTHUMUS. I
    embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt us. Only,
    thus far you shall answer: if you make your voyage upon her, and
    give me directly to understand you have prevail'd, I am no further
    your enemy- she is not worth our debate; if she remain unseduc'd,
    you not making it appear otherwise, for your ill opinion and th'
    assault you have made to her chastity you shall answer me with your
    sword. IACHIMO. Your hand- a covenant! We will have these things
    set down by lawful counsel, and straight away for Britain, lest the
    bargain should catch cold and starve. I will fetch my gold and have
    our two wagers recorded. POSTHUMUS. Agreed.                Exeunt
    POSTHUMUS and IACHIMO FRENCHMAN. Will this hold, think you?
    PHILARIO. Signior Iachimo will not from it. Pray let us follow 'em.
    Exeunt

SCENE V. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter QUEEN, LADIES, and CORNELIUS

  QUEEN. Whiles yet the dew's on ground, gather those flowers;
    Make haste; who has the note of them?
  LADY. I, madam.
  QUEEN. Dispatch.                                 Exeunt LADIES
    Now, Master Doctor, have you brought those drugs?
  CORNELIUS. Pleaseth your Highness, ay. Here they are, madam.
                                              [Presenting a box]
    But I beseech your Grace, without offence-
    My conscience bids me ask- wherefore you have
    Commanded of me these most poisonous compounds
    Which are the movers of a languishing death,
    But, though slow, deadly?
  QUEEN. I wonder, Doctor,
    Thou ask'st me such a question. Have I not been
    Thy pupil long? Hast thou not learn'd me how
    To make perfumes? distil? preserve? yea, so
    That our great king himself doth woo me oft
    For my confections? Having thus far proceeded-
    Unless thou think'st me devilish- is't not meet
    That I did amplify my judgment in
    Other conclusions? I will try the forces
    Of these thy compounds on such creatures as
    We count not worth the hanging- but none human-
    To try the vigour of them, and apply
    Allayments to their act, and by them gather
    Their several virtues and effects.
  CORNELIUS. Your Highness
    Shall from this practice but make hard your heart;
    Besides, the seeing these effects will be
    Both noisome and infectious.
  QUEEN. O, content thee.

                        Enter PISANIO

    [Aside] Here comes a flattering rascal; upon him
    Will I first work. He's for his master,
    An enemy to my son.- How now, Pisanio!
    Doctor, your service for this time is ended;
    Take your own way.
  CORNELIUS. [Aside] I do suspect you, madam;
    But you shall do no harm.
  QUEEN. [To PISANIO] Hark thee, a word.
  CORNELIUS. [Aside] I do not like her. She doth think she has
    Strange ling'ring poisons. I do know her spirit,
    And will not trust one of her malice with
    A drug of such damn'd nature. Those she has
    Will stupefy and dull the sense awhile,
    Which first perchance she'll prove on cats and dogs,
    Then afterward up higher; but there is
    No danger in what show of death it makes,
    More than the locking up the spirits a time,
    To be more fresh, reviving. She is fool'd
    With a most false effect; and I the truer
    So to be false with her.
  QUEEN. No further service, Doctor,
    Until I send for thee.
  CORNELIUS. I humbly take my leave.                        Exit
  QUEEN. Weeps she still, say'st thou? Dost thou think in time
    She will not quench, and let instructions enter
    Where folly now possesses? Do thou work.
    When thou shalt bring me word she loves my son,
    I'll tell thee on the instant thou art then
    As great as is thy master; greater, for
    His fortunes all lie speechless, and his name
    Is at last gasp. Return he cannot, nor
    Continue where he is. To shift his being
    Is to exchange one misery with another,
    And every day that comes comes comes to
    A day's work in him. What shalt thou expect
    To be depender on a thing that leans,
    Who cannot be new built, nor has no friends
    So much as but to prop him?
                  [The QUEEN drops the box. PISANIO takes it up]
    Thou tak'st up
    Thou know'st not what; but take it for thy labour.
    It is a thing I made, which hath the King
    Five times redeem'd from death. I do not know
    What is more cordial. Nay, I prithee take it;
    It is an earnest of a further good
    That I mean to thee. Tell thy mistress how
    The case stands with her; do't as from thyself.
    Think what a chance thou changest on; but think
    Thou hast thy mistress still; to boot, my son,
    Who shall take notice of thee. I'll move the King
    To any shape of thy preferment, such
    As thou'lt desire; and then myself, I chiefly,
    That set thee on to this desert, am bound
    To load thy merit richly. Call my women.
    Think on my words.                              Exit PISANIO
    A sly and constant knave,
    Not to be shak'd; the agent for his master,
    And the remembrancer of her to hold
    The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that
    Which, if he take, shall quite unpeople her
    Of leigers for her sweet; and which she after,
    Except she bend her humour, shall be assur'd
    To taste of too.

                   Re-enter PISANIO and LADIES

    So, so. Well done, well done.
    The violets, cowslips, and the primroses,
    Bear to my closet. Fare thee well, Pisanio;
    Think on my words.                   Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES
  PISANIO. And shall do.
    But when to my good lord I prove untrue
    I'll choke myself- there's all I'll do for you.         Exit

SCENE VI. Britain. The palace

Enter IMOGEN alone

  IMOGEN. A father cruel and a step-dame false;
    A foolish suitor to a wedded lady
    That hath her husband banish'd. O, that husband!
    My supreme crown of grief! and those repeated
    Vexations of it! Had I been thief-stol'n,
    As my two brothers, happy! but most miserable
    Is the desire that's glorious. Blessed be those,
    How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
    Which seasons comfort. Who may this be? Fie!

                    Enter PISANIO and IACHIMO

  PISANIO. Madam, a noble gentleman of Rome
    Comes from my lord with letters.
  IACHIMO. Change you, madam?
    The worthy Leonatus is in safety,
    And greets your Highness dearly.         [Presents a letter]
  IMOGEN. Thanks, good sir.
    You're kindly welcome.
  IACHIMO. [Aside] All of her that is out of door most rich!
    If she be furnish'd with a mind so rare,
    She is alone th' Arabian bird, and I
    Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend!
    Arm me, audacity, from head to foot!
    Or, like the Parthian, I shall flying fight;
    Rather, directly fly.
  IMOGEN. [Reads] 'He is one of the noblest note, to whose
    kindnesses I am most infinitely tied. Reflect upon him
    accordingly, as you value your trust.       LEONATUS.'

    So far I read aloud;
    But even the very middle of my heart
    Is warm'd by th' rest and takes it thankfully.
    You are as welcome, worthy sir, as I
    Have words to bid you; and shall find it so
    In all that I can do.
  IACHIMO. Thanks, fairest lady.
    What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes
    To see this vaulted arch and the rich crop
    Of sea and land, which can distinguish 'twixt
    The fiery orbs above and the twinn'd stones
    Upon the number'd beach, and can we not
    Partition make with spectacles so precious
    'Twixt fair and foul?
  IMOGEN. What makes your admiration?
  IACHIMO. It cannot be i' th' eye, for apes and monkeys,
    'Twixt two such shes, would chatter this way and
    Contemn with mows the other; nor i' th' judgment,
    For idiots in this case of favour would
    Be wisely definite; nor i' th' appetite;
    Sluttery, to such neat excellence oppos'd,
    Should make desire vomit emptiness,
    Not so allur'd to feed.
  IMOGEN. What is the matter, trow?
  IACHIMO. The cloyed will-
    That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, that tub
    Both fill'd and running- ravening first the lamb,
    Longs after for the garbage.
  IMOGEN. What, dear sir,
    Thus raps you? Are you well?
  IACHIMO. Thanks, madam; well.- Beseech you, sir,
    Desire my man's abode where I did leave him.
    He's strange and peevish.
  PISANIO. I was going, sir,
    To give him welcome.                                    Exit
  IMOGEN. Continues well my lord? His health beseech you?
  IACHIMO. Well, madam.
  IMOGEN. Is he dispos'd to mirth? I hope he is.
  IACHIMO. Exceeding pleasant; none a stranger there
    So merry and so gamesome. He is call'd
    The Britain reveller.
  IMOGEN. When he was here
    He did incline to sadness, and oft-times
    Not knowing why.
  IACHIMO. I never saw him sad.
    There is a Frenchman his companion, one
    An eminent monsieur that, it seems, much loves
    A Gallian girl at home. He furnaces
    The thick sighs from him; whiles the jolly Briton-
    Your lord, I mean- laughs from's free lungs, cries 'O,
    Can my sides hold, to think that man- who knows
    By history, report, or his own proof,
    What woman is, yea, what she cannot choose
    But must be- will's free hours languish for
    Assured bondage?'
  IMOGEN. Will my lord say so?
  IACHIMO. Ay, madam, with his eyes in flood with laughter.
    It is a recreation to be by
    And hear him mock the Frenchman. But heavens know
    Some men are much to blame.
  IMOGEN. Not he, I hope.
  IACHIMO. Not he; but yet heaven's bounty towards him might
    Be us'd more thankfully. In himself, 'tis much;
    In you, which I account his, beyond all talents.
    Whilst I am bound to wonder, I am bound
    To pity too.
  IMOGEN. What do you pity, sir?
  IACHIMO. Two creatures heartily.
  IMOGEN. Am I one, sir?
    You look on me: what wreck discern you in me
    Deserves your pity?
  IACHIMO. Lamentable! What,
    To hide me from the radiant sun and solace
    I' th' dungeon by a snuff?
  IMOGEN. I pray you, sir,
    Deliver with more openness your answers
    To my demands. Why do you pity me?
  IACHIMO. That others do,
    I was about to say, enjoy your- But
    It is an office of the gods to venge it,
    Not mine to speak on't.
  IMOGEN. You do seem to know
    Something of me, or what concerns me; pray you-
    Since doubting things go ill often hurts more
    Than to be sure they do; for certainties
    Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing,
    The remedy then born- discover to me
    What both you spur and stop.
  IACHIMO. Had I this cheek
    To bathe my lips upon; this hand, whose touch,
    Whose every touch, would force the feeler's soul
    To th' oath of loyalty; this object, which
    Takes prisoner the wild motion of mine eye,
    Fixing it only here; should I, damn'd then,
    Slaver with lips as common as the stairs
    That mount the Capitol; join gripes with hands
    Made hard with hourly falsehood- falsehood as
    With labour; then by-peeping in an eye
    Base and illustrious as the smoky light
    That's fed with stinking tallow- it were fit
    That all the plagues of hell should at one time
    Encounter such revolt.
  IMOGEN. My lord, I fear,
    Has forgot Britain.
  IACHIMO. And himself. Not I
    Inclin'd to this intelligence pronounce
    The beggary of his change; but 'tis your graces
    That from my mutest conscience to my tongue
    Charms this report out.
  IMOGEN. Let me hear no more.
  IACHIMO. O dearest soul, your cause doth strike my heart
    With pity that doth make me sick! A lady
    So fair, and fasten'd to an empery,
    Would make the great'st king double, to be partner'd
    With tomboys hir'd with that self exhibition
    Which your own coffers yield! with diseas'd ventures
    That play with all infirmities for gold
    Which rottenness can lend nature! such boil'd stuff
    As well might poison poison! Be reveng'd;
    Or she that bore you was no queen, and you
    Recoil from your great stock.
  IMOGEN. Reveng'd?
    How should I be reveng'd? If this be true-
    As I have such a heart that both mine ears
    Must not in haste abuse- if it be true,
    How should I be reveng'd?
  IACHIMO. Should he make me
    Live like Diana's priest betwixt cold sheets,
    Whiles he is vaulting variable ramps,
    In your despite, upon your purse? Revenge it.
    I dedicate myself to your sweet pleasure,
    More noble than that runagate to your bed,
    And will continue fast to your affection,
    Still close as sure.
  IMOGEN. What ho, Pisanio!
  IACHIMO. Let me my service tender on your lips.
  IMOGEN. Away! I do condemn mine ears that have
    So long attended thee. If thou wert honourable,
    Thou wouldst have told this tale for virtue, not
    For such an end thou seek'st, as base as strange.
    Thou wrong'st a gentleman who is as far
    From thy report as thou from honour; and
    Solicits here a lady that disdains
    Thee and the devil alike.- What ho, Pisanio!-
    The King my father shall be made acquainted
    Of thy assault. If he shall think it fit
    A saucy stranger in his court to mart
    As in a Romish stew, and to expound
    His beastly mind to us, he hath a court
    He little cares for, and a daughter who
    He not respects at all.- What ho, Pisanio!
  IACHIMO. O happy Leonatus! I may say
    The credit that thy lady hath of thee
    Deserves thy trust, and thy most perfect goodness
    Her assur'd credit. Blessed live you long,
    A lady to the worthiest sir that ever
    Country call'd his! and you his mistress, only
    For the most worthiest fit! Give me your pardon.
    I have spoke this to know if your affiance
    Were deeply rooted, and shall make your lord
    That which he is new o'er; and he is one
    The truest manner'd, such a holy witch
    That he enchants societies into him,
    Half all men's hearts are his.
  IMOGEN. You make amends.
  IACHIMO. He sits 'mongst men like a descended god:
    He hath a kind of honour sets him of
    More than a mortal seeming. Be not angry,
    Most mighty Princess, that I have adventur'd
    To try your taking of a false report, which hath
    Honour'd with confirmation your great judgment
    In the election of a sir so rare,
    Which you know cannot err. The love I bear him
    Made me to fan you thus; but the gods made you,
    Unlike all others, chaffless. Pray your pardon.
  IMOGEN. All's well, sir; take my pow'r i' th' court for yours.
  IACHIMO. My humble thanks. I had almost forgot
    T' entreat your Grace but in a small request,
    And yet of moment too, for it concerns
    Your lord; myself and other noble friends
    Are partners in the business.
  IMOGEN. Pray what is't?
  IACHIMO. Some dozen Romans of us, and your lord-
    The best feather of our wing- have mingled sums
    To buy a present for the Emperor;
    Which I, the factor for the rest, have done
    In France. 'Tis plate of rare device, and jewels
    Of rich and exquisite form, their values great;
    And I am something curious, being strange,
    To have them in safe stowage. May it please you
    To take them in protection?
  IMOGEN. Willingly;
    And pawn mine honour for their safety. Since
    My lord hath interest in them, I will keep them
    In my bedchamber.
  IACHIMO. They are in a trunk,
    Attended by my men. I will make bold
    To send them to you only for this night;
    I must aboard to-morrow.
  IMOGEN. O, no, no.
  IACHIMO. Yes, I beseech; or I shall short my word
    By length'ning my return. From Gallia
    I cross'd the seas on purpose and on promise
    To see your Grace.
  IMOGEN. I thank you for your pains.
    But not away to-morrow!
  IACHIMO. O, I must, madam.
    Therefore I shall beseech you, if you please
    To greet your lord with writing, do't to-night.
    I have outstood my time, which is material
    'To th' tender of our present.
  IMOGEN. I will write.
    Send your trunk to me; it shall safe be kept
    And truly yielded you. You're very welcome.           Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Britain. Before CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter CLOTEN and the two LORDS

  CLOTEN. Was there ever man had such luck! When I kiss'd the jack,
    upon an up-cast to be hit away! I had a hundred pound on't; and
    then a whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing, as if I
    borrowed mine oaths of him, and might not spend them at my
    pleasure.
  FIRST LORD. What got he by that? You have broke his pate with your
    bowl.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] If his wit had been like him that broke it, it
    would have run all out.
  CLOTEN. When a gentleman is dispos'd to swear, it is not for any
    standers-by to curtail his oaths. Ha?
  SECOND LORD. No, my lord; [Aside] nor crop the ears of them.
  CLOTEN. Whoreson dog! I give him satisfaction? Would he had been
    one of my rank!
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] To have smell'd like a fool.
  CLOTEN. I am not vex'd more at anything in th' earth. A pox on't! I
    had rather not be so noble as I am; they dare not fight with me,
    because of the Queen my mother. Every jackslave hath his bellyful
    of fighting, and I must go up and down like a cock that nobody
    can match.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] You are cock and capon too; and you crow,
    cock, with your comb on.
  CLOTEN. Sayest thou?
  SECOND LORD. It is not fit your lordship should undertake every
    companion that you give offence to.
  CLOTEN. No, I know that; but it is fit I should commit offence to
    my inferiors.
  SECOND LORD. Ay, it is fit for your lordship only.
  CLOTEN. Why, so I say.
  FIRST LORD. Did you hear of a stranger that's come to court
    to-night?
  CLOTEN. A stranger, and I not known on't?
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] He's a strange fellow himself, and knows it
    not.
  FIRST LORD. There's an Italian come, and, 'tis thought, one of
    Leonatus' friends.
  CLOTEN. Leonatus? A banish'd rascal; and he's another, whatsoever
    he be. Who told you of this stranger?
  FIRST LORD. One of your lordship's pages.
  CLOTEN. Is it fit I went to look upon him? Is there no derogation
    in't?
  SECOND LORD. You cannot derogate, my lord.
  CLOTEN. Not easily, I think.
  SECOND LORD. [Aside] You are a fool granted; therefore your issues,
    being foolish, do not derogate.
  CLOTEN. Come, I'll go see this Italian. What I have lost to-day at
    bowls I'll win to-night of him. Come, go.
  SECOND LORD. I'll attend your lordship.
                                    Exeunt CLOTEN and FIRST LORD
    That such a crafty devil as is his mother
    Should yield the world this ass! A woman that
    Bears all down with her brain; and this her son
    Cannot take two from twenty, for his heart,
    And leave eighteen. Alas, poor princess,
    Thou divine Imogen, what thou endur'st,
    Betwixt a father by thy step-dame govern'd,
    A mother hourly coining plots, a wooer
    More hateful than the foul expulsion is
    Of thy dear husband, than that horrid act
    Of the divorce he'd make! The heavens hold firm
    The walls of thy dear honour, keep unshak'd
    That temple, thy fair mind, that thou mayst stand
    T' enjoy thy banish'd lord and this great land!         Exit

SCENE II. Britain. IMOGEN'S bedchamber in CYMBELINE'S palace; a trunk
in one corner

Enter IMOGEN in her bed, and a LADY attending

  IMOGEN. Who's there? My woman? Helen?
  LADY. Please you, madam.
  IMOGEN. What hour is it?
  LADY. Almost midnight, madam.
  IMOGEN. I have read three hours then. Mine eyes are weak;
    Fold down the leaf where I have left. To bed.
    Take not away the taper, leave it burning;
    And if thou canst awake by four o' th' clock,
    I prithee call me. Sleep hath seiz'd me wholly.    Exit LADY
    To your protection I commend me, gods.
    From fairies and the tempters of the night
    Guard me, beseech ye!
                          [Sleeps. IACHIMO comes from the trunk]
  IACHIMO. The crickets sing, and man's o'er-labour'd sense
    Repairs itself by rest. Our Tarquin thus
    Did softly press the rushes ere he waken'd
    The chastity he wounded. Cytherea,
    How bravely thou becom'st thy bed! fresh lily,
    And whiter than the sheets! That I might touch!
    But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon'd,
    How dearly they do't! 'Tis her breathing that
    Perfumes the chamber thus. The flame o' th' taper
    Bows toward her and would under-peep her lids
    To see th' enclosed lights, now canopied
    Under these windows white and azure, lac'd
    With blue of heaven's own tinct. But my design
    To note the chamber. I will write all down:
    Such and such pictures; there the window; such
    Th' adornment of her bed; the arras, figures-
    Why, such and such; and the contents o' th' story.
    Ah, but some natural notes about her body
    Above ten thousand meaner movables
    Would testify, t' enrich mine inventory.
    O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her!
    And be her sense but as a monument,
    Thus in a chapel lying! Come off, come off;
                                       [Taking off her bracelet]
    As slippery as the Gordian knot was hard!
    'Tis mine; and this will witness outwardly,
    As strongly as the conscience does within,
    To th' madding of her lord. On her left breast
    A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
    I' th' bottom of a cowslip. Here's a voucher
    Stronger than ever law could make; this secret
    Will force him think I have pick'd the lock and ta'en
    The treasure of her honour. No more. To what end?
    Why should I write this down that's riveted,
    Screw'd to my memory? She hath been reading late
    The tale of Tereus; here the leaf's turn'd down
    Where Philomel gave up. I have enough.
    To th' trunk again, and shut the spring of it.
    Swift, swift, you dragons of the night, that dawning
    May bare the raven's eye! I lodge in fear;
    Though this a heavenly angel, hell is here.  [Clock strikes]
    One, two, three. Time, time!             Exit into the trunk

SCENE III. CYMBELINE'S palace. An ante-chamber adjoining IMOGEN'S
apartments

Enter CLOTEN and LORDS

  FIRST LORD. Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most
    coldest that ever turn'd up ace.
  CLOTEN. It would make any man cold to lose.
  FIRST LORD. But not every man patient after the noble temper of
    your lordship. You are most hot and furious when you win.
  CLOTEN. Winning will put any man into courage. If I could get this
    foolish Imogen, I should have gold enough. It's almost morning,
    is't not?
  FIRST LORD. Day, my lord.
  CLOTEN. I would this music would come. I am advised to give her
    music a mornings; they say it will penetrate.

                       Enter musicians

    Come on, tune. If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so.
    We'll try with tongue too. If none will do, let her remain; but
    I'll never give o'er. First, a very excellent good-conceited thing;
    after, a wonderful sweet air, with admirable rich words to it- and
    then let her consider.

                 SONG

      Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
        And Phoebus 'gins arise,
      His steeds to water at those springs
        On chalic'd flow'rs that lies;
      And winking Mary-buds begin
        To ope their golden eyes.
      With everything that pretty bin,
        My lady sweet, arise;
          Arise, arise!

    So, get you gone. If this penetrate, I will consider your music the
    better; if it do not, it is a vice in her ears which horsehairs and
    calves' guts, nor the voice of unpaved eunuch to boot, can never
    amend.                      Exeunt musicians

                    Enter CYMBELINE and QUEEN

  SECOND LORD. Here comes the King.
  CLOTEN. I am glad I was up so late, for that's the reason I was up
    so early. He cannot choose but take this service I have done
    fatherly.- Good morrow to your Majesty and to my gracious mother.
  CYMBELINE. Attend you here the door of our stern daughter?
    Will she not forth?
  CLOTEN. I have assail'd her with musics, but she vouchsafes no
    notice.
  CYMBELINE. The exile of her minion is too new;
    She hath not yet forgot him; some more time
    Must wear the print of his remembrance out,
    And then she's yours.
  QUEEN. You are most bound to th' King,
    Who lets go by no vantages that may
    Prefer you to his daughter. Frame yourself
    To orderly soliciting, and be friended
    With aptness of the season; make denials
    Increase your services; so seem as if
    You were inspir'd to do those duties which
    You tender to her; that you in all obey her,
    Save when command to your dismission tends,
    And therein you are senseless.
  CLOTEN. Senseless? Not so.

                    Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. So like you, sir, ambassadors from Rome;
    The one is Caius Lucius.
  CYMBELINE. A worthy fellow,
    Albeit he comes on angry purpose now;
    But that's no fault of his. We must receive him
    According to the honour of his sender;
    And towards himself, his goodness forespent on us,
    We must extend our notice. Our dear son,
    When you have given good morning to your mistress,
    Attend the Queen and us; we shall have need
    T' employ you towards this Roman. Come, our queen.
                                           Exeunt all but CLOTEN
  CLOTEN. If she be up, I'll speak with her; if not,
    Let her lie still and dream. By your leave, ho!     [Knocks]
    I know her women are about her; what
    If I do line one of their hands? 'Tis gold
    Which buys admittance; oft it doth-yea, and makes
    Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up
    Their deer to th' stand o' th' stealer; and 'tis gold
    Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief;
    Nay, sometime hangs both thief and true man. What
    Can it not do and undo? I will make
    One of her women lawyer to me, for
    I yet not understand the case myself.
    By your leave.                                      [Knocks]

                            Enter a LADY

  LADY. Who's there that knocks?
  CLOTEN. A gentleman.
  LADY. No more?
  CLOTEN. Yes, and a gentlewoman's son.
  LADY. That's more
    Than some whose tailors are as dear as yours
    Can justly boast of. What's your lordship's pleasure?
  CLOTEN. Your lady's person; is she ready?
  LADY. Ay,
    To keep her chamber.
  CLOTEN. There is gold for you; sell me your good report.
  LADY. How? My good name? or to report of you
    What I shall think is good? The Princess!

                        Enter IMOGEN

  CLOTEN. Good morrow, fairest sister. Your sweet hand.
                                                       Exit LADY
  IMOGEN. Good morrow, sir. You lay out too much pains
    For purchasing but trouble. The thanks I give
    Is telling you that I am poor of thanks,
    And scarce can spare them.
  CLOTEN. Still I swear I love you.
  IMOGEN. If you but said so, 'twere as deep with me.
    If you swear still, your recompense is still
    That I regard it not.
  CLOTEN. This is no answer.
  IMOGEN. But that you shall not say I yield, being silent,
    I would not speak. I pray you spare me. Faith,
    I shall unfold equal discourtesy
    To your best kindness; one of your great knowing
    Should learn, being taught, forbearance.
  CLOTEN. To leave you in your madness 'twere my sin;
    I will not.
  IMOGEN. Fools are not mad folks.
  CLOTEN. Do you call me fool?
  IMOGEN. As I am mad, I do;
    If you'll be patient, I'll no more be mad;
    That cures us both. I am much sorry, sir,
    You put me to forget a lady's manners
    By being so verbal; and learn now, for all,
    That I, which know my heart, do here pronounce,
    By th' very truth of it, I care not for you,
    And am so near the lack of charity
    To accuse myself I hate you; which I had rather
    You felt than make't my boast.
  CLOTEN. You sin against
    Obedience, which you owe your father. For
    The contract you pretend with that base wretch,
    One bred of alms and foster'd with cold dishes,
    With scraps o' th' court- it is no contract, none.
    And though it be allowed in meaner parties-
    Yet who than he more mean?- to knit their souls-
    On whom there is no more dependency
    But brats and beggary- in self-figur'd knot,
    Yet you are curb'd from that enlargement by
    The consequence o' th' crown, and must not foil
    The precious note of it with a base slave,
    A hilding for a livery, a squire's cloth,
    A pantler- not so eminent!
  IMOGEN. Profane fellow!
    Wert thou the son of Jupiter, and no more
    But what thou art besides, thou wert too base
    To be his groom. Thou wert dignified enough,
    Even to the point of envy, if 'twere made
    Comparative for your virtues to be styl'd
    The under-hangman of his kingdom, and hated
    For being preferr'd so well.
  CLOTEN. The south fog rot him!
  IMOGEN. He never can meet more mischance than come
    To be but nam'd of thee. His mean'st garment
    That ever hath but clipp'd his body is dearer
    In my respect than all the hairs above thee,
    Were they all made such men. How now, Pisanio!

                    Enter PISANIO

  CLOTEN. 'His garments'! Now the devil-
  IMOGEN. To Dorothy my woman hie thee presently.
  CLOTEN. 'His garment'!
  IMOGEN. I am sprited with a fool;
    Frighted, and ang'red worse. Go bid my woman
    Search for a jewel that too casually
    Hath left mine arm. It was thy master's; shrew me,
    If I would lose it for a revenue
    Of any king's in Europe! I do think
    I saw't this morning; confident I am
    Last night 'twas on mine arm; I kiss'd it.
    I hope it be not gone to tell my lord
    That I kiss aught but he.
  PISANIO. 'Twill not be lost.
  IMOGEN. I hope so. Go and search.                 Exit PISANIO
  CLOTEN. You have abus'd me.
    'His meanest garment'!
  IMOGEN. Ay, I said so, sir.
    If you will make 't an action, call witness to 't.
  CLOTEN. I will inform your father.
  IMOGEN. Your mother too.
    She's my good lady and will conceive, I hope,
    But the worst of me. So I leave you, sir,
    To th' worst of discontent.                             Exit
  CLOTEN. I'll be reveng'd.
    'His mean'st garment'! Well.                            Exit

SCENE IV. Rome. PHILARIO'S house

Enter POSTHUMUS and PHILARIO

  POSTHUMUS. Fear it not, sir; I would I were so sure
    To win the King as I am bold her honour
    Will remain hers.
  PHILARIO. What means do you make to him?
  POSTHUMUS. Not any; but abide the change of time,
    Quake in the present winter's state, and wish
    That warmer days would come. In these fear'd hopes
    I barely gratify your love; they failing,
    I must die much your debtor.
  PHILARIO. Your very goodness and your company
    O'erpays all I can do. By this your king
    Hath heard of great Augustus. Caius Lucius
    Will do's commission throughly; and I think
    He'll grant the tribute, send th' arrearages,
    Or look upon our Romans, whose remembrance
    Is yet fresh in their grief.
  POSTHUMUS. I do believe
    Statist though I am none, nor like to be,
    That this will prove a war; and you shall hear
    The legions now in Gallia sooner landed
    In our not-fearing Britain than have tidings
    Of any penny tribute paid. Our countrymen
    Are men more order'd than when Julius Caesar
    Smil'd at their lack of skill, but found their courage
    Worthy his frowning at. Their discipline,
    Now mingled with their courages, will make known
    To their approvers they are people such
    That mend upon the world.

                      Enter IACHIMO

  PHILARIO. See! Iachimo!
  POSTHUMUS. The swiftest harts have posted you by land,
    And winds of all the comers kiss'd your sails,
    To make your vessel nimble.
  PHILARIO. Welcome, sir.
  POSTHUMUS. I hope the briefness of your answer made
    The speediness of your return.
  IACHIMO. Your lady
    Is one of the fairest that I have look'd upon.
  POSTHUMUS. And therewithal the best; or let her beauty
    Look through a casement to allure false hearts,
    And be false with them.
  IACHIMO. Here are letters for you.
  POSTHUMUS. Their tenour good, I trust.
  IACHIMO. 'Tis very like.
  PHILARIO. Was Caius Lucius in the Britain court
    When you were there?
  IACHIMO. He was expected then,
    But not approach'd.
  POSTHUMUS. All is well yet.
    Sparkles this stone as it was wont, or is't not
    Too dull for your good wearing?
  IACHIMO. If I have lost it,
    I should have lost the worth of it in gold.
    I'll make a journey twice as far t' enjoy
    A second night of such sweet shortness which
    Was mine in Britain; for the ring is won.
  POSTHUMUS. The stone's too hard to come by.
  IACHIMO. Not a whit,
    Your lady being so easy.
  POSTHUMUS. Make not, sir,
    Your loss your sport. I hope you know that we
    Must not continue friends.
  IACHIMO. Good sir, we must,
    If you keep covenant. Had I not brought
    The knowledge of your mistress home, I grant
    We were to question farther; but I now
    Profess myself the winner of her honour,
    Together with your ring; and not the wronger
    Of her or you, having proceeded but
    By both your wills.
  POSTHUMUS. If you can make't apparent
    That you have tasted her in bed, my hand
    And ring is yours. If not, the foul opinion
    You had of her pure honour gains or loses
    Your sword or mine, or masterless leaves both
    To who shall find them.
  IACHIMO. Sir, my circumstances,
    Being so near the truth as I will make them,
    Must first induce you to believe- whose strength
    I will confirm with oath; which I doubt not
    You'll give me leave to spare when you shall find
    You need it not.
  POSTHUMUS. Proceed.
  IACHIMO. First, her bedchamber,
    Where I confess I slept not, but profess
    Had that was well worth watching-it was hang'd
    With tapestry of silk and silver; the story,
    Proud Cleopatra when she met her Roman
    And Cydnus swell'd above the banks, or for
    The press of boats or pride. A piece of work
    So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive
    In workmanship and value; which I wonder'd
    Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,
    Since the true life on't was-
  POSTHUMUS. This is true;
    And this you might have heard of here, by me
    Or by some other.
  IACHIMO. More particulars
    Must justify my knowledge.
  POSTHUMUS. So they must,
    Or do your honour injury.
  IACHIMO. The chimney
    Is south the chamber, and the chimneypiece
    Chaste Dian bathing. Never saw I figures
    So likely to report themselves. The cutter
    Was as another nature, dumb; outwent her,
    Motion and breath left out.
  POSTHUMUS. This is a thing
    Which you might from relation likewise reap,
    Being, as it is, much spoke of.
  IACHIMO. The roof o' th' chamber
    With golden cherubins is fretted; her andirons-
    I had forgot them- were two winking Cupids
    Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely
    Depending on their brands.
  POSTHUMUS. This is her honour!
    Let it be granted you have seen all this, and praise
    Be given to your remembrance; the description
    Of what is in her chamber nothing saves
    The wager you have laid.
  IACHIMO. Then, if you can,                [Shows the bracelet]
    Be pale. I beg but leave to air this jewel. See!
    And now 'tis up again. It must be married
    To that your diamond; I'll keep them.
  POSTHUMUS. Jove!
    Once more let me behold it. Is it that
    Which I left with her?
  IACHIMO. Sir- I thank her- that.
    She stripp'd it from her arm; I see her yet;
    Her pretty action did outsell her gift,
    And yet enrich'd it too. She gave it me, and said
    She priz'd it once.
  POSTHUMUS. May be she pluck'd it of
    To send it me.
  IACHIMO. She writes so to you, doth she?
  POSTHUMUS. O, no, no, no! 'tis true. Here, take this too;
                                                [Gives the ring]
    It is a basilisk unto mine eye,
    Kills me to look on't. Let there be no honour
    Where there is beauty; truth where semblance; love
    Where there's another man. The vows of women
    Of no more bondage be to where they are made
    Than they are to their virtues, which is nothing.
    O, above measure false!
  PHILARIO. Have patience, sir,
    And take your ring again; 'tis not yet won.
    It may be probable she lost it, or
    Who knows if one her women, being corrupted
    Hath stol'n it from her?
  POSTHUMUS. Very true;
    And so I hope he came by't. Back my ring.
    Render to me some corporal sign about her,
    More evident than this; for this was stol'n.
  IACHIMO. By Jupiter, I had it from her arm!
  POSTHUMUS. Hark you, he swears; by Jupiter he swears.
    'Tis true- nay, keep the ring, 'tis true. I am sure
    She would not lose it. Her attendants are
    All sworn and honourable- they induc'd to steal it!
    And by a stranger! No, he hath enjoy'd her.
    The cognizance of her incontinency
    Is this: she hath bought the name of whore thus dearly.
    There, take thy hire; and all the fiends of hell
    Divide themselves between you!
  PHILARIO. Sir, be patient;
    This is not strong enough to be believ'd
    Of one persuaded well of.
  POSTHUMUS. Never talk on't;
    She hath been colted by him.
  IACHIMO. If you seek
    For further satisfying, under her breast-
    Worthy the pressing- lies a mole, right proud
    Of that most delicate lodging. By my life,
    I kiss'd it; and it gave me present hunger
    To feed again, though full. You do remember
    This stain upon her?
  POSTHUMUS. Ay, and it doth confirm
    Another stain, as big as hell can hold,
    Were there no more but it.
  IACHIMO. Will you hear more?
  POSTHUMUS. Spare your arithmetic; never count the turns.
    Once, and a million!
  IACHIMO. I'll be sworn-
  POSTHUMUS. No swearing.
    If you will swear you have not done't, you lie;
    And I will kill thee if thou dost deny
    Thou'st made me cuckold.
  IACHIMO. I'll deny nothing.
  POSTHUMUS. O that I had her here to tear her limb-meal!
    I will go there and do't, i' th' court, before
    Her father. I'll do something-                          Exit
  PHILARIO. Quite besides
    The government of patience! You have won.
    Let's follow him and pervert the present wrath
    He hath against himself.
  IACHIMO. With all my heart.                             Exeunt

SCENE V. Rome. Another room in PHILARIO'S house

Enter POSTHUMUS

  POSTHUMUS. Is there no way for men to be, but women
    Must be half-workers? We are all bastards,
    And that most venerable man which I
    Did call my father was I know not where
    When I was stamp'd. Some coiner with his tools
    Made me a counterfeit; yet my mother seem'd
    The Dian of that time. So doth my wife
    The nonpareil of this. O, vengeance, vengeance!
    Me of my lawful pleasure she restrain'd,
    And pray'd me oft forbearance; did it with
    A pudency so rosy, the sweet view on't
    Might well have warm'd old Saturn; that I thought her
    As chaste as unsunn'd snow. O, all the devils!
    This yellow Iachimo in an hour- was't not?
    Or less!- at first? Perchance he spoke not, but,
    Like a full-acorn'd boar, a German one,
    Cried 'O!' and mounted; found no opposition
    But what he look'd for should oppose and she
    Should from encounter guard. Could I find out
    The woman's part in me! For there's no motion
    That tends to vice in man but I affirm
    It is the woman's part. Be it lying, note it,
    The woman's; flattering, hers; deceiving, hers;
    Lust and rank thoughts, hers, hers; revenges, hers;
    Ambitions, covetings, change of prides, disdain,
    Nice longing, slanders, mutability,
    All faults that man may name, nay, that hell knows,
    Why, hers, in part or all; but rather all;
    For even to vice
    They are not constant, but are changing still
    One vice but of a minute old for one
    Not half so old as that. I'll write against them,
    Detest them, curse them. Yet 'tis greater skill
    In a true hate to pray they have their will:
    The very devils cannot plague them better.              Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. Britain. A hall in CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter in state, CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, and LORDS at one door, and at
another CAIUS LUCIUS and attendants

  CYMBELINE. Now say, what would Augustus Caesar with us?
  LUCIUS. When Julius Caesar- whose remembrance yet
    Lives in men's eyes, and will to ears and tongues
    Be theme and hearing ever- was in this Britain,
    And conquer'd it, Cassibelan, thine uncle,
    Famous in Caesar's praises no whit less
    Than in his feats deserving it, for him
    And his succession granted Rome a tribute,
    Yearly three thousand pounds, which by thee lately
    Is left untender'd.
  QUEEN. And, to kill the marvel,
    Shall be so ever.
  CLOTEN. There be many Caesars
    Ere such another Julius. Britain is
    A world by itself, and we will nothing pay
    For wearing our own noses.
  QUEEN. That opportunity,
    Which then they had to take from 's, to resume
    We have again. Remember, sir, my liege,
    The kings your ancestors, together with
    The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
    As Neptune's park, ribb'd and pal'd in
    With rocks unscalable and roaring waters,
    With sands that will not bear your enemies' boats
    But suck them up to th' top-mast. A kind of conquest
    Caesar made here; but made not here his brag
    Of 'came, and saw, and overcame.' With shame-
    The first that ever touch'd him- he was carried
    From off our coast, twice beaten; and his shipping-
    Poor ignorant baubles!- on our terrible seas,
    Like egg-shells mov'd upon their surges, crack'd
    As easily 'gainst our rocks; for joy whereof
    The fam'd Cassibelan, who was once at point-
    O, giglot fortune!- to master Caesar's sword,
    Made Lud's Town with rejoicing fires bright
    And Britons strut with courage.
  CLOTEN. Come, there's no more tribute to be paid. Our kingdom is
    stronger than it was at that time; and, as I said, there is no
    moe such Caesars. Other of them may have crook'd noses; but to
    owe such straight arms, none.
  CYMBELINE. Son, let your mother end.
  CLOTEN. We have yet many among us can gripe as hard as Cassibelan.
    I do not say I am one; but I have a hand. Why tribute? Why should
    we pay tribute? If Caesar can hide the sun from us with a blanket,
    or put the moon in his pocket, we will pay him tribute for light;
    else, sir, no more tribute, pray you now.
  CYMBELINE. You must know,
    Till the injurious Romans did extort
    This tribute from us, we were free. Caesar's ambition-
    Which swell'd so much that it did almost stretch
    The sides o' th' world- against all colour here
    Did put the yoke upon's; which to shake of
    Becomes a warlike people, whom we reckon
    Ourselves to be.
  CLOTEN. We do.
  CYMBELINE. Say then to Caesar,
    Our ancestor was that Mulmutius which
    Ordain'd our laws- whose use the sword of Caesar
    Hath too much mangled; whose repair and franchise
    Shall, by the power we hold, be our good deed,
    Though Rome be therefore angry. Mulmutius made our laws,
    Who was the first of Britain which did put
    His brows within a golden crown, and call'd
    Himself a king.
  LUCIUS. I am sorry, Cymbeline,
    That I am to pronounce Augustus Caesar-
    Caesar, that hath moe kings his servants than
    Thyself domestic officers- thine enemy.
    Receive it from me, then: war and confusion
    In Caesar's name pronounce I 'gainst thee; look
    For fury not to be resisted. Thus defied,
    I thank thee for myself.
  CYMBELINE. Thou art welcome, Caius.
    Thy Caesar knighted me; my youth I spent
    Much under him; of him I gather'd honour,
    Which he to seek of me again, perforce,
    Behoves me keep at utterance. I am perfect
    That the Pannonians and Dalmatians for
    Their liberties are now in arms, a precedent
    Which not to read would show the Britons cold;
    So Caesar shall not find them.
  LUCIUS. Let proof speak.
  CLOTEN. His majesty bids you welcome. Make pastime with us a day or
    two, or longer. If you seek us afterwards in other terms, you
    shall find us in our salt-water girdle. If you beat us out of it,
    it is yours; if you fall in the adventure, our crows shall fare
    the better for you; and there's an end.
  LUCIUS. So, sir.
  CYMBELINE. I know your master's pleasure, and he mine;
    All the remain is, welcome.                           Exeunt

SCENE II. Britain. Another room in CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter PISANIO reading of a letter

  PISANIO. How? of adultery? Wherefore write you not
    What monsters her accuse? Leonatus!
    O master, what a strange infection
    Is fall'n into thy ear! What false Italian-
    As poisonous-tongu'd as handed- hath prevail'd
    On thy too ready hearing? Disloyal? No.
    She's punish'd for her truth, and undergoes,
    More goddess-like than wife-like, such assaults
    As would take in some virtue. O my master!
    Thy mind to her is now as low as were
    Thy fortunes. How? that I should murder her?
    Upon the love, and truth, and vows, which I
    Have made to thy command? I, her? Her blood?
    If it be so to do good service, never
    Let me be counted serviceable. How look I
    That I should seem to lack humanity
    So much as this fact comes to? [Reads] 'Do't. The letter
    That I have sent her, by her own command
    Shall give thee opportunity.' O damn'd paper,
    Black as the ink that's on thee! Senseless bauble,
    Art thou a fedary for this act, and look'st
    So virgin-like without? Lo, here she comes.

                      Enter IMOGEN

    I am ignorant in what I am commanded.
  IMOGEN. How now, Pisanio!
  PISANIO. Madam, here is a letter from my lord.
  IMOGEN. Who? thy lord? That is my lord- Leonatus?
    O, learn'd indeed were that astronomer
    That knew the stars as I his characters-
    He'd lay the future open. You good gods,
    Let what is here contain'd relish of love,
    Of my lord's health, of his content; yet not
    That we two are asunder- let that grieve him!
    Some griefs are med'cinable; that is one of them,
    For it doth physic love- of his content,
    All but in that. Good wax, thy leave. Blest be
    You bees that make these locks of counsel! Lovers
    And men in dangerous bonds pray not alike;
    Though forfeiters you cast in prison, yet
    You clasp young Cupid's tables. Good news, gods!
                                                         [Reads]
    'Justice and your father's wrath, should he take me in his
    dominion, could not be so cruel to me as you, O the dearest of
    creatures, would even renew me with your eyes. Take notice that I
    am in Cambria, at Milford Haven. What your own love will out of
    this advise you, follow. So he wishes you all happiness that
    remains loyal to his vow, and your increasing in love
                                            LEONATUS POSTHUMUS.'

    O for a horse with wings! Hear'st thou, Pisanio?
    He is at Milford Haven. Read, and tell me
    How far 'tis thither. If one of mean affairs
    May plod it in a week, why may not I
    Glide thither in a day? Then, true Pisanio-
    Who long'st like me to see thy lord, who long'st-
    O, let me 'bate!- but not like me, yet long'st,
    But in a fainter kind- O, not like me,
    For mine's beyond beyond!-say, and speak thick-
    Love's counsellor should fill the bores of hearing
    To th' smothering of the sense- how far it is
    To this same blessed Milford. And by th' way
    Tell me how Wales was made so happy as
    T' inherit such a haven. But first of all,
    How we may steal from hence; and for the gap
    That we shall make in time from our hence-going
    And our return, to excuse. But first, how get hence.
    Why should excuse be born or ere begot?
    We'll talk of that hereafter. Prithee speak,
    How many score of miles may we well ride
    'Twixt hour and hour?
  PISANIO. One score 'twixt sun and sun,
    Madam, 's enough for you, and too much too.
  IMOGEN. Why, one that rode to's execution, man,
    Could never go so slow. I have heard of riding wagers
    Where horses have been nimbler than the sands
    That run i' th' clock's behalf. But this is fool'ry.
    Go bid my woman feign a sickness; say
    She'll home to her father; and provide me presently
    A riding suit, no costlier than would fit
    A franklin's huswife.
  PISANIO. Madam, you're best consider.
  IMOGEN. I see before me, man. Nor here, nor here,
    Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them
    That I cannot look through. Away, I prithee;
    Do as I bid thee. There's no more to say;
    Accessible is none but Milford way.                   Exeunt

SCENE III. Wales. A mountainous country with a cave

Enter from the cave BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS

  BELARIUS. A goodly day not to keep house with such
    Whose roof's as low as ours! Stoop, boys; this gate
    Instructs you how t' adore the heavens, and bows you
    To a morning's holy office. The gates of monarchs
    Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through
    And keep their impious turbans on without
    Good morrow to the sun. Hail, thou fair heaven!
    We house i' th' rock, yet use thee not so hardly
    As prouder livers do.
  GUIDERIUS. Hail, heaven!
  ARVIRAGUS. Hail, heaven!
  BELARIUS. Now for our mountain sport. Up to yond hill,
    Your legs are young; I'll tread these flats. Consider,
    When you above perceive me like a crow,
    That it is place which lessens and sets off;
    And you may then revolve what tales I have told you
    Of courts, of princes, of the tricks in war.
    This service is not service so being done,
    But being so allow'd. To apprehend thus
    Draws us a profit from all things we see,
    And often to our comfort shall we find
    The sharded beetle in a safer hold
    Than is the full-wing'd eagle. O, this life
    Is nobler than attending for a check,
    Richer than doing nothing for a bribe,
    Prouder than rustling in unpaid-for silk:
    Such gain the cap of him that makes him fine,
    Yet keeps his book uncross'd. No life to ours!
  GUIDERIUS. Out of your proof you speak. We, poor unfledg'd,
    Have never wing'd from view o' th' nest, nor know not
    What air's from home. Haply this life is best,
    If quiet life be best; sweeter to you
    That have a sharper known; well corresponding
    With your stiff age. But unto us it is
    A cell of ignorance, travelling abed,
    A prison for a debtor that not dares
    To stride a limit.
  ARVIRAGUS. What should we speak of
    When we are old as you? When we shall hear
    The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
    In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse.
    The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing;
    We are beastly: subtle as the fox for prey,
    Like warlike as the wolf for what we eat.
    Our valour is to chase what flies; our cage
    We make a choir, as doth the prison'd bird,
    And sing our bondage freely.
  BELARIUS. How you speak!
    Did you but know the city's usuries,
    And felt them knowingly- the art o' th' court,
    As hard to leave as keep, whose top to climb
    Is certain falling, or so slipp'ry that
    The fear's as bad as falling; the toil o' th' war,
    A pain that only seems to seek out danger
    I' th'name of fame and honour, which dies i' th'search,
    And hath as oft a sland'rous epitaph
    As record of fair act; nay, many times,
    Doth ill deserve by doing well; what's worse-
    Must curtsy at the censure. O, boys, this story
    The world may read in me; my body's mark'd
    With Roman swords, and my report was once
    first with the best of note. Cymbeline lov'd me;
    And when a soldier was the theme, my name
    Was not far off. Then was I as a tree
    Whose boughs did bend with fruit; but in one night
    A storm, or robbery, call it what you will,
    Shook down my mellow hangings, nay, my leaves,
    And left me bare to weather.
  GUIDERIUS. Uncertain favour!
  BELARIUS. My fault being nothing- as I have told you oft-
    But that two villains, whose false oaths prevail'd
    Before my perfect honour, swore to Cymbeline
    I was confederate with the Romans. So
    Follow'd my banishment, and this twenty years
    This rock and these demesnes have been my world,
    Where I have liv'd at honest freedom, paid
    More pious debts to heaven than in all
    The fore-end of my time. But up to th' mountains!
    This is not hunters' language. He that strikes
    The venison first shall be the lord o' th' feast;
    To him the other two shall minister;
    And we will fear no poison, which attends
    In place of greater state. I'll meet you in the valleys.
                                  Exeunt GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS
    How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
    These boys know little they are sons to th' King,
    Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
    They think they are mine; and though train'd up thus meanly
    I' th' cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
    The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
    In simple and low things to prince it much
    Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,
    The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who
    The King his father call'd Guiderius- Jove!
    When on my three-foot stool I sit and tell
    The warlike feats I have done, his spirits fly out
    Into my story; say 'Thus mine enemy fell,
    And thus I set my foot on's neck'; even then
    The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats,
    Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture
    That acts my words. The younger brother, Cadwal,
    Once Arviragus, in as like a figure
    Strikes life into my speech, and shows much more
    His own conceiving. Hark, the game is rous'd!
    O Cymbeline, heaven and my conscience knows
    Thou didst unjustly banish me! Whereon,
    At three and two years old, I stole these babes,
    Thinking to bar thee of succession as
    Thou refts me of my lands. Euriphile,
    Thou wast their nurse; they took thee for their mother,
    And every day do honour to her grave.
    Myself, Belarius, that am Morgan call'd,
    They take for natural father. The game is up.           Exit

SCENE IV. Wales, near Milford Haven

Enter PISANIO and IMOGEN

  IMOGEN. Thou told'st me, when we came from horse, the place
    Was near at hand. Ne'er long'd my mother so
    To see me first as I have now. Pisanio! Man!
    Where is Posthumus? What is in thy mind
    That makes thee stare thus? Wherefore breaks that sigh
    From th' inward of thee? One but painted thus
    Would be interpreted a thing perplex'd
    Beyond self-explication. Put thyself
    Into a haviour of less fear, ere wildness
    Vanquish my staider senses. What's the matter?
    Why tender'st thou that paper to me with
    A look untender! If't be summer news,
    Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st
    But keep that count'nance still. My husband's hand?
    That drug-damn'd Italy hath out-craftied him,
    And he's at some hard point. Speak, man; thy tongue
    May take off some extremity, which to read
    Would be even mortal to me.
  PISANIO. Please you read,
    And you shall find me, wretched man, a thing
    The most disdain'd of fortune.
  IMOGEN. [Reads] 'Thy mistress, Pisanio, hath play'd the strumpet in
    my bed, the testimonies whereof lie bleeding in me. I speak not
    out of weak surmises, but from proof as strong as my grief and as
    certain as I expect my revenge. That part thou, Pisanio, must act
    for me, if thy faith be not tainted with the breach of hers. Let
    thine own hands take away her life; I shall give thee opportunity
    at Milford Haven; she hath my letter for the purpose; where, if
    thou fear to strike, and to make me certain it is done, thou art
    the pander to her dishonour, and equally to me disloyal.'
  PISANIO. What shall I need to draw my sword? The paper
    Hath cut her throat already. No, 'tis slander,
    Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
    Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
    Rides on the posting winds and doth belie
    All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states,
    Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,
    This viperous slander enters. What cheer, madam?
  IMOGEN. False to his bed? What is it to be false?
    To lie in watch there, and to think on him?
    To weep twixt clock and clock? If sleep charge nature,
    To break it with a fearful dream of him,
    And cry myself awake? That's false to's bed,
    Is it?
  PISANIO. Alas, good lady!
  IMOGEN. I false! Thy conscience witness! Iachimo,
    Thou didst accuse him of incontinency;
    Thou then look'dst like a villain; now, methinks,
    Thy favour's good enough. Some jay of Italy,
    Whose mother was her painting, hath betray'd him.
    Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion,
    And for I am richer than to hang by th' walls
    I must be ripp'd. To pieces with me! O,
    Men's vows are women's traitors! All good seeming,
    By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought
    Put on for villainy; not born where't grows,
    But worn a bait for ladies.
  PISANIO. Good madam, hear me.
  IMOGEN. True honest men being heard, like false Aeneas,
    Were, in his time, thought false; and Sinon's weeping
    Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity
    From most true wretchedness. So thou, Posthumus,
    Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men:
    Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjur'd
    From thy great fail. Come, fellow, be thou honest;
    Do thou thy master's bidding; when thou seest him,
    A little witness my obedience. Look!
    I draw the sword myself; take it, and hit
    The innocent mansion of my love, my heart.
    Fear not; 'tis empty of all things but grief;
    Thy master is not there, who was indeed
    The riches of it. Do his bidding; strike.
    Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause,
    But now thou seem'st a coward.
  PISANIO. Hence, vile instrument!
    Thou shalt not damn my hand.
  IMOGEN. Why, I must die;
    And if I do not by thy hand, thou art
    No servant of thy master's. Against self-slaughter
    There is a prohibition so divine
    That cravens my weak hand. Come, here's my heart-
    Something's afore't. Soft, soft! we'll no defence!-
    Obedient as the scabbard. What is here?
    The scriptures of the loyal Leonatus
    All turn'd to heresy? Away, away,
    Corrupters of my faith! you shall no more
    Be stomachers to my heart. Thus may poor fools
    Believe false teachers; though those that are betray'd
    Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor
    Stands in worse case of woe. And thou, Posthumus,
    That didst set up my disobedience 'gainst the King
    My father, and make me put into contempt the suits
    Of princely fellows, shalt hereafter find
    It is no act of common passage but
    A strain of rareness; and I grieve myself
    To think, when thou shalt be disedg'd by her
    That now thou tirest on, how thy memory
    Will then be pang'd by me. Prithee dispatch.
    The lamp entreats the butcher. Where's thy knife?
    Thou art too slow to do thy master's bidding,
    When I desire it too.
  PISANIO. O gracious lady,
    Since I receiv'd command to do this busines
    I have not slept one wink.
  IMOGEN. Do't, and to bed then.
  PISANIO. I'll wake mine eyeballs first.
  IMOGEN. Wherefore then
    Didst undertake it? Why hast thou abus'd
    So many miles with a pretence? This place?
    Mine action and thine own? our horses' labour?
    The time inviting thee? the perturb'd court,
    For my being absent?- whereunto I never
    Purpose return. Why hast thou gone so far
    To be unbent when thou hast ta'en thy stand,
    Th' elected deer before thee?
  PISANIO. But to win time
    To lose so bad employment, in the which
    I have consider'd of a course. Good lady,
    Hear me with patience.
  IMOGEN. Talk thy tongue weary- speak.
    I have heard I am a strumpet, and mine ear,
    Therein false struck, can take no greater wound,
    Nor tent to bottom that. But speak.
  PISANIO. Then, madam,
    I thought you would not back again.
  IMOGEN. Most like-
    Bringing me here to kill me.
  PISANIO. Not so, neither;
    But if I were as wise as honest, then
    My purpose would prove well. It cannot be
    But that my master is abus'd. Some villain,
    Ay, and singular in his art, hath done you both
    This cursed injury.
  IMOGEN. Some Roman courtezan!
  PISANIO. No, on my life!
    I'll give but notice you are dead, and send him
    Some bloody sign of it, for 'tis commanded
    I should do so. You shall be miss'd at court,
    And that will well confirm it.
  IMOGEN. Why, good fellow,
    What shall I do the while? where bide? how live?
    Or in my life what comfort, when I am
    Dead to my husband?
  PISANIO. If you'll back to th' court-
  IMOGEN. No court, no father, nor no more ado
    With that harsh, noble, simple nothing-
    That Cloten, whose love-suit hath been to me
    As fearful as a siege.
  PISANIO. If not at court,
    Then not in Britain must you bide.
  IMOGEN. Where then?
    Hath Britain all the sun that shines? Day, night,
    Are they not but in Britain? I' th' world's volume
    Our Britain seems as of it, but not in't;
    In a great pool a swan's nest. Prithee think
    There's livers out of Britain.
  PISANIO. I am most glad
    You think of other place. Th' ambassador,
  LUCIUS the Roman, comes to Milford Haven
    To-morrow. Now, if you could wear a mind
    Dark as your fortune is, and but disguise
    That which t' appear itself must not yet be
    But by self-danger, you should tread a course
    Pretty and full of view; yea, happily, near
    The residence of Posthumus; so nigh, at least,
    That though his actions were not visible, yet
    Report should render him hourly to your ear
    As truly as he moves.
  IMOGEN. O! for such means,
    Though peril to my modesty, not death on't,
    I would adventure.
  PISANIO. Well then, here's the point:
    You must forget to be a woman; change
    Command into obedience; fear and niceness-
    The handmaids of all women, or, more truly,
    Woman it pretty self- into a waggish courage;
    Ready in gibes, quick-answer'd, saucy, and
    As quarrelous as the weasel. Nay, you must
    Forget that rarest treasure of your cheek,
    Exposing it- but, O, the harder heart!
    Alack, no remedy!- to the greedy touch
    Of common-kissing Titan, and forget
    Your laboursome and dainty trims wherein
    You made great Juno angry.
  IMOGEN. Nay, be brief;
    I see into thy end, and am almost
    A man already.
  PISANIO. First, make yourself but like one.
    Fore-thinking this, I have already fit-
    'Tis in my cloak-bag- doublet, hat, hose, all
    That answer to them. Would you, in their serving,
    And with what imitation you can borrow
    From youth of such a season, fore noble Lucius
    Present yourself, desire his service, tell him
    Wherein you're happy- which will make him know
    If that his head have ear in music; doubtless
    With joy he will embrace you; for he's honourable,
    And, doubling that, most holy. Your means abroad-
    You have me, rich; and I will never fail
    Beginning nor supplyment.
  IMOGEN. Thou art all the comfort
    The gods will diet me with. Prithee away!
    There's more to be consider'd; but we'll even
    All that good time will give us. This attempt
    I am soldier to, and will abide it with
    A prince's courage. Away, I prithee.
  PISANIO. Well, madam, we must take a short farewell,
    Lest, being miss'd, I be suspected of
    Your carriage from the court. My noble mistress,
    Here is a box; I had it from the Queen.
    What's in't is precious. If you are sick at sea
    Or stomach-qualm'd at land, a dram of this
    Will drive away distemper. To some shade,
    And fit you to your manhood. May the gods
    Direct you to the best!
  IMOGEN. Amen. I thank thee.                   Exeunt severally

SCENE V. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter CYMBELINE, QUEEN, CLOTEN, LUCIUS, and LORDS

  CYMBELINE. Thus far; and so farewell.
  LUCIUS. Thanks, royal sir.
    My emperor hath wrote; I must from hence,
    And am right sorry that I must report ye
    My master's enemy.
  CYMBELINE. Our subjects, sir,
    Will not endure his yoke; and for ourself
    To show less sovereignty than they, must needs
    Appear unkinglike.
  LUCIUS. So, sir. I desire of you
    A conduct overland to Milford Haven.
    Madam, all joy befall your Grace, and you!
  CYMBELINE. My lords, you are appointed for that office;
    The due of honour in no point omit.
    So farewell, noble Lucius.
  LUCIUS. Your hand, my lord.
  CLOTEN. Receive it friendly; but from this time forth
    I wear it as your enemy.
  LUCIUS. Sir, the event
    Is yet to name the winner. Fare you well.
  CYMBELINE. Leave not the worthy Lucius, good my lords,
    Till he have cross'd the Severn. Happiness!
                                         Exeunt LUCIUS and LORDS
  QUEEN. He goes hence frowning; but it honours us
    That we have given him cause.
  CLOTEN. 'Tis all the better;
    Your valiant Britons have their wishes in it.
  CYMBELINE. Lucius hath wrote already to the Emperor
    How it goes here. It fits us therefore ripely
    Our chariots and our horsemen be in readiness.
    The pow'rs that he already hath in Gallia
    Will soon be drawn to head, from whence he moves
    His war for Britain.
  QUEEN. 'Tis not sleepy business,
    But must be look'd to speedily and strongly.
  CYMBELINE. Our expectation that it would be thus
    Hath made us forward. But, my gentle queen,
    Where is our daughter? She hath not appear'd
    Before the Roman, nor to us hath tender'd
    The duty of the day. She looks us like
    A thing more made of malice than of duty;
    We have noted it. Call her before us, for
    We have been too slight in sufferance.      Exit a MESSENGER
  QUEEN. Royal sir,
    Since the exile of Posthumus, most retir'd
    Hath her life been; the cure whereof, my lord,
    'Tis time must do. Beseech your Majesty,
    Forbear sharp speeches to her; she's a lady
    So tender of rebukes that words are strokes,
    And strokes death to her.

                 Re-enter MESSENGER

  CYMBELINE. Where is she, sir? How
    Can her contempt be answer'd?
  MESSENGER. Please you, sir,
    Her chambers are all lock'd, and there's no answer
    That will be given to th' loud of noise we make.
  QUEEN. My lord, when last I went to visit her,
    She pray'd me to excuse her keeping close;
    Whereto constrain'd by her infirmity
    She should that duty leave unpaid to you
    Which daily she was bound to proffer. This
    She wish'd me to make known; but our great court
    Made me to blame in memory.
  CYMBELINE. Her doors lock'd?
    Not seen of late? Grant, heavens, that which I fear
    Prove false!                                            Exit
  QUEEN. Son, I say, follow the King.
  CLOTEN. That man of hers, Pisanio, her old servant,
    I have not seen these two days.
  QUEEN. Go, look after.                             Exit CLOTEN
    Pisanio, thou that stand'st so for Posthumus!
    He hath a drug of mine. I pray his absence
    Proceed by swallowing that; for he believes
    It is a thing most precious. But for her,
    Where is she gone? Haply despair hath seiz'd her;
    Or, wing'd with fervour of her love, she's flown
    To her desir'd Posthumus. Gone she is
    To death or to dishonour, and my end
    Can make good use of either. She being down,
    I have the placing of the British crown.

                   Re-enter CLOTEN

    How now, my son?
  CLOTEN. 'Tis certain she is fled.
    Go in and cheer the King. He rages; none
    Dare come about him.
  QUEEN. All the better. May
    This night forestall him of the coming day!             Exit
  CLOTEN. I love and hate her; for she's fair and royal,
    And that she hath all courtly parts more exquisite
    Than lady, ladies, woman. From every one
    The best she hath, and she, of all compounded,
    Outsells them all. I love her therefore; but
    Disdaining me and throwing favours on
    The low Posthumus slanders so her judgment
    That what's else rare is chok'd; and in that point
    I will conclude to hate her, nay, indeed,
    To be reveng'd upon her. For when fools
    Shall-

                    Enter PISANIO

    Who is here? What, are you packing, sirrah?
    Come hither. Ah, you precious pander! Villain,
    Where is thy lady? In a word, or else
    Thou art straightway with the fiends.
  PISANIO. O good my lord!
  CLOTEN. Where is thy lady? or, by Jupiter-
    I will not ask again. Close villain,
    I'll have this secret from thy heart, or rip
    Thy heart to find it. Is she with Posthumus?
    From whose so many weights of baseness cannot
    A dram of worth be drawn.
  PISANIO. Alas, my lord,
    How can she be with him? When was she miss'd?
    He is in Rome.
  CLOTEN. Where is she, sir? Come nearer.
    No farther halting! Satisfy me home
    What is become of her.
  PISANIO. O my all-worthy lord!
  CLOTEN. All-worthy villain!
    Discover where thy mistress is at once,
    At the next word. No more of 'worthy lord'!
    Speak, or thy silence on the instant is
    Thy condemnation and thy death.
  PISANIO. Then, sir,
    This paper is the history of my knowledge
    Touching her flight.                   [Presenting a letter]
  CLOTEN. Let's see't. I will pursue her
    Even to Augustus' throne.
  PISANIO. [Aside] Or this or perish.
    She's far enough; and what he learns by this
    May prove his travel, not her danger.
  CLOTEN. Humh!
  PISANIO. [Aside] I'll write to my lord she's dead. O Imogen,
    Safe mayst thou wander, safe return again!
  CLOTEN. Sirrah, is this letter true?
  PISANIO. Sir, as I think.
  CLOTEN. It is Posthumus' hand; I know't. Sirrah, if thou wouldst
    not be a villain, but do me true service, undergo those
    employments wherein I should have cause to use thee with a
    serious industry- that is, what villainy soe'er I bid thee do, to
    perform it directly and truly- I would think thee an honest man;
    thou shouldst neither want my means for thy relief nor my voice
    for thy preferment.
  PISANIO. Well, my good lord.
  CLOTEN. Wilt thou serve me? For since patiently and constantly thou
    hast stuck to the bare fortune of that beggar Posthumus, thou
    canst not, in the course of gratitude, but be a diligent follower
    of mine. Wilt thou serve me?
  PISANIO. Sir, I will.
  CLOTEN. Give me thy hand; here's my purse. Hast any of thy late
    master's garments in thy possession?
  PISANIO. I have, my lord, at my lodging, the same suit he wore when
    he took leave of my lady and mistress.
  CLOTEN. The first service thou dost me, fetch that suit hither. Let
    it be thy first service; go.
  PISANIO. I shall, my lord.                                Exit
  CLOTEN. Meet thee at Milford Haven! I forgot to ask him one thing;
    I'll remember't anon. Even there, thou villain Posthumus, will I
    kill thee. I would these garments were come. She said upon a
    time- the bitterness of it I now belch from my heart- that she
    held the very garment of Posthumus in more respect than my noble
    and natural person, together with the adornment of my qualities.
    With that suit upon my back will I ravish her; first kill him,
    and in her eyes. There shall she see my valour, which will then
    be a torment to her contempt. He on the ground, my speech of
    insultment ended on his dead body, and when my lust hath dined-
    which, as I say, to vex her I will execute in the clothes that
    she so prais'd- to the court I'll knock her back, foot her home
    again. She hath despis'd me rejoicingly, and I'll be merry in my
    revenge.

                Re-enter PISANIO, with the clothes

    Be those the garments?
  PISANIO. Ay, my noble lord.
  CLOTEN. How long is't since she went to Milford Haven?
  PISANIO. She can scarce be there yet.
  CLOTEN. Bring this apparel to my chamber; that is the second thing
    that I have commanded thee. The third is that thou wilt be a
    voluntary mute to my design. Be but duteous and true, preferment
    shall tender itself to thee. My revenge is now at Milford, would
    I had wings to follow it! Come, and be true.            Exit
  PISANIO. Thou bid'st me to my loss; for true to thee
    Were to prove false, which I will never be,
    To him that is most true. To Milford go,
    And find not her whom thou pursuest. Flow, flow,
    You heavenly blessings, on her! This fool's speed
    Be cross'd with slowness! Labour be his meed!           Exit

SCENE VI. Wales. Before the cave of BELARIUS

Enter IMOGEN alone, in boy's clothes

  IMOGEN. I see a man's life is a tedious one.
    I have tir'd myself, and for two nights together
    Have made the ground my bed. I should be sick
    But that my resolution helps me. Milford,
    When from the mountain-top Pisanio show'd thee,
    Thou wast within a ken. O Jove! I think
    Foundations fly the wretched; such, I mean,
    Where they should be reliev'd. Two beggars told me
    I could not miss my way. Will poor folks lie,
    That have afflictions on them, knowing 'tis
    A punishment or trial? Yes; no wonder,
    When rich ones scarce tell true. To lapse in fulness
    Is sorer than to lie for need; and falsehood
    Is worse in kings than beggars. My dear lord!
    Thou art one o' th' false ones. Now I think on thee
    My hunger's gone; but even before, I was
    At point to sink for food. But what is this?
    Here is a path to't; 'tis some savage hold.
    I were best not call; I dare not call. Yet famine,
    Ere clean it o'erthrow nature, makes it valiant.
    Plenty and peace breeds cowards; hardness ever
    Of hardiness is mother. Ho! who's here?
    If anything that's civil, speak; if savage,
    Take or lend. Ho! No answer? Then I'll enter.
    Best draw my sword; and if mine enemy
    But fear the sword, like me, he'll scarcely look on't.
    Such a foe, good heavens!                 Exit into the cave

            Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS

  BELARIUS. You, Polydore, have prov'd best woodman and
    Are master of the feast. Cadwal and I
    Will play the cook and servant; 'tis our match.
    The sweat of industry would dry and die
    But for the end it works to. Come, our stomachs
    Will make what's homely savoury; weariness
    Can snore upon the flint, when resty sloth
    Finds the down pillow hard. Now, peace be here,
    Poor house, that keep'st thyself!
  GUIDERIUS. I am thoroughly weary.
  ARVIRAGUS. I am weak with toil, yet strong in appetite.
  GUIDERIUS. There is cold meat i' th' cave; we'll browse on that
    Whilst what we have kill'd be cook'd.
  BELARIUS. [Looking into the cave] Stay, come not in.
    But that it eats our victuals, I should think
    Here were a fairy.
  GUIDERIUS. What's the matter, sir?
  BELARIUS.. By Jupiter, an angel! or, if not,
    An earthly paragon! Behold divineness
    No elder than a boy!

                       Re-enter IMOGEN

  IMOGEN. Good masters, harm me not.
    Before I enter'd here I call'd, and thought
    To have begg'd or bought what I have took. Good troth,
    I have stol'n nought; nor would not though I had found
    Gold strew'd i' th' floor. Here's money for my meat.
    I would have left it on the board, so soon
    As I had made my meal, and parted
    With pray'rs for the provider.
  GUIDERIUS. Money, youth?
  ARVIRAGUS. All gold and silver rather turn to dirt,
    As 'tis no better reckon'd but of those
    Who worship dirty gods.
  IMOGEN. I see you're angry.
    Know, if you kill me for my fault, I should
    Have died had I not made it.
  BELARIUS. Whither bound?
  IMOGEN. To Milford Haven.
  BELARIUS. What's your name?
  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir. I have a kinsman who
    Is bound for Italy; he embark'd at Milford;
    To whom being going, almost spent with hunger,
    I am fall'n in this offence.
  BELARIUS. Prithee, fair youth,
    Think us no churls, nor measure our good minds
    By this rude place we live in. Well encounter'd!
    'Tis almost night; you shall have better cheer
    Ere you depart, and thanks to stay and eat it.
    Boys, bid him welcome.
  GUIDERIUS. Were you a woman, youth,
    I should woo hard but be your groom. In honesty
    I bid for you as I'd buy.
  ARVIRAGUS. I'll make't my comfort
    He is a man. I'll love him as my brother;
    And such a welcome as I'd give to him
    After long absence, such is yours. Most welcome!
    Be sprightly, for you fall 'mongst friends.
  IMOGEN. 'Mongst friends,
    If brothers. [Aside] Would it had been so that they
    Had been my father's sons! Then had my prize
    Been less, and so more equal ballasting
    To thee, Posthumus.
  BELARIUS. He wrings at some distress.
  GUIDERIUS. Would I could free't!
  ARVIRAGUS. Or I, whate'er it be,
    What pain it cost, what danger! Gods!
  BELARIUS. [Whispering] Hark, boys.
  IMOGEN. [Aside] Great men,
    That had a court no bigger than this cave,
    That did attend themselves, and had the virtue
    Which their own conscience seal'd them, laying by
    That nothing-gift of differing multitudes,
    Could not out-peer these twain. Pardon me, gods!
    I'd change my sex to be companion with them,
    Since Leonatus' false.
  BELARIUS. It shall be so.
    Boys, we'll go dress our hunt. Fair youth, come in.
    Discourse is heavy, fasting; when we have supp'd,
    We'll mannerly demand thee of thy story,
    So far as thou wilt speak it.
  GUIDERIUS. Pray draw near.
  ARVIRAGUS. The night to th' owl and morn to th' lark less welcome.
  IMOGEN. Thanks, sir.
  ARVIRAGUS. I pray draw near.                            Exeunt

SCENE VII. Rome. A public place

Enter two ROMAN SENATORS and TRIBUNES

  FIRST SENATOR. This is the tenour of the Emperor's writ:
    That since the common men are now in action
    'Gainst the Pannonians and Dalmatians,
    And that the legions now in Gallia are
    Full weak to undertake our wars against
    The fall'n-off Britons, that we do incite
    The gentry to this business. He creates
    Lucius proconsul; and to you, the tribunes,
    For this immediate levy, he commands
    His absolute commission. Long live Caesar!
  TRIBUNE. Is Lucius general of the forces?
  SECOND SENATOR. Ay.
  TRIBUNE. Remaining now in Gallia?
  FIRST SENATOR. With those legions
    Which I have spoke of, whereunto your levy
    Must be supplyant. The words of your commission
    Will tie you to the numbers and the time
    Of their dispatch.
  TRIBUNE. We will discharge our duty.                    Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Wales. Near the cave of BELARIUS

Enter CLOTEN alone

  CLOTEN. I am near to th' place where they should meet, if Pisanio
  have mapp'd it truly. How fit his garments serve me! Why should his
  mistress, who was made by him that made the tailor, not be fit too?
  The rather- saving reverence of the word- for 'tis said a woman's
  fitness comes by fits. Therein I must play the workman. I dare speak
  it to myself, for it is not vain-glory for a man and his glass to
  confer in his own chamber- I mean, the lines of my body are as well
  drawn as his; no less young, more strong, not beneath him in
  fortunes, beyond him in the advantage of the time, above him in
  birth, alike conversant in general services, and more remarkable in
  single oppositions. Yet this imperceiverant thing loves him in my
  despite. What mortality is! Posthumus, thy head, which now is growing
  upon thy shoulders, shall within this hour be off; thy mistress
  enforced; thy garments cut to pieces before her face; and all this
  done, spurn her home to her father, who may, haply, be a little angry
  for my so rough usage; but my mother, having power of his testiness,
  shall turn all into my commendations. My horse is tied up safe. Out,
  sword, and to a sore purpose! Fortune, put them into my hand. This is
  the very description of their meeting-place; and the fellow dares not
  deceive me.                                             Exit

SCENE II. Wales. Before the cave of BELARIUS

Enter, from the cave, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, and IMOGEN

  BELARIUS. [To IMOGEN] You are not well. Remain here in the cave;
    We'll come to you after hunting.
  ARVIRAGUS. [To IMOGEN] Brother, stay here.
    Are we not brothers?
  IMOGEN. So man and man should be;
    But clay and clay differs in dignity,
    Whose dust is both alike. I am very sick.
  GUIDERIUS. Go you to hunting; I'll abide with him.
  IMOGEN. So sick I am not, yet I am not well;
    But not so citizen a wanton as
    To seem to die ere sick. So please you, leave me;
    Stick to your journal course. The breach of custom
    Is breach of all. I am ill, but your being by me
    Cannot amend me; society is no comfort
    To one not sociable. I am not very sick,
    Since I can reason of it. Pray you trust me here.
    I'll rob none but myself; and let me die,
    Stealing so poorly.
  GUIDERIUS. I love thee; I have spoke it.
    How much the quantity, the weight as much
    As I do love my father.
  BELARIUS. What? how? how?
  ARVIRAGUS. If it be sin to say so, sir, I yoke me
    In my good brother's fault. I know not why
    I love this youth, and I have heard you say
    Love's reason's without reason. The bier at door,
    And a demand who is't shall die, I'd say
    'My father, not this youth.'
  BELARIUS. [Aside] O noble strain!
    O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness!
    Cowards father cowards and base things sire base.
    Nature hath meal and bran, contempt and grace.
    I'm not their father; yet who this should be
    Doth miracle itself, lov'd before me.-
    'Tis the ninth hour o' th' morn.
  ARVIRAGUS. Brother, farewell.
  IMOGEN. I wish ye sport.
  ARVIRAGUS. Your health. [To BELARIUS] So please you, sir.
  IMOGEN. [Aside] These are kind creatures. Gods, what lies I have
      heard!
    Our courtiers say all's savage but at court.
    Experience, O, thou disprov'st report!
    Th' imperious seas breed monsters; for the dish,
    Poor tributary rivers as sweet fish.
    I am sick still; heart-sick. Pisanio,
    I'll now taste of thy drug.                  [Swallows some]
  GUIDERIUS. I could not stir him.
    He said he was gentle, but unfortunate;
    Dishonestly afflicted, but yet honest.
  ARVIRAGUS. Thus did he answer me; yet said hereafter
    I might know more.
  BELARIUS. To th' field, to th' field!
    We'll leave you for this time. Go in and rest.
  ARVIRAGUS. We'll not be long away.
  BELARIUS. Pray be not sick,
    For you must be our huswife.
  IMOGEN. Well, or ill,
    I am bound to you.
  BELARIUS. And shalt be ever.         Exit IMOGEN into the cave
    This youth, howe'er distress'd, appears he hath had
    Good ancestors.
  ARVIRAGUS. How angel-like he sings!
  GUIDERIUS. But his neat cookery! He cut our roots in characters,
    And sauc'd our broths as Juno had been sick,
    And he her dieter.
  ARVIRAGUS. Nobly he yokes
    A smiling with a sigh, as if the sigh
    Was that it was for not being such a smile;
    The smile mocking the sigh that it would fly
    From so divine a temple to commix
    With winds that sailors rail at.
  GUIDERIUS. I do note
    That grief and patience, rooted in him both,
    Mingle their spurs together.
  ARVIRAGUS. Grow patience!
    And let the stinking elder, grief, untwine
    His perishing root with the increasing vine!
  BELARIUS. It is great morning. Come, away! Who's there?

                      Enter CLOTEN

  CLOTEN. I cannot find those runagates; that villain
    Hath mock'd me. I am faint.
  BELARIUS. Those runagates?
    Means he not us? I partly know him; 'tis
    Cloten, the son o' th' Queen. I fear some ambush.
    I saw him not these many years, and yet
    I know 'tis he. We are held as outlaws. Hence!
  GUIDERIUS. He is but one; you and my brother search
    What companies are near. Pray you away;
    Let me alone with him.         Exeunt BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS
  CLOTEN. Soft! What are you
    That fly me thus? Some villain mountaineers?
    I have heard of such. What slave art thou?
  GUIDERIUS. A thing
    More slavish did I ne'er than answering
    'A slave' without a knock.
  CLOTEN. Thou art a robber,
    A law-breaker, a villain. Yield thee, thief.
  GUIDERIUS. To who? To thee? What art thou? Have not I
    An arm as big as thine, a heart as big?
    Thy words, I grant, are bigger, for I wear not
    My dagger in my mouth. Say what thou art;
    Why I should yield to thee.
  CLOTEN. Thou villain base,
    Know'st me not by my clothes?
  GUIDERIUS. No, nor thy tailor, rascal,
    Who is thy grandfather; he made those clothes,
    Which, as it seems, make thee.
  CLOTEN. Thou precious varlet,
    My tailor made them not.
  GUIDERIUS. Hence, then, and thank
    The man that gave them thee. Thou art some fool;
    I am loath to beat thee.
  CLOTEN. Thou injurious thief,
    Hear but my name, and tremble.
  GUIDERIUS. What's thy name?
  CLOTEN. Cloten, thou villain.
  GUIDERIUS. Cloten, thou double villain, be thy name,
    I cannot tremble at it. Were it toad, or adder, spider,
    'Twould move me sooner.
  CLOTEN. To thy further fear,
    Nay, to thy mere confusion, thou shalt know
    I am son to th' Queen.
  GUIDERIUS. I'm sorry for't; not seeming
    So worthy as thy birth.
  CLOTEN. Art not afeard?
  GUIDERIUS. Those that I reverence, those I fear- the wise:
    At fools I laugh, not fear them.
  CLOTEN. Die the death.
    When I have slain thee with my proper hand,
    I'll follow those that even now fled hence,
    And on the gates of Lud's Town set your heads.
    Yield, rustic mountaineer.                  Exeunt, fighting

                Re-enter BELARIUS and ARVIRAGUS

  BELARIUS. No company's abroad.
  ARVIRAGUS. None in the world; you did mistake him, sure.
  BELARIUS. I cannot tell; long is it since I saw him,
    But time hath nothing blurr'd those lines of favour
    Which then he wore; the snatches in his voice,
    And burst of speaking, were as his. I am absolute
    'Twas very Cloten.
  ARVIRAGUS. In this place we left them.
    I wish my brother make good time with him,
    You say he is so fell.
  BELARIUS. Being scarce made up,
    I mean to man, he had not apprehension
    Or roaring terrors; for defect of judgment
    Is oft the cease of fear.

              Re-enter GUIDERIUS with CLOTEN'S head

    But, see, thy brother.
  GUIDERIUS. This Cloten was a fool, an empty purse;
    There was no money in't. Not Hercules
    Could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none;
    Yet I not doing this, the fool had borne
    My head as I do his.
  BELARIUS. What hast thou done?
  GUIDERIUS. I am perfect what: cut off one Cloten's head,
    Son to the Queen, after his own report;
    Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer, and swore
    With his own single hand he'd take us in,
    Displace our heads where- thank the gods!- they grow,
    And set them on Lud's Town.
  BELARIUS. We are all undone.
  GUIDERIUS. Why, worthy father, what have we to lose
    But that he swore to take, our lives? The law
    Protects not us; then why should we be tender
    To let an arrogant piece of flesh threat us,
    Play judge and executioner all himself,
    For we do fear the law? What company
    Discover you abroad?
  BELARIUS. No single soul
    Can we set eye on, but in an safe reason
    He must have some attendants. Though his humour
    Was nothing but mutation- ay, and that
    From one bad thing to worse- not frenzy, not
    Absolute madness could so far have rav'd,
    To bring him here alone. Although perhaps
    It may be heard at court that such as we
    Cave here, hunt here, are outlaws, and in time
    May make some stronger head- the which he hearing,
    As it is like him, might break out and swear
    He'd fetch us in; yet is't not probable
    To come alone, either he so undertaking
    Or they so suffering. Then on good ground we fear,
    If we do fear this body hath a tail
    More perilous than the head.
  ARVIRAGUS. Let ordinance
    Come as the gods foresay it. Howsoe'er,
    My brother hath done well.
  BELARIUS. I had no mind
    To hunt this day; the boy Fidele's sickness
    Did make my way long forth.
  GUIDERIUS. With his own sword,
    Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en
    His head from him. I'll throw't into the creek
    Behind our rock, and let it to the sea
    And tell the fishes he's the Queen's son, Cloten.
    That's all I reck.                                      Exit
  BELARIUS. I fear'twill be reveng'd.
    Would, Polydore, thou hadst not done't! though valour
    Becomes thee well enough.
  ARVIRAGUS. Would I had done't,
    So the revenge alone pursu'd me! Polydore,
    I love thee brotherly, but envy much
    Thou hast robb'd me of this deed. I would revenges,
    That possible strength might meet, would seek us through,
    And put us to our answer.
  BELARIUS. Well, 'tis done.
    We'll hunt no more to-day, nor seek for danger
    Where there's no profit. I prithee to our rock.
    You and Fidele play the cooks; I'll stay
    Till hasty Polydore return, and bring him
    To dinner presently.
  ARVIRAGUS. Poor sick Fidele!
    I'll willingly to him; to gain his colour
    I'd let a parish of such Cloten's blood,
    And praise myself for charity.                          Exit
  BELARIUS. O thou goddess,
    Thou divine Nature, thou thyself thou blazon'st
    In these two princely boys! They are as gentle
    As zephyrs blowing below the violet,
    Not wagging his sweet head; and yet as rough,
    Their royal blood enchaf'd, as the rud'st wind
    That by the top doth take the mountain pine
    And make him stoop to th' vale. 'Tis wonder
    That an invisible instinct should frame them
    To royalty unlearn'd, honour untaught,
    Civility not seen from other, valour
    That wildly grows in them, but yields a crop
    As if it had been sow'd. Yet still it's strange
    What Cloten's being here to us portends,
    Or what his death will bring us.

                    Re-enter GUIDERIUS

  GUIDERIUS. Where's my brother?
    I have sent Cloten's clotpoll down the stream,
    In embassy to his mother; his body's hostage
    For his return.                               [Solemn music]
  BELARIUS. My ingenious instrument!
    Hark, Polydore, it sounds. But what occasion
    Hath Cadwal now to give it motion? Hark!
  GUIDERIUS. Is he at home?
  BELARIUS. He went hence even now.
  GUIDERIUS. What does he mean? Since death of my dear'st mother
    It did not speak before. All solemn things
    Should answer solemn accidents. The matter?
    Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
    Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.
    Is Cadwal mad?

       Re-enter ARVIRAGUS, with IMOGEN as dead, bearing
                         her in his arms

  BELARIUS. Look, here he comes,
    And brings the dire occasion in his arms
    Of what we blame him for!
  ARVIRAGUS. The bird is dead
    That we have made so much on. I had rather
    Have skipp'd from sixteen years of age to sixty,
    To have turn'd my leaping time into a crutch,
    Than have seen this.
  GUIDERIUS. O sweetest, fairest lily!
    My brother wears thee not the one half so well
    As when thou grew'st thyself.
  BELARIUS. O melancholy!
    Who ever yet could sound thy bottom? find
    The ooze to show what coast thy sluggish crare
    Might'st easiliest harbour in? Thou blessed thing!
    Jove knows what man thou mightst have made; but I,
    Thou diedst, a most rare boy, of melancholy.
    How found you him?
  ARVIRAGUS. Stark, as you see;
    Thus smiling, as some fly had tickled slumber,
    Not as death's dart, being laugh'd at; his right cheek
    Reposing on a cushion.
  GUIDERIUS. Where?
  ARVIRAGUS. O' th' floor;
    His arms thus leagu'd. I thought he slept, and put
    My clouted brogues from off my feet, whose rudeness
    Answer'd my steps too loud.
  GUIDERIUS. Why, he but sleeps.
    If he be gone he'll make his grave a bed;
    With female fairies will his tomb be haunted,
    And worms will not come to thee.
  ARVIRAGUS. With fairest flowers,
    Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele,
    I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
    The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
    The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
    The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
    Out-sweet'ned not thy breath. The ruddock would,
    With charitable bill- O bill, sore shaming
    Those rich-left heirs that let their fathers lie
    Without a monument!- bring thee all this;
    Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flow'rs are none,
    To winter-ground thy corse-
  GUIDERIUS. Prithee have done,
    And do not play in wench-like words with that
    Which is so serious. Let us bury him,
    And not protract with admiration what
    Is now due debt. To th' grave.
  ARVIRAGUS. Say, where shall's lay him?
  GUIDERIUS. By good Euriphile, our mother.
  ARVIRAGUS. Be't so;
    And let us, Polydore, though now our voices
    Have got the mannish crack, sing him to th' ground,
    As once to our mother; use like note and words,
    Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.
  GUIDERIUS. Cadwal,
    I cannot sing. I'll weep, and word it with thee;
    For notes of sorrow out of tune are worse
    Than priests and fanes that lie.
  ARVIRAGUS. We'll speak it, then.
  BELARIUS. Great griefs, I see, med'cine the less, for Cloten
    Is quite forgot. He was a queen's son, boys;
    And though he came our enemy, remember
    He was paid for that. Though mean and mighty rotting
    Together have one dust, yet reverence-
    That angel of the world- doth make distinction
    Of place 'tween high and low. Our foe was princely;
    And though you took his life, as being our foe,
    Yet bury him as a prince.
  GUIDERIUS. Pray you fetch him hither.
    Thersites' body is as good as Ajax',
    When neither are alive.
  ARVIRAGUS. If you'll go fetch him,
    We'll say our song the whilst. Brother, begin.
                                                   Exit BELARIUS
  GUIDERIUS. Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to th' East;
    My father hath a reason for't.
  ARVIRAGUS. 'Tis true.
  GUIDERIUS. Come on, then, and remove him.
  ARVIRAGUS. So. Begin.

                      SONG

  GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
               Nor the furious winter's rages;
             Thou thy worldly task hast done,
               Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
             Golden lads and girls all must,
             As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

  ARVIRAGUS. Fear no more the frown o' th' great;
               Thou art past the tyrant's stroke.
             Care no more to clothe and eat;
               To thee the reed is as the oak.
             The sceptre, learning, physic, must
             All follow this and come to dust.

  GUIDERIUS. Fear no more the lightning flash,
  ARVIRAGUS.   Nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone;
  GUIDERIUS. Fear not slander, censure rash;
  ARVIRAGUS.   Thou hast finish'd joy and moan.
  BOTH.      All lovers young, all lovers must
             Consign to thee and come to dust.

  GUIDERIUS. No exorciser harm thee!
  ARVIRAGUS. Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
  GUIDERIUS. Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
  ARVIRAGUS. Nothing ill come near thee!
  BOTH.      Quiet consummation have,
             And renowned be thy grave!

         Re-enter BELARIUS with the body of CLOTEN

  GUIDERIUS. We have done our obsequies. Come, lay him down.
  BELARIUS. Here's a few flowers; but 'bout midnight, more.
    The herbs that have on them cold dew o' th' night
    Are strewings fit'st for graves. Upon their faces.
    You were as flow'rs, now wither'd. Even so
    These herblets shall which we upon you strew.
    Come on, away. Apart upon our knees.
    The ground that gave them first has them again.
    Their pleasures here are past, so is their pain.
                                           Exeunt all but IMOGEN
  IMOGEN. [Awaking] Yes, sir, to Milford Haven. Which is the way?
    I thank you. By yond bush? Pray, how far thither?
    'Ods pittikins! can it be six mile yet?
    I have gone all night. Faith, I'll lie down and sleep.
    But, soft! no bedfellow. O gods and goddesses!
                                               [Seeing the body]
    These flow'rs are like the pleasures of the world;
    This bloody man, the care on't. I hope I dream;
    For so I thought I was a cave-keeper,
    And cook to honest creatures. But 'tis not so;
    'Twas but a bolt of nothing, shot at nothing,
    Which the brain makes of fumes. Our very eyes
    Are sometimes, like our judgments, blind. Good faith,
    I tremble still with fear; but if there be
    Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
    As a wren's eye, fear'd gods, a part of it!
    The dream's here still. Even when I wake it is
    Without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt.
    A headless man? The garments of Posthumus?
    I know the shape of's leg; this is his hand,
    His foot Mercurial, his Martial thigh,
    The brawns of Hercules; but his Jovial face-
    Murder in heaven! How! 'Tis gone. Pisanio,
    All curses madded Hecuba gave the Greeks,
    And mine to boot, be darted on thee! Thou,
    Conspir'd with that irregulous devil, Cloten,
    Hath here cut off my lord. To write and read
    Be henceforth treacherous! Damn'd Pisanio
    Hath with his forged letters- damn'd Pisanio-
    From this most bravest vessel of the world
    Struck the main-top. O Posthumus! alas,
    Where is thy head? Where's that? Ay me! where's that?
    Pisanio might have kill'd thee at the heart,
    And left this head on. How should this be? Pisanio?
    'Tis he and Cloten; malice and lucre in them
    Have laid this woe here. O, 'tis pregnant, pregnant!
    The drug he gave me, which he said was precious
    And cordial to me, have I not found it
    Murd'rous to th' senses? That confirms it home.
    This is Pisanio's deed, and Cloten. O!
    Give colour to my pale cheek with thy blood,
    That we the horrider may seem to those
    Which chance to find us. O, my lord, my lord!
                                    [Falls fainting on the body]

           Enter LUCIUS, CAPTAINS, and a SOOTHSAYER

  CAPTAIN. To them the legions garrison'd in Gallia,
    After your will, have cross'd the sea, attending
    You here at Milford Haven; with your ships,
    They are in readiness.
  LUCIUS. But what from Rome?
  CAPTAIN. The Senate hath stirr'd up the confiners
    And gentlemen of Italy, most willing spirits,
    That promise noble service; and they come
    Under the conduct of bold Iachimo,
    Sienna's brother.
  LUCIUS. When expect you them?
  CAPTAIN. With the next benefit o' th' wind.
  LUCIUS. This forwardness
    Makes our hopes fair. Command our present numbers
    Be muster'd; bid the captains look to't. Now, sir,
    What have you dream'd of late of this war's purpose?
  SOOTHSAYER. Last night the very gods show'd me a vision-
    I fast and pray'd for their intelligence- thus:
    I saw Jove's bird, the Roman eagle, wing'd
    From the spongy south to this part of the west,
    There vanish'd in the sunbeams; which portends,
    Unless my sins abuse my divination,
    Success to th' Roman host.
  LUCIUS. Dream often so,
    And never false. Soft, ho! what trunk is here
    Without his top? The ruin speaks that sometime
    It was a worthy building. How? a page?
    Or dead or sleeping on him? But dead, rather;
    For nature doth abhor to make his bed
    With the defunct, or sleep upon the dead.
    Let's see the boy's face.
  CAPTAIN. He's alive, my lord.
  LUCIUS. He'll then instruct us of this body. Young one,
    Inform us of thy fortunes; for it seems
    They crave to be demanded. Who is this
    Thou mak'st thy bloody pillow? Or who was he
    That, otherwise than noble nature did,
    Hath alter'd that good picture? What's thy interest
    In this sad wreck? How came't? Who is't? What art thou?
  IMOGEN. I am nothing; or if not,
    Nothing to be were better. This was my master,
    A very valiant Briton and a good,
    That here by mountaineers lies slain. Alas!
    There is no more such masters. I may wander
    From east to occident; cry out for service;
    Try many, all good; serve truly; never
    Find such another master.
  LUCIUS. 'Lack, good youth!
    Thou mov'st no less with thy complaining than
    Thy master in bleeding. Say his name, good friend.
  IMOGEN. Richard du Champ. [Aside] If I do lie, and do
    No harm by it, though the gods hear, I hope
    They'll pardon it.- Say you, sir?
  LUCIUS. Thy name?
  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir.
  LUCIUS. Thou dost approve thyself the very same;
    Thy name well fits thy faith, thy faith thy name.
    Wilt take thy chance with me? I will not say
    Thou shalt be so well master'd; but, be sure,
    No less belov'd. The Roman Emperor's letters,
    Sent by a consul to me, should not sooner
    Than thine own worth prefer thee. Go with me.
  IMOGEN. I'll follow, sir. But first, an't please the gods,
    I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep
    As these poor pickaxes can dig; and when
    With wild wood-leaves and weeds I ha' strew'd his grave,
    And on it said a century of prayers,
    Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep and sigh;
    And leaving so his service, follow you,
    So please you entertain me.
  LUCIUS. Ay, good youth;
    And rather father thee than master thee.
    My friends,
    The boy hath taught us manly duties; let us
    Find out the prettiest daisied plot we can,
    And make him with our pikes and partisans
    A grave. Come, arm him. Boy, he is preferr'd
    By thee to us; and he shall be interr'd
    As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes.
    Some falls are means the happier to arise.            Exeunt

SCENE III. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace

Enter CYMBELINE, LORDS, PISANIO, and attendants

  CYMBELINE. Again! and bring me word how 'tis with her.
                                               Exit an attendant
    A fever with the absence of her son;
    A madness, of which her life's in danger. Heavens,
    How deeply you at once do touch me! Imogen,
    The great part of my comfort, gone; my queen
    Upon a desperate bed, and in a time
    When fearful wars point at me; her son gone,
    So needful for this present. It strikes me past
    The hope of comfort. But for thee, fellow,
    Who needs must know of her departure and
    Dost seem so ignorant, we'll enforce it from thee
    By a sharp torture.
  PISANIO. Sir, my life is yours;
    I humbly set it at your will; but for my mistress,
    I nothing know where she remains, why gone,
    Nor when she purposes return. Beseech your Highness,
    Hold me your loyal servant.
  LORD. Good my liege,
    The day that she was missing he was here.
    I dare be bound he's true and shall perform
    All parts of his subjection loyally. For Cloten,
    There wants no diligence in seeking him,
    And will no doubt be found.
  CYMBELINE. The time is troublesome.
    [To PISANIO] We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy
    Does yet depend.
  LORD. So please your Majesty,
    The Roman legions, all from Gallia drawn,
    Are landed on your coast, with a supply
    Of Roman gentlemen by the Senate sent.
  CYMBELINE. Now for the counsel of my son and queen!
    I am amaz'd with matter.
  LORD. Good my liege,
    Your preparation can affront no less
    Than what you hear of. Come more, for more you're ready.
    The want is but to put those pow'rs in motion
    That long to move.
  CYMBELINE. I thank you. Let's withdraw,
    And meet the time as it seeks us. We fear not
    What can from Italy annoy us; but
    We grieve at chances here. Away!      Exeunt all but PISANIO
  PISANIO. I heard no letter from my master since
    I wrote him Imogen was slain. 'Tis strange.
    Nor hear I from my mistress, who did promise
    To yield me often tidings. Neither know
    What is betid to Cloten, but remain
    Perplex'd in all. The heavens still must work.
    Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true.
    These present wars shall find I love my country,
    Even to the note o' th' King, or I'll fall in them.
    All other doubts, by time let them be clear'd:
    Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer'd.      Exit

SCENE IV. Wales. Before the cave of BELARIUS

Enter BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS

  GUIDERIUS. The noise is round about us.
  BELARIUS. Let us from it.
  ARVIRAGUS. What pleasure, sir, find we in life, to lock it
    From action and adventure?
  GUIDERIUS. Nay, what hope
    Have we in hiding us? This way the Romans
    Must or for Britons slay us, or receive us
    For barbarous and unnatural revolts
    During their use, and slay us after.
  BELARIUS. Sons,
    We'll higher to the mountains; there secure us.
    To the King's party there's no going. Newness
    Of Cloten's death- we being not known, not muster'd
    Among the bands-may drive us to a render
    Where we have liv'd, and so extort from's that
    Which we have done, whose answer would be death,
    Drawn on with torture.
  GUIDERIUS. This is, sir, a doubt
    In such a time nothing becoming you
    Nor satisfying us.
  ARVIRAGUS. It is not likely
    That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,
    Behold their quarter'd fires, have both their eyes
    And ears so cloy'd importantly as now,
    That they will waste their time upon our note,
    To know from whence we are.
  BELARIUS. O, I am known
    Of many in the army. Many years,
    Though Cloten then but young, you see, not wore him
    From my remembrance. And, besides, the King
    Hath not deserv'd my service nor your loves,
    Who find in my exile the want of breeding,
    The certainty of this hard life; aye hopeless
    To have the courtesy your cradle promis'd,
    But to be still hot summer's tanlings and
    The shrinking slaves of winter.
  GUIDERIUS. Than be so,
    Better to cease to be. Pray, sir, to th' army.
    I and my brother are not known; yourself
    So out of thought, and thereto so o'ergrown,
    Cannot be questioned.
  ARVIRAGUS. By this sun that shines,
    I'll thither. What thing is't that I never
    Did see man die! scarce ever look'd on blood
    But that of coward hares, hot goats, and venison!
    Never bestrid a horse, save one that had
    A rider like myself, who ne'er wore rowel
    Nor iron on his heel! I am asham'd
    To look upon the holy sun, to have
    The benefit of his blest beams, remaining
    So long a poor unknown.
  GUIDERIUS. By heavens, I'll go!
    If you will bless me, sir, and give me leave,
    I'll take the better care; but if you will not,
    The hazard therefore due fall on me by
    The hands of Romans!
  ARVIRAGUS. So say I. Amen.
  BELARIUS. No reason I, since of your lives you set
    So slight a valuation, should reserve
    My crack'd one to more care. Have with you, boys!
    If in your country wars you chance to die,
    That is my bed too, lads, and there I'll lie.
    Lead, lead. [Aside] The time seems long; their blood thinks scorn
    Till it fly out and show them princes born.           Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Britain. The Roman camp

Enter POSTHUMUS alone, with a bloody handkerchief

  POSTHUMUS. Yea, bloody cloth, I'll keep thee; for I wish'd
    Thou shouldst be colour'd thus. You married ones,
    If each of you should take this course, how many
    Must murder wives much better than themselves
    For wrying but a little! O Pisanio!
    Every good servant does not all commands;
    No bond but to do just ones. Gods! if you
    Should have ta'en vengeance on my faults, I never
    Had liv'd to put on this; so had you saved
    The noble Imogen to repent, and struck
    Me, wretch more worth your vengeance. But alack,
    You snatch some hence for little faults; that's love,
    To have them fall no more. You some permit
    To second ills with ills, each elder worse,
    And make them dread it, to the doer's thrift.
    But Imogen is your own. Do your best wills,
    And make me blest to obey. I am brought hither
    Among th' Italian gentry, and to fight
    Against my lady's kingdom. 'Tis enough
    That, Britain, I have kill'd thy mistress; peace!
    I'll give no wound to thee. Therefore, good heavens,
    Hear patiently my purpose. I'll disrobe me
    Of these Italian weeds, and suit myself
    As does a Britain peasant. So I'll fight
    Against the part I come with; so I'll die
    For thee, O Imogen, even for whom my life
    Is every breath a death. And thus unknown,
    Pitied nor hated, to the face of peril
    Myself I'll dedicate. Let me make men know
    More valour in me than my habits show.
    Gods, put the strength o' th' Leonati in me!
    To shame the guise o' th' world, I will begin
    The fashion- less without and more within.              Exit

SCENE II. Britain. A field of battle between the British and Roman
camps

Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, and the Roman army at one door, and the British
army at another, LEONATUS POSTHUMUS following like a poor soldier. They
march over and go out.  Alarums.  Then enter again, in skirmish,
IACHIMO and POSTHUMUS.  He vanquisheth and disarmeth IACHIMO, and then
leaves him

  IACHIMO. The heaviness and guilt within my bosom
    Takes off my manhood. I have belied a lady,
    The Princess of this country, and the air on't
    Revengingly enfeebles me; or could this carl,
    A very drudge of nature's, have subdu'd me
    In my profession? Knighthoods and honours borne
    As I wear mine are titles but of scorn.
    If that thy gentry, Britain, go before
    This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds
    Is that we scarce are men, and you are gods.            Exit

    The battle continues; the BRITONS fly; CYMBELINE is taken.
    Then enter to his rescue BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS

  BELARIUS. Stand, stand! We have th' advantage of the ground;
    The lane is guarded; nothing routs us but
    The villainy of our fears.
  GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS. Stand, stand, and fight!

    Re-enter POSTHUMUS, and seconds the Britons; they rescue
    CYMBELINE, and exeunt. Then re-enter LUCIUS and IACHIMO,
                         with IMOGEN

  LUCIUS. Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself;
    For friends kill friends, and the disorder's such
    As war were hoodwink'd.
  IACHIMO. 'Tis their fresh supplies.
  LUCIUS. It is a day turn'd strangely. Or betimes
    Let's reinforce or fly.                               Exeunt

SCENE III. Another part of the field

Enter POSTHUMUS and a Britain LORD

  LORD. Cam'st thou from where they made the stand?
  POSTHUMUS. I did:
    Though you, it seems, come from the fliers.
  LORD. I did.
  POSTHUMUS. No blame be to you, sir, for all was lost,
    But that the heavens fought. The King himself
    Of his wings destitute, the army broken,
    And but the backs of Britons seen, an flying,
    Through a strait lane- the enemy, full-hearted,
    Lolling the tongue with slaught'ring, having work
    More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down
    Some mortally, some slightly touch'd, some falling
    Merely through fear, that the strait pass was damm'd
    With dead men hurt behind, and cowards living
    To die with length'ned shame.
  LORD. Where was this lane?
  POSTHUMUS. Close by the battle, ditch'd, and wall'd with turf,
    Which gave advantage to an ancient soldier-
    An honest one, I warrant, who deserv'd
    So long a breeding as his white beard came to,
    In doing this for's country. Athwart the lane
    He, with two striplings- lads more like to run
    The country base than to commit such slaughter;
    With faces fit for masks, or rather fairer
    Than those for preservation cas'd or shame-
    Made good the passage, cried to those that fled
    'Our Britain's harts die flying, not our men.
    To darkness fleet souls that fly backwards! Stand;
    Or we are Romans and will give you that,
    Like beasts, which you shun beastly, and may save
    But to look back in frown. Stand, stand!' These three,
    Three thousand confident, in act as many-
    For three performers are the file when all
    The rest do nothing- with this word 'Stand, stand!'
    Accommodated by the place, more charming
    With their own nobleness, which could have turn'd
    A distaff to a lance, gilded pale looks,
    Part shame, part spirit renew'd; that some turn'd coward
    But by example- O, a sin in war
    Damn'd in the first beginners!- gan to look
    The way that they did and to grin like lions
    Upon the pikes o' th' hunters. Then began
    A stop i' th' chaser, a retire; anon
    A rout, confusion thick. Forthwith they fly,
    Chickens, the way which they stoop'd eagles; slaves,
    The strides they victors made; and now our cowards,
    Like fragments in hard voyages, became
    The life o' th' need. Having found the back-door open
    Of the unguarded hearts, heavens, how they wound!
    Some slain before, some dying, some their friends
    O'erborne i' th' former wave. Ten chas'd by one
    Are now each one the slaughterman of twenty.
    Those that would die or ere resist are grown
    The mortal bugs o' th' field.
  LORD. This was strange chance:
    A narrow lane, an old man, and two boys.
  POSTHUMUS. Nay, do not wonder at it; you are made
    Rather to wonder at the things you hear
    Than to work any. Will you rhyme upon't,
    And vent it for a mock'ry? Here is one:
    'Two boys, an old man (twice a boy), a lane,
    Preserv'd the Britons, was the Romans' bane.'
  LORD. Nay, be not angry, sir.
  POSTHUMUS. 'Lack, to what end?
    Who dares not stand his foe I'll be his friend;
    For if he'll do as he is made to do,
    I know he'll quickly fly my friendship too.
    You have put me into rhyme.
  LORD. Farewell; you're angry.                             Exit
  POSTHUMUS. Still going? This is a lord! O noble misery,
    To be i' th' field and ask 'What news?' of me!
    To-day how many would have given their honours
    To have sav'd their carcasses! took heel to do't,
    And yet died too! I, in mine own woe charm'd,
    Could not find death where I did hear him groan,
    Nor feel him where he struck. Being an ugly monster,
    'Tis strange he hides him in fresh cups, soft beds,
    Sweet words; or hath moe ministers than we
    That draw his knives i' th' war. Well, I will find him;
    For being now a favourer to the Briton,
    No more a Briton, I have resum'd again
    The part I came in. Fight I will no more,
    But yield me to the veriest hind that shall
    Once touch my shoulder. Great the slaughter is
    Here made by th' Roman; great the answer be
    Britons must take. For me, my ransom's death;
    On either side I come to spend my breath,
    Which neither here I'll keep nor bear again,
    But end it by some means for Imogen.

            Enter two BRITISH CAPTAINS and soldiers

  FIRST CAPTAIN. Great Jupiter be prais'd! Lucius is taken.
    'Tis thought the old man and his sons were angels.
  SECOND CAPTAIN. There was a fourth man, in a silly habit,
    That gave th' affront with them.
  FIRST CAPTAIN. So 'tis reported;
    But none of 'em can be found. Stand! who's there?
  POSTHUMUS. A Roman,
    Who had not now been drooping here if seconds
    Had answer'd him.
  SECOND CAPTAIN. Lay hands on him; a dog!
    A leg of Rome shall not return to tell
    What crows have peck'd them here. He brags his service,
    As if he were of note. Bring him to th' King.

   Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, and Roman
   captives. The CAPTAINS present POSTHUMUS to CYMBELINE, who delivers
            him over to a gaoler. Exeunt omnes

SCENE IV. Britain. A prison

Enter POSTHUMUS and two GAOLERS

  FIRST GAOLER. You shall not now be stol'n, you have locks upon you;
    So graze as you find pasture.
  SECOND GAOLER. Ay, or a stomach.                Exeunt GAOLERS
  POSTHUMUS. Most welcome, bondage! for thou art a way,
    I think, to liberty. Yet am I better
    Than one that's sick o' th' gout, since he had rather
    Groan so in perpetuity than be cur'd
    By th' sure physician death, who is the key
    T' unbar these locks. My conscience, thou art fetter'd
    More than my shanks and wrists; you good gods, give me
    The penitent instrument to pick that bolt,
    Then, free for ever! Is't enough I am sorry?
    So children temporal fathers do appease;
    Gods are more full of mercy. Must I repent,
    I cannot do it better than in gyves,
    Desir'd more than constrain'd. To satisfy,
    If of my freedom 'tis the main part, take
    No stricter render of me than my all.
    I know you are more clement than vile men,
    Who of their broken debtors take a third,
    A sixth, a tenth, letting them thrive again
    On their abatement; that's not my desire.
    For Imogen's dear life take mine; and though
    'Tis not so dear, yet 'tis a life; you coin'd it.
    'Tween man and man they weigh not every stamp;
    Though light, take pieces for the figure's sake;
    You rather mine, being yours. And so, great pow'rs,
    If you will take this audit, take this life,
    And cancel these cold bonds. O Imogen!
    I'll speak to thee in silence.                      [Sleeps]

        Solemn music. Enter, as in an apparition, SICILIUS
        LEONATUS, father to POSTHUMUS, an old man attired
         like a warrior; leading in his hand an ancient
          matron, his WIFE, and mother to POSTHUMUS, with
        music before them. Then, after other music, follows
           the two young LEONATI, brothers to POSTHUMUS,
              with wounds, as they died in the wars.
          They circle POSTHUMUS round as he lies sleeping

  SICILIUS. No more, thou thunder-master, show
              Thy spite on mortal flies.
            With Mars fall out, with Juno chide,
              That thy adulteries
                Rates and revenges.
            Hath my poor boy done aught but well,
              Whose face I never saw?
            I died whilst in the womb he stay'd
              Attending nature's law;
            Whose father then, as men report
              Thou orphans' father art,
            Thou shouldst have been, and shielded him
              From this earth-vexing smart.

  MOTHER.   Lucina lent not me her aid,
              But took me in my throes,
            That from me was Posthumus ripp'd,
              Came crying 'mongst his foes,
                A thing of pity.

  SICILIUS. Great Nature like his ancestry
              Moulded the stuff so fair
            That he deserv'd the praise o' th' world
              As great Sicilius' heir.

  FIRST BROTHER. When once he was mature for man,
              In Britain where was he
            That could stand up his parallel,
              Or fruitful object be
            In eye of Imogen, that best
              Could deem his dignity?

  MOTHER.   With marriage wherefore was he mock'd,
              To be exil'd and thrown
            From Leonati seat and cast
            From her his dearest one,
              Sweet Imogen?

  SICILIUS. Why did you suffer Iachimo,
              Slight thing of Italy,
            To taint his nobler heart and brain
              With needless jealousy,
            And to become the geck and scorn
              O' th' other's villainy?

  SECOND BROTHER. For this from stiller seats we came,
              Our parents and us twain,
            That, striking in our country's cause,
              Fell bravely and were slain,
            Our fealty and Tenantius' right
              With honour to maintain.

  FIRST BROTHER. Like hardiment Posthumus hath
              To Cymbeline perform'd.
            Then, Jupiter, thou king of gods,
              Why hast thou thus adjourn'd
            The graces for his merits due,
              Being all to dolours turn'd?

  SICILIUS. Thy crystal window ope; look out;
              No longer exercise
            Upon a valiant race thy harsh
              And potent injuries.

  MOTHER.   Since, Jupiter, our son is good,
              Take off his miseries.

  SICILIUS. Peep through thy marble mansion. Help!
              Or we poor ghosts will cry
            To th' shining synod of the rest
              Against thy deity.

  BROTHERS. Help, Jupiter! or we appeal,
              And from thy justice fly.

       JUPITER descends-in thunder and lightning, sitting
       upon an eagle. He throws a thunderbolt. The GHOSTS
                     fall on their knees

  JUPITER. No more, you petty spirits of region low,
    Offend our hearing; hush! How dare you ghosts
    Accuse the Thunderer whose bolt, you know,
    Sky-planted, batters all rebelling coasts?
    Poor shadows of Elysium, hence and rest
    Upon your never-withering banks of flow'rs.
    Be not with mortal accidents opprest:
    No care of yours it is; you know 'tis ours.
    Whom best I love I cross; to make my gift,
    The more delay'd, delighted. Be content;
    Your low-laid son our godhead will uplift;
    His comforts thrive, his trials well are spent.
    Our Jovial star reign'd at his birth, and in
    Our temple was he married. Rise and fade!
    He shall be lord of Lady Imogen,
    And happier much by his affliction made.
    This tablet lay upon his breast, wherein
    Our pleasure his full fortune doth confine;
    And so, away; no farther with your din
    Express impatience, lest you stir up mine.
    Mount, eagle, to my palace crystalline.            [Ascends]
  SICILIUS. He came in thunder; his celestial breath
    Was sulpherous to smell; the holy eagle
    Stoop'd as to foot us. His ascension is
    More sweet than our blest fields. His royal bird
    Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak,
    As when his god is pleas'd.
  ALL. Thanks, Jupiter!
  SICILIUS. The marble pavement closes, he is enter'd
    His radiant roof. Away! and, to be blest,
    Let us with care perform his great behest.   [GHOSTS vanish]

  POSTHUMUS. [Waking] Sleep, thou has been a grandsire and begot
    A father to me; and thou hast created
    A mother and two brothers. But, O scorn,
    Gone! They went hence so soon as they were born.
    And so I am awake. Poor wretches, that depend
    On greatness' favour, dream as I have done;
    Wake and find nothing. But, alas, I swerve;
    Many dream not to find, neither deserve,
    And yet are steep'd in favours; so am I,
    That have this golden chance, and know not why.
    What fairies haunt this ground? A book? O rare one!
    Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment
    Nobler than that it covers. Let thy effects
    So follow to be most unlike our courtiers,
    As good as promise.

    [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself unknown,
    without seeking find, and be embrac'd by a piece of tender air;
    and when from a stately cedar shall be lopp'd branches which,
    being dead many years, shall after revive, be jointed to the old
    stock, and freshly grow; then shall Posthumus end his miseries,
    Britain be fortunate and flourish in peace and plenty.'

    'Tis still a dream, or else such stuff as madmen
    Tongue, and brain not; either both or nothing,
    Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such
    As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,
    The action of my life is like it, which
    I'll keep, if but for sympathy.

                  Re-enter GAOLER

  GAOLER. Come, sir, are you ready for death?
  POSTHUMUS. Over-roasted rather; ready long ago.
  GAOLER. Hanging is the word, sir; if you be ready for that, you are
    well cook'd.
  POSTHUMUS. So, if I prove a good repast to the spectators, the dish
    pays the shot.
  GAOLER. A heavy reckoning for you, sir. But the comfort is, you
    shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills,
    which are often the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth.
    You come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much
    drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are
    paid too much; purse and brain both empty; the brain the heavier
    for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of
    heaviness. O, of this contradiction you shall now be quit. O, the
    charity of a penny cord! It sums up thousands in a trice. You
    have no true debitor and creditor but it; of what's past, is, and
    to come, the discharge. Your neck, sir, is pen, book, and
    counters; so the acquittance follows.
  POSTHUMUS. I am merrier to die than thou art to live.
  GAOLER. Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache. But a
    man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to
    bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look
    you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.
  POSTHUMUS. Yes indeed do I, fellow.
  GAOLER. Your death has eyes in's head, then; I have not seen him so
    pictur'd. You must either be directed by some that take upon them
    to know, or to take upon yourself that which I am sure you do not
    know, or jump the after-inquiry on your own peril. And how you
    shall speed in your journey's end, I think you'll never return to
    tell one.
  POSTHUMUS. I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to direct
    them the way I am going, but such as wink and will not use them.
  GAOLER. What an infinite mock is this, that a man should have the
    best use of eyes to see the way of blindness! I am sure hanging's
    the way of winking.

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Knock off his manacles; bring your prisoner to the King.
  POSTHUMUS. Thou bring'st good news: I am call'd to be made free.
  GAOLER. I'll be hang'd then.
  POSTHUMUS. Thou shalt be then freer than a gaoler; no bolts for the
    dead.                         Exeunt POSTHUMUS and MESSENGER
  GAOLER. Unless a man would marry a gallows and beget young gibbets,
    I never saw one so prone. Yet, on my conscience, there are verier
    knaves desire to live, for all he be a Roman; and there be some
    of them too that die against their wills; so should I, if I were
    one. I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good. O, there
    were desolation of gaolers and gallowses! I speak against my
    present profit, but my wish hath a preferment in't.     Exit

SCENE V. Britain. CYMBELINE'S tent

Enter CYMBELINE, BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, ARVIRAGUS, PISANIO, LORDS,
OFFICERS, and attendants

  CYMBELINE. Stand by my side, you whom the gods have made
    Preservers of my throne. Woe is my heart
    That the poor soldier that so richly fought,
    Whose rags sham'd gilded arms, whose naked breast
    Stepp'd before targes of proof, cannot be found.
    He shall be happy that can find him, if
    Our grace can make him so.
  BELARIUS. I never saw
    Such noble fury in so poor a thing;
    Such precious deeds in one that promis'd nought
    But beggary and poor looks.
  CYMBELINE. No tidings of him?
  PISANIO. He hath been search'd among the dead and living,
    But no trace of him.
  CYMBELINE. To my grief, I am
    The heir of his reward; [To BELARIUS, GUIDERIUS, and ARVIRAGUS]
      which I will add
    To you, the liver, heart, and brain, of Britain,
    By whom I grant she lives. 'Tis now the time
    To ask of whence you are. Report it.
  BELARIUS. Sir,
    In Cambria are we born, and gentlemen;
    Further to boast were neither true nor modest,
    Unless I add we are honest.
  CYMBELINE. Bow your knees.
    Arise my knights o' th' battle; I create you
    Companions to our person, and will fit you
    With dignities becoming your estates.

             Enter CORNELIUS and LADIES

    There's business in these faces. Why so sadly
    Greet you our victory? You look like Romans,
    And not o' th' court of Britain.
  CORNELIUS. Hail, great King!
    To sour your happiness I must report
    The Queen is dead.
  CYMBELINE. Who worse than a physician
    Would this report become? But I consider
    By med'cine'life may be prolong'd, yet death
    Will seize the doctor too. How ended she?
  CORNELIUS. With horror, madly dying, like her life;
    Which, being cruel to the world, concluded
    Most cruel to herself. What she confess'd
    I will report, so please you; these her women
    Can trip me if I err, who with wet cheeks
    Were present when she finish'd.
  CYMBELINE. Prithee say.
  CORNELIUS. First, she confess'd she never lov'd you; only
    Affected greatness got by you, not you;
    Married your royalty, was wife to your place;
    Abhorr'd your person.
  CYMBELINE. She alone knew this;
    And but she spoke it dying, I would not
    Believe her lips in opening it. Proceed.
  CORNELIUS. Your daughter, whom she bore in hand to love
    With such integrity, she did confess
    Was as a scorpion to her sight; whose life,
    But that her flight prevented it, she had
    Ta'en off by poison.
  CYMBELINE. O most delicate fiend!
    Who is't can read a woman? Is there more?
  CORNELIUS. More, sir, and worse. She did confess she had
    For you a mortal mineral, which, being took,
    Should by the minute feed on life, and ling'ring,
    By inches waste you. In which time she purpos'd,
    By watching, weeping, tendance, kissing, to
    O'ercome you with her show; and in time,
    When she had fitted you with her craft, to work
    Her son into th' adoption of the crown;
    But failing of her end by his strange absence,
    Grew shameless-desperate, open'd, in despite
    Of heaven and men, her purposes, repented
    The evils she hatch'd were not effected; so,
    Despairing, died.
  CYMBELINE. Heard you all this, her women?
  LADY. We did, so please your Highness.
  CYMBELINE. Mine eyes
    Were not in fault, for she was beautiful;
    Mine ears, that heard her flattery; nor my heart
    That thought her like her seeming. It had been vicious
    To have mistrusted her; yet, O my daughter!
    That it was folly in me thou mayst say,
    And prove it in thy feeling. Heaven mend all!

         Enter LUCIUS, IACHIMO, the SOOTHSAYER, and other
      Roman prisoners, guarded; POSTHUMUS behind, and IMOGEN

    Thou com'st not, Caius, now for tribute; that
    The Britons have raz'd out, though with the loss
    Of many a bold one, whose kinsmen have made suit
    That their good souls may be appeas'd with slaughter
    Of you their captives, which ourself have granted;
    So think of your estate.
  LUCIUS. Consider, sir, the chance of war. The day
    Was yours by accident; had it gone with us,
    We should not, when the blood was cool, have threaten'd
    Our prisoners with the sword. But since the gods
    Will have it thus, that nothing but our lives
    May be call'd ransom, let it come. Sufficeth
    A Roman with a Roman's heart can suffer.
    Augustus lives to think on't; and so much
    For my peculiar care. This one thing only
    I will entreat: my boy, a Briton born,
    Let him be ransom'd. Never master had
    A page so kind, so duteous, diligent,
    So tender over his occasions, true,
    So feat, so nurse-like; let his virtue join
    With my request, which I'll make bold your Highness
    Cannot deny; he hath done no Briton harm
    Though he have serv'd a Roman. Save him, sir,
    And spare no blood beside.
  CYMBELINE. I have surely seen him;
    His favour is familiar to me. Boy,
    Thou hast look'd thyself into my grace,
    And art mine own. I know not why, wherefore
    To say 'Live, boy.' Ne'er thank thy master. Live;
    And ask of Cymbeline what boon thou wilt,
    Fitting my bounty and thy state, I'll give it;
    Yea, though thou do demand a prisoner,
    The noblest ta'en.
  IMOGEN. I humbly thank your Highness.
  LUCIUS. I do not bid thee beg my life, good lad,
    And yet I know thou wilt.
  IMOGEN. No, no! Alack,
    There's other work in hand. I see a thing
    Bitter to me as death; your life, good master,
    Must shuffle for itself.
  LUCIUS. The boy disdains me,
    He leaves me, scorns me. Briefly die their joys
    That place them on the truth of girls and boys.
    Why stands he so perplex'd?
  CYMBELINE. What wouldst thou, boy?
    I love thee more and more; think more and more
    What's best to ask. Know'st him thou look'st on? Speak,
    Wilt have him live? Is he thy kin? thy friend?
  IMOGEN. He is a Roman, no more kin to me
    Than I to your Highness; who, being born your vassal,
    Am something nearer.
  CYMBELINE. Wherefore ey'st him so?
  IMOGEN. I'll tell you, sir, in private, if you please
    To give me hearing.
  CYMBELINE. Ay, with all my heart,
    And lend my best attention. What's thy name?
  IMOGEN. Fidele, sir.
  CYMBELINE. Thou'rt my good youth, my page;
    I'll be thy master. Walk with me; speak freely.
                           [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN converse apart]
  BELARIUS. Is not this boy reviv'd from death?
  ARVIRAGUS. One sand another
    Not more resembles- that sweet rosy lad
    Who died and was Fidele. What think you?
  GUIDERIUS. The same dead thing alive.
  BELARIUS. Peace, peace! see further. He eyes us not; forbear.
    Creatures may be alike; were't he, I am sure
    He would have spoke to us.
  GUIDERIUS. But we saw him dead.
  BELARIUS. Be silent; let's see further.
  PISANIO. [Aside] It is my mistress.
    Since she is living, let the time run on
    To good or bad.               [CYMBELINE and IMOGEN advance]
  CYMBELINE. Come, stand thou by our side;
    Make thy demand aloud. [To IACHIMO] Sir, step you forth;
    Give answer to this boy, and do it freely,
    Or, by our greatness and the grace of it,
    Which is our honour, bitter torture shall
    Winnow the truth from falsehood. On, speak to him.
  IMOGEN. My boon is that this gentleman may render
    Of whom he had this ring.
  POSTHUMUS. [Aside] What's that to him?
  CYMBELINE. That diamond upon your finger, say
    How came it yours?
  IACHIMO. Thou'lt torture me to leave unspoken that
    Which to be spoke would torture thee.
  CYMBELINE. How? me?
  IACHIMO. I am glad to be constrain'd to utter that
    Which torments me to conceal. By villainy
    I got this ring; 'twas Leonatus' jewel,
    Whom thou didst banish; and- which more may grieve thee,
    As it doth me- a nobler sir ne'er liv'd
    'Twixt sky and ground. Wilt thou hear more, my lord?
  CYMBELINE. All that belongs to this.
  IACHIMO. That paragon, thy daughter,
    For whom my heart drops blood and my false spirits
    Quail to remember- Give me leave, I faint.
  CYMBELINE. My daughter? What of her? Renew thy strength;
    I had rather thou shouldst live while nature will
    Than die ere I hear more. Strive, man, and speak.
  IACHIMO. Upon a time- unhappy was the clock
    That struck the hour!- was in Rome- accurs'd
    The mansion where!- 'twas at a feast- O, would
    Our viands had been poison'd, or at least
    Those which I heav'd to head!- the good Posthumus-
    What should I say? he was too good to be
    Where ill men were, and was the best of all
    Amongst the rar'st of good ones- sitting sadly
    Hearing us praise our loves of Italy
    For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast
    Of him that best could speak; for feature, laming
    The shrine of Venus or straight-pight Minerva,
    Postures beyond brief nature; for condition,
    A shop of all the qualities that man
    Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving,
    Fairness which strikes the eye-
  CYMBELINE. I stand on fire.
    Come to the matter.
  IACHIMO. All too soon I shall,
    Unless thou wouldst grieve quickly. This Posthumus,
    Most like a noble lord in love and one
    That had a royal lover, took his hint;
    And not dispraising whom we prais'd- therein
    He was as calm as virtue- he began
    His mistress' picture; which by his tongue being made,
    And then a mind put in't, either our brags
    Were crack'd of kitchen trulls, or his description
    Prov'd us unspeaking sots.
  CYMBELINE. Nay, nay, to th' purpose.
  IACHIMO. Your daughter's chastity- there it begins.
    He spake of her as Dian had hot dreams
    And she alone were cold; whereat I, wretch,
    Made scruple of his praise, and wager'd with him
    Pieces of gold 'gainst this which then he wore
    Upon his honour'd finger, to attain
    In suit the place of's bed, and win this ring
    By hers and mine adultery. He, true knight,
    No lesser of her honour confident
    Than I did truly find her, stakes this ring;
    And would so, had it been a carbuncle
    Of Phoebus' wheel; and might so safely, had it
    Been all the worth of's car. Away to Britain
    Post I in this design. Well may you, sir,
    Remember me at court, where I was taught
    Of your chaste daughter the wide difference
    'Twixt amorous and villainous. Being thus quench'd
    Of hope, not longing, mine Italian brain
    Gan in your duller Britain operate
    Most vilely; for my vantage, excellent;
    And, to be brief, my practice so prevail'd
    That I return'd with simular proof enough
    To make the noble Leonatus mad,
    By wounding his belief in her renown
    With tokens thus and thus; averring notes
    Of chamber-hanging, pictures, this her bracelet-
    O cunning, how I got it!- nay, some marks
    Of secret on her person, that he could not
    But think her bond of chastity quite crack'd,
    I having ta'en the forfeit. Whereupon-
    Methinks I see him now-
  POSTHUMUS. [Coming forward] Ay, so thou dost,
    Italian fiend! Ay me, most credulous fool,
    Egregious murderer, thief, anything
    That's due to all the villains past, in being,
    To come! O, give me cord, or knife, or poison,
    Some upright justicer! Thou, King, send out
    For torturers ingenious. It is I
    That all th' abhorred things o' th' earth amend
    By being worse than they. I am Posthumus,
    That kill'd thy daughter; villain-like, I lie-
    That caus'd a lesser villain than myself,
    A sacrilegious thief, to do't. The temple
    Of virtue was she; yea, and she herself.
    Spit, and throw stones, cast mire upon me, set
    The dogs o' th' street to bay me. Every villain
    Be call'd Posthumus Leonatus, and
    Be villainy less than 'twas! O Imogen!
    My queen, my life, my wife! O Imogen,
    Imogen, Imogen!
  IMOGEN. Peace, my lord. Hear, hear!
  POSTHUMUS. Shall's have a play of this? Thou scornful page,
    There lies thy part.                [Strikes her. She falls]
  PISANIO. O gentlemen, help!
    Mine and your mistress! O, my lord Posthumus!
    You ne'er kill'd Imogen till now. Help, help!
    Mine honour'd lady!
  CYMBELINE. Does the world go round?
  POSTHUMUS. How comes these staggers on me?
  PISANIO. Wake, my mistress!
  CYMBELINE. If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me
    To death with mortal joy.
  PISANIO. How fares my mistress?
  IMOGEN. O, get thee from my sight;
    Thou gav'st me poison. Dangerous fellow, hence!
    Breathe not where princes are.
  CYMBELINE. The tune of Imogen!
  PISANIO. Lady,
    The gods throw stones of sulphur on me, if
    That box I gave you was not thought by me
    A precious thing! I had it from the Queen.
  CYMBELINE. New matter still?
  IMOGEN. It poison'd me.
  CORNELIUS. O gods!
    I left out one thing which the Queen confess'd,
    Which must approve thee honest. 'If Pisanio
    Have' said she 'given his mistress that confection
    Which I gave him for cordial, she is serv'd
    As I would serve a rat.'
  CYMBELINE. What's this, Cornelius?
  CORNELIUS. The Queen, sir, very oft importun'd me
    To temper poisons for her; still pretending
    The satisfaction of her knowledge only
    In killing creatures vile, as cats and dogs,
    Of no esteem. I, dreading that her purpose
    Was of more danger, did compound for her
    A certain stuff, which, being ta'en would cease
    The present pow'r of life, but in short time
    All offices of nature should again
    Do their due functions. Have you ta'en of it?
  IMOGEN. Most like I did, for I was dead.
  BELARIUS. My boys,
    There was our error.
  GUIDERIUS. This is sure Fidele.
  IMOGEN. Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
    Think that you are upon a rock, and now
    Throw me again.                              [Embracing him]
  POSTHUMUS. Hang there like fruit, my soul,
    Till the tree die!
  CYMBELINE. How now, my flesh? my child?
    What, mak'st thou me a dullard in this act?
    Wilt thou not speak to me?
  IMOGEN. [Kneeling] Your blessing, sir.
  BELARIUS. [To GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS] Though you did love this
      youth, I blame ye not;
    You had a motive for't.
  CYMBELINE. My tears that fall
    Prove holy water on thee! Imogen,
    Thy mother's dead.
  IMOGEN. I am sorry for't, my lord.
  CYMBELINE. O, she was naught, and long of her it was
    That we meet here so strangely; but her son
    Is gone, we know not how nor where.
  PISANIO. My lord,
    Now fear is from me, I'll speak troth. Lord Cloten,
    Upon my lady's missing, came to me
    With his sword drawn, foam'd at the mouth, and swore,
    If I discover'd not which way she was gone,
    It was my instant death. By accident
    I had a feigned letter of my master's
    Then in my pocket, which directed him
    To seek her on the mountains near to Milford;
    Where, in a frenzy, in my master's garments,
    Which he enforc'd from me, away he posts
    With unchaste purpose, and with oath to violate
    My lady's honour. What became of him
    I further know not.
  GUIDERIUS. Let me end the story:
    I slew him there.
  CYMBELINE. Marry, the gods forfend!
    I would not thy good deeds should from my lips
    Pluck a hard sentence. Prithee, valiant youth,
    Deny't again.
  GUIDERIUS. I have spoke it, and I did it.
  CYMBELINE. He was a prince.
  GUIDERIUS. A most incivil one. The wrongs he did me
    Were nothing prince-like; for he did provoke me
    With language that would make me spurn the sea,
    If it could so roar to me. I cut off's head,
    And am right glad he is not standing here
    To tell this tale of mine.
  CYMBELINE. I am sorry for thee.
    By thine own tongue thou art condemn'd, and must
    Endure our law. Thou'rt dead.
  IMOGEN. That headless man
    I thought had been my lord.
  CYMBELINE. Bind the offender,
    And take him from our presence.
  BELARIUS. Stay, sir King.
    This man is better than the man he slew,
    As well descended as thyself, and hath
    More of thee merited than a band of Clotens
    Had ever scar for. [To the guard] Let his arms alone;
    They were not born for bondage.
  CYMBELINE. Why, old soldier,
    Wilt thou undo the worth thou art unpaid for
    By tasting of our wrath? How of descent
    As good as we?
  ARVIRAGUS. In that he spake too far.
  CYMBELINE. And thou shalt die for't.
  BELARIUS. We will die all three;
    But I will prove that two on's are as good
    As I have given out him. My sons, I must
    For mine own part unfold a dangerous speech,
    Though haply well for you.
  ARVIRAGUS. Your danger's ours.
  GUIDERIUS. And our good his.
  BELARIUS. Have at it then by leave!
    Thou hadst, great King, a subject who
    Was call'd Belarius.
  CYMBELINE. What of him? He is
    A banish'd traitor.
  BELARIUS. He it is that hath
    Assum'd this age; indeed a banish'd man;
    I know not how a traitor.
  CYMBELINE. Take him hence,
    The whole world shall not save him.
  BELARIUS. Not too hot.
    First pay me for the nursing of thy sons,
    And let it be confiscate all, so soon
    As I have receiv'd it.
  CYMBELINE. Nursing of my sons?
  BELARIUS. I am too blunt and saucy: here's my knee.
    Ere I arise I will prefer my sons;
    Then spare not the old father. Mighty sir,
    These two young gentlemen that call me father,
    And think they are my sons, are none of mine;
    They are the issue of your loins, my liege,
    And blood of your begetting.
  CYMBELINE. How? my issue?
  BELARIUS. So sure as you your father's. I, old Morgan,
    Am that Belarius whom you sometime banish'd.
    Your pleasure was my mere offence, my punishment
    Itself, and all my treason; that I suffer'd
    Was all the harm I did. These gentle princes-
    For such and so they are- these twenty years
    Have I train'd up; those arts they have as
    Could put into them. My breeding was, sir, as
    Your Highness knows. Their nurse, Euriphile,
    Whom for the theft I wedded, stole these children
    Upon my banishment; I mov'd her to't,
    Having receiv'd the punishment before
    For that which I did then. Beaten for loyalty
    Excited me to treason. Their dear loss,
    The more of you 'twas felt, the more it shap'd
    Unto my end of stealing them. But, gracious sir,
    Here are your sons again, and I must lose
    Two of the sweet'st companions in the world.
    The benediction of these covering heavens
    Fall on their heads like dew! for they are worthy
    To inlay heaven with stars.
  CYMBELINE. Thou weep'st and speak'st.
    The service that you three have done is more
    Unlike than this thou tell'st. I lost my children.
    If these be they, I know not how to wish
    A pair of worthier sons.
  BELARIUS. Be pleas'd awhile.
    This gentleman, whom I call Polydore,
    Most worthy prince, as yours, is true Guiderius;
    This gentleman, my Cadwal, Arviragus,
    Your younger princely son; he, sir, was lapp'd
    In a most curious mantle, wrought by th' hand
    Of his queen mother, which for more probation
    I can with ease produce.
  CYMBELINE. Guiderius had
    Upon his neck a mole, a sanguine star;
    It was a mark of wonder.
  BELARIUS. This is he,
    Who hath upon him still that natural stamp.
    It was wise nature's end in the donation,
    To be his evidence now.
  CYMBELINE. O, what am I?
    A mother to the birth of three? Ne'er mother
    Rejoic'd deliverance more. Blest pray you be,
    That, after this strange starting from your orbs,
    You may reign in them now! O Imogen,
    Thou hast lost by this a kingdom.
  IMOGEN. No, my lord;
    I have got two worlds by't. O my gentle brothers,
    Have we thus met? O, never say hereafter
    But I am truest speaker! You call'd me brother,
    When I was but your sister: I you brothers,
    When we were so indeed.
  CYMBELINE. Did you e'er meet?
  ARVIRAGUS. Ay, my good lord.
  GUIDERIUS. And at first meeting lov'd,
    Continu'd so until we thought he died.
  CORNELIUS. By the Queen's dram she swallow'd.
  CYMBELINE. O rare instinct!
    When shall I hear all through? This fierce abridgment
    Hath to it circumstantial branches, which
    Distinction should be rich in. Where? how liv'd you?
    And when came you to serve our Roman captive?
    How parted with your brothers? how first met them?
    Why fled you from the court? and whither? These,
    And your three motives to the battle, with
    I know not how much more, should be demanded,
    And all the other by-dependences,
    From chance to chance; but nor the time nor place
    Will serve our long interrogatories. See,
    Posthumus anchors upon Imogen;
    And she, like harmless lightning, throws her eye
    On him, her brothers, me, her master, hitting
    Each object with a joy; the counterchange
    Is severally in all. Let's quit this ground,
    And smoke the temple with our sacrifices.
    [To BELARIUS] Thou art my brother; so we'll hold thee ever.
  IMOGEN. You are my father too, and did relieve me
    To see this gracious season.
  CYMBELINE. All o'erjoy'd
    Save these in bonds. Let them be joyful too,
    For they shall taste our comfort.
  IMOGEN. My good master,
    I will yet do you service.
  LUCIUS. Happy be you!
  CYMBELINE. The forlorn soldier, that so nobly fought,
    He would have well becom'd this place and grac'd
    The thankings of a king.
  POSTHUMUS. I am, sir,
    The soldier that did company these three
    In poor beseeming; 'twas a fitment for
    The purpose I then follow'd. That I was he,
    Speak, Iachimo. I had you down, and might
    Have made you finish.
  IACHIMO. [Kneeling] I am down again;
    But now my heavy conscience sinks my knee,
    As then your force did. Take that life, beseech you,
    Which I so often owe; but your ring first,
    And here the bracelet of the truest princess
    That ever swore her faith.
  POSTHUMUS. Kneel not to me.
    The pow'r that I have on you is to spare you;
    The malice towards you to forgive you. Live,
    And deal with others better.
  CYMBELINE. Nobly doom'd!
    We'll learn our freeness of a son-in-law;
    Pardon's the word to all.
  ARVIRAGUS. You holp us, sir,
    As you did mean indeed to be our brother;
    Joy'd are we that you are.
  POSTHUMUS. Your servant, Princes. Good my lord of Rome,
    Call forth your soothsayer. As I slept, methought
    Great Jupiter, upon his eagle back'd,
    Appear'd to me, with other spritely shows
    Of mine own kindred. When I wak'd, I found
    This label on my bosom; whose containing
    Is so from sense in hardness that I can
    Make no collection of it. Let him show
    His skill in the construction.
  LUCIUS. Philarmonus!
  SOOTHSAYER. Here, my good lord.
  LUCIUS. Read, and declare the meaning.
  SOOTHSAYER. [Reads] 'When as a lion's whelp shall, to himself
    unknown, without seeking find, and be embrac'd by
    a piece of tender air; and when from a stately cedar shall
    be lopp'd branches which, being dead many years, shall
    after revive, be jointed to the old stock, and freshly grow;
    then shall Posthumus end his miseries, Britain be fortunate
    and flourish in peace and plenty.'
    Thou, Leonatus, art the lion's whelp;
    The fit and apt construction of thy name,
    Being Leo-natus, doth import so much.
    [To CYMBELINE] The piece of tender air, thy virtuous daughter,
    Which we call 'mollis aer,' and 'mollis aer'
    We term it 'mulier'; which 'mulier' I divine
    Is this most constant wife, who even now
    Answering the letter of the oracle,
    Unknown to you, unsought, were clipp'd about
    With this most tender air.
  CYMBELINE. This hath some seeming.
  SOOTHSAYER. The lofty cedar, royal Cymbeline,
    Personates thee; and thy lopp'd branches point
    Thy two sons forth, who, by Belarius stol'n,
    For many years thought dead, are now reviv'd,
    To the majestic cedar join'd, whose issue
    Promises Britain peace and plenty.
  CYMBELINE. Well,
    My peace we will begin. And, Caius Lucius,
    Although the victor, we submit to Caesar
    And to the Roman empire, promising
    To pay our wonted tribute, from the which
    We were dissuaded by our wicked queen,
    Whom heavens in justice, both on her and hers,
    Have laid most heavy hand.
  SOOTHSAYER. The fingers of the pow'rs above do tune
    The harmony of this peace. The vision
    Which I made known to Lucius ere the stroke
    Of yet this scarce-cold battle, at this instant
    Is full accomplish'd; for the Roman eagle,
    From south to west on wing soaring aloft,
    Lessen'd herself and in the beams o' th' sun
    So vanish'd; which foreshow'd our princely eagle,
    Th'imperial Caesar, Caesar, should again unite
    His favour with the radiant Cymbeline,
    Which shines here in the west.
  CYMBELINE. Laud we the gods;
    And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils
    From our bless'd altars. Publish we this peace
    To all our subjects. Set we forward; let
    A Roman and a British ensign wave
    Friendly together. So through Lud's Town march;
    And in the temple of great Jupiter
    Our peace we'll ratify; seal it with feasts.
    Set on there! Never was a war did cease,
    Ere bloody hands were wash'd, with such a peace.      Exeunt

THE END

1604



THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK



by William Shakespeare






Contents

ACT I
Scene I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.
Scene II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle
Scene III. A room in Polonius’s house.
Scene IV. The platform.
Scene V. A more remote part of the Castle.

ACT II
Scene I. A room in Polonius’s house.
Scene II. A room in the Castle.

ACT III
Scene I. A room in the Castle.
Scene II. A hall in the Castle.
Scene III. A room in the Castle.
Scene IV. Another room in the Castle.

ACT IV
Scene I. A room in the Castle.
Scene II. Another room in the Castle.
Scene III. Another room in the Castle.
Scene IV. A plain in Denmark.
Scene V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.
Scene VI. Another room in the Castle.
Scene VII. Another room in the Castle.

ACT V
Scene I. A churchyard.
Scene II. A hall in the Castle.




 Dramatis Personæ

HAMLET, Prince of Denmark.
CLAUDIUS, King of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle.
The GHOST of the late king, Hamlet’s father.
GERTRUDE, the Queen, Hamlet’s mother, now wife of Claudius.
POLONIUS, Lord Chamberlain.
LAERTES, Son to Polonius.
OPHELIA, Daughter to Polonius.
HORATIO, Friend to Hamlet.
FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway.
VOLTEMAND, Courtier.
CORNELIUS, Courtier.
ROSENCRANTZ, Courtier.
GUILDENSTERN, Courtier.
MARCELLUS, Officer.
BARNARDO, Officer.
FRANCISCO, a Soldier
OSRIC, Courtier.
REYNALDO, Servant to Polonius.
Players.
A Gentleman, Courtier.
A Priest.
Two Clowns, Grave-diggers.
A Captain.
English Ambassadors.
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and Attendants.

SCENE. Elsinore.



ACT I

SCENE I. Elsinore. A platform before the Castle.

 Enter Francisco and Barnardo, two sentinels.

BARNARDO.
Who’s there?

FRANCISCO.
Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDO.
Long live the King!

FRANCISCO.
Barnardo?

BARNARDO.
He.

FRANCISCO.
You come most carefully upon your hour.

BARNARDO.
’Tis now struck twelve. Get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO.
For this relief much thanks. ’Tis bitter cold,
And I am sick at heart.

BARNARDO.
Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO.
Not a mouse stirring.

BARNARDO.
Well, good night.
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

 Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

FRANCISCO.
I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who is there?

HORATIO.
Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS.
And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO.
Give you good night.

MARCELLUS.
O, farewell, honest soldier, who hath reliev’d you?

FRANCISCO.
Barnardo has my place. Give you good-night.

 [_Exit._]

MARCELLUS.
Holla, Barnardo!

BARNARDO.
Say, what, is Horatio there?

HORATIO.
A piece of him.

BARNARDO.
Welcome, Horatio. Welcome, good Marcellus.

MARCELLUS.
What, has this thing appear’d again tonight?

BARNARDO.
I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS.
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him
Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us.
Therefore I have entreated him along
With us to watch the minutes of this night,
That if again this apparition come
He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIO.
Tush, tush, ’twill not appear.

BARNARDO.
Sit down awhile,
And let us once again assail your ears,
That are so fortified against our story,
What we two nights have seen.

HORATIO.
Well, sit we down,
And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BARNARDO.
Last night of all,
When yond same star that’s westward from the pole,
Had made his course t’illume that part of heaven
Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
The bell then beating one—

MARCELLUS.
Peace, break thee off. Look where it comes again.

 Enter Ghost.

BARNARDO.
In the same figure, like the King that’s dead.

MARCELLUS.
Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

BARNARDO.
Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO.
Most like. It harrows me with fear and wonder.

BARNARDO
It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS.
Question it, Horatio.

HORATIO.
What art thou that usurp’st this time of night,
Together with that fair and warlike form
In which the majesty of buried Denmark
Did sometimes march? By heaven I charge thee speak.

MARCELLUS.
It is offended.

BARNARDO.
See, it stalks away.

HORATIO.
Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee speak!

 [_Exit Ghost._]

MARCELLUS.
’Tis gone, and will not answer.

BARNARDO.
How now, Horatio! You tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on’t?

HORATIO.
Before my God, I might not this believe
Without the sensible and true avouch
Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUS.
Is it not like the King?

HORATIO.
As thou art to thyself:
Such was the very armour he had on
When he th’ambitious Norway combated;
So frown’d he once, when in an angry parle
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
’Tis strange.

MARCELLUS.
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

HORATIO.
In what particular thought to work I know not;
But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

MARCELLUS.
Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cast of brazen cannon
And foreign mart for implements of war;
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week.
What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
Who is’t that can inform me?

HORATIO.
That can I;
At least, the whisper goes so. Our last King,
Whose image even but now appear’d to us,
Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
Thereto prick’d on by a most emulate pride,
Dar’d to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet,
For so this side of our known world esteem’d him,
Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal’d compact,
Well ratified by law and heraldry,
Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
Which he stood seiz’d of, to the conqueror;
Against the which, a moiety competent
Was gaged by our King; which had return’d
To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
Had he been vanquisher; as by the same cov’nant
And carriage of the article design’d,
His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
Of unimproved mettle, hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway, here and there,
Shark’d up a list of lawless resolutes,
For food and diet, to some enterprise
That hath a stomach in’t; which is no other,
As it doth well appear unto our state,
But to recover of us by strong hand
And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
So by his father lost. And this, I take it,
Is the main motive of our preparations,
The source of this our watch, and the chief head
Of this post-haste and rummage in the land.

BARNARDO.
I think it be no other but e’en so:
Well may it sort that this portentous figure
Comes armed through our watch so like the King
That was and is the question of these wars.

HORATIO.
A mote it is to trouble the mind’s eye.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets;
As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
Disasters in the sun; and the moist star,
Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands,
Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse.
And even the like precurse of fierce events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.

 Re-enter Ghost.

But, soft, behold! Lo, where it comes again!
I’ll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
Speak to me.
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may to thee do ease, and grace to me,
Speak to me.
If thou art privy to thy country’s fate,
Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid,
O speak!
Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak of it. Stay, and speak!

 [_The cock crows._]

Stop it, Marcellus!

MARCELLUS.
Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

HORATIO.
Do, if it will not stand.

BARNARDO.
’Tis here!

HORATIO.
’Tis here!

 [_Exit Ghost._]

MARCELLUS.
’Tis gone!
We do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence,
For it is as the air, invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BARNARDO.
It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

HORATIO.
And then it started, like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day; and at his warning,
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
Th’extravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confine. And of the truth herein
This present object made probation.

MARCELLUS.
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm;
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.

HORATIO.
So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But look, the morn in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastward hill.
Break we our watch up, and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUS.
Let’s do’t, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Elsinore. A room of state in the Castle.

 Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius,
 Laertes, Voltemand,
Cornelius, Lords and Attendant.

KING.
Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
The memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe;
Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
Together with remembrance of ourselves.
Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
Th’imperial jointress to this warlike state,
Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy,
With one auspicious and one dropping eye,
With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,
In equal scale weighing delight and dole,
Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr’d
Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
Now follows, that you know young Fortinbras,
Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death
Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
He hath not fail’d to pester us with message,
Importing the surrender of those lands
Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
Thus much the business is: we have here writ
To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,
Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
Of this his nephew’s purpose, to suppress
His further gait herein; in that the levies,
The lists, and full proportions are all made
Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,
For bearers of this greeting to old Norway,
Giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King, more than the scope
Of these dilated articles allow.
Farewell; and let your haste commend your duty.

CORNELIUS and VOLTEMAND.
In that, and all things, will we show our duty.

KING.
We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.

 [_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]

And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
You told us of some suit. What is’t, Laertes?
You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
And lose your voice. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
The head is not more native to the heart,
The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

LAERTES.
Dread my lord,
Your leave and favour to return to France,
From whence though willingly I came to Denmark
To show my duty in your coronation;
Yet now I must confess, that duty done,
My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France,
And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING.
Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

POLONIUS.
He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
By laboursome petition; and at last
Upon his will I seal’d my hard consent.
I do beseech you give him leave to go.

KING.
Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—

HAMLET.
[_Aside._] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING.
How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET.
Not so, my lord, I am too much i’ the sun.

QUEEN.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know’st ’tis common, all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET.
Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN.
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET.
Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not seems.
’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc’d breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shows of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING.
’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father;
But you must know, your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation, for some term
To do obsequious sorrow. But to persevere
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. ’Tis unmanly grief,
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool’d;
For what we know must be, and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie, ’tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
‘This must be so.’ We pray you throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you bend you to remain
Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN.
Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet.
I pray thee stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET.
I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING.
Why, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforc’d accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the King’s rouse the heaven shall bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

 [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]

HAMLET.
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ’gainst self-slaughter. O God! O God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! Oh fie! ’tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead—nay, not so much, not two:
So excellent a king; that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother,
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on; and yet, within a month—
Let me not think on’t—Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father’s body
Like Niobe, all tears.—Why she, even she—
O God! A beast that wants discourse of reason
Would have mourn’d longer,—married with mine uncle,
My father’s brother; but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules. Within a month?
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

 Enter Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo.

HORATIO.
Hail to your lordship!

HAMLET.
I am glad to see you well:
Horatio, or I do forget myself.

HORATIO.
The same, my lord,
And your poor servant ever.

HAMLET.
Sir, my good friend;
I’ll change that name with you:
And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?—
Marcellus?

MARCELLUS.
My good lord.

HAMLET.
I am very glad to see you.—Good even, sir.—
But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

HORATIO.
A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET.
I would not hear your enemy say so;
Nor shall you do my ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinore?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HORATIO.
My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLET.
I prithee do not mock me, fellow-student.
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIO.
Indeed, my lord, it follow’d hard upon.

HAMLET.
Thrift, thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
My father,—methinks I see my father.

HORATIO.
Where, my lord?

HAMLET.
In my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIO.
I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

HAMLET.
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO.
My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET.
Saw? Who?

HORATIO.
My lord, the King your father.

HAMLET.
The King my father!

HORATIO.
Season your admiration for a while
With an attent ear, till I may deliver
Upon the witness of these gentlemen
This marvel to you.

HAMLET.
For God’s love let me hear.

HORATIO.
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch
In the dead waste and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pie,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d
By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distill’d
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

HAMLET.
But where was this?

MARCELLUS.
My lord, upon the platform where we watch.

HAMLET.
Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO.
My lord, I did;
But answer made it none: yet once methought
It lifted up it head, and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak.
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish’d from our sight.

HAMLET.
’Tis very strange.

HORATIO.
As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.

HAMLET.
Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch tonight?

Mar. and BARNARDO.
We do, my lord.

HAMLET.
Arm’d, say you?

Both.
Arm’d, my lord.

HAMLET.
From top to toe?

BOTH.
My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET.
Then saw you not his face?

HORATIO.
O yes, my lord, he wore his beaver up.

HAMLET.
What, look’d he frowningly?

HORATIO.
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET.
Pale, or red?

HORATIO.
Nay, very pale.

HAMLET.
And fix’d his eyes upon you?

HORATIO.
Most constantly.

HAMLET.
I would I had been there.

HORATIO.
It would have much amaz’d you.

HAMLET.
Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?

HORATIO.
While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

MARCELLUS and BARNARDO.
Longer, longer.

HORATIO.
Not when I saw’t.

HAMLET.
His beard was grizzled, no?

HORATIO.
It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver’d.

HAMLET.
I will watch tonight;
Perchance ’twill walk again.

HORATIO.
I warrant you it will.

HAMLET.
If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So, fare ye well.
Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve,
I’ll visit you.

ALL.
Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET.
Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.

 [_Exeunt Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo._]

My father’s spirit in arms! All is not well;
I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A room in Polonius’s house.

 Enter Laertes and Ophelia.

LAERTES.
My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell.
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.

OPHELIA.
Do you doubt that?

LAERTES.
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood;
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting;
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.

OPHELIA.
No more but so?

LAERTES.
Think it no more.
For nature crescent does not grow alone
In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvalu’d persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The sanctity and health of this whole state;
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster’d importunity.
Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself scopes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then, best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

OPHELIA.
I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But good my brother,
Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst like a puff’d and reckless libertine
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES.
O, fear me not.
I stay too long. But here my father comes.

 Enter Polonius.

A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

POLONIUS.
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame.
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with you.

 [_Laying his hand on Laertes’s head._]

And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee.

LAERTES.
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

POLONIUS.
The time invites you; go, your servants tend.

LAERTES.
Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well
What I have said to you.

OPHELIA.
’Tis in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

LAERTES.
Farewell.

 [_Exit._]

POLONIUS.
What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

OPHELIA.
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

POLONIUS.
Marry, well bethought:
’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
Given private time to you; and you yourself
Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
If it be so,—as so ’tis put on me,
And that in way of caution,—I must tell you
You do not understand yourself so clearly
As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.

OPHELIA.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.

POLONIUS.
Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

OPHELIA.
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

POLONIUS.
Marry, I’ll teach you; think yourself a baby;
That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;
Or,—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Roaming it thus,—you’ll tender me a fool.

OPHELIA.
My lord, he hath importun’d me with love
In honourable fashion.

POLONIUS.
Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.

OPHELIA.
And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

POLONIUS.
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be something scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him that he is young;
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all.
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you; come your ways.

OPHELIA.
I shall obey, my lord.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. The platform.

 Enter Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus.

HAMLET.
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

HORATIO.
It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET.
What hour now?

HORATIO.
I think it lacks of twelve.

MARCELLUS.
No, it is struck.

HORATIO.
Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

 [_A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within._]

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET.
The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO.
Is it a custom?

HAMLET.
Ay marry is’t;
And to my mind, though I am native here,
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour’d in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel east and west
Makes us traduc’d and tax’d of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform’d at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So oft it chances in particular men
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As in their birth, wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin,
By their o’ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o’erleavens
The form of plausive manners;—that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being Nature’s livery or Fortune’s star,—
His virtues else,—be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of evil
Doth all the noble substance often doubt
To his own scandal.

HORATIO.
Look, my lord, it comes!

 Enter Ghost.

HAMLET.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou com’st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I’ll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane. O, answer me!
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn’d,
Hath op’d his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel,
Revisit’st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?

 [_Ghost beckons Hamlet._]

HORATIO.
It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.

MARCELLUS.
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground.
But do not go with it.

HORATIO.
No, by no means.

HAMLET.
It will not speak; then will I follow it.

HORATIO.
Do not, my lord.

HAMLET.
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?
It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

HORATIO.
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness? Think of it.
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain
That looks so many fadoms to the sea
And hears it roar beneath.

HAMLET.
It waves me still.
Go on, I’ll follow thee.

MARCELLUS.
You shall not go, my lord.

HAMLET.
Hold off your hands.

HORATIO.
Be rul’d; you shall not go.

HAMLET.
My fate cries out,
And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.

 [_Ghost beckons._]

Still am I call’d. Unhand me, gentlemen.

 [_Breaking free from them._]

By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.
I say, away!—Go on, I’ll follow thee.

 [_Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet._]

HORATIO.
He waxes desperate with imagination.

MARCELLUS.
Let’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him.

HORATIO.
Have after. To what issue will this come?

MARCELLUS.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIO.
Heaven will direct it.

MARCELLUS.
Nay, let’s follow him.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A more remote part of the Castle.

 Enter Ghost and Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, I’ll go no further.

GHOST.
Mark me.

HAMLET.
I will.

GHOST.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulph’rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

HAMLET.
Alas, poor ghost!

GHOST.
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.

HAMLET.
Speak, I am bound to hear.

GHOST.
So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

HAMLET.
What?

GHOST.
I am thy father’s spirit,
Doom’d for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confin’d to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purg’d away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood. List, list, O, list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

HAMLET.
O God!

GHOST.
Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET.
Murder!

GHOST.
Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

HAMLET.
Haste me to know’t, that I, with wings as swift
As meditation or the thoughts of love
May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST.
I find thee apt;
And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,
Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear.
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death
Rankly abus’d; but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father’s life
Now wears his crown.

HAMLET.
O my prophetic soul!
Mine uncle!

GHOST.
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast,
With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,—
O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power
So to seduce!—won to his shameful lust
The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen.
O Hamlet, what a falling off was there,
From me, whose love was of that dignity
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine. But virtue, as it never will be mov’d,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel link’d,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage.
But soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment, whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And with a sudden vigour it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood. So did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark’d about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatch’d:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhous’led, disappointed, unanel’d;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.
O horrible! O horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But howsoever thou pursu’st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once!
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu. Hamlet, remember me.

 [_Exit._]

HAMLET.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? O, fie! Hold, my heart;
And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee?
Yea, from the table of my memory
I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmix’d with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling damned villain!
My tables. Meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.

 [_Writing._]

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word;
It is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember me.’
I have sworn’t.

HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
[_Within._] My lord, my lord.

MARCELLUS.
[_Within._] Lord Hamlet.

HORATIO.
[_Within._] Heaven secure him.

HAMLET.
So be it!

MARCELLUS.
[_Within._] Illo, ho, ho, my lord!

HAMLET.
Hillo, ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.

 Enter Horatio and Marcellus.

MARCELLUS.
How is’t, my noble lord?

HORATIO.
What news, my lord?

HAMLET.
O, wonderful!

HORATIO.
Good my lord, tell it.

HAMLET.
No, you’ll reveal it.

HORATIO.
Not I, my lord, by heaven.

MARCELLUS.
Nor I, my lord.

HAMLET.
How say you then, would heart of man once think it?—
But you’ll be secret?

HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
Ay, by heaven, my lord.

HAMLET.
There’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark
But he’s an arrant knave.

HORATIO.
There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave
To tell us this.

HAMLET.
Why, right; you are i’ the right;
And so, without more circumstance at all,
I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:
You, as your business and desires shall point you,—
For every man hath business and desire,
Such as it is;—and for my own poor part,
Look you, I’ll go pray.

HORATIO.
These are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

HAMLET.
I’m sorry they offend you, heartily;
Yes faith, heartily.

HORATIO.
There’s no offence, my lord.

HAMLET.
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offence too. Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desire to know what is between us,
O’ermaster’t as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars, and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.

HORATIO.
What is’t, my lord? We will.

HAMLET.
Never make known what you have seen tonight.

HORATIO and MARCELLUS.
My lord, we will not.

HAMLET.
Nay, but swear’t.

HORATIO.
In faith, my lord, not I.

MARCELLUS.
Nor I, my lord, in faith.

HAMLET.
Upon my sword.

MARCELLUS.
We have sworn, my lord, already.

HAMLET.
Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

GHOST.
[_Cries under the stage._] Swear.

HAMLET.
Ha, ha boy, say’st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?
Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage.
Consent to swear.

HORATIO.
Propose the oath, my lord.

HAMLET.
Never to speak of this that you have seen.
Swear by my sword.

GHOST.
[_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET.
_Hic et ubique?_ Then we’ll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword.
Never to speak of this that you have heard.
Swear by my sword.

GHOST.
[_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET.
Well said, old mole! Canst work i’ th’earth so fast?
A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.

HORATIO.
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange.

HAMLET.
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come,
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,—
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on—
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber’d thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As ‘Well, we know’, or ‘We could and if we would’,
Or ‘If we list to speak’; or ‘There be and if they might’,
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me:—this not to do.
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.

GHOST.
[_Beneath._] Swear.

HAMLET.
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. So, gentlemen,
With all my love I do commend me to you;
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is
May do t’express his love and friending to you,
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right.
Nay, come, let’s go together.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

SCENE I. A room in Polonius’s house.

 Enter Polonius and Reynaldo.

POLONIUS.
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.

REYNALDO.
I will, my lord.

POLONIUS.
You shall do marvellous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquiry
Of his behaviour.

REYNALDO.
My lord, I did intend it.

POLONIUS.
Marry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,
Enquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question,
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it.
Take you as ’twere some distant knowledge of him,
As thus, ‘I know his father and his friends,
And in part him’—do you mark this, Reynaldo?

REYNALDO.
Ay, very well, my lord.

POLONIUS.
‘And in part him, but,’ you may say, ‘not well;
But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild;
Addicted so and so;’ and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him; take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.

REYNALDO.
As gaming, my lord?

POLONIUS.
Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
Quarrelling, drabbing. You may go so far.

REYNALDO.
My lord, that would dishonour him.

POLONIUS.
Faith no, as you may season it in the charge.
You must not put another scandal on him,
That he is open to incontinency;
That’s not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty;
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
Of general assault.

REYNALDO.
But my good lord—

POLONIUS.
Wherefore should you do this?

REYNALDO.
Ay, my lord, I would know that.

POLONIUS.
Marry, sir, here’s my drift,
And I believe it is a fetch of warrant.
You laying these slight sullies on my son,
As ’twere a thing a little soil’d i’ th’ working,
Mark you,
Your party in converse, him you would sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assur’d
He closes with you in this consequence;
‘Good sir,’ or so; or ‘friend,’ or ‘gentleman’—
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country.

REYNALDO.
Very good, my lord.

POLONIUS.
And then, sir, does he this,—
He does—What was I about to say?
By the mass, I was about to say something. Where did I leave?

REYNALDO.
At ‘closes in the consequence.’
At ‘friend or so,’ and ‘gentleman.’

POLONIUS.
At ‘closes in the consequence’ ay, marry!
He closes with you thus: ‘I know the gentleman,
I saw him yesterday, or t’other day,
Or then, or then, with such and such; and, as you say,
There was he gaming, there o’ertook in’s rouse,
There falling out at tennis’: or perchance,
‘I saw him enter such a house of sale’—
_Videlicet_, a brothel, or so forth. See you now;
Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses, and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out.
So by my former lecture and advice
Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?

REYNALDO.
My lord, I have.

POLONIUS.
God b’ wi’ you, fare you well.

REYNALDO.
Good my lord.

POLONIUS.
Observe his inclination in yourself.

REYNALDO.
I shall, my lord.

POLONIUS.
And let him ply his music.

REYNALDO.
Well, my lord.

POLONIUS.
Farewell.

 [_Exit Reynaldo._]

 Enter Ophelia.

How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?

OPHELIA.
Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted.

POLONIUS.
With what, in the name of God?

OPHELIA.
My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbrac’d,
No hat upon his head, his stockings foul’d,
Ungart’red, and down-gyved to his ankle,
Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors, he comes before me.

POLONIUS.
Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA.
My lord, I do not know, but truly I do fear it.

POLONIUS.
What said he?

OPHELIA.
He took me by the wrist and held me hard;
Then goes he to the length of all his arm;
And with his other hand thus o’er his brow,
He falls to such perusal of my face
As he would draw it. Long stay’d he so,
At last,—a little shaking of mine arm,
And thrice his head thus waving up and down,
He rais’d a sigh so piteous and profound
As it did seem to shatter all his bulk
And end his being. That done, he lets me go,
And with his head over his shoulder turn’d
He seem’d to find his way without his eyes,
For out o’ doors he went without their help,
And to the last bended their light on me.

POLONIUS.
Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself,
And leads the will to desperate undertakings,
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry,—
What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIA.
No, my good lord; but as you did command,
I did repel his letters and denied
His access to me.

POLONIUS.
That hath made him mad.
I am sorry that with better heed and judgment
I had not quoted him. I fear’d he did but trifle,
And meant to wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy!
It seems it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion. Come, go we to the King.
This must be known, which, being kept close, might move
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A room in the Castle.

 Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Attendants.

KING.
Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet’s transformation; so I call it,
Since nor th’exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was. What it should be,
More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him
So much from th’understanding of himself,
I cannot dream of. I entreat you both
That, being of so young days brought up with him,
And since so neighbour’d to his youth and humour,
That you vouchsafe your rest here in our court
Some little time, so by your companies
To draw him on to pleasures and to gather,
So much as from occasion you may glean,
Whether aught to us unknown afflicts him thus
That, open’d, lies within our remedy.

QUEEN.
Good gentlemen, he hath much talk’d of you,
And sure I am, two men there are not living
To whom he more adheres. If it will please you
To show us so much gentry and good will
As to expend your time with us awhile,
For the supply and profit of our hope,
Your visitation shall receive such thanks
As fits a king’s remembrance.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Both your majesties
Might, by the sovereign power you have of us,
Put your dread pleasures more into command
Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERN.
We both obey,
And here give up ourselves, in the full bent,
To lay our service freely at your feet
To be commanded.

KING.
Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

QUEEN.
Thanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.
And I beseech you instantly to visit
My too much changed son. Go, some of you,
And bring these gentlemen where Hamlet is.

GUILDENSTERN.
Heavens make our presence and our practices
Pleasant and helpful to him.

QUEEN.
Ay, amen.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and some Attendants._]

 Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS.
Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,
Are joyfully return’d.

KING.
Thou still hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUS.
Have I, my lord? Assure you, my good liege,
I hold my duty, as I hold my soul,
Both to my God and to my gracious King:
And I do think,—or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the trail of policy so sure
As it hath us’d to do—that I have found
The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.

KING.
O speak of that, that do I long to hear.

POLONIUS.
Give first admittance to th’ambassadors;
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.

KING.
Thyself do grace to them, and bring them in.

 [_Exit Polonius._]

He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath found
The head and source of all your son’s distemper.

QUEEN.
I doubt it is no other but the main,
His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.

KING.
Well, we shall sift him.

 Enter Polonius with Voltemand and Cornelius.

Welcome, my good friends!
Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?

VOLTEMAND.
Most fair return of greetings and desires.
Upon our first, he sent out to suppress
His nephew’s levies, which to him appear’d
To be a preparation ’gainst the Polack;
But better look’d into, he truly found
It was against your Highness; whereat griev’d,
That so his sickness, age, and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortinbras; which he, in brief, obeys,
Receives rebuke from Norway; and in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give th’assay of arms against your Majesty.
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee,
And his commission to employ those soldiers
So levied as before, against the Polack:
With an entreaty, herein further shown,
[_Gives a paper._]
That it might please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for this enterprise,
On such regards of safety and allowance
As therein are set down.

KING.
It likes us well;
And at our more consider’d time we’ll read,
Answer, and think upon this business.
Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.
Go to your rest, at night we’ll feast together:.
Most welcome home.

 [_Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius._]

POLONIUS.
This business is well ended.
My liege and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time.
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
Mad call I it; for to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

QUEEN.
More matter, with less art.

POLONIUS.
Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity;
And pity ’tis ’tis true. A foolish figure,
But farewell it, for I will use no art.
Mad let us grant him then. And now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend,
I have a daughter—have whilst she is mine—
Who in her duty and obedience, mark,
Hath given me this. Now gather, and surmise.
[_Reads._]
_To the celestial, and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia_—
That’s an ill phrase, a vile phrase; ‘beautified’ is a vile
phrase: but you shall hear.
[_Reads._]
_these; in her excellent white bosom, these, &c._

QUEEN.
Came this from Hamlet to her?

POLONIUS.
Good madam, stay awhile; I will be faithful.
[_Reads._]
  _Doubt thou the stars are fire,
     Doubt that the sun doth move,
   Doubt truth to be a liar,
     But never doubt I love.
O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers. I have not art to reckon my
groans. But that I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
  Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him,
     HAMLET._
This in obedience hath my daughter show’d me;
And more above, hath his solicitings,
As they fell out by time, by means, and place,
All given to mine ear.

KING.
But how hath she receiv’d his love?

POLONIUS.
What do you think of me?

KING.
As of a man faithful and honourable.

POLONIUS.
I would fain prove so. But what might you think,
When I had seen this hot love on the wing,
As I perceiv’d it, I must tell you that,
Before my daughter told me, what might you,
Or my dear Majesty your queen here, think,
If I had play’d the desk or table-book,
Or given my heart a winking, mute and dumb,
Or look’d upon this love with idle sight,
What might you think? No, I went round to work,
And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:
‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out of thy star.
This must not be.’ And then I precepts gave her,
That she should lock herself from his resort,
Admit no messengers, receive no tokens.
Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,
And he, repulsed,—a short tale to make—
Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we wail for.

KING.
Do you think ’tis this?

QUEEN.
It may be, very likely.

POLONIUS.
Hath there been such a time, I’d fain know that,
That I have positively said ‘’Tis so,’
When it prov’d otherwise?

KING.
Not that I know.

POLONIUS.
Take this from this, if this be otherwise.
[_Points to his head and shoulder._]
If circumstances lead me, I will find
Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed
Within the centre.

KING.
How may we try it further?

POLONIUS.
You know sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.

QUEEN.
So he does indeed.

POLONIUS.
At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.
Be you and I behind an arras then,
Mark the encounter. If he love her not,
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.

KING.
We will try it.

 Enter Hamlet, reading.

QUEEN.
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

POLONIUS.
Away, I do beseech you, both away
I’ll board him presently. O, give me leave.

 [_Exeunt King, Queen and Attendants._]

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

HAMLET.
Well, God-a-mercy.

POLONIUS.
Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET.
Excellent well. You’re a fishmonger.

POLONIUS.
Not I, my lord.

HAMLET.
Then I would you were so honest a man.

POLONIUS.
Honest, my lord?

HAMLET.
Ay sir, to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out
of ten thousand.

POLONIUS.
That’s very true, my lord.

HAMLET.
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing
carrion,—
Have you a daughter?

POLONIUS.
I have, my lord.

HAMLET.
Let her not walk i’ th’ sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your
daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.

POLONIUS.
How say you by that? [_Aside._] Still harping on my daughter. Yet he
knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far
gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very
near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET.
Words, words, words.

POLONIUS.
What is the matter, my lord?

HAMLET.
Between who?

POLONIUS.
I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

HAMLET.
Slanders, sir. For the satirical slave says here that old men have grey
beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber
and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together
with most weak hams. All which, sir, though I most powerfully and
potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down.
For you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could
go backward.

POLONIUS.
[_Aside._] Though this be madness, yet there is a method in’t.—
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET.
Into my grave?

POLONIUS.
Indeed, that is out o’ the air. [_Aside._] How pregnant sometimes his
replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and
sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and
suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.
My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAMLET.
You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part
withal, except my life, except my life, except my life.

POLONIUS.
Fare you well, my lord.

HAMLET.
These tedious old fools.

 Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

POLONIUS.
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

ROSENCRANTZ.
[_To Polonius._] God save you, sir.

 [_Exit Polonius._]

GUILDENSTERN.
My honoured lord!

ROSENCRANTZ.
My most dear lord!

HAMLET.
My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah,
Rosencrantz. Good lads, how do ye both?

ROSENCRANTZ.
As the indifferent children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERN.
Happy in that we are not over-happy;
On Fortune’s cap we are not the very button.

HAMLET.
Nor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Neither, my lord.

HAMLET.
Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?

GUILDENSTERN.
Faith, her privates we.

HAMLET.
In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true; she is a strumpet. What’s
the news?

ROSENCRANTZ.
None, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

HAMLET.
Then is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me question more
in particular. What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of
Fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERN.
Prison, my lord?

HAMLET.
Denmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Then is the world one.

HAMLET.
A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons,
Denmark being one o’ th’ worst.

ROSENCRANTZ.
We think not so, my lord.

HAMLET.
Why, then ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but
thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Why, then your ambition makes it one; ’tis too narrow for your mind.

HAMLET.
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of
infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

GUILDENSTERN.
Which dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the
ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET.
A dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is
but a shadow’s shadow.

HAMLET.
Then are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretch’d heroes
the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’ court? For, by my fay, I cannot
reason.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
We’ll wait upon you.

HAMLET.
No such matter. I will not sort you with the rest of my servants; for,
to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But,
in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZ.
To visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

HAMLET.
Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you. And sure,
dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent
for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal
justly with me. Come, come; nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERN.
What should we say, my lord?

HAMLET.
Why, anything. But to the purpose. You were sent for; and there is a
kind of confession in your looks, which your modesties have not craft
enough to colour. I know the good King and Queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZ.
To what end, my lord?

HAMLET.
That you must teach me. But let me conjure you, by the rights of our
fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our
ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could
charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether you were sent
for or no.

ROSENCRANTZ.
[_To Guildenstern._] What say you?

HAMLET.
[_Aside._] Nay, then I have an eye of you. If you love me, hold not
off.

GUILDENSTERN.
My lord, we were sent for.

HAMLET.
I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery,
and your secrecy to the King and Queen moult no feather. I have of
late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom
of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that
this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this
most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging
firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it
appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of
vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason? How infinite
in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable? In action
how like an angel? In apprehension, how like a god? The beauty of the
world, the paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this
quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither,
though by your smiling you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZ.
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLET.
Why did you laugh then, when I said ‘Man delights not me’?

ROSENCRANTZ.
To think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten entertainment
the players shall receive from you. We coted them on the way, and
hither are they coming to offer you service.

HAMLET.
He that plays the king shall be welcome,—his Majesty shall have tribute
of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target; the lover
shall not sigh gratis, the humorous man shall end his part in peace;
the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickle a’ th’ sere;
and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt
for’t. What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Even those you were wont to take such delight in—the tragedians of the
city.

HAMLET.
How chances it they travel? Their residence, both in reputation and
profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZ.
I think their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation.

HAMLET.
Do they hold the same estimation they did when I was in the city? Are
they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZ.
No, indeed, they are not.

HAMLET.
How comes it? Do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Nay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace; but there is, sir, an
ayry of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question,
and are most tyrannically clapped for’t. These are now the fashion, and
so berattle the common stages—so they call them—that many wearing
rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLET.
What, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How are they escoted? Will
they pursue the quality no longer than they can sing? Will they not say
afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common players—as it is
most like, if their means are no better—their writers do them wrong to
make them exclaim against their own succession?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Faith, there has been much to do on both sides; and the nation holds it
no sin to tarre them to controversy. There was for a while, no money
bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the
question.

HAMLET.
Is’t possible?

GUILDENSTERN.
O, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLET.
Do the boys carry it away?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Ay, that they do, my lord. Hercules and his load too.

HAMLET.
It is not very strange; for my uncle is King of Denmark, and those that
would make mouths at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty,
fifty, a hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ’Sblood,
there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find
it out.

 [_Flourish of trumpets within._]

GUILDENSTERN.
There are the players.

HAMLET.
Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. The
appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you
in this garb, lest my extent to the players, which I tell you must show
fairly outward, should more appear like entertainment than yours. You
are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN.
In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET.
I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a
hawk from a handsaw.

 Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS.
Well be with you, gentlemen.

HAMLET.
Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too, at each ear a hearer. That great
baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling clouts.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Happily he’s the second time come to them; for they say an old man is
twice a child.

HAMLET.
I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.—You say
right, sir: for a Monday morning ’twas so indeed.

POLONIUS.
My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET.
My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome—

POLONIUS.
The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET.
Buzz, buzz.

POLONIUS.
Upon my honour.

HAMLET.
Then came each actor on his ass—

POLONIUS.
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history,
pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical,
tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem
unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light, for the
law of writ and the liberty. These are the only men.

HAMLET.
O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

POLONIUS.
What treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET.
Why—
   ’One fair daughter, and no more,
   The which he loved passing well.’

POLONIUS.
[_Aside._] Still on my daughter.

HAMLET.
Am I not i’ th’ right, old Jephthah?

POLONIUS.
If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing
well.

HAMLET.
Nay, that follows not.

POLONIUS.
What follows then, my lord?

HAMLET.
Why,
   As by lot, God wot,
and then, you know,
   It came to pass, as most like it was.
The first row of the pious chanson will show you more. For look where
my abridgement comes.

 Enter four or five Players.

You are welcome, masters, welcome all. I am glad to see thee well.
Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! Thy face is valanc’d since I
saw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady
and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I
saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a
piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you
are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t like French falconers, fly at anything
we see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your
quality. Come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYER.
What speech, my lord?

HAMLET.
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if it
was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million,
’twas caviare to the general. But it was—as I received it, and others,
whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellent
play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as
cunning. I remember one said there were no sallets in the lines to make
the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the
author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as
sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it, I
chiefly loved. ’Twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it
especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your
memory, begin at this line, let me see, let me see:
   _The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’ Hyrcanian beast,—_
It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus—
   _The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
   Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
   When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
   Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d
   With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
   Now is he total gules, horridly trick’d
   With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
   Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets,
   That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
   To their vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire,
   And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore,
   With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
   Old grandsire Priam seeks._
So, proceed you.

POLONIUS.
’Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

FIRST PLAYER.
   _Anon he finds him,
   Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
   Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
   Repugnant to command. Unequal match’d,
   Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
   But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
   Th’unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
   Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
   Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
   Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword,
   Which was declining on the milky head
   Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’air to stick.
   So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
   And like a neutral to his will and matter,
   Did nothing.
   But as we often see against some storm,
   A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
   The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
   As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
   Doth rend the region; so after Pyrrhus’ pause,
   Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work,
   And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall
   On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,
   With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword
   Now falls on Priam.
   Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
   In general synod, take away her power;
   Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
   And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
   As low as to the fiends._

POLONIUS.
This is too long.

HAMLET.
It shall to the barber’s, with your beard.—Prythee say on.
He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.
Say on; come to Hecuba.

FIRST PLAYER.
   _But who, O who, had seen the mobled queen,—_

HAMLET.
‘The mobled queen’?

POLONIUS.
That’s good! ‘Mobled queen’ is good.

FIRST PLAYER.
   _Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames
   With bisson rheum. A clout upon that head
   Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
   About her lank and all o’erteemed loins,
   A blanket, in th’alarm of fear caught up—
   Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d,
   ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.
   But if the gods themselves did see her then,
   When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
   In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
   The instant burst of clamour that she made,—
   Unless things mortal move them not at all,—
   Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
   And passion in the gods._

POLONIUS.
Look, where he has not turn’d his colour, and has tears in’s eyes. Pray
you, no more.

HAMLET.
’Tis well. I’ll have thee speak out the rest of this soon.—Good my
lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be
well used; for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time.
After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill
report while you live.

POLONIUS.
My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET.
God’s bodikin, man, better. Use every man after his desert, and who
should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity. The
less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

POLONIUS.
Come, sirs.

HAMLET.
Follow him, friends. We’ll hear a play tomorrow.

 [_Exeunt Polonius with all the Players but the First._]

Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play _The Murder of Gonzago_?

FIRST PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
We’ll ha’t tomorrow night. You could for a need study a speech of some
dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in’t, could
you not?

FIRST PLAYER.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.

 [_Exit First Player._]

[_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern_] My good friends, I’ll leave you
till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Good my lord.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

HAMLET.
Ay, so, God b’ wi’ ye. Now I am alone.
O what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wan’d;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in’s aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!
For Hecuba?
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech;
Make mad the guilty, and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed,
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing. No, not for a king
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn’d defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain, breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose, gives me the lie i’ th’ throat
As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?
Ha! ’Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver’d, and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal. Bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
Oh vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder’d,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words
And fall a-cursing like a very drab,
A scullion! Fie upon’t! Foh!
About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play,
Have by the very cunning of the scene,
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim’d their malefactions.
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle. I’ll observe his looks;
I’ll tent him to the quick. If he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

 [_Exit._]



ACT III

SCENE I. A room in the Castle.

 Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

KING.
And can you by no drift of circumstance
Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

ROSENCRANTZ.
He does confess he feels himself distracted,
But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERN.
Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But with a crafty madness keeps aloof
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.

QUEEN.
Did he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Most like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERN.
But with much forcing of his disposition.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Niggard of question, but of our demands,
Most free in his reply.

QUEEN.
Did you assay him to any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Madam, it so fell out that certain players
We o’er-raught on the way. Of these we told him,
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it. They are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

POLONIUS.
’Tis most true;
And he beseech’d me to entreat your Majesties
To hear and see the matter.

KING.
With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclin’d.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.

ROSENCRANTZ.
We shall, my lord.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

KING.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too,
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as ’twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia.
Her father and myself, lawful espials,
Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behav’d,
If’t be th’affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN.
I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.

OPHELIA.
Madam, I wish it may.

 [_Exit Queen._]

POLONIUS.
Ophelia, walk you here.—Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.—[_To Ophelia._] Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.—We are oft to blame in this,
’Tis too much prov’d, that with devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.

KING.
[_Aside._] O ’tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burden!

POLONIUS.
I hear him coming. Let’s withdraw, my lord.

 [_Exeunt King and Polonius._]

 Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET.
To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

OPHELIA.
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET.
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

OPHELIA.
My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed long to re-deliver.
I pray you, now receive them.

HAMLET.
No, not I.
I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA.
My honour’d lord, you know right well you did,
And with them words of so sweet breath compos’d
As made the things more rich; their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.

HAMLET.
Ha, ha! Are you honest?

OPHELIA.
My lord?

HAMLET.
Are you fair?

OPHELIA.
What means your lordship?

HAMLET.
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse
to your beauty.

OPHELIA.
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

HAMLET.
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from
what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty
into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives
it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIA.
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLET.
You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old
stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you not.

OPHELIA.
I was the more deceived.

HAMLET.
Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am
myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things
that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud,
revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have
thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act
them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and
heaven? We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us. Go thy ways to a
nunnery. Where’s your father?

OPHELIA.
At home, my lord.

HAMLET.
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but
in’s own house. Farewell.

OPHELIA.
O help him, you sweet heavens!

HAMLET.
If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou
as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get
thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a
fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To
a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

OPHELIA.
O heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLET.
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given you one
face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you
lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your
ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t, it hath made me mad. I say, we
will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but
one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

 [_Exit._]

OPHELIA.
O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,
Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
Th’observ’d of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck’d the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,
That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy. O woe is me,
T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see.

 Enter King and Polonius.

KING.
Love? His affections do not that way tend,
Nor what he spake, though it lack’d form a little,
Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul
O’er which his melancholy sits on brood,
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger, which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England
For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply the seas and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel
This something settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on’t?

POLONIUS.
It shall do well. But yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia?
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said,
We heard it all. My lord, do as you please,
But if you hold it fit, after the play,
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief, let her be round with him,
And I’ll be plac’d, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him; or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.

KING.
It shall be so.
Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.

 Enter Hamlet and certain Players.

HAMLET.
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on
the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as
lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much
with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent,
tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and
beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the
soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for
the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and
noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It
out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

FIRST PLAYER.
I warrant your honour.

HAMLET.
Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special
observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything
so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature;
to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age
and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come
tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the
judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance
o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have
seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly—not to speak it
profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait
of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have
thought some of Nature’s journeymen had made men, and not made them
well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

FIRST PLAYER.
I hope we have reform’d that indifferently with us, sir.

HAMLET.
O reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no
more than is set down for them. For there be of them that will
themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh
too, though in the meantime some necessary question of the play be then
to be considered. That’s villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition
in the fool that uses it. Go make you ready.

 [_Exeunt Players._]

 Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

How now, my lord?
Will the King hear this piece of work?

POLONIUS.
And the Queen too, and that presently.

HAMLET.
Bid the players make haste.

 [_Exit Polonius._]

Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
We will, my lord.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

HAMLET.
What ho, Horatio!

 Enter Horatio.

HORATIO.
Here, sweet lord, at your service.

HAMLET.
Horatio, thou art e’en as just a man
As e’er my conversation cop’d withal.

HORATIO.
O my dear lord.

HAMLET.
Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee,
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter’d?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal’d thee for herself. For thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hast ta’en with equal thanks. And bles’d are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well co-mingled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee. Something too much of this.
There is a play tonight before the King.
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee, of my father’s death.
I prythee, when thou see’st that act a-foot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle. If his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen;
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan’s stithy. Give him heedful note;
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face;
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.

HORATIO.
Well, my lord.
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

HAMLET.
They are coming to the play. I must be idle.
Get you a place.

 Danish march. A flourish. Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia,
 Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and others.

KING.
How fares our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLET.
Excellent, i’ faith; of the chameleon’s dish: I eat the air,
promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

KING.
I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.

HAMLET.
No, nor mine now. [_To Polonius._] My lord, you play’d once i’
th’university, you say?

POLONIUS.
That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

HAMLET.
What did you enact?

POLONIUS.
I did enact Julius Caesar. I was kill’d i’ th’ Capitol. Brutus killed
me.

HAMLET.
It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the
players ready?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.

QUEEN.
Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLET.
No, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.

POLONIUS.
[_To the King._] O ho! do you mark that?

HAMLET.
Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

 [_Lying down at Ophelia’s feet._]

OPHELIA.
No, my lord.

HAMLET.
I mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIA.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA.
I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET.
That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

OPHELIA.
What is, my lord?

HAMLET.
Nothing.

OPHELIA.
You are merry, my lord.

HAMLET.
Who, I?

OPHELIA.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry? For look
you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within’s two
hours.

OPHELIA.
Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLET.
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of
sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then
there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year. But
by’r lady, he must build churches then; or else shall he suffer not
thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O, for O, the
hobby-horse is forgot!’

 Trumpets sound. The dumb show enters.

_Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him and he
her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her
up, and declines his head upon her neck. Lays him down upon a bank of
flowers. She, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow,
takes off his crown, kisses it, pours poison in the King’s ears, and
exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate
action. The Poisoner with some three or four Mutes, comes in again,
seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner
woos the Queen with gifts. She seems loth and unwilling awhile, but in
the end accepts his love._

 [_Exeunt._]

OPHELIA.
What means this, my lord?

HAMLET.
Marry, this is miching mallicho; it means mischief.

OPHELIA.
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

 Enter Prologue.

HAMLET.
We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they’ll
tell all.

OPHELIA.
Will they tell us what this show meant?

HAMLET.
Ay, or any show that you’ll show him. Be not you ashamed to show, he’ll
not shame to tell you what it means.

OPHELIA.
You are naught, you are naught: I’ll mark the play.

PROLOGUE.
   _For us, and for our tragedy,
   Here stooping to your clemency,
   We beg your hearing patiently._

HAMLET.
Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

OPHELIA.
’Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLET.
As woman’s love.

 Enter a King and a Queen.

PLAYER KING.
Full thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart gone round
Neptune’s salt wash and Tellus’ orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow’d sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.

PLAYER QUEEN.
So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o’er ere love be done.
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women’s fear and love holds quantity,
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now what my love is, proof hath made you know,
And as my love is siz’d, my fear is so.
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

PLAYER KING.
Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too:
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour’d, belov’d, and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou—

PLAYER QUEEN.
O confound the rest.
Such love must needs be treason in my breast.
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill’d the first.

HAMLET.
[_Aside._] Wormwood, wormwood.

PLAYER QUEEN.
The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.

PLAYER KING.
I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine, oft we break.
Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity:
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,
But fall unshaken when they mellow be.
Most necessary ’tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy.
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye; nor ’tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,
The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies;
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend:
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown.
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.
So think thou wilt no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

PLAYER QUEEN.
Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,
Sport and repose lock from me day and night,
To desperation turn my trust and hope,
An anchor’s cheer in prison be my scope,
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy,
Meet what I would have well, and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife.

HAMLET.
[_To Ophelia._] If she should break it now.

PLAYER KING.
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[_Sleeps._]

PLAYER QUEEN.
Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain.

 [_Exit._]

HAMLET.
Madam, how like you this play?

QUEEN.
The lady protests too much, methinks.

HAMLET.
O, but she’ll keep her word.

KING.
Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in’t?

HAMLET.
No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i’ th’ world.

KING.
What do you call the play?

HAMLET.
_The Mousetrap._ Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a
murder done in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife Baptista:
you shall see anon; ’tis a knavish piece of work: but what o’ that?
Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not. Let the
gall’d jade wince; our withers are unwrung.

 Enter Lucianus.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

OPHELIA.
You are a good chorus, my lord.

HAMLET.
I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets
dallying.

OPHELIA.
You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

HAMLET.
It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

OPHELIA.
Still better, and worse.

HAMLET.
So you mistake your husbands.—Begin, murderer. Pox, leave thy damnable
faces, and begin. Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

LUCIANUS.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
On wholesome life usurp immediately.

 [_Pours the poison into the sleeper’s ears._]

HAMLET.
He poisons him i’ th’garden for’s estate. His name’s Gonzago. The story
is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You shall see anon how
the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife.

OPHELIA.
The King rises.

HAMLET.
What, frighted with false fire?

QUEEN.
How fares my lord?

POLONIUS.
Give o’er the play.

KING.
Give me some light. Away.

All.
Lights, lights, lights.

 [_Exeunt all but Hamlet and Horatio._]

HAMLET.
   Why, let the strucken deer go weep,
     The hart ungalled play;
   For some must watch, while some must sleep,
     So runs the world away.
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers, if the rest of my
fortunes turn Turk with me; with two Provincial roses on my razed
shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

HORATIO.
Half a share.

HAMLET.
A whole one, I.
   For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
     This realm dismantled was
   Of Jove himself, and now reigns here
     A very, very—pajock.

HORATIO.
You might have rhymed.

HAMLET.
O good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst
perceive?

HORATIO.
Very well, my lord.

HAMLET.
Upon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIO.
I did very well note him.

HAMLET.
Ah, ha! Come, some music. Come, the recorders.
   For if the king like not the comedy,
   Why then, belike he likes it not, perdie.
Come, some music.

 Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

GUILDENSTERN.
Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

HAMLET.
Sir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERN.
The King, sir—

HAMLET.
Ay, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERN.
Is in his retirement, marvellous distempered.

HAMLET.
With drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERN.
No, my lord; rather with choler.

HAMLET.
Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to the
doctor, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him
into far more choler.

GUILDENSTERN.
Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so
wildly from my affair.

HAMLET.
I am tame, sir, pronounce.

GUILDENSTERN.
The Queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me
to you.

HAMLET.
You are welcome.

GUILDENSTERN.
Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall
please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother’s
commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my
business.

HAMLET.
Sir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERN.
What, my lord?

HAMLET.
Make you a wholesome answer. My wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answer
as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say, my mother.
Therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,—

ROSENCRANTZ.
Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement and
admiration.

HAMLET.
O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no sequel
at the heels of this mother’s admiration?

ROSENCRANTZ.
She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

HAMLET.
We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further
trade with us?

ROSENCRANTZ.
My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET.
And so I do still, by these pickers and stealers.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the
door upon your own liberty if you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAMLET.
Sir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZ.
How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself for your
succession in Denmark?

HAMLET.
Ay, sir, but while the grass grows—the proverb is something musty.

 Re-enter the Players with recorders.

O, the recorders. Let me see one.—To withdraw with you, why do you go
about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN.
O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLET.
I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN.
My lord, I cannot.

HAMLET.
I pray you.

GUILDENSTERN.
Believe me, I cannot.

HAMLET.
I do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERN.
I know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET.
’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your finger and
thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most
eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERN.
But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony. I have not the
skill.

HAMLET.
Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play
upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart
of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my
compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little
organ, yet cannot you make it speak. ’Sblood, do you think I am easier
to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though
you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

 Enter Polonius.

God bless you, sir.

POLONIUS.
My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

HAMLET.
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?

POLONIUS.
By the mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.

HAMLET.
Methinks it is like a weasel.

POLONIUS.
It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET.
Or like a whale.

POLONIUS.
Very like a whale.

HAMLET.
Then will I come to my mother by and by.—They fool me to the top of my
bent.—I will come by and by.

POLONIUS.
I will say so.

 [_Exit._]

HAMLET.
By and by is easily said. Leave me, friends.

 [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]

’Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft now, to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.
How in my words somever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A room in the Castle.

 Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

KING.
I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you,
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you.
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so near us as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.

GUILDENSTERN.
We will ourselves provide.
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your Majesty.

ROSENCRANTZ.
The single and peculiar life is bound
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from ’noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but like a gulf doth draw
What’s near it with it. It is a massy wheel
Fix’d on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis’d and adjoin’d; which when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boist’rous ruin. Never alone
Did the King sigh, but with a general groan.

KING.
Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;
For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
We will haste us.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

 Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS.
My lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet.
Behind the arras I’ll convey myself
To hear the process. I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home,
And as you said, and wisely was it said,
’Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear
The speech of vantage. Fare you well, my liege,
I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.

KING.
Thanks, dear my lord.

 [_Exit Polonius._]

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,—
A brother’s murder! Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?
And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon’d being down? Then I’ll look up.
My fault is past. But O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder!
That cannot be; since I am still possess’d
Of those effects for which I did the murder,—
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon’d and retain th’offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence’s gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature, and we ourselves compell’d
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can. What can it not?
Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that struggling to be free,
Art more engag’d! Help, angels! Make assay:
Bow, stubborn knees; and heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
All may be well.

 [_Retires and kneels._]

 Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying.
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I reveng’d. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father, and for that
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven. O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands, who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
’Tis heavy with him. And am I then reveng’d,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season’d for his passage? No.
Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep; or in his rage,
Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed,
At gaming, swearing; or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in’t,
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn’d and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

 [_Exit._]

 The King rises and advances.

KING.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. Another room in the Castle.

 Enter Queen and Polonius.

POLONIUS.
He will come straight. Look you lay home to him,
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your Grace hath screen’d and stood between
Much heat and him. I’ll silence me e’en here.
Pray you be round with him.

HAMLET.
[_Within._] Mother, mother, mother.

QUEEN.
I’ll warrant you, Fear me not.
Withdraw, I hear him coming.

 [_Polonius goes behind the arras._]

 Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Now, mother, what’s the matter?

QUEEN.
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLET.
Mother, you have my father much offended.

QUEEN.
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET.
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

QUEEN.
Why, how now, Hamlet?

HAMLET.
What’s the matter now?

QUEEN.
Have you forgot me?

HAMLET.
No, by the rood, not so.
You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
And, would it were not so. You are my mother.

QUEEN.
Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLET.
Come, come, and sit you down, you shall not budge.
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

QUEEN.
What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!

POLONIUS.
[_Behind._] What, ho! help, help, help!

HAMLET.
How now? A rat? [_Draws._]
Dead for a ducat, dead!

 [_Makes a pass through the arras._]

POLONIUS.
[_Behind._] O, I am slain!

 [_Falls and dies._]

QUEEN.
O me, what hast thou done?

HAMLET.
Nay, I know not. is it the King?

 [_Draws forth Polonius._]

QUEEN.
O what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLET.
A bloody deed. Almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king and marry with his brother.

QUEEN.
As kill a king?

HAMLET.
Ay, lady, ’twas my word.—
[_To Polonius._] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune,
Thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.—
Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down,
And let me wring your heart, for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff;
If damned custom have not braz’d it so,
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

QUEEN.
What have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

HAMLET.
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love,
And sets a blister there. Makes marriage vows
As false as dicers’ oaths. O such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words. Heaven’s face doth glow,
Yea this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.

QUEEN.
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?

HAMLET.
Look here upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what a grace was seated on this brow,
Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command,
A station like the herald Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man.
This was your husband. Look you now what follows.
Here is your husband, like a mildew’d ear
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense
Is apoplex’d, for madness would not err
Nor sense to ecstacy was ne’er so thrall’d
But it reserv’d some quantity of choice
To serve in such a difference. What devil was’t
That thus hath cozen’d you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope. O shame! where is thy blush?
Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn,
And reason panders will.

QUEEN.
O Hamlet, speak no more.
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

HAMLET.
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew’d in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty.

QUEEN.
O speak to me no more;
These words like daggers enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet.

HAMLET.
A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord. A vice of kings,
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole
And put it in his pocket!

QUEEN.
No more.

HAMLET.
A king of shreds and patches!—

 Enter Ghost.

Save me and hover o’er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

QUEEN.
Alas, he’s mad.

HAMLET.
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, laps’d in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command?
O say!

GHOST.
Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
But look, amazement on thy mother sits.
O step between her and her fighting soul.
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.
Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLET.
How is it with you, lady?

QUEEN.
Alas, how is’t with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy,
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep,
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,
Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

HAMLET.
On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares,
His form and cause conjoin’d, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable.—Do not look upon me,
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects. Then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.

QUEEN.
To whom do you speak this?

HAMLET.
Do you see nothing there?

QUEEN.
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

HAMLET.
Nor did you nothing hear?

QUEEN.
No, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLET.
Why, look you there! look how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he liv’d!
Look where he goes even now out at the portal.

 [_Exit Ghost._]

QUEEN.
This is the very coinage of your brain.
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.

HAMLET.
Ecstasy!
My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music. It is not madness
That I have utter’d. Bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks.
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,
Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

QUEEN.
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET.
O throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night. But go not to mine uncle’s bed.
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery
That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence. The next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night,
And when you are desirous to be bles’d,
I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord
[_Pointing to Polonius._]
I do repent; but heaven hath pleas’d it so,
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.

QUEEN.
What shall I do?

HAMLET.
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed,
Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse,
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn’d fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. ’Twere good you let him know,
For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house’s top,
Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep
And break your own neck down.

QUEEN.
Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.

HAMLET.
I must to England, you know that?

QUEEN.
Alack,
I had forgot. ’Tis so concluded on.

HAMLET.
There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d,—
They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way
And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;
For ’tis the sport to have the enginer
Hoist with his own petard, and ’t shall go hard
But I will delve one yard below their mines
And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet,
When in one line two crafts directly meet.
This man shall set me packing.
I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.
Mother, good night. Indeed, this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish peating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.

 [_Exit Hamlet dragging out Polonius._]



ACT IV

SCENE I. A room in the Castle.

 Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

KING.
There’s matter in these sighs. These profound heaves
You must translate. ’tis fit we understand them.
Where is your son?

QUEEN.
Bestow this place on us a little while.

 [_To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out._]

Ah, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!

KING.
What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

QUEEN.
Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit
Behind the arras hearing something stir,
Whips out his rapier, cries ‘A rat, a rat!’
And in this brainish apprehension kills
The unseen good old man.

KING.
O heavy deed!
It had been so with us, had we been there.
His liberty is full of threats to all;
To you yourself, to us, to everyone.
Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer’d?
It will be laid to us, whose providence
Should have kept short, restrain’d, and out of haunt
This mad young man. But so much was our love
We would not understand what was most fit,
But like the owner of a foul disease,
To keep it from divulging, let it feed
Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

QUEEN.
To draw apart the body he hath kill’d,
O’er whom his very madness, like some ore
Among a mineral of metals base,
Shows itself pure. He weeps for what is done.

KING.
O Gertrude, come away!
The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch
But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed
We must with all our majesty and skill
Both countenance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern!

 Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
And from his mother’s closet hath he dragg’d him.
Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body
Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends,
And let them know both what we mean to do
And what’s untimely done, so haply slander,
Whose whisper o’er the world’s diameter,
As level as the cannon to his blank,
Transports his poison’d shot, may miss our name,
And hit the woundless air. O, come away!
My soul is full of discord and dismay.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Another room in the Castle.

 Enter Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Safely stowed.

ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.
[_Within._] Hamlet! Lord Hamlet!

HAMLET.
What noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

 Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

ROSENCRANTZ.
What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

HAMLET.
Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence,
And bear it to the chapel.

HAMLET.
Do not believe it.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Believe what?

HAMLET.
That I can keep your counsel, and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded
of a sponge—what replication should be made by the son of a king?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

HAMLET.
Ay, sir; that soaks up the King’s countenance, his rewards, his
authorities. But such officers do the King best service in the end: he
keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be
last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but
squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

ROSENCRANTZ.
I understand you not, my lord.

HAMLET.
I am glad of it. A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.

ROSENCRANTZ.
My lord, you must tell us where the body is and go with us to the King.

HAMLET.
The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body. The King
is a thing—

GUILDENSTERN.
A thing, my lord!

HAMLET.
Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Another room in the Castle.

 Enter King, attended.

KING.
I have sent to seek him and to find the body.
How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!
Yet must not we put the strong law on him:
He’s lov’d of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes;
And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge is weigh’d,
But never the offence. To bear all smooth and even,
This sudden sending him away must seem
Deliberate pause. Diseases desperate grown
By desperate appliance are reliev’d,
Or not at all.

 Enter Rosencrantz.

How now? What hath befall’n?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Where the dead body is bestow’d, my lord,
We cannot get from him.

KING.
But where is he?

ROSENCRANTZ.
Without, my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.

KING.
Bring him before us.

ROSENCRANTZ.
Ho, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord.

 Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern.

KING.
Now, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLET.
At supper.

KING.
At supper? Where?

HAMLET.
Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of
politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet.
We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots.
Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,—two dishes,
but to one table. That’s the end.

KING.
Alas, alas!

HAMLET.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the
fish that hath fed of that worm.

KING.
What dost thou mean by this?

HAMLET.
Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts
of a beggar.

KING.
Where is Polonius?

HAMLET.
In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there,
seek him i’ th’other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not
within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the
lobby.

KING.
[_To some Attendants._] Go seek him there.

HAMLET.
He will stay till you come.

 [_Exeunt Attendants._]

KING.
Hamlet, this deed, for thine especial safety,—
Which we do tender, as we dearly grieve
For that which thou hast done,—must send thee hence
With fiery quickness. Therefore prepare thyself;
The bark is ready, and the wind at help,
Th’associates tend, and everything is bent
For England.

HAMLET.
For England?

KING.
Ay, Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Good.

KING.
So is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.

HAMLET.
I see a cherub that sees them. But, come; for England! Farewell, dear
mother.

KING.
Thy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLET.
My mother. Father and mother is man and wife; man and wife is one
flesh; and so, my mother. Come, for England.

 [_Exit._]

KING.
Follow him at foot. Tempt him with speed aboard;
Delay it not; I’ll have him hence tonight.
Away, for everything is seal’d and done
That else leans on th’affair. Pray you make haste.

 [_Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern._]

And England, if my love thou hold’st at aught,—
As my great power thereof may give thee sense,
Since yet thy cicatrice looks raw and red
After the Danish sword, and thy free awe
Pays homage to us,—thou mayst not coldly set
Our sovereign process, which imports at full,
By letters conjuring to that effect,
The present death of Hamlet. Do it, England;
For like the hectic in my blood he rages,
And thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done,
Howe’er my haps, my joys were ne’er begun.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. A plain in Denmark.

 Enter Fortinbras and Forces marching.

FORTINBRAS.
Go, Captain, from me greet the Danish king.
Tell him that by his license, Fortinbras
Craves the conveyance of a promis’d march
Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.
If that his Majesty would aught with us,
We shall express our duty in his eye;
And let him know so.

CAPTAIN.
I will do’t, my lord.

FORTINBRAS.
Go softly on.

 [_Exeunt all but the Captain._]

 Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern &c.

HAMLET.
Good sir, whose powers are these?

CAPTAIN.
They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLET.
How purpos’d, sir, I pray you?

CAPTAIN.
Against some part of Poland.

HAMLET.
Who commands them, sir?

CAPTAIN.
The nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLET.
Goes it against the main of Poland, sir,
Or for some frontier?

CAPTAIN.
Truly to speak, and with no addition,
We go to gain a little patch of ground
That hath in it no profit but the name.
To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it;
Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole
A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

HAMLET.
Why, then the Polack never will defend it.

CAPTAIN.
Yes, it is already garrison’d.

HAMLET.
Two thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats
Will not debate the question of this straw!
This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace,
That inward breaks, and shows no cause without
Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

CAPTAIN.
God b’ wi’ you, sir.

 [_Exit._]

ROSENCRANTZ.
Will’t please you go, my lord?

HAMLET.
I’ll be with you straight. Go a little before.

 [_Exeunt all but Hamlet._]

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge. What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unus’d. Now whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on th’event,—
A thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward,—I do not know
Why yet I live to say this thing’s to do,
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me,
Witness this army of such mass and charge,
Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Whose spirit, with divine ambition puff’d,
Makes mouths at the invisible event,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,
That have a father kill’d, a mother stain’d,
Excitements of my reason and my blood,
And let all sleep, while to my shame I see
The imminent death of twenty thousand men
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,
My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the Castle.

 Enter Queen, Horatio and a Gentleman.

QUEEN.
I will not speak with her.

GENTLEMAN.
She is importunate, indeed distract.
Her mood will needs be pitied.

QUEEN.
What would she have?

GENTLEMAN.
She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart,
Spurns enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense. Her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts,
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

QUEEN.
Let her come in.

 [_Exit Gentleman._]

To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss.
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

 Enter Ophelia.

OPHELIA.
Where is the beauteous Majesty of Denmark?

QUEEN.
How now, Ophelia?

OPHELIA.
[_Sings._]
   How should I your true love know
     From another one?
   By his cockle bat and staff
     And his sandal shoon.

QUEEN.
Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIA.
Say you? Nay, pray you mark.
[_Sings._]
   He is dead and gone, lady,
     He is dead and gone,
   At his head a grass green turf,
     At his heels a stone.

QUEEN.
Nay, but Ophelia—

OPHELIA.
Pray you mark.
[_Sings._]
   White his shroud as the mountain snow.

 Enter King.

QUEEN.
Alas, look here, my lord!

OPHELIA.
[_Sings._]
     Larded all with sweet flowers;
   Which bewept to the grave did go
     With true-love showers.

KING.
How do you, pretty lady?

OPHELIA.
Well, God dild you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we
know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

KING.
Conceit upon her father.

OPHELIA.
Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they ask you what it
means, say you this:
[_Sings._]
   Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
     All in the morning betime,
   And I a maid at your window,
     To be your Valentine.

   Then up he rose and donn’d his clothes,
     And dupp’d the chamber door,
   Let in the maid, that out a maid
     Never departed more.

KING.
Pretty Ophelia!

OPHELIA.
Indeed la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t.
[_Sings._]
   By Gis and by Saint Charity,
     Alack, and fie for shame!
   Young men will do’t if they come to’t;
     By Cock, they are to blame.

   Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
     You promis’d me to wed.
   So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
     An thou hadst not come to my bed.

KING.
How long hath she been thus?

OPHELIA.
I hope all will be well. We must be patient. But I cannot choose but
weep, to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground. My brother shall
know of it. And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach!
Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night.

 [_Exit._]

KING.
Follow her close; give her good watch, I pray you.

 [_Exit Horatio._]

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. First, her father slain;
Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove; the people muddied,
Thick and and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers
For good Polonius’ death; and we have done but greenly
In hugger-mugger to inter him. Poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts.
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France,
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar’d,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.

 [_A noise within._]

QUEEN.
Alack, what noise is this?

KING.
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

 Enter a Gentleman.

What is the matter?

GENTLEMAN.
Save yourself, my lord.
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste
Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O’erbears your offices. The rabble call him lord,
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king!’
Caps, hands, and tongues applaud it to the clouds,
‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king.’

QUEEN.
How cheerfully on the false trail they cry.
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs.

 [_A noise within._]

KING.
The doors are broke.

 Enter Laertes, armed; Danes following.

LAERTES.
Where is this king?—Sirs, stand you all without.

Danes.
No, let’s come in.

LAERTES.
I pray you, give me leave.

DANES.
We will, we will.

 [_They retire without the door._]

LAERTES.
I thank you. Keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father.

QUEEN.
Calmly, good Laertes.

LAERTES.
That drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard;
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.

KING.
What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?—
Let him go, Gertrude. Do not fear our person.
There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will.—Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incens’d.—Let him go, Gertrude:—
Speak, man.

LAERTES.
Where is my father?

KING.
Dead.

QUEEN.
But not by him.

KING.
Let him demand his fill.

LAERTES.
How came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with.
To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds, I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I’ll be reveng’d
Most throughly for my father.

KING.
Who shall stay you?

LAERTES.
My will, not all the world.
And for my means, I’ll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.

KING.
Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge
That, sweepstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?

LAERTES.
None but his enemies.

KING.
Will you know them then?

LAERTES.
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms;
And, like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.

KING.
Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father’s death,
And am most sensibly in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment ’pear
As day does to your eye.

DANES.
[_Within._] Let her come in.

LAERTES.
How now! What noise is that?

 Re-enter Ophelia, fantastically dressed with straws and flowers.

O heat, dry up my brains. Tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye.
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits
Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?
Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

OPHELIA.
[_Sings._]
   They bore him barefac’d on the bier,
   Hey no nonny, nonny, hey nonny
   And on his grave rain’d many a tear.—
   Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES.
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.

OPHELIA.
You must sing ‘Down a-down, and you call him a-down-a.’ O, how the
wheel becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s
daughter.

LAERTES.
This nothing’s more than matter.

OPHELIA.
There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray love, remember. And
there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.

LAERTES.
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA.
There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you; and here’s
some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O you must wear
your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some
violets, but they wither’d all when my father died. They say he made a
good end.
[_Sings._]
   For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES.
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself
She turns to favour and to prettiness.

OPHELIA.
[_Sings._]
   And will he not come again?
   And will he not come again?
     No, no, he is dead,
     Go to thy death-bed,
   He never will come again.

   His beard was as white as snow,
   All flaxen was his poll.
     He is gone, he is gone,
     And we cast away moan.
   God ha’ mercy on his soul.

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God b’ wi’ ye.

 [_Exit._]

LAERTES.
Do you see this, O God?

KING.
Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will,
And they shall hear and judge ’twixt you and me.
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch’d, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.

LAERTES.
Let this be so;
His means of death, his obscure burial,—
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,—
Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call’t in question.

KING.
So you shall.
And where th’offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you go with me.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. Another room in the Castle.

 Enter Horatio and a Servant.

HORATIO.
What are they that would speak with me?

SERVANT.
Sailors, sir. They say they have letters for you.

HORATIO.
Let them come in.

 [_Exit Servant._]

I do not know from what part of the world
I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

 Enter Sailors.

FIRST SAILOR.
God bless you, sir.

HORATIO.
Let him bless thee too.

FIRST SAILOR.
He shall, sir, and’t please him. There’s a letter for you, sir. It
comes from th’ambassador that was bound for England; if your name be
Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

HORATIO.
[_Reads._] ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked this, give these
fellows some means to the King. They have letters for him. Ere we were
two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us
chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled
valour, and in the grapple I boarded them. On the instant they got
clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt
with me like thieves of mercy. But they knew what they did; I am to do
a good turn for them. Let the King have the letters I have sent, and
repair thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death. I have
words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb; yet are they much too
light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee
where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England:
of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell.
     He that thou knowest thine,
     HAMLET.’

Come, I will give you way for these your letters,
And do’t the speedier, that you may direct me
To him from whom you brought them.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VII. Another room in the Castle.

 Enter King and Laertes.

KING.
Now must your conscience my acquittance seal,
And you must put me in your heart for friend,
Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear,
That he which hath your noble father slain
Pursu’d my life.

LAERTES.
It well appears. But tell me
Why you proceeded not against these feats,
So crimeful and so capital in nature,
As by your safety, wisdom, all things else,
You mainly were stirr’d up.

KING.
O, for two special reasons,
Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinew’d,
But yet to me they are strong. The Queen his mother
Lives almost by his looks; and for myself,—
My virtue or my plague, be it either which,—
She’s so conjunctive to my life and soul,
That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,
I could not but by her. The other motive,
Why to a public count I might not go,
Is the great love the general gender bear him,
Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,
Would like the spring that turneth wood to stone,
Convert his gyves to graces; so that my arrows,
Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind,
Would have reverted to my bow again,
And not where I had aim’d them.

LAERTES.
And so have I a noble father lost,
A sister driven into desperate terms,
Whose worth, if praises may go back again,
Stood challenger on mount of all the age
For her perfections. But my revenge will come.

KING.
Break not your sleeps for that. You must not think
That we are made of stuff so flat and dull
That we can let our beard be shook with danger,
And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more.
I lov’d your father, and we love ourself,
And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—

 Enter a Messenger.

How now? What news?

MESSENGER.
Letters, my lord, from Hamlet.
This to your Majesty; this to the Queen.

KING.
From Hamlet! Who brought them?

MESSENGER.
Sailors, my lord, they say; I saw them not.
They were given me by Claudio. He receiv’d them
Of him that brought them.

KING.
Laertes, you shall hear them.
Leave us.

 [_Exit Messenger._]

[_Reads._] ‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked on your
kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes. When I
shall, first asking your pardon thereunto, recount the occasions of my
sudden and more strange return.
     HAMLET.’

What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?
Or is it some abuse, and no such thing?

LAERTES.
Know you the hand?

KING.
’Tis Hamlet’s character. ’Naked!’
And in a postscript here he says ‘alone.’
Can you advise me?

LAERTES.
I am lost in it, my lord. But let him come,
It warms the very sickness in my heart
That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,
‘Thus diest thou.’

KING.
If it be so, Laertes,—
As how should it be so? How otherwise?—
Will you be rul’d by me?

LAERTES.
Ay, my lord;
So you will not o’errule me to a peace.

KING.
To thine own peace. If he be now return’d,
As checking at his voyage, and that he means
No more to undertake it, I will work him
To exploit, now ripe in my device,
Under the which he shall not choose but fall;
And for his death no wind shall breathe,
But even his mother shall uncharge the practice
And call it accident.

LAERTES.
My lord, I will be rul’d;
The rather if you could devise it so
That I might be the organ.

KING.
It falls right.
You have been talk’d of since your travel much,
And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality
Wherein they say you shine. Your sum of parts
Did not together pluck such envy from him
As did that one, and that, in my regard,
Of the unworthiest siege.

LAERTES.
What part is that, my lord?

KING.
A very riband in the cap of youth,
Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes
The light and careless livery that it wears
Than settled age his sables and his weeds,
Importing health and graveness. Two months since
Here was a gentleman of Normandy,—
I’ve seen myself, and serv’d against, the French,
And they can well on horseback, but this gallant
Had witchcraft in’t. He grew unto his seat,
And to such wondrous doing brought his horse,
As had he been incorps’d and demi-natur’d
With the brave beast. So far he topp’d my thought
That I in forgery of shapes and tricks,
Come short of what he did.

LAERTES.
A Norman was’t?

KING.
A Norman.

LAERTES.
Upon my life, Lamond.

KING.
The very same.

LAERTES.
I know him well. He is the brooch indeed
And gem of all the nation.

KING.
He made confession of you,
And gave you such a masterly report
For art and exercise in your defence,
And for your rapier most especially,
That he cried out ’twould be a sight indeed
If one could match you. The scrimers of their nation
He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,
If you oppos’d them. Sir, this report of his
Did Hamlet so envenom with his envy
That he could nothing do but wish and beg
Your sudden coming o’er to play with him.
Now, out of this,—

LAERTES.
What out of this, my lord?

KING.
Laertes, was your father dear to you?
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,
A face without a heart?

LAERTES.
Why ask you this?

KING.
Not that I think you did not love your father,
But that I know love is begun by time,
And that I see, in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
There lives within the very flame of love
A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still,
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,
Dies in his own too much. That we would do,
We should do when we would; for this ‘would’ changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many
As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;
And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift sigh
That hurts by easing. But to the quick o’ th’ulcer:
Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake
To show yourself your father’s son in deed,
More than in words?

LAERTES.
To cut his throat i’ th’ church.

KING.
No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;
Revenge should have no bounds. But good Laertes,
Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.
Hamlet return’d shall know you are come home:
We’ll put on those shall praise your excellence,
And set a double varnish on the fame
The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine together
And wager on your heads. He, being remiss,
Most generous, and free from all contriving,
Will not peruse the foils; so that with ease,
Or with a little shuffling, you may choose
A sword unbated, and in a pass of practice,
Requite him for your father.

LAERTES.
I will do’t.
And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword.
I bought an unction of a mountebank
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
This is but scratch’d withal. I’ll touch my point
With this contagion, that if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.

KING.
Let’s further think of this,
Weigh what convenience both of time and means
May fit us to our shape. If this should fail,
And that our drift look through our bad performance.
’Twere better not assay’d. Therefore this project
Should have a back or second, that might hold
If this did blast in proof. Soft, let me see.
We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings,—
I ha’t! When in your motion you are hot and dry,
As make your bouts more violent to that end,
And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepar’d him
A chalice for the nonce; whereon but sipping,
If he by chance escape your venom’d stuck,
Our purpose may hold there.

 Enter Queen.

How now, sweet Queen?

QUEEN.
One woe doth tread upon another’s heel,
So fast they follow. Your sister’s drown’d, Laertes.

LAERTES.
Drown’d! O, where?

QUEEN.
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream.
There with fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men’s fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chaunted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

LAERTES.
Alas, then she is drown’d?

QUEEN.
Drown’d, drown’d.

LAERTES.
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,
The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord,
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly douts it.

 [_Exit._]

KING.
Let’s follow, Gertrude;
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;
Therefore let’s follow.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT V

SCENE I. A churchyard.

 Enter two Clowns with spades, &c.

FIRST CLOWN.
Is she to be buried in Christian burial, when she wilfully seeks her
own salvation?

SECOND CLOWN.
I tell thee she is, and therefore make her grave straight. The crowner
hath sat on her, and finds it Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN.
How can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

SECOND CLOWN.
Why, ’tis found so.

FIRST CLOWN.
It must be _se offendendo_, it cannot be else. For here lies the point:
if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act: and an act hath three
branches. It is to act, to do, and to perform: argal, she drowned
herself wittingly.

SECOND CLOWN.
Nay, but hear you, goodman delver,—

FIRST CLOWN.
Give me leave. Here lies the water; good. Here stands the man; good. If
the man go to this water and drown himself, it is, will he nill he, he
goes,—mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he
drowns not himself. Argal, he that is not guilty of his own death
shortens not his own life.

SECOND CLOWN.
But is this law?

FIRST CLOWN.
Ay, marry, is’t, crowner’s quest law.

SECOND CLOWN.
Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she
should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWN.
Why, there thou say’st. And the more pity that great folk should have
countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their
even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but
gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers: they hold up Adam’s profession.

SECOND CLOWN.
Was he a gentleman?

FIRST CLOWN.
He was the first that ever bore arms.

SECOND CLOWN.
Why, he had none.

FIRST CLOWN.
What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The
Scripture says Adam digg’d. Could he dig without arms? I’ll put another
question to thee. If thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess
thyself—

SECOND CLOWN.
Go to.

FIRST CLOWN.
What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright,
or the carpenter?

SECOND CLOWN.
The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

FIRST CLOWN.
I like thy wit well in good faith, the gallows does well. But how does
it well? It does well to those that do ill. Now, thou dost ill to say
the gallows is built stronger than the church; argal, the gallows may
do well to thee. To’t again, come.

SECOND CLOWN.
Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

FIRST CLOWN.
Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

SECOND CLOWN.
Marry, now I can tell.

FIRST CLOWN.
To’t.

SECOND CLOWN.
Mass, I cannot tell.

 Enter Hamlet and Horatio, at a distance.

FIRST CLOWN.
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his
pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, say ‘a
grave-maker’. The houses he makes last till doomsday. Go, get thee to
Yaughan; fetch me a stoup of liquor.

 [_Exit Second Clown._]

[_Digs and sings._]

   In youth when I did love, did love,
     Methought it was very sweet;
   To contract, O, the time for, a, my behove,
     O methought there was nothing meet.

HAMLET.
Has this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings at
grave-making?

HORATIO.
Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness.

HAMLET.
’Tis e’en so; the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

FIRST CLOWN.
[_Sings._]
   But age with his stealing steps
     Hath claw’d me in his clutch,
   And hath shipp’d me into the land,
     As if I had never been such.

 [_Throws up a skull._]

HAMLET.
That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. How the knave jowls
it to th’ ground, as if ’twere Cain’s jawbone, that did the first
murder! This might be the pate of a politician which this ass now
o’er-offices, one that would circumvent God, might it not?

HORATIO.
It might, my lord.

HAMLET.
Or of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost
thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord such-a-one, that praised my
lord such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it, might it not?

HORATIO.
Ay, my lord.

HAMLET.
Why, e’en so: and now my Lady Worm’s; chapless, and knocked about the
mazard with a sexton’s spade. Here’s fine revolution, an we had the
trick to see’t. Did these bones cost no more the breeding but to play
at loggets with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.

FIRST CLOWN.
[_Sings._]
   A pickaxe and a spade, a spade,
     For and a shrouding-sheet;
   O, a pit of clay for to be made
     For such a guest is meet.

 [_Throws up another skull._]

HAMLET.
There’s another. Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be
his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks?
Why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce
with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?
Hum. This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with his
statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his
recoveries. Is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his
recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers
vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the
length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his
lands will scarcely lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself
have no more, ha?

HORATIO.
Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET.
Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

HORATIO.
Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET.
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that. I will
speak to this fellow.—Whose grave’s this, sir?

FIRST CLOWN.
Mine, sir.
[_Sings._]
   O, a pit of clay for to be made
     For such a guest is meet.

HAMLET.
I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in’t.

FIRST CLOWN.
You lie out on’t, sir, and therefore ’tis not yours.
For my part, I do not lie in’t, yet it is mine.

HAMLET.
Thou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say it is thine. ’Tis for the dead,
not for the quick; therefore thou liest.

FIRST CLOWN.
’Tis a quick lie, sir; ’t will away again from me to you.

HAMLET.
What man dost thou dig it for?

FIRST CLOWN.
For no man, sir.

HAMLET.
What woman then?

FIRST CLOWN.
For none neither.

HAMLET.
Who is to be buried in’t?

FIRST CLOWN.
One that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

HAMLET.
How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation
will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note
of it, the age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so
near the heel of the courtier he galls his kibe.—How long hast thou
been a grave-maker?

FIRST CLOWN.
Of all the days i’ th’ year, I came to’t that day that our last King
Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras.

HAMLET.
How long is that since?

FIRST CLOWN.
Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day
that young Hamlet was born,—he that is mad, and sent into England.

HAMLET.
Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?

FIRST CLOWN.
Why, because he was mad; he shall recover his wits there; or if he do
not, it’s no great matter there.

HAMLET.
Why?

FIRST CLOWN.
’Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.

HAMLET.
How came he mad?

FIRST CLOWN.
Very strangely, they say.

HAMLET.
How strangely?

FIRST CLOWN.
Faith, e’en with losing his wits.

HAMLET.
Upon what ground?

FIRST CLOWN.
Why, here in Denmark. I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty
years.

HAMLET.
How long will a man lie i’ th’earth ere he rot?

FIRST CLOWN.
Faith, if he be not rotten before he die,—as we have many pocky corses
nowadays that will scarce hold the laying in,—he will last you some
eight year or nine year. A tanner will last you nine year.

HAMLET.
Why he more than another?

FIRST CLOWN.
Why, sir, his hide is so tann’d with his trade that he will keep out
water a great while. And your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson
dead body. Here’s a skull now; this skull hath lain in the earth
three-and-twenty years.

HAMLET.
Whose was it?

FIRST CLOWN.
A whoreson, mad fellow’s it was. Whose do you think it was?

HAMLET.
Nay, I know not.

FIRST CLOWN.
A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A pour’d a flagon of Rhenish on my
head once. This same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the King’s jester.

HAMLET.
This?

FIRST CLOWN.
E’en that.

HAMLET.
Let me see. [_Takes the skull._] Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him,
Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my
imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I
have kiss’d I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols?
your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table
on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chop-fallen?
Now get you to my lady’s chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch
thick, to this favour she must come. Make her laugh at that.—Prythee,
Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIO.
What’s that, my lord?

HAMLET.
Dost thou think Alexander looked o’ this fashion i’ th’earth?

HORATIO.
E’en so.

HAMLET.
And smelt so? Pah!

 [_Throws down the skull._]

HORATIO.
E’en so, my lord.

HAMLET.
To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace
the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

HORATIO.
’Twere to consider too curiously to consider so.

HAMLET.
No, faith, not a jot. But to follow him thither with modesty enough,
and likelihood to lead it; as thus. Alexander died, Alexander was
buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we
make loam; and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not
stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
O, that that earth which kept the world in awe
Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw.
But soft! but soft! aside! Here comes the King.

 Enter priests, &c, in procession; the corpse of Ophelia, Laertes and
 Mourners following; King, Queen, their Trains, &c.

The Queen, the courtiers. Who is that they follow?
And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
The corse they follow did with desperate hand
Fordo it own life. ’Twas of some estate.
Couch we awhile and mark.

 [_Retiring with Horatio._]

LAERTES.
What ceremony else?

HAMLET.
That is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark.

LAERTES.
What ceremony else?

PRIEST.
Her obsequies have been as far enlarg’d
As we have warranties. Her death was doubtful;
And but that great command o’ersways the order,
She should in ground unsanctified have lodg’d
Till the last trumpet. For charitable prayers,
Shards, flints, and pebbles should be thrown on her.
Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.

LAERTES.
Must there no more be done?

PRIEST.
No more be done.
We should profane the service of the dead
To sing sage requiem and such rest to her
As to peace-parted souls.

LAERTES.
Lay her i’ th’earth,
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring. I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist’ring angel shall my sister be
When thou liest howling.

HAMLET.
What, the fair Ophelia?

QUEEN.
[_Scattering flowers._] Sweets to the sweet. Farewell.
I hop’d thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck’d, sweet maid,
And not have strew’d thy grave.

LAERTES.
O, treble woe
Fall ten times treble on that cursed head
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Depriv’d thee of. Hold off the earth a while,
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.
[_Leaps into the grave._]
Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead,
Till of this flat a mountain you have made,
To o’ertop old Pelion or the skyish head
Of blue Olympus.

HAMLET.
[_Advancing._]
What is he whose grief
Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow
Conjures the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand
Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I,
Hamlet the Dane.
[_Leaps into the grave._]

LAERTES.
[_Grappling with him._] The devil take thy soul!

HAMLET.
Thou pray’st not well.
I prythee take thy fingers from my throat;
For though I am not splenative and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand!

KING.
Pluck them asunder.

QUEEN.
Hamlet! Hamlet!

All.
Gentlemen!

HORATIO.
Good my lord, be quiet.

 [_The Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave._]

HAMLET.
Why, I will fight with him upon this theme
Until my eyelids will no longer wag.

QUEEN.
O my son, what theme?

HAMLET.
I lov’d Ophelia; forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KING.
O, he is mad, Laertes.

QUEEN.
For love of God forbear him!

HAMLET.
’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do:
Woul’t weep? woul’t fight? woul’t fast? woul’t tear thyself?
Woul’t drink up eisel? eat a crocodile?
I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I.
And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart. Nay, an thou’lt mouth,
I’ll rant as well as thou.

QUEEN.
This is mere madness:
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove,
When that her golden couplets are disclos’d,
His silence will sit drooping.

HAMLET.
Hear you, sir;
What is the reason that you use me thus?
I lov’d you ever. But it is no matter.
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.

 [_Exit._]

KING.
I pray thee, good Horatio, wait upon him.

 [_Exit Horatio._]

[_To Laertes_]
Strengthen your patience in our last night’s speech;
We’ll put the matter to the present push.—
Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.
This grave shall have a living monument.
An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;
Till then in patience our proceeding be.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A hall in the Castle.

 Enter Hamlet and Horatio.

HAMLET.
So much for this, sir. Now let me see the other;
You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO.
Remember it, my lord!

HAMLET.
Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting
That would not let me sleep. Methought I lay
Worse than the mutinies in the bilboes. Rashly,
And prais’d be rashness for it,—let us know,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall; and that should teach us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

HORATIO.
That is most certain.

HAMLET.
Up from my cabin,
My sea-gown scarf’d about me, in the dark
Grop’d I to find out them; had my desire,
Finger’d their packet, and in fine, withdrew
To mine own room again, making so bold,
My fears forgetting manners, to unseal
Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,
Oh royal knavery! an exact command,
Larded with many several sorts of reasons,
Importing Denmark’s health, and England’s too,
With ho! such bugs and goblins in my life,
That on the supervise, no leisure bated,
No, not to stay the grinding of the axe,
My head should be struck off.

HORATIO.
Is’t possible?

HAMLET.
Here’s the commission, read it at more leisure.
But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

HORATIO.
I beseech you.

HAMLET.
Being thus benetted round with villanies,—
Or I could make a prologue to my brains,
They had begun the play,—I sat me down,
Devis’d a new commission, wrote it fair:
I once did hold it, as our statists do,
A baseness to write fair, and labour’d much
How to forget that learning; but, sir, now
It did me yeoman’s service. Wilt thou know
The effect of what I wrote?

HORATIO.
Ay, good my lord.

HAMLET.
An earnest conjuration from the King,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma ’tween their amities,
And many such-like ‘as’es of great charge,
That on the view and know of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving-time allow’d.

HORATIO.
How was this seal’d?

HAMLET.
Why, even in that was heaven ordinant.
I had my father’s signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal:
Folded the writ up in the form of the other,
Subscrib’d it: gave’t th’impression; plac’d it safely,
The changeling never known. Now, the next day
Was our sea-fight, and what to this was sequent
Thou know’st already.

HORATIO.
So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

HAMLET.
Why, man, they did make love to this employment.
They are not near my conscience; their defeat
Does by their own insinuation grow.
’Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes
Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites.

HORATIO.
Why, what a king is this!

HAMLET.
Does it not, thinks’t thee, stand me now upon,—
He that hath kill’d my king, and whor’d my mother,
Popp’d in between th’election and my hopes,
Thrown out his angle for my proper life,
And with such cozenage—is’t not perfect conscience
To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damn’d
To let this canker of our nature come
In further evil?

HORATIO.
It must be shortly known to him from England
What is the issue of the business there.

HAMLET.
It will be short. The interim is mine;
And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One’.
But I am very sorry, good Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For by the image of my cause I see
The portraiture of his. I’ll court his favours.
But sure the bravery of his grief did put me
Into a tow’ring passion.

HORATIO.
Peace, who comes here?

 Enter Osric.

OSRIC.
Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLET.
I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this waterfly?

HORATIO.
No, my good lord.

HAMLET.
Thy state is the more gracious; for ’tis a vice to know him. He hath
much land, and fertile; let a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib
shall stand at the king’s mess; ’tis a chough; but, as I say, spacious
in the possession of dirt.

OSRIC.
Sweet lord, if your lordship were at leisure, I should impart a thing
to you from his Majesty.

HAMLET.
I will receive it with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet to his
right use; ’tis for the head.

OSRIC.
I thank your lordship, ’tis very hot.

HAMLET.
No, believe me, ’tis very cold, the wind is northerly.

OSRIC.
It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLET.
Methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.

OSRIC.
Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,—as ’twere—I cannot tell how.
But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a
great wager on your head. Sir, this is the matter,—

HAMLET.
I beseech you, remember,—

 [_Hamlet moves him to put on his hat._]

OSRIC.
Nay, in good faith; for mine ease, in good faith. Sir, here is newly
come to court Laertes; believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most
excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing. Indeed,
to speak feelingly of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry; for
you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.

HAMLET.
Sir, his definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know, to
divide him inventorially would dizzy th’arithmetic of memory, and yet
but yaw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of
extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article and his infusion of
such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable
is his mirror and who else would trace him his umbrage, nothing more.

OSRIC.
Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

HAMLET.
The concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer
breath?

OSRIC.
Sir?

HORATIO.
Is’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do’t, sir,
really.

HAMLET.
What imports the nomination of this gentleman?

OSRIC.
Of Laertes?

HORATIO.
His purse is empty already, all’s golden words are spent.

HAMLET.
Of him, sir.

OSRIC.
I know you are not ignorant,—

HAMLET.
I would you did, sir; yet in faith if you did, it would not much
approve me. Well, sir?

OSRIC.
You are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is,—

HAMLET.
I dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence;
but to know a man well were to know himself.

OSRIC.
I mean, sir, for his weapon; but in the imputation laid on him, by them
in his meed he’s unfellowed.

HAMLET.
What’s his weapon?

OSRIC.
Rapier and dagger.

HAMLET.
That’s two of his weapons. But well.

OSRIC.
The King, sir, hath wager’d with him six Barbary horses, against the
which he has imponed, as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards,
with their assigns, as girdle, hangers, and so. Three of the carriages,
in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive to the hilts, most
delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.

HAMLET.
What call you the carriages?

HORATIO.
I knew you must be edified by the margin ere you had done.

OSRIC.
The carriages, sir, are the hangers.

HAMLET.
The phrase would be more german to the matter if we could carry cannon
by our sides. I would it might be hangers till then. But on. Six
Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three
liberal conceited carriages: that’s the French bet against the Danish.
Why is this all imponed, as you call it?

OSRIC.
The King, sir, hath laid that in a dozen passes between you and him, he
shall not exceed you three hits. He hath laid on twelve for nine. And
it would come to immediate trial if your lordship would vouchsafe the
answer.

HAMLET.
How if I answer no?

OSRIC.
I mean, my lord, the opposition of your person in trial.

HAMLET.
Sir, I will walk here in the hall. If it please his Majesty, it is the
breathing time of day with me. Let the foils be brought, the gentleman
willing, and the King hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can; if
not, I will gain nothing but my shame and the odd hits.

OSRIC.
Shall I re-deliver you e’en so?

HAMLET.
To this effect, sir; after what flourish your nature will.

OSRIC.
I commend my duty to your lordship.

HAMLET.
Yours, yours.

 [_Exit Osric._]

He does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else for’s
turn.

HORATIO.
This lapwing runs away with the shell on his head.

HAMLET.
He did comply with his dug before he suck’d it. Thus has he,—and many
more of the same bevy that I know the drossy age dotes on,— only got
the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter; a kind of yeasty
collection, which carries them through and through the most fanned and
winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trial, the bubbles are
out,

 Enter a Lord.

LORD.
My lord, his Majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings
back to him that you attend him in the hall. He sends to know if your
pleasure hold to play with Laertes or that you will take longer time.

HAMLET.
I am constant to my purposes, they follow the King’s pleasure. If his
fitness speaks, mine is ready. Now or whensoever, provided I be so able
as now.

LORD.
The King and Queen and all are coming down.

HAMLET.
In happy time.

LORD.
The Queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes
before you fall to play.

HAMLET.
She well instructs me.

 [_Exit Lord._]

HORATIO.
You will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLET.
I do not think so. Since he went into France, I have been in continual
practice. I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill
all’s here about my heart: but it is no matter.

HORATIO.
Nay, good my lord.

HAMLET.
It is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving as would
perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIO.
If your mind dislike anything, obey it. I will forestall their repair
hither, and say you are not fit.

HAMLET.
Not a whit, we defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of
a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it
will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.
Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?

 Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Lords, Osric and Attendants with foils &c.

KING.
Come, Hamlet, come, and take this hand from me.

 [_The King puts Laertes’s hand into Hamlet’s._]

HAMLET.
Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;
But pardon’t as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows, and you must needs have heard,
How I am punish’d with sore distraction.
What I have done
That might your nature, honour, and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet.
If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then? His madness. If’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purpos’d evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts
That I have shot my arrow o’er the house
And hurt my brother.

LAERTES.
I am satisfied in nature,
Whose motive in this case should stir me most
To my revenge. But in my terms of honour
I stand aloof, and will no reconcilement
Till by some elder masters of known honour
I have a voice and precedent of peace
To keep my name ungor’d. But till that time
I do receive your offer’d love like love,
And will not wrong it.

HAMLET.
I embrace it freely,
And will this brother’s wager frankly play.—
Give us the foils; come on.

LAERTES.
Come, one for me.

HAMLET.
I’ll be your foil, Laertes; in mine ignorance
Your skill shall like a star i’ th’ darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.

LAERTES.
You mock me, sir.

HAMLET.
No, by this hand.

KING.
Give them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,
You know the wager?

HAMLET.
Very well, my lord.
Your Grace has laid the odds o’ the weaker side.

KING.
I do not fear it. I have seen you both;
But since he is better’d, we have therefore odds.

LAERTES.
This is too heavy. Let me see another.

HAMLET.
This likes me well. These foils have all a length?

 [_They prepare to play._]

OSRIC.
Ay, my good lord.

KING.
Set me the stoups of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire;
The King shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath,
And in the cup an union shall he throw
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
‘Now the King drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin.
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLET.
Come on, sir.

LAERTES.
Come, my lord.

 [_They play._]

HAMLET.
One.

LAERTES.
No.

HAMLET.
Judgment.

OSRIC.
A hit, a very palpable hit.

LAERTES.
Well; again.

KING.
Stay, give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
Here’s to thy health.

 [_Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within._]

Give him the cup.

HAMLET.
I’ll play this bout first; set it by awhile.

 [_They play._]

Come. Another hit; what say you?


LAERTES.
A touch, a touch, I do confess.

KING.
Our son shall win.

QUEEN.
He’s fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows.
The Queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

HAMLET.
Good madam.

KING.
Gertrude, do not drink.

QUEEN.
I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.

KING.
[_Aside._] It is the poison’d cup; it is too late.

HAMLET.
I dare not drink yet, madam. By and by.

QUEEN.
Come, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTES.
My lord, I’ll hit him now.

KING.
I do not think’t.

LAERTES.
[_Aside._] And yet ’tis almost ’gainst my conscience.

HAMLET.
Come for the third, Laertes. You do but dally.
I pray you pass with your best violence.
I am afeard you make a wanton of me.

LAERTES.
Say you so? Come on.

 [_They play._]

OSRIC.
Nothing neither way.

LAERTES.
Have at you now.

 [_Laertes wounds Hamlet; then, in scuffling, they change rapiers, and
 Hamlet wounds Laertes._]

KING.
Part them; they are incens’d.

HAMLET.
Nay, come again!

 [_The Queen falls._]

OSRIC.
Look to the Queen there, ho!

HORATIO.
They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

OSRIC.
How is’t, Laertes?

LAERTES.
Why, as a woodcock to my own springe, Osric.
I am justly kill’d with mine own treachery.

HAMLET.
How does the Queen?

KING.
She swoons to see them bleed.

QUEEN.
No, no, the drink, the drink! O my dear Hamlet!
The drink, the drink! I am poison’d.

 [_Dies._]

HAMLET.
O villany! Ho! Let the door be lock’d:
Treachery! Seek it out.

 [_Laertes falls._]

LAERTES.
It is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain.
No medicine in the world can do thee good.
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom’d. The foul practice
Hath turn’d itself on me. Lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poison’d.
I can no more. The King, the King’s to blame.

HAMLET.
The point envenom’d too!
Then, venom, to thy work.

 [_Stabs the King._]

OSRIC and LORDS.
Treason! treason!

KING.
O yet defend me, friends. I am but hurt.

HAMLET.
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.

 [_King dies._]

LAERTES.
He is justly serv’d.
It is a poison temper’d by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet.
Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.

 [_Dies._]

HAMLET.
Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched Queen, adieu.
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time,—as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest,—O, I could tell you,—
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead,
Thou liv’st; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

HORATIO.
Never believe it.
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.
Here’s yet some liquor left.

HAMLET.
As th’art a man,
Give me the cup. Let go; by Heaven, I’ll have’t.
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me.
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

 [_March afar off, and shot within._]

What warlike noise is this?

OSRIC.
Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

HAMLET.
O, I die, Horatio.
The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England,
But I do prophesy th’election lights
On Fortinbras. He has my dying voice.
So tell him, with the occurrents more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

 [_Dies._]

HORATIO.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Why does the drum come hither?

 [_March within._]

 Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors and others.

FORTINBRAS.
Where is this sight?

HORATIO.
What is it you would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRAS.
This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?

FIRST AMBASSADOR.
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late.
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill’d,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.
Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIO.
Not from his mouth,
Had it th’ability of life to thank you.
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England
Are here arriv’d, give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view,
And let me speak to th’ yet unknowing world
How these things came about. So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forc’d cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the inventors’ heads. All this can I
Truly deliver.

FORTINBRAS.
Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune.
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

HORATIO.
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more.
But let this same be presently perform’d,
Even while men’s minds are wild, lest more mischance
On plots and errors happen.

FORTINBRAS.
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to the stage,
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have prov’d most royally; and for his passage,
The soldiers’ music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

 [_A dead march._]

 [_Exeunt, bearing off the bodies, after which a peal of ordnance is
 shot off._]



THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH




by William Shakespeare






 Dramatis Personæ

KING HENRY the Fourth.
HENRY, PRINCE of Wales, son to the King.
Prince John of LANCASTER, son to the King.
Earl of WESTMORELAND.
Sir Walter BLUNT.
Thomas Percy, Earl of WORCESTER.
Henry Percy, Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND.
Henry Percy, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son.
Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March.
Scroop, ARCHBISHOP of York.
SIR MICHAEL, his Friend.
Archibald, Earl of DOUGLAS.
Owen GLENDOWER.
Sir Richard VERNON.
Sir John FALSTAFF.
POINS.
GADSHILL.
PETO.
BARDOLPH.
LADY PERCY, Wife to Hotspur.
Lady Mortimer, Daughter to Glendower.
Mrs. Quickly, Hostess in Eastcheap.
Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers,
Carriers, Travellers and Attendants.

SCENE. England and Wales.

ACT I

SCENE I. London. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter the King Henry, Westmoreland, Sir Walter Blunt, and others.]

KING.
So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood;
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces:  those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way, and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ—
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged to fight—
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walk’d those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail’d
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose now is twelvemonth old,
And bootless ’tis to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now.—Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland,
What yesternight our Council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.

WESTMORELAND.
My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight; when, all athwart, there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against th’ irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken;
A thousand of his people butchered,
Upon whose dead corpse’ there was such misuse,
Such beastly, shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done, as may not be
Without much shame re-told or spoken of.

KING.
It seems, then, that the tidings of this broil
Brake off our business for the Holy Land.

WESTMORELAND.
This, match’d with other, did, my gracious lord;
For more uneven and unwelcome news
Came from the North, and thus it did import:
On Holy-rood day the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met;
Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour,
As by discharge of their artillery,
And shape of likelihood, the news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.

KING.
Here is a dear and true-industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stain’d with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours;
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited:
Ten thousand bold Scots, two-and-twenty knights,
Balk’d in their own blood, did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon’s plains:  of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the Earl of Fife and eldest son
To beaten Douglas; and the Earls of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.
And is not this an honourable spoil,
A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not?

WESTMORELAND.
Faith, ’tis a conquest for a prince to boast of.

KING.
Yea, there thou makest me sad, and makest me sin
In envy that my Lord Northumberland
Should be the father to so blest a son,—
A son who is the theme of honour’s tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet Fortune’s minion and her pride:
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonour stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And call’d mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine:
But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,
Of this young Percy’s pride? the prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surprised,
To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,
I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.

WESTMORELAND.
This is his uncle’s teaching, this is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects;
Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.

KING.
But I have sent for him to answer this;
And for this cause awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.
Cousin, on Wednesday next our Council we
Will hold at Windsor; so inform the lords:
But come yourself with speed to us again;
For more is to be said and to be done
Than out of anger can be uttered.

WESTMORELAND.
I will, my liege.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The same. An Apartment of Prince Henry’s.

[Enter Prince Henry and Falstaff.]

FALSTAFF.
Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

PRINCE.
Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee
after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast
forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a
devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? unless hours were cups
of sack, and minutes capons, and the blessed Sun himself a fair hot
wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be
so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

FALSTAFF.
Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses go by the
Moon and the seven stars, and not by Phoebus,—he, that wandering knight
so fair. And I pr’ythee, sweet wag, when thou art king,—as, God save
thy Grace—Majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none,—

PRINCE.
What, none?

FALSTAFF.
No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and
butter.

PRINCE.
Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.

FALSTAFF.
Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires
of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty:  let us be
Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the Moon; and let
men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by
our noble and chaste mistress the Moon, under whose countenance we
steal.

PRINCE.
Thou say’st well, and it holds well too; for the fortune of us that are
the Moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the
sea is, by the Moon. As, for proof, now: A purse of gold most
resolutely snatch’d on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on
Tuesday morning; got with swearing Lay by, and spent with crying Bring
in; now ill as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and by-and-by in
as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

FALSTAFF.
By the Lord, thou say’st true, lad.  And is not my hostess of the
tavern a most sweet wench?

PRINCE.
As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle.  And is not a buff
jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

FALSTAFF.
How now, how now, mad wag! what, in thy quips and thy quiddities? what
a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

PRINCE.
Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

FALSTAFF.
Well, thou hast call’d her to a reckoning many a time and oft.

PRINCE.
Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?

FALSTAFF.
No; I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

PRINCE.
Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would
not, I have used my credit.

FALSTAFF.
Yea, and so used it, that, were it not here apparent that thou art
heir-apparent—But I pr’ythee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows
standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobb’d as
it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do not thou,
when thou art king, hang a thief.

PRINCE.
No; thou shalt.

FALSTAFF.
Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave judge.

PRINCE.
Thou judgest false already:  I mean, thou shalt have the hanging of the
thieves, and so become a rare hangman.

FALSTAFF.
Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humour; as well as
waiting in the Court, I can tell you.

PRINCE.
For obtaining of suits?

FALSTAFF.
Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe.
’Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib-cat or a lugg’d bear.

PRINCE.
Or an old lion, or a lover’s lute.

FALSTAFF.
Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.

PRINCE.
What say’st thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch?

FALSTAFF.
Thou hast the most unsavoury similes, and art, indeed, the most
comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince,—But, Hal, I pr’ythee
trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a
commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the Council
rated me the other day in the street about you, sir,—but I mark’d him
not; and yet he talk’d very wisely,—but I regarded him not; and yet he
talk’d wisely, and in the street too.

PRINCE.
Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man
regards it.

FALSTAFF.
O, thou hast damnable iteration, and art, indeed, able to corrupt a
saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal; God forgive thee for it!
Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should
speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over
this life, and I will give it over; by the Lord, an I do not, I am a
villain:  I’ll be damn’d for never a king’s son in Christendom.

PRINCE.
Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?

FALSTAFF.
Zounds, where thou wilt, lad; I’ll make one:  an I do not, call me
villain, and baffle me.

PRINCE.
I see a good amendment of life in thee,—from praying to purse-taking.

FALSTAFF.
Why, Hal, ’tis my vocation, Hal; ’tis no sin for a man to labour in his
vocation.

[Enter Poins.]

POINS.
Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men were to be
saved by merit, what hole in Hell were hot enough for him? This is the
most omnipotent villain that ever cried Stand! to a true man.

PRINCE.
Good morrow, Ned.

POINS.
Good morrow, sweet Hal.—What says Monsieur Remorse? what says Sir John
Sack-and-sugar? Jack, how agrees the Devil and thee about thy soul,
that thou soldest him on Good-Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a
cold capon’s leg?

PRINCE.
Sir John stands to his word,—the Devil shall have his bargain;
for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs,—he will give the
Devil his due.

POINS.
Then art thou damn’d for keeping thy word with the Devil.

PRINCE.
Else he had been damn’d for cozening the Devil.

POINS.
But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o’clock, early at
Gads-hill! there are pilgrims gong to Canterbury with rich offerings,
and traders riding to London with fat purses: I have visards for you
all; you have horses for yourselves:  Gadshill lies to-night in
Rochester:  I have bespoke supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap:  we may
do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full
of crowns; if you will not, tarry at home and be hang’d.

FALSTAFF.
Hear ye, Yedward; if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for
going.

POINS.
You will, chops?

FALSTAFF.
Hal, wilt thou make one?

PRINCE.
Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith.

FALSTAFF.
There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou
camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten
shillings.

PRINCE.
Well, then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.

FALSTAFF.
Why, that’s well said.

PRINCE.
Well, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.

FALSTAFF.
By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor, then, when thou art king.

PRINCE.
I care not.

POINS.
Sir John, I pr’ythee, leave the Prince and me alone: I will lay him
down such reasons for this adventure, that he shall go.

FALSTAFF.
Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion, and him the ears of
profiting, that what thou speakest may move, and what he hears may be
believed, that the true Prince may, for recreation- sake, prove a false
thief; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Farewell; you
shall find me in Eastcheap.

PRINCE.
Farewell, thou latter Spring! farewell, All-hallown Summer!

[Exit Falstaff.]

POINS.
Now, my good sweet honey-lord, ride with us to-morrow:  I have a jest
to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto, and
Gadshill, shall rob those men that we have already waylaid:  yourself
and I will not be there; and when they have the booty, if you and I do
not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders.

PRINCE.
But how shall we part with them in setting forth?

POINS.
Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place
of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail; and then will they
adventure upon the exploit themselves; which they shall have no sooner
achieved but we’ll set upon them.

PRINCE.
Ay, but ’tis like that they will know us by our horses, by our habits,
and by every other appointment, to be ourselves.

POINS.
Tut! our horses they shall not see,—I’ll tie them in the wood; our
visards we will change, after we leave them; and, sirrah, I have cases
of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments.

PRINCE.
But I doubt they will be too hard for us.

POINS.
Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever
turn’d back; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason,
I’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the
incomprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we
meet at supper: how thirty, at least, he fought with; what wards, what
blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lies the
jest.

PRINCE.
Well, I’ll go with thee:  provide us all things necessary and meet me
to-night in Eastcheap; there I’ll sup. Farewell.

POINS.
Farewell, my lord.

[Exit.]

PRINCE.
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyok’d humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the Sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother-up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But, when they seldom come, they wish’d-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time, when men think least I will.

[Exit.]

SCENE III. The Same. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter King Henry, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter
Blunt, and others.]

KING.
My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at these indignities,
And you have found me; for, accordingly,
You tread upon my patience:  but be sure
I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty and to be fear’d, than my condition,
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect
Which the proud soul ne’er pays but to the proud.

WORCESTER.
Our House, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge of greatness to be used on it;
And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp to make so portly.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
My good lord,—

KING.
Worcester, get thee gone; for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye:
O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure
The moody frontier of a servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us:  when we need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.

[Exit Worcester.]

[To Northumberland.]

You were about to speak.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Yea, my good lord.
Those prisoners in your Highness’ name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is deliver’d to your Majesty:
Either envy, therefore, or misprision
Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.

HOTSPUR.
My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But, I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress’d,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap’d
Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home:
He was perfumed like a milliner;
And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
He gave his nose, and took’t away again;
Who therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff:  and still he smiled and talk’d;
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady terms
He question’d me; amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
Out of my grief and my impatience
To be so pester’d with a popinjay,
Answer’d neglectingly, I know not what,—
He should, or he should not; for’t made me mad
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
Of guns and drums and wounds,—God save the mark!—
And telling me the sovereign’st thing on Earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villainous salt-petre should be digg’d
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d
So cowardly; and, but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answered indirectly, as I said;
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high Majesty.

BLUNT.
The circumstance consider’d, good my lord,
Whatever Harry Percy then had said
To such a person, and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die, and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.

KING.
Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,
But with proviso and exception,
That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray’d
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against that great magician, damn’d Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve;
For I shall never hold that man my friend
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.

HOTSPUR.
Revolted Mortimer!
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
But by the chance of war:  to prove that true
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,
When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,
In single opposition, hand to hand,
He did confound the best part of an hour
In changing hardiment with great Glendower.
Three times they breathed, and three times did they drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn’s flood;
Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank
Blood-stained with these valiant combatants.
Never did base and rotten policy
Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly:
Then let not him be slander’d with revolt.

KING.
Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;
He never did encounter with Glendower:
I tell thee,
He durst as well have met the Devil alone
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer:
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you.—My Lord Northumberland,
We license your departure with your son.—
Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it.

[Exeunt King Henry, Blunt, and train.]

HOTSPUR.
An if the Devil come and roar for them,
I will not send them:  I will after straight,
And tell him so; for I will else my heart,
Although it be with hazard of my head.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
What, drunk with choler? stay, and pause awhile:
Here comes your uncle.

[Re-enter Worcester.]

HOTSPUR.
Speak of Mortimer!
Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:
Yea, on his part I’ll empty all these veins,
And shed my dear blood drop by drop i’ the dust,
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer
As high i’ the air as this unthankful King,
As this ingrate and canker’d Bolingbroke.

NORTH.
[To Worcester.]
Brother, the King hath made your nephew mad.

WORCESTER.
Who struck this heat up after I was gone?

HOTSPUR.
He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek look’d pale,
And on my face he turn’d an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

WORCESTER.
I cannot blame him:  was not he proclaim’d
By Richard that dead is the next of blood?

NORTHUMBERLAND.
He was; I heard the proclamation:
And then it was when the unhappy King—
Whose wrongs in us God pardon!—did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;
From whence he intercepted did return
To be deposed, and shortly murdered.

WORCESTER.
And for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.

HOTSPUR.
But, soft! I pray you; did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown?

NORTHUMBERLAND.
He did; myself did hear it.

HOTSPUR.
Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin King,
That wish’d him on the barren mountains starve.
But shall it be, that you, that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man,
And for his sake wear the detested blot
Of murderous subornation,—shall it be,
That you a world of curses undergo,
Being the agents, or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?—
O, pardon me, that I descend so low,
To show the line and the predicament
Wherein you range under this subtle King;—
Shall it, for shame, be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power
Did gage them both in an unjust behalf,—
As both of you, God pardon it! have done,—
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
And shall it, in more shame, be further spoken,
That you are fool’d, discarded, and shook off
By him for whom these shames ye underwent?
No! yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banish’d honours, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again;
Revenge the jeering and disdain’d contempt
Of this proud King, who studies day and night
To answer all the debt he owes to you
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths:
Therefore, I say,—

WORCESTER.
Peace, cousin, say no more:
And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontent
I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril and adventurous spirit
As to o’er-walk a current roaring loud
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

HOTSPUR.
If we fall in, good night, or sink or swim!
Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honour cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.

HOTSPUR.
By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced Moon;
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
Without corrival all her dignities:
But out upon this half-faced fellowship!

WORCESTER.
He apprehends a world of figures here,
But not the form of what he should attend.—
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.

HOTSPUR.
I cry you mercy.

WORCESTER.
Those same noble Scots
That are your prisoners,—

HOTSPUR.
I’ll keep them all;
By God, he shall not have a Scot of them;
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not:
I’ll keep them, by this hand.

WORCESTER.
You start away,
And lend no ear unto my purposes.
Those prisoners you shall keep;—

HOTSPUR.
Nay, I will; that’s flat.
He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I’ll holla Mortimer!
Nay,
I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but Mortimer, and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.

WORCESTER.
Hear you, cousin; a word.

HOTSPUR.
All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:
And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales,
But that I think his father loves him not,
And would be glad he met with some mischance,
I’d have him poison’d with a pot of ale.

WORCESTER.
Farewell, kinsman:  I will talk to you
When you are better temper’d to attend.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool
Art thou, to break into this woman’s mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!

HOTSPUR.
Why, look you, I am whipp’d and scourged with rods,
Nettled, and stung with pismires, when I hear
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.
In Richard’s time,—what do you call the place?—
A plague upon’t!—it is in Gioucestershire;—
’Twas where the madcap Duke his uncle kept,
His uncle York;—where I first bow’d my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke;—
When you and he came back from Ravenspurg.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
At Berkeley-castle.

HOTSPUR.
You say true:—
Why, what a candy deal of courtesy
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!
Look, when his infant fortune came to age,
And, Gentle Harry Percy, and kind cousin,—
O, the Devil take such cozeners!—God forgive me!—
Good uncle, tell your tale; for I have done.

WORCESTER.
Nay, if you have not, to’t again;
We’ll stay your leisure.

HOTSPUR.
I have done, i’faith.

WORCESTER.
Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.
Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
And make the Douglas’ son your only mean
For powers in Scotland; which, for divers reasons
Which I shall send you written, be assured,
Will easily be granted.—
[To Northumberland.] You, my lord,
Your son in Scotland being thus employ’d,
Shall secretly into the bosom creep
Of that same noble prelate, well beloved,
Th’ Archbishop.

HOTSPUR.
Of York, is’t not?

WORCESTER.
True; who bears hard
His brother’s death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop.
I speak not this in estimation,
As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted, and set down,
And only stays but to behold the face
Of that occasion that shall bring it on.

HOTSPUR.
I smell’t:  upon my life, it will do well.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Before the game’s a-foot, thou still lett’st slip.

HOTSPUR.
Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot:—
And then the power of Scotland and of York
To join with Mortimer, ha?

WORCESTER.
And so they shall.

HOTSPUR.
In faith, it is exceedingly well aim’d.

WORCESTER.
And ’tis no little reason bids us speed,
To save our heads by raising of a head;
For, bear ourselves as even as we can,
The King will always think him in our debt,
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home:
And see already how he doth begin
To make us strangers to his looks of love.

HOTSPUR.
He does, he does:  we’ll be revenged on him.

WORCESTER.
Cousin, farewell:  no further go in this
Than I by letters shall direct your course.
When time is ripe,— which will be suddenly,—
I’ll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer;
Where you and Douglas, and our powers at once,
As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,
To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,
Which now we hold at much uncertainty.

NORTHUMBERLAND.
Farewell, good brother:  we shall thrive, I trust.

HOTSPUR.
Uncle, adieu: O, let the hours be short,
Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!

[Exeunt.]

ACT II

SCENE I. Rochester. An Inn-Yard.

[Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.]

FIRST CARRIER.
Heigh-ho! an’t be not four by the day, I’ll be hang’d:
Charles’ wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse’ not
pack’d.—What, ostler!

OSTLER.
[within.] Anon, anon.

FIRST CARRIER.
I pr’ythee, Tom, beat Cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point; the
poor jade is wrung in the withers out of all cess.

[Enter another Carrier.]

SECOND CARRIER.
Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to
give poor jades the bots; this house is turned upside down since Robin
ostler died.

FIRST CARRIER.
Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death
of him.

SECOND CARRIER.
I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas:
 I am stung like a tench.

FIRST CARRIER.
Like a tench! by the Mass, there is ne’er a king in Christendom could
be better bit than I have been since the first cock.—What,

ostler! come away and be hang’d; come away.

SECOND CARRIER.
I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as
far as Charing-cross.

FIRST CARRIER.
’Odsbody! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starved.—What, ostler! A
plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst not hear? An
’twere not as good a deed as drink to break the pate of thee, I am a
very villain. Come, and be hang’d: hast no faith in thee?

[Enter Gadshill.]

GADSHILL.
Good morrow, carriers. What’s o’clock?

FIRST CARRIER.
I think it be two o’clock.

GADSHILL.
I pr’ythee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable.

FIRST CARRIER.
Nay, soft, I pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that, i’faith.

GADSHILL.
I pr’ythee, lend me thine.

SECOND CARRIER.
Ay, when? canst tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth a? marry, I’ll see
thee hang’d first.

GADSHILL.
Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?

SECOND CARRIER.
Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.—
Come, neighbour Muggs, we’ll call up the gentlemen:  they will
along with company, for they have great charge.

[Exeunt Carriers.]

GADSHILL.
What, ho! chamberlain!

CHAMBERLAIN.
[Within.] At hand, quoth pick-purse.

GADSHILL.
That’s even as fair as—at hand, quoth the chamberlain; for thou variest
no more from picking of purses than giving direction doth from
labouring; thou lay’st the plot how.

[Enter Chamberlain.]

CHAMBERLAIN.
Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you
yesternight:  there’s a franklin in the wild of Kent hath brought three
hundred marks with him in gold:  I heard him tell it to one of his
company last night at supper; a kind of auditor; one that hath
abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call
for eggs and butter; they will away presently.

GADSHILL.
Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’ clerks, I’ll give thee
this neck.

CHAMBERLAIN.
No, I’ll none of it: I pr’ythee, keep that for the hangman; for
I know thou worshippest Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of
falsehood may.

GADSHILL.
What talkest thou to me of the hangman? if I hang, I’ll make a fat pair
of gallows; for, if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou
know’st he is no starveling. Tut! there are other Trojans that thou
dreamest not of, the which, for sport-sake, are content to do the
profession some grace; that would, if matters should be look’d into,
for their own credit-sake, make all whole. I am joined with no foot
land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad
mustachio purple-hued malt-worms; but with nobility and tranquillity,
burgomasters and great oneyers; such as can hold in, such as will
strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner
than pray:  and yet, zwounds, I lie; for they pray continually to their
saint, the Commonwealth; or, rather, not pray to her, but prey on her,
for they ride up and down on her, and make her their boots.

CHAMBERLAIN.
What, the Commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in foul
way?

GADSHILL.
She will, she will; justice hath liquor’d her. We steal as in a castle,
cock-sure; we have the receipt of fernseed,—we walk invisible.

CHAMBERLAIN.
Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night than to
fern-seed for your walking invisible.

GADSHILL.
Give me thy hand:  thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as
I am a true man.

CHAMBERLAIN.
Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.

GADSHILL.
Go to; homo is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my
gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. The Road by Gads-hill.

[Enter Prince Henry and Poins; Bardolph and Peto at some distance.]

POINS.
Come, shelter, shelter:  I have remov’d Falstaff’s horse, and he frets
like a gumm’d velvet.

PRINCE.
Stand close.

[They retire.]

[Enter Falstaff.]

FALSTAFF.
Poins! Poins, and be hang’d! Poins!

PRINCE.
[Coming forward.]
Peace, ye fat-kidney’d rascal! what a brawling dost thou keep!

FALSTAFF.
Where’s Poins, Hal?

PRINCE.
He is walk’d up to the top of the hill: I’ll go seek him.

[Retires.]

FALSTAFF.
I am accursed to rob in that thief’s company:  the rascal hath removed
my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by
the squire further a-foot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but
to die a fair death for all this, if I ’scape hanging for killing that
rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty
year, and yet I am bewitch’d with the rogue’s company. If the rascal
have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hang’d; it
could not be else:  I have drunk medicines.— Poins!—Hal!—a plague upon
you both!—Bardolph!—Peto!—I’ll starve, ere I’ll rob a foot further. An
’twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man, and to leave
these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth.
Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles a-foot with
me; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough:  a plague
upon’t, when thieves cannot be true one to another! [They whistle.]
Whew!—A plague upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues; give me my
horse, and be hang’d!

PRINCE.
[Coming forward.] Peace! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground,
and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers.

FALSTAFF.
Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down? ’Sblood, I’ll not
bear mine own flesh so far a-foot again for all the coin in thy
father’s exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus?

PRINCE.
Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.

FALSTAFF.
I pr’ythee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king’s son.

PRINCE.
Out, ye rogue! shall I be your ostler?

FALSTAFF.
Go, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta’en,
I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads made on you all, and sung to
filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison. When a jest is so
forward, and a-foot too, I hate it.

[Enter Gadshill.]

GADSHILL.
Stand!

FALSTAFF.
So I do, against my will.

POINS.
O, ’tis our setter: I know his voice.

[Comes forward with Bardolph and Peto.]

BARDOLPH.
What news?

GADSHILL.
Case ye, case ye; on with your visards:  there’s money of the King’s
coming down the hill; ’tis going to the King’s exchequer.

FALSTAFF.
You lie, ye rogue; ’tis going to the King’s tavern.

GADSHILL.
There’s enough to make us all.

FALSTAFF.
To be hang’d.

PRINCE.
Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane; Ned
Poins and I will walk lower; if they ’scape from your
encounter, then they light on us.

PETO.
How many be there of them?

GADSHILL.
Some eight or ten.

FALSTAFF.
Zwounds, will they not rob us?

PRINCE.
What, a coward, Sir John Paunch?

FALSTAFF.
Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather; but yet no coward,
Hal.

PRINCE.
Well, we leave that to the proof.

POINS.
Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge:  when thou need’st him,
there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.

FALSTAFF.
Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hang’d.

PRINCE.
[aside to POINTZ.] Ned, where are our disguises?

POINS.
[aside to PRINCE HENRY.] Here, hard by:  stand close.

[Exeunt Prince and Poins.]

FALSTAFF.
Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I:  every man to his
business.

[Enter Travellers.]

FIRST TRAVELLER.
Come, neighbour:
The boy shall lead our horses down the hill;
We’ll walk a-foot awhile and ease our legs.

FALSTAFF, GADSHILL., &C.
Stand!

SECOND TRAVELLER.
Jesu bless us!

FALSTAFF.
Strike; down with them; cut the villains’ throats. Ah, whoreson
caterpillars! bacon-fed knaves! they hate us youth: down with them;
fleece them.

FIRST TRAVELLER.
O, we’re undone, both we and ours for ever!

FALSTAFF.
Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye undone? No, ye fat chuffs; I would
your store were here! On, bacons on! What, ye knaves! young men must
live. You are grand-jurors, are ye? we’ll jure ye, i’faith.

[Exeunt Fals., Gads., &c., driving the Travellers out.]

[Re-enter Prince Henry and Poins, in buckram suits.]

PRINCE.
The thieves have bound the true men. Now, could thou and I rob the
thieves, and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week,
laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.

POINS.
Stand close:  I hear them coming.

[They retire.]

[Re-enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto.]

FALSTAFF.
Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day.
An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there’s no
equity stirring:  there’s no more valour in that Poins than in a

wild duck.

[As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them.]

PRINCE.
Your money!

POINS.
Villains!

[Falstaff, after a blow or two, and the others run away, leaving the
booty behind them.]

PRINCE.
Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse:
The thieves are scatter’d, and possess’d with fear
So strongly that they dare not meet each other;
Each takes his fellow for an officer.
Away, good Ned. Fat Falstaff sweats to death,
And lards the lean earth as he walks along:
Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him.

POINS.
How the rogue roar’d!

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Warkworth.  A Room in the Castle.

[Enter Hotspur, reading a letter.]

HOTSPUR.
—But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be
there, in respect of the love I bear your House.—He could be contented;
why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our House!—he
shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house.
Let me see some more. The purpose you undertake is dangerous;—Why,
that’s certain:  ’tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but
I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this
flower, safety. The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you
have named uncertain; the time itself unsorted; and your whole plot too
light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.— Say you so, say
you so?  I say unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and
you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good
plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good
friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends.
What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York commends the
plot and the general course of the action. Zwounds! an I were now by
this rascal, I could brain him with his lady’s fan. Is there not my
father, my uncle, and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York,
and Owen Glendower? is there not, besides, the Douglas? have I not all
their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? and
are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is
this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and
cold heart, will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I
could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of
skimm’d milk with so honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the
King:  we are prepared. I will set forward to-night.—

[Enter Lady Percy.]

How now, Kate! I must leave you within these two hours.

LADY PERCY.
O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offence have I this fortnight been
A banish’d woman from my Harry’s bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,
And start so often when thou sitt’st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks;
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and curst melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch’d,
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry Courage! to the field!  And thou hast talk’d
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners ransomed, and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war,
And thus hath so bestirr’d thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow,
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream;
And in thy face strange motions have appear’d,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not.

HOTSPUR.
What, ho!

[Enter a Servant.]

Is Gilliams with the packet gone?

SERVANT.
He is, my lord, an hour ago.

HOTSPUR.
Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff?

SERVANT.
One horse, my lord, he brought even now.

HOTSPUR.
What horse? a roan, a crop-ear, is it not?

SERVANT.
It is, my lord.

HOTSPUR.
That roan shall be my throne.
Well, I will back him straight:  O esperance!—
Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.

[Exit Servant.]

LADY PERCY.
But hear you, my lord.

HOTSPUR.
What say’st thou, my lady?

LADY PERCY.
What is it carries you away?

HOTSPUR.
Why, my horse, my love, my horse.

LADY PERCY.
Out, you mad-headed ape!
A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen
As you are toss’d with. In faith,
I’ll know your business, Harry, that I will.
I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir
About his title, and hath sent for you
To line his enterprise:  but if you go,—

HOTSPUR.
So far a-foot, I shall be weary, love.

LADY PERCY.
Come, come, you paraquito, answer me
Directly to this question that I ask:
In faith, I’ll break thy little finger, Harry,
An if thou wilt not tell me true.

HOTSPUR.
Away,
Away, you trifler! Love? I love thee not,
I care not for thee, Kate:  this is no world
To play with mammets and to tilt with lips:
We must have bloody noses and crack’d crowns,
And pass them current too.—Gods me, my horse!—
What say’st thou, Kate? what wouldst thou have with me?

LADY PERCY.
Do you not love me? do you not indeed?
Well, do not, then; for, since you love me not,
I will not love myself. Do you not love me?
Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.

HOTSPUR.
Come, wilt thou see me ride?
And when I am o’ horseback, I will swear
I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate;
I must not have you henceforth question me
Whither I go, nor reason whereabout:
Whither I must, I must; and, to conclude,
This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.
I know you wise; but yet no further wise
Than Harry Percy’s wife; constant you are;
But yet a woman:  and, for secrecy,
No lady closer; for I well believe
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know;
And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.

LADY PERCY.
How! so far?

HOTSPUR.
Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate:
Whither I go, thither shall you go too;
To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you.
Will this content you, Kate?

LADY PERCY.
It must of force.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s-Head Tavern.

[Enter Prince Henry.]

PRINCE.
Ned, pr’ythee, come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh
a little.

[Enter Poins.]

POINS.
Where hast been, Hal?

PRINCE.
With three or four loggerheads amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I
have sounded the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn
brother to a leash of drawers; and can call them all by their Christian
names, as, Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their
salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of
courtesy; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a
corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy,—by the Lord, so they call
me;—and, when I am King of England, I shall command all the good lads
in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dying scarlet; and, when you
breathe in your watering, they cry hem! and bid you play it off. To
conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I
can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell
thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour, that thou wert not with me in
this action. But, sweet Ned,—to sweeten which name of Ned, I give thee
this pennyworth of sugar, clapp’d even now into my hand by an
under-skinker; one that never spake other English in his life than
Eight shillings and sixpence, and You are welcome; with this shrill
addition, Anon, anon, sir! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon,—or
so.  But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, I pr’ythee,
do thou stand in some by-room, while I question my puny drawer to what
end he gave me the sugar; and do thou never leave calling Francis! that
his tale to me may be nothing but Anon.  Step aside, and I’ll show thee
a precedent.

[Exit Poins.]

POINS.
[Within.]  Francis!

PRINCE.

Thou art perfect.

POINS.
[Within.]  Francis!

[Enter Francis.]

FRANCIS.
Anon, anon, sir.—Look down into the Pomegranate, Ralph.

PRINCE.
Come hither, Francis.

FRANCIS.
My lord?

PRINCE.
How long hast thou to serve, Francis?

FRANCIS.
Forsooth, five years, and as much as to—

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

FRANCIS.
Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE.
Five year! by’r Lady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter. But,
Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy
indenture and show it a fair pair of heels and run from it?

FRANCIS.
O Lord, sir, I’ll be sworn upon all the books in England,
I could find in my heart—

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

FRANCIS.
Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE.
How old art thou, Francis?

FRANCIS.
Let me see,—about Michaelmas next I shall be—

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

FRANCIS.
Anon, sir.—Pray you, stay a little, my lord.

PRINCE.
Nay, but hark you, Francis:  for the sugar thou gavest me, ’twas a
pennyworth, was’t not?

FRANCIS.
O Lord, sir, I would it had been two!

PRINCE.
I will give thee for it a thousand pound:  ask me when thou wilt, and
thou shalt have it.

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

FRANCIS.
Anon, anon.

PRINCE.
Anon, Francis? No, Francis; but to-morrow, Francis; or,
Francis, a Thursday; or, indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But,
Francis,—

FRANCIS.
My lord?

PRINCE.
—wilt thou rob this leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, nott-pated,
agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue,
Spanish-pouch,—

FRANCIS.
O Lord, sir, who do you mean?

PRINCE.
Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink; for, look you,
Francis, your white canvas doublet will sully:  in Barbary, sir, it
cannot come to so much.

FRANCIS.
What, sir?

POINS.
[within.] Francis!

PRINCE.
Away, you rogue! dost thou not hear them call?

[Here they both call him; Francis stands amazed, not knowing which way
to go.]

[Enter Vintner.]

VINTNER.
What, stand’st thou still, and hear’st such a calling? Look to the
guests within. [Exit Francis.]—My lord, old Sir John, with half-a-dozen
more, are at the door:  shall I let them in?

PRINCE.
Let them alone awhile, and then open the door.

[Exit Vintner.]

Poins!

[Re-enter Poins.]

POINS.
Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE.
Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the door:  shall we
be merry?

POINS.
As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye; what cunning match have you
made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what’s the issue?

PRINCE.
I am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours since the
old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve
o’clock at midnight.—What’s o’clock, Francis?

FRANCIS.
[Within.]  Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE.
That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet
the son of a woman! His industry is up-stairs and down-stairs; his
eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy’s mind, the
Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots
at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, Fie upon this
quiet life! I want work. O my sweet Harry, says she, how many hast thou
 kill’d to-day?  Give my roan horse a drench, says he; and answers,
Some fourteen, an hour after,—a trifle, a trifle. I pr’ythee, call in
Falstaff:  I’ll play Percy, and that damn’d brawn shall play Dame
Mortimer his wife. Rivo! says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in
tallow.

[Enter Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto; followed by
Francis with wine.]

POINS.
Welcome, Jack:  where hast thou been?

FALSTAFF.
A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry, and
amen!—
Give me a cup of sack, boy.—Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew
nether-stocks, and mend them and foot them too. A plague of all
cowards!—
Give me a cup of sack, rogue.—Is there no virtue extant?

[Drinks.]

PRINCE.
Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? pitiful-hearted
butter, that melted at the sweet tale of the Sun! if thou didst, then
behold that compound.

FALSTAFF.
You rogue, here’s lime in this sack too:  there is nothing but roguery
to be found in villainous man:  yet a coward is worse than a cup of
sack with lime in it, a villanous coward.—Go thy ways, old Jack:  die
when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face
of the Earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good
men unhang’d in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old: God
help the while! a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could
sing psalms or any thing. A plague of all cowards! I say still.

PRINCE.
How now, wool-sack? what mutter you?

FALSTAFF.
A king’s son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of
lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild-geese,
I’ll never wear hair on my face more. You Prince of Wales!

PRINCE.
Why, you whoreson round man, what’s the matter?

FALSTAFF.
Are not you a coward? answer me to that:—and Poins there?

POINS.
Zwounds, ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by the Lord, I’ll stab
thee.

FALSTAFF.
I call thee coward!  I’ll see thee damn’d ere I call thee coward: but I
would give a thousand pound, I could run as fast as thou canst. You are
straight enough in the shoulders; you care not who sees your back: 
call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give
me them that will face me.—Give me a cup of sack: I am a rogue, if I
drunk to-day.

PRINCE.
O villain! thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk’st last.

FALSTAFF.
All is one for that. A plague of all cowards! still say I.

[Drinks.]

PRINCE.
What’s the matter?

FALSTAFF.
What’s the matter? there be four of us here have ta’en a thousand pound
this day morning.

PRINCE.
Where is it, Jack? where is it?

FALSTAFF.
Where is it! taken from us it is:  a hundred upon poor four of us!

PRINCE.
What, a hundred, man?

FALSTAFF.
I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two
hours together. I have ’scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust
through the doublet, four through the hose; my buckler cut through and
through; my sword hack’d like a hand-saw,—ecce signum! I never dealt
better since I was a man:  all would not do. A plague of all cowards!
Let them speak:  if they speak more or less than truth, they are
villains and the sons of darkness.

PRINCE.
Speak, sirs; how was it?

GADSHILL.
We four set upon some dozen,—

FALSTAFF.
Sixteen at least, my lord.

GADSHILL.
—and bound them.

PETO.
No, no; they were not bound.

FALSTAFF.
You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew else, an
Ebrew Jew.

GADSHILL.
As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men sea upon us,—

FALSTAFF.
And unbound the rest, and then come in the other.

PRINCE.
What, fought you with them all?

FALSTAFF.
All? I know not what you call all; but if I fought not with fifty of
them, I am a bunch of radish:  if there were not two or three and fifty
upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.

PRINCE.
Pray God you have not murdered some of them.

FALSTAFF.
Nay, that’s past praying for: I have pepper’d two of them; two I
am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what,
Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.
Thou knowest my old ward:  here I lay, and thus I bore my point.
Four rogues in buckram let drive at me,—

PRINCE.
What, four? thou saidst but two even now.

FALSTAFF.
Four, Hal; I told thee four.

POINS.
Ay, ay, he said four.

FALSTAFF.
These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more
ado but took all their seven points in my target, thus.

PRINCE.
Seven? why, there were but four even now.

FALSTAFF.
In buckram?

POINS.
Ay, four, in buckram suits.

FALSTAFF.
Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else.

PRINCE.
[aside to Poins.] Pr’ythee let him alone; we shall have more anon.

FALSTAFF.
Dost thou hear me, Hal?

PRINCE.
Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.

FALSTAFF.
Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I
told thee of,—

PRINCE.
So, two more already.

FALSTAFF.
—their points being broken,—

POINS.
Down fell their hose.

FALSTAFF.
—began to give me ground:  but I followed me close, came in foot and
hand; and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid.

PRINCE.
O monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two!

FALSTAFF.
But, as the Devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal
Green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal,
that thou couldst not see thy hand.

PRINCE.
These lies are like the father that begets them, gross as a mountain,
open, palpable. Why, thou nott-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene
greasy tallow-keech,—

FALSTAFF.
What, art thou mad? art thou mad? is not the truth the truth?

PRINCE.
Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so
dark thou couldst not see thy hand? come, tell us your reason: what
sayest thou to this?

POINS.
Come, your reason, Jack, your reason.

FALSTAFF.
What, upon compulsion? No; were I at the strappado, or all the racks in
the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on
compulsion! if reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give
no man a reason upon compulsion, I.

PRINCE.
I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this
bed-presser, this horse-back-breaker, this huge hill of flesh,—

FALSTAFF.
Away, you starveling, you eel-skin, you dried neat’s-tongue, you
stock-fish,—
O, for breath to utter what is like thee!—you tailor’s-yard, you
sheath, you bow-case, you vile standing tuck,—

PRINCE.
Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again:  and, when thou hast tired
thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but this:—

POINS.
Mark, Jack.

PRINCE.
—We two saw you four set on four; you bound them, and were masters of
their wealth.—Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down.— Then did
we two set on you four; and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize,
and have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house: and, Falstaff,
you carried yourself away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and
roared for mercy, and still ran and roar’d, as ever I heard bull-calf.
What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then
say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole canst
thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?

POINS.
Come, let’s hear, Jack; what trick hast thou now?

FALSTAFF.
By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear ye, my
masters: Was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? should I turn upon
the true Prince? why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules:  but
beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true Prince. Instinct is a
great matter; I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the better
of myself and thee during my life; I for a valiant lion, and thou for a
true prince.  But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.—
[To Hostess within.]  Hostess, clap-to the doors:  watch to-night, pray
to-morrow.—Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good
fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play
extempore?

PRINCE.
Content; and the argument shall be thy running away.

FALSTAFF.
Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!

[Enter the Hostess.]

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, my lord the Prince,—

PRINCE.
How now, my lady the hostess! What say’st thou to me?

HOSTESS.
Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the Court at door would speak
with you: he says he comes from your father.

PRINCE.
Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again
to my mother.

FALSTAFF.
What manner of man is he?

HOSTESS.
An old man.

FALSTAFF.
What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his
answer?

PRINCE.
Pr’ythee, do, Jack.

FALSTAFF.
Faith, and I’ll send him packing.

[Exit.]

PRINCE.
Now, sirs:—by’r Lady, you fought fair;—so did you, Peto;—so did you,
Bardolph:  you are lions, too, you ran away upon instinct, you will not
touch the true Prince; no,—fie!

BARDOLPH.
Faith, I ran when I saw others run.

PRINCE.
Tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff’s sword so hack’d?

PETO.
Why, he hack’d it with his dagger; and said he would swear truth out of
England, but he would make you believe it was done in fight; and
persuaded us to do the like.

BARDOLPH.
Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass to make them bleed; and
then to beslubber our garments with it, and swear it was the blood of
true men. I did that I did not this seven year before; I blush’d to
hear his monstrous devices.

PRINCE.
O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert
taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blush’d extempore. Thou
hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou rann’st away: what
instinct hadst thou for it?

BARDOLPH.
My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations?

PRINCE.
I do.

BARDOLPH.
What think you they portend?

PRINCE.
Hot livers and cold purses.

BARDOLPH.
Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.

PRINCE.
No, if rightly taken, halter.—Here comes lean Jack, here comes
bare-bone.—

[Enter Falstaff.]

How now, my sweet creature of bombast! How long is’t ago, Jack, since
thou saw’st thine own knee?

FALSTAFF.
My own knee! when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle’s
talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring:
a plague of sighing and grief! it blows a man up like a bladder.
There’s villanous news abroad:  here was Sir John Bracy from your
father; you must to the Court in the morning. That same mad fellow of
the North, Percy; and he of Wales, that gave Amaimon the bastinado, and
swore the Devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook,—what
a plague call you him?

POINS.
O, Glendower.

FALSTAFF.
Owen, Owen,—the same; and his son-in-law Mortimer; and old
Northumberland; and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that
runs o’ horseback up a hill perpendicular,—

PRINCE.
He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying.

FALSTAFF.
You have hit it.

PRINCE.
So did he never the sparrow.

FALSTAFF.
Well, that rascal hath good metal in him; he will not run.

PRINCE.
Why, what a rascal art thou, then, to praise him so for running!

FALSTAFF.
O’ horseback, ye cuckoo! but a-foot he will not budge a foot.

PRINCE.
Yes, Jack, upon instinct.

FALSTAFF.
I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and
a thousand blue-caps more: Worcester is stolen away to-night; thy
father’s beard is turn’d white with the news:  you may buy land now as
cheap as stinking mackerel. But, tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible
afeard? thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three
such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that
devil Glendower? art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood
thrill at it?

PRINCE.
Not a whit, i’faith; I lack some of thy instinct.

FALSTAFF.
Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou comest to thy
father.  If thou love life, practise an answer.

PRINCE.
Do thou stand for my father and examine me upon the particulars of my
life.

FALSTAFF.
Shall I? content:  this chair shall be my state, this dagger my
sceptre, and this cushion my crown.

PRINCE.
Thy state is taken for a joint-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden
dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown.

FALSTAFF.
Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be
moved.— Give me a cup of sack, to make my eyes look red, that it may be
thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in
King Cambyses’ vein.

PRINCE.
Well, here is my leg.

FALSTAFF.
And here is my speech.—Stand aside, nobility.

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i faith!

FALSTAFF.
Weep not, sweet Queen; for trickling tears are vain.

HOSTESS.
O, the Father, how he holds his countenance!

FALSTAFF.
For God’s sake, lords, convey my tristful Queen;
For tears do stop the floodgates of her eyes.

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever
I see!

FALSTAFF.
Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain.—Harry, I do not only
marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied:
 for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it
grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears. That thou
art my son, I have partly thy mother’s word, partly my own opinion; but
chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye, and a foolish hanging of thy
nether lip, that doth warrant me. If, then, thou be son to me, here
lies the point:  Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall
the blessed Sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? a
question not to be ask’d. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and
take purses? a question to be ask’d. There is a thing, Harry, which
thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the
name of pitch:  this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile;
so doth the company thou keepest:  for, Harry, now I do not speak to
thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in
words only, but in woes also.  And yet there is a virtuous man whom I
have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

PRINCE.
What manner of man, an it like your Majesty?

FALSTAFF.
A goodly portly man, i’faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a
pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some
fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me,
his name is Falstaff:  if that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth
me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If, then, the tree may be
known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I
speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff:  him keep with, the rest
banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me where hast thou
been this month?

PRINCE.
Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my
father.

FALSTAFF.
Depose me! if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in
word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a
poulter’s hare.

PRINCE.
Well, here I am set.

FALSTAFF.
And here I stand.—Judge, my masters.

PRINCE.
Now, Harry, whence come you?

FALSTAFF.
My noble lord, from Eastcheap.

PRINCE.
The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.

FALSTAFF.
’Sblood, my lord, they are false.—Nay, I’ll tickle ye for a young
prince, i’faith.

PRINCE.
Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art
violently carried away from grace:  there is a devil haunts thee, in
the likeness of an old fat man,—a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost
thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of
beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of
sack, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that
reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in
years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? wherein neat
and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in
craft? wherein crafty, but in villany? wherein villainous, but in all
things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

FALSTAFF.
I would your Grace would take me with you:  whom means your Grace?

PRINCE.
That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old
white-bearded Satan.

FALSTAFF.
My lord, the man I know.

PRINCE.
I know thou dost.

FALSTAFF.
But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more
than I know. That he is old,—(the more the pity,—his white hairs do
witness it. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! if to be
old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damn’d: if
to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No,
my good lord:  banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but, for
sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant
Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack
Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy
Harry’s company:  banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

PRINCE.
I do, I will.

[A knocking heard.]

[Exeunt Hostess, Francis, and Bardolph.]

[Enter Bardolph, running.]

BARDOLPH.
O, my lord, my lord! the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the
door.

FALSTAFF.
Out, ye rogue!—Play out the play:  I have much to say in the behalf of
that Falstaff.

[Re-enter the Hostess, hastily.]

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, my lord, my lord,—

PRINCE.
Heigh, heigh! the Devil rides upon a fiddlestick:  what’s the matter?

HOSTESS.
The sheriff and all the watch are at the door:  they are come to search
the house. Shall I let them in?

FALSTAFF.
Dost thou hear, Hal? never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit:
thou art essentially mad without seeming so.

PRINCE.
And thou a natural coward, without instinct.

FALSTAFF.
I deny your major:  if you will deny the sheriff, so; if not, let him
enter:  if I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my
bringing up! I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as
another.

PRINCE.
Go, hide thee behind the arras:—the rest walk, up above.  Now, my
masters, for a true face and good conscience.

FALSTAFF.
Both which I have had; but their date is out, and therefore I’ll hide
me.

PRINCE.
Call in the sheriff.—

[Exeunt all but the Prince and Poins.]

[Enter Sheriff and Carrier.]

Now, master sheriff, what’s your will with me?

SHERIFF.
First, pardon me, my lord. A hue-and-cry
Hath followed certain men unto this house.

PRINCE.
What men?

SHERIFF.
One of them is well known, my gracious lord,—
A gross fat man.

CARRIER.
As fat as butter.

PRINCE.
The man, I do assure you, is not here;
For I myself at this time have employ’d him.
And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee,
That I will, by to-morrow dinner-time,
Send him to answer thee, or any man,
For any thing he shall be charged withal:
And so, let me entreat you leave the house.

SHERIFF.
I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen
Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.

PRINCE.
It may be so:  if he have robb’d these men,
He shall be answerable; and so, farewell.

SHERIFF.
Good night, my noble lord.

PRINCE.
I think it is good morrow, is it not?

SHERIFF.
Indeed, my lord, I think’t be two o’clock.

[Exit Sheriff and Carrier.]

PRINCE.
This oily rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go, call him forth.

POINS.
Falstaff!—fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.

PRINCE.
Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.

[Poins searches.]

What hast thou found?

POINS.
Nothing but papers, my lord.

PRINCE.
Let’s see what they be:  read them.

POINS.
[reads]
Item, A capon, . . . . . . . . .  2s. 2d.
Item, Sauce, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4d.
Item, Sack two gallons ,. . . 5s. 8d.
Item, Anchovies and sack after supper,  2s. 6d.
Item, Bread, . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ob.

PRINCE.
O monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal
of sack! What there is else, keep close; we’ll read it at more
advantage:  there let him sleep till day. I’ll to the Court in the
morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable.
I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot; and I know his death will
be a march of twelve-score. The money shall be paid back again with
advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so, good morrow,
Poins.

POINS.
Good morrow, good my lord.

[Exeunt.]

ACT III

SCENE I. Bangor. A Room in the Archdeacon’s House.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and Glendower.]

MORTIMER.
These promises are fair, the parties sure,
And our induction full of prosperous hope.

HOTSPUR.
Lord Mortimer,—and cousin Glendower,—Will you sit down?—
And uncle Worcester,—A plague upon it!  I have forgot the map.

GLENDOWER.
No, here it is.
Sit, cousin Percy; sit, good cousin Hotspur;
For by that name as oft as Lancaster
Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale, and with
A rising sigh he wisheth you in Heaven.

HOTSPUR.
And you in Hell, as oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.

GLENDOWER.
I cannot blame him:  at my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; ay, and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the Earth
Shaked like a coward.

HOTSPUR.
Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your mother’s cat had
but kitten’d, though yourself had never been born.

GLENDOWER.
I say the Earth did shake when I was born.

HOTSPUR.
And I say the Earth was not of my mind, if you suppose as fearing you
it shook.

GLENDOWER.
The Heavens were all on fire, the Earth did tremble.

HOTSPUR.
O, then th’ Earth shook to see the Heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming Earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch’d and vex’d
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldam Earth, and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth,
Our grandam Earth, having this distemperature,
In passion shook.

GLENDOWER.
Cousin, of many men
I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again, that at my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes;
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have mark’d me extraordinary;
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living,—clipp’d in with the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,—
Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me?
And bring him out that is but woman’s son
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
And hold me pace in deep experiments.

HOTSPUR.
I think there is no man speaks better Welsh.—I’ll to dinner.

MORTIMER.
Peace, cousin Percy; you will make him mad.

GLENDOWER.
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR.
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?

GLENDOWER.
Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the Devil.

HOTSPUR.
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the Devil
By telling truth:  tell truth, and shame the Devil.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I’ll be sworn I’ve power to shame him hence.
O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the Devil!

MORTIMER.
Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.

GLENDOWER.
Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye
And sandy-bottom’d Severn have I sent
Him bootless home and weather-beaten back.

HOTSPUR.
Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
How ’scaped he agues, in the Devil’s name!

GLENDOWER.
Come, here’s the map:  shall we divide our right
According to our threefold order ta’en?

MORTIMER.
Th’ archdeacon hath divided it
Into three limits very equally.
England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,
By south and east is to my part assign’d:
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,
And all the fertile land within that bound,
To Owen Glendower:—and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.
And our indentures tripartite are drawn;
Which being sealed interchangeably,—
A business that this night may execute,—
To-morrow, cousin Percy, you, and I,
And my good Lord of Worcester, will set forth
To meet your father and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.
My father Glendower is not ready yet,
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days:—
[To Glend.] Within that space you may have drawn together
Your tenants, friends, and neighbouring gentlemen.

GLENDOWER.
A shorter time shall send me to you, lords:
And in my conduct shall your ladies come;
From whom you now must steal, and take no leave,
For there will be a world of water shed
Upon the parting of your wives and you.

HOTSPUR.
Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here,
In quantity equals not one of yours.
See how this river comes me cranking in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land
A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.
I’ll have the current in this place damn’d up;
And here the smug and sliver Trent shall run
In a new channel, fair and evenly:
It shall not wind with such a deep indent,
To rob me of so rich a bottom here.

GLENDOWER.
Not wind? it shall, it must; you see it doth.

MORTIMER.
Yea, but
Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up
With like advantage on the other side;
Gelding th’ opposed continent as much
As on the other side it takes from you.

WORCESTER.
Yea, but a little charge will trench him here,
And on this north side win this cape of land;
And then he runneth straight and evenly.

HOTSPUR.
I’ll have it so:  a little charge will do it.

GLENDOWER.
I will not have it alter’d.

HOTSPUR.
Will not you?

GLENDOWER.
No, nor you shall not.

HOTSPUR.
Who shall say me nay?

GLENDOWER.
Why, that will I.

HOTSPUR.
Let me not understand you, then; speak it in Welsh.

GLENDOWER.
I can speak English, lord, as well as you;
For I was train’d up in the English Court;
Where, being but young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty lovely well,
And gave the tongue a helpful ornament,
A virtue that was never seen in you.

HOTSPUR.
Marry, and I am glad of it with all my heart:
I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew,
Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers;
I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn’d,
Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing poetry:
’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.

GLENDOWER.
Come, you shall have Trent turn’d.

HOTSPUR.
I do not care:  I’ll give thrice so much land
To any well-deserving friend;
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone?
GLEND.

The Moon shines fair; you may away by night:
I’ll in and haste the writer, and withal
Break with your wives of your departure hence:
I am afraid my daughter will run mad,
So much she doteth on her Mortimer.

[Exit.]

MORTIMER.
Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father!

HOTSPUR.
I cannot choose:  sometimes he angers me
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,
And of a dragon and a finless fish,
A clip-wing’d griffin and a moulten raven,
A couching lion and a ramping cat,
And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff
As puts me from my faith. I tell you what,
He held me last night at the least nine hours
In reckoning up the several devils’ names
That were his lacqueys:  I cried hum, and well,
But mark’d him not a word. O, he’s as tedious
As a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house: I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates and have him talk to me
In any summer-house in Christendom.

MORTIMER.
In faith, he is a worthy gentleman;
Exceedingly well-read, and profited
In strange concealments; valiant as a lion,
And wondrous affable, and as bountiful
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?
He holds your temper in a high respect,
And curbs himself even of his natural scope
When you do cross his humour; faith, he does:
I warrant you, that man is not alive
Might so have tempted him as you have done,
Without the taste of danger and reproof:
But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.

WORCESTER.
In faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blunt;
And since your coming hither have done enough
To put him quite beside his patience.
You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault:
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood—
And that’s the dearest grace it renders you,—
Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government,
Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain;
The least of which haunting a nobleman
Loseth men’s hearts, and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
Beguiling them of commendation.

HOTSPUR.
Well, I am school’d:  good manners be your speed!
Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.

[Re-enter Glendower, with Lady Mortimer and Lady Percy.]

MORTIMER.
This is the deadly spite that angers me,
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.

GLENDOWER.
My daughter weeps:  she will not part with you;
She’ll be a soldier too, she’ll to the wars.

MORTIMER.
Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy
Shall follow in your conduct speedily.

[Glendower speaks to Lady Mortimer in Welsh, and she answers him in the
same.]

GLENDOWER.
She’s desperate here; a peevish self-will’d harlotry,
One that no persuasion can do good upon.

[Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer in Welsh.]

MORTIMER.
I understand thy looks: that pretty Welsh
Which thou pour’st down from these swelling heavens
I am too perfect in; and, but for shame,
In such a parley should I answer thee.

[Lady Mortimer speaks to him again in Welsh.]

I understand thy kisses, and thou mine,
And that’s a feeling disputation:
But I will never be a truant, love,
Till I have learn’d thy language; for thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn’d,
Sung by a fair queen in a Summer’s bower,
With ravishing division, to her lute.

GLENDOWER.
Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad.

[Lady Mortimer speaks to Mortimer again in Welsh.]

MORTIMER.
O, I am ignorance itself in this!

GLENDOWER.
She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down,
And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you,
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep,
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness;
Making such difference betwixt wake and sleep,
As is the difference betwixt day and night,
The hour before the heavenly-harness’d team
Begins his golden progress in the East.

MORTIMER.
With all my heart I’ll sit and hear her sing:
By that time will our book, I think, be drawn.

GLENDOWER.
Do so:
An those musicians that shall play to you
Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,
And straight they shall be here:  sit, and attend.

HOTSPUR.
Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down:  come, quick, quick, that I
may lay my head in thy lap.

LADY PERCY.
Go, ye giddy goose.

[The music plays.]

HOTSPUR.
Now I perceive the Devil understands Welsh;
And ’tis no marvel he’s so humorous.
By’r Lady, he’s a good musician.

LADY PERCY.
Then should you be nothing but musical; for you are altogether governed
by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.

HOTSPUR.
I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish.

LADY PERCY.
Wouldst thou have thy head broken?

HOTSPUR.
No.

LADY PERCY.
Then be still.

HOTSPUR.
Neither; ’tis a woman’s fault.

LADY PERCY.
Now God help thee!

HOTSPUR.
Peace! she sings.

[A Welsh song by Lady Mortimer.]

Come, Kate, I’ll have your song too.

LADY PERCY.
Not mine, in good sooth.

HOTSPUR.
Not yours, in good sooth! ’Heart! you swear like a
comfit-maker’s wife. Not mine, in good sooth; and, As true
as I live; and, As God shall mend me; and, As sure as day;
And givest such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,
As if thou ne’er walk’dst further than Finsbury.
Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath; and leave in sooth,
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,
To velvet-guards and Sunday-citizens. Come, sing.

LADY PERCY.
I will not sing.

HOTSPUR.
’Tis the next way to turn tailor, or be redbreast-teacher.
An the indentures be drawn, I’ll away within these two hours;
and so, come in when ye will.

[Exit.]

GLENDOWER.
Come, come, Lord Mortimer; you are as slow
As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.
By this our book’s drawn; we’ll but seal, and then
To horse immediately.

MORTIMER.
With all my heart.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. London. A Room in the Palace.

[Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, and Lords.]

KING.
Lords, give us leave; the Prince of Wales and I
Must have some private conference: but be near at hand,
For we shall presently have need of you.

[Exeunt Lords.]

I know not whether God will have it so,
For some displeasing service I have done,
That, in His secret doom, out of my blood
He’ll breed revengement and a scourge for me;
But thou dost, in thy passages of life,
Make me believe that thou art only mark’d
For the hot vengeance and the rod of Heaven
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate and low desires,
Such poor, such base, such lewd, such mean attempts,
Such barren pleasures, rude society,
As thou art match’d withal and grafted to,
Accompany the greatness of thy blood,
And hold their level with thy princely heart?

PRINCE.
So please your Majesty, I would I could
Quit all offences with as clear excuse
As well as I am doubtless I can purge
Myself of many I am charged withal:
Yet such extenuation let me beg,
As, in reproof of many tales devised
By smiling pick-thanks and base news-mongers,—
Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear,—
I may, for some things true, wherein my youth
Hath faulty wander’d and irregular,
Find pardon on my true submission.

KING.
God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,
At thy affections, which do hold a wing
Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.
Thy place in Council thou hast rudely lost,
Which by thy younger brother is supplied;
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the Court and princes of my blood:
The hope and expectation of thy time
Is ruin’d; and the soul of every man
Prophetically does forethink thy fall.
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackney’d in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company,
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession,
And left me in reputeless banishment,

A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But, like a comet, I was wonder’d at;
That men would tell their children, This is he;
Others would say, Where, which is Bolingbroke?
And then I stole all courtesy from Heaven,
And dress’d myself in such humility,
That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned King.
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new;
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne’er seen but wonder’d at:  and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast,
And won by rareness such solemnity.
The skipping King, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state,
Mingled his royalty, with capering fools;
Had his great name profaned with their scorns;
And gave his countenance, against his name,
To laugh at gibing boys, and stand the push
Of every beardless vain comparative;
Grew a companion to the common streets,
Enfeoff’d himself to popularity;
That, being dally swallow’d by men’s eyes,
They surfeited with honey, and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So, when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes
As, sick and blunted with community,
Afford no extraordinary gaze,
Such as is bent on sun-like majesty
When it shines seldom in admiring eyes;
But rather drowsed, and hung their eyelids down,
Slept in his face, and render’d such aspect
As cloudy men use to their adversaries,
Being with his presence glutted, gorged, and full.
And in that very line, Harry, stand’st thou;
For thou hast lost thy princely privilege
With vile participation:  not an eye
But is a-weary of thy common sight,
Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more;
Which now doth that I would not have it do,
Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.

PRINCE.
I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord,
Be more myself.

KING.
For all the world,
As thou art to this hour, was Richard then
When I from France set foot at Ravenspurg;
And even as I was then is Percy now.
Now, by my sceptre, and my soul to boot,
He hath more worthy interest to the state
Than thou, the shadow of succession;
For, of no right, nor colour like to right,
He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,
Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws;
And, being no more in debt to years than thou,
Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on
To bloody battles and to bruising arms.
What never-dying honour hath he got
Against renowned Douglas! whose high deeds,
Whose hot incursions, and great name in arms,
Holds from all soldiers chief majority
And military title capital
Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ:
Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathing-clothes,
This infant warrior, in his enterprises
Discomfited great Douglas; ta’en him once,
Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,
To fill the mouth of deep defiance up,
And shake the peace and safety of our throne.
And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,
Th’ Archbishop’s Grace of York, Douglas, and Mortimer
Capitulate against us, and are up.
But wherefore do I tell these news to thee?
Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,
Which art my near’st and dearest enemy?
Thou that art like enough,—through vassal fear,
Base inclination, and the start of spleen,—
To fight against me under Percy’s pay,
To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns,
To show how much thou art degenerate.

PRINCE.
Do not think so; you shall not find it so:
And God forgive them that so much have sway’d
Your Majesty’s good thoughts away from me!
I will redeem all this on Percy’s head,
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you that I am your son;
When I will wear a garment all of blood,
And stain my favour in a bloody mask,
Which, wash’d away, shall scour my shame with it:
And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights,
That this same child of honour and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry, chance to meet.
For every honour sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled! for the time will come,
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor, good my lord,
T’ engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call hall to so strict account,
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This, in the name of God, I promise here:
The which if I perform, and do survive,
I do beseech your Majesty, may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance:
If not, the end of life cancels all bands;
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.

KING.
A hundred thousand rebels die in this.
Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.—

[Enter Sir Walter Blunt.]

How now, good Blunt! thy looks are full of speed.

BLUNT.
So is the business that I come to speak of.
Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word
That Douglas and the English rebels met
Th’ eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury:
A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,
As ever offer’d foul play in a State.

KING.
The Earl of Westmoreland set forth to-day;
With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster;
For this advertisement is five days old.
On Wednesday next you, Harry, shall set forward;
On Thursday we ourselves will march:
Our meeting is Bridgenorth:  and, Harry, you
Shall march through Glostershire; by which account,
Our business valued, some twelve days hence
Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.
Our hands are full of business:  let’s away;
Advantage feeds him fat, while men delay.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE III. Eastcheap. A Room in the Boar’s-Head Tavern.

[Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.]

FALSTAFF.
Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last action? do I not
bate? do I not dwindle? Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s
loose gown; I am withered like an old apple-John. Well, I’ll repent,
and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall be out of heart
shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent. An I have not
forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn, a
brewer’s horse:  the inside of a church! Company, villainous company,
hath been the spoil of me.

BARDOLPH.
Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.

FALSTAFF.
Why, there is it:  come, sing me a song; make me merry. I was as
virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore
little; diced not above seven times a week; paid money that I borrowed
—three or four times; lived well, and in good compass:  and now I live
out of all order, out of all compass.

BARDOLPH.
Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all
compass, —out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

FALSTAFF.
Do thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life:  thou art our admiral,
thou bearest the lantern in the poop,—but ’tis in the nose of thee;
thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.

BARDOLPH.
Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

FALSTAFF.
No, I’ll be sworn; I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a
death’s-head or a memento mori:  I never see thy face but I think upon
hell-fire, and Dives that lived in purple; for there he is in his
robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would
swear by thy face; my oath should be, By this fire, that’s God’s angel:
 but thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light
in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou rann’st up Gad’s-hill
in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an
ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money. O,
thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast
saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in
the night betwixt tavern and tavern:  but the sack that thou hast drunk
me would have bought me lights as good cheap at the dearest chandler’s
in Europe. I have maintain’d that salamander of yours with fire any
time this two-and-thirty years; God reward me for it!

BARDOLPH.
’Sblood, I would my face were in your stomach!

FALSTAFF.
God-a-mercy! so should I be sure to be heart-burn’d.—

[Enter the Hostess.]

How now, Dame Partlet the hen! have you enquir’d yet who pick’d my
pocket?

HOSTESS.
Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? do you think I keep thieves
in my house? I have search’d, I have inquired, so has my husband, man
by man, boy by boy, servant by servant: the tithe of a hair was never
lost in my house before.

FALSTAFF.
Ye lie, hostess:  Bardolph was shaved, and lost many a hair; and
I’ll be sworn my pocket was pick’d. Go to, you are a woman, go.

HOSTESS.
Who, I? no; I defy thee:  God’s light, I was never call’d so in mine
own house before.

FALSTAFF.
Go to, I know you well enough.

HOSTESS.
No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John: you
owe me money, Sir John; and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it:
I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.

FALSTAFF.
Dowlas, filthy dowlas:  I have given them away to bakers’ wives, and
they have made bolters of them.

HOSTESS.
Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell.
You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings,
and money lent you, four-and-twenty pound.

FALSTAFF.
He had his part of it; let him pay.

HOSTESS.
He? alas, he is poor; he hath nothing.

FALSTAFF.
How! poor? look upon his face; what call you rich? let them coin his
nose, let them coin his cheeks:  I’ll not pay a denier. What, will you
make a younker of me? shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I
shall have my pocket pick’d? I have lost a seal-ring of my
grandfather’s worth forty mark.

HOSTESS.
O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that
ring was copper!

FALSTAFF.
How! the Prince is a Jack, a sneak-cup:  ’sblood, an he were here, I
would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.—

[Enter Prince Henry and Poins, marching.  Falstaff meets them, playing
on his truncheon like a fife.]

How now, lad? is the wind in that door, i’faith? must we all march?

BARDOLPH.
Yea, two-and-two, Newgate-fashion.

HOSTESS.
My lord, I pray you, hear me.

PRINCE.
What say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy husband? I love him
well; he is an honest man.

HOSTESS.
Good my lord, hear me.

FALSTAFF.
Pr’ythee, let her alone, and list to me.

PRINCE.
What say’st thou, Jack?

FALSTAFF.
The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras, and had my pocket
pick’d:  this house is turn’d bawdy-house; they pick pockets.

PRINCE.
What didst thou lose, Jack?

FALSTAFF.
Wilt thou believe me, Hal? three or four bonds of forty pound a-piece
and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s.

PRINCE.
A trifle, some eight-penny matter.

HOSTESS.
So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your Grace say so; and, my
lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouth’d man as he is;
and said he would cudgel you.

PRINCE.
What! he did not?

HOSTESS.
There’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

FALSTAFF.
There’s no more faith in thee than in a stew’d prune; nor no more truth
in thee than in a drawn fox; and, for woman-hood, Maid Marian may be
the deputy’s wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing, go.

HOSTESS.
Say, what thing? what thing?  I am an honest man’s wife:  and, setting
thy knighthood aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

FALSTAFF.
Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

HOSTESS.
Say, what beast, thou knave, thou?

FALSTAFF.
What beast!  why, an otter.

PRINCE.
An otter, Sir John, why an otter?

FALSTAFF.
Why, she’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have her.

HOSTESS.
Thou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or any man knows where to
have me, thou knave, thou!

PRINCE.
Thou say’st true, hostess; and he slanders thee most grossly.

HOSTESS.
So he doth you, my lord; and said this other day you ought him a
thousand pound.

PRINCE.
Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?

FALSTAFF.

A thousand pound, Hal! a million:  thy love is worth a million; thou
owest me thy love.

HOSTESS.
Nay, my lord, he call’d you Jack, and said he would cudgel you.

FALSTAFF.
Did I, Bardolph?

BARDOLPH.
Indeed, Sir John, you said so.

FALSTAFF.
Yea, if he said my ring was copper.

PRINCE.
I say ’tis copper:  darest thou be as good as thy word now?

FALSTAFF.
Why, Hal, thou know’st, as thou art but man, I dare; but as thou art
prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.

PRINCE.
And why not as the lion?

FALSTAFF.
The King himself is to be feared as the lion:  dost thou think I’ll
fear thee as I fear thy father? nay, an I do, I pray God my girdle
break.

PRINCE.
Sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of
thine; it is all fill’d up with midriff. Charge an honest woman with
picking thy pocket! why, thou whoreson, impudent, emboss’d rascal, if
there were anything in thy pocket but tavern-reckonings, and one poor
pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded,—if thy pocket were
enrich’d with any other injuries but these, I am a villain:  and yet
you will stand to it; you will not pocket-up wrong. Art thou not
ashamed!

FALSTAFF.
Dost thou hear, Hal? thou know’st, in the state of innocency Adam fell;
and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou
see’st I have more flesh than another man; and therefore more frailty.
You confess, then, you pick’d my pocket?

PRINCE.
It appears so by the story.

FALSTAFF.
Hostess, I forgive thee:  go, make ready breakfast; love thy husband,
look to thy servants, cherish thy guests:  thou shalt find me tractable
to any honest reason; thou see’st I am pacified.—Still?  Nay, pr’ythee,
be gone.

[Exit Hostess.]

Now, Hal, to the news at Court:  for the robbery, lad, how is that
answered?

PRINCE.
O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to thee:  the money is
paid back again.

FALSTAFF.
O, I do not like that paying back; ’tis a double labour.

PRINCE.
I am good friends with my father, and may do any thing.

FALSTAFF.
Rob me the exchequer the first thing thou doest, and do it with
unwash’d hands too.

BARDOLPH.
Do, my lord.

PRINCE.
I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of Foot.

FALSTAFF.
I would it had been of Horse. Where shall I find one that can steal
well? O, for a fine thief, of the age of two-and-twenty or thereabouts!
I am heinously unprovided. Well, God be thanked for these rebels; they
offend none but the virtuous:  I laud them, I praise them.

PRINCE.
Bardolph,—

BARDOLPH.
My lord?

PRINCE.
Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster,
To my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland.—

[Exit Bardolph.]

Go, Poins, to horse, to horse; for thou and I
Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner-time.—

[Exit Poins.]

Meet me to-morrow, Jack, i’ the Temple-hall
At two o’clock in th’ afternoon:
There shalt thou know thy charge; and there receive
Money and order for their furniture.
The land is burning; Percy stands on high;
And either they or we must lower lie.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
Rare words! brave world!—Hostess, my breakfast; come:—
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!

[Exit.]

ACT IV

SCENE I. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, and Douglas.]

HOTSPUR.
Well said, my noble Scot:  if speaking truth
In this fine age were not thought flattery,
Such attribution should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season’s stamp
Should go so general-current through the world.
By God, I cannot flatter; I defy
The tongues of soothers; but a braver place
In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself:
Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord.

DOUGLAS.
Thou art the king of honour:
No man so potent breathes upon the ground
But I will beard him.

HOTSPUR.
Do so, and ’tis well.—

[Enter a Messenger with letters.]

What letters hast thou there?—I can but thank you.

MESSENGER.
These letters come from your father.

HOTSPUR.
Letters from him! why comes he not himself?

MESSENGER.
He cannot come, my lord; he’s grievous sick.

HOTSPUR.
Zwounds! how has he the leisure to be sick
In such a justling time? Who leads his power?
Under whose government come they along?

MESSENGER.
His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.

WORCESTER.
I pr’ythee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?

MESSENGER.
He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,
And at the time of my departure thence
He was much fear’d by his physicians.

WORCESTER.
I would the state of time had first been whole
Ere he by sickness had been visited:
His health was never better worth than now.

HOTSPUR.
Sick now! droop now! this sickness doth infect
The very life-blood of our enterprise;
’Tis catching hither, even to our camp.

He writes me here, that inward sickness,—
And that his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn; no did he think it meet
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul removed, but on his own.
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,
That with our small conjunction we should on,
To see how fortune is disposed to us;
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the King is certainly possess’d
Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

WORCESTER.
Your father’s sickness is a maim to us.

HOTSPUR.
A perilous gash, a very limb lopp’d off:—
And yet, in faith, ’tis not; his present want
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good
To set the exact wealth of all our states
All at one cast? to set so rich a main
On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour?
It were not good; for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope,
The very list, the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.

DOUGLAS.
Faith, and so we should;
Where now remains a sweet reversion;
And we may boldly spend upon the hope
Of what is to come in:
A comfort of retirement lives in this.

HOTSPUR.
A rendezvous, a home to fly unto,
If that the Devil and mischance look big
Upon the maidenhead of our affairs.

WORCESTER.
But yet I would your father had been here.
The quality and hair of our attempt
Brooks no division:  it will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away,
That wisdom, loyalty, and mere dislike
Of our proceedings, kept the earl from hence:
And think how such an apprehension
May turn the tide of fearful faction,
And breed a kind of question in our cause;
For well you know we of the offering side
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,
And stop all sight-holes, every loop from whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us.
This absence of your father’s draws a curtain,
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.

HOTSPUR.
Nay, you strain too far.
I, rather, of his absence make this use:
It lends a lustre and more great opinion,
A larger dare to our great enterprise,
Than if the earl were here; for men must think,
If we, without his help, can make a head
To push against the kingdom, with his help
We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down.
Yet all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

DOUGLAS.
As heart can think:  there is not such a word
Spoke in Scotland as this term of fear.

[Enter Sir Richard Vernon.]

HOTSPUR.
My cousin Vernon! welcome, by my soul.

VERNON.
Pray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John.

HOTSPUR.
No harm:  what more?

VERNON.
And further, I have learn’d
The King himself in person is set forth,
Or hitherwards intended speedily,
With strong and mighty preparation.

HOTSPUR.
He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,
The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that daff the world aside,
And bid it pass?

VERNON.
All furnish’d, all in arms;
All plumed like estridges that with the wind
Bate it; like eagles having lately bathed;
Glittering in golden coats, like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May
And gorgeous as the Sun at midsummer;
Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
I saw young Harry—with his beaver on,
His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d—
Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury,
And vault it with such ease into his seat,
As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
And witch the world with noble horsemanship.

HOTSPUR.
No more, no more:  worse than the Sun in March,
This praise doth nourish agues. Let them come;
They come like sacrifices in their trim,
And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war,
All hot and bleeding, will we offer them:
The mailed Mars shall on his altar sit
Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire
To hear this rich reprisal is so nigh,
And yet not ours.—Come, let me taste my horse,
Who is to bear me, like a thunderbolt,
Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales:
Harry and Harry shall, hot horse to horse,
Meet, and ne’er part till one drop down a corse.—
O, that Glendower were come!

VERNON.
There is more news:
I learn’d in Worcester, as I rode along,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.

DOUGLAS.
That’s the worst tidings that I hear of yet.

WORCESTER.
Ay, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.

HOTSPUR.
What may the King’s whole battle reach unto?

VERNON.
To thirty thousand.

HOTSPUR.
Forty let it be:
My father and Glendower being both away,
The powers of us may serve so great a day.
Come, let us take a muster speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

DOUGLAS.
Talk not of dying:  I am out of fear
Of death or death’s hand for this one half-year.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II. A public Road near Coventry.

[Enter Falstaff and Bardolph.]

FALSTAFF.
Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry; fill me a bottle of sack:  our
soldiers shall march through; we’ll to Sutton-Co’fil’ to-night.

BARDOLPH.
Will you give me money, captain?

FALSTAFF.
Lay out, lay out.

BARDOLPH.
This bottle makes an angel.

FALSTAFF.
An if it do, take it for thy labour; an if it make twenty,
take them all; I’ll answer the coinage. Bid my lieutenant
Peto meet me at the town’s end.

BARDOLPH.
I will, captain:  farewell.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have
misused the King’s press damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred
and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press’d me none but
good householders, yeomen’s sons; inquired me out contracted bachelors,
such as had been ask’d twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm
slaves as had as lief hear the Devil as a drum; such as fear the report
of a caliver worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild-duck. I press’d me
none but such toasts-and-butter, with hearts in their bodies no bigger
than pins’-heads, and they have bought out their services; and now my
whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of
companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the
glutton’s dogs licked his sores; and such as, indeed, were never
soldiers, but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger
brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a
calm world and a long peace; ten times more dishonourable ragged than
an old faced ancient:  and such have I, to fill up the rooms of them
that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a
hundred and fifty tattered Prodigals lately come from swine-keeping,
from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told
me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and press’d the dead bodies. No eye
hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them,
that’s flat:  nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if
they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison.
There’s but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is
two napkins tack’d together and thrown over the shoulders like a
herald’s coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen
from my host at Saint Alban’s, or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry.
But that’s all one; they’ll find linen enough on every hedge.

[Enter Prince Henry and Westmoreland.]

PRINCE.
How now, blown Jack! how now, quilt!

FALSTAFF.
What, Hal! how now, mad wag! what a devil dost thou in
Warwickshire?—My good Lord of Westmoreland, I cry you mercy:
I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.

WESTMORELAND.
Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I were there, and you too;
but my powers are there already. The King, I can tell you, looks for us
all:  we must away all, to-night.

FALSTAFF.
Tut, never fear me:  I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

PRINCE.
I think, to steal cream, indeed; for thy theft hath already made thee
butter. But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?

FALSTAFF.
Mine, Hal, mine.

PRINCE.
I did never see such pitiful rascals.

FALSTAFF.
Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder;
they’ll fill a pit as well as better:  tush, man, mortal men, mortal
men.

WESTMORELAND.
Ay, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare,—too
beggarly.

FALSTAFF.
Faith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and, for
their bareness, I am sure they never learn’d that of me.

PRINCE.
No, I’ll be sworn; unless you call three fingers on the ribs bare. But,
sirrah, make haste:  Percy is already in the field.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
What, is the King encamp’d?

WESTMORELAND.
He is, Sir John:  I fear we shall stay too long.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
Well,
To the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast
Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

[Exit.]

SCENE III. The Rebel Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas, and Vernon.]

HOTSPUR.
We’ll fight with him to-night.

WORCESTER.
It may not be.

DOUGLAS.
You give him, then, advantage.

VERNON.
Not a whit.

HOTSPUR.
Why say you so? looks he not for supply?

VERNON.
So do we.

HOTSPUR.
His is certain, ours is doubtful.

WORCESTER.
Good cousin, be advised; stir not to-night.

VERNON.
Do not, my lord.

DOUGLAS.
You do not counsel well:
You speak it out of fear and cold heart.

VERNON.
Do me no slander, Douglas:  by my life,—
And I dare well maintain it with my life,—
If well-respected honour bid me on,
I hold as little counsel with weak fear
As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives:
Let it be seen to-morrow in the battle
Which of us fears.

DOUGLAS.
Yea, or to-night.

VERNON.
Content.

HOTSPUR.
To-night, say I.

VERNON.
Come, come, it may not be. I wonder much,
Being men of such great leading as you are,
That you foresee not what impediments
Drag back our expedition:  certain Horse
Of my cousin Vernon’s are not yet come up:
Your uncle Worcester’s Horse came but to-day;
And now their pride and mettle is asleep,
Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,
That not a horse is half the half himself.

HOTSPUR.
So are the horses of the enemy
In general, journey-bated and brought low:
The better part of ours are full of rest.

WORCESTER.
The number of the King exceedeth ours.
For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in.

[The Trumpet sounds a parley.]

[Enter Sir Walter Blunt.]

BLUNT.
I come with gracious offers from the King,
If you vouchsafe me hearing and respect.

HOTSPUR.
Welcome, Sir Walter Blunt; and would to God
You were of our determination!
Some of us love you well; and even those some
Envy your great deservings and good name,
Because you are not of our quality,
But stand against us like an enemy.

BLUNT.
And God defend but still I should stand so,
So long as out of limit and true rule
You stand against anointed majesty!
But to my charge:  the King hath sent to know
The nature of your griefs; and whereupon
You conjure from the breast of civil peace
Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land
Audacious cruelty. If that the King
Have any way your good deserts forgot,
Which he confesseth to be manifold,
He bids you name your griefs; and with all speed
You shall have your desires with interest,
And pardon absolute for yourself and these
Herein misled by your suggestion.

HOTSPUR.
The King is kind; and well we know the King
Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.
My father and my uncle and myself
Did give him that same royalty he wears;
And—when he was not six-and-twenty strong,
Sick in the world’s regard, wretched and low,
A poor unminded outlaw sneaking home—
My father gave him welcome to the shore:
And—when he heard him swear and vow to God,
He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,
To sue his livery and beg his peace,
With tears of innocence and terms of zeal—
My father, in kind heart and pity moved,
Swore him assistance, and performed it too.
Now, when the lords and barons of the realm
Perceived Northumberland did lean to him,
The more and less came in with cap and knee;
Met him in boroughs, cities, villages,
Attended him on bridges, stood in lanes,
Laid gifts before him, proffer’d him their oaths,
Give him their heirs as pages, follow’d him
Even at the heels in golden multitudes.
He presently—as greatness knows itself—
Steps me a little higher than his vow
Made to my father, while his blood was poor,
Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurg;
And now, forsooth, takes on him to reform
Some certain edicts and some strait decrees
That lie too heavy on the commonwealth;
Cries out upon abuses, seems to weep
Over his country’s wrongs; and, by this face,
This seeming brow of justice, did he win
The hearts of all that he did angle for:
Proceeded further; cut me off the heads
Of all the favourites, that the absent King
In deputation left behind him here
When he was personal in the Irish war.

BLUNT.
Tut, I came not to hear this.

HOTSPUR.
Then to the point:
In short time after, he deposed the King;
Soon after that, deprived him of his life;
And, in the neck of that, task’d the whole State:
To make that worse, suffer’d his kinsman March
(Who is, if every owner were well placed,
Indeed his king) to be engaged in Wales,
There without ransom to lie forfeited;
Disgraced me in my happy victories,
Sought to entrap me by intelligence;
Rated my uncle from the Council-board;
In rage dismiss’d my father from the Court;
Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong;
And, in conclusion, drove us to seek out
This head of safety; and withal to pry
Into his title, the which now we find
Too indirect for long continuance.

BLUNT.
Shall I return this answer to the King?

HOTSPUR.
Not so, Sir Walter:  we’ll withdraw awhile.
Go to the King; and let there be impawn’d
Some surety for a safe return again,
And in the morning early shall my uncle
Bring him our purposes: and so, farewell.

BLUNT.
I would you would accept of grace and love.

HOTSPUR.
And may be so we shall.

BLUNT.
Pray God you do.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE IV. York.  A Room in the Archbishop’s Palace.

[Enter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael.]

ARCHBISHOP.
Hie, good Sir Michael; bear this sealed brief
With winged haste to the Lord Marshal;
This to my cousin Scroop; and all the rest
To whom they are directed. If you knew
How much they do import, you would make haste.

SIR MICHAEL.
My good lord,
I guess their tenour.

ARCHBISHOP.
Like enough you do.
To-morrow, good Sir Michael, is a day
Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men
Must bide the touch; for, sir, at Shrewsbury,
As I am truly given to understand,
The King, with mighty and quick-raised power,
Meets with Lord Harry:  and, I fear, Sir Michael,
What with the sickness of Northumberland,
Whose power was in the first proportion,
And what with Owen Glendower’s absence thence,
Who with them was a rated sinew too,
And comes not in, o’er-rul’d by prophecies,—
I fear the power of Percy is too weak
To wage an instant trial with the King.

SIR MICHAEL.
Why, my good lord, you need not fear;
There’s Douglas and Lord Mortimer.

ARCHBISHOP.
No, Mortimer’s not there.

SIR MICHAEL.
But there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,
And there’s my Lord of Worcester; and a head
Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.

ARCHBISHOP.
And so there is:  but yet the King hath drawn
The special head of all the land together;
The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,
The noble Westmoreland, and warlike Blunt;
And many more corrivals and dear men
Of estimation and command in arms.

SIR MICHAEL.
Doubt not, my lord, they shall be well opposed.

ARCHBISHOP.
I hope no less, yet needful ’tis to fear;
And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed:
For if Lord Percy thrive not, ere the King
Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,
For he hath heard of our confederacy;
And ’tis but wisdom to make strong against him:
Therefore make haste. I must go write again
To other friends; and so, farewell, Sir Michael.

[Exeunt.]

ACT V

SCENE I. The King’s Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster, Sir Walter Blunt, and Sir
John Falstaff.]

KING.
How bloodily the Sun begins to peer
Above yon busky hill! the day looks pale
At his distemperature.

PRINCE.
The southern wind
Doth play the trumpet to his purposes;
And by his hollow whistling in the leaves
Foretells a tempest and a blustering day.

KING.
Then with the losers let it sympathize,
For nothing can seem foul to those that win.—

[The trumpet sounds. Enter Worcester and Vernon.]

How, now, my Lord of Worcester! ’tis not well
That you and I should meet upon such terms
As now we meet. You have deceived our trust;
And made us doff our easy robes of peace,
To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel:
This is not well, my lord, this is not well.
What say you to’t? will you again unknit
This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,
And move in that obedient orb again
Where you did give a fair and natural light;
And be no more an exhaled meteor,
A prodigy of fear, and a portent
Of broached mischief to the unborn times?

WORCESTER.
Hear me, my liege:
For mine own part, I could be well content
To entertain the lag-end of my life
With quiet hours; for I do protest,
I have not sought the day of this dislike.

KING.
You have not sought it! why, how comes it, then?

FALSTAFF.
Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.

PRINCE.
Peace, chewet, peace!

WORCESTER.
It pleased your Majesty to turn your looks
Of favour from myself and all our House;
And yet I must remember you, my lord,
We were the first and dearest of your friends.
For you my staff of office did I break
In Richard’s time; and posted day and night
To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand,
When yet you were in place and in account
Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.
It was myself, my brother, and his son,
That brought you home, and boldly did outdare
The dangers of the time. You swore to us,—
And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,—
That you did nothing purpose ’gainst the state;
Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right,
The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster:
To this we swore our aid. But in short space
It rain’d down fortune showering on your head;
And such a flood of greatness fell on you,—
What with our help, what with the absent King,
What with the injuries of a wanton time,
The seeming sufferances that you had borne,
And the contrarious winds that held the King
So long in his unlucky Irish wars
That all in England did repute him dead,—
And, from this swarm of fair advantages,
You took occasion to be quickly woo’d
To gripe the general sway into your hand;
Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;
And, being fed by us, you used us so
As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo-bird,
Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;
Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,
That even our love thirst not come near your sight
For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing
We were enforced, for safety-sake, to fly
Out of your sight, and raise this present head:
Whereby we stand opposed by such means
As you yourself have forged against yourself,
By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,
And violation of all faith and troth
Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise.

KING.
These things, indeed, you have articulate,
Proclaim’d at market-crosses, read in churches,
To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine colour that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurlyburly innovation:
And never yet did insurrection want
Such water-colours to impaint his cause;
Nor moody beggars, starving for a time
Of pellmell havoc and confusion.

PRINCE.
In both our armies there is many a soul
Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,
If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew,
The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world
In praise of Henry Percy:  by my hopes,
This present enterprise set off his head,
I do not think a braver gentleman,
More active-valiant or more valiant-young,
More daring or more bold, is now alive
To grace this latter age with noble deeds.
For my part,—I may speak it to my shame,—
I have a truant been to chivalry;
And so I hear he doth account me too:
Yet this before my father’s Majesty,—
I am content that he shall take the odds
Of his great name and estimation,
And will, to save the blood on either side,
Try fortune with him in a single fight.

KING.
And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,
Albeit considerations infinite
Do make against it.—No, good Worcester, no;
We love our people well; even those we love
That are misled upon your cousin’s part;
And, will they take the offer of our grace,
Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man
Shall be my friend again, and I’ll be his:
So tell your cousin, and then bring me word
What he will do:  but, if he will not yield,
Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,
And they shall do their office. So, be gone;
We will not now be troubled with reply:
We offer fair; take it advisedly.

[Exit Worcester with Vernon.]

PRINCE.
It will not be accepted, on my life:
The Douglas and the Hotspur both together
Are confident against the world in arms.

KING.
Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;
For, on their answer, will we set on them:
And God befriend us, as our cause is just!

[Exeunt the King, Blunt, and Prince John.]

FALSTAFF.
Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me, so; ’tis a
point of friendship.

PRINCE.
Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship.
Say thy prayers, and farewell.

FALSTAFF.
I would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well.

PRINCE.
Why, thou owest God a death.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
’Tis not due yet; I would be loth to pay Him before His day. What need
I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter;
honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come
on? how then? Can honor set-to a leg? no:  or an arm? no:  or take away
the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? no.
What is honour? a word. What is that word, honour? air. A trim
reckoning!—Who hath it? he that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no.
Doth be hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will
it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it.
Therefore I’ll none of it:  honour is a mere scutcheon:—and so ends my
catechism.

[Exit.]

SCENE II. The Rebel Camp.

[Enter Worcester and Vernon.]

WORCESTER.
O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,
The liberal-kind offer of the King.

VERNON.
’Twere best he did.

WORCESTER.
Then are we all undone.
It is not possible, it cannot be,
The King should keep his word in loving us;
He will suspect us still, and find a time
To punish this offence in other faults:
Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;
For treason is but trusted like the fox,
Who, ne’er so tame, so cherish’d, and lock’d up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
Look how we can, or sad or merrily,
Interpretation will misquote our looks;
And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,
The better cherish’d, still the nearer death.
My nephew’s trespass may be well forgot:
It hath th’ excuse of youth and heat of blood,
And an adopted name of privilege,—
A hare-brain’d Hotspur, govern’d by a spleen:
All his offences live upon my head
And on his father’s:  we did train him on;
And, his corruption being ta’en from us,
We, as the spring of all, shall pay for all.
Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,
In any case, the offer of the King.

VERNON.
Deliver what you will, I’ll say ’tis so.
Here comes your cousin.

[Enter Hotspur and Douglas; Officers and Soldiers behind.]

HOTSPUR.
My uncle is return’d: deliver up
My Lord of Westmoreland.—Uncle, what news?

WORCESTER.
The King will bid you battle presently.

DOUGLAS.
Defy him by the Lord Of Westmoreland.

HOTSPUR.
Lord Douglas, go you and tell him so.

DOUGLAS.
Marry, I shall, and very willingly.

[Exit.]

WORCESTER.
There is no seeming mercy in the King.

HOTSPUR.
Did you beg any? God forbid!

WORCESTER.
I told him gently of our grievances,
Of his oath-breaking; which he mended thus,
By new-forswearing that he is forsworn:
He calls us rebels, traitors; and will scourge
With haughty arms this hateful name in us.

[Re-enter Douglas.]

DOUGLAS.
Arm, gentlemen; to arms! for I have thrown
A brave defiance in King Henry’s teeth,
And Westmoreland, that was engaged, did bear it;
Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.

WORCESTER.
The Prince of Wales stepp’d forth before the King,
And, nephew, challenged you to single fight.

HOTSPUR.
O, would the quarrel lay upon our heads;
And that no man might draw short breath to-day
But I and Harry Monmouth! Tell me, tell me,
How show’d his tasking? seem’d it in contempt?

VERNON.
No, by my soul: I never in my life
Did hear a challenge urged more modestly,
Unless a brother should a brother dare
To gentle exercise and proof of arms.
He gave you all the duties of a man;
Trimm’d up your praises with a princely tongue;
Spoke your deservings like a chronicle;
Making you ever better than his praise,
By still dispraising praise valued with you;
And, which became him like a prince indeed,
He made a blushing cital of himself;
And chid his truant youth with such a grace,
As if he master’d there a double spirit,
Of teaching and of learning instantly.
There did he pause:  but let me tell the world,
If he outlive the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.

HOTSPUR.
Cousin, I think thou art enamoured
Upon his follies: never did I hear
Of any prince so wild o’ liberty.
But be he as he will, yet once ere night
I will embrace him with a soldier’s arm,
That he shall shrink under my courtesy.—
Arm, arm with speed:  and, fellows, soldiers, friends,
Better consider what you have to do
Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,
Can lift your blood up with persuasion.

[Enter a Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
My lord, here are letters for you.

HOTSPUR.
I cannot read them now.—
O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
Still ending at th’ arrival of an hour.
An if we live, we live to tread on kings;
If die, brave death, when princes die with us!
Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair,
When the intent of bearing them is just.

[Enter another Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
My lord, prepare:  the King comes on apace.

HOTSPUR.
I thank him, that he cuts me from my tale,
For I profess not talking; only this,
Let each man do his best:  and here draw I
A sword, whose temper I intend to stain
With the best blood that I can meet withal
In the adventure of this perilous day.
Now, Esperance! Percy! and set on.
Sound all the lofty instruments of war,
And by that music let us all embrace;
For, Heaven to Earth, some of us never shall
A second time do such a courtesy.

[The trumpets sound.  They embrace, and exeunt.]

SCENE III. Plain between the Camps.

[Excursions, and Parties fighting.  Alarum to the battle.
Then enter Douglas and Sir Walter Blunt, meeting.]

BLUNT.
What is thy name, that in the battle thus
Thou crossest me? what honour dost thou seek
Upon my head?

DOUGLAS.
Know, then, my name is Douglas,
And I do haunt thee in the battle thus
Because some tell me that thou art a king.

BLUNT.
They tell thee true.

DOUGLAS.
The Lord of Stafford dear to-day hath bought
Thy likeness; for, instead of thee, King Harry,
This sword hath ended him:  so shall it thee,
Unless thou yield thee as my prisoner.

BLUNT.
I was not born a yielder, thou proud Scot;
And thou shalt find a king that will revenge
Lord Stafford’s death.

[They fight, and Blunt is slain. Enter Hotspur.]

HOTSPUR.
O Douglas, hadst thou fought at Holmedon thus,
I never had triumphed o’er a Scot.

DOUGLAS.
All’s done, all’s won; here breathless lies the King.

HOTSPUR.
Where?

DOUGLAS.
Here.

HOTSPUR.
This, Douglas? no; I know this face full well:
A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt;
Semblably furnish’d like the King himself.

DOUGLAS.
A fool go with thy soul, where’re it goes!
A borrow’d title hast thou bought too dear:
Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?

HOTSPUR.
The King hath many marching in his coats.

DOUGLAS.
Now, by my sword, I will kill all his coats;
I’ll murder all his wardrobe piece by piece,
Until I meet the King.

HOTSPUR.
Up, and away!
Our soldiers stand full fairly for the day.

[Exeunt.]

[Alarums. Enter Falstaff.]

FALSTAFF.
Though I could ’scape shot-free at London, I fear the shot here; here’s
no scoring but upon the pate.—Soft! who are you? Sir Walter Blunt: 
there’s honour for you! here’s no vanity! I am as hot as molten lead,
and as heavy too:  God keep lead out of me! I need no more weight than
mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins where they are peppered: 
there’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for
the town’s end, to beg during life. But who comes here?

[Enter Prince Henry.]

PRINCE.
What, stand’st thou idle here? lend me thy sword:
Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff
Under the hoofs of vaunting enemies,
Whose deaths are yet unrevenged:  I pr’ythee,
Lend me thy sword.

FALSTAFF.
O Hal, I pr’ythee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk
Gregory never did such deeds in arms as I have done this
day. I have paid Percy, I have made him sure.

PRINCE.
He is indeed; and living to kill thee.
I pr’ythee, lend me thy sword.

FALSTAFF.
Nay, before God, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou gett’st not my sword; but
take my pistol, if thou wilt.

PRINCE.
Give it me:  what, is it in the case?

FALSTAFF.
Ay, Hal. ’Tis hot, ’tis hot:  there’s that will sack a city.

[The Prince draws out a bottle of sack.]

What, is’t a time to jest and dally now?

[Throws it at him, and exit.]

FALSTAFF.
Well, if Percy be alive, I’ll pierce him. If he do come in my way, so;
if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a carbonado of
me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath:  give me life;
which if I can save, so; if not, honour comes unlooked for, and there’s
an end.

[Exit.]

SCENE IV. Another Part of the Field.

[Alarums. Excursions. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry,
Lancaster, and Westmoreland.]

KING.
I pr’ythee,
Harry, withdraw thyself; thou bleedest too much.—
Lord John of Lancaster, go you unto him.

LANCASTER.
Not I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.

PRINCE.
I do beseech your Majesty, make up,
Lest your retirement do amaze your friends.

KING.
I will do so.—
My Lord of Westmoreland, lead him to his tent.

WESTMORELAND.
Come, my lord, I’ll lead you to your tent.

PRINCE.
Lead me, my lord?  I do not need your help:
And God forbid, a shallow scratch should drive
The Prince of Wales from such a field as this,
Where stain’d nobility lies trodden on,
And rebels’ arms triumph in massacres!

LANCASTER.
We breathe too long:—come, cousin Westmoreland,
Our duty this way lies; for God’s sake, come.

[Exeunt Lancaster and Westmoreland.]

PRINCE.
By Heaven, thou hast deceived me, Lancaster;
I did not think thee lord of such a spirit:
Before, I loved thee as a brother, John;
But now I do respect thee as my soul.

KING.
I saw him hold Lord Percy at the point
With lustier maintenance than I did look for
Of such an ungrown warrior.

PRINCE.
O, this boy
Lends mettle to us all!

[Exit.]

[Alarums. Enter Douglas.]

DOUGLAS.
Another king! they grow like Hydra’s heads:
I am the Douglas, fatal to all those

That wear those colours on them.—What art thou,
That counterfeit’st the person of a king?

KING.
The King himself; who, Douglas, grieves at heart
So many of his shadows thou hast met,
And not the very King. I have two boys
Seek Percy and thyself about the field:
But, seeing thou fall’st on me so luckily,
I will assay thee; so, defend thyself.

DOUGLAS.
I fear thou art another counterfeit;
And yet, in faith, thou bear’st thee like a king:
But mine I’m sure thou art, whoe’er thou be,
And thus I win thee.

[They fight; the King being in danger, re-enter Prince Henry.]

PRINCE.
Hold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like
Never to hold it up again! the spirits
Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt are in my arms:
It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee;
Who never promiseth but he means to pay.—

[They fight:  Douglas flies.]

Cheerly, my lord:  how fares your Grace?
Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,
And so hath Clifton:  I’ll to Clifton straight.

KING.
Stay, and breathe awhile:
Thou hast redeem’d thy lost opinion;
And show’d thou makest some tender of my life,
In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.

PRINCE.
O God, they did me too much injury
That ever said I hearken’d for your death!
If it were so, I might have let alone
Th’ insulting hand of Douglas over you,
Which would have been as speedy in your end
As all the poisonous potions in the world,
And saved the treacherous labour of your son.

KING.
Make up to Clifton:  I’ll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.

[Exit.]

[Enter Hotspur.]

HOTSPUR.
If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.

PRINCE.
Thou speak’st as if I would deny my name.

HOTSPUR.
My name is Harry Percy.

PRINCE.
Why, then I see
A very valiant rebel of the name.
I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,
To share with me in glory any more:
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;
Nor can one England brook a double reign,
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.

HOTSPUR.
Nor shall it, Harry; for the hour is come
To end the one of us; and would to God
Thy name in arms were now as great as mine!

PRINCE.
I’ll make it greater ere I part from thee;
And all the budding honours on thy crest
I’ll crop, to make a garland for my head.

HOTSPUR.
I can no longer brook thy vanities.

[They fight.]

[Enter Falstaff.]

FALSTAFF.
Well said, Hal! to it, Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy’s play here, I
can tell you.

[Re-enter Douglas; he fights with Falstaff, who falls down as if he
were dead, and exit Douglas. Hotspure is wounded, and falls.]

HOTSPUR.
O Harry, thou hast robb’d me of my youth!
I better brook the loss of brittle life
Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;
They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh:
But thoughts the slave of life, and life Time’s fool,
And Time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue:  no, Percy, thou art dust,
And food for—

[Dies.]

PRINCE.
For worms, brave Percy:  fare thee well, great heart!
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
If thou wert sensible of courtesy,
I should not make so dear a show of zeal:
But let my favours hide thy mangled face;
And, even in thy behalf, I’ll thank myself
For doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to Heaven!
Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
But not remember’d in thy epitaph!—

[Sees Falstaff on the ground.]

What, old acquaintance? could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!
I could have better spared a better man:
O, I should have a heavy miss of thee,
If I were much in love with vanity!
Death hath not struck so fat a deer to-day,
Though many dearer, in this bloody fray.
Embowell’d will I see thee by-and-by:
Till then in blood by noble Percy lie.

[Exit.]

FALSTAFF.
[Rising.] Embowell’d! if thou embowel me to-day, I’ll give you leave to
powder me and eat me too to-morrow. ’Sblood, ’twas time to counterfeit,
or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit! I
lie; I am no counterfeit:  to die, is to be a counterfeit; for he is
but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man:  but to
counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit,
but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of
valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.—
Zwounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead:  how,
if he should counterfeit too, and rise? by my faith, I am afraid he
would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure; yea,
and I’ll swear I kill’d him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing
confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah, with a new
wound in your thigh, come you along with me.

[Takes Hotspur on his hack.]

[Re-enter Prince Henry and Lancaster.]

PRINCE.
Come, brother John; full bravely hast thou flesh’d
Thy maiden sword.

LANCASTER.
But, soft! whom have we here?
Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?

PRINCE.
I did; I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding
Upon the ground.—
Art thou alive? or is it fantasy
That plays upon our eyesight? I pr’ythee, speak;
We will not trust our eyes without our ears.
Thou art not what thou seem’st.

FALSTAFF.
No, that’s certain; I am not a double man:  but if I be not Jack
Falstaff, then am I a Jack. There is Percy!  [Throwing the body down.]
if your father will do me any honour, so; if not, let him kill the next
Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.

PRINCE.
Why, Percy I kill’d myself, and saw thee dead.

FALSTAFF.
Didst thou?— Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!— I grant you
I was down and out of breath; and so was he:  but we rose both at an
instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. If I may be
believed, so; if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin
upon their own heads. I’ll take it upon my death, I gave him this wound
in the thigh:  if the man were alive, and would deny it, zwounds, I
would make him eat a piece of my sword.

LANCASTER.
This is the strangest tale that ever I heard.

PRINCE.
This is the strangest fellow, brother John.—
Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back:
For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,
I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.—

[A retreat is sounded.]

The trumpet sounds retreat; the day is ours.
Come, brother, let’s to th’ highest of the field,
To see what friends are living, who are dead.

[Exeunt Prince Henry and Lancaster.]

FALSTAFF.
I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward
him! If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, and leave
sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.

[Exit, bearing off the body.]

SCENE V. Another Part of the Field.

[The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Prince Henry,
Lancaster, Westmoreland, and others, with Worcester and
Vernon prisoners.]

KING.
Thus ever did rebellion find rebuke.—
Ill-spirited Worcester! did not we send grace,
Pardon, and terms of love to all of you?
And wouldst thou turn our offers contrary?
Misuse the tenour of thy kinsman’s trust?
Three knights upon our party slain to-day,
A noble earl, and many a creature else,
Had been alive this hour,
If, like a Christian, thou hadst truly borne
Betwixt our armies true intelligence.

WORCESTER.
What I have done my safety urged me to;
And I embrace this fortune patiently,
Since not to be avoided it fails on me.

KING.
Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too:
Other offenders we will pause upon.—

[Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, guarded.]

How goes the field?

PRINCE.
The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw
The fortune of the day quite turn’d from him,
The noble Percy slain, and all his men
Upon the foot of fear, fled with the rest;
And, falling from a hill, he was so bruised
That the pursuers took him. At my tent
The Douglas is:  and I beseech your Grace
I may dispose of him.

KING.
With all my heart.

PRINCE.
Then, brother John of Lancaster, to you
This honourable bounty shall belong:
Go to the Douglas, and deliver him
Up to his pleasure, ransomless and free:
His valour, shown upon our crests to-day,
Hath taught us how to cherish such high deeds
Even in the bosom of our adversaries.

KING.
Then this remains, that we divide our power.—
You, son John, and my cousin Westmoreland,
Towards York shall bend you with your dearest speed,
To meet Northumberland and the prelate Scroop,
Who, as we hear, are busily in arms:
Myself,—and you, son Harry,—will towards Wales,
To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the check of such another day;
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won.

[Exeunt.]



THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH

Dramatis Personae

  RUMOUR, the Presenter
  KING HENRY THE FOURTH

  HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES, afterwards HENRY
  PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER
  PRINCE HUMPHREY OF GLOUCESTER
  THOMAS, DUKE OF CLARENCE
    Sons of Henry IV

  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND
  SCROOP, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
  LORD MOWBRAY
  LORD HASTINGS
  LORD BARDOLPH
  SIR JOHN COLVILLE
  TRAVERS and MORTON, retainers of Northumberland
    Opposites against King Henry IV

  EARL OF WARWICK
  EARL OF WESTMORELAND
  EARL OF SURREY
  EARL OF KENT
  GOWER
  HARCOURT
  BLUNT
    Of the King's party

  LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
  SERVANT, to Lord Chief Justice

  SIR JOHN FALSTAFF
  EDWARD POINS
  BARDOLPH
  PISTOL
  PETO
    Irregular humourists

  PAGE, to Falstaff

  ROBERT SHALLOW and SILENCE, country Justices
  DAVY, servant to Shallow

  FANG and SNARE, Sheriff's officers

  RALPH MOULDY
  SIMON SHADOW
  THOMAS WART
  FRANCIS FEEBLE
  PETER BULLCALF
    Country soldiers

  FRANCIS, a drawer

  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND
  LADY PERCY, Percy's widow
  HOSTESS QUICKLY, of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap
  DOLL TEARSHEET

  LORDS, Attendants, Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, Servants,
    Speaker of the Epilogue

                       SCENE: England

INDUCTION
                         INDUCTION.
           Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle

            Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues

  RUMOUR. Open your ears; for which of you will stop
    The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
    I, from the orient to the drooping west,
    Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
    The acts commenced on this ball of earth.
    Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
    The which in every language I pronounce,
    Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
    I speak of peace while covert emnity,
    Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;
    And who but Rumour, who but only I,
    Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence,
    Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
    Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
    And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
    Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
    And of so easy and so plain a stop
    That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
    The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,
    Can play upon it. But what need I thus
    My well-known body to anatomize
    Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
    I run before King Harry's victory,
    Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
    Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
    Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
    Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
    To speak so true at first? My office is
    To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
    Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
    And that the King before the Douglas' rage
    Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
    This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
    Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
    And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
    Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
    Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
    And not a man of them brings other news
    Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour's tongues
    They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.
 Exit

ACT I. SCENE I. Warkworth. Before NORTHUMBERLAND'S Castle

Enter LORD BARDOLPH

  LORD BARDOLPH. Who keeps the gate here, ho?

                   The PORTER opens the gate

    Where is the Earl?
  PORTER. What shall I say you are?
  LORD BARDOLPH. Tell thou the Earl
    That the Lord Bardolph doth attend him here.
  PORTER. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard.
    Please it your honour knock but at the gate,
    And he himself will answer.

                      Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

  LORD BARDOLPH. Here comes the Earl.                Exit PORTER
  NORTHUMBERLAND. What news, Lord Bardolph? Every minute now
    Should be the father of some stratagem.
    The times are wild; contention, like a horse
    Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose
    And bears down all before him.
  LORD BARDOLPH. Noble Earl,
    I bring you certain news from Shrewsbury.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Good, an God will!
  LORD BARDOLPH. As good as heart can wish.
    The King is almost wounded to the death;
    And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
    Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
    Kill'd by the hand of Douglas; young Prince John,
    And Westmoreland, and Stafford, fled the field;
    And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
    Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day,
    So fought, so followed, and so fairly won,
    Came not till now to dignify the times,
    Since Cxsar's fortunes!
  NORTHUMBERLAND. How is this deriv'd?
    Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?
  LORD BARDOLPH. I spake with one, my lord, that came from thence;
    A gentleman well bred and of good name,
    That freely rend'red me these news for true.

                         Enter TRAVERS

  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here comes my servant Travers, whom I sent
    On Tuesday last to listen after news.
  LORD BARDOLPH. My lord, I over-rode him on the way;
    And he is furnish'd with no certainties
    More than he haply may retail from me.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, Travers, what good tidings comes with you?
  TRAVERS. My lord, Sir John Umfrevile turn'd me back
    With joyful tidings; and, being better hors'd,
    Out-rode me. After him came spurring hard
    A gentleman, almost forspent with speed,
    That stopp'd by me to breathe his bloodied horse.
    He ask'd the way to Chester; and of him
    I did demand what news from Shrewsbury.
    He told me that rebellion had bad luck,
    And that young Harry Percy's spur was cold.
    With that he gave his able horse the head
    And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
    Against the panting sides of his poor jade
    Up to the rowel-head; and starting so,
    He seem'd in running to devour the way,
    Staying no longer question.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Ha! Again:
    Said he young Harry Percy's spur was cold?
    Of Hotspur, Coldspur? that rebellion
    Had met ill luck?
  LORD BARDOLPH. My lord, I'll tell you what:
    If my young lord your son have not the day,
    Upon mine honour, for a silken point
    I'll give my barony. Never talk of it.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why should that gentleman that rode by Travers
    Give then such instances of loss?
  LORD BARDOLPH. Who- he?
    He was some hilding fellow that had stol'n
    The horse he rode on and, upon my life,
    Spoke at a venture. Look, here comes more news.

                        Enter Morton

  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
    Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
    So looks the strand whereon the imperious flood
    Hath left a witness'd usurpation.
    Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?
  MORTON. I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord;
    Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask
    To fright our party.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. How doth my son and brother?
    Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
    Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
    Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
    So dull, so dread in look, so woe-begone,
    Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night
    And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
    But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
    And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.
    This thou wouldst say: 'Your son did thus and thus;
    Your brother thus; so fought the noble Douglas'-
    Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds;
    But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
    Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
    Ending with 'Brother, son, and all, are dead.'
  MORTON. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
    But for my lord your son-
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, he is dead.
    See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
    He that but fears the thing he would not know
    Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
    That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
    Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
    And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
    And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.
  MORTON. You are too great to be by me gainsaid;
    Your spirit is too true, your fears too certain.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yet, for all this, say not that Percy's dead.
    I see a strange confession in thine eye;
    Thou shak'st thy head, and hold'st it fear or sin
    To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:
    The tongue offends not that reports his death;
    And he doth sin that doth belie the dead,
    Not he which says the dead is not alive.
    Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
    Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
    Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
    Rememb'red tolling a departing friend.
  LORD BARDOLPH. I cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.
  MORTON. I am sorry I should force you to believe
    That which I would to God I had not seen;
    But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,
    Rend'ring faint quittance, wearied and out-breath'd,
    To Harry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down
    The never-daunted Percy to the earth,
    From whence with life he never more sprung up.
    In few, his death- whose spirit lent a fire
    Even to the dullest peasant in his camp-
    Being bruited once, took fire and heat away
    From the best-temper'd courage in his troops;
    For from his metal was his party steeled;
    Which once in him abated, an the rest
    Turn'd on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.
    And as the thing that's heavy in itself
    Upon enforcement flies with greatest speed,
    So did our men, heavy in Hotspur's loss,
    Lend to this weight such lightness with their fear
    That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim
    Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,
    Fly from the field. Then was that noble Worcester
    Too soon ta'en prisoner; and that furious Scot,
    The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring sword
    Had three times slain th' appearance of the King,
    Gan vail his stomach and did grace the shame
    Of those that turn'd their backs, and in his flight,
    Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all
    Is that the King hath won, and hath sent out
    A speedy power to encounter you, my lord,
    Under the conduct of young Lancaster
    And Westmoreland. This is the news at full.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. For this I shall have time enough to mourn.
    In poison there is physic; and these news,
    Having been well, that would have made me sick,
    Being sick, have in some measure made me well;
    And as the wretch whose fever-weak'ned joints,
    Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,
    Impatient of his fit, breaks like a fire
    Out of his keeper's arms, even so my limbs,
    Weak'ned with grief, being now enrag'd with grief,
    Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice crutch!
    A scaly gauntlet now with joints of steel
    Must glove this hand; and hence, thou sickly coif!
    Thou art a guard too wanton for the head
    Which princes, flesh'd with conquest, aim to hit.
    Now bind my brows with iron; and approach
    The ragged'st hour that time and spite dare bring
    To frown upon th' enrag'd Northumberland!
    Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand
    Keep the wild flood confin'd! Let order die!
    And let this world no longer be a stage
    To feed contention in a ling'ring act;
    But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
    Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
    On bloody courses, the rude scene may end
    And darkness be the burier of the dead!
  LORD BARDOLPH. This strained passion doth you wrong, my lord.
  MORTON. Sweet Earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.
    The lives of all your loving complices
    Lean on your health; the which, if you give o'er
    To stormy passion, must perforce decay.
    You cast th' event of war, my noble lord,
    And summ'd the account of chance before you said
    'Let us make head.' It was your pre-surmise
    That in the dole of blows your son might drop.
    You knew he walk'd o'er perils on an edge,
    More likely to fall in than to get o'er;
    You were advis'd his flesh was capable
    Of wounds and scars, and that his forward spirit
    Would lift him where most trade of danger rang'd;
    Yet did you say 'Go forth'; and none of this,
    Though strongly apprehended, could restrain
    The stiff-borne action. What hath then befall'n,
    Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth
    More than that being which was like to be?
  LORD BARDOLPH. We all that are engaged to this loss
    Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas
    That if we wrought out life 'twas ten to one;
    And yet we ventur'd, for the gain propos'd
    Chok'd the respect of likely peril fear'd;
    And since we are o'erset, venture again.
    Come, we will put forth, body and goods.
  MORTON. 'Tis more than time. And, my most noble lord,
    I hear for certain, and dare speak the truth:
    The gentle Archbishop of York is up
    With well-appointed pow'rs. He is a man
    Who with a double surety binds his followers.
    My lord your son had only but the corpse,
    But shadows and the shows of men, to fight;
    For that same word 'rebellion' did divide
    The action of their bodies from their souls;
    And they did fight with queasiness, constrain'd,
    As men drink potions; that their weapons only
    Seem'd on our side, but for their spirits and souls
    This word 'rebellion'- it had froze them up,
    As fish are in a pond. But now the Bishop
    Turns insurrection to religion.
    Suppos'd sincere and holy in his thoughts,
    He's follow'd both with body and with mind;
    And doth enlarge his rising with the blood
    Of fair King Richard, scrap'd from Pomfret stones;
    Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause;
    Tells them he doth bestride a bleeding land,
    Gasping for life under great Bolingbroke;
    And more and less do flock to follow him.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. I knew of this before; but, to speak truth,
    This present grief had wip'd it from my mind.
    Go in with me; and counsel every man
    The aptest way for safety and revenge.
    Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed-
    Never so few, and never yet more need.                Exeunt

SCENE II. London. A street

Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, with his PAGE bearing his sword and buckler

  FALSTAFF. Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?
  PAGE. He said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water; but
    for the party that owed it, he might have moe diseases than he
    knew for.
  FALSTAFF. Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of
    this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything
    that intends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on
    me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in
    other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath
    overwhelm'd all her litter but one. If the Prince put thee into
    my service for any other reason than to set me off, why then I
    have no judgment. Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be
    worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never mann'd with
    an agate till now; but I will inset you neither in gold nor
    silver, but in vile apparel, and send you back again to your
    master, for a jewel- the juvenal, the Prince your master, whose
    chin is not yet fledge. I will sooner have a beard grow in the
    palm of my hand than he shall get one off his cheek; and yet he
    will not stick to say his face is a face-royal. God may finish it
    when he will, 'tis not a hair amiss yet. He may keep it still at
    a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it;
    and yet he'll be crowing as if he had writ man ever since his
    father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace, but he's almost
    out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dommelton about
    the satin for my short cloak and my slops?
  PAGE. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than
    Bardolph. He would not take his band and yours; he liked not the
    security.
  FALSTAFF. Let him be damn'd, like the Glutton; pray God his tongue
    be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel! A rascal-yea-forsooth knave, to
    bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand upon security! The
    whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high shoes, and
    bunches of keys at their girdles; and if a man is through with
    them in honest taking-up, then they must stand upon security. I
    had as lief they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop
    it with security. I look'd 'a should have sent me two and twenty
    yards of satin, as I am a true knight, and he sends me security.
    Well, he may sleep in security; for he hath the horn of
    abundance, and the lightness of his wife shines through it; and
    yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn to light him.
    Where's Bardolph?
  PAGE. He's gone into Smithfield to buy your worship horse.
  FALSTAFF. I bought him in Paul's, and he'll buy me a horse in
    Smithfield. An I could get me but a wife in the stews, I were
    mann'd, hors'd, and wiv'd.

              Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and SERVANT

  PAGE. Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the Prince for
  striking him about Bardolph. FALSTAFF. Wait close; I will not see
  him. CHIEF JUSTICE. What's he that goes there? SERVANT. Falstaff,
  an't please your lordship. CHIEF JUSTICE. He that was in question for
  the robb'ry? SERVANT. He, my lord; but he hath since done good
  service at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge
  to the Lord John of Lancaster. CHIEF JUSTICE. What, to York? Call him
  back again. SERVANT. Sir John Falstaff! FALSTAFF. Boy, tell him I am
  deaf. PAGE. You must speak louder; my master is deaf. CHIEF JUSTICE.
  I am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good. Go, pluck him by
  the elbow; I must speak with him. SERVANT. Sir John! FALSTAFF. What!
  a young knave, and begging! Is there not wars? Is there not
  employment? Doth not the King lack subjects? Do not the rebels need
  soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse
  shame to beg than to be on the worst side, were it worse than the
  name of rebellion can tell how to make it. SERVANT. You mistake me,
  sir. FALSTAFF. Why, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting my
  knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat if I had
  said so. SERVANT. I pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your
  soldiership aside; and give me leave to tell you you in your throat,
  if you say I am any other than an honest man. FALSTAFF. I give thee
  leave to tell me so! I lay aside that which grows to me! If thou
  get'st any leave of me, hang me; if thou tak'st leave, thou wert
  better be hang'd. You hunt counter. Hence! Avaunt! SERVANT. Sir, my
  lord would speak with you. CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John Falstaff, a word
  with you. FALSTAFF. My good lord! God give your lordship good time of
  day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad. I heard say your lordship
  was sick; I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice. Your lordship,
  though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack of age in you,
  some relish of the saltness of time; and I most humbly beseech your
  lordship to have a reverend care of your health. CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir
  John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury. FALSTAFF.
  An't please your lordship, I hear his Majesty is return'd with some
  discomfort from Wales. CHIEF JUSTICE. I talk not of his Majesty. You
  would not come when I sent for you. FALSTAFF. And I hear, moreover,
  his Highness is fall'n into this same whoreson apoplexy. CHIEF
  JUSTICE. Well God mend him! I pray you let me speak with you.
  FALSTAFF. This apoplexy, as I take it, is a kind of lethargy, an't
  please your lordship, a kind of sleeping in the blood, a whoreson
  tingling. CHIEF JUSTICE. What tell you me of it? Be it as it is.
  FALSTAFF. It hath it original from much grief, from study, and
  perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects in
  Galen; it is a kind of deafness. CHIEF JUSTICE. I think you are
  fall'n into the disease, for you hear not what I say to you.
  FALSTAFF. Very well, my lord, very well. Rather an't please you, it
  is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking, that I am
  troubled withal. CHIEF JUSTICE. To punish you by the heels would
  amend the attention of your ears; and I care not if I do become your
  physician. FALSTAFF. I am as poor as Job, my lord, but not so
  patient. Your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me
  in respect of poverty; but how I should be your patient to follow
  your prescriptions, the wise may make some dram of a scruple, or
  indeed a scruple itself. CHIEF JUSTICE. I sent for you, when there
  were matters against you for your life, to come speak with me.
  FALSTAFF. As I was then advis'd by my learned counsel in the laws of
  this land-service, I did not come. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the truth is,
  Sir John, you live in great infamy. FALSTAFF. He that buckles himself
  in my belt cannot live in less. CHIEF JUSTICE. Your means are very
  slender, and your waste is great. FALSTAFF. I would it were
  otherwise; I would my means were greater and my waist slenderer.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. You have misled the youthful Prince. FALSTAFF. The
  young Prince hath misled me. I am the fellow with the great belly,
  and he my dog. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, I am loath to gall a new-heal'd
  wound. Your day's service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over
  your night's exploit on Gadshill. You may thank th' unquiet time for
  your quiet o'erposting that action. FALSTAFF. My lord- CHIEF JUSTICE.
  But since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.
  FALSTAFF. To wake a wolf is as bad as smell a fox. CHIEF JUSTICE.
  What! you are as a candle, the better part burnt out. FALSTAFF. A
  wassail candle, my lord- all tallow; if I did say of wax, my growth
  would approve the truth. CHIEF JUSTICE. There is not a white hair in
  your face but should have his effect of gravity. FALSTAFF. His effect
  of gravy, gravy, CHIEF JUSTICE. You follow the young Prince up and
  down, like his ill angel. FALSTAFF. Not so, my lord. Your ill angel
  is light; but  hope he that looks upon me will take me without
  weighing. And yet in some respects, I grant, I cannot go- I cannot
  tell. Virtue is of so little regard in these costermongers' times
  that true valour is turn'd berod; pregnancy is made a tapster, and
  his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings; all the other gifts
  appertinent to man, as the malice of this age shapes them, are not
  worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of
  us that are young; you do measure the heat of our livers with the
  bitterness of your galls; and we that are in the vaward of our youth,
  must confess, are wags too. CHIEF JUSTICE. Do you set down your name
  in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the
  characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow
  cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not
  your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit
  single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you
  yet call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John! FALSTAFF. My lord,
  I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white
  head and something a round belly. For my voice- I have lost it with
  hallooing and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will
  not. The truth is, I am only old in judgment and understanding; and
  he that will caper with me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the
  money, and have at him. For the box of the ear that the Prince gave
  you- he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible
  lord. I have check'd him for it; and the young lion repents- marry,
  not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack. CHIEF
  JUSTICE. Well, God send the Prince a better companion! FALSTAFF. God
  send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Well, the King hath sever'd you. I hear you are going
  with Lord John of Lancaster against the Archbishop and the Earl of
  Northumberland. FALSTAFF. Yea; I thank your pretty sweet wit for it.
  But look you pray, all you that kiss my Lady Peace at home, that our
  armies join not in a hot day; for, by the Lord, I take but two shirts
  out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily. If it be a hot
  day, and I brandish anything but a bottle, I would I might never spit
  white again. There is not a dangerous action can peep out his head
  but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever; but it was alway
  yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to
  make it too common. If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should
  give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the
  enemy as it is. I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than
  to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion. CHIEF JUSTICE. Well,
  be honest, be honest; and God bless your expedition! FALSTAFF. Will
  your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth? CHIEF
  JUSTICE. Not a penny, not a penny; you are too impatient to bear
  crosses. Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmoreland. Exeunt
  CHIEF JUSTICE and SERVANT FALSTAFF. If I do, fillip me with a
  three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness
  than 'a can part young limbs and lechery; but the gout galls the one,
  and the pox pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my
  curses. Boy! PAGE. Sir? FALSTAFF. What money is in my purse? PAGE.
  Seven groats and two pence. FALSTAFF. I can get no remedy against
  this consumption of the purse; borrowing only lingers and lingers it
  out, but the disease is incurable. Go bear this letter to my Lord of
  Lancaster; this to the Prince; this to the Earl of Westmoreland; and
  this to old Mistress Ursula, whom I have weekly sworn to marry since
  I perceiv'd the first white hair of my chin. About it; you know where
  to find me.  [Exit PAGE]  A pox of this gout! or, a gout of this pox!
  for the one or the other plays the rogue with my great toe. 'Tis no
  matter if I do halt; I have the wars for my colour, and my pension
  shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything.
  I will turn diseases to commodity. Exit

SCENE III. York. The ARCHBISHOP'S palace

Enter the ARCHBISHOP, THOMAS MOWBRAY the EARL MARSHAL, LORD HASTINGS,
and LORD BARDOLPH

  ARCHBISHOP. Thus have you heard our cause and known our means;
    And, my most noble friends, I pray you all
    Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes-
    And first, Lord Marshal, what say you to it?
  MOWBRAY. I well allow the occasion of our amis;
    But gladly would be better satisfied
    How, in our means, we should advance ourselves
    To look with forehead bold and big enough
    Upon the power and puissance of the King.
  HASTINGS. Our present musters grow upon the file
    To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
    And our supplies live largely in the hope
    Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
    With an incensed fire of injuries.
  LORD BARDOLPH. The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:
    Whether our present five and twenty thousand
    May hold up head without Northumberland?
  HASTINGS. With him, we may.
  LORD BARDOLPH. Yea, marry, there's the point;
    But if without him we be thought too feeble,
    My judgment is we should not step too far
    Till we had his assistance by the hand;
    For, in a theme so bloody-fac'd as this,
    Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
    Of aids incertain, should not be admitted.
  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
    It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.
  LORD BARDOLPH. It was, my lord; who lin'd himself with hope,
    Eating the air and promise of supply,
    Flatt'ring himself in project of a power
    Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts;
    And so, with great imagination
    Proper to madmen, led his powers to death,
    And, winking, leapt into destruction.
  HASTINGS. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
    To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.
  LORD BARDOLPH. Yes, if this present quality of war-
    Indeed the instant action, a cause on foot-
    Lives so in hope, as in an early spring
    We see th' appearing buds; which to prove fruit
    Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair
    That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
    We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
    And when we see the figure of the house,
    Then we must rate the cost of the erection;
    Which if we find outweighs ability,
    What do we then but draw anew the model
    In fewer offices, or at least desist
    To build at all? Much more, in this great work-
    Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
    And set another up- should we survey
    The plot of situation and the model,
    Consent upon a sure foundation,
    Question surveyors, know our own estate
    How able such a work to undergo-
    To weigh against his opposite; or else
    We fortify in paper and in figures,
    Using the names of men instead of men;
    Like one that draws the model of a house
    Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
    Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost
    A naked subject to the weeping clouds
    And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.
  HASTINGS. Grant that our hopes- yet likely of fair birth-
    Should be still-born, and that we now possess'd
    The utmost man of expectation,
    I think we are so a body strong enough,
    Even as we are, to equal with the King.
  LORD BARDOLPH. What, is the King but five and twenty thousand?
  HASTINGS. To us no more; nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph;
    For his divisions, as the times do brawl,
    Are in three heads: one power against the French,
    And one against Glendower; perforce a third
    Must take up us. So is the unfirm King
    In three divided; and his coffers sound
    With hollow poverty and emptiness.
  ARCHBISHOP. That he should draw his several strengths together
    And come against us in full puissance
    Need not be dreaded.
  HASTINGS. If he should do so,
    He leaves his back unarm'd, the French and Welsh
    Baying at his heels. Never fear that.
  LORD BARDOLPH. Who is it like should lead his forces hither?
  HASTINGS. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmoreland;
    Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth;
    But who is substituted against the French
    I have no certain notice.
  ARCHBISHOP. Let us on,
    And publish the occasion of our arms.
    The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
    Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.
    An habitation giddy and unsure
    Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
    O thou fond many, with what loud applause
    Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke
    Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
    And being now trimm'd in thine own desires,
    Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him
    That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
    So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
    Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
    And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up,
    And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times?
    They that, when Richard liv'd, would have him die
    Are now become enamour'd on his grave.
    Thou that threw'st dust upon his goodly head,
    When through proud London he came sighing on
    After th' admired heels of Bolingbroke,
    Criest now 'O earth, yield us that king again,
    And take thou this!' O thoughts of men accurs'd!
    Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.
  MOWBRAY. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?
  HASTINGS. We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. London. A street

Enter HOSTESS with two officers, FANG and SNARE

  HOSTESS. Master Fang, have you ent'red the action?
  FANG. It is ent'red.
  HOSTESS. Where's your yeoman? Is't a lusty yeoman? Will 'a stand
    to't?
  FANG. Sirrah, where's Snare?
  HOSTESS. O Lord, ay! good Master Snare.
  SNARE. Here, here.
  FANG. Snare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.
  HOSTESS. Yea, good Master Snare; I have ent'red him and all.
  SNARE. It may chance cost some of our lives, for he will stab.
  HOSTESS. Alas the day! take heed of him; he stabb'd me in mine own
    house, and that most beastly. In good faith, 'a cares not what
    mischief he does, if his weapon be out; he will foin like any
    devil; he will spare neither man, woman, nor child.
  FANG. If I can close with him, I care not for his thrust.
  HOSTESS. No, nor I neither; I'll be at your elbow.
  FANG. An I but fist him once; an 'a come but within my vice!
  HOSTESS. I am undone by his going; I warrant you, he's an
    infinitive thing upon my score. Good Master Fang, hold him sure.
    Good Master Snare, let him not scape. 'A comes continuantly to
    Pie-corner- saving your manhoods- to buy a saddle; and he is
    indited to dinner to the Lubber's Head in Lumbert Street, to
    Master Smooth's the silkman. I pray you, since my exion is
    ent'red, and my case so openly known to the world, let him be
    brought in to his answer. A hundred mark is a long one for a poor
    lone woman to bear; and I have borne, and borne, and borne; and
    have been fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, and fubb'd off, from this
    day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no
    honesty in such dealing; unless a woman should be made an ass and
    a beast, to bear every knave's wrong.

            Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, PAGE, and BARDOLPH

    Yonder he comes; and that arrant malmsey-nose knave, Bardolph,
    with him. Do your offices, do your offices, Master Fang and
    Master Snare; do me, do me, do me your offices.
  FALSTAFF. How now! whose mare's dead? What's the matter?
  FANG. Sir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.
  FALSTAFF. Away, varlets! Draw, Bardolph. Cut me off the villian's
    head. Throw the quean in the channel.
  HOSTESS. Throw me in the channel! I'll throw thee in the channel.
    Wilt thou? wilt thou? thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! Ah,
    thou honeysuckle villain! wilt thou kill God's officers and the
    King's? Ah, thou honey-seed rogue! thou art a honey-seed; a
    man-queller and a woman-queller.
  FALSTAFF. Keep them off, Bardolph.
  FANG. A rescue! a rescue!
  HOSTESS. Good people, bring a rescue or two. Thou wot, wot thou!
    thou wot, wot ta? Do, do, thou rogue! do, thou hemp-seed!
  PAGE. Away, you scullion! you rampallian! you fustilarian!
    I'll tickle your catastrophe.

              Enter the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and his men

  CHIEF JUSTICE. What is the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!
  HOSTESS. Good my lord, be good to me. I beseech you, stand to me.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. How now, Sir John! what, are you brawling here?
    Doth this become your place, your time, and business?
    You should have been well on your way to York.
    Stand from him, fellow; wherefore hang'st thou upon him?
  HOSTESS. O My most worshipful lord, an't please your Grace, I am a
    poor widow of Eastcheap, and he is arrested at my suit.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. For what sum?
  HOSTESS. It is more than for some, my lord; it is for all- all I
    have. He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my
    substance into that fat belly of his. But I will have some of it
    out again, or I will ride thee a nights like a mare.
  FALSTAFF. I think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any
    vantage of ground to get up.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. How comes this, Sir John? Fie! What man of good
    temper would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not
    ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come by
    her own?
  FALSTAFF. What is the gross sum that I owe thee?
  HOSTESS. Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money
    too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in
    my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, upon
    Wednesday in Wheeson week, when the Prince broke thy head for
    liking his father to singing-man of Windsor- thou didst swear to
    me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my
    lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife Keech, the
    butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly? Coming
    in to borrow a mess of vinegar, telling us she had a good dish of
    prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told
    thee they were ill for green wound? And didst thou not, when she
    was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more so familiarity with
    such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam?
    And didst thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch the thirty
    shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath. Deny it, if thou
    canst.
  FALSTAFF. My lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and
    down the town that her eldest son is like you. She hath been in
    good case, and, the truth is, poverty hath distracted her. But
    for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress
    against them.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your
    manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a
    confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more
    than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level
    consideration. You have, as it appears to me, practis'd upon the
    easy yielding spirit of this woman, and made her serve your uses
    both in purse and in person.
  HOSTESS. Yea, in truth, my lord.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Pray thee, peace. Pay her the debt you owe her, and
    unpay the villainy you have done with her; the one you may do
    with sterling money, and the other with current repentance.
  FALSTAFF. My lord, I will not undergo this sneap without reply. You
    call honourable boldness impudent sauciness; if a man will make
    curtsy and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord, my humble
    duty rememb'red, I will not be your suitor. I say to you I do
    desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty
    employment in the King's affairs.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. You speak as having power to do wrong; but answer in
    th' effect of your reputation, and satisfy the poor woman.
  FALSTAFF. Come hither, hostess.

                               Enter GOWER

  CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, Master Gower, what news?
  GOWER. The King, my lord, and Harry Prince of Wales
    Are near at hand. The rest the paper tells. [Gives a letter]
  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman!
  HOSTESS. Faith, you said so before.
  FALSTAFF. As I am a gentleman! Come, no more words of it.
  HOSTESS. By this heavenly ground I tread on, I must be fain to pawn
    both my plate and the tapestry of my dining-chambers.
  FALSTAFF. Glasses, glasses, is the only drinking; and for thy
    walls, a pretty slight drollery, or the story of the Prodigal, or
    the German hunting, in water-work, is worth a thousand of these
    bed-hangers and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound,
    if thou canst. Come, and 'twere not for thy humours, there's not
    a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw the
    action. Come, thou must not be in this humour with me; dost not
    know me? Come, come, I know thou wast set on to this.
  HOSTESS. Pray thee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles;
    i' faith, I am loath to pawn my plate, so God save me, la!
  FALSTAFF. Let it alone; I'll make other shift. You'll be a fool
    still.
  HOSTESS. Well, you shall have it, though I pawn my gown.
    I hope you'll come to supper. you'll pay me all together?
  FALSTAFF. Will I live?  [To BARDOLPH]  Go, with her, with her; hook
    on, hook on.
  HOSTESS. Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?
  FALSTAFF. No more words; let's have her.
                          Exeunt HOSTESS, BARDOLPH, and OFFICERS
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I have heard better news.
  FALSTAFF. What's the news, my lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Where lay the King to-night?
  GOWER. At Basingstoke, my lord.
  FALSTAFF. I hope, my lord, all's well. What is the news, my lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Come all his forces back?
  GOWER. No; fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,
    Are march'd up to my Lord of Lancaster,
    Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.
  FALSTAFF. Comes the King back from Wales, my noble lord?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. You shall have letters of me presently.
    Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.
  FALSTAFF. My lord!
  CHIEF JUSTICE. What's the matter?
  FALSTAFF. Master Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?
  GOWER. I must wait upon my good lord here, I thank you, good Sir
    John.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sir John, you loiter here too long, being you are to
    take soldiers up in counties as you go.
  FALSTAFF. Will you sup with me, Master Gower?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. What foolish master taught you these manners, Sir
    John?
  FALSTAFF. Master Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that
    taught them me. This is the right fencing grace, my lord; tap for
    tap, and so part fair.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Now, the Lord lighten thee! Thou art a great fool.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. London. Another street

Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS

  PRINCE. Before God, I am exceeding weary.
  POINS. Is't come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have
    attach'd one of so high blood.
  PRINCE. Faith, it does me; though it discolours the complexion of
    my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely in me to
    desire small beer?
  POINS. Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to
    remember so weak a composition.
  PRINCE. Belike then my appetite was not-princely got; for, by my
    troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But
    indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with my
    greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name, or
    to know thy face to-morrow, or to take note how many pair of silk
    stockings thou hast- viz., these, and those that were thy
    peach-colour'd ones- or to bear the inventory of thy shirts- as,
    one for superfluity, and another for use! But that the
    tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb of
    linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou hast
    not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries
    have made a shift to eat up thy holland. And God knows whether
    those that bawl out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his
    kingdom; but the midwives say the children are not in the fault;
    whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily
    strengthened.
  POINS. How ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you
    should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would
    do so, their fathers being so sick as yours at this time is?
  PRINCE. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?
  POINS. Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing.
  PRINCE. It shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.
  POINS. Go to; I stand the push of your one thing that you will
    tell.
  PRINCE. Marry, I tell thee it is not meet that I should be sad, now
    my father is sick; albeit I could tell to thee- as to one it
    pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend- I could be
    sad and sad indeed too.
  POINS. Very hardly upon such a subject.
  PRINCE. By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book
    as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: let the end
    try the man. But I tell thee my heart bleeds inwardly that my
    father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath
    in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.
  POINS. The reason?
  PRINCE. What wouldst thou think of me if I should weep?
  POINS. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.
  PRINCE. It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed
    fellow to think as every man thinks. Never a man's thought in the
    world keeps the road-way better than thine. Every man would think
    me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites your most worshipful
    thought to think so?
  POINS. Why, because you have been so lewd and so much engraffed to
    Falstaff.
  PRINCE. And to thee.
  POINS. By this light, I am well spoke on; I can hear it with mine
    own ears. The worst that they can say of me is that I am a second
    brother and that I am a proper fellow of my hands; and those two
    things, I confess, I cannot help. By the mass, here comes
    Bardolph.

                         Enter BARDOLPH and PAGE

  PRINCE. And the boy that I gave Falstaff. 'A had him from me
    Christian; and look if the fat villain have not transform'd him
    ape.
  BARDOLPH. God save your Grace!
  PRINCE. And yours, most noble Bardolph!
  POINS. Come, you virtuous ass, you bashful fool, must you be
    blushing? Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms
    are you become! Is't such a matter to get a pottle-pot's
    maidenhead?
  PAGE. 'A calls me e'en now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I
    could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I
    spied his eyes; and methought he had made two holes in the
    alewife's new petticoat, and so peep'd through.
  PRINCE. Has not the boy profited?
  BARDOLPH. Away, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!
  PAGE. Away, you rascally Althaea's dream, away!
  PRINCE. Instruct us, boy; what dream, boy?
  PAGE. Marry, my lord, Althaea dreamt she was delivered of a
    firebrand; and therefore I call him her dream.
  PRINCE. A crown's worth of good interpretation. There 'tis, boy.
                                                [Giving a crown]
  POINS. O that this blossom could be kept from cankers!
    Well, there is sixpence to preserve thee.
  BARDOLPH. An you do not make him be hang'd among you, the gallows
    shall have wrong.
  PRINCE. And how doth thy master, Bardolph?
  BARDOLPH. Well, my lord. He heard of your Grace's coming to town.
    There's a letter for you.
  POINS. Deliver'd with good respect. And how doth the martlemas,
    your master?
  BARDOLPH. In bodily health, sir.
  POINS. Marry, the immortal part needs a physician; but that moves
    not him. Though that be sick, it dies not.
  PRINCE. I do allow this well to be as familiar with me as my dog;
    and he holds his place, for look you how he writes.
  POINS.  [Reads]  'John Falstaff, knight'- Every man must know that
    as oft as he has occasion to name himself, even like those that
    are kin to the King; for they never prick their finger but they
    say 'There's some of the King's blood spilt.' 'How comes that?'
    says he that takes upon him not to conceive. The answer is as
    ready as a borrower's cap: 'I am the King's poor cousin, sir.'
  PRINCE. Nay, they will be kin to us, or they will fetch it from
    Japhet. But the letter:  [Reads]  'Sir John Falstaff, knight, to
    the son of the King nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales,
    greeting.'
  POINS. Why, this is a certificate.
  PRINCE. Peace!  [Reads]  'I will imitate the honourable Romans in
    brevity.'-
  POINS. He sure means brevity in breath, short-winded.
  PRINCE.  [Reads]  'I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I
    leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins; for he misuses thy
    favours so much that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell.
    Repent at idle times as thou mayst, and so farewell.
      Thine, by yea and no- which is as much as to say as
        thou usest him- JACK FALSTAFF with my familiars,
        JOHN with my brothers and sisters, and SIR JOHN with
        all Europe.'
  POINS. My lord, I'll steep this letter in sack and make him eat it.
  PRINCE. That's to make him eat twenty of his words. But do you use
    me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?
  POINS. God send the wench no worse fortune! But I never said so.
  PRINCE. Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits
    of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master here in
    London?
  BARDOLPH. Yea, my lord.
  PRINCE. Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?
  BARDOLPH. At the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.
  PRINCE. What company?
  PAGE. Ephesians, my lord, of the old church.
  PRINCE. Sup any women with him?
  PAGE. None, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll
    Tearsheet.
  PRINCE. What pagan may that be?
  PAGE. A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.
  PRINCE. Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.
    Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?
  POINS. I am your shadow, my lord; I'll follow you.
  PRINCE. Sirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that
    I am yet come to town. There's for your silence.
  BARDOLPH. I have no tongue, sir.
  PAGE. And for mine, sir, I will govern it.
  PRINCE. Fare you well; go.            Exeunt BARDOLPH and PAGE
    This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.
  POINS. I warrant you, as common as the way between Saint Albans and
    London.
  PRINCE. How might we see Falstaff bestow himself to-night in his
    true colours, and not ourselves be seen?
  POINS. Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at
    his table as drawers.
  PRINCE. From a god to a bull? A heavy descension! It was Jove's
    case. From a prince to a prentice? A low transformation! That
    shall be mine; for in everything the purpose must weigh with the
    folly. Follow me, Ned.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE III. Warkworth. Before the castle

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND, LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, and LADY PERCY

  NORTHUMBERLAND. I pray thee, loving wife, and gentle daughter,
    Give even way unto my rough affairs;
    Put not you on the visage of the times
    And be, like them, to Percy troublesome.
  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. I have given over, I will speak no more.
    Do what you will; your wisdom be your guide.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Alas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn;
    And but my going nothing can redeem it.
  LADY PERCY. O, yet, for God's sake, go not to these wars!
    The time was, father, that you broke your word,
    When you were more endear'd to it than now;
    When your own Percy, when my heart's dear Harry,
    Threw many a northward look to see his father
    Bring up his powers; but he did long in vain.
    Who then persuaded you to stay at home?
    There were two honours lost, yours and your son's.
    For yours, the God of heaven brighten it!
    For his, it stuck upon him as the sun
    In the grey vault of heaven; and by his light
    Did all the chivalry of England move
    To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass
    Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves.
    He had no legs that practis'd not his gait;
    And speaking thick, which nature made his blemish,
    Became the accents of the valiant;
    For those who could speak low and tardily
    Would turn their own perfection to abuse
    To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,
    In diet, in affections of delight,
    In military rules, humours of blood,
    He was the mark and glass, copy and book,
    That fashion'd others. And him- O wondrous him!
    O miracle of men!- him did you leave-
    Second to none, unseconded by you-
    To look upon the hideous god of war
    In disadvantage, to abide a field
    Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name
    Did seem defensible. So you left him.
    Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong
    To hold your honour more precise and nice
    With others than with him! Let them alone.
    The Marshal and the Archbishop are strong.
    Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
    To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
    Have talk'd of Monmouth's grave.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew your heart,
    Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits from me
    With new lamenting ancient oversights.
    But I must go and meet with danger there,
    Or it will seek me in another place,
    And find me worse provided.
  LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. O, fly to Scotland
    Till that the nobles and the armed commons
    Have of their puissance made a little taste.
  LADY PERCY. If they get ground and vantage of the King,
    Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,
    To make strength stronger; but, for all our loves,
    First let them try themselves. So did your son;
    He was so suff'red; so came I a widow;
    And never shall have length of life enough
    To rain upon remembrance with mine eyes,
    That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,
    For recordation to my noble husband.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Come, come, go in with me. 'Tis with my mind
    As with the tide swell'd up unto his height,
    That makes a still-stand, running neither way.
    Fain would I go to meet the Archbishop,
    But many thousand reasons hold me back.
    I will resolve for Scotland. There am I,
    Till time and vantage crave my company.               Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap

Enter FRANCIS and another DRAWER

  FRANCIS. What the devil hast thou brought there-apple-johns? Thou
    knowest Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.
  SECOND DRAWER. Mass, thou say'st true. The Prince once set a dish
    of apple-johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir
    Johns; and, putting off his hat, said 'I will now take my leave
    of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.' It ang'red him
    to the heart; but he hath forgot that.
  FRANCIS. Why, then, cover and set them down; and see if thou canst
    find out Sneak's noise; Mistress Tearsheet would fain hear some
    music.

                        Enter third DRAWER

  THIRD DRAWER. Dispatch! The room where they supp'd is too hot;
    they'll come in straight.
  FRANCIS. Sirrah, here will be the Prince and Master Poins anon; and
    they will put on two of our jerkins and aprons; and Sir John must
    not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.
  THIRD DRAWER. By the mass, here will be old uds; it will be an
    excellent stratagem.
  SECOND DRAWER. I'll see if I can find out Sneak.
                                 Exeunt second and third DRAWERS

                Enter HOSTESS and DOLL TEARSHEET

  HOSTESS. I' faith, sweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent
    good temperality. Your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart
    would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any
    rose, in good truth, la! But, i' faith, you have drunk too much
    canaries; and that's a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes
    the blood ere one can say 'What's this?' How do you now?
  DOLL. Better than I was- hem.
  HOSTESS. Why, that's well said; a good heart's worth gold.
    Lo, here comes Sir John.

                          Enter FALSTAFF

  FALSTAFF.  [Singing]  'When Arthur first in court'- Empty the
    jordan.  [Exit FRANCIS]- [Singing]  'And was a worthy king'- How
    now, Mistress Doll!
  HOSTESS. Sick of a calm; yea, good faith.
  FALSTAFF. So is all her sect; and they be once in a calm, they are
    sick.
  DOLL. A pox damn you, you muddy rascal! Is that all the comfort you
    give me?
  FALSTAFF. You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
  DOLL. I make them! Gluttony and diseases make them: I make them
    not.
  FALSTAFF. If the cook help to make the gluttony, you help to make
    the diseases, Doll. We catch of you, Doll, we catch of you; grant
    that, my poor virtue, grant that.
  DOLL. Yea, joy, our chains and our jewels.
  FALSTAFF. 'Your brooches, pearls, and ouches.' For to serve bravely
    is to come halting off; you know, to come off the breach with his
    pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the
    charg'd chambers bravely-
  DOLL. Hang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!
  HOSTESS. By my troth, this is the old fashion; you two never meet
    but you fall to some discord. You are both, i' good truth, as
    rheumatic as two dry toasts; you cannot one bear with another's
    confirmities. What the good-year! one must bear, and that must be
    you. You are the weaker vessel, as as they say, the emptier
    vessel.
  DOLL. Can a weak empty vessel bear such a huge full hogs-head?
    There's a whole merchant's venture of Bourdeaux stuff in him; you
    have not seen a hulk better stuff'd in the hold. Come, I'll be
    friends with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars; and whether
    I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.

                            Re-enter FRANCIS

  FRANCIS. Sir, Ancient Pistol's below and would speak with you.
  DOLL. Hang him, swaggering rascal! Let him not come hither; it is
    the foul-mouth'dst rogue in England.
  HOSTESS. If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith! I
    must live among my neighbours; I'll no swaggerers. I am in good
    name and fame with the very best. Shut the door. There comes no
    swaggerers here; I have not liv'd all this while to have
    swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.
  FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear, hostess?
  HOSTESS. Pray ye, pacify yourself, Sir John; there comes no
    swaggerers here.
  FALSTAFF. Dost thou hear? It is mine ancient.
  HOSTESS. Tilly-fally, Sir John, ne'er tell me; and your ancient
    swagg'rer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick, the
    debuty, t' other day; and, as he said to me- 'twas no longer ago
    than Wednesday last, i' good faith!- 'Neighbour Quickly,' says
    he- Master Dumbe, our minister, was by then- 'Neighbour Quickly,'
    says he 'receive those that are civil, for' said he 'you are in
    an ill name.' Now 'a said so, I can tell whereupon. 'For' says he
    'you are an honest woman and well thought on, therefore take heed
    what guests you receive. Receive' says he 'no swaggering
    companions.' There comes none here. You would bless you to hear
    what he said. No, I'll no swagg'rers.
  FALSTAFF. He's no swagg'rer, hostess; a tame cheater, i' faith; you
    may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound. He'll not swagger
    with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of
    resistance. Call him up, drawer.
                                                    Exit FRANCIS
  HOSTESS. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house,
    nor no cheater; but I do not love swaggering, by my troth. I am
    the worse when one says 'swagger.' Feel, masters, how I shake;
    look you, I warrant you.
  DOLL. So you do, hostess.
  HOSTESS. Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf. I
    cannot abide swagg'rers.

                   Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and PAGE

  PISTOL. God save you, Sir John!
  FALSTAFF. Welcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with
    a cup of sack; do you discharge upon mine hostess.
  PISTOL. I will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.
  FALSTAFF. She is pistol-proof, sir; you shall not hardly offend
    her.
  HOSTESS. Come, I'll drink no proofs nor no bullets. I'll drink no
    more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.
  PISTOL. Then to you, Mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.
  DOLL. Charge me! I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor,
    base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy
    rogue, away! I am meat for your master.
  PISTOL. I know you, Mistress Dorothy.
  DOLL. Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By this
    wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the
    saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you
    basket-hilt stale juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir?
    God's light, with two points on your shoulder? Much!
  PISTOL. God let me not live but I will murder your ruff for this.
  FALSTAFF. No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here.
    Discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.
  HOSTESS. No, good Captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain.
  DOLL. Captain! Thou abominable damn'd cheater, art thou not ashamed
    to be called captain? An captains were of my mind, they would
    truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you
    have earn'd them. You a captain! you slave, for what? For tearing
    a poor whore's ruff in a bawdy-house? He a captain! hang him,
    rogue! He lives upon mouldy stew'd prunes and dried cakes. A
    captain! God's light, these villains will make the word as odious
    as the word 'occupy'; which was an excellent good word before it
    was ill sorted. Therefore captains had need look to't.
  BARDOLPH. Pray thee go down, good ancient.
  FALSTAFF. Hark thee hither, Mistress Doll.
  PISTOL. Not I! I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear
    her; I'll be reveng'd of her.
  PAGE. Pray thee go down.
  PISTOL. I'll see her damn'd first; to Pluto's damn'd lake, by this
    hand, to th' infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile also.
    Hold hook and line, say I. Down, down, dogs! down, faitors! Have
    we not Hiren here?
  HOSTESS. Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i' faith; I
    beseek you now, aggravate your choler.
  PISTOL. These be good humours, indeed! Shall packhorses,
    And hollow pamper'd jades of Asia,
    Which cannot go but thirty mile a day,
    Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
    And Troiant Greeks? Nay, rather damn them with
    King Cerberus; and let the welkin roar.
    Shall we fall foul for toys?
  HOSTESS. By my troth, Captain, these are very bitter words.
  BARDOLPH. Be gone, good ancient; this will grow to a brawl anon.
  PISTOL. Die men like dogs! Give crowns like pins! Have we not Hiren
    here?
  HOSTESS. O' my word, Captain, there's none such here. What the
    good-year! do you think I would deny her? For God's sake, be
    quiet.
  PISTOL. Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
    Come, give's some sack.
    'Si fortune me tormente sperato me contento.'
    Fear we broadsides? No, let the fiend give fire.
    Give me some sack; and, sweetheart, lie thou there.
                                         [Laying down his sword]
    Come we to full points here, and are etceteras nothings?
  FALSTAFF. Pistol, I would be quiet.
  PISTOL. Sweet knight, I kiss thy neaf. What! we have seen the seven
    stars.
  DOLL. For God's sake thrust him down stairs; I cannot endure such a
    fustian rascal.
  PISTOL. Thrust him down stairs! Know we not Galloway nags?
  FALSTAFF. Quoit him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling.
    Nay, an 'a do nothing but speak nothing, 'a shall be nothing
    here.
  BARDOLPH. Come, get you down stairs.
  PISTOL. What! shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?
                                        [Snatching up his sword]
    Then death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
    Why, then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds
    Untwine the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!
  HOSTESS. Here's goodly stuff toward!
  FALSTAFF. Give me my rapier, boy.
  DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, I pray thee, do not draw.
  FALSTAFF. Get you down stairs.
                                [Drawing and driving PISTOL out]
  HOSTESS. Here's a goodly tumult! I'll forswear keeping house afore
    I'll be in these tirrits and frights. So; murder, I warrant now.
    Alas, alas! put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.
                                      Exeunt PISTOL and BARDOLPH
  DOLL. I pray thee, Jack, be quiet; the rascal's gone. Ah, you
    whoreson little valiant villain, you!
  HOSTESS. Are you not hurt i' th' groin? Methought 'a made a shrewd
    thrust at your belly.

                        Re-enter BARDOLPH

  FALSTAFF. Have you turn'd him out a doors?
  BARDOLPH. Yea, sir. The rascal's drunk. You have hurt him, sir, i'
    th' shoulder.
  FALSTAFF. A rascal! to brave me!
  DOLL. Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou
    sweat'st! Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson
    chops. Ah, rogue! i' faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as
    Hector of Troy, worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better
    than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!
  FALSTAFF. A rascally slave! I will toss the rogue in a blanket.
  DOLL. Do, an thou dar'st for thy heart. An thou dost, I'll canvass
    thee between a pair of sheets.

                          Enter musicians

  PAGE. The music is come, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Don. A rascal
    bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quick-silver.
  DOLL. I' faith, and thou follow'dst him like a church. Thou
    whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave
    fighting a days and foining a nights, and begin to patch up thine
    old body for heaven?

       Enter, behind, PRINCE HENRY and POINS disguised as drawers

  FALSTAFF. Peace, good Doll! Do not speak like a death's-head; do
    not bid me remember mine end.
  DOLL. Sirrah, what humour's the Prince of?
  FALSTAFF. A good shallow young fellow. 'A would have made a good
    pantler; 'a would ha' chipp'd bread well.
  DOLL. They say Poins has a good wit.
  FALSTAFF. He a good wit! hang him, baboon! His wit's as thick as
    Tewksbury mustard; there's no more conceit in him than is in a
    mallet.
  DOLL. Why does the Prince love him so, then?
  FALSTAFF. Because their legs are both of a bigness, and 'a plays at
    quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off candles'
    ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys, and
    jumps upon join'd-stools, and swears with a good grace, and wears
    his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the Leg, and breeds
    no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other gambol
    faculties 'a has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the
    which the Prince admits him. For the Prince himself is such
    another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between their
    avoirdupois.
  PRINCE. Would not this nave of a wheel have his ears cut off?
  POINS. Let's beat him before his whore.
  PRINCE. Look whe'er the wither'd elder hath not his poll claw'd
    like a parrot.
  POINS. Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive
    performance?
  FALSTAFF. Kiss me, Doll.
  PRINCE. Saturn and Venus this year in conjunction! What says th'
    almanac to that?
  POINS. And look whether the fiery Trigon, his man, be not lisping
    to his master's old tables, his note-book, his counsel-keeper.
  FALSTAFF. Thou dost give me flattering busses.
  DOLL. By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.
  FALSTAFF. I am old, I am old.
  DOLL. I love thee better than I love e'er a scurvy young boy of
    them all.
  FALSTAFF. What stuff wilt have a kirtle of? I shall receive money a
    Thursday. Shalt have a cap to-morrow. A merry song, come. 'A
    grows late; we'll to bed. Thou't forget me when I am gone.
  DOLL. By my troth, thou't set me a-weeping, an thou say'st so.
    Prove that ever I dress myself handsome till thy return. Well,
    hearken a' th' end.
  FALSTAFF. Some sack, Francis.
  PRINCE & POINS. Anon, anon, sir.                   [Advancing]
  FALSTAFF. Ha! a bastard son of the King's? And art thou not Poins
    his brother?
  PRINCE. Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life dost thou
    lead!
  FALSTAFF. A better than thou. I am a gentleman: thou art a drawer.
  PRINCE. Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.
  HOSTESS. O, the Lord preserve thy Grace! By my troth, welcome to
    London. Now the Lord bless that sweet face of thine. O Jesu, are
    you come from Wales?
  FALSTAFF. Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light
    flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.
                                    [Leaning his band upon DOLL]
  DOLL. How, you fat fool! I scorn you.
  POINS. My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all
    to a merriment, if you take not the heat.
  PRINCE. YOU whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of
    me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
  HOSTESS. God's blessing of your good heart! and so she is, by my
    troth.
  FALSTAFF. Didst thou hear me?
  PRINCE. Yea; and you knew me, as you did when you ran away by
    Gadshill. You knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to
    try my patience.
  FALSTAFF. No, no, no; not so; I did not think thou wast within
    hearing.
  PRINCE. I shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse, and
    then I know how to handle you.
  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal, o' mine honour; no abuse.
  PRINCE. Not- to dispraise me, and call me pander, and
    bread-chipper, and I know not what!
  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Hal.
  POINS. No abuse!
  FALSTAFF. No abuse, Ned, i' th' world; honest Ned, none. I
    disprais'd him before the wicked- that the wicked might not fall
    in love with thee; in which doing, I have done the part of a
    careful friend and a true subject; and thy father is to give me
    thanks for it. No abuse, Hal; none, Ned, none; no, faith, boys,
    none.
  PRINCE. See now, whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not
    make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close with us? Is
    she of the wicked? Is thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is thy
    boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns in his
    nose, of the wicked?
  POINS. Answer, thou dead elm, answer.
  FALSTAFF. The fiend hath prick'd down Bardolph irrecoverable; and
    his face is Lucifer's privy-kitchen, where he doth nothing but
    roast malt-worms. For the boy- there is a good angel about him;
    but the devil outbids him too.
  PRINCE. For the women?
  FALSTAFF. For one of them- she's in hell already, and burns poor
    souls. For th' other- I owe her money; and whether she be damn'd
    for that, I know not.
  HOSTESS. No, I warrant you.
  FALSTAFF. No, I think thou art not; I think thou art quit for that.
    Marry, there is another indictment upon thee for suffering flesh
    to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law; for the which I
    think thou wilt howl.
  HOSTESS. All vict'lers do so. What's a joint of mutton or two in a
    whole Lent?
  PRINCE. You, gentlewoman-
  DOLL. What says your Grace?
  FALSTAFF. His Grace says that which his flesh rebels against.
                                               [Knocking within]
  HOSTESS. Who knocks so loud at door? Look to th' door there,
    Francis.

                              Enter PETO

  PRINCE. Peto, how now! What news?
  PETO. The King your father is at Westminster;
    And there are twenty weak and wearied posts
    Come from the north; and as I came along
    I met and overtook a dozen captains,
    Bare-headed, sweating, knocking at the taverns,
    And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
  PRINCE. By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame
    So idly to profane the precious time,
    When tempest of commotion, like the south,
    Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt
    And drop upon our bare unarmed heads.
    Give me my sword and cloak. Falstaff, good night.

                        Exeunt PRINCE, POINS, PETO, and BARDOLPH

  FALSTAFF. Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we
    must hence, and leave it unpick'd.  [Knocking within]  More
    knocking at the door!

                      Re-enter BARDOLPH

    How now! What's the matter?
  BARDOLPH. You must away to court, sir, presently;
    A dozen captains stay at door for you.
  FALSTAFF.  [To the PAGE]. Pay the musicians, sirrah.- Farewell,
    hostess; farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of
    merit are sought after; the undeserver may sleep, when the man of
    action is call'd on. Farewell, good wenches. If I be not sent
    away post, I will see you again ere I go.
  DOLL. I cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to burst!
    Well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.
  FALSTAFF. Farewell, farewell.
                                    Exeunt FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH
  HOSTESS. Well, fare thee well. I have known thee these twenty-nine
    years, come peascod-time; but an honester and truer-hearted man
    -well fare thee well.
  BARDOLPH.  [ Within]  Mistress Tearsheet!
  HOSTESS. What's the matter?
  BARDOLPH.  [ Within]  Bid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master.
  HOSTESS. O, run Doll, run, run, good Come.  [To BARDOLPH]  She
    comes blubber'd.- Yea, will you come, Doll?           Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Westminster. The palace

Enter the KING in his nightgown, with a page

  KING. Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick;
    But, ere they come, bid them o'er-read these letters
    And well consider of them. Make good speed.        Exit page
    How many thousands of my poorest subjects
    Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
    Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee,
    That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down,
    And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
    Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
    Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
    And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
    Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
    Under the canopies of costly state,
    And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
    O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile
    In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
    A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?
    Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
    Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
    In cradle of the rude imperious surge,
    And in the visitation of the winds,
    Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
    Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
    With deafing clamour in the slippery clouds,
    That with the hurly death itself awakes?
    Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
    To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
    And in the calmest and most stillest night,
    With all appliances and means to boot,
    Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
    Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

                    Enter WARWICK and Surrey

  WARWICK. Many good morrows to your Majesty!
  KING. Is it good morrow, lords?
  WARWICK. 'Tis one o'clock, and past.
  KING. Why then, good morrow to you all, my lords.
    Have you read o'er the letters that I sent you?
  WARWICK. We have, my liege.
  KING. Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
    How foul it is; what rank diseases grow,
    And with what danger, near the heart of it.
  WARWICK. It is but as a body yet distempered;
    Which to his former strength may be restored
    With good advice and little medicine.
    My Lord Northumberland will soon be cool'd.
  KING. O God! that one might read the book of fate,
    And see the revolution of the times
    Make mountains level, and the continent,
    Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
    Into the sea; and other times to see
    The beachy girdle of the ocean
    Too wide for Neptune's hips; how chances mock,
    And changes fill the cup of alteration
    With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
    The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
    What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
    Would shut the book and sit him down and die.
    'Tis not ten years gone
    Since Richard and Northumberland, great friends,
    Did feast together, and in two years after
    Were they at wars. It is but eight years since
    This Percy was the man nearest my soul;
    Who like a brother toil'd in my affairs
    And laid his love and life under my foot;
    Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes of Richard
    Gave him defiance. But which of you was by-
    [To WARWICK]  You, cousin Nevil, as I may remember-
    When Richard, with his eye brim full of tears,
    Then check'd and rated by Northumberland,
    Did speak these words, now prov'd a prophecy?
    'Northumberland, thou ladder by the which
    My cousin Bolingbroke ascends my throne'-
    Though then, God knows, I had no such intent
    But that necessity so bow'd the state
    That I and greatness were compell'd to kiss-
    'The time shall come'- thus did he follow it-
    'The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,
    Shall break into corruption' so went on,
    Foretelling this same time's condition
    And the division of our amity.
  WARWICK. There is a history in all men's lives,
    Figuring the natures of the times deceas'd;
    The which observ'd, a man may prophesy,
    With a near aim, of the main chance of things
    As yet not come to life, who in their seeds
    And weak beginning lie intreasured.
    Such things become the hatch and brood of time;
    And, by the necessary form of this,
    King Richard might create a perfect guess
    That great Northumberland, then false to him,
    Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness;
    Which should not find a ground to root upon
    Unless on you.
  KING. Are these things then necessities?
    Then let us meet them like necessities;
    And that same word even now cries out on us.
    They say the Bishop and Northumberland
    Are fifty thousand strong.
  WARWICK. It cannot be, my lord.
    Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
    The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace
    To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
    The powers that you already have sent forth
    Shall bring this prize in very easily.
    To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd
    A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
    Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill;
    And these unseasoned hours perforce must ad
    Unto your sickness.
  KING. I will take your counsel.
    And, were these inward wars once out of hand,
    We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land.            Exeunt

SCENE II. Gloucestershire. Before Justice, SHALLOW'S house

Enter SHALLOW and SILENCE, meeting; MOULDY, SHADOW, WART, FEEBLE,
BULLCALF, and servants behind

  SHALLOW. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, sir; give me
    your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood! And how doth my
    good cousin Silence?
  SILENCE. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.
  SHALLOW. And how doth my cousin, your bed-fellow? and your fairest
    daughter and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?
  SILENCE. Alas, a black ousel, cousin Shallow!
  SHALLOW. By yea and no, sir. I dare say my cousin William is become
    a good scholar; he is at Oxford still, is he not?
  SILENCE. Indeed, sir, to my cost.
  SHALLOW. 'A must, then, to the Inns o' Court shortly. I was once of
    Clement's Inn; where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.
  SILENCE. You were call'd 'lusty Shallow' then, cousin.
  SHALLOW. By the mass, I was call'd anything; and I would have done
    anything indeed too, and roundly too. There was I, and little
    John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Barnes, and Francis
    Pickbone, and Will Squele a Cotsole man- you had not four such
    swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again. And I may say to
    you we knew where the bona-robas were, and had the best of them
    all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, boy,
    and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
  SILENCE. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about
    soldiers?
  SHALLOW. The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break
    Scoggin's head at the court gate, when 'a was a crack not thus
    high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson
    Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad
    days that I have spent! and to see how many of my old
    acquaintance are dead!
  SILENCE. We shall all follow, cousin.
  SHALLOW. Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure. Death, as the
    Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke
    of bullocks at Stamford fair?
  SILENCE. By my troth, I was not there.
  SHALLOW. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?
  SILENCE. Dead, sir.
  SHALLOW. Jesu, Jesu, dead! drew a good bow; and dead! 'A shot a
    fine shoot. John a Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on
    his head. Dead! 'A would have clapp'd i' th' clout at twelve
    score, and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and fourteen
    and a half, that it would have done a man's heart good to see.
    How a score of ewes now?
  SILENCE. Thereafter as they be- a score of good ewes may be worth
    ten pounds.
  SHALLOW. And is old Double dead?

                    Enter BARDOLPH, and one with him

  SILENCE. Here come two of Sir John Falstaffs men, as I think.
  SHALLOW. Good morrow, honest gentlemen.
  BARDOLPH. I beseech you, which is Justice Shallow?
  SHALLOW. I am Robert Shallow, sir, a poor esquire of this county,
    and one of the King's justices of the peace. What is your good
    pleasure with me?
  BARDOLPH. My captain, sir, commends him to you; my captain, Sir
    John Falstaff- a tall gentleman, by heaven, and a most gallant
    leader.
  SHALLOW. He greets me well, sir; I knew him a good back-sword man.
    How doth the good knight? May I ask how my lady his wife doth?
  BARDOLPH. Sir, pardon; a soldier is better accommodated than with a
    wife.
  SHALLOW. It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said indeed
    too. 'Better accommodated!' It is good; yea, indeed, is it. Good
    phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable.
    'Accommodated!' It comes of accommodo. Very good; a good phrase.
  BARDOLPH. Pardon, sir; I have heard the word. 'Phrase' call you it?
    By this day, I know not the phrase; but I will maintain the word
    with my sword to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding
    good command, by heaven. Accommodated: that is, when a man is, as
    they say, accommodated; or, when a man is being-whereby 'a may be
    thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing.

                              Enter FALSTAFF

  SHALLOW. It is very just. Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me
    your good hand, give me your worship's good hand. By my troth,
    you like well and bear your years very well. Welcome, good Sir
    John.
  FALSTAFF. I am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow.
    Master Surecard, as I think?
  SHALLOW. No, Sir John; it is my cousin Silence, in commission with
   me.
  FALSTAFF. Good Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the
    peace.
  SILENCE. Your good worship is welcome.
  FALSTAFF. Fie! this is hot weather. Gentlemen, have you provided me
    here half a dozen sufficient men?
  SHALLOW. Marry, have we, sir. Will you sit?
  FALSTAFF. Let me see them, I beseech you.
  SHALLOW. Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Where's the roll? Let
    me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so,- so, so- yea,
    marry, sir. Rafe Mouldy! Let them appear as I call; let them do
    so, let them do so. Let me see; where is Mouldy?
  MOULDY. Here, an't please you.
  SHALLOW. What think you, Sir John? A good-limb'd fellow; young,
    strong, and of good friends.
  FALSTAFF. Is thy name Mouldy?
  MOULDY. Yea, an't please you.
  FALSTAFF. 'Tis the more time thou wert us'd.
  SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! Things that are
    mouldy lack use. Very singular good! In faith, well said, Sir
    John; very well said.
  FALSTAFF. Prick him.
  MOULDY. I was prick'd well enough before, an you could have let me
    alone. My old dame will be undone now for one to do her husbandry
    and her drudgery. You need not to have prick'd me; there are
    other men fitter to go out than I.
  FALSTAFF. Go to; peace, Mouldy; you shall go. Mouldy, it is time
    you were spent.
  MOULDY. Spent!
  SHALLOW. Peace, fellow, peace; stand aside; know you where you are?
    For th' other, Sir John- let me see. Simon Shadow!
  FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let me have him to sit under. He's like to be
    a cold soldier.
  SHALLOW. Where's Shadow?
  SHADOW. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Shadow, whose son art thou?
  SHADOW. My mother's son, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Thy mother's son! Like enough; and thy father's shadow.
    So the son of the female is the shadow of the male. It is often
    so indeed; but much of the father's substance!
  SHALLOW. Do you like him, Sir John?
  FALSTAFF. Shadow will serve for summer. Prick him; for we have a
    number of shadows fill up the muster-book.
  SHALLOW. Thomas Wart!
  FALSTAFF. Where's he?
  WART. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Is thy name Wart?
  WART. Yea, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Thou art a very ragged wart.
  SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, Sir John?
  FALSTAFF. It were superfluous; for his apparel is built upon his
    back, and the whole frame stands upon pins. Prick him no more.
  SHALLOW. Ha, ha, ha! You can do it, sir; you can do it. I commend
    you well. Francis Feeble!
  FEEBLE. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. What trade art thou, Feeble?
  FEEBLE. A woman's tailor, sir.
  SHALLOW. Shall I prick him, sir?
  FALSTAFF. You may; but if he had been a man's tailor, he'd ha'
    prick'd you. Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle as
    thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?
  FEEBLE. I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.
  FALSTAFF. Well said, good woman's tailor! well said, courageous
    Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most
    magnanimous mouse. Prick the woman's tailor- well, Master
    Shallow, deep, Master Shallow.
  FEEBLE. I would Wart might have gone, sir.
  FALSTAFF. I would thou wert a man's tailor, that thou mightst mend
    him and make him fit to go. I cannot put him to a private
    soldier, that is the leader of so many thousands. Let that
    suffice, most forcible Feeble.
  FEEBLE. It shall suffice, sir.
  FALSTAFF. I am bound to thee, reverend Feeble. Who is next?
  SHALLOW. Peter Bullcalf o' th' green!
  FALSTAFF. Yea, marry, let's see Bullcalf.
  BULLCALF. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Fore God, a likely fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf till
    he roar again.
  BULLCALF. O Lord! good my lord captain-
  FALSTAFF. What, dost thou roar before thou art prick'd?
  BULLCALF. O Lord, sir! I am a diseased man.
  FALSTAFF. What disease hast thou?
  BULLCALF. A whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught with
    ringing in the King's affairs upon his coronation day, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Come, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown. We will have
    away thy cold; and I will take such order that thy friends shall
    ring for thee. Is here all?
  SHALLOW. Here is two more call'd than your number. You must have
    but four here, sir; and so, I pray you, go in with me to dinner.
  FALSTAFF. Come, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry
    dinner. I am glad to see you, by my troth, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the
    windmill in Saint George's Field?
  FALSTAFF. No more of that, Master Shallow, no more of that.
  SHALLOW. Ha, 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?
  FALSTAFF. She lives, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. She never could away with me.
  FALSTAFF. Never, never; she would always say she could not abide
    Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. By the mass, I could anger her to th' heart. She was then
    a bona-roba. Doth she hold her own well?
  FALSTAFF. Old, old, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old;
    certain she's old; and had Robin Nightwork, by old Nightwork,
    before I came to Clement's Inn.
  SILENCE. That's fifty-five year ago.
  SHALLOW. Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this
    knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?
  FALSTAFF. We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith, Sir
    John, we have. Our watchword was 'Hem, boys!' Come, let's to
    dinner; come, let's to dinner. Jesus, the days that we have seen!
    Come, come.
                                Exeunt FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES
  BULLCALF. Good Master Corporate Bardolph, stand my friend; and
    here's four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very
    truth, sir, I had as lief be hang'd, sir, as go. And yet, for
    mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather because I am
    unwilling and, for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my
    friends; else, sir, I did not care for mine own part so much.
  BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.
  MOULDY. And, good Master Corporal Captain, for my old dame's sake,
    stand my friend. She has nobody to do anything about her when I
    am gone; and she is old, and cannot help herself. You shall have
    forty, sir.
  BARDOLPH. Go to; stand aside.
  FEEBLE. By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God
    a death. I'll ne'er bear a base mind. An't be my destiny, so;
    an't be not, so. No man's too good to serve 's Prince; and, let
    it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the
    next.
  BARDOLPH. Well said; th'art a good fellow.
  FEEBLE. Faith, I'll bear no base mind.

                    Re-enter FALSTAFF and the JUSTICES

  FALSTAFF. Come, sir, which men shall I have?
  SHALLOW. Four of which you please.
  BARDOLPH. Sir, a word with you. I have three pound to free Mouldy
    and Bullcalf.
  FALSTAFF. Go to; well.
  SHALLOW. Come, Sir John, which four will you have?
  FALSTAFF. Do you choose for me.
  SHALLOW. Marry, then- Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble, and Shadow.
  FALSTAFF. Mouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till
    you are past service; and for your part, Bullcalf, grow you come
    unto it. I will none of you.
  SHALLOW. Sir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your
    likeliest men, and I would have you serv'd with the best.
  FALSTAFF. Will you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man?
    Care I for the limb, the thews, the stature, bulk, and big
    assemblance of a man! Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Here's
    Wart; you see what a ragged appearance it is. 'A shall charge you
    and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer's hammer, come
    off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket.
    And this same half-fac'd fellow, Shadow- give me this man. He
    presents no mark to the enemy; the foeman may with as great aim
    level at the edge of a penknife. And, for a retreat- how swiftly
    will this Feeble, the woman's tailor, run off! O, give me the
    spare men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into
    Wart's hand, Bardolph.
  BARDOLPH. Hold, Wart. Traverse- thus, thus, thus.
  FALSTAFF. Come, manage me your caliver. So- very well. Go to; very
    good; exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old,
    chopt, bald shot. Well said, i' faith, Wart; th'art a good scab.
    Hold, there's a tester for thee.
  SHALLOW. He is not his craft's master, he doth not do it right. I
    remember at Mile-end Green, when I lay at Clement's Inn- I was
    then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's show- there was a little quiver
    fellow, and 'a would manage you his piece thus; and 'a would
    about and about, and come you in and come you in. 'Rah, tah,
    tah!' would 'a say; 'Bounce!' would 'a say; and away again would
    'a go, and again would 'a come. I shall ne'er see such a fellow.
  FALSTAFF. These fellows will do well. Master Shallow, God keep you!
    Master Silence, I will not use many words with you: Fare you
    well! Gentlemen both, I thank you. I must a dozen mile to-night.
    Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.
  SHALLOW. Sir John, the Lord bless you; God prosper your affairs;
    God send us peace! At your return, visit our house; let our old
    acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure I will with ye to the
    court.
  FALSTAFF. Fore God, would you would.
  SHALLOW. Go to; I have spoke at a word. God keep you.
  FALSTAFF. Fare you well, gentle gentlemen.  [Exeunt JUSTICES]  On,
    Bardolph; lead the men away.  [Exeunt all but FALSTAFF]  As I
    return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom of
    justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this
    vice of lying! This same starv'd justice hath done nothing but
    prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath
    done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid
    to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at
    Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.
    When 'a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork'd radish,
    with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. 'A was so
    forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible. 'A
    was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the
    whores call'd him mandrake. 'A came ever in the rearward of the
    fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutch'd huswifes that
    he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or
    his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire,
    and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn
    brother to him; and I'll be sworn 'a ne'er saw him but once in
    the Tiltyard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the
    marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own
    name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an
    eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a
    court- and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll be acquainted
    with him if I return; and 't shall go hard but I'll make him a
    philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for
    the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap
    at him. Let time shape, and there an end.               Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I. Yorkshire. Within the Forest of Gaultree

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, MOWBRAY, HASTINGS, and others

  ARCHBISHOP. What is this forest call'd
  HASTINGS. 'Tis Gaultree Forest, an't shall please your Grace.
  ARCHBISHOP. Here stand, my lords, and send discoverers forth
    To know the numbers of our enemies.
  HASTINGS. We have sent forth already.
  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis well done.
    My friends and brethren in these great affairs,
    I must acquaint you that I have receiv'd
    New-dated letters from Northumberland;
    Their cold intent, tenour, and substance, thus:
    Here doth he wish his person, with such powers
    As might hold sortance with his quality,
    The which he could not levy; whereupon
    He is retir'd, to ripe his growing fortunes,
    To Scotland; and concludes in hearty prayers
    That your attempts may overlive the hazard
    And fearful meeting of their opposite.
  MOWBRAY. Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground
    And dash themselves to pieces.

                          Enter A MESSENGER

  HASTINGS. Now, what news?
  MESSENGER. West of this forest, scarcely off a mile,
    In goodly form comes on the enemy;
    And, by the ground they hide, I judge their number
    Upon or near the rate of thirty thousand.
  MOWBRAY. The just proportion that we gave them out.
    Let us sway on and face them in the field.

                        Enter WESTMORELAND

  ARCHBISHOP. What well-appointed leader fronts us here?
  MOWBRAY. I think it is my Lord of Westmoreland.
  WESTMORELAND. Health and fair greeting from our general,
    The Prince, Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.
  ARCHBISHOP. Say on, my Lord of Westmoreland, in peace,
    What doth concern your coming.
  WESTMORELAND. Then, my lord,
    Unto your Grace do I in chief address
    The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
    Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
    Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
    And countenanc'd by boys and beggary-
    I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd
    In his true, native, and most proper shape,
    You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
    Had not been here to dress the ugly form
    Of base and bloody insurrection
    With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop,
    Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd,
    Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,
    Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,
    Whose white investments figure innocence,
    The dove, and very blessed spirit of peace-
    Wherefore you do so ill translate yourself
    Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
    Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war;
    Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
    Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine
    To a loud trumpet and a point of war?
  ARCHBISHOP. Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.
    Briefly to this end: we are all diseas'd
    And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
    Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
    And we must bleed for it; of which disease
    Our late King, Richard, being infected, died.
    But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,
    I take not on me here as a physician;
    Nor do I as an enemy to peace
    Troop in the throngs of military men;
    But rather show awhile like fearful war
    To diet rank minds sick of happiness,
    And purge th' obstructions which begin to stop
    Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
    I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
    What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
    And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
    We see which way the stream of time doth run
    And are enforc'd from our most quiet there
    By the rough torrent of occasion;
    And have the summary of all our griefs,
    When time shall serve, to show in articles;
    Which long ere this we offer'd to the King,
    And might by no suit gain our audience:
    When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
    We are denied access unto his person,
    Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
    The dangers of the days but newly gone,
    Whose memory is written on the earth
    With yet appearing blood, and the examples
    Of every minute's instance, present now,
    Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms;
    Not to break peace, or any branch of it,
    But to establish here a peace indeed,
    Concurring both in name and quality.
  WESTMORELAND. When ever yet was your appeal denied;
    Wherein have you been galled by the King;
    What peer hath been suborn'd to grate on you
    That you should seal this lawless bloody book
    Of forg'd rebellion with a seal divine,
    And consecrate commotion's bitter edge?
  ARCHBISHOP. My brother general, the commonwealth,
    To brother horn an household cruelty,
    I make my quarrel in particular.
  WESTMORELAND. There is no need of any such redress;
    Or if there were, it not belongs to you.
  MOWBRAY. Why not to him in part, and to us all
    That feel the bruises of the days before,
    And suffer the condition of these times
    To lay a heavy and unequal hand
    Upon our honours?
  WESTMORELAND. O my good Lord Mowbray,
    Construe the times to their necessities,
    And you shall say, indeed, it is the time,
    And not the King, that doth you injuries.
    Yet, for your part, it not appears to me,
    Either from the King or in the present time,
    That you should have an inch of any ground
    To build a grief on. Were you not restor'd
    To all the Duke of Norfolk's signiories,
    Your noble and right well-rememb'red father's?
  MOWBRAY. What thing, in honour, had my father lost
    That need to be reviv'd and breath'd in me?
    The King that lov'd him, as the state stood then,
    Was force perforce compell'd to banish him,
    And then that Henry Bolingbroke and he,
    Being mounted and both roused in their seats,
    Their neighing coursers daring of the spur,
    Their armed staves in charge, their beavers down,
    Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel,
    And the loud trumpet blowing them together-
    Then, then, when there was nothing could have stay'd
    My father from the breast of Bolingbroke,
    O, when the King did throw his warder down-
    His own life hung upon the staff he threw-
    Then threw he down himself, and all their lives
    That by indictment and by dint of sword
    Have since miscarried under Bolingbroke.
  WESTMORELAND. You speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.
    The Earl of Hereford was reputed then
    In England the most valiant gentleman.
    Who knows on whom fortune would then have smil'd?
    But if your father had been victor there,
    He ne'er had borne it out of Coventry;
    For all the country, in a general voice,
    Cried hate upon him; and all their prayers and love
    Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on,
    And bless'd and grac'd indeed more than the King.
    But this is mere digression from my purpose.
    Here come I from our princely general
    To know your griefs; to tell you from his Grace
    That he will give you audience; and wherein
    It shall appear that your demands are just,
    You shall enjoy them, everything set off
    That might so much as think you enemies.
  MOWBRAY. But he hath forc'd us to compel this offer;
    And it proceeds from policy, not love.
  WESTMORELAND. Mowbray. you overween to take it so.
    This offer comes from mercy, not from fear;
    For, lo! within a ken our army lies-
    Upon mine honour, all too confident
    To give admittance to a thought of fear.
    Our battle is more full of names than yours,
    Our men more perfect in the use of arms,
    Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;
    Then reason will our hearts should be as good.
    Say you not, then, our offer is compell'd.
  MOWBRAY. Well, by my will we shall admit no parley.
  WESTMORELAND. That argues but the shame of your offence:
    A rotten case abides no handling.
  HASTINGS. Hath the Prince John a full commission,
    In very ample virtue of his father,
    To hear and absolutely to determine
    Of what conditions we shall stand upon?
  WESTMORELAND. That is intended in the general's name.
    I muse you make so slight a question.
  ARCHBISHOP. Then take, my Lord of Westmoreland, this schedule,
    For this contains our general grievances.
    Each several article herein redress'd,
    All members of our cause, both here and hence,
    That are insinewed to this action,
    Acquitted by a true substantial form,
    And present execution of our wills
    To us and to our purposes confin'd-
    We come within our awful banks again,
    And knit our powers to the arm of peace.
  WESTMORELAND. This will I show the general. Please you, lords,
    In sight of both our battles we may meet;
    And either end in peace- which God so frame!-
    Or to the place of diff'rence call the swords
    Which must decide it.
  ARCHBISHOP. My lord, we will do so.          Exit WESTMORELAND
  MOWBRAY. There is a thing within my bosom tells me
    That no conditions of our peace can stand.
  HASTINGS. Fear you not that: if we can make our peace
    Upon such large terms and so absolute
    As our conditions shall consist upon,
    Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
  MOWBRAY. Yea, but our valuation shall be such
    That every slight and false-derived cause,
    Yea, every idle, nice, and wanton reason,
    Shall to the King taste of this action;
    That, were our royal faiths martyrs in love,
    We shall be winnow'd with so rough a wind
    That even our corn shall seem as light as chaff,
    And good from bad find no partition.
  ARCHBISHOP. No, no, my lord. Note this: the King is weary
    Of dainty and such picking grievances;
    For he hath found to end one doubt by death
    Revives two greater in the heirs of life;
    And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,
    And keep no tell-tale to his memory
    That may repeat and history his los
    To new remembrance. For full well he knows
    He cannot so precisely weed this land
    As his misdoubts present occasion:
    His foes are so enrooted with his friends
    That, plucking to unfix an enemy,
    He doth unfasten so and shake a friend.
    So that this land, like an offensive wife
    That hath enrag'd him on to offer strokes,
    As he is striking, holds his infant up,
    And hangs resolv'd correction in the arm
    That was uprear'd to execution.
  HASTINGS. Besides, the King hath wasted all his rods
    On late offenders, that he now doth lack
    The very instruments of chastisement;
    So that his power, like to a fangless lion,
    May offer, but not hold.
  ARCHBISHOP. 'Tis very true;
    And therefore be assur'd, my good Lord Marshal,
    If we do now make our atonement well,
    Our peace will, like a broken limb united,
    Grow stronger for the breaking.
  MOWBRAY. Be it so.
    Here is return'd my Lord of Westmoreland.

                       Re-enter WESTMORELAND

  WESTMORELAND. The Prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship
    To meet his Grace just distance 'tween our armies?
  MOWBRAY. Your Grace of York, in God's name then, set forward.
  ARCHBISHOP. Before, and greet his Grace. My lord, we come.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Another part of the forest

Enter, from one side, MOWBRAY, attended; afterwards, the ARCHBISHOP,
HASTINGS, and others; from the other side, PRINCE JOHN of LANCASTER,
WESTMORELAND, OFFICERS, and others

  PRINCE JOHN. You are well encount'red here, my cousin Mowbray.
    Good day to you, gentle Lord Archbishop;
    And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.
    My Lord of York, it better show'd with you
    When that your flock, assembled by the bell,
    Encircled you to hear with reverence
    Your exposition on the holy text
    Than now to see you here an iron man,
    Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,
    Turning the word to sword, and life to death.
    That man that sits within a monarch's heart
    And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,
    Would he abuse the countenance of the king,
    Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach
    In shadow of such greatness! With you, Lord Bishop,
    It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken
    How deep you were within the books of God?
    To us the speaker in His parliament,
    To us th' imagin'd voice of God himself,
    The very opener and intelligencer
    Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven,
    And our dull workings. O, who shall believe
    But you misuse the reverence of your place,
    Employ the countenance and grace of heav'n
    As a false favourite doth his prince's name,
    In deeds dishonourable? You have ta'en up,
    Under the counterfeited zeal of God,
    The subjects of His substitute, my father,
    And both against the peace of heaven and him
    Have here up-swarm'd them.
  ARCHBISHOP. Good my Lord of Lancaster,
    I am not here against your father's peace;
    But, as I told my Lord of Westmoreland,
    The time misord'red doth, in common sense,
    Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous form
    To hold our safety up. I sent your Grace
    The parcels and particulars of our grief,
    The which hath been with scorn shov'd from the court,
    Whereon this hydra son of war is born;
    Whose dangerous eyes may well be charm'd asleep
    With grant of our most just and right desires;
    And true obedience, of this madness cur'd,
    Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.
  MOWBRAY. If not, we ready are to try our fortunes
    To the last man.
  HASTINGS. And though we here fall down,
    We have supplies to second our attempt.
    If they miscarry, theirs shall second them;
    And so success of mischief shall be born,
    And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up
    Whiles England shall have generation.
  PRINCE JOHN. YOU are too shallow, Hastings, much to shallow,
    To sound the bottom of the after-times.
  WESTMORELAND. Pleaseth your Grace to answer them directly
    How far forth you do like their articles.
  PRINCE JOHN. I like them all and do allow them well;
    And swear here, by the honour of my blood,
    My father's purposes have been mistook;
    And some about him have too lavishly
    Wrested his meaning and authority.
    My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redress'd;
    Upon my soul, they shall. If this may please you,
    Discharge your powers unto their several counties,
    As we will ours; and here, between the armies,
    Let's drink together friendly and embrace,
    That all their eyes may bear those tokens home
    Of our restored love and amity.
  ARCHBISHOP. I take your princely word for these redresses.
  PRINCE JOHN. I give it you, and will maintain my word;
    And thereupon I drink unto your Grace.
  HASTINGS. Go, Captain, and deliver to the army
    This news of peace. Let them have pay, and part.
    I know it will please them. Hie thee, Captain.
                                                    Exit Officer
  ARCHBISHOP. To you, my noble Lord of Westmoreland.
  WESTMORELAND. I pledge your Grace; and if you knew what pains
    I have bestow'd to breed this present peace,
    You would drink freely; but my love to ye
    Shall show itself more openly hereafter.
  ARCHBISHOP. I do not doubt you.
  WESTMORELAND. I am glad of it.
    Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
  MOWBRAY. You wish me health in very happy season,
    For I am on the sudden something ill.
  ARCHBISHOP. Against ill chances men are ever merry;
    But heaviness foreruns the good event.
  WESTMORELAND. Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
    Serves to say thus, 'Some good thing comes to-morrow.'
  ARCHBISHOP. Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
  MOWBRAY. So much the worse, if your own rule be true.
                                                 [Shouts within]
  PRINCE JOHN. The word of peace is rend'red. Hark, how they shout!
  MOWBRAY. This had been cheerful after victory.
  ARCHBISHOP. A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
    For then both parties nobly are subdu'd,
    And neither party loser.
  PRINCE JOHN. Go, my lord,
    And let our army be discharged too.
                                               Exit WESTMORELAND
    And, good my lord, so please you let our trains
    March by us, that we may peruse the men
    We should have cop'd withal.
  ARCHBISHOP. Go, good Lord Hastings,
    And, ere they be dismiss'd, let them march by.
                                                   Exit HASTINGS
  PRINCE JOHN. I trust, lords, we shall lie to-night together.

                      Re-enter WESTMORELAND

    Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?
  WESTMORELAND. The leaders, having charge from you to stand,
    Will not go off until they hear you speak.
  PRINCE JOHN. They know their duties.

                        Re-enter HASTINGS

  HASTINGS. My lord, our army is dispers'd already.
    Like youthful steers unyok'd, they take their courses
    East, west, north, south; or like a school broke up,
    Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.
  WESTMORELAND. Good tidings, my Lord Hastings; for the which
    I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason;
    And you, Lord Archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,
    Of capital treason I attach you both.
  MOWBRAY. Is this proceeding just and honourable?
  WESTMORELAND. Is your assembly so?
  ARCHBISHOP. Will you thus break your faith?
  PRINCE JOHN. I pawn'd thee none:
    I promis'd you redress of these same grievances
    Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,
    I will perform with a most Christian care.
    But for you, rebels- look to taste the due
    Meet for rebellion and such acts as yours.
    Most shallowly did you these arms commence,
    Fondly brought here, and foolishly sent hence.
    Strike up our drums, pursue the scatt'red stray.
    God, and not we, hath safely fought to-day.
    Some guard these traitors to the block of death,
    Treason's true bed and yielder-up of breath.          Exeunt

SCENE III. Another part of the forest

Alarum; excursions. Enter FALSTAFF and COLVILLE, meeting

  FALSTAFF. What's your name, sir? Of what condition are you, and of
    what place, I pray?
  COLVILLE. I am a knight sir; and my name is Colville of the Dale.
  FALSTAFF. Well then, Colville is your name, a knight is your
    degree, and your place the Dale. Colville shall still be your
    name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place- a place
    deep enough; so shall you be still Colville of the Dale.
  COLVILLE. Are not you Sir John Falstaff?
  FALSTAFF. As good a man as he, sir, whoe'er I am. Do you yield,
    sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops
    of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death; therefore rouse up
    fear and trembling, and do observance to my mercy.
  COLVILLE. I think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought
    yield me.
  FALSTAFF. I have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine;
    and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name.
    An I had but a belly of any indifferency, I were simply the most
    active fellow in Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb undoes me.
    Here comes our general.

            Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WESTMORELAND,
                            BLUNT, and others

  PRINCE JOHN. The heat is past; follow no further now.
    Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.
                                               Exit WESTMORELAND
    Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
    When everything is ended, then you come.
    These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
    One time or other break some gallows' back.
  FALSTAFF. I would be sorry, my lord, but it should be thus: I never
    knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you
    think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have I, in my poor and
    old motion, the expedition of thought? I have speeded hither with
    the very extremest inch of possibility; I have found'red nine
    score and odd posts; and here, travel tainted as I am, have, in
    my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Colville of the
    Dale,a most furious knight and valorous enemy. But what of that?
    He saw me, and yielded; that I may justly say with the hook-nos'd
    fellow of Rome-I came, saw, and overcame.
  PRINCE JOHN. It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.
  FALSTAFF. I know not. Here he is, and here I yield him; and I
    beseech your Grace, let it be book'd with the rest of this day's
    deeds; or, by the Lord, I will have it in a particular ballad
    else, with mine own picture on the top on't, Colville kissing my
    foot; to the which course if I be enforc'd, if you do not all
    show like gilt twopences to me, and I, in the clear sky of fame,
    o'ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders of the
    element, which show like pins' heads to her, believe not the word
    of the noble. Therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.
  PRINCE JOHN. Thine's too heavy to mount.
  FALSTAFF. Let it shine, then.
  PRINCE JOHN. Thine's too thick to shine.
  FALSTAFF. Let it do something, my good lord, that may do me good,
    and call it what you will.
  PRINCE JOHN. Is thy name Colville?
  COLVILLE. It is, my lord.
  PRINCE JOHN. A famous rebel art thou, Colville.
  FALSTAFF. And a famous true subject took him.
  COLVILLE. I am, my lord, but as my betters are
    That led me hither. Had they been rul'd by me,
    You should have won them dearer than you have.
  FALSTAFF. I know not how they sold themselves; but thou, like a
    kind fellow, gavest thyself away gratis; and I thank thee for
    thee.

                       Re-enter WESTMORELAND

  PRINCE JOHN. Now, have you left pursuit?
  WESTMORELAND. Retreat is made, and execution stay'd.
  PRINCE JOHN. Send Colville, with his confederates,
    To York, to present execution.
    Blunt, lead him hence; and see you guard him sure.
                                         Exeunt BLUNT and others
    And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.
    I hear the King my father is sore sick.
    Our news shall go before us to his Majesty,
    Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him
    And we with sober speed will follow you.
  FALSTAFF. My lord, I beseech you, give me leave to go through
    Gloucestershire; and, when you come to court, stand my good lord,
    pray, in your good report.
  PRINCE JOHN. Fare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition,
    Shall better speak of you than you deserve.
                                         Exeunt all but FALSTAFF
  FALSTAFF. I would you had but the wit; 'twere better than your
    dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not
    love me; nor a man cannot make him laugh- but that's no marvel;
    he drinks no wine. There's never none of these demure boys come
    to any proof; for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and
    making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind of male
    green-sickness; and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They
    are generally fools and cowards-which some of us should be too,
    but for inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a two-fold
    operation in it. It ascends me into the brain; dries me there all
    the foolish and dull and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it
    apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and
    delectable shapes; which delivered o'er to the voice, the tongue,
    which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of
    your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood; which before,
    cold and settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the
    badge of pusillanimity and cowardice; but the sherris warms it,
    and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes. It
    illumineth the face, which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the
    rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm; and then the vital
    commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their
    captain, the heart, who, great and puff'd up with this retinue,
    doth any deed of courage- and this valour comes of sherris. So
    that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets
    it a-work; and learning, a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil
    till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes
    it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did
    naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and
    bare land, manured, husbanded, and till'd, with excellent
    endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris,
    that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons,
    the first humane principle I would teach them should be to
    forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

                           Enter BARDOLPH

    How now, Bardolph!
  BARDOLPH. The army is discharged all and gone.
  FALSTAFF. Let them go. I'll through Gloucestershire, and there will
    I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already
    temp'ring between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal
    with him. Come away.                                  Exeunt

SCENE IV. Westminster. The Jerusalem Chamber

Enter the KING, PRINCE THOMAS OF CLARENCE, PRINCE HUMPHREY OF
GLOUCESTER,
WARWICK, and others

  KING. Now, lords, if God doth give successful end
    To this debate that bleedeth at our doors,
    We will our youth lead on to higher fields,
    And draw no swords but what are sanctified.
    Our navy is address'd, our power connected,
    Our substitutes in absence well invested,
    And everything lies level to our wish.
    Only we want a little personal strength;
    And pause us till these rebels, now afoot,
    Come underneath the yoke of government.
  WARWICK. Both which we doubt not but your Majesty
    Shall soon enjoy.
  KING. Humphrey, my son of Gloucester,
    Where is the Prince your brother?
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. I think he's gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.
  KING. And how accompanied?
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. I do not know, my lord.
  KING. Is not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. No, my good lord, he is in presence here.
  CLARENCE. What would my lord and father?
  KING. Nothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.
    How chance thou art not with the Prince thy brother?
    He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.
    Thou hast a better place in his affection
    Than all thy brothers; cherish it, my boy,
    And noble offices thou mayst effect
    Of mediation, after I am dead,
    Between his greatness and thy other brethren.
    Therefore omit him not; blunt not his love,
    Nor lose the good advantage of his grace
    By seeming cold or careless of his will;
    For he is gracious if he be observ'd.
    He hath a tear for pity and a hand
    Open as day for melting charity;
    Yet notwithstanding, being incens'd, he is flint;
    As humorous as winter, and as sudden
    As flaws congealed in the spring of day.
    His temper, therefore, must be well observ'd.
    Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,
    When you perceive his blood inclin'd to mirth;
    But, being moody, give him line and scope
    Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,
    Confound themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,
    And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,
    A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,
    That the united vessel of their blood,
    Mingled with venom of suggestion-
    As, force perforce, the age will pour it in-
    Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
    As aconitum or rash gunpowder.
  CLARENCE. I shall observe him with all care and love.
  KING. Why art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?
  CLARENCE. He is not there to-day; he dines in London.
  KING. And how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?
  CLARENCE. With Poins, and other his continual followers.
  KING. Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds;
    And he, the noble image of my youth,
    Is overspread with them; therefore my grief
    Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.
    The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape,
    In forms imaginary, th'unguided days
    And rotten times that you shall look upon
    When I am sleeping with my ancestors.
    For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,
    When rage and hot blood are his counsellors
    When means and lavish manners meet together,
    O, with what wings shall his affections fly
    Towards fronting peril and oppos'd decay!
  WARWICK. My gracious lord, you look beyond him quite.
    The Prince but studies his companions
    Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,
    'Tis needful that the most immodest word
    Be look'd upon and learnt; which once attain'd,
    Your Highness knows, comes to no further use
    But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
    The Prince will, in the perfectness of time,
    Cast off his followers; and their memory
    Shall as a pattern or a measure live
    By which his Grace must mete the lives of other,
    Turning past evils to advantages.
  KING. 'Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb
    In the dead carrion.

                      Enter WESTMORELAND

    Who's here? Westmoreland?
  WESTMORELAND. Health to my sovereign, and new happiness
    Added to that that am to deliver!
    Prince John, your son, doth kiss your Grace's hand.
    Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop, Hastings, and all,
    Are brought to the correction of your law.
    There is not now a rebel's sword unsheath'd,
    But Peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
    The manner how this action hath been borne
    Here at more leisure may your Highness read,
    With every course in his particular.
  KING. O Westmoreland, thou art a summer bird,
    Which ever in the haunch of winter sings
    The lifting up of day.

                        Enter HARCOURT

    Look here's more news.
  HARCOURT. From enemies heaven keep your Majesty;
    And, when they stand against you, may they fall
    As those that I am come to tell you of!
    The Earl Northumberland and the Lord Bardolph,
    With a great power of English and of Scots,
    Are by the shrieve of Yorkshire overthrown.
    The manner and true order of the fight
    This packet, please it you, contains at large.
  KING. And wherefore should these good news make me sick?
    Will Fortune never come with both hands full,
    But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
    She either gives a stomach and no food-
    Such are the poor, in health- or else a feast,
    And takes away the stomach- such are the rich
    That have abundance and enjoy it not.
    I should rejoice now at this happy news;
    And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy.
    O me! come near me now I am much ill.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. Comfort, your Majesty!
  CLARENCE. O my royal father!
  WESTMORELAND. My sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.
  WARWICK. Be patient, Princes; you do know these fits
    Are with his Highness very ordinary.
    Stand from him, give him air; he'll straight be well.
  CLARENCE. No, no; he cannot long hold out these pangs.
    Th' incessant care and labour of his mind
    Hath wrought the mure that should confine it in
    So thin that life looks through, and will break out.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. The people fear me; for they do observe
    Unfather'd heirs and loathly births of nature.
    The seasons change their manners, as the year
    Had found some months asleep, and leapt them over.
  CLARENCE. The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between;
    And the old folk, Time's doting chronicles,
    Say it did so a little time before
    That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died.
  WARWICK. Speak lower, Princes, for the King recovers.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. This apoplexy will certain be his end.
  KING. I pray you take me up, and bear me hence
    Into some other chamber. Softly, pray.                Exeunt

SCENE V. Westminster. Another chamber

The KING lying on a bed; CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, and others in
attendance

  KING. Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends;
    Unless some dull and favourable hand
    Will whisper music to my weary spirit.
  WARWICK. Call for the music in the other room.
  KING. Set me the crown upon my pillow here.
  CLARENCE. His eye is hollow, and he changes much.
  WARWICK. Less noise! less noise!

                        Enter PRINCE HENRY

  PRINCE. Who saw the Duke of Clarence?
  CLARENCE. I am here, brother, full of heaviness.
  PRINCE. How now! Rain within doors, and none abroad!
    How doth the King?
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. Exceeding ill.
  PRINCE. Heard he the good news yet? Tell it him.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. He alt'red much upon the hearing it.
  PRINCE. If he be sick with joy, he'll recover without physic.
  WARWICK. Not so much noise, my lords. Sweet Prince, speak low;
    The King your father is dispos'd to sleep.
  CLARENCE. Let us withdraw into the other room.
  WARWICK. Will't please your Grace to go along with us?
  PRINCE. No; I will sit and watch here by the King.
                                       Exeunt all but the PRINCE
    Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
    Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
    O polish'd perturbation! golden care!
    That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
    To many a watchful night! Sleep with it now!
    Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
    As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
    Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!
    When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
    Like a rich armour worn in heat of day
    That scald'st with safety. By his gates of breath
    There lies a downy feather which stirs not.
    Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
    Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!
    This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep
    That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd
    So many English kings. Thy due from me
    Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood
    Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,
    Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.
    My due from thee is this imperial crown,
    Which, as immediate from thy place and blood,
    Derives itself to me.  [Putting on the crown]  Lo where it sits-
    Which God shall guard; and put the world's whole strength
    Into one giant arm, it shall not force
    This lineal honour from me. This from thee
    Will I to mine leave as 'tis left to me.                Exit
  KING. Warwick! Gloucester! Clarence!

           Re-enter WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE

  CLARENCE. Doth the King call?
  WARWICK. What would your Majesty? How fares your Grace?
  KING. Why did you leave me here alone, my lords?
  CLARENCE. We left the Prince my brother here, my liege,
    Who undertook to sit and watch by you.
  KING. The Prince of Wales! Where is he? Let me see him.
    He is not here.
  WARWICK. This door is open; he is gone this way.
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. He came not through the chamber where we stay'd.
  KING. Where is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?
  WARWICK. When we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.
  KING. The Prince hath ta'en it hence. Go, seek him out.
    Is he so hasty that he doth suppose
    My sleep my death?
    Find him, my lord of Warwick; chide him hither.
                                                    Exit WARWICK
    This part of his conjoins with my disease
    And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are!
    How quickly nature falls into revolt
    When gold becomes her object!
    For this the foolish over-careful fathers
    Have broke their sleep with thoughts,
    Their brains with care, their bones with industry;
    For this they have engrossed and pil'd up
    The cank'red heaps of strange-achieved gold;
    For this they have been thoughtful to invest
    Their sons with arts and martial exercises;
    When, like the bee, tolling from every flower
    The virtuous sweets,
    Our thighs with wax, our mouths with honey pack'd,
    We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,
    Are murd'red for our pains. This bitter taste
    Yields his engrossments to the ending father.

                         Re-enter WARWICK

    Now where is he that will not stay so long
    Till his friend sickness hath determin'd me?
  WARWICK. My lord, I found the Prince in the next room,
    Washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks,
    With such a deep demeanour in great sorrow,
    That tyranny, which never quaff'd but blood,
    Would, by beholding him, have wash'd his knife
    With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.
  KING. But wherefore did he take away the crown?

                        Re-enter PRINCE HENRY

    Lo where he comes. Come hither to me, Harry.
    Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.
                          Exeunt all but the KING and the PRINCE
  PRINCE. I never thought to hear you speak again.
  KING. Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
    I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
    Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
    That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours
    Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!
    Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.
    Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity
    Is held from falling with so weak a wind
    That it will quickly drop; my day is dim.
    Thou hast stol'n that which, after some few hours,
    Were thine without offense; and at my death
    Thou hast seal'd up my expectation.
    Thy life did manifest thou lov'dst me not,
    And thou wilt have me die assur'd of it.
    Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
    Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,
    To stab at half an hour of my life.
    What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
    Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself;
    And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
    That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
    Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
    Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head;
    Only compound me with forgotten dust;
    Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.
    Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;
    For now a time is come to mock at form-
    Harry the Fifth is crown'd. Up, vanity:
    Down, royal state. All you sage counsellors, hence.
    And to the English court assemble now,
    From every region, apes of idleness.
    Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum.
    Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
    Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
    The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
    Be happy, he will trouble you no more.
    England shall double gild his treble guilt;
    England shall give him office, honour, might;
    For the fifth Harry from curb'd license plucks
    The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
    Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
    O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
    When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
    What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
    O, thou wilt be a wilderness again.
    Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!
  PRINCE. O, pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,
    The moist impediments unto my speech,
    I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke
    Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard
    The course of it so far. There is your crown,
    And he that wears the crown immortally
    Long guard it yours!  [Kneeling]  If I affect it more
    Than as your honour and as your renown,
    Let me no more from this obedience rise,
    Which my most inward true and duteous spirit
    Teacheth this prostrate and exterior bending!
    God witness with me, when I here came in
    And found no course of breath within your Majesty,
    How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,
    O, let me in my present wildness die,
    And never live to show th' incredulous world
    The noble change that I have purposed!
    Coming to look on you, thinking you dead-
    And dead almost, my liege, to think you were-
    I spake unto this crown as having sense,
    And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending
    Hath fed upon the body of my father;
    Therefore thou best of gold art worst of gold.
    Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,
    Preserving life in med'cine potable;
    But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd,
    Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege,
    Accusing it, I put it on my head,
    To try with it- as with an enemy
    That had before my face murd'red my father-
    The quarrel of a true inheritor.
    But if it did infect my blood with joy,
    Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;
    If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
    Did with the least affection of a welcome
    Give entertainment to the might of it,
    Let God for ever keep it from my head,
    And make me as the poorest vassal is,
    That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!
  KING. O my son,
    God put it in thy mind to take it hence,
    That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,
    Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!
    Come hither, Harry; sit thou by my bed,
    And hear, I think, the very latest counsel
    That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,
    By what by-paths and indirect crook'd ways
    I met this crown; and I myself know well
    How troublesome it sat upon my head:
    To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
    Better opinion, better confirmation;
    For all the soil of the achievement goes
    With me into the earth. It seem'd in me
    But as an honour snatch'd with boist'rous hand;
    And I had many living to upbraid
    My gain of it by their assistances;
    Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,
    Wounding supposed peace. All these bold fears
    Thou seest with peril I have answered;
    For all my reign hath been but as a scene
    Acting that argument. And now my death
    Changes the mood; for what in me was purchas'd
    Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;
    So thou the garland wear'st successively.
    Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,
    Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;
    And all my friends, which thou must make thy friends,
    Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;
    By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,
    And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
    To be again displac'd; which to avoid,
    I cut them off; and had a purpose now
    To lead out many to the Holy Land,
    Lest rest and lying still might make them look
    Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,
    Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
    With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,
    May waste the memory of the former days.
    More would I, but my lungs are wasted so
    That strength of speech is utterly denied me.
    How I came by the crown, O God, forgive;
    And grant it may with thee in true peace live!
  PRINCE. My gracious liege,
    You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
    Then plain and right must my possession be;
    Which I with more than with a common pain
    'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

       Enter PRINCE JOHN OF LANCASTER, WARWICK, LORDS, and others

  KING. Look, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.
  PRINCE JOHN. Health, peace, and happiness, to my royal father!
  KING. Thou bring'st me happiness and peace, son John;
    But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown
    From this bare wither'd trunk. Upon thy sight
    My worldly business makes a period.
    Where is my Lord of Warwick?
  PRINCE. My Lord of Warwick!
  KING. Doth any name particular belong
    Unto the lodging where I first did swoon?
  WARWICK. 'Tis call'd Jerusalem, my noble lord.
  KING. Laud be to God! Even there my life must end.
    It hath been prophesied to me many years,
    I should not die but in Jerusalem;
    Which vainly I suppos'd the Holy Land.
    But bear me to that chamber; there I'll lie;
    In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.                    Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S house

Enter SHALLOW, FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, and PAGE

  SHALLOW. By cock and pie, sir, you shall not away to-night.
    What, Davy, I say!
  FALSTAFF. You must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.
  SHALLOW. I will not excuse you; you shall not be excus'd; excuses
    shall not be admitted; there is no excuse shall serve; you shall
    not be excus'd. Why, Davy!

                            Enter DAVY

  DAVY. Here, sir.
  SHALLOW. Davy, Davy, Davy, Davy; let me see, Davy; let me see,
    Davy; let me see- yea, marry, William cook, bid him come hither.
    Sir John, you shall not be excus'd.
  DAVY. Marry, sir, thus: those precepts cannot be served; and,
    again, sir- shall we sow the headland with wheat?
  SHALLOW. With red wheat, Davy. But for William cook- are there no
    young pigeons?
  DAVY. Yes, sir. Here is now the smith's note for shoeing and
    plough-irons.
  SHALLOW. Let it be cast, and paid. Sir John, you shall not be
    excused.
  DAVY. Now, sir, a new link to the bucket must needs be had; and,
    sir, do you mean to stop any of William's wages about the sack he
    lost the other day at Hinckley fair?
  SHALLOW. 'A shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of
    short-legg'd hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny
    kickshaws, tell William cook.
  DAVY. Doth the man of war stay all night, sir?
  SHALLOW. Yea, Davy; I will use him well. A friend i' th' court is
    better than a penny in purse. Use his men well, Davy; for they
    are arrant knaves and will backbite.
  DAVY. No worse than they are backbitten, sir; for they have
    marvellous foul linen.
  SHALLOW. Well conceited, Davy- about thy business, Davy.
  DAVY. I beseech you, sir, to countenance William Visor of Woncot
    against Clement Perkes o' th' hill.
  SHALLOW. There, is many complaints, Davy, against that Visor. That
    Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.
  DAVY. I grant your worship that he is a knave, sir; but yet God
    forbid, sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his
    friend's request. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for
    himself, when a knave is not. I have serv'd your worship truly,
    sir, this eight years; an I cannot once or twice in a quarter
    bear out a knave against an honest man, I have but a very little
    credit with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, sir;
    therefore, I beseech you, let him be countenanc'd.
  SHALLOW. Go to; I say he shall have no wrong. Look about,
  DAVY.  [Exit DAVY]  Where are you, Sir John? Come, come, come, off
    with your boots. Give me your hand, Master Bardolph.
  BARDOLPH. I am glad to see your worship.
  SHALLOW. I thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bardolph.
    [To the PAGE]  And welcome, my tall fellow. Come, Sir John.
  FALSTAFF. I'll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.
    [Exit SHALLOW]  Bardolph, look to our horses.  [Exeunt BARDOLPH
    and PAGE]  If I were sawed into quantities, I should make four
    dozen of such bearded hermits' staves as Master Shallow. It is a
    wonderful thing to see the semblable coherence of his men's
    spirits and his. They, by observing of him, do bear themselves
    like foolish justices: he, by conversing with them, is turned
    into a justice-like serving-man. Their spirits are so married in
    conjunction with the participation of society that they flock
    together in consent, like so many wild geese. If I had a suit to
    Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the imputation of
    being near their master; if to his men, I would curry with Master
    Shallow that no man could better command his servants. It is
    certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught,
    as men take diseases, one of another; therefore let men take heed
    of their company. I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow
    to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six
    fashions, which is four terms, or two actions; and 'a shall laugh
    without intervallums. O, it is much that a lie with a slight
    oath, and a jest with a sad brow will do with a fellow that never
    had the ache in his shoulders! O, you shall see him laugh till
    his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up!
  SHALLOW.  [Within]  Sir John!
  FALSTAFF. I come, Master Shallow; I come, Master Shallow.
 Exit

SCENE II. Westminster. The palace

Enter, severally, WARWICK, and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE

  WARWICK. How now, my Lord Chief Justice; whither away?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. How doth the King?
  WARWICK. Exceeding well; his cares are now all ended.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I hope, not dead.
  WARWICK. He's walk'd the way of nature;
    And to our purposes he lives no more.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I would his Majesty had call'd me with him.
    The service that I truly did his life
    Hath left me open to all injuries.
  WARWICK. Indeed, I think the young king loves you not.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I know he doth not, and do arm myself
    To welcome the condition of the time,
    Which cannot look more hideously upon me
    Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.

              Enter LANCASTER, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,
                     WESTMORELAND, and others

  WARWICK. Here comes the heavy issue of dead Harry.
    O that the living Harry had the temper
    Of he, the worst of these three gentlemen!
    How many nobles then should hold their places
    That must strike sail to spirits of vile sort!
  CHIEF JUSTICE. O God, I fear all will be overturn'd.
  PRINCE JOHN. Good morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.
  GLOUCESTER & CLARENCE. Good morrow, cousin.
  PRINCE JOHN. We meet like men that had forgot to speak.
  WARWICK. We do remember; but our argument
    Is all too heavy to admit much talk.
  PRINCE JOHN. Well, peace be with him that hath made us heavy!
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Peace be with us, lest we be heavier!
  PRINCE HUMPHREY. O, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed;
    And I dare swear you borrow not that face
    Of seeming sorrow- it is sure your own.
  PRINCE JOHN. Though no man be assur'd what grace to find,
    You stand in coldest expectation.
    I am the sorrier; would 'twere otherwise.
  CLARENCE. Well, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair;
    Which swims against your stream of quality.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Sweet Princes, what I did, I did in honour,
    Led by th' impartial conduct of my soul;
    And never shall you see that I will beg
    A ragged and forestall'd remission.
    If truth and upright innocency fail me,
    I'll to the King my master that is dead,
    And tell him who hath sent me after him.
  WARWICK. Here comes the Prince.

            Enter KING HENRY THE FIFTH, attended

  CHIEF JUSTICE. Good morrow, and God save your Majesty!
  KING. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
    Sits not so easy on me as you think.
    Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear.
    This is the English, not the Turkish court;
    Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
    But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,
    For, by my faith, it very well becomes you.
    Sorrow so royally in you appears
    That I will deeply put the fashion on,
    And wear it in my heart. Why, then, be sad;
    But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
    Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
    For me, by heaven, I bid you be assur'd,
    I'll be your father and your brother too;
    Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares.
    Yet weep that Harry's dead, and so will I;
    But Harry lives that shall convert those tears
    By number into hours of happiness.
  BROTHERS. We hope no otherwise from your Majesty.
  KING. You all look strangely on me; and you most.
    You are, I think, assur'd I love you not.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I am assur'd, if I be measur'd rightly,
    Your Majesty hath no just cause to hate me.
  KING. No?
    How might a prince of my great hopes forget
    So great indignities you laid upon me?
    What, rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison,
    Th' immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
    May this be wash'd in Lethe and forgotten?
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I then did use the person of your father;
    The image of his power lay then in me;
    And in th' administration of his law,
    Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
    Your Highness pleased to forget my place,
    The majesty and power of law and justice,
    The image of the King whom I presented,
    And struck me in my very seat of judgment;
    Whereon, as an offender to your father,
    I gave bold way to my authority
    And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
    Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
    To have a son set your decrees at nought,
    To pluck down justice from your awful bench,
    To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
    That guards the peace and safety of your person;
    Nay, more, to spurn at your most royal image,
    And mock your workings in a second body.
    Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
    Be now the father, and propose a son;
    Hear your own dignity so much profan'd,
    See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
    Behold yourself so by a son disdain'd;
    And then imagine me taking your part
    And, in your power, soft silencing your son.
    After this cold considerance, sentence me;
    And, as you are a king, speak in your state
    What I have done that misbecame my place,
    My person, or my liege's sovereignty.
  KING. You are right, Justice, and you weigh this well;
    Therefore still bear the balance and the sword;
    And I do wish your honours may increase
    Till you do live to see a son of mine
    Offend you, and obey you, as I did.
    So shall I live to speak my father's words:
    'Happy am I that have a man so bold
    That dares do justice on my proper son;
    And not less happy, having such a son
    That would deliver up his greatness so
    Into the hands of justice.' You did commit me;
    For which I do commit into your hand
    Th' unstained sword that you have us'd to bear;
    With this remembrance- that you use the same
    With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit
    As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand.
    You shall be as a father to my youth;
    My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear;
    And I will stoop and humble my intents
    To your well-practis'd wise directions.
    And, Princes all, believe me, I beseech you,
    My father is gone wild into his grave,
    For in his tomb lie my affections;
    And with his spirits sadly I survive,
    To mock the expectation of the world,
    To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
    Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
    After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
    Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now.
    Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
    Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
    And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
    Now call we our high court of parliament;
    And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
    That the great body of our state may go
    In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;
    That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
    As things acquainted and familiar to us;
    In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.
    Our coronation done, we will accite,
    As I before rememb'red, all our state;
    And- God consigning to my good intents-
    No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,
    God shorten Harry's happy life one day.               Exeunt

SCENE III. Gloucestershire. SHALLOW'S orchard

Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, SILENCE, BARDOLPH, the PAGE, and DAVY

  SHALLOW. Nay, you shall see my orchard, where, in an arbour, we
    will eat a last year's pippin of mine own graffing, with a dish
    of caraways, and so forth. Come, cousin Silence. And then to bed.
  FALSTAFF. Fore God, you have here a goodly dwelling and rich.
  SHALLOW. Barren, barren, barren; beggars all, beggars all, Sir John
    -marry, good air. Spread, Davy, spread, Davy; well said, Davy.
  FALSTAFF. This Davy serves you for good uses; he is your
    serving-man and your husband.
  SHALLOW. A good varlet, a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir
    John. By the mass, I have drunk too much sack at supper. A good
    varlet. Now sit down, now sit down; come, cousin.
  SILENCE. Ah, sirrah! quoth-a- we shall               [Singing]

              Do nothing but eat and make good cheer,
              And praise God for the merry year;
              When flesh is cheap and females dear,
              And lusty lads roam here and there,
                  So merrily,
                And ever among so merrily.

  FALSTAFF. There's a merry heart! Good Master Silence, I'll give you
    a health for that anon.
  SHALLOW. Give Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.
  DAVY. Sweet sir, sit; I'll be with you anon; most sweet sir, sit.
    Master Page, good Master Page, sit. Proface! What you want in
    meat, we'll have in drink. But you must bear; the heart's all.
 Exit
  SHALLOW. Be merry, Master Bardolph; and, my little soldier there,
    be merry.
  SILENCE.  [Singing]

         Be merry, be merry, my wife has all;
         For women are shrews, both short and tall;
         'Tis merry in hall when beards wag an;
           And welcome merry Shrove-tide.
         Be merry, be merry.

  FALSTAFF. I did not think Master Silence had been a man of this
    mettle.
  SILENCE. Who, I? I have been merry twice and once ere now.

                          Re-enter DAVY

  DAVY.  [To BARDOLPH]  There's a dish of leather-coats for you.
  SHALLOW. Davy!
  DAVY. Your worship! I'll be with you straight.  [To BARDOLPH]
    A cup of wine, sir?
  SILENCE.  [Singing]

         A cup of wine that's brisk and fine,
         And drink unto the leman mine;
           And a merry heart lives long-a.

  FALSTAFF. Well said, Master Silence.
  SILENCE. An we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet o' th' night.
  FALSTAFF. Health and long life to you, Master Silence!
  SILENCE.  [Singing]

         Fill the cup, and let it come,
         I'll pledge you a mile to th' bottom.

  SHALLOW. Honest Bardolph, welcome; if thou want'st anything and
    wilt not call, beshrew thy heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief
    and welcome indeed too. I'll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all
    the cabileros about London.
  DAVY. I hope to see London once ere I die.
  BARDOLPH. An I might see you there, Davy!
  SHALLOW. By the mass, you'R crack a quart together- ha! will you
    not, Master Bardolph?
  BARDOLPH. Yea, sir, in a pottle-pot.
  SHALLOW. By God's liggens, I thank thee. The knave will stick by
    thee, I can assure thee that. 'A will not out, 'a; 'tis true
    bred.
  BARDOLPH. And I'll stick by him, sir.
  SHALLOW. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing; be merry.
    [One knocks at door]  Look who's at door there, ho! Who knocks?
                                                       Exit DAVY
  FALSTAFF.  [To SILENCE, who has drunk a bumper]  Why, now you have
    done me right.
  SILENCE.  [Singing]

         Do me right,
         And dub me knight.
           Samingo.

    Is't not so?
  FALSTAFF. 'Tis so.
  SILENCE. Is't so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.

                        Re-enter DAVY

  DAVY. An't please your worship, there's one Pistol come from the
    court with news.
  FALSTAFF. From the court? Let him come in.

                        Enter PISTOL

    How now, Pistol?
  PISTOL. Sir John, God save you!
  FALSTAFF. What wind blew you hither, Pistol?
  PISTOL. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good. Sweet knight,
    thou art now one of the greatest men in this realm.
  SILENCE. By'r lady, I think 'a be, but goodman Puff of Barson.
  PISTOL. Puff!
    Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!
    Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,
    And helter-skelter have I rode to thee;
    And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,
    And golden times, and happy news of price.
  FALSTAFF. I pray thee now, deliver them like a man of this world.
  PISTOL. A foutra for the world and worldlings base!
    I speak of Africa and golden joys.
  FALSTAFF. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
    Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.
  SILENCE.  [Singing]  And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.
  PISTOL. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons?
    And shall good news be baffled?
    Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.
  SHALLOW. Honest gentleman, I know not your breeding.
  PISTOL. Why, then, lament therefore.
  SHALLOW. Give me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come with news from the
    court, I take it there's but two ways- either to utter them or
    conceal them. I am, sir, under the King, in some authority.
  PISTOL. Under which king, Bezonian? Speak, or die.
  SHALLOW. Under King Harry.
  PISTOL. Harry the Fourth- or Fifth?
  SHALLOW. Harry the Fourth.
  PISTOL. A foutra for thine office!
    Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is King;
    Harry the Fifth's the man. I speak the truth.
    When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like
    The bragging Spaniard.
  FALSTAFF. What, is the old king dead?
  PISTOL. As nail in door. The things I speak are just.
  FALSTAFF. Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse. Master Robert Shallow,
    choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine. Pistol, I
    will double-charge thee with dignities.
  BARDOLPH. O joyful day!
    I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.
  PISTOL. What, I do bring good news?
  FALSTAFF. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master Shallow, my Lord
    Shallow, be what thou wilt- I am Fortune's steward. Get on thy
    boots; we'll ride all night. O sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph!
    [Exit BARDOLPH]  Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and withal
    devise something to do thyself good. Boot, boot, Master Shallow!
    I know the young King is sick for me. Let us take any man's
    horses: the laws of England are at my commandment. Blessed are
    they that have been my friends; and woe to my Lord Chief Justice!
  PISTOL. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also!
    'Where is the life that late I led?' say they.
    Why, here it is; welcome these pleasant days!         Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. A street

Enter BEADLES, dragging in HOSTESS QUICKLY and DOLL TEARSHEET

  HOSTESS. No, thou arrant knave; I would to God that I might die,
    that I might have thee hang'd. Thou hast drawn my shoulder out of
    joint.
  FIRST BEADLE. The constables have delivered her over to me; and she
    shall have whipping-cheer enough, I warrant her. There hath been
    a man or two lately kill'd about her.
  DOLL. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what,
    thou damn'd tripe-visag'd rascal, an the child I now go with do
    miscarry, thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou
    paper-fac'd villain.
  HOSTESS. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! He would make this a
    bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb
    miscarry!
  FIRST BEADLE. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again;
    you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for
    the man is dead that you and Pistol beat amongst you.
  DOLL. I'll tell you what, you thin man in a censer, I will have you
    as soundly swing'd for this- you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy
    famish'd correctioner, if you be not swing'd, I'll forswear
    half-kirtles.
  FIRST BEADLE. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come.
  HOSTESS. O God, that right should thus overcome might!
    Well, of sufferance comes ease.
  DOLL. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice.
  HOSTESS. Ay, come, you starv'd bloodhound.
  DOLL. Goodman death, goodman bones!
  HOSTESS. Thou atomy, thou!
  DOLL. Come, you thin thing! come, you rascal!
  FIRST BEADLE. Very well.                                Exeunt

SCENE V. Westminster. Near the Abbey

Enter GROOMS, strewing rushes

  FIRST GROOM. More rushes, more rushes!
  SECOND GROOM. The trumpets have sounded twice.
  THIRD GROOM. 'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the
    coronation. Dispatch, dispatch.                       Exeunt

        Trumpets sound, and the KING and his train pass
       over the stage. After them enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW,
                  PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and page

  FALSTAFF. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow; I will make the
    King do you grace. I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do
    but mark the countenance that he will give me.
  PISTOL. God bless thy lungs, good knight!
  FALSTAFF. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.  [To SHALLOW]  O, if
    I had had to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the
    thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 'tis no matter; this poor
    show doth better; this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.
  SHALLOW. It doth so.
  FALSTAFF. It shows my earnestness of affection-
  SHALLOW. It doth so.
  FALSTAFF. My devotion-
  SHALLOW. It doth, it doth, it doth.
  FALSTAFF. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate,
    not to remember, not to have patience to shift me-
  SHALLOW. It is best, certain.
  FALSTAFF. But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with
    desire to see him; thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs
    else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to
    see him.
  PISTOL. 'Tis 'semper idem' for 'obsque hoc nihil est.' 'Tis all in
    every part.
  SHALLOW. 'Tis so, indeed.
  PISTOL. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver
    And make thee rage.
    Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
    Is in base durance and contagious prison;
    Hal'd thither
    By most mechanical and dirty hand.
    Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake,
    For Doll is in. Pistol speaks nought but truth.
  FALSTAFF. I will deliver her.
                         [Shouts,within, and the trumpets sound]
  PISTOL. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

        Enter the KING and his train, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
                               among them

  FALSTAFF. God save thy Grace, King Hal; my royal Hal!
  PISTOL. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!
  FALSTAFF. God save thee, my sweet boy!
  KING. My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain man.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. Have you your wits? Know you what 'tis you speak?
  FALSTAFF. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!
  KING. I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
    How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
    I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
    So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
    But being awak'd, I do despise my dream.
    Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
    Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
    For thee thrice wider than for other men-
    Reply not to me with a fool-born jest;
    Presume not that I am the thing I was,
    For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
    That I have turn'd away my former self;
    So will I those that kept me company.
    When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
    Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
    The tutor and the feeder of my riots.
    Till then I banish thee, on pain of death,
    As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
    Not to come near our person by ten mile.
    For competence of life I will allow you,
    That lack of means enforce you not to evils;
    And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
    We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
    Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
    To see perform'd the tenour of our word.
    Set on.                        Exeunt the KING and his train
  FALSTAFF. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pounds.
  SHALLOW. Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have
    home with me.
  FALSTAFF. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at
    this; I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must
    seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancements; I will be the
    man yet that shall make you great.
  SHALLOW. I cannot perceive how, unless you give me your doublet,
    and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me
    have five hundred of my thousand.
  FALSTAFF. Sir, I will be as good as my word. This that you heard
    was but a colour.
  SHALLOW. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John.
  FALSTAFF. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant
    Pistol; come, Bardolph. I shall be sent for soon at night.

            Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE,
                            with officers

  CHIEF JUSTICE. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet;
    Take all his company along with him.
  FALSTAFF. My lord, my lord-
  CHIEF JUSTICE. I cannot now speak. I will hear you soon.
    Take them away.
  PISTOL. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero me contenta.
           Exeunt all but PRINCE JOHN and the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
  PRINCE JOHN. I like this fair proceeding of the King's.
    He hath intent his wonted followers
    Shall all be very well provided for;
    But all are banish'd till their conversations
    Appear more wise and modest to the world.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. And so they are.
  PRINCE JOHN. The King hath call'd his parliament, my lord.
  CHIEF JUSTICE. He hath.
  PRINCE JOHN. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,
    We bear our civil swords and native fire
    As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,
    Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the King.
    Come, will you hence?                                 Exeunt

EPILOGUE EPILOGUE.

  First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear, is your
  displeasure; my curtsy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons.
  If you look for a good speech now, you undo me; for what I have to
  say is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say will, I
  doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the
  venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in
  the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to
  promise you a better. I meant, indeed, to pay you with this; which if
  like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my
  gentle creditors, lose. Here I promis'd you I would be, and here I
  commit my body to your mercies. Bate me some, and I will pay you
  some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely; and so I kneel
  down before you- but, indeed, to pray for the Queen. If my tongue
  cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs?
  And yet that were but light payment-to dance out of your debt. But a
  good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so would I.
  All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me. If the gentlemen will not,
  then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never
  seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you
  be not too much cloy'd with fat meat, our humble author will continue
  the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair
  Katherine of France; where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die
  of a sweat, unless already 'a be killed with your hard opinions; for
  Oldcastle died a martyr and this is not the man. My tongue is weary;
  when my legs are too, I will bid you good night.

THE END

1599



THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  CHORUS
  KING HENRY THE FIFTH
  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brother to the King
  DUKE OF BEDFORD,       "     "  "    "
  DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King
  DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King
  EARL OF SALISBURY
  EARL OF WESTMORELAND
  EARL OF WARWICK
  ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
  BISHOP OF ELY

  EARL OF CAMBRIDGE, conspirator against the King
  LORD SCROOP,            "         "     "    "
  SIR THOMAS GREY,        "         "     "    "
  SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, officer in the King's army
  GOWER,                  "      "  "    "     "
  FLUELLEN,               "      "  "    "     "
  MACMORRIS,              "      "  "    "     "
  JAMY,                   "      "  "    "     "

  BATES,    soldier in the King's army
  COURT,       "    "   "    "     "
  WILLIAMS,    "    "   "    "     "
  NYM,         "    "   "    "     "
  BARDOLPH,    "    "   "    "     "
  PISTOL,      "    "   "    "     "

  BOY                               A HERALD

  CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France
  LEWIS, the Dauphin                DUKE OF BURGUNDY
  DUKE OF ORLEANS                   DUKE OF BRITAINE
  DUKE OF BOURBON                   THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE
  RAMBURES, French Lord
  GRANDPRE,    "    "
  GOVERNOR OF HARFLEUR              MONTJOY, a French herald
  AMBASSADORS to the King of England

  ISABEL, Queen of France
  KATHERINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel
  ALICE, a lady attending her
  HOSTESS of the Boar's Head, Eastcheap; formerly Mrs. Quickly, now
    married to Pistol

  Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, Attendants

                              SCENE: England and France

PROLOGUE PROLOGUE.

                          Enter CHORUS

 CHORUS. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
   The brightest heaven of invention,
   A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
   And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
   Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
   Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
   Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire,
   Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
   The flat unraised spirits that hath dar'd
   On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
   So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
   The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
   Within this wooden O the very casques
   That did affright the air at Agincourt?
   O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
   Attest in little place a million;
   And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
   On your imaginary forces work.
   Suppose within the girdle of these walls
   Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
   Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
   The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
   Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
   Into a thousand parts divide one man,
   And make imaginary puissance;
   Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
   Printing their proud hoofs i' th' receiving earth;
   For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
   Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
   Turning th' accomplishment of many years
   Into an hour-glass; for the which supply,
   Admit me Chorus to this history;
   Who prologue-like, your humble patience pray
   Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.               Exit

ACT I. SCENE I. London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and the BISHOP OF ELY

 CANTERBURY. My lord, I'll tell you: that self bill is urg'd
   Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign
   Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd
   But that the scambling and unquiet time
   Did push it out of farther question.
 ELY. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
 CANTERBURY. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
   We lose the better half of our possession;
   For all the temporal lands which men devout
   By testament have given to the church
   Would they strip from us; being valu'd thus-
   As much as would maintain, to the King's honour,
   Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
   Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
   And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
   Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
   A hundred alms-houses right well supplied;
   And to the coffers of the King, beside,
   A thousand pounds by th' year: thus runs the bill.
 ELY. This would drink deep.
 CANTERBURY. 'T would drink the cup and all.
 ELY. But what prevention?
 CANTERBURY. The King is full of grace and fair regard.
 ELY. And a true lover of the holy Church.
 CANTERBURY. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
   The breath no sooner left his father's body
   But that his wildness, mortified in him,
   Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
   Consideration like an angel came
   And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
   Leaving his body as a paradise
   T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.
   Never was such a sudden scholar made;
   Never came reformation in a flood,
   With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
   Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulnes
   So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
   As in this king.
 ELY. We are blessed in the change.
 CANTERBURY. Hear him but reason in divinity,
   And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
   You would desire the King were made a prelate;
   Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
   You would say it hath been all in all his study;
   List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
   A fearful battle rend'red you in music.
   Turn him to any cause of policy,
   The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
   Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
   The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
   And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
   To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
   So that the art and practic part of life
   Must be the mistress to this theoric;
   Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
   Since his addiction was to courses vain,
   His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow,
   His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
   And never noted in him any study,
   Any retirement, any sequestration
   From open haunts and popularity.
 ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
   And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
   Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;
   And so the Prince obscur'd his contemplation
   Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
   Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
   Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
 CANTERBURY. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd;
   And therefore we must needs admit the means
   How things are perfected.
 ELY. But, my good lord,
   How now for mitigation of this bill
   Urg'd by the Commons? Doth his Majesty
   Incline to it, or no?
 CANTERBURY. He seems indifferent
   Or rather swaying more upon our part
   Than cherishing th' exhibiters against us;
   For I have made an offer to his Majesty-
   Upon our spiritual convocation
   And in regard of causes now in hand,
   Which I have open'd to his Grace at large,
   As touching France- to give a greater sum
   Than ever at one time the clergy yet
   Did to his predecessors part withal.
 ELY. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
 CANTERBURY. With good acceptance of his Majesty;
   Save that there was not time enough to hear,
   As I perceiv'd his Grace would fain have done,
   The severals and unhidden passages
   Of his true tides to some certain dukedoms,
   And generally to the crown and seat of France,
   Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.
 ELY. What was th' impediment that broke this off?
 CANTERBURY. The French ambassador upon that instant
   Crav'd audience; and the hour, I think, is come
   To give him hearing: is it four o'clock?
 ELY. It is.
 CANTERBURY. Then go we in, to know his embassy;
   Which I could with a ready guess declare,
   Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
 ELY. I'll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.          Exeunt

SCENE II. London. The Presence Chamber in the KING'S palace

Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and
attendants

  KING HENRY. Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
  EXETER. Not here in presence.
  KING HENRY. Send for him, good uncle.
  WESTMORELAND. Shall we call in th' ambassador, my liege?
  KING HENRY. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,
    Before we hear him, of some things of weight
    That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

              Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and
                       the BISHOP OF ELY

  CANTERBURY. God and his angels guard your sacred throne,
    And make you long become it!
  KING HENRY. Sure, we thank you.
    My learned lord, we pray you to proceed,
    And justly and religiously unfold
    Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
    Or should or should not bar us in our claim;
    And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
    That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
    Or nicely charge your understanding soul
    With opening titles miscreate whose right
    Suits not in native colours with the truth;
    For God doth know how many, now in health,
    Shall drop their blood in approbation
    Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
    Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
    How you awake our sleeping sword of war-
    We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;
    For never two such kingdoms did contend
    Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
    Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
    'Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords
    That makes such waste in brief mortality.
    Under this conjuration speak, my lord;
    For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
    That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
    As pure as sin with baptism.
  CANTERBURY. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
    That owe yourselves, your lives, and services,
    To this imperial throne. There is no bar
    To make against your Highness' claim to France
    But this, which they produce from Pharamond:
    'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant'-
    'No woman shall succeed in Salique land';
    Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
    To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
    The founder of this law and female bar.
    Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
    That the land Salique is in Germany,
    Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
    Where Charles the Great, having subdu'd the Saxons,
    There left behind and settled certain French;
    Who, holding in disdain the German women
    For some dishonest manners of their life,
    Establish'd then this law: to wit, no female
    Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
    Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
    Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
    Then doth it well appear the Salique law
    Was not devised for the realm of France;
    Nor did the French possess the Salique land
    Until four hundred one and twenty years
    After defunction of King Pharamond,
    Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;
    Who died within the year of our redemption
    Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
    Subdu'd the Saxons, and did seat the French
    Beyond the river Sala, in the year
    Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
    King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
    Did, as heir general, being descended
    Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
    Make claim and title to the crown of France.
    Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown
    Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
    Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
    To find his title with some shows of truth-
    Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught-
    Convey'd himself as th' heir to th' Lady Lingare,
    Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
    To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son
    Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
    Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
    Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
    Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
    That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
    Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
    Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine;
    By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
    Was re-united to the Crown of France.
    So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
    King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
    King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
    To hold in right and tide of the female;
    So do the kings of France unto this day,
    Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
    To bar your Highness claiming from the female;
    And rather choose to hide them in a net
    Than amply to imbar their crooked tides
    Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.
  KING HENRY. May I with right and conscience make this claim?
  CANTERBURY. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
    For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
    When the man dies, let the inheritance
    Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
    Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag,
    Look back into your mighty ancestors.
    Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,
    From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
    And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
    Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
    Making defeat on the fun power of France,
    Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
    Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
    Forage in blood of French nobility.
    O noble English, that could entertain
    With half their forces the full pride of France,
    And let another half stand laughing by,
    All out of work and cold for action!
  ELY. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
    And with your puissant arm renew their feats.
    You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;
    The blood and courage that renowned them
    Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
    Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
    Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
  EXETER. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
    Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
    As did the former lions of your blood.
  WESTMORELAND. They know your Grace hath cause and means and might-
    So hath your Highness; never King of England
    Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,
    Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England
    And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.
  CANTERBURY. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
    With blood and sword and fire to win your right!
    In aid whereof we of the spiritualty
    Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum
    As never did the clergy at one time
    Bring in to any of your ancestors.
  KING HENRY. We must not only arm t' invade the French,
    But lay down our proportions to defend
    Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
    With all advantages.
  CANTERBURY. They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
    Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
    Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
  KING HENRY. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
    But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
    Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
    For you shall read that my great-grandfather
    Never went with his forces into France
    But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
    Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
    With ample and brim fulness of his force,
    Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,
    Girdling with grievous siege castles and towns;
    That England, being empty of defence,
    Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood.
  CANTERBURY. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;
    For hear her but exampled by herself:
    When all her chivalry hath been in France,
    And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
    She hath herself not only well defended
    But taken and impounded as a stray
    The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,
    To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings,
    And make her chronicle as rich with praise
    As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
    With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
  WESTMORELAND. But there's a saying, very old and true:

          'If that you will France win,
          Then with Scotland first begin.'

    For once the eagle England being in prey,
    To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
    Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs,
    Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
    To tear and havoc more than she can eat.
  EXETER. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home;
    Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,
    Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries
    And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
    While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
    Th' advised head defends itself at home;
    For government, though high, and low, and lower,
    Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
    Congreeing in a full and natural close,
    Like music.
  CANTERBURY. Therefore doth heaven divide
    The state of man in divers functions,
    Setting endeavour in continual motion;
    To which is fixed as an aim or but
    Obedience; for so work the honey bees,
    Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
    The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
    They have a king, and officers of sorts,
    Where some like magistrates correct at home;
    Others like merchants venture trade abroad;
    Others like soldiers, armed in their stings,
    Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
    Which pillage they with merry march bring home
    To the tent-royal of their emperor;
    Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
    The singing masons building roofs of gold,
    The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
    The poor mechanic porters crowding in
    Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
    The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
    Delivering o'er to executors pale
    The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
    That many things, having full reference
    To one consent, may work contrariously;
    As many arrows loosed several ways
    Come to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,
    As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,
    As many lines close in the dial's centre;
    So many a thousand actions, once afoot,
    End in one purpose, and be all well home
    Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
    Divide your happy England into four;
    Whereof take you one quarter into France,
    And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
    If we, with thrice such powers left at home,
    Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,
    Let us be worried, and our nation lose
    The name of hardiness and policy.
  KING HENRY. Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
                                          Exeunt some attendants
    Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God's help
    And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
    France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
    Or break it all to pieces; or there we'll sit,
    Ruling in large and ample empery
    O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
    Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
    Tombless, with no remembrance over them.
    Either our history shall with full mouth
    Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
    Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
    Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.

                  Enter AMBASSADORS of France

    Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure
    Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear
    Your greeting is from him, not from the King.
  AMBASSADOR. May't please your Majesty to give us leave
    Freely to render what we have in charge;
    Or shall we sparingly show you far of
    The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?
  KING HENRY. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,
    Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
    As are our wretches fett'red in our prisons;
    Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness
    Tell us the Dauphin's mind.
  AMBASSADOR. Thus then, in few.
    Your Highness, lately sending into France,
    Did claim some certain dukedoms in the right
    Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
    In answer of which claim, the Prince our master
    Says that you savour too much of your youth,
    And bids you be advis'd there's nought in France
    That can be with a nimble galliard won;
    You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
    He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
    This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
    Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
    Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
  KING HENRY. What treasure, uncle?
  EXETER. Tennis-balls, my liege.
  KING HENRY. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
    His present and your pains we thank you for.
    When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
    We will in France, by God's grace, play a set
    Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
    Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
    That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
    With chaces. And we understand him well,
    How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
    Not measuring what use we made of them.
    We never valu'd this poor seat of England;
    And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
    To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common
    That men are merriest when they are from home.
    But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
    Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,
    When I do rouse me in my throne of France;
    For that I have laid by my majesty
    And plodded like a man for working-days;
    But I will rise there with so full a glory
    That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
    Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
    And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his
    Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
    Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
    That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
    Shall this his mock mock of their dear husbands;
    Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
    And some are yet ungotten and unborn
    That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
    But this lies all within the will of God,
    To whom I do appeal; and in whose name,
    Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on,
    To venge me as I may and to put forth
    My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
    So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
    His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
    When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.
    Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.
                                              Exeunt AMBASSADORS
  EXETER. This was a merry message.
  KING HENRY. We hope to make the sender blush at it.
    Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
    That may give furth'rance to our expedition;
    For we have now no thought in us but France,
    Save those to God, that run before our business.
    Therefore let our proportions for these wars
    Be soon collected, and all things thought upon
    That may with reasonable swiftness ad
    More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
    We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.
    Therefore let every man now task his thought
    That this fair action may on foot be brought.         Exeunt

ACT II. PROLOGUE.

Flourish. Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Now all the youth of England are on fire,
    And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;
    Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
    Reigns solely in the breast of every man;
    They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
    Following the mirror of all Christian kings
    With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
    For now sits Expectation in the air,
    And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
    With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,
    Promis'd to Harry and his followers.
    The French, advis'd by good intelligence
    Of this most dreadful preparation,
    Shake in their fear and with pale policy
    Seek to divert the English purposes.
    O England! model to thy inward greatness,
    Like little body with a mighty heart,
    What mightst thou do that honour would thee do,
    Were all thy children kind and natural!
    But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
    A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
    With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men-
    One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,
    Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,
    Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,
    Have, for the gilt of France- O guilt indeed!-
    Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France;
    And by their hands this grace of kings must die-
    If hell and treason hold their promises,
    Ere he take ship for France- and in Southampton.
    Linger your patience on, and we'll digest
    Th' abuse of distance, force a play.
    The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed,
    The King is set from London, and the scene
    Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton;
    There is the play-house now, there must you sit,
    And thence to France shall we convey you safe
    And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
    To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,
    We'll not offend one stomach with our play.
    But, till the King come forth, and not till then,
    Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.                 Exit

SCENE I. London. Before the Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap

Enter CORPORAL NYM and LIEUTENANT BARDOLPH

  BARDOLPH. Well met, Corporal Nym.
  NYM. Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.
  BARDOLPH. What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?
  NYM. For my part, I care not; I say little, but when time shall
    serve, there shall be smiles- but that shall be as it may. I dare
    not fight; but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple
    one; but what though? It will toast cheese, and it will endure
    cold as another man's sword will; and there's an end.
  BARDOLPH. I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and we'll
    be all three sworn brothers to France. Let't be so, good Corporal
    Nym.
  NYM. Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it;
    and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my
    rest, that is the rendezvous of it.
  BARDOLPH. It is certain, Corporal, that he is married to Nell
    Quickly; and certainly she did you wrong, for you were
    troth-plight to her.
  NYM. I cannot tell; things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and
    they may have their throats about them at that time; and some say
    knives have edges. It must be as it may; though patience be a
    tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I
    cannot tell.

                     Enter PISTOL and HOSTESS

  BARDOLPH. Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good Corporal, be
    patient here.
  NYM. How now, mine host Pistol!
  PISTOL. Base tike, call'st thou me host?
    Now by this hand, I swear I scorn the term;
    Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.
  HOSTESS. No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a
    dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of
    their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy-house
    straight. [Nym draws] O well-a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn! Now
    we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.
  BARDOLPH. Good Lieutenant, good Corporal, offer nothing here.
  NYM. Pish!
  PISTOL. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear'd cur of
    Iceland!
  HOSTESS. Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.
  NYM. Will you shog off? I would have you solus.
  PISTOL. 'Solus,' egregious dog? O viper vile!
    The 'solus' in thy most mervailous face;
    The 'solus' in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
    And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy;
    And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
    I do retort the 'solus' in thy bowels;
    For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
    And flashing fire will follow.
  NYM. I am not Barbason: you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to
    knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I
    will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms; if you
    would walk off I would prick your guts a little, in good terms,
    as I may, and thaes the humour of it.
  PISTOL. O braggart vile and damned furious wight!
    The grave doth gape and doting death is near;
    Therefore exhale.                             [PISTOL draws]
  BARDOLPH. Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the first
    stroke I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.
                                                         [Draws]
  PISTOL. An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.
                           [PISTOL and Nym sheathe their swords]
    Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give;
    Thy spirits are most tall.
  NYM. I will cut thy throat one time or other, in fair terms; that
    is the humour of it.
  PISTOL. 'Couple a gorge!'
    That is the word. I thee defy again.
    O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?
    No; to the spital go,
    And from the powd'ring tub of infamy
    Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,
    Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.
    I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
    For the only she; and- pauca, there's enough.
    Go to.

                        Enter the Boy

  BOY. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master; and your
    hostess- he is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put
    thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan.
    Faith, he's very ill.
  BARDOLPH. Away, you rogue.
  HOSTESS. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these
    days: the King has kill'd his heart. Good husband, come home
    presently.                            Exeunt HOSTESS and BOY
  BARDOLPH. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France
    together; why the devil should we keep knives to cut one
    another's throats?
  PISTOL. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!
  NYM. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?
  PISTOL. Base is the slave that pays.
  NYM. That now I will have; that's the humour of it.
  PISTOL. As manhood shall compound: push home.
                                           [PISTOL and Nym draw]
  BARDOLPH. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust I'll kill
    him; by this sword, I will.
  PISTOL. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.
                                            [Sheathes his sword]
  BARDOLPH. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends; an
    thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Prithee put up.
  NYM. I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at betting?
  PISTOL. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;
    And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
    And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.
    I'll live by Nym and Nym shall live by me.
    Is not this just? For I shall sutler be
    Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
    Give me thy hand.
  NYM. [Sheathing his sword] I shall have my noble?
  PISTOL. In cash most justly paid.
  NYM. [Shaking hands] Well, then, that's the humour of't.

                       Re-enter HOSTESS

  HOSTESS. As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John.
    Ah, poor heart! he is so shak'd of a burning quotidian tertian
    that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.
  NYM. The King hath run bad humours on the knight; that's the even
    of it.
  PISTOL. Nym, thou hast spoke the right;
    His heart is fracted and corroborate.
  NYM. The King is a good king, but it must be as it may; he passes
    some humours and careers.
  PISTOL. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Southampton. A council-chamber

Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND

  BEDFORD. Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors.
  EXETER. They shall be apprehended by and by.
  WESTMORELAND. How smooth and even they do bear themselves,
    As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
    Crowned with faith and constant loyalty!
  BEDFORD. The King hath note of all that they intend,
    By interception which they dream not of.
  EXETER. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
    Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours-
    That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
    His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

               Trumpets sound. Enter the KING, SCROOP,
                  CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and attendants

  KING HENRY. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
    My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,
    And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.
    Think you not that the pow'rs we bear with us
    Will cut their passage through the force of France,
    Doing the execution and the act
    For which we have in head assembled them?
  SCROOP. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
  KING HENRY. I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
    We carry not a heart with us from hence
    That grows not in a fair consent with ours;
    Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
    Success and conquest to attend on us.
  CAMBRIDGE. Never was monarch better fear'd and lov'd
    Than is your Majesty. There's not, I think, a subject
    That sits in heart-grief and uneasines
    Under the sweet shade of your government.
  GREY. True: those that were your father's enemies
    Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you
    With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
  KING HENRY. We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
    And shall forget the office of our hand
    Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
    According to the weight and worthiness.
  SCROOP. So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
    And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
    To do your Grace incessant services.
  KING HENRY. We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
    Enlarge the man committed yesterday
    That rail'd against our person. We consider
    It was excess of wine that set him on;
    And on his more advice we pardon him.
  SCROOP. That's mercy, but too much security.
    Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
    Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
  KING HENRY. O, let us yet be merciful!
  CAMBRIDGE. So may your Highness, and yet punish too.
  GREY. Sir,
    You show great mercy if you give him life,
    After the taste of much correction.
  KING HENRY. Alas, your too much love and care of me
    Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!
    If little faults proceeding on distemper
    Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
    When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,
    Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,
    Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care
    And tender preservation of our person,
    Would have him punish'd. And now to our French causes:
    Who are the late commissioners?
  CAMBRIDGE. I one, my lord.
    Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day.
  SCROOP. So did you me, my liege.
  GREY. And I, my royal sovereign.
  KING HENRY. Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;
    There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, Sir Knight,
    Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.
    Read them, and know I know your worthiness.
    My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,
    We will aboard to-night. Why, how now, gentlemen?
    What see you in those papers, that you lose
    So much complexion? Look ye how they change!
    Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there
    That have so cowarded and chas'd your blood
    Out of appearance?
  CAMBRIDGE. I do confess my fault,
    And do submit me to your Highness' mercy.
  GREY, SCROOP. To which we all appeal.
  KING HENRY. The mercy that was quick in us but late
   By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd.
    You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
    For your own reasons turn into your bosoms
    As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
    See you, my princes and my noble peers,
    These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here-
    You know how apt our love was to accord
    To furnish him with an appertinents
    Belonging to his honour; and this man
    Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
    And sworn unto the practices of France
    To kill us here in Hampton; to the which
    This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
    Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O,
    What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,
    Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature?
    Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
    That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
    That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
    Wouldst thou have practis'd on me for thy use-
    May it be possible that foreign hire
    Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
    That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange
    That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
    As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
    Treason and murder ever kept together,
    As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
    Working so grossly in a natural cause
    That admiration did not whoop at them;
    But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
    Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;
    And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
    That wrought upon thee so preposterously
    Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;
    And other devils that suggest by treasons
    Do botch and bungle up damnation
    With patches, colours, and with forms, being fetch'd
    From glist'ring semblances of piety;
    But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
    Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
    Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
    If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus
    Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
    He might return to vasty Tartar back,
    And tell the legions 'I can never win
    A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'
    O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
    The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
    Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?
    Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
    Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?
    Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
    Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
    Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
    Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
    Not working with the eye without the ear,
    And but in purged judgment trusting neither?
    Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem;
    And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
    To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
    With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
    For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
    Another fall of man. Their faults are open.
    Arrest them to the answer of the law;
    And God acquit them of their practices!
  EXETER. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl
      of Cambridge.
    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop
      of Masham.
    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey,
      knight, of Northumberland.
  SCROOP. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd,
    And I repent my fault more than my death;
    Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,
    Although my body pay the price of it.
  CAMBRIDGE. For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
    Although I did admit it as a motive
    The sooner to effect what I intended;
    But God be thanked for prevention,
    Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
    Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
  GREY. Never did faithful subject more rejoice
    At the discovery of most dangerous treason
    Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
    Prevented from a damned enterprise.
    My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
  KING HENRY. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
    You have conspir'd against our royal person,
    Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his coffers
    Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;
    Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
    His princes and his peers to servitude,
    His subjects to oppression and contempt,
    And his whole kingdom into desolation.
    Touching our person seek we no revenge;
    But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
    Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
    We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
    Poor miserable wretches, to your death;
    The taste whereof God of his mercy give
    You patience to endure, and true repentance
    Of all your dear offences. Bear them hence.
                     Exeunt CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP, and GREY, guarded
    Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
    Shall be to you as us like glorious.
    We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
    Since God so graciously hath brought to light
    This dangerous treason, lurking in our way
    To hinder our beginnings; we doubt not now
    But every rub is smoothed on our way.
    Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
    Our puissance into the hand of God,
    Putting it straight in expedition.
    Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance;
    No king of England, if not king of France!
                                                Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE III. Eastcheap. Before the Boar's Head tavern

Enter PISTOL, HOSTESS, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy

  HOSTESS. Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to
     Staines.
  PISTOL. No; for my manly heart doth earn.
    Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;
    Boy, bristle thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead,
    And we must earn therefore.
  BARDOLPH. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in
    heaven or in hell!
  HOSTESS. Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if
    ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went
    away an it had been any christom child; 'a parted ev'n just
    between twelve and one, ev'n at the turning o' th' tide; for
    after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers,
    and smile upon his fingers' end, I knew there was but one way;
    for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbl'd of green
    fields. 'How now, Sir John!' quoth I 'What, man, be o' good
    cheer.' So 'a cried out 'God, God, God!' three or four times. Now
    I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hop'd
    there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.
    So 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet; I put my hand into
    the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I
    felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold
    as any stone.
  NYM. They say he cried out of sack.
  HOSTESS. Ay, that 'a did.
  BARDOLPH. And of women.
  HOSTESS. Nay, that 'a did not.
  BOY. Yes, that 'a did, and said they were devils incarnate.
  HOSTESS. 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never
    liked.
  BOY. 'A said once the devil would have him about women.
  HOSTESS. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was
    rheumatic, and talk'd of the Whore of Babylon.
  BOY. Do you not remember 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose,
    and 'a said it was a black soul burning in hell?
  BARDOLPH. Well, the fuel is gone that maintain'd that fire: that's
    all the riches I got in his service.
  NYM. Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.
  PISTOL. Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.
    Look to my chattles and my moveables;
    Let senses rule. The word is 'Pitch and Pay.'
    Trust none;
    For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
    And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.
    Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.
    Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
    Let us to France, like horse-leeches, my boys,
    To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck.
  BOY. And that's but unwholesome food, they say.
  PISTOL. Touch her soft mouth and march.
  BARDOLPH. Farewell, hostess.                     [Kissing her]
  NYM. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.
  PISTOL. Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command.
  HOSTESS. Farewell; adieu.                               Exeunt

SCENE IV. France. The KING'S palace

Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the DUKES OF BERRI and
BRITAINE, the CONSTABLE, and others

  FRENCH KING. Thus comes the English with full power upon us;
    And more than carefully it us concerns
    To answer royally in our defences.
    Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Britaine,
    Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
    And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
    To line and new repair our towns of war
    With men of courage and with means defendant;
    For England his approaches makes as fierce
    As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
    It fits us, then, to be as provident
    As fear may teach us, out of late examples
    Left by the fatal and neglected English
    Upon our fields.
  DAUPHIN. My most redoubted father,
    It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;
    For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
    Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,
    But that defences, musters, preparations,
    Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
    As were a war in expectation.
    Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth
    To view the sick and feeble parts of France;
    And let us do it with no show of fear-
    No, with no more than if we heard that England
    Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;
    For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
    Her sceptre so fantastically borne
    By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
    That fear attends her not.
  CONSTABLE. O peace, Prince Dauphin!
    You are too much mistaken in this king.
    Question your Grace the late ambassadors
    With what great state he heard their embassy,
    How well supplied with noble counsellors,
    How modest in exception, and withal
    How terrible in constant resolution,
    And you shall find his vanities forespent
    Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
    Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
    As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
    That shall first spring and be most delicate.
  DAUPHIN. Well, 'tis not so, my Lord High Constable;
    But though we think it so, it is no matter.
    In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
    The enemy more mighty than he seems;
    So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
    Which of a weak and niggardly projection
    Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
    A little cloth.
  FRENCH KING. Think we King Harry strong;
    And, Princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
    The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
    And he is bred out of that bloody strain
    That haunted us in our familiar paths.
    Witness our too much memorable shame
    When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
    And all our princes capdv'd by the hand
    Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
    Whiles that his mountain sire- on mountain standing,
    Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun-
    Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him,
    Mangle the work of nature, and deface
    The patterns that by God and by French fathers
    Had twenty years been made. This is a stern
    Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
    The native mightiness and fate of him.

                      Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Ambassadors from Harry King of England
    Do crave admittance to your Majesty.
  FRENCH KING. We'll give them present audience. Go and bring them.
                              Exeunt MESSENGER and certain LORDS
    You see this chase is hotly followed, friends.
  DAUPHIN. Turn head and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
    Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten
    Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
    Take up the English short, and let them know
    Of what a monarchy you are the head.
    Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
    As self-neglecting.

               Re-enter LORDS, with EXETER and train

  FRENCH KING. From our brother of England?
  EXETER. From him, and thus he greets your Majesty:
    He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,
    That you divest yourself, and lay apart
    The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven,
    By law of nature and of nations, 'longs
    To him and to his heirs- namely, the crown,
    And all wide-stretched honours that pertain,
    By custom and the ordinance of times,
    Unto the crown of France. That you may know
    'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,
    Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
    Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,
    He sends you this most memorable line,       [Gives a paper]
    In every branch truly demonstrative;
    Willing you overlook this pedigree.
    And when you find him evenly deriv'd
    From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
    Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
    Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
    From him, the native and true challenger.
  FRENCH KING. Or else what follows?
  EXETER. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
    Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it.
    Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
    In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
    That if requiring fail, he will compel;
    And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
    Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy
    On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
    Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
    Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
    The dead men's blood, the privy maidens' groans,
    For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
    That shall be swallowed in this controversy.
    This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message;
    Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
    To whom expressly I bring greeting too.
  FRENCH KING. For us, we will consider of this further;
    To-morrow shall you bear our full intent
    Back to our brother of England.
  DAUPHIN. For the Dauphin:
    I stand here for him. What to him from England?
  EXETER. Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,
    And anything that may not misbecome
    The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
    Thus says my king: an if your father's Highness
    Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
    Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty,
    He'll call you to so hot an answer of it
    That caves and womby vaultages of France
    Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
    In second accent of his ordinance.
  DAUPHIN. Say, if my father render fair return,
    It is against my will; for I desire
    Nothing but odds with England. To that end,
    As matching to his youth and vanity,
    I did present him with the Paris balls.
  EXETER. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
    Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe;
    And be assur'd you'll find a difference,
    As we his subjects have in wonder found,
    Between the promise of his greener days
    And these he masters now. Now he weighs time
    Even to the utmost grain; that you shall read
    In your own losses, if he stay in France.
  FRENCH KING. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.
  EXETER. Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king
    Come here himself to question our delay;
    For he is footed in this land already.
  FRENCH KING. You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair conditions.
    A night is but small breath and little pause
    To answer matters of this consequence.      Flourish. Exeunt

ACT III. PROLOGUE.

Flourish. Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies,
    In motion of no less celerity
    Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
    The well-appointed King at Hampton pier
    Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
    With silken streamers the young Phorbus fanning.
    Play with your fancies; and in them behold
    Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
    Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
    To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails,
    Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind,
    Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
    Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think
    You stand upon the rivage and behold
    A city on th' inconstant billows dancing;
    For so appears this fleet majestical,
    Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
    Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy
    And leave your England as dead midnight still,
    Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
    Either past or not arriv'd to pith and puissance;
    For who is he whose chin is but enrich'd
    With one appearing hair that will not follow
    These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
    Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;
    Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
    With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
    Suppose th' ambassador from the French comes back;
    Tells Harry that the King doth offer him
    Katherine his daughter, and with her to dowry
    Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
    The offer likes not; and the nimble gunner
    With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
                                   [Alarum, and chambers go off]
    And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
    And eke out our performance with your mind.             Exit

SCENE I. France. Before Harfleur

Alarum. Enter the KING, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, and soldiers with
scaling-ladders

  KING. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
    Or close the wall up with our English dead.
    In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
    As modest stillness and humility;
    But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
    Then imitate the action of the tiger:
    Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
    Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
    Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
    Let it pry through the portage of the head
    Like the brass cannon: let the brow o'erwhelm it
    As fearfully as doth a galled rock
    O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
    Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
    Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;
    Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
    To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
    Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof-
    Fathers that like so many Alexanders
    Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
    And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
    Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
    That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
    Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
    And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
    Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
    The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
    That you are worth your breeding- which I doubt not;
    For there is none of you so mean and base
    That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
    I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
    Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
    Follow your spirit; and upon this charge
    Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
                           [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off]

SCENE II. Before Harfleur

Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and BOY

  BARDOLPH. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!
  NYM. Pray thee, Corporal, stay; the knocks are too hot, and for
    mine own part I have not a case of lives. The humour of it is too
    hot; that is the very plain-song of it.
  PISTOL. The plain-song is most just; for humours do abound:

        Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die;
                    And sword and shield
                    In bloody field
                 Doth win immortal fame.

  BOY. Would I were in an alehouse in London! I wouid give all my
    fame for a pot of ale and safety.
  PISTOL. And I:

               If wishes would prevail with me,
               My purpose should not fail with me,
                   But thither would I hie.

  BOY.             As duly, but not as truly,
                   As bird doth sing on bough.

                         Enter FLUELLEN

  FLUELLEN. Up to the breach, you dogs!
    Avaunt, you cullions!                 [Driving them forward]
  PISTOL. Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.
    Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage;
    Abate thy rage, great duke.
    Good bawcock, bate thy rage. Use lenity, sweet chuck.
  NYM. These be good humours. Your honour wins bad humours.
                                              Exeunt all but BOY
  BOY. As young as I am, I have observ'd these three swashers. I am
    boy to them all three; but all they three, though they would
    serve me, could not be man to me; for indeed three such antics do
    not amount to a man. For Bardolph, he is white-liver'd and
    red-fac'd; by the means whereof 'a faces it out, but fights not.
    For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the
    means whereof 'a breaks words and keeps whole weapons. For Nym,
    he hath heard that men of few words are the best men, and
    therefore he scorns to say his prayers lest 'a should be thought
    a coward; but his few bad words are match'd with as few good
    deeds; for 'a never broke any man's head but his own, and that
    was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything,
    and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it twelve
    leagues, and sold it for three halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are
    sworn brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a
    fire-shovel; I knew by that piece of service the men would carry
    coals. They would have me as familiar with men's pockets as their
    gloves or their handkerchers; which makes much against my
    manhood, if I should take from another's pocket to put into mine;
    for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them and
    seek some better service; their villainy goes against my weak
    stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.               Exit

                 Re-enter FLUELLEN, GOWER following

  GOWER. Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines; the
    Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.
  FLUELLEN. To the mines! Tell you the Duke it is not so good to come
    to the mines; for, look you, the mines is not according to the
    disciplines of the war; the concavities of it is not sufficient.
    For, look you, th' athversary- you may discuss unto the Duke,
    look you- is digt himself four yard under the countermines; by
    Cheshu, I think 'a will plow up all, if there is not better
    directions.
  GOWER. The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the siege is
    given, is altogether directed by an Irishman- a very vallant
    gentleman, i' faith.
  FLUELLEN. It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?
  GOWER. I think it be.
  FLUELLEN. By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world: I will verify
    as much in his beard; he has no more directions in the true
    disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, than
    is a puppy-dog.

                 Enter MACMORRIS and CAPTAIN JAMY

  GOWER. Here 'a comes; and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with
    him.
  FLUELLEN. Captain Jamy is a marvellous falorous gentleman, that is
    certain, and of great expedition and knowledge in th' aunchient
    wars, upon my particular knowledge of his directions. By Cheshu,
    he will maintain his argument as well as any military man in the
    world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans.
  JAMY. I say gud day, Captain Fluellen.
  FLUELLEN. God-den to your worship, good Captain James.
  GOWER. How now, Captain Macmorris! Have you quit the mines? Have
    the pioneers given o'er?
  MACMORRIS. By Chrish, la, tish ill done! The work ish give over,
    the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I swear, and my
    father's soul, the work ish ill done; it ish give over; I would
    have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in an hour. O,
    tish ill done, tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done!
  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe
    me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or
    concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way
    of argument, look you, and friendly communication; partly to
    satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look you, of
    my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline,
    that is the point.
  JAMY. It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath; and I sall
    quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I,
    marry.
  MACMORRIS. It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me. The day
    is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the King, and the
    Dukes; it is no time to discourse. The town is beseech'd, and the
    trumpet call us to the breach; and we talk and, be Chrish, do
    nothing. 'Tis shame for us all, so God sa' me, 'tis shame to
    stand still; it is shame, by my hand; and there is throats to be
    cut, and works to be done; and there ish nothing done, so Chrish
    sa' me, la.
  JAMY. By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to
    slomber, ay'll de gud service, or I'll lig i' th' grund for it;
    ay, or go to death. And I'll pay't as valorously as I may, that
    sall I suerly do, that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad
    full fain heard some question 'tween you tway.
  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your
    correction, there is not many of your nation-
  MACMORRIS. Of my nation? What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a
    bastard, and a knave, and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks
    of my nation?
  FLUELLEN. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant,
    Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think you do not use me
    with that affability as in discretion you ought to use me, look
    you; being as good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of
    war and in the derivation of my birth, and in other
    particularities.
  MACMORRIS. I do not know you so good a man as myself; so
    Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.
  GOWER. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.
  JAMY. Ah! that's a foul fault.              [A parley sounded]
  GOWER. The town sounds a parley.
  FLUELLEN. Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity
    to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know
    the disciplines of war; and there is an end.          Exeunt

SCENE III. Before the gates of Harfleur

Enter the GOVERNOR and some citizens on the walls.  Enter the KING and
all his train before the gates

  KING HENRY. How yet resolves the Governor of the town?
    This is the latest parle we will admit;
    Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves
    Or, like to men proud of destruction,
    Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier,
    A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
    If I begin the batt'ry once again,
    I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
    Till in her ashes she lie buried.
    The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
    And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
    In liberty of bloody hand shall range
    With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
    Your fresh fair virgins and your flow'ring infants.
    What is it then to me if impious war,
    Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends,
    Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
    Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
    What is't to me when you yourselves are cause,
    If your pure maidens fall into the hand
    Of hot and forcing violation?
    What rein can hold licentious wickednes
    When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
    We may as bootless spend our vain command
    Upon th' enraged soldiers in their spoil,
    As send precepts to the Leviathan
    To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
    Take pity of your town and of your people
    Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
    Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
    O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
    Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.
    If not- why, in a moment look to see
    The blind and bloody with foul hand
    Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
    Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
    And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;
    Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
    Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
    Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
    At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
    What say you? Will you yield, and this avoid?
    Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?
  GOVERNOR. Our expectation hath this day an end:
    The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,
    Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
    To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great King,
    We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
    Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;
    For we no longer are defensible.
  KING HENRY. Open your gates. [Exit GOVERNOR] Come, uncle Exeter,
    Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,
    And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French;
    Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,
    The winter coming on, and sickness growing
    Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
    To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest;
    To-morrow for the march are we addrest.
               [Flourish. The KING and his train enter the town]

SCENE IV. Rouen. The FRENCH KING'S palace

Enter KATHERINE and ALICE

  KATHERINE. Alice, tu as ete en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le
    langage.
  ALICE. Un peu, madame.
  KATHERINE. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'apprenne a
    parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglais?
  ALICE. La main? Elle est appelee de hand.
  KATHERINE. De hand. Et les doigts?
  ALICE. Les doigts? Ma foi, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me
    souviendrai. Les doigts? Je pense qu'ils sont appeles de fingres;
    oui, de fingres.
  KATHERINE. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que
    je suis le bon ecolier; j'ai gagne deux mots d'Anglais vitement.
    Comment appelez-vous les ongles?
  ALICE. Les ongles? Nous les appelons de nails.
  KATHERINE. De nails. Ecoutez; dites-moi si je parle bien: de hand,
    de fingres, et de nails.
  ALICE. C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglais.
  KATHERINE. Dites-moi l'Anglais pour le bras.
  ALICE. De arm, madame.
  KATHERINE. Et le coude?
  ALICE. D'elbow.
  KATHERINE. D'elbow. Je m'en fais la repetition de tous les mots que
    vous m'avez appris des a present.
  ALICE. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.
  KATHERINE. Excusez-moi, Alice; ecoutez: d'hand, de fingre, de
    nails, d'arma, de bilbow.
  ALICE. D'elbow, madame.
  KATHERINE. O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! D'elbow.
    Comment appelez-vous le col?
  ALICE. De nick, madame.
  KATHERINE. De nick. Et le menton?
  ALICE. De chin.
  KATHERINE. De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.
  ALICE. Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en verite, vous prononcez les mots
    aussi droit que les natifs d'Angleterre.
  KATHERINE. Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grace de Dieu, et
    en peu de temps.
  ALICE. N'avez-vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai enseigne?
  KATHERINE. Non, je reciterai a vous promptement: d'hand, de fingre,
    de mails-
  ALICE. De nails, madame.
  KATHERINE. De nails, de arm, de ilbow.
  ALICE. Sauf votre honneur, d'elbow.
  KATHERINE. Ainsi dis-je; d'elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment
    appelez-vous le pied et la robe?
  ALICE. Le foot, madame; et le count.
  KATHERINE. Le foot et le count. O Seigneur Dieu! ils sont mots de
    son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les
    dames d'honneur d'user: je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant
    les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le
    count! Neanmoins, je reciterai une autre fois ma lecon ensemble:
    d'hand, de fingre, de nails, d'arm, d'elbow, de nick, de sin, de
    foot, le count.
  ALICE. Excellent, madame!
  KATHERINE. C'est assez pour une fois: allons-nous a diner.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE V. The FRENCH KING'S palace

Enter the KING OF FRANCE, the DAUPHIN, DUKE OF BRITAINE, the CONSTABLE
OF FRANCE, and others

  FRENCH KING. 'Tis certain he hath pass'd the river Somme.
  CONSTABLE. And if he be not fought withal, my lord,
    Let us not live in France; let us quit an,
    And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.
  DAUPHIN. O Dieu vivant! Shall a few sprays of us,
    The emptying of our fathers' luxury,
    Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,
    Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,
    And overlook their grafters?
  BRITAINE. Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!
    Mort Dieu, ma vie! if they march along
    Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom
    To buy a slobb'ry and a dirty farm
    In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.
  CONSTABLE. Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?
    Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull;
    On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
    Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
    A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley-broth,
    Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
    And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
    Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,
    Let us not hang like roping icicles
    Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people
    Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields-
    Poor we call them in their native lords!
  DAUPHIN. By faith and honour,
    Our madams mock at us and plainly say
    Our mettle is bred out, and they will give
    Their bodies to the lust of English youth
    To new-store France with bastard warriors.
  BRITAINE. They bid us to the English dancing-schools
    And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos,
    Saying our grace is only in our heels
    And that we are most lofty runaways.
  FRENCH KING. Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence;
    Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
    Up, Princes, and, with spirit of honour edged
    More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:
    Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;
    You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,
    Alengon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;
    Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
    Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconbridge,
    Foix, Lestrake, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;
    High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights,
    For your great seats now quit you of great shames.
    Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
    With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur.
    Rush on his host as doth the melted snow
    Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat
    The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon;
    Go down upon him, you have power enough,
    And in a captive chariot into Rouen
    Bring him our prisoner.
  CONSTABLE. This becomes the great.
    Sorry am I his numbers are so few,
    His soldiers sick and famish'd in their march;
    For I am sure, when he shall see our army,
    He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear,
    And for achievement offer us his ransom.
  FRENCH KING. Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy,
    And let him say to England that we send
    To know what willing ransom he will give.
    Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.
  DAUPHIN. Not so, I do beseech your Majesty.
  FRENCH KING. Be patient, for you shall remain with us.
    Now forth, Lord Constable and Princes all,
    And quickly bring us word of England's fall.          Exeunt

SCENE VI. The English camp in Picardy

Enter CAPTAINS, English and Welsh, GOWER and FLUELLEN

  GOWER. How now, Captain Fluellen! Come you from the bridge?
  FLUELLEN. I assure you there is very excellent services committed
    at the bridge.
  GOWER. Is the Duke of Exeter safe?
  FLUELLEN. The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a
    man that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my
    duty, and my live, and my living, and my uttermost power. He is
    not- God be praised and blessed!- any hurt in the world, but
    keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There
    is an aunchient Lieutenant there at the bridge- I think in my
    very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is
    man of no estimation in the world; but I did see him do as
    gallant service.
  GOWER. What do you call him?
  FLUELLEN. He is call'd Aunchient Pistol.
  GOWER. I know him not.

                            Enter PISTOL

  FLUELLEN. Here is the man.
  PISTOL. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.
    The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
  FLUELLEN. Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his
    hands.
  PISTOL. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
    And of buxom valour, hath by cruel fate
    And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,
    That goddess blind,
    That stands upon the rolling restless stone-
  FLUELLEN. By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted
    blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that
    Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to
    signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning,
    and inconstant, and mutability, and variation; and her foot, look
    you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and
    rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description
    of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.
  PISTOL. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;
    For he hath stol'n a pax, and hanged must 'a be-
    A damned death!
    Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free,
    And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.
    But Exeter hath given the doom of death
    For pax of little price.
    Therefore, go speak- the Duke will hear thy voice;
    And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut
    With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.
    Speak, Captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.
  FLUELLEN. Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.
  PISTOL. Why then, rejoice therefore.
  FLUELLEN. Certainly, Aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at;
    for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to
    use his good pleasure, and put him to execution; for discipline
    ought to be used.
  PISTOL. Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!
  FLUELLEN. It is well.
  PISTOL. The fig of Spain!                                 Exit
  FLUELLEN. Very good.
  GOWER. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him
    now- a bawd, a cutpurse.
  FLUELLEN. I'll assure you, 'a utt'red as prave words at the pridge
    as you shall see in a summer's day. But it is very well; what he
    has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.
  GOWER. Why, 'tis a gull a fool a rogue, that now and then goes to
    the wars to grace himself, at his return into London, under the
    form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in the great
    commanders' names; and they will learn you by rote where services
    were done- at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a
    convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgrac'd, what
    terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the
    phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths; and what
    a beard of the General's cut and a horrid suit of the camp will
    do among foaming bottles and ale-wash'd wits is wonderful to be
    thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of the age,
    or else you may be marvellously mistook.
  FLUELLEN. I tell you what, Captain Gower, I do perceive he is not
    the man that he would gladly make show to the world he is; if I
    find a hole in his coat I will tell him my mind. [Drum within]
    Hark you, the King is coming; and I must speak with him from the
    pridge.

         Drum and colours. Enter the KING and his poor soldiers,
                          and GLOUCESTER

    God pless your Majesty!
  KING HENRY. How now, Fluellen! Cam'st thou from the bridge?
  FLUELLEN. Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very
    gallantly maintain'd the pridge; the French is gone off, look
    you, and there is gallant and most prave passages. Marry, th'
    athversary was have possession of the pridge; but he is enforced
    to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge; I can
    tell your Majesty the Duke is a prave man.
  KING HENRY. What men have you lost, Fluellen!
  FLUELLEN. The perdition of th' athversary hath been very great,
    reasonable great; marry, for my part, I think the Duke hath lost
    never a man, but one that is like to be executed for robbing a
    church- one Bardolph, if your Majesty know the man; his face is
    all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o' fire; and his
    lips blows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes
    plue and sometimes red; but his nose is executed and his fire's
    out.
  KING HENRY. We would have all such offenders so cut off. And we
    give express charge that in our marches through the country there
    be nothing compell'd from the villages, nothing taken but paid
    for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful
    language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom the
    gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

                        Tucket. Enter MONTJOY

  MONTJOY. You know me by my habit.
  KING HENRY. Well then, I know thee; what shall I know of thee?
  MONTJOY. My master's mind.
  KING HENRY. Unfold it.
  MONTJOY. Thus says my king. Say thou to Harry of England: Though we
    seem'd dead we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier than
    rashness. Tell him we could have rebuk'd him at Harfleur, but
    that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full
    ripe. Now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial:
    England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our
    sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom, which must
    proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost,
    the disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to re-answer, his
    pettiness would bow under. For our losses his exchequer is too
    poor; for th' effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom
    too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person kneeling
    at our feet but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add
    defiance; and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his
    followers, whose condemnation is pronounc'd. So far my king and
    master; so much my office.
  KING HENRY. What is thy name? I know thy quality.
  MONTJOY. Montjoy.
  KING HENRY. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,
    And tell thy king I do not seek him now,
    But could be willing to march on to Calais
    Without impeachment; for, to say the sooth-
    Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
    Unto an enemy of craft and vantage-
    My people are with sickness much enfeebled;
    My numbers lessen'd; and those few I have
    Almost no better than so many French;
    Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
    I thought upon one pair of English legs
    Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God,
    That I do brag thus; this your air of France
    Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
    Go, therefore, tell thy master here I am;
    My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;
    My army but a weak and sickly guard;
    Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
    Though France himself and such another neighbour
    Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
    Go, bid thy master well advise himself.
    If we may pass, we will; if we be hind'red,
    We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
    Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
    The sum of all our answer is but this:
    We would not seek a battle as we are;
    Nor as we are, we say, we will not shun it.
    So tell your master.
  MONTJOY. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.     Exit
  GLOUCESTER. I hope they will not come upon us now.
  KING HENRY. We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.
    March to the bridge, it now draws toward night;
    Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,
    And on to-morrow bid them march away.                 Exeunt

SCENE VII. The French camp near Agincourt

Enter the CONSTABLE OF FRANCE, the LORD RAMBURES, the DUKE OF ORLEANS,
the DAUPHIN, with others

  CONSTABLE. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.
    Would it were day!
  ORLEANS. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his
    due.
  CONSTABLE. It is the best horse of Europe.
  ORLEANS. Will it never be morning?
  DAUPHIN. My Lord of Orleans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of
    horse and armour?
  ORLEANS. You are as well provided of both as any prince in the
    world.
  DAUPHIN. What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with
    any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! he bounds from the
    earth as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the
    Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him I soar, I
    am a hawk. He trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it;
    the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of
    Hermes.
  ORLEANS. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.
  DAUPHIN. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus:
    he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water
    never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his
    rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you
    may call beasts.
  CONSTABLE. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent
    horse.
  DAUPHIN. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the
    bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.
  ORLEANS. No more, cousin.
  DAUPHIN. Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of
    the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my
    palfrey. It is a theme as fluent as the sea: turn the sands into
    eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a
    subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's
    sovereign to ride on; and for the world- familiar to us and
    unknown- to lay apart their particular functions and wonder at
    him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: 'Wonder
    of nature'-
  ORLEANS. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.
  DAUPHIN. Then did they imitate that which I compos'd to my courser;
    for my horse is my mistress.
  ORLEANS. Your mistress bears well.
  DAUPHIN. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a
    good and particular mistress.
  CONSTABLE. Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly
    shook your back.
  DAUPHIN. So perhaps did yours.
  CONSTABLE. Mine was not bridled.
  DAUPHIN. O, then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode like a
    kern of Ireland, your French hose off and in your strait
    strossers.
  CONSTABLE. You have good judgment in horsemanship.
  DAUPHIN. Be warn'd by me, then: they that ride so, and ride not
    warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my
    mistress.
  CONSTABLE. I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
  DAUPHIN. I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
  CONSTABLE. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to
    my mistress.
  DAUPHIN. 'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et la
    truie lavee au bourbier.' Thou mak'st use of anything.
  CONSTABLE. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such
    proverb so little kin to the purpose.
  RAMBURES. My Lord Constable, the armour that I saw in your tent
    to-night- are those stars or suns upon it?
  CONSTABLE. Stars, my lord.
  DAUPHIN. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
  CONSTABLE. And yet my sky shall not want.
  DAUPHIN. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and 'twere
    more honour some were away.
  CONSTABLE. Ev'n as your horse bears your praises, who would trot as
    well were some of your brags dismounted.
  DAUPHIN. Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it
    never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be
    paved with English faces.
  CONSTABLE. I will not say so, for fear I should be fac'd out of my
    way; but I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the
    ears of the English.
  RAMBURES. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
  CONSTABLE. You must first go yourself to hazard ere you have them.
  DAUPHIN. 'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.               Exit
  ORLEANS. The Dauphin longs for morning.
  RAMBURES. He longs to eat the English.
  CONSTABLE. I think he will eat all he kills.
  ORLEANS. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.
  CONSTABLE. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
  ORLEANS. He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
  CONSTABLE. Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.
  ORLEANS. He never did harm that I heard of.
  CONSTABLE. Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name
    still.
  ORLEANS. I know him to be valiant.
  CONSTABLE. I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
  ORLEANS. What's he?
  CONSTABLE. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he car'd not
    who knew it.
  ORLEANS. He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
  CONSTABLE. By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but
      his lackey.
    'Tis a hooded valour, and when it appears it will bate.
  ORLEANS. Ill-wind never said well.
  CONSTABLE. I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in
    friendship.'
  ORLEANS. And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'
  CONSTABLE. Well plac'd! There stands your friend for the devil;
    have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A pox of the devil!'
  ORLEANS. You are the better at proverbs by how much 'A fool's bolt
    is soon shot.'
  CONSTABLE. You have shot over.
  ORLEANS. 'Tis not the first time you were overshot.

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen
    hundred paces of your tents.
  CONSTABLE. Who hath measur'd the ground?
  MESSENGER. The Lord Grandpre.
  CONSTABLE. A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day!
    Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning as we
    do.
  ORLEANS. What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of
    England, to mope with his fat-brain'd followers so far out of his
    knowledge!
  CONSTABLE. If the English had any apprehension, they would run
    away.
  ORLEANS. That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual
    armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.
  RAMBURES. That island of England breeds very valiant creatures;
    their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
  ORLEANS. Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian
    bear, and have their heads crush'd like rotten apples! You may as
    well say that's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the
    lip of a lion.
  CONSTABLE. Just, just! and the men do sympathise with the mastiffs
    in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their
    wives; and then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel;
    they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.
  ORLEANS. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
  CONSTABLE. Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs to
    eat, and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we
    about it?
  ORLEANS. It is now two o'clock; but let me see- by ten
    We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.              Exeunt

ACT IV. PROLOGUE.

Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Now entertain conjecture of a time
    When creeping murmur and the poring dark
    Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
    From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,
    The hum of either army stilly sounds,
    That the fix'd sentinels almost receive
    The secret whispers of each other's watch.
    Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
    Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;
    Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
    Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents
    The armourers accomplishing the knights,
    With busy hammers closing rivets up,
    Give dreadful note of preparation.
    The country cocks do crow, the clocks do ton,
    And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
    Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
    The confident and over-lusty French
    Do the low-rated English play at dice;
    And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
    Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp
    So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
    Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
    Sit patiently and inly ruminate
    The morning's danger; and their gesture sad
    Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats
    Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
    So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold
    The royal captain of this ruin'd band
    Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
    Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!'
    For forth he goes and visits all his host;
    Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,
    And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.
    Upon his royal face there is no note
    How dread an army hath enrounded him;
    Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
    Unto the weary and all-watched night;
    But freshly looks, and over-bears attaint
    With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
    That every wretch, pining and pale before,
    Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks;
    A largess universal, like the sun,
    His liberal eye doth give to every one,
    Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
    Behold, as may unworthiness define,
    A little touch of Harry in the night.
    And so our scene must to the battle fly;
    Where- O for pity!- we shall much disgrace
    With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
    Right ill-dispos'd in brawl ridiculous,
    The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
    Minding true things by what their mock'ries be.         Exit

SCENE I. France. The English camp at Agincourt

Enter the KING, BEDFORD, and GLOUCESTER

  KING HENRY. Gloucester, 'tis true that we are in great danger;
    The greater therefore should our courage be.
    Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!
    There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
    Would men observingly distil it out;
    For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
    Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
    Besides, they are our outward consciences
    And preachers to us all, admonishing
    That we should dress us fairly for our end.
    Thus may we gather honey from the weed,
    And make a moral of the devil himself.

                        Enter ERPINGHAM

    Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:
    A good soft pillow for that good white head
    Were better than a churlish turf of France.
  ERPINGHAM. Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better,
    Since I may say 'Now lie I like a king.'
  KING HENRY. 'Tis good for men to love their present pains
    Upon example; so the spirit is eased;
    And when the mind is quick'ned, out of doubt
    The organs, though defunct and dead before,
    Break up their drowsy grave and newly move
    With casted slough and fresh legerity.
    Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,
    Commend me to the princes in our camp;
    Do my good morrow to them, and anon
    Desire them all to my pavilion.
  GLOUCESTER. We shall, my liege.
  ERPINGHAM. Shall I attend your Grace?
  KING HENRY. No, my good knight:
    Go with my brothers to my lords of England;
    I and my bosom must debate awhile,
    And then I would no other company.
  ERPINGHAM. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!
                                         Exeunt all but the KING
  KING HENRY. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully.

                          Enter PISTOL

  PISTOL. Qui va la?
  KING HENRY. A friend.
  PISTOL. Discuss unto me: art thou officer,
    Or art thou base, common, and popular?
  KING HENRY. I am a gentleman of a company.
  PISTOL. Trail'st thou the puissant pike?
  KING HENRY. Even so. What are you?
  PISTOL. As good a gentleman as the Emperor.
  KING HENRY. Then you are a better than the King.
  PISTOL. The King's a bawcock and a heart of gold,
    A lad of life, an imp of fame;
    Of parents good, of fist most valiant.
    I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string
    I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?
  KING HENRY. Harry le Roy.
  PISTOL. Le Roy! a Cornish name; art thou of Cornish crew?
  KING HENRY. No, I am a Welshman.
  PISTOL. Know'st thou Fluellen?
  KING HENRY. Yes.
  PISTOL. Tell him I'll knock his leek about his pate
    Upon Saint Davy's day.
  KING HENRY. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest
    he knock that about yours.
  PISTOL. Art thou his friend?
  KING HENRY. And his kinsman too.
  PISTOL. The figo for thee, then!
  KING HENRY. I thank you; God be with you!
  PISTOL. My name is Pistol call'd.                         Exit
  KING HENRY. It sorts well with your fierceness.

                    Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER

  GOWER. Captain Fluellen!
  FLUELLEN. So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer. It is the
    greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and
    aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept: if you
    would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great,
    you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle-taddle nor
    pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you, you shall find the
    ceremonies of the wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it,
    and the sobriety of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.
  GOWER. Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.
  FLUELLEN. If the enemy is an ass, and a fool, and a prating
    coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be
    an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb? In your own
    conscience, now?
  GOWER. I will speak lower.
  FLUELLEN. I pray you and beseech you that you will.
                                       Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN
  KING HENRY. Though it appear a little out of fashion,
    There is much care and valour in this Welshman.

          Enter three soldiers: JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT,
                       and MICHAEL WILLIAMS

  COURT. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks
    yonder?
  BATES. I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the
    approach of day.
  WILLIAMS. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we
    shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?
  KING HENRY. A friend.
  WILLIAMS. Under what captain serve you?
  KING HENRY. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.
  WILLIAMS. A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray
    you, what thinks he of our estate?
  KING HENRY. Even as men wreck'd upon a sand, that look to be wash'd
    off the next tide.
  BATES. He hath not told his thought to the King?
  KING HENRY. No; nor it is not meet he should. For though I speak it
    to you, I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells
    to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to
    me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid
    by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his
    affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop,
    they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees reason of
    fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish
    as ours are; yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any
    appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his
    army.
  BATES. He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as
    cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the
    neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so
    we were quit here.
  KING HENRY. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I
    think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.
  BATES. Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be
    ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.
  KING HENRY. I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here
    alone, howsoever you speak this, to feel other men's minds;
    methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's
    company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.
  WILLIAMS. That's more than we know.
  BATES. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough if
    we know we are the King's subjects. If his cause be wrong, our
    obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.
  WILLIAMS. But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a
    heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads,
    chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day
    and cry all 'We died at such a place'- some swearing, some crying
    for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some
    upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I
    am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how
    can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their
    argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black
    matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were
    against all proportion of subjection.
  KING HENRY. So, if a son that is by his father sent about
    merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of
    his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father
    that sent him; or if a servant, under his master's command
    transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
    many irreconcil'd iniquities, you may call the business of the
    master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is not so:
    the King is not bound to answer the particular endings of his
    soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant;
    for they purpose not their death when they purpose their
    services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so
    spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out
    with all unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them the
    guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling
    virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars
    their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace
    with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law
    and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men they
    have no wings to fly from God: war is His beadle, war is His
    vengeance; so that here men are punish'd for before-breach of the
    King's laws in now the King's quarrel. Where they feared the
    death they have borne life away; and where they would be safe
    they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King
    guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those
    impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's
    duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own.
    Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man
    in his bed- wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so,
    death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly
    lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes
    it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He
    let him outlive that day to see His greatness, and to teach
    others how they should prepare.
  WILLIAMS. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his
    own head- the King is not to answer for it.
  BATES. I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet I determine
    to fight lustily for him.
  KING HENRY. I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom'd.
  WILLIAMS. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our
    throats are cut he may be ransom'd, and we ne'er the wiser.
  KING HENRY. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.
  WILLIAMS. You pay him then! That's a perilous shot out of an
    elder-gun, that a poor and a private displeasure can do against a
    monarch! You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice with
    fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust
    his word after! Come, 'tis a foolish saying.
  KING HENRY. Your reproof is something too round; I should be angry
    with you, if the time were convenient.
  WILLIAMS. Let it be a quarrel between us if you live.
  KING HENRY. I embrace it.
  WILLIAMS. How shall I know thee again?
  KING HENRY. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my
    bonnet; then if ever thou dar'st acknowledge it, I will make it
    my quarrel.
  WILLIAMS. Here's my glove; give me another of thine.
  KING HENRY. There.
  WILLIAMS. This will I also wear in my cap; if ever thou come to me
    and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,' by this hand I will
    take thee a box on the ear.
  KING HENRY. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
  WILLIAMS. Thou dar'st as well be hang'd.
  KING HENRY. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King's
    company.
  WILLIAMS. Keep thy word. Fare thee well.
  BATES. Be friends, you English fools, be friends; we have
    French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.
  KING HENRY. Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one
    they will beat us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it
    is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the
    King himself will be a clipper.
                                                 Exeunt soldiers
    Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,
    Our debts, our careful wives,
    Our children, and our sins, lay on the King!
    We must bear all. O hard condition,
    Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
    Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
    But his own wringing! What infinite heart's ease
    Must kings neglect that private men enjoy!
    And what have kings that privates have not too,
    Save ceremony- save general ceremony?
    And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?
    What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
    Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
    What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in?
    O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!
    What is thy soul of adoration?
    Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
    Creating awe and fear in other men?
    Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
    Than they in fearing.
    What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
    But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
    And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
    Thinks thou the fiery fever will go out
    With titles blown from adulation?
    Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
    Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
    Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
    That play'st so subtly with a king's repose.
    I am a king that find thee; and I know
    'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
    The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
    The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
    The farced tide running fore the king,
    The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
    That beats upon the high shore of this world-
    No, not all these, thrice gorgeous ceremony,
    Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
    Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave
    Who, with a body fill'd and vacant mind,
    Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
    Never sees horrid night, the child of hell;
    But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
    Sweats in the eye of Pheebus, and all night
    Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,
    Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse;
    And follows so the ever-running year
    With profitable labour, to his grave.
    And but for ceremony, such a wretch,
    Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
    Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
    The slave, a member of the country's peace,
    Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots
    What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace
    Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

                       Enter ERPINGHAM

  ERPINGHAM. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
    Seek through your camp to find you.
  KING. Good old knight,
    Collect them all together at my tent:
    I'll be before thee.
  ERPINGHAM. I shall do't, my lord.                         Exit
  KING. O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts,
    Possess them not with fear! Take from them now
    The sense of reck'ning, if th' opposed numbers
    Pluck their hearts from them! Not to-day, O Lord,
    O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
    My father made in compassing the crown!
    I Richard's body have interred new,
    And on it have bestowed more contrite tears
    Than from it issued forced drops of blood;
    Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
    Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up
    Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
    Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
    Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;
    Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
    Since that my penitence comes after all,
    Imploring pardon.

                         Enter GLOUCESTER

  GLOUCESTER. My liege!
  KING HENRY. My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay;
    I know thy errand, I will go with thee;
    The day, my friends, and all things, stay for me.     Exeunt

SCENE II. The French camp

Enter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and others

  ORLEANS. The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords!
  DAUPHIN. Montez a cheval! My horse! Varlet, laquais! Ha!
  ORLEANS. O brave spirit!
  DAUPHIN. Via! Les eaux et la terre-
  ORLEANS. Rien puis? L'air et le feu.
  DAUPHIN. Ciel! cousin Orleans.

                        Enter CONSTABLE

    Now, my Lord Constable!
  CONSTABLE. Hark how our steeds for present service neigh!
  DAUPHIN. Mount them, and make incision in their hides,
    That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,
    And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!
  RAMBURES. What, will you have them weep our horses' blood?
    How shall we then behold their natural tears?

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. The English are embattl'd, you French peers.
  CONSTABLE. To horse, you gallant Princes! straight to horse!
    Do but behold yon poor and starved band,
    And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
    Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
    There is not work enough for all our hands;
    Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins
    To give each naked curtle-axe a stain
    That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,
    And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them,
    The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.
    'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,
    That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants-
    Who in unnecessary action swarm
    About our squares of battle- were enow
    To purge this field of, such a hilding foe;
    Though we upon this mountain's basis by
    Took stand for idle speculation-
    But that our honours must not. What's to say?
    A very little little let us do,
    And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound
    The tucket sonance and the note to mount;
    For our approach shall so much dare the field
    That England shall couch down in fear and yield.

                        Enter GRANDPRE

  GRANDPRE. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
    Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones,
    Ill-favouredly become the morning field;
    Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
    And our air shakes them passing scornfully;
    Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
    And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
    The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks
    With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades
    Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,
    The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,
    And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal'd bit
    Lies foul with chaw'd grass, still and motionless;
    And their executors, the knavish crows,
    Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour.
    Description cannot suit itself in words
    To demonstrate the life of such a battle
    In life so lifeless as it shows itself.
  CONSTABLE. They have said their prayers and they stay for death.
  DAUPHIN. Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits,
    And give their fasting horses provender,
    And after fight with them?
  CONSTABLE. I stay but for my guidon. To the field!
    I will the banner from a trumpet take,
    And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!
    The sun is high, and we outwear the day.              Exeunt

SCENE III. The English camp

Enter GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, ERPINGHAM, with all his host;
SALISBURY and WESTMORELAND

  GLOUCESTER. Where is the King?
  BEDFORD. The King himself is rode to view their battle.
  WESTMORELAND. Of fighting men they have full three-score thousand.
  EXETER. There's five to one; besides, they all are fresh.
  SALISBURY. God's arm strike with us! 'tis a fearful odds.
    God bye you, Princes all; I'll to my charge.
    If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,
    Then joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford,
    My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter,
    And my kind kinsman- warriors all, adieu!
  BEDFORD. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee!
  EXETER. Farewell, kind lord. Fight valiantly to-day;
    And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,
    For thou art fram'd of the firm truth of valour.
                                                  Exit SALISBURY
  BEDFORD. He is as full of valour as of kindness;
    Princely in both.

                            Enter the KING

  WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
    But one ten thousand of those men in England
    That do no work to-day!
  KING. What's he that wishes so?
    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
    To do our country loss; and if to live,
    The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
    It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
    Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
    But if it be a sin to covet honour,
    I am the most offending soul alive.
    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
    As one man more methinks would share from me
    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
    That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
    Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
    And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
    We would not die in that man's company
    That fears his fellowship to die with us.
    This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
    He that shall live this day, and see old age,
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
    But he'll remember, with advantages,
    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
    Familiar in his mouth as household words-
    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
    This story shall the good man teach his son;
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition;
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

                      Re-enter SALISBURY

  SALISBURY. My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed:
    The French are bravely in their battles set,
    And will with all expedience charge on us.
  KING HENRY. All things are ready, if our minds be so.
  WESTMORELAND. Perish the man whose mind is backward now!
  KING HENRY. Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?
  WESTMORELAND. God's will, my liege! would you and I alone,
    Without more help, could fight this royal battle!
  KING HENRY. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thousand men;
    Which likes me better than to wish us one.
    You know your places. God be with you all!

                     Tucket. Enter MONTJOY

  MONTJOY. Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,
    If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,
    Before thy most assured overthrow;
    For certainly thou art so near the gulf
    Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,
    The constable desires thee thou wilt mind
    Thy followers of repentance, that their souls
    May make a peaceful and a sweet retire
    From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies
    Must lie and fester.
  KING HENRY. Who hath sent thee now?
  MONTJOY. The Constable of France.
  KING HENRY. I pray thee bear my former answer back:
    Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones.
    Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?
    The man that once did sell the lion's skin
    While the beast liv'd was kill'd with hunting him.
    A many of our bodies shall no doubt
    Find native graves; upon the which, I trust,
    Shall witness live in brass of this day's work.
    And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
    Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
    They shall be fam'd; for there the sun shall greet them
    And draw their honours reeking up to heaven,
    Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,
    The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.
    Mark then abounding valour in our English,
    That, being dead, like to the bullet's grazing
    Break out into a second course of mischief,
    Killing in relapse of mortality.
    Let me speak proudly: tell the Constable
    We are but warriors for the working-day;
    Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd
    With rainy marching in the painful field;
    There's not a piece of feather in our host-
    Good argument, I hope, we will not fly-
    And time hath worn us into slovenry.
    But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;
    And my poor soldiers tell me yet ere night
    They'll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck
    The gay new coats o'er the French soldiers' heads
    And turn them out of service. If they do this-
    As, if God please, they shall- my ransom then
    Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labour;
    Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald;
    They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;
    Which if they have, as I will leave 'em them,
    Shall yield them little, tell the Constable.
  MONTJOY. I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well:
    Thou never shalt hear herald any more.                  Exit
  KING HENRY. I fear thou wilt once more come again for a ransom.

                    Enter the DUKE OF YORK

  YORK. My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg
    The leading of the vaward.
  KING HENRY. Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away;
    And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!          Exeunt

SCENE IV. The field of battle

Alarum.  Excursions.  Enter FRENCH SOLDIER, PISTOL, and BOY

  PISTOL. Yield, cur!
  FRENCH SOLDIER. Je pense que vous etes le gentilhomme de bonne
    qualite.
  PISTOL. Cality! Calen o custure me! Art thou a gentleman?
    What is thy name? Discuss.
  FRENCH SOLDIER. O Seigneur Dieu!
  PISTOL. O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman.
    Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark:
    O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,
    Except, O Signieur, thou do give to me
    Egregious ransom.
  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, prenez misericorde; ayez pitie de moi!
  PISTOL. Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys;
    Or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat
    In drops of crimson blood.
  FRENCH SOLDIER. Est-il impossible d'echapper la force de ton bras?
  PISTOL. Brass, cur?
    Thou damned and luxurious mountain-goat,
    Offer'st me brass?
  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, pardonnez-moi!
  PISTOL. Say'st thou me so? Is that a ton of moys?
    Come hither, boy; ask me this slave in French
    What is his name.
  BOY. Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?
  FRENCH SOLDIER. Monsieur le Fer.
  BOY. He says his name is Master Fer.
  PISTOL. Master Fer! I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him-
   discuss the same in French unto him.
  BOY. I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk.
  PISTOL. Bid him prepare; for I will cut his throat.
  FRENCH SOLDIER. Que dit-il, monsieur?
  BOY. Il me commande a vous dire que vous faites vous pret; car ce
    soldat ici est dispose tout a cette heure de couper votre gorge.
  PISTOL. Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy!
    Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns;
    Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.
  FRENCH SOLDIER. O, je vous supplie, pour l'amour de Dieu, me
    pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison. Gardez ma vie, et
    je vous donnerai deux cents ecus.
  PISTOL. What are his words?
  BOY. He prays you to save his life; he is a gentleman of a good
    house, and for his ransom he will give you two hundred crowns.
  PISTOL. Tell him my fury shall abate, and I
    The crowns will take.
  FRENCH SOLDIER. Petit monsieur, que dit-il?
  BOY. Encore qu'il est contre son jurement de pardonner aucun
    prisonnier, neamnoins, pour les ecus que vous l'avez promis, il
    est content a vous donner la liberte, le franchisement.
  FRENCH SOLDIER. Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens; et
    je m'estime heureux que je suis tombe entre les mains d'un
    chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et tres distingue
    seigneur d'Angleterre.
  PISTOL. Expound unto me, boy.
  BOY. He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and he
    esteems himself happy that he hath fall'n into the hands of one-
    as he thinks- the most brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy
    signieur of England.
  PISTOL. As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.
    Follow me.                                              Exit
  BOY. Suivez-vous le grand capitaine.       Exit FRENCH SOLDIER
    I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart; but
    the saying is true- the empty vessel makes the greatest sound.
    Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring
    devil i' th' old play, that every one may pare his nails with a
    wooden dagger; and they are both hang'd; and so would this be, if
    he durst steal anything adventurously. I must stay with the
    lackeys, with the luggage of our camp. The French might have a
    good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is none to guard it
    but boys.                                               Exit

SCENE V. Another part of the field of battle

Enter CONSTABLE, ORLEANS, BOURBON, DAUPHIN, and RAMBURES

  CONSTABLE. O diable!
  ORLEANS. O Seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!
  DAUPHIN. Mort Dieu, ma vie! all is confounded, all!
    Reproach and everlasting shame
    Sits mocking in our plumes.                 [A short alarum]
    O mechante fortune! Do not run away.
  CONSTABLE. Why, an our ranks are broke.
  DAUPHIN. O perdurable shame! Let's stab ourselves.
    Be these the wretches that we play'd at dice for?
  ORLEANS. Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?
  BOURBON. Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
    Let us die in honour: once more back again;
    And he that will not follow Bourbon now,
    Let him go hence and, with his cap in hand
    Like a base pander, hold the chamber-door
    Whilst by a slave, no gender than my dog,
    His fairest daughter is contaminated.
  CONSTABLE. Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, friend us now!
    Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.
  ORLEANS. We are enow yet living in the field
    To smother up the English in our throngs,
    If any order might be thought upon.
  BOURBON. The devil take order now! I'll to the throng.
    Let life be short, else shame will be too long.       Exeunt

SCENE VI. Another part of the field

Alarum. Enter the KING and his train, with prisoners; EXETER, and
others

  KING HENRY. Well have we done, thrice-valiant countrymen;
    But all's not done- yet keep the French the field.
  EXETER. The Duke of York commends him to your Majesty.
  KING HENRY. Lives he, good uncle? Thrice within this hour
    I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;
    From helmet to the spur all blood he was.
  EXETER. In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie
    Larding the plain; and by his bloody side,
    Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds,
    The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.
    Suffolk first died; and York, all haggled over,
    Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped,
    And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes
    That bloodily did yawn upon his face,
    He cries aloud 'Tarry, my cousin Suffolk.
    My soul shall thine keep company to heaven;
    Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast;
    As in this glorious and well-foughten field
    We kept together in our chivalry.'
    Upon these words I came and cheer'd him up;
    He smil'd me in the face, raught me his hand,
    And, with a feeble grip, says 'Dear my lord,
    Commend my service to my sovereign.'
    So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck
    He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips;
    And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd
    A testament of noble-ending love.
    The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd
    Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd;
    But I had not so much of man in me,
    And all my mother came into mine eyes
    And gave me up to tears.
  KING HENRY. I blame you not;
    For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
    With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.          [Alarum]
    But hark! what new alarum is this same?
    The French have reinforc'd their scatter'd men.
    Then every soldier kill his prisoners;
    Give the word through.                                Exeunt

SCENE VII. Another part of the field

Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER

  FLUELLEN. Kill the poys and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the
    law of arms; 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as
    can be offert; in your conscience, now, is it not?
  GOWER. 'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and the cowardly
    rascals that ran from the battle ha' done this slaughter;
    besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the
    King's tent; wherefore the King most worthily hath caus'd every
    soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a gallant King!
  FLUELLEN. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you
    the town's name where Alexander the Pig was born?
  GOWER. Alexander the Great.
  FLUELLEN. Why, I pray you, is not 'pig' great? The pig, or great,
    or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one
    reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.
  GOWER. I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his father
    was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.
  FLUELLEN. I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell
    you, Captain, if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant you
    sall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that
    the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in
    Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth; it is
    call'd Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the
    name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my
    fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you
    mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come
    after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things.
    Alexander- God knows, and you know- in his rages, and his furies,
    and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his
    displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little
    intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look
    you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.
  GOWER. Our king is not like him in that: he never kill'd any of his
    friends.
  FLUELLEN. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out
    of my mouth ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the
    figures and comparisons of it; as Alexander kill'd his friend
    Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups, so also Harry Monmouth,
    being in his right wits and his good judgments, turn'd away the
    fat knight with the great belly doublet; he was full of jests,
    and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot his name.
  GOWER. Sir John Falstaff.
  FLUELLEN. That is he. I'll tell you there is good men porn at
    Monmouth.
  GOWER. Here comes his Majesty.

            Alarum. Enter the KING, WARWICK, GLOUCESTER,
            EXETER, and others, with prisoners. Flourish

  KING HENRY. I was not angry since I came to France
    Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald,
    Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond hill;
    If they will fight with us, bid them come down
    Or void the field; they do offend our sight.
    If they'll do neither, we will come to them
    And make them skirr away as swift as stones
    Enforced from the old Assyrian slings;
    Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have,
    And not a man of them that we shall take
    Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

                      Enter MONTJOY

  EXETER. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.
  GLOUCESTER. His eyes are humbler than they us'd to be.
  KING HENRY. How now! What means this, herald? know'st thou not
    That I have fin'd these bones of mine for ransom?
    Com'st thou again for ransom?
  MONTJOY. No, great King;
    I come to thee for charitable licence,
    That we may wander o'er this bloody field
    To book our dead, and then to bury them;
    To sort our nobles from our common men;
    For many of our princes- woe the while!-
    Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;
    So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
    In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds
    Fret fetlock deep in gore, and with wild rage
    Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
    Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great King,
    To view the field in safety, and dispose
    Of their dead bodies!
  KING HENRY. I tell thee truly, herald,
    I know not if the day be ours or no;
    For yet a many of your horsemen peer
    And gallop o'er the field.
  MONTJOY. The day is yours.
  KING HENRY. Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
    What is this castle call'd that stands hard by?
  MONTJOY. They call it Agincourt.
  KING HENRY. Then call we this the field of Agincourt,
    Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.
  FLUELLEN. Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your
    Majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales,
    as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here
    in France.
  KING HENRY. They did, Fluellen.
  FLUELLEN. Your Majesty says very true; if your Majesties is
    rememb'red of it, the Welshmen did good service in garden where
    leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which your
    Majesty know to this hour is an honourable badge of the service;
    and I do believe your Majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek
    upon Saint Tavy's day.
  KING HENRY. I wear it for a memorable honour;
    For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.
  FLUELLEN. All the water in Wye cannot wash your Majesty's Welsh
    plood out of your pody, I can tell you that. Got pless it and
    preserve it as long as it pleases his Grace and his Majesty too!
  KING HENRY. Thanks, good my countryman.
  FLUELLEN. By Jeshu, I am your Majesty's countryman, care not who
    know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I need not be
    asham'd of your Majesty, praised be Got, so long as your Majesty
    is an honest man.

                       Enter WILLIAMS

  KING HENRY. God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:
    Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
    On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.
                                     Exeunt heralds with MONTJOY
  EXETER. Soldier, you must come to the King.
  KING HENRY. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap?
  WILLIAMS. An't please your Majesty, 'tis the gage of one that I
    should fight withal, if he be alive.
  KING HENRY. An Englishman?
  WILLIAMS. An't please your Majesty, a rascal that swagger'd with me
    last night; who, if 'a live and ever dare to challenge this
    glove, I have sworn to take him a box o' th' ear; or if I can see
    my glove in his cap- which he swore, as he was a soldier, he
    would wear if alive- I will strike it out soundly.
  KING HENRY. What think you, Captain Fluellen, is it fit this
    soldier keep his oath?
  FLUELLEN. He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your
    Majesty, in my conscience.
  KING HENRY. It may be his enemy is a gentlemen of great sort, quite
    from the answer of his degree.
  FLUELLEN. Though he be as good a gentleman as the Devil is, as
    Lucifier and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your Grace,
    that he keep his vow and his oath; if he be perjur'd, see you
    now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jacksauce as
    ever his black shoe trod upon God's ground and his earth, in my
    conscience, la.
  KING HENRY. Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st the
    fellow.
  WILLIAMS. So I Will, my liege, as I live.
  KING HENRY. Who serv'st thou under?
  WILLIAMS. Under Captain Gower, my liege.
  FLUELLEN. Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and
    literatured in the wars.
  KING HENRY. Call him hither to me, soldier.
  WILLIAMS. I will, my liege.                               Exit
  KING HENRY. Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me, and stick
    it in thy cap; when Alencon and myself were down together, I
    pluck'd this glove from his helm. If any man challenge this, he
    is a friend to Alencon and an enemy to our person; if thou
    encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.
  FLUELLEN. Your Grace does me as great honours as can be desir'd in
    the hearts of his subjects. I would fain see the man that has but
    two legs that shall find himself aggrief'd at this glove, that is
    all; but I would fain see it once, an please God of his grace
    that I might see.
  KING HENRY. Know'st thou Gower?
  FLUELLEN. He is my dear friend, an please you.
  KING HENRY. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.
  FLUELLEN. I will fetch him.                               Exit
  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick and my brother Gloucester,
    Follow Fluellen closely at the heels;
    The glove which I have given him for a favour
    May haply purchase him a box o' th' ear.
    It is the soldier's: I, by bargain, should
    Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick;
    If that the soldier strike him, as I judge
    By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,
    Some sudden mischief may arise of it;
    For I do know Fluellen valiant,
    And touch'd with choler, hot as gunpowder,
    And quickly will return an injury;
    Follow, and see there be no harm between them.
    Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.                      Exeunt

SCENE VIII. Before KING HENRY'S PAVILION

Enter GOWER and WILLIAMS

  WILLIAMS. I warrant it is to knight you, Captain.

                         Enter FLUELLEN

  FLUELLEN. God's will and his pleasure, Captain, I beseech you now,
    come apace to the King: there is more good toward you
    peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of.
  WILLIAMS. Sir, know you this glove?
  FLUELLEN. Know the glove? I know the glove is a glove.
  WILLIAMS. I know this; and thus I challenge it.  [Strikes him]
  FLUELLEN. 'Sblood, an arrant traitor as any's in the universal
    world, or in France, or in England!
  GOWER. How now, sir! you villain!
  WILLIAMS. Do you think I'll be forsworn?
  FLUELLEN. Stand away, Captain Gower; I will give treason his
    payment into plows, I warrant you.
  WILLIAMS. I am no traitor.
  FLUELLEN. That's a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his Majesty's
    name, apprehend him: he's a friend of the Duke Alencon's.

                  Enter WARWICK and GLOUCESTER

  WARWICK. How now! how now! what's the matter?
  FLUELLEN. My Lord of Warwick, here is- praised be God for it!- a
    most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall
    desire in a summer's day. Here is his Majesty.

                  Enter the KING and EXETER

  KING HENRY. How now! what's the matter?
  FLUELLEN. My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look
    your Grace, has struck the glove which your Majesty is take out
    of the helmet of Alencon.
  WILLIAMS. My liege, this was my glove: here is the fellow of it;
    and he that I gave it to in change promis'd to wear it in his
    cap; I promis'd to strike him if he did; I met this man with my
    glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word.
  FLUELLEN. Your Majesty hear now, saving your Majesty's manhood,
    what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy knave it is; I hope
    your Majesty is pear me testimony and witness, and will
    avouchment, that this is the glove of Alencon that your Majesty
    is give me; in your conscience, now.
  KING HENRY. Give me thy glove, soldier; look, here is the fellow of
      it.
    'Twas I, indeed, thou promised'st to strike,
    And thou hast given me most bitter terms.
  FLUELLEN. An please your Majesty, let his neck answer for it, if
    there is any martial law in the world.
  KING HENRY. How canst thou make me satisfaction?
  WILLIAMS. All offences, my lord, come from the heart; never came
    any from mine that might offend your Majesty.
  KING HENRY. It was ourself thou didst abuse.
  WILLIAMS. Your Majesty came not like yourself: you appear'd to me
    but as a common man; witness the night, your garments, your
    lowliness; and what your Highness suffer'd under that shape I
    beseech you take it for your own fault, and not mine; for had you
    been as I took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I beseech
    your Highness pardon me.
  KING HENRY. Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,
    And give it to this fellow. Keep it, fellow;
    And wear it for an honour in thy cap
    Till I do challenge it. Give him the crowns;
    And, Captain, you must needs be friends with him.
  FLUELLEN. By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough
    in his belly: hold, there is twelve pence for you; and I pray you
    to serve God, and keep you out of prawls, and prabbles, and
    quarrels, and dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the better
    for you.
  WILLIAMS. I will none of your money.
  FLUELLEN. It is with a good will; I can tell you it will serve you
    to mend your shoes. Come, wherefore should you be so pashful?
    Your shoes is not so good. 'Tis a good silling, I warrant you, or
    I will change it.

                      Enter an ENGLISH HERALD

  KING HENRY. Now, herald, are the dead numb'red?
  HERALD. Here is the number of the slaught'red French.
                                                 [Gives a paper]
  KING HENRY. What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?
  EXETER. Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the King;
    John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt;
    Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,
    Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.
  KING HENRY. This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
    That in the field lie slain; of princes in this number,
    And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead
    One hundred twenty-six; added to these,
    Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,
    Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which
    Five hundred were but yesterday dubb'd knights.
    So that, in these ten thousand they have lost,
    There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;
    The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,
    And gentlemen of blood and quality.
    The names of those their nobles that lie dead:
    Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;
    Jaques of Chatillon, Admiral of France;
    The master of the cross-bows, Lord Rambures;
    Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dolphin;
    John Duke of Alencon; Antony Duke of Brabant,
    The brother to the Duke of Burgundy;
    And Edward Duke of Bar. Of lusty earls,
    Grandpre and Roussi, Fauconbridge and Foix,
    Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrake.
    Here was a royal fellowship of death!
    Where is the number of our English dead?
                                 [HERALD presents another paper]
    Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
    Sir Richard Kikely, Davy Gam, Esquire;
    None else of name; and of all other men
    But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here!
    And not to us, but to thy arm alone,
    Ascribe we all. When, without stratagem,
    But in plain shock and even play of battle,
    Was ever known so great and little los
    On one part and on th' other? Take it, God,
    For it is none but thine.
  EXETER. 'Tis wonderful!
  KING HENRY. Come, go we in procession to the village;
    And be it death proclaimed through our host
    To boast of this or take that praise from God
    Which is his only.
  FLUELLEN. Is it not lawful, an please your Majesty, to tell how
    many is kill'd?
  KING HENRY. Yes, Captain; but with this acknowledgment,
    That God fought for us.
  FLUELLEN. Yes, my conscience, he did us great good.
  KING HENRY. Do we all holy rites:
    Let there be sung 'Non nobis' and 'Te Deum';
    The dead with charity enclos'd in clay-
    And then to Calais; and to England then;
    Where ne'er from France arriv'd more happy men.       Exeunt

ACT V. PROLOGUE.

Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story
    That I may prompt them; and of such as have,
    I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse
    Of time, of numbers, and due course of things,
    Which cannot in their huge and proper life
    Be here presented. Now we bear the King
    Toward Calais. Grant him there. There seen,
    Heave him away upon your winged thoughts
    Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach
    Pales in the flood with men, with wives, and boys,
    Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouth'd sea,
    Which, like a mighty whiffler, fore the King
    Seems to prepare his way. So let him land,
    And solemnly see him set on to London.
    So swift a pace hath thought that even now
    You may imagine him upon Blackheath;
    Where that his lords desire him to have borne
    His bruised helmet and his bended sword
    Before him through the city. He forbids it,
    Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;
    Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent,
    Quite from himself to God. But now behold
    In the quick forge and working-house of thought,
    How London doth pour out her citizens!
    The mayor and all his brethren in best sort-
    Like to the senators of th' antique Rome,
    With the plebeians swarming at their heels-
    Go forth and fetch their conqu'ring Caesar in;
    As, by a lower but loving likelihood,
    Were now the General of our gracious Empress-
    As in good time he may- from Ireland coming,
    Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,
    How many would the peaceful city quit
    To welcome him! Much more, and much more cause,
    Did they this Harry. Now in London place him-
    As yet the lamentation of the French
    Invites the King of England's stay at home;
    The Emperor's coming in behalf of France
    To order peace between them; and omit
    All the occurrences, whatever chanc'd,
    Till Harry's back-return again to France.
    There must we bring him; and myself have play'd
    The interim, by rememb'ring you 'tis past.
    Then brook abridgment; and your eyes advance,
    After your thoughts, straight back again to France.     Exit

SCENE I. France.  The English camp

Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER

  GOWER. Nay, that's right; but why wear you your leek to-day? Saint
    Davy's day is past.
  FLUELLEN. There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all
    things. I will tell you, ass my friend, Captain Gower: the
    rascally, scald, beggarly, lousy, pragging knave, Pistol- which
    you and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a
    fellow, look you now, of no merits- he is come to me, and prings
    me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek; it
    was in a place where I could not breed no contendon with him; but
    I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once
    again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires.

                          Enter PISTOL

  GOWER. Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.
  FLUELLEN. 'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks.
    God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God
    pless you!
  PISTOL. Ha! art thou bedlam? Dost thou thirst, base Troyan,
    To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?
    Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.
  FLUELLEN. I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my
    desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you,
    this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your
    affections, and your appetites, and your digestions, does not
    agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.
  PISTOL. Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.
  FLUELLEN. There is one goat for you.  [Strikes him]  Will you be so
    good, scald knave, as eat it?
  PISTOL. Base Troyan, thou shalt die.
  FLUELLEN. You say very true, scald knave- when God's will is. I
    will desire you to live in the meantime, and eat your victuals;
    come, there is sauce for it.  [Striking him again]  You call'd me
    yesterday mountain-squire; but I will make you to-day a squire of
    low degree. I pray you fall to; if you can mock a leek, you can
    eat a leek.
  GOWER. Enough, Captain, you have astonish'd him.
  FLUELLEN. I say I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will
    peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you, it is good for your
    green wound and your ploody coxcomb.
  PISTOL. Must I bite?
  FLUELLEN. Yes, certainly, and out of doubt, and out of question
    too, and ambiguides.
  PISTOL. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge- I eat and eat,
    I swear-
  FLUELLEN. Eat, I pray you; will you have some more sauce to your
    leek? There is not enough leek to swear by.
  PISTOL. Quiet thy cudgel: thou dost see I eat.
  FLUELLEN. Much good do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray you
    throw none away; the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When
    you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you mock at
    'em; that is all.
  PISTOL. Good.
  FLUELLEN. Ay, leeks is good. Hold you, there is a groat to heal
    your pate.
  PISTOL. Me a groat!
  FLUELLEN. Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it; or I have
    another leek in my pocket which you shall eat.
  PISTOL. I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.
  FLUELLEN. If I owe you anything I will pay you in cudgels; you
    shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God bye
    you, and keep you, and heal your pate.
 Exit
  PISTOL. All hell shall stir for this.
  GOWER. Go, go: you are a couterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock
    at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and
    worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour, and dare not
    avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking
    and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought,
    because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could
    not therefore handle an English cudgel; you find it otherwise,
    and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English
    condition. Fare ye well.                                Exit
  PISTOL. Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?
    News have I that my Nell is dead i' th' spital
    Of malady of France;
    And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
    Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs
    Honour is cudgell'd. Well, bawd I'll turn,
    And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.
    To England will I steal, and there I'll steal;
    And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,
    And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.                Exit

SCENE II. France. The FRENCH KING'S palace

Enter at one door, KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK,
WESTMORELAND, and other LORDS; at another, the FRENCH KING, QUEEN
ISABEL, the PRINCESS KATHERINE, ALICE, and other LADIES; the DUKE OF
BURGUNDY, and his train

  KING HENRY. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!
    Unto our brother France, and to our sister,
    Health and fair time of day; joy and good wishes
    To our most fair and princely cousin Katherine.
    And, as a branch and member of this royalty,
    By whom this great assembly is contriv'd,
    We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy.
    And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!
  FRENCH KING. Right joyous are we to behold your face,
    Most worthy brother England; fairly met!
    So are you, princes English, every one.
  QUEEN ISABEL. So happy be the issue, brother England,
    Of this good day and of this gracious meeting
    As we are now glad to behold your eyes-
    Your eyes, which hitherto have home in them,
    Against the French that met them in their bent,
    The fatal balls of murdering basilisks;
    The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
    Have lost their quality; and that this day
    Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.
  KING HENRY. To cry amen to that, thus we appear.
  QUEEN ISABEL. You English princes an, I do salute you.
  BURGUNDY. My duty to you both, on equal love,
    Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd
    With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavours,
    To bring your most imperial Majesties
    Unto this bar and royal interview,
    Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.
    Since then my office hath so far prevail'd
    That face to face and royal eye to eye
    You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me
    If I demand, before this royal view,
    What rub or what impediment there is
    Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace,
    Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,
    Should not in this best garden of the world,
    Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
    Alas, she hath from France too long been chas'd!
    And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
    Corrupting in it own fertility.
    Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
    Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,
    Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
    Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas
    The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,
    Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts
    That should deracinate such savagery;
    The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
    The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,
    Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
    Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems
    But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
    Losing both beauty and utility.
    And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,
    Defective in their natures, grow to wildness;
    Even so our houses and ourselves and children
    Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,
    The sciences that should become our country;
    But grow, like savages- as soldiers will,
    That nothing do but meditate on blood-
    To swearing and stern looks, diffus'd attire,
    And everything that seems unnatural.
    Which to reduce into our former favout
    You are assembled; and my speech entreats
    That I may know the let why gentle Peace
    Should not expel these inconveniences
    And bless us with her former qualities.
  KING HENRY. If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace
    Whose want gives growth to th' imperfections
    Which you have cited, you must buy that peace
    With full accord to all our just demands;
    Whose tenours and particular effects
    You have, enschedul'd briefly, in your hands.
  BURGUNDY. The King hath heard them; to the which as yet
    There is no answer made.
  KING HENRY. Well then, the peace,
    Which you before so urg'd, lies in his answer.
  FRENCH KING. I have but with a cursorary eye
    O'erglanced the articles; pleaseth your Grace
    To appoint some of your council presently
    To sit with us once more, with better heed
    To re-survey them, we will suddenly
    Pass our accept and peremptory answer.
  KING HENRY. Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter,
    And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,
    Warwick, and Huntington, go with the King;
    And take with you free power to ratify,
    Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best
    Shall see advantageable for our dignity,
    Any thing in or out of our demands;
    And we'll consign thereto. Will you, fair sister,
    Go with the princes or stay here with us?
  QUEEN ISABEL. Our gracious brother, I will go with them;
    Haply a woman's voice may do some good,
    When articles too nicely urg'd be stood on.
  KING HENRY. Yet leave our cousin Katherine here with us;
    She is our capital demand, compris'd
    Within the fore-rank of our articles.
  QUEEN ISABEL. She hath good leave.
                   Exeunt all but the KING, KATHERINE, and ALICE
  KING HENRY. Fair Katherine, and most fair,
    Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms
    Such as will enter at a lady's ear,
    And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?
  KATHERINE. Your Majesty shall mock me; I cannot speak your England.
  KING HENRY. O fair Katherine, if you will love me soundly with your
    French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with
    your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?
  KATHERINE. Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is like me.
  KING HENRY. An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.
  KATHERINE. Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?
  ALICE. Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.
  KING HENRY. I said so, dear Katherine, and I must not blush to
    affirm it.
  KATHERINE. O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de
    tromperies.
  KING HENRY. What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are
    full of deceits?
  ALICE. Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits- dat is
    de Princess.
  KING HENRY. The Princess is the better English-woman. I' faith,
    Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou
    canst speak no better English; for if thou couldst, thou wouldst
    find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my
    farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but
    directly to say 'I love you.' Then, if you urge me farther than
    to say 'Do you in faith?' I wear out my suit. Give me your
    answer; i' faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain. How say
    you, lady?
  KATHERINE. Sauf votre honneur, me understand well.
  KING HENRY. Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for
    your sake, Kate, why you undid me; for the one I have neither
    words nor measure, and for the other I have no strength in
    measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a
    lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour
    on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken, I
    should quickly leap into wife. Or if I might buffet for my love,
    or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher,
    and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I
    cannot look greenly, nor gasp out my cloquence, nor I have no
    cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use
    till urg'd, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a
    fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning,
    that never looks in his glass for love of anything he sees there,
    let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier. If thou
    canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to thee that I
    shall die is true- but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love
    thee too. And while thou liv'st, dear Kate, take a fellow of
    plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right,
    because he hath not the gift to woo in other places; for these
    fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into
    ladies' favours, they do always reason themselves out again.
    What! a speaker is but a prater: a rhyme is but a ballad. A good
    leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will
    turn white; a curl'd pate will grow bald; a fair face will
    wither; a full eye will wax hollow. But a good heart, Kate, is
    the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon- for
    it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.
    If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a
    soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what say'st thou, then,
    to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.
  KATHERINE. Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?
  KING HENRY. No, it is not possible you should love the enemy of
    France, Kate, but in loving me you should love the friend of
    France; for I love France so well that I will not part with a
    village of it; I will have it all mine. And, Kate, when France is
    mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.
  KATHERINE. I cannot tell vat is dat.
  KING HENRY. No, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which I am sure
    will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her
    husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Je quand sur le
    possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi-
    let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed!- donc votre est
    France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to
    conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French: I shall
    never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.
  KATHERINE. Sauf votre honneur, le Francais que vous parlez, il est
    meilleur que l'Anglais lequel je parle.
  KING HENRY. No, faith, is't not, Kate; but thy speaking of my
    tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, must needs be granted to
    be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much
    English- Canst thou love me?
  KATHERINE. I cannot tell.
  KING HENRY. Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask them.
    Come, I know thou lovest me; and at night, when you come into
    your closet, you'll question this gentlewoman about me; and I
    know, Kate, you will to her dispraise those parts in me that you
    love with your heart. But, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the
    rather, gentle Princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever
    thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells
    me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore
    needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall not thou and I, between
    Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half
    English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the
    beard? Shall we not? What say'st thou, my fair flower-de-luce?
  KATHERINE. I do not know dat.
  KING HENRY. No: 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise; do but
    now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your French part of
    such a boy; and for my English moiety take the word of a king and
    a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon
   tres cher et divin deesse?
  KATHERINE. Your Majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de
    most sage damoiselle dat is en France.
  KING HENRY. Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true
    English, I love thee, Kate; by which honour I dare not swear thou
    lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost,
    notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now
    beshrew my father's ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when
    he got me; therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with
    an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies I fright them.
    But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear:
    my comfort is, that old age, that in layer-up of beauty, can do
    no more spoil upon my face; thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the
    worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and
    better. And therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have
    me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your
    heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand and say
    'Harry of England, I am thine.' Which word thou shalt no sooner
    bless mine ear withal but I will tell thee aloud 'England is
    thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet
    is thine'; who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not
    fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good
    fellows. Come, your answer in broken music- for thy voice is
    music and thy English broken; therefore, Queen of all, Katherine,
    break thy mind to me in broken English, wilt thou have me?
  KATHERINE. Dat is as it shall please de roi mon pere.
  KING HENRY. Nay, it will please him well, Kate- it shall please
    him, Kate.
  KATHERINE. Den it sall also content me.
  KING HENRY. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I can you my queen.
  KATHERINE. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne
    veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main
    d'une, notre seigneur, indigne serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous
    supplie, mon tres puissant seigneur.
  KING HENRY. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.
  KATHERINE. Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant leur
    noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France.
  KING HENRY. Madame my interpreter, what says she?
  ALICE. Dat it is not be de fashion pour le ladies of France- I
    cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.
  KING HENRY. To kiss.
  ALICE. Your Majestee entendre bettre que moi.
  KING HENRY. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss
    before they are married, would she say?
  ALICE. Oui, vraiment.
  KING HENRY. O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate,
    you and I cannot be confin'd within the weak list of a country's
    fashion; we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that
    follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults- as I will
    do yours for upholding the nice fashion of your country in
    denying me a kiss; therefore, patiently and yielding.  [Kissing
    her]  You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more
    eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the
    French council; and they should sooner persuade Henry of England
    than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

             Enter the FRENCH POWER and the ENGLISH LORDS

  BURGUNDY. God save your Majesty! My royal cousin,
    Teach you our princess English?
  KING HENRY. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I
    love her; and that is good English.
  BURGUNDY. Is she not apt?
  KING HENRY. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not
    smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of
    flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in
    her that he will appear in his true likeness.
  BURGUNDY. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for
    that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if
    conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked
    and blind. Can you blame her, then, being a maid yet ros'd over
    with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of
    a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a
    hard condition for a maid to consign to.
  KING HENRY. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and
    enforces.
  BURGUNDY. They are then excus'd, my lord, when they see not what
    they do.
  KING HENRY. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent
    winking.
  BURGUNDY. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach
    her to know my meaning; for maids well summer'd and warm kept are
    like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their
    eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not
    abide looking on.
  KING HENRY. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and
    so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she
    must be blind too.
  BURGUNDY. As love is, my lord, before it loves.
  KING HENRY. It is so; and you may, some of you, thank love for my
    blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair
    French maid that stands in my way.
  FRENCH KING. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities
    turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls
    that war hath never ent'red.
  KING HENRY. Shall Kate be my wife?
  FRENCH KING. So please you.
  KING HENRY. I am content, so the maiden cities you talk of may wait
    on her; so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show
    me the way to my will.
  FRENCH KING. We have consented to all terms of reason.
  KING HENRY. Is't so, my lords of England?
  WESTMORELAND. The king hath granted every article:
    His daughter first; and then in sequel, all,
    According to their firm proposed natures.
  EXETER. Only he hath not yet subscribed this:
      Where your Majesty demands that the King of France, having any
    occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your Highness
    in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre tres cher
    fils Henri, Roi d'Angleterre, Heritier de France; and thus in
    Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae et
    Haeres Franciae.
  FRENCH KING. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied
    But our request shall make me let it pass.
  KING HENRY. I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance,
    Let that one article rank with the rest;
    And thereupon give me your daughter.
  FRENCH KING. Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up
    Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms
    Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
    With envy of each other's happiness,
    May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction
    Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord
    In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance
    His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.
  LORDS. Amen!
  KING HENRY. Now, welcome, Kate; and bear me witness all,
    That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.       [Floulish]
  QUEEN ISABEL. God, the best maker of all marriages,
    Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!
    As man and wife, being two, are one in love,
    So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal
    That never may ill office or fell jealousy,
    Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,
    Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,
    To make divorce of their incorporate league;
    That English may as French, French Englishmen,
    Receive each other. God speak this Amen!
  ALL. Amen!
  KING HENRY. Prepare we for our marriage; on which day,
    My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,
    And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.
    Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me,
    And may our oaths well kept and prosp'rous be!
                                                  Sennet. Exeunt

EPILOGUE EPILOGUE.

                          Enter CHORUS

  CHORUS. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
    Our bending author hath pursu'd the story,
    In little room confining mighty men,
    Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
    Small time, but, in that small, most greatly lived
    This star of England. Fortune made his sword;
    By which the world's best garden he achieved,
    And of it left his son imperial lord.
    Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd king
    Of France and England, did this king succeed;
    Whose state so many had the managing
    That they lost France and made his England bleed;
    Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
    In your fair minds let this acceptance take.            Exit

THE END

1592



THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

Dramatis Personae

  KING HENRY THE SIXTH
  DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, uncle to the King, and Protector
  DUKE OF BEDFORD, uncle to the King, and Regent of France
  THOMAS BEAUFORT, DUKE OF EXETER, great-uncle to the king
  HENRY BEAUFORT, great-uncle to the King, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER,
     and afterwards CARDINAL
  JOHN BEAUFORT, EARL OF SOMERSET, afterwards Duke
  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, son of Richard late Earl of Cambridge,
    afterwards DUKE OF YORK
  EARL OF WARWICK
  EARL OF SALISBURY
  EARL OF SUFFOLK
  LORD TALBOT, afterwards EARL OF SHREWSBURY
  JOHN TALBOT, his son
  EDMUND MORTIMER, EARL OF MARCH
  SIR JOHN FASTOLFE
  SIR WILLIAM LUCY
  SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE
  SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE
  MAYOR of LONDON
  WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower
  VERNON, of the White Rose or York faction
  BASSET, of the Red Rose or Lancaster faction
  A LAWYER
  GAOLERS, to Mortimer
  CHARLES, Dauphin, and afterwards King of France
  REIGNIER, DUKE OF ANJOU, and titular King of Naples
  DUKE OF BURGUNDY
  DUKE OF ALENCON
  BASTARD OF ORLEANS
  GOVERNOR OF PARIS
  MASTER-GUNNER OF ORLEANS, and his SON
  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH FORCES in Bordeaux
  A FRENCH SERGEANT
  A PORTER
  AN OLD SHEPHERD, father to Joan la Pucelle
  MARGARET, daughter to Reignier, afterwards married to
    King Henry
  COUNTESS OF AUVERGNE
  JOAN LA PUCELLE, Commonly called JOAN OF ARC

  Lords, Warders of the Tower, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers,
  Messengers, English and French Attendants. Fiends appearing
    to La Pucelle

SCENE: England and France

The First Part of King Henry the Sixth

ACT I. SCENE 1.

Westminster Abbey

Dead March. Enter the funeral of KING HENRY THE FIFTH, attended on by
the DUKE OF BEDFORD, Regent of France, the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER,
Protector, the DUKE OF EXETER, the EARL OF WARWICK, the BISHOP OF
WINCHESTER

  BEDFORD. Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to
    night! Comets, importing change of times and states,
    Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky
    And with them scourge the bad revolting stars
    That have consented unto Henry's death!
    King Henry the Fifth, too famous to live long!
    England ne'er lost a king of so much worth.
  GLOUCESTER. England ne'er had a king until his time.
    Virtue he had, deserving to command;
    His brandish'd sword did blind men with his beams;
    His arms spread wider than a dragon's wings;
    His sparkling eyes, replete with wrathful fire,
    More dazzled and drove back his enemies
    Than mid-day sun fierce bent against their faces.
    What should I say? His deeds exceed all speech:
    He ne'er lift up his hand but conquered.
  EXETER. We mourn in black; why mourn we not in blood?
    Henry is dead and never shall revive.
    Upon a wooden coffin we attend;
    And death's dishonourable victory
    We with our stately presence glorify,
    Like captives bound to a triumphant car.
    What! shall we curse the planets of mishap
    That plotted thus our glory's overthrow?
    Or shall we think the subtle-witted French
    Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,
    By magic verses have contriv'd his end?
  WINCHESTER. He was a king bless'd of the King of kings;
    Unto the French the dreadful judgment-day
    So dreadful will not be as was his sight.
    The battles of the Lord of Hosts he fought;
    The Church's prayers made him so prosperous.
  GLOUCESTER. The Church! Where is it? Had not churchmen
    pray'd,
    His thread of life had not so soon decay'd.
    None do you like but an effeminate prince,
    Whom like a school-boy you may overawe.
  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, whate'er we like, thou art
    Protector
    And lookest to command the Prince and realm.
    Thy wife is proud; she holdeth thee in awe
    More than God or religious churchmen may.
  GLOUCESTER. Name not religion, for thou lov'st the flesh;
    And ne'er throughout the year to church thou go'st,
    Except it be to pray against thy foes.
  BEDFORD. Cease, cease these jars and rest your minds in peace;
    Let's to the altar. Heralds, wait on us.
    Instead of gold, we'll offer up our arms,
    Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead.
    Posterity, await for wretched years,
    When at their mothers' moist'ned eyes babes shall suck,
    Our isle be made a nourish of salt tears,
    And none but women left to wail the dead.
  HENRY the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate:
    Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils,
    Combat with adverse planets in the heavens.
    A far more glorious star thy soul will make
    Than Julius Caesar or bright

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My honourable lords, health to you all!
    Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,
    Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:
    Guienne, Champagne, Rheims, Orleans,
    Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.
  BEDFORD. What say'st thou, man, before dead Henry's corse?
    Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns
    Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.
  GLOUCESTER. Is Paris lost? Is Rouen yielded up?
    If Henry were recall'd to life again,
    These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.
  EXETER. How were they lost? What treachery was us'd?
  MESSENGER. No treachery, but want of men and money.
    Amongst the soldiers this is muttered
    That here you maintain several factions;
    And whilst a field should be dispatch'd and fought,
    You are disputing of your generals:
    One would have ling'ring wars, with little cost;
    Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;
    A third thinks, without expense at all,
    By guileful fair words peace may be obtain'd.
    Awake, awake, English nobility!
    Let not sloth dim your honours, new-begot.
    Cropp'd are the flower-de-luces in your arms;
    Of England's coat one half is cut away.
  EXETER. Were our tears wanting to this funeral,
    These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.
  BEDFORD. Me they concern; Regent I am of France.
    Give me my steeled coat; I'll fight for France.
    Away with these disgraceful wailing robes!
    Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,
    To weep their intermissive miseries.

                   Enter a second MESSENGER

  SECOND MESSENGER. Lords, view these letters full of bad
    mischance.
    France is revolted from the English quite,
    Except some petty towns of no import.
    The Dauphin Charles is crowned king in Rheims;
    The Bastard of Orleans with him is join'd;
    Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part;
    The Duke of Alencon flieth to his side.
  EXETER. The Dauphin crowned king! all fly to him!
    O, whither shall we fly from this reproach?
  GLOUCESTER. We will not fly but to our enemies' throats.
    Bedford, if thou be slack I'll fight it out.
  BEDFORD. Gloucester, why doubt'st thou of my forwardness?
    An army have I muster'd in my thoughts,
    Wherewith already France is overrun.

                   Enter a third MESSENGER

  THIRD MESSENGER. My gracious lords, to add to your
    laments,
    Wherewith you now bedew King Henry's hearse,
    I must inform you of a dismal fight
    Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.
  WINCHESTER. What! Wherein Talbot overcame? Is't so?
  THIRD MESSENGER. O, no; wherein Lord Talbot was
    o'erthrown.
    The circumstance I'll tell you more at large.
    The tenth of August last this dreadful lord,
    Retiring from the siege of Orleans,
    Having full scarce six thousand in his troop,
    By three and twenty thousand of the French
    Was round encompassed and set upon.
    No leisure had he to enrank his men;
    He wanted pikes to set before his archers;
    Instead whereof sharp stakes pluck'd out of hedges
    They pitched in the ground confusedly
    To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.
    More than three hours the fight continued;
    Where valiant Talbot, above human thought,
    Enacted wonders with his sword and lance:
    Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand him;
    Here, there, and everywhere, enrag'd he slew
    The French exclaim'd the devil was in arms;
    All the whole army stood agaz'd on him.
    His soldiers, spying his undaunted spirit,
    'A Talbot! a Talbot!' cried out amain,
    And rush'd into the bowels of the battle.
    Here had the conquest fully been seal'd up
    If Sir John Fastolfe had not play'd the coward.
    He, being in the vaward plac'd behind
    With purpose to relieve and follow them-
    Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke;
    Hence grew the general wreck and massacre.
    Enclosed were they with their enemies.
    A base Walloon, to win the Dauphin's grace,
    Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back;
    Whom all France, with their chief assembled strength,
    Durst not presume to look once in the face.
  BEDFORD. Is Talbot slain? Then I will slay myself,
    For living idly here in pomp and ease,
    Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,
    Unto his dastard foemen is betray'd.
  THIRD MESSENGER. O no, he lives, but is took prisoner,
    And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford;
    Most of the rest slaughter'd or took likewise.
  BEDFORD. His ransom there is none but I shall pay.
    I'll hale the Dauphin headlong from his throne;
    His crown shall be the ransom of my friend;
    Four of their lords I'll change for one of ours.
    Farewell, my masters; to my task will I;
    Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make
    To keep our great Saint George's feast withal.
    Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,
    Whose bloody deeds shall make an Europe quake.
  THIRD MESSENGER. So you had need; for Orleans is besieg'd;
    The English army is grown weak and faint;
    The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply
    And hardly keeps his men from mutiny,
    Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.
  EXETER. Remember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn,
    Either to quell the Dauphin utterly,
    Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.
  BEDFORD. I do remember it, and here take my leave
    To go about my preparation.                             Exit
  GLOUCESTER. I'll to the Tower with all the haste I can
    To view th' artillery and munition;
    And then I will proclaim young Henry king.              Exit
  EXETER. To Eltham will I, where the young King is,
    Being ordain'd his special governor;
    And for his safety there I'll best devise.              Exit
  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Each hath his place and function to
    attend:
    I am left out; for me nothing remains.
    But long I will not be Jack out of office.
    The King from Eltham I intend to steal,
    And sit at chiefest stern of public weal.             Exeunt

                          SCENE 2.

                  France. Before Orleans

      Sound a flourish. Enter CHARLES THE DAUPHIN, ALENCON,
           and REIGNIER, marching with drum and soldiers

  CHARLES. Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens
    So in the earth, to this day is not known.
    Late did he shine upon the English side;
    Now we are victors, upon us he smiles.
    What towns of any moment but we have?
    At pleasure here we lie near Orleans;
    Otherwhiles the famish'd English, like pale ghosts,
    Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.
  ALENCON. They want their porridge and their fat bull
    beeves.
    Either they must be dieted like mules
    And have their provender tied to their mouths,
    Or piteous they will look, like drowned mice.
  REIGNIER. Let's raise the siege. Why live we idly here?
    Talbot is taken, whom we wont to fear;
    Remaineth none but mad-brain'd Salisbury,
    And he may well in fretting spend his gall
    Nor men nor money hath he to make war.
  CHARLES. Sound, sound alarum; we will rush on them.
    Now for the honour of the forlorn French!
    Him I forgive my death that killeth me,
    When he sees me go back one foot or flee.             Exeunt

       Here alarum. They are beaten hack by the English, with
         great loss. Re-enter CHARLES, ALENCON, and REIGNIER

  CHARLES. Who ever saw the like? What men have I!
    Dogs! cowards! dastards! I would ne'er have fled
    But that they left me midst my enemies.
  REIGNIER. Salisbury is a desperate homicide;
    He fighteth as one weary of his life.
    The other lords, like lions wanting food,
    Do rush upon us as their hungry prey.
  ALENCON. Froissart, a countryman of ours, records
    England all Olivers and Rowlands bred
    During the time Edward the Third did reign.
    More truly now may this be verified;
    For none but Samsons and Goliases
    It sendeth forth to skirmish. One to ten!
    Lean raw-bon'd rascals! Who would e'er suppose
    They had such courage and audacity?
  CHARLES. Let's leave this town; for they are hare-brain'd
    slaves,
    And hunger will enforce them to be more eager.
    Of old I know them; rather with their teeth
    The walls they'll tear down than forsake the siege.
  REIGNIER. I think by some odd gimmers or device
    Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on;
    Else ne'er could they hold out so as they do.
    By my consent, we'll even let them alone.
  ALENCON. Be it so.

                   Enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS

  BASTARD. Where's the Prince Dauphin? I have news for him.
  CHARLES. Bastard of Orleans, thrice welcome to us.
  BASTARD. Methinks your looks are sad, your cheer appall'd.
    Hath the late overthrow wrought this offence?
    Be not dismay'd, for succour is at hand.
    A holy maid hither with me I bring,
    Which, by a vision sent to her from heaven,
    Ordained is to raise this tedious siege
    And drive the English forth the bounds of France.
    The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,
    Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome:
    What's past and what's to come she can descry.
    Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words,
    For they are certain and unfallible.
  CHARLES. Go, call her in.                       [Exit BASTARD]
    But first, to try her skill,
    Reignier, stand thou as Dauphin in my place;
    Question her proudly; let thy looks be stern;
    By this means shall we sound what skill she hath.

                  Re-enter the BASTARD OF ORLEANS with
                          JOAN LA PUCELLE

  REIGNIER. Fair maid, is 't thou wilt do these wondrous feats?
  PUCELLE. Reignier, is 't thou that thinkest to beguile me?
    Where is the Dauphin? Come, come from behind;
    I know thee well, though never seen before.
    Be not amaz'd, there's nothing hid from me.
    In private will I talk with thee apart.
    Stand back, you lords, and give us leave awhile.
  REIGNIER. She takes upon her bravely at first dash.
  PUCELLE. Dauphin, I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,
    My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.
    Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd
    To shine on my contemptible estate.
    Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs
    And to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks,
    God's Mother deigned to appear to me,
    And in a vision full of majesty
    Will'd me to leave my base vocation
    And free my country from calamity
    Her aid she promis'd and assur'd success.
    In complete glory she reveal'd herself;
    And whereas I was black and swart before,
    With those clear rays which she infus'd on me
    That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see.
    Ask me what question thou canst possible,
    And I will answer unpremeditated.
    My courage try by combat if thou dar'st,
    And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.
    Resolve on this: thou shalt be fortunate
    If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.
  CHARLES. Thou hast astonish'd me with thy high terms.
    Only this proof I'll of thy valour make
    In single combat thou shalt buckle with me;
    And if thou vanquishest, thy words are true;
    Otherwise I renounce all confidence.
  PUCELLE. I am prepar'd; here is my keen-edg'd sword,
    Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side,
    The which at Touraine, in Saint Katherine's churchyard,
    Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.
  CHARLES. Then come, o' God's name; I fear no woman.
  PUCELLE. And while I live I'll ne'er fly from a man.
                 [Here they fight and JOAN LA PUCELLE overcomes]
  CHARLES. Stay, stay thy hands; thou art an Amazon,
    And fightest with the sword of Deborah.
  PUCELLE. Christ's Mother helps me, else I were too weak.
  CHARLES. Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must help me.
    Impatiently I burn with thy desire;
    My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd.
    Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,
    Let me thy servant and not sovereign be.
    'Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.
  PUCELLE. I must not yield to any rites of love,
    For my profession's sacred from above.
    When I have chased all thy foes from hence,
    Then will I think upon a recompense.
  CHARLES. Meantime look gracious on thy prostrate thrall.
  REIGNIER. My lord, methinks, is very long in talk.
  ALENCON. Doubtless he shrives this woman to her smock;
    Else ne'er could he so long protract his speech.
  REIGNIER. Shall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean?
  ALENCON. He may mean more than we poor men do know;
    These women are shrewd tempters with their tongues.
  REIGNIER. My lord, where are you? What devise you on?
    Shall we give o'er Orleans, or no?
  PUCELLE. Why, no, I say; distrustful recreants!
    Fight till the last gasp; I will be your guard.
  CHARLES. What she says I'll confirm; we'll fight it out.
  PUCELLE. Assign'd am I to be the English scourge.
    This night the siege assuredly I'll raise.
    Expect Saint Martin's summer, halcyon days,
    Since I have entered into these wars.
    Glory is like a circle in the water,
    Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself
    Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
    With Henry's death the English circle ends;
    Dispersed are the glories it included.
    Now am I like that proud insulting ship
    Which Caesar and his fortune bare at once.
  CHARLES. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?
    Thou with an eagle art inspired then.
    Helen, the mother of great Constantine,
    Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters were like thee.
    Bright star of Venus, fall'n down on the earth,
    How may I reverently worship thee enough?
  ALENCON. Leave off delays, and let us raise the siege.
  REIGNIER. Woman, do what thou canst to save our honours;
    Drive them from Orleans, and be immortaliz'd.
  CHARLES. Presently we'll try. Come, let's away about it.
    No prophet will I trust if she prove false.           Exeunt

                          SCENE 3.

                London. Before the Tower gates

       Enter the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, with his serving-men
                       in blue coats

  GLOUCESTER. I am come to survey the Tower this day;
    Since Henry's death, I fear, there is conveyance.
    Where be these warders that they wait not here?
    Open the gates; 'tis Gloucester that calls.
  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  Who's there that knocks so
    imperiously?
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. It is the noble Duke of Gloucester.
  SECOND WARDER.  [Within]  Whoe'er he be, you may not be
    let in.
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Villains, answer you so the Lord
    Protector?
  FIRST WARDER.  [Within]  The Lord protect him! so we
    answer him.
    We do no otherwise than we are will'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Who willed you, or whose will stands but
    mine?
    There's none Protector of the realm but I.
    Break up the gates, I'll be your warrantize.
    Shall I be flouted thus by dunghill grooms?
                  [GLOUCESTER'S men rush at the Tower gates, and
                         WOODVILLE the Lieutenant speaks within]
  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  What noise is this? What traitors
    have we here?
  GLOUCESTER. Lieutenant, is it you whose voice I hear?
    Open the gates; here's Gloucester that would enter.
  WOODVILLE.  [Within]  Have patience, noble Duke, I may
    not open;
    The Cardinal of Winchester forbids.
    From him I have express commandment
    That thou nor none of thine shall be let in.
  GLOUCESTER. Faint-hearted Woodville, prizest him fore me?
    Arrogant Winchester, that haughty prelate
    Whom Henry, our late sovereign, ne'er could brook!
    Thou art no friend to God or to the King.
    Open the gates, or I'll shut thee out shortly.
  SERVING-MEN. Open the gates unto the Lord Protector,
    Or we'll burst them open, if that you come not quickly.

       Enter to the PROTECTOR at the Tower gates WINCHESTER
                   and his men in tawny coats

  WINCHESTER. How now, ambitious Humphry! What means
    this?
  GLOUCESTER. Peel'd priest, dost thou command me to be
    shut out?
  WINCHESTER. I do, thou most usurping proditor,
    And not Protector of the King or realm.
  GLOUCESTER. Stand back, thou manifest conspirator,
    Thou that contrived'st to murder our dead lord;
    Thou that giv'st whores indulgences to sin.
    I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,
    If thou proceed in this thy insolence.
  WINCHESTER. Nay, stand thou back; I will not budge a foot.
    This be Damascus; be thou cursed Cain,
    To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt.
  GLOUCESTER. I will not slay thee, but I'll drive thee back.
    Thy scarlet robes as a child's bearing-cloth
    I'll use to carry thee out of this place.
  WINCHESTER. Do what thou dar'st; I beard thee to thy face.
  GLOUCESTER. What! am I dar'd and bearded to my face?
    Draw, men, for all this privileged place
    Blue-coats to tawny-coats. Priest, beware your beard;
    I mean to tug it, and to cuff you soundly;
    Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal's hat;
    In spite of Pope or dignities of church,
    Here by the cheeks I'll drag thee up and down.
  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, thou wilt answer this before the
    Pope.
  GLOUCESTER. Winchester goose! I cry 'A rope, a rope!'
    Now beat them hence; why do you let them stay?
    Thee I'll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep's array.
    Out, tawny-coats! Out, scarlet hypocrite!

         Here GLOUCESTER'S men beat out the CARDINAL'S
        men; and enter in the hurly burly the MAYOR OF
                  LONDON and his OFFICERS

  MAYOR. Fie, lords! that you, being supreme magistrates,
    Thus contumeliously should break the peace!
  GLOUCESTER. Peace, Mayor! thou know'st little of my wrongs:
    Here's Beaufort, that regards nor God nor King,
    Hath here distrain'd the Tower to his use.
  WINCHESTER. Here's Gloucester, a foe to citizens;
    One that still motions war and never peace,
    O'ercharging your free purses with large fines;
    That seeks to overthrow religion,
    Because he is Protector of the realm,
    And would have armour here out of the Tower,
    To crown himself King and suppress the Prince.
  GLOUCESTER. I Will not answer thee with words, but blows.
                                      [Here they skirmish again]
  MAYOR. Nought rests for me in this tumultuous strife
    But to make open proclamation.
    Come, officer, as loud as e'er thou canst,
    Cry.
  OFFICER.  [Cries]  All manner of men assembled here in arms
    this day against God's peace and the King's, we charge
    and command you, in his Highness' name, to repair to
    your several dwelling-places; and not to wear, handle, or
    use, any sword, weapon, or dagger, henceforward, upon
    pain of death.
  GLOUCESTER. Cardinal, I'll be no breaker of the law;
    But we shall meet and break our minds at large.
  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, we'll meet to thy cost, be sure;
    Thy heart-blood I will have for this day's work.
  MAYOR. I'll call for clubs if you will not away.
    This Cardinal's more haughty than the devil.
  GLOUCESTER. Mayor, farewell; thou dost but what thou
    mayst.
  WINCHESTER. Abominable Gloucester, guard thy head,
    For I intend to have it ere long.
                    Exeunt, severally, GLOUCESTER and WINCHESTER
                                             with their servants
  MAYOR. See the coast clear'd, and then we will depart.
    Good God, these nobles should such stomachs bear!
    I myself fight not once in forty year.                Exeunt

                               SCENE 4.

                        France. Before Orleans

               Enter, on the walls, the MASTER-GUNNER
                       OF ORLEANS and his BOY

  MASTER-GUNNER. Sirrah, thou know'st how Orleans is
    besieg'd,
    And how the English have the suburbs won.
  BOY. Father, I know; and oft have shot at them,
    Howe'er unfortunate I miss'd my aim.
  MASTER-GUNNER. But now thou shalt not. Be thou rul'd
    by me.
    Chief master-gunner am I of this town;
    Something I must do to procure me grace.
    The Prince's espials have informed me
    How the English, in the suburbs close intrench'd,
    Wont, through a secret grate of iron bars
    In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,
    And thence discover how with most advantage
    They may vex us with shot or with assault.
    To intercept this inconvenience,
    A piece of ordnance 'gainst it I have plac'd;
    And even these three days have I watch'd
    If I could see them. Now do thou watch,
    For I can stay no longer.
    If thou spy'st any, run and bring me word;
    And thou shalt find me at the Governor's.               Exit
  BOY. Father, I warrant you; take you no care;
    I'll never trouble you, if I may spy them.              Exit

          Enter SALISBURY and TALBOT on the turrets, with
            SIR WILLIAM GLANSDALE, SIR THOMAS GARGRAVE,
                            and others

  SALISBURY. Talbot, my life, my joy, again return'd!
    How wert thou handled being prisoner?
    Or by what means got'st thou to be releas'd?
    Discourse, I prithee, on this turret's top.
  TALBOT. The Earl of Bedford had a prisoner
    Call'd the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles;
    For him was I exchang'd and ransomed.
    But with a baser man of arms by far
    Once, in contempt, they would have barter'd me;
    Which I disdaining scorn'd, and craved death
    Rather than I would be so vile esteem'd.
    In fine, redeem'd I was as I desir'd.
    But, O! the treacherous Fastolfe wounds my heart
    Whom with my bare fists I would execute,
    If I now had him brought into my power.
  SALISBURY. Yet tell'st thou not how thou wert entertain'd.
  TALBOT. With scoffs, and scorns, and contumelious taunts,
    In open market-place produc'd they me
    To be a public spectacle to all;
    Here, said they, is the terror of the French,
    The scarecrow that affrights our children so.
    Then broke I from the officers that led me,
    And with my nails digg'd stones out of the ground
    To hurl at the beholders of my shame;
    My grisly countenance made others fly;
    None durst come near for fear of sudden death.
    In iron walls they deem'd me not secure;
    So great fear of my name 'mongst them was spread
    That they suppos'd I could rend bars of steel
    And spurn in pieces posts of adamant;
    Wherefore a guard of chosen shot I had
    That walk'd about me every minute-while;
    And if I did but stir out of my bed,
    Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.

                Enter the BOY with a linstock

  SALISBURY. I grieve to hear what torments you endur'd;
    But we will be reveng'd sufficiently.
    Now it is supper-time in Orleans:
    Here, through this grate, I count each one
    And view the Frenchmen how they fortify.
    Let us look in; the sight will much delight thee.
    Sir Thomas Gargrave and Sir William Glansdale,
    Let me have your express opinions
    Where is best place to make our batt'ry next.
  GARGRAVE. I think at the North Gate; for there stand lords.
  GLANSDALE. And I here, at the bulwark of the bridge.
  TALBOT. For aught I see, this city must be famish'd,
    Or with light skirmishes enfeebled.
                     [Here they shoot and SALISBURY and GARGRAVE
                                                      fall down]
  SALISBURY. O Lord, have mercy on us, wretched sinners!
  GARGRAVE. O Lord, have mercy on me, woeful man!
  TALBOT. What chance is this that suddenly hath cross'd us?
    Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst speak.
    How far'st thou, mirror of all martial men?
    One of thy eyes and thy cheek's side struck off!
    Accursed tower! accursed fatal hand
    That hath contriv'd this woeful tragedy!
    In thirteen battles Salisbury o'ercame;
    Henry the Fifth he first train'd to the wars;
    Whilst any trump did sound or drum struck up,
    His sword did ne'er leave striking in the field.
    Yet liv'st thou, Salisbury? Though thy speech doth fail,
    One eye thou hast to look to heaven for grace;
    The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.
    Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive
    If Salisbury wants mercy at thy hands!
    Bear hence his body; I will help to bury it.
    Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?
    Speak unto Talbot; nay, look up to him.
    Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort,
    Thou shalt not die whiles
    He beckons with his hand and smiles on me,
    As who should say 'When I am dead and gone,
    Remember to avenge me on the French.'
    Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,
    Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.
    Wretched shall France be only in my name.
                  [Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens]
    What stir is this? What tumult's in the heavens?
    Whence cometh this alarum and the noise?

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord, the French have gather'd
    head
    The Dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle join'd,
    A holy prophetess new risen up,
    Is come with a great power to raise the siege.
                  [Here SALISBURY lifteth himself up and groans]
  TALBOT. Hear, hear how dying Salisbury doth groan.
    It irks his heart he cannot be reveng'd.
    Frenchmen, I'll be a Salisbury to you.
    Pucelle or puzzel, dolphin or dogfish,
    Your hearts I'll stamp out with my horse's heels
    And make a quagmire of your mingled brains.
    Convey me Salisbury into his tent,
    And then we'll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.
                                                  Alarum. Exeunt

                             SCENE 5.

                          Before Orleans

         Here an alarum again, and TALBOT pursueth the
      DAUPHIN and driveth him. Then enter JOAN LA PUCELLE
       driving Englishmen before her. Then enter TALBOT

  TALBOT. Where is my strength, my valour, and my force?
    Our English troops retire, I cannot stay them;
    A woman clad in armour chaseth them.

                          Enter LA PUCELLE

    Here, here she comes. I'll have a bout with thee.
    Devil or devil's dam, I'll conjure thee;
    Blood will I draw on thee-thou art a witch
    And straightway give thy soul to him thou serv'st.
  PUCELLE. Come, come, 'tis only I that must disgrace thee.
                                               [Here they fight]
  TALBOT. Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?
    My breast I'll burst with straining of my courage.
    And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder,
    But I will chastise this high minded strumpet.
                                              [They fight again]
  PUCELLE. Talbot, farewell; thy hour is not yet come.
    I must go victual Orleans forthwith.
             [A short alarum; then enter the town with soldiers]
    O'ertake me if thou canst; I scorn thy strength.
    Go, go, cheer up thy hungry starved men;
    Help Salisbury to make his testament.
    This day is ours, as many more shall be.                Exit
  TALBOT. My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel;
    I know not where I am nor what I do.
    A witch by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
    Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists.
    So bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench
    Are from their hives and houses driven away.
    They call'd us, for our fierceness, English dogs;
    Now like to whelps we crying run away.
                                                [A short alarum]
    Hark, countrymen! Either renew the fight
    Or tear the lions out of England's coat;
    Renounce your soil, give sheep in lions' stead:
    Sheep run not half so treacherous from the wolf,
    Or horse or oxen from the leopard,
    As you fly from your oft subdued slaves.
                                 [Alarum. Here another skirmish]
    It will not be-retire into your trenches.
    You all consented unto Salisbury's death,
    For none would strike a stroke in his revenge.
    Pucelle is ent'red into Orleans
    In spite of us or aught that we could do.
    O, would I were to die with Salisbury!
    The shame hereof will make me hide my head.
                                    Exit TALBOT. Alarum; retreat

                             SCENE 6.

                              ORLEANS

        Flourish. Enter on the walls, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES,
                REIGNIER, ALENCON, and soldiers

  PUCELLE. Advance our waving colours on the walls;
    Rescu'd is Orleans from the English.
    Thus Joan la Pucelle hath perform'd her word.
  CHARLES. Divinest creature, Astraea's daughter,
    How shall I honour thee for this success?
    Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens,
    That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the next.
    France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess.
    Recover'd is the town of Orleans.
    More blessed hap did ne'er befall our state.
  REIGNIER. Why ring not out the bells aloud throughout the
    town?
    Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires
    And feast and banquet in the open streets
    To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.
  ALENCON. All France will be replete with mirth and joy
    When they shall hear how we have play'd the men.
  CHARLES. 'Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won;
    For which I will divide my crown with her;
    And all the priests and friars in my realm
    Shall in procession sing her endless praise.
    A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear
    Than Rhodope's of Memphis ever was.
    In memory of her, when she is dead,
    Her ashes, in an urn more precious
    Than the rich jewel'd coffer of Darius,
    Transported shall be at high festivals
    Before the kings and queens of France.
    No longer on Saint Denis will we cry,
    But Joan la Pucelle shall be France's saint.
    Come in, and let us banquet royally
    After this golden day of victory. Flourish.           Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 1.

Before Orleans

Enter a FRENCH SERGEANT and two SENTINELS

  SERGEANT. Sirs, take your places and be vigilant.
    If any noise or soldier you perceive
    Near to the walls, by some apparent sign
    Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.
  FIRST SENTINEL. Sergeant, you shall.           [Exit SERGEANT]
    Thus are poor servitors,
    When others sleep upon their quiet beds,
    Constrain'd to watch in darkness, rain, and cold.

             Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, and forces,
          with scaling-ladders; their drums beating a dead
                              march

  TALBOT. Lord Regent, and redoubted Burgundy,
    By whose approach the regions of Artois,
    Wallon, and Picardy, are friends to us,
    This happy night the Frenchmen are secure,
    Having all day carous'd and banqueted;
    Embrace we then this opportunity,
    As fitting best to quittance their deceit,
    Contriv'd by art and baleful sorcery.
  BEDFORD. Coward of France, how much he wrongs his fame,
    Despairing of his own arm's fortitude,
    To join with witches and the help of hell!
  BURGUNDY. Traitors have never other company.
    But what's that Pucelle whom they term so pure?
  TALBOT. A maid, they say.
  BEDFORD. A maid! and be so martial!
  BURGUNDY. Pray God she prove not masculine ere long,
    If underneath the standard of the French
    She carry armour as she hath begun.
  TALBOT. Well, let them practise and converse with spirits:
    God is our fortress, in whose conquering name
    Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.
  BEDFORD. Ascend, brave Talbot; we will follow thee.
  TALBOT. Not all together; better far, I guess,
    That we do make our entrance several ways;
    That if it chance the one of us do fail
    The other yet may rise against their force.
  BEDFORD. Agreed; I'll to yond corner.
  BURGUNDY. And I to this.
  TALBOT. And here will Talbot mount or make his grave.
    Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right
    Of English Henry, shall this night appear
    How much in duty I am bound to both.
             [The English scale the walls and cry 'Saint George!
                                                     a Talbot!']
    SENTINEL. Arm! arm! The enemy doth make assault.

           The French leap o'er the walls in their shirts.
           Enter, several ways, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER,
                     half ready and half unready

  ALENCON. How now, my lords? What, all unready so?
  BASTARD. Unready! Ay, and glad we 'scap'd so well.
  REIGNIER. 'Twas time, I trow, to wake and leave our beds,
    Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.
  ALENCON. Of all exploits since first I follow'd arms
    Ne'er heard I of a warlike enterprise
    More venturous or desperate than this.
  BASTARD. I think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.
  REIGNIER. If not of hell, the heavens, sure, favour him
  ALENCON. Here cometh Charles; I marvel how he sped.

                    Enter CHARLES and LA PUCELLE

  BASTARD. Tut! holy Joan was his defensive guard.
  CHARLES. Is this thy cunning, thou deceitful dame?
    Didst thou at first, to flatter us withal,
    Make us partakers of a little gain
    That now our loss might be ten times so much?
  PUCELLE. Wherefore is Charles impatient with his friend?
    At all times will you have my power alike?
    Sleeping or waking, must I still prevail
    Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?
    Improvident soldiers! Had your watch been good
    This sudden mischief never could have fall'n.
  CHARLES. Duke of Alencon, this was your default
    That, being captain of the watch to-night,
    Did look no better to that weighty charge.
  ALENCON. Had all your quarters been as safely kept
    As that whereof I had the government,
    We had not been thus shamefully surpris'd.
  BASTARD. Mine was secure.
  REIGNIER. And so was mine, my lord.
  CHARLES. And, for myself, most part of all this night,
    Within her quarter and mine own precinct
    I was employ'd in passing to and fro
    About relieving of the sentinels.
    Then how or which way should they first break in?
  PUCELLE. Question, my lords, no further of the case,
    How or which way; 'tis sure they found some place
    But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.
    And now there rests no other shift but this
    To gather our soldiers, scatter'd and dispers'd,
    And lay new platforms to endamage them.

               Alarum. Enter an ENGLISH SOLDIER, crying
            'A Talbot! A Talbot!' They fly, leaving their
                           clothes behind

  SOLDIER. I'll be so bold to take what they have left.
    The cry of Talbot serves me for a sword;
    For I have loaden me with many spoils,
    Using no other weapon but his name.                     Exit

                             SCENE 2.

                      ORLEANS. Within the town

            Enter TALBOT, BEDFORD, BURGUNDY, a CAPTAIN,
                           and others

  BEDFORD. The day begins to break, and night is fled
    Whose pitchy mantle over-veil'd the earth.
    Here sound retreat and cease our hot pursuit.
                                               [Retreat sounded]
  TALBOT. Bring forth the body of old Salisbury
    And here advance it in the market-place,
    The middle centre of this cursed town.
    Now have I paid my vow unto his soul;
    For every drop of blood was drawn from him
    There hath at least five Frenchmen died to-night.
    And that hereafter ages may behold
    What ruin happened in revenge of him,
    Within their chiefest temple I'll erect
    A tomb, wherein his corpse shall be interr'd;
    Upon the which, that every one may read,
    Shall be engrav'd the sack of Orleans,
    The treacherous manner of his mournful death,
    And what a terror he had been to France.
    But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,
    I muse we met not with the Dauphin's grace,
    His new-come champion, virtuous Joan of Arc,
    Nor any of his false confederates.
  BEDFORD. 'Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began,
    Rous'd on the sudden from their drowsy beds,
    They did amongst the troops of armed men
    Leap o'er the walls for refuge in the field.
  BURGUNDY. Myself, as far as I could well discern
    For smoke and dusky vapours of the night,
    Am sure I scar'd the Dauphin and his trull,
    When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,
    Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves
    That could not live asunder day or night.
    After that things are set in order here,
    We'll follow them with all the power we have.

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. All hail, my lords! Which of this princely train
    Call ye the warlike Talbot, for his acts
    So much applauded through the realm of France?
  TALBOT. Here is the Talbot; who would speak with him?
  MESSENGER. The virtuous lady, Countess of Auvergne,
    With modesty admiring thy renown,
    By me entreats, great lord, thou wouldst vouchsafe
    To visit her poor castle where she lies,
    That she may boast she hath beheld the man
    Whose glory fills the world with loud report.
  BURGUNDY. Is it even so? Nay, then I see our wars
    Will turn into a peaceful comic sport,
    When ladies crave to be encount'red with.
    You may not, my lord, despise her gentle suit.
  TALBOT. Ne'er trust me then; for when a world of men
    Could not prevail with all their oratory,
    Yet hath a woman's kindness overrul'd;
    And therefore tell her I return great thanks
    And in submission will attend on her.
    Will not your honours bear me company?
  BEDFORD. No, truly; 'tis more than manners will;
    And I have heard it said unbidden guests
    Are often welcomest when they are gone.
  TALBOT. Well then, alone, since there's no remedy,
    I mean to prove this lady's courtesy.
    Come hither, Captain.  [Whispers]   You perceive my mind?
  CAPTAIN. I do, my lord, and mean accordingly.           Exeunt

                             SCENE 3.

                      AUVERGNE. The Castle

               Enter the COUNTESS and her PORTER

  COUNTESS. Porter, remember what I gave in charge;
    And when you have done so, bring the keys to me.
  PORTER. Madam, I will.
  COUNTESS. The plot is laid; if all things fall out right,
    I shall as famous be by this exploit.
    As Scythian Tomyris by Cyrus' death.
    Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight,
    And his achievements of no less account.
    Fain would mine eyes be witness with mine ears
    To give their censure of these rare reports.

    Enter MESSENGER and TALBOT.

  MESSENGER. Madam, according as your ladyship desir'd,
    By message crav'd, so is Lord Talbot come.
  COUNTESS. And he is welcome. What! is this the man?
  MESSENGER. Madam, it is.
  COUNTESS. Is this the scourge of France?
    Is this Talbot, so much fear'd abroad
    That with his name the mothers still their babes?
    I see report is fabulous and false.
    I thought I should have seen some Hercules,
    A second Hector, for his grim aspect
    And large proportion of his strong-knit limbs.
    Alas, this is a child, a silly dwarf!
    It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp
    Should strike such terror to his enemies.
  TALBOT. Madam, I have been bold to trouble you;
    But since your ladyship is not at leisure,
    I'll sort some other time to visit you.              [Going]
  COUNTESS. What means he now? Go ask him whither he
    goes.
  MESSENGER. Stay, my Lord Talbot; for my lady craves
    To know the cause of your abrupt departure.
  TALBOT. Marry, for that she's in a wrong belief,
    I go to certify her Talbot's here.

                      Re-enter PORTER With keys

  COUNTESS. If thou be he, then art thou prisoner.
  TALBOT. Prisoner! To whom?
  COUNTESS. To me, blood-thirsty lord
    And for that cause I train'd thee to my house.
    Long time thy shadow hath been thrall to me,
    For in my gallery thy picture hangs;
    But now the substance shall endure the like
    And I will chain these legs and arms of thine
    That hast by tyranny these many years
    Wasted our country, slain our citizens,
    And sent our sons and husbands captivate.
  TALBOT. Ha, ha, ha!
  COUNTESS. Laughest thou, wretch? Thy mirth shall turn to
    moan.
  TALBOT. I laugh to see your ladyship so fond
    To think that you have aught but Talbot's shadow
    Whereon to practise your severity.
  COUNTESS. Why, art not thou the man?
  TALBOT. I am indeed.
  COUNTESS. Then have I substance too.
  TALBOT. No, no, I am but shadow of myself.
    You are deceiv'd, my substance is not here;
    For what you see is but the smallest part
    And least proportion of humanity.
    I tell you, madam, were the whole frame here,
    It is of such a spacious lofty pitch
    Your roof were not sufficient to contain 't.
  COUNTESS. This is a riddling merchant for the nonce;
    He will be here, and yet he is not here.
    How can these contrarieties agree?
  TALBOT. That will I show you presently.

                   Winds his horn; drums strike up;
                  a peal of ordnance. Enter soldiers

    How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded
    That Talbot is but shadow of himself?
    These are his substance, sinews, arms, and strength,
    With which he yoketh your rebellious necks,
    Razeth your cities, and subverts your towns,
    And in a moment makes them desolate.
  COUNTESS. Victorious Talbot! pardon my abuse.
    I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited,
    And more than may be gathered by thy shape.
    Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath,
    For I am sorry that with reverence
    I did not entertain thee as thou art.
  TALBOT. Be not dismay'd, fair lady; nor misconster
    The mind of Talbot as you did mistake
    The outward composition of his body.
    What you have done hath not offended me.
    Nor other satisfaction do I crave
    But only, with your patience, that we may
    Taste of your wine and see what cates you have,
    For soldiers' stomachs always serve them well.
  COUNTESS. With all my heart, and think me honoured
    To feast so great a warrior in my house.              Exeunt

                            SCENE 4.

                   London. The Temple garden

         Enter the EARLS OF SOMERSET, SUFFOLK, and WARWICK;
           RICHARD PLANTAGENET, VERNON, and another LAWYER

  PLANTAGENET. Great lords and gentlemen, what means this
    silence?
    Dare no man answer in a case of truth?
  SUFFOLK. Within the Temple Hall we were too loud;
    The garden here is more convenient.
  PLANTAGENET. Then say at once if I maintain'd the truth;
    Or else was wrangling Somerset in th' error?
  SUFFOLK. Faith, I have been a truant in the law
    And never yet could frame my will to it;
    And therefore frame the law unto my will.
  SOMERSET. Judge you, my Lord of Warwick, then, between us.
  WARWICK. Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch;
    Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth;
    Between two blades, which bears the better temper;
    Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
    Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye
    I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment;
    But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
    Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
  PLANTAGENET. Tut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:
    The truth appears so naked on my side
    That any purblind eye may find it out.
  SOMERSET. And on my side it is so well apparell'd,
    So clear, so shining, and so evident,
    That it will glimmer through a blind man's eye.
  PLANTAGENET. Since you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,
    In dumb significants proclaim your thoughts.
    Let him that is a true-born gentleman
    And stands upon the honour of his birth,
    If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
    From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
  SOMERSET. Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
    But dare maintain the party of the truth,
    Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.
  WARWICK. I love no colours; and, without all colour
    Of base insinuating flattery,
    I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.
  SUFFOLK. I pluck this red rose with young Somerset,
    And say withal I think he held the right.
  VERNON. Stay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more
    Till you conclude that he upon whose side
    The fewest roses are cropp'd from the tree
    Shall yield the other in the right opinion.
  SOMERSET. Good Master Vernon, it is well objected;
    If I have fewest, I subscribe in silence.
  PLANTAGENET. And I.
  VERNON. Then, for the truth and plainness of the case,
    I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,
    Giving my verdict on the white rose side.
  SOMERSET. Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,
    Lest, bleeding, you do paint the white rose red,
    And fall on my side so, against your will.
  VERNON. If I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,
    Opinion shall be surgeon to my hurt
    And keep me on the side where still I am.
  SOMERSET. Well, well, come on; who else?
  LAWYER.  [To Somerset]  Unless my study and my books be
    false,
    The argument you held was wrong in you;
    In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.
  PLANTAGENET. Now, Somerset, where is your argument?
  SOMERSET. Here in my scabbard, meditating that
    Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.
  PLANTAGENET. Meantime your cheeks do counterfeit our
    roses;
    For pale they look with fear, as witnessing
    The truth on our side.
  SOMERSET. No, Plantagenet,
    'Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks
    Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,
    And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.
  PLANTAGENET. Hath not thy rose a canker, Somerset?
  SOMERSET. Hath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?
  PLANTAGENET. Ay, sharp and piercing, to maintain his truth;
    Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.
  SOMERSET. Well, I'll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,
    That shall maintain what I have said is true,
    Where false Plantagenet dare not be seen.
  PLANTAGENET. Now, by this maiden blossom in my hand,
    I scorn thee and thy fashion, peevish boy.
  SUFFOLK. Turn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.
  PLANTAGENET. Proud Pole, I will, and scorn both him and
    thee.
  SUFFOLK. I'll turn my part thereof into thy throat.
  SOMERSET. Away, away, good William de la Pole!
    We grace the yeoman by conversing with him.
  WARWICK. Now, by God's will, thou wrong'st him, Somerset;
    His grandfather was Lionel Duke of Clarence,
    Third son to the third Edward, King of England.
    Spring crestless yeomen from so deep a root?
  PLANTAGENET. He bears him on the place's privilege,
    Or durst not for his craven heart say thus.
  SOMERSET. By Him that made me, I'll maintain my words
    On any plot of ground in Christendom.
    Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge,
    For treason executed in our late king's days?
    And by his treason stand'st not thou attainted,
    Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?
    His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood;
    And till thou be restor'd thou art a yeoman.
  PLANTAGENET. My father was attached, not attainted;
    Condemn'd to die for treason, but no traitor;
    And that I'll prove on better men than Somerset,
    Were growing time once ripened to my will.
    For your partaker Pole, and you yourself,
    I'll note you in my book of memory
    To scourge you for this apprehension.
    Look to it well, and say you are well warn'd.
  SOMERSET. Ay, thou shalt find us ready for thee still;
    And know us by these colours for thy foes
    For these my friends in spite of thee shall wear.
  PLANTAGENET. And, by my soul, this pale and angry rose,
    As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate,
    Will I for ever, and my faction, wear,
    Until it wither with me to my grave,
    Or flourish to the height of my degree.
  SUFFOLK. Go forward, and be chok'd with thy ambition!
    And so farewell until I meet thee next.                 Exit
  SOMERSET. Have with thee, Pole. Farewell, ambitious
    Richard.                                                Exit
  PLANTAGENET. How I am brav'd, and must perforce endure
    it!
  WARWICK. This blot that they object against your house
    Shall be wip'd out in the next Parliament,
    Call'd for the truce of Winchester and Gloucester;
    And if thou be not then created York,
    I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
    Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
    Against proud Somerset and William Pole,
    Will I upon thy party wear this rose;
    And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,
    Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
    Shall send between the Red Rose and the White
    A thousand souls to death and deadly night.
  PLANTAGENET. Good Master Vernon, I am bound to you
    That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.
  VERNON. In your behalf still will I wear the same.
  LAWYER. And so will I.
  PLANTAGENET. Thanks, gentle sir.
    Come, let us four to dinner. I dare say
    This quarrel will drink blood another day.            Exeunt

                             SCENE 5.

                       The Tower of London

         Enter MORTIMER, brought in a chair, and GAOLERS

  MORTIMER. Kind keepers of my weak decaying age,
    Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.
    Even like a man new haled from the rack,
    So fare my limbs with long imprisonment;
    And these grey locks, the pursuivants of death,
    Nestor-like aged in an age of care,
    Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.
    These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,
    Wax dim, as drawing to their exigent;
    Weak shoulders, overborne with burdening grief,
    And pithless arms, like to a withered vine
    That droops his sapless branches to the ground.
    Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,
    Unable to support this lump of clay,
    Swift-winged with desire to get a grave,
    As witting I no other comfort have.
    But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?
  FIRST KEEPER. Richard Plantagenet, my lord, will come.
    We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber;
    And answer was return'd that he will come.
  MORTIMER. Enough; my soul shall then be satisfied.
    Poor gentleman! his wrong doth equal mine.
    Since Henry Monmouth first began to reign,
    Before whose glory I was great in arms,
    This loathsome sequestration have I had;
    And even since then hath Richard been obscur'd,
    Depriv'd of honour and inheritance.
    But now the arbitrator of despairs,
    Just Death, kind umpire of men's miseries,
    With sweet enlargement doth dismiss me hence.
    I would his troubles likewise were expir'd,
    That so he might recover what was lost.

                     Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET

  FIRST KEEPER. My lord, your loving nephew now is come.
  MORTIMER. Richard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?
  PLANTAGENET. Ay, noble uncle, thus ignobly us'd,
    Your nephew, late despised Richard, comes.
  MORTIMER. Direct mine arms I may embrace his neck
    And in his bosom spend my latter gasp.
    O, tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,
    That I may kindly give one fainting kiss.
    And now declare, sweet stem from York's great stock,
    Why didst thou say of late thou wert despis'd?
  PLANTAGENET. First, lean thine aged back against mine arm;
    And, in that ease, I'll tell thee my disease.
    This day, in argument upon a case,
    Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me;
    Among which terms he us'd his lavish tongue
    And did upbraid me with my father's death;
    Which obloquy set bars before my tongue,
    Else with the like I had requited him.
    Therefore, good uncle, for my father's sake,
    In honour of a true Plantagenet,
    And for alliance sake, declare the cause
    My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.
  MORTIMER. That cause, fair nephew, that imprison'd me
    And hath detain'd me all my flow'ring youth
    Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,
    Was cursed instrument of his decease.
  PLANTAGENET. Discover more at large what cause that was,
    For I am ignorant and cannot guess.
  MORTIMER. I will, if that my fading breath permit
    And death approach not ere my tale be done.
    Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,
    Depos'd his nephew Richard, Edward's son,
    The first-begotten and the lawful heir
    Of Edward king, the third of that descent;
    During whose reign the Percies of the north,
    Finding his usurpation most unjust,
    Endeavour'd my advancement to the throne.
    The reason mov'd these warlike lords to this
    Was, for that-young Richard thus remov'd,
    Leaving no heir begotten of his body-
    I was the next by birth and parentage;
    For by my mother I derived am
    From Lionel Duke of Clarence, third son
    To King Edward the Third; whereas he
    From John of Gaunt doth bring his pedigree,
    Being but fourth of that heroic line.
    But mark: as in this haughty great attempt
    They laboured to plant the rightful heir,
    I lost my liberty, and they their lives.
    Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,
    Succeeding his father Bolingbroke, did reign,
    Thy father, Earl of Cambridge, then deriv'd
    From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,
    Marrying my sister, that thy mother was,
    Again, in pity of my hard distress,
    Levied an army, weening to redeem
    And have install'd me in the diadem;
    But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,
    And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,
    In whom the title rested, were suppress'd.
  PLANTAGENET. Of Which, my lord, your honour is the last.
  MORTIMER. True; and thou seest that I no issue have,
    And that my fainting words do warrant death.
    Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather;
    But yet be wary in thy studious care.
  PLANTAGENET. Thy grave admonishments prevail with me.
    But yet methinks my father's execution
    Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.
  MORTIMER. With silence, nephew, be thou politic;
    Strong fixed is the house of Lancaster
    And like a mountain not to be remov'd.
    But now thy uncle is removing hence,
    As princes do their courts when they are cloy'd
    With long continuance in a settled place.
  PLANTAGENET. O uncle, would some part of my young years
    Might but redeem the passage of your age!
  MORTIMER. Thou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer
    doth
    Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.
    Mourn not, except thou sorrow for my good;
    Only give order for my funeral.
    And so, farewell; and fair be all thy hopes,
    And prosperous be thy life in peace and war!          [Dies]
  PLANTAGENET. And peace, no war, befall thy parting soul!
    In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,
    And like a hermit overpass'd thy days.
    Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast;
    And what I do imagine, let that rest.
    Keepers, convey him hence; and I myself
    Will see his burial better than his life.
                Exeunt GAOLERS, hearing out the body of MORTIMER
    Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,
    Chok'd with ambition of the meaner sort;
    And for those wrongs, those bitter injuries,
    Which Somerset hath offer'd to my house,
    I doubt not but with honour to redress;
    And therefore haste I to the Parliament,
    Either to be restored to my blood,
    Or make my ill th' advantage of my good.                Exit

ACT III. SCENE 1.

London. The Parliament House

Flourish. Enter the KING, EXETER, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, SOMERSET, and
SUFFOLK; the BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, and others.
GLOUCESTER offers to put up a bill; WINCHESTER snatches it, and tears
it

  WINCHESTER. Com'st thou with deep premeditated lines,
    With written pamphlets studiously devis'd?
    Humphrey of Gloucester, if thou canst accuse
    Or aught intend'st to lay unto my charge,
    Do it without invention, suddenly;
    I with sudden and extemporal speech
    Purpose to answer what thou canst object.
  GLOUCESTER. Presumptuous priest, this place commands my
    patience,
    Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonour'd me.
    Think not, although in writing I preferr'd
    The manner of thy vile outrageous crimes,
    That therefore I have forg'd, or am not able
    Verbatim to rehearse the method of my pen.
    No, prelate; such is thy audacious wickedness,
    Thy lewd, pestiferous, and dissentious pranks,
    As very infants prattle of thy pride.
    Thou art a most pernicious usurer;
    Froward by nature, enemy to peace;
    Lascivious, wanton, more than well beseems
    A man of thy profession and degree;
    And for thy treachery, what's more manifest
    In that thou laid'st a trap to take my life,
    As well at London Bridge as at the Tower?
    Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,
    The King, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt
    From envious malice of thy swelling heart.
  WINCHESTER. Gloucester, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe
    To give me hearing what I shall reply.
    If I were covetous, ambitious, or perverse,
    As he will have me, how am I so poor?
    Or how haps it I seek not to advance
    Or raise myself, but keep my wonted calling?
    And for dissension, who preferreth peace
    More than I do, except I be provok'd?
    No, my good lords, it is not that offends;
    It is not that that incens'd hath incens'd the Duke:
    It is because no one should sway but he;
    No one but he should be about the King;
    And that engenders thunder in his breast
    And makes him roar these accusations forth.
    But he shall know I am as good
  GLOUCESTER. As good!
    Thou bastard of my grandfather!
  WINCHESTER. Ay, lordly sir; for what are you, I pray,
    But one imperious in another's throne?
  GLOUCESTER. Am I not Protector, saucy priest?
  WINCHESTER. And am not I a prelate of the church?
  GLOUCESTER. Yes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps,
    And useth it to patronage his theft.
  WINCHESTER. Unreverent Gloucester!
  GLOUCESTER. Thou art reverend
    Touching thy spiritual function, not thy life.
  WINCHESTER. Rome shall remedy this.
  WARWICK. Roam thither then.
  SOMERSET. My lord, it were your duty to forbear.
  WARWICK. Ay, see the bishop be not overborne.
  SOMERSET. Methinks my lord should be religious,
    And know the office that belongs to such.
  WARWICK. Methinks his lordship should be humbler;
    It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.
  SOMERSET. Yes, when his holy state is touch'd so near.
  WARWICK. State holy or unhallow'd, what of that?
    Is not his Grace Protector to the King?
  PLANTAGENET.  [Aside]  Plantagenet, I see, must hold his
    tongue,
    Lest it be said 'Speak, sirrah, when you should;
    Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?'
    Else would I have a fling at Winchester.
  KING HENRY. Uncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,
    The special watchmen of our English weal,
    I would prevail, if prayers might prevail
    To join your hearts in love and amity.
    O, what a scandal is it to our crown
    That two such noble peers as ye should jar!
    Believe me, lords, my tender years can tell
    Civil dissension is a viperous worm
    That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.
                  [A noise within: 'Down with the tawny coats!']
    What tumult's this?
  WARWICK. An uproar, I dare warrant,
    Begun through malice of the Bishop's men.
                              [A noise again: 'Stones! Stones!']

                Enter the MAYOR OF LONDON, attended

  MAYOR. O, my good lords, and virtuous Henry,
    Pity the city of London, pity us!
    The Bishop and the Duke of Gloucester's men,
    Forbidden late to carry any weapon,
    Have fill'd their pockets full of pebble stones
    And, banding themselves in contrary parts,
    Do pelt so fast at one another's pate
    That many have their giddy brains knock'd out.
    Our windows are broke down in every street,
    And we for fear compell'd to shut our shops.

        Enter in skirmish, the retainers of GLOUCESTER and
               WINCHESTER, with bloody pates

  KING HENRY. We charge you, on allegiance to ourself,
    To hold your slaught'ring hands and keep the peace.
    Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate this strife.
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Nay, if we be forbidden stones, we'll
    fall to it with our teeth.
  SECOND SERVING-MAN. Do what ye dare, we are as resolute.
                                                [Skirmish again]
  GLOUCESTER. You of my household, leave this peevish broil,
    And set this unaccustom'd fight aside.
  THIRD SERVING-MAN. My lord, we know your Grace to be a
    man
    Just and upright, and for your royal birth
    Inferior to none but to his Majesty;
    And ere that we will suffer such a prince,
    So kind a father of the commonweal,
    To be disgraced by an inkhorn mate,
    We and our wives and children all will fight
    And have our bodies slaught'red by thy foes.
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Ay, and the very parings of our nails
    Shall pitch a field when we are dead.          [Begin again]
  GLOUCESTER. Stay, stay, I say!
    And if you love me, as you say you do,
    Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.
  KING HENRY. O, how this discord doth afflict my soul!
    Can you, my Lord of Winchester, behold
    My sighs and tears and will not once relent?
    Who should be pitiful, if you be not?
    Or who should study to prefer a peace,
    If holy churchmen take delight in broils?
  WARWICK. Yield, my Lord Protector; yield, Winchester;
    Except you mean with obstinate repulse
    To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.
    You see what mischief, and what murder too,
    Hath been enacted through your enmity;
    Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood.
  WINCHESTER. He shall submit, or I will never yield.
  GLOUCESTER. Compassion on the King commands me stoop,
    Or I would see his heart out ere the priest
    Should ever get that privilege of me.
  WARWICK. Behold, my Lord of Winchester, the Duke
    Hath banish'd moody discontented fury,
    As by his smoothed brows it doth appear;
    Why look you still so stem and tragical?
  GLOUCESTER. Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand.
  KING HENRY. Fie, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach
    That malice was a great and grievous sin;
    And will not you maintain the thing you teach,
    But prove a chief offender in the same?
  WARWICK. Sweet King! The Bishop hath a kindly gird.
    For shame, my Lord of Winchester, relent;
    What, shall a child instruct you what to do?
  WINCHESTER. Well, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee;
    Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.
  GLOUCESTER  [Aside]  Ay, but, I fear me, with a hollow
    heart.
    See here, my friends and loving countrymen:
    This token serveth for a flag of truce
    Betwixt ourselves and all our followers.
    So help me God, as I dissemble not!
  WINCHESTER  [Aside]  So help me God, as I intend it not!
  KING HENRY. O loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,
    How joyful am I made by this contract!
    Away, my masters! trouble us no more;
    But join in friendship, as your lords have done.
  FIRST SERVING-MAN. Content: I'll to the surgeon's.
  SECOND SERVING-MAN. And so will I.
  THIRD SERVING-MAN. And I will see what physic the tavern
    affords.                         Exeunt servants, MAYOR, &C.
  WARWICK. Accept this scroll, most gracious sovereign;
    Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet
    We do exhibit to your Majesty.
  GLOUCESTER. Well urg'd, my Lord of Warwick; for, sweet
    prince,
    An if your Grace mark every circumstance,
    You have great reason to do Richard right;
    Especially for those occasions
    At Eltham Place I told your Majesty.
  KING HENRY. And those occasions, uncle, were of force;
    Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is
    That Richard be restored to his blood.
  WARWICK. Let Richard be restored to his blood;
    So shall his father's wrongs be recompens'd.
  WINCHESTER. As will the rest, so willeth Winchester.
  KING HENRY. If Richard will be true, not that alone
    But all the whole inheritance I give
    That doth belong unto the house of York,
    From whence you spring by lineal descent.
  PLANTAGENET. Thy humble servant vows obedience
    And humble service till the point of death.
  KING HENRY. Stoop then and set your knee against my foot;
    And in reguerdon of that duty done
    I girt thee with the valiant sword of York.
    Rise, Richard, like a true Plantagenet,
    And rise created princely Duke of York.
  PLANTAGENET. And so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall!
    And as my duty springs, so perish they
    That grudge one thought against your Majesty!
  ALL. Welcome, high Prince, the mighty Duke of York!
  SOMERSET.  [Aside]  Perish, base Prince, ignoble Duke of
    York!
  GLOUCESTER. Now will it best avail your Majesty
    To cross the seas and to be crown'd in France:
    The presence of a king engenders love
    Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends,
    As it disanimates his enemies.
  KING HENRY. When Gloucester says the word, King Henry
    goes;
    For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.
  GLOUCESTER. Your ships already are in readiness.
                         Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but EXETER
  EXETER. Ay, we may march in England or in France,
    Not seeing what is likely to ensue.
    This late dissension grown betwixt the peers
    Burns under feigned ashes of forg'd love
    And will at last break out into a flame;
    As fest'red members rot but by degree
    Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,
    So will this base and envious discord breed.
    And now I fear that fatal prophecy.
    Which in the time of Henry nam'd the Fifth
    Was in the mouth of every sucking babe:
    That Henry born at Monmouth should win all,
    And Henry born at Windsor should lose all.
    Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish
    His days may finish ere that hapless time.              Exit

                             SCENE 2.

                      France. Before Rouen

       Enter LA PUCELLE disguis'd, with four soldiers dressed
            like countrymen, with sacks upon their backs

  PUCELLE. These are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,
    Through which our policy must make a breach.
    Take heed, be wary how you place your words;
    Talk like the vulgar sort of market-men
    That come to gather money for their corn.
    If we have entrance, as I hope we shall,
    And that we find the slothful watch but weak,
    I'll by a sign give notice to our friends,
    That Charles the Dauphin may encounter them.
  FIRST SOLDIER. Our sacks shall be a mean to sack the city,
    And we be lords and rulers over Rouen;
    Therefore we'll knock.                              [Knocks]
  WATCH.  [Within]  Qui est la?
  PUCELLE. Paysans, pauvres gens de France
    Poor market-folks that come to sell their corn.
  WATCH. Enter, go in; the market-bell is rung.
  PUCELLE. Now, Rouen, I'll shake thy bulwarks to the
    ground.

                               [LA PUCELLE, &c., enter the town]

        Enter CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON, REIGNIER, and forces

  CHARLES. Saint Denis bless this happy stratagem!
    And once again we'll sleep secure in Rouen.
  BASTARD. Here ent'red Pucelle and her practisants;
    Now she is there, how will she specify
    Here is the best and safest passage in?
  ALENCON. By thrusting out a torch from yonder tower;
    Which once discern'd shows that her meaning is
    No way to that, for weakness, which she ent'red.

             Enter LA PUCELLE, on the top, thrusting out
                         a torch burning

  PUCELLE. Behold, this is the happy wedding torch
    That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen,
    But burning fatal to the Talbotites.                    Exit
  BASTARD. See, noble Charles, the beacon of our friend;
    The burning torch in yonder turret stands.
  CHARLES. Now shine it like a comet of revenge,
    A prophet to the fall of all our foes!
  ALENCON. Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends;
    Enter, and cry 'The Dauphin!' presently,
    And then do execution on the watch. Alarum.           Exeunt

              An alarum. Enter TALBOT in an excursion

  TALBOT. France, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,
    If Talbot but survive thy treachery.
  PUCELLE, that witch, that damned sorceress,
    Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,
    That hardly we escap'd the pride of France.             Exit

        An alarum; excursions. BEDFORD brought in sick in
          a chair. Enter TALBOT and BURGUNDY without;
         within, LA PUCELLE, CHARLES, BASTARD, ALENCON,
                 and REIGNIER, on the walls

  PUCELLE. Good morrow, gallants! Want ye corn for bread?
    I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast
    Before he'll buy again at such a rate.
    'Twas full of darnel-do you like the taste?
  BURGUNDY. Scoff on, vile fiend and shameless courtezan.
    I trust ere long to choke thee with thine own,
    And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.
  CHARLES. Your Grace may starve, perhaps, before that time.
  BEDFORD. O, let no words, but deeds, revenge this treason!
  PUCELLE. What you do, good grey beard? Break a
    lance,
    And run a tilt at death within a chair?
  TALBOT. Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite,
    Encompass'd with thy lustful paramours,
    Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age
    And twit with cowardice a man half dead?
    Damsel, I'll have a bout with you again,
    Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.
  PUCELLE. Are ye so hot, sir? Yet, Pucelle, hold thy peace;
    If Talbot do but thunder, rain will follow.
                 [The English party whisper together in council]
    God speed the parliament! Who shall be the Speaker?
  TALBOT. Dare ye come forth and meet us in the field?
  PUCELLE. Belike your lordship takes us then for fools,
    To try if that our own be ours or no.
  TALBOT. I speak not to that railing Hecate,
    But unto thee, Alencon, and the rest.
    Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?
  ALENCON. Signior, no.
  TALBOT. Signior, hang! Base muleteers of France!
    Like peasant foot-boys do they keep the walls,
    And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.
  PUCELLE. Away, captains! Let's get us from the walls;
    For Talbot means no goodness by his looks.
    God b'uy, my lord; we came but to tell you
    That we are here.                      Exeunt from the walls
  TALBOT. And there will we be too, ere it be long,
    Or else reproach be Talbot's greatest fame!
    Vow, Burgundy, by honour of thy house,
    Prick'd on by public wrongs sustain'd in France,
    Either to get the town again or die;
    And I, as sure as English Henry lives
    And as his father here was conqueror,
    As sure as in this late betrayed town
    Great Coeur-de-lion's heart was buried
    So sure I swear to get the town or die.
  BURGUNDY. My vows are equal partners with thy vows.
  TALBOT. But ere we go, regard this dying prince,
    The valiant Duke of Bedford. Come, my lord,
    We will bestow you in some better place,
    Fitter for sickness and for crazy age.
  BEDFORD. Lord Talbot, do not so dishonour me;
    Here will I sit before the walls of Rouen,
    And will be partner of your weal or woe.
  BURGUNDY. Courageous Bedford, let us now persuade you.
  BEDFORD. Not to be gone from hence; for once I read
    That stout Pendragon in his litter sick
    Came to the field, and vanquished his foes.
    Methinks I should revive the soldiers' hearts,
    Because I ever found them as myself.
  TALBOT. Undaunted spirit in a dying breast!
    Then be it so. Heavens keep old Bedford safe!
    And now no more ado, brave Burgundy,
    But gather we our forces out of hand
    And set upon our boasting enemy.
          Exeunt against the town all but BEDFORD and attendants

           An alarum; excursions. Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE,
                           and a CAPTAIN

  CAPTAIN. Whither away, Sir John Fastolfe, in such haste?
  FASTOLFE. Whither away? To save myself by flight:
    We are like to have the overthrow again.
  CAPTAIN. What! Will you and leave Lord Talbot?
  FASTOLFE. Ay,
    All the Talbots in the world, to save my life.          Exit
  CAPTAIN. Cowardly knight! ill fortune follow thee!
                                              Exit into the town

         Retreat; excursions. LA PUCELLE, ALENCON,
                      and CHARLES fly

  BEDFORD. Now, quiet soul, depart when heaven please,
    For I have seen our enemies' overthrow.
    What is the trust or strength of foolish man?
    They that of late were daring with their scoffs
    Are glad and fain by flight to save themselves.
            [BEDFORD dies and is carried in by two in his chair]

          An alarum. Re-enter TALBOT, BURGUNDY, and the rest

  TALBOT. Lost and recovered in a day again!
    This is a double honour, Burgundy.
    Yet heavens have glory for this victory!
  BURGUNDY. Warlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy
    Enshrines thee in his heart, and there erects
    Thy noble deeds as valour's monuments.
  TALBOT. Thanks, gentle Duke. But where is Pucelle now?
    I think her old familiar is asleep.
    Now where's the Bastard's braves, and Charles his gleeks?
    What, all amort? Rouen hangs her head for grief
    That such a valiant company are fled.
    Now will we take some order in the town,
    Placing therein some expert officers;
    And then depart to Paris to the King,
    For there young Henry with his nobles lie.
  BURGUNDY. What Lord Talbot pleaseth Burgundy.
  TALBOT. But yet, before we go, let's not forget
    The noble Duke of Bedford, late deceas'd,
    But see his exequies fulfill'd in Rouen.
    A braver soldier never couched lance,
    A gentler heart did never sway in court;
    But kings and mightiest potentates must die,
    For that's the end of human misery.                   Exeunt

                             SCENE 3.

                      The plains near Rouen

        Enter CHARLES, the BASTARD, ALENCON, LA PUCELLE,
                          and forces

  PUCELLE. Dismay not, Princes, at this accident,
    Nor grieve that Rouen is so recovered.
    Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,
    For things that are not to be remedied.
    Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while
    And like a peacock sweep along his tail;
    We'll pull his plumes and take away his train,
    If Dauphin and the rest will be but rul'd.
  CHARLES. We have guided by thee hitherto,
    And of thy cunning had no diffidence;
    One sudden foil shall never breed distrust
  BASTARD. Search out thy wit for secret policies,
    And we will make thee famous through the world.
    ALENCON. We'll set thy statue in some holy place,
    And have thee reverenc'd like a blessed saint.
    Employ thee, then, sweet virgin, for our good.
  PUCELLE. Then thus it must be; this doth Joan devise:
    By fair persuasions, mix'd with sug'red words,
    We will entice the Duke of Burgundy
    To leave the Talbot and to follow us.
  CHARLES. Ay, marry, sweeting, if we could do that,
    France were no place for Henry's warriors;
    Nor should that nation boast it so with us,
    But be extirped from our provinces.
  ALENCON. For ever should they be expuls'd from France,
    And not have tide of an earldom here.
  PUCELLE. Your honours shall perceive how I will work
    To bring this matter to the wished end.
                                          [Drum sounds afar off]
    Hark! by the sound of drum you may perceive
    Their powers are marching unto Paris-ward.

          Here sound an English march. Enter, and pass over
                at a distance, TALBOT and his forces

    There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread,
    And all the troops of English after him.

            French march. Enter the DUKE OF BURGUNDY and
                         his forces

    Now in the rearward comes the Duke and his.
    Fortune in favour makes him lag behind.
    Summon a parley; we will talk with him.
                                       [Trumpets sound a parley]
  CHARLES. A parley with the Duke of Burgundy!
  BURGUNDY. Who craves a parley with the Burgundy?
  PUCELLE. The princely Charles of France, thy countryman.
  BURGUNDY. What say'st thou, Charles? for I am marching
    hence.
  CHARLES. Speak, Pucelle, and enchant him with thy words.
  PUCELLE. Brave Burgundy, undoubted hope of France!
    Stay, let thy humble handmaid speak to thee.
  BURGUNDY. Speak on; but be not over-tedious.
  PUCELLE. Look on thy country, look on fertile France,
    And see the cities and the towns defac'd
    By wasting ruin of the cruel foe;
    As looks the mother on her lowly babe
    When death doth close his tender dying eyes,
    See, see the pining malady of France;
    Behold the wounds, the most unnatural wounds,
    Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.
    O, turn thy edged sword another way;
    Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help!
    One drop of blood drawn from thy country's bosom
    Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore.
    Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,
    And wash away thy country's stained spots.
  BURGUNDY. Either she hath bewitch'd me with her words,
    Or nature makes me suddenly relent.
  PUCELLE. Besides, all French and France exclaims on thee,
    Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.
    Who join'st thou with but with a lordly nation
    That will not trust thee but for profit's sake?
    When Talbot hath set footing once in France,
    And fashion'd thee that instrument of ill,
    Who then but English Henry will be lord,
    And thou be thrust out like a fugitive?
    Call we to mind-and mark but this for proof:
    Was not the Duke of Orleans thy foe?
    And was he not in England prisoner?
    But when they heard he was thine enemy
    They set him free without his ransom paid,
    In spite of Burgundy and all his friends.
    See then, thou fight'st against thy countrymen,
    And join'st with them will be thy slaughtermen.
    Come, come, return; return, thou wandering lord;
    Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms.
  BURGUNDY. I am vanquished; these haughty words of hers
    Have batt'red me like roaring cannon-shot
    And made me almost yield upon my knees.
    Forgive me, country, and sweet countrymen
    And, lords, accept this hearty kind embrace.
    My forces and my power of men are yours;
    So, farewell, Talbot; I'll no longer trust thee.
  PUCELLE. Done like a Frenchman-  [Aside]  turn and turn
    again.
  CHARLES. Welcome, brave Duke! Thy friendship makes us
    fresh.
  BASTARD. And doth beget new courage in our breasts.
  ALENCON. Pucelle hath bravely play'd her part in this,
    And doth deserve a coronet of gold.
  CHARLES. Now let us on, my lords, and join our powers,
    And seek how we may prejudice the foe.                Exeunt

                          SCENE 4.

                     Paris. The palace

         Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK,
             SUFFOLK, SOMERSET, WARWICK, EXETER,
           VERNON, BASSET, and others. To them, with
                     his soldiers, TALBOT

  TALBOT. My gracious Prince, and honourable peers,
    Hearing of your arrival in this realm,
    I have awhile given truce unto my wars
    To do my duty to my sovereign;
    In sign whereof, this arm that hath reclaim'd
    To your obedience fifty fortresses,
    Twelve cities, and seven walled towns of strength,
    Beside five hundred prisoners of esteem,
    Lets fall his sword before your Highness' feet,
    And with submissive loyalty of heart
    Ascribes the glory of his conquest got
    First to my God and next unto your Grace.           [Kneels]
  KING HENRY. Is this the Lord Talbot, uncle Gloucester,
    That hath so long been resident in France?
  GLOUCESTER. Yes, if it please your Majesty, my liege.
  KING HENRY. Welcome, brave captain and victorious lord!
    When I was young, as yet I am not old,
    I do remember how my father said
    A stouter champion never handled sword.
    Long since we were resolved of your truth,
    Your faithful service, and your toil in war;
    Yet never have you tasted our reward,
    Or been reguerdon'd with so much as thanks,
    Because till now we never saw your face.
    Therefore stand up; and for these good deserts
    We here create you Earl of Shrewsbury;
    And in our coronation take your place.
              Sennet. Flourish. Exeunt all but VERNON and BASSET
  VERNON. Now, sir, to you, that were so hot at sea,
    Disgracing of these colours that I wear
    In honour of my noble Lord of York
    Dar'st thou maintain the former words thou spak'st?
  BASSET. Yes, sir; as well as you dare patronage
    The envious barking of your saucy tongue
    Against my lord the Duke of Somerset.
  VERNON. Sirrah, thy lord I honour as he is.
  BASSET. Why, what is he? As good a man as York!
  VERNON. Hark ye: not so. In witness, take ye that.
                                                   [Strikes him]
  BASSET. Villain, thou knowest the law of arms is such
    That whoso draws a sword 'tis present death,
    Or else this blow should broach thy dearest blood.
    But I'll unto his Majesty and crave
    I may have liberty to venge this wrong;
    When thou shalt see I'll meet thee to thy cost.
  VERNON. Well, miscreant, I'll be there as soon as you;
    And, after, meet you sooner than you would.           Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

Park. The palace

Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, WINCHESTER, YORK, SUFFOLK, SOMERSET,
WARWICK,
TALBOT, EXETER, the GOVERNOR OF PARIS, and others

  GLOUCESTER. Lord Bishop, set the crown upon his head.
  WINCHESTER. God save King Henry, of that name the Sixth!
  GLOUCESTER. Now, Governor of Paris, take your oath
                                               [GOVERNOR kneels]
    That you elect no other king but him,
    Esteem none friends but such as are his friends,
    And none your foes but such as shall pretend
    Malicious practices against his state.
    This shall ye do, so help you righteous God!
                                   Exeunt GOVERNOR and his train

                    Enter SIR JOHN FASTOLFE

  FASTOLFE. My gracious sovereign, as I rode from Calais,
    To haste unto your coronation,
    A letter was deliver'd to my hands,
    Writ to your Grace from th' Duke of Burgundy.
  TALBOT. Shame to the Duke of Burgundy and thee!
    I vow'd, base knight, when I did meet thee next
    To tear the Garter from thy craven's leg,  [Plucking it off]
    Which I have done, because unworthily
    Thou wast installed in that high degree.
    Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest:
    This dastard, at the battle of Patay,
    When but in all I was six thousand strong,
    And that the French were almost ten to one,
    Before we met or that a stroke was given,
    Like to a trusty squire did run away;
    In which assault we lost twelve hundred men;
    Myself and divers gentlemen beside
    Were there surpris'd and taken prisoners.
    Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss,
    Or whether that such cowards ought to wear
    This ornament of knighthood-yea or no.
  GLOUCESTER. To say the truth, this fact was infamous
    And ill beseeming any common man,
    Much more a knight, a captain, and a leader.
  TALBOT. When first this order was ordain'd, my lords,
    Knights of the Garter were of noble birth,
    Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage,
    Such as were grown to credit by the wars;
    Not fearing death nor shrinking for distress,
    But always resolute in most extremes.
    He then that is not furnish'd in this sort
    Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,
    Profaning this most honourable order,
    And should, if I were worthy to be judge,
    Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain
    That doth presume to boast of gentle blood.
  KING HENRY. Stain to thy countrymen, thou hear'st thy
    doom.
    Be packing, therefore, thou that wast a knight;
    Henceforth we banish thee on pain of death.
                                                   Exit FASTOLFE
    And now, my Lord Protector, view the letter
    Sent from our uncle Duke of Burgundy.
  GLOUCESTER.  [Viewing the superscription]  What means his
    Grace, that he hath chang'd his style?
    No more but plain and bluntly 'To the King!'
    Hath he forgot he is his sovereign?
    Or doth this churlish superscription
    Pretend some alteration in good-will?
    What's here?  [Reads]  'I have, upon especial cause,
    Mov'd with compassion of my country's wreck,
    Together with the pitiful complaints
    Of such as your oppression feeds upon,
    Forsaken your pernicious faction,
    And join'd with Charles, the rightful King of France.'
    O monstrous treachery! Can this be so
    That in alliance, amity, and oaths,
    There should be found such false dissembling guile?
  KING HENRY. What! Doth my uncle Burgundy revolt?
  GLOUCESTER. He doth, my lord, and is become your foe.
  KING HENRY. Is that the worst this letter doth contain?
  GLOUCESTER. It is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.
  KING HENRY. Why then Lord Talbot there shall talk with
    him
    And give him chastisement for this abuse.
    How say you, my lord, are you not content?
  TALBOT. Content, my liege! Yes; but that I am prevented,
    I should have begg'd I might have been employ'd.
  KING HENRY. Then gather strength and march unto him
    straight;
    Let him perceive how ill we brook his treason.
    And what offence it is to flout his friends.
  TALBOT. I go, my lord, in heart desiring still
    You may behold confusion of your foes.                  Exit

                       Enter VERNON and BASSET

  VERNON. Grant me the combat, gracious sovereign.
  BASSET. And me, my lord, grant me the combat too.
  YORK. This is my servant: hear him, noble Prince.
  SOMERSET. And this is mine: sweet Henry, favour him.
  KING HENRY. Be patient, lords, and give them leave to speak.
    Say, gentlemen, what makes you thus exclaim,
    And wherefore crave you combat, or with whom?
  VERNON. With him, my lord; for he hath done me wrong.
  BASSET. And I with him; for he hath done me wrong.
  KING HENRY. What is that wrong whereof you both
    complain? First let me know, and then I'll answer you.
  BASSET. Crossing the sea from England into France,
    This fellow here, with envious carping tongue,
    Upbraided me about the rose I wear,
    Saying the sanguine colour of the leaves
    Did represent my master's blushing cheeks
    When stubbornly he did repugn the truth
    About a certain question in the law
    Argu'd betwixt the Duke of York and him;
    With other vile and ignominious terms
    In confutation of which rude reproach
    And in defence of my lord's worthiness,
    I crave the benefit of law of arms.
  VERNON. And that is my petition, noble lord;
    For though he seem with forged quaint conceit
    To set a gloss upon his bold intent,
    Yet know, my lord, I was provok'd by him,
    And he first took exceptions at this badge,
    Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower
    Bewray'd the faintness of my master's heart.
  YORK. Will not this malice, Somerset, be left?
  SOMERSET. Your private grudge, my Lord of York, will out,
    Though ne'er so cunningly you smother it.
  KING HENRY. Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick
    men, When for so slight and frivolous a cause
    Such factious emulations shall arise!
    Good cousins both, of York and Somerset,
    Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.
  YORK. Let this dissension first be tried by fight,
    And then your Highness shall command a peace.
  SOMERSET. The quarrel toucheth none but us alone;
    Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.
  YORK. There is my pledge; accept it, Somerset.
  VERNON. Nay, let it rest where it began at first.
  BASSET. Confirm it so, mine honourable lord.
  GLOUCESTER. Confirm it so? Confounded be your strife;
    And perish ye, with your audacious prate!
    Presumptuous vassals, are you not asham'd
    With this immodest clamorous outrage
    To trouble and disturb the King and us?
    And you, my lords- methinks you do not well
    To bear with their perverse objections,
    Much less to take occasion from their mouths
    To raise a mutiny betwixt yourselves.
    Let me persuade you take a better course.
  EXETER. It grieves his Highness. Good my lords, be friends.
  KING HENRY. Come hither, you that would be combatants:
    Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,
    Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.
    And you, my lords, remember where we are:
    In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation;
    If they perceive dissension in our looks
    And that within ourselves we disagree,
    How will their grudging stomachs be provok'd
    To wilful disobedience, and rebel!
    Beside, what infamy will there arise
    When foreign princes shall be certified
    That for a toy, a thing of no regard,
    King Henry's peers and chief nobility
    Destroy'd themselves and lost the realm of France!
    O, think upon the conquest of my father,
    My tender years; and let us not forgo
    That for a trifle that was bought with blood!
    Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife.
    I see no reason, if I wear this rose,
                                         [Putting on a red rose]
    That any one should therefore be suspicious
    I more incline to Somerset than York:
    Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both.
    As well they may upbraid me with my crown,
    Because, forsooth, the King of Scots is crown'd.
    But your discretions better can persuade
    Than I am able to instruct or teach;
    And, therefore, as we hither came in peace,
    So let us still continue peace and love.
    Cousin of York, we institute your Grace
    To be our Regent in these parts of France.
    And, good my Lord of Somerset, unite
    Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot;
    And like true subjects, sons of your progenitors,
    Go cheerfully together and digest
    Your angry choler on your enemies.
    Ourself, my Lord Protector, and the rest,
    After some respite will return to Calais;
    From thence to England, where I hope ere long
    To be presented by your victories
    With Charles, Alencon, and that traitorous rout.
                         Flourish. Exeunt all but YORK, WARWICK,
                                                  EXETER, VERNON
  WARWICK. My Lord of York, I promise you, the King
    Prettily, methought, did play the orator.
  YORK. And so he did; but yet I like it not,
    In that he wears the badge of Somerset.
  WARWICK. Tush, that was but his fancy; blame him not;
    I dare presume, sweet prince, he thought no harm.
  YORK. An if I wist he did-but let it rest;
    Other affairs must now be managed.
                                           Exeunt all but EXETER
  EXETER. Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;
    For had the passions of thy heart burst out,
    I fear we should have seen decipher'd there
    More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,
    Than yet can be imagin'd or suppos'd.
    But howsoe'er, no simple man that sees
    This jarring discord of nobility,
    This shouldering of each other in the court,
    This factious bandying of their favourites,
    But that it doth presage some ill event.
    'Tis much when sceptres are in children's hands;
    But more when envy breeds unkind division:
    There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.           Exit

                               SCENE 2.

                        France. Before Bordeaux

                   Enter TALBOT, with trump and drum

  TALBOT. Go to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter;
    Summon their general unto the wall.

             Trumpet sounds a parley. Enter, aloft, the
                 GENERAL OF THE FRENCH, and others

    English John Talbot, Captains, calls you forth,
    Servant in arms to Harry King of England;
    And thus he would open your city gates,
    Be humble to us, call my sovereignvours
    And do him homage as obedient subjects,
    And I'll withdraw me and my bloody power;
    But if you frown upon this proffer'd peace,
    You tempt the fury of my three attendants,
    Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;
    Who in a moment even with the earth
    Shall lay your stately and air braving towers,
    If you forsake the offer of their love.
  GENERAL OF THE FRENCH. Thou ominous and fearful owl of
    death,
    Our nation's terror and their bloody scourge!
    The period of thy tyranny approacheth.
    On us thou canst not enter but by death;
    For, I protest, we are well fortified,
    And strong enough to issue out and fight.
    If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed,
    Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee.
    On either hand thee there are squadrons pitch'd
    To wall thee from the liberty of flight,
    And no way canst thou turn thee for redress
    But death doth front thee with apparent spoil
    And pale destruction meets thee in the face.
    Ten thousand French have ta'en the sacrament
    To rive their dangerous artillery
    Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot.
    Lo, there thou stand'st, a breathing valiant man,
    Of an invincible unconquer'd spirit!
    This is the latest glory of thy praise
    That I, thy enemy, due thee withal;
    For ere the glass that now begins to run
    Finish the process of his sandy hour,
    These eyes that see thee now well coloured
    Shall see thee withered, bloody, pale, and dead.
                                                 [Drum afar off]
    Hark! hark! The Dauphin's drum, a warning bell,
    Sings heavy music to thy timorous soul;
    And mine shall ring thy dire departure out.             Exit
  TALBOT. He fables not; I hear the enemy.
    Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.
    O, negligent and heedless discipline!
    How are we park'd and bounded in a pale
    A little herd of England's timorous deer,
    Maz'd with a yelping kennel of French curs!
    If we be English deer, be then in blood;
    Not rascal-like to fall down with a pinch,
    But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,
    Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel
    And make the cowards stand aloof at bay.
    Sell every man his life as dear as mine,
    And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.
    God and Saint George, Talbot and England's right,
    Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!          Exeunt

                          SCENE 3.

                      Plains in Gascony

        Enter YORK, with trumpet and many soldiers. A
                   MESSENGER meets him

  YORK. Are not the speedy scouts return'd again
    That dogg'd the mighty army of the Dauphin?
  MESSENGER. They are return'd, my lord, and give it out
    That he is march'd to Bordeaux with his power
    To fight with Talbot; as he march'd along,
    By your espials were discovered
    Two mightier troops than that the Dauphin led,
    Which join'd with him and made their march for
    Bordeaux.
  YORK. A plague upon that villain Somerset
    That thus delays my promised supply
    Of horsemen that were levied for this siege!
    Renowned Talbot doth expect my aid,
    And I am louted by a traitor villain
    And cannot help the noble chevalier.
    God comfort him in this necessity!
    If he miscarry, farewell wars in France.

                      Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY

  LUCY. Thou princely leader of our English strength,
    Never so needful on the earth of France,
    Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,
    Who now is girdled with a waist of iron
    And hemm'd about with grim destruction.
    To Bordeaux, warlike Duke! to Bordeaux, York!
    Else, farewell Talbot, France, and England's honour.
  YORK. O God, that Somerset, who in proud heart
    Doth stop my cornets, were in Talbot's place!
    So should we save a valiant gentleman
    By forfeiting a traitor and a coward.
    Mad ire and wrathful fury makes me weep
    That thus we die while remiss traitors sleep.
  LUCY. O, send some succour to the distress'd lord!
  YORK. He dies; we lose; I break my warlike word.
    We mourn: France smiles. We lose: they daily get-
    All long of this vile traitor Somerset.
  LUCY. Then God take mercy on brave Talbot's soul,
    And on his son, young John, who two hours since
    I met in travel toward his warlike father.
    This seven years did not Talbot see his son;
    And now they meet where both their lives are done.
  YORK. Alas, what joy shall noble Talbot have
    To bid his young son welcome to his grave?
    Away! vexation almost stops my breath,
    That sund'red friends greet in the hour of death.
    Lucy, farewell; no more my fortune can
    But curse the cause I cannot aid the man.
    Maine, Blois, Poictiers, and Tours, are won away
    Long all of Somerset and his delay.         Exit with forces
  LUCY. Thus, while the vulture of sedition
    Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders,
    Sleeping neglection doth betray to loss
    The conquest of our scarce cold conqueror,
    That ever-living man of memory,
    Henry the Fifth. Whiles they each other cross,
    Lives, honours, lands, and all, hurry to loss.          Exit

                             SCENE 4.

                     Other plains of Gascony

        Enter SOMERSET, With his forces; an OFFICER of
                     TALBOT'S with him

  SOMERSET. It is too late; I cannot send them now.
    This expedition was by York and Talbot
    Too rashly plotted; all our general force
    Might with a sally of the very town
    Be buckled with. The over daring Talbot
    Hath sullied all his gloss of former honour
    By this unheedful, desperate, wild adventure.
    York set him on to fight and die in shame.
    That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the name.
  OFFICER. Here is Sir William Lucy, who with me
    Set from our o'er-match'd forces forth for aid.

                       Enter SIR WILLIAM LUCY

  SOMERSET. How now, Sir William! Whither were you sent?
  LUCY. Whither, my lord! From bought and sold Lord
    Talbot,
    Who, ring'd about with bold adversity,
    Cries out for noble York and Somerset
    To beat assailing death from his weak legions;
    And whiles the honourable captain there
    Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs
    And, in advantage ling'ring, looks for rescue,
    You, his false hopes, the trust of England's honour,
    Keep off aloof with worthless emulation.
    Let not your private discord keep away
    The levied succours that should lend him aid,
    While he, renowned noble gentleman,
    Yield up his life unto a world of odds.
    Orleans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy,
    Alencon, Reignier, compass him about,
    And Talbot perisheth by your default.
  SOMERSET. York set him on; York should have sent him aid.
  LUCY. And York as fast upon your Grace exclaims,
    Swearing that you withhold his levied host,
    Collected for this expedition.
  SOMERSET. York lies; he might have sent and had the horse.
    I owe him little duty and less love,
    And take foul scorn to fawn on him by sending.
  LUCY. The fraud of England, not the force of France,
    Hath now entrapp'd the noble minded Talbot.
    Never to England shall he bear his life,
    But dies betray'd to fortune by your strife.
  SOMERSET. Come, go; I will dispatch the horsemen straight;
    Within six hours they will be at his aid.
  LUCY. Too late comes rescue; he is ta'en or slain,
    For fly he could not if he would have fled;
    And fly would Talbot never, though he might.
  SOMERSET. If he be dead, brave Talbot, then, adieu!
  LUCY. His fame lives in the world, his shame in you.       Exeunt

                               SCENE 5.

                   The English camp near Bordeaux

                    Enter TALBOT and JOHN his son

  TALBOT. O young John Talbot! I did send for thee
    To tutor thee in stratagems of war,
    That Talbot's name might be in thee reviv'd
    When sapless age and weak unable limbs
    Should bring thy father to his drooping chair.
    But, O malignant and ill-boding stars!
    Now thou art come unto a feast of death,
    A terrible and unavoided danger;
    Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,
    And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape
    By sudden flight. Come, dally not, be gone.
  JOHN. Is my name Talbot, and am I your son?
    And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,
    Dishonour not her honourable name,
    To make a bastard and a slave of me!
    The world will say he is not Talbot's blood
    That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.
  TALBOT. Fly to revenge my death, if I be slain.
  JOHN. He that flies so will ne'er return again.
  TALBOT. If we both stay, we both are sure to die.
  JOHN. Then let me stay; and, father, do you fly.
    Your loss is great, so your regard should be;
    My worth unknown, no loss is known in me;
    Upon my death the French can little boast;
    In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.
    Flight cannot stain the honour you have won;
    But mine it will, that no exploit have done;
    You fled for vantage, every one will swear;
    But if I bow, they'll say it was for fear.
    There is no hope that ever I will stay
    If the first hour I shrink and run away.
    Here, on my knee, I beg mortality,
    Rather than life preserv'd with infamy.
  TALBOT. Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb?
  JOHN. Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's womb.
  TALBOT. Upon my blessing I command thee go.
  JOHN. To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.
  TALBOT. Part of thy father may be sav'd in thee.
  JOHN. No part of him but will be shame in me.
  TALBOT. Thou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.
  JOHN. Yes, your renowned name; shall flight abuse it?
  TALBOT. Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain.
  JOHN. You cannot witness for me, being slain.
    If death be so apparent, then both fly.
  TALBOT. And leave my followers here to fight and die?
    My age was never tainted with such shame.
  JOHN. And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?
    No more can I be severed from your side
    Than can yourself yourself yourself in twain divide.
    Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;
    For live I will not if my father die.
  TALBOT. Then here I take my leave of thee, fair son,
    Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.
    Come, side by side together live and die;
    And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.         Exeunt

                             SCENE 6.

                         A field of battle

         Alarum: excursions wherein JOHN TALBOT is hemm'd
                  about, and TALBOT rescues him

  TALBOT. Saint George and victory! Fight, soldiers, fight.
    The Regent hath with Talbot broke his word
    And left us to the rage of France his sword.
    Where is John Talbot? Pause and take thy breath;
    I gave thee life and rescu'd thee from death.
  JOHN. O, twice my father, twice am I thy son!
    The life thou gav'st me first was lost and done
    Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,
    To my determin'd time thou gav'st new date.
  TALBOT. When from the Dauphin's crest thy sword struck
    fire,
    It warm'd thy father's heart with proud desire
    Of bold-fac'd victory. Then leaden age,
    Quicken'd with youthful spleen and warlike rage,
    Beat down Alencon, Orleans, Burgundy,
    And from the pride of Gallia rescued thee.
    The ireful bastard Orleans, that drew blood
    From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood
    Of thy first fight, I soon encountered
    And, interchanging blows, I quickly shed
    Some of his bastard blood; and in disgrace
    Bespoke him thus: 'Contaminated, base,
    And misbegotten blood I spill of thine,
    Mean and right poor, for that pure blood of mine
    Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy.'
    Here purposing the Bastard to destroy,
    Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care;
    Art thou not weary, John? How dost thou fare?
    Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,
    Now thou art seal'd the son of chivalry?
    Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead:
    The help of one stands me in little stead.
    O, too much folly is it, well I wot,
    To hazard all our lives in one small boat!
    If I to-day die not with Frenchmen's rage,
    To-morrow I shall die with mickle age.
    By me they nothing gain an if I stay:
    'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day.
    In thee thy mother dies, our household's name,
    My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.
    All these and more we hazard by thy stay;
    All these are sav'd if thou wilt fly away.
  JOHN. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart;
    These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.
    On that advantage, bought with such a shame,
    To save a paltry life and slay bright fame,
    Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,
    The coward horse that bears me fall and die!
    And like me to the peasant boys of France,
    To be shame's scorn and subject of mischance!
    Surely, by all the glory you have won,
    An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son;
    Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot;
    If son to Talbot, die at Talbot's foot.
  TALBOT. Then follow thou thy desp'rate sire of Crete,
    Thou Icarus; thy life to me is sweet.
    If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side;
    And, commendable prov'd, let's die in pride.          Exeunt

                               SCENE 7.

                      Another part of the field

       Alarum; excursions. Enter old TALBOT led by a SERVANT

  TALBOT. Where is my other life? Mine own is gone.
    O, where's young Talbot? Where is valiant John?
    Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity,
    Young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee.
    When he perceiv'd me shrink and on my knee,
    His bloody sword he brandish'd over me,
    And like a hungry lion did commence
    Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;
    But when my angry guardant stood alone,
    Tend'ring my ruin and assail'd of none,
    Dizzy-ey'd fury and great rage of heart
    Suddenly made him from my side to start
    Into the clust'ring battle of the French;
    And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
    His overmounting spirit; and there died,
    My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.

         Enter soldiers, bearing the body of JOHN TALBOT

  SERVANT. O my dear lord, lo where your son is borne!
  TALBOT. Thou antic Death, which laugh'st us here to scorn,
    Anon, from thy insulting tyranny,
    Coupled in bonds of perpetuity,
    Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky,
    In thy despite shall scape mortality.
    O thou whose wounds become hard-favoured Death,
    Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath!
    Brave Death by speaking, whether he will or no;
    Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.
    Poor boy! he smiles, methinks, as who should say,
    Had Death been French, then Death had died to-day.
    Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms.
    My spirit can no longer bear these harms.
    Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,
    Now my old arms are young John Talbot's grave.        [Dies]

            Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BURGUNDY, BASTARD,
                     LA PUCELLE, and forces

  CHARLES. Had York and Somerset brought rescue in,
    We should have found a bloody day of this.
  BASTARD. How the young whelp of Talbot's, raging wood,
    Did flesh his puny sword in Frenchmen's blood!
  PUCELLE. Once I encount'red him, and thus I said:
    'Thou maiden youth, be vanquish'd by a maid.'
    But with a proud majestical high scorn
    He answer'd thus: 'Young Talbot was not born
    To be the pillage of a giglot wench.'
    So, rushing in the bowels of the French,
    He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.
  BURGUNDY. Doubtless he would have made a noble knight.
    See where he lies inhearsed in the arms
    Of the most bloody nurser of his harms!
  BASTARD. Hew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder,
    Whose life was England's glory, Gallia's wonder.
  CHARLES. O, no; forbear! For that which we have fled
    During the life, let us not wrong it dead.

            Enter SIR WILLIAM Lucy, attended; a FRENCH
                         HERALD preceding

  LUCY. Herald, conduct me to the Dauphin's tent,
    To know who hath obtain'd the glory of the day.
  CHARLES. On what submissive message art thou sent?
  LUCY. Submission, Dauphin! 'Tis a mere French word:
    We English warriors wot not what it means.
    I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta'en,
    And to survey the bodies of the dead.
  CHARLES. For prisoners ask'st thou? Hell our prison is.
    But tell me whom thou seek'st.
  LUCY. But where's the great Alcides of the field,
    Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
    Created for his rare success in arms
    Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,
    Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
    Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
    Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
    The thrice victorious Lord of Falconbridge,
    Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
    Worthy Saint Michael, and the Golden Fleece,
    Great Marshal to Henry the Sixth
    Of all his wars within the realm of France?
  PUCELLE. Here's a silly-stately style indeed!
    The Turk, that two and fifty kingdoms hath,
    Writes not so tedious a style as this.
    Him that thou magnifi'st with all these tides,
    Stinking and fly-blown lies here at our feet.
  LUCY. Is Talbot slain-the Frenchmen's only scourge,
    Your kingdom's terror and black Nemesis?
    O, were mine eye-bans into bullets turn'd,
    That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!
    O that I could but can these dead to life!
    It were enough to fright the realm of France.
    Were but his picture left amongst you here,
    It would amaze the proudest of you all.
    Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence
    And give them burial as beseems their worth.
  PUCELLE. I think this upstart is old Talbot's ghost,
    He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit.
    For God's sake, let him have them; to keep them here,
    They would but stink, and putrefy the air.
  CHARLES. Go, take their bodies hence.
  LUCY. I'll bear them hence; but from their ashes shall be
    rear'd
    A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.
  CHARLES. So we be rid of them, do with them what thou
    wilt.
    And now to Paris in this conquering vein!
    All will be ours, now bloody Talbot's slain.          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1.

London. The palace

Sennet. Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, and EXETER

  KING HENRY. Have you perus'd the letters from the Pope,
    The Emperor, and the Earl of Armagnac?
  GLOUCESTER. I have, my lord; and their intent is this:
    They humbly sue unto your Excellence
    To have a godly peace concluded of
    Between the realms of England and of France.
  KING HENRY. How doth your Grace affect their motion?
  GLOUCESTER. Well, my good lord, and as the only means
    To stop effusion of our Christian blood
    And stablish quietness on every side.
  KING HENRY. Ay, marry, uncle; for I always thought
    It was both impious and unnatural
    That such immanity and bloody strife
    Should reign among professors of one faith.
  GLOUCESTER. Beside, my lord, the sooner to effect
    And surer bind this knot of amity,
    The Earl of Armagnac, near knit to Charles,
    A man of great authority in France,
    Proffers his only daughter to your Grace
    In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry.
  KING HENRY. Marriage, uncle! Alas, my years are young
    And fitter is my study and my books
    Than wanton dalliance with a paramour.
    Yet call th' ambassadors, and, as you please,
    So let them have their answers every one.
    I shall be well content with any choice
    Tends to God's glory and my country's weal.

                   Enter in Cardinal's habit
        BEAUFORT, the PAPAL LEGATE, and two AMBASSADORS

  EXETER. What! Is my Lord of Winchester install'd
    And call'd unto a cardinal's degree?
    Then I perceive that will be verified
    Henry the Fifth did sometime prophesy:
    'If once he come to be a cardinal,
    He'll make his cap co-equal with the crown.'
  KING HENRY. My Lords Ambassadors, your several suits
    Have been consider'd and debated on.
    Your purpose is both good and reasonable,
    And therefore are we certainly resolv'd
    To draw conditions of a friendly peace,
    Which by my Lord of Winchester we mean
    Shall be transported presently to France.
  GLOUCESTER. And for the proffer of my lord your master,
    I have inform'd his Highness so at large,
    As, liking of the lady's virtuous gifts,
    Her beauty, and the value of her dower,
    He doth intend she shall be England's Queen.
  KING HENRY.  [To AMBASSADOR]  In argument and proof of
    which contract,
    Bear her this jewel, pledge of my affection.
    And so, my Lord Protector, see them guarded
    And safely brought to Dover; where inshipp'd,
    Commit them to the fortune of the sea.

                        Exeunt all but WINCHESTER and the LEGATE
  WINCHESTER. Stay, my Lord Legate; you shall first receive
    The sum of money which I promised
    Should be delivered to his Holiness
    For clothing me in these grave ornaments.
  LEGATE. I will attend upon your lordship's leisure.
  WINCHESTER.  [Aside]  Now Winchester will not submit, I
    trow,
    Or be inferior to the proudest peer.
    Humphrey of Gloucester, thou shalt well perceive
    That neither in birth or for authority
    The Bishop will be overborne by thee.
    I'll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,
    Or sack this country with a mutiny.                   Exeunt

                              SCENE 2.

                       France. Plains in Anjou

              Enter CHARLES, BURGUNDY, ALENCON, BASTARD,
                   REIGNIER, LA PUCELLE, and forces

  CHARLES. These news, my lords, may cheer our drooping
    spirits:
    'Tis said the stout Parisians do revolt
    And turn again unto the warlike French.
  ALENCON. Then march to Paris, royal Charles of France,
    And keep not back your powers in dalliance.
  PUCELLE. Peace be amongst them, if they turn to us;
    Else ruin combat with their palaces!

                            Enter a SCOUT

  SCOUT. Success unto our valiant general,
    And happiness to his accomplices!
  CHARLES. What tidings send our scouts? I prithee speak.
  SCOUT. The English army, that divided was
    Into two parties, is now conjoin'd in one,
    And means to give you battle presently.
  CHARLES. Somewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is;
    But we will presently provide for them.
  BURGUNDY. I trust the ghost of Talbot is not there.
    Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.
  PUCELLE. Of all base passions fear is most accurs'd.
    Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine,
    Let Henry fret and all the world repine.
  CHARLES. Then on, my lords; and France be fortunate!
                                                          Exeunt

                            SCENE 3.

                         Before Angiers

              Alarum, excursions. Enter LA PUCELLE

  PUCELLE. The Regent conquers and the Frenchmen fly.
    Now help, ye charming spells and periapts;
    And ye choice spirits that admonish me
    And give me signs of future accidents;             [Thunder]
    You speedy helpers that are substitutes
    Under the lordly monarch of the north,
    Appear and aid me in this enterprise!

                          Enter FIENDS

    This speedy and quick appearance argues proof
    Of your accustom'd diligence to me.
    Now, ye familiar spirits that are cull'd
    Out of the powerful regions under earth,
    Help me this once, that France may get the field.
                                       [They walk and speak not]
    O, hold me not with silence over-long!
    Where I was wont to feed you with my blood,
    I'll lop a member off and give it you
    In earnest of a further benefit,
    So you do condescend to help me now.
                                         [They hang their heads]
    No hope to have redress? My body shall
    Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.
                                        [They shake their heads]
    Cannot my body nor blood sacrifice
    Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?
    Then take my soul-my body, soul, and all,
    Before that England give the French the foil.
                                                   [They depart]
    See! they forsake me. Now the time is come
    That France must vail her lofty-plumed crest
    And let her head fall into England's lap.
    My ancient incantations are too weak,
    And hell too strong for me to buckle with.
    Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.            Exit

          Excursions. Enter French and English, fighting.
         LA PUCELLE and YORK fight hand to hand; LA PUCELLE
                    is taken. The French fly

  YORK. Damsel of France, I think I have you fast.
    Unchain your spirits now with spelling charms,
    And try if they can gain your liberty.
    A goodly prize, fit for the devil's grace!
    See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows
    As if, with Circe, she would change my shape!
  PUCELLE. Chang'd to a worser shape thou canst not be.
  YORK. O, Charles the Dauphin is a proper man:
    No shape but his can please your dainty eye.
  PUCELLE. A plaguing mischief fight on Charles and thee!
    And may ye both be suddenly surpris'd
    By bloody hands, in sleeping on your beds!
  YORK. Fell banning hag; enchantress, hold thy tongue.
  PUCELLE. I prithee give me leave to curse awhile.
  YORK. Curse, miscreant, when thou comest to the stake.
                                                          Exeunt

          Alarum. Enter SUFFOLK, with MARGARET in his hand

  SUFFOLK. Be what thou wilt, thou art my prisoner.
                                                  [Gazes on her]
    O fairest beauty, do not fear nor fly!
    For I will touch thee but with reverent hands;
    I kiss these fingers for eternal peace,
    And lay them gently on thy tender side.
    Who art thou? Say, that I may honour thee.
  MARGARET. Margaret my name, and daughter to a king,
    The King of Naples-whosoe'er thou art.
  SUFFOLK. An earl I am, and Suffolk am I call'd.
    Be not offended, nature's miracle,
    Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me.
    So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,
    Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings.
    Yet, if this servile usage once offend,
    Go and be free again as Suffolk's friend.     [She is going]
    O, stay!  [Aside]  I have no power to let her pass;
    My hand would free her, but my heart says no.
    As plays the sun upon the glassy streams,
    Twinkling another counterfeited beam,
    So seems this gorgeous beauty to mine eyes.
    Fain would I woo her, yet I dare not speak.
    I'll call for pen and ink, and write my mind.
    Fie, de la Pole! disable not thyself;
    Hast not a tongue? Is she not here thy prisoner?
    Wilt thou be daunted at a woman's sight?
    Ay, beauty's princely majesty is such
    Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough.
  MARGARET. Say, Earl of Suffolk, if thy name be so,
    What ransom must I pay before I pass?
    For I perceive I am thy prisoner.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  How canst thou tell she will deny thy
    suit,
    Before thou make a trial of her love?
  MARGARET. Why speak'st thou not? What ransom must I
    pay?
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd;
    She is a woman, therefore to be won.
  MARGARET. Wilt thou accept of ransom-yea or no?
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Fond man, remember that thou hast a
    wife;
    Then how can Margaret be thy paramour?
  MARGARET. I were best leave him, for he will not hear.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  There all is marr'd; there lies a cooling
    card.
  MARGARET. He talks at random; sure, the man is mad.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  And yet a dispensation may be had.
  MARGARET. And yet I would that you would answer me.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  I'll win this Lady Margaret. For whom?
    Why, for my King! Tush, that's a wooden thing!
  MARGARET. He talks of wood. It is some carpenter.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  Yet so my fancy may be satisfied,
    And peace established between these realms.
    But there remains a scruple in that too;
    For though her father be the King of Naples,
    Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor,
    And our nobility will scorn the match.
  MARGARET. Hear ye, Captain-are you not at leisure?
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside]  It shall be so, disdain they ne'er so much.
    Henry is youthful, and will quickly yield.
    Madam, I have a secret to reveal.
  MARGARET.  [Aside]  What though I be enthrall'd? He seems
    a knight,
    And will not any way dishonour me.
  SUFFOLK. Lady, vouchsafe to listen what I say.
  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Perhaps I shall be rescu'd by the French;
    And then I need not crave his courtesy.
  SUFFOLK. Sweet madam, give me hearing in a cause
  MARGARET.  [Aside]  Tush! women have been captivate ere
    now.
  SUFFOLK. Lady, wherefore talk you so?
  MARGARET. I cry you mercy, 'tis but quid for quo.
  SUFFOLK. Say, gentle Princess, would you not suppose
    Your bondage happy, to be made a queen?
  MARGARET. To be a queen in bondage is more vile
    Than is a slave in base servility;
    For princes should be free.
  SUFFOLK. And so shall you,
    If happy England's royal king be free.
  MARGARET. Why, what concerns his freedom unto me?
  SUFFOLK. I'll undertake to make thee Henry's queen,
    To put a golden sceptre in thy hand
    And set a precious crown upon thy head,
    If thou wilt condescend to be my-
  MARGARET. What?
  SUFFOLK. His love.
  MARGARET. I am unworthy to be Henry's wife.
  SUFFOLK. No, gentle madam; I unworthy am
    To woo so fair a dame to be his wife
    And have no portion in the choice myself.
    How say you, madam? Are ye so content?
  MARGARET. An if my father please, I am content.
  SUFFOLK. Then call our captains and our colours forth!
    And, madam, at your father's castle walls
    We'll crave a parley to confer with him.

           Sound a parley. Enter REIGNIER on the walls

    See, Reignier, see, thy daughter prisoner!
  REIGNIER. To whom?
  SUFFOLK. To me.
  REIGNIER. Suffolk, what remedy?
    I am a soldier and unapt to weep
    Or to exclaim on fortune's fickleness.
  SUFFOLK. Yes, there is remedy enough, my lord.
    Consent, and for thy honour give consent,
    Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king,
    Whom I with pain have woo'd and won thereto;
    And this her easy-held imprisonment
    Hath gain'd thy daughter princely liberty.
  REIGNIER. Speaks Suffolk as he thinks?
  SUFFOLK. Fair Margaret knows
    That Suffolk doth not flatter, face, or feign.
  REIGNIER. Upon thy princely warrant I descend
    To give thee answer of thy just demand.
                                    Exit REIGNIER from the walls
  SUFFOLK. And here I will expect thy coming.

                Trumpets sound. Enter REIGNIER below

  REIGNIER. Welcome, brave Earl, into our territories;
    Command in Anjou what your Honour pleases.
  SUFFOLK. Thanks, Reignier, happy for so sweet a child,
    Fit to be made companion with a king.
    What answer makes your Grace unto my suit?
  REIGNIER. Since thou dost deign to woo her little worth
    To be the princely bride of such a lord,
    Upon condition I may quietly
    Enjoy mine own, the country Maine and Anjou,
    Free from oppression or the stroke of war,
    My daughter shall be Henry's, if he please.
  SUFFOLK. That is her ransom; I deliver her.
    And those two counties I will undertake
    Your Grace shall well and quietly enjoy.
  REIGNIER. And I again, in Henry's royal name,
    As deputy unto that gracious king,
    Give thee her hand for sign of plighted faith.
  SUFFOLK. Reignier of France, I give thee kingly thanks,
    Because this is in traffic of a king.
    [Aside]  And yet, methinks, I could be well content
    To be mine own attorney in this case.
    I'll over then to England with this news,
    And make this marriage to be solemniz'd.
    So, farewell, Reignier. Set this diamond safe
    In golden palaces, as it becomes.
  REIGNIER. I do embrace thee as I would embrace
    The Christian prince, King Henry, were he here.
  MARGARET. Farewell, my lord. Good wishes, praise, and
    prayers,
    Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret.          [She is going]
  SUFFOLK. Farewell, sweet madam. But hark you, Margaret
    No princely commendations to my king?
  MARGARET. Such commendations as becomes a maid,
    A virgin, and his servant, say to him.
  SUFFOLK. Words sweetly plac'd and modestly directed.
    But, madam, I must trouble you again
    No loving token to his Majesty?
  MARGARET. Yes, my good lord: a pure unspotted heart,
    Never yet taint with love, I send the King.
  SUFFOLK. And this withal.                         [Kisses her]
  MARGARET. That for thyself, I will not so presume
    To send such peevish tokens to a king.
                                    Exeunt REIGNIER and MARGARET
  SUFFOLK. O, wert thou for myself! But, Suffolk, stay;
    Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth:
    There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk.
    Solicit Henry with her wondrous praise.
    Bethink thee on her virtues that surmount,
    And natural graces that extinguish art;
    Repeat their semblance often on the seas,
    That, when thou com'st to kneel at Henry's feet,
    Thou mayst bereave him of his wits with wonder.         Exit

                               SCENE 4.

                  Camp of the DUKE OF YORK in Anjou

                   Enter YORK, WARWICK, and others
  YORK. Bring forth that sorceress, condemn'd to burn.

              Enter LA PUCELLE, guarded, and a SHEPHERD

  SHEPHERD. Ah, Joan, this kills thy father's heart outright!
    Have I sought every country far and near,
    And, now it is my chance to find thee out,
    Must I behold thy timeless cruel death?
    Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I'll die with thee!
  PUCELLE. Decrepit miser! base ignoble wretch!
    I am descended of a gentler blood;
    Thou art no father nor no friend of mine.
  SHEPHERD. Out, out! My lords, an please you, 'tis not so;
    I did beget her, all the parish knows.
    Her mother liveth yet, can testify
    She was the first fruit of my bach'lorship.
  WARWICK. Graceless, wilt thou deny thy parentage?
  YORK. This argues what her kind of life hath been-
    Wicked and vile; and so her death concludes.
  SHEPHERD. Fie, Joan, that thou wilt be so obstacle!
    God knows thou art a collop of my flesh;
    And for thy sake have I shed many a tear.
    Deny me not, I prithee, gentle Joan.
  PUCELLE. Peasant, avaunt! You have suborn'd this man
    Of purpose to obscure my noble birth.
  SHEPHERD. 'Tis true, I gave a noble to the priest
    The morn that I was wedded to her mother.
    Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl.
    Wilt thou not stoop? Now cursed be the time
    Of thy nativity. I would the milk
    Thy mother gave thee when thou suck'dst her breast
    Had been a little ratsbane for thy sake.
    Or else, when thou didst keep my lambs afield,
    I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee.
    Dost thou deny thy father, cursed drab?
    O, burn her, burn her! Hanging is too good.             Exit
  YORK. Take her away; for she hath liv'd too long,
    To fill the world with vicious qualities.
  PUCELLE. First let me tell you whom you have condemn'd:
    Not me begotten of a shepherd swain,
    But issued from the progeny of kings;
    Virtuous and holy, chosen from above
    By inspiration of celestial grace,
    To work exceeding miracles on earth.
    I never had to do with wicked spirits.
    But you, that are polluted with your lusts,
    Stain'd with the guiltless blood of innocents,
    Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices,
    Because you want the grace that others have,
    You judge it straight a thing impossible
    To compass wonders but by help of devils.
    No, misconceived! Joan of Arc hath been
    A virgin from her tender infancy,
    Chaste and immaculate in very thought;
    Whose maiden blood, thus rigorously effus'd,
    Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.
  YORK. Ay, ay. Away with her to execution!
  WARWICK. And hark ye, sirs; because she is a maid,
    Spare for no fagots, let there be enow.
    Place barrels of pitch upon the fatal stake,
    That so her torture may be shortened.
  PUCELLE. Will nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?
    Then, Joan, discover thine infirmity
    That warranteth by law to be thy privilege:
    I am with child, ye bloody homicides;
    Murder not then the fruit within my womb,
    Although ye hale me to a violent death.
  YORK. Now heaven forfend! The holy maid with child!
  WARWICK. The greatest miracle that e'er ye wrought:
    Is all your strict preciseness come to this?
  YORK. She and the Dauphin have been juggling.
    I did imagine what would be her refuge.
  WARWICK. Well, go to; we'll have no bastards live;
    Especially since Charles must father it.
  PUCELLE. You are deceiv'd; my child is none of his:
    It was Alencon that enjoy'd my love.
  YORK. Alencon, that notorious Machiavel!
    It dies, an if it had a thousand lives.
  PUCELLE. O, give me leave, I have deluded you.
    'Twas neither Charles nor yet the Duke I nam'd,
    But Reignier, King of Naples, that prevail'd.
  WARWICK. A married man! That's most intolerable.
  YORK. Why, here's a girl! I think she knows not well
    There were so many-whom she may accuse.
  WARWICK. It's sign she hath been liberal and free.
  YORK. And yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.
    Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee.
    Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.
  PUCELLE. Then lead me hence-with whom I leave my
    curse:
    May never glorious sun reflex his beams
    Upon the country where you make abode;
    But darkness and the gloomy shade of death
    Environ you, till mischief and despair
    Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!
                                                   Exit, guarded
  YORK. Break thou in pieces and consume to ashes,
    Thou foul accursed minister of hell!

               Enter CARDINAL BEAUFORT, attended

  CARDINAL. Lord Regent, I do greet your Excellence
    With letters of commission from the King.
    For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,
    Mov'd with remorse of these outrageous broils,
    Have earnestly implor'd a general peace
    Betwixt our nation and the aspiring French;
    And here at hand the Dauphin and his train
    Approacheth, to confer about some matter.
  YORK. Is all our travail turn'd to this effect?
    After the slaughter of so many peers,
    So many captains, gentlemen, and soldiers,
    That in this quarrel have been overthrown
    And sold their bodies for their country's benefit,
    Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?
    Have we not lost most part of all the towns,
    By treason, falsehood, and by treachery,
    Our great progenitors had conquered?
    O Warwick, Warwick! I foresee with grief
    The utter loss of all the realm of France.
  WARWICK. Be patient, York. If we conclude a peace,
    It shall be with such strict and severe covenants
    As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.

        Enter CHARLES, ALENCON, BASTARD, REIGNIER, and others

  CHARLES. Since, lords of England, it is thus agreed
    That peaceful truce shall be proclaim'd in France,
    We come to be informed by yourselves
    What the conditions of that league must be.
  YORK. Speak, Winchester; for boiling choler chokes
    The hollow passage of my poison'd voice,
    By sight of these our baleful enemies.
  CARDINAL. Charles, and the rest, it is enacted thus:
    That, in regard King Henry gives consent,
    Of mere compassion and of lenity,
    To ease your country of distressful war,
    An suffer you to breathe in fruitful peace,
    You shall become true liegemen to his crown;
    And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear
    To pay him tribute and submit thyself,
    Thou shalt be plac'd as viceroy under him,
    And still enjoy thy regal dignity.
  ALENCON. Must he be then as shadow of himself?
    Adorn his temples with a coronet
    And yet, in substance and authority,
    Retain but privilege of a private man?
    This proffer is absurd and reasonless.
  CHARLES. 'Tis known already that I am possess'd
    With more than half the Gallian territories,
    And therein reverenc'd for their lawful king.
    Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd,
    Detract so much from that prerogative
    As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole?
    No, Lord Ambassador; I'll rather keep
    That which I have than, coveting for more,
    Be cast from possibility of all.
  YORK. Insulting Charles! Hast thou by secret means
    Us'd intercession to obtain a league,
    And now the matter grows to compromise
    Stand'st thou aloof upon comparison?
    Either accept the title thou usurp'st,
    Of benefit proceeding from our king
    And not of any challenge of desert,
    Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.
  REIGNIER.  [To CHARLES]  My lord, you do not well in
    obstinacy
    To cavil in the course of this contract.
    If once it be neglected, ten to one
    We shall not find like opportunity.
  ALENCON.  [To CHARLES]  To say the truth, it is your policy
    To save your subjects from such massacre
    And ruthless slaughters as are daily seen
    By our proceeding in hostility;
    And therefore take this compact of a truce,
    Although you break it when your pleasure serves.
  WARWICK. How say'st thou, Charles? Shall our condition
    stand?
  CHARLES. It shall;
    Only reserv'd, you claim no interest
    In any of our towns of garrison.
  YORK. Then swear allegiance to his Majesty:
    As thou art knight, never to disobey
    Nor be rebellious to the crown of England
    Thou, nor thy nobles, to the crown of England.
                    [CHARLES and the rest give tokens of fealty]
    So, now dismiss your army when ye please;
    Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still,
    For here we entertain a solemn peace.                 Exeunt

                              SCENE 5.

                         London. The palace

            Enter SUFFOLK, in conference with the KING,
                     GLOUCESTER and EXETER

  KING HENRY. Your wondrous rare description, noble Earl,
    Of beauteous Margaret hath astonish'd me.
    Her virtues, graced with external gifts,
    Do breed love's settled passions in my heart;
    And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts
    Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide,
    So am I driven by breath of her renown
    Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive
    Where I may have fruition of her love.
  SUFFOLK. Tush, my good lord! This superficial tale
    Is but a preface of her worthy praise.
    The chief perfections of that lovely dame,
    Had I sufficient skill to utter them,
    Would make a volume of enticing lines,
    Able to ravish any dull conceit;
    And, which is more, she is not so divine,
    So full-replete with choice of all delights,
    But with as humble lowliness of mind
    She is content to be at your command
    Command, I mean, of virtuous intents,
    To love and honour Henry as her lord.
  KING HENRY. And otherwise will Henry ne'er presume.
    Therefore, my Lord Protector, give consent
    That Margaret may be England's royal Queen.
  GLOUCESTER. So should I give consent to flatter sin.
    You know, my lord, your Highness is betroth'd
    Unto another lady of esteem.
    How shall we then dispense with that contract,
    And not deface your honour with reproach?
  SUFFOLK. As doth a ruler with unlawful oaths;
    Or one that at a triumph, having vow'd
    To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists
    By reason of his adversary's odds:
    A poor earl's daughter is unequal odds,
    And therefore may be broke without offence.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, what, I pray, is Margaret more than
    that?
    Her father is no better than an earl,
    Although in glorious titles he excel.
  SUFFOLK. Yes, my lord, her father is a king,
    The King of Naples and Jerusalem;
    And of such great authority in France
    As his alliance will confirm our peace,
    And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.
  GLOUCESTER. And so the Earl of Armagnac may do,
    Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.
  EXETER. Beside, his wealth doth warrant a liberal dower;
    Where Reignier sooner will receive than give.
  SUFFOLK. A dow'r, my lords! Disgrace not so your king,
    That he should be so abject, base, and poor,
    To choose for wealth and not for perfect love.
    Henry is able to enrich his queen,
    And not to seek a queen to make him rich.
    So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,
    As market-men for oxen, sheep, or horse.
    Marriage is a matter of more worth
    Than to be dealt in by attorneyship;
    Not whom we will, but whom his Grace affects,
    Must be companion of his nuptial bed.
    And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,
    It most of all these reasons bindeth us
    In our opinions she should be preferr'd;
    For what is wedlock forced but a hell,
    An age of discord and continual strife?
    Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,
    And is a pattern of celestial peace.
    Whom should we match with Henry, being a king,
    But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?
    Her peerless feature, joined with her birth,
    Approves her fit for none but for a king;
    Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit,
    More than in women commonly is seen,
    Will answer our hope in issue of a king;
    For Henry, son unto a conqueror,
    Is likely to beget more conquerors,
    If with a lady of so high resolve
    As is fair Margaret he be link'd in love.
    Then yield, my lords; and here conclude with me
    That Margaret shall be Queen, and none but she.
  KING HENRY. Whether it be through force of your report,
    My noble Lord of Suffolk, or for that
    My tender youth was never yet attaint
    With any passion of inflaming love,
    I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,
    I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,
    Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,
    As I am sick with working of my thoughts.
    Take therefore shipping; post, my lord, to France;
    Agree to any covenants; and procure
    That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come
    To cross the seas to England, and be crown'd
    King Henry's faithful and anointed queen.
    For your expenses and sufficient charge,
    Among the people gather up a tenth.
    Be gone, I say; for till you do return
    I rest perplexed with a thousand cares.
    And you, good uncle, banish all offence:
    If you do censure me by what you were,
    Not what you are, I know it will excuse
    This sudden execution of my will.
    And so conduct me where, from company,
    I may revolve and ruminate my grief.                    Exit
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.
                                    Exeunt GLOUCESTER and EXETER
  SUFFOLK. Thus Suffolk hath prevail'd; and thus he goes,
    As did the youthful Paris once to Greece,
    With hope to find the like event in love
    But prosper better than the Troyan did.
    Margaret shall now be Queen, and rule the King;
    But I will rule both her, the King, and realm.          Exit

THE END

1591



THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

Dramatis Personae

  KING HENRY THE SIXTH
  HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his uncle
  CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, great-uncle to the King
  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK
  EDWARD and RICHARD, his sons
  DUKE OF SOMERSET
  DUKE OF SUFFOLK
  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
  LORD CLIFFORD
  YOUNG CLIFFORD, his son
  EARL OF SALISBURY
  EARL OF WARWICK
  LORD SCALES
  LORD SAY
  SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD
  WILLIAM STAFFORD, his brother
  SIR JOHN STANLEY
  VAUX
  MATTHEW GOFFE
  A LIEUTENANT, a SHIPMASTER, a MASTER'S MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE
  TWO GENTLEMEN, prisoners with Suffolk
  JOHN HUME and JOHN SOUTHWELL, two priests
  ROGER BOLINGBROKE, a conjurer
  A SPIRIT raised by him
  THOMAS HORNER, an armourer
  PETER, his man
  CLERK OF CHATHAM
  MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS
  SAUNDER SIMPCOX, an impostor
  ALEXANDER IDEN, a Kentish gentleman
  JACK CADE, a rebel
  GEORGE BEVIS, JOHN HOLLAND, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH THE WEAVER,
    MICHAEL, &c., followers of Cade
  TWO MURDERERS

  MARGARET, Queen to King Henry
  ELEANOR, Duchess of Gloucester
  MARGERY JOURDAIN, a witch
  WIFE to SIMPCOX

  Lords, Ladies, and Attendants; Petitioners, Aldermen, a Herald,
    a Beadle, a Sheriff, Officers, Citizens, Prentices, Falconers,
    Guards, Soldiers, Messengers, &c.

SCENE: England

ACT I. SCENE I. London. The palace

Flourish of trumpets; then hautboys. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY OF
GLOUCESTER, SALISBURY, WARWICK, and CARDINAL BEAUFORT, on the one side;
the QUEEN, SUFFOLK, YORK, SOMERSET, and BUCKINGHAM, on the other

  SUFFOLK. As by your high imperial Majesty
    I had in charge at my depart for France,
    As procurator to your Excellence,
    To marry Princess Margaret for your Grace;
    So, in the famous ancient city Tours,
    In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,
    The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber, Bretagne, and Alencon,
    Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops,
    I have perform'd my task, and was espous'd;
    And humbly now upon my bended knee,
    In sight of England and her lordly peers,
    Deliver up my title in the Queen
    To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
    Of that great shadow I did represent:
    The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,
    The fairest queen that ever king receiv'd.
  KING HENRY. Suffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:
    I can express no kinder sign of love
    Than this kind kiss. O Lord, that lends me life,
    Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
    For thou hast given me in this beauteous face
    A world of earthly blessings to my soul,
    If sympathy of love unite our thoughts.
  QUEEN. Great King of England, and my gracious lord,
    The mutual conference that my mind hath had,
    By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,
    In courtly company or at my beads,
    With you, mine alder-liefest sovereign,
    Makes me the bolder to salute my king
    With ruder terms, such as my wit affords
    And over-joy of heart doth minister.
  KING HENRY. Her sight did ravish, but her grace in speech,
    Her words y-clad with wisdom's majesty,
    Makes me from wond'ring fall to weeping joys,
    Such is the fulness of my heart's content.
    Lords, with one cheerful voice welcome my love.
  ALL. [Kneeling] Long live Queen Margaret, England's happiness!
  QUEEN. We thank you all.                            [Flourish]
  SUFFOLK. My Lord Protector, so it please your Grace,
    Here are the articles of contracted peace
    Between our sovereign and the French King Charles,
    For eighteen months concluded by consent.
  GLOUCESTER. [Reads] 'Imprimis: It is agreed between the French King
    Charles and William de la Pole, Marquess of Suffolk, ambassador
    for Henry King of England, that the said Henry shall espouse the
    Lady Margaret, daughter unto Reignier King of Naples, Sicilia,
    and Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere the thirtieth
    of May next ensuing.
      Item: That the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine shall be
    released and delivered to the King her father'-
                                           [Lets the paper fall]
  KING HENRY. Uncle, how now!
  GLOUCESTER. Pardon me, gracious lord;
    Some sudden qualm hath struck me at the heart,
    And dimm'd mine eyes, that I can read no further.
  KING HENRY. Uncle of Winchester, I pray read on.
  CARDINAL. [Reads] 'Item: It is further agreed between them that the
    duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered over
    to the King her father, and she sent over of the King of
    England's own proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.'
  KING HENRY. They please us well. Lord Marquess, kneel down.
    We here create thee the first Duke of Suffolk,
    And girt thee with the sword. Cousin of York,
    We here discharge your Grace from being Regent
    I' th' parts of France, till term of eighteen months
    Be full expir'd. Thanks, uncle Winchester,
    Gloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,
    Salisbury, and Warwick;
    We thank you all for this great favour done
    In entertainment to my princely queen.
    Come, let us in, and with all speed provide
    To see her coronation be perform'd.
                                 Exeunt KING, QUEEN, and SUFFOLK
  GLOUCESTER. Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,
    To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief
    Your grief, the common grief of all the land.
    What! did my brother Henry spend his youth,
    His valour, coin, and people, in the wars?
    Did he so often lodge in open field,
    In winter's cold and summer's parching heat,
    To conquer France, his true inheritance?
    And did my brother Bedford toil his wits
    To keep by policy what Henry got?
    Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,
    Brave York, Salisbury, and victorious Warwick,
    Receiv'd deep scars in France and Normandy?
    Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,
    With all the learned Council of the realm,
    Studied so long, sat in the Council House
    Early and late, debating to and fro
    How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe?
    And had his Highness in his infancy
    Crowned in Paris, in despite of foes?
    And shall these labours and these honours die?
    Shall Henry's conquest, Bedford's vigilance,
    Your deeds of war, and all our counsel die?
    O peers of England, shameful is this league!
    Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,
    Blotting your names from books of memory,
    Razing the characters of your renown,
    Defacing monuments of conquer'd France,
    Undoing all, as all had never been!
  CARDINAL. Nephew, what means this passionate discourse,
    This peroration with such circumstance?
    For France, 'tis ours; and we will keep it still.
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, uncle, we will keep it if we can;
    But now it is impossible we should.
    Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roast,
    Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine
    Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style
    Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.
  SALISBURY. Now, by the death of Him that died for all,
    These counties were the keys of Normandy!
    But wherefore weeps Warwick, my valiant son?
  WARWICK. For grief that they are past recovery;
    For were there hope to conquer them again
    My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.
    Anjou and Maine! myself did win them both;
    Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer;
    And are the cities that I got with wounds
    Deliver'd up again with peaceful words?
    Mort Dieu!
  YORK. For Suffolk's duke, may he be suffocate,
    That dims the honour of this warlike isle!
    France should have torn and rent my very heart
    Before I would have yielded to this league.
    I never read but England's kings have had
    Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives;
    And our King Henry gives away his own
    To match with her that brings no vantages.
  GLOUCESTER. A proper jest, and never heard before,
    That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth
    For costs and charges in transporting her!
    She should have stay'd in France, and starv'd in France,
    Before-
  CARDINAL. My Lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:
    It was the pleasure of my lord the King.
  GLOUCESTER. My Lord of Winchester, I know your mind;
    'Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,
    But 'tis my presence that doth trouble ye.
    Rancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face
    I see thy fury; if I longer stay
    We shall begin our ancient bickerings.
    Lordings, farewell; and say, when I am gone,
    I prophesied France will be lost ere long.              Exit
  CARDINAL. So, there goes our Protector in a rage.
    'Tis known to you he is mine enemy;
    Nay, more, an enemy unto you all,
    And no great friend, I fear me, to the King.
    Consider, lords, he is the next of blood
    And heir apparent to the English crown.
    Had Henry got an empire by his marriage
    And all the wealthy kingdoms of the west,
    There's reason he should be displeas'd at it.
    Look to it, lords; let not his smoothing words
    Bewitch your hearts; be wise and circumspect.
    What though the common people favour him,
    Calling him 'Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester,'
    Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice
    'Jesu maintain your royal excellence!'
    With 'God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!'
    I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,
    He will be found a dangerous Protector.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why should he then protect our sovereign,
    He being of age to govern of himself?
    Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,
    And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,
    We'll quickly hoise Duke Humphrey from his seat.
  CARDINAL. This weighty business will not brook delay;
    I'll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.                  Exit
  SOMERSET. Cousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey's pride
    And greatness of his place be grief to us,
    Yet let us watch the haughty cardinal;
    His insolence is more intolerable
    Than all the princes in the land beside;
    If Gloucester be displac'd, he'll be Protector.
  BUCKINGHAM. Or thou or I, Somerset, will be Protector,
    Despite Duke Humphrey or the Cardinal.
                                  Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and SOMERSET
  SALISBURY. Pride went before, ambition follows him.
    While these do labour for their own preferment,
    Behoves it us to labour for the realm.
    I never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester
    Did bear him like a noble gentleman.
    Oft have I seen the haughty Cardinal-
    More like a soldier than a man o' th' church,
    As stout and proud as he were lord of all-
    Swear like a ruffian and demean himself
    Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.
    Warwick my son, the comfort of my age,
    Thy deeds, thy plainness, and thy housekeeping,
    Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,
    Excepting none but good Duke Humphrey.
    And, brother York, thy acts in Ireland,
    In bringing them to civil discipline,
    Thy late exploits done in the heart of France
    When thou wert Regent for our sovereign,
    Have made thee fear'd and honour'd of the people:
    Join we together for the public good,
    In what we can, to bridle and suppress
    The pride of Suffolk and the Cardinal,
    With Somerset's and Buckingham's ambition;
    And, as we may, cherish Duke Humphrey's deeds
    While they do tend the profit of the land.
  WARWICK. So God help Warwick, as he loves the land
    And common profit of his country!
  YORK. And so says York- [Aside] for he hath greatest cause.
  SALISBURY. Then let's make haste away and look unto the main.
  WARWICK. Unto the main! O father, Maine is lost-
    That Maine which by main force Warwick did win,
    And would have kept so long as breath did last.
    Main chance, father, you meant; but I meant Maine,
    Which I will win from France, or else be slain.
                                    Exeunt WARWICK and SALISBURY
  YORK. Anjou and Maine are given to the French;
    Paris is lost; the state of Normandy
    Stands on a tickle point now they are gone.
    Suffolk concluded on the articles;
    The peers agreed; and Henry was well pleas'd
    To changes two dukedoms for a duke's fair daughter.
    I cannot blame them all: what is't to them?
    'Tis thine they give away, and not their own.
    Pirates may make cheap pennyworths of their pillage,
    And purchase friends, and give to courtezans,
    Still revelling like lords till all be gone;
    While as the silly owner of the goods
    Weeps over them and wrings his hapless hands
    And shakes his head and trembling stands aloof,
    While all is shar'd and all is borne away,
    Ready to starve and dare not touch his own.
    So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,
    While his own lands are bargain'd for and sold.
    Methinks the realms of England, France, and Ireland,
    Bear that proportion to my flesh and blood
    As did the fatal brand Althaea burnt
    Unto the prince's heart of Calydon.
    Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!
    Cold news for me, for I had hope of France,
    Even as I have of fertile England's soil.
    A day will come when York shall claim his own;
    And therefore I will take the Nevils' parts,
    And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,
    And when I spy advantage, claim the crown,
    For that's the golden mark I seek to hit.
    Nor shall proud Lancaster usurp my right,
    Nor hold the sceptre in his childish fist,
    Nor wear the diadem upon his head,
    Whose church-like humours fits not for a crown.
    Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve;
    Watch thou and wake, when others be asleep,
    To pry into the secrets of the state;
    Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love
    With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,
    And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars;
    Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,
    With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd,
    And in my standard bear the arms of York,
    To grapple with the house of Lancaster;
    And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown,
    Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.       Exit

SCENE II. The DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S house

Enter DUKE and his wife ELEANOR

  DUCHESS. Why droops my lord, like over-ripen'd corn
    Hanging the head at Ceres' plenteous load?
    Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,
    As frowning at the favours of the world?
    Why are thine eyes fix'd to the sullen earth,
    Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?
    What see'st thou there? King Henry's diadem,
    Enchas'd with all the honours of the world?
    If so, gaze on, and grovel on thy face
    Until thy head be circled with the same.
    Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.
    What, is't too short? I'll lengthen it with mine;
    And having both together heav'd it up,
    We'll both together lift our heads to heaven,
    And never more abase our sight so low
    As to vouchsafe one glance unto the ground.
  GLOUCESTER. O Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,
    Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts!
    And may that thought, when I imagine ill
    Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,
    Be my last breathing in this mortal world!
    My troublous dreams this night doth make me sad.
  DUCHESS. What dream'd my lord? Tell me, and I'll requite it
    With sweet rehearsal of my morning's dream.
  GLOUCESTER. Methought this staff, mine office-badge in court,
    Was broke in twain; by whom I have forgot,
    But, as I think, it was by th' Cardinal;
    And on the pieces of the broken wand
    Were plac'd the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset
    And William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk.
    This was my dream; what it doth bode God knows.
  DUCHESS. Tut, this was nothing but an argument
    That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove
    Shall lose his head for his presumption.
    But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet Duke:
    Methought I sat in seat of majesty
    In the cathedral church of Westminster,
    And in that chair where kings and queens were crown'd;
    Where Henry and Dame Margaret kneel'd to me,
    And on my head did set the diadem.
  GLOUCESTER. Nay, Eleanor, then must I chide outright.
    Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtur'd Eleanor!
    Art thou not second woman in the realm,
    And the Protector's wife, belov'd of him?
    Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command
    Above the reach or compass of thy thought?
    And wilt thou still be hammering treachery
    To tumble down thy husband and thyself
    From top of honour to disgrace's feet?
    Away from me, and let me hear no more!
  DUCHESS. What, what, my lord! Are you so choleric
    With Eleanor for telling but her dream?
    Next time I'll keep my dreams unto myself
    And not be check'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Nay, be not angry; I am pleas'd again.

                       Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My Lord Protector, 'tis his Highness' pleasure
    You do prepare to ride unto Saint Albans,
    Where as the King and Queen do mean to hawk.
  GLOUCESTER. I go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?
  DUCHESS. Yes, my good lord, I'll follow presently.
                                 Exeunt GLOUCESTER and MESSENGER
    Follow I must; I cannot go before,
    While Gloucester bears this base and humble mind.
    Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
    I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks
    And smooth my way upon their headless necks;
    And, being a woman, I will not be slack
    To play my part in Fortune's pageant.
    Where are you there, Sir John? Nay, fear not, man,
    We are alone; here's none but thee and I.

                           Enter HUME

  HUME. Jesus preserve your royal Majesty!
  DUCHESS. What say'st thou? Majesty! I am but Grace.
  HUME. But, by the grace of God and Hume's advice,
    Your Grace's title shall be multiplied.
  DUCHESS. What say'st thou, man? Hast thou as yet conferr'd
    With Margery Jourdain, the cunning witch of Eie,
    With Roger Bolingbroke, the conjurer?
    And will they undertake to do me good?
  HUME. This they have promised, to show your Highness
    A spirit rais'd from depth of underground
    That shall make answer to such questions
    As by your Grace shall be propounded him
  DUCHESS. It is enough; I'll think upon the questions;
    When from Saint Albans we do make return
    We'll see these things effected to the full.
    Here, Hume, take this reward; make merry, man,
    With thy confederates in this weighty cause.            Exit
  HUME. Hume must make merry with the Duchess' gold;
    Marry, and shall. But, how now, Sir John Hume!
    Seal up your lips and give no words but mum:
    The business asketh silent secrecy.
    Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:
    Gold cannot come amiss were she a devil.
    Yet have I gold flies from another coast-
    I dare not say from the rich Cardinal,
    And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk;
    Yet I do find it so; for, to be plain,
    They, knowing Dame Eleanor's aspiring humour,
    Have hired me to undermine the Duchess,
    And buzz these conjurations in her brain.
    They say 'A crafty knave does need no broker';
    Yet am I Suffolk and the Cardinal's broker.
    Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near
    To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.
    Well, so its stands; and thus, I fear, at last
    Hume's knavery will be the Duchess' wreck,
    And her attainture will be Humphrey's fall
    Sort how it will, I shall have gold for all.            Exit

SCENE III. London. The palace

Enter three or four PETITIONERS, PETER, the Armourer's man, being one

  FIRST PETITIONER. My masters, let's stand close; my Lord Protector
    will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our
    supplications in the quill.
  SECOND PETITIONER. Marry, the Lord protect him, for he's a good
    man, Jesu bless him!

                       Enter SUFFOLK and QUEEN

  FIRST PETITIONER. Here 'a comes, methinks, and the Queen with him.
    I'll be the first, sure.
  SECOND PETITIONER. Come back, fool; this is the Duke of Suffolk and
    not my Lord Protector.
  SUFFOLK. How now, fellow! Wouldst anything with me?
  FIRST PETITIONER. I pray, my lord, pardon me; I took ye for my Lord
    Protector.
  QUEEN. [Reads] 'To my Lord Protector!' Are your supplications to
    his lordship? Let me see them. What is thine?
  FIRST PETITIONER. Mine is, an't please your Grace, against John
    Goodman, my Lord Cardinal's man, for keeping my house and lands,
    and wife and all, from me.
  SUFFOLK. Thy wife too! That's some wrong indeed. What's yours?
    What's here! [Reads] 'Against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing
    the commons of Melford.' How now, sir knave!
  SECOND PETITIONER. Alas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our
    whole township.
  PETER. [Presenting his petition] Against my master, Thomas Horner,
    for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the crown.
  QUEEN. What say'st thou? Did the Duke of York say he was rightful
    heir to the crown?
  PETER. That my master was? No, forsooth. My master said that he
    was, and that the King was an usurper.
  SUFFOLK. Who is there? [Enter servant] Take this fellow in, and
    send for his master with a pursuivant presently. We'll hear more
    of your matter before the King.
                                         Exit servant with PETER
  QUEEN. And as for you, that love to be protected
    Under the wings of our Protector's grace,
    Begin your suits anew, and sue to him.
                                       [Tears the supplications]
    Away, base cullions! Suffolk, let them go.
  ALL. Come, let's be gone.                               Exeunt
  QUEEN. My Lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise,
    Is this the fashions in the court of England?
    Is this the government of Britain's isle,
    And this the royalty of Albion's king?
    What, shall King Henry be a pupil still,
    Under the surly Gloucester's governance?
    Am I a queen in title and in style,
    And must be made a subject to a duke?
    I tell thee, Pole, when in the city Tours
    Thou ran'st a tilt in honour of my love
    And stol'st away the ladies' hearts of France,
    I thought King Henry had resembled thee
    In courage, courtship, and proportion;
    But all his mind is bent to holiness,
    To number Ave-Maries on his beads;
    His champions are the prophets and apostles;
    His weapons, holy saws of sacred writ;
    His study is his tilt-yard, and his loves
    Are brazen images of canonized saints.
    I would the college of the Cardinals
    Would choose him Pope, and carry him to Rome,
    And set the triple crown upon his head;
    That were a state fit for his holiness.
  SUFFOLK. Madam, be patient. As I was cause
    Your Highness came to England, so will I
    In England work your Grace's full content.
  QUEEN. Beside the haughty Protector, have we Beaufort
    The imperious churchman; Somerset, Buckingham,
    And grumbling York; and not the least of these
    But can do more in England than the King.
  SUFFOLK. And he of these that can do most of all
    Cannot do more in England than the Nevils;
    Salisbury and Warwick are no simple peers.
  QUEEN. Not all these lords do vex me half so much
    As that proud dame, the Lord Protector's wife.
    She sweeps it through the court with troops of ladies,
    More like an empress than Duke Humphrey's wife.
    Strangers in court do take her for the Queen.
    She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
    And in her heart she scorns our poverty;
    Shall I not live to be aveng'd on her?
    Contemptuous base-born callet as she is,
    She vaunted 'mongst her minions t' other day
    The very train of her worst wearing gown
    Was better worth than all my father's lands,
    Till Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.
  SUFFOLK. Madam, myself have lim'd a bush for her,
    And plac'd a quire of such enticing birds
    That she will light to listen to the lays,
    And never mount to trouble you again.
    So, let her rest. And, madam, list to me,
    For I am bold to counsel you in this:
    Although we fancy not the Cardinal,
    Yet must we join with him and with the lords,
    Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.
    As for the Duke of York, this late complaint
    Will make but little for his benefit.
    So one by one we'll weed them all at last,
    And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.

          Sound a sennet. Enter the KING, DUKE HUMPHREY,
     CARDINAL BEAUFORT, BUCKINGHAM, YORK, SOMERSET, SALISBURY,
              WARWICK, and the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER

  KING HENRY. For my part, noble lords, I care not which:
    Or Somerset or York, all's one to me.
  YORK. If York have ill demean'd himself in France,
    Then let him be denay'd the regentship.
  SOMERSET. If Somerset be unworthy of the place,
    Let York be Regent; I will yield to him.
  WARWICK. Whether your Grace be worthy, yea or no,
    Dispute not that; York is the worthier.
  CARDINAL. Ambitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.
  WARWICK. The Cardinal's not my better in the field.
  BUCKINGHAM. All in this presence are thy betters, Warwick.
  WARWICK. Warwick may live to be the best of all.
  SALISBURY. Peace, son! And show some reason, Buckingham,
    Why Somerset should be preferr'd in this.
  QUEEN. Because the King, forsooth, will have it so.
  GLOUCESTER. Madam, the King is old enough himself
    To give his censure. These are no women's matters.
  QUEEN. If he be old enough, what needs your Grace
    To be Protector of his Excellence?
  GLOUCESTER. Madam, I am Protector of the realm;
    And at his pleasure will resign my place.
  SUFFOLK. Resign it then, and leave thine insolence.
    Since thou wert king- as who is king but thou?-
    The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack,
    The Dauphin hath prevail'd beyond the seas,
    And all the peers and nobles of the realm
    Have been as bondmen to thy sovereignty.
  CARDINAL. The commons hast thou rack'd; the clergy's bags
    Are lank and lean with thy extortions.
  SOMERSET. Thy sumptuous buildings and thy wife's attire
    Have cost a mass of public treasury.
  BUCKINGHAM. Thy cruelty in execution
    Upon offenders hath exceeded law,
    And left thee to the mercy of the law.
  QUEEN. Thy sale of offices and towns in France,
    If they were known, as the suspect is great,
    Would make thee quickly hop without thy head.
                  Exit GLOUCESTER. The QUEEN drops QUEEN her fan
    Give me my fan. What, minion, can ye not?
                        [She gives the DUCHESS a box on the ear]
    I cry your mercy, madam; was it you?
  DUCHESS. Was't I? Yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman.
    Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
    I could set my ten commandments in your face.
  KING HENRY. Sweet aunt, be quiet; 'twas against her will.
  DUCHESS. Against her will, good King? Look to 't in time;
    She'll hamper thee and dandle thee like a baby.
    Though in this place most master wear no breeches,
    She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unreveng'd.           Exit
  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,
    And listen after Humphrey, how he proceeds.
    She's tickled now; her fume needs no spurs,
    She'll gallop far enough to her destruction.            Exit

                      Re-enter GLOUCESTER

  GLOUCESTER. Now, lords, my choler being overblown
    With walking once about the quadrangle,
    I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.
    As for your spiteful false objections,
    Prove them, and I lie open to the law;
    But God in mercy so deal with my soul
    As I in duty love my king and country!
    But to the matter that we have in hand:
    I say, my sovereign, York is meetest man
    To be your Regent in the realm of France.
  SUFFOLK. Before we make election, give me leave
    To show some reason, of no little force,
    That York is most unmeet of any man.
  YORK. I'll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:
    First, for I cannot flatter thee in pride;
    Next, if I be appointed for the place,
    My Lord of Somerset will keep me here
    Without discharge, money, or furniture,
    Till France be won into the Dauphin's hands.
    Last time I danc'd attendance on his will
    Till Paris was besieg'd, famish'd, and lost.
  WARWICK. That can I witness; and a fouler fact
    Did never traitor in the land commit.
  SUFFOLK. Peace, headstrong Warwick!
  WARWICK. Image of pride, why should I hold my peace?

        Enter HORNER, the Armourer, and his man PETER, guarded

  SUFFOLK. Because here is a man accus'd of treason:
    Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!
  YORK. Doth any one accuse York for a traitor?
  KING HENRY. What mean'st thou, Suffolk? Tell me, what are these?
  SUFFOLK. Please it your Majesty, this is the man
    That doth accuse his master of high treason;
    His words were these: that Richard Duke of York
    Was rightful heir unto the English crown,
    And that your Majesty was an usurper.
  KING HENRY. Say, man, were these thy words?
  HORNER. An't shall please your Majesty, I never said nor thought
    any such matter. God is my witness, I am falsely accus'd by the
    villain.
  PETER. [Holding up his hands] By these ten bones, my lords, he did
    speak them to me in the garret one night, as we were scouring my
    Lord of York's armour.
  YORK. Base dunghill villain and mechanical,
    I'll have thy head for this thy traitor's speech.
    I do beseech your royal Majesty,
    Let him have all the rigour of the law.
  HORNER`. Alas, my lord, hang me if ever I spake the words. My
    accuser is my prentice; and when I did correct him for his fault
    the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even with
    me. I have good witness of this; therefore I beseech your
    Majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a villain's
    accusation.
  KING HENRY. Uncle, what shall we say to this in law?
  GLOUCESTER. This doom, my lord, if I may judge:
    Let Somerset be Regent o'er the French,
    Because in York this breeds suspicion;
    And let these have a day appointed them
    For single combat in convenient place,
    For he hath witness of his servant's malice.
    This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey's doom.
  SOMERSET. I humbly thank your royal Majesty.
  HORNER. And I accept the combat willingly.
  PETER. Alas, my lord, I cannot fight; for God's sake, pity my case!
    The spite of man prevaileth against me. O Lord, have mercy upon
    me, I shall never be able to fight a blow! O Lord, my heart!
  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, or you must fight or else be hang'd.
  KING HENRY. Away with them to prison; and the day of combat shall
    be the last of the next month.
    Come, Somerset, we'll see thee sent away.   Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The DUKE OF GLOUCESTER'S garden

Enter MARGERY JOURDAIN, the witch; the two priests, HUME and SOUTHWELL;
and BOLINGBROKE

  HUME. Come, my masters; the Duchess, I tell you, expects
    performance of your promises.
  BOLINGBROKE. Master Hume, we are therefore provided; will her
    ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?
  HUME. Ay, what else? Fear you not her courage.
  BOLINGBROKE. I have heard her reported to be a woman of an
    invincible spirit; but it shall be convenient, Master Hume, that
    you be by her aloft while we be busy below; and so I pray you go,
    in God's name, and leave us. [Exit HUME] Mother Jourdain, be you
    prostrate and grovel on the earth; John Southwell, read you; and
    let us to our work.

                 Enter DUCHESS aloft, followed by HUME

  DUCHESS. Well said, my masters; and welcome all. To this gear, the
    sooner the better.
  BOLINGBROKE. Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:
    Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
    The time of night when Troy was set on fire;
    The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,
    And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves-
    That time best fits the work we have in hand.
    Madam, sit you, and fear not: whom we raise
    We will make fast within a hallow'd verge.

     [Here they do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle;
          BOLINGBROKE or SOUTHWELL reads: 'Conjuro te,' &c.
     It thunders and lightens terribly; then the SPIRIT riseth]

  SPIRIT. Adsum.
  MARGERY JOURDAIN. Asmath,
    By the eternal God, whose name and power
    Thou tremblest at, answer that I shall ask;
    For till thou speak thou shalt not pass from hence.
  SPIRIT. Ask what thou wilt; that I had said and done.
  BOLINGBROKE. [Reads] 'First of the king: what shall of him become?'
  SPIRIT. The Duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;
    But him outlive, and die a violent death.
             [As the SPIRIT speaks, SOUTHWELL writes the answer]
  BOLINGBROKE. 'What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?'
  SPIRIT. By water shall he die and take his end.
  BOLINGBROKE. 'What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?'
  SPIRIT. Let him shun castles:
    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains
    Than where castles mounted stand.
    Have done, for more I hardly can endure.
  BOLINGBROKE. Descend to darkness and the burning lake;
    False fiend, avoid!       Thunder and lightning. Exit SPIRIT

               Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUKE OF
                 BUCKINGHAM with guard, and break in

  YORK. Lay hands upon these traitors and their trash.
    Beldam, I think we watch'd you at an inch.
    What, madam, are you there? The King and commonweal
    Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains;
    My Lord Protector will, I doubt it not,
    See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts.
  DUCHESS. Not half so bad as thine to England's king,
    Injurious Duke, that threatest where's no cause.
  BUCKINGHAM. True, madam, none at all. What can you this?
    Away with them! let them be clapp'd up close,
    And kept asunder. You, madam, shall with us.
    Stafford, take her to thee.
    We'll see your trinkets here all forthcoming.
    All, away!
                Exeunt, above, DUCHESS and HUME, guarded; below,
                       WITCH, SOUTHWELL and BOLINGBROKE, guarded
  YORK. Lord Buckingham, methinks you watch'd her well.
    A pretty plot, well chosen to build upon!
    Now, pray, my lord, let's see the devil's writ.
    What have we here?                                   [Reads]
    'The duke yet lives that Henry shall depose;
    But him outlive, and die a violent death.'
    Why, this is just
    'Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.'
    Well, to the rest:
    'Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?'
    'By water shall he die and take his end.'
    'What shall betide the Duke of Somerset?'
    'Let him shun castles;
    Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains
    Than where castles mounted stand.'
    Come, come, my lords;
    These oracles are hardly attain'd,
    And hardly understood.
    The King is now in progress towards Saint Albans,
    With him the husband of this lovely lady;
    Thither go these news as fast as horse can carry them-
    A sorry breakfast for my Lord Protector.
  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace shall give me leave, my Lord of York,
    To be the post, in hope of his reward.
  YORK. At your pleasure, my good lord.
    Who's within there, ho?

                       Enter a serving-man

    Invite my Lords of Salisbury and Warwick
    To sup with me to-morrow night. Away!                 Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Saint Albans

Enter the KING, QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, CARDINAL, and SUFFOLK, with
Falconers halloing

  QUEEN. Believe me, lords, for flying at the brook,
    I saw not better sport these seven years' day;
    Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high,
    And ten to one old Joan had not gone out.
  KING HENRY. But what a point, my lord, your falcon made,
    And what a pitch she flew above the rest!
    To see how God in all His creatures works!
    Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.
  SUFFOLK. No marvel, an it like your Majesty,
    My Lord Protector's hawks do tow'r so well;
    They know their master loves to be aloft,
    And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch.
  GLOUCESTER. My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind
    That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
  CARDINAL. I thought as much; he would be above the clouds.
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, my lord Cardinal, how think you by that?
    Were it not good your Grace could fly to heaven?
  KING HENRY. The treasury of everlasting joy!
  CARDINAL. Thy heaven is on earth; thine eyes and thoughts
    Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart;
    Pernicious Protector, dangerous peer,
    That smooth'st it so with King and commonweal.
  GLOUCESTER. What, Cardinal, is your priesthood grown peremptory?
    Tantaene animis coelestibus irae?
    Churchmen so hot? Good uncle, hide such malice;
    With such holiness can you do it?
  SUFFOLK. No malice, sir; no more than well becomes
    So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.
  GLOUCESTER. As who, my lord?
  SUFFOLK. Why, as you, my lord,
    An't like your lordly Lord's Protectorship.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.
  QUEEN. And thy ambition, Gloucester.
  KING HENRY. I prithee, peace,
    Good Queen, and whet not on these furious peers;
    For blessed are the peacemakers on earth.
  CARDINAL. Let me be blessed for the peace I make
    Against this proud Protector with my sword!
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Faith, holy uncle, would 'twere
    come to that!
  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Marry, when thou dar'st.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Make up no factious numbers for the
      matter;
    In thine own person answer thy abuse.
  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Ay, where thou dar'st not peep; an
      if thou dar'st,
    This evening on the east side of the grove.
  KING HENRY. How now, my lords!
  CARDINAL. Believe me, cousin Gloucester,
    Had not your man put up the fowl so suddenly,
    We had had more sport. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Come with thy
      two-hand sword.
  GLOUCESTER. True, uncle.
  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Are ye advis'd? The east side of
    the grove?
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CARDINAL] Cardinal, I am with you.
  KING HENRY. Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!
  GLOUCESTER. Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.
    [Aside to CARDINAL] Now, by God's Mother, priest,
    I'll shave your crown for this,
    Or all my fence shall fail.
  CARDINAL. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] Medice, teipsum;
    Protector, see to't well; protect yourself.
  KING HENRY. The winds grow high; so do your stomachs, lords.
    How irksome is this music to my heart!
    When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?
    I pray, my lords, let me compound this strife.

         Enter a TOWNSMAN of Saint Albans, crying 'A miracle!'

  GLOUCESTER. What means this noise?
    Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?
  TOWNSMAN. A miracle! A miracle!
  SUFFOLK. Come to the King, and tell him what miracle.
  TOWNSMAN. Forsooth, a blind man at Saint Albans shrine
    Within this half hour hath receiv'd his sight;
    A man that ne'er saw in his life before.
  KING HENRY. Now God be prais'd that to believing souls
    Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair!

           Enter the MAYOR OF SAINT ALBANS and his brethren,
               bearing Simpcox between two in a chair;
                 his WIFE and a multitude following

  CARDINAL. Here comes the townsmen on procession
    To present your Highness with the man.
  KING HENRY. Great is his comfort in this earthly vale,
    Although by his sight his sin be multiplied.
  GLOUCESTER. Stand by, my masters; bring him near the King;
    His Highness' pleasure is to talk with him.
  KING HENRY. Good fellow, tell us here the circumstance,
    That we for thee may glorify the Lord.
    What, hast thou been long blind and now restor'd?
  SIMPCOX. Born blind, an't please your Grace.
  WIFE. Ay indeed was he.
  SUFFOLK. What woman is this?
  WIFE. His wife, an't like your worship.
  GLOUCESTER. Hadst thou been his mother, thou couldst have better
    told.
  KING HENRY. Where wert thou born?
  SIMPCOX. At Berwick in the north, an't like your Grace.
  KING HENRY. Poor soul, God's goodness hath been great to thee.
    Let never day nor night unhallowed pass,
    But still remember what the Lord hath done.
  QUEEN. Tell me, good fellow, cam'st thou here by chance,
    Or of devotion, to this holy shrine?
  SIMPCOX. God knows, of pure devotion; being call'd
    A hundred times and oft'ner, in my sleep,
    By good Saint Alban, who said 'Simpcox, come,
    Come, offer at my shrine, and I will help thee.'
  WIFE. Most true, forsooth; and many time and oft
    Myself have heard a voice to call him so.
  CARDINAL. What, art thou lame?
  SIMPCOX. Ay, God Almighty help me!
  SUFFOLK. How cam'st thou so?
  SIMPCOX. A fall off of a tree.
  WIFE. A plum tree, master.
  GLOUCESTER. How long hast thou been blind?
  SIMPCOX. O, born so, master!
  GLOUCESTER. What, and wouldst climb a tree?
  SIMPCOX. But that in all my life, when I was a youth.
  WIFE. Too true; and bought his climbing very dear.
  GLOUCESTER. Mass, thou lov'dst plums well, that wouldst venture so.
  SIMPCOX. Alas, good master, my wife desir'd some damsons
    And made me climb, With danger of my life.
  GLOUCESTER. A subtle knave! But yet it shall not serve:
    Let me see thine eyes; wink now; now open them;
    In my opinion yet thou seest not well.
  SIMPCOX. Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and Saint Alban.
  GLOUCESTER. Say'st thou me so? What colour is this cloak of?
  SIMPCOX. Red, master; red as blood.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, that's well said. What colour is my gown of?
  SIMPCOX. Black, forsooth; coal-black as jet.
  KING HENRY. Why, then, thou know'st what colour jet is of?
  SUFFOLK. And yet, I think, jet did he never see.
  GLOUCESTER. But cloaks and gowns before this day a many.
  WIFE. Never before this day in all his life.
  GLOUCESTER. Tell me, sirrah, what's my name?
  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I know not.
  GLOUCESTER. What's his name?
  SIMPCOX. I know not.
  GLOUCESTER. Nor his?
  SIMPCOX. No, indeed, master.
  GLOUCESTER. What's thine own name?
  SIMPCOX. Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.
  GLOUCESTER. Then, Saunder, sit there, the lying'st knave in
    Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou mightst as well
    have known all our names as thus to name the several colours we
    do wear. Sight may distinguish of colours; but suddenly to
    nominate them all, it is impossible. My lords, Saint Alban here
    hath done a miracle; and would ye not think his cunning to be
    great that could restore this cripple to his legs again?
  SIMPCOX. O master, that you could!
  GLOUCESTER. My masters of Saint Albans, have you not beadles in
    your town, and things call'd whips?
  MAYOR. Yes, my lord, if it please your Grace.
  GLOUCESTER. Then send for one presently.
  MAYOR. Sirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.
                                               Exit an attendant
  GLOUCESTER. Now fetch me a stool hither by and by. [A stool
    brought] Now, sirrah, if you mean to save yourself from whipping,
    leap me over this stool and run away.
  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone!
    You go about to torture me in vain.

                         Enter a BEADLE with whips

  GLOUCESTER. Well, sir, we must have you find your legs.
    Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.
  BEADLE. I will, my lord. Come on, sirrah; off with your doublet
    quickly.
  SIMPCOX. Alas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.

           After the BEADLE hath hit him once, he leaps over
           the stool and runs away; and they follow and cry
                             'A miracle!'

  KING HENRY. O God, seest Thou this, and bearest so long?
  QUEEN. It made me laugh to see the villain run.
  GLOUCESTER. Follow the knave, and take this drab away.
  WIFE. Alas, sir, we did it for pure need!
  GLOUCESTER. Let them be whipp'd through every market town till they
    come to Berwick, from whence they came.
                                 Exeunt MAYOR, BEADLE, WIFE, &c.
  CARDINAL. Duke Humphrey has done a miracle to-day.
  SUFFOLK. True; made the lame to leap and fly away.
  GLOUCESTER. But you have done more miracles than I:
    You made in a day, my lord, whole towns to fly.

                         Enter BUCKINGHAM

  KING HENRY. What tidings with our cousin Buckingham?
  BUCKINGHAM. Such as my heart doth tremble to unfold:
    A sort of naughty persons, lewdly bent,
    Under the countenance and confederacy
    Of Lady Eleanor, the Protector's wife,
    The ringleader and head of all this rout,
    Have practis'd dangerously against your state,
    Dealing with witches and with conjurers,
    Whom we have apprehended in the fact,
    Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,
    Demanding of King Henry's life and death
    And other of your Highness' Privy Council,
    As more at large your Grace shall understand.
  CARDINAL. And so, my Lord Protector, by this means
    Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.
    This news, I think, hath turn'd your weapon's edge;
    'Tis like, my lord, you will not keep your hour.
  GLOUCESTER. Ambitious churchman, leave to afflict my heart.
    Sorrow and grief have vanquish'd all my powers;
    And, vanquish'd as I am, I yield to the
    Or to the meanest groom.
  KING HENRY. O God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,
    Heaping confusion on their own heads thereby!
  QUEEN. Gloucester, see here the tainture of thy nest;
    And look thyself be faultless, thou wert best.
  GLOUCESTER. Madam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal
    How I have lov'd my King and commonweal;
    And for my wife I know not how it stands.
    Sorry I am to hear what I have heard.
    Noble she is; but if she have forgot
    Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such
    As, like to pitch, defile nobility,
    I banish her my bed and company
    And give her as a prey to law and shame,
    That hath dishonoured Gloucester's honest name.
  KING HENRY. Well, for this night we will repose us here.
    To-morrow toward London back again
    To look into this business thoroughly
    And call these foul offenders to their answers,
    And poise the cause in justice' equal scales,
    Whose beam stands sure, whose rightful cause prevails.
                                                Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE II. London. The DUKE OF YORK'S garden

Enter YORK, SALISBURY, and WARWICK

  YORK. Now, my good Lords of Salisbury and Warwick,
    Our simple supper ended, give me leave
    In this close walk to satisfy myself
    In craving your opinion of my tide,
    Which is infallible, to England's crown.
  SALISBURY. My lord, I long to hear it at full.
  WARWICK. Sweet York, begin; and if thy claim be good,
    The Nevils are thy subjects to command.
  YORK. Then thus:
    Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons;
    The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;
    The second, William of Hatfield; and the third,
    Lionel Duke of Clarence; next to whom
    Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;
    The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;
    The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;
    William of Windsor was the seventh and last.
    Edward the Black Prince died before his father
    And left behind him Richard, his only son,
    Who, after Edward the Third's death, reign'd as king
    Till Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster,
    The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,
    Crown'd by the name of Henry the Fourth,
    Seiz'd on the realm, depos'd the rightful king,
    Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came.
    And him to Pomfret, where, as all you know,
    Harmless Richard was murdered traitorously.
  WARWICK. Father, the Duke hath told the truth;
    Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.
  YORK. Which now they hold by force, and not by right;
    For Richard, the first son's heir, being dead,
    The issue of the next son should have reign'd.
  SALISBURY. But William of Hatfield died without an heir.
  YORK. The third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line
    I claim the crown, had issue Philippe, a daughter,
    Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March;
    Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;
    Roger had issue, Edmund, Anne, and Eleanor.
  SALISBURY. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,
    As I have read, laid claim unto the crown;
    And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,
    Who kept him in captivity till he died.
    But, to the rest.
  YORK. His eldest sister, Anne,
    My mother, being heir unto the crown,
    Married Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was
    To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third's fifth son, son.
    By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir
    To Roger Earl of March, who was the son
    Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,
    Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence;
    So, if the issue of the elder son
    Succeed before the younger, I am King.
  WARWICK. What plain proceedings is more plain than this?
    Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,
    The fourth son: York claims it from the third.
    Till Lionel's issue fails, his should not reign.
    It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee
    And in thy sons, fair slips of such a stock.
    Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,
    And in this private plot be we the first
    That shall salute our rightful sovereign
    With honour of his birthright to the crown.
  BOTH. Long live our sovereign Richard, England's King!
  YORK. We thank you, lords. But I am not your king
    Till I be crown'd, and that my sword be stain'd
    With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster;
    And that's not suddenly to be perform'd,
    But with advice and silent secrecy.
    Do you as I do in these dangerous days:
    Wink at the Duke of Suffolk's insolence,
    At Beaufort's pride, at Somerset's ambition,
    At Buckingham, and all the crew of them,
    Till they have snar'd the shepherd of the flock,
    That virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey;
    'Tis that they seek; and they, in seeking that,
    Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.
  SALISBURY. My lord, break we off; we know your mind at full.
  WARWICK. My heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick
    Shall one day make the Duke of York a king.
  YORK. And, Nevil, this I do assure myself,
    Richard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick
    The greatest man in England but the King.             Exeunt

SCENE III. London. A hall of justice

Sound trumpets. Enter the KING and State: the QUEEN, GLOUCESTER, YORK,
SUFFOLK, and SALISBURY, with guard, to banish the DUCHESS. Enter,
guarded, the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, MARGERY JOURDAIN, HUME, SOUTHWELL,
and BOLINGBROKE

  KING HENRY. Stand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester's wife:
    In sight of God and us, your guilt is great;
    Receive the sentence of the law for sins
    Such as by God's book are adjudg'd to death.
    You four, from hence to prison back again;
    From thence unto the place of execution:
    The witch in Smithfield shall be burnt to ashes,
    And you three shall be strangled on the gallows.
    You, madam, for you are more nobly born,
    Despoiled of your honour in your life,
    Shall, after three days' open penance done,
    Live in your country here in banishment
    With Sir John Stanley in the Isle of Man.
  DUCHESS. Welcome is banishment; welcome were my death.
  GLOUCESTER. Eleanor, the law, thou seest, hath judged thee.
    I cannot justify whom the law condemns.
             Exeunt the DUCHESS and the other prisoners, guarded
    Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.
    Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age
    Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground!
    I beseech your Majesty give me leave to go;
    Sorrow would solace, and mine age would ease.
  KING HENRY. Stay, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester; ere thou go,
    Give up thy staff; Henry will to himself
    Protector be; and God shall be my hope,
    My stay, my guide, and lantern to my feet.
    And go in peace, Humphrey, no less belov'd
    Than when thou wert Protector to thy King.
  QUEEN. I see no reason why a king of years
    Should be to be protected like a child.
    God and King Henry govern England's realm!
    Give up your staff, sir, and the King his realm.
  GLOUCESTER. My staff! Here, noble Henry, is my staff.
    As willingly do I the same resign
    As ere thy father Henry made it mine;
    And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it
    As others would ambitiously receive it.
    Farewell, good King; when I am dead and gone,
    May honourable peace attend thy throne!                 Exit
  QUEEN. Why, now is Henry King, and Margaret Queen,
    And Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,
    That bears so shrewd a maim: two pulls at once-
    His lady banish'd and a limb lopp'd off.
    This staff of honour raught, there let it stand
    Where it best fits to be, in Henry's hand.
  SUFFOLK. Thus droops this lofty pine and hangs his sprays;
    Thus Eleanor's pride dies in her youngest days.
  YORK. Lords, let him go. Please it your Majesty,
    This is the day appointed for the combat;
    And ready are the appellant and defendant,
    The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,
    So please your Highness to behold the fight.
  QUEEN. Ay, good my lord; for purposely therefore
    Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.
  KING HENRY. A God's name, see the lists and all things fit;
    Here let them end it, and God defend the right!
  YORK. I never saw a fellow worse bested,
    Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,
    The servant of his armourer, my lords.

        Enter at one door, HORNER, the Armourer, and his
         NEIGHBOURS, drinking to him so much that he is
        drunk; and he enters with a drum before him and
       his staff with a sand-bag fastened to it; and at the
        other door PETER, his man, with a drum and sandbag,
                  and PRENTICES drinking to him

  FIRST NEIGHBOUR. Here, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a cup of
    sack; and fear not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.
  SECOND NEIGHBOUR. And here, neighbour, here's a cup of charneco.
  THIRD NEIGHBOUR. And here's a pot of good double beer, neighbour;
    drink, and fear not your man.
  HORNER. Let it come, i' faith, and I'll pledge you all; and a fig
    for Peter!
  FIRST PRENTICE. Here, Peter, I drink to thee; and be not afraid.
  SECOND PRENTICE. Be merry, Peter, and fear not thy master: fight
    for credit of the prentices.
  PETER. I thank you all. Drink, and pray for me, I pray you; for I
    think I have taken my last draught in this world. Here, Robin, an
    if I die, I give thee my apron; and, Will, thou shalt have my
    hammer; and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O Lord
    bless me, I pray God! for I am never able to deal with my master,
    he hath learnt so much fence already.
  SALISBURY. Come, leave your drinking and fall to blows.
    Sirrah, what's thy name?
  PETER. Peter, forsooth.
  SALISBURY. Peter? What more?
  PETER. Thump.
  SALISBURY. Thump? Then see thou thump thy master well.
  HORNER. Masters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man's
    instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an honest man; and
    touching the Duke of York, I will take my death I never meant him
    any ill, nor the King, nor the Queen; and therefore, Peter, have
    at thee with a down right blow!
  YORK. Dispatch- this knave's tongue begins to double.
    Sound, trumpets, alarum to the combatants!
                 [Alarum. They fight and PETER strikes him down]
  HORNER. Hold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason.
                                                          [Dies]
  YORK. Take away his weapon. Fellow, thank God, and the good wine in
    thy master's way.
  PETER. O God, have I overcome mine enemies in this presence? O
    Peter, thou hast prevail'd in right!
  KING HENRY. Go, take hence that traitor from our sight,
    For by his death we do perceive his guilt;
    And God in justice hath reveal'd to us
    The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,
    Which he had thought to have murder'd wrongfully.
    Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.
                                        Sound a flourish. Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. A street

Enter DUKE HUMPHREY and his men, in mourning cloaks

  GLOUCESTER. Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud,
    And after summer evermore succeeds
    Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold;
    So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.
    Sirs, what's o'clock?
  SERVING-MAN. Ten, my lord.
  GLOUCESTER. Ten is the hour that was appointed me
    To watch the coming of my punish'd duchess.
    Uneath may she endure the flinty streets
    To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.
    Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook
    The abject people gazing on thy face,
    With envious looks, laughing at thy shame,
    That erst did follow thy proud chariot wheels
    When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.
    But, soft! I think she comes, and I'll prepare
    My tear-stain'd eyes to see her miseries.

          Enter the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER in a white sheet,
            and a taper burning in her hand, with SIR JOHN
               STANLEY, the SHERIFF, and OFFICERS

  SERVING-MAN. So please your Grace, we'll take her from the sheriff.
  GLOUCESTER. No, stir not for your lives; let her pass by.
  DUCHESS. Come you, my lord, to see my open shame?
    Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze!
    See how the giddy multitude do point
    And nod their heads and throw their eyes on thee;
    Ah, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful looks,
    And, in thy closet pent up, rue my shame
    And ban thine enemies, both mine and thine!
  GLOUCESTER. Be patient, gentle Nell; forget this grief.
  DUCHESS. Ah, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself!
    For whilst I think I am thy married wife
    And thou a prince, Protector of this land,
    Methinks I should not thus be led along,
    Mail'd up in shame, with papers on my back,
    And follow'd with a rabble that rejoice
    To see my tears and hear my deep-fet groans.
    The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,
    And when I start, the envious people laugh
    And bid me be advised how I tread.
    Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?
    Trowest thou that e'er I'll look upon the world
    Or count them happy that enjoy the sun?
    No; dark shall be my light and night my day;
    To think upon my pomp shall be my hell.
    Sometimes I'll say I am Duke Humphrey's wife,
    And he a prince, and ruler of the land;
    Yet so he rul'd, and such a prince he was,
    As he stood by whilst I, his forlorn duchess,
    Was made a wonder and a pointing-stock
    To every idle rascal follower.
    But be thou mild, and blush not at my shame,
    Nor stir at nothing till the axe of death
    Hang over thee, as sure it shortly will.
    For Suffolk- he that can do all in all
    With her that hateth thee and hates us all-
    And York, and impious Beaufort, that false priest,
    Have all lim'd bushes to betray thy wings,
    And, fly thou how thou canst, they'll tangle thee.
    But fear not thou until thy foot be snar'd,
    Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.
  GLOUCESTER. Ah, Nell, forbear! Thou aimest all awry.
    I must offend before I be attainted;
    And had I twenty times so many foes,
    And each of them had twenty times their power,
    All these could not procure me any scathe
    So long as I am loyal, true, and crimeless.
    Wouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?
    Why, yet thy scandal were not wip'd away,
    But I in danger for the breach of law.
    Thy greatest help is quiet, gentle Nell.
    I pray thee sort thy heart to patience;
    These few days' wonder will be quickly worn.

                          Enter a HERALD

  HERALD. I summon your Grace to his Majesty's Parliament,
    Holden at Bury the first of this next month.
  GLOUCESTER. And my consent ne'er ask'd herein before!
    This is close dealing. Well, I will be there.    Exit HERALD
    My Nell, I take my leave- and, master sheriff,
    Let not her penance exceed the King's commission.
  SHERIFF. An't please your Grace, here my commission stays;
    And Sir John Stanley is appointed now
    To take her with him to the Isle of Man.
  GLOUCESTER. Must you, Sir John, protect my lady here?
  STANLEY. So am I given in charge, may't please your Grace.
  GLOUCESTER. Entreat her not the worse in that I pray
    You use her well; the world may laugh again,
    And I may live to do you kindness if
    You do it her. And so, Sir John, farewell.
  DUCHESS. What, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell!
  GLOUCESTER. Witness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.
                                  Exeunt GLOUCESTER and servants
  DUCHESS. Art thou gone too? All comfort go with thee!
    For none abides with me. My joy is death-
    Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard,
    Because I wish'd this world's eternity.
    Stanley, I prithee go, and take me hence;
    I care not whither, for I beg no favour,
    Only convey me where thou art commanded.
  STANLEY. Why, madam, that is to the Isle of Man,
    There to be us'd according to your state.
  DUCHESS. That's bad enough, for I am but reproach-
    And shall I then be us'd reproachfully?
  STANLEY. Like to a duchess and Duke Humphrey's lady;
    According to that state you shall be us'd.
  DUCHESS. Sheriff, farewell, and better than I fare,
    Although thou hast been conduct of my shame.
  SHERIFF. It is my office; and, madam, pardon me.
  DUCHESS. Ay, ay, farewell; thy office is discharg'd.
    Come, Stanley, shall we go?
  STANLEY. Madam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,
    And go we to attire you for our journey.
  DUCHESS. My shame will not be shifted with my sheet.
    No, it will hang upon my richest robes
    And show itself, attire me how I can.
    Go, lead the way; I long to see my prison.            Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. The Abbey at Bury St. Edmunds

Sound a sennet. Enter the KING, the QUEEN, CARDINAL, SUFFOLK, YORK,
BUCKINGHAM, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the Parliament

  KING HENRY. I muse my Lord of Gloucester is not come.
    'Tis not his wont to be the hindmost man,
    Whate'er occasion keeps him from us now.
  QUEEN. Can you not see, or will ye not observe
    The strangeness of his alter'd countenance?
    With what a majesty he bears himself;
    How insolent of late he is become,
    How proud, how peremptory, and unlike himself?
    We know the time since he was mild and affable,
    And if we did but glance a far-off look
    Immediately he was upon his knee,
    That all the court admir'd him for submission.
    But meet him now and be it in the morn,
    When every one will give the time of day,
    He knits his brow and shows an angry eye
    And passeth by with stiff unbowed knee,
    Disdaining duty that to us belongs.
    Small curs are not regarded when they grin,
    But great men tremble when the lion roars,
    And Humphrey is no little man in England.
    First note that he is near you in descent,
    And should you fall he is the next will mount;
    Me seemeth, then, it is no policy-
    Respecting what a rancorous mind he bears,
    And his advantage following your decease-
    That he should come about your royal person
    Or be admitted to your Highness' Council.
    By flattery hath he won the commons' hearts;
    And when he please to make commotion,
    'Tis to be fear'd they all will follow him.
    Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
    Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden
    And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
    The reverent care I bear unto my lord
    Made me collect these dangers in the Duke.
    If it be fond, can it a woman's fear;
    Which fear if better reasons can supplant,
    I will subscribe, and say I wrong'd the Duke.
    My Lord of Suffolk, Buckingham, and York,
    Reprove my allegation if you can,
    Or else conclude my words effectual.
  SUFFOLK. Well hath your Highness seen into this duke;
    And had I first been put to speak my mind,
    I think I should have told your Grace's tale.
    The Duchess, by his subornation,
    Upon my life, began her devilish practices;
    Or if he were not privy to those faults,
    Yet by reputing of his high descent-
    As next the King he was successive heir-
    And such high vaunts of his nobility,
    Did instigate the bedlam brainsick Duchess
    By wicked means to frame our sovereign's fall.
    Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep,
    And in his simple show he harbours treason.
    The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.
    No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man
    Unsounded yet, and full of deep deceit.
  CARDINAL. Did he not, contrary to form of law,
    Devise strange deaths for small offences done?
  YORK. And did he not, in his protectorship,
    Levy great sums of money through the realm
    For soldiers' pay in France, and never sent it?
    By means whereof the towns each day revolted.
  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, these are petty faults to faults unknown
    Which time will bring to light in smooth Duke Humphrey.
  KING HENRY. My lords, at once: the care you have of us,
    To mow down thorns that would annoy our foot,
    Is worthy praise; but shall I speak my conscience?
    Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent
    From meaning treason to our royal person
    As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:
    The Duke is virtuous, mild, and too well given
    To dream on evil or to work my downfall.
  QUEEN. Ah, what's more dangerous than this fond affiance?
    Seems he a dove? His feathers are but borrow'd,
    For he's disposed as the hateful raven.
    Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,
    For he's inclin'd as is the ravenous wolf.
    Who cannot steal a shape that means deceit?
    Take heed, my lord; the welfare of us all
    Hangs on the cutting short that fraudful man.

                          Enter SOMERSET

  SOMERSET. All health unto my gracious sovereign!
  KING HENRY. Welcome, Lord Somerset. What news from France?
  SOMERSET. That all your interest in those territories
    Is utterly bereft you; all is lost.
  KING HENRY. Cold news, Lord Somerset; but God's will be done!
  YORK. [Aside] Cold news for me; for I had hope of France
    As firmly as I hope for fertile England.
    Thus are my blossoms blasted in the bud,
    And caterpillars eat my leaves away;
    But I will remedy this gear ere long,
    Or sell my title for a glorious grave.

                         Enter GLOUCESTER

  GLOUCESTER. All happiness unto my lord the King!
    Pardon, my liege, that I have stay'd so long.
  SUFFOLK. Nay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,
    Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art.
    I do arrest thee of high treason here.
  GLOUCESTER. Well, Suffolk, thou shalt not see me blush
    Nor change my countenance for this arrest:
    A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.
    The purest spring is not so free from mud
    As I am clear from treason to my sovereign.
    Who can accuse me? Wherein am I guilty?
  YORK. 'Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes of France
    And, being Protector, stay'd the soldiers' pay;
    By means whereof his Highness hath lost France.
  GLOUCESTER. Is it but thought so? What are they that think it?
    I never robb'd the soldiers of their pay
    Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.
    So help me God, as I have watch'd the night-
    Ay, night by night- in studying good for England!
    That doit that e'er I wrested from the King,
    Or any groat I hoarded to my use,
    Be brought against me at my trial-day!
    No; many a pound of mine own proper store,
    Because I would not tax the needy commons,
    Have I dispursed to the garrisons,
    And never ask'd for restitution.
  CARDINAL. It serves you well, my lord, to say so much.
  GLOUCESTER. I say no more than truth, so help me God!
  YORK. In your protectorship you did devise
    Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of,
    That England was defam'd by tyranny.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, 'tis well known that whiles I was Protector
    Pity was all the fault that was in me;
    For I should melt at an offender's tears,
    And lowly words were ransom for their fault.
    Unless it were a bloody murderer,
    Or foul felonious thief that fleec'd poor passengers,
    I never gave them condign punishment.
    Murder indeed, that bloody sin, I tortur'd
    Above the felon or what trespass else.
  SUFFOLK. My lord, these faults are easy, quickly answer'd;
    But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,
    Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.
    I do arrest you in His Highness' name,
    And here commit you to my Lord Cardinal
    To keep until your further time of trial.
  KING HENRY. My Lord of Gloucester, 'tis my special hope
    That you will clear yourself from all suspense.
    My conscience tells me you are innocent.
  GLOUCESTER. Ah, gracious lord, these days are dangerous!
    Virtue is chok'd with foul ambition,
    And charity chas'd hence by rancour's hand;
    Foul subornation is predominant,
    And equity exil'd your Highness' land.
    I know their complot is to have my life;
    And if my death might make this island happy
    And prove the period of their tyranny,
    I would expend it with all willingness.
    But mine is made the prologue to their play;
    For thousands more that yet suspect no peril
    Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.
    Beaufort's red sparkling eyes blab his heart's malice,
    And Suffolk's cloudy brow his stormy hate;
    Sharp Buckingham unburdens with his tongue
    The envious load that lies upon his heart;
    And dogged York, that reaches at the moon,
    Whose overweening arm I have pluck'd back,
    By false accuse doth level at my life.
    And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest,
    Causeless have laid disgraces on my head,
    And with your best endeavour have stirr'd up
    My liefest liege to be mine enemy;
    Ay, all of you have laid your heads together-
    Myself had notice of your conventicles-
    And all to make away my guiltless life.
    I shall not want false witness to condemn me
    Nor store of treasons to augment my guilt.
    The ancient proverb will be well effected:
    'A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.'
  CARDINAL. My liege, his railing is intolerable.
    If those that care to keep your royal person
    From treason's secret knife and traitor's rage
    Be thus upbraided, chid, and rated at,
    And the offender granted scope of speech,
    'Twill make them cool in zeal unto your Grace.
  SUFFOLK. Hath he not twit our sovereign lady here
    With ignominious words, though clerkly couch'd,
    As if she had suborned some to swear
    False allegations to o'erthrow his state?
  QUEEN. But I can give the loser leave to chide.
  GLOUCESTER. Far truer spoke than meant: I lose indeed.
    Beshrew the winners, for they play'd me false!
    And well such losers may have leave to speak.
  BUCKINGHAM. He'll wrest the sense, and hold us here all day.
    Lord Cardinal, he is your prisoner.
  CARDINAL. Sirs, take away the Duke, and guard him sure.
  GLOUCESTER. Ah, thus King Henry throws away his crutch
    Before his legs be firm to bear his body!
    Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,
    And wolves are gnarling who shall gnaw thee first.
    Ah, that my fear were false! ah, that it were!
    For, good King Henry, thy decay I fear.        Exit, guarded
  KING HENRY. My lords, what to your wisdoms seemeth best
    Do or undo, as if ourself were here.
  QUEEN. What, will your Highness leave the Parliament?
  KING HENRY. Ay, Margaret; my heart is drown'd with grief,
    Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes;
    My body round engirt with misery-
    For what's more miserable than discontent?
    Ah, uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see
    The map of honour, truth, and loyalty!
    And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come
    That e'er I prov'd thee false or fear'd thy faith.
    What louring star now envies thy estate
    That these great lords, and Margaret our Queen,
    Do seek subversion of thy harmless life?
    Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong;
    And as the butcher takes away the calf,
    And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,
    Bearing it to the bloody slaughter-house,
    Even so, remorseless, have they borne him hence;
    And as the dam runs lowing up and down,
    Looking the way her harmless young one went,
    And can do nought but wail her darling's loss,
    Even so myself bewails good Gloucester's case
    With sad unhelpful tears, and with dimm'd eyes
    Look after him, and cannot do him good,
    So mighty are his vowed enemies.
    His fortunes I will weep, and 'twixt each groan
    Say 'Who's a traitor? Gloucester he is none.'           Exit
  QUEEN. Free lords, cold snow melts with the sun's hot beams:
    Henry my lord is cold in great affairs,
    Too full of foolish pity; and Gloucester's show
    Beguiles him as the mournful crocodile
    With sorrow snares relenting passengers;
    Or as the snake, roll'd in a flow'ring bank,
    With shining checker'd slough, doth sting a child
    That for the beauty thinks it excellent.
    Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I-
    And yet herein I judge mine own wit good-
    This Gloucester should be quickly rid the world
    To rid us from the fear we have of him.
  CARDINAL. That he should die is worthy policy;
    But yet we want a colour for his death.
    'Tis meet he be condemn'd by course of law.
  SUFFOLK. But, in my mind, that were no policy:
    The King will labour still to save his life;
    The commons haply rise to save his life;
    And yet we have but trivial argument,
    More than mistrust, that shows him worthy death.
  YORK. So that, by this, you would not have him die.
  SUFFOLK. Ah, York, no man alive so fain as I!
  YORK. 'Tis York that hath more reason for his death.
    But, my Lord Cardinal, and you, my Lord of Suffolk,
    Say as you think, and speak it from your souls:
    Were't not all one an empty eagle were set
    To guard the chicken from a hungry kite
    As place Duke Humphrey for the King's Protector?
  QUEEN. So the poor chicken should be sure of death.
  SUFFOLK. Madam, 'tis true; and were't not madness then
    To make the fox surveyor of the fold?
    Who being accus'd a crafty murderer,
    His guilt should be but idly posted over,
    Because his purpose is not executed.
    No; let him die, in that he is a fox,
    By nature prov'd an enemy to the flock,
    Before his chaps be stain'd with crimson blood,
    As Humphrey, prov'd by reasons, to my liege.
    And do not stand on quillets how to slay him;
    Be it by gins, by snares, by subtlety,
    Sleeping or waking, 'tis no matter how,
    So he be dead; for that is good deceit
    Which mates him first that first intends deceit.
  QUEEN. Thrice-noble Suffolk, 'tis resolutely spoke.
  SUFFOLK. Not resolute, except so much were done,
    For things are often spoke and seldom meant;
    But that my heart accordeth with my tongue,
    Seeing the deed is meritorious,
    And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,
    Say but the word, and I will be his priest.
  CARDINAL. But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,
    Ere you can take due orders for a priest;
    Say you consent and censure well the deed,
    And I'll provide his executioner-
    I tender so the safety of my liege.
  SUFFOLK. Here is my hand the deed is worthy doing.
  QUEEN. And so say I.
  YORK. And I. And now we three have spoke it,
    It skills not greatly who impugns our doom.

                          Enter a POST

  POST. Great lords, from Ireland am I come amain
    To signify that rebels there are up
    And put the Englishmen unto the sword.
    Send succours, lords, and stop the rage betime,
    Before the wound do grow uncurable;
    For, being green, there is great hope of help.
  CARDINAL. A breach that craves a quick expedient stop!
    What counsel give you in this weighty cause?
  YORK. That Somerset be sent as Regent thither;
    'Tis meet that lucky ruler be employ'd,
    Witness the fortune he hath had in France.
  SOMERSET. If York, with all his far-fet policy,
    Had been the Regent there instead of me,
    He never would have stay'd in France so long.
  YORK. No, not to lose it all as thou hast done.
    I rather would have lost my life betimes
    Than bring a burden of dishonour home
    By staying there so long till all were lost.
    Show me one scar character'd on thy skin:
    Men's flesh preserv'd so whole do seldom win.
  QUEEN. Nay then, this spark will prove a raging fire,
    If wind and fuel be brought to feed it with;
    No more, good York; sweet Somerset, be still.
    Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been Regent there,
    Might happily have prov'd far worse than his.
  YORK. What, worse than nought? Nay, then a shame take all!
  SOMERSET. And in the number, thee that wishest shame!
  CARDINAL. My Lord of York, try what your fortune is.
    Th' uncivil kerns of Ireland are in arms
    And temper clay with blood of Englishmen;
    To Ireland will you lead a band of men,
    Collected choicely, from each county some,
    And try your hap against the Irishmen?
  YORK. I will, my lord, so please his Majesty.
  SUFFOLK. Why, our authority is his consent,
    And what we do establish he confirms;
    Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.
  YORK. I am content; provide me soldiers, lords,
    Whiles I take order for mine own affairs.
  SUFFOLK. A charge, Lord York, that I will see perform'd.
    But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.
  CARDINAL. No more of him; for I will deal with him
    That henceforth he shall trouble us no more.
    And so break off; the day is almost spent.
    Lord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.
  YORK. My Lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days
    At Bristol I expect my soldiers;
    For there I'll ship them all for Ireland.
  SUFFOLK. I'll see it truly done, my Lord of York.
                                             Exeunt all but YORK
  YORK. Now, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts
    And change misdoubt to resolution;
    Be that thou hop'st to be; or what thou art
    Resign to death- it is not worth th' enjoying.
    Let pale-fac'd fear keep with the mean-born man
    And find no harbour in a royal heart.
    Faster than spring-time show'rs comes thought on thought,
    And not a thought but thinks on dignity.
    My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,
    Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.
    Well, nobles, well, 'tis politicly done
    To send me packing with an host of men.
    I fear me you but warm the starved snake,
    Who, cherish'd in your breasts, will sting your hearts.
    'Twas men I lack'd, and you will give them me;
    I take it kindly. Yet be well assur'd
    You put sharp weapons in a madman's hands.
    Whiles I in Ireland nourish a mighty band,
    I will stir up in England some black storm
    Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell;
    And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage
    Until the golden circuit on my head,
    Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams,
    Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw.
    And for a minister of my intent
    I have seduc'd a headstrong Kentishman,
    John Cade of Ashford,
    To make commotion, as full well he can,
    Under the tide of John Mortimer.
    In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade
    Oppose himself against a troop of kerns,
    And fought so long tiff that his thighs with darts
    Were almost like a sharp-quill'd porpentine;
    And in the end being rescu'd, I have seen
    Him caper upright like a wild Morisco,
    Shaking the bloody darts as he his bells.
    Full often, like a shag-hair'd crafty kern,
    Hath he conversed with the enemy,
    And undiscover'd come to me again
    And given me notice of their villainies.
    This devil here shall be my substitute;
    For that John Mortimer, which now is dead,
    In face, in gait, in speech, he doth resemble.
    By this I shall perceive the commons' mind,
    How they affect the house and claim of York.
    Say he be taken, rack'd, and tortured;
    I know no pain they can inflict upon him
    Will make him say I mov'd him to those arms.
    Say that he thrive, as 'tis great like he will,
    Why, then from Ireland come I with my strength,
    And reap the harvest which that rascal sow'd;
    For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,
    And Henry put apart, the next for me.                   Exit

SCENE II. Bury St. Edmunds. A room of state

Enter two or three MURDERERS running over the stage, from the murder of
DUKE HUMPHREY

  FIRST MURDERER. Run to my Lord of Suffolk; let him know
    We have dispatch'd the Duke, as he commanded.
  SECOND MURDERER. O that it were to do! What have we done?
    Didst ever hear a man so penitent?

                           Enter SUFFOLK

  FIRST MURDERER. Here comes my lord.
  SUFFOLK. Now, sirs, have you dispatch'd this thing?
  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, my good lord, he's dead.
  SUFFOLK. Why, that's well said. Go, get you to my house;
    I will reward you for this venturous deed.
    The King and all the peers are here at hand.
    Have you laid fair the bed? Is all things well,
    According as I gave directions?
  FIRST MURDERER. 'Tis, my good lord.
  SUFFOLK. Away! be gone.                       Exeunt MURDERERS

             Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, the QUEEN,
                CARDINAL, SOMERSET, with attendants

  KING HENRY. Go call our uncle to our presence straight;
    Say we intend to try his Grace to-day,
    If he be guilty, as 'tis published.
  SUFFOLK. I'll call him presently, my noble lord.          Exit
  KING HENRY. Lords, take your places; and, I pray you all,
    Proceed no straiter 'gainst our uncle Gloucester
    Than from true evidence, of good esteem,
    He be approv'd in practice culpable.
  QUEEN. God forbid any malice should prevail
    That faultless may condemn a nobleman!
    Pray God he may acquit him of suspicion!
  KING HENRY. I thank thee, Meg; these words content me much.

                           Re-enter SUFFOLK

    How now! Why look'st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?
    Where is our uncle? What's the matter, Suffolk?
  SUFFOLK. Dead in his bed, my lord; Gloucester is dead.
  QUEEN. Marry, God forfend!
  CARDINAL. God's secret judgment! I did dream to-night
    The Duke was dumb and could not speak a word.
                                               [The KING swoons]
  QUEEN. How fares my lord? Help, lords! The King is dead.
  SOMERSET. Rear up his body; wring him by the nose.
  QUEEN. Run, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!
  SUFFOLK. He doth revive again; madam, be patient.
  KING. O heavenly God!
  QUEEN. How fares my gracious lord?
  SUFFOLK. Comfort, my sovereign! Gracious Henry, comfort!
  KING HENRY. What, doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
    Came he right now to sing a raven's note,
    Whose dismal tune bereft my vital pow'rs;
    And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,
    By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
    Can chase away the first conceived sound?
    Hide not thy poison with such sug'red words;
    Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say,
    Their touch affrights me as a serpent's sting.
    Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!
    Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny
    Sits in grim majesty to fright the world.
    Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding;
    Yet do not go away; come, basilisk,
    And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight;
    For in the shade of death I shall find joy-
    In life but double death,'now Gloucester's dead.
  QUEEN. Why do you rate my Lord of Suffolk thus?
    Although the Duke was enemy to him,
    Yet he most Christian-like laments his death;
    And for myself- foe as he was to me-
    Might liquid tears, or heart-offending groans,
    Or blood-consuming sighs, recall his life,
    I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,
    Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,
    And all to have the noble Duke alive.
    What know I how the world may deem of me?
    For it is known we were but hollow friends:
    It may be judg'd I made the Duke away;
    So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,
    And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.
    This get I by his death. Ay me, unhappy!
    To be a queen and crown'd with infamy!
  KING HENRY. Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!
  QUEEN. Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
    What, dost thou turn away, and hide thy face?
    I am no loathsome leper- look on me.
    What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?
    Be poisonous too, and kill thy forlorn Queen.
    Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?
    Why, then Dame Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
    Erect his statue and worship it,
    And make my image but an alehouse sign.
    Was I for this nigh wreck'd upon the sea,
    And twice by awkward wind from England's bank
    Drove back again unto my native clime?
    What boded this but well-forewarning wind
    Did seem to say 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,
    Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?
    What did I then but curs'd the gentle gusts,
    And he that loos'd them forth their brazen caves;
    And bid them blow towards England's blessed shore,
    Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?
    Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,
    But left that hateful office unto thee.
    The pretty-vaulting sea refus'd to drown me,
    Knowing that thou wouldst have me drown'd on shore
    With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness;
    The splitting rocks cow'r'd in the sinking sands
    And would not dash me with their ragged sides,
    Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
    Might in thy palace perish Margaret.
    As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,
    When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,
    I stood upon the hatches in the storm;
    And when the dusky sky began to rob
    My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,
    I took a costly jewel from my neck-
    A heart it was, bound in with diamonds-
    And threw it towards thy land. The sea receiv'd it;
    And so I wish'd thy body might my heart.
    And even with this I lost fair England's view,
    And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
    And call'd them blind and dusky spectacles
    For losing ken of Albion's wished coast.
    How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue-
    The agent of thy foul inconstancy-
    To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did
    When he to madding Dido would unfold
    His father's acts commenc'd in burning Troy!
    Am I not witch'd like her? Or thou not false like him?
    Ay me, I can no more! Die, Margaret,
    For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.

               Noise within. Enter WARWICK, SALISBURY,
                          and many commons

  WARWICK. It is reported, mighty sovereign,
    That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murd'red
    By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort's means.
    The commons, like an angry hive of bees
    That want their leader, scatter up and down
    And care not who they sting in his revenge.
    Myself have calm'd their spleenful mutiny
    Until they hear the order of his death.
  KING HENRY. That he is dead, good Warwick, 'tis too true;
    But how he died God knows, not Henry.
    Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,
    And comment then upon his sudden death.
  WARWICK. That shall I do, my liege. Stay, Salisbury,
    With the rude multitude till I return.                  Exit
                                   Exit SALISBURY with the commons
  KING HENRY. O Thou that judgest all things, stay my thoughts-
    My thoughts that labour to persuade my soul
    Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey's life!
    If my suspect be false, forgive me, God;
    For judgment only doth belong to Thee.
    Fain would I go to chafe his paly lips
    With twenty thousand kisses and to drain
    Upon his face an ocean of salt tears
    To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk;
    And with my fingers feel his hand un-feeling;
    But all in vain are these mean obsequies;
    And to survey his dead and earthy image,
    What were it but to make my sorrow greater?

               Bed put forth with the body. Enter WARWICK

  WARWICK. Come hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.
  KING HENRY. That is to see how deep my grave is made;
    For with his soul fled all my worldly solace,
    For, seeing him, I see my life in death.
  WARWICK. As surely as my soul intends to live
    With that dread King that took our state upon Him
    To free us from his Father's wrathful curse,
    I do believe that violent hands were laid
    Upon the life of this thrice-famed Duke.
  SUFFOLK. A dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue!
    What instance gives Lord Warwick for his vow?
  WARWICK. See how the blood is settled in his face.
    Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
    Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
    Being all descended to the labouring heart,
    Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
    Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy,
    Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returneth
    To blush and beautify the cheek again.
    But see, his face is black and full of blood;
    His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,
    Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;
    His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with struggling;
    His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
    And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
    Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking;
    His well-proportion'd beard made rough and rugged,
    Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodged.
    It cannot be but he was murd'red here:
    The least of all these signs were probable.
  SUFFOLK. Why, Warwick, who should do the Duke to death?
    Myself and Beaufort had him in protection;
    And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.
  WARWICK. But both of you were vow'd Duke Humphrey's foes;
    And you, forsooth, had the good Duke to keep.
    'Tis like you would not feast him like a friend;
    And 'tis well seen he found an enemy.
  QUEEN. Then you, belike, suspect these noblemen
    As guilty of Duke Humphrey's timeless death.
  WARWICK. Who finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,
    And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,
    But will suspect 'twas he that made the slaughter?
    Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest
    But may imagine how the bird was dead,
    Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?
    Even so suspicious is this tragedy.
  QUEEN. Are you the butcher, Suffolk? Where's your knife?
    Is Beaufort term'd a kite? Where are his talons?
  SUFFOLK. I wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men;
    But here's a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,
    That shall be scoured in his rancorous heart
    That slanders me with murder's crimson badge.
    Say if thou dar'st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,
    That I am faulty in Duke Humphrey's death.
                           Exeunt CARDINAL, SOMERSET, and others
  WARWICK. What dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?
  QUEEN. He dares not calm his contumelious spirit,
    Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,
    Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.
  WARWICK. Madam, be still- with reverence may I say;
    For every word you speak in his behalf
    Is slander to your royal dignity.
  SUFFOLK. Blunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,
    If ever lady wrong'd her lord so much,
    Thy mother took into her blameful bed
    Some stern untutor'd churl, and noble stock
    Was graft with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,
    And never of the Nevils' noble race.
  WARWICK. But that the guilt of murder bucklers thee,
    And I should rob the deathsman of his fee,
    Quitting thee thereby of ten thousand shames,
    And that my sovereign's presence makes me mild,
    I would, false murd'rous coward, on thy knee
    Make thee beg pardon for thy passed speech
    And say it was thy mother that thou meant'st,
    That thou thyself was born in bastardy;
    And, after all this fearful homage done,
    Give thee thy hire and send thy soul to hell,
    Pernicious blood-sucker of sleeping men.
  SUFFOLK. Thou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,
    If from this presence thou dar'st go with me.
  WARWICK. Away even now, or I will drag thee hence.
    Unworthy though thou art, I'll cope with thee,
    And do some service to Duke Humphrey's ghost.
                                      Exeunt SUFFOLK and WARWICK
  KING HENRY. What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
    Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
    And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
                                                [A noise within]
  QUEEN. What noise is this?

       Re-enter SUFFOLK and WARWICK, with their weapons drawn

  KING. Why, how now, lords, your wrathful weapons drawn
    Here in our presence! Dare you be so bold?
    Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?
  SUFFOLK. The trait'rous Warwick, with the men of Bury,
    Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.

                        Re-enter SALISBURY

  SALISBURY. [To the Commons within] Sirs, stand apart, the King
      shall know your mind.
    Dread lord, the commons send you word by me
    Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,
    Or banished fair England's territories,
    They will by violence tear him from your palace
    And torture him with grievous ling'ring death.
    They say by him the good Duke Humphrey died;
    They say in him they fear your Highness' death;
    And mere instinct of love and loyalty,
    Free from a stubborn opposite intent,
    As being thought to contradict your liking,
    Makes them thus forward in his banishment.
    They say, in care of your most royal person,
    That if your Highness should intend to sleep
    And charge that no man should disturb your rest,
    In pain of your dislike or pain of death,
    Yet, notwithstanding such a strait edict,
    Were there a serpent seen with forked tongue
    That slily glided towards your Majesty,
    It were but necessary you were wak'd,
    Lest, being suffer'd in that harmful slumber,
    The mortal worm might make the sleep eternal.
    And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,
    That they will guard you, whe'er you will or no,
    From such fell serpents as false Suffolk is;
    With whose envenomed and fatal sting
    Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,
    They say, is shamefully bereft of life.
  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, my Lord of Salisbury!
  SUFFOLK. 'Tis like the commons, rude unpolish'd hinds,
    Could send such message to their sovereign;
    But you, my lord, were glad to be employ'd,
    To show how quaint an orator you are.
    But all the honour Salisbury hath won
    Is that he was the lord ambassador
    Sent from a sort of tinkers to the King.
  COMMONS. [Within] An answer from the King, or we will all break in!
  KING HENRY. Go, Salisbury, and tell them all from me
    I thank them for their tender loving care;
    And had I not been cited so by them,
    Yet did I purpose as they do entreat;
    For sure my thoughts do hourly prophesy
    Mischance unto my state by Suffolk's means.
    And therefore by His Majesty I swear,
    Whose far unworthy deputy I am,
    He shall not breathe infection in this air
    But three days longer, on the pain of death.
                                                  Exit SALISBURY
  QUEEN. O Henry, let me plead for gentle Suffolk!
  KING HENRY. Ungentle Queen, to call him gentle Suffolk!
    No more, I say; if thou dost plead for him,
    Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.
    Had I but said, I would have kept my word;
    But when I swear, it is irrevocable.
    If after three days' space thou here be'st found
    On any ground that I am ruler of,
    The world shall not be ransom for thy life.
    Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me;
    I have great matters to impart to thee.
                                Exeunt all but QUEEN and SUFFOLK
  QUEEN. Mischance and sorrow go along with you!
    Heart's discontent and sour affliction
    Be playfellows to keep you company!
    There's two of you; the devil make a third,
    And threefold vengeance tend upon your steps!
  SUFFOLK. Cease, gentle Queen, these execrations,
    And let thy Suffolk take his heavy leave.
  QUEEN. Fie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch,
    Has thou not spirit to curse thine enemy?
  SUFFOLK. A plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?
    Would curses kill as doth the mandrake's groan,
    I would invent as bitter searching terms,
    As curst, as harsh, and horrible to hear,
    Deliver'd strongly through my fixed teeth,
    With full as many signs of deadly hate,
    As lean-fac'd Envy in her loathsome cave.
    My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words,
    Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint,
    Mine hair be fix'd an end, as one distract;
    Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban;
    And even now my burden'd heart would break,
    Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!
    Gall, worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste!
    Their sweetest shade a grove of cypress trees!
    Their chiefest prospect murd'ring basilisks!
    Their softest touch as smart as lizards' stings!
    Their music frightful as the serpent's hiss,
    And boding screech-owls make the consort full!
    all the foul terrors in dark-seated hell-
  QUEEN. Enough, sweet Suffolk, thou torment'st thyself;
    And these dread curses, like the sun 'gainst glass,
    Or like an overcharged gun, recoil,
    And turns the force of them upon thyself.
  SUFFOLK. You bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?
    Now, by the ground that I am banish'd from,
    Well could I curse away a winter's night,
    Though standing naked on a mountain top
    Where biting cold would never let grass grow,
    And think it but a minute spent in sport.
  QUEEN. O, let me entreat thee cease! Give me thy hand,
    That I may dew it with my mournful tears;
    Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place
    To wash away my woeful monuments.
    O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,
    That thou might'st think upon these by the seal,
    Through whom a thousand sighs are breath'd for thee!
    So, get thee gone, that I may know my grief;
    'Tis but surmis'd whiles thou art standing by,
    As one that surfeits thinking on a want.
    I will repeal thee or, be well assur'd,
    Adventure to be banished myself;
    And banished I am, if but from thee.
    Go, speak not to me; even now be gone.
    O, go not yet! Even thus two friends condemn'd
    Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,
    Loather a hundred times to part than die.
    Yet now, farewell; and farewell life with thee!
  SUFFOLK. Thus is poor Suffolk ten times banished,
    Once by the King and three times thrice by thee,
    'Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence;
    A wilderness is populous enough,
    So Suffolk had thy heavenly company;
    For where thou art, there is the world itself,
    With every several pleasure in the world;
    And where thou art not, desolation.
    I can no more: Live thou to joy thy life;
    Myself no joy in nought but that thou liv'st.

                           Enter VAUX

  QUEEN. Whither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?
  VAUX. To signify unto his Majesty
    That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death;
    For suddenly a grievous sickness took him
    That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the air,
    Blaspheming God, and cursing men on earth.
    Sometime he talks as if Duke Humphrey's ghost
    Were by his side; sometime he calls the King
    And whispers to his pillow, as to him,
    The secrets of his overcharged soul;
    And I am sent to tell his Majesty
    That even now he cries aloud for him.
  QUEEN. Go tell this heavy message to the King.       Exit VAUX
    Ay me! What is this world! What news are these!
    But wherefore grieve I at an hour's poor loss,
    Omitting Suffolk's exile, my soul's treasure?
    Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,
    And with the southern clouds contend in tears-
    Theirs for the earth's increase, mine for my sorrows?
    Now get thee hence: the King, thou know'st, is coming;
    If thou be found by me; thou art but dead.
  SUFFOLK. If I depart from thee I cannot live;
    And in thy sight to die, what were it else
    But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
    Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
    As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe
    Dying with mother's dug between its lips;
    Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad
    And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
    To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;
    So shouldst thou either turn my flying soul,
    Or I should breathe it so into thy body,
    And then it liv'd in sweet Elysium.
    To die by thee were but to die in jest:
    From thee to die were torture more than death.
    O, let me stay, befall what may befall!
  QUEEN. Away! Though parting be a fretful corrosive,
    It is applied to a deathful wound.
    To France, sweet Suffolk. Let me hear from thee;
    For whereso'er thou art in this world's globe
    I'll have an Iris that shall find thee out.
  SUFFOLK. I go.
  QUEEN. And take my heart with thee.           [She kisses him]
  SUFFOLK. A jewel, lock'd into the woefull'st cask
    That ever did contain a thing of worth.
    Even as a splitted bark, so sunder we:
    This way fall I to death.
  QUEEN. This way for me.                       Exeunt severally

SCENE III. London. CARDINAL BEAUFORT'S bedchamber

Enter the KING, SALISBURY, and WARWICK, to the CARDINAL in bed

  KING HENRY. How fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.
  CARDINAL. If thou be'st Death I'll give thee England's treasure,
    Enough to purchase such another island,
    So thou wilt let me live and feel no pain.
  KING HENRY. Ah, what a sign it is of evil life
    Where death's approach is seen so terrible!
  WARWICK. Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.
  CARDINAL. Bring me unto my trial when you will.
    Died he not in his bed? Where should he die?
    Can I make men live, whe'er they will or no?
    O, torture me no more! I will confess.
    Alive again? Then show me where he is;
    I'll give a thousand pound to look upon him.
    He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.
    Comb down his hair; look, look! it stands upright,
    Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul!
    Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary
    Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.
  KING HENRY. O Thou eternal Mover of the heavens,
    Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch!
    O, beat away the busy meddling fiend
    That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,
    And from his bosom purge this black despair!
  WARWICK. See how the pangs of death do make him grin
  SALISBURY. Disturb him not, let him pass peaceably.
  KING HENRY. Peace to his soul, if God's good pleasure be!
    Lord Card'nal, if thou think'st on heaven's bliss,
    Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.
    He dies, and makes no sign: O God, forgive him!
  WARWICK. So bad a death argues a monstrous life.
  KING HENRY. Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
    Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close;
    And let us all to meditation.                         Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. The coast of Kent

Alarum.  Fight at sea.  Ordnance goes off.  Enter a LIEUTENANT, a
SHIPMASTER and his MATE, and WALTER WHITMORE, with sailors; SUFFOLK and
other GENTLEMEN, as prisoners

  LIEUTENANT. The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day
    Is crept into the bosom of the sea;
    And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades
    That drag the tragic melancholy night;
    Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings
    Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws
    Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.
    Therefore bring forth the soldiers of our prize;
    For, whilst our pinnace anchors in the Downs,
    Here shall they make their ransom on the sand,
    Or with their blood stain this discoloured shore.
    Master, this prisoner freely give I thee;
    And thou that art his mate make boot of this;
    The other, Walter Whitmore, is thy share.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What is my ransom, master, let me know?
  MASTER. A thousand crowns, or else lay down your head.
  MATE. And so much shall you give, or off goes yours.
  LIEUTENANT. What, think you much to pay two thousand crowns,
    And bear the name and port of gentlemen?
    Cut both the villains' throats- for die you shall;
    The lives of those which we have lost in fight
    Be counterpois'd with such a petty sum!
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll give it, sir: and therefore spare my life.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And so will I, and write home for it straight.
  WHITMORE. I lost mine eye in laying the prize aboard,
    [To SUFFOLK] And therefore, to revenge it, shalt thou die;
    And so should these, if I might have my will.
  LIEUTENANT. Be not so rash; take ransom, let him live.
  SUFFOLK. Look on my George, I am a gentleman:
    Rate me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.
  WHITMORE. And so am I: my name is Walter Whitmore.
    How now! Why start'st thou? What, doth death affright?
  SUFFOLK. Thy name affrights me, in whose sound is death.
    A cunning man did calculate my birth
    And told me that by water I should die;
    Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded;
    Thy name is Gualtier, being rightly sounded.
  WHITMORE. Gualtier or Walter, which it is I care not:
    Never yet did base dishonour blur our name
    But with our sword we wip'd away the blot;
    Therefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,
    Broke be my sword, my arms torn and defac'd,
    And I proclaim'd a coward through the world.
  SUFFOLK. Stay, Whitmore, for thy prisoner is a prince,
    The Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.
  WHITMORE. The Duke of Suffolk muffled up in rags?
  SUFFOLK. Ay, but these rags are no part of the Duke:
    Jove sometime went disguis'd, and why not I?
  LIEUTENANT. But Jove was never slain, as thou shalt be.
  SUFFOLK. Obscure and lowly swain, King Henry's blood,
    The honourable blood of Lancaster,
    Must not be shed by such a jaded groom.
    Hast thou not kiss'd thy hand and held my stirrup,
    Bareheaded plodded by my foot-cloth mule,
    And thought thee happy when I shook my head?
    How often hast thou waited at my cup,
    Fed from my trencher, kneel'd down at the board,
    When I have feasted with Queen Margaret?
    Remember it, and let it make thee crestfall'n,
    Ay, and allay thus thy abortive pride,
    How in our voiding-lobby hast thou stood
    And duly waited for my coming forth.
    This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,
    And therefore shall it charm thy riotous tongue.
  WHITMORE. Speak, Captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain?
  LIEUTENANT. First let my words stab him, as he hath me.
  SUFFOLK. Base slave, thy words are blunt, and so art thou.
  LIEUTENANT. Convey him hence, and on our longboat's side
    Strike off his head.
  SUFFOLK. Thou dar'st not, for thy own.
  LIEUTENANT. Poole!
  SUFFOLK. Poole?
  LIEUTENANT. Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt
    Troubles the silver spring where England drinks;
    Now will I dam up this thy yawning mouth
    For swallowing the treasure of the realm.
    Thy lips, that kiss'd the Queen, shall sweep the ground;
    And thou that smil'dst at good Duke Humphrey's death
    Against the senseless winds shalt grin in vain,
    Who in contempt shall hiss at thee again;
    And wedded be thou to the hags of hell
    For daring to affy a mighty lord
    Unto the daughter of a worthless king,
    Having neither subject, wealth, nor diadem.
    By devilish policy art thou grown great,
    And, like ambitious Sylla, overgorg'd
    With gobbets of thy mother's bleeding heart.
    By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France;
    The false revolting Normans thorough thee
    Disdain to call us lord; and Picardy
    Hath slain their governors, surpris'd our forts,
    And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.
    The princely Warwick, and the Nevils all,
    Whose dreadful swords were never drawn in vain,
    As hating thee, are rising up in arms;
    And now the house of York- thrust from the crown
    By shameful murder of a guiltless king
    And lofty proud encroaching tyranny-
    Burns with revenging fire, whose hopeful colours
    Advance our half-fac'd sun, striving to shine,
    Under the which is writ 'Invitis nubibus.'
    The commons here in Kent are up in arms;
    And to conclude, reproach and beggary
    Is crept into the palace of our King,
    And all by thee. Away! convey him hence.
  SUFFOLK. O that I were a god, to shoot forth thunder
    Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges!
    Small things make base men proud: this villain here,
    Being captain of a pinnace, threatens more
    Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pirate.
    Drones suck not eagles' blood but rob beehives.
    It is impossible that I should die
    By such a lowly vassal as thyself.
    Thy words move rage and not remorse in me.
    I go of message from the Queen to France:
    I charge thee waft me safely cross the Channel.
  LIEUTENANT. Walter-
  WHITMORE. Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.
  SUFFOLK. Gelidus timor occupat artus: it is thee I fear.
  WHITMORE. Thou shalt have cause to fear before I leave thee.
    What, are ye daunted now? Now will ye stoop?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.
  SUFFOLK. Suffolk's imperial tongue is stem and rough,
    Us'd to command, untaught to plead for favour.
    Far be it we should honour such as these
    With humble suit: no, rather let my head
    Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any
    Save to the God of heaven and to my king;
    And sooner dance upon a bloody pole
    Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.
    True nobility is exempt from fear:
    More can I bear than you dare execute.
  LIEUTENANT. Hale him away, and let him talk no more.
  SUFFOLK. Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,
    That this my death may never be forgot-
    Great men oft die by vile bezonians:
    A Roman sworder and banditto slave
    Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand
    Stabb'd Julius Caesar; savage islanders
    Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates.
                                        Exit WALTER with SUFFOLK
  LIEUTENANT. And as for these, whose ransom we have set,
    It is our pleasure one of them depart;
    Therefore come you with us, and let him go.
                              Exeunt all but the FIRST GENTLEMAN

                Re-enter WHITMORE with SUFFOLK'S body

  WHITMORE. There let his head and lifeless body lie,
    Until the Queen his mistress bury it.                   Exit
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O barbarous and bloody spectacle!
    His body will I bear unto the King.
    If he revenge it not, yet will his friends;
    So will the Queen, that living held him dear.
                                              Exit with the body

SCENE II. Blackheath

Enter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND

  GEORGE. Come and get thee a sword, though made of a lath; they have
    been up these two days.
  JOHN. They have the more need to sleep now, then.
  GEORGE. I tell thee Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the
    commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap upon it.
  JOHN. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say it was never
    merry world in England since gentlemen came up.
  GEORGE. O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in handicraftsmen.
  JOHN. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.
  GEORGE. Nay, more, the King's Council are no good workmen.
  JOHN. True; and yet it is said 'Labour in thy vocation'; which is
    as much to say as 'Let the magistrates be labouring men'; and
    therefore should we be magistrates.
  GEORGE. Thou hast hit it; for there's no better sign of a brave
    mind than a hard hand.
  JOHN. I see them! I see them! There's Best's son, the tanner of
    Wingham-
  GEORGE. He shall have the skins of our enemies to make dog's
    leather of.
  JOHN. And Dick the butcher-
  GEORGE. Then is sin struck down, like an ox, and iniquity's throat
    cut like a calf.
  JOHN. And Smith the weaver-
  GEORGE. Argo, their thread of life is spun.
  JOHN. Come, come, let's fall in with them.

                Drum. Enter CADE, DICK THE BUTCHER, SMITH
             THE WEAVER, and a SAWYER, with infinite numbers

  CADE. We John Cade, so term'd of our supposed father-
  DICK. [Aside] Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.
  CADE. For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the
    spirit of putting down kings and princes- command silence.
  DICK. Silence!
  CADE. My father was a Mortimer-
  DICK. [Aside] He was an honest man and a good bricklayer.
  CADE. My mother a Plantagenet-
  DICK. [Aside] I knew her well; she was a midwife.
  CADE. My wife descended of the Lacies-
  DICK. [Aside] She was, indeed, a pedlar's daughter, and sold many
    laces.
  SMITH. [Aside] But now of late, not able to travel with her furr'd
    pack, she washes bucks here at home.
  CADE. Therefore am I of an honourable house.
  DICK. [Aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable, and there
    was he born, under a hedge, for his father had never a house but
    the cage.
  CADE. Valiant I am.
  SMITH. [Aside] 'A must needs; for beggary is valiant.
  CADE. I am able to endure much.
  DICK. [Aside] No question of that; for I have seen him whipt three
    market days together.
  CADE. I fear neither sword nor fire.
  SMITH. [Aside] He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of
    proof.
  DICK. [Aside] But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being
    burnt i' th' hand for stealing of sheep.
  CADE. Be brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows
    reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves
    sold for a penny; the three-hoop'd pot shall have ten hoops; and
    I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be
    in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass. And
    when I am king- as king I will be
  ALL. God save your Majesty!
  CADE. I thank you, good people- there shall be no money; all shall
    eat and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one
    livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their
    lord.
  DICK. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
  CADE. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that
    of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That
    parchment, being scribbl'd o'er, should undo a man? Some say the
    bee stings; but I say 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once
    to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now! Who's
    there?

              Enter some, bringing in the CLERK OF CHATHAM

  SMITH. The clerk of Chatham. He can write and read and cast
    accompt.
  CADE. O monstrous!
  SMITH. We took him setting of boys' copies.
  CADE. Here's a villain!
  SMITH. Has a book in his pocket with red letters in't.
  CADE. Nay, then he is a conjurer.
  DICK. Nay, he can make obligations and write court-hand.
  CADE. I am sorry for't; the man is a proper man, of mine honour;
    unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come hither, sirrah,
    I must examine thee. What is thy name?
  CLERK. Emmanuel.
  DICK. They use to write it on the top of letters; 'twill go hard
    with you.
  CADE. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a
    mark to thyself, like a honest plain-dealing man?
  CLERK. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can
    write my name.
  ALL. He hath confess'd. Away with him! He's a villain and a
    traitor.
  CADE. Away with him, I say! Hang him with his pen and inkhorn about
    his neck.                            Exit one with the CLERK

                           Enter MICHAEL

  MICHAEL. Where's our General?
  CADE. Here I am, thou particular fellow.
  MICHAEL. Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother are
    hard by, with the King's forces.
  CADE. Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down. He shall be
    encount'red with a man as good as himself. He is but a knight,
    is 'a?
  MICHAEL. No.
  CADE. To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently.
    [Kneels] Rise up, Sir John Mortimer. [Rises] Now have at him!

                Enter SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD and WILLIAM
                  his brother, with drum and soldiers

  STAFFORD. Rebellious hinds, the filth and scum of Kent,
    Mark'd for the gallows, lay your weapons down;
    Home to your cottages, forsake this groom;
    The King is merciful if you revolt.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. But angry, wrathful, and inclin'd to blood,
    If you go forward; therefore yield or die.
  CADE. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not;
    It is to you, good people, that I speak,
    O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign;
    For I am rightful heir unto the crown.
  STAFFORD. Villain, thy father was a plasterer;
    And thou thyself a shearman, art thou not?
  CADE. And Adam was a gardener.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. And what of that?
  CADE. Marry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,
    Married the Duke of Clarence' daughter, did he not?
  STAFFORD. Ay, sir.
  CADE. By her he had two children at one birth.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. That's false.
  CADE. Ay, there's the question; but I say 'tis true.
    The elder of them being put to nurse,
    Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away,
    And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,
    Became a bricklayer when he came to age.
    His son am I; deny it if you can.
  DICK. Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shall be king.
  SMITH. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks
    are alive at this day to testify it; therefore deny it not.
  STAFFORD. And will you credit this base drudge's words
    That speaks he knows not what?
  ALL. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Jack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this.
  CADE. [Aside] He lies, for I invented it myself- Go to, sirrah,
    tell the King from me that for his father's sake, Henry the
    Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter for French crowns,
    I am content he shall reign; but I'll be Protector over him.
  DICK. And furthermore, we'll have the Lord Say's head for selling
    the dukedom of Maine.
  CADE. And good reason; for thereby is England main'd and fain to go
    with a staff, but that my puissance holds it up. Fellow kings, I
    tell you that that Lord Say hath gelded the commonwealth and made
    it an eunuch; and more than that, he can speak French, and
    therefore he is a traitor.
  STAFFORD. O gross and miserable ignorance!
  CADE. Nay, answer if you can; the Frenchmen are our enemies. Go to,
    then, I ask but this: can he that speaks with the tongue of an
    enemy be a good counsellor, or no?
  ALL. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head.
  WILLIAM STAFFORD. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,
    Assail them with the army of the King.
  STAFFORD. Herald, away; and throughout every town
    Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade;
    That those which fly before the battle ends
    May, even in their wives'and children's sight,
    Be hang'd up for example at their doors.
    And you that be the King's friends, follow me.
                           Exeunt the TWO STAFFORDS and soldiers
  CADE. And you that love the commons follow me.
    Now show yourselves men; 'tis for liberty.
    We will not leave one lord, one gentleman;
    Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,
    For they are thrifty honest men and such
    As would- but that they dare not- take our parts.
  DICK. They are all in order, and march toward us.
  CADE. But then are we in order when we are most out of order. Come,
    march forward.                                        Exeunt

SCENE III. Another part of Blackheath

Alarums to the fight, wherein both the STAFFORDS are slain.
Enter CADE and the rest

  CADE. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford?
  DICK. Here, sir.
  CADE. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behavedst
    thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house;
    therefore thus will I reward thee- the Lent shall be as long
    again as it is, and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a
    hundred lacking one.
  DICK. I desire no more.
  CADE. And, to speak truth, thou deserv'st no less. [Putting on SIR
    HUMPHREY'S brigandine] This monument of the victory will I bear,
    and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do come
    to London, where we will have the mayor's sword borne before us.
  DICK. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols and
    let out the prisoners.
  CADE. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards
    London.                                               Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The palace

Enter the KING with a supplication, and the QUEEN with SUFFOLK'S head;
the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, and the LORD SAY

  QUEEN. Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind
    And makes it fearful and degenerate;
    Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.
    But who can cease to weep, and look on this?
    Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast;
    But where's the body that I should embrace?
  BUCKINGHAM. What answer makes your Grace to the rebels'
    supplication?
  KING HENRY. I'll send some holy bishop to entreat;
    For God forbid so many simple souls
    Should perish by the sword! And I myself,
    Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,
    Will parley with Jack Cade their general.
    But stay, I'll read it over once again.
  QUEEN. Ah, barbarous villains! Hath this lovely face
    Rul'd like a wandering planet over me,
    And could it not enforce them to relent
    That were unworthy to behold the same?
  KING HENRY. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.
  SAY. Ay, but I hope your Highness shall have his.
  KING HENRY. How now, madam!
    Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk's death?
    I fear me, love, if that I had been dead,
    Thou wouldst not have mourn'd so much for me.
  QUEEN. No, my love, I should not mourn, but die for thee.

                        Enter A MESSENGER

  KING HENRY. How now! What news? Why com'st thou in such haste?
  MESSENGER. The rebels are in Southwark; fly, my lord!
    Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,
    Descended from the Duke of Clarence' house,
    And calls your Grace usurper, openly,
    And vows to crown himself in Westminster.
    His army is a ragged multitude
    Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless;
    Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death
    Hath given them heart and courage to proceed.
    All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,
    They call false caterpillars and intend their death.
  KING HENRY. O graceless men! they know not what they do.
  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious lord, retire to Killingworth
    Until a power be rais'd to put them down.
  QUEEN. Ah, were the Duke of Suffolk now alive,
    These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd!
  KING HENRY. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee;
    Therefore away with us to Killingworth.
  SAY. So might your Grace's person be in danger.
    The sight of me is odious in their eyes;
    And therefore in this city will I stay
    And live alone as secret as I may.

                      Enter another MESSENGER

  SECOND MESSENGER. Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge.
    The citizens fly and forsake their houses;
    The rascal people, thirsting after prey,
    Join with the traitor; and they jointly swear
    To spoil the city and your royal court.
  BUCKINGHAM. Then linger not, my lord; away, take horse.
  KING HENRY. Come Margaret; God, our hope, will succour us.
  QUEEN. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceas'd.
  KING HENRY. [To LORD SAY] Farewell, my lord, trust not the Kentish
    rebels.
  BUCKINGHAM. Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd.
  SAY. The trust I have is in mine innocence,
    And therefore am I bold and resolute.                 Exeunt

SCENE V. London. The Tower

Enter LORD SCALES Upon the Tower, walking. Then enter two or three
CITIZENS, below

  SCALES. How now! Is Jack Cade slain?
  FIRST CITIZEN. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they have
    won the bridge, killing all those that withstand them.
    The Lord Mayor craves aid of your honour from the
    Tower, to defend the city from the rebels.
  SCALES. Such aid as I can spare you shall command,
    But I am troubled here with them myself;
    The rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.
    But get you to Smithfield, and gather head,
    And thither I will send you Matthew Goffe;
    Fight for your King, your country, and your lives;
    And so, farewell, for I must hence again.             Exeunt

SCENE VI. London. Cannon street

Enter JACK CADE and the rest, and strikes his staff on London Stone

  CADE. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon
  London Stone, I charge and command that, of the city's cost, the
  pissing conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year of our
  reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any that calls me
  other than Lord Mortimer.

                    Enter a SOLDIER, running

  SOLDIER. Jack Cade! Jack Cade!
  CADE. Knock him down there.                    [They kill him]
  SMITH. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call ye Jack Cade more;
    I think he hath a very fair warning.
  DICK. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield.
  CADE. Come then, let's go fight with them. But first go and set
    London Bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn down the Tower too.
    Come, let's away.                                     Exeunt

SCENE VII. London. Smithfield

Alarums. MATTHEW GOFFE is slain, and all the rest.  Then enter JACK
CADE, with his company

  CADE. So, sirs. Now go some and pull down the Savoy; others to th'
    Inns of Court; down with them all.
  DICK. I have a suit unto your lordship.
  CADE. Be it a lordship, thou shalt have it for that word.
  DICK. Only that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.
  JOHN. [Aside] Mass, 'twill be sore law then; for he was thrust in
    the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole yet.
  SMITH. [Aside] Nay, John, it will be stinking law; for his breath
    stinks with eating toasted cheese.
  CADE. I have thought upon it; it shall be so. Away, burn all the
    records of the realm. My mouth shall be the Parliament of
    England.
  JOHN. [Aside] Then we are like to have biting statutes, unless his
    teeth be pull'd out.
  CADE. And henceforward all things shall be in common.

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My lord, a prize, a prize! Here's the Lord Say, which sold
  the towns in France; he that made us pay one and twenty fifteens, and
  one shining to the pound, the last subsidy.

                Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY

  CADE. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times. Ah, thou say,
    thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord! Now art thou within point
    blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my
    Majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu the
    Dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence, even
    the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must
    sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art. Thou hast most
    traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a
    grammar school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other
    books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to
    be us'd, and, contrary to the King, his crown, and dignity, thou
    hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou
    hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and
    such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear.
    Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before
    them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou
    hast put them in prison, and because they could not read, thou
    hast hang'd them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have
    been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride in a foot-cloth, dost
    thou not?
  SAY. What of that?
  CADE. Marry, thou ought'st not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when
    honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets.
  DICK. And work in their shirt too, as myself, for example, that am
    a butcher.
  SAY. You men of Kent-
  DICK. What say you of Kent?
  SAY. Nothing but this: 'tis 'bona terra, mala gens.'
  CADE. Away with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.
  SAY. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.
    Kent, in the Commentaries Caesar writ,
    Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle.
    Sweet is the country, because full of riches;
    The people liberal valiant, active, wealthy;
    Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.
    I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy;
    Yet, to recover them, would lose my life.
    Justice with favour have I always done;
    Pray'rs and tears have mov'd me, gifts could never.
    When have I aught exacted at your hands,
    But to maintain the King, the realm, and you?
    Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,
    Because my book preferr'd me to the King,
    And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
    Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,
    Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits
    You cannot but forbear to murder me.
    This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings
    For your behoof.
  CADE. Tut, when struck'st thou one blow in the field?
  SAY. Great men have reaching hands. Oft have I struck
    Those that I never saw, and struck them dead.
  GEORGE. O monstrous coward! What, to come behind folks?
  SAY. These cheeks are pale for watching for your good.
  CADE. Give him a box o' th' ear, and that will make 'em red again.
  SAY. Long sitting to determine poor men's causes
    Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.
  CADE. Ye shall have a hempen caudle then, and the help of hatchet.
  DICK. Why dost thou quiver, man?
  SAY. The palsy, and not fear, provokes me.
  CADE. Nay, he nods at us, as who should say 'I'll be even with
    you'; I'll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole, or no.
    Take him away, and behead him.
  SAY. Tell me: wherein have I offended most?
    Have I affected wealth or honour? Speak.
    Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?
    Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?
    Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death?
    These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,
    This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.
    O, let me live!
  CADE. [Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words; but I'll
    bridle it. He shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for
    his life.- Away with him! He has a familiar under his tongue; he
    speaks not o' God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike
    off his head presently, and then break into his son-in-law's
    house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring them
    both upon two poles hither.
  ALL. It shall be done.
  SAY. Ah, countrymen! if when you make your pray'rs,
    God should be so obdurate as yourselves,
    How would it fare with your departed souls?
    And therefore yet relent and save my life.
  CADE. Away with him, and do as I command ye.  [Exeunt some with
    LORD SAY]  The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head
    on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute; there shall not a
    maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they
    have it. Men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and
    command that their wives be as free as heart can wish or tongue
    can tell.
  DICK. My lord, when shall we go to Cheapside, and take up
    commodities upon our bills?
  CADE. Marry, presently.
  ALL. O, brave!

                      Re-enter one with the heads

  CADE. But is not this braver? Let them kiss one another, for they
  lov'd well when they were alive. Now part them again, lest they
  consult about the giving up of some more towns in France. Soldiers,
  defer the spoil of the city until night; for with these borne before
  us instead of maces will we ride through the streets, and at every
  corner have them kiss. Away!     Exeunt

SCENE VIII. Southwark

Alarum and retreat. Enter again CADE and all his rabblement

  CADE. Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Corner! Kill and knock down!
  Throw them into Thames!               [Sound a parley] What noise is
  this I hear? Dare any be so bold to sound retreat or parley when I
  command them kill?

            Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD, attended

  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, here they be that dare and will disturb thee.
    And therefore yet relent, and save my life.
    Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the King
    Unto the commons whom thou hast misled;
    And here pronounce free pardon to them all
    That will forsake thee and go home in peace.
  CLIFFORD. What say ye, countrymen? Will ye relent
    And yield to mercy whilst 'tis offer'd you,
    Or let a rebel lead you to your deaths?
    Who loves the King, and will embrace his pardon,
    Fling up his cap and say 'God save his Majesty!'
    Who hateth him and honours not his father,
    Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake,
    Shake he his weapon at us and pass by.
  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!
  CADE. What, Buckingham and Clifford, are ye so brave?
    And you, base peasants, do ye believe him? Will you needs be
    hang'd with your about your necks? Hath my sword therefore broke
    through London gates, that you should leave me at the White Hart
    in Southwark? I thought ye would never have given out these arms
    till you had recovered your ancient freedom. But you are all
    recreants and dastards, and delight to live in slavery to the
    nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your
    houses over your heads, ravish your wives and daughters before
    your faces. For me, I will make shift for one; and so God's curse
    light upon you all!
  ALL. We'll follow Cade, we'll follow Cade!
  CLIFFORD. Is Cade the son of Henry the Fifth,
    That thus you do exclaim you'll go with him?
    Will he conduct you through the heart of France,
    And make the meanest of you earls and dukes?
    Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to;
    Nor knows he how to live but by the spoil,
    Unless by robbing of your friends and us.
    Were't not a shame that whilst you live at jar
    The fearful French, whom you late vanquished,
    Should make a start o'er seas and vanquish you?
    Methinks already in this civil broil
    I see them lording it in London streets,
    Crying 'Villiago!' unto all they meet.
    Better ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry
    Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman's mercy.
    To France, to France, and get what you have lost;
    Spare England, for it is your native coast.
    Henry hath money; you are strong and manly.
    God on our side, doubt not of victory.
  ALL. A Clifford! a Clifford! We'll follow the King and Clifford.
  CADE. Was ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this
    multitude? The name of Henry the Fifth hales them to an hundred
    mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay their
    heads together to surprise me. My sword make way for me for here
    is no staying. In despite of the devils and hell, have through
    the very middest of you! and heavens and honour be witness that
    no want of resolution in me, but only my followers' base and
    ignominious treasons, makes me betake me to my heels.
 Exit
  BUCKINGHAM. What, is he fled? Go some, and follow him;
    And he that brings his head unto the King
    Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward.
                                             Exeunt some of them
    Follow me, soldiers; we'll devise a mean
    To reconcile you all unto the King.                   Exeunt

SCENE IX. Killing, worth Castle

Sound trumpets. Enter KING, QUEEN, and SOMERSET, on the terrace

  KING HENRY. Was ever king that joy'd an earthly throne
    And could command no more content than I?
    No sooner was I crept out of my cradle
    But I was made a king, at nine months old.
    Was never subject long'd to be a King
    As I do long and wish to be a subject.

               Enter BUCKINGHAM and old CLIFFORD

  BUCKINGHAM. Health and glad tidings to your Majesty!
  KING HENRY. Why, Buckingham, is the traitor Cade surpris'd?
    Or is he but retir'd to make him strong?

     Enter, below, multitudes, with halters about their necks

  CLIFFORD. He is fled, my lord, and all his powers do yield,
    And humbly thus, with halters on their necks,
    Expect your Highness' doom of life or death.
  KING HENRY. Then, heaven, set ope thy everlasting gates,
    To entertain my vows of thanks and praise!
    Soldiers, this day have you redeem'd your lives,
    And show'd how well you love your Prince and country.
    Continue still in this so good a mind,
    And Henry, though he be infortunate,
    Assure yourselves, will never be unkind.
    And so, with thanks and pardon to you all,
    I do dismiss you to your several countries.
  ALL. God save the King! God save the King!

                     Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Please it your Grace to be advertised
    The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland
    And with a puissant and a mighty power
    Of gallowglasses and stout kerns
    Is marching hitherward in proud array,
    And still proclaimeth, as he comes along,
    His arms are only to remove from thee
    The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.
  KING HENRY. Thus stands my state, 'twixt Cade and York distress'd;
    Like to a ship that, having scap'd a tempest,
    Is straightway calm'd, and boarded with a pirate;
    But now is Cade driven back, his men dispers'd,
    And now is York in arms to second him.
    I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him
    And ask him what's the reason of these arms.
    Tell him I'll send Duke Edmund to the Tower-
    And Somerset, we will commit thee thither
    Until his army be dismiss'd from him.
  SOMERSET. My lord,
    I'll yield myself to prison willingly,
    Or unto death, to do my country good.
  KING HENRY. In any case be not too rough in terms,
    For he is fierce and cannot brook hard language.
  BUCKINGHAM. I will, my lord, and doubt not so to deal
    As all things shall redound unto your good.
  KING HENRY. Come, wife, let's in, and learn to govern better;
    For yet may England curse my wretched reign.
                                                Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE X. Kent. Iden's garden

Enter CADE

  CADE. Fie on ambitions! Fie on myself, that have a sword and yet am
  ready to famish! These five days have I hid me in these woods and
  durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me; but now am I
  so hungry that, if I might have a lease of my life for a thousand
  years, I could stay no longer. Wherefore, on a brick wall have I
  climb'd into this garden, to see if I can eat grass or pick a sallet
  another while, which is not amiss to cool a man's stomach this hot
  weather. And I think this word 'sallet' was born to do me good; for
  many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pain had been cleft with a
  brown bill; and many a time, when I have been dry, and bravely
  marching, it hath serv'd me instead of a quart-pot to drink in; and
  now the word 'sallet' must serve me to feed on.

                             Enter IDEN

  IDEN. Lord, who would live turmoiled in the court
    And may enjoy such quiet walks as these?
    This small inheritance my father left me
    Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.
    I seek not to wax great by others' waning
    Or gather wealth I care not with what envy;
    Sufficeth that I have maintains my state,
    And sends the poor well pleased from my gate.
  CADE. Here's the lord of the soil come to seize me for a stray, for
    entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt
    betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the King by carrying my
    head to him; but I'll make thee eat iron like an ostrich and
    swallow my sword like a great pin ere thou and I part.
  IDEN. Why, rude companion, whatsoe'er thou be,
    I know thee not; why then should I betray thee?
    Is't not enough to break into my garden
    And like a thief to come to rob my grounds,
    Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner,
    But thou wilt brave me with these saucy terms?
  CADE. Brave thee? Ay, by the best blood that ever was broach'd, and
    beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat no meat these five
    days, yet come thou and thy five men and if I do not leave you
    all as dead as a door-nail, I pray God I may never eat grass
    more.
  IDEN. Nay, it shall ne'er be said, while England stands,
    That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent,
    Took odds to combat a poor famish'd man.
    Oppose thy steadfast-gazing eyes to mine;
    See if thou canst outface me with thy looks;
    Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser;
    Thy hand is but a finger to my fist,
    Thy leg a stick compared with this truncheon;
    My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast,
    And if mine arm be heaved in the air,
    Thy grave is digg'd already in the earth.
    As for words, whose greatness answers words,
    Let this my sword report what speech forbears.
  CADE. By my valour, the most complete champion that ever I heard!
    Steel, if thou turn the edge, or cut not out the burly bon'd
    clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech
    God on my knees thou mayst be turn'd to hobnails. [Here they
    fight; CADE falls] O, I am slain! famine and no other hath slain
    me. Let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the
    ten meals I have lost, and I'd defy them all. Wither, garden, and
    be henceforth a burying place to all that do dwell in this house,
    because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.
  IDEN. Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?
    Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed
    And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead.
    Ne'er shall this blood be wiped from thy point,
    But thou shalt wear it as a herald's coat
    To emblaze the honour that thy master got.
  CADE. Iden, farewell; and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent from
    me she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be
    cowards; for I, that never feared any, am vanquished by famine,
    not by valour.                                        [Dies]
  IDEN. How much thou wrong'st me, heaven be my judge.
    Die, damned wretch, the curse of her that bare thee!
    And as I thrust thy body in with my sword,
    So wish I, I might thrust thy soul to hell.
    Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels
    Unto a dunghill, which shall be thy grave,
    And there cut off thy most ungracious head,
    Which I will bear in triumph to the King,
    Leaving thy trunk for crows to feed upon.               Exit

ACT V. SCENE I. Fields between Dartford and Blackheath

Enter YORK, and his army of Irish, with drum and colours

  YORK. From Ireland thus comes York to claim his right
    And pluck the crown from feeble Henry's head:
    Ring bells aloud, burn bonfires clear and bright,
    To entertain great England's lawful king.
    Ah, sancta majestas! who would not buy thee dear?
    Let them obey that knows not how to rule;
    This hand was made to handle nought but gold.
    I cannot give due action to my words
    Except a sword or sceptre balance it.
    A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul
    On which I'll toss the flower-de-luce of France.

                         Enter BUCKINGHAM

    [Aside] Whom have we here? Buckingham, to disturb me?
    The King hath sent him, sure: I must dissemble.
  BUCKINGHAM. York, if thou meanest well I greet thee well.
  YORK. Humphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy greeting.
    Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure?
  BUCKINGHAM. A messenger from Henry, our dread liege,
    To know the reason of these arms in peace;
    Or why thou, being a subject as I am,
    Against thy oath and true allegiance sworn,
    Should raise so great a power without his leave,
    Or dare to bring thy force so near the court.
  YORK. [Aside] Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great.
    O, I could hew up rocks and fight with flint,
    I am so angry at these abject terms;
    And now, like Ajax Telamonius,
    On sheep or oxen could I spend my fury.
    I am far better born than is the King,
    More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts;
    But I must make fair weather yet awhile,
    Till Henry be more weak and I more strong.-
    Buckingham, I prithee, pardon me
    That I have given no answer all this while;
    My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.
    The cause why I have brought this army hither
    Is to remove proud Somerset from the King,
    Seditious to his Grace and to the state.
  BUCKINGHAM. That is too much presumption on thy part;
    But if thy arms be to no other end,
    The King hath yielded unto thy demand:
    The Duke of Somerset is in the Tower.
  YORK. Upon thine honour, is he prisoner?
  BUCKINGHAM. Upon mine honour, he is prisoner.
  YORK. Then, Buckingham, I do dismiss my pow'rs.
    Soldiers, I thank you all; disperse yourselves;
    Meet me to-morrow in Saint George's field,
    You shall have pay and everything you wish.
    And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,
    Command my eldest son, nay, all my sons,
    As pledges of my fealty and love.
    I'll send them all as willing as I live:
    Lands, goods, horse, armour, anything I have,
    Is his to use, so Somerset may die.
  BUCKINGHAM. York, I commend this kind submission.
    We twain will go into his Highness' tent.

                  Enter the KING, and attendants

  KING HENRY. Buckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,
    That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?
  YORK. In all submission and humility
    York doth present himself unto your Highness.
  KING HENRY. Then what intends these forces thou dost bring?
  YORK. To heave the traitor Somerset from hence,
    And fight against that monstrous rebel Cade,
    Who since I heard to be discomfited.

                    Enter IDEN, with CADE's head

  IDEN. If one so rude and of so mean condition
    May pass into the presence of a king,
    Lo, I present your Grace a traitor's head,
    The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.
  KING HENRY. The head of Cade! Great God, how just art Thou!
    O, let me view his visage, being dead,
    That living wrought me such exceeding trouble.
    Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him?
  IDEN. I was, an't like your Majesty.
  KING HENRY. How art thou call'd? And what is thy degree?
  IDEN. Alexander Iden, that's my name;
    A poor esquire of Kent that loves his king.
  BUCKINGHAM. So please it you, my lord, 'twere not amiss
    He were created knight for his good service.
  KING HENRY. Iden, kneel down. [He kneels] Rise up a knight.
    We give thee for reward a thousand marks,
    And will that thou thenceforth attend on us.
  IDEN. May Iden live to merit such a bounty,
    And never live but true unto his liege!

                    Enter the QUEEN and SOMERSET

  KING HENRY. See, Buckingham! Somerset comes with th' Queen:
    Go, bid her hide him quickly from the Duke.
  QUEEN. For thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,
    But boldly stand and front him to his face.
  YORK. How now! Is Somerset at liberty?
    Then, York, unloose thy long-imprisoned thoughts
    And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.
    Shall I endure the sight of Somerset?
    False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,
    Knowing how hardly I can brook abuse?
    King did I call thee? No, thou art not king;
    Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,
    Which dar'st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.
    That head of thine doth not become a crown;
    Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer's staff,
    And not to grace an awful princely sceptre.
    That gold must round engirt these brows of mine,
    Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles' spear,
    Is able with the change to kill and cure.
    Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up,
    And with the same to act controlling laws.
    Give place. By heaven, thou shalt rule no more
    O'er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.
  SOMERSET. O monstrous traitor! I arrest thee, York,
    Of capital treason 'gainst the King and crown.
    Obey, audacious traitor; kneel for grace.
  YORK. Wouldst have me kneel? First let me ask of these,
    If they can brook I bow a knee to man.
    Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail:        Exit attendant
    I know, ere thy will have me go to ward,
    They'll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.
  QUEEN. Call hither Clifford; bid him come amain,
    To say if that the bastard boys of York
    Shall be the surety for their traitor father.
                                                 Exit BUCKINGHAM
  YORK. O blood-bespotted Neapolitan,
    Outcast of Naples, England's bloody scourge!
    The sons of York, thy betters in their birth,
    Shall be their father's bail; and bane to those
    That for my surety will refuse the boys!

               Enter EDWARD and RICHARD PLANTAGENET

    See where they come: I'll warrant they'll make it good.

                     Enter CLIFFORD and his SON

  QUEEN. And here comes Clifford to deny their bail.
  CLIFFORD. Health and all happiness to my lord the King!
                                                        [Kneels]
  YORK. I thank thee, Clifford. Say, what news with thee?
    Nay, do not fright us with an angry look.
    We are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again;
    For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.
  CLIFFORD. This is my King, York, I do not mistake;
    But thou mistakes me much to think I do.
    To Bedlam with him! Is the man grown mad?
  KING HENRY. Ay, Clifford; a bedlam and ambitious humour
    Makes him oppose himself against his king.
  CLIFFORD. He is a traitor; let him to the Tower,
    And chop away that factious pate of his.
  QUEEN. He is arrested, but will not obey;
    His sons, he says, shall give their words for him.
  YORK. Will you not, sons?
  EDWARD. Ay, noble father, if our words will serve.
  RICHARD. And if words will not, then our weapons shall.
  CLIFFORD. Why, what a brood of traitors have we here!
  YORK. Look in a glass, and call thy image so:
    I am thy king, and thou a false-heart traitor.
    Call hither to the stake my two brave bears,
    That with the very shaking of their chains
    They may astonish these fell-lurking curs.
    Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.

               Enter the EARLS OF WARWICK and SALISBURY

  CLIFFORD. Are these thy bears? We'll bait thy bears to death,
    And manacle the berard in their chains,
    If thou dar'st bring them to the baiting-place.
  RICHARD. Oft have I seen a hot o'er weening cur
    Run back and bite, because he was withheld;
    Who, being suffer'd, with the bear's fell paw,
    Hath clapp'd his tail between his legs and cried;
    And such a piece of service will you do,
    If you oppose yourselves to match Lord Warwick.
  CLIFFORD. Hence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,
    As crooked in thy manners as thy shape!
  YORK. Nay, we shall heat you thoroughly anon.
  CLIFFORD. Take heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.
  KING HENRY. Why, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?
    Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair,
    Thou mad misleader of thy brainsick son!
    What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian
    And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?
    O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty?
    If it be banish'd from the frosty head,
    Where shall it find a harbour in the earth?
    Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war
    And shame thine honourable age with blood?
    Why art thou old, and want'st experience?
    Or wherefore dost abuse it, if thou hast it?
    For shame! In duty bend thy knee to me,
    That bows unto the grave with mickle age.
  SALISBURY. My lord, I have considered with myself
    The tide of this most renowned duke,
    And in my conscience do repute his Grace
    The rightful heir to England's royal seat.
  KING HENRY. Hast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?
  SALISBURY. I have.
  KING HENRY. Canst thou dispense with heaven for such an oath?
  SALISBURY. It is great sin to swear unto a sin;
    But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.
    Who can be bound by any solemn vow
    To do a murd'rous deed, to rob a man,
    To force a spotless virgin's chastity,
    To reave the orphan of his patrimony,
    To wring the widow from her custom'd right,
    And have no other reason for this wrong
    But that he was bound by a solemn oath?
  QUEEN. A subtle traitor needs no sophister.
  KING HENRY. Call Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.
  YORK. Call Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,
    I am resolv'd for death or dignity.
  CLIFFORD. The first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true.
  WARWICK. You were best to go to bed and dream again
    To keep thee from the tempest of the field.
  CLIFFORD. I am resolv'd to bear a greater storm
    Than any thou canst conjure up to-day;
    And that I'll write upon thy burgonet,
    Might I but know thee by thy household badge.
  WARWICK. Now, by my father's badge, old Nevil's crest,
    The rampant bear chain'd to the ragged staff,
    This day I'll wear aloft my burgonet,
    As on a mountain-top the cedar shows,
    That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,
    Even to affright thee with the view thereof.
  CLIFFORD. And from thy burgonet I'll rend thy bear
    And tread it under foot with all contempt,
    Despite the berard that protects the bear.
  YOUNG CLIFFORD. And so to arms, victorious father,
    To quell the rebels and their complices.
  RICHARD. Fie! charity, for shame! Speak not in spite,
    For you shall sup with Jesu Christ to-night.
  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Foul stigmatic, that's more than thou canst tell.
  RICHARD. If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell.
                                                Exeunt severally

SCENE II. Saint Albans

Alarums to the battle. Enter WARWICK

  WARWICK. Clifford of Cumberland, 'tis Warwick calls;
    And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,
    Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum
    And dead men's cries do fill the empty air,
    Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me.
    Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,
  WARWICK is hoarse with calling thee to arms.

                          Enter YORK

    How now, my noble lord! what, all a-foot?
  YORK. The deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed;
    But match to match I have encount'red him,
    And made a prey for carrion kites and crows
    Even of the bonny beast he lov'd so well.

                      Enter OLD CLIFFORD

  WARWICK. Of one or both of us the time is come.
  YORK. Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chase,
    For I myself must hunt this deer to death.
  WARWICK. Then, nobly, York; 'tis for a crown thou fight'st.
    As I intend, Clifford, to thrive to-day,
    It grieves my soul to leave thee unassail'd.            Exit
  CLIFFORD. What seest thou in me, York? Why dost thou pause?
  YORK. With thy brave bearing should I be in love
    But that thou art so fast mine enemy.
  CLIFFORD. Nor should thy prowess want praise and esteem
    But that 'tis shown ignobly and in treason.
  YORK. So let it help me now against thy sword,
    As I in justice and true right express it!
  CLIFFORD. My soul and body on the action both!
  YORK. A dreadful lay! Address thee instantly.
                                 [They fight and CLIFFORD falls]
  CLIFFORD. La fin couronne les oeuvres.                  [Dies]
  YORK. Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.
    Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will!         Exit

                     Enter YOUNG CLIFFORD

  YOUNG CLIFFORD. Shame and confusion! All is on the rout;
    Fear frames disorder, and disorder wounds
    Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,
    Whom angry heavens do make their minister,
    Throw in the frozen bosoms of our part
    Hot coals of vengeance! Let no soldier fly.
    He that is truly dedicate to war
    Hath no self-love; nor he that loves himself
    Hath not essentially, but by circumstance,
    The name of valour.                 [Sees his father's body]
    O, let the vile world end
    And the premised flames of the last day
    Knit earth and heaven together!
    Now let the general trumpet blow his blast,
    Particularities and petty sounds
    To cease! Wast thou ordain'd, dear father,
    To lose thy youth in peace and to achieve
    The silver livery of advised age,
    And in thy reverence and thy chair-days thus
    To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight
    My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 'tis mine
    It shall be stony. York not our old men spares;
    No more will I their babes. Tears virginal
    Shall be to me even as the dew to fire;
    And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims,
    Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax.
    Henceforth I will not have to do with pity:
    Meet I an infant of the house of York,
    Into as many gobbets will I cut it
    As wild Medea young Absyrtus did;
    In cruelty will I seek out my fame.
    Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford's house;
    As did Aeneas old Anchises bear,
    So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders;
    But then Aeneas bare a living load,
    Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine.
                                              Exit with the body

       Enter RICHARD and SOMERSET to fight. SOMERSET is killed

  RICHARD. So, lie thou there;
    For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign,
    The Castle in Saint Albans, Somerset
    Hath made the wizard famous in his death.
    Sword, hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still:
    Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.             Exit

        Fight. Excursions. Enter KING, QUEEN, and others

  QUEEN. Away, my lord! You are slow; for shame, away!
  KING HENRY. Can we outrun the heavens? Good Margaret, stay.
  QUEEN. What are you made of? You'll nor fight nor fly.
    Now is it manhood, wisdom, and defence,
    To give the enemy way, and to secure us
    By what we can, which can no more but fly.
                                               [Alarum afar off]
    If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom
    Of all our fortunes; but if we haply scape-
    As well we may, if not through your neglect-
    We shall to London get, where you are lov'd,
    And where this breach now in our fortunes made
    May readily be stopp'd.

                     Re-enter YOUNG CLIFFORD

  YOUNG CLIFFORD. But that my heart's on future mischief set,
    I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly;
    But fly you must; uncurable discomfit
    Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.
    Away, for your relief! and we will live
    To see their day and them our fortune give.
    Away, my lord, away!                                  Exeunt

SCENE III. Fields near Saint Albans

Alarum. Retreat. Enter YORK, RICHARD, WARWICK, and soldiers, with drum
and colours

  YORK. Of Salisbury, who can report of him,
    That winter lion, who in rage forgets
    Aged contusions and all brush of time
    And, like a gallant in the brow of youth,
    Repairs him with occasion? This happy day
    Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,
    If Salisbury be lost.
  RICHARD. My noble father,
    Three times to-day I holp him to his horse,
    Three times bestrid him, thrice I led him off,
    Persuaded him from any further act;
    But still where danger was, still there I met him;
    And like rich hangings in a homely house,
    So was his will in his old feeble body.
    But, noble as he is, look where he comes.

                         Enter SALISBURY

  SALISBURY. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day!
    By th' mass, so did we all. I thank you, Richard:
    God knows how long it is I have to live,
    And it hath pleas'd Him that three times to-day
    You have defended me from imminent death.
    Well, lords, we have not got that which we have;
    'Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,
    Being opposites of such repairing nature.
  YORK. I know our safety is to follow them;
    For, as I hear, the King is fled to London
    To call a present court of Parliament.
    Let us pursue him ere the writs go forth.
    What says Lord Warwick? Shall we after them?
  WARWICK. After them? Nay, before them, if we can.
    Now, by my faith, lords, 'twas a glorious day:
    Saint Albans' battle, won by famous York,
    Shall be eterniz'd in all age to come.
    Sound drum and trumpets and to London all;
    And more such days as these to us befall!             Exeunt

THE END

1591



THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  KING HENRY THE SIXTH
  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, his son
  LEWIS XI, King of France           DUKE OF SOMERSET
  DUKE OF EXETER                     EARL OF OXFORD
  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND             EARL OF WESTMORELAND
  LORD CLIFFORD
  RICHARD PLANTAGENET, DUKE OF YORK
  EDWARD, EARL OF MARCH, afterwards KING EDWARD IV, his son
  EDMUND, EARL OF RUTLAND, his son
  GEORGE, afterwards DUKE OF CLARENCE, his son
  RICHARD, afterwards DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, his son
  DUKE OF NORFOLK                    MARQUIS OF MONTAGUE
  EARL OF WARWICK                    EARL OF PEMBROKE
  LORD HASTINGS                      LORD STAFFORD
  SIR JOHN MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York
  SIR HUGH MORTIMER, uncle to the Duke of York
  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, a youth
  LORD RIVERS, brother to Lady Grey
  SIR WILLIAM STANLEY                SIR JOHN MONTGOMERY
  SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE                TUTOR, to Rutland
  MAYOR OF YORK                      LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER
  A NOBLEMAN                         TWO KEEPERS
  A HUNTSMAN
  A SON that has killed his father
  A FATHER that has killed his son

  QUEEN MARGARET
  LADY GREY, afterwards QUEEN to Edward IV
  BONA, sister to the French Queen

  Soldiers, Attendants, Messengers, Watchmen, etc.

SCENE: England and France

ACT I. SCENE I. London. The Parliament House

Alarum. Enter DUKE OF YORK, EDWARD, RICHARD, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE,
WARWICK, and soldiers, with white roses in their hats

  WARWICK. I wonder how the King escap'd our hands.
  YORK. While we pursu'd the horsemen of the north,
    He slily stole away and left his men;
    Whereat the great Lord of Northumberland,
    Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,
    Cheer'd up the drooping army, and himself,
    Lord Clifford, and Lord Stafford, all abreast,
    Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in,
    Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.
  EDWARD. Lord Stafford's father, Duke of Buckingham,
    Is either slain or wounded dangerous;
    I cleft his beaver with a downright blow.
    That this is true, father, behold his blood.
  MONTAGUE. And, brother, here's the Earl of Wiltshire's blood,
    Whom I encount'red as the battles join'd.
  RICHARD. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I did.
                                 [Throwing down SOMERSET'S head]
  YORK. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my sons.
    But is your Grace dead, my Lord of Somerset?
  NORFOLK. Such hope have all the line of John of Gaunt!
  RICHARD. Thus do I hope to shake King Henry's head.
  WARWICK. And so do I. Victorious Prince of York,
    Before I see thee seated in that throne
    Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,
    I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.
    This is the palace of the fearful King,
    And this the regal seat. Possess it, York;
    For this is thine, and not King Henry's heirs'.
  YORK. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I will;
    For hither we have broken in by force.
  NORFOLK. We'll all assist you; he that flies shall die.
  YORK. Thanks, gentle Norfolk. Stay by me, my lords;
    And, soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night.
                                                    [They go up]
  WARWICK. And when the King comes, offer him no violence.
    Unless he seek to thrust you out perforce.
  YORK. The Queen this day here holds her parliament,
    But little thinks we shall be of her council.
    By words or blows here let us win our right.
  RICHARD. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this house.
  WARWICK. The bloody parliament shall this be call'd,
    Unless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be King,
    And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice
    Hath made us by-words to our enemies.
  YORK. Then leave me not, my lords; be resolute:
    I mean to take possession of my right.
  WARWICK. Neither the King, nor he that loves him best,
    The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
    Dares stir a wing if Warwick shake his bells.
    I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares.
    Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.
                                      [YORK occupies the throne]

       Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,
        WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and others, with red roses in
                            their hats

  KING HENRY. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel sits,
    Even in the chair of state! Belike he means,
    Back'd by the power of Warwick, that false peer,
    To aspire unto the crown and reign as king.
    Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father;
    And thine, Lord Clifford; and you both have vow'd revenge
    On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. If I be not, heavens be reveng'd on me!
  CLIFFORD. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.
  WESTMORELAND. What, shall we suffer this? Let's pluck him down;
    My heart for anger burns; I cannot brook it.
  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle Earl of Westmoreland.
  CLIFFORD. Patience is for poltroons such as he;
    He durst not sit there had your father liv'd.
    My gracious lord, here in the parliament
    Let us assail the family of York.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well hast thou spoken, cousin; be it so.
  KING HENRY. Ah, know you not the city favours them,
    And they have troops of soldiers at their beck?
  EXETER. But when the Duke is slain they'll quickly fly.
  KING HENRY. Far be the thought of this from Henry's heart,
    To make a shambles of the parliament house!
    Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats,
    Shall be the war that Henry means to use.
    Thou factious Duke of York, descend my throne
    And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet;
    I am thy sovereign.
  YORK. I am thine.
  EXETER. For shame, come down; he made thee Duke of York.
  YORK. 'Twas my inheritance, as the earldom was.
  EXETER. Thy father was a traitor to the crown.
  WARWICK. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown
    In following this usurping Henry.
  CLIFFORD. Whom should he follow but his natural king?
  WARWICK. True, Clifford; and that's Richard Duke of York.
  KING HENRY. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?
  YORK. It must and shall be so; content thyself.
  WARWICK. Be Duke of Lancaster; let him be King.
  WESTMORELAND. He is both King and Duke of Lancaster;
    And that the Lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.
  WARWICK. And Warwick shall disprove it. You forget
    That we are those which chas'd you from the field,
    And slew your fathers, and with colours spread
    March'd through the city to the palace gates.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief;
    And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.
  WESTMORELAND. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,
    Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives
    Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.
  CLIFFORD. Urge it no more; lest that instead of words
    I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger
    As shall revenge his death before I stir.
  WARWICK. Poor Clifford, how I scorn his worthless threats!
  YORK. Will you we show our title to the crown?
    If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.
  KING HENRY. What title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?
    Thy father was, as thou art, Duke of York;
    Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:
    I am the son of Henry the Fifth,
    Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,
    And seiz'd upon their towns and provinces.
  WARWICK. Talk not of France, sith thou hast lost it all.
  KING HENRY. The Lord Protector lost it, and not I:
    When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.
  RICHARD. You are old enough now, and yet methinks you lose.
    Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.
  EDWARD. Sweet father, do so; set it on your head.
  MONTAGUE. Good brother, as thou lov'st and honourest arms,
    Let's fight it out and not stand cavilling thus.
  RICHARD. Sound drums and trumpets, and the King will fly.
  YORK. Sons, peace!
  KING HENRY. Peace thou! and give King Henry leave to speak.
  WARWICK. Plantagenet shall speak first. Hear him, lords;
    And be you silent and attentive too,
    For he that interrupts him shall not live.
  KING HENRY. Think'st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,
    Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?
    No; first shall war unpeople this my realm;
    Ay, and their colours, often borne in France,
    And now in England to our heart's great sorrow,
    Shall be my winding-sheet. Why faint you, lords?
    My title's good, and better far than his.
  WARWICK. Prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be King.
  KING HENRY. Henry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.
  YORK. 'Twas by rebellion against his king.
  KING HENRY. [Aside] I know not what to say; my title's weak.-
    Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir?
  YORK. What then?
  KING HENRY. An if he may, then am I lawful King;
    For Richard, in the view of many lords,
    Resign'd the crown to Henry the Fourth,
    Whose heir my father was, and I am his.
  YORK. He rose against him, being his sovereign,
    And made him to resign his crown perforce.
  WARWICK. Suppose, my lords, he did it unconstrain'd,
    Think you 'twere prejudicial to his crown?
  EXETER. No; for he could not so resign his crown
    But that the next heir should succeed and reign.
  KING HENRY. Art thou against us, Duke of Exeter?
  EXETER. His is the right, and therefore pardon me.
  YORK. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer not?
  EXETER. My conscience tells me he is lawful King.
  KING HENRY. [Aside] All will revolt from me, and turn to him.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,
    Think not that Henry shall be so depos'd.
  WARWICK. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Thou art deceiv'd. 'Tis not thy southern power
    Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,
    Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,
    Can set the Duke up in despite of me.
  CLIFFORD. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong,
    Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence.
    May that ground gape, and swallow me alive,
    Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father!
  KING HENRY. O Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!
  YORK. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.
    What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?
  WARWICK. Do right unto this princely Duke of York;
    Or I will fill the house with armed men,
    And over the chair of state, where now he sits,
    Write up his title with usurping blood.
                                [He stamps with his foot and the
                                       soldiers show themselves]
  KING HENRY. My Lord of Warwick, hear but one word:
    Let me for this my life-time reign as king.
  YORK. Confirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,
    And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou liv'st.
  KING HENRY. I am content. Richard Plantagenet,
    Enjoy the kingdom after my decease.
  CLIFFORD. What wrong is this unto the Prince your son!
  WARWICK. What good is this to England and himself!
  WESTMORELAND. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry!
  CLIFFORD. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and or us!
  WESTMORELAND. I cannot stay to hear these articles.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nor I.
  CLIFFORD. Come, cousin, let us tell the Queen these news.
  WESTMORELAND. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,
    In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be thou a prey unto the house of York
    And die in bands for this unmanly deed!
  CLIFFORD. In dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,
    Or live in peace abandon'd and despis'd!
                                Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, CLIFFORD,
                                                and WESTMORELAND
  WARWICK. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them not.
  EXETER. They seek revenge, and therefore will not yield.
  KING HENRY. Ah, Exeter!
  WARWICK. Why should you sigh, my lord?
  KING HENRY. Not for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,
    Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.
    But be it as it may. [To YORK] I here entail
    The crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever;
    Conditionally, that here thou take an oath
    To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,
    To honour me as thy king and sovereign,
    And neither by treason nor hostility
    To seek to put me down and reign thyself.
  YORK. This oath I willingly take, and will perform.
                                        [Coming from the throne]
  WARWICK. Long live King Henry! Plantagenet, embrace him.
  KING HENRY. And long live thou, and these thy forward sons!
  YORK. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd.
  EXETER. Accurs'd be he that seeks to make them foes!
                                   [Sennet. Here they come down]
  YORK. Farewell, my gracious lord; I'll to my castle.
  WARWICK. And I'll keep London with my soldiers.
  NORFOLK. And I to Norfolk with my followers.
  MONTAGUE. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.
                                             Exeunt the YORKISTS
  KING HENRY. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the court.

            Enter QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE OF WALES

  EXETER. Here comes the Queen, whose looks bewray her anger.
    I'll steal away.
  KING HENRY. Exeter, so will I.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, go not from me; I will follow thee.
  KING HENRY. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Who can be patient in such extremes?
    Ah, wretched man! Would I had died a maid,
    And never seen thee, never borne thee son,
    Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father!
    Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus?
    Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I,
    Or felt that pain which I did for him once,
    Or nourish'd him as I did with my blood,
    Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there
    Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir,
    And disinherited thine only son.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Father, you cannot disinherit me.
    If you be King, why should not I succeed?
  KING HENRY. Pardon me, Margaret; pardon me, sweet son.
    The Earl of Warwick and the Duke enforc'd me.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Enforc'd thee! Art thou King and wilt be
      forc'd?
    I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!
    Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me;
    And giv'n unto the house of York such head
    As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.
    To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,
    What is it but to make thy sepulchre
    And creep into it far before thy time?
    Warwick is Chancellor and the lord of Calais;
    Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas;
    The Duke is made Protector of the realm;
    And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds
    The trembling lamb environed with wolves.
    Had I been there, which am a silly woman,
    The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes
    Before I would have granted to that act.
    But thou prefer'st thy life before thine honour;
    And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,
    Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,
    Until that act of parliament be repeal'd
    Whereby my son is disinherited.
    The northern lords that have forsworn thy colours
    Will follow mine, if once they see them spread;
    And spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace
    And utter ruin of the house of York.
    Thus do I leave thee. Come, son, let's away;
    Our army is ready; come, we'll after them.
  KING HENRY. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hast spoke too much already; get thee gone.
  KING HENRY. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies.
  PRINCE OF WALES. When I return with victory from the field
    I'll see your Grace; till then I'll follow her.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Come, son, away; we may not linger thus.
                            Exeunt QUEEN MARGARET and the PRINCE
  KING HENRY. Poor queen! How love to me and to her son
    Hath made her break out into terms of rage!
    Reveng'd may she be on that hateful Duke,
    Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,
    Will cost my crown, and like an empty eagle
    Tire on the flesh of me and of my son!
    The loss of those three lords torments my heart.
    I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair;
    Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger.
  EXETER. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.        Exeunt

SCENE II. Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire

Flourish. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE

  RICHARD. Brother, though I be youngest, give me leave.
  EDWARD. No, I can better play the orator.
  MONTAGUE. But I have reasons strong and forcible.

                     Enter the DUKE OF YORK

  YORK. Why, how now, sons and brother! at a strife?
    What is your quarrel? How began it first?
  EDWARD. No quarrel, but a slight contention.
  YORK. About what?
  RICHARD. About that which concerns your Grace and us-
    The crown of England, father, which is yours.
  YORK. Mine, boy? Not till King Henry be dead.
  RICHARD. Your right depends not on his life or death.
  EDWARD. Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it now.
    By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,
    It will outrun you, father, in the end.
  YORK. I took an oath that he should quietly reign.
  EDWARD. But for a kingdom any oath may be broken:
    I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.
  RICHARD. No; God forbid your Grace should be forsworn.
  YORK. I shall be, if I claim by open war.
  RICHARD. I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak.
  YORK. Thou canst not, son; it is impossible.
  RICHARD. An oath is of no moment, being not took
    Before a true and lawful magistrate
    That hath authority over him that swears.
    Henry had none, but did usurp the place;
    Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,
    Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.
    Therefore, to arms. And, father, do but think
    How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,
    Within whose circuit is Elysium
    And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.
    Why do we linger thus? I cannot rest
    Until the white rose that I wear be dy'd
    Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.
  YORK. Richard, enough; I will be King, or die.
    Brother, thou shalt to London presently
    And whet on Warwick to this enterprise.
    Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk
    And tell him privily of our intent.
    You, Edward, shall unto my Lord Cobham,
    With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise;
    In them I trust, for they are soldiers,
    Witty, courteous, liberal, full of spirit.
    While you are thus employ'd, what resteth more
    But that I seek occasion how to rise,
    And yet the King not privy to my drift,
    Nor any of the house of Lancaster?

                      Enter a MESSENGER

    But, stay. What news? Why com'st thou in such post?
  MESSENGER. The Queen with all the northern earls and lords
    Intend here to besiege you in your castle.
    She is hard by with twenty thousand men;
    And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.
  YORK. Ay, with my sword. What! think'st thou that we fear them?
    Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me;
    My brother Montague shall post to London.
    Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,
    Whom we have left protectors of the King,
    With pow'rful policy strengthen themselves
    And trust not simple Henry nor his oaths.
  MONTAGUE. Brother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not.
    And thus most humbly I do take my leave.                Exit

              Enter SIR JOHN and SIR HUGH MORTIMER

  YORK. Sir john and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles!
    You are come to Sandal in a happy hour;
    The army of the Queen mean to besiege us.
  SIR JOHN. She shall not need; we'll meet her in the field.
  YORK. What, with five thousand men?
  RICHARD. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need.
    A woman's general; what should we fear?
                                              [A march afar off]
  EDWARD. I hear their drums. Let's set our men in order,
    And issue forth and bid them battle straight.
  YORK. Five men to twenty! Though the odds be great,
    I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.
    Many a battle have I won in France,
    When as the enemy hath been ten to one;
    Why should I not now have the like success?           Exeunt

SCENE III. Field of battle between Sandal Castle and Wakefield

Alarum. Enter RUTLAND and his TUTOR

  RUTLAND. Ah, whither shall I fly to scape their hands?
    Ah, tutor, look where bloody Clifford comes!

                  Enter CLIFFORD and soldiers

  CLIFFORD. Chaplain, away! Thy priesthood saves thy life.
    As for the brat of this accursed duke,
    Whose father slew my father, he shall die.
  TUTOR. And I, my lord, will bear him company.
  CLIFFORD. Soldiers, away with him!
  TUTOR. Ah, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,
    Lest thou be hated both of God and man.
                                    Exit, forced off by soldiers
  CLIFFORD. How now, is he dead already? Or is it fear
    That makes him close his eyes? I'll open them.
  RUTLAND. So looks the pent-up lion o'er the wretch
    That trembles under his devouring paws;
    And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey,
    And so he comes, to rend his limbs asunder.
    Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,
    And not with such a cruel threat'ning look!
    Sweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die.
    I am too mean a subject for thy wrath;
    Be thou reveng'd on men, and let me live.
  CLIFFORD. In vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my father's blood
    Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter.
  RUTLAND. Then let my father's blood open it again:
    He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.
  CLIFFORD. Had I thy brethren here, their lives and thine
    Were not revenge sufficient for me;
    No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves
    And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,
    It could not slake mine ire nor ease my heart.
    The sight of any of the house of York
    Is as a fury to torment my soul;
    And till I root out their accursed line
    And leave not one alive, I live in hell.
    Therefore-
  RUTLAND. O, let me pray before I take my death!
    To thee I pray: sweet Clifford, pity me.
  CLIFFORD. Such pity as my rapier's point affords.
  RUTLAND. I never did thee harm; why wilt thou slay me?
  CLIFFORD. Thy father hath.
  RUTLAND. But 'twas ere I was born.
    Thou hast one son; for his sake pity me,
    Lest in revenge thereof, sith God is just,
    He be as miserably slain as I.
    Ah, let me live in prison all my days;
    And when I give occasion of offence
    Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.
  CLIFFORD. No cause!
    Thy father slew my father; therefore, die.       [Stabs him]
  RUTLAND. Di faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae!         [Dies]
  CLIFFORD. Plantagenet, I come, Plantagenet;
    And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade
    Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,
    Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.          Exit

SCENE IV. Another part of the field

Alarum. Enter the DUKE OF YORK

  YORK. The army of the Queen hath got the field.
    My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;
    And all my followers to the eager foe
    Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind,
    Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.
    My sons- God knows what hath bechanced them;
    But this I know- they have demean'd themselves
    Like men born to renown by life or death.
    Three times did Richard make a lane to me,
    And thrice cried 'Courage, father! fight it out.'
    And full as oft came Edward to my side
    With purple falchion, painted to the hilt
    In blood of those that had encount'red him.
    And when the hardiest warriors did retire,
    Richard cried 'Charge, and give no foot of ground!'
    And cried 'A crown, or else a glorious tomb!
    A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!'
    With this we charg'd again; but out alas!
    We bodg'd again; as I have seen a swan
    With bootless labour swim against the tide
    And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
                                         [A short alarum within]
    Ah, hark! The fatal followers do pursue,
    And I am faint and cannot fly their fury;
    And were I strong, I would not shun their fury.
    The sands are numb'red that make up my life;
    Here must I stay, and here my life must end.

         Enter QUEEN MARGARET, CLIFFORD, NORTHUMBERLAND,
               the PRINCE OF WALES, and soldiers

    Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,
    I dare your quenchless fury to more rage;
    I am your butt, and I abide your shot.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.
  CLIFFORD. Ay, to such mercy as his ruthless arm
    With downright payment show'd unto my father.
    Now Phaethon hath tumbled from his car,
    And made an evening at the noontide prick.
  YORK. My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth
    A bird that will revenge upon you all;
    And in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,
    Scorning whate'er you can afflict me with.
    Why come you not? What! multitudes, and fear?
  CLIFFORD. So cowards fight when they can fly no further;
    So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons;
    So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,
    Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.
  YORK. O Clifford, but bethink thee once again,
    And in thy thought o'errun my former time;
    And, if thou canst for blushing, view this face,
    And bite thy tongue that slanders him with cowardice
    Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!
  CLIFFORD. I will not bandy with thee word for word,
    But buckler with thee blows, twice two for one.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Hold, valiant Clifford; for a thousand causes
    I would prolong awhile the traitor's life.
    Wrath makes him deaf; speak thou, Northumberland.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Hold, Clifford! do not honour him so much
    To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart.
    What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,
    For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
    When he might spurn him with his foot away?
    It is war's prize to take all vantages;
    And ten to one is no impeach of valour.
                         [They lay hands on YORK, who struggles]
  CLIFFORD. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the gin.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. So doth the cony struggle in the net.
  YORK. So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd booty;
    So true men yield, with robbers so o'er-match'd.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. What would your Grace have done unto him now?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,
    Come, make him stand upon this molehill here
    That raught at mountains with outstretched arms,
    Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.
    What, was it you that would be England's king?
    Was't you that revell'd in our parliament
    And made a preachment of your high descent?
    Where are your mess of sons to back you now?
    The wanton Edward and the lusty George?
    And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,
    Dicky your boy, that with his grumbling voice
    Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?
    Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?
    Look, York: I stain'd this napkin with the blood
    That valiant Clifford with his rapier's point
    Made issue from the bosom of the boy;
    And if thine eyes can water for his death,
    I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.
    Alas, poor York! but that I hate thee deadly,
    I should lament thy miserable state.
    I prithee grieve to make me merry, York.
    What, hath thy fiery heart so parch'd thine entrails
    That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death?
    Why art thou patient, man? Thou shouldst be mad;
    And I to make thee mad do mock thee thus.
    Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.
    Thou wouldst be fee'd, I see, to make me sport;
    York cannot speak unless he wear a crown.
    A crown for York!-and, lords, bow low to him.
    Hold you his hands whilst I do set it on.
                             [Putting a paper crown on his head]
    Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king!
    Ay, this is he that took King Henry's chair,
    And this is he was his adopted heir.
    But how is it that great Plantagenet
    Is crown'd so soon and broke his solemn oath?
    As I bethink me, you should not be King
    Till our King Henry had shook hands with death.
    And will you pale your head in Henry's glory,
    And rob his temples of the diadem,
    Now in his life, against your holy oath?
    O, 'tis a fault too too
    Off with the crown and with the crown his head;
    And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.
  CLIFFORD. That is my office, for my father's sake.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, stay; let's hear the orisons he makes.
  YORK. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,
    Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth!
    How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex
    To triumph like an Amazonian trull
    Upon their woes whom fortune captivates!
    But that thy face is visard-like, unchanging,
    Made impudent with use of evil deeds,
    I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.
    To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd,
    Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.
    Thy father bears the type of King of Naples,
    Of both the Sicils and Jerusalem,
    Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.
    Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?
    It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen;
    Unless the adage must be verified,
    That beggars mounted run their horse to death.
    'Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud;
    But, God He knows, thy share thereof is small.
    'Tis virtue that doth make them most admir'd;
    The contrary doth make thee wond'red at.
    'Tis government that makes them seem divine;
    The want thereof makes thee abominable.
    Thou art as opposite to every good
    As the Antipodes are unto us,
    Or as the south to the septentrion.
    O tiger's heart wrapp'd in a woman's hide!
    How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,
    To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,
    And yet be seen to bear a woman's face?
    Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible:
    Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.
    Bid'st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish;
    Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will;
    For raging wind blows up incessant showers,
    And when the rage allays, the rain begins.
    These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies;
    And every drop cries vengeance for his death
    'Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false Frenchwoman.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Beshrew me, but his passions move me so
    That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.
  YORK. That face of his the hungry cannibals
    Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd with blood;
    But you are more inhuman, more inexorable-
    O, ten times more- than tigers of Hyrcania.
    See, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears.
    This cloth thou dipp'dst in blood of my sweet boy,
    And I with tears do wash the blood away.
    Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this;
    And if thou tell'st the heavy story right,
    Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;
    Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears
    And say 'Alas, it was a piteous deed!'
    There, take the crown, and with the crown my curse;
    And in thy need such comfort come to thee
    As now I reap at thy too cruel hand!
    Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world;
    My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads!
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Had he been slaughter-man to all my kin,
    I should not for my life but weep with him,
    To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.
  QUEEN MARGARET. What, weeping-ripe, my Lord Northumberland?
    Think but upon the wrong he did us all,
    And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.
  CLIFFORD. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's death.
                                                  [Stabbing him]
  QUEEN MARGARET. And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.
                                                  [Stabbing him]
  YORK. Open Thy gate of mercy, gracious God!
    My soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.
                                                          [Dies]
  QUEEN MARGARET. Off with his head, and set it on York gates;
    So York may overlook the town of York.
                                                Flourish. Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. A plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire

A march. Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and their power

  EDWARD. I wonder how our princely father scap'd,
    Or whether he be scap'd away or no
    From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit.
    Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the news;
    Had he been slain, we should have heard the news;
    Or had he scap'd, methinks we should have heard
    The happy tidings of his good escape.
    How fares my brother? Why is he so sad?
  RICHARD. I cannot joy until I be resolv'd
    Where our right valiant father is become.
    I saw him in the battle range about,
    And watch'd him how he singled Clifford forth.
    Methought he bore him in the thickest troop
    As doth a lion in a herd of neat;
    Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs,
    Who having pinch'd a few and made them cry,
    The rest stand all aloof and bark at him.
    So far'd our father with his enemies;
    So fled his enemies my warlike father.
    Methinks 'tis prize enough to be his son.
    See how the morning opes her golden gates
    And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.
    How well resembles it the prime of youth,
    Trimm'd like a younker prancing to his love!
  EDWARD. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?
  RICHARD. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
    Not separated with the racking clouds,
    But sever'd in a pale clear-shining sky.
    See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
    As if they vow'd some league inviolable.
    Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
    In this the heaven figures some event.
  EDWARD. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.
    I think it cites us, brother, to the field,
    That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,
    Each one already blazing by our meeds,
    Should notwithstanding join our lights together
    And overshine the earth, as this the world.
    Whate'er it bodes, henceforward will I bear
    Upon my target three fair shining suns.
  RICHARD. Nay, bear three daughters- by your leave I speak it,
    You love the breeder better than the male.

                 Enter a MESSENGER, blowing

    But what art thou, whose heavy looks foretell
    Some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?
  MESSENGER. Ah, one that was a woeful looker-on
    When as the noble Duke of York was slain,
    Your princely father and my loving lord!
  EDWARD. O, speak no more! for I have heard too much.
  RICHARD. Say how he died, for I will hear it all.
  MESSENGER. Environed he was with many foes,
    And stood against them as the hope of Troy
    Against the Greeks that would have ent'red Troy.
    But Hercules himself must yield to odds;
    And many strokes, though with a little axe,
    Hews down and fells the hardest-timber'd oak.
    By many hands your father was subdu'd;
    But only slaught'red by the ireful arm
    Of unrelenting Clifford and the Queen,
    Who crown'd the gracious Duke in high despite,
    Laugh'd in his face; and when with grief he wept,
    The ruthless Queen gave him to dry his cheeks
    A napkin steeped in the harmless blood
    Of sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain;
    And after many scorns, many foul taunts,
    They took his head, and on the gates of York
    They set the same; and there it doth remain,
    The saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.
  EDWARD. Sweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,
    Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.
    O Clifford, boist'rous Clifford, thou hast slain
    The flow'r of Europe for his chivalry;
    And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him,
    For hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee.
    Now my soul's palace is become a prison.
    Ah, would she break from hence, that this my body
    Might in the ground be closed up in rest!
    For never henceforth shall I joy again;
    Never, O never, shall I see more joy.
  RICHARD. I cannot weep, for all my body's moisture
    Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart;
    Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great burden,
    For self-same wind that I should speak withal
    Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,
    And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.
    To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
    Tears then for babes; blows and revenge for me!
    Richard, I bear thy name; I'll venge thy death,
    Or die renowned by attempting it.
  EDWARD. His name that valiant duke hath left with thee;
    His dukedom and his chair with me is left.
  RICHARD. Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,
    Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun;
    For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom, say:
    Either that is thine, or else thou wert not his.

         March. Enter WARWICK, MONTAGUE, and their army

  WARWICK. How now, fair lords! What fare? What news abroad?
  RICHARD. Great Lord of Warwick, if we should recount
    Our baleful news and at each word's deliverance
    Stab poinards in our flesh till all were told,
    The words would add more anguish than the wounds.
    O valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!
  EDWARD. O Warwick, Warwick! that Plantagenet
    Which held thee dearly as his soul's redemption
    Is by the stern Lord Clifford done to death.
  WARWICK. Ten days ago I drown'd these news in tears;
    And now, to add more measure to your woes,
    I come to tell you things sith then befall'n.
    After the bloody fray at Wakefield fought,
    Where your brave father breath'd his latest gasp,
    Tidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,
    Were brought me of your loss and his depart.
    I, then in London, keeper of the King,
    Muster'd my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends,
    And very well appointed, as I thought,
    March'd toward Saint Albans to intercept the Queen,
    Bearing the King in my behalf along;
    For by my scouts I was advertised
    That she was coming with a full intent
    To dash our late decree in parliament
    Touching King Henry's oath and your succession.
    Short tale to make- we at Saint Albans met,
    Our battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought;
    But whether 'twas the coldness of the King,
    Who look'd full gently on his warlike queen,
    That robb'd my soldiers of their heated spleen,
    Or whether 'twas report of her success,
    Or more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,
    Who thunders to his captives blood and death,
    I cannot judge; but, to conclude with truth,
    Their weapons like to lightning came and went:
    Our soldiers', like the night-owl's lazy flight
    Or like an idle thresher with a flail,
    Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.
    I cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,
    With promise of high pay and great rewards,
    But all in vain; they had no heart to fight,
    And we in them no hope to win the day;
    So that we fled: the King unto the Queen;
    Lord George your brother, Norfolk, and myself,
    In haste post-haste are come to join with you;
    For in the marches here we heard you were
    Making another head to fight again.
  EDWARD. Where is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?
    And when came George from Burgundy to England?
  WARWICK. Some six miles off the Duke is with the soldiers;
    And for your brother, he was lately sent
    From your kind aunt, Duchess of Burgundy,
    With aid of soldiers to this needful war.
  RICHARD. 'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick fled.
    Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,
    But ne'er till now his scandal of retire.
  WARWICK. Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear;
    For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine
    Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head
    And wring the awful sceptre from his fist,
    Were he as famous and as bold in war
    As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.
  RICHARD. I know it well, Lord Warwick; blame me not.
    'Tis love I bear thy glories makes me speak.
    But in this troublous time what's to be done?
    Shall we go throw away our coats of steel
    And wrap our bodies in black mourning-gowns,
    Numbering our Ave-Maries with our beads?
    Or shall we on the helmets of our foes
    Tell our devotion with revengeful arms?
    If for the last, say 'Ay,' and to it, lords.
  WARWICK. Why, therefore Warwick came to seek you out;
    And therefore comes my brother Montague.
    Attend me, lords. The proud insulting Queen,
    With Clifford and the haught Northumberland,
    And of their feather many moe proud birds,
    Have wrought the easy-melting King like wax.
    He swore consent to your succession,
    His oath enrolled in the parliament;
    And now to London all the crew are gone
    To frustrate both his oath and what beside
    May make against the house of Lancaster.
    Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong.
    Now if the help of Norfolk and myself,
    With all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,
    Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,
    Will but amount to five and twenty thousand,
    Why, Via! to London will we march amain,
    And once again bestride our foaming steeds,
    And once again cry 'Charge upon our foes!'
    But never once again turn back and fly.
  RICHARD. Ay, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak.
    Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day
    That cries 'Retire!' if Warwick bid him stay.
  EDWARD. Lord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean;
    And when thou fail'st- as God forbid the hour!-
    Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend.
  WARWICK. No longer Earl of March, but Duke of York;
    The next degree is England's royal throne,
    For King of England shalt thou be proclaim'd
    In every borough as we pass along;
    And he that throws not up his cap for joy
    Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.
    King Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,
    Stay we no longer, dreaming of renown,
    But sound the trumpets and about our task.
  RICHARD. Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,
    As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,
    I come to pierce it or to give thee mine.
  EDWARD. Then strike up drums. God and Saint George for us!

                       Enter a MESSENGER

  WARWICK. How now! what news?
  MESSENGER. The Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me
    The Queen is coming with a puissant host,
    And craves your company for speedy counsel.
  WARWICK. Why, then it sorts; brave warriors, let's away.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Before York

Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, QUEEN MARGARET, the PRINCE OF WALES,
CLIFFORD,
NORTHUMBERLAND, with drum and trumpets

  QUEEN MARGARET. Welcome, my lord, to this brave town of York.
    Yonder's the head of that arch-enemy
    That sought to be encompass'd with your crown.
    Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?
  KING HENRY. Ay, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck-
    To see this sight, it irks my very soul.
    Withhold revenge, dear God; 'tis not my fault,
    Nor wittingly have I infring'd my vow.
  CLIFFORD. My gracious liege, this too much lenity
    And harmful pity must be laid aside.
    To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?
    Not to the beast that would usurp their den.
    Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?
    Not his that spoils her young before her face.
    Who scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting?
    Not he that sets his foot upon her back,
    The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,
    And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.
    Ambitious York did level at thy crown,
    Thou smiling while he knit his angry brows.
    He, but a Duke, would have his son a king,
    And raise his issue like a loving sire:
    Thou, being a king, bless'd with a goodly son,
    Didst yield consent to disinherit him,
    Which argued thee a most unloving father.
    Unreasonable creatures feed their young;
    And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
    Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
    Who hath not seen them- even with those wings
    Which sometime they have us'd with fearful flight-
    Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,
    Offering their own lives in their young's defence
    For shame, my liege, make them your precedent!
    Were it not pity that this goodly boy
    Should lose his birthright by his father's fault,
    And long hereafter say unto his child
    'What my great-grandfather and grandsire got
    My careless father fondly gave away'?
    Ah, what a shame were this! Look on the boy;
    And let his manly face, which promiseth
    Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart
    To hold thine own and leave thine own with him.
  KING HENRY. Full well hath Clifford play'd the orator,
    Inferring arguments of mighty force.
    But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear
    That things ill got had ever bad success?
    And happy always was it for that son
    Whose father for his hoarding went to hell?
    I'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;
    And would my father had left me no more!
    For all the rest is held at such a rate
    As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep
    Than in possession any jot of pleasure.
    Ah, cousin York! would thy best friends did know
    How it doth grieve me that thy head is here!
  QUEEN MARGARET. My lord, cheer up your spirits; our foes are nigh,
    And this soft courage makes your followers faint.
    You promis'd knighthood to our forward son:
    Unsheathe your sword and dub him presently.
    Edward, kneel down.
  KING HENRY. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight;
    And learn this lesson: Draw thy sword in right.
  PRINCE OF WALES. My gracious father, by your kingly leave,
    I'll draw it as apparent to the crown,
    And in that quarrel use it to the death.
  CLIFFORD. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.

                      Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Royal commanders, be in readiness;
    For with a band of thirty thousand men
    Comes Warwick, backing of the Duke of York,
    And in the towns, as they do march along,
    Proclaims him king, and many fly to him.
    Darraign your battle, for they are at hand.
  CLIFFORD. I would your Highness would depart the field:
    The Queen hath best success when you are absent.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.
  KING HENRY. Why, that's my fortune too; therefore I'll stay.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Be it with resolution, then, to fight.
  PRINCE OF WALES. My royal father, cheer these noble lords,
    And hearten those that fight in your defence.
    Unsheathe your sword, good father; cry 'Saint George!'

         March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD, WARWICK,
                NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and soldiers

  EDWARD. Now, perjur'd Henry, wilt thou kneel for grace
    And set thy diadem upon my head,
    Or bide the mortal fortune of the field?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Go rate thy minions, proud insulting boy.
    Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms
    Before thy sovereign and thy lawful king?
  EDWARD. I am his king, and he should bow his knee.
    I was adopted heir by his consent:
    Since when, his oath is broke; for, as I hear,
    You that are King, though he do wear the crown,
    Have caus'd him by new act of parliament
    To blot out me and put his own son in.
  CLIFFORD. And reason too:
    Who should succeed the father but the son?
  RICHARD. Are you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!
  CLIFFORD. Ay, crook-back, here I stand to answer thee,
    Or any he, the proudest of thy sort.
  RICHARD. 'Twas you that kill'd young Rutland, was it not?
  CLIFFORD. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.
  RICHARD. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight.
  WARWICK. What say'st thou, Henry? Wilt thou yield the crown?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, how now, long-tongu'd Warwick! Dare you speak?
    When you and I met at Saint Albans last
    Your legs did better service than your hands.
  WARWICK. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine.
  CLIFFORD. You said so much before, and yet you fled.
  WARWICK. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. No, nor your manhood that durst make you stay.
  RICHARD. Northumberland, I hold thee reverently.
    Break off the parley; for scarce I can refrain
    The execution of my big-swol'n heart
    Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.
  CLIFFORD. I slew thy father; call'st thou him a child?
  RICHARD. Ay, like a dastard and a treacherous coward,
    As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland;
    But ere sunset I'll make thee curse the deed.
  KING HENRY. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips.
  KING HENRY. I prithee give no limits to my tongue:
    I am a king, and privileg'd to speak.
  CLIFFORD. My liege, the wound that bred this meeting here
    Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still.
  RICHARD. Then, executioner, unsheathe thy sword.
    By Him that made us all, I am resolv'd
    That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.
  EDWARD. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?
    A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day
    That ne'er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.
  WARWICK. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head;
    For York in justice puts his armour on.
  PRINCE OF WALES. If that be right which Warwick says is right,
    There is no wrong, but every thing is right.
  RICHARD. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands;
    For well I wot thou hast thy mother's tongue.
  QUEEN MARGARET. But thou art neither like thy sire nor dam;
    But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,
    Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,
    As venom toads or lizards' dreadful stings.
  RICHARD. Iron of Naples hid with English gilt,
    Whose father bears the title of a king-
    As if a channel should be call'd the sea-
    Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art extraught,
    To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?
  EDWARD. A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns
    To make this shameless callet know herself.
    Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,
    Although thy husband may be Menelaus;
    And ne'er was Agamemmon's brother wrong'd
    By that false woman as this king by thee.
    His father revell'd in the heart of France,
    And tam'd the King, and made the Dauphin stoop;
    And had he match'd according to his state,
    He might have kept that glory to this day;
    But when he took a beggar to his bed
    And grac'd thy poor sire with his bridal day,
    Even then that sunshine brew'd a show'r for him
    That wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France
    And heap'd sedition on his crown at home.
    For what hath broach'd this tumult but thy pride?
    Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept;
    And we, in pity of the gentle King,
    Had slipp'd our claim until another age.
  GEORGE. But when we saw our sunshine made thy spring,
    And that thy summer bred us no increase,
    We set the axe to thy usurping root;
    And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,
    Yet know thou, since we have begun to strike,
    We'll never leave till we have hewn thee down,
    Or bath'd thy growing with our heated bloods.
  EDWARD. And in this resolution I defy thee;
    Not willing any longer conference,
    Since thou deniest the gentle King to speak.
    Sound trumpets; let our bloody colours wave,
    And either victory or else a grave!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Stay, Edward.
  EDWARD. No, wrangling woman, we'll no longer stay;
    These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE III. A field of battle between Towton and Saxton, in Yorkshire

Alarum; excursions. Enter WARWICK

  WARWICK. Forspent with toil, as runners with a race,
    I lay me down a little while to breathe;
    For strokes receiv'd and many blows repaid
    Have robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,
    And spite of spite needs must I rest awhile.

                     Enter EDWARD, running

  EDWARD. Smile, gentle heaven, or strike, ungentle death;
    For this world frowns, and Edward's sun is clouded.
  WARWICK. How now, my lord. What hap? What hope of good?

                         Enter GEORGE

  GEORGE. Our hap is lost, our hope but sad despair;
    Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us.
    What counsel give you? Whither shall we fly?
  EDWARD. Bootless is flight: they follow us with wings;
    And weak we are, and cannot shun pursuit.

                         Enter RICHARD

  RICHARD. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?
    Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,
    Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance;
    And in the very pangs of death he cried,
    Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,
    'Warwick, revenge! Brother, revenge my death.'
    So, underneath the belly of their steeds,
    That stain'd their fetlocks in his smoking blood,
    The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.
  WARWICK. Then let the earth be drunken with our blood.
    I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly.
    Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,
    Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage,
    And look upon, as if the tragedy
    Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors?
    Here on my knee I vow to God above
    I'll never pause again, never stand still,
    Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine
    Or fortune given me measure of revenge.
  EDWARD. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,
    And in this vow do chain my soul to thine!
    And ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face
    I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to Thee,
    Thou setter-up and plucker-down of kings,
    Beseeching Thee, if with Thy will it stands
    That to my foes this body must be prey,
    Yet that Thy brazen gates of heaven may ope
    And give sweet passage to my sinful soul.
    Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,
    Where'er it be, in heaven or in earth.
  RICHARD. Brother, give me thy hand; and, gentle Warwick,
    Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.
    I that did never weep now melt with woe
    That winter should cut off our spring-time so.
  WARWICK. Away, away! Once more, sweet lords, farewell.
  GEORGE. Yet let us all together to our troops,
    And give them leave to fly that will not stay,
    And call them pillars that will stand to us;
    And if we thrive, promise them such rewards
    As victors wear at the Olympian games.
    This may plant courage in their quailing breasts,
    For yet is hope of life and victory.
    Forslow no longer; make we hence amain.               Exeunt

SCENE IV. Another part of the field

Excursions. Enter RICHARD and CLIFFORD

  RICHARD. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone.
    Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York,
    And this for Rutland; both bound to revenge,
    Wert thou environ'd with a brazen wall.
  CLIFFORD. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone.
    This is the hand that stabbed thy father York;
    And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;
    And here's the heart that triumphs in their death
    And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother
    To execute the like upon thyself;
    And so, have at thee!                           [They fight]

                 Enter WARWICK; CLIFFORD flies

  RICHARD. Nay, Warwick, single out some other chase;
    For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.            Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the field

Alarum. Enter KING HENRY alone

  KING HENRY. This battle fares like to the morning's war,
    When dying clouds contend with growing light,
    What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
    Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
    Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
    Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind;
    Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
    Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind.
    Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
    Now one the better, then another best;
    Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
    Yet neither conqueror nor conquered.
    So is the equal poise of this fell war.
    Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
    To whom God will, there be the victory!
    For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
    Have chid me from the battle, swearing both
    They prosper best of all when I am thence.
    Would I were dead, if God's good will were so!
    For what is in this world but grief and woe?
    O God! methinks it were a happy life
    To be no better than a homely swain;
    To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
    To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
    Thereby to see the minutes how they run-
    How many makes the hour full complete,
    How many hours brings about the day,
    How many days will finish up the year,
    How many years a mortal man may live.
    When this is known, then to divide the times-
    So many hours must I tend my flock;
    So many hours must I take my rest;
    So many hours must I contemplate;
    So many hours must I sport myself;
    So many days my ewes have been with young;
    So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;
    So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
    So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
    Pass'd over to the end they were created,
    Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
    Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
    Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
    To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
    Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
    To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
    O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
    And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,
    His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
    His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
    All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
    Is far beyond a prince's delicates-
    His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
    His body couched in a curious bed,
    When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.

       Alarum. Enter a son that hath kill'd his Father, at
       one door; and a FATHER that hath kill'd his Son, at
                         another door

  SON. Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
    This man whom hand to hand I slew in fight
    May be possessed with some store of crowns;
    And I, that haply take them from him now,
    May yet ere night yield both my life and them
    To some man else, as this dead man doth me.
    Who's this? O God! It is my father's face,
    Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.
    O heavy times, begetting such events!
    From London by the King was I press'd forth;
    My father, being the Earl of Warwick's man,
    Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;
    And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,
    Have by my hands of life bereaved him.
    Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did.
    And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.
    My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks;
    And no more words till they have flow'd their fill.
  KING HENRY. O piteous spectacle! O bloody times!
    Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,
    Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.
    Weep, wretched man; I'll aid thee tear for tear;
    And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,
    Be blind with tears and break o'ercharg'd with grief.

               Enter FATHER, bearing of his SON

  FATHER. Thou that so stoutly hath resisted me,
    Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold;
    For I have bought it with an hundred blows.
    But let me see. Is this our foeman's face?
    Ah, no, no, no, no, it is mine only son!
    Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,
    Throw up thine eye! See, see what show'rs arise,
    Blown with the windy tempest of my heart
    Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart!
    O, pity, God, this miserable age!
    What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,
    Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,
    This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!
    O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,
    And hath bereft thee of thy life too late!
  KING HENRY. Woe above woe! grief more than common grief!
    O that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!
    O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!
    The red rose and the white are on his face,
    The fatal colours of our striving houses:
    The one his purple blood right well resembles;
    The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.
    Wither one rose, and let the other flourish!
    If you contend, a thousand lives must perish.
  SON. How will my mother for a father's death
    Take on with me, and ne'er be satisfied!
  FATHER. How will my wife for slaughter of my son
    Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied!
  KING HENRY. How will the country for these woeful chances
    Misthink the King, and not be satisfied!
  SON. Was ever son so rued a father's death?
  FATHER. Was ever father so bemoan'd his son?
  KING HENRY. Was ever king so griev'd for subjects' woe?
    Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.
  SON. I'll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.
                                              Exit with the body
  FATHER. These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;
    My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,
    For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go;
    My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;
    And so obsequious will thy father be,
    Even for the loss of thee, having no more,
    As Priam was for all his valiant sons.
    I'll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,
    For I have murdered where I should not kill.
                                              Exit with the body
  KING HENRY. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,
    Here sits a king more woeful than you are.

           Alarums, excursions. Enter QUEEN MARGARET,
                  PRINCE OF WALES, and EXETER

  PRINCE OF WALES. Fly, father, fly; for all your friends are fled,
    And Warwick rages like a chafed bull.
    Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Mount you, my lord; towards Berwick post amain.
    Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds
    Having the fearful flying hare in sight,
    With fiery eyes sparkling for very wrath,
    And bloody steel grasp'd in their ireful hands,
    Are at our backs; and therefore hence amain.
  EXETER. Away! for vengeance comes along with them.
    Nay, stay not to expostulate; make speed;
    Or else come after. I'll away before.
  KING HENRY. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter.
    Not that I fear to stay, but love to go
    Whither the Queen intends. Forward; away!             Exeunt

SCENE VI. Another part of the field

A loud alarum. Enter CLIFFORD, wounded

  CLIFFORD. Here burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,
    Which, whiles it lasted, gave King Henry light.
    O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow
    More than my body's parting with my soul!
    My love and fear glu'd many friends to thee;
    And, now I fall, thy tough commixture melts,
    Impairing Henry, strength'ning misproud York.
    The common people swarm like summer flies;
    And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?
    And who shines now but Henry's enemies?
    O Phoebus, hadst thou never given consent
    That Phaethon should check thy fiery steeds,
    Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth!
    And, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,
    Or as thy father and his father did,
    Giving no ground unto the house of York,
    They never then had sprung like summer flies;
    I and ten thousand in this luckless realm
    Had left no mourning widows for our death;
    And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.
    For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air?
    And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?
    Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds.
    No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.
    The foe is merciless and will not pity;
    For at their hands I have deserv'd no pity.
    The air hath got into my deadly wounds,
    And much effuse of blood doth make me faint.
    Come, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest;
    I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms: split my breast.
                                                     [He faints]

       Alarum and retreat. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD
               MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and soldiers

  EDWARD. Now breathe we, lords. Good fortune bids us pause
    And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.
    Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen
    That led calm Henry, though he were a king,
    As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,
    Command an argosy to stern the waves.
    But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?
  WARWICK. No, 'tis impossible he should escape;
    For, though before his face I speak the words,
    Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave;
    And, whereso'er he is, he's surely dead.
                                     [CLIFFORD groans, and dies]
  RICHARD. Whose soul is that which takes her heavy leave?
    A deadly groan, like life and death's departing.
    See who it is.
  EDWARD. And now the battle's ended,
    If friend or foe, let him be gently used.
  RICHARD. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis Clifford;
    Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch
    In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,
    But set his murd'ring knife unto the root
    From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring-
    I mean our princely father, Duke of York.
  WARWICK. From off the gates of York fetch down the head,
    Your father's head, which Clifford placed there;
    Instead whereof let this supply the room.
    Measure for measure must be answered.
  EDWARD. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our house,
    That nothing sung but death to us and ours.
    Now death shall stop his dismal threat'ning sound,
    And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.
  WARWICK. I think his understanding is bereft.
    Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?
    Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,
    And he nor sees nor hears us what we say.
  RICHARD. O, would he did! and so, perhaps, he doth.
    'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,
    Because he would avoid such bitter taunts
    Which in the time of death he gave our father.
  GEORGE. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager words.
  RICHARD. Clifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.
  EDWARD. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.
  WARWICK. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.
  GEORGE. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.
  RICHARD. Thou didst love York, and I am son to York.
  EDWARD. Thou pitied'st Rutland, I will pity thee.
  GEORGE. Where's Captain Margaret, to fence you now?
  WARWICK. They mock thee, Clifford; swear as thou wast wont.
  RICHARD. What, not an oath? Nay, then the world goes hard
    When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.
    I know by that he's dead; and by my soul,
    If this right hand would buy two hours' life,
    That I in all despite might rail at him,
    This hand should chop it off, and with the issuing blood
    Stifle the villain whose unstanched thirst
    York and young Rutland could not satisfy.
  WARWICK. Ay, but he's dead. Off with the traitor's head,
    And rear it in the place your father's stands.
    And now to London with triumphant march,
    There to be crowned England's royal King;
    From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,
    And ask the Lady Bona for thy queen.
    So shalt thou sinew both these lands together;
    And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread
    The scatt'red foe that hopes to rise again;
    For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,
    Yet look to have them buzz to offend thine ears.
    First will I see the coronation;
    And then to Brittany I'll cross the sea
    To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.
  EDWARD. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be;
    For in thy shoulder do I build my seat,
    And never will I undertake the thing
    Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.
    Richard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester;
    And George, of Clarence; Warwick, as ourself,
    Shall do and undo as him pleaseth best.
  RICHARD. Let me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester;
    For Gloucester's dukedom is too ominous.
  WARWICK. Tut, that's a foolish observation.
    Richard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London
    To see these honours in possession.                   Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. A chase in the north of England

Enter two KEEPERS, with cross-bows in their hands

  FIRST KEEPER. Under this thick-grown brake we'll shroud ourselves,
    For through this laund anon the deer will come;
    And in this covert will we make our stand,
    Culling the principal of all the deer.
  SECOND KEEPER. I'll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.
  FIRST KEEPER. That cannot be; the noise of thy cross-bow
    Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.
    Here stand we both, and aim we at the best;
    And, for the time shall not seem tedious,
    I'll tell thee what befell me on a day
    In this self-place where now we mean to stand.
  SECOND KEEPER. Here comes a man; let's stay till he be past.

        Enter KING HENRY, disguised, with a prayer-book

  KING HENRY. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love,
    To greet mine own land with my wishful sight.
    No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine;
    Thy place is fill'd, thy sceptre wrung from thee,
    Thy balm wash'd off wherewith thou wast anointed.
    No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,
    No humble suitors press to speak for right,
    No, not a man comes for redress of thee;
    For how can I help them and not myself?
  FIRST KEEPER. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a keeper's fee.
    This is the quondam King; let's seize upon him.
  KING HENRY. Let me embrace thee, sour adversity,
    For wise men say it is the wisest course.
  SECOND KEEPER. Why linger we? let us lay hands upon him.
  FIRST KEEPER. Forbear awhile; we'll hear a little more.
  KING HENRY. My Queen and son are gone to France for aid;
    And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick
    Is thither gone to crave the French King's sister
    To wife for Edward. If this news be true,
    Poor queen and son, your labour is but lost;
    For Warwick is a subtle orator,
    And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.
    By this account, then, Margaret may win him;
    For she's a woman to be pitied much.
    Her sighs will make a batt'ry in his breast;
    Her tears will pierce into a marble heart;
    The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;
    And Nero will be tainted with remorse
    To hear and see her plaints, her brinish tears.
    Ay, but she's come to beg: Warwick, to give.
    She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry:
    He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.
    She weeps, and says her Henry is depos'd:
    He smiles, and says his Edward is install'd;
    That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more;
    Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the wrong,
    Inferreth arguments of mighty strength,
    And in conclusion wins the King from her
    With promise of his sister, and what else,
    To strengthen and support King Edward's place.
    O Margaret, thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,
    Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn!
  SECOND KEEPER. Say, what art thou that talk'st of kings and queens?
  KING HENRY. More than I seem, and less than I was born to:
    A man at least, for less I should not be;
    And men may talk of kings, and why not I?
  SECOND KEEPER. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.
  KING HENRY. Why, so I am- in mind; and that's enough.
  SECOND KEEPER. But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?
  KING HENRY. My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
    Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,
    Not to be seen. My crown is call'd content;
    A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.
  SECOND KEEPER. Well, if you be a king crown'd with content,
    Your crown content and you must be contented
    To go along with us; for as we think,
    You are the king King Edward hath depos'd;
    And we his subjects, sworn in all allegiance,
    Will apprehend you as his enemy.
  KING HENRY. But did you never swear, and break an oath?
  SECOND KEEPER. No, never such an oath; nor will not now.
  KING HENRY. Where did you dwell when I was King of England?
  SECOND KEEPER. Here in this country, where we now remain.
  KING HENRY. I was anointed king at nine months old;
    My father and my grandfather were kings;
    And you were sworn true subjects unto me;
    And tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?
  FIRST KEEPER. No;
    For we were subjects but while you were king.
  KING HENRY. Why, am I dead? Do I not breathe a man?
    Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear!
    Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
    And as the air blows it to me again,
    Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
    And yielding to another when it blows,
    Commanded always by the greater gust,
    Such is the lightness of you common men.
    But do not break your oaths; for of that sin
    My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.
    Go where you will, the King shall be commanded;
    And be you kings: command, and I'll obey.
  FIRST KEEPER. We are true subjects to the King, King Edward.
  KING HENRY. So would you be again to Henry,
    If he were seated as King Edward is.
  FIRST KEEPER. We charge you, in God's name and the King's,
    To go with us unto the officers.
  KING HENRY. In God's name, lead; your King's name be obey'd;
    And what God will, that let your King perform;
    And what he will, I humbly yield unto.                Exeunt

SCENE II. London. The palace

Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and LADY GREY

  KING EDWARD. Brother of Gloucester, at Saint Albans' field
    This lady's husband, Sir Richard Grey, was slain,
    His land then seiz'd on by the conqueror.
    Her suit is now to repossess those lands;
    Which we in justice cannot well deny,
    Because in quarrel of the house of York
    The worthy gentleman did lose his life.
  GLOUCESTER. Your Highness shall do well to grant her suit;
    It were dishonour to deny it her.
  KING EDWARD. It were no less; but yet I'll make a pause.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Yea, is it so?
    I see the lady hath a thing to grant,
    Before the King will grant her humble suit.
  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] He knows the game; how true he
    keeps the wind!
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Silence!
  KING EDWARD. Widow, we will consider of your suit;
    And come some other time to know our mind.
  LADY GREY. Right gracious lord, I cannot brook delay.
    May it please your Highness to resolve me now;
    And what your pleasure is shall satisfy me.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, widow? Then I'll warrant you all your
      lands,
    An if what pleases him shall pleasure you.
    Fight closer or, good faith, you'll catch a blow.
  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I fear her not, unless she chance
    to fall.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] God forbid that, for he'll take
    vantages.
  KING EDWARD. How many children hast thou, widow, tell me.
  CLARENCE. [Aside to GLOUCESTER] I think he means to beg a child of
    her.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside to CLARENCE] Nay, then whip me; he'll rather
    give her two.
  LADY GREY. Three, my most gracious lord.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] You shall have four if you'll be rul'd by him.
  KING EDWARD. 'Twere pity they should lose their father's lands.
  LADY GREY. Be pitiful, dread lord, and grant it, then.
  KING EDWARD. Lords, give us leave; I'll try this widow's wit.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Ay, good leave have you; for you will have
      leave
    Till youth take leave and leave you to the crutch.
                              [GLOUCESTER and CLARENCE withdraw]
  KING EDWARD. Now tell me, madam, do you love your children?
  LADY GREY. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.
  KING EDWARD. And would you not do much to do them good?
  LADY GREY. To do them good I would sustain some harm.
  KING EDWARD. Then get your husband's lands, to do them good.
  LADY GREY. Therefore I came unto your Majesty.
  KING EDWARD. I'll tell you how these lands are to be got.
  LADY GREY. So shall you bind me to your Highness' service.
  KING EDWARD. What service wilt thou do me if I give them?
  LADY GREY. What you command that rests in me to do.
  KING EDWARD. But you will take exceptions to my boon.
  LADY GREY. No, gracious lord, except I cannot do it.
  KING EDWARD. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean to ask.
  LADY GREY. Why, then I will do what your Grace commands.
  GLOUCESTER. He plies her hard; and much rain wears the marble.
  CLARENCE. As red as fire! Nay, then her wax must melt.
  LADY GREY. Why stops my lord? Shall I not hear my task?
  KING EDWARD. An easy task; 'tis but to love a king.
  LADY GREY. That's soon perform'd, because I am a subject.
  KING EDWARD. Why, then, thy husband's lands I freely give thee.
  LADY GREY. I take my leave with many thousand thanks.
  GLOUCESTER. The match is made; she seals it with a curtsy.
  KING EDWARD. But stay thee- 'tis the fruits of love I mean.
  LADY GREY. The fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.
  KING EDWARD. Ay, but, I fear me, in another sense.
    What love, thinkst thou, I sue so much to get?
  LADY GREY. My love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers;
    That love which virtue begs and virtue grants.
  KING EDWARD. No, by my troth, I did not mean such love.
  LADY GREY. Why, then you mean not as I thought you did.
  KING EDWARD. But now you partly may perceive my mind.
  LADY GREY. My mind will never grant what I perceive
    Your Highness aims at, if I aim aright.
  KING EDWARD. To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.
  LADY GREY. To tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.
  KING EDWARD. Why, then thou shalt not have thy husband's lands.
  LADY GREY. Why, then mine honesty shall be my dower;
    For by that loss I will not purchase them.
  KING EDWARD. Therein thou wrong'st thy children mightily.
  LADY GREY. Herein your Highness wrongs both them and me.
    But, mighty lord, this merry inclination
    Accords not with the sadness of my suit.
    Please you dismiss me, either with ay or no.
  KING EDWARD. Ay, if thou wilt say ay to my request;
    No, if thou dost say no to my demand.
  LADY GREY. Then, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.
  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes him not; she knits her brows.
  CLARENCE. He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.
  KING EDWARD. [Aside] Her looks doth argue her replete with modesty;
    Her words doth show her wit incomparable;
    All her perfections challenge sovereignty.
    One way or other, she is for a king;
    And she shall be my love, or else my queen.
    Say that King Edward take thee for his queen?
  LADY GREY. 'Tis better said than done, my gracious lord.
    I am a subject fit to jest withal,
    But far unfit to be a sovereign.
  KING EDWARD. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to thee
    I speak no more than what my soul intends;
    And that is to enjoy thee for my love.
  LADY GREY. And that is more than I will yield unto.
    I know I am too mean to be your queen,
    And yet too good to be your concubine.
  KING EDWARD. You cavil, widow; I did mean my queen.
  LADY GREY. 'Twill grieve your Grace my sons should call you father.
  KING EDWARD.No more than when my daughters call thee mother.
    Thou art a widow, and thou hast some children;
    And, by God's Mother, I, being but a bachelor,
    Have other some. Why, 'tis a happy thing
    To be the father unto many sons.
    Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.
  GLOUCESTER. The ghostly father now hath done his shrift.
  CLARENCE. When he was made a shriver, 'twas for shrift.
  KING EDWARD. Brothers, you muse what chat we two have had.
  GLOUCESTER. The widow likes it not, for she looks very sad.
  KING EDWARD. You'd think it strange if I should marry her.
  CLARENCE. To who, my lord?
  KING EDWARD. Why, Clarence, to myself.
  GLOUCESTER. That would be ten days' wonder at the least.
  CLARENCE. That's a day longer than a wonder lasts.
  GLOUCESTER. By so much is the wonder in extremes.
  KING EDWARD. Well, jest on, brothers; I can tell you both
    Her suit is granted for her husband's lands.

                       Enter a NOBLEMAN

  NOBLEMAN. My gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken
    And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.
  KING EDWARD. See that he be convey'd unto the Tower.
    And go we, brothers, to the man that took him
    To question of his apprehension.
    Widow, go you along. Lords, use her honourably.
                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.
    Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,
    That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring
    To cross me from the golden time I look for!
    And yet, between my soul's desire and me-
    The lustful Edward's title buried-
    Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,
    And all the unlook'd for issue of their bodies,
    To take their rooms ere I can place myself.
    A cold premeditation for my purpose!
    Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty;
    Like one that stands upon a promontory
    And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
    Wishing his foot were equal with his eye;
    And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,
    Saying he'll lade it dry to have his way-
    So do I wish the crown, being so far off;
    And so I chide the means that keeps me from it;
    And so I say I'll cut the causes off,
    Flattering me with impossibilities.
    My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,
    Unless my hand and strength could equal them.
    Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard;
    What other pleasure can the world afford?
    I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap,
    And deck my body in gay ornaments,
    And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
    O miserable thought! and more unlikely
    Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns.
    Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;
    And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
    She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
    To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub
    To make an envious mountain on my back,
    Where sits deformity to mock my body;
    To shape my legs of an unequal size;
    To disproportion me in every part,
    Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp
    That carries no impression like the dam.
    And am I, then, a man to be belov'd?
    O monstrous fault to harbour such a thought!
    Then, since this earth affords no joy to me
    But to command, to check, to o'erbear such
    As are of better person than myself,
    I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
    And whiles I live t' account this world but hell,
    Until my misshap'd trunk that bear this head
    Be round impaled with a glorious crown.
    And yet I know not how to get the crown,
    For many lives stand between me and home;
    And I- like one lost in a thorny wood
    That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
    Seeking a way and straying from the way
    Not knowing how to find the open air,
    But toiling desperately to find it out-
    Torment myself to catch the English crown;
    And from that torment I will free myself
    Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
    Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
    And cry 'Content!' to that which grieves my heart,
    And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
    And frame my face to all occasions.
    I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
    I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
    I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
    Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,
    And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
    I can add colours to the chameleon,
    Change shapes with Protheus for advantages,
    And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
    Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
    Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down.           Exit

SCENE III. France.  The KING'S palace

Flourish.  Enter LEWIS the French King, his sister BONA, his Admiral
call'd BOURBON; PRINCE EDWARD, QUEEN MARGARET, and the EARL of OXFORD. 
LEWIS sits, and riseth up again

  LEWIS. Fair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,
    Sit down with us. It ill befits thy state
    And birth that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.
  QUEEN MARGARET. No, mighty King of France. Now Margaret
    Must strike her sail and learn a while to serve
    Where kings command. I was, I must confess,
    Great Albion's Queen in former golden days;
    But now mischance hath trod my title down
    And with dishonour laid me on the ground,
    Where I must take like seat unto my fortune,
    And to my humble seat conform myself.
  LEWIS. Why, say, fair Queen, whence springs this deep despair?
  QUEEN MARGARET. From such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears
    And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in cares.
  LEWIS. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thyself,
    And sit thee by our side. [Seats her by him] Yield not thy neck
    To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind
    Still ride in triumph over all mischance.
    Be plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;
    It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Those gracious words revive my drooping thoughts
    And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.
    Now therefore be it known to noble Lewis
    That Henry, sole possessor of my love,
    Is, of a king, become a banish'd man,
    And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn;
    While proud ambitious Edward Duke of York
    Usurps the regal title and the seat
    Of England's true-anointed lawful King.
    This is the cause that I, poor Margaret,
    With this my son, Prince Edward, Henry's heir,
    Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid;
    And if thou fail us, all our hope is done.
    Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help;
    Our people and our peers are both misled,
    Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight,
    And, as thou seest, ourselves in heavy plight.
  LEWIS. Renowned Queen, with patience calm the storm,
    While we bethink a means to break it off.
  QUEEN MARGARET. The more we stay, the stronger grows our foe.
  LEWIS. The more I stay, the more I'll succour thee.
  QUEEN MARGARET. O, but impatience waiteth on true sorrow.
    And see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!

                        Enter WARWICK

  LEWIS. What's he approacheth boldly to our presence?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Our Earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest friend.
  LEWIS. Welcome, brave Warwick! What brings thee to France?
                                      [He descends. She ariseth]
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise;
    For this is he that moves both wind and tide.
  WARWICK. From worthy Edward, King of Albion,
    My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend,
    I come, in kindness and unfeigned love,
    First to do greetings to thy royal person,
    And then to crave a league of amity,
    And lastly to confirm that amity
    With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant
    That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,
    To England's King in lawful marriage.
  QUEEN MARGARET. [Aside] If that go forward, Henry's hope is done.
  WARWICK. [To BONA] And, gracious madam, in our king's behalf,
    I am commanded, with your leave and favour,
    Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue
    To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart;
    Where fame, late ent'ring at his heedful ears,
    Hath plac'd thy beauty's image and thy virtue.
  QUEEN MARGARET. King Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak
    Before you answer Warwick. His demand
    Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest love,
    But from deceit bred by necessity;
    For how can tyrants safely govern home
    Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?
    To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,
    That Henry liveth still; but were he dead,
    Yet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry's son.
    Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage
    Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour;
    For though usurpers sway the rule a while
    Yet heav'ns are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.
  WARWICK. Injurious Margaret!
  PRINCE OF WALES. And why not Queen?
  WARWICK. Because thy father Henry did usurp;
    And thou no more art prince than she is queen.
  OXFORD. Then Warwick disannuls great John of Gaunt,
    Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain;
    And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,
    Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest;
    And, after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,
    Who by his prowess conquered all France.
    From these our Henry lineally descends.
  WARWICK. Oxford, how haps it in this smooth discourse
    You told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost
    All that which Henry the Fifth had gotten?
    Methinks these peers of France should smile at that.
    But for the rest: you tell a pedigree
    Of threescore and two years- a silly time
    To make prescription for a kingdom's worth.
  OXFORD. Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,
    Whom thou obeyed'st thirty and six years,
    And not betray thy treason with a blush?
  WARWICK. Can Oxford that did ever fence the right
    Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree?
    For shame! Leave Henry, and call Edward king.
  OXFORD. Call him my king by whose injurious doom
    My elder brother, the Lord Aubrey Vere,
    Was done to death; and more than so, my father,
    Even in the downfall of his mellow'd years,
    When nature brought him to the door of death?
    No, Warwick, no; while life upholds this arm,
    This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.
  WARWICK. And I the house of York.
  LEWIS. Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,
    Vouchsafe at our request to stand aside
    While I use further conference with Warwick.
                                              [They stand aloof]
  QUEEN MARGARET. Heavens grant that Warwick's words bewitch him not!
  LEWIS. Now, Warwick, tell me, even upon thy conscience,
    Is Edward your true king? for I were loath
    To link with him that were not lawful chosen.
  WARWICK. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine honour.
  LEWIS. But is he gracious in the people's eye?
  WARWICK. The more that Henry was unfortunate.
  LEWIS. Then further: all dissembling set aside,
    Tell me for truth the measure of his love
    Unto our sister Bona.
  WARWICK. Such it seems
    As may beseem a monarch like himself.
    Myself have often heard him say and swear
    That this his love was an eternal plant
    Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,
    The leaves and fruit maintain'd with beauty's sun,
    Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,
    Unless the Lady Bona quit his pain.
  LEWIS. Now, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.
  BONA. Your grant or your denial shall be mine.
    [To WARWICK] Yet I confess that often ere this day,
    When I have heard your king's desert recounted,
    Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.
  LEWIS. Then, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward's.
    And now forthwith shall articles be drawn
    Touching the jointure that your king must make,
    Which with her dowry shall be counterpois'd.
    Draw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness
    That Bona shall be wife to the English king.
  PRINCE OF WALES. To Edward, but not to the English king.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Deceitful Warwick, it was thy device
    By this alliance to make void my suit.
    Before thy coming, Lewis was Henry's friend.
  LEWIS. And still is friend to him and Margaret.
    But if your title to the crown be weak,
    As may appear by Edward's good success,
    Then 'tis but reason that I be releas'd
    From giving aid which late I promised.
    Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand
    That your estate requires and mine can yield.
  WARWICK. Henry now lives in Scotland at his case,
    Where having nothing, nothing can he lose.
    And as for you yourself, our quondam queen,
    You have a father able to maintain you,
    And better 'twere you troubled him than France.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, impudent and shameless Warwick,
    Proud setter up and puller down of kings!
    I will not hence till with my talk and tears,
    Both full of truth, I make King Lewis behold
    Thy sly conveyance and thy lord's false love;
    For both of you are birds of self-same feather.
                                    [POST blowing a horn within]
  LEWIS. Warwick, this is some post to us or thee.

                       Enter the POST

  POST. My lord ambassador, these letters are for you,
    Sent from your brother, Marquis Montague.
    These from our King unto your Majesty.
    And, madam, these for you; from whom I know not.
                                   [They all read their letters]
  OXFORD. I like it well that our fair Queen and mistress
    Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, mark how Lewis stamps as he were nettled.
    I hope all's for the best.
  LEWIS. Warwick, what are thy news? And yours, fair Queen?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Mine such as fill my heart with unhop'd joys.
  WARWICK. Mine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.
  LEWIS. What, has your king married the Lady Grey?
    And now, to soothe your forgery and his,
    Sends me a paper to persuade me patience?
    Is this th' alliance that he seeks with France?
    Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner?
  QUEEN MARGARET. I told your Majesty as much before.
    This proveth Edward's love and Warwick's honesty.
  WARWICK. King Lewis, I here protest in sight of heaven,
    And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,
    That I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's-
    No more my king, for he dishonours me,
    But most himself, if he could see his shame.
    Did I forget that by the house of York
    My father came untimely to his death?
    Did I let pass th' abuse done to my niece?
    Did I impale him with the regal crown?
    Did I put Henry from his native right?
    And am I guerdon'd at the last with shame?
    Shame on himself! for my desert is honour;
    And to repair my honour lost for him
    I here renounce him and return to Henry.
    My noble Queen, let former grudges pass,
    And henceforth I am thy true servitor.
    I will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,
    And replant Henry in his former state.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Warwick, these words have turn'd my hate to love;
    And I forgive and quite forget old faults,
    And joy that thou becom'st King Henry's friend.
  WARWICK. So much his friend, ay, his unfeigned friend,
    That if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us
    With some few bands of chosen soldiers,
    I'll undertake to land them on our coast
    And force the tyrant from his seat by war.
    'Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him;
    And as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,
    He's very likely now to fall from him
    For matching more for wanton lust than honour
    Or than for strength and safety of our country.
  BONA. Dear brother, how shall Bona be reveng'd
    But by thy help to this distressed queen?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Renowned Prince, how shall poor Henry live
    Unless thou rescue him from foul despair?
  BONA. My quarrel and this English queen's are one.
  WARWICK. And mine, fair Lady Bona, joins with yours.
  LEWIS. And mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret's.
    Therefore, at last, I firmly am resolv'd
    You shall have aid.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Let me give humble thanks for all at once.
  LEWIS. Then, England's messenger, return in post
    And tell false Edward, thy supposed king,
    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers
    To revel it with him and his new bride.
    Thou seest what's past; go fear thy king withal.
  BONA. Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,
    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Tell him my mourning weeds are laid aside,
    And I am ready to put armour on.
  WARWICK. Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,
    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.
    There's thy reward; be gone.                       Exit POST
  LEWIS. But, Warwick,
    Thou and Oxford, with five thousand men,
    Shall cross the seas and bid false Edward battle:
    And, as occasion serves, this noble Queen
    And Prince shall follow with a fresh supply.
    Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt:
    What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?
  WARWICK. This shall assure my constant loyalty:
    That if our Queen and this young Prince agree,
    I'll join mine eldest daughter and my joy
    To him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Yes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.
    Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous,
    Therefore delay not- give thy hand to Warwick;
    And with thy hand thy faith irrevocable
    That only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Yes, I accept her, for she well deserves it;
    And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.
                                  [He gives his hand to WARWICK]
  LEWIS. stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied;
    And thou, Lord Bourbon, our High Admiral,
    Shall waft them over with our royal fleet.
    I long till Edward fall by war's mischance
    For mocking marriage with a dame of France.
                                          Exeunt all but WARWICK
  WARWICK. I came from Edward as ambassador,
    But I return his sworn and mortal foe.
    Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,
    But dreadful war shall answer his demand.
    Had he none else to make a stale but me?
    Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.
    I was the chief that rais'd him to the crown,
    And I'll be chief to bring him down again;
    Not that I pity Henry's misery,
    But seek revenge on Edward's mockery.                   Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I. London. The palace

Enter GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, SOMERSET, and MONTAGUE

  GLOUCESTER. Now tell me, brother Clarence, what think you
    Of this new marriage with the Lady Grey?
    Hath not our brother made a worthy choice?
  CLARENCE. Alas, you know 'tis far from hence to France!
    How could he stay till Warwick made return?
  SOMERSET. My lords, forbear this talk; here comes the King.

           Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, attended; LADY
          GREY, as Queen; PEMBROKE, STAFFORD, HASTINGS,
      and others. Four stand on one side, and four on the other

  GLOUCESTER. And his well-chosen bride.
  CLARENCE. I mind to tell him plainly what I think.
  KING EDWARD. Now, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice
    That you stand pensive as half malcontent?
  CLARENCE. As well as Lewis of France or the Earl of Warwick,
    Which are so weak of courage and in judgment
    That they'll take no offence at our abuse.
  KING EDWARD. Suppose they take offence without a cause;
    They are but Lewis and Warwick: I am Edward,
    Your King and Warwick's and must have my will.
  GLOUCESTER. And shall have your will, because our King.
    Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.
  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother Richard, are you offended too?
  GLOUCESTER. Not I.
    No, God forbid that I should wish them sever'd
    Whom God hath join'd together; ay, and 'twere pity
    To sunder them that yoke so well together.
  KING EDWARD. Setting your scorns and your mislike aside,
    Tell me some reason why the Lady Grey
    Should not become my wife and England's Queen.
    And you too, Somerset and Montague,
    Speak freely what you think.
  CLARENCE. Then this is mine opinion: that King Lewis
    Becomes your enemy for mocking him
    About the marriage of the Lady Bona.
  GLOUCESTER. And Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,
    Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.
  KING EDWARD. What if both Lewis and Warwick be appeas'd
    By such invention as I can devise?
  MONTAGUE. Yet to have join'd with France in such alliance
    Would more have strength'ned this our commonwealth
    'Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.
  HASTINGS. Why, knows not Montague that of itself
    England is safe, if true within itself?
  MONTAGUE. But the safer when 'tis back'd with France.
  HASTINGS. 'Tis better using France than trusting France.
    Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas
    Which He hath giv'n for fence impregnable,
    And with their helps only defend ourselves.
    In them and in ourselves our safety lies.
  CLARENCE. For this one speech Lord Hastings well deserves
    To have the heir of the Lord Hungerford.
  KING EDWARD. Ay, what of that? it was my will and grant;
    And for this once my will shall stand for law.
  GLOUCESTER. And yet methinks your Grace hath not done well
    To give the heir and daughter of Lord Scales
    Unto the brother of your loving bride.
    She better would have fitted me or Clarence;
    But in your bride you bury brotherhood.
  CLARENCE. Or else you would not have bestow'd the heir
    Of the Lord Bonville on your new wife's son,
    And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.
  KING EDWARD. Alas, poor Clarence! Is it for a wife
    That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.
  CLARENCE. In choosing for yourself you show'd your judgment,
    Which being shallow, you shall give me leave
    To play the broker in mine own behalf;
    And to that end I shortly mind to leave you.
  KING EDWARD. Leave me or tarry, Edward will be King,
    And not be tied unto his brother's will.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My lords, before it pleas'd his Majesty
    To raise my state to title of a queen,
    Do me but right, and you must all confess
    That I was not ignoble of descent:
    And meaner than myself have had like fortune.
    But as this title honours me and mine,
    So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,
    Doth cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.
  KING EDWARD. My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.
    What danger or what sorrow can befall thee,
    So long as Edward is thy constant friend
    And their true sovereign whom they must obey?
    Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,
    Unless they seek for hatred at my hands;
    Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,
    And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I hear, yet say not much, but think the more.

                          Enter a POST

  KING EDWARD. Now, messenger, what letters or what news
    From France?
  MESSENGER. My sovereign liege, no letters, and few words,
    But such as I, without your special pardon,
    Dare not relate.
  KING EDWARD. Go to, we pardon thee; therefore, in brief,
    Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess them.
    What answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?
  MESSENGER. At my depart, these were his very words:
    'Go tell false Edward, the supposed king,
    That Lewis of France is sending over masquers
    To revel it with him and his new bride.'
  KING EDWARD. IS Lewis so brave? Belike he thinks me Henry.
    But what said Lady Bona to my marriage?
  MESSENGER. These were her words, utt'red with mild disdain:
    'Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,
    I'll wear the willow-garland for his sake.'
  KING EDWARD. I blame not her: she could say little less;
    She had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?
    For I have heard that she was there in place.
  MESSENGER. 'Tell him' quoth she 'my mourning weeds are done,
    And I am ready to put armour on.'
  KING EDWARD. Belike she minds to play the Amazon.
    But what said Warwick to these injuries?
  MESSENGER. He, more incens'd against your Majesty
    Than all the rest, discharg'd me with these words:
    'Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong;
    And therefore I'll uncrown him ere't be long.'
  KING EDWARD. Ha! durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?
    Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarn'd.
    They shall have wars and pay for their presumption.
    But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?
  MESSENGER. Ay, gracious sovereign; they are so link'd in friendship
    That young Prince Edward marries Warwick's daughter.
  CLARENCE. Belike the elder; Clarence will have the younger.
    Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,
    For I will hence to Warwick's other daughter;
    That, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage
    I may not prove inferior to yourself.
    You that love me and Warwick, follow me.
                                      Exit, and SOMERSET follows
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] Not I.
    My thoughts aim at a further matter; I
    Stay not for the love of Edward but the crown.
  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!
    Yet am I arm'd against the worst can happen;
    And haste is needful in this desp'rate case.
    Pembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf
    Go levy men and make prepare for war;
    They are already, or quickly will be landed.
    Myself in person will straight follow you.
                                    Exeunt PEMBROKE and STAFFORD
    But ere I go, Hastings and Montague,
    Resolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,
    Are near to Warwick by blood and by alliance.
    Tell me if you love Warwick more than me?
    If it be so, then both depart to him:
    I rather wish you foes than hollow friends.
    But if you mind to hold your true obedience,
    Give me assurance with some friendly vow,
    That I may never have you in suspect.
  MONTAGUE. So God help Montague as he proves true!
  HASTINGS. And Hastings as he favours Edward's cause!
  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, will you stand by us?
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand you.
  KING EDWARD. Why, so! then am I sure of victory.
    Now therefore let us hence, and lose no hour
    Till we meet Warwick with his foreign pow'r.          Exeunt

SCENE II. A plain in Warwickshire

Enter WARWICK and OXFORD, with French soldiers

  WARWICK. Trust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well;
    The common people by numbers swarm to us.

                 Enter CLARENCE and SOMERSET

    But see where Somerset and Clarence comes.
    Speak suddenly, my lords- are we all friends?
  CLARENCE. Fear not that, my lord.
  WARWICK. Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick;
    And welcome, Somerset. I hold it cowardice
    To rest mistrustful where a noble heart
    Hath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love;
    Else might I think that Clarence, Edward's brother,
    Were but a feigned friend to our proceedings.
    But welcome, sweet Clarence; my daughter shall be thine.
    And now what rests but, in night's coverture,
    Thy brother being carelessly encamp'd,
    His soldiers lurking in the towns about,
    And but attended by a simple guard,
    We may surprise and take him at our pleasure?
    Our scouts have found the adventure very easy;
    That as Ulysses and stout Diomede
    With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,
    And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,
    So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,
    At unawares may beat down Edward's guard
    And seize himself- I say not 'slaughter him,'
    For I intend but only to surprise him.
    You that will follow me to this attempt,
    Applaud the name of Henry with your leader.
                                         [They all cry 'Henry!']
    Why then, let's on our way in silent sort.
    For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!    Exeunt

SCENE III. Edward's camp, near Warwick

Enter three WATCHMEN, to guard the KING'S tent

  FIRST WATCHMAN. Come on, my masters, each man take his stand;
    The King by this is set him down to sleep.
  SECOND WATCHMAN. What, will he not to bed?
  FIRST WATCHMAN. Why, no; for he hath made a solemn vow
    Never to lie and take his natural rest
    Till Warwick or himself be quite suppress'd.
  SECOND WATCHMAN. To-morrow then, belike, shall be the day,
    If Warwick be so near as men report.
  THIRD WATCHMAN. But say, I pray, what nobleman is that
    That with the King here resteth in his tent?
  FIRST WATCHMAN. 'Tis the Lord Hastings, the King's chiefest friend.
  THIRD WATCHMAN. O, is it So? But why commands the King
    That his chief followers lodge in towns about him,
    While he himself keeps in the cold field?
  SECOND WATCHMAN. 'Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.
  THIRD WATCHMAN. Ay, but give me worship and quietness;
    I like it better than dangerous honour.
    If Warwick knew in what estate he stands,
    'Tis to be doubted he would waken him.
  FIRST WATCHMAN. Unless our halberds did shut up his passage.
  SECOND WATCHMAN. Ay, wherefore else guard we his royal tent
    But to defend his person from night-foes?

             Enter WARWICK, CLARENCE, OXFORD, SOMERSET,
                   and French soldiers, silent all

  WARWICK. This is his tent; and see where stand his guard.
    Courage, my masters! Honour now or never!
    But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.
  FIRST WATCHMAN. Who goes there?
  SECOND WATCHMAN. Stay, or thou diest.

       WARWICK and the rest cry all 'Warwick! Warwick!' and
      set upon the guard, who fly, crying 'Arm! Arm!' WARWICK
                   and the rest following them

      The drum playing and trumpet sounding, re-enter WARWICK
         and the rest, bringing the KING out in his gown,
   sitting in a chair. GLOUCESTER and HASTINGS fly over the stage

  SOMERSET. What are they that fly there?
  WARWICK. Richard and Hastings. Let them go; here is the Duke.
  KING EDWARD. The Duke! Why, Warwick, when we parted,
    Thou call'dst me King?
  WARWICK. Ay, but the case is alter'd.
    When you disgrac'd me in my embassade,
    Then I degraded you from being King,
    And come now to create you Duke of York.
    Alas, how should you govern any kingdom
    That know not how to use ambassadors,
    Nor how to be contented with one wife,
    Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,
    Nor how to study for the people's welfare,
    Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies?
  KING EDWARD. Yea, brother of Clarence, art thou here too?
    Nay, then I see that Edward needs must down.
    Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,
    Of thee thyself and all thy complices,
    Edward will always bear himself as King.
    Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,
    My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.
  WARWICK. Then, for his mind, be Edward England's king;
                                           [Takes off his crown]
    But Henry now shall wear the English crown
    And be true King indeed; thou but the shadow.
    My Lord of Somerset, at my request,
    See that forthwith Duke Edward be convey'd
    Unto my brother, Archbishop of York.
    When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,
    I'll follow you and tell what answer
    Lewis and the Lady Bona send to him.
    Now for a while farewell, good Duke of York.
  KING EDWARD. What fates impose, that men must needs abide;
    It boots not to resist both wind and tide.
                                    [They lead him out forcibly]
  OXFORD. What now remains, my lords, for us to do
    But march to London with our soldiers?
  WARWICK. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to do;
    To free King Henry from imprisonment,
    And see him seated in the regal throne.               Exeunt

SCENE IV. London. The palace

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and RIVERS

  RIVERS. Madam, what makes you in this sudden change?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to learn
    What late misfortune is befall'n King Edward?
  RIVERS. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, but the loss of his own royal person.
  RIVERS. Then is my sovereign slain?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner;
    Either betray'd by falsehood of his guard
    Or by his foe surpris'd at unawares;
    And, as I further have to understand,
    Is new committed to the Bishop of York,
    Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.
  RIVERS. These news, I must confess, are full of grief;
    Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may:
    Warwick may lose that now hath won the day.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's decay.
    And I the rather wean me from despair
    For love of Edward's offspring in my womb.
    This is it that makes me bridle passion
    And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross;
    Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear
    And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,
    Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown
    King Edward's fruit, true heir to th' English crown.
  RIVERS. But, madam, where is Warwick then become?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I am inform'd that he comes towards London
    To set the crown once more on Henry's head.
    Guess thou the rest: King Edward's friends must down.
    But to prevent the tyrant's violence-
    For trust not him that hath once broken faith-
    I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary
    To save at least the heir of Edward's right.
    There shall I rest secure from force and fraud.
    Come, therefore, let us fly while we may fly:
    If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.               Exeunt

SCENE V. A park near Middleham Castle in Yorkshire

Enter GLOUCESTER, LORD HASTINGS, SIR WILLIAM STANLEY, and others

  GLOUCESTER. Now, my Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,
    Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither
    Into this chiefest thicket of the park.
    Thus stands the case: you know our King, my brother,
    Is prisoner to the Bishop here, at whose hands
    He hath good usage and great liberty;
    And often but attended with weak guard
    Comes hunting this way to disport himself.
    I have advertis'd him by secret means
    That if about this hour he make this way,
    Under the colour of his usual game,
    He shall here find his friends, with horse and men,
    To set him free from his captivity.

             Enter KING EDWARD and a HUNTSMAN with him

  HUNTSMAN. This way, my lord; for this way lies the game.
  KING EDWARD. Nay, this way, man. See where the huntsmen stand.
    Now, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and the rest,
    Stand you thus close to steal the Bishop's deer?
  GLOUCESTER. Brother, the time and case requireth haste;
    Your horse stands ready at the park corner.
  KING EDWARD. But whither shall we then?
  HASTINGS. To Lynn, my lord; and shipt from thence to Flanders.
  GLOUCESTER. Well guess'd, believe me; for that was my meaning.
  KING EDWARD. Stanley, I will requite thy forwardness.
  GLOUCESTER. But wherefore stay we? 'Tis no time to talk.
  KING EDWARD. Huntsman, what say'st thou? Wilt thou go along?
  HUNTSMAN. Better do so than tarry and be hang'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Come then, away; let's ha' no more ado.
  KING EDWARD. Bishop, farewell. Shield thee from Warwick's frown,
    And pray that I may repossess the crown.              Exeunt

SCENE VI. London. The Tower

Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, CLARENCE, WARWICK, SOMERSET, young HENRY,
EARL OF RICHMOND, OXFORD, MONTAGUE, LIEUTENANT OF THE TOWER, and
attendants

  KING HENRY. Master Lieutenant, now that God and friends
    Have shaken Edward from the regal seat
    And turn'd my captive state to liberty,
    My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,
    At our enlargement what are thy due fees?
  LIEUTENANT. Subjects may challenge nothing of their sov'reigns;
    But if an humble prayer may prevail,
    I then crave pardon of your Majesty.
  KING HENRY. For what, Lieutenant? For well using me?
    Nay, be thou sure I'll well requite thy kindness,
    For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure;
    Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds
    Conceive when, after many moody thoughts,
    At last by notes of household harmony
    They quite forget their loss of liberty.
    But, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,
    And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee;
    He was the author, thou the instrument.
    Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite
    By living low where fortune cannot hurt me,
    And that the people of this blessed land
    May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars,
    Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,
    I here resign my government to thee,
    For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.
  WARWICK. Your Grace hath still been fam'd for virtuous,
    And now may seem as wise as virtuous
    By spying and avoiding fortune's malice,
    For few men rightly temper with the stars;
    Yet in this one thing let me blame your Grace,
    For choosing me when Clarence is in place.
  CLARENCE. No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,
    To whom the heav'ns in thy nativity
    Adjudg'd an olive branch and laurel crown,
    As likely to be blest in peace and war;
    And therefore I yield thee my free consent.
  WARWICK. And I choose Clarence only for Protector.
  KING HENRY. Warwick and Clarence, give me both your hands.
    Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,
    That no dissension hinder government.
    I make you both Protectors of this land,
    While I myself will lead a private life
    And in devotion spend my latter days,
    To sin's rebuke and my Creator's praise.
  WARWICK. What answers Clarence to his sovereign's will?
  CLARENCE. That he consents, if Warwick yield consent,
    For on thy fortune I repose myself.
  WARWICK. Why, then, though loath, yet must I be content.
    We'll yoke together, like a double shadow
    To Henry's body, and supply his place;
    I mean, in bearing weight of government,
    While he enjoys the honour and his ease.
    And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful
    Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,
    And all his lands and goods confiscated.
  CLARENCE. What else? And that succession be determin'd.
  WARWICK. Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his part.
  KING HENRY. But, with the first of all your chief affairs,
    Let me entreat- for I command no more-
    That Margaret your Queen and my son Edward
    Be sent for to return from France with speed;
    For till I see them here, by doubtful fear
    My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.
  CLARENCE. It shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.
  KING HENRY. My Lord of Somerset, what youth is that,
    Of whom you seem to have so tender care?
  SOMERSET. My liege, it is young Henry, Earl of Richmond.
  KING HENRY. Come hither, England's hope.
                                     [Lays his hand on his head]
    If secret powers
    Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,
    This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss.
    His looks are full of peaceful majesty;
    His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,
    His hand to wield a sceptre; and himself
    Likely in time to bless a regal throne.
    Make much of him, my lords; for this is he
    Must help you more than you are hurt by me.

                          Enter a POST

  WARWICK. What news, my friend?
  POST. That Edward is escaped from your brother
    And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.
  WARWICK. Unsavoury news! But how made he escape?
  POST. He was convey'd by Richard Duke of Gloucester
    And the Lord Hastings, who attended him
    In secret ambush on the forest side
    And from the Bishop's huntsmen rescu'd him;
    For hunting was his daily exercise.
  WARWICK. My brother was too careless of his charge.
    But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide
    A salve for any sore that may betide.
                   Exeunt all but SOMERSET, RICHMOND, and OXFORD
  SOMERSET. My lord, I like not of this flight of Edward's;
    For doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,
    And we shall have more wars befor't be long.
    As Henry's late presaging prophecy
    Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,
    So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts,
    What may befall him to his harm and ours.
    Therefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,
    Forthwith we'll send him hence to Brittany,
    Till storms be past of civil enmity.
  OXFORD. Ay, for if Edward repossess the crown,
    'Tis like that Richmond with the rest shall down.
  SOMERSET. It shall be so; he shall to Brittany.
    Come therefore, let's about it speedily.              Exeunt

SCENE VII. Before York

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and soldiers

  KING EDWARD. Now, brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and the rest,
    Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,
    And says that once more I shall interchange
    My waned state for Henry's regal crown.
    Well have we pass'd and now repass'd the seas,
    And brought desired help from Burgundy;
    What then remains, we being thus arriv'd
    From Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,
    But that we enter, as into our dukedom?
  GLOUCESTER. The gates made fast! Brother, I like not this;
    For many men that stumble at the threshold
    Are well foretold that danger lurks within.
  KING EDWARD. Tush, man, abodements must not now affright us.
    By fair or foul means we must enter in,
    For hither will our friends repair to us.
  HASTINGS. My liege, I'll knock once more to summon them.

         Enter, on the walls, the MAYOR OF YORK and
                       his BRETHREN

  MAYOR. My lords, we were forewarned of your coming
    And shut the gates for safety of ourselves,
    For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.
  KING EDWARD. But, Master Mayor, if Henry be your King,
    Yet Edward at the least is Duke of York.
  MAYOR. True, my good lord; I know you for no less.
  KING EDWARD. Why, and I challenge nothing but my dukedom,
    As being well content with that alone.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] But when the fox hath once got in his nose,
    He'll soon find means to make the body follow.
  HASTINGS. Why, Master Mayor, why stand you in a doubt?
    Open the gates; we are King Henry's friends.
  MAYOR. Ay, say you so? The gates shall then be open'd.
                                                   [He descends]
  GLOUCESTER. A wise stout captain, and soon persuaded!
  HASTINGS. The good old man would fain that all were well,
    So 'twere not long of him; but being ent'red,
    I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade
    Both him and all his brothers unto reason.

             Enter, below, the MAYOR and two ALDERMEN

  KING EDWARD. So, Master Mayor. These gates must not be shut
    But in the night or in the time of war.
    What! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys;
                                                [Takes his keys]
    For Edward will defend the town and thee,
    And all those friends that deign to follow me.

           March. Enter MONTGOMERY with drum and soldiers

  GLOUCESTER. Brother, this is Sir John Montgomery,
    Our trusty friend, unless I be deceiv'd.
  KING EDWARD. Welcome, Sir john! But why come you in arms?
  MONTGOMERY. To help King Edward in his time of storm,
    As every loyal subject ought to do.
  KING EDWARD. Thanks, good Montgomery; but we now forget
    Our title to the crown, and only claim
    Our dukedom till God please to send the rest.
  MONTGOMERY. Then fare you well, for I will hence again.
    I came to serve a king and not a duke.
    Drummer, strike up, and let us march away.
                                      [The drum begins to march]
  KING EDWARD. Nay, stay, Sir John, a while, and we'll debate
    By what safe means the crown may be recover'd.
  MONTGOMERY. What talk you of debating? In few words:
    If you'll not here proclaim yourself our King,
    I'll leave you to your fortune and be gone
    To keep them back that come to succour you.
    Why shall we fight, if you pretend no title?
  GLOUCESTER. Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice points?
  KING EDWARD. When we grow stronger, then we'll make our claim;
    Till then 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.
  HASTINGS. Away with scrupulous wit! Now arms must rule.
  GLOUCESTER. And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.
    Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand;
    The bruit thereof will bring you many friends.
  KING EDWARD. Then be it as you will; for 'tis my right,
    And Henry but usurps the diadem.
  MONTGOMERY. Ay, now my sovereign speaketh like himself;
    And now will I be Edward's champion.
  HASTINGS. Sound trumpet; Edward shall be here proclaim'd.
    Come, fellow soldier, make thou proclamation.
                                   [Gives him a paper. Flourish]
  SOLDIER. [Reads] 'Edward the Fourth, by the grace of God,
    King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, &c.'
  MONTGOMERY. And whoso'er gainsays King Edward's right,
    By this I challenge him to single fight.
                                          [Throws down gauntlet]
  ALL. Long live Edward the Fourth!
  KING EDWARD. Thanks, brave Montgomery, and thanks unto you all;
    If fortune serve me, I'll requite this kindness.
    Now for this night let's harbour here in York;
    And when the morning sun shall raise his car
    Above the border of this horizon,
    We'll forward towards Warwick and his mates;
    For well I wot that Henry is no soldier.
    Ah, froward Clarence, how evil it beseems the
    To flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!
    Yet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and Warwick.
    Come on, brave soldiers; doubt not of the day,
    And, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.        Exeunt

SCENE VIII. London. The palace

Flourish. Enter KING HENRY, WARWICK, MONTAGUE, CLARENCE, OXFORD, and
EXETER

  WARWICK. What counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,
    With hasty Germans and blunt Hollanders,
    Hath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas
    And with his troops doth march amain to London;
    And many giddy people flock to him.
  KING HENRY. Let's levy men and beat him back again.
  CLARENCE. A little fire is quickly trodden out,
    Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.
  WARWICK. In Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,
    Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war;
    Those will I muster up, and thou, son Clarence,
    Shalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk, and in Kent,
    The knights and gentlemen to come with thee.
    Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,
    Northampton, and in Leicestershire, shalt find
    Men well inclin'd to hear what thou command'st.
    And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well belov'd,
    In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.
    My sovereign, with the loving citizens,
    Like to his island girt in with the ocean
    Or modest Dian circled with her nymphs,
    Shall rest in London till we come to him.
    Fair lords, take leave and stand not to reply.
    Farewell, my sovereign.
  KING HENRY. Farewell, my Hector and my Troy's true hope.
  CLARENCE. In sign of truth, I kiss your Highness' hand.
  KING HENRY. Well-minded Clarence, be thou fortunate!
  MONTAGUE. Comfort, my lord; and so I take my leave.
  OXFORD. [Kissing the KING'S band] And thus I seal my truth and bid
    adieu.
  KING HENRY. Sweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,
    And all at once, once more a happy farewell.
  WARWICK. Farewell, sweet lords; let's meet at Coventry.
                              Exeunt all but the KING and EXETER
  KING HENRY. Here at the palace will I rest a while.
    Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?
    Methinks the power that Edward hath in field
    Should not be able to encounter mine.
  EXETER. The doubt is that he will seduce the rest.
  KING HENRY. That's not my fear; my meed hath got me fame:
    I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,
    Nor posted off their suits with slow delays;
    My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,
    My mildness hath allay'd their swelling griefs,
    My mercy dried their water-flowing tears;
    I have not been desirous of their wealth,
    Nor much oppress'd them with great subsidies,
    Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd.
    Then why should they love Edward more than me?
    No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace;
    And, when the lion fawns upon the lamb,
    The lamb will never cease to follow him.
                      [Shout within 'A Lancaster! A Lancaster!']
  EXETER. Hark, hark, my lord! What shouts are these?

            Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, and soldiers

  KING EDWARD. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry, bear him hence;
    And once again proclaim us King of England.
    You are the fount that makes small brooks to flow.
    Now stops thy spring; my sea shall suck them dry,
    And swell so much the higher by their ebb.
    Hence with him to the Tower: let him not speak.
                                     Exeunt some with KING HENRY
    And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,
    Where peremptory Warwick now remains.
    The sun shines hot; and, if we use delay,
    Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.
  GLOUCESTER. Away betimes, before his forces join,
    And take the great-grown traitor unawares.
    Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.         Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Coventry

Enter WARWICK, the MAYOR OF COVENTRY, two MESSENGERS, and others upon
the walls

  WARWICK. Where is the post that came from valiant Oxford?
    How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?
  FIRST MESSENGER. By this at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.
  WARWICK. How far off is our brother Montague?
    Where is the post that came from Montague?
  SECOND MESSENGER. By this at Daintry, with a puissant troop.

                   Enter SIR JOHN SOMERVILLE

  WARWICK. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son?
    And by thy guess how nigh is Clarence now?
  SOMERVILLE. At Southam I did leave him with his forces,
    And do expect him here some two hours hence.
                                                    [Drum heard]
  WARWICK. Then Clarence is at hand; I hear his drum.
  SOMERVILLE. It is not his, my lord; here Southam lies.
    The drum your Honour hears marcheth from Warwick.
  WARWICK. Who should that be? Belike unlook'd for friends.
  SOMERVILLE. They are at hand, and you shall quickly know.

        March. Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER,
                         and soldiers

  KING EDWARD. Go, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.
  GLOUCESTER. See how the surly Warwick mans the wall.
  WARWICK. O unbid spite! Is sportful Edward come?
    Where slept our scouts or how are they seduc'd
    That we could hear no news of his repair?
  KING EDWARD. Now, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,
    Speak gentle words, and humbly bend thy knee,
    Call Edward King, and at his hands beg mercy?
    And he shall pardon thee these outrages.
  WARWICK. Nay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces hence,
    Confess who set thee up and pluck'd thee down,
    Call Warwick patron, and be penitent?
    And thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.
  GLOUCESTER. I thought, at least, he would have said the King;
    Or did he make the jest against his will?
  WARWICK. Is not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, by my faith, for a poor earl to give.
    I'll do thee service for so good a gift.
  WARWICK. 'Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.
  KING EDWARD. Why then 'tis mine, if but by Warwick's gift.
  WARWICK. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight;
    And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again;
    And Henry is my King, Warwick his subject.
  KING EDWARD. But Warwick's king is Edward's prisoner.
    And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:
    What is the body when the head is off?
  GLOUCESTER. Alas, that Warwick had no more forecast,
    But, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,
    The king was slily finger'd from the deck!
    You left poor Henry at the Bishop's palace,
    And ten to one you'll meet him in the Tower.
  KING EDWARD. 'Tis even so; yet you are Warwick still.
  GLOUCESTER. Come, Warwick, take the time; kneel down, kneel down.
    Nay, when? Strike now, or else the iron cools.
  WARWICK. I had rather chop this hand off at a blow,
    And with the other fling it at thy face,
    Than bear so low a sail to strike to thee.
  KING EDWARD. Sail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend,
    This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,
    Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,
    Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood:
    'Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.'

               Enter OXFORD, with drum and colours

  WARWICK. O cheerful colours! See where Oxford comes.
  OXFORD. Oxford, Oxford, for Lancaster!
                              [He and his forces enter the city]
  GLOUCESTER. The gates are open, let us enter too.
  KING EDWARD. So other foes may set upon our backs.
    Stand we in good array, for they no doubt
    Will issue out again and bid us battle;
    If not, the city being but of small defence,
    We'll quietly rouse the traitors in the same.
  WARWICK. O, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.

             Enter MONTAGUE, with drum and colours

  MONTAGUE. Montague, Montague, for Lancaster!
                              [He and his forces enter the city]
  GLOUCESTER. Thou and thy brother both shall buy this treason
    Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.
  KING EDWARD. The harder match'd, the greater victory.
    My mind presageth happy gain and conquest.

             Enter SOMERSET, with drum and colours

  SOMERSET. Somerset, Somerset, for Lancaster!
                              [He and his forces enter the city]
  GLOUCESTER. Two of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,
    Have sold their lives unto the house of York;
    And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.

             Enter CLARENCE, with drum and colours

  WARWICK. And lo where George of Clarence sweeps along,
    Of force enough to bid his brother battle;
    With whom an upright zeal to right prevails
    More than the nature of a brother's love.
  CLARENCE. Clarence, Clarence, for Lancaster!
  KING EDWARD. Et tu Brute- wilt thou stab Caesar too?
    A parley, sirrah, to George of Clarence.
                  [Sound a parley. RICHARD and CLARENCE whisper]
  WARWICK. Come, Clarence, come. Thou wilt if Warwick call.
  CLARENCE. [Taking the red rose from his hat and throwing
      it at WARWICK]
    Father of Warwick, know you what this means?
    Look here, I throw my infamy at thee.
    I will not ruinate my father's house,
    Who gave his blood to lime the stones together,
    And set up Lancaster. Why, trowest thou, Warwick,
    That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,
    To bend the fatal instruments of war
    Against his brother and his lawful King?
    Perhaps thou wilt object my holy oath.
    To keep that oath were more impiety
    Than Jephtha when he sacrific'd his daughter.
    I am so sorry for my trespass made
    That, to deserve well at my brother's hands,
    I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe;
    With resolution whereso'er I meet thee-
    As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad-
    To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.
    And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,
    And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.
    Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends;
    And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,
    For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.
  KING EDWARD. Now welcome more, and ten times more belov'd,
    Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate.
  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, good Clarence; this is brother-like.
  WARWICK. O passing traitor, perjur'd and unjust!
  KING EDWARD. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave die town and fight?
    Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears?
  WARWICK. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence!
    I will away towards Barnet presently
    And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.
  KING EDWARD. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares and leads the way.
    Lords, to the field; Saint George and victory!
                                                 Exeunt YORKISTS
                         [March. WARWICK and his company follow]

SCENE II. A field of battle near Barnet

Alarum and excursions. Enter KING EDWARD, bringing forth WARWICK,
wounded

  KING EDWARD. So, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear;
    For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all.
    Now, Montague, sit fast; I seek for thee,
    That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.            Exit
  WARWICK. Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe,
    And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?
    Why ask I that? My mangled body shows,
    My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,
    That I must yield my body to the earth
    And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
    Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
    Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
    Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,
    Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree
    And kept low shrubs from winter's pow'rful wind.
    These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,
    Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun
    To search the secret treasons of the world;
    The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,
    Were lik'ned oft to kingly sepulchres;
    For who liv'd King, but I could dig his grave?
    And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?
    Lo now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!
    My parks, my walks, my manors, that I had,
    Even now forsake me; and of all my lands
    Is nothing left me but my body's length.
    what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
    And live we how we can, yet die we must.

                  Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET

  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick, Warwick! wert thou as we are,
    We might recover all our loss again.
    The Queen from France hath brought a puissant power;
    Even now we heard the news. Ah, couldst thou fly!
  WARWICK. Why then, I would not fly. Ah, Montague,
    If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand,
    And with thy lips keep in my soul a while!
    Thou lov'st me not; for, brother, if thou didst,
    Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood
    That glues my lips and will not let me speak.
    Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.
  SOMERSET. Ah, Warwick! Montague hath breath'd his last;
    And to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick,
    And said 'Commend me to my valiant brother.'
    And more he would have said; and more he spoke,
    Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,
    That mought not be distinguish'd; but at last,
    I well might hear, delivered with a groan,
    'O farewell, Warwick!'
  WARWICK. Sweet rest his soul! Fly, lords, and save yourselves:
    For Warwick bids you all farewell, to meet in heaven.
                                                          [Dies]
  OXFORD. Away, away, to meet the Queen's great power!
                                  [Here they bear away his body]

SCENE III. Another part of the field

Flourish. Enter KING in triumph; with GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and the
rest

  KING EDWARD. Thus far our fortune keeps an upward course,
    And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.
    But in the midst of this bright-shining day
    I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud
    That will encounter with our glorious sun
    Ere he attain his easeful western bed-
    I mean, my lords, those powers that the Queen
    Hath rais'd in Gallia have arriv'd our coast
    And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.
  CLARENCE. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud
    And blow it to the source from whence it came;
    Thy very beams will dry those vapours up,
    For every cloud engenders not a storm.
  GLOUCESTER. The Queen is valued thirty thousand strong,
    And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her.
    If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd
    Her faction will be full as strong as ours.
  KING EDWARD. are advertis'd by our loving friends
    That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury;
    We, having now the best at Barnet field,
    Will thither straight, for willingness rids way;
    And as we march our strength will be augmented
    In every county as we go along.
    Strike up the drum; cry 'Courage!' and away.          Exeunt

SCENE IV. Plains wear Tewksbury

Flourish. March. Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET, OXFORD,
and SOLDIERS

  QUEEN MARGARET. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their
      loss,
    But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
    What though the mast be now blown overboard,
    The cable broke, the holding-anchor lost,
    And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood;
    Yet lives our pilot still. Is't meet that he
    Should leave the helm and, like a fearful lad,
    With tearful eyes add water to the sea
    And give more strength to that which hath too much;
    Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,
    Which industry and courage might have sav'd?
    Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!
    Say Warwick was our anchor; what of that?
    And Montague our top-mast; what of him?
    Our slaught'red friends the tackles; what of these?
    Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?
    And Somerset another goodly mast?
    The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
    And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
    For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge?
    We will not from the helm to sit and weep,
    But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,
    From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck,
    As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.
    And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?
    What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?
    And Richard but a ragged fatal rock?
    All these the enemies to our poor bark.
    Say you can swim; alas, 'tis but a while!
    Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink.
    Bestride the rock; the tide will wash you off,
    Or else you famish- that's a threefold death.
    This speak I, lords, to let you understand,
    If case some one of you would fly from us,
    That there's no hop'd-for mercy with the brothers
    More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.
    Why, courage then! What cannot be avoided
    'Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Methinks a woman of this valiant spirit
    Should, if a coward hear her speak these words,
    Infuse his breast with magnanimity
    And make him naked foil a man-at-arms.
    I speak not this as doubting any here;
    For did I but suspect a fearful man,
    He should have leave to go away betimes,
    Lest in our need he might infect another
    And make him of the like spirit to himself.
    If any such be here- as God forbid!-
    Let him depart before we need his help.
  OXFORD. Women and children of so high a courage,
    And warriors faint! Why, 'twere perpetual shame.
    O brave young Prince! thy famous grandfather
    Doth live again in thee. Long mayst thou Eve
    To bear his image and renew his glories!
  SOMERSET. And he that will not fight for such a hope,
    Go home to bed and, like the owl by day,
    If he arise, be mock'd and wond'red at.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Thanks, gentle Somerset; sweet Oxford, thanks.
  PRINCE OF WALES. And take his thanks that yet hath nothing else.

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Prepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand
    Ready to fight; therefore be resolute.
  OXFORD. I thought no less. It is his policy
    To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.
  SOMERSET. But he's deceiv'd; we are in readiness.
  QUEEN MARGARET. This cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.
  OXFORD. Here pitch our battle; hence we will not budge.

      Flourish and march. Enter, at a distance, KING EDWARD,
               GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and soldiers

  KING EDWARD. Brave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood
    Which, by the heavens' assistance and your strength,
    Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.
    I need not add more fuel to your fire,
    For well I wot ye blaze to burn them out.
    Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say
    My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,
    Ye see, I drink the water of my eye.
    Therefore, no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,
    Is prisoner to the foe; his state usurp'd,
    His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,
    His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent;
    And yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.
    You fight in justice. Then, in God's name, lords,
    Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.
                             Alarum, retreat, excursions. Exeunt

SCENE V. Another part of the field

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, GLOUCESTER, CLARENCE, and forces,
With QUEEN MARGARET, OXFORD, and SOMERSET, prisoners

  KING EDWARD. Now here a period of tumultuous broils.
    Away with Oxford to Hames Castle straight;
    For Somerset, off with his guilty head.
    Go, bear them hence; I will not hear them speak.
  OXFORD. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with words.
  SOMERSET. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my fortune.
                             Exeunt OXFORD and SOMERSET, guarded
  QUEEN MARGARET. So part we sadly in this troublous world,
    To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.
  KING EDWARD. Is proclamation made that who finds Edward
    Shall have a high reward, and he his life?
  GLOUCESTER. It is; and lo where youthful Edward comes.

                Enter soldiers, with PRINCE EDWARD

  KING EDWARD. Bring forth the gallant; let us hear him speak.
    What, can so young a man begin to prick?
    Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make
    For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,
    And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to?
  PRINCE OF WALES. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious York.
    Suppose that I am now my father's mouth;
    Resign thy chair, and where I stand kneel thou,
    Whilst I propose the self-same words to the
    Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ah, that thy father had been so resolv'd!
  GLOUCESTER. That you might still have worn the petticoat
    And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Let Aesop fable in a winter's night;
    His currish riddle sorts not with this place.
  GLOUCESTER. By heaven, brat, I'll plague ye for that word.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to men.
  GLOUCESTER. For God's sake, take away this captive scold.
  PRINCE OF WALES. Nay, take away this scolding crookback rather.
  KING EDWARD. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm your tongue.
  CLARENCE. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.
  PRINCE OF WALES. I know my duty; you are all undutiful.
    Lascivious Edward, and thou perjur'd George,
    And thou misshapen Dick, I tell ye all
    I am your better, traitors as ye are;
    And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.
  KING EDWARD. Take that, the likeness of this railer here.
                                                     [Stabs him]
  GLOUCESTER. Sprawl'st thou? Take that, to end thy agony.
                                                     [Stabs him]
  CLARENCE. And there's for twitting me with perjury.
                                                     [Stabs him]
  QUEEN MARGARET. O, kill me too!
  GLOUCESTER. Marry, and shall.             [Offers to kill her]
  KING EDWARD. Hold, Richard, hold; for we have done to much.
  GLOUCESTER. Why should she live to fill the world with words?
  KING EDWARD. What, doth she swoon? Use means for her recovery.
  GLOUCESTER. Clarence, excuse me to the King my brother.
    I'll hence to London on a serious matter;
    Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.
  CLARENCE. What? what?
  GLOUCESTER. The Tower! the Tower!                         Exit
  QUEEN MARGARET. O Ned, sweet Ned, speak to thy mother, boy!
    Canst thou not speak? O traitors! murderers!
    They that stabb'd Caesar shed no blood at all,
    Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,
    If this foul deed were by to equal it.
    He was a man: this, in respect, a child;
    And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.
    What's worse than murderer, that I may name it?
    No, no, my heart will burst, an if I speak-
    And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.
    Butchers and villains! bloody cannibals!
    How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd!
    You have no children, butchers, if you had,
    The thought of them would have stirr'd up remorse.
    But if you ever chance to have a child,
    Look in his youth to have him so cut off
    As, deathsmen, you have rid this sweet young prince!
  KING EDWARD. Away with her; go, bear her hence perforce.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Nay, never bear me hence; dispatch me here.
    Here sheathe thy sword; I'll pardon thee my death.
    What, wilt thou not? Then, Clarence, do it thou.
  CLARENCE. By heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Good Clarence, do; sweet Clarence, do thou do it.
  CLARENCE. Didst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself.
    'Twas sin before, but now 'tis charity.
    What! wilt thou not? Where is that devil's butcher,
    Hard-favour'd Richard? Richard, where art thou?
    Thou art not here. Murder is thy alms-deed;
    Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.
  KING EDWARD. Away, I say; I charge ye bear her hence.
  QUEEN MARGARET. So come to you and yours as to this prince.
                                          Exit, led out forcibly
  KING EDWARD. Where's Richard gone?
  CLARENCE. To London, all in post; and, as I guess,
    To make a bloody supper in the Tower.
  KING EDWARD. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his head.
    Now march we hence. Discharge the common sort
    With pay and thanks; and let's away to London
    And see our gentle queen how well she fares.
    By this, I hope, she hath a son for me.               Exeunt

SCENE VI. London. The Tower

Enter KING HENRY and GLOUCESTER with the LIEUTENANT, on the walls

  GLOUCESTER. Good day, my lord. What, at your book so hard?
  KING HENRY. Ay, my good lord- my lord, I should say rather.
    'Tis sin to flatter; 'good' was little better.
    'Good Gloucester' and 'good devil' were alike,
    And both preposterous; therefore, not 'good lord.'
  GLOUCESTER. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves; we must confer.
                                                 Exit LIEUTENANT
  KING HENRY. So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;
    So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,
    And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.
    What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?
  GLOUCESTER. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind:
    The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
  KING HENRY. The bird that hath been limed in a bush
    With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;
    And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,
    Have now the fatal object in my eye
    Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and kill'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete
    That taught his son the office of a fowl!
    And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown'd.
  KING HENRY. I, Daedalus; my poor boy, Icarus;
    Thy father, Minos, that denied our course;
    The sun that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,
    Thy brother Edward; and thyself, the sea
    Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
    Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
    My breast can better brook thy dagger's point
    Than can my ears that tragic history.
    But wherefore dost thou come? Is't for my life?
  GLOUCESTER. Think'st thou I am an executioner?
  KING HENRY. A persecutor I am sure thou art.
    If murdering innocents be executing,
    Why, then thou are an executioner.
  GLOUCESTER. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.
  KING HENRY. Hadst thou been kill'd when first thou didst presume,
    Thou hadst not liv'd to kill a son of mine.
    And thus I prophesy, that many a thousand
    Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear,
    And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
    And many an orphan's water-standing eye-
    Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,
    Orphans for their parents' timeless death-
    Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
    The owl shriek'd at thy birth- an evil sign;
    The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
    Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
    The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,
    And chatt'ring pies in dismal discords sung;
    Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
    And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope,
    To wit, an indigest deformed lump,
    Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
    Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,
    To signify thou cam'st to bite the world;
    And if the rest be true which I have heard,
    Thou cam'st-
  GLOUCESTER. I'll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech.
                                                     [Stabs him]
    For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain'd.
  KING HENRY. Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.
    O, God forgive my sins and pardon thee!               [Dies]
  GLOUCESTER. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
    Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
    See how my sword weeps for the poor King's death.
    O, may such purple tears be always shed
    From those that wish the downfall of our house!
    If any spark of life be yet remaining,
    Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither-
                                               [Stabs him again]
    I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
    Indeed, 'tis true that Henry told me of;
    For I have often heard my mother say
    I came into the world with my legs forward.
    Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste
    And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
    The midwife wonder'd; and the women cried
    'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
    And so I was, which plainly signified
    That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
    Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
    Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
    I have no brother, I am like no brother;
    And this word 'love,' which greybeards call divine,
    Be resident in men like one another,
    And not in me! I am myself alone.
    Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light,
    But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;
    For I will buzz abroad such prophecies
    That Edward shall be fearful of his life;
    And then to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
    King Henry and the Prince his son are gone.
    Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest;
    Counting myself but bad till I be best.
    I'll throw thy body in another room,
    And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.
                                              Exit with the body

SCENE VII. London. The palace

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD, QUEEN ELIZABETH, CLARENCE, GLOUCESTER,
HASTINGS, NURSE, with the Young PRINCE, and attendants

  KING EDWARD. Once more we sit in England's royal throne,
    Repurchas'd with the blood of enemies.
    What valiant foemen, like to autumn's corn,
    Have we mow'd down in tops of all their pride!
    Three Dukes of Somerset, threefold renown'd
    For hardy and undoubted champions;
    Two Cliffords, as the father and the son;
    And two Northumberlands- two braver men
    Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound;
    With them the two brave bears, Warwick and Montague,
    That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion
    And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.
    Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat
    And made our footstool of security.
    Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.
    Young Ned, for thee thine uncles and myself
    Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night,
    Went all afoot in summer's scalding heat,
    That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace;
    And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.
  GLOUCESTER. [Aside] I'll blast his harvest if your head were laid;
    For yet I am not look'd on in the world.
    This shoulder was ordain'd so thick to heave;
    And heave it shall some weight or break my back.
    Work thou the way- and that shall execute.
  KING EDWARD. Clarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;
    And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.
  CLARENCE. The duty that I owe unto your Majesty
    I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.
  KING EDWARD. Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.
  GLOUCESTER. And that I love the tree from whence thou sprang'st,
    Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit.
    [Aside] To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master
    And cried 'All hail!' when as he meant all harm.
  KING EDWARD. Now am I seated as my soul delights,
    Having my country's peace and brothers' loves.
  CLARENCE. What will your Grace have done with Margaret?
    Reignier, her father, to the King of France
    Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,
    And hither have they sent it for her ransom.
  KING EDWARD. Away with her, and waft her hence to France.
    And now what rests but that we spend the time
    With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,
    Such as befits the pleasure of the court?
    Sound drums and trumpets. Farewell, sour annoy!
    For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.             Exeunt

THE END

1611



KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  KING HENRY THE EIGHTH
  CARDINAL WOLSEY               CARDINAL CAMPEIUS
  CAPUCIUS, Ambassador from the Emperor Charles V
  CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
  DUKE OF NORFOLK               DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
  DUKE OF SUFFOLK               EARL OF SURREY
  LORD CHAMBERLAIN              LORD CHANCELLOR
  GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER
  BISHOP OF LINCOLN             LORD ABERGAVENNY
  LORD SANDYS                   SIR HENRY GUILDFORD
  SIR THOMAS LOVELL             SIR ANTHONY DENNY
  SIR NICHOLAS VAUX             SECRETARIES to Wolsey
  CROMWELL, servant to Wolsey
  GRIFFITH, gentleman-usher to Queen Katharine
  THREE GENTLEMEN
  DOCTOR BUTTS, physician to the King
  GARTER KING-AT-ARMS
  SURVEYOR to the Duke of Buckingham
  BRANDON, and a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS
  DOORKEEPER Of the Council chamber
  PORTER, and his MAN           PAGE to Gardiner
  A CRIER

  QUEEN KATHARINE, wife to King Henry, afterwards divorced
  ANNE BULLEN, her Maid of Honour, afterwards Queen
  AN OLD LADY, friend to Anne Bullen
  PATIENCE, woman to Queen Katharine

  Lord Mayor, Aldermen, Lords and Ladies in the Dumb
       Shows; Women attending upon the Queen; Scribes,
       Officers, Guards, and other Attendants; Spirits

                          SCENE:

              London; Westminster; Kimbolton

                 KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

                     THE PROLOGUE.

    I come no more to make you laugh; things now
    That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
    Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
    Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
    We now present. Those that can pity here
    May, if they think it well, let fall a tear:
    The subject will deserve it. Such as give
    Their money out of hope they may believe
    May here find truth too. Those that come to see
    Only a show or two, and so agree
    The play may pass, if they be still and willing,
    I'll undertake may see away their shilling
    Richly in two short hours. Only they
    That come to hear a merry bawdy play,
    A noise of targets, or to see a fellow
    In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,
    Will be deceiv'd; for, gentle hearers, know,
    To rank our chosen truth with such a show
    As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
    Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring
    To make that only true we now intend,
    Will leave us never an understanding friend.
    Therefore, for goodness sake, and as you are known
    The first and happiest hearers of the town,
    Be sad, as we would make ye. Think ye see
    The very persons of our noble story
    As they were living; think you see them great,
    And follow'd with the general throng and sweat
    Of thousand friends; then, in a moment, see
    How soon this mightiness meets misery.
    And if you can be merry then, I'll say
    A man may weep upon his wedding-day.

ACT I. SCENE 1.

London. The palace

Enter the DUKE OF NORFOLK at one door; at the other, the DUKE OF
BUCKINGHAM and the LORD ABERGAVENNY

  BUCKINGHAM. Good morrow, and well met. How have ye done
    Since last we saw in France?
  NORFOLK. I thank your Grace,
    Healthful; and ever since a fresh admirer
    Of what I saw there.
  BUCKINGHAM. An untimely ague
    Stay'd me a prisoner in my chamber when
    Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,
    Met in the vale of Andren.
  NORFOLK. 'Twixt Guynes and Arde-
    I was then present, saw them salute on horseback;
    Beheld them, when they lighted, how they clung
    In their embracement, as they grew together;
    Which had they, what four thron'd ones could have weigh'd
    Such a compounded one?
  BUCKINGHAM. All the whole time
    I was my chamber's prisoner.
  NORFOLK. Then you lost
    The view of earthly glory; men might say,
    Till this time pomp was single, but now married
    To one above itself. Each following day
    Became the next day's master, till the last
    Made former wonders its. To-day the French,
    All clinquant, all in gold, like heathen gods,
    Shone down the English; and to-morrow they
    Made Britain India: every man that stood
    Show'd like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
    As cherubins, an gilt; the madams too,
    Not us'd to toil, did almost sweat to bear
    The pride upon them, that their very labour
    Was to them as a painting. Now this masque
    Was cried incomparable; and th' ensuing night
    Made it a fool and beggar. The two kings,
    Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst,
    As presence did present them: him in eye
    still him in praise; and being present both,
    'Twas said they saw but one, and no discerner
    Durst wag his tongue in censure. When these suns-
    For so they phrase 'em-by their heralds challeng'd
    The noble spirits to arms, they did perform
    Beyond thought's compass, that former fabulous story,
    Being now seen possible enough, got credit,
    That Bevis was believ'd.
  BUCKINGHAM. O, you go far!
  NORFOLK. As I belong to worship, and affect
    In honour honesty, the tract of ev'rything
    Would by a good discourser lose some life
    Which action's self was tongue to. All was royal:
    To the disposing of it nought rebell'd;
    Order gave each thing view. The office did
    Distinctly his full function.
  BUCKINGHAM. Who did guide-
    I mean, who set the body and the limbs
    Of this great sport together, as you guess?
  NORFOLK. One, certes, that promises no element
    In such a business.
  BUCKINGHAM. I pray you, who, my lord?
  NORFOLK. All this was ord'red by the good discretion
    Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.
  BUCKINGHAM. The devil speed him! No man's pie is freed
    From his ambitious finger. What had he
    To do in these fierce vanities? I wonder
    That such a keech can with his very bulk
    Take up the rays o' th' beneficial sun,
    And keep it from the earth.
  NORFOLK. Surely, sir,
    There's in him stuff that puts him to these ends;
    For, being not propp'd by ancestry, whose grace
    Chalks successors their way, nor call'd upon
    For high feats done to th' crown, neither allied
    To eminent assistants, but spider-like,
    Out of his self-drawing web, 'a gives us note
    The force of his own merit makes his way-
    A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys
    A place next to the King.
  ABERGAVENNY. I cannot tell
    What heaven hath given him-let some graver eye
    Pierce into that; but I can see his pride
    Peep through each part of him. Whence has he that?
    If not from hell, the devil is a niggard
    Or has given all before, and he begins
    A new hell in himself.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why the devil,
    Upon this French going out, took he upon him-
    Without the privity o' th' King-t' appoint
    Who should attend on him? He makes up the file
    Of all the gentry; for the most part such
    To whom as great a charge as little honour
    He meant to lay upon; and his own letter,
    The honourable board of council out,
    Must fetch him in he papers.
  ABERGAVENNY. I do know
    Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have
    By this so sicken'd their estates that never
    They shall abound as formerly.
  BUCKINGHAM. O, many
    Have broke their backs with laying manors on 'em
    For this great journey. What did this vanity
    But minister communication of
    A most poor issue?
  NORFOLK. Grievingly I think
    The peace between the French and us not values
    The cost that did conclude it.
  BUCKINGHAM. Every man,
    After the hideous storm that follow'd, was
    A thing inspir'd, and, not consulting, broke
    Into a general prophecy-that this tempest,
    Dashing the garment of this peace, aboded
    The sudden breach on't.
  NORFOLK. Which is budded out;
    For France hath flaw'd the league, and hath attach'd
    Our merchants' goods at Bordeaux.
  ABERGAVENNY. Is it therefore
    Th' ambassador is silenc'd?
  NORFOLK. Marry, is't.
  ABERGAVENNY. A proper tide of a peace, and purchas'd
    At a superfluous rate!
  BUCKINGHAM. Why, all this business
    Our reverend Cardinal carried.
  NORFOLK. Like it your Grace,
    The state takes notice of the private difference
    Betwixt you and the Cardinal. I advise you-
    And take it from a heart that wishes towards you
    Honour and plenteous safety-that you read
    The Cardinal's malice and his potency
    Together; to consider further, that
    What his high hatred would effect wants not
    A minister in his power. You know his nature,
    That he's revengeful; and I know his sword
    Hath a sharp edge-it's long and't may be said
    It reaches far, and where 'twill not extend,
    Thither he darts it. Bosom up my counsel
    You'll find it wholesome. Lo, where comes that rock
    That I advise your shunning.

      Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, the purse borne before him, certain of the
      guard, and two SECRETARIES with papers. The CARDINAL in his
      passage fixeth his eye on BUCKINGHAM, and BUCKINGHAM on him, both
      full of disdain

  WOLSEY. The Duke of Buckingham's surveyor? Ha!
    Where's his examination?
  SECRETARY. Here, so please you.
  WOLSEY. Is he in person ready?
  SECRETARY. Ay, please your Grace.
  WOLSEY. Well, we shall then know more, and Buckingham
    shall lessen this big look.
                                          Exeunt WOLSEY and his train
  BUCKINGHAM. This butcher's cur is venom-mouth'd, and I
    Have not the power to muzzle him; therefore best
    Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar's book
    Outworths a noble's blood.
  NORFOLK. What, are you chaf'd?
    Ask God for temp'rance; that's th' appliance only
    Which your disease requires.
  BUCKINGHAM. I read in's looks
    Matter against me, and his eye revil'd
    Me as his abject object. At this instant
    He bores me with some trick. He's gone to th' King;
    I'll follow, and outstare him.
  NORFOLK. Stay, my lord,
    And let your reason with your choler question
    What 'tis you go about. To climb steep hills
    Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like
    A full hot horse, who being allow'd his way,
    Self-mettle tires him. Not a man in England
    Can advise me like you; be to yourself
    As you would to your friend.
  BUCKINGHAM. I'll to the King,
    And from a mouth of honour quite cry down
    This Ipswich fellow's insolence; or proclaim
    There's difference in no persons.
  NORFOLK. Be advis'd:
    Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
    That it do singe yourself. We may outrun
    By violent swiftness that which we run at,
    And lose by over-running. Know you not
    The fire that mounts the liquor till't run o'er
    In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advis'd.
    I say again there is no English soul
    More stronger to direct you than yourself,
    If with the sap of reason you would quench
    Or but allay the fire of passion.
  BUCKINGHAM. Sir,
    I am thankful to you, and I'll go along
    By your prescription; but this top-proud fellow-
    Whom from the flow of gan I name not, but
    From sincere motions, by intelligence,
    And proofs as clear as founts in July when
    We see each grain of gravel-I do know
    To be corrupt and treasonous.
  NORFOLK. Say not treasonous.
  BUCKINGHAM. To th' King I'll say't, and make my vouch as strong
    As shore of rock. Attend: this holy fox,
    Or wolf, or both-for he is equal rav'nous
    As he is subtle, and as prone to mischief
    As able to perform't, his mind and place
    Infecting one another, yea, reciprocally-
    Only to show his pomp as well in France
    As here at home, suggests the King our master
    To this last costly treaty, th' interview
    That swallowed so much treasure and like a glass
    Did break i' th' wrenching.
  NORFOLK. Faith, and so it did.
  BUCKINGHAM. Pray, give me favour, sir; this cunning cardinal
    The articles o' th' combination drew
    As himself pleas'd; and they were ratified
    As he cried 'Thus let be' to as much end
    As give a crutch to th' dead. But our Count-Cardinal
    Has done this, and 'tis well; for worthy Wolsey,
    Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows,
    Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy
    To th' old dam treason: Charles the Emperor,
    Under pretence to see the Queen his aunt-
    For 'twas indeed his colour, but he came
    To whisper Wolsey-here makes visitation-
    His fears were that the interview betwixt
    England and France might through their amity
    Breed him some prejudice; for from this league
    Peep'd harms that menac'd him-privily
    Deals with our Cardinal; and, as I trow-
    Which I do well, for I am sure the Emperor
    Paid ere he promis'd; whereby his suit was granted
    Ere it was ask'd-but when the way was made,
    And pav'd with gold, the Emperor thus desir'd,
    That he would please to alter the King's course,
    And break the foresaid peace. Let the King know,
    As soon he shall by me, that thus the Cardinal
    Does buy and sell his honour as he pleases,
    And for his own advantage.
  NORFOLK. I am sorry
    To hear this of him, and could wish he were
    Something mistaken in't.
  BUCKINGHAM. No, not a syllable:
    I do pronounce him in that very shape
    He shall appear in proof.

       Enter BRANDON, a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS before him,
              and two or three of the guard

  BRANDON. Your office, sergeant: execute it.
  SERGEANT. Sir,
    My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl
    Of Hereford, Stafford, and Northampton, I
    Arrest thee of high treason, in the name
    Of our most sovereign King.
  BUCKINGHAM. Lo you, my lord,
    The net has fall'n upon me! I shall perish
    Under device and practice.
  BRANDON. I am sorry
    To see you ta'en from liberty, to look on
    The business present; 'tis his Highness' pleasure
    You shall to th' Tower.
  BUCKINGHAM. It will help nothing
    To plead mine innocence; for that dye is on me
    Which makes my whit'st part black. The will of heav'n
    Be done in this and all things! I obey.
    O my Lord Aberga'ny, fare you well!
  BRANDON. Nay, he must bear you company.
    [To ABERGAVENNY]  The King
    Is pleas'd you shall to th' Tower, till you know
    How he determines further.
  ABERGAVENNY. As the Duke said,
    The will of heaven be done, and the King's pleasure
    By me obey'd.
  BRANDON. Here is warrant from
    The King t' attach Lord Montacute and the bodies
    Of the Duke's confessor, John de la Car,
    One Gilbert Peck, his chancellor-
  BUCKINGHAM. So, so!
    These are the limbs o' th' plot; no more, I hope.
  BRANDON. A monk o' th' Chartreux.
  BUCKINGHAM. O, Nicholas Hopkins?
  BRANDON. He.
  BUCKINGHAM. My surveyor is false. The o'er-great Cardinal
    Hath show'd him gold; my life is spann'd already.
    I am the shadow of poor Buckingham,
    Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on
    By dark'ning my clear sun. My lord, farewell.
    Exeunt

ACT I. SCENE 2.

London. The Council Chamber

Cornets. Enter KING HENRY, leaning on the CARDINAL'S shoulder, the
NOBLES, and SIR THOMAS LOVELL, with others. The CARDINAL places himself
under the KING'S feet on his right side

  KING. My life itself, and the best heart of it,
    Thanks you for this great care; I stood i' th' level
    Of a full-charg'd confederacy, and give thanks
    To you that chok'd it. Let be call'd before us
    That gentleman of Buckingham's. In person
    I'll hear his confessions justify;
    And point by point the treasons of his master
    He shall again relate.

      A noise within, crying 'Room for the Queen!' Enter the QUEEN,
      usher'd by the DUKES OF NORFOLK and SUFFOLK; she kneels. The KING
      riseth from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her by
      him

  QUEEN KATHARINE. Nay, we must longer kneel: I am suitor.
  KING. Arise, and take place by us. Half your suit
    Never name to us: you have half our power.
    The other moiety ere you ask is given;
    Repeat your will, and take it.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Thank your Majesty.
    That you would love yourself, and in that love
    Not unconsidered leave your honour nor
    The dignity of your office, is the point
    Of my petition.
  KING. Lady mine, proceed.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am solicited, not by a few,
    And those of true condition, that your subjects
    Are in great grievance: there have been commissions
    Sent down among 'em which hath flaw'd the heart
    Of all their loyalties; wherein, although,
    My good Lord Cardinal, they vent reproaches
    Most bitterly on you as putter-on
    Of these exactions, yet the King our master-
    Whose honour Heaven shield from soil!-even he escapes not
    Language unmannerly; yea, such which breaks
    The sides of loyalty, and almost appears
    In loud rebellion.
  NORFOLK. Not almost appears-
    It doth appear; for, upon these taxations,
    The clothiers all, not able to maintain
    The many to them 'longing, have put of
    The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who
    Unfit for other life, compell'd by hunger
    And lack of other means, in desperate manner
    Daring th' event to th' teeth, are all in uproar,
    And danger serves among them.
  KING. Taxation!
    Wherein? and what taxation? My Lord Cardinal,
    You that are blam'd for it alike with us,
    Know you of this taxation?
  WOLSEY. Please you, sir,
    I know but of a single part in aught
    Pertains to th' state, and front but in that file
    Where others tell steps with me.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. No, my lord!
    You know no more than others! But you frame
    Things that are known alike, which are not wholesome
    To those which would not know them, and yet must
    Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions,
    Whereof my sovereign would have note, they are
    Most pestilent to th' hearing; and to bear 'em
    The back is sacrifice to th' load. They say
    They are devis'd by you, or else you suffer
    Too hard an exclamation.
  KING. Still exaction!
    The nature of it? In what kind, let's know,
    Is this exaction?
  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am much too venturous
    In tempting of your patience, but am bold'ned
    Under your promis'd pardon. The subjects' grief
    Comes through commissions, which compels from each
    The sixth part of his substance, to be levied
    Without delay; and the pretence for this
    Is nam'd your wars in France. This makes bold mouths;
    Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze
    Allegiance in them; their curses now
    Live where their prayers did; and it's come to pass
    This tractable obedience is a slave
    To each incensed will. I would your Highness
    Would give it quick consideration, for
    There is no primer business.
  KING. By my life,
    This is against our pleasure.
  WOLSEY. And for me,
    I have no further gone in this than by
    A single voice; and that not pass'd me but
    By learned approbation of the judges. If I am
    Traduc'd by ignorant tongues, which neither know
    My faculties nor person, yet will be
    The chronicles of my doing, let me say
    'Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake
    That virtue must go through. We must not stint
    Our necessary actions in the fear
    To cope malicious censurers, which ever
    As rav'nous fishes do a vessel follow
    That is new-trimm'd, but benefit no further
    Than vainly longing. What we oft do best,
    By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is
    Not ours, or not allow'd; what worst, as oft
    Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up
    For our best act. If we shall stand still,
    In fear our motion will be mock'd or carp'd at,
    We should take root here where we sit, or sit
    State-statues only.
  KING. Things done well
    And with a care exempt themselves from fear:
    Things done without example, in their issue
    Are to be fear'd. Have you a precedent
    Of this commission? I believe, not any.
    We must not rend our subjects from our laws,
    And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?
    A trembling contribution! Why, we take
    From every tree lop, bark, and part o' th' timber;
    And though we leave it with a root, thus hack'd,
    The air will drink the sap. To every county
    Where this is question'd send our letters with
    Free pardon to each man that has denied
    The force of this commission. Pray, look tot;
    I put it to your care.
  WOLSEY. [Aside to the SECRETARY]  A word with you.
    Let there be letters writ to every shire
    Of the King's grace and pardon. The grieved commons
    Hardly conceive of me-let it be nois'd
    That through our intercession this revokement
    And pardon comes. I shall anon advise you
    Further in the proceeding.                         Exit SECRETARY

                    Enter SURVEYOR

  QUEEN KATHARINE. I am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham
    Is run in your displeasure.
  KING. It grieves many.
    The gentleman is learn'd and a most rare speaker;
    To nature none more bound; his training such
    That he may furnish and instruct great teachers
    And never seek for aid out of himself. Yet see,
    When these so noble benefits shall prove
    Not well dispos'd, the mind growing once corrupt,
    They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly
    Than ever they were fair. This man so complete,
    Who was enroll'd 'mongst wonders, and when we,
    Almost with ravish'd list'ning, could not find
    His hour of speech a minute-he, my lady,
    Hath into monstrous habits put the graces
    That once were his, and is become as black
    As if besmear'd in hell. Sit by us; you shall hear-
    This was his gentleman in trust-of him
    Things to strike honour sad. Bid him recount
    The fore-recited practices, whereof
    We cannot feel too little, hear too much.
  WOLSEY. Stand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you,
    Most like a careful subject, have collected
    Out of the Duke of Buckingham.
  KING. Speak freely.
  SURVEYOR. First, it was usual with him-every day
    It would infect his speech-that if the King
    Should without issue die, he'll carry it so
    To make the sceptre his. These very words
    I've heard him utter to his son-in-law,
    Lord Aberga'ny, to whom by oath he menac'd
    Revenge upon the Cardinal.
  WOLSEY. Please your Highness, note
    This dangerous conception in this point:
    Not friended by his wish, to your high person
    His will is most malignant, and it stretches
    Beyond you to your friends.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. My learn'd Lord Cardinal,
    Deliver all with charity.
  KING. Speak on.
    How grounded he his title to the crown
    Upon our fail? To this point hast thou heard him
    At any time speak aught?
  SURVEYOR. He was brought to this
    By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Henton.
  KING. What was that Henton?
  SURVEYOR. Sir, a Chartreux friar,
    His confessor, who fed him every minute
    With words of sovereignty.
  KING. How know'st thou this?
  SURVEYOR. Not long before your Highness sped to France,
    The Duke being at the Rose, within the parish
    Saint Lawrence Poultney, did of me demand
    What was the speech among the Londoners
    Concerning the French journey. I replied
    Men fear'd the French would prove perfidious,
    To the King's danger. Presently the Duke
    Said 'twas the fear indeed and that he doubted
    'Twould prove the verity of certain words
    Spoke by a holy monk 'that oft' says he
    'Hath sent to me, wishing me to permit
    John de la Car, my chaplain, a choice hour
    To hear from him a matter of some moment;
    Whom after under the confession's seal
    He solemnly had sworn that what he spoke
    My chaplain to no creature living but
    To me should utter, with demure confidence
    This pausingly ensu'd: "Neither the King nor's heirs,
    Tell you the Duke, shall prosper; bid him strive
    To gain the love o' th' commonalty; the Duke
    Shall govern England."'
  QUEEN KATHARINE. If I know you well,
    You were the Duke's surveyor, and lost your office
    On the complaint o' th' tenants. Take good heed
    You charge not in your spleen a noble person
    And spoil your nobler soul. I say, take heed;
    Yes, heartily beseech you.
  KING. Let him on.
    Go forward.
  SURVEYOR. On my soul, I'll speak but truth.
    I told my lord the Duke, by th' devil's illusions
    The monk might be deceiv'd, and that 'twas dangerous
      for him
    To ruminate on this so far, until
    It forg'd him some design, which, being believ'd,
    It was much like to do. He answer'd 'Tush,
    It can do me no damage'; adding further
    That, had the King in his last sickness fail'd,
    The Cardinal's and Sir Thomas Lovell's heads
    Should have gone off.
  KING. Ha! what, so rank? Ah ha!
    There's mischief in this man. Canst thou say further?
  SURVEYOR. I can, my liege.
  KING. Proceed.
  SURVEYOR. Being at Greenwich,
    After your Highness had reprov'd the Duke
    About Sir William Bulmer-
  KING. I remember
    Of such a time: being my sworn servant,
    The Duke retain'd him his. But on: what hence?
  SURVEYOR. 'If' quoth he 'I for this had been committed-
    As to the Tower I thought-I would have play'd
    The part my father meant to act upon
    Th' usurper Richard; who, being at Salisbury,
    Made suit to come in's presence, which if granted,
    As he made semblance of his duty, would
    Have put his knife into him.'
  KING. A giant traitor!
  WOLSEY. Now, madam, may his Highness live in freedom,
    And this man out of prison?
  QUEEN KATHARINE. God mend all!
  KING. There's something more would out of thee: what say'st?
  SURVEYOR. After 'the Duke his father' with the 'knife,'
    He stretch'd him, and, with one hand on his dagger,
    Another spread on's breast, mounting his eyes,
    He did discharge a horrible oath, whose tenour
    Was, were he evil us'd, he would outgo
    His father by as much as a performance
    Does an irresolute purpose.
  KING. There's his period,
    To sheath his knife in us. He is attach'd;
    Call him to present trial. If he may
    Find mercy in the law, 'tis his; if none,
    Let him not seek't of us. By day and night!
    He's traitor to th' height.                                Exeunt

ACT I. SCENE 3.

London. The palace

Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN and LORD SANDYS

  CHAMBERLAIN. Is't possible the spells of France should juggle
    Men into such strange mysteries?
  SANDYS. New customs,
    Though they be never so ridiculous,
    Nay, let 'em be unmanly, yet are follow'd.
  CHAMBERLAIN. As far as I see, all the good our English
    Have got by the late voyage is but merely
    A fit or two o' th' face; but they are shrewd ones;
    For when they hold 'em, you would swear directly
    Their very noses had been counsellors
    To Pepin or Clotharius, they keep state so.
  SANDYS. They have all new legs, and lame ones. One would take it,
    That never saw 'em pace before, the spavin
    Or springhalt reign'd among 'em.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Death! my lord,
    Their clothes are after such a pagan cut to't,
    That sure th' have worn out Christendom.

           Enter SIR THOMAS LOVELL

    How now?
    What news, Sir Thomas Lovell?
  LOVELL. Faith, my lord,
    I hear of none but the new proclamation
    That's clapp'd upon the court gate.
  CHAMBERLAIN. What is't for?
  LOVELL. The reformation of our travell'd gallants,
    That fill the court with quarrels, talk, and tailors.
  CHAMBERLAIN. I am glad 'tis there. Now I would pray our monsieurs
    To think an English courtier may be wise,
    And never see the Louvre.
  LOVELL. They must either,
    For so run the conditions, leave those remnants
    Of fool and feather that they got in France,
    With all their honourable points of ignorance
    Pertaining thereunto-as fights and fireworks;
    Abusing better men than they can be,
    Out of a foreign wisdom-renouncing clean
    The faith they have in tennis, and tall stockings,
    Short blist'red breeches, and those types of travel
    And understand again like honest men,
    Or pack to their old playfellows. There, I take it,
    They may, cum privilegio, wear away
    The lag end of their lewdness and be laugh'd at.
  SANDYS. 'Tis time to give 'em physic, their diseases
    Are grown so catching.
  CHAMBERLAIN. What a loss our ladies
    Will have of these trim vanities!
  LOVELL. Ay, marry,
    There will be woe indeed, lords: the sly whoresons
    Have got a speeding trick to lay down ladies.
    A French song and a fiddle has no fellow.
  SANDYS. The devil fiddle 'em! I am glad they are going,
    For sure there's no converting 'em. Now
    An honest country lord, as I am, beaten
    A long time out of play, may bring his plainsong
    And have an hour of hearing; and, by'r Lady,
    Held current music too.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Well said, Lord Sandys;
    Your colt's tooth is not cast yet.
  SANDYS. No, my lord,
    Nor shall not while I have a stamp.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Sir Thomas,
    Whither were you a-going?
  LOVELL. To the Cardinal's;
    Your lordship is a guest too.
  CHAMBERLAIN. O, 'tis true;
    This night he makes a supper, and a great one,
    To many lords and ladies; there will be
    The beauty of this kingdom, I'll assure you.
  LOVELL. That churchman bears a bounteous mind indeed,
    A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us;
    His dews fall everywhere.
  CHAMBERLAIN. No doubt he's noble;
    He had a black mouth that said other of him.
  SANDYS. He may, my lord; has wherewithal. In him
    Sparing would show a worse sin than ill doctrine:
    Men of his way should be most liberal,
    They are set here for examples.
  CHAMBERLAIN. True, they are so;
    But few now give so great ones. My barge stays;
    Your lordship shall along. Come, good Sir Thomas,
    We shall be late else; which I would not be,
    For I was spoke to, with Sir Henry Guildford,
    This night to be comptrollers.
  SANDYS. I am your lordship's.                                Exeunt

ACT I. SCENE 4.

London. The Presence Chamber in York Place

Hautboys. A small table under a state for the Cardinal, a longer table
for the guests. Then enter ANNE BULLEN, and divers other LADIES and
GENTLEMEN, as guests, at one door; at another door enter SIR HENRY
GUILDFORD

  GUILDFORD. Ladies, a general welcome from his Grace
    Salutes ye all; this night he dedicates
    To fair content and you. None here, he hopes,
    In all this noble bevy, has brought with her
    One care abroad; he would have all as merry
    As, first, good company, good wine, good welcome,
    Can make good people.

       Enter LORD CHAMBERLAIN, LORD SANDYS, and SIR
                  THOMAS LOVELL

    O, my lord, y'are tardy,
    The very thought of this fair company
    Clapp'd wings to me.
  CHAMBERLAIN. You are young, Sir Harry Guildford.
  SANDYS. Sir Thomas Lovell, had the Cardinal
    But half my lay thoughts in him, some of these
    Should find a running banquet ere they rested
    I think would better please 'em. By my life,
    They are a sweet society of fair ones.
  LOVELL. O that your lordship were but now confessor
    To one or two of these!
  SANDYS. I would I were;
    They should find easy penance.
  LOVELL. Faith, how easy?
  SANDYS. As easy as a down bed would afford it.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Sweet ladies, will it please you sit? Sir Harry,
    Place you that side; I'll take the charge of this.
    His Grace is ent'ring. Nay, you must not freeze:
    Two women plac'd together makes cold weather.
    My Lord Sandys, you are one will keep 'em waking:
    Pray sit between these ladies.
  SANDYS. By my faith,
    And thank your lordship. By your leave, sweet ladies.
                 [Seats himself between ANNE BULLEN and another lady]
    If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
    I had it from my father.
  ANNE. Was he mad, sir?
  SANDYS. O, very mad, exceeding mad, in love too.
    But he would bite none; just as I do now,
    He would kiss you twenty with a breath.              [Kisses her]
  CHAMBERLAIN. Well said, my lord.
    So, now y'are fairly seated. Gentlemen,
    The penance lies on you if these fair ladies
    Pass away frowning.
  SANDYS. For my little cure,
    Let me alone.

         Hautboys. Enter CARDINAL WOLSEY, attended; and
                         takes his state

  WOLSEY. Y'are welcome, my fair guests. That noble lady
    Or gentleman that is not freely merry
    Is not my friend. This, to confirm my welcome-
    And to you all, good health!                             [Drinks]
  SANDYS. Your Grace is noble.
    Let me have such a bowl may hold my thanks
    And save me so much talking.
  WOLSEY. My Lord Sandys,
    I am beholding to you. Cheer your neighbours.
    Ladies, you are not merry. Gentlemen,
    Whose fault is this?
  SANDYS. The red wine first must rise
    In their fair cheeks, my lord; then we shall have 'em
    Talk us to silence.
  ANNE. You are a merry gamester,
    My Lord Sandys.
  SANDYS. Yes, if I make my play.
    Here's to your ladyship; and pledge it, madam,
    For 'tis to such a thing-
  ANNE. You cannot show me.
  SANDYS. I told your Grace they would talk anon.
                             [Drum and trumpet. Chambers discharg'd]
  WOLSEY. What's that?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Look out there, some of ye.             Exit a SERVANT
  WOLSEY. What warlike voice,
    And to what end, is this? Nay, ladies, fear not:
    By all the laws of war y'are privileg'd.

            Re-enter SERVANT

  CHAMBERLAIN. How now! what is't?
  SERVANT. A noble troop of strangers-
    For so they seem. Th' have left their barge and landed,
    And hither make, as great ambassadors
    From foreign princes.
  WOLSEY. Good Lord Chamberlain,
    Go, give 'em welcome; you can speak the French tongue;
    And pray receive 'em nobly and conduct 'em
    Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty
    Shall shine at full upon them. Some attend him.
              Exit CHAMBERLAIN attended. All rise, and tables remov'd
    You have now a broken banquet, but we'll mend it.
    A good digestion to you all; and once more
    I show'r a welcome on ye; welcome all.

      Hautboys. Enter the KING, and others, as maskers,
      habited like shepherds, usher'd by the LORD CHAMBERLAIN.
      They pass directly before the CARDINAL,
      and gracefully salute him

    A noble company! What are their pleasures?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Because they speak no English, thus they pray'd
    To tell your Grace, that, having heard by fame
    Of this so noble and so fair assembly
    This night to meet here, they could do no less,
    Out of the great respect they bear to beauty,
    But leave their flocks and, under your fair conduct,
    Crave leave to view these ladies and entreat
    An hour of revels with 'em.
  WOLSEY. Say, Lord Chamberlain,
    They have done my poor house grace; for which I pay 'em
    A thousand thanks, and pray 'em take their pleasures.
                   [They choose ladies. The KING chooses ANNE BULLEN]
  KING. The fairest hand I ever touch'd! O beauty,
    Till now I never knew thee!                        [Music. Dance]
  WOLSEY. My lord!
  CHAMBERLAIN. Your Grace?
  WOLSEY. Pray tell 'em thus much from me:
    There should be one amongst 'em, by his person,
    More worthy this place than myself; to whom,
    If I but knew him, with my love and duty
    I would surrender it.
  CHAMBERLAIN. I will, my lord.
                                         [He whispers to the maskers]
  WOLSEY. What say they?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Such a one, they all confess,
    There is indeed; which they would have your Grace
    Find out, and he will take it.
  WOLSEY. Let me see, then.                    [Comes from his state]
    By all your good leaves, gentlemen, here I'll make
    My royal choice.
  KING.  [Unmasking]  Ye have found him, Cardinal.
    You hold a fair assembly; you do well, lord.
    You are a churchman, or, I'll tell you, Cardinal,
    I should judge now unhappily.
  WOLSEY. I am glad
    Your Grace is grown so pleasant.
  KING. My Lord Chamberlain,
    Prithee come hither: what fair lady's that?
  CHAMBERLAIN. An't please your Grace, Sir Thomas Bullen's
      daughter-
    The Viscount Rochford-one of her Highness' women.
  KING. By heaven, she is a dainty one. Sweet heart,
    I were unmannerly to take you out
    And not to kiss you. A health, gentlemen!
    Let it go round.
  WOLSEY. Sir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet ready
    I' th' privy chamber?
  LOVELL. Yes, my lord.
  WOLSEY. Your Grace,
    I fear, with dancing is a little heated.
  KING. I fear, too much.
  WOLSEY. There's fresher air, my lord,
    In the next chamber.
  KING. Lead in your ladies, ev'ry one. Sweet partner,
    I must not yet forsake you. Let's be merry:
    Good my Lord Cardinal, I have half a dozen healths
    To drink to these fair ladies, and a measure
    To lead 'em once again; and then let's dream
    Who's best in favour. Let the music knock it.
                                                Exeunt, with trumpets

ACT II. SCENE 1.

Westminster. A street

Enter two GENTLEMEN, at several doors

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Whither away so fast?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. O, God save ye!
    Ev'n to the Hall, to hear what shall become
    Of the great Duke of Buckingham.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll save you
    That labour, sir. All's now done but the ceremony
    Of bringing back the prisoner.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Were you there?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, indeed, was I.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Pray, speak what has happen'd.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You may guess quickly what.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Is he found guilty?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, truly is he, and condemn'd upon't.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I am sorry for't.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. So are a number more.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But, pray, how pass'd it?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I'll tell you in a little. The great Duke.
    Came to the bar; where to his accusations
    He pleaded still not guilty, and alleged
    Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.
    The King's attorney, on the contrary,
    Urg'd on the examinations, proofs, confessions,
    Of divers witnesses; which the Duke desir'd
    To have brought, viva voce, to his face;
    At which appear'd against him his surveyor,
    Sir Gilbert Peck his chancellor, and John Car,
    Confessor to him, with that devil-monk,
    Hopkins, that made this mischief.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That was he
    That fed him with his prophecies?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. The same.
    All these accus'd him strongly, which he fain
    Would have flung from him; but indeed he could not;
    And so his peers, upon this evidence,
    Have found him guilty of high treason. Much
    He spoke, and learnedly, for life; but all
    Was either pitied in him or forgotten.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. After all this, how did he bear him-self
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. When he was brought again to th' bar to hear
    His knell rung out, his judgment, he was stirr'd
    With such an agony he sweat extremely,
    And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty;
    But he fell to himself again, and sweetly
    In all the rest show'd a most noble patience.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I do not think he fears death.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sure, he does not;
    He never was so womanish; the cause
    He may a little grieve at.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Certainly
    The Cardinal is the end of this.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis likely,
    By all conjectures: first, Kildare's attainder,
    Then deputy of Ireland, who remov'd,
    Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too,
    Lest he should help his father.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. That trick of state
    Was a deep envious one.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. At his return
    No doubt he will requite it. This is noted,
    And generally: whoever the King favours
    The Cardinal instantly will find employment,
    And far enough from court too.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. All the commons
    Hate him perniciously, and, o' my conscience,
    Wish him ten fathom deep: this Duke as much
    They love and dote on; call him bounteous Buckingham,
    The mirror of all courtesy-

      Enter BUCKINGHAM from his arraignment, tip-staves
      before him; the axe with the edge towards him; halberds
      on each side; accompanied with SIR THOMAS
      LOVELL, SIR NICHOLAS VAUX, SIR WILLIAM SANDYS,
      and common people, etc.

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Stay there, sir,
    And see the noble ruin'd man you speak of.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Let's stand close, and behold him.
  BUCKINGHAM. All good people,
    You that thus far have come to pity me,
    Hear what I say, and then go home and lose me.
    I have this day receiv'd a traitor's judgment,
    And by that name must die; yet, heaven bear witness,
    And if I have a conscience, let it sink me
    Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful!
    The law I bear no malice for my death:
    'T has done, upon the premises, but justice.
    But those that sought it I could wish more Christians.
    Be what they will, I heartily forgive 'em;
    Yet let 'em look they glory not in mischief
    Nor build their evils on the graves of great men,
    For then my guiltless blood must cry against 'em.
    For further life in this world I ne'er hope
    Nor will I sue, although the King have mercies
    More than I dare make faults. You few that lov'd me
    And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,
    His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave
    Is only bitter to him, only dying,
    Go with me like good angels to my end;
    And as the long divorce of steel falls on me
    Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,
    And lift my soul to heaven. Lead on, a God's name.
  LOVELL. I do beseech your Grace, for charity,
    If ever any malice in your heart
    Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly.
  BUCKINGHAM. Sir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you
    As I would be forgiven. I forgive all.
    There cannot be those numberless offences
    'Gainst me that I cannot take peace with. No black envy
    Shall mark my grave. Commend me to his Grace;
    And if he speak of Buckingham, pray tell him
    You met him half in heaven. My vows and prayers
    Yet are the King's, and, till my soul forsake,
    Shall cry for blessings on him. May he live
    Longer than I have time to tell his years;
    Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be;
    And when old time Shall lead him to his end,
    Goodness and he fill up one monument!
  LOVELL. To th' water side I must conduct your Grace;
    Then give my charge up to Sir Nicholas Vaux,
    Who undertakes you to your end.
  VAUX. Prepare there;
    The Duke is coming; see the barge be ready;
    And fit it with such furniture as suits
    The greatness of his person.
  BUCKINGHAM. Nay, Sir Nicholas,
    Let it alone; my state now will but mock me.
    When I came hither I was Lord High Constable
    And Duke of Buckingham; now, poor Edward Bohun.
    Yet I am richer than my base accusers
    That never knew what truth meant; I now seal it;
    And with that blood will make 'em one day groan fort.
    My noble father, Henry of Buckingham,
    Who first rais'd head against usurping Richard,
    Flying for succour to his servant Banister,
    Being distress'd, was by that wretch betray'd
    And without trial fell; God's peace be with him!
    Henry the Seventh succeeding, truly pitying
    My father's loss, like a most royal prince,
    Restor'd me to my honours, and out of ruins
    Made my name once more noble. Now his son,
    Henry the Eighth, life, honour, name, and all
    That made me happy, at one stroke has taken
    For ever from the world. I had my trial,
    And must needs say a noble one; which makes me
    A little happier than my wretched father;
    Yet thus far we are one in fortunes: both
    Fell by our servants, by those men we lov'd most-
    A most unnatural and faithless service.
    Heaven has an end in all. Yet, you that hear me,
    This from a dying man receive as certain:
    Where you are liberal of your loves and counsels,
    Be sure you be not loose; for those you make friends
    And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
    The least rub in your fortunes, fall away
    Like water from ye, never found again
    But where they mean to sink ye. All good people,
    Pray for me! I must now forsake ye; the last hour
    Of my long weary life is come upon me.
    Farewell;
    And when you would say something that is sad,
    Speak how I fell. I have done; and God forgive me!
                                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and train
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. O, this is full of pity! Sir, it calls,
    I fear, too many curses on their heads
    That were the authors.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. If the Duke be guiltless,
    'Tis full of woe; yet I can give you inkling
    Of an ensuing evil, if it fall,
    Greater than this.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Good angels keep it from us!
    What may it be? You do not doubt my faith, sir?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. This secret is so weighty, 'twill require
    A strong faith to conceal it.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Let me have it;
    I do not talk much.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I am confident.
    You shall, sir. Did you not of late days hear
    A buzzing of a separation
    Between the King and Katharine?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes, but it held not;
    For when the King once heard it, out of anger
    He sent command to the Lord Mayor straight
    To stop the rumour and allay those tongues
    That durst disperse it.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But that slander, sir,
    Is found a truth now; for it grows again
    Fresher than e'er it was, and held for certain
    The King will venture at it. Either the Cardinal
    Or some about him near have, out of malice
    To the good Queen, possess'd him with a scruple
    That will undo her. To confirm this too,
    Cardinal Campeius is arriv'd and lately;
    As all think, for this business.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis the Cardinal;
    And merely to revenge him on the Emperor
    For not bestowing on him at his asking
    The archbishopric of Toledo, this is purpos'd.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I think you have hit the mark; but is't
        not cruel
    That she should feel the smart of this? The Cardinal
    Will have his will, and she must fall.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis woeful.
    We are too open here to argue this;
    Let's think in private more.                               Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 2.

London. The palace

Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN reading this letter

  CHAMBERLAIN. 'My lord,
    'The horses your lordship sent for, with all the care
    had, I saw well chosen, ridden, and furnish'd. They were
    young and handsome, and of the best breed in the north.
    When they were ready to set out for London, a man of
    my Lord Cardinal's, by commission, and main power, took
    'em from me, with this reason: his master would be serv'd
    before a subject, if not before the King; which stopp'd
    our mouths, sir.'

    I fear he will indeed. Well, let him have them.
    He will have all, I think.

    Enter to the LORD CHAMBERLAIN the DUKES OF NORFOLK and SUFFOLK

  NORFOLK. Well met, my Lord Chamberlain.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Good day to both your Graces.
  SUFFOLK. How is the King employ'd?
  CHAMBERLAIN. I left him private,
    Full of sad thoughts and troubles.
  NORFOLK. What's the cause?
  CHAMBERLAIN. It seems the marriage with his brother's wife
    Has crept too near his conscience.
  SUFFOLK. No, his conscience
    Has crept too near another lady.
  NORFOLK. 'Tis so;
    This is the Cardinal's doing; the King-Cardinal,
    That blind priest, like the eldest son of fortune,
    Turns what he list. The King will know him one day.
  SUFFOLK. Pray God he do! He'll never know himself else.
  NORFOLK. How holily he works in all his business!
    And with what zeal! For, now he has crack'd the league
    Between us and the Emperor, the Queen's great nephew,
    He dives into the King's soul and there scatters
    Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience,
    Fears, and despairs-and all these for his marriage;
    And out of all these to restore the King,
    He counsels a divorce, a loss of her
    That like a jewel has hung twenty years
    About his neck, yet never lost her lustre;
    Of her that loves him with that excellence
    That angels love good men with; even of her
    That, when the greatest stroke of fortune falls,
    Will bless the King-and is not this course pious?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Heaven keep me from such counsel! 'Tis most true
    These news are everywhere; every tongue speaks 'em,
    And every true heart weeps for 't. All that dare
    Look into these affairs see this main end-
    The French King's sister. Heaven will one day open
    The King's eyes, that so long have slept upon
    This bold bad man.
  SUFFOLK. And free us from his slavery.
  NORFOLK. We had need pray, and heartily, for our deliverance;
    Or this imperious man will work us an
    From princes into pages. All men's honours
    Lie like one lump before him, to be fashion'd
    Into what pitch he please.
  SUFFOLK. For me, my lords,
    I love him not, nor fear him-there's my creed;
    As I am made without him, so I'll stand,
    If the King please; his curses and his blessings
    Touch me alike; th' are breath I not believe in.
    I knew him, and I know him; so I leave him
    To him that made him proud-the Pope.
  NORFOLK. Let's in;
    And with some other business put the King
    From these sad thoughts that work too much upon him.
    My lord, you'll bear us company?
  CHAMBERLAIN. Excuse me,
    The King has sent me otherwhere; besides,
    You'll find a most unfit time to disturb him.
    Health to your lordships!
  NORFOLK. Thanks, my good Lord Chamberlain.
                            Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN; and the KING draws
                               the curtain and sits reading pensively
  SUFFOLK. How sad he looks; sure, he is much afflicted.
  KING. Who's there, ha?
  NORFOLK. Pray God he be not angry.
  KING HENRY. Who's there, I say? How dare you thrust yourselves
    Into my private meditations?
    Who am I, ha?
  NORFOLK. A gracious king that pardons all offences
    Malice ne'er meant. Our breach of duty this way
    Is business of estate, in which we come
    To know your royal pleasure.
  KING. Ye are too bold.
    Go to; I'll make ye know your times of business.
    Is this an hour for temporal affairs, ha?

      Enter WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS with a commission

    Who's there? My good Lord Cardinal? O my Wolsey,
    The quiet of my wounded conscience,
    Thou art a cure fit for a King.  [To CAMPEIUS]  You're
      welcome,
    Most learned reverend sir, into our kingdom.
    Use us and it.  [To WOLSEY]  My good lord, have great care
    I be not found a talker.
  WOLSEY. Sir, you cannot.
    I would your Grace would give us but an hour
    Of private conference.
  KING.  [To NORFOLK and SUFFOLK]  We are busy; go.
  NORFOLK.  [Aside to SUFFOLK]  This priest has no pride in him!
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside to NORFOLK]  Not to speak of!
    I would not be so sick though for his place.
    But this cannot continue.
  NORFOLK.  [Aside to SUFFOLK]  If it do,
    I'll venture one have-at-him.
  SUFFOLK.  [Aside to NORFOLK]  I another.
                                           Exeunt NORFOLK and SUFFOLK
  WOLSEY. Your Grace has given a precedent of wisdom
    Above all princes, in committing freely
    Your scruple to the voice of Christendom.
    Who can be angry now? What envy reach you?
    The Spaniard, tied by blood and favour to her,
    Must now confess, if they have any goodness,
    The trial just and noble. All the clerks,
    I mean the learned ones, in Christian kingdoms
    Have their free voices. Rome the nurse of judgment,
    Invited by your noble self, hath sent
    One general tongue unto us, this good man,
    This just and learned priest, Cardinal Campeius,
    Whom once more I present unto your Highness.
  KING. And once more in mine arms I bid him welcome,
    And thank the holy conclave for their loves.
    They have sent me such a man I would have wish'd for.
  CAMPEIUS. Your Grace must needs deserve an strangers' loves,
    You are so noble. To your Highness' hand
    I tender my commission; by whose virtue-
    The court of Rome commanding-you, my Lord
    Cardinal of York, are join'd with me their servant
    In the unpartial judging of this business.
  KING. Two equal men. The Queen shall be acquainted
    Forthwith for what you come. Where's Gardiner?
  WOLSEY. I know your Majesty has always lov'd her
    So dear in heart not to deny her that
    A woman of less place might ask by law-
    Scholars allow'd freely to argue for her.
  KING. Ay, and the best she shall have; and my favour
    To him that does best. God forbid else. Cardinal,
    Prithee call Gardiner to me, my new secretary;
    I find him a fit fellow.                              Exit WOLSEY

          Re-enter WOLSEY with GARDINER

  WOLSEY.  [Aside to GARDINER]  Give me your hand: much
      joy and favour to you;
    You are the King's now.
  GARDINER.  [Aside to WOLSEY]  But to be commanded
    For ever by your Grace, whose hand has rais'd me.
  KING. Come hither, Gardiner.                   [Walks and whispers]
  CAMPEIUS. My Lord of York, was not one Doctor Pace
    In this man's place before him?
  WOLSEY. Yes, he was.
  CAMPEIUS. Was he not held a learned man?
  WOLSEY. Yes, surely.
  CAMPEIUS. Believe me, there's an ill opinion spread then,
    Even of yourself, Lord Cardinal.
  WOLSEY. How! Of me?
  CAMPEIUS. They will not stick to say you envied him
    And, fearing he would rise, he was so virtuous,
    Kept him a foreign man still; which so griev'd him
    That he ran mad and died.
  WOLSEY. Heav'n's peace be with him!
    That's Christian care enough. For living murmurers
    There's places of rebuke. He was a fool,
    For he would needs be virtuous: that good fellow,
    If I command him, follows my appointment.
    I will have none so near else. Learn this, brother,
    We live not to be grip'd by meaner persons.
  KING. Deliver this with modesty to th' Queen.
                                                        Exit GARDINER
    The most convenient place that I can think of
    For such receipt of learning is Blackfriars;
    There ye shall meet about this weighty business-
    My Wolsey, see it furnish'd. O, my lord,
    Would it not grieve an able man to leave
    So sweet a bedfellow? But, conscience, conscience!
    O, 'tis a tender place! and I must leave her.              Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 3.

London. The palace

Enter ANNE BULLEN and an OLD LADY

  ANNE. Not for that neither. Here's the pang that pinches:
    His Highness having liv'd so long with her, and she
    So good a lady that no tongue could ever
    Pronounce dishonour of her-by my life,
    She never knew harm-doing-O, now, after
    So many courses of the sun enthroned,
    Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which
    To leave a thousand-fold more bitter than
    'Tis sweet at first t' acquire-after this process,
    To give her the avaunt, it is a pity
    Would move a monster.
  OLD LADY. Hearts of most hard temper
    Melt and lament for her.
  ANNE. O, God's will! much better
    She ne'er had known pomp; though't be temporal,
    Yet, if that quarrel, fortune, do divorce
    It from the bearer, 'tis a sufferance panging
    As soul and body's severing.
  OLD LADY. Alas, poor lady!
    She's a stranger now again.
  ANNE. So much the more
    Must pity drop upon her. Verily,
    I swear 'tis better to be lowly born
    And range with humble livers in content
    Than to be perk'd up in a glist'ring grief
    And wear a golden sorrow.
  OLD LADY. Our content
    Is our best having.
  ANNE. By my troth and maidenhead,
    I would not be a queen.
  OLD LADY. Beshrew me, I would,
    And venture maidenhead for 't; and so would you,
    For all this spice of your hypocrisy.
    You that have so fair parts of woman on you
    Have too a woman's heart, which ever yet
    Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty;
    Which, to say sooth, are blessings; and which gifts,
    Saving your mincing, the capacity
    Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive
    If you might please to stretch it.
  ANNE. Nay, good troth.
  OLD LADY. Yes, troth and troth. You would not be a queen!
  ANNE. No, not for all the riches under heaven.
  OLD LADY. 'Tis strange: a threepence bow'd would hire me,
    Old as I am, to queen it. But, I pray you,
    What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs
    To bear that load of title?
  ANNE. No, in truth.
  OLD LADY. Then you are weakly made. Pluck off a little;
    I would not be a young count in your way
    For more than blushing comes to. If your back
    Cannot vouchsafe this burden, 'tis too weak
    Ever to get a boy.
  ANNE. How you do talk!
    I swear again I would not be a queen
    For all the world.
  OLD LADY. In faith, for little England
    You'd venture an emballing. I myself
    Would for Carnarvonshire, although there long'd
    No more to th' crown but that. Lo, who comes here?

         Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN

  CHAMBERLAIN. Good morrow, ladies. What were't worth to know
    The secret of your conference?
  ANNE. My good lord,
    Not your demand; it values not your asking.
    Our mistress' sorrows we were pitying.
  CHAMBERLAIN. It was a gentle business and becoming
    The action of good women; there is hope
    All will be well.
  ANNE. Now, I pray God, amen!
  CHAMBERLAIN. You bear a gentle mind, and heav'nly blessings
    Follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady,
    Perceive I speak sincerely and high notes
    Ta'en of your many virtues, the King's Majesty
    Commends his good opinion of you to you, and
    Does purpose honour to you no less flowing
    Than Marchioness of Pembroke; to which tide
    A thousand pound a year, annual support,
    Out of his grace he adds.
  ANNE. I do not know
    What kind of my obedience I should tender;
    More than my all is nothing, nor my prayers
    Are not words duly hallowed, nor my wishes
    More worth than empty vanities; yet prayers and wishes
    Are all I can return. Beseech your lordship,
    Vouchsafe to speak my thanks and my obedience,
    As from a blushing handmaid, to his Highness;
    Whose health and royalty I pray for.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Lady,
    I shall not fail t' approve the fair conceit
    The King hath of you.  [Aside]  I have perus'd her well:
    Beauty and honour in her are so mingled
    That they have caught the King; and who knows yet
    But from this lady may proceed a gem
    To lighten all this isle?-I'll to the King
    And say I spoke with you.
  ANNE. My honour'd lord!                       Exit LORD CHAMBERLAIN
  OLD LADY. Why, this it is: see, see!
    I have been begging sixteen years in court-
    Am yet a courtier beggarly-nor could
    Come pat betwixt too early and too late
    For any suit of pounds; and you, O fate!
    A very fresh-fish here-fie, fie, fie upon
    This compell'd fortune!-have your mouth fill'd up
    Before you open it.
  ANNE. This is strange to me.
  OLD LADY. How tastes it? Is it bitter? Forty pence, no.
    There was a lady once-'tis an old story-
    That would not be a queen, that would she not,
    For all the mud in Egypt. Have you heard it?
  ANNE. Come, you are pleasant.
  OLD LADY. With your theme I could
    O'ermount the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke!
    A thousand pounds a year for pure respect!
    No other obligation! By my life,
    That promises moe thousands: honour's train
    Is longer than his foreskirt. By this time
    I know your back will bear a duchess. Say,
    Are you not stronger than you were?
  ANNE. Good lady,
    Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy,
    And leave me out on't. Would I had no being,
    If this salute my blood a jot; it faints me
    To think what follows.
    The Queen is comfortless, and we forgetful
    In our long absence. Pray, do not deliver
    What here y' have heard to her.
  OLD LADY. What do you think me?                              Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 4.

London. A hall in Blackfriars

Trumpets, sennet, and cornets. Enter two VERGERS, with short silver
wands; next them, two SCRIBES, in the habit of doctors; after them, the
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY alone; after him, the BISHOPS OF LINCOLN, ELY,
ROCHESTER, and SAINT ASAPH; next them, with some small distance,
follows a GENTLEMAN bearing the purse, with the great seal, and a
Cardinal's hat; then two PRIESTS, bearing each silver cross; then a
GENTLEMAN USHER bareheaded, accompanied with a SERGEANT-AT-ARMS bearing
a silver mace; then two GENTLEMEN bearing two great silver pillars;
after them, side by side, the two CARDINALS, WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS; two
NOBLEMEN with the sword and mace. Then enter the KING and QUEEN and
their trains. The KING takes place under the cloth of state; the two
CARDINALS sit under him as judges. The QUEEN takes place some distance
from the KING. The BISHOPS place themselves on each side of the court,
in manner of consistory; below them the SCRIBES. The LORDS sit next the
BISHOPS. The rest of the attendants stand in convenient order about the
stage

  WOLSEY. Whilst our commission from Rome is read,
    Let silence be commanded.
  KING. What's the need?
    It hath already publicly been read,
    And on all sides th' authority allow'd;
    You may then spare that time.
  WOLSEY. Be't so; proceed.
  SCRIBE. Say 'Henry King of England, come into the court.'
  CRIER. Henry King of England, &c.
  KING. Here.
  SCRIBE. Say 'Katharine Queen of England, come into the court.'
  CRIER. Katharine Queen of England, &c.

     The QUEEN makes no answer, rises out of her chair,
     goes about the court, comes to the KING, and kneels
     at his feet; then speaks

  QUEEN KATHARINE. Sir, I desire you do me right and justice,
    And to bestow your pity on me; for
    I am a most poor woman and a stranger,
    Born out of your dominions, having here
    No judge indifferent, nor no more assurance
    Of equal friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir,
    In what have I offended you? What cause
    Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure
    That thus you should proceed to put me of
    And take your good grace from me? Heaven witness,
    I have been to you a true and humble wife,
    At all times to your will conformable,
    Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,
    Yea, subject to your countenance-glad or sorry
    As I saw it inclin'd. When was the hour
    I ever contradicted your desire
    Or made it not mine too? Or which of your friends
    Have I not strove to love, although I knew
    He were mine enemy? What friend of mine
    That had to him deriv'd your anger did
    Continue in my liking? Nay, gave notice
    He was from thence discharg'd? Sir, call to mind
    That I have been your wife in this obedience
    Upward of twenty years, and have been blest
    With many children by you. If, in the course
    And process of this time, you can report,
    And prove it too against mine honour, aught,
    My bond to wedlock or my love and duty,
    Against your sacred person, in God's name,
    Turn me away and let the foul'st contempt
    Shut door upon me, and so give me up
    To the sharp'st kind of justice. Please you, sir,
    The King, your father, was reputed for
    A prince most prudent, of an excellent
    And unmatch'd wit and judgment; Ferdinand,
    My father, King of Spain, was reckon'd one
    The wisest prince that there had reign'd by many
    A year before. It is not to be question'd
    That they had gather'd a wise council to them
    Of every realm, that did debate this business,
    Who deem'd our marriage lawful. Wherefore I humbly
    Beseech you, sir, to spare me till I may
    Be by my friends in Spain advis'd, whose counsel
    I will implore. If not, i' th' name of God,
    Your pleasure be fulfill'd!
  WOLSEY. You have here, lady,
    And of your choice, these reverend fathers-men
    Of singular integrity and learning,
    Yea, the elect o' th' land, who are assembled
    To plead your cause. It shall be therefore bootless
    That longer you desire the court, as well
    For your own quiet as to rectify
    What is unsettled in the King.
  CAMPEIUS. His Grace
    Hath spoken well and justly; therefore, madam,
    It's fit this royal session do proceed
    And that, without delay, their arguments
    Be now produc'd and heard.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Lord Cardinal,
    To you I speak.
  WOLSEY. Your pleasure, madam?
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Sir,
    I am about to weep; but, thinking that
    We are a queen, or long have dream'd so, certain
    The daughter of a king, my drops of tears
    I'll turn to sparks of fire.
  WOLSEY. Be patient yet.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. I Will, when you are humble; nay, before
    Or God will punish me. I do believe,
    Induc'd by potent circumstances, that
    You are mine enemy, and make my challenge
    You shall not be my judge; for it is you
    Have blown this coal betwixt my lord and me-
    Which God's dew quench! Therefore I say again,
    I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul
    Refuse you for my judge, whom yet once more
    I hold my most malicious foe and think not
    At all a friend to truth.
  WOLSEY. I do profess
    You speak not like yourself, who ever yet
    Have stood to charity and display'd th' effects
    Of disposition gentle and of wisdom
    O'ertopping woman's pow'r. Madam, you do me wrong:
    I have no spleen against you, nor injustice
    For you or any; how far I have proceeded,
    Or how far further shall, is warranted
    By a commission from the Consistory,
    Yea, the whole Consistory of Rome. You charge me
    That I have blown this coal: I do deny it.
    The King is present; if it be known to him
    That I gainsay my deed, how may he wound,
    And worthily, my falsehood! Yea, as much
    As you have done my truth. If he know
    That I am free of your report, he knows
    I am not of your wrong. Therefore in him
    It lies to cure me, and the cure is to
    Remove these thoughts from you; the which before
    His Highness shall speak in, I do beseech
    You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking
    And to say so no more.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, my lord,
    I am a simple woman, much too weak
    T' oppose your cunning. Y'are meek and humble-mouth'd;
    You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,
    With meekness and humility; but your heart
    Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.
    You have, by fortune and his Highness' favours,
    Gone slightly o'er low steps, and now are mounted
    Where pow'rs are your retainers, and your words,
    Domestics to you, serve your will as't please
    Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell you
    You tender more your person's honour than
    Your high profession spiritual; that again
    I do refuse you for my judge and here,
    Before you all, appeal unto the Pope,
    To bring my whole cause 'fore his Holiness
    And to be judg'd by him.
                     [She curtsies to the KING, and offers to depart]
  CAMPEIUS. The Queen is obstinate,
    Stubborn to justice, apt to accuse it, and
    Disdainful to be tried by't; 'tis not well.
    She's going away.
  KING. Call her again.
  CRIER. Katharine Queen of England, come into the court.
  GENTLEMAN USHER. Madam, you are call'd back.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. What need you note it? Pray you keep your way;
    When you are call'd, return. Now the Lord help!
    They vex me past my patience. Pray you pass on.
    I will not tarry; no, nor ever more
    Upon this business my appearance make
    In any of their courts.           Exeunt QUEEN and her attendants
  KING. Go thy ways, Kate.
    That man i' th' world who shall report he has
    A better wife, let him in nought be trusted
    For speaking false in that. Thou art, alone-
    If thy rare qualities, sweet gentleness,
    Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government,
    Obeying in commanding, and thy parts
    Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out-
    The queen of earthly queens. She's noble born;
    And like her true nobility she has
    Carried herself towards me.
  WOLSEY. Most gracious sir,
    In humblest manner I require your Highness
    That it shall please you to declare in hearing
    Of all these ears-for where I am robb'd and bound,
    There must I be unloos'd, although not there
    At once and fully satisfied-whether ever I
    Did broach this business to your Highness, or
    Laid any scruple in your way which might
    Induce you to the question on't, or ever
    Have to you, but with thanks to God for such
    A royal lady, spake one the least word that might
    Be to the prejudice of her present state,
    Or touch of her good person?
  KING. My Lord Cardinal,
    I do excuse you; yea, upon mine honour,
    I free you from't. You are not to be taught
    That you have many enemies that know not
    Why they are so, but, like to village curs,
    Bark when their fellows do. By some of these
    The Queen is put in anger. Y'are excus'd.
    But will you be more justified? You ever
    Have wish'd the sleeping of this business; never desir'd
    It to be stirr'd; but oft have hind'red, oft,
    The passages made toward it. On my honour,
    I speak my good Lord Cardinal to this point,
    And thus far clear him. Now, what mov'd me to't,
    I will be bold with time and your attention.
    Then mark th' inducement. Thus it came-give heed to't:
    My conscience first receiv'd a tenderness,
    Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches utter'd
    By th' Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador,
    Who had been hither sent on the debating
    A marriage 'twixt the Duke of Orleans and
    Our daughter Mary. I' th' progress of this business,
    Ere a determinate resolution, he-
    I mean the Bishop-did require a respite
    Wherein he might the King his lord advertise
    Whether our daughter were legitimate,
    Respecting this our marriage with the dowager,
    Sometimes our brother's wife. This respite shook
    The bosom of my conscience, enter'd me,
    Yea, with a splitting power, and made to tremble
    The region of my breast, which forc'd such way
    That many maz'd considerings did throng
    And press'd in with this caution. First, methought
    I stood not in the smile of heaven, who had
    Commanded nature that my lady's womb,
    If it conceiv'd a male child by me, should
    Do no more offices of life to't than
    The grave does to the dead; for her male issue
    Or died where they were made, or shortly after
    This world had air'd them. Hence I took a thought
    This was a judgment on me, that my kingdom,
    Well worthy the best heir o' th' world, should not
    Be gladded in't by me. Then follows that
    I weigh'd the danger which my realms stood in
    By this my issue's fail, and that gave to me
    Many a groaning throe. Thus hulling in
    The wild sea of my conscience, I did steer
    Toward this remedy, whereupon we are
    Now present here together; that's to say
    I meant to rectify my conscience, which
    I then did feel full sick, and yet not well,
    By all the reverend fathers of the land
    And doctors learn'd. First, I began in private
    With you, my Lord of Lincoln; you remember
    How under my oppression I did reek,
    When I first mov'd you.
  LINCOLN. Very well, my liege.
  KING. I have spoke long; be pleas'd yourself to say
    How far you satisfied me.
  LINCOLN. So please your Highness,
    The question did at first so stagger me-
    Bearing a state of mighty moment in't
    And consequence of dread-that I committed
    The daring'st counsel which I had to doubt,
    And did entreat your Highness to this course
    Which you are running here.
  KING. I then mov'd you,
    My Lord of Canterbury, and got your leave
    To make this present summons. Unsolicited
    I left no reverend person in this court,
    But by particular consent proceeded
    Under your hands and seals; therefore, go on,
    For no dislike i' th' world against the person
    Of the good Queen, but the sharp thorny points
    Of my alleged reasons, drives this forward.
    Prove but our marriage lawful, by my life
    And kingly dignity, we are contented
    To wear our moral state to come with her,
    Katharine our queen, before the primest creature
    That's paragon'd o' th' world.
  CAMPEIUS. So please your Highness,
    The Queen being absent, 'tis a needful fitness
    That we adjourn this court till further day;
    Meanwhile must be an earnest motion
    Made to the Queen to call back her appeal
    She intends unto his Holiness.
  KING.  [Aside]  I may perceive
    These cardinals trifle with me. I abhor
    This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome.
    My learn'd and well-beloved servant, Cranmer,
    Prithee return. With thy approach I know
    My comfort comes along. -Break up the court;
    I say, set on.                   Exuent in manner as they entered

ACT III. SCENE 1.

London. The QUEEN'S apartments

Enter the QUEEN and her women, as at work

  QUEEN KATHARINE. Take thy lute, wench. My soul grows
      sad with troubles;
    Sing and disperse 'em, if thou canst. Leave working.

                    SONG

        Orpheus with his lute made trees,
        And the mountain tops that freeze,
          Bow themselves when he did sing;
        To his music plants and flowers
        Ever sprung, as sun and showers
          There had made a lasting spring.

        Every thing that heard him play,
        Even the billows of the sea,
          Hung their heads and then lay by.
        In sweet music is such art,
        Killing care and grief of heart
          Fall asleep or hearing die.

              Enter a GENTLEMAN

  QUEEN KATHARINE. How now?
  GENTLEMAN. An't please your Grace, the two great Cardinals
    Wait in the presence.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Would they speak with me?
  GENTLEMAN. They will'd me say so, madam.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Pray their Graces
    To come near. [Exit GENTLEMAN] What can be their business
    With me, a poor weak woman, fall'n from favour?
    I do not like their coming. Now I think on't,
    They should be good men, their affairs as righteous;
    But all hoods make not monks.

         Enter the two CARDINALS, WOLSEY and CAMPEIUS

  WOLSEY. Peace to your Highness!
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Your Graces find me here part of housewife;
    I would be all, against the worst may happen.
    What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?
  WOLSEY. May it please you, noble madam, to withdraw
    Into your private chamber, we shall give you
    The full cause of our coming.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Speak it here;
    There's nothing I have done yet, o' my conscience,
    Deserves a corner. Would all other women
    Could speak this with as free a soul as I do!
    My lords, I care not-so much I am happy
    Above a number-if my actions
    Were tried by ev'ry tongue, ev'ry eye saw 'em,
    Envy and base opinion set against 'em,
    I know my life so even. If your business
    Seek me out, and that way I am wife in,
    Out with it boldly; truth loves open dealing.
  WOLSEY. Tanta est erga te mentis integritas, regina serenis-sima-
  QUEEN KATHARINE. O, good my lord, no Latin!
    I am not such a truant since my coming,
    As not to know the language I have liv'd in;
    A strange tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious;
    Pray speak in English. Here are some will thank you,
    If you speak truth, for their poor mistress' sake:
    Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord Cardinal,
    The willing'st sin I ever yet committed
    May be absolv'd in English.
  WOLSEY. Noble lady,
    I am sorry my integrity should breed,
    And service to his Majesty and you,
    So deep suspicion, where all faith was meant
    We come not by the way of accusation
    To taint that honour every good tongue blesses,
    Nor to betray you any way to sorrow-
    You have too much, good lady; but to know
    How you stand minded in the weighty difference
    Between the King and you, and to deliver,
    Like free and honest men, our just opinions
    And comforts to your cause.
  CAMPEIUS. Most honour'd madam,
    My Lord of York, out of his noble nature,
    Zeal and obedience he still bore your Grace,
    Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure
    Both of his truth and him-which was too far-
    Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,
    His service and his counsel.
  QUEEN KATHARINE.  [Aside]  To betray me.-
    My lords, I thank you both for your good wins;
    Ye speak like honest men-pray God ye prove so!
    But how to make ye suddenly an answer,
    In such a point of weight, so near mine honour,
    More near my life, I fear, with my weak wit,
    And to such men of gravity and learning,
    In truth I know not. I was set at work
    Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking
    Either for such men or such business.
    For her sake that I have been-for I feel
    The last fit of my greatness-good your Graces,
    Let me have time and counsel for my cause.
    Alas, I am a woman, friendless, hopeless!
  WOLSEY. Madam, you wrong the King's love with these fears;
    Your hopes and friends are infinite.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. In England
    But little for my profit; can you think, lords,
    That any Englishman dare give me counsel?
    Or be a known friend, 'gainst his Highness' pleasure-
    Though he be grown so desperate to be honest-
    And live a subject? Nay, forsooth, my friends,
    They that must weigh out my afflictions,
    They that my trust must grow to, live not here;
    They are, as all my other comforts, far hence,
    In mine own country, lords.
  CAMPEIUS. I would your Grace
    Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. How, sir?
  CAMPEIUS. Put your main cause into the King's protection;
    He's loving and most gracious. 'Twill be much
    Both for your honour better and your cause;
    For if the trial of the law o'ertake ye
    You'll part away disgrac'd.
  WOLSEY. He tells you rightly.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Ye tell me what ye wish for both-my ruin.
    Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye!
    Heaven is above all yet: there sits a Judge
    That no king can corrupt.
  CAMPEIUS. Your rage mistakes us.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. The more shame for ye; holy men I thought ye,
    Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues;
    But cardinal sins and hollow hearts I fear ye.
    Mend 'em, for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort?
    The cordial that ye bring a wretched lady-
    A woman lost among ye, laugh'd at, scorn'd?
    I will not wish ye half my miseries:
    I have more charity; but say I warned ye.
    Take heed, for heaven's sake take heed, lest at once
    The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.
  WOLSEY. Madam, this is a mere distraction;
    You turn the good we offer into envy.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Ye turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye,
    And all such false professors! Would you have me-
    If you have any justice, any pity,
    If ye be any thing but churchmen's habits-
    Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?
    Alas! has banish'd me his bed already,
    His love too long ago! I am old, my lords,
    And all the fellowship I hold now with him
    Is only my obedience. What can happen
    To me above this wretchedness? All your studies
    Make me a curse like this.
  CAMPEIUS. Your fears are worse.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Have I liv'd thus long-let me speak myself,
    Since virtue finds no friends-a wife, a true one?
    A woman, I dare say without vain-glory,
    Never yet branded with suspicion?
    Have I with all my full affections
    Still met the King, lov'd him next heav'n, obey'd him,
    Been, out of fondness, superstitious to him,
    Almost forgot my prayers to content him,
    And am I thus rewarded? 'Tis not well, lords.
    Bring me a constant woman to her husband,
    One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure,
    And to that woman, when she has done most,
    Yet will I add an honour-a great patience.
  WOLSEY. Madam, you wander from the good we aim at.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. My lord, I dare not make myself so guilty,
    To give up willingly that noble title
    Your master wed me to: nothing but death
    Shall e'er divorce my dignities.
  WOLSEY. Pray hear me.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Would I had never trod this English earth,
    Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it!
    Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
    What will become of me now, wretched lady?
    I am the most unhappy woman living.
    [To her WOMEN]  Alas, poor wenches, where are now
      your fortunes?
    Shipwreck'd upon a kingdom, where no pity,
    No friends, no hope; no kindred weep for me;
    Almost no grave allow'd me. Like the My,
    That once was mistress of the field, and flourish'd,
    I'll hang my head and perish.
  WOLSEY. If your Grace
    Could but be brought to know our ends are honest,
    You'd feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,
    Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,
    The way of our profession is against it;
    We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow 'em.
    For goodness' sake, consider what you do;
    How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly
    Grow from the King's acquaintance, by this carriage.
    The hearts of princes kiss obedience,
    So much they love it; but to stubborn spirits
    They swell and grow as terrible as storms.
    I know you have a gentle, noble temper,
    A soul as even as a calm. Pray think us
    Those we profess, peace-makers, friends, and servants.
  CAMPEIUS. Madam, you'll find it so. You wrong your virtues
    With these weak women's fears. A noble spirit,
    As yours was put into you, ever casts
    Such doubts as false coin from it. The King loves you;
    Beware you lose it not. For us, if you please
    To trust us in your business, we are ready
    To use our utmost studies in your service.
  QUEEN KATHARINE. Do what ye will my lords; and pray
      forgive me
    If I have us'd myself unmannerly;
    You know I am a woman, lacking wit
    To make a seemly answer to such persons.
    Pray do my service to his Majesty;
    He has my heart yet, and shall have my prayers
    While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,
    Bestow your counsels on me; she now begs
    That little thought, when she set footing here,
    She should have bought her dignities so dear.              Exeunt

ACT III.SCENE 2.

London. The palace

Enter the DUKE OF NORFOLK, the DUKE OF SUFFOLK, the EARL OF SURREY, and
the LORD CHAMBERLAIN

  NORFOLK. If you will now unite in your complaints
    And force them with a constancy, the Cardinal
    Cannot stand under them: if you omit
    The offer of this time, I cannot promise
    But that you shall sustain moe new disgraces
    With these you bear already.
  SURREY. I am joyful
    To meet the least occasion that may give me
    Remembrance of my father-in-law, the Duke,
    To be reveng'd on him.
  SUFFOLK. Which of the peers
    Have uncontemn'd gone by him, or at least
    Strangely neglected? When did he regard
    The stamp of nobleness in any person
    Out of himself?
  CHAMBERLAIN. My lords, you speak your pleasures.
    What he deserves of you and me I know;
    What we can do to him-though now the time
    Gives way to us-I much fear. If you cannot
    Bar his access to th' King, never attempt
    Anything on him; for he hath a witchcraft
    Over the King in's tongue.
  NORFOLK. O, fear him not!
    His spell in that is out; the King hath found
    Matter against him that for ever mars
    The honey of his language. No, he's settled,
    Not to come off, in his displeasure.
  SURREY. Sir,
    I should be glad to hear such news as this
    Once every hour.
  NORFOLK. Believe it, this is true:
    In the divorce his contrary proceedings
    Are all unfolded; wherein he appears
    As I would wish mine enemy.
  SURREY. How came
    His practices to light?
  SUFFOLK. Most Strangely.
  SURREY. O, how, how?
  SUFFOLK. The Cardinal's letters to the Pope miscarried,
    And came to th' eye o' th' King; wherein was read
    How that the Cardinal did entreat his Holiness
    To stay the judgment o' th' divorce; for if
    It did take place, 'I do' quoth he 'perceive
    My king is tangled in affection to
    A creature of the Queen's, Lady Anne Bullen.'
  SURREY. Has the King this?
  SUFFOLK. Believe it.
  SURREY. Will this work?
  CHAMBERLAIN. The King in this perceives him how he coasts
    And hedges his own way. But in this point
    All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic
    After his patient's death: the King already
    Hath married the fair lady.
  SURREY. Would he had!
  SUFFOLK. May you be happy in your wish, my lord!
    For, I profess, you have it.
  SURREY. Now, all my joy
    Trace the conjunction!
  SUFFOLK. My amen to't!
  NORFOLK. An men's!
  SUFFOLK. There's order given for her coronation;
    Marry, this is yet but young, and may be left
    To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords,
    She is a gallant creature, and complete
    In mind and feature. I persuade me from her
    Will fall some blessing to this land, which shall
    In it be memoriz'd.
  SURREY. But will the King
    Digest this letter of the Cardinal's?
    The Lord forbid!
  NORFOLK. Marry, amen!
  SUFFOLK. No, no;
    There be moe wasps that buzz about his nose
    Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius
    Is stol'n away to Rome; hath ta'en no leave;
    Has left the cause o' th' King unhandled, and
    Is posted, as the agent of our Cardinal,
    To second all his plot. I do assure you
    The King cried 'Ha!' at this.
  CHAMBERLAIN. Now, God incense him,
    And let him cry 'Ha!' louder!
  NORFOLK. But, my lord,
    When returns Cranmer?
  SUFFOLK. He is return'd in his opinions; which
    Have satisfied the King for his divorce,
    Together with all famous colleges
    Almost in Christendom. Shortly, I believe,
    His second marriage shall be publish'd, and
    Her coronation. Katharine no more
    Shall be call'd queen, but princess dowager
    And widow to Prince Arthur.
  NORFOLK. This same Cranmer's
    A worthy fellow, and hath ta'en much pain
    In the King's business.
  SUFFOLK. He has; and we shall see him
    For it an archbishop.
  NORFOLK. So I hear.
  SUFFOLK. 'Tis so.

        Enter WOLSEY and CROMWELL

    The Cardinal!
  NORFOLK. Observe, observe, he's moody.
  WOLSEY. The packet, Cromwell,
    Gave't you the King?
  CROMWELL. To his own hand, in's bedchamber.
  WOLSEY. Look'd he o' th' inside of the paper?
  CROMWELL. Presently
    He did unseal them; and the first he view'd,
    He did it with a serious mind; a heed
    Was in his countenance. You he bade
    Attend him here this morning.
  WOLSEY. Is he ready
    To come abroad?
  CROMWELL. I think by this he is.
  WOLSEY. Leave me awhile.                              Exit CROMWELL
    [Aside]  It shall be to the Duchess of Alencon,
    The French King's sister; he shall marry her.
    Anne Bullen! No, I'll no Anne Bullens for him;
    There's more in't than fair visage. Bullen!
    No, we'll no Bullens. Speedily I wish
    To hear from Rome. The Marchioness of Pembroke!
  NORFOLK. He's discontented.
  SUFFOLK. May be he hears the King
    Does whet his anger to him.
  SURREY. Sharp enough,
    Lord, for thy justice!
  WOLSEY.  [Aside]  The late Queen's gentlewoman, a knight's
      daughter,
    To be her mistress' mistress! The Queen's queen!
    This candle burns not clear. 'Tis I must snuff it;
    Then out it goes. What though I know her virtuous
    And well deserving? Yet I know her for
    A spleeny Lutheran; and not wholesome to
    Our cause that she should lie i' th' bosom of
    Our hard-rul'd King. Again, there is sprung up
    An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one
    Hath crawl'd into the favour of the King,
    And is his oracle.
  NORFOLK. He is vex'd at something.

        Enter the KING, reading of a schedule, and LOVELL

  SURREY. I would 'twere something that would fret the string,
    The master-cord on's heart!
  SUFFOLK. The King, the King!
  KING. What piles of wealth hath he accumulated
    To his own portion! And what expense by th' hour
    Seems to flow from him! How, i' th' name of thrift,
    Does he rake this together?-Now, my lords,
    Saw you the Cardinal?
  NORFOLK. My lord, we have
    Stood here observing him. Some strange commotion
    Is in his brain: he bites his lip and starts,
    Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground,
    Then lays his finger on his temple; straight
    Springs out into fast gait; then stops again,
    Strikes his breast hard; and anon he casts
    His eye against the moon. In most strange postures
    We have seen him set himself.
  KING. It may well be
    There is a mutiny in's mind. This morning
    Papers of state he sent me to peruse,
    As I requir'd; and wot you what I found
    There-on my conscience, put unwittingly?
    Forsooth, an inventory, thus importing
    The several parcels of his plate, his treasure,
    Rich stuffs, and ornaments of household; which
    I find at such proud rate that it outspeaks
    Possession of a subject.
  NORFOLK. It's heaven's will;
    Some spirit put this paper in the packet
    To bless your eye withal.
  KING. If we did think
    His contemplation were above the earth
    And fix'd on spiritual object, he should still
    dwell in his musings; but I am afraid
    His thinkings are below the moon, not worth
    His serious considering.
                        [The KING takes his seat and whispers LOVELL,
                                           who goes to the CARDINAL]
  WOLSEY. Heaven forgive me!
    Ever God bless your Highness!
  KING. Good, my lord,
    You are full of heavenly stuff, and bear the inventory
    Of your best graces in your mind; the which
    You were now running o'er. You have scarce time
    To steal from spiritual leisure a brief span
    To keep your earthly audit; sure, in that
    I deem you an ill husband, and am glad
    To have you therein my companion.
  WOLSEY. Sir,
    For holy offices I have a time; a time
    To think upon the part of business which
    I bear i' th' state; and nature does require
    Her times of preservation, which perforce
    I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,
    Must give my tendance to.
  KING. You have said well.
  WOLSEY. And ever may your Highness yoke together,
    As I will lend you cause, my doing well
    With my well saying!
  KING. 'Tis well said again;
    And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well;
    And yet words are no deeds. My father lov'd you:
    He said he did; and with his deed did crown
    His word upon you. Since I had my office
    I have kept you next my heart; have not alone
    Employ'd you where high profits might come home,
    But par'd my present havings to bestow
    My bounties upon you.
  WOLSEY.  [Aside]  What should this mean?
  SURREY.  [Aside]  The Lord increase this business!
  KING. Have I not made you
    The prime man of the state? I pray you tell me
    If what I now pronounce you have found true;
    And, if you may confess it, say withal
    If you are bound to us or no. What say you?
  WOLSEY. My sovereign, I confess your royal graces,
    Show'r'd on me daily, have been more than could
    My studied purposes requite; which went
    Beyond all man's endeavours. My endeavours,
    Have ever come too short of my desires,
    Yet fil'd with my abilities; mine own ends
    Have been mine so that evermore they pointed
    To th' good of your most sacred person and
    The profit of the state. For your great graces
    Heap'd upon me, poor undeserver, I
    Can nothing render but allegiant thanks;
    My pray'rs to heaven for you; my loyalty,
    Which ever has and ever shall be growing,
    Till death, that winter, kill it.
  KING. Fairly answer'd!
    A loyal and obedient subject is
    Therein illustrated; the honour of it
    Does pay the act of it, as, i' th' contrary,
    The foulness is the punishment. I presume
    That, as my hand has open'd bounty to you,
    My heart dropp'd love, my pow'r rain'd honour, more
    On you than any, so your hand and heart,
    Your brain, and every function of your power,
    Should, notwithstanding that your bond of duty,
    As 'twere in love's particular, be more
    To me, your friend, than any.
  WOLSEY. I do profess
    That for your Highness' good I ever labour'd
    More than mine own; that am, have, and will be-
    Though all the world should crack their duty to you,
    And throw it from their soul; though perils did
    Abound as thick as thought could make 'em, and
    Appear in forms more horrid-yet my duty,
    As doth a rock against the chiding flood,
    Should the approach of this wild river break,
    And stand unshaken yours.
  KING. 'Tis nobly spoken.
    Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast,
    For you have seen him open 't. Read o'er this;
                                                  [Giving him papers]
    And after, this; and then to breakfast with
    What appetite you have.
                Exit the KING, frowning upon the CARDINAL; the NOBLES
                             throng after him, smiling and whispering
  WOLSEY. What should this mean?
    What sudden anger's this? How have I reap'd it?
    He parted frowning from me, as if ruin
    Leap'd from his eyes; so looks the chafed lion
    Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him-
    Then makes him nothing. I must read this paper;
    I fear, the story of his anger. 'Tis so;
    This paper has undone me. 'Tis th' account
    Of all that world of wealth I have drawn together
    For mine own ends; indeed to gain the popedom,
    And fee my friends in Rome. O negligence,
    Fit for a fool to fall by! What cross devil
    Made me put this main secret in the packet
    I sent the King? Is there no way to cure this?
    No new device to beat this from his brains?
    I know 'twill stir him strongly; yet I know
    A way, if it take right, in spite of fortune,
    Will bring me off again. What's this? 'To th' Pope.'
    The letter, as I live, with all the business
    I writ to's Holiness. Nay then, farewell!
    I have touch'd the highest point of all my greatness,
    And from that full meridian of my glory
    I haste now to my setting. I shall fall
    Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
    And no man see me more.

        Re-enter to WOLSEY the DUKES OF NORFOLK and
        SUFFOLK, the EARL OF SURREY, and the LORD
        CHAMBERLAIN

  NORFOLK. Hear the King's pleasure, Cardinal, who commands you
    To render up the great seal presently
    Into our hands, and to confine yourself
    To Asher House, my Lord of Winchester's,
    Till you hear further from his Highness.
  WOLSEY. Stay:
    Where's your commission, lords? Words cannot carry
    Authority so weighty.
  SUFFOLK. Who dares cross 'em,
    Bearing the King's will from his mouth expressly?
  WOLSEY. Till I find more than will or words to do it-
    I mean your malice-know, officious lords,
    I dare and must deny it. Now I feel
    Of what coarse metal ye are moulded-envy;
    How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,
    As if it fed ye; and how sleek and wanton
    Ye appear in every thing may bring my ruin!
    Follow your envious courses, men of malice;
    You have Christian warrant for 'em, and no doubt
    In time will find their fit rewards. That seal
    You ask with such a violence, the King-
    Mine and your master-with his own hand gave me;
    Bade me enjoy it, with the place and honours,
    During my life; and, to confirm his goodness,
    Tied it by letters-patents. Now, who'll take it?
  SURREY. The King, that gave it.
  WOLSEY. It must be himself then.
  SURREY. Thou art a proud traitor, priest.
  WOLSEY. Proud lord, thou liest.
    Within these forty hours Surrey durst better
    Have burnt that tongue than said so.
  SURREY. Thy ambition,
    Thou scarlet sin, robb'd this bewailing land
    Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law.
    The heads of all thy brother cardinals,
    With thee and all thy best parts bound together,
    Weigh'd not a hair of his. Plague of your policy!
    You sent me deputy for Ireland;
    Far from his succour, from the King, from all
    That might have mercy on the fault thou gav'st him;
    Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,
    Absolv'd him with an axe.
  WOLSEY. This, and all else
    This talking lord can lay upon my credit,
    I answer is most false. The Duke by law
    Found his deserts; how innocent I was
    From any private malice in his end,
    His noble jury and foul cause can witness.
    If I lov'd many words, lord, I should tell you
    You have as little honesty as honour,
    That in the way of loyalty and truth
    Toward the King, my ever royal master,
    Dare mate a sounder man than Surrey can be
    And an that love his follies.
  SURREY. By my soul,
    Your long coat, priest, protects you; thou shouldst feel
    My sword i' the life-blood of thee else. My lords
    Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?
    And from this fellow? If we live thus tamely,
    To be thus jaded by a piece of scarlet,
    Farewell nobility! Let his Grace go forward
    And dare us with his cap like larks.
  WOLSEY. All goodness
    Is poison to thy stomach.
  SURREY. Yes, that goodness
    Of gleaning all the land's wealth into one,
    Into your own hands, Cardinal, by extortion;
    The goodness of your intercepted packets
    You writ to th' Pope against the King; your goodness,
    Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.
    My Lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble,
    As you respect the common good, the state
    Of our despis'd nobility, our issues,
    Whom, if he live, will scarce be gentlemen-
    Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles
    Collected from his life. I'll startle you
    Worse than the sacring bell, when the brown wench
    Lay kissing in your arms, Lord Cardinal.
  WOLSEY. How much, methinks, I could despise this man,
    But that I am bound in charity against it!
  NORFOLK. Those articles, my lord, are in the King's hand;
    But, thus much, they are foul ones.
  WOLSEY. So much fairer
    And spotless shall mine innocence arise,
    When the King knows my truth.
  SURREY. This cannot save you.
    I thank my memory I yet remember
    Some of these articles; and out they shall.
    Now, if you can blush and cry guilty, Cardinal,
    You'll show a little honesty.
  WOLSEY. Speak on, sir;
    I dare your worst objections. If I blush,
    It is to see a nobleman want manners.
  SURREY. I had rather want those than my head. Have at you!
    First, that without the King's assent or knowledge
    You wrought to be a legate; by which power
    You maim'd the jurisdiction of all bishops.
  NORFOLK. Then, that in all you writ to Rome, or else
    To foreign princes, 'Ego et Rex meus'
    Was still inscrib'd; in which you brought the King
    To be your servant.
  SUFFOLK. Then, that without the knowledge
    Either of King or Council, when you went
    Ambassador to the Emperor, you made bold
    To carry into Flanders the great seal.
  SURREY. Item, you sent a large commission
    To Gregory de Cassado, to conclude,
    Without the King's will or the state's allowance,
    A league between his Highness and Ferrara.
  SUFFOLK. That out of mere ambition you have caus'd
    Your holy hat to be stamp'd on the King's coin.
  SURREY. Then, that you have sent innumerable substance,
    By what means got I leave to your own conscience,
    To furnish Rome and to prepare the ways
    You have for dignities, to the mere undoing
    Of all the kingdom. Many more there are,
    Which, since they are of you, and odious,
    I will not taint my mouth with.
  CHAMBERLAIN. O my lord,
    Press not a falling man too far! 'Tis virtue.
    His faults lie open to the laws; let them,
    Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him
    So little of his great self.
  SURREY. I forgive him.
  SUFFOLK. Lord Cardinal, the King's further pleasure is-
    Because all those things you have done of late,
    By your power legatine within this kingdom,
    Fall into th' compass of a praemunire-
    That therefore such a writ be sued against you:
    To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,
    Chattels, and whatsoever, and to be
    Out of the King's protection. This is my charge.
  NORFOLK. And so we'll leave you to your meditations
    How to live better. For your stubborn answer
    About the giving back the great seal to us,
    The King shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you.
    So fare you well, my little good Lord Cardinal.
                                                Exeunt all but WOLSEY
  WOLSEY. So farewell to the little good you bear me.
    Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
    This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
    The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms
    And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
    The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
    And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
    His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
    And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd,
    Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
    This many summers in a sea of glory;
    But far beyond my depth. My high-blown pride
    At length broke under me, and now has left me,
    Weary and old with service, to the mercy
    Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
    Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
    I feel my heart new open'd. O, how wretched
    Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
    There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
    That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin
    More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
    And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
    Never to hope again.

         Enter CROMWELL, standing amazed

    Why, how now, Cromwell!
  CROMWELL. I have no power to speak, sir.
  WOLSEY. What, amaz'd
    At my misfortunes? Can thy spirit wonder
    A great man should decline? Nay, an you weep,
    I am fall'n indeed.
  CROMWELL. How does your Grace?
  WOLSEY. Why, well;
    Never so truly happy, my good Cromwell.
    I know myself now, and I feel within me
    A peace above all earthly dignities,
    A still and quiet conscience. The King has cur'd me,
    I humbly thank his Grace; and from these shoulders,
    These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken
    A load would sink a navy-too much honour.
    O, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden
    Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven!
  CROMWELL. I am glad your Grace has made that right use of it.
  WOLSEY. I hope I have. I am able now, methinks,
    Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,
    To endure more miseries and greater far
    Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.
    What news abroad?
  CROMWELL. The heaviest and the worst
    Is your displeasure with the King.
  WOLSEY. God bless him!
  CROMWELL. The next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen
    Lord Chancellor in your place.
  WOLSEY. That's somewhat sudden.
    But he's a learned man. May he continue
    Long in his Highness' favour, and do justice
    For truth's sake and his conscience; that his bones
    When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,
    May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on him!
    What more?
  CROMWELL. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome,
    Install'd Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
  WOLSEY. That's news indeed.
  CROMWELL. Last, that the Lady Anne,
    Whom the King hath in secrecy long married,
    This day was view'd in open as his queen,
    Going to chapel; and the voice is now
    Only about her coronation.
  WOLSEY. There was the weight that pull'd me down.
      O Cromwell,
    The King has gone beyond me. All my glories
    In that one woman I have lost for ever.
    No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours,
    Or gild again the noble troops that waited
    Upon my smiles. Go get thee from me, Cromwell;
    I am a poor fall'n man, unworthy now
    To be thy lord and master. Seek the King;
    That sun, I pray, may never set! I have told him
    What and how true thou art. He will advance thee;
    Some little memory of me will stir him-
    I know his noble nature-not to let
    Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell,
    Neglect him not; make use now, and provide
    For thine own future safety.
  CROMWELL. O my lord,
    Must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo
    So good, so noble, and so true a master?
    Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,
    With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.
    The King shall have my service; but my prayers
    For ever and for ever shall be yours.
  WOLSEY. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
    In all my miseries; but thou hast forc'd me,
    Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
    Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell,
    And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
    And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
    Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee-
    Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
    And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
    Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in-
    A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
    Mark but my fall and that that ruin'd me.
    Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
    By that sin fell the angels. How can man then,
    The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
    Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;
    Corruption wins not more than honesty.
    Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace
    To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not;
    Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
    Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,
    Thou fall'st a blessed martyr!
    Serve the King, and-prithee lead me in.
    There take an inventory of all I have
    To the last penny; 'tis the King's. My robe,
    And my integrity to heaven, is all
    I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!
    Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
    I serv'd my King, he would not in mine age
    Have left me naked to mine enemies.
  CROMWELL. Good sir, have patience.
  WOLSEY. So I have. Farewell
    The hopes of court! My hopes in heaven do dwell.           Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

A street in Westminster

Enter two GENTLEMEN, meeting one another

  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Y'are well met once again.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. So are you.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. You come to take your stand here, and
      behold
    The Lady Anne pass from her coronation?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis all my business. At our last encounter
    The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis very true. But that time offer'd
      sorrow;
    This, general joy.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis well. The citizens,
    I am sure, have shown at full their royal minds-
    As, let 'em have their rights, they are ever forward-
    In celebration of this day with shows,
    Pageants, and sights of honour.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Never greater,
    Nor, I'll assure you, better taken, sir.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. May I be bold to ask what that contains,
    That paper in your hand?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes; 'tis the list
    Of those that claim their offices this day,
    By custom of the coronation.
    The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims
    To be High Steward; next, the Duke of Norfolk,
    He to be Earl Marshal. You may read the rest.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I thank you, sir; had I not known
      those customs,
    I should have been beholding to your paper.
    But, I beseech you, what's become of Katharine,
    The Princess Dowager? How goes her business?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. That I can tell you too. The Archbishop
    Of Canterbury, accompanied with other
    Learned and reverend fathers of his order,
    Held a late court at Dunstable, six miles of
    From Ampthill, where the Princess lay; to which
    She was often cited by them, but appear'd not.
    And, to be short, for not appearance and
    The King's late scruple, by the main assent
    Of all these learned men, she was divorc'd,
    And the late marriage made of none effect;
    Since which she was removed to Kimbolton,
    Where she remains now sick.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Alas, good lady!                       [Trumpets]
    The trumpets sound. Stand close, the Queen is coming.
[Hautboys]

              THE ORDER OF THE CORONATION.

    1. A lively flourish of trumpets.
    2. Then two JUDGES.
    3. LORD CHANCELLOR, with purse and mace before him.
    4. CHORISTERS singing.                                    [Music]
    5. MAYOR OF LONDON, bearing the mace. Then GARTER, in
       his coat of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper
       crown.
    6. MARQUIS DORSET, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a
       demi-coronal of gold. With him, the EARL OF SURREY,
       bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an
       earl's coronet. Collars of Esses.
    7. DUKE OF SUFFOLK, in his robe of estate, his coronet on
       his head, bearing a long white wand, as High Steward.
       With him, the DUKE OF NORFOLK, with the rod of
       marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of Esses.
    8. A canopy borne by four of the CINQUE-PORTS; under it
       the QUEEN in her robe; in her hair richly adorned with
       pearl, crowned. On each side her, the BISHOPS OF LONDON
       and WINCHESTER.
    9. The old DUCHESS OF NORFOLK, in a coronal of gold
       wrought with flowers, bearing the QUEEN'S train.
   10. Certain LADIES or COUNTESSES, with plain circlets of gold
       without flowers.

             Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and state,
                                and then a great flourish of trumpets

  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A royal train, believe me. These know.
    Who's that that bears the sceptre?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Marquis Dorset;
    And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A bold brave gentleman. That should be
    The Duke of Suffolk?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. 'Tis the same-High Steward.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. And that my Lord of Norfolk?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Yes.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN.  [Looking on the QUEEN]  Heaven
      bless thee!
    Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on.
    Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel;
    Our king has all the Indies in his arms,
    And more and richer, when he strains that lady;
    I cannot blame his conscience.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. They that bear
    The cloth of honour over her are four barons
    Of the Cinque-ports.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Those men are happy; and so are all
      are near her.
    I take it she that carries up the train
    Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. It is; and all the rest are countesses.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Their coronets say so. These are stars indeed,
    And sometimes falling ones.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. No more of that.
                   Exit Procession, with a great flourish of trumpets

               Enter a third GENTLEMAN

    God save you, sir! Where have you been broiling?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Among the crowds i' th' Abbey, where a finger
    Could not be wedg'd in more; I am stifled
    With the mere rankness of their joy.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. You saw
    The ceremony?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. That I did.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. How was it?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Well worth the seeing.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Good sir, speak it to us.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. As well as I am able. The rich stream
    Of lords and ladies, having brought the Queen
    To a prepar'd place in the choir, fell of
    A distance from her, while her Grace sat down
    To rest awhile, some half an hour or so,
    In a rich chair of state, opposing freely
    The beauty of her person to the people.
    Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest woman
    That ever lay by man; which when the people
    Had the full view of, such a noise arose
    As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest,
    As loud, and to as many tunes; hats, cloaks-
    Doublets, I think-flew up, and had their faces
    Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy
    I never saw before. Great-bellied women,
    That had not half a week to go, like rams
    In the old time of war, would shake the press,
    And make 'em reel before 'em. No man living
    Could say 'This is my wife' there, all were woven
    So strangely in one piece.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. But what follow'd?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. At length her Grace rose, and with
      modest paces
    Came to the altar, where she kneel'd, and saintlike
    Cast her fair eyes to heaven, and pray'd devoutly.
    Then rose again, and bow'd her to the people;
    When by the Archbishop of Canterbury
    She had all the royal makings of a queen:
    As holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown,
    The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems
    Laid nobly on her; which perform'd, the choir,
    With all the choicest music of the kingdom,
    Together sung 'Te Deum.' So she parted,
    And with the same full state pac'd back again
    To York Place, where the feast is held.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Sir,
    You must no more call it York Place: that's past:
    For since the Cardinal fell that title's lost.
    'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. I know it;
    But 'tis so lately alter'd that the old name
    Is fresh about me.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What two reverend bishops
    Were those that went on each side of the Queen?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Stokesly and Gardiner: the one of Winchester,
    Newly preferr'd from the King's secretary;
    The other, London.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. He of Winchester
    Is held no great good lover of the Archbishop's,
    The virtuous Cranmer.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. All the land knows that;
    However, yet there is no great breach. When it comes,
    Cranmer will find a friend will not shrink from him.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Who may that be, I pray you?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Thomas Cromwell,
    A man in much esteem with th' King, and truly
    A worthy friend. The King has made him Master
    O' th' jewel House,
    And one, already, of the Privy Council.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. He will deserve more.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Yes, without all doubt.
    Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way, which
    Is to th' court, and there ye shall be my guests:
    Something I can command. As I walk thither,
    I'll tell ye more.
  BOTH. You may command us, sir.                               Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 2.

Kimbolton

Enter KATHARINE, Dowager, sick; led between GRIFFITH, her Gentleman
Usher, and PATIENCE, her woman

  GRIFFITH. How does your Grace?
  KATHARINE. O Griffith, sick to death!
    My legs like loaden branches bow to th' earth,
    Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair.
    So-now, methinks, I feel a little ease.
    Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,
    That the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey,
    Was dead?
  GRIFFITH. Yes, madam; but I think your Grace,
    Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to't.
  KATHARINE. Prithee, good Griffith, tell me how he died.
    If well, he stepp'd before me, happily,
    For my example.
  GRIFFITH. Well, the voice goes, madam;
    For after the stout Earl Northumberland
    Arrested him at York and brought him forward,
    As a man sorely tainted, to his answer,
    He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill
    He could not sit his mule.
  KATHARINE. Alas, poor man!
  GRIFFITH. At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,
    Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
    With all his covent, honourably receiv'd him;
    To whom he gave these words: 'O father Abbot,
    An old man, broken with the storms of state,
    Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
    Give him a little earth for charity!'
    So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness
    Pursu'd him still And three nights after this,
    About the hour of eight-which he himself
    Foretold should be his last-full of repentance,
    Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
    He gave his honours to the world again,
    His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
  KATHARINE. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!
    Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,
    And yet with charity. He was a man
    Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
    Himself with princes; one that, by suggestion,
    Tied all the kingdom. Simony was fair play;
    His own opinion was his law. I' th' presence
    He would say untruths, and be ever double
    Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
    But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.
    His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
    But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
    Of his own body he was ill, and gave
    The clergy ill example.
  GRIFFITH. Noble madam,
    Men's evil manners live in brass: their virtues
    We write in water. May it please your Highness
    To hear me speak his good now?
  KATHARINE. Yes, good Griffith;
    I were malicious else.
  GRIFFITH. This Cardinal,
    Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
    Was fashion'd to much honour from his cradle.
    He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
    Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading;
    Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not,
    But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.
    And though he were unsatisfied in getting-
    Which was a sin-yet in bestowing, madam,
    He was most princely: ever witness for him
    Those twins of learning that he rais'd in you,
    Ipswich and Oxford! One of which fell with him,
    Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
    The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,
    So excellent in art, and still so rising,
    That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
    His overthrow heap'd happiness upon him;
    For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
    And found the blessedness of being little.
    And, to add greater honours to his age
    Than man could give him, he died fearing God.
  KATHARINE. After my death I wish no other herald,
    No other speaker of my living actions,
    To keep mine honour from corruption,
    But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.
    Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,
    With thy religious truth and modesty,
    Now in his ashes honour. Peace be with him!
    patience, be near me still, and set me lower:
    I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,
    Cause the musicians play me that sad note
    I nam'd my knell, whilst I sit meditating
    On that celestial harmony I go to.
                                              [Sad and solemn music]
  GRIFFITH. She is asleep. Good wench, let's sit down quiet,
    For fear we wake her. Softly, gentle Patience.

                 THE VISION.

      Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six PERSONAGES clad
      in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and
      golden vizards on their faces; branches of bays or palm in their
      hands. They first congee unto her, then dance; and, at certain
      changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her head, at
      which the other four make reverent curtsies. Then the two that
      held the garland deliver the same to the other next two, who
      observe the same order in their changes, and holding the garland
      over her head; which done, they deliver the same garland to the
      last two, who likewise observe the same order; at which, as it
      were by inspiration, she makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing,
      and holdeth up her hands to heaven. And so in their dancing
      vanish, carrying the garland with them. The music continues

  KATHARINE. Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone?
    And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?
  GRIFFITH. Madam, we are here.
  KATHARINE. It is not you I call for.
    Saw ye none enter since I slept?
  GRIFFITH. None, madam.
  KATHARINE. No? Saw you not, even now, a blessed troop
    Invite me to a banquet; whose bright faces
    Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?
    They promis'd me eternal happiness,
    And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel
    I am not worthy yet to wear. I shall, assuredly.
  GRIFFITH. I am most joyful, madam, such good dreams
    Possess your fancy.
  KATHARINE. Bid the music leave,
    They are harsh and heavy to me.                    [Music ceases]
  PATIENCE. Do you note
    How much her Grace is alter'd on the sudden?
    How long her face is drawn! How pale she looks,
    And of an earthly cold! Mark her eyes.
  GRIFFITH. She is going, wench. Pray, pray.
  PATIENCE. Heaven comfort her!

             Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. An't like your Grace-
  KATHARINE. You are a saucy fellow.
    Deserve we no more reverence?
  GRIFFITH. You are to blame,
    Knowing she will not lose her wonted greatness,
    To use so rude behaviour. Go to, kneel.
  MESSENGER. I humbly do entreat your Highness' pardon;
    My haste made me unmannerly. There is staying
    A gentleman, sent from the King, to see you.
  KATHARINE. Admit him entrance, Griffith; but this fellow
    Let me ne'er see again.                            Exit MESSENGER

              Enter LORD CAPUCIUS

    If my sight fail not,
    You should be Lord Ambassador from the Emperor,
    My royal nephew, and your name Capucius.
  CAPUCIUS. Madam, the same-your servant.
  KATHARINE. O, my Lord,
    The times and titles now are alter'd strangely
    With me since first you knew me. But, I pray you,
    What is your pleasure with me?
  CAPUCIUS. Noble lady,
    First, mine own service to your Grace; the next,
    The King's request that I would visit you,
    Who grieves much for your weakness, and by me
    Sends you his princely commendations
    And heartily entreats you take good comfort.
  KATHARINE. O my good lord, that comfort comes too late,
    'Tis like a pardon after execution:
    That gentle physic, given in time, had cur'd me;
    But now I am past all comforts here, but prayers.
    How does his Highness?
  CAPUCIUS. Madam, in good health.
  KATHARINE. So may he ever do! and ever flourish
    When I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name
    Banish'd the kingdom! Patience, is that letter
    I caus'd you write yet sent away?
  PATIENCE. No, madam.                       [Giving it to KATHARINE]
  KATHARINE. Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliver
    This to my lord the King.
  CAPUCIUS. Most willing, madam.
  KATHARINE. In which I have commended to his goodness
    The model of our chaste loves, his young daughter-
    The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!-
    Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding-
    She is young, and of a noble modest nature;
    I hope she will deserve well-and a little
    To love her for her mother's sake, that lov'd him,
    Heaven knows how dearly. My next poor petition
    Is that his noble Grace would have some pity
    Upon my wretched women that so long
    Have follow'd both my fortunes faithfully;
    Of which there is not one, I dare avow-
    And now I should not lie-but will deserve,
    For virtue and true beauty of the soul,
    For honesty and decent carriage,
    A right good husband, let him be a noble;
    And sure those men are happy that shall have 'em.
    The last is for my men-they are the poorest,
    But poverty could never draw 'em from me-
    That they may have their wages duly paid 'em,
    And something over to remember me by.
    If heaven had pleas'd to have given me longer life
    And able means, we had not parted thus.
    These are the whole contents; and, good my lord,
    By that you love the dearest in this world,
    As you wish Christian peace to souls departed,
    Stand these poor people's friend, and urge the King
    To do me this last right.
  CAPUCIUS. By heaven, I will,
    Or let me lose the fashion of a man!
  KATHARINE. I thank you, honest lord. Remember me
    In all humility unto his Highness;
    Say his long trouble now is passing
    Out of this world. Tell him in death I bless'd him,
    For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell,
    My lord. Griffith, farewell. Nay, Patience,
    You must not leave me yet. I must to bed;
    Call in more women. When I am dead, good wench,
    Let me be us'd with honour; strew me over
    With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
    I was a chaste wife to my grave. Embalm me,
    Then lay me forth; although unqueen'd, yet like
    A queen, and daughter to a king, inter me.
    I can no more.                          Exeunt, leading KATHARINE

ACT V. SCENE 1.

London. A gallery in the palace

Enter GARDINER, BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, a PAGE with a torch before him,
met by SIR THOMAS LOVELL

  GARDINER. It's one o'clock, boy, is't not?
  BOY. It hath struck.
  GARDINER. These should be hours for necessities,
    Not for delights; times to repair our nature
    With comforting repose, and not for us
    To waste these times. Good hour of night, Sir Thomas!
    Whither so late?
  LOVELL. Came you from the King, my lord?
  GARDINER. I did, Sir Thomas, and left him at primero
    With the Duke of Suffolk.
  LOVELL. I must to him too,
    Before he go to bed. I'll take my leave.
  GARDINER. Not yet, Sir Thomas Lovell. What's the matter?
    It seems you are in haste. An if there be
    No great offence belongs to't, give your friend
    Some touch of your late business. Affairs that walk-
    As they say spirits do-at midnight, have
    In them a wilder nature than the business
    That seeks despatch by day.
  LOVELL. My lord, I love you;
    And durst commend a secret to your ear
    Much weightier than this work. The Queen's in labour,
    They say in great extremity, and fear'd
    She'll with the labour end.
  GARDINER. The fruit she goes with
    I pray for heartily, that it may find
    Good time, and live; but for the stock, Sir Thomas,
    I wish it grubb'd up now.
  LOVELL. Methinks I could
    Cry thee amen; and yet my conscience says
    She's a good creature, and, sweet lady, does
    Deserve our better wishes.
  GARDINER. But, sir, sir-
    Hear me, Sir Thomas. Y'are a gentleman
    Of mine own way; I know you wise, religious;
    And, let me tell you, it will ne'er be well-
    'Twill not, Sir Thomas Lovell, take't of me-
    Till Cranmer, Cromwell, her two hands, and she,
    Sleep in their graves.
  LOVELL. Now, sir, you speak of two
    The most remark'd i' th' kingdom. As for Cromwell,
    Beside that of the Jewel House, is made Master
    O' th' Rolls, and the King's secretary; further, sir,
    Stands in the gap and trade of moe preferments,
    With which the time will load him. Th' Archbishop
    Is the King's hand and tongue, and who dare speak
    One syllable against him?
  GARDINER. Yes, yes, Sir Thomas,
    There are that dare; and I myself have ventur'd
    To speak my mind of him; and indeed this day,
    Sir-I may tell it you-I think I have
    Incens'd the lords o' th' Council, that he is-
    For so I know he is, they know he is-
    A most arch heretic, a pestilence
    That does infect the land; with which they moved
    Have broken with the King, who hath so far
    Given ear to our complaint-of his great grace
    And princely care, foreseeing those fell mischiefs
    Our reasons laid before him-hath commanded
    To-morrow morning to the Council board
    He be convented. He's a rank weed, Sir Thomas,
    And we must root him out. From your affairs
    I hinder you too long-good night, Sir Thomas.
  LOVELL. Many good nights, my lord; I rest your servant.
                                             Exeunt GARDINER and PAGE

         Enter the KING and the DUKE OF SUFFOLK

  KING. Charles, I will play no more to-night;
    My mind's not on't; you are too hard for me.
  SUFFOLK. Sir, I did never win of you before.
  KING. But little, Charles;
    Nor shall not, when my fancy's on my play.
    Now, Lovell, from the Queen what is the news?
  LOVELL. I could not personally deliver to her
    What you commanded me, but by her woman
    I sent your message; who return'd her thanks
    In the great'st humbleness, and desir'd your Highness
    Most heartily to pray for her.
  KING. What say'st thou, ha?
    To pray for her? What, is she crying out?
  LOVELL. So said her woman; and that her suff'rance made
    Almost each pang a death.
  KING. Alas, good lady!
  SUFFOLK. God safely quit her of her burden, and
    With gentle travail, to the gladding of
    Your Highness with an heir!
  KING. 'Tis midnight, Charles;
    Prithee to bed; and in thy pray'rs remember
    Th' estate of my poor queen. Leave me alone,
    For I must think of that which company
    Will not be friendly to.
  SUFFOLK. I wish your Highness
    A quiet night, and my good mistress will
    Remember in my prayers.
  KING. Charles, good night.                             Exit SUFFOLK

         Enter SIR ANTHONY DENNY

    Well, sir, what follows?
  DENNY. Sir, I have brought my lord the Archbishop,
    As you commanded me.
  KING. Ha! Canterbury?
  DENNY. Ay, my good lord.
  KING. 'Tis true. Where is he, Denny?
  DENNY. He attends your Highness' pleasure.
  KING. Bring him to us.                                   Exit DENNY
  LOVELL.  [Aside]  This is about that which the bishop spake.
    I am happily come hither.

         Re-enter DENNY, With CRANMER

  KING. Avoid the gallery.                     [LOVELL seems to stay]
    Ha! I have said. Be gone.
    What!                                     Exeunt LOVELL and DENNY
  CRANMER.  [Aside]  I am fearful-wherefore frowns he thus?
    'Tis his aspect of terror. All's not well.
  KING. How now, my lord? You do desire to know
    Wherefore I sent for you.
  CRANMER.  [Kneeling]  It is my duty
    T'attend your Highness' pleasure.
  KING. Pray you, arise,
    My good and gracious Lord of Canterbury.
    Come, you and I must walk a turn together;
    I have news to tell you; come, come, me your hand.
    Ah, my good lord, I grieve at what I speak,
    And am right sorry to repeat what follows.
    I have, and most unwillingly, of late
    Heard many grievous-I do say, my lord,
    Grievous-complaints of you; which, being consider'd,
    Have mov'd us and our Council that you shall
    This morning come before us; where I know
    You cannot with such freedom purge yourself
    But that, till further trial in those charges
    Which will require your answer, you must take
    Your patience to you and be well contented
    To make your house our Tow'r. You a brother of us,
    It fits we thus proceed, or else no witness
    Would come against you.
  CRANMER. I humbly thank your Highness
    And am right glad to catch this good occasion
    Most throughly to be winnowed where my chaff
    And corn shall fly asunder; for I know
    There's none stands under more calumnious tongues
    Than I myself, poor man.
  KING. Stand up, good Canterbury;
    Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted
    In us, thy friend. Give me thy hand, stand up;
    Prithee let's walk. Now, by my holidame,
    What manner of man are you? My lord, I look'd
    You would have given me your petition that
    I should have ta'en some pains to bring together
    Yourself and your accusers, and to have heard you
    Without indurance further.
  CRANMER. Most dread liege,
    The good I stand on is my truth and honesty;
    If they shall fail, I with mine enemies
    Will triumph o'er my person; which I weigh not,
    Being of those virtues vacant. I fear nothing
    What can be said against me.
  KING. Know you not
    How your state stands i' th' world, with the whole world?
    Your enemies are many, and not small; their practices
    Must bear the same proportion; and not ever
    The justice and the truth o' th' question carries
    The due o' th' verdict with it; at what ease
    Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt
    To swear against you? Such things have been done.
    You are potently oppos'd, and with a malice
    Of as great size. Ween you of better luck,
    I mean in perjur'd witness, than your Master,
    Whose minister you are, whiles here He liv'd
    Upon this naughty earth? Go to, go to;
    You take a precipice for no leap of danger,
    And woo your own destruction.
  CRANMER. God and your Majesty
    Protect mine innocence, or I fall into
    The trap is laid for me!
  KING. Be of good cheer;
    They shall no more prevail than we give way to.
    Keep comfort to you, and this morning see
    You do appear before them; if they shall chance,
    In charging you with matters, to commit you,
    The best persuasions to the contrary
    Fail not to use, and with what vehemency
    Th' occasion shall instruct you. If entreaties
    Will render you no remedy, this ring
    Deliver them, and your appeal to us
    There make before them. Look, the good man weeps!
    He's honest, on mine honour. God's blest Mother!
    I swear he is true-hearted, and a soul
    None better in my kingdom. Get you gone,
    And do as I have bid you.
                                                         Exit CRANMER
    He has strangled his language in his tears.

           Enter OLD LADY

  GENTLEMAN.  [Within]  Come back; what mean you?
  OLD LADY. I'll not come back; the tidings that I bring
    Will make my boldness manners. Now, good angels
    Fly o'er thy royal head, and shade thy person
    Under their blessed wings!
  KING. Now, by thy looks
    I guess thy message. Is the Queen deliver'd?
    Say ay, and of a boy.
  OLD LADY. Ay, ay, my liege;
    And of a lovely boy. The God of Heaven
    Both now and ever bless her! 'Tis a girl,
    Promises boys hereafter. Sir, your queen
    Desires your visitation, and to be
    Acquainted with this stranger; 'tis as like you
    As cherry is to cherry.
  KING. Lovell!

           Enter LOVELL

  LOVELL. Sir?
  KING. Give her an hundred marks. I'll to the Queen.            Exit
  OLD LADY. An hundred marks? By this light, I'll ha' more!
    An ordinary groom is for such payment.
    I will have more, or scold it out of him.
    Said I for this the girl was like to him! I'll
    Have more, or else unsay't; and now, while 'tis hot,
    I'll put it to the issue.                                  Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 2.

Lobby before the Council Chamber

Enter CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

  CRANMER. I hope I am not too late; and yet the gentleman
    That was sent to me from the Council pray'd me
    To make great haste. All fast? What means this? Ho!
    Who waits there? Sure you know me?

           Enter KEEPER

  KEEPER. Yes, my lord;
    But yet I cannot help you.
  CRANMER. Why?
  KEEPER. Your Grace must wait till you be call'd for.

           Enter DOCTOR BUTTS

  CRANMER. So.
  BUTTS.  [Aside]  This is a piece of malice. I am glad
    I came this way so happily; the King
    Shall understand it presently.                               Exit
  CRANMER.  [Aside]  'Tis Butts,
    The King's physician; as he pass'd along,
    How earnestly he cast his eyes upon me!
    Pray heaven he sound not my disgrace! For certain,
    This is of purpose laid by some that hate me-
    God turn their hearts! I never sought their malice-
    To quench mine honour; they would shame to make me
    Wait else at door, a fellow councillor,
    'Mong boys, grooms, and lackeys. But their pleasures
    Must be fulfill'd, and I attend with patience.

         Enter the KING and BUTTS at window above

  BUTTS. I'll show your Grace the strangest sight-
  KING. What's that, Butts?
  BUTTS. I think your Highness saw this many a day.
  KING. Body a me, where is it?
  BUTTS. There my lord:
    The high promotion of his Grace of Canterbury;
    Who holds his state at door, 'mongst pursuivants,
    Pages, and footboys.
  KING. Ha, 'tis he indeed.
    Is this the honour they do one another?
    'Tis well there's one above 'em yet. I had thought
    They had parted so much honesty among 'em-
    At least good manners-as not thus to suffer
    A man of his place, and so near our favour,
    To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasures,
    And at the door too, like a post with packets.
    By holy Mary, Butts, there's knavery!
    Let 'em alone, and draw the curtain close;
    We shall hear more anon.                                   Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 3.

The Council Chamber

A Council table brought in, with chairs and stools, and placed under
the state. Enter LORD CHANCELLOR, places himself at the upper end of
the table on the left band, a seat being left void above him, as for
Canterbury's seat. DUKE OF SUFFOLK, DUKE OF NORFOLK, SURREY, LORD
CHAMBERLAIN, GARDINER, seat themselves in order on each side; CROMWELL
at lower end, as secretary. KEEPER at the door

  CHANCELLOR. Speak to the business, master secretary;
    Why are we met in council?
  CROMWELL. Please your honours,
    The chief cause concerns his Grace of Canterbury.
  GARDINER. Has he had knowledge of it?
  CROMWELL. Yes.
  NORFOLK. Who waits there?
  KEEPER. Without, my noble lords?
  GARDINER. Yes.
  KEEPER. My Lord Archbishop;
    And has done half an hour, to know your pleasures.
  CHANCELLOR. Let him come in.
  KEEPER. Your Grace may enter now.

      CRANMER approaches the Council table

  CHANCELLOR. My good Lord Archbishop, I am very sorry
    To sit here at this present, and behold
    That chair stand empty; but we all are men,
    In our own natures frail and capable
    Of our flesh; few are angels; out of which frailty
    And want of wisdom, you, that best should teach us,
    Have misdemean'd yourself, and not a little,
    Toward the King first, then his laws, in filling
    The whole realm by your teaching and your chaplains-
    For so we are inform'd-with new opinions,
    Divers and dangerous; which are heresies,
    And, not reform'd, may prove pernicious.
  GARDINER. Which reformation must be sudden too,
    My noble lords; for those that tame wild horses
    Pace 'em not in their hands to make 'em gentle,
    But stop their mouth with stubborn bits and spur 'em
    Till they obey the manage. If we suffer,
    Out of our easiness and childish pity
    To one man's honour, this contagious sickness,
    Farewell all physic; and what follows then?
    Commotions, uproars, with a general taint
    Of the whole state; as of late days our neighbours,
    The upper Germany, can dearly witness,
    Yet freshly pitied in our memories.
  CRANMER. My good lords, hitherto in all the progress
    Both of my life and office, I have labour'd,
    And with no little study, that my teaching
    And the strong course of my authority
    Might go one way, and safely; and the end
    Was ever to do well. Nor is there living-
    I speak it with a single heart, my lords-
    A man that more detests, more stirs against,
    Both in his private conscience and his place,
    Defacers of a public peace than I do.
    Pray heaven the King may never find a heart
    With less allegiance in it! Men that make
    Envy and crooked malice nourishment
    Dare bite the best. I do beseech your lordships
    That, in this case of justice, my accusers,
    Be what they will, may stand forth face to face
    And freely urge against me.
  SUFFOLK. Nay, my lord,
    That cannot be; you are a councillor,
    And by that virtue no man dare accuse you.
  GARDINER. My lord, because we have business of more moment,
    We will be short with you. 'Tis his Highness' pleasure
    And our consent, for better trial of you,
    From hence you be committed to the Tower;
    Where, being but a private man again,
    You shall know many dare accuse you boldly,
    More than, I fear, you are provided for.
  CRANMER. Ah, my good Lord of Winchester, I thank you;
    You are always my good friend; if your will pass,
    I shall both find your lordship judge and juror,
    You are so merciful. I see your end-
    'Tis my undoing. Love and meekness, lord,
    Become a churchman better than ambition;
    Win straying souls with modesty again,
    Cast none away. That I shall clear myself,
    Lay all the weight ye can upon my patience,
    I make as little doubt as you do conscience
    In doing daily wrongs. I could say more,
    But reverence to your calling makes me modest.
  GARDINER. My lord, my lord, you are a sectary;
    That's the plain truth. Your painted gloss discovers,
    To men that understand you, words and weakness.
  CROMWELL. My Lord of Winchester, y'are a little,
    By your good favour, too sharp; men so noble,
    However faulty, yet should find respect
    For what they have been; 'tis a cruelty
    To load a falling man.
  GARDINER. Good Master Secretary,
    I cry your honour mercy; you may, worst
    Of all this table, say so.
  CROMWELL. Why, my lord?
  GARDINER. Do not I know you for a favourer
    Of this new sect? Ye are not sound.
  CROMWELL. Not sound?
  GARDINER. Not sound, I say.
  CROMWELL. Would you were half so honest!
    Men's prayers then would seek you, not their fears.
  GARDINER. I shall remember this bold language.
  CROMWELL. Do.
    Remember your bold life too.
  CHANCELLOR. This is too much;
    Forbear, for shame, my lords.
  GARDINER. I have done.
  CROMWELL. And I.
  CHANCELLOR. Then thus for you, my lord: it stands agreed,
    I take it, by all voices, that forthwith
    You be convey'd to th' Tower a prisoner;
    There to remain till the King's further pleasure
    Be known unto us. Are you all agreed, lords?
  ALL. We are.
  CRANMER. Is there no other way of mercy,
    But I must needs to th' Tower, my lords?
  GARDINER. What other
    Would you expect? You are strangely troublesome.
    Let some o' th' guard be ready there.

           Enter the guard

  CRANMER. For me?
    Must I go like a traitor thither?
  GARDINER. Receive him,
    And see him safe i' th' Tower.
  CRANMER. Stay, good my lords,
    I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords;
    By virtue of that ring I take my cause
    Out of the gripes of cruel men and give it
    To a most noble judge, the King my master.
  CHAMBERLAIN. This is the King's ring.
  SURREY. 'Tis no counterfeit.
  SUFFOLK. 'Tis the right ring, by heav'n. I told ye all,
    When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling,
    'Twould fall upon ourselves.
  NORFOLK. Do you think, my lords,
    The King will suffer but the little finger
    Of this man to be vex'd?
  CHAMBERLAIN. 'Tis now too certain;
    How much more is his life in value with him!
    Would I were fairly out on't!
  CROMWELL. My mind gave me,
    In seeking tales and informations
    Against this man-whose honesty the devil
    And his disciples only envy at-
    Ye blew the fire that burns ye. Now have at ye!

      Enter the KING frowning on them; he takes his seat

  GARDINER. Dread sovereign, how much are we bound to heaven
    In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince;
    Not only good and wise but most religious;
    One that in all obedience makes the church
    The chief aim of his honour and, to strengthen
    That holy duty, out of dear respect,
    His royal self in judgment comes to hear
    The cause betwixt her and this great offender.
  KING. You were ever good at sudden commendations,
    Bishop of Winchester. But know I come not
    To hear such flattery now, and in my presence
    They are too thin and bare to hide offences.
    To me you cannot reach you play the spaniel,
    And think with wagging of your tongue to win me;
    But whatsoe'er thou tak'st me for, I'm sure
    Thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody.
    [To CRANMER]  Good man, sit down. Now let me see the proudest
    He that dares most but wag his finger at thee.
    By all that's holy, he had better starve
    Than but once think this place becomes thee not.
  SURREY. May it please your Grace-
  KING. No, sir, it does not please me.
    I had thought I had had men of some understanding
    And wisdom of my Council; but I find none.
    Was it discretion, lords, to let this man,
    This good man-few of you deserve that title-
    This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy
    At chamber door? and one as great as you are?
    Why, what a shame was this! Did my commission
    Bid ye so far forget yourselves? I gave ye
    Power as he was a councillor to try him,
    Not as a groom. There's some of ye, I see,
    More out of malice than integrity,
    Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean;
    Which ye shall never have while I live.
  CHANCELLOR. Thus far,
    My most dread sovereign, may it like your Grace
    To let my tongue excuse all. What was purpos'd
    concerning his imprisonment was rather-
    If there be faith in men-meant for his trial
    And fair purgation to the world, than malice,
    I'm sure, in me.
  KING. Well, well, my lords, respect him;
    Take him, and use him well, he's worthy of it.
    I will say thus much for him: if a prince
    May be beholding to a subject,
    Am for his love and service so to him.
    Make me no more ado, but all embrace him;
    Be friends, for shame, my lords! My Lord of Canterbury,
    I have a suit which you must not deny me:
    That is, a fair young maid that yet wants baptism;
    You must be godfather, and answer for her.
  CRANMER. The greatest monarch now alive may glory
    In such an honour; how may I deserve it,
    That am a poor and humble subject to you?
  KING. Come, come, my lord, you'd spare your spoons. You
      shall have
    Two noble partners with you: the old Duchess of Norfolk
    And Lady Marquis Dorset. Will these please you?
    Once more, my Lord of Winchester, I charge you,
    Embrace and love this man.
  GARDINER. With a true heart
    And brother-love I do it.
  CRANMER. And let heaven
    Witness how dear I hold this confirmation.
  KING. Good man, those joyful tears show thy true heart.
    The common voice, I see, is verified
    Of thee, which says thus: 'Do my Lord of Canterbury
    A shrewd turn and he's your friend for ever.'
    Come, lords, we trifle time away; I long
    To have this young one made a Christian.
    As I have made ye one, lords, one remain;
    So I grow stronger, you more honour gain.                  Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 4.

The palace yard

Noise and tumult within. Enter PORTER and his MAN

  PORTER. You'll leave your noise anon, ye rascals. Do you
    take the court for Paris garden? Ye rude slaves, leave your
    gaping.
    [Within: Good master porter, I belong to th' larder.]
  PORTER. Belong to th' gallows, and be hang'd, ye rogue! Is
    this a place to roar in? Fetch me a dozen crab-tree staves,
    and strong ones; these are but switches to 'em. I'll scratch
    your heads. You must be seeing christenings? Do you look
    for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?
  MAN. Pray, sir, be patient; 'tis as much impossible,
    Unless we sweep 'em from the door with cannons,
    To scatter 'em as 'tis to make 'em sleep
    On May-day morning; which will never be.
    We may as well push against Paul's as stir 'em.
  PORTER. How got they in, and be hang'd?
  MAN. Alas, I know not: how gets the tide in?
    As much as one sound cudgel of four foot-
    You see the poor remainder-could distribute,
    I made no spare, sir.
  PORTER. You did nothing, sir.
  MAN. I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,
    To mow 'em down before me; but if I spar'd any
    That had a head to hit, either young or old,
    He or she, cuckold or cuckold-maker,
    Let me ne'er hope to see a chine again;
    And that I would not for a cow, God save her!
    [ Within: Do you hear, master porter?]
  PORTER. I shall be with you presently, good master puppy.
    Keep the door close, sirrah.
  MAN. What would you have me do?
  PORTER. What should you do, but knock 'em down by th'
    dozens? Is this Moorfields to muster in? Or have we some
    strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the
    women so besiege us? Bless me, what a fry of fornication
    is at door! On my Christian conscience, this one christening
    will beget a thousand: here will be father, godfather,
    and all together.
  MAN. The spoons will be the bigger, sir. There is a fellow
    somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier by his
    face, for, o' my conscience, twenty of the dog-days now
    reign in's nose; all that stand about him are under the line,
    they need no other penance. That fire-drake did I hit three
    times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged
    against me; he stands there like a mortar-piece, to blow us.
    There was a haberdasher's wife of small wit near him, that
    rail'd upon me till her pink'd porringer fell off her head,
    for kindling such a combustion in the state. I miss'd the
    meteor once, and hit that woman, who cried out 'Clubs!'
    when I might see from far some forty truncheoners draw
    to her succour, which were the hope o' th' Strand, where
    she was quartered. They fell on; I made good my place.
    At length they came to th' broomstaff to me; I defied 'em
    still; when suddenly a file of boys behind 'em, loose shot,
    deliver'd such a show'r of pebbles that I was fain to draw
    mine honour in and let 'em win the work: the devil was
    amongst 'em, I think surely.
  PORTER. These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse
    and fight for bitten apples; that no audience but the tribulation
    of Tower-hill or the limbs of Limehouse, their dear
    brothers, are able to endure. I have some of 'em in Limbo
    Patrum, and there they are like to dance these three days;
    besides the running banquet of two beadles that is to come.

          Enter the LORD CHAMBERLAIN

  CHAMBERLAIN. Mercy o' me, what a multitude are here!
    They grow still too; from all parts they are coming,
    As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters,
    These lazy knaves? Y'have made a fine hand, fellows.
    There's a trim rabble let in: are all these
    Your faithful friends o' th' suburbs? We shall have
    Great store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies,
    When they pass back from the christening.
  PORTER. An't please your honour,
    We are but men; and what so many may do,
    Not being torn a pieces, we have done.
    An army cannot rule 'em.
  CHAMBERLAIN. As I live,
    If the King blame me for't, I'll lay ye an
    By th' heels, and suddenly; and on your heads
    Clap round fines for neglect. Y'are lazy knaves;
    And here ye lie baiting of bombards, when
    Ye should do service. Hark! the trumpets sound;
    Th' are come already from the christening.
    Go break among the press and find a way out
    To let the troops pass fairly, or I'll find
    A Marshalsea shall hold ye play these two months.
  PORTER. Make way there for the Princess.
  MAN. You great fellow,
    Stand close up, or I'll make your head ache.
  PORTER. You i' th' camlet, get up o' th' rail;
    I'll peck you o'er the pales else.                         Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 5.

The palace

Enter TRUMPETS, sounding; then two ALDERMEN, LORD MAYOR, GARTER,
CRANMER, DUKE OF NORFOLK, with his marshal's staff, DUKE OF SUFFOLK,
two Noblemen bearing great standing-bowls for the christening gifts;
then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the DUCHESS OF
NORFOLK, godmother, bearing the CHILD richly habited in a mantle, etc.,
train borne by a LADY; then follows the MARCHIONESS DORSET, the other
godmother, and LADIES. The troop pass once about the stage, and GARTER
speaks

  GARTER. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long
  and ever-happy, to the high and mighty Princess of England,
  Elizabeth!

           Flourish. Enter KING and guard

  CRANMER.  [Kneeling]  And to your royal Grace and the
      good Queen!
    My noble partners and myself thus pray:
    All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady,
    Heaven ever laid up to make parents happy,
    May hourly fall upon ye!
  KING. Thank you, good Lord Archbishop.
    What is her name?
  CRANMER. Elizabeth.
  KING. Stand up, lord.                   [The KING kisses the child]
    With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee!
    Into whose hand I give thy life.
  CRANMER. Amen.
  KING. My noble gossips, y'have been too prodigal;
    I thank ye heartily. So shall this lady,
    When she has so much English.
  CRANMER. Let me speak, sir,
    For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter
    Let none think flattery, for they'll find 'em truth.
    This royal infant-heaven still move about her!-
    Though in her cradle, yet now promises
    Upon this land a thousand blessings,
    Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be-
    But few now living can behold that goodness-
    A pattern to all princes living with her,
    And all that shall succeed. Saba was never
    More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue
    Than this pure soul shall be. All princely graces
    That mould up such a mighty piece as this is,
    With all the virtues that attend the good,
    Shall still be doubled on her. Truth shall nurse her,
    Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her;
    She shall be lov'd and fear'd. Her own shall bless her:
    Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn,
    And hang their heads with sorrow. Good grows with her;
    In her days every man shall eat in safety
    Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
    The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.
    God shall be truly known; and those about her
    From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,
    And by those claim their greatness, not by blood.
    Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when
    The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix
    Her ashes new create another heir
    As great in admiration as herself,
    So shall she leave her blessedness to one-
    When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness-
    Who from the sacred ashes of her honour
    Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,
    And so stand fix'd. Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,
    That were the servants to this chosen infant,
    Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him;
    Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,
    His honour and the greatness of his name
    Shall be, and make new nations; he shall flourish,
    And like a mountain cedar reach his branches
    To all the plains about him; our children's children
    Shall see this and bless heaven.
  KING. Thou speakest wonders.
  CRANMER. She shall be, to the happiness of England,
    An aged princess; many days shall see her,
    And yet no day without a deed to crown it.
    Would I had known no more! But she must die-
    She must, the saints must have her-yet a virgin;
    A most unspotted lily shall she pass
    To th' ground, and all the world shall mourn her.
  KING. O Lord Archbishop,
    Thou hast made me now a man; never before
    This happy child did I get anything.
    This oracle of comfort has so pleas'd me
    That when I am in heaven I shall desire
    To see what this child does, and praise my Maker.
    I thank ye all. To you, my good Lord Mayor,
    And you, good brethren, I am much beholding;
    I have receiv'd much honour by your presence,
    And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords;
    Ye must all see the Queen, and she must thank ye,
    She will be sick else. This day, no man think
    Has business at his house; for all shall stay.
    This little one shall make it holiday.                     Exeunt

KING_HENRY_VIII|EPILOGUE THE EPILOGUE.

    'Tis ten to one this play can never please
    All that are here. Some come to take their ease
    And sleep an act or two; but those, we fear,
    W'have frighted with our trumpets; so, 'tis clear,
    They'll say 'tis nought; others to hear the city
    Abus'd extremely, and to cry 'That's witty!'
    Which we have not done neither; that, I fear,
    All the expected good w'are like to hear
    For this play at this time is only in
    The merciful construction of good women;
    For such a one we show'd 'em. If they smile
    And say 'twill do, I know within a while
    All the best men are ours; for 'tis ill hap
    If they hold when their ladies bid 'em clap.

THE END

1597



KING JOHN

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

    KING JOHN
    PRINCE HENRY, his son
    ARTHUR, DUKE OF BRITAINE, son of Geffrey, late Duke of
      Britaine, the elder brother of King John
    EARL OF PEMBROKE
    EARL OF ESSEX
    EARL OF SALISBURY
    LORD BIGOT
    HUBERT DE BURGH
    ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE, son to Sir Robert Faulconbridge
    PHILIP THE BASTARD, his half-brother
    JAMES GURNEY, servant to Lady Faulconbridge
    PETER OF POMFRET, a prophet

    KING PHILIP OF FRANCE
    LEWIS, the Dauphin
    LYMOGES, Duke of Austria
    CARDINAL PANDULPH, the Pope's legate
    MELUN, a French lord
    CHATILLON, ambassador from France to King John

    QUEEN ELINOR, widow of King Henry II and mother to
      King John
    CONSTANCE, Mother to Arthur
    BLANCH OF SPAIN, daughter to the King of Castile
      and niece to King John
    LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, widow of Sir Robert Faulconbridge

    Lords, Citizens of Angiers, Sheriff, Heralds, Officers,
      Soldiers, Executioners, Messengers, Attendants

SCENE: England and France

ACT I. SCENE 1

KING JOHN's palace

Enter KING JOHN, QUEEN ELINOR, PEMBROKE, ESSEX, SALISBURY, and others,
with CHATILLON

  KING JOHN. Now, say, Chatillon, what would France with us?
  CHATILLON. Thus, after greeting, speaks the King of France
    In my behaviour to the majesty,
    The borrowed majesty, of England here.
  ELINOR. A strange beginning- 'borrowed majesty'!
  KING JOHN. Silence, good mother; hear the embassy.
  CHATILLON. Philip of France, in right and true behalf
    Of thy deceased brother Geffrey's son,
    Arthur Plantagenet, lays most lawful claim
    To this fair island and the territories,
    To Ireland, Poictiers, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
    Desiring thee to lay aside the sword
    Which sways usurpingly these several titles,
    And put the same into young Arthur's hand,
    Thy nephew and right royal sovereign.
  KING JOHN. What follows if we disallow of this?
  CHATILLON. The proud control of fierce and bloody war,
    To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld.
  KING JOHN. Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,
    Controlment for controlment- so answer France.
  CHATILLON. Then take my king's defiance from my mouth-
    The farthest limit of my embassy.
  KING JOHN. Bear mine to him, and so depart in peace;
    Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
    For ere thou canst report I will be there,
    The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.
    So hence! Be thou the trumpet of our wrath
    And sullen presage of your own decay.
    An honourable conduct let him have-
    Pembroke, look to 't. Farewell, Chatillon.
                                        Exeunt CHATILLON and PEMBROKE
  ELINOR. What now, my son! Have I not ever said
    How that ambitious Constance would not cease
    Till she had kindled France and all the world
    Upon the right and party of her son?
    This might have been prevented and made whole
    With very easy arguments of love,
    Which now the manage of two kingdoms must
    With fearful bloody issue arbitrate.
  KING JOHN. Our strong possession and our right for us!
  ELINOR. Your strong possession much more than your right,
    Or else it must go wrong with you and me;
    So much my conscience whispers in your ear,
    Which none but heaven and you and I shall hear.

                  Enter a SHERIFF

  ESSEX. My liege, here is the strangest controversy
    Come from the country to be judg'd by you
    That e'er I heard. Shall I produce the men?
  KING JOHN. Let them approach.                          Exit SHERIFF
    Our abbeys and our priories shall pay
    This expedition's charge.

     Enter ROBERT FAULCONBRIDGE and PHILIP, his bastard
                     brother

    What men are you?
  BASTARD. Your faithful subject I, a gentleman
    Born in Northamptonshire, and eldest son,
    As I suppose, to Robert Faulconbridge-
    A soldier by the honour-giving hand
    Of Coeur-de-lion knighted in the field.
  KING JOHN. What art thou?
  ROBERT. The son and heir to that same Faulconbridge.
  KING JOHN. Is that the elder, and art thou the heir?
    You came not of one mother then, it seems.
  BASTARD. Most certain of one mother, mighty king-
    That is well known- and, as I think, one father;
    But for the certain knowledge of that truth
    I put you o'er to heaven and to my mother.
    Of that I doubt, as all men's children may.
  ELINOR. Out on thee, rude man! Thou dost shame thy mother,
    And wound her honour with this diffidence.
  BASTARD. I, madam? No, I have no reason for it-
    That is my brother's plea, and none of mine;
    The which if he can prove, 'a pops me out
    At least from fair five hundred pound a year.
    Heaven guard my mother's honour and my land!
  KING JOHN. A good blunt fellow. Why, being younger born,
    Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?
  BASTARD. I know not why, except to get the land.
    But once he slander'd me with bastardy;
    But whe'er I be as true begot or no,
    That still I lay upon my mother's head;
    But that I am as well begot, my liege-
    Fair fall the bones that took the pains for me!-
    Compare our faces and be judge yourself.
    If old Sir Robert did beget us both
    And were our father, and this son like him-
    O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee
    I give heaven thanks I was not like to thee!
  KING JOHN. Why, what a madcap hath heaven lent us here!
  ELINOR. He hath a trick of Coeur-de-lion's face;
    The accent of his tongue affecteth him.
    Do you not read some tokens of my son
    In the large composition of this man?
  KING JOHN. Mine eye hath well examined his parts
    And finds them perfect Richard. Sirrah, speak,
    What doth move you to claim your brother's land?
  BASTARD. Because he hath a half-face, like my father.
    With half that face would he have all my land:
    A half-fac'd groat five hundred pound a year!
  ROBERT. My gracious liege, when that my father liv'd,
    Your brother did employ my father much-
  BASTARD. Well, sir, by this you cannot get my land:
    Your tale must be how he employ'd my mother.
  ROBERT. And once dispatch'd him in an embassy
    To Germany, there with the Emperor
    To treat of high affairs touching that time.
    Th' advantage of his absence took the King,
    And in the meantime sojourn'd at my father's;
    Where how he did prevail I shame to speak-
    But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores
    Between my father and my mother lay,
    As I have heard my father speak himself,
    When this same lusty gentleman was got.
    Upon his death-bed he by will bequeath'd
    His lands to me, and took it on his death
    That this my mother's son was none of his;
    And if he were, he came into the world
    Full fourteen weeks before the course of time.
    Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,
    My father's land, as was my father's will.
  KING JOHN. Sirrah, your brother is legitimate:
    Your father's wife did after wedlock bear him,
    And if she did play false, the fault was hers;
    Which fault lies on the hazards of all husbands
    That marry wives. Tell me, how if my brother,
    Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,
    Had of your father claim'd this son for his?
    In sooth, good friend, your father might have kept
    This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world;
    In sooth, he might; then, if he were my brother's,
    My brother might not claim him; nor your father,
    Being none of his, refuse him. This concludes:
    My mother's son did get your father's heir;
    Your father's heir must have your father's land.
  ROBERT. Shall then my father's will be of no force
    To dispossess that child which is not his?
  BASTARD. Of no more force to dispossess me, sir,
    Than was his will to get me, as I think.
  ELINOR. Whether hadst thou rather be a Faulconbridge,
    And like thy brother, to enjoy thy land,
    Or the reputed son of Coeur-de-lion,
    Lord of thy presence and no land beside?
  BASTARD. Madam, an if my brother had my shape
    And I had his, Sir Robert's his, like him;
    And if my legs were two such riding-rods,
    My arms such eel-skins stuff'd, my face so thin
    That in mine ear I durst not stick a rose
    Lest men should say 'Look where three-farthings goes!'
    And, to his shape, were heir to all this land-
    Would I might never stir from off this place,
    I would give it every foot to have this face!
    I would not be Sir Nob in any case.
  ELINOR. I like thee well. Wilt thou forsake thy fortune,
    Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?
    I am a soldier and now bound to France.
  BASTARD. Brother, take you my land, I'll take my chance.
    Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,
    Yet sell your face for fivepence and 'tis dear.
    Madam, I'll follow you unto the death.
  ELINOR. Nay, I would have you go before me thither.
  BASTARD. Our country manners give our betters way.
  KING JOHN. What is thy name?
  BASTARD. Philip, my liege, so is my name begun:
    Philip, good old Sir Robert's wife's eldest son.
  KING JOHN. From henceforth bear his name whose form thou bearest:
    Kneel thou down Philip, but rise more great-
    Arise Sir Richard and Plantagenet.
  BASTARD. Brother by th' mother's side, give me your hand;
    My father gave me honour, yours gave land.
    Now blessed be the hour, by night or day,
    When I was got, Sir Robert was away!
  ELINOR. The very spirit of Plantagenet!
    I am thy grandam, Richard: call me so.
  BASTARD. Madam, by chance, but not by truth; what though?
    Something about, a little from the right,
    In at the window, or else o'er the hatch;
    Who dares not stir by day must walk by night;
    And have is have, however men do catch.
    Near or far off, well won is still well shot;
    And I am I, howe'er I was begot.
  KING JOHN. Go, Faulconbridge; now hast thou thy desire:
    A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.
    Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed
    For France, for France, for it is more than need.
  BASTARD. Brother, adieu. Good fortune come to thee!
    For thou wast got i' th' way of honesty.
                                           Exeunt all but the BASTARD
    A foot of honour better than I was;
    But many a many foot of land the worse.
    Well, now can I make any Joan a lady.
    'Good den, Sir Richard!'-'God-a-mercy, fellow!'
    And if his name be George, I'll call him Peter;
    For new-made honour doth forget men's names:
    'Tis too respective and too sociable
    For your conversion. Now your traveller,
    He and his toothpick at my worship's mess-
    And when my knightly stomach is suffic'd,
    Why then I suck my teeth and catechize
    My picked man of countries: 'My dear sir,'
    Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin
    'I shall beseech you'-That is question now;
    And then comes answer like an Absey book:
    'O sir,' says answer 'at your best command,
    At your employment, at your service, sir!'
    'No, sir,' says question 'I, sweet sir, at yours.'
    And so, ere answer knows what question would,
    Saving in dialogue of compliment,
    And talking of the Alps and Apennines,
    The Pyrenean and the river Po-
    It draws toward supper in conclusion so.
    But this is worshipful society,
    And fits the mounting spirit like myself;
    For he is but a bastard to the time
    That doth not smack of observation-
    And so am I, whether I smack or no;
    And not alone in habit and device,
    Exterior form, outward accoutrement,
    But from the inward motion to deliver
    Sweet, sweet, sweet poison for the age's tooth;
    Which, though I will not practise to deceive,
    Yet, to avoid deceit, I mean to learn;
    For it shall strew the footsteps of my rising.
    But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?
    What woman-post is this? Hath she no husband
    That will take pains to blow a horn before her?

      Enter LADY FAULCONBRIDGE, and JAMES GURNEY

    O me, 'tis my mother! How now, good lady!
    What brings you here to court so hastily?
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Where is that slave, thy brother?
      Where is he
    That holds in chase mine honour up and down?
  BASTARD. My brother Robert, old Sir Robert's son?
    Colbrand the giant, that same mighty man?
    Is it Sir Robert's son that you seek so?
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Sir Robert's son! Ay, thou unreverend boy,
    Sir Robert's son! Why scorn'st thou at Sir Robert?
    He is Sir Robert's son, and so art thou.
  BASTARD. James Gurney, wilt thou give us leave awhile?
  GURNEY. Good leave, good Philip.
  BASTARD. Philip-Sparrow! James,
    There's toys abroad-anon I'll tell thee more.
                                                          Exit GURNEY
    Madam, I was not old Sir Robert's son;
    Sir Robert might have eat his part in me
    Upon Good Friday, and ne'er broke his fast.
    Sir Robert could do: well-marry, to confess-
    Could he get me? Sir Robert could not do it:
    We know his handiwork. Therefore, good mother,
    To whom am I beholding for these limbs?
    Sir Robert never holp to make this leg.
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou conspired with thy brother too,
    That for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?
    What means this scorn, thou most untoward knave?
  BASTARD. Knight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like.
    What! I am dubb'd; I have it on my shoulder.
    But, mother, I am not Sir Robert's son:
    I have disclaim'd Sir Robert and my land;
    Legitimation, name, and all is gone.
    Then, good my mother, let me know my father-
    Some proper man, I hope. Who was it, mother?
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. Hast thou denied thyself a Faulconbridge?
  BASTARD. As faithfully as I deny the devil.
  LADY FAULCONBRIDGE. King Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father.
    By long and vehement suit I was seduc'd
    To make room for him in my husband's bed.
    Heaven lay not my transgression to my charge!
    Thou art the issue of my dear offence,
    Which was so strongly urg'd past my defence.
  BASTARD. Now, by this light, were I to get again,
    Madam, I would not wish a better father.
    Some sins do bear their privilege on earth,
    And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly;
    Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,
    Subjected tribute to commanding love,
    Against whose fury and unmatched force
    The aweless lion could not wage the fight
    Nor keep his princely heart from Richard's hand.
    He that perforce robs lions of their hearts
    May easily win a woman's. Ay, my mother,
    With all my heart I thank thee for my father!
    Who lives and dares but say thou didst not well
    When I was got, I'll send his soul to hell.
    Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin;
    And they shall say when Richard me begot,
    If thou hadst said him nay, it had been sin.
    Who says it was, he lies; I say 'twas not.                 Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 1

France. Before Angiers

Enter, on one side, AUSTRIA and forces; on the other, KING PHILIP OF
FRANCE,
LEWIS the Dauphin, CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and forces

  KING PHILIP. Before Angiers well met, brave Austria.
    Arthur, that great forerunner of thy blood,
    Richard, that robb'd the lion of his heart
    And fought the holy wars in Palestine,
    By this brave duke came early to his grave;
    And for amends to his posterity,
    At our importance hither is he come
    To spread his colours, boy, in thy behalf;
    And to rebuke the usurpation
    Of thy unnatural uncle, English John.
    Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.
  ARTHUR. God shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion's death
    The rather that you give his offspring life,
    Shadowing their right under your wings of war.
    I give you welcome with a powerless hand,
    But with a heart full of unstained love;
    Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.
  KING PHILIP. A noble boy! Who would not do thee right?
  AUSTRIA. Upon thy cheek lay I this zealous kiss
    As seal to this indenture of my love:
    That to my home I will no more return
    Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,
    Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore,
    Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides
    And coops from other lands her islanders-
    Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main,
    That water-walled bulwark, still secure
    And confident from foreign purposes-
    Even till that utmost corner of the west
    Salute thee for her king. Till then, fair boy,
    Will I not think of home, but follow arms.
  CONSTANCE. O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks,
    Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength
    To make a more requital to your love!
  AUSTRIA. The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords
    In such a just and charitable war.
  KING PHILIP. Well then, to work! Our cannon shall be bent
    Against the brows of this resisting town;
    Call for our chiefest men of discipline,
    To cull the plots of best advantages.
    We'll lay before this town our royal bones,
    Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen's blood,
    But we will make it subject to this boy.
  CONSTANCE. Stay for an answer to your embassy,
    Lest unadvis'd you stain your swords with blood;
    My Lord Chatillon may from England bring
    That right in peace which here we urge in war,
    And then we shall repent each drop of blood
    That hot rash haste so indirectly shed.

                  Enter CHATILLON

  KING PHILIP. A wonder, lady! Lo, upon thy wish,
    Our messenger Chatillon is arriv'd.
    What England says, say briefly, gentle lord;
    We coldly pause for thee. Chatillon, speak.
  CHATILLON. Then turn your forces from this paltry siege
    And stir them up against a mightier task.
    England, impatient of your just demands,
    Hath put himself in arms. The adverse winds,
    Whose leisure I have stay'd, have given him time
    To land his legions all as soon as I;
    His marches are expedient to this town,
    His forces strong, his soldiers confident.
    With him along is come the mother-queen,
    An Ate, stirring him to blood and strife;
    With her the Lady Blanch of Spain;
    With them a bastard of the king's deceas'd;
    And all th' unsettled humours of the land-
    Rash, inconsiderate, fiery voluntaries,
    With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens-
    Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
    Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
    To make a hazard of new fortunes here.
    In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits
    Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er
    Did never float upon the swelling tide
    To do offence and scathe in Christendom.             [Drum beats]
    The interruption of their churlish drums
    Cuts off more circumstance: they are at hand;
    To parley or to fight, therefore prepare.
  KING PHILIP. How much unlook'd for is this expedition!
  AUSTRIA. By how much unexpected, by so much
    We must awake endeavour for defence,
    For courage mounteth with occasion.
    Let them be welcome then; we are prepar'd.

       Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, BLANCH, the BASTARD,
                 PEMBROKE, and others

  KING JOHN. Peace be to France, if France in peace permit
    Our just and lineal entrance to our own!
    If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,
    Whiles we, God's wrathful agent, do correct
    Their proud contempt that beats His peace to heaven!
  KING PHILIP. Peace be to England, if that war return
    From France to England, there to live in peace!
    England we love, and for that England's sake
    With burden of our armour here we sweat.
    This toil of ours should be a work of thine;
    But thou from loving England art so far
    That thou hast under-wrought his lawful king,
    Cut off the sequence of posterity,
    Outfaced infant state, and done a rape
    Upon the maiden virtue of the crown.
    Look here upon thy brother Geffrey's face:
    These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;
    This little abstract doth contain that large
    Which died in Geffrey, and the hand of time
    Shall draw this brief into as huge a volume.
    That Geffrey was thy elder brother born,
    And this his son; England was Geffrey's right,
    And this is Geffrey's. In the name of God,
    How comes it then that thou art call'd a king,
    When living blood doth in these temples beat
    Which owe the crown that thou o'er-masterest?
  KING JOHN. From whom hast thou this great commission, France,
    To draw my answer from thy articles?
  KING PHILIP. From that supernal judge that stirs good thoughts
    In any breast of strong authority
    To look into the blots and stains of right.
    That judge hath made me guardian to this boy,
    Under whose warrant I impeach thy wrong,
    And by whose help I mean to chastise it.
  KING JOHN. Alack, thou dost usurp authority.
  KING PHILIP. Excuse it is to beat usurping down.
  ELINOR. Who is it thou dost call usurper, France?
  CONSTANCE. Let me make answer: thy usurping son.
  ELINOR. Out, insolent! Thy bastard shall be king,
    That thou mayst be a queen and check the world!
  CONSTANCE. My bed was ever to thy son as true
    As thine was to thy husband; and this boy
    Liker in feature to his father Geffrey
    Than thou and John in manners-being as Eke
    As rain to water, or devil to his dam.
    My boy a bastard! By my soul, I think
    His father never was so true begot;
    It cannot be, an if thou wert his mother.
  ELINOR. There's a good mother, boy, that blots thy father.
  CONSTANCE. There's a good grandam, boy, that would blot thee.
  AUSTRIA. Peace!
  BASTARD. Hear the crier.
  AUSTRIA. What the devil art thou?
  BASTARD. One that will play the devil, sir, with you,
    An 'a may catch your hide and you alone.
    You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
    Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard;
    I'll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right;
    Sirrah, look to 't; i' faith I will, i' faith.
  BLANCH. O, well did he become that lion's robe
    That did disrobe the lion of that robe!
  BASTARD. It lies as sightly on the back of him
    As great Alcides' shows upon an ass;
    But, ass, I'll take that burden from your back,
    Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.
  AUSTRIA. What cracker is this same that deafs our ears
    With this abundance of superfluous breath?
    King Philip, determine what we shall do straight.
  KING PHILIP. Women and fools, break off your conference.
    King John, this is the very sum of all:
    England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,
    In right of Arthur, do I claim of thee;
    Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?
  KING JOHN. My life as soon. I do defy thee, France.
    Arthur of Britaine, yield thee to my hand,
    And out of my dear love I'll give thee more
    Than e'er the coward hand of France can win.
    Submit thee, boy.
  ELINOR. Come to thy grandam, child.
  CONSTANCE. Do, child, go to it grandam, child;
    Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will
    Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig.
    There's a good grandam!
  ARTHUR. Good my mother, peace!
    I would that I were low laid in my grave:
    I am not worth this coil that's made for me.
  ELINOR. His mother shames him so, poor boy, he weeps.
  CONSTANCE. Now shame upon you, whe'er she does or no!
    His grandam's wrongs, and not his mother's shames,
    Draws those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes,
    Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;
    Ay, with these crystal beads heaven shall be brib'd
    To do him justice and revenge on you.
  ELINOR. Thou monstrous slanderer of heaven and earth!
  CONSTANCE. Thou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,
    Call not me slanderer! Thou and thine usurp
    The dominations, royalties, and rights,
    Of this oppressed boy; this is thy eldest son's son,
    Infortunate in nothing but in thee.
    Thy sins are visited in this poor child;
    The canon of the law is laid on him,
    Being but the second generation
    Removed from thy sin-conceiving womb.
  KING JOHN. Bedlam, have done.
  CONSTANCE. I have but this to say-
    That he is not only plagued for her sin,
    But God hath made her sin and her the plague
    On this removed issue, plagued for her
    And with her plague; her sin his injury,
    Her injury the beadle to her sin;
    All punish'd in the person of this child,
    And all for her-a plague upon her!
  ELINOR. Thou unadvised scold, I can produce
    A will that bars the title of thy son.
  CONSTANCE. Ay, who doubts that? A will, a wicked will;
    A woman's will; a cank'red grandam's will!
  KING PHILIP. Peace, lady! pause, or be more temperate.
    It ill beseems this presence to cry aim
    To these ill-tuned repetitions.
    Some trumpet summon hither to the walls
    These men of Angiers; let us hear them speak
    Whose title they admit, Arthur's or John's.

      Trumpet sounds. Enter citizens upon the walls

  CITIZEN. Who is it that hath warn'd us to the walls?
  KING PHILIP. 'Tis France, for England.
  KING JOHN. England for itself.
    You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects-
  KING PHILIP. You loving men of Angiers, Arthur's subjects,
    Our trumpet call'd you to this gentle parle-
  KING JOHN. For our advantage; therefore hear us first.
    These flags of France, that are advanced here
    Before the eye and prospect of your town,
    Have hither march'd to your endamagement;
    The cannons have their bowels full of wrath,
    And ready mounted are they to spit forth
    Their iron indignation 'gainst your walls;
    All preparation for a bloody siege
    And merciless proceeding by these French
    Confront your city's eyes, your winking gates;
    And but for our approach those sleeping stones
    That as a waist doth girdle you about
    By the compulsion of their ordinance
    By this time from their fixed beds of lime
    Had been dishabited, and wide havoc made
    For bloody power to rush upon your peace.
    But on the sight of us your lawful king,
    Who painfully with much expedient march
    Have brought a countercheck before your gates,
    To save unscratch'd your city's threat'ned cheeks-
    Behold, the French amaz'd vouchsafe a parle;
    And now, instead of bullets wrapp'd in fire,
    To make a shaking fever in your walls,
    They shoot but calm words folded up in smoke,
    To make a faithless error in your cars;
    Which trust accordingly, kind citizens,
    And let us in-your King, whose labour'd spirits,
    Forwearied in this action of swift speed,
    Craves harbourage within your city walls.
  KING PHILIP. When I have said, make answer to us both.
    Lo, in this right hand, whose protection
    Is most divinely vow'd upon the right
    Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,
    Son to the elder brother of this man,
    And king o'er him and all that he enjoys;
    For this down-trodden equity we tread
    In warlike march these greens before your town,
    Being no further enemy to you
    Than the constraint of hospitable zeal
    In the relief of this oppressed child
    Religiously provokes. Be pleased then
    To pay that duty which you truly owe
    To him that owes it, namely, this young prince;
    And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,
    Save in aspect, hath all offence seal'd up;
    Our cannons' malice vainly shall be spent
    Against th' invulnerable clouds of heaven;
    And with a blessed and unvex'd retire,
    With unhack'd swords and helmets all unbruis'd,
    We will bear home that lusty blood again
    Which here we came to spout against your town,
    And leave your children, wives, and you, in peace.
    But if you fondly pass our proffer'd offer,
    'Tis not the roundure of your old-fac'd walls
    Can hide you from our messengers of war,
    Though all these English and their discipline
    Were harbour'd in their rude circumference.
    Then tell us, shall your city call us lord
    In that behalf which we have challeng'd it;
    Or shall we give the signal to our rage,
    And stalk in blood to our possession?
  CITIZEN. In brief: we are the King of England's subjects;
    For him, and in his right, we hold this town.
  KING JOHN. Acknowledge then the King, and let me in.
  CITIZEN. That can we not; but he that proves the King,
    To him will we prove loyal. Till that time
    Have we ramm'd up our gates against the world.
  KING JOHN. Doth not the crown of England prove the King?
    And if not that, I bring you witnesses:
    Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed-
  BASTARD. Bastards and else.
  KING JOHN. To verify our title with their lives.
  KING PHILIP. As many and as well-born bloods as those-
  BASTARD. Some bastards too.
  KING PHILIP. Stand in his face to contradict his claim.
  CITIZEN. Till you compound whose right is worthiest,
    We for the worthiest hold the right from both.
  KING JOHN. Then God forgive the sin of all those souls
    That to their everlasting residence,
    Before the dew of evening fall shall fleet
    In dreadful trial of our kingdom's king!
  KING PHILIP. Amen, Amen! Mount, chevaliers; to arms!
  BASTARD. Saint George, that swing'd the dragon, and e'er since
    Sits on's horse back at mine hostess' door,
    Teach us some fence!  [To AUSTRIA]  Sirrah, were I at home,
    At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,
    I would set an ox-head to your lion's hide,
    And make a monster of you.
  AUSTRIA. Peace! no more.
  BASTARD. O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar!
  KING JOHN. Up higher to the plain, where we'll set forth
    In best appointment all our regiments.
  BASTARD. Speed then to take advantage of the field.
  KING PHILIP. It shall be so; and at the other hill
    Command the rest to stand. God and our right!              Exeunt

    Here, after excursions, enter the HERALD OF FRANCE,
              with trumpets, to the gates

  FRENCH HERALD. You men of Angiers, open wide your gates
    And let young Arthur, Duke of Britaine, in,
    Who by the hand of France this day hath made
    Much work for tears in many an English mother,
    Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground;
    Many a widow's husband grovelling lies,
    Coldly embracing the discoloured earth;
    And victory with little loss doth play
    Upon the dancing banners of the French,
    Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,
    To enter conquerors, and to proclaim
    Arthur of Britaine England's King and yours.

         Enter ENGLISH HERALD, with trumpet

  ENGLISH HERALD. Rejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:
    King John, your king and England's, doth approach,
    Commander of this hot malicious day.
    Their armours that march'd hence so silver-bright
    Hither return all gilt with Frenchmen's blood.
    There stuck no plume in any English crest
    That is removed by a staff of France;
    Our colours do return in those same hands
    That did display them when we first march'd forth;
    And like a jolly troop of huntsmen come
    Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,
    Dy'd in the dying slaughter of their foes.
    Open your gates and give the victors way.
  CITIZEN. Heralds, from off our tow'rs we might behold
    From first to last the onset and retire
    Of both your armies, whose equality
    By our best eyes cannot be censured.
    Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answer'd blows;
    Strength match'd with strength, and power confronted power;
    Both are alike, and both alike we like.
    One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,
    We hold our town for neither, yet for both.

    Enter the two KINGS, with their powers, at several doors

  KING JOHN. France, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?
    Say, shall the current of our right run on?
    Whose passage, vex'd with thy impediment,
    Shall leave his native channel and o'erswell
    With course disturb'd even thy confining shores,
    Unless thou let his silver water keep
    A peaceful progress to the ocean.
  KING PHILIP. England, thou hast not sav'd one drop of blood
    In this hot trial more than we of France;
    Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,
    That sways the earth this climate overlooks,
    Before we will lay down our just-borne arms,
    We'll put thee down, 'gainst whom these arms we bear,
    Or add a royal number to the dead,
    Gracing the scroll that tells of this war's loss
    With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.
  BASTARD. Ha, majesty! how high thy glory tow'rs
    When the rich blood of kings is set on fire!
    O, now doth Death line his dead chaps with steel;
    The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs;
    And now he feasts, mousing the flesh of men,
    In undetermin'd differences of kings.
    Why stand these royal fronts amazed thus?
    Cry 'havoc!' kings; back to the stained field,
    You equal potents, fiery kindled spirits!
    Then let confusion of one part confirm
    The other's peace. Till then, blows, blood, and death!
  KING JOHN. Whose party do the townsmen yet admit?
  KING PHILIP. Speak, citizens, for England; who's your king?
  CITIZEN. The King of England, when we know the King.
  KING PHILIP. Know him in us that here hold up his right.
  KING JOHN. In us that are our own great deputy
    And bear possession of our person here,
    Lord of our presence, Angiers, and of you.
  CITIZEN. A greater pow'r than we denies all this;
    And till it be undoubted, we do lock
    Our former scruple in our strong-barr'd gates;
    King'd of our fears, until our fears, resolv'd,
    Be by some certain king purg'd and depos'd.
  BASTARD. By heaven, these scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings,
    And stand securely on their battlements
    As in a theatre, whence they gape and point
    At your industrious scenes and acts of death.
    Your royal presences be rul'd by me:
    Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,
    Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend
    Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.
    By east and west let France and England mount
    Their battering cannon, charged to the mouths,
    Till their soul-fearing clamours have brawl'd down
    The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city.
    I'd play incessantly upon these jades,
    Even till unfenced desolation
    Leave them as naked as the vulgar air.
    That done, dissever your united strengths
    And part your mingled colours once again,
    Turn face to face and bloody point to point;
    Then in a moment Fortune shall cull forth
    Out of one side her happy minion,
    To whom in favour she shall give the day,
    And kiss him with a glorious victory.
    How like you this wild counsel, mighty states?
    Smacks it not something of the policy?
  KING JOHN. Now, by the sky that hangs above our heads,
    I like it well. France, shall we knit our pow'rs
    And lay this Angiers even with the ground;
    Then after fight who shall be king of it?
  BASTARD. An if thou hast the mettle of a king,
    Being wrong'd as we are by this peevish town,
    Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,
    As we will ours, against these saucy walls;
    And when that we have dash'd them to the ground,
    Why then defy each other, and pell-mell
    Make work upon ourselves, for heaven or hell.
  KING PHILIP. Let it be so. Say, where will you assault?
  KING JOHN. We from the west will send destruction
    Into this city's bosom.
  AUSTRIA. I from the north.
  KING PHILIP. Our thunder from the south
    Shall rain their drift of bullets on this town.
  BASTARD.  [Aside]  O prudent discipline! From north to south,
    Austria and France shoot in each other's mouth.
    I'll stir them to it.-Come, away, away!
  CITIZEN. Hear us, great kings: vouchsafe awhile to stay,
    And I shall show you peace and fair-fac'd league;
    Win you this city without stroke or wound;
    Rescue those breathing lives to die in beds
    That here come sacrifices for the field.
    Persever not, but hear me, mighty kings.
  KING JOHN. Speak on with favour; we are bent to hear.
  CITIZEN. That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch,
    Is niece to England; look upon the years
    Of Lewis the Dauphin and that lovely maid.
    If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,
    Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?
    If zealous love should go in search of virtue,
    Where should he find it purer than in Blanch?
    If love ambitious sought a match of birth,
    Whose veins bound richer blood than Lady Blanch?
    Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,
    Is the young Dauphin every way complete-
    If not complete of, say he is not she;
    And she again wants nothing, to name want,
    If want it be not that she is not he.
    He is the half part of a blessed man,
    Left to be finished by such as she;
    And she a fair divided excellence,
    Whose fulness of perfection lies in him.
    O, two such silver currents, when they join,
    Do glorify the banks that bound them in;
    And two such shores to two such streams made one,
    Two such controlling bounds, shall you be, Kings,
    To these two princes, if you marry them.
    This union shall do more than battery can
    To our fast-closed gates; for at this match
    With swifter spleen than powder can enforce,
    The mouth of passage shall we fling wide ope
    And give you entrance; but without this match,
    The sea enraged is not half so deaf,
    Lions more confident, mountains and rocks
    More free from motion-no, not Death himself
    In mortal fury half so peremptory
    As we to keep this city.
  BASTARD. Here's a stay
    That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death
    Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,
    That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas;
    Talks as familiarly of roaring lions
    As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs!
    What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?
    He speaks plain cannon-fire, and smoke and bounce;
    He gives the bastinado with his tongue;
    Our ears are cudgell'd; not a word of his
    But buffets better than a fist of France.
    Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words
    Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.
  ELINOR. Son, list to this conjunction, make this match;
    Give with our niece a dowry large enough;
    For by this knot thou shalt so surely tie
    Thy now unsur'd assurance to the crown
    That yon green boy shall have no sun to ripe
    The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.
    I see a yielding in the looks of France;
    Mark how they whisper. Urge them while their souls
    Are capable of this ambition,
    Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath
    Of soft petitions, pity, and remorse,
    Cool and congeal again to what it was.
  CITIZEN. Why answer not the double majesties
    This friendly treaty of our threat'ned town?
  KING PHILIP. Speak England first, that hath been forward first
    To speak unto this city: what say you?
  KING JOHN. If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,
    Can in this book of beauty read 'I love,'
    Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;
    For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,
    And all that we upon this side the sea-
    Except this city now by us besieg'd-
    Find liable to our crown and dignity,
    Shall gild her bridal bed, and make her rich
    In titles, honours, and promotions,
    As she in beauty, education, blood,
    Holds hand with any princess of the world.
  KING PHILIP. What say'st thou, boy? Look in the lady's face.
  LEWIS. I do, my lord, and in her eye I find
    A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,
    The shadow of myself form'd in her eye;
    Which, being but the shadow of your son,
    Becomes a sun, and makes your son a shadow.
    I do protest I never lov'd myself
    Till now infixed I beheld myself
    Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.
                                               [Whispers with BLANCH]
  BASTARD.  [Aside]  Drawn in the flattering table of her eye,
    Hang'd in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,
    And quarter'd in her heart-he doth espy
    Himself love's traitor. This is pity now,
    That hang'd and drawn and quarter'd there should be
    In such a love so vile a lout as he.
  BLANCH. My uncle's will in this respect is mine.
    If he see aught in you that makes him like,
    That anything he sees which moves his liking
    I can with ease translate it to my will;
    Or if you will, to speak more properly,
    I will enforce it eas'ly to my love.
    Further I will not flatter you, my lord,
    That all I see in you is worthy love,
    Than this: that nothing do I see in you-
    Though churlish thoughts themselves should be your judge-
    That I can find should merit any hate.
  KING JOHN. What say these young ones? What say you, my niece?
  BLANCH. That she is bound in honour still to do
    What you in wisdom still vouchsafe to say.
  KING JOHN. Speak then, Prince Dauphin; can you love this lady?
  LEWIS. Nay, ask me if I can refrain from love;
    For I do love her most unfeignedly.
  KING JOHN. Then do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,
    Poictiers, and Anjou, these five provinces,
    With her to thee; and this addition more,
    Full thirty thousand marks of English coin.
    Philip of France, if thou be pleas'd withal,
    Command thy son and daughter to join hands.
  KING PHILIP. It likes us well; young princes, close your hands.
  AUSTRIA. And your lips too; for I am well assur'd
    That I did so when I was first assur'd.
  KING PHILIP. Now, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,
    Let in that amity which you have made;
    For at Saint Mary's chapel presently
    The rites of marriage shall be solemniz'd.
    Is not the Lady Constance in this troop?
    I know she is not; for this match made up
    Her presence would have interrupted much.
    Where is she and her son? Tell me, who knows.
  LEWIS. She is sad and passionate at your Highness' tent.
  KING PHILIP. And, by my faith, this league that we have made
    Will give her sadness very little cure.
    Brother of England, how may we content
    This widow lady? In her right we came;
    Which we, God knows, have turn'd another way,
    To our own vantage.
  KING JOHN. We will heal up all,
    For we'll create young Arthur Duke of Britaine,
    And Earl of Richmond; and this rich fair town
    We make him lord of. Call the Lady Constance;
    Some speedy messenger bid her repair
    To our solemnity. I trust we shall,
    If not fill up the measure of her will,
    Yet in some measure satisfy her so
    That we shall stop her exclamation.
    Go we as well as haste will suffer us
    To this unlook'd-for, unprepared pomp.
                                           Exeunt all but the BASTARD
  BASTARD. Mad world! mad kings! mad composition!
    John, to stop Arthur's tide in the whole,
    Hath willingly departed with a part;
    And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,
    Whom zeal and charity brought to the field
    As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear
    With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,
    That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,
    That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,
    Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,
    Who having no external thing to lose
    But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that;
    That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,
    Commodity, the bias of the world-
    The world, who of itself is peised well,
    Made to run even upon even ground,
    Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
    This sway of motion, this commodity,
    Makes it take head from all indifferency,
    From all direction, purpose, course, intent-
    And this same bias, this commodity,
    This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
    Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,
    Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,
    From a resolv'd and honourable war,
    To a most base and vile-concluded peace.
    And why rail I on this commodity?
    But for because he hath not woo'd me yet;
    Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
    When his fair angels would salute my palm,
    But for my hand, as unattempted yet,
    Like a poor beggar raileth on the rich.
    Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
    And say there is no sin but to be rich;
    And being rich, my virtue then shall be
    To say there is no vice but beggary.
    Since kings break faith upon commodity,
    Gain, be my lord, for I will worship thee.                   Exit

ACT III. SCENE 1.

France. The FRENCH KING'S camp

Enter CONSTANCE, ARTHUR, and SALISBURY

  CONSTANCE. Gone to be married! Gone to swear a peace!
    False blood to false blood join'd! Gone to be friends!
    Shall Lewis have Blanch, and Blanch those provinces?
    It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard;
    Be well advis'd, tell o'er thy tale again.
    It cannot be; thou dost but say 'tis so;
    I trust I may not trust thee, for thy word
    Is but the vain breath of a common man:
    Believe me I do not believe thee, man;
    I have a king's oath to the contrary.
    Thou shalt be punish'd for thus frighting me,
    For I am sick and capable of fears,
    Oppress'd with wrongs, and therefore full of fears;
    A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;
    A woman, naturally born to fears;
    And though thou now confess thou didst but jest,
    With my vex'd spirits I cannot take a truce,
    But they will quake and tremble all this day.
    What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?
    Why dost thou look so sadly on my son?
    What means that hand upon that breast of thine?
    Why holds thine eye that lamentable rheum,
    Like a proud river peering o'er his bounds?
    Be these sad signs confirmers of thy words?
    Then speak again-not all thy former tale,
    But this one word, whether thy tale be true.
  SALISBURY. As true as I believe you think them false
    That give you cause to prove my saying true.
  CONSTANCE. O, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,
    Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die;
    And let belief and life encounter so
    As doth the fury of two desperate men
    Which in the very meeting fall and die!
    Lewis marry Blanch! O boy, then where art thou?
    France friend with England; what becomes of me?
    Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook thy sight;
    This news hath made thee a most ugly man.
  SALISBURY. What other harm have I, good lady, done
    But spoke the harm that is by others done?
  CONSTANCE. Which harm within itself so heinous is
    As it makes harmful all that speak of it.
  ARTHUR. I do beseech you, madam, be content.
  CONSTANCE. If thou that bid'st me be content wert grim,
    Ugly, and sland'rous to thy mother's womb,
    Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains,
    Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious,
    Patch'd with foul moles and eye-offending marks,
    I would not care, I then would be content;
    For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou
    Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.
    But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy,
    Nature and Fortune join'd to make thee great:
    Of Nature's gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,
    And with the half-blown rose; but Fortune, O!
    She is corrupted, chang'd, and won from thee;
    Sh' adulterates hourly with thine uncle John,
    And with her golden hand hath pluck'd on France
    To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,
    And made his majesty the bawd to theirs.
    France is a bawd to Fortune and King John-
    That strumpet Fortune, that usurping John!
    Tell me, thou fellow, is not France forsworn?
    Envenom him with words, or get thee gone
    And leave those woes alone which I alone
    Am bound to under-bear.
  SALISBURY. Pardon me, madam,
    I may not go without you to the kings.
  CONSTANCE. Thou mayst, thou shalt; I will not go with thee;
    I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,
    For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.
    To me, and to the state of my great grief,
    Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great
    That no supporter but the huge firm earth
    Can hold it up.                     [Seats herself on the ground]
    Here I and sorrows sit;
    Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.

       Enter KING JOHN, KING PHILIP, LEWIS, BLANCH,
       ELINOR, the BASTARD, AUSTRIA, and attendants

  KING PHILIP. 'Tis true, fair daughter, and this blessed day
    Ever in France shall be kept festival.
    To solemnize this day the glorious sun
    Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,
    Turning with splendour of his precious eye
    The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold.
    The yearly course that brings this day about
    Shall never see it but a holiday.
  CONSTANCE.  [Rising]  A wicked day, and not a holy day!
    What hath this day deserv'd? what hath it done
    That it in golden letters should be set
    Among the high tides in the calendar?
    Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,
    This day of shame, oppression, perjury;
    Or, if it must stand still, let wives with child
    Pray that their burdens may not fall this day,
    Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd;
    But on this day let seamen fear no wreck;
    No bargains break that are not this day made;
    This day, all things begun come to ill end,
    Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!
  KING PHILIP. By heaven, lady, you shall have no cause
    To curse the fair proceedings of this day.
    Have I not pawn'd to you my majesty?
  CONSTANCE. You have beguil'd me with a counterfeit
    Resembling majesty, which, being touch'd and tried,
    Proves valueless; you are forsworn, forsworn;
    You came in arms to spill mine enemies' blood,
    But now in arms you strengthen it with yours.
    The grappling vigour and rough frown of war
    Is cold in amity and painted peace,
    And our oppression hath made up this league.
    Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjur'd kings!
    A widow cries: Be husband to me, heavens!
    Let not the hours of this ungodly day
    Wear out the day in peace; but, ere sunset,
    Set armed discord 'twixt these perjur'd kings!
    Hear me, O, hear me!
  AUSTRIA. Lady Constance, peace!
  CONSTANCE. War! war! no peace! Peace is to me a war.
    O Lymoges! O Austria! thou dost shame
    That bloody spoil. Thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward!
    Thou little valiant, great in villainy!
    Thou ever strong upon the stronger side!
    Thou Fortune's champion that dost never fight
    But when her humorous ladyship is by
    To teach thee safety! Thou art perjur'd too,
    And sooth'st up greatness. What a fool art thou,
    A ramping fool, to brag and stamp and swear
    Upon my party! Thou cold-blooded slave,
    Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side,
    Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend
    Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength,
    And dost thou now fall over to my foes?
    Thou wear a lion's hide! Doff it for shame,
    And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
  AUSTRIA. O that a man should speak those words to me!
  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
  AUSTRIA. Thou dar'st not say so, villain, for thy life.
  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on those recreant limbs.
  KING JOHN. We like not this: thou dost forget thyself.

                  Enter PANDULPH

  KING PHILIP. Here comes the holy legate of the Pope.
  PANDULPH. Hail, you anointed deputies of heaven!
    To thee, King John, my holy errand is.
    I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,
    And from Pope Innocent the legate here,
    Do in his name religiously demand
    Why thou against the Church, our holy mother,
    So wilfully dost spurn; and force perforce
    Keep Stephen Langton, chosen Archbishop
    Of Canterbury, from that holy see?
    This, in our foresaid holy father's name,
    Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.
  KING JOHN. What earthly name to interrogatories
    Can task the free breath of a sacred king?
    Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name
    So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,
    To charge me to an answer, as the Pope.
    Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England
    Add thus much more, that no Italian priest
    Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;
    But as we under heaven are supreme head,
    So, under Him that great supremacy,
    Where we do reign we will alone uphold,
    Without th' assistance of a mortal hand.
    So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart
    To him and his usurp'd authority.
  KING PHILIP. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.
  KING JOHN. Though you and all the kings of Christendom
    Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,
    Dreading the curse that money may buy out,
    And by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,
    Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,
    Who in that sale sells pardon from himself-
    Though you and all the rest, so grossly led,
    This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish;
    Yet I alone, alone do me oppose
    Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.
  PANDULPH. Then by the lawful power that I have
    Thou shalt stand curs'd and excommunicate;
    And blessed shall he be that doth revolt
    From his allegiance to an heretic;
    And meritorious shall that hand be call'd,
    Canonized, and worshipp'd as a saint,
    That takes away by any secret course
    Thy hateful life.
  CONSTANCE. O, lawful let it be
    That I have room with Rome to curse awhile!
    Good father Cardinal, cry thou 'amen'
    To my keen curses; for without my wrong
    There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.
  PANDULPH. There's law and warrant, lady, for my curse.
  CONSTANCE. And for mine too; when law can do no right,
    Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong;
    Law cannot give my child his kingdom here,
    For he that holds his kingdom holds the law;
    Therefore, since law itself is perfect wrong,
    How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?
  PANDULPH. Philip of France, on peril of a curse,
    Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,
    And raise the power of France upon his head,
    Unless he do submit himself to Rome.
  ELINOR. Look'st thou pale, France? Do not let go thy hand.
  CONSTANCE. Look to that, devil, lest that France repent
    And by disjoining hands hell lose a soul.
  AUSTRIA. King Philip, listen to the Cardinal.
  BASTARD. And hang a calf's-skin on his recreant limbs.
  AUSTRIA. Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,
    Because-
  BASTARD. Your breeches best may carry them.
  KING JOHN. Philip, what say'st thou to the Cardinal?
  CONSTANCE. What should he say, but as the Cardinal?
  LEWIS. Bethink you, father; for the difference
    Is purchase of a heavy curse from Rome
    Or the light loss of England for a friend.
    Forgo the easier.
  BLANCH. That's the curse of Rome.
  CONSTANCE. O Lewis, stand fast! The devil tempts thee here
    In likeness of a new untrimmed bride.
  BLANCH. The Lady Constance speaks not from her faith,
    But from her need.
  CONSTANCE. O, if thou grant my need,
    Which only lives but by the death of faith,
    That need must needs infer this principle-
    That faith would live again by death of need.
    O then, tread down my need, and faith mounts up:
    Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down!
  KING JOHN. The King is mov'd, and answers not to this.
  CONSTANCE. O be remov'd from him, and answer well!
  AUSTRIA. Do so, King Philip; hang no more in doubt.
  BASTARD. Hang nothing but a calf's-skin, most sweet lout.
  KING PHILIP. I am perplex'd and know not what to say.
  PANDULPH. What canst thou say but will perplex thee more,
    If thou stand excommunicate and curs'd?
  KING PHILIP. Good reverend father, make my person yours,
    And tell me how you would bestow yourself.
    This royal hand and mine are newly knit,
    And the conjunction of our inward souls
    Married in league, coupled and link'd together
    With all religious strength of sacred vows;
    The latest breath that gave the sound of words
    Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love,
    Between our kingdoms and our royal selves;
    And even before this truce, but new before,
    No longer than we well could wash our hands,
    To clap this royal bargain up of peace,
    Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd
    With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint
    The fearful difference of incensed kings.
    And shall these hands, so lately purg'd of blood,
    So newly join'd in love, so strong in both,
    Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet?
    Play fast and loose with faith? so jest with heaven,
    Make such unconstant children of ourselves,
    As now again to snatch our palm from palm,
    Unswear faith sworn, and on the marriage-bed
    Of smiling peace to march a bloody host,
    And make a riot on the gentle brow
    Of true sincerity? O, holy sir,
    My reverend father, let it not be so!
    Out of your grace, devise, ordain, impose,
    Some gentle order; and then we shall be blest
    To do your pleasure, and continue friends.
  PANDULPH. All form is formless, order orderless,
    Save what is opposite to England's love.
    Therefore, to arms! be champion of our church,
    Or let the church, our mother, breathe her curse-
    A mother's curse-on her revolting son.
    France, thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue,
    A chafed lion by the mortal paw,
    A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,
    Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.
  KING PHILIP. I may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.
  PANDULPH. So mak'st thou faith an enemy to faith;
    And like. a civil war set'st oath to oath.
    Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow
    First made to heaven, first be to heaven perform'd,
    That is, to be the champion of our Church.
    What since thou swor'st is sworn against thyself
    And may not be performed by thyself,
    For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss
    Is not amiss when it is truly done;
    And being not done, where doing tends to ill,
    The truth is then most done not doing it;
    The better act of purposes mistook
    Is to mistake again; though indirect,
    Yet indirection thereby grows direct,
    And falsehood cures, as fire cools fire
    Within the scorched veins of one new-burn'd.
    It is religion that doth make vows kept;
    But thou hast sworn against religion
    By what thou swear'st against the thing thou swear'st,
    And mak'st an oath the surety for thy truth
    Against an oath; the truth thou art unsure
    To swear swears only not to be forsworn;
    Else what a mockery should it be to swear!
    But thou dost swear only to be forsworn;
    And most forsworn to keep what thou dost swear.
    Therefore thy later vows against thy first
    Is in thyself rebellion to thyself;
    And better conquest never canst thou make
    Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts
    Against these giddy loose suggestions;
    Upon which better part our pray'rs come in,
    If thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know
    The peril of our curses fight on thee
    So heavy as thou shalt not shake them off,
    But in despair die under the black weight.
  AUSTRIA. Rebellion, flat rebellion!
  BASTARD. Will't not be?
    Will not a calf's-skin stop that mouth of thine?
  LEWIS. Father, to arms!
  BLANCH. Upon thy wedding-day?
    Against the blood that thou hast married?
    What, shall our feast be kept with slaughtered men?
    Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,
    Clamours of hell, be measures to our pomp?
    O husband, hear me! ay, alack, how new
    Is 'husband' in my mouth! even for that name,
    Which till this time my tongue did ne'er pronounce,
    Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms
    Against mine uncle.
  CONSTANCE. O, upon my knee,
    Made hard with kneeling, I do pray to thee,
    Thou virtuous Dauphin, alter not the doom
    Forethought by heaven!
  BLANCH. Now shall I see thy love. What motive may
    Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?
  CONSTANCE. That which upholdeth him that thee upholds,
    His honour. O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour!
  LEWIS. I muse your Majesty doth seem so cold,
    When such profound respects do pull you on.
  PANDULPH. I will denounce a curse upon his head.
  KING PHILIP. Thou shalt not need. England, I will fall from thee.
  CONSTANCE. O fair return of banish'd majesty!
  ELINOR. O foul revolt of French inconstancy!
  KING JOHN. France, thou shalt rue this hour within this hour.
  BASTARD. Old Time the clock-setter, that bald sexton Time,
    Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.
  BLANCH. The sun's o'ercast with blood. Fair day, adieu!
    Which is the side that I must go withal?
    I am with both: each army hath a hand;
    And in their rage, I having hold of both,
    They whirl asunder and dismember me.
    Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win;
    Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose;
    Father, I may not wish the fortune thine;
    Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive.
    Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose:
    Assured loss before the match be play'd.
  LEWIS. Lady, with me, with me thy fortune lies.
  BLANCH. There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.
  KING JOHN. Cousin, go draw our puissance together.
                                                         Exit BASTARD
    France, I am burn'd up with inflaming wrath,
    A rage whose heat hath this condition
    That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,
    The blood, and dearest-valu'd blood, of France.
  KING PHILIP. Thy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn
    To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire.
    Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.
  KING JOHN. No more than he that threats. To arms let's hie!
                                                     Exeunt severally

SCENE 2.

France. Plains near Angiers

Alarums, excursions. Enter the BASTARD with AUSTRIA'S head

  BASTARD. Now, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot;
    Some airy devil hovers in the sky
    And pours down mischief. Austria's head lie there,
    While Philip breathes.

          Enter KING JOHN, ARTHUR, and HUBERT

  KING JOHN. Hubert, keep this boy. Philip, make up:
    My mother is assailed in our tent,
    And ta'en, I fear.
  BASTARD. My lord, I rescued her;
    Her Highness is in safety, fear you not;
    But on, my liege, for very little pains
    Will bring this labour to an happy end.                    Exeunt

SCENE 3.

France. Plains near Angiers

Alarums, excursions, retreat. Enter KING JOHN, ELINOR, ARTHUR, the
BASTARD, HUBERT, and LORDS

  KING JOHN.  [To ELINOR]  So shall it be; your Grace shall stay
      behind,
    So strongly guarded.  [To ARTHUR]  Cousin, look not sad;
    Thy grandam loves thee, and thy uncle will
    As dear be to thee as thy father was.
  ARTHUR. O, this will make my mother die with grief!
  KING JOHN.  [To the BASTARD]  Cousin, away for England! haste
      before,
    And, ere our coming, see thou shake the bags
    Of hoarding abbots; imprisoned angels
    Set at liberty; the fat ribs of peace
    Must by the hungry now be fed upon.
    Use our commission in his utmost force.
  BASTARD. Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,
    When gold and silver becks me to come on.
    I leave your Highness. Grandam, I will pray,
    If ever I remember to be holy,
    For your fair safety. So, I kiss your hand.
  ELINOR. Farewell, gentle cousin.
  KING JOHN. Coz, farewell.
                                                         Exit BASTARD
  ELINOR. Come hither, little kinsman; hark, a word.
  KING JOHN. Come hither, Hubert. O my gentle Hubert,
    We owe thee much! Within this wall of flesh
    There is a soul counts thee her creditor,
    And with advantage means to pay thy love;
    And, my good friend, thy voluntary oath
    Lives in this bosom, dearly cherished.
    Give me thy hand. I had a thing to say-
    But I will fit it with some better time.
    By heaven, Hubert, I am almost asham'd
    To say what good respect I have of thee.
  HUBERT. I am much bounden to your Majesty.
  KING JOHN. Good friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,
    But thou shalt have; and creep time ne'er so slow,
    Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.
    I had a thing to say-but let it go:
    The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
    Attended with the pleasures of the world,
    Is all too wanton and too full of gawds
    To give me audience. If the midnight bell
    Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth
    Sound on into the drowsy race of night;
    If this same were a churchyard where we stand,
    And thou possessed with a thousand wrongs;
    Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,
    Had bak'd thy blood and made it heavy-thick,
    Which else runs tickling up and down the veins,
    Making that idiot, laughter, keep men's eyes
    And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,
    A passion hateful to my purposes;
    Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,
    Hear me without thine cars, and make reply
    Without a tongue, using conceit alone,
    Without eyes, ears, and harmful sound of words-
    Then, in despite of brooded watchful day,
    I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.
    But, ah, I will not! Yet I love thee well;
    And, by my troth, I think thou lov'st me well.
  HUBERT. So well that what you bid me undertake,
    Though that my death were adjunct to my act,
    By heaven, I would do it.
  KING JOHN. Do not I know thou wouldst?
    Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye
    On yon young boy. I'll tell thee what, my friend,
    He is a very serpent in my way;
    And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,
    He lies before me. Dost thou understand me?
    Thou art his keeper.
  HUBERT. And I'll keep him so
    That he shall not offend your Majesty.
  KING JOHN. Death.
  HUBERT. My lord?
  KING JOHN. A grave.
  HUBERT. He shall not live.
  KING JOHN. Enough!
    I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee.
    Well, I'll not say what I intend for thee.
    Remember. Madam, fare you well;
    I'll send those powers o'er to your Majesty.
  ELINOR. My blessing go with thee!
  KING JOHN.  [To ARTHUR]  For England, cousin, go;
    Hubert shall be your man, attend on you
    With all true duty. On toward Calais, ho!                  Exeunt

SCENE 4.

France. The FRENCH KING's camp

Enter KING PHILIP, LEWIS, PANDULPH, and attendants

  KING PHILIP. So by a roaring tempest on the flood
    A whole armado of convicted sail
    Is scattered and disjoin'd from fellowship.
  PANDULPH. Courage and comfort! All shall yet go well.
  KING PHILIP. What can go well, when we have run so ill.
    Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?
    Arthur ta'en prisoner? Divers dear friends slain?
    And bloody England into England gone,
    O'erbearing interruption, spite of France?
  LEWIS. he hath won, that hath he fortified;
    So hot a speed with such advice dispos'd,
    Such temperate order in so fierce a cause,
    Doth want example; who hath read or heard
    Of any kindred action like to this?
  KING PHILIP. Well could I bear that England had this praise,
    So we could find some pattern of our shame.

                   Enter CONSTANCE

    Look who comes here! a grave unto a soul;
    Holding th' eternal spirit, against her will,
    In the vile prison of afflicted breath.
    I prithee, lady, go away with me.
  CONSTANCE. Lo now! now see the issue of your peace!
  KING PHILIP. Patience, good lady! Comfort, gentle Constance!
  CONSTANCE. No, I defy all counsel, all redress,
    But that which ends all counsel, true redress-
    Death, death; O amiable lovely death!
    Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!
    Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
    Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
    And I will kiss thy detestable bones,
    And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows,
    And ring these fingers with thy household worms,
    And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
    And be a carrion monster like thyself.
    Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil'st,
    And buss thee as thy wife. Misery's love,
    O, come to me!
  KING PHILIP. O fair affliction, peace!
  CONSTANCE. No, no, I will not, having breath to cry.
    O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth!
    Then with a passion would I shake the world,
    And rouse from sleep that fell anatomy
    Which cannot hear a lady's feeble voice,
    Which scorns a modern invocation.
  PANDULPH. Lady, you utter madness and not sorrow.
  CONSTANCE. Thou art not holy to belie me so.
    I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine;
    My name is Constance; I was Geffrey's wife;
    Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost.
    I am not mad-I would to heaven I were!
    For then 'tis like I should forget myself.
    O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
    Preach some philosophy to make me mad,
    And thou shalt be canoniz'd, Cardinal;
    For, being not mad, but sensible of grief,
    My reasonable part produces reason
    How I may be deliver'd of these woes,
    And teaches me to kill or hang myself.
    If I were mad I should forget my son,
    Or madly think a babe of clouts were he.
    I am not mad; too well, too well I feel
    The different plague of each calamity.
  KING PHILIP. Bind up those tresses. O, what love I note
    In the fair multitude of those her hairs!
    Where but by a chance a silver drop hath fall'n,
    Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends
    Do glue themselves in sociable grief,
    Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,
    Sticking together in calamity.
  CONSTANCE. To England, if you will.
  KING PHILIP. Bind up your hairs.
  CONSTANCE. Yes, that I will; and wherefore will I do it?
    I tore them from their bonds, and cried aloud
    'O that these hands could so redeem my son,
    As they have given these hairs their liberty!'
    But now I envy at their liberty,
    And will again commit them to their bonds,
    Because my poor child is a prisoner.
    And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say
    That we shall see and know our friends in heaven;
    If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
    For since the birth of Cain, the first male child,
    To him that did but yesterday suspire,
    There was not such a gracious creature born.
    But now will canker sorrow eat my bud
    And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
    And he will look as hollow as a ghost,
    As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;
    And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
    When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
    I shall not know him. Therefore never, never
    Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
  PANDULPH. You hold too heinous a respect of grief.
  CONSTANCE. He talks to me that never had a son.
  KING PHILIP. You are as fond of grief as of your child.
  CONSTANCE. Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
    Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
    Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
    Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
    Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
    Then have I reason to be fond of grief.
    Fare you well; had you such a loss as I,
    I could give better comfort than you do.
    I will not keep this form upon my head,
                                                   [Tearing her hair]
    When there is such disorder in my wit.
    O Lord! my boy, my Arthur, my fair son!
    My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!
    My widow-comfort, and my sorrows' cure!                      Exit
  KING PHILIP. I fear some outrage, and I'll follow her.         Exit
  LEWIS. There's nothing in this world can make me joy.
    Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
    Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;
    And bitter shame hath spoil'd the sweet world's taste,
    That it yields nought but shame and bitterness.
  PANDULPH. Before the curing of a strong disease,
    Even in the instant of repair and health,
    The fit is strongest; evils that take leave
    On their departure most of all show evil;
    What have you lost by losing of this day?
  LEWIS. All days of glory, joy, and happiness.
  PANDULPH. If you had won it, certainly you had.
    No, no; when Fortune means to men most good,
    She looks upon them with a threat'ning eye.
    'Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost
    In this which he accounts so clearly won.
    Are not you griev'd that Arthur is his prisoner?
  LEWIS. As heartily as he is glad he hath him.
  PANDULPH. Your mind is all as youthful as your blood.
    Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit;
    For even the breath of what I mean to speak
    Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,
    Out of the path which shall directly lead
    Thy foot to England's throne. And therefore mark:
    John hath seiz'd Arthur; and it cannot be
    That, whiles warm life plays in that infant's veins,
    The misplac'd John should entertain an hour,
    One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.
    A sceptre snatch'd with an unruly hand
    Must be boisterously maintain'd as gain'd,
    And he that stands upon a slipp'ry place
    Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up;
    That John may stand then, Arthur needs must fall;
    So be it, for it cannot be but so.
  LEWIS. But what shall I gain by young Arthur's fall?
  PANDULPH. You, in the right of Lady Blanch your wife,
    May then make all the claim that Arthur did.
  LEWIS. And lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.
  PANDULPH. How green you are and fresh in this old world!
    John lays you plots; the times conspire with you;
    For he that steeps his safety in true blood
    Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.
    This act, so evilly borne, shall cool the hearts
    Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,
    That none so small advantage shall step forth
    To check his reign but they will cherish it;
    No natural exhalation in the sky,
    No scope of nature, no distemper'd day,
    No common wind, no customed event,
    But they will pluck away his natural cause
    And call them meteors, prodigies, and signs,
    Abortives, presages, and tongues of heaven,
    Plainly denouncing vengeance upon John.
  LEWIS. May be he will not touch young Arthur's life,
    But hold himself safe in his prisonment.
  PANDULPH. O, Sir, when he shall hear of your approach,
    If that young Arthur be not gone already,
    Even at that news he dies; and then the hearts
    Of all his people shall revolt from him,
    And kiss the lips of unacquainted change,
    And pick strong matter of revolt and wrath
    Out of the bloody fingers' ends of john.
    Methinks I see this hurly all on foot;
    And, O, what better matter breeds for you
    Than I have nam'd! The bastard Faulconbridge
    Is now in England ransacking the Church,
    Offending charity; if but a dozen French
    Were there in arms, they would be as a can
    To train ten thousand English to their side;
    Or as a little snow, tumbled about,
    Anon becomes a mountain. O noble Dauphin,
    Go with me to the King. 'Tis wonderful
    What may be wrought out of their discontent,
    Now that their souls are topful of offence.
    For England go; I will whet on the King.
  LEWIS. Strong reasons makes strong actions. Let us go;
    If you say ay, the King will not say no.                   Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

England. A castle

Enter HUBERT and EXECUTIONERS

  HUBERT. Heat me these irons hot; and look thou stand
    Within the arras. When I strike my foot
    Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth
    And bind the boy which you shall find with me
    Fast to the chair. Be heedful; hence, and watch.
  EXECUTIONER. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed.
  HUBERT. Uncleanly scruples! Fear not you. Look to't.
                                                  Exeunt EXECUTIONERS
    Young lad, come forth; I have to say with you.

                    Enter ARTHUR

  ARTHUR. Good morrow, Hubert.
  HUBERT. Good morrow, little Prince.
  ARTHUR. As little prince, having so great a tide
    To be more prince, as may be. You are sad.
  HUBERT. Indeed I have been merrier.
  ARTHUR. Mercy on me!
    Methinks no body should be sad but I;
    Yet, I remember, when I was in France,
    Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
    Only for wantonness. By my christendom,
    So I were out of prison and kept sheep,
    I should be as merry as the day is long;
    And so I would be here but that I doubt
    My uncle practises more harm to me;
    He is afraid of me, and I of him.
    Is it my fault that I was Geffrey's son?
    No, indeed, ist not; and I would to heaven
    I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert.
  HUBERT.  [Aside]  If I talk to him, with his innocent prate
    He will awake my mercy, which lies dead;
    Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch.
  ARTHUR. Are you sick, Hubert? You look pale to-day;
    In sooth, I would you were a little sick,
    That I might sit all night and watch with you.
    I warrant I love you more than you do me.
  HUBERT.  [Aside]  His words do take possession of my bosom.-
    Read here, young Arthur.                        [Showing a paper]
      [Aside]  How now, foolish rheum!
    Turning dispiteous torture out of door!
    I must be brief, lest resolution drop
    Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.-
    Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?
  ARTHUR. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect.
    Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?
  HUBERT. Young boy, I must.
  ARTHUR. And will you?
  HUBERT. And I will.
  ARTHUR. Have you the heart? When your head did but ache,
    I knit my handkerchief about your brows-
    The best I had, a princess wrought it me-
    And I did never ask it you again;
    And with my hand at midnight held your head;
    And, like the watchful minutes to the hour,
    Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time,
    Saying 'What lack you?' and 'Where lies your grief?'
    Or 'What good love may I perform for you?'
    Many a poor man's son would have lyen still,
    And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;
    But you at your sick service had a prince.
    Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,
    And call it cunning. Do, an if you will.
    If heaven be pleas'd that you must use me ill,
    Why, then you must. Will you put out mine eyes,
    These eyes that never did nor never shall
    So much as frown on you?
  HUBERT. I have sworn to do it;
    And with hot irons must I burn them out.
  ARTHUR. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it!
    The iron of itself, though heat red-hot,
    Approaching near these eyes would drink my tears,
    And quench his fiery indignation
    Even in the matter of mine innocence;
    Nay, after that, consume away in rust
    But for containing fire to harm mine eye.
    Are you more stubborn-hard than hammer'd iron?
    An if an angel should have come to me
    And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,
    I would not have believ'd him-no tongue but Hubert's.
  HUBERT.  [Stamps]  Come forth.

     Re-enter EXECUTIONERS, With cord, irons, etc.

    Do as I bid you do.
  ARTHUR. O, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out
    Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.
  HUBERT. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here.
  ARTHUR. Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough?
    I will not struggle, I will stand stone-still.
    For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!
    Nay, hear me, Hubert! Drive these men away,
    And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;
    I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,
    Nor look upon the iron angrily;
    Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,
    Whatever torment you do put me to.
  HUBERT. Go, stand within; let me alone with him.
  EXECUTIONER. I am best pleas'd to be from such a deed.
                                                  Exeunt EXECUTIONERS
  ARTHUR. Alas, I then have chid away my friend!
    He hath a stern look but a gentle heart.
    Let him come back, that his compassion may
    Give life to yours.
  HUBERT. Come, boy, prepare yourself.
  ARTHUR. Is there no remedy?
  HUBERT. None, but to lose your eyes.
  ARTHUR. O heaven, that there were but a mote in yours,
    A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,
    Any annoyance in that precious sense!
    Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there,
    Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.
  HUBERT. Is this your promise? Go to, hold your tongue.
  ARTHUR. Hubert, the utterance of a brace of tongues
    Must needs want pleading for a pair of eyes.
    Let me not hold my tongue, let me not, Hubert;
    Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,
    So I may keep mine eyes. O, spare mine eyes,
    Though to no use but still to look on you!
    Lo, by my troth, the instrument is cold
    And would not harm me.
  HUBERT. I can heat it, boy.
  ARTHUR. No, in good sooth; the fire is dead with grief,
    Being create for comfort, to be us'd
    In undeserved extremes. See else yourself:
    There is no malice in this burning coal;
    The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,
    And strew'd repentant ashes on his head.
  HUBERT. But with my breath I can revive it, boy.
  ARTHUR. An if you do, you will but make it blush
    And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert.
    Nay, it perchance will sparkle in your eyes,
    And, like a dog that is compell'd to fight,
    Snatch at his master that doth tarre him on.
    All things that you should use to do me wrong
    Deny their office; only you do lack
    That mercy which fierce fire and iron extends,
    Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.
  HUBERT. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine eye
    For all the treasure that thine uncle owes.
    Yet I am sworn, and I did purpose, boy,
    With this same very iron to burn them out.
  ARTHUR. O, now you look like Hubert! All this while
    You were disguis'd.
  HUBERT. Peace; no more. Adieu.
    Your uncle must not know but you are dead:
    I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports;
    And, pretty child, sleep doubtless and secure
    That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,
    Will not offend thee.
  ARTHUR. O heaven! I thank you, Hubert.
  HUBERT. Silence; no more. Go closely in with me.
    Much danger do I undergo for thee.                         Exeunt

SCENE 2.

England. KING JOHN'S palace

Enter KING JOHN, PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and other LORDS

  KING JOHN. Here once again we sit, once again crown'd,
    And look'd upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.
  PEMBROKE. This once again, but that your Highness pleas'd,
    Was once superfluous: you were crown'd before,
    And that high royalty was ne'er pluck'd off,
    The faiths of men ne'er stained with revolt;
    Fresh expectation troubled not the land
    With any long'd-for change or better state.
  SALISBURY. Therefore, to be possess'd with double pomp,
    To guard a title that was rich before,
    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
    To throw a perfume on the violet,
    To smooth the ice, or add another hue
    Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
    To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
  PEMBROKE. But that your royal pleasure must be done,
    This act is as an ancient tale new told
    And, in the last repeating, troublesome,
    Being urged at a time unseasonable.
  SALISBURY. In this the antique and well-noted face
    Of plain old form is much disfigured;
    And like a shifted wind unto a sail
    It makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,
    Startles and frights consideration,
    Makes sound opinion sick, and truth suspected,
    For putting on so new a fashion'd robe.
  PEMBROKE. When workmen strive to do better than well,
    They do confound their skill in covetousness;
    And oftentimes excusing of a fault
    Doth make the fault the worse by th' excuse,
    As patches set upon a little breach
    Discredit more in hiding of the fault
    Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.
  SALISBURY. To this effect, before you were new-crown'd,
    We breath'd our counsel; but it pleas'd your Highness
    To overbear it; and we are all well pleas'd,
    Since all and every part of what we would
    Doth make a stand at what your Highness will.
  KING JOHN. Some reasons of this double coronation
    I have possess'd you with, and think them strong;
    And more, more strong, when lesser is my fear,
    I shall indue you with. Meantime but ask
    What you would have reform'd that is not well,
    And well shall you perceive how willingly
    I will both hear and grant you your requests.
  PEMBROKE. Then I, as one that am the tongue of these,
    To sound the purposes of all their hearts,
    Both for myself and them- but, chief of all,
    Your safety, for the which myself and them
    Bend their best studies, heartily request
    Th' enfranchisement of Arthur, whose restraint
    Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent
    To break into this dangerous argument:
    If what in rest you have in right you hold,
    Why then your fears-which, as they say, attend
    The steps of wrong-should move you to mew up
    Your tender kinsman, and to choke his days
    With barbarous ignorance, and deny his youth
    The rich advantage of good exercise?
    That the time's enemies may not have this
    To grace occasions, let it be our suit
    That you have bid us ask his liberty;
    Which for our goods we do no further ask
    Than whereupon our weal, on you depending,
    Counts it your weal he have his liberty.
  KING JOHN. Let it be so. I do commit his youth
    To your direction.

                     Enter HUBERT

    [Aside]  Hubert, what news with you?
  PEMBROKE. This is the man should do the bloody deed:
    He show'd his warrant to a friend of mine;
    The image of a wicked heinous fault
    Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his
    Doth show the mood of a much troubled breast,
    And I do fearfully believe 'tis done
    What we so fear'd he had a charge to do.
  SALISBURY. The colour of the King doth come and go
    Between his purpose and his conscience,
    Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set.
    His passion is so ripe it needs must break.
  PEMBROKE. And when it breaks, I fear will issue thence
    The foul corruption of a sweet child's death.
  KING JOHN. We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.
    Good lords, although my will to give is living,
    The suit which you demand is gone and dead:
    He tells us Arthur is deceas'd to-night.
  SALISBURY. Indeed, we fear'd his sickness was past cure.
  PEMBROKE. Indeed, we heard how near his death he was,
    Before the child himself felt he was sick.
    This must be answer'd either here or hence.
  KING JOHN. Why do you bend such solemn brows on me?
    Think you I bear the shears of destiny?
    Have I commandment on the pulse of life?
  SALISBURY. It is apparent foul-play; and 'tis shame
    That greatness should so grossly offer it.
    So thrive it in your game! and so, farewell.
  PEMBROKE. Stay yet, Lord Salisbury, I'll go with thee
    And find th' inheritance of this poor child,
    His little kingdom of a forced grave.
    That blood which ow'd the breadth of all this isle
    Three foot of it doth hold-bad world the while!
    This must not be thus borne: this will break out
    To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.            Exeunt LORDS
  KING JOHN. They burn in indignation. I repent.
    There is no sure foundation set on blood,
    No certain life achiev'd by others' death.

                 Enter a MESSENGER

    A fearful eye thou hast; where is that blood
    That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?
    So foul a sky clears not without a storm.
    Pour down thy weather-how goes all in France?
  MESSENGER. From France to England. Never such a pow'r
    For any foreign preparation
    Was levied in the body of a land.
    The copy of your speed is learn'd by them,
    For when you should be told they do prepare,
    The tidings comes that they are all arriv'd.
  KING JOHN. O, where hath our intelligence been drunk?
    Where hath it slept? Where is my mother's care,
    That such an army could be drawn in France,
    And she not hear of it?
  MESSENGER. My liege, her ear
    Is stopp'd with dust: the first of April died
    Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,
    The Lady Constance in a frenzy died
    Three days before; but this from rumour's tongue
    I idly heard-if true or false I know not.
  KING JOHN. Withhold thy speed, dreadful occasion!
    O, make a league with me, till I have pleas'd
    My discontented peers! What! mother dead!
    How wildly then walks my estate in France!
    Under whose conduct came those pow'rs of France
    That thou for truth giv'st out are landed here?
  MESSENGER. Under the Dauphin.
  KING JOHN. Thou hast made me giddy
    With these in tidings.

         Enter the BASTARD and PETER OF POMFRET

    Now! What says the world
    To your proceedings? Do not seek to stuff
    My head with more ill news, for it is fun.
  BASTARD. But if you be afear'd to hear the worst,
    Then let the worst, unheard, fall on your head.
  KING JOHN. Bear with me, cousin, for I was amaz'd
    Under the tide; but now I breathe again
    Aloft the flood, and can give audience
    To any tongue, speak it of what it will.
  BASTARD. How I have sped among the clergymen
    The sums I have collected shall express.
    But as I travell'd hither through the land,
    I find the people strangely fantasied;
    Possess'd with rumours, full of idle dreams.
    Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear;
    And here's a prophet that I brought with me
    From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found
    With many hundreds treading on his heels;
    To whom he sung, in rude harsh-sounding rhymes,
    That, ere the next Ascension-day at noon,
    Your Highness should deliver up your crown.
  KING JOHN. Thou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?
  PETER. Foreknowing that the truth will fall out so.
  KING JOHN. Hubert, away with him; imprison him;
    And on that day at noon whereon he says
    I shall yield up my crown let him be hang'd.
    Deliver him to safety; and return,
    For I must use thee.
                                               Exit HUBERT with PETER
    O my gentle cousin,
    Hear'st thou the news abroad, who are arriv'd?
  BASTARD. The French, my lord; men's mouths are full of it;
    Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,
    With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,
    And others more, going to seek the grave
    Of Arthur, whom they say is kill'd to-night
    On your suggestion.
  KING JOHN. Gentle kinsman, go
    And thrust thyself into their companies.
    I have a way to will their loves again;
    Bring them before me.
  BASTARD. I Will seek them out.
  KING JOHN. Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
    O, let me have no subject enemies
    When adverse foreigners affright my towns
    With dreadful pomp of stout invasion!
    Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,
    And fly like thought from them to me again.
  BASTARD. The spirit of the time shall teach me speed.
  KING JOHN. Spoke like a sprightful noble gentleman.
                                                         Exit BASTARD
    Go after him; for he perhaps shall need
    Some messenger betwixt me and the peers;
    And be thou he.
  MESSENGER. With all my heart, my liege.                        Exit
  KING JOHN. My mother dead!

                   Re-enter HUBERT

  HUBERT. My lord, they say five moons were seen to-night;
    Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about
    The other four in wondrous motion.
  KING JOHN. Five moons!
  HUBERT. Old men and beldams in the streets
    Do prophesy upon it dangerously;
    Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths;
    And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
    And whisper one another in the ear;
    And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist,
    Whilst he that hears makes fearful action
    With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
    I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
    The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
    With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
    Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
    Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
    Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,
    Told of a many thousand warlike French
    That were embattailed and rank'd in Kent.
    Another lean unwash'd artificer
    Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.
  KING JOHN. Why seek'st thou to possess me with these fears?
    Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?
    Thy hand hath murd'red him. I had a mighty cause
    To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.
  HUBERT. No had, my lord! Why, did you not provoke me?
  KING JOHN. It is the curse of kings to be attended
    By slaves that take their humours for a warrant
    To break within the bloody house of life,
    And on the winking of authority
    To understand a law; to know the meaning
    Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns
    More upon humour than advis'd respect.
  HUBERT. Here is your hand and seal for what I did.
  KING JOHN. O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earth
    Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal
    Witness against us to damnation!
    How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
    Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,
    A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,
    Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,
    This murder had not come into my mind;
    But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,
    Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,
    Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,
    I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;
    And thou, to be endeared to a king,
    Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
  HUBERT. My lord-
  KING JOHN. Hadst thou but shook thy head or made pause,
    When I spake darkly what I purposed,
    Or turn'd an eye of doubt upon my face,
    As bid me tell my tale in express words,
    Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
    And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.
    But thou didst understand me by my signs,
    And didst in signs again parley with sin;
    Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,
    And consequently thy rude hand to act
    The deed which both our tongues held vile to name.
    Out of my sight, and never see me more!
    My nobles leave me; and my state is braved,
    Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign pow'rs;
    Nay, in the body of the fleshly land,
    This kingdom, this confine of blood and breath,
    Hostility and civil tumult reigns
    Between my conscience and my cousin's death.
  HUBERT. Arm you against your other enemies,
    I'll make a peace between your soul and you.
    Young Arthur is alive. This hand of mine
    Is yet a maiden and an innocent hand,
    Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.
    Within this bosom never ent'red yet
    The dreadful motion of a murderous thought
    And you have slander'd nature in my form,
    Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,
    Is yet the cover of a fairer mind
    Than to be butcher of an innocent child.
  KING JOHN. Doth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers,
    Throw this report on their incensed rage
    And make them tame to their obedience!
    Forgive the comment that my passion made
    Upon thy feature; for my rage was blind,
    And foul imaginary eyes of blood
    Presented thee more hideous than thou art.
    O, answer not; but to my closet bring
    The angry lords with all expedient haste.
    I conjure thee but slowly; run more fast.                  Exeunt

SCENE 3.

England. Before the castle

Enter ARTHUR, on the walls

  ARTHUR. The wall is high, and yet will I leap down.
    Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not!
    There's few or none do know me; if they did,
    This ship-boy's semblance hath disguis'd me quite.
    I am afraid; and yet I'll venture it.
    If I get down and do not break my limbs,
    I'll find a thousand shifts to get away.
    As good to die and go, as die and stay.              [Leaps down]
    O me! my uncle's spirit is in these stones.
    Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!
    [Dies]

          Enter PEMBROKE, SALISBURY, and BIGOT

  SALISBURY. Lords, I will meet him at Saint Edmundsbury;
    It is our safety, and we must embrace
    This gentle offer of the perilous time.
  PEMBROKE. Who brought that letter from the Cardinal?
  SALISBURY. The Count Melun, a noble lord of France,
    Whose private with me of the Dauphin's love
    Is much more general than these lines import.
  BIGOT. To-morrow morning let us meet him then.
  SALISBURY. Or rather then set forward; for 'twill be
    Two long days' journey, lords, or ere we meet.

                 Enter the BASTARD

  BASTARD. Once more to-day well met, distemper'd lords!
    The King by me requests your presence straight.
  SALISBURY. The King hath dispossess'd himself of us.
    We will not line his thin bestained cloak
    With our pure honours, nor attend the foot
    That leaves the print of blood where'er it walks.
    Return and tell him so. We know the worst.
  BASTARD. Whate'er you think, good words, I think, were best.
  SALISBURY. Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now.
  BASTARD. But there is little reason in your grief;
    Therefore 'twere reason you had manners now.
  PEMBROKE. Sir, sir, impatience hath his privilege.
  BASTARD. 'Tis true-to hurt his master, no man else.
  SALISBURY. This is the prison. What is he lies here?
  PEMBROKE. O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!
    The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.
  SALISBURY. Murder, as hating what himself hath done,
    Doth lay it open to urge on revenge.
  BIGOT. Or, when he doom'd this beauty to a grave,
    Found it too precious-princely for a grave.
  SALISBURY. Sir Richard, what think you? Have you beheld,
    Or have you read or heard, or could you think?
    Or do you almost think, although you see,
    That you do see? Could thought, without this object,
    Form such another? This is the very top,
    The height, the crest, or crest unto the crest,
    Of murder's arms; this is the bloodiest shame,
    The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,
    That ever wall-ey'd wrath or staring rage
    Presented to the tears of soft remorse.
  PEMBROKE. All murders past do stand excus'd in this;
    And this, so sole and so unmatchable,
    Shall give a holiness, a purity,
    To the yet unbegotten sin of times,
    And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,
    Exampled by this heinous spectacle.
  BASTARD. It is a damned and a bloody work;
    The graceless action of a heavy hand,
    If that it be the work of any hand.
  SALISBURY. If that it be the work of any hand!
    We had a kind of light what would ensue.
    It is the shameful work of Hubert's hand;
    The practice and the purpose of the King;
    From whose obedience I forbid my soul
    Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,
    And breathing to his breathless excellence
    The incense of a vow, a holy vow,
    Never to taste the pleasures of the world,
    Never to be infected with delight,
    Nor conversant with ease and idleness,
    Till I have set a glory to this hand
    By giving it the worship of revenge.
  PEMBROKE. and BIGOT. Our souls religiously confirm thy words.

                     Enter HUBERT

  HUBERT. Lords, I am hot with haste in seeking you.
    Arthur doth live; the King hath sent for you.
  SALISBURY. O, he is bold, and blushes not at death!
    Avaunt, thou hateful villain, get thee gone!
  HUBERT. I am no villain.
  SALISBURY. Must I rob the law?                  [Drawing his sword]
  BASTARD. Your sword is bright, sir; put it up again.
  SALISBURY. Not till I sheathe it in a murderer's skin.
  HUBERT. Stand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say;
    By heaven, I think my sword's as sharp as yours.
    I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,
    Nor tempt the danger of my true defence;
    Lest I, by marking of your rage, forget
    Your worth, your greatness and nobility.
  BIGOT. Out, dunghill! Dar'st thou brave a nobleman?
  HUBERT. Not for my life; but yet I dare defend
    My innocent life against an emperor.
  SALISBURY. Thou art a murderer.
  HUBERT. Do not prove me so.
    Yet I am none. Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,
    Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.
  PEMBROKE. Cut him to pieces.
  BASTARD. Keep the peace, I say.
  SALISBURY. Stand by, or I shall gall you, Faulconbridge.
  BASTARD. Thou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury.
    If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,
    Or teach thy hasty spleen to do me shame,
    I'll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime;
    Or I'll so maul you and your toasting-iron
    That you shall think the devil is come from hell.
  BIGOT. What wilt thou do, renowned Faulconbridge?
    Second a villain and a murderer?
  HUBERT. Lord Bigot, I am none.
  BIGOT. Who kill'd this prince?
  HUBERT. 'Tis not an hour since I left him well.
    I honour'd him, I lov'd him, and will weep
    My date of life out for his sweet life's loss.
  SALISBURY. Trust not those cunning waters of his eyes,
    For villainy is not without such rheum;
    And he, long traded in it, makes it seem
    Like rivers of remorse and innocency.
    Away with me, all you whose souls abhor
    Th' uncleanly savours of a slaughter-house;
    For I am stifled with this smell of sin.
  BIGOT. Away toward Bury, to the Dauphin there!
  PEMBROKE. There tell the King he may inquire us out.
                                                         Exeunt LORDS
  BASTARD. Here's a good world! Knew you of this fair work?
    Beyond the infinite and boundless reach
    Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,
    Art thou damn'd, Hubert.
  HUBERT. Do but hear me, sir.
  BASTARD. Ha! I'll tell thee what:
    Thou'rt damn'd as black-nay, nothing is so black-
    Thou art more deep damn'd than Prince Lucifer;
    There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell
    As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.
  HUBERT. Upon my soul-
  BASTARD. If thou didst but consent
    To this most cruel act, do but despair;
    And if thou want'st a cord, the smallest thread
    That ever spider twisted from her womb
    Will serve to strangle thee; a rush will be a beam
    To hang thee on; or wouldst thou drown thyself,
    Put but a little water in a spoon
    And it shall be as all the ocean,
    Enough to stifle such a villain up
    I do suspect thee very grievously.
  HUBERT. If I in act, consent, or sin of thought,
    Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath
    Which was embounded in this beauteous clay,
    Let hell want pains enough to torture me!
    I left him well.
  BASTARD. Go, bear him in thine arms.
    I am amaz'd, methinks, and lose my way
    Among the thorns and dangers of this world.
    How easy dost thou take all England up!
    From forth this morsel of dead royalty
    The life, the right, and truth of all this realm
    Is fled to heaven; and England now is left
    To tug and scamble, and to part by th' teeth
    The unowed interest of proud-swelling state.
    Now for the bare-pick'd bone of majesty
    Doth dogged war bristle his angry crest
    And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace;
    Now powers from home and discontents at home
    Meet in one line; and vast confusion waits,
    As doth a raven on a sick-fall'n beast,
    The imminent decay of wrested pomp.
    Now happy he whose cloak and cincture can
    Hold out this tempest. Bear away that child,
    And follow me with speed. I'll to the King;
    A thousand businesses are brief in hand,
    And heaven itself doth frown upon the land.                Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1. England. KING JOHN'S palace

Enter KING JOHN, PANDULPH, and attendants

  KING JOHN. Thus have I yielded up into your hand
    The circle of my glory.
  PANDULPH.  [Gives back the crown]  Take again
    From this my hand, as holding of the Pope,
    Your sovereign greatness and authority.
  KING JOHN. Now keep your holy word; go meet the French;
    And from his Holiness use all your power
    To stop their marches fore we are inflam'd.
    Our discontented counties do revolt;
    Our people quarrel with obedience,
    Swearing allegiance and the love of soul
    To stranger blood, to foreign royalty.
    This inundation of mistemp'red humour
    Rests by you only to be qualified.
    Then pause not; for the present time's so sick
    That present med'cine must be minist'red
    Or overthrow incurable ensues.
  PANDULPH. It was my breath that blew this tempest up,
    Upon your stubborn usage of the Pope;
    But since you are a gentle convertite,
    My tongue shall hush again this storm of war
    And make fair weather in your blust'ring land.
    On this Ascension-day, remember well,
    Upon your oath of service to the Pope,
    Go I to make the French lay down their arms.                 Exit
  KING JOHN. Is this Ascension-day? Did not the prophet
    Say that before Ascension-day at noon
    My crown I should give off? Even so I have.
    I did suppose it should be on constraint;
    But, heaven be thank'd, it is but voluntary.

                 Enter the BASTARD

  BASTARD. All Kent hath yielded; nothing there holds out
    But Dover Castle. London hath receiv'd,
    Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers.
    Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
    To offer service to your enemy;
    And wild amazement hurries up and down
    The little number of your doubtful friends.
  KING JOHN. Would not my lords return to me again
    After they heard young Arthur was alive?
    BASTARD. They found him dead, and cast into the streets,
    An empty casket, where the jewel of life
    By some damn'd hand was robbed and ta'en away.
  KING JOHN. That villain Hubert told me he did live.
  BASTARD. So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.
    But wherefore do you droop? Why look you sad?
    Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
    Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
    Govern the motion of a kingly eye.
    Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
    Threaten the threat'ner, and outface the brow
    Of bragging horror; so shall inferior eyes,
    That borrow their behaviours from the great,
    Grow great by your example and put on
    The dauntless spirit of resolution.
    Away, and glister like the god of war
    When he intendeth to become the field;
    Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
    What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
    And fright him there, and make him tremble there?
    O, let it not be said! Forage, and run
    To meet displeasure farther from the doors
    And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.
  KING JOHN. The legate of the Pope hath been with me,
    And I have made a happy peace with him;
    And he hath promis'd to dismiss the powers
    Led by the Dauphin.
  BASTARD. O inglorious league!
    Shall we, upon the footing of our land,
    Send fair-play orders, and make compromise,
    Insinuation, parley, and base truce,
    To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,
    A cock'red silken wanton, brave our fields
    And flesh his spirit in a warlike soil,
    Mocking the air with colours idly spread,
    And find no check? Let us, my liege, to arms.
    Perchance the Cardinal cannot make your peace;
    Or, if he do, let it at least be said
    They saw we had a purpose of defence.
  KING JOHN. Have thou the ordering of this present time.
  BASTARD. Away, then, with good courage!
    Yet, I know
    Our party may well meet a prouder foe.                     Exeunt

SCENE 2. England. The DAUPHIN'S camp at Saint Edmundsbury

Enter, in arms, LEWIS, SALISBURY, MELUN, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and soldiers

  LEWIS. My Lord Melun, let this be copied out
    And keep it safe for our remembrance;
    Return the precedent to these lords again,
    That, having our fair order written down,
    Both they and we, perusing o'er these notes,
    May know wherefore we took the sacrament,
    And keep our faiths firm and inviolable.
  SALISBURY. Upon our sides it never shall be broken.
    And, noble Dauphin, albeit we swear
    A voluntary zeal and an unurg'd faith
    To your proceedings; yet, believe me, Prince,
    I am not glad that such a sore of time
    Should seek a plaster by contemn'd revolt,
    And heal the inveterate canker of one wound
    By making many. O, it grieves my soul
    That I must draw this metal from my side
    To be a widow-maker! O, and there
    Where honourable rescue and defence
    Cries out upon the name of Salisbury!
    But such is the infection of the time
    That, for the health and physic of our right,
    We cannot deal but with the very hand
    Of stern injustice and confused wrong.
    And is't not pity, O my grieved friends!
    That we, the sons and children of this isle,
    Were born to see so sad an hour as this;
    Wherein we step after a stranger-march
    Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up
    Her enemies' ranks-I must withdraw and weep
    Upon the spot of this enforced cause-
    To grace the gentry of a land remote
    And follow unacquainted colours here?
    What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove!
    That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about,
    Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself
    And grapple thee unto a pagan shore,
    Where these two Christian armies might combine
    The blood of malice in a vein of league,
    And not to spend it so unneighbourly!
  LEWIS. A noble temper dost thou show in this;
    And great affections wrestling in thy bosom
    Doth make an earthquake of nobility.
    O, what a noble combat hast thou fought
    Between compulsion and a brave respect!
    Let me wipe off this honourable dew
    That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks.
    My heart hath melted at a lady's tears,
    Being an ordinary inundation;
    But this effusion of such manly drops,
    This show'r, blown up by tempest of the soul,
    Startles mine eyes and makes me more amaz'd
    Than had I seen the vaulty top of heaven
    Figur'd quite o'er with burning meteors.
    Lift up thy brow, renowned Salisbury,
    And with a great heart heave away this storm;
    Commend these waters to those baby eyes
    That never saw the giant world enrag'd,
    Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,
    Full of warm blood, of mirth, of gossiping.
    Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep
    Into the purse of rich prosperity
    As Lewis himself. So, nobles, shall you all,
    That knit your sinews to the strength of mine.

                Enter PANDULPH

    And even there, methinks, an angel spake:
    Look where the holy legate comes apace,
    To give us warrant from the hand of heaven
    And on our actions set the name of right
    With holy breath.
  PANDULPH. Hail, noble prince of France!
    The next is this: King John hath reconcil'd
    Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in,
    That so stood out against the holy Church,
    The great metropolis and see of Rome.
    Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up
    And tame the savage spirit of wild war,
    That, like a lion fostered up at hand,
    It may lie gently at the foot of peace
    And be no further harmful than in show.
  LEWIS. Your Grace shall pardon me, I will not back:
    I am too high-born to be propertied,
    To be a secondary at control,
    Or useful serving-man and instrument
    To any sovereign state throughout the world.
    Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars
    Between this chastis'd kingdom and myself
    And brought in matter that should feed this fire;
    And now 'tis far too huge to be blown out
    With that same weak wind which enkindled it.
    You taught me how to know the face of right,
    Acquainted me with interest to this land,
    Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;
    And come ye now to tell me John hath made
    His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?
    I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,
    After young Arthur, claim this land for mine;
    And, now it is half-conquer'd, must I back
    Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?
    Am I Rome's slave? What penny hath Rome borne,
    What men provided, what munition sent,
    To underprop this action? Is 't not I
    That undergo this charge? Who else but I,
    And such as to my claim are liable,
    Sweat in this business and maintain this war?
    Have I not heard these islanders shout out
    'Vive le roi!' as I have bank'd their towns?
    Have I not here the best cards for the game
    To will this easy match, play'd for a crown?
    And shall I now give o'er the yielded set?
    No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.
  PANDULPH. You look but on the outside of this work.
  LEWIS. Outside or inside, I will not return
    Till my attempt so much be glorified
    As to my ample hope was promised
    Before I drew this gallant head of war,
    And cull'd these fiery spirits from the world
    To outlook conquest, and to will renown
    Even in the jaws of danger and of death.
                                                     [Trumpet sounds]
    What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?

             Enter the BASTARD, attended

  BASTARD. According to the fair play of the world,
    Let me have audience: I am sent to speak.
    My holy lord of Milan, from the King
    I come, to learn how you have dealt for him;
    And, as you answer, I do know the scope
    And warrant limited unto my tongue.
  PANDULPH. The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite,
    And will not temporize with my entreaties;
    He flatly says he'll not lay down his arms.
  BASTARD. By all the blood that ever fury breath'd,
    The youth says well. Now hear our English King;
    For thus his royalty doth speak in me.
    He is prepar'd, and reason too he should.
    This apish and unmannerly approach,
    This harness'd masque and unadvised revel
    This unhair'd sauciness and boyish troops,
    The King doth smile at; and is well prepar'd
    To whip this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,
    From out the circle of his territories.
    That hand which had the strength, even at your door.
    To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,
    To dive like buckets in concealed wells,
    To crouch in litter of your stable planks,
    To lie like pawns lock'd up in chests and trunks,
    To hug with swine, to seek sweet safety out
    In vaults and prisons, and to thrill and shake
    Even at the crying of your nation's crow,
    Thinking this voice an armed Englishman-
    Shall that victorious hand be feebled here
    That in your chambers gave you chastisement?
    No. Know the gallant monarch is in arms
    And like an eagle o'er his aery tow'rs
    To souse annoyance that comes near his nest.
    And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,
    You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb
    Of your dear mother England, blush for shame;
    For your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids,
    Like Amazons, come tripping after drums,
    Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
    Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts
    To fierce and bloody inclination.
  LEWIS. There end thy brave, and turn thy face in peace;
    We grant thou canst outscold us. Fare thee well;
    We hold our time too precious to be spent
    With such a brabbler.
  PANDULPH. Give me leave to speak.
  BASTARD. No, I will speak.
  LEWIS. We will attend to neither.
    Strike up the drums; and let the tongue of war,
    Plead for our interest and our being here.
  BASTARD. Indeed, your drums, being beaten, will cry out;
    And so shall you, being beaten. Do but start
    And echo with the clamour of thy drum,
    And even at hand a drum is ready brac'd
    That shall reverberate all as loud as thine:
    Sound but another, and another shall,
    As loud as thine, rattle the welkin's ear
    And mock the deep-mouth'd thunder; for at hand-
    Not trusting to this halting legate here,
    Whom he hath us'd rather for sport than need-
    Is warlike John; and in his forehead sits
    A bare-ribb'd death, whose office is this day
    To feast upon whole thousands of the French.
  LEWIS. Strike up our drums to find this danger out.
  BASTARD. And thou shalt find it, Dauphin, do not doubt.
    Exeunt

SCENE 3.

England. The field of battle

Alarums. Enter KING JOHN and HUBERT

  KING JOHN. How goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.
  HUBERT. Badly, I fear. How fares your Majesty?
  KING JOHN. This fever that hath troubled me so long
    Lies heavy on me. O, my heart is sick!

                  Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My lord, your valiant kinsman, Faulconbridge,
    Desires your Majesty to leave the field
    And send him word by me which way you go.
  KING JOHN. Tell him, toward Swinstead, to the abbey there.
  MESSENGER. Be of good comfort; for the great supply
    That was expected by the Dauphin here
    Are wreck'd three nights ago on Goodwin Sands;
    This news was brought to Richard but even now.
    The French fight coldly, and retire themselves.
  KING JOHN. Ay me, this tyrant fever burns me up
    And will not let me welcome this good news.
    Set on toward Swinstead; to my litter straight;
    Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.                    Exeunt

SCENE 4.

England. Another part of the battlefield

Enter SALISBURY, PEMBROKE, and BIGOT

  SALISBURY. I did not think the King so stor'd with friends.
  PEMBROKE. Up once again; put spirit in the French;
    If they miscarry, we miscarry too.
  SALISBURY. That misbegotten devil, Faulconbridge,
    In spite of spite, alone upholds the day.
  PEMBROKE. They say King John, sore sick, hath left the field.

                 Enter MELUN, wounded

  MELUN. Lead me to the revolts of England here.
  SALISBURY. When we were happy we had other names.
  PEMBROKE. It is the Count Melun.
  SALISBURY. Wounded to death.
  MELUN. Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold;
    Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,
    And welcome home again discarded faith.
    Seek out King John, and fall before his feet;
    For if the French be lords of this loud day,
    He means to recompense the pains you take
    By cutting off your heads. Thus hath he sworn,
    And I with him, and many moe with me,
    Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;
    Even on that altar where we swore to you
    Dear amity and everlasting love.
  SALISBURY. May this be possible? May this be true?
  MELUN. Have I not hideous death within my view,
    Retaining but a quantity of life,
    Which bleeds away even as a form of wax
    Resolveth from his figure 'gainst the fire?
    What in the world should make me now deceive,
    Since I must lose the use of all deceit?
    Why should I then be false, since it is true
    That I must die here, and live hence by truth?
    I say again, if Lewis do will the day,
    He is forsworn if e'er those eyes of yours
    Behold another day break in the east;
    But even this night, whose black contagious breath
    Already smokes about the burning crest
    Of the old, feeble, and day-wearied sun,
    Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,
    Paying the fine of rated treachery
    Even with a treacherous fine of all your lives.
    If Lewis by your assistance win the day.
    Commend me to one Hubert, with your King;
    The love of him-and this respect besides,
    For that my grandsire was an Englishman-
    Awakes my conscience to confess all this.
    In lieu whereof, I pray you, bear me hence
    From forth the noise and rumour of the field,
    Where I may think the remnant of my thoughts
    In peace, and part this body and my soul
    With contemplation and devout desires.
  SALISBURY. We do believe thee; and beshrew my soul
    But I do love the favour and the form
    Of this most fair occasion, by the which
    We will untread the steps of damned flight,
    And like a bated and retired flood,
    Leaving our rankness and irregular course,
    Stoop low within those bounds we have o'erlook'd,
    And calmly run on in obedience
    Even to our ocean, to great King John.
    My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence;
    For I do see the cruel pangs of death
    Right in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,
    And happy newness, that intends old right.
                                            Exeunt, leading off MELUN

SCENE 5.

England. The French camp

Enter LEWIS and his train

  LEWIS. The sun of heaven, methought, was loath to set,
    But stay'd and made the western welkin blush,
    When English measure backward their own ground
    In faint retire. O, bravely came we off,
    When with a volley of our needless shot,
    After such bloody toil, we bid good night;
    And wound our tott'ring colours clearly up,
    Last in the field and almost lords of it!

                 Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. Where is my prince, the Dauphin?
  LEWIS. Here; what news?
  MESSENGER. The Count Melun is slain; the English lords
    By his persuasion are again fall'n off,
    And your supply, which you have wish'd so long,
    Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.
  LEWIS. Ah, foul shrewd news! Beshrew thy very heart!
    I did not think to be so sad to-night
    As this hath made me. Who was he that said
    King John did fly an hour or two before
    The stumbling night did part our weary pow'rs?
  MESSENGER. Whoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.
  LEWIS. keep good quarter and good care to-night;
    The day shall not be up so soon as I
    To try the fair adventure of to-morrow.                    Exeunt

SCENE 6.

An open place wear Swinstead Abbey

Enter the BASTARD and HUBERT, severally

  HUBERT. Who's there? Speak, ho! speak quickly, or I shoot.
  BASTARD. A friend. What art thou?
  HUBERT. Of the part of England.
  BASTARD. Whither dost thou go?
  HUBERT. What's that to thee? Why may I not demand
    Of thine affairs as well as thou of mine?
  BASTARD. Hubert, I think.
  HUBERT. Thou hast a perfect thought.
    I will upon all hazards well believe
    Thou art my friend that know'st my tongue so well.
    Who art thou?
  BASTARD. Who thou wilt. And if thou please,
    Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think
    I come one way of the Plantagenets.
  HUBERT. Unkind remembrance! thou and eyeless night
    Have done me shame. Brave soldier, pardon me
    That any accent breaking from thy tongue
    Should scape the true acquaintance of mine ear.
  BASTARD. Come, come; sans compliment, what news abroad?
  HUBERT. Why, here walk I in the black brow of night
    To find you out.
  BASTARD. Brief, then; and what's the news?
  HUBERT. O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,
    Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.
  BASTARD. Show me the very wound of this ill news;
    I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it.
  HUBERT. The King, I fear, is poison'd by a monk;
    I left him almost speechless and broke out
    To acquaint you with this evil, that you might
    The better arm you to the sudden time
    Than if you had at leisure known of this.
  BASTARD. How did he take it; who did taste to him?
  HUBERT. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain,
    Whose bowels suddenly burst out. The King
    Yet speaks, and peradventure may recover.
  BASTARD. Who didst thou leave to tend his Majesty?
  HUBERT. Why, know you not? The lords are all come back,
    And brought Prince Henry in their company;
    At whose request the King hath pardon'd them,
    And they are all about his Majesty.
  BASTARD. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,
    And tempt us not to bear above our power!
    I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night,
    Passing these flats, are taken by the tide-
    These Lincoln Washes have devoured them;
    Myself, well-mounted, hardly have escap'd.
    Away, before! conduct me to the King;
    I doubt he will be dead or ere I come.                     Exeunt

SCENE 7.

The orchard at Swinstead Abbey

Enter PRINCE HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT

  PRINCE HENRY. It is too late; the life of all his blood
    Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain.
    Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,
    Doth by the idle comments that it makes
    Foretell the ending of mortality.

                   Enter PEMBROKE

  PEMBROKE. His Highness yet doth speak, and holds belief
    That, being brought into the open air,
    It would allay the burning quality
    Of that fell poison which assaileth him.
  PRINCE HENRY. Let him be brought into the orchard here.
    Doth he still rage?                                    Exit BIGOT
  PEMBROKE. He is more patient
    Than when you left him; even now he sung.
  PRINCE HENRY. O vanity of sickness! Fierce extremes
    In their continuance will not feel themselves.
    Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
    Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now
    Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
    With many legions of strange fantasies,
    Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
    Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death should sing.
    I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan
    Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
    And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
    His soul and body to their lasting rest.
  SALISBURY. Be of good comfort, Prince; for you are born
    To set a form upon that indigest
    Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

       Re-enter BIGOT and attendants, who bring in
                KING JOHN in a chair

  KING JOHN. Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;
    It would not out at windows nor at doors.
    There is so hot a summer in my bosom
    That all my bowels crumble up to dust.
    I am a scribbled form drawn with a pen
    Upon a parchment, and against this fire
    Do I shrink up.
  PRINCE HENRY. How fares your Majesty?
  KING JOHN. Poison'd-ill-fare! Dead, forsook, cast off;
    And none of you will bid the winter come
    To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,
    Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
    Through my burn'd bosom, nor entreat the north
    To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips
    And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much;
    I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait
    And so ingrateful you deny me that.
  PRINCE HENRY. O that there were some virtue in my tears,
    That might relieve you!
  KING JOHN. The salt in them is hot.
    Within me is a hell; and there the poison
    Is as a fiend confin'd to tyrannize
    On unreprievable condemned blood.

                 Enter the BASTARD

  BASTARD. O, I am scalded with my violent motion
    And spleen of speed to see your Majesty!
  KING JOHN. O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye!
    The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burnt,
    And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
    Are turned to one thread, one little hair;
    My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
    Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
    And then all this thou seest is but a clod
    And module of confounded royalty.
  BASTARD. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,
    Where God He knows how we shall answer him;
    For in a night the best part of my pow'r,
    As I upon advantage did remove,
    Were in the Washes all unwarily
    Devoured by the unexpected flood.                 [The KING dies]
  SALISBURY. You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
    My liege! my lord! But now a king-now thus.
  PRINCE HENRY. Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
    What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
    When this was now a king, and now is clay?
  BASTARD. Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind
    To do the office for thee of revenge,
    And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,
    As it on earth hath been thy servant still.
    Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,
    Where be your pow'rs? Show now your mended faiths,
    And instantly return with me again
    To push destruction and perpetual shame
    Out of the weak door of our fainting land.
    Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;
    The Dauphin rages at our very heels.
  SALISBURY. It seems you know not, then, so much as we:
    The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
    Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,
    And brings from him such offers of our peace
    As we with honour and respect may take,
    With purpose presently to leave this war.
  BASTARD. He will the rather do it when he sees
    Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.
  SALISBURY. Nay, 'tis in a manner done already;
    For many carriages he hath dispatch'd
    To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
    To the disposing of the Cardinal;
    With whom yourself, myself, and other lords,
    If you think meet, this afternoon will post
    To consummate this business happily.
  BASTARD. Let it be so. And you, my noble Prince,
    With other princes that may best be spar'd,
    Shall wait upon your father's funeral.
  PRINCE HENRY. At Worcester must his body be interr'd;
    For so he will'd it.
  BASTARD. Thither shall it, then;
    And happily may your sweet self put on
    The lineal state and glory of the land!
    To whom, with all submission, on my knee
    I do bequeath my faithful services
    And true subjection everlastingly.
  SALISBURY. And the like tender of our love we make,
    To rest without a spot for evermore.
  PRINCE HENRY. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks,
    And knows not how to do it but with tears.
  BASTARD. O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
    Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.
    This England never did, nor never shall,
    Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
    But when it first did help to wound itself.
    Now these her princes are come home again,
    Come the three corners of the world in arms,
    And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
    If England to itself do rest but true.                     Exeunt

THE END

1599



THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR




by William Shakespeare






Contents

ACT I
Scene I. Rome. A street.
Scene II. The same. A public place.
Scene III. The same. A street.


ACT II
Scene I. Rome. Brutus’ orchard.
Scene II. A room in Caesar’s palace.
Scene III. A street near the Capitol.
Scene IV. Another part of the same street, before the house of Brutus.


ACT III
Scene I. Rome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting.
Scene II. The same. The Forum.
Scene III. The same. A street.


ACT IV
Scene I. A room in Antony’s house.
Scene II. Before Brutus’ tent, in the camp near Sardis.
Scene III. Within the tent of Brutus.


ACT V
Scene I. The plains of Philippi.
Scene II. The same. The field of battle.
Scene III. Another part of the field.
Scene IV. Another part of the field.
Scene V. Another part of the field.





 Dramatis Personæ

JULIUS CAESAR
OCTAVIUS CAESAR, Triumvir after his death.
MARCUS ANTONIUS,    ”    ”     ”
M. AEMILIUS LEPIDUS,   ”    ”     ”
CICERO, PUBLIUS, POPILIUS LENA, Senators.
MARCUS BRUTUS, Conspirator against Caesar.
CASSIUS, ”    ”     ”
CASCA,   ”    ”     ”
TREBONIUS,     ”    ”     ”
LIGARIUS,”    ”     ”
DECIUS BRUTUS, ”    ”     ”
METELLUS CIMBER,     ”    ”     ”
CINNA,   ”    ”     ”
FLAVIUS, tribune
MARULLUS, tribune
ARTEMIDORUS, a Sophist of Cnidos.
A Soothsayer
CINNA, a poet.
Another Poet.
LUCILIUS, TITINIUS, MESSALA, young CATO, and VOLUMNIUS, Friends to
Brutus and Cassius.
VARRO, CLITUS, CLAUDIUS, STRATO, LUCIUS, DARDANIUS, Servants to Brutus
PINDARUS, Servant to Cassius


CALPHURNIA, wife to Caesar
PORTIA, wife to Brutus

The Ghost of Caesar


Senators, Citizens, Soldiers, Commoners, Messengers, and Servants.

SCENE: Rome, the conspirators’ camp near Sardis, and the plains of
Philippi.



ACT I

SCENE I. Rome. A street.

 Enter Flavius, Marullus and a throng of Citizens.

FLAVIUS.
Hence! home, you idle creatures, get you home.
Is this a holiday? What, know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?

CARPENTER.
Why, sir, a carpenter.

MARULLUS.
Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?
What dost thou with thy best apparel on?
You, sir, what trade are you?

COBBLER.
Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a
cobbler.

MARULLUS.
But what trade art thou? Answer me directly.

COBBLER.
A trade, sir, that I hope I may use with a safe conscience, which is
indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.

MARULLUS.
What trade, thou knave? Thou naughty knave, what trade?

COBBLER.
Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me; yet, if you be out, sir, I
can mend you.

MARULLUS.
What mean’st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!

COBBLER.
Why, sir, cobble you.

FLAVIUS.
Thou art a cobbler, art thou?

COBBLER.
Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl; I meddle with no
tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but withal I am indeed, sir,
a surgeon to old shoes: when they are in great danger, I recover them.
As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my
handiwork.

FLAVIUS.
But wherefore art not in thy shop today?
Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

COBBLER.
Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But
indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar, and to rejoice in his
triumph.

MARULLUS.
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The livelong day with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way,
That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.

FLAVIUS.
Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault
Assemble all the poor men of your sort,
Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears
Into the channel, till the lowest stream
Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.

 [_Exeunt Citizens._]

See whether their basest metal be not mov’d;
They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.
Go you down that way towards the Capitol;
This way will I. Disrobe the images,
If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies.

MARULLUS.
May we do so?
You know it is the feast of Lupercal.

FLAVIUS.
It is no matter; let no images
Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about
And drive away the vulgar from the streets;
So do you too, where you perceive them thick.
These growing feathers pluck’d from Caesar’s wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men,
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. The same. A public place.

 Enter, in procession, with music, Caesar; Antony, for the course;
 Calphurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius and Casca; a great
 crowd following, among them a Soothsayer.

CAESAR.
Calphurnia.

CASCA.
Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.

 [_Music ceases._]

CAESAR.
Calphurnia.

CALPHURNIA.
Here, my lord.

CAESAR.
Stand you directly in Antonius’ way,
When he doth run his course. Antonius.

ANTONY.
Caesar, my lord?

CAESAR.
Forget not in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calphurnia; for our elders say,
The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONY.
I shall remember.
When Caesar says “Do this,” it is perform’d.

CAESAR.
Set on; and leave no ceremony out.

 [_Music._]

SOOTHSAYER.
Caesar!

CAESAR.
Ha! Who calls?

CASCA.
Bid every noise be still; peace yet again!

 [_Music ceases._]

CAESAR.
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music,
Cry “Caesar”! Speak. Caesar is turn’d to hear.

SOOTHSAYER.
Beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
What man is that?

BRUTUS.
A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
Set him before me; let me see his face.

CASSIUS.
Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.

CAESAR.
What say’st thou to me now? Speak once again.

SOOTHSAYER.
Beware the Ides of March.

CAESAR.
He is a dreamer; let us leave him. Pass.

 [_Sennet. Exeunt all but Brutus and Cassius._]

CASSIUS.
Will you go see the order of the course?

BRUTUS.
Not I.

CASSIUS.
I pray you, do.

BRUTUS.
I am not gamesome: I do lack some part
Of that quick spirit that is in Antony.
Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;
I’ll leave you.

CASSIUS.
Brutus, I do observe you now of late:
I have not from your eyes that gentleness
And show of love as I was wont to have.
You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand
Over your friend that loves you.

BRUTUS.
Cassius,
Be not deceived: if I have veil’d my look,
I turn the trouble of my countenance
Merely upon myself. Vexed I am
Of late with passions of some difference,
Conceptions only proper to myself,
Which give some soil perhaps to my behaviors;
But let not therefore my good friends be grieved
(Among which number, Cassius, be you one)
Nor construe any further my neglect,
Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,
Forgets the shows of love to other men.

CASSIUS.
Then, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion;
By means whereof this breast of mine hath buried
Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRUTUS.
No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself
But by reflection, by some other thing.

CASSIUS.
’Tis just:
And it is very much lamented, Brutus,
That you have no such mirrors as will turn
Your hidden worthiness into your eye,
That you might see your shadow. I have heard
Where many of the best respect in Rome,
(Except immortal Caesar) speaking of Brutus,
And groaning underneath this age’s yoke,
Have wish’d that noble Brutus had his eyes.

BRUTUS.
Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,
That you would have me seek into myself
For that which is not in me?

CASSIUS.
Therefore, good Brutus, be prepared to hear;
And since you know you cannot see yourself
So well as by reflection, I, your glass,
Will modestly discover to yourself
That of yourself which you yet know not of.
And be not jealous on me, gentle Brutus:
Were I a common laugher, or did use
To stale with ordinary oaths my love
To every new protester; if you know
That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard,
And after scandal them; or if you know
That I profess myself in banqueting,
To all the rout, then hold me dangerous.

 [_Flourish and shout._]

BRUTUS.
What means this shouting? I do fear the people
Choose Caesar for their king.

CASSIUS.
Ay, do you fear it?
Then must I think you would not have it so.

BRUTUS.
I would not, Cassius; yet I love him well,
But wherefore do you hold me here so long?
What is it that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye and death i’ the other,
And I will look on both indifferently;
For let the gods so speed me as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.

CASSIUS.
I know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,
As well as I do know your outward favour.
Well, honour is the subject of my story.
I cannot tell what you and other men
Think of this life; but, for my single self,
I had as lief not be as live to be
In awe of such a thing as I myself.
I was born free as Caesar; so were you;
We both have fed as well, and we can both
Endure the winter’s cold as well as he:
For once, upon a raw and gusty day,
The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Caesar said to me, “Dar’st thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?” Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
And bade him follow: so indeed he did.
The torrent roar’d, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews, throwing it aside
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point propos’d,
Caesar cried, “Help me, Cassius, or I sink!”
I, as Aeneas, our great ancestor,
Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Caesar. And this man
Is now become a god; and Cassius is
A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.
He had a fever when he was in Spain,
And when the fit was on him I did mark
How he did shake: ’tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their colour fly,
And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world
Did lose his lustre. I did hear him groan:
Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas, it cried, “Give me some drink, Titinius,”
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone.

 [_Shout. Flourish._]

BRUTUS.
Another general shout?
I do believe that these applauses are
For some new honours that are heap’d on Caesar.

CASSIUS.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
“Brutus” and “Caesar”: what should be in that “Caesar”?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with ’em,
“Brutus” will start a spirit as soon as “Caesar.”
Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art sham’d!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age since the great flood,
But it was fam’d with more than with one man?
When could they say, till now, that talk’d of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass’d but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook’d
Th’ eternal devil to keep his state in Rome,
As easily as a king!

BRUTUS.
That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;
What you would work me to, I have some aim:
How I have thought of this, and of these times,
I shall recount hereafter. For this present,
I would not, so with love I might entreat you,
Be any further mov’d. What you have said,
I will consider; what you have to say
I will with patience hear; and find a time
Both meet to hear and answer such high things.
Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:
Brutus had rather be a villager
Than to repute himself a son of Rome
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.

CASSIUS.
I am glad that my weak words
Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

 Enter Caesar and his Train.

BRUTUS.
The games are done, and Caesar is returning.

CASSIUS.
As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,
And he will, after his sour fashion, tell you
What hath proceeded worthy note today.

BRUTUS.
I will do so. But, look you, Cassius,
The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow,
And all the rest look like a chidden train:
Calphurnia’s cheek is pale; and Cicero
Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes
As we have seen him in the Capitol,
Being cross’d in conference by some senators.

CASSIUS.
Casca will tell us what the matter is.

CAESAR.
Antonius.

ANTONY.
Caesar?

CAESAR.
Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep a-nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

ANTONY.
Fear him not, Caesar; he’s not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman and well given.

CAESAR.
Would he were fatter! But I fear him not:
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music.
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort
As if he mock’d himself and scorn’d his spirit
That could be mov’d to smile at anything.
Such men as he be never at heart’s ease
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves,
And therefore are they very dangerous.
I rather tell thee what is to be fear’d
Than what I fear; for always I am Caesar.
Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,
And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.

 [_Exeunt Caesar and his Train. Casca stays._]

CASCA.
You pull’d me by the cloak; would you speak with me?

BRUTUS.
Ay, Casca, tell us what hath chanc’d today,
That Caesar looks so sad.

CASCA.
Why, you were with him, were you not?

BRUTUS.
I should not then ask Casca what had chanc’d.

CASCA.
Why, there was a crown offer’d him; and being offer’d him, he put it by
with the back of his hand, thus; and then the people fell a-shouting.

BRUTUS.
What was the second noise for?

CASCA.
Why, for that too.

CASSIUS.
They shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?

CASCA.
Why, for that too.

BRUTUS.
Was the crown offer’d him thrice?

CASCA.
Ay, marry, was’t, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than
other; and at every putting-by mine honest neighbours shouted.

CASSIUS.
Who offer’d him the crown?

CASCA.
Why, Antony.

BRUTUS.
Tell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

CASCA.
I can as well be hang’d, as tell the manner of it: it was mere foolery;
I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown; yet ’twas not a
crown neither, ’twas one of these coronets; and, as I told you, he put
it by once: but, for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have had
it. Then he offered it to him again: then he put it by again: but, to
my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he
offered it the third time; he put it the third time by; and still, as
he refus’d it, the rabblement hooted, and clapp’d their chopt hands,
and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of
stinking breath because Caesar refus’d the crown, that it had, almost,
choked Caesar, for he swooned, and fell down at it. And for mine own
part, I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the
bad air.

CASSIUS.
But, soft! I pray you. What, did Caesar swoon?

CASCA.
He fell down in the market-place, and foam’d at mouth, and was
speechless.

BRUTUS.
’Tis very like: he hath the falling-sickness.

CASSIUS.
No, Caesar hath it not; but you, and I,
And honest Casca, we have the falling-sickness.

CASCA.
I know not what you mean by that; but I am sure Caesar fell down. If
the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he
pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the
theatre, I am no true man.

BRUTUS.
What said he when he came unto himself?

CASCA.
Marry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad
he refused the crown, he pluck’d me ope his doublet, and offer’d them
his throat to cut. And I had been a man of any occupation, if I would
not have taken him at a word, I would I might go to hell among the
rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said, if he
had done or said anything amiss, he desir’d their worships to think it
was his infirmity. Three or four wenches where I stood cried, “Alas,
good soul!” and forgave him with all their hearts. But there’s no heed
to be taken of them: if Caesar had stabb’d their mothers, they would
have done no less.

BRUTUS.
And, after that, he came thus sad away?

CASCA.
Ay.

CASSIUS.
Did Cicero say anything?

CASCA.
Ay, he spoke Greek.

CASSIUS.
To what effect?

CASCA.
Nay, and I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’ the face again. But
those that understood him smil’d at one another and shook their heads;
but for mine own part, it was Greek to me. I could tell you more news
too: Marullus and Flavius, for pulling scarfs off Caesar’s images, are
put to silence. Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could
remember it.

CASSIUS.
Will you sup with me tonight, Casca?

CASCA.
No, I am promis’d forth.

CASSIUS.
Will you dine with me tomorrow?

CASCA.
Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth the
eating.

CASSIUS.
Good. I will expect you.

CASCA.
Do so; farewell both.

 [_Exit Casca._]

BRUTUS.
What a blunt fellow is this grown to be!
He was quick mettle when he went to school.

CASSIUS.
So is he now in execution
Of any bold or noble enterprise,
However he puts on this tardy form.
This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.

BRUTUS.
And so it is. For this time I will leave you:
Tomorrow, if you please to speak with me,
I will come home to you; or, if you will,
Come home to me, and I will wait for you.

CASSIUS.
I will do so: till then, think of the world.

 [_Exit Brutus._]

Well, Brutus, thou art noble; yet I see,
Thy honourable metal may be wrought
From that it is dispos’d: therefore ’tis meet
That noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduc’d?
Caesar doth bear me hard, but he loves Brutus.
If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius,
He should not humour me. I will this night,
In several hands, in at his windows throw,
As if they came from several citizens,
Writings, all tending to the great opinion
That Rome holds of his name; wherein obscurely
Caesar’s ambition shall be glanced at.
And after this, let Caesar seat him sure,
For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. The same. A street.

 Thunder and lightning. Enter, from opposite sides, Casca with his
 sword drawn, and Cicero.

CICERO.
Good even, Casca: brought you Caesar home?
Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?

CASCA.
Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth
Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv’d the knotty oaks; and I have seen
Th’ ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds:
But never till tonight, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.

CICERO.
Why, saw you anything more wonderful?

CASCA.
A common slave, you’d know him well by sight,
Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn
Like twenty torches join’d, and yet his hand,
Not sensible of fire remain’d unscorch’d.
Besides, I ha’ not since put up my sword,
Against the Capitol I met a lion,
Who glared upon me, and went surly by,
Without annoying me. And there were drawn
Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women,
Transformed with their fear; who swore they saw
Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
And yesterday the bird of night did sit,
Even at noonday upon the marketplace,
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
“These are their reasons; they are natural”;
For I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

CICERO.
Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time.
But men may construe things after their fashion,
Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.
Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?

CASCA.
He doth, for he did bid Antonius
Send word to you he would be there tomorrow.

CICERO.
Goodnight then, Casca: this disturbed sky
Is not to walk in.

CASCA.
Farewell, Cicero.

 [_Exit Cicero._]

 Enter Cassius.

CASSIUS.
Who’s there?

CASCA.
A Roman.

CASSIUS.
Casca, by your voice.

CASCA.
Your ear is good. Cassius, what night is this!

CASSIUS.
A very pleasing night to honest men.

CASCA.
Who ever knew the heavens menace so?

CASSIUS.
Those that have known the earth so full of faults.
For my part, I have walk’d about the streets,
Submitting me unto the perilous night;
And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
Have bar’d my bosom to the thunder-stone;
And when the cross blue lightning seem’d to open
The breast of heaven, I did present myself
Even in the aim and very flash of it.

CASCA.
But wherefore did you so much tempt the Heavens?
It is the part of men to fear and tremble,
When the most mighty gods by tokens send
Such dreadful heralds to astonish us.

CASSIUS.
You are dull, Casca; and those sparks of life
That should be in a Roman you do want,
Or else you use not. You look pale and gaze,
And put on fear and cast yourself in wonder,
To see the strange impatience of the Heavens:
But if you would consider the true cause
Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,
Why birds and beasts, from quality and kind;
Why old men, fools, and children calculate,
Why all these things change from their ordinance,
Their natures, and pre-formed faculties,
To monstrous quality; why, you shall find
That Heaven hath infus’d them with these spirits,
To make them instruments of fear and warning
Unto some monstrous state.
Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man
Most like this dreadful night,
That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars,
As doth the lion in the Capitol;
A man no mightier than thyself, or me,
In personal action; yet prodigious grown,
And fearful, as these strange eruptions are.

CASCA.
’Tis Caesar that you mean; is it not, Cassius?

CASSIUS.
Let it be who it is: for Romans now
Have thews and limbs like to their ancestors;
But, woe the while! our fathers’ minds are dead,
And we are govern’d with our mothers’ spirits;
Our yoke and sufferance show us womanish.

CASCA.
Indeed, they say the senators tomorrow
Mean to establish Caesar as a king;
And he shall wear his crown by sea and land,
In every place, save here in Italy.

CASSIUS.
I know where I will wear this dagger then;
Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius:
Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong;
Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
If I know this, know all the world besides,
That part of tyranny that I do bear
I can shake off at pleasure.

 [_Thunder still._]

CASCA.
So can I:
So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.

CASSIUS.
And why should Caesar be a tyrant then?
Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.
Those that with haste will make a mighty fire
Begin it with weak straws. What trash is Rome,
What rubbish, and what offal, when it serves
For the base matter to illuminate
So vile a thing as Caesar! But, O grief,
Where hast thou led me? I, perhaps, speak this
Before a willing bondman: then I know
My answer must be made; but I am arm’d,
And dangers are to me indifferent.

CASCA.
You speak to Casca, and to such a man
That is no fleering tell-tale. Hold, my hand:
Be factious for redress of all these griefs,
And I will set this foot of mine as far
As who goes farthest.

CASSIUS.
There’s a bargain made.
Now know you, Casca, I have mov’d already
Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans
To undergo with me an enterprise
Of honourable-dangerous consequence;
And I do know by this, they stay for me
In Pompey’s Porch: for now, this fearful night,
There is no stir or walking in the streets;
And the complexion of the element
In favour’s like the work we have in hand,
Most bloody, fiery, and most terrible.

 Enter Cinna.

CASCA.
Stand close awhile, for here comes one in haste.

CASSIUS.
’Tis Cinna; I do know him by his gait;
He is a friend. Cinna, where haste you so?

CINNA.
To find out you. Who’s that? Metellus Cimber?

CASSIUS.
No, it is Casca, one incorporate
To our attempts. Am I not stay’d for, Cinna?

CINNA.
I am glad on’t. What a fearful night is this!
There’s two or three of us have seen strange sights.

CASSIUS.
Am I not stay’d for? tell me.

CINNA.
Yes, you are. O Cassius, if you could
But win the noble Brutus to our party—

CASSIUS.
Be you content. Good Cinna, take this paper,
And look you lay it in the praetor’s chair,
Where Brutus may but find it; and throw this
In at his window; set this up with wax
Upon old Brutus’ statue: all this done,
Repair to Pompey’s Porch, where you shall find us.
Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?

CINNA.
All but Metellus Cimber, and he’s gone
To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,
And so bestow these papers as you bade me.

CASSIUS.
That done, repair to Pompey’s theatre.

 [_Exit Cinna._]

Come, Casca, you and I will yet, ere day,
See Brutus at his house: three parts of him
Is ours already, and the man entire
Upon the next encounter, yields him ours.

CASCA.
O, he sits high in all the people’s hearts!
And that which would appear offence in us,
His countenance, like richest alchemy,
Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

CASSIUS.
Him, and his worth, and our great need of him,
You have right well conceited. Let us go,
For it is after midnight; and ere day,
We will awake him, and be sure of him.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

SCENE I. Rome. Brutus’ orchard.

 Enter Brutus.

BRUTUS.
What, Lucius, ho!
I cannot, by the progress of the stars,
Give guess how near to day.—Lucius, I say!
I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly.
When, Lucius, when? Awake, I say! What, Lucius!

 Enter Lucius.

LUCIUS.
Call’d you, my lord?

BRUTUS.
Get me a taper in my study, Lucius:
When it is lighted, come and call me here.

LUCIUS.
I will, my lord.

 [_Exit._]

BRUTUS.
It must be by his death: and for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown’d:
How that might change his nature, there’s the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?—that;
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,
That at his will he may do danger with.
Th’ abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power; and, to speak truth of Caesar,
I have not known when his affections sway’d
More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Caesar may;
Then lest he may, prevent. And since the quarrel
Will bear no colour for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities:
And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg
Which hatch’d, would, as his kind grow mischievous;
And kill him in the shell.

 Enter Lucius.

LUCIUS.
The taper burneth in your closet, sir.
Searching the window for a flint, I found
This paper, thus seal’d up, and I am sure
It did not lie there when I went to bed.

 [_Gives him the letter._]

BRUTUS.
Get you to bed again; it is not day.
Is not tomorrow, boy, the Ides of March?

LUCIUS.
I know not, sir.

BRUTUS.
Look in the calendar, and bring me word.

LUCIUS.
I will, sir.

 [_Exit._]

BRUTUS.
The exhalations, whizzing in the air
Give so much light that I may read by them.

 [_Opens the letter and reads._]

_Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake and see thyself.
Shall Rome, &c. Speak, strike, redress!_
“Brutus, thou sleep’st: awake!”
Such instigations have been often dropp’d
Where I have took them up.
“Shall Rome, &c.” Thus must I piece it out:
Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe? What, Rome?
My ancestors did from the streets of Rome
The Tarquin drive, when he was call’d a king.
“Speak, strike, redress!” Am I entreated
To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise,
If the redress will follow, thou receivest
Thy full petition at the hand of Brutus.

 Enter Lucius.

LUCIUS.
Sir, March is wasted fifteen days.

 [_Knock within._]

BRUTUS.
’Tis good. Go to the gate, somebody knocks.

 [_Exit Lucius._]

Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar,
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

 Enter Lucius.

LUCIUS.
Sir, ’tis your brother Cassius at the door,
Who doth desire to see you.

BRUTUS.
Is he alone?

LUCIUS.
No, sir, there are moe with him.

BRUTUS.
Do you know them?

LUCIUS.
No, sir, their hats are pluck’d about their ears,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any mark of favour.

BRUTUS.
Let ’em enter.

 [_Exit Lucius._]

They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Sham’st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then, by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.

 Enter Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus Cimber and Trebonius.

CASSIUS.
I think we are too bold upon your rest:
Good morrow, Brutus; do we trouble you?

BRUTUS.
I have been up this hour, awake all night.
Know I these men that come along with you?

CASSIUS.
Yes, every man of them; and no man here
But honours you; and everyone doth wish
You had but that opinion of yourself
Which every noble Roman bears of you.
This is Trebonius.

BRUTUS.
He is welcome hither.

CASSIUS.
This Decius Brutus.

BRUTUS.
He is welcome too.

CASSIUS.
This, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber.

BRUTUS.
They are all welcome.
What watchful cares do interpose themselves
Betwixt your eyes and night?

CASSIUS.
Shall I entreat a word?

 [_They whisper._]

DECIUS.
Here lies the east: doth not the day break here?

CASCA.
No.

CINNA.
O, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon grey lines
That fret the clouds are messengers of day.

CASCA.
You shall confess that you are both deceiv’d.
Here, as I point my sword, the Sun arises;
Which is a great way growing on the South,
Weighing the youthful season of the year.
Some two months hence, up higher toward the North
He first presents his fire; and the high East
Stands, as the Capitol, directly here.

BRUTUS.
Give me your hands all over, one by one.

CASSIUS.
And let us swear our resolution.

BRUTUS.
No, not an oath. If not the face of men,
The sufferance of our souls, the time’s abuse—
If these be motives weak, break off betimes,
And every man hence to his idle bed.
So let high-sighted tyranny range on,
Till each man drop by lottery. But if these,
As I am sure they do, bear fire enough
To kindle cowards, and to steel with valour
The melting spirits of women; then, countrymen,
What need we any spur but our own cause
To prick us to redress? what other bond
Than secret Romans, that have spoke the word,
And will not palter? and what other oath
Than honesty to honesty engag’d,
That this shall be, or we will fall for it?
Swear priests and cowards, and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt; but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprise,
Nor th’ insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think that or our cause or our performance
Did need an oath; when every drop of blood
That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
Is guilty of a several bastardy,
If he do break the smallest particle
Of any promise that hath pass’d from him.

CASSIUS.
But what of Cicero? Shall we sound him?
I think he will stand very strong with us.

CASCA.
Let us not leave him out.

CINNA.
No, by no means.

METELLUS.
O, let us have him, for his silver hairs
Will purchase us a good opinion,
And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds.
It shall be said, his judgment rul’d our hands;
Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,
But all be buried in his gravity.

BRUTUS.
O, name him not; let us not break with him;
For he will never follow anything
That other men begin.

CASSIUS.
Then leave him out.

CASCA.
Indeed, he is not fit.

DECIUS.
Shall no man else be touch’d but only Caesar?

CASSIUS.
Decius, well urg’d. I think it is not meet,
Mark Antony, so well belov’d of Caesar,
Should outlive Caesar: we shall find of him
A shrewd contriver; and you know, his means,
If he improve them, may well stretch so far
As to annoy us all; which to prevent,
Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

BRUTUS.
Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off, and then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death, and envy afterwards;
For Antony is but a limb of Caesar.
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar,
And in the spirit of men there is no blood.
O, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit,
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide ’em. This shall mark
Our purpose necessary, and not envious;
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call’d purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Caesar’s arm
When Caesar’s head is off.

CASSIUS.
Yet I fear him;
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar—

BRUTUS.
Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:
If he love Caesar, all that he can do
Is to himself; take thought and die for Caesar.
And that were much he should; for he is given
To sports, to wildness, and much company.

TREBONIUS.
There is no fear in him; let him not die;
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.

 [_Clock strikes._]

BRUTUS.
Peace! count the clock.

CASSIUS.
The clock hath stricken three.

TREBONIUS.
’Tis time to part.

CASSIUS.
But it is doubtful yet
Whether Caesar will come forth today or no;
For he is superstitious grown of late,
Quite from the main opinion he held once
Of fantasy, of dreams, and ceremonies.
It may be these apparent prodigies,
The unaccustom’d terror of this night,
And the persuasion of his augurers,
May hold him from the Capitol today.

DECIUS.
Never fear that: if he be so resolved,
I can o’ersway him, for he loves to hear
That unicorns may be betray’d with trees,
And bears with glasses, elephants with holes,
Lions with toils, and men with flatterers.
But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
He says he does, being then most flattered.
Let me work;
For I can give his humour the true bent,
And I will bring him to the Capitol.

CASSIUS.
Nay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.

BRUTUS.
By the eighth hour: is that the uttermost?

CINNA.
Be that the uttermost; and fail not then.

METELLUS.
Caius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard,
Who rated him for speaking well of Pompey;
I wonder none of you have thought of him.

BRUTUS.
Now, good Metellus, go along by him:
He loves me well, and I have given him reason;
Send him but hither, and I’ll fashion him.

CASSIUS.
The morning comes upon’s. We’ll leave you, Brutus.
And, friends, disperse yourselves; but all remember
What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans.

BRUTUS.
Good gentlemen, look fresh and merrily;
Let not our looks put on our purposes,
But bear it as our Roman actors do,
With untired spirits and formal constancy.
And so, good morrow to you everyone.

 [_Exeunt all but Brutus._]

Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter;
Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber:
Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies,
Which busy care draws in the brains of men;
Therefore thou sleep’st so sound.

 Enter Portia.

PORTIA.
Brutus, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Portia, what mean you? Wherefore rise you now?
It is not for your health thus to commit
Your weak condition to the raw cold morning.

PORTIA.
Nor for yours neither. Y’ have ungently, Brutus,
Stole from my bed; and yesternight at supper,
You suddenly arose, and walk’d about,
Musing and sighing, with your arms across;
And when I ask’d you what the matter was,
You star’d upon me with ungentle looks.
I urg’d you further; then you scratch’d your head,
And too impatiently stamp’d with your foot;
Yet I insisted, yet you answer’d not,
But with an angry wafture of your hand
Gave sign for me to leave you. So I did,
Fearing to strengthen that impatience
Which seem’d too much enkindled; and withal
Hoping it was but an effect of humour,
Which sometime hath his hour with every man.
It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep;
And could it work so much upon your shape
As it hath much prevail’d on your condition,
I should not know you, Brutus. Dear my lord,
Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

BRUTUS.
I am not well in health, and that is all.

PORTIA.
Brutus is wise, and, were he not in health,
He would embrace the means to come by it.

BRUTUS.
Why, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed.

PORTIA.
Is Brutus sick, and is it physical
To walk unbraced and suck up the humours
Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick,
And will he steal out of his wholesome bed
To dare the vile contagion of the night,
And tempt the rheumy and unpurged air
To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus;
You have some sick offence within your mind,
Which, by the right and virtue of my place,
I ought to know of: and, upon my knees,
I charm you, by my once commended beauty,
By all your vows of love, and that great vow
Which did incorporate and make us one,
That you unfold to me, your self, your half,
Why you are heavy, and what men tonight
Have had resort to you; for here have been
Some six or seven, who did hide their faces
Even from darkness.

BRUTUS.
Kneel not, gentle Portia.

PORTIA.
I should not need, if you were gentle Brutus.
Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,
Is it excepted I should know no secrets
That appertain to you? Am I your self
But, as it were, in sort or limitation,
To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed,
And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs
Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,
Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife.

BRUTUS.
You are my true and honourable wife,
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.

PORTIA.
If this were true, then should I know this secret.
I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife;
I grant I am a woman; but withal
A woman well reputed, Cato’s daughter.
Think you I am no stronger than my sex,
Being so father’d and so husbanded?
Tell me your counsels, I will not disclose ’em.
I have made strong proof of my constancy,
Giving myself a voluntary wound
Here, in the thigh: can I bear that with patience
And not my husband’s secrets?

BRUTUS.
O ye gods,
Render me worthy of this noble wife!

 [_Knock._]

Hark, hark, one knocks. Portia, go in awhile;
And by and by thy bosom shall partake
The secrets of my heart.
All my engagements I will construe to thee,
All the charactery of my sad brows.
Leave me with haste.

 [_Exit Portia._]

 Enter Lucius with Ligarius.

Lucius, who’s that knocks?

LUCIUS.
Here is a sick man that would speak with you.

BRUTUS.
Caius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.
Boy, stand aside. Caius Ligarius, how?

LIGARIUS.
Vouchsafe good-morrow from a feeble tongue.

BRUTUS.
O, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,
To wear a kerchief! Would you were not sick!

LIGARIUS.
I am not sick, if Brutus have in hand
Any exploit worthy the name of honour.

BRUTUS.
Such an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius,
Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.

LIGARIUS.
By all the gods that Romans bow before,
I here discard my sickness. Soul of Rome!
Brave son, derived from honourable loins!
Thou, like an exorcist, hast conjur’d up
My mortified spirit. Now bid me run,
And I will strive with things impossible,
Yea, get the better of them. What’s to do?

BRUTUS.
A piece of work that will make sick men whole.

LIGARIUS.
But are not some whole that we must make sick?

BRUTUS.
That must we also. What it is, my Caius,
I shall unfold to thee, as we are going,
To whom it must be done.

LIGARIUS.
Set on your foot,
And with a heart new-fir’d I follow you,
To do I know not what; but it sufficeth
That Brutus leads me on.

 [_Thunder._]

BRUTUS.
Follow me then.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A room in Caesar’s palace.

 Thunder and lightning. Enter Caesar, in his nightgown.

CAESAR.
Nor heaven nor earth have been at peace tonight:
Thrice hath Calphurnia in her sleep cried out,
“Help, ho! They murder Caesar!” Who’s within?

 Enter a Servant.

SERVANT.
My lord?

CAESAR.
Go bid the priests do present sacrifice,
And bring me their opinions of success.

SERVANT.
I will, my lord.

 [_Exit._]

 Enter Calphurnia.

CALPHURNIA.
What mean you, Caesar? Think you to walk forth?
You shall not stir out of your house today.

CAESAR.
Caesar shall forth. The things that threaten’d me
Ne’er look’d but on my back; when they shall see
The face of Caesar, they are vanished.

CALPHURNIA.
Caesar, I never stood on ceremonies,
Yet now they fright me. There is one within,
Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.
A lioness hath whelped in the streets,
And graves have yawn’d, and yielded up their dead;
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds
In ranks and squadrons and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol;
The noise of battle hurtled in the air,
Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan,
And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.
O Caesar, these things are beyond all use,
And I do fear them!

CAESAR.
What can be avoided
Whose end is purpos’d by the mighty gods?
Yet Caesar shall go forth; for these predictions
Are to the world in general as to Caesar.

CALPHURNIA.
When beggars die, there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.

CAESAR.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

 Enter Servant.

What say the augurers?

SERVANT.
They would not have you to stir forth today.
Plucking the entrails of an offering forth,
They could not find a heart within the beast.

CAESAR.
The gods do this in shame of cowardice:
Caesar should be a beast without a heart
If he should stay at home today for fear.
No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well
That Caesar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions litter’d in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible,
And Caesar shall go forth.

CALPHURNIA.
Alas, my lord,
Your wisdom is consum’d in confidence.
Do not go forth today: call it my fear
That keeps you in the house, and not your own.
We’ll send Mark Antony to the Senate-house,
And he shall say you are not well today.
Let me upon my knee prevail in this.

CAESAR.
Mark Antony shall say I am not well,
And for thy humour, I will stay at home.

 Enter Decius.

Here’s Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so.

DECIUS.
Caesar, all hail! Good morrow, worthy Caesar.
I come to fetch you to the Senate-house.

CAESAR.
And you are come in very happy time
To bear my greeting to the Senators,
And tell them that I will not come today.
Cannot, is false; and that I dare not, falser:
I will not come today. Tell them so, Decius.

CALPHURNIA.
Say he is sick.

CAESAR.
Shall Caesar send a lie?
Have I in conquest stretch’d mine arm so far,
To be afeard to tell grey-beards the truth?
Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come.

DECIUS.
Most mighty Caesar, let me know some cause,
Lest I be laugh’d at when I tell them so.

CAESAR.
The cause is in my will; I will not come.
That is enough to satisfy the Senate.
But for your private satisfaction,
Because I love you, I will let you know:
Calphurnia here, my wife, stays me at home.
She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,
Which like a fountain with an hundred spouts
Did run pure blood; and many lusty Romans
Came smiling, and did bathe their hands in it.
And these does she apply for warnings and portents
And evils imminent; and on her knee
Hath begg’d that I will stay at home today.

DECIUS.
This dream is all amiss interpreted:
It was a vision fair and fortunate.
Your statue spouting blood in many pipes,
In which so many smiling Romans bath’d,
Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck
Reviving blood, and that great men shall press
For tinctures, stains, relics, and cognizance.
This by Calphurnia’s dream is signified.

CAESAR.
And this way have you well expounded it.

DECIUS.
I have, when you have heard what I can say;
And know it now. The Senate have concluded
To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar.
If you shall send them word you will not come,
Their minds may change. Besides, it were a mock
Apt to be render’d, for someone to say,
“Break up the Senate till another time,
When Caesar’s wife shall meet with better dreams.”
If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper
“Lo, Caesar is afraid”?
Pardon me, Caesar; for my dear dear love
To your proceeding bids me tell you this,
And reason to my love is liable.

CAESAR.
How foolish do your fears seem now, Calphurnia!
I am ashamed I did yield to them.
Give me my robe, for I will go.

 Enter Brutus, Ligarius, Metellus, Casca, Trebonius, Cinna and Publius.

And look where Publius is come to fetch me.

PUBLIUS.
Good morrow, Caesar.

CAESAR.
Welcome, Publius.
What, Brutus, are you stirr’d so early too?
Good morrow, Casca. Caius Ligarius,
Caesar was ne’er so much your enemy
As that same ague which hath made you lean.
What is’t o’clock?

BRUTUS.
Caesar, ’tis strucken eight.

CAESAR.
I thank you for your pains and courtesy.

 Enter Antony.

See! Antony, that revels long a-nights,
Is notwithstanding up. Good morrow, Antony.

ANTONY.
So to most noble Caesar.

CAESAR.
Bid them prepare within.
I am to blame to be thus waited for.
Now, Cinna; now, Metellus; what, Trebonius!
I have an hour’s talk in store for you:
Remember that you call on me today;
Be near me, that I may remember you.

TREBONIUS.
Caesar, I will. [_Aside._] and so near will I be,
That your best friends shall wish I had been further.

CAESAR.
Good friends, go in, and taste some wine with me;
And we, like friends, will straightway go together.

BRUTUS.
[_Aside._] That every like is not the same, O Caesar,
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. A street near the Capitol.

 Enter Artemidorus, reading a paper.

ARTEMIDORUS.
_“Caesar, beware of Brutus; take heed of Cassius; come not near Casca;
have an eye to Cinna; trust not Trebonius; mark well Metellus Cimber;
Decius Brutus loves thee not; thou hast wrong’d Caius Ligarius. There
is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent against Caesar. If
thou be’st not immortal, look about you: security gives way to
conspiracy. The mighty gods defend thee!
Thy lover, Artemidorus.”_
Here will I stand till Caesar pass along,
And as a suitor will I give him this.
My heart laments that virtue cannot live
Out of the teeth of emulation.
If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayest live;
If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. Another part of the same street, before the house of Brutus.

 Enter Portia and Lucius.

PORTIA.
I pr’ythee, boy, run to the Senate-house;
Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone.
Why dost thou stay?

LUCIUS.
To know my errand, madam.

PORTIA.
I would have had thee there and here again,
Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there.
[_Aside._] O constancy, be strong upon my side,
Set a huge mountain ’tween my heart and tongue!
I have a man’s mind, but a woman’s might.
How hard it is for women to keep counsel!
Art thou here yet?

LUCIUS.
Madam, what should I do?
Run to the Capitol, and nothing else?
And so return to you, and nothing else?

PORTIA.
Yes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well,
For he went sickly forth: and take good note
What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him.
Hark, boy, what noise is that?

LUCIUS.
I hear none, madam.

PORTIA.
Pr’ythee, listen well.
I heard a bustling rumour, like a fray,
And the wind brings it from the Capitol.

LUCIUS.
Sooth, madam, I hear nothing.

 Enter the Soothsayer.

PORTIA.
Come hither, fellow:
Which way hast thou been?

SOOTHSAYER.
At mine own house, good lady.

PORTIA.
What is’t o’clock?

SOOTHSAYER.
About the ninth hour, lady.

PORTIA.
Is Caesar yet gone to the Capitol?

SOOTHSAYER.
Madam, not yet. I go to take my stand,
To see him pass on to the Capitol.

PORTIA.
Thou hast some suit to Caesar, hast thou not?

SOOTHSAYER.
That I have, lady, if it will please Caesar
To be so good to Caesar as to hear me,
I shall beseech him to befriend himself.

PORTIA.
Why, know’st thou any harm’s intended towards him?

SOOTHSAYER.
None that I know will be, much that I fear may chance.
Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow.
The throng that follows Caesar at the heels,
Of Senators, of Praetors, common suitors,
Will crowd a feeble man almost to death:
I’ll get me to a place more void, and there
Speak to great Caesar as he comes along.

 [_Exit._]

PORTIA.
I must go in.
[_Aside._] Ay me, how weak a thing
The heart of woman is! O Brutus,
The heavens speed thee in thine enterprise!
Sure, the boy heard me. Brutus hath a suit
That Caesar will not grant. O, I grow faint.
Run, Lucius, and commend me to my lord;
Say I am merry; come to me again,
And bring me word what he doth say to thee.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT III

SCENE I. Rome. Before the Capitol; the Senate sitting.

 A crowd of people in the street leading to the Capitol. Flourish.
 Enter Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Metellus, Trebonius,
 Cinna, Antony, Lepidus, Artemidorus, Publius, Popilius and the
 Soothsayer.

CAESAR.
The Ides of March are come.

SOOTHSAYER.
Ay, Caesar; but not gone.

ARTEMIDORUS.
Hail, Caesar! Read this schedule.

DECIUS.
Trebonius doth desire you to o’er-read,
At your best leisure, this his humble suit.

ARTEMIDORUS.
O Caesar, read mine first; for mine’s a suit
That touches Caesar nearer. Read it, great Caesar.

CAESAR.
What touches us ourself shall be last serv’d.

ARTEMIDORUS.
Delay not, Caesar. Read it instantly.

CAESAR.
What, is the fellow mad?

PUBLIUS.
Sirrah, give place.

CASSIUS.
What, urge you your petitions in the street?
Come to the Capitol.

Caesar enters the Capitol, the rest following. All the Senators rise.

POPILIUS.
I wish your enterprise today may thrive.

CASSIUS.
What enterprise, Popilius?

POPILIUS.
Fare you well.

 [_Advances to Caesar._]

BRUTUS.
What said Popilius Lena?

CASSIUS.
He wish’d today our enterprise might thrive.
I fear our purpose is discovered.

BRUTUS.
Look how he makes to Caesar: mark him.

CASSIUS.
Casca, be sudden, for we fear prevention.
Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known,
Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back,
For I will slay myself.

BRUTUS.
Cassius, be constant:
Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes;
For look, he smiles, and Caesar doth not change.

CASSIUS.
Trebonius knows his time, for look you, Brutus,
He draws Mark Antony out of the way.

 [_Exeunt Antony and Trebonius. Caesar and the Senators take their
 seats._]

DECIUS.
Where is Metellus Cimber? Let him go,
And presently prefer his suit to Caesar.

BRUTUS.
He is address’d; press near and second him.

CINNA.
Casca, you are the first that rears your hand.

CAESAR.
Are we all ready? What is now amiss
That Caesar and his Senate must redress?

METELLUS.
Most high, most mighty, and most puissant Caesar,
Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat
An humble heart.

 [_Kneeling._]

CAESAR.
I must prevent thee, Cimber.
These couchings and these lowly courtesies
Might fire the blood of ordinary men,
And turn pre-ordinance and first decree
Into the law of children. Be not fond,
To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood
That will be thaw’d from the true quality
With that which melteth fools; I mean sweet words,
Low-crooked curtsies, and base spaniel fawning.
Thy brother by decree is banished:
If thou dost bend, and pray, and fawn for him,
I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.
Know, Caesar dost not wrong, nor without cause
Will he be satisfied.

METELLUS.
Is there no voice more worthy than my own,
To sound more sweetly in great Caesar’s ear
For the repealing of my banish’d brother?

BRUTUS.
I kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar;
Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may
Have an immediate freedom of repeal.

CAESAR.
What, Brutus?

CASSIUS.
Pardon, Caesar; Caesar, pardon:
As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall,
To beg enfranchisement for Publius Cimber.

CAESAR.
I could be well mov’d, if I were as you;
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix’d and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumber’d sparks,
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.
So in the world; ’tis furnish’d well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshak’d of motion: and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this,
That I was constant Cimber should be banish’d,
And constant do remain to keep him so.

CINNA.
O Caesar,—

CAESAR.
Hence! wilt thou lift up Olympus?

DECIUS.
Great Caesar,—

CAESAR.
Doth not Brutus bootless kneel?

CASCA.
Speak, hands, for me!

 [_Casca stabs Caesar in the neck. Caesar catches hold of his arm. He
 is then stabbed by several other Conspirators, and at last by Marcus
 Brutus._]

CAESAR.
_Et tu, Brute?_—Then fall, Caesar!

 [_Dies. The Senators and People retire in confusion._]

CINNA.
Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!
Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.

CASSIUS.
Some to the common pulpits and cry out,
“Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!”

BRUTUS.
People and Senators, be not affrighted.
Fly not; stand still; ambition’s debt is paid.

CASCA.
Go to the pulpit, Brutus.

DECIUS.
And Cassius too.

BRUTUS.
Where’s Publius?

CINNA.
Here, quite confounded with this mutiny.

METELLUS.
Stand fast together, lest some friend of Caesar’s
Should chance—

BRUTUS.
Talk not of standing. Publius, good cheer!
There is no harm intended to your person,
Nor to no Roman else. So tell them, Publius.

CASSIUS.
And leave us, Publius; lest that the people
Rushing on us, should do your age some mischief.

BRUTUS.
Do so; and let no man abide this deed
But we the doers.

 Enter Trebonius.

CASSIUS.
Where’s Antony?

TREBONIUS.
Fled to his house amaz’d.
Men, wives, and children stare, cry out, and run,
As it were doomsday.

BRUTUS.
Fates, we will know your pleasures.
That we shall die, we know; ’tis but the time
And drawing days out, that men stand upon.

CASCA.
Why, he that cuts off twenty years of life
Cuts off so many years of fearing death.

BRUTUS.
Grant that, and then is death a benefit:
So are we Caesar’s friends, that have abridg’d
His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop,
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar’s blood
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords:
Then walk we forth, even to the market-place,
And waving our red weapons o’er our heads,
Let’s all cry, “Peace, freedom, and liberty!”

CASSIUS.
Stoop then, and wash. How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In States unborn, and accents yet unknown!

BRUTUS.
How many times shall Caesar bleed in sport,
That now on Pompey’s basis lies along,
No worthier than the dust!

CASSIUS.
So oft as that shall be,
So often shall the knot of us be call’d
The men that gave their country liberty.

DECIUS.
What, shall we forth?

CASSIUS.
Ay, every man away.
Brutus shall lead; and we will grace his heels
With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.

 Enter a Servant.

BRUTUS.
Soft, who comes here? A friend of Antony’s.

SERVANT.
Thus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel;
Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down;
And, being prostrate, thus he bade me say:
Brutus is noble, wise, valiant, and honest;
Caesar was mighty, bold, royal, and loving;
Say I love Brutus and I honour him;
Say I fear’d Caesar, honour’d him, and lov’d him.
If Brutus will vouchsafe that Antony
May safely come to him, and be resolv’d
How Caesar hath deserv’d to lie in death,
Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead
So well as Brutus living; but will follow
The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus
Thorough the hazards of this untrod state,
With all true faith. So says my master Antony.

BRUTUS.
Thy master is a wise and valiant Roman;
I never thought him worse.
Tell him, so please him come unto this place,
He shall be satisfied and, by my honour,
Depart untouch’d.

SERVANT.
I’ll fetch him presently.

 [_Exit._]

BRUTUS.
I know that we shall have him well to friend.

CASSIUS.
I wish we may: but yet have I a mind
That fears him much; and my misgiving still
Falls shrewdly to the purpose.

 Enter Antony.

BRUTUS.
But here comes Antony. Welcome, Mark Antony.

ANTONY.
O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure? Fare thee well.
I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,
Who else must be let blood, who else is rank:
If I myself, there is no hour so fit
As Caesar’s death’s hour; nor no instrument
Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich
With the most noble blood of all this world.
I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,
Now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke,
Fulfill your pleasure. Live a thousand years,
I shall not find myself so apt to die.
No place will please me so, no means of death,
As here by Caesar, and by you cut off,
The choice and master spirits of this age.

BRUTUS.
O Antony, beg not your death of us.
Though now we must appear bloody and cruel,
As by our hands and this our present act
You see we do; yet see you but our hands
And this the bleeding business they have done.
Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful;
And pity to the general wrong of Rome—
As fire drives out fire, so pity pity—
Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part,
To you our swords have leaden points, Mark Antony;
Our arms in strength of malice, and our hearts
Of brothers’ temper, do receive you in
With all kind love, good thoughts, and reverence.

CASSIUS.
Your voice shall be as strong as any man’s
In the disposing of new dignities.

BRUTUS.
Only be patient till we have appeas’d
The multitude, beside themselves with fear,
And then we will deliver you the cause
Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him,
Have thus proceeded.

ANTONY.
I doubt not of your wisdom.
Let each man render me his bloody hand.
First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you;
Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand.
Now, Decius Brutus, yours; now yours, Metellus;
Yours, Cinna; and, my valiant Casca, yours;
Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius.
Gentlemen all—alas, what shall I say?
My credit now stands on such slippery ground,
That one of two bad ways you must conceit me,
Either a coward or a flatterer.
That I did love thee, Caesar, O, ’tis true:
If then thy spirit look upon us now,
Shall it not grieve thee dearer than thy death,
To see thy Antony making his peace,
Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes,
Most noble, in the presence of thy corse?
Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds,
Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood,
It would become me better than to close
In terms of friendship with thine enemies.
Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bay’d, brave hart;
Here didst thou fall; and here thy hunters stand,
Sign’d in thy spoil, and crimson’d in thy lethe.
O world, thou wast the forest to this hart;
And this indeed, O world, the heart of thee.
How like a deer strucken by many princes,
Dost thou here lie!

CASSIUS.
Mark Antony,—

ANTONY.
Pardon me, Caius Cassius:
The enemies of Caesar shall say this;
Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.

CASSIUS.
I blame you not for praising Caesar so;
But what compact mean you to have with us?
Will you be prick’d in number of our friends,
Or shall we on, and not depend on you?

ANTONY.
Therefore I took your hands; but was indeed
Sway’d from the point, by looking down on Caesar.
Friends am I with you all, and love you all,
Upon this hope, that you shall give me reasons
Why, and wherein, Caesar was dangerous.

BRUTUS.
Or else were this a savage spectacle.
Our reasons are so full of good regard
That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar,
You should be satisfied.

ANTONY.
That’s all I seek,
And am moreover suitor that I may
Produce his body to the market-place;
And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,
Speak in the order of his funeral.

BRUTUS.
You shall, Mark Antony.

CASSIUS.
Brutus, a word with you.
[_Aside to Brutus._] You know not what you do. Do not consent
That Antony speak in his funeral.
Know you how much the people may be mov’d
By that which he will utter?

BRUTUS.
[_Aside to Cassius._] By your pardon:
I will myself into the pulpit first,
And show the reason of our Caesar’s death.
What Antony shall speak, I will protest
He speaks by leave and by permission;
And that we are contented Caesar shall
Have all true rights and lawful ceremonies.
It shall advantage more than do us wrong.

CASSIUS.
[_Aside to Brutus._] I know not what may fall; I like it not.

BRUTUS.
Mark Antony, here, take you Caesar’s body.
You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,
But speak all good you can devise of Caesar,
And say you do’t by our permission;
Else shall you not have any hand at all
About his funeral. And you shall speak
In the same pulpit whereto I am going,
After my speech is ended.

ANTONY.
Be it so;
I do desire no more.

BRUTUS.
Prepare the body, then, and follow us.

 [_Exeunt all but Antony._]

ANTONY.
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,
Which, like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quartered with the hands of war;
All pity chok’d with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from Hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

 Enter a Servant.

You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not?

SERVANT.
I do, Mark Antony.

ANTONY.
Caesar did write for him to come to Rome.

SERVANT.
He did receive his letters, and is coming,
And bid me say to you by word of mouth,—
[_Seeing the body._] O Caesar!

ANTONY.
Thy heart is big, get thee apart and weep.
Passion, I see, is catching; for mine eyes,
Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,
Began to water. Is thy master coming?

SERVANT.
He lies tonight within seven leagues of Rome.

ANTONY.
Post back with speed, and tell him what hath chanc’d.
Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome,
No Rome of safety for Octavius yet.
Hie hence, and tell him so. Yet stay awhile;
Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corse
Into the market-place: there shall I try,
In my oration, how the people take
The cruel issue of these bloody men;
According to the which thou shalt discourse
To young Octavius of the state of things.
Lend me your hand.

 [_Exeunt with Caesar’s body._]

SCENE II. The same. The Forum.

 Enter Brutus and goes into the pulpit, and Cassius, with a throng of
 Citizens.

CITIZENS.
We will be satisfied; let us be satisfied.

BRUTUS.
Then follow me, and give me audience, friends.
Cassius, go you into the other street
And part the numbers.
Those that will hear me speak, let ’em stay here;
Those that will follow Cassius, go with him;
And public reasons shall be rendered
Of Caesar’s death.

FIRST CITIZEN.
I will hear Brutus speak.

SECOND CITIZEN.
I will hear Cassius; and compare their reasons,
When severally we hear them rendered.

 [_Exit Cassius, with some of the Citizens. Brutus goes into the
 rostrum._]

THIRD CITIZEN.
The noble Brutus is ascended: silence!

BRUTUS.
Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause; and be silent,
that you may hear. Believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine
honour, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your
senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this
assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love
to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus
rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less,
but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die
all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar
loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he
was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him. There
is tears, for his love; joy for his fortune; honour for his valour; and
death, for his ambition. Who is here so base, that would be a bondman?
If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude, that would
not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so
vile, that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I
offended. I pause for a reply.

CITIZENS.
None, Brutus, none.

BRUTUS.
Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar than you shall
do to Brutus. The question of his death is enroll’d in the Capitol, his
glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforc’d,
for which he suffered death.

 Enter Antony and others, with Caesar’s body.

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had no hand
in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the
commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart, that, as I
slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for
myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.

CITIZENS.
Live, Brutus! live, live!

FIRST CITIZEN.
Bring him with triumph home unto his house.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Give him a statue with his ancestors.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Let him be Caesar.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Caesar’s better parts
Shall be crown’d in Brutus.

FIRST CITIZEN.
We’ll bring him to his house with shouts and clamours.

BRUTUS.
My countrymen,—

SECOND CITIZEN.
Peace! Silence! Brutus speaks.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Peace, ho!

BRUTUS.
Good countrymen, let me depart alone,
And, for my sake, stay here with Antony.
Do grace to Caesar’s corpse, and grace his speech
Tending to Caesar’s glories, which Mark Antony,
By our permission, is allow’d to make.
I do entreat you, not a man depart,
Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.

 [_Exit._]

FIRST CITIZEN.
Stay, ho! and let us hear Mark Antony.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Let him go up into the public chair.
We’ll hear him. Noble Antony, go up.

ANTONY.
For Brutus’ sake, I am beholding to you.

 [_Goes up._]

FOURTH CITIZEN.
What does he say of Brutus?

THIRD CITIZEN.
He says, for Brutus’ sake
He finds himself beholding to us all.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
’Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here!

FIRST CITIZEN.
This Caesar was a tyrant.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Nay, that’s certain.
We are blest that Rome is rid of him.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Peace! let us hear what Antony can say.

ANTONY.
You gentle Romans,—

CITIZENS.
Peace, ho! let us hear him.

ANTONY.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
For Brutus is an honourable man,
So are they all, all honourable men,
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me.
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Methinks there is much reason in his sayings.

SECOND CITIZEN.
If thou consider rightly of the matter,
Caesar has had great wrong.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Has he, masters?
I fear there will a worse come in his place.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Mark’d ye his words? He would not take the crown;
Therefore ’tis certain he was not ambitious.

FIRST CITIZEN.
If it be found so, some will dear abide it.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Poor soul, his eyes are red as fire with weeping.

THIRD CITIZEN.
There’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Now mark him; he begins again to speak.

ANTONY.
But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
O masters! If I were dispos’d to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honourable men.
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honourable men.
But here’s a parchment with the seal of Caesar,
I found it in his closet; ’tis his will:
Let but the commons hear this testament,
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
We’ll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony.

CITIZENS.
The will, the will! We will hear Caesar’s will.

ANTONY.
Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it.
It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;
And being men, hearing the will of Caesar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad.
’Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;
For if you should, O, what would come of it?

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Read the will! We’ll hear it, Antony;
You shall read us the will, Caesar’s will!

ANTONY.
Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile?
I have o’ershot myself to tell you of it.
I fear I wrong the honourable men
Whose daggers have stabb’d Caesar; I do fear it.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
They were traitors. Honourable men!

CITIZENS.
The will! The testament!

SECOND CITIZEN.
They were villains, murderers. The will! Read the will!

ANTONY.
You will compel me then to read the will?
Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar,
And let me show you him that made the will.
Shall I descend? and will you give me leave?

CITIZENS.
Come down.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Descend.

 [_He comes down._]

THIRD CITIZEN.
You shall have leave.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
A ring! Stand round.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Stand from the hearse, stand from the body.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Room for Antony, most noble Antony!

ANTONY.
Nay, press not so upon me; stand far off.

CITIZENS.
Stand back; room! bear back.

ANTONY.
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle. I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on;
’Twas on a Summer’s evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:
See what a rent the envious Casca made:
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb’d;
And as he pluck’d his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow’d it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolv’d
If Brutus so unkindly knock’d, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel.
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar lov’d him.
This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,
Quite vanquish’d him: then burst his mighty heart;
And in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish’d over us.
O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity. These are gracious drops.
Kind souls, what weep you when you but behold
Our Caesar’s vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marr’d, as you see, with traitors.

FIRST CITIZEN.
O piteous spectacle!

SECOND CITIZEN.
O noble Caesar!

THIRD CITIZEN.
O woeful day!

FOURTH CITIZEN.
O traitors, villains!

FIRST CITIZEN.
O most bloody sight!

SECOND CITIZEN.
We will be revenged.

CITIZENS.
Revenge,—about,—seek,—burn,—fire,—kill,—slay,—let not a traitor live!

ANTONY.
Stay, countrymen.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Peace there! Hear the noble Antony.

SECOND CITIZEN.
We’ll hear him, we’ll follow him, we’ll die with him.

ANTONY.
Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honourable.
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it. They’re wise and honourable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.
I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.
I am no orator, as Brutus is;
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men’s blood. I only speak right on.
I tell you that which you yourselves do know,
Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar, that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

CITIZENS.
We’ll mutiny.

FIRST CITIZEN.
We’ll burn the house of Brutus.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Away, then! come, seek the conspirators.

ANTONY.
Yet hear me, countrymen; yet hear me speak.

CITIZENS.
Peace, ho! Hear Antony; most noble Antony.

ANTONY.
Why, friends, you go to do you know not what.
Wherein hath Caesar thus deserved your loves?
Alas, you know not; I must tell you then.
You have forgot the will I told you of.

CITIZENS.
Most true; the will!—let’s stay, and hear the will.

ANTONY.
Here is the will, and under Caesar’s seal.
To every Roman citizen he gives,
To every several man, seventy-five drachmas.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Most noble Caesar! We’ll revenge his death.

THIRD CITIZEN.
O, royal Caesar!

ANTONY.
Hear me with patience.

CITIZENS.
Peace, ho!

ANTONY.
Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
His private arbors, and new-planted orchards,
On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,
And to your heirs forever; common pleasures,
To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.
Here was a Caesar! when comes such another?

FIRST CITIZEN.
Never, never. Come, away, away!
We’ll burn his body in the holy place,
And with the brands fire the traitors’ houses.
Take up the body.

SECOND CITIZEN.
Go, fetch fire.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Pluck down benches.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Pluck down forms, windows, anything.

 [_Exeunt Citizens, with the body._]

ANTONY.
Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot,
Take thou what course thou wilt!

 Enter a Servant.

How now, fellow?

SERVANT.
Sir, Octavius is already come to Rome.

ANTONY.
Where is he?

SERVANT.
He and Lepidus are at Caesar’s house.

ANTONY.
And thither will I straight to visit him.
He comes upon a wish. Fortune is merry,
And in this mood will give us anything.

SERVANT.
I heard him say Brutus and Cassius
Are rid like madmen through the gates of Rome.

ANTONY.
Belike they had some notice of the people,
How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. The same. A street.

 Enter Cinna, the poet, and after him the citizens.

CINNA.
I dreamt tonight that I did feast with Caesar,
And things unluckily charge my fantasy.
I have no will to wander forth of doors,
Yet something leads me forth.

FIRST CITIZEN.
What is your name?

SECOND CITIZEN.
Whither are you going?

THIRD CITIZEN.
Where do you dwell?

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Are you a married man or a bachelor?

SECOND CITIZEN.
Answer every man directly.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Ay, and briefly.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Ay, and wisely.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Ay, and truly, you were best.

CINNA.
What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell? Am I a married
man or a bachelor? Then, to answer every man directly and briefly,
wisely and truly. Wisely I say I am a bachelor.

SECOND CITIZEN.
That’s as much as to say they are fools that marry; you’ll bear me a
bang for that, I fear. Proceed, directly.

CINNA.
Directly, I am going to Caesar’s funeral.

FIRST CITIZEN.
As a friend, or an enemy?

CINNA.
As a friend.

SECOND CITIZEN.
That matter is answered directly.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
For your dwelling, briefly.

CINNA.
Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Your name, sir, truly.

CINNA.
Truly, my name is Cinna.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Tear him to pieces! He’s a conspirator.

CINNA.
I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.

CINNA.
I am not Cinna the conspirator.

FOURTH CITIZEN.
It is no matter, his name’s Cinna; pluck but his name out of his heart,
and turn him going.

THIRD CITIZEN.
Tear him, tear him! Come; brands, ho! firebrands. To Brutus’, to
Cassius’; burn all. Some to Decius’ house, and some to Casca’s, some to
Ligarius’. Away, go!

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT IV

SCENE I. Rome. A room in Antony’s house.

 Enter Antony, Octavius and Lepidus, seated at a table.

ANTONY.
These many then shall die; their names are prick’d.

OCTAVIUS.
Your brother too must die; consent you, Lepidus?

LEPIDUS.
I do consent,—

OCTAVIUS.
Prick him down, Antony.

LEPIDUS.
Upon condition Publius shall not live,
Who is your sister’s son, Mark Antony.

ANTONY.
He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him.
But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar’s house;
Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine
How to cut off some charge in legacies.

LEPIDUS.
What, shall I find you here?

OCTAVIUS.
Or here, or at the Capitol.

 [_Exit Lepidus._]

ANTONY.
This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands. Is it fit,
The three-fold world divided, he should stand
One of the three to share it?

OCTAVIUS.
So you thought him,
And took his voice who should be prick’d to die
In our black sentence and proscription.

ANTONY.
Octavius, I have seen more days than you;
And though we lay these honours on this man,
To ease ourselves of divers sland’rous loads,
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,
To groan and sweat under the business,
Either led or driven, as we point the way;
And having brought our treasure where we will,
Then take we down his load, and turn him off,
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears,
And graze in commons.

OCTAVIUS.
You may do your will;
But he’s a tried and valiant soldier.

ANTONY.
So is my horse, Octavius; and for that
I do appoint him store of provender.
It is a creature that I teach to fight,
To wind, to stop, to run directly on,
His corporal motion govern’d by my spirit.
And, in some taste, is Lepidus but so:
He must be taught, and train’d, and bid go forth:
A barren-spirited fellow; one that feeds
On objects, arts, and imitations,
Which, out of use and stal’d by other men,
Begin his fashion. Do not talk of him
But as a property. And now, Octavius,
Listen great things. Brutus and Cassius
Are levying powers; we must straight make head.
Therefore let our alliance be combin’d,
Our best friends made, our means stretch’d;
And let us presently go sit in council,
How covert matters may be best disclos’d,
And open perils surest answered.

OCTAVIUS.
Let us do so: for we are at the stake,
And bay’d about with many enemies;
And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear,
Millions of mischiefs.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Before Brutus’ tent, in the camp near Sardis.

 Drum. Enter  Brutus, Lucilius, Titinius and Soldiers; Pindarus meeting
 them; Lucius at some distance.

BRUTUS.
Stand, ho!

LUCILIUS.
Give the word, ho! and stand.

BRUTUS.
What now, Lucilius! is Cassius near?

LUCILIUS.
He is at hand, and Pindarus is come
To do you salutation from his master.

 [_Pindarus gives a letter to Brutus._]

BRUTUS.
He greets me well. Your master, Pindarus,
In his own change, or by ill officers,
Hath given me some worthy cause to wish
Things done, undone: but, if he be at hand,
I shall be satisfied.

PINDARUS.
I do not doubt
But that my noble master will appear
Such as he is, full of regard and honour.

BRUTUS.
He is not doubted. A word, Lucilius;
How he received you, let me be resolv’d.

LUCILIUS.
With courtesy and with respect enough,
But not with such familiar instances,
Nor with such free and friendly conference,
As he hath us’d of old.

BRUTUS.
Thou hast describ’d
A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius,
When love begins to sicken and decay
It useth an enforced ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith;
But hollow men, like horses hot at hand,
Make gallant show and promise of their mettle;

 [_Low march within._]

But when they should endure the bloody spur,
They fall their crests, and like deceitful jades
Sink in the trial. Comes his army on?

LUCILIUS.
They meant this night in Sardis to be quarter’d;
The greater part, the horse in general,
Are come with Cassius.

 Enter Cassius and Soldiers.

BRUTUS.
Hark! he is arriv’d.
March gently on to meet him.

CASSIUS.
Stand, ho!

BRUTUS.
Stand, ho! Speak the word along.

FIRST SOLDIER.
Stand!

SECOND SOLDIER.
Stand!

THIRD SOLDIER.
Stand!

CASSIUS.
Most noble brother, you have done me wrong.

BRUTUS.
Judge me, you gods; wrong I mine enemies?
And if not so, how should I wrong a brother?

CASSIUS.
Brutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs;
And when you do them—

BRUTUS.
Cassius, be content.
Speak your griefs softly, I do know you well.
Before the eyes of both our armies here,
Which should perceive nothing but love from us,
Let us not wrangle. Bid them move away;
Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge your griefs,
And I will give you audience.

CASSIUS.
Pindarus,
Bid our commanders lead their charges off
A little from this ground.

BRUTUS.
Lucilius, do you the like; and let no man
Come to our tent till we have done our conference.
Lucius and Titinius, guard our door.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Within the tent of Brutus.

 Enter Brutus and Cassius.

CASSIUS.
That you have wrong’d me doth appear in this:
You have condemn’d and noted Lucius Pella
For taking bribes here of the Sardians;
Wherein my letters, praying on his side
Because I knew the man, were slighted off.

BRUTUS.
You wrong’d yourself to write in such a case.

CASSIUS.
In such a time as this it is not meet
That every nice offence should bear his comment.

BRUTUS.
Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemn’d to have an itching palm,
To sell and mart your offices for gold
To undeservers.

CASSIUS.
I an itching palm!
You know that you are Brutus that speak this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.

BRUTUS.
The name of Cassius honours this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide his head.

CASSIUS.
Chastisement!

BRUTUS.
Remember March, the Ides of March remember:
Did not great Julius bleed for justice’ sake?
What villain touch’d his body, that did stab,
And not for justice? What! Shall one of us,
That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers, shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be grasped thus?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

CASSIUS.
Brutus, bait not me,
I’ll not endure it. You forget yourself,
To hedge me in. I am a soldier, I,
Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

BRUTUS.
Go to; you are not, Cassius.

CASSIUS.
I am.

BRUTUS.
I say you are not.

CASSIUS.
Urge me no more, I shall forget myself;
Have mind upon your health, tempt me no farther.

BRUTUS.
Away, slight man!

CASSIUS.
Is’t possible?

BRUTUS.
Hear me, for I will speak.
Must I give way and room to your rash choler?
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?

CASSIUS.
O ye gods, ye gods! Must I endure all this?

BRUTUS.
All this? ay, more: fret till your proud heart break;
Go show your slaves how choleric you are,
And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge?
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humour? By the gods,
You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you; for, from this day forth,
I’ll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish.

CASSIUS.
Is it come to this?

BRUTUS.
You say you are a better soldier:
Let it appear so; make your vaunting true,
And it shall please me well. For mine own part,
I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

CASSIUS.
You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus.
I said, an elder soldier, not a better:
Did I say better?

BRUTUS.
If you did, I care not.

CASSIUS.
When Caesar liv’d, he durst not thus have mov’d me.

BRUTUS.
Peace, peace! you durst not so have tempted him.

CASSIUS.
I durst not?

BRUTUS.
No.

CASSIUS.
What? durst not tempt him?

BRUTUS.
For your life you durst not.

CASSIUS.
Do not presume too much upon my love.
I may do that I shall be sorry for.

BRUTUS.
You have done that you should be sorry for.
There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,
For I am arm’d so strong in honesty,
That they pass by me as the idle wind,
Which I respect not. I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;
For I can raise no money by vile means:
By Heaven, I had rather coin my heart,
And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection. I did send
To you for gold to pay my legions,
Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answer’d Caius Cassius so?
When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him to pieces!

CASSIUS.
I denied you not.

BRUTUS.
You did.

CASSIUS.
I did not. He was but a fool
That brought my answer back. Brutus hath riv’d my heart.
A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities;
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

BRUTUS.
I do not, till you practise them on me.

CASSIUS.
You love me not.

BRUTUS.
I do not like your faults.

CASSIUS.
A friendly eye could never see such faults.

BRUTUS.
A flatterer’s would not, though they do appear
As huge as high Olympus.

CASSIUS.
Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come,
Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,
For Cassius is a-weary of the world:
Hated by one he loves; brav’d by his brother;
Check’d like a bondman; all his faults observ’d,
Set in a note-book, learn’d and conn’d by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast; within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus’ mine, richer than gold:
If that thou be’st a Roman, take it forth.
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart:
Strike as thou didst at Caesar; for I know,
When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

BRUTUS.
Sheathe your dagger.
Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.
O Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb
That carries anger as the flint bears fire,
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

CASSIUS.
Hath Cassius liv’d
To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief and blood ill-temper’d vexeth him?

BRUTUS.
When I spoke that, I was ill-temper’d too.

CASSIUS.
Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

BRUTUS.
And my heart too.

CASSIUS.
O Brutus!

BRUTUS.
What’s the matter?

CASSIUS.
Have not you love enough to bear with me,
When that rash humour which my mother gave me
Makes me forgetful?

BRUTUS.
Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth,
When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He’ll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

 Enter Poet, followed by Lucilius, Titinius and Lucius.

POET.
[_Within._] Let me go in to see the generals,
There is some grudge between ’em; ’tis not meet
They be alone.

LUCILIUS.
[_Within._] You shall not come to them.

POET.
[_Within._] Nothing but death shall stay me.

CASSIUS.
How now! What’s the matter?

POET.
For shame, you generals! What do you mean?
Love, and be friends, as two such men should be;
For I have seen more years, I’m sure, than ye.

CASSIUS.
Ha, ha! How vilely doth this cynic rhyme!

BRUTUS.
Get you hence, sirrah. Saucy fellow, hence!

CASSIUS.
Bear with him, Brutus; ’tis his fashion.

BRUTUS.
I’ll know his humour when he knows his time.
What should the wars do with these jigging fools?
Companion, hence!

CASSIUS.
Away, away, be gone!

 [_Exit Poet._]

BRUTUS.
Lucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders
Prepare to lodge their companies tonight.

CASSIUS.
And come yourselves and bring Messala with you
Immediately to us.

 [_Exeunt Lucilius and Titinius._]

BRUTUS.
Lucius, a bowl of wine.

 [_Exit Lucius._]

CASSIUS.
I did not think you could have been so angry.

BRUTUS.
O Cassius, I am sick of many griefs.

CASSIUS.
Of your philosophy you make no use,
If you give place to accidental evils.

BRUTUS.
No man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead.

CASSIUS.
Ha? Portia?

BRUTUS.
She is dead.

CASSIUS.
How ’scap’d I killing, when I cross’d you so?
O insupportable and touching loss!
Upon what sickness?

BRUTUS.
Impatient of my absence,
And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony
Have made themselves so strong; for with her death
That tidings came. With this she fell distract,
And, her attendants absent, swallow’d fire.

CASSIUS.
And died so?

BRUTUS.
Even so.

CASSIUS.
O ye immortal gods!

 Enter Lucius, with wine and a taper.

BRUTUS.
Speak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine.
In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.

 [_Drinks._]

CASSIUS.
My heart is thirsty for that noble pledge.
Fill, Lucius, till the wine o’erswell the cup.
I cannot drink too much of Brutus’ love.

 [_Drinks._]

 [_Exit Lucius._]

 Enter Titinius and Messala.

BRUTUS.
Come in, Titinius!
Welcome, good Messala.
Now sit we close about this taper here,
And call in question our necessities.

CASSIUS.
Portia, art thou gone?

BRUTUS.
No more, I pray you.
Messala, I have here received letters,
That young Octavius and Mark Antony
Come down upon us with a mighty power,
Bending their expedition toward Philippi.

MESSALA.
Myself have letters of the selfsame tenor.

BRUTUS.
With what addition?

MESSALA.
That by proscription and bills of outlawry
Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus
Have put to death an hundred Senators.

BRUTUS.
Therein our letters do not well agree.
Mine speak of seventy Senators that died
By their proscriptions, Cicero being one.

CASSIUS.
Cicero one!

MESSALA.
Cicero is dead,
And by that order of proscription.
Had you your letters from your wife, my lord?

BRUTUS.
No, Messala.

MESSALA.
Nor nothing in your letters writ of her?

BRUTUS.
Nothing, Messala.

MESSALA.
That, methinks, is strange.

BRUTUS.
Why ask you? Hear you aught of her in yours?

MESSALA.
No, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Now as you are a Roman, tell me true.

MESSALA.
Then like a Roman bear the truth I tell,
For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.

BRUTUS.
Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala.
With meditating that she must die once,
I have the patience to endure it now.

MESSALA.
Even so great men great losses should endure.

CASSIUS.
I have as much of this in art as you,
But yet my nature could not bear it so.

BRUTUS.
Well, to our work alive. What do you think
Of marching to Philippi presently?

CASSIUS.
I do not think it good.

BRUTUS.
Your reason?

CASSIUS.
This it is:
’Tis better that the enemy seek us;
So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers,
Doing himself offence, whilst we, lying still,
Are full of rest, defence, and nimbleness.

BRUTUS.
Good reasons must of force give place to better.
The people ’twixt Philippi and this ground
Do stand but in a forced affection;
For they have grudg’d us contribution.
The enemy, marching along by them,
By them shall make a fuller number up,
Come on refresh’d, new-added, and encourag’d;
From which advantage shall we cut him off
If at Philippi we do face him there,
These people at our back.

CASSIUS.
Hear me, good brother.

BRUTUS.
Under your pardon. You must note besides,
That we have tried the utmost of our friends,
Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe.
The enemy increaseth every day;
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

CASSIUS.
Then, with your will, go on:
We’ll along ourselves, and meet them at Philippi.

BRUTUS.
The deep of night is crept upon our talk,
And nature must obey necessity,
Which we will niggard with a little rest.
There is no more to say?

CASSIUS.
No more. Good night:
Early tomorrow will we rise, and hence.

 Enter Lucius.

BRUTUS.
Lucius! My gown.

 [_Exit Lucius._]

Farewell now, good Messala.
Good night, Titinius. Noble, noble Cassius,
Good night, and good repose.

CASSIUS.
O my dear brother!
This was an ill beginning of the night.
Never come such division ’tween our souls!
Let it not, Brutus.

 Enter Lucius with the gown.

BRUTUS.
Everything is well.

CASSIUS.
Good night, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Good night, good brother.

TITINIUS and MESSALA.
Good night, Lord Brutus.

BRUTUS.
Farewell, everyone.

 [_Exeunt Cassius, Titinius and Messala._]

Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument?

LUCIUS.
Here in the tent.

BRUTUS.
What, thou speak’st drowsily?
Poor knave, I blame thee not, thou art o’er-watch’d.
Call Claudius and some other of my men;
I’ll have them sleep on cushions in my tent.

LUCIUS.
Varro and Claudius!

 Enter Varro and Claudius.

VARRO.
Calls my lord?

BRUTUS.
I pray you, sirs, lie in my tent and sleep;
It may be I shall raise you by-and-by
On business to my brother Cassius.

VARRO.
So please you, we will stand and watch your pleasure.

BRUTUS.
I will not have it so; lie down, good sirs,
It may be I shall otherwise bethink me.
Look, Lucius, here’s the book I sought for so;
I put it in the pocket of my gown.

 [_Servants lie down._]

LUCIUS.
I was sure your lordship did not give it me.

BRUTUS.
Bear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful.
Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile,
And touch thy instrument a strain or two?

LUCIUS.
Ay, my lord, an’t please you.

BRUTUS.
It does, my boy.
I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.

LUCIUS.
It is my duty, sir.

BRUTUS.
I should not urge thy duty past thy might;
I know young bloods look for a time of rest.

LUCIUS.
I have slept, my lord, already.

BRUTUS.
It was well done, and thou shalt sleep again;
I will not hold thee long. If I do live,
I will be good to thee.

 [_Lucius plays and sings till he falls asleep._]

This is a sleepy tune. O murd’rous slumber,
Layest thou thy leaden mace upon my boy,
That plays thee music? Gentle knave, good night;
I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee.
If thou dost nod, thou break’st thy instrument;
I’ll take it from thee; and, good boy, good night.
Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turn’d down
Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

 Enter the Ghost of Caesar.

How ill this taper burns! Ha! who comes here?
I think it is the weakness of mine eyes
That shapes this monstrous apparition.
It comes upon me. Art thou anything?
Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,
That mak’st my blood cold and my hair to stare?
Speak to me what thou art.

GHOST.
Thy evil spirit, Brutus.

BRUTUS.
Why com’st thou?

GHOST.
To tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.

BRUTUS.
Well; then I shall see thee again?

GHOST.
Ay, at Philippi.

BRUTUS.
Why, I will see thee at Philippi then.

 [_Ghost vanishes._]

Now I have taken heart, thou vanishest.
Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.
Boy! Lucius! Varro! Claudius! Sirs, awake! Claudius!

LUCIUS.
The strings, my lord, are false.

BRUTUS.
He thinks he still is at his instrument.
Lucius, awake!

LUCIUS.
My lord?

BRUTUS.
Didst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so criedst out?

LUCIUS.
My lord, I do not know that I did cry.

BRUTUS.
Yes, that thou didst. Didst thou see anything?

LUCIUS.
Nothing, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Sleep again, Lucius. Sirrah Claudius!
Fellow thou, awake!

VARRO.
My lord?

CLAUDIUS.
My lord?

BRUTUS.
Why did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep?

VARRO. CLAUDIUS.
Did we, my lord?

BRUTUS.
Ay. Saw you anything?

VARRO.
No, my lord, I saw nothing.

CLAUDIUS.
Nor I, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Go and commend me to my brother Cassius;
Bid him set on his powers betimes before,
And we will follow.

VARRO. CLAUDIUS.
It shall be done, my lord.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT V

SCENE I. The plains of Philippi.

 Enter Octavius, Antony and their Army.

OCTAVIUS.
Now, Antony, our hopes are answered.
You said the enemy would not come down,
But keep the hills and upper regions.
It proves not so; their battles are at hand,
They mean to warn us at Philippi here,
Answering before we do demand of them.

ANTONY.
Tut, I am in their bosoms, and I know
Wherefore they do it. They could be content
To visit other places, and come down
With fearful bravery, thinking by this face
To fasten in our thoughts that they have courage;
But ’tis not so.

 Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER.
Prepare you, generals.
The enemy comes on in gallant show;
Their bloody sign of battle is hung out,
And something to be done immediately.

ANTONY.
Octavius, lead your battle softly on
Upon the left hand of the even field.

OCTAVIUS.
Upon the right hand I. Keep thou the left.

ANTONY.
Why do you cross me in this exigent?

OCTAVIUS.
I do not cross you; but I will do so.

 [_March._]

Drum. Enter Brutus, Cassius and their Army; Lucilius, Titinius, Messala
and others.

BRUTUS.
They stand, and would have parley.

CASSIUS.
Stand fast, Titinius; we must out and talk.

OCTAVIUS.
Mark Antony, shall we give sign of battle?

ANTONY.
No, Caesar, we will answer on their charge.
Make forth; the generals would have some words.

OCTAVIUS.
Stir not until the signal.

BRUTUS.
Words before blows: is it so, countrymen?

OCTAVIUS.
Not that we love words better, as you do.

BRUTUS.
Good words are better than bad strokes, Octavius.

ANTONY.
In your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words;
Witness the hole you made in Caesar’s heart,
Crying, “Long live! Hail, Caesar!”

CASSIUS.
Antony,
The posture of your blows are yet unknown;
But for your words, they rob the Hybla bees,
And leave them honeyless.

ANTONY.
Not stingless too.

BRUTUS.
O yes, and soundless too,
For you have stol’n their buzzing, Antony,
And very wisely threat before you sting.

ANTONY.
Villains, you did not so when your vile daggers
Hack’d one another in the sides of Caesar:
You show’d your teeth like apes, and fawn’d like hounds,
And bow’d like bondmen, kissing Caesar’s feet;
Whilst damned Casca, like a cur, behind
Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!

CASSIUS.
Flatterers! Now, Brutus, thank yourself.
This tongue had not offended so today,
If Cassius might have rul’d.

OCTAVIUS.
Come, come, the cause. If arguing makes us sweat,
The proof of it will turn to redder drops.
Look, I draw a sword against conspirators.
When think you that the sword goes up again?
Never, till Caesar’s three and thirty wounds
Be well aveng’d; or till another Caesar
Have added slaughter to the sword of traitors.

BRUTUS.
Caesar, thou canst not die by traitors’ hands,
Unless thou bring’st them with thee.

OCTAVIUS.
So I hope.
I was not born to die on Brutus’ sword.

BRUTUS.
O, if thou wert the noblest of thy strain,
Young man, thou couldst not die more honourable.

CASSIUS.
A peevish school-boy, worthless of such honour,
Join’d with a masker and a reveller.

ANTONY.
Old Cassius still!

OCTAVIUS.
Come, Antony; away!
Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth.
If you dare fight today, come to the field;
If not, when you have stomachs.

 [_Exeunt Octavius, Antony and their Army._]

CASSIUS.
Why now, blow wind, swell billow, and swim bark!
The storm is up, and all is on the hazard.

BRUTUS.
Ho, Lucilius! Hark, a word with you.

LUCILIUS.
My lord?

 [_Brutus and Lucilius talk apart._]

CASSIUS.
Messala.

MESSALA.
What says my General?

CASSIUS.
Messala,
This is my birth-day; as this very day
Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala:
Be thou my witness that against my will
As Pompey was, am I compell’d to set
Upon one battle all our liberties.
You know that I held Epicurus strong,
And his opinion. Now I change my mind,
And partly credit things that do presage.
Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign
Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch’d,
Gorging and feeding from our soldiers’ hands,
Who to Philippi here consorted us.
This morning are they fled away and gone,
And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites
Fly o’er our heads, and downward look on us,
As we were sickly prey: their shadows seem
A canopy most fatal, under which
Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.

MESSALA.
Believe not so.

CASSIUS.
I but believe it partly,
For I am fresh of spirit, and resolv’d
To meet all perils very constantly.

BRUTUS.
Even so, Lucilius.

CASSIUS.
Now, most noble Brutus,
The gods today stand friendly, that we may,
Lovers in peace, lead on our days to age!
But, since the affairs of men rest still incertain,
Let’s reason with the worst that may befall.
If we do lose this battle, then is this
The very last time we shall speak together:
What are you then determined to do?

BRUTUS.
Even by the rule of that philosophy
By which I did blame Cato for the death
Which he did give himself, I know not how,
But I do find it cowardly and vile,
For fear of what might fall, so to prevent
The time of life, arming myself with patience
To stay the providence of some high powers
That govern us below.

CASSIUS.
Then, if we lose this battle,
You are contented to be led in triumph
Thorough the streets of Rome?

BRUTUS.
No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;
He bears too great a mind. But this same day
Must end that work the Ides of March begun;
And whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take.
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius.
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then this parting was well made.

CASSIUS.
For ever and for ever farewell, Brutus.
If we do meet again, we’ll smile indeed;
If not, ’tis true this parting was well made.

BRUTUS.
Why then, lead on. O, that a man might know
The end of this day’s business ere it come!
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known. Come, ho! away!

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. The same. The field of battle.

 Alarum. Enter Brutus and Messala.

BRUTUS.
Ride, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills
Unto the legions on the other side.

 [_Loud alarum._]

Let them set on at once; for I perceive
But cold demeanor in Octavius’ wing,
And sudden push gives them the overthrow.
Ride, ride, Messala; let them all come down.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Another part of the field.

 Alarum. Enter Cassius and Titinius.

CASSIUS.
O, look, Titinius, look, the villains fly!
Myself have to mine own turn’d enemy:
This ensign here of mine was turning back;
I slew the coward, and did take it from him.

TITINIUS.
O Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early,
Who, having some advantage on Octavius,
Took it too eagerly: his soldiers fell to spoil,
Whilst we by Antony are all enclos’d.

 Enter Pindarus.

PINDARUS.
Fly further off, my lord, fly further off;
Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord.
Fly, therefore, noble Cassius, fly far off.

CASSIUS.
This hill is far enough. Look, look, Titinius;
Are those my tents where I perceive the fire?

TITINIUS.
They are, my lord.

CASSIUS.
Titinius, if thou lovest me,
Mount thou my horse and hide thy spurs in him,
Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops
And here again, that I may rest assur’d
Whether yond troops are friend or enemy.

TITINIUS.
I will be here again, even with a thought.

 [_Exit._]

CASSIUS.
Go, Pindarus, get higher on that hill,
My sight was ever thick. Regard Titinius,
And tell me what thou notest about the field.

 [_Pindarus goes up._]

This day I breathed first. Time is come round,
And where I did begin, there shall I end.
My life is run his compass. Sirrah, what news?

PINDARUS.
[_Above._] O my lord!

CASSIUS.
What news?

PINDARUS.
[_Above._] Titinius is enclosed round about
With horsemen, that make to him on the spur,
Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him.
Now, Titinius! Now some light. O, he lights too.
He’s ta’en!

 [_Shout._]

And, hark! they shout for joy.

CASSIUS.
Come down; behold no more.
O, coward that I am, to live so long,
To see my best friend ta’en before my face!

 [_Pindarus descends._]

Come hither, sirrah.
In Parthia did I take thee prisoner;
And then I swore thee, saving of thy life,
That whatsoever I did bid thee do,
Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath.
Now be a freeman; and with this good sword,
That ran through Caesar’s bowels, search this bosom.
Stand not to answer. Here, take thou the hilts;
And when my face is cover’d, as ’tis now,
Guide thou the sword.—Caesar, thou art reveng’d,
Even with the sword that kill’d thee.

 [_Dies._]

PINDARUS.
So, I am free, yet would not so have been,
Durst I have done my will. O Cassius!
Far from this country Pindarus shall run,
Where never Roman shall take note of him.

 [_Exit._]

 Enter Titinius with Messala.

MESSALA.
It is but change, Titinius; for Octavius
Is overthrown by noble Brutus’ power,
As Cassius’ legions are by Antony.

TITINIUS.
These tidings would well comfort Cassius.

MESSALA.
Where did you leave him?

TITINIUS.
All disconsolate,
With Pindarus his bondman, on this hill.

MESSALA.
Is not that he that lies upon the ground?

TITINIUS.
He lies not like the living. O my heart!

MESSALA.
Is not that he?

TITINIUS.
No, this was he, Messala,
But Cassius is no more. O setting sun,
As in thy red rays thou dost sink to night,
So in his red blood Cassius’ day is set.
The sun of Rome is set. Our day is gone;
Clouds, dews, and dangers come; our deeds are done.
Mistrust of my success hath done this deed.

MESSALA.
Mistrust of good success hath done this deed.
O hateful Error, Melancholy’s child!
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not? O Error, soon conceiv’d,
Thou never com’st unto a happy birth,
But kill’st the mother that engender’d thee!

TITINIUS.
What, Pindarus! where art thou, Pindarus?

MESSALA.
Seek him, Titinius, whilst I go to meet
The noble Brutus, thrusting this report
Into his ears. I may say thrusting it;
For piercing steel and darts envenomed
Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus
As tidings of this sight.

TITINIUS.
Hie you, Messala,
And I will seek for Pindarus the while.

 [_Exit Messala._]

Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius?
Did I not meet thy friends? And did not they
Put on my brows this wreath of victory,
And bid me give it thee? Didst thou not hear their shouts?
Alas, thou hast misconstrued everything!
But, hold thee, take this garland on thy brow;
Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I
Will do his bidding. Brutus, come apace,
And see how I regarded Caius Cassius.
By your leave, gods. This is a Roman’s part.
Come, Cassius’ sword, and find Titinius’ heart.

 [_Dies._]

 Alarum. Enter Brutus, Messala, young Cato, Strato, Volumnius and
 Lucilius.

BRUTUS.
Where, where, Messala, doth his body lie?

MESSALA.
Lo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it.

BRUTUS.
Titinius’ face is upward.

CATO.
He is slain.

BRUTUS.
O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!
Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords
In our own proper entrails.

 [_Low alarums._]

CATO.
Brave Titinius!
Look whether he have not crown’d dead Cassius!

BRUTUS.
Are yet two Romans living such as these?
The last of all the Romans, fare thee well!
It is impossible that ever Rome
Should breed thy fellow. Friends, I owe more tears
To this dead man than you shall see me pay.
I shall find time, Cassius, I shall find time.
Come therefore, and to Thassos send his body.
His funerals shall not be in our camp,
Lest it discomfort us. Lucilius, come;
And come, young Cato; let us to the field.
Labeo and Flavius, set our battles on.
’Tis three o’clock; and Romans, yet ere night
We shall try fortune in a second fight.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. Another part of the field.

 Alarum. Enter fighting soldiers of both armies; then Brutus, Messala,
 young Cato, Lucilius, Flavius and others.

BRUTUS.
Yet, countrymen, O, yet hold up your heads!

CATO.
What bastard doth not? Who will go with me?
I will proclaim my name about the field.
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!
A foe to tyrants, and my country’s friend.
I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!

 [_Charges the enemy._]

LUCILIUS.
And I am Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I;
Brutus, my country’s friend; know me for Brutus!

 [_Exit, charging the enemy. Cato is overpowered, and falls._]

LUCILIUS.
O young and noble Cato, art thou down?
Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius,
And mayst be honour’d, being Cato’s son.

FIRST SOLDIER.
Yield, or thou diest.

LUCILIUS.
Only I yield to die:
There is so much that thou wilt kill me straight;

 [_Offering money_]

Kill Brutus, and be honour’d in his death.

FIRST SOLDIER.
We must not. A noble prisoner!

SECOND SOLDIER.
Room, ho! Tell Antony, Brutus is ta’en.

FIRST SOLDIER.
I’ll tell the news. Here comes the General.

 Enter Antony.

Brutus is ta’en, Brutus is ta’en, my lord.

ANTONY.
Where is he?

LUCILIUS.
Safe, Antony; Brutus is safe enough.
I dare assure thee that no enemy
Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus.
The gods defend him from so great a shame!
When you do find him, or alive or dead,
He will be found like Brutus, like himself.

ANTONY.
This is not Brutus, friend; but, I assure you,
A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe,
Give him all kindness. I had rather have
Such men my friends than enemies. Go on,
And see whether Brutus be alive or dead;
And bring us word unto Octavius’ tent
How everything is chanc’d.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Another part of the field.

 Enter Brutus, Dardanius, Clitus, Strato and Volumnius.

BRUTUS.
Come, poor remains of friends, rest on this rock.

CLITUS.
Statilius show’d the torch-light; but, my lord,
He came not back: he is or ta’en or slain.

BRUTUS.
Sit thee down, Clitus. Slaying is the word;
It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus.

 [_Whispering._]

CLITUS.
What, I, my lord? No, not for all the world.

BRUTUS.
Peace then, no words.

CLITUS.
I’ll rather kill myself.

BRUTUS.
Hark thee, Dardanius.

 [_Whispers him._]

DARDANIUS.
Shall I do such a deed?

CLITUS.
O Dardanius!

DARDANIUS.
O Clitus!

CLITUS.
What ill request did Brutus make to thee?

DARDANIUS.
To kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates.

CLITUS.
Now is that noble vessel full of grief,
That it runs over even at his eyes.

BRUTUS.
Come hither, good Volumnius; list a word.

VOLUMNIUS.
What says my lord?

BRUTUS.
Why, this, Volumnius:
The ghost of Caesar hath appear’d to me
Two several times by night; at Sardis once,
And this last night here in Philippi fields.
I know my hour is come.

VOLUMNIUS.
Not so, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Nay I am sure it is, Volumnius.
Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes;
Our enemies have beat us to the pit.

 [_Low alarums._]

It is more worthy to leap in ourselves
Than tarry till they push us. Good Volumnius,
Thou know’st that we two went to school together;
Even for that our love of old, I pr’ythee
Hold thou my sword-hilts, whilst I run on it.

VOLUMNIUS.
That’s not an office for a friend, my lord.

 [_Alarums still._]

CLITUS.
Fly, fly, my lord! there is no tarrying here.

BRUTUS.
Farewell to you; and you; and you, Volumnius.
Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep;
Farewell to thee too, Strato.—Countrymen,
My heart doth joy, that yet in all my life
I found no man but he was true to me.
I shall have glory by this losing day
More than Octavius and Mark Antony
By this vile conquest shall attain unto.
So fare you well at once; for Brutus’ tongue
Hath almost ended his life’s history.
Night hangs upon mine eyes; my bones would rest,
That have but labour’d to attain this hour.

 [_Alarums. Cry within, “Fly, fly, fly!”._]

CLITUS.
Fly, my lord, fly!

BRUTUS.
Hence! I will follow.

 [_Exeunt Clitus, Dardanius and Volumnius._]

I pr’ythee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord.
Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in it.
Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,
While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?

STRATO.
Give me your hand first. Fare you well, my lord.

BRUTUS.
Farewell, good Strato.—Caesar, now be still:
I kill’d not thee with half so good a will.

 [_He runs on his sword, and dies._]

 Alarum. Retreat. Enter Antony, Octavius, Messala, Lucilius and the
 Army.

OCTAVIUS.
What man is that?

MESSALA.
My master’s man. Strato, where is thy master?

STRATO.
Free from the bondage you are in, Messala.
The conquerors can but make a fire of him;
For Brutus only overcame himself,
And no man else hath honour by his death.

LUCILIUS.
So Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus,
That thou hast prov’d Lucilius’ saying true.

OCTAVIUS.
All that serv’d Brutus, I will entertain them.
Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me?

STRATO.
Ay, if Messala will prefer me to you.

OCTAVIUS.
Do so, good Messala.

MESSALA.
How died my master, Strato?

STRATO.
I held the sword, and he did run on it.

MESSALA.
Octavius, then take him to follow thee,
That did the latest service to my master.

ANTONY.
This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, “This was a man!”

OCTAVIUS.
According to his virtue let us use him
With all respect and rites of burial.
Within my tent his bones tonight shall lie,
Most like a soldier, order’d honourably.
So call the field to rest, and let’s away,
To part the glories of this happy day.

 [_Exeunt._]



THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR



by William Shakespeare





Contents

ACT I
Scene I. A Room of State in King Lear’s Palace.
Scene II. A Hall in the Earl of Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene III. A Room in the Duke of Albany’s Palace.
Scene IV. A Hall in Albany’s Palace.
Scene V. Court before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

ACT II
Scene I. A court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester.
Scene II. Before Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene III. The open Country.
Scene IV. Before Gloucester’s Castle.

ACT III
Scene I. A Heath.
Scene II. Another part of the heath.
Scene III. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene IV. A part of the Heath with a Hovel.
Scene V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene VI. A Chamber in a Farmhouse adjoining the Castle.
Scene VII. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

ACT IV
Scene I. The heath.
Scene II. Before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.
Scene III. The French camp near Dover.
Scene IV. The French camp. A Tent.
Scene V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.
Scene VI. The country near Dover.
Scene VII. A Tent in the French Camp.

ACT V
Scene I. The Camp of the British Forces near Dover.
Scene II. A field between the two Camps.
Scene III. The British Camp near Dover.




 Dramatis Personæ

LEAR, King of Britain.
GONERIL, eldest daughter to Lear.
REGAN, second daughter to Lear.
CORDELIA, youngest daughter to Lear.
DUKE of ALBANY, married to Goneril.
DUKE of CORNWALL, married to Regan.
KING of FRANCE.
DUKE of BURGUNDY.
EARL of GLOUCESTER.
EDGAR, elder son to Gloucester.
EDMUND, younger bastard son to Gloucester.
EARL of KENT.
FOOL.
OSWALD, steward to Goneril.
CURAN, a Courtier.
OLD MAN, Tenant to Gloucester.
Physician.
An Officer employed by Edmund.
Gentleman, attendant on Cordelia.
A Herald.
Servants to Cornwall.

Knights attending on the King, Officers, Messengers, Soldiers and
Attendants.

SCENE: Britain.



ACT I

SCENE I. A Room of State in King Lear’s Palace.

 Enter Kent, Gloucester and Edmund.

KENT.
I thought the King had more affected the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

GLOUCESTER.
It did always seem so to us; but now, in the division of the kingdom,
it appears not which of the Dukes he values most, for qualities are so
weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either’s moiety.

KENT.
Is not this your son, my lord?

GLOUCESTER.
His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blush’d to
acknowledge him that now I am braz’d to’t.

KENT.
I cannot conceive you.

GLOUCESTER.
Sir, this young fellow’s mother could; whereupon she grew round-wombed,
and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere she had a husband for her
bed. Do you smell a fault?

KENT.
I cannot wish the fault undone, the issue of it being so proper.

GLOUCESTER.
But I have a son, sir, by order of law, some year elder than this, who
yet is no dearer in my account: though this knave came something
saucily to the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair;
there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be
acknowledged. Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?

EDMUND.
No, my lord.

GLOUCESTER.
My Lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

EDMUND.
My services to your lordship.

KENT.
I must love you, and sue to know you better.

EDMUND.
Sir, I shall study deserving.

GLOUCESTER.
He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again. The King is
coming.

 [_Sennet within._]

 Enter Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia and Attendants.

LEAR.
Attend the lords of France and Burgundy,
Gloucester.

GLOUCESTER.
I shall, my lord.

 [_Exeunt Gloucester and Edmund._]

LEAR.
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and ’tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburden’d crawl toward death. Our son of Cornwall,
And you, our no less loving son of Albany,
We have this hour a constant will to publish
Our daughters’ several dowers, that future strife
May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,
Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,
Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn,
And here are to be answer’d. Tell me, my daughters,—
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,—
Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge.—Goneril,
Our eldest born, speak first.

GONERIL.
Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter;
Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valu’d, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e’er lov’d, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

CORDELIA.
[_Aside._] What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.

LEAR.
Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champains rich’d,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady: to thine and Albany’s issue
Be this perpetual.—What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall? Speak.

REGAN.
Sir, I am made of the self mettle as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short, that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
Which the most precious square of sense possesses,
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear highness’ love.

CORDELIA.
[_Aside._] Then poor Cordelia,
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love’s
More ponderous than my tongue.

LEAR.
To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom;
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferr’d on Goneril.—Now, our joy,
Although the last and least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interess’d; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.

CORDELIA.
Nothing, my lord.

LEAR.
Nothing?

CORDELIA.
Nothing.

LEAR.
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.

CORDELIA.
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.

LEAR.
How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.

CORDELIA.
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

LEAR.
But goes thy heart with this?

CORDELIA.
Ay, my good lord.

LEAR.
So young, and so untender?

CORDELIA.
So young, my lord, and true.

LEAR.
Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs,
From whom we do exist and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour’d, pitied, and reliev’d,
As thou my sometime daughter.

KENT.
Good my liege,—

LEAR.
Peace, Kent!
Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
I lov’d her most, and thought to set my rest
On her kind nursery. [_To Cordelia._] Hence and avoid my sight!
So be my grave my peace, as here I give
Her father’s heart from her! Call France. Who stirs?
Call Burgundy! Cornwall and Albany,
With my two daughters’ dowers digest this third:
Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her.
I do invest you jointly with my power,
Pre-eminence, and all the large effects
That troop with majesty. Ourself, by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights,
By you to be sustain’d, shall our abode
Make with you by due turn. Only we shall retain
The name, and all the addition to a king; the sway,
Revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm,
This coronet part between you.
 [_Giving the crown._]

KENT.
Royal Lear,
Whom I have ever honour’d as my king,
Lov’d as my father, as my master follow’d,
As my great patron thought on in my prayers.—

LEAR.
The bow is bent and drawn; make from the shaft.

KENT.
Let it fall rather, though the fork invade
The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly
When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old man?
Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,
When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour’s bound
When majesty falls to folly. Reverse thy state;
And in thy best consideration check
This hideous rashness: answer my life my judgement,
Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least;
Nor are those empty-hearted, whose low sounds
Reverb no hollowness.

LEAR.
Kent, on thy life, no more.

KENT.
My life I never held but as a pawn
To wage against thine enemies; ne’er fear to lose it,
Thy safety being the motive.

LEAR.
Out of my sight!

KENT.
See better, Lear; and let me still remain
The true blank of thine eye.

LEAR.
Now, by Apollo,—

KENT.
Now by Apollo, King,
Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.

LEAR.
O vassal! Miscreant!

 [_Laying his hand on his sword._]

ALBANY and CORNWALL.
Dear sir, forbear!

KENT.
Kill thy physician, and the fee bestow
Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,
Or, whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,
I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.

LEAR.
Hear me, recreant! on thine allegiance, hear me!
Since thou hast sought to make us break our vows,
Which we durst never yet, and with strain’d pride
To come betwixt our sentences and our power,
Which nor our nature, nor our place can bear,
Our potency made good, take thy reward.
Five days we do allot thee for provision,
To shield thee from disasters of the world;
And on the sixth to turn thy hated back
Upon our kingdom: if, on the next day following,
Thy banish’d trunk be found in our dominions,
The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,
This shall not be revok’d.

KENT.
Fare thee well, King: sith thus thou wilt appear,
Freedom lives hence, and banishment is here.
[_To Cordelia._] The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid,
That justly think’st and hast most rightly said!
[_To Goneril and Regan._] And your large speeches may your deeds
approve,
That good effects may spring from words of love.
Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu;
He’ll shape his old course in a country new.

 [_Exit._]

 Flourish. Re-enter Gloucester, with France, Burgundy and Attendants.

CORDELIA.
Here’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.

LEAR.
My Lord of Burgundy,
We first address toward you, who with this king
Hath rivall’d for our daughter: what in the least
Will you require in present dower with her,
Or cease your quest of love?

BURGUNDY.
Most royal majesty,
I crave no more than hath your highness offer’d,
Nor will you tender less?

LEAR.
Right noble Burgundy,
When she was dear to us, we did hold her so;
But now her price is fall’n. Sir, there she stands:
If aught within that little-seeming substance,
Or all of it, with our displeasure piec’d,
And nothing more, may fitly like your grace,
She’s there, and she is yours.

BURGUNDY.
I know no answer.

LEAR.
Will you, with those infirmities she owes,
Unfriended, new adopted to our hate,
Dower’d with our curse, and stranger’d with our oath,
Take her or leave her?

BURGUNDY.
Pardon me, royal sir;
Election makes not up in such conditions.

LEAR.
Then leave her, sir; for, by the power that made me,
I tell you all her wealth. [_To France_] For you, great king,
I would not from your love make such a stray
To match you where I hate; therefore beseech you
T’avert your liking a more worthier way
Than on a wretch whom nature is asham’d
Almost t’acknowledge hers.

FRANCE.
This is most strange,
That she, who even but now was your best object,
The argument of your praise, balm of your age,
The best, the dearest, should in this trice of time
Commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle
So many folds of favour. Sure her offence
Must be of such unnatural degree
That monsters it, or your fore-vouch’d affection
Fall into taint; which to believe of her
Must be a faith that reason without miracle
Should never plant in me.

CORDELIA.
I yet beseech your majesty,
If for I want that glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend,
I’ll do’t before I speak,—that you make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonour’d step,
That hath depriv’d me of your grace and favour;
But even for want of that for which I am richer,
A still soliciting eye, and such a tongue
As I am glad I have not, though not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking.

LEAR.
Better thou hadst
Not been born than not to have pleas’d me better.

FRANCE.
Is it but this?—a tardiness in nature
Which often leaves the history unspoke
That it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy,
What say you to the lady? Love’s not love
When it is mingled with regards that stands
Aloof from the entire point. Will you have her?
She is herself a dowry.

BURGUNDY.
Royal King,
Give but that portion which yourself propos’d,
And here I take Cordelia by the hand,
Duchess of Burgundy.

LEAR.
Nothing: I have sworn; I am firm.

BURGUNDY.
I am sorry, then, you have so lost a father
That you must lose a husband.

CORDELIA.
Peace be with Burgundy!
Since that respects of fortunes are his love,
I shall not be his wife.

FRANCE.
Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
Most choice forsaken; and most lov’d, despis’d!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful, I take up what’s cast away.
Gods, gods! ’Tis strange that from their cold’st neglect
My love should kindle to inflam’d respect.
Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France:
Not all the dukes of waterish Burgundy
Can buy this unpriz’d precious maid of me.
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind:
Thou losest here, a better where to find.

LEAR.
Thou hast her, France: let her be thine; for we
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of hers again. Therefore be gone
Without our grace, our love, our benison.
Come, noble Burgundy.

 [_Flourish. Exeunt Lear, Burgundy, Cornwall, Albany, Gloucester and
 Attendants._]

FRANCE.
Bid farewell to your sisters.

CORDELIA.
The jewels of our father, with wash’d eyes
Cordelia leaves you: I know you what you are;
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are nam’d. Love well our father:
To your professed bosoms I commit him:
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both.

REGAN.
Prescribe not us our duties.

GONERIL.
Let your study
Be to content your lord, who hath receiv’d you
At fortune’s alms. You have obedience scanted,
And well are worth the want that you have wanted.

CORDELIA.
Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides:
Who covers faults, at last shame derides.
Well may you prosper.

FRANCE.
Come, my fair Cordelia.

 [_Exeunt France and Cordelia._]

GONERIL.
Sister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly appertains
to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.

REGAN.
That’s most certain, and with you; next month with us.

GONERIL.
You see how full of changes his age is; the observation we have made of
it hath not been little: he always loved our sister most; and with what
poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.

REGAN.
’Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known
himself.

GONERIL.
The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash; then must we look
from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted
condition, but therewithal the unruly waywardness that infirm and
choleric years bring with them.

REGAN.
Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent’s
banishment.

GONERIL.
There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him.
Pray you let us hit together: if our father carry authority with such
disposition as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us.

REGAN.
We shall further think of it.

GONERIL.
We must do something, and i’ th’ heat.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A Hall in the Earl of Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Edmund with a letter.

EDMUND.
Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me?
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? With baseness? bastardy? Base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth within a dull stale tired bed
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops
Got ’tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word: legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow, I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

 Enter Gloucester.

GLOUCESTER.
Kent banish’d thus! and France in choler parted!
And the King gone tonight! Prescrib’d his pow’r!
Confin’d to exhibition! All this done
Upon the gad!—Edmund, how now! What news?

EDMUND.
So please your lordship, none.

 [_Putting up the letter._]

GLOUCESTER.
Why so earnestly seek you to put up that letter?

EDMUND.
I know no news, my lord.

GLOUCESTER.
What paper were you reading?

EDMUND.
Nothing, my lord.

GLOUCESTER.
No? What needed then that terrible dispatch of it into your pocket? The
quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let’s see. Come,
if it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles.

EDMUND.
I beseech you, sir, pardon me. It is a letter from my brother that I
have not all o’er-read; and for so much as I have perus’d, I find it
not fit for your o’er-looking.

GLOUCESTER.
Give me the letter, sir.

EDMUND.
I shall offend, either to detain or give it. The contents, as in part I
understand them, are to blame.

GLOUCESTER.
Let’s see, let’s see!

EDMUND.
I hope, for my brother’s justification, he wrote this but as an essay,
or taste of my virtue.

GLOUCESTER.
[_Reads._] ‘This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to
the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness
cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the
oppression of aged tyranny; who sways not as it hath power, but as it
is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father
would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for
ever, and live the beloved of your brother EDGAR.’
Hum! Conspiracy? ‘Sleep till I wake him, you should enjoy half his
revenue.’—My son Edgar! Had he a hand to write this? A heart and brain
to breed it in? When came this to you? Who brought it?

EDMUND.
It was not brought me, my lord, there’s the cunning of it. I found it
thrown in at the casement of my closet.

GLOUCESTER.
You know the character to be your brother’s?

EDMUND.
If the matter were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his; but in
respect of that, I would fain think it were not.

GLOUCESTER.
It is his.

EDMUND.
It is his hand, my lord; but I hope his heart is not in the contents.

GLOUCESTER.
Has he never before sounded you in this business?

EDMUND.
Never, my lord. But I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit that,
sons at perfect age, and fathers declined, the father should be as ward
to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

GLOUCESTER.
O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! Abhorred villain!
Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! worse than brutish! Go, sirrah,
seek him; I’ll apprehend him. Abominable villain, Where is he?

EDMUND.
I do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend your
indignation against my brother till you can derive from him better
testimony of his intent, you should run a certain course; where, if you
violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a
great gap in your own honour, and shake in pieces the heart of his
obedience. I dare pawn down my life for him, that he hath writ this to
feel my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger.

GLOUCESTER.
Think you so?

EDMUND.
If your honour judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us
confer of this, and by an auricular assurance have your satisfaction,
and that without any further delay than this very evening.

GLOUCESTER.
He cannot be such a monster.

EDMUND.
Nor is not, sure.

GLOUCESTER.
To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him. Heaven and
earth! Edmund, seek him out; wind me into him, I pray you: frame the
business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be in a due
resolution.

EDMUND.
I will seek him, sir, presently; convey the business as I shall find
means, and acquaint you withal.

GLOUCESTER.
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: though
the wisdom of Nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds
itself scourged by the sequent effects. Love cools, friendship falls
off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in
palaces, treason; and the bond cracked ’twixt son and father. This
villain of mine comes under the prediction; there’s son against father:
the King falls from bias of nature; there’s father against child. We
have seen the best of our time. Machinations, hollowness, treachery,
and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out
this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully.—And
the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! his offence, honesty! ’Tis
strange.

 [_Exit._]

EDMUND.
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in
fortune, often the surfeits of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on
necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers
by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an
enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to
lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star. My father
compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail, and my nativity was
under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut! I
should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.

 Enter Edgar.

Pat! he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy: my cue is
villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’Bedlam.—O, these eclipses
do portend these divisions! Fa, sol, la, mi.

EDGAR.
How now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation are you in?

EDMUND.
I am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this other day, what
should follow these eclipses.

EDGAR.
Do you busy yourself with that?

EDMUND.
I promise you, the effects he writes of succeed unhappily: as of
unnaturalness between the child and the parent; death, dearth,
dissolutions of ancient amities; divisions in state, menaces and
maledictions against King and nobles; needless diffidences, banishment
of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not
what.

EDGAR.
How long have you been a sectary astronomical?

EDMUND.
Come, come! when saw you my father last?

EDGAR.
The night gone by.

EDMUND.
Spake you with him?

EDGAR.
Ay, two hours together.

EDMUND.
Parted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him, by word nor
countenance?

EDGAR.
None at all.

EDMUND.
Bethink yourself wherein you may have offended him: and at my entreaty
forbear his presence until some little time hath qualified the heat of
his displeasure; which at this instant so rageth in him that with the
mischief of your person it would scarcely allay.

EDGAR.
Some villain hath done me wrong.

EDMUND.
That’s my fear. I pray you have a continent forbearance till the speed
of his rage goes slower; and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging,
from whence I will fitly bring you to hear my lord speak: pray ye, go;
there’s my key. If you do stir abroad, go armed.

EDGAR.
Armed, brother?

EDMUND.
Brother, I advise you to the best; I am no honest man if there be any
good meaning toward you: I have told you what I have seen and heard.
But faintly; nothing like the image and horror of it: pray you, away!

EDGAR.
Shall I hear from you anon?

EDMUND.
I do serve you in this business.

 [_Exit Edgar._]

A credulous father! and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy! I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;
All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A Room in the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

 Enter Goneril and Oswald.

GONERIL.
Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?

OSWALD.
Ay, madam.

GONERIL.
By day and night, he wrongs me; every hour
He flashes into one gross crime or other,
That sets us all at odds; I’ll not endure it:
His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On every trifle. When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him; say I am sick.
If you come slack of former services,
You shall do well; the fault of it I’ll answer.

 [_Horns within._]

OSWALD.
He’s coming, madam; I hear him.

GONERIL.
Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows; I’d have it come to question:
If he distaste it, let him to our sister,
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,
Not to be overruled. Idle old man,
That still would manage those authorities
That he hath given away! Now, by my life,
Old fools are babes again; and must be us’d
With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abus’d.
Remember what I have said.

OSWALD.
Very well, madam.

GONERIL.
And let his knights have colder looks among you;
What grows of it, no matter; advise your fellows so;
I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall,
That I may speak. I’ll write straight to my sister
To hold my very course. Prepare for dinner.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Hall in Albany’s Palace.

 Enter Kent, disguised.

KENT.
If but as well I other accents borrow,
That can my speech defuse, my good intent
May carry through itself to that full issue
For which I rais’d my likeness. Now, banish’d Kent,
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn’d,
So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov’st,
Shall find thee full of labours.

 Horns within. Enter King Lear, Knights and Attendants.

LEAR.
Let me not stay a jot for dinner; go get it ready.

 [_Exit an Attendant._]

How now! what art thou?

KENT.
A man, sir.

LEAR.
What dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us?

KENT.
I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will
put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse with him that
is wise and says little; to fear judgement; to fight when I cannot
choose; and to eat no fish.

LEAR.
What art thou?

KENT.
A very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the King.

LEAR.
If thou be’st as poor for a subject as he’s for a king, thou art poor
enough. What wouldst thou?

KENT.
Service.

LEAR.
Who wouldst thou serve?

KENT.
You.

LEAR.
Dost thou know me, fellow?

KENT.
No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call
master.

LEAR.
What’s that?

KENT.
Authority.

LEAR.
What services canst thou do?

KENT.
I can keep honest counsel, ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it
and deliver a plain message bluntly. That which ordinary men are fit
for, I am qualified in, and the best of me is diligence.

LEAR.
How old art thou?

KENT.
Not so young, sir, to love a woman for singing; nor so old to dote on
her for anything: I have years on my back forty-eight.

LEAR.
Follow me; thou shalt serve me. If I like thee no worse after dinner, I
will not part from thee yet. Dinner, ho, dinner! Where’s my knave? my
fool? Go you and call my fool hither.

 [_Exit an Attendant._]

 Enter Oswald.

You, you, sirrah, where’s my daughter?

OSWALD.
So please you,—

 [_Exit._]

LEAR.
What says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll back.

 [_Exit a Knight._]

Where’s my fool? Ho, I think the world’s asleep.

 Re-enter Knight.

How now! where’s that mongrel?

KNIGHT.
He says, my lord, your daughter is not well.

LEAR.
Why came not the slave back to me when I called him?

KNIGHT.
Sir, he answered me in the roundest manner, he would not.

LEAR.
He would not?

KNIGHT.
My lord, I know not what the matter is; but to my judgement your
highness is not entertained with that ceremonious affection as you were
wont; there’s a great abatement of kindness appears as well in the
general dependants as in the Duke himself also, and your daughter.

LEAR.
Ha! say’st thou so?

KNIGHT.
I beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken; for my duty cannot
be silent when I think your highness wronged.

LEAR.
Thou but rememberest me of mine own conception: I have perceived a most
faint neglect of late; which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous
curiosity than as a very pretence and purpose of unkindness: I will
look further into’t. But where’s my fool? I have not seen him this two
days.

KNIGHT.
Since my young lady’s going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined
away.

LEAR.
No more of that; I have noted it well. Go you and tell my daughter I
would speak with her.

 [_Exit Attendant._]

Go you, call hither my fool.

 [_Exit another Attendant._]

 Re-enter Oswald.

O, you, sir, you, come you hither, sir: who am I, sir?

OSWALD.
My lady’s father.

LEAR.
My lady’s father! my lord’s knave: you whoreson dog! you slave! you
cur!

OSWALD.
I am none of these, my lord; I beseech your pardon.

LEAR.
Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?

 [_Striking him._]

OSWALD.
I’ll not be struck, my lord.

KENT.
Nor tripp’d neither, you base football player.

 [_Tripping up his heels._]

LEAR.
I thank thee, fellow. Thou serv’st me, and I’ll love thee.

KENT.
Come, sir, arise, away! I’ll teach you differences: away, away! If you
will measure your lubber’s length again, tarry; but away! go to; have
you wisdom? So.

 [_Pushes Oswald out._]

LEAR.
Now, my friendly knave, I thank thee: there’s earnest of thy service.

 [_Giving Kent money._]

 Enter Fool.

FOOL.
Let me hire him too; here’s my coxcomb.

 [_Giving Kent his cap._]

LEAR.
How now, my pretty knave, how dost thou?

FOOL.
Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.

KENT.
Why, fool?

FOOL.
Why, for taking one’s part that’s out of favour. Nay, an thou canst not
smile as the wind sits, thou’lt catch cold shortly: there, take my
coxcomb: why, this fellow has banish’d two on’s daughters, and did the
third a blessing against his will; if thou follow him, thou must needs
wear my coxcomb. How now, nuncle! Would I had two coxcombs and two
daughters!

LEAR.
Why, my boy?

FOOL.
If I gave them all my living, I’d keep my coxcombs myself. There’s
mine; beg another of thy daughters.

LEAR.
Take heed, sirrah, the whip.

FOOL.
Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when the Lady
Brach may stand by the fire and stink.

LEAR.
A pestilent gall to me!

FOOL.
Sirrah, I’ll teach thee a speech.

LEAR.
Do.

FOOL.
Mark it, nuncle:
    Have more than thou showest,
    Speak less than thou knowest,
    Lend less than thou owest,
    Ride more than thou goest,
    Learn more than thou trowest,
    Set less than thou throwest;
    Leave thy drink and thy whore,
    And keep in-a-door,
    And thou shalt have more
    Than two tens to a score.

KENT.
This is nothing, fool.

FOOL.
Then ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d lawyer, you gave me nothing
for’t. Can you make no use of nothing, nuncle?

LEAR.
Why, no, boy; nothing can be made out of nothing.

FOOL.
[_to Kent._] Prythee tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to:
he will not believe a fool.

LEAR.
A bitter fool.

FOOL.
Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a
sweet one?

LEAR.
No, lad; teach me.

FOOL.
   That lord that counsell’d thee
     To give away thy land,
   Come place him here by me,
     Do thou for him stand.
   The sweet and bitter fool
     Will presently appear;
   The one in motley here,
     The other found out there.

LEAR.
Dost thou call me fool, boy?

FOOL.
All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.

KENT.
This is not altogether fool, my lord.

FOOL.
No, faith; lords and great men will not let me; if I had a monopoly
out, they would have part on’t and ladies too, they will not let me
have all the fool to myself; they’ll be snatching. Nuncle, give me an
egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns.

LEAR.
What two crowns shall they be?

FOOL.
Why, after I have cut the egg i’ the middle and eat up the meat, the
two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i’ the middle and
gav’st away both parts, thou bor’st thine ass on thy back o’er the
dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy
golden one away. If I speak like myself in this, let him be whipped
that first finds it so.
[_Singing._]
   Fools had ne’er less grace in a year;
     For wise men are grown foppish,
   And know not how their wits to wear,
     Their manners are so apish.

LEAR.
When were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?

FOOL.
I have used it, nuncle, e’er since thou mad’st thy daughters thy
mothers; for when thou gav’st them the rod, and put’st down thine own
breeches,
[_Singing._]
   Then they for sudden joy did weep,
     And I for sorrow sung,
   That such a king should play bo-peep,
     And go the fools among.
Prythee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to lie; I
would fain learn to lie.

LEAR.
An you lie, sirrah, we’ll have you whipped.

FOOL.
I marvel what kin thou and thy daughters are: they’ll have me whipped
for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipped for lying; and sometimes I
am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o’thing than
a fool: and yet I would not be thee, nuncle: thou hast pared thy wit
o’both sides, and left nothing i’ the middle: here comes one o’ the
parings.

 Enter Goneril.

LEAR.
How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? Methinks you are too
much of late i’ the frown.

FOOL.
Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her
frowning. Now thou art an O without a figure: I am better than thou art
now. I am a fool, thou art nothing. [_To Goneril._] Yes, forsooth, I
will hold my tongue. So your face bids me, though you say nothing. Mum,
mum,
     He that keeps nor crust nor crum,
     Weary of all, shall want some.
[_Pointing to Lear_.] That’s a shealed peascod.

GONERIL.
Not only, sir, this your all-licens’d fool,
But other of your insolent retinue
Do hourly carp and quarrel; breaking forth
In rank and not-to-be-endured riots. Sir,
I had thought, by making this well known unto you,
To have found a safe redress; but now grow fearful,
By what yourself too late have spoke and done,
That you protect this course, and put it on
By your allowance; which if you should, the fault
Would not scape censure, nor the redresses sleep,
Which, in the tender of a wholesome weal,
Might in their working do you that offence
Which else were shame, that then necessity
Will call discreet proceeding.

FOOL.
For you know, nuncle,
   The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long
   That it’s had it head bit off by it young.
So out went the candle, and we were left darkling.

LEAR.
Are you our daughter?

GONERIL.
Come, sir,
I would you would make use of that good wisdom,
Whereof I know you are fraught; and put away
These dispositions, which of late transform you
From what you rightly are.

FOOL.
May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse? Whoop, Jug! I love
thee!

LEAR.
Doth any here know me? This is not Lear;
Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?
Either his notion weakens, his discernings
Are lethargied. Ha! waking? ’Tis not so!
Who is it that can tell me who I am?

FOOL.
Lear’s shadow.

LEAR.
I would learn that; for by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge and
reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters.

FOOL.
Which they will make an obedient father.

LEAR.
Your name, fair gentlewoman?

GONERIL.
This admiration, sir, is much o’ the favour
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright:
As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;
Men so disorder’d, so debosh’d and bold
That this our court, infected with their manners,
Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust
Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a grac’d palace. The shame itself doth speak
For instant remedy. Be, then, desir’d
By her that else will take the thing she begs
A little to disquantity your train;
And the remainder that shall still depend,
To be such men as may besort your age,
Which know themselves, and you.

LEAR.
Darkness and devils!
Saddle my horses; call my train together.
Degenerate bastard! I’ll not trouble thee:
Yet have I left a daughter.

GONERIL.
You strike my people; and your disorder’d rabble
Make servants of their betters.

 Enter Albany.

LEAR.
Woe that too late repents!—
[_To Albany._] O, sir, are you come?
Is it your will? Speak, sir.—Prepare my horses.
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster!

ALBANY.
Pray, sir, be patient.

LEAR.
[_to Goneril._] Detested kite, thou liest.
My train are men of choice and rarest parts,
That all particulars of duty know;
And in the most exact regard support
The worships of their name. O most small fault,
How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
Which, like an engine, wrench’d my frame of nature
From the fix’d place; drew from my heart all love,
And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!
[_Striking his head._] Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
And thy dear judgement out! Go, go, my people.

ALBANY.
My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant
Of what hath moved you.

LEAR.
It may be so, my lord.
Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!

 [_Exit._]

ALBANY.
Now, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?

GONERIL.
Never afflict yourself to know more of it;
But let his disposition have that scope
That dotage gives it.

 Re-enter Lear.

LEAR.
What, fifty of my followers at a clap?
Within a fortnight?

ALBANY.
What’s the matter, sir?

LEAR.
I’ll tell thee. [_To Goneril._] Life and death! I am asham’d
That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus;
That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,
Should make thee worth them. Blasts and fogs upon thee!
Th’untented woundings of a father’s curse
Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond eyes,
Beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out,
And cast you with the waters that you lose
To temper clay. Ha! Let it be so.
I have another daughter,
Who, I am sure, is kind and comfortable:
When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails
She’ll flay thy wolvish visage. Thou shalt find
That I’ll resume the shape which thou dost think
I have cast off for ever.

 [_Exeunt Lear, Kent and Attendants._]

GONERIL.
Do you mark that?

ALBANY.
I cannot be so partial, Goneril,
To the great love I bear you,—

GONERIL.
Pray you, content. What, Oswald, ho!
[_To the Fool._] You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master.

FOOL.
Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry and take the fool with thee.
   A fox when one has caught her,
   And such a daughter,
   Should sure to the slaughter,
   If my cap would buy a halter;
   So the fool follows after.

 [_Exit._]

GONERIL.
This man hath had good counsel.—A hundred knights!
’Tis politic and safe to let him keep
At point a hundred knights: yes, that on every dream,
Each buzz, each fancy, each complaint, dislike,
He may enguard his dotage with their powers,
And hold our lives in mercy. Oswald, I say!

ALBANY.
Well, you may fear too far.

GONERIL.
Safer than trust too far:
Let me still take away the harms I fear,
Not fear still to be taken: I know his heart.
What he hath utter’d I have writ my sister:
If she sustain him and his hundred knights,
When I have show’d th’unfitness,—

 Re-enter Oswald.

How now, Oswald!
What, have you writ that letter to my sister?

OSWALD.
Ay, madam.

GONERIL.
Take you some company, and away to horse:
Inform her full of my particular fear;
And thereto add such reasons of your own
As may compact it more. Get you gone;
And hasten your return.

 [_Exit Oswald._]

No, no, my lord!
This milky gentleness and course of yours,
Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
You are much more attask’d for want of wisdom
Than prais’d for harmful mildness.

ALBANY.
How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell:
Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

GONERIL.
Nay then,—

ALBANY.
Well, well; the event.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Court before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

 Enter Lear, Kent and Fool.

LEAR.
Go you before to Gloucester with these letters: acquaint my daughter no
further with anything you know than comes from her demand out of the
letter. If your diligence be not speedy, I shall be there afore you.

KENT.
I will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter.

 [_Exit._]

FOOL.
If a man’s brains were in’s heels, were’t not in danger of kibes?

LEAR.
Ay, boy.

FOOL.
Then I prythee be merry; thy wit shall not go slipshod.

LEAR.
Ha, ha, ha!

FOOL.
Shalt see thy other daughter will use thee kindly, for though she’s as
like this as a crab’s like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.

LEAR.
What canst tell, boy?

FOOL.
She’ll taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou canst tell why
one’s nose stands i’the middle on’s face?

LEAR.
No.

FOOL.
Why, to keep one’s eyes of either side’s nose, that what a man cannot
smell out, he may spy into.

LEAR.
I did her wrong.

FOOL.
Canst tell how an oyster makes his shell?

LEAR.
No.

FOOL.
Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.

LEAR.
Why?

FOOL.
Why, to put’s head in; not to give it away to his daughters, and leave
his horns without a case.

LEAR.
I will forget my nature. So kind a father! Be my horses ready?

FOOL.
Thy asses are gone about ’em. The reason why the seven stars are no
more than seven is a pretty reason.

LEAR.
Because they are not eight?

FOOL.
Yes indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.

LEAR.
To tak’t again perforce!—Monster ingratitude!

FOOL.
If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I’ld have thee beaten for being old
before thy time.

LEAR.
How’s that?

FOOL.
Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.

LEAR.
O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!
Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

 Enter Gentleman.

How now? are the horses ready?

GENTLEMAN.
Ready, my lord.

LEAR.
Come, boy.

FOOL.
She that’s a maid now, and laughs at my departure,
Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

SCENE I. A court within the Castle of the Earl of Gloucester.

 Enter Edmund and Curan, meeting.

EDMUND.
Save thee, Curan.

CURAN.
And you, sir. I have been with your father, and given him notice that
the Duke of Cornwall and Regan his Duchess will be here with him this
night.

EDMUND.
How comes that?

CURAN.
Nay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad; I mean the
whispered ones, for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments?

EDMUND.
Not I: pray you, what are they?

CURAN.
Have you heard of no likely wars toward, ’twixt the two dukes of
Cornwall and Albany?

EDMUND.
Not a word.

CURAN.
You may do, then, in time. Fare you well, sir.

 [_Exit._]

EDMUND.
The Duke be here tonight? The better! best!
This weaves itself perforce into my business.
My father hath set guard to take my brother;
And I have one thing, of a queasy question,
Which I must act. Briefness and fortune work!
Brother, a word, descend, brother, I say!

 Enter Edgar.

My father watches: O sir, fly this place;
Intelligence is given where you are hid;
You have now the good advantage of the night.
Have you not spoken ’gainst the Duke of Cornwall?
He’s coming hither; now, i’ the night, i’ the haste,
And Regan with him: have you nothing said
Upon his party ’gainst the Duke of Albany?
Advise yourself.

EDGAR.
I am sure on’t, not a word.

EDMUND.
I hear my father coming:—pardon me;
In cunning I must draw my sword upon you:
Draw: seem to defend yourself: now quit you well.
Yield: come before my father. Light, ho, here!
Fly, brother. Torches, torches!—So farewell.

 [_Exit Edgar._]

Some blood drawn on me would beget opinion
Of my more fierce endeavour: [_Wounds his arm._]
I have seen drunkards
Do more than this in sport. Father, father!
Stop, stop! No help?

 Enter Gloucester and Servants with torches.

GLOUCESTER.
Now, Edmund, where’s the villain?

EDMUND.
Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,
Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon
To stand auspicious mistress.

GLOUCESTER.
But where is he?

EDMUND.
Look, sir, I bleed.

GLOUCESTER.
Where is the villain, Edmund?

EDMUND.
Fled this way, sir. When by no means he could,—

GLOUCESTER.
Pursue him, ho! Go after.

 [_Exeunt Servants._]

—By no means what?

EDMUND.
Persuade me to the murder of your lordship;
But that I told him the revenging gods
’Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend;
Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond
The child was bound to the father; sir, in fine,
Seeing how loathly opposite I stood
To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion
With his prepared sword, he charges home
My unprovided body, latch’d mine arm;
But when he saw my best alarum’d spirits,
Bold in the quarrel’s right, rous’d to th’encounter,
Or whether gasted by the noise I made,
Full suddenly he fled.

GLOUCESTER.
Let him fly far;
Not in this land shall he remain uncaught;
And found—dispatch’d. The noble Duke my master,
My worthy arch and patron, comes tonight:
By his authority I will proclaim it,
That he which finds him shall deserve our thanks,
Bringing the murderous coward to the stake;
He that conceals him, death.

EDMUND.
When I dissuaded him from his intent,
And found him pight to do it, with curst speech
I threaten’d to discover him: he replied,
‘Thou unpossessing bastard! dost thou think,
If I would stand against thee, would the reposal
Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee
Make thy words faith’d? No: what I should deny
As this I would; ay, though thou didst produce
My very character, I’d turn it all
To thy suggestion, plot, and damned practice:
And thou must make a dullard of the world,
If they not thought the profits of my death
Were very pregnant and potential spurs
To make thee seek it.

GLOUCESTER.
O strange and fast’ned villain!
Would he deny his letter, said he? I never got him.

 [_Tucket within._]

Hark, the Duke’s trumpets! I know not why he comes.
All ports I’ll bar; the villain shall not scape;
The Duke must grant me that: besides, his picture
I will send far and near, that all the kingdom
May have due note of him; and of my land,
Loyal and natural boy, I’ll work the means
To make thee capable.

 Enter Cornwall, Regan and Attendants.

CORNWALL.
How now, my noble friend! since I came hither,
Which I can call but now, I have heard strange news.

REGAN.
If it be true, all vengeance comes too short
Which can pursue th’offender. How dost, my lord?

GLOUCESTER.
O madam, my old heart is crack’d, it’s crack’d!

REGAN.
What, did my father’s godson seek your life?
He whom my father nam’d? your Edgar?

GLOUCESTER.
O lady, lady, shame would have it hid!

REGAN.
Was he not companion with the riotous knights
That tend upon my father?

GLOUCESTER.
I know not, madam; ’tis too bad, too bad.

EDMUND.
Yes, madam, he was of that consort.

REGAN.
No marvel then though he were ill affected:
’Tis they have put him on the old man’s death,
To have the expense and waste of his revenues.
I have this present evening from my sister
Been well inform’d of them; and with such cautions
That if they come to sojourn at my house,
I’ll not be there.

CORNWALL.
Nor I, assure thee, Regan.
Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father
A childlike office.

EDMUND.
It was my duty, sir.

GLOUCESTER.
He did bewray his practice; and receiv’d
This hurt you see, striving to apprehend him.

CORNWALL.
Is he pursued?

GLOUCESTER.
Ay, my good lord.

CORNWALL.
If he be taken, he shall never more
Be fear’d of doing harm: make your own purpose,
How in my strength you please. For you, Edmund,
Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant
So much commend itself, you shall be ours:
Natures of such deep trust we shall much need;
You we first seize on.

EDMUND.
I shall serve you, sir, truly, however else.

GLOUCESTER.
For him I thank your grace.

CORNWALL.
You know not why we came to visit you?

REGAN.
Thus out of season, threading dark-ey’d night:
Occasions, noble Gloucester, of some poise,
Wherein we must have use of your advice.
Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,
Of differences, which I best thought it fit
To answer from our home; the several messengers
From hence attend dispatch. Our good old friend,
Lay comforts to your bosom; and bestow
Your needful counsel to our business,
Which craves the instant use.

GLOUCESTER.
I serve you, madam:
Your graces are right welcome.

 [_Exeunt. Flourish._]

SCENE II. Before Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Kent and Oswald, severally.

OSWALD.
Good dawning to thee, friend: art of this house?

KENT.
Ay.

OSWALD.
Where may we set our horses?

KENT.
I’ the mire.

OSWALD.
Prythee, if thou lov’st me, tell me.

KENT.
I love thee not.

OSWALD.
Why then, I care not for thee.

KENT.
If I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold, I would make thee care for me.

OSWALD.
Why dost thou use me thus? I know thee not.

KENT.
Fellow, I know thee.

OSWALD.
What dost thou know me for?

KENT.
A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow,
beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave;
a lily-livered, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing,
super-serviceable, finical rogue; one trunk-inheriting slave; one that
wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the
composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of
a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou
deniest the least syllable of thy addition.

OSWALD.
Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail on one that’s
neither known of thee nor knows thee?

KENT.
What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou knowest me! Is it two
days ago since I tripped up thy heels and beat thee before the King?
Draw, you rogue: for, though it be night, yet the moon shines; I’ll
make a sop o’ the moonshine of you: draw, you whoreson cullionly
barber-monger, draw!

 [_Drawing his sword._]

OSWALD.
Away! I have nothing to do with thee.

KENT.
Draw, you rascal: you come with letters against the King; and take
vanity the puppet’s part against the royalty of her father: draw, you
rogue, or I’ll so carbonado your shanks:—draw, you rascal; come your
ways!

OSWALD.
Help, ho! murder! help!

KENT.
Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat slave, strike!

 [_Beating him._]

OSWALD.
Help, ho! murder! murder!

 Enter Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester and Servants.

EDMUND.
How now! What’s the matter? Part!

KENT.
With you, goodman boy, if you please: come, I’ll flesh ye; come on,
young master.

GLOUCESTER.
Weapons! arms! What’s the matter here?

CORNWALL.
Keep peace, upon your lives, he dies that strikes again. What is the
matter?

REGAN.
The messengers from our sister and the King.

CORNWALL.
What is your difference? Speak.

OSWALD.
I am scarce in breath, my lord.

KENT.
No marvel, you have so bestirr’d your valour. You cowardly rascal,
nature disclaims in thee; a tailor made thee.

CORNWALL.
Thou art a strange fellow: a tailor make a man?

KENT.
Ay, a tailor, sir: a stonecutter or a painter could not have made him
so ill, though he had been but two years at the trade.

CORNWALL.
Speak yet, how grew your quarrel?

OSWALD.
This ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit of his grey
beard,—

KENT.
Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you’ll give me
leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar and daub the
walls of a jakes with him. Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?

CORNWALL.
Peace, sirrah!
You beastly knave, know you no reverence?

KENT.
Yes, sir; but anger hath a privilege.

CORNWALL.
Why art thou angry?

KENT.
That such a slave as this should wear a sword,
Who wears no honesty. Such smiling rogues as these,
Like rats, oft bite the holy cords a-twain
Which are too intrince t’unloose; smooth every passion
That in the natures of their lords rebel;
Bring oil to fire, snow to their colder moods;
Renege, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks
With every gale and vary of their masters,
Knowing naught, like dogs, but following.
A plague upon your epileptic visage!
Smile you my speeches, as I were a fool?
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I’d drive ye cackling home to Camelot.

CORNWALL.
What, art thou mad, old fellow?

GLOUCESTER.
How fell you out? Say that.

KENT.
No contraries hold more antipathy
Than I and such a knave.

CORNWALL.
Why dost thou call him knave? What is his fault?

KENT.
His countenance likes me not.

CORNWALL.
No more perchance does mine, or his, or hers.

KENT.
Sir, ’tis my occupation to be plain:
I have seen better faces in my time
Than stands on any shoulder that I see
Before me at this instant.

CORNWALL.
This is some fellow
Who, having been prais’d for bluntness, doth affect
A saucy roughness, and constrains the garb
Quite from his nature: he cannot flatter, he,
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!
An they will take it, so; if not, he’s plain.
These kind of knaves I know which in this plainness
Harbour more craft and more corrupter ends
Than twenty silly-ducking observants
That stretch their duties nicely.

KENT.
Sir, in good faith, in sincere verity,
Under th’allowance of your great aspect,
Whose influence, like the wreath of radiant fire
On flickering Phoebus’ front,—

CORNWALL.
What mean’st by this?

KENT.
To go out of my dialect, which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I
am no flatterer: he that beguiled you in a plain accent was a plain
knave; which, for my part, I will not be, though I should win your
displeasure to entreat me to’t.

CORNWALL.
What was the offence you gave him?

OSWALD.
I never gave him any:
It pleas’d the King his master very late
To strike at me, upon his misconstruction;
When he, compact, and flattering his displeasure,
Tripp’d me behind; being down, insulted, rail’d
And put upon him such a deal of man,
That worthied him, got praises of the King
For him attempting who was self-subdu’d;
And, in the fleshment of this dread exploit,
Drew on me here again.

KENT.
None of these rogues and cowards
But Ajax is their fool.

CORNWALL.
Fetch forth the stocks!
You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart,
We’ll teach you.

KENT.
Sir, I am too old to learn:
Call not your stocks for me: I serve the King;
On whose employment I was sent to you:
You shall do small respect, show too bold malice
Against the grace and person of my master,
Stocking his messenger.

CORNWALL.
Fetch forth the stocks!
As I have life and honour, there shall he sit till noon.

REGAN.
Till noon! Till night, my lord; and all night too!

KENT.
Why, madam, if I were your father’s dog,
You should not use me so.

REGAN.
Sir, being his knave, I will.

 [_Stocks brought out._]

CORNWALL.
This is a fellow of the selfsame colour
Our sister speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!

GLOUCESTER.
Let me beseech your grace not to do so:
His fault is much, and the good King his master
Will check him for’t: your purpos’d low correction
Is such as basest and contemned’st wretches
For pilferings and most common trespasses,
Are punish’d with. The King must take it ill
That he, so slightly valued in his messenger,
Should have him thus restrained.

CORNWALL.
I’ll answer that.

REGAN.
My sister may receive it much more worse,
To have her gentleman abus’d, assaulted,
For following her affairs. Put in his legs.

 [_Kent is put in the stocks._]

CORNWALL.
Come, my good lord, away.

 [_Exeunt all but Gloucester and Kent._]

GLOUCESTER.
I am sorry for thee, friend; ’tis the Duke’s pleasure,
Whose disposition, all the world well knows,
Will not be rubb’d nor stopp’d; I’ll entreat for thee.

KENT.
Pray do not, sir: I have watch’d, and travell’d hard;
Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I’ll whistle.
A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels:
Give you good morrow!

GLOUCESTER.
The Duke’s to blame in this: ’twill be ill taken.

 [_Exit._]

KENT.
Good King, that must approve the common saw,
Thou out of heaven’s benediction com’st
To the warm sun.
Approach, thou beacon to this under globe,
That by thy comfortable beams I may
Peruse this letter. Nothing almost sees miracles
But misery. I know ’tis from Cordelia,
Who hath most fortunately been inform’d
Of my obscured course. And shall find time
From this enormous state, seeking to give
Losses their remedies. All weary and o’erwatch’d,
Take vantage, heavy eyes, not to behold
This shameful lodging.
Fortune, good night: smile once more, turn thy wheel!

 [_He sleeps._]

SCENE III. The open Country.

 Enter Edgar.

EDGAR.
I heard myself proclaim’d,
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escap’d the hunt. No port is free, no place
That guard and most unusual vigilance
Does not attend my taking. While I may scape
I will preserve myself: and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast: my face I’ll grime with filth,
Blanket my loins; elf all my hair in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb’d and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom,
That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. Before Gloucester’s Castle; Kent in the stocks.

 Enter Lear, Fool and Gentleman.

LEAR.
’Tis strange that they should so depart from home,
And not send back my messenger.

GENTLEMAN.
As I learn’d,
The night before there was no purpose in them
Of this remove.

KENT.
Hail to thee, noble master!

LEAR.
Ha! Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?

KENT.
No, my lord.

FOOL.
Ha, ha! he wears cruel garters. Horses are tied by the heads; dogs and
bears by the neck, monkeys by the loins, and men by the legs: when a
man is overlusty at legs, then he wears wooden nether-stocks.

LEAR.
What’s he that hath so much thy place mistook
To set thee here?

KENT.
It is both he and she,
Your son and daughter.

LEAR.
No.

KENT.
Yes.

LEAR.
No, I say.

KENT.
I say, yea.

LEAR.
No, no; they would not.

KENT.
Yes, they have.

LEAR.
By Jupiter, I swear no.

KENT.
By Juno, I swear ay.

LEAR.
They durst not do’t.
They could not, would not do’t; ’tis worse than murder,
To do upon respect such violent outrage:
Resolve me, with all modest haste, which way
Thou mightst deserve or they impose this usage,
Coming from us.

KENT.
My lord, when at their home
I did commend your highness’ letters to them,
Ere I was risen from the place that show’d
My duty kneeling, came there a reeking post,
Stew’d in his haste, half breathless, panting forth
From Goneril his mistress salutations;
Deliver’d letters, spite of intermission,
Which presently they read; on those contents,
They summon’d up their meiny, straight took horse;
Commanded me to follow and attend
The leisure of their answer; gave me cold looks:
And meeting here the other messenger,
Whose welcome I perceiv’d had poison’d mine,
Being the very fellow which of late
Display’d so saucily against your highness,
Having more man than wit about me, drew;
He rais’d the house with loud and coward cries.
Your son and daughter found this trespass worth
The shame which here it suffers.

FOOL.
Winter’s not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.
  Fathers that wear rags
    Do make their children blind,
  But fathers that bear bags
    Shall see their children kind.
  Fortune, that arrant whore,
  Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.
But for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours for thy daughters as
thou canst tell in a year.

LEAR.
O, how this mother swells up toward my heart!
_Hysterica passio_, down, thou climbing sorrow,
Thy element’s below! Where is this daughter?

KENT.
With the earl, sir, here within.

LEAR.
Follow me not; stay here.

 [_Exit._]

GENTLEMAN.
Made you no more offence but what you speak of?

KENT.
None.
How chance the King comes with so small a number?

FOOL.
An thou hadst been set i’ the stocks for that question, thou hadst well
deserved it.

KENT.
Why, fool?

FOOL.
We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no labouring
i’the winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but
blind men; and there’s not a nose among twenty but can smell him that’s
stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it
break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes upward,
let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel,
give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a
fool gives it.
          That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
             And follows but for form,
          Will pack when it begins to rain,
             And leave thee in the storm.
          But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
             And let the wise man fly:
          The knave turns fool that runs away;
             The fool no knave perdy.

KENT.
Where learn’d you this, fool?

FOOL.
Not i’ the stocks, fool.

 Enter Lear and Gloucester.

LEAR.
Deny to speak with me? They are sick? they are weary?
They have travell’d all the night? Mere fetches;
The images of revolt and flying off.
Fetch me a better answer.

GLOUCESTER.
My dear lord,
You know the fiery quality of the Duke;
How unremovable and fix’d he is
In his own course.

LEAR.
Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!
Fiery? What quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,
I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

GLOUCESTER.
Well, my good lord, I have inform’d them so.

LEAR.
Inform’d them! Dost thou understand me, man?

GLOUCESTER.
Ay, my good lord.

LEAR.
The King would speak with Cornwall; the dear father
Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends, service,
Are they inform’d of this? My breath and blood!
Fiery? The fiery Duke, tell the hot Duke that—
No, but not yet: maybe he is not well:
Infirmity doth still neglect all office
Whereto our health is bound: we are not ourselves
When nature, being oppress’d, commands the mind
To suffer with the body: I’ll forbear;
And am fallen out with my more headier will,
To take the indispos’d and sickly fit
For the sound man. [_Looking on Kent._]
Death on my state! Wherefore
Should he sit here? This act persuades me
That this remotion of the Duke and her
Is practice only. Give me my servant forth.
Go tell the Duke and’s wife I’d speak with them,
Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me,
Or at their chamber door I’ll beat the drum
Till it cry sleep to death.

GLOUCESTER.
I would have all well betwixt you.

 [_Exit._]

LEAR.
O me, my heart, my rising heart! But down!

FOOL.
Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put ’em i’
the paste alive; she knapped ’em o’ the coxcombs with a stick and cried
‘Down, wantons, down!’ ’Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his
horse buttered his hay.

 Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester and Servants.

LEAR.
Good morrow to you both.

CORNWALL.
Hail to your grace!

 [_Kent here set at liberty._]

REGAN.
I am glad to see your highness.

LEAR.
Regan, I think you are; I know what reason
I have to think so: if thou shouldst not be glad,
I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb,
Sepulchring an adultress. [_To Kent_] O, are you free?
Some other time for that.—Beloved Regan,
Thy sister’s naught: O Regan, she hath tied
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here.

 [_Points to his heart._]

I can scarce speak to thee; thou’lt not believe
With how deprav’d a quality—O Regan!

REGAN.
I pray you, sir, take patience. I have hope
You less know how to value her desert
Than she to scant her duty.

LEAR.
Say, how is that?

REGAN.
I cannot think my sister in the least
Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance
She have restrain’d the riots of your followers,
’Tis on such ground, and to such wholesome end,
As clears her from all blame.

LEAR.
My curses on her.

REGAN.
O, sir, you are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine: you should be rul’d and led
By some discretion, that discerns your state
Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you,
That to our sister you do make return;
Say you have wrong’d her, sir.

LEAR.
Ask her forgiveness?
Do you but mark how this becomes the house?
‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;
[_Kneeling._]
Age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg
That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food.’

REGAN.
Good sir, no more! These are unsightly tricks:
Return you to my sister.

LEAR.
[_Rising._] Never, Regan:
She hath abated me of half my train;
Look’d black upon me; struck me with her tongue,
Most serpent-like, upon the very heart.
All the stor’d vengeances of heaven fall
On her ingrateful top! Strike her young bones,
You taking airs, with lameness!

CORNWALL.
Fie, sir, fie!

LEAR.
You nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames
Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,
You fen-suck’d fogs, drawn by the powerful sun,
To fall and blast her pride!

REGAN.
O the blest gods!
So will you wish on me when the rash mood is on.

LEAR.
No, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse.
Thy tender-hefted nature shall not give
Thee o’er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce; but thine
Do comfort, and not burn. ’Tis not in thee
To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,
To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,
And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt
Against my coming in. Thou better know’st
The offices of nature, bond of childhood,
Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude;
Thy half o’ the kingdom hast thou not forgot,
Wherein I thee endow’d.

REGAN.
Good sir, to the purpose.

LEAR.
Who put my man i’ the stocks?

 [_Tucket within._]

CORNWALL.
What trumpet’s that?

REGAN.
I know’t, my sister’s: this approves her letter,
That she would soon be here.

 Enter Oswald.

Is your lady come?

LEAR.
This is a slave, whose easy borrowed pride
Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows.
Out, varlet, from my sight!

CORNWALL.
What means your grace?

LEAR.
Who stock’d my servant? Regan, I have good hope
Thou didst not know on’t. Who comes here? O heavens!

 Enter Goneril.

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway
Allow obedience, if yourselves are old,
Make it your cause; send down, and take my part!
[_To Goneril._] Art not asham’d to look upon this beard?
O Regan, wilt thou take her by the hand?

GONERIL.
Why not by the hand, sir? How have I offended?
All’s not offence that indiscretion finds
And dotage terms so.

LEAR.
O sides, you are too tough!
Will you yet hold? How came my man i’ the stocks?

CORNWALL.
I set him there, sir: but his own disorders
Deserv’d much less advancement.

LEAR.
You? Did you?

REGAN.
I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.
If, till the expiration of your month,
You will return and sojourn with my sister,
Dismissing half your train, come then to me:
I am now from home, and out of that provision
Which shall be needful for your entertainment.

LEAR.
Return to her, and fifty men dismiss’d?
No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose
To wage against the enmity o’ the air;
To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,
Necessity’s sharp pinch! Return with her?
Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took
Our youngest born, I could as well be brought
To knee his throne, and, squire-like, pension beg
To keep base life afoot. Return with her?
Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter
To this detested groom.

 [_Pointing to Oswald._]

GONERIL.
At your choice, sir.

LEAR.
I prythee, daughter, do not make me mad:
I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell:
We’ll no more meet, no more see one another.
But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;
Or rather a disease that’s in my flesh,
Which I must needs call mine. Thou art a boil,
A plague sore, or embossed carbuncle
In my corrupted blood. But I’ll not chide thee;
Let shame come when it will, I do not call it:
I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,
Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove:
Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure:
I can be patient; I can stay with Regan,
I and my hundred knights.

REGAN.
Not altogether so,
I look’d not for you yet, nor am provided
For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister;
For those that mingle reason with your passion
Must be content to think you old, and so—
But she knows what she does.

LEAR.
Is this well spoken?

REGAN.
I dare avouch it, sir: what, fifty followers?
Is it not well? What should you need of more?
Yea, or so many, sith that both charge and danger
Speak ’gainst so great a number? How in one house
Should many people, under two commands,
Hold amity? ’Tis hard; almost impossible.

GONERIL.
Why might not you, my lord, receive attendance
From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

REGAN.
Why not, my lord? If then they chanc’d to slack ye,
We could control them. If you will come to me,—
For now I spy a danger,—I entreat you
To bring but five-and-twenty: to no more
Will I give place or notice.

LEAR.
I gave you all,—

REGAN.
And in good time you gave it.

LEAR.
Made you my guardians, my depositaries;
But kept a reservation to be followed
With such a number. What, must I come to you
With five-and-twenty, Regan, said you so?

REGAN.
And speak’t again my lord; no more with me.

LEAR.
Those wicked creatures yet do look well-favour’d
When others are more wicked; not being the worst
Stands in some rank of praise.
[_To Goneril._] I’ll go with thee:
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,
And thou art twice her love.

GONERIL.
Hear me, my lord:
What need you five-and-twenty? Ten? Or five?
To follow in a house where twice so many
Have a command to tend you?

REGAN.
What need one?

LEAR.
O, reason not the need: our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady;
If only to go warm were gorgeous,
Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st
Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need,—
You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!
You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts
Against their father, fool me not so much
To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,
And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,
Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall,—I will do such things,—
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep;
No, I’ll not weep:— [_Storm and tempest._]
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I’ll weep.—O fool, I shall go mad!

 [_Exeunt Lear, Gloucester, Kent and Fool._]

CORNWALL.
Let us withdraw; ’twill be a storm.

REGAN.
This house is little: the old man and his people
Cannot be well bestow’d.

GONERIL.
’Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest
And must needs taste his folly.

REGAN.
For his particular, I’ll receive him gladly,
But not one follower.

GONERIL.
So am I purpos’d.
Where is my lord of Gloucester?

 Enter Gloucester.

CORNWALL.
Followed the old man forth, he is return’d.

GLOUCESTER.
The King is in high rage.

CORNWALL.
Whither is he going?

GLOUCESTER.
He calls to horse; but will I know not whither.

CORNWALL.
’Tis best to give him way; he leads himself.

GONERIL.
My lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

GLOUCESTER.
Alack, the night comes on, and the high winds
Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about
There’s scarce a bush.

REGAN.
O, sir, to wilful men
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors.
He is attended with a desperate train,
And what they may incense him to, being apt
To have his ear abus’d, wisdom bids fear.

CORNWALL.
Shut up your doors, my lord; ’tis a wild night.
My Regan counsels well: come out o’ the storm.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT III

SCENE I. A Heath.

 A storm with thunder and lightning. Enter Kent and a Gentleman,
 severally.

KENT.
Who’s there, besides foul weather?

GENTLEMAN.
One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

KENT.
I know you. Where’s the King?

GENTLEMAN.
Contending with the fretful elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
Or swell the curled waters ’bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage,
Catch in their fury and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to outscorn
The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain.
This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch,
The lion and the belly-pinched wolf
Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,
And bids what will take all.

KENT.
But who is with him?

GENTLEMAN.
None but the fool, who labours to out-jest
His heart-struck injuries.

KENT.
Sir, I do know you;
And dare, upon the warrant of my note
Commend a dear thing to you. There is division,
Although as yet the face of it be cover’d
With mutual cunning, ’twixt Albany and Cornwall;
Who have, as who have not, that their great stars
Throne’d and set high; servants, who seem no less,
Which are to France the spies and speculations
Intelligent of our state. What hath been seen,
Either in snuffs and packings of the Dukes;
Or the hard rein which both of them have borne
Against the old kind King; or something deeper,
Whereof, perchance, these are but furnishings;—
But, true it is, from France there comes a power
Into this scatter’d kingdom; who already,
Wise in our negligence, have secret feet
In some of our best ports, and are at point
To show their open banner.—Now to you:
If on my credit you dare build so far
To make your speed to Dover, you shall find
Some that will thank you making just report
Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow
The King hath cause to plain.
I am a gentleman of blood and breeding;
And from some knowledge and assurance
Offer this office to you.

GENTLEMAN.
I will talk further with you.

KENT.
No, do not.
For confirmation that I am much more
Than my out-wall, open this purse, and take
What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia,
As fear not but you shall, show her this ring;
And she will tell you who your fellow is
That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!
I will go seek the King.

GENTLEMAN.
Give me your hand: have you no more to say?

KENT.
Few words, but, to effect, more than all yet:
That, when we have found the King, in which your pain
That way, I’ll this; he that first lights on him
Holla the other.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Another part of the heath.

 Storm continues. Enter Lear and Fool.

LEAR.
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

FOOL.
O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry house is better than this
rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in; and ask thy daughters
blessing: here’s a night pities neither wise men nor fools.

LEAR.
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters;
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children;
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis’d old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engender’d battles ’gainst a head
So old and white as this! O! O! ’tis foul!

FOOL.
He that has a house to put’s head in has a good head-piece.
   The codpiece that will house
     Before the head has any,
   The head and he shall louse:
     So beggars marry many.
   The man that makes his toe
     What he his heart should make
   Shall of a corn cry woe,
     And turn his sleep to wake.
For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

LEAR.
No, I will be the pattern of all patience;
I will say nothing.

 Enter Kent.

KENT.
Who’s there?

FOOL.
Marry, here’s grace and a codpiece; that’s a wise man and a fool.

KENT.
Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night
Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies
Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,
And make them keep their caves. Since I was man,
Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,
Such groans of roaring wind and rain I never
Remember to have heard. Man’s nature cannot carry
Th’affliction, nor the fear.

LEAR.
Let the great gods,
That keep this dreadful pudder o’er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes
Unwhipp’d of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjur’d, and thou simular of virtue
That art incestuous. Caitiff, to pieces shake
That under covert and convenient seeming
Hast practis’d on man’s life: close pent-up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and cry
These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
More sinn’d against than sinning.

KENT.
Alack, bareheaded!
Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;
Some friendship will it lend you ’gainst the tempest:
Repose you there, whilst I to this hard house,—
More harder than the stones whereof ’tis rais’d;
Which even but now, demanding after you,
Denied me to come in,—return, and force
Their scanted courtesy.

LEAR.
My wits begin to turn.
Come on, my boy. How dost, my boy? Art cold?
I am cold myself. Where is this straw, my fellow?
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.
Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart
That’s sorry yet for thee.

FOOL.
[_Singing._]
   He that has and a little tiny wit,
     With heigh-ho, the wind and the rain,
   Must make content with his fortunes fit,
     Though the rain it raineth every day.

LEAR.
True, boy. Come, bring us to this hovel.

 [_Exeunt Lear and Kent._]

FOOL.
This is a brave night to cool a courtezan. I’ll speak a prophecy ere I
go:
   When priests are more in word than matter;
   When brewers mar their malt with water;
   When nobles are their tailors’ tutors;
   No heretics burn’d, but wenches’ suitors;
   When every case in law is right;
   No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
   When slanders do not live in tongues;
   Nor cut-purses come not to throngs;
   When usurers tell their gold i’ the field;
   And bawds and whores do churches build,
   Then shall the realm of Albion
   Come to great confusion:
   Then comes the time, who lives to see’t,
   That going shall be us’d with feet.
This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Gloucester and Edmund.

GLOUCESTER.
Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desired
their leave that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine
own house; charged me on pain of perpetual displeasure, neither to
speak of him, entreat for him, or any way sustain him.

EDMUND.
Most savage and unnatural!

GLOUCESTER.
Go to; say you nothing. There is division between the Dukes, and a
worse matter than that: I have received a letter this night;—’tis
dangerous to be spoken;—I have locked the letter in my closet: these
injuries the King now bears will be revenged home; there’s part of a
power already footed: we must incline to the King. I will look him, and
privily relieve him: go you and maintain talk with the Duke, that my
charity be not of him perceived: if he ask for me, I am ill, and gone
to bed. If I die for it, as no less is threatened me, the King my old
master must be relieved. There is some strange thing toward, Edmund;
pray you be careful.

 [_Exit._]

EDMUND.
This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the Duke
Instantly know; and of that letter too.
This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me
That which my father loses, no less than all:
The younger rises when the old doth fall.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE IV. A part of the Heath with a Hovel.

 Storm continues. Enter Lear, Kent and Fool.

KENT.
Here is the place, my lord; good my lord, enter:
The tyranny of the open night’s too rough
For nature to endure.

LEAR.
Let me alone.

KENT.
Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR.
Wilt break my heart?

KENT.
I had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.

LEAR.
Thou think’st ’tis much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin: so ’tis to thee,
But where the greater malady is fix’d,
The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear;
But if thy flight lay toward the raging sea,
Thou’dst meet the bear i’ the mouth. When the mind’s free,
The body’s delicate: the tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to’t? But I will punish home;
No, I will weep no more. In such a night
To shut me out! Pour on; I will endure:
In such a night as this! O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all,
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that.

KENT.
Good my lord, enter here.

LEAR.
Prythee go in thyself; seek thine own ease:
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder
On things would hurt me more. But I’ll go in.
[_To the Fool._] In, boy; go first. You houseless poverty,
Nay, get thee in. I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.

 [_Fool goes in._]

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just.

EDGAR.
[_Within._] Fathom and half, fathom and half! Poor Tom!

 [_The Fool runs out from the hovel._]

FOOL.
Come not in here, nuncle, here’s a spirit.
Help me, help me!

KENT.
Give me thy hand. Who’s there?

FOOL.
A spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor Tom.

KENT.
What art thou that dost grumble there i’ the straw?
Come forth.

 Enter Edgar, disguised as a madman.

EDGAR.
Away! the foul fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blows the
cold wind. Humh! go to thy cold bed, and warm thee.

LEAR.
Didst thou give all to thy two daughters?
And art thou come to this?

EDGAR.
Who gives anything to poor Tom? Whom the foul fiend hath led through
fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and
quagmire; that hath laid knives under his pillow and halters in his
pew, set ratsbane by his porridge; made him proud of heart, to ride on
a bay trotting horse over four-inched bridges, to course his own shadow
for a traitor. Bless thy five wits! 	Tom’s a-cold. O, do, de, do,
de, do, de. Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking! Do
poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes. There could I have
him now, and there,—and there again, and there.

 [_Storm continues._]

LEAR.
What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?
Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give ’em all?

FOOL.
Nay, he reserv’d a blanket, else we had been all shamed.

LEAR.
Now all the plagues that in the pendulous air
Hang fated o’er men’s faults light on thy daughters!

KENT.
He hath no daughters, sir.

LEAR.
Death, traitor! nothing could have subdu’d nature
To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.
Is it the fashion that discarded fathers
Should have thus little mercy on their flesh?
Judicious punishment! ’twas this flesh begot
Those pelican daughters.

EDGAR.
   Pillicock sat on Pillicock hill,
     Alow, alow, loo loo!

FOOL.
This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

EDGAR.
Take heed o’ th’ foul fiend: obey thy parents; keep thy word justly;
swear not; commit not with man’s sworn spouse; set not thy sweet-heart
on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.

LEAR.
What hast thou been?

EDGAR.
A serving-man, proud in heart and mind; that curled my hair; wore
gloves in my cap; served the lust of my mistress’ heart, and did the
act of darkness with her; swore as many oaths as I spake words, and
broke them in the sweet face of heaven. One that slept in the
contriving of lust, and waked to do it. Wine loved I deeply, dice
dearly; and in woman out-paramour’d the Turk. False of heart, light of
ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness,
dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking of shoes nor the
rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of
brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lender’s book, and
defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind:
says suum, mun, nonny. Dolphin my boy, boy, sessa! let him trot by.

 [_Storm still continues._]

LEAR.
Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered
body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider
him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no
wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here’s three on’s are sophisticated! Thou
art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor,
bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! Come, unbutton
here.

 [_Tears off his clothes._]

FOOL.
Prythee, nuncle, be contented; ’tis a naughty night to swim in. Now a
little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart, a small
spark, all the rest on’s body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire.

EDGAR.
This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins at curfew, and walks
till the first cock; he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and
makes the harelip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature
of earth.
   Swithold footed thrice the old;
   He met the nightmare, and her nine-fold;
     Bid her alight and her troth plight,
   And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!

KENT.
How fares your grace?

 Enter Gloucester with a torch.

LEAR.
What’s he?

KENT.
Who’s there? What is’t you seek?

GLOUCESTER.
What are you there? Your names?

EDGAR.
Poor Tom; that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the todpole, the
wall-newt and the water; that in the fury of his heart, when the foul
fiend rages, eats cow-dung for sallets; swallows the old rat and the
ditch-dog; drinks the green mantle of the standing pool; who is whipped
from tithing to tithing, and stocked, punished, and imprisoned; who
hath had three suits to his back, six shirts to his body,
     Horse to ride, and weapon to wear.
     But mice and rats and such small deer,
     Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.
Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin; peace, thou fiend!

GLOUCESTER.
What, hath your grace no better company?

EDGAR.
The prince of darkness is a gentleman:
Modo he’s call’d, and Mahu.

GLOUCESTER.
Our flesh and blood, my lord, is grown so vile
That it doth hate what gets it.

EDGAR.
Poor Tom’s a-cold.

GLOUCESTER.
Go in with me: my duty cannot suffer
T’obey in all your daughters’ hard commands;
Though their injunction be to bar my doors,
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
Yet have I ventur’d to come seek you out,
And bring you where both fire and food is ready.

LEAR.
First let me talk with this philosopher.
What is the cause of thunder?

KENT.
Good my lord, take his offer; go into the house.

LEAR.
I’ll talk a word with this same learned Theban.
What is your study?

EDGAR.
How to prevent the fiend and to kill vermin.

LEAR.
Let me ask you one word in private.

KENT.
Importune him once more to go, my lord;
His wits begin t’unsettle.

GLOUCESTER.
Canst thou blame him?
His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent!
He said it would be thus, poor banish’d man!
Thou sayest the King grows mad; I’ll tell thee, friend,
I am almost mad myself. I had a son,
Now outlaw’d from my blood; he sought my life
But lately, very late: I lov’d him, friend,
No father his son dearer: true to tell thee,

 [_Storm continues._]

The grief hath craz’d my wits. What a night’s this!
I do beseech your grace.

LEAR.
O, cry you mercy, sir.
Noble philosopher, your company.

EDGAR.
Tom’s a-cold.

GLOUCESTER.
In, fellow, there, into the hovel; keep thee warm.

LEAR.
Come, let’s in all.

KENT.
This way, my lord.

LEAR.
With him;
I will keep still with my philosopher.

KENT.
Good my lord, soothe him; let him take the fellow.

GLOUCESTER.
Take him you on.

KENT.
Sirrah, come on; go along with us.

LEAR.
Come, good Athenian.

GLOUCESTER.
No words, no words, hush.

EDGAR.
   Child Rowland to the dark tower came,
   His word was still—Fie, foh, and fum,
   I smell the blood of a British man.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Cornwall and Edmund.

CORNWALL.
I will have my revenge ere I depart his house.

EDMUND.
How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty,
something fears me to think of.

CORNWALL.
I now perceive it was not altogether your brother’s evil disposition
made him seek his death; but a provoking merit, set a-work by a
reproveable badness in himself.

EDMUND.
How malicious is my fortune, that I must repent to be just! This is the
letter he spoke of, which approves him an intelligent party to the
advantages of France. O heavens! that this treason were not; or not I
the detector!

CORNWALL.
Go with me to the Duchess.

EDMUND.
If the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in
hand.

CORNWALL.
True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester. Seek out where thy
father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.

EDMUND.
[_Aside._] If I find him comforting the King, it will stuff his
suspicion more fully. I will persever in my course of loyalty, though
the conflict be sore between that and my blood.

CORNWALL.
I will lay trust upon thee; and thou shalt find a dearer father in my
love.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. A Chamber in a Farmhouse adjoining the Castle.

 Enter Gloucester, Lear, Kent, Fool and Edgar.

GLOUCESTER.
Here is better than the open air; take it thankfully. I will piece out
the comfort with what addition I can: I will not be long from you.

KENT.
All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience:— the gods
reward your kindness!

 [_Exit Gloucester._]

EDGAR.
Frateretto calls me; and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of
darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.

FOOL.
Prythee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman.

LEAR.
A king, a king!

FOOL.
No, he’s a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son; for he’s a mad
yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.

LEAR.
To have a thousand with red burning spits
Come hissing in upon ’em.

EDGAR.
The foul fiend bites my back.

FOOL.
He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a
boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.

LEAR.
It shall be done; I will arraign them straight.
[_To Edgar._] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer;
[_To the Fool._] Thou, sapient sir, sit here. Now, you she-foxes!—

EDGAR.
Look, where he stands and glares! Want’st thou eyes at trial, madam?
  Come o’er the bourn, Bessy, to me.

FOOL.
   Her boat hath a leak,
   And she must not speak
   Why she dares not come over to thee.

EDGAR.
The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale.
Hoppedance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring. Croak not, black
angel; I have no food for thee.

KENT.
How do you, sir? Stand you not so amaz’d;
Will you lie down and rest upon the cushions?

LEAR.
I’ll see their trial first. Bring in their evidence.
[_To Edgar._] Thou, robed man of justice, take thy place.
[_To the Fool._] And thou, his yokefellow of equity,
Bench by his side. [_To Kent._] You are o’ the commission,
Sit you too.

EDGAR.
   Let us deal justly.
   Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
     Thy sheep be in the corn;
   And for one blast of thy minikin mouth
     Thy sheep shall take no harm.
Purr! the cat is grey.

LEAR.
Arraign her first; ’tis Goneril. I here take my oath before this
honourable assembly, she kicked the poor King her father.

FOOL.
Come hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?

LEAR.
She cannot deny it.

FOOL.
Cry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.

LEAR.
And here’s another, whose warp’d looks proclaim
What store her heart is made on. Stop her there!
Arms, arms! sword! fire! Corruption in the place!
False justicer, why hast thou let her ’scape?

EDGAR.
Bless thy five wits!

KENT.
O pity! Sir, where is the patience now
That you so oft have boasted to retain?

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] My tears begin to take his part so much
They mar my counterfeiting.

LEAR.
The little dogs and all,
Trey, Blanch, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.

EDGAR.
Tom will throw his head at them. Avaunt, you curs!
   Be thy mouth or black or white,
   Tooth that poisons if it bite;
   Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,
   Hound or spaniel, brach or him,
   Or bobtail tike or trundle-tail,
   Tom will make them weep and wail;
   For, with throwing thus my head,
   Dogs leap the hatch, and all are fled.
Do, de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market towns.
Poor Tom, thy horn is dry.

LEAR.
Then let them anatomize Regan; see what breeds about her heart. Is
there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts? [_To Edgar._]
You, sir, I entertain you for one of my hundred; only I do not like the
fashion of your garments. You’ll say they are Persian; but let them be
changed.

KENT.
Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile.

LEAR.
Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains.
So, so. We’ll go to supper i’ the morning.

FOOL.
And I’ll go to bed at noon.

 Enter Gloucester.

GLOUCESTER.
Come hither, friend;
Where is the King my master?

KENT.
Here, sir; but trouble him not, his wits are gone.

GLOUCESTER.
Good friend, I prythee, take him in thy arms;
I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him;
There is a litter ready; lay him in’t
And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet
Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master;
If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,
With thine, and all that offer to defend him,
Stand in assured loss. Take up, take up;
And follow me, that will to some provision
Give thee quick conduct.

KENT.
Oppressed nature sleeps.
This rest might yet have balm’d thy broken sinews,
Which, if convenience will not allow,
Stand in hard cure. Come, help to bear thy master;
[_To the Fool._] Thou must not stay behind.

GLOUCESTER.
Come, come, away!

 [_Exeunt Kent, Gloucester and the Fool bearing off Lear._]

EDGAR.
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers, suffers most i’ the mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the King bow;
He childed as I fathered! Tom, away!
Mark the high noises; and thyself bewray,
When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee,
In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.
What will hap more tonight, safe ’scape the King!
Lurk, lurk.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE VII. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, Edmund and Servants.

CORNWALL.
Post speedily to my lord your husband, show him this letter: the army
of France is landed. Seek out the traitor Gloucester.

 [_Exeunt some of the Servants._]

REGAN.
Hang him instantly.

GONERIL.
Pluck out his eyes.

CORNWALL.
Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our sister company: the
revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit
for your beholding. Advise the Duke where you are going, to a most
festinate preparation: we are bound to the like. Our posts shall be
swift and intelligent betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister, farewell, my
lord of Gloucester.

 Enter Oswald.

How now! Where’s the King?

OSWALD.
My lord of Gloucester hath convey’d him hence:
Some five or six and thirty of his knights,
Hot questrists after him, met him at gate;
Who, with some other of the lord’s dependants,
Are gone with him toward Dover: where they boast
To have well-armed friends.

CORNWALL.
Get horses for your mistress.

GONERIL.
Farewell, sweet lord, and sister.

CORNWALL.
Edmund, farewell.

 [_Exeunt Goneril, Edmund and Oswald._]

Go seek the traitor Gloucester,
Pinion him like a thief, bring him before us.

 [_Exeunt other Servants._]

Though well we may not pass upon his life
Without the form of justice, yet our power
Shall do a courtesy to our wrath, which men
May blame, but not control. Who’s there? The traitor?

 Enter Gloucester and Servants.

REGAN.
Ingrateful fox! ’tis he.

CORNWALL.
Bind fast his corky arms.

GLOUCESTER.
What mean your graces?
Good my friends, consider you are my guests.
Do me no foul play, friends.

CORNWALL.
Bind him, I say.

 [_Servants bind him._]

REGAN.
Hard, hard. O filthy traitor!

GLOUCESTER.
Unmerciful lady as you are, I’m none.

CORNWALL.
To this chair bind him. Villain, thou shalt find—

 [_Regan plucks his beard._]

GLOUCESTER.
By the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly done
To pluck me by the beard.

REGAN.
So white, and such a traitor!

GLOUCESTER.
Naughty lady,
These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin
Will quicken, and accuse thee. I am your host:
With robber’s hands my hospitable favours
You should not ruffle thus. What will you do?

CORNWALL.
Come, sir, what letters had you late from France?

REGAN.
Be simple answer’d, for we know the truth.

CORNWALL.
And what confederacy have you with the traitors,
Late footed in the kingdom?

REGAN.
To whose hands have you sent the lunatic King?
Speak.

GLOUCESTER.
I have a letter guessingly set down,
Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart,
And not from one oppos’d.

CORNWALL.
Cunning.

REGAN.
And false.

CORNWALL.
Where hast thou sent the King?

GLOUCESTER.
To Dover.

REGAN.
Wherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charg’d at peril,—

CORNWALL.
Wherefore to Dover? Let him first answer that.

GLOUCESTER.
I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.

REGAN.
Wherefore to Dover, sir?

GLOUCESTER.
Because I would not see thy cruel nails
Pluck out his poor old eyes; nor thy fierce sister
In his anointed flesh stick boarish fangs.
The sea, with such a storm as his bare head
In hell-black night endur’d, would have buoy’d up,
And quench’d the stelled fires;
Yet, poor old heart, he holp the heavens to rain.
If wolves had at thy gate howl’d that stern time,
Thou shouldst have said, ‘Good porter, turn the key.’
All cruels else subscrib’d: but I shall see
The winged vengeance overtake such children.

CORNWALL.
See’t shalt thou never. Fellows, hold the chair.
Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.

 [_Gloucester is held down in his chair, while Cornwall plucks out one
 of his eyes and sets his foot on it._]

GLOUCESTER.
He that will think to live till he be old,
Give me some help!—O cruel! O you gods!

REGAN.
One side will mock another; the other too!

CORNWALL.
If you see vengeance—

FIRST SERVANT.
Hold your hand, my lord:
I have serv’d you ever since I was a child;
But better service have I never done you
Than now to bid you hold.

REGAN.
How now, you dog!

FIRST SERVANT.
If you did wear a beard upon your chin,
I’d shake it on this quarrel. What do you mean?

CORNWALL.
My villain?

 [_Draws, and runs at him._]

FIRST SERVANT.
Nay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.

 [_Draws. They fight. Cornwall is wounded._]

REGAN.
[_To another servant._] Give me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus?

 [_Snatches a sword, comes behind, and stabs him._]

FIRST SERVANT.
O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left
To see some mischief on him. O!

 [_Dies._]

CORNWALL.
Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!
Where is thy lustre now?

 [_Tears out Gloucester’s other eye and throws it on the ground._]

GLOUCESTER.
All dark and comfortless. Where’s my son Edmund?
Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature
To quit this horrid act.

REGAN.
Out, treacherous villain!
Thou call’st on him that hates thee: it was he
That made the overture of thy treasons to us;
Who is too good to pity thee.

GLOUCESTER.
O my follies! Then Edgar was abus’d.
Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!

REGAN.
Go thrust him out at gates, and let him smell
His way to Dover. How is’t, my lord? How look you?

CORNWALL.
I have receiv’d a hurt: follow me, lady.
Turn out that eyeless villain. Throw this slave
Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace:
Untimely comes this hurt: give me your arm.

 [_Exit Cornwall, led by Regan; Servants unbind Gloucester and lead him
 out._]

SECOND SERVANT.
I’ll never care what wickedness I do,
If this man come to good.

THIRD SERVANT.
If she live long,
And in the end meet the old course of death,
Women will all turn monsters.

SECOND SERVANT.
Let’s follow the old Earl, and get the bedlam
To lead him where he would: his roguish madness
Allows itself to anything.

THIRD SERVANT.
Go thou: I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs
To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT IV

SCENE I. The heath.

 Enter Edgar.

EDGAR.
Yet better thus, and known to be contemn’d,
Than still contemn’d and flatter’d. To be worst,
The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:
The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace;
The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst
Owes nothing to thy blasts.

 Enter Gloucester, led by an Old Man.

But who comes here? My father, poorly led?
World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.

OLD MAN.
O my good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father’s tenant these
fourscore years.

GLOUCESTER.
Away, get thee away; good friend, be gone.
Thy comforts can do me no good at all;
Thee they may hurt.

OLD MAN.
You cannot see your way.

GLOUCESTER.
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes;
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen
Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father’s wrath!
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’d say I had eyes again!

OLD MAN.
How now! Who’s there?

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] O gods! Who is’t can say ‘I am at the worst’?
I am worse than e’er I was.

OLD MAN.
’Tis poor mad Tom.

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] And worse I may be yet. The worst is not
So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’

OLD MAN.
Fellow, where goest?

GLOUCESTER.
Is it a beggar-man?

OLD MAN.
Madman, and beggar too.

GLOUCESTER.
He has some reason, else he could not beg.
I’ the last night’s storm I such a fellow saw;
Which made me think a man a worm. My son
Came then into my mind, and yet my mind
Was then scarce friends with him.
I have heard more since.
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] How should this be?
Bad is the trade that must play fool to sorrow,
Angering itself and others. Bless thee, master!

GLOUCESTER.
Is that the naked fellow?

OLD MAN.
Ay, my lord.

GLOUCESTER.
Then prythee get thee away. If for my sake
Thou wilt o’ertake us hence a mile or twain,
I’ the way toward Dover, do it for ancient love,
And bring some covering for this naked soul,
Which I’ll entreat to lead me.

OLD MAN.
Alack, sir, he is mad.

GLOUCESTER.
’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.
Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure;
Above the rest, be gone.

OLD MAN.
I’ll bring him the best ’parel that I have,
Come on’t what will.

 [_Exit._]

GLOUCESTER.
Sirrah naked fellow.

EDGAR.
Poor Tom’s a-cold.
[_Aside._] I cannot daub it further.

GLOUCESTER.
Come hither, fellow.

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] And yet I must. Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed.

GLOUCESTER.
Know’st thou the way to Dover?

EDGAR.
Both stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared
out of his good wits. Bless thee, good man’s son, from the foul fiend!
Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once; of lust, as Obidicut;
Hobbididence, prince of darkness; Mahu, of stealing; Modo, of murder;
Flibbertigibbet, of mopping and mowing, who since possesses
chambermaids and waiting women. So, bless thee, master!

GLOUCESTER.
Here, take this purse, thou whom the heaven’s plagues
Have humbled to all strokes: that I am wretched
Makes thee the happier. Heavens deal so still!
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly;
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?

EDGAR.
Ay, master.

GLOUCESTER.
There is a cliff, whose high and bending head
Looks fearfully in the confined deep:
Bring me but to the very brim of it,
And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear
With something rich about me: from that place
I shall no leading need.

EDGAR.
Give me thy arm:
Poor Tom shall lead thee.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Before the Duke of Albany’s Palace.

 Enter Goneril, Edmund; Oswald meeting them.

GONERIL.
Welcome, my lord. I marvel our mild husband
Not met us on the way. Now, where’s your master?

OSWALD.
Madam, within; but never man so chang’d.
I told him of the army that was landed;
He smil’d at it: I told him you were coming;
His answer was, ‘The worse.’ Of Gloucester’s treachery
And of the loyal service of his son
When I inform’d him, then he call’d me sot,
And told me I had turn’d the wrong side out.
What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;
What like, offensive.

GONERIL.
[_To Edmund._] Then shall you go no further.
It is the cowish terror of his spirit,
That dares not undertake. He’ll not feel wrongs
Which tie him to an answer. Our wishes on the way
May prove effects. Back, Edmund, to my brother;
Hasten his musters and conduct his powers.
I must change names at home, and give the distaff
Into my husband’s hands. This trusty servant
Shall pass between us. Ere long you are like to hear,
If you dare venture in your own behalf,
A mistress’s command. [_Giving a favour._]
Wear this; spare speech;
Decline your head. This kiss, if it durst speak,
Would stretch thy spirits up into the air.
Conceive, and fare thee well.

EDMUND.
Yours in the ranks of death.

 [_Exit Edmund._]

GONERIL.
My most dear Gloucester.
O, the difference of man and man!
To thee a woman’s services are due;
My fool usurps my body.

OSWALD.
Madam, here comes my lord.

 [_Exit._]

 Enter Albany.

GONERIL.
I have been worth the whistle.

ALBANY.
O Goneril!
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face! I fear your disposition;
That nature which contemns its origin
Cannot be bordered certain in itself.
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap, perforce must wither
And come to deadly use.

GONERIL.
No more; the text is foolish.

ALBANY.
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;
Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?
Tigers, not daughters, what have you perform’d?
A father, and a gracious aged man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugg’d bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.
Could my good brother suffer you to do it?
A man, a prince, by him so benefitted!
If that the heavens do not their visible spirits
Send quickly down to tame these vile offences,
It will come,
Humanity must perforce prey on itself,
Like monsters of the deep.

GONERIL.
Milk-liver’d man!
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honour from thy suffering; that not know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punish’d
Ere they have done their mischief. Where’s thy drum?
France spreads his banners in our noiseless land;
With plumed helm thy state begins to threat,
Whilst thou, a moral fool, sitt’st still, and criest
‘Alack, why does he so?’

ALBANY.
See thyself, devil!
Proper deformity seems not in the fiend
So horrid as in woman.

GONERIL.
O vain fool!

ALBANY.
Thou changed and self-cover’d thing, for shame!
Be-monster not thy feature! Were’t my fitness
To let these hands obey my blood.
They are apt enough to dislocate and tear
Thy flesh and bones. Howe’er thou art a fiend,
A woman’s shape doth shield thee.

GONERIL.
Marry, your manhood, mew!

 Enter a Messenger.

ALBANY.
What news?

MESSENGER.
O, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead;
Slain by his servant, going to put out
The other eye of Gloucester.

ALBANY.
Gloucester’s eyes!

MESSENGER.
A servant that he bred, thrill’d with remorse,
Oppos’d against the act, bending his sword
To his great master; who, thereat enrag’d,
Flew on him, and amongst them fell’d him dead;
But not without that harmful stroke which since
Hath pluck’d him after.

ALBANY.
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! But, O poor Gloucester!
Lost he his other eye?

MESSENGER.
Both, both, my lord.
This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer;
’Tis from your sister.

GONERIL.
[_Aside._] One way I like this well;
But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,
May all the building in my fancy pluck
Upon my hateful life. Another way
The news is not so tart. I’ll read, and answer.

 [_Exit._]

ALBANY.
Where was his son when they did take his eyes?

MESSENGER.
Come with my lady hither.

ALBANY.
He is not here.

MESSENGER.
No, my good lord; I met him back again.

ALBANY.
Knows he the wickedness?

MESSENGER.
Ay, my good lord. ’Twas he inform’d against him;
And quit the house on purpose, that their punishment
Might have the freer course.

ALBANY.
Gloucester, I live
To thank thee for the love thou show’dst the King,
And to revenge thine eyes. Come hither, friend,
Tell me what more thou know’st.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. The French camp near Dover.

 Enter Kent and a Gentleman.

KENT.
Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you no reason?

GENTLEMAN.
Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth
is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger
that his personal return was most required and necessary.

KENT.
Who hath he left behind him general?

GENTLEMAN.
The Mareschal of France, Monsieur La Far.

KENT.
Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

GENTLEMAN.
Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
And now and then an ample tear trill’d down
Her delicate cheek. It seem’d she was a queen
Over her passion; who, most rebel-like,
Sought to be king o’er her.

KENT.
O, then it mov’d her.

GENTLEMAN.
Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove
Who should express her goodliest. You have seen
Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears
Were like a better day. Those happy smilets
That play’d on her ripe lip seem’d not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence
As pearls from diamonds dropp’d. In brief,
Sorrow would be a rarity most belov’d,
If all could so become it.

KENT.
Made she no verbal question?

GENTLEMAN.
Faith, once or twice she heav’d the name of ‘father’
Pantingly forth, as if it press’d her heart;
Cried ‘Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies! sisters!
Kent! father! sisters! What, i’ the storm? i’ the night?
Let pity not be believ’d!’ There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamour master’d her: then away she started
To deal with grief alone.

KENT.
It is the stars,
The stars above us govern our conditions;
Else one self mate and make could not beget
Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?

GENTLEMAN.
No.

KENT.
Was this before the King return’d?

GENTLEMAN.
No, since.

KENT.
Well, sir, the poor distressed Lear’s i’ the town;
Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers
What we are come about, and by no means
Will yield to see his daughter.

GENTLEMAN.
Why, good sir?

KENT.
A sovereign shame so elbows him. His own unkindness,
That stripp’d her from his benediction, turn’d her
To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights
To his dog-hearted daughters, these things sting
His mind so venomously that burning shame
Detains him from Cordelia.

GENTLEMAN.
Alack, poor gentleman!

KENT.
Of Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?

GENTLEMAN.
’Tis so; they are afoot.

KENT.
Well, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear
And leave you to attend him. Some dear cause
Will in concealment wrap me up awhile;
When I am known aright, you shall not grieve
Lending me this acquaintance.
I pray you, go along with me.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. The French camp. A Tent.

 Enter with drum and colours, Cordelia, Physician and Soldiers.

CORDELIA.
Alack, ’tis he: why, he was met even now
As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud;
Crown’d with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
With harlocks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn. A century send forth;
Search every acre in the high-grown field,
And bring him to our eye.

 [_Exit an Officer._]

What can man’s wisdom
In the restoring his bereaved sense,
He that helps him take all my outward worth.

PHYSICIAN.
There is means, madam:
Our foster nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks; that to provoke in him
Are many simples operative, whose power
Will close the eye of anguish.

CORDELIA.
All bless’d secrets,
All you unpublish’d virtues of the earth,
Spring with my tears! Be aidant and remediate
In the good man’s distress! Seek, seek for him;
Lest his ungovern’d rage dissolve the life
That wants the means to lead it.

 Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER.
News, madam;
The British powers are marching hitherward.

CORDELIA.
’Tis known before. Our preparation stands
In expectation of them. O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about;
Therefore great France
My mourning and important tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our ag’d father’s right:
Soon may I hear and see him!

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A Room in Gloucester’s Castle.

 Enter Regan and Oswald.

REGAN.
But are my brother’s powers set forth?

OSWALD.
Ay, madam.

REGAN.
Himself in person there?

OSWALD.
Madam, with much ado.
Your sister is the better soldier.

REGAN.
Lord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?

OSWALD.
No, madam.

REGAN.
What might import my sister’s letter to him?

OSWALD.
I know not, lady.

REGAN.
Faith, he is posted hence on serious matter.
It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,
To let him live. Where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life; moreover to descry
The strength o’ th’enemy.

OSWALD.
I must needs after him, madam, with my letter.

REGAN.
Our troops set forth tomorrow; stay with us;
The ways are dangerous.

OSWALD.
I may not, madam:
My lady charg’d my duty in this business.

REGAN.
Why should she write to Edmund? Might not you
Transport her purposes by word? Belike,
Somethings, I know not what, I’ll love thee much.
Let me unseal the letter.

OSWALD.
Madam, I had rather—

REGAN.
I know your lady does not love her husband;
I am sure of that; and at her late being here
She gave strange oeillades and most speaking looks
To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.

OSWALD.
I, madam?

REGAN.
I speak in understanding; y’are, I know’t:
Therefore I do advise you take this note:
My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk’d,
And more convenient is he for my hand
Than for your lady’s. You may gather more.
If you do find him, pray you give him this;
And when your mistress hears thus much from you,
I pray desire her call her wisdom to her.
So, fare you well.
If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

OSWALD.
Would I could meet him, madam! I should show
What party I do follow.

REGAN.
Fare thee well.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. The country near Dover.

 Enter Gloucester, and Edgar  dressed like a peasant.

GLOUCESTER.
When shall I come to the top of that same hill?

EDGAR.
You do climb up it now. Look how we labour.

GLOUCESTER.
Methinks the ground is even.

EDGAR.
Horrible steep.
Hark, do you hear the sea?

GLOUCESTER.
No, truly.

EDGAR.
Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect
By your eyes’ anguish.

GLOUCESTER.
So may it be indeed.
Methinks thy voice is alter’d; and thou speak’st
In better phrase and matter than thou didst.

EDGAR.
Y’are much deceiv’d: in nothing am I chang’d
But in my garments.

GLOUCESTER.
Methinks you’re better spoken.

EDGAR.
Come on, sir; here’s the place. Stand still. How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles. Half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire—dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark,
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock a buoy
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge
That on th’unnumber’d idle pebble chafes
Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

GLOUCESTER.
Set me where you stand.

EDGAR.
Give me your hand.
You are now within a foot of th’extreme verge.
For all beneath the moon would I not leap upright.

GLOUCESTER.
Let go my hand.
Here, friend, ’s another purse; in it a jewel
Well worth a poor man’s taking. Fairies and gods
Prosper it with thee! Go thou further off;
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.

EDGAR.
Now fare ye well, good sir.

 [_Seems to go._]

GLOUCESTER.
With all my heart.

EDGAR.
[_Aside._] Why I do trifle thus with his despair
Is done to cure it.

GLOUCESTER.
O you mighty gods!
This world I do renounce, and in your sights,
Shake patiently my great affliction off:
If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathed part of nature should
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!
Now, fellow, fare thee well.

EDGAR.
Gone, sir, farewell.

 [_Gloucester leaps, and falls along_]

And yet I know not how conceit may rob
The treasury of life when life itself
Yields to the theft. Had he been where he thought,
By this had thought been past. Alive or dead?
Ho you, sir! friend! Hear you, sir? speak!
Thus might he pass indeed: yet he revives.
What are you, sir?

GLOUCESTER.
Away, and let me die.

EDGAR.
Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou’dst shiver’d like an egg: but thou dost breathe;
Hast heavy substance; bleed’st not; speak’st; art sound.
Ten masts at each make not the altitude
Which thou hast perpendicularly fell.
Thy life is a miracle. Speak yet again.

GLOUCESTER.
But have I fall’n, or no?

EDGAR.
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn.
Look up a-height, the shrill-gorg’d lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard. Do but look up.

GLOUCESTER.
Alack, I have no eyes.
Is wretchedness depriv’d that benefit
To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort
When misery could beguile the tyrant’s rage
And frustrate his proud will.

EDGAR.
Give me your arm.
Up, so. How is’t? Feel you your legs? You stand.

GLOUCESTER.
Too well, too well.

EDGAR.
This is above all strangeness.
Upon the crown o’ the cliff what thing was that
Which parted from you?

GLOUCESTER.
A poor unfortunate beggar.

EDGAR.
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses,
Horns whelk’d and waved like the enraged sea.
It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them honours
Of men’s impossibilities, have preserv’d thee.

GLOUCESTER.
I do remember now: henceforth I’ll bear
Affliction till it do cry out itself
‘Enough, enough,’ and die. That thing you speak of,
I took it for a man; often ’twould say,
‘The fiend, the fiend’; he led me to that place.

EDGAR.
Bear free and patient thoughts. But who comes here?

 Enter Lear, fantastically dressed up with flowers.

The safer sense will ne’er accommodate
His master thus.

LEAR.
No, they cannot touch me for coining. I am the King himself.

EDGAR.
O thou side-piercing sight!

LEAR.
Nature’s above art in that respect. There’s your press money. That
fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper: draw me a clothier’s yard.
Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace, this piece of toasted cheese will
do’t. There’s my gauntlet; I’ll prove it on a giant. Bring up the brown
bills. O, well flown, bird! i’ the clout, i’ the clout. Hewgh! Give the
word.

EDGAR.
Sweet marjoram.

LEAR.
Pass.

GLOUCESTER.
I know that voice.

LEAR.
Ha! Goneril with a white beard! They flattered me like a dog; and told
me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say
‘ay’ and ‘no’ to everything I said ‘ay’ and ‘no’ to was no good
divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me
chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found
’em, there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not men o’ their words:
they told me I was everything; ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.

GLOUCESTER.
The trick of that voice I do well remember:
Is’t not the King?

LEAR.
Ay, every inch a king.
When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.
I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?
Adultery? Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No:
The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight. Let copulation thrive;
For Gloucester’s bastard son was kinder to his father
Than my daughters got ’tween the lawful sheets.
To’t, luxury, pell-mell! for I lack soldiers.
Behold yond simp’ring dame,
Whose face between her forks presages snow;
That minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name.
The fitchew nor the soiled horse goes to’t with a more riotous
appetite. Down from the waist they are centaurs, though women all
above. But to the girdle do the gods inherit, beneath is all the
fiend’s; there’s hell, there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit;
burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! pah, pah! Give
me an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.
There’s money for thee.

GLOUCESTER.
O, let me kiss that hand!

LEAR.
Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.

GLOUCESTER.
O ruin’d piece of nature, this great world
Shall so wear out to naught. Dost thou know me?

LEAR.
I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me?
No, do thy worst, blind Cupid; I’ll not love.
Read thou this challenge; mark but the penning of it.

GLOUCESTER.
Were all the letters suns, I could not see one.

EDGAR.
I would not take this from report,
It is, and my heart breaks at it.

LEAR.
Read.

GLOUCESTER.
What, with the case of eyes?

LEAR.
O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in
your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light, yet
you see how this world goes.

GLOUCESTER.
I see it feelingly.

LEAR.
What, art mad? A man may see how the world goes with no eyes. Look with
thine ears. See how yon justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in
thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which
is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?

GLOUCESTER.
Ay, sir.

LEAR.
And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great
image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tatter’d clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.
None does offend, none, I say none; I’ll able ’em;
Take that of me, my friend, who have the power
To seal the accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes,
And like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now:
Pull off my boots: harder, harder, so.

EDGAR.
O, matter and impertinency mix’d!
Reason in madness!

LEAR.
If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.
I know thee well enough, thy name is Gloucester.
Thou must be patient; we came crying hither:
Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air
We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.

GLOUCESTER.
Alack, alack the day!

LEAR.
When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools. This a good block:
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt. I’ll put’t in proof
And when I have stol’n upon these son-in-laws,
Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

 Enter a Gentleman with Attendants.

GENTLEMAN.
O, here he is: lay hand upon him. Sir,
Your most dear daughter—

LEAR.
No rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even
The natural fool of fortune. Use me well;
You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons;
I am cut to the brains.

GENTLEMAN.
You shall have anything.

LEAR.
No seconds? All myself?
Why, this would make a man a man of salt,
To use his eyes for garden water-pots,
Ay, and for laying autumn’s dust.

GENTLEMAN.
Good sir.

LEAR.
I will die bravely, like a smug bridegroom.
What! I will be jovial. Come, come,
I am a king, my masters, know you that.

GENTLEMAN.
You are a royal one, and we obey you.

LEAR.
Then there’s life in’t. Come, and you get it,
You shall get it by running. Sa, sa, sa, sa!

 [_Exit running. Attendants follow._]

GENTLEMAN.
A sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch,
Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast one daughter
Who redeems nature from the general curse
Which twain have brought her to.

EDGAR.
Hail, gentle sir.

GENTLEMAN.
Sir, speed you. What’s your will?

EDGAR.
Do you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?

GENTLEMAN.
Most sure and vulgar.
Everyone hears that, which can distinguish sound.

EDGAR.
But, by your favour,
How near’s the other army?

GENTLEMAN.
Near and on speedy foot; the main descry
Stands on the hourly thought.

EDGAR.
I thank you sir, that’s all.

GENTLEMAN.
Though that the queen on special cause is here,
Her army is mov’d on.

EDGAR.
I thank you, sir.

 [_Exit Gentleman._]

GLOUCESTER.
You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me;
Let not my worser spirit tempt me again
To die before you please.

EDGAR.
Well pray you, father.

GLOUCESTER.
Now, good sir, what are you?

EDGAR.
A most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows;
Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows,
Am pregnant to good pity. Give me your hand,
I’ll lead you to some biding.

GLOUCESTER.
Hearty thanks:
The bounty and the benison of heaven
To boot, and boot.

 Enter Oswald.

OSWALD.
A proclaim’d prize! Most happy!
That eyeless head of thine was first fram’d flesh
To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor,
Briefly thyself remember. The sword is out
That must destroy thee.

GLOUCESTER.
Now let thy friendly hand
Put strength enough to’t.

 [_Edgar interposes._]

OSWALD.
Wherefore, bold peasant,
Dar’st thou support a publish’d traitor? Hence;
Lest that th’infection of his fortune take
Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

EDGAR.
Chill not let go, zir, without vurther ’casion.

OSWALD.
Let go, slave, or thou diest!

EDGAR.
Good gentleman, go your gait, and let poor volke pass. An chud ha’ bin
zwaggered out of my life, ’twould not ha’ bin zo long as ’tis by a
vortnight. Nay, come not near th’old man; keep out, che vor ye, or ise
try whether your costard or my ballow be the harder: chill be plain
with you.

OSWALD.
Out, dunghill!

EDGAR.
Chill pick your teeth, zir. Come! No matter vor your foins.

 [_They fight, and Edgar knocks him down._]

OSWALD.
Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse.
If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body;
And give the letters which thou find’st about me
To Edmund, Earl of Gloucester. Seek him out
Upon the British party. O, untimely death!

 [_Dies._]

EDGAR.
I know thee well. A serviceable villain,
As duteous to the vices of thy mistress
As badness would desire.

GLOUCESTER.
What, is he dead?

EDGAR.
Sit you down, father; rest you.
Let’s see these pockets; the letters that he speaks of
May be my friends. He’s dead; I am only sorry
He had no other deathsman. Let us see:
Leave, gentle wax; and, manners, blame us not.
To know our enemies’ minds, we rip their hearts,
Their papers is more lawful.
[_Reads._] ‘Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many
opportunities to cut him off: if your will want not, time and place
will be fruitfully offered. There is nothing done if he return the
conqueror: then am I the prisoner, and his bed my gaol; from the
loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your
labour. ‘Your (wife, so I would say) affectionate servant, ‘Goneril.’
O indistinguish’d space of woman’s will!
A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life,
And the exchange my brother! Here in the sands
Thee I’ll rake up, the post unsanctified
Of murderous lechers: and in the mature time,
With this ungracious paper strike the sight
Of the death-practis’d Duke: for him ’tis well
That of thy death and business I can tell.

 [_Exit Edgar, dragging out the body._]

GLOUCESTER.
The King is mad: how stiff is my vile sense,
That I stand up, and have ingenious feeling
Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract:
So should my thoughts be sever’d from my griefs,
And woes by wrong imaginations lose
The knowledge of themselves.

 [_A drum afar off._]

EDGAR.
Give me your hand.
Far off methinks I hear the beaten drum.
Come, father, I’ll bestow you with a friend.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VII. A Tent in the French Camp.

Lear on a bed, asleep, soft music playing; Physician, Gentleman and
others attending.

 Enter Cordelia and Kent.

CORDELIA.
O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work
To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,
And every measure fail me.

KENT.
To be acknowledg’d, madam, is o’erpaid.
All my reports go with the modest truth;
Nor more, nor clipp’d, but so.

CORDELIA.
Be better suited,
These weeds are memories of those worser hours:
I prythee put them off.

KENT.
Pardon, dear madam;
Yet to be known shortens my made intent.
My boon I make it that you know me not
Till time and I think meet.

CORDELIA.
Then be’t so, my good lord. [_To the Physician._] How, does the King?

PHYSICIAN.
Madam, sleeps still.

CORDELIA.
O you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abused nature!
The untun’d and jarring senses, O, wind up
Of this child-changed father.

PHYSICIAN.
So please your majesty
That we may wake the King: he hath slept long.

CORDELIA.
Be govern’d by your knowledge, and proceed
I’ the sway of your own will. Is he array’d?

PHYSICIAN.
Ay, madam. In the heaviness of sleep
We put fresh garments on him.
Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
I doubt not of his temperance.

CORDELIA.
Very well.

PHYSICIAN.
Please you draw near. Louder the music there!

CORDELIA.
O my dear father! Restoration hang
Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!

KENT.
Kind and dear princess!

CORDELIA.
Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Did challenge pity of them. Was this a face
To be oppos’d against the warring winds?
To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke
Of quick cross lightning? to watch, poor perdu!
With this thin helm? Mine enemy’s dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire; and wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn
In short and musty straw? Alack, alack!
’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once
Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.

PHYSICIAN.
Madam, do you; ’tis fittest.

CORDELIA.
How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

LEAR.
You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound
Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears
Do scald like molten lead.

CORDELIA.
Sir, do you know me?

LEAR.
You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?

CORDELIA.
Still, still, far wide!

PHYSICIAN.
He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

LEAR.
Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?
I am mightily abus’d. I should e’en die with pity,
To see another thus. I know not what to say.
I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assur’d
Of my condition!

CORDELIA.
O, look upon me, sir,
And hold your hands in benediction o’er me.
No, sir, you must not kneel.

LEAR.
Pray, do not mock me:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less;
And to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
Methinks I should know you, and know this man;
Yet I am doubtful: for I am mainly ignorant
What place this is; and all the skill I have
Remembers not these garments; nor I know not
Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me;
For, as I am a man, I think this lady
To be my child Cordelia.

CORDELIA.
And so I am. I am.

LEAR.
Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray weep not:
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me; for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause, they have not.

CORDELIA.
No cause, no cause.

LEAR.
Am I in France?

KENT.
In your own kingdom, sir.

LEAR.
Do not abuse me.

PHYSICIAN.
Be comforted, good madam, the great rage,
You see, is kill’d in him: and yet it is danger
To make him even o’er the time he has lost.
Desire him to go in; trouble him no more
Till further settling.

CORDELIA.
Will’t please your highness walk?

LEAR.
You must bear with me:
Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish.

 [_Exeunt Lear, Cordelia, Physician and Attendants._]

GENTLEMAN.
Holds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?

KENT.
Most certain, sir.

GENTLEMAN.
Who is conductor of his people?

KENT.
As ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.

GENTLEMAN.
They say Edgar, his banished son, is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.

KENT.
Report is changeable. ’Tis time to look about; the powers of the
kingdom approach apace.

GENTLEMAN.
The arbitrement is like to be bloody.
Fare you well, sir.

 [_Exit._]

KENT.
My point and period will be throughly wrought,
Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.

 [_Exit._]



ACT V

SCENE I. The Camp of the British Forces near Dover.

 Enter, with drum and colours Edmund, Regan, Officers, Soldiers and
 others.

EDMUND.
Know of the Duke if his last purpose hold,
Or whether since he is advis’d by aught
To change the course, he’s full of alteration
And self-reproving, bring his constant pleasure.

 [_To an Officer, who goes out._]

REGAN.
Our sister’s man is certainly miscarried.

EDMUND.
’Tis to be doubted, madam.

REGAN.
Now, sweet lord,
You know the goodness I intend upon you:
Tell me but truly, but then speak the truth,
Do you not love my sister?

EDMUND.
In honour’d love.

REGAN.
But have you never found my brother’s way
To the forfended place?

EDMUND.
That thought abuses you.

REGAN.
I am doubtful that you have been conjunct
And bosom’d with her, as far as we call hers.

EDMUND.
No, by mine honour, madam.

REGAN.
I never shall endure her, dear my lord,
Be not familiar with her.

EDMUND.
Fear not,
She and the Duke her husband!

 Enter with drum and colours Albany, Goneril and Soldiers.

GONERIL.
[_Aside._] I had rather lose the battle than that sister
Should loosen him and me.

ALBANY.
Our very loving sister, well be-met.
Sir, this I heard: the King is come to his daughter,
With others whom the rigour of our state
Forc’d to cry out. Where I could not be honest,
I never yet was valiant. For this business,
It toucheth us as France invades our land,
Not bolds the King, with others whom I fear
Most just and heavy causes make oppose.

EDMUND.
Sir, you speak nobly.

REGAN.
Why is this reason’d?

GONERIL.
Combine together ’gainst the enemy;
For these domestic and particular broils
Are not the question here.

ALBANY.
Let’s, then, determine with the ancient of war
On our proceeding.

EDMUND.
I shall attend you presently at your tent.

REGAN.
Sister, you’ll go with us?

GONERIL.
No.

REGAN.
’Tis most convenient; pray you, go with us.

GONERIL.
[_Aside_.] O, ho, I know the riddle. I will go.

 [_Exeunt Edmund, Regan, Goneril, Officers, Soldiers and Attendants._]

 As they are going out, enter Edgar disguised.

EDGAR.
If e’er your grace had speech with man so poor,
Hear me one word.

ALBANY.
I’ll overtake you. Speak.

EDGAR.
Before you fight the battle, ope this letter.
If you have victory, let the trumpet sound
For him that brought it: wretched though I seem,
I can produce a champion that will prove
What is avouched there. If you miscarry,
Your business of the world hath so an end,
And machination ceases. Fortune love you!

ALBANY.
Stay till I have read the letter.

EDGAR.
I was forbid it.
When time shall serve, let but the herald cry,
And I’ll appear again.

ALBANY.
Why, fare thee well. I will o’erlook thy paper.

 [_Exit Edgar._]

 Enter Edmund.

EDMUND.
The enemy’s in view; draw up your powers.
Here is the guess of their true strength and forces
By diligent discovery; but your haste
Is now urg’d on you.

ALBANY.
We will greet the time.

 [_Exit._]

EDMUND.
To both these sisters have I sworn my love;
Each jealous of the other, as the stung
Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?
Both? One? Or neither? Neither can be enjoy’d,
If both remain alive. To take the widow
Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril;
And hardly shall I carry out my side,
Her husband being alive. Now, then, we’ll use
His countenance for the battle; which being done,
Let her who would be rid of him devise
His speedy taking off. As for the mercy
Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,
The battle done, and they within our power,
Shall never see his pardon: for my state
Stands on me to defend, not to debate.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE II. A field between the two Camps.

 Alarum within. Enter with drum and colours, Lear, Cordelia and their
 Forces, and exeunt.

 Enter Edgar and Gloucester.

EDGAR.
Here, father, take the shadow of this tree
For your good host; pray that the right may thrive:
If ever I return to you again,
I’ll bring you comfort.

GLOUCESTER.
Grace go with you, sir!

 [_Exit Edgar._]

 Alarum and retreat within. Enter Edgar.

EDGAR.
Away, old man, give me thy hand, away!
King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en:
Give me thy hand; come on!

GLOUCESTER.
No further, sir; a man may rot even here.

EDGAR.
What, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all. Come on.

GLOUCESTER.
And that’s true too.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. The British Camp near Dover.

 Enter in conquest with drum and colours, Edmund, Lear and Cordelia as
 prisoners; Officers, Soldiers, &c.

EDMUND.
Some officers take them away: good guard
Until their greater pleasures first be known
That are to censure them.

CORDELIA.
We are not the first
Who with best meaning have incurr’d the worst.
For thee, oppressed King, I am cast down;
Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown.
Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

LEAR.
No, no, no, no. Come, let’s away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out;
And take upon’s the mystery of things,
As if we were God’s spies. And we’ll wear out,
In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon.

EDMUND.
Take them away.

LEAR.
Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes;
The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell,
Ere they shall make us weep!
We’ll see ’em starve first: come.

 [_Exeunt Lear and Cordelia, guarded._]

EDMUND.
Come hither, captain, hark.
Take thou this note [_giving a paper_]; go follow them to prison.
One step I have advanc’d thee; if thou dost
As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way
To noble fortunes: know thou this, that men
Are as the time is; to be tender-minded
Does not become a sword. Thy great employment
Will not bear question; either say thou’lt do’t,
Or thrive by other means.

CAPTAIN.
I’ll do’t, my lord.

EDMUND.
About it; and write happy when thou hast done.
Mark, I say, instantly; and carry it so
As I have set it down.

CAPTAIN.
I cannot draw a cart, nor eat dried oats;
If it be man’s work, I’ll do’t.

 [_Exit._]

 Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Officers and Attendants.

ALBANY.
Sir, you have show’d today your valiant strain,
And fortune led you well: you have the captives
Who were the opposites of this day’s strife:
I do require them of you, so to use them
As we shall find their merits and our safety
May equally determine.

EDMUND.
Sir, I thought it fit
To send the old and miserable King
To some retention and appointed guard;
Whose age has charms in it, whose title more,
To pluck the common bosom on his side,
And turn our impress’d lances in our eyes
Which do command them. With him I sent the queen;
My reason all the same; and they are ready
Tomorrow, or at further space, to appear
Where you shall hold your session. At this time
We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend;
And the best quarrels in the heat are curs’d
By those that feel their sharpness.
The question of Cordelia and her father
Requires a fitter place.

ALBANY.
Sir, by your patience,
I hold you but a subject of this war,
Not as a brother.

REGAN.
That’s as we list to grace him.
Methinks our pleasure might have been demanded
Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers;
Bore the commission of my place and person;
The which immediacy may well stand up
And call itself your brother.

GONERIL.
Not so hot:
In his own grace he doth exalt himself,
More than in your addition.

REGAN.
In my rights,
By me invested, he compeers the best.

ALBANY.
That were the most, if he should husband you.

REGAN.
Jesters do oft prove prophets.

GONERIL.
Holla, holla!
That eye that told you so look’d but asquint.

REGAN.
Lady, I am not well; else I should answer
From a full-flowing stomach. General,
Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony;
Dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine:
Witness the world that I create thee here
My lord and master.

GONERIL.
Mean you to enjoy him?

ALBANY.
The let-alone lies not in your good will.

EDMUND.
Nor in thine, lord.

ALBANY.
Half-blooded fellow, yes.

REGAN.
[_To Edmund._] Let the drum strike, and prove my title thine.

ALBANY.
Stay yet; hear reason: Edmund, I arrest thee
On capital treason; and, in thine arrest,
This gilded serpent. [_pointing to Goneril._]
For your claim, fair sister,
I bar it in the interest of my wife;
’Tis she is sub-contracted to this lord,
And I her husband contradict your bans.
If you will marry, make your loves to me,
My lady is bespoke.

GONERIL.
An interlude!

ALBANY.
Thou art arm’d, Gloucester. Let the trumpet sound:
If none appear to prove upon thy person
Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,
There is my pledge. [_Throwing down a glove._]
I’ll make it on thy heart,
Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing less
Than I have here proclaim’d thee.

REGAN.
Sick, O, sick!

GONERIL.
[_Aside._] If not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.

EDMUND.
There’s my exchange. [_Throwing down a glove._]
What in the world he is
That names me traitor, villain-like he lies.
Call by thy trumpet: he that dares approach,
On him, on you, who not? I will maintain
My truth and honour firmly.

ALBANY.
A herald, ho!

 Enter a Herald.

Trust to thy single virtue; for thy soldiers,
All levied in my name, have in my name
Took their discharge.

REGAN.
My sickness grows upon me.

ALBANY.
She is not well. Convey her to my tent.

 [_Exit Regan, led._]

Come hither, herald. Let the trumpet sound
And read out this.

OFFICER.
Sound, trumpet!

 [_A trumpet sounds._]

HERALD.
[_Reads._] ‘If any man of quality or degree within the lists of the
army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he is
a manifold traitor, let him appear by the third sound of the trumpet.
He is bold in his defence.’

EDMUND.
Sound!

 [_First trumpet._]

HERALD.
Again!

 [_Second trumpet._]

HERALD.
Again!

 Third trumpet. Trumpet answers within. Enter Edgar, armed, preceded by
 a trumpet.

ALBANY.
Ask him his purposes, why he appears
Upon this call o’ the trumpet.

HERALD.
What are you?
Your name, your quality? and why you answer
This present summons?

EDGAR.
Know my name is lost;
By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit.
Yet am I noble as the adversary
I come to cope.

ALBANY.
Which is that adversary?

EDGAR.
What’s he that speaks for Edmund, Earl of Gloucester?

EDMUND.
Himself, what say’st thou to him?

EDGAR.
Draw thy sword,
That if my speech offend a noble heart,
Thy arm may do thee justice: here is mine.
Behold, it is the privilege of mine honours,
My oath, and my profession: I protest,
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor;
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
Conspirant ’gainst this high illustrious prince;
And, from the extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust beneath thy foot,
A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou ‘No,’
This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent
To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
Thou liest.

EDMUND.
In wisdom I should ask thy name;
But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,
And that thy tongue some say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delay
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.
Back do I toss those treasons to thy head,
With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart;
Which for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise,
This sword of mine shall give them instant way,
Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak!

 [_Alarums. They fight. Edmund falls._]

ALBANY.
Save him, save him!

GONERIL.
This is mere practice, Gloucester:
By the law of arms thou wast not bound to answer
An unknown opposite; thou art not vanquish’d,
But cozen’d and beguil’d.

ALBANY.
Shut your mouth, dame,
Or with this paper shall I stop it. Hold, sir;
Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil.
No tearing, lady; I perceive you know it.

 [_Gives the letter to Edmund._]

GONERIL.
Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine:
Who can arraign me for’t?

 [_Exit._]

ALBANY.
Most monstrous! O!
Know’st thou this paper?

EDMUND.
Ask me not what I know.

ALBANY.
[_To an Officer, who goes out._] Go after her; she’s desperate; govern
her.

EDMUND.
What you have charg’d me with, that have I done;
And more, much more; the time will bring it out.
’Tis past, and so am I. But what art thou
That hast this fortune on me? If thou’rt noble,
I do forgive thee.

EDGAR.
Let’s exchange charity.
I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund;
If more, the more thou hast wrong’d me.
My name is Edgar and thy father’s son.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us:
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes.

EDMUND.
Thou hast spoken right, ’tis true;
The wheel is come full circle; I am here.

ALBANY.
Methought thy very gait did prophesy
A royal nobleness. I must embrace thee.
Let sorrow split my heart if ever I
Did hate thee or thy father.

EDGAR.
Worthy prince, I know’t.

ALBANY.
Where have you hid yourself?
How have you known the miseries of your father?

EDGAR.
By nursing them, my lord. List a brief tale;
And when ’tis told, O that my heart would burst!
The bloody proclamation to escape
That follow’d me so near,—O, our lives’ sweetness!
That with the pain of death we’d hourly die
Rather than die at once!—taught me to shift
Into a madman’s rags; t’assume a semblance
That very dogs disdain’d; and in this habit
Met I my father with his bleeding rings,
Their precious stones new lost; became his guide,
Led him, begg’d for him, sav’d him from despair;
Never,—O fault!—reveal’d myself unto him
Until some half hour past, when I was arm’d;
Not sure, though hoping of this good success,
I ask’d his blessing, and from first to last
Told him my pilgrimage. But his flaw’d heart,
Alack, too weak the conflict to support!
’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
Burst smilingly.

EDMUND.
This speech of yours hath mov’d me,
And shall perchance do good, but speak you on;
You look as you had something more to say.

ALBANY.
If there be more, more woeful, hold it in;
For I am almost ready to dissolve,
Hearing of this.

EDGAR.
This would have seem’d a period
To such as love not sorrow; but another,
To amplify too much, would make much more,
And top extremity.
Whilst I was big in clamour, came there a man
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn’d my abhorr’d society; but then finding
Who ’twas that so endur’d, with his strong arms
He fastened on my neck, and bellow’d out
As he’d burst heaven; threw him on my father;
Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him
That ever ear receiv’d, which in recounting
His grief grew puissant, and the strings of life
Began to crack. Twice then the trumpets sounded,
And there I left him tranc’d.

ALBANY.
But who was this?

EDGAR.
Kent, sir, the banish’d Kent; who in disguise
Follow’d his enemy king and did him service
Improper for a slave.

 Enter a Gentleman hastily, with a bloody knife.

GENTLEMAN.
Help, help! O, help!

EDGAR.
What kind of help?

ALBANY.
Speak, man.

EDGAR.
What means this bloody knife?

GENTLEMAN.
’Tis hot, it smokes;
It came even from the heart of—O! she’s dead!

ALBANY.
Who dead? Speak, man.

GENTLEMAN.
Your lady, sir, your lady; and her sister
By her is poisoned; she hath confesses it.

EDMUND.
I was contracted to them both, all three
Now marry in an instant.

EDGAR.
Here comes Kent.

 Enter Kent.

ALBANY.
Produce their bodies, be they alive or dead.
This judgement of the heavens that makes us tremble
Touches us not with pity. O, is this he?
The time will not allow the compliment
Which very manners urges.

KENT.
I am come
To bid my King and master aye good night:
Is he not here?

ALBANY.
Great thing of us forgot!
Speak, Edmund, where’s the King? and where’s Cordelia?

 The bodies of Goneril and Regan are brought in.

Seest thou this object, Kent?

KENT.
Alack, why thus?

EDMUND.
Yet Edmund was belov’d.
The one the other poisoned for my sake,
And after slew herself.

ALBANY.
Even so. Cover their faces.

EDMUND.
I pant for life. Some good I mean to do,
Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send,
Be brief in it, to the castle; for my writ
Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia;
Nay, send in time.

ALBANY.
Run, run, O, run!

EDGAR.
To who, my lord? Who has the office? Send
Thy token of reprieve.

EDMUND.
Well thought on: take my sword,
Give it the captain.

EDGAR.
Haste thee for thy life.

 [_Exit Edgar._]

EDMUND.
He hath commission from thy wife and me
To hang Cordelia in the prison, and
To lay the blame upon her own despair,
That she fordid herself.

ALBANY.
The gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile.

 [_Edmund is borne off._]

 Enter Lear with Cordelia dead in his arms; Edgar, Officer and others
 following.

LEAR.
Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone.
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’ld use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

KENT.
Is this the promis’d end?

EDGAR.
Or image of that horror?

ALBANY.
Fall, and cease!

LEAR.
This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.

KENT.
O, my good master! [_Kneeling._]

LEAR.
Prythee, away!

EDGAR.
’Tis noble Kent, your friend.

LEAR.
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have sav’d her; now she’s gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
What is’t thou say’st? Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.

OFFICER.
’Tis true, my lords, he did.

LEAR.
Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip. I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o’ the best, I’ll tell you straight.

KENT.
If Fortune brag of two she lov’d and hated,
One of them we behold.

LEAR.
This is a dull sight. Are you not Kent?

KENT.
The same,
Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?

LEAR.
He’s a good fellow, I can tell you that;
He’ll strike, and quickly too:. He’s dead and rotten.

KENT.
No, my good lord; I am the very man.

LEAR.
I’ll see that straight.

KENT.
That from your first of difference and decay
Have follow’d your sad steps.

LEAR.
You are welcome hither.

KENT.
Nor no man else. All’s cheerless, dark and deadly.
Your eldest daughters have fordone themselves,
And desperately are dead.

LEAR.
Ay, so I think.

ALBANY.
He knows not what he says; and vain is it
That we present us to him.

EDGAR.
Very bootless.

 Enter an Officer.

OFFICER.
Edmund is dead, my lord.

ALBANY.
That’s but a trifle here.
You lords and noble friends, know our intent.
What comfort to this great decay may come
Shall be applied For us, we will resign,
During the life of this old majesty,
To him our absolute power;
[_to Edgar and Kent_] you to your rights;
With boot and such addition as your honours
Have more than merited. All friends shall taste
The wages of their virtue and all foes
The cup of their deservings. O, see, see!

LEAR.
And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her: look, her lips,
Look there, look there!

 [_He dies._]

EDGAR.
He faints! My lord, my lord!

KENT.
Break, heart; I prythee break!

EDGAR.
Look up, my lord.

KENT.
Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! He hates him
That would upon the rack of this rough world
Stretch him out longer.

EDGAR.
He is gone indeed.

KENT.
The wonder is, he hath endur’d so long:
He but usurp’d his life.

ALBANY.
Bear them from hence. Our present business
Is general woe. [_To Edgar and Kent._] Friends of my soul, you twain,
Rule in this realm and the gor’d state sustain.

KENT.
I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
My master calls me, I must not say no.

EDGAR.
The weight of this sad time we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

 [_Exeunt with a dead march._]





LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

Dramatis Personae.

  FERDINAND, King of Navarre
  BEROWNE,    lord attending on the King
  LONGAVILLE,  "      "      "   "   "
  DUMAIN,      "      "      "   "   "
  BOYET,   lord attending on the Princess of France
  MARCADE,   "     "       "  "     "      "    "
  DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO, fantastical Spaniard
  SIR NATHANIEL, a curate
  HOLOFERNES, a schoolmaster
  DULL, a constable
  COSTARD, a clown
  MOTH, page to Armado
  A FORESTER

  THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE
  ROSALINE, lady attending on the Princess
  MARIA,      "     "       "  "     "
  KATHARINE, lady attending on the Princess
  JAQUENETTA, a country wench

  Lords, Attendants, etc.

SCENE: Navarre

ACT I. SCENE I. Navarre. The King's park

Enter the King, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN

  KING. Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
    Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,
    And then grace us in the disgrace of death;
    When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,
    Th' endeavour of this present breath may buy
    That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,
    And make us heirs of all eternity.
    Therefore, brave conquerors- for so you are
    That war against your own affections
    And the huge army of the world's desires-
    Our late edict shall strongly stand in force:
    Navarre shall be the wonder of the world;
    Our court shall be a little Academe,
    Still and contemplative in living art.
    You three, Berowne, Dumain, and Longaville,
    Have sworn for three years' term to live with me
    My fellow-scholars, and to keep those statutes
    That are recorded in this schedule here.
    Your oaths are pass'd; and now subscribe your names,
    That his own hand may strike his honour down
    That violates the smallest branch herein.
    If you are arm'd to do as sworn to do,
    Subscribe to your deep oaths, and keep it too.
  LONGAVILLE. I am resolv'd; 'tis but a three years' fast.
    The mind shall banquet, though the body pine.
    Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
    Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
  DUMAIN. My loving lord, Dumain is mortified.
    The grosser manner of these world's delights
    He throws upon the gross world's baser slaves;
    To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,
    With all these living in philosophy.
  BEROWNE. I can but say their protestation over;
    So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,
    That is, to live and study here three years.
    But there are other strict observances,
    As: not to see a woman in that term,
    Which I hope well is not enrolled there;
    And one day in a week to touch no food,
    And but one meal on every day beside,
    The which I hope is not enrolled there;
    And then to sleep but three hours in the night
    And not be seen to wink of all the day-
    When I was wont to think no harm all night,
    And make a dark night too of half the day-
    Which I hope well is not enrolled there.
    O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,
    Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!
  KING. Your oath is pass'd to pass away from these.
  BEROWNE. Let me say no, my liege, an if you please:
    I only swore to study with your Grace,
    And stay here in your court for three years' space.
  LONGAVILLE. You swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.
  BEROWNE. By yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.
    What is the end of study, let me know.
  KING. Why, that to know which else we should not know.
  BEROWNE. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense?
  KING. Ay, that is study's god-like recompense.
  BEROWNE. Come on, then; I will swear to study so,
    To know the thing I am forbid to know,
    As thus: to study where I well may dine,
    When I to feast expressly am forbid;
    Or study where to meet some mistress fine,
    When mistresses from common sense are hid;
    Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,
    Study to break it, and not break my troth.
    If study's gain be thus, and this be so,
    Study knows that which yet it doth not know.
    Swear me to this, and I will ne'er say no.
  KING. These be the stops that hinder study quite,
    And train our intellects to vain delight.
  BEROWNE. Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain
    Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain,
    As painfully to pore upon a book
    To seek the light of truth; while truth the while
    Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.
    Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile;
    So, ere you find where light in darkness lies,
    Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.
    Study me how to please the eye indeed,
    By fixing it upon a fairer eye;
    Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed,
    And give him light that it was blinded by.
    Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,
    That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;
    Small have continual plodders ever won,
    Save base authority from others' books.
    These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights
    That give a name to every fixed star
    Have no more profit of their shining nights
    Than those that walk and wot not what they are.
    Too much to know is to know nought but fame;
    And every godfather can give a name.
  KING. How well he's read, to reason against reading!
  DUMAIN. Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!
  LONGAVILLE. He weeds the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.
  BEROWNE. The spring is near, when green geese are a-breeding.
  DUMAIN. How follows that?
  BEROWNE. Fit in his place and time.
  DUMAIN. In reason nothing.
  BEROWNE. Something then in rhyme.
  LONGAVILLE. Berowne is like an envious sneaping frost
    That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
  BEROWNE. Well, say I am; why should proud summer boast
    Before the birds have any cause to sing?
    Why should I joy in any abortive birth?
    At Christmas I no more desire a rose
    Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
    But like of each thing that in season grows;
    So you, to study now it is too late,
    Climb o'er the house to unlock the little gate.
  KING. Well, sit out; go home, Berowne; adieu.
  BEROWNE. No, my good lord; I have sworn to stay with you;
    And though I have for barbarism spoke more
    Than for that angel knowledge you can say,
    Yet confident I'll keep what I have swore,
    And bide the penance of each three years' day.
    Give me the paper; let me read the same;
    And to the strictest decrees I'll write my name.
  KING. How well this yielding rescues thee from shame!
  BEROWNE. [Reads] 'Item. That no woman shall come within a mile of
    my court'- Hath this been proclaimed?
  LONGAVILLE. Four days ago.
  BEROWNE. Let's see the penalty. [Reads] '-on pain of losing her
    tongue.' Who devis'd this penalty?
  LONGAVILLE. Marry, that did I.
  BEROWNE. Sweet lord, and why?
  LONGAVILLE. To fright them hence with that dread penalty.
  BEROWNE. A dangerous law against gentility.
    [Reads] 'Item. If any man be seen to talk with a woman within
    the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the
    rest of the court can possibly devise.'
    This article, my liege, yourself must break;
    For well you know here comes in embassy
    The French king's daughter, with yourself to speak-
    A mild of grace and complete majesty-
    About surrender up of Aquitaine
    To her decrepit, sick, and bedrid father;
    Therefore this article is made in vain,
    Or vainly comes th' admired princess hither.
  KING. What say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.
  BEROWNE. So study evermore is over-shot.
    While it doth study to have what it would,
    It doth forget to do the thing it should;
    And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,
    'Tis won as towns with fire- so won, so lost.
  KING. We must of force dispense with this decree;
    She must lie here on mere necessity.
  BEROWNE. Necessity will make us all forsworn
    Three thousand times within this three years' space;
    For every man with his affects is born,
    Not by might mast'red, but by special grace.
    If I break faith, this word shall speak for me:
    I am forsworn on mere necessity.
    So to the laws at large I write my name;        [Subscribes]
    And he that breaks them in the least degree
    Stands in attainder of eternal shame.
    Suggestions are to other as to me;
    But I believe, although I seem so loath,
    I am the last that will last keep his oath.
    But is there no quick recreation granted?
  KING. Ay, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted
    With a refined traveller of Spain,
    A man in all the world's new fashion planted,
    That hath a mint of phrases in his brain;
    One who the music of his own vain tongue
    Doth ravish like enchanting harmony;
    A man of complements, whom right and wrong
    Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.
    This child of fancy, that Armado hight,
    For interim to our studies shall relate,
    In high-born words, the worth of many a knight
    From tawny Spain lost in the world's debate.
    How you delight, my lords, I know not, I;
    But I protest I love to hear him lie,
    And I will use him for my minstrelsy.
  BEROWNE. Armado is a most illustrious wight,
    A man of fire-new words, fashion's own knight.
  LONGAVILLE. Costard the swain and he shall be our sport;
    And so to study three years is but short.

      Enter DULL, a constable, with a letter, and COSTARD

  DULL. Which is the Duke's own person?
  BEROWNE. This, fellow. What wouldst?
  DULL. I myself reprehend his own person, for I am his Grace's
    farborough; but I would see his own person in flesh and blood.
  BEROWNE. This is he.
  DULL. Signior Arme- Arme- commends you. There's villainy abroad;
    this letter will tell you more.
  COSTARD. Sir, the contempts thereof are as touching me.
  KING. A letter from the magnificent Armado.
  BEROWNE. How low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.
  LONGAVILLE. A high hope for a low heaven. God grant us patience!
  BEROWNE. To hear, or forbear hearing?
  LONGAVILLE. To hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately; or, to
    forbear both.
  BEROWNE. Well, sir, be it as the style shall give us cause to climb
    in the merriness.
  COSTARD. The matter is to me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta.
    The manner of it is, I was taken with the manner.
  BEROWNE. In what manner?
  COSTARD. In manner and form following, sir; all those three: I was
    seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form,
    and taken following her into the park; which, put together, is in
    manner and form following. Now, sir, for the manner- it is the
    manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form- in some form.
  BEROWNE. For the following, sir?
  COSTARD. As it shall follow in my correction; and God defend the
    right!
  KING. Will you hear this letter with attention?
  BEROWNE. As we would hear an oracle.
  COSTARD. Such is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.
  KING. [Reads] 'Great deputy, the welkin's vicegerent and sole
    dominator of Navarre, my soul's earth's god and body's fost'ring
    patron'-
  COSTARD. Not a word of Costard yet.
  KING. [Reads] 'So it is'-
  COSTARD. It may be so; but if he say it is so, he is, in telling
    true, but so.
  KING. Peace!
  COSTARD. Be to me, and every man that dares not fight!
  KING. No words!
  COSTARD. Of other men's secrets, I beseech you.
  KING. [Reads] 'So it is, besieged with sable-coloured melancholy, I
    did commend the black oppressing humour to the most wholesome
    physic of thy health-giving air; and, as I am a gentleman, betook
    myself to walk. The time When? About the sixth hour; when beasts
    most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment
    which is called supper. So much for the time When. Now for the
    ground Which? which, I mean, I upon; it is ycleped thy park. Then
    for the place Where? where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene
    and most prepost'rous event that draweth from my snow-white pen
    the ebon-coloured ink which here thou viewest, beholdest,
    surveyest, or seest. But to the place Where? It standeth
    north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy
    curious-knotted garden. There did I see that low-spirited swain,
    that base minnow of thy mirth,'
  COSTARD. Me?
  KING. 'that unlettered small-knowing soul,'
  COSTARD. Me?
  KING. 'that shallow vassal,'
  COSTARD. Still me?
  KING. 'which, as I remember, hight Costard,'
  COSTARD. O, me!
  KING. 'sorted and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed
    edict and continent canon; which, with, O, with- but with this I
    passion to say wherewith-'
  COSTARD. With a wench.
    King. 'with a child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for thy
    more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I, as my ever-esteemed
    duty pricks me on, have sent to thee, to receive the meed of
    punishment, by thy sweet Grace's officer, Antony Dull, a man of
    good repute, carriage, bearing, and estimation.'
  DULL. Me, an't shall please you; I am Antony Dull.
  KING. 'For Jaquenetta- so is the weaker vessel called, which I
    apprehended with the aforesaid swain- I keep her as a vessel of
    thy law's fury; and shall, at the least of thy sweet notice,
    bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and
    heart-burning heat of duty,
                                         DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.'

  BEROWNE. This is not so well as I look'd for, but the best that
    ever I heard.
  KING. Ay, the best for the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to
    this?
  COSTARD. Sir, I confess the wench.
  KING. Did you hear the proclamation?
  COSTARD. I do confess much of the hearing it, but little of the
    marking of it.
  KING. It was proclaimed a year's imprisonment to be taken with a
    wench.
  COSTARD. I was taken with none, sir; I was taken with a damsel.
  KING. Well, it was proclaimed damsel.
  COSTARD. This was no damsel neither, sir; she was a virgin.
  KING. It is so varied too, for it was proclaimed virgin.
  COSTARD. If it were, I deny her virginity; I was taken with a maid.
  KING. This 'maid' not serve your turn, sir.
  COSTARD. This maid will serve my turn, sir.
  KING. Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week
    with bran and water.
  COSTARD. I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.
  KING. And Don Armado shall be your keeper.
    My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o'er;
    And go we, lords, to put in practice that
    Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.
                             Exeunt KING, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN
  BEROWNE. I'll lay my head to any good man's hat
    These oaths and laws will prove an idle scorn.
    Sirrah, come on.
  COSTARD. I suffer for the truth, sir; for true it is I was taken
    with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true girl; and therefore
    welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile
    again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. The park

Enter ARMADO and MOTH, his page

  ARMADO. Boy, what sign is it when a man of great spirit grows
    melancholy?
  MOTH. A great sign, sir, that he will look sad.
  ARMADO. Why, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.
  MOTH. No, no; O Lord, sir, no!
  ARMADO. How canst thou part sadness and melancholy, my tender
    juvenal?
  MOTH. By a familiar demonstration of the working, my tough signior.
  ARMADO. Why tough signior? Why tough signior?
  MOTH. Why tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?
  ARMADO. I spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton
    appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate tender.
  MOTH. And I, tough signior, as an appertinent title to your old
    time, which we may name tough.
  ARMADO. Pretty and apt.
  MOTH. How mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? or I apt, and
    my saying pretty?
  ARMADO. Thou pretty, because little.
  MOTH. Little pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?
  ARMADO. And therefore apt, because quick.
  MOTH. Speak you this in my praise, master?
  ARMADO. In thy condign praise.
  MOTH. I will praise an eel with the same praise.
  ARMADO. that an eel is ingenious?
  MOTH. That an eel is quick.
  ARMADO. I do say thou art quick in answers; thou heat'st my blood.
  MOTH. I am answer'd, sir.
  ARMADO. I love not to be cross'd.
  MOTH. [Aside] He speaks the mere contrary: crosses love not him.
  ARMADO. I have promised to study three years with the Duke.
  MOTH. You may do it in an hour, sir.
  ARMADO. Impossible.
  MOTH. How many is one thrice told?
  ARMADO. I am ill at reck'ning; it fitteth the spirit of a tapster.
  MOTH. You are a gentleman and a gamester, sir.
  ARMADO. I confess both; they are both the varnish of a complete
    man.
  MOTH. Then I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace
    amounts to.
  ARMADO. It doth amount to one more than two.
  MOTH. Which the base vulgar do call three.
  ARMADO. True.
  MOTH. Why, sir, is this such a piece of study? Now here is three
    studied ere ye'll thrice wink; and how easy it is to put 'years'
    to the word 'three,' and study three years in two words, the
    dancing horse will tell you.
  ARMADO. A most fine figure!
  MOTH. [Aside] To prove you a cipher.
  ARMADO. I will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base for
    a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing
    my sword against the humour of affection would deliver me from
    the reprobate thought of it, I would take Desire prisoner, and
    ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devis'd curtsy. I
    think scorn to sigh; methinks I should out-swear Cupid. Comfort
    me, boy; what great men have been in love?
  MOTH. Hercules, master.
  ARMADO. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more;
    and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.
  MOTH. Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, great
    carriage, for he carried the town gates on his back like a
    porter; and he was in love.
  ARMADO. O well-knit Samson! strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee
    in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in
    love too. Who was Samson's love, my dear Moth?
  MOTH. A woman, master.
  ARMADO. Of what complexion?
  MOTH. Of all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the
    four.
  ARMADO. Tell me precisely of what complexion.
  MOTH. Of the sea-water green, sir.
  ARMADO. Is that one of the four complexions?
  MOTH. As I have read, sir; and the best of them too.
  ARMADO. Green, indeed, is the colour of lovers; but to have a love
    of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He
    surely affected her for her wit.
  MOTH. It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.
  ARMADO. My love is most immaculate white and red.
  MOTH. Most maculate thoughts, master, are mask'd under such
    colours.
  ARMADO. Define, define, well-educated infant.
  MOTH. My father's wit my mother's tongue assist me!
  ARMADO. Sweet invocation of a child; most pretty, and pathetical!
  MOTH.      If she be made of white and red,
               Her faults will ne'er be known;
             For blushing cheeks by faults are bred,
               And fears by pale white shown.
             Then if she fear, or be to blame,
               By this you shall not know;
             For still her cheeks possess the same
               Which native she doth owe.
    A dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.
  ARMADO. Is there not a ballad, boy, of the King and the Beggar?
  MOTH. The world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages
    since; but I think now 'tis not to be found; or if it were, it
    would neither serve for the writing nor the tune.
  ARMADO. I will have that subject newly writ o'er, that I may
    example my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love
    that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind
    Costard; she deserves well.
  MOTH. [Aside] To be whipt; and yet a better love than my master.
  ARMADO. Sing, boy; my spirit grows heavy in love.
  MOTH. And that's great marvel, loving a light wench.
  ARMADO. I say, sing.
  MOTH. Forbear till this company be past.

                Enter DULL, COSTARD, and JAQUENETTA

  DULL. Sir, the Duke's pleasure is that you keep Costard safe; and
    you must suffer him to take no delight nor no penance; but 'a
    must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at
    the park; she is allow'd for the day-woman. Fare you well.
  ARMADO. I do betray myself with blushing. Maid!
  JAQUENETTA. Man!
  ARMADO. I will visit thee at the lodge.
  JAQUENETTA. That's hereby.
  ARMADO. I know where it is situate.
  JAQUENETTA. Lord, how wise you are!
  ARMADO. I will tell thee wonders.
  JAQUENETTA. With that face?
  ARMADO. I love thee.
  JAQUENETTA. So I heard you say.
  ARMADO. And so, farewell.
  JAQUENETTA. Fair weather after you!
  DULL. Come, Jaquenetta, away.             Exit with JAQUENETTA
  ARMADO. Villain, thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be
    pardoned.
  COSTARD. Well, sir, I hope when I do it I shall do it on a full
    stomach.
  ARMADO. Thou shalt be heavily punished.
  COSTARD. I am more bound to you than your fellows, for they are but
    lightly rewarded.
  ARMADO. Take away this villain; shut him up.
  MOTH. Come, you transgressing slave, away.
  COSTARD. Let me not be pent up, sir; I will fast, being loose.
  MOTH. No, sir; that were fast, and loose. Thou shalt to prison.
  COSTARD. Well, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation that I
    have seen, some shall see.
  MOTH. What shall some see?
  COSTARD. Nay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is
    not for prisoners to be too silent in their words, and therefore
    I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little patience as
    another man, and therefore I can be quiet.
                                         Exeunt MOTH and COSTARD
  ARMADO. I do affect the very ground, which is base, where her shoe,
    which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread.
    I shall be forsworn- which is a great argument of falsehood- if I
    love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?
    Love is a familiar; Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but
    Love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent
    strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.
    Cupid's butt-shaft is too hard for Hercules' club, and therefore
    too much odds for a Spaniard's rapier. The first and second cause
    will not serve my turn; the passado he respects not, the duello
    he regards not; his disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory
    is to subdue men. Adieu, valour; rust, rapier; be still, drum;
    for your manager is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some
    extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet.
    Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.
 Exit

ACT II. SCENE II. The park

Enter the PRINCESS OF FRANCE, with three attending ladies,
ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, and two other LORDS

  BOYET. Now, madam, summon up your dearest spirits.
    Consider who the King your father sends,
    To whom he sends, and what's his embassy:
    Yourself, held precious in the world's esteem,
    To parley with the sole inheritor
    Of all perfections that a man may owe,
    Matchless Navarre; the plea of no less weight
    Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.
    Be now as prodigal of all dear grace
    As Nature was in making graces dear,
    When she did starve the general world beside
    And prodigally gave them all to you.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,
    Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.
    Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,
    Not utt'red by base sale of chapmen's tongues;
    I am less proud to hear you tell my worth
    Than you much willing to be counted wise
    In spending your wit in the praise of mine.
    But now to task the tasker: good Boyet,
    You are not ignorant all-telling fame
    Doth noise abroad Navarre hath made a vow,
    Till painful study shall outwear three years,
    No woman may approach his silent court.
    Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course,
    Before we enter his forbidden gates,
    To know his pleasure; and in that behalf,
    Bold of your worthiness, we single you
    As our best-moving fair solicitor.
    Tell him the daughter of the King of France,
    On serious business, craving quick dispatch,
    Importunes personal conference with his Grace.
    Haste, signify so much; while we attend,
    Like humble-visag'd suitors, his high will.
  BOYET. Proud of employment, willingly I go.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. All pride is willing pride, and yours is so.
                                                      Exit BOYET
    Who are the votaries, my loving lords,
    That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?
  FIRST LORD. Lord Longaville is one.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Know you the man?
  MARIA. I know him, madam; at a marriage feast,
    Between Lord Perigort and the beauteous heir
    Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized
    In Normandy, saw I this Longaville.
    A man of sovereign parts, peerless esteem'd,
    Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms;
    Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
    The only soil of his fair virtue's gloss,
    If virtue's gloss will stain with any soil,
    Is a sharp wit match'd with too blunt a will,
    Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still wills
    It should none spare that come within his power.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Some merry mocking lord, belike; is't so?
  MARIA. They say so most that most his humours know.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Such short-liv'd wits do wither as they grow.
    Who are the rest?
  KATHARINE. The young Dumain, a well-accomplish'd youth,
    Of all that virtue love for virtue loved;
    Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,
    For he hath wit to make an ill shape good,
    And shape to win grace though he had no wit.
    I saw him at the Duke Alencon's once;
    And much too little of that good I saw
    Is my report to his great worthiness.
  ROSALINE. Another of these students at that time
    Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.
    Berowne they call him; but a merrier man,
    Within the limit of becoming mirth,
    I never spent an hour's talk withal.
    His eye begets occasion for his wit,
    For every object that the one doth catch
    The other turns to a mirth-moving jest,
    Which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor,
    Delivers in such apt and gracious words
    That aged ears play truant at his tales,
    And younger hearings are quite ravished;
    So sweet and voluble is his discourse.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God bless my ladies! Are they all in love,
    That every one her own hath garnished
    With such bedecking ornaments of praise?
  FIRST LORD. Here comes Boyet.

                       Re-enter BOYET

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Now, what admittance, lord?
  BOYET. Navarre had notice of your fair approach,
    And he and his competitors in oath
    Were all address'd to meet you, gentle lady,
    Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learnt:
    He rather means to lodge you in the field,
    Like one that comes here to besiege his court,
    Than seek a dispensation for his oath,
    To let you enter his unpeopled house.
                                    [The LADIES-IN-WAITING mask]

             Enter KING, LONGAVILLE, DUMAIN, BEROWNE,
                         and ATTENDANTS

    Here comes Navarre.
  KING. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' I give you back again; and 'welcome' I
    have not yet. The roof of this court is too high to be yours, and
    welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.
  KING. You shall be welcome, madam, to my court.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will be welcome then; conduct me thither.
  KING. Hear me, dear lady: I have sworn an oath-
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Our Lady help my lord! He'll be forsworn.
  KING. Not for the world, fair madam, by my will.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Why, will shall break it; will, and nothing
    else.
  KING. Your ladyship is ignorant what it is.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Were my lord so, his ignorance were wise,
    Where now his knowledge must prove ignorance.
    I hear your Grace hath sworn out house-keeping.
    'Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,
    And sin to break it.
    But pardon me, I am too sudden bold;
    To teach a teacher ill beseemeth me.
    Vouchsafe to read the purpose of my coming,
    And suddenly resolve me in my suit.         [Giving a paper]
  KING. Madam, I will, if suddenly I may.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. YOU Will the sooner that I were away,
    For you'll prove perjur'd if you make me stay.
  BEROWNE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
  KATHARINE. Did not I dance with you in Brabant once?
  BEROWNE. I know you did.
  KATHARINE. How needless was it then to ask the question!
  BEROWNE. You must not be so quick.
  KATHARINE. 'Tis long of you, that spur me with such questions.
  BEROWNE. Your wit 's too hot, it speeds too fast, 'twill tire.
  KATHARINE. Not till it leave the rider in the mire.
  BEROWNE. What time o' day?
  KATHARINE. The hour that fools should ask.
  BEROWNE. Now fair befall your mask!
  KATHARINE. Fair fall the face it covers!
  BEROWNE. And send you many lovers!
  KATHARINE. Amen, so you be none.
  BEROWNE. Nay, then will I be gone.
  KING. Madam, your father here doth intimate
    The payment of a hundred thousand crowns;
    Being but the one half of an entire sum
    Disbursed by my father in his wars.
    But say that he or we, as neither have,
    Receiv'd that sum, yet there remains unpaid
    A hundred thousand more, in surety of the which,
    One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,
    Although not valued to the money's worth.
    If then the King your father will restore
    But that one half which is unsatisfied,
    We will give up our right in Aquitaine,
    And hold fair friendship with his Majesty.
    But that, it seems, he little purposeth,
    For here he doth demand to have repaid
    A hundred thousand crowns; and not demands,
    On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,
    To have his title live in Aquitaine;
    Which we much rather had depart withal,
    And have the money by our father lent,
    Than Aquitaine so gelded as it is.
    Dear Princess, were not his requests so far
    From reason's yielding, your fair self should make
    A yielding 'gainst some reason in my breast,
    And go well satisfied to France again.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You do the King my father too much wrong,
    And wrong the reputation of your name,
    In so unseeming to confess receipt
    Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.
  KING. I do protest I never heard of it;
    And, if you prove it, I'll repay it back
    Or yield up Aquitaine.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We arrest your word.
    Boyet, you can produce acquittances
    For such a sum from special officers
    Of Charles his father.
  KING. Satisfy me so.
  BOYET. So please your Grace, the packet is not come,
    Where that and other specialties are bound;
    To-morrow you shall have a sight of them.
  KING. It shall suffice me; at which interview
    All liberal reason I will yield unto.
    Meantime receive such welcome at my hand
    As honour, without breach of honour, may
    Make tender of to thy true worthiness.
    You may not come, fair Princess, within my gates;
    But here without you shall be so receiv'd
    As you shall deem yourself lodg'd in my heart,
    Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
    Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell.
    To-morrow shall we visit you again.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet health and fair desires consort your
    Grace!
  KING. Thy own wish wish I thee in every place.
                                            Exit with attendants
  BEROWNE. Lady, I will commend you to mine own heart.
  ROSALINE. Pray you, do my commendations;
    I would be glad to see it.
  BEROWNE. I would you heard it groan.
  ROSALINE. Is the fool sick?
  BEROWNE. Sick at the heart.
  ROSALINE. Alack, let it blood.
  BEROWNE. Would that do it good?
  ROSALINE. My physic says 'ay.'
  BEROWNE. Will YOU prick't with your eye?
  ROSALINE. No point, with my knife.
  BEROWNE. Now, God save thy life!
  ROSALINE. And yours from long living!
  BEROWNE. I cannot stay thanksgiving.                [Retiring]
  DUMAIN. Sir, I pray you, a word: what lady is that same?
  BOYET. The heir of Alencon, Katharine her name.
  DUMAIN. A gallant lady! Monsieur, fare you well.          Exit
  LONGAVILLE. I beseech you a word: what is she in the white?
  BOYET. A woman sometimes, an you saw her in the light.
  LONGAVILLE. Perchance light in the light. I desire her name.
  BOYET. She hath but one for herself; to desire that were a shame.
  LONGAVILLE. Pray you, sir, whose daughter?
  BOYET. Her mother's, I have heard.
  LONGAVILLE. God's blessing on your beard!
  BOYET. Good sir, be not offended;
    She is an heir of Falconbridge.
  LONGAVILLE. Nay, my choler is ended.
    She is a most sweet lady.
  BOYET. Not unlike, sir; that may be.           Exit LONGAVILLE
  BEROWNE. What's her name in the cap?
  BOYET. Rosaline, by good hap.
  BEROWNE. Is she wedded or no?
  BOYET. To her will, sir, or so.
  BEROWNE. You are welcome, sir; adieu!
  BOYET. Farewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.
                                     Exit BEROWNE. LADIES Unmask
  MARIA. That last is Berowne, the merry mad-cap lord;
    Not a word with him but a jest.
  BOYET. And every jest but a word.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. It was well done of you to take him at his
    word.
  BOYET. I was as willing to grapple as he was to board.
  KATHARINE. Two hot sheeps, marry!
  BOYET. And wherefore not ships?
    No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.
  KATHARINE. You sheep and I pasture- shall that finish the jest?
  BOYET. So you grant pasture for me.     [Offering to kiss her]
  KATHARINE. Not so, gentle beast;
    My lips are no common, though several they be.
  BOYET. Belonging to whom?
  KATHARINE. To my fortunes and me.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Good wits will be jangling; but, gentles,
      agree;
    This civil war of wits were much better used
    On Navarre and his book-men, for here 'tis abused.
  BOYET. If my observation, which very seldom lies,
    By the heart's still rhetoric disclosed with eyes,
    Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. With what?
  BOYET. With that which we lovers entitle 'affected.'
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Your reason?
  BOYET. Why, all his behaviours did make their retire
    To the court of his eye, peeping thorough desire.
    His heart, like an agate, with your print impressed,
    Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed;
    His tongue, all impatient to speak and not see,
    Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be;
    All senses to that sense did make their repair,
    To feel only looking on fairest of fair.
    Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eye,
    As jewels in crystal for some prince to buy;
    Who, tend'ring their own worth from where they were glass'd,
    Did point you to buy them, along as you pass'd.
    His face's own margent did quote such amazes
    That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.
    I'll give you Aquitaine and all that is his,
    An you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Come, to our pavilion. Boyet is dispos'd.
  BOYET. But to speak that in words which his eye hath disclos'd;
    I only have made a mouth of his eye,
    By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.
  MARIA. Thou art an old love-monger, and speakest skilfully.
  KATHARINE. He is Cupid's grandfather, and learns news of him.
  ROSALINE. Then was Venus like her mother; for her father is but
    grim.
  BOYET. Do you hear, my mad wenches?
  MARIA. No.
  BOYET. What, then; do you see?
  MARIA. Ay, our way to be gone.
  BOYET. You are too hard for me.                         Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. The park

Enter ARMADO and MOTH

  ARMADO. Warble, child; make passionate my sense of hearing.
                                         [MOTH sings Concolinel]
  ARMADO. Sweet air! Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give
    enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately hither; I must
    employ him in a letter to my love.
  MOTH. Master, will you win your love with a French brawl?
  ARMADO. How meanest thou? Brawling in French?
  MOTH. No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue's
    end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your
    eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the
    throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime
    through the nose, as if you snuff'd up love by smelling love,
    with your hat penthouse-like o'er the shop of your eyes, with
    your arms cross'd on your thin-belly doublet, like a rabbit on a
    spit, or your hands in your pocket, like a man after the old
    painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away.
    These are complements, these are humours; these betray nice
    wenches, that would be betrayed without these; and make them men
    of note- do you note me?- that most are affected to these.
  ARMADO. How hast thou purchased this experience?
  MOTH. By my penny of observation.
  ARMADO. But O- but O-
  MOTH. The hobby-horse is forgot.
  ARMADO. Call'st thou my love 'hobby-horse'?
  MOTH. No, master; the hobby-horse is but a colt, and your love
    perhaps a hackney. But have you forgot your love?
  ARMADO. Almost I had.
  MOTH. Negligent student! learn her by heart.
  ARMADO. By heart and in heart, boy.
  MOTH. And out of heart, master; all those three I will prove.
  ARMADO. What wilt thou prove?
  MOTH. A man, if I live; and this, by, in, and without, upon the
    instant. By heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by
    her; in heart you love her, because your heart is in love with
    her; and out of heart you love her, being out of heart that you
    cannot enjoy her.
  ARMADO. I am all these three.
  MOTH. And three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.
  ARMADO. Fetch hither the swain; he must carry me a letter.
  MOTH. A message well sympathiz'd- a horse to be ambassador for an
    ass.
  ARMADO. Ha, ha, what sayest thou?
  MOTH. Marry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is
    very slow-gaited. But I go.
  ARMADO. The way is but short; away.
  MOTH. As swift as lead, sir.
  ARMADO. The meaning, pretty ingenious?
    Is not lead a metal heavy, dull, and slow?
  MOTH. Minime, honest master; or rather, master, no.
  ARMADO. I say lead is slow.
  MOTH. You are too swift, sir, to say so:
    Is that lead slow which is fir'd from a gun?
  ARMADO. Sweet smoke of rhetoric!
    He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that's he;
    I shoot thee at the swain.
  MOTH. Thump, then, and I flee.                            Exit
  ARMADO. A most acute juvenal; volable and free of grace!
    By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face;
    Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.
    My herald is return'd.

                       Re-enter MOTH with COSTARD

  MOTH. A wonder, master! here's a costard broken in a shin.
  ARMADO. Some enigma, some riddle; come, thy l'envoy; begin.
  COSTARD. No egma, no riddle, no l'envoy; no salve in the mail, sir.
    O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain; no l'envoy, no l'envoy; no
    salve, sir, but a plantain!
  ARMADO. By virtue thou enforcest laughter; thy silly thought, my
    spleen; the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous
    smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate take
    salve for l'envoy, and the word 'l'envoy' for a salve?
  MOTH. Do the wise think them other? Is not l'envoy a salve?
  ARMADO. No, page; it is an epilogue or discourse to make plain
    Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
    I will example it:
           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
           Were still at odds, being but three.
    There's the moral. Now the l'envoy.
  MOTH. I will add the l'envoy. Say the moral again.
  ARMADO.  The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
           Were still at odds, being but three.
  MOTH.    Until the goose came out of door,
           And stay'd the odds by adding four.
    Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l'envoy.
           The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee,
           Were still at odds, being but three.
  ARMADO.  Until the goose came out of door,
           Staying the odds by adding four.
  MOTH. A good l'envoy, ending in the goose; would you desire more?
  COSTARD. The boy hath sold him a bargain, a goose, that's flat.
    Sir, your pennyworth is good, an your goose be fat.
    To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose;
    Let me see: a fat l'envoy; ay, that's a fat goose.
  ARMADO. Come hither, come hither. How did this argument begin?
  MOTH. By saying that a costard was broken in a shin.
    Then call'd you for the l'envoy.
  COSTARD. True, and I for a plantain. Thus came your argument in;
    Then the boy's fat l'envoy, the goose that you bought;
    And he ended the market.
  ARMADO. But tell me: how was there a costard broken in a shin?
  MOTH. I will tell you sensibly.
  COSTARD. Thou hast no feeling of it, Moth; I will speak that
      l'envoy.
    I, Costard, running out, that was safely within,
    Fell over the threshold and broke my shin.
  ARMADO. We will talk no more of this matter.
  COSTARD. Till there be more matter in the shin.
  ARMADO. Sirrah Costard. I will enfranchise thee.
  COSTARD. O, Marry me to one Frances! I smell some l'envoy, some
    goose, in this.
  ARMADO. By my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty,
    enfreedoming thy person; thou wert immured, restrained,
    captivated, bound.
  COSTARD. True, true; and now you will be my purgation, and let me
    loose.
  ARMADO. I give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance; and, in
    lieu thereof, impose on thee nothing but this: bear this
    significant [giving a letter] to the country maid Jaquenetta;
    there is remuneration, for the best ward of mine honour is
    rewarding my dependents. Moth, follow.                  Exit
  MOTH. Like the sequel, I. Signior Costard, adieu.
  COSTARD. My sweet ounce of man's flesh, my incony Jew!
                                                       Exit MOTH
    Now will I look to his remuneration. Remuneration! O, that's the
    Latin word for three farthings. Three farthings- remuneration.
    'What's the price of this inkle?'- 'One penny.'- 'No, I'll give
    you a remuneration.' Why, it carries it. Remuneration! Why, it is
    a fairer name than French crown. I will never buy and sell out of
    this word.

                          Enter BEROWNE

  BEROWNE. My good knave Costard, exceedingly well met!
  COSTARD. Pray you, sir, how much carnation ribbon may a man buy for
    a remuneration?
  BEROWNE. What is a remuneration?
  COSTARD. Marry, sir, halfpenny farthing.
  BEROWNE. Why, then, three-farthing worth of silk.
  COSTARD. I thank your worship. God be wi' you!
  BEROWNE. Stay, slave; I must employ thee.
    As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,
    Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.
  COSTARD. When would you have it done, sir?
  BEROWNE. This afternoon.
  COSTARD. Well, I will do it, sir; fare you well.
  BEROWNE. Thou knowest not what it is.
  COSTARD. I shall know, sir, when I have done it.
  BEROWNE. Why, villain, thou must know first.
  COSTARD. I will come to your worship to-morrow morning.
  BEROWNE. It must be done this afternoon.
    Hark, slave, it is but this:
    The Princess comes to hunt here in the park,
    And in her train there is a gentle lady;
    When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,
    And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her,
    And to her white hand see thou do commend
    This seal'd-up counsel. There's thy guerdon; go.
                                         [Giving him a shilling]
  COSTARD. Gardon, O sweet gardon! better than remuneration; a
    'leven-pence farthing better; most sweet gardon! I will do it,
    sir, in print. Gardon- remuneration!                    Exit
  BEROWNE. And I, forsooth, in love; I, that have been love's whip;
    A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
    A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;
    A domineering pedant o'er the boy,
    Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
    This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy,
    This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid;
    Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
    Th' anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
    Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,
    Dread prince of plackets, king of codpieces,
    Sole imperator, and great general
    Of trotting paritors. O my little heart!
    And I to be a corporal of his field,
    And wear his colours like a tumbler's hoop!
    What! I love, I sue, I seek a wife-
    A woman, that is like a German clock,
    Still a-repairing, ever out of frame,
    And never going aright, being a watch,
    But being watch'd that it may still go right!
    Nay, to be perjur'd, which is worst of all;
    And, among three, to love the worst of all,
    A whitely wanton with a velvet brow,
    With two pitch balls stuck in her face for eyes;
    Ay, and, by heaven, one that will do the deed,
    Though Argus were her eunuch and her guard.
    And I to sigh for her! to watch for her!
    To pray for her! Go to; it is a plague
    That Cupid will impose for my neglect
    Of his almighty dreadful little might.
    Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue, and groan:
    Some men must love my lady, and some Joan.              Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I. The park

Enter the PRINCESS, ROSALINE, MARIA, KATHARINE, BOYET, LORDS,
ATTENDANTS, and a FORESTER

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was that the King that spurr'd his horse so
      hard
    Against the steep uprising of the hill?
  BOYET. I know not; but I think it was not he.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whoe'er 'a was, 'a show'd a mounting mind.
    Well, lords, to-day we shall have our dispatch;
    On Saturday we will return to France.
    Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush
    That we must stand and play the murderer in?
  FORESTER. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;
    A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I thank my beauty I am fair that shoot,
    And thereupon thou speak'st the fairest shoot.
  FORESTER. Pardon me, madam, for I meant not so.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What, what? First praise me, and again say no?
    O short-liv'd pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!
  FORESTER. Yes, madam, fair.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, never paint me now;
    Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.
    Here, good my glass, take this for telling true:
                                             [ Giving him money]
    Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
  FORESTER. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. See, see, my beauty will be sav'd by merit.
    O heresy in fair, fit for these days!
    A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.
    But come, the bow. Now mercy goes to kill,
    And shooting well is then accounted ill;
    Thus will I save my credit in the shoot:
    Not wounding, pity would not let me do't;
    If wounding, then it was to show my skill,
    That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.
    And, out of question, so it is sometimes:
    Glory grows guilty of detested crimes,
    When, for fame's sake, for praise, an outward part,
    We bend to that the working of the heart;
    As I for praise alone now seek to spill
    The poor deer's blood that my heart means no ill.
  BOYET. Do not curst wives hold that self-sovereignty
    Only for praise sake, when they strive to be
    Lords o'er their lords?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Only for praise; and praise we may afford
    To any lady that subdues a lord.

                       Enter COSTARD

  BOYET. Here comes a member of the commonwealth.
  COSTARD. God dig-you-den all! Pray you, which is the head lady?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that
    have no heads.
  COSTARD. Which is the greatest lady, the highest?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The thickest and the tallest.
  COSTARD. The thickest and the tallest! It is so; truth is truth.
    An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,
    One o' these maids' girdles for your waist should be fit.
    Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What's your will, sir? What's your will?
  COSTARD. I have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one
    Lady Rosaline.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O, thy letter, thy letter! He's a good friend
      of mine.
    Stand aside, good bearer. Boyet, you can carve.
    Break up this capon.
  BOYET. I am bound to serve.
    This letter is mistook; it importeth none here.
    It is writ to Jaquenetta.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We will read it, I swear.
    Break the neck of the wax, and every one give ear.
  BOYET. [Reads] 'By heaven, that thou art fair is most infallible;
    true that thou art beauteous; truth itself that thou art lovely.
    More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth
    itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal. The
    magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the
    pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that
    might rightly say, 'Veni, vidi, vici'; which to annothanize in
    the vulgar,- O base and obscure vulgar!- videlicet, He came, saw,
    and overcame. He came, one; saw, two; overcame, three. Who came?-
    the king. Why did he come?- to see. Why did he see?-to overcome.
    To whom came he?- to the beggar. What saw he?- the beggar. Who
    overcame he?- the beggar. The conclusion is victory; on whose
    side?- the king's. The captive is enrich'd; on whose side?- the
    beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial; on whose side?- the
    king's. No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king, for so
    stands the comparison; thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy
    lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy
    love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou
    exchange for rags?- robes, for tittles?- titles, for thyself?
    -me. Thus expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my
    eyes on thy picture, and my heart on thy every part.
                  Thine in the dearest design of industry,
                                           DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO.

    'Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion roar
    'Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey;
    Submissive fall his princely feet before,
    And he from forage will incline to play.
    But if thou strive, poor soul, what are thou then?
    Food for his rage, repasture for his den.'
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. What plume of feathers is he that indited this
      letter?
    What vane? What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?
  BOYET. I am much deceived but I remember the style.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Else your memory is bad, going o'er it
    erewhile.
  BOYET. This Armado is a Spaniard, that keeps here in court;
    A phantasime, a Monarcho, and one that makes sport
    To the Prince and his book-mates.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou fellow, a word.
    Who gave thee this letter?
  COSTARD. I told you: my lord.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. To whom shouldst thou give it?
  COSTARD. From my lord to my lady.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. From which lord to which lady?
  COSTARD. From my Lord Berowne, a good master of mine,
    To a lady of France that he call'd Rosaline.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thou hast mistaken his letter. Come, lords,
      away.
    [To ROSALINE] Here, sweet, put up this; 'twill be thine another
      day.                             Exeunt PRINCESS and TRAIN
  BOYET. Who is the shooter? who is the shooter?
  ROSALINE. Shall I teach you to know?
  BOYET. Ay, my continent of beauty.
  ROSALINE. Why, she that bears the bow.
    Finely put off!
  BOYET. My lady goes to kill horns; but, if thou marry,
    Hang me by the neck, if horns that year miscarry.
    Finely put on!
  ROSALINE. Well then, I am the shooter.
  BOYET. And who is your deer?
  ROSALINE. If we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.
    Finely put on indeed!
  MARIA. You Still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes at the
    brow.
  BOYET. But she herself is hit lower. Have I hit her now?
  ROSALINE. Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man
    when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit
    it?
  BOYET. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when
    Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit
    it.
  ROSALINE. [Singing]
            Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,
            Thou canst not hit it, my good man.
  BOYET.    An I cannot, cannot, cannot,
            An I cannot, another can.
                                   Exeunt ROSALINE and KATHARINE
  COSTARD. By my troth, most pleasant! How both did fit it!
  MARIA. A mark marvellous well shot; for they both did hit it.
  BOYET. A mark! O, mark but that mark! A mark, says my lady!
    Let the mark have a prick in't, to mete at, if it may be.
  MARIA. Wide o' the bow-hand! I' faith, your hand is out.
  COSTARD. Indeed, 'a must shoot nearer, or he'll ne'er hit the
    clout.
  BOYET. An if my hand be out, then belike your hand is in.
  COSTARD. Then will she get the upshoot by cleaving the pin.
  MARIA. Come, come, you talk greasily; your lips grow foul.
  COSTARD. She's too hard for you at pricks, sir; challenge her to
    bowl.
  BOYET. I fear too much rubbing; good-night, my good owl.
                                          Exeunt BOYET and MARIA
  COSTARD. By my soul, a swain, a most simple clown!
    Lord, Lord! how the ladies and I have put him down!
    O' my troth, most sweet jests, most incony vulgar wit!
    When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely, as it were, so fit.
    Armado a th' t'one side- O, a most dainty man!
    To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!
    To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly 'a will swear!
    And his page a t' other side, that handful of wit!
    Ah, heavens, it is a most pathetical nit!
    Sola, sola!                                     Exit COSTARD

SCENE II. The park

From the shooting within, enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL

  NATHANIEL. Very reverent sport, truly; and done in the testimony of
    a good conscience.
  HOLOFERNES. The deer was, as you know, sanguis, in blood; ripe as
    the pomewater, who now hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo,
    the sky, the welkin, the heaven; and anon falleth like a crab on
    the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.
  NATHANIEL. Truly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly
    varied, like a scholar at the least; but, sir, I assure ye it was
    a buck of the first head.
  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, haud credo.
  DULL. 'Twas not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.
  HOLOFERNES. Most barbarous intimation! yet a kind of insinuation,
    as it were, in via, in way, of explication; facere, as it were,
    replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his
    inclination, after his undressed, unpolished, uneducated,
    unpruned, untrained, or rather unlettered, or ratherest
    unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer.
  DULL. I Said the deer was not a haud credo; 'twas a pricket.
  HOLOFERNES. Twice-sod simplicity, bis coctus!
    O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
  NATHANIEL. Sir, he hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in
      a book;
    He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his
    intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible
    in the duller parts;
    And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should
      be-
    Which we of taste and feeling are- for those parts that do
      fructify in us more than he.
    For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,
    So, were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school.
    But, omne bene, say I, being of an old father's mind:
    Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
  DULL. You two are book-men: can you tell me by your wit
    What was a month old at Cain's birth that's not five weeks old as
      yet?
  HOLOFERNES. Dictynna, goodman Dull; Dictynna, goodman Dull.
  DULL. What is Dictynna?
  NATHANIEL. A title to Phoebe, to Luna, to the moon.
  HOLOFERNES. The moon was a month old when Adam was no more,
    And raught not to five weeks when he came to five-score.
    Th' allusion holds in the exchange.
  DULL. 'Tis true, indeed; the collusion holds in the exchange.
  HOLOFERNES. God comfort thy capacity! I say th' allusion holds in
    the exchange.
  DULL. And I say the polusion holds in the exchange; for the moon is
    never but a month old; and I say, beside, that 'twas a pricket
    that the Princess kill'd.
  HOLOFERNES. Sir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal epitaph on
    the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, call the deer
    the Princess kill'd a pricket.
  NATHANIEL. Perge, good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall please
    you to abrogate scurrility.
  HOLOFERNES. I Will something affect the letter, for it argues
    facility.

    The preyful Princess pierc'd and prick'd a pretty pleasing
      pricket.
    Some say a sore; but not a sore till now made sore with shooting.
    The dogs did yell; put el to sore, then sorel jumps from thicket-
    Or pricket sore, or else sorel; the people fall a-hooting.
    If sore be sore, then L to sore makes fifty sores o' sorel.
    Of one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more L.

  NATHANIEL. A rare talent!
  DULL. [Aside] If a talent be a claw, look how he claws him with a
    talent.
  HOLOFERNES. This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish
    extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects,
    ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot in
    the ventricle of memory, nourish'd in the womb of pia mater, and
    delivered upon the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in
    those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.
  NATHANIEL. Sir, I praise the Lord for you, and so may my
    parishioners; for their sons are well tutor'd by you, and their
    daughters profit very greatly under you. You are a good member of
    the commonwealth.
  HOLOFERNES. Mehercle, if their sons be ingenious, they shall want
    no instruction; if their daughters be capable, I will put it to
    them; but, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine saluteth
    us.

                    Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD

  JAQUENETTA. God give you good morrow, Master Person.
  HOLOFERNES. Master Person, quasi pers-one. And if one should be
    pierc'd which is the one?
  COSTARD. Marry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest to a
    hogshead.
  HOLOFERNES. Piercing a hogshead! A good lustre of conceit in a turf
    of earth; fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine; 'tis
    pretty; it is well.
  JAQUENETTA. Good Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter;
    it was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I
    beseech you read it.
  HOLOFERNES. Fauste, precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra
    Ruminat-
    and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan! I may speak of thee as
    the traveller doth of Venice:
                   Venetia, Venetia,
                   Chi non ti vede, non ti pretia.
    Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not,
    loves thee not-
                      Ut, re, sol, la, mi, fa.
    Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? or rather as
    Horace says in his- What, my soul, verses?
  NATHANIEL. Ay, sir, and very learned.
  HOLOFERNES. Let me hear a staff, a stanze, a verse; lege, domine.
  NATHANIEL. [Reads] 'If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to
      love?
    Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed!
    Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll faithful prove;
    Those thoughts to me were oaks, to thee like osiers bowed.
    Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,
    Where all those pleasures live that art would comprehend.
    If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
    Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;
    All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
    Which is to me some praise that I thy parts admire.
    Thy eye Jove's lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
    Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.
    Celestial as thou art, O, pardon love this wrong,
    That singes heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.'
  HOLOFERNES. You find not the apostrophas, and so miss the accent:
    let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only numbers ratified;
    but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,
    caret. Ovidius Naso was the man. And why, indeed, 'Naso' but for
    smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of
    invention? Imitari is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the
    ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella virgin,
    was this directed to you?
  JAQUENETTA. Ay, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange
    queen's lords.
  HOLOFERNES. I will overglance the superscript: 'To the snow-white
    hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.' I will look again on
    the intellect of the letter, for the nomination of the party
    writing to the person written unto: 'Your Ladyship's in all
    desired employment, Berowne.' Sir Nathaniel, this Berowne is one
    of the votaries with the King; and here he hath framed a letter
    to a sequent of the stranger queen's which accidentally, or by
    the way of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet;
    deliver this paper into the royal hand of the King; it may
    concern much. Stay not thy compliment; I forgive thy duty. Adieu.
  JAQUENETTA. Good Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life!
  COSTARD. Have with thee, my girl.
                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA
  NATHANIEL. Sir, you have done this in the fear of God, very
    religiously; and, as a certain father saith-
  HOLOFERNES. Sir, tell not me of the father; I do fear colourable
    colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir
    Nathaniel?
  NATHANIEL. Marvellous well for the pen.
  HOLOFERNES. I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil of
    mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify
    the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the
    parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake your ben
    venuto; where I will prove those verses to be very unlearned,
    neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your
    society.
  NATHANIEL. And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is the
    happiness of life.
  HOLOFERNES. And certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
    [To DULL] Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not say me nay:
    pauca verba. Away; the gentles are at their game, and we will to
    our recreation.                                       Exeunt

SCENE III. The park

Enter BEROWNE, with a paper his band, alone

  BEROWNE. The King he is hunting the deer: I am coursing myself. They
  have pitch'd a toil: I am tolling in a pitch- pitch that defiles.
  Defile! a foul word. Well, 'set thee down, sorrow!' for so they say
  the fool said, and so say I, and I am the fool. Well proved, wit. By
  the Lord, this love is as mad as Ajax: it kills sheep; it kills me- I
  a sheep. Well proved again o' my side. I will not love; if I do, hang
  me. I' faith, I will not. O, but her eye! By this light, but for her
  eye, I would not love her- yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing
  in the world but lie, and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love; and
  it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy; and here is part of
  my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o' my sonnets
  already; the clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it:
  sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not
  care a pin if the other three were in. Here comes one with a paper;
  God give him grace to groan! [Climbs into a tree]

                      Enter the KING, with a paper

  KING. Ay me!
  BEROWNE. Shot, by heaven! Proceed, sweet Cupid; thou hast thump'd
    him with thy bird-bolt under the left pap. In faith, secrets!
  KING. [Reads]
      'So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not
      To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,
      As thy eye-beams, when their fresh rays have smote
      The night of dew that on my cheeks down flows;
      Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright
      Through the transparent bosom of the deep,
      As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.
      Thou shin'st in every tear that I do weep;
      No drop but as a coach doth carry thee;
      So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.
      Do but behold the tears that swell in me,
      And they thy glory through my grief will show.
      But do not love thyself; then thou wilt keep
      My tears for glasses, and still make me weep.
      O queen of queens! how far dost thou excel
      No thought can think nor tongue of mortal tell.'
    How shall she know my griefs? I'll drop the paper-
    Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?
                                                   [Steps aside]

                  Enter LONGAVILLE, with a paper

    What, Longaville, and reading! Listen, car.
  BEROWNE. Now, in thy likeness, one more fool appear!
  LONGAVILLE. Ay me, I am forsworn!
  BEROWNE. Why, he comes in like a perjure, wearing papers.
  KING. In love, I hope; sweet fellowship in shame!
  BEROWNE. One drunkard loves another of the name.
  LONGAVILLE. Am I the first that have been perjur'd so?
  BEROWNE. I could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know;
    Thou makest the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,
    The shape of Love's Tyburn that hangs up simplicity.
  LONGAVILLE. I fear these stubborn lines lack power to move.
    O sweet Maria, empress of my love!
    These numbers will I tear, and write in prose.
  BEROWNE. O, rhymes are guards on wanton Cupid's hose:
    Disfigure not his slop.
  LONGAVILLE. This same shall go.          [He reads the sonnet]
      'Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
      'Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,
      Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
      Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
      A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
      Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
      My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
      Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.
      Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is;
      Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,
      Exhal'st this vapour-vow; in thee it is.
      If broken, then it is no fault of mine;
      If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
      To lose an oath to win a paradise?'
  BEROWNE. This is the liver-vein, which makes flesh a deity,
    A green goose a goddess- pure, pure idolatry.
    God amend us, God amend! We are much out o' th' way.

                      Enter DUMAIN, with a paper

  LONGAVILLE. By whom shall I send this?- Company! Stay.
                                                   [Steps aside]
  BEROWNE. 'All hid, all hid'- an old infant play.
    Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,
    And wretched fools' secrets heedfully o'er-eye.
    More sacks to the mill! O heavens, I have my wish!
    Dumain transformed! Four woodcocks in a dish!
  DUMAIN. O most divine Kate!
  BEROWNE. O most profane coxcomb!
  DUMAIN. By heaven, the wonder in a mortal eye!
  BEROWNE. By earth, she is not, corporal: there you lie.
  DUMAIN. Her amber hairs for foul hath amber quoted.
  BEROWNE. An amber-colour'd raven was well noted.
  DUMAIN. As upright as the cedar.
  BEROWNE. Stoop, I say;
    Her shoulder is with child.
  DUMAIN. As fair as day.
  BEROWNE. Ay, as some days; but then no sun must shine.
  DUMAIN. O that I had my wish!
  LONGAVILLE. And I had mine!
  KING. And I mine too,.good Lord!
  BEROWNE. Amen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?
  DUMAIN. I would forget her; but a fever she
    Reigns in my blood, and will rememb'red be.
  BEROWNE. A fever in your blood? Why, then incision
    Would let her out in saucers. Sweet misprision!
  DUMAIN. Once more I'll read the ode that I have writ.
  BEROWNE. Once more I'll mark how love can vary wit.
  DUMAIN. [Reads]
        'On a day-alack the day!-
        Love, whose month is ever May,
        Spied a blossom passing fair
        Playing in the wanton air.
        Through the velvet leaves the wind,
        All unseen, can passage find;
        That the lover, sick to death,
        Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.
        "Air," quoth he "thy cheeks may blow;
        Air, would I might triumph so!
        But, alack, my hand is sworn
        Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn;
        Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
        Youth so apt to pluck a sweet.
        Do not call it sin in me
        That I am forsworn for thee;
        Thou for whom Jove would swear
        Juno but an Ethiope were;
        And deny himself for Jove,
        Turning mortal for thy love."'
    This will I send; and something else more plain
    That shall express my true love's fasting pain.
    O, would the King, Berowne and Longaville,
    Were lovers too! Ill, to example ill,
    Would from my forehead wipe a perjur'd note;
    For none offend where all alike do dote.
  LONGAVILLE. [Advancing] Dumain, thy love is far from charity,
    That in love's grief desir'st society;
    You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,
    To be o'erheard and taken napping so.
  KING. [Advancing] Come, sir, you blush; as his, your case is such.
    You chide at him, offending twice as much:
    You do not love Maria! Longaville
    Did never sonnet for her sake compile;
    Nor never lay his wreathed arms athwart
    His loving bosom, to keep down his heart.
    I have been closely shrouded in this bush,
    And mark'd you both, and for you both did blush.
    I heard your guilty rhymes, observ'd your fashion,
    Saw sighs reek from you, noted well your passion.
    'Ay me!' says one. 'O Jove!' the other cries.
    One, her hairs were gold; crystal the other's eyes.
    [To LONGAVILLE] You would for paradise break faith and troth;
    [To Dumain] And Jove for your love would infringe an oath.
    What will Berowne say when that he shall hear
    Faith infringed which such zeal did swear?
    How will he scorn, how will he spend his wit!
    How will he triumph, leap, and laugh at it!
    For all the wealth that ever I did see,
    I would not have him know so much by me.
  BEROWNE. [Descending] Now step I forth to whip hypocrisy,
    Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.
    Good heart, what grace hast thou thus to reprove
    These worms for loving, that art most in love?
    Your eyes do make no coaches; in your tears
    There is no certain princess that appears;
    You'll not be perjur'd; 'tis a hateful thing;
    Tush, none but minstrels like of sonneting.
    But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,
    All three of you, to be thus much o'ershot?
    You found his mote; the King your mote did see;
    But I a beam do find in each of three.
    O, what a scene of fool'ry have I seen,
    Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow, and of teen!
    O, me, with what strict patience have I sat,
    To see a king transformed to a gnat!
    To see great Hercules whipping a gig,
    And profound Solomon to tune a jig,
    And Nestor play at push-pin with the boys,
    And critic Timon laugh at idle toys!
    Where lies thy grief, O, tell me, good Dumain?
    And, gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?
    And where my liege's? All about the breast.
    A caudle, ho!
  KING. Too bitter is thy jest.
    Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?
  BEROWNE. Not you by me, but I betrayed to you.
    I that am honest, I that hold it sin
    To break the vow I am engaged in;
    I am betrayed by keeping company
    With men like you, men of inconstancy.
    When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?
    Or groan for Joan? or spend a minute's time
    In pruning me? When shall you hear that I
    Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,
    A gait, a state, a brow, a breast, a waist,
    A leg, a limb-
  KING. Soft! whither away so fast?
    A true man or a thief that gallops so?
  BEROWNE. I post from love; good lover, let me go.

                 Enter JAQUENETTA and COSTARD

  JAQUENETTA. God bless the King!
  KING. What present hast thou there?
  COSTARD. Some certain treason.
  KING. What makes treason here?
  COSTARD. Nay, it makes nothing, sir.
  KING. If it mar nothing neither,
    The treason and you go in peace away together.
  JAQUENETTA. I beseech your Grace, let this letter be read;
    Our person misdoubts it: 'twas treason, he said.
  KING. Berowne, read it over.        [BEROWNE reads the letter]
    Where hadst thou it?
  JAQUENETTA. Of Costard.
  KING. Where hadst thou it?
  COSTARD. Of Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio.
                                      [BEROWNE tears the letter]
  KING. How now! What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?
  BEROWNE. A toy, my liege, a toy! Your Grace needs not fear it.
  LONGAVILLE. It did move him to passion, and therefore let's hear
     it.
  DUMAIN. It is Berowne's writing, and here is his name.
                                       [Gathering up the pieces]
  BEROWNE. [ To COSTARD] Ah, you whoreson loggerhead, you were born
      to do me shame.
    Guilty, my lord, guilty! I confess, I confess.
  KING. What?
  BEROWNE. That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess;
    He, he, and you- and you, my liege!- and I
    Are pick-purses in love, and we deserve to die.
    O, dismiss this audience, and I shall tell you more.
    DUMAIN. Now the number is even.
  BEROWNE. True, true, we are four.
    Will these turtles be gone?
  KING. Hence, sirs, away.
  COSTARD. Walk aside the true folk, and let the traitors stay.
                                   Exeunt COSTARD and JAQUENETTA
  BEROWNE. Sweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!
    As true we are as flesh and blood can be.
    The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face;
    Young blood doth not obey an old decree.
    We cannot cross the cause why we were born,
    Therefore of all hands must we be forsworn.
  KING. What, did these rent lines show some love of thine?
  BEROWNE. 'Did they?' quoth you. Who sees the heavenly Rosaline
    That, like a rude and savage man of Inde
    At the first op'ning of the gorgeous east,
    Bows not his vassal head and, strucken blind,
    Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?
    What peremptory eagle-sighted eye
    Dares look upon the heaven of her brow
    That is not blinded by her majesty?
  KING. What zeal, what fury hath inspir'd thee now?
    My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon;
    She, an attending star, scarce seen a light.
  BEROWNE. My eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.
    O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
    Of all complexions the cull'd sovereignty
    Do meet, as at a fair, in her fair cheek,
    Where several worthies make one dignity,
    Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.
    Lend me the flourish of all gentle tongues-
    Fie, painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not!
    To things of sale a seller's praise belongs:
    She passes praise; then praise too short doth blot.
    A wither'd hermit, five-score winters worn,
    Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.
    Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born,
    And gives the crutch the cradle's infancy.
    O, 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine!
  KING. By heaven, thy love is black as ebony.
  BEROWNE. Is ebony like her? O wood divine!
    A wife of such wood were felicity.
    O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?
    That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack,
    If that she learn not of her eye to look.
    No face is fair that is not full so black.
  KING. O paradox! Black is the badge of hell,
    The hue of dungeons, and the school of night;
    And beauty's crest becomes the heavens well.
  BEROWNE. Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
    O, if in black my lady's brows be deckt,
    It mourns that painting and usurping hair
    Should ravish doters with a false aspect;
    And therefore is she born to make black fair.
    Her favour turns the fashion of the days;
    For native blood is counted painting now;
    And therefore red that would avoid dispraise
    Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.
  DUMAIN. To look like her are chimney-sweepers black.
  LONGAVILLE. And since her time are colliers counted bright.
  KING. And Ethiopes of their sweet complexion crack.
  DUMAIN. Dark needs no candles now, for dark is light.
  BEROWNE. Your mistresses dare never come in rain
    For fear their colours should be wash'd away.
  KING. 'Twere good yours did; for, sir, to tell you plain,
    I'll find a fairer face not wash'd to-day.
  BEROWNE. I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.
  KING. No devil will fright thee then so much as she.
  DUMAIN. I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.
  LONGAVILLE. Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.
                                              [Showing his shoe]
  BEROWNE. O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
    Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!
  DUMAIN. O vile! Then, as she goes, what upward lies
    The street should see as she walk'd overhead.
  KING. But what of this? Are we not all in love?
  BEROWNE. Nothing so sure; and thereby all forsworn.
  KING. Then leave this chat; and, good Berowne, now prove
    Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.
  DUMAIN. Ay, marry, there; some flattery for this evil.
  LONGAVILLE. O, some authority how to proceed;
    Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the devil!
  DUMAIN. Some salve for perjury.
  BEROWNE. 'Tis more than need.
    Have at you, then, affection's men-at-arms.
    Consider what you first did swear unto:
    To fast, to study, and to see no woman-
    Flat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.
    Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,
    And abstinence engenders maladies.
    And, where that you you have vow'd to study, lords,
    In that each of you have forsworn his book,
    Can you still dream, and pore, and thereon look?
    For when would you, my lord, or you, or you,
    Have found the ground of study's excellence
    Without the beauty of a woman's face?
    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
    They are the ground, the books, the academes,
    From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.
    Why, universal plodding poisons up
    The nimble spirits in the arteries,
    As motion and long-during action tires
    The sinewy vigour of the traveller.
    Now, for not looking on a woman's face,
    You have in that forsworn the use of eyes,
    And study too, the causer of your vow;
    For where is author in the world
    Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?
    Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
    And where we are our learning likewise is;
    Then when ourselves we see in ladies' eyes,
    With ourselves.
    Do we not likewise see our learning there?
    O, we have made a vow to study, lords,
    And in that vow we have forsworn our books.
    For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,
    In leaden contemplation have found out
    Such fiery numbers as the prompting eyes
    Of beauty's tutors have enrich'd you with?
    Other slow arts entirely keep the brain;
    And therefore, finding barren practisers,
    Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil;
    But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
    Lives not alone immured in the brain,
    But with the motion of all elements
    Courses as swift as thought in every power,
    And gives to every power a double power,
    Above their functions and their offices.
    It adds a precious seeing to the eye:
    A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.
    A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
    When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd.
    Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
    Than are the tender horns of cockled snails:
    Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste.
    For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
    Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
    Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical
    As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair.
    And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
    Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.
    Never durst poet touch a pen to write
    Until his ink were temp'red with Love's sighs;
    O, then his lines would ravish savage ears,
    And plant in tyrants mild humility.
    From women's eyes this doctrine I derive.
    They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
    They are the books, the arts, the academes,
    That show, contain, and nourish, all the world,
    Else none at all in aught proves excellent.
    Then fools you were these women to forswear;
    Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
    For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love;
    Or for Love's sake, a word that loves all men;
    Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;
    Or women's sake, by whom we men are men-
    Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
    Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
    It is religion to be thus forsworn;
    For charity itself fulfils the law,
    And who can sever love from charity?
  KING. Saint Cupid, then! and, soldiers, to the field!
  BEROWNE. Advance your standards, and upon them, lords;
    Pell-mell, down with them! be first advis'd,
    In conflict, that you get the sun of them.
  LONGAVILLE. Now to plain-dealing; lay these glozes by.
    Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?
  KING. And win them too; therefore let us devise
    Some entertainment for them in their tents.
  BEROWNE. First, from the park let us conduct them thither;
    Then homeward every man attach the hand
    Of his fair mistress. In the afternoon
    We will with some strange pastime solace them,
    Such as the shortness of the time can shape;
    For revels, dances, masks, and merry hours,
    Forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.
  KING. Away, away! No time shall be omitted
    That will betime, and may by us be fitted.
  BEROWNE. Allons! allons! Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn,
    And justice always whirls in equal measure.
    Light wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn;
    If so, our copper buys no better treasure.            Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. The park

Enter HOLOFERNES, SIR NATHANIEL, and DULL

  HOLOFERNES. Satis quod sufficit.
  NATHANIEL. I praise God for you, sir. Your reasons at dinner have
    been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty
    without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without
    opinion, and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam
    day with a companion of the King's who is intituled, nominated,
    or called, Don Adriano de Armado.
  HOLOFERNES. Novi hominem tanquam te. His humour is lofty, his
    discourse peremptory, his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his
    gait majestical and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and
    thrasonical. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd,
    as it were, too peregrinate, as I may call it.
  NATHANIEL. A most singular and choice epithet.
                                      [Draws out his table-book]
  HOLOFERNES. He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than
    the staple of his argument. I abhor such fanatical phantasimes,
    such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of
    orthography, as to speak 'dout' fine, when he should say 'doubt';
    'det' when he should pronounce 'debt'- d, e, b, t, not d, e, t.
    He clepeth a calf 'cauf,' half 'hauf'; neighbour vocatur
    'nebour'; 'neigh' abbreviated 'ne.' This is abhominable- which he
    would call 'abbominable.' It insinuateth me of insanie: ne
    intelligis, domine? to make frantic, lunatic.
  NATHANIEL. Laus Deo, bone intelligo.
  HOLOFERNES. 'Bone'?- 'bone' for 'bene.' Priscian a little
    scratch'd; 'twill serve.

                 Enter ARMADO, MOTH, and COSTARD

  NATHANIEL. Videsne quis venit?
  HOLOFERNES. Video, et gaudeo.
  ARMADO. [To MOTH] Chirrah!
  HOLOFERNES. Quare 'chirrah,' not 'sirrah'?
  ARMADO. Men of peace, well encount'red.
  HOLOFERNES. Most military sir, salutation.
  MOTH. [Aside to COSTARD] They have been at a great feast of
    languages and stol'n the scraps.
  COSTARD. O, they have liv'd long on the alms-basket of words. I
    marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word, for thou are
    not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus; thou art
    easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.
  MOTH. Peace! the peal begins.
  ARMADO. [To HOLOFERNES] Monsieur, are you not lett'red?
  MOTH. Yes, yes; he teaches boys the hornbook. What is a, b, spelt
    backward with the horn on his head?
  HOLOFERNES. Ba, pueritia, with a horn added.
  MOTH. Ba, most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.
  HOLOFERNES. Quis, quis, thou consonant?
  MOTH. The third of the five vowels, if You repeat them; or the
    fifth, if I.
  HOLOFERNES. I will repeat them: a, e, I-
  MOTH. The sheep; the other two concludes it: o, U.
  ARMADO. Now, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum, a sweet touch,
    a quick venue of wit- snip, snap, quick and home. It rejoiceth my
    intellect. True wit!
  MOTH. Offer'd by a child to an old man; which is wit-old.
  HOLOFERNES. What is the figure? What is the figure?
  MOTH. Horns.
  HOLOFERNES. Thou disputes like an infant; go whip thy gig.
  MOTH. Lend me your horn to make one, and I will whip about your
    infamy circum circa- a gig of a cuckold's horn.
  COSTARD. An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it
    to buy ginger-bread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had
    of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of
    discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert but
    my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to;
    thou hast it ad dunghill, at the fingers' ends, as they say.
  HOLOFERNES. O, I smell false Latin; 'dunghill' for unguem.
  ARMADO. Arts-man, preambulate; we will be singuled from the
    barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house on the
    top of the mountain?
  HOLOFERNES. Or mons, the hill.
  ARMADO. At your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.
  HOLOFERNES. I do, sans question.
  ARMADO. Sir, it is the King's most sweet pleasure and affection to
    congratulate the Princess at her pavilion, in the posteriors of
    this day; which the rude multitude call the afternoon.
  HOLOFERNES. The posterior of the day, most generous sir, is liable,
    congruent, and measurable, for the afternoon. The word is well
    cull'd, chose, sweet, and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.
  ARMADO. Sir, the King is a noble gentleman, and my familiar, I do
    assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward between us, let
    it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy. I beseech
    thee, apparel thy head. And among other importunate and most
    serious designs, and of great import indeed, too- but let that
    pass; for I must tell thee it will please his Grace, by the
    world, sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder, and with his royal
    finger thus dally with my excrement, with my mustachio; but,
    sweet heart, let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable:
    some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart
    to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world;
    but let that pass. The very all of all is- but, sweet heart, I do
    implore secrecy- that the King would have me present the
    Princess, sweet chuck, with some delightful ostentation, or show,
    or pageant, or antic, or firework. Now, understanding that the
    curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden
    breaking-out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal,
    to the end to crave your assistance.
  HOLOFERNES. Sir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.
    Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment of time, some
    show in the posterior of this day, to be rend'red by our
    assistance, the King's command, and this most gallant,
    illustrate, and learned gentleman, before the Princess- I say
    none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.
  NATHANIEL. Where will you find men worthy enough to present them?
  HOLOFERNES. Joshua, yourself; myself, Alexander; this gallant
    gentleman, Judas Maccabaeus; this swain, because of his great
    limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great; the page, Hercules.
  ARMADO. Pardon, sir; error: he is not quantity enough for that
    Worthy's thumb; he is not so big as the end of his club.
  HOLOFERNES. Shall I have audience? He shall present Hercules in
    minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake; and I
    will have an apology for that purpose.
  MOTH. An excellent device! So, if any of the audience hiss, you may
    cry 'Well done, Hercules; now thou crushest the snake!' That is
    the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to
    do it.
  ARMADO. For the rest of the Worthies?
  HOLOFERNES. I will play three myself.
  MOTH. Thrice-worthy gentleman!
  ARMADO. Shall I tell you a thing?
  HOLOFERNES. We attend.
  ARMADO. We will have, if this fadge not, an antic. I beseech you,
    follow.
  HOLOFERNES. Via, goodman Dull! Thou has spoken no word all this
    while.
  DULL. Nor understood none neither, sir.
  HOLOFERNES. Allons! we will employ thee.
  DULL. I'll make one in a dance, or so, or I will play
    On the tabor to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.
  HOLOFERNES. Most dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. The park

Enter the PRINCESS, MARIA, KATHARINE, and ROSALINE

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Sweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,
    If fairings come thus plentifully in.
    A lady wall'd about with diamonds!
    Look you what I have from the loving King.
  ROSALINE. Madam, came nothing else along with that?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nothing but this! Yes, as much love in rhyme
    As would be cramm'd up in a sheet of paper
    Writ o' both sides the leaf, margent and all,
    That he was fain to seal on Cupid's name.
  ROSALINE. That was the way to make his godhead wax;
    For he hath been five thousand year a boy.
  KATHARINE. Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too.
  ROSALINE. You'll ne'er be friends with him: 'a kill'd your sister.
  KATHARINE. He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy;
    And so she died. Had she been light, like you,
    Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
    She might 'a been a grandam ere she died.
    And so may you; for a light heart lives long.
  ROSALINE. What's your dark meaning, mouse, of this light word?
  KATHARINE. A light condition in a beauty dark.
  ROSALINE. We need more light to find your meaning out.
  KATHARINE. You'll mar the light by taking it in snuff;
    Therefore I'll darkly end the argument.
  ROSALINE. Look what you do, you do it still i' th' dark.
  KATHARINE. So do not you; for you are a light wench.
  ROSALINE. Indeed, I weigh not you; and therefore light.
  KATHARINE. You weigh me not? O, that's you care not for me.
  ROSALINE. Great reason; for 'past cure is still past care.'
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Well bandied both; a set of wit well play'd.
    But, Rosaline, you have a favour too?
    Who sent it? and what is it?
  ROSALINE. I would you knew.
    An if my face were but as fair as yours,
    My favour were as great: be witness this.
    Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne;
    The numbers true, and, were the numb'ring too,
    I were the fairest goddess on the ground.
    I am compar'd to twenty thousand fairs.
    O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Anything like?
  ROSALINE. Much in the letters; nothing in the praise.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Beauteous as ink- a good conclusion.
  KATHARINE. Fair as a text B in a copy-book.
  ROSALINE. Ware pencils, ho! Let me not die your debtor,
    My red dominical, my golden letter:
    O that your face were not so full of O's!
  KATHARINE. A pox of that jest! and I beshrew all shrows!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But, Katharine, what was sent to you from fair
    Dumain?
  KATHARINE. Madam, this glove.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Did he not send you twain?
  KATHARINE. Yes, madam; and, moreover,
    Some thousand verses of a faithful lover;
    A huge translation of hypocrisy,
    Vilely compil'd, profound simplicity.
  MARIA. This, and these pearl, to me sent Longaville;
    The letter is too long by half a mile.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart
    The chain were longer and the letter short?
  MARIA. Ay, or I would these hands might never part.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.
  ROSALINE. They are worse fools to purchase mocking so.
    That same Berowne I'll torture ere I go.
    O that I knew he were but in by th' week!
    How I would make him fawn, and beg, and seek,
    And wait the season, and observe the times,
    And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes,
    And shape his service wholly to my hests,
    And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
    So pertaunt-like would I o'ersway his state
    That he should be my fool, and I his fate.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. None are so surely caught, when they are
      catch'd,
    As wit turn'd fool; folly, in wisdom hatch'd,
    Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school,
    And wit's own grace to grace a learned fool.
  ROSALINE. The blood of youth burns not with such excess
    As gravity's revolt to wantonness.
  MARIA. Folly in fools bears not so strong a note
    As fool'ry in the wise when wit doth dote,
    Since all the power thereof it doth apply
    To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

                          Enter BOYET

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Here comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.
  BOYET. O, I am stabb'd with laughter! Where's her Grace?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Thy news, Boyet?
  BOYET. Prepare, madam, prepare!
    Arm, wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are
    Against your peace. Love doth approach disguis'd,
    Armed in arguments; you'll be surpris'd.
    Muster your wits; stand in your own defence;
    Or hide your heads like cowards, and fly hence.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Saint Dennis to Saint Cupid! What are they
    That charge their breath against us? Say, scout, say.
  BOYET. Under the cool shade of a sycamore
    I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour;
    When, lo, to interrupt my purpos'd rest,
    Toward that shade I might behold addrest
    The King and his companions; warily
    I stole into a neighbour thicket by,
    And overheard what you shall overhear-
    That, by and by, disguis'd they will be here.
    Their herald is a pretty knavish page,
    That well by heart hath conn'd his embassage.
    Action and accent did they teach him there:
    'Thus must thou speak' and 'thus thy body bear,'
    And ever and anon they made a doubt
    Presence majestical would put him out;
    'For' quoth the King 'an angel shalt thou see;
    Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.'
    The boy replied 'An angel is not evil;
    I should have fear'd her had she been a devil.'
    With that all laugh'd, and clapp'd him on the shoulder,
    Making the bold wag by their praises bolder.
    One rubb'd his elbow, thus, and fleer'd, and swore
    A better speech was never spoke before.
    Another with his finger and his thumb
    Cried 'Via! we will do't, come what will come.'
    The third he caper'd, and cried 'All goes well.'
    The fourth turn'd on the toe, and down he fell.
    With that they all did tumble on the ground,
    With such a zealous laughter, so profound,
    That in this spleen ridiculous appears,
    To check their folly, passion's solemn tears.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. But what, but what, come they to visit us?
  BOYET. They do, they do, and are apparell'd thus,
    Like Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.
    Their purpose is to parley, court, and dance;
    And every one his love-feat will advance
    Unto his several mistress; which they'll know
    By favours several which they did bestow.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And will they so? The gallants shall be task'd,
    For, ladies, we will every one be mask'd;
    And not a man of them shall have the grace,
    Despite of suit, to see a lady's face.
    Hold, Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,
    And then the King will court thee for his dear;
    Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,
    So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline.
    And change you favours too; so shall your loves
    Woo contrary, deceiv'd by these removes.
  ROSALINE. Come on, then, wear the favours most in sight.
  KATHARINE. But, in this changing, what is your intent?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The effect of my intent is to cross theirs.
    They do it but in mocking merriment,
    And mock for mock is only my intent.
    Their several counsels they unbosom shall
    To loves mistook, and so be mock'd withal
    Upon the next occasion that we meet
    With visages display'd to talk and greet.
  ROSALINE. But shall we dance, if they desire us to't?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, to the death, we will not move a foot,
    Nor to their penn'd speech render we no grace;
    But while 'tis spoke each turn away her face.
  BOYET. Why, that contempt will kill the speaker's heart,
    And quite divorce his memory from his part.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Therefore I do it; and I make no doubt
    The rest will ne'er come in, if he be out.
    There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown,
    To make theirs ours, and ours none but our own;
    So shall we stay, mocking intended game,
    And they well mock'd depart away with shame.
                                         [Trumpet sounds within]
  BOYET. The trumpet sounds; be mask'd; the maskers come.
                                               [The LADIES mask]

          Enter BLACKAMOORS music, MOTH as Prologue, the
     KING and his LORDS as maskers, in the guise of Russians

  MOTH. All hail, the richest heauties on the earth!
  BOYET. Beauties no richer than rich taffeta.
  MOTH. A holy parcel of the fairest dames
                            [The LADIES turn their backs to him]
    That ever turn'd their- backs- to mortal views!
  BEROWNE. Their eyes, villain, their eyes.
  MOTH. That ever turn'd their eyes to mortal views!
    Out-
  BOYET. True; out indeed.
  MOTH. Out of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe
    Not to behold-
  BEROWNE. Once to behold, rogue.
  MOTH. Once to behold with your sun-beamed eyes- with your
    sun-beamed eyes-
  BOYET. They will not answer to that epithet;
    You were best call it 'daughter-beamed eyes.'
  MOTH. They do not mark me, and that brings me out.
  BEROWNE. Is this your perfectness? Be gone, you rogue.
                                                       Exit MOTH
  ROSALINE. What would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet.
    If they do speak our language, 'tis our will
    That some plain man recount their purposes.
    Know what they would.
  BOYET. What would you with the Princess?
  BEROWNE. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.
  ROSALINE. What would they, say they?
  BOYET. Nothing but peace and gentle visitation.
  ROSALINE. Why, that they have; and bid them so be gone.
  BOYET. She says you have it, and you may be gone.
  KING. Say to her we have measur'd many miles
    To tread a measure with her on this grass.
  BOYET. They say that they have measur'd many a mile
    To tread a measure with you on this grass.
  ROSALINE. It is not so. Ask them how many inches
    Is in one mile? If they have measured many,
    The measure, then, of one is eas'ly told.
  BOYET. If to come hither you have measur'd miles,
    And many miles, the Princess bids you tell
    How many inches doth fill up one mile.
  BEROWNE. Tell her we measure them by weary steps.
  BOYET. She hears herself.
  ROSALINE. How many weary steps
    Of many weary miles you have o'ergone
    Are numb'red in the travel of one mile?
  BEROWNE. We number nothing that we spend for you;
    Our duty is so rich, so infinite,
    That we may do it still without accompt.
    Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,
    That we, like savages, may worship it.
  ROSALINE. My face is but a moon, and clouded too.
  KING. Blessed are clouds, to do as such clouds do.
    Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars, to shine,
    Those clouds removed, upon our watery eyne.
  ROSALINE. O vain petitioner! beg a greater matter;
    Thou now requests but moonshine in the water.
  KING. Then in our measure do but vouchsafe one change.
    Thou bid'st me beg; this begging is not strange.
  ROSALINE. Play, music, then. Nay, you must do it soon.
    Not yet? No dance! Thus change I like the moon.
  KING. Will you not dance? How come you thus estranged?
  ROSALINE. You took the moon at full; but now she's changed.
  KING. Yet still she is the Moon, and I the Man.
    The music plays; vouchsafe some motion to it.
  ROSALINE. Our ears vouchsafe it.
  KING. But your legs should do it.
  ROSALINE. Since you are strangers, and come here by chance,
    We'll not be nice; take hands. We will not dance.
  KING. Why take we hands then?
  ROSALINE. Only to part friends.
    Curtsy, sweet hearts; and so the measure ends.
  KING. More measure of this measure; be not nice.
  ROSALINE. We can afford no more at such a price.
  KING. Price you yourselves. What buys your company?
  ROSALINE. Your absence only.
  KING. That can never be.
  ROSALINE. Then cannot we be bought; and so adieu-
    Twice to your visor and half once to you.
  KING. If you deny to dance, let's hold more chat.
  ROSALINE. In private then.
  KING. I am best pleas'd with that.       [They converse apart]
  BEROWNE. White-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Honey, and milk, and sugar; there is three.
  BEROWNE. Nay, then, two treys, an if you grow so nice,
    Metheglin, wort, and malmsey; well run dice!
    There's half a dozen sweets.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Seventh sweet, adieu!
    Since you can cog, I'll play no more with you.
  BEROWNE. One word in secret.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Let it not be sweet.
  BEROWNE. Thou grievest my gall.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Gall! bitter.
  BEROWNE. Therefore meet.                 [They converse apart]
  DUMAIN. Will you vouchsafe with me to change a word?
  MARIA. Name it.
  DUMAIN. Fair lady-
  MARIA. Say you so? Fair lord-
    Take that for your fair lady.
  DUMAIN. Please it you,
    As much in private, and I'll bid adieu.
                                           [They converse apart]
  KATHARINE. What, was your vizard made without a tongue?
  LONGAVILLE. I know the reason, lady, why you ask.
  KATHARINE. O for your reason! Quickly, sir; I long.
  LONGAVILLE. You have a double tongue within your mask,
    And would afford my speechless vizard half.
  KATHARINE. 'Veal' quoth the Dutchman. Is not 'veal' a calf?
  LONGAVILLE. A calf, fair lady!
  KATHARINE. No, a fair lord calf.
  LONGAVILLE. Let's part the word.
  KATHARINE. No, I'll not be your half.
    Take all and wean it; it may prove an ox.
  LONGAVILLE. Look how you butt yourself in these sharp mocks!
    Will you give horns, chaste lady? Do not so.
  KATHARINE. Then die a calf, before your horns do grow.
  LONGAVILLE. One word in private with you ere I die.
  KATHARINE. Bleat softly, then; the butcher hears you cry.
                                           [They converse apart]
  BOYET. The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
    As is the razor's edge invisible,
    Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,
    Above the sense of sense; so sensible
    Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings,
    Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.
  ROSALINE. Not one word more, my maids; break off, break off.
  BEROWNE. By heaven, all dry-beaten with pure scoff!
  KING. Farewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.
                             Exeunt KING, LORDS, and BLACKAMOORS
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Twenty adieus, my frozen Muscovits.
    Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?
  BOYET. Tapers they are, with your sweet breaths puff'd out.
  ROSALINE. Well-liking wits they have; gross, gross; fat, fat.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. O poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout!
    Will they not, think you, hang themselves to-night?
    Or ever but in vizards show their faces?
    This pert Berowne was out of count'nance quite.
  ROSALINE. They were all in lamentable cases!
    The King was weeping-ripe for a good word.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Berowne did swear himself out of all suit.
  MARIA. Dumain was at my service, and his sword.
    'No point' quoth I; my servant straight was mute.
  KATHARINE. Lord Longaville said I came o'er his heart;
    And trow you what he call'd me?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Qualm, perhaps.
  KATHARINE. Yes, in good faith.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Go, sickness as thou art!
  ROSALINE. Well, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.
    But will you hear? The King is my love sworn.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And quick Berowne hath plighted faith to me.
  KATHARINE. And Longaville was for my service born.
  MARIA. Dumain is mine, as sure as bark on tree.
  BOYET. Madam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:
    Immediately they will again be here
    In their own shapes; for it can never be
    They will digest this harsh indignity.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Will they return?
  BOYET. They will, they will, God knows,
    And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows;
    Therefore, change favours; and, when they repair,
    Blow like sweet roses in this summer air.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.
  BOYET. Fair ladies mask'd are roses in their bud:
    Dismask'd, their damask sweet commixture shown,
    Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Avaunt, perplexity! What shall we do
    If they return in their own shapes to woo?
  ROSALINE. Good madam, if by me you'll be advis'd,
    Let's mock them still, as well known as disguis'd.
    Let us complain to them what fools were here,
    Disguis'd like Muscovites, in shapeless gear;
    And wonder what they were, and to what end
    Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penn'd,
    And their rough carriage so ridiculous,
    Should be presented at our tent to us.
  BOYET. Ladies, withdraw; the gallants are at hand.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Whip to our tents, as roes run o'er land.
                 Exeunt PRINCESS, ROSALINE, KATHARINE, and MARIA

         Re-enter the KING, BEROWNE, LONGAVILLE, and DUMAIN,
                        in their proper habits

  KING. Fair sir, God save you! Where's the Princess?
  BOYET. Gone to her tent. Please it your Majesty
    Command me any service to her thither?
  KING. That she vouchsafe me audience for one word.
  BOYET. I will; and so will she, I know, my lord.          Exit
  BEROWNE. This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease,
    And utters it again when God doth please.
    He is wit's pedlar, and retails his wares
    At wakes, and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs;
    And we that sell by gross, the Lord doth know,
    Have not the grace to grace it with such show.
    This gallant pins the wenches on his sleeve;
    Had he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.
    'A can carve too, and lisp; why this is he
    That kiss'd his hand away in courtesy;
    This is the ape of form, Monsieur the Nice,
    That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice
    In honourable terms; nay, he can sing
    A mean most meanly; and in ushering,
    Mend him who can. The ladies call him sweet;
    The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.
    This is the flow'r that smiles on every one,
    To show his teeth as white as whales-bone;
    And consciences that will not die in debt
    Pay him the due of 'honey-tongued Boyet.'
  KING. A blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,
    That put Armado's page out of his part!

        Re-enter the PRINCESS, ushered by BOYET; ROSALINE,
                      MARIA, and KATHARINE

  BEROWNE. See where it comes! Behaviour, what wert thou
    Till this man show'd thee? And what art thou now?
  KING. All hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'Fair' in 'all hail' is foul, as I conceive.
  KING. Construe my speeches better, if you may.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Then wish me better; I will give you leave.
  KING. We came to visit you, and purpose now
    To lead you to our court; vouchsafe it then.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. This field shall hold me, and so hold your vow:
    Nor God, nor I, delights in perjur'd men.
  KING. Rebuke me not for that which you provoke.
    The virtue of your eye must break my oath.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. You nickname virtue: vice you should have
      spoke;
    For virtue's office never breaks men's troth.
    Now by my maiden honour, yet as pure
    As the unsullied lily, I protest,
    A world of torments though I should endure,
    I would not yield to be your house's guest;
    So much I hate a breaking cause to be
    Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.
  KING. O, you have liv'd in desolation here,
    Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Not so, my lord; it is not so, I swear;
    We have had pastimes here, and pleasant game;
    A mess of Russians left us but of late.
  KING. How, madam! Russians!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Ay, in truth, my lord;
    Trim gallants, full of courtship and of state.
  ROSALINE. Madam, speak true. It is not so, my lord.
    My lady, to the manner of the days,
    In courtesy gives undeserving praise.
    We four indeed confronted were with four
    In Russian habit; here they stayed an hour
    And talk'd apace; and in that hour, my lord,
    They did not bless us with one happy word.
    I dare not call them fools; but this I think,
    When they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.
  BEROWNE. This jest is dry to me. Fair gentle sweet,
    Your wit makes wise things foolish; when we greet,
    With eyes best seeing, heaven's fiery eye,
    By light we lose light; your capacity
    Is of that nature that to your huge store
    Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.
  ROSALINE. This proves you wise and rich, for in my eye-
  BEROWNE. I am a fool, and full of poverty.
  ROSALINE. But that you take what doth to you belong,
    It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.
  BEROWNE. O, I am yours, and all that I possess.
  ROSALINE. All the fool mine?
  BEROWNE. I cannot give you less.
  ROSALINE. Which of the vizards was it that you wore?
  BEROWNE. Where? when? what vizard? Why demand you this?
  ROSALINE. There, then, that vizard; that superfluous case
    That hid the worse and show'd the better face.
  KING. We were descried; they'll mock us now downright.
  DUMAIN. Let us confess, and turn it to a jest.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Amaz'd, my lord? Why looks your Highness sad?
  ROSALINE. Help, hold his brows! he'll swoon! Why look you pale?
    Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.
  BEROWNE. Thus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.
    Can any face of brass hold longer out?
    Here stand I, lady- dart thy skill at me,
    Bruise me with scorn, confound me with a flout,
    Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,
    Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit;
    And I will wish thee never more to dance,
    Nor never more in Russian habit wait.
    O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd,
    Nor to the motion of a school-boy's tongue,
    Nor never come in vizard to my friend,
    Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song.
    Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,
    Three-pil'd hyperboles, spruce affectation,
    Figures pedantical- these summer-flies
    Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.
    I do forswear them; and I here protest,
    By this white glove- how white the hand, God knows!-
    Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd
    In russet yeas, and honest kersey noes.
    And, to begin, wench- so God help me, law!-
    My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.
  ROSALINE. Sans 'sans,' I pray you.
  BEROWNE. Yet I have a trick
    Of the old rage; bear with me, I am sick;
    I'll leave it by degrees. Soft, let us see-
    Write 'Lord have mercy on us' on those three;
    They are infected; in their hearts it lies;
    They have the plague, and caught it of your eyes.
    These lords are visited; you are not free,
    For the Lord's tokens on you do I see.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. No, they are free that gave these tokens to us.
  BEROWNE. Our states are forfeit; seek not to undo us.
  ROSALINE. It is not so; for how can this be true,
    That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?
  BEROWNE. Peace; for I will not have to do with you.
  ROSALINE. Nor shall not, if I do as I intend.
  BEROWNE. Speak for yourselves; my wit is at an end.
  KING. Teach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression
    Some fair excuse.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The fairest is confession.
    Were not you here but even now, disguis'd?
  KING. Madam, I was.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. And were you well advis'd?
  KING. I was, fair madam.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When you then were here,
    What did you whisper in your lady's ear?
  KING. That more than all the world I did respect her.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. When she shall challenge this, you will reject
    her.
  KING. Upon mine honour, no.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Peace, peace, forbear;
    Your oath once broke, you force not to forswear.
  KING. Despise me when I break this oath of mine.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I will; and therefore keep it. Rosaline,
    What did the Russian whisper in your ear?
  ROSALINE. Madam, he swore that he did hold me dear
    As precious eyesight, and did value me
    Above this world; adding thereto, moreover,
    That he would wed me, or else die my lover.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. God give thee joy of him! The noble lord
     Most honourably doth uphold his word.
  KING. What mean you, madam? By my life, my troth,
    I never swore this lady such an oath.
  ROSALINE. By heaven, you did; and, to confirm it plain,
    You gave me this; but take it, sir, again.
  KING. My faith and this the Princess I did give;
    I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Pardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear;
    And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.
    What, will you have me, or your pearl again?
 BEROWNE. Neither of either; I remit both twain.
    I see the trick on't: here was a consent,
    Knowing aforehand of our merriment,
    To dash it like a Christmas comedy.
    Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
    Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,
    That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick
    To make my lady laugh when she's dispos'd,
    Told our intents before; which once disclos'd,
    The ladies did change favours; and then we,
    Following the signs, woo'd but the sign of she.
    Now, to our perjury to add more terror,
    We are again forsworn in will and error.
    Much upon this it is; [To BOYET] and might not you
    Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?
    Do not you know my lady's foot by th' squier,
    And laugh upon the apple of her eye?
    And stand between her back, sir, and the fire,
    Holding a trencher, jesting merrily?
    You put our page out. Go, you are allow'd;
    Die when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.
    You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye
    Wounds like a leaden sword.
  BOYET. Full merrily
    Hath this brave manage, this career, been run.
  BEROWNE. Lo, he is tilting straight! Peace; I have done.

                          Enter COSTARD

    Welcome, pure wit! Thou part'st a fair fray.
  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, they would know
     Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no?
  BEROWNE. What, are there but three?
  COSTARD. No, sir; but it is vara fine,
    For every one pursents three.
  BEROWNE. And three times thrice is nine.
  COSTARD. Not so, sir; under correction, sir,
    I hope it is not so.
    You cannot beg us, sir, I can assure you, sir; we know what we
      know;
    I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir-
  BEROWNE. Is not nine.
  COSTARD. Under correction, sir, we know whereuntil it doth amount.
  BEROWNE. By Jove, I always took three threes for nine.
  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, it were pity you should get your living by
    reck'ning, sir.
  BEROWNE. How much is it?
  COSTARD. O Lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will
    show whereuntil it doth amount. For mine own part, I am, as they
    say, but to parfect one man in one poor man, Pompion the Great,
    sir.
  BEROWNE. Art thou one of the Worthies?
  COSTARD. It pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the Great;
    for mine own part, I know not the degree of the Worthy; but I am
    to stand for him.
  BEROWNE. Go, bid them prepare.
  COSTARD. We will turn it finely off, sir; we will take some care.
                                                    Exit COSTARD
  KING. Berowne, they will shame us; let them not approach.
  BEROWNE. We are shame-proof, my lord, and 'tis some policy
    To have one show worse than the King's and his company.
  KING. I say they shall not come.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Nay, my good lord, let me o'errule you now.
    That sport best pleases that doth least know how;
    Where zeal strives to content, and the contents
    Dies in the zeal of that which it presents.
    Their form confounded makes most form in mirth,
    When great things labouring perish in their birth.
  BEROWNE. A right description of our sport, my lord.

                        Enter ARMADO

  ARMADO. Anointed, I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet
    breath as will utter a brace of words.
           [Converses apart with the KING, and delivers a paper]
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Doth this man serve God?
  BEROWNE. Why ask you?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. 'A speaks not like a man of God his making.
  ARMADO. That is all one, my fair, sweet, honey monarch; for, I
    protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical; too too vain,
    too too vain; but we will put it, as they say, to fortuna de la
    guerra. I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement!
                                                     Exit ARMADO
  KING. Here is like to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents
    Hector of Troy; the swain, Pompey the Great; the parish curate,
    Alexander; Arinado's page, Hercules; the pedant, Judas
    Maccabaeus.
    And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive,
    These four will change habits and present the other five.
  BEROWNE. There is five in the first show.
  KING. You are deceived, 'tis not so.
  BEROWNE. The pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest, the fool, and
    the boy:
    Abate throw at novum, and the whole world again
    Cannot pick out five such, take each one in his vein.
  KING. The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.

                   Enter COSTARD, armed for POMPEY

  COSTARD. I Pompey am-
  BEROWNE. You lie, you are not he.
  COSTARD. I Pompey am-
  BOYET. With libbard's head on knee.
  BEROWNE. Well said, old mocker; I must needs be friends with thee.
  COSTARD. I Pompey am, Pompey surnam'd the Big-
   DUMAIN. The Great.
  COSTARD. It is Great, sir.
    Pompey surnam'd the Great,
    That oft in field, with targe and shield, did make my foe to
      sweat;
    And travelling along this coast, I bere am come by chance,
    And lay my arms before the legs of this sweet lass of France.

    If your ladyship would say 'Thanks, Pompey,' I had done.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Great thanks, great Pompey.
  COSTARD. 'Tis not so much worth; but I hope I was perfect.
    I made a little fault in Great.
  BEROWNE. My hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.

                 Enter SIR NATHANIEL, for ALEXANDER

  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander;
    By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might.
    My scutcheon plain declares that I am Alisander-
  BOYET. Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands to right.
  BEROWNE. Your nose smells 'no' in this, most tender-smelling
    knight.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good
    Alexander.
  NATHANIEL. When in the world I liv'd, I was the world's commander-
  BOYET. Most true, 'tis right, you were so, Alisander.
  BEROWNE. Pompey the Great!
  COSTARD. Your servant, and Costard.
  BEROWNE. Take away the conqueror, take away Alisander.
  COSTARD. [To Sir Nathaniel] O, Sir, you have overthrown Alisander
    the conqueror! You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth for
    this. Your lion, that holds his poleaxe sitting on a close-stool,
    will be given to Ajax. He will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror
    and afeard to speak! Run away for shame, Alisander.
    [Sir Nathaniel retires] There, an't shall please you, a foolish
    mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dash'd. He is a
    marvellous good neighbour, faith, and a very good bowler; but for
    Alisander- alas! you see how 'tis- a little o'erparted. But there
    are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Stand aside, good Pompey.

         Enter HOLOFERNES, for JUDAS; and MOTH, for HERCULES

  HOLOFERNES. Great Hercules is presented by this imp,
    Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that three-headed canus;
    And when be was a babe, a child, a shrimp,
    Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus.
    Quoniam he seemeth in minority,
    Ergo I come with this apology.
    Keep some state in thy exit, and vanish.      [MOTH retires]
    Judas I am-
  DUMAIN. A Judas!
  HOLOFERNES. Not Iscariot, sir.
    Judas I am, ycliped Maccabaeus.
  DUMAIN. Judas Maccabaeus clipt is plain Judas.
  BEROWNE. A kissing traitor. How art thou prov'd Judas?
  HOLOFERNES. Judas I am-
  DUMAIN. The more shame for you, Judas!
  HOLOFERNES. What mean you, sir?
  BOYET. To make Judas hang himself.
  HOLOFERNES. Begin, sir; you are my elder.
  BEROWNE. Well followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.
  HOLOFERNES. I will not be put out of countenance.
  BEROWNE. Because thou hast no face.
  HOLOFERNES. What is this?
  BOYET. A cittern-head.
  DUMAIN. The head of a bodkin.
  BEROWNE. A death's face in a ring.
  LONGAVILLE. The face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.
  BOYET. The pommel of Coesar's falchion.
  DUMAIN. The carv'd-bone face on a flask.
  BEROWNE. Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch.
  DUMAIN. Ay, and in a brooch of lead.
  BEROWNE. Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. And now,
    forward; for we have put thee in countenance.
  HOLOFERNES. You have put me out of countenance.
  BEROWNE. False: we have given thee faces.
  HOLOFERNES. But you have outfac'd them all.
  BEROWNE. An thou wert a lion we would do so.
  BOYET. Therefore, as he is an ass, let him go.
    And so adieu, sweet Jude! Nay, why dost thou stay?
  DUMAIN. For the latter end of his name.
  BEROWNE. For the ass to the Jude; give it him- Jud-as, away.
  HOLOFERNES. This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.
  BOYET. A light for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may stumble.
                                            [HOLOFERNES retires]
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Alas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!

                   Enter ARMADO, for HECTOR

  BEROWNE. Hide thy head, Achilles; here comes Hector in arms.
  DUMAIN. Though my mocks come home by me, I will now be merry.
  KING. Hector was but a Troyan in respect of this.
  BOYET. But is this Hector?
  DUMAIN. I think Hector was not so clean-timber'd.
  LONGAVILLE. His leg is too big for Hector's.
  DUMAIN. More calf, certain.
  BOYET. No; he is best indued in the small.
  BEROWNE. This cannot be Hector.
  DUMAIN. He's a god or a painter, for he makes faces.
  ARMADO. The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
    Gave Hector a gift-
  DUMAIN. A gilt nutmeg.
  BEROWNE. A lemon.
  LONGAVILLE. Stuck with cloves.
  DUMAIN. No, cloven.
  ARMADO. Peace!
    The armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty,
    Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;
    A man so breathed that certain he would fight ye,
    From morn till night out of his pavilion.
    I am that flower-
  DUMAIN. That mint.
  LONGAVILLE. That columbine.
  ARMADO. Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue.
  LONGAVILLE. I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against
    Hector.
  DUMAIN. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound.
  ARMADO. The sweet war-man is dead and rotten; sweet chucks, beat
    not the bones of the buried; when he breathed, he was a man. But
    I will forward with my device. [To the PRINCESS] Sweet royalty,
    bestow on me the sense of hearing.

          [BEROWNE steps forth, and speaks to COSTARD]

  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Speak, brave Hector; we are much delighted.
  ARMADO. I do adore thy sweet Grace's slipper.
  BOYET. [Aside to DUMAIN] Loves her by the foot.
  DUMAIN. [Aside to BOYET] He may not by the yard.
  ARMADO. This Hector far surmounted Hannibal-
  COSTARD. The party is gone, fellow Hector, she is gone; she is two
    months on her way.
  ARMADO. What meanest thou?
  COSTARD. Faith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench
    is cast away. She's quick; the child brags in her belly already;
    'tis yours.
  ARMADO. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? Thou shalt die.
  COSTARD. Then shall Hector be whipt for Jaquenetta that is quick by
    him, and hang'd for Pompey that is dead by him.
  DUMAIN. Most rare Pompey!
  BOYET. Renowned Pompey!
  BEROWNE. Greater than Great! Great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the
    Huge!
  DUMAIN. Hector trembles.
  BEROWNE. Pompey is moved. More Ates, more Ates! Stir them on! stir
    them on!
  DUMAIN. Hector will challenge him.
  BEROWNE. Ay, if 'a have no more man's blood in his belly than will
    sup a flea.
  ARMADO. By the North Pole, I do challenge thee.
  COSTARD. I will not fight with a pole, like a Northern man; I'll
    slash; I'll do it by the sword. I bepray you, let me borrow my
    arms again.
  DUMAIN. Room for the incensed Worthies!
  COSTARD. I'll do it in my shirt.
  DUMAIN. Most resolute Pompey!
  MOTH. Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower. Do you not see
    Pompey is uncasing for the combat? What mean you? You will lose
    your reputation.
  ARMADO. Gentlemen and soldiers, pardon me; I will not combat in my
    shirt.
  DUMAIN. You may not deny it: Pompey hath made the challenge.
  ARMADO. Sweet bloods, I both may and will.
  BEROWNE. What reason have you for 't?
  ARMADO. The naked truth of it is: I have no shirt; I go woolward
    for penance.
  BOYET. True, and it was enjoined him in Rome for want of linen;
    since when, I'll be sworn, he wore none but a dishclout of
    Jaquenetta's, and that 'a wears next his heart for a favour.

                 Enter as messenger, MONSIEUR MARCADE

  MARCADE. God save you, madam!
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Welcome, Marcade;
    But that thou interruptest our merriment.
  MARCADE. I am sorry, madam; for the news I bring
    Is heavy in my tongue. The King your father-
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Dead, for my life!
  MARCADE. Even so; my tale is told.
  BEROWNE. WOrthies away; the scene begins to cloud.
  ARMADO. For mine own part, I breathe free breath. I have seen the
    day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will
    right myself like a soldier.                 Exeunt WORTHIES
  KING. How fares your Majesty?
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night.
  KING. Madam, not so; I do beseech you stay.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Prepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,
    For all your fair endeavours, and entreat,
    Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
    In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide
    The liberal opposition of our spirits,
    If over-boldly we have borne ourselves
    In the converse of breath- your gentleness
    Was guilty of it. Farewell, worthy lord.
    A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.
    Excuse me so, coming too short of thanks
    For my great suit so easily obtain'd.
  KING. The extreme parts of time extremely forms
    All causes to the purpose of his speed;
    And often at his very loose decides
    That which long process could not arbitrate.
    And though the mourning brow of progeny
    Forbid the smiling courtesy of love
    The holy suit which fain it would convince,
    Yet, since love's argument was first on foot,
    Let not the cloud of sorrow justle it
    From what it purpos'd; since to wail friends lost
    Is not by much so wholesome-profitable
    As to rejoice at friends but newly found.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. I understand you not; my griefs are double.
  BEROWNE. Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief;
    And by these badges understand the King.
    For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
    Play'd foul play with our oaths; your beauty, ladies,
    Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humours
    Even to the opposed end of our intents;
    And what in us hath seem'd ridiculous,
    As love is full of unbefitting strains,
    All wanton as a child, skipping and vain;
    Form'd by the eye and therefore, like the eye,
    Full of strange shapes, of habits, and of forms,
    Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll
    To every varied object in his glance;
    Which parti-coated presence of loose love
    Put on by us, if in your heavenly eyes
    Have misbecom'd our oaths and gravities,
    Those heavenly eyes that look into these faults
    Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,
    Our love being yours, the error that love makes
    Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false,
    By being once false for ever to be true
    To those that make us both- fair ladies, you;
    And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,
    Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. We have receiv'd your letters, full of love;
    Your favours, the ambassadors of love;
    And, in our maiden council, rated them
    At courtship, pleasant jest, and courtesy,
    As bombast and as lining to the time;
    But more devout than this in our respects
    Have we not been; and therefore met your loves
    In their own fashion, like a merriment.
  DUMAIN. Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest.
  LONGAVILLE. So did our looks.
  ROSALINE. We did not quote them so.
  KING. Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
    Grant us your loves.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. A time, methinks, too short
    To make a world-without-end bargain in.
    No, no, my lord, your Grace is perjur'd much,
    Full of dear guiltiness; and therefore this,
    If for my love, as there is no such cause,
    You will do aught- this shall you do for me:
    Your oath I will not trust; but go with speed
    To some forlorn and naked hermitage,
    Remote from all the pleasures of the world;
    There stay until the twelve celestial signs
    Have brought about the annual reckoning.
    If this austere insociable life
    Change not your offer made in heat of blood,
    If frosts and fasts, hard lodging and thin weeds,
    Nip not the gaudy blossoms of your love,
    But that it bear this trial, and last love,
    Then, at the expiration of the year,
    Come, challenge me, challenge me by these deserts;
    And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine,
    I will be thine; and, till that instant, shut
    My woeful self up in a mournful house,
    Raining the tears of lamentation
    For the remembrance of my father's death.
    If this thou do deny, let our hands part,
    Neither intitled in the other's heart.
  KING. If this, or more than this, I would deny,
    To flatter up these powers of mine with rest,
    The sudden hand of death close up mine eye!
    Hence hermit then, my heart is in thy breast.
  BEROWNE. And what to me, my love? and what to me?
  ROSALINE. You must he purged too, your sins are rack'd;
    You are attaint with faults and perjury;
    Therefore, if you my favour mean to get,
    A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest,
    But seek the weary beds of people sick.
  DUMAIN. But what to me, my love? but what to me?
    A wife?
  KATHARINE. A beard, fair health, and honesty;
    With threefold love I wish you all these three.
  DUMAIN. O, shall I say I thank you, gentle wife?
  KATHARINE. No so, my lord; a twelvemonth and a day
    I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say.
    Come when the King doth to my lady come;
    Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some.
  DUMAIN. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then.
  KATHARINE. Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.
  LONGAVILLE. What says Maria?
  MARIA. At the twelvemonth's end
    I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend.
  LONGAVILLE. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long.
  MARIA. The liker you; few taller are so young.
  BEROWNE. Studies my lady? Mistress, look on me;
    Behold the window of my heart, mine eye,
    What humble suit attends thy answer there.
    Impose some service on me for thy love.
  ROSALINE. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,
    Before I saw you; and the world's large tongue
    Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks,
    Full of comparisons and wounding flouts,
    Which you on all estates will execute
    That lie within the mercy of your wit.
    To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain,
    And therewithal to win me, if you please,
    Without the which I am not to be won,
    You shall this twelvemonth term from day to day
    Visit the speechless sick, and still converse
    With groaning wretches; and your task shall be,
    With all the fierce endeavour of your wit,
    To enforce the pained impotent to smile.
  BEROWNE. To move wild laughter in the throat of death?
    It cannot be; it is impossible;
    Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.
  ROSALINE. Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit,
    Whose influence is begot of that loose grace
    Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.
    A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
    Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
    Of him that makes it; then, if sickly ears,
    Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear groans,
    Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,
    And I will have you and that fault withal.
    But if they will not, throw away that spirit,
    And I shall find you empty of that fault,
    Right joyful of your reformation.
  BEROWNE. A twelvemonth? Well, befall what will befall,
    I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. [ To the King] Ay, sweet my lord, and so I take
    my leave.
  KING. No, madam; we will bring you on your way.
  BEROWNE. Our wooing doth not end like an old play:
    Jack hath not Jill. These ladies' courtesy
    Might well have made our sport a comedy.
  KING. Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth an' a day,
    And then 'twill end.
  BEROWNE. That's too long for a play.

                          Re-enter ARMADO

  ARMADO. Sweet Majesty, vouchsafe me-
  PRINCESS OF FRANCE. Was not that not Hector?
  DUMAIN. The worthy knight of Troy.
  ARMADO. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a
    votary: I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her
    sweet love three year. But, most esteemed greatness, will you
    hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in
    praise of the Owl and the Cuckoo? It should have followed in the
    end of our show.
  KING. Call them forth quickly; we will do so.
  ARMADO. Holla! approach.

                            Enter All

    This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring- the one
    maintained by the Owl, th' other by the Cuckoo. Ver, begin.

                      SPRING
         When daisies pied and violets blue
         And lady-smocks all silver-white
         And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
         Do paint the meadows with delight,
         The cuckoo then on every tree
         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
              'Cuckoo;
         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,
         Unpleasing to a married ear!

         When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
         And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks;
         When turtles tread, and rooks and daws,
         And maidens bleach their summer smocks;
         The cuckoo then on every tree
         Mocks married men, for thus sings he:
              'Cuckoo;
         Cuckoo, cuckoo'- O word of fear,
         Unpleasing to a married ear!

                    WINTER

         When icicles hang by the wall,
         And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
         And Tom bears logs into the hall,
         And milk comes frozen home in pail,
         When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
         Then nightly sings the staring owl:
              'Tu-who;
         Tu-whit, Tu-who'- A merry note,
         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

         When all aloud the wind doth blow,
         And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
         And birds sit brooding in the snow,
         And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
         When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
         Then nightly sings the staring owl:
              'Tu-who;
         Tu-whit, To-who'- A merry note,
         While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

  ARMADO. The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.
    You that way: we this way.                            Exeunt

THE END

1606



THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

Dramatis Personae

  DUNCAN, King of Scotland
  MACBETH, Thane of Glamis and Cawdor, a general in the King's army
  LADY MACBETH, his wife
  MACDUFF, Thane of Fife, a nobleman of Scotland
  LADY MACDUFF, his wife
  MALCOLM, elder son of Duncan
  DONALBAIN, younger son of Duncan
  BANQUO, Thane of Lochaber, a general in the King's army
  FLEANCE, his son
  LENNOX, nobleman of Scotland
  ROSS, nobleman of Scotland
  MENTEITH nobleman of Scotland
  ANGUS, nobleman of Scotland
  CAITHNESS, nobleman of Scotland
  SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland, general of the English forces
  YOUNG SIWARD, his son
  SEYTON, attendant to Macbeth
  HECATE, Queen of the Witches
  The Three Witches
  Boy, Son of Macduff
  Gentlewoman attending on Lady Macbeth
  An English Doctor
  A Scottish Doctor
  A Sergeant
  A Porter
  An Old Man
  The Ghost of Banquo and other Apparitions
  Lords, Gentlemen, Officers, Soldiers, Murtherers, Attendants,
     and Messengers

SCENE: Scotland and England

ACT I. SCENE I. A desert place. Thunder and lightning.

Enter three Witches.

  FIRST WITCH. When shall we three meet again?
    In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
  SECOND WITCH. When the hurlyburly's done,
    When the battle's lost and won.
  THIRD WITCH. That will be ere the set of sun.
  FIRST WITCH. Where the place?
  SECOND WITCH. Upon the heath.
  THIRD WITCH. There to meet with Macbeth.
  FIRST WITCH. I come, Graymalkin.
  ALL. Paddock calls. Anon!
    Fair is foul, and foul is fair.
    Hover through the fog and filthy air.                Exeunt.

SCENE II. A camp near Forres. Alarum within.

Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a
bleeding Sergeant.

  DUNCAN. What bloody man is that? He can report,
    As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
    The newest state.
  MALCOLM. This is the sergeant
    Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
    'Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
    Say to the King the knowledge of the broil
    As thou didst leave it.
  SERGEANT. Doubtful it stood,
    As two spent swimmers that do cling together
    And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald-
    Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
    The multiplying villainies of nature
    Do swarm upon him -from the Western Isles
    Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
    And Fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
    Show'd like a rebel's whore. But all's too weak;
    For brave Macbeth -well he deserves that name-
    Disdaining Fortune, with his brandish'd steel,
    Which smoked with bloody execution,
    Like Valor's minion carved out his passage
    Till he faced the slave,
    Which ne'er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
    Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps,
    And fix'd his head upon our battlements.
  DUNCAN. O valiant cousin! Worthy gentleman!
  SERGEANT. As whence the sun 'gins his reflection
    Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders break,
    So from that spring whence comfort seem'd to come
    Discomfort swells. Mark, King of Scotland, mark.
    No sooner justice had, with valor arm'd,
    Compell'd these skipping kerns to trust their heels,
    But the Norweyan lord, surveying vantage,
    With furbish'd arms and new supplies of men,
    Began a fresh assault.
  DUNCAN. Dismay'd not this
    Our captains, Macbeth and Banquo.?
  SERGEANT. Yes,
    As sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.
    If I say sooth, I must report they were
    As cannons overcharged with double cracks,
    So they
    Doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.
    Except they meant to bathe in reeking wounds,
    Or memorize another Golgotha,
    I cannot tell-
    But I am faint; my gashes cry for help.
  DUNCAN. So well thy words become thee as thy wounds;
    They smack of honor both. Go get him surgeons.
                                        Exit Sergeant, attended.
    Who comes here?

                       Enter Ross.

  MALCOLM The worthy Thane of Ross.
  LENNOX. What a haste looks through his eyes! So should he look
    That seems to speak things strange.
  ROSS. God save the King!
  DUNCAN. Whence camest thou, worthy Thane?
  ROSS. From Fife, great King,
    Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky
    And fan our people cold.
    Norway himself, with terrible numbers,
    Assisted by that most disloyal traitor
    The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal conflict,
    Till that Bellona's bridegroom, lapp'd in proof,
    Confronted him with self-comparisons,
    Point against point rebellious, arm 'gainst arm,
    Curbing his lavish spirit; and, to conclude,
    The victory fell on us.
  DUNCAN. Great happiness!
  ROSS. That now
    Sweno, the Norways' king, craves composition;
    Nor would we deign him burial of his men
    Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's Inch,
    Ten thousand dollars to our general use.
  DUNCAN. No more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive
    Our bosom interest. Go pronounce his present death,
    And with his former title greet Macbeth.
  ROSS. I'll see it done.
  DUNCAN. What he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE III. A heath. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches.

  FIRST WITCH. Where hast thou been, sister?
  SECOND WITCH. Killing swine.
  THIRD WITCH. Sister, where thou?
  FIRST WITCH. A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap,
    And mounch'd, and mounch'd, and mounch'd. "Give me," quoth I.
    "Aroint thee, witch!" the rump-fed ronyon cries.
    Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master the Tiger;
    But in a sieve I'll thither sail,
    And, like a rat without a tail,
    I'll do, I'll do, and I'll do.
  SECOND WITCH. I'll give thee a wind.
  FIRST WITCH. Thou'rt kind.
  THIRD WITCH. And I another.
  FIRST WITCH. I myself have all the other,
    And the very ports they blow,
    All the quarters that they know
    I' the shipman's card.
    I will drain him dry as hay:
    Sleep shall neither night nor day
    Hang upon his penthouse lid;
    He shall live a man forbid.
    Weary se'nnights nine times nine
    Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine;
    Though his bark cannot be lost,
    Yet it shall be tempest-toss'd.
    Look what I have.
  SECOND WITCH. Show me, show me.
  FIRST WITCH. Here I have a pilot's thumb,
    Wreck'd as homeward he did come.                Drum within.
  THIRD WITCH. A drum, a drum!
    Macbeth doth come.
  ALL. The weird sisters, hand in hand,
    Posters of the sea and land,
    Thus do go about, about,
    Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine,
    And thrice again, to make up nine.
    Peace! The charm's wound up.

                 Enter Macbeth and Banquo.

  MACBETH. So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
  BANQUO. How far is't call'd to Forres? What are these
    So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
    That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
    And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
    That man may question? You seem to understand me,
    By each at once her choppy finger laying
    Upon her skinny lips. You should be women,
    And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
    That you are so.
  MACBETH. Speak, if you can. What are you?
  FIRST WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
  SECOND WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
  THIRD WITCH. All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be King hereafter!
  BANQUO. Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear
    Things that do sound so fair? I' the name of truth,
    Are ye fantastical or that indeed
    Which outwardly ye show? My noble partner
    You greet with present grace and great prediction
    Of noble having and of royal hope,
    That he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not.
    If you can look into the seeds of time,
    And say which grain will grow and which will not,
    Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
    Your favors nor your hate.
  FIRST WITCH. Hail!
  SECOND WITCH. Hail!
  THIRD WITCH. Hail!
  FIRST WITCH. Lesser than Macbeth, and greater.
  SECOND WITCH. Not so happy, yet much happier.
  THIRD WITCH. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.
    So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!
  FIRST WITCH. Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!
  MACBETH. Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more.
    By Sinel's death I know I am Thane of Glamis;
    But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,
    A prosperous gentleman; and to be King
    Stands not within the prospect of belief,
    No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence
    You owe this strange intelligence, or why
    Upon this blasted heath you stop our way
    With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.
                                                 Witches vanish.
  BANQUO. The earth hath bubbles as the water has,
    And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
  MACBETH. Into the air, and what seem'd corporal melted
    As breath into the wind. Would they had stay'd!
  BANQUO. Were such things here as we do speak about?
    Or have we eaten on the insane root
    That takes the reason prisoner?
  MACBETH. Your children shall be kings.
  BANQUO. You shall be King.
  MACBETH. And Thane of Cawdor too. Went it not so?
  BANQUO. To the selfsame tune and words. Who's here?

                Enter Ross and Angus.

  ROSS. The King hath happily received, Macbeth,
    The news of thy success; and when he reads
    Thy personal venture in the rebels' fight,
    His wonders and his praises do contend
    Which should be thine or his. Silenced with that,
    In viewing o'er the rest o' the selfsame day,
    He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks,
    Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make,
    Strange images of death. As thick as hail
    Came post with post, and every one did bear
    Thy praises in his kingdom's great defense,
    And pour'd them down before him.
  ANGUS. We are sent
    To give thee, from our royal master, thanks;
    Only to herald thee into his sight,
    Not pay thee.
  ROSS. And for an earnest of a greater honor,
    He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor.
    In which addition, hail, most worthy Thane,
    For it is thine.
  BANQUO. What, can the devil speak true?
  MACBETH. The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me
    In borrow'd robes?
  ANGUS. Who was the Thane lives yet,
    But under heavy judgement bears that life
    Which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined
    With those of Norway, or did line the rebel
    With hidden help and vantage, or that with both
    He labor'd in his country's wreck, I know not;
    But treasons capital, confess'd and proved,
    Have overthrown him.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Glamis, and Thane of Cawdor!
    The greatest is behind. [To Ross and Angus] Thanks for your
      pains.
    [Aside to Banquo] Do you not hope your children shall be kings,
    When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me
    Promised no less to them?
  BANQUO. [Aside to Macbeth.] That, trusted home,
    Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
    Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But 'tis strange;
    And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
    The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
    Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
    In deepest consequence-
    Cousins, a word, I pray you.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Two truths are told,
    As happy prologues to the swelling act
    Of the imperial theme-I thank you, gentlemen.
    [Aside.] This supernatural soliciting
    Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
    Why hath it given me earnest of success,
    Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.
    If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
    Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
    And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
    Against the use of nature? Present fears
    Are less than horrible imaginings:
    My thought, whose murther yet is but fantastical,
    Shakes so my single state of man that function
    Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
    But what is not.
  BANQUO. Look, how our partner's rapt.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] If chance will have me King, why, chance may
      crown me
    Without my stir.
  BANQUO. New honors come upon him,
    Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould
    But with the aid of use.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Come what come may,
    Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
  BANQUO. Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.
  MACBETH. Give me your favor; my dull brain was wrought
    With things forgotten. Kind gentlemen, your pains
    Are register'd where every day I turn
    The leaf to read them. Let us toward the King.
    Think upon what hath chanced, and at more time,
    The interim having weigh'd it, let us speak
    Our free hearts each to other.
  BANQUO. Very gladly.
  MACBETH. Till then, enough. Come, friends.             Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Forres. The palace.

Flourish. Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, and Attendants.

  DUNCAN. Is execution done on Cawdor? Are not
    Those in commission yet return'd?
  MALCOLM. My liege,
    They are not yet come back. But I have spoke
    With one that saw him die, who did report
    That very frankly he confess'd his treasons,
    Implored your Highness' pardon, and set forth
    A deep repentance. Nothing in his life
    Became him like the leaving it; he died
    As one that had been studied in his death,
    To throw away the dearest thing he owed
    As 'twere a careless trifle.
  DUNCAN. There's no art
    To find the mind's construction in the face:
    He was a gentleman on whom I built
    An absolute trust.

             Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross, and Angus.

    O worthiest cousin!
    The sin of my ingratitude even now
    Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before,
    That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
    To overtake thee. Would thou hadst less deserved,
    That the proportion both of thanks and payment
    Might have been mine! Only I have left to say,
    More is thy due than more than all can pay.
  MACBETH. The service and the loyalty lowe,
    In doing it, pays itself. Your Highness' part
    Is to receive our duties, and our duties
    Are to your throne and state, children and servants,
    Which do but what they should, by doing everything
    Safe toward your love and honor.
  DUNCAN. Welcome hither.
    I have begun to plant thee, and will labor
    To make thee full of growing. Noble Banquo,
    That hast no less deserved, nor must be known
    No less to have done so; let me infold thee
    And hold thee to my heart.
  BANQUO. There if I grow,
    The harvest is your own.
  DUNCAN. My plenteous joys,
    Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves
    In drops of sorrow. Sons, kinsmen, thanes,
    And you whose places are the nearest, know
    We will establish our estate upon
    Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter
    The Prince of Cumberland; which honor must
    Not unaccompanied invest him only,
    But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine
    On all deservers. From hence to Inverness,
    And bind us further to you.
  MACBETH. The rest is labor, which is not used for you.
    I'll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful
    The hearing of my wife with your approach;
    So humbly take my leave.
  DUNCAN. My worthy Cawdor!
  MACBETH. [Aside.] The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
    On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,
    For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
    Let not light see my black and deep desires.
    The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be
    Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.          Exit.
  DUNCAN. True, worthy Banquo! He is full so valiant,
    And in his commendations I am fed;
    It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,
    Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome.
    It is a peerless kinsman.                  Flourish. Exeunt.

SCENE V. Inverness. Macbeth's castle.

Enter Lady Macbeth, reading a letter.

  LADY MACBETH. "They met me in the day of success, and I have learned
  by the perfectest report they have more in them than mortal
  knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they
  made themselves air, into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in
  the wonder of it, came missives from the King, who all-hailed me
  'Thane of Cawdor'; by which title, before, these weird sisters
  saluted me and referred me to the coming on of time with 'Hail, King
  that shalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest
  partner of greatness, that thou mightst not lose the dues of
  rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay
  it to thy heart, and farewell."

    Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
    What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature.
    It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
    To catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great;
    Art not without ambition, but without
    The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,
    That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
    And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou'ldst have, great Glamis,
    That which cries, "Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
    And that which rather thou dost fear to do
    Than wishest should be undone." Hie thee hither,
    That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
    And chastise with the valor of my tongue
    All that impedes thee from the golden round,
    Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
    To have thee crown'd withal.

                     Enter a Messenger.

    What is your tidings?
  MESSENGER. The King comes here tonight.
  LADY MACBETH. Thou'rt mad to say it!
    Is not thy master with him? who, were't so,
    Would have inform'd for preparation.
  MESSENGER. So please you, it is true; our Thane is coming.
    One of my fellows had the speed of him,
    Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
    Than would make up his message.
  LADY MACBETH. Give him tending;
    He brings great news.                        Exit Messenger.
    The raven himself is hoarse
    That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
    Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
    That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here
    And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
    Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
    Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
    That no compunctious visitings of nature
    Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between
    The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
    And take my milk for gall, your murthering ministers,
    Wherever in your sightless substances
    You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
    And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
    That my keen knife see not the wound it makes
    Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
    To cry, "Hold, hold!"

                    Enter Macbeth.

    Great Glamis! Worthy Cawdor!
    Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
    Thy letters have transported me beyond
    This ignorant present, and I feel now
    The future in the instant.
  MACBETH. My dearest love,
    Duncan comes here tonight.
  LADY MACBETH. And when goes hence?
  MACBETH. Tomorrow, as he purposes.
  LADY MACBETH. O, never
    Shall sun that morrow see!
    Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men
    May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
    Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
    Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower,
    But be the serpent under it. He that's coming
    Must be provided for; and you shall put
    This night's great business into my dispatch,
    Which shall to all our nights and days to come
    Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
  MACBETH. We will speak further.
  LADY MACBETH. Only look up clear;
    To alter favor ever is to fear.
    Leave all the rest to me.                            Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Before Macbeth's castle.  Hautboys and torches.

Enter Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus,
and Attendants.

  DUNCAN. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
    Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
    Unto our gentle senses.
  BANQUO. This guest of summer,
    The temple-haunting martlet, does approve
    By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath
    Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze,
    Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird
    Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle;
    Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed
    The air is delicate.

                     Enter Lady Macbeth.

  DUNCAN. See, see, our honor'd hostess!
    The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
    Which still we thank as love. Herein I teach you
    How you shall bid God 'ield us for your pains,
    And thank us for your trouble.
  LADY MACBETH. All our service
    In every point twice done, and then done double,
    Were poor and single business to contend
    Against those honors deep and broad wherewith
    Your Majesty loads our house. For those of old,
    And the late dignities heap'd up to them,
    We rest your hermits.
  DUNCAN. Where's the Thane of Cawdor?
    We coursed him at the heels and had a purpose
    To be his purveyor; but he rides well,
    And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
    To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,
    We are your guest tonight.
  LADY MACBETH. Your servants ever
    Have theirs, themselves, and what is theirs, in compt,
    To make their audit at your Highness' pleasure,
    Still to return your own.
  DUNCAN. Give me your hand;
    Conduct me to mine host. We love him highly,
    And shall continue our graces towards him.
    By your leave, hostess.                              Exeunt.

SCENE VII Macbeth's castle.  Hautboys and torches.

Enter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service, who pass
over the stage.  Then enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
    It were done quickly. If the assassination
    Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
    With his surcease, success; that but this blow
    Might be the be-all and the end-all -here,
    But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
    We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
    We still have judgement here, that we but teach
    Bloody instructions, which being taught return
    To plague the inventor. This even-handed justice
    Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
    To our own lips. He's here in double trust:
    First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
    Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
    Who should against his murtherer shut the door,
    Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
    Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
    So clear in his great office, that his virtues
    Will plead like angels trumpet-tongued against
    The deep damnation of his taking-off,
    And pity, like a naked new-born babe
    Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin horsed
    Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
    Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
    That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
    To prick the sides of my intent, but only
    Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
    And falls on the other.

                 Enter Lady Macbeth.

    How now, what news?
  LADY MACBETH. He has almost supp'd. Why have you left the chamber?
  MACBETH. Hath he ask'd for me?
  LADY MACBETH. Know you not he has?
  MACBETH. We will proceed no further in this business:
    He hath honor'd me of late, and I have bought
    Golden opinions from all sorts of people,
    Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,
    Not cast aside so soon.
  LADY MACBETH. Was the hope drunk
    Wherein you dress'd yourself? Hath it slept since?
    And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
    At what it did so freely? From this time
    Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard
    To be the same in thine own act and valor
    As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
    Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life
    And live a coward in thine own esteem,
    Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would"
    Like the poor cat i' the adage?
  MACBETH. Prithee, peace!
    I dare do all that may become a man;
    Who dares do more is none.
  LADY MACBETH. What beast wast then
    That made you break this enterprise to me?
    When you durst do it, then you were a man,
    And, to be more than what you were, you would
    Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
    Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.
    They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
    Does unmake you. I have given suck and know
    How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me-
    I would, while it was smiling in my face,
    Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums
    And dash'd the brains out had I so sworn as you
    Have done to this.
  MACBETH. If we should fail?
  LADY MACBETH. We fail?
    But screw your courage to the sticking-place
    And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep-
    Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey
    Soundly invite him- his two chamberlains
    Will I with wine and wassail so convince
    That memory, the warder of the brain,
    Shall be a fume and the receipt of reason
    A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep
    Their drenched natures lie as in a death,
    What cannot you and I perform upon
    The unguarded Duncan? What not put upon
    His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt
    Of our great quell?
  MACBETH. Bring forth men-children only,
    For thy undaunted mettle should compose
    Nothing but males. Will it not be received,
    When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy two
    Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,
    That they have done't?
  LADY MACBETH. Who dares receive it other,
    As we shall make our griefs and clamor roar
    Upon his death?
  MACBETH. I am settled and bend up
    Each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
    Away, and mock the time with fairest show:
    False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
                                                         Exeunt.

ACT II. SCENE I. Inverness. Court of Macbeth's castle.

Enter Banquo and Fleance, bearing a torch before him.

  BANQUO. How goes the night, boy?
  FLEANCE. The moon is down; I have not heard the clock.
  BANQUO. And she goes down at twelve.
  FLEANCE. I take't 'tis later, sir.
  BANQUO. Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven,
    Their candles are all out. Take thee that too.
    A heavy summons lies like lead upon me,
    And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,
    Restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature
    Gives way to in repose!

           Enter Macbeth and a Servant with a torch.

    Give me my sword.
    Who's there?
  MACBETH. A friend.
  BANQUO. What, sir, not yet at rest? The King's abed.
    He hath been in unusual pleasure and
    Sent forth great largess to your offices.
    This diamond he greets your wife withal,
    By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up
    In measureless content.
  MACBETH. Being unprepared,
    Our will became the servant to defect,
    Which else should free have wrought.
  BANQUO. All's well.
    I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters:
    To you they have show'd some truth.
  MACBETH. I think not of them;
    Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,
    We would spend it in some words upon that business,
    If you would grant the time.
  BANQUO. At your kind'st leisure.
  MACBETH. If you shall cleave to my consent, when 'tis,
    It shall make honor for you.
  BANQUO. So I lose none
    In seeking to augment it, but still keep
    My bosom franchised and allegiance clear,
    I shall be counsel'd.
  MACBETH. Good repose the while.
  BANQUO. Thanks, sir, the like to you.
                                     Exeunt Banquo. and Fleance.
  MACBETH. Go bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
    She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.     Exit Servant.
    Is this a dagger which I see before me,
    The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
    I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
    Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
    To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
    A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
    Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
    I see thee yet, in form as palpable
    As this which now I draw.
    Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going,
    And such an instrument I was to use.
    Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
    Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still,
    And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
    Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
    It is the bloody business which informs
    Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one half-world
    Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
    The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
    Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd Murther,
    Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
    Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
    With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
    Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
    Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
    Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
    And take the present horror from the time,
    Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives;
    Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
                                                   A bell rings.
    I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
    Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
    That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.               Exit.

SCENE II. The same.

Enter Lady Macbeth.

  LADY MACBETH. That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold;
    What hath quench'd them hath given me fire. Hark! Peace!
    It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
    Which gives the stern'st good night. He is about it:
    The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms
    Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets
    That death and nature do contend about them,
    Whether they live or die.
  MACBETH. [Within.] Who's there' what, ho!
  LADY MACBETH. Alack, I am afraid they have awaked
    And 'tis not done. The attempt and not the deed
    Confounds us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready;
    He could not miss 'em. Had he not resembled
    My father as he slept, I had done't.

                      Enter Macbeth,

    My husband!
  MACBETH. I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
  LADY MACBETH. I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
    Did not you speak?
  MACBETH. When?
  LADY MACBETH. Now.
  MACBETH. As I descended?
  LADY MACBETH. Ay.
  MACBETH. Hark!
    Who lies i' the second chamber?
  LADY MACBETH. Donalbain.
  MACBETH. This is a sorry sight.           [Looks on his hands.
  LADY MACBETH. A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.
  MACBETH. There's one did laugh in 's sleep, and one cried,
      "Murther!"
    That they did wake each other. I stood and heard them,
    But they did say their prayers and address'd them
    Again to sleep.
  LADY MACBETH. There are two lodged together.
  MACBETH. One cried, "God bless us!" and "Amen" the other,
    As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.
    Listening their fear, I could not say "Amen,"
    When they did say, "God bless us!"
  LADY MACBETH. Consider it not so deeply.
  MACBETH. But wherefore could not I pronounce "Amen"?
    I had most need of blessing, and "Amen"
    Stuck in my throat.
  LADY MACBETH. These deeds must not be thought
    After these ways; so, it will make us mad.
  MACBETH. I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!
    Macbeth does murther sleep" -the innocent sleep,
    Sleep that knits up the ravel'd sleave of care,
    The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
    Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
    Chief nourisher in life's feast-
  LADY MACBETH. What do you mean?
  MACBETH. Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house;
    "Glamis hath murther'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
    Shall sleep no more. Macbeth shall sleep no more."
  LADY MACBETH. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy Thane,
    You do unbend your noble strength, to think
    So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water
    And wash this filthy witness from your hand.
    Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
    They must lie there. Go carry them, and smear
    The sleepy grooms with blood.
  MACBETH. I'll go no more.
    I am afraid to think what I have done;
    Look on't again I dare not.
  LADY MACBETH. Infirm of purpose!
    Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead
    Are but as pictures; 'tis the eye of childhood
    That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
    I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,
    For it must seem their guilt.         Exit. Knocking within.
  MACBETH. Whence is that knocking?
    How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
    What hands are here? Ha, they pluck out mine eyes!
    Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
    Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
    The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
    Making the green one red.

                   Re-enter Lady Macbeth.

  LADY MACBETH. My hands are of your color, but I shame
    To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear knocking
    At the south entry. Retire we to our chamber.
    A little water clears us of this deed.
    How easy is it then! Your constancy
    Hath left you unattended. [Knocking within.] Hark, more knocking.
    Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call us
    And show us to be watchers. Be not lost
    So poorly in your thoughts.
  MACBETH. To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.
                                                Knocking within.
    Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE III. The same.

Enter a Porter. Knocking within.

  PORTER. Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of Hell
    Gate, he should have old turning the key. [Knocking within.]
    Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name of Belzebub? Here's
    a farmer that hanged himself on th' expectation of plenty. Come
    in time! Have napkins enow about you; here you'll sweat fort.
    [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Who's there, in th' other
    devil's name? Faith, here's an equivocator that could swear in
    both the scales against either scale, who committed treason
    enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O,
    come in, equivocator. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock, knock!
    Who's there? Faith, here's an English tailor come hither, for
    stealing out of a French hose. Come in, tailor; here you may
    roast your goose. [Knocking within.] Knock, knock! Never at
    quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. I'll
    devil-porter it no further. I had thought to have let in some of
    all professions, that go the primrose way to the everlasting
    bonfire. [Knocking within.] Anon, anon! I pray you, remember the
    porter.
                                                 Opens the gate.

                       Enter Macduff and Lennox.

  MACDUFF. Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,
    That you do lie so late?
  PORTER. Faith, sir, we were carousing till the second cock; and
    drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
  MACDUFF. What three things does drink especially provoke?
  PORTER. Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir,
    it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes
    away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an
    equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him; it sets
    him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens
    him; makes him stand to and not stand to; in conclusion,
    equivocates him in a sleep, and giving him the lie, leaves him.
  MACDUFF. I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
  PORTER. That it did, sir, i' the very throat on me; but requited
    him for his lie, and, I think, being too strong for him, though
    he took up my legs sometime, yet I made shift to cast him.
  MACDUFF. Is thy master stirring?

                             Enter Macbeth.

    Our knocking has awaked him; here he comes.
  LENNOX. Good morrow, noble sir.
  MACBETH. morrow, both.
  MACDUFF. Is the King stirring, worthy Thane?
  MACBETH. Not yet.
  MACDUFF. He did command me to call timely on him;
    I have almost slipp'd the hour.
  MACBETH. I'll bring you to him.
  MACDUFF. I know this is a joyful trouble to you,
    But yet 'tis one.
  MACBETH. The labor we delight in physics pain.
    This is the door.
  MACDUFF I'll make so bold to call,
    For 'tis my limited service.                           Exit.
  LENNOX. Goes the King hence today?
  MACBETH. He does; he did appoint so.
  LENNOX. The night has been unruly. Where we lay,
    Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,
    Lamentings heard i' the air, strange screams of death,
    And prophesying with accents terrible
    Of dire combustion and confused events
    New hatch'd to the woeful time. The obscure bird
    Clamor'd the livelong night. Some say the earth
    Was feverous and did shake.
  MACBETH. 'Twas a rough fight.
  LENNOX. My young remembrance cannot parallel
    A fellow to it.

                      Re-enter Macduff.

  MACDUFF. O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heart
    Cannot conceive nor name thee.
  MACBETH. LENNOX. What's the matter?
  MACDUFF. Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.
    Most sacrilegious murther hath broke ope
    The Lord's anointed temple and stole thence
    The life o' the building.
  MACBETH. What is't you say? the life?
  LENNOX. Mean you his Majesty?
  MACDUFF. Approach the chamber, and destroy your sight
    With a new Gorgon. Do not bid me speak;
    See, and then speak yourselves.
                                      Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox.
    Awake, awake!
    Ring the alarum bell. Murther and treason!
    Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!
    Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
    And look on death itself! Up, up, and see
    The great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!
    As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites
    To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.       Bell rings.

                     Enter Lady Macbeth.

  LADY MACBETH. What's the business,
    That such a hideous trumpet calls to parley
    The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!
  MACDUFF. O gentle lady,
    'Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:
    The repetition in a woman's ear
    Would murther as it fell.

                     Enter Banquo.

    O Banquo, Banquo!
    Our royal master's murther'd.
  LADY MACBETH. Woe, alas!
    What, in our house?
  BANQUO. Too cruel anywhere.
    Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,
    And say it is not so.

          Re-enter Macbeth and Lennox, with Ross.

  MACBETH. Had I but died an hour before this chance,
    I had lived a blessed time, for from this instant
    There's nothing serious in mortality.
    All is but toys; renown and grace is dead,
    The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
    Is left this vault to brag of.

                Enter Malcolm and Donalbain.

  DONALBAIN. What is amiss?
  MACBETH. You are, and do not know't.
    The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood
    Is stopped, the very source of it is stopp'd.
  MACDUFF. Your royal father's murther'd.
   MALCOLM. O, by whom?
  LENNOX. Those of his chamber, as it seem'd, had done't.
    Their hands and faces were all badged with blood;
    So were their daggers, which unwiped we found
    Upon their pillows.
    They stared, and were distracted; no man's life
    Was to be trusted with them.
  MACBETH. O, yet I do repent me of my fury,
    That I did kill them.
  MACDUFF. Wherefore did you so?
  MACBETH. Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
    Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.
    The expedition of my violent love
    Outrun the pauser reason. Here lay Duncan,
    His silver skin laced with his golden blood,
    And his gash'd stabs look'd like a breach in nature
    For ruin's wasteful entrance; there, the murtherers,
    Steep'd in the colors of their trade, their daggers
    Unmannerly breech'd with gore. Who could refrain,
    That had a heart to love, and in that heart
    Courage to make 's love known?
  LADY MACBETH. Help me hence, ho!
  MACDUFF. Look to the lady.
  MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Why do we hold our tongues,
    That most may claim this argument for ours?
  DONALBAIN. [Aside to Malcolm.] What should be spoken here, where
      our fate,
    Hid in an auger hole, may rush and seize us?
    Let's away,
    Our tears are not yet brew'd.
  MALCOLM. [Aside to Donalbain.] Nor our strong sorrow
    Upon the foot of motion.
  BANQUO. Look to the lady.
                                    Lady Macbeth is carried out.
    And when we have our naked frailties hid,
    That suffer in exposure, let us meet
    And question this most bloody piece of work
    To know it further. Fears and scruples shake us.
    In the great hand of God I stand, and thence
    Against the undivulged pretense I fight
    Of treasonous malice.
  MACDUFF. And so do I.
  ALL. So all.
  MACBETH. Let's briefly put on manly readiness
    And meet i' the hall together.
  ALL. Well contented.
                           Exeunt all but Malcolm and Donalbain.
  MALCOLM. What will you do? Let's not consort with them.
    To show an unfelt sorrow is an office
    Which the false man does easy. I'll to England.
  DONALBAIN. To Ireland, I; our separated fortune
    Shall keep us both the safer. Where we are
    There's daggers in men's smiles; the near in blood,
    The nearer bloody.
  MALCOLM. This murtherous shaft that's shot
    Hath not yet lighted, and our safest way
    Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse;
    And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,
    But shift away. There's warrant in that theft
    Which steals itself when there's no mercy left.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Outside Macbeth's castle.

Enter Ross with an Old Man.

  OLD MAN. Threescore and ten I can remember well,
    Within the volume of which time I have seen
    Hours dreadful and things strange, but this sore night
    Hath trifled former knowings.
  ROSS. Ah, good father,
    Thou seest the heavens, as troubled with man's act,
    Threaten his bloody stage. By the clock 'tis day,
    And yet dark night strangles the traveling lamp.
    Is't night's predominance, or the day's shame,
    That darkness does the face of earth entomb,
    When living light should kiss it?
  OLD MAN. 'Tis unnatural,
    Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last
    A falcon towering in her pride of place
    Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd.
  ROSS. And Duncan's horses-a thing most strange and certain-
    Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,
    Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
    Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
    War with mankind.
  OLD MAN. 'Tis said they eat each other.
  ROSS. They did so, to the amazement of mine eyes
    That look'd upon't.

                     Enter Macduff.

    Here comes the good Macduff.
    How goes the world, sir, now?
  MACDUFF. Why, see you not?
  ROSS. Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?
  MACDUFF. Those that Macbeth hath slain.
  ROSS. Alas, the day!
    What good could they pretend?
  MACDUFF. They were suborn'd:
    Malcolm and Donalbain, the King's two sons,
    Are stol'n away and fled, which puts upon them
    Suspicion of the deed.
  ROSS. 'Gainst nature still!
    Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
    Thine own life's means! Then 'tis most like
    The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.
  MACDUFF. He is already named, and gone to Scone
    To be invested.
  ROSS. Where is Duncan's body?
  MACDUFF. Carried to Colmekill,
    The sacred storehouse of his predecessors
    And guardian of their bones.
  ROSS. Will you to Scone?
  MACDUFF. No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
  ROSS. Well, I will thither.
  MACDUFF. Well, may you see things well done there.
    Adieu,
    Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!
  ROSS. Farewell, father.
  OLD MAN. God's benison go with you and with those
    That would make good of bad and friends of foes!
                                                         Exeunt.

ACT III. SCENE I. Forres. The palace.

Enter Banquo.

  BANQUO. Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
    As the weird women promised, and I fear
    Thou play'dst most foully for't; yet it was said
    It should not stand in thy posterity,
    But that myself should be the root and father
    Of many kings. If there come truth from them
    (As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine)
    Why, by the verities on thee made good,
    May they not be my oracles as well
    And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.

      Sennet sounds. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady Macbeth
    as Queen, Lennox, Ross, Lords, Ladies, and Attendants.

  MACBETH. Here's our chief guest.
  LADY MACBETH. If he had been forgotten,
    It had been as a gap in our great feast
    And all thing unbecoming.
  MACBETH. Tonight we hold a solemn supper, sir,
    And I'll request your presence.
  BANQUO. Let your Highness
    Command upon me, to the which my duties
    Are with a most indissoluble tie
    Forever knit.
  MACBETH. Ride you this afternoon?
  BANQUO. Ay, my good lord.
  MACBETH. We should have else desired your good advice,
    Which still hath been both grave and prosperous
    In this day's council; but we'll take tomorrow.
    Is't far you ride'!
  BANQUO. As far, my lord, as will fill up the time
    'Twixt this and supper. Go not my horse the better,
    I must become a borrower of the night
    For a dark hour or twain.
  MACBETH. Fail not our feast.
  BANQUO. My lord, I will not.
  MACBETH. We hear our bloody cousins are bestow'd
    In England and in Ireland, not confessing
    Their cruel parricide, filling their hearers
    With strange invention. But of that tomorrow,
    When therewithal we shall have cause of state
    Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse; adieu,
    Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?
  BANQUO. Ay, my good lord. Our time does call upon 's.
  MACBETH. I wish your horses swift and sure of foot,
    And so I do commend you to their backs.
    Farewell.                                       Exit Banquo.
    Let every man be master of his time
    Till seven at night; to make society
    The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
    Till supper time alone. While then, God be with you!
                        Exeunt all but Macbeth and an Attendant.
    Sirrah, a word with you. Attend those men
    Our pleasure?
  ATTENDANT. They are, my lord, without the palace gate.
  MACBETH. Bring them before us.                 Exit Attendant.
    To be thus is nothing,
    But to be safely thus. Our fears in Banquo.
    Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
    Reigns that which would be fear'd. 'Tis much he dares,
    And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
    He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valor
    To act in safety. There is none but he
    Whose being I do fear; and under him
    My genius is rebuked, as it is said
    Mark Antony's was by Caesar. He chid the sisters
    When first they put the name of King upon me
    And bade them speak to him; then prophet-like
    They hail'd him father to a line of kings.
    Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown
    And put a barren sceptre in my gripe,
    Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand,
    No son of mine succeeding. If't be so,
    For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind,
    For them the gracious Duncan have I murther'd,
    Put rancors in the vessel of my peace
    Only for them, and mine eternal jewel
    Given to the common enemy of man,
    To make them kings -the seed of Banquo kings!
    Rather than so, come, Fate, into the list,
    And champion me to the utterance! Who's there?

        Re-enter Attendant, with two Murtherers.

    Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.
                                                 Exit Attendant.
    Was it not yesterday we spoke together?
  FIRST MURTHERER. It was, so please your Highness.
  MACBETH. Well then, now
    Have you consider'd of my speeches? Know
    That it was he in the times past which held you
    So under fortune, which you thought had been
    Our innocent self? This I made good to you
    In our last conference, pass'd in probation with you:
    How you were borne in hand, how cross'd, the instruments,
    Who wrought with them, and all things else that might
    To half a soul and to a notion crazed
    Say, "Thus did Banquo."
  FIRST MURTHERER. You made it known to us.
  MACBETH. I did so, and went further, which is now
    Our point of second meeting. Do you find
    Your patience so predominant in your nature,
    That you can let this go? Are you so gospel'd,
    To pray for this good man and for his issue,
    Whose heavy hand hath bow'd you to the grave
    And beggar'd yours forever?
  FIRST MURTHERER. We are men, my liege.
  MACBETH. Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men,
    As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
    Shoughs, waterrugs, and demi-wolves are clept
    All by the name of dogs. The valued file
    Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
    The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
    According to the gift which bounteous nature
    Hath in him closed, whereby he does receive
    Particular addition, from the bill
    That writes them all alike; and so of men.
    Now if you have a station in the file,
    Not i' the worst rank of manhood, say it,
    And I will put that business in your bosoms
    Whose execution takes your enemy off,
    Grapples you to the heart and love of us,
    Who wear our health but sickly in his life,
    Which in his death were perfect.
  SECOND MURTHERER. I am one, my liege,
    Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
    Have so incensed that I am reckless what
    I do to spite the world.
  FIRST MURTHERER. And I another
    So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune,
    That I would set my life on any chance,
    To mend it or be rid on't.
  MACBETH. Both of you
    Know Banquo was your enemy.
  BOTH MURTHERERS. True, my lord.
  MACBETH. So is he mine, and in such bloody distance
    That every minute of his being thrusts
    Against my near'st of life; and though I could
    With barefaced power sweep him from my sight
    And bid my will avouch it, yet I must not,
    For certain friends that are both his and mine,
    Whose loves I may not drop, but wail his fall
    Who I myself struck down. And thence it is
    That I to your assistance do make love,
    Masking the business from the common eye
    For sundry weighty reasons.
  SECOND MURTHERER. We shall, my lord,
    Perform what you command us.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Though our lives-
  MACBETH. Your spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most
    I will advise you where to plant yourselves,
    Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' the time,
    The moment on't; fort must be done tonight
    And something from the palace (always thought
    That I require a clearness); and with him-
    To leave no rubs nor botches in the work-
    Fleance his son, that keeps him company,
    Whose absence is no less material to me
    Than is his father's, must embrace the fate
    Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart;
    I'll come to you anon.
  BOTH MURTHERERS. We are resolved, my lord.
  MACBETH. I'll call upon you straight. Abide within.
                                              Exeunt Murtherers.
    It is concluded: Banquo, thy soul's flight,
    If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.           Exit.

SCENE II. The palace.

Enter Lady Macbeth and a Servant.

  LADY MACBETH. Is Banquo gone from court?
  SERVANT. Ay, madam, but returns again tonight.
  LADY MACBETH. Say to the King I would attend his leisure
    For a few words.
  SERVANT. Madam, I will.                                  Exit.
  LADY MACBETH. Nought's had, all's spent,
    Where our desire is got without content.
    'Tis safer to be that which we destroy
    Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

                    Enter Macbeth.

    How now, my lord? Why do you keep alone,
    Of sorriest fancies your companions making,
    Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
    With them they think on? Things without all remedy
    Should be without regard. What's done is done.
  MACBETH. We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it.
    She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
    Remains in danger of her former tooth.
    But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
    Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep
    In the affliction of these terrible dreams
    That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,
    Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
    Than on the torture of the mind to lie
    In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
    After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.
    Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
    Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
    Can touch him further.
  LADY MACBETH. Come on,
    Gentle my lord, sleek o'er your rugged looks;
    Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.
  MACBETH. So shall I, love, and so, I pray, be you.
    Let your remembrance apply to Banquo;
    Present him eminence, both with eye and tongue:
    Unsafe the while, that we
    Must lave our honors in these flattering streams,
    And make our faces vizards to our hearts,
    Disguising what they are.
  LADY MACBETH. You must leave this.
  MACBETH. O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!
    Thou know'st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.
  LADY MACBETH. But in them nature's copy's not eterne.
  MACBETH. There's comfort yet; they are assailable.
    Then be thou jocund. Ere the bat hath flown
    His cloister'd flight, ere to black Hecate's summons
    The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums
    Hath rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done
    A deed of dreadful note.
  LADY MACBETH. What's to be done?
  MACBETH. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
    Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
    Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
    And with thy bloody and invisible hand
    Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
    Which keeps me pale! Light thickens, and the crow
    Makes wing to the rooky wood;
    Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
    Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.
    Thou marvel'st at my words, but hold thee still:
    Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.
    So, prithee, go with me.                             Exeunt.

SCENE III. A park near the palace.

Enter three Murtherers.

  FIRST MURTHERER. But who did bid thee join with us?
  THIRD MURTHERER. Macbeth.
  SECOND MURTHERER. He needs not our mistrust, since he delivers
    Our offices and what we have to do
    To the direction just.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Then stand with us.
    The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day;
    Now spurs the lated traveler apace
    To gain the timely inn, and near approaches
    The subject of our watch.
  THIRD MURTHERER. Hark! I hear horses.
  BANQUO. [Within.] Give us a light there, ho!
  SECOND MURTHERER. Then 'tis he; the rest
    That are within the note of expectation
    Already are i' the court.
  FIRST MURTHERER. His horses go about.
  THIRD MURTHERER. Almost a mile, but he does usually-
    So all men do -from hence to the palace gate
    Make it their walk.
  SECOND MURTHERER. A light, a light!

              Enter Banquo, and Fleance with a torch.

  THIRD MURTHERER. 'Tis he.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Stand to't.
  BANQUO. It will be rain tonight.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Let it come down.
                                           They set upon Banquo.
  BANQUO. O, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly!
    Thou mayst revenge. O slave!          Dies. Fleance escapes.
  THIRD MURTHERER. Who did strike out the light?
  FIRST MURTHERER. Wast not the way?
  THIRD MURTHERER. There's but one down; the son is fled.
  SECOND MURTHERER. We have lost
    Best half of our affair.
  FIRST MURTHERER. Well, let's away and say how much is done.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE IV. A Hall in the palace. A banquet prepared.

Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.

  MACBETH. You know your own degrees; sit down. At first
    And last the hearty welcome.
  LORDS. Thanks to your Majesty.
  MACBETH. Ourself will mingle with society
    And play the humble host.
    Our hostess keeps her state, but in best time
    We will require her welcome.
  LADY MACBETH. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,
    For my heart speaks they are welcome.

                Enter first Murtherer to the door.

  MACBETH. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.
    Both sides are even; here I'll sit i' the midst.
    Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure
    The table round. [Approaches the door.] There's blood upon thy
      face.
  MURTHERER. 'Tis Banquo's then.
  MACBETH. 'Tis better thee without than he within.
    Is he dispatch'd?
  MURTHERER. My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him.
  MACBETH. Thou art the best o' the cut-throats! Yet he's good
    That did the like for Fleance. If thou didst it,
    Thou art the nonpareil.
  MURTHERER. Most royal sir,
    Fleance is 'scaped.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Then comes my fit again. I had else been perfect,
    Whole as the marble, founded as the rock,
    As broad and general as the casing air;
    But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in
    To saucy doubts and fears -But Banquo's safe?
  MURTHERER. Ay, my good lord. Safe in a ditch he bides,
    With twenty trenched gashes on his head,
    The least a death to nature.
  MACBETH. Thanks for that.
    There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled
    Hath nature that in time will venom breed,
    No teeth for the present. Get thee gone. Tomorrow
    We'll hear ourselves again.
                                                 Exit Murtherer.
  LADY MACBETH. My royal lord,
    You do not give the cheer. The feast is sold
    That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis amaking,
    'Tis given with welcome. To feed were best at home;
    From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony;
    Meeting were bare without it.
  MACBETH. Sweet remembrancer!
    Now good digestion wait on appetite,
    And health on both!
  LENNOX. May't please your Highness sit.

      The Ghost of Banquo enters and sits in Macbeth's place.

  MACBETH. Here had we now our country's honor roof'd,
    Were the graced person of our Banquo present,
    Who may I rather challenge for unkindness
    Than pity for mischance!
  ROSS. His absence, sir,
    Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your Highness
    To grace us with your royal company?
  MACBETH. The table's full.
  LENNOX. Here is a place reserved, sir.
  MACBETH. Where?
  LENNOX. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your Highness?
  MACBETH. Which of you have done this?
  LORDS. What, my good lord?
  MACBETH. Thou canst not say I did it; never shake
    Thy gory locks at me.
  ROSS. Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is well.
  LADY MACBETH. Sit, worthy friends; my lord is often thus,
    And hath been from his youth. Pray you, keep seat.
    The fit is momentary; upon a thought
    He will again be well. If much you note him,
    You shall offend him and extend his passion.
    Feed, and regard him not-Are you a man?
  MACBETH. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that
    Which might appal the devil.
  LADY MACBETH. O proper stuff!
    This is the very painting of your fear;
    This is the air-drawn dagger which you said
    Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
    Impostors to true fear, would well become
    A woman's story at a winter's fire,
    Authorized by her grandam. Shame itself!
    Why do you make such faces? When all's done,
    You look but on a stool.
  MACBETH. Prithee, see there! Behold! Look! Lo! How say you?
    Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.
    If charnel houses and our graves must send
    Those that we bury back, our monuments
    Shall be the maws of kites.                      Exit Ghost.
  LADY MACBETH. What, quite unmann'd in folly?
  MACBETH. If I stand here, I saw him.
  LADY MACBETH. Fie, for shame!
  MACBETH. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time,
    Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;
    Ay, and since too, murthers have been perform'd
    Too terrible for the ear. The time has been,
    That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
    And there an end; but now they rise again,
    With twenty mortal murthers on their crowns,
    And push us from our stools. This is more strange
    Than such a murther is.
  LADY MACBETH. My worthy lord,
    Your noble friends do lack you.
  MACBETH. I do forget.
    Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends.
    I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing
    To those that know me. Come, love and health to all;
    Then I'll sit down. Give me some wine, fill full.
    I drink to the general joy o' the whole table,
    And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss.
    Would he were here! To all and him we thirst,
    And all to all.
  LORDS. Our duties and the pledge.

                     Re-enter Ghost.

  MACBETH. Avaunt, and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee!
    Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold;
    Thou hast no speculation in those eyes
    Which thou dost glare with.
  LADY MACBETH. Think of this, good peers,
    But as a thing of custom. 'Tis no other,
    Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.
  MACBETH. What man dare, I dare.
    Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
    The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
    Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
    Shall never tremble. Or be alive again,
    And dare me to the desert with thy sword.
    If trembling I inhabit then, protest me
    The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!
    Unreal mockery, hence!                           Exit Ghost.
    Why, so, being gone,
    I am a man again. Pray you sit still.
  LADY MACBETH. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting,
    With most admired disorder.
  MACBETH. Can such things be,
    And overcome us like a summer's cloud,
    Without our special wonder? You make me strange
    Even to the disposition that I owe
    When now I think you can behold such sights
    And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks
    When mine is blanch'd with fear.
  ROSS. What sights, my lord?
  LADY MACBETH. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
    Question enrages him. At once, good night.
    Stand not upon the order of your going,
    But go at once.
  LENNOX. Good night, and better health
    Attend his Majesty!
  LADY MACBETH. A kind good night to all!
                        Exeunt all but Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.
  MACBETH. will have blood; they say blood will have blood.
    Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
    Augures and understood relations have
    By maggot pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
    The secret'st man of blood. What is the night?
  LADY MACBETH. Almost at odds with morning, which is which.
  MACBETH. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person
    At our great bidding?
  LADY MACBETH. Did you send to him, sir?
  MACBETH. I hear it by the way, but I will send.
    There's not a one of them but in his house
    I keep a servant feed. I will tomorrow,
    And betimes I will, to the weird sisters.
    More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know,
    By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good
    All causes shall give way. I am in blood
    Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
    Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
    Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
    Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
  LADY MACBETH. You lack the season of all natures, sleep.
  MACBETH. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse
    Is the initiate fear that wants hard use.
    We are yet but young in deed.                       Exeunt.

SCENE V. A heath. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches, meeting Hecate.

  FIRST WITCH. Why, how now, Hecate? You look angerly.
  HECATE. Have I not reason, beldams as you are,
    Saucy and overbold? How did you dare
    To trade and traffic with Macbeth
    In riddles and affairs of death,
    And I, the mistress of your charms,
    The close contriver of all harms,
    Was never call'd to bear my part,
    Or show the glory of our art?
    And, which is worse, all you have done
    Hath been but for a wayward son,
    Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,
    Loves for his own ends, not for you.
    But make amends now. Get you gone,
    And at the pit of Acheron
    Meet me i' the morning. Thither he
    Will come to know his destiny.
    Your vessels and your spells provide,
    Your charms and everything beside.
    I am for the air; this night I'll spend
    Unto a dismal and a fatal end.
    Great business must be wrought ere noon:
    Upon the corner of the moon
    There hangs a vaporous drop profound;
    I'll catch it ere it come to ground.
    And that distill'd by magic sleights
    Shall raise such artificial sprites
    As by the strength of their illusion
    Shall draw him on to his confusion.
    He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
    His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear.
    And you all know security
    Is mortals' chiefest enemy.
                                        Music and a song within,
                                         "Come away, come away."
    Hark! I am call'd; my little spirit, see,
    Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me.                Exit.
  FIRST WITCH. Come, let's make haste; she'll soon be back again.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Forres. The palace.

Enter Lennox and another Lord.

  LENNOX. My former speeches have but hit your thoughts,
    Which can interpret farther; only I say
    Thing's have been strangely borne. The gracious Duncan
    Was pitied of Macbeth; marry, he was dead.
    And the right valiant Banquo walk'd too late,
    Whom, you may say, if't please you, Fleance kill'd,
    For Fleance fled. Men must not walk too late.
    Who cannot want the thought, how monstrous
    It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain
    To kill their gracious father? Damned fact!
    How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight,
    In pious rage, the two delinquents tear
    That were the slaves of drink and thralls of sleep?
    Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too,
    For 'twould have anger'd any heart alive
    To hear the men deny't. So that, I say,
    He has borne all things well; and I do think
    That, had he Duncan's sons under his key-
    As, an't please heaven, he shall not -they should find
    What 'twere to kill a father; so should Fleance.
    But, peace! For from broad words, and 'cause he fail'd
    His presence at the tyrant's feast, I hear,
    Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell
    Where he bestows himself?
  LORD. The son of Duncan,
    From whom this tyrant holds the due of birth,
    Lives in the English court and is received
    Of the most pious Edward with such grace
    That the malevolence of fortune nothing
    Takes from his high respect. Thither Macduff
    Is gone to pray the holy King, upon his aid
    To wake Northumberland and warlike Siward;
    That by the help of these, with Him above
    To ratify the work, we may again
    Give to our tables meat, sleep to our nights,
    Free from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,
    Do faithful homage, and receive free honors-
    All which we pine for now. And this report
    Hath so exasperate the King that he
    Prepares for some attempt of war.
  LENNOX. Sent he to Macduff?
  LORD. He did, and with an absolute "Sir, not I,"
    The cloudy messenger turns me his back,
    And hums, as who should say, "You'll rue the time
    That clogs me with this answer."
  LENNOX. And that well might
    Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
    His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel
    Fly to the court of England and unfold
    His message ere he come, that a swift blessing
    May soon return to this our suffering country
    Under a hand accursed!
  LORD. I'll send my prayers with him.
                                                         Exeunt.

ACT IV. SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron. Thunder.

Enter the three Witches.
  FIRST WITCH. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
  SECOND WITCH. Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
  THIRD WITCH. Harpier cries, "'Tis time, 'tis time."
  FIRST WITCH. Round about the cauldron go;
    In the poison'd entrails throw.
    Toad, that under cold stone
    Days and nights has thirty-one
    Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
    Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
  SECOND WITCH. Fillet of a fenny snake,
    In the cauldron boil and bake;
    Eye of newt and toe of frog,
    Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
    Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
    Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
    For a charm of powerful trouble,
    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
  THIRD WITCH. Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
    Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
    Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
    Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
    Liver of blaspheming Jew,
    Gall of goat and slips of yew
    Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse,
    Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
    Finger of birth-strangled babe
    Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
    Make the gruel thick and slab.
    Add thereto a tiger's chawdron,
    For the ingredients of our cawdron.
  ALL. Double, double, toil and trouble;
    Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
  SECOND WITCH. Cool it with a baboon's blood,
    Then the charm is firm and good.

            Enter Hecate to the other three Witches.

  HECATE. O, well done! I commend your pains,
    And everyone shall share i' the gains.
    And now about the cauldron sing,
    Like elves and fairies in a ring,
    Enchanting all that you put in.
                              Music and a song, "Black spirits."
                                                 Hecate retires.
  SECOND WITCH. By the pricking of my thumbs,
    Something wicked this way comes.
    Open, locks,
    Whoever knocks!

                      Enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?
    What is't you do?
  ALL. A deed without a name.
  MACBETH. I conjure you, by that which you profess
    (Howeer you come to know it) answer me:
    Though you untie the winds and let them fight
    Against the churches, though the yesty waves
    Confound and swallow navigation up,
    Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down,
    Though castles topple on their warders' heads,
    Though palaces and pyramids do slope
    Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure
    Of nature's germaines tumble all together
    Even till destruction sicken, answer me
    To what I ask you.
  FIRST WITCH. Speak.
  SECOND WITCH. Demand.
  THIRD WITCH. We'll answer.
  FIRST WITCH. Say, if thou'dst rather hear it from our mouths,
    Or from our masters'?
  MACBETH. Call 'em, let me see 'em.
  FIRST WITCH. Pour in sow's blood that hath eaten
    Her nine farrow; grease that's sweaten
    From the murtherer's gibbet throw
    Into the flame.
  ALL. Come, high or low;
    Thyself and office deftly show!

            Thunder. First Apparition: an armed Head.

  MACBETH. Tell me, thou unknown power-
  FIRST WITCH. He knows thy thought:
    Hear his speech, but say thou nought.
  FIRST APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! Beware Macduff,
    Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.
                                                       Descends.
  MACBETH. Whate'er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks;
    Thou hast harp'd my fear aright. But one word more-
  FIRST WITCH. He will not be commanded. Here's another,
    More potent than the first.

          Thunder. Second Apparition: a bloody Child.

  SECOND APPARITION. Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth!
  MACBETH. Had I three ears, I'd hear thee.
  SECOND APPARITION. Be bloody, bold, and resolute: laugh to scorn
    The power of man, for none of woman born
    Shall harm Macbeth.                                Descends.
  MACBETH. Then live, Macduff. What need I fear of thee?
    But yet I'll make assurance double sure,
    And take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live,
    That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,
    And sleep in spite of thunder.

       Thunder. Third Apparition: a Child crowned,
               with a tree in his hand.

    What is this,
    That rises like the issue of a king,
    And wears upon his baby brow the round
    And top of sovereignty?
  ALL. Listen, but speak not to't.
  THIRD APPARITION. Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
    Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.
    Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
    Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
    Shall come against him.                            Descends.
  MACBETH. That will never be.
    Who can impress the forest, bid the tree
    Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements, good!
    Rebellion's head, rise never till the Wood
    Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth
    Shall live the lease of nature, pay his breath
    To time and mortal custom. Yet my heart
    Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art
    Can tell so much, shall Banquo's issue ever
    Reign in this kingdom?
  ALL. Seek to know no more.
  MACBETH. I will be satisfied! Deny me this,
    And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.
    Why sinks that cauldron, and what noise is this?
                                                       Hautboys.
  FIRST WITCH. Show!
  SECOND WITCH. Show!
  THIRD. WITCH. Show!
  ALL. Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
    Come like shadows, so depart!

    A show of eight Kings, the last with a glass in his hand;
                   Banquo's Ghost following.

  MACBETH. Thou are too like the spirit of Banquo Down!
    Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,
    Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.
    A third is like the former. Filthy hags!
    Why do you show me this? A fourth! Start, eyes!
    What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?
    Another yet! A seventh! I'll see no more!
    And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass
    Which shows me many more; and some I see
    That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry.
    Horrible sight! Now I see 'tis true;
    For the blood-bolter'd Banquo smiles upon me,
    And points at them for his. What, is this so?
  FIRST WITCH. Ay, sir, all this is so. But why
    Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?
    Come,sisters, cheer we up his sprites,
    And show the best of our delights.
    I'll charm the air to give a sound,
    While you perform your antic round,
    That this great King may kindly say
    Our duties did his welcome pay.
                                    Music. The Witches dance and
                                        then vanish with Hecate.
  MACBETH. are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour
    Stand ay accursed in the calendar!
    Come in, without there!

                    Enter Lennox.

  LENNOX. What's your Grace's will?
  MACBETH. Saw you the weird sisters?
  LENNOX. No, my lord.
  MACBETH. Came they not by you?
  LENNOX. No indeed, my lord.
  MACBETH. Infected be the 'air whereon they ride,
    And damn'd all those that trust them! I did hear
    The galloping of horse. Who wast came by?
  LENNOX. 'Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word
    Macduff is fled to England.
  MACBETH. Fled to England?
  LENNOX. Ay, my good lord.
  MACBETH. [Aside.] Time, thou anticipatest my dread exploits.
    The flighty purpose never is o'ertook
    Unless the deed go with it. From this moment
    The very firstlings of my heart shall be
    The firstlings of my hand. And even now,
    To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:
    The castle of Macduff I will surprise,
    Seize upon Fife, give to the edge o' the sword
    His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls
    That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool;
    This deed I'll do before this purpose cool.
    But no more sights! -Where are these gentlemen?
    Come, bring me where they are.                       Exeunt.

SCENE II. Fife. Macduff's castle.

Enter Lady Macduff, her Son, and Ross.

  LADY MACDUFF. What had he done, to make him fly the land?
  ROSS. You must have patience, madam.
  LADY MACDUFF. He had none;
    His flight was madness. When our actions do not,
    Our fears do make us traitors.
  ROSS. You know not
    Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.
  LADY MACDUFF. Wisdom? To leave his wife, to leave his babes,
    His mansion, and his titles, in a place
    From whence himself does fly? He loves us not;
    He wants the natural touch; for the poor wren,
    The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
    Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
    All is the fear and nothing is the love;
    As little is the wisdom, where the flight
    So runs against all reason.
  ROSS. My dearest coz,
    I pray you, school yourself. But for your husband,
    He is noble, wise, Judicious, and best knows
    The fits o' the season. I dare not speak much further;
    But cruel are the times when we are traitors
    And do not know ourselves; when we hold rumor
    From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,
    But float upon a wild and violent sea
    Each way and move. I take my leave of you;
    Shall not be long but I'll be here again.
    Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward
    To what they were before. My pretty cousin,
    Blessing upon you!
  LADY MACDUFF. Father'd he is, and yet he's fatherless.
  ROSS. I am so much a fool, should I stay longer,
    It would be my disgrace and your discomfort.
    I take my leave at once.                               Exit.
  LADY MACDUFF. Sirrah, your father's dead.
    And what will you do now? How will you live?
  SON. As birds do, Mother.
  LADY MACDUFF. What, with worms and flies?
  SON. With what I get, I mean; and so do they.
  LADY MACDUFF. Poor bird! Thou'ldst never fear the net nor lime,
    The pitfall nor the gin.
  SON. Why should I, Mother? Poor birds they are not set for.
    My father is not dead, for all your saying.
  LADY MACDUFF. Yes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for father?
  SON. Nay, how will you do for a husband?
  LADY MACDUFF. Why, I can buy me twenty at any market.
  SON. Then you'll buy 'em to sell again.
  LADY MACDUFF. Thou speak'st with all thy wit, and yet, i' faith,
    With wit enough for thee.
  SON. Was my father a traitor, Mother?
  LADY MACDUFF. Ay, that he was.
  SON. What is a traitor?
  LADY MACDUFF. Why one that swears and lies.
  SON. And be all traitors that do so?
  LADY MACDUFF. Everyone that does so is a traitor and must be
     hanged.
  SON. And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?
  LADY MACDUFF. Everyone.
  SON. Who must hang them?
  LADY MACDUFF. Why, the honest men.
  SON. Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and
    swearers enow to beat the honest men and hang up them.
  LADY MACDUFF. Now, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do
    for a father?
  SON. If he were dead, you'ld weep for him; if you would not, it
    were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.
  LADY MACDUFF. Poor prattler, how thou talk'st!

                    Enter a Messenger.

  MESSENGER. Bless you, fair dame! I am not to you known,
    Though in your state of honor I am perfect.
    I doubt some danger does approach you nearly.
    If you will take a homely man's advice,
    Be not found here; hence, with your little ones.
    To fright you thus, methinks I am too savage;
    To do worse to you were fell cruelty,
    Which is too nigh your person. Heaven preserve you!
    I dare abide no longer.                                Exit.
  LADY MACDUFF. Whither should I fly?
    I have done no harm. But I remember now
    I am in this earthly world, where to do harm
    Is often laudable, to do good sometime
    Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,
    Do I put up that womanly defense,
    To say I have done no harm -What are these faces?

                      Enter Murtherers.

  FIRST MURTHERER. Where is your husband?
  LADY MACDUFF. I hope, in no place so unsanctified
    Where such as thou mayst find him.
  FIRST MURTHERER. He's a traitor.
  SON. Thou liest, thou shag-ear'd villain!
  FIRST MURTHERER. What, you egg!
                                                      Stabs him.
    Young fry of treachery!
  SON. He has kill'd me, Mother.
    Run away, I pray you!                                  Dies.
                            Exit Lady Macduff, crying "Murther!"
                               Exeunt Murtherers, following her.

SCENE III. England. Before the King's palace.

Enter Malcolm and Macduff.

  MALCOLM. Let us seek out some desolate shade and there
    Weep our sad bosoms empty.
  MACDUFF. Let us rather
    Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men
    Bestride our downfall'n birthdom. Each new morn
    New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows
    Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds
    As if it felt with Scotland and yell'd out
    Like syllable of dolor.
  MALCOLM. What I believe, I'll wall;
    What know, believe; and what I can redress,
    As I shall find the time to friend, I will.
    What you have spoke, it may be so perchance.
    This tyrant, whose sole name blisters our tongues,
    Was once thought honest. You have loved him well;
    He hath not touch'd you yet. I am young, but something
    You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom
    To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb
    To appease an angry god.
  MACDUFF. I am not treacherous.
  MALCOLM. But Macbeth is.
    A good and virtuous nature may recoil
    In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon;
    That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose.
    Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
    Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
    Yet grace must still look so.
  MACDUFF. I have lost my hopes.
  MALCOLM. Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.
    Why in that rawness left you wife and child,
    Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,
    Without leave-taking? I pray you,
    Let not my jealousies be your dishonors,
    But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,
    Whatever I shall think.
  MACDUFF. Bleed, bleed, poor country!
    Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
    For goodness dare not check thee. Wear thou thy wrongs;
    The title is affeer'd. Fare thee well, lord.
    I would not be the villain that thou think'st
    For the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp
    And the rich East to boot.
  MALCOLM. Be not offended;
    I speak not as in absolute fear of you.
    I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;
    It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash
    Is added to her wounds. I think withal
    There would be hands uplifted in my right;
    And here from gracious England have I offer
    Of goodly thousands. But for all this,
    When I shall tread upon the tyrant's head,
    Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country
    Shall have more vices than it had before,
    More suffer and more sundry ways than ever,
    By him that shall succeed.
  MACDUFF. What should he be?
  MALCOLM. It is myself I mean, in whom I know
    All the particulars of vice so grafted
    That, when they shall be open'd, black Macbeth
    Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state
    Esteem him as a lamb, being compared
    With my confineless harms.
  MACDUFF. Not in the legions
    Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn'd
    In evils to top Macbeth.
  MALCOLM. I grant him bloody,
    Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
    Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
    That has a name. But there's no bottom, none,
    In my voluptuousness. Your wives, your daughters,
    Your matrons, and your maids could not fill up
    The cestern of my lust, and my desire
    All continent impediments would o'erbear
    That did oppose my will. Better Macbeth
    Than such an one to reign.
  MACDUFF. Boundless intemperance
    In nature is a tyranny; it hath been
    The untimely emptying of the happy throne,
    And fall of many kings. But fear not yet
    To take upon you what is yours. You may
    Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty
    And yet seem cold, the time you may so hoodwink.
    We have willing dames enough; there cannot be
    That vulture in you to devour so many
    As will to greatness dedicate themselves,
    Finding it so inclined.
  MALCOLM. With this there grows
    In my most ill-composed affection such
    A stanchless avarice that, were I King,
    I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
    Desire his jewels and this other's house,
    And my more-having would be as a sauce
    To make me hunger more, that I should forge
    Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
    Destroying them for wealth.
  MACDUFF. This avarice
    Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root
    Than summer-seeming lust, and it hath been
    The sword of our slain kings. Yet do not fear;
    Scotland hath foisons to fill up your will
    Of your mere own. All these are portable,
    With other graces weigh'd.
  MALCOLM. But I have none. The king-becoming graces,
    As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
    Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
    Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
    I have no relish of them, but abound
    In the division of each several crime,
    Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should
    Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell,
    Uproar the universal peace, confound
    All unity on earth.
  MACDUFF. O Scotland, Scotland!
  MALCOLM. If such a one be fit to govern, speak.
    I am as I have spoken.
  MACDUFF. Fit to govern?
    No, not to live. O nation miserable!
    With an untitled tyrant bloody-scepter'd,
    When shalt thou see thy wholesome days again,
    Since that the truest issue of thy throne
    By his own interdiction stands accursed
    And does blaspheme his breed? Thy royal father
    Was a most sainted king; the queen that bore thee,
    Oftener upon her knees than on her feet,
    Died every day she lived. Fare thee well!
    These evils thou repeat'st upon thyself
    Have banish'd me from Scotland. O my breast,
    Thy hope ends here!
  MALCOLM. Macduff, this noble passion,
    Child of integrity, hath from my soul
    Wiped the black scruples, reconciled my thoughts
    To thy good truth and honor. Devilish Macbeth
    By many of these trains hath sought to win me
    Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks me
    From over-credulous haste. But God above
    Deal between thee and me! For even now
    I put myself to thy direction and
    Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure
    The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
    For strangers to my nature. I am yet
    Unknown to woman, never was forsworn,
    Scarcely have coveted what was mine own,
    At no time broke my faith, would not betray
    The devil to his fellow, and delight
    No less in truth than life. My first false speaking
    Was this upon myself. What I am truly
    Is thine and my poor country's to command.
    Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,
    Old Siward, with ten thousand warlike men
    Already at a point, was setting forth.
    Now we'll together, and the chance of goodness
    Be like our warranted quarrel! Why are you silent?
  MACDUFF. Such welcome and unwelcome things at once
    'Tis hard to reconcile.

                     Enter a Doctor.

  MALCOLM. Well, more anon. Comes the King forth, I pray you?
  DOCTOR. Ay, sir, there are a crew of wretched souls
    That stay his cure. Their malady convinces
    The great assay of art, but at his touch,
    Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
    They presently amend.
  MALCOLM. I thank you, Doctor.                     Exit Doctor.
  MACDUFF. What's the disease he means?
  MALCOLM. 'Tis call'd the evil:
    A most miraculous work in this good King,
    Which often, since my here-remain in England,
    I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,
    Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,
    All swol'n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
    The mere despair of surgery, he cures,
    Hanging a golden stamp about their necks
    Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken,
    To the succeeding royalty he leaves
    The healing benediction. With this strange virtue
    He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
    And sundry blessings hang about his throne
    That speak him full of grace.

                    Enter Ross.

  MACDUFF. See, who comes here?
  MALCOLM. My countryman, but yet I know him not.
  MACDUFF. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.
  MALCOLM. I know him now. Good God, betimes remove
    The means that makes us strangers!
  ROSS. Sir, amen.
  MACDUFF. Stands Scotland where it did?
  ROSS. Alas, poor country,
    Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot
    Be call'd our mother, but our grave. Where nothing,
    But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
    Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air,
    Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
    A modern ecstasy. The dead man's knell
    Is there scarce ask'd for who, and good men's lives
    Expire before the flowers in their caps,
    Dying or ere they sicken.
  MACDUFF. O, relation
    Too nice, and yet too true!
  MALCOLM. What's the newest grief?
  ROSS. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;
    Each minute teems a new one.
  MACDUFF. How does my wife?
  ROSS. Why, well.
  MACDUFF. And all my children?
  ROSS. Well too.
  MACDUFF. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
  ROSS. No, they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
  MACDUFF. Be not a niggard of your speech. How goest?
  ROSS. When I came hither to transport the tidings,
    Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor
    Of many worthy fellows that were out,
    Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
    For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot.
    Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
    Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
    To doff their dire distresses.
  MALCOLM. Be't their comfort
    We are coming thither. Gracious England hath
    Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
    An older and a better soldier none
    That Christendom gives out.
  ROSS. Would I could answer
    This comfort with the like! But I have words
    That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
    Where hearing should not latch them.
  MACDUFF. What concern they?
    The general cause? Or is it a fee-grief
    Due to some single breast?
  ROSS. No mind that's honest
    But in it shares some woe, though the main part
    Pertains to you alone.
  MACDUFF. If it be mine,
    Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.
  ROSS. Let not your ears despise my tongue forever,
    Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
    That ever yet they heard.
  MACDUFF. Humh! I guess at it.
  ROSS. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
    Savagely slaughter'd. To relate the manner
    Were, on the quarry of these murther'd deer,
    To add the death of you.
  MALCOLM. Merciful heaven!
    What, man! Neer pull your hat upon your brows;
    Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak
    Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
  MACDUFF. My children too?
  ROSS. Wife, children, servants, all
    That could be found.
  MACDUFF. And I must be from thence!
    My wife kill'd too?
  ROSS. I have said.
  MALCOLM. Be comforted.
    Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
    To cure this deadly grief.
  MACDUFF. He has no children. All my pretty ones?
    Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
    What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
    At one fell swoop?
  MALCOLM. Dispute it like a man.
  MACDUFF. I shall do so,
    But I must also feel it as a man.
    I cannot but remember such things were
    That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
    And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
    They were all struck for thee! Naught that I am,
    Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
    Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!
  MALCOLM. Be this the whetstone of your sword. Let grief
    Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
  MACDUFF. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes
    And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,
    Cut short all intermission; front to front
    Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
    Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
    Heaven forgive him too!
  MALCOLM. This tune goes manly.
    Come, go we to the King; our power is ready,
    Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth
    Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
    Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may,
    The night is long that never finds the day.          Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I. Dunsinane. Anteroom in the castle.

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting Gentlewoman.

  DOCTOR. I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no
    truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
  GENTLEWOMAN. Since his Majesty went into the field, have seen her
    rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her
    closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it,
    afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while
    in a most fast sleep.
  DOCTOR. A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the
    benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching! In this slumbery
    agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances,
    what, at any time, have you heard her say?
  GENTLEWOMAN. That, sir, which I will not report after her.
  DOCTOR. You may to me, and 'tis most meet you should.
  GENTLEWOMAN. Neither to you nor anyone, having no witness to
    confirm my speech.

                Enter Lady Macbeth with a taper.

    Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise, and, upon my
    life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
  DOCTOR. How came she by that light?
  GENTLEWOMAN. Why, it stood by her. She has light by her
     continually; 'tis her command.
  DOCTOR. You see, her eyes are open.
  GENTLEWOMAN. Ay, but their sense is shut.
  DOCTOR. What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.
  GENTLEWOMAN. It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus
    washing her hands. I have known her continue in this a quarter of
    an hour.
  LADY MACBETH. Yet here's a spot.
  DOCTOR. Hark, she speaks! I will set down what comes from her, to
    satisfy my remembrance the more strongly.
  LADY MACBETH. Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One- two -why then 'tis
    time to do't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and
    afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our
    power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have
    had so much blood in him?
  DOCTOR. Do you mark that?
  LADY MACBETH. The Thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now? What,
    will these hands neer be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more
    o' that. You mar all with this starting.
  DOCTOR. Go to, go to; you have known what you should not.
  GENTLEWOMAN. She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that.
    Heaven knows what she has known.
  LADY MACBETH. Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes
    of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!
  DOCTOR. What a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.
  GENTLEWOMAN. I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the
    dignity of the whole body.
  DOCTOR. Well, well, well-
  GENTLEWOMAN. Pray God it be, sir.
  DOCTOR. This disease is beyond my practice. Yet I have known those
    which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their
    beds.
  LADY MACBETH. Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so
    pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out
    on's grave.
  DOCTOR. Even so?
  LADY MACBETH. To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come,
    come, come, come, give me your hand.What's done cannot be undone.
    To bed, to bed, to bed.
Exit.
  DOCTOR. Will she go now to bed?
  GENTLEWOMAN. Directly.
  DOCTOR. Foul whisperings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
    Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds
    To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
    More needs she the divine than the physician.
    God, God, forgive us all! Look after her;
    Remove from her the means of all annoyance,
    And still keep eyes upon her. So good night.
    My mind she has mated and amazed my sight.
    I think, but dare not speak.
  GENTLEWOMAN. Good night, good doctor.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE II. The country near Dunsinane. Drum and colors.

Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox, and Soldiers.

  MENTEITH. The English power is near, led on by Malcolm,
    His uncle Siward, and the good Macduff.
    Revenges burn in them, for their dear causes
    Would to the bleeding and the grim alarm
    Excite the mortified man.
  ANGUS. Near Birnam Wood
    Shall we well meet them; that way are they coming.
  CAITHNESS. Who knows if Donalbain be with his brother?
  LENNOX. For certain, sir, he is not; I have a file
    Of all the gentry. There is Seward's son
    And many unrough youths that even now
    Protest their first of manhood.
  MENTEITH. What does the tyrant?
  CAITHNESS. Great Dunsinane he strongly fortifies.
    Some say he's mad; others, that lesser hate him,
    Do call it valiant fury; but, for certain,
    He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause
    Within the belt of rule.
  ANGUS. Now does he feel
    His secret murthers sticking on his hands,
    Now minutely revolts upbraid his faith-breach;
    Those he commands move only in command,
    Nothing in love. Now does he feel his title
    Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
    Upon a dwarfish thief.
  MENTEITH. Who then shall blame
    His pester'd senses to recoil and start,
    When all that is within him does condemn
    Itself for being there?
  CAITHNESS. Well, march we on
    To give obedience where 'tis truly owed.
    Meet we the medicine of the sickly weal,
    And with him pour we, in our country's purge,
    Each drop of us.
  LENNOX. Or so much as it needs
    To dew the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.
    Make we our march towards Birnam.           Exeunt marching.

SCENE III. Dunsinane. A room in the castle.

Enter Macbeth, Doctor, and Attendants.

  MACBETH. Bring me no more reports; let them fly all!
    Till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane
    I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm?
    Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know
    All mortal consequences have pronounced me thus:
    "Fear not, Macbeth; no man that's born of woman
    Shall e'er have power upon thee." Then fly, false Thanes,
    And mingle with the English epicures!
    The mind I sway by and the heart I bear
    Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

                       Enter a Servant.

    The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!
    Where got'st thou that goose look?
  SERVANT. There is ten thousand-
  MACBETH. Geese, villain?
  SERVANT. Soldiers, sir.
  MACBETH. Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear,
    Thou lily-liver'd boy. What soldiers, patch?
    Death of thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine
    Are counselors to fear. What soldiers, whey-face?
  SERVANT. The English force, so please you.
  MACBETH. Take thy face hence.                    Exit Servant.
    Seyton-I am sick at heart,
    When I behold- Seyton, I say!- This push
    Will cheer me ever or disseat me now.
    I have lived long enough. My way of life
    Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,
    And that which should accompany old age,
    As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
    I must not look to have; but in their stead,
    Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
    Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.
    Seyton!

                       Enter Seyton.

  SEYTON. What's your gracious pleasure?
  MACBETH. What news more?
  SEYTON. All is confirm'd, my lord, which was reported.
  MACBETH. I'll fight, 'til from my bones my flesh be hack'd.
    Give me my armor.
  SEYTON. 'Tis not needed yet.
  MACBETH. I'll put it on.
    Send out more horses, skirr the country round,
    Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armor.
    How does your patient, doctor?
  DOCTOR. Not so sick, my lord,
    As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,
    That keep her from her rest.
  MACBETH. Cure her of that.
    Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
    Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
    Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
    And with some sweet oblivious antidote
    Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
    Which weighs upon the heart?
  DOCTOR. Therein the patient
    Must minister to himself.
  MACBETH. Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it.
    Come, put mine armor on; give me my staff.
    Seyton, send out. Doctor, the Thanes fly from me.
    Come, sir, dispatch. If thou couldst, doctor, cast
    The water of my land, find her disease
    And purge it to a sound and pristine health,
    I would applaud thee to the very echo,
    That should applaud again. Pull't off, I say.
    What rhubarb, cyme, or what purgative drug
    Would scour these English hence? Hearst thou of them?
  DOCTOR. Ay, my good lord, your royal preparation
    Makes us hear something.
  MACBETH. Bring it after me.
    I will not be afraid of death and bane
    Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.
  DOCTOR. [Aside.] Were I from Dunsinane away and clear,
    Profit again should hardly draw me here.             Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Country near Birnam Wood. Drum and colors.

Enter Malcolm, old Seward and his Son, Macduff, Menteith, Caithness,
Angus, Lennox, Ross, and Soldiers, marching.

  MALCOLM. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hand
    That chambers will be safe.
  MENTEITH. We doubt it nothing.
  SIWARD. What wood is this before us?
  MENTEITH. The Wood of Birnam.
  MALCOLM. Let every soldier hew him down a bough,
    And bear't before him; thereby shall we shadow
    The numbers of our host, and make discovery
    Err in report of us.
  SOLDIERS. It shall be done.
  SIWARD. We learn no other but the confident tyrant
    Keeps still in Dunsinane and will endure
    Our setting down before't.
  MALCOLM. 'Tis his main hope;
    For where there is advantage to be given,
    Both more and less have given him the revolt,
    And none serve with him but constrained things
    Whose hearts are absent too.
  MACDUFF. Let our just censures
    Attend the true event, and put we on
    Industrious soldiership.
  SIWARD. The time approaches
    That will with due decision make us know
    What we shall say we have and what we owe.
    Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,
    But certain issue strokes must arbitrate.
    Towards which advance the war.
                                                Exeunt Marching.

SCENE V. Dunsinane. Within the castle.

Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers, with drum and colors.

  MACBETH. Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
    The cry is still, "They come!" Our castle's strength
    Will laugh a siege to scorn. Here let them lie
    Till famine and the ague eat them up.
    Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
    We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
    And beat them backward home.
                                          A cry of women within.
    What is that noise?
  SEYTON. It is the cry of women, my good lord.            Exit.
  MACBETH. I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
    The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
    To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
    Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
    As life were in't. I have supp'd full with horrors;
    Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
    Cannot once start me.

                  Re-enter Seyton.
     Wherefore was that cry?
  SEYTON. The Queen, my lord, is dead.
  MACBETH. She should have died hereafter;
    There would have been a time for such a word.
    Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more. It is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

                 Enter a Messenger.

    Thou comest to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.
  MESSENGER. Gracious my lord,
    I should report that which I say I saw,
    But know not how to do it.
  MACBETH. Well, say, sir.
  MESSENGER. As I did stand my watch upon the hill,
    I look'd toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
    The Wood began to move.
  MACBETH. Liar and slave!
  MESSENGER. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so.
    Within this three mile may you see it coming;
    I say, a moving grove.
  MACBETH. If thou speak'st false,
    Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
    Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,
    I care not if thou dost for me as much.
    I pull in resolution and begin
    To doubt the equivocation of the fiend
    That lies like truth. "Fear not, till Birnam Wood
    Do come to Dunsinane," and now a wood
    Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!
    If this which he avouches does appear,
    There is nor flying hence nor tarrying here.
    I 'gin to be aweary of the sun
    And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
    Ring the alarum bell! Blow, wind! Come, wrack!
    At least we'll die with harness on our back.         Exeunt.

SCENE VI. Dunsinane.  Before the castle.

Enter Malcolm, old Siward, Macduff, and their Army, with boughs.
Drum and colors.

  MALCOLM. Now near enough; your leavy screens throw down,
    And show like those you are. You, worthy uncle,
    Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,
    Lead our first battle. Worthy Macduff and we
    Shall take upon 's what else remains to do,
    According to our order.
  SIWARD. Fare you well.
    Do we but find the tyrant's power tonight,
    Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.
  MACDUFF. Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath,
    Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
                                                         Exeunt.

SCENE VII. Dunsinane.  Before the castle.  Alarums.

Enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly,
    But bear-like I must fight the course. What's he
    That was not born of woman? Such a one
    Am I to fear, or none.

                     Enter young Siward.

  YOUNG SIWARD. What is thy name?
  MACBETH. Thou'lt be afraid to hear it.
  YOUNG SIWARD. No, though thou call'st thyself a hotter name
    Than any is in hell.
  MACBETH. My name's Macbeth.
  YOUNG SIWARD. The devil himself could not pronounce a title
    More hateful to mine ear.
  MACBETH. No, nor more fearful.
  YOUNG SIWARD O Thou liest, abhorred tyrant; with my sword
    I'll prove the lie thou speak'st.
                          They fight, and young Seward is slain.
  MACBETH. Thou wast born of woman.
    But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,
    Brandish'd by man that's of a woman born.              Exit.

                Alarums. Enter Macduff.

  MACDUFF. That way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face!
    If thou best slain and with no stroke of mine,
    My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still.
    I cannot strike at wretched kerns, whose arms
    Are hired to bear their staves. Either thou, Macbeth,
    Or else my sword, with an unbatter'd edge,
    I sheathe again undeeded. There thou shouldst be;
    By this great clatter, one of greatest note
    Seems bruited. Let me find him, Fortune!
    And more I beg not.                           Exit. Alarums.

                Enter Malcolm and old Siward.

  SIWARD. This way, my lord; the castle's gently render'd.
    The tyrant's people on both sides do fight,
    The noble Thanes do bravely in the war,
    The day almost itself professes yours,
    And little is to do.
  MALCOLM. We have met with foes
    That strike beside us.
  SIWARD. Enter, sir, the castle.
                                                 Exeunt. Alarum.

SCENE VIII. Another part of the field.

Enter Macbeth.

  MACBETH. Why should I play the Roman fool and die
    On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives, the gashes
    Do better upon them.

                      Enter Macduff.

  MACDUFF. Turn, hell hound, turn!
  MACBETH. Of all men else I have avoided thee.
    But get thee back, my soul is too much charged
    With blood of thine already.
  MACDUFF. I have no words.
    My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain
    Than terms can give thee out!                    They fight.
  MACBETH. Thou losest labor.
    As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air
    With thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.
    Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests;
    I bear a charmed life, which must not yield
    To one of woman born.
  MACDUFF. Despair thy charm,
    And let the angel whom thou still hast served
    Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
    Untimely ripp'd.
  MACBETH. Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,
    For it hath cow'd my better part of man!
    And be these juggling fiends no more believed
    That patter with us in a double sense,
    That keep the word of promise to our ear
    And break it to our hope. I'll not fight with thee.
  MACDUFF. Then yield thee, coward,
    And live to be the show and gaze o' the time.
    We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,
    Painted upon a pole, and underwrit,
    "Here may you see the tyrant."
  MACBETH. I will not yield,
    To kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet,
    And to be baited with the rabble's curse.
    Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,
    And thou opposed, being of no woman born,
    Yet I will try the last. Before my body
    I throw my warlike shield! Lay on, Macduff,
    And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
                                       Exeunt fighting. Alarums.

SCENE IX.

Retreat. Flourish. Enter, with drum and colors, Malcolm, old Siward,
Ross, the other Thanes, and Soldiers.

  MALCOLM. I would the friends we miss were safe arrived.
  SIWARD. Some must go off, and yet, by these I see,
    So great a day as this is cheaply bought.
  MALCOLM. Macduff is missing, and your noble son.
  ROSS. Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier's debt.
    He only lived but till he was a man,
    The which no sooner had his prowess confirm'd
    In the unshrinking station where he fought,
    But like a man he died.
  SIWARD. Then he is dead?
  ROSS. Ay, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow
    Must not be measured by his worth, for then
    It hath no end.
  SIWARD. Had he his hurts before?
  ROSS. Ay, on the front.
  SIWARD. Why then, God's soldier be he!
    Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
    I would not wish them to a fairer death.
    And so his knell is knoll'd.
  MALCOLM. He's worth more sorrow,
    And that I'll spend for him.
  SIWARD. He's worth no more:
    They say he parted well and paid his score,
    And so God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.

             Re-enter Macduff, with Macbeth's head.

  MACDUFF. Hail, King, for so thou art. Behold where stands
    The usurper's cursed head. The time is free.
    I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl
    That speak my salutation in their minds,
    Whose voices I desire aloud with mine-
    Hail, King of Scotland!
  ALL. Hail, King of Scotland!                         Flourish.
  MALCOLM. We shall not spend a large expense of time
    Before we reckon with your several loves
    And make us even with you. My Thanes and kinsmen,
    Henceforth be Earls, the first that ever Scotland
    In such an honor named. What's more to do,
    Which would be planted newly with the time,
    As calling home our exiled friends abroad
    That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,
    Producing forth the cruel ministers
    Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
    Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
    Took off her life; this, and what needful else
    That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace
    We will perform in measure, time, and place.
    So thanks to all at once and to each one,
    Whom we invite to see us crown'd at Scone.
                                               Flourish. Exeunt.
                 -THE END-

1605



MEASURE FOR MEASURE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  VINCENTIO, the Duke
  ANGELO, the Deputy
  ESCALUS, an ancient Lord
  CLAUDIO, a young gentleman
  LUCIO, a fantastic
  Two other like Gentlemen
  VARRIUS, a gentleman, servant to the Duke
  PROVOST
  THOMAS, friar
  PETER, friar
  A JUSTICE
  ELBOW, a simple constable
  FROTH, a foolish gentleman
  POMPEY, a clown and servant to Mistress Overdone
  ABHORSON, an executioner
  BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner

  ISABELLA, sister to Claudio
  MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo
  JULIET, beloved of Claudio
  FRANCISCA, a nun
  MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd

  Lords, Officers, Citizens, Boy, and Attendants

SCENE: Vienna

ACT I. SCENE I. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE, ESCALUS, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS

  DUKE. Escalus!
  ESCALUS. My lord.
  DUKE. Of government the properties to unfold
    Would seem in me t' affect speech and discourse,
    Since I am put to know that your own science
    Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice
    My strength can give you; then no more remains
    But that to your sufficiency- as your worth is able-
    And let them work. The nature of our people,
    Our city's institutions, and the terms
    For common justice, y'are as pregnant in
    As art and practice hath enriched any
    That we remember. There is our commission,
    From which we would not have you warp. Call hither,
    I say, bid come before us, Angelo.         Exit an ATTENDANT
    What figure of us think you he will bear?
    For you must know we have with special soul
    Elected him our absence to supply;
    Lent him our terror, dress'd him with our love,
    And given his deputation all the organs
    Of our own power. What think you of it?
  ESCALUS. If any in Vienna be of worth
    To undergo such ample grace and honour,
    It is Lord Angelo.

                          Enter ANGELO

  DUKE. Look where he comes.
  ANGELO. Always obedient to your Grace's will,
    I come to know your pleasure.
  DUKE. Angelo,
    There is a kind of character in thy life
    That to th' observer doth thy history
    Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings
    Are not thine own so proper as to waste
    Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.
    Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
    Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
    Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike
    As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd
    But to fine issues; nor Nature never lends
    The smallest scruple of her excellence
    But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
    Herself the glory of a creditor,
    Both thanks and use. But I do bend my speech
    To one that can my part in him advertise.
    Hold, therefore, Angelo-
    In our remove be thou at full ourself;
    Mortality and mercy in Vienna
    Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,
    Though first in question, is thy secondary.
    Take thy commission.
  ANGELO. Now, good my lord,
    Let there be some more test made of my metal,
    Before so noble and so great a figure
    Be stamp'd upon it.
  DUKE. No more evasion!
    We have with a leaven'd and prepared choice
    Proceeded to you; therefore take your honours.
    Our haste from hence is of so quick condition
    That it prefers itself, and leaves unquestion'd
    Matters of needful value. We shall write to you,
    As time and our concernings shall importune,
    How it goes with us, and do look to know
    What doth befall you here. So, fare you well.
    To th' hopeful execution do I leave you
    Of your commissions.
  ANGELO. Yet give leave, my lord,
    That we may bring you something on the way.
  DUKE. My haste may not admit it;
    Nor need you, on mine honour, have to do
    With any scruple: your scope is as mine own,
    So to enforce or qualify the laws
    As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand;
    I'll privily away. I love the people,
    But do not like to stage me to their eyes;
    Though it do well, I do not relish well
    Their loud applause and Aves vehement;
    Nor do I think the man of safe discretion
    That does affect it. Once more, fare you well.
  ANGELO. The heavens give safety to your purposes!
  ESCALUS. Lead forth and bring you back in happiness!
  DUKE. I thank you. Fare you well.                         Exit
  ESCALUS. I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave
    To have free speech with you; and it concerns me
    To look into the bottom of my place:
    A pow'r I have, but of what strength and nature
    I am not yet instructed.
  ANGELO. 'Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,
    And we may soon our satisfaction have
    Touching that point.
  ESCALUS. I'll wait upon your honour.                    Exeunt

SCENE II. A street

Enter Lucio and two other GENTLEMEN

  LUCIO. If the Duke, with the other dukes, come not to composition
    with the King of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon the
    King.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Heaven grant us its peace, but not the King of
    Hungary's!
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Amen.
  LUCIO. Thou conclud'st like the sanctimonious pirate that went to
    sea with the Ten Commandments, but scrap'd one out of the table.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Thou shalt not steal'?
  LUCIO. Ay, that he raz'd.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Why, 'twas a commandment to command the captain
    and all the rest from their functions: they put forth to steal.
    There's not a soldier of us all that, in the thanksgiving before
    meat, do relish the petition well that prays for peace.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I never heard any soldier dislike it.
  LUCIO. I believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was
    said.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No? A dozen times at least.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What, in metre?
  LUCIO. In any proportion or in any language.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I think, or in any religion.
  LUCIO. Ay, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy; as,
    for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all
    grace.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Well, there went but a pair of shears between us.
  LUCIO. I grant; as there may between the lists and the velvet.
    Thou art the list.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. And thou the velvet; thou art good velvet; thou'rt
    a three-pil'd piece, I warrant thee. I had as lief be a list of
    an English kersey as be pil'd, as thou art pil'd, for a French
    velvet. Do I speak feelingly now?
  LUCIO. I think thou dost; and, indeed, with most painful feeling of
    thy speech. I will, out of thine own confession, learn to begin
    thy health; but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I think I have done myself wrong, have I not?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Yes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or
    free.

                        Enter MISTRESS OVERDONE

  LUCIO. Behold, behold, where Madam Mitigation comes! I have
    purchas'd as many diseases under her roof as come to-
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. To what, I pray?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Judge.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. To three thousand dolours a year.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Ay, and more.
  LUCIO. A French crown more.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Thou art always figuring diseases in me, but thou
    art full of error; I am sound.
  LUCIO. Nay, not, as one would say, healthy; but so sound as things
    that are hollow: thy bones are hollow; impiety has made a feast
    of thee.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. How now! which of your hips has the most profound
    sciatica?
  MRS. OVERDONE. Well, well! there's one yonder arrested and carried
    to prison was worth five thousand of you all.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who's that, I pray thee?
  MRS. OVERDONE. Marry, sir, that's Claudio, Signior Claudio.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Claudio to prison? 'Tis not so.
  MRS. OVERDONE. Nay, but I know 'tis so: I saw him arrested; saw him
    carried away; and, which is more, within these three days his
    head to be chopp'd off.
  LUCIO. But, after all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art
    thou sure of this?
  MRS. OVERDONE. I am too sure of it; and it is for getting Madam
    Julietta with child.
  LUCIO. Believe me, this may be; he promis'd to meet me two hours
    since, and he was ever precise in promise-keeping.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Besides, you know, it draws something near to the
    speech we had to such a purpose.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. But most of all agreeing with the proclamation.
  LUCIO. Away; let's go learn the truth of it.
                                      Exeunt Lucio and GENTLEMEN
  MRS. OVERDONE. Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what
    with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.

                               Enter POMPEY

    How now! what's the news with you?
  POMPEY. Yonder man is carried to prison.
  MRS. OVERDONE. Well, what has he done?
  POMPEY. A woman.
  MRS. OVERDONE. But what's his offence?
  POMPEY. Groping for trouts in a peculiar river.
  MRS. OVERDONE. What! is there a maid with child by him?
  POMPEY. No; but there's a woman with maid by him. You have not
   heard of the proclamation, have you?
  MRS. OVERDONE. What proclamation, man?
  POMPEY. All houses in the suburbs of Vienna must be pluck'd down.
  MRS. OVERDONE. And what shall become of those in the city?
  POMPEY. They shall stand for seed; they had gone down too, but that
    a wise burgher put in for them.
  MRS. OVERDONE. But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be
    pull'd down?
  POMPEY. To the ground, mistress.
  MRS. OVERDONE. Why, here's a change indeed in the commonwealth!
    What shall become of me?
  POMPEY. Come, fear not you: good counsellors lack no clients.
    Though you change your place you need not change your trade; I'll
    be your tapster still. Courage, there will be pity taken on you;
    you that have worn your eyes almost out in the service, you will
    be considered.
  MRS. OVERDONE. What's to do here, Thomas Tapster? Let's withdraw.
  POMPEY. Here comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison;
    and there's Madam Juliet.                             Exeunt

            Enter PROVOST, CLAUDIO, JULIET, and OFFICERS;
                            LUCIO following

  CLAUDIO. Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th' world?
    Bear me to prison, where I am committed.
  PROVOST. I do it not in evil disposition,
    But from Lord Angelo by special charge.
  CLAUDIO. Thus can the demigod Authority
    Make us pay down for our offence by weight
    The words of heaven: on whom it will, it will;
    On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.
  LUCIO. Why, how now, Claudio, whence comes this restraint?
  CLAUDIO. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty;
    As surfeit is the father of much fast,
    So every scope by the immoderate use
    Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,
    Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,
    A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.
  LUCIO. If I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for
    certain of my creditors; and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief
    have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment.
    What's thy offence, Claudio?
  CLAUDIO. What but to speak of would offend again.
  LUCIO. What, is't murder?
  CLAUDIO. No.
  LUCIO. Lechery?
  CLAUDIO. Call it so.
  PROVOST. Away, sir; you must go.
  CLAUDIO. One word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you.
  LUCIO. A hundred, if they'll do you any good. Is lechery so look'd
    after?
  CLAUDIO. Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract
    I got possession of Julietta's bed.
    You know the lady; she is fast my wife,
    Save that we do the denunciation lack
    Of outward order; this we came not to,
    Only for propagation of a dow'r
    Remaining in the coffer of her friends.
    From whom we thought it meet to hide our love
    Till time had made them for us. But it chances
    The stealth of our most mutual entertainment,
    With character too gross, is writ on Juliet.
  LUCIO. With child, perhaps?
  CLAUDIO. Unhappily, even so.
    And the new deputy now for the Duke-
    Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,
    Or whether that the body public be
    A horse whereon the governor doth ride,
    Who, newly in the seat, that it may know
    He can command, lets it straight feel the spur;
    Whether the tyranny be in his place,
    Or in his eminence that fills it up,
    I stagger in. But this new governor
    Awakes me all the enrolled penalties
    Which have, like unscour'd armour, hung by th' wall
    So long that nineteen zodiacs have gone round
    And none of them been worn; and, for a name,
    Now puts the drowsy and neglected act
    Freshly on me. 'Tis surely for a name.
  LUCIO. I warrant it is; and thy head stands so tickle on thy
    shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off.
    Send after the Duke, and appeal to him.
  CLAUDIO. I have done so, but he's not to be found.
    I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:
    This day my sister should the cloister enter,
    And there receive her approbation;
    Acquaint her with the danger of my state;
    Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends
    To the strict deputy; bid herself assay him.
    I have great hope in that; for in her youth
    There is a prone and speechless dialect
    Such as move men; beside, she hath prosperous art
    When she will play with reason and discourse,
    And well she can persuade.
  LUCIO. I pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like,
    which else would stand under grievous imposition, as for the
    enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus
    foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack. I'll to her.
  CLAUDIO. I thank you, good friend Lucio.
  LUCIO. Within two hours.
  CLAUDIO. Come, officer, away.                           Exeunt

SCENE III. A monastery

Enter DUKE and FRIAR THOMAS

  DUKE. No, holy father; throw away that thought;
    Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
    Can pierce a complete bosom. Why I desire thee
    To give me secret harbour hath a purpose
    More grave and wrinkled than the aims and ends
    Of burning youth.
  FRIAR. May your Grace speak of it?
  DUKE. My holy sir, none better knows than you
    How I have ever lov'd the life removed,
    And held in idle price to haunt assemblies
    Where youth, and cost, a witless bravery keeps.
    I have deliver'd to Lord Angelo,
    A man of stricture and firm abstinence,
    My absolute power and place here in Vienna,
    And he supposes me travell'd to Poland;
    For so I have strew'd it in the common ear,
    And so it is received. Now, pious sir,
    You will demand of me why I do this.
  FRIAR. Gladly, my lord.
  DUKE. We have strict statutes and most biting laws,
    The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds,
    Which for this fourteen years we have let slip;
    Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave,
    That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers,
    Having bound up the threat'ning twigs of birch,
    Only to stick it in their children's sight
    For terror, not to use, in time the rod
    Becomes more mock'd than fear'd; so our decrees,
    Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead;
    And liberty plucks justice by the nose;
    The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart
    Goes all decorum.
  FRIAR. It rested in your Grace
    To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleas'd;
    And it in you more dreadful would have seem'd
    Than in Lord Angelo.
  DUKE. I do fear, too dreadful.
    Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope,
    'Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall them
    For what I bid them do; for we bid this be done,
    When evil deeds have their permissive pass
    And not the punishment. Therefore, indeed, my father,
    I have on Angelo impos'd the office;
    Who may, in th' ambush of my name, strike home,
    And yet my nature never in the fight
    To do in slander. And to behold his sway,
    I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
    Visit both prince and people. Therefore, I prithee,
    Supply me with the habit, and instruct me
    How I may formally in person bear me
    Like a true friar. Moe reasons for this action
    At our more leisure shall I render you.
    Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise;
    Stands at a guard with envy; scarce confesses
    That his blood flows, or that his appetite
    Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,
    If power change purpose, what our seemers be.         Exeunt

SCENE IV. A nunnery

Enter ISABELLA and FRANCISCA

  ISABELLA. And have you nuns no farther privileges?
  FRANCISCA. Are not these large enough?
  ISABELLA. Yes, truly; I speak not as desiring more,
    But rather wishing a more strict restraint
    Upon the sisterhood, the votarists of Saint Clare.
  LUCIO. [ Within] Ho! Peace be in this place!
  ISABELLA. Who's that which calls?
  FRANCISCA. It is a man's voice. Gentle Isabella,
    Turn you the key, and know his business of him:
    You may, I may not; you are yet unsworn;
    When you have vow'd, you must not speak with men
    But in the presence of the prioress;
    Then, if you speak, you must not show your face,
    Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.
    He calls again; I pray you answer him.        Exit FRANCISCA
  ISABELLA. Peace and prosperity! Who is't that calls?

                           Enter LUCIO

  LUCIO. Hail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses
    Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead me
    As bring me to the sight of Isabella,
    A novice of this place, and the fair sister
    To her unhappy brother Claudio?
  ISABELLA. Why her 'unhappy brother'? Let me ask
    The rather, for I now must make you know
    I am that Isabella, and his sister.
  LUCIO. Gentle and fair, your brother kindly greets you.
    Not to be weary with you, he's in prison.
  ISABELLA. Woe me! For what?
  LUCIO. For that which, if myself might be his judge,
    He should receive his punishment in thanks:
    He hath got his friend with child.
  ISABELLA. Sir, make me not your story.
  LUCIO. It is true.
    I would not- though 'tis my familiar sin
    With maids to seem the lapwing, and to jest,
    Tongue far from heart- play with all virgins so:
    I hold you as a thing enskied and sainted,
    By your renouncement an immortal spirit,
    And to be talk'd with in sincerity,
    As with a saint.
  ISABELLA. You do blaspheme the good in mocking me.
  LUCIO. Do not believe it. Fewness and truth, 'tis thus:
    Your brother and his lover have embrac'd.
    As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
    That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
    To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
    Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
  ISABELLA. Some one with child by him? My cousin Juliet?
  LUCIO. Is she your cousin?
  ISABELLA. Adoptedly, as school-maids change their names
    By vain though apt affection.
  LUCIO. She it is.
  ISABELLA. O, let him marry her!
  LUCIO. This is the point.
    The Duke is very strangely gone from hence;
    Bore many gentlemen, myself being one,
    In hand, and hope of action; but we do learn,
    By those that know the very nerves of state,
    His givings-out were of an infinite distance
    From his true-meant design. Upon his place,
    And with full line of his authority,
    Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood
    Is very snow-broth, one who never feels
    The wanton stings and motions of the sense,
    But doth rebate and blunt his natural edge
    With profits of the mind, study and fast.
    He- to give fear to use and liberty,
    Which have for long run by the hideous law,
    As mice by lions- hath pick'd out an act
    Under whose heavy sense your brother's life
    Falls into forfeit; he arrests him on it,
    And follows close the rigour of the statute
    To make him an example. All hope is gone,
    Unless you have the grace by your fair prayer
    To soften Angelo. And that's my pith of business
    'Twixt you and your poor brother.
  ISABELLA. Doth he so seek his life?
  LUCIO. Has censur'd him
    Already, and, as I hear, the Provost hath
    A warrant for his execution.
  ISABELLA. Alas! what poor ability's in me
    To do him good?
  LUCIO. Assay the pow'r you have.
  ISABELLA. My power, alas, I doubt!
  LUCIO. Our doubts are traitors,
    And make us lose the good we oft might win
    By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,
    And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,
    Men give like gods; but when they weep and kneel,
    All their petitions are as freely theirs
    As they themselves would owe them.
  ISABELLA. I'll see what I can do.
  LUCIO. But speedily.
  ISABELLA. I will about it straight;
    No longer staying but to give the Mother
    Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you.
    Commend me to my brother; soon at night
    I'll send him certain word of my success.
  LUCIO. I take my leave of you.
  ISABELLA. Good sir, adieu.                              Exeunt

ACT II. Scene I. A hall in ANGELO'S house

Enter ANGELO, ESCALUS, a JUSTICE, PROVOST, OFFICERS, and other
ATTENDANTS

  ANGELO. We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
    Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
    And let it keep one shape till custom make it
    Their perch, and not their terror.
  ESCALUS. Ay, but yet
    Let us be keen, and rather cut a little
    Than fall and bruise to death. Alas! this gentleman,
    Whom I would save, had a most noble father.
    Let but your honour know,
    Whom I believe to be most strait in virtue,
    That, in the working of your own affections,
    Had time coher'd with place, or place with wishing,
    Or that the resolute acting of our blood
    Could have attain'd th' effect of your own purpose
    Whether you had not sometime in your life
    Err'd in this point which now you censure him,
    And pull'd the law upon you.
  ANGELO. 'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
    Another thing to fall. I not deny
    The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
    May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
    Guiltier than him they try. What's open made to justice,
    That justice seizes. What knows the laws
    That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very pregnant,
    The jewel that we find, we stoop and take't,
    Because we see it; but what we do not see
    We tread upon, and never think of it.
    You may not so extenuate his offence
    For I have had such faults; but rather tell me,
    When I, that censure him, do so offend,
    Let mine own judgment pattern out my death,
    And nothing come in partial. Sir, he must die.
  ESCALUS. Be it as your wisdom will.
  ANGELO. Where is the Provost?
  PROVOST. Here, if it like your honour.
  ANGELO. See that Claudio
    Be executed by nine to-morrow morning;
    Bring him his confessor; let him be prepar'd;
    For that's the utmost of his pilgrimage.        Exit PROVOST
  ESCALUS. [Aside] Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
    Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall;
    Some run from breaks of ice, and answer none,
    And some condemned for a fault alone.

         Enter ELBOW and OFFICERS with FROTH and POMPEY

  ELBOW. Come, bring them away; if these be good people in a
    commonweal that do nothing but use their abuses in common houses,
    I know no law; bring them away.
  ANGELO. How now, sir! What's your name, and what's the matter?
  ELBOW. If it please your honour, I am the poor Duke's constable,
    and my name is Elbow; I do lean upon justice, sir, and do bring
    in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.
  ANGELO. Benefactors! Well- what benefactors are they? Are they not
    malefactors?
  ELBOW. If it please your honour, I know not well what they are; but
    precise villains they are, that I am sure of, and void of all
    profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.
  ESCALUS. This comes off well; here's a wise officer.
  ANGELO. Go to; what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why
    dost thou not speak, Elbow?
  POMPEY. He cannot, sir; he's out at elbow.
  ANGELO. What are you, sir?
  ELBOW. He, sir? A tapster, sir; parcel-bawd; one that serves a bad
    woman; whose house, sir, was, as they say, pluck'd down in the
    suburbs; and now she professes a hot-house, which, I think, is a
    very ill house too.
  ESCALUS. How know you that?
  ELBOW. My Wife, sir, whom I detest before heaven and your honour-
  ESCALUS. How! thy wife!
  ELBOW. Ay, sir; whom I thank heaven, is an honest woman-
  ESCALUS. Dost thou detest her therefore?
  ELBOW. I say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that
    this house, if it be not a bawd's house, it is pity of her life,
    for it is a naughty house.
  ESCALUS. How dost thou know that, constable?
  ELBOW. Marry, sir, by my wife; who, if she had been a woman
    cardinally given, might have been accus'd in fornication,
    adultery, and all uncleanliness there.
  ESCALUS. By the woman's means?
  ELBOW. Ay, sir, by Mistress Overdone's means; but as she spit in
    his face, so she defied him.
  POMPEY. Sir, if it please your honour, this is not so.
  ELBOW. Prove it before these varlets here, thou honourable man,
    prove it.
  ESCALUS. Do you hear how he misplaces?
  POMPEY. Sir, she came in great with child; and longing, saving your
    honour's reverence, for stew'd prunes. Sir, we had but two in the
    house, which at that very distant time stood, as it were, in a
    fruit dish, a dish of some three pence; your honours have seen
    such dishes; they are not China dishes, but very good dishes.
  ESCALUS. Go to, go to; no matter for the dish, sir.
  POMPEY. No, indeed, sir, not of a pin; you are therein in the
    right; but to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as
    I say, with child, and being great-bellied, and longing, as I
    said, for prunes; and having but two in the dish, as I said,
    Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I
    said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly; for, as you
    know, Master Froth, I could not give you three pence again-
  FROTH. No, indeed.
  POMPEY. Very well; you being then, if you be rememb'red, cracking
    the stones of the foresaid prunes-
  FROTH. Ay, so I did indeed.
  POMPEY. Why, very well; I telling you then, if you be rememb'red,
    that such a one and such a one were past cure of the thing you
    wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you-
  FROTH. All this is true.
  POMPEY. Why, very well then-
  ESCALUS. Come, you are a tedious fool. To the purpose: what was
    done to Elbow's wife that he hath cause to complain of? Come me
    to what was done to her.
  POMPEY. Sir, your honour cannot come to that yet.
  ESCALUS. No, sir, nor I mean it not.
  POMPEY. Sir, but you shall come to it, by your honour's leave. And,
    I beseech you, look into Master Froth here, sir, a man of
    fourscore pound a year; whose father died at Hallowmas- was't not
    at Hallowmas, Master Froth?
  FROTH. All-hallond eve.
  POMPEY. Why, very well; I hope here be truths. He, sir, sitting, as
    I say, in a lower chair, sir; 'twas in the Bunch of Grapes,
    where, indeed, you have a delight to sit, have you not?
  FROTH. I have so; because it is an open room, and good for winter.
  POMPEY. Why, very well then; I hope here be truths.
  ANGELO. This will last out a night in Russia,
    When nights are longest there; I'll take my leave,
    And leave you to the hearing of the cause,
    Hoping you'll find good cause to whip them all.
  ESCALUS. I think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.
    [Exit ANGELO] Now, sir, come on; what was done to Elbow's wife,
    once more?
  POMPEY. Once?- sir. There was nothing done to her once.
  ELBOW. I beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.
  POMPEY. I beseech your honour, ask me.
  ESCALUS. Well, sir, what did this gentleman to her?
  POMPEY. I beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman's face. Good
    Master Froth, look upon his honour; 'tis for a good purpose. Doth
    your honour mark his face?
  ESCALUS. Ay, sir, very well.
  POMPEY. Nay, I beseech you, mark it well.
  ESCALUS. Well, I do so.
  POMPEY. Doth your honour see any harm in his face?
  ESCALUS. Why, no.
  POMPEY. I'll be suppos'd upon a book his face is the worst thing
    about him. Good then; if his face be the worst thing about him,
    how could Master Froth do the constable's wife any harm? I would
    know that of your honour.
  ESCALUS. He's in the right, constable; what say you to it?
  ELBOW. First, an it like you, the house is a respected house; next,
    this is a respected fellow; and his mistress is a respected
    woman.
  POMPEY. By this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than
    any of us all.
  ELBOW. Varlet, thou liest; thou liest, wicket varlet; the time is
    yet to come that she was ever respected with man, woman, or
    child.
  POMPEY. Sir, she was respected with him before he married with her.
  ESCALUS. Which is the wiser here, Justice or Iniquity? Is this
    true?
  ELBOW. O thou caitiff! O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I
    respected with her before I was married to her! If ever I was
    respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me
    the poor Duke's officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or
    I'll have mine action of batt'ry on thee.
  ESCALUS. If he took you a box o' th' ear, you might have your
    action of slander too.
  ELBOW. Marry, I thank your good worship for it. What is't your
    worship's pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?
  ESCALUS. Truly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that
    thou wouldst discover if thou couldst, let him continue in his
    courses till thou know'st what they are.
  ELBOW. Marry, I thank your worship for it. Thou seest, thou wicked
    varlet, now, what's come upon thee: thou art to continue now,
    thou varlet; thou art to continue.
  ESCALUS. Where were you born, friend?
  FROTH. Here in Vienna, sir.
  ESCALUS. Are you of fourscore pounds a year?
  FROTH. Yes, an't please you, sir.
  ESCALUS. So. What trade are you of, sir?
  POMPEY. A tapster, a poor widow's tapster.
  ESCALUS. Your mistress' name?
  POMPEY. Mistress Overdone.
  ESCALUS. Hath she had any more than one husband?
  POMPEY. Nine, sir; Overdone by the last.
  ESCALUS. Nine! Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I
    would not have you acquainted with tapsters: they will draw you,
    Master Froth, and you will hang them. Get you gone, and let me
    hear no more of you.
  FROTH. I thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into
    any room in a taphouse but I am drawn in.
  ESCALUS. Well, no more of it, Master Froth; farewell. [Exit FROTH]
    Come you hither to me, Master Tapster; what's your name, Master
    Tapster?
  POMPEY. Pompey.
  ESCALUS. What else?
  POMPEY. Bum, sir.
  ESCALUS. Troth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you; so
    that, in the beastliest sense, you are Pompey the Great. Pompey,
    you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in being a
    tapster. Are you not? Come, tell me true; it shall be the better
    for you.
  POMPEY. Truly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.
  ESCALUS. How would you live, Pompey- by being a bawd? What do you
    think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?
  POMPEY. If the law would allow it, sir.
  ESCALUS. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be
    allowed in Vienna.
  POMPEY. Does your worship mean to geld and splay all the youth of
    the city?
  ESCALUS. No, Pompey.
  POMPEY. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to't then. If
    your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you
    need not to fear the bawds.
  ESCALUS. There is pretty orders beginning, I can tell you: but it
    is but heading and hanging.
  POMPEY. If you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten
    year together, you'll be glad to give out a commission for more
    heads; if this law hold in Vienna ten year, I'll rent the fairest
    house in it, after threepence a bay. If you live to see this come
    to pass, say Pompey told you so.
  ESCALUS. Thank you, good Pompey; and, in requital of your prophecy,
    hark you: I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon
    any complaint whatsoever- no, not for dwelling where you do; if I
    do, Pompey, I shall beat you to your tent, and prove a shrewd
    Caesar to you; in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipt.
    So for this time, Pompey, fare you well.
  POMPEY. I thank your worship for your good counsel; [Aside] but I
    shall follow it as the flesh and fortune shall better determine.
    Whip me? No, no; let carman whip his jade;
    The valiant heart's not whipt out of his trade.         Exit
  ESCALUS. Come hither to me, Master Elbow; come hither, Master
    Constable. How long have you been in this place of constable?
  ELBOW. Seven year and a half, sir.
  ESCALUS. I thought, by the readiness in the office, you had
    continued in it some time. You say seven years together?
  ELBOW. And a half, sir.
  ESCALUS. Alas, it hath been great pains to you! They do you wrong
    to put you so oft upon't. Are there not men in your ward
    sufficient to serve it?
  ELBOW. Faith, sir, few of any wit in such matters; as they are
    chosen, they are glad to choose me for them; I do it for some
    piece of money, and go through with all.
  ESCALUS. Look you, bring me in the names of some six or seven, the
    most sufficient of your parish.
  ELBOW. To your worship's house, sir?
  ESCALUS. To my house. Fare you well.              [Exit ELBOW]
    What's o'clock, think you?
  JUSTICE. Eleven, sir.
  ESCALUS. I pray you home to dinner with me.
  JUSTICE. I humbly thank you.
  ESCALUS. It grieves me for the death of Claudio;
    But there's no remedy.
  JUSTICE. Lord Angelo is severe.
  ESCALUS. It is but needful:
    Mercy is not itself that oft looks so;
    Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.
    But yet, poor Claudio! There is no remedy.
    Come, sir.                                            Exeunt

SCENE II. Another room in ANGELO'S house

Enter PROVOST and a SERVANT

  SERVANT. He's hearing of a cause; he will come straight.
    I'll tell him of you.
  PROVOST. Pray you do. [Exit SERVANT] I'll know
    His pleasure; may be he will relent. Alas,
    He hath but as offended in a dream!
    All sects, all ages, smack of this vice; and he
    To die for 't!

                            Enter ANGELO

  ANGELO. Now, what's the matter, Provost?
  PROVOST. Is it your will Claudio shall die to-morrow?
  ANGELO. Did not I tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?
    Why dost thou ask again?
  PROVOST. Lest I might be too rash;
    Under your good correction, I have seen
    When, after execution, judgment hath
    Repented o'er his doom.
  ANGELO. Go to; let that be mine.
    Do you your office, or give up your place,
    And you shall well be spar'd.
  PROVOST. I crave your honour's pardon.
    What shall be done, sir, with the groaning Juliet?
    She's very near her hour.
  ANGELO. Dispose of her
    To some more fitter place, and that with speed.

                           Re-enter SERVANT

  SERVANT. Here is the sister of the man condemn'd
    Desires access to you.
  ANGELO. Hath he a sister?
  PROVOST. Ay, my good lord; a very virtuous maid,
    And to be shortly of a sisterhood,
    If not already.
  ANGELO. Well, let her be admitted.                Exit SERVANT
    See you the fornicatress be remov'd;
    Let her have needful but not lavish means;
    There shall be order for't.

                         Enter Lucio and ISABELLA

  PROVOST. [Going] Save your honour!
  ANGELO. Stay a little while. [To ISABELLA] Y'are welcome; what's
    your will?
  ISABELLA. I am a woeful suitor to your honour,
    Please but your honour hear me.
  ANGELO. Well; what's your suit?
  ISABELLA. There is a vice that most I do abhor,
    And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
    For which I would not plead, but that I must;
    For which I must not plead, but that I am
    At war 'twixt will and will not.
  ANGELO. Well; the matter?
  ISABELLA. I have a brother is condemn'd to die;
    I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
    And not my brother.
  PROVOST. [Aside] Heaven give thee moving graces.
  ANGELO. Condemn the fault and not the actor of it!
    Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done;
    Mine were the very cipher of a function,
    To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,
    And let go by the actor.
  ISABELLA. O just but severe law!
    I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour!
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Give't not o'er so; to him again, entreat him,
    Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown;
    You are too cold: if you should need a pin,
    You could not with more tame a tongue desire it.
    To him, I say.
  ISABELLA. Must he needs die?
  ANGELO. Maiden, no remedy.
  ISABELLA. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him.
    And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
  ANGELO. I will not do't.
  ISABELLA. But can you, if you would?
  ANGELO. Look, what I will not, that I cannot do.
  ISABELLA. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,
    If so your heart were touch'd with that remorse
    As mine is to him?
  ANGELO. He's sentenc'd; 'tis too late.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] You are too cold.
  ISABELLA. Too late? Why, no; I, that do speak a word,
    May call it back again. Well, believe this:
    No ceremony that to great ones longs,
    Not the king's crown nor the deputed sword,
    The marshal's truncheon nor the judge's robe,
    Become them with one half so good a grace
    As mercy does.
    If he had been as you, and you as he,
    You would have slipp'd like him; but he, like you,
    Would not have been so stern.
  ANGELO. Pray you be gone.
  ISABELLA. I would to heaven I had your potency,
    And you were Isabel! Should it then be thus?
    No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge
    And what a prisoner.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Ay, touch him; there's the vein.
  ANGELO. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
    And you but waste your words.
  ISABELLA. Alas! Alas!
    Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;
    And He that might the vantage best have took
    Found out the remedy. How would you be
    If He, which is the top of judgment, should
    But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
    And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
    Like man new made.
  ANGELO. Be you content, fair maid.
    It is the law, not I condemn your brother.
    Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,
    It should be thus with him. He must die to-morrow.
  ISABELLA. To-morrow! O, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him.
    He's not prepar'd for death. Even for our kitchens
    We kill the fowl of season; shall we serve heaven
    With less respect than we do minister
    To our gross selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you.
    Who is it that hath died for this offence?
    There's many have committed it.
  LUCIO. [Aside] Ay, well said.
  ANGELO. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
    Those many had not dar'd to do that evil
    If the first that did th' edict infringe
    Had answer'd for his deed. Now 'tis awake,
    Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,
    Looks in a glass that shows what future evils-
    Either now or by remissness new conceiv'd,
    And so in progress to be hatch'd and born-
    Are now to have no successive degrees,
    But here they live to end.
  ISABELLA. Yet show some pity.
  ANGELO. I show it most of all when I show justice;
    For then I pity those I do not know,
    Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall,
    And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
    Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;
    Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.
  ISABELLA. So you must be the first that gives this sentence,
    And he that suffers. O, it is excellent
    To have a giant's strength! But it is tyrannous
    To use it like a giant.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] That's well said.
  ISABELLA. Could great men thunder
    As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet,
    For every pelting petty officer
    Would use his heaven for thunder,
    Nothing but thunder. Merciful Heaven,
    Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,
    Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak
    Than the soft myrtle. But man, proud man,
    Dress'd in a little brief authority,
    Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd,
    His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
    Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
    As makes the angels weep; who, with our speens,
    Would all themselves laugh mortal.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] O, to him, to him, wench! He will relent;
    He's coming; I perceive 't.
  PROVOST. [Aside] Pray heaven she win him.
  ISABELLA. We cannot weigh our brother with ourself.
    Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them;
    But in the less foul profanation.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Thou'rt i' th' right, girl; more o' that.
  ISABELLA. That in the captain's but a choleric word
    Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Art avis'd o' that? More on't.
  ANGELO. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
  ISABELLA. Because authority, though it err like others,
    Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself
    That skins the vice o' th' top. Go to your bosom,
    Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
    That's like my brother's fault. If it confess
    A natural guiltiness such as is his,
    Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
    Against my brother's life.
  ANGELO. [Aside] She speaks, and 'tis
    Such sense that my sense breeds with it.- Fare you well.
  ISABELLA. Gentle my lord, turn back.
  ANGELO. I will bethink me. Come again to-morrow.
  ISABELLA. Hark how I'll bribe you; good my lord, turn back.
  ANGELO. How, bribe me?
  ISABELLA. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA) You had marr'd all else.
  ISABELLA. Not with fond sicles of the tested gold,
    Or stones, whose rate are either rich or poor
    As fancy values them; but with true prayers
    That shall be up at heaven and enter there
    Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
    From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
    To nothing temporal.
  ANGELO. Well; come to me to-morrow.
  LUCIO. [To ISABELLA] Go to; 'tis well; away.
  ISABELLA. Heaven keep your honour safe!
  ANGELO. [Aside] Amen; for I
    Am that way going to temptation
    Where prayers cross.
  ISABELLA. At what hour to-morrow
    Shall I attend your lordship?
  ANGELO. At any time 'fore noon.
  ISABELLA. Save your honour!              Exeunt all but ANGELO
  ANGELO. From thee; even from thy virtue!
    What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?
    The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
    Ha!
    Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I
    That, lying by the violet in the sun,
    Do as the carrion does, not as the flow'r,
    Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
    That modesty may more betray our sense
    Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
    Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,
    And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!
    What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
    Dost thou desire her foully for those things
    That make her good? O, let her brother live!
    Thieves for their robbery have authority
    When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
    That I desire to hear her speak again,
    And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
    O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
    With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
    Is that temptation that doth goad us on
    To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet,
    With all her double vigour, art and nature,
    Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
    Subdues me quite. Ever till now,
    When men were fond, I smil'd and wond'red how.          Exit

SCENE III. A prison

Enter, severally, DUKE, disguised as a FRIAR, and PROVOST

  DUKE. Hail to you, Provost! so I think you are.
  PROVOST. I am the Provost. What's your will, good friar?
  DUKE. Bound by my charity and my blest order,
    I come to visit the afflicted spirits
    Here in the prison. Do me the common right
    To let me see them, and to make me know
    The nature of their crimes, that I may minister
    To them accordingly.
  PROVOST. I would do more than that, if more were needful.

                          Enter JULIET

    Look, here comes one; a gentlewoman of mine,
    Who, falling in the flaws of her own youth,
    Hath blister'd her report. She is with child;
    And he that got it, sentenc'd- a young man
    More fit to do another such offence
    Than die for this.
  DUKE. When must he die?
  PROVOST. As I do think, to-morrow.
    [To JULIET] I have provided for you; stay awhile
    And you shall be conducted.
  DUKE. Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?
  JULIET. I do; and bear the shame most patiently.
  DUKE. I'll teach you how you shall arraign your conscience,
    And try your penitence, if it be sound
    Or hollowly put on.
  JULIET. I'll gladly learn.
  DUKE. Love you the man that wrong'd you?
  JULIET. Yes, as I love the woman that wrong'd him.
  DUKE. So then, it seems, your most offenceful act
    Was mutually committed.
  JULIET. Mutually.
  DUKE. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
  JULIET. I do confess it, and repent it, father.
  DUKE. 'Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent
    As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,
    Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,
    Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,
    But as we stand in fear-
  JULIET. I do repent me as it is an evil,
    And take the shame with joy.
  DUKE. There rest.
    Your partner, as I hear, must die to-morrow,
    And I am going with instruction to him.
    Grace go with you! Benedicite!                          Exit
  JULIET. Must die to-morrow! O, injurious law,
    That respites me a life whose very comfort
    Is still a dying horror!
  PROVOST. 'Tis pity of him.                              Exeunt

SCENE IV. ANGELO'S house

Enter ANGELO

  ANGELO. When I would pray and think, I think and pray
    To several subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,
    Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
    Anchors on Isabel. Heaven in my mouth,
    As if I did but only chew his name,
    And in my heart the strong and swelling evil
    Of my conception. The state whereon I studied
    Is, like a good thing being often read,
    Grown sere and tedious; yea, my gravity,
    Wherein- let no man hear me- I take pride,
    Could I with boot change for an idle plume
    Which the air beats for vain. O place, O form,
    How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,
    Wrench awe from fools, and tie the wiser souls
    To thy false seeming! Blood, thou art blood.
    Let's write 'good angel' on the devil's horn;
    'Tis not the devil's crest.

                           Enter SERVANT

    How now, who's there?
  SERVANT. One Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.
  ANGELO. Teach her the way. [Exit SERVANT] O heavens!
    Why does my blood thus muster to my heart,
    Making both it unable for itself
    And dispossessing all my other parts
    Of necessary fitness?
    So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons;
    Come all to help him, and so stop the air
    By which he should revive; and even so
    The general subject to a well-wish'd king
    Quit their own part, and in obsequious fondness
    Crowd to his presence, where their untaught love
    Must needs appear offence.

                            Enter ISABELLA

    How now, fair maid?
  ISABELLA. I am come to know your pleasure.
  ANGELO. That you might know it would much better please me
    Than to demand what 'tis. Your brother cannot live.
  ISABELLA. Even so! Heaven keep your honour!
  ANGELO. Yet may he live awhile, and, it may be,
    As long as you or I; yet he must die.
  ISABELLA. Under your sentence?
  ANGELO. Yea.
  ISABELLA. When? I beseech you; that in his reprieve,
    Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted
    That his soul sicken not.
  ANGELO. Ha! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good
    To pardon him that hath from nature stol'n
    A man already made, as to remit
    Their saucy sweetness that do coin heaven's image
    In stamps that are forbid; 'tis all as easy
    Falsely to take away a life true made
    As to put metal in restrained means
    To make a false one.
  ISABELLA. 'Tis set down so in heaven, but not in earth.
  ANGELO. Say you so? Then I shall pose you quickly.
    Which had you rather- that the most just law
    Now took your brother's life; or, to redeem him,
    Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness
    As she that he hath stain'd?
  ISABELLA. Sir, believe this:
    I had rather give my body than my soul.
  ANGELO. I talk not of your soul; our compell'd sins
    Stand more for number than for accompt.
  ISABELLA. How say you?
  ANGELO. Nay, I'll not warrant that; for I can speak
    Against the thing I say. Answer to this:
    I, now the voice of the recorded law,
    Pronounce a sentence on your brother's life;
    Might there not be a charity in sin
    To save this brother's life?
  ISABELLA. Please you to do't,
    I'll take it as a peril to my soul
    It is no sin at all, but charity.
  ANGELO. Pleas'd you to do't at peril of your soul,
    Were equal poise of sin and charity.
  ISABELLA. That I do beg his life, if it be sin,
    Heaven let me bear it! You granting of my suit,
    If that be sin, I'll make it my morn prayer
    To have it added to the faults of mine,
    And nothing of your answer.
  ANGELO. Nay, but hear me;
    Your sense pursues not mine; either you are ignorant
    Or seem so, craftily; and that's not good.
  ISABELLA. Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good
    But graciously to know I am no better.
  ANGELO. Thus wisdom wishes to appear most bright
    When it doth tax itself; as these black masks
    Proclaim an enshielded beauty ten times louder
    Than beauty could, display'd. But mark me:
    To be received plain, I'll speak more gross-
    Your brother is to die.
  ISABELLA. So.
  ANGELO. And his offence is so, as it appears,
    Accountant to the law upon that pain.
  ISABELLA. True.
  ANGELO. Admit no other way to save his life,
    As I subscribe not that, nor any other,
    But, in the loss of question, that you, his sister,
    Finding yourself desir'd of such a person
    Whose credit with the judge, or own great place,
    Could fetch your brother from the manacles
    Of the all-binding law; and that there were
    No earthly mean to save him but that either
    You must lay down the treasures of your body
    To this supposed, or else to let him suffer-
    What would you do?
  ISABELLA. As much for my poor brother as myself;
    That is, were I under the terms of death,
    Th' impression of keen whips I'd wear as rubies,
    And strip myself to death as to a bed
    That longing have been sick for, ere I'd yield
    My body up to shame.
  ANGELO. Then must your brother die.
  ISABELLA. And 'twere the cheaper way:
    Better it were a brother died at once
    Than that a sister, by redeeming him,
    Should die for ever.
  ANGELO. Were not you, then, as cruel as the sentence
    That you have slander'd so?
  ISABELLA. Ignominy in ransom and free pardon
    Are of two houses: lawful mercy
    Is nothing kin to foul redemption.
  ANGELO. You seem'd of late to make the law a tyrant;
    And rather prov'd the sliding of your brother
    A merriment than a vice.
  ISABELLA. O, pardon me, my lord! It oft falls out,
    To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean:
    I something do excuse the thing I hate
    For his advantage that I dearly love.
  ANGELO. We are all frail.
  ISABELLA. Else let my brother die,
    If not a fedary but only he
    Owe and succeed thy weakness.
  ANGELO. Nay, women are frail too.
  ISABELLA. Ay, as the glasses where they view themselves,
    Which are as easy broke as they make forms.
    Women, help heaven! Men their creation mar
    In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail;
    For we are soft as our complexions are,
    And credulous to false prints.
  ANGELO. I think it well;
    And from this testimony of your own sex,
    Since I suppose we are made to be no stronger
    Than faults may shake our frames, let me be bold.
    I do arrest your words. Be that you are,
    That is, a woman; if you be more, you're none;
    If you be one, as you are well express'd
    By all external warrants, show it now
    By putting on the destin'd livery.
  ISABELLA. I have no tongue but one; gentle, my lord,
    Let me intreat you speak the former language.
  ANGELO. Plainly conceive, I love you.
  ISABELLA. My brother did love Juliet,
    And you tell me that he shall die for't.
  ANGELO. He shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.
  ISABELLA. I know your virtue hath a license in't,
    Which seems a little fouler than it is,
    To pluck on others.
  ANGELO. Believe me, on mine honour,
    My words express my purpose.
  ISABELLA. Ha! little honour to be much believ'd,
    And most pernicious purpose! Seeming, seeming!
    I will proclaim thee, Angelo, look for't.
    Sign me a present pardon for my brother
    Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world aloud
    What man thou art.
  ANGELO. Who will believe thee, Isabel?
    My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life,
    My vouch against you, and my place i' th' state,
    Will so your accusation overweigh
    That you shall stifle in your own report,
    And smell of calumny. I have begun,
    And now I give my sensual race the rein:
    Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite;
    Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes
    That banish what they sue for; redeem thy brother
    By yielding up thy body to my will;
    Or else he must not only die the death,
    But thy unkindness shall his death draw out
    To ling'ring sufferance. Answer me to-morrow,
    Or, by the affection that now guides me most,
    I'll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,
    Say what you can: my false o'erweighs your true.        Exit
  ISABELLA. To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
    Who would believe me? O perilous mouths
    That bear in them one and the self-same tongue
    Either of condemnation or approof,
    Bidding the law make curtsy to their will;
    Hooking both right and wrong to th' appetite,
    To follow as it draws! I'll to my brother.
    Though he hath fall'n by prompture of the blood,
    Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour
    That, had he twenty heads to tender down
    On twenty bloody blocks, he'd yield them up
    Before his sister should her body stoop
    To such abhorr'd pollution.
    Then, Isabel, live chaste, and, brother, die:
    More than our brother is our chastity.
    I'll tell him yet of Angelo's request,
    And fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.         Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. The prison

Enter DUKE, disguised as before, CLAUDIO, and PROVOST

  DUKE. So, then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?
  CLAUDIO. The miserable have no other medicine
    But only hope:
    I have hope to Eve, and am prepar'd to die.
  DUKE. Be absolute for death; either death or life
    Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life.
    If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
    That none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,
    Servile to all the skyey influences,
    That dost this habitation where thou keep'st
    Hourly afflict. Merely, thou art Death's fool;
    For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
    And yet run'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
    For all th' accommodations that thou bear'st
    Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou 'rt by no means valiant;
    For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
    Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
    And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st
    Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
    For thou exists on many a thousand grains
    That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
    For what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get,
    And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain;
    For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
    After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
    For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
    Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
    And Death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none;
    For thine own bowels which do call thee sire,
    The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
    Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
    For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age,
    But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
    Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
    Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
    Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
    Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
    To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
    That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
    Lie hid moe thousand deaths; yet death we fear,
    That makes these odds all even.
  CLAUDIO. I humbly thank you.
    To sue to live, I find I seek to die;
    And, seeking death, find life. Let it come on.
  ISABELLA. [Within] What, ho! Peace here; grace and good company!
  PROVOST. Who's there? Come in; the wish deserves a welcome.
  DUKE. Dear sir, ere long I'll visit you again.
  CLAUDIO. Most holy sir, I thank you.

                        Enter ISABELLA

  ISABELLA. My business is a word or two with Claudio.
  PROVOST. And very welcome. Look, signior, here's your sister.
  DUKE. Provost, a word with you.
  PROVOST. As many as you please.
  DUKE. Bring me to hear them speak, where I may be conceal'd.
                                         Exeunt DUKE and PROVOST
  CLAUDIO. Now, sister, what's the comfort?
  ISABELLA. Why,
    As all comforts are; most good, most good, indeed.
    Lord Angelo, having affairs to heaven,
    Intends you for his swift ambassador,
    Where you shall be an everlasting leiger.
    Therefore, your best appointment make with speed;
    To-morrow you set on.
  CLAUDIO. Is there no remedy?
  ISABELLA. None, but such remedy as, to save a head,
    To cleave a heart in twain.
  CLAUDIO. But is there any?
  ISABELLA. Yes, brother, you may live:
    There is a devilish mercy in the judge,
    If you'll implore it, that will free your life,
    But fetter you till death.
  CLAUDIO. Perpetual durance?
  ISABELLA. Ay, just; perpetual durance, a restraint,
    Though all the world's vastidity you had,
    To a determin'd scope.
  CLAUDIO. But in what nature?
  ISABELLA. In such a one as, you consenting to't,
    Would bark your honour from that trunk you bear,
    And leave you naked.
  CLAUDIO. Let me know the point.
  ISABELLA. O, I do fear thee, Claudio; and I quake,
    Lest thou a feverous life shouldst entertain,
    And six or seven winters more respect
    Than a perpetual honour. Dar'st thou die?
    The sense of death is most in apprehension;
    And the poor beetle that we tread upon
    In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
    As when a giant dies.
  CLAUDIO. Why give you me this shame?
    Think you I can a resolution fetch
    From flow'ry tenderness? If I must die,
    I will encounter darkness as a bride
    And hug it in mine arms.
  ISABELLA. There spake my brother; there my father's grave
    Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die:
    Thou art too noble to conserve a life
    In base appliances. This outward-sainted deputy,
    Whose settled visage and deliberate word
    Nips youth i' th' head, and follies doth enew
    As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil;
    His filth within being cast, he would appear
    A pond as deep as hell.
  CLAUDIO. The precise Angelo!
  ISABELLA. O, 'tis the cunning livery of hell
    The damned'st body to invest and cover
    In precise guards! Dost thou think, Claudio,
    If I would yield him my virginity
    Thou mightst be freed?
  CLAUDIO. O heavens! it cannot be.
  ISABELLA. Yes, he would give't thee, from this rank offence,
    So to offend him still. This night's the time
    That I should do what I abhor to name,
    Or else thou diest to-morrow.
  CLAUDIO. Thou shalt not do't.
  ISABELLA. O, were it but my life!
    I'd throw it down for your deliverance
    As frankly as a pin.
  CLAUDIO. Thanks, dear Isabel.
  ISABELLA. Be ready, Claudio, for your death to-morrow.
  CLAUDIO. Yes. Has he affections in him
    That thus can make him bite the law by th' nose
    When he would force it? Sure it is no sin;
    Or of the deadly seven it is the least.
  ISABELLA. Which is the least?
  CLAUDIO. If it were damnable, he being so wise,
    Why would he for the momentary trick
    Be perdurably fin'd?- O Isabel!
  ISABELLA. What says my brother?
  CLAUDIO. Death is a fearful thing.
  ISABELLA. And shamed life a hateful.
  CLAUDIO. Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
    To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
    This sensible warm motion to become
    A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
    To bathe in fiery floods or to reside
    In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
    To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
    And blown with restless violence round about
    The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
    Of those that lawless and incertain thought
    Imagine howling- 'tis too horrible.
    The weariest and most loathed worldly life
    That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment,
    Can lay on nature is a paradise
    To what we fear of death.
  ISABELLA. Alas, alas!
  CLAUDIO. Sweet sister, let me live.
    What sin you do to save a brother's life,
    Nature dispenses with the deed so far
    That it becomes a virtue.
  ISABELLA. O you beast!
    O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!
    Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?
    Is't not a kind of incest to take life
    From thine own sister's shame? What should I think?
    Heaven shield my mother play'd my father fair!
    For such a warped slip of wilderness
    Ne'er issu'd from his blood. Take my defiance;
    Die; perish. Might but my bending down
    Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.
    I'll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,
    No word to save thee.
  CLAUDIO. Nay, hear me, Isabel.
  ISABELLA. O fie, fie, fie!
    Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.
    Mercy to thee would prove itself a bawd;
    'Tis best that thou diest quickly.
  CLAUDIO. O, hear me, Isabella.

                            Re-enter DUKE

  DUKE. Vouchsafe a word, young sister, but one word.
  ISABELLA. What is your will?
  DUKE. Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and by have
    some speech with you; the satisfaction I would require is
    likewise your own benefit.
  ISABELLA. I have no superfluous leisure; my stay must be stolen out
    of other affairs; but I will attend you awhile.
                                                   [Walks apart]
  DUKE. Son, I have overheard what hath pass'd between you and your
    sister. Angelo had never the purpose to corrupt her; only he hath
    made an assay of her virtue to practise his judgment with the
    disposition of natures. She, having the truth of honour in her,
    hath made him that gracious denial which he is most glad to
    receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true;
    therefore prepare yourself to death. Do not satisfy your
    resolution with hopes that are fallible; to-morrow you must die;
    go to your knees and make ready.
  CLAUDIO. Let me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life
    that I will sue to be rid of it.
  DUKE. Hold you there. Farewell. [Exit CLAUDIO] Provost, a word with
    you.

                          Re-enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. What's your will, father?
  DUKE. That, now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me a while
    with the maid; my mind promises with my habit no loss shall touch
    her by my company.
  PROVOST. In good time.                            Exit PROVOST
  DUKE. The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good; the
    goodness that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness;
    but grace, being the soul of your complexion, shall keep the body
    of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you,
    fortune hath convey'd to my understanding; and, but that frailty
    hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How
    will you do to content this substitute, and to save your brother?
  ISABELLA. I am now going to resolve him; I had rather my brother
    die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how
    much is the good Duke deceiv'd in Angelo! If ever he return, and
    I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his
    government.
  DUKE. That shall not be much amiss; yet, as the matter now stands,
    he will avoid your accusation: he made trial of you only.
    Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings; to the love I have in
    doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe
    that you may most uprighteously do a poor wronged lady a merited
    benefit; redeem your brother from the angry law; do no stain to
    your own gracious person; and much please the absent Duke, if
    peradventure he shall ever return to have hearing of this
    business.
  ISABELLA. Let me hear you speak farther; I have spirit to do
    anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.
  DUKE. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not
    heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great
    soldier who miscarried at sea?
  ISABELLA. I have heard of the lady, and good words went with her
    name.
  DUKE. She should this Angelo have married; was affianced to her by
    oath, and the nuptial appointed; between which time of the
    contract and limit of the solemnity her brother Frederick was
    wreck'd at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his
    sister. But mark how heavily this befell to the poor gentlewoman:
    there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward
    her ever most kind and natural; with him the portion and sinew of
    her fortune, her marriage-dowry; with both, her combinate
    husband, this well-seeming Angelo.
  ISABELLA. Can this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?
  DUKE. Left her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his
    comfort; swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries
    of dishonour; in few, bestow'd her on her own lamentation, which
    she yet wears for his sake; and he, a marble to her tears, is
    washed with them, but relents not.
  ISABELLA. What a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from
    the world! What corruption in this life that it will let this man
    live! But how out of this can she avail?
  DUKE. It is a rupture that you may easily heal; and the cure of it
    not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in
    doing it.
  ISABELLA. Show me how, good father.
  DUKE. This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her
    first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should
    have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current,
    made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his
    requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to
    the point; only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that
    your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all
    shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience.
    This being granted in course- and now follows all: we shall
    advise this wronged maid to stead up your appointment, go in your
    place. If the encounter acknowledge itself hereafter, it may
    compel him to her recompense; and here, by this, is your brother
    saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and
    the corrupt deputy scaled. The maid will I frame and make fit for
    his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the
    doubleness of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What
    think you of it?
  ISABELLA. The image of it gives me content already; and I trust it
    will grow to a most prosperous perfection.
  DUKE. It lies much in your holding up. Haste you speedily to
    Angelo; if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him
    promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke's; there,
    at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana. At that
    place call upon me; and dispatch with Angelo, that it may be
    quickly.
  ISABELLA. I thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.
                                                Exeunt severally

Scene II. The street before the prison

Enter, on one side, DUKE disguised as before; on the other, ELBOW, and
OFFICERS with POMPEY

  ELBOW. Nay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs
    buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the
    world drink brown and white bastard.
  DUKE. O heavens! what stuff is here?
  POMPEY. 'Twas never merry world since, of two usuries, the merriest
    was put down, and the worser allow'd by order of law a furr'd
    gown to keep him warm; and furr'd with fox on lamb-skins too, to
    signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands for the
    facing.
  ELBOW. Come your way, sir. Bless you, good father friar.
  DUKE. And you, good brother father. What offence hath this man made
    you, sir?
  ELBOW. Marry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him
    to be a thief too, sir, for we have found upon him, sir, a
    strange picklock, which we have sent to the deputy.
  DUKE. Fie, sirrah, a bawd, a wicked bawd!
    The evil that thou causest to be done,
    That is thy means to live. Do thou but think
    What 'tis to cram a maw or clothe a back
    From such a filthy vice; say to thyself
    'From their abominable and beastly touches
    I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.'
    Canst thou believe thy living is a life,
    So stinkingly depending? Go mend, go mend.
  POMPEY. Indeed, it does stink in some sort, sir; but yet, sir,
    I would prove-
  DUKE. Nay, if the devil have given thee proofs for sin,
    Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer;
    Correction and instruction must both work
    Ere this rude beast will profit.
  ELBOW. He must before the deputy, sir; he has given him warning.
    The deputy cannot abide a whoremaster; if he be a whoremonger,
    and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.
  DUKE. That we were all, as some would seem to be,
    From our faults, as his faults from seeming, free.
  ELBOW. His neck will come to your waist- a cord, sir.

                          Enter LUCIO

  POMPEY. I spy comfort; I cry bail. Here's a gentleman, and a friend
    of mine.
  LUCIO. How now, noble Pompey! What, at the wheels of Caesar? Art
    thou led in triumph? What, is there none of Pygmalion's images,
    newly made woman, to be had now for putting the hand in the
    pocket and extracting it clutch'd? What reply, ha? What say'st
    thou to this tune, matter, and method? Is't not drown'd i' th'
    last rain, ha? What say'st thou, trot? Is the world as it was,
    man? Which is the way? Is it sad, and few words? or how? The
    trick of it?
  DUKE. Still thus, and thus; still worse!
  LUCIO. How doth my dear morsel, thy mistress? Procures she still,
    ha?
  POMPEY. Troth, sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is
    herself in the tub.
  LUCIO. Why, 'tis good; it is the right of it; it must be so; ever
    your fresh whore and your powder'd bawd- an unshunn'd
    consequence; it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?
  POMPEY. Yes, faith, sir.
  LUCIO. Why, 'tis not amiss, Pompey. Farewell; go, say I sent thee
    thither. For debt, Pompey- or how?
  ELBOW. For being a bawd, for being a bawd.
  LUCIO. Well, then, imprison him. If imprisonment be the due of a
    bawd, why, 'tis his right. Bawd is he doubtless, and of
    antiquity, too; bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to
    the prison, Pompey. You will turn good husband now, Pompey; you
    will keep the house.
  POMPEY. I hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.
  LUCIO. No, indeed, will I not, Pompey; it is not the wear. I will
    pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage. If you take it not
    patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu trusty Pompey.
    Bless you, friar.
  DUKE. And you.
  LUCIO. Does Bridget paint still, Pompey, ha?
  ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.
  POMPEY. You will not bail me then, sir?
  LUCIO. Then, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad, friar? what news?
  ELBOW. Come your ways, sir; come.
  LUCIO. Go to kennel, Pompey, go.

                               Exeunt ELBOW, POMPEY and OFFICERS

    What news, friar, of the Duke?
  DUKE. I know none. Can you tell me of any?
  LUCIO. Some say he is with the Emperor of Russia; other some, he is
    in Rome; but where is he, think you?
  DUKE. I know not where; but wheresoever, I wish him well.
  LUCIO. It was a mad fantastical trick of him to steal from the
    state and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo
    dukes it well in his absence; he puts transgression to't.
  DUKE. He does well in't.
  LUCIO. A little more lenity to lechery would do no harm in him;
    something too crabbed that way, friar.
  DUKE. It is too general a vice, and severity must cure it.
  LUCIO. Yes, in good sooth, the vice is of a great kindred; it is
    well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till
    eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not
    made by man and woman after this downright way of creation. Is it
    true, think you?
  DUKE. How should he be made, then?
  LUCIO. Some report a sea-maid spawn'd him; some, that he was begot
    between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes
    water his urine is congeal'd ice; that I know to be true. And he
    is a motion generative; that's infallible.
  DUKE. You are pleasant, sir, and speak apace.
  LUCIO. Why, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion
    of a codpiece to take away the life of a man! Would the Duke that
    is absent have done this? Ere he would have hang'd a man for the
    getting a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a
    thousand. He had some feeling of the sport; he knew the service,
    and that instructed him to mercy.
  DUKE. I never heard the absent Duke much detected for women; he was
    not inclin'd that way.
  LUCIO. O, sir, you are deceiv'd.
  DUKE. 'Tis not possible.
  LUCIO. Who- not the Duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty; and his use
    was to put a ducat in her clack-dish. The Duke had crotchets in
    him. He would be drunk too; that let me inform you.
  DUKE. You do him wrong, surely.
  LUCIO. Sir, I was an inward of his. A shy fellow was the Duke; and
    I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.
  DUKE. What, I prithee, might be the cause?
  LUCIO. No, pardon; 'tis a secret must be lock'd within the teeth
    and the lips; but this I can let you understand: the greater file
    of the subject held the Duke to be wise.
  DUKE. Wise? Why, no question but he was.
  LUCIO. A very superficial, ignorant, unweighing fellow.
  DUKE. Either this is envy in you, folly, or mistaking; the very
    stream of his life, and the business he hath helmed, must, upon a
    warranted need, give him a better proclamation. Let him be but
    testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall appear to
    the envious a scholar, a statesman, and a soldier. Therefore you
    speak unskilfully; or, if your knowledge be more, it is much
    dark'ned in your malice.
  LUCIO. Sir, I know him, and I love him.
  DUKE. Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer
    love.
  LUCIO. Come, sir, I know what I know.
  DUKE. I can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak.
    But, if ever the Duke return, as our prayers are he may, let me
    desire you to make your answer before him. If it be honest you
    have spoke, you have courage to maintain it; I am bound to call
    upon you; and I pray you your name?
  LUCIO. Sir, my name is Lucio, well known to the Duke.
  DUKE. He shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.
  LUCIO. I fear you not.
  DUKE. O, you hope the Duke will return no more; or you imagine me
    too unhurtful an opposite. But, indeed, I can do you little harm:
    you'll forswear this again.
  LUCIO. I'll be hang'd first. Thou art deceiv'd in me, friar. But no
    more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die to-morrow or no?
  DUKE. Why should he die, sir?
  LUCIO. Why? For filling a bottle with a tun-dish. I would the Duke
    we talk of were return'd again. This ungenitur'd agent will
    unpeople the province with continency; sparrows must not build in
    his house-eaves because they are lecherous. The Duke yet would
    have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to
    light. Would he were return'd! Marry, this Claudio is condemned
    for untrussing. Farewell, good friar; I prithee pray for me. The
    Duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays. He's not
    past it yet; and, I say to thee, he would mouth with a beggar
    though she smelt brown bread and garlic. Say that I said so.
    Farewell.                                               Exit
  DUKE. No might nor greatness in mortality
    Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
    The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
    Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
    But who comes here?

             Enter ESCALUS, PROVOST, and OFFICERS with
                           MISTRESS OVERDONE

  ESCALUS. Go, away with her to prison.
  MRS. OVERDONE. Good my lord, be good to me; your honour is
    accounted a merciful man; good my lord.
  ESCALUS. Double and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the
    same kind! This would make mercy swear and play the tyrant.
  PROVOST. A bawd of eleven years' continuance, may it please your
    honour.
  MRS. OVERDONE. My lord, this is one Lucio's information against me.
    Mistress Kate Keepdown was with child by him in the Duke's time;
    he promis'd her marriage. His child is a year and a quarter old
    come Philip and Jacob; I have kept it myself; and see how he goes
    about to abuse me.
  ESCALUS. That fellow is a fellow of much license. Let him be call'd
    before us. Away with her to prison. Go to; no more words. [Exeunt
    OFFICERS with MISTRESS OVERDONE]  Provost, my brother Angelo will
    not be alter'd: Claudio must die to-morrow. Let him be furnish'd
    with divines, and have all charitable preparation. If my brother
    wrought by my pity, it should not be so with him.
  PROVOST. So please you, this friar hath been with him, and advis'd
    him for th' entertainment of death.
  ESCALUS. Good even, good father.
  DUKE. Bliss and goodness on you!
  ESCALUS. Of whence are you?
  DUKE. Not of this country, though my chance is now
    To use it for my time. I am a brother
    Of gracious order, late come from the See
    In special business from his Holiness.
  ESCALUS. What news abroad i' th' world?
  DUKE. None, but that there is so great a fever on goodness that the
    dissolution of it must cure it. Novelty is only in request; and,
    as it is, as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course as it is
    virtuous to be constant in any undertakeing. There is scarce
    truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough
    to make fellowships accurst. Much upon this riddle runs the
    wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every
    day's news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the Duke?
  ESCALUS. One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to
    know himself.
  DUKE. What pleasure was he given to?
  ESCALUS. Rather rejoicing to see another merry than merry at
    anything which profess'd to make him rejoice; a gentleman of all
    temperance. But leave we him to his events, with a prayer they
    may prove prosperous; and let me desire to know how you find
    Claudio prepar'd. I am made to understand that you have lent him
    visitation.
  DUKE. He professes to have received no sinister measure from his
    judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination of
    justice. Yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction of his
    frailty, many deceiving promises of life; which I, by my good
    leisure, have discredited to him, and now he is resolv'd to die.
  ESCALUS. You have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner
    the very debt of your calling. I have labour'd for the poor
    gentleman to the extremest shore of my modesty; but my brother
    justice have I found so severe that he hath forc'd me to tell him
    he is indeed Justice.
  DUKE. If his own life answer the straitness of his proceeding, it
    shall become him well; wherein if he chance to fail, he hath
    sentenc'd himself.
  ESCALUS. I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.
  DUKE. Peace be with you!            Exeunt ESCALUS and PROVOST

         He who the sword of heaven will bear
         Should be as holy as severe;
         Pattern in himself to know,
         Grace to stand, and virtue go;
         More nor less to others paying
         Than by self-offences weighing.
         Shame to him whose cruel striking
         Kills for faults of his own liking!
         Twice treble shame on Angelo,
         To weed my vice and let his grow!
         O, what may man within him hide,
         Though angel on the outward side!
         How may likeness, made in crimes,
         Make a practice on the times,
         To draw with idle spiders' strings
         Most ponderous and substantial things!
         Craft against vice I must apply.
         With Angelo to-night shall lie
         His old betrothed but despised;
         So disguise shall, by th' disguised,
         Pay with falsehood false exacting,
         And perform an old contracting.                    Exit

ACT IV. Scene I. The moated grange at Saint Duke's

Enter MARIANA; and BOY singing

                             SONG

           Take, O, take those lips away,
             That so sweetly were forsworn;
           And those eyes, the break of day,
             Lights that do mislead the morn;
           But my kisses bring again, bring again;
           Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain.

                  Enter DUKE, disguised as before

  MARIANA. Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away;
    Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
    Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.          Exit BOY
    I cry you mercy, sir, and well could wish
    You had not found me here so musical.
    Let me excuse me, and believe me so,
    My mirth it much displeas'd, but pleas'd my woe.
  DUKE. 'Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm
    To make bad good and good provoke to harm.
    I pray you tell me hath anybody inquir'd for me here to-day. Much
    upon this time have I promis'd here to meet.
  MARIANA. You have not been inquir'd after; I have sat here all day.

                         Enter ISABELLA

  DUKE. I do constantly believe you. The time is come even now. I
    shall crave your forbearance a little. May be I will call upon
    you anon, for some advantage to yourself.
  MARIANA. I am always bound to you.                        Exit
  DUKE. Very well met, and well come.
    What is the news from this good deputy?
  ISABELLA. He hath a garden circummur'd with brick,
    Whose western side is with a vineyard back'd;
    And to that vineyard is a planched gate
    That makes his opening with this bigger key;
    This other doth command a little door
    Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.
    There have I made my promise
    Upon the heavy middle of the night
    To call upon him.
  DUKE. But shall you on your knowledge find this way?
  ISABELLA. I have ta'en a due and wary note upon't;
    With whispering and most guilty diligence,
    In action all of precept, he did show me
    The way twice o'er.
  DUKE. Are there no other tokens
    Between you 'greed concerning her observance?
  ISABELLA. No, none, but only a repair i' th' dark;
    And that I have possess'd him my most stay
    Can be but brief; for I have made him know
    I have a servant comes with me along,
    That stays upon me; whose persuasion is
    I come about my brother.
  DUKE. 'Tis well borne up.
    I have not yet made known to Mariana
    A word of this. What ho, within! come forth.

                       Re-enter MARIANA

    I pray you be acquainted with this maid;
    She comes to do you good.
  ISABELLA. I do desire the like.
  DUKE. Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?
  MARIANA. Good friar, I know you do, and have found it.
  DUKE. Take, then, this your companion by the hand,
    Who hath a story ready for your ear.
    I shall attend your leisure; but make haste;
    The vaporous night approaches.
  MARIANA. Will't please you walk aside?
                                     Exeunt MARIANA and ISABELLA
  DUKE. O place and greatness! Millions of false eyes
    Are stuck upon thee. Volumes of report
    Run with these false, and most contrarious quest
    Upon thy doings. Thousand escapes of wit
    Make thee the father of their idle dream,
    And rack thee in their fancies.

                 Re-enter MARIANA and ISABELLA

    Welcome, how agreed?
  ISABELLA. She'll take the enterprise upon her, father,
    If you advise it.
  DUKE. It is not my consent,
    But my entreaty too.
  ISABELLA. Little have you to say,
    When you depart from him, but, soft and low,
    'Remember now my brother.'
  MARIANA. Fear me not.
  DUKE. Nor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.
    He is your husband on a pre-contract.
    To bring you thus together 'tis no sin,
    Sith that the justice of your title to him
    Doth flourish the deceit. Come, let us go;
    Our corn's to reap, for yet our tithe's to sow.       Exeunt

SCENE II. The prison

Enter PROVOST and POMPEY

  PROVOST. Come hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man's head?
  POMPEY. If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he be a
    married man, he's his wife's head, and I can never cut of a
    woman's head.
  PROVOST. Come, sir, leave me your snatches and yield me a direct
    answer. To-morrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here
    is in our prison a common executioner, who in his office lacks a
    helper; if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem
    you from your gyves; if not, you shall have your full time of
    imprisonment, and your deliverance with an unpitied whipping, for
    you have been a notorious bawd.
  POMPEY. Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of mind; but yet
    I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to
    receive some instructions from my fellow partner.
  PROVOST. What ho, Abhorson! Where's Abhorson there?

                          Enter ABHORSON

  ABHORSON. Do you call, sir?
  PROVOST. Sirrah, here's a fellow will help you to-morrow in your
    execution. If you think it meet, compound with him by the year,
    and let him abide here with you; if not, use him for the present,
    and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation with you; he hath
    been a bawd.
  ABHORSON. A bawd, sir? Fie upon him! He will discredit our mystery.
  PROVOST. Go to, sir; you weigh equally; a feather will turn the
    scale.                                                  Exit
  POMPEY. Pray, sir, by your good favour- for surely, sir, a good
    favour you have but that you have a hanging look- do you call,
    sir, your occupation a mystery?
  ABHORSON. Ay, sir; a mystery.
  POMPEY. Painting, sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your
    whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do
    prove my occupation a mystery; but what mystery there should be
    in hanging, if I should be hang'd, I cannot imagine.
  ABHORSON. Sir, it is a mystery.
  POMPEY. Proof?
  ABHORSON. Every true man's apparel fits your thief: if it be too
    little for your thief, your true man thinks it big enough; if it
    be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little enough; so
    every true man's apparel fits your thief.

                          Re-enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. Are you agreed?
  POMPEY. Sir, I will serve him; for I do find your hangman is a more
    penitent trade than your bawd; he doth oftener ask forgiveness.
  PROVOST. You, sirrah, provide your block and your axe to-morrow
    four o'clock.
  ABHORSON. Come on, bawd; I will instruct thee in my trade; follow.
  POMPEY. I do desire to learn, sir; and I hope, if you have occasion
    to use me for your own turn, you shall find me yare; for truly,
    sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn.
  PROVOST. Call hither Barnardine and Claudio.
                                      Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY
    Th' one has my pity; not a jot the other,
    Being a murderer, though he were my brother.

                           Enter CLAUDIO

    Look, here's the warrant, Claudio, for thy death;
    'Tis now dead midnight, and by eight to-morrow
    Thou must be made immortal. Where's Barnardine?
  CLAUDIO. As fast lock'd up in sleep as guiltless labour
    When it lies starkly in the traveller's bones.
    He will not wake.
  PROVOST. Who can do good on him?
    Well, go, prepare yourself. [Knocking within] But hark, what
      noise?
    Heaven give your spirits comfort!               Exit CLAUDIO
    [Knocking continues] By and by.
    I hope it is some pardon or reprieve
    For the most gentle Claudio.

                 Enter DUKE, disguised as before

    Welcome, father.
  DUKE. The best and wholesom'st spirits of the night
    Envelop you, good Provost! Who call'd here of late?
  PROVOST. None, since the curfew rung.
  DUKE. Not Isabel?
  PROVOST. No.
  DUKE. They will then, ere't be long.
  PROVOST. What comfort is for Claudio?
  DUKE. There's some in hope.
  PROVOST. It is a bitter deputy.
  DUKE. Not so, not so; his life is parallel'd
    Even with the stroke and line of his great justice;
    He doth with holy abstinence subdue
    That in himself which he spurs on his pow'r
    To qualify in others. Were he meal'd with that
    Which he corrects, then were he tyrannous;
    But this being so, he's just. [Knocking within] Now are they
      come.                                         Exit PROVOST
    This is a gentle provost; seldom when
    The steeled gaoler is the friend of men. [Knocking within]
    How now, what noise! That spirit's possess'd with haste
    That wounds th' unsisting postern with these strokes.

                        Re-enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. There he must stay until the officer
    Arise to let him in; he is call'd up.
  DUKE. Have you no countermand for Claudio yet
    But he must die to-morrow?
  PROVOST. None, sir, none.
  DUKE. As near the dawning, Provost, as it is,
    You shall hear more ere morning.
  PROVOST. Happily
    You something know; yet I believe there comes
    No countermand; no such example have we.
    Besides, upon the very siege of justice,
    Lord Angelo hath to the public ear
    Profess'd the contrary.

                         Enter a MESSENGER
    This is his lordship's man.
  DUKE. And here comes Claudio's pardon.
  MESSENGER. My lord hath sent you this note; and by me this further
    charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it,
    neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow; for
    as I take it, it is almost day.
  PROVOST. I shall obey him.                      Exit MESSENGER
  DUKE. [Aside] This is his pardon, purchas'd by such sin
    For which the pardoner himself is in;
    Hence hath offence his quick celerity,
    When it is borne in high authority.
    When vice makes mercy, mercy's so extended
    That for the fault's love is th' offender friended.
    Now, sir, what news?
  PROVOST. I told you: Lord Angelo, belike thinking me remiss in mine
    office, awakens me with this unwonted putting-on; methinks
    strangely, for he hath not us'd it before.
  DUKE. Pray you, let's hear.
  PROVOST. [Reads] 'Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let
    Claudio be executed by four of the clock, and, in the afternoon,
    Barnardine. For my better satisfaction, let me have Claudio's
    head sent me by five. Let this be duly performed, with a thought
    that more depends on it than we must yet deliver. Thus fail not
    to do your office, as you will answer it at your peril.'
    What say you to this, sir?
  DUKE. What is that Barnardine who is to be executed in th'
    afternoon?
  PROVOST. A Bohemian born; but here nurs'd up and bred.
    One that is a prisoner nine years old.
  DUKE. How came it that the absent Duke had not either deliver'd him
    to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his
    manner to do so.
  PROVOST. His friends still wrought reprieves for him; and, indeed,
    his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to
    an undoubted proof.
  DUKE. It is now apparent?
  PROVOST. Most manifest, and not denied by himself.
  DUKE. Hath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to
    be touch'd?
  PROVOST. A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a
    drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless, of what's past,
    present, or to come; insensible of mortality and desperately
    mortal.
  DUKE. He wants advice.
  PROVOST. He will hear none. He hath evermore had the liberty of the
    prison; give him leave to escape hence, he would not; drunk many
    times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft
    awak'd him, as if to carry him to execution, and show'd him a
    seeming warrant for it; it hath not moved him at all.
  DUKE. More of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost,
    honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill
    beguiles me; but in the boldness of my cunning I will lay myself
    in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no
    greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenc'd him. To
    make you understand this in a manifested effect, I crave but four
    days' respite; for the which you are to do me both a present and
    a dangerous courtesy.
  PROVOST. Pray, sir, in what?
  DUKE. In the delaying death.
  PROVOST. Alack! How may I do it, having the hour limited, and an
    express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view
    of Angelo? I may make my case as Claudio's, to cross this in the
    smallest.
  DUKE. By the vow of mine order, I warrant you, if my instructions
    may be your guide. Let this Barnardine be this morning executed,
    and his head borne to Angelo.
  PROVOST. Angelo hath seen them both, and will discover the favour.
  DUKE. O, death's a great disguiser; and you may add to it. Shave
    the head and tie the beard; and say it was the desire of the
    penitent to be so bar'd before his death. You know the course is
    common. If anything fall to you upon this more than thanks and
    good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against
    it with my life.
  PROVOST. Pardon me, good father; it is against my oath.
  DUKE. Were you sworn to the Duke, or to the deputy?
  PROVOST. To him and to his substitutes.
  DUKE. You will think you have made no offence if the Duke avouch
    the justice of your dealing?
  PROVOST. But what likelihood is in that?
  DUKE. Not a resemblance, but a certainty. Yet since I see you
    fearful, that neither my coat, integrity, nor persuasion, can
    with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck
    all fears out of you. Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of
    the Duke. You know the character, I doubt not; and the signet is
    not strange to you.
  PROVOST. I know them both.
  DUKE. The contents of this is the return of the Duke; you shall
    anon over-read it at your pleasure, where you shall find within
    these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows
    not; for he this very day receives letters of strange tenour,
    perchance of the Duke's death, perchance entering into some
    monastery; but, by chance, nothing of what is writ. Look, th'
    unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into
    amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but
    easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with
    Barnardine's head. I will give him a present shrift, and advise
    him for a better place. Yet you are amaz'd, but this shall
    absolutely resolve you. Come away; it is almost clear dawn.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE III. The prison

Enter POMPEY

  POMPEY. I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of
  profession; one would think it were Mistress Overdone's own house,
  for here be many of her old customers. First, here's young Master
  Rash; he's in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, nine
  score and seventeen pounds, of which he made five marks ready money.
  Marry, then ginger was not much in request, for the old women were
  all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master
  Threepile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-colour'd satin,
  which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and
  young Master Deepvow, and Master Copperspur, and Master Starvelackey,
  the rapier and dagger man, and young Dropheir that kill'd lusty
  Pudding, and Master Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shootie
  the great traveller, and wild Halfcan that stabb'd Pots, and, I
  think, forty more- all great doers in our trade, and are now 'for the
  Lord's sake.'

                            Enter ABHORSON

  ABHORSON. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither.
  POMPEY. Master Barnardine! You must rise and be hang'd, Master
    Barnardine!
  ABHORSON. What ho, Barnardine!
  BARNARDINE. [Within] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise
    there? What are you?
  POMPEY. Your friends, sir; the hangman. You must be so good, sir,
    to rise and be put to death.
  BARNARDINE. [ Within ] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.
  ABHORSON. Tell him he must awake, and that quickly too.
  POMPEY. Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and
    sleep afterwards.
  ABHORSON. Go in to him, and fetch him out.
  POMPEY. He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.

                             Enter BARNARDINE

  ABHORSON. Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
  POMPEY. Very ready, sir.
  BARNARDINE. How now, Abhorson, what's the news with you?
  ABHORSON. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers;
    for, look you, the warrant's come.
  BARNARDINE. You rogue, I have been drinking all night; I am not
    fitted for't.
  POMPEY. O, the better, sir! For he that drinks all night and is
    hanged betimes in the morning may sleep the sounder all the next
    day.

                  Enter DUKE, disguised as before

  ABHORSON. Look you, sir, here comes your ghostly father.
    Do we jest now, think you?
  DUKE. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are
    to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with
    you.
  BARNARDINE. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and
    I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my
    brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that's
    certain.
  DUKE. O, Sir, you must; and therefore I beseech you
    Look forward on the journey you shall go.
  BARNARDINE. I swear I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion.
  DUKE. But hear you-
  BARNARDINE. Not a word; if you have anything to say to me, come to
    my ward; for thence will not I to-day.                  Exit
  DUKE. Unfit to live or die. O gravel heart!
    After him, fellows; bring him to the block.
                                      Exeunt ABHORSON and POMPEY

                            Enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. Now, sir, how do you find the prisoner?
  DUKE. A creature unprepar'd, unmeet for death;
    And to transport him in the mind he is
    Were damnable.
  PROVOST. Here in the prison, father,
    There died this morning of a cruel fever
    One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
    A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head
    Just of his colour. What if we do omit
    This reprobate till he were well inclin'd,
    And satisfy the deputy with the visage
    Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?
  DUKE. O, 'tis an accident that heaven provides!
    Dispatch it presently; the hour draws on
    Prefix'd by Angelo. See this be done,
    And sent according to command; whiles I
    Persuade this rude wretch willingly to die.
  PROVOST. This shall be done, good father, presently.
    But Barnardine must die this afternoon;
    And how shall we continue Claudio,
    To save me from the danger that might come
    If he were known alive?
  DUKE. Let this be done:
    Put them in secret holds, both Barnardine and Claudio.
    Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting
    To the under generation, you shall find
    Your safety manifested.
  PROVOST. I am your free dependant.
  DUKE. Quick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.
                                                    Exit PROVOST
    Now will I write letters to Angelo-
    The Provost, he shall bear them- whose contents
    Shall witness to him I am near at home,
    And that, by great injunctions, I am bound
    To enter publicly. Him I'll desire
    To meet me at the consecrated fount,
    A league below the city; and from thence,
    By cold gradation and well-balanc'd form.
    We shall proceed with Angelo.

                         Re-enter PROVOST

  PROVOST. Here is the head; I'll carry it myself.
  DUKE. Convenient is it. Make a swift return;
    For I would commune with you of such things
    That want no ear but yours.
  PROVOST. I'll make all speed.                             Exit
  ISABELLA. [ Within ] Peace, ho, be here!
  DUKE. The tongue of Isabel. She's come to know
    If yet her brother's pardon be come hither;
    But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
    To make her heavenly comforts of despair
    When it is least expected.

                           Enter ISABELLA

  ISABELLA. Ho, by your leave!
  DUKE. Good morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.
  ISABELLA. The better, given me by so holy a man.
    Hath yet the deputy sent my brother's pardon?
  DUKE. He hath releas'd him, Isabel, from the world.
    His head is off and sent to Angelo.
  ISABELLA. Nay, but it is not so.
  DUKE. It is no other.
    Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close patience,
  ISABELLA. O, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!
  DUKE. You shall not be admitted to his sight.
  ISABELLA. Unhappy Claudio! Wretched Isabel!
    Injurious world! Most damned Angelo!
  DUKE. This nor hurts him nor profits you a jot;
    Forbear it, therefore; give your cause to heaven.
    Mark what I say, which you shall find
    By every syllable a faithful verity.
    The Duke comes home to-morrow. Nay, dry your eyes.
    One of our covent, and his confessor,
    Gives me this instance. Already he hath carried
    Notice to Escalus and Angelo,
    Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,
    There to give up their pow'r. If you can, pace your wisdom
    In that good path that I would wish it go,
    And you shall have your bosom on this wretch,
    Grace of the Duke, revenges to your heart,
    And general honour.
  ISABELLA. I am directed by you.
  DUKE. This letter, then, to Friar Peter give;
    'Tis that he sent me of the Duke's return.
    Say, by this token, I desire his company
    At Mariana's house to-night. Her cause and yours
    I'll perfect him withal; and he shall bring you
    Before the Duke; and to the head of Angelo
    Accuse him home and home. For my poor self,
    I am combined by a sacred vow,
    And shall be absent. Wend you with this letter.
    Command these fretting waters from your eyes
    With a light heart; trust not my holy order,
    If I pervert your course. Who's here?

                           Enter LUCIO

  LUCIO. Good even. Friar, where's the Provost?
  DUKE. Not within, sir.
  LUCIO. O pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes
    so red. Thou must be patient. I am fain to dine and sup with
    water and bran; I dare not for my head fill my belly; one
    fruitful meal would set me to't. But they say the Duke will be
    here to-morrow. By my troth, Isabel, I lov'd thy brother. If the
    old fantastical Duke of dark corners had been at home, he had
    lived.                                         Exit ISABELLA
  DUKE. Sir, the Duke is marvellous little beholding to your reports;
    but the best is, he lives not in them.
  LUCIO. Friar, thou knowest not the Duke so well as I do; he's a
    better woodman than thou tak'st him for.
  DUKE. Well, you'll answer this one day. Fare ye well.
  LUCIO. Nay, tarry; I'll go along with thee; I can tell thee pretty
    tales of the Duke.
  DUKE. You have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be
    true; if not true, none were enough.
  LUCIO. I was once before him for getting a wench with child.
  DUKE. Did you such a thing?
  LUCIO. Yes, marry, did I; but I was fain to forswear it: they would
    else have married me to the rotten medlar.
  DUKE. Sir, your company is fairer than honest. Rest you well.
  LUCIO. By my troth, I'll go with thee to the lane's end. If bawdy
    talk offend you, we'll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a
    kind of burr; I shall stick.                          Exeunt

SCENE IV. ANGELO'S house

Enter ANGELO and ESCALUS

  ESCALUS. Every letter he hath writ hath disvouch'd other.
  ANGELO. In most uneven and distracted manner. His actions show much
    like to madness; pray heaven his wisdom be not tainted! And why
    meet him at the gates, and redeliver our authorities there?
  ESCALUS. I guess not.
  ANGELO. And why should we proclaim it in an hour before his
    ent'ring that, if any crave redress of injustice, they should
    exhibit their petitions in the street?
  ESCALUS. He shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch of
     complaints; and to deliver us from devices hereafter, which
    shall then have no power to stand against us.
  ANGELO. Well, I beseech you, let it be proclaim'd;
    Betimes i' th' morn I'll call you at your house;
    Give notice to such men of sort and suit
    As are to meet him.
  ESCALUS. I shall, sir; fare you well.
  ANGELO. Good night.                               Exit ESCALUS
    This deed unshapes me quite, makes me unpregnant
    And dull to all proceedings. A deflow'red maid!
    And by an eminent body that enforc'd
    The law against it! But that her tender shame
    Will not proclaim against her maiden loss,
    How might she tongue me! Yet reason dares her no;
    For my authority bears a so credent bulk
    That no particular scandal once can touch
    But it confounds the breather. He should have liv'd,
    Save that his riotous youth, with dangerous sense,
    Might in the times to come have ta'en revenge,
    By so receiving a dishonour'd life
    With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had liv'd!
    Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,
    Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not.         Exit

SCENE V. Fields without the town

Enter DUKE in his own habit, and Friar PETER

  DUKE. These letters at fit time deliver me.   [Giving letters]
    The Provost knows our purpose and our plot.
    The matter being afoot, keep your instruction
    And hold you ever to our special drift;
    Though sometimes you do blench from this to that
    As cause doth minister. Go, call at Flavius' house,
    And tell him where I stay; give the like notice
    To Valentinus, Rowland, and to Crassus,
    And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate;
    But send me Flavius first.
    PETER. It shall be speeded well.                  Exit FRIAR

                             Enter VARRIUS

  DUKE. I thank thee, Varrius; thou hast made good haste.
    Come, we will walk. There's other of our friends
    Will greet us here anon. My gentle Varrius!           Exeunt

SCENE VI. A street near the city gate

Enter ISABELLA and MARIANA

  ISABELLA. To speak so indirectly I am loath;
    I would say the truth; but to accuse him so,
    That is your part. Yet I am advis'd to do it;
    He says, to veil full purpose.
  MARIANA. Be rul'd by him.
  ISABELLA. Besides, he tells me that, if peradventure
    He speak against me on the adverse side,
    I should not think it strange; for 'tis a physic
    That's bitter to sweet end.
  MARIANA. I would Friar Peter-

                         Enter FRIAR PETER

  ISABELLA. O, peace! the friar is come.
  PETER. Come, I have found you out a stand most fit,
    Where you may have such vantage on the Duke
    He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded;
    The generous and gravest citizens
    Have hent the gates, and very near upon
    The Duke is ent'ring; therefore, hence, away.         Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. The city gate

Enter at several doors DUKE, VARRIUS, LORDS; ANGELO, ESCALUS, Lucio,
PROVOST, OFFICERS, and CITIZENS

  DUKE. My very worthy cousin, fairly met!
    Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you.
  ANGELO, ESCALUS. Happy return be to your royal Grace!
  DUKE. Many and hearty thankings to you both.
    We have made inquiry of you, and we hear
    Such goodness of your justice that our soul
    Cannot but yield you forth to public thanks,
    Forerunning more requital.
  ANGELO. You make my bonds still greater.
  DUKE. O, your desert speaks loud; and I should wrong it
    To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
    When it deserves, with characters of brass,
    A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time
    And razure of oblivion. Give me your hand.
    And let the subject see, to make them know
    That outward courtesies would fain proclaim
    Favours that keep within. Come, Escalus,
    You must walk by us on our other hand,
    And good supporters are you.

                 Enter FRIAR PETER and ISABELLA

  PETER. Now is your time; speak loud, and kneel before him.
  ISABELLA. Justice, O royal Duke! Vail your regard
    Upon a wrong'd- I would fain have said a maid!
    O worthy Prince, dishonour not your eye
    By throwing it on any other object
    Till you have heard me in my true complaint,
    And given me justice, justice, justice, justice.
  DUKE. Relate your wrongs. In what? By whom? Be brief.
    Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice;
    Reveal yourself to him.
  ISABELLA. O worthy Duke,
    You bid me seek redemption of the devil!
    Hear me yourself; for that which I must speak
    Must either punish me, not being believ'd,
    Or wring redress from you. Hear me, O, hear me, here!
  ANGELO. My lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm;
    She hath been a suitor to me for her brother,
    Cut off by course of justice-
  ISABELLA. By course of justice!
  ANGELO. And she will speak most bitterly and strange.
  ISABELLA. Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak.
    That Angelo's forsworn, is it not strange?
    That Angelo's a murderer, is't not strange?
    That Angelo is an adulterous thief,
    An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,
    Is it not strange and strange?
  DUKE. Nay, it is ten times strange.
  ISABELLA. It is not truer he is Angelo
    Than this is all as true as it is strange;
    Nay, it is ten times true; for truth is truth
    To th' end of reck'ning.
  DUKE. Away with her. Poor soul,
    She speaks this in th' infirmity of sense.
  ISABELLA. O Prince! I conjure thee, as thou believ'st
    There is another comfort than this world,
    That thou neglect me not with that opinion
    That I am touch'd with madness. Make not impossible
    That which but seems unlike: 'tis not impossible
    But one, the wicked'st caitiff on the ground,
    May seem as shy, as grave, as just, as absolute,
    As Angelo; even so may Angelo,
    In all his dressings, characts, titles, forms,
    Be an arch-villain. Believe it, royal Prince,
    If he be less, he's nothing; but he's more,
    Had I more name for badness.
  DUKE. By mine honesty,
    If she be mad, as I believe no other,
    Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,
    Such a dependency of thing on thing,
    As e'er I heard in madness.
  ISABELLA. O gracious Duke,
    Harp not on that; nor do not banish reason
    For inequality; but let your reason serve
    To make the truth appear where it seems hid,
    And hide the false seems true.
  DUKE. Many that are not mad
    Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?
  ISABELLA. I am the sister of one Claudio,
    Condemn'd upon the act of fornication
    To lose his head; condemn'd by Angelo.
    I, in probation of a sisterhood,
    Was sent to by my brother; one Lucio
    As then the messenger-
  LUCIO. That's I, an't like your Grace.
    I came to her from Claudio, and desir'd her
    To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo
    For her poor brother's pardon.
  ISABELLA. That's he, indeed.
  DUKE. You were not bid to speak.
  LUCIO. No, my good lord;
    Nor wish'd to hold my peace.
  DUKE. I wish you now, then;
    Pray you take note of it; and when you have
    A business for yourself, pray heaven you then
    Be perfect.
  LUCIO. I warrant your honour.
  DUKE. The warrant's for yourself; take heed to't.
  ISABELLA. This gentleman told somewhat of my tale.
  LUCIO. Right.
  DUKE. It may be right; but you are i' the wrong
    To speak before your time. Proceed.
  ISABELLA. I went
    To this pernicious caitiff deputy.
  DUKE. That's somewhat madly spoken.
  ISABELLA. Pardon it;
    The phrase is to the matter.
  DUKE. Mended again. The matter- proceed.
  ISABELLA. In brief- to set the needless process by,
    How I persuaded, how I pray'd, and kneel'd,
    How he refell'd me, and how I replied,
    For this was of much length- the vile conclusion
    I now begin with grief and shame to utter:
    He would not, but by gift of my chaste body
    To his concupiscible intemperate lust,
    Release my brother; and, after much debatement,
    My sisterly remorse confutes mine honour,
    And I did yield to him. But the next morn betimes,
    His purpose surfeiting, he sends a warrant
    For my poor brother's head.
  DUKE. This is most likely!
  ISABELLA. O that it were as like as it is true!
  DUKE. By heaven, fond wretch, thou know'st not what thou speak'st,
    Or else thou art suborn'd against his honour
    In hateful practice. First, his integrity
    Stands without blemish; next, it imports no reason
    That with such vehemency he should pursue
    Faults proper to himself. If he had so offended,
    He would have weigh'd thy brother by himself,
    And not have cut him off. Some one hath set you on;
    Confess the truth, and say by whose advice
    Thou cam'st here to complain.
  ISABELLA. And is this all?
    Then, O you blessed ministers above,
    Keep me in patience; and, with ripened time,
    Unfold the evil which is here wrapt up
    In countenance! Heaven shield your Grace from woe,
    As I, thus wrong'd, hence unbelieved go!
  DUKE. I know you'd fain be gone. An officer!
    To prison with her! Shall we thus permit
    A blasting and a scandalous breath to fall
    On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.
    Who knew of your intent and coming hither?
  ISABELLA. One that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.
  DUKE. A ghostly father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?
  LUCIO. My lord, I know him; 'tis a meddling friar.
    I do not like the man; had he been lay, my lord,
    For certain words he spake against your Grace
    In your retirement, I had swing'd him soundly.
  DUKE. Words against me? This's a good friar, belike!
    And to set on this wretched woman here
    Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.
  LUCIO. But yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,
    I saw them at the prison; a saucy friar,
    A very scurvy fellow.
  PETER. Blessed be your royal Grace!
    I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard
    Your royal ear abus'd. First, hath this woman
    Most wrongfully accus'd your substitute;
    Who is as free from touch or soil with her
    As she from one ungot.
  DUKE. We did believe no less.
    Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?
  PETER. I know him for a man divine and holy;
    Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,
    As he's reported by this gentleman;
    And, on my trust, a man that never yet
    Did, as he vouches, misreport your Grace.
  LUCIO. My lord, most villainously; believe it.
  PETER. Well, he in time may come to clear himself;
    But at this instant he is sick, my lord,
    Of a strange fever. Upon his mere request-
    Being come to knowledge that there was complaint
    Intended 'gainst Lord Angelo- came I hither
    To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know
    Is true and false; and what he, with his oath
    And all probation, will make up full clear,
    Whensoever he's convented. First, for this woman-
    To justify this worthy nobleman,
    So vulgarly and personally accus'd-
    Her shall you hear disproved to her eyes,
    Till she herself confess it.
  DUKE. Good friar, let's hear it.         Exit ISABELLA guarded
    Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?
    O heaven, the vanity of wretched fools!
    Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo;
    In this I'll be impartial; be you judge
    Of your own cause.

                     Enter MARIANA veiled

    Is this the witness, friar?
  FIRST let her show her face, and after speak.
  MARIANA. Pardon, my lord; I will not show my face
    Until my husband bid me.
  DUKE. What, are you married?
  MARIANA. No, my lord.
  DUKE. Are you a maid?
  MARIANA. No, my lord.
  DUKE. A widow, then?
  MARIANA. Neither, my lord.
  DUKE. Why, you are nothing then; neither maid, widow, nor wife.
  LUCIO. My lord, she may be a punk; for many of them are neither
    maid, widow, nor wife.
  DUKE. Silence that fellow. I would he had some cause
    To prattle for himself.
  LUCIO. Well, my lord.
  MARIANA. My lord, I do confess I ne'er was married,
    And I confess, besides, I am no maid.
    I have known my husband; yet my husband
    Knows not that ever he knew me.
  LUCIO. He was drunk, then, my lord; it can be no better.
  DUKE. For the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too!
  LUCIO. Well, my lord.
  DUKE. This is no witness for Lord Angelo.
  MARIANA. Now I come to't, my lord:
    She that accuses him of fornication,
    In self-same manner doth accuse my husband;
    And charges him, my lord, with such a time
    When I'll depose I had him in mine arms,
    With all th' effect of love.
  ANGELO. Charges she moe than me?
  MARIANA. Not that I know.
  DUKE. No? You say your husband.
  MARIANA. Why, just, my lord, and that is Angelo,
    Who thinks he knows that he ne'er knew my body,
    But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel's.
  ANGELO. This is a strange abuse. Let's see thy face.
  MARIANA. My husband bids me; now I will unmask.
                                                     [Unveiling]
    This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,
    Which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on;
    This is the hand which, with a vow'd contract,
    Was fast belock'd in thine; this is the body
    That took away the match from Isabel,
    And did supply thee at thy garden-house
    In her imagin'd person.
  DUKE. Know you this woman?
  LUCIO. Carnally, she says.
  DUKE. Sirrah, no more.
  LUCIO. Enough, my lord.
  ANGELO. My lord, I must confess I know this woman;
    And five years since there was some speech of marriage
    Betwixt myself and her; which was broke off,
    Partly for that her promised proportions
    Came short of composition; but in chief
    For that her reputation was disvalued
    In levity. Since which time of five years
    I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,
    Upon my faith and honour.
  MARIANA. Noble Prince,
    As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,
    As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,
    I am affianc'd this man's wife as strongly
    As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,
    But Tuesday night last gone, in's garden-house,
    He knew me as a wife. As this is true,
    Let me in safety raise me from my knees,
    Or else for ever be confixed here,
    A marble monument!
  ANGELO. I did but smile till now.
    Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice;
    My patience here is touch'd. I do perceive
    These poor informal women are no more
    But instruments of some more mightier member
    That sets them on. Let me have way, my lord,
    To find this practice out.
  DUKE. Ay, with my heart;
    And punish them to your height of pleasure.
    Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,
    Compact with her that's gone, think'st thou thy oaths,
    Though they would swear down each particular saint,
    Were testimonies against his worth and credit,
    That's seal'd in approbation? You, Lord Escalus,
    Sit with my cousin; lend him your kind pains
    To find out this abuse, whence 'tis deriv'd.
    There is another friar that set them on;
    Let him be sent for.
  PETER. Would lie were here, my lord! For he indeed
    Hath set the women on to this complaint.
    Your provost knows the place where he abides,
    And he may fetch him.
  DUKE. Go, do it instantly.                        Exit PROVOST
    And you, my noble and well-warranted cousin,
    Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,
    Do with your injuries as seems you best
    In any chastisement. I for a while will leave you;
    But stir not you till you have well determin'd
    Upon these slanderers.
  ESCALUS. My lord, we'll do it throughly.             Exit DUKE
    Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar Lodowick to be
    a dishonest person?
  LUCIO. 'Cucullus non facit monachum': honest in nothing but in his
    clothes; and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the
    Duke.
  ESCALUS. We shall entreat you to abide here till he come and
    enforce them against him. We shall find this friar a notable
    fellow.
  LUCIO. As any in Vienna, on my word.
  ESCALUS. Call that same Isabel here once again; I would speak with
    her. [Exit an ATTENDANT] Pray you, my lord, give me leave to
    question; you shall see how I'll handle her.
  LUCIO. Not better than he, by her own report.
  ESCALUS. Say you?
  LUCIO. Marry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately, she would
    sooner confess; perchance, publicly, she'll be asham'd.

       Re-enter OFFICERS with ISABELLA; and PROVOST with the
                    DUKE in his friar's habit

  ESCALUS. I will go darkly to work with her.
  LUCIO. That's the way; for women are light at midnight.
  ESCALUS. Come on, mistress; here's a gentlewoman denies all that
    you have said.
  LUCIO. My lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here with the
    Provost.
  ESCALUS. In very good time. Speak not you to him till we call upon
    you.
  LUCIO. Mum.
  ESCALUS. Come, sir; did you set these women on to slander Lord
    Angelo? They have confess'd you did.
  DUKE. 'Tis false.
  ESCALUS. How! Know you where you are?
  DUKE. Respect to your great place! and let the devil
    Be sometime honour'd for his burning throne!
    Where is the Duke? 'Tis he should hear me speak.
  ESCALUS. The Duke's in us; and we will hear you speak;
    Look you speak justly.
  DUKE. Boldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,
    Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox,
    Good night to your redress! Is the Duke gone?
    Then is your cause gone too. The Duke's unjust
    Thus to retort your manifest appeal,
    And put your trial in the villain's mouth
    Which here you come to accuse.
  LUCIO. This is the rascal; this is he I spoke of.
  ESCALUS. Why, thou unreverend and unhallowed friar,
    Is't not enough thou hast suborn'd these women
    To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth,
    And in the witness of his proper ear,
    To call him villain; and then to glance from him
    To th' Duke himself, to tax him with injustice?
    Take him hence; to th' rack with him! We'll touze you
    Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.
    What, 'unjust'!
  DUKE. Be not so hot; the Duke
    Dare no more stretch this finger of mine than he
    Dare rack his own; his subject am I not,
    Nor here provincial. My business in this state
    Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,
    Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble
    Till it o'errun the stew: laws for all faults,
    But faults so countenanc'd that the strong statutes
    Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
    As much in mock as mark.
  ESCALUS. Slander to th' state! Away with him to prison!
  ANGELO. What can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?
    Is this the man that you did tell us of?
  LUCIO. 'Tis he, my lord. Come hither, good-man bald-pate.
    Do you know me?
  DUKE. I remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice. I met you at
    the prison, in the absence of the Duke.
  LUCIO. O did you so? And do you remember what you said of the Duke?
  DUKE. Most notedly, sir.
  LUCIO. Do you so, sir? And was the Duke a fleshmonger, a fool, and
    a coward, as you then reported him to be?
  DUKE. You must, sir, change persons with me ere you make that my
    report; you, indeed, spoke so of him; and much more, much worse.
  LUCIO. O thou damnable fellow! Did not I pluck thee by the nose for
    thy speeches?
  DUKE. I protest I love the Duke as I love myself.
  ANGELO. Hark how the villain would close now, after his treasonable
    abuses!
  ESCALUS. Such a fellow is not to be talk'd withal. Away with him to
    prison! Where is the Provost? Away with him to prison! Lay bolts
    enough upon him; let him speak no more. Away with those giglets
    too, and with the other confederate companion!
                            [The PROVOST lays bands on the DUKE]
  DUKE. Stay, sir; stay awhile.
  ANGELO. What, resists he? Help him, Lucio.
  LUCIO. Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you
    bald-pated lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your
    knave's visage, with a pox to you! Show your sheep-biting face,
    and be hang'd an hour! Will't not off?
             [Pulls off the FRIAR'S bood and discovers the DUKE]
  DUKE. Thou art the first knave that e'er mad'st a duke.
    First, Provost, let me bail these gentle three.
    [To Lucio] Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you
    Must have a word anon. Lay hold on him.
  LUCIO. This may prove worse than hanging.
  DUKE. [To ESCALUS] What you have spoke I pardon; sit you down.
    We'll borrow place of him. [To ANGELO] Sir, by your leave.
    Hast thou or word, or wit, or impudence,
    That yet can do thee office? If thou hast,
    Rely upon it till my tale be heard,
    And hold no longer out.
  ANGELO. O my dread lord,
    I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,
    To think I can be undiscernible,
    When I perceive your Grace, like pow'r divine,
    Hath look'd upon my passes. Then, good Prince,
    No longer session hold upon my shame,
    But let my trial be mine own confession;
    Immediate sentence then, and sequent death,
    Is all the grace I beg.
  DUKE. Come hither, Mariana.
    Say, wast thou e'er contracted to this woman?
  ANGELO. I was, my lord.
  DUKE. Go, take her hence and marry her instantly.
    Do you the office, friar; which consummate,
    Return him here again. Go with him, Provost.
                Exeunt ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST
  ESCALUS. My lord, I am more amaz'd at his dishonour
    Than at the strangeness of it.
  DUKE. Come hither, Isabel.
    Your friar is now your prince. As I was then
    Advertising and holy to your business,
    Not changing heart with habit, I am still
    Attorney'd at your service.
  ISABELLA. O, give me pardon,
    That I, your vassal have employ'd and pain'd
    Your unknown sovereignty.
  DUKE. You are pardon'd, Isabel.
    And now, dear maid, be you as free to us.
    Your brother's death, I know, sits at your heart;
    And you may marvel why I obscur'd myself,
    Labouring to save his life, and would not rather
    Make rash remonstrance of my hidden pow'r
    Than let him so be lost. O most kind maid,
    It was the swift celerity of his death,
    Which I did think with slower foot came on,
    That brain'd my purpose. But peace be with him!
    That life is better life, past fearing death,
    Than that which lives to fear. Make it your comfort,
    So happy is your brother.
  ISABELLA. I do, my lord.

       Re-enter ANGELO, MARIANA, FRIAR PETER, and PROVOST

  DUKE. For this new-married man approaching here,
    Whose salt imagination yet hath wrong'd
    Your well-defended honour, you must pardon
    For Mariana's sake; but as he adjudg'd your brother-
    Being criminal in double violation
    Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach,
    Thereon dependent, for your brother's life-
    The very mercy of the law cries out
    Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
    'An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!'
    Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
    Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.
    Then, Angelo, thy fault's thus manifested,
    Which, though thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.
    We do condemn thee to the very block
    Where Claudio stoop'd to death, and with like haste.
    Away with him!
  MARIANA. O my most gracious lord,
    I hope you will not mock me with a husband.
  DUKE. It is your husband mock'd you with a husband.
    Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,
    I thought your marriage fit; else imputation,
    For that he knew you, might reproach your life,
    And choke your good to come. For his possessions,
    Although by confiscation they are ours,
    We do instate and widow you withal
    To buy you a better husband.
  MARIANA. O my dear lord,
    I crave no other, nor no better man.
  DUKE. Never crave him; we are definitive.
  MARIANA. Gentle my liege-                           [Kneeling]
  DUKE. You do but lose your labour.
    Away with him to death! [To LUCIO] Now, sir, to you.
  MARIANA. O my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part;
    Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
    I'll lend you all my life to do you service.
  DUKE. Against all sense you do importune her.
    Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
    Her brother's ghost his paved bed would break,
    And take her hence in horror.
  MARIANA. Isabel,
    Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;
    Hold up your hands, say nothing; I'll speak all.
    They say best men moulded out of faults;
    And, for the most, become much more the better
    For being a little bad; so may my husband.
    O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?
  DUKE. He dies for Claudio's death.
  ISABELLA. [Kneeling] Most bounteous sir,
    Look, if it please you, on this man condemn'd,
    As if my brother liv'd. I partly think
    A due sincerity govern'd his deeds
    Till he did look on me; since it is so,
    Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
    In that he did the thing for which he died;
    For Angelo,
    His act did not o'ertake his bad intent,
    And must be buried but as an intent
    That perish'd by the way. Thoughts are no subjects;
    Intents but merely thoughts.
  MARIANA. Merely, my lord.
  DUKE. Your suit's unprofitable; stand up, I say.
    I have bethought me of another fault.
    Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
    At an unusual hour?
  PROVOST. It was commanded so.
  DUKE. Had you a special warrant for the deed?
  PROVOST. No, my good lord; it was by private message.
  DUKE. For which I do discharge you of your office;
    Give up your keys.
  PROVOST. Pardon me, noble lord;
    I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;
    Yet did repent me, after more advice;
    For testimony whereof, one in the prison,
    That should by private order else have died,
    I have reserv'd alive.
  DUKE. What's he?
  PROVOST. His name is Barnardine.
  DUKE. I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.
    Go fetch him hither; let me look upon him.      Exit PROVOST
  ESCALUS. I am sorry one so learned and so wise
    As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear'd,
    Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood
    And lack of temper'd judgment afterward.
  ANGELO. I am sorry that such sorrow I procure;
    And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart
    That I crave death more willingly than mercy;
    'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.

       Re-enter PROVOST, with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO (muffled)
                            and JULIET

  DUKE. Which is that Barnardine?
  PROVOST. This, my lord.
  DUKE. There was a friar told me of this man.
    Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul,
    That apprehends no further than this world,
    And squar'st thy life according. Thou'rt condemn'd;
    But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all,
    And pray thee take this mercy to provide
    For better times to come. Friar, advise him;
    I leave him to your hand. What muffl'd fellow's that?
  PROVOST. This is another prisoner that I sav'd,
    Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;
    As like almost to Claudio as himself.    [Unmuffles CLAUDIO]
  DUKE. [To ISABELLA] If he be like your brother, for his sake
    Is he pardon'd; and for your lovely sake,
    Give me your hand and say you will be mine,
    He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.
    By this Lord Angelo perceives he's safe;
    Methinks I see a quick'ning in his eye.
    Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.
    Look that you love your wife; her worth worth yours.
    I find an apt remission in myself;
    And yet here's one in place I cannot pardon.
    To Lucio] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,
    One all of luxury, an ass, a madman!
    Wherein have I so deserv'd of you
    That you extol me thus?
  LUCIO. Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the trick.
    If you will hang me for it, you may; but I had rather it would
    please you I might be whipt.
  DUKE. Whipt first, sir, and hang'd after.
    Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,
    If any woman wrong'd by this lewd fellow-
    As I have heard him swear himself there's one
    Whom he begot with child, let her appear,
    And he shall marry her. The nuptial finish'd,
    Let him be whipt and hang'd.
  LUCIO. I beseech your Highness, do not marry me to a whore. Your
    Highness said even now I made you a duke; good my lord, do not
    recompense me in making me a cuckold.
  DUKE. Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
    Thy slanders I forgive; and therewithal
    Remit thy other forfeits. Take him to prison;
    And see our pleasure herein executed.
  LUCIO. Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping,
    and hanging.
  DUKE. Slandering a prince deserves it.
                                      Exeunt OFFICERS with LUCIO
    She, Claudio, that you wrong'd, look you restore.
    Joy to you, Mariana! Love her, Angelo;
    I have confess'd her, and I know her virtue.
    Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness;
    There's more behind that is more gratulate.
    Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;
    We shall employ thee in a worthier place.
    Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
    The head of Ragozine for Claudio's:
    Th' offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
    I have a motion much imports your good;
    Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
    What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
    So, bring us to our palace, where we'll show
    What's yet behind that's meet you all should know.
                                                          Exeunt

THE END

1597



THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THE DUKE OF VENICE
  THE PRINCE OF MOROCCO, suitor to Portia
  THE PRINCE OF ARRAGON,    "    "    "
  ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice
  BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia
  SOLANIO,   friend to Antonio and Bassanio
  SALERIO,      "    "    "     "     "
  GRATIANO,     "    "    "     "     "
  LORENZO, in love with Jessica
  SHYLOCK, a rich Jew
  TUBAL, a Jew, his friend
  LAUNCELOT GOBBO, a clown, servant to Shylock
  OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot
  LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio
  BALTHASAR, servant to Portia
  STEPHANO,     "     "    "

  PORTIA, a rich heiress
  NERISSA, her waiting-maid
  JESSICA, daughter to Shylock

  Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice,
    Gaoler, Servants, and other Attendants

SCENE: Venice, and PORTIA'S house at Belmont

ACT I. SCENE I. Venice. A street

Enter ANTONIO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO

  ANTONIO. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
    It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
    But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
    What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
    I am to learn;
    And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
    That I have much ado to know myself.
  SALERIO. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
    There where your argosies, with portly sail-
    Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
    Or as it were the pageants of the sea-
    Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
    That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
    As they fly by them with their woven wings.
  SOLANIO. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
    The better part of my affections would
    Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
    Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind,
    Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;
    And every object that might make me fear
    Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
    Would make me sad.
  SALERIO. My wind, cooling my broth,
    Would blow me to an ague when I thought
    What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
    I should not see the sandy hour-glass run
    But I should think of shallows and of flats,
    And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
    Vailing her high top lower than her ribs
    To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
    And see the holy edifice of stone,
    And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
    Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,
    Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
    Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
    And, in a word, but even now worth this,
    And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
    To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
    That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad?
    But tell not me; I know Antonio
    Is sad to think upon his merchandise.
  ANTONIO. Believe me, no; I thank my fortune for it,
    My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
    Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
    Upon the fortune of this present year;
    Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
  SOLANIO. Why then you are in love.
  ANTONIO. Fie, fie!
  SOLANIO. Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad
    Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy
    For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry,
    Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
    Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time:
    Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
    And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper;
    And other of such vinegar aspect
    That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile
    Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

               Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO

    Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,
    Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well;
    We leave you now with better company.
  SALERIO. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry,
    If worthier friends had not prevented me.
  ANTONIO. Your worth is very dear in my regard.
    I take it your own business calls on you,
    And you embrace th' occasion to depart.
  SALERIO. Good morrow, my good lords.
  BASSANIO. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say when.
    You grow exceeding strange; must it be so?
  SALERIO. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours.
                                      Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO
  LORENZO. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,
    We two will leave you; but at dinner-time,
    I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.
  BASSANIO. I will not fail you.
  GRATIANO. You look not well, Signior Antonio;
    You have too much respect upon the world;
    They lose it that do buy it with much care.
    Believe me, you are marvellously chang'd.
  ANTONIO. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano-
    A stage, where every man must play a part,
    And mine a sad one.
  GRATIANO. Let me play the fool.
    With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come;
    And let my liver rather heat with wine
    Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.
    Why should a man whose blood is warm within
    Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster,
    Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice
    By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio-
    I love thee, and 'tis my love that speaks-
    There are a sort of men whose visages
    Do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
    And do a wilful stillness entertain,
    With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
    Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
    As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle,
    And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.'
    O my Antonio, I do know of these
    That therefore only are reputed wise
    For saying nothing; when, I am very sure,
    If they should speak, would almost damn those ears
    Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.
    I'll tell thee more of this another time.
    But fish not with this melancholy bait
    For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.
    Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile;
    I'll end my exhortation after dinner.
  LORENZO. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time.
    I must be one of these same dumb wise men,
    For Gratiano never lets me speak.
  GRATIANO. Well, keep me company but two years moe,
    Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.
  ANTONIO. Fare you well; I'll grow a talker for this gear.
  GRATIANO. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable
    In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible.
                                     Exeunt GRATIANO and LORENZO
  ANTONIO. Is that anything now?
  BASSANIO. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than
    any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid
    in, two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find
    them, and when you have them they are not worth the search.
  ANTONIO. Well; tell me now what lady is the same
    To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage,
    That you to-day promis'd to tell me of?
  BASSANIO. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,
    How much I have disabled mine estate
    By something showing a more swelling port
    Than my faint means would grant continuance;
    Nor do I now make moan to be abridg'd
    From such a noble rate; but my chief care
    Is to come fairly off from the great debts
    Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
    Hath left me gag'd. To you, Antonio,
    I owe the most, in money and in love;
    And from your love I have a warranty
    To unburden all my plots and purposes
    How to get clear of all the debts I owe.
  ANTONIO. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it;
    And if it stand, as you yourself still do,
    Within the eye of honour, be assur'd
    My purse, my person, my extremest means,
    Lie all unlock'd to your occasions.
  BASSANIO. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
    I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
    The self-same way, with more advised watch,
    To find the other forth; and by adventuring both
    I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof,
    Because what follows is pure innocence.
    I owe you much; and, like a wilful youth,
    That which I owe is lost; but if you please
    To shoot another arrow that self way
    Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
    As I will watch the aim, or to find both,
    Or bring your latter hazard back again
    And thankfully rest debtor for the first.
  ANTONIO. You know me well, and herein spend but time
    To wind about my love with circumstance;
    And out of doubt you do me now more wrong
    In making question of my uttermost
    Than if you had made waste of all I have.
    Then do but say to me what I should do
    That in your knowledge may by me be done,
    And I am prest unto it; therefore, speak.
  BASSANIO. In Belmont is a lady richly left,
    And she is fair and, fairer than that word,
    Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes
    I did receive fair speechless messages.
    Her name is Portia- nothing undervalu'd
    To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia.
    Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth;
    For the four winds blow in from every coast
    Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks
    Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,
    Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strond,
    And many Jasons come in quest of her.
    O my Antonio, had I but the means
    To hold a rival place with one of them,
    I have a mind presages me such thrift
    That I should questionless be fortunate.
  ANTONIO. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea;
    Neither have I money nor commodity
    To raise a present sum; therefore go forth,
    Try what my credit can in Venice do;
    That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost,
    To furnish thee to Belmont to fair Portia.
    Go presently inquire, and so will I,
    Where money is; and I no question make
    To have it of my trust or for my sake.                Exeunt

SCENE II. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Enter PORTIA with her waiting-woman, NERISSA

  PORTIA. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great
  world. NERISSA. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in
  the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I
  see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve
  with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the
  mean: superfluity come sooner by white hairs, but competency lives
  longer. PORTIA. Good sentences, and well pronounc'd. NERISSA. They
  would be better, if well followed. PORTIA. If to do were as easy as
  to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor
  men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his
  own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done
  than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain
  may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold
  decree; such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of
  good counsel the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to
  choose me a husband. O me, the word 'choose'! I may neither choose
  who I would nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living
  daughter curb'd by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard,
  Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? NERISSA. Your
  father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good
  inspirations; therefore the lott'ry that he hath devised in these
  three chests, of gold, silver, and lead- whereof who chooses his
  meaning chooses you- will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but
  one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your
  affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already
  come? PORTIA. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I
  will describe them; and according to my description, level at my
  affection. NERISSA. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. PORTIA.
  Ay, that's a colt indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse;
  and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts that he
  can shoe him himself; I am much afear'd my lady his mother play'd
  false with a smith. NERISSA. Then is there the County Palatine.
  PORTIA. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say 'An you will not
  have me, choose.' He hears merry tales and smiles not. I fear he will
  prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of
  unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a
  death's-head with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God
  defend me from these two! NERISSA. How say you by the French lord,
  Monsieur Le Bon? PORTIA. God made him, and therefore let him pass for
  a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he- why, he
  hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of
  frowning than the Count Palatine; he is every man in no man. If a
  throstle sing he falls straight a-cap'ring; he will fence with his
  own shadow; if I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If
  he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to
  madness, I shall never requite him. NERISSA. What say you then to
  Falconbridge, the young baron of England? PORTIA. You know I say
  nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither
  Latin, French, nor Italian, and you will come into the court and
  swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper
  man's picture; but alas, who can converse with a dumb-show? How oddly
  he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose
  in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.
  NERISSA. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? PORTIA.
  That he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of
  the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he
  was able; I think the Frenchman became his surety, and seal'd under
  for another. NERISSA. How like you the young German, the Duke of
  Saxony's nephew? PORTIA. Very vilely in the morning when he is sober;
  and most vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk. When he is best,
  he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little
  better than a beast. An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall
  make shift to go without him. NERISSA. If he should offer to choose,
  and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your
  father's will, if you should refuse to accept him. PORTIA. Therefore,
  for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine
  on the contrary casket; for if the devil be within and that
  temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do anything,
  Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge. NERISSA. You need not
  fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me
  with their determinations, which is indeed to return to their home,
  and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some
  other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets.
  PORTIA. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as
  Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am
  glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one
  among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant them
  a fair departure. NERISSA. Do you not remember, lady, in your
  father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither
  in company of the Marquis of Montferrat? PORTIA. Yes, yes, it was
  Bassanio; as I think, so was he call'd. NERISSA. True, madam; he, of
  all the men that ever my foolish eyes look'd upon, was the best
  deserving a fair lady. PORTIA. I remember him well, and I remember
  him worthy of thy praise.

                         Enter a SERVINGMAN

    How now! what news?
  SERVINGMAN. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their
    leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of
    Morocco, who brings word the Prince his master will be here
    to-night.
  PORTIA. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I
    can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his
    approach; if he have the condition of a saint and the complexion
    of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.
    Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.
    Whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the
      door.                                               Exeunt

SCENE III. Venice. A public place

Enter BASSANIO With SHYLOCK the Jew

  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- well.
  BASSANIO. Ay, sir, for three months.
  SHYLOCK. For three months- well.
  BASSANIO. For the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.
  SHYLOCK. Antonio shall become bound- well.
  BASSANIO. May you stead me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your
    answer?
  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.
  BASSANIO. Your answer to that.
  SHYLOCK. Antonio is a good man.
  BASSANIO. Have you heard any imputation to the contrary?
  SHYLOCK. Ho, no, no, no, no; my meaning in saying he is a good man
    is to have you understand me that he is sufficient; yet his means
    are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another
    to the Indies; I understand, moreover, upon the Rialto, he hath a
    third at Mexico, a fourth for England- and other ventures he
    hath, squand'red abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but
    men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and
    land-thieves- I mean pirates; and then there is the peril of
    waters, winds, and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding,
    sufficient. Three thousand ducats- I think I may take his bond.
  BASSANIO. Be assur'd you may.
  SHYLOCK. I will be assur'd I may; and, that I may be assured, I
    will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?
  BASSANIO. If it please you to dine with us.
  SHYLOCK. Yes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation which your
    prophet, the Nazarite, conjured the devil into! I will buy with
    you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so
    following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray
    with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here?

                            Enter ANTONIO

  BASSANIO. This is Signior Antonio.
  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  How like a fawning publican he looks!
    I hate him for he is a Christian;
    But more for that in low simplicity
    He lends out money gratis, and brings down
    The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
    If I can catch him once upon the hip,
    I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
    He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,
    Even there where merchants most do congregate,
    On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
    Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe
    If I forgive him!
  BASSANIO. Shylock, do you hear?
  SHYLOCK. I am debating of my present store,
    And, by the near guess of my memory,
    I cannot instantly raise up the gross
    Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?
    Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,
    Will furnish me. But soft! how many months
    Do you desire?  [To ANTONIO]  Rest you fair, good signior;
    Your worship was the last man in our mouths.
  ANTONIO. Shylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow
    By taking nor by giving of excess,
    Yet, to supply the ripe wants of my friend,
    I'll break a custom.  [To BASSANIO]  Is he yet possess'd
    How much ye would?
  SHYLOCK. Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.
  ANTONIO. And for three months.
  SHYLOCK. I had forgot- three months; you told me so.
    Well then, your bond; and, let me see- but hear you,
    Methoughts you said you neither lend nor borrow
    Upon advantage.
  ANTONIO. I do never use it.
  SHYLOCK. When Jacob graz'd his uncle Laban's sheep-
    This Jacob from our holy Abram was,
    As his wise mother wrought in his behalf,
    The third possessor; ay, he was the third-
  ANTONIO. And what of him? Did he take interest?
  SHYLOCK. No, not take interest; not, as you would say,
    Directly int'rest; mark what Jacob did:
    When Laban and himself were compromis'd
    That all the eanlings which were streak'd and pied
    Should fall as Jacob's hire, the ewes, being rank,
    In end of autumn turned to the rams;
    And when the work of generation was
    Between these woolly breeders in the act,
    The skilful shepherd pill'd me certain wands,
    And, in the doing of the deed of kind,
    He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes,
    Who, then conceiving, did in eaning time
    Fall parti-colour'd lambs, and those were Jacob's.
    This was a way to thrive, and he was blest;
    And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.
  ANTONIO. This was a venture, sir, that Jacob serv'd for;
    A thing not in his power to bring to pass,
    But sway'd and fashion'd by the hand of heaven.
    Was this inserted to make interest good?
    Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?
  SHYLOCK. I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.
    But note me, signior.
  ANTONIO.  [Aside]  Mark you this, Bassanio,
    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
    An evil soul producing holy witness
    Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
    A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
    O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
  SHYLOCK. Three thousand ducats- 'tis a good round sum.
    Three months from twelve; then let me see, the rate-
  ANTONIO. Well, Shylock, shall we be beholding to you?
  SHYLOCK. Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
    In the Rialto you have rated me
    About my moneys and my usances;
    Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
    For suff'rance is the badge of all our tribe;
    You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
    And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
    And all for use of that which is mine own.
    Well then, it now appears you need my help;
    Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
    'Shylock, we would have moneys.' You say so-
    You that did void your rheum upon my beard
    And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
    Over your threshold; moneys is your suit.
    What should I say to you? Should I not say
    'Hath a dog money? Is it possible
    A cur can lend three thousand ducats?' Or
    Shall I bend low and, in a bondman's key,
    With bated breath and whisp'ring humbleness,
    Say this:
    'Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last,
    You spurn'd me such a day; another time
    You call'd me dog; and for these courtesies
    I'll lend you thus much moneys'?
  ANTONIO. I am as like to call thee so again,
    To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
    If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
    As to thy friends- for when did friendship take
    A breed for barren metal of his friend?-
    But lend it rather to thine enemy,
    Who if he break thou mayst with better face
    Exact the penalty.
  SHYLOCK. Why, look you, how you storm!
    I would be friends with you, and have your love,
    Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with,
    Supply your present wants, and take no doit
    Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me.
    This is kind I offer.
  BASSANIO. This were kindness.
  SHYLOCK. This kindness will I show.
    Go with me to a notary, seal me there
    Your single bond, and, in a merry sport,
    If you repay me not on such a day,
    In such a place, such sum or sums as are
    Express'd in the condition, let the forfeit
    Be nominated for an equal pound
    Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
    In what part of your body pleaseth me.
  ANTONIO. Content, in faith; I'll seal to such a bond,
    And say there is much kindness in the Jew.
  BASSANIO. You shall not seal to such a bond for me;
    I'll rather dwell in my necessity.
  ANTONIO. Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it;
    Within these two months- that's a month before
    This bond expires- I do expect return
    Of thrice three times the value of this bond.
  SHYLOCK. O father Abram, what these Christians are,
    Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
    The thoughts of others! Pray you, tell me this:
    If he should break his day, what should I gain
    By the exaction of the forfeiture?
    A pound of man's flesh taken from a man
    Is not so estimable, profitable neither,
    As flesh of muttons, beefs, or goats. I say,
    To buy his favour, I extend this friendship;
    If he will take it, so; if not, adieu;
    And, for my love, I pray you wrong me not.
  ANTONIO. Yes, Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.
  SHYLOCK. Then meet me forthwith at the notary's;
    Give him direction for this merry bond,
    And I will go and purse the ducats straight,
    See to my house, left in the fearful guard
    Of an unthrifty knave, and presently
    I'll be with you.
  ANTONIO. Hie thee, gentle Jew.                    Exit SHYLOCK
    The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind.
  BASSANIO. I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.
  ANTONIO. Come on; in this there can be no dismay;
    My ships come home a month before the day.            Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE of MOROCCO, a tawny Moor all in
white, and three or four FOLLOWERS accordingly, with PORTIA, NERISSA,
and train

  PRINCE OF Morocco. Mislike me not for my complexion,
    The shadowed livery of the burnish'd sun,
    To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred.
    Bring me the fairest creature northward born,
    Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,
    And let us make incision for your love
    To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.
    I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine
    Hath fear'd the valiant; by my love, I swear
    The best-regarded virgins of our clime
    Have lov'd it too. I would not change this hue,
    Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.
  PORTIA. In terms of choice I am not solely led
    By nice direction of a maiden's eyes;
    Besides, the lott'ry of my destiny
    Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.
    But, if my father had not scanted me,
    And hedg'd me by his wit to yield myself
    His wife who wins me by that means I told you,
    Yourself, renowned Prince, then stood as fair
    As any comer I have look'd on yet
    For my affection.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Even for that I thank you.
    Therefore, I pray you, lead me to the caskets
    To try my fortune. By this scimitar,
    That slew the Sophy and a Persian prince,
    That won three fields of Sultan Solyman,
    I would o'erstare the sternest eyes that look,
    Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,
    Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,
    Yea, mock the lion when 'a roars for prey,
    To win thee, lady. But, alas the while!
    If Hercules and Lichas play at dice
    Which is the better man, the greater throw
    May turn by fortune from the weaker band.
    So is Alcides beaten by his page;
    And so may I, blind Fortune leading me,
    Miss that which one unworthier may attain,
    And die with grieving.
  PORTIA. You must take your chance,
    And either not attempt to choose at all,
    Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong,
    Never to speak to lady afterward
    In way of marriage; therefore be advis'd.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Nor will not; come, bring me unto my chance.
  PORTIA. First, forward to the temple. After dinner
    Your hazard shall be made.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Good fortune then,
    To make me blest or cursed'st among men!
                                           [Cornets, and exeunt]

SCENE II. Venice. A street

Enter LAUNCELOT GOBBO

  LAUNCELOT. Certainly my conscience will serve me to run from this Jew
  my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying to me
  'Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot' or 'good Gobbo' or 'good
  Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.' My
  conscience says 'No; take heed, honest Launcelot, take heed, honest
  Gobbo' or, as aforesaid, 'honest Launcelot Gobbo, do not run; scorn
  running with thy heels.' Well, the most courageous fiend bids me
  pack. 'Via!' says the fiend; 'away!' says the fiend. 'For the
  heavens, rouse up a brave mind' says the fiend 'and run.' Well, my
  conscience, hanging about the neck of my heart, says very wisely to
  me 'My honest friend Launcelot, being an honest man's son' or rather
  'an honest woman's son'; for indeed my father did something smack,
  something grow to, he had a kind of taste- well, my conscience says
  'Launcelot, budge not.' 'Budge,' says the fiend. 'Budge not,' says my
  conscience. 'Conscience,' say I, (you counsel well.' 'Fiend,' say I,
  'you counsel well.' To be rul'd by my conscience, I should stay with
  the Jew my master, who- God bless the mark!- is a kind of devil; and,
  to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend, who- saving
  your reverence!- is the devil himself. Certainly the Jew is the very
  devil incarnation; and, in my conscience, my conscience is but a kind
  of hard conscience to offer to counsel me to stay with the Jew. The
  fiend gives the more friendly counsel. I will run, fiend; my heels
  are at your commandment; I will run.

                     Enter OLD GOBBO, with a basket

  GOBBO. Master young man, you, I pray you, which is the way to
    master Jew's?
  LAUNCELOT.  [Aside]  O heavens! This is my true-begotten father,
    who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel blind, knows me not.
    I will try confusions with him.
  GOBBO. Master young gentleman, I pray you, which is the way to
    master Jew's?
  LAUNCELOT. Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but, at
    the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next
    turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's
    house.
  GOBBO. Be God's sonties, 'twill be a hard way to hit! Can you tell
    me whether one Launcelot, that dwells with him, dwell with him or
    no?
  LAUNCELOT. Talk you of young Master Launcelot?  [Aside]  Mark me
    now; now will I raise the waters.- Talk you of young Master
    Launcelot?
  GOBBO. No master, sir, but a poor man's son; his father, though I
    say't, is an honest exceeding poor man, and, God be thanked, well
    to live.
  LAUNCELOT. Well, let his father be what 'a will, we talk of young
    Master Launcelot.
  GOBBO. Your worship's friend, and Launcelot, sir.
  LAUNCELOT. But I pray you, ergo, old man, ergo, I beseech you, talk
    you of young Master Launcelot?
  GOBBO. Of Launcelot, an't please your mastership.
  LAUNCELOT. Ergo, Master Launcelot. Talk not of Master Launcelot,
    father; for the young gentleman, according to Fates and Destinies
    and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three and such branches of
    learning, is indeed deceased; or, as you would say in plain
    terms, gone to heaven.
  GOBBO. Marry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age, my
    very prop.
  LAUNCELOT. Do I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post, a staff or a
    prop? Do you know me, father?
  GOBBO. Alack the day, I know you not, young gentleman; but I pray
    you tell me, is my boy- God rest his soul!- alive or dead?
  LAUNCELOT. Do you not know me, father?
  GOBBO. Alack, sir, I am sand-blind; I know you not.
  LAUNCELOT. Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the
    knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well,
    old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your blessing;
    truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son
    may, but in the end truth will out.
  GOBBO. Pray you, sir, stand up; I am sure you are not Launcelot my
    boy.
  LAUNCELOT. Pray you, let's have no more fooling about it, but give
    me your blessing; I am Launcelot, your boy that was, your son
    that is, your child that shall be.
  GOBBO. I cannot think you are my son.
  LAUNCELOT. I know not what I shall think of that; but I am
    Launcelot, the Jew's man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my
    mother.
  GOBBO. Her name is Margery, indeed. I'll be sworn, if thou be
    Launcelot, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipp'd
    might he be, what a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more hair
    on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse has on his tail.
  LAUNCELOT. It should seem, then, that Dobbin's tail grows backward;
    I am sure he had more hair of his tail than I have of my face
    when I last saw him.
  GOBBO. Lord, how art thou chang'd! How dost thou and thy master
    agree? I have brought him a present. How 'gree you now?
  LAUNCELOT. Well, well; but, for mine own part, as I have set up my
    rest to run away, so I will not rest till I have run some ground.
    My master's a very Jew. Give him a present! Give him a halter. I
    am famish'd in his service; you may tell every finger I have with
    my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come; give me your present to
    one Master Bassanio, who indeed gives rare new liveries; if I
    serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O rare
    fortune! Here comes the man. To him, father, for I am a Jew, if I
    serve the Jew any longer.

         Enter BASSANIO, with LEONARDO, with a FOLLOWER or two

  BASSANIO. You may do so; but let it be so hasted that supper be
    ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters
    delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to
    come anon to my lodging.                      Exit a SERVANT
  LAUNCELOT. To him, father.
  GOBBO. God bless your worship!
  BASSANIO. Gramercy; wouldst thou aught with me?
  GOBBO. Here's my son, sir, a poor boy-
  LAUNCELOT. Not a poor boy, sir, but the rich Jew's man, that would,
    sir, as my father shall specify-
  GOBBO. He hath a great infection, sir, as one would say, to serve-
  LAUNCELOT. Indeed the short and the long is, I serve the Jew, and
    have a desire, as my father shall specify-
  GOBBO. His master and he, saving your worship's reverence, are
    scarce cater-cousins-
  LAUNCELOT. To be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done
    me wrong, doth cause me, as my father, being I hope an old man,
    shall frutify unto you-
  GOBBO. I have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your
    worship; and my suit is-
  LAUNCELOT. In very brief, the suit is impertinent to myself, as
    your worship shall know by this honest old man; and, though I say
    it, though old man, yet poor man, my father.
  BASSANIO. One speak for both. What would you?
  LAUNCELOT. Serve you, sir.
  GOBBO. That is the very defect of the matter, sir.
  BASSANIO. I know thee well; thou hast obtain'd thy suit.
    Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,
    And hath preferr'd thee, if it be preferment
    To leave a rich Jew's service to become
    The follower of so poor a gentleman.
  LAUNCELOT. The old proverb is very well parted between my master
    Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath
    enough.
  BASSANIO. Thou speak'st it well. Go, father, with thy son.
    Take leave of thy old master, and inquire
    My lodging out.  [To a SERVANT]  Give him a livery
    More guarded than his fellows'; see it done.
  LAUNCELOT. Father, in. I cannot get a service, no! I have ne'er a
    tongue in my head!  [Looking on his palm]  Well; if any man in
    Italy have a fairer table which doth offer to swear upon a book- I
    shall have good fortune. Go to, here's a simple line of life;
    here's a small trifle of wives; alas, fifteen wives is nothing;
    a'leven widows and nine maids is a simple coming-in for one man.
    And then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life
    with the edge of a feather-bed-here are simple scapes. Well, if
    Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear. Father,
    come; I'll take my leave of the Jew in the twinkling.
                                  Exeunt LAUNCELOT and OLD GOBBO
  BASSANIO. I pray thee, good Leonardo, think on this.
    These things being bought and orderly bestowed,
    Return in haste, for I do feast to-night
    My best esteem'd acquaintance; hie thee, go.
  LEONARDO. My best endeavours shall be done herein.

                          Enter GRATIANO

  GRATIANO. Where's your master?
  LEONARDO. Yonder, sir, he walks.                          Exit
  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio!
  BASSANIO. Gratiano!
  GRATIANO. I have suit to you.
  BASSANIO. You have obtain'd it.
  GRATIANO. You must not deny me: I must go with you to Belmont.
  BASSANIO. Why, then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano:
    Thou art too wild, too rude, and bold of voice-
    Parts that become thee happily enough,
    And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;
    But where thou art not known, why there they show
    Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain
    To allay with some cold drops of modesty
    Thy skipping spirit; lest through thy wild behaviour
    I be misconst'red in the place I go to
    And lose my hopes.
  GRATIANO. Signior Bassanio, hear me:
    If I do not put on a sober habit,
    Talk with respect, and swear but now and then,
    Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,
    Nay more, while grace is saying hood mine eyes
    Thus with my hat, and sigh, and say amen,
    Use all the observance of civility
    Like one well studied in a sad ostent
    To please his grandam, never trust me more.
  BASSANIO. Well, we shall see your bearing.
  GRATIANO. Nay, but I bar to-night; you shall not gauge me
    By what we do to-night.
  BASSANIO. No, that were pity;
    I would entreat you rather to put on
    Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends
    That purpose merriment. But fare you well;
    I have some business.
  GRATIANO. And I must to Lorenzo and the rest;
    But we will visit you at supper-time.                 Exeunt

SCENE III. Venice. SHYLOCK'S house

Enter JESSICA and LAUNCELOT

  JESSICA. I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.
    Our house is hell; and thou, a merry devil,
    Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness.
    But fare thee well; there is a ducat for thee;
    And, Launcelot, soon at supper shalt thou see
    Lorenzo, who is thy new master's guest.
    Give him this letter; do it secretly.
    And so farewell. I would not have my father
    See me in talk with thee.
  LAUNCELOT. Adieu! tears exhibit my tongue. Most beautiful pagan,
    most sweet Jew! If a Christian do not play the knave and get
    thee, I am much deceived. But, adieu! these foolish drops do
    something drown my manly spirit; adieu!
  JESSICA. Farewell, good Launcelot.              Exit LAUNCELOT
    Alack, what heinous sin is it in me
    To be asham'd to be my father's child!
    But though I am a daughter to his blood,
    I am not to his manners. O Lorenzo,
    If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,
    Become a Christian and thy loving wife.                 Exit

SCENE IV. Venice. A street

Enter GRATIANO, LORENZO, SALERIO, and SOLANIO

  LORENZO. Nay, we will slink away in suppertime,
    Disguise us at my lodging, and return
    All in an hour.
  GRATIANO. We have not made good preparation.
  SALERIO. We have not spoke us yet of torch-bearers.
  SOLANIO. 'Tis vile, unless it may be quaintly ordered;
    And better in my mind not undertook.
  LORENZO. 'Tis now but four o'clock; we have two hours
    To furnish us.

                 Enter LAUNCELOT, With a letter

    Friend Launcelot, what's the news?
  LAUNCELOT. An it shall please you to break up this, it shall seem
    to signify.
  LORENZO. I know the hand; in faith, 'tis a fair hand,
    And whiter than the paper it writ on
    Is the fair hand that writ.
  GRATIANO. Love-news, in faith!
  LAUNCELOT. By your leave, sir.
  LORENZO. Whither goest thou?
  LAUNCELOT. Marry, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to sup
    to-night with my new master, the Christian.
  LORENZO. Hold, here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica
    I will not fail her; speak it privately.
    Go, gentlemen,                                Exit LAUNCELOT
    Will you prepare you for this masque to-night?
    I am provided of a torch-bearer.
  SALERIO. Ay, marry, I'll be gone about it straight.
  SOLANIO. And so will I.
  LORENZO. Meet me and Gratiano
    At Gratiano's lodging some hour hence.
  SALERIO. 'Tis good we do so.        Exeunt SALERIO and SOLANIO
  GRATIANO. Was not that letter from fair Jessica?
  LORENZO. I must needs tell thee all. She hath directed
    How I shall take her from her father's house;
    What gold and jewels she is furnish'd with;
    What page's suit she hath in readiness.
    If e'er the Jew her father come to heaven,
    It will be for his gentle daughter's sake;
    And never dare misfortune cross her foot,
    Unless she do it under this excuse,
    That she is issue to a faithless Jew.
    Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest;
    Fair Jessica shall be my torch-bearer.                Exeunt

SCENE V. Venice. Before SHYLOCK'S house

Enter SHYLOCK and LAUNCELOT

  SHYLOCK. Well, thou shalt see; thy eyes shall be thy judge,
    The difference of old Shylock and Bassanio.-
    What, Jessica!- Thou shalt not gormandize
    As thou hast done with me- What, Jessica!-
    And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out-
    Why, Jessica, I say!
  LAUNCELOT. Why, Jessica!
  SHYLOCK. Who bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.
  LAUNCELOT. Your worship was wont to tell me I could do nothing
    without bidding.

                          Enter JESSICA

  JESSICA. Call you? What is your will?
  SHYLOCK. I am bid forth to supper, Jessica;
    There are my keys. But wherefore should I go?
    I am not bid for love; they flatter me;
    But yet I'll go in hate, to feed upon
    The prodigal Christian. Jessica, my girl,
    Look to my house. I am right loath to go;
    There is some ill a-brewing towards my rest,
    For I did dream of money-bags to-night.
  LAUNCELOT. I beseech you, sir, go; my young master doth expect your
    reproach.
  SHYLOCK. So do I his.
  LAUNCELOT. And they have conspired together; I will not say you
    shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for nothing
    that my nose fell a-bleeding on Black Monday last at six o'clock
    i' th' morning, falling out that year on Ash Wednesday was four
    year, in th' afternoon.
  SHYLOCK. What, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:
    Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum,
    And the vile squealing of the wry-neck'd fife,
    Clamber not you up to the casements then,
    Nor thrust your head into the public street
    To gaze on Christian fools with varnish'd faces;
    But stop my house's ears- I mean my casements;
    Let not the sound of shallow fopp'ry enter
    My sober house. By Jacob's staff, I swear
    I have no mind of feasting forth to-night;
    But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah;
    Say I will come.
  LAUNCELOT. I will go before, sir. Mistress, look out at window for
    all this.
        There will come a Christian by
        Will be worth a Jewess' eye.                        Exit
  SHYLOCK. What says that fool of Hagar's offspring, ha?
  JESSICA. His words were 'Farewell, mistress'; nothing else.
  SHYLOCK. The patch is kind enough, but a huge feeder,
    Snail-slow in profit, and he sleeps by day
    More than the wild-cat; drones hive not with me,
    Therefore I part with him; and part with him
    To one that I would have him help to waste
    His borrowed purse. Well, Jessica, go in;
    Perhaps I will return immediately.
    Do as I bid you, shut doors after you.
    Fast bind, fast find-
    A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.                  Exit
  JESSICA. Farewell; and if my fortune be not crost,
    I have a father, you a daughter, lost.                  Exit

SCENE VI. Venice. Before SHYLOCK'S house

Enter the maskers, GRATIANO and SALERIO

  GRATIANO. This is the pent-house under which Lorenzo
    Desired us to make stand.
  SALERIO. His hour is almost past.
  GRATIANO. And it is marvel he out-dwells his hour,
    For lovers ever run before the clock.
  SALERIO. O, ten times faster Venus' pigeons fly
    To seal love's bonds new made than they are wont
    To keep obliged faith unforfeited!
  GRATIANO. That ever holds: who riseth from a feast
    With that keen appetite that he sits down?
    Where is the horse that doth untread again
    His tedious measures with the unbated fire
    That he did pace them first? All things that are
    Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.
    How like a younker or a prodigal
    The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
    Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind;
    How like the prodigal doth she return,
    With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails,
    Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!

                       Enter LORENZO

  SALERIO. Here comes Lorenzo; more of this hereafter.
  LORENZO. Sweet friends, your patience for my long abode!
    Not I, but my affairs, have made you wait.
    When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,
    I'll watch as long for you then. Approach;
    Here dwells my father Jew. Ho! who's within?

           Enter JESSICA, above, in boy's clothes

  JESSICA. Who are you? Tell me, for more certainty,
    Albeit I'll swear that I do know your tongue.
  LORENZO. Lorenzo, and thy love.
  JESSICA. Lorenzo, certain; and my love indeed;
    For who love I so much? And now who knows
    But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?
  LORENZO. Heaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.
  JESSICA. Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.
    I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,
    For I am much asham'd of my exchange;
    But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
    The pretty follies that themselves commit,
    For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush
    To see me thus transformed to a boy.
  LORENZO. Descend, for you must be my torch-bearer.
  JESSICA. What! must I hold a candle to my shames?
    They in themselves, good sooth, are too too light.
    Why, 'tis an office of discovery, love,
    And I should be obscur'd.
  LORENZO. So are you, sweet,
    Even in the lovely garnish of a boy.
    But come at once,
    For the close night doth play the runaway,
    And we are stay'd for at Bassanio's feast.
  JESSICA. I will make fast the doors, and gild myself
    With some moe ducats, and be with you straight.
                                                      Exit above

  GRATIANO. Now, by my hood, a gentle, and no Jew.
  LORENZO. Beshrew me, but I love her heartily,
    For she is wise, if I can judge of her,
    And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,
    And true she is, as she hath prov'd herself;
    And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true,
    Shall she be placed in my constant soul.

                     Enter JESSICA, below

    What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away;
    Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.
                                   Exit with JESSICA and SALERIO

                        Enter ANTONIO

  ANTONIO. Who's there?
  GRATIANO. Signior Antonio?
  ANTONIO. Fie, fie, Gratiano, where are all the rest?
    'Tis nine o'clock; our friends all stay for you;
    No masque to-night; the wind is come about;
    Bassanio presently will go aboard;
    I have sent twenty out to seek for you.
  GRATIANO. I am glad on't; I desire no more delight
    Than to be under sail and gone to-night.              Exeunt

SCENE VII. Belmont. PORTIA's house

Flourish of cornets. Enter PORTIA, with the PRINCE OF MOROCCO, and
their trains

  PORTIA. Go draw aside the curtains and discover
    The several caskets to this noble Prince.
    Now make your choice.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. The first, of gold, who this inscription bears:
    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'
    The second, silver, which this promise carries:
    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
    This third, dull lead, with warning all as blunt:
    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'
    How shall I know if I do choose the right?
  PORTIA. The one of them contains my picture, Prince;
    If you choose that, then I am yours withal.
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. Some god direct my judgment! Let me see;
    I will survey th' inscriptions back again.
    What says this leaden casket?
    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'
    Must give- for what? For lead? Hazard for lead!
    This casket threatens; men that hazard all
    Do it in hope of fair advantages.
    A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross;
    I'll then nor give nor hazard aught for lead.
    What says the silver with her virgin hue?
    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
    As much as he deserves! Pause there, Morocco,
    And weigh thy value with an even hand.
    If thou beest rated by thy estimation,
    Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough
    May not extend so far as to the lady;
    And yet to be afeard of my deserving
    Were but a weak disabling of myself.
    As much as I deserve? Why, that's the lady!
    I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,
    In graces, and in qualities of breeding;
    But more than these, in love I do deserve.
    What if I stray'd no farther, but chose here?
    Let's see once more this saying grav'd in gold:
    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'
    Why, that's the lady! All the world desires her;
    From the four corners of the earth they come
    To kiss this shrine, this mortal-breathing saint.
    The Hyrcanian deserts and the vasty wilds
    Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now
    For princes to come view fair Portia.
    The watery kingdom, whose ambitious head
    Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar
    To stop the foreign spirits, but they come
    As o'er a brook to see fair Portia.
    One of these three contains her heavenly picture.
    Is't like that lead contains her? 'Twere damnation
    To think so base a thought; it were too gross
    To rib her cerecloth in the obscure grave.
    Or shall I think in silver she's immur'd,
    Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?
    O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem
    Was set in worse than gold. They have in England
    A coin that bears the figure of an angel
    Stamp'd in gold; but that's insculp'd upon.
    But here an angel in a golden bed
    Lies all within. Deliver me the key;
    Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!
  PORTIA. There, take it, Prince, and if my form lie there,
    Then I am yours.                [He opens the golden casket]
  PRINCE OF MOROCCO. O hell! what have we here?
    A carrion Death, within whose empty eye
    There is a written scroll! I'll read the writing.
         'All that glisters is not gold,
         Often have you heard that told;
         Many a man his life hath sold
         But my outside to behold.
         Gilded tombs do worms infold.
         Had you been as wise as bold,
         Young in limbs, in judgment old,
         Your answer had not been inscroll'd.
         Fare you well, your suit is cold.'
      Cold indeed, and labour lost,
      Then farewell, heat, and welcome, frost.
    Portia, adieu! I have too griev'd a heart
    To take a tedious leave; thus losers part.
                        Exit with his train. Flourish of cornets
  PORTIA. A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.
    Let all of his complexion choose me so.               Exeunt

SCENE VIII. Venice. A street

Enter SALERIO and SOLANIO

  SALERIO. Why, man, I saw Bassanio under sail;
    With him is Gratiano gone along;
    And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.
  SOLANIO. The villain Jew with outcries rais'd the Duke,
    Who went with him to search Bassanio's ship.
  SALERIO. He came too late, the ship was under sail;
    But there the Duke was given to understand
    That in a gondola were seen together
    Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica;
    Besides, Antonio certified the Duke
    They were not with Bassanio in his ship.
  SOLANIO. I never heard a passion so confus'd,
    So strange, outrageous, and so variable,
    As the dog Jew did utter in the streets.
    'My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!
    Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!
    Justice! the law! My ducats and my daughter!
    A sealed bag, two sealed bags of ducats,
    Of double ducats, stol'n from me by my daughter!
    And jewels- two stones, two rich and precious stones,
    Stol'n by my daughter! Justice! Find the girl;
    She hath the stones upon her and the ducats.'
  SALERIO. Why, all the boys in Venice follow him,
    Crying, his stones, his daughter, and his ducats.
  SOLANIO. Let good Antonio look he keep his day,
    Or he shall pay for this.
  SALERIO. Marry, well rememb'red;
    I reason'd with a Frenchman yesterday,
    Who told me, in the narrow seas that part
    The French and English, there miscarried
    A vessel of our country richly fraught.
    I thought upon Antonio when he told me,
    And wish'd in silence that it were not his.
  SOLANIO. You were best to tell Antonio what you hear;
    Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.
  SALERIO. A kinder gentleman treads not the earth.
    I saw Bassanio and Antonio part.
    Bassanio told him he would make some speed
    Of his return. He answered 'Do not so;
    Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio,
    But stay the very riping of the time;
    And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me,
    Let it not enter in your mind of love;
    Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts
    To courtship, and such fair ostents of love
    As shall conveniently become you there.'
    And even there, his eye being big with tears,
    Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
    And with affection wondrous sensible
    He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.
  SOLANIO. I think he only loves the world for him.
    I pray thee, let us go and find him out,
    And quicken his embraced heaviness
    With some delight or other.
  SALERIO. Do we so.                                      Exeunt

SCENE IX. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Enter NERISSA, and a SERVITOR

  NERISSA. Quick, quick, I pray thee, draw the curtain straight;
    The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath,
    And comes to his election presently.

       Flourish of cornets. Enter the PRINCE OF ARRAGON,
                    PORTIA, and their trains

  PORTIA. Behold, there stand the caskets, noble Prince.
    If you choose that wherein I am contain'd,
    Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemniz'd;
    But if you fail, without more speech, my lord,
    You must be gone from hence immediately.
  ARRAGON. I am enjoin'd by oath to observe three things:
    First, never to unfold to any one
    Which casket 'twas I chose; next, if I fail
    Of the right casket, never in my life
    To woo a maid in way of marriage;
    Lastly,
    If I do fail in fortune of my choice,
    Immediately to leave you and be gone.
  PORTIA. To these injunctions every one doth swear
    That comes to hazard for my worthless self.
  ARRAGON. And so have I address'd me. Fortune now
    To my heart's hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.
    'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.'
    You shall look fairer ere I give or hazard.
    What says the golden chest? Ha! let me see:
    'Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.'
    What many men desire- that 'many' may be meant
    By the fool multitude, that choose by show,
    Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach;
    Which pries not to th' interior, but, like the martlet,
    Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
    Even in the force and road of casualty.
    I will not choose what many men desire,
    Because I will not jump with common spirits
    And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
    Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house!
    Tell me once more what title thou dost bear.
    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
    And well said too; for who shall go about
    To cozen fortune, and be honourable
    Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume
    To wear an undeserved dignity.
    O that estates, degrees, and offices,
    Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour
    Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!
    How many then should cover that stand bare!
    How many be commanded that command!
    How much low peasantry would then be gleaned
    From the true seed of honour! and how much honour
    Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,
    To be new varnish'd! Well, but to my choice.
    'Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.'
    I will assume desert. Give me a key for this,
    And instantly unlock my fortunes here.
                                    [He opens the silver casket]
  PORTIA.  [Aside]  Too long a pause for that which you find there.
  ARRAGON. What's here? The portrait of a blinking idiot
    Presenting me a schedule! I will read it.
    How much unlike art thou to Portia!
    How much unlike my hopes and my deservings!
    'Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.'
    Did I deserve no more than a fool's head?
    Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?
  PORTIA. To offend and judge are distinct offices
    And of opposed natures.
  ARRAGON. What is here?  [Reads]

         'The fire seven times tried this;
         Seven times tried that judgment is
         That did never choose amiss.
         Some there be that shadows kiss,
         Such have but a shadow's bliss.
         There be fools alive iwis
         Silver'd o'er, and so was this.
         Take what wife you will to bed,
         I will ever be your head.
         So be gone; you are sped.'

         Still more fool I shall appear
         By the time I linger here.
         With one fool's head I came to woo,
         But I go away with two.
         Sweet, adieu! I'll keep my oath,
         Patiently to bear my wroth.         Exit with his train

  PORTIA. Thus hath the candle sing'd the moth.
    O, these deliberate fools! When they do choose,
    They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.
  NERISSA. The ancient saying is no heresy:
    Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
  PORTIA. Come, draw the curtain, Nerissa.

                       Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. Where is my lady?
  PORTIA. Here; what would my lord?
  SERVANT. Madam, there is alighted at your gate
    A young Venetian, one that comes before
    To signify th' approaching of his lord,
    From whom he bringeth sensible regreets;
    To wit, besides commends and courteous breath,
    Gifts of rich value. Yet I have not seen
    So likely an ambassador of love.
    A day in April never came so sweet
    To show how costly summer was at hand
    As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.
  PORTIA. No more, I pray thee; I am half afeard
    Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,
    Thou spend'st such high-day wit in praising him.
    Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see
    Quick Cupid's post that comes so mannerly.
  NERISSA. Bassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!        Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Venice. A street

Enter SOLANIO and SALERIO

  SOLANIO. Now, what news on the Rialto?
  SALERIO. Why, yet it lives there uncheck'd that Antonio hath a ship
    of rich lading wreck'd on the narrow seas; the Goodwins I think
    they call the place, a very dangerous flat and fatal, where the
    carcases of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my
    gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.
  SOLANIO. I would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapp'd
    ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a
    third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity or
    crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the
    honest Antonio- O that I had a title good enough to keep his name
    company!-
  SALERIO. Come, the full stop.
  SOLANIO. Ha! What sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a
    ship.
  SALERIO. I would it might prove the end of his losses.
  SOLANIO. Let me say amen betimes, lest the devil cross my prayer,
    for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew.

                             Enter SHYLOCK

    How now, Shylock? What news among the merchants?
  SHYLOCK. You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my
    daughter's flight.
  SALERIO. That's certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that made
    the wings she flew withal.
  SOLANIO. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was flidge;
    and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam.
  SHYLOCK. She is damn'd for it.
  SALERIO. That's certain, if the devil may be her judge.
  SHYLOCK. My own flesh and blood to rebel!
  SOLANIO. Out upon it, old carrion! Rebels it at these years?
  SHYLOCK. I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.
  SALERIO. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers than
    between jet and ivory; more between your bloods than there is
    between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether
    Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?
  SHYLOCK. There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal,
    who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that was
    us'd to come so smug upon the mart. Let him look to his bond. He
    was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond. He was wont
    to lend money for a Christian courtesy; let him look to his bond.
  SALERIO. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his
    flesh. What's that good for?
  SHYLOCK. To bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will
    feed my revenge. He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a
    million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my
    nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
    enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
    Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
    passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
    subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed
    and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If
    you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
    If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we
    not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you
    in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?
    Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance
    be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me
    I will execute; and itshall go hard but I will better the
    instruction.

                    Enter a MAN from ANTONIO

  MAN. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to
    speak with you both.
  SALERIO. We have been up and down to seek him.

                          Enter TUBAL

  SOLANIO. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be
    match'd, unless the devil himself turn Jew.
                                Exeunt SOLANIO, SALERIO, and MAN
  SHYLOCK. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? Hast thou found my
    daughter?
  TUBAL. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.
  SHYLOCK. Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me
    two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our
    nation till now; I never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in
    that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter
    were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; would she were
    hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of
    them? Why, so- and I know not what's spent in the search. Why,
    thou- loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so much to
    find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge; nor no ill luck
    stirring but what lights o' my shoulders; no sighs but o' my
    breathing; no tears but o' my shedding!
  TUBAL. Yes, other men have ill luck too: Antonio, as I heard in
    Genoa-
  SHYLOCK. What, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?
  TUBAL. Hath an argosy cast away coming from Tripolis.
  SHYLOCK. I thank God, I thank God. Is it true, is it true?
  TUBAL. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.
  SHYLOCK. I thank thee, good Tubal. Good news, good news- ha, ha!-
    heard in Genoa.
  TUBAL. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night,
    fourscore ducats.
  SHYLOCK. Thou stick'st a dagger in me- I shall never see my gold
    again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting! Fourscore ducats!
  TUBAL. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to
    Venice that swear he cannot choose but break.
  SHYLOCK. I am very glad of it; I'll plague him, I'll torture him; I
    am glad of it.
  TUBAL. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter
    for a monkey.
  SHYLOCK. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my
    turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor; I would not
    have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
  TUBAL. But Antonio is certainly undone.
  SHYLOCK. Nay, that's true; that's very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an
    officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of
    him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what
    merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go,
    good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.                  Exeunt

SCENE II. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and all their trains

  PORTIA. I pray you tarry; pause a day or two
    Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,
    I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.
    There's something tells me- but it is not love-
    I would not lose you; and you know yourself
    Hate counsels not in such a quality.
    But lest you should not understand me well-
    And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought-
    I would detain you here some month or two
    Before you venture for me. I could teach you
    How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;
    So will I never be; so may you miss me;
    But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,
    That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!
    They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;
    One half of me is yours, the other half yours-
    Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
    And so all yours. O! these naughty times
    Puts bars between the owners and their rights;
    And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
    Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.
    I speak too long, but 'tis to peize the time,
    To eke it, and to draw it out in length,
    To stay you from election.
  BASSANIO. Let me choose;
    For as I am, I live upon the rack.
  PORTIA. Upon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess
    What treason there is mingled with your love.
  BASSANIO. None but that ugly treason of mistrust
    Which makes me fear th' enjoying of my love;
    There may as well be amity and life
    'Tween snow and fire as treason and my love.
  PORTIA. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,
    Where men enforced do speak anything.
  BASSANIO. Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth.
  PORTIA. Well then, confess and live.
  BASSANIO. 'Confess' and 'love'
    Had been the very sum of my confession.
    O happy torment, when my torturer
    Doth teach me answers for deliverance!
    But let me to my fortune and the caskets.
  PORTIA. Away, then; I am lock'd in one of them.
    If you do love me, you will find me out.
    Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof;
    Let music sound while he doth make his choice;
    Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
    Fading in music. That the comparison
    May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream
    And wat'ry death-bed for him. He may win;
    And what is music then? Then music is
    Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
    To a new-crowned monarch; such it is
    As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
    That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear
    And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,
    With no less presence, but with much more love,
    Than young Alcides when he did redeem
    The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy
    To the sea-monster. I stand for sacrifice;
    The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,
    With bleared visages come forth to view
    The issue of th' exploit. Go, Hercules!
    Live thou, I live. With much much more dismay
    I view the fight than thou that mak'st the fray.

                            A SONG

      the whilst BASSANIO comments on the caskets to himself

                 Tell me where is fancy bred,
                 Or in the heart or in the head,
                 How begot, how nourished?
                   Reply, reply.
                 It is engend'red in the eyes,
                 With gazing fed; and fancy dies
                 In the cradle where it lies.
                   Let us all ring fancy's knell:
                   I'll begin it- Ding, dong, bell.
  ALL.           Ding, dong, bell.

  BASSANIO. So may the outward shows be least themselves;
    The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
    In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
    But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
    Obscures the show of evil? In religion,
    What damned error but some sober brow
    Will bless it, and approve it with a text,
    Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?
    There is no vice so simple but assumes
    Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
    How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
    As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
    The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
    Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk!
    And these assume but valour's excrement
    To render them redoubted. Look on beauty
    And you shall see 'tis purchas'd by the weight,
    Which therein works a miracle in nature,
    Making them lightest that wear most of it;
    So are those crisped snaky golden locks
    Which make such wanton gambols with the wind
    Upon supposed fairness often known
    To be the dowry of a second head-
    The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.
    Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
    To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
    Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
    The seeming truth which cunning times put on
    To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
    Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee;
    Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
    'Tween man and man; but thou, thou meagre lead,
    Which rather threaten'st than dost promise aught,
    Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,
    And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!
  PORTIA.  [Aside]  How all the other passions fleet to air,
    As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair,
    And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy!
    O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
    In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!
    I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,
    For fear I surfeit.
  BASSANIO.  [Opening the leaden casket]  What find I here?
    Fair Portia's counterfeit! What demi-god
    Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?
    Or whether riding on the balls of mine
    Seem they in motion? Here are sever'd lips,
    Parted with sugar breath; so sweet a bar
    Should sunder such sweet friends. Here in her hairs
    The painter plays the spider, and hath woven
    A golden mesh t' entrap the hearts of men
    Faster than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes-
    How could he see to do them? Having made one,
    Methinks it should have power to steal both his,
    And leave itself unfurnish'd. Yet look how far
    The substance of my praise doth wrong this shadow
    In underprizing it, so far this shadow
    Doth limp behind the substance. Here's the scroll,
    The continent and summary of my fortune.
         'You that choose not by the view,
         Chance as fair and choose as true!
         Since this fortune falls to you,
         Be content and seek no new.
         If you be well pleas'd with this,
         And hold your fortune for your bliss,
         Turn to where your lady is
         And claim her with a loving kiss.'
    A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave;
    I come by note, to give and to receive.
    Like one of two contending in a prize,
    That thinks he hath done well in people's eyes,
    Hearing applause and universal shout,
    Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt
    Whether those peals of praise be his or no;
    So, thrice-fair lady, stand I even so,
    As doubtful whether what I see be true,
    Until confirm'd, sign'd, ratified by you.
  PORTIA. You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
    Such as I am. Though for myself alone
    I would not be ambitious in my wish
    To wish myself much better, yet for you
    I would be trebled twenty times myself,
    A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,
    That only to stand high in your account
    I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
    Exceed account. But the full sum of me
    Is sum of something which, to term in gross,
    Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd;
    Happy in this, she is not yet so old
    But she may learn; happier than this,
    She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
    Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
    Commits itself to yours to be directed,
    As from her lord, her governor, her king.
    Myself and what is mine to you and yours
    Is now converted. But now I was the lord
    Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
    Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
    This house, these servants, and this same myself,
    Are yours- my lord's. I give them with this ring,
    Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
    Let it presage the ruin of your love,
    And be my vantage to exclaim on you.
  BASSANIO. Madam, you have bereft me of all words;
    Only my blood speaks to you in my veins;
    And there is such confusion in my powers
    As, after some oration fairly spoke
    By a beloved prince, there doth appear
    Among the buzzing pleased multitude,
    Where every something, being blent together,
    Turns to a wild of nothing, save of joy
    Express'd and not express'd. But when this ring
    Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence;
    O, then be bold to say Bassanio's dead!
  NERISSA. My lord and lady, it is now our time
    That have stood by and seen our wishes prosper
    To cry 'Good joy.' Good joy, my lord and lady!
  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio, and my gentle lady,
    I wish you all the joy that you can wish,
    For I am sure you can wish none from me;
    And, when your honours mean to solemnize
    The bargain of your faith, I do beseech you
    Even at that time I may be married too.
  BASSANIO. With all my heart, so thou canst get a wife.
  GRATIANO. I thank your lordship, you have got me one.
    My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:
    You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid;
    You lov'd, I lov'd; for intermission
    No more pertains to me, my lord, than you.
    Your fortune stood upon the caskets there,
    And so did mine too, as the matter falls;
    For wooing here until I sweat again,
    And swearing till my very roof was dry
    With oaths of love, at last- if promise last-
    I got a promise of this fair one here
    To have her love, provided that your fortune
    Achiev'd her mistress.
  PORTIA. Is this true, Nerissa?
  NERISSA. Madam, it is, so you stand pleas'd withal.
  BASSANIO. And do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?
  GRATIANO. Yes, faith, my lord.
  BASSANIO. Our feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.
  GRATIANO. We'll play with them: the first boy for a thousand
    ducats.
  NERISSA. What, and stake down?
  GRATIANO. No; we shall ne'er win at that sport, and stake down-
    But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?
    What, and my old Venetian friend, Salerio!

          Enter LORENZO, JESSICA, and SALERIO, a messenger
                           from Venice

  BASSANIO. Lorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,
    If that the youth of my new int'rest here
    Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,
    I bid my very friends and countrymen,
    Sweet Portia, welcome.
  PORTIA. So do I, my lord;
    They are entirely welcome.
  LORENZO. I thank your honour. For my part, my lord,
    My purpose was not to have seen you here;
    But meeting with Salerio by the way,
    He did entreat me, past all saying nay,
    To come with him along.
  SALERIO. I did, my lord,
    And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio
    Commends him to you.               [Gives BASSANIO a letter]
  BASSANIO. Ere I ope his letter,
    I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.
  SALERIO. Not sick, my lord, unless it be in mind;
    Nor well, unless in mind; his letter there
    Will show you his estate.        [BASSANIO opens the letter]
  GRATIANO. Nerissa, cheer yond stranger; bid her welcome.
    Your hand, Salerio. What's the news from Venice?
    How doth that royal merchant, good Antonio?
    I know he will be glad of our success:
    We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.
  SALERIO. I would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.
  PORTIA. There are some shrewd contents in yond same paper
    That steals the colour from Bassanio's cheek:
    Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world
    Could turn so much the constitution
    Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!
    With leave, Bassanio: I am half yourself,
    And I must freely have the half of anything
    That this same paper brings you.
  BASSANIO. O sweet Portia,
    Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
    That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,
    When I did first impart my love to you,
    I freely told you all the wealth I had
    Ran in my veins- I was a gentleman;
    And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,
    Rating myself at nothing, you shall see
    How much I was a braggart. When I told you
    My state was nothing, I should then have told you
    That I was worse than nothing; for indeed
    I have engag'd myself to a dear friend,
    Engag'd my friend to his mere enemy,
    To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,
    The paper as the body of my friend,
    And every word in it a gaping wound
    Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?
    Hath all his ventures fail'd? What, not one hit?
    From Tripolis, from Mexico, and England,
    From Lisbon, Barbary, and India,
    And not one vessel scape the dreadful touch
    Of merchant-marring rocks?
  SALERIO. Not one, my lord.
    Besides, it should appear that, if he had
    The present money to discharge the Jew,
    He would not take it. Never did I know
    A creature that did bear the shape of man
    So keen and greedy to confound a man.
    He plies the Duke at morning and at night,
    And doth impeach the freedom of the state,
    If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,
    The Duke himself, and the magnificoes
    Of greatest port, have all persuaded with him;
    But none can drive him from the envious plea
    Of forfeiture, of justice, and his bond.
  JESSICA. When I was with him, I have heard him swear
    To Tubal and to Chus, his countrymen,
    That he would rather have Antonio's flesh
    Than twenty times the value of the sum
    That he did owe him; and I know, my lord,
    If law, authority, and power, deny not,
    It will go hard with poor Antonio.
  PORTIA. Is it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?
  BASSANIO. The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
    The best condition'd and unwearied spirit
    In doing courtesies; and one in whom
    The ancient Roman honour more appears
    Than any that draws breath in Italy.
  PORTIA. What sum owes he the Jew?
  BASSANIO. For me, three thousand ducats.
  PORTIA. What! no more?
    Pay him six thousand, and deface the bond;
    Double six thousand, and then treble that,
    Before a friend of this description
    Shall lose a hair through Bassanio's fault.
    First go with me to church and call me wife,
    And then away to Venice to your friend;
    For never shall you lie by Portia's side
    With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold
    To pay the petty debt twenty times over.
    When it is paid, bring your true friend along.
    My maid Nerissa and myself meantime
    Will live as maids and widows. Come, away;
    For you shall hence upon your wedding day.
    Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer;
    Since you are dear bought, I will love you dear.
    But let me hear the letter of your friend.
  BASSANIO.  [Reads]  'Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried,
    my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the
    Jew is forfeit; and since, in paying it, it is impossible I
    should live, all debts are clear'd between you and I, if I might
    but see you at my death. Notwithstanding, use your pleasure; if
    your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.'
  PORTIA. O love, dispatch all business and be gone!
  BASSANIO. Since I have your good leave to go away,
    I will make haste; but, till I come again,
    No bed shall e'er be guilty of my stay,
    Nor rest be interposer 'twixt us twain.               Exeunt

SCENE III. Venice. A street

Enter SHYLOCK, SOLANIO, ANTONIO, and GAOLER

  SHYLOCK. Gaoler, look to him. Tell not me of mercy-
    This is the fool that lent out money gratis.
    Gaoler, look to him.
  ANTONIO. Hear me yet, good Shylock.
  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond; speak not against my bond.
    I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.
    Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,
    But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs;
    The Duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,
    Thou naughty gaoler, that thou art so fond
    To come abroad with him at his request.
  ANTONIO. I pray thee hear me speak.
  SHYLOCK. I'll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak;
    I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more.
    I'll not be made a soft and dull-ey'd fool,
    To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield,
    To Christian intercessors. Follow not;
    I'll have no speaking; I will have my bond.             Exit
  SOLANIO. It is the most impenetrable cur
    That ever kept with men.
  ANTONIO. Let him alone;
    I'll follow him no more with bootless prayers.
    He seeks my life; his reason well I know:
    I oft deliver'd from his forfeitures
    Many that have at times made moan to me;
    Therefore he hates me.
  SOLANIO. I am sure the Duke
    Will never grant this forfeiture to hold.
  ANTONIO. The Duke cannot deny the course of law;
    For the commodity that strangers have
    With us in Venice, if it be denied,
    Will much impeach the justice of the state,
    Since that the trade and profit of the city
    Consisteth of all nations. Therefore, go;
    These griefs and losses have so bated me
    That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh
    To-morrow to my bloody creditor.
    Well, gaoler, on; pray God Bassanio come
    To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.          Exeunt

SCENE IV. Belmont. PORTIA'S house

Enter PORTIA, NERISSA, LORENZO, JESSICA, and BALTHASAR

  LORENZO. Madam, although I speak it in your presence,
    You have a noble and a true conceit
    Of godlike amity, which appears most strongly
    In bearing thus the absence of your lord.
    But if you knew to whom you show this honour,
    How true a gentleman you send relief,
    How dear a lover of my lord your husband,
    I know you would be prouder of the work
    Than customary bounty can enforce you.
  PORTIA. I never did repent for doing good,
    Nor shall not now; for in companions
    That do converse and waste the time together,
    Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
    There must be needs a like proportion
    Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,
    Which makes me think that this Antonio,
    Being the bosom lover of my lord,
    Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,
    How little is the cost I have bestowed
    In purchasing the semblance of my soul
    From out the state of hellish cruelty!
    This comes too near the praising of myself;
    Therefore, no more of it; hear other things.
    Lorenzo, I commit into your hands
    The husbandry and manage of my house
    Until my lord's return; for mine own part,
    I have toward heaven breath'd a secret vow
    To live in prayer and contemplation,
    Only attended by Nerissa here,
    Until her husband and my lord's return.
    There is a monastery two miles off,
    And there we will abide. I do desire you
    Not to deny this imposition,
    The which my love and some necessity
    Now lays upon you.
  LORENZO. Madam, with all my heart
    I shall obey you in an fair commands.
  PORTIA. My people do already know my mind,
    And will acknowledge you and Jessica
    In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.
    So fare you well till we shall meet again.
  LORENZO. Fair thoughts and happy hours attend on you!
  JESSICA. I wish your ladyship all heart's content.
  PORTIA. I thank you for your wish, and am well pleas'd
    To wish it back on you. Fare you well, Jessica.
                                      Exeunt JESSICA and LORENZO
    Now, Balthasar,
    As I have ever found thee honest-true,
    So let me find thee still. Take this same letter,
    And use thou all th' endeavour of a man
    In speed to Padua; see thou render this
    Into my cousin's hands, Doctor Bellario;
    And look what notes and garments he doth give thee,
    Bring them, I pray thee, with imagin'd speed
    Unto the traject, to the common ferry
    Which trades to Venice. Waste no time in words,
    But get thee gone; I shall be there before thee.
  BALTHASAR. Madam, I go with all convenient speed.         Exit
  PORTIA. Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand
    That you yet know not of; we'll see our husbands
    Before they think of us.
  NERISSA. Shall they see us?
  PORTIA. They shall, Nerissa; but in such a habit
    That they shall think we are accomplished
    With that we lack. I'll hold thee any wager,
    When we are both accoutred like young men,
    I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
    And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
    And speak between the change of man and boy
    With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
    Into a manly stride; and speak of frays
    Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,
    How honourable ladies sought my love,
    Which I denying, they fell sick and died-
    I could not do withal. Then I'll repent,
    And wish for all that, that I had not kill'd them.
    And twenty of these puny lies I'll tell,
    That men shall swear I have discontinued school
    About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind
    A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks,
    Which I will practise.
  NERISSA. Why, shall we turn to men?
  PORTIA. Fie, what a question's that,
    If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!
    But come, I'll tell thee all my whole device
    When I am in my coach, which stays for us
    At the park gate; and therefore haste away,
    For we must measure twenty miles to-day.              Exeunt

SCENE V. Belmont. The garden

Enter LAUNCELOT and JESSICA

  LAUNCELOT. Yes, truly; for, look you, the sins of the father are to
    be laid upon the children; therefore, I promise you, I fear you.
    I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation of
    the matter; therefore be o' good cheer, for truly I think you are
    damn'd. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good, and
    that is but a kind of bastard hope, neither.
  JESSICA. And what hope is that, I pray thee?
  LAUNCELOT. Marry, you may partly hope that your father got you not-
   that you are not the Jew's daughter.
  JESSICA. That were a kind of bastard hope indeed; so the sins of my
    mother should be visited upon me.
  LAUNCELOT. Truly then I fear you are damn'd both by father and
    mother; thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into
    Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.
  JESSICA. I shall be sav'd by my husband; he hath made me a
    Christian.
  LAUNCELOT. Truly, the more to blame he; we were Christians enow
    before, e'en as many as could well live one by another. This
    making of Christians will raise the price of hogs; if we grow all
    to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the
    coals for money.

                             Enter LORENZO

  JESSICA. I'll tell my husband, Launcelot, what you say; here he
    comes.
  LORENZO. I shall grow jealous of you shortly, Launcelot, if you
    thus get my wife into corners.
  JESSICA. Nay, you need nor fear us, Lorenzo; Launcelot and I are
    out; he tells me flatly there's no mercy for me in heaven,
    because I am a Jew's daughter; and he says you are no good member
    of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians you
    raise the price of pork.
  LORENZO. I shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you
    can the getting up of the negro's belly; the Moor is with child
    by you, Launcelot.
  LAUNCELOT. It is much that the Moor should be more than reason; but
    if she be less than an honest woman, she is indeed more than I
    took her for.
  LORENZO. How every fool can play upon the word! I think the best
    grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow
    commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah; bid them
    prepare for dinner.
  LAUNCELOT. That is done, sir; they have all stomachs.
  LORENZO. Goodly Lord, what a wit-snapper are you! Then bid them
    prepare dinner.
  LAUNCELOT. That is done too, sir, only 'cover' is the word.
  LORENZO. Will you cover, then, sir?
  LAUNCELOT. Not so, sir, neither; I know my duty.
  LORENZO. Yet more quarrelling with occasion! Wilt thou show the
    whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee understand a
    plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows, bid them cover
    the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.
  LAUNCELOT. For the table, sir, it shall be serv'd in; for the meat,
    sir, it shall be cover'd; for your coming in to dinner, sir, why,
    let it be as humours and conceits shall govern.
 Exit
  LORENZO. O dear discretion, how his words are suited!
    The fool hath planted in his memory
    An army of good words; and I do know
    A many fools that stand in better place,
    Garnish'd like him, that for a tricksy word
    Defy the matter. How cheer'st thou, Jessica?
    And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,
    How dost thou like the Lord Bassanio's wife?
  JESSICA. Past all expressing. It is very meet
    The Lord Bassanio live an upright life,
    For, having such a blessing in his lady,
    He finds the joys of heaven here on earth;
    And if on earth he do not merit it,
    In reason he should never come to heaven.
    Why, if two gods should play some heavenly match,
    And on the wager lay two earthly women,
    And Portia one, there must be something else
    Pawn'd with the other; for the poor rude world
    Hath not her fellow.
  LORENZO. Even such a husband
    Hast thou of me as she is for a wife.
  JESSICA. Nay, but ask my opinion too of that.
  LORENZO. I will anon; first let us go to dinner.
  JESSICA. Nay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.
  LORENZO. No, pray thee, let it serve for table-talk;
    Then howsome'er thou speak'st, 'mong other things
    I shall digest it.
  JESSICA. Well, I'll set you forth.                      Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Venice. The court of justice

Enter the DUKE, the MAGNIFICOES, ANTONIO, BASSANIO, GRATIANO, SALERIO,
and OTHERS

  DUKE OF VENICE. What, is Antonio here?
  ANTONIO. Ready, so please your Grace.
  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer
    A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,
    Uncapable of pity, void and empty
    From any dram of mercy.
  ANTONIO. I have heard
    Your Grace hath ta'en great pains to qualify
    His rigorous course; but since he stands obdurate,
    And that no lawful means can carry me
    Out of his envy's reach, I do oppose
    My patience to his fury, and am arm'd
    To suffer with a quietness of spirit
    The very tyranny and rage of his.
  DUKE OF VENICE. Go one, and call the Jew into the court.
  SALERIO. He is ready at the door; he comes, my lord.

                          Enter SHYLOCK

  DUKE OF VENICE. Make room, and let him stand before our face.
    Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,
    That thou but leadest this fashion of thy malice
    To the last hour of act; and then, 'tis thought,
    Thou'lt show thy mercy and remorse, more strange
    Than is thy strange apparent cruelty;
    And where thou now exacts the penalty,
    Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh,
    Thou wilt not only loose the forfeiture,
    But, touch'd with human gentleness and love,
    Forgive a moiety of the principal,
    Glancing an eye of pity on his losses,
    That have of late so huddled on his back-
    Enow to press a royal merchant down,
    And pluck commiseration of his state
    From brassy bosoms and rough hearts of flint,
    From stubborn Turks and Tartars, never train'd
    To offices of tender courtesy.
    We all expect a gentle answer, Jew.
  SHYLOCK. I have possess'd your Grace of what I purpose,
    And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn
    To have the due and forfeit of my bond.
    If you deny it, let the danger light
    Upon your charter and your city's freedom.
    You'll ask me why I rather choose to have
    A weight of carrion flesh than to receive
    Three thousand ducats. I'll not answer that,
    But say it is my humour- is it answer'd?
    What if my house be troubled with a rat,
    And I be pleas'd to give ten thousand ducats
    To have it ban'd? What, are you answer'd yet?
    Some men there are love not a gaping pig;
    Some that are mad if they behold a cat;
    And others, when the bagpipe sings i' th' nose,
    Cannot contain their urine; for affection,
    Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
    Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:
    As there is no firm reason to be rend'red
    Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;
    Why he, a harmless necessary cat;
    Why he, a woollen bagpipe, but of force
    Must yield to such inevitable shame
    As to offend, himself being offended;
    So can I give no reason, nor I will not,
    More than a lodg'd hate and a certain loathing
    I bear Antonio, that I follow thus
    A losing suit against him. Are you answered?
  BASSANIO. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,
    To excuse the current of thy cruelty.
  SHYLOCK. I am not bound to please thee with my answers.
  BASSANIO. Do all men kill the things they do not love?
  SHYLOCK. Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
  BASSANIO. Every offence is not a hate at first.
  SHYLOCK. What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
  ANTONIO. I pray you, think you question with the Jew.
    You may as well go stand upon the beach
    And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
    You may as well use question with the wolf,
    Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
    You may as well forbid the mountain pines
    To wag their high tops and to make no noise
    When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
    You may as well do anything most hard
    As seek to soften that- than which what's harder?-
    His jewish heart. Therefore, I do beseech you,
    Make no moe offers, use no farther means,
    But with all brief and plain conveniency
    Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.
  BASSANIO. For thy three thousand ducats here is six.
  SHYLOCK. If every ducat in six thousand ducats
    Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
    I would not draw them; I would have my bond.
  DUKE OF VENICE. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring none?
  SHYLOCK. What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
    You have among you many a purchas'd slave,
    Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,
    You use in abject and in slavish parts,
    Because you bought them; shall I say to you
    'Let them be free, marry them to your heirs-
    Why sweat they under burdens?- let their beds
    Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
    Be season'd with such viands'? You will answer
    'The slaves are ours.' So do I answer you:
    The pound of flesh which I demand of him
    Is dearly bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it.
    If you deny me, fie upon your law!
    There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
    I stand for judgment; answer; shall I have it?
  DUKE OF VENICE. Upon my power I may dismiss this court,
    Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,
    Whom I have sent for to determine this,
    Come here to-day.
  SALERIO. My lord, here stays without
    A messenger with letters from the doctor,
    New come from Padua.
  DUKE OF VENICE. Bring us the letters; call the messenger.
  BASSANIO. Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!
    The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all,
    Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.
  ANTONIO. I am a tainted wether of the flock,
    Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
    Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.
    You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio,
    Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.

           Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer's clerk

  DUKE OF VENICE. Came you from Padua, from Bellario?
  NERISSA. From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.
                                             [Presents a letter]
  BASSANIO. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?
  SHYLOCK. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.
  GRATIANO. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,
    Thou mak'st thy knife keen; but no metal can,
    No, not the hangman's axe, bear half the keenness
    Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?
  SHYLOCK. No, none that thou hast wit enough to make.
  GRATIANO. O, be thou damn'd, inexecrable dog!
    And for thy life let justice be accus'd.
    Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,
    To hold opinion with Pythagoras
    That souls of animals infuse themselves
    Into the trunks of men. Thy currish spirit
    Govern'd a wolf who, hang'd for human slaughter,
    Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
    And, whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam,
    Infus'd itself in thee; for thy desires
    Are wolfish, bloody, starv'd and ravenous.
  SHYLOCK. Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
    Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud;
    Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
    To cureless ruin. I stand here for law.
  DUKE OF VENICE. This letter from Bellario doth commend
    A young and learned doctor to our court.
    Where is he?
  NERISSA. He attendeth here hard by
    To know your answer, whether you'll admit him.
  DUKE OF VENICE. With all my heart. Some three or four of you
    Go give him courteous conduct to this place.
    Meantime, the court shall hear Bellario's letter.
  CLERK.  [Reads]  'Your Grace shall understand that at the receipt
    of your letter I am very sick; but in the instant that your
    messenger came, in loving visitation was with me a young doctor
    of Rome- his name is Balthazar. I acquainted him with the cause
    in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant; we
    turn'd o'er many books together; he is furnished with my opinion
    which, bettered with his own learning-the greatness whereof I
    cannot enough commend- comes with him at my importunity to fill
    up your Grace's request in my stead. I beseech you let his lack
    of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation,
    for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him
    to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his
    commendation.'

      Enter PORTIA for BALTHAZAR, dressed like a Doctor of Laws

  DUKE OF VENICE. YOU hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes;
    And here, I take it, is the doctor come.
    Give me your hand; come you from old Bellario?
  PORTIA. I did, my lord.
  DUKE OF VENICE. You are welcome; take your place.
    Are you acquainted with the difference
    That holds this present question in the court?
  PORTIA. I am informed throughly of the cause.
    Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?
  DUKE OF VENICE. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.
  PORTIA. Is your name Shylock?
  SHYLOCK. Shylock is my name.
  PORTIA. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow;
    Yet in such rule that the Venetian law
    Cannot impugn you as you do proceed.
    You stand within his danger, do you not?
  ANTONIO. Ay, so he says.
  PORTIA. Do you confess the bond?
  ANTONIO. I do.
  PORTIA. Then must the Jew be merciful.
  SHYLOCK. On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.
  PORTIA. The quality of mercy is not strain'd;
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
    Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
    The throned monarch better than his crown;
    His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
    The attribute to awe and majesty,
    Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
    But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
    It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
    It is an attribute to God himself;
    And earthly power doth then show likest God's
    When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
    Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
    That in the course of justice none of us
    Should see salvation; we do pray for mercy,
    And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
    The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
    To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
    Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
    Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.
  SHYLOCK. My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
    The penalty and forfeit of my bond.
  BASSANIO. Yes; here I tender it for him in the court;
    Yea, twice the sum; if that will not suffice,
    I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er
    On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart;
    If this will not suffice, it must appear
    That malice bears down truth. And, I beseech you,
    Wrest once the law to your authority;
    To do a great right do a little wrong,
    And curb this cruel devil of his will.
  PORTIA. It must not be; there is no power in Venice
    Can alter a decree established;
    'Twill be recorded for a precedent,
    And many an error, by the same example,
    Will rush into the state; it cannot be.
  SHYLOCK. A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!
    O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!
  PORTIA. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.
  SHYLOCK. Here 'tis, most reverend Doctor; here it is.
  PORTIA. Shylock, there's thrice thy money off'red thee.
  SHYLOCK. An oath, an oath! I have an oath in heaven.
    Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?
    No, not for Venice.
  PORTIA. Why, this bond is forfeit;
    And lawfully by this the Jew may claim
    A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off
    Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful.
    Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.
  SHYLOCK. When it is paid according to the tenour.
    It doth appear you are a worthy judge;
    You know the law; your exposition
    Hath been most sound; I charge you by the law,
    Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,
    Proceed to judgment. By my soul I swear
    There is no power in the tongue of man
    To alter me. I stay here on my bond.
  ANTONIO. Most heartily I do beseech the court
    To give the judgment.
  PORTIA. Why then, thus it is:
    You must prepare your bosom for his knife.
  SHYLOCK. O noble judge! O excellent young man!
  PORTIA. For the intent and purpose of the law
    Hath full relation to the penalty,
    Which here appeareth due upon the bond.
  SHYLOCK. 'Tis very true. O wise and upright judge,
    How much more elder art thou than thy looks!
  PORTIA. Therefore, lay bare your bosom.
  SHYLOCK. Ay, his breast-
    So says the bond; doth it not, noble judge?
    'Nearest his heart,' those are the very words.
  PORTIA. It is so. Are there balance here to weigh
    The flesh?
  SHYLOCK. I have them ready.
  PORTIA. Have by some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,
    To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.
  SHYLOCK. Is it so nominated in the bond?
  PORTIA. It is not so express'd, but what of that?
    'Twere good you do so much for charity.
  SHYLOCK. I cannot find it; 'tis not in the bond.
  PORTIA. You, merchant, have you anything to say?
  ANTONIO. But little: I am arm'd and well prepar'd.
    Give me your hand, Bassanio; fare you well.
    Grieve not that I am fall'n to this for you,
    For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
    Than is her custom. It is still her use
    To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
    To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow
    An age of poverty; from which ling'ring penance
    Of such misery doth she cut me off.
    Commend me to your honourable wife;
    Tell her the process of Antonio's end;
    Say how I lov'd you; speak me fair in death;
    And, when the tale is told, bid her be judge
    Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
    Repent but you that you shall lose your friend,
    And he repents not that he pays your debt;
    For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,
    I'll pay it instantly with all my heart.
  BASSANIO. Antonio, I am married to a wife
    Which is as dear to me as life itself;
    But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
    Are not with me esteem'd above thy life;
    I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
    Here to this devil, to deliver you.
  PORTIA. Your wife would give you little thanks for that,
    If she were by to hear you make the offer.
  GRATIANO. I have a wife who I protest I love;
    I would she were in heaven, so she could
    Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.
  NERISSA. 'Tis well you offer it behind her back;
    The wish would make else an unquiet house.
  SHYLOCK.  [Aside]  These be the Christian husbands! I have a
    daughter-
    Would any of the stock of Barrabas
    Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!-
    We trifle time; I pray thee pursue sentence.
  PORTIA. A pound of that same merchant's flesh is thine.
    The court awards it and the law doth give it.
  SHYLOCK. Most rightful judge!
  PORTIA. And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.
    The law allows it and the court awards it.
  SHYLOCK. Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare.
  PORTIA. Tarry a little; there is something else.
    This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood:
    The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh.'
    Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
    But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
    One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
    Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
    Unto the state of Venice.
  GRATIANO. O upright judge! Mark, Jew. O learned judge!
  SHYLOCK. Is that the law?
  PORTIA. Thyself shalt see the act;
    For, as thou urgest justice, be assur'd
    Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir'st.
  GRATIANO. O learned judge! Mark, Jew. A learned judge!
  SHYLOCK. I take this offer then: pay the bond thrice,
    And let the Christian go.
  BASSANIO. Here is the money.
  PORTIA. Soft!
    The Jew shall have all justice. Soft! No haste.
    He shall have nothing but the penalty.
  GRATIANO. O Jew! an upright judge, a learned judge!
  PORTIA. Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh.
    Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more
    But just a pound of flesh; if thou tak'st more
    Or less than a just pound- be it but so much
    As makes it light or heavy in the substance,
    Or the division of the twentieth part
    Of one poor scruple; nay, if the scale do turn
    But in the estimation of a hair-
    Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.
  GRATIANO. A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!
    Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.
  PORTIA. Why doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.
  SHYLOCK. Give me my principal, and let me go.
  BASSANIO. I have it ready for thee; here it is.
  PORTIA. He hath refus'd it in the open court;
    He shall have merely justice, and his bond.
  GRATIANO. A Daniel still say I, a second Daniel!
    I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.
  SHYLOCK. Shall I not have barely my principal?
  PORTIA. Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture
    To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.
  SHYLOCK. Why, then the devil give him good of it!
    I'll stay no longer question.
  PORTIA. Tarry, Jew.
    The law hath yet another hold on you.
    It is enacted in the laws of Venice,
    If it be proved against an alien
    That by direct or indirect attempts
    He seek the life of any citizen,
    The party 'gainst the which he doth contrive
    Shall seize one half his goods; the other half
    Comes to the privy coffer of the state;
    And the offender's life lies in the mercy
    Of the Duke only, 'gainst all other voice.
    In which predicament, I say, thou stand'st;
    For it appears by manifest proceeding
    That indirectly, and directly too,
    Thou hast contrived against the very life
    Of the defendant; and thou hast incurr'd
    The danger formerly by me rehears'd.
    Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the Duke.
  GRATIANO. Beg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself;
    And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,
    Thou hast not left the value of a cord;
    Therefore thou must be hang'd at the state's charge.
  DUKE OF VENICE. That thou shalt see the difference of our spirit,
    I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.
    For half thy wealth, it is Antonio's;
    The other half comes to the general state,
    Which humbleness may drive unto a fine.
  PORTIA. Ay, for the state; not for Antonio.
  SHYLOCK. Nay, take my life and all, pardon not that.
    You take my house when you do take the prop
    That doth sustain my house; you take my life
    When you do take the means whereby I live.
  PORTIA. What mercy can you render him, Antonio?
  GRATIANO. A halter gratis; nothing else, for God's sake!
  ANTONIO. So please my lord the Duke and all the court
    To quit the fine for one half of his goods;
    I am content, so he will let me have
    The other half in use, to render it
    Upon his death unto the gentleman
    That lately stole his daughter-
    Two things provided more; that, for this favour,
    He presently become a Christian;
    The other, that he do record a gift,
    Here in the court, of all he dies possess'd
    Unto his son Lorenzo and his daughter.
  DUKE OF VENICE. He shall do this, or else I do recant
    The pardon that I late pronounced here.
  PORTIA. Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?
  SHYLOCK. I am content.
  PORTIA. Clerk, draw a deed of gift.
  SHYLOCK. I pray you, give me leave to go from hence;
    I am not well; send the deed after me
    And I will sign it.
  DUKE OF VENICE. Get thee gone, but do it.
  GRATIANO. In christ'ning shalt thou have two god-fathers;
    Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,
    To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.
                                                    Exit SHYLOCK
  DUKE OF VENICE. Sir, I entreat you home with me to dinner.
  PORTIA. I humbly do desire your Grace of pardon;
    I must away this night toward Padua,
    And it is meet I presently set forth.
  DUKE OF VENICE. I am sorry that your leisure serves you not.
    Antonio, gratify this gentleman,
    For in my mind you are much bound to him.
                             Exeunt DUKE, MAGNIFICOES, and train
  BASSANIO. Most worthy gentleman, I and my friend
    Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted
    Of grievous penalties; in lieu whereof
    Three thousand ducats, due unto the Jew,
    We freely cope your courteous pains withal.
  ANTONIO. And stand indebted, over and above,
    In love and service to you evermore.
  PORTIA. He is well paid that is well satisfied,
    And I, delivering you, am satisfied,
    And therein do account myself well paid.
    My mind was never yet more mercenary.
    I pray you, know me when we meet again;
    I wish you well, and so I take my leave.
  BASSANIO. Dear sir, of force I must attempt you further;
    Take some remembrance of us, as a tribute,
    Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you,
    Not to deny me, and to pardon me.
  PORTIA. You press me far, and therefore I will yield.
    [To ANTONIO]  Give me your gloves, I'll wear them for your sake.
    [To BASSANIO]  And, for your love, I'll take this ring from you.
    Do not draw back your hand; I'll take no more,
    And you in love shall not deny me this.
  BASSANIO. This ring, good sir- alas, it is a trifle;
    I will not shame myself to give you this.
  PORTIA. I will have nothing else but only this;
    And now, methinks, I have a mind to it.
  BASSANIO.. There's more depends on this than on the value.
    The dearest ring in Venice will I give you,
    And find it out by proclamation;
    Only for this, I pray you, pardon me.
  PORTIA. I see, sir, you are liberal in offers;
    You taught me first to beg, and now, methinks,
    You teach me how a beggar should be answer'd.
  BASSANIO. Good sir, this ring was given me by my wife;
    And, when she put it on, she made me vow
    That I should neither sell, nor give, nor lose it.
  PORTIA. That 'scuse serves many men to save their gifts.
    And if your wife be not a mad woman,
    And know how well I have deserv'd this ring,
    She would not hold out enemy for ever
    For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!
                                       Exeunt PORTIA and NERISSA
  ANTONIO. My Lord Bassanio, let him have the ring.
    Let his deservings, and my love withal,
    Be valued 'gainst your wife's commandment.
  BASSANIO. Go, Gratiano, run and overtake him;
    Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,
    Unto Antonio's house. Away, make haste.        Exit GRATIANO
    Come, you and I will thither presently;
    And in the morning early will we both
    Fly toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.                    Exeunt

SCENE II. Venice. A street

Enter PORTIA and NERISSA

  PORTIA. Inquire the Jew's house out, give him this deed,
    And let him sign it; we'll away tonight,
    And be a day before our husbands home.
    This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.

                          Enter GRATIANO

  GRATIANO. Fair sir, you are well o'erta'en.
    My Lord Bassanio, upon more advice,
    Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat
    Your company at dinner.
  PORTIA. That cannot be.
    His ring I do accept most thankfully,
    And so, I pray you, tell him. Furthermore,
    I pray you show my youth old Shylock's house.
  GRATIANO. That will I do.
  NERISSA. Sir, I would speak with you.
    [Aside to PORTIA]  I'll See if I can get my husband's ring,
    Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.
  PORTIA.  [To NERISSA]  Thou Mayst, I warrant. We shall have old
      swearing
    That they did give the rings away to men;
    But we'll outface them, and outswear them too.
    [Aloud]  Away, make haste, thou know'st where I will tarry.
  NERISSA. Come, good sir, will you show me to this house?
                                                          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Belmont. The garden before PORTIA'S house

Enter LORENZO and JESSICA

  LORENZO. The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
    When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
    And they did make no noise- in such a night,
    Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls,
    And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents,
    Where Cressid lay that night.
  JESSICA. In such a night
    Did Thisby fearfully o'ertrip the dew,
    And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
    And ran dismayed away.
  LORENZO. In such a night
    Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
    Upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love
    To come again to Carthage.
  JESSICA. In such a night
    Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
    That did renew old AEson.
 LORENZO. In such a night
    Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew,
    And with an unthrift love did run from Venice
    As far as Belmont.
  JESSICA. In such a night
    Did young Lorenzo swear he lov'd her well,
    Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,
    And ne'er a true one.
  LORENZO. In such a night
    Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,
    Slander her love, and he forgave it her.
  JESSICA. I would out-night you, did no body come;
    But, hark, I hear the footing of a man.

                       Enter STEPHANO

  LORENZO. Who comes so fast in silence of the night?
  STEPHANO. A friend.
  LORENZO. A friend! What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?
  STEPHANO. Stephano is my name, and I bring word
    My mistress will before the break of day
    Be here at Belmont; she doth stray about
    By holy crosses, where she kneels and prays
    For happy wedlock hours.
  LORENZO. Who comes with her?
  STEPHANO. None but a holy hermit and her maid.
    I pray you, is my master yet return'd?
  LORENZO. He is not, nor we have not heard from him.
    But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,
    And ceremoniously let us prepare
    Some welcome for the mistress of the house.

                         Enter LAUNCELOT

  LAUNCELOT. Sola, sola! wo ha, ho! sola, sola!
  LORENZO. Who calls?
  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Did you see Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo! Sola,
    sola!
  LORENZO. Leave holloaing, man. Here!
  LAUNCELOT. Sola! Where, where?
  LORENZO. Here!
  LAUNCELOT. Tell him there's a post come from my master with his
    horn full of good news; my master will be here ere morning.
 Exit
  LORENZO. Sweet soul, let's in, and there expect their coming.
    And yet no matter- why should we go in?
    My friend Stephano, signify, I pray you,
    Within the house, your mistress is at hand;
    And bring your music forth into the air.       Exit STEPHANO
    How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
    Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
    Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
    Become the touches of sweet harmony.
    Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
    Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
    There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
    But in his motion like an angel sings,
    Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins;
    Such harmony is in immortal souls,
    But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
    Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

                          Enter MUSICIANS

    Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn;
    With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear.
    And draw her home with music.                        [Music]
  JESSICA. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
  LORENZO. The reason is your spirits are attentive;
    For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
    Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
    Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
    Which is the hot condition of their blood-
    If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
    Or any air of music touch their ears,
    You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
    Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
    By the sweet power of music. Therefore the poet
    Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
    Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
    But music for the time doth change his nature.
    The man that hath no music in himself,
    Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
    Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
    The motions of his spirit are dull:as night,
    And his affections dark as Erebus.
    Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

                    Enter PORTIA and NERISSA

  PORTIA. That light we see is burning in my hall.
    How far that little candle throws his beams!
    So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
  NERISSA. When the moon shone, we did not see the candle.
  PORTIA. So doth the greater glory dim the less:
    A substitute shines brightly as a king
    Until a king be by, and then his state
    Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
    Into the main of waters. Music! hark!
  NERISSA. It is your music, madam, of the house.
  PORTIA. Nothing is good, I see, without respect;
    Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
  NERISSA. Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
  PORTIA. The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
    When neither is attended; and I think
    ne nightingale, if she should sing by day,
    When every goose is cackling, would be thought
    No better a musician than the wren.
    How many things by season season'd are
    To their right praise and true perfection!
    Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion,
    And would not be awak'd.                      [Music ceases]
  LORENZO. That is the voice,
    Or I am much deceiv'd, of Portia.
  PORTIA. He knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,
    By the bad voice.
  LORENZO. Dear lady, welcome home.
  PORTIA. We have been praying for our husbands' welfare,
    Which speed, we hope, the better for our words.
    Are they return'd?
  LORENZO. Madam, they are not yet;
    But there is come a messenger before,
    To signify their coming.
  PORTIA.. Go in, Nerissa;
    Give order to my servants that they take
    No note at all of our being absent hence;
    Nor you, Lorenzo; Jessica, nor you.        [A tucket sounds]
  LORENZO. Your husband is at hand; I hear his trumpet.
    We are no tell-tales, madam, fear you not.
  PORTIA. This night methinks is but the daylight sick;
    It looks a little paler; 'tis a day
    Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

       Enter BASSANIO, ANTONIO, GRATIANO, and their followers

  BASSANIO. We should hold day with the Antipodes,
    If you would walk in absence of the sun.
  PORTIA. Let me give light, but let me not be light,
    For a light wife doth make a heavy husband,
    And never be Bassanio so for me;
    But God sort all! You are welcome home, my lord.
  BASSANIO. I thank you, madam; give welcome to my friend.
    This is the man, this is Antonio,
    To whom I am so infinitely bound.
  PORTIA. You should in all sense be much bound to him,
    For, as I hear, he was much bound for you.
  ANTONIO. No more than I am well acquitted of.
  PORTIA. Sir, you are very welcome to our house.
    It must appear in other ways than words,
    Therefore I scant this breathing courtesy.
  GRATIANO.  [To NERISSA]  By yonder moon I swear you do me wrong;
    In faith, I gave it to the judge's clerk.
    Would he were gelt that had it, for my part,
    Since you do take it, love, so much at heart.
  PORTIA. A quarrel, ho, already! What's the matter?
  GRATIANO. About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
    That she did give me, whose posy was
    For all the world like cutler's poetry
    Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'
  NERISSA. What talk you of the posy or the value?
    You swore to me, when I did give it you,
    That you would wear it till your hour of death,
    And that it should lie with you in your grave;
    Though not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,
    You should have been respective and have kept it.
    Gave it a judge's clerk! No, God's my judge,
    The clerk will ne'er wear hair on's face that had it.
  GRATIANO. He will, an if he live to be a man.
  NERISSA. Ay, if a woman live to be a man.
  GRATIANO. Now by this hand I gave it to a youth,
    A kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy
    No higher than thyself, the judge's clerk;
    A prating boy that begg'd it as a fee;
    I could not for my heart deny it him.
  PORTIA. You were to blame, I must be plain with you,
    To part so slightly with your wife's first gift,
    A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger
    And so riveted with faith unto your flesh.
    I gave my love a ring, and made him swear
    Never to part with it, and here he stands;
    I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it
    Nor pluck it from his finger for the wealth
    That the world masters. Now, in faith, Gratiano,
    You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief;
    An 'twere to me, I should be mad at it.
  BASSANIO.  [Aside]  Why, I were best to cut my left hand off,
    And swear I lost the ring defending it.
  GRATIANO. My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away
    Unto the judge that begg'd it, and indeed
    Deserv'd it too; and then the boy, his clerk,
    That took some pains in writing, he begg'd mine;
    And neither man nor master would take aught
    But the two rings.
  PORTIA. What ring gave you, my lord?
    Not that, I hope, which you receiv'd of me.
  BASSANIO. If I could add a lie unto a fault,
    I would deny it; but you see my finger
    Hath not the ring upon it; it is gone.
  PORTIA. Even so void is your false heart of truth;
    By heaven, I will ne'er come in your bed
    Until I see the ring.
  NERISSA. Nor I in yours
    Till I again see mine.
  BASSANIO. Sweet Portia,
    If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
    If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
    And would conceive for what I gave the ring,
    And how unwillingly I left the ring,
    When nought would be accepted but the ring,
    You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
  PORTIA. If you had known the virtue of the ring,
    Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
    Or your own honour to contain the ring,
    You would not then have parted with the ring.
    What man is there so much unreasonable,
    If you had pleas'd to have defended it
    With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
    To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
    Nerissa teaches me what to believe:
    I'll die for't but some woman had the ring.
  BASSANIO. No, by my honour, madam, by my soul,
    No woman had it, but a civil doctor,
    Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me,
    And begg'd the ring; the which I did deny him,
    And suffer'd him to go displeas'd away-
    Even he that had held up the very life
    Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?
    I was enforc'd to send it after him;
    I was beset with shame and courtesy;
    My honour would not let ingratitude
    So much besmear it. Pardon me, good lady;
    For by these blessed candles of the night,
    Had you been there, I think you would have begg'd
    The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.
  PORTIA. Let not that doctor e'er come near my house;
    Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,
    And that which you did swear to keep for me,
    I will become as liberal as you;
    I'll not deny him anything I have,
    No, not my body, nor my husband's bed.
    Know him I shall, I am well sure of it.
    Lie not a night from home; watch me like Argus;
    If you do not, if I be left alone,
    Now, by mine honour which is yet mine own,
    I'll have that doctor for mine bedfellow.
  NERISSA. And I his clerk; therefore be well advis'd
    How you do leave me to mine own protection.
  GRATIANO. Well, do you so, let not me take him then;
    For, if I do, I'll mar the young clerk's pen.
  ANTONIO. I am th' unhappy subject of these quarrels.
  PORTIA. Sir, grieve not you; you are welcome not withstanding.
  BASSANIO. Portia, forgive me this enforced wrong;
    And in the hearing of these many friends
    I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,
    Wherein I see myself-
  PORTIA. Mark you but that!
    In both my eyes he doubly sees himself,
    In each eye one; swear by your double self,
    And there's an oath of credit.
  BASSANIO. Nay, but hear me.
    Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear
    I never more will break an oath with thee.
  ANTONIO. I once did lend my body for his wealth,
    Which, but for him that had your husband's ring,
    Had quite miscarried; I dare be bound again,
    My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord
    Will never more break faith advisedly.
  PORTIA. Then you shall be his surety. Give him this,
    And bid him keep it better than the other.
  ANTONIO. Here, Lord Bassanio, swear to keep this ring.
  BASSANIO. By heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!
  PORTIA. I had it of him. Pardon me, Bassanio,
    For, by this ring, the doctor lay with me.
  NERISSA. And pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,
    For that same scrubbed boy, the doctor's clerk,
    In lieu of this, last night did lie with me.
  GRATIANO. Why, this is like the mending of highways
    In summer, where the ways are fair enough.
    What, are we cuckolds ere we have deserv'd it?
  PORTIA. Speak not so grossly. You are all amaz'd.
    Here is a letter; read it at your leisure;
    It comes from Padua, from Bellario;
    There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,
    Nerissa there her clerk. Lorenzo here
    Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,
    And even but now return'd; I have not yet
    Enter'd my house. Antonio, you are welcome;
    And I have better news in store for you
    Than you expect. Unseal this letter soon;
    There you shall find three of your argosies
    Are richly come to harbour suddenly.
    You shall not know by what strange accident
    I chanced on this letter.
  ANTONIO. I am dumb.
  BASSANIO. Were you the doctor, and I knew you not?
  GRATIANO. Were you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?
  NERISSA. Ay, but the clerk that never means to do it,
    Unless he live until he be a man.
  BASSANIO. Sweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow;
    When I am absent, then lie with my wife.
  ANTONIO. Sweet lady, you have given me life and living;
    For here I read for certain that my ships
    Are safely come to road.
  PORTIA. How now, Lorenzo!
    My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.
  NERISSA. Ay, and I'll give them him without a fee.
    There do I give to you and Jessica,
    From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,
    After his death, of all he dies possess'd of.
  LORENZO. Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
    Of starved people.
  PORTIA. It is almost morning,
    And yet I am sure you are not satisfied
    Of these events at full. Let us go in,
    And charge us there upon inter'gatories,
    And we will answer all things faithfully.
  GRATIANO. Let it be so. The first inter'gatory
    That my Nerissa shall be sworn on is,
    Whether till the next night she had rather stay,
    Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.
    But were the day come, I should wish it dark,
    Till I were couching with the doctor's clerk.
    Well, while I live, I'll fear no other thing
    So sore as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.               Exeunt

THE END

1601



THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

Dramatis Personae

  SIR JOHN FALSTAFF
  FENTON, a young gentleman
  SHALLOW, a country justice
  SLENDER, cousin to Shallow

    Gentlemen of Windsor
  FORD
  PAGE
  WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, son to Page
  SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh parson
  DOCTOR CAIUS, a French physician
  HOST of the Garter Inn

    Followers of Falstaff
  BARDOLPH
  PISTOL
  NYM
  ROBIN, page to Falstaff
  SIMPLE, servant to Slender
  RUGBY, servant to Doctor Caius

  MISTRESS FORD
  MISTRESS PAGE
  MISTRESS ANNE PAGE, her daughter
  MISTRESS QUICKLY, servant to Doctor Caius
  SERVANTS to Page, Ford, etc.

SCENE: Windsor, and the neighbourhood

ACT I. SCENE 1.

Windsor. Before PAGE'S house

Enter JUSTICE SHALLOW, SLENDER, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  SHALLOW. Sir Hugh, persuade me not; I will make a Star
    Chamber matter of it; if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs,
    he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.
  SLENDER. In the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace, and
    Coram.
  SHALLOW. Ay, cousin Slender, and Custalorum.
  SLENDER. Ay, and Ratolorum too; and a gentleman born,
    Master Parson, who writes himself 'Armigero' in any bill,
    warrant, quittance, or obligation-'Armigero.'
  SHALLOW. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three
    hundred years.
  SLENDER. All his successors, gone before him, hath done't;
    and all his ancestors, that come after him, may: they may
    give the dozen white luces in their coat.
  SHALLOW. It is an old coat.
  EVANS. The dozen white louses do become an old coat well;
    it agrees well, passant; it is a familiar beast to man, and
    signifies love.
  SHALLOW. The luce is the fresh fish; the salt fish is an old
    coat.
  SLENDER. I may quarter, coz.
  SHALLOW. You may, by marrying.
  EVANS. It is marring indeed, if he quarter it.
  SHALLOW. Not a whit.
  EVANS. Yes, py'r lady! If he has a quarter of your coat, there
    is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures;
    but that is all one. If Sir John Falstaff have committed
    disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be
    glad to do my benevolence, to make atonements and
    compremises between you.
  SHALLOW. The Council shall hear it; it is a riot.
  EVANS. It is not meet the Council hear a riot; there is no
    fear of Got in a riot; the Council, look you, shall desire
    to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot; take your
    vizaments in that.
  SHALLOW. Ha! o' my life, if I were young again, the sword
    should end it.
  EVANS. It is petter that friends is the sword and end it;
    and there is also another device in my prain, which
    peradventure prings goot discretions with it. There is Anne
    Page, which is daughter to Master George Page, which is
    pretty virginity.
  SLENDER. Mistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and
    speaks small like a woman.
  EVANS. It is that fery person for all the orld, as just as you
    will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and
    gold, and silver, is her grandsire upon his death's-bed-Got
    deliver to a joyful resurrections!-give, when she is able to
    overtake seventeen years old. It were a goot motion if we
    leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage
    between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.
  SHALLOW. Did her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?
  EVANS. Ay, and her father is make her a petter penny.
  SHALLOW. I know the young gentlewoman; she has good
    gifts.
  EVANS. Seven hundred pounds, and possibilities, is goot gifts.
  SHALLOW. Well, let us see honest Master Page. Is Falstaff
    there?
  EVANS. Shall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do
    despise one that is false; or as I despise one that is not
    true. The knight Sir John is there; and, I beseech you, be
    ruled by your well-willers. I will peat the door for Master
    Page.
    [Knocks]  What, hoa! Got pless your house here!
  PAGE.  [Within]  Who's there?

                            Enter PAGE

  EVANS. Here is Got's plessing, and your friend, and Justice
  Shallow; and here young Master Slender, that peradventures
    shall tell you another tale, if matters grow to your
    likings.
  PAGE. I am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for
    my venison, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. Master Page, I am glad to see you; much good do
    it your good heart! I wish'd your venison better; it was ill
    kill'd. How doth good Mistress Page?-and I thank you
    always with my heart, la! with my heart.
  PAGE. Sir, I thank you.
  SHALLOW. Sir, I thank you; by yea and no, I do.
  PAGE. I am glad to see you, good Master Slender.
  SLENDER. How does your fallow greyhound, sir? I heard say
    he was outrun on Cotsall.
  PAGE. It could not be judg'd, sir.
  SLENDER. You'll not confess, you'll not confess.
  SHALLOW. That he will not. 'Tis your fault; 'tis your fault;
    'tis a good dog.
  PAGE. A cur, sir.
  SHALLOW. Sir, he's a good dog, and a fair dog. Can there be
    more said? He is good, and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here?
  PAGE. Sir, he is within; and I would I could do a good office
    between you.
  EVANS. It is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.
  SHALLOW. He hath wrong'd me, Master Page.
  PAGE. Sir, he doth in some sort confess it.
  SHALLOW. If it be confessed, it is not redressed; is not that
    so, Master Page? He hath wrong'd me; indeed he hath; at a
    word, he hath, believe me; Robert Shallow, esquire, saith
    he is wronged.
  PAGE. Here comes Sir John.

      Enter SIR JOHN FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, NYM, and PISTOL

  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to
    the King?
  SHALLOW. Knight, you have beaten my men, kill'd my deer,
    and broke open my lodge.
  FALSTAFF. But not kiss'd your keeper's daughter.
  SHALLOW. Tut, a pin! this shall be answer'd.
  FALSTAFF. I will answer it straight: I have done all this.
    That is now answer'd.
  SHALLOW. The Council shall know this.
  FALSTAFF. 'Twere better for you if it were known in counsel:
    you'll be laugh'd at.
  EVANS. Pauca verba, Sir John; goot worts.
  FALSTAFF. Good worts! good cabbage! Slender, I broke your
    head; what matter have you against me?
  SLENDER. Marry, sir, I have matter in my head against you;
    and against your cony-catching rascals, Bardolph, Nym,
    and Pistol. They carried me to the tavern, and made me
    drunk, and afterwards pick'd my pocket.
  BARDOLPH. You Banbury cheese!
  SLENDER. Ay, it is no matter.
  PISTOL. How now, Mephostophilus!
  SLENDER. Ay, it is no matter.
  NYM. Slice, I say! pauca, pauca; slice! That's my humour.
  SLENDER. Where's Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?
  EVANS. Peace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is
    three umpires in this matter, as I understand: that is,
    Master Page, fidelicet Master Page; and there is myself,
    fidelicet myself; and the three party is, lastly and
    finally, mine host of the Garter.
  PAGE. We three to hear it and end it between them.
  EVANS. Fery goot. I will make a prief of it in my note-book;
    and we will afterwards ork upon the cause with as great
    discreetly as we can.
  FALSTAFF. Pistol!
  PISTOL. He hears with ears.
  EVANS. The tevil and his tam! What phrase is this, 'He hears
    with ear'? Why, it is affectations.
  FALSTAFF. Pistol, did you pick Master Slender's purse?
  SLENDER. Ay, by these gloves, did he-or I would I might
    never come in mine own great chamber again else!-of
    seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward
    shovel-boards that cost me two shilling and two pence apiece
    of Yead Miller, by these gloves.
  FALSTAFF. Is this true, Pistol?
  EVANS. No, it is false, if it is a pick-purse.
  PISTOL. Ha, thou mountain-foreigner! Sir John and master
    mine,
    I combat challenge of this latten bilbo.
    Word of denial in thy labras here!
    Word of denial! Froth and scum, thou liest.
  SLENDER. By these gloves, then, 'twas he.
  NYM. Be avis'd, sir, and pass good humours; I will say
    'marry trap' with you, if you run the nuthook's humour on
    me; that is the very note of it.
  SLENDER. By this hat, then, he in the red face had it; for
    though I cannot remember what I did when you made me
    drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.
  FALSTAFF. What say you, Scarlet and John?
  BARDOLPH. Why, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had
    drunk himself out of his five sentences.
  EVANS. It is his five senses; fie, what the ignorance is!
  BARDOLPH. And being fap, sir, was, as they say, cashier'd;
    and so conclusions pass'd the careers.
  SLENDER. Ay, you spake in Latin then too; but 'tis no matter;
    I'll ne'er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest,
    civil, godly company, for this trick. If I be drunk, I'll be
    drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with
    drunken knaves.
  EVANS. So Got udge me, that is a virtuous mind.
  FALSTAFF. You hear all these matters deni'd, gentlemen; you
    hear it.

          Enter MISTRESS ANNE PAGE with wine; MISTRESS
               FORD and MISTRESS PAGE, following

  PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.
                                                  Exit ANNE PAGE
  SLENDER. O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.
  PAGE. How now, Mistress Ford!
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well
    met; by your leave, good mistress.              [Kisses her]
  PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a
    hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we
    shall drink down all unkindness.
                      Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS
  SLENDER. I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of
    Songs and Sonnets here.

                          Enter SIMPLE

    How, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on
    myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you,
    have you?
  SIMPLE. Book of Riddles! Why, did you not lend it to Alice
    Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore
    Michaelmas?
  SHALLOW. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word
    with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a
    tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do
    you understand me?
  SLENDER. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I
    shall do that that is reason.
  SHALLOW. Nay, but understand me.
  SLENDER. So I do, sir.
  EVANS. Give ear to his motions: Master Slender, I will
    description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.
  SLENDER. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says; I pray
    you pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country,
    simple though I stand here.
  EVANS. But that is not the question. The question is
    concerning your marriage.
  SHALLOW. Ay, there's the point, sir.
  EVANS. Marry is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne
    Page.
  SLENDER. Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any
    reasonable demands.
  EVANS. But can you affection the oman? Let us command to
    know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers
    hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore,
    precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?
  SHALLOW. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?
  SLENDER. I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that
    would do reason.
  EVANS. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable,
    if you can carry her your desires towards her.
  SHALLOW. That you must. Will you, upon good dowry,
    marry her?
  SLENDER. I will do a greater thing than that upon your request,
    cousin, in any reason.
  SHALLOW. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what
    I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?
  SLENDER. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there
    be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease
    it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and
    have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon
    familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say
    'marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved,
    and dissolutely.
  EVANS. It is a fery discretion answer, save the fall is in the
    ord 'dissolutely': the ort is, according to our meaning,
    'resolutely'; his meaning is good.
  SHALLOW. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.
  SLENDER. Ay, or else I would I might be hang'd, la!

                       Re-enter ANNE PAGE

  SHALLOW. Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I were
    young for your sake, Mistress Anne!
  ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your
    worships' company.
  SHALLOW. I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!
  EVANS. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.
                                        Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS
  ANNE. Will't please your worship to come in, sir?
  SLENDER. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very
    well.
  ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir.
  SLENDER. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,
    sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin
  Shallow.  [Exit SIMPLE]  A justice of peace sometime may
    be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men
    and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though?
    Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.
  ANNE. I may not go in without your worship; they will not
    sit till you come.
  SLENDER. I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as
    though I did.
  ANNE. I pray you, sir, walk in.
  SLENDER. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruis'd my
    shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with
    a master of fence-three veneys for a dish of stew'd prunes
    -and, I with my ward defending my head, he hot my shin,
    and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat
    since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i' th'
    town?
  ANNE. I think there are, sir; I heard them talk'd of.
  SLENDER. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at
    it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the
    bear loose, are you not?
  ANNE. Ay, indeed, sir.
  SLENDER. That's meat and drink to me now. I have seen
    Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the
    chain; but I warrant you, the women have so cried and
    shriek'd at it that it pass'd; but women, indeed, cannot
    abide 'em; they are very ill-favour'd rough things.

                         Re-enter PAGE

  PAGE. Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.
  SLENDER. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.
  PAGE. By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! Come,
    come.
  SLENDER. Nay, pray you lead the way.
  PAGE. Come on, sir.
  SLENDER. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.
  ANNE. Not I, sir; pray you keep on.
  SLENDER. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do
    you that wrong.
  ANNE. I pray you, sir.
  SLENDER. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You
    do yourself wrong indeed, la!                         Exeunt

SCENE 2.

Before PAGE'S house

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE

  EVANS. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which
    is the way; and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which
    is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook,
    or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.
  SIMPLE. Well, sir.
  EVANS. Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a
    oman that altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne
    Page; and the letter is to desire and require her to solicit
    your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you
    be gone. I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins
    and cheese to come.                                   Exeunt

SCENE 3.

The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN

  FALSTAFF. Mine host of the Garter!
  HOST. What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and
    wisely.
  FALSTAFF. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my
    followers.
  HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier; let them wag; trot,
    trot.
  FALSTAFF. I sit at ten pounds a week.
  HOST. Thou'rt an emperor-Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I
    will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap; said I
    well, bully Hector?
  FALSTAFF. Do so, good mine host.
  HOST. I have spoke; let him follow.  [To BARDOLPH]  Let me
    see thee froth and lime. I am at a word; follow.   Exit HOST
  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade;
    an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a wither'd serving-man a
    fresh tapster. Go; adieu.
  BARDOLPH. It is a life that I have desir'd; I will thrive.
  PISTOL. O base Hungarian wight! Wilt thou the spigot
    wield?                                         Exit BARDOLPH
  NYM. He was gotten in drink. Is not the humour conceited?
  FALSTAFF. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his
    thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful
    singer-he kept not time.
  NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.
  PISTOL. 'Convey' the wise it call. 'Steal' foh! A fico for the
    phrase!
  FALSTAFF. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
  PISTOL. Why, then, let kibes ensue.
  FALSTAFF. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must
    shift.
  PISTOL. Young ravens must have food.
  FALSTAFF. Which of you know Ford of this town?
  PISTOL. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.
  FALSTAFF. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.
  PISTOL. Two yards, and more.
  FALSTAFF. No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist
    two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about
    thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I
    spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she
    gives the leer of invitation; I can construe the action of her
    familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be
    English'd rightly, is 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'
    PISTOL. He hath studied her well, and translated her will out
    of honesty into English.
  NYM. The anchor is deep; will that humour pass?
  FALSTAFF. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her
    husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels.
  PISTOL. As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.
  NYM. The humour rises; it is good; humour me the angels.
  FALSTAFF. I have writ me here a letter to her; and here
    another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes
    too, examin'd my parts with most judicious oeillades;
    sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my
    portly belly.
  PISTOL. Then did the sun on dunghill shine.
  NYM. I thank thee for that humour.
  FALSTAFF. O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such
    a greedy intention that the appetite of her eye did seem to
    scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's another letter to
    her. She bears the purse too; she is a region in Guiana, all
    gold and bounty. I will be cheaters to them both, and they
    shall be exchequers to me; they shall be my East and West
    Indies, and I will trade to them both. Go, bear thou this
    letter to Mistress Page; and thou this to Mistress Ford. We
    will thrive, lads, we will thrive.
  PISTOL. Shall I Sir Pandarus of Troy become,
    And by my side wear steel? Then Lucifer take all!
  NYM. I will run no base humour. Here, take the
    humour-letter; I will keep the haviour of reputation.
  FALSTAFF.  [To ROBIN]  Hold, sirrah; bear you these letters
    tightly;
    Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.
    Rogues, hence, avaunt! vanish like hailstones, go;
    Trudge, plod away i' th' hoof; seek shelter, pack!
    Falstaff will learn the humour of the age;
    French thrift, you rogues; myself, and skirted page.
                                       Exeunt FALSTAFF and ROBIN
  PISTOL. Let vultures gripe thy guts! for gourd and fullam
    holds,
    And high and low beguiles the rich and poor;
    Tester I'll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,
    Base Phrygian Turk!
  NYM. I have operations in my head which be humours of
    revenge.
  PISTOL. Wilt thou revenge?
  NYM. By welkin and her star!
  PISTOL. With wit or steel?
  NYM. With both the humours, I.
    I will discuss the humour of this love to Page.
  PISTOL. And I to Ford shall eke unfold
    How Falstaff, varlet vile,
    His dove will prove, his gold will hold,
    And his soft couch defile.
  NYM. My humour shall not cool; I will incense Page to deal
    with poison; I will possess him with yellowness; for the
    revolt of mine is dangerous. That is my true humour.
  PISTOL. Thou art the Mars of malcontents; I second thee;
    troop on.                                             Exeunt

SCENE 4.

DOCTOR CAIUS'S house

Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY, SIMPLE, and RUGBY

  QUICKLY. What, John Rugby! I pray thee go to the casement
    and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor
    Caius, coming. If he do, i' faith, and find anybody in the
    house, here will be an old abusing of God's patience and
    the King's English.
  RUGBY. I'll go watch.
  QUICKLY. Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in
    faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire.  [Exit RUGBY]  An
    honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in
    house withal; and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no
    breed-bate; his worst fault is that he is given to prayer; he is
    something peevish that way; but nobody but has his fault;
    but let that pass. Peter Simple you say your name is?
  SIMPLE. Ay, for fault of a better.
  QUICKLY. And Master Slender's your master?
  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth.
  QUICKLY. Does he not wear a great round beard, like a
    glover's paring-knife?
  SIMPLE. No, forsooth; he hath but a little whey face, with a
    little yellow beard, a Cain-colour'd beard.
  QUICKLY. A softly-sprighted man, is he not?
  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth; but he is as tall a man of his hands as
    any is between this and his head; he hath fought with a
    warrener.
  QUICKLY. How say you? O, I should remember him. Does
    he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?
  SIMPLE. Yes, indeed, does he.
  QUICKLY. Well, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune!
    Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your
    master. Anne is a good girl, and I wish-

                         Re-enter RUGBY

  RUGBY. Out, alas! here comes my master.
  QUICKLY. We shall all be shent. Run in here, good young
    man; go into this closet.  [Shuts SIMPLE in the closet]  He
    will not stay long. What, John Rugby! John! what, John,
    I say! Go, John, go inquire for my master; I doubt he be
    not well that he comes not home.  [Singing]
    And down, down, adown-a, etc.

                       Enter DOCTOR CAIUS

  CAIUS. Vat is you sing? I do not like des toys. Pray you, go
    and vetch me in my closet un boitier vert-a box, a green-a
    box. Do intend vat I speak? A green-a box.
  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth, I'll fetch it you.  [Aside]  I am glad
    he went not in himself; if he had found the young man,
    he would have been horn-mad.
  CAIUS. Fe, fe, fe fe! ma foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m'en vais a
    la cour-la grande affaire.
  QUICKLY. Is it this, sir?
  CAIUS. Oui; mette le au mon pocket: depeche, quickly. Vere
    is dat knave, Rugby?
  QUICKLY. What, John Rugby? John!
  RUGBY. Here, sir.
  CAIUS. You are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby.
    Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the
    court.
  RUGBY. 'Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.
    CAIUS. By my trot, I tarry too long. Od's me! Qu'ai j'oublie?
    Dere is some simples in my closet dat I vill not for the
    varld I shall leave behind.
  QUICKLY. Ay me, he'll find the young man there, and be
    mad!
  CAIUS. O diable, diable! vat is in my closet? Villainy! larron!
    [Pulling SIMPLE out]  Rugby, my rapier!
  QUICKLY. Good master, be content.
  CAIUS. Wherefore shall I be content-a?
  QUICKLY. The young man is an honest man.
  CAIUS. What shall de honest man do in my closet? Dere is
    no honest man dat shall come in my closet.
  QUICKLY. I beseech you, be not so phlegmatic; hear the
    truth of it. He came of an errand to me from Parson Hugh.
  CAIUS. Vell?
  SIMPLE. Ay, forsooth, to desire her to-
  QUICKLY. Peace, I pray you.
  CAIUS. Peace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale.
  SIMPLE. To desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to
    speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master,
    in the way of marriage.
  QUICKLY. This is all, indeed, la! but I'll ne'er put my finger
    in the fire, and need not.
  CAIUS. Sir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baillez me some paper.
    Tarry you a little-a-while.                        [Writes]
  QUICKLY.  [Aside to SIMPLE]  I am glad he is so quiet; if he
    had been throughly moved, you should have heard him
    so loud and so melancholy. But notwithstanding, man, I'll
    do you your master what good I can; and the very yea and
    the no is, the French doctor, my master-I may call him
    my master, look you, for I keep his house; and I wash,
    wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the
    beds, and do all myself-
  SIMPLE.  [Aside to QUICKLY]  'Tis a great charge to come
    under one body's hand.
  QUICKLY.  [Aside to SIMPLE]  Are you avis'd o' that? You
    shall find it a great charge; and to be up early and down
    late; but notwithstanding-to tell you in your ear, I would
    have no words of it-my master himself is in love with
    Mistress Anne Page; but notwithstanding that, I know
    Anne's mind-that's neither here nor there.
  CAIUS. You jack'nape; give-a this letter to Sir Hugh; by gar,
    it is a shallenge; I will cut his troat in de park; and I will
    teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make. You
    may be gone; it is not good you tarry here. By gar, I will
    cut all his two stones; by gar, he shall not have a stone
    to throw at his dog.                             Exit SIMPLE
  QUICKLY. Alas, he speaks but for his friend.
  CAIUS. It is no matter-a ver dat. Do not you tell-a me dat I
    shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I vill kill de Jack
    priest; and I have appointed mine host of de Jarteer to
    measure our weapon. By gar, I will myself have Anne
    Page.
  QUICKLY. Sir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We
    must give folks leave to prate. What the good-year!
  CAIUS. Rugby, come to the court with me. By gar, if I have
    not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door.
    Follow my heels, Rugby.               Exeunt CAIUS and RUGBY
  QUICKLY. You shall have-An fool's-head of your own. No,
    I know Anne's mind for that; never a woman in Windsor
    knows more of Anne's mind than I do; nor can do more
    than I do with her, I thank heaven.
  FENTON.  [Within]  Who's within there? ho!
  QUICKLY. Who's there, I trow? Come near the house, I pray
    you.

                          Enter FENTON

  FENTON. How now, good woman, how dost thou?
  QUICKLY. The better that it pleases your good worship to
    ask.
  FENTON. What news? How does pretty Mistress Anne?
  QUICKLY. In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and
    gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by
    the way; I praise heaven for it.
  FENTON. Shall I do any good, think'st thou? Shall I not lose
    my suit?
  QUICKLY. Troth, sir, all is in His hands above; but
    notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I'll be sworn on a book
    she loves you. Have not your worship a wart above your eye?
  FENTON. Yes, marry, have I; what of that?
  QUICKLY. Well, thereby hangs a tale; good faith, it is such
    another Nan; but, I detest, an honest maid as ever broke
    bread. We had an hour's talk of that wart; I shall never
    laugh but in that maid's company! But, indeed, she is
    given too much to allicholy and musing; but for you-well,
    go to.
  FENTON. Well, I shall see her to-day. Hold, there's money
    for thee; let me have thy voice in my behalf. If thou seest
    her before me, commend me.
  QUICKLY. Will I? I' faith, that we will; and I will tell your
    worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence;
    and of other wooers.
  FENTON. Well, farewell; I am in great haste now.
  QUICKLY. Farewell to your worship.  [Exit FENTON]  Truly,
    an honest gentleman; but Anne loves him not; for I know
    Anne's mind as well as another does. Out upon 't, what
    have I forgot?                                          Exit

ACT II. SCENE 1.

Before PAGE'S house

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, with a letter

  MRS. PAGE. What! have I scap'd love-letters in the holiday-time
    of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let
    me see.                                              [Reads]
    'Ask me no reason why I love you; for though Love use
    Reason for his precisian, he admits him not for his counsellor.
    You are not young, no more am I; go to, then, there's
    sympathy. You are merry, so am I; ha! ha! then there's
    more sympathy. You love sack, and so do I; would you
    desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page
    at the least, if the love of soldier can suffice-that I love
    thee. I will not say, Pity me: 'tis not a soldier-like phrase;
    but I say, Love me. By me,
    Thine own true knight,
    By day or night,
    Or any kind of light,
    With all his might,
    For thee to fight,
    JOHN FALSTAFF.'
    What a Herod of Jewry is this! O wicked, wicked world!
    One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age to show
    himself a young gallant! What an unweighed behaviour
    hath this Flemish drunkard pick'd-with the devil's name!
    -out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner
    assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company!
    What should I say to him? I was then frugal of my mirth.
    Heaven forgive me! Why, I'll exhibit a bill in the parliament
    for the putting down of men. How shall I be
    reveng'd on him? for reveng'd I will be, as sure as his guts
    are made of puddings.

                       Enter MISTRESS FORD

  MRS. FORD. Mistress Page! trust me, I was going to your
    house.
  MRS. PAGE. And, trust me, I was coming to you. You look
    very ill.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, I'll ne'er believe that; I have to show to
    the contrary.
  MRS. PAGE. Faith, but you do, in my mind.
  MRS. FORD. Well, I do, then; yet, I say, I could show you to
    the contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel.
  MRS. PAGE. What's the matter, woman?
  MRS. FORD. O woman, if it were not for one trifling respect,
    I could come to such honour!
  MRS. PAGE. Hang the trifle, woman; take the honour. What
    is it? Dispense with trifles; what is it?
  MRS. FORD. If I would but go to hell for an eternal moment
    or so, I could be knighted.
  MRS. PAGE. What? Thou liest. Sir Alice Ford! These knights
    will hack; and so thou shouldst not alter the article of thy
    gentry.
  MRS. FORD. We burn daylight. Here, read, read; perceive
    how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat
    men as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's
    liking. And yet he would not swear; prais'd women's
    modesty, and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof
    to all uncomeliness that I would have sworn his disposition
    would have gone to the truth of his words; but they do no
    more adhere and keep place together than the Hundredth
    Psalm to the tune of 'Greensleeves.' What tempest, I trow,
    threw this whale, with so many tuns of oil in his belly,
    ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I
    think the best way were to entertain him with hope, till
    the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease.
    Did you ever hear the like?
  MRS. PAGE. Letter for letter, but that the name of Page and
    Ford differs. To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill
    opinions, here's the twin-brother of thy letter; but let thine
    inherit first, for, I protest, mine never shall. I warrant he
    hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for
    different names-sure, more!-and these are of the second
    edition. He will print them, out of doubt; for he cares not
    what he puts into the press when he would put us two. I
    had rather be a giantess and lie under Mount Pelion. Well,
    I will find you twenty lascivious turtles ere one chaste
    man.
  MRS. FORD. Why, this is the very same; the very hand, the
    very words. What doth he think of us?
  MRS. PAGE. Nay, I know not; it makes me almost ready to
    wrangle with mine own honesty. I'll entertain myself like
    one that I am not acquainted withal; for, sure, unless he
    know some strain in me that I know not myself, he would
    never have boarded me in this fury.
  MRS. FORD. 'Boarding' call you it? I'll be sure to keep him
    above deck.
  MRS. PAGE. So will I; if he come under my hatches, I'll never
    to sea again. Let's be reveng'd on him; let's appoint him a
    meeting, give him a show of comfort in his suit, and lead
    him on with a fine-baited delay, till he hath pawn'd his
    horses to mine host of the Garter.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, I will consent to act any villainy against
    him that may not sully the chariness of our honesty. O
    that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food
    to his jealousy.
  MRS. PAGE. Why, look where he comes; and my good man
    too; he's as far from jealousy as I am from giving him
    cause; and that, I hope, is an unmeasurable distance.
  MRS. FORD. You are the happier woman.
  MRS. PAGE. Let's consult together against this greasy knight.
    Come hither.                                   [They retire]

           Enter FORD with PISTOL, and PAGE with Nym

  FORD. Well, I hope it be not so.
  PISTOL. Hope is a curtal dog in some affairs.
    Sir John affects thy wife.
  FORD. Why, sir, my wife is not young.
  PISTOL. He woos both high and low, both rich and poor,
    Both young and old, one with another, Ford;
    He loves the gallimaufry. Ford, perpend.
  FORD. Love my wife!
  PISTOL. With liver burning hot. Prevent, or go thou,
    Like Sir Actaeon he, with Ringwood at thy heels.
    O, odious is the name!
  FORD. What name, sir?
  PISTOL. The horn, I say. Farewell.
    Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot by night;
    Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo birds do sing.
    Away, Sir Corporal Nym.
    Believe it, Page; he speaks sense.               Exit PISTOL
  FORD.  [Aside]  I will be patient; I will find out this.
  NYM.  [To PAGE]  And this is true; I like not the humour of
    lying. He hath wronged me in some humours; I should
    have borne the humour'd letter to her; but I have a sword,
    and it shall bite upon my necessity. He loves your wife;
    there's the short and the long.
    My name is Corporal Nym; I speak, and I avouch;
    'Tis true. My name is Nym, and Falstaff loves your wife.
    Adieu! I love not the humour of bread and cheese; and
    there's the humour of it. Adieu.                    Exit Nym
  PAGE. 'The humour of it,' quoth 'a! Here's a fellow frights
    English out of his wits.
  FORD. I will seek out Falstaff.
  PAGE. I never heard such a drawling, affecting rogue.
  FORD. If I do find it-well.
  PAGE. I will not believe such a Cataian though the priest o'
    th' town commended him for a true man.
  FORD. 'Twas a good sensible fellow. Well.

             MISTRESS PAGE and MISTRESS FORD come forward

  PAGE. How now, Meg!
  MRS. PAGE. Whither go you, George? Hark you.
  MRS. FORD. How now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?
  FORD. I melancholy! I am not melancholy. Get you home;
    go.
  MRS. FORD. Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.
    Will you go, Mistress Page?

                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

  MRS. PAGE. Have with you. You'll come to dinner, George?
    [Aside to MRS. FORD]  Look who comes yonder; she shall
    be our messenger to this paltry knight.
  MRS. FORD.  [Aside to MRS. PAGE]  Trust me, I thought on
    her; she'll fit it.
  MRS. PAGE. You are come to see my daughter Anne?
  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth; and, I pray, how does good Mistress Anne?
  MRS. PAGE. Go in with us and see; we have an hour's talk
    with you.           Exeunt MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and
                                                MISTRESS QUICKLY
  PAGE. How now, Master Ford!
  FORD. You heard what this knave told me, did you not?
  PAGE. Yes; and you heard what the other told me?
  FORD. Do you think there is truth in them?
  PAGE. Hang 'em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer it;
    but these that accuse him in his intent towards our
    wives are a yoke of his discarded men; very rogues, now
    they be out of service.
  FORD. Were they his men?
  PAGE. Marry, were they.
  FORD. I like it never the better for that. Does he lie at the
    Garter?
  PAGE. Ay, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage
    toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him; and what
    he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my head.
  FORD. I do not misdoubt my wife; but I would be loath to
    turn them together. A man may be too confident. I would
    have nothing lie on my head. I cannot be thus satisfied.

                           Enter HOST

  PAGE. Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes.
    There is either liquor in his pate or money in his purse
    when he looks so merrily. How now, mine host!
  HOST. How now, bully rook! Thou'rt a gentleman.  [To
    SHALLOW following]  Cavaleiro Justice, I say.

                         Enter SHALLOW

  SHALLOW. I follow, mine host, I follow. Good even and
    twenty, good Master Page! Master Page, will you go with
    us? We have sport in hand.
  HOST. Tell him, Cavaleiro Justice; tell him, bully rook.
  SHALLOW. Sir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh
    the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.
  FORD. Good mine host o' th' Garter, a word with you.
  HOST. What say'st thou, my bully rook?         [They go aside]
  SHALLOW.  [To PAGE] Will you go with us to behold it? My
    merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons; and,
    I think, hath appointed them contrary places; for, believe
    me, I hear the parson is no jester. Hark, I will tell you
    what our sport shall be.               [They converse apart]
  HOST. Hast thou no suit against my knight, my guest-cavaleiro.
  FORD. None, I protest; but I'll give you a pottle of burnt
    sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is
    Brook-only for a jest.
  HOST. My hand, bully; thou shalt have egress and regress-
    said I well?-and thy name shall be Brook. It is a merry
    knight. Will you go, Mynheers?
  SHALLOW. Have with you, mine host.
  PAGE. I have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his
    rapier.
  SHALLOW. Tut, sir, I could have told you more. In these
    times you stand on distance, your passes, stoccadoes, and
    I know not what. 'Tis the heart, Master Page; 'tis here,
    'tis here. I have seen the time with my long sword I would
    have made you four tall fellows skip like rats.
  HOST. Here, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?
  PAGE. Have with you. I had rather hear them scold than
    fight.                                   Exeunt all but FORD
  FORD. Though Page be a secure fool, and stands so firmly on
    his wife's frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so
    easily. She was in his company at Page's house, and what
    they made there I know not. Well, I will look further into
    't, and I have a disguise to sound Falstaff. If I find her
    honest, I lose not my labour; if she be otherwise, 'tis labour
    well bestowed.                                          Exit

SCENE 2.

A room in the Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF and PISTOL

  FALSTAFF. I will not lend thee a penny.
  PISTOL. I will retort the sum in equipage.
  FALSTAFF. Not a penny.
  PISTOL. Why, then the world's mine oyster. Which I with
    sword will open.
  FALSTAFF. Not a penny. I have been content, sir, you should
    lay my countenance to pawn. I have grated upon my good
    friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow,
    Nym; or else you had look'd through the grate, like a
    geminy of baboons. I am damn'd in hell for swearing to
    gentlemen my friends you were good soldiers and tall fellows;
    and when Mistress Bridget lost the handle of her fan,
    I took 't upon mine honour thou hadst it not.
  PISTOL. Didst not thou share? Hadst thou not fifteen pence?
  FALSTAFF. Reason, you rogue, reason. Think'st thou I'll
    endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang no more about me,
    I am no gibbet for you. Go-a short knife and a throng!-
    to your manor of Pickt-hatch; go. You'll not bear a letter
    for me, you rogue! You stand upon your honour! Why,
    thou unconfinable baseness, it is as much as I can do to
    keep the terms of my honour precise. I, I, I myself
    sometimes, leaving the fear of God on the left hand, and hiding
    mine honour in my necessity, am fain to shuffle, to hedge,
    and to lurch; and yet you, rogue, will ensconce your rags,
    your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and
    your bold-beating oaths, under the shelter of your honour!
    You will not do it, you!
  PISTOL. I do relent; what would thou more of man?

                          Enter ROBIN

  ROBIN. Sir, here's a woman would speak with you.
  FALSTAFF. Let her approach.

                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

  QUICKLY. Give your worship good morrow.
  FALSTAFF. Good morrow, good wife.
  QUICKLY. Not so, an't please your worship.
  FALSTAFF. Good maid, then.
  QUICKLY. I'll be sworn;
    As my mother was, the first hour I was born.
  FALSTAFF. I do believe the swearer. What with me?
  QUICKLY. Shall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?
  FALSTAFF. Two thousand, fair woman; and I'll vouchsafe
    thee the hearing.
  QUICKLY. There is one Mistress Ford, sir-I pray, come a little
    nearer this ways. I myself dwell with Master Doctor
    Caius.
  FALSTAFF. Well, on: Mistress Ford, you say-
  QUICKLY. Your worship says very true. I pray your worship
    come a little nearer this ways.
  FALSTAFF. I warrant thee nobody hears-mine own people,
    mine own people.
  QUICKLY. Are they so? God bless them, and make them his
    servants!
  FALSTAFF. Well; Mistress Ford, what of her?
  QUICKLY. Why, sir, she's a good creature. Lord, Lord, your
    worship's a wanton! Well, heaven forgive you, and all of
    us, I pray.
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford; come, Mistress Ford-
  QUICKLY. Marry, this is the short and the long of it: you
    have brought her into such a canaries as 'tis wonderful.
    The best courtier of them all, when the court lay at Windsor,
    could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet
    there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with
    their coaches; I warrant you, coach after coach, letter after
    letter, gift after gift; smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so
    rushling, I warrant you, in silk and gold; and in such alligant
    terms; and in such wine and sugar of the best and the
    fairest, that would have won any woman's heart; and I
    warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of her.
    I had myself twenty angels given me this morning; but I
    defy all angels, in any such sort, as they say, but in the
    way of honesty; and, I warrant you, they could never get
    her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all;
    and yet there has been earls, nay, which is more,
    pensioners; but, I warrant you, all is one with her.
  FALSTAFF. But what says she to me? Be brief, my good she-
    Mercury.
  QUICKLY. Marry, she hath receiv'd your letter; for the
    which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you
    to notify that her husband will be absence from his house
    between ten and eleven.
  FALSTAFF. Ten and eleven?
  QUICKLY. Ay, forsooth; and then you may come and see
    the picture, she says, that you wot of. Master Ford, her
    husband, will be from home. Alas, the sweet woman leads
    an ill life with him! He's a very jealousy man; she leads a
    very frampold life with him, good heart.
  FALSTAFF. Ten and eleven. Woman, commend me to her; I
    will not fail her.
  QUICKLY. Why, you say well. But I have another messenger
    to your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations
    to you too; and let me tell you in your ear, she's as
    fartuous a civil modest wife, and one, I tell you, that will
    not miss you morning nor evening prayer, as any is in
    Windsor, whoe'er be the other; and she bade me tell your
    worship that her husband is seldom from home, but she
    hopes there will come a time. I never knew a woman so
    dote upon a man: surely I think you have charms, la! Yes,
    in truth.
  FALSTAFF. Not I, I assure thee; setting the attraction of my
    good parts aside, I have no other charms.
  QUICKLY. Blessing on your heart for 't!
  FALSTAFF. But, I pray thee, tell me this: has Ford's wife and
    Page's wife acquainted each other how they love me?
  QUICKLY. That were a jest indeed! They have not so little
    grace, I hope-that were a trick indeed! But Mistress Page
    would desire you to send her your little page of all loves.
    Her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page;
    and truly Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in
    Windsor leads a better life than she does; do what she will,
    say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she
    list, rise when she list, all is as she will; and truly she
    deserves it; for if there be a kind woman in Windsor, she
    is one. You must send her your page; no remedy.
  FALSTAFF. Why, I will.
  QUICKLY. Nay, but do so then; and, look you, he may come
    and go between you both; and in any case have a
    nay-word, that you may know one another's mind, and the boy
    never need to understand any thing; for 'tis not good that
    children should know any wickedness. Old folks, you
    know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world.
  FALSTAFF. Fare thee well; commend me to them both.
    There's my purse; I am yet thy debtor. Boy, go along with
    this woman.  [Exeunt QUICKLY and ROBIN]  This news
    distracts me.
  PISTOL.  [Aside]  This punk is one of Cupid's carriers;
    Clap on more sails; pursue; up with your fights;
    Give fire; she is my prize, or ocean whelm them all!    Exit
  FALSTAFF. Say'st thou so, old Jack; go thy ways; I'll make
    more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look
    after thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money,
    be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee. Let them say
    'tis grossly done; so it be fairly done, no matter.

                         Enter BARDOLPH

  BARDOLPH. Sir John, there's one Master Brook below would
    fain speak with you, and be acquainted with you; and hath
    sent your worship a moming's draught of sack.
  FALSTAFF. Brook is his name?
  BARDOLPH. Ay, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Call him in.  [Exit BARDOLPH]  Such Brooks are
    welcome to me, that o'erflows such liquor. Ah, ha! Mistress
    Ford and Mistress Page, have I encompass'd you? Go to;
    via!

              Re-enter BARDOLPH, with FORD disguised

  FORD. Bless you, sir! FALSTAFF. And you, sir! Would you speak with
  me? FORD. I make bold to press with so little preparation upon you.
  FALSTAFF. You're welcome. What's your will? Give us leave, drawer.   
                                      Exit BARDOLPH FORD. Sir, I am a
  gentleman that have spent much; my name is Brook. FALSTAFF. Good
  Master Brook, I desire more acquaintance of you. FORD. Good Sir John,
  I sue for yours-not to charge you; for I must let you understand I
  think myself in better plight for a lender than you are; the which
  hath something embold'ned me to this unseason'd intrusion; for they
  say, if money go before, all ways do lie open. FALSTAFF. Money is a
  good soldier, sir, and will on. FORD. Troth, and I have a bag of
  money here troubles me; if you will help to bear it, Sir John, take
  all, or half, for easing me of the carriage. FALSTAFF. Sir, I know
  not how I may deserve to be your porter. FORD. I will tell you, sir,
  if you will give me the hearing. FALSTAFF. Speak, good Master Brook;
  I shall be glad to be your servant. FORD. Sir, I hear you are a
  scholar-I will be brief with you -and you have been a man long known
  to me, though I had never so good means as desire to make myself
  acquainted with you. I shall discover a thing to you, wherein I must
  very much lay open mine own imperfection; but, good Sir John, as you
  have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded, turn another
  into the register of your own, that I may pass with a reproof the
  easier, sith you yourself know how easy is it to be such an offender.
  FALSTAFF. Very well, sir; proceed. FORD. There is a gentlewoman in
  this town, her husband's name is Ford. FALSTAFF. Well, sir. FORD. I
  have long lov'd her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her;
  followed her with a doting observance; engross'd opportunities to
  meet her; fee'd every slight occasion that could but niggardly give
  me sight of her; not only bought many presents to give her, but have
  given largely to many to know what she would have given; briefly, I
  have pursu'd her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing
  of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind or
  in my means, meed, I am sure, I have received none, unless experience
  be a jewel; that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath
  taught me to say this: 'Love like a shadow flies when substance love
  pursues; Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'
  FALSTAFF. Have you receiv'd no promise of satisfaction at her hands?
  FORD. Never. FALSTAFF. Have you importun'd her to such a purpose?
  FORD. Never. FALSTAFF. Of what quality was your love, then? FORD.
  Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so that I have lost
  my edifice by mistaking the place where erected it. FALSTAFF. To what
  purpose have you unfolded this to me? FORD. When I have told you
  that, I have told you all. Some say that though she appear honest to
  me, yet in other places she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is
  shrewd construction made of her. Now, Sir John, here is the heart of
  my purpose: you are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable
  discourse, of great admittance, authentic in your place and person,
  generally allow'd for your many war-like, courtlike, and learned
  preparations. FALSTAFF. O, sir! FORD. Believe it, for you know it.
  There is money; spend it, spend it; spend more; spend all I have;
  only give me so much of your time in exchange of it as to lay an
  amiable siege to the honesty of this Ford's wife; use your art of
  wooing, win her to consent to you; if any man may, you may as soon as
  any. FALSTAFF. Would it apply well to the vehemency of your
  affection, that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks you
  prescribe to yourself very preposterously. FORD. O, understand my
  drift. She dwells so securely on the excellency of her honour that
  the folly of my soul dares not present itself; she is too bright to
  be look'd against. Now, could I come to her with any detection in my
  hand, my desires had instance and argument to commend themselves; I
  could drive her then from the ward of her purity, her reputation, her
  marriage vow, and a thousand other her defences, which now are too
  too strongly embattl'd against me. What say you to't, Sir John?
  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will first make bold with your money; next,
  give me your hand; and last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you
  will, enjoy Ford's wife. FORD. O good sir! FALSTAFF. I say you shall.
  FORD. Want no money, Sir John; you shall want none. FALSTAFF. Want no
  Mistress Ford, Master Brook; you shall want none. I shall be with
  her, I may tell you, by her own appointment; even as you came in to
  me her assistant, or go-between, parted from me; I say I shall be
  with her between ten and eleven; for at that time the jealous
  rascally knave, her husband, will be forth. Come you to me at night;
  you shall know how I speed. FORD. I am blest in your acquaintance. Do
  you know Ford, Sir? FALSTAFF. Hang him, poor cuckoldly knave! I know
  him not; yet I wrong him to call him poor; they say the jealous
  wittolly knave hath masses of money; for the which his wife seems to
  me well-favour'd. I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue's
  coffer; and there's my harvest-home. FORD. I would you knew Ford,
  sir, that you might avoid him if you saw him. FALSTAFF. Hang him,
  mechanical salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits; I
  will awe him with my cudgel; it shall hang like a meteor o'er the
  cuckold's horns. Master Brook, thou shalt know I will predominate
  over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon
  at night. Ford's a knave, and I will aggravate his style; thou,
  Master Brook, shalt know him for knave and cuckold. Come to me soon
  at night.                               Exit FORD. What a damn'd
  Epicurean rascal is this! My heart is ready to crack with impatience.
  Who says this is improvident jealousy? My wife hath sent to him; the
  hour is fix'd; the match is made. Would any man have thought this?
  See the hell of having a false woman! My bed shall be abus'd, my
  coffers ransack'd, my reputation gnawn at; and I shall not only
  receive this villainous wrong, but stand under the adoption of
  abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms! names!
  Amaimon sounds well; Lucifer, well; Barbason, well; yet they are
  devils' additions, the names of fiends. But cuckold! Wittol! Cuckold!
  the devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure ass;
  he will trust his wife; he will not be jealous; I will rather trust a
  Fleming with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an
  Irishman with my aqua-vitae bottle, or a thief to walk my ambling
  gelding, than my wife with herself. Then she plots, then she
  ruminates, then she devises; and what they think in their hearts they
  may effect, they will break their hearts but they will effect. God be
  prais'd for my jealousy! Eleven o'clock the hour. I will prevent
  this, detect my wife, be reveng'd on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I
  will about it; better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
  Fie, fie, fie! cuckold! cuckold! cuckold!     Exit

SCENE 3.

A field near Windsor

Enter CAIUS and RUGBY

  CAIUS. Jack Rugby!
  RUGBY. Sir?
  CAIUS. Vat is de clock, Jack?
  RUGBY. 'Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promis'd to
    meet.
  CAIUS. By gar, he has save his soul dat he is no come; he has
    pray his Pible well dat he is no come; by gar, Jack Rugby,
    he is dead already, if he be come.
  RUGBY. He is wise, sir; he knew your worship would kill
    him if he came.
  CAIUS. By gar, de herring is no dead so as I vill kill him. Take
    your rapier, Jack; I vill tell you how I vill kill him.
  RUGBY. Alas, sir, I cannot fence!
  CAIUS. Villainy, take your rapier.
  RUGBY. Forbear; here's company.

            Enter HOST, SHALLOW, SLENDER, and PAGE

  HOST. Bless thee, bully doctor!
  SHALLOW. Save you, Master Doctor Caius!
  PAGE. Now, good Master Doctor!
  SLENDER. Give you good morrow, sir.
  CAIUS. Vat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?
  HOST. To see thee fight, to see thee foin, to see thee traverse;
    to see thee here, to see thee there; to see thee pass thy
    punto, thy stock, thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant.
    Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco? Ha,
    bully! What says my Aesculapius? my Galen? my heart
    of elder? Ha! is he dead, bully stale? Is he dead?
  CAIUS. By gar, he is de coward Jack priest of de world; he is
    not show his face.
  HOST. Thou art a Castalion-King-Urinal. Hector of Greece,
    my boy!
  CAIUS. I pray you, bear witness that me have stay six or
    seven, two tree hours for him, and he is no come.
  SHALLOW. He is the wiser man, Master Doctor: he is a curer
    of souls, and you a curer of bodies; if you should fight,
    you go against the hair of your professions. Is it not true,
    Master Page?
  PAGE. Master Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter,
    though now a man of peace.
  SHALLOW. Bodykins, Master Page, though I now be old, and
    of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make
    one. Though we are justices, and doctors, and churchmen,
    Master Page, we have some salt of our youth in us; we are
    the sons of women, Master Page.
  PAGE. 'Tis true, Master Shallow.
  SHALLOW. It will be found so, Master Page. Master Doctor
  CAIUS, I come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace;
    you have show'd yourself a wise physician, and Sir Hugh
    hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman. You
    must go with me, Master Doctor.
  HOST. Pardon, Guest Justice. A word, Mounseur Mockwater.
  CAIUS. Mock-vater! Vat is dat?
  HOST. Mockwater, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.
  CAIUS. By gar, then I have as much mockvater as de Englishman.
    Scurvy jack-dog priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.
  HOST. He will clapper-claw thee tightly, bully.
  CAIUS. Clapper-de-claw! Vat is dat?
  HOST. That is, he will make thee amends.
  CAIUS. By gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me; for,
    by gar, me vill have it.
  HOST. And I will provoke him to't, or let him wag.
  CAIUS. Me tank you for dat.
  HOST. And, moreover, bully-but first:  [Aside to the others]
    Master Guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaleiro Slender,
    go you through the town to Frogmore.
  PAGE.  [Aside]  Sir Hugh is there, is he?
  HOST.  [Aside]  He is there. See what humour he is in; and
    I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?
  SHALLOW.  [Aside]  We will do it.
  PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER. Adieu, good Master Doctor.
                               Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER
  CAIUS. By gar, me vill kill de priest; for he speak for a jack-
    an-ape to Anne Page.
  HOST. Let him die. Sheathe thy impatience; throw cold water
    on thy choler; go about the fields with me through Frogmore;
    I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, at a a
    farm-house, a-feasting; and thou shalt woo her. Cried
    game! Said I well?
  CAIUS. By gar, me dank you vor dat; by gar, I love you; and
    I shall procure-a you de good guest, de earl, de knight, de
    lords, de gentlemen, my patients.
  HOST. For the which I will be thy adversary toward Anne
    Page. Said I well?
  CAIUS. By gar, 'tis good; vell said.
  HOST. Let us wag, then.
  CAIUS. Come at my heels, Jack Rugby.                    Exeunt

ACT III SCENE 1.

A field near Frogmore

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE

  EVANS. I pray you now, good Master Slender's serving-man,
    and friend Simple by your name, which way have you
    look'd for Master Caius, that calls himself Doctor of
    Physic?
  SIMPLE. Marry, sir, the pittie-ward, the park-ward; every
    way; old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.
  EVANS. I most fehemently desire you you will also look that
    way.
  SIMPLE. I will, Sir.                                      Exit
  EVANS. Pless my soul, how full of chollors I am, and trempling
    of mind! I shall be glad if he have deceived me. How
    melancholies I am! I will knog his urinals about his knave's
    costard when I have goot opportunities for the ork. Pless
    my soul!                                             [Sings]
    To shallow rivers, to whose falls
    Melodious birds sings madrigals;
    There will we make our peds of roses,
    And a thousand fragrant posies.
    To shallow-
    Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.     [Sings]
    Melodious birds sing madrigals-
    Whenas I sat in Pabylon-
    And a thousand vagram posies.
    To shallow, etc.

                       Re-enter SIMPLE

  SIMPLE. Yonder he is, coming this way, Sir Hugh.
  EVANS. He's welcome.                                   [Sings]
    To shallow rivers, to whose falls-
    Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?
  SIMPLE. No weapons, sir. There comes my master, Master
    Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over the
    stile, this way.
  EVANS. Pray you give me my gown; or else keep it in your
    arms.                                     [Takes out a book]

               Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

  SHALLOW. How now, Master Parson! Good morrow, good
    Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student
     from his book, and it is wonderful.
  SLENDER.  [Aside]  Ah, sweet Anne Page!
  PAGE. Save you, good Sir Hugh!
  EVANS. Pless you from his mercy sake, all of you!
  SHALLOW. What, the sword and the word! Do you study
    them both, Master Parson?
  PAGE. And youthful still, in your doublet and hose, this raw
    rheumatic day!
  EVANS. There is reasons and causes for it.
  PAGE. We are come to you to do a good office, Master
    Parson.
  EVANS. Fery well; what is it?
  PAGE. Yonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike having
    received wrong by some person, is at most odds with
    his own gravity and patience that ever you saw.
  SHALLOW. I have lived fourscore years and upward; I never
    heard a man of his place, gravity, and learning, so wide of
    his own respect.
  EVANS. What is he?
  PAGE. I think you know him: Master Doctor Caius, the
    renowned French physician.
  EVANS. Got's will and his passion of my heart! I had as lief
    you would tell me of a mess of porridge.
  PAGE. Why?
  EVANS. He has no more knowledge in Hibocrates and
    Galen, and he is a knave besides-a cowardly knave as you
    would desires to be acquainted withal.
  PAGE. I warrant you, he's the man should fight with him.
  SLENDER.  [Aside]  O sweet Anne Page!
  SHALLOW. It appears so, by his weapons. Keep them asunder;
    here comes Doctor Caius.

                 Enter HOST, CAIUS, and RUGBY

  PAGE. Nay, good Master Parson, keep in your weapon.
  SHALLOW. So do you, good Master Doctor.
  HOST. Disarm them, and let them question; let them keep
    their limbs whole and hack our English.
  CAIUS. I pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear.
    Verefore will you not meet-a me?
  EVANS.  [Aside to CAIUS]  Pray you use your patience; in
    good time.
  CAIUS. By gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.
  EVANS.  [Aside to CAIUS]  Pray you, let us not be
    laughing-stocks to other men's humours; I desire you in
    friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.
    [Aloud]  I will knog your urinals about your knave's cogscomb
    for missing your meetings and appointments.
  CAIUS. Diable! Jack Rugby-mine Host de Jarteer-have I
    not stay for him to kill him? Have I not, at de place I did
    appoint?
  EVANS. As I am a Christians soul, now, look you, this is the
    place appointed. I'll be judgment by mine host of the
    Garter.
  HOST. Peace, I say, Gallia and Gaul, French and Welsh,
    soul-curer and body-curer.
  CAIUS. Ay, dat is very good! excellent!
  HOST. Peace, I say. Hear mine host of the Garter. Am I
    politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel? Shall I lose my
    doctor? No; he gives me the potions and the motions. Shall I
    lose my parson, my priest, my Sir Hugh? No; he gives me
    the proverbs and the noverbs. Give me thy hand, terrestrial;
    so. Give me thy hand, celestial; so. Boys of art, I have
    deceiv'd you both; I have directed you to wrong places;
    your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole, and let burnt
    sack be the issue. Come, lay their swords to pawn. Follow
    me, lads of peace; follow, follow, follow.
  SHALLOW. Trust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.
  SLENDER.  [Aside]  O sweet Anne Page!
                                  Exeunt all but CAIUS and EVANS
  CAIUS. Ha, do I perceive dat? Have you make-a de sot of us,
    ha, ha?
  EVANS. This is well; he has made us his vlouting-stog. I
    desire you that we may be friends; and let us knog our prains
    together to be revenge on this same scall, scurvy, cogging
    companion, the host of the Garter.
  CAIUS. By gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me
    where is Anne Page; by gar, he deceive me too.
  EVANS. Well, I will smite his noddles. Pray you follow.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 2.

The street in Windsor

Enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN

  MRS. PAGE. Nay, keep your way, little gallant; you were
    wont to be a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether
    had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master's heels?
  ROBIN. I had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man than
    follow him like a dwarf.
  MRS. PAGE. O, you are a flattering boy; now I see you'll be a
    courtier.

                          Enter FORD

  FORD. Well met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?
  MRS. PAGE. Truly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?
  FORD. Ay; and as idle as she may hang together, for want of
    company. I think, if your husbands were dead, you two
    would marry.
  MRS. PAGE. Be sure of that-two other husbands.
  FORD. Where had you this pretty weathercock?
  MRS. PAGE. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my
    husband had him of. What do you call your knight's
    name, sirrah?
  ROBIN. Sir John Falstaff.
  FORD. Sir John Falstaff!
  MRS. PAGE. He, he; I can never hit on's name. There is such
    a league between my good man and he! Is your wife at
    home indeed?
  FORD. Indeed she is.
  MRS. PAGE. By your leave, sir. I am sick till I see her.
                                      Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ROBIN
  FORD. Has Page any brains? Hath he any eyes? Hath he any
    thinking? Sure, they sleep; he hath no use of them. Why,
    this boy will carry a letter twenty mile as easy as a cannon
    will shoot pointblank twelve score. He pieces out his wife's
    inclination; he gives her folly motion and advantage; and
    now she's going to my wife, and Falstaff's boy with her. A
    man may hear this show'r sing in the wind. And Falstaff's
    boy with her! Good plots! They are laid; and our revolted
    wives share damnation together. Well; I will take him,
    then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty
    from the so seeming Mistress Page, divulge Page himself
    for a secure and wilful Actaeon; and to these violent proceedings
    all my neighbours shall cry aim.  [Clock strikes]
    The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me
    search; there I shall find Falstaff. I shall be rather prais'd
    for this than mock'd; for it is as positive as the earth is firm
    that Falstaff is there. I will go.

     Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, SLENDER, HOST, SIR HUGH EVANS,
                              CAIUS, and RUGBY

  SHALLOW, PAGE, &C. Well met, Master Ford.
  FORD. Trust me, a good knot; I have good cheer at home,
    and I pray you all go with me.
  SHALLOW. I must excuse myself, Master Ford.
  SLENDER. And so must I, sir; we have appointed to dine with
    Mistress Anne, and I would not break with her for more
    money than I'll speak of.
  SHALLOW. We have linger'd about a match between Anne
    Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have
    our answer.
  SLENDER. I hope I have your good will, father Page.
  PAGE. You have, Master Slender; I stand wholly for you. But
    my wife, Master Doctor, is for you altogether.
  CAIUS. Ay, be-gar; and de maid is love-a me; my nursh-a
    Quickly tell me so mush.
  HOST. What say you to young Master Fenton? He capers,
    he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks
    holiday, he smells April and May; he will carry 't, he will
    carry 't; 'tis in his buttons; he will carry 't.
  PAGE. Not by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is
    of no having: he kept company with the wild Prince and
    Poins; he is of too high a region, he knows too much. No,
    he shall not knit a knot in his fortunes with the finger of
    my substance; if he take her, let him take her simply; the
    wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes
    not that way.
  FORD. I beseech you, heartily, some of you go home with me
    to dinner: besides your cheer, you shall have sport; I will
    show you a monster. Master Doctor, you shall go; so shall
    you, Master Page; and you, Sir Hugh.
  SHALLOW. Well, fare you well; we shall have the freer
    wooing at Master Page's.          Exeunt SHALLOW and SLENDER
  CAIUS. Go home, John Rugby; I come anon.            Exit RUGBY
  HOST. Farewell, my hearts; I will to my honest knight
    Falstaff, and drink canary with him.               Exit HOST
  FORD.  [Aside]  I think I shall drink in pipe-wine first with
    him. I'll make him dance. Will you go, gentles?
  ALL. Have with you to see this monster.                 Exeunt

SCENE 3.

FORD'S house

Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE

  MRS. FORD. What, John! what, Robert!
  MRS. PAGE. Quickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket-
  MRS. FORD. I warrant. What, Robin, I say!

                 Enter SERVANTS with a basket

  MRS. PAGE. Come, come, come.
  MRS. FORD. Here, set it down.
  MRS. PAGE. Give your men the charge; we must be brief.
  MRS. FORD. Marry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be
    ready here hard by in the brew-house; and when I suddenly
    call you, come forth, and, without any pause or
    staggering, take this basket on your shoulders. That done,
    trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters
    in Datchet Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch
    close by the Thames side.
  Mrs. PAGE. You will do it?
  MRS. FORD. I ha' told them over and over; they lack no
    direction. Be gone, and come when you are call'd.
                                               Exeunt SERVANTS
  MRS. PAGE. Here comes little Robin.

                         Enter ROBIN

  MRS. FORD. How now, my eyas-musket, what news with
    you?
  ROBIN. My Master Sir John is come in at your back-door,
    Mistress Ford, and requests your company.
  MRS. PAGE. You little Jack-a-Lent, have you been true to us?
  ROBIN. Ay, I'll be sworn. My master knows not of your
    being here, and hath threat'ned to put me into everlasting
    liberty, if I tell you of it; for he swears he'll turn me away.
  MRS. PAGE. Thou 'rt a good boy; this secrecy of thine shall
    be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and
    hose. I'll go hide me.
  MRS. FORD. Do so. Go tell thy master I am alone.  [Exit
  ROBIN]  Mistress Page, remember you your cue.
  MRS. PAGE. I warrant thee; if I do not act it, hiss me.
                                                Exit MRS. PAGE
  MRS. FORD. Go to, then; we'll use this unwholesome
    humidity, this gross wat'ry pumpion; we'll teach him to
    know turtles from jays.

                      Enter FALSTAFF

  FALSTAFF. Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel?
    Why, now let me die, for I have liv'd long enough; this is
    the period of my ambition. O this blessed hour!
  MRS. FORD. O sweet Sir John!
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, I cannot cog, I cannot prate,
    Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish; I would thy
    husband were dead; I'll speak it before the best lord, I
    would make thee my lady.
  MRS. FORD. I your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful
    lady.
  FALSTAFF. Let the court of France show me such another. I
    see how thine eye would emulate the diamond; thou hast
    the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the
    ship-tire, the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.
  MRS. FORD. A plain kerchief, Sir John; my brows become
    nothing else, nor that well neither.
  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, thou art a tyrant to say so; thou
    wouldst make an absolute courtier, and the firm fixture of
    thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a
    semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert, if Fortune
    thy foe were, not Nature, thy friend. Come, thou canst not
    hide it.
  MRS. FORD. Believe me, there's no such thing in me.
  FALSTAFF. What made me love thee? Let that persuade thee
    there's something extra-ordinary in thee. Come, I cannot
    cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these
    lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men's
    apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I
    cannot; but I love thee, none but thee; and thou deserv'st it.
  MRS. FORD. Do not betray me, sir; I fear you love Mistress
    Page.
  FALSTAFF. Thou mightst as well say I love to walk by the
    Counter-gate, which is as hateful to me as the reek of a
    lime-kiln.
  MRS. FORD. Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you
    shall one day find it.
  FALSTAFF. Keep in that mind; I'll deserve it.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, I must tell you, so you do; or else I could
    not be in that mind.
  ROBIN.  [Within]  Mistress Ford, Mistress Ford! here's
    Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing and looking
    wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.
  FALSTAFF. She shall not see me; I will ensconce me behind
    the arras.
  MRS. FORD. Pray you, do so; she's a very tattling woman.
                                      [FALSTAFF hides himself]

               Re-enter MISTRESS PAGE and ROBIN

    What's the matter? How now!
  MRS. PAGE. O Mistress Ford, what have you done? You're
    sham'd, y'are overthrown, y'are undone for ever.
  MRS. FORD. What's the matter, good Mistress Page?
  MRS. PAGE. O well-a-day, Mistress Ford, having an honest
    man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!
  MRS. FORD. What cause of suspicion?
  MRS. PAGE. What cause of suspicion? Out upon you, how
    am I mistook in you!
  MRS. FORD. Why, alas, what's the matter?
  MRS. PAGE. Your husband's coming hither, woman, with all
    the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he
    says is here now in the house, by your consent, to take an
    ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.
  MRS. FORD. 'Tis not so, I hope.
  MRS. PAGE. Pray heaven it be not so that you have such a
    man here; but 'tis most certain your husband's coming,
    with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I
    come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear, why,
    I am glad of it; but if you have a friend here, convey,
    convey him out. Be not amaz'd; call all your senses to you;
    defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life
    for ever.
  MRS. FORD. What shall I do? There is a gentleman, my dear
    friend; and I fear not mine own shame as much as his peril.
    I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the
    house.
  MRS. PAGE. For shame, never stand 'you had rather' and 'you
    had rather'! Your husband's here at hand; bethink you of
    some conveyance; in the house you cannot hide him. O,
    how have you deceiv'd me! Look, here is a basket; if he be
    of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here; and throw
    foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking, or-it is
    whiting-time-send him by your two men to Datchet
    Mead.
  MRS. FORD. He's too big to go in there. What shall I do?
  FALSTAFF.  [Coming forward]  Let me see 't, let me see 't. O,
    let me see 't! I'll in, I'll in; follow your friend's counsel;
    I'll in.
  MRS. PAGE. What, Sir John Falstaff!      [Aside to FALSTAFF]
    Are these your letters, knight?
  FALSTAFF.  [Aside to MRS. PAGE]  I love thee and none but
    thee; help me away.-Let me creep in here; I'll never-
    [Gets into the basket; they cover him with foul linen]
  MRS. PAGE. Help to cover your master, boy. Call your men,
    Mistress Ford. You dissembling knight!
  MRS. FORD. What, John! Robert! John!                Exit ROBIN

                 Re-enter SERVANTS

    Go, take up these clothes here, quickly; where's the cowl-staff?
    Look how you drumble. Carry them to the laundress in Datchet Mead;
    quickly, come.

         Enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  FORD. Pray you come near. If I suspect without cause, why
    then make sport at me, then let me be your jest; I deserve
    it. How now, whither bear you this?
  SERVANT. To the laundress, forsooth.
  MRS. FORD. Why, what have you to do whither they bear it?
    You were best meddle with buck-washing.
  FORD. Buck? I would I could wash myself of the buck!
    Buck, buck, buck! ay, buck! I warrant you, buck; and of
    the season too, it shall appear.  [Exeunt SERVANTS with
    basket]  Gentlemen, I have dream'd to-night; I'll tell you my
    dream. Here, here, here be my keys; ascend my chambers,
    search, seek, find out. I'll warrant we'll unkennel the fox.
    Let me stop this way first.  [Locking the door]  So, now
    uncape.
  PAGE. Good Master Ford, be contented; you wrong yourself
    too much.
  FORD. True, Master Page. Up, gentlemen, you shall see sport
    anon; follow me, gentlemen.                             Exit
  EVANS. This is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.
  CAIUS. By gar, 'tis no the fashion of France; it is not jealous
    in France.
  PAGE. Nay, follow him, gentlemen; see the issue of his
    search.                        Exeunt EVANS, PAGE, and CAIUS
  MRS. PAGE. Is there not a double excellency in this?
  MRS. FORD. I know not which pleases me better, that my
    husband is deceived, or Sir John.
  MRS. PAGE. What a taking was he in when your husband
    ask'd who was in the basket!
  MRS. FORD. I am half afraid he will have need of washing; so
    throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.
  MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the
    same strain were in the same distress.
  MRS. FORD. I think my husband hath some special suspicion
    of Falstaff's being here, for I never saw him so gross in his
    jealousy till now.
  MRS. PAGE. I Will lay a plot to try that, and we will yet have
    more tricks with Falstaff. His dissolute disease will scarce
    obey this medicine.
  MRS. FORD. Shall we send that foolish carrion, Mistress
    Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water,
    and give him another hope, to betray him to another
    punishment?
  MRS. PAGE. We will do it; let him be sent for to-morrow
    eight o'clock, to have amends.

       Re-enter FORD, PAGE, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  FORD. I cannot find him; may be the knave bragg'd of that
    he could not compass.
  MRS. PAGE.  [Aside to MRS. FORD]  Heard you that?
  MRS. FORD. You use me well, Master Ford, do you?
  FORD. Ay, I do so.
  MRS. FORD. Heaven make you better than your thoughts!
  FORD. Amen.
  MRS. PAGE. You do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.
  FORD. Ay, ay; I must bear it.
  EVANS. If there be any pody in the house, and in the
    chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses, heaven forgive
    my sins at the day of judgment!
  CAIUS. Be gar, nor I too; there is no bodies.
  PAGE. Fie, fie, Master Ford, are you not asham'd? What
    spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha'
    your distemper in this kind for the wealth of Windsor
    Castle.
  FORD. 'Tis my fault, Master Page; I suffer for it.
  EVANS. You suffer for a pad conscience. Your wife is as
    honest a omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five
    hundred too.
  CAIUS. By gar, I see 'tis an honest woman.
  FORD. Well, I promis'd you a dinner. Come, come, walk in
    the Park. I pray you pardon me; I will hereafter make
    known to you why I have done this. Come, wife, come,
    Mistress Page; I pray you pardon me; pray heartly,
    pardon me.
  PAGE. Let's go in, gentlemen; but, trust me, we'll mock him.
    I do invite you to-morrow morning to my house to breakfast;
    after, we'll a-birding together; I have a fine hawk for
    the bush. Shall it be so?
  FORD. Any thing.
  EVANS. If there is one, I shall make two in the company.
  CAIUS. If there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.
  FORD. Pray you go, Master Page.
  EVANS. I pray you now, remembrance to-morrow on the
    lousy knave, mine host.
  CAIUS. Dat is good; by gar, with all my heart.
  EVANS. A lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries!
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 4.

Before PAGE'S house

Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE

  FENTON. I see I cannot get thy father's love;
    Therefore no more turn me to him, sweet Nan.
  ANNE. Alas, how then?
  FENTON. Why, thou must be thyself.
    He doth object I am too great of birth;
    And that, my state being gall'd with my expense,
    I seek to heal it only by his wealth.
    Besides these, other bars he lays before me,
    My riots past, my wild societies;
    And tells me 'tis a thing impossible
    I should love thee but as a property.
  ANNE.. May be he tells you true.
  FENTON. No, heaven so speed me in my time to come!
    Albeit I will confess thy father's wealth
    Was the first motive that I woo'd thee, Anne;
    Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value
    Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bags;
    And 'tis the very riches of thyself
    That now I aim at.
  ANNE. Gentle Master Fenton,
    Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir.
    If opportunity and humblest suit
    Cannot attain it, why then-hark you hither.
                                           [They converse apart]

        Enter SHALLOW, SLENDER, and MISTRESS QUICKLY

  SHALLOW. Break their talk, Mistress Quickly; my kinsman
    shall speak for himself.
  SLENDER. I'll make a shaft or a bolt on 't; 'slid, 'tis but
    venturing.
  SHALLOW. Be not dismay'd.
  SLENDER. No, she shall not dismay me. I care not for that,
    but that I am afeard.
  QUICKLY. Hark ye, Master Slender would speak a word
    with you.
  ANNE. I come to him.  [Aside]  This is my father's choice.
    O, what a world of vile ill-favour'd faults
    Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
  QUICKLY. And how does good Master Fenton? Pray you, a
    word with you.
  SHALLOW. She's coming; to her, coz. O boy, thou hadst a
    father!
  SLENDER. I had a father, Mistress Anne; my uncle can tell
    you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne
    the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good
    uncle.
  SHALLOW. Mistress Anne, my cousin loves you.
  SLENDER. Ay, that I do; as well as I love any woman in
    Gloucestershire.
  SHALLOW. He will maintain you like a gentlewoman.
  SLENDER. Ay, that I will come cut and longtail, under the
    degree of a squire.
  SHALLOW. He will make you a hundred and fifty pounds
    jointure.
  ANNE. Good Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.
  SHALLOW. Marry, I thank you for it; I thank you for that
    good comfort. She calls you, coz; I'll leave you.
  ANNE. Now, Master Slender-
  SLENDER. Now, good Mistress Anne-
  ANNE. What is your will?
  SLENDER. My Will! 'Od's heartlings, that's a pretty jest
    indeed! I ne'er made my will yet, I thank heaven; I am not
    such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.
  ANNE. I mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?
  SLENDER. Truly, for mine own part I would little or nothing
    with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions;
    if it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole! They
    can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask
    your father; here he comes.

            Enter PAGE and MISTRESS PAGE

  PAGE. Now, Master Slender! Love him, daughter Anne-
    Why, how now, what does Master Fenton here?
    You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt my house.
    I told you, sir, my daughter is dispos'd of.
  FENTON. Nay, Master Page, be not impatient.
  MRS. PAGE. Good Master Fenton, come not to my child.
  PAGE. She is no match for you.
  FENTON. Sir, will you hear me?
  PAGE. No, good Master Fenton.
    Come, Master Shallow; come, son Slender; in.
    Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.
                               Exeunt PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER
  QUICKLY. Speak to Mistress Page.
  FENTON. Good Mistress Page, for that I love your daughter
    In such a righteous fashion as I do,
    Perforce, against all checks, rebukes, and manners,
    I must advance the colours of my love,
    And not retire. Let me have your good will.
  ANNE. Good mother, do not marry me to yond fool.
  MRS. PAGE. I mean it not; I seek you a better husband.
  QUICKLY. That's my master, Master Doctor.
  ANNE. Alas, I had rather be set quick i' th' earth.
    And bowl'd to death with turnips.
  MRS. PAGE. Come, trouble not yourself. Good Master
    Fenton,
    I will not be your friend, nor enemy;
    My daughter will I question how she loves you,
    And as I find her, so am I affected;
    Till then, farewell, sir; she must needs go in;
    Her father will be angry.
  FENTON. Farewell, gentle mistress; farewell, Nan.
                                       Exeunt MRS. PAGE and ANNE
  QUICKLY. This is my doing now: 'Nay,' said I 'will you cast
    away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on
    Master Fenton.' This is my doing.
  FENTON. I thank thee; and I pray thee, once to-night
    Give my sweet Nan this ring. There's for thy pains.
  QUICKLY. Now Heaven send thee good fortune!  [Exit
    FENTON]  A kind heart he hath; a woman would run through
    fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my
    master had Mistress Anne; or I would Master Slender had
    her; or, in sooth, I would Master Fenton had her; I will
    do what I can for them all three, for so I have promis'd,
    and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master
    Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff
    from my two mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it!
 Exit

SCENE 5.

The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH

  FALSTAFF. Bardolph, I say!
  BARDOLPH. Here, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in 't.
                                                   Exit BARDOLPH
    Have I liv'd to be carried in a basket, like a barrow of
    butcher's offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if
    I be serv'd such another trick, I'll have my brains ta'en out
    and butter'd, and give them to a dog for a new-year's gift.
    The rogues slighted me into the river with as little remorse
    as they would have drown'd a blind bitch's puppies, fifteen
    i' th' litter; and you may know by my size that I have
    a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as
    hell I should down. I had been drown'd but that the shore
    was shelvy and shallow-a death that I abhor; for the water
    swells a man; and what a thing should I have been when
    had been swell'd! I should have been a mountain of
    mummy.

                  Re-enter BARDOLPH, with sack

  BARDOLPH. Here's Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you
  FALSTAFF. Come, let me pour in some sack to the Thames
    water; for my belly's as cold as if I had swallow'd
    snowballs for pills to cool the reins. Call her in.
  BARDOLPH. Come in, woman.

                     Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

  QUICKLY. By your leave; I cry you mercy. Give your
    worship good morrow.
  FALSTAFF. Take away these chalices. Go, brew me a pottle
    of sack finely.
  BARDOLPH. With eggs, sir?
  FALSTAFF. Simple of itself; I'll no pullet-sperm in my
    brewage.  [Exit BARDOLPH]  How now!
  QUICKLY. Marry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress
    Ford.
  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford! I have had ford enough; I was
    thrown into the ford; I have my belly full of ford.
  QUICKLY. Alas the day, good heart, that was not her fault!
    She does so take on with her men; they mistook their
    erection.
  FALSTAFF. So did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman's
    promise.
  QUICKLY. Well, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn
    your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning
    a-birding; she desires you once more to come to her between
    eight and nine; I must carry her word quickly. She'll make
    you amends, I warrant you.
  FALSTAFF. Well, I Will visit her. Tell her so; and bid her
    think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty, and then
    judge of my merit.
  QUICKLY. I will tell her.
  FALSTAFF. Do so. Between nine and ten, say'st thou?
  QUICKLY. Eight and nine, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Well, be gone; I will not miss her.
  QUICKLY. Peace be with you, sir.                          Exit
  FALSTAFF. I marvel I hear not of Master Brook; he sent me
    word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he
    comes.

                       Enter FORD disguised

  FORD. Bless you, sir!
  FALSTAFF. Now, Master Brook, you come to know what
    hath pass'd between me and Ford's wife?
  FORD. That, indeed, Sir John, is my business.
  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will not lie to you; I was at her
    house the hour she appointed me.
  FORD. And sped you, sir?
  FALSTAFF. Very ill-favouredly, Master Brook.
  FORD. How so, sir; did she change her determination?
  FALSTAFF. No. Master Brook; but the peaking cornuto her
    husband, Master Brook, dwelling in a continual 'larum of
    jealousy, comes me in the instant of our, encounter, after
    we had embrac'd, kiss'd, protested, and, as it were, spoke
    the prologue of our comedy; and at his heels a rabble of his
    companions, thither provoked and instigated by his
    distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife's
    love.
  FORD. What, while you were there?
  FALSTAFF. While I was there.
  FORD. And did he search for you, and could not find you?
  FALSTAFF. You shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes
    in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford's approach;
    and, in her invention and Ford's wife's distraction, they
    convey'd me into a buck-basket.
  FORD. A buck-basket!
  FALSTAFF. By the Lord, a buck-basket! Ramm'd me in with
    foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy
    napkins, that, Master Brook, there was the rankest compound
    of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.
  FORD. And how long lay you there?
  FALSTAFF. Nay, you shall hear, Master Brook, what I have
    suffer'd to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being
    thus cramm'd in the basket, a couple of Ford's knaves, his
    hinds, were call'd forth by their mistress to carry me in
    the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane; they took me on
    their shoulders; met the jealous knave their master in the
    door; who ask'd them once or twice what they had in their
    basket. I quak'd for fear lest the lunatic knave would have
    search'd it; but Fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold,
    held his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away
    went I for foul clothes. But mark the sequel, Master
    Brook-I suffered the pangs of three several deaths: first,
    an intolerable fright to be detected with a jealous rotten
    bell-wether; next, to be compass'd like a good bilbo in the
    circumference of a peck, hilt to point, heel to head; and
    then, to be stopp'd in, like a strong distillation, with
    stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that
    -a man of my kidney. Think of that-that am as subject to
    heat as butter; a man of continual dissolution and thaw. It
    was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of
    this bath, when I was more than half-stew'd in grease, like
    a Dutch dish, to be thrown into the Thames, and cool'd,
    glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that
    -hissing hot. Think of that, Master Brook.
  FORD. In good sadness, sir, I am sorry that for my sake you
    have suffer'd all this. My suit, then, is desperate;
    you'll undertake her no more.
  FALSTAFF. Master Brook, I will be thrown into Etna, as I
    have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her
    husband is this morning gone a-birding; I have received from
    her another embassy of meeting; 'twixt eight and nine is
    the hour, Master Brook.
  FORD. 'Tis past eight already, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Is it? I Will then address me to my appointment.
    Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall
    know how I speed; and the conclusion shall be crowned
    with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master
    Brook; Master Brook, you shall cuckold Ford.            Exit
  FORD. Hum! ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep?
    Master Ford, awake; awake, Master Ford. There's a hole
    made in your best coat, Master Ford. This 'tis to be
    married; this 'tis to have linen and buck-baskets! Well, I will
    proclaim myself what I am; I will now take the lecher; he
    is at my house. He cannot scape me; 'tis impossible he
    should; he cannot creep into a halfpenny purse nor into
    a pepper box. But, lest the devil that guides him should aid
    him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am I
    cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make
    me tame. If I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb
    go with me-I'll be horn mad.                            Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Windsor. A street

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS QUICKLY, and WILLIAM

  MRS. PAGE. Is he at Master Ford's already, think'st thou?
  QUICKLY. Sure he is by this; or will be presently; but truly
    he is very courageous mad about his throwing into the
    water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.
  MRS. PAGE. I'll be with her by and by; I'll but bring my
    young man here to school. Look where his master comes;
    'tis a playing day, I see.

                     Enter SIR HUGH EVANS

    How now, Sir Hugh, no school to-day?
  EVANS. No; Master Slender is let the boys leave to play.
  QUICKLY. Blessing of his heart!
  MRS. PAGE. Sir Hugh, my husband says my son profits
    nothing in the world at his book; I pray you ask him some
    questions in his accidence.
  EVANS. Come hither, William; hold up your head; come.
  MRS. PAGE. Come on, sirrah; hold up your head; answer your
    master; be not afraid.
  EVANS. William, how many numbers is in nouns?
  WILLIAM. Two.
  QUICKLY. Truly, I thought there had been one number
    more, because they say 'Od's nouns.'
  EVANS. Peace your tattlings. What is 'fair,' William?
  WILLIAM. Pulcher.
  QUICKLY. Polecats! There are fairer things than polecats,
    sure.
  EVANS. You are a very simplicity oman; I pray you, peace.
    What is 'lapis,' William?
  WILLIAM. A stone.
  EVANS. And what is 'a stone,' William?
  WILLIAM. A pebble.
  EVANS. No, it is 'lapis'; I pray you remember in your prain.
  WILLIAM. Lapis.
  EVANS. That is a good William. What is he, William, that
    does lend articles?
  WILLIAM. Articles are borrowed of the pronoun, and be
    thus declined: Singulariter, nominativo; hic, haec, hoc.
  EVANS. Nominativo, hig, hag, hog; pray you, mark: genitivo,
    hujus. Well, what is your accusative case?
  WILLIAM. Accusativo, hinc.
  EVANS. I pray you, have your remembrance, child.
    Accusativo, hung, hang, hog.
  QUICKLY. 'Hang-hog' is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.
  EVANS. Leave your prabbles, oman. What is the focative
    case, William?
  WILLIAM. O-vocativo, O.
  EVANS. Remember, William: focative is caret.
  QUICKLY. And that's a good root.
  EVANS. Oman, forbear.
  MRS. PAGE. Peace.
  EVANS. What is your genitive case plural, William?
  WILLIAM. Genitive case?
  EVANS. Ay.
  WILLIAM. Genitive: horum, harum, horum.
  QUICKLY. Vengeance of Jenny's case; fie on her! Never
    name her, child, if she be a whore.
  EVANS. For shame, oman.
  QUICKLY. YOU do ill to teach the child such words. He
    teaches him to hick and to hack, which they'll do fast
    enough of themselves; and to call 'horum'; fie upon you!
  EVANS. Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings
    for thy cases, and the numbers of the genders? Thou
    art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.
  MRS. PAGE. Prithee hold thy peace.
  EVANS. Show me now, William, some declensions of your
    pronouns.
  WILLIAM. Forsooth, I have forgot.
  EVANS. It is qui, quae, quod; if you forget your qui's, your
    quae's, and your quod's, you must be preeches. Go your
    ways and play; go.
  MRS. PAGE. He is a better scholar than I thought he was.
  EVANS. He is a good sprag memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.
  MRS. PAGE. Adieu, good Sir Hugh.                 Exit SIR HUGH
    Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.            Exeunt

SCENE 2.

FORD'S house

Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS FORD

  FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my
    sufferance. I see you are obsequious in your love, and I
    profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in
    the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement,
    complement, and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your
    husband now?
  MRS. FORD. He's a-birding, sweet Sir John.
  MRS. PAGE.  [Within]  What hoa, gossip Ford, what hoa!
  MRS. FORD. Step into th' chamber, Sir John.      Exit FALSTAFF

                      Enter MISTRESS PAGE

  MRS. PAGE. How now, sweetheart, who's at home besides
    yourself?
  MRS. FORD. Why, none but mine own people.
  MRS. PAGE. Indeed?
  MRS. FORD. No, certainly.  [Aside to her]  Speak louder.
  MRS. PAGE. Truly, I am so glad you have nobody here.
  MRS. FORD. Why?
  MRS. PAGE. Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes
    again. He so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails
    against all married mankind; so curses an Eve's daughters,
    of what complexion soever; and so buffets himself on the
    forehead, crying 'Peer-out, peer-out!' that any madness I
    ever yet beheld seem'd but tameness, civility, and patience,
    to this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight
    is not here.
  MRS. FORD. Why, does he talk of him?
  MRS. PAGE. Of none but him; and swears he was carried out,
    the last time he search'd for him, in a basket; protests to
    my husband he is now here; and hath drawn him and the
    rest of their company from their sport, to make another
    experiment of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not
    here; now he shall see his own foolery.
  MRS. FORD. How near is he, Mistress Page?
  MRS. PAGE. Hard by, at street end; he will be here anon.
  MRS. FORD. I am undone: the knight is here.
  MRS. PAGE. Why, then, you are utterly sham'd, and he's but
    a dead man. What a woman are you! Away with him,
    away with him; better shame than murder.
  MRS. FORD. Which way should he go? How should I bestow
    him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

                  Re-enter FALSTAFF

  FALSTAFF. No, I'll come no more i' th' basket. May I not go
    out ere he come?
  MRS. PAGE. Alas, three of Master Ford's brothers watch the
    door with pistols, that none shall issue out; otherwise you
    might slip away ere he came. But what make you here?
  FALSTAFF. What shall I do? I'll creep up into the chimney.
  MRS. FORD. There they always use to discharge their
    birding-pieces.
  MRS. PAGE. Creep into the kiln-hole.
  FALSTAFF. Where is it?
  MRS. FORD. He will seek there, on my word. Neither press,
    coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract for
    the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his
    note. There is no hiding you in the house.
  FALSTAFF. I'll go out then.
  MRS. PAGE. If you go out in your own semblance, you die,
    Sir John. Unless you go out disguis'd.
  MRS. FORD. How might we disguise him?
  MRS. PAGE. Alas the day, I know not! There is no woman's
    gown big enough for him; otherwise he might put on a
    hat, a muffler, and a kerchief, and so escape.
  FALSTAFF. Good hearts, devise something; any extremity
    rather than a mischief.
  MRS. FORD. My Maid's aunt, the fat woman of Brainford, has
    a gown above.
  MRS. PAGE. On my word, it will serve him; she's as big as he
    is; and there's her thrumm'd hat, and her muffler too. Run
    up, Sir John.
  MRS. FORD. Go, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will
    look some linen for your head.
  MRS. PAGE. Quick, quick; we'll come dress you straight. Put
    on the gown the while.                         Exit FALSTAFF
  MRS. FORD. I would my husband would meet him in this
    shape; he cannot abide the old woman of Brainford; he
    swears she's a witch, forbade her my house, and hath
    threat'ned to beat her.
  MRS. PAGE. Heaven guide him to thy husband's cudgel; and
    the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!
  MRS. FORD. But is my husband coming?
  MRS. PAGE. Ay, in good sadness is he; and talks of the basket
    too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.
  MRS. FORD. We'll try that; for I'll appoint my men to carry
    the basket again, to meet him at the door with it as they
    did last time.
  MRS. PAGE. Nay, but he'll be here presently; let's go dress
    him like the witch of Brainford.
  MRS. FORD. I'll first direct my men what they shall do with
    the basket. Go up; I'll bring linen for him straight.   Exit
  MRS. PAGE. Hang him, dishonest varlet! we cannot misuse
    him enough.
    We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do,
    Wives may be merry and yet honest too.
    We do not act that often jest and laugh;
    'Tis old but true: Still swine eats all the draff.      Exit

            Re-enter MISTRESS FORD, with two SERVANTS

  MRS. FORD. Go, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders;
    your master is hard at door; if he bid you set it down, obey
    him; quickly, dispatch.                                 Exit
  FIRST SERVANT. Come, come, take it up.
  SECOND SERVANT. Pray heaven it be not full of knight again.
  FIRST SERVANT. I hope not; I had lief as bear so much lead.

    Enter FORD, PAGE, SHALLOW, CAIUS, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  FORD. Ay, but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any
    way then to unfool me again? Set down the basket, villain!
    Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O you panderly
    rascals, there's a knot, a ging, a pack, a conspiracy
    against me. Now shall the devil be sham'd. What, wife, I
    say! Come, come forth; behold what honest clothes you
    send forth to bleaching.
  PAGE. Why, this passes, Master Ford; you are not to go loose
    any longer; you must be pinion'd.
  EVANS. Why, this is lunatics. This is mad as a mad dog.
  SHALLOW. Indeed, Master Ford, this is not well, indeed.
  FORD. So say I too, sir.

                     Re-enter MISTRESS FORD

    Come hither, Mistress Ford; Mistress Ford, the honest
    woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath
    the jealous fool to her husband! I suspect without cause,
    Mistress, do I?
  MRS. FORD. Heaven be my witness, you do, if you suspect
    me in any dishonesty.
  FORD. Well said, brazen-face; hold it out. Come forth, sirrah.
                           [Pulling clothes out of the basket]
  PAGE. This passes!
  MRS. FORD. Are you not asham'd? Let the clothes alone.
  FORD. I shall find you anon.
  EVANS. 'Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife's
    clothes? Come away.
  FORD. Empty the basket, I say.
  MRS. FORD. Why, man, why?
  FORD. Master Page, as I am a man, there was one convey'd
    out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not
    he be there again? In my house I am sure he is; my
    intelligence is true; my jealousy is reasonable.
    Pluck me out all the linen.
  MRS. FORD. If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's
    death.
  PAGE. Here's no man.
  SHALLOW. By my fidelity, this is not well, Master Ford; this
    wrongs you.
  EVANS. Master Ford, you must pray, and not follow the
    imaginations of your own heart; this is jealousies.
  FORD. Well, he's not here I seek for.
  PAGE. No, nor nowhere else but in your brain.
  FORD. Help to search my house this one time. If I find not
    what I seek, show no colour for my extremity; let me for
    ever be your table sport; let them say of me 'As jealous as
    Ford, that search'd a hollow walnut for his wife's leman.'
    Satisfy me once more; once more search with me.
  MRS. FORD. What, hoa, Mistress Page! Come you and the old
    woman down; my husband will come into the chamber.
  FORD. Old woman? what old woman's that?
  MRS. FORD. Why, it is my maid's aunt of Brainford.
  FORD. A witch, a quean, an old cozening quean! Have I not
    forbid her my house? She comes of errands, does she? We
    are simple men; we do not know what's brought to pass
    under the profession of fortune-telling. She works by
    charms, by spells, by th' figure, and such daub'ry as this
    is, beyond our element. We know nothing. Come down, you
    witch, you hag you; come down, I say.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, good sweet husband! Good gentlemen, let
    him not strike the old woman.

   Re-enter FALSTAFF in woman's clothes, and MISTRESS PAGE

  MRS. PAGE. Come, Mother Prat; come. give me your hand.
  FORD. I'll prat her.  [Beating him]  Out of my door, you
    witch, you hag, you. baggage, you polecat, you ronyon!
    Out, out! I'll conjure you, I'll fortune-tell you.
                                                   Exit FALSTAFF
  MRS. PAGE. Are you not asham'd? I think you have kill'd the
    poor woman.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, he will do it. 'Tis a goodly credit for you.
  FORD. Hang her, witch!
  EVANS. By yea and no, I think the oman is a witch indeed; I
    like not when a oman has a great peard; I spy a great peard
    under his muffler.
  FORD. Will you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you follow;
    see but the issue of my jealousy; if I cry out thus upon no
    trail, never trust me when I open again.
  PAGE. Let's obey his humour a little further. Come,
    gentlemen.            Exeunt all but MRS. FORD and MRS. PAGE
  MRS. PAGE. Trust me, he beat him most pitifully.
  MRS. FORD. Nay, by th' mass, that he did not; he beat him
    most unpitifully methought.
  MRS. PAGE. I'll have the cudgel hallow'd and hung o'er the
    altar; it hath done meritorious service.
  MRS. FORD. What think you? May we, with the warrant of
    womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue
    him with any further revenge?
  MRS. PAGE. The spirit of wantonness is sure scar'd out of
    him; if the devil have him not in fee-simple, with fine and
    recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste,
    attempt us again.
  MRS. FORD. Shall we tell our husbands how we have serv'd
    him?
  MRS. PAGE. Yes, by all means; if it be but to scrape the
    figures out of your husband's brains. If they can find in their
    hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further
    afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.
  MRS. FORD. I'll warrant they'll have him publicly sham'd;
    and methinks there would be no period to the jest, should
    he not be publicly sham'd.
  MRS. PAGE. Come, to the forge with it then; shape it. I
    would not have things cool.                           Exeunt

SCENE 3.

The Garter Inn

Enter HOST and BARDOLPH

  BARDOLPH. Sir, the Germans desire to have three of your
    horses; the Duke himself will be to-morrow at court, and
    they are going to meet him.
  HOST. What duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear
    not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen;
    they speak English?
  BARDOLPH. Ay, sir; I'll call them to you.
  HOST. They shall have my horses, but I'll make them pay;
    I'll sauce them; they have had my house a week at
    command; I have turn'd away my other guests. They must
    come off; I'll sauce them. Come.                      Exeunt

SCENE 4

FORD'S house

Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and SIR HUGH EVANS

  EVANS. 'Tis one of the best discretions of a oman as ever
    did look upon.
  PAGE. And did he send you both these letters at an instant?
  MRS. PAGE. Within a quarter of an hour.
  FORD. Pardon me, wife. Henceforth, do what thou wilt;
    I rather will suspect the sun with cold
    Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,
    In him that was of late an heretic,
    As firm as faith.
  PAGE. 'Tis well, 'tis well; no more.
    Be not as extreme in submission as in offence;
    But let our plot go forward. Let our wives
    Yet once again, to make us public sport,
    Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,
    Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.
  FORD. There is no better way than that they spoke of.
  PAGE. How? To send him word they'll meet him in the Park
    at midnight? Fie, fie! he'll never come!
  EVANS. You say he has been thrown in the rivers; and has
    been grievously peaten as an old oman; methinks there
    should be terrors in him, that he should not come;
    methinks his flesh is punish'd; he shall have no desires.
  PAGE. So think I too.
  MRS. FORD. Devise but how you'll use him when he comes,
    And let us two devise to bring him thither.
  MRS. PAGE. There is an old tale goes that Heme the Hunter,
    Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,
    Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,
    Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
    And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
    And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
    In a most hideous and dreadful manner.
    You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know
    The superstitious idle-headed eld
    Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
    This tale of Heme the Hunter for a truth.
  PAGE. Why yet there want not many that do fear
    In deep of night to walk by this Herne's oak.
    But what of this?
  MRS. FORD. Marry, this is our device-
    That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,
    Disguis'd, like Heme, with huge horns on his head.
  PAGE. Well, let it not be doubted but he'll come,
    And in this shape. When you have brought him thither,
    What shall be done with him? What is your plot?
  MRS. PAGE. That likewise have we thought upon, and
    thus:
    Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,
    And three or four more of their growth, we'll dress
    Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,
    With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,
    And rattles in their hands; upon a sudden,
    As Falstaff, she, and I, are newly met,
    Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once
    With some diffused song; upon their sight
    We two in great amazedness will fly.
    Then let them all encircle him about,
    And fairy-like, to pinch the unclean knight;
    And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,
    In their so sacred paths he dares to tread
    In shape profane.
  MRS. FORD. And till he tell the truth,
    Let the supposed fairies pinch him sound,
    And burn him with their tapers.
  MRS. PAGE. The truth being known,
    We'll all present ourselves; dis-horn the spirit,
    And mock him home to Windsor.
  FORD. The children must
    Be practis'd well to this or they'll nev'r do 't.
  EVANS. I will teach the children their behaviours; and I will
    be like a jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my
    taber.
  FORD. That will be excellent. I'll go buy them vizards.
  MRS. PAGE. My Nan shall be the Queen of all the Fairies,
    Finely attired in a robe of white.
  PAGE. That silk will I go buy.  [Aside]  And in that time
    Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,
    And marry her at Eton.-Go, send to Falstaff straight.
  FORD. Nay, I'll to him again, in name of Brook;
    He'll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he'll come.
  MRS. PAGE. Fear not you that. Go get us properties
    And tricking for our fairies.
  EVANS. Let us about it. It is admirable pleasures, and fery
    honest knaveries.               Exeunt PAGE, FORD, and EVANS
  MRS. PAGE. Go, Mistress Ford.
    Send Quickly to Sir John to know his mind.
                                                  Exit MRS. FORD
    I'll to the Doctor; he hath my good will,
    And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.
    That Slender, though well landed, is an idiot;
    And he my husband best of all affects.
    The Doctor is well money'd, and his friends
    Potent at court; he, none but he, shall have her,
    Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.      Exit

SCENE 5.

The Garter Inn

Enter HOST and SIMPLE

  HOST. What wouldst thou have, boor? What, thick-skin?
    Speak, breathe, discuss; brief, short, quick, snap.
  SIMPLE. Marry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff
    from Master Slender.
  HOST. There's his chamber, his house, his castle, his
    standing-bed and truckle-bed; 'tis painted about with the
    story of the Prodigal, fresh and new. Go, knock and can; he'll
    speak like an Anthropophaginian unto thee. Knock, I say.
  SIMPLE. There's an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into
    his chamber; I'll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down;
    I come to speak with her, indeed.
  HOST. Ha! a fat woman? The knight may be robb'd. I'll call.
    Bully knight! Bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs
    military. Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian, calls.
  FALSTAFF.  [Above]  How now, mine host?
  HOST. Here's a Bohemian-Tartar tarries the coming down of
    thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend;
    my chambers are honourible. Fie, privacy, fie!

                    Enter FALSTAFF

  FALSTAFF. There was, mine host, an old fat woman even
    now with, me; but she's gone.
  SIMPLE. Pray you, sir, was't not the wise woman of
    Brainford?
  FALSTAFF. Ay, marry was it, mussel-shell. What would you
    with her?
  SIMPLE. My master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her,
    seeing her go thorough the streets, to know, sir, whether one
    Nym, sir, that beguil'd him of a chain, had the chain or no.
  FALSTAFF. I spake with the old woman about it.
  SIMPLE. And what says she, I pray, sir?
  FALSTAFF Marry, she says that the very same man that
    beguil'd Master Slender of his chain cozen'd him of it.
  SIMPLE. I would I could have spoken with the woman
    herself; I had other things to have spoken with her too,
    from him.
  FALSTAFF. What are they? Let us know.
  HOST. Ay, come; quick.
  SIMPLE. I may not conceal them, sir.
  FALSTAFF. Conceal them, or thou diest.
    SIMPLE.. Why, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress
    Anne Page: to know if it were my master's fortune to
    have her or no.
  FALSTAFF. 'Tis, 'tis his fortune.
  SIMPLE. What sir?
  FALSTAFF. To have her, or no. Go; say the woman told me
    so.
  SIMPLE. May I be bold to say so, sir?
  FALSTAFF. Ay, sir, like who more bold?
  SIMPLE., I thank your worship; I shall make my master glad
    with these tidings.                              Exit SIMPLE
  HOST. Thou art clerkly, thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was
    there a wise woman with thee?
  FALSTAFF. Ay, that there was, mine host; one that hath
    taught me more wit than ever I learn'd before in my life;
    and I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my
    learning.

                    Enter BARDOLPH

  BARDOLPH. Out, alas, sir, cozenage, mere cozenage!
  HOST. Where be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.
  BARDOLPH. Run away with the cozeners; for so soon as I
    came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of
    them, in a slough of mire; and set spurs and away, like
    three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.
  HOST. They are gone but to meet the Duke, villain; do not
    say they be fled. Germans are honest men.

                 Enter SIR HUGH EVANS

  EVANS. Where is mine host?
  HOST. What is the matter, sir?
  EVANS. Have a care of your entertainments. There is a friend
    of mine come to town tells me there is three
    cozen-germans that has cozen'd all the hosts of Readins,
    of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for
    good will, look you; you are wise, and full of gibes and
    vlouting-stogs, and 'tis not convenient you should be
    cozened. Fare you well.                                 Exit

                  Enter DOCTOR CAIUS

  CAIUS. Vere is mine host de Jarteer?
  HOST. Here, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful
    dilemma.
  CAIUS. I cannot tell vat is dat; but it is tell-a me dat you
    make grand preparation for a Duke de Jamany. By my
    trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come; I
    tell you for good will. Adieu.                          Exit
  HOST. Hue and cry, villain, go! Assist me, knight; I am
    undone. Fly, run, hue and cry, villain; I am undone.
                                        Exeunt HOST and BARDOLPH
  FALSTAFF. I would all the world might be cozen'd, for I have
    been cozen'd and beaten too. If it should come to the car
    of the court how I have been transformed, and how my
    transformation hath been wash'd and cudgell'd, they
    would melt me out of my fat, drop by drop, and liquor
    fishermen's boots with me; I warrant they would whip me
    with their fine wits till I were as crestfall'n as a dried pear.
    I never prosper'd since I forswore myself at primero. Well,
    if my wind were but long enough to say my prayers,
    would repent.

                Enter MISTRESS QUICKLY

    Now! whence come you?
  QUICKLY. From the two parties, forsooth.
  FALSTAFF. The devil take one party and his dam the other!
    And so they shall be both bestowed. I have suffer'd more
    for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of
    man's disposition is able to bear.
  QUICKLY. And have not they suffer'd? Yes, I warrant;
    speciously one of them; Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten
    black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.
  FALSTAFF. What tell'st thou me of black and blue? I was
    beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow; and
    was like to be apprehended for the witch of Brainford. But
    that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the
    action of an old woman, deliver'd me, the knave constable
    had set me i' th' stocks, i' th' common stocks, for a witch.
  QUICKLY. Sir, let me speak with you in your chamber; you
    shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content.
    Here is a letter will say somewhat. Good hearts, what ado
    here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not
    serve heaven well, that you are so cross'd.
  FALSTAFF. Come up into my chamber.                      Exeunt

SCENE 6.

The Garter Inn

Enter FENTON and HOST

  HOST. Master Fenton, talk not to me; my mind is heavy; I
    will give over all.
  FENTON. Yet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose,
    And, as I am a gentleman, I'll give the
    A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.
  HOST. I will hear you, Master Fenton; and I will, at the least,
    keep your counsel.
  FENTON. From time to time I have acquainted you
    With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page;
    Who, mutually, hath answer'd my affection,
    So far forth as herself might be her chooser,
    Even to my wish. I have a letter from her
    Of such contents as you will wonder at;
    The mirth whereof so larded with my matter
    That neither, singly, can be manifested
    Without the show of both. Fat Falstaff
    Hath a great scene. The image of the jest
    I'll show you here at large. Hark, good mine host:
    To-night at Heme's oak, just 'twixt twelve and one,
    Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen-
    The purpose why is here-in which disguise,
    While other jests are something rank on foot,
    Her father hath commanded her to slip
    Away with Slender, and with him at Eton
    Immediately to marry; she hath consented.
    Now, sir,
    Her mother, even strong against that match
    And firm for Doctor Caius, hath appointed
    That he shall likewise shuffle her away
    While other sports are tasking of their minds,
    And at the dean'ry, where a priest attends,
    Straight marry her. To this her mother's plot
    She seemingly obedient likewise hath
    Made promise to the doctor. Now thus it rests:
    Her father means she shall be all in white;
    And in that habit, when Slender sees his time
    To take her by the hand and bid her go,
    She shall go with him; her mother hath intended
    The better to denote her to the doctor-
    For they must all be mask'd and vizarded-
    That quaint in green she shall be loose enrob'd,
    With ribands pendent, flaring 'bout her head;
    And when the doctor spies his vantage ripe,
    To pinch her by the hand, and, on that token,
    The maid hath given consent to go with him.
  HOST. Which means she to deceive, father or mother?
  FENTON. Both, my good host, to go along with me.
    And here it rests-that you'll procure the vicar
    To stay for me at church, 'twixt twelve and one,
    And in the lawful name of marrying,
    To give our hearts united ceremony.
  HOST. Well, husband your device; I'll to the vicar.
    Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.
  FENTON. So shall I evermore be bound to thee;
    Besides, I'll make a present recompense.              Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1.

The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF and MISTRESS QUICKLY

  FALSTAFF. Prithee, no more prattling; go. I'll, hold. This is
    the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.
    Away, go; they say there is divinity in odd numbers, either
    in nativity, chance, or death. Away.
  QUICKLY. I'll provide you a chain, and I'll do what I can to
    get you a pair of horns.
  FALSTAFF. Away, I say; time wears; hold up your head, and
    mince.                                     Exit MRS. QUICKLY

                 Enter FORD disguised

    How now, Master Brook. Master Brook, the matter will
    be known tonight or never. Be you in the Park about
    midnight, at Herne's oak, and you shall see wonders.
  FORD. Went you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me
    you had appointed?
  FALSTAFF. I went to her, Master Brook, as you see, like a
    poor old man; but I came from her, Master Brook, like a
    poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath
    the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Brook, that
    ever govern'd frenzy. I will tell you-he beat me grievously
    in the shape of a woman; for in the shape of man, Master
    Brook, I fear not Goliath with a weaver's beam; because
    I know also life is a shuttle. I am in haste; go along with
    me; I'll. tell you all, Master Brook. Since I pluck'd geese,
    play'd truant, and whipp'd top, I knew not what 'twas to
    be beaten till lately. Follow me. I'll tell you strange things
    of this knave-Ford, on whom to-night I will be revenged,
    and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange
    things in hand, Master Brook! Follow.                 Exeunt

SCENE 2.

Windsor Park

Enter PAGE, SHALLOW, and SLENDER

  PAGE. Come, come; we'll couch i' th' Castle ditch till we
    see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter.
  SLENDER. Ay, forsooth; I have spoke with her, and we have
    a nay-word how to know one another. I come to her in
    white and cry 'mum'; she cries 'budget,' and by that we
    know one another.
  SHALLOW. That's good too; but what needs either your mum
    or her budget? The white will decipher her well enough.
    It hath struck ten o'clock.
  PAGE. The night is dark; light and spirits will become it well.
    Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the
    devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let's away;
    follow me.                                            Exeunt

SCENE 3.

A street leading to the Park

Enter MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and DOCTOR CAIUS

  MRS. PAGE. Master Doctor, my daughter is in green; when
    you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to
    the deanery, and dispatch it quickly. Go before into the
    Park; we two must go together.
  CAIUS. I know vat I have to do; adieu.
  MRS. PAGE. Fare you well, sir.  [Exit CAIUS]  My husband
    will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will
    chafe at the doctor's marrying my daughter; but 'tis no
    matter; better a little chiding than a great deal of
    heartbreak.
  MRS. FORD. Where is Nan now, and her troop of fairies, and
    the Welsh devil, Hugh?
  MRS. PAGE. They are all couch'd in a pit hard by Heme's
    oak, with obscur'd lights; which, at the very instant of
    Falstaff's and our meeting, they will at once display to the
    night.
  MRS. FORD. That cannot choose but amaze him.
  MRS. PAGE. If he be not amaz'd, he will be mock'd; if he be
    amaz'd, he will every way be mock'd.
  MRS. FORD. We'll betray him finely.
  MRS. PAGE. Against such lewdsters and their lechery,
    Those that betray them do no treachery.
  MRS. FORD. The hour draws on. To the oak, to the oak!
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 4.

Windsor Park

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, with OTHERS as fairies

  EVANS. Trib, trib, fairies; come; and remember your parts. Be pold, I
  pray you; follow me into the pit; and when I give the watch-ords, do
  as I pid you. Come, come; trib, trib.                                
                  Exeunt

SCENE 5.

Another part of the Park

Enter FALSTAFF disguised as HERNE

  FALSTAFF. The Windsor bell hath struck twelve; the minute draws on.
  Now the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove, thou wast a bull
  for thy Europa; love set on thy horns. O powerful love! that in some
  respects makes a beast a man; in some other a man a beast. You were
  also, Jupiter, a swan, for the love of Leda. O omnipotent love! how
  near the god drew to the complexion of a goose! A fault done first in
  the form of a beast-O Jove, a beastly fault!-and then another fault
  in the semblance of a fowl- think on't, Jove, a foul fault! When gods
  have hot backs what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor
  stag; and the fattest, I think, i' th' forest. Send me a cool
  rut-time, Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow? Who comes
  here? my doe?

        Enter MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGE

  MRS. FORD. Sir John! Art thou there, my deer, my male deer.
  FALSTAFF. My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain
    potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail
    kissing-comfits, and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest
    of provocation, I will shelter me here.      [Embracing her]
  MRS. FORD. Mistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.
  FALSTAFF. Divide me like a brib'd buck, each a haunch; I
    will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow
    of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am
    I a woodman, ha? Speak I like Heme the Hunter? Why,
    now is Cupid a child of conscience; he makes restitution.
    As I am a true spirit, welcome!           [A noise of horns]
  MRS. PAGE. Alas, what noise?
  MRS. FORD. Heaven forgive our sins!
  FALSTAFF. What should this be?
  MRS. FORD. } Away, away.
  MRS. PAGE. } Away, away.                        [They run off]
  FALSTAFF. I think the devil will not have me damn'd, lest the
    oil that's in me should set hell on fire; he would never else
    cross me thus.

        Enter SIR HUGH EVANS like a satyr, ANNE PAGE as
      a fairy, and OTHERS as the Fairy Queen, fairies, and
               Hobgoblin; all with tapers

  FAIRY QUEEN. Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
    You moonshine revellers, and shades of night,
    You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,
    Attend your office and your quality.
    Crier Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyes.
  PUCK. Elves, list your names; silence, you airy toys.
    Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap;
    Where fires thou find'st unrak'd, and hearths unswept,
    There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry;
    Our radiant Queen hates sluts and sluttery.
  FALSTAFF. They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die.
    I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.
                                       [Lies down upon his face]
  EVANS. Where's Pede? Go you, and where you find a maid
    That, ere she sleep, has thrice her prayers said,
    Raise up the organs of her fantasy
    Sleep she as sound as careless infancy;
    But those as sleep and think not on their sins,
    Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides, and shins.
  FAIRY QUEEN. About, about;
    Search Windsor castle, elves, within and out;
    Strew good luck, ouphes, on every sacred room,
    That it may stand till the perpetual doom
    In state as wholesome as in state 'tis fit,
    Worthy the owner and the owner it.
    The several chairs of order look you scour
    With juice of balm and every precious flower;
    Each fair instalment, coat, and sev'ral crest,
    With loyal blazon, evermore be blest!
    And nightly, meadow-fairies, look you sing,
    Like to the Garter's compass, in a ring;
    Th' expressure that it bears, green let it be,
    More fertile-fresh than all the field to see;
    And 'Honi soit qui mal y pense' write
    In em'rald tufts, flow'rs purple, blue and white;
    Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
    Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee.
    Fairies use flow'rs for their charactery.
    Away, disperse; but till 'tis one o'clock,
    Our dance of custom round about the oak
    Of Herne the Hunter let us not forget.
  EVANS. Pray you, lock hand in hand; yourselves in order set;
    And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,
    To guide our measure round about the tree.
    But, stay. I smell a man of middle earth.
  FALSTAFF. Heavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, lest he
    transform me to a piece of cheese!
  PUCK. Vile worm, thou wast o'erlook'd even in thy birth.
  FAIRY QUEEN. With trial-fire touch me his finger-end;
    If he be chaste, the flame will back descend,
    And turn him to no pain; but if he start,
    It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.
  PUCK. A trial, come.
  EVANS. Come, will this wood take fire?
             [They put the tapers to his fingers, and he starts]
  FALSTAFF. Oh, oh, oh!
  FAIRY QUEEN. Corrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire!
    About him, fairies; sing a scornful rhyme;
    And, as you trip, still pinch him to your time.
  THE SONG.
    Fie on sinful fantasy!
    Fie on lust and luxury!
    Lust is but a bloody fire,
    Kindled with unchaste desire,
    Fed in heart, whose flames aspire,
    As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher.
    Pinch him, fairies, mutually;
    Pinch him for his villainy;
    Pinch him and burn him and turn him about,
    Till candles and star-light and moonshine be out.

        During this song they pinch FALSTAFF. DOCTOR
        CAIUS comes one way, and steals away a fairy in
        green; SLENDER another way, and takes off a fairy in
        white; and FENTON steals away ANNE PAGE. A noise
        of hunting is heard within. All the fairies run away.
        FALSTAFF pulls off his buck's head, and rises

       Enter PAGE, FORD, MISTRESS PAGE, MISTRESS FORD, and
                        SIR HUGH EVANS

  PAGE. Nay, do not fly; I think we have watch'd you now.
    Will none but Heme the Hunter serve your turn?
  MRS. PAGE. I pray you, come, hold up the jest no higher.
    Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?
    See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes
    Become the forest better than the town?
  FORD. Now, sir, who's a cuckold now? Master Brook,
    Falstaff's a knave, a cuckoldly knave; here are his horns,
    Master Brook; and, Master Brook, he hath enjoyed nothing of
    Ford's but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds
    of money, which must be paid to Master Brook; his horses
    are arrested for it, Master Brook.
  MRS. FORD. Sir John, we have had ill luck; we could never
    meet. I will never take you for my love again; but I will
    always count you my deer.
  FALSTAFF. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.
  FORD. Ay, and an ox too; both the proofs are extant.
  FALSTAFF. And these are not fairies? I was three or four
    times in the thought they were not fairies; and yet the
    guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers,
    drove the grossness of the foppery into a receiv'd belief,
    in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they
    were fairies. See now how wit may be made a Jack-a-Lent
    when 'tis upon ill employment.
  EVANS. Sir John Falstaff, serve Got, and leave your desires,
    and fairies will not pinse you.
  FORD. Well said, fairy Hugh.
  EVANS. And leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.
  FORD. I will never mistrust my wife again, till thou art able
    to woo her in good English.
  FALSTAFF. Have I laid my brain in the sun, and dried it, that
    it wants matter to prevent so gross, o'er-reaching as this?
    Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a cox-comb
    of frieze? 'Tis time I were chok'd with a piece of
    toasted cheese.
  EVANS. Seese is not good to give putter; your belly is all
    putter.
  FALSTAFF. 'Seese' and 'putter'! Have I liv'd to stand at the
    taunt of one that makes fritters of English? This is enough
    to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.
  MRS. PAGE. Why, Sir John, do you think, though we would
    have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and
    shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,
    that ever the devil could have made you our delight?
  FORD. What, a hodge-pudding? a bag of flax?
  MRS. PAGE. A puff'd man?
  PAGE. Old, cold, wither'd, and of intolerable entrails?
  FORD. And one that is as slanderous as Satan?
  PAGE. And as poor as Job?
  FORD. And as wicked as his wife?
  EVANS. And given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack,
    and wine, and metheglins, and to drinkings, and swearings,
    and starings, pribbles and prabbles?
  FALSTAFF. Well, I am your theme; you have the start of me;
    I am dejected; I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel;
    ignorance itself is a plummet o'er me; use me as you will.
  FORD. Marry, sir, we'll bring you to Windsor, to one Master
    Brook, that you have cozen'd of money, to whom you
    should have been a pander. Over and above that you have
    suffer'd, I think to repay that money will be a biting
    affliction.
  PAGE. Yet be cheerful, knight; thou shalt eat a posset
    tonight at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my
    wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath
    married her daughter.
  MRS. PAGE.  [Aside]  Doctors doubt that; if Anne Page be
    my daughter, she is, by this, Doctor Caius' wife.

                        Enter SLENDER

  SLENDER. Whoa, ho, ho, father Page!
  PAGE. Son, how now! how now, son! Have you dispatch'd'?
  SLENDER. Dispatch'd! I'll make the best in Gloucestershire
    know on't; would I were hang'd, la, else!
  PAGE. Of what, son?
  SLENDER. I came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne
    Page, and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i'
    th' church, I would have swing'd him, or he should have
    swing'd me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page,
    would I might never stir!-and 'tis a postmaster's boy.
  PAGE. Upon my life, then, you took the wrong.
  SLENDER. What need you tell me that? I think so, when I
    took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all
    he was in woman's apparel, I would not have had him.
  PAGE. Why, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how
    you should know my daughter by her garments?
  SLENDER. I went to her in white and cried 'mum' and she
    cried 'budget' as Anne and I had appointed; and yet it was
    not Anne, but a postmaster's boy.
  MRS. PAGE. Good George, be not angry. I knew of your
    purpose; turn'd my daughter into green; and, indeed, she
    is now with the Doctor at the dean'ry, and there married.

                         Enter CAIUS

  CAIUS. Vere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened; I ha'
    married un garcon, a boy; un paysan, by gar, a boy; it is
    not Anne Page; by gar, I am cozened.
  MRS. PAGE. Why, did you take her in green?
  CAIUS. Ay, be gar, and 'tis a boy; be gar, I'll raise all
    Windsor.                                          Exit CAIUS
  FORD. This is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?
  PAGE. My heart misgives me; here comes Master Fenton.

                  Enter FENTON and ANNE PAGE

    How now, Master Fenton!
  ANNE. Pardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon.
  PAGE. Now, Mistress, how chance you went not with Master
    Slender?
  MRS. PAGE. Why went you not with Master Doctor, maid?
  FENTON. You do amaze her. Hear the truth of it.
    You would have married her most shamefully,
    Where there was no proportion held in love.
    The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,
    Are now so sure that nothing can dissolve us.
    Th' offence is holy that she hath committed;
    And this deceit loses the name of craft,
    Of disobedience, or unduteous title,
    Since therein she doth evitate and shun
    A thousand irreligious cursed hours,
    Which forced marriage would have brought upon her.
  FORD. Stand not amaz'd; here is no remedy.
    In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state;
    Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
  FALSTAFF. I am glad, though you have ta'en a special stand
    to strike at me, that your arrow hath glanc'd.
  PAGE. Well, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!
    What cannot be eschew'd must be embrac'd.
  FALSTAFF. When night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chas'd.
  MRS. PAGE. Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,
    Heaven give you many, many merry days!
    Good husband, let us every one go home,
    And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;
    Sir John and all.
  FORD. Let it be so. Sir John,
    To Master Brook you yet shall hold your word;
    For he, to-night, shall lie with Mistress Ford.       Exeunt

THE END

1596



A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  THESEUS, Duke of Athens
  EGEUS, father to Hermia
  LYSANDER, in love with Hermia
  DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia
  PHILOSTRATE, Master of the Revels to Theseus
  QUINCE, a carpenter
  SNUG, a joiner
  BOTTOM, a weaver
  FLUTE, a bellows-mender
  SNOUT, a tinker
  STARVELING, a tailor

  HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, bethrothed to Theseus
  HERMIA, daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander
  HELENA, in love with Demetrius

  OBERON, King of the Fairies
  TITANIA, Queen of the Fairies
  PUCK, or ROBIN GOODFELLOW
  PEASEBLOSSOM, fairy
  COBWEB, fairy
  MOTH, fairy
  MUSTARDSEED, fairy

  PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, LION are presented by:
    QUINCE, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, STARVELING, AND SNUG

  Other Fairies attending their King and Queen
  Attendants on Theseus and Hippolyta

SCENE: Athens and a wood near it

ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and ATTENDANTS

  THESEUS. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
    Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
    Another moon; but, O, methinks, how slow
    This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires,
    Like to a step-dame or a dowager,
    Long withering out a young man's revenue.
  HIPPOLYTA. Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
    Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
    And then the moon, like to a silver bow
    New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
    Of our solemnities.
  THESEUS. Go, Philostrate,
    Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;
    Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth;
    Turn melancholy forth to funerals;
    The pale companion is not for our pomp.     Exit PHILOSTRATE
    Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
    And won thy love doing thee injuries;
    But I will wed thee in another key,
    With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.

          Enter EGEUS, and his daughter HERMIA, LYSANDER,
                           and DEMETRIUS

  EGEUS. Happy be Theseus, our renowned Duke!
  THESEUS. Thanks, good Egeus; what's the news with thee?
  EGEUS. Full of vexation come I, with complaint
    Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
    Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
    This man hath my consent to marry her.
    Stand forth, Lysander. And, my gracious Duke,
    This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child.
    Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,
    And interchang'd love-tokens with my child;
    Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,
    With feigning voice, verses of feigning love,
    And stol'n the impression of her fantasy
    With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits,
    Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats- messengers
    Of strong prevailment in unhardened youth;
    With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart;
    Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me,
    To stubborn harshness. And, my gracious Duke,
    Be it so she will not here before your Grace
    Consent to marry with Demetrius,
    I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:
    As she is mine I may dispose of her;
    Which shall be either to this gentleman
    Or to her death, according to our law
    Immediately provided in that case.
  THESEUS. What say you, Hermia? Be advis'd, fair maid.
    To you your father should be as a god;
    One that compos'd your beauties; yea, and one
    To whom you are but as a form in wax,
    By him imprinted, and within his power
    To leave the figure, or disfigure it.
    Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.
  HERMIA. So is Lysander.
  THESEUS. In himself he is;
    But, in this kind, wanting your father's voice,
    The other must be held the worthier.
  HERMIA. I would my father look'd but with my eyes.
  THESEUS. Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.
  HERMIA. I do entreat your Grace to pardon me.
    I know not by what power I am made bold,
    Nor how it may concern my modesty
    In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
    But I beseech your Grace that I may know
    The worst that may befall me in this case,
    If I refuse to wed Demetrius.
  THESEUS. Either to die the death, or to abjure
    For ever the society of men.
    Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,
    Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
    Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
    You can endure the livery of a nun,
    For aye to be shady cloister mew'd,
    To live a barren sister all your life,
    Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
    Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood
    To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
    But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd
    Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
    Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
  HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,
    Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
    Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
    My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
  THESEUS. Take time to pause; and by the next new moon-
    The sealing-day betwixt my love and me
    For everlasting bond of fellowship-
    Upon that day either prepare to die
    For disobedience to your father's will,
    Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,
    Or on Diana's altar to protest
    For aye austerity and single life.
  DEMETRIUS. Relent, sweet Hermia; and, Lysander, yield
    Thy crazed title to my certain right.
  LYSANDER. You have her father's love, Demetrius;
    Let me have Hermia's; do you marry him.
  EGEUS. Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love;
    And what is mine my love shall render him;
    And she is mine; and all my right of her
    I do estate unto Demetrius.
  LYSANDER. I am, my lord, as well deriv'd as he,
    As well possess'd; my love is more than his;
    My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd,
    If not with vantage, as Demetrius';
    And, which is more than all these boasts can be,
    I am belov'd of beauteous Hermia.
    Why should not I then prosecute my right?
    Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
    Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
    And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
    Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
    Upon this spotted and inconstant man.
  THESEUS. I must confess that I have heard so much,
    And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
    But, being over-full of self-affairs,
    My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come;
    And come, Egeus; you shall go with me;
    I have some private schooling for you both.
    For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
    To fit your fancies to your father's will,
    Or else the law of Athens yields you up-
    Which by no means we may extenuate-
    To death, or to a vow of single life.
    Come, my Hippolyta; what cheer, my love?
    Demetrius, and Egeus, go along;
    I must employ you in some business
    Against our nuptial, and confer with you
    Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.
  EGEUS. With duty and desire we follow you.
                              Exeunt all but LYSANDER and HERMIA
  LYSANDER. How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?
    How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
  HERMIA. Belike for want of rain, which I could well
    Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
  LYSANDER. Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
    Could ever hear by tale or history,
    The course of true love never did run smooth;
    But either it was different in blood-
  HERMIA. O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low.
  LYSANDER. Or else misgraffed in respect of years-
  HERMIA. O spite! too old to be engag'd to young.
  LYSANDER. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends-
  HERMIA. O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
  LYSANDER. Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
    War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,
    Making it momentary as a sound,
    Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
    Brief as the lightning in the collied night
    That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
    And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
    The jaws of darkness do devour it up;
    So quick bright things come to confusion.
  HERMIA. If then true lovers have ever cross'd,
    It stands as an edict in destiny.
    Then let us teach our trial patience,
    Because it is a customary cross,
    As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
    Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.
  LYSANDER. A good persuasion; therefore, hear me, Hermia.
    I have a widow aunt, a dowager
    Of great revenue, and she hath no child-
    From Athens is her house remote seven leagues-
    And she respects me as her only son.
    There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee;
    And to that place the sharp Athenian law
    Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then,
    Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night;
    And in the wood, a league without the town,
    Where I did meet thee once with Helena
    To do observance to a morn of May,
    There will I stay for thee.
  HERMIA. My good Lysander!
    I swear to thee by Cupid's strongest bow,
    By his best arrow, with the golden head,
    By the simplicity of Venus' doves,
    By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves,
    And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage Queen,
    When the false Troyan under sail was seen,
    By all the vows that ever men have broke,
    In number more than ever women spoke,
    In that same place thou hast appointed me,
    To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.
  LYSANDER. Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

                         Enter HELENA

  HERMIA. God speed fair Helena! Whither away?
  HELENA. Call you me fair? That fair again unsay.
    Demetrius loves your fair. O happy fair!
    Your eyes are lode-stars and your tongue's sweet air
    More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
    When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
    Sickness is catching; O, were favour so,
    Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go!
    My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
    My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
    Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
    The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
    O, teach me how you look, and with what art
    You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart!
  HERMIA. I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
  HELENA. O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!
  HERMIA. I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
  HELENA. O that my prayers could such affection move!
  HERMIA. The more I hate, the more he follows me.
  HELENA. The more I love, the more he hateth me.
  HERMIA. His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.
  HELENA. None, but your beauty; would that fault were mine!
  HERMIA. Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
    Lysander and myself will fly this place.
    Before the time I did Lysander see,
    Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me.
    O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
    That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
  LYSANDER. Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
    To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
    Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass,
    Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
    A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
    Through Athens' gates have we devis'd to steal.
  HERMIA. And in the wood where often you and I
    Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,
    Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
    There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
    And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
    To seek new friends and stranger companies.
    Farewell, sweet playfellow; pray thou for us,
    And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
    Keep word, Lysander; we must starve our sight
    From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.
  LYSANDER. I will, my Hermia. [Exit HERMIA] Helena, adieu;
    As you on him, Demetrius dote on you.                   Exit
  HELENA. How happy some o'er other some can be!
    Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
    But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
    He will not know what all but he do know.
    And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
    So I, admiring of his qualities.
    Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
    Love can transpose to form and dignity.
    Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
    And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
    Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
    Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste;
    And therefore is Love said to be a child,
    Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.
    As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
    So the boy Love is perjur'd everywhere;
    For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
    He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
    And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
    So he dissolv'd, and show'rs of oaths did melt.
    I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight;
    Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
    Pursue her; and for this intelligence
    If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
    But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
    To have his sight thither and back again.               Exit

SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

  QUINCE. Is all our company here?
  BOTTOM. You were best to call them generally, man by man, according
    to the scrip.
  QUINCE. Here is the scroll of every man's name which is thought
    fit, through all Athens, to play in our interlude before the Duke
    and the Duchess on his wedding-day at night.
  BOTTOM. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then
    read the names of the actors; and so grow to a point.
  QUINCE. Marry, our play is 'The most Lamentable Comedy and most
    Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.'
  BOTTOM. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now,
    good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters,
    spread yourselves.
  QUINCE. Answer, as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.
  BOTTOM. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed.
  QUINCE. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.
  BOTTOM. What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?
  QUINCE. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
  BOTTOM. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I
    do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms; I
    will condole in some measure. To the rest- yet my chief humour is
    for a tyrant. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat
    in, to make all split.

                 'The raging rocks
                 And shivering shocks
                 Shall break the locks
                   Of prison gates;

                 And Phibbus' car
                 Shall shine from far,
                 And make and mar
                   The foolish Fates.'

    This was lofty. Now name the rest of the players. This is
    Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein: a lover is more condoling.
  QUINCE. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.
  FLUTE. Here, Peter Quince.
  QUINCE. Flute, you must take Thisby on you.
  FLUTE. What is Thisby? A wand'ring knight?
  QUINCE. It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
  FLUTE. Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming.
  QUINCE. That's all one; you shall play it in a mask, and you may
    speak as small as you will.
  BOTTOM. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too.
    I'll speak in a monstrous little voice: 'Thisne, Thisne!'
    [Then speaking small] 'Ah Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy
    Thisby dear, and lady dear!'
  QUINCE. No, no, you must play Pyramus; and, Flute, you Thisby.
  BOTTOM. Well, proceed.
  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, the tailor.
  STARVELING. Here, Peter Quince.
  QUINCE. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother.
    Tom Snout, the tinker.
  SNOUT. Here, Peter Quince.
  QUINCE. You, Pyramus' father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug, the
    joiner, you, the lion's part. And, I hope, here is a play fitted.
  SNUG. Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be, give it
    me, for I am slow of study.
  QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring.
  BOTTOM. Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any
    man's heart good to hear me; I will roar that I will make the
    Duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.'
  QUINCE. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the
    Duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were
    enough to hang us all.
  ALL. That would hang us, every mother's son.
  BOTTOM. I grant you, friends, if you should fright the ladies out
    of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us;
    but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently
    as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale.
  QUINCE. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a
    sweet-fac'd man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's
    day; a most lovely gentleman-like man; therefore you must needs
    play Pyramus.
  BOTTOM. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play
    it in?
  QUINCE. Why, what you will.
  BOTTOM. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your
    orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your
    French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow.
  QUINCE. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then
    you will play bare-fac'd. But, masters, here are your parts; and
    I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by
    to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without
    the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse; for if we meet in
    the city, we shall be dogg'd with company, and our devices known.
    In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our
    play wants. I pray you, fail me not.
  BOTTOM. We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and
    courageously. Take pains; be perfect; adieu.
  QUINCE. At the Duke's oak we meet.
  BOTTOM. Enough; hold, or cut bow-strings.               Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. A wood near Athens

Enter a FAIRY at One door, and PUCK at another

  PUCK. How now, spirit! whither wander you?
  FAIRY.      Over hill, over dale,
                Thorough bush, thorough brier,
              Over park, over pale,
                Thorough flood, thorough fire,
              I do wander every where,
              Swifter than the moon's sphere;
              And I serve the Fairy Queen,
              To dew her orbs upon the green.
              The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
              In their gold coats spots you see;
              Those be rubies, fairy favours,
              In those freckles live their savours.

    I must go seek some dewdrops here,
    And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
    Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I'll be gone.
    Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.
  PUCK. The King doth keep his revels here to-night;
    Take heed the Queen come not within his sight;
    For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
    Because that she as her attendant hath
    A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king.
    She never had so sweet a changeling;
    And jealous Oberon would have the child
    Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild;
    But she perforce withholds the loved boy,
    Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy.
    And now they never meet in grove or green,
    By fountain clear, or spangled starlight sheen,
    But they do square, that all their elves for fear
    Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.
  FAIRY. Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
    Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
    Call'd Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he
    That frights the maidens of the villagery,
    Skim milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,
    And bootless make the breathless housewife churn,
    And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,
    Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
    Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
    You do their work, and they shall have good luck.
    Are not you he?
  PUCK. Thou speakest aright:
    I am that merry wanderer of the night.
    I jest to Oberon, and make him smile
    When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
    Neighing in likeness of a filly foal;
    And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl
    In very likeness of a roasted crab,
    And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
    And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
    The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
    Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
    Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
    And 'tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
    And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
    And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
    A merrier hour was never wasted there.
    But room, fairy, here comes Oberon.
  FAIRY. And here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

       Enter OBERON at one door, with his TRAIN, and TITANIA,
                        at another, with hers

  OBERON. Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
  TITANIA. What, jealous Oberon! Fairies, skip hence;
    I have forsworn his bed and company.
  OBERON. Tarry, rash wanton; am not I thy lord?
  TITANIA. Then I must be thy lady; but I know
    When thou hast stolen away from fairy land,
    And in the shape of Corin sat all day,
    Playing on pipes of corn, and versing love
    To amorous Phillida. Why art thou here,
    Come from the farthest steep of India,
    But that, forsooth, the bouncing Amazon,
    Your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,
    To Theseus must be wedded, and you come
    To give their bed joy and prosperity?
  OBERON. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,
    Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
    Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?
    Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night
    From Perigouna, whom he ravished?
    And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,
    With Ariadne and Antiopa?
  TITANIA. These are the forgeries of jealousy;
    And never, since the middle summer's spring,
    Met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
    By paved fountain, or by rushy brook,
    Or in the beached margent of the sea,
    To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,
    But with thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport.
    Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,
    As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea
    Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,
    Hath every pelting river made so proud
    That they have overborne their continents.
    The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,
    The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn
    Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;
    The fold stands empty in the drowned field,
    And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;
    The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,
    And the quaint mazes in the wanton green,
    For lack of tread, are undistinguishable.
    The human mortals want their winter here;
    No night is now with hymn or carol blest;
    Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,
    Pale in her anger, washes all the air,
    That rheumatic diseases do abound.
    And thorough this distemperature we see
    The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts
    Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;
    And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown
    An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
    Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,
    The childing autumn, angry winter, change
    Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world,
    By their increase, now knows not which is which.
    And this same progeny of evils comes
    From our debate, from our dissension;
    We are their parents and original.
  OBERON. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you.
    Why should Titania cross her Oberon?
    I do but beg a little changeling boy
    To be my henchman.
  TITANIA. Set your heart at rest;
    The fairy land buys not the child of me.
    His mother was a vot'ress of my order;
    And, in the spiced Indian air, by night,
    Full often hath she gossip'd by my side;
    And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands,
    Marking th' embarked traders on the flood;
    When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,
    And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;
    Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait
    Following- her womb then rich with my young squire-
    Would imitate, and sail upon the land,
    To fetch me trifles, and return again,
    As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.
    But she, being mortal, of that boy did die;
    And for her sake do I rear up her boy;
    And for her sake I will not part with him.
  OBERON. How long within this wood intend you stay?
  TITANIA. Perchance till after Theseus' wedding-day.
    If you will patiently dance in our round,
    And see our moonlight revels, go with us;
    If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
  OBERON. Give me that boy and I will go with thee.
  TITANIA. Not for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.
    We shall chide downright if I longer stay.
                                     Exit TITANIA with her train
  OBERON. Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove
    Till I torment thee for this injury.
    My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb'rest
    Since once I sat upon a promontory,
    And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
    Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
    That the rude sea grew civil at her song,
    And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
    To hear the sea-maid's music.
  PUCK. I remember.
  OBERON. That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
    Flying between the cold moon and the earth
    Cupid, all arm'd; a certain aim he took
    At a fair vestal, throned by the west,
    And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
    As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
    But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
    Quench'd in the chaste beams of the wat'ry moon;
    And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
    In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
    Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell.
    It fell upon a little western flower,
    Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
    And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.
    Fetch me that flow'r, the herb I showed thee once.
    The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid
    Will make or man or woman madly dote
    Upon the next live creature that it sees.
    Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again
    Ere the leviathan can swim a league.
  PUCK. I'll put a girdle round about the earth
    In forty minutes.                                  Exit PUCK
  OBERON. Having once this juice,
    I'll watch Titania when she is asleep,
    And drop the liquor of it in her eyes;
    The next thing then she waking looks upon,
    Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
    On meddling monkey, or on busy ape,
    She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
    And ere I take this charm from off her sight,
    As I can take it with another herb,
    I'll make her render up her page to me.
    But who comes here? I am invisible;
    And I will overhear their conference.

               Enter DEMETRIUS, HELENA following him

  DEMETRIUS. I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
    Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?
    The one I'll slay, the other slayeth me.
    Thou told'st me they were stol'n unto this wood,
    And here am I, and wood within this wood,
    Because I cannot meet my Hermia.
    Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.
  HELENA. You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
    But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
    Is true as steel. Leave you your power to draw,
    And I shall have no power to follow you.
  DEMETRIUS. Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
    Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth
    Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you?
  HELENA. And even for that do I love you the more.
    I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius,
    The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
    Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,
    Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,
    Unworthy as I am, to follow you.
    What worser place can I beg in your love,
    And yet a place of high respect with me,
    Than to be used as you use your dog?
  DEMETRIUS. Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit;
    For I am sick when I do look on thee.
  HELENA. And I am sick when I look not on you.
  DEMETRIUS. You do impeach your modesty too much
    To leave the city and commit yourself
    Into the hands of one that loves you not;
    To trust the opportunity of night,
    And the ill counsel of a desert place,
    With the rich worth of your virginity.
  HELENA. Your virtue is my privilege for that:
    It is not night when I do see your face,
    Therefore I think I am not in the night;
    Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
    For you, in my respect, are all the world.
    Then how can it be said I am alone
    When all the world is here to look on me?
  DEMETRIUS. I'll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,
    And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.
  HELENA. The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
    Run when you will; the story shall be chang'd:
    Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
    The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
    Makes speed to catch the tiger- bootless speed,
    When cowardice pursues and valour flies.
  DEMETRIUS. I will not stay thy questions; let me go;
    Or, if thou follow me, do not believe
    But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.
  HELENA. Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field,
    You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!
    Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex.
    We cannot fight for love as men may do;
    We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo.
                                                  Exit DEMETRIUS
    I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,
    To die upon the hand I love so well.             Exit HELENA
  OBERON. Fare thee well, nymph; ere he do leave this grove,
    Thou shalt fly him, and he shall seek thy love.

                            Re-enter PUCK

    Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.
  PUCK. Ay, there it is.
  OBERON. I pray thee give it me.
    I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
    Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
    Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
    With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;
    There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
    Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
    And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
    Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in;
    And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes,
    And make her full of hateful fantasies.
    Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
    A sweet Athenian lady is in love
    With a disdainful youth; anoint his eyes;
    But do it when the next thing he espies
    May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man
    By the Athenian garments he hath on.
    Effect it with some care, that he may prove
    More fond on her than she upon her love.
    And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
  PUCK. Fear not, my lord; your servant shall do so.      Exeunt

SCENE II. Another part of the wood

Enter TITANIA, with her train

  TITANIA. Come now, a roundel and a fairy song;
    Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:
    Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds;
    Some war with rere-mice for their leathern wings,
    To make my small elves coats; and some keep back
    The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders
    At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
    Then to your offices, and let me rest.

                          The FAIRIES Sing

  FIRST FAIRY. You spotted snakes with double tongue,
               Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
               Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong,
               Come not near our fairy Queen.
  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody
               Sing in our sweet lullaby.
               Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby.
               Never harm
               Nor spell nor charm
               Come our lovely lady nigh.
               So good night, with lullaby.
  SECOND FAIRY.  Weaving spiders, come not here;
                 Hence, you long-legg'd spinners, hence.
                 Beetles black, approach not near;
                 Worm nor snail do no offence.
  CHORUS.      Philomel with melody, etc.       [TITANIA Sleeps]
  FIRST FAIRY. Hence away; now all is well.
               One aloof stand sentinel.          Exeunt FAIRIES

      Enter OBERON and squeezes the flower on TITANIA'S eyelids

  OBERON. What thou seest when thou dost wake,
    Do it for thy true-love take;
    Love and languish for his sake.
    Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
    Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
    In thy eye that shall appear
    When thou wak'st, it is thy dear.
    Wake when some vile thing is near.                      Exit

                     Enter LYSANDER and HERMIA

  LYSANDER. Fair love, you faint with wand'ring in the wood;
    And, to speak troth, I have forgot our way;
    We'll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,
    And tarry for the comfort of the day.
  HERMIA. Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed,
    For I upon this bank will rest my head.
  LYSANDER. One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
    One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
  HERMIA. Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,
    Lie further off yet; do not lie so near.
  LYSANDER. O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
    Love takes the meaning in love's conference.
    I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
    So that but one heart we can make of it;
    Two bosoms interchained with an oath,
    So then two bosoms and a single troth.
    Then by your side no bed-room me deny,
    For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.
  HERMIA. Lysander riddles very prettily.
    Now much beshrew my manners and my pride,
    If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied!
    But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy
    Lie further off, in human modesty;
    Such separation as may well be said
    Becomes a virtuous bachelor and a maid,
    So far be distant; and good night, sweet friend.
    Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!
  LYSANDER. Amen, amen, to that fair prayer say I;
    And then end life when I end loyalty!
    Here is my bed; sleep give thee all his rest!
  HERMIA. With half that wish the wisher's eyes be press'd!
                                                    [They sleep]

                          Enter PUCK

  PUCK.      Through the forest have I gone,
             But Athenian found I none
             On whose eyes I might approve
             This flower's force in stirring love.
             Night and silence- Who is here?
             Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
             This is he, my master said,
             Despised the Athenian maid;
             And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
             On the dank and dirty ground.
             Pretty soul! she durst not lie
             Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
             Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
             All the power this charm doth owe:
             When thou wak'st let love forbid
             Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.
             So awake when I am gone;
             For I must now to Oberon.                      Exit

               Enter DEMETRIUS and HELENA, running

  HELENA. Stay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.
  DEMETRIUS. I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.
  HELENA. O, wilt thou darkling leave me? Do not so.
  DEMETRIUS. Stay on thy peril; I alone will go.            Exit
  HELENA. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase!
    The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.
    Happy is Hermia, wheresoe'er she lies,
    For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.
    How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears;
    If so, my eyes are oft'ner wash'd than hers.
    No, no, I am as ugly as a bear,
    For beasts that meet me run away for fear;
    Therefore no marvel though Demetrius
    Do, as a monster, fly my presence thus.
    What wicked and dissembling glass of mine
    Made me compare with Hermia's sphery eyne?
    But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!
    Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.
    Lysander, if you live, good sir, awake.
  LYSANDER. [Waking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.
    Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,
    That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.
    Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word
    Is that vile name to perish on my sword!
  HELENA. Do not say so, Lysander; say not so.
    What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?
    Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.
  LYSANDER. Content with Hermia! No: I do repent
    The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
    Not Hermia but Helena I love:
    Who will not change a raven for a dove?
    The will of man is by his reason sway'd,
    And reason says you are the worthier maid.
    Things growing are not ripe until their season;
    So I, being young, till now ripe not to reason;
    And touching now the point of human skill,
    Reason becomes the marshal to my will,
    And leads me to your eyes, where I o'erlook
    Love's stories, written in Love's richest book.
  HELENA. Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
    When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
    Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man,
    That I did never, no, nor never can,
    Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye,
    But you must flout my insufficiency?
    Good troth, you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,
    In such disdainful manner me to woo.
    But fare you well; perforce I must confess
    I thought you lord of more true gentleness.
    O, that a lady of one man refus'd
    Should of another therefore be abus'd!                  Exit
  LYSANDER. She sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there;
    And never mayst thou come Lysander near!
    For, as a surfeit of the sweetest things
    The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,
    Or as the heresies that men do leave
    Are hated most of those they did deceive,
    So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,
    Of all be hated, but the most of me!
    And, all my powers, address your love and might
    To honour Helen, and to be her knight!                  Exit
  HERMIA. [Starting] Help me, Lysander, help me; do thy best
    To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast.
    Ay me, for pity! What a dream was here!
    Lysander, look how I do quake with fear.
    Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
    And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.
    Lysander! What, remov'd? Lysander! lord!
    What, out of hearing gone? No sound, no word?
    Alack, where are you? Speak, an if you hear;
    Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
    No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.
    Either death or you I'll find immediately.              Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. The wood. TITANIA lying asleep

Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

  BOTTOM. Are we all met?
  QUINCE. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our
    rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn
    brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action, as we will
    do it before the Duke.
  BOTTOM. Peter Quince!
  QUINCE. What sayest thou, bully Bottom?
  BOTTOM. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that
    will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill
    himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?
  SNOUT. By'r lakin, a parlous fear.
  STARVELING. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is
    done.
  BOTTOM. Not a whit; I have a device to make all well. Write me a
    prologue; and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm
    with our swords, and that Pyramus is not kill'd indeed; and for
    the more better assurance, tell them that I Pyramus am not
    Pyramus but Bottom the weaver. This will put them out of fear.
  QUINCE. Well, we will have such a prologue; and it shall be written
    in eight and six.
  BOTTOM. No, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.
  SNOUT. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?
  STARVELING. I fear it, I promise you.
  BOTTOM. Masters, you ought to consider with yourself to bring in-
    God shield us!- a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for
    there is not a more fearful wild-fowl than your lion living; and
    we ought to look to't.
  SNOUT. Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.
  BOTTOM. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen
    through the lion's neck; and he himself must speak through,
    saying thus, or to the same defect: 'Ladies,' or 'Fair ladies, I
    would wish you' or 'I would request you' or 'I would entreat you
    not to fear, not to tremble. My life for yours! If you think I
    come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life. No, I am no such
    thing; I am a man as other men are.' And there, indeed, let him
    name his name, and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.
  QUINCE. Well, it shall be so. But there is two hard things- that
    is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber; for, you know, Pyramus
    and Thisby meet by moonlight.
  SNOUT. Doth the moon shine that night we play our play?
  BOTTOM. A calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanack; find out
    moonshine, find out moonshine.
  QUINCE. Yes, it doth shine that night.
  BOTTOM. Why, then may you leave a casement of the great chamber
    window, where we play, open; and the moon may shine in at the
    casement.
  QUINCE. Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a
    lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person
    of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in
    the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby, says the story, did
    talk through the chink of a wall.
  SNOUT. You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?
  BOTTOM. Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some
    plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast about him, to signify
    wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny
    shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.
  QUINCE. If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every
    mother's son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin; when
    you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so every
    one according to his cue.

                          Enter PUCK behind

  PUCK. What hempen homespuns have we swagg'ring here,
    So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?
    What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;
    An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.
  QUINCE. Speak, Pyramus. Thisby, stand forth.
  BOTTOM. Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet-
  QUINCE. 'Odious'- odorous!
  BOTTOM. -odours savours sweet;
    So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisby dear.
    But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,
    And by and by I will to thee appear.                    Exit
  PUCK. A stranger Pyramus than e'er played here!           Exit
  FLUTE. Must I speak now?
  QUINCE. Ay, marry, must you; for you must understand he goes but to
    see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.
  FLUTE. Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,
    Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,
    Most brisky juvenal, and eke most lovely Jew,
    As true as truest horse, that would never tire,
    I'll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny's tomb.
  QUINCE. 'Ninus' tomb,' man! Why, you must not speak that yet; that
    you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part at once, cues, and
    all. Pyramus enter: your cue is past; it is 'never tire.'
  FLUTE. O- As true as truest horse, that y et would never tire.

            Re-enter PUCK, and BOTTOM with an ass's head

  BOTTOM. If I were fair, Thisby, I were only thine.
  QUINCE. O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! fly,
    masters! Help!
                                  Exeunt all but BOTTOM and PUCK
  PUCK. I'll follow you; I'll lead you about a round,
    Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier;
    Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,
    A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire;
    And neigh, and bark, and grunt, and roar, and burn,
    Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn.
Exit
  BOTTOM. Why do they run away? This is a knavery of them to make me
    afeard.

                          Re-enter SNOUT

  SNOUT. O Bottom, thou art chang'd! What do I see on thee?
  BOTTOM. What do you see? You see an ass-head of your own, do you?
                                                      Exit SNOUT

                          Re-enter QUINCE

  QUINCE. Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.
 Exit
  BOTTOM. I see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me; to
    fright me, if they could. But I will not stir from this place, do
    what they can; I will walk up and down here, and will sing, that
    they shall hear I am not afraid.                     [Sings]

          The ousel cock, so black of hue,
            With orange-tawny bill,
          The throstle with his note so true,
            The wren with little quill.

  TITANIA. What angel wakes me from my flow'ry bed?
  BOTTOM. [Sings]
          The finch, the sparrow, and the lark,
            The plain-song cuckoo grey,
          Whose note full many a man doth mark,
            And dares not answer nay-
    for, indeed, who would set his wit to so foolish a bird?
    Who would give a bird the he, though he cry 'cuckoo' never so?
  TITANIA. I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again.
    Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;
    So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape;
    And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me,
    On the first view, to say, to swear, I love thee.
  BOTTOM. Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that.
    And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company
    together now-a-days. The more the pity that some honest
    neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek upon
    occasion.
  TITANIA. Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.
  BOTTOM. Not so, neither; but if I had wit enough to get out of this
    wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.
  TITANIA. Out of this wood do not desire to go;
    Thou shalt remain here whether thou wilt or no.
    I am a spirit of no common rate;
    The summer still doth tend upon my state;
    And I do love thee; therefore, go with me.
    I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee;
    And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,
    And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep;
    And I will purge thy mortal grossness so
    That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.
    Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed!

       Enter PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED

  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.
  COBWEB. And I.
  MOTH. And I.
  MUSTARDSEED. And I.
  ALL. Where shall we go?
  TITANIA. Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
    Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
    Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
    With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
    The honey bags steal from the humble-bees,
    And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs,
    And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes,
    To have my love to bed and to arise;
    And pluck the wings from painted butterflies,
    To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.
    Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.
  PEASEBLOSSOM. Hail, mortal!
  COBWEB. Hail!
  MOTH. Hail!
  MUSTARDSEED. Hail!
  BOTTOM. I cry your worships mercy, heartily; I beseech your
    worship's name.
  COBWEB. Cobweb.
  BOTTOM. I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
    Cobweb. If I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you. Your
    name, honest gentleman?
  PEASEBLOSSOM. Peaseblossom.
  BOTTOM. I pray you, commend me to Mistress Squash, your mother, and
    to Master Peascod, your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall
    desire you of more acquaintance too. Your name, I beseech you,
    sir?
  MUSTARDSEED. Mustardseed.
  BOTTOM. Good Master Mustardseed, I know your patience well. That
    same cowardly giant-like ox-beef hath devour'd many a gentleman
    of your house. I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water
    ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master
    Mustardseed.
  TITANIA. Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
    The moon, methinks, looks with a wat'ry eye;
    And when she weeps, weeps every little flower;
    Lamenting some enforced chastity.
    Tie up my love's tongue, bring him silently.          Exeunt

SCENE II. Another part of the wood

Enter OBERON

  OBERON. I wonder if Titania be awak'd;
    Then, what it was that next came in her eye,
    Which she must dote on in extremity.

                          Enter PUCK

    Here comes my messenger. How now, mad spirit!
    What night-rule now about this haunted grove?
  PUCK. My mistress with a monster is in love.
    Near to her close and consecrated bower,
    While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
    A crew of patches, rude mechanicals,
    That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,
    Were met together to rehearse a play
    Intended for great Theseus' nuptial day.
    The shallowest thickskin of that barren sort,
    Who Pyramus presented, in their sport
    Forsook his scene and ent'red in a brake;
    When I did him at this advantage take,
    An ass's nole I fixed on his head.
    Anon his Thisby must be answered,
    And forth my mimic comes. When they him spy,
    As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,
    Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,
    Rising and cawing at the gun's report,
    Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,
    So at his sight away his fellows fly;
    And at our stamp here, o'er and o'er one falls;
    He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.
    Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,
    Made senseless things begin to do them wrong,
    For briers and thorns at their apparel snatch;
    Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders all things catch.
    I led them on in this distracted fear,
    And left sweet Pyramus translated there;
    When in that moment, so it came to pass,
    Titania wak'd, and straightway lov'd an ass.
  OBERON. This falls out better than I could devise.
    But hast thou yet latch'd the Athenian's eyes
    With the love-juice, as I did bid thee do?
  PUCK. I took him sleeping- that is finish'd too-
    And the Athenian woman by his side;
    That, when he wak'd, of force she must be ey'd.

                 Enter DEMETRIUS and HERMIA

  OBERON. Stand close; this is the same Athenian.
  PUCK. This is the woman, but not this the man.
  DEMETRIUS. O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
    Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
  HERMIA. Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse,
    For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse.
    If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,
    Being o'er shoes in blood, plunge in the deep,
    And kill me too.
    The sun was not so true unto the day
    As he to me. Would he have stolen away
    From sleeping Hermia? I'll believe as soon
    This whole earth may be bor'd, and that the moon
    May through the centre creep and so displease
    Her brother's noontide with th' Antipodes.
    It cannot be but thou hast murd'red him;
    So should a murderer look- so dead, so grim.
  DEMETRIUS. So should the murdered look; and so should I,
    Pierc'd through the heart with your stern cruelty;
    Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear,
    As yonder Venus in her glimmering sphere.
  HERMIA. What's this to my Lysander? Where is he?
    Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?
  DEMETRIUS. I had rather give his carcass to my hounds.
  HERMIA. Out, dog! out, cur! Thou driv'st me past the bounds
    Of maiden's patience. Hast thou slain him, then?
    Henceforth be never numb'red among men!
    O, once tell true; tell true, even for my sake!
    Durst thou have look'd upon him being awake,
    And hast thou kill'd him sleeping? O brave touch!
    Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?
    An adder did it; for with doubler tongue
    Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.
  DEMETRIUS. You spend your passion on a mispris'd mood:
    I am not guilty of Lysander's blood;
    Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.
  HERMIA. I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.
  DEMETRIUS. An if I could, what should I get therefore?
  HERMIA. A privilege never to see me more.
    And from thy hated presence part I so;
    See me no more whether he be dead or no.                Exit
  DEMETRIUS. There is no following her in this fierce vein;
    Here, therefore, for a while I will remain.
    So sorrow's heaviness doth heavier grow
    For debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe;
    Which now in some slight measure it will pay,
    If for his tender here I make some stay.         [Lies down]
  OBERON. What hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite,
    And laid the love-juice on some true-love's sight.
    Of thy misprision must perforce ensue
    Some true love turn'd, and not a false turn'd true.
  PUCK. Then fate o'er-rules, that, one man holding troth,
    A million fail, confounding oath on oath.
  OBERON. About the wood go swifter than the wind,
    And Helena of Athens look thou find;
    All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer,
    With sighs of love that costs the fresh blood dear.
    By some illusion see thou bring her here;
    I'll charm his eyes against she do appear.
  PUCK. I go, I go; look how I go,
    Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.               Exit
  OBERON.       Flower of this purple dye,
                Hit with Cupid's archery,
                Sink in apple of his eye.
                When his love he doth espy,
                Let her shine as gloriously
                As the Venus of the sky.
                When thou wak'st, if she be by,
                Beg of her for remedy.

                       Re-enter PUCK

  PUCK.         Captain of our fairy band,
                Helena is here at hand,
                And the youth mistook by me
                Pleading for a lover's fee;
                Shall we their fond pageant see?
                Lord, what fools these mortals be!
  OBERON.       Stand aside. The noise they make
                Will cause Demetrius to awake.
  PUCK.         Then will two at once woo one.
                That must needs be sport alone;
                And those things do best please me
                That befall prepost'rously.

                   Enter LYSANDER and HELENA

  LYSANDER. Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
    Scorn and derision never come in tears.
    Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
    In their nativity all truth appears.
    How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
    Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?
  HELENA. You do advance your cunning more and more.
    When truth kills truth, O devilish-holy fray!
    These vows are Hermia's. Will you give her o'er?
    Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh:
    Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,
    Will even weigh; and both as light as tales.
  LYSANDER. I hod no judgment when to her I swore.
  HELENA. Nor none, in my mind, now you give her o'er.
  LYSANDER. Demetrius loves her, and he loves not you.
  DEMETRIUS. [Awaking] O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
    To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
    Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
    Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
    That pure congealed white, high Taurus' snow,
    Fann'd with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
    When thou hold'st up thy hand. O, let me kiss
    This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!
  HELENA. O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
    To set against me for your merriment.
    If you were civil and knew courtesy,
    You would not do me thus much injury.
    Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
    But you must join in souls to mock me too?
    If you were men, as men you are in show,
    You would not use a gentle lady so:
    To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
    When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
    You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
    And now both rivals, to mock Helena.
    A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
    To conjure tears up in a poor maid's eyes
    With your derision! None of noble sort
    Would so offend a virgin, and extort
    A poor soul's patience, all to make you sport.
  LYSANDER. You are unkind, Demetrius; be not so;
    For you love Hermia. This you know I know;
    And here, with all good will, with all my heart,
    In Hermia's love I yield you up my part;
    And yours of Helena to me bequeath,
    Whom I do love and will do till my death.
  HELENA. Never did mockers waste more idle breath.
  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, keep thy Hermia; I will none.
    If e'er I lov'd her, all that love is gone.
    My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourn'd,
    And now to Helen is it home return'd,
    There to remain.
  LYSANDER. Helen, it is not so.
  DEMETRIUS. Disparage not the faith thou dost not know,
    Lest, to thy peril, thou aby it dear.
    Look where thy love comes; yonder is thy dear.

                       Enter HERMIA

  HERMIA. Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
    The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
    Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
    It pays the hearing double recompense.
    Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found;
    Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.
    But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?
  LYSANDER. Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?
  HERMIA. What love could press Lysander from my side?
  LYSANDER. Lysander's love, that would not let him bide-
    Fair Helena, who more engilds the night
    Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.
    Why seek'st thou me? Could not this make thee know
    The hate I bare thee made me leave thee so?
  HERMIA. You speak not as you think; it cannot be.
  HELENA. Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
    Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three
    To fashion this false sport in spite of me.
    Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!
    Have you conspir'd, have you with these contriv'd,
    To bait me with this foul derision?
    Is all the counsel that we two have shar'd,
    The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
    When we have chid the hasty-footed time
    For parting us- O, is all forgot?
    All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
    We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
    Have with our needles created both one flower,
    Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
    Both warbling of one song, both in one key;
    As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds,
    Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
    Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
    But yet an union in partition,
    Two lovely berries moulded on one stern;
    So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
    Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
    Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.
    And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
    To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
    It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly;
    Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
    Though I alone do feel the injury.
  HERMIA. I am amazed at your passionate words;
    I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.
  HELENA. Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,
    To follow me and praise my eyes and face?
    And made your other love, Demetrius,
    Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,
    To call me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare,
    Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this
    To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander
    Deny your love, so rich within his soul,
    And tender me, forsooth, affection,
    But by your setting on, by your consent?
    What though I be not so in grace as you,
    So hung upon with love, so fortunate,
    But miserable most, to love unlov'd?
    This you should pity rather than despise.
  HERMIA. I understand not what you mean by this.
  HELENA. Ay, do- persever, counterfeit sad looks,
    Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,
    Wink each at other; hold the sweet jest up;
    This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.
    If you have any pity, grace, or manners,
    You would not make me such an argument.
    But fare ye well; 'tis partly my own fault,
    Which death, or absence, soon shall remedy.
  LYSANDER. Stay, gentle Helena; hear my excuse;
    My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!
  HELENA. O excellent!
  HERMIA. Sweet, do not scorn her so.
  DEMETRIUS. If she cannot entreat, I can compel.
  LYSANDER. Thou canst compel no more than she entreat;
    Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers
    Helen, I love thee, by my life I do;
    I swear by that which I will lose for thee
    To prove him false that says I love thee not.
  DEMETRIUS. I say I love thee more than he can do.
  LYSANDER. If thou say so, withdraw, and prove it too.
  DEMETRIUS. Quick, come.
  HERMIA. Lysander, whereto tends all this?
  LYSANDER. Away, you Ethiope!
  DEMETRIUS. No, no, he will
    Seem to break loose- take on as you would follow,
    But yet come not. You are a tame man; go!
  LYSANDER. Hang off, thou cat, thou burr; vile thing, let loose,
    Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.
  HERMIA. Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,
    Sweet love?
  LYSANDER. Thy love! Out, tawny Tartar, out!
    Out, loathed med'cine! O hated potion, hence!
  HERMIA. Do you not jest?
  HELENA. Yes, sooth; and so do you.
  LYSANDER. Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.
  DEMETRIUS. I would I had your bond; for I perceive
    A weak bond holds you; I'll not trust your word.
  LYSANDER. What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?
    Although I hate her, I'll not harm her so.
  HERMIA. What! Can you do me greater harm than hate?
    Hate me! wherefore? O me! what news, my love?
    Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?
    I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
    Since night you lov'd me; yet since night you left me.
    Why then, you left me- O, the gods forbid!-
    In earnest, shall I say?
  LYSANDER. Ay, by my life!
    And never did desire to see thee more.
    Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt;
    Be certain, nothing truer; 'tis no jest
    That I do hate thee and love Helena.
  HERMIA. O me! you juggler! you cankerblossom!
    You thief of love! What! Have you come by night,
    And stol'n my love's heart from him?
  HELENA. Fine, i' faith!
    Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,
    No touch of bashfulness? What! Will you tear
    Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?
    Fie, fie! you counterfeit, you puppet you!
  HERMIA. 'Puppet!' why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
    Now I perceive that she hath made compare
    Between our statures; she hath urg'd her height;
    And with her personage, her tall personage,
    Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail'd with him.
    And are you grown so high in his esteem
    Because I am so dwarfish and so low?
    How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak.
    How low am I? I am not yet so low
    But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.
  HELENA. I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,
    Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;
    I have no gift at all in shrewishness;
    I am a right maid for my cowardice;
    Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,
    Because she is something lower than myself,
    That I can match her.
  HERMIA. 'Lower' hark, again.
  HELENA. Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.
    I evermore did love you, Hermia,
    Did ever keep your counsels, never wrong'd you;
    Save that, in love unto Demetrius,
    I told him of your stealth unto this wood.
    He followed you; for love I followed him;
    But he hath chid me hence, and threat'ned me
    To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too;
    And now, so you will let me quiet go,
    To Athens will I bear my folly back,
    And follow you no further. Let me go.
    You see how simple and how fond I am.
  HERMIA. Why, get you gone! Who is't that hinders you?
  HELENA. A foolish heart that I leave here behind.
  HERMIA. What! with Lysander?
  HELENA. With Demetrius.
  LYSANDER. Be not afraid; she shall not harm thee, Helena.
  DEMETRIUS. No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.
  HELENA. O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd;
    She was a vixen when she went to school;
    And, though she be but little, she is fierce.
  HERMIA. 'Little' again! Nothing but 'low' and 'little'!
    Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?
    Let me come to her.
  LYSANDER. Get you gone, you dwarf;
    You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made;
    You bead, you acorn.
  DEMETRIUS. You are too officious
    In her behalf that scorns your services.
    Let her alone; speak not of Helena;
    Take not her part; for if thou dost intend
    Never so little show of love to her,
    Thou shalt aby it.
  LYSANDER. Now she holds me not.
    Now follow, if thou dar'st, to try whose right,
    Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.
  DEMETRIUS. Follow! Nay, I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl.
                                   Exeunt LYSANDER and DEMETRIUS
  HERMIA. You, mistress, all this coil is long of you.
    Nay, go not back.
  HELENA. I will not trust you, I;
    Nor longer stay in your curst company.
    Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray;
    My legs are longer though, to run away.                 Exit
  HERMIA. I am amaz'd, and know not what to say.            Exit
  OBERON. This is thy negligence. Still thou mistak'st,
    Or else committ'st thy knaveries wilfully.
  PUCK. Believe me, king of shadows, I mistook.
    Did not you tell me I should know the man
    By the Athenian garments he had on?
    And so far blameless proves my enterprise
    That I have 'nointed an Athenian's eyes;
    And so far am I glad it so did sort,
    As this their jangling I esteem a sport.
  OBERON. Thou seest these lovers seek a place to fight.
    Hie therefore, Robin, overcast the night;
    The starry welkin cover thou anon
    With drooping fog as black as Acheron,
    And lead these testy rivals so astray
    As one come not within another's way.
    Like to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,
    Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;
    And sometime rail thou like Demetrius;
    And from each other look thou lead them thus,
    Till o'er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep
    With leaden legs and batty wings doth creep.
    Then crush this herb into Lysander's eye;
    Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
    To take from thence all error with his might
    And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.
    When they next wake, all this derision
    Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision;
    And back to Athens shall the lovers wend
    With league whose date till death shall never end.
    Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,
    I'll to my queen, and beg her Indian boy;
    And then I will her charmed eye release
    From monster's view, and all things shall be peace.
  PUCK. My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
    For night's swift dragons cut the clouds full fast;
    And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger,
    At whose approach ghosts, wand'ring here and there,
    Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all
    That in cross-ways and floods have burial,
    Already to their wormy beds are gone,
    For fear lest day should look their shames upon;
    They wilfully themselves exil'd from light,
    And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.
  OBERON. But we are spirits of another sort:
    I with the Morning's love have oft made sport;
    And, like a forester, the groves may tread
    Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,
    Opening on Neptune with fair blessed beams,
    Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.
    But, notwithstanding, haste, make no delay;
    We may effect this business yet ere day.         Exit OBERON
  PUCK.      Up and down, up and down,
             I will lead them up and down.
             I am fear'd in field and town.
             Goblin, lead them up and down.
    Here comes one.

                      Enter LYSANDER

  LYSANDER. Where art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.
  PUCK. Here, villain, drawn and ready. Where art thou?
  LYSANDER. I will be with thee straight.
  PUCK. Follow me, then,
    To plainer ground.      Exit LYSANDER as following the voice

                      Enter DEMETRIUS

  DEMETRIUS. Lysander, speak again.
    Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?
    Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?
  PUCK. Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,
    Telling the bushes that thou look'st for wars,
    And wilt not come? Come, recreant, come, thou child;
    I'll whip thee with a rod. He is defil'd
    That draws a sword on thee.
  DEMETRIUS. Yea, art thou there?
  PUCK. Follow my voice; we'll try no manhood here.       Exeunt

                      Re-enter LYSANDER

  LYSANDER. He goes before me, and still dares me on;
    When I come where he calls, then he is gone.
    The villain is much lighter heel'd than I.
    I followed fast, but faster he did fly,
    That fallen am I in dark uneven way,
    And here will rest me. [Lies down] Come, thou gentle day.
    For if but once thou show me thy grey light,
    I'll find Demetrius, and revenge this spite.        [Sleeps]

                 Re-enter PUCK and DEMETRIUS

  PUCK. Ho, ho, ho! Coward, why com'st thou not?
  DEMETRIUS. Abide me, if thou dar'st; for well I wot
    Thou run'st before me, shifting every place,
    And dar'st not stand, nor look me in the face.
    Where art thou now?
  PUCK. Come hither; I am here.
  DEMETRIUS. Nay, then, thou mock'st me. Thou shalt buy this dear,
    If ever I thy face by daylight see;
    Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me
    To measure out my length on this cold bed.
    By day's approach look to be visited.
                                          [Lies down and sleeps]

                       Enter HELENA

  HELENA. O weary night, O long and tedious night,
    Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east,
    That I may back to Athens by daylight,
    From these that my poor company detest.
    And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye,
    Steal me awhile from mine own company.              [Sleeps]
  PUCK.       Yet but three? Come one more;
              Two of both kinds makes up four.
              Here she comes, curst and sad.
              Cupid is a knavish lad,
              Thus to make poor females mad.

                     Enter HERMIA

  HERMIA. Never so weary, never so in woe,
    Bedabbled with the dew, and torn with briers,
    I can no further crawl, no further go;
    My legs can keep no pace with my desires.
    Here will I rest me till the break of day.
    Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!
                                          [Lies down and sleeps]
  PUCK.          On the ground
                 Sleep sound;
                 I'll apply
                 To your eye,
          Gentle lover, remedy.
                        [Squeezing the juice on LYSANDER'S eyes]
                 When thou wak'st,
                 Thou tak'st
                 True delight
                 In the sight
          Of thy former lady's eye;
          And the country proverb known,
          That every man should take his own,
          In your waking shall be shown:
                 Jack shall have Jill;
                 Nought shall go ill;
    The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.
 Exit

ACT IV. SCENE I. The wood. LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HELENA, and HERMIA,
lying asleep

Enter TITANIA and Bottom; PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, MUSTARDSEED, and
other FAIRIES attending; OBERON behind, unseen

  TITANIA. Come, sit thee down upon this flow'ry bed,
    While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
    And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
    And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
  BOTTOM. Where's Peaseblossom?
  PEASEBLOSSOM. Ready.
  BOTTOM. Scratch my head, Peaseblossom.
    Where's Mounsieur Cobweb?
  COBWEB. Ready.
  BOTTOM. Mounsieur Cobweb; good mounsieur, get you your weapons in
    your hand and kill me a red-hipp'd humble-bee on the top of a
    thistle; and, good mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret
    yourself too much in the action, mounsieur; and, good mounsieur,
    have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you
    overflown with a honey-bag, signior. Where's Mounsieur
    Mustardseed?
  MUSTARDSEED. Ready.
  BOTTOM. Give me your neaf, Mounsieur Mustardseed. Pray you, leave
    your curtsy, good mounsieur.
  MUSTARDSEED. What's your will?
  BOTTOM. Nothing, good mounsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb to
    scratch. I must to the barber's, mounsieur; for methinks I am
    marvellous hairy about the face; and I am such a tender ass, if
    my hair do but tickle me I must scratch.
  TITANIA. What, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?
  BOTTOM. I have a reasonable good ear in music. Let's have the tongs
    and the bones.
  TITANIA. Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.
  BOTTOM. Truly, a peck of provender; I could munch your good dry
    oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle of hay. Good
    hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.
  TITANIA. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
    The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.
  BOTTOM. I had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I
    pray you, let none of your people stir me; I have an exposition
    of sleep come upon me.
  TITANIA. Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
    Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.       Exeunt FAIRIES
    So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
    Gently entwist; the female ivy so
    Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
    O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!         [They sleep]

                         Enter PUCK

  OBERON. [Advancing] Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet
      sight?
    Her dotage now I do begin to pity;
    For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
    Seeking sweet favours for this hateful fool,
    I did upbraid her and fall out with her.
    For she his hairy temples then had rounded
    With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
    And that same dew which sometime on the buds
    Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls
    Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,
    Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
    When I had at my pleasure taunted her,
    And she in mild terms begg'd my patience,
    I then did ask of her her changeling child;
    Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent
    To bear him to my bower in fairy land.
    And now I have the boy, I will undo
    This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
    And, gentle Puck, take this transformed scalp
    From off the head of this Athenian swain,
    That he awaking when the other do
    May all to Athens back again repair,
    And think no more of this night's accidents
    But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
    But first I will release the Fairy Queen.
                                             [Touching her eyes]
           Be as thou wast wont to be;
           See as thou was wont to see.
           Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
           Hath such force and blessed power.
    Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen.
  TITANIA. My Oberon! What visions have I seen!
    Methought I was enamour'd of an ass.
  OBERON. There lies your love.
  TITANIA. How came these things to pass?
    O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!
  OBERON. Silence awhile. Robin, take off this head.
    Titania, music call; and strike more dead
    Than common sleep of all these five the sense.
  TITANIA. Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!
  PUCK. Now when thou wak'st with thine own fool's eyes peep.
  OBERON. Sound, music. Come, my Queen, take hands with me,
                                                         [Music]
    And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
    Now thou and I are new in amity,
    And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
    Dance in Duke Theseus' house triumphantly,
    And bless it to all fair prosperity.
    There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
    Wedded, with Theseus, an in jollity.
  PUCK.       Fairy King, attend and mark;
              I do hear the morning lark.
  OBERON.     Then, my Queen, in silence sad,
              Trip we after night's shade.
              We the globe can compass soon,
              Swifter than the wand'ring moon.
  TITANIA.    Come, my lord; and in our flight,
              Tell me how it came this night
              That I sleeping here was found
              With these mortals on the ground.           Exeunt

        To the winding of horns, enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA,
                      EGEUS, and train

  THESEUS. Go, one of you, find out the forester;
    For now our observation is perform'd,
    And since we have the vaward of the day,
    My love shall hear the music of my hounds.
    Uncouple in the western valley; let them go.
    Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.    Exit an ATTENDANT
    We will, fair Queen, up to the mountain's top,
    And mark the musical confusion
    Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
  HIPPOLYTA. I was with Hercules and Cadmus once
    When in a wood of Crete they bay'd the bear
    With hounds of Sparta; never did I hear
    Such gallant chiding, for, besides the groves,
    The skies, the fountains, every region near
    Seem'd all one mutual cry. I never heard
    So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.
  THESEUS. My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
    So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
    With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
    Crook-knee'd and dew-lapp'd like Thessalian bulls;
    Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bells,
    Each under each. A cry more tuneable
    Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn,
    In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.
    Judge when you hear. But, soft, what nymphs are these?
  EGEUS. My lord, this is my daughter here asleep,
    And this Lysander, this Demetrius is,
    This Helena, old Nedar's Helena.
    I wonder of their being here together.
  THESEUS. No doubt they rose up early to observe
    The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
    Came here in grace of our solemnity.
    But speak, Egeus; is not this the day
    That Hermia should give answer of her choice?
  EGEUS. It is, my lord.
  THESEUS. Go, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.
                           [Horns and shout within. The sleepers
                                     awake and kneel to THESEUS]
    Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;
    Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
  LYSANDER. Pardon, my lord.
  THESEUS. I pray you all, stand up.
    I know you two are rival enemies;
    How comes this gentle concord in the world
    That hatred is so far from jealousy
    To sleep by hate, and fear no enmity?
  LYSANDER. My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
    Half sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
    I cannot truly say how I came here,
    But, as I think- for truly would I speak,
    And now I do bethink me, so it is-
    I came with Hermia hither. Our intent
    Was to be gone from Athens, where we might,
    Without the peril of the Athenian law-
  EGEUS. Enough, enough, my Lord; you have enough;
    I beg the law, the law upon his head.
    They would have stol'n away, they would, Demetrius,
    Thereby to have defeated you and me:
    You of your wife, and me of my consent,
    Of my consent that she should be your wife.
  DEMETRIUS. My lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,
    Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
    And I in fury hither followed them,
    Fair Helena in fancy following me.
    But, my good lord, I wot not by what power-
    But by some power it is- my love to Hermia,
    Melted as the snow, seems to me now
    As the remembrance of an idle gaud
    Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
    And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
    The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
    Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
    Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia.
    But, like a sickness, did I loathe this food;
    But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
    Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
    And will for evermore be true to it.
  THESEUS. Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;
    Of this discourse we more will hear anon.
    Egeus, I will overbear your will;
    For in the temple, by and by, with us
    These couples shall eternally be knit.
    And, for the morning now is something worn,
    Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside.
    Away with us to Athens, three and three;
    We'll hold a feast in great solemnity.
    Come, Hippolyta.
                     Exeunt THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, EGEUS, and train
  DEMETRIUS. These things seem small and undistinguishable,
    Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.
  HERMIA. Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
    When every thing seems double.
  HELENA. So methinks;
    And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,
    Mine own, and not mine own.
  DEMETRIUS. Are you sure
    That we are awake? It seems to me
    That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think
    The Duke was here, and bid us follow him?
  HERMIA. Yea, and my father.
  HELENA. And Hippolyta.
  LYSANDER. And he did bid us follow to the temple.
  DEMETRIUS. Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him;
    And by the way let us recount our dreams.             Exeunt
  BOTTOM. [Awaking] When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My
    next is 'Most fair Pyramus.' Heigh-ho! Peter Quince! Flute, the
    bellows-mender! Snout, the tinker! Starveling! God's my life,
    stol'n hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision.
    I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.
    Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought
    I was- there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, and
    methought I had, but man is but a patch'd fool, if he will offer
    to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the
    ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his
    tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I
    will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall
    be call'd 'Bottom's Dream,' because it hath no bottom; and I will
    sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.
    Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at
    her death.                                              Exit

SCENE II. Athens. QUINCE'S house

Enter QUINCE, FLUTE, SNOUT, and STARVELING

  QUINCE. Have you sent to Bottom's house? Is he come home yet?
  STARVELING. He cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.
  FLUTE. If he come not, then the play is marr'd; it goes not
    forward, doth it?
  QUINCE. It is not possible. You have not a man in all Athens able
    to discharge Pyramus but he.
  FLUTE. No; he hath simply the best wit of any handicraft man in
    Athens.
  QUINCE. Yea, and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for
    a sweet voice.
  FLUTE. You must say 'paragon.' A paramour is- God bless us!- A
    thing of naught.

                           Enter SNUG

  SNUG. Masters, the Duke is coming from the temple; and there is two
    or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone
    forward, we had all been made men.
  FLUTE. O sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day
    during his life; he could not have scaped sixpence a day. An the
    Duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I'll
    be hanged. He would have deserved it: sixpence a day in Pyramus,
    or nothing.

                           Enter BOTTOM

  BOTTOM. Where are these lads? Where are these hearts?
  QUINCE. Bottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!
  BOTTOM. Masters, I am to discourse wonders; but ask me not what;
    for if I tell you, I am not true Athenian. I will tell you
    everything, right as it fell out.
  QUINCE. Let us hear, sweet Bottom.
  BOTTOM. Not a word of me. All that I will tell you is, that the
    Duke hath dined. Get your apparel together; good strings to your
    beards, new ribbons to your pumps; meet presently at the palace;
    every man look o'er his part; for the short and the long is, our
    play is preferr'd. In any case, let Thisby have clean linen; and
    let not him that plays the lion pare his nails, for they shall
    hang out for the lion's claws. And, most dear actors, eat no
    onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not
    doubt but to hear them say it is a sweet comedy. No more words.
    Away, go, away!                                       Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Athens. The palace of THESEUS

Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, LORDS, and ATTENDANTS

  HIPPOLYTA. 'Tis strange, my Theseus, that these lovers speak of.
  THESEUS. More strange than true. I never may believe
    These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
    Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
    Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
    More than cool reason ever comprehends.
    The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
    Are of imagination all compact.
    One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
    That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
    Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.
    The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
    Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
    And as imagination bodies forth
    The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
    Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
    A local habitation and a name.
    Such tricks hath strong imagination
    That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
    It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
    Or in the night, imagining some fear,
    How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?
  HIPPOLYTA. But all the story of the night told over,
    And all their minds transfigur'd so together,
    More witnesseth than fancy's images,
    And grows to something of great constancy,
    But howsoever strange and admirable.

          Enter LYSANDER, DEMETRIUS, HERMIA, and HELENA

  THESEUS. Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.
    Joy, gentle friends, joy and fresh days of love
    Accompany your hearts!
  LYSANDER. More than to us
    Wait in your royal walks, your board, your bed!
  THESEUS. Come now; what masques, what dances shall we have,
    To wear away this long age of three hours
    Between our after-supper and bed-time?
    Where is our usual manager of mirth?
    What revels are in hand? Is there no play
    To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
    Call Philostrate.
  PHILOSTRATE. Here, mighty Theseus.
  THESEUS. Say, what abridgment have you for this evening?
    What masque? what music? How shall we beguile
    The lazy time, if not with some delight?
  PHILOSTRATE. There is a brief how many sports are ripe;
    Make choice of which your Highness will see first.
                                                [Giving a paper]
  THESEUS. 'The battle with the Centaurs, to be sung
    By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.'
    We'll none of that: that have I told my love,
    In glory of my kinsman Hercules.
    'The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,
    Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.'
    That is an old device, and it was play'd
    When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.
    'The thrice three Muses mourning for the death
    Of Learning, late deceas'd in beggary.'
    That is some satire, keen and critical,
    Not sorting with a nuptial ceremony.
    'A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
    And his love Thisby; very tragical mirth.'
    Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
    That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow.
    How shall we find the concord of this discord?
  PHILOSTRATE. A play there is, my lord, some ten words long,
    Which is as brief as I have known a play;
    But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,
    Which makes it tedious; for in all the play
    There is not one word apt, one player fitted.
    And tragical, my noble lord, it is;
    For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.
    Which when I saw rehears'd, I must confess,
    Made mine eyes water; but more merry tears
    The passion of loud laughter never shed.
  THESEUS. What are they that do play it?
  PHILOSTRATE. Hard-handed men that work in Athens here,
    Which never labour'd in their minds till now;
    And now have toil'd their unbreathed memories
    With this same play against your nuptial.
  THESEUS. And we will hear it.
  PHILOSTRATE. No, my noble lord,
    It is not for you. I have heard it over,
    And it is nothing, nothing in the world;
    Unless you can find sport in their intents,
    Extremely stretch'd and conn'd with cruel pain,
    To do you service.
  THESEUS. I will hear that play;
    For never anything can be amiss
    When simpleness and duty tender it.
    Go, bring them in; and take your places, ladies.
                                                Exit PHILOSTRATE
  HIPPOLYTA. I love not to see wretchedness o'er-charged,
    And duty in his service perishing.
  THESEUS. Why, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.
  HIPPOLYTA. He says they can do nothing in this kind.
  THESEUS. The kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.
    Our sport shall be to take what they mistake;
    And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect
    Takes it in might, not merit.
    Where I have come, great clerks have purposed
    To greet me with premeditated welcomes;
    Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,
    Make periods in the midst of sentences,
    Throttle their practis'd accent in their fears,
    And, in conclusion, dumbly have broke off,
    Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,
    Out of this silence yet I pick'd a welcome;
    And in the modesty of fearful duty
    I read as much as from the rattling tongue
    Of saucy and audacious eloquence.
    Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
    In least speak most to my capacity.

                       Re-enter PHILOSTRATE

  PHILOSTRATE. SO please your Grace, the Prologue is address'd.
  THESEUS. Let him approach.              [Flourish of trumpets]

                 Enter QUINCE as the PROLOGUE

  PROLOGUE. If we offend, it is with our good will.
    That you should think, we come not to offend,
    But with good will. To show our simple skill,
    That is the true beginning of our end.
    Consider then, we come but in despite.
    We do not come, as minding to content you,
    Our true intent is. All for your delight
    We are not here. That you should here repent you,
    The actors are at band; and, by their show,
    You shall know all, that you are like to know,
  THESEUS. This fellow doth not stand upon points.
  LYSANDER. He hath rid his prologue like a rough colt; he knows not
    the stop. A good moral, my lord: it is not enough to speak, but
    to speak true.
  HIPPOLYTA. Indeed he hath play'd on this prologue like a child on a
    recorder- a sound, but not in government.
  THESEUS. His speech was like a tangled chain; nothing im paired,
    but all disordered. Who is next?

          Enter, with a trumpet before them, as in dumb show,
            PYRAMUS and THISBY, WALL, MOONSHINE, and LION

  PROLOGUE. Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
    But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
    This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
    This beauteous lady Thisby is certain.
    This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present
    Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;
    And through Walls chink, poor souls, they are content
    To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
    This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
    Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,
    By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
    To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.
    This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
    The trusty Thisby, coming first by night,
    Did scare away, or rather did affright;
    And as she fled, her mantle she did fall;
    Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
    Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
    And finds his trusty Thisby's mantle slain;
    Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
    He bravely broach'd his boiling bloody breast;
    And Thisby, tarrying in mulberry shade,
    His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
    Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain,
    At large discourse while here they do remain.
                               Exeunt PROLOGUE, PYRAMUS, THISBY,
                                             LION, and MOONSHINE
  THESEUS. I wonder if the lion be to speak.
  DEMETRIUS. No wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.
  WALL. In this same interlude it doth befall
    That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
    And such a wall as I would have you think
    That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
    Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby,
    Did whisper often very secretly.
    This loam, this rough-cast, and this stone, doth show
    That I am that same wall; the truth is so;
    And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
    Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
  THESEUS. Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
  DEMETRIUS. It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard
    discourse, my lord.

                       Enter PYRAMUS

  THESEUS. Pyramus draws near the wall; silence.
  PYRAMUS. O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!
    O night, which ever art when day is not!
    O night, O night, alack, alack, alack,
    I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot!
    And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
    That stand'st between her father's ground and mine;
    Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
    Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne.
                                     [WALL holds up his fingers]
    Thanks, courteous wall. Jove shield thee well for this!
    But what see what see I? No Thisby do I see.
    O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss,
    Curs'd he thy stones for thus deceiving me!
  THESEUS. The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.
  PYRAMUS. No, in truth, sir, he should not. Deceiving me is Thisby's
    cue. She is to enter now, and I am to spy her through the wall.
    You shall see it will fall pat as I told you; yonder she comes.

                          Enter THISBY

  THISBY. O wall, full often hast thou beard my moans,
    For parting my fair Pyramus and me!
    My cherry lips have often kiss'd thy stones,
    Thy stones with lime and hair knit up in thee.
  PYRAMUS. I see a voice; now will I to the chink,
    To spy an I can hear my Thisby's face.
    Thisby!
  THISBY. My love! thou art my love, I think.
  PYRAMUS. Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover's grace;
    And like Limander am I trusty still.
  THISBY. And I like Helen, till the Fates me kill.
  PYRAMUS. Not Shafalus to Procrus was so true.
  THISBY. As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.
  PYRAMUS. O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall.
  THISBY. I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all.
  PYRAMUS. Wilt thou at Ninny's tomb meet me straightway?
  THISBY. Tide life, tide death, I come without delay.
                                       Exeunt PYRAMUS and THISBY
  WALL. Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
    And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.           Exit WALL
  THESEUS. Now is the moon used between the two neighbours.
  DEMETRIUS. No remedy, my lord, when walls are so wilful to hear
    without warning.
  HIPPOLYTA. This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
  THESEUS. The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are
    no worse, if imagination amend them.
  HIPPOLYTA. It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.
  THESEUS. If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves,
    they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a
    man and a lion.

                   Enter LION and MOONSHINE

  LION. You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear
    The smallest monstrous mouse that creeps on floor,
    May now, perchance, both quake and tremble here,
    When lion rough in wildest rage doth roar.
    Then know that I as Snug the joiner am
    A lion fell, nor else no lion's dam;
    For, if I should as lion come in strife
    Into this place, 'twere pity on my life.
  THESEUS. A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.
  DEMETRIUS. The very best at a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.
  LYSANDER. This lion is a very fox for his valour.
  THESEUS. True; and a goose for his discretion.
  DEMETRIUS. Not so, my lord; for his valour cannot carry his
    discretion, and the fox carries the goose.
  THESEUS. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour; for
    the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to his
    discretion, and let us listen to the Moon.
  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present-
  DEMETRIUS. He should have worn the horns on his head.
  THESEUS. He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the
    circumference.
  MOONSHINE. This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;
    Myself the Man i' th' Moon do seem to be.
  THESEUS. This is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should
    be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i' th' moon?
  DEMETRIUS. He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it
    is already in snuff.
  HIPPOLYTA. I am aweary of this moon. Would he would change!
  THESEUS. It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is
    in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all reason, we must stay
    the time.
  LYSANDER. Proceed, Moon.
  MOON. All that I have to say is to tell you that the lanthorn is
    the moon; I, the Man i' th' Moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush;
    and this dog, my dog.
  DEMETRIUS. Why, all these should be in the lantern; for all these
    are in the moon. But silence; here comes Thisby.

                        Re-enter THISBY

  THISBY. This is old Ninny's tomb. Where is my love?
  LION. [Roaring] O-                           [THISBY runs off]
  DEMETRIUS. Well roar'd, Lion.
  THESEUS. Well run, Thisby.
  HIPPOLYTA. Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good
    grace.            [The LION tears THISBY'S Mantle, and exit]
  THESEUS. Well mous'd, Lion.

                        Re-enter PYRAMUS

  DEMETRIUS. And then came Pyramus.
  LYSANDER. And so the lion vanish'd.
  PYRAMUS. Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams;
    I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright;
    For, by thy gracious golden, glittering gleams,
    I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.
             But stay, O spite!
             But mark, poor knight,
           What dreadful dole is here!
             Eyes, do you see?
             How can it he?
           O dainty duck! O dear!
             Thy mantle good,
             What! stain'd with blood?
           Approach, ye Furies fell.
             O Fates! come, come;
             Cut thread and thrum;
           Quail, crush, conclude, and quell.
  THESEUS. This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go
    near to make a man look sad.
  HIPPOLYTA. Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.
  PYRAMUS. O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
    Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear;
    Which is- no, no- which was the fairest dame
    That liv'd, that lov'd, that lik'd, that look'd with cheer.
             Come, tears, confound;
             Out, sword, and wound
           The pap of Pyramus;
             Ay, that left pap,
             Where heart doth hop.               [Stabs himself]
           Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
             Now am I dead,
             Now am I fled;
           My soul is in the sky.
             Tongue, lose thy light;
             Moon, take thy flight.             [Exit MOONSHINE]
           Now die, die, die, die, die.                   [Dies]
  DEMETRIUS. No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.
  LYSANDER. Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.
  THESEUS. With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover and yet
    prove an ass.
  HIPPOLYTA. How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisby comes back
    and finds her lover?

                       Re-enter THISBY

  THESEUS. She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her
    passion ends the play.
  HIPPOLYTA. Methinks she should not use a long one for such a
    Pyramus; I hope she will be brief.
  DEMETRIUS. A mote will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which
    Thisby, is the better- he for a man, God warrant us: She for a
    woman, God bless us!
  LYSANDER. She hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.
  DEMETRIUS. And thus she moans, videlicet:-
  THISBY.      Asleep, my love?
               What, dead, my dove?
             O Pyramus, arise,
               Speak, speak. Quite dumb?
               Dead, dead? A tomb
             Must cover thy sweet eyes.
               These lily lips,
               This cherry nose,
             These yellow cowslip cheeks,
               Are gone, are gone;
               Lovers, make moan;
             His eyes were green as leeks.
               O Sisters Three,
               Come, come to me,
             With hands as pale as milk;
               Lay them in gore,
               Since you have shore
             With shears his thread of silk.
               Tongue, not a word.
               Come, trusty sword;
             Come, blade, my breast imbrue.      [Stabs herself]
               And farewell, friends;
               Thus Thisby ends;
             Adieu, adieu, adieu.                         [Dies]
  THESEUS. Moonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.
  DEMETRIUS. Ay, and Wall too.
  BOTTOM. [Starting up] No, I assure you; the wall is down that
    parted their fathers. Will it please you to see the Epilogue, or
    to hear a Bergomask dance between two of our company?
  THESEUS. No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse.
    Never excuse; for when the players are all dead there need none
    to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus, and
    hang'd himself in Thisby's garter, it would have been a fine
    tragedy. And so it is, truly; and very notably discharg'd. But
    come, your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone.     [A dance]
    The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
    Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time.
    I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn,
    As much as we this night have overwatch'd.
    This palpable-gross play hath well beguil'd
    The heavy gait of night. Sweet friends, to bed.
    A fortnight hold we this solemnity,
    In nightly revels and new jollity.                    Exeunt

                     Enter PUCK with a broom

  PUCK.      Now the hungry lion roars,
             And the wolf behowls the moon;
             Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
             All with weary task fordone.
             Now the wasted brands do glow,
             Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
             Puts the wretch that lies in woe
             In remembrance of a shroud.
             Now it is the time of night
             That the graves, all gaping wide,
             Every one lets forth his sprite,
             In the church-way paths to glide.
             And we fairies, that do run
             By the triple Hecate's team
             From the presence of the sun,
             Following darkness like a dream,
             Now are frolic. Not a mouse
             Shall disturb this hallowed house.
             I am sent with broom before,
             To sweep the dust behind the door.

         Enter OBERON and TITANIA, with all their train

  OBERON.    Through the house give glimmering light,
             By the dead and drowsy fire;
             Every elf and fairy sprite
             Hop as light as bird from brier;
             And this ditty, after me,
             Sing and dance it trippingly.
  TITANIA.      First, rehearse your song by rote,
                To each word a warbling note;
                Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
                Will we sing, and bless this place.

           [OBERON leading, the FAIRIES sing and dance]

  OBERON.    Now, until the break of day,
             Through this house each fairy stray.
             To the best bride-bed will we,
             Which by us shall blessed be;
             And the issue there create
             Ever shall be fortunate.
             So shall all the couples three
             Ever true in loving be;
             And the blots of Nature's hand
             Shall not in their issue stand;
             Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,
             Nor mark prodigious, such as are
             Despised in nativity,
             Shall upon their children be.
             With this field-dew consecrate,
             Every fairy take his gait,
             And each several chamber bless,
             Through this palace, with sweet peace;
             And the owner of it blest
             Ever shall in safety rest.
             Trip away; make no stay;
             Meet me all by break of day.    Exeunt all but PUCK
  PUCK.      If we shadows have offended,
             Think but this, and all is mended,
             That you have but slumb'red here
             While these visions did appear.
             And this weak and idle theme,
             No more yielding but a dream,
             Gentles, do not reprehend.
             If you pardon, we will mend.
             And, as I am an honest Puck,
             If we have unearned luck
             Now to scape the serpent's tongue,
             We will make amends ere long;
             Else the Puck a liar call.
             So, good night unto you all.
             Give me your hands, if we be friends,
             And Robin shall restore amends.                Exit

THE END




 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING






      by William Shakespeare








Contents

ACT I
Scene I. Before LEONATO’S House.
Scene II. A room in LEONATO’S house.
Scene III. Another room in LEONATO’S house.

ACT II
Scene I. A hall in LEONATO’S house.
Scene II. Another room in LEONATO’S house.
Scene III. LEONATO’S Garden.

ACT III
Scene I. LEONATO’S Garden.
Scene II. A Room in LEONATO’S House.
Scene III. A Street.
Scene IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.
Scene V. Another Room in LEONATO’S House.

ACT IV
Scene I. The Inside of a Church.
Scene II. A Prison.

ACT V
Scene I. Before LEONATO’S House.
Scene II. LEONATO’S Garden.
Scene III. The Inside of a Church.
Scene IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.





      Dramatis Personæ


      DON PEDRO, Prince of Arragon.
      DON JOHN, his bastard Brother.
      CLAUDIO, a young Lord of Florence.
      BENEDICK, a young Lord of Padua.
      LEONATO, Governor of Messina.
      ANTONIO, his Brother.
      BALTHASAR, Servant to Don Pedro.
      BORACHIO, follower of Don John.
      CONRADE, follower of Don John.
      DOGBERRY, a Constable.
      VERGES, a Headborough.
      FRIAR FRANCIS.
      A Sexton.
      A Boy.


      HERO, Daughter to Leonato.
      BEATRICE, Niece to Leonato.
      MARGARET, Waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.
      URSULA, Waiting gentlewoman attending on Hero.


      Messengers, Watch, Attendants, &c.


      SCENE. Messina.





ACT I

SCENE I. Before LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Leonato, Hero, Beatrice and others, with a Messenger.


      LEONATO.
      I learn in this letter that Don Pedro of Arragon comes this night
      to Messina.


      MESSENGER.
      He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left
      him.


      LEONATO.
      How many gentlemen have you lost in this action?


      MESSENGER.
      But few of any sort, and none of name.


      LEONATO.
      A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full
      numbers. I find here that Don Pedro hath bestowed much honour on
      a young Florentine called Claudio.


      MESSENGER.
      Much deserved on his part, and equally remembered by Don Pedro.
      He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the
      figure of a lamb the feats of a lion: he hath indeed better
      bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.


      LEONATO.
      He hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.


      MESSENGER.
      I have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy
      in him; even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough
      without a badge of bitterness.


      LEONATO.
      Did he break out into tears?


      MESSENGER.
      In great measure.


      LEONATO.
      A kind overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than those
      that are so washed; how much better is it to weep at joy than to
      joy at weeping!


      BEATRICE.
      I pray you, is Signior Mountanto returned from the wars or no?


      MESSENGER.
      I know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army
      of any sort.


      LEONATO.
      What is he that you ask for, niece?


      HERO.
      My cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua.


      MESSENGER.
      O! he is returned, and as pleasant as ever he was.


      BEATRICE.
      He set up his bills here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the
      flight; and my uncle’s fool, reading the challenge, subscribed
      for Cupid, and challenged him at the bird-bolt. I pray you, how
      many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he
      killed? for, indeed, I promised to eat all of his killing.


      LEONATO.
      Faith, niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much; but he’ll be
      meet with you, I doubt it not.


      MESSENGER.
      He hath done good service, lady, in these wars.


      BEATRICE.
      You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it; he is a very
      valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.


      MESSENGER.
      And a good soldier too, lady.


      BEATRICE.
      And a good soldier to a lady; but what is he to a lord?


      MESSENGER.
      A lord to a lord, a man to a man; stuffed with all honourable
      virtues.


      BEATRICE.
      It is so indeed; he is no less than a stuffed man; but for the
      stuffing,—well, we are all mortal.


      LEONATO.
      You must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war
      betwixt Signior Benedick and her; they never meet but there’s a
      skirmish of wit between them.


      BEATRICE.
      Alas! he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his
      five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed
      with one! so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let
      him bear it for a difference between himself and his horse; for
      it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known a reasonable
      creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new
      sworn brother.


      MESSENGER.
      Is’t possible?


      BEATRICE.
      Very easily possible: he wears his faith but as the fashion of
      his hat; it ever changes with the next block.


      MESSENGER.
      I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.


      BEATRICE.
      No; and he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is
      his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a
      voyage with him to the devil?


      MESSENGER.
      He is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.


      BEATRICE.
      O Lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught
      than the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad. God help
      the noble Claudio! If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost
      him a thousand pound ere he be cured.


      MESSENGER.
      I will hold friends with you, lady.


      BEATRICE.
      Do, good friend.


      LEONATO.
      You will never run mad, niece.


      BEATRICE.
      No, not till a hot January.


      MESSENGER.
      Don Pedro is approached.


      Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar and
      Others.


      DON PEDRO.
      Good Signior Leonato, you are come to meet your trouble: the
      fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.


      LEONATO.
      Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your Grace, for
      trouble being gone, comfort should remain; but when you depart
      from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.


      DON PEDRO.
      You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your
      daughter.


      LEONATO.
      Her mother hath many times told me so.


      BENEDICK.
      Were you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?


      LEONATO.
      Signior Benedick, no; for then were you a child.


      DON PEDRO.
      You have it full, Benedick: we may guess by this what you are,
      being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself. Be happy, lady, for
      you are like an honourable father.


      BENEDICK.
      If Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head on
      her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is.


      BEATRICE.
      I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody
      marks you.


      BENEDICK.
      What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?


      BEATRICE.
      Is it possible Disdain should die while she hath such meet food
      to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to
      disdain if you come in her presence.


      BENEDICK.
      Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all
      ladies, only you excepted; and I would I could find in my heart
      that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.


      BEATRICE.
      A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled
      with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of
      your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow
      than a man swear he loves me.


      BENEDICK.
      God keep your Ladyship still in that mind; so some gentleman or
      other shall scape a predestinate scratched face.


      BEATRICE.
      Scratching could not make it worse, and ’twere such a face as
      yours were.


      BENEDICK.
      Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.


      BEATRICE.
      A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.


      BENEDICK.
      I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a
      continuer. But keep your way, i’ God’s name; I have done.


      BEATRICE.
      You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.


      DON PEDRO.
      That is the sum of all, Leonato: Signior Claudio, and Signior
      Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him
      we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartly prays
      some occasion may detain us longer: I dare swear he is no
      hypocrite, but prays from his heart.


      LEONATO.
      If you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn. [_To Don John_]
      Let me bid you welcome, my lord: being reconciled to the Prince
      your brother, I owe you all duty.


      DON JOHN.
      I thank you: I am not of many words, but I thank you.


      LEONATO.
      Please it your Grace lead on?


      DON PEDRO.
      Your hand, Leonato; we will go together.


      [_Exeunt all but Benedick and Claudio._]


      CLAUDIO.
      Benedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?


      BENEDICK.
      I noted her not; but I looked on her.


      CLAUDIO.
      Is she not a modest young lady?


      BENEDICK.
      Do you question me, as an honest man should do, for my simple
      true judgment; or would you have me speak after my custom, as
      being a professed tyrant to their sex?


      CLAUDIO.
      No; I pray thee speak in sober judgment.


      BENEDICK.
      Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high praise, too
      brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise; only
      this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she
      is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do
      not like her.


      CLAUDIO.
      Thou thinkest I am in sport: I pray thee tell me truly how thou
      likest her.


      BENEDICK.
      Would you buy her, that you enquire after her?


      CLAUDIO.
      Can the world buy such a jewel?


      BENEDICK.
      Yea, and a case to put it into. But speak you this with a sad
      brow, or do you play the flouting Jack, to tell us Cupid is a
      good hare-finder, and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key
      shall a man take you, to go in the song?


      CLAUDIO.
      In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.


      BENEDICK.
      I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter:
      there’s her cousin and she were not possessed with a fury,
      exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last
      of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have
      you?


      CLAUDIO.
      I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn to the contrary,
      if Hero would be my wife.


      BENEDICK.
      Is’t come to this, in faith? Hath not the world one man but he
      will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of
      threescore again? Go to, i’ faith; and thou wilt needs thrust thy
      neck into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays.


      Re-enter Don Pedro.


      Look! Don Pedro is returned to seek you.


      DON PEDRO.
      What secret hath held you here, that you followed not to
      Leonato’s?


      BENEDICK.
      I would your Grace would constrain me to tell.


      DON PEDRO.
      I charge thee on thy allegiance.


      BENEDICK.
      You hear, Count Claudio: I can be secret as a dumb man; I would
      have you think so; but on my allegiance mark you this, on my
      allegiance: he is in love. With who? now that is your Grace’s
      part. Mark how short his answer is: with Hero, Leonato’s short
      daughter.


      CLAUDIO.
      If this were so, so were it uttered.


      BENEDICK.
      Like the old tale, my lord: ‘it is not so, nor ’twas not so; but
      indeed, God forbid it should be so.’


      CLAUDIO.
      If my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be
      otherwise.


      DON PEDRO.
      Amen, if you love her; for the lady is very well worthy.


      CLAUDIO.
      You speak this to fetch me in, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      By my troth, I speak my thought.


      CLAUDIO.
      And in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.


      BENEDICK.
      And by my two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.


      CLAUDIO.
      That I love her, I feel.


      DON PEDRO.
      That she is worthy, I know.


      BENEDICK.
      That I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she
      should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me:
      I will die in it at the stake.


      DON PEDRO.
      Thou wast ever an obstinate heretic in the despite of beauty.


      CLAUDIO.
      And never could maintain his part but in the force of his will.


      BENEDICK.
      That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I
      likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a
      recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible
      baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them
      the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust
      none; and the fine is,—for the which I may go the finer,—I will
      live a bachelor.


      DON PEDRO.
      I shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.


      BENEDICK.
      With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord; not with
      love: prove that ever I lose more blood with love than I will get
      again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen
      and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of
      blind Cupid.


      DON PEDRO.
      Well, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a
      notable argument.


      BENEDICK.
      If I do, hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me; and he
      that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.


      DON PEDRO.
      Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the
      yoke.’


      BENEDICK.
      The savage bull may; but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it,
      pluck off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead; and let
      me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write,
      ‘Here is good horse to hire,’ let them signify under my sign
      ‘Here you may see Benedick the married man.’


      CLAUDIO.
      If this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, if Cupid have not spent all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt
      quake for this shortly.


      BENEDICK.
      I look for an earthquake too then.


      DON PEDRO.
      Well, you will temporize with the hours. In the meantime, good
      Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato’s: commend me to him and tell
      him I will not fail him at supper; for indeed he hath made great
      preparation.


      BENEDICK.
      I have almost matter enough in me for such an embassage; and so I
      commit you—


      CLAUDIO.
      To the tuition of God: from my house, if I had it,—


      DON PEDRO.
      The sixth of July: your loving friend, Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      Nay, mock not, mock not. The body of your discourse is sometime
      guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on
      neither: ere you flout old ends any further, examine your
      conscience: and so I leave you.


      [_Exit._]


      CLAUDIO.
      My liege, your Highness now may do me good.


      DON PEDRO.
      My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,
      And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
      Any hard lesson that may do thee good.


      CLAUDIO.
      Hath Leonato any son, my lord?


      DON PEDRO.
      No child but Hero; she’s his only heir.
      Dost thou affect her, Claudio?


      CLAUDIO.
      O! my lord,
      When you went onward on this ended action,
      I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye,
      That lik’d, but had a rougher task in hand
      Than to drive liking to the name of love;
      But now I am return’d, and that war-thoughts
      Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
      Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
      All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
      Saying, I lik’d her ere I went to wars.


      DON PEDRO.
      Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
      And tire the hearer with a book of words.
      If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
      And I will break with her, and with her father,
      And thou shalt have her. Was’t not to this end
      That thou began’st to twist so fine a story?


      CLAUDIO.
      How sweetly you do minister to love,
      That know love’s grief by his complexion!
      But lest my liking might too sudden seem,
      I would have salv’d it with a longer treatise.


      DON PEDRO.
      What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
      The fairest grant is the necessity.
      Look, what will serve is fit: ’tis once, thou lov’st,
      And I will fit thee with the remedy.
      I know we shall have revelling tonight:
      I will assume thy part in some disguise,
      And tell fair Hero I am Claudio;
      And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart,
      And take her hearing prisoner with the force
      And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
      Then after to her father will I break;
      And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
      In practice let us put it presently.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE II. A room in LEONATO’S house.

      Enter Leonato and Antonio, meeting.


      LEONATO.
      How now, brother? Where is my cousin your son? Hath he provided
      this music?


      ANTONIO.
      He is very busy about it. But, brother, I can tell you strange
      news that you yet dreamt not of.


      LEONATO.
      Are they good?


      ANTONIO.
      As the event stamps them: but they have a good cover; they show
      well outward. The Prince and Count Claudio, walking in a
      thick-pleached alley in my orchard, were thus much overheard by a
      man of mine: the Prince discovered to Claudio that he loved my
      niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a
      dance; and if he found her accordant, he meant to take the
      present time by the top and instantly break with you of it.


      LEONATO. Hath the fellow any wit that told you this?


      ANTONIO.
      A good sharp fellow: I will send for him; and question him
      yourself.


      LEONATO.
      No, no; we will hold it as a dream till it appear itself: but I
      will acquaint my daughter withal, that she may be the better
      prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true. Go you and
      tell her of it.


      [_Several persons cross the stage._]


      Cousins, you know what you have to do. O! I cry you mercy,
      friend; go you with me, and I will use your skill. Good cousin,
      have a care this busy time.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE III. Another room in LEONATO’S house.

      Enter Don John and Conrade.


      CONRADE.
      What the good-year, my lord! why are you thus out of measure sad?


      DON JOHN.
      There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the
      sadness is without limit.


      CONRADE.
      You should hear reason.


      DON JOHN.
      And when I have heard it, what blessings brings it?


      CONRADE.
      If not a present remedy, at least a patient sufferance.


      DON JOHN.
      I wonder that thou (being as thou say’st thou art, born under
      Saturn) goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying
      mischief. I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have
      cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and
      wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no
      man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his
      humour.


      CONRADE.
      Yea; but you must not make the full show of this till you may do
      it without controlment. You have of late stood out against your
      brother, and he hath ta’en you newly into his grace; where it is
      impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that
      you make yourself: it is needful that you frame the season for
      your own harvest.


      DON JOHN.
      I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and
      it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a
      carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said
      to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a
      plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and
      enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in
      my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I
      would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and
      seek not to alter me.


      CONRADE. Can you make no use of your discontent?


      DON JOHN. I make all use of it, for I use it only. Who comes
      here?


      Enter Borachio.


      What news, Borachio?


      BORACHIO.
      I came yonder from a great supper: the Prince your brother is
      royally entertained by Leonato; and I can give you intelligence
      of an intended marriage.


      DON JOHN.
      Will it serve for any model to build mischief on? What is he for
      a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?


      BORACHIO.
      Marry, it is your brother’s right hand.


      DON JOHN.
      Who? the most exquisite Claudio?


      BORACHIO.
      Even he.


      DON JOHN.
      A proper squire! And who, and who? which way looks he?


      BORACHIO.
      Marry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.


      DON JOHN.
      A very forward March-chick! How came you to this?


      BORACHIO.
      Being entertained for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room,
      comes me the Prince and Claudio, hand in hand, in sad conference:
      I whipt me behind the arras, and there heard it agreed upon that
      the Prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her,
      give her to Count Claudio.


      DON JOHN.
      Come, come; let us thither: this may prove food to my
      displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my
      overthrow: if I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.
      You are both sure, and will assist me?


      CONRADE. To the death, my lord.


      DON JOHN.
      Let us to the great supper: their cheer is the greater that I am
      subdued. Would the cook were of my mind! Shall we go to prove
      what’s to be done?


      BORACHIO.
      We’ll wait upon your Lordship.


      [_Exeunt._]





ACT II

SCENE I. A hall in LEONATO’S house.

      Enter Leonato, Antonio, Hero, Beatrice and others.


      LEONATO.
      Was not Count John here at supper?


      ANTONIO.
      I saw him not.


      BEATRICE.
      How tartly that gentleman looks! I never can see him but I am
      heart-burned an hour after.


      HERO.
      He is of a very melancholy disposition.


      BEATRICE.
      He were an excellent man that were made just in the mid-way
      between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image, and says
      nothing; and the other too like my lady’s eldest son, evermore
      tattling.


      LEONATO.
      Then half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and
      half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face—


      BEATRICE.
      With a good leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his
      purse, such a man would win any woman in the world if a’ could
      get her good will.


      LEONATO.
      By my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband, if thou
      be so shrewd of thy tongue.


      ANTONIO.
      In faith, she’s too curst.


      BEATRICE.
      Too curst is more than curst: I shall lessen God’s sending that
      way; for it is said, ‘God sends a curst cow short horns;’ but to
      a cow too curst he sends none.


      LEONATO.
      So, by being too curst, God will send you no horns?


      BEATRICE.
      Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at
      him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not
      endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in
      the woollen.


      LEONATO.
      You may light on a husband that hath no beard.


      BEATRICE.
      What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel and make him
      my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a
      youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that
      is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a
      man, I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in
      earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his apes into hell.


      LEONATO.
      Well then, go you into hell?


      BEATRICE.
      No; but to the gate; and there will the Devil meet me, like an
      old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say, ‘Get you to heaven,
      Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids.’ So
      deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens: he
      shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as
      the day is long.


      ANTONIO.
      [_To Hero_.] Well, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your
      father.


      BEATRICE.
      Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy, and say,
      ‘Father, as it please you:’— but yet for all that, cousin, let
      him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy, and say,
      ‘Father, as it please me.’


      LEONATO.
      Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.


      BEATRICE.
      Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it
      not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant
      dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?
      No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren; and truly, I
      hold it a sin to match in my kindred.


      LEONATO.
      Daughter, remember what I told you: if the Prince do solicit you
      in that kind, you know your answer.


      BEATRICE.
      The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in
      good time: if the Prince be too important, tell him there is
      measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For, hear me,
      Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a
      measure, and a cinquepace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like
      a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly
      modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes
      Repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into the cinquepace
      faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.


      LEONATO.
      Cousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.


      BEATRICE.
      I have a good eye, uncle: I can see a church by daylight.


      LEONATO.
      The revellers are entering, brother: make good room.


      Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar, Don John,
      Borachio, Margaret, Ursula and Others, masked.


      DON PEDRO.
      Lady, will you walk about with your friend?


      HERO.
      So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing, I am yours
      for the walk; and especially when I walk away.


      DON PEDRO.
      With me in your company?


      HERO.
      I may say so, when I please.


      DON PEDRO.
      And when please you to say so?


      HERO.
      When I like your favour; for God defend the lute should be like
      the case!


      DON PEDRO.
      My visor is Philemon’s roof; within the house is Jove.


      HERO.
      Why, then, your visor should be thatch’d.


      DON PEDRO.
      Speak low, if you speak love.


      [_Takes her aside._]


      BALTHASAR.
      Well, I would you did like me.


      MARGARET.
      So would not I, for your own sake; for I have many ill qualities.


      BALTHASAR.
      Which is one?


      MARGARET.
      I say my prayers aloud.


      BALTHASAR.
      I love you the better; the hearers may cry Amen.


      MARGARET.
      God match me with a good dancer!


      BALTHASAR.
      Amen.


      MARGARET.
      And God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done! Answer,
      clerk.


      BALTHASAR.
      No more words: the clerk is answered.


      URSULA.
      I know you well enough: you are Signior Antonio.


      ANTONIO.
      At a word, I am not.


      URSULA.
      I know you by the waggling of your head.


      ANTONIO.
      To tell you true, I counterfeit him.


      URSULA.
      You could never do him so ill-well, unless you were the very man.
      Here’s his dry hand up and down: you are he, you are he.


      ANTONIO.
      At a word, I am not.


      URSULA.
      Come, come; do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit?
      Can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will
      appear, and there’s an end.


      BEATRICE.
      Will you not tell me who told you so?


      BENEDICK.
      No, you shall pardon me.


      BEATRICE.
      Nor will you not tell me who you are?


      BENEDICK.
      Not now.


      BEATRICE.
      That I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the
      ‘Hundred Merry Tales.’ Well, this was Signior Benedick that said
      so.


      BENEDICK.
      What’s he?


      BEATRICE.
      I am sure you know him well enough.


      BENEDICK.
      Not I, believe me.


      BEATRICE.
      Did he never make you laugh?


      BENEDICK.
      I pray you, what is he?


      BEATRICE.
      Why, he is the Prince’s jester: a very dull fool; only his gift
      is in devising impossible slanders: none but libertines delight
      in him; and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his
      villainy; for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they
      laugh at him and beat him. I am sure he is in the fleet: I would
      he had boarded me!


      BENEDICK.
      When I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.


      BEATRICE.
      Do, do: he’ll but break a comparison or two on me; which,
      peradventure not marked or not laughed at, strikes him into
      melancholy; and then there’s a partridge wing saved, for the fool
      will eat no supper that night. [_Music within_.] We must follow
      the leaders.


      BENEDICK.
      In every good thing.


      BEATRICE.
      Nay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next
      turning.


      [_Dance. Then exeunt all but Don John, Borachio and Claudio._]


      DON JOHN.
      Sure my brother is amorous on Hero, and hath withdrawn her father
      to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one
      visor remains.


      BORACHIO.
      And that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.


      DON JOHN.
      Are you not Signior Benedick?


      CLAUDIO.
      You know me well; I am he.


      DON JOHN.
      Signior, you are very near my brother in his love: he is
      enamoured on Hero; I pray you, dissuade him from her; she is no
      equal for his birth: you may do the part of an honest man in it.


      CLAUDIO.
      How know you he loves her?


      DON JOHN.
      I heard him swear his affection.


      BORACHIO.
      So did I too; and he swore he would marry her tonight.


      DON JOHN.
      Come, let us to the banquet.


      [_Exeunt Don John and Borachio._]


      CLAUDIO.
      Thus answer I in name of Benedick,
      But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
      ’Tis certain so; the Prince wooes for himself.
      Friendship is constant in all other things
      Save in the office and affairs of love:
      Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
      Let every eye negotiate for itself
      And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
      Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
      This is an accident of hourly proof,
      Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!


      Re-enter Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      Count Claudio?


      CLAUDIO.
      Yea, the same.


      BENEDICK.
      Come, will you go with me?


      CLAUDIO.
      Whither?


      BENEDICK.
      Even to the next willow, about your own business, Count. What
      fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like a
      usurer’s chain? or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf? You
      must wear it one way, for the Prince hath got your Hero.


      CLAUDIO.
      I wish him joy of her.


      BENEDICK.
      Why, that’s spoken like an honest drovier: so they sell bullocks.
      But did you think the Prince would have served you thus?


      CLAUDIO.
      I pray you, leave me.


      BENEDICK.
      Ho! now you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy that stole
      your meat, and you’ll beat the post.


      CLAUDIO.
      If it will not be, I’ll leave you.


      [_Exit._]


      BENEDICK.
      Alas! poor hurt fowl. Now will he creep into sedges. But, that my
      Lady Beatrice should know me, and not know me! The Prince’s fool!
      Ha! it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but
      so I am apt to do myself wrong; I am not so reputed: it is the
      base though bitter disposition of Beatrice that puts the world
      into her person, and so gives me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I
      may.


      Re-enter Don Pedro.


      DON PEDRO.
      Now, signior, where’s the Count? Did you see him?


      BENEDICK.
      Troth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame. I found him
      here as melancholy as a lodge in a warren. I told him, and I
      think I told him true, that your Grace had got the good will of
      this young lady; and I offered him my company to a willow tree,
      either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him
      up a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.


      DON PEDRO.
      To be whipped! What’s his fault?


      BENEDICK.
      The flat transgression of a school-boy, who, being overjoy’d with
      finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.


      DON PEDRO.
      Wilt thou make a trust a transgression? The transgression is in
      the stealer.


      BENEDICK.
      Yet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland
      too; for the garland he might have worn himself, and the rod he
      might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his
      bird’s nest.


      DON PEDRO.
      I will but teach them to sing, and restore them to the owner.


      BENEDICK.
      If their singing answer your saying, by my faith, you say
      honestly.


      DON PEDRO.
      The Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to you: the gentleman that
      danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.


      BENEDICK.
      O! she misused me past the endurance of a block: an oak but with
      one green leaf on it would have answered her: my very visor began
      to assume life and scold with her. She told me, not thinking I
      had been myself, that I was the Prince’s jester, that I was
      duller than a great thaw; huddling jest upon jest with such
      impossible conveyance upon me, that I stood like a man at a mark,
      with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards, and every
      word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations,
      there were no living near her; she would infect to the north
      star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all
      that Adam had left him before he transgressed: she would have
      made Hercules have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to
      make the fire too. Come, talk not of her; you shall find her the
      infernal Ate in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would
      conjure her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as
      quiet in hell as in a sanctuary; and people sin upon purpose
      because they would go thither; so indeed, all disquiet, horror
      and perturbation follow her.


      Re-enter Claudio, Beatrice, Hero and Leonato.


      DON PEDRO.
      Look! here she comes.


      BENEDICK.
      Will your Grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will
      go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can
      devise to send me on; I will fetch you a toothpicker now from the
      furthest inch of Asia; bring you the length of Prester John’s
      foot; fetch you a hair off the Great Cham’s beard; do you any
      embassage to the Pygmies, rather than hold three words’
      conference with this harpy. You have no employment for me?


      DON PEDRO.
      None, but to desire your good company.


      BENEDICK.
      O God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady
      Tongue.


      [_Exit._]


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.


      BEATRICE.
      Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it,
      a double heart for a single one: marry, once before he won it of
      me with false dice, therefore your Grace may well say I have lost
      it.


      DON PEDRO.
      You have put him down, lady, you have put him down.


      BEATRICE.
      So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the
      mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me
      to seek.


      DON PEDRO.
      Why, how now, Count! wherefore are you sad?


      CLAUDIO.
      Not sad, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      How then? Sick?


      CLAUDIO.
      Neither, my lord.


      BEATRICE.
      The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well; but
      civil Count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous
      complexion.


      DON PEDRO.
      I’ faith, lady, I think your blazon to be true; though, I’ll be
      sworn, if he be so, his conceit is false. Here, Claudio, I have
      wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won; I have broke with her
      father, and, his good will obtained; name the day of marriage,
      and God give thee joy!


      LEONATO.
      Count, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes: his
      Grace hath made the match, and all grace say Amen to it!


      BEATRICE.
      Speak, Count, ’tis your cue.


      CLAUDIO.
      Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy,
      if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I
      give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.


      BEATRICE.
      Speak, cousin; or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and
      let not him speak neither.


      DON PEDRO.
      In faith, lady, you have a merry heart.


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, my lord; I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy side
      of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.


      CLAUDIO.
      And so she doth, cousin.


      BEATRICE.
      Good Lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I,
      and I am sunburnt. I may sit in a corner and cry heigh-ho for a
      husband!


      DON PEDRO.
      Lady Beatrice, I will get you one.


      BEATRICE.
      I would rather have one of your father’s getting. Hath your Grace
      ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if
      a maid could come by them.


      DON PEDRO.
      Will you have me, lady?


      BEATRICE.
      No, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your
      Grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your Grace,
      pardon me; I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.


      DON PEDRO.
      Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you;
      for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.


      BEATRICE.
      No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star
      danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!


      LEONATO.
      Niece, will you look to those things I told you of?


      BEATRICE.
      I cry you mercy, uncle. By your Grace’s pardon.


      [_Exit._]


      DON PEDRO.
      By my troth, a pleasant spirited lady.


      LEONATO.
      There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is
      never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then, for I have
      heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and
      waked herself with laughing.


      DON PEDRO.
      She cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.


      LEONATO.
      O! by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.


      DON PEDRO.
      She were an excellent wife for Benedick.


      LEONATO.
      O Lord! my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk
      themselves mad.


      DON PEDRO.
      Count Claudio, when mean you to go to church?


      CLAUDIO.
      Tomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his
      rites.


      LEONATO.
      Not till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night;
      and a time too brief too, to have all things answer my mind.


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, you shake the head at so long a breathing; but, I warrant
      thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the
      interim undertake one of Hercules’ labours, which is, to bring
      Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of
      affection the one with the other. I would fain have it a match;
      and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister
      such assistance as I shall give you direction.


      LEONATO.
      My lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’ watchings.


      CLAUDIO.
      And I, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      And you too, gentle Hero?


      HERO.
      I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good
      husband.


      DON PEDRO.
      And Benedick is not the unhopefullest husband that I know. Thus
      far can I praise him; he is of a noble strain, of approved
      valour, and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour
      your cousin, that she shall fall in love with Benedick; and I,
      with your two helps, will so practise on Benedick that, in
      despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach, he shall fall in
      love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an
      archer: his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods.
      Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE II. Another room in LEONATO’S house.

      Enter Don John and Borachio.


      DON JOHN.
      It is so; the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.


      BORACHIO.
      Yea, my lord; but I can cross it.


      DON JOHN.
      Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable to me: I
      am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his
      affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this
      marriage?


      BORACHIO.
      Not honestly, my lord; but so covertly that no dishonesty shall
      appear in me.


      DON JOHN.
      Show me briefly how.


      BORACHIO.
      I think I told your lordship, a year since, how much I am in the
      favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.


      DON JOHN.
      I remember.


      BORACHIO.
      I can, at any unseasonable instant of the night, appoint her to
      look out at her lady’s chamber window.


      DON JOHN. What life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?


      BORACHIO.
      The poison of that lies in you to temper. Go you to the Prince
      your brother; spare not to tell him, that he hath wronged his
      honour in marrying the renowned Claudio,—whose estimation do you
      mightily hold up,—to a contaminated stale, such a one as Hero.


      DON JOHN.
      What proof shall I make of that?


      BORACHIO.
      Proof enough to misuse the Prince, to vex Claudio, to undo Hero,
      and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?


      DON JOHN.
      Only to despite them, I will endeavour anything.


      BORACHIO.
      Go then; find me a meet hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count
      Claudio alone: tell them that you know that Hero loves me; intend
      a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio, as—in love of your
      brother’s honour, who hath made this match, and his friend’s
      reputation, who is thus like to be cozened with the semblance of
      a maid,—that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe
      this without trial: offer them instances, which shall bear no
      less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me
      call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio; and bring them
      to see this the very night before the intended wedding: for in
      the meantime I will so fashion the matter that Hero shall be
      absent; and there shall appear such seeming truth of Hero’s
      disloyalty, that jealousy shall be called assurance, and all the
      preparation overthrown.


      DON JOHN.
      Grow this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in
      practice. Be cunning in the working this, and thy fee is a
      thousand ducats.


      BORACHIO.
      Be you constant in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame
      me.


      DON JOHN.
      I will presently go learn their day of marriage.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE III. LEONATO’S Garden.

      Enter Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      Boy!


      Enter a Boy.


      BOY.
      Signior?


      BENEDICK.
      In my chamber window lies a book; bring it hither to me in the
      orchard.


      BOY.
      I am here already, sir.


      BENEDICK.
      I know that; but I would have thee hence, and here again.


      [_Exit Boy._]


      I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a
      fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he
      hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the
      argument of his own scorn by falling in love: and such a man is
      Claudio. I have known, when there was no music with him but the
      drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the
      pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten mile afoot to
      see a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving
      the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to
      the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he
      turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet,
      just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted, and see with
      these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not: I will not be sworn but
      love may transform me to an oyster; but I’ll take my oath on it,
      till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a
      fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am
      well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in
      one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall
      be, that’s certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never
      cheapen her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not
      near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an
      excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it
      please God. Ha! the Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in
      the arbour.


      [_Withdraws._]


      Enter Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio, followed by Balthasar and
      Musicians.


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, shall we hear this music?


      CLAUDIO.
      Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
      As hush’d on purpose to grace harmony!


      DON PEDRO.
      See you where Benedick hath hid himself?


      CLAUDIO.
      O! very well, my lord: the music ended,
      We’ll fit the kid-fox with a penny-worth.


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, Balthasar, we’ll hear that song again.


      BALTHASAR.
      O! good my lord, tax not so bad a voice
      To slander music any more than once.


      DON PEDRO.
      It is the witness still of excellency,
      To put a strange face on his own perfection.
      I pray thee, sing, and let me woo no more.


      BALTHASAR.
      Because you talk of wooing, I will sing;
      Since many a wooer doth commence his suit
      To her he thinks not worthy; yet he wooes;
      Yet will he swear he loves.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, pray thee come;
      Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,
      Do it in notes.


      BALTHASAR.
      Note this before my notes;
      There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.


      DON PEDRO.
      Why these are very crotchets that he speaks;
      Notes, notes, forsooth, and nothing!


      [_Music._]


      BENEDICK.
      Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that
      sheep’s guts should hale souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn
      for my money, when all’s done.


      BALTHASAR [_sings_.]
          Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
           Men were deceivers ever;
          One foot in sea, and one on shore,
           To one thing constant never.
              Then sigh not so, but let them go,
             And be you blithe and bonny,
         Converting all your sounds of woe
            Into Hey nonny, nonny.


         Sing no more ditties, sing no mo
            Of dumps so dull and heavy;
         The fraud of men was ever so,
            Since summer first was leavy.
             Then sigh not so, but let them go,
            And be you blithe and bonny,
           Converting all your sounds of woe
              Into Hey nonny, nonny.


      DON PEDRO.
      By my troth, a good song.


      BALTHASAR.
      And an ill singer, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      Ha, no, no, faith; thou singest well enough for a shift.


      BENEDICK.
      [_Aside_] And he had been a dog that should have howled thus,
      they would have hanged him; and I pray God his bad voice bode no
      mischief. I had as lief have heard the night-raven, come what
      plague could have come after it.


      DON PEDRO. Yea, marry; dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee,
      get us some excellent music, for tomorrow night we would have it
      at the Lady Hero’s chamber window.


      BALTHASAR. The best I can, my lord.


      DON PEDRO. Do so: farewell.


      [_Exeunt Balthasar and Musicians._]


      Come hither, Leonato: what was it you told me of today, that your
      niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?


      CLAUDIO.
      O! ay:—[_Aside to Don Pedro_] Stalk on, stalk on; the fowl sits.
      I did never think that lady would have loved any man.


      LEONATO.
      No, nor I neither; but most wonderful that she should so dote on
      Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed
      ever to abhor.


      BENEDICK.
      [_Aside_] Is’t possible? Sits the wind in that corner?


      LEONATO.
      By my troth, my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it but that
      she loves him with an enraged affection: it is past the infinite
      of thought.


      DON PEDRO.
      Maybe she doth but counterfeit.


      CLAUDIO.
      Faith, like enough.


      LEONATO.
      O God! counterfeit! There was never counterfeit of passion came
      so near the life of passion as she discovers it.


      DON PEDRO.
      Why, what effects of passion shows she?


      CLAUDIO. [_Aside_] Bait the hook well: this fish will bite.


      LEONATO.
      What effects, my lord? She will sit you; [_To Claudio_] You heard
      my daughter tell you how.


      CLAUDIO.
      She did, indeed.


      DON PEDRO.
      How, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her
      spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.


      LEONATO.
      I would have sworn it had, my lord; especially against Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      [_Aside_] I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded
      fellow speaks it: knavery cannot, sure, hide itself in such
      reverence.


      CLAUDIO.
      [_Aside_] He hath ta’en the infection: hold it up.


      DON PEDRO.
      Hath she made her affection known to Benedick?


      LEONATO.
      No; and swears she never will: that’s her torment.


      CLAUDIO.
      ’Tis true, indeed; so your daughter says: ‘Shall I,’ says she,
      ‘that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I
      love him?’


      LEONATO.
      This says she now when she is beginning to write to him; for
      she’ll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her
      smock till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us
      all.


      CLAUDIO.
      Now you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your
      daughter told us of.


      LEONATO.
      O! when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found
      Benedick and Beatrice between the sheet?


      CLAUDIO.
      That.


      LEONATO.
      O! she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence; railed at
      herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she
      knew would flout her: ‘I measure him,’ says she, ‘by my own
      spirit; for I should flout him, if he writ to me; yea, though I
      love him, I should.’


      CLAUDIO.
      Then down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart,
      tears her hair, prays, curses; ‘O sweet Benedick! God give me
      patience!’


      LEONATO.
      She doth indeed; my daughter says so; and the ecstasy hath so
      much overborne her, that my daughter is sometimes afeard she will
      do a desperate outrage to herself. It is very true.


      DON PEDRO.
      It were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will
      not discover it.


      CLAUDIO.
      To what end? he would make but a sport of it and torment the poor
      lady worse.


      DON PEDRO.
      And he should, it were an alms to hang him. She’s an excellent
      sweet lady, and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous.


      CLAUDIO.
      And she is exceeding wise.


      DON PEDRO.
      In everything but in loving Benedick.


      LEONATO.
      O! my lord, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we
      have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry
      for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.


      DON PEDRO.
      I would she had bestowed this dotage on me; I would have daffed
      all other respects and made her half myself. I pray you, tell
      Benedick of it, and hear what he will say.


      LEONATO.
      Were it good, think you?


      CLAUDIO.
      Hero thinks surely she will die; for she says she will die if he
      love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and
      she will die if he woo her, rather than she will bate one breath
      of her accustomed crossness.


      DON PEDRO.
      She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, ’tis very
      possible he’ll scorn it; for the man,—as you know all,—hath a
      contemptible spirit.


      CLAUDIO.
      He is a very proper man.


      DON PEDRO.
      He hath indeed a good outward happiness.


      CLAUDIO.
      ’Fore God, and in my mind, very wise.


      DON PEDRO.
      He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.


      CLAUDIO.
      And I take him to be valiant.


      DON PEDRO.
      As Hector, I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may
      say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion,
      or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear.


      LEONATO.
      If he do fear God, a’ must necessarily keep peace: if he break
      the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and
      trembling.


      DON PEDRO.
      And so will he do; for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems
      not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for
      your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick and tell him of her love?


      CLAUDIO.
      Never tell him, my lord: let her wear it out with good counsel.


      LEONATO.
      Nay, that’s impossible: she may wear her heart out first.


      DON PEDRO.
      Well, we will hear further of it by your daughter: let it cool
      the while. I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would
      modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy so good
      a lady.


      LEONATO.
      My lord, will you walk? dinner is ready.


      CLAUDIO.
      [_Aside_] If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust
      my expectation.


      DON PEDRO.
      [_Aside_] Let there be the same net spread for her; and that must
      your daughter and her gentlewoman carry. The sport will be, when
      they hold one an opinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter:
      that’s the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb
      show. Let us send her to call him in to dinner.


      [_Exeunt Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato._]


      BENEDICK.
      [_Advancing from the arbour._] This can be no trick: the
      conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from
      Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have
      their full bent. Love me? why, it must be requited. I hear how I
      am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive
      the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die
      than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry: I
      must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions,
      and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair: ’tis a
      truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous: ’tis so, I cannot
      reprove it; and wise, but for loving me: by my troth, it is no
      addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I
      will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd
      quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so
      long against marriage; but doth not the appetite alter? A man
      loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
      Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain
      awe a man from the career of his humour? No; the world must be
      peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I
      should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this
      day! she’s a fair lady: I do spy some marks of love in her.


      Enter Beatrice.


      BEATRICE.
      Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.


      BENEDICK.
      Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.


      BEATRICE.
      I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to
      thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come.


      BENEDICK.
      You take pleasure then in the message?


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife’s point, and choke
      a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well.


      [_Exit._]


      BENEDICK.
      Ha! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner,’
      there’s a double meaning in that. ‘I took no more pains for those
      thanks than you took pains to thank me,’ that’s as much as to
      say, Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks. If I do
      not take pity of her, I am a villain; if I do not love her, I am
      a Jew. I will go get her picture.


      [_Exit._]





ACT III

SCENE I. LEONATO’S Garden.

      Enter Hero, Margaret and Ursula.


      HERO.
      Good Margaret, run thee to the parlour;
      There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice
      Proposing with the Prince and Claudio:
      Whisper her ear, and tell her, I and Ursala
      Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse
      Is all of her; say that thou overheard’st us,
      And bid her steal into the pleached bower,
      Where honey-suckles, ripen’d by the sun,
      Forbid the sun to enter; like favourites,
      Made proud by princes, that advance their pride
      Against that power that bred it. There will she hide her,
      To listen our propose. This is thy office;
      Bear thee well in it and leave us alone.


      MARGARET.
      I’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently.


      [_Exit._]


      HERO.
      Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
      As we do trace this alley up and down,
      Our talk must only be of Benedick:
      When I do name him, let it be thy part
      To praise him more than ever man did merit.
      My talk to thee must be how Benedick
      Is sick in love with Beatrice: of this matter
      Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made,
      That only wounds by hearsay.


      Enter Beatrice behind.


      Now begin;
      For look where Beatrice, like a lapwing, runs
      Close by the ground, to hear our conference.


      URSULA.
      The pleasant’st angling is to see the fish
      Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
      And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
      So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
      Is couched in the woodbine coverture.
      Fear you not my part of the dialogue.


      HERO.
      Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing
      Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.


      [_They advance to the bower._]


      No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful;
      I know her spirits are as coy and wild
      As haggards of the rock.


      URSULA.
      But are you sure
      That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?


      HERO.
      So says the Prince, and my new-trothed lord.


      URSULA.
      And did they bid you tell her of it, madam?


      HERO.
      They did entreat me to acquaint her of it;
      But I persuaded them, if they lov’d Benedick,
      To wish him wrestle with affection,
      And never to let Beatrice know of it.


      URSULA.
      Why did you so? Doth not the gentleman
      Deserve as full as fortunate a bed
      As ever Beatrice shall couch upon?


      HERO.
      O god of love! I know he doth deserve
      As much as may be yielded to a man;
      But Nature never fram’d a woman’s heart
      Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice;
      Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,
      Misprising what they look on, and her wit
      Values itself so highly, that to her
      All matter else seems weak. She cannot love,
      Nor take no shape nor project of affection,
      She is so self-endear’d.


      URSULA.
      Sure I think so;
      And therefore certainly it were not good
      She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.


      HERO.
      Why, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,
      How wise, how noble, young, how rarely featur’d,
      But she would spell him backward: if fair-fac’d,
      She would swear the gentleman should be her sister;
      If black, why, Nature, drawing of an antick,
      Made a foul blot; if tall, a lance ill-headed;
      If low, an agate very vilely cut;
      If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds;
      If silent, why, a block moved with none.
      So turns she every man the wrong side out,
      And never gives to truth and virtue that
      Which simpleness and merit purchaseth.


      URSULA.
      Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable.


      HERO.
      No; not to be so odd, and from all fashions,
      As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable.
      But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,
      She would mock me into air: O! she would laugh me
      Out of myself, press me to death with wit.
      Therefore let Benedick, like cover’d fire,
      Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly:
      It were a better death than die with mocks,
      Which is as bad as die with tickling.


      URSULA.
      Yet tell her of it: hear what she will say.


      HERO.
      No; rather I will go to Benedick,
      And counsel him to fight against his passion.
      And, truly, I’ll devise some honest slanders
      To stain my cousin with. One doth not know
      How much an ill word may empoison liking.


      URSULA.
      O! do not do your cousin such a wrong.
      She cannot be so much without true judgment,—
      Having so swift and excellent a wit
      As she is priz’d to have,—as to refuse
      So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.


      HERO.
      He is the only man of Italy,
      Always excepted my dear Claudio.


      URSULA.
      I pray you, be not angry with me, madam,
      Speaking my fancy: Signior Benedick,
      For shape, for bearing, argument and valour,
      Goes foremost in report through Italy.


      HERO.
      Indeed, he hath an excellent good name.


      URSULA.
      His excellence did earn it, ere he had it.
      When are you married, madam?


      HERO.
      Why, every day, tomorrow. Come, go in:
      I’ll show thee some attires, and have thy counsel
      Which is the best to furnish me tomorrow.


      URSULA.
      She’s lim’d, I warrant you,
      We have caught her, madam.


      HERO.
      If it prove so, then loving goes by haps:
      Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.


      [_Exeunt Hero and Ursula._]


      BEATRICE.
      [_Advancing._] What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
      Stand I condemn’d for pride and scorn so much?
      Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!
      No glory lives behind the back of such.
      And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
      Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
      If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee
      To bind our loves up in a holy band;
      For others say thou dost deserve, and I
      Believe it better than reportingly.


      [_Exit._]


SCENE II. A Room in LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick and Leonato.


      DON PEDRO.
      I do but stay till your marriage be consummate, and then go I
      toward Arragon.


      CLAUDIO.
      I’ll bring you thither, my lord, if you’ll vouchsafe me.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your
      marriage, as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear
      it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from
      the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth;
      he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid’s bowstring, and the little
      hangman dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a
      bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks,
      his tongue speaks.


      BENEDICK.
      Gallants, I am not as I have been.


      LEONATO.
      So say I: methinks you are sadder.


      CLAUDIO.
      I hope he be in love.


      DON PEDRO.
      Hang him, truant! there’s no true drop of blood in him to be
      truly touched with love. If he be sad, he wants money.


      BENEDICK.
      I have the tooth-ache.


      DON PEDRO.
      Draw it.


      BENEDICK.
      Hang it.


      CLAUDIO.
      You must hang it first, and draw it afterwards.


      DON PEDRO.
      What! sigh for the tooth-ache?


      LEONATO.
      Where is but a humour or a worm?


      BENEDICK.
      Well, everyone can master a grief but he that has it.


      CLAUDIO.
      Yet say I, he is in love.


      DON PEDRO.
      There is no appearance of fancy in him, unless it be a fancy that
      he hath to strange disguises; as to be a Dutchman today, a
      Frenchman tomorrow; or in the shape of two countries at once, as
      a German from the waist downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from
      the hip upward, no doublet. Unless he have a fancy to this
      foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you
      would have it appear he is.


      CLAUDIO.
      If he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old
      signs: a’ brushes his hat a mornings; what should that bode?


      DON PEDRO.
      Hath any man seen him at the barber’s?


      CLAUDIO.
      No, but the barber’s man hath been seen with him; and the old
      ornament of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis balls.


      LEONATO.
      Indeed he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, a’ rubs himself with civet: can you smell him out by that?


      CLAUDIO.
      That’s as much as to say the sweet youth’s in love.


      DON PEDRO.
      The greatest note of it is his melancholy.


      CLAUDIO.
      And when was he wont to wash his face?


      DON PEDRO.
      Yea, or to paint himself? for the which, I hear what they say of
      him.


      CLAUDIO.
      Nay, but his jesting spirit; which is now crept into a
      lute-string, and now governed by stops.


      DON PEDRO.
      Indeed, that tells a heavy tale for him. Conclude, conclude he is
      in love.


      CLAUDIO.
      Nay, but I know who loves him.


      DON PEDRO.
      That would I know too: I warrant, one that knows him not.


      CLAUDIO.
      Yes, and his ill conditions; and in despite of all, dies for him.


      DON PEDRO.
      She shall be buried with her face upwards.


      BENEDICK.
      Yet is this no charm for the tooth-ache. Old signior, walk aside
      with me: I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you,
      which these hobby-horses must not hear.


      [_Exeunt Benedick and Leonato._]


      DON PEDRO.
      For my life, to break with him about Beatrice.


      CLAUDIO.
      ’Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this played their parts
      with Beatrice, and then the two bears will not bite one another
      when they meet.


      Enter Don John.


      DON JOHN.
      My lord and brother, God save you!


      DON PEDRO.
      Good den, brother.


      DON JOHN.
      If your leisure served, I would speak with you.


      DON PEDRO.
      In private?


      DON JOHN.
      If it please you; yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I would
      speak of concerns him.


      DON PEDRO.
      What’s the matter?


      DON JOHN.
      [_To Claudio._] Means your lordship to be married tomorrow?


      DON PEDRO.
      You know he does.


      DON JOHN.
      I know not that, when he knows what I know.


      CLAUDIO.
      If there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.


      DON JOHN.
      You may think I love you not: let that appear hereafter, and aim
      better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think
      he holds you well, and in dearness of heart hath holp to effect
      your ensuing marriage; surely suit ill-spent and labour ill
      bestowed!


      DON PEDRO.
      Why, what’s the matter?


      DON JOHN.
      I came hither to tell you; and circumstances shortened,—for she
      has been too long a talking of,—the lady is disloyal.


      CLAUDIO.
      Who, Hero?


      DON JOHN.
      Even she: Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero.


      CLAUDIO.
      Disloyal?


      DON JOHN.
      The word’s too good to paint out her wickedness; I could say, she
      were worse: think you of a worse title, and I will fit her to it.
      Wonder not till further warrant: go but with me tonight, you
      shall see her chamber window entered, even the night before her
      wedding-day: if you love her then, tomorrow wed her; but it would
      better fit your honour to change your mind.


      CLAUDIO.
      May this be so?


      DON PEDRO.
      I will not think it.


      DON JOHN.
      If you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know. If
      you will follow me, I will show you enough; and when you have
      seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.


      CLAUDIO.
      If I see anything tonight why I should not marry her tomorrow, in
      the congregation, where I should wed, there will I shame her.


      DON PEDRO.
      And, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to
      disgrace her.


      DON JOHN.
      I will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses: bear
      it coldly but till midnight, and let the issue show itself.


      DON PEDRO.
      O day untowardly turned!


      CLAUDIO.
      O mischief strangely thwarting!


      DON JOHN.
      O plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen
      the sequel.


      [_Exeunt._]


Scene III. A Street.

      Enter Dogberry and Verges, with the Watch.


      DOGBERRY.
      Are you good men and true?


      VERGES.
      Yea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation, body
      and soul.


      DOGBERRY.
      Nay, that were a punishment too good for them, if they should
      have any allegiance in them, being chosen for the Prince’s watch.


      VERGES.
      Well, give them their charge, neighbour Dogberry.


      DOGBERRY.
      First, who think you the most desartless man to be constable?


      FIRST WATCH.
      Hugh Oatcake, sir, or George Seacoal; for they can write and
      read.


      DOGBERRY.
      Come hither, neighbour Seacoal. God hath blessed you with a good
      name: to be a well-favoured man is the gift of Fortune; but to
      write and read comes by Nature.


      SECOND WATCH.
      Both which, Master Constable,—


      DOGBERRY.
      You have: I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favour,
      sir, why, give God thanks, and make no boast of it; and for your
      writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of
      such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless and
      fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the
      lanthorn. This is your charge: you shall comprehend all vagrom
      men; you are to bid any man stand, in the Prince’s name.


      SECOND WATCH.
      How, if a’ will not stand?


      DOGBERRY.
      Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently
      call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of
      a knave.


      VERGES.
      If he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the
      Prince’s subjects.


      DOGBERRY.
      True, and they are to meddle with none but the Prince’s subjects.
      You shall also make no noise in the streets: for, for the watch
      to babble and to talk is most tolerable and not to be endured.


      SECOND WATCH.
      We will rather sleep than talk: we know what belongs to a watch.


      DOGBERRY.
      Why, you speak like an ancient and most quiet watchman, for I
      cannot see how sleeping should offend; only have a care that your
      bills be not stolen. Well, you are to call at all the alehouses,
      and bid those that are drunk get them to bed.


      SECOND WATCH.
      How if they will not?


      DOGBERRY.
      Why then, let them alone till they are sober: if they make you
      not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you
      took them for.


      SECOND WATCH.
      Well, sir.


      DOGBERRY.
      If you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your
      office, to be no true man; and, for such kind of men, the less
      you meddle or make with them, why, the more is for your honesty.


      SECOND WATCH.
      If we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him?


      DOGBERRY.
      Truly, by your office, you may; but I think they that touch pitch
      will be defiled. The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a
      thief, is to let him show himself what he is and steal out of
      your company.


      VERGES.
      You have been always called a merciful man, partner.


      DOGBERRY.
      Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who
      hath any honesty in him.


      VERGES.
      If you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse
      and bid her still it.


      SECOND WATCH.
      How if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?


      DOGBERRY.
      Why then, depart in peace, and let the child wake her with
      crying; for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baes,
      will never answer a calf when he bleats.


      VERGES.
      ’Tis very true.


      DOGBERRY.
      This is the end of the charge. You constable, are to present the
      Prince’s own person: if you meet the Prince in the night, you may
      stay him.


      VERGES.
      Nay, by’r lady, that I think, a’ cannot.


      DOGBERRY.
      Five shillings to one on’t, with any man that knows the statutes,
      he may stay him: marry, not without the Prince be willing; for,
      indeed, the watch ought to offend no man, and it is an offence to
      stay a man against his will.


      VERGES.
      By’r lady, I think it be so.


      DOGBERRY.
      Ha, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night: an there be any matter of
      weight chances, call up me: keep your fellows’ counsels and your
      own, and good night. Come, neighbour.


      SECOND WATCH.
      Well, masters, we hear our charge: let us go sit here upon the
      church bench till two, and then all to bed.


      DOGBERRY.
      One word more, honest neighbours. I pray you, watch about Signior
      Leonato’s door; for the wedding being there tomorrow, there is a
      great coil tonight. Adieu; be vigitant, I beseech you.


      [_Exeunt Dogberry and Verges._]


      Enter Borachio and Conrade.


      BORACHIO.
      What, Conrade!


      WATCH.
      [_Aside_] Peace! stir not.


      BORACHIO.
      Conrade, I say!


      CONRADE.
      Here, man. I am at thy elbow.


      BORACHIO.
      Mass, and my elbow itched; I thought there would a scab follow.


      CONRADE.
      I will owe thee an answer for that; and now forward with thy
      tale.


      BORACHIO.
      Stand thee close then under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain,
      and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.


      WATCH.
      [_Aside_] Some treason, masters; yet stand close.


      BORACHIO.
      Therefore know, I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.


      CONRADE.
      Is it possible that any villainy should be so dear?


      BORACHIO.
      Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villainy should
      be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor
      ones may make what price they will.


      CONRADE.
      I wonder at it.


      BORACHIO.
      That shows thou art unconfirmed. Thou knowest that the fashion of
      a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is nothing to a man.


      CONRADE.
      Yes, it is apparel.


      BORACHIO.
      I mean, the fashion.


      CONRADE.
      Yes, the fashion is the fashion.


      BORACHIO.
      Tush! I may as well say the fool’s the fool. But seest thou not
      what a deformed thief this fashion is?


      WATCH.
      [_Aside_] I know that Deformed; a’ has been a vile thief this
      seven years; a’ goes up and down like a gentleman: I remember his
      name.


      BORACHIO.
      Didst thou not hear somebody?


      CONRADE.
      No: ’twas the vane on the house.


      BORACHIO.
      Seest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is? how
      giddily he turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and
      five-and-thirty? sometime fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers
      in the reechy painting; sometime like god Bel’s priests in the
      old church window; sometime like the shaven Hercules in the
      smirched worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy
      as his club?


      CONRADE.
      All this I see, and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel
      than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion
      too, that thou hast shifted out of thy tale into telling me of
      the fashion?


      BORACHIO.
      Not so neither; but know, that I have tonight wooed Margaret, the
      Lady Hero’s gentlewoman, by the name of Hero: she leans me out at
      her mistress’ chamber window, bids me a thousand times good
      night,—I tell this tale vilely:—I should first tell thee how the
      Prince, Claudio, and my master, planted and placed and possessed
      by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable
      encounter.


      CONRADE.
      And thought they Margaret was Hero?


      BORACHIO.
      Two of them did, the Prince and Claudio; but the devil my master,
      knew she was Margaret; and partly by his oaths, which first
      possessed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them,
      but chiefly by my villainy, which did confirm any slander that
      Don John had made, away went Claudio enraged; swore he would meet
      her, as he was appointed, next morning at the temple, and there,
      before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o’er
      night, and send her home again without a husband.


      FIRST WATCH.
      We charge you in the Prince’s name, stand!


      SECOND WATCH.
      Call up the right Master Constable. We have here recovered the
      most dangerous piece of lechery that ever was known in the
      commonwealth.


      FIRST WATCH.
      And one Deformed is one of them: I know him, a’ wears a lock.


      CONRADE.
      Masters, masters!


      SECOND WATCH.
      You’ll be made bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.


      CONRADE.
      Masters,—


      FIRST WATCH.
      Never speak: we charge you let us obey you to go with us.


      BORACHIO. We are like to prove a goodly commodity, being taken up
      of these men’s bills.


      CONRADE.
      A commodity in question, I warrant you. Come, we’ll obey you.


      [_Exeunt._]


Scene IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Hero, Margaret and Ursula.


      HERO.
      Good Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire her to rise.


      URSULA.
      I will, lady.


      HERO.
      And bid her come hither.


      URSULA.
      Well.


      [_Exit._]


      MARGARET.
      Troth, I think your other rebato were better.


      HERO.
      No, pray thee, good Meg, I’ll wear this.


      MARGARET.
      By my troth’s not so good; and I warrant your cousin will say so.


      HERO.
      My cousin ’s a fool, and thou art another: I’ll wear none but
      this.


      MARGARET.
      I like the new tire within excellently, if the hair were a
      thought browner; and your gown ’s a most rare fashion, i’ faith.
      I saw the Duchess of Milan’s gown that they praise so.


      HERO.
      O! that exceeds, they say.


      MARGARET.
      By my troth ’s but a night-gown in respect of yours: cloth o’
      gold, and cuts, and laced with silver, set with pearls, down
      sleeves, side sleeves, and skirts round, underborne with a bluish
      tinsel; but for a fine, quaint, graceful, and excellent fashion,
      yours is worth ten on’t.


      HERO.
      God give me joy to wear it! for my heart is exceeding heavy.


      MARGARET.
      ’Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.


      HERO.
      Fie upon thee! art not ashamed?


      MARGARET.
      Of what, lady? of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable
      in a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I
      think you would have me say, saving your reverence, ‘a husband:’
      an bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I’ll offend nobody.
      Is there any harm in ‘the heavier for a husband’? None, I think,
      and it be the right husband and the right wife; otherwise ’tis
      light, and not heavy: ask my Lady Beatrice else; here she comes.


      Enter Beatrice.


      HERO.
      Good morrow, coz.


      BEATRICE.
      Good morrow, sweet Hero.


      HERO.
      Why, how now? do you speak in the sick tune?


      BEATRICE.
      I am out of all other tune, methinks.


      MARGARET.
      Clap’s into ‘Light o’ love’; that goes without a burden: do you
      sing it, and I’ll dance it.


      BEATRICE.
      Ye, light o’ love with your heels! then, if your husband have
      stables enough, you’ll see he shall lack no barnes.


      MARGARET.
      O illegitimate construction! I scorn that with my heels.


      BEATRICE.
      ’Tis almost five o’clock, cousin; ’tis time you were ready. By my
      troth, I am exceeding ill. Heigh-ho!


      MARGARET.
      For a hawk, a horse, or a husband?


      BEATRICE.
      For the letter that begins them all, H.


      MARGARET.
      Well, and you be not turned Turk, there’s no more sailing by the
      star.


      BEATRICE.
      What means the fool, trow?


      MARGARET.
      Nothing I; but God send everyone their heart’s desire!


      HERO.
      These gloves the Count sent me; they are an excellent perfume.


      BEATRICE.
      I am stuffed, cousin, I cannot smell.


      MARGARET.
      A maid, and stuffed! there’s goodly catching of cold.


      BEATRICE.
      O, God help me! God help me! how long have you professed
      apprehension?


      MARGARET.
      Ever since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely!


      BEATRICE.
      It is not seen enough, you should wear it in your cap. By my
      troth, I am sick.


      MARGARET.
      Get you some of this distilled _Carduus benedictus_, and lay it
      to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.


      HERO.
      There thou prick’st her with a thistle.


      BEATRICE.
      _Benedictus!_ why _benedictus?_ you have some moral in this
      _benedictus_.


      MARGARET.
      Moral! no, by my troth, I have no moral meaning; I meant, plain
      holy thistle. You may think, perchance, that I think you are in
      love: nay, by’r Lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list;
      nor I list not to think what I can; nor, indeed, I cannot think,
      if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in love,
      or that you will be in love, or that you can be in love. Yet
      Benedick was such another, and now is he become a man: he swore
      he would never marry; and yet now, in despite of his heart, he
      eats his meat without grudging: and how you may be converted, I
      know not; but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.


      BEATRICE.
      What pace is this that thy tongue keeps?


      MARGARET.
      Not a false gallop.


      Re-enter Ursula.


      URSULA.
      Madam, withdraw: the Prince, the Count, Signior Benedick, Don
      John, and all the gallants of the town are come to fetch you to
      church.


      HERO.
      Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula.


      [_Exeunt._]


Scene V. Another Room in LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Leonato and Dogberry and Verges.


      LEONATO.
      What would you with me, honest neighbour?


      DOGBERRY.
      Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you, that decerns
      you nearly.


      LEONATO.
      Brief, I pray you; for you see it is a busy time with me.


      DOGBERRY.
      Marry, this it is, sir.


      VERGES.
      Yes, in truth it is, sir.


      LEONATO.
      What is it, my good friends?


      DOGBERRY.
      Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter: an old man,
      sir, and his wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire
      they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.


      VERGES.
      Yes, I thank God, I am as honest as any man living, that is an
      old man and no honester than I.


      DOGBERRY.
      Comparisons are odorous: palabras, neighbour Verges.


      LEONATO.
      Neighbours, you are tedious.


      DOGBERRY.
      It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor Duke’s
      officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a
      king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.


      LEONATO.
      All thy tediousness on me! ah?


      DOGBERRY.
      Yea, and ’twere a thousand pound more than ’tis; for I hear as
      good exclamation on your worship, as of any man in the city, and
      though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it.


      VERGES.
      And so am I.


      LEONATO.
      I would fain know what you have to say.


      VERGES.
      Marry, sir, our watch tonight, excepting your worship’s presence,
      ha’ ta’en a couple of as arrant knaves as any in Messina.


      DOGBERRY.
      A good old man, sir; he will be talking; as they say, ‘when the
      age is in, the wit is out.’ God help us! it is a world to see!
      Well said, i’ faith, neighbour Verges: well, God’s a good man;
      and two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest
      soul, i’ faith, sir; by my troth he is, as ever broke bread; but
      God is to be worshipped: all men are not alike; alas! good
      neighbour.


      LEONATO.
      Indeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.


      DOGBERRY.
      Gifts that God gives.


      LEONATO.
      I must leave you.


      DOGBERRY.
      One word, sir: our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two
      aspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined
      before your worship.


      LEONATO.
      Take their examination yourself, and bring it me: I am now in
      great haste, as may appear unto you.


      DOGBERRY.
      It shall be suffigance.


      LEONATO.
      Drink some wine ere you go: fare you well.


      Enter a Messenger.


      MESSENGER.
      My lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband.


      LEONATO.
      I’ll wait upon them: I am ready.


      [_Exeunt Leonato and Messenger._]


      DOGBERRY.
      Go, good partner, go get you to Francis Seacoal; bid him bring
      his pen and inkhorn to the gaol: we are now to examination these
      men.


      VERGES.
      And we must do it wisely.


      DOGBERRY.
      We will spare for no wit, I warrant you; here’s that shall drive
      some of them to a non-come: only get the learned writer to set
      down our excommunication, and meet me at the gaol.


      [_Exeunt._]





ACT IV

SCENE I. The Inside of a Church.

      Enter Don Pedro, Don John, Leonato, Friar Francis, Claudio,
      Benedick, Hero, Beatrice &c.


      LEONATO.
      Come, Friar Francis, be brief: only to the plain form of
      marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties
      afterwards.


      FRIAR.
      You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?


      CLAUDIO.
      No.


      LEONATO.
      To be married to her, friar; you come to marry her.


      FRIAR.
      Lady, you come hither to be married to this Count?


      HERO.
      I do.


      FRIAR.
      If either of you know any inward impediment, why you should not
      be conjoined, I charge you, on your souls, to utter it.


      CLAUDIO.
      Know you any, Hero?


      HERO.
      None, my lord.


      FRIAR.
      Know you any, Count?


      LEONATO.
      I dare make his answer; none.


      CLAUDIO.
      O! what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not
      knowing what they do!


      BENEDICK.
      How now! Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ah! ha!
      he!


      CLAUDIO.
      Stand thee by, Friar. Father, by your leave:
      Will you with free and unconstrained soul
      Give me this maid, your daughter?


      LEONATO.
      As freely, son, as God did give her me.


      CLAUDIO.
      And what have I to give you back whose worth
      May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?


      DON PEDRO.
      Nothing, unless you render her again.


      CLAUDIO.
      Sweet Prince, you learn me noble thankfulness.
      There, Leonato, take her back again:
      Give not this rotten orange to your friend;
      She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.
      Behold! how like a maid she blushes here.
      O! what authority and show of truth
      Can cunning sin cover itself withal.
      Comes not that blood as modest evidence
      To witness simple virtue? Would you not swear,
      All you that see her, that she were a maid,
      By these exterior shows? But she is none:
      She knows the heat of a luxurious bed;
      Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.


      LEONATO.
      What do you mean, my lord?


      CLAUDIO.
      Not to be married,
      Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.


      LEONATO.
      Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,
      Have vanquish’d the resistance of her youth,
      And made defeat of her virginity,—


      CLAUDIO.
      I know what you would say: if I have known her,
      You will say she did embrace me as a husband,
      And so extenuate the forehand sin: No, Leonato,
      I never tempted her with word too large;
      But as a brother to his sister show’d
      Bashful sincerity and comely love.


      HERO.
      And seem’d I ever otherwise to you?


      CLAUDIO.
      Out on thee! Seeming! I will write against it:
      You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
      As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
      But you are more intemperate in your blood
      Than Venus, or those pamper’d animals
      That rage in savage sensuality.


      HERO.
      Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?


      LEONATO.
      Sweet Prince, why speak not you?


      DON PEDRO.
      What should I speak?
      I stand dishonour’d, that have gone about
      To link my dear friend to a common stale.


      LEONATO.
      Are these things spoken, or do I but dream?


      DON JOHN.
      Sir, they are spoken, and these things are true.


      BENEDICK.
      This looks not like a nuptial.


      HERO.
      True! O God!


      CLAUDIO.
      Leonato, stand I here?
      Is this the Prince? Is this the Prince’s brother?
      Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?


      LEONATO.
      All this is so; but what of this, my lord?


      CLAUDIO.
      Let me but move one question to your daughter,
      And by that fatherly and kindly power
      That you have in her, bid her answer truly.


      LEONATO.
      I charge thee do so, as thou art my child.


      HERO.
      O, God defend me! how am I beset!
      What kind of catechizing call you this?


      CLAUDIO.
      To make you answer truly to your name.


      HERO.
      Is it not Hero? Who can blot that name
      With any just reproach?


      CLAUDIO.
      Marry, that can Hero:
      Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.
      What man was he talk’d with you yesternight
      Out at your window, betwixt twelve and one?
      Now, if you are a maid, answer to this.


      HERO.
      I talk’d with no man at that hour, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      Why, then are you no maiden.
      Leonato, I am sorry you must hear: upon my honour,
      Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count,
      Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,
      Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window;
      Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
      Confess’d the vile encounters they have had
      A thousand times in secret.


      DON JOHN.
      Fie, fie! they are not to be nam’d, my lord,
      Not to be spoke of;
      There is not chastity enough in language
      Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,
      I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.


      CLAUDIO.
      O Hero! what a Hero hadst thou been,
      If half thy outward graces had been plac’d
      About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
      But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! farewell,
      Thou pure impiety, and impious purity!
      For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
      And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
      To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
      And never shall it more be gracious.


      LEONATO.
      Hath no man’s dagger here a point for me?


      [_Hero swoons._]


      BEATRICE.
      Why, how now, cousin! wherefore sink you down?


      DON JOHN.
      Come, let us go. These things, come thus to light,
      Smother her spirits up.


      [_Exeunt Don Pedro, Don John and Claudio._]


      BENEDICK.
      How doth the lady?


      BEATRICE.
      Dead, I think! Help, uncle! Hero! why, Hero! Uncle! Signior
      Benedick! Friar!


      LEONATO.
      O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand:
      Death is the fairest cover for her shame
      That may be wish’d for.


      BEATRICE.
      How now, cousin Hero?


      FRIAR.
      Have comfort, lady.


      LEONATO.
      Dost thou look up?


      FRIAR.
      Yea; wherefore should she not?


      LEONATO.
      Wherefore! Why, doth not every earthly thing
      Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny
      The story that is printed in her blood?
      Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes;
      For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,
      Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
      Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
      Strike at thy life. Griev’d I, I had but one?
      Chid I for that at frugal Nature’s frame?
      O! one too much by thee. Why had I one?
      Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?
      Why had I not with charitable hand
      Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates,
      Who smirched thus, and mir’d with infamy,
      I might have said, ‘No part of it is mine;
      This shame derives itself from unknown loins?’
      But mine, and mine I lov’d, and mine I prais’d,
      And mine that I was proud on, mine so much
      That I myself was to myself not mine,
      Valuing of her; why, she—O! she is fallen
      Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea
      Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,
      And salt too little which may season give
      To her foul tainted flesh.


      BENEDICK.
      Sir, sir, be patient.
      For my part, I am so attir’d in wonder,
      I know not what to say.


      BEATRICE.
      O! on my soul, my cousin is belied!


      BENEDICK.
      Lady, were you her bedfellow last night?


      BEATRICE.
      No, truly, not; although, until last night,
      I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.


      LEONATO.
      Confirm’d, confirm’d! O! that is stronger made,
      Which was before barr’d up with ribs of iron.
      Would the two princes lie? and Claudio lie,
      Who lov’d her so, that, speaking of her foulness,
      Wash’d it with tears? Hence from her! let her die.


      FRIAR.
      Hear me a little;
      For I have only been silent so long,
      And given way unto this course of fortune,
      By noting of the lady: I have mark’d
      A thousand blushing apparitions
      To start into her face; a thousand innocent shames
      In angel whiteness bear away those blushes;
      And in her eye there hath appear’d a fire,
      To burn the errors that these princes hold
      Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool;
      Trust not my reading nor my observations,
      Which with experimental seal doth warrant
      The tenure of my book; trust not my age,
      My reverence, calling, nor divinity,
      If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here
      Under some biting error.


      LEONATO.
      Friar, it cannot be.
      Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left
      Is that she will not add to her damnation
      A sin of perjury: she not denies it.
      Why seek’st thou then to cover with excuse
      That which appears in proper nakedness?


      FRIAR.
      Lady, what man is he you are accus’d of?


      HERO.
      They know that do accuse me, I know none;
      If I know more of any man alive
      Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,
      Let all my sins lack mercy! O, my father!
      Prove you that any man with me convers’d
      At hours unmeet, or that I yesternight
      Maintain’d the change of words with any creature,
      Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death.


      FRIAR.
      There is some strange misprision in the princes.


      BENEDICK.
      Two of them have the very bent of honour;
      And if their wisdoms be misled in this,
      The practice of it lives in John the bastard,
      Whose spirits toil in frame of villainies.


      LEONATO.
      I know not. If they speak but truth of her,
      These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour,
      The proudest of them shall well hear of it.
      Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,
      Nor age so eat up my invention,
      Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,
      Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends,
      But they shall find, awak’d in such a kind,
      Both strength of limb and policy of mind,
      Ability in means and choice of friends,
      To quit me of them throughly.


      FRIAR.
      Pause awhile,
      And let my counsel sway you in this case.
      Your daughter here the princes left for dead;
      Let her awhile be secretly kept in,
      And publish it that she is dead indeed:
      Maintain a mourning ostentation;
      And on your family’s old monument
      Hang mournful epitaphs and do all rites
      That appertain unto a burial.


      LEONATO.
      What shall become of this? What will this do?


      FRIAR.
      Marry, this well carried shall on her behalf
      Change slander to remorse; that is some good.
      But not for that dream I on this strange course,
      But on this travail look for greater birth.
      She dying, as it must be so maintain’d,
      Upon the instant that she was accus’d,
      Shall be lamented, pitied and excus’d
      Of every hearer; for it so falls out
      That what we have we prize not to the worth
      Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack’d and lost,
      Why, then we rack the value, then we find
      The virtue that possession would not show us
      Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:
      When he shall hear she died upon his words,
      The idea of her life shall sweetly creep
      Into his study of imagination,
      And every lovely organ of her life
      Shall come apparell’d in more precious habit,
      More moving, delicate, and full of life
      Into the eye and prospect of his soul,
      Than when she liv’d indeed: then shall he mourn,—
      If ever love had interest in his liver,—
      And wish he had not so accused her,
      No, though he thought his accusation true.
      Let this be so, and doubt not but success
      Will fashion the event in better shape
      Than I can lay it down in likelihood.
      But if all aim but this be levell’d false,
      The supposition of the lady’s death
      Will quench the wonder of her infamy:
      And if it sort not well, you may conceal her,—
      As best befits her wounded reputation,—
      In some reclusive and religious life,
      Out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries.


      BENEDICK.
      Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you:
      And though you know my inwardness and love
      Is very much unto the Prince and Claudio,
      Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this
      As secretly and justly as your soul
      Should with your body.


      LEONATO.
      Being that I flow in grief,
      The smallest twine may lead me.


      FRIAR.
      ’Tis well consented: presently away;
      For to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.
      Come, lady, die to live: this wedding day
      Perhaps is but prolong’d: have patience and endure.


      [_Exeunt Friar, Hero and Leonato._]


      BENEDICK.
      Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, and I will weep a while longer.


      BENEDICK.
      I will not desire that.


      BEATRICE.
      You have no reason; I do it freely.


      BENEDICK.
      Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.


      BEATRICE.
      Ah! how much might the man deserve of me that would right her.


      BENEDICK.
      Is there any way to show such friendship?


      BEATRICE.
      A very even way, but no such friend.


      BENEDICK.
      May a man do it?


      BEATRICE.
      It is a man’s office, but not yours.


      BENEDICK.
      I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that
      strange?


      BEATRICE.
      As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to
      say I loved nothing so well as you; but believe me not, and yet I
      lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my
      cousin.


      BENEDICK.
      By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.


      BEATRICE.
      Do not swear by it, and eat it.


      BENEDICK.
      I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it
      that says I love not you.


      BEATRICE.
      Will you not eat your word?


      BENEDICK.
      With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.


      BEATRICE.
      Why then, God forgive me!


      BENEDICK.
      What offence, sweet Beatrice?


      BEATRICE.
      You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I
      loved you.


      BENEDICK.
      And do it with all thy heart.


      BEATRICE.
      I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.


      BENEDICK.
      Come, bid me do anything for thee.


      BEATRICE.
      Kill Claudio.


      BENEDICK.
      Ha! not for the wide world.


      BEATRICE.
      You kill me to deny it. Farewell.


      BENEDICK.
      Tarry, sweet Beatrice.


      BEATRICE.
      I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I pray
      you, let me go.


      BENEDICK.
      Beatrice,—


      BEATRICE.
      In faith, I will go.


      BENEDICK.
      We’ll be friends first.


      BEATRICE.
      You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.


      BENEDICK.
      Is Claudio thine enemy?


      BEATRICE.
      Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered,
      scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O! that I were a man. What!
      bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with
      public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour,—O God,
      that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.


      BENEDICK.
      Hear me, Beatrice,—


      BEATRICE.
      Talk with a man out at a window! a proper saying!


      BENEDICK.
      Nay, but Beatrice,—


      BEATRICE.
      Sweet Hero! she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.


      BENEDICK.
      Beat—


      BEATRICE.
      Princes and Counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly
      Count Comfect; a sweet gallant, surely! O! that I were a man for
      his sake, or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake!
      But manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment, and
      men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as
      valiant as Hercules, that only tells a lie and swears it. I
      cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with
      grieving.


      BENEDICK.
      Tarry, good Beatrice. By this hand, I love thee.


      BEATRICE.
      Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.


      BENEDICK.
      Think you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, as sure is I have a thought or a soul.


      BENEDICK.
      Enough! I am engaged, I will challenge him. I will kiss your
      hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a
      dear account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go, comfort your
      cousin: I must say she is dead; and so, farewell.


      [_Exeunt._]


Scene II. A Prison.

      Enter Dogberry, Verges, and Sexton, in gowns; and the Watch, with
      Conrade and Borachio.


      DOGBERRY.
      Is our whole dissembly appeared?


      VERGES.
      O! a stool and a cushion for the sexton.


      SEXTON.
      Which be the malefactors?


      DOGBERRY.
      Marry, that am I and my partner.


      VERGES.
      Nay, that’s certain: we have the exhibition to examine.


      SEXTON.
      But which are the offenders that are to be examined? let them
      come before Master Constable.


      DOGBERRY.
      Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend?


      BORACHIO.
      Borachio.


      DOGBERRY.
      Pray write down Borachio. Yours, sirrah?


      CONRADE.
      I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.


      DOGBERRY.
      Write down Master gentleman Conrade. Masters, do you serve God?


      BOTH.
      Yea, sir, we hope.


      DOGBERRY.
      Write down that they hope they serve God: and write God first;
      for God defend but God should go before such villains! Masters,
      it is proved already that you are little better than false
      knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer
      you for yourselves?


      CONRADE.
      Marry, sir, we say we are none.


      DOGBERRY.
      A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with
      him. Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear: sir, I say to
      you, it is thought you are false knaves.


      BORACHIO.
      Sir, I say to you we are none.


      DOGBERRY.
      Well, stand aside. Fore God, they are both in a tale. Have you
      writ down, that they are none?


      SEXTON.
      Master Constable, you go not the way to examine: you must call
      forth the watch that are their accusers.


      DOGBERRY.
      Yea, marry, that’s the eftest way. Let the watch come forth.
      Masters, I charge you, in the Prince’s name, accuse these men.


      FIRST WATCH.
      This man said, sir, that Don John, the Prince’s brother, was a
      villain.


      DOGBERRY.
      Write down Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to
      call a Prince’s brother villain.


      BORACHIO.
      Master Constable,—


      DOGBERRY.
      Pray thee, fellow, peace: I do not like thy look, I promise thee.


      SEXTON.
      What heard you him say else?


      SECOND WATCH.
      Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for
      accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.


      DOGBERRY.
      Flat burglary as ever was committed.


      VERGES.
      Yea, by the mass, that it is.


      SEXTON.
      What else, fellow?


      FIRST WATCH.
      And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero
      before the whole assembly, and not marry her.


      DOGBERRY.
      O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for
      this.


      SEXTON.
      What else?


      SECOND WATCH.
      This is all.


      SEXTON.
      And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this
      morning secretly stolen away: Hero was in this manner accused, in
      this manner refused, and, upon the grief of this, suddenly died.
      Master Constable, let these men be bound, and brought to
      Leonato’s: I will go before and show him their examination.


      [_Exit._]


      DOGBERRY.
      Come, let them be opinioned.


      VERGES.
      Let them be in the hands—


      CONRADE.
      Off, coxcomb!


      DOGBERRY.
      God’s my life! where’s the sexton? let him write down the
      Prince’s officer coxcomb. Come, bind them. Thou naughty varlet!


      CONRADE.
      Away! you are an ass; you are an ass.


      DOGBERRY.
      Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O
      that he were here to write me down an ass! but, masters, remember
      that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not
      that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as
      shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow;
      and, which is more, an officer; and, which is more, a
      householder; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as
      any in Messina; and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich
      fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses; and one
      that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring him
      away. O that I had been writ down an ass!


      [_Exeunt._]





ACT V

SCENE I. Before LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Leonato and Antonio.


      ANTONIO.
      If you go on thus, you will kill yourself
      And ’tis not wisdom thus to second grief
      Against yourself.


      LEONATO.
      I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
      Which falls into mine ears as profitless
      As water in a sieve: give not me counsel;
      Nor let no comforter delight mine ear
      But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine:
      Bring me a father that so lov’d his child,
      Whose joy of her is overwhelm’d like mine,
      And bid him speak of patience;
      Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,
      And let it answer every strain for strain,
      As thus for thus and such a grief for such,
      In every lineament, branch, shape, and form:
      If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard;
      Bid sorrow wag, cry ‘hem’ when he should groan,
      Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
      With candle-wasters; bring him yet to me,
      And I of him will gather patience.
      But there is no such man; for, brother, men
      Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
      Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
      Their counsel turns to passion, which before
      Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
      Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
      Charm ache with air and agony with words.
      No, no; ’tis all men’s office to speak patience
      To those that wring under the load of sorrow,
      But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency
      To be so moral when he shall endure
      The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel:
      My griefs cry louder than advertisement.


      ANTONIO.
      Therein do men from children nothing differ.


      LEONATO.
      I pray thee peace! I will be flesh and blood;
      For there was never yet philosopher
      That could endure the toothache patiently,
      However they have writ the style of gods
      And made a push at chance and sufferance.


      ANTONIO.
      Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself;
      Make those that do offend you suffer too.


      LEONATO.
      There thou speak’st reason: nay, I will do so.
      My soul doth tell me Hero is belied;
      And that shall Claudio know; so shall the Prince,
      And all of them that thus dishonour her.


      ANTONIO.
      Here comes the Prince and Claudio hastily.


      Enter Don Pedro and Claudio.


      DON PEDRO.
      Good den, good den.


      CLAUDIO.
      Good day to both of you.


      LEONATO.
      Hear you, my lords,—


      DON PEDRO.
      We have some haste, Leonato.


      LEONATO.
      Some haste, my lord! well, fare you well, my lord:
      Are you so hasty now?—well, all is one.


      DON PEDRO.
      Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.


      ANTONIO.
      If he could right himself with quarrelling,
      Some of us would lie low.


      CLAUDIO.
      Who wrongs him?


      LEONATO.
      Marry, thou dost wrong me; thou dissembler, thou.
      Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword;
      I fear thee not.


      CLAUDIO.
      Marry, beshrew my hand,
      If it should give your age such cause of fear.
      In faith, my hand meant nothing to my sword.


      LEONATO.
      Tush, tush, man! never fleer and jest at me:
      I speak not like a dotard nor a fool,
      As, under privilege of age, to brag
      What I have done being young, or what would do,
      Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,
      Thou hast so wrong’d mine innocent child and me
      That I am forc’d to lay my reverence by,
      And, with grey hairs and bruise of many days,
      Do challenge thee to trial of a man.
      I say thou hast belied mine innocent child:
      Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,
      And she lies buried with her ancestors;
      O! in a tomb where never scandal slept,
      Save this of hers, fram’d by thy villainy!


      CLAUDIO.
      My villainy?


      LEONATO.
      Thine, Claudio; thine, I say.


      DON PEDRO.
      You say not right, old man,


      LEONATO.
      My lord, my lord, I’ll prove it on his body, if he dare,
      Despite his nice fence and his active practice,
      His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.


      CLAUDIO.
      Away! I will not have to do with you.


      LEONATO.
      Canst thou so daff me? Thou hast kill’d my child;
      If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.


      ANTONIO.
      He shall kill two of us, and men indeed:
      But that’s no matter; let him kill one first:
      Win me and wear me; let him answer me.
      Come, follow me, boy; come, sir boy, come, follow me.
      Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence;
      Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.


      LEONATO.
      Brother,—


      ANTONIO.
      Content yourself. God knows I lov’d my niece;
      And she is dead, slander’d to death by villains,
      That dare as well answer a man indeed
      As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.
      Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!


      LEONATO.
      Brother Anthony,—


      ANTONIO.
      Hold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,
      And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,
      Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,
      That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander,
      Go antickly, show outward hideousness,
      And speak off half a dozen dangerous words,
      How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst;
      And this is all!


      LEONATO.
      But, brother Anthony,—


      ANTONIO.
      Come, ’tis no matter:
      Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.


      DON PEDRO.
      Gentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.
      My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death;
      But, on my honour, she was charg’d with nothing
      But what was true and very full of proof.


      LEONATO.
      My lord, my lord—


      DON PEDRO.
      I will not hear you.


      LEONATO.
      No? Come, brother, away. I will be heard.—


      ANTONIO.
      And shall, or some of us will smart for it.


      [_Exeunt Leonato and Antonio._]


      Enter Benedick.


      DON PEDRO.
      See, see; here comes the man we went to seek.


      CLAUDIO.
      Now, signior, what news?


      BENEDICK.
      Good day, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      Welcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray.


      CLAUDIO.
      We had like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old
      men without teeth.


      DON PEDRO.
      Leonato and his brother. What think’st thou? Had we fought, I
      doubt we should have been too young for them.


      BENEDICK.
      In a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you
      both.


      CLAUDIO.
      We have been up and down to seek thee; for we are high-proof
      melancholy, and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy
      wit?


      BENEDICK.
      It is in my scabbard; shall I draw it?


      DON PEDRO.
      Dost thou wear thy wit by thy side?


      CLAUDIO.
      Never any did so, though very many have been beside their wit. I
      will bid thee draw, as we do the minstrels; draw, to pleasure us.


      DON PEDRO.
      As I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry?


      CLAUDIO.
      What, courage, man! What though care killed a cat, thou hast
      mettle enough in thee to kill care.


      BENEDICK.
      Sir, I shall meet your wit in the career, and you charge it
      against me. I pray you choose another subject.


      CLAUDIO.
      Nay then, give him another staff: this last was broke cross.


      DON PEDRO.
      By this light, he changes more and more: I think he be angry
      indeed.


      CLAUDIO.
      If he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.


      BENEDICK.
      Shall I speak a word in your ear?


      CLAUDIO.
      God bless me from a challenge!


      BENEDICK.
      [_Aside to Claudio._] You are a villain, I jest not: I will make
      it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do
      me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a
      sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear
      from you.


      CLAUDIO.
      Well I will meet you, so I may have good cheer.


      DON PEDRO.
      What, a feast, a feast?


      CLAUDIO.
      I’ faith, I thank him; he hath bid me to a calf’s-head and a
      capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously, say my knife’s
      naught. Shall I not find a woodcock too?


      BENEDICK.
      Sir, your wit ambles well; it goes easily.


      DON PEDRO.
      I’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day. I
      said, thou hadst a fine wit. ‘True,’ says she, ‘a fine little
      one.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit.’ ‘Right,’ said she, ‘a great
      gross one.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit.’ ‘Just,’ said she, ‘it
      hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman is wise.’ ‘Certain,’
      said she, ‘a wise gentleman.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the
      tongues.’ ‘That I believe’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me
      on Monday night, which he forswore on Tuesday morning: there’s a
      double tongue; there’s two tongues.’ Thus did she, an hour
      together, trans-shape thy particular virtues; yet at last she
      concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest man in Italy.


      CLAUDIO.
      For the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.


      DON PEDRO.
      Yea, that she did; but yet, for all that, an if she did not hate
      him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man’s daughter
      told us all.


      CLAUDIO.
      All, all; and moreover, God saw him when he was hid in the
      garden.


      DON PEDRO.
      But when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible
      Benedick’s head?


      CLAUDIO.
      Yea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the married man!’


      BENEDICK.
      Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will leave you now to
      your gossip-like humour; you break jests as braggarts do their
      blades, which, God be thanked, hurt not. My lord, for your many
      courtesies I thank you: I must discontinue your company. Your
      brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have, among you,
      killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lack-beard there,
      he and I shall meet; and till then, peace be with him.


      [_Exit._]


      DON PEDRO.
      He is in earnest.


      CLAUDIO.
      In most profound earnest; and, I’ll warrant you, for the love of
      Beatrice.


      DON PEDRO.
      And hath challenged thee?


      CLAUDIO.
      Most sincerely.


      DON PEDRO.
      What a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose
      and leaves off his wit!


      CLAUDIO.
      He is then a giant to an ape; but then is an ape a doctor to such
      a man.


      DON PEDRO.
      But, soft you; let me be: pluck up, my heart, and be sad! Did he
      not say my brother was fled?


      Enter Dogberry, Verges,  and the Watch, with Conrade and
      Borachio.


      DOGBERRY.
      Come you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh
      more reasons in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite
      once, you must be looked to.


      DON PEDRO.
      How now! two of my brother’s men bound! Borachio, one!


      CLAUDIO.
      Hearken after their offence, my lord.


      DON PEDRO.
      Officers, what offence have these men done?


      DOGBERRY.
      Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have
      spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and
      lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified
      unjust things; and to conclude, they are lying knaves.


      DON PEDRO.
      First, I ask thee what they have done; thirdly, I ask thee what’s
      their offence; sixth and lastly, why they are committed; and, to
      conclude, what you lay to their charge?


      CLAUDIO.
      Rightly reasoned, and in his own division; and, by my troth,
      there’s one meaning well suited.


      DON PEDRO.
      Who have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound to your
      answer? This learned constable is too cunning to be understood.
      What’s your offence?


      BORACHIO.
      Sweet Prince, let me go no farther to mine answer: do you hear
      me, and let this Count kill me. I have deceived even your very
      eyes: what your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools
      have brought to light; who, in the night overheard me confessing
      to this man how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the
      Lady Hero; how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court
      Margaret in Hero’s garments; how you disgraced her, when you
      should marry her. My villainy they have upon record; which I had
      rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady
      is dead upon mine and my master’s false accusation; and, briefly,
      I desire nothing but the reward of a villain.


      DON PEDRO.
      Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?


      CLAUDIO.
      I have drunk poison whiles he utter’d it.


      DON PEDRO.
      But did my brother set thee on to this?


      BORACHIO.
      Yea; and paid me richly for the practice of it.


      DON PEDRO.
      He is compos’d and fram’d of treachery: And fled he is upon this
      villainy.


      CLAUDIO.
      Sweet Hero! now thy image doth appear
      In the rare semblance that I lov’d it first.


      DOGBERRY.
      Come, bring away the plaintiffs: by this time our sexton hath
      reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And masters, do not
      forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an
      ass.


      VERGES.
      Here, here comes Master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too.


      Re-enter Leonato, Antonio and the Sexton.


      LEONATO.
      Which is the villain? Let me see his eyes,
      That, when I note another man like him,
      I may avoid him. Which of these is he?


      BORACHIO.
      If you would know your wronger, look on me.


      LEONATO.
      Art thou the slave that with thy breath hast kill’d
      Mine innocent child?


      BORACHIO.
      Yea, even I alone.


      LEONATO.
      No, not so, villain; thou beliest thyself:
      Here stand a pair of honourable men;
      A third is fled, that had a hand in it.
      I thank you, princes, for my daughter’s death:
      Record it with your high and worthy deeds.
      ’Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.


      CLAUDIO.
      I know not how to pray your patience;
      Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;
      Impose me to what penance your invention
      Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn’d I not
      But in mistaking.


      DON PEDRO.
      By my soul, nor I:
      And yet, to satisfy this good old man,
      I would bend under any heavy weight
      That he’ll enjoin me to.


      LEONATO.
      I cannot bid you bid my daughter live;
      That were impossible; but, I pray you both,
      Possess the people in Messina here
      How innocent she died; and if your love
      Can labour aught in sad invention,
      Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,
      And sing it to her bones: sing it tonight.
      Tomorrow morning come you to my house,
      And since you could not be my son-in-law,
      Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,
      Almost the copy of my child that’s dead,
      And she alone is heir to both of us:
      Give her the right you should have given her cousin,
      And so dies my revenge.


      CLAUDIO.
      O noble sir,
      Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!
      I do embrace your offer; and dispose
      For henceforth of poor Claudio.


      LEONATO.
      Tomorrow then I will expect your coming;
      Tonight I take my leave. This naughty man
      Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,
      Who, I believe, was pack’d in all this wrong,
      Hir’d to it by your brother.


      BORACHIO.
      No, by my soul she was not;
      Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me;
      But always hath been just and virtuous
      In anything that I do know by her.


      DOGBERRY.
      Moreover, sir,—which, indeed, is not under white and black,— this
      plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass: I beseech you, let
      it be remembered in his punishment. And also, the watch heard
      them talk of one Deformed: they say he wears a key in his ear and
      a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name, the which
      he hath used so long and never paid, that now men grow
      hard-hearted, and will lend nothing for God’s sake. Pray you,
      examine him upon that point.


      LEONATO.
      I thank thee for thy care and honest pains.


      DOGBERRY.
      Your worship speaks like a most thankful and reverent youth, and
      I praise God for you.


      LEONATO.
      There’s for thy pains.


      DOGBERRY.
      God save the foundation!


      LEONATO.
      Go, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.


      DOGBERRY.
      I leave an arrant knave with your worship; which I beseech your
      worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep
      your worship! I wish your worship well; God restore you to
      health! I humbly give you leave to depart, and if a merry meeting
      may be wished, God prohibit it! Come, neighbour.


      [_Exeunt Dogberry and Verges._]


      LEONATO.
      Until tomorrow morning, lords, farewell.


      ANTONIO.
      Farewell, my lords: we look for you tomorrow.


      DON PEDRO.
      We will not fail.


      CLAUDIO.
      Tonight I’ll mourn with Hero.


      [_Exeunt Don Pedro and Claudio._]


      LEONATO.
      [_To the Watch._] Bring you these fellows on. We’ll talk with
      Margaret,
      How her acquaintance grew with this lewd fellow.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE II. LEONATO’S Garden.

      Enter Benedick and Margaret, meeting.


      BENEDICK.
      Pray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by
      helping me to the speech of Beatrice.


      MARGARET.
      Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?


      BENEDICK.
      In so high a style, Margaret, that no man living shall come over
      it; for, in most comely truth, thou deservest it.


      MARGARET.
      To have no man come over me! why, shall I always keep below
      stairs?


      BENEDICK.
      Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth; it catches.


      MARGARET.
      And yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils, which hit, but hurt
      not.


      BENEDICK.
      A most manly wit, Margaret; it will not hurt a woman: and so, I
      pray thee, call Beatrice. I give thee the bucklers.


      MARGARET.
      Give us the swords, we have bucklers of our own.


      BENEDICK.
      If you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes with a vice;
      and they are dangerous weapons for maids.


      MARGARET.
      Well, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.


      BENEDICK.
      And therefore will come.


      [_Exit Margaret._]


          The god of love,
           That sits above,
         And knows me, and knows me,
            How pitiful I deserve,—


      I mean, in singing: but in loving, Leander the good swimmer,
      Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole book full of
      these quondam carpet-mongers, whose names yet run smoothly in the
      even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned
      over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in
      rime; I have tried: I can find out no rime to ‘lady’ but ‘baby’,
      an innocent rime; for ‘scorn,’ ‘horn’, a hard rime; for ‘school’,
      ‘fool’, a babbling rime; very ominous endings: no, I was not born
      under a riming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.


      Enter Beatrice.


      Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?


      BEATRICE.
      Yea, signior; and depart when you bid me.


      BENEDICK.
      O, stay but till then!


      BEATRICE.
      ‘Then’ is spoken; fare you well now: and yet, ere I go, let me go
      with that I came for; which is, with knowing what hath passed
      between you and Claudio.


      BENEDICK.
      Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.


      BEATRICE.
      Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath,
      and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.


      BENEDICK.
      Thou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible
      is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my
      challenge, and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will
      subscribe him a coward. And, I pray thee now, tell me, for which
      of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?


      BEATRICE.
      For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of
      evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with
      them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love
      for me?


      BENEDICK.
      ‘Suffer love,’ a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I
      love thee against my will.


      BEATRICE.
      In spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you spite
      it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love
      that which my friend hates.


      BENEDICK.
      Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.


      BEATRICE.
      It appears not in this confession: there’s not one wise man among
      twenty that will praise himself.


      BENEDICK.
      An old, an old instance, Beatrice, that lived in the time of good
      neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he
      dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and
      the widow weeps.


      BEATRICE. And how long is that think you?


      BENEDICK.
      Question: why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum:
      therefore is it most expedient for the wise,—if Don Worm, his
      conscience, find no impediment to the contrary,—to be the trumpet
      of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising
      myself, who, I myself will bear witness, is praiseworthy. And now
      tell me, how doth your cousin?


      BEATRICE.
      Very ill.


      BENEDICK.
      And how do you?


      BEATRICE.
      Very ill too.


      BENEDICK.
      Serve God, love me, and mend. There will I leave you too, for
      here comes one in haste.


      Enter Ursula.


      URSULA.
      Madam, you must come to your uncle. Yonder’s old coil at home: it
      is proved, my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the Prince and
      Claudio mightily abused; and Don John is the author of all, who
      is fled and gone. Will you come presently?


      BEATRICE.
      Will you go hear this news, signior?


      BENEDICK.
      I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy
      eyes; and moreover I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE III. The Inside of a Church.

      Enter Don Pedro, Claudio and Attendants, with music and tapers.


      CLAUDIO.
      Is this the monument of Leonato?


      A LORD.
      It is, my lord.


      CLAUDIO.
      [_Reads from a scroll._]


      Epitaph.


        Done to death by slanderous tongues
           Was the Hero that here lies:
          Death, in guerdon of her wrongs,
             Gives her fame which never dies.
            So the life that died with shame
             Lives in death with glorious fame.


      Hang thou there upon the tomb,


      Praising her when I am dumb.
      Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.


      Song.


       Pardon, goddess of the night,
         Those that slew thy virgin knight;
          For the which, with songs of woe,
           Round about her tomb they go.
               Midnight, assist our moan;
                Help us to sigh and groan,
                    Heavily, heavily:
                  Graves, yawn and yield your dead,
                   Till death be uttered,
              Heavily, heavily.


      CLAUDIO.
      Now, unto thy bones good night!
      Yearly will I do this rite.


      DON PEDRO.
      Good morrow, masters: put your torches out.
      The wolves have prey’d; and look, the gentle day,
      Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about
      Dapples the drowsy East with spots of grey.
      Thanks to you all, and leave us: fare you well.


      CLAUDIO.
      Good morrow, masters: each his several way.


      DON PEDRO.
      Come, let us hence, and put on other weeds;
      And then to Leonato’s we will go.


      CLAUDIO.
      And Hymen now with luckier issue speed’s,
      Than this for whom we rend’red up this woe!


      [_Exeunt._]


SCENE IV. A Room in LEONATO’S House.

      Enter Leonato, Antonio, Benedick, Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula,
      Friar Francis and Hero.


      FRIAR.
      Did I not tell you she was innocent?


      LEONATO.
      So are the Prince and Claudio, who accus’d her
      Upon the error that you heard debated:
      But Margaret was in some fault for this,
      Although against her will, as it appears
      In the true course of all the question.


      ANTONIO.
      Well, I am glad that all things sort so well.


      BENEDICK.
      And so am I, being else by faith enforc’d
      To call young Claudio to a reckoning for it.


      LEONATO.
      Well, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,
      Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,
      And when I send for you, come hither mask’d:
      The Prince and Claudio promis’d by this hour
      To visit me.


      [_Exeunt Ladies._]


      You know your office, brother;
      You must be father to your brother’s daughter,
      And give her to young Claudio.


      ANTONIO.
      Which I will do with confirm’d countenance.


      BENEDICK.
      Friar, I must entreat your pains, I think.


      FRIAR.
      To do what, signior?


      BENEDICK.
      To bind me, or undo me; one of them.
      Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,
      Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.


      LEONATO.
      That eye my daughter lent her. ’Tis most true.


      BENEDICK.
      And I do with an eye of love requite her.


      LEONATO.
      The sight whereof I think, you had from me,
      From Claudio, and the Prince. But what’s your will?


      BENEDICK.
      Your answer, sir, is enigmatical:
      But, for my will, my will is your good will
      May stand with ours, this day to be conjoin’d
      In the state of honourable marriage:
      In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.


      LEONATO.
      My heart is with your liking.


      FRIAR.
      And my help. Here comes the Prince and Claudio.


      Enter Don Pedro and Claudio, with Attendants.


      DON PEDRO.
      Good morrow to this fair assembly.


      LEONATO.
      Good morrow, Prince; good morrow, Claudio:
      We here attend you. Are you yet determin’d
      Today to marry with my brother’s daughter?


      CLAUDIO.
      I’ll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.


      LEONATO.
      Call her forth, brother: here’s the friar ready.


      [_Exit Antonio._]


      DON PEDRO.
      Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter,
      That you have such a February face,
      So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?


      CLAUDIO.
      I think he thinks upon the savage bull.
      Tush! fear not, man, we’ll tip thy horns with gold,
      And all Europa shall rejoice at thee,
      As once Europa did at lusty Jove,
      When he would play the noble beast in love.


      BENEDICK.
      Bull Jove, sir, had an amiable low:
      And some such strange bull leap’d your father’s cow,
      And got a calf in that same noble feat,
      Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.


      CLAUDIO.
      For this I owe you: here comes other reckonings.


      Re-enter Antonio, with the ladies masked.


      Which is the lady I must seize upon?


      ANTONIO.
      This same is she, and I do give you her.


      CLAUDIO.
      Why then, she’s mine. Sweet, let me see your face.


      LEONATO.
      No, that you shall not, till you take her hand
      Before this friar, and swear to marry her.


      CLAUDIO.
      Give me your hand: before this holy friar,
      I am your husband, if you like of me.


      HERO.
      And when I liv’d, I was your other wife:
      [_Unmasking._] And when you lov’d, you were my other husband.


      CLAUDIO.
      Another Hero!


      HERO.
      Nothing certainer:
      One Hero died defil’d, but I do live,
      And surely as I live, I am a maid.


      DON PEDRO.
      The former Hero! Hero that is dead!


      LEONATO.
      She died, my lord, but whiles her slander liv’d.


      FRIAR.
      All this amazement can I qualify:
      When after that the holy rites are ended,
      I’ll tell you largely of fair Hero’s death:
      Meantime, let wonder seem familiar,
      And to the chapel let us presently.


      BENEDICK.
      Soft and fair, friar. Which is Beatrice?


      BEATRICE.
      [_Unmasking._] I answer to that name. What is your will?


      BENEDICK.
      Do not you love me?


      BEATRICE.
      Why, no; no more than reason.


      BENEDICK.
      Why, then, your uncle and the Prince and Claudio
      Have been deceived; for they swore you did.


      BEATRICE.
      Do not you love me?


      BENEDICK.
      Troth, no; no more than reason.


      BEATRICE.
      Why, then my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula,
      Are much deceiv’d; for they did swear you did.


      BENEDICK.
      They swore that you were almost sick for me.


      BEATRICE.
      They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.


      BENEDICK.
      ’Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?


      BEATRICE.
      No, truly, but in friendly recompense.


      LEONATO.
      Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.


      CLAUDIO.
      And I’ll be sworn upon ’t that he loves her;
      For here’s a paper written in his hand,
      A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
      Fashion’d to Beatrice.


      HERO.
      And here’s another,
      Writ in my cousin’s hand, stolen from her pocket,
      Containing her affection unto Benedick.


      BENEDICK.
      A miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will
      have thee; but, by this light, I take thee for pity.


      BEATRICE.
      I would not deny you; but, by this good day, I yield upon great
      persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were
      in a consumption.


      BENEDICK.
      Peace! I will stop your mouth. [_Kisses her._]


      DON PEDRO.
      How dost thou, Benedick, the married man?


      BENEDICK.
      I’ll tell thee what, Prince; a college of witcrackers cannout
      flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or
      an epigram? No; if man will be beaten with brains, a’ shall wear
      nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to
      marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say
      against it; and therefore never flout at me for what I have said
      against it, for man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.
      For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee; but, in
      that thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised, and love my
      cousin.


      CLAUDIO.
      I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might
      have cudgelled thee out of thy single life, to make thee a
      double-dealer; which, out of question, thou wilt be, if my cousin
      do not look exceeding narrowly to thee.


      BENEDICK.
      Come, come, we are friends. Let’s have a dance ere we are
      married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives’ heels.


      LEONATO.
      We’ll have dancing afterward.


      BENEDICK.
      First, of my word; therefore play, music! Prince, thou art sad;
      get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverent
      than one tipped with horn.


      Enter Messenger.


      MESSENGER.
      My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight,
      And brought with armed men back to Messina.


      BENEDICK.
      Think not on him till tomorrow: I’ll devise thee brave
      punishments for him. Strike up, pipers!


      [_Dance. Exeunt._]



THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, MOOR OF VENICE

Dramatis Personae

  OTHELLO, the Moor, general of the Venetian forces
  DESDEMONA, his wife
  IAGO, ensign to Othello
  EMILIA, his wife, lady-in-waiting to Desdemona
  CASSIO, lieutenant to Othello
  THE DUKE OF VENICE
  BRABANTIO, Venetian Senator, father of Desdemona
  GRATIANO, nobleman of Venice, brother of Brabantio
  LODOVICO, nobleman of Venice, kinsman of Brabantio
  RODERIGO, rejected suitor of Desdemona
  BIANCA, mistress of Cassio
  MONTANO, a Cypriot official
  A Clown in service to Othello
  Senators, Sailors, Messengers, Officers, Gentlemen, Musicians, and
    Attendants

SCENE: Venice and Cyprus

ACT I. SCENE I. Venice. A street.

Enter Roderigo and Iago.

  RODERIGO. Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly
    That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
    As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
  IAGO. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me.
    If ever I did dream of such a matter,
    Abhor me.
  RODERIGO. Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.
  IAGO. Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,
    In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
    Off-capp'd to him; and, by the faith of man,
    I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.
    But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
    Evades them, with a bumbast circumstance
    Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war,
    And, in conclusion,
    Nonsuits my mediators; for, "Certes," says he,
    "I have already chose my officer."
    And what was he?
    Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
    One Michael Cassio, a Florentine
    (A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife)
    That never set a squadron in the field,
    Nor the division of a battle knows
    More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
    Wherein the toged consuls can propose
    As masterly as he. Mere prattle without practice
    Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election;
    And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
    At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds
    Christian and heathen, must be belee'd and calm'd
    By debitor and creditor. This counter-caster,
    He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
    And I- God bless the mark!- his Moorship's ancient.
  RODERIGO. By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.
  IAGO. Why, there's no remedy. 'Tis the curse of service,
    Preferment goes by letter and affection,
    And not by old gradation, where each second
    Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself
    Whether I in any just term am affined
    To love the Moor.
  RODERIGO.           I would not follow him then.
  IAGO. O, sir, content you.
    I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
    We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
    Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
    Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
    That doting on his own obsequious bondage
    Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
    For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd.
    Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
    Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
    Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
    And throwing but shows of service on their lords
    Do well thrive by them; and when they have lined their coats
    Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,
    And such a one do I profess myself.
    For, sir,
    It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
    Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.
    In following him, I follow but myself;
    Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
    But seeming so, for my peculiar end.
    For when my outward action doth demonstrate
    The native act and figure of my heart
    In complement extern, 'tis not long after
    But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
    For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
  RODERIGO. What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe,
    If he can carry't thus!
  IAGO.                     Call up her father,
    Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight,
    Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,
    And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,
    Plague him with flies. Though that his joy be joy,
    Yet throw such changes of vexation on't
    As it may lose some color.
  RODERIGO. Here is her father's house; I'll call aloud.
  IAGO. Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell
    As when, by night and negligence, the fire
    Is spied in populous cities.
  RODERIGO. What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!
  IAGO. Awake! What, ho, Brabantio! Thieves! Thieves! Thieves!
    Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!
    Thieves! Thieves!

                Brabantio appears above, at a window.

  BRABANTIO. What is the reason of this terrible summons?
    What is the matter there?
  RODERIGO. Signior, is all your family within?
  IAGO. Are your doors lock'd?
  BRABANTIO.                   Why? Wherefore ask you this?
  IAGO. 'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd! For shame, put on your gown;
    Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
    Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
    Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!
    Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
    Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.
    Arise, I say!
  BRABANTIO. What, have you lost your wits?
  RODERIGO. Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?
  BRABANTIO. Not I. What are you?
  RODERIGO. My name is Roderigo.
  BRABANTIO.                     The worser welcome.
    I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors.
    In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
    My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,
    Being full of supper and distempering draughts,
    Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come
    To start my quiet.
  RODERIGO. Sir, sir, sir-
  BRABANTIO.               But thou must needs be sure
    My spirit and my place have in them power
    To make this bitter to thee.
  RODERIGO.                      Patience, good sir.
  BRABANTIO. What tell'st thou me of robbing? This is Venice;
    My house is not a grange.
  RODERIGO.                   Most grave Brabantio,
    In simple and pure soul I come to you.
  IAGO. 'Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not serve God,
    if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you service and you
    think we are ruffians, you'll have your daughter covered with a
    Barbary horse; you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have
    coursers for cousins, and gennets for germans.
  BRABANTIO. What profane wretch art thou?
  IAGO. I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the
    Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
  BRABANTIO. Thou are a villain.
  IAGO.                          You are- a senator.
  BRABANTIO. This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.
  RODERIGO. Sir, I will answer anything. But, I beseech you,
    If't be your pleasure and most wise consent,
    As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,
    At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,
    Transported with no worse nor better guard
    But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
    To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor-
    If this be known to you, and your allowance,
    We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;
    But if you know not this, my manners tell me
    We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
    That, from the sense of all civility,
    I thus would play and trifle with your reverence.
    Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
    I say again, hath made a gross revolt,
    Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes
    In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
    Of here and everywhere. Straight satisfy yourself:
    If she be in her chamber or your house,
    Let loose on me the justice of the state
    For thus deluding you.
  BRABANTIO.               Strike on the tinder, ho!
    Give me a taper! Call up all my people!
    This accident is not unlike my dream;
    Belief of it oppresses me already.
    Light, I say, light!                                  Exit above.
  IAGO.                  Farewell, for I must leave you.
    It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
    To be produced- as, if I stay, I shall-
    Against the Moor; for I do know, the state,
    However this may gall him with some check,
    Cannot with safety cast him, for he's embark'd
    With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,
    Which even now stands in act, that, for their souls,
    Another of his fathom they have none
    To lead their business; in which regard,
    Though I do hate him as I do hell pains,
    Yet for necessity of present life,
    I must show out a flag and sign of love,
    Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,
    Lead to the Sagittary the raised search,
    And there will I be with him. So farewell.                  Exit.

            Enter, below, Brabantio, in his nightgown, and
                        Servants with torches.

  BRABANTIO. It is too true an evil: gone she is,
    And what's to come of my despised time
    Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,
    Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!
    With the Moor, say'st thou? Who would be a father!
    How didst thou know 'twas she? O, she deceives me
    Past thought! What said she to you? Get more tapers.
    Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?
  RODERIGO. Truly, I think they are.
  BRABANTIO. O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!
    Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds
    By what you see them act. Is there not charms
    By which the property of youth and maidhood
    May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,
    Of some such thing?
  RODERIGO.             Yes, sir, I have indeed.
  BRABANTIO. Call up my brother. O, would you had had her!
    Some one way, some another. Do you know
    Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
  RODERIGO. I think I can discover him, if you please
    To get good guard and go along with me.
  BRABANTIO. Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call;
    I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!
    And raise some special officers of night.
    On, good Roderigo, I'll deserve your pains.               Exeunt.

SCENE II. Another street.

Enter Othello, Iago, and Attendants with torches.

  IAGO. Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
    Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience
    To do no contrived murther. I lack iniquity
    Sometimes to do me service. Nine or ten times
    I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.
  OTHELLO. 'Tis better as it is.
  IAGO.                          Nay, but he prated
    And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
    Against your honor
    That, with the little godliness I have,
    I did full hard forbear him. But I pray you, sir,
    Are you fast married? Be assured of this,
    That the magnifico is much beloved,
    And hath in his effect a voice potential
    As double as the Duke's. He will divorce you,
    Or put upon you what restraint and grievance
    The law, with all his might to enforce it on,
    Will give him cable.
  OTHELLO.               Let him do his spite.
    My services, which I have done the signiory,
    Shall out-tongue his complaints. 'Tis yet to know-
    Which, when I know that boasting is an honor,
    I shall promulgate- I fetch my life and being
    From men of royal siege, and my demerits
    May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune
    As this that I have reach'd. For know, Iago,
    But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
    I would not my unhoused free condition
    Put into circumscription and confine
    For the sea's worth. But, look! What lights come yond?
  IAGO. Those are the raised father and his friends.
    You were best go in.
  OTHELLO.               Not I; I must be found.
    My parts, my title, and my perfect soul
    Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?
  IAGO. By Janus, I think no.

           Enter Cassio and certain Officers with torches.

  OTHELLO. The servants of the Duke? And my lieutenant?
    The goodness of the night upon you, friends!
    What is the news?
  CASSIO.             The Duke does greet you, general,
    And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
    Even on the instant.
  OTHELLO.               What is the matter, think you?
  CASSIO. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine;
    It is a business of some heat. The galleys
    Have sent a dozen sequent messengers
    This very night at one another's heels;
    And many of the consuls, raised and met,
    Are at the Duke's already. You have been hotly call'd for,
    When, being not at your lodging to be found,
    The Senate hath sent about three several quests
    To search you out.
  OTHELLO.             'Tis well I am found by you.
    I will but spend a word here in the house
    And go with you.                                            Exit.
  CASSIO.            Ancient, what makes he here?
  IAGO. Faith, he tonight hath boarded a land carack;
    If it prove lawful prize, he's made forever.
  CASSIO. I do not understand.
  IAGO.                        He's married.
  CASSIO.                                    To who?

                          Re-enter Othello.

  IAGO. Marry, to- Come, captain, will you go?
  OTHELLO.                                     Have with you.
  CASSIO. Here comes another troop to seek for you.
  IAGO. It is Brabantio. General, be advised,
    He comes to bad intent.

         Enter Brabantio, Roderigo, and Officers with torches
                             and weapons.

  OTHELLO.                  Holla! Stand there!
  RODERIGO. Signior, it is the Moor.
  BRABANTIO.                         Down with him, thief!
                                             They draw on both sides.
  IAGO. You, Roderigo! Come, sir, I am for you.
  OTHELLO. Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
    Good signior, you shall more command with years
    Than with your weapons.
  BRABANTIO. O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?
    Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her,
    For I'll refer me to all things of sense,
    If she in chains of magic were not bound,
    Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
    So opposite to marriage that she shunn'd
    The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation,
    Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
    Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
    Of such a thing as thou- to fear, not to delight.
    Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense
    That thou hast practiced on her with foul charms,
    Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
    That weaken motion. I'll have't disputed on;
    'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking.
    I therefore apprehend and do attach thee
    For an abuser of the world, a practicer
    Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.
    Lay hold upon him. If he do resist,
    Subdue him at his peril.
  OTHELLO.                   Hold your hands,
    Both you of my inclining and the rest.
    Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
    Without a prompter. Where will you that I go
    To answer this your charge?
  BRABANTIO.                    To prison, till fit time
    Of law and course of direct session
    Call thee to answer.
  OTHELLO.               What if I do obey?
    How may the Duke be therewith satisfied,
    Whose messengers are here about my side,
    Upon some present business of the state
    To bring me to him?
  FIRST OFFICER.        'Tis true, most worthy signior;
    The Duke's in council, and your noble self,
    I am sure, is sent for.
  BRABANTIO.                How? The Duke in council?
    In this time of the night? Bring him away;
    Mine's not an idle cause. The Duke himself,
    Or any of my brothers of the state,
    Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their own;
    For if such actions may have passage free,
    Bond slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.            Exeunt.

SCENE III. A council chamber. The Duke and Senators sitting at a table;
Officers attending.

  DUKE. There is no composition in these news
    That gives them credit.
  FIRST SENATOR.            Indeed they are disproportion'd;
    My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.
  DUKE. And mine, a hundred and forty.
  SECOND SENATOR.                      And mine, two hundred.
    But though they jump not on a just account-
    As in these cases, where the aim reports,
    'Tis oft with difference- yet do they all confirm
    A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.
  DUKE. Nay, it is possible enough to judgement.
    I do not so secure me in the error,
    But the main article I do approve
    In fearful sense.
  SAILOR. [Within.] What, ho! What, ho! What, ho!
  FIRST OFFICER. A messenger from the galleys.

                            Enter Sailor.

  DUKE.                                Now, what's the business?
  SAILOR. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes,
    So was I bid report here to the state
    By Signior Angelo.
  DUKE. How say you by this change?
  FIRST SENATOR.                    This cannot be,
    By no assay of reason; 'tis a pageant
    To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
    The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
    And let ourselves again but understand
    That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,
    So may he with more facile question bear it,
    For that it stands not in such warlike brace,
    But altogether lacks the abilities
    That Rhodes is dress'd in. If we make thought of this,
    We must not think the Turk is so unskillful
    To leave that latest which concerns him first,
    Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,
    To wake and wage a danger profitless.
  DUKE. Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes.
  FIRST OFFICER. Here is more news.

                          Enter a Messenger.

  MESSENGER. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
    Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes,
    Have there injointed them with an after fleet.
  FIRST SENATOR. Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?
  MESSENGER. Of thirty sail; and now they do re-stem
    Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
    Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,
    Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
    With his free duty recommends you thus,
    And prays you to believe him.
  DUKE. 'Tis certain then for Cyprus.
    Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?
  FIRST SENATOR. He's now in Florence.
  DUKE. Write from us to him, post-post-haste dispatch.
  FIRST SENATOR. Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.

       Enter Brabantio, Othello, Iago, Roderigo, and Officers.

  DUKE. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
    Against the general enemy Ottoman.
    [To Brabantio.] I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;
    We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight.
  BRABANTIO. So did I yours. Good your Grace, pardon me:
    Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
    Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
    Take hold on me; for my particular grief
    Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
    That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
    And it is still itself.
  DUKE.                     Why, what's the matter?
  BRABANTIO. My daughter! O, my daughter!
  ALL.                                    Dead?
  BRABANTIO.                                    Ay, to me.
    She is abused, stol'n from me and corrupted
    By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
    For nature so preposterously to err,
    Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
    Sans witchcraft could not.
  DUKE. Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding
    Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself
    And you of her, the bloody book of law
    You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
    After your own sense, yea, though our proper son
    Stood in your action.
  BRABANTIO.              Humbly I thank your Grace.
    Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,
    Your special mandate for the state affairs
    Hath hither brought.
  ALL.                   We are very sorry for't.
  DUKE. [To Othello.] What in your own part can you say to this?
  BRABANTIO. Nothing, but this is so.
  OTHELLO. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
    My very noble and approved good masters,
    That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
    It is most true; true, I have married her;
    The very head and front of my offending
    Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
    And little blest with the soft phrase of peace;
    For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
    Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
    Their dearest action in the tented field,
    And little of this great world can I speak,
    More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
    And therefore little shall I grace my cause
    In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
    I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
    Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms,
    What conjuration, and what mighty magic-
    For such proceeding I am charged withal-
    I won his daughter.
  BRABANTIO.            A maiden never bold,
    Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
    Blush'd at herself; and she- in spite of nature,
    Of years, of country, credit, everything-
    To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
    It is judgement maim'd and most imperfect,
    That will confess perfection so could err
    Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
    To find out practices of cunning hell
    Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
    That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
    Or with some dram conjured to this effect,
    He wrought upon her.
  DUKE.                  To vouch this is no proof,
    Without more certain and more overt test
    Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
    Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
  FIRST SENATOR. But, Othello, speak.
    Did you by indirect and forced courses
    Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
    Or came it by request, and such fair question
    As soul to soul affordeth?
  OTHELLO.                     I do beseech you,
    Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
    And let her speak of me before her father.
    If you do find me foul in her report,
    The trust, the office I do hold of you,
    Not only take away, but let your sentence
    Even fall upon my life.
  DUKE.                     Fetch Desdemona hither.
  OTHELLO. Ancient, conduct them; you best know the place.
                                          Exeunt Iago and Attendants.
    And till she come, as truly as to heaven
    I do confess the vices of my blood,
    So justly to your grave ears I'll present
    How I did thrive in this fair lady's love
    And she in mine.
  DUKE. Say it, Othello.
  OTHELLO. Her father loved me, oft invited me,
    Still question'd me the story of my life
    From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
    That I have pass'd.
    I ran it through, even from my boyish days
    To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
    Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
    Of moving accidents by flood and field,
    Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
    Of being taken by the insolent foe
    And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
    And portance in my travels' history;
    Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
    Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
    It was my hint to speak- such was the process-
    And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
    The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
    Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
    Would Desdemona seriously incline;
    But still the house affairs would draw her thence,
    Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
    She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
    Devour up my discourse; which I observing,
    Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
    To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
    That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
    Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
    But not intentively. I did consent,
    And often did beguile her of her tears
    When I did speak of some distressful stroke
    That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
    She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
    She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
    'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful.
    She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
    That heaven had made her such a man; she thank'd me,
    And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
    I should but teach him how to tell my story,
    And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
    She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
    And I loved her that she did pity them.
    This only is the witchcraft I have used.
    Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

                Enter Desdemona, Iago, and Attendants.

  DUKE. I think this tale would win my daughter too.
    Good Brabantio,
    Take up this mangled matter at the best:
    Men do their broken weapons rather use
    Than their bare hands.
  BRABANTIO.               I pray you, hear her speak.
    If she confess that she was half the wooer,
    Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
    Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress.
    Do you perceive in all this noble company
    Where most you owe obedience?
  DESDEMONA.                      My noble father,
    I do perceive here a divided duty.
    To you I am bound for life and education;
    My life and education both do learn me
    How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,
    I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband,
    And so much duty as my mother show'd
    To you, preferring you before her father,
    So much I challenge that I may profess
    Due to the Moor, my lord.
  BRABANTIO.                  God be with you! I have done.
    Please it your Grace, on to the state affairs;
    I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
    Come hither, Moor.
    I here do give thee that with all my heart
    Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
    I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
    I am glad at soul I have no other child;
    For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
    To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.
  DUKE. Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence
    Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers
    Into your favor.
    When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
    By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
    To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
    Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
    What cannot be preserved when Fortune takes,
    Patience her injury a mockery makes.
    The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;
    He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
  BRABANTIO. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
    We lose it not so long as we can smile.
    He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears
    But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
    But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
    That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
    These sentences, to sugar or to gall,
    Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.
    But words are words; I never yet did hear
    That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
    I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.
  DUKE. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus.
    Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you; and
    though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency,
    yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer
    voice on you. You must therefore be content to slubber the gloss
    of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous
    expedition.
  OTHELLO. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
    Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
    My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize
    A natural and prompt alacrity
    I find in hardness and do undertake
    These present wars against the Ottomites.
    Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
    I crave fit disposition for my wife,
    Due reference of place and exhibition,
    With such accommodation and besort
    As levels with her breeding.
  DUKE.                          If you please,
    Be't at her father's.
  BRABANTIO.              I'll not have it so.
  OTHELLO. Nor I.
  DESDEMONA.      Nor I. I would not there reside
    To put my father in impatient thoughts
    By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke,
    To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear,
    And let me find a charter in your voice
    To assist my simpleness.
  DUKE. What would you, Desdemona?
  DESDEMONA. That I did love the Moor to live with him,
    My downright violence and storm of fortunes
    May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued
    Even to the very quality of my lord.
    I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
    And to his honors and his valiant parts
    Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
    So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
    A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
    The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
    And I a heavy interim shall support
    By his dear absence. Let me go with him.
  OTHELLO. Let her have your voices.
    Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not
    To please the palate of my appetite,
    Nor to comply with heat- the young affects
    In me defunct- and proper satisfaction;
    But to be free and bounteous to her mind.
    And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
    I will your serious and great business scant
    For she is with me. No, when light-wing'd toys
    Of feather'd Cupid seel with wanton dullness
    My speculative and officed instruments,
    That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
    Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
    And all indign and base adversities
    Make head against my estimation!
  DUKE. Be it as you shall privately determine,
    Either for her stay or going. The affair cries haste,
    And speed must answer't: you must hence tonight.
  DESDEMONA. Tonight, my lord?
  DUKE.                        This night.
  OTHELLO.                                 With all my heart.
  DUKE. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.
    Othello, leave some officer behind,
    And he shall our commission bring to you,
    With such things else of quality and respect
    As doth import you.
  OTHELLO.              So please your Grace, my ancient;
    A man he is of honesty and trust.
    To his conveyance I assign my wife,
    With what else needful your good Grace shall think
    To be sent after me.
  DUKE.                  Let it be so.
    Good night to everyone. [To Brabantio.] And, noble signior,
    If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
    Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.
  FIRST SENATOR. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.
  BRABANTIO. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;
    She has deceived her father, and may thee.
                                 Exeunt Duke, Senators, and Officers.
  OTHELLO. My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
    My Desdemona must I leave to thee.
    I prithee, let thy wife attend on her,
    And bring them after in the best advantage.
    Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
    Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
    To spend with thee. We must obey the time.
                                        Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.
  RODERIGO. Iago!
  IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?
  RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest thou?
  IAGO. Why, go to bed and sleep.
  RODERIGO. I will incontinently drown myself.
  IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after.
    Why, thou silly gentleman!
  RODERIGO. It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then
    have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
  IAGO. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times
    seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and
    an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I
    would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, I
    would change my humanity with a baboon.
  RODERIGO. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond,
    but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
  IAGO. Virtue? a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.
    Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so
    that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed
    up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with
    many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with
    industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in
    our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of
    reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of
    our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions.
    But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings,
    our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to
    be a sect or scion.
  RODERIGO. It cannot be.
  IAGO. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the
    will. Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind
    puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to
    thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never
    better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou
    the wars; defeat thy favor with an usurped beard. I say, put
    money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long
    continue her love to the Moor- put money in thy purse- nor he his
    to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an
    answerable sequestration- put but money in thy purse. These Moors
    are changeable in their wills- fill thy purse with money. The
    food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him
    shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change for youth;
    when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her
    choice. She must have change, she must; therefore put money in
    thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate
    way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony
    and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle
    Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell,
    thou shalt enjoy her- therefore make money. A pox of drowning
    thyself! It is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be
    hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without
    her.
  RODERIGO. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?
  IAGO. Thou art sure of me- go, make money. I have told thee often,
    and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause is
    hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our
    revenge against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself
    a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time
    which will be delivered. Traverse, go, provide thy money. We will
    have more of this tomorrow. Adieu.
  RODERIGO. Where shall we meet i' the morning?
  IAGO. At my lodging.
  RODERIGO. I'll be with thee betimes.
  IAGO. Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
  RODERIGO. What say you?
  IAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear?
  RODERIGO. I am changed; I'll go sell all my land.             Exit.
  IAGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
    For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane
    If I would time expend with such a snipe
    But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
    And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets
    He has done my office. I know not if't be true,
    But I for mere suspicion in that kind
    Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,
    The better shall my purpose work on him.
    Cassio's a proper man. Let me see now-
    To get his place, and to plume up my will
    In double knavery- How, how?- Let's see-
    After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
    That he is too familiar with his wife.
    He hath a person and a smooth dispose
    To be suspected- framed to make women false.
    The Moor is of a free and open nature,
    That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
    And will as tenderly be led by the nose
    As asses are.
    I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
    Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
     Exit.

ACT II. SCENE I. A seaport in Cyprus. An open place near the quay.

Enter Montano and two Gentlemen.

  MONTANO. What from the cape can you discern at sea?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Nothing at all. It is a high-wrought flood;
    I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main,
    Descry a sail.
  MONTANO. Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;
    A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements.
    If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,
    What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,
    Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. A segregation of the Turkish fleet.
    For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
    The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;
    The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
    Seems to cast water on the burning bear,
    And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole.
    I never did like molestation view
    On the enchafed flood.
  MONTANO.                 If that the Turkish fleet
    Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd;
    It is impossible to bear it out.

                       Enter a third Gentleman.

  THIRD GENTLEMAN. News, lads! Our wars are done.
    The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks,
    That their designment halts. A noble ship of Venice
    Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance
    On most part of their fleet.
  MONTANO. How? Is this true?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN.            The ship is here put in,
    A Veronesa. Michael Cassio,
    Lieutenant to the warlike Moor, Othello,
    Is come on shore; the Moor himself at sea,
    And is in full commission here for Cyprus.
  MONTANO. I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. But this same Cassio, though he speak of comfort
    Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly
    And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted
    With foul and violent tempest.
  MONTANO.                         Pray heavens he be,
    For I have served him, and the man commands
    Like a full soldier. Let's to the seaside, ho!
    As well to see the vessel that's come in
    As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,
    Even till we make the main and the aerial blue
    An indistinct regard.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Come, let's do so,
    For every minute is expectancy
    Of more arrivance.

                            Enter Cassio.

  CASSIO. Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,
    That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens
    Give him defense against the elements,
    For I have lost him on a dangerous sea.
  MONTANO. I she well shipp'd?
  CASSIO. His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilot
    Of very expert and approved allowance;
    Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,
    Stand in bold cure.
                              A cry within, "A sail, a sail, a sail!"

                      Enter a fourth Gentleman.

                        What noise?
  FOURTH GENTLEMAN. The town is empty; on the brow o' the sea
    Stand ranks of people, and they cry, "A sail!"
  CASSIO. My hopes do shape him for the governor.
                                                          Guns heard.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. They do discharge their shot of courtesy-
    Our friends at least.
  CASSIO.                 I pray you, sir, go forth,
    And give us truth who 'tis that is arrived.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I shall.                                    Exit.
  MONTANO. But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?
  CASSIO. Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid
    That paragons description and wild fame,
    One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
    And in the essential vesture of creation
    Does tire the ingener.

                      Re-enter second Gentleman.

                           How now! who has put in?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. 'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.
  CASSIO. He has had most favorable and happy speed:
    Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
    The gutter'd rocks, and congregated sands,
    Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,
    As having sense of beauty, do omit
    Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
    The divine Desdemona.
  MONTANO.                What is she?
  CASSIO. She that I spake of, our great captain's captain,
    Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,
    Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts
    A se'nnight's speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,
    And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,
    That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,
    Make love's quick pants in Desdemona's arms,
    Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits,
    And bring all Cyprus comfort.

       Enter Desdemona, Emilia Iago, Roderigo, and Attendants.

                                  O, behold,
    The riches of the ship is come on shore!
    Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.
    Hall to thee, lady! And the grace of heaven,
    Before, behind thee, and on every hand,
    Enwheel thee round!
  DESDEMONA.            I thank you, valiant Cassio.
    What tidings can you tell me of my lord?
  CASSIO. He is not yet arrived, nor know I aught
    But that he's well and will be shortly here.
  DESDEMONA. O, but I fear- How lost you company?
  CASSIO. The great contention of the sea and skies
    Parted our fellowship- But, hark! a sail.
                          A cry within, "A sail, a sail!" Guns heard.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. They give their greeting to the citadel;
    This likewise is a friend.
  CASSIO.                      See for the news.
                                                      Exit Gentleman.
    Good ancient, you are welcome. [To Emilia.] Welcome, mistress.
    Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,
    That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding
    That gives me this bold show of courtesy.             Kisses her.
  IAGO. Sir, would she give you so much of her lips
    As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,
    You'ld have enough.
  DESDEMONA.            Alas, she has no speech.
  IAGO. In faith, too much;
    I find it still when I have list to sleep.
    Marry, before your ladyship I grant,
    She puts her tongue a little in her heart
    And chides with thinking.
  EMILIA. You have little cause to say so.
  IAGO. Come on, come on. You are pictures out of doors,
    Bells in your parlors, wildcats in your kitchens,
    Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,
    Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.
  DESDEMONA. O, fie upon thee, slanderer!
  IAGO. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
    You rise to play, and go to bed to work.
  EMILIA. You shall not write my praise.
  IAGO.                                  No, let me not.
  DESDEMONA. What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst
    praise me?
  IAGO. O gentle lady, do not put me to't,
    For I am nothing if not critical.
  DESDEMONA. Come on, assay- There's one gone to the harbor?
  IAGO. Ay, madam.
  DESDEMONA. I am not merry, but I do beguile
    The thing I am by seeming otherwise.
    Come, how wouldst thou praise me?
  IAGO. I am about it, but indeed my invention
    Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze;
    It plucks out brains and all. But my Muse labors,
    And thus she is deliver'd.
    If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
    The one's for use, the other useth it.
  DESDEMONA. Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
  IAGO. If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
    She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.
  DESDEMONA. Worse and worse.
  EMILIA. How if fair and foolish?
  IAGO. She never yet was foolish that was fair,
    For even her folly help'd her to an heir.
  DESDEMONA. These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i' the
    alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and
    foolish?
  IAGO. There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,
    But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.
  DESDEMONA. O heavy ignorance! Thou praisest the worst best. But what
    praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed, one that
    in the authority of her merit did justly put on the vouch of very
    malice itself?
  IAGO. She that was ever fair and never proud,
    Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,
    Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,
    Fled from her wish and yet said, "Now I may";
    She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,
    Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly;
    She that in wisdom never was so frail
    To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;
    She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,
    See suitors following and not look behind;
    She was a wight, if ever such wight were-
  DESDEMONA. To do what?
  IAGO. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
  DESDEMONA. O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn of him,
    Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say you, Cassio? Is he not
    a most profane and liberal counselor?
  CASSIO. He speaks home, madam. You may relish him more in the
    soldier than in the scholar.
  IAGO. [Aside.] He takes her by the palm; ay, well said, whisper.
    With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as
    Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own
    courtship. You say true; 'tis so, indeed. If such tricks as these
    strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had
    not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now again you are
    most apt to play the sir in. Very good. Well kissed! an excellent
    courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips?
    Would they were clyster-pipes for your sake! [Trumpet within.]
    The Moor! I know his trumpet.
  CASSIO. 'Tis truly so.
  DESDEMONA. Let's meet him and receive him.
  CASSIO. Lo, where he comes!

                    Enter Othello and Attendants.

  OTHELLO. O my fair warrior!
  DESDEMONA.                  My dear Othello!
  OTHELLO. It gives me wonder great as my content
    To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!
    If after every tempest come such calms,
    May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
    And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas
    Olympus-high, and duck again as low
    As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,
    'Twere now to be most happy; for I fear
    My soul hath her content so absolute
    That not another comfort like to this
    Succeeds in unknown fate.
  DESDEMONA.                  The heavens forbid
    But that our loves and comforts should increase,
    Even as our days do grow!
  OTHELLO.                    Amen to that, sweet powers!
    I cannot speak enough of this content;
    It stops me here; it is too much of joy.
    And this, and this, the greatest discords be          Kisses her.
    That e'er our hearts shall make!
  IAGO.                     [Aside.] O, you are well tuned now!
    But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,
    As honest as I am.
  OTHELLO.             Come, let us to the castle.
    News, friends: our wars are done, the Turks are drown'd.
    How does my old acquaintance of this isle?
    Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus;
    I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,
    I prattle out of fashion, and I dote
    In mine own comforts. I prithee, good Iago,
    Go to the bay and disembark my coffers.
    Bring thou the master to the citadel;
    He is a good one, and his worthiness
    Does challenge much respect. Come, Desdemona,
    Once more well met at Cyprus.
                                    Exeunt all but Iago and Roderigo.
  IAGO. Do thou meet me presently at the harbor. Come hither. If thou
    be'st valiant- as they say base men being in love have then a
    nobility in their natures more than is native to them- list me.
    The lieutenant tonight watches on the court of guard. First, I
    must tell thee this: Desdemona is directly in love with him.
  RODERIGO. With him? Why, 'tis not possible.
  IAGO. Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me
    with what violence she first loved the Moor, but for bragging and
    telling her fantastical lies. And will she love him still for
    prating? Let not thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be
    fed; and what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When
    the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should be,
    again to inflame it and to give satiety a fresh appetite,
    loveliness in favor, sympathy in years, manners, and beauties-
    all which the Moor is defective in. Now, for want of these
    required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will find itself
    abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor;
    very nature will instruct her in it and compel her to some second
    choice. Now sir, this granted- as it is a most pregnant and
    unforced position- who stands so eminently in the degree of this
    fortune as Cassio does? A knave very voluble; no further
    conscionable than in putting on the mere form of civil and humane
    seeming, for the better compass of his salt and most hidden loose
    affection? Why, none, why, none- a slipper and subtle knave, a
    finder out of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and
    counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present
    itself- a devilish knave! Besides, the knave is handsome, young,
    and hath all those requisites in him that folly and green minds
    look after- a pestilent complete knave, and the woman hath found
    him already.
  RODERIGO. I cannot believe that in her; she's full of most blest
    condition.
  IAGO. Blest fig's-end! The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If
    she had been blest, she would never have loved the Moor. Blest
    pudding! Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand?
    Didst not mark that?
  RODERIGO. Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy.
  IAGO. Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure prologue to the
    history of lust and foul thoughts. They met so near with their
    lips that their breaths embraced together. Villainous thoughts,
    Roderigo! When these mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand
    comes the master and main exercise, the incorporate conclusion.
    Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me. I have brought you from
    Venice. Watch you tonight; for the command, I'll lay't upon you.
    Cassio knows you not. I'll not be far from you. Do you find some
    occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or
    tainting his discipline, or from what other course you please,
    which the time shall more favorably minister.
  RODERIGO. Well.
  IAGO. Sir, he is rash and very sudden in choler, and haply may
    strike at you. Provoke him, that he may; for even out of that
    will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny, whose qualification shall
    come into no true taste again but by the displanting of Cassio.
    So shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by the means
    I shall then have to prefer them, and the impediment most
    profitably removed, without the which there were no expectation
    of our prosperity.
  RODERIGO. I will do this, if I can bring it to any opportunity.
  IAGO. I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel. I must
    fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.
  RODERIGO. Adieu.                                              Exit.
  IAGO. That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;
    That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit.
    The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
    Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
    And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona
    A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too,
    Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
    I stand accountant for as great a sin,
    But partly led to diet my revenge,
    For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
    Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof
    Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards,
    And nothing can or shall content my soul
    Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife.
    Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
    At least into a jealousy so strong
    That judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do,
    If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace
    For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
    I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,
    Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb
    (For I fear Cassio with my nightcap too),
    Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me
    For making him egregiously an ass
    And practicing upon his peace and quiet
    Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confused:
    Knavery's plain face is never seen till used.               Exit.

SCENE II. A street.

Enter a Herald with a proclamation; people following.

  HERALD. It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant general, that
  upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere perdition of the
  Turkish fleet, every man put himself into triumph; some to dance,
  some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his
  addiction leads him; for besides these beneficial news, it is the
  celebration of his nuptial. So much was his pleasure should be
  proclaimed. All offices are open, and there is full liberty of
  feasting from this present hour of five till the bell have told
  eleven. Heaven bless the isle of Cyprus and our noble general
  Othello!                            Exeunt.

SCENE III. A hall in the castle.

Enter Othello, Desdemona, Cassio, and Attendants.

  OTHELLO. Good Michael, look you to the guard tonight.
    Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop,
    Not to outsport discretion.
  CASSIO. Iago hath direction what to do;
    But notwithstanding with my personal eye
    Will I look to't.
  OTHELLO.            Iago is most honest.
    Michael, good night. Tomorrow with your earliest
    Let me have speech with you. Come, my dear love,
    The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue;
    That profit's yet to come 'tween me and you.
    Good night.
                           Exeunt Othello, Desdemona, and Attendants.

                             Enter Iago.

  CASSIO. Welcome, Iago; we must to the watch.
  IAGO. Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o' the clock. Our
    general cast us thus early for the love of his Desdemona; who let
    us not therefore blame. He hath not yet made wanton the night
    with her, and she is sport for Jove.
  CASSIO. She's a most exquisite lady.
  IAGO. And, I'll warrant her, full of game.
  CASSIO. Indeed she's a most fresh and delicate creature.
  IAGO. What an eye she has! Methinks it sounds a parley to
    provocation.
  CASSIO. An inviting eye; and yet methinks right modest.
  IAGO. And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love?
  CASSIO. She is indeed perfection.
  IAGO. Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I have a
    stope of wine, and here without are a brace of Cyprus gallants
    that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello.
  CASSIO. Not tonight, good Iago. I have very poor and unhappy brains
    for drinking. I could well wish courtesy would invent some other
    custom of entertainment.
  IAGO. O, they are our friends! But one cup; I'll drink for you.
  CASSIO. I have drunk but one cup tonight, and that was craftily
    qualified too, and behold what innovation it makes here. I am
    unfortunate in the infirmity, and dare not task my weakness with
    any more.
  IAGO. What, man! 'Tis a night of revels, the gallants desire it.
  CASSIO. Where are they?
  IAGO. Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.
  CASSIO. I'll do't, but it dislikes me.                        Exit.
  IAGO. If I can fasten but one cup upon him,
    With that which he hath drunk tonight already,
    He'll be as full of quarrel and offense
    As my young mistress' dog. Now my sick fool Roderigo,
    Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong side out,
    To Desdemona hath tonight caroused
    Potations pottle-deep; and he's to watch.
    Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits,
    That hold their honors in a wary distance,
    The very elements of this warlike isle,
    Have I tonight fluster'd with flowing cups,
    And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock of drunkards,
    Am I to put our Cassio in some action
    That may offend the isle. But here they come.
    If consequence do but approve my dream,
    My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.

           Re-enter Cassio; with him Montano and Gentlemen;
                    Servants following with wine.

  CASSIO. 'Fore God, they have given me a rouse already.
  MONTANO. Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I am a
    soldier.
  IAGO. Some wine, ho!

    [Sings.]   "And let me the canakin clink, clink;
               And let me the canakin clink.
                 A soldier's a man;
                 O, man's life's but a span;
               Why then let a soldier drink."

    Some wine, boys!
  CASSIO. 'Fore God, an excellent song.
  IAGO. I learned it in England, where indeed they are most potent in
    potting. Your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander-
    Drink, ho!- are nothing to your English.
  CASSIO. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?
  IAGO. Why, he drinks you with facility your Dane dead drunk; he
    sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a
    vomit ere the next pottle can be filled.
  CASSIO. To the health of our general!
  MONTANO. I am for it, lieutenant, and I'll do you justice.
  IAGO. O sweet England!

    [Sings.]   "King Stephen was and-a worthy peer,
                 His breeches cost him but a crown;
               He held them sixpence all too dear,
                 With that he call'd the tailor lown.

               "He was a wight of high renown,
                 And thou art but of low degree.
               'Tis pride that pulls the country down;
                 Then take thine auld cloak about thee."

    Some wine, ho!
  CASSIO. Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other.
  IAGO. Will you hear't again?
  CASSIO. No, for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that does
    those things. Well, God's above all, and there be souls must be
    saved, and there be souls must not be saved.
  IAGO. It's true, good lieutenant.
  CASSIO. For mine own part- no offense to the general, nor any man
    of quality- I hope to be saved.
  IAGO. And so do I too, lieutenant.
  CASSIO. Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the lieutenant is to
    be saved before the ancient. Let's have no more of this; let's to
    our affairs. God forgive us our sins! Gentlemen, let's look to
    our business. Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk: this is my
    ancient, this is my right hand, and this is my left. I am not
    drunk now; I can stand well enough, and I speak well enough.
  ALL. Excellent well.
  CASSIO. Why, very well then; you must not think then that I am
    drunk.                                                      Exit.
  MONTANO. To the platform, masters; come, let's set the watch.
  IAGO. You see this fellow that is gone before;
    He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar
    And give direction. And do but see his vice;
    'Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
    The one as long as the other. 'Tis pity of him.
    I fear the trust Othello puts him in
    On some odd time of his infirmity
    Will shake this island.
  MONTANO.                  But is he often thus?
  IAGO. 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep.
    He'll watch the horologe a double set,
    If drink rock not his cradle.
  MONTANO.                        It were well
    The general were put in mind of it.
    Perhaps he sees it not, or his good nature
    Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio
    And looks not on his evils. Is not this true?

                           Enter Roderigo.

  IAGO. [Aside to him.] How now, Roderigo!
    I pray you, after the lieutenant; go.              Exit Roderigo.
  MONTANO. And 'tis great pity that the noble Moor
    Should hazard such a place as his own second
    With one of an ingraft infirmity.
    It were an honest action to say
    So to the Moor.
  IAGO.             Not I, for this fair island.
    I do love Cassio well, and would do much
    To cure him of this evil- But, hark! What noise?
                                          A cry within, "Help, help!"

                Re-enter Cassio, driving in Roderigo.

  CASSIO. 'Zounds! You rogue! You rascal!
  MONTANO. What's the matter, lieutenant?
  CASSIO. A knave teach me my duty! But I'll beat the knave into a
    twiggen bottle.
  RODERIGO. Beat me!
  CASSIO. Dost thou prate, rogue?                   Strikes Roderigo.
  MONTANO. Nay, good lieutenant; I pray you, sir, hold your hand.
  CASSIO. Let me go, sir, or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard.
  MONTANO. Come, come, you're drunk.
  CASSIO. Drunk?                                          They fight.
  IAGO. [Aside to Roderigo.] Away, I say; go out and cry a mutiny.
                                                       Exit Roderigo.
    Nay, good lieutenant! God's will, gentlemen!
    Help, ho!- Lieutenant- sir- Montano- sir-
    Help, masters!- Here's a goodly watch indeed!
                                                        A bell rings.
    Who's that that rings the bell?- Diablo, ho!
    The town will rise. God's will, lieutenant, hold!
    You will be shamed forever.

                   Re-enter Othello and Attendants.

  OTHELLO.                      What is the matter here?
  MONTANO. 'Zounds, I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.
   Faints.
  OTHELLO. Hold, for your lives!
  IAGO. Hold, ho! Lieutenant- sir- Montano- gentlemen-
    Have you forgot all place of sense and duty?
    Hold! the general speaks to you! Hold, hold, for shame!
  OTHELLO. Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this?
    Are we turn'd Turks, and to ourselves do that
    Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?
    For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl.
    He that stirs next to carve for his own rage
    Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.
    Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle
    From her propriety. What is the matter, masters?
    Honest Iago, that look'st dead with grieving,
    Speak: who began this? On thy love, I charge thee.
  IAGO. I do not know. Friends all but now, even now,
    In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom
    Devesting them for bed; and then, but now
    (As if some planet had unwitted men),
    Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast,
    In opposition bloody. I cannot speak
    Any beginning to this peevish odds;
    And would in action glorious I had lost
    Those legs that brought me to a part of it!
  OTHELLO. How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?
  CASSIO. I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak.
  OTHELLO. Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil;
    The gravity and stillness of your youth
    The world hath noted, and your name is great
    In mouths of wisest censure. What's the matter,
    That you unlace your reputation thus,
    And spend your rich opinion for the name
    Of a night-brawler? Give me answer to it.
  MONTANO. Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger.
    Your officer, Iago, can inform you-
    While I spare speech, which something now offends me-
    Of all that I do know. Nor know I aught
    By me that's said or done amiss this night,
    Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,
    And to defend ourselves it be a sin
    When violence assails us.
  OTHELLO.                    Now, by heaven,
    My blood begins my safer guides to rule,
    And passion, having my best judgement collied,
    Assays to lead the way. If I once stir,
    Or do but lift this arm, the best of you
    Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know
    How this foul rout began, who set it on,
    And he that is approved in this offense,
    Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth,
    Shall lose me. What! in a town of war,
    Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,
    To manage private and domestic quarrel,
    In night, and on the court and guard of safety!
    'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?
  MONTANO. If partially affined, or leagued in office,
    Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,
    Thou art no soldier.
  IAGO.                  Touch me not so near:
    I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
    Than it should do offense to Michael Cassio;
    Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth
    Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.
    Montano and myself being in speech,
    There comes a fellow crying out for help,
    And Cassio following him with determined sword,
    To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman
    Steps in to Cassio and entreats his pause.
    Myself the crying fellow did pursue,
    Lest by his clamor- as it so fell out-
    The town might fall in fright. He, swift of foot,
    Outran my purpose; and I return'd the rather
    For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,
    And Cassio high in oath, which till tonight
    I ne'er might say before. When I came back-
    For this was brief- I found them close together,
    At blow and thrust, even as again they were
    When you yourself did part them.
    More of this matter cannot I report.
    But men are men; the best sometimes forget.
    Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,
    As men in rage strike those that wish them best,
    Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
    From him that fled some strange indignity,
    Which patience could not pass.
  OTHELLO.                         I know, Iago,
    Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
    Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee,
    But never more be officer of mine.

                    Re-enter Desdemona, attended.

    Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!
    I'll make thee an example.
  DESDEMONA.                   What's the matter?
  OTHELLO. All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed.
    Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon.
    Lead him off.                             Exit Montano, attended.
    Iago, look with care about the town,
    And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.
    Come, Desdemona, 'tis the soldiers' life.
    To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.
                                      Exeunt all but Iago and Cassio.
  IAGO. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
  CASSIO. Ay, past all surgery.
  IAGO. Marry, heaven forbid!
  CASSIO. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my
    reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what
    remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!
  IAGO. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily
    wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation
    is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and
    lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all,
    unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are
    ways to recover the general again. You are but now cast in his
    mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one
    would beat his offenseless dog to affright an imperious lion. Sue
    to him again, and he's yours.
  CASSIO. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a
    commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an
    officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear?
    and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible
    spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call
    thee devil!
  IAGO. What was he that you followed with your sword?
    What had he done to you?
  CASSIO. I know not.
  IAGO. Is't possible?
  CASSIO. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a
    quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an
    enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should,
    with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves
    into beasts!
  IAGO. Why, but you are now well enough. How came you thus
     recovered?
  CASSIO. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the
    devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me
    frankly despise myself.
  IAGO. Come, you are too severe a moraler. As the time, the place,
    and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish
    this had not befallen; but since it is as it is, mend it for your
    own good.
  CASSIO. I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a
    drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would
    stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and
    presently a beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is unblest,
    and the ingredient is a devil.
  IAGO. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be
    well used. Exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I
    think you think I love you.
  CASSIO. I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!
  IAGO. You or any man living may be drunk at some time, man. I'll
    tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the
    general. I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted
    and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement
    of her parts and graces. Confess yourself freely to her;
    importune her help to put you in your place again. She is of so
    free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a
    vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This
    broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter;
    and, my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your
    love shall grow stronger than it was before.
  CASSIO. You advise me well.
  IAGO. I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.
  CASSIO. I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will beseech
    the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me. I am desperate of my
    fortunes if they check me here.
  IAGO. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant, I must to the
    watch.
  CASSIO. Good night, honest Iago.                              Exit.
  IAGO. And what's he then that says I play the villain?
    When this advice is free I give and honest,
    Probal to thinking, and indeed the course
    To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy
    The inclining Desdemona to subdue
    In any honest suit. She's framed as fruitful
    As the free elements. And then for her
    To win the Moor, were't to renounce his baptism,
    All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
    His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,
    That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
    Even as her appetite shall play the god
    With his weak function. How am I then a villain
    To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,
    Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
    When devils will the blackest sins put on,
    They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,
    As I do now. For whiles this honest fool
    Plies Desdemona to repair his fortune,
    And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
    I'll pour this pestilence into his ear,
    That she repeals him for her body's lust;
    And by how much she strives to do him good,
    She shall undo her credit with the Moor.
    So will I turn her virtue into pitch,
    And out of her own goodness make the net
    That shall enmesh them all.

                           Enter Roderigo.

                                How now, Roderigo!
  RODERIGO. I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that
    hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money is almost spent; I
    have been tonight exceedingly well cudgeled; and I think the
    issue will be, I shall have so much experience for my pains; and
    so, with no money at all and a little more wit, return again to
    Venice.
  IAGO. How poor are they that have not patience!
    What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
    Thou know'st we work by wit and not by witchcraft,
    And wit depends on dilatory time.
    Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee,
    And thou by that small hurt hast cashier'd Cassio.
    Though other things grow fair against the sun,
    Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe.
    Content thyself awhile. By the mass, 'tis morning;
    Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
    Retire thee; go where thou art billeted.
    Away, I say. Thou shalt know more hereafter.
    Nay, get thee gone. [Exit Roderigo.] Two things are to be done:
    My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress-
    I'll set her on;
    Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,
    And bring him jump when he may Cassio find
    Soliciting his wife. Ay, that's the way;
    Dull not device by coldness and delay.                      Exit.

ACT III. SCENE I. Before the castle.

Enter Cassio and some Musicians.

  CASSIO. Masters, play here, I will content your pains; Something
  that's brief; and bid "Good morrow, general." Music.

                             Enter Clown.

  CLOWN. Why, masters, have your instruments been in Naples, that
    they speak i' the nose thus?
  FIRST MUSICIAN. How, sir, how?
  CLOWN. Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?
  FIRST MUSICIAN. Ay, marry, are they, sir.
  CLOWN. O, thereby hangs a tail.
  FIRST MUSICIAN. Whereby hangs a tale, sir?
  CLOWN. Marry, sir, by many a wind instrument that I know. But,
    masters, here's money for you; and the general so likes your
    music, that he desires you, for love's sake, to make no more
    noise with it.
  FIRST MUSICIAN. Well, sir, we will not.
  CLOWN. If you have any music that may not be heard, to't again;
    but, as they say, to hear music the general does not greatly
    care.
  FIRST MUSICIAN. We have none such, sir.
  CLOWN. Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away.
    Go, vanish into air, away!                      Exeunt Musicians.
  CASSIO. Dost thou hear, my honest friend?
  CLOWN. No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear you.
  CASSIO. Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor piece of gold
    for thee. If the gentlewoman that attends the general's wife be
    stirring, tell her there's one Cassio entreats her a little favor
    of speech. Wilt thou do this?
  CLOWN. She is stirring, sir. If she will stir hither, I shall seem
    to notify unto her.
  CASSIO. Do, good my friend.                             Exit Clown.

                             Enter Iago.

                              In happy time, Iago.
  IAGO. You have not been abed, then?
  CASSIO. Why, no; the day had broke
    Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,
    To send in to your wife. My suit to her
    Is that she will to virtuous Desdemona
    Procure me some access.
  IAGO.                     I'll send her to you presently;
    And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor
    Out of the way, that your converse and business
    May be more free.
  CASSIO. I humbly thank you for't. [Exit Iago.] I never knew
    A Florentine more kind and honest.

                            Enter Emilia.

  EMILIA. Good morrow, good lieutenant. I am sorry
    For your displeasure, but all will sure be well.
    The general and his wife are talking of it,
    And she speaks for you stoutly. The Moor replies
    That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus
    And great affinity and that in wholesome wisdom
    He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you
    And needs no other suitor but his likings
    To take the safest occasion by the front
    To bring you in again.
  CASSIO.                  Yet, I beseech you,
    If you think fit, or that it may be done,
    Give me advantage of some brief discourse
    With Desdemona alone.
  EMILIA.                 Pray you, come in.
    I will bestow you where you shall have time
    To speak your bosom freely.
  CASSIO.                       I am much bound to you.
   Exeunt.

SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter Othello, Iago, and Gentlemen.

  OTHELLO. These letters give, Iago, to the pilot,
    And by him do my duties to the Senate.
    That done, I will be walking on the works;
    Repair there to me.
  IAGO.                 Well, my good lord, I'll do't.
  OTHELLO. This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?
  GENTLEMEN. We'll wait upon your lordship.                   Exeunt.

SCENE III. The garden of the castle.

Enter Desdemona, Cassio, and Emilia.

  DESDEMONA. Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do
    All my abilities in thy behalf.
  EMILIA. Good madam, do. I warrant it grieves my husband
    As if the cause were his.
  DESDEMONA. O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,
    But I will have my lord and you again
    As friendly as you were.
  CASSIO.                    Bounteous madam,
    Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,
    He's never anything but your true servant.
  DESDEMONA. I know't: I thank you. You do love my lord:
    You have known him long; and be you well assured
    He shall in strangeness stand no farther off
    Than in a politic distance.
  CASSIO.                       Ay, but, lady,
    That policy may either last so long,
    Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,
    Or breed itself so out of circumstances,
    That I being absent and my place supplied,
    My general will forget my love and service.
  DESDEMONA. Do not doubt that. Before Emilia here
    I give thee warrant of thy place, assure thee,
    If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it
    To the last article. My lord shall never rest;
    I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;
    His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
    I'll intermingle everything he does
    With Cassio's suit. Therefore be merry, Cassio,
    For thy solicitor shall rather die
    Than give thy cause away.

                Enter Othello and Iago, at a distance.

  EMILIA. Madam, here comes my lord.
  CASSIO. Madam, I'll take my leave.
  DESDEMONA. Nay, stay and hear me speak.
  CASSIO. Madam, not now. I am very ill at ease,
    Unfit for mine own purposes.
  DESDEMONA. Well, do your discretion.                   Exit Cassio.
  IAGO. Ha! I like not that.
  OTHELLO. What dost thou say?
  IAGO. Nothing, my lord; or if- I know not what.
  OTHELLO. Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
  IAGO. Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,
    That he would steal away so guilty-like,
    Seeing you coming.
  OTHELLO.             I do believe 'twas he.
  DESDEMONA. How now, my lord!
    I have been talking with a suitor here,
    A man that languishes in your displeasure.
  OTHELLO. Who is't you mean?
  DESDEMONA. Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,
    If I have any grace or power to move you,
    His present reconciliation take;
    For if he be not one that truly loves you,
    That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,
    I have no judgement in an honest face.
    I prithee, call him back.
  OTHELLO.                    Went he hence now?
  DESDEMONA. Ay, sooth; so humbled
    That he hath left part of his grief with me
    To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.
  OTHELLO. Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.
  DESDEMONA. But shall't be shortly?
  OTHELLO.                           The sooner, sweet, for you.
  DESDEMONA. Shall't be tonight at supper?
  OTHELLO.                                 No, not tonight.
  DESDEMONA. Tomorrow dinner then?
  OTHELLO.                         I shall not dine at home;
    I meet the captains at the citadel.
  DESDEMONA. Why then tomorrow night, or Tuesday morn,
    On Tuesday noon, or night, on Wednesday morn.
    I prithee, name the time, but let it not
    Exceed three days. In faith, he's penitent;
    And yet his trespass, in our common reason-
    Save that, they say, the wars must make example
    Out of their best- is not almost a fault
    To incur a private check. When shall he come?
    Tell me, Othello. I wonder in my soul,
    What you would ask me, that I should deny,
    Or stand so mammering on. What? Michael Cassio,
    That came awooing with you, and so many a time
    When I have spoke of you dispraisingly
    Hath ta'en your part- to have so much to do
    To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much-
  OTHELLO. Prithee, no more. Let him come when he will;
    I will deny thee nothing.
  DESDEMONA.                  Why, this is not a boon;
    'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
    Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
    Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit
    To your own person. Nay, when I have a suit
    Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,
    It shall be full of poise and difficult weight,
    And fearful to be granted.
  OTHELLO.                     I will deny thee nothing,
    Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,
    To leave me but a little to myself.
  DESDEMONA. Shall I deny you? No. Farewell, my lord.
  OTHELLO. Farewell, my Desdemona; I'll come to thee straight.
  DESDEMONA. Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;
    Whate'er you be, I am obedient.
                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.
  OTHELLO. Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
    But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
    Chaos is come again.
  IAGO. My noble lord-
  OTHELLO.             What dost thou say, Iago?
  IAGO. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,
    Know of your love?
  OTHELLO. He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask?
  IAGO. But for a satisfaction of my thought;
    No further harm.
  OTHELLO.           Why of thy thought, Iago?
  IAGO. I did not think he had been acquainted with her.
  OTHELLO. O, yes, and went between us very oft.
  IAGO. Indeed!
  OTHELLO. Indeed? ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught in that?
    Is he not honest?
  IAGO. Honest, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Honest? Ay, honest.
  IAGO. My lord, for aught I know.
  OTHELLO. What dost thou think?
  IAGO. Think, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Think, my lord? By heaven, he echoes me,
    As if there were some monster in his thought
    Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something.
    I heard thee say even now, thou like'st not that,
    When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like?
    And when I told thee he was of my counsel
    In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, "Indeed!"
    And didst contract and purse thy brow together,
    As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
    Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me,
    Show me thy thought.
  IAGO. My lord, you know I love you.
  OTHELLO.                            I think thou dost;
    And for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty
    And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath,
    Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more;
    For such things in a false disloyal knave
    Are tricks of custom; but in a man that's just
    They're close dilations, working from the heart,
    That passion cannot rule.
  IAGO.                       For Michael Cassio,
    I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.
  OTHELLO. I think so too.
  IAGO.                    Men should be what they seem;
    Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
  OTHELLO. Certain, men should be what they seem.
  IAGO. Why then I think Cassio's an honest man.
  OTHELLO. Nay, yet there's more in this.
    I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
    As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
    The worst of words.
  IAGO.                 Good my lord, pardon me;
    Though I am bound to every act of duty,
    I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.
    Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;
    As where's that palace whereinto foul things
    Sometimes intrude not? Who has a breast so pure,
    But some uncleanly apprehensions
    Keep leets and law-days, and in session sit
    With meditations lawful?
  OTHELLO. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
    If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear
    A stranger to thy thoughts.
  IAGO.                         I do beseech you-
    Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,
    As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
    To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
    Shapes faults that are not- that your wisdom yet,
    From one that so imperfectly conceits,
    Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble
    Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
    It were not for your quiet nor your good,
    Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
    To let you know my thoughts.
  OTHELLO.                       What dost thou mean?
  IAGO. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
    Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
    Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
    'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
    But he that filches from me my good name
    Robs me of that which not enriches him
    And makes me poor indeed.
  OTHELLO. By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts.
  IAGO. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;
    Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.
  OTHELLO. Ha!
  IAGO.        O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
    It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock
    The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss
    Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
    But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
    Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
  OTHELLO. O misery!
  IAGO. Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;
    But riches fineless is as poor as winter
    To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
    Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
    From jealousy!
  OTHELLO.         Why, why is this?
    Think'st thou I'ld make a life of jealousy,
    To follow still the changes of the moon
    With fresh suspicions? No! To be once in doubt
    Is once to be resolved. Exchange me for a goat
    When I shall turn the business of my soul
    To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
    Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous
    To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
    Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;
    Where virtue is, these are more virtuous.
    Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
    The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
    For she had eyes and chose me. No, Iago,
    I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
    And on the proof, there is no more but this-
    Away at once with love or jealousy!
  IAGO. I am glad of it, for now I shall have reason
    To show the love and duty that I bear you
    With franker spirit. Therefore, as I am bound,
    Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.
    Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
    Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure.
    I would not have your free and noble nature
    Out of self-bounty be abused. Look to't.
    I know our country disposition well;
    In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
    They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
    Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.
  OTHELLO. Dost thou say so?
  IAGO. She did deceive her father, marrying you;
    And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks,
    She loved them most.
  OTHELLO.               And so she did.
  IAGO.                                  Why, go to then.
    She that so young could give out such a seeming,
    To seel her father's eyes up close as oak-
    He thought 'twas witchcraft- but I am much to blame;
    I humbly do beseech you of your pardon
    For too much loving you.
  OTHELLO.                   I am bound to thee forever.
  IAGO. I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.
  OTHELLO. Not a jot, not a jot.
  IAGO.                          I'faith, I fear it has.
    I hope you will consider what is spoke
    Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved;
    I am to pray you not to strain my speech
    To grosser issues nor to larger reach
    Than to suspicion.
  OTHELLO. I will not.
  IAGO.                Should you do so, my lord,
    My speech should fall into such vile success
    Which my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my worthy friend-
    My lord, I see you're moved.
  OTHELLO.                       No, not much moved.
    I do not think but Desdemona's honest.
  IAGO. Long live she so! and long live you to think so!
  OTHELLO. And yet, how nature erring from itself-
  IAGO. Ay, there's the point, as- to be bold with you-
    Not to affect many proposed matches
    Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
    Whereto we see in all things nature tends-
    Foh, one may smell in such a will most rank,
    Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural.
    But pardon me. I do not in position
    Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear,
    Her will, recoiling to her better judgement,
    May fall to match you with her country forms,
    And happily repent.
  OTHELLO.              Farewell, farewell.
    If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;
    Set on thy wife to observe. Leave me, Iago.
  IAGO. [Going.] My lord, I take my leave.
  OTHELLO. Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless
    Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.
  IAGO. [Returning.] My lord, I would I might entreat your honor
    To scan this thing no further; leave it to time.
    Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,
    For sure he fills it up with great ability,
    Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile,
    You shall by that perceive him and his means.
    Note if your lady strain his entertainment
    With any strong or vehement importunity;
    Much will be seen in that. In the meantime,
    Let me be thought too busy in my fears-
    As worthy cause I have to fear I am-
    And hold her free, I do beseech your honor.
  OTHELLO. Fear not my government.
  IAGO. I once more take my leave.                              Exit.
  OTHELLO. This fellow's of exceeding honesty,
    And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,
    Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,
    Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,
    I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind
    To prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black
    And have not those soft parts of conversation
    That chamberers have, or for I am declined
    Into the vale of years- yet that's not much-
    She's gone. I am abused, and my relief
    Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,
    That we can call these delicate creatures ours,
    And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,
    And live upon the vapor of a dungeon,
    Than keep a corner in the thing I love
    For others' uses. Yet, 'tis the plague of great ones:
    Prerogatived are they less than the base;
    'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death.
    Even then this forked plague is fated to us
    When we do quicken. Desdemona comes:

                    Re-enter Desdemona and Emilia.

    If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!
    I'll not believe't.
  DESDEMONA.            How now, my dear Othello!
    Your dinner, and the generous islanders
    By you invited, do attend your presence.
  OTHELLO. I am to blame.
  DESDEMONA.              Why do you speak so faintly?
    Are you not well?
  OTHELLO. I have a pain upon my forehead here.
  DESDEMONA. Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again.
    Let me but bind it hard, within this hour
    It will be well.
  OTHELLO.           Your napkin is too little;
            He puts the handkerchief from him, and she drops it.
    Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.
  DESDEMONA. I am very sorry that you are not well.
                                        Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.
  EMILIA. I am glad I have found this napkin;
    This was her first remembrance from the Moor.
    My wayward husband hath a hundred times
    Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,
    For he conjured her she should ever keep it,
    That she reserves it evermore about her
    To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,
    And give't Iago. What he will do with it
    Heaven knows, not I;
    I nothing but to please his fantasy.

                            Re-enter Iago.

  IAGO. How now, what do you here alone?
  EMILIA. Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.
  IAGO. A thing for me? It is a common thing-
  EMILIA. Ha!
  IAGO. To have a foolish wife.
  EMILIA. O, is that all? What will you give me now
    For that same handkerchief?
  IAGO.                         What handkerchief?
  EMILIA. What handkerchief?
    Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona,
    That which so often you did bid me steal.
  IAGO. Hast stol'n it from her?
  EMILIA. No, faith; she let it drop by negligence,
    And, to the advantage, I being here took't up.
    Look, here it is.
  IAGO.               A good wench; give it me.
  EMILIA. What will you do with't, that you have been so earnest
    To have me filch it?
  IAGO. [Snatching it.] Why, what is that to you?
  EMILIA. If't be not for some purpose of import,
    Give't me again. Poor lady, she'll run mad
    When she shall lack it.
  IAGO. Be not acknown on't; I have use for it.
    Go, leave me.                                        Exit Emilia.
    I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,
    And let him find it. Trifles light as air
    Are to the jealous confirmations strong
    As proofs of holy writ; this may do something.
    The Moor already changes with my poison:
    Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,
    Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
    But with a little act upon the blood
    Burn like the mines of sulphur. I did say so.
    Look, where he comes!

                          Re-enter Othello.

                          Not poppy, nor mandragora,
    Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
    Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
    Which thou owedst yesterday.
  OTHELLO.                       Ha, ha, false to me?
  IAGO. Why, how now, general! No more of that.
  OTHELLO. Avaunt! be gone! Thou hast set me on the rack.
    I swear 'tis better to be much abused
    Than but to know't a little.
  IAGO.                          How now, my lord?
  OTHELLO. What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?
    I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me;
    I slept the next night well, was free and merry;
    I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips.
    He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,
    Let him not know't and he's not robb'd at all.
  IAGO. I am sorry to hear this.
  OTHELLO. I had been happy if the general camp,
    Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
    So I had nothing known. O, now forever
    Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content!
    Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars
    That make ambition virtue! O, farewell,
    Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
    The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
    The royal banner, and all quality,
    Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
    And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
    The immortal Jove's dread clamors counterfeit,
    Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
  IAGO. Is't possible, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore;
    Be sure of it. Give me the ocular proof;
    Or, by the worth of man's eternal soul,
    Thou hadst been better have been born a dog
    Than answer my waked wrath!
  IAGO.                         Is't come to this?
  OTHELLO. Make me to see't; or at the least so prove it,
    That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
    To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!
  IAGO. My noble lord-
  OTHELLO. If thou dost slander her and torture me,
    Never pray more; abandon all remorse;
    On horror's head horrors accumulate;
    Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;
    For nothing canst thou to damnation add
    Greater than that.
  IAGO.                O grace! O heaven defend me!
    Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?
    God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool,
    That livest to make thine honesty a vice!
    O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,
    To be direct and honest is not safe.
    I thank you for this profit, and from hence
    I'll love no friend sith love breeds such offense.
  OTHELLO. Nay, stay; thou shouldst be honest.
  IAGO. I should be wise; for honesty's a fool,
    And loses that it works for.
  OTHELLO.                       By the world,
    I think my wife be honest, and think she is not;
    I think that thou art just, and think thou art not.
    I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh
    As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
    As mine own face. If there be cords or knives,
    Poison or fire, or suffocating streams,
    I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!
  IAGO. I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion;
    I do repent me that I put it to you.
    You would be satisfied?
  OTHELLO.                  Would? Nay, I will.
  IAGO. And may. But, how? how satisfied, my lord?
    Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on?
    Behold her topp'd?
  OTHELLO.             Death and damnation! O!
  IAGO. It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
    To bring them to that prospect. Damn them then,
    If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster
    More than their own! What then? how then?
    What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?
    It is impossible you should see this
    Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
    As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
    As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,
    If imputation and strong circumstances,
    Which lead directly to the door of truth,
    Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.
  OTHELLO. Give me a living reason she's disloyal.
  IAGO. I do not like the office;
    But sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,
    Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,
    I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately
    And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
    I could not sleep.
    There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
    That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs;
    One of this kind is Cassio.
    In sleep I heard him say, "Sweet Desdemona,
    Let us be wary, let us hide our loves";
    And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,
    Cry, "O sweet creature!" and then kiss me hard,
    As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots,
    That grew upon my lips; then laid his leg
    Over my thigh, and sigh'd and kiss'd; and then
    Cried, "Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!"
  OTHELLO. O monstrous! monstrous!
  IAGO.                            Nay, this was but his dream.
  OTHELLO. But this denoted a foregone conclusion.
    'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.
  IAGO. And this may help to thicken other proofs
    That do demonstrate thinly.
  OTHELLO.                      I'll tear her all to pieces.
  IAGO. Nay, but be wise; yet we see nothing done;
    She may be honest yet. Tell me but this;
    Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief
    Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?
  OTHELLO. I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift.
  IAGO. I know not that; but such a handkerchief-
    I am sure it was your wife's- did I today
    See Cassio wipe his beard with.
  OTHELLO.                          If it be that-
  IAGO. If it be that, or any that was hers,
    It speaks against her with the other proofs.
  OTHELLO. O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
    One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.
    Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago,
    All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
    'Tis gone.
    Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow hell!
    Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
    To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
    For 'tis of aspics' tongues!
  IAGO.                          Yet be content.
  OTHELLO. O, blood, blood, blood!
  IAGO. Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.
  OTHELLO. Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic Sea,
    Whose icy current and compulsive course
    Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
    To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
    Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
    Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
    Till that a capable and wide revenge
    Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven,
    In the due reverence of a sacred vow                      Kneels.
    I here engage my words.
  IAGO.                     Do not rise yet.                  Kneels.
    Witness, you ever-burning lights above,
    You elements that clip us round about,
    Witness that here Iago doth give up
    The execution of his wit, hands, heart,
    To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command,
    And to obey shall be in me remorse,
    What bloody business ever.                             They rise.
  OTHELLO.                     I greet thy love,
    Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,
    And will upon the instant put thee to't:
    Within these three days let me hear thee say
    That Cassio's not alive.
  IAGO. My friend is dead, 'tis done at your request;
    But let her live.
  OTHELLO.            Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
    Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,
    To furnish me with some swift means of death
    For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.
  IAGO. I am your own forever.                                Exeunt.

SCENE IV. Before the castle.

Enter Desdemona, Emilia, and Clown.

  DESDEMONA. Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?
  CLOWN. I dare not say he lies anywhere.
  DESDEMONA. Why, man?
  CLOWN. He's a soldier; and for one to say a soldier lies, is
    stabbing.
  DESDEMONA. Go to! Where lodges he?
  CLOWN. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie.
  DESDEMONA. Can anything be made of this?
  CLOWN. I know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a lodging,
    and say he lies here or he lies there, were to lie in mine own
    throat.
  DESDEMONA. Can you inquire him out and be edified by report?
  CLOWN. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions
    and by them answer.
  DESDEMONA. Seek him, bid him come hither. Tell him I have moved my
    lord on his behalf and hope all will be well.
  CLOWN. To do this is within the compass of man's wit, and therefore
    I will attempt the doing it.                                Exit.
  DESDEMONA. Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?
  EMILIA. I know not, madam.
  DESDEMONA. Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
    Full of crusadoes; and, but my noble Moor
    Is true of mind and made of no such baseness
    As jealous creatures are, it were enough
    To put him to ill thinking.
  EMILIA.                       Is he not jealous?
  DESDEMONA. Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
    Drew all such humors from him.
  EMILIA.                          Look, where he comes.
  DESDEMONA. I will not leave him now till Cassio
    Be call'd to him.

                            Enter Othello.

                      How is't with you, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Well, my good lady. [Aside.] O, hardness to dissemble!
    How do you, Desdemona?
  DESDEMONA.               Well, my good lord.
  OTHELLO. Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.
  DESDEMONA. It yet has felt no age nor known no sorrow.
  OTHELLO. This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart;
    Hot, hot, and moist. This hand of yours requires
    A sequester from liberty, fasting, and prayer,
    Much castigation, exercise devout,
    For here's a young and sweating devil here
    That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,
    A frank one.
  DESDEMONA. You may, indeed, say so;
    For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.
  OTHELLO. A liberal hand. The hearts of old gave hands;
    But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.
  DESDEMONA. I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.
  OTHELLO. What promise, chuck?
  DESDEMONA. I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.
  OTHELLO. I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;
    Lend me thy handkerchief.
  DESDEMONA. Here, my lord.
  OTHELLO. That which I gave you.
  DESDEMONA. I have it not about me.
  OTHELLO. Not?
  DESDEMONA. No, faith, my lord.
  OTHELLO. That's a fault. That handkerchief
    Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
    She was a charmer, and could almost read
    The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it,
    'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
    Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
    Or made a gift of it, my father's eye
    Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
    After new fancies. She dying gave it me,
    And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
    To give it her. I did so, and take heed on't;
    Make it a darling like your precious eye;
    To lose't or give't away were such perdition
    As nothing else could match.
  DESDEMONA.                     Is't possible?
  OTHELLO. 'Tis true; there's magic in the web of it.
    A sibyl, that had number'd in the world
    The sun to course two hundred compasses,
    In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;
    The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk,
    And it was dyed in mummy which the skillful
    Conserved of maiden's hearts.
  DESDEMONA.                      Indeed! is't true?
  OTHELLO. Most veritable; therefore look to't well.
  DESDEMONA. Then would to God that I had never seen't!
  OTHELLO. Ha! wherefore?
  DESDEMONA. Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
  OTHELLO. Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o' the way?
  DESDEMONA. Heaven bless us!
  OTHELLO. Say you?
  DESDEMONA. It is not lost; but what an if it were?
  OTHELLO. How?
  DESDEMONA. I say, it is not lost.
  OTHELLO. Fetch't, let me see it.
  DESDEMONA. Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
    This is a trick to put me from my suit.
    Pray you, let Cassio be received again.
  OTHELLO. Fetch me the handkerchief, my mind misgives.
  DESDEMONA. Come, come,
    You'll never meet a more sufficient man.
  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!
  DESDEMONA.                 I pray, talk me of Cassio.
  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!
  DESDEMONA.                 A man that all his time
    Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
    Shared dangers with you-
  OTHELLO. The handkerchief!
  DESDEMONA. In sooth, you are to blame.
  OTHELLO. Away!                                                Exit.
  EMILIA. Is not this man jealous?
  DESDEMONA. I ne'er saw this before.
    Sure there's some wonder in this handkerchief;
    I am most unhappy in the loss of it.
  EMILIA. 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.
    They are all but stomachs and we all but food;
    They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
    They belch us. Look you! Cassio and my husband.

                        Enter Cassio and Iago.

  IAGO. There is no other way; 'tis she must do't.
    And, lo, the happiness! Go and importune her.
  DESDEMONA. How now, good Cassio! What's the news with you?
  CASSIO. Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you
    That by your virtuous means I may again
    Exist and be a member of his love
    Whom I with all the office of my heart
    Entirely honor. I would not be delay'd.
    If my offense be of such mortal kind
    That nor my service past nor present sorrows
    Nor purposed merit in futurity
    Can ransom me into his love again,
    But to know so must be my benefit;
    So shall I clothe me in a forced content
    And shut myself up in some other course
    To Fortune's alms.
  DESDEMONA.           Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!
    My advocation is not now in tune;
    My lord is not my lord, nor should I know him
    Were he in favor as in humor alter'd.
    So help me every spirit sanctified,
    As I have spoken for you all my best
    And stood within the blank of his displeasure
    For my free speech! You must awhile be patient.
    What I can do I will; and more I will
    Than for myself I dare. Let that suffice you.
  IAGO. Is my lord angry?
  EMILIA.                 He went hence but now,
    And certainly in strange unquietness.
  IAGO. Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,
    When it hath blown his ranks into the air
    And, like the devil, from his very arm
    Puff'd his own brother. And can he be angry?
    Something of moment then. I will go meet him.
    There's matter in't indeed if he be angry.
  DESDEMONA. I prithee, do so.                             Exit Iago.
                               Something sure of state,
    Either from Venice or some unhatch'd practice
    Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
    Hath puddled his clear spirit; and in such cases
    Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
    Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;
    For let our finger ache, and it indues
    Our other healthful members even to that sense
    Of pain. Nay, we must think men are not gods,
    Nor of them look for such observancy
    As fits the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,
    I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,
    Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
    But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,
    And he's indicted falsely.
  EMILIA. Pray heaven it be state matters, as you think,
    And no conception nor no jealous toy
    Concerning you.
  DESDEMONA. Alas the day, I never gave him cause!
  EMILIA. But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
    They are not ever jealous for the cause,
    But jealous for they are jealous. 'Tis a monster
    Begot upon itself, born on itself.
  DESDEMONA. Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!
  EMILIA. Lady, amen.
  DESDEMONA. I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout.
    If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit,
    And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
  CASSIO. I humbly thank your ladyship.
                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.

                            Enter Bianca.

  BIANCA. Save you, friend Cassio!
  CASSIO.                          What make you from home?
    How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?
    I'faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.
  BIANCA. And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
    What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
    Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
    More tedious than the dial eight score times?
    O weary reckoning!
  CASSIO.              Pardon me, Bianca.
    I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd;
    But I shall in a more continuate time
    Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,
                                  Gives her Desdemona's handkerchief.
    Take me this work out.
  BIANCA.                  O Cassio, whence came this?
    This is some token from a newer friend.
    To the felt absence now I feel a cause.
    Is't come to this? Well, well.
  CASSIO.                          Go to, woman!
    Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,
    From whence you have them. You are jealous now
    That this is from some mistress, some remembrance.
    No, by my faith, Bianca.
  BIANCA.                    Why, whose is it?
  CASSIO. I know not, sweet. I found it in my chamber.
    I like the work well. Ere it be demanded-
    As like enough it will- I'ld have it copied.
    Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.
  BIANCA. Leave you! wherefore?
  CASSIO. I do attend here on the general;
    And think it no addition, nor my wish,
    To have him see me woman'd.
  BIANCA.                       Why, I pray you?
  CASSIO. Not that I love you not.
  BIANCA.                          But that you do not love me.
    I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
    And say if I shall see you soon at night.
  CASSIO. 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you,
    For I attend here, but I'll see you soon.
  BIANCA. 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.            Exeunt.

ACT IV. SCENE I. Cyprus. Before the castle.

Enter Othello and Iago.

  IAGO. Will you think so?
  OTHELLO.                 Think so, Iago?
  IAGO.                                    What,
    To kiss in private?
  OTHELLO.              An unauthorized kiss.
  IAGO. Or to be naked with her friend in bed
    An hour or more, not meaning any harm?
  OTHELLO. Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
    It is hypocrisy against the devil.
    They that mean virtuously and yet do so,
    The devil their virtue tempts and they tempt heaven.
  IAGO. So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip.
    But if I give my wife a handkerchief-
  OTHELLO. What then?
  IAGO. Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord, and being hers,
    She may, I think, bestow't on any man.
  OTHELLO. She is protectress of her honor too.
    May she give that?
  IAGO. Her honor is an essence that's not seen;
    They have it very oft that have it not.
    But for the handkerchief-
  OTHELLO. By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.
    Thou said'st- O, it comes o'er my memory,
    As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
    Boding to all- he had my handkerchief.
  IAGO. Ay, what of that?
  OTHELLO.                That's not so good now.
  IAGO.                                           What,
    If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?
    Or heard him say- as knaves be such abroad,
    Who having, by their own importunate suit,
    Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
    Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
    But they must blab-
  OTHELLO.              Hath he said anything?
  IAGO. He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,
    No more than he'll unswear.
  OTHELLO.                      What hath he said?
  IAGO. Faith, that he did- I know not what he did.
  OTHELLO. What? what?
  IAGO. Lie-
  OTHELLO. With her?
  IAGO.              With her, on her, what you will.
  OTHELLO. Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when they
    belie her. Lie with her! 'Zounds, that's fulsome! Handkerchief-
    confessions- handkerchief! To confess and be hanged for his labor-
    first, to be hanged, and then to confess. I tremble at it.
    Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without
    some instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus. Pish!
    Noses, ears, and lips. Is't possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O
    devil!
                                                   Falls in a trance.
  IAGO. Work on,
    My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught,
    And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
    All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! My lord!
    My lord, I say! Othello!

                            Enter Cassio.

                             How now, Cassio!
  CASSIO. What's the matter?
  IAGO. My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy.
    This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.
  CASSIO. Rub him about the temples.
  IAGO.                              No, forbear;
    The lethargy must have his quiet course.
    If not, he foams at mouth, and by and by
    Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs.
    Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
    He will recover straight. When he is gone,
    I would on great occasion speak with you.            Exit Cassio.
    How is it, general? Have you not hurt your head?
  OTHELLO. Dost thou mock me?
  IAGO.                       I mock you? No, by heaven.
    Would you would bear your fortune like a man!
  OTHELLO. A horned man's a monster and a beast.
  IAGO. There's many a beast then in a populous city,
    And many a civil monster.
  OTHELLO. Did he confess it?
  IAGO.                       Good sir, be a man;
    Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked
    May draw with you. There's millions now alive
    That nightly lie in those unproper beds
    Which they dare swear peculiar. Your case is better.
    O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
    To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
    And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know,
    And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.
  OTHELLO. O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.
  IAGO.                                    Stand you awhile apart,
    Confine yourself but in a patient list.
    Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief-
    A passion most unsuiting such a man-
    Cassio came hither. I shifted him away,
    And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy;
    Bade him anon return and here speak with me
    The which he promised. Do but encave yourself
    And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
    That dwell in every region of his face;
    For I will make him tell the tale anew,
    Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
    He hath and is again to cope your wife.
    I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience,
    Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,
    And nothing of a man.
  OTHELLO.                Dost thou hear, Iago?
    I will be found most cunning in my patience;
    But (dost thou hear?) most bloody.
  IAGO.                                That's not amiss;
    But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?
                                                     Othello retires.
    Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
    A housewife that by selling her desires
    Buys herself bread and clothes. It is a creature
    That dotes on Cassio, as 'tis the strumpet's plague
    To beguile many and be beguiled by one.
    He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
    From the excess of laughter. Here he comes.

                           Re-enter Cassio.

    As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;
    And his unbookish jealousy must construe
    Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures, and light behavior
    Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?
  CASSIO. The worser that you give me the addition
    Whose want even kills me.
  IAGO. Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.
    Now, if this suit lay in Bianco's power,
    How quickly should you speed!
  CASSIO.                         Alas, poor caitiff!
  OTHELLO. Look, how he laughs already!
  IAGO. I never knew a woman love man so.
  CASSIO. Alas, poor rogue! I think, i'faith, she loves me.
  OTHELLO. Now he denies it faintly and laughs it out.
  IAGO. Do you hear, Cassio?
  OTHELLO.                   Now he importunes him
    To tell it o'er. Go to; well said, well said.
  IAGO. She gives it out that you shall marry her.
    Do you intend it?
  CASSIO. Ha, ha, ha!
  OTHELLO. Do you triumph, Roman? Do you triumph?
  CASSIO. I marry her! What? A customer! I prithee, bear some charity
    to my wit; do not think it so unwholesome. Ha, ha, ha!
  OTHELLO. So, so, so, so. They laugh that win.
  IAGO. Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.
  CASSIO. Prithee, say true.
  IAGO. I am a very villain else.
  OTHELLO. Have you scored me? Well.
  CASSIO. This is the monkey's own giving out. She is persuaded I
    will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my
    promise.
  OTHELLO. Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.
  CASSIO. She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was
    the other day talking on the sea bank with certain Venetians, and
    thither comes the bauble, and, by this hand, she falls me thus
    about my neck-
  OTHELLO. Crying, "O dear Cassio!" as it were; his gesture imports
    it.
  CASSIO. So hangs and lolls and weeps upon me; so hales and pulls
    me. Ha, ha, ha!
  OTHELLO. Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O, I see
    that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.
  CASSIO. Well, I must leave her company.
  IAGO. Before me! look where she comes.
  CASSIO. 'Tis such another fitchew! marry, a perfumed one.

                            Enter Bianca.

    What do you mean by this haunting of me?
  BIANCA. Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by
    that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to
    take it. I must take out the work? A likely piece of work that
    you should find it in your chamber and not know who left it
    there! This is some minx's token, and I must take out the work?
    There, give it your hobbyhorse. Wheresoever you had it, I'll take
    out no work on't.
  CASSIO. How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!
  OTHELLO. By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!
  BIANCA. An you'll come to supper tonight, you may; an you will not,
    come when you are next prepared for.                        Exit.
  IAGO. After her, after her.
  CASSIO. Faith, I must; she'll rail i' the street else.
  IAGO. Will you sup there?
  CASSIO. Faith, I intend so.
  IAGO. Well, I may chance to see you, for I would very fain speak
    with you.
  CASSIO. Prithee, come; will you?
  IAGO. Go to; say no more.                              Exit Cassio.
  OTHELLO. [Advancing.] How shall I murther him, Iago?
  IAGO. Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?
  OTHELLO. O Iago!
  IAGO. And did you see the handkerchief?
  OTHELLO. Was that mine?
  IAGO. Yours, by this hand. And to see how he prizes the foolish
    woman your wife! She gave it him, and he hath given it his whore.
  OTHELLO. I would have him nine years akilling. A fine woman! a fair
    woman! a sweet woman!
  IAGO. Nay, you must forget that.
  OTHELLO. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned tonight, for
    she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it,
    and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature.
    She might lie by an emperor's side, and command him tasks.
  IAGO. Nay, that's not your way.
  OTHELLO. Hang her! I do but say what she is. So delicate with her
    needle, an admirable musician. O, she will sing the savageness
    out of a bear. Of so high and plenteous wit and invention-
  IAGO. She's the worse for all this.
  OTHELLO. O, a thousand, a thousand times. And then, of so gentle a
    condition!
  IAGO. Ay, too gentle.
  OTHELLO. Nay, that's certain. But yet the pity of it, Iago!
    O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!
  IAGO. If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to
    offend, for, if it touch not you, it comes near nobody.
  OTHELLO. I will chop her into messes. Cuckold me!
  IAGO. O, 'tis foul in her.
  OTHELLO. With mine officer!
  IAGO. That's fouler.
  OTHELLO. Get me some poison, Iago, this night. I'll not expostulate
    with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again. This
    night, Iago.
  IAGO. Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed
    she hath contaminated.
  OTHELLO. Good, good, the justice of it pleases, very good.
  IAGO. And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker. You shall hear more
    by midnight.
  OTHELLO. Excellent good. [A trumpet within.] What trumpet is that
    same?
  IAGO. Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico
    Come from the Duke. And, see your wife is with him.

              Enter Lodovico, Desdemona, and Attendants.

  LODOVICO. God save the worthy general!
  OTHELLO.                               With all my heart, sir.
  LODOVICO. The Duke and Senators of Venice greet you.
                                                  Gives him a letter.
  OTHELLO. I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.
                                         Opens the letter, and reads.
  DESDEMONA. And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?
  IAGO. I am very glad to see you, signior;
    Welcome to Cyprus.
  LODOVICO. I thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio?
  IAGO. Lives, sir.
  DESDEMONA. Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord
    An unkind breech; but you shall make all well.
  OTHELLO. Are you sure of that?
  DESDEMONA. My lord?
  OTHELLO. [Reads.] "This fail you not to do, as you will-"
  LODOVICO. He did not call; he's busy in the paper.
    Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio?
  DESDEMONA. A most unhappy one. I would do much
    To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.
  OTHELLO. Fire and brimstone!
  DESDEMONA. My lord?
  OTHELLO. Are you wise?
  DESDEMONA. What, is he angry?
  LODOVICO.                     May be the letter moved him;
    For, as I think, they do command him home,
    Deputing Cassio in his government.
  DESDEMONA. By my troth, I am glad on't.
  OTHELLO.                                Indeed!
  DESDEMONA.                                      My lord?
  OTHELLO. I am glad to see you mad.
  DESDEMONA.                         Why, sweet Othello?
  OTHELLO. Devil!                                        Strikes her.
  DESDEMONA. I have not deserved this.
  LODOVICO. My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,
    Though I should swear I saw't. 'Tis very much.
    Make her amends; she weeps.
  OTHELLO.                      O devil, devil!
    If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
    Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
    Out of my sight!
  DESDEMONA. [Going.] I will not stay to offend you.
  LODOVICO. Truly, an obedient lady.
    I do beseech your lordship, call her back.
  OTHELLO. Mistress!
  DESDEMONA. My lord?
  OTHELLO. What would you with her, sir?
  LODOVICO.                              Who, I, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Ay, you did wish that I would make her turn.
    Sir, she can turn and turn, and yet go on,
    And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;
    And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,
    Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.
    Concerning this, sir- O well-painted passion!-
    I am commanded home. Get you away;
    I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,
    And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!
                                                      Exit Desdemona.
    Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,
    I do entreat that we may sup together.
    You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus. Goats and monkeys!
     Exit.
  LODOVICO. Is this the noble Moor whom our full Senate
    Call all in all sufficient? This the nature
    Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue
    The shot of accident nor dart of chance
    Could neither graze nor pierce?
  IAGO.                             He is much changed.
  LODOVICO. Are his wits safe? Is he not light of brain?
  IAGO. He's that he is. I may not breathe my censure
    What he might be: if what he might he is not,
    I would to heaven he were!
  LODOVICO.                    What, strike his wife!
  IAGO. Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew
    That stroke would prove the worst!
  LODOVICO.                            Is it his use?
    Or did the letters work upon his blood,
    And new create this fault?
  IAGO.                        Alas, alas!
    It is not honesty in me to speak
    What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,
    And his own courses will denote him so
    That I may save my speech. Do but go after,
    And mark how he continues.
  LODOVICO. I am sorry that I am deceived in him.             Exeunt.

SCENE II. A room in the castle.

Enter Othello and Emilia.

  OTHELLO. You have seen nothing, then?
  EMILIA. Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.
  OTHELLO. Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.
  EMILIA. But then I saw no harm, and then I heard
    Each syllable that breath made up between them.
  OTHELLO. What, did they never whisper?
  EMILIA.                                Never, my lord.
  OTHELLO. Nor send you out o' the way?
  EMILIA. Never.
  OTHELLO. To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?
  EMILIA. Never, my lord.
  OTHELLO. That's strange.
  EMILIA. I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
    Lay down my soul at stake. If you think other,
    Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.
    If any wretch have put this in your head,
    Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse!
    For if she be not honest, chaste, and true,
    There's no man happy; the purest of their wives
    Is foul as slander.
  OTHELLO.              Bid her come hither; go.         Exit Emilia.
    She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd
    That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,
    A closet lock and key of villainous secrets.
    And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen her do't.

                     Enter Desdemona with Emilia.

  DESDEMONA. My lord, what is your will?
  OTHELLO.                               Pray, chuck, come hither.
  DESDEMONA. What is your pleasure?
  OTHELLO.                          Let me see your eyes;
    Look in my face.
  DESDEMONA.         What horrible fancy's this?
  OTHELLO. [To Emilia.] Some of your function, mistress,
    Leave procreants alone and shut the door;
    Cough, or cry "hem," if anybody come.
    Your mystery, your mystery; nay, dispatch.           Exit Emilia.
  DESDEMONA. Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?
    I understand a fury in your words,
    But not the words.
  OTHELLO. Why, what art thou?
  DESDEMONA. Your wife, my lord, your true and loyal wife.
  OTHELLO. Come, swear it, damn thyself;
    Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves
    Should fear to seize thee. Therefore be double-damn'd;
    Swear thou art honest.
  DESDEMONA.               Heaven doth truly know it.
  OTHELLO. Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
  DESDEMONA. To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?
  OTHELLO. O Desdemona! Away! away! away!
  DESDEMONA. Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?
    Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
    If haply you my father do suspect
    An instrument of this your calling back,
    Lay not your blame on me. If you have lost him,
    Why, I have lost him too.
  OTHELLO.                    Had it pleased heaven
    To try me with affliction, had they rain'd
    All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head,
    Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
    Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
    I should have found in some place of my soul
    A drop of patience; but, alas, to make me
    A fixed figure for the time of scorn
    To point his slow unmoving finger at!
    Yet could I bear that too, well, very well;
    But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,
    Where either I must live or bear no life;
    The fountain from the which my current runs,
    Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
    Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
    To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
    Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,
    Ay, there, look grim as hell!
  DESDEMONA. I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.
  OTHELLO. O, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,
    That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
    Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
    That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!
  DESDEMONA. Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
  OTHELLO. Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
    Made to write "whore" upon? What committed?
    Committed? O thou public commoner!
    I should make very forges of my cheeks,
    That would to cinders burn up modesty,
    Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
    Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks;
    The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets,
    Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,
    And will not hear it. What committed?
    Impudent strumpet!
  DESDEMONA.           By heaven, you do me wrong.
  OTHELLO. Are not you a strumpet?
  DESDEMONA.                       No, as I am a Christian.
    If to preserve this vessel for my lord
    From any other foul unlawful touch
    Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.
  OTHELLO. What, not a whore?
  DESDEMONA.                  No, as I shall be saved.
  OTHELLO. Is't possible?
  DESDEMONA. O, heaven forgive us!
  OTHELLO.                         I cry you mercy then;
    I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
    That married with Othello. [Raises his voice.] You, mistress,
    That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
    And keep the gate of hell!

                           Re-enter Emilia.

                               You, you, ay, you!
    We have done our course; there's money for your pains.
    I pray you, turn the key, and keep our counsel.             Exit.
  EMILIA. Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?
    How do you, madam? How do you, my good lady?
  DESDEMONA. Faith, half asleep.
  EMILIA. Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?
  DESDEMONA. With who?
  EMILIA. Why, with my lord, madam.
  DESDEMONA. Who is thy lord?
  EMILIA.                     He that is yours, sweet lady.
  DESDEMONA. I have none. Do not talk to me, Emilia;
    I cannot weep, nor answer have I none
    But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight
    Lay on my bed my wedding sheets. Remember,
    And call thy husband hither.
  EMILIA.                        Here's a change indeed!
     Exit.
  DESDEMONA. 'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.
    How have I been behaved, that he might stick
    The small'st opinion on my least misuse?

                      Re-enter Emilia with Iago.

  IAGO. What is your pleasure, madam? How is't with you?
  DESDEMONA. I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes
    Do it with gentle means and easy tasks.
    He might have chid me so, for in good faith,
    I am a child to chiding.
  IAGO.                      What's the matter, lady?
  EMILIA. Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her,
    Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,
    As true hearts cannot bear.
  DESDEMONA. Am I that name, Iago?
  IAGO.                            What name, fair lady?
  DESDEMONA. Such as she says my lord did say I was.
  EMILIA. He call'd her whore; a beggar in his drink
    Could not have laid such terms upon his callet.
  IAGO. Why did he so?
  DESDEMONA. I do not know; I am sure I am none such.
  IAGO. Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!
  EMILIA. Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
    Her father and her country and her friends,
    To be call'd whore? Would it not make one weep?
  DESDEMONA. It is my wretched fortune.
  IAGO.                                 Beshrew him for't!
    How comes this trick upon him?
  DESDEMONA.                       Nay, heaven doth know.
  EMILIA. I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,
    Some busy and insinuating rogue,
    Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,
    Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.
  IAGO. Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.
  DESDEMONA. If any such there be, heaven pardon him!
  EMILIA. A halter pardon him! And hell gnaw his bones!
    Why should he call her whore? Who keeps her company?
    What place? What time? What form? What likelihood?
    The Moor's abused by some most villainous knave,
    Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.
    O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold,
    And put in every honest hand a whip
    To lash the rascals naked through the world
    Even from the east to the west!
  IAGO.                             Speak within door.
  EMILIA. O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was
    That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,
    And made you to suspect me with the Moor.
  IAGO. You are a fool; go to.
  DESDEMONA.                   O good Iago,
    What shall I do to win my lord again?
    Good friend, go to him, for by this light of heaven,
    I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
    If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love
    Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
    Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
    Delighted them in any other form,
    Or that I do not yet, and ever did,
    And ever will, though he do shake me off
    To beggarly divorcement, love him dearly,
    Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much,
    And his unkindness may defeat my life,
    But never taint my love. I cannot say "whore."
    It doth abhor me now I speak the word;
    To do the act that might the addition earn
    Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.
  IAGO. I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humor:
    The business of the state does him offense,
    And he does chide with you.
  DESDEMONA. If 'twere no other-
  IAGO. 'Tis but so, I warrant.                      Trumpets within.
    Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!
    The messengers of Venice stay the meat.
    Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.
                                         Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.

                           Enter Roderigo.

    How now, Roderigo!
  RODERIGO. I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.
  IAGO. What in the contrary?
  RODERIGO. Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago; and
    rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me all conveniency
    than suppliest me with the least advantage of hope. I will indeed
    no longer endure it; nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace
    what already I have foolishly suffered.
  IAGO. Will you hear me, Roderigo?
  RODERIGO. Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and
    performances are no kin together.
  IAGO. You charge me most unjustly.
  RODERIGO. With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of my
    means. The jewels you have had from me to deliver to Desdemona
    would half have corrupted a votarist. You have told me she hath
    received them and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden
    respect and acquaintance; but I find none.
  IAGO. Well, go to, very well.
  RODERIGO. Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis not very
    well. By this hand, I say 'tis very scurvy, and begin to find
    myself fopped in it.
  IAGO. Very well.
  RODERIGO. I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself known
    to Desdemona. If she will return me my jewels, I will give over
    my suit and repent my unlawful solicitation; if not, assure
    yourself I will seek satisfaction of you.
  IAGO. You have said now.
  RODERIGO. Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of
    doing.
  IAGO. Why, now I see there's mettle in thee; and even from this
    instant do build on thee a better opinion than ever before. Give
    me thy hand, Roderigo. Thou hast taken against me a most just
    exception; but yet, I protest, have dealt most directly in thy
    affair.
  RODERIGO. It hath not appeared.
  IAGO. I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your suspicion is
    not without wit and judgement. But, Roderigo, if thou hast that
    in thee indeed, which I have greater reason to believe now than
    ever, I mean purpose, courage, and valor, this night show it; if
    thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona, take me from
    this world with treachery and devise engines for my life.
  RODERIGO. Well, what is it? Is it within reason and compass?
  IAGO. Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice to depute
    Cassio in Othello's place.
  RODERIGO. Is that true? Why then Othello and Desdemona return again
    to Venice.
  IAGO. O, no; he goes into Mauritania, and takes away with him the
    fair Desdemona, unless his abode be lingered here by some
    accident; wherein none can be so determinate as the removing of
    Cassio.
  RODERIGO. How do you mean, removing of him?
  IAGO. Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place; knocking out
    his brains.
  RODERIGO. And that you would have me to do?
  IAGO. Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right. He sups
    tonight with a harlotry, and thither will I go to him. He knows
    not yet of his honorable fortune. If you will watch his going
    thence, which his will fashion to fall out between twelve and
    one, you may take him at your pleasure; I will be near to second
    your attempt, and he shall fall between us. Come, stand not
    amazed at it, but go along with me; I will show you such a
    necessity in his death that you shall think yourself bound to put
    it on him. It is now high supper-time, and the night grows to
    waste. About it.
  RODERIGO. I will hear further reason for this.
  IAGO. And you shall be satisfied.                           Exeunt.

SCENE III. Another room in the castle.

Enter Othello, Lodovico, Desdemona, Emilia, and Attendants.

  LODOVICO. I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.
  OTHELLO. O, pardon me; 'twill do me good to walk.
  LODOVICO. Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.
  DESDEMONA. Your honor is most welcome.
  OTHELLO.                               Will you walk, sir?
    O- Desdemona-
  DESDEMONA. My lord?
  OTHELLO. Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned
    forthwith. Dismiss your attendant there; look it be done.
  DESDEMONA. I will, my lord.
                            Exeunt Othello, Lodovico, and Attendants.
  EMILIA. How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.
  DESDEMONA. He says he will return incontinent.
    He hath commanded me to go to bed,
    And bade me to dismiss you.
  EMILIA.                       Dismiss me?
  DESDEMONA. It was his bidding; therefore, good Emilia,
    Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu.
    We must not now displease him.
  EMILIA. I would you had never seen him!
  DESDEMONA. So would not I. My love doth so approve him,
    That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns-
    Prithee, unpin me- have grace and favor in them.
  EMILIA. I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.
  DESDEMONA. All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
    If I do die before thee, prithee shroud me
    In one of those same sheets.
  EMILIA.                        Come, come, you talk.
  DESDEMONA. My mother had a maid call'd Barbary;
    She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
    And did forsake her. She had a song of "willow";
    An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,
    And she died singing it. That song tonight
    Will not go from my mind; I have much to do
    But to go hang my head all at one side
    And sing it like poor Barbary. Prithee, dispatch.
  EMILIA. Shall I go fetch your nightgown?
  DESDEMONA.                               No, unpin me here.
    This Lodovico is a proper man.
  EMILIA. A very handsome man.
  DESDEMONA. He speaks well.
  EMILIA. I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to
    Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.
  DESDEMONA. [Sings.]

        "The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
          Sing all a green willow;
        Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
          Sing willow, willow, willow.
        The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans,
          Sing willow, willow, willow;
        Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones-"

    Lay be these-

    [Sings.]   "Sing willow, willow, willow-"

    Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon-
    [Sings.]   "Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
               Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve-"

    Nay, that's not next. Hark, who is't that knocks?
  EMILIA. It's the wind.
  DESDEMONA. [Sings.]

        "I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?
          Sing willow, willow, willow.
        If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men-"

    So get thee gone; good night. Mine eyes do itch;
    Doth that bode weeping?
  EMILIA.                   'Tis neither here nor there.
  DESDEMONA. I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
    Dost thou in conscience think- tell me, Emilia-
    That there be women do abuse their husbands
    In such gross kind?
  EMILIA.               There be some such, no question.
  DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
  EMILIA. Why, would not you?
  DESDEMONA.                  No, by this heavenly light!
  EMILIA. Nor I neither by this heavenly light; I might do't as well
    i' the dark.
  DESDEMONA. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
  EMILIA. The world's a huge thing; it is a great price
    For a small vice.
  DESDEMONA.          In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
  EMILIA. In troth, I think I should, and undo't when I had done.
    Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for
    measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any
    petty exhibition; but, for the whole world- why, who would not
    make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should
    venture purgatory for't.
  DESDEMONA. Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
    For the whole world.
  EMILIA. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and having the
    world for your labor, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you
    might quickly make it right.
  DESDEMONA. I do not think there is any such woman.
  EMILIA. Yes, a dozen, and as many to the vantage as would store the
      world they played for.
    But I do think it is their husbands' faults
    If wives do fall; say that they slack their duties
    And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
    Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
    Throwing restraint upon us, or say they strike us,
    Or scant our former having in despite,
    Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
    Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
    Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell
    And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
    As husbands have. What is it that they do
    When they change us for others? Is it sport?
    I think it is. And doth affection breed it?
    I think it doth. Is't frailty that thus errs?
    It is so too. And have not we affections,
    Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
    Then let them use us well; else let them know,
    The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
  DESDEMONA. Good night, good night. Heaven me such uses send,
    Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!                Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I. Cyprus. A street.

Enter Iago and Roderigo:

  IAGO. Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come.
    Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home.
    Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow.
    It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,
    And fix most firm thy resolution.
  RODERIGO. Be near at hand; I may miscarry in't.
  IAGO. Here, at thy hand, be bold, and take thy stand.
  Retires.
  RODERIGO. I have no great devotion to the deed;
    And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons.
    'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword; he dies.
  IAGO. I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense,
    And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,
    Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
    Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo,
    He calls me to a restitution large
    Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him,
    As gifts to Desdemona;
    It must not be. If Cassio do remain,
    He hath a daily beauty in his life
    That makes me ugly; and besides, the Moor
    May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril.
    No, he must die. Be't so. I hear him coming.

                            Enter Cassio.

  RODERIGO. I know his gait; 'tis he. Villain, thou diest!
                                              Makes a pass at Cassio.
  CASSIO. That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,
    But that my coat is better than thou know'st;
    I will make proof of thine.           Draws, and wounds Roderigo.
  RODERIGO.                     O, I am slain!
            Iago from behind wounds Cassio in the leg, and exit.
  CASSIO. I am maim'd forever. Help, ho! Murther! Murther!
    Falls.

                            Enter Othello.

  OTHELLO. The voice of Cassio; Iago keeps his word.
  RODERIGO. O, villain that I am!
  OTHELLO.                        It is even so.
  CASSIO. O, help, ho! Light! A surgeon!
  OTHELLO. 'Tis he. O brave Iago, honest and just,
    That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong!
    Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead,
    And your unblest fate hies. Strumpet, I come!
    Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;
    Thy bed lust-stain'd shall with lust's blood be spotted.
     Exit.

                     Enter Lodovico and Gratiano.

  CASSIO. What, ho! No watch? No passage? Murther! Murther!
  GRATIANO. 'Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful.
  CASSIO. O, help!
  LODOVICO. Hark!
  RODERIGO. O wretched villain!
  LODOVICO. Two or three groan; it is a heavy night.
    These may be counterfeits; let's think't unsafe
    To come in to the cry without more help.
  RODERIGO. Nobody come? Then shall I bleed to death.
  LODOVICO. Hark!

                     Re-enter Iago, with a light.

  GRATIANO. Here's one comes in his shirt, with light and weapons.
  IAGO. Who's there? Whose noise is this that cries on murther?
  LODOVICO. We do not know.
  IAGO.                     Did not you hear a cry?
  CASSIO. Here, here! for heaven's sake, help me!
  IAGO.                                       What's the matter?
  GRATIANO. This is Othello's ancient, as I take it.
  LODOVICO. The same indeed; a very valiant fellow.
  IAGO. What are you here that cry so grievously?
  CASSIO. Iago? O, I am spoil'd, undone by villains!
    Give me some help.
  IAGO. O me, lieutenant! What villains have done this?
  CASSIO. I think that one of them is hereabout,
    And cannot make away.
  IAGO.                   O treacherous villains!
    [To Lodovico and Gratiano.] What are you there?
    Come in and give some help.
  RODERIGO. O, help me here!
  CASSIO. That's one of them.
  IAGO.                       O murtherous slave! O villain!
                                                      Stabs Roderigo.
  RODERIGO. O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog!
  IAGO. Kill men i' the dark! Where be these bloody thieves?
    How silent is this town! Ho! Murther! Murther!
    What may you be? Are you of good or evil?
  LODOVICO. As you shall prove us, praise us.
  IAGO. Signior Lodovico?
  LODOVICO. He, sir.
  IAGO. I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by villains.
  GRATIANO. Cassio?
  IAGO. How is't, brother?
  CASSIO. My leg is cut in two.
  IAGO.                         Marry, heaven forbid!
    Light, gentlemen; I'll bind it with my shirt.

                            Enter Bianca.

  BIANCA. What is the matter, ho? Who is't that cried?
  IAGO. Who is't that cried?
  BIANCA. O my dear Cassio, my sweet Cassio! O Cassio, Cassio,
     Cassio!
  IAGO. O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect
    Who they should be that have thus mangled you?
  CASSIO. No.
  GRATIANO. I am sorry to find you thus; I have been to seek you.
  IAGO. Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair,
    To bear him easily hence!
  BIANCA. Alas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!
  IAGO. Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash
    To be a party in this injury.
    Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come;
    Lend me a light. Know we this face or no?
    Alas, my friend and my dear countryman
    Roderigo? No- yes, sure. O heaven! Roderigo.
  GRATIANO. What, of Venice?
  IAGO. Even he, sir. Did you know him?
  GRATIANO.                             Know him! ay.
  IAGO. Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon;
    These bloody accidents must excuse my manners,
    That so neglected you.
  GRATIANO.                I am glad to see you.
  IAGO. How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair!
  GRATIANO. Roderigo!
  IAGO. He, he, 'tis he. [A chair brought in.] O, that's well said:
      the chair.
    Some good man bear him carefully from hence;
    I'll fetch the general's surgeon. [To Bianca.] For you, mistress,
    Save you your labor. He that lies slain here, Cassio,
    Was my dear friend; what malice was between you?
  CASSIO. None in the world; nor do I know the man.
  IAGO. [To Bianca.] What, look you pale? O, bear him out o' the air.
                                   Cassio and Roderigo are borne off.
    Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale, mistress?
    Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?
    Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon.
    Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her.
    Do you see, gentlemen? Nay, guiltiness will speak,
    Though tongues were out of use.

                            Enter Emilia.

  EMILIA. 'Las, what's the matter? What's the matter, husband?
  IAGO. Cassio hath here been set on in the dark
    By Roderigo, and fellows that are 'scaped;
    He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead.
  EMILIA. Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio!
  IAGO. This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,
    Go know of Cassio where he supp'd tonight.
    What, do you shake at that?
  BIANCA. He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake not.
  IAGO. O, did he so? I charge you, go with me.
  EMILIA. Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet!
  BIANCA. I am no strumpet, but of life as honest
    As you that thus abuse me.
  EMILIA.                      As I! foh! fie upon thee!
  IAGO. Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio dress'd.
    Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale.
    Emilia, run you to the citadel,
    And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd!
    Will you go on? [Aside.] This is the night
    That either makes me or fordoes me quite.                 Exeunt.

SCENE II. A bedchamber in the castle. Desdemona in bed asleep; a light
burning.

Enter Othello.

  OTHELLO. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.
    Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!
    It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood,
    Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow
    And smooth as monumental alabaster.
    Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
    Put out the light, and then put out the light.
    If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
    I can again thy former light restore,
    Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,
    Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
    I know not where is that Promethean heat
    That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,
    I cannot give it vital growth again,
    It must needs wither; I'll smell it on the tree.      Kisses her.
    O, balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
    Justice to break her sword! One more, one more;
    Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
    And love thee after. One more, and this the last;
    So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
    But they are cruel tears; this sorrow's heavenly,
    It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.
  DESDEMONA. Who's there? Othello?
  OTHELLO.                         Ay, Desdemona.
  DESDEMONA. Will you come to bed, my lord?
  OTHELLO. Have you pray'd tonight, Desdemona?
  DESDEMONA. Ay, my lord.
  OTHELLO. If you bethink yourself of any crime
    Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
    Solicit for it straight.
  DESDEMONA. Alas, my lord, what may you mean by that?
  OTHELLO. Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by.
    I would not kill thy unprepared spirit.
    No, heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.
  DESDEMONA. Talk you of killing?
  OTHELLO. Ay, I do.
  DESDEMONA. Then heaven have mercy on me!
  OTHELLO. Amen, with all my heart!
  DESDEMONA. If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.
  OTHELLO. Hum!
  DESDEMONA. And yet I fear you, for you are fatal then
    When your eyes roll so. Why I should fear I know not,
    Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear.
  OTHELLO. Think on thy sins.
  DESDEMONA.                  They are loves I bear to you.
  OTHELLO. Ay, and for that thou diest.
  DESDEMONA. That death's unnatural that kills for loving.
    Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
    Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.
    These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
    They do not point on me.
  OTHELLO.                   Peace, and be still!
  DESDEMONA. I will so. What's the matter?
  OTHELLO. That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee
    Thou gavest to Cassio.
  DESDEMONA.               No, by my life and soul!
    Send for the man, and ask him.
  OTHELLO.                         Sweet soul, take heed,
    Take heed of perjury; thou are on thy deathbed.
  DESDEMONA. Ay, but not yet to die.
  OTHELLO.                           Yes, presently:
    Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin,
    For to deny each article with oath
    Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception
    That I do groan withal. Thou art to die.
  DESDEMONA. Then Lord have mercy on me!
  OTHELLO.                               I say, amen.
  DESDEMONA. And have you mercy too! I never did
    Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio
    But with such general warranty of heaven
    As I might love. I never gave him token.
  OTHELLO. By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in 's hand.
    O perjured woman! Thou dost stone my heart,
    And makest me call what I intend to do
    A murther, which I thought a sacrifice.
    I saw the handkerchief.
  DESDEMONA.                He found it then;
    I never gave it him. Send for him hither;
    Let him confess a truth.
  OTHELLO.                   He hath confess'd.
  DESDEMONA. What, my lord?
  OTHELLO. That he hath used thee.
  DESDEMONA.                       How? unlawfully?
  OTHELLO. Ay.
  DESDEMONA. He will not say so.
  OTHELLO.                       No, his mouth is stopp'd;
    Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't.
  DESDEMONA. O, my fear interprets! What, is he dead?
  OTHELLO. Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
    Had stomach for them all.
  DESDEMONA. Alas, he is betray'd, and I undone!
  OTHELLO. Out, strumpet! Weep'st thou for him to my face?
  DESDEMONA. O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!
  OTHELLO. Down, strumpet!
  DESDEMONA. Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!
  OTHELLO. Nay, if you strive-
  DESDEMONA. But half an hour!
  OTHELLO.                     Being done, there is no pause.
  DESDEMONA. But while I say one prayer!
  OTHELLO.                        It is too late.     He stifles her.
  EMILIA. [Within.] My lord, my lord! What, ho! my lord, my lord!
  OTHELLO. What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead?
    I that am cruel am yet merciful;
    I would not have thee linger in thy pain.
    So, so.
  EMILIA. [Within.] What, ho! my lord, my lord!
  OTHELLO.                                      Who's there?
  EMILIA. [Within.] O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!
  OTHELLO. Yes, 'tis Emilia. By and by. She's dead.
    'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death.
    The noise was here. Ha! no more moving?
    Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't good?
    I think she stirs again. No. What's best to do?
    If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife.
    My wife! My wife! What wife? I have no wife.
    O, insupportable! O heavy hour!
    Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
    Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe
    Should yawn at alteration.
  EMILIA. [Within.] I do beseech you
    That I may speak with you, O, good my lord!
  OTHELLO. I had forgot thee. O, come in, Emilia.
    Soft, by and by. Let me the curtains draw.
    Where art thou?                                 Unlocks the door.

                            Enter Emilia.

                    What's the matter with thee now?
  EMILIA. O, my good lord, yonder's foul murthers done!
  OTHELLO. What, now?
  EMILIA. But now, my lord.
  OTHELLO. It is the very error of the moon;
    She comes more nearer earth than she was wont
    And makes men mad.
  EMILIA. Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian
    Call'd Roderigo.
  OTHELLO.           Roderigo kill'd?
    And Cassio kill'd?
  EMILIA.              No, Cassio is not kill'd.
  OTHELLO. Not Cassio kill'd! Then murther's out of tune,
    And sweet revenge grows harsh.
  DESDEMONA. O, falsely, falsely murther'd!
  EMILIA.                                   Alas, what cry is that?
  OTHELLO. That? what?
  EMILIA. Out, and alas! That was my lady's voice.
    Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again!
    Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!
  DESDEMONA. A guiltless death I die.
  EMILIA. O, who hath done this deed?
  DESDEMONA. Nobody; I myself. Farewell;
    Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell!                    Dies.
  OTHELLO. Why, how should she be murther'd?
  EMILIA.                                    Alas, who knows?
  OTHELLO. You heard her say herself, it was not I.
  EMILIA. She said so; I must needs report the truth.
  OTHELLO. She's like a liar gone to burning hell;
    'Twas I that kill'd her.
  EMILIA.                    O, the more angel she,
    And you the blacker devil!
  OTHELLO. She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.
  EMILIA. Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.
  OTHELLO. She was false as water.
  EMILIA.                          Thou art rash as fire, to say
    That she was false. O, she was heavenly true!
  OTHELLO. Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.
    O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,
    But that I did proceed upon just grounds
    To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.
  EMILIA. My husband?
  OTHELLO. Thy husband.
  EMILIA. That she was false to wedlock?
  OTHELLO. Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,
    If heaven would make me such another world
    Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
    I'ld not have sold her for it.
  EMILIA.                          My husband?
  OTHELLO. Ay, 'twas he that told me first.
    An honest man he is, and hates the slime
    That sticks on filthy deeds.
  EMILIA.                        My husband?
  OTHELLO. What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband.
  EMILIA. O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love!
    My husband say that she was false!
  OTHELLO.                             He, woman;
    I say thy husband. Dost understand the word?
    My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago.
  EMILIA. If he say so, may his pernicious soul
    Rot half a grain a day! He lies to the heart.
    She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.
  OTHELLO. Ha!
  EMILIA. Do thy worst;
    This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven
    Than thou wast worthy her.
  OTHELLO.                     Peace, you were best.
  EMILIA. Thou hast not half that power to do me harm
    As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!
    As ignorant as dirt! Thou hast done a deed-
    I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known,
    Though I lost twenty lives. Help! help, ho! help!
    The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! Murther, murther!

              Enter Montano, Gratiano, Iago, and others.

  MONTANO. What is the matter? How now, general?
  EMILIA. O, are you come, Iago? You have done well,
    That men must lay their murthers on your neck.
  GRATIANO. What is the matter?
  EMILIA. Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man.
    He says thou told'st him that his wife was false;
    I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a villain.
    Speak, for my heart is full.
  IAGO. I told him what I thought, and told no more
    Than what he found himself was apt and true.
  EMILIA. But did you ever tell him she was false?
  IAGO. I did.
  EMILIA. You told a lie, an odious, damned lie;
    Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!
    She false with Cassio? Did you say with Cassio?
  IAGO. With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your tongue.
  EMILIA. I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak.
    My mistress here lies murther'd in her bed-
  ALL. O heavens forfend!
  EMILIA. And your reports have set the murther on.
  OTHELLO. Nay, stare not, masters; it is true indeed.
  GRATIANO. 'Tis a strange truth.
  MONTANO. O monstrous act!
  EMILIA.                   Villainy, villainy, villainy!
    I think upon't, I think, I smell't, O villainy!
    I thought so then. I'll kill myself for grief.
    O villainy, villainy!
  IAGO. What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.
  EMILIA. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak;
    'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.
    Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home.
  OTHELLO. O! O! O!                                 Falls on the bed.
  EMILIA.           Nay, lay thee down and roar;
    For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent
    That e'er did lift up eye.
  OTHELLO.            [Rises.] O, she was foul!
    I scarce did know you, uncle; there lies your niece,
    Whose breath indeed these hands have newly stopp'd.
    I know this act shows horrible and grim.
  GRATIANO. Poor Desdemon! I am glad thy father's dead.
    Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
    Shore his old thread in twain; did he live now,
    This sight would make him do a desperate turn,
    Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
    And fall to reprobation.
  OTHELLO. 'Tis pitiful, but yet Iago knows
    That she with Cassio hath the act of shame
    A thousand times committed. Cassio confess'd it,
    And she did gratify his amorous works
    With that recognizance and pledge of love
    Which I first gave her. I saw it in his hand,
    It was a handkerchief, an antique token
    My father gave my mother.
  EMILIA. O heaven! O heavenly powers!
  IAGO. 'Zounds! Hold your peace.
  EMILIA.                         'Twill out, 'twill. I peace?
    No, I will speak as liberal as the north;
    Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
    All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.
  IAGO. Be wise, and get you home.
  EMILIA.                          I will not.
                                          Iago offers to stab Emilia.
  GRATIANO.                                    Fie!
    Your sword upon a woman?
  EMILIA. O thou dull Moor! That handkerchief thou speak'st of
    I found by fortune and did give my husband,
    For often with a solemn earnestness,
    More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle,
    He begg'd of me to steal it.
  IAGO.                          Villainous whore!
  EMILIA. She give it Cassio? No, alas, I found it,
    And I did give't my husband.
  IAGO.                          Filth, thou liest!
  EMILIA. By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.
    O murtherous coxcomb! What should such a fool
    Do with so good a wife?
  OTHELLO.                  Are there not stones in heaven
    But what serve for thunder? Precious villain!
                                         He runs at Iago, but Montano
                                      disarms him. Iago stabs Emilia.
  GRATIANO. The woman falls; sure, he hath kill'd his wife.
  EMILIA. Ay, ay! O, lay me by my mistress' side.          Exit Iago.
  GRATIANO. He's gone, but his wife's kill'd.
  MONTANO. 'Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon,
    Which I have here recover'd from the Moor.
    Come, guard the door without; let him not pass,
    But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain,
    For 'tis a damned slave.       Exeunt all but Othello and Emilia.
  OTHELLO.                   I am not valiant neither,
    But every puny whipster gets my sword.
    But why should honor outlive honesty?
    Let it go all.
  EMILIA.          What did thy song bode, lady?
    Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,
    And die in music. [Sings.] "Willow, willow, willow."
    Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;
    So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;
    So speaking as I think, I die, I die.                       Dies.
  OTHELLO. I have another weapon in this chamber;
    It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper-
    O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth.
  GRATIANO. [Within.] If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear.
    Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer.
  OTHELLO. Look in upon me then, and speak with me,
    Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.

                          Re-enter Gratiano.

  GRATIANO. What is the matter?
  OTHELLO.                      Behold, I have a weapon;
    A better never did itself sustain
    Upon a soldier's thigh. I have seen the day
    That with this little arm and this good sword
    I have made my way through more impediments
    Than twenty times your stop. But, O vain boast!
    Who can control his fate? 'Tis not so now.
    Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;
    Here is my journey's end, here is my butt
    And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
    Do you go back dismay'd? 'Tis a lost fear.
    Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
    And he retires. Where should Othello go?
    Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!
    Pale as thy smock! When we shall meet at compt,
    This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
    And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl?
    Even like thy chastity. O cursed, cursed slave!
    Whip me, ye devils,
    From the possession of this heavenly sight!
    Blow me about in winds! Roast me in sulphur!
    Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
    O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon! dead!
    O! O! O!

         Enter Lodovico, Montano, Cassio carried in a chair,
                  and Officers with Iago, prisoner.

  LODOVICO. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?
  OTHELLO. That's he that was Othello. Here I am.
  LODOVICO. Where is that viper? Bring the villain forth.
  OTHELLO. I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.
    If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.      Wounds Iago.
  LODOVICO. Wrench his sword from him.
  IAGO.                                I bleed, sir, but not kill'd.
  OTHELLO. I am not sorry neither. I'ld have thee live,
    For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.
  LODOVICO. O thou Othello, that wert once so good,
    Fall'n in the practice of a damned slave,
    What shall be said to thee?
  OTHELLO.                      Why, anything;
    An honorable murtherer, if you will,
    For nought did I in hate, but all in honor.
  LODOVICO. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy.
    Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?
  OTHELLO. Ay.
  CASSIO. Dear general, I never gave you cause.
  OTHELLO. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.
    Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
    Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?
  IAGO. Demand me nothing; what you know, you know.
    From this time forth I never will speak word.
  LODOVICO. What, not to pray?
  GRATIANO.                    Torments will ope your lips.
  OTHELLO. Well, thou dost best.
  LODOVICO. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,
    Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter
    Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo,
    And here another. The one of them imports
    The death of Cassio to be undertook
    By Roderigo.
  OTHELLO. O villain!
  CASSIO.             Most heathenish and most gross!
  LODOVICO. Now here's another discontented paper,
    Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,
    Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain;
    But that, belike, Iago in the interim
    Came in and satisfied him.
  OTHELLO.                     O the pernicious caitiff!
    How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief
    That was my wife's?
  CASSIO.               I found it in my chamber;
    And he himself confess'd but even now
    That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose
    Which wrought to his desire.
  OTHELLO.                       O fool! fool! fool!
  CASSIO. There is besides in Roderigo's letter,
    How he upbraids Iago, that he made him
    Brave me upon the watch, whereon it came
    That I was cast. And even but now he spake
    After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him,
    Iago set him on.
  LODOVICO. You must forsake this room, and go with us.
    Your power and your command is taken off,
    And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,
    If there be any cunning cruelty
    That can torment him much and hold him long,
    It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,
    Till that the nature of your fault be known
    To the Venetian state. Come, bring away.
  OTHELLO. Soft you; a word or two before you go.
    I have done the state some service, and they know't.
    No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
    When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
    Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
    Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
    Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
    Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
    Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
    Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
    Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
    Albeit unused to the melting mood,
    Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
    Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
    And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
    Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
    Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
    I took by the throat the circumcised dog
    And smote him, thus.                               Stabs himself.
  LODOVICO. O bloody period!
  GRATIANO.                  All that's spoke is marr'd.
  OTHELLO. I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee. No way but this,
    Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
                                          Falls on the bed, and dies.
  CASSIO. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon;
    For he was great of heart.
  LODOVICO.         [To Iago.] O Spartan dog,
    More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!
    Look on the tragic loading of this bed;
    This is thy work. The object poisons sight;
    Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house,
    And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,
    For they succeed on you. To you, Lord Governor,
    Remains the censure of this hellish villain,
    The time, the place, the torture. O, enforce it!
    Myself will straight aboard, and to the state
    This heavy act with heavy heart relate.                   Exeunt.

THE END



PERICLES, PRINCE OF TYRE




by William Shakespeare





Contents

ACT I
Chorus. Before the palace of Antioch.
Scene I. Antioch. A room in the palace.
Scene II. Tyre. A room in the palace.
Scene III. Tyre. An ante-chamber in the Palace.
Scene IV. Tarsus. A room in the Governor’s house.

ACT II
Chorus. Chorus.
Scene I. Pentapolis. An open place by the seaside.
Scene II. The same. A public way, or platform leading to the lists.
Scene III. The same. A hall of state: a banquet prepared.
Scene IV. Tyre. A room in the Governor’s house.
Scene V. Pentapolis. A room in the palace.

ACT III
Chorus. Chorus.
Scene I. On shipboard.
Scene II. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.
Scene III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.
Scene IV. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.

ACT IV
Chorus. Chorus.
Scene I. Tarsus. An open place near the seashore.
Scene II. Mytilene. A room in a brothel.
Scene III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.
Scene IV. Before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.
Scene V. Mytilene. A street before the brothel.
Scene VI. The same. A room in the brothel.

ACT V
Chorus. Chorus.
Scene I. On board Pericles’ ship, off Mytilene.
Scene II. Before the temple of Diana at Ephesus.
Scene III. The temple of Diana at Ephesus.



 Dramatis Personæ

ANTIOCHUS, king of Antioch.
PERICLES, prince of Tyre.
HELICANUS, ESCANES,  two lords of Tyre.
SIMONIDES, king of Pentapolis.
CLEON, governor of Tarsus.
LYSIMACHUS, governor of Mytilene.
CERIMON, a lord of Ephesus.
THALIARD, a lord of Antioch.
PHILEMON, servant to Cerimon.
LEONINE, servant to Dionyza.
Marshal.
A Pandar.
BOULT, his servant.
The Daughter of Antiochus.
DIONYZA, wife to Cleon.
THAISA, daughter to Simonides.
MARINA, daughter to Pericles and Thaisa.
LYCHORIDA, nurse to Marina.
A Bawd.
Lords, Knights, Gentlemen, Sailors, Pirates, Fishermen, and Messengers.
DIANA.
GOWER, as Chorus.

SCENE: Dispersedly in various countries.



ACT I

 Enter Gower.

 Before the palace of Antioch.

To sing a song that old was sung,
From ashes ancient Gower is come;
Assuming man’s infirmities,
To glad your ear, and please your eyes.
It hath been sung at festivals,
On ember-eves and holy-ales;
And lords and ladies in their lives
Have read it for restoratives:
The purchase is to make men glorious,
_Et bonum quo antiquius eo melius._
If you, born in these latter times,
When wit’s more ripe, accept my rhymes,
And that to hear an old man sing
May to your wishes pleasure bring,
I life would wish, and that I might
Waste it for you, like taper-light.
This Antioch, then, Antiochus the Great
Built up, this city, for his chiefest seat;
The fairest in all Syria.
I tell you what mine authors say:
This king unto him took a fere,
Who died and left a female heir,
So buxom, blithe, and full of face,
As heaven had lent her all his grace;
With whom the father liking took,
And her to incest did provoke.
Bad child; worse father! to entice his own
To evil should be done by none:
But custom what they did begin
Was with long use account’d no sin.
The beauty of this sinful dame
Made many princes thither frame,
To seek her as a bedfellow,
In marriage pleasures playfellow:
Which to prevent he made a law,
To keep her still, and men in awe,
That whoso ask’d her for his wife,
His riddle told not, lost his life:
So for her many a wight did die,
As yon grim looks do testify.
What now ensues, to the judgement your eye
I give, my cause who best can justify.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE I. Antioch. A room in the palace.

 Enter Antiochus, Prince Pericles and followers.

ANTIOCHUS.
Young prince of Tyre, you have at large received
The danger of the task you undertake.

PERICLES.
I have, Antiochus, and, with a soul
Emboldened with the glory of her praise,
Think death no hazard in this enterprise.

ANTIOCHUS.
Music! Bring in our daughter, clothed like a bride,
For the embracements even of Jove himself;
At whose conception, till Lucina reigned,
Nature this dowry gave, to glad her presence,
The senate house of planets all did sit,
To knit in her their best perfections.

 Music. Enter the Daughter of Antiochus.

PERICLES.
See where she comes, apparell’d like the spring,
Graces her subjects, and her thoughts the king
Of every virtue gives renown to men!
Her face the book of praises, where is read
Nothing but curious pleasures, as from thence
Sorrow were ever razed, and testy wrath
Could never be her mild companion.
You gods that made me man, and sway in love,
That have inflamed desire in my breast
To taste the fruit of yon celestial tree,
Or die in the adventure, be my helps,
As I am son and servant to your will,
To compass such a boundless happiness!

ANTIOCHUS.
Prince Pericles, —

PERICLES.
That would be son to great Antiochus.

ANTIOCHUS.
Before thee stands this fair Hesperides,
With golden fruit, but dangerous to be touch’d;
For death-like dragons here affright thee hard:
Her face, like heaven, enticeth thee to view
Her countless glory, which desert must gain;
And which, without desert, because thine eye
Presumes to reach, all the whole heap must die.
Yon sometimes famous princes, like thyself,
Drawn by report, adventurous by desire,
Tell thee, with speechless tongues and semblance pale,
That without covering, save yon field of stars,
Here they stand Martyrs, slain in Cupid’s wars;
And with dead cheeks advise thee to desist
For going on death’s net, whom none resist.

PERICLES.
Antiochus, I thank thee, who hath taught
My frail mortality to know itself,
And by those fearful objects to prepare
This body, like to them, to what I must;
For death remember’d should be like a mirror,
Who tells us life’s but breath, to trust it error.
I’ll make my will then, and, as sick men do
Who know the world, see heaven, but, feeling woe,
Gripe not at earthly joys as erst they did;
So I bequeath a happy peace to you
And all good men, as every prince should do;
My riches to the earth from whence they came;
[_To the daughter of Antiochus._] But my unspotted fire of love to you.
Thus ready for the way of life or death,
I wait the sharpest blow, Antiochus.

ANTIOCHUS.
Scorning advice, read the conclusion, then:
Which read and not expounded, ’tis decreed,
As these before thee thou thyself shalt bleed.

DAUGHTER.
Of all ’ssayed yet, mayst thou prove prosperous!
Of all ’ssayed yet, I wish thee happiness!

PERICLES
Like a bold champion, I assume the lists,
Nor ask advice of any other thought
But faithfulness and courage.

 [_He reads the riddle._]

     _I am no viper, yet I feed
     On mother’s flesh which did me breed.
     I sought a husband, in which labour
     I found that kindness in a father:
     He’s father, son, and husband mild;
     I mother, wife, and yet his child.
     How they may be, and yet in two,
     As you will live resolve it you._


Sharp physic is the last: but, O you powers
That give heaven countless eyes to view men’s acts,
Why cloud they not their sights perpetually,
If this be true, which makes me pale to read it?
Fair glass of light, I loved you, and could still,

 [_Takes hold of the hand of the Princess._]

Were not this glorious casket stored with ill:
But I must tell you, now my thoughts revolt;
For he’s no man on whom perfections wait
That, knowing sin within, will touch the gate,
You are a fair viol, and your sense the strings;
Who, finger’d to make man his lawful music,
Would draw heaven down, and all the gods to hearken;
But being play’d upon before your time,
Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime.
Good sooth, I care not for you.

ANTIOCHUS.
Prince Pericles, touch not, upon thy life,
For that’s an article within our law,
As dangerous as the rest. Your time’s expired:
Either expound now, or receive your sentence.

PERICLES.
Great king,
Few love to hear the sins they love to act;
’Twould braid yourself too near for me to tell it.
Who has a book of all that monarchs do,
He’s more secure to keep it shut than shown:
For vice repeated is like the wandering wind,
Blows dust in others’ eyes, to spread itself;
And yet the end of all is bought thus dear,
The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear.
To stop the air would hurt them. The blind mole casts
Copp’d hills towards heaven, to tell the earth is throng’d
By man’s oppression; and the poor worm doth die for’t.
Kind are earth’s gods; in vice their law’s their will;
And if Jove stray, who dares say Jove doth ill?
It is enough you know; and it is fit,
What being more known grows worse, to smother it.
All love the womb that their first bred,
Then give my tongue like leave to love my head.

ANTIOCHUS.
[_Aside_] Heaven, that I had thy head! He has found the meaning:
But I will gloze with him. — Young prince of Tyre.
Though by the tenour of our strict edict,
Your exposition misinterpreting,
We might proceed to cancel of your days;
Yet hope, succeeding from so fair a tree
As your fair self, doth tune us otherwise:
Forty days longer we do respite you;
If by which time our secret be undone,
This mercy shows we’ll joy in such a son:
And until then your entertain shall be
As doth befit our honour and your worth.

 [_Exeunt all but Pericles._]

PERICLES.
How courtesy would seem to cover sin,
When what is done is like an hypocrite,
The which is good in nothing but in sight!
If it be true that I interpret false,
Then were it certain you were not so bad
As with foul incest to abuse your soul;
Where now you’re both a father and a son,
By your untimely claspings with your child,
Which pleasures fits a husband, not a father;
And she an eater of her mother’s flesh,
By the defiling of her parent’s bed;
And both like serpents are, who though they feed
On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed.
Antioch, farewell! for wisdom sees, those men
Blush not in actions blacker than the night,
Will ’schew no course to keep them from the light.
One sin, I know, another doth provoke;
Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke:
Poison and treason are the hands of sin,
Ay, and the targets, to put off the shame:
Then, lest my life be cropp’d to keep you clear,
By flight I’ll shun the danger which I fear.

 [_Exit._]

 Re-enter Antiochus.

ANTIOCHUS.
He hath found the meaning,
For which we mean to have his head.
He must not live to trumpet forth my infamy,
Nor tell the world Antiochus doth sin
In such a loathed manner;
And therefore instantly this prince must die;
For by his fall my honour must keep high.
Who attends us there?

 Enter Thaliard.

THALIARD.
Doth your highness call?

ANTIOCHUS.
Thaliard, you are of our chamber,
And our mind partakes her private actions
To your secrecy; and for your faithfulness
We will advance you. Thaliard,
Behold, here’s poison, and here’s gold;
We hate the prince of Tyre, and thou must kill him:
It fits thee not to ask the reason why,
Because we bid it. Say, is it done?

THALIARD.
My lord, ’tis done.

ANTIOCHUS.
Enough.

 Enter a Messenger.

Let your breath cool yourself, telling your haste.

MESSENGER.
My lord, Prince Pericles is fled.

 [_Exit._]

ANTIOCHUS.
As thou wilt live, fly after: and like an arrow shot
From a well-experienced archer hits the mark
His eye doth level at, so thou ne’er return
Unless thou say ‘Prince Pericles is dead.’

THALIARD.
My lord, if I can get him within my pistol’s length, I’ll make him sure
enough: so, farewell to your highness.

ANTIOCHUS.
Thaliard! adieu!

 [_Exit Thaliard._]

Till Pericles be dead,
My heart can lend no succour to my head.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE II. Tyre. A room in the palace.

 Enter Pericles with his Lords.

PERICLES.
[_To Lords without._] Let none disturb us. — Why should this change of
thoughts,
The sad companion, dull-eyed melancholy,
Be my so used a guest as not an hour
In the day’s glorious walk or peaceful night,
The tomb where grief should sleep, can breed me quiet?
Here pleasures court mine eyes, and mine eyes shun them,
And danger, which I fear’d, is at Antioch,
Whose arm seems far too short to hit me here:
Yet neither pleasure’s art can joy my spirits,
Nor yet the other’s distance comfort me.
Then it is thus: the passions of the mind,
That have their first conception by misdread,
Have after-nourishment and life by care;
And what was first but fear what might be done,
Grows elder now and cares it be not done.
And so with me: the great Antiochus,
’Gainst whom I am too little to contend,
Since he’s so great can make his will his act,
Will think me speaking, though I swear to silence;
Nor boots it me to say I honour him.
If he suspect I may dishonour him:
And what may make him blush in being known,
He’ll stop the course by which it might be known;
With hostile forces he’ll o’erspread the land,
And with the ostent of war will look so huge,
Amazement shall drive courage from the state;
Our men be vanquish’d ere they do resist,
And subjects punish’d that ne’er thought offence:
Which care of them, not pity of myself,
Who am no more but as the tops of trees,
Which fence the roots they grow by and defend them,
Makes both my body pine and soul to languish,
And punish that before that he would punish.

 Enter Helicanus with other Lords.

FIRST LORD.
Joy and all comfort in your sacred breast!

SECOND LORD.
And keep your mind, till you return to us,
Peaceful and comfortable!

HELICANUS.
Peace, peace, and give experience tongue.
They do abuse the king that flatter him:
For flattery is the bellows blows up sin;
The thing the which is flatter’d, but a spark,
To which that spark gives heat and stronger glowing:
Whereas reproof, obedient and in order,
Fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.
When Signior Sooth here does proclaim peace,
He flatters you, makes war upon your life.
Prince, pardon me, or strike me, if you please;
I cannot be much lower than my knees.

PERICLES.
All leave us else, but let your cares o’erlook
What shipping and what lading’s in our haven,
And then return to us.

 [_Exeunt Lords._]

Helicanus, thou
Hast moved us: what seest thou in our looks?

HELICANUS.
An angry brow, dread lord.

PERICLES.
If there be such a dart in princes’ frowns,
How durst thy tongue move anger to our face?

HELICANUS.
How dares the plants look up to heaven, from whence
They have their nourishment?

PERICLES.
Thou know’st I have power
To take thy life from thee.

HELICANUS. [_Kneeling._]
I have ground the axe myself;
Do but you strike the blow.

PERICLES.
Rise, prithee, rise.
Sit down: thou art no flatterer:
I thank thee for it; and heaven forbid
That kings should let their ears hear their faults hid!
Fit counsellor and servant for a prince,
Who by thy wisdom makest a prince thy servant,
What wouldst thou have me do?

HELICANUS.
To bear with patience
Such griefs as you yourself do lay upon yourself.

PERICLES.
Thou speak’st like a physician, Helicanus,
That ministers a potion unto me
That thou wouldst tremble to receive thyself.
Attend me, then: I went to Antioch,
Where, as thou know’st, against the face of death,
I sought the purchase of a glorious beauty,
From whence an issue I might propagate,
Are arms to princes, and bring joys to subjects.
Her face was to mine eye beyond all wonder;
The rest — hark in thine ear — as black as incest,
Which by my knowledge found, the sinful father
Seem’d not to strike, but smooth: but thou know’st this,
’Tis time to fear when tyrants seems to kiss.
Which fear so grew in me I hither fled,
Under the covering of a careful night,
Who seem’d my good protector; and, being here,
Bethought me what was past, what might succeed.
I knew him tyrannous; and tyrants’ fears
Decrease not, but grow faster than the years:
And should he doubt, as no doubt he doth,
That I should open to the listening air
How many worthy princes’ bloods were shed,
To keep his bed of blackness unlaid ope,
To lop that doubt, he’ll fill this land with arms,
And make pretence of wrong that I have done him;
When all, for mine, if I may call offence,
Must feel war’s blow, who spares not innocence:
Which love to all, of which thyself art one,
Who now reprovest me for it, —

HELICANUS.
Alas, sir!

PERICLES.
Drew sleep out of mine eyes, blood from my cheeks,
Musings into my mind, with thousand doubts
How I might stop this tempest ere it came;
And finding little comfort to relieve them,
I thought it princely charity to grieve them.

HELICANUS.
Well, my lord, since you have given me leave to speak,
Freely will I speak. Antiochus you fear,
And justly too, I think, you fear the tyrant,
Who either by public war or private treason
Will take away your life.
Therefore, my lord, go travel for a while,
Till that his rage and anger be forgot,
Or till the Destinies do cut his thread of life.
Your rule direct to any; if to me,
Day serves not light more faithful than I’ll be.

PERICLES.
I do not doubt thy faith;
But should he wrong my liberties in my absence?

HELCANUS.
We’ll mingle our bloods together in the earth,
From whence we had our being and our birth.

PERICLES.
Tyre, I now look from thee then, and to Tarsus
Intend my travel, where I’ll hear from thee;
And by whose letters I’ll dispose myself.
The care I had and have of subjects’ good
On thee I lay, whose wisdom’s strength can bear it.
I’ll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath:
Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both:
But in our orbs we’ll live so round and safe,
That time of both this truth shall ne’er convince,
Thou show’dst a subject’s shine, I a true prince.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE III. Tyre. An ante-chamber in the Palace.

 Enter Thaliard.

THALIARD.
So, this is Tyre, and this the court. Here must I kill King Pericles;
and if I do it not, I am sure to be hanged at home: ’tis dangerous. 
Well, I perceive he was a wise fellow, and had good discretion, that,
being bid to ask what he would of the king, desired he might know none
of his secrets: now do I see he had some reason for’t; for if a king
bid a man be a villain, he’s bound by the indenture of his oath to be
one. Husht, here come the lords of Tyre.

 Enter Helicanus and Escanes with other Lords of Tyre.

HELICANUS.
You shall not need, my fellow peers of Tyre,
Further to question me of your king’s departure:
His seal’d commission, left in trust with me,
Doth speak sufficiently he’s gone to travel.

THALIARD.
[_Aside._] How? the king gone?

HELICANUS.
If further yet you will be satisfied,
Why, as it were unlicensed of your loves,
He would depart, I’ll give some light unto you.
Being at Antioch —

THALIARD.
[_Aside._] What from Antioch?

HELICANUS.
Royal Antiochus — on what cause I know not
Took some displeasure at him; at least he judged so:
And doubting lest that he had err’d or sinn’d,
To show his sorrow, he’d correct himself;
So puts himself unto the shipman’s toil,
With whom each minute threatens life or death.

THALIARD.
[_Aside._] Well, I perceive
I shall not be hang’d now, although I would;
But since he’s gone, the king’s seas must please
He  ’scaped the land, to perish at the sea.
I’ll present myself.  Peace to the lords of Tyre!

HELICANUS.
Lord Thaliard from Antiochus is welcome.

THALIARD.
From him I come
With message unto princely Pericles;
But since my landing I have understood
Your lord has betook himself to unknown travels,
My message must return from whence it came.

HELICANUS.
We have no reason to desire it,
Commended to our master, not to us:
Yet, ere you shall depart, this we desire,
As friends to Antioch, we may feast in Tyre.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE IV. Tarsus. A room in the Governor’s house.

 Enter Cleon, the governor of Tarsus, with Dionyza and others.

CLEON.
My Dionyza, shall we rest us here,
And by relating tales of others’ griefs,
See if ’twill teach us to forget our own?

DIONYZA.
That were to blow at fire in hope to quench it;
For who digs hills because they do aspire
Throws down one mountain to cast up a higher.
O my distressed lord, even such our griefs are;
Here they’re but felt, and seen with mischief’s eyes,
But like to groves, being topp’d, they higher rise.

CLEON.
O Dionyza,
Who wanteth food, and will not say he wants it,
Or can conceal his hunger till he famish?
Our tongues and sorrows do sound deep
Our woes into the air; our eyes do weep,
Till tongues fetch breath that may proclaim them louder;
That, if heaven slumber while their creatures want,
They may awake their helps to comfort them.
I’ll then discourse our woes, felt several years,
And wanting breath to speak, help me with tears.

DIONYZA.
I’ll do my best, sir.

CLEON.
This Tarsus, o’er which I have the government,
A city on whom plenty held full hand,
For riches strew’d herself even in the streets;
Whose towers bore heads so high they kiss’d the clouds,
And strangers ne’er beheld but wonder’d at;
Whose men and dames so jetted and adorn’d,
Like one another’s glass to trim them by:
Their tables were stored full to glad the sight,
And not so much to feed on as delight;
All poverty was scorn’d, and pride so great,
The name of help grew odious to repeat.

DIONYZA.
O, ’tis too true.

CLEON.
But see what heaven can do!  By this our change,
These mouths, who but of late, earth, sea, and air,
Were all too little to content and please,
Although they gave their creatures in abundance,
As houses are defiled for want of use,
They are now starved for want of exercise:
Those palates who, not yet two summers younger,
Must have inventions to delight the taste,
Would now be glad of bread and beg for it:
Those mothers who, to nousle up their babes,
Thought nought too curious, are ready now
To eat those little darlings whom they loved.
So sharp are hunger’s teeth, that man and wife
Draw lots who first shall die to lengthen life:
Here stands a lord, and there a lady weeping;
Here many sink, yet those which see them fall
Have scarce strength left to give them burial.
Is not this true?

DIONYZA.
Our cheeks and hollow eyes do witness it.

CLEON.
O, let those cities that of plenty’s cup
And her prosperities so largely taste,
With their superflous riots, hear these tears!
The misery of Tarsus may be theirs.

 Enter a Lord.

LORD.
Where’s the lord governor?

CLEON.
Here.
Speak out thy sorrows which thou bring’st in haste,
For comfort is too far for us to expect.

LORD.
We have descried, upon our neighbouring shore,
A portly sail of ships make hitherward.

CLEON.
I thought as much.
One sorrow never comes but brings an heir,
That may succeed as his inheritor;
And so in ours: some neighbouring nation,
Taking advantage of our misery,
That stuff’d the hollow vessels with their power,
To beat us down, the which are down already;
And make a conquest of unhappy me,
Whereas no glory’s got to overcome.

LORD.
That’s the least fear; for, by the semblance
Of their white flags display’d, they bring us peace,
And come to us as favourers, not as foes.

CLEON.
Thou speak’st like him’s untutor’d to repeat:
Who makes the fairest show means most deceit.
But bring they what they will and what they can,
What need we fear?
The ground’s the lowest, and we are half way there.
Go tell their general we attend him here,
To know for what he comes, and whence he comes,
And what he craves.

LORD.
I go, my lord.

 [_Exit._]

CLEON.
Welcome is peace, if he on peace consist;
If wars, we are unable to resist.

 Enter Pericles with Attendants.

PERICLES.
Lord governor, for so we hear you are,
Let not our ships and number of our men
Be like a beacon fired to amaze your eyes.
We have heard your miseries as far as Tyre,
And seen the desolation of your streets:
Nor come we to add sorrow to your tears,
But to relieve them of their heavy load;
And these our ships, you happily may think
Are like the Trojan horse was stuff’d within
With bloody veins, expecting overthrow,
Are stored with corn to make your needy bread,
And give them life whom hunger starved half dead.

ALL.
The gods of Greece protect you!
And we’ll pray for you.

PERICLES.
Arise, I pray you, rise:
We do not look for reverence, but for love,
And harbourage for ourself, our ships and men.

CLEON.
The which when any shall not gratify,
Or pay you with unthankfulness in thought,
Be it our wives, our children, or ourselves,
The curse of heaven and men succeed their evils!
Till when, — the which I hope shall ne’er be seen, —
Your grace is welcome to our town and us.

PERICLES.
Which welcome we’ll accept; feast here awhile,
Until our stars that frown lend us a smile.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
Here have you seen a mighty king
His child, iwis, to incest bring;
A better prince and benign lord,
That will prove awful both in deed word.
Be quiet then as men should be,
Till he hath pass’d necessity.
I’ll show you those in troubles reign,
Losing a mite, a mountain gain.
The good in conversation,
To whom I give my benison,
Is still at Tarsus, where each man
Thinks all is writ he speken can;
And to remember what he does,
Build his statue to make him glorious:
But tidings to the contrary
Are brought your eyes; what need speak I?

 Dumb-show. Enter at one door Pericles talking with Cleon; all the
 train with them. Enter at another door a Gentleman with a letter to
 Pericles; Pericles shows the letter to Cleon; gives the Messenger a
 reward, and knights him.  Exit Pericles at one door, and Cleon at
 another.

Good Helicane, that stay’d at home.
Not to eat honey like a drone
From others’ labours; for though he strive
To killen bad, keep good alive;
And to fulfil his prince’ desire,
Sends word of all that haps in Tyre:
How Thaliard came full bent with sin
And had intent to murder him;
And that in Tarsus was not best
Longer for him to make his rest.
He, doing so, put forth to seas,
Where when men been, there’s seldom ease;
For now the wind begins to blow;
Thunder above and deeps below
Make such unquiet, that the ship
Should house him safe is wreck’d and split;
And he, good prince, having all lost,
By waves from coast to coast is tost:
All perishen of man, of pelf,
Ne aught escapen but himself;
Till Fortune, tired with doing bad,
Threw him ashore, to give him glad:
And here he comes. What shall be next,
Pardon old Gower, — this longs the text.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE I. Pentapolis. An open place by the seaside.

 Enter Pericles, wet.

PERICLES.
Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven!
Wind, rain, and thunder, remember earthly man
Is but a substance that must yield to you;
And I, as fits my nature, do obey you:
Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks,
Wash’d me from shore to shore, and left me breath
Nothing to think on but ensuing death:
Let it suffice the greatness of your powers
To have bereft a prince of all his fortunes;
And having thrown him  from your watery grave,
Here to have death in peace is all he’ll crave.

 Enter three Fishermen.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
What, ho, Pilch!

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Ha, come and bring away the nets!

FIRST FISHERMAN.
What, Patch-breech, I say!

THIRD FISHERMAN.
What say you, master?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Look how thou stirrest now! Come away, or I’ll fetch thee with a
wanion.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
Faith, master, I am thinking of the poor men that were cast away before
us even now.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Alas, poor souls, it grieved my heart to hear what pitiful cries they
made to us to help them, when, well-a-day, we could scarce help
ourselves.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
Nay, master, said not I as much when I saw the porpus how he bounced
and tumbled? They say they’re half fish, half flesh: a plague on them,
they ne’er come but I look to be washed. Master, I marvel how the
fishes live in the sea.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones: I can
compare our rich misers to nothing so fitly as to a whale; a’ plays and
tumbles, driving the poor fry before him, and at last devours them all
at a mouthful. Such whales have I heard on o’ the land, who never leave
gaping till they swallowed the whole parish, church, steeple, bells and
all.

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] A pretty moral.

THIRD FISHERMAN.
But, master, if I had been the sexton, I would have been that day in
the belfry.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Why, man?

THIRD FISHERMAN.
Because he should have swallowed me too; and when I had been in his
belly, I would have kept such a jangling of the bells, that he should
never have left, till he cast bells, steeple, church and parish up
again.  But if the good King Simonides were of my mind, —

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] Simonides?

THIRD FISHERMAN.
We would purge the land of these drones, that rob the bee of her honey.

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] How from the finny subject of the sea
These fishers tell the infirmities of men;
And from their watery empire recollect
All that may men approve or men detect!
Peace be at your labour, honest fishermen.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Honest! good fellow, what’s that? If it be a day fits you, search out
of the calendar, and nobody look after it.

PERICLES.
May see the sea hath cast upon your coast.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
What a drunken knave was the sea to cast thee in our way!

PERICLES.
A man whom both the waters and the wind,
In that vast tennis-court, have made the ball
For them to play upon, entreats you pity him;
He asks of you, that never used to beg.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
No, friend, cannot you beg? Here’s them in our country of Greece gets
more with begging than we can do with working.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Canst thou catch any fishes, then?

PERICLES.
I never practised it.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Nay, then thou wilt starve, sure; for here’s nothing to be got
now-a-days, unless thou canst fish for’t.

PERICLES.
What I have been I have forgot to know;
But what I am, want teaches me to think on:
A man throng’d up with cold: my veins are chill,
And have no more of life than may suffice
To give my tongue that heat to ask your help;
Which if you shall refuse, when I am dead,
For that I am a man, pray see me buried.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Die quoth-a?  Now gods forbid’t, and I have a gown here; come, put it
on; keep thee warm. Now, afore me, a handsome fellow!  Come, thou shalt
go home, and we’ll have flesh for holidays, fish for fasting-days, and
moreo’er puddings and flap-jacks, and thou shalt be welcome.

PERICLES.
I thank you, sir.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Hark you, my friend; you said you could not beg?

PERICLES.
I did but crave.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
But crave!  Then I’ll turn craver too, and so I shall ’scape whipping.

PERICLES.
Why, are your beggars whipped, then?

SECOND FISHERMAN.
O, not all, my friend, not all; for if all your beggars were whipped, I
would wish no better office than to be beadle. But, master, I’ll go
draw up the net.

 [_Exit with Third Fisherman._]

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] How well this honest mirth becomes their labour!

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Hark you, sir, do you know where ye are?

PERICLES.
Not well.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, I’ll tell you: this is called Pentapolis, and our King, the good
Simonides.

PERICLES.
The good Simonides, do you call him?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Ay, sir; and he deserves so to be called for his peaceable reign and
good government.

PERICLES.
He is a happy king, since he gains from his subjects the name of good
government. How far is his court distant from this shore?

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Marry sir, half a day’s journey: and I’ll tell you, he hath a fair
daughter, and tomorrow is her birth-day; and there are princes and
knights come from all parts of the world to joust and tourney for her
love.

PERICLES.
Were my fortunes equal to my desires, I could wish to make one there.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
O, sir, things must be as they may; and what a man cannot get, he may
lawfully deal for — his wife’s soul.

 Re-enter Second and Third Fishermen, drawing up a net.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Help, master, help! here’s a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man’s
right in the law; ’twill hardly come out.  Ha! bots on’t, ’tis come at
last, and ’tis turned to a rusty armour.

PERICLES.
An armour, friends! I pray you, let me see it.
Thanks, Fortune, yet, that, after all my crosses,
Thou givest me somewhat to repair myself,
And though it was mine own, part of my heritage,
Which my dead father did bequeath to me,
With this strict charge, even as he left his life.
‘Keep it, my Pericles; it hath been a shield
’Twixt me and death;’ — and pointed to this brace;—
‘For that it saved me, keep it; in like necessity —
The which the gods protect thee from! — may defend thee.’
It kept where I kept, I so dearly loved it;
Till the rough seas, that spares not any man,
Took it in rage, though calm’d have given’t again:
I thank thee for’t: my shipwreck now’s no ill,
Since I have here my father gave in his will.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
What mean you sir?

PERICLES.
To beg of you, kind friends, this coat of worth,
For it was sometime target to a king;
I know it by this mark. He loved me dearly,
And for his sake I wish the having of it;
And that you’d guide me to your sovereign court,
Where with it I may appear a gentleman;
And if that ever my low fortune’s better,
I’ll pay your bounties; till then rest your debtor.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, wilt thou tourney for the lady?

PERICLES.
I’ll show the virtue I have borne in arms.

FIRST FISHERMAN.
Why, d’ye take it, and the gods give thee good on’t!

SECOND FISHERMAN.
Ay, but hark you, my friend; ’twas we that made up this garment through
the rough seams of the waters: there are certain condolements, certain
vails.  I hope, sir, if you thrive, you’ll remember from whence you had
them.

PERICLES.
Believe’t I will.
By your furtherance I am clothed in steel;
And spite of all the rapture of the sea,
This jewel holds his building on my arm:
Unto thy value I will mount myself
Upon a courser, whose delightful steps
Shall make the gazer joy to see him tread.
Only, my friend, I yet am unprovided
Of a pair of bases.

SECOND FISHERMAN.
We’ll sure provide: thou shalt have my best gown to make thee a pair;
and I’ll bring thee to the court myself.

PERICLES.
Then honour be but a goal to my will,
This day I’ll rise, or else add ill to ill.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE II. The same. A public way, or platform leading to the lists. A
pavilion by the side of it for the reception of the King, Princess,
Lords, etc.

 Enter Simonides, Thaisa, Lords and Attendants.

SIMONIDES.
Are the knights ready to begin the triumph?

FIRST LORD.
They are, my liege;
And stay your coming to present themselves.

SIMONIDES.
Return them, we are ready; and our daughter,
In honour of whose birth these triumphs are,
Sits here, like beauty’s child, whom Nature gat
For men to see, and seeing wonder at.

 [_Exit a Lord._]

THAISA.
It pleaseth you, my royal father, to express
My commendations great, whose merit’s less.

SIMONIDES.
It’s fit it should be so; for princes are
A model, which heaven makes like to itself:
As jewels lose their glory if neglected,
So princes their renowns if not respected.
’Tis now your honour, daughter, to entertain
The labour of each knight in his device.

THAISA.
Which, to preserve mine honour, I’ll perform.

 The first Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

SIMONIDES.
Who is the first that doth prefer himself?

THAISA.
A knight of Sparta, my renowned father;
And the device he bears upon his shield
Is a black Ethiope reaching at the sun:
The word, _Lux tua vita mihi._

SIMONIDES.
He loves you well that holds his life of you.

 The second Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

Who is the second that presents himself?

THAISA.
A prince of Macedon, my royal father;
And the device he bears upon his shield
Is an arm’d knight that’s conquer’d by a lady;
The motto thus, in Spanish, _Piu por dulzura que por forza._

 The third Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

SIMONIDES.
And what’s the third?

THAISA.
The third of Antioch;
And his device, a wreath of chivalry;
The word, _Me pompae provexit apex._

 The fourth Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

SIMONIDES.
What is the fourth?

THAISA.
A burning torch that’s turned upside down;
The word, _Quod me alit me extinguit._

SIMONIDES.
Which shows that beauty hath his power and will,
Which can as well inflame as it can kill.

 The fifth Knight passes by, and his Squire presents his shield to
 Thaisa.

THAISA.
The fifth, an hand environed with clouds,
Holding out gold that’s by the touchstone tried;
The motto thus, _Sic spectanda fides._

 The sixth Knight, Pericles, passes in rusty armour with bases, and
 unaccompanied. He presents his device directly to Thaisa.

SIMONIDES.
And what’s the sixth and last, the which the knight himself
With such a graceful courtesy deliver’d?

THAISA.
He seems to be a stranger; but his present is
A wither’d branch, that’s only green at top;
The motto, _In hac spe vivo._

SIMONIDES.
A pretty moral;
From the dejected state wherein he is,
He hopes by you his fortunes yet may flourish.

FIRST LORD.
He had need mean better than his outward show
Can any way speak in his just commend;
For by his rusty outside he appears
To have practised more the whipstock than the lance.

SECOND LORD.
He well may be a stranger, for he comes
To an honour’d triumph strangely furnished.

THIRD LORD.
And on set purpose let his armour rust
Until this day, to scour it in the dust.

SIMONIDES.
Opinion’s but a fool, that makes us scan
The outward habit by the inward man.
But stay, the knights are coming.
We will withdraw into the gallery.

 [_Exeunt. Great shouts within, and all cry_ ‘The mean Knight!’]



SCENE III. The same. A hall of state: a banquet prepared.

 Enter Simonides, Thaisa, Lords, Attendants and Knights, from tilting.

SIMONIDES.
Knights,
To say you’re welcome were superfluous.
To place upon the volume of your deeds,
As in a title-page, your worth in arms,
Were more than you expect, or more than’s fit,
Since every worth in show commends itself.
Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast:
You are princes and my guests.

THAISA.
But you, my knight and guest;
To whom this wreath of victory I give,
And crown you king of this day’s happiness.

PERICLES.
’Tis more by fortune, lady, than by merit.

SIMONIDES.
Call it by what you will, the day is yours;
And here, I hope, is none that envies it.
In framing an artist, art hath thus decreed,
To make some good, but others to exceed;
And you are her labour’d scholar. Come queen of the feast, —
For, daughter, so you are, — here take your place:
Marshal the rest, as they deserve their grace.

KNIGHTS.
We are honour’d much by good Simonides.

SIMONIDES.
Your presence glads our days; honour we love;
For who hates honour hates the gods above.

MARSHALL.
Sir, yonder is your place.

PERICLES.
Some other is more fit.

FIRST KNIGHT.
Contend not, sir; for we are gentlemen
Have neither in our hearts nor outward eyes
Envied the great, nor shall the low despise.

PERICLES.
You are right courteous knights.

SIMONIDES.
Sit, sir, sit.
By Jove, I wonder, that is king of thoughts,
These cates resist me, he but thought upon.

THAISA.
By Juno, that is queen of marriage,
All viands that I eat do seem unsavoury,
Wishing him my meat. Sure, he’s a gallant gentleman.

SIMONIDES.
He’s but a country gentleman;
Has done no more than other knights have done;
Has broken a staff or so; so let it pass.

THAISA.
To me he seems like diamond to glass.

PERICLES.
Yon king’s to me like to my father’s picture,
Which tells me in that glory once he was;
Had princes sit, like stars, about his throne,
And he the sun, for them to reverence;
None that beheld him, but, like lesser lights,
Did vail their crowns to his supremacy:
Where now his son’s like a glow-worm in the night,
The which hath fire in darkness, none in light:
Whereby I see that time’s the king of men,
He’s both their parent, and he is their grave,
And gives them what he will, not what they crave.

SIMONIDES.
What, are you merry, knights?

KNIGHTS.
Who can be other in this royal presence?

SIMONIDES.
Here, with a cup that’s stored unto the brim, —
As you do love, fill to your mistress’ lips, —
We drink this health to you.

KNIGHTS.
We thank your grace.

SIMONIDES.
Yet pause awhile. Yon knight doth sit too melancholy,
As if the entertainment in our court
Had not a show might countervail his worth.
Note it not you, Thaisa?

THAISA.
What is’t to me, my father?

SIMONIDES.
O attend, my daughter:
Princes in this should live like god’s above,
Who freely give to everyone that comes to honour them:
And princes not doing so are like to gnats,
Which make a sound, but kill’d are wonder’d at.
Therefore to make his entrance more sweet,
Here, say we drink this standing-bowl of wine to him.

THAISA.
Alas, my father, it befits not me
Unto a stranger knight to be so bold:
He may my proffer take for an offence,
Since men take women’s gifts for impudence.

SIMONIDES.
How? Do as I bid you, or you’ll move me else.

THAISA.
[_Aside._] Now, by the gods, he could not please me better.

SIMONIDES.
And furthermore tell him, we desire to know of him,
Of whence he is, his name and parentage.

THAISA.
The king my father, sir, has drunk to you.

PERICLES.
I thank him.

THAISA.
Wishing it so much blood unto your life.

PERICLES.
I thank both him and you, and pledge him freely.

THAISA.
And further he desires to know of you,
Of whence you are, your name and parentage.

PERICLES.
A gentleman of Tyre; my name, Pericles;
My education been in arts and arms;
Who, looking for adventures in the world,
Was by the rough seas reft of ships and men,
And after shipwreck driven upon this shore.

THAISA.
He thanks your grace; names himself Pericles,
A gentleman of Tyre,
Who only by misfortune of the seas
Bereft of ships and men, cast on this shore.

SIMONIDES.
Now, by the gods, I pity his misfortune,
And will awake him from his melancholy.
Come, gentlemen, we sit too long on trifles,
And waste the time, which looks for other revels.
Even in your armours, as you are address’d,
Will well become a soldier’s dance.
I will not have excuse, with saying this,
‘Loud music is too harsh for ladies’ heads’
Since they love men in arms as well as beds.

 [_The Knights dance._]

So, this was well ask’d, ’twas so well perform’d.
Come, sir; here is a lady which wants breathing too:
And I have heard you knights of Tyre
Are excellent in making ladies trip;
And that their measures are as excellent.

PERICLES.
In those that practise them they are, my lord.

SIMONIDES.
O, that’s as much as you would be denied
Of your fair courtesy.

 [_The Knights and Ladies dance._]

Unclasp, unclasp:
Thanks gentlemen, to all; all have done well.
[_To Pericles._] But you the best. Pages and lights to conduct
These knights unto their several lodgings.
[_To Pericles._] Yours, sir, we have given order to be next our own.

PERICLES.
I am at your grace’s pleasure.

SIMONIDES.
Princes, it is too late to talk of love;
And that’s the mark I know you level at:
Therefore each one betake him to his rest;
Tomorrow all for speeding do their best.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE IV. Tyre. A room in the Governor’s house.

 Enter Helicanus and Escanes.

HELICANUS.
No, Escanes, know this of me,
Antiochus from incest lived not free:
For which the most high gods not minding longer
To withhold the vengeance that they had in store
Due to this heinous capital offence,
Even in the height and pride of all his glory,
When he was seated in a chariot
Of an inestimable value, and his daughter with him,
A fire from heaven came and shrivell’d up
Their bodies, even to loathing, for they so stunk,
That all those eyes adored them ere their fall
Scorn now their hand should give them burial.

ESCANES.
’Twas very strange

HELICANUS.
And yet but justice; for though this king were great;
His greatness was no guard to bar heaven’s shaft,
But sin had his reward.

ESCANES.
’Tis very true.

 Enter two or three Lords.

FIRST LORD.
See, not a man in private conference
Or council has respect with him but he.

SECOND LORD.
It shall no longer grieve without reproof.

THIRD LORD.
And cursed be he that will not second it.

FIRST LORD.
Follow me, then.  Lord Helicane, a word.

HELICANUS.
With me? and welcome: happy day, my lords.

FIRST LORD.
Know that our griefs are risen to the top,
And now at length they overflow their banks.

HELICANUS.
Your griefs! for what? Wrong not your prince you love.

FIRST LORD.
Wrong not yourself, then, noble Helicane;
But if the prince do live, let us salute him.
Or know what ground’s made happy by his breath.
If in the world he live, we’ll seek him out;
If in his grave he rest, we’ll find him there.
We’ll be resolved he lives to govern us,
Or dead, give’s cause to mourn his funeral,
And leave us to our free election.

SECOND LORD.
Whose death’s indeed the strongest in our censure:
And knowing this kingdom is without a head, —
Like goodly buildings left without a roof
Soon fall to ruin, — your noble self,
That best know how to rule and how to reign,
We thus submit unto, — our sovereign.

ALL.
Live, noble Helicane!

HELICANUS.
For honour’s cause, forbear your suffrages:
If that you love Prince Pericles, forbear.
Take I your wish, I leap into the seas,
Where’s hourly trouble for a minute’s ease.
A twelvemonth longer, let me entreat you
To forbear the absence of your king;
If in which time expired, he not return,
I shall with aged patience bear your yoke.
But if I cannot win you to this love,
Go search like nobles, like noble subjects,
And in your search spend your adventurous worth;
Whom if you find, and win unto return,
You shall like diamonds sit about his crown.

FIRST LORD.
To wisdom he’s a fool that will not yield;
And since Lord Helicane enjoineth us,
We with our travels will endeavour us.

HELICANUS.
Then you love us, we you, and we’ll clasp hands:
When peers thus knit, a kingdom ever stands.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE V. Pentapolis. A room in the palace.

 Enter Simonides reading a letter at one door; the Knights meet him.

FIRST KNIGHT.
Good morrow to the good Simonides.

SIMONIDES.
Knights, from my daughter this I let you know,
That for this twelvemonth she’ll not undertake
A married life.
Her reason to herself is only known,
Which yet from her by no means can I get.

SECOND KNIGHT.
May we not get access to her, my lord?

SIMONIDES.
Faith, by no means; she hath so strictly tied
Her to her chamber, that ’tis impossible.
One twelve moons more she’ll wear Diana’s livery;
This by the eye of Cynthia hath she vow’d,
And on her virgin honour will not break it.

THIRD KNIGHT.
Loath to bid farewell, we take our leaves.

 [_Exeunt Knights._]

SIMONIDES.
So, they are well dispatch’d; now to my daughter’s letter:
She tells me here, she’ll wed the stranger knight,
Or never more to view nor day nor light.
’Tis well, mistress; your choice agrees with mine;
I like that well: nay, how absolute she’s in’t,
Not minding whether I dislike or no!
Well, I do commend her choice;
And will no longer have it be delay’d.
Soft! here he comes: I must dissemble it.

 Enter Pericles.

PERICLES.
All fortune to the good Simonides!

SIMONIDES.
To you as much. Sir, I am beholding to you
For your sweet music this last night: I do
Protest my ears were never better fed
With such delightful pleasing harmony.

PERICLES.
It is your grace’s pleasure to commend;
Not my desert.

SIMONIDES.
Sir, you are music’s master.

PERICLES.
The worst of all her scholars, my good lord.

SIMONIDES.
Let me ask you one thing:
What do you think of my daughter, sir?

PERICLES.
A most virtuous princess.

SIMONIDES.
And she is fair too, is she not?

PERICLES.
As a fair day in summer, wondrous fair.

SIMONIDES.
Sir, my daughter thinks very well of you;
Ay, so well, that you must be her master,
And she will be your scholar: therefore look to it.

PERICLES.
I am unworthy for her schoolmaster.

SIMONIDES.
She thinks not so; peruse this writing else.

PERICLES.
[_Aside._] What’s here? A letter, that she loves the knight of Tyre!
’Tis the king’s subtlety to have my life.
O, seek not to entrap me, gracious lord,
A stranger and distressed gentleman,
That never aim’d so high to love your daughter,
But bent all offices to honour her.

SIMONIDES.
Thou hast bewitch’d my daughter,
And thou art a villain.

PERICLES.
By the gods, I have not:
Never did thought of mine levy offence;
Nor never did my actions yet commence
A deed might gain her love or your displeasure.

SIMONIDES.
Traitor, thou liest.

PERICLES.
Traitor?

SIMONIDES.
Ay, traitor.

PERICLES.
Even in his throat — unless it be the king —
That calls me traitor, I return the lie.

SIMONIDES.
[_Aside._] Now, by the gods, I do applaud his courage.

PERICLES.
My actions are  as noble as my thoughts,
That never relish’d of a base descent.
I came unto your court for honour’s cause,
And not to be a rebel to her state;
And he that otherwise accounts of me,
This sword shall prove he’s honour’s enemy.

SIMONIDES.
No?
Here comes my daughter, she can witness it.

 Enter Thaisa.

PERICLES.
Then, as you are as virtuous as fair,
Resolve your angry father, if my tongue
Did e’er solicit, or my hand subscribe
To any syllable that made love to you.

THAISA.
Why, sir, say if you had,
Who takes offence at that would make me glad?

SIMONIDES.
Yea, mistress, are you so peremptory?
[_Aside._] I am glad on’t with all my heart. —
I’ll tame you; I’ll bring you in subjection.
Will you, not having my consent,
Bestow your love and your affections
Upon a stranger? [_Aside._] Who, for aught I know
May be, nor can I think the contrary,
As great in blood as I myself. —
Therefore hear you, mistress; either frame
Your will to mine, and you, sir, hear you,
Either be ruled by me, or I will make you —
Man and wife. Nay, come, your hands,
And lips must seal it too: and being join’d,
I’ll thus your hopes destroy; and for further grief,
God give you joy! What, are you both pleased?

THAISA.
Yes, if you love me, sir.

PERICLES.
Even as my life my blood that fosters it.

SIMONIDES.
What, are you both agreed?

BOTH.
Yes, if’t please your majesty.

SIMONIDES.
It pleaseth me so well, that I will see you wed;
And then with what haste you can, get you to bed.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT III

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
Now sleep yslaked hath the rouse;
No din but snores about the house,
Made louder by the o’erfed breast
Of this most pompous marriage feast.
The cat, with eyne of burning coal,
Now couches fore the mouse’s hole;
And crickets sing at the oven’s mouth,
Are the blither for their drouth.
Hymen hath brought the bride to bed,
Where, by the loss of maidenhead,
A babe is moulded.  Be attent,
And time that is so briefly spent
With your fine fancies quaintly eche:
What’s dumb in show I’ll plain with speech.

 Dumb-show. Enter, Pericles and Simonides at one door with Attendants;
 a Messenger meets them, kneels, and gives Pericles a letter: Pericles
 shows it Simonides; the Lords kneel to him. Then enter Thaisa with
 child, with Lychorida, a nurse. The King shows her the letter; she
 rejoices:  she and Pericles take leave of her father, and depart, with
 Lychorida and their Attendants. Then exeunt Simonides and the rest.

By many a dern and painful perch
Of Pericles the careful search,
By the four opposing coigns
Which the world together joins,
Is made with all due diligence
That horse and sail and high expense
Can stead the quest.  At last from Tyre,
Fame answering the most strange enquire,
To th’ court of King Simonides
Are letters brought, the tenour these:
Antiochus and his daughter dead;
The men of Tyrus on the head
Of Helicanus would set on
The crown of Tyre, but he will none:
The mutiny he there hastes t’oppress;
Says to ’em, if King Pericles
Come not home in twice six moons,
He, obedient to their dooms,
Will take the crown.  The sum of this,
Brought hither to Pentapolis
Y-ravished the regions round,
And everyone with claps can sound,
‘Our heir apparent is a king!
Who dreamt, who thought of such a thing?’
Brief, he must hence depart to Tyre:
His queen with child makes her desire —
Which who shall cross? — along to go:
Omit we all their dole and woe:
Lychorida, her nurse, she takes,
And so to sea.  Their vessel shakes
On Neptune’s billow; half the flood
Hath their keel cut: but fortune’s mood
Varies again; the grisled north
Disgorges such a tempest forth,
That, as a duck for life that dives,
So up and down the poor ship drives:
The lady shrieks, and well-a-near
Does fall in travail with her fear:
And what ensues in this fell storm
Shall for itself itself perform.
I nill relate, action may
Conveniently the rest convey;
Which might not what by me is told.
In your imagination hold
This stage the ship, upon whose deck
The sea-tost Pericles appears to speak.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE I.

 Enter Pericles, on shipboard.

PERICLES.
Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges,
Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou that hast
Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,
Having call’d them from the deep! O, still
Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench
Thy nimble, sulphurous flashes! O, how, Lychorida,
How does my queen? Thou stormest venomously;
Wilt thou spit all thyself?  The seaman’s whistle
Is as a whisper in the ears of death,
Unheard.  Lychorida! - Lucina, O!
Divinest patroness, and midwife gentle
To those that cry by night, convey thy deity
Aboard our dancing boat; make swift the pangs
Of my queen’s travails! Now, Lychorida!

 Enter Lychorida with an infant.

LYCHORIDA.
Here is a thing too young for such a place,
Who, if it had conceit, would die, as I
Am like to do: take in your arms this piece
Of your dead queen.

PERICLES.
How? how, Lychorida?

LYCHORIDA.
Patience, good sir; do not assist the storm.
Here’s all that is left living of your queen,
A little daughter: for the sake of it,
Be manly, and take comfort.

PERICLES.
O you gods!
Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,
And snatch them straight away? We here below
Recall not what we give, and therein may
Vie honour with you.

LYCHORIDA.
Patience, good sir.
Even for this charge.

PERICLES.
Now, mild may be thy life!
For a more blustrous birth had never babe:
Quiet and gentle thy conditions! for
Thou art the rudeliest welcome to this world
That ever was prince’s child.  Happy what follows!
Thou hast as chiding a nativity
As fire, air, water, earth, and heaven can make,
To herald thee from the womb.
Even at the first thy loss is more than can
Thy portage quit, with all thou canst find here,
Now, the good gods throw their best eyes upon’t!

 Enter two Sailors

FIRST SAILOR.
What courage, sir?  God save you!

PERICLES.
Courage enough: I do not fear the flaw;
It hath done to me the worst.  Yet, for the love
Of this poor infant, this fresh new sea-farer,
I would it would be quiet.

FIRST SAILOR.
Slack the bolins there!  Thou wilt not, wilt thou?  Blow, and split
thyself.

SECOND SAILOR.
But sea-room, and the brine and cloudy billow kiss the moon, I care
not.

FIRST SAILOR.
Sir, your queen must overboard: the sea works high, the wind is loud
and will not lie till the ship be cleared of the dead.

PERICLES.
That’s your superstition.

FIRST SAILOR.
Pardon us, sir; with us at sea it has been still observed; and we are
strong in custom.  Therefore briefly yield her; for she must overboard
straight.

PERICLES.
As you think meet.  Most wretched queen!

LYCHORIDA.
Here she lies, sir.

PERICLES.
A terrible childbed hast thou had, my dear;
No light, no fire: th’unfriendly elements
Forgot thee utterly; nor have I time
To give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straight
Must cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze;
Where, for a monument upon thy bones,
And e’er-remaining lamps, the belching whale
And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse,
Lying with simple shells.  O Lychorida.
Bid Nestor bring me spices, ink and paper,
My casket and my jewels; and bid Nicander
Bring me the satin coffer: lay the babe
Upon the pillow: hie thee, whiles I say
A priestly farewell to her: suddenly, woman.

 [_Exit Lychorida._]

SECOND SAILOR.
Sir, we have a chest beneath the hatches, caulked and bitumed ready.

PERICLES.
I thank thee.  Mariner, say what coast is this?

SECOND SAILOR.
We are near Tarsus.

PERICLES.
Thither, gentle mariner,
Alter thy course for Tyre.  When, canst thou reach it?

SECOND SAILOR.
By break of day, if the wind cease.

PERICLES.
O, make for Tarsus!
There will I visit Cleon, for the babe
Cannot hold out to Tyrus. There I’ll leave it
At careful nursing. Go thy ways, good mariner:
I’ll bring the body presently.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE II. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.

 Enter Cerimon, with a Servant, and some Persons who have been
 shipwrecked.

CERIMON.
Philemon, ho!

 Enter Philemon.

PHILEMON.
Doth my lord call?

CERIMON.
Get fire and meat for these poor men:
’T has been a turbulent and stormy night.

SERVANT.
I have been in many; but such a night as this,
Till now, I ne’er endured.

CERIMON.
Your master will be dead ere you return;
There’s nothing can be minister’d to nature
That can recover him. [_To Philemon._] Give this to the ’pothecary,
And tell me how it works.

 [_Exeunt all but Cerimon._]

 Enter two Gentlemen.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Good morrow.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Good morrow to your lordship.

CERIMON.
Gentlemen, why do you stir so early?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Sir, our lodgings, standing bleak upon the sea,
Shook as the earth did quake;
The very principals did seem to rend,
And all to topple: pure surprise and fear
Made me to quit the house.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
That is the cause we trouble you so early;
’Tis not our husbandry.

CERIMON.
O, you say well.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
But I much marvel that your lordship, having
Rich tire about you, should at these early hours
Shake off the golden slumber of repose.
’Tis most strange,
Nature should be so conversant with pain.
Being thereto not compell’d.

CERIMON.
I hold it ever,
Virtue and cunning were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches: careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend;
But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god. ’Tis known, I ever
Have studied physic, through which secret art,
By turning o’er authorities, I have,
Together with my practice, made familiar
To me and to my aid the blest infusions
That dwell in vegetives, in metals, stones;
And I can speak of the disturbances
That nature works, and of her cures; which doth give me
A more content in course of true delight
Than to be thirsty after tottering honour,
Or tie my pleasure up in silken bags,
To please the fool and death.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Your  honour has through Ephesus pour’d forth
Your charity, and hundreds call themselves
Your creatures, who by you have been restored:
And not your knowledge, your personal pain, but even
Your purse, still open, hath built Lord Cerimon
Such strong renown as time shall never—

 Enter two or three Servants with a chest.

FIRST SERVANT.
So, lift there.

CERIMON.
What’s that?

FIRST SERVANT.
Sir, even now
Did the sea toss upon our shore this chest:
’Tis of some wreck.

CERIMON.
Set’t down, let’s look upon’t.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
’Tis like a coffin, sir.

CERIMON.
Whate’er it be,
’Tis  wondrous  heavy. Wrench it open straight:
If the sea’s stomach be o’ercharged with gold,
’Tis a good constraint of fortune it belches upon us.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
’Tis so, my lord.

CERIMON.
How close ’tis caulk’d and bitumed!
Did the sea cast it up?

FIRST SERVANT.
I never saw so huge a billow, sir,
As toss’d it upon shore.

CERIMON.
Wrench it open;
Soft! it smells most sweetly in my sense.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
A delicate odour.

CERIMON.
As ever hit my nostril. So up with it.
O you most potent gods! what’s here? a corpse!

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Most strange!

CERIMON.
Shrouded in cloth of state; balm’d and entreasured
With full bags of spices! A passport too!
Apollo, perfect me in the characters!

 [_Reads from a scroll._]

     _Here I give to understand,
     If e’er this coffin drives a-land,
     I, King Pericles, have lost
     This queen, worth all our mundane cost.
     Who finds her, give her burying;
     She was the daughter of a king:
     Besides this treasure for a fee,
     The gods requite his charity._
If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart
That even cracks for woe!  This chanced tonight.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Most likely, sir.

CERIMON.
Nay, certainly tonight;
For look how fresh she looks! They were too rough
That threw her in the sea. Make a fire within
Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet.

 [_Exit a Servant._]

Death may usurp on nature many hours,
And yet the fire of life kindle again
The o’erpress’d spirits. I heard of an Egyptian
That had nine hours lain dead,
Who was by good appliance recovered.

 Re-enter a Servant with napkins and fire.

Well said, well said; the fire and cloths.
The rough and woeful music that we have,
Cause it to sound, beseech you
The viol once more: how thou stirr’st, thou block!
The music there! — I pray you, give her air.
Gentlemen, this queen will live.
Nature awakes; a warmth breathes out of her.
She hath not been entranced above five hours.
See how she ’gins to blow into life’s flower again!

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
The heavens, through you, increase our wonder
And sets up your fame for ever.

CERIMON.
She is alive; behold, her eyelids,
Cases to those heavenly jewels which Pericles hath lost,
Begin to part their fringes of bright gold;
The diamonds of a most praised water doth appear,
To make the world twice rich. Live, and make us weep
To hear your fate, fair creature, rare as you seem to be.

 [_She moves._]

THAISA.
O dear Diana,
Where am I? Where’s my lord? What world is this?

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Is not this strange?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Most rare.

CERIMON.
Hush, my gentle neighbours!
Lend me your hands; to the next chamber bear her.
Get linen: now this matter must be look’d to,
For her relapse is mortal.  Come, come;
And Aesculapius guide us!

 [_Exeunt, carrying her away._]



SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.

 Enter Pericles, Cleon, Dionyza and Lychorida with Marina in her arms.

PERICLES.
Most honour’d Cleon, I must needs be gone;
My twelve months are expired, and Tyrus stands
In a litigious peace.  You and your lady,
Take from my heart all thankfulness!  The gods
Make up the rest upon you!

CLEON.
Your shafts of fortune, though they hurt you mortally,
Yet glance full wanderingly on us.

DIONYZA.
O, your sweet queen!
That the strict fates had pleased you had brought her hither,
To have bless’d mine eyes with her!

PERICLES.
We cannot but obey
The powers above us. Could I rage and roar
As doth the sea she lies in, yet the end
Must be as ’tis. My gentle babe Marina,
Whom, for she was born at sea, I have named so,
Here I charge your charity withal,
Leaving her the infant of your care;
Beseeching you to give her princely training,
That she may be manner’d as she is born.

CLEON.
Fear not, my lord, but think
Your grace, that fed my country with your corn,
For which the people’s prayers still fall upon you,
Must in your child be thought on.  If neglection
Should therein make me vile, the common body,
By you relieved, would force me to my duty:
But if to that my nature need a spur,
The gods revenge it upon me and mine,
To the end of generation!

PERICLES.
I believe you;
Your honour and your goodness teach me to’t,
Without your vows. Till she be married, madam,
By bright Diana, whom we honour, all
Unscissored shall this hair of mine remain,
Though I show ill in’t.  So I take my leave.
Good madam, make me blessed in your care
In bringing up my child.

DIONYZA.
I have one myself,
Who shall not be more dear to my respect
Than yours, my lord.

PERICLES.
Madam, my thanks and prayers.

CLEON.
We’ll bring your grace e’en to the edge o’the shore,
Then give you up to the mask’d Neptune and
The gentlest winds of heaven.

PERICLES.
I will embrace your offer. Come, dearest madam.
O, no tears, Lychorida, no tears.
Look to your little mistress, on whose grace
You may depend hereafter. Come, my lord.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE IV. Ephesus. A room in Cerimon’s house.

 Enter Cerimon and Thaisa.

CERIMON.
Madam, this letter, and some certain jewels,
Lay with you in your coffer, which are
At your command.  Know you the character?

THAISA.
It is my lord’s.
That I was shipp’d at sea, I well remember,
Even on my groaning time; but whether there
Deliver’d, by the holy gods,
I cannot rightly say.  But since King Pericles,
My wedded lord, I ne’er shall see again,
A vestal livery will I take me to,
And never more have joy.

CERIMON.
Madam, if this you purpose as ye speak,
Diana’s temple is not distant far,
Where you may abide till your date expire.
Moreover, if you please, a niece of mine
Shall there attend you.

THAISA.
My recompense is thanks, that’s all;
Yet my good will is great, though the gift small.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT IV

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
Imagine Pericles arrived at Tyre,
Welcomed and settled to his own desire.
His woeful queen we leave at Ephesus,
Unto Diana there a votaress.
Now to Marina bend your mind,
Whom our fast-growing scene must find
At Tarsus, and by Cleon train’d
In music’s letters; who hath gain’d
Of education all the grace,
Which makes her both the heart and place
Of general wonder. But, alack,
That monster envy, oft the wrack
Of earned praise, Marina’s life
Seeks to take off by treason’s knife,
And in this kind our Cleon hath
One daughter, and a full grown wench
Even ripe for marriage-rite; this maid
Hight Philoten: and it is said
For certain in our story, she
Would ever with Marina be.
Be’t when she weaved the sleided silk
With fingers long, small, white as milk;
Or when she would with sharp needle wound,
The cambric, which she made more sound
By hurting it; or when to th’ lute
She sung, and made the night-bird mute
That still records with moan; or when
She would with rich and constant pen
Vail to her mistress Dian; still
This Philoten contends in skill
With absolute Marina: so
The dove of Paphos might with the crow
Vie feathers white.  Marina gets
All praises, which are paid as debts,
And not as given. This so darks
In Philoten all graceful marks,
That Cleon’s wife, with envy rare,
A present murderer does prepare
For good Marina, that her daughter
Might stand peerless by this slaughter.
The sooner her vile thoughts to stead,
Lychorida, our nurse, is dead:
And cursed Dionyza hath
The pregnant instrument of wrath
Prest for this blow. The unborn event
I do commend to your content:
Only I carry winged time
Post on the lame feet of my rhyme;
Which never could I so convey,
Unless your thoughts went on my way.
Dionyza does appear,
With Leonine, a murderer.

 [_Exit._]



Scene I. Tarsus. An open place near the seashore.

 Enter Dionyza with Leonine.

DIONYZA.
Thy  oath  remember;  thou hast sworn to do’t:
’Tis but a blow, which never shall be known.
Thou canst not do a thing in the world so soon,
To yield thee so much profit.  Let not conscience,
Which is but cold, inflaming love i’ thy bosom,
Inflame too nicely; nor let pity, which
Even women have cast off, melt thee, but be
A soldier to thy purpose.

LEONINE.
I will do’t; but yet she is a goodly creature.

DIONYZA.
The fitter, then, the gods should have her. Here she comes weeping for
her only mistress’ death.  Thou art resolved?

LEONINE.
I am resolved.

 Enter Marina with a basket of flowers.

MARINA.
No, I will rob Tellus of her weed
To strew thy green with flowers: the yellows, blues,
The purple violets, and marigolds,
Shall as a carpet hang upon thy grave,
While summer days do last. Ay me! poor maid,
Born in a tempest, when my mother died,
This world to me is like a lasting storm,
Whirring me from my friends.

DIONYZA.
How now, Marina! why do you keep alone?
How chance my daughter is not with you?
Do not consume your blood with sorrowing;
Have you a nurse of me? Lord, how your favour’s
Changed with this unprofitable woe!
Come, give me your flowers, ere the sea mar it.
Walk with Leonine; the air is quick there,
And it pierces and sharpens the stomach.
Come, Leonine, take her by the arm, walk with her.

MARINA.
No, I pray you;
I’ll not bereave you of your servant.

DIONYZA.
Come, come;
I love the king your father, and yourself,
With more than foreign heart. We every day
Expect him here: when he shall come and find
Our paragon to all reports thus blasted,
He will repent the breadth of his great voyage;
Blame both my lord and me, that we have taken
No care to your best courses. Go, I pray you,
Walk, and be cheerful once again; reserve
That excellent complexion, which did steal
The eyes of young and old. Care not for me;
I can go home alone.

MARINA.
Well, I will go;
But yet I have no desire to it.

DIONYZA.
Come, come, I know ’tis good for you.
Walk half an hour, Leonine, at the least:
Remember what I have said.

LEONINE.
I warrant you, madam.

DIONYZA.
I’ll leave you, my sweet lady, for a while:
Pray, walk softly, do not heat your blood:
What! I must have a care of you.

MARINA.
My thanks, sweet madam.

 [_Exit Dionyza._]

Is this wind westerly that blows?

LEONINE.
South-west.

MARINA.
When I was born the wind was north.

LEONINE.
Was’t so?

MARINA.
My father, as nurse said, did never fear,
But cried ‘Good seamen!’ to the sailors,
Galling his kingly hands, haling ropes;
And clasping to the mast, endured a sea
That almost burst the deck.

LEONINE.
When was this?

MARINA.
When I was born:
Never was waves nor wind more violent;
And from the ladder tackle washes off
A canvas-climber. ‘Ha!’ says one, ‘wolt out?’
And with a dropping industry they skip
From stem to stern: the boatswain whistles, and
The master calls and trebles their confusion.

LEONINE.
Come, say your prayers.

MARINA.
What mean you?

LEONINE.
If you require a little space for prayer,
I grant it: pray; but be not tedious,
For the gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn
To do my work with haste.

MARINA.
Why will you kill me?

LEONINE.
To satisfy my lady.

MARINA.
Why would she have me kill’d now?
As I can remember, by my troth,
I never did her hurt in all my life:
I never spake bad word, nor did ill turn
To any living creature: believe me, la,
I never kill’d a mouse, nor hurt a fly:
I trod upon a worm against my will,
But I wept for it.  How have I offended,
Wherein my death might yield her any profit,
Or my life imply her any danger?

LEONINE.
My commission
Is not to reason of the deed, but do it.

MARINA.
You will not do’t for all the world, I hope.
You are well favour’d, and your looks foreshow
You have a gentle heart.  I saw you lately,
When you caught hurt in parting two that fought:
Good sooth, it show’d well in you: do so now:
Your lady seeks my life; come you between,
And save poor me, the weaker.

LEONINE.
I am sworn,
And will dispatch.

 [_He seizes her._]

 Enter Pirates.

FIRST PIRATE.
Hold, villain!

 [_Leonine runs away._]

SECOND PIRATE.
A prize! a prize!

THIRD PIRATE.
Half part, mates, half part,
Come, let’s have her aboard suddenly.

 [_Exeunt Pirates with Marina._]

 Re-enter Leonine.

LEONINE.
These roguing thieves serve the great pirate Valdes;
And they have seized Marina. Let her go:
There’s no hope she will return. I’ll swear she’s dead
And thrown into the sea. But I’ll see further:
Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her,
Not carry her aboard.  If she remain,
Whom they have ravish’d must by me be slain.

 [_Exit._]



Scene II. Mytilene. A room in a brothel.

 Enter Pandar, Bawd and  Boult.

PANDAR.
Boult!

BOULT.
Sir?

PANDAR.
Search the market narrowly; Mytilene is full of gallants. We lost too
much money this mart by being too wenchless.

BAWD.
We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and
they can do no more than they can do; and they with continual action
are even as good as rotten.

PANDAR.
Therefore let’s have fresh ones, whate’er we pay for them. If there be
not a conscience to be used in every trade, we shall never prosper.

BAWD.
Thou sayest true: ’tis not our bringing up of poor bastards, — as, I
think, I have brought up some eleven —

BOULT.
Ay, to eleven; and brought them down again. But shall I search the
market?

BAWD.
What else, man?  The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to
pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.

PANDAR.
Thou sayest true; they’re too unwholesome, o’ conscience. The poor
Transylvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.

BOULT.
Ay, she quickly pooped him; she made him roast-meat for worms. But I’ll
go search the market.

 [_Exit._]

PANDAR.
Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live
quietly, and so give over.

BAWD.
Why to give over, I pray you? Is it a shame to get when we are old?

PANDAR.
O, our credit comes not in like the commodity, nor the commodity wages
not with the danger: therefore, if in our youths we could pick up some
pretty estate, ’twere not amiss to keep our door hatched.  Besides, the
sore terms we stand upon with the gods will be strong with us for
giving over.

BAWD.
Come, others sorts offend as well as we.

PANDAR.
As well as we! ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither is our
profession any trade; it’s no calling.  But here comes Boult.

 Re-enter Boult, with the Pirates and Marina.

BOULT
[_To Pirates._] Come your ways. My masters, you say she’s a virgin?

FIRST PIRATE.
O sir, we doubt it not.

BOULT.
Master, I have gone through for this piece, you see: if you like her,
so; if not, I have lost my earnest.

BAWD.
Boult, has she any qualities?

BOULT.
She has a good face, speaks well and has excellent good clothes:
there’s no farther necessity of qualities can make her be refused.

BAWD.
What is her price, Boult?

BOULT.
I cannot be baited one doit of a thousand pieces.

PANDAR.
Well, follow me, my masters, you shall have your money presently. Wife,
take her in; instruct her what she has to do, that she may not be raw
in her entertainment.

 [_Exeunt Pandar and Pirates._]

BAWD.
Boult, take you the marks of her, the colour of her hair, complexion,
height, her age, with warrant of her virginity; and cry ‘He that will
give most shall have her first.’ Such a maidenhead were no cheap thing,
if men were as they have been. Get this done as I command you.

BOULT.
Performance shall follow.

 [_Exit._]

MARINA.
Alack that Leonine was so slack, so slow!
He should have struck, not spoke; or that these pirates,
Not enough barbarous, had not o’erboard thrown me
For to seek my mother!

BAWD.
Why lament you, pretty one?

MARINA.
That I am pretty.

BAWD.
Come, the gods have done their part in you.

MARINA.
I accuse them not.

BAWD.
You are light into my hands, where you are like to live.

MARINA.
The more my fault
To scape his hands where I was like to die.

BAWD.
Ay, and you shall live in pleasure.

MARINA.
No.

BAWD.
Yes, indeed shall you, and taste gentlemen of all fashions: you shall
fare well; you shall have the difference of all complexions. What! do
you stop your ears?

MARINA.
Are you a woman?

BAWD.
What would you have me be, an I be not a woman?

MARINA.
An honest woman, or not a woman.

BAWD.
Marry, whip the gosling: I think I shall have something to do with you.
Come, you’re a young foolish sapling, and must be bowed as I would have
you.

MARINA.
The gods defend me!

BAWD.
If it please the gods to defend you by men, then men must comfort you,
men must feed you, men stir you up. Boult’s returned.

 Re-enter Boult.

Now, sir, hast thou cried her through the market?

BOULT.
I have cried her almost to the number of her hairs; I have drawn her
picture with my voice.

BAWD.
And I prithee tell me, how dost thou find the inclination of the
people, especially of the younger sort?

BOULT.
Faith, they listened to me as they would have hearkened to their
father’s testament.  There was a Spaniard’s mouth so watered, that he
went to bed to her very description.

BAWD.
We shall have him here tomorrow with his best ruff on.

BOULT.
Tonight, tonight. But, mistress, do you know the French knight that
cowers i’ the hams?

BAWD.
Who, Monsieur Veroles?

BOULT.
Ay, he: he offered to cut a caper at the proclamation; but he made a
groan at it, and swore he would see her tomorrow.

BAWD.
Well, well, as for him, he brought his disease hither: here he does but
repair it. I know he will come in our shadow, to scatter his crowns in
the sun.

BOULT.
Well, if we had of every nation a traveller, we should lodge them with
this sign.

[_To Marina._] Pray you, come hither awhile. You have fortunes coming
upon you. Mark me: you must seem to do that fearfully which you commit
willingly, despise profit where you have most gain. To weep that you
live as ye do makes pity in your lovers: seldom but that pity begets
you a good opinion, and that opinion a mere profit.

MARINA.
I understand you not.

BOULT.
O, take her home, mistress, take her home: these blushes of hers must
be quenched with some present practice.

BAWD.
Thou sayest true, i’faith so they must; for your bride goes to that
with shame which is her way to go with warrant.

BOULT.
Faith, some do and some do not. But, mistress, if I have bargained for
the joint, —

BAWD.
Thou mayst cut a morsel off the spit.

BOULT.
I may so.

BAWD. Who should deny it? Come young one, I like the manner of your
garments well.

BOULT.
Ay, by my faith, they shall not be changed yet.

BAWD.
Boult, spend thou that in the town: report what a sojourner we have;
you’ll lose nothing by custom. When nature framed this piece, she meant
thee a good turn; therefore say what a paragon she is, and thou hast
the harvest out of thine own report.

BOULT.
I warrant you, mistress, thunder shall not so awake the beds of eels as
my giving out her beauty stirs up the lewdly inclined. I’ll bring home
some tonight.

BAWD.
Come your ways; follow me.

MARINA.
If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep,
Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.
Diana, aid my purpose!

BAWD.
What have we to do with Diana? Pray you, will you go with us?

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE III. Tarsus. A room in Cleon’s house.

 Enter Cleon and Dionyza.

DIONYZA.
Why, are you foolish?  Can it be undone?

CLEON.
O, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne’er look’d upon!

DIONYZA.
I think you’ll turn a child again.

CLEON.
Were I chief lord of all this spacious world,
I’d give it to undo the deed. A lady,
Much less in blood than virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o’ the earth
I’ the justice of compare!  O villain Leonine!
Whom thou hast poison’d too:
If thou hadst drunk to him, ’t had been a kindness
Becoming well thy face. What canst thou say
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?

DIONYZA.
That she is dead.  Nurses are not the fates,
To foster it, nor ever to preserve.
She died at night; I’ll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the pious innocent,
And for an honest attribute cry out
‘She died by foul play.’

CLEON.
O, go to.  Well, well,
Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
Do like this worst.

DIONYZA.
Be one of those that thinks
The petty wrens of Tarsus will fly hence,
And open this to Pericles. I do shame
To think of what a noble strain you are,
And of how coward a spirit.

CLEON.
To such proceeding
Whoever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
From honourable sources,

DIONYZA.
Be it so, then:
Yet none does know, but you, how she came dead,
Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
She did distain my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes: none would look on her,
But cast their gazes on Marina’s face;
Whilst ours was blurted at and held a malkin
Not worth the time of day.  It pierced me through;
And though you call my course unnatural,
You not your child well loving, yet I find
It greets me as an enterprise of kindness
Perform’d to your sole daughter.

CLEON.
Heavens forgive it!

DIONYZA.
And as for Pericles, what should he say?
We wept after her hearse, and yet we mourn.
Her monument is almost finish’d, and her epitaphs
In glittering golden characters express
A general praise to her, and care in us
At whose expense ’tis done.

CLEON.
Thou art like the harpy,
Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel’s face,
Seize with thine eagle’s talons.

DIONYZA.
You are like one that superstitiously
Doth swear to the gods that winter kills the flies:
But yet I know you’ll do as I advise.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE IV.

 Enter Gower, before the monument of Marina at Tarsus.

GOWER.
Thus time we waste, and long leagues make short;
Sail seas in cockles, have and wish but for’t;
Making, to take your imagination,
From bourn to bourn, region to region.
By you  being pardon’d, we commit no crime
To use one language in each several clime
Where our scenes seem to live. I do beseech you
To learn of me, who stand i’the gaps to teach you,
The stages of our story.  Pericles
Is now again thwarting the wayward seas
Attended on by many a lord and knight,
To see his daughter, all his life’s delight.
Old Helicanus goes along. Behind
Is left to govern, if you bear in mind,
Old Escanes, whom Helicanus late
Advanced in time to great and high estate.
Well-sailing ships and bounteous winds have brought
This king to Tarsus, — think his pilot thought;
So with his steerage shall your thoughts go on, —
To fetch his daughter home, who first is gone.
Like motes and shadows see them move awhile;
Your ears unto your eyes I’ll reconcile.

 Dumb-show. Enter Pericles at one door with all his train; Cleon and
 Dionyza at the other. Cleon shows Pericles the tomb; whereat Pericles
 makes lamentation, puts on sackcloth and in a mighty passion departs.
 Then exeunt Cleon and Dionyza.

See how belief may suffer by foul show;
This borrow’d passion stands for true old woe;
And Pericles, in sorrow all devour’d,
With sighs shot through; and biggest tears o’ershower’d,
Leaves Tarsus and again embarks. He swears
Never to wash his face, nor cut his hairs:
He puts on sackcloth, and to sea he bears
A tempest, which his mortal vessel tears,
And yet he rides it out. Now please you wit
The epitaph is for Marina writ
By wicked Dionyza.

 [_Reads the inscription on Marina’s monument._]

     _The fairest, sweet’st, and best lies here,
     Who wither’d in her spring of year.
     She was of Tyrus the King’s daughter,
     On whom foul death hath made this slaughter;
     Marina was she call’d; and at her birth,
     Thetis, being proud, swallow’d some part o’ the earth:
     Therefore the earth, fearing to be o’erflow’d,
     Hath Thetis’ birth-child on the heavens bestow’d:
     Wherefore she does, and swears she’ll never stint,
     Make raging battery upon shores of flint._

No visor does become black villany
So well as soft and tender flattery.
Let Pericles believe his daughter’s dead,
And bear his courses to be ordered
By Lady Fortune; while our scene must play
His daughter’s woe and heavy well-a-day
In her unholy service. Patience, then,
And think you now are all in Mytilene.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE V. Mytilene. A street before the brothel.

 Enter, from the brothel, two Gentlemen.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Did you ever hear the like?

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
No, nor never shall do in such a place as this, she being once gone.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
But to have divinity preached there! did you ever dream of such a
thing?

SECOND GENTLEMAN.
No, no. Come, I am for no more bawdy houses: shall’s go hear the
vestals sing?

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
I’ll do anything now that is virtuous; but I am out of the road of
rutting for ever.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE VI. The same. A room in the brothel.

 Enter Pandar, Bawd and Boult.

PANDAR.
Well, I had rather than twice the worth of her she had ne’er come here.

BAWD.
Fie, fie upon her! She’s able to freeze the god Priapus, and undo a
whole generation. We must either get her ravished, or be rid of her.
When she should do for clients her fitment, and do me the kindness of
our profession, she has me her quirks, her reasons, her master reasons,
her prayers, her knees; that she would make a puritan of the devil, if
he should cheapen a kiss of her.

BOULT.
Faith, I must ravish her, or she’ll disfurnish us of all our cavaliers,
and make our swearers priests.

PANDAR.
Now, the pox upon her green sickness for me!

BAWD.
Faith, there’s no way to be rid on’t but by the way to the pox.
Here comes the Lord Lysimachus disguised.

BOULT.
We should have both lord and lown, if the peevish baggage would but
give way to customers.

 Enter Lysimachus.

LYSIMACHUS.
How now!  How a dozen of virginities?

BAWD.
Now, the gods to bless your honour!

BOULT.
I am glad to see your honour in good health.

LYSIMACHUS.
You may so; ’tis the better for you that your resorters stand upon
sound legs. How now? Wholesome iniquity have you that a man may deal
withal, and defy the surgeon?

BAWD.
We have here one, sir, if she would — but there never came her like in
Mytilene.

LYSIMACHUS.
If she’d do the deed of darkness, thou wouldst say.

BAWD.
Your honour knows what ’tis to say well enough.

LYSIMACHUS.
Well, call forth, call forth.

BOULT.
For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you shall see a rose; and she
were a rose indeed, if she had but —

LYSIMACHUS.
What, prithee?

BOULT.
O, sir, I can be modest.

LYSIMACHUS.
That dignifies the renown of a bawd no less than it gives a good report
to a number to be chaste.

 [_Exit Boult._]

BAWD.
Here comes that which grows to the stalk; never plucked yet, I can
assure you.

 Re-enter Boult with Marina.

Is she not a fair creature?

LYSIMACHUS.
Faith, she would serve after a long voyage at sea. Well, there’s for
you:  leave us.

BAWD.
I beseech your honour, give me leave: a word, and I’ll have done
presently.

LYSIMACHUS.
I beseech you, do.

BAWD.
[_To Marina._] First, I would have you note, this is an honourable man.

MARINA.
I desire to find him so, that I may worthily note him.

BAWD.
Next, he’s the governor of this country, and a man whom I am bound to.

MARINA.
If he govern the country, you are bound to him indeed; but how
honourable he is in that, I know not.

BAWD. Pray you, without any more virginal fencing, will you use him
kindly? He will line your apron with gold.

MARINA.
What he will do graciously, I will thankfully receive.

LYSIMACHUS.
Ha’ you done?

BAWD.
My lord, she’s not paced yet: you must take some pains to work her to
your manage. Come, we will leave his honour and her together.  Go thy
ways.

 [_Exeunt Bawd, Pandar and Boult._]

LYSIMACHUS.
Now, pretty one, how long have you been at this trade?

MARINA.
What trade, sir?

LYSIMACHUS.
Why, I cannot name’t but I shall offend.

MARINA.
I cannot be offended with my trade. Please you to name it.

LYSIMACHUS.
How long have you been of this profession?

MARINA.
E’er since I can remember.

LYSIMACHUS. Did you go to’t so young? Were you a gamester at five or at
seven?

MARINA.
Earlier, too, sir, if now I be one.

LYSIMACHUS.
Why, the house you dwell in proclaims you to be a creature of sale.

MARINA.
Do you know this house to be a place of such resort, and will come
into’t? I hear say you are of honourable parts, and are the governor of
this place.

LYSIMACHUS.
Why, hath your principal made known unto you who I am?

MARINA.
Who is my principal?

LYSIMACHUS.
Why, your herb-woman;  she that sets seeds and roots of shame and
iniquity. O, you have heard something of my power, and so stand aloof
for more serious wooing. But I protest to thee, pretty one, my
authority shall not see thee, or else look friendly upon thee. Come,
bring me to some private place: come, come.

MARINA.
If you were born to honour, show it now;
If put upon you, make the judgement good
That thought you worthy of it.

LYSIMACHUS.
How’s  this?  how’s this? Some more; be sage.

MARINA.
For me,
That am a maid, though most ungentle Fortune
Have placed me in this sty, where, since I came,
Diseases have been sold dearer than physic,
O, that the gods
Would set me free from this unhallow’d place,
Though they did change me to the meanest bird
That flies i’ the purer air!

LYSIMACHUS.
I did not think
Thou couldst have spoke so well; ne’er dream’d thou couldst.
Had I brought hither a corrupted mind,
Thy speech had alter’d it. Hold, here’s gold for thee:
Persever in that clear way thou goest,
And the gods strengthen thee!

MARINA.
The good gods preserve you!

LYSIMACHUS.
For me, be you thoughten
That I came with no ill intent; for to me
The very doors and windows savour vilely.
Fare thee well. Thou art a piece of virtue, and
I doubt not but thy training hath been noble.
Hold, here’s more gold for thee.
A curse upon him, die he like a thief,
That robs thee of thy goodness! If thou dost
Hear from me, it shall be for thy good.

 Re-enter Boult.

BOULT.
I beseech your honour, one piece for me.

LYSIMACHUS.
Avaunt, thou damned door-keeper!
Your house but for this virgin that doth prop it,
Would sink and overwhelm you. Away!

 [_Exit._]

BOULT.
How’s this? We must take another course with you. If your peevish
chastity, which is not worth a breakfast in the cheapest country under
the cope, shall undo a whole household, let me be gelded like a
spaniel. Come your ways.

MARINA.
Whither would you have me?

BOULT.
I must have your maidenhead taken off, or the common hangman shall
execute it.  Come your ways.  We’ll have no more gentlemen driven away.
Come your ways, I say.

 Re-enter Bawd.

BAWD.
How now! what’s the matter?

BOULT.
Worse and worse, mistress; she has here spoken holy words to the Lord
Lysimachus.

BAWD.
O, abominable!

BOULT.
She makes our profession as it were to stink afore the face of the
gods.

BAWD.
Marry, hang her up for ever!

BOULT.
The nobleman would have dealt with her like a nobleman, and she sent
him away as cold as a snowball; saying his prayers too.

BAWD.
Boult, take her away; use her at thy pleasure: crack the glass of her
virginity, and make the rest malleable.

BOULT.
An if she were a thornier piece of ground than she is, she shall be
ploughed.

MARINA.
Hark, hark, you gods!

BAWD.
She conjures: away with her! Would she had never come within my doors!
Marry, hang you! She’s born to undo us. Will you not go the way of
womankind? Marry, come up, my dish of chastity with rosemary and bays!

 [_Exit._]

BOULT.
Come, mistress; come your way with me.

MARINA.
Whither wilt thou have me?

BOULT.
To take from you the jewel you hold so dear.

MARINA.
Prithee, tell me one thing first.

BOULT.
Come now, your one thing?

MARINA.
What canst thou wish thine enemy to be?

BOULT.
Why, I could wish him to be my master, or rather, my mistress.

MARINA.
Neither of these are so bad as thou art,
Since they do better thee in their command.
Thou hold’st a place, for which the pained’st fiend
Of hell would not in reputation change:
Thou art the damned doorkeeper to every
Coistrel that comes inquiring for his Tib.
To the choleric fisting of every rogue
Thy ear is liable, thy food is such
As hath been belch’d on by infected lungs.

BOULT.
What would you have me do? Go to the wars, would you? where a man may
serve seven years for the loss of a leg, and have not money enough in
the end to buy him a wooden one?

MARINA.
Do anything but this thou doest. Empty
Old receptacles, or common shores, of filth;
Serve by indenture to the common hangman:
Any of these ways are yet better than this;
For what thou professest, a baboon, could he speak,
Would own a name too dear. O, that the gods
Would safely deliver me from this place!
Here, here’s gold for thee.
If that thy master would gain by me,
Proclaim that I can sing, weave, sew, and dance,
With other virtues, which I’ll keep from boast;
And I will undertake all these to teach.
I doubt not but this populous city will
Yield many scholars.

BOULT.
But can you teach all this you speak of?

MARINA.
Prove that I cannot, take me home again,
And prostitute me to the basest groom
That doth frequent your house.

BOULT.
Well, I will see what I can do for thee: if I can place thee, I will.

MARINA.
But amongst honest women.

BOULT.
Faith, my acquaintance lies little amongst them. But since my master
and mistress have bought you, there’s no going but by their consent: 
therefore I will make them acquainted with your purpose, and I doubt
not but I shall find them tractable enough. Come, I’ll do for thee what
I can; come your ways.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT V

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
Marina thus the brothel ’scapes, and chances
Into an honest house, our story says.
She sings like one immortal, and she dances
As goddess-like to her admired lays;
Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her nee’le composes
Nature’s own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry,
That even her art sisters the natural roses;
Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied cherry:
That pupils lacks she none of noble race,
Who pour their bounty on her; and her gain
She gives the cursed bawd. Here we her place;
And to her father turn our thoughts again,
Where we left him, on the sea. We there him lost;
Whence, driven before the winds, he is arrived
Here where his daughter dwells; and on this coast
Suppose him now at anchor. The city strived
God Neptune’s annual feast to keep: from whence
Lysimachus our Tyrian ship espies,
His banners sable, trimm’d with rich expense;
And to him in his barge with fervour hies.
In your supposing once more put your sight
Of heavy Pericles; think this his bark:
Where what is done in action, more, if might,
Shall be discover’d; please you, sit and hark.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE I. On board Pericles’ ship, off Mytilene. A close pavilion on
deck, with a curtain before it; Pericles within it, reclined on a
couch.  A barge lying beside the Tyrian vessel.

 Enter two Sailors, one belonging to the Tyrian vessel, the other to
 the barge; to them Helicanus.

TYRIAN SAILOR.
[_To the Sailor of Mytilene._]
Where is lord Helicanus? He can resolve you.
O, here he is.
Sir, there’s a barge put off from Mytilene,
And in it is Lysimachus the governor,
Who craves to come aboard. What is your will?

HELICANUS.
That he have his. Call up some gentlemen.

TYRIAN SAILOR.
Ho, gentlemen! my lord calls.

 Enter two or three Gentlemen.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.
Doth your lordship call?

HELICANUS.
Gentlemen, there is some of worth would come aboard;
I pray ye, greet them fairly.

 [_The Gentlemen and the two Sailors descend and go on board the
 barge._]

 Enter, from thence, Lysimachus and Lords; with the Gentlemen and the
 two Sailors.

TYRIAN SAILOR.
Sir,
This is the man that can, in aught you would,
Resolve you.

LYSIMACHUS.
Hail, reverend sir! the gods preserve you!

HELICANUS.
And you, sir, to outlive the age I am,
And die as I would do.

LYSIMACHUS.
You wish me well.
Being on shore, honouring of Neptune’s triumphs,
Seeing this goodly vessel ride before us,
I made to it, to know of whence you are.

HELICANUS.
First, what is your place?

LYSIMACHUS.
I am the governor of this place you lie before.

HELICANUS.
Sir, our vessel is of Tyre, in it the king;
A man who for this three months hath not spoken
To anyone, nor taken sustenance
But to prorogue his grief.

LYSIMACHUS.
Upon what ground is his distemperature?

HELICANUS.
’Twould be too tedious to repeat;
But the main grief springs from the loss
Of a beloved daughter and a wife.

LYSIMACHUS.
May we not see him?

HELICANUS.
You may;
But bootless is your sight: he will not speak
To any.

LYSIMACHUS.
Yet let me obtain my wish.

HELICANUS.
Behold him.
[_Pericles discovered._]
This was a goodly person.
Till the disaster that, one mortal night,
Drove him to this.

LYSIMACHUS.
Sir king, all hail! The gods preserve you!
Hail, royal sir!

HELICANUS.
It is in vain; he will not speak to you.

FIRST LORD.
Sir, we have a maid in Mytilene, I durst wager,
Would win some words of him.

LYSIMACHUS.
’Tis well bethought.
She questionless with her sweet harmony
And other chosen attractions, would allure,
And make a battery through his deafen’d parts,
Which now are midway stopp’d:
She is all happy as the fairest of all,
And, with her fellow maids, is now upon
The leafy shelter that abuts against
The island’s side.

 [_Whispers a Lord who goes off in the barge of Lysimachus._]

HELICANUS.
Sure, all’s effectless; yet nothing we’ll omit
That bears recovery’s name. But, since your kindness
We have stretch’d thus far, let us beseech you
That for our gold we may provision have,
Wherein we are not destitute for want,
But weary for the staleness.

LYSIMACHUS.
O, sir, a courtesy
Which if we should deny, the most just gods
For every graff would send a caterpillar,
And so inflict our province. Yet once more
Let me entreat to know at large the cause
Of your king’s sorrow.

HELICANUS.
Sit, sir, I will recount it to you:
But, see, I am prevented.

 Re-enter from the barge, Lord with Marina and a young Lady.

LYSIMACHUS.
O, here is the lady that I sent for. Welcome, fair one!
Is’t not a goodly presence?

HELICANUS.
She’s a gallant lady.

LYSIMACHUS.
She’s such a one, that, were I well assured
Came of a gentle kind and noble stock,
I’d wish no better choice, and think me rarely wed.
Fair one, all goodness that consists in bounty
Expect even here, where is a kingly patient:
If that thy prosperous and artificial feat
Can draw him but to answer thee in aught,
Thy sacred physic shall receive such pay
As thy desires can wish.

MARINA.
Sir, I will use
My utmost skill in his recovery, provided
That none but I and my companion maid
Be suffer’d to come near him.

LYSIMACHUS.
Come, let us leave her,
And the gods make her prosperous!

 [_Marina sings._]

LYSIMACHUS.
Mark’d he your music?

MARINA.
No, nor look’d on us,

LYSIMACHUS.
See, she will speak to him.

MARINA.
Hail, sir! My lord, lend ear.

PERICLES.
Hum, ha!

MARINA.
I am a maid,
My lord, that ne’er before invited eyes,
But have been gazed on like a comet: she speaks,
My lord, that, may be, hath endured a grief
Might equal yours, if both were justly weigh’d.
Though wayward Fortune did malign my state,
My derivation was from ancestors
Who stood equivalent with mighty kings:
But time hath rooted out my parentage,
And to the world and awkward casualties
Bound me in servitude.
[_Aside._] I will desist;
But there is something glows upon my cheek,
And whispers in mine ear ‘Go not till he speak.’

PERICLES.
My fortunes — parentage — good parentage —
To equal mine! — was it not thus? what say you?

MARINA.
I said, my lord, if you did know my parentage.
You would not do me violence.

PERICLES.
I do think so. Pray you, turn your eyes upon me.
You are like something that — what country-woman?
Here of these shores?

MARINA.
No, nor of any shores:
Yet I was mortally brought forth, and am
No other than I appear.

PERICLES.
I am great with woe, and shall deliver weeping.
My dearest wife was like this maid, and such a one
My daughter might have been: my queen’s square brows;
Her stature to an inch; as wand-like straight;
As silver-voiced; her eyes as jewel-like
And cased as richly; in pace another Juno;
Who starves the ears she feeds, and makes them hungry,
The more she gives them speech. Where do you live?

MARINA.
Where I am but a stranger: from the deck
You may discern the place.

PERICLES.
Where were you bred?
And how achieved you these endowments, which
You make more rich to owe?

MARINA.
If I should tell my history, it would seem
Like lies disdain’d in the reporting.

PERICLES.
Prithee, speak:
Falseness cannot come from thee; for thou look’st
Modest as Justice, and thou seem’st a palace
For the crown’d Truth to dwell in: I will believe thee,
And make my senses credit thy relation
To points that seem impossible;  for thou look’st
Like one I loved indeed. What were thy friends?
Didst thou not say, when I did push thee back —
Which was when I perceived thee — that thou cam’st
From good descending?

MARINA.
So indeed I did.

PERICLES.
Report thy parentage.  I think thou said’st
Thou hadst been toss’d from wrong to injury,
And that thou thought’st thy griefs might equal mine,
If both were open’d.

MARINA.
Some such thing,
I said, and said no more but what my thoughts
Did warrant me was likely.

PERICLES.
Tell thy story;
If thine consider’d prove the thousand part
Of my endurance, thou art a man, and I
Have suffer’d like a girl: yet thou dost look
Like Patience gazing on kings’ graves, and smiling
Extremity out of act. What were thy friends?
How lost thou them? Thy name, my most kind virgin?
Recount, I do beseech thee: come, sit by me.

MARINA.
My name is Marina.

PERICLES.
O, I am mock’d,
And thou by some incensed god sent hither
To make the world to laugh at me.

MARINA.
Patience, good sir,
Or here I’ll cease.

PERICLES.
Nay, I’ll be patient.
Thou little know’st how thou dost startle me,
To call thyself Marina.

MARINA.
The name
Was given me by one that had some power,
My father, and a king.

PERICLES.
How! a king’s daughter?
And call’d Marina?

MARINA.
You said you would believe me;
But, not to be a troubler of your peace,
I will end here.

PERICLES.
But are you flesh and blood?
Have you a working pulse? and are no fairy?
Motion! Well; speak on. Where were you born?
And wherefore call’d Marina?

MARINA.
Call’d Marina
For I was born at sea.

PERICLES.
At sea! What mother?

MARINA.
My mother was the daughter of a king;
Who died the minute I was born,
As my good nurse Lychorida hath oft
Deliver’d weeping.

PERICLES.
O, stop there a little! [_Aside._] This is the rarest dream that e’er
dull sleep
Did mock sad fools withal: this cannot be:
My daughter, buried. Well, where were you bred?
I’ll hear you more, to the bottom of your story,
And never interrupt you.

MARINA.
You scorn: believe me, ’twere best I did give o’er.

PERICLES.
I will believe you by the syllable
Of what you shall deliver. Yet, give me leave:
How came you in these parts? Where were you bred?

MARINA.
The king my father did in Tarsus leave me;
Till cruel Cleon, with his wicked wife,
Did seek to murder me: and having woo’d
A villain to attempt it, who having drawn to do’t,
A crew of pirates came and rescued me;
Brought me to Mytilene.  But, good sir.
Whither will you have me?  Why do you weep? It may be,
You think me an impostor: no, good faith;
I am the daughter to King Pericles,
If good King Pericles be.

PERICLES.
Ho, Helicanus!

 Enter Helicanus and Lysimachus.

HELICANUS.
Calls my lord?

PERICLES.
Thou art a grave and noble counsellor,
Most wise in general: tell me, if thou canst,
What this maid is, or what is like to be,
That thus hath made me weep.

HELICANUS.
I know not,
But here is the regent, sir, of Mytilene
Speaks nobly of her.

LYSIMACHUS.
She would never tell
Her parentage; being demanded that,
She would sit still and weep.

PERICLES.
O Helicanus, strike me, honour’d sir;
Give me a gash, put me to present pain;
Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me
O’erbear the shores of my mortality,
And drown me with their sweetness.
[_To Marina_] O, come hither,
Thou that beget’st him that did thee beget;
Thou that wast born at sea, buried at Tarsus,
And found at sea again! O Helicanus,
Down on thy knees, thank the holy gods as loud
As thunder threatens us: this is Marina.
What was thy mother’s name? tell me but that,
For truth can never be confirm’d enough,
Though doubts did ever sleep.

MARINA.
First, sir, I pray, what is your title?

PERICLES.
I am Pericles of Tyre: but tell me now
My drown’d queen’s name, as in the rest you said
Thou hast been godlike perfect,
The heir of kingdoms and another life
To Pericles thy father.

MARINA.
Is it no more to be your daughter than
To say my mother’s name was Thaisa?
Thaisa was my mother, who did end
The minute I began.

PERICLES.
Now, blessing on thee! rise; thou art my child.
Give me fresh garments. Mine own, Helicanus;
She is not dead at Tarsus, as she should have been,
By savage Cleon: she shall tell thee all;
When thou shalt kneel, and justify in knowledge
She is thy very princess. Who is this?

HELICANUS.
Sir, ’tis the governor of Mytilene,
Who, hearing of your melancholy state,
Did come to see you.

PERICLES.
I embrace you.
Give me my robes. I am wild in my beholding.
O heavens bless my girl! But, hark, what music?
Tell Helicanus, my Marina, tell him
O’er, point by point, for yet he seems to doubt,
How sure you are my daughter. But, what music?

HELICANUS.
My lord, I hear none.

PERICLES.
None!
The music of the spheres! List, my Marina.

LYSIMACHUS.
It is not good to cross him; give him way.

PERICLES.
Rarest sounds! Do ye not hear?

LYSIMACHUS.
Music, my lord? I hear.

 [_Music._]

PERICLES.
Most heavenly music!
It nips me unto listening, and thick slumber
Hangs upon mine eyes: let me rest.

 [_Sleeps._]

LYSIMACHUS.
A pillow for his head:
So, leave him all. Well, my companion friends,
If this but answer to my just belief,
I’ll well remember you.

 [_Exeunt all but Pericles._]

 Diana appears to Pericles as in a vision.

DIANA.
My temple stands in Ephesus: hie thee thither,
And do upon mine altar sacrifice.
There, when my maiden priests are met together,
Before the people all,
Reveal how thou at sea didst lose thy wife:
To mourn thy crosses, with thy daughter’s, call
And give them repetition to the life.
Or perform my bidding, or thou livest in woe:
Do it, and happy; by my silver bow!
Awake and tell thy dream.

 [_Disappears._]

PERICLES.
Celestial Dian, goddess argentine,
I will obey thee.  Helicanus!

 Re-enter Helicanus, Lysimachus and Marina.

HELICANUS.
Sir?

PERICLES.
My purpose was for Tarsus, there to strike
The inhospitable Cleon; but I am
For other service first: toward Ephesus
Turn our blown sails; eftsoons I’ll tell thee why.
[_To Lysimachus._] Shall we refresh us, sir, upon your shore,
And give you gold for such provision
As our intents will need?

LYSIMACHUS.
Sir, with all my heart,
And when you come ashore I have another suit.

PERICLES.
You shall prevail, were it to woo my daughter;
For it seems you have been noble towards her.

LYSIMACHUS.
Sir, lend me your arm.

PERICLES.
Come, my Marina.

 [_Exeunt._]



SCENE II.

 Enter Gower before the temple of Diana at Ephesus.

GOWER.
Now our sands are almost run;
More a little, and then dumb.
This, my last boon, give me,
For such kindness must relieve me,
That you aptly will suppose
What pageantry, what feats, what shows,
What minstrelsy, and pretty din,
The regent made in Mytilene
To greet the king. So he thrived,
That he is promised to be wived
To fair Marina; but in no wise
Till he had done his sacrifice,
As Dian bade: whereto being bound,
The interim, pray you, all confound.
In feather’d briefness sails are fill’d,
And wishes fall out as they’re will’d.
At Ephesus, the temple see,
Our king and all his company.
That he can hither come so soon,
Is by your fancy’s thankful doom.

 [_Exit._]



SCENE III. The temple of Diana at Ephesus; Thaisa standing near the
altar, as high priestess; a number of Virgins on each side; Cerimon and
other inhabitants of Ephesus attending.

 Enter Pericles with his train; Lysimachus, Helicanus, Marina and a
 Lady.

PERICLES.
Hail, Dian! to perform thy just command,
I here confess myself the King of Tyre;
Who, frighted from my country, did wed
At Pentapolis the fair Thaisa.
At sea in childbed died she, but brought forth
A maid child call’d Marina; whom, O goddess,
Wears yet thy silver livery. She at Tarsus
Was nursed with Cleon; who at fourteen years
He sought to murder: but her better stars
Brought her to Mytilene; ’gainst whose shore
Riding, her fortunes brought the maid aboard us,
Where by her own most clear remembrance, she
Made known herself my daughter.

THAISA.
Voice and favour!
You are, you are — O royal Pericles!

 [_Faints._]

PERICLES.
What means the nun? She dies! help, gentlemen!

CERIMON.
Noble sir,
If you have told Diana’s altar true,
This is your wife.

PERICLES.
Reverend appearer, no;
I threw her overboard with these very arms.

CERIMON.
Upon this coast, I warrant you.

PERICLES.
’Tis most certain.

CERIMON.
Look to the lady; O, she’s but o’er-joy’d.
Early in blustering morn this lady was
Thrown upon this shore. I oped the coffin,
Found there rich jewels; recover’d her, and placed her
Here in Diana’s temple.

PERICLES.
May we see them?

CERIMON.
Great sir, they shall be brought you to my house,
Whither I invite you. Look, Thaisa is
Recovered.

THAISA.
O, let me look!
If he be none of mine, my sanctity
Will to my sense bend no licentious ear,
But curb it, spite of seeing. O, my lord,
Are you not Pericles? Like him you spake,
Like him you are: did you not name a tempest,
A birth, and death?

PERICLES.
The voice of dead Thaisa!

THAISA.
That Thaisa am I, supposed dead
And drown’d.

PERICLES.
Immortal Dian!

THAISA.
Now I know you better,
When we with tears parted Pentapolis,
The king my father gave you such a ring.

 [_Shows a ring._]

PERICLES.
This, this: no more, you gods! your present kindness
Makes my past miseries sports: you shall do well,
That on the touching of her lips I may
Melt and no more be seen. O, come, be buried
A second time within these arms.

MARINA.
My heart
Leaps to be gone into my mother’s bosom.

 [_Kneels to Thaisa._]

PERICLES.
Look, who kneels here! Flesh of thy flesh, Thaisa;
Thy burden at the sea, and call’d Marina
For she was yielded there.

THAISA.
Blest, and mine own!

HELICANUS.
Hail, madam, and my queen!

THAISA.
I know you not.

PERICLES.
You have heard me say, when I did fly from Tyre,
I left behind an ancient substitute:
Can you remember what I call’d the man
I have named him oft.

THAISA.
’Twas Helicanus then.

PERICLES.
Still confirmation:
Embrace him, dear Thaisa; this is he.
Now do I long to hear how you were found:
How possibly preserved; and who to thank,
Besides the gods, for this great miracle.

THAISA.
Lord Cerimon, my lord; this man,
Through whom the gods have shown their power; that can
From first to last resolve you.

PERICLES.
Reverend sir,
The gods can have no mortal officer
More like a god than you. Will you deliver
How this dead queen relives?

CERIMON.
I will, my lord.
Beseech you, first go with me to my house,
Where shall be shown you all was found with her;
How she came placed here in the temple;
No needful thing omitted.

PERICLES.
Pure Dian, bless thee for thy vision! I
Will offer night-oblations to thee.  Thaisa,
This prince, the fair betrothed of your daughter,
Shall marry her at Pentapolis.
And now this ornament
Makes me look dismal will I clip to form;
And what this fourteen years no razor touch’d
To grace thy marriage-day, I’ll beautify.

THAISA.
Lord Cerimon hath letters of good credit, sir,
My father’s dead.

PERICLES.
Heavens make a star of him! Yet there, my queen,
We’ll celebrate their nuptials, and ourselves
Will in that kingdom spend our following days:
Our son and daughter shall in Tyrus reign.
Lord Cerimon, we do our longing stay
To hear the rest untold. Sir, lead’s the way.

 [_Exeunt._]

 Enter Gower.

GOWER.
In Antiochus and his daughter you have heard
Of monstrous lust the due and just reward:
In Pericles, his queen and daughter seen,
Although assail’d with Fortune fierce and keen,
Virtue preserved from fell destruction’s blast,
Led on by heaven, and crown’d with joy at last.
In Helicanus may you well descry
A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty:
In reverend Cerimon there well appears
The worth that learned charity aye wears:
For wicked Cleon and his wife, when fame
Had spread their cursed deed, the honour’d name
Of Pericles, to rage the city turn,
That him and his they in his palace burn.
The gods for murder seemed so content
To punish, although not done, but meant.
So on your patience evermore attending,
New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending.

 [_Exit._]



KING RICHARD THE SECOND

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  KING RICHARD THE SECOND
  JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster - uncle to the King
  EDMUND LANGLEY, Duke of York - uncle to the King
  HENRY, surnamed BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford, son of
    John of Gaunt, afterwards King Henry IV
  DUKE OF AUMERLE, son of the Duke of York
  THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk
  DUKE OF SURREY
  EARL OF SALISBURY
  EARL BERKELEY
  BUSHY - favourites of King Richard
  BAGOT -     "      "   "     "
  GREEN -     "      "   "     "
  EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND
  HENRY PERCY, surnamed HOTSPUR, his son
  LORD Ross                             LORD WILLOUGHBY
  LORD FITZWATER                        BISHOP OF CARLISLE
  ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER                  LORD MARSHAL
  SIR STEPHEN SCROOP                    SIR PIERCE OF EXTON
  CAPTAIN of a band of Welshmen         TWO GARDENERS

  QUEEN to King Richard
  DUCHESS OF YORK
  DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock,
    Duke of Gloucester
  LADY attending on the Queen

  Lords, Heralds, Officers, Soldiers, Keeper, Messenger,
    Groom, and other Attendants

SCENE: England and Wales

ACT I. SCENE I. London. The palace

Enter RICHARD, JOHN OF GAUNT, with other NOBLES and attendants

  KING RICHARD. Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,
    Hast thou, according to thy oath and band,
    Brought hither Henry Hereford, thy bold son,
    Here to make good the boist'rous late appeal,
    Which then our leisure would not let us hear,
    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
  GAUNT. I have, my liege.
  KING RICHARD. Tell me, moreover, hast thou sounded him
    If he appeal the Duke on ancient malice,
    Or worthily, as a good subject should,
    On some known ground of treachery in him?
  GAUNT. As near as I could sift him on that argument,
    On some apparent danger seen in him
    Aim'd at your Highness-no inveterate malice.
  KING RICHARD. Then call them to our presence: face to face
    And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear
    The accuser and the accused freely speak.
    High-stomach'd are they both and full of ire,
    In rage, deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

         Enter BOLINGBROKE and MOWBRAY

  BOLINGBROKE. Many years of happy days befall
    My gracious sovereign, my most loving liege!
  MOWBRAY. Each day still better other's happiness
    Until the heavens, envying earth's good hap,
    Add an immortal title to your crown!
  KING RICHARD. We thank you both; yet one but flatters us,
    As well appeareth by the cause you come;
    Namely, to appeal each other of high treason.
    Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object
    Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?
  BOLINGBROKE. First-heaven be the record to my speech!
    In the devotion of a subject's love,
    Tend'ring the precious safety of my prince,
    And free from other misbegotten hate,
    Come I appellant to this princely presence.
    Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
    And mark my greeting well; for what I speak
    My body shall make good upon this earth,
    Or my divine soul answer it in heaven-
    Thou art a traitor and a miscreant,
    Too good to be so, and too bad to live,
    Since the more fair and crystal is the sky,
    The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
    Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
    With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
    And wish-so please my sovereign-ere I move,
    What my tongue speaks, my right drawn sword may prove.
  MOWBRAY. Let not my cold words here accuse my zeal.
    'Tis not the trial of a woman's war,
    The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
    Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain;
    The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.
    Yet can I not of such tame patience boast
    As to be hush'd and nought at an to say.
    First, the fair reverence of your Highness curbs me
    From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
    Which else would post until it had return'd
    These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
    Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
    And let him be no kinsman to my liege,
    I do defy him, and I spit at him,
    Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;
    Which to maintain, I would allow him odds
    And meet him, were I tied to run afoot
    Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
    Or any other ground inhabitable
    Where ever Englishman durst set his foot.
    Meantime let this defend my loyalty-
    By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie
  BOLINGBROKE. Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
    Disclaiming here the kindred of the King;
    And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
    Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
    If guilty dread have left thee so much strength
    As to take up mine honour's pawn, then stoop.
    By that and all the rites of knighthood else
    Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
    What I have spoke or thou canst worst devise.
  MOWBRAY. I take it up; and by that sword I swear
    Which gently laid my knighthood on my shoulder
    I'll answer thee in any fair degree
    Or chivalrous design of knightly trial;
    And when I mount, alive may I not light
    If I be traitor or unjustly fight!
  KING RICHARD. What doth our cousin lay to Mowbray's charge?
    It must be great that can inherit us
    So much as of a thought of ill in him.
  BOLINGBROKE. Look what I speak, my life shall prove it true-
    That Mowbray hath receiv'd eight thousand nobles
    In name of lendings for your Highness' soldiers,
    The which he hath detain'd for lewd employments
    Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
    Besides, I say and will in battle prove-
    Or here, or elsewhere to the furthest verge
    That ever was survey'd by English eye-
    That all the treasons for these eighteen years
    Complotted and contrived in this land
    Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
    Further I say, and further will maintain
    Upon his bad life to make all this good,
    That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester's death,
    Suggest his soon-believing adversaries,
    And consequently, like a traitor coward,
    Sluic'd out his innocent soul through streams of blood;
    Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
    Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
    To me for justice and rough chastisement;
    And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
    This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.
  KING RICHARD. How high a pitch his resolution soars!
    Thomas of Norfolk, what say'st thou to this?
  MOWBRAY. O, let my sovereign turn away his face
    And bid his ears a little while be deaf,
    Till I have told this slander of his blood
    How God and good men hate so foul a liar.
  KING RICHARD. Mowbray, impartial are our eyes and cars.
    Were he my brother, nay, my kingdom's heir,
    As he is but my father's brother's son,
    Now by my sceptre's awe I make a vow,
    Such neighbour nearness to our sacred blood
    Should nothing privilege him nor partialize
    The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.
    He is our subject, Mowbray; so art thou:
    Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.
  MOWBRAY. Then, Bolingbroke, as low as to thy heart,
    Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.
    Three parts of that receipt I had for Calais
    Disburs'd I duly to his Highness' soldiers;
    The other part reserv'd I by consent,
    For that my sovereign liege was in my debt
    Upon remainder of a dear account
    Since last I went to France to fetch his queen:
    Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester's death-
    I slew him not, but to my own disgrace
    Neglected my sworn duty in that case.
    For you, my noble Lord of Lancaster,
    The honourable father to my foe,
    Once did I lay an ambush for your life,
    A trespass that doth vex my grieved soul;
    But ere I last receiv'd the sacrament
    I did confess it, and exactly begg'd
    Your Grace's pardon; and I hope I had it.
    This is my fault. As for the rest appeal'd,
    It issues from the rancour of a villain,
    A recreant and most degenerate traitor;
    Which in myself I boldly will defend,
    And interchangeably hurl down my gage
    Upon this overweening traitor's foot
    To prove myself a loyal gentleman
    Even in the best blood chamber'd in his bosom.
    In haste whereof, most heartily I pray
    Your Highness to assign our trial day.
  KING RICHARD. Wrath-kindled gentlemen, be rul'd by me;
    Let's purge this choler without letting blood-
    This we prescribe, though no physician;
    Deep malice makes too deep incision.
    Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed:
    Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.
    Good uncle, let this end where it begun;
    We'll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.
  GAUNT. To be a make-peace shall become my age.
    Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk's gage.
  KING RICHARD. And, Norfolk, throw down his.
  GAUNT. When, Harry, when?
    Obedience bids I should not bid again.
  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, throw down; we bid.
    There is no boot.
  MOWBRAY. Myself I throw, dread sovereign, at thy foot;
    My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:
    The one my duty owes; but my fair name,
    Despite of death, that lives upon my grave
    To dark dishonour's use thou shalt not have.
    I am disgrac'd, impeach'd, and baffl'd here;
    Pierc'd to the soul with slander's venom'd spear,
    The which no balm can cure but his heart-blood
    Which breath'd this poison.
  KING RICHARD. Rage must be withstood:
    Give me his gage-lions make leopards tame.
  MOWBRAY. Yea, but not change his spots. Take but my shame,
    And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,
    The purest treasure mortal times afford
    Is spotless reputation; that away,
    Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
    A jewel in a ten-times barr'd-up chest
    Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.
    Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
    Take honour from me, and my life is done:
    Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;
    In that I live, and for that will I die.
  KING RICHARD. Cousin, throw up your gage; do you begin.
  BOLINGBROKE. O, God defend my soul from such deep sin!
    Shall I seem crest-fallen in my father's sight?
    Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height
    Before this outdar'd dastard? Ere my tongue
    Shall wound my honour with such feeble wrong
    Or sound so base a parle, my teeth shall tear
    The slavish motive of recanting fear,
    And spit it bleeding in his high disgrace,
    Where shame doth harbour, even in Mowbray's face.
                                                      Exit GAUNT
  KING RICHARD. We were not born to sue, but to command;
    Which since we cannot do to make you friends,
    Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,
    At Coventry, upon Saint Lambert's day.
    There shall your swords and lances arbitrate
    The swelling difference of your settled hate;
    Since we can not atone you, we shall see
    Justice design the victor's chivalry.
    Lord Marshal, command our officers-at-arms
    Be ready to direct these home alarms.                 Exeunt

SCENE 2. London. The DUKE OF LANCASTER'S palace

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT with the DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER

  GAUNT. Alas, the part I had in Woodstock's blood
    Doth more solicit me than your exclaims
    To stir against the butchers of his life!
    But since correction lieth in those hands
    Which made the fault that we cannot correct,
    Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven;
    Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,
    Will rain hot vengeance on offenders' heads.
  DUCHESS. Finds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?
    Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?
    Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one,
    Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,
    Or seven fair branches springing from one root.
    Some of those seven are dried by nature's course,
    Some of those branches by the Destinies cut;
    But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,
    One vial full of Edward's sacred blood,
    One flourishing branch of his most royal root,
    Is crack'd, and all the precious liquor spilt;
    Is hack'd down, and his summer leaves all faded,
    By envy's hand and murder's bloody axe.
    Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,
    That mettle, that self mould, that fashion'd thee,
    Made him a man; and though thou livest and breathest,
    Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent
    In some large measure to thy father's death
    In that thou seest thy wretched brother die,
    Who was the model of thy father's life.
    Call it not patience, Gaunt-it is despair;
    In suff'ring thus thy brother to be slaught'red,
    Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,
    Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.
    That which in mean men we entitle patience
    Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
    What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life
    The best way is to venge my Gloucester's death.
  GAUNT. God's is the quarrel; for God's substitute,
    His deputy anointed in His sight,
    Hath caus'd his death; the which if wrongfully,
    Let heaven revenge; for I may never lift
    An angry arm against His minister.
  DUCHESS. Where then, alas, may I complain myself?
  GAUNT. To God, the widow's champion and defence.
  DUCHESS. Why then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.
    Thou goest to Coventry, there to behold
    Our cousin Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.
    O, sit my husband's wrongs on Hereford's spear,
    That it may enter butcher Mowbray's breast!
    Or, if misfortune miss the first career,
    Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom
    That they may break his foaming courser's back
    And throw the rider headlong in the lists,
    A caitiff recreant to my cousin Hereford!
    Farewell, old Gaunt; thy sometimes brother's wife,
    With her companion, Grief, must end her life.
  GAUNT. Sister, farewell; I must to Coventry.
    As much good stay with thee as go with me!
  DUCHESS. Yet one word more- grief boundeth where it falls,
    Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.
    I take my leave before I have begun,
    For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.
    Commend me to thy brother, Edmund York.
    Lo, this is all- nay, yet depart not so;
    Though this be all, do not so quickly go;
    I shall remember more. Bid him- ah, what?-
    With all good speed at Plashy visit me.
    Alack, and what shall good old York there see
    But empty lodgings and unfurnish'd walls,
    Unpeopled offices, untrodden stones?
    And what hear there for welcome but my groans?
    Therefore commend me; let him not come there
    To seek out sorrow that dwells every where.
    Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die;
    The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.          Exeunt

SCENE 3. The lists at Coventry

Enter the LORD MARSHAL and the DUKE OF AUMERLE

  MARSHAL. My Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford arm'd?
  AUMERLE. Yea, at all points; and longs to enter in.
  MARSHAL. The Duke of Norfolk, spightfully and bold,
    Stays but the summons of the appelant's trumpet.
  AUMERLE. Why then, the champions are prepar'd, and stay
    For nothing but his Majesty's approach.

     The trumpets sound, and the KING enters with his nobles,
     GAUNT, BUSHY, BAGOT, GREEN, and others. When they are set,
     enter MOWBRAY, Duke of Nor folk, in arms, defendant, and
     a HERALD

  KING RICHARD. Marshal, demand of yonder champion
    The cause of his arrival here in arms;
    Ask him his name; and orderly proceed
    To swear him in the justice of his cause.
  MARSHAL. In God's name and the King's, say who thou art,
    And why thou comest thus knightly clad in arms;
    Against what man thou com'st, and what thy quarrel.
    Speak truly on thy knighthood and thy oath;
    As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!
  MOWBRAY. My name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk;
    Who hither come engaged by my oath-
    Which God defend a knight should violate!-
    Both to defend my loyalty and truth
    To God, my King, and my succeeding issue,
    Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me;
    And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,
    To prove him, in defending of myself,
    A traitor to my God, my King, and me.
    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

   The trumpets sound. Enter BOLINGBROKE, Duke of Hereford,
            appellant, in armour, and a HERALD

  KING RICHARD. Marshal, ask yonder knight in arms,
    Both who he is and why he cometh hither
    Thus plated in habiliments of war;
    And formally, according to our law,
    Depose him in the justice of his cause.
  MARSHAL. What is thy name? and wherefore com'st thou hither
    Before King Richard in his royal lists?
    Against whom comest thou? and what's thy quarrel?
    Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!
  BOLINGBROKE. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
    Am I; who ready here do stand in arms
    To prove, by God's grace and my body's valour,
    In lists on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
    That he is a traitor, foul and dangerous,
    To God of heaven, King Richard, and to me.
    And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!
  MARSHAL. On pain of death, no person be so bold
    Or daring-hardy as to touch the lists,
    Except the Marshal and such officers
    Appointed to direct these fair designs.
  BOLINGBROKE. Lord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign's hand,
    And bow my knee before his Majesty;
    For Mowbray and myself are like two men
    That vow a long and weary pilgrimage.
    Then let us take a ceremonious leave
    And loving farewell of our several friends.
  MARSHAL. The appellant in all duty greets your Highness,
    And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.
  KING RICHARD. We will descend and fold him in our arms.
    Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right,
    So be thy fortune in this royal fight!
    Farewell, my blood; which if to-day thou shed,
    Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.
  BOLINGBROKE. O, let no noble eye profane a tear
    For me, if I be gor'd with Mowbray's spear.
    As confident as is the falcon's flight
    Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.
    My loving lord, I take my leave of you;
    Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle;
    Not sick, although I have to do with death,
    But lusty, young, and cheerly drawing breath.
    Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet
    The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.
    O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
    Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,
    Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up
    To reach at victory above my head,
    Add proof unto mine armour with thy prayers,
    And with thy blessings steel my lance's point,
    That it may enter Mowbray's waxen coat
    And furbish new the name of John o' Gaunt,
    Even in the lusty haviour of his son.
  GAUNT. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous!
    Be swift like lightning in the execution,
    And let thy blows, doubly redoubled,
    Fall like amazing thunder on the casque
    Of thy adverse pernicious enemy.
    Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant, and live.
  BOLINGBROKE. Mine innocence and Saint George to thrive!
  MOWBRAY. However God or fortune cast my lot,
    There lives or dies, true to King Richard's throne,
    A loyal, just, and upright gentleman.
    Never did captive with a freer heart
    Cast off his chains of bondage, and embrace
    His golden uncontroll'd enfranchisement,
    More than my dancing soul doth celebrate
    This feast of battle with mine adversary.
    Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,
    Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.
    As gentle and as jocund as to jest
    Go I to fight: truth hath a quiet breast.
  KING RICHARD. Farewell, my lord, securely I espy
    Virtue with valour couched in thine eye.
    Order the trial, Marshal, and begin.
  MARSHAL. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
    Receive thy lance; and God defend the right!
  BOLINGBROKE. Strong as a tower in hope, I cry amen.
  MARSHAL. [To an officer] Go bear this lance to Thomas,
      Duke of Norfolk.
  FIRST HERALD. Harry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
    Stands here for God, his sovereign, and himself,
    On pain to be found false and recreant,
    To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,
    A traitor to his God, his King, and him;
    And dares him to set forward to the fight.
  SECOND HERALD. Here standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,
    On pain to be found false and recreant,
    Both to defend himself, and to approve
    Henry of Hereford, Lancaster, and Derby,
    To God, his sovereign, and to him disloyal,
    Courageously and with a free desire
    Attending but the signal to begin.
  MARSHAL. Sound trumpets; and set forward, combatants.
                                           [A charge sounded]
    Stay, the King hath thrown his warder down.
  KING RICHARD. Let them lay by their helmets and their spears,
    And both return back to their chairs again.
    Withdraw with us; and let the trumpets sound
    While we return these dukes what we decree.

    A long flourish, while the KING consults his Council

    Draw near,
    And list what with our council we have done.
    For that our kingdom's earth should not be soil'd
    With that dear blood which it hath fostered;
    And for our eyes do hate the dire aspect
    Of civil wounds plough'd up with neighbours' sword;
    And for we think the eagle-winged pride
    Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,
    With rival-hating envy, set on you
    To wake our peace, which in our country's cradle
    Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;
    Which so rous'd up with boist'rous untun'd drums,
    With harsh-resounding trumpets' dreadful bray,
    And grating shock of wrathful iron arms,
    Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace
    And make us wade even in our kindred's blood-
    Therefore we banish you our territories.
    You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of life,
    Till twice five summers have enrich'd our fields
    Shall not regreet our fair dominions,
    But tread the stranger paths of banishment.
  BOLINGBROKE. Your will be done. This must my comfort be-
    That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,
    And those his golden beams to you here lent
    Shall point on me and gild my banishment.
  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,
    Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:
    The sly slow hours shall not determinate
    The dateless limit of thy dear exile;
    The hopeless word of 'never to return'
    Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.
  MOWBRAY. A heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,
    And all unlook'd for from your Highness' mouth.
    A dearer merit, not so deep a maim
    As to be cast forth in the common air,
    Have I deserved at your Highness' hands.
    The language I have learnt these forty years,
    My native English, now I must forgo;
    And now my tongue's use is to me no more
    Than an unstringed viol or a harp;
    Or like a cunning instrument cas'd up
    Or, being open, put into his hands
    That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
    Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue,
    Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips;
    And dull, unfeeling, barren ignorance
    Is made my gaoler to attend on me.
    I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
    Too far in years to be a pupil now.
    What is thy sentence, then, but speechless death,
    Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?
  KING RICHARD. It boots thee not to be compassionate;
    After our sentence plaining comes too late.
  MOWBRAY. Then thus I turn me from my countrv's light,
    To dwell in solemn shades of endless night.
  KING RICHARD. Return again, and take an oath with thee.
    Lay on our royal sword your banish'd hands;
    Swear by the duty that you owe to God,
    Our part therein we banish with yourselves,
    To keep the oath that we administer:
    You never shall, so help you truth and God,
    Embrace each other's love in banishment;
    Nor never look upon each other's face;
    Nor never write, regreet, nor reconcile
    This louring tempest of your home-bred hate;
    Nor never by advised purpose meet
    To plot, contrive, or complot any ill,
    'Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.
  BOLINGBROKE. I swear.
  MOWBRAY. And I, to keep all this.
  BOLINGBROKE. Norfolk, so far as to mine enemy.
    By this time, had the King permitted us,
    One of our souls had wand'red in the air,
    Banish'd this frail sepulchre of our flesh,
    As now our flesh is banish'd from this land-
    Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm;
    Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
    The clogging burden of a guilty soul.
  MOWBRAY. No, Bolingbroke; if ever I were traitor,
    My name be blotted from the book of life,
    And I from heaven banish'd as from hence!
    But what thou art, God, thou, and I, do know;
    And all too soon, I fear, the King shall rue.
    Farewell, my liege. Now no way can I stray:
    Save back to England, an the world's my way.            Exit
  KING RICHARD. Uncle, even in the glasses of thine eyes
    I see thy grieved heart. Thy sad aspect
    Hath from the number of his banish'd years
    Pluck'd four away. [To BOLINGBROKE] Six frozen winters spent,
    Return with welcome home from banishment.
  BOLINGBROKE. How long a time lies in one little word!
    Four lagging winters and four wanton springs
    End in a word: such is the breath of Kings.
  GAUNT. I thank my liege that in regard of me
    He shortens four years of my son's exile;
    But little vantage shall I reap thereby,
    For ere the six years that he hath to spend
    Can change their moons and bring their times about,
    My oil-dried lamp and time-bewasted light
    Shall be extinct with age and endless night;
    My inch of taper will be burnt and done,
    And blindfold death not let me see my son.
  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, thou hast many years to live.
  GAUNT. But not a minute, King, that thou canst give:
    Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow
    And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow;
    Thou can'st help time to furrow me with age,
    But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage;
    Thy word is current with him for my death,
    But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.
  KING RICHARD. Thy son is banish'd upon good advice,
    Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict gave.
    Why at our justice seem'st thou then to lour?
  GAUNT. Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.
    You urg'd me as a judge; but I had rather
    You would have bid me argue like a father.
    O, had it been a stranger, not my child,
    To smooth his fault I should have been more mild.
    A partial slander sought I to avoid,
    And in the sentence my own life destroy'd.
    Alas, I look'd when some of you should say
    I was too strict to make mine own away;
    But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue
    Against my will to do myself this wrong.
  KING RICHARD. Cousin, farewell; and, uncle, bid him so.
    Six years we banish him, and he shall go.
                                  Flourish. Exit KING with train
  AUMERLE. Cousin, farewell; what presence must not know,
    From where you do remain let paper show.
  MARSHAL. My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride
    As far as land will let me by your side.
  GAUNT. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words,
    That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends?
  BOLINGBROKE. I have too few to take my leave of you,
    When the tongue's office should be prodigal
    To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.
  GAUNT. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time.
  BOLINGBROKE. Joy absent, grief is present for that time.
  GAUNT. What is six winters? They are quickly gone.
  BOLINGBROKE. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten.
  GAUNT. Call it a travel that thou tak'st for pleasure.
  BOLINGBROKE. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so,
    Which finds it an enforced pilgrimage.
  GAUNT. The sullen passage of thy weary steps
    Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set
    The precious jewel of thy home return.
  BOLINGBROKE. Nay, rather, every tedious stride I make
    Will but remember me what a deal of world
    I wander from the jewels that I love.
    Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
    To foreign passages; and in the end,
    Having my freedom, boast of nothing else
    But that I was a journeyman to grief?
  GAUNT. All places that the eye of heaven visits
    Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
    Teach thy necessity to reason thus:
    There is no virtue like necessity.
    Think not the King did banish thee,
    But thou the King. Woe doth the heavier sit
    Where it perceives it is but faintly home.
    Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour,
    And not the King exil'd thee; or suppose
    Devouring pestilence hangs in our air
    And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
    Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it
    To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st.
    Suppose the singing birds musicians,
    The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd,
    The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more
    Than a delightful measure or a dance;
    For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite
    The man that mocks at it and sets it light.
  BOLINGBROKE. O, who can hold a fire in his hand
    By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
    Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
    By bare imagination of a feast?
    Or wallow naked in December snow
    By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
    O, no! the apprehension of the good
    Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
    Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more
    Than when he bites, but lanceth not the sore.
  GAUNT. Come, come, my son, I'll bring thee on thy way.
    Had I thy youtli and cause, I would not stay.
  BOLINGBROKE. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;
    My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
    Where'er I wander, boast of this I can:
    Though banish'd, yet a trueborn English man.          Exeunt

SCENE 4. London. The court

Enter the KING, with BAGOT and GREEN, at one door; and the DUKE OF
AUMERLE at another

  KING RICHARD. We did observe. Cousin Aumerle,
    How far brought you high Hereford on his way?
  AUMERLE. I brought high Hereford, if you call him so,
    But to the next high way, and there I left him.
  KING RICHARD. And say, what store of parting tears were shed?
  AUMERLE. Faith, none for me; except the north-east wind,
    Which then blew bitterly against our faces,
    Awak'd the sleeping rheum, and so by chance
    Did grace our hollow parting with a tear.
  KING RICHARD. What said our cousin when you parted with him?
  AUMERLE. 'Farewell.'
    And, for my heart disdained that my tongue
    Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
    To counterfeit oppression of such grief
    That words seem'd buried in my sorrow's grave.
    Marry, would the word 'farewell' have length'ned hours
    And added years to his short banishment,
    He should have had a volume of farewells;
    But since it would not, he had none of me.
  KING RICHARD. He is our cousin, cousin; but 'tis doubt,
    When time shall call him home from banishment,
    Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.
    Ourself, and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green,
    Observ'd his courtship to the common people;
    How he did seem to dive into their hearts
    With humble and familiar courtesy;
    What reverence he did throw away on slaves,
    Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles
    And patient underbearing of his fortune,
    As 'twere to banish their affects with him.
    Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench;
    A brace of draymen bid God speed him well
    And had the tribute of his supple knee,
    With 'Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends';
    As were our England in reversion his,
    And he our subjects' next degree in hope.
  GREEN. Well, he is gone; and with him go these thoughts!
    Now for the rebels which stand out in Ireland,
    Expedient manage must be made, my liege,
    Ere further leisure yicld them further means
    For their advantage and your Highness' loss.
  KING RICHARD. We will ourself in person to this war;
    And, for our coffers, with too great a court
    And liberal largess, are grown somewhat light,
    We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm;
    The revenue whereof shall furnish us
    For our affairs in hand. If that come short,
    Our substitutes at home shall have blank charters;
    Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,
    They shall subscribe them for large sums of gold,
    And send them after to supply our wants;
    For we will make for Ireland presently.

                     Enter BUSHY

    Bushy, what news?
  BUSHY. Old John of Gaunt is grievous sick, my lord,
    Suddenly taken; and hath sent poste-haste
    To entreat your Majesty to visit him.
  KING RICHARD. Where lies he?
  BUSHY. At Ely House.
  KING RICHARD. Now put it, God, in the physician's mind
    To help him to his grave immediately!
    The lining of his coffers shall make coats
    To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.
    Come, gentlemen, let's all go visit him.
    Pray God we may make haste, and come too late!
  ALL. Amen.                                              Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. London. Ely House

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT, sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, etc.

  GAUNT. Will the King come, that I may breathe my last
    In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?
  YORK. Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;
    For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.
  GAUNT. O, but they say the tongues of dying men
    Enforce attention like deep harmony.
    Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain;
    For they breathe truth that breathe their words -in pain.
    He that no more must say is listen'd more
    Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
    More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before.
    The setting sun, and music at the close,
    As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
    Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
    Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
    My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.
  YORK. No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
    As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,
    Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
    The open ear of youth doth always listen;
    Report of fashions in proud Italy,
    Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
    Limps after in base imitation.
    Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity-
    So it be new, there's no respect how vile-
    That is not quickly buzz'd into his ears?
    Then all too late comes counsel to be heard
    Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
    Direct not him whose way himself will choose.
    'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.
  GAUNT. Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,
    And thus expiring do foretell of him:
    His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
    For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
    Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
    He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
    With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;
    Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
    Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
    This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,
    This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
    This other Eden, demi-paradise,
    This fortress built by Nature for herself
    Against infection and the hand of war,
    This happy breed of men, this little world,
    This precious stone set in the silver sea,
    Which serves it in the office of a wall,
    Or as a moat defensive to a house,
    Against the envy of less happier lands;
    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
    This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
    Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth,
    Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
    For Christian service and true chivalry,
    As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
    Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son;
    This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
    Dear for her reputation through the world,
    Is now leas'd out-I die pronouncing it-
    Like to a tenement or pelting farm.
    England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
    Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
    Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
    With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds;
    That England, that was wont to conquer others,
    Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
    Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
    How happy then were my ensuing death!

    Enter KING and QUEEN, AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT,
                Ross, and WILLOUGHBY

  YORK. The King is come; deal mildly with his youth,
    For young hot colts being rag'd do rage the more.
  QUEEN. How fares our noble uncle Lancaster?
  KING RICHARD. What comfort, man? How is't with aged Gaunt?
  GAUNT. O, how that name befits my composition!
    Old Gaunt, indeed; and gaunt in being old.
    Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
    And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
    For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
    Watching breeds leanness, leanness is an gaunt.
    The pleasure that some fathers feed upon
    Is my strict fast-I mean my children's looks;
    And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.
    Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
    Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.
  KING RICHARD. Can sick men play so nicely with their names?
  GAUNT. No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
    Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
    I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.
  KING RICHARD. Should dying men flatter with those that live?
  GAUNT. No, no; men living flatter those that die.
  KING RICHARD. Thou, now a-dying, sayest thou flatterest me.
  GAUNT. O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.
  KING RICHARD. I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.
  GAUNT. Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;
    Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
    Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
    Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
    And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
    Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
    Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
    A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
    Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
    And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
    The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
    O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye
    Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
    From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
    Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
    Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
    Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
    It were a shame to let this land by lease;
    But for thy world enjoying but this land,
    Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
    Landlord of England art thou now, not King.
    Thy state of law is bondslave to the law;
    And thou-
  KING RICHARD. A lunatic lean-witted fool,
    Presuming on an ague's privilege,
    Darest with thy frozen admonition
    Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
    With fury from his native residence.
    Now by my seat's right royal majesty,
    Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
    This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
    Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.
  GAUNT. O, Spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
    For that I was his father Edward's son;
    That blood already, like the pelican,
    Hast thou tapp'd out, and drunkenly carous'd.
    My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul-
    Whom fair befall in heaven 'mongst happy souls!-
    May be a precedent and witness good
    That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood.
    Join with the present sickness that I have;
    And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
    To crop at once a too long withered flower.
    Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
    These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
    Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.
    Love they to live that love and honour have.
                               Exit, borne out by his attendants
  KING RICHARD. And let them die that age and sullens have;
    For both hast thou, and both become the grave.
  YORK. I do beseech your Majesty impute his words
    To wayward sickliness and age in him.
    He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
    As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.
  KING RICHARD. Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
    As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

                Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

  NORTHUMBERLAND. My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your Majesty.
  KING RICHARD. What says he?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, nothing; all is said.
    His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
    Words, life, and all, old Lancaster hath spent.
  YORK. Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
    Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.
  KING RICHARD. The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
    His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
    So much for that. Now for our Irish wars.
    We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
    Which live like venom where no venom else
    But only they have privilege to live.
    And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
    Towards our assistance we do seize to us
    The plate, coin, revenues, and moveables,
    Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.
  YORK. How long shall I be patient? Ah, how long
    Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
    Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment,
    Nor Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
    Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
    About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
    Have ever made me sour my patient cheek
    Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
    I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
    Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.
    In war was never lion rag'd more fierce,
    In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
    Than was that young and princely gentleman.
    His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
    Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
    But when he frown'd, it was against the French
    And not against his friends. His noble hand
    Did win what he did spend, and spent not that
    Which his triumphant father's hand had won.
    His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
    But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
    O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
    Or else he never would compare between-
  KING RICHARD. Why, uncle, what's the matter?
  YORK. O my liege,
    Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleas'd
    Not to be pardoned, am content withal.
    Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
    The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
    Is not Gaunt dead? and doth not Hereford live?
    Was not Gaunt just? and is not Harry true?
    Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
    Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
    Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
    His charters and his customary rights;
    Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;
    Be not thyself-for how art thou a king
    But by fair sequence and succession?
    Now, afore God-God forbid I say true!-
    If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
    Call in the letters patents that he hath
    By his attorneys-general to sue
    His livery, and deny his off'red homage,
    You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
    You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts,
    And prick my tender patience to those thoughts
    Which honour and allegiance cannot think.
  KING RICHARD. Think what you will, we seize into our hands
    His plate, his goods, his money, and his lands.
  YORK. I'll not be by the while. My liege, farewell.
    What will ensue hereof there's none can tell;
    But by bad courses may be understood
    That their events can never fall out good.              Exit
  KING RICHARD. Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight;
    Bid him repair to us to Ely House
    To see this business. To-morrow next
    We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow.
    And we create, in absence of ourself,
    Our Uncle York Lord Governor of England;
    For he is just, and always lov'd us well.
    Come on, our queen; to-morrow must we part;
    Be merry, for our time of stay is short.
                   Flourish. Exeunt KING, QUEEN, BUSHY, AUMERLE,
                                                GREEN, and BAGOT
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.
    Ross. And living too; for now his son is Duke.
  WILLOUGHBY. Barely in title, not in revenues.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Richly in both, if justice had her right.
  ROSS. My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
    Ere't be disburdened with a liberal tongue.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more
    That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!
  WILLOUGHBY. Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?
    If it be so, out with it boldly, man;
    Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.
  ROSS. No good at all that I can do for him;
    Unless you call it good to pity him,
    Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne
    In him, a royal prince, and many moe
    Of noble blood in this declining land.
    The King is not himself, but basely led
    By flatterers; and what they will inform,
    Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us an,
    That will the King severely prosecute
    'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.
  ROSS. The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes;
    And quite lost their hearts; the nobles hath he find
    For ancient quarrels and quite lost their hearts.
  WILLOUGHBY. And daily new exactions are devis'd,
    As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what;
    But what, a God's name, doth become of this?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Wars hath not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
    But basely yielded upon compromise
    That which his noble ancestors achiev'd with blows.
    More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.
  ROSS. The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.
  WILLOUGHBY. The King's grown bankrupt like a broken man.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.
  ROSS. He hath not money for these Irish wars,
    His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,
    But by the robbing of the banish'd Duke.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. His noble kinsman-most degenerate king!
    But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
    Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm;
    We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
    And yet we strike not, but securely perish.
  ROSS. We see the very wreck that we must suffer;
    And unavoided is the danger now
    For suffering so the causes of our wreck.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death
    I spy life peering; but I dare not say
    How near the tidings of our comfort is.
  WILLOUGHBY. Nay, let us share thy thoughts as thou dost ours.
  ROSS. Be confident to speak, Northumberland.
    We three are but thyself, and, speaking so,
    Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore be bold.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then thus: I have from Le Port Blanc, a bay
    In Brittany, receiv'd intelligence
    That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,
    That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
    His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
    Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
    Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton, and Francis Quoint-
    All these, well furnish'd by the Duke of Britaine,
    With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
    Are making hither with all due expedience,
    And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.
    Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
    The first departing of the King for Ireland.
    If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
    Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
    Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
    Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt,
    And make high majesty look like itself,
    Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
    But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
    Stay and be secret, and myself will go.
  ROSS. To horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.
  WILLOUGHBY. Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 2. Windsor Castle

Enter QUEEN, BUSHY, and BAGOT

  BUSHY. Madam, your Majesty is too much sad.
    You promis'd, when you parted with the King,
    To lay aside life-harming heaviness
    And entertain a cheerful disposition.
  QUEEN. To please the King, I did; to please myself
    I cannot do it; yet I know no cause
    Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,
    Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest
    As my sweet Richard. Yet again methinks
    Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune's womb,
    Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
    With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves
    More than with parting from my lord the King.
  BUSHY. Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
    Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;
    For sorrow's eye, glazed with blinding tears,
    Divides one thing entire to many objects,
    Like perspectives which, rightly gaz'd upon,
    Show nothing but confusion-ey'd awry,
    Distinguish form. So your sweet Majesty,
    Looking awry upon your lord's departure,
    Find shapes of grief more than himself to wail;
    Which, look'd on as it is, is nought but shadows
    Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious Queen,
    More than your lord's departure weep not-more is not seen;
    Or if it be, 'tis with false sorrow's eye,
    Which for things true weeps things imaginary.
  QUEEN. It may be so; but yet my inward soul
    Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe'er it be,
    I cannot but be sad; so heavy sad
    As-though, on thinking, on no thought I think-
    Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.
  BUSHY. 'Tis nothing but conceit, my gracious lady.
  QUEEN. 'Tis nothing less: conceit is still deriv'd
    From some forefather grief; mine is not so,
    For nothing hath begot my something grief,
    Or something hath the nothing that I grieve;
    'Tis in reversion that I do possess-
    But what it is that is not yet known what,
    I cannot name; 'tis nameless woe, I wot.

                   Enter GREEN

  GREEN. God save your Majesty! and well met, gentlemen.
    I hope the King is not yet shipp'd for Ireland.
  QUEEN. Why hopest thou so? 'Tis better hope he is;
    For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.
    Then wherefore dost thou hope he is not shipp'd?
  GREEN. That he, our hope, might have retir'd his power
    And driven into despair an enemy's hope
    Who strongly hath set footing in this land.
    The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,
    And with uplifted arms is safe arriv'd
    At Ravenspurgh.
  QUEEN. Now God in heaven forbid!
  GREEN. Ah, madam, 'tis too true; and that is worse,
    The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,
    The Lords of Ross, Beaumond, and Willoughby,
    With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.
  BUSHY. Why have you not proclaim'd Northumberland
    And all the rest revolted faction traitors?
  GREEN. We have; whereupon the Earl of Worcester
    Hath broken his staff, resign'd his stewardship,
    And all the household servants fled with him
    To Bolingbroke.
  QUEEN. So, Green, thou art the midwife to my woe,
    And Bolingbroke my sorrow's dismal heir.
    Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy;
    And I, a gasping new-deliver'd mother,
    Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow join'd.
  BUSHY. Despair not, madam.
  QUEEN. Who shall hinder me?
    I will despair, and be at enmity
    With cozening hope-he is a flatterer,
    A parasite, a keeper-back of death,
    Who gently would dissolve the bands of life,
    Which false hope lingers in extremity.

                    Enter YORK

  GREEN. Here comes the Duke of York.
  QUEEN. With signs of war about his aged neck.
    O, full of careful business are his looks!
    Uncle, for God's sake, speak comfortable words.
  YORK. Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.
    Comfort's in heaven; and we are on the earth,
    Where nothing lives but crosses, cares, and grief.
    Your husband, he is gone to save far off,
    Whilst others come to make him lose at home.
    Here am I left to underprop his land,
    Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.
    Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made;
    Now shall he try his friends that flatter'd him.

                   Enter a SERVINGMAN

  SERVINGMAN. My lord, your son was gone before I came.
  YORK. He was-why so go all which way it will!
    The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold
    And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford's side.
    Sirrah, get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester;
    Bid her send me presently a thousand pound.
    Hold, take my ring.
  SERVINGMAN. My lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship,
    To-day, as I came by, I called there-
    But I shall grieve you to report the rest.
  YORK. What is't, knave?
  SERVINGMAN. An hour before I came, the Duchess died.
  YORK. God for his mercy! what a tide of woes
    Comes rushing on this woeful land at once!
    I know not what to do. I would to God,
    So my untruth had not provok'd him to it,
    The King had cut off my head with my brother's.
    What, are there no posts dispatch'd for Ireland?
    How shall we do for money for these wars?
    Come, sister-cousin, I would say-pray, pardon me.
    Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts,
    And bring away the armour that is there.
                                                 Exit SERVINGMAN
    Gentlemen, will you go muster men?
    If I know how or which way to order these affairs
    Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,
    Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.
    T'one is my sovereign, whom both my oath
    And duty bids defend; t'other again
    Is my kinsman, whom the King hath wrong'd,
    Whom conscience and my kindred bids to right.
    Well, somewhat we must do.-Come, cousin,
    I'll dispose of you. Gentlemen, go muster up your men
    And meet me presently at Berkeley.
    I should to Plashy too,
    But time will not permit. All is uneven,
    And everything is left at six and seven.
                                           Exeunt YORK and QUEEN
  BUSHY. The wind sits fair for news to go to Ireland.
    But none returns. For us to levy power
    Proportionable to the enemy
    Is all unpossible.
  GREEN. Besides, our nearness to the King in love
    Is near the hate of those love not the King.
  BAGOT. And that is the wavering commons; for their love
    Lies in their purses; and whoso empties them,
    By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.
  BUSHY. Wherein the King stands generally condemn'd.
  BAGOT. If judgment lie in them, then so do we,
    Because we ever have been near the King.
  GREEN. Well, I will for refuge straight to Bristow Castle.
    The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.
  BUSHY. Thither will I with you; for little office
    Will the hateful commons perform for us,
    Except Eke curs to tear us all to pieces.
    Will you go along with us?
  BAGOT. No; I will to Ireland to his Majesty.
    Farewell. If heart's presages be not vain,
    We three here part that ne'er shall meet again.
  BUSHY. That's as York thrives to beat back Bolingbroke.
  GREEN. Alas, poor Duke! the task he undertakes
    Is numb'ring sands and drinking oceans dry.
    Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.
    Farewell at once-for once, for all, and ever.
  BUSHY. Well, we may meet again.
  BAGOT. I fear me, never.                                Exeunt

SCENE 3. Gloucestershire

Enter BOLINGBROKE and NORTHUMBERLAND, forces

  BOLINGBROKE. How far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Believe me, noble lord,
    I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.
    These high wild hills and rough uneven ways
    Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome;
    And yet your fair discourse hath been as sugar,
    Making the hard way sweet and delectable.
    But I bethink me what a weary way
    From Ravenspurgh to Cotswold will be found
    In Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,
    Which, I protest, hath very much beguil'd
    The tediousness and process of my travel.
    But theirs is sweet'ned with the hope to have
    The present benefit which I possess;
    And hope to joy is little less in joy
    Than hope enjoy'd. By this the weary lords
    Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done
    By sight of what I have, your noble company.
  BOLINGBROKE. Of much less value is my company
    Than your good words. But who comes here?

                 Enter HARRY PERCY

  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my son, young Harry Percy,
    Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.
    Harry, how fares your uncle?
  PERCY. I had thought, my lord, to have learn'd his health of you.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Why, is he not with the Queen?
  PERCY. No, my good lord; he hath forsook the court,
    Broken his staff of office, and dispers'd
    The household of the King.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. What was his reason?
    He was not so resolv'd when last we spake together.
  PERCY. Because your lordship was proclaimed traitor.
    But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh,
    To offer service to the Duke of Hereford;
    And sent me over by Berkeley, to discover
    What power the Duke of York had levied there;
    Then with directions to repair to Ravenspurgh.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Have you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?
  PERCY. No, my good lord; for that is not forgot
    Which ne'er I did remember; to my knowledge,
    I never in my life did look on him.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Then learn to know him now; this is the Duke.
  PERCY. My gracious lord, I tender you my service,
    Such as it is, being tender, raw, and young;
    Which elder days shall ripen, and confirm
    To more approved service and desert.
  BOLINGBROKE. I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure
    I count myself in nothing else so happy
    As in a soul rememb'ring my good friends;
    And as my fortune ripens with thy love,
    It shall be still thy true love's recompense.
    My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. How far is it to Berkeley? And what stir
    Keeps good old York there with his men of war?
  PERCY. There stands the castle, by yon tuft of trees,
    Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard;
    And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour-
    None else of name and noble estimate.

                  Enter Ross and WILLOUGHBY

  NORTHUMBERLAND. Here come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,
    Bloody with spurring, fiery-red with haste.
  BOLINGBROKE. Welcome, my lords. I wot your love pursues
    A banish'd traitor. All my treasury
    Is yet but unfelt thanks, which, more enrich'd,
    Shall be your love and labour's recompense.
  ROSS. Your presence makes us rich, most noble lord.
  WILLOUGHBY. And far surmounts our labour to attain it.
  BOLINGBROKE. Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor;
    Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,
    Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?

                     Enter BERKELEY

  NORTHUMBERLAND. It is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.
  BERKELEY. My Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.
  BOLINGBROKE. My lord, my answer is-'to Lancaster';
    And I am come to seek that name in England;
    And I must find that title in your tongue
    Before I make reply to aught you say.
  BERKELEY. Mistake me not, my lord; 'tis not my meaning
    To raze one title of your honour out.
    To you, my lord, I come-what lord you will-
    From the most gracious regent of this land,
    The Duke of York, to know what pricks you on
    To take advantage of the absent time,
    And fright our native peace with self-borne arms.

                 Enter YORK, attended

  BOLINGBROKE. I shall not need transport my words by you;
    Here comes his Grace in person. My noble uncle!
                                                     [Kneels]
  YORK. Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,
    Whose duty is deceivable and false.
  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious uncle!-
  YORK. Tut, tut!
    Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.
    I am no traitor's uncle; and that word 'grace'
    In an ungracious mouth is but profane.
    Why have those banish'd and forbidden legs
    Dar'd once to touch a dust of England's ground?
    But then more 'why?'-why have they dar'd to march
    So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,
    Frighting her pale-fac'd villages with war
    And ostentation of despised arms?
    Com'st thou because the anointed King is hence?
    Why, foolish boy, the King is left behind,
    And in my loyal bosom lies his power.
    Were I but now lord of such hot youth
    As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself
    Rescued the Black Prince, that young Mars of men,
    From forth the ranks of many thousand French,
    O, then how quickly should this arm of mine,
    Now prisoner to the palsy, chastise the
    And minister correction to thy fault!
  BOLINGBROKE My gracious uncle, let me know my fault;
    On what condition stands it and wherein?
  YORK. Even in condition of the worst degree-
    In gross rebellion and detested treason.
    Thou art a banish'd man, and here art come
    Before the expiration of thy time,
    In braving arms against thy sovereign.
  BOLINGBROKE. As I was banish'd, I was banish'd Hereford;
    But as I come, I come for Lancaster.
    And, noble uncle, I beseech your Grace
    Look on my wrongs with an indifferent eye.
    You are my father, for methinks in you
    I see old Gaunt alive. O, then, my father,
    Will you permit that I shall stand condemn'd
    A wandering vagabond; my rights and royalties
    Pluck'd from my arms perforce, and given away
    To upstart unthrifts? Wherefore was I born?
    If that my cousin king be King in England,
    It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.
    You have a son, Aumerle, my noble cousin;
    Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,
    He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father
    To rouse his wrongs and chase them to the bay.
    I am denied to sue my livery here,
    And yet my letters patents give me leave.
    My father's goods are all distrain'd and sold;
    And these and all are all amiss employ'd.
    What would you have me do? I am a subject,
    And I challenge law-attorneys are denied me;
    And therefore personally I lay my claim
    To my inheritance of free descent.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath been too much abused.
  ROSS. It stands your Grace upon to do him right.
  WILLOUGHBY. Base men by his endowments are made great.
  YORK. My lords of England, let me tell you this:
    I have had feeling of my cousin's wrongs,
    And labour'd all I could to do him right;
    But in this kind to come, in braving arms,
    Be his own carver and cut out his way,
    To find out right with wrong-it may not be;
    And you that do abet him in this kind
    Cherish rebellion, and are rebels all.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The noble Duke hath sworn his coming is
    But for his own; and for the right of that
    We all have strongly sworn to give him aid;
    And let him never see joy that breaks that oath!
  YORK. Well, well, I see the issue of these arms.
    I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,
    Because my power is weak and all ill left;
    But if I could, by Him that gave me life,
    I would attach you all and make you stoop
    Unto the sovereign mercy of the King;
    But since I cannot, be it known unto you
    I do remain as neuter. So, fare you well;
    Unless you please to enter in the castle,
    And there repose you for this night.
  BOLINGBROKE. An offer, uncle, that we will accept.
    But we must win your Grace to go with us
    To Bristow Castle, which they say is held
    By Bushy, Bagot, and their complices,
    The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
    Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.
  YORK. It may be I will go with you; but yet I'll pause,
    For I am loath to break our country's laws.
    Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are.
    Things past redress are now with me past care.        Exeunt

SCENE 4. A camp in Wales

Enter EARL OF SALISBURY and a WELSH CAPTAIN

  CAPTAIN. My Lord of Salisbury, we have stay'd ten days
    And hardly kept our countrymen together,
    And yet we hear no tidings from the King;
    Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
  SALISBURY. Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman;
    The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
  CAPTAIN. 'Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.
    The bay trees in our country are all wither'd,
    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
    The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
    And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
    Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap-
    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
    The other to enjoy by rage and war.
    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
    Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,
    As well assur'd Richard their King is dead.             Exit
  SALISBURY. Ah, Richard, with the eyes of heavy mind,
    I see thy glory like a shooting star
    Fall to the base earth from the firmament!
    The sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
    Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest;
    Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;
    And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.               Exit

ACT III. SCENE I. BOLINGBROKE'S camp at Bristol

Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, PERCY, ROSS, WILLOUGHBY,
BUSHY and GREEN, prisoners

  BOLINGBROKE. Bring forth these men.
    Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls-
    Since presently your souls must part your bodies-
    With too much urging your pernicious lives,
    For 'twere no charity; yet, to wash your blood
    From off my hands, here in the view of men
    I will unfold some causes of your deaths:
    You have misled a prince, a royal king,
    A happy gentleman in blood and lineaments,
    By you unhappied and disfigured clean;
    You have in manner with your sinful hours
    Made a divorce betwixt his queen and him;
    Broke the possession of a royal bed,
    And stain'd the beauty of a fair queen's cheeks
    With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs;
    Myself-a prince by fortune of my birth,
    Near to the King in blood, and near in love
    Till you did make him misinterpret me-
    Have stoop'd my neck under your injuries
    And sigh'd my English breath in foreign clouds,
    Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
    Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
    Dispark'd my parks and fell'd my forest woods,
    From my own windows torn my household coat,
    Raz'd out my imprese, leaving me no sign
    Save men's opinions and my living blood
    To show the world I am a gentleman.
    This and much more, much more than twice all this,
    Condemns you to the death. See them delivered over
    To execution and the hand of death.
  BUSHY. More welcome is the stroke of death to me
    Than Bolingbroke to England. Lords, farewell.
  GREEN. My comfort is that heaven will take our souls,
    And plague injustice with the pains of hell.
  BOLINGBROKE. My Lord Northumberland, see them dispatch'd.
           Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, and others, with the prisoners
    Uncle, you say the Queen is at your house;
    For God's sake, fairly let her be entreated.
    Tell her I send to her my kind commends;
    Take special care my greetings be delivered.
  YORK. A gentleman of mine I have dispatch'd
    With letters of your love to her at large.
  BOLINGBROKE. Thanks, gentle uncle. Come, lords, away,
    To fight with Glendower and his complices.
    Awhile to work, and after holiday.                    Exeunt

SCENE 2. The coast of Wales. A castle in view

Drums. Flourish and colours. Enter the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,
AUMERLE, and soldiers

  KING RICHARD. Barkloughly Castle can they this at hand?
  AUMERLE. Yea, my lord. How brooks your Grace the air
    After your late tossing on the breaking seas?
  KING RICHARD. Needs must I like it well. I weep for joy
    To stand upon my kingdom once again.
    Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,
    Though rebels wound thee with their horses' hoofs.
    As a long-parted mother with her child
    Plays fondly with her tears and smiles in meeting,
    So weeping-smiling greet I thee, my earth,
    And do thee favours with my royal hands.
    Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
    Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense;
    But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom,
    And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way,
    Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet
    Which with usurping steps do trample thee;
    Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;
    And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,
    Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,
    Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
    Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies.
    Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords.
    This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones
    Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king
    Shall falter under foul rebellion's arms.
  CARLISLE. Fear not, my lord; that Power that made you king
    Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.
    The means that heaven yields must be embrac'd
    And not neglected; else, if heaven would,
    And we will not, heaven's offer we refuse,
    The proffered means of succour and redress.
  AUMERLE. He means, my lord, that we are too remiss;
    Whilst Bolingbroke, through our security,
    Grows strong and great in substance and in power.
  KING RICHARD. Discomfortable cousin! know'st thou not
    That when the searching eye of heaven is hid,
    Behind the globe, that lights the lower world,
    Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen
    In murders and in outrage boldly here;
    But when from under this terrestrial ball
    He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines
    And darts his light through every guilty hole,
    Then murders, treasons, and detested sins,
    The cloak of night being pluck'd from off their backs,
    Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?
    So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,
    Who all this while hath revell'd in the night,
    Whilst we were wand'ring with the Antipodes,
    Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,
    His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
    Not able to endure the sight of day,
    But self-affrighted tremble at his sin.
    Not all the water in the rough rude sea
    Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;
    The breath of worldly men cannot depose
    The deputy elected by the Lord.
    For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
    To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
    God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
    A glorious angel. Then, if angels fight,
    Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.

                 Enter SALISBURY

    Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?
  SALISBURY. Nor near nor farther off, my gracious lord,
    Than this weak arm. Discomfort guides my tongue,
    And bids me speak of nothing but despair.
    One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
    Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.
    O, call back yesterday, bid time return,
    And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!
    To-day, to-day, unhappy day, too late,
    O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state;
    For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,
    Are gone to Bolingbroke, dispers'd, and fled.
  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege, why looks your Grace so pale?
  KING RICHARD. But now the blood of twenty thousand men
    Did triumph in my face, and they are fled;
    And, till so much blood thither come again,
    Have I not reason to look pale and dead?
    All souls that will be safe, fly from my side;
    For time hath set a blot upon my pride.
  AUMERLE. Comfort, my liege; remember who you are.
  KING RICHARD. I had forgot myself; am I not King?
    Awake, thou coward majesty! thou sleepest.
    Is not the King's name twenty thousand names?
    Arm, arm, my name! a puny subject strikes
    At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,
    Ye favourites of a king; are we not high?
    High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York
    Hath power enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?

                   Enter SCROOP

  SCROOP. More health and happiness betide my liege
    Than can my care-tun'd tongue deliver him.
  KING RICHARD. Mine ear is open and my heart prepar'd.
    The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.
    Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, 'twas my care,
    And what loss is it to be rid of care?
    Strives Bolingbroke to be as great as we?
    Greater he shall not be; if he serve God,
    We'll serve him too, and be his fellow so.
    Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend;
    They break their faith to God as well as us.
    Cry woe, destruction, ruin, and decay-
    The worst is death, and death will have his day.
  SCROOP. Glad am I that your Highness is so arm'd
    To bear the tidings of calamity.
    Like an unseasonable stormy day
    Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,
    As if the world were all dissolv'd to tears,
    So high above his limits swells the rage
    Of Bolingbroke, covering your fearful land
    With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.
    White-beards have arm'd their thin and hairless scalps
    Against thy majesty; boys, with women's voices,
    Strive to speak big, and clap their female joints
    In stiff unwieldy arms against thy crown;
    Thy very beadsmen learn to bend their bows
    Of double-fatal yew against thy state;
    Yea, distaff-women manage rusty bills
    Against thy seat: both young and old rebel,
    And all goes worse than I have power to tell.
  KING RICHARD. Too well, too well thou tell'st a tale so in.
    Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?
    What is become of Bushy? Where is Green?
    That they have let the dangerous enemy
    Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
    If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.
    I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
  SCROOP. Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. O villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption!
    Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!
    Snakes, in my heart-blood warm'd, that sting my heart!
    Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
    Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war
    Upon their spotted souls for this offence!
  SCROOP. Sweet love, I see, changing his property,
    Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.
    Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made
    With heads, and not with hands; those whom you curse
    Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound
    And lie full low, grav'd in the hollow ground.
  AUMERLE. Is Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?
  SCROOP. Ay, all of them at Bristow lost their heads.
  AUMERLE. Where is the Duke my father with his power?
  KING RICHARD. No matter where-of comfort no man speak.
    Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
    Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
    Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
    Let's choose executors and talk of wills;
    And yet not so-for what can we bequeath
    Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
    Our lands, our lives, and an, are Bolingbroke's.
    And nothing can we can our own but death
    And that small model of the barren earth
    Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
    For God's sake let us sit upon the ground
    And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
    How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,
    Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,
    Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd,
    All murder'd-for within the hollow crown
    That rounds the mortal temples of a king
    Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
    Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
    Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
    To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks;
    Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
    As if this flesh which walls about our life
    Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,
    Comes at the last, and with a little pin
    Bores through his castle wall, and farewell, king!
    Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
    With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
    Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty;
    For you have but mistook me all this while.
    I live with bread like you, feel want,
    Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
    How can you say to me I am a king?
  CARLISLE. My lord, wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes,
    But presently prevent the ways to wail.
    To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,
    Gives, in your weakness, strength unto your foe,
    And so your follies fight against yourself.
    Fear and be slain-no worse can come to fight;
    And fight and die is death destroying death,
    Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.
  AUMERLE. My father hath a power; inquire of him,
    And learn to make a body of a limb.
  KING RICHARD. Thou chid'st me well. Proud Bolingbroke, I come
    To change blows with thee for our day of doom.
    This ague fit of fear is over-blown;
    An easy task it is to win our own.
    Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?
    Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.
  SCROOP. Men judge by the complexion of the sky
    The state in inclination of the day;
    So may you by my dull and heavy eye,
    My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.
    I play the torturer, by small and small
    To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken:
    Your uncle York is join'd with Bolingbroke;
    And all your northern castles yielded up,
    And all your southern gentlemen in arms
    Upon his party.
  KING RICHARD. Thou hast said enough.
      [To AUMERLE] Beshrew thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth
    Of that sweet way I was in to despair!
    What say you now? What comfort have we now?
    By heaven, I'll hate him everlastingly
    That bids me be of comfort any more.
    Go to Flint Castle; there I'll pine away;
    A king, woe's slave, shall kingly woe obey.
    That power I have, discharge; and let them go
    To ear the land that hath some hope to grow,
    For I have none. Let no man speak again
    To alter this, for counsel is but vain.
  AUMERLE. My liege, one word.
  KING RICHARD. He does me double wrong
    That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
    Discharge my followers; let them hence away,
    From Richard's night to Bolingbroke's fair day.       Exeunt

SCENE 3. Wales. Before Flint Castle

Enter, with drum and colours, BOLINGBROKE, YORK, NORTHUMBERLAND, and
forces

  BOLINGBROKE. So that by this intelligence we learn
    The Welshmen are dispers'd; and Salisbury
    Is gone to meet the King, who lately landed
    With some few private friends upon this coast.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The news is very fair and good, my lord.
    Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.
  YORK. It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
    To say 'King Richard.' Alack the heavy day
    When such a sacred king should hide his head!
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Your Grace mistakes; only to be brief,
    Left I his title out.
  YORK. The time hath been,
    Would you have been so brief with him, he would
    Have been so brief with you to shorten you,
    For taking so the head, your whole head's length.
  BOLINGBROKE. Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.
  YORK. Take not, good cousin, further than you should,
    Lest you mistake. The heavens are over our heads.
  BOLINGBROKE. I know it, uncle; and oppose not myself
    Against their will. But who comes here?

                    Enter PERCY

    Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?
  PIERCY. The castle royally is mann'd, my lord,
    Against thy entrance.
  BOLINGBROKE. Royally!
    Why, it contains no king?
  PERCY. Yes, my good lord,
    It doth contain a king; King Richard lies
    Within the limits of yon lime and stone;
    And with him are the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,
    Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman
    Of holy reverence; who, I cannot learn.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. O, belike it is the Bishop of Carlisle.
  BOLINGBROKE. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] Noble lord,
    Go to the rude ribs of that ancient castle;
    Through brazen trumpet send the breath of parley
    Into his ruin'd ears, and thus deliver:
    Henry Bolingbroke
    On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand,
    And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
    To his most royal person; hither come
    Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
    Provided that my banishment repeal'd
    And lands restor'd again be freely granted;
    If not, I'll use the advantage of my power
    And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood
    Rain'd from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;
    The which how far off from the mind of Bolingbroke
    It is such crimson tempest should bedrench
    The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land,
    My stooping duty tenderly shall show.
    Go, signify as much, while here we march
    Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.
           [NORTHUMBERLAND advances to the Castle, with a trumpet]
    Let's march without the noise of threat'ning drum,
    That from this castle's tottered battlements
    Our fair appointments may be well perus'd.
    Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
    With no less terror than the elements
    Of fire and water, when their thund'ring shock
    At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
    Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water;
    The rage be his, whilst on the earth I rain
    My waters-on the earth, and not on him.
    March on, and mark King Richard how he looks.

      Parle without, and answer within; then a flourish.
      Enter on the walls, the KING, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE,
      AUMERLE, SCROOP, and SALISBURY

    See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,
    As doth the blushing discontented sun
    From out the fiery portal of the east,
    When he perceives the envious clouds are bent
    To dim his glory and to stain the track
    Of his bright passage to the occident.
  YORK. Yet he looks like a king. Behold, his eye,
    As bright as is the eagle's, lightens forth
    Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe,
    That any harm should stain so fair a show!
  KING RICHARD. [To NORTHUMBERLAND] We are amaz'd; and thus long
      have we stood
    To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,
    Because we thought ourself thy lawful King;
    And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
    To pay their awful duty to our presence?
    If we be not, show us the hand of God
    That hath dismiss'd us from our stewardship;
    For well we know no hand of blood and bone
    Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
    Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
    And though you think that all, as you have done,
    Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
    And we are barren and bereft of friends,
    Yet know-my master, God omnipotent,
    Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
    Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike
    Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
    That lift your vassal hands against my head
    And threat the glory of my precious crown.
    Tell Bolingbroke, for yon methinks he stands,
    That every stride he makes upon my land
    Is dangerous treason; he is come to open
    The purple testament of bleeding war;
    But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
    Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons
    Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
    Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
    To scarlet indignation, and bedew
    Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The King of Heaven forbid our lord the King
    Should so with civil and uncivil arms
    Be rush'd upon! Thy thrice noble cousin,
    Harry Bolingbroke, doth humbly kiss thy hand;
    And by the honourable tomb he swears
    That stands upon your royal grandsire's bones,
    And by the royalties of both your bloods,
    Currents that spring from one most gracious head,
    And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,
    And by the worth and honour of himself,
    Comprising all that may be sworn or said,
    His coming hither hath no further scope
    Than for his lineal royalties, and to beg
    Enfranchisement immediate on his knees;
    Which on thy royal party granted once,
    His glittering arms he will commend to rust,
    His barbed steeds to stables, and his heart
    To faithful service of your Majesty.
    This swears he, as he is a prince, is just;
    And as I am a gentleman I credit him.
  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, say thus the King returns:
    His noble cousin is right welcome hither;
    And all the number of his fair demands
    Shall be accomplish'd without contradiction.
    With all the gracious utterance thou hast
    Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.
    [To AUMERLE] We do debase ourselves, cousin, do we not,
    To look so poorly and to speak so fair?
    Shall we call back Northumberland, and send
    Defiance to the traitor, and so die?
  AUMERLE. No, good my lord; let's fight with gentle words
    Till time lend friends, and friends their helpful swords.
  KING RICHARD. O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine
    That laid the sentence of dread banishment
    On yon proud man should take it off again
    With words of sooth! O that I were as great
    As is my grief, or lesser than my name!
    Or that I could forget what I have been!
    Or not remember what I must be now!
    Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,
    Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.
  AUMERLE. Northumberland comes back from Bolingbroke.
  KING RICHARD. What must the King do now? Must he submit?
    The King shall do it. Must he be depos'd?
    The King shall be contented. Must he lose
    The name of king? A God's name, let it go.
    I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
    My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
    My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
    My figur'd goblets for a dish of wood,
    My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,
    My subjects for a pair of carved saints,
    And my large kingdom for a little grave,
    A little little grave, an obscure grave-
    Or I'll be buried in the king's high way,
    Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
    May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;
    For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,
    And buried once, why not upon my head?
    Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!
    We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
    Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn
    And make a dearth in this revolting land.
    Or shall we play the wantons with our woes
    And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
    As thus: to drop them still upon one place
    Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
    Within the earth; and, therein laid-there lies
    Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.
    Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
    I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.
    Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
    What says King Bolingbroke? Will his Majesty
    Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
    You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, in the base court he doth attend
    To speak with you; may it please you to come down?
  KING RICHARD. Down, down I come, like glist'ring Phaethon,
    Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
    In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,
    To come at traitors' calls, and do them grace.
    In the base court? Come down? Down, court! down, king!
    For night-owls shriek where mounting larks should sing.
                                               Exeunt from above
  BOLINGBROKE. What says his Majesty?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Sorrow and grief of heart
    Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man;
    Yet he is come.

          Enter the KING, and his attendants, below

  BOLINGBROKE. Stand all apart,
    And show fair duty to his Majesty.   [He kneels down]
    My gracious lord-
  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
    To make the base earth proud with kissing it.
    Me rather had my heart might feel your love
    Than my unpleas'd eye see your courtesy.
    Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,
    [Touching his own head] Thus high at least, although your
      knee be low.
  BOLINGBROKE. My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.
  KING RICHARD. Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.
  BOLINGBROKE. So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
    As my true service shall deserve your love.
  KING RICHARD. Well you deserve. They well deserve to have
    That know the strong'st and surest way to get.
    Uncle, give me your hands; nay, dry your eyes:
    Tears show their love, but want their remedies.
    Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
    Though you are old enough to be my heir.
    What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;
    For do we must what force will have us do.
    Set on towards London. Cousin, is it so?
  BOLINGBROKE. Yea, my good lord.
  KING RICHARD. Then I must not say no.         Flourish. Exeunt

SCENE 4. The DUKE OF YORK's garden

Enter the QUEEN and two LADIES

  QUEEN. What sport shall we devise here in this garden
    To drive away the heavy thought of care?
  LADY. Madam, we'll play at bowls.
  QUEEN. 'Twill make me think the world is full of rubs
    And that my fortune runs against the bias.
  LADY. Madam, we'll dance.
  QUEEN. My legs can keep no measure in delight,
    When my poor heart no measure keeps in grief;
    Therefore no dancing, girl; some other sport.
  LADY. Madam, we'll tell tales.
  QUEEN. Of sorrow or of joy?
  LADY. Of either, madam.
  QUEEN. Of neither, girl;
    For if of joy, being altogether wanting,
    It doth remember me the more of sorrow;
    Or if of grief, being altogether had,
    It adds more sorrow to my want of joy;
    For what I have I need not to repeat,
    And what I want it boots not to complain.
  LADY. Madam, I'll sing.
  QUEEN. 'Tis well' that thou hast cause;
    But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.
  LADY. I could weep, madam, would it do you good.
  QUEEN. And I could sing, would weeping do me good,
    And never borrow any tear of thee.

           Enter a GARDENER and two SERVANTS

    But stay, here come the gardeners.
    Let's step into the shadow of these trees.
    My wretchedness unto a row of pins,
    They will talk of state, for every one doth so
    Against a change: woe is forerun with woe.
                                       [QUEEN and LADIES retire]
  GARDENER. Go, bind thou up yon dangling apricocks,
    Which, like unruly children, make their sire
    Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight;
    Give some supportance to the bending twigs.
    Go thou, and Eke an executioner
    Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays
    That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
    All must be even in our government.
    You thus employ'd, I will go root away
    The noisome weeds which without profit suck
    The soil's fertility from wholesome flowers.
  SERVANT. Why should we, in the compass of a pale,
    Keep law and form and due proportion,
    Showing, as in a model, our firm estate,
    When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
    Is full of weeds; her fairest flowers chok'd up,
    Her fruit trees all unprun'd, her hedges ruin'd,
    Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
    Swarming with caterpillars?
  GARDENER. Hold thy peace.
    He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd spring
    Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf;
    The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
    That seem'd in eating him to hold him up,
    Are pluck'd up root and all by Bolingbroke-
    I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.
  SERVANT. What, are they dead?
  GARDENER. They are; and Bolingbroke
    Hath seiz'd the wasteful King. O, what pity is it
    That he had not so trimm'd and dress'd his land
    As we this garden! We at time of year
    Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
    Lest, being over-proud in sap and blood,
    With too much riches it confound itself;
    Had he done so to great and growing men,
    They might have Ev'd to bear, and he to taste
    Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches
    We lop away, that bearing boughs may live;
    Had he done so, himself had home the crown,
    Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down.
  SERVANT. What, think you the King shall be deposed?
  GARDENER. Depress'd he is already, and depos'd
    'Tis doubt he will be. Letters came last night
    To a dear friend of the good Duke of York's
    That tell black tidings.
  QUEEN. O, I am press'd to death through want of speaking!
                                                [Coming forward]
    Thou, old Adam's likeness, set to dress this garden,
    How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?
    What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested the
    To make a second fall of cursed man?
    Why dost thou say King Richard is depos'd?
    Dar'st thou, thou little better thing than earth,
    Divine his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,
    Cam'st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.
  GARDENER. Pardon me, madam; little joy have
    To breathe this news; yet what I say is true.
    King Richard, he is in the mighty hold
    Of Bolingbroke. Their fortunes both are weigh'd.
    In your lord's scale is nothing but himself,
    And some few vanities that make him light;
    But in the balance of great Bolingbroke,
    Besides himself, are all the English peers,
    And with that odds he weighs King Richard down.
    Post you to London, and you will find it so;
    I speak no more than every one doth know.
  QUEEN. Nimble mischance, that art so light of foot,
    Doth not thy embassage belong to me,
    And am I last that knows it? O, thou thinkest
    To serve me last, that I may longest keep
    Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go
    To meet at London London's King in woe.
    What, was I born to this, that my sad look
    Should grace the triumph of great Bolingbroke?
    Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,
    Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow!
                                         Exeunt QUEEN and LADIES
  GARDENER. Poor Queen, so that thy state might be no worse,
    I would my skill were subject to thy curse.
    Here did she fall a tear; here in this place
    I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace.
    Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
    In the remembrance of a weeping queen.                Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1. Westminster Hall

Enter, as to the Parliament, BOLINGBROKE, AUMERLE, NORTHUMBERLAND,
PERCY, FITZWATER, SURREY, the BISHOP OF CARLISLE, the ABBOT OF
WESTMINSTER, and others; HERALD, OFFICERS, and BAGOT

  BOLINGBROKE. Call forth Bagot.
    Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind-
    What thou dost know of noble Gloucester's death;
    Who wrought it with the King, and who perform'd
    The bloody office of his timeless end.
  BAGOT. Then set before my face the Lord Aumerle.
  BOLINGBROKE. Cousin, stand forth, and look upon that man.
  BAGOT. My Lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue
    Scorns to unsay what once it hath deliver'd.
    In that dead time when Gloucester's death was plotted
    I heard you say 'Is not my arm of length,
    That reacheth from the restful English Court
    As far as Calais, to mine uncle's head?'
    Amongst much other talk that very time
    I heard you say that you had rather refuse
    The offer of an hundred thousand crowns
    Than Bolingbroke's return to England;
    Adding withal, how blest this land would be
    In this your cousin's death.
  AUMERLE. Princes, and noble lords,
    What answer shall I make to this base man?
    Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars
    On equal terms to give him chastisement?
    Either I must, or have mine honour soil'd
    With the attainder of his slanderous lips.
    There is my gage, the manual seal of death
    That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,
    And will maintain what thou hast said is false
    In thy heart-blood, through being all too base
    To stain the temper of my knightly sword.
  BOLINGBROKE. Bagot, forbear; thou shalt not take it up.
  AUMERLE. Excepting one, I would he were the best
    In all this presence that hath mov'd me so.
  FITZWATER. If that thy valour stand on sympathy,
    There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine.
    By that fair sun which shows me where thou stand'st,
    I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak'st it,
    That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester's death.
    If thou deniest it twenty times, thou liest;
    And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart,
    Where it was forged, with my rapier's point.
  AUMERLE. Thou dar'st not, coward, live to see that day.
  FITZWATER. Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.
  AUMERLE. Fitzwater, thou art damn'd to hell for this.
  PERCY. Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true
    In this appeal as thou art an unjust;
    And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,
    To prove it on thee to the extremest point
    Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar'st.
  AUMERLE. An if I do not, may my hands rot of
    And never brandish more revengeful steel
    Over the glittering helmet of my foe!
  ANOTHER LORD. I task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;
    And spur thee on with fun as many lies
    As may be halloa'd in thy treacherous ear
    From sun to sun. There is my honour's pawn;
    Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.
  AUMERLE. Who sets me else? By heaven, I'll throw at all!
    I have a thousand spirits in one breast
    To answer twenty thousand such as you.
  SURREY. My Lord Fitzwater, I do remember well
    The very time Aumerle and you did talk.
  FITZWATER. 'Tis very true; you were in presence then,
    And you can witness with me this is true.
  SURREY. As false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.
  FITZWATER. Surrey, thou liest.
  SURREY. Dishonourable boy!
    That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword
    That it shall render vengeance and revenge
    Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do he
    In earth as quiet as thy father's skull.
    In proof whereof, there is my honour's pawn;
    Engage it to the trial, if thou dar'st.
  FITZWATER. How fondly dost thou spur a forward horse!
    If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,
    I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,
    And spit upon him whilst I say he lies,
    And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith,
    To tie thee to my strong correction.
    As I intend to thrive in this new world,
    Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.
    Besides, I heard the banish'd Norfolk say
    That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men
    To execute the noble Duke at Calais.
  AUMERLE. Some honest Christian trust me with a gage
    That Norfolk lies. Here do I throw down this,
    If he may be repeal'd to try his honour.
  BOLINGBROKE. These differences shall all rest under gage
    Till Norfolk be repeal'd-repeal'd he shall be
    And, though mine enemy, restor'd again
    To all his lands and signories. When he is return'd,
    Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.
  CARLISLE. That honourable day shall never be seen.
    Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought
    For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
    Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
    Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;
    And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself
    To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave
    His body to that pleasant country's earth,
    And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
    Under whose colours he had fought so long.
  BOLINGBROKE. Why, Bishop, is Norfolk dead?
  CARLISLE. As surely as I live, my lord.
  BOLINGBROKE. Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom
    Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,
    Your differences shall all rest under gage
    Till we assign you to your days of trial

                 Enter YORK, attended

  YORK. Great Duke of Lancaster, I come to the
    From plume-pluck'd Richard, who with willing soul
    Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields
    To the possession of thy royal hand.
    Ascend his throne, descending now from him-
    And long live Henry, fourth of that name!
  BOLINGBROKE. In God's name, I'll ascend the regal throne.
  CARLISLE. Marry, God forbid!
    Worst in this royal presence may I speak,
    Yet best beseeming me to speak the truth.
    Would God that any in this noble presence
    Were enough noble to be upright judge
    Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse would
    Learn him forbearance from so foul a wrong.
    What subject can give sentence on his king?
    And who sits here that is not Richard's subject?
    Thieves are not judg'd but they are by to hear,
    Although apparent guilt be seen in them;
    And shall the figure of God's majesty,
    His captain, steward, deputy elect,
    Anointed, crowned, planted many years,
    Be judg'd by subject and inferior breath,
    And he himself not present? O, forfend it, God,
    That in a Christian climate souls refin'd
    Should show so heinous, black, obscene a deed!
    I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,
    Stirr'd up by God, thus boldly for his king.
    My Lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,
    Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford's king;
    And if you crown him, let me prophesy-
    The blood of English shall manure the ground,
    And future ages groan for this foul act;
    Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,
    And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars
    Shall kin with kin and kind with kind confound;
    Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny,
    Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd
    The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.
    O, if you raise this house against this house,
    It will the woefullest division prove
    That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
    Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
    Lest child, child's children, cry against you woe.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,
    Of capital treason we arrest you here.
    My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge
    To keep him safely till his day of trial.
    May it please you, lords, to grant the commons' suit?
  BOLINGBROKE. Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
    He may surrender; so we shall proceed
    Without suspicion.
  YORK. I will be his conduct.                              Exit
  BOLINGBROKE. Lords, you that here are under our arrest,
    Procure your sureties for your days of answer.
    Little are we beholding to your love,
    And little look'd for at your helping hands.

      Re-enter YORK, with KING RICHARD, and OFFICERS
                bearing the regalia

  KING RICHARD. Alack, why am I sent for to a king,
    Before I have shook off the regal thoughts
    Wherewith I reign'd? I hardly yet have learn'd
    To insinuate, flatter, bow, and bend my knee.
    Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me
    To this submission. Yet I well remember
    The favours of these men. Were they not mine?
    Did they not sometime cry 'All hail!' to me?
    So Judas did to Christ; but he, in twelve,
    Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.
    God save the King! Will no man say amen?
    Am I both priest and clerk? Well then, amen.
    God save the King! although I be not he;
    And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.
    To do what service am I sent for hither?
  YORK. To do that office of thine own good will
    Which tired majesty did make thee offer-
    The resignation of thy state and crown
    To Henry Bolingbroke.
  KING RICHARD. Give me the crown. Here, cousin, seize the crown.
    Here, cousin,
    On this side my hand, and on that side thine.
    Now is this golden crown like a deep well
    That owes two buckets, filling one another;
    The emptier ever dancing in the air,
    The other down, unseen, and full of water.
    That bucket down and fun of tears am I,
    Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.
  BOLINGBROKE. I thought you had been willing to resign.
  KING RICHARD. My crown I am; but still my griefs are mine.
    You may my glories and my state depose,
    But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
  BOLINGBROKE. Part of your cares you give me with your crown.
  KING RICHARD. Your cares set up do not pluck my cares down.
    My care is loss of care, by old care done;
    Your care is gain of care, by new care won.
    The cares I give I have, though given away;
    They tend the crown, yet still with me they stay.
  BOLINGBROKE. Are you contented to resign the crown?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, no; no, ay; for I must nothing be;
    Therefore no no, for I resign to thee.
    Now mark me how I will undo myself:
    I give this heavy weight from off my head,
    And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand,
    The pride of kingly sway from out my heart;
    With mine own tears I wash away my balm,
    With mine own hands I give away my crown,
    With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,
    With mine own breath release all duteous oaths;
    All pomp and majesty I do forswear;
    My manors, rents, revenues, I forgo;
    My acts, decrees, and statutes, I deny.
    God pardon all oaths that are broke to me!
    God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee!
    Make me, that nothing have, with nothing griev'd,
    And thou with all pleas'd, that hast an achiev'd.
    Long mayst thou live in Richard's seat to sit,
    And soon lie Richard in an earthly pit.
    God save King Henry, unking'd Richard says,
    And send him many years of sunshine days!
    What more remains?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. No more; but that you read
    These accusations, and these grievous crimes
    Committed by your person and your followers
    Against the state and profit of this land;
    That, by confessing them, the souls of men
    May deem that you are worthily depos'd.
  KING RICHARD. Must I do so? And must I ravel out
    My weav'd-up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
    If thy offences were upon record,
    Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop
    To read a lecture of them? If thou wouldst,
    There shouldst thou find one heinous article,
    Containing the deposing of a king
    And cracking the strong warrant of an oath,
    Mark'd with a blot, damn'd in the book of heaven.
    Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me
    Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait myself,
    Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,
    Showing an outward pity-yet you Pilates
    Have here deliver'd me to my sour cross,
    And water cannot wash away your sin.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, dispatch; read o'er these
    articles.
  KING RICHARD. Mine eyes are full of tears; I cannot see.
    And yet salt water blinds them not so much
    But they can see a sort of traitors here.
    Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,
    I find myself a traitor with the rest;
    For I have given here my soul's consent
    T'undeck the pompous body of a king;
    Made glory base, and sovereignty a slave,
    Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord-
  KING RICHARD. No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,
    Nor no man's lord; I have no name, no tide-
    No, not that name was given me at the font-
    But 'tis usurp'd. Alack the heavy day,
    That I have worn so many winters out,
    And know not now what name to call myself!
    O that I were a mockery king of snow,
    Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke
    To melt myself away in water drops!
    Good king, great king, and yet not greatly good,
    An if my word be sterling yet in England,
    Let it command a mirror hither straight,
    That it may show me what a face I have
    Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
  BOLINGBROKE. Go some of you and fetch a looking-glass.
                                               Exit an attendant
  NORTHUMBERLAND. Read o'er this paper while the glass doth come.
  KING RICHARD. Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell.
  BOLINGBROKE. Urge it no more, my Lord Northumberland.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. The Commons will not, then, be satisfied.
  KING RICHARD. They shall be satisfied. I'll read enough,
    When I do see the very book indeed
    Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.

                Re-enter attendant with glass

    Give me that glass, and therein will I read.
    No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck
    So many blows upon this face of mine
    And made no deeper wounds? O flatt'ring glass,
    Like to my followers in prosperity,
    Thou dost beguile me! Was this face the face
    That every day under his household roof
    Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face
    That like the sun did make beholders wink?
    Is this the face which fac'd so many follies
    That was at last out-fac'd by Bolingbroke?
    A brittle glory shineth in this face;
    As brittle as the glory is the face;
                        [Dashes the glass against the ground]
    For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers.
    Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport-
    How soon my sorrow hath destroy'd my face.
  BOLINGBROKE. The shadow of your sorrow hath destroy'd
    The shadow of your face.
  KING RICHARD. Say that again.
    The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see.
    'Tis very true: my grief lies all within;
    And these external manner of laments
    Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
    That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul.
    There lies the substance; and I thank thee, king,
    For thy great bounty, that not only giv'st
    Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way
    How to lament the cause. I'll beg one boon,
    And then be gone and trouble you no more.
    Shall I obtain it?
  BOLINGBROKE. Name it, fair cousin.
  KING RICHARD. Fair cousin! I am greater than a king;
    For when I was a king, my flatterers
    Were then but subjects; being now a subject,
    I have a king here to my flatterer.
    Being so great, I have no need to beg.
  BOLINGBROKE. Yet ask.
  KING RICHARD. And shall I have?
  BOLINGBROKE. You shall.
  KING RICHARD. Then give me leave to go.
  BOLINGBROKE. Whither?
  KING RICHARD. Whither you will, so I were from your sights.
  BOLINGBROKE. Go, some of you convey him to the Tower.
  KING RICHARD. O, good! Convey! Conveyers are you all,
    That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall.
                     Exeunt KING RICHARD, some Lords and a Guard
  BOLINGBROKE. On Wednesday next we solemnly set down
    Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.
                    Exeunt all but the ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, the
                                 BISHOP OF CARLISLE, and AUMERLE
  ABBOT. A woeful pageant have we here beheld.
  CARLISLE. The woe's to come; the children yet unborn
    Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.
  AUMERLE. You holy clergymen, is there no plot
    To rid the realm of this pernicious blot?
  ABBOT. My lord,
    Before I freely speak my mind herein,
    You shall not only take the sacrament
    To bury mine intents, but also to effect
    Whatever I shall happen to devise.
    I see your brows are full of discontent,
    Your hearts of sorrow, and your eyes of tears.
    Come home with me to supper; I will lay
    A plot shall show us all a merry day.                 Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1. London. A street leading to the Tower

Enter the QUEEN, with her attendants

  QUEEN. This way the King will come; this is the way
    To Julius Caesar's ill-erected tower,
    To whose flint bosom my condemned lord
    Is doom'd a prisoner by proud Bolingbroke.
    Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth
    Have any resting for her true King's queen.

            Enter KING RICHARD and Guard

    But soft, but see, or rather do not see,
    My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,
    That you in pity may dissolve to dew,
    And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.
    Ah, thou, the model where old Troy did stand;
    Thou map of honour, thou King Richard's tomb,
    And not King Richard; thou most beauteous inn,
    Why should hard-favour'd grief be lodg'd in thee,
    When triumph is become an alehouse guest?
  KING RICHARD. Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,
    To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,
    To think our former state a happy dream;
    From which awak'd, the truth of what we are
    Shows us but this: I am sworn brother, sweet,
    To grim Necessity; and he and
    Will keep a league till death. Hie thee to France,
    And cloister thee in some religious house.
    Our holy lives must win a new world's crown,
    Which our profane hours here have thrown down.
  QUEEN. What, is my Richard both in shape and mind
    Transform'd and weak'ned? Hath Bolingbroke depos'd
    Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?
    The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw
    And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage
    To be o'erpow'r'd; and wilt thou, pupil-like,
    Take the correction mildly, kiss the rod,
    And fawn on rage with base humility,
    Which art a lion and the king of beasts?
  KING RICHARD. A king of beasts, indeed! If aught but beasts,
    I had been still a happy king of men.
    Good sometimes queen, prepare thee hence for France.
    Think I am dead, and that even here thou takest,
    As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.
    In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire
    With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
    Of woeful ages long ago betid;
    And ere thou bid good night, to quit their griefs
    Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,
    And send the hearers weeping to their beds;
    For why, the senseless brands will sympathize
    The heavy accent of thy moving tongue,
    And in compassion weep the fire out;
    And some will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,
    For the deposing of a rightful king.

             Enter NORTHUMBERLAND attended

  NORTHUMBERLAND. My lord, the mind of Bolingbroke is chang'd;
    You must to Pomfret, not unto the Tower.
    And, madam, there is order ta'en for you:
    With all swift speed you must away to France.
  KING RICHARD. Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal
    The mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne,
    The time shall not be many hours of age
    More than it is, ere foul sin gathering head
    Shall break into corruption. Thou shalt think
    Though he divide the realm and give thee half
    It is too little, helping him to all;
    And he shall think that thou, which knowest the way
    To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again,
    Being ne'er so little urg'd, another way
    To pluck him headlong from the usurped throne.
    The love of wicked men converts to fear;
    That fear to hate; and hate turns one or both
    To worthy danger and deserved death.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. My guilt be on my head, and there an end.
    Take leave, and part; for you must part forthwith.
  KING RICHARD. Doubly divorc'd! Bad men, you violate
    A twofold marriage-'twixt my crown and me,
    And then betwixt me and my married wife.
    Let me unkiss the oath 'twixt thee and me;
    And yet not so, for with a kiss 'twas made.
    Part us, Northumberland; I towards the north,
    Where shivering cold and sickness pines the clime;
    My wife to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
    She came adorned hither like sweet May,
    Sent back like Hallowmas or short'st of day.
  QUEEN. And must we be divided? Must we part?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.
  QUEEN. Banish us both, and send the King with me.
  NORTHUMBERLAND. That were some love, but little policy.
  QUEEN. Then whither he goes thither let me go.
  KING RICHARD. So two, together weeping, make one woe.
    Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here;
    Better far off than near, be ne'er the near.
    Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.
  QUEEN. So longest way shall have the longest moans.
  KING RICHARD. Twice for one step I'll groan, the way being short,
    And piece the way out with a heavy heart.
    Come, come, in wooing sorrow let's be brief,
    Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.
    One kiss shall stop our mouths, and dumbly part;
    Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.
  QUEEN. Give me mine own again; 'twere no good part
    To take on me to keep and kill thy heart.
    So, now I have mine own again, be gone.
    That I may strive to kill it with a groan.
  KING RICHARD. We make woe wanton with this fond delay.
    Once more, adieu; the rest let sorrow say.            Exeunt

SCENE 2. The DUKE OF YORK's palace

Enter the DUKE OF YORK and the DUCHESS

  DUCHESS. My Lord, you told me you would tell the rest,
    When weeping made you break the story off,
    Of our two cousins' coming into London.
  YORK. Where did I leave?
  DUCHESS. At that sad stop, my lord,
    Where rude misgoverned hands from windows' tops
    Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard's head.
  YORK. Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke,
    Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed
    Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,
    With slow but stately pace kept on his course,
    Whilst all tongues cried 'God save thee, Bolingbroke!'
    You would have thought the very windows spake,
    So many greedy looks of young and old
    Through casements darted their desiring eyes
    Upon his visage; and that all the walls
    With painted imagery had said at once
    'Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!'
    Whilst he, from the one side to the other turning,
    Bareheaded, lower than his proud steed's neck,
    Bespake them thus, 'I thank you, countrymen.'
    And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.
  DUCHESS. Alack, poor Richard! where rode he the whilst?
  YORK. As in a theatre the eyes of men
    After a well-grac'd actor leaves the stage
    Are idly bent on him that enters next,
    Thinking his prattle to be tedious;
    Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
    Did scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried 'God save him!'
    No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;
    But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
    Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,
    His face still combating with tears and smiles,
    The badges of his grief and patience,
    That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd
    The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,
    And barbarism itself have pitied him.
    But heaven hath a hand in these events,
    To whose high will we bound our calm contents.
    To Bolingbroke are we sworn subjects now,
    Whose state and honour I for aye allow.
  DUCHESS. Here comes my son Aumerle.
  YORK. Aumerle that was
    But that is lost for being Richard's friend,
    And madam, you must call him Rudand now.
    I am in Parliament pledge for his truth
    And lasting fealty to the new-made king.

                  Enter AUMERLE

  DUCHESS. Welcome, my son. Who are the violets now
    That strew the green lap of the new come spring?
  AUMERLE. Madam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.
    God knows I had as lief be none as one.
  YORK. Well, bear you well in this new spring of time,
    Lest you be cropp'd before you come to prime.
    What news from Oxford? Do these justs and triumphs hold?
  AUMERLE. For aught I know, my lord, they do.
  YORK. You will be there, I know.
  AUMERLE. If God prevent not, I purpose so.
  YORK. What seal is that that without thy bosom?
    Yea, look'st thou pale? Let me see the writing.
  AUMERLE. My lord, 'tis nothing.
  YORK. No matter, then, who see it.
    I will be satisfied; let me see the writing.
  AUMERLE. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me;
    It is a matter of small consequence
    Which for some reasons I would not have seen.
  YORK. Which for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.
    I fear, I fear-
  DUCHESS. What should you fear?
    'Tis nothing but some bond that he is ent'red into
    For gay apparel 'gainst the triumph-day.
  YORK. Bound to himself! What doth he with a bond
    That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.
    Boy, let me see the writing.
  AUMERLE. I do beseech you, pardon me; I may not show it.
  YORK. I will be satisfied; let me see it, I say.
                [He plucks it out of his bosom, and reads it]
    Treason, foul treason! Villain! traitor! slave!
  DUCHESS. What is the matter, my lord?
  YORK. Ho! who is within there?

                    Enter a servant

    Saddle my horse.
    God for his mercy, what treachery is here!
  DUCHESS. Why, York, what is it, my lord?
  YORK. Give me my boots, I say; saddle my horse.
                                                    Exit servant
    Now, by mine honour, by my life, my troth,
    I will appeach the villain.
  DUCHESS. What is the matter?
  YORK. Peace, foolish woman.
  DUCHESS. I will not peace. What is the matter, Aumerle?
  AUMERLE. Good mother, be content; it is no more
    Than my poor life must answer.
  DUCHESS. Thy life answer!
  YORK. Bring me my boots. I will unto the King.

              His man enters with his boots

  DUCHESS. Strike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amaz'd.
    Hence, villain! never more come in my sight.
  YORK. Give me my boots, I say.
  DUCHESS. Why, York, what wilt thou do?
    Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?
    Have we more sons? or are we like to have?
    Is not my teeming date drunk up with time?
    And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age
    And rob me of a happy mother's name?
    Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?
  YORK. Thou fond mad woman,
    Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?
    A dozen of them here have ta'en the sacrament,
    And interchangeably set down their hands
    To kill the King at Oxford.
  DUCHESS. He shall be none;
    We'll keep him here. Then what is that to him?
  YORK. Away, fond woman! were he twenty times my son
    I would appeach him.
  DUCHESS. Hadst thou groan'd for him
    As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.
    But now I know thy mind: thou dost suspect
    That I have been disloyal to thy bed
    And that he is a bastard, not thy son.
    Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind.
    He is as like thee as a man may be
    Not like to me, or any of my kin,
    And yet I love him.
  YORK. Make way, unruly woman!                             Exit
  DUCHESS. After, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse;
    Spur post, and get before him to the King,
    And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.
    I'll not be long behind; though I be old,
    I doubt not but to ride as fast as York;
    And never will I rise up from the ground
    Till Bolingbroke have pardon'd thee. Away, be gone.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 3. Windsor Castle

Enter BOLINGBROKE as King, PERCY, and other LORDS

  BOLINGBROKE. Can no man tell me of my unthrifty son?
    'Tis full three months since I did see him last.
    If any plague hang over us, 'tis he.
    I would to God, my lords, he might be found.
    Inquire at London, 'mongst the taverns there,
    For there, they say, he daily doth frequent
    With unrestrained loose companions,
    Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes
    And beat our watch and rob our passengers,
    Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,
    Takes on the point of honour to support
    So dissolute a crew.
  PERCY. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince,
    And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford.
  BOLINGBROKE. And what said the gallant?
  PERCY. His answer was, he would unto the stews,
    And from the common'st creature pluck a glove
    And wear it as a favour; and with that
    He would unhorse the lustiest challenger.
  BOLINGBROKE. As dissolute as desperate; yet through both
    I see some sparks of better hope, which elder years
    May happily bring forth. But who comes here?

                Enter AUMERLE amazed

  AUMERLE. Where is the King?
  BOLINGBROKE. What means our cousin that he stares and looks
    So wildly?
  AUMERLE. God save your Grace! I do beseech your Majesty,
    To have some conference with your Grace alone.
  BOLINGBROKE. Withdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.
                                          Exeunt PERCY and LORDS
    What is the matter with our cousin now?
  AUMERLE. For ever may my knees grow to the earth,
                                                    [Kneels]
    My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth,
    Unless a pardon ere I rise or speak.
  BOLINGBROKE. Intended or committed was this fault?
    If on the first, how heinous e'er it be,
    To win thy after-love I pardon thee.
  AUMERLE. Then give me leave that I may turn the key,
    That no man enter till my tale be done.
  BOLINGBROKE. Have thy desire.
            [The DUKE OF YORK knocks at the door and crieth]
  YORK. [Within] My liege, beware; look to thyself;
    Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.
  BOLINGBROKE. [Drawing] Villain, I'll make thee safe.
  AUMERLE. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear.
  YORK. [Within] Open the door, secure, foolhardy King.
    Shall I, for love, speak treason to thy face?
    Open the door, or I will break it open.

                    Enter YORK

  BOLINGBROKE. What is the matter, uncle? Speak;
    Recover breath; tell us how near is danger,
    That we may arm us to encounter it.
  YORK. Peruse this writing here, and thou shalt know
    The treason that my haste forbids me show.
  AUMERLE. Remember, as thou read'st, thy promise pass'd.
    I do repent me; read not my name there;
    My heart is not confederate with my hand.
  YORK. It was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.
    I tore it from the traitor's bosom, King;
    Fear, and not love, begets his penitence.
    Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove
    A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.
  BOLINGBROKE. O heinous, strong, and bold conspiracy!
    O loyal father of a treacherous son!
    Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain,
    From whence this stream through muddy passages
    Hath held his current and defil'd himself!
    Thy overflow of good converts to bad;
    And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
    This deadly blot in thy digressing son.
  YORK. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd;
    And he shall spend mine honour with his shame,
    As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold.
    Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,
    Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies.
    Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath,
    The traitor lives, the true man's put to death.
  DUCHESS. [Within] I What ho, my liege, for God's sake, let me in.
  BOLINGBROKE. What shrill-voic'd suppliant makes this eager cry?
  DUCHESS. [Within] A woman, and thine aunt, great King; 'tis I.
    Speak with me, pity me, open the door.
    A beggar begs that never begg'd before.
  BOLINGBROKE. Our scene is alt'red from a serious thing,
    And now chang'd to 'The Beggar and the King.'
    My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.
    I know she is come to pray for your foul sin.
  YORK. If thou do pardon whosoever pray,
    More sins for this forgiveness prosper may.
    This fest'red joint cut off, the rest rest sound;
    This let alone will all the rest confound.

                 Enter DUCHESS

  DUCHESS. O King, believe not this hard-hearted man!
    Love loving not itself, none other can.
  YORK. Thou frantic woman, what dost thou make here?
    Shall thy old dugs once more a traitor rear?
  DUCHESS. Sweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege.
                                                     [Kneels]
  BOLINGBROKE. Rise up, good aunt.
  DUCHESS. Not yet, I thee beseech.
    For ever will I walk upon my knees,
    And never see day that the happy sees
    Till thou give joy; until thou bid me joy
    By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.
  AUMERLE. Unto my mother's prayers I bend my knee.
                                                     [Kneels]
  YORK. Against them both, my true joints bended be.
                                                     [Kneels]
    Ill mayst thou thrive, if thou grant any grace!
  DUCHESS. Pleads he in earnest? Look upon his face;
    His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;
    His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast.
    He prays but faintly and would be denied;
    We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.
    His weary joints would gladly rise, I know;
    Our knees still kneel till to the ground they grow.
    His prayers are full of false hypocrisy;
    Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.
    Our prayers do out-pray his; then let them have
    That mercy which true prayer ought to have.
  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.
  DUCHESS. do not say 'stand up';
    Say 'pardon' first, and afterwards 'stand up.'
    An if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,
    'Pardon' should be the first word of thy speech.
    I never long'd to hear a word till now;
    Say 'pardon,' King; let pity teach thee how.
    The word is short, but not so short as sweet;
    No word like 'pardon' for kings' mouths so meet.
  YORK. Speak it in French, King, say 'pardonne moy.'
  DUCHESS. Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
    Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,
    That sets the word itself against the word!
    Speak 'pardon' as 'tis current in our land;
    The chopping French we do not understand.
    Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there;
    Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,
    That hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,
    Pity may move thee 'pardon' to rehearse.
  BOLINGBROKE. Good aunt, stand up.
  DUCHESS. I do not sue to stand;
    Pardon is all the suit I have in hand.
  BOLINGBROKE. I pardon him, as God shall pardon me.
  DUCHESS. O happy vantage of a kneeling knee!
    Yet am I sick for fear. Speak it again.
    Twice saying 'pardon' doth not pardon twain,
    But makes one pardon strong.
  BOLINGBROKE. With all my heart
    I pardon him.
  DUCHESS. A god on earth thou art.
  BOLINGBROKE. But for our trusty brother-in-law and the Abbot,
    With all the rest of that consorted crew,
    Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.
    Good uncle, help to order several powers
    To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are.
    They shall not live within this world, I swear,
    But I will have them, if I once know where.
    Uncle, farewell; and, cousin, adieu;
    Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true.
  DUCHESS. Come, my old son; I pray God make thee new.      Exeunt

SCENE 4. Windsor Castle

Enter SIR PIERCE OF EXTON and a servant

  EXTON. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake?
    'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?'
    Was it not so?
  SERVANT. These were his very words.
  EXTON. 'Have I no friend?' quoth he. He spake it twice
    And urg'd it twice together, did he not?
  SERVANT. He did.
  EXTON. And, speaking it, he wishtly look'd on me,
    As who should say 'I would thou wert the man
    That would divorce this terror from my heart';
    Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go.
    I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe.         Exeunt

SCENE 5. Pomfret Castle. The dungeon of the Castle

Enter KING RICHARD

  KING RICHARD. I have been studying how I may compare
    This prison where I live unto the world
    And, for because the world is populous
    And here is not a creature but myself,
    I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.
    My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
    My soul the father; and these two beget
    A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
    And these same thoughts people this little world,
    In humours like the people of this world,
    For no thought is contented. The better sort,
    As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
    With scruples, and do set the word itself
    Against the word,
    As thus: 'Come, little ones'; and then again,
    'It is as hard to come as for a camel
    To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'
    Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
    Unlikely wonders: how these vain weak nails
    May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
    Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls;
    And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
    Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves
    That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
    Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars
    Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,
    That many have and others must sit there;
    And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
    Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
    Of such as have before endur'd the like.
    Thus play I in one person many people,
    And none contented. Sometimes am I king;
    Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,
    And so I am. Then crushing penury
    Persuades me I was better when a king;
    Then am I king'd again; and by and by
    Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
    And straight am nothing. But whate'er I be,
    Nor I, nor any man that but man is,
    With nothing shall be pleas'd till he be eas'd
    With being nothing.                    [The music plays]
    Music do I hear?
    Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is
    When time is broke and no proportion kept!
    So is it in the music of men's lives.
    And here have I the daintiness of ear
    To check time broke in a disorder'd string;
    But, for the concord of my state and time,
    Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
    I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
    For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:
    My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
    Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
    Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
    Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart,
    Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans,
    Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time
    Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy,
    While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock.
    This music mads me. Let it sound no more;
    For though it have holp madmen to their wits,
    In me it seems it will make wise men mad.
    Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me!
    For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard
    Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world.

              Enter a GROOM of the stable

  GROOM. Hail, royal Prince!
  KING RICHARD. Thanks, noble peer!
    The cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.
    What art thou? and how comest thou hither,
    Where no man never comes but that sad dog
    That brings me food to make misfortune live?
  GROOM. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King,
    When thou wert king; who, travelling towards York,
    With much ado at length have gotten leave
    To look upon my sometimes royal master's face.
    O, how it ern'd my heart, when I beheld,
    In London streets, that coronation-day,
    When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary-
    That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
    That horse that I so carefully have dress'd!
  KING RICHARD. Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
    How went he under him?
  GROOM. So proudly as if he disdain'd the ground.
  KING RICHARD. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
    That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
    This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
    Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,
    Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck
    Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
    Forgiveness, horse! Why do I rail on thee,
    Since thou, created to be aw'd by man,
    Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse;
    And yet I bear a burden like an ass,
    Spurr'd, gall'd, and tir'd, by jauncing Bolingbroke.

              Enter KEEPER with meat

  KEEPER. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay.
  KING RICHARD. If thou love me, 'tis time thou wert away.
  GROOM. my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.
 Exit
  KEEPER. My lord, will't please you to fall to?
  KING RICHARD. Taste of it first as thou art wont to do.
  KEEPER. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,
    Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.
  KING RICHARD. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!
    Patience is stale, and I am weary of it.
                                           [Beats the KEEPER]
  KEEPER. Help, help, help!
    The murderers, EXTON and servants, rush in, armed
  KING RICHARD. How now! What means death in this rude assault?
    Villain, thy own hand yields thy death's instrument.
                         [Snatching a weapon and killing one]
    Go thou and fill another room in hell.
              [He kills another, then EXTON strikes him down]
    That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire
    That staggers thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand
    Hath with the King's blood stain'd the King's own land.
    Mount, mount, my soul! thy seat is up on high;
    Whilst my gross flesh sinks downward, here to die.
                                                       [Dies]
  EXTON. As full of valour as of royal blood.
    Both have I spill'd. O, would the deed were good!
    For now the devil, that told me I did well,
    Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.
    This dead King to the living King I'll bear.
    Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.       Exeunt

SCENE 6. Windsor Castle

Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, the DUKE OF YORK, With other LORDS and
attendants

  BOLINGBROKE. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
    Is that the rebels have consum'd with fire
    Our town of Ciceter in Gloucestershire;
    But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.

              Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

    Welcome, my lord. What is the news?
  NORTHUMBERLAND. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.
    The next news is, I have to London sent
    The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt, and Kent.
    The manner of their taking may appear
    At large discoursed in this paper here.
  BOLINGBROKE. We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;
    And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.

                  Enter FITZWATER

  FITZWATER. My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London
    The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely;
    Two of the dangerous consorted traitors
    That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
  BOLINGBROKE. Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;
    Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.

         Enter PERCY, With the BISHOP OF CARLISLE

  PERCY. The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
    With clog of conscience and sour melancholy,
    Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
    But here is Carlisle living, to abide
    Thy kingly doom, and sentence of his pride.
  BOLINGBROKE. Carlisle, this is your doom:
    Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
    More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
    So as thou liv'st in peace, die free from strife;
    For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
    High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.

      Enter EXTON, with attendants, hearing a coffin

  EXTON. Great King, within this coffin I present
    Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies
    The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
    Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
  BOLINGBROKE. Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought
    A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
    Upon my head and all this famous land.
  EXTON. From your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.
  BOLINGBROKE. They love not poison that do poison need,
    Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,
    I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
    The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
    But neither my good word nor princely favour;
    With Cain go wander thorough shades of night,
    And never show thy head by day nor light.
    Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe
    That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
    Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
    And put on sullen black incontinent.
    I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
    To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
    March sadly after; grace my mournings here
    In weeping after this untimely bier.                  Exeunt

THE END

1593



KING RICHARD THE THIRD

Dramatis Personae

  EDWARD THE FOURTH

    Sons to the King
  EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES afterwards KING EDWARD V
  RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK,

    Brothers to the King
  GEORGE, DUKE OF CLARENCE,
  RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, afterwards KING RICHARD III

  A YOUNG SON OF CLARENCE (Edward, Earl of Warwick)
  HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND, afterwards KING HENRY VII
  CARDINAL BOURCHIER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
  THOMAS ROTHERHAM, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
  JOHN MORTON, BISHOP OF ELY
  DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
  DUKE OF NORFOLK
  EARL OF SURREY, his son
  EARL RIVERS, brother to King Edward's Queen
  MARQUIS OF DORSET and LORD GREY, her sons
  EARL OF OXFORD
  LORD HASTINGS
  LORD LOVEL
  LORD STANLEY, called also EARL OF DERBY
  SIR THOMAS VAUGHAN
  SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF
  SIR WILLIAM CATESBY
  SIR JAMES TYRREL
  SIR JAMES BLOUNT
  SIR WALTER HERBERT
  SIR WILLIAM BRANDON
  SIR ROBERT BRAKENBURY, Lieutenant of the Tower
  CHRISTOPHER URSWICK, a priest
  LORD MAYOR OF LONDON
  SHERIFF OF WILTSHIRE
  HASTINGS, a pursuivant
  TRESSEL and BERKELEY, gentlemen attending on Lady Anne
  ELIZABETH, Queen to King Edward IV
  MARGARET, widow of King Henry VI
  DUCHESS OF YORK, mother to King Edward IV
  LADY ANNE, widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, son to King
    Henry VI; afterwards married to the Duke of Gloucester
  A YOUNG DAUGHTER OF CLARENCE (Margaret Plantagenet,
    Countess of Salisbury)
  Ghosts, of Richard's victims
  Lords, Gentlemen, and Attendants; Priest, Scrivener, Page, Bishops,
    Aldermen, Citizens, Soldiers, Messengers, Murderers, Keeper

SCENE: England

King Richard the Third

ACT I. SCENE 1.

London. A street

Enter RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, solus

  GLOUCESTER. Now is the winter of our discontent
    Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
    And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
    Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
    Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
    Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
    Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
    Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front,
    And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
    To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
    He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
    To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
    But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-
    I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-
    I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
    Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
    Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
    And that so lamely and unfashionable
    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-
    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
    Have no delight to pass away the time,
    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
    And descant on mine own deformity.
    And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
    To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
    I am determined to prove a villain
    And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
    Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
    By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
    To set my brother Clarence and the King
    In deadly hate the one against the other;
    And if King Edward be as true and just
    As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
    This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up-
    About a prophecy which says that G
    Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
    Dive, thoughts, down to my soul. Here Clarence comes.

             Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY

    Brother, good day. What means this armed guard
    That waits upon your Grace?
  CLARENCE. His Majesty,
    Tend'ring my person's safety, hath appointed
    This conduct to convey me to th' Tower.
  GLOUCESTER. Upon what cause?
  CLARENCE. Because my name is George.
  GLOUCESTER. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours:
    He should, for that, commit your godfathers.
    O, belike his Majesty hath some intent
    That you should be new-christ'ned in the Tower.
    But what's the matter, Clarence? May I know?
  CLARENCE. Yea, Richard, when I know; for I protest
    As yet I do not; but, as I can learn,
    He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,
    And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,
    And says a wizard told him that by G
    His issue disinherited should be;
    And, for my name of George begins with G,
    It follows in his thought that I am he.
    These, as I learn, and such like toys as these
    Hath mov'd his Highness to commit me now.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, this it is when men are rul'd by women:
    'Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower;
    My Lady Grey his wife, Clarence, 'tis she
    That tempers him to this extremity.
    Was it not she and that good man of worship,
    Antony Woodville, her brother there,
    That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,
    From whence this present day he is delivered?
    We are not safe, Clarence; we are not safe.
  CLARENCE. By heaven, I think there is no man is secure
    But the Queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds
    That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore.
    Heard you not what an humble suppliant
    Lord Hastings was, for her delivery?
  GLOUCESTER. Humbly complaining to her deity
    Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.
    I'll tell you what-I think it is our way,
    If we will keep in favour with the King,
    To be her men and wear her livery:
    The jealous o'er-worn widow, and herself,
    Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen,
    Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.
  BRAKENBURY. I beseech your Graces both to pardon me:
    His Majesty hath straitly given in charge
    That no man shall have private conference,
    Of what degree soever, with your brother.
  GLOUCESTER. Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,
    You may partake of any thing we say:
    We speak no treason, man; we say the King
    Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen
    Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;
    We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
    A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;
    And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks.
    How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?
  BRAKENBURY. With this, my lord, myself have naught to do.
  GLOUCESTER. Naught to do with Mistress Shore! I tell thee,
    fellow,
    He that doth naught with her, excepting one,
    Were best to do it secretly alone.
  BRAKENBURY. What one, my lord?
  GLOUCESTER. Her husband, knave! Wouldst thou betray me?
  BRAKENBURY. I do beseech your Grace to pardon me, and
    withal
    Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.
  CLARENCE. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will
    obey.
  GLOUCESTER. We are the Queen's abjects and must obey.
    Brother, farewell; I will unto the King;
    And whatsoe'er you will employ me in-
    Were it to call King Edward's widow sister-
    I will perform it to enfranchise you.
    Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood
    Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
  CLARENCE. I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
  GLOUCESTER. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long;
    I will deliver or else lie for you.
    Meantime, have patience.
  CLARENCE. I must perforce. Farewell.
                          Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and guard
  GLOUCESTER. Go tread the path that thou shalt ne'er return.
    Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so
    That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,
    If heaven will take the present at our hands.
    But who comes here? The new-delivered Hastings?

                       Enter LORD HASTINGS

  HASTINGS. Good time of day unto my gracious lord!
  GLOUCESTER. As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain!
    Well are you welcome to the open air.
    How hath your lordship brook'd imprisonment?
  HASTINGS. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners must;
    But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks
    That were the cause of my imprisonment.
  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt; and so shall Clarence too;
    For they that were your enemies are his,
    And have prevail'd as much on him as you.
  HASTINGS. More pity that the eagles should be mew'd
    Whiles kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
  GLOUCESTER. What news abroad?
  HASTINGS. No news so bad abroad as this at home:
    The King is sickly, weak, and melancholy,
    And his physicians fear him mightily.
  GLOUCESTER. Now, by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.
    O, he hath kept an evil diet long
    And overmuch consum'd his royal person!
    'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.
    Where is he? In his bed?
  HASTINGS. He is.
  GLOUCESTER. Go you before, and I will follow you.
                                                   Exit HASTINGS
    He cannot live, I hope, and must not die
    Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.
    I'll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence
    With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments;
    And, if I fail not in my deep intent,
    Clarence hath not another day to live;
    Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,
    And leave the world for me to bustle in!
    For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.
    What though I kill'd her husband and her father?
    The readiest way to make the wench amends
    Is to become her husband and her father;
    The which will I-not all so much for love
    As for another secret close intent
    By marrying her which I must reach unto.
    But yet I run before my horse to market.
    Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns;
    When they are gone, then must I count my gains.         Exit

SCENE 2.

London. Another street

Enter corpse of KING HENRY THE SIXTH, with halberds to guard it;
LADY ANNE being the mourner, attended by TRESSEL and BERKELEY

  ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable load-
    If honour may be shrouded in a hearse;
    Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament
    Th' untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
    Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
    Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
    Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!
    Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost
    To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
    Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,
    Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these wounds.
    Lo, in these windows that let forth thy life
    I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes.
    O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!
    Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!
    Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!
    More direful hap betide that hated wretch
    That makes us wretched by the death of thee
    Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
    Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives!
    If ever he have child, abortive be it,
    Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
    Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
    May fright the hopeful mother at the view,
    And that be heir to his unhappiness!
    If ever he have wife, let her be made
    More miserable by the death of him
    Than I am made by my young lord and thee!
    Come, now towards Chertsey with your holy load,
    Taken from Paul's to be interred there;
    And still as you are weary of this weight
    Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry's corse.
                                [The bearers take up the coffin]

                      Enter GLOUCESTER

  GLOUCESTER. Stay, you that bear the corse, and set it down.
  ANNE. What black magician conjures up this fiend
    To stop devoted charitable deeds?
  GLOUCESTER. Villains, set down the corse; or, by Saint Paul,
    I'll make a corse of him that disobeys!
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin
    pass.
  GLOUCESTER. Unmannerd dog! Stand thou, when I command.
    Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,
    Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot
    And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
                               [The bearers set down the coffin]
  ANNE. What, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?
    Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,
    And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.
    Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell!
    Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,
    His soul thou canst not have; therefore, be gone.
  GLOUCESTER. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
  ANNE. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence and trouble us not;
    For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell
    Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.
    If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
    Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.
    O, gentlemen, see, see! Dead Henry's wounds
    Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh.
    Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,
    For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
    From cold and empty veins where no blood dwells;
    Thy deeds inhuman and unnatural
    Provokes this deluge most unnatural.
    O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death!
    O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his death!
    Either, heav'n, with lightning strike the murd'rer dead;
    Or, earth, gape open wide and eat him quick,
    As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,
    Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered.
  GLOUCESTER. Lady, you know no rules of charity,
    Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
  ANNE. Villain, thou knowest nor law of God nor man:
    No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
  GLOUCESTER. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
  ANNE. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth!
  GLOUCESTER. More wonderful when angels are so angry.
    Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
    Of these supposed crimes to give me leave
    By circumstance but to acquit myself.
  ANNE. Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,
    Of these known evils but to give me leave
    By circumstance to accuse thy cursed self.
  GLOUCESTER. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
    Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
  ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
    No excuse current but to hang thyself.
  GLOUCESTER. By such despair I should accuse myself.
  ANNE. And by despairing shalt thou stand excused
    For doing worthy vengeance on thyself
    That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
  GLOUCESTER. Say that I slew them not?
  ANNE. Then say they were not slain.
    But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.
  GLOUCESTER. I did not kill your husband.
  ANNE. Why, then he is alive.
  GLOUCESTER. Nay, he is dead, and slain by Edward's hands.
  ANNE. In thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw
    Thy murd'rous falchion smoking in his blood;
    The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
    But that thy brothers beat aside the point.
  GLOUCESTER. I was provoked by her sland'rous tongue
    That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.
  ANNE. Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,
    That never dream'st on aught but butcheries.
    Didst thou not kill this king?
  GLOUCESTER. I grant ye.
  ANNE. Dost grant me, hedgehog? Then, God grant me to
    Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed!
    O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous!
  GLOUCESTER. The better for the King of Heaven, that hath
    him.
  ANNE. He is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.
  GLOUCESTER. Let him thank me that holp to send him
    thither,
    For he was fitter for that place than earth.
  ANNE. And thou unfit for any place but hell.
  GLOUCESTER. Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.
  ANNE. Some dungeon.
  GLOUCESTER. Your bed-chamber.
  ANNE. Ill rest betide the chamber where thou liest!
  GLOUCESTER. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.
  ANNE. I hope so.
  GLOUCESTER. I know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,
    To leave this keen encounter of our wits,
    And fall something into a slower method-
    Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
    Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,
    As blameful as the executioner?
  ANNE. Thou wast the cause and most accurs'd effect.
  GLOUCESTER. Your beauty was the cause of that effect-
    Your beauty that did haunt me in my sleep
    To undertake the death of all the world
    So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
  ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
    These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.
  GLOUCESTER. These eyes could not endure that beauty's
    wreck;
    You should not blemish it if I stood by.
    As all the world is cheered by the sun,
    So I by that; it is my day, my life.
  ANNE. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death thy life!
  GLOUCESTER. Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.
  ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.
  GLOUCESTER. It is a quarrel most unnatural,
    To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.
  ANNE. It is a quarrel just and reasonable,
    To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.
  GLOUCESTER. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband
    Did it to help thee to a better husband.
  ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon the earth.
  GLOUCESTER. He lives that loves thee better than he could.
  ANNE. Name him.
  GLOUCESTER. Plantagenet.
  ANNE. Why, that was he.
  GLOUCESTER. The self-same name, but one of better nature.
  ANNE. Where is he?
  GLOUCESTER. Here.  [She spits at him]  Why dost thou spit
    at me?
  ANNE. Would it were mortal poison, for thy sake!
  GLOUCESTER. Never came poison from so sweet a place.
  ANNE. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
    Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.
  GLOUCESTER. Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
  ANNE. Would they were basilisks to strike thee dead!
  GLOUCESTER. I would they were, that I might die at once;
    For now they kill me with a living death.
    Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
    Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops-
    These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear,
    No, when my father York and Edward wept
    To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made
    When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him;
    Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,
    Told the sad story of my father's death,
    And twenty times made pause to sob and weep
    That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks
    Like trees bedash'd with rain-in that sad time
    My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;
    And what these sorrows could not thence exhale
    Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.
    I never sued to friend nor enemy;
    My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;
    But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,
    My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.
                                   [She looks scornfully at him]
    Teach not thy lip such scorn; for it was made
    For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
    If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
    Lo here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword;
    Which if thou please to hide in this true breast
    And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
    I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,
    And humbly beg the death upon my knee.
      [He lays his breast open; she offers at it with his sword]
    Nay, do not pause; for I did kill King Henry-
    But 'twas thy beauty that provoked me.
    Nay, now dispatch; 'twas I that stabb'd young Edward-
    But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
                                           [She falls the sword]
    Take up the sword again, or take up me.
  ANNE. Arise, dissembler; though I wish thy death,
    I will not be thy executioner.
  GLOUCESTER. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it;
  ANNE. I have already.
  GLOUCESTER. That was in thy rage.
    Speak it again, and even with the word
    This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,
    Shall for thy love kill a far truer love;
    To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.
  ANNE. I would I knew thy heart.
  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis figur'd in my tongue.
  ANNE. I fear me both are false.
  GLOUCESTER. Then never was man true.
  ANNE. well put up your sword.
  GLOUCESTER. Say, then, my peace is made.
  ANNE. That shalt thou know hereafter.
  GLOUCESTER. But shall I live in hope?
  ANNE. All men, I hope, live so.
  GLOUCESTER. Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
  ANNE. To take is not to give.               [Puts on the ring]
  GLOUCESTER. Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger,
    Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;
    Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.
    And if thy poor devoted servant may
    But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,
    Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.
  ANNE. What is it?
  GLOUCESTER. That it may please you leave these sad designs
    To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,
    And presently repair to Crosby House;
    Where-after I have solemnly interr'd
    At Chertsey monast'ry this noble king,
    And wet his grave with my repentant tears-
    I will with all expedient duty see you.
    For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,
    Grant me this boon.
  ANNE. With all my heart; and much it joys me too
    To see you are become so penitent.
    Tressel and Berkeley, go along with me.
  GLOUCESTER. Bid me farewell.
  ANNE. 'Tis more than you deserve;
    But since you teach me how to flatter you,
    Imagine I have said farewell already.
                             Exeunt two GENTLEMEN With LADY ANNE
  GLOUCESTER. Sirs, take up the corse.
  GENTLEMEN. Towards Chertsey, noble lord?
  GLOUCESTER. No, to White Friars; there attend my coming.
                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
    Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
    Was ever woman in this humour won?
    I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.
    What! I that kill'd her husband and his father-
    To take her in her heart's extremest hate,
    With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
    The bleeding witness of my hatred by;
    Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me,
    And I no friends to back my suit at all
    But the plain devil and dissembling looks,
    And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!
    Ha!
    Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
    Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
    Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?
    A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-
    Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,
    Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-
    The spacious world cannot again afford;
    And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
    That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince
    And made her widow to a woeful bed?
    On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
    On me, that halts and am misshapen thus?
    My dukedom to a beggarly denier,
    I do mistake my person all this while.
    Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
    Myself to be a marv'llous proper man.
    I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,
    And entertain a score or two of tailors
    To study fashions to adorn my body.
    Since I am crept in favour with myself,
    I will maintain it with some little cost.
    But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave,
    And then return lamenting to my love.
    Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
    That I may see my shadow as I pass.                     Exit

SCENE 3.

London. The palace

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, LORD RIVERS, and LORD GREY

  RIVERS. Have patience, madam; there's no doubt his Majesty
    Will soon recover his accustom'd health.
  GREY. In that you brook it ill, it makes him worse;
    Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,
    And cheer his Grace with quick and merry eyes.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. If he were dead, what would betide on
    me?
  GREY. No other harm but loss of such a lord.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The loss of such a lord includes all
    harms.
  GREY. The heavens have bless'd you with a goodly son
    To be your comforter when he is gone.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, he is young; and his minority
    Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
    A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
  RIVER. Is it concluded he shall be Protector?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. It is determin'd, not concluded yet;
    But so it must be, if the King miscarry.

                     Enter BUCKINGHAM and DERBY

  GREY. Here come the Lords of Buckingham and Derby.
  BUCKINGHAM. Good time of day unto your royal Grace!
  DERBY. God make your Majesty joyful as you have been.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Countess Richmond, good my Lord
    of Derby,
    To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.
    Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she's your wife
    And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd
    I hate not you for her proud arrogance.
  DERBY. I do beseech you, either not believe
    The envious slanders of her false accusers;
    Or, if she be accus'd on true report,
    Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds
    From wayward sickness and no grounded malice.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Saw you the King to-day, my Lord of
    Derby?
  DERBY. But now the Duke of Buckingham and I
    Are come from visiting his Majesty.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What likelihood of his amendment,
    Lords?
  BUCKINGHAM. Madam, good hope; his Grace speaks
    cheerfully.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God grant him health! Did you confer
    with him?
  BUCKINGHAM. Ay, madam; he desires to make atonement
    Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,
    And between them and my Lord Chamberlain;
    And sent to warn them to his royal presence.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Would all were well! But that will
    never be.
    I fear our happiness is at the height.

              Enter GLOUCESTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET

  GLOUCESTER. They do me wrong, and I will not endure it.
    Who is it that complains unto the King
    That I, forsooth, am stern and love them not?
    By holy Paul, they love his Grace but lightly
    That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
    Because I cannot flatter and look fair,
    Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
    Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
    I must be held a rancorous enemy.
    Cannot a plain man live and think no harm
    But thus his simple truth must be abus'd
    With silken, sly, insinuating Jacks?
  GREY. To who in all this presence speaks your Grace?
  GLOUCESTER. To thee, that hast nor honesty nor grace.
    When have I injur'd thee? when done thee wrong,
    Or thee, or thee, or any of your faction?
    A plague upon you all! His royal Grace-
    Whom God preserve better than you would wish!-
    Cannot be quiet searce a breathing while
    But you must trouble him with lewd complaints.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Brother of Gloucester, you mistake the
    matter.
    The King, on his own royal disposition
    And not provok'd by any suitor else-
    Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred
    That in your outward action shows itself
    Against my children, brothers, and myself-
    Makes him to send that he may learn the ground.
  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell; the world is grown so bad
    That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
    Since every Jack became a gentleman,
    There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, we know your meaning,
    brother Gloucester:
    You envy my advancement and my friends';
    God grant we never may have need of you!
  GLOUCESTER. Meantime, God grants that I have need of you.
    Our brother is imprison'd by your means,
    Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility
    Held in contempt; while great promotions
    Are daily given to ennoble those
    That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By Him that rais'd me to this careful
    height
    From that contented hap which I enjoy'd,
    I never did incense his Majesty
    Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been
    An earnest advocate to plead for him.
    My lord, you do me shameful injury
    Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
  GLOUCESTER. You may deny that you were not the mean
    Of my Lord Hastings' late imprisonment.
  RIVERS. She may, my lord; for-
  GLOUCESTER. She may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows
    not so?
    She may do more, sir, than denying that:
    She may help you to many fair preferments
    And then deny her aiding hand therein,
    And lay those honours on your high desert.
    What may she not? She may-ay, marry, may she-
  RIVERS. What, marry, may she?
  GLOUCESTER. What, marry, may she? Marry with a king,
    A bachelor, and a handsome stripling too.
    Iwis your grandam had a worser match.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My Lord of Gloucester, I have too long
    borne
    Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.
    By heaven, I will acquaint his Majesty
    Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd.
    I had rather be a country servant-maid
    Than a great queen with this condition-
    To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at.

                Enter old QUEEN MARGARET, behind

    Small joy have I in being England's Queen.
  QUEEN MARGARET. And less'ned be that small, God, I
    beseech Him!
    Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.
  GLOUCESTER. What! Threat you me with telling of the
    King?
    Tell him and spare not. Look what I have said
    I will avouch't in presence of the King.
    I dare adventure to be sent to th' Tow'r.
    'Tis time to speak-my pains are quite forgot.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Out, devil! I do remember them to
    well:
    Thou kill'dst my husband Henry in the Tower,
    And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
  GLOUCESTER. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband
    King,
    I was a pack-horse in his great affairs,
    A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
    A liberal rewarder of his friends;
    To royalize his blood I spent mine own.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Ay, and much better blood than his or
    thine.
  GLOUCESTER. In all which time you and your husband Grey
    Were factious for the house of Lancaster;
    And, Rivers, so were you. Was not your husband
    In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain?
    Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
    What you have been ere this, and what you are;
    Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
  QUEEN MARGARET. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou art.
  GLOUCESTER. Poor Clarence did forsake his father, Warwick,
    Ay, and forswore himself-which Jesu pardon!-
  QUEEN MARGARET. Which God revenge!
  GLOUCESTER. To fight on Edward's party for the crown;
    And for his meed, poor lord, he is mewed up.
    I would to God my heart were flint like Edward's,
    Or Edward's soft and pitiful like mine.
    I am too childish-foolish for this world.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Hie thee to hell for shame and leave this
    world,
    Thou cacodemon; there thy kingdom is.
  RIVERS. My Lord of Gloucester, in those busy days
    Which here you urge to prove us enemies,
    We follow'd then our lord, our sovereign king.
    So should we you, if you should be our king.
  GLOUCESTER. If I should be! I had rather be a pedlar.
    Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
    You should enjoy were you this country's king,
    As little joy you may suppose in me
    That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.
  QUEEN MARGARET. As little joy enjoys the Queen thereof;
    For I am she, and altogether joyless.
    I can no longer hold me patient.                 [Advancing]
    Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
    In sharing that which you have pill'd from me.
    Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
    If not that, I am Queen, you bow like subjects,
    Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?
    Ah, gentle villain, do not turn away!
  GLOUCESTER. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in my
    sight?
  QUEEN MARGARET. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd,
    That will I make before I let thee go.
  GLOUCESTER. Wert thou not banished on pain of death?
  QUEEN MARGARET. I was; but I do find more pain in
    banishment
    Than death can yield me here by my abode.
    A husband and a son thou ow'st to me;
    And thou a kingdom; all of you allegiance.
    This sorrow that I have by right is yours;
    And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.
  GLOUCESTER. The curse my noble father laid on thee,
    When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper
    And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes,
    And then to dry them gav'st the Duke a clout
    Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland-
    His curses then from bitterness of soul
    Denounc'd against thee are all fall'n upon thee;
    And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. So just is God to right the innocent.
  HASTINGS. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,
    And the most merciless that e'er was heard of!
  RIVERS. Tyrants themselves wept when it was reported.
  DORSET. No man but prophesied revenge for it.
  BUCKINGHAM. Northumberland, then present, wept to see it.
  QUEEN MARGARET. What, were you snarling all before I came,
    Ready to catch each other by the throat,
    And turn you all your hatred now on me?
    Did York's dread curse prevail so much with heaven
    That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
    Their kingdom's loss, my woeful banishment,
    Should all but answer for that peevish brat?
    Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?
    Why then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses!
    Though not by war, by surfeit die your king,
    As ours by murder, to make him a king!
    Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales,
    For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,
    Die in his youth by like untimely violence!
    Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
    Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!
    Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's death,
    And see another, as I see thee now,
    Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall'd in mine!
    Long die thy happy days before thy death;
    And, after many length'ned hours of grief,
    Die neither mother, wife, nor England's Queen!
    Rivers and Dorset, you were standers by,
    And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son
    Was stabb'd with bloody daggers. God, I pray him,
    That none of you may live his natural age,
    But by some unlook'd accident cut off!
  GLOUCESTER. Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither'd
    hag.
  QUEEN MARGARET. And leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou
    shalt hear me.
    If heaven have any grievous plague in store
    Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
    O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe,
    And then hurl down their indignation
    On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace!
    The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul!
    Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
    And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends!
    No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
    Unless it be while some tormenting dream
    Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!
    Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog,
    Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
    The slave of nature and the son of hell,
    Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb,
    Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins,
    Thou rag of honour, thou detested-
  GLOUCESTER. Margaret!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Richard!
  GLOUCESTER. Ha?
  QUEEN MARGARET. I call thee not.
  GLOUCESTER. I cry thee mercy then, for I did think
    That thou hadst call'd me all these bitter names.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Why, so I did, but look'd for no reply.
    O, let me make the period to my curse!
  GLOUCESTER. 'Tis done by me, and ends in-Margaret.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thus have you breath'd your curse
    against yourself.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of my
    fortune!
    Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider
    Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?
    Fool, fool! thou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.
    The day will come that thou shalt wish for me
    To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-back'd toad.
  HASTINGS. False-boding woman, end thy frantic curse,
    Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Foul shame upon you! you have all
    mov'd mine.
  RIVERS. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught your
      duty.
  QUEEN MARGARET. To serve me well you all should do me
    duty,
    Teach me to be your queen and you my subjects.
    O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty!
  DORSET. Dispute not with her; she is lunatic.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Peace, Master Marquis, you are malapert;
    Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current.
    O, that your young nobility could judge
    What 'twere to lose it and be miserable!
    They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,
    And if they fall they dash themselves to pieces.
  GLOUCESTER. Good counsel, marry; learn it, learn it, Marquis.
  DORSET. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, and much more; but I was born so high,
    Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top,
    And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.
  QUEEN MARGARET. And turns the sun to shade-alas! alas!
    Witness my son, now in the shade of death,
    Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
    Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
    Your aery buildeth in our aery's nest.
    O God that seest it, do not suffer it;
    As it is won with blood, lost be it so!
  BUCKINGHAM. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Urge neither charity nor shame to me.
    Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
    And shamefully my hopes by you are butcher'd.
    My charity is outrage, life my shame;
    And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage!
  BUCKINGHAM. Have done, have done.
  QUEEN MARGARET. O princely Buckingham, I'll kiss thy
    hand
    In sign of league and amity with thee.
    Now fair befall thee and thy noble house!
    Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
    Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
  BUCKINGHAM. Nor no one here; for curses never pass
    The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
  QUEEN MARGARET. I will not think but they ascend the sky
    And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
    O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!
    Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,
    His venom tooth will rankle to the death:
    Have not to do with him, beware of him;
    Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him,
    And all their ministers attend on him.
  GLOUCESTER. What doth she say, my Lord of Buckingham?
  BUCKINGHAM. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
  QUEEN MARGARET. What, dost thou scorn me for my gentle
    counsel,
    And soothe the devil that I warn thee from?
    O, but remember this another day,
    When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,
    And say poor Margaret was a prophetess!
    Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
    And he to yours, and all of you to God's!               Exit
  BUCKINGHAM. My hair doth stand an end to hear her curses.
  RIVERS. And so doth mine. I muse why she's at liberty.
  GLOUCESTER. I cannot blame her; by God's holy Mother,
    She hath had too much wrong; and I repent
    My part thereof that I have done to her.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I never did her any to my knowledge.
  GLOUCESTER. Yet you have all the vantage of her wrong.
    I was too hot to do somebody good
    That is too cold in thinking of it now.
    Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid;
    He is frank'd up to fatting for his pains;
    God pardon them that are the cause thereof!
  RIVERS. A virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,
    To pray for them that have done scathe to us!
  GLOUCESTER. So do I ever-  [Aside]  being well advis'd;
    For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself.

                         Enter CATESBY

  CATESBY. Madam, his Majesty doth can for you,
    And for your Grace, and you, my gracious lords.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Catesby, I come. Lords, will you go
    with me?
  RIVERS. We wait upon your Grace.
                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
  GLOUCESTER. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
    The secret mischiefs that I set abroach
    I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
    Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,
    I do beweep to many simple gulls;
    Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham;
    And tell them 'tis the Queen and her allies
    That stir the King against the Duke my brother.
    Now they believe it, and withal whet me
    To be reveng'd on Rivers, Dorset, Grey;
    But then I sigh and, with a piece of Scripture,
    Tell them that God bids us do good for evil.
    And thus I clothe my naked villainy
    With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ,
    And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

                       Enter two MURDERERS

    But, soft, here come my executioners.
    How now, my hardy stout resolved mates!
    Are you now going to dispatch this thing?
  FIRST MURDERER. We are, my lord, and come to have the
    warrant,
    That we may be admitted where he is.
  GLOUCESTER. Well thought upon; I have it here about me.
                                             [Gives the warrant]
    When you have done, repair to Crosby Place.
    But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
    Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead;
    For Clarence is well-spoken, and perhaps
    May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.
  FIRST MURDERER. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand to
    prate;
    Talkers are no good doers. Be assur'd
    We go to use our hands and not our tongues.
  GLOUCESTER. Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall
    tears.
    I like you, lads; about your business straight;
    Go, go, dispatch.
  FIRST MURDERER. We will, my noble lord.                 Exeunt

SCENE 4.

London. The Tower

Enter CLARENCE and KEEPER

  KEEPER. Why looks your Grace so heavily to-day?
  CLARENCE. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
    So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
    That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
    I would not spend another such a night
    Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days-
    So full of dismal terror was the time!
  KEEPER. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you
    tell me.
  CLARENCE. Methoughts that I had broken from the Tower
    And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;
    And in my company my brother Gloucester,
    Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
    Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England,
    And cited up a thousand heavy times,
    During the wars of York and Lancaster,
    That had befall'n us. As we pac'd along
    Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
    Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling
    Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard
    Into the tumbling billows of the main.
    O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,
    What dreadful noise of waters in my ears,
    What sights of ugly death within my eyes!
    Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
    A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon,
    Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
    Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
    All scatt'red in the bottom of the sea;
    Some lay in dead men's skulls, and in the holes
    Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
    As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
    That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep
    And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatt'red by.
  KEEPER. Had you such leisure in the time of death
    To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?
  CLARENCE. Methought I had; and often did I strive
    To yield the ghost, but still the envious flood
    Stopp'd in my soul and would not let it forth
    To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
    But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
    Who almost burst to belch it in the sea.
  KEEPER. Awak'd you not in this sore agony?
  CLARENCE. No, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life.
    O, then began the tempest to my soul!
    I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood
    With that sour ferryman which poets write of,
    Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
    The first that there did greet my stranger soul
    Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
    Who spake aloud 'What scourge for perjury
    Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?'
    And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by
    A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
    Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud
    'Clarence is come-false, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,
    That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury.
    Seize on him, Furies, take him unto torment!'
    With that, methoughts, a legion of foul fiends
    Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
    Such hideous cries that, with the very noise,
    I trembling wak'd, and for a season after
    Could not believe but that I was in hell,
    Such terrible impression made my dream.
  KEEPER. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted you;
    I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
  CLARENCE. Ah, Keeper, Keeper, I have done these things
    That now give evidence against my soul
    For Edward's sake, and see how he requites me!
    O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease Thee,
    But Thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,
    Yet execute Thy wrath in me alone;
    O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children!
  KEEPER, I prithee sit by me awhile;
    My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
  KEEPER. I will, my lord. God give your Grace good rest.
                                               [CLARENCE sleeps]

                  Enter BRAKENBURY the Lieutenant

  BRAKENBURY. Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours,
    Makes the night morning and the noontide night.
    Princes have but their titles for their glories,
    An outward honour for an inward toil;
    And for unfelt imaginations
    They often feel a world of restless cares,
    So that between their tides and low name
    There's nothing differs but the outward fame.

                      Enter the two MURDERERS

  FIRST MURDERER. Ho! who's here?
  BRAKENBURY. What wouldst thou, fellow, and how cam'st
    thou hither?
  FIRST MURDERER. I would speak with Clarence, and I came
    hither on my legs.
  BRAKENBURY. What, so brief?
  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Let
    him see our commission and talk no more.
                                           [BRAKENBURY reads it]
  BRAKENBURY. I am, in this, commanded to deliver
    The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.
    I will not reason what is meant hereby,
    Because I will be guiltless from the meaning.
    There lies the Duke asleep; and there the keys.
    I'll to the King and signify to him
    That thus I have resign'd to you my charge.
  FIRST MURDERER. You may, sir; 'tis a point of wisdom. Fare
    you well.                       Exeunt BRAKENBURY and KEEPER
  SECOND MURDERER. What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?
  FIRST MURDERER. No; he'll say 'twas done cowardly, when
    he wakes.
  SECOND MURDERER. Why, he shall never wake until the great
    judgment-day.
  FIRST MURDERER. Why, then he'll say we stabb'd him
    sleeping.
  SECOND MURDERER. The urging of that word judgment hath
    bred a kind of remorse in me.
  FIRST MURDERER. What, art thou afraid?
  SECOND MURDERER. Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to
    be damn'd for killing him, from the which no warrant can
    defend me.
  FIRST MURDERER. I thought thou hadst been resolute.
  SECOND MURDERER. So I am, to let him live.
  FIRST MURDERER. I'll back to the Duke of Gloucester and
    tell him so.
  SECOND MURDERER. Nay, I prithee, stay a little. I hope this
    passionate humour of mine will change; it was wont to
    hold me but while one tells twenty.
  FIRST MURDERER. How dost thou feel thyself now?
    SECOND MURDERER. Faith, some certain dregs of conscience
    are yet within me.
  FIRST MURDERER. Remember our reward, when the deed's
    done.
  SECOND MURDERER. Zounds, he dies; I had forgot the reward.
  FIRST MURDERER. Where's thy conscience now?
  SECOND MURDERER. O, in the Duke of Gloucester's purse!
  FIRST MURDERER. When he opens his purse to give us our
    reward, thy conscience flies out.
  SECOND MURDERER. 'Tis no matter; let it go; there's few or
    none will entertain it.
  FIRST MURDERER. What if it come to thee again?
  SECOND MURDERER. I'll not meddle with it-it makes a man
    coward: a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him; a man
    cannot swear, but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his
    neighbour's wife, but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing shame-
    fac'd spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills a man
    full of obstacles: it made me once restore a purse of gold
    that-by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.
    It is turn'd out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing;
    and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust
    to himself and live without it.
  FIRST MURDERER. Zounds, 'tis even now at my elbow,
    persuading me not to kill the Duke.
  SECOND MURDERER. Take the devil in thy mind and believe
    him not; he would insinuate with thee but to make the
    sigh.
  FIRST MURDERER. I am strong-fram'd; he cannot prevail with
    me.
  SECOND MURDERER. Spoke like a tall man that respects thy
    reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?
  FIRST MURDERER. Take him on the costard with the hilts of
    thy sword, and then chop him in the malmsey-butt in the
    next room.
  SECOND MURDERER. O excellent device! and make a sop of
    him.
  FIRST MURDERER. Soft! he wakes.
  SECOND MURDERER. Strike!
  FIRST MURDERER. No, we'll reason with him.
  CLARENCE. Where art thou, Keeper? Give me a cup of wine.
  SECOND MURDERER. You shall have wine enough, my lord,
    anon.
  CLARENCE. In God's name, what art thou?
  FIRST MURDERER. A man, as you are.
  CLARENCE. But not as I am, royal.
  SECOND MURDERER. Nor you as we are, loyal.
  CLARENCE. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.
  FIRST MURDERER. My voice is now the King's, my looks
    mine own.
  CLARENCE. How darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!
    Your eyes do menace me. Why look you pale?
    Who sent you hither? Wherefore do you come?
  SECOND MURDERER. To, to, to-
  CLARENCE. To murder me?
  BOTH MURDERERS. Ay, ay.
  CLARENCE. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,
    And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.
    Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?
  FIRST MURDERER. Offended us you have not, but the King.
  CLARENCE. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.
  SECOND MURDERER. Never, my lord; therefore prepare to die.
  CLARENCE. Are you drawn forth among a world of men
    To slay the innocent? What is my offence?
    Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?
    What lawful quest have given their verdict up
    Unto the frowning judge, or who pronounc'd
    The bitter sentence of poor Clarence' death?
    Before I be convict by course of law,
    To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
    I charge you, as you hope to have redemption
    By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins,
    That you depart and lay no hands on me.
    The deed you undertake is damnable.
  FIRST MURDERER. What we will do, we do upon command.
  SECOND MURDERER. And he that hath commanded is our
    King.
  CLARENCE. Erroneous vassals! the great King of kings
    Hath in the tables of his law commanded
    That thou shalt do no murder. Will you then
    Spurn at his edict and fulfil a man's?
    Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand
    To hurl upon their heads that break his law.
  SECOND MURDERER. And that same vengeance doth he hurl
    on thee
    For false forswearing, and for murder too;
    Thou didst receive the sacrament to fight
    In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.
  FIRST MURDERER. And like a traitor to the name of God
    Didst break that vow; and with thy treacherous blade
    Unripp'dst the bowels of thy sov'reign's son.
  SECOND MURDERER. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and
    defend.
  FIRST MURDERER. How canst thou urge God's dreadful law
    to us,
    When thou hast broke it in such dear degree?
  CLARENCE. Alas! for whose sake did I that ill deed?
    For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.
    He sends you not to murder me for this,
    For in that sin he is as deep as I.
    If God will be avenged for the deed,
    O, know you yet He doth it publicly.
    Take not the quarrel from His pow'rful arm;
    He needs no indirect or lawless course
    To cut off those that have offended Him.
  FIRST MURDERER. Who made thee then a bloody minister
    When gallant-springing brave Plantagenet,
    That princely novice, was struck dead by thee?
  CLARENCE. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage.
  FIRST MURDERER. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy
    faults,
    Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.
  CLARENCE. If you do love my brother, hate not me;
    I am his brother, and I love him well.
    If you are hir'd for meed, go back again,
    And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,
    Who shall reward you better for my life
    Than Edward will for tidings of my death.
  SECOND MURDERER. You are deceiv'd: your brother Gloucester
    hates you.
  CLARENCE. O, no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.
    Go you to him from me.
  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, so we will.
  CLARENCE. Tell him when that our princely father York
    Bless'd his three sons with his victorious arm
    And charg'd us from his soul to love each other,
    He little thought of this divided friendship.
    Bid Gloucester think of this, and he will weep.
  FIRST MURDERER. Ay, millstones; as he lesson'd us to weep.
  CLARENCE. O, do not slander him, for he is kind.
  FIRST MURDERER. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you
    deceive yourself:
    'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.
    CLARENCE. It cannot be; for he bewept my fortune
    And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore with sobs
    That he would labour my delivery.
  FIRST MURDERER. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you
    From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.
  SECOND MURDERER. Make peace with God, for you must die,
    my lord.
  CLARENCE. Have you that holy feeling in your souls
    To counsel me to make my peace with God,
    And are you yet to your own souls so blind
    That you will war with God by murd'ring me?
    O, sirs, consider: they that set you on
    To do this deed will hate you for the deed.
  SECOND MURDERER. What shall we do?
  CLARENCE. Relent, and save your souls.
  FIRST MURDERER. Relent! No, 'tis cowardly and womanish.
  CLARENCE. Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
    Which of you, if you were a prince's son,
    Being pent from liberty as I am now,
    If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
    Would not entreat for life?
    My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks;
    O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
    Come thou on my side and entreat for me-
    As you would beg were you in my distress.
    A begging prince what beggar pities not?
  SECOND MURDERER. Look behind you, my lord.
  FIRST MURDERER.  [Stabbing him]  Take that, and that. If all
    this will not do,
    I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.
                                              Exit with the body
  SECOND MURDERER. A bloody deed, and desperately
    dispatch'd!
    How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
    Of this most grievous murder!

                       Re-enter FIRST MURDERER

  FIRST MURDERER-How now, what mean'st thou that thou
    help'st me not?
    By heavens, the Duke shall know how slack you have
    been!
  SECOND MURDERER. I would he knew that I had sav'd his
    brother!
    Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say;
    For I repent me that the Duke is slain.                 Exit
  FIRST MURDERER. So do not I. Go, coward as thou art.
    Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole,
    Till that the Duke give order for his burial;
    And when I have my meed, I will away;
    For this will out, and then I must not stay.            Exit

ACT II. SCENE 1.

London. The palace

Flourish. Enter KING EDWARD sick, QUEEN ELIZABETH, DORSET, RIVERS,
HASTINGS, BUCKINGHAM, GREY, and others

  KING EDWARD. Why, so. Now have I done a good day's
    work.
    You peers, continue this united league.
    I every day expect an embassage
    From my Redeemer to redeem me hence;
    And more at peace my soul shall part to heaven,
    Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.
    Hastings and Rivers, take each other's hand;
    Dissemble not your hatred, swear your love.
  RIVERS. By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudging hate;
    And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.
  HASTINGS. So thrive I, as I truly swear the like!
  KING EDWARD. Take heed you dally not before your king;
    Lest He that is the supreme King of kings
    Confound your hidden falsehood and award
    Either of you to be the other's end.
  HASTINGS. So prosper I, as I swear perfect love!
  RIVERS. And I, as I love Hastings with my heart!
  KING EDWARD. Madam, yourself is not exempt from this;
    Nor you, son Dorset; Buckingham, nor you:
    You have been factious one against the other.
    Wife, love Lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand;
    And what you do, do it unfeignedly.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There, Hastings; I will never more
    remember
    Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine!
  KING EDWARD. Dorset, embrace him; Hastings, love Lord
    Marquis.
  DORSET. This interchange of love, I here protest,
    Upon my part shall be inviolable.
  HASTINGS. And so swear I.                       [They embrace]
  KING EDWARD. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou this
    league
    With thy embracements to my wife's allies,
    And make me happy in your unity.
  BUCKINGHAM.  [To the QUEEN]  Whenever Buckingham
    doth turn his hate
    Upon your Grace, but with all duteous love
    Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me
    With hate in those where I expect most love!
    When I have most need to employ a friend
    And most assured that he is a friend,
    Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
    Be he unto me! This do I beg of God
    When I am cold in love to you or yours.
                                                  [They embrace]
  KING EDWARD. A pleasing cordial, princely Buckingham,
    Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
    There wanteth now our brother Gloucester here
    To make the blessed period of this peace.
  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time,
    Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliff and the Duke.

                      Enter GLOUCESTER, and RATCLIFF

  GLOUCESTER. Good morrow to my sovereign king and
    Queen;
    And, princely peers, a happy time of day!
  KING EDWARD. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the day.
    Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity,
    Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,
    Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.
  GLOUCESTER. A blessed labour, my most sovereign lord.
    Among this princely heap, if any here,
    By false intelligence or wrong surmise,
    Hold me a foe-
    If I unwittingly, or in my rage,
    Have aught committed that is hardly borne
    To any in this presence, I desire
    To reconcile me to his friendly peace:
    'Tis death to me to be at enmity;
    I hate it, and desire all good men's love.
    First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,
    Which I will purchase with my duteous service;
    Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,
    If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us;
    Of you, and you, Lord Rivers, and of Dorset,
    That all without desert have frown'd on me;
    Of you, Lord Woodville, and, Lord Scales, of you;
    Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen-indeed, of all.
    I do not know that Englishman alive
    With whom my soul is any jot at odds
    More than the infant that is born to-night.
    I thank my God for my humility.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A holy day shall this be kept hereafter.
    I would to God all strifes were well compounded.
    My sovereign lord, I do beseech your Highness
    To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, madam, have I off'red love for this,
    To be so flouted in this royal presence?
    Who knows not that the gentle Duke is dead?
                                                [They all start]
    You do him injury to scorn his corse.
  KING EDWARD. Who knows not he is dead! Who knows
    he is?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!
  BUCKINGHAM. Look I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?
  DORSET. Ay, my good lord; and no man in the presence
    But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.
  KING EDWARD. Is Clarence dead? The order was revers'd.
  GLOUCESTER. But he, poor man, by your first order died,
    And that a winged Mercury did bear;
    Some tardy cripple bare the countermand
    That came too lag to see him buried.
    God grant that some, less noble and less loyal,
    Nearer in bloody thoughts, an not in blood,
    Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
    And yet go current from suspicion!

                           Enter DERBY

  DERBY. A boon, my sovereign, for my service done!
  KING EDWARD. I prithee, peace; my soul is full of sorrow.
  DERBY. I Will not rise unless your Highness hear me.
  KING EDWARD. Then say at once what is it thou requests.
  DERBY. The forfeit, sovereign, of my servant's life;
    Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman
    Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.
  KING EDWARD. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,
    And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?
    My brother killed no man-his fault was thought,
    And yet his punishment was bitter death.
    Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath,
    Kneel'd at my feet, and bid me be advis'd?
    Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?
    Who told me how the poor soul did forsake
    The mighty Warwick and did fight for me?
    Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury
    When Oxford had me down, he rescued me
    And said 'Dear Brother, live, and be a king'?
    Who told me, when we both lay in the field
    Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
    Even in his garments, and did give himself,
    All thin and naked, to the numb cold night?
    All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
    Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you
    Had so much race to put it in my mind.
    But when your carters or your waiting-vassals
    Have done a drunken slaughter and defac'd
    The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
    You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
    And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.        [DERBY rises]
    But for my brother not a man would speak;
    Nor I, ungracious, speak unto myself
    For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
    Have been beholding to him in his life;
    Yet none of you would once beg for his life.
    O God, I fear thy justice will take hold
    On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this!
    Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. Ah, poor Clarence!
                                 Exeunt some with KING and QUEEN
  GLOUCESTER. This is the fruits of rashness. Mark'd you not
    How that the guilty kindred of the Queen
    Look'd pale when they did hear of Clarence' death?
    O, they did urge it still unto the King!
    God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go
    To comfort Edward with our company?
  BUCKINGHAM. We wait upon your Grace.                    Exeunt

SCENE 2.

London. The palace

Enter the old DUCHESS OF YORK, with the SON and DAUGHTER of CLARENCE

  SON. Good grandam, tell us, is our father dead?
  DUCHESS. No, boy.
  DAUGHTER. Why do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,
    And cry 'O Clarence, my unhappy son!'?
  SON. Why do you look on us, and shake your head,
    And call us orphans, wretches, castaways,
    If that our noble father were alive?
  DUCHESS. My pretty cousins, you mistake me both;
    I do lament the sickness of the King,
    As loath to lose him, not your father's death;
    It were lost sorrow to wail one that's lost.
  SON. Then you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.
    The King mine uncle is to blame for it.
    God will revenge it; whom I will importune
    With earnest prayers all to that effect.
  DAUGHTER. And so will I.
  DUCHESS. Peace, children, peace! The King doth love you
    well.
    Incapable and shallow innocents,
    You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.
  SON. Grandam, we can; for my good uncle Gloucester
    Told me the King, provok'd to it by the Queen,
    Devis'd impeachments to imprison him.
    And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
    And pitied me, and kindly kiss'd my cheek;
    Bade me rely on him as on my father,
    And he would love me dearly as a child.
  DUCHESS. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,
    And with a virtuous vizor hide deep vice!
    He is my son; ay, and therein my shame;
    Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
  SON. Think you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?
  DUCHESS. Ay, boy.
  SON. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is this?

            Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, with her hair about her
                ears; RIVERS and DORSET after her

  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, who shall hinder me to wail and
    weep,
    To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
    I'll join with black despair against my soul
    And to myself become an enemy.
  DUCHESS. What means this scene of rude impatience?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To make an act of tragic violence.
  EDWARD, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.
    Why grow the branches when the root is gone?
    Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
    If you will live, lament; if die, be brief,
    That our swift-winged souls may catch the King's,
    Or like obedient subjects follow him
    To his new kingdom of ne'er-changing night.
  DUCHESS. Ah, so much interest have I in thy sorrow
    As I had title in thy noble husband!
    I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
    And liv'd with looking on his images;
    But now two mirrors of his princely semblance
    Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death,
    And I for comfort have but one false glass,
    That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
    Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother
    And hast the comfort of thy children left;
    But death hath snatch'd my husband from mine arms
    And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands-
    Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I-
    Thine being but a moiety of my moan-
    To overgo thy woes and drown thy cries?
  SON. Ah, aunt, you wept not for our father's death!
    How can we aid you with our kindred tears?
  DAUGHTER. Our fatherless distress was left unmoan'd;
    Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Give me no help in lamentation;
    I am not barren to bring forth complaints.
    All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes
    That I, being govern'd by the watery moon,
    May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
    Ah for my husband, for my dear Lord Edward!
  CHILDREN. Ah for our father, for our dear Lord Clarence!
  DUCHESS. Alas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What stay had I but Edward? and he's
    gone.
  CHILDREN. What stay had we but Clarence? and he's gone.
  DUCHESS. What stays had I but they? and they are gone.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Was never widow had so dear a loss.
  CHILDREN. Were never orphans had so dear a loss.
  DUCHESS. Was never mother had so dear a loss.
    Alas, I am the mother of these griefs!
    Their woes are parcell'd, mine is general.
    She for an Edward weeps, and so do I:
    I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she.
    These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I:
    I for an Edward weep, so do not they.
    Alas, you three on me, threefold distress'd,
    Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow's nurse,
    And I will pamper it with lamentation.
  DORSET. Comfort, dear mother. God is much displeas'd
    That you take with unthankfulness his doing.
    In common worldly things 'tis called ungrateful
    With dull unwillingness to repay a debt
    Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
    Much more to be thus opposite with heaven,
    For it requires the royal debt it lent you.
  RIVERS. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mother,
    Of the young prince your son. Send straight for him;
    Let him be crown'd; in him your comfort lives.
    Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,
    And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.

               Enter GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, DERBY,
                      HASTINGS, and RATCLIFF

  GLOUCESTER. Sister, have comfort. All of us have cause
    To wail the dimming of our shining star;
    But none can help our harms by wailing them.
    Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy;
    I did not see your Grace. Humbly on my knee
    I crave your blessing.
  DUCHESS. God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast,
    Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!
  GLOUCESTER. Amen!  [Aside]  And make me die a good old
    man!
    That is the butt end of a mother's blessing;
    I marvel that her Grace did leave it out.
  BUCKINGHAM. You cloudy princes and heart-sorrowing
    peers,
    That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,
    Now cheer each other in each other's love.
    Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
    We are to reap the harvest of his son.
    The broken rancour of your high-swol'n hearts,
    But lately splinter'd, knit, and join'd together,
    Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept.
    Me seemeth good that, with some little train,
    Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be fet
    Hither to London, to be crown'd our King.

 RIVERS. Why with some little train, my Lord of
    Buckingham?
  BUCKINGHAM. Marry, my lord, lest by a multitude
    The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out,
    Which would be so much the more dangerous
    By how much the estate is green and yet ungovern'd;
    Where every horse bears his commanding rein
    And may direct his course as please himself,
    As well the fear of harm as harm apparent,
    In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
  GLOUCESTER. I hope the King made peace with all of us;
    And the compact is firm and true in me.
  RIVERS. And so in me; and so, I think, in an.
    Yet, since it is but green, it should be put
    To no apparent likelihood of breach,
    Which haply by much company might be urg'd;
    Therefore I say with noble Buckingham
    That it is meet so few should fetch the Prince.
  HASTINGS. And so say I.
  GLOUCESTER. Then be it so; and go we to determine
    Who they shall be that straight shall post to Ludlow.
    Madam, and you, my sister, will you go
    To give your censures in this business?
                        Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOUCESTER
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,
    For God sake, let not us two stay at home;
    For by the way I'll sort occasion,
    As index to the story we late talk'd of,
    To part the Queen's proud kindred from the Prince.
  GLOUCESTER. My other self, my counsel's consistory,
    My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,
    I, as a child, will go by thy direction.
    Toward Ludlow then, for we'll not stay behind.        Exeunt

SCENE 3.

London. A street

Enter one CITIZEN at one door, and another at the other

  FIRST CITIZEN. Good morrow, neighbour. Whither away so
    fast?
  SECOND CITIZEN. I promise you, I scarcely know myself.
    Hear you the news abroad?
  FIRST CITIZEN. Yes, that the King is dead.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Ill news, by'r lady; seldom comes the
    better.
    I fear, I fear 'twill prove a giddy world.

                        Enter another CITIZEN

  THIRD CITIZEN. Neighbours, God speed!
  FIRST CITIZEN. Give you good morrow, sir.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Doth the news hold of good King Edward's
    death?
  SECOND CITIZEN. Ay, sir, it is too true; God help the while!
  THIRD CITIZEN. Then, masters, look to see a troublous
    world.
  FIRST CITIZEN. No, no; by God's good grace, his son shall
    reign.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Woe to that land that's govern'd by a child.
  SECOND CITIZEN. In him there is a hope of government,
    Which, in his nonage, council under him,
    And, in his full and ripened years, himself,
    No doubt, shall then, and till then, govern well.
  FIRST CITIZEN. So stood the state when Henry the Sixth
    Was crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Stood the state so? No, no, good friends,
    God wot;
    For then this land was famously enrich'd
    With politic grave counsel; then the King
    Had virtuous uncles to protect his Grace.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Why, so hath this, both by his father and
    mother.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Better it were they all came by his father,
    Or by his father there were none at all;
    For emulation who shall now be nearest
    Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.
    O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester!
    And the Queen's sons and brothers haught and proud;
    And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,
    This sickly land might solace as before.
  FIRST CITIZEN. Come, come, we fear the worst; all will be
    well.
  THIRD CITIZEN. When clouds are seen, wise men put on
    their cloaks;
    When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;
    When the sun sets, who doth not look for night?
    Untimely storms make men expect a dearth.
    All may be well; but, if God sort it so,
    'Tis more than we deserve or I expect.
  SECOND CITIZEN. Truly, the hearts of men are fun of fear.
    You cannot reason almost with a man
    That looks not heavily and fun of dread.
  THIRD CITIZEN. Before the days of change, still is it so;
    By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust
    Ensuing danger; as by proof we see
    The water swell before a boist'rous storm.
    But leave it all to God. Whither away?
  SECOND CITIZEN. Marry, we were sent for to the justices.
  THIRD CITIZEN. And so was I; I'll bear you company.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE 4.

London. The palace

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF YORK, the young DUKE OF YORK, QUEEN ELIZABETH,
and the DUCHESS OF YORK

  ARCHBISHOP. Last night, I hear, they lay at Stony Stratford,
    And at Northampton they do rest to-night;
    To-morrow or next day they will be here.
  DUCHESS. I long with all my heart to see the Prince.
    I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But I hear no; they say my son of York
    Has almost overta'en him in his growth.
  YORK. Ay, mother; but I would not have it so.
  DUCHESS. Why, my good cousin, it is good to grow.
  YORK. Grandam, one night as we did sit at supper,
    My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow
    More than my brother. 'Ay,' quoth my uncle Gloucester
    'Small herbs have grace: great weeds do grow apace.'
    And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,
    Because sweet flow'rs are slow and weeds make haste.
  DUCHESS. Good faith, good faith, the saying did not hold
    In him that did object the same to thee.
    He was the wretched'st thing when he was young,
    So long a-growing and so leisurely
    That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.
  ARCHBISHOP. And so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.
  DUCHESS. I hope he is; but yet let mothers doubt.
  YORK. Now, by my troth, if I had been rememb'red,
    I could have given my uncle's Grace a flout
    To touch his growth nearer than he touch'd mine.
  DUCHESS. How, my young York? I prithee let me hear it.
  YORK. Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast
    That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old.
    'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.
    Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.
  DUCHESS. I prithee, pretty York, who told thee this?
  YORK. Grandam, his nurse.
  DUCHESS. His nurse! Why she was dead ere thou wast
    born.
  YORK. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. A parlous boy! Go to, you are too
    shrewd.
  ARCHBISHOP. Good madam, be not angry with the child.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Pitchers have ears.

                        Enter a MESSENGER

  ARCHBISHOP. Here comes a messenger. What news?
  MESSENGER. Such news, my lord, as grieves me to report.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How doth the Prince?
  MESSENGER. Well, madam, and in health.
  DUCHESS. What is thy news?
  MESSENGER. Lord Rivers and Lord Grey
    Are sent to Pomfret, and with them
    Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.
  DUCHESS. Who hath committed them?
  MESSENGER. The mighty Dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.
  ARCHBISHOP. For what offence?
  MESSENGER. The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd.
    Why or for what the nobles were committed
    Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ay me, I see the ruin of my house!
    The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind;
    Insulting tyranny begins to jet
    Upon the innocent and aweless throne.
    Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre!
    I see, as in a map, the end of all.
  DUCHESS. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days,
    How many of you have mine eyes beheld!
    My husband lost his life to get the crown;
    And often up and down my sons were toss'd
    For me to joy and weep their gain and loss;
    And being seated, and domestic broils
    Clean over-blown, themselves the conquerors
    Make war upon themselves-brother to brother,
    Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous
    And frantic outrage, end thy damned spleen,
    Or let me die, to look on death no more!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Come, come, my boy; we will to
    sanctuary.
    Madam, farewell.
  DUCHESS. Stay, I will go with you.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. You have no cause.
  ARCHBISHOP.  [To the QUEEN]  My gracious lady, go.
    And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
    For my part, I'll resign unto your Grace
    The seal I keep; and so betide to me
    As well I tender you and all of yours!
    Go, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary.                Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 1.

London. A street

The trumpets sound. Enter the PRINCE OF WALES, GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM,
CATESBY, CARDINAL BOURCHIER, and others

  BUCKINGHAM. Welcome, sweet Prince, to London, to your
    chamber.
  GLOUCESTER. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sovereign.
    The weary way hath made you melancholy.
  PRINCE. No, uncle; but our crosses on the way
    Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.
    I want more uncles here to welcome me.
  GLOUCESTER. Sweet Prince, the untainted virtue of your
    years
    Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit;
    Nor more can you distinguish of a man
    Than of his outward show; which, God He knows,
    Seldom or never jumpeth with the heart.
    Those uncles which you want were dangerous;
    Your Grace attended to their sug'red words
    But look'd not on the poison of their hearts.
    God keep you from them and from such false friends!
  PRINCE. God keep me from false friends! but they were
    none.
  GLOUCESTER. My lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet
    you.

                Enter the LORD MAYOR and his train

  MAYOR. God bless your Grace with health and happy days!
  PRINCE. I thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.
    I thought my mother and my brother York
    Would long ere this have met us on the way.
    Fie, what a slug is Hastings, that he comes not
    To tell us whether they will come or no!

                        Enter LORD HASTINGS

  BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time, here comes the sweating
    Lord.
  PRINCE. Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?
  HASTINGS. On what occasion, God He knows, not I,
    The Queen your mother and your brother York
    Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince
    Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,
    But by his mother was perforce withheld.
  BUCKINGHAM. Fie, what an indirect and peevish course
    Is this of hers? Lord Cardinal, will your Grace
    Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York
    Unto his princely brother presently?
    If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him
    And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.
  CARDINAL. My Lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory
    Can from his mother win the Duke of York,
    Anon expect him here; but if she be obdurate
    To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid
    We should infringe the holy privilege
    Of blessed sanctuary! Not for all this land
    Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.
  BUCKINGHAM. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,
    Too ceremonious and traditional.
    Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,
    You break not sanctuary in seizing him.
    The benefit thereof is always granted
    To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place
    And those who have the wit to claim the place.
    This Prince hath neither claim'd it nor deserv'd it,
    And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it.
    Then, taking him from thence that is not there,
    You break no privilege nor charter there.
    Oft have I heard of sanctuary men;
    But sanctuary children never till now.
  CARDINAL. My lord, you shall o'errule my mind for once.
    Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?
  HASTINGS. I go, my lord.
  PRINCE. Good lords, make all the speedy haste you may.
                                    Exeunt CARDINAL and HASTINGS
    Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,
    Where shall we sojourn till our coronation?
  GLOUCESTER. Where it seems best unto your royal self.
    If I may counsel you, some day or two
    Your Highness shall repose you at the Tower,
    Then where you please and shall be thought most fit
    For your best health and recreation.
  PRINCE. I do not like the Tower, of any place.
    Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord?
  BUCKINGHAM. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place,
    Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.
  PRINCE. Is it upon record, or else reported
    Successively from age to age, he built it?
  BUCKINGHAM. Upon record, my gracious lord.
  PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not regist'red,
    Methinks the truth should Eve from age to age,
    As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,
    Even to the general all-ending day.
  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  So wise so young, they say, do never
    live long.
  PRINCE. What say you, uncle?
  GLOUCESTER. I say, without characters, fame lives long.
    [Aside]  Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,
    I moralize two meanings in one word.
  PRINCE. That Julius Caesar was a famous man;
    With what his valour did enrich his wit,
    His wit set down to make his valour live.
    Death makes no conquest of this conqueror;
    For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
    I'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham-
  BUCKINGHAM. What, my gracious lord?
  PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man,
    I'll win our ancient right in France again,
    Or die a soldier as I liv'd a king.
  GLOUCESTER.  [Aside]  Short summers lightly have a forward
    spring.

              Enter HASTINGS, young YORK, and the CARDINAL

  BUCKINGHAM. Now, in good time, here comes the Duke of
    York.
  PRINCE. Richard of York, how fares our loving brother?
  YORK. Well, my dread lord; so must I can you now.
  PRINCE. Ay brother, to our grief, as it is yours.
    Too late he died that might have kept that title,
    Which by his death hath lost much majesty.
  GLOUCESTER. How fares our cousin, noble Lord of York?
  YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,
    You said that idle weeds are fast in growth.
    The Prince my brother hath outgrown me far.
  GLOUCESTER. He hath, my lord.
  YORK. And therefore is he idle?
  GLOUCESTER. O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.
  YORK. Then he is more beholding to you than I.
  GLOUCESTER. He may command me as my sovereign;
    But you have power in me as in a kinsman.
  YORK. I pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.
  GLOUCESTER. My dagger, little cousin? With all my heart!
  PRINCE. A beggar, brother?
  YORK. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give,
    And being but a toy, which is no grief to give.
  GLOUCESTER. A greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.
  YORK. A greater gift! O, that's the sword to it!
  GLOUCESTER. Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough.
  YORK. O, then, I see you will part but with light gifts:
    In weightier things you'll say a beggar nay.
  GLOUCESTER. It is too heavy for your Grace to wear.
  YORK. I weigh it lightly, were it heavier.
  GLOUCESTER. What, would you have my weapon, little
    Lord?
  YORK. I would, that I might thank you as you call me.
  GLOUCESTER. How?
  YORK. Little.
  PRINCE. My Lord of York will still be cross in talk.
    Uncle, your Grace knows how to bear with him.
  YORK. You mean, to bear me, not to bear with me.
    Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me;
    Because that I am little, like an ape,
    He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.
  BUCKINGHAM. With what a sharp-provided wit he reasons!
    To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle
    He prettily and aptly taunts himself.
    So cunning and so young is wonderful.
  GLOUCESTER. My lord, will't please you pass along?
    Myself and my good cousin Buckingham
    Will to your mother, to entreat of her
    To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.
  YORK. What, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?
  PRINCE. My Lord Protector needs will have it so.
  YORK. I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.
  GLOUCESTER. Why, what should you fear?
  YORK. Marry, my uncle Clarence' angry ghost.
    My grandam told me he was murder'd there.
  PRINCE. I fear no uncles dead.
  GLOUCESTER. Nor none that live, I hope.
  PRINCE. An if they live, I hope I need not fear.
    But come, my lord; and with a heavy heart,
    Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.
    A sennet.
              Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER, BUCKINGHAM, and CATESBY
  BUCKINGHAM. Think you, my lord, this little prating York
    Was not incensed by his subtle mother
    To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?
  GLOUCESTER. No doubt, no doubt. O, 'tis a perilous boy;
    Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable.
    He is all the mother's, from the top to toe.
  BUCKINGHAM. Well, let them rest. Come hither, Catesby.
    Thou art sworn as deeply to effect what we intend
    As closely to conceal what we impart.
    Thou know'st our reasons urg'd upon the way.
    What think'st thou? Is it not an easy matter
    To make William Lord Hastings of our mind,
    For the instalment of this noble Duke
    In the seat royal of this famous isle?
  CATESBY. He for his father's sake so loves the Prince
    That he will not be won to aught against him.
  BUCKINGHAM. What think'st thou then of Stanley? Will
    not he?
  CATESBY. He will do all in all as Hastings doth.
  BUCKINGHAM. Well then, no more but this: go, gentle
    Catesby,
    And, as it were far off, sound thou Lord Hastings
    How he doth stand affected to our purpose;
    And summon him to-morrow to the Tower,
    To sit about the coronation.
    If thou dost find him tractable to us,
    Encourage him, and tell him all our reasons;
    If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling,
    Be thou so too, and so break off the talk,
    And give us notice of his inclination;
    For we to-morrow hold divided councils,
    Wherein thyself shalt highly be employ'd.
  GLOUCESTER. Commend me to Lord William. Tell him,
    Catesby,
    His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries
    To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret Castle;
    And bid my lord, for joy of this good news,
    Give Mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.
  BUCKINGHAM. Good Catesby, go effect this business soundly.
  CATESBY. My good lords both, with all the heed I can.
  GLOUCESTER. Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?
  CATESBY. You shall, my lord.
  GLOUCESTER. At Crosby House, there shall you find us both.
                                                    Exit CATESBY
  BUCKINGHAM. Now, my lord, what shall we do if we
    perceive
    Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?
  GLOUCESTER. Chop off his head-something we will
    determine.
    And, look when I am King, claim thou of me
    The earldom of Hereford and all the movables
    Whereof the King my brother was possess'd.
  BUCKINGHAM. I'll claim that promise at your Grace's hand.
  GLOUCESTER. And look to have it yielded with all kindness.
    Come, let us sup betimes, that afterwards
    We may digest our complots in some form.              Exeunt

SCENE 2.

Before LORD HASTING'S house

Enter a MESSENGER to the door of HASTINGS

  MESSENGER. My lord, my lord!                        [Knocking]
  HASTINGS.  [Within]  Who knocks?
  MESSENGER. One from the Lord Stanley.
  HASTINGS.  [Within]  What is't o'clock?
  MESSENGER. Upon the stroke of four.

                        Enter LORD HASTINGS

  HASTINGS. Cannot my Lord Stanley sleep these tedious
    nights?
  MESSENGER. So it appears by that I have to say.
    First, he commends him to your noble self.
  HASTINGS. What then?
  MESSENGER. Then certifies your lordship that this night
    He dreamt the boar had razed off his helm.
    Besides, he says there are two councils kept,
    And that may be determin'd at the one
    Which may make you and him to rue at th' other.
    Therefore he sends to know your lordship's pleasure-
    If you will presently take horse with him
    And with all speed post with him toward the north
    To shun the danger that his soul divines.
  HASTINGS. Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord;
    Bid him not fear the separated council:
    His honour and myself are at the one,
    And at the other is my good friend Catesby;
    Where nothing can proceed that toucheth us
    Whereof I shall not have intelligence.
    Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance;
    And for his dreams, I wonder he's so simple
    To trust the mock'ry of unquiet slumbers.
    To fly the boar before the boar pursues
    Were to incense the boar to follow us
    And make pursuit where he did mean no chase.
    Go, bid thy master rise and come to me;
    And we will both together to the Tower,
    Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.
  MESSENGER. I'll go, my lord, and tell him what you say.
 Exit

                         Enter CATESBY

  CATESBY. Many good morrows to my noble lord!
  HASTINGS. Good morrow, Catesby; you are early stirring.
    What news, what news, in this our tott'ring state?
  CATESBY. It is a reeling world indeed, my lord;
    And I believe will never stand upright
    Till Richard wear the garland of the realm.
  HASTINGS. How, wear the garland! Dost thou mean the
    crown?
  CATESBY. Ay, my good lord.
  HASTINGS. I'll have this crown of mine cut from my
    shoulders
    Before I'll see the crown so foul misplac'd.
    But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?
  CATESBY. Ay, on my life; and hopes to find you forward
    Upon his party for the gain thereof;
    And thereupon he sends you this good news,
    That this same very day your enemies,
    The kindred of the Queen, must die at Pomfret.
  HASTINGS. Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,
    Because they have been still my adversaries;
    But that I'll give my voice on Richard's side
    To bar my master's heirs in true descent,
    God knows I will not do it to the death.
  CATESBY. God keep your lordship in that gracious mind!
  HASTINGS. But I shall laugh at this a twelve month hence,
    That they which brought me in my master's hate,
    I live to look upon their tragedy.
    Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,
    I'll send some packing that yet think not on't.
  CATESBY. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,
    When men are unprepar'd and look not for it.
  HASTINGS. O monstrous, monstrous! And so falls it out
    With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey; and so 'twill do
    With some men else that think themselves as safe
    As thou and I, who, as thou knowest, are dear
    To princely Richard and to Buckingham.
  CATESBY. The Princes both make high account of you-
    [Aside]  For they account his head upon the bridge.
  HASTINGS. I know they do, and I have well deserv'd it.

                      Enter LORD STANLEY

    Come on, come on; where is your boar-spear, man?
    Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided?
  STANLEY. My lord, good morrow; good morrow, Catesby.
    You may jest on, but, by the holy rood,
    I do not like these several councils, I.
  HASTINGS. My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours,
    And never in my days, I do protest,
    Was it so precious to me as 'tis now.
    Think you, but that I know our state secure,
    I would be so triumphant as I am?
  STANLEY. The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from
    London,
    Were jocund and suppos'd their states were sure,
    And they indeed had no cause to mistrust;
    But yet you see how soon the day o'ercast.
    This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt;
    Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.
    What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is spent.
  HASTINGS. Come, come, have with you. Wot you what, my
    Lord?
    To-day the lords you talk'd of are beheaded.
  STANLEY. They, for their truth, might better wear their
    heads
    Than some that have accus'd them wear their hats.
    But come, my lord, let's away.

                 Enter HASTINGS, a pursuivant

  HASTINGS. Go on before; I'll talk with this good fellow.
                                      Exeunt STANLEY and CATESBY
    How now, Hastings! How goes the world with thee?
  PURSUIVANT. The better that your lordship please to ask.
  HASTINGS. I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now
    Than when thou met'st me last where now we meet:
    Then was I going prisoner to the Tower
    By the suggestion of the Queen's allies;
    But now, I tell thee-keep it to thyself-
    This day those enernies are put to death,
    And I in better state than e'er I was.
  PURSUIVANT. God hold it, to your honour's good content!
  HASTINGS. Gramercy, Hastings; there, drink that for me.
                                          [Throws him his purse]
  PURSUIVANT. I thank your honour.                          Exit

                            Enter a PRIEST

  PRIEST. Well met, my lord; I am glad to see your honour.
  HASTINGS. I thank thee, good Sir John, with all my heart.
    I am in your debt for your last exercise;
    Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.
                                        [He whispers in his ear]
  PRIEST. I'll wait upon your lordship.

                            Enter BUCKINGHAM

  BUCKINGHAM. What, talking with a priest, Lord
    Chamberlain!
    Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest:
    Your honour hath no shriving work in hand.
  HASTINGS. Good faith, and when I met this holy man,
    The men you talk of came into my mind.
    What, go you toward the Tower?
  BUCKINGHAM. I do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there;
    I shall return before your lordship thence.
  HASTINGS. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.
  BUCKINGHAM.  [Aside]  And supper too, although thou
    knowest it not.-
    Come, will you go?
  HASTINGS. I'll wait upon your lordship.                 Exeunt

SCENE 3.

Pomfret Castle

Enter SIR RICHARD RATCLIFF, with halberds, carrying the Nobles,
RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN, to death

  RIVERS. Sir Richard Ratcliff, let me tell thee this:
    To-day shalt thou behold a subject die
    For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
  GREY. God bless the Prince from all the pack of you!
    A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.
  VAUGHAN. You live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.
  RATCLIFF. Dispatch; the limit of your lives is out.
  RIVERS. O Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,
    Fatal and ominous to noble peers!
    Within the guilty closure of thy walls
  RICHARD the Second here was hack'd to death;
    And for more slander to thy dismal seat,
    We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.
  GREY. Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads,
    When she exclaim'd on Hastings, you, and I,
    For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.
  RIVERS. Then curs'd she Richard, then curs'd she
    Buckingham,
    Then curs'd she Hastings. O, remember, God,
    To hear her prayer for them, as now for us!
    And for my sister, and her princely sons,
    Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,
    Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt.
  RATCLIFF. Make haste; the hour of death is expiate.
  RIVERS. Come, Grey; come, Vaughan; let us here embrace.
    Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.              Exeunt

SCENE 4

London. The Tower

Enter BUCKINGHAM, DERBY, HASTINGS, the BISHOP of ELY, RATCLIFF, LOVEL,
with others and seat themselves at a table

  HASTINGS. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are met
    Is to determine of the coronation.
    In God's name speak-when is the royal day?
  BUCKINGHAM. Is all things ready for the royal time?
  DERBY. It is, and wants but nomination.
  BISHOP OF ELY. To-morrow then I judge a happy day.
  BUCKINGHAM. Who knows the Lord Protector's mind
    herein?
    Who is most inward with the noble Duke?
  BISHOP OF ELY. Your Grace, we think, should soonest know
    his mind.
  BUCKINGHAM. We know each other's faces; for our hearts,
    He knows no more of mine than I of yours;
    Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.
    Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.
  HASTINGS. I thank his Grace, I know he loves me well;
    But for his purpose in the coronation
    I have not sounded him, nor he deliver'd
    His gracious pleasure any way therein.
    But you, my honourable lords, may name the time;
    And in the Duke's behalf I'll give my voice,
    Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.

                       Enter GLOUCESTER

  BISHOP OF ELY. In happy time, here comes the Duke himself.
  GLOUCESTER. My noble lords and cousins an, good morrow.
    I have been long a sleeper, but I trust
    My absence doth neglect no great design
    Which by my presence might have been concluded.
  BUCKINGHAM. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord,
  WILLIAM Lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part-
    I mean, your voice for crowning of the King.
  GLOUCESTER. Than my Lord Hastings no man might be
    bolder;
    His lordship knows me well and loves me well.
    My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn
    I saw good strawberries in your garden there.
    I do beseech you send for some of them.
  BISHOP of ELY. Marry and will, my lord, with all my heart.
 Exit
  GLOUCESTER. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.
                                               [Takes him aside]
    Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business,
    And finds the testy gentleman so hot
    That he will lose his head ere give consent
    His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,
    Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.
  BUCKINGHAM. Withdraw yourself awhile; I'll go with you.
                                Exeunt GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM
  DERBY. We have not yet set down this day of triumph.
    To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden;
    For I myself am not so well provided
    As else I would be, were the day prolong'd.

                    Re-enter the BISHOP OF ELY

  BISHOP OF ELY. Where is my lord the Duke of Gloucester?
    I have sent for these strawberries.
  HASTINGS. His Grace looks cheerfully and smooth this
    morning;
    There's some conceit or other likes him well
    When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.
    I think there's never a man in Christendom
    Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;
    For by his face straight shall you know his heart.
  DERBY. What of his heart perceive you in his face
    By any livelihood he show'd to-day?
  HASTINGS. Marry, that with no man here he is offended;
    For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.

               Re-enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM

  GLOUCESTER. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve
    That do conspire my death with devilish plots
    Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevail'd
    Upon my body with their hellish charms?
  HASTINGS. The tender love I bear your Grace, my lord,
    Makes me most forward in this princely presence
    To doom th' offenders, whosoe'er they be.
    I say, my lord, they have deserved death.
  GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil.
    Look how I am bewitch'd; behold, mine arm
    Is like a blasted sapling wither'd up.
    And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
    Consorted with that harlot strumpet Shore,
    That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.
  HASTINGS. If they have done this deed, my noble lord-
  GLOUCESTER. If?-thou protector of this damned strumpet,
    Talk'st thou to me of ifs? Thou art a traitor.
    Off with his head! Now by Saint Paul I swear
    I will not dine until I see the same.
    Lovel and Ratcliff, look that it be done.
    The rest that love me, rise and follow me.
                    Exeunt all but HASTINGS, LOVEL, and RATCLIFF
  HASTINGS. Woe, woe, for England! not a whit for me;
    For I, too fond, might have prevented this.
  STANLEY did dream the boar did raze our helms,
    And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.
    Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble,
    And started when he look'd upon the Tower,
    As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.
    O, now I need the priest that spake to me!
    I now repent I told the pursuivant,
    As too triumphing, how mine enemies
    To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,
    And I myself secure in grace and favour.
    O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse
    Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head!
  RATCLIFF. Come, come, dispatch; the Duke would be at
    dinner.
    Make a short shrift; he longs to see your head.
  HASTINGS. O momentary grace of mortal men,
    Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
    Who builds his hope in air of your good looks
    Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
    Ready with every nod to tumble down
    Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
  LOVEL. Come, come, dispatch; 'tis bootless to exclaim.
  HASTINGS. O bloody Richard! Miserable England!
    I prophesy the fearfull'st time to thee
    That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.
    Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head.
    They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.           Exeunt

SCENE 5.

London. The Tower-walls

Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM in rotten armour, marvellous
ill-favoured

  GLOUCESTER. Come, cousin, canst thou quake and change
    thy colour,
    Murder thy breath in middle of a word,
    And then again begin, and stop again,
    As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?
  BUCKINGHAM. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian;
    Speak and look back, and pry on every side,
    Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
    Intending deep suspicion. Ghastly looks
    Are at my service, like enforced smiles;
    And both are ready in their offices
    At any time to grace my stratagems.
    But what, is Catesby gone?
  GLOUCESTER. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.

                 Enter the LORD MAYOR and CATESBY

  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor-
  GLOUCESTER. Look to the drawbridge there!
  BUCKINGHAM. Hark! a drum.
  GLOUCESTER. Catesby, o'erlook the walls.
  BUCKINGHAM. Lord Mayor, the reason we have sent-
  GLOUCESTER. Look back, defend thee; here are enemies.
  BUCKINGHAM. God and our innocence defend and guard us!

           Enter LOVEL and RATCLIFF, with HASTINGS' head

  GLOUCESTER. Be patient; they are friends-Ratcliff and Lovel.
  LOVEL. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
    The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.
  GLOUCESTER. So dear I lov'd the man that I must weep.
    I took him for the plainest harmless creature
    That breath'd upon the earth a Christian;
    Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded
    The history of all her secret thoughts.
    So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue
    That, his apparent open guilt omitted,
    I mean his conversation with Shore's wife-
    He liv'd from all attainder of suspects.
  BUCKINGHAM. Well, well, he was the covert'st shelt'red
    traitor
    That ever liv'd.
    Would you imagine, or almost believe-
    Were't not that by great preservation
    We live to tell it-that the subtle traitor
    This day had plotted, in the council-house,
    To murder me and my good Lord of Gloucester.
  MAYOR. Had he done so?
  GLOUCESTER. What! think you we are Turks or Infidels?
    Or that we would, against the form of law,
    Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death
    But that the extreme peril of the case,
    The peace of England and our persons' safety,
    Enforc'd us to this execution?
  MAYOR. Now, fair befall you! He deserv'd his death;
    And your good Graces both have well proceeded
    To warn false traitors from the like attempts.
    I never look'd for better at his hands
    After he once fell in with Mistress Shore.
  BUCKINGHAM. Yet had we not determin'd he should die
    Until your lordship came to see his end-
    Which now the loving haste of these our friends,
    Something against our meanings, have prevented-
    Because, my lord, I would have had you heard
    The traitor speak, and timorously confess
    The manner and the purpose of his treasons:
    That you might well have signified the same
    Unto the citizens, who haply may
    Misconster us in him and wail his death.
  MAYOR. But, my good lord, your Grace's words shall serve
    As well as I had seen and heard him speak;
    And do not doubt, right noble Princes both,
    But I'll acquaint our duteous citizens
    With all your just proceedings in this cause.
  GLOUCESTER. And to that end we wish'd your lordship here,
    T' avoid the the the censures of the carping world.
  BUCKINGHAM. Which since you come too late of our intent,
    Yet witness what you hear we did intend.
    And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell.
                                                 Exit LORD MAYOR
  GLOUCESTER. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.
    The Mayor towards Guildhall hies him in an post.
    There, at your meet'st advantage of the time,
    Infer the bastardy of Edward's children.
    Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen
    Only for saying he would make his son
    Heir to the crown-meaning indeed his house,
    Which by the sign thereof was termed so.
    Moreover, urge his hateful luxury
    And bestial appetite in change of lust,
    Which stretch'd unto their servants, daughters, wives,
    Even where his raging eye or savage heart
    Without control lusted to make a prey.
    Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person:
    Tell them, when that my mother went with child
    Of that insatiate Edward, noble York
    My princely father then had wars in France
    And, by true computation of the time,
    Found that the issue was not his begot;
    Which well appeared in his lineaments,
    Being nothing like the noble Duke my father.
    Yet touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off;
    Because, my lord, you know my mother lives.
  BUCKINGHAM. Doubt not, my lord, I'll play the orator
    As if the golden fee for which I plead
    Were for myself; and so, my lord, adieu.
  GLOUCESTER. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's
    Castle;
    Where you shall find me well accompanied
    With reverend fathers and well learned bishops.
  BUCKINGHAM. I go; and towards three or four o'clock
    Look for the news that the Guildhall affords.           Exit
  GLOUCESTER. Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw.
    [To CATESBY]  Go thou to Friar Penker. Bid them both
    Meet me within this hour at Baynard's Castle.
                                       Exeunt all but GLOUCESTER
    Now will I go to take some privy order
    To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight,
    And to give order that no manner person
    Have any time recourse unto the Princes.                Exit

SCENE 6.

London. A street

Enter a SCRIVENER

  SCRIVENER. Here is the indictment of the good Lord Hastings;
    Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd
    That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's.
    And mark how well the sequel hangs together:
    Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,
    For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me;
    The precedent was full as long a-doing;
    And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd,
    Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty.
    Here's a good world the while! Who is so gros
    That cannot see this palpable device?
    Yet who's so bold but says he sees it not?
    Bad is the world; and all will come to nought,
    When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.          Exit

SCENE 7.

London. Baynard's Castle

Enter GLOUCESTER and BUCKINGHAM, at several doors

  GLOUCESTER. How now, how now! What say the citizens?
  BUCKINGHAM. Now, by the holy Mother of our Lord,
    The citizens are mum, say not a word.
  GLOUCESTER. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's
    children?
  BUCKINGHAM. I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy,
    And his contract by deputy in France;
    Th' insatiate greediness of his desire,
    And his enforcement of the city wives;
    His tyranny for trifles; his own bastardy,
    As being got, your father then in France,
    And his resemblance, being not like the Duke.
    Withal I did infer your lineaments,
    Being the right idea of your father,
    Both in your form and nobleness of mind;
    Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
    Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,
    Your bounty, virtue, fair humility;
    Indeed, left nothing fitting for your purpose
    Untouch'd or slightly handled in discourse.
    And when mine oratory drew toward end
    I bid them that did love their country's good
    Cry 'God save Richard, England's royal King!'
  GLOUCESTER. And did they so?
  BUCKINGHAM. No, so God help me, they spake not a word;
    But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,
    Star'd each on other, and look'd deadly pale.
    Which when I saw, I reprehended them,
    And ask'd the Mayor what meant this wilfull silence.
    His answer was, the people were not used
    To be spoke to but by the Recorder.
    Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again.
    'Thus saith the Duke, thus hath the Duke inferr'd'-
    But nothing spoke in warrant from himself.
    When he had done, some followers of mine own
    At lower end of the hall hurl'd up their caps,
    And some ten voices cried 'God save King Richard!'
    And thus I took the vantage of those few-
    'Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,' quoth I
    'This general applause and cheerful shout
    Argues your wisdoms and your love to Richard.'
    And even here brake off and came away.
  GLOUCESTER. What, tongueless blocks were they? Would
    they not speak?
    Will not the Mayor then and his brethren come?
  BUCKINGHAM. The Mayor is here at hand. Intend some fear;
    Be not you spoke with but by mighty suit;
    And look you get a prayer-book in your hand,
    And stand between two churchmen, good my lord;
    For on that ground I'll make a holy descant;
    And be not easily won to our requests.
    Play the maid's part: still answer nay, and take it.
  GLOUCESTER. I go; and if you plead as well for them
    As I can say nay to thee for myself,
    No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.
  BUCKINGHAM. Go, go, up to the leads; the Lord Mayor
    knocks.                                      Exit GLOUCESTER

           Enter the LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN, and citizens

    Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance here;
    I think the Duke will not be spoke withal.

                         Enter CATESBY

    Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request?
  CATESBY. He doth entreat your Grace, my noble lord,
    To visit him to-morrow or next day.
    He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
    Divinely bent to meditation;
    And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd,
    To draw him from his holy exercise.
  BUCKINGHAM. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious Duke;
    Tell him, myself, the Mayor and Aldermen,
    In deep designs, in matter of great moment,
    No less importing than our general good,
    Are come to have some conference with his Grace.
  CATESBY. I'll signify so much unto him straight.          Exit
  BUCKINGHAM. Ah ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!
    He is not lolling on a lewd love-bed,
    But on his knees at meditation;
    Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
    But meditating with two deep divines;
    Not sleeping, to engross his idle body,
    But praying, to enrich his watchful soul.
    Happy were England would this virtuous prince
    Take on his Grace the sovereignty thereof;
    But, sure, I fear we shall not win him to it.
  MAYOR. Marry, God defend his Grace should say us nay!
  BUCKINGHAM. I fear he will. Here Catesby comes again.

                          Re-enter CATESBY

    Now, Catesby, what says his Grace?
  CATESBY. My lord,
    He wonders to what end you have assembled
    Such troops of citizens to come to him.
    His Grace not being warn'd thereof before,
    He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.
  BUCKINGHAM. Sorry I am my noble cousin should
    Suspect me that I mean no good to him.
    By heaven, we come to him in perfect love;
    And so once more return and tell his Grace.
                                                    Exit CATESBY
    When holy and devout religious men
    Are at their beads, 'tis much to draw them thence,
    So sweet is zealous contemplation.

           Enter GLOUCESTER aloft, between two BISHOPS.
                      CATESBY returns

  MAYOR. See where his Grace stands 'tween two clergymen!
  BUCKINGHAM. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
    To stay him from the fall of vanity;
    And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,
    True ornaments to know a holy man.
    Famous Plantagenet, most gracious Prince,
    Lend favourable ear to our requests,
    And pardon us the interruption
    Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal.
  GLOUCESTER. My lord, there needs no such apology:
    I do beseech your Grace to pardon me,
    Who, earnest in the service of my God,
    Deferr'd the visitation of my friends.
    But, leaving this, what is your Grace's pleasure?
  BUCKINGHAM. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,
    And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.
  GLOUCESTER. I do suspect I have done some offence
    That seems disgracious in the city's eye,
    And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
  BUCKINGHAM. You have, my lord. Would it might please
    your Grace,
    On our entreaties, to amend your fault!
  GLOUCESTER. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?
  BUCKINGHAM. Know then, it is your fault that you resign
    The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
    The scept'red office of your ancestors,
    Your state of fortune and your due of birth,
    The lineal glory of your royal house,
    To the corruption of a blemish'd stock;
    Whiles in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
    Which here we waken to our country's good,
    The noble isle doth want her proper limbs;
    Her face defac'd with scars of infamy,
    Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,
    And almost should'red in the swallowing gulf
    Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.
    Which to recure, we heartily solicit
    Your gracious self to take on you the charge
    And kingly government of this your land-
    Not as protector, steward, substitute,
    Or lowly factor for another's gain;
    But as successively, from blood to blood,
    Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
    For this, consorted with the citizens,
    Your very worshipful and loving friends,
    And by their vehement instigation,
    In this just cause come I to move your Grace.
  GLOUCESTER. I cannot tell if to depart in silence
    Or bitterly to speak in your reproof
    Best fitteth my degree or your condition.
    If not to answer, you might haply think
    Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
    To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
    Which fondly you would here impose on me;
    If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
    So season'd with your faithful love to me,
    Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.
    Therefore-to speak, and to avoid the first,
    And then, in speaking, not to incur the last-
    Definitively thus I answer you:
    Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert
    Unmeritable shuns your high request.
    First, if all obstacles were cut away,
    And that my path were even to the crown,
    As the ripe revenue and due of birth,
    Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
    So mighty and so many my defects,
    That I would rather hide me from my greatness-
    Being a bark to brook no mighty sea-
    Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
    And in the vapour of my glory smother'd.
    But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me-
    And much I need to help you, were there need.
    The royal tree hath left us royal fruit
    Which, mellow'd by the stealing hours of time,
    Will well become the seat of majesty
    And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
    On him I lay that you would lay on me-
    The right and fortune of his happy stars,
    Which God defend that I should wring from him.
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, this argues conscience in your
    Grace;
    But the respects thereof are nice and trivial,
    All circumstances well considered.
    You say that Edward is your brother's son.
    So say we too, but not by Edward's wife;
    For first was he contract to Lady Lucy-
    Your mother lives a witness to his vow-
    And afterward by substitute betroth'd
    To Bona, sister to the King of France.
    These both put off, a poor petitioner,
    A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,
    A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
    Even in the afternoon of her best days,
    Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
    Seduc'd the pitch and height of his degree
    To base declension and loath'd bigamy.
    By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
    This Edward, whom our manners call the Prince.
    More bitterly could I expostulate,
    Save that, for reverence to some alive,
    I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
    Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
    This proffer'd benefit of dignity;
    If not to bless us and the land withal,
    Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
    From the corruption of abusing times
    Unto a lineal true-derived course.
  MAYOR. Do, good my lord; your citizens entreat you.
  BUCKINGHAM. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.
  CATESBY. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!
  GLOUCESTER. Alas, why would you heap this care on me?
    I am unfit for state and majesty.
    I do beseech you, take it not amiss:
    I cannot nor I will not yield to you.
  BUCKINGHAM. If you refuse it-as, in love and zeal,
    Loath to depose the child, your brother's son;
    As well we know your tenderness of heart
    And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse,
    Which we have noted in you to your kindred
    And egally indeed to all estates-
    Yet know, whe'er you accept our suit or no,
    Your brother's son shall never reign our king;
    But we will plant some other in the throne
    To the disgrace and downfall of your house;
    And in this resolution here we leave you.
    Come, citizens. Zounds, I'll entreat no more.
  GLOUCESTER. O, do not swear, my lord of Buckingham.
                          Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, MAYOR, and citizens
  CATESBY. Call him again, sweet Prince, accept their suit.
    If you deny them, all the land will rue it.
  GLOUCESTER. Will you enforce me to a world of cares?
    Call them again. I am not made of stones,
    But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
    Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

                  Re-enter BUCKINGHAM and the rest

    Cousin of Buckingham, and sage grave men,
    Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
    To bear her burden, whe'er I will or no,
    I must have patience to endure the load;
    But if black scandal or foul-fac'd reproach
    Attend the sequel of your imposition,
    Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
    From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
    For God doth know, and you may partly see,
    How far I am from the desire of this.
  MAYOR. God bless your Grace! We see it, and will say it.
  GLOUCESTER. In saying so, you shall but say the truth.
  BUCKINGHAM. Then I salute you with this royal title-
    Long live King Richard, England's worthy King!
  ALL. Amen.
  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow may it please you to be crown'd?
  GLOUCESTER. Even when you please, for you will have it so.
  BUCKINGHAM. To-morrow, then, we will attend your Grace;
    And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.
  GLOUCESTER.  [To the BISHOPS]  Come, let us to our holy
    work again.
    Farewell, my cousin; farewell, gentle friends.        Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1.

London. Before the Tower

Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH, DUCHESS of YORK, and MARQUIS of DORSET, at one
door;
ANNE, DUCHESS of GLOUCESTER, leading LADY MARGARET PLANTAGENET,
CLARENCE's young daughter, at another door

  DUCHESS. Who meets us here? My niece Plantagenet,
    Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?
    Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,
    On pure heart's love, to greet the tender Princes.
    Daughter, well met.
  ANNE. God give your Graces both
    A happy and a joyful time of day!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As much to you, good sister! Whither
    away?
  ANNE. No farther than the Tower; and, as I guess,
    Upon the like devotion as yourselves,
    To gratulate the gentle Princes there.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Kind sister, thanks; we'll enter
    all together.

                       Enter BRAKENBURY

    And in good time, here the lieutenant comes.
    Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,
    How doth the Prince, and my young son of York?
  BRAKENBURY. Right well, dear madam. By your patience,
    I may not suffer you to visit them.
    The King hath strictly charg'd the contrary.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The King! Who's that?
  BRAKENBURY. I mean the Lord Protector.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. The Lord protect him from that kingly
    title!
    Hath he set bounds between their love and me?
    I am their mother; who shall bar me from them?
  DUCHESS. I am their father's mother; I will see them.
  ANNE. Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother.
    Then bring me to their sights; I'll bear thy blame,
    And take thy office from thee on my peril.
  BRAKENBURY. No, madam, no. I may not leave it so;
    I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.            Exit

                         Enter STANLEY

  STANLEY. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,
    And I'll salute your Grace of York as mother
    And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.
    [To ANNE]  Come, madam, you must straight to
    Westminster,
    There to be crowned Richard's royal queen.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, cut my lace asunder
    That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,
    Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!
  ANNE. Despiteful tidings! O unpleasing news!
  DORSET. Be of good cheer; mother, how fares your Grace?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee
    gone!
    Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels;
    Thy mother's name is ominous to children.
    If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,
    And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.
    Go, hie thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,
    Lest thou increase the number of the dead,
    And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,
    Nor mother, wife, nor England's counted queen.
  STANLEY. Full of wise care is this your counsel, madam.
    Take all the swift advantage of the hours;
    You shall have letters from me to my son
    In your behalf, to meet you on the way.
    Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.
  DUCHESS. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
    O my accursed womb, the bed of death!
    A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
    Whose unavoided eye is murderous.
  STANLEY. Come, madam, come; I in all haste was sent.
  ANNE. And I with all unwillingness will go.
    O, would to God that the inclusive verge
    Of golden metal that must round my brow
    Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains!
    Anointed let me be with deadly venom,
    And die ere men can say 'God save the Queen!'
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Go, go, poor soul; I envy not thy glory.
    To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.
  ANNE. No, why? When he that is my husband now
    Came to me, as I follow'd Henry's corse;
    When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his hands
    Which issued from my other angel husband,
    And that dear saint which then I weeping follow'd-
    O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,
    This was my wish: 'Be thou' quoth I 'accurs'd
    For making me, so young, so old a widow;
    And when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;
    And be thy wife, if any be so mad,
    More miserable by the life of thee
    Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death.'
    Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,
    Within so small a time, my woman's heart
    Grossly grew captive to his honey words
    And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse,
    Which hitherto hath held my eyes from rest;
    For never yet one hour in his bed
    Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,
    But with his timorous dreams was still awak'd.
    Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick;
    And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Poor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.
  ANNE. No more than with my soul I mourn for yours.
  DORSET. Farewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory!
  ANNE. Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave of it!
  DUCHESS.  [To DORSET]  Go thou to Richmond, and good
    fortune guide thee!
    [To ANNE]  Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend
    thee!  [To QUEEN ELIZABETH]  Go thou to sanctuary, and good
    thoughts possess thee!
    I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me!
    Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,
    And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Stay, yet look back with me unto the
    Tower.
    Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes
    Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls,
    Rough cradle for such little pretty ones.
    Rude ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow
    For tender princes, use my babies well.
    So foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.         Exeunt

SCENE 2.

London. The palace

Sound a sennet. Enter RICHARD, in pomp, as KING; BUCKINGHAM, CATESBY,
RATCLIFF, LOVEL, a PAGE, and others

  KING RICHARD. Stand all apart. Cousin of Buckingham!
  BUCKINGHAM. My gracious sovereign?
  KING RICHARD. Give me thy hand.
                           [Here he ascendeth the throne. Sound]
    Thus high, by thy advice
    And thy assistance, is King Richard seated.
    But shall we wear these glories for a day;
    Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?
  BUCKINGHAM. Still live they, and for ever let them last!
  KING RICHARD. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,
    To try if thou be current gold indeed.
    Young Edward lives-think now what I would speak.
  BUCKINGHAM. Say on, my loving lord.
  KING RICHARD. Why, Buckingham, I say I would be King.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why, so you are, my thrice-renowned lord.
  KING RICHARD. Ha! am I King? 'Tis so; but Edward lives.
  BUCKINGHAM. True, noble Prince.
  KING RICHARD. O bitter consequence:
    That Edward still should live-true noble Prince!
    Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull.
    Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead.
    And I would have it suddenly perform'd.
    What say'st thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief.
  BUCKINGHAM. Your Grace may do your pleasure.
  KING RICHARD. Tut, tut, thou art all ice; thy kindness freezes.
    Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?
  BUCKINGHAM. Give me some little breath, some pause,
    dear Lord,
    Before I positively speak in this.
    I will resolve you herein presently.                    Exit
  CATESBY.  [Aside to another]  The King is angry; see, he
    gnaws his lip.
  KING RICHARD. I will converse with iron-witted fools
                                      [Descends from the throne]
    And unrespective boys; none are for me
    That look into me with considerate eyes.
    High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.
    Boy!
  PAGE. My lord?
  KING RICHARD. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting
    gold
    Will tempt unto a close exploit of death?
  PAGE. I know a discontented gentleman
    Whose humble means match not his haughty spirit.
    Gold were as good as twenty orators,
    And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything.
  KING RICHARD. What is his name?
  PAGE. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.
  KING RICHARD. I partly know the man. Go, call him hither,
    boy.                                               Exit PAGE
    The deep-revolving witty Buckingham
    No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels.
    Hath he so long held out with me, untir'd,
    And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.

                            Enter STANLEY

    How now, Lord Stanley! What's the news?
  STANLEY. Know, my loving lord,
    The Marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled
    To Richmond, in the parts where he abides.    [Stands apart]
  KING RICHARD. Come hither, Catesby. Rumour it abroad
    That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick;
    I will take order for her keeping close.
    Inquire me out some mean poor gentleman,
    Whom I will marry straight to Clarence' daughter-
    The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.
    Look how thou dream'st! I say again, give out
    That Anne, my queen, is sick and like to die.
    About it; for it stands me much upon
    To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.
                                                    Exit CATESBY
    I must be married to my brother's daughter,
    Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.
    Murder her brothers, and then marry her!
    Uncertain way of gain! But I am in
    So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.
    Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.

                     Re-enter PAGE, with TYRREL

    Is thy name Tyrrel?
  TYRREL. James Tyrrel, and your most obedient subject.
  KING RICHARD. Art thou, indeed?
  TYRREL. Prove me, my gracious lord.
  KING RICHARD. Dar'st'thou resolve to kill a friend of mine?
  TYRREL. Please you;
    But I had rather kill two enemies.
  KING RICHARD. Why, then thou hast it. Two deep enemies,
    Foes to my rest, and my sweet sleep's disturbers,
    Are they that I would have thee deal upon.
  TYRREL, I mean those bastards in the Tower.
  TYRREL. Let me have open means to come to them,
    And soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.
  KING RICHARD. Thou sing'st sweet music. Hark, come
    hither, Tyrrel.
    Go, by this token. Rise, and lend thine ear.      [Whispers]
    There is no more but so: say it is done,
    And I will love thee and prefer thee for it.
  TYRREL. I will dispatch it straight.                      Exit

                    Re-enter BUCKINGHAM

    BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I have consider'd in my mind
    The late request that you did sound me in.
  KING RICHARD. Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to
    Richmond.
  BUCKINGHAM. I hear the news, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. Stanley, he is your wife's son: well, look
    unto it.
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,
    For which your honour and your faith is pawn'd:
    Th' earldom of Hereford and the movables
    Which you have promised I shall possess.
  KING RICHARD. Stanley, look to your wife; if she convey
    Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.
  BUCKINGHAM. What says your Highness to my just request?
  KING RICHARD. I do remember me: Henry the Sixth
    Did prophesy that Richmond should be King,
    When Richmond was a little peevish boy.
    A king!-perhaps-
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-
  KING RICHARD. How chance the prophet could not at that
    time
    Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord, your promise for the earldom-
  KING RICHARD. Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,
    The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle
    And call'd it Rugemount, at which name I started,
    Because a bard of Ireland told me once
    I should not live long after I saw Richmond.
  BUCKINGHAM. My lord-
  KING RICHARD. Ay, what's o'clock?
  BUCKINGHAM. I am thus bold to put your Grace in mind
    Of what you promis'd me.
  KING RICHARD. Well, but o'clock?
  BUCKINGHAM. Upon the stroke of ten.
  KING RICHARD. Well, let it strike.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why let it strike?
  KING RICHARD. Because that like a Jack thou keep'st the
    stroke
    Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
    I am not in the giving vein to-day.
  BUCKINGHAM. May it please you to resolve me in my suit.
  KING RICHARD. Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.
                                       Exeunt all but Buckingham
  BUCKINGHAM. And is it thus? Repays he my deep service
    With such contempt? Made I him King for this?
    O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone
    To Brecknock while my fearful head is on!               Exit

SCENE 3.

London. The palace

Enter TYRREL

  TYRREL. The tyrannous and bloody act is done,
    The most arch deed of piteous massacre
    That ever yet this land was guilty of.
    Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn
    To do this piece of ruthless butchery,
    Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,
    Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,
    Wept like two children in their deaths' sad story.
    'O, thus' quoth Dighton 'lay the gentle babes'-
    'Thus, thus,' quoth Forrest 'girdling one another
    Within their alabaster innocent arms.
    Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,
    And in their summer beauty kiss'd each other.
    A book of prayers on their pillow lay;
    Which once,' quoth Forrest 'almost chang'd my mind;
    But, O, the devil'-there the villain stopp'd;
    When Dighton thus told on: 'We smothered
    The most replenished sweet work of nature
    That from the prime creation e'er she framed.'
    Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse
    They could not speak; and so I left them both,
    To bear this tidings to the bloody King.

                        Enter KING RICHARD

    And here he comes. All health, my sovereign lord!
  KING RICHARD. Kind Tyrrel, am I happy in thy news?
  TYRREL. If to have done the thing you gave in charge
    Beget your happiness, be happy then,
    For it is done.
  KING RICHARD. But didst thou see them dead?
  TYRREL. I did, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. And buried, gentle Tyrrel?
  TYRREL. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried them;
    But where, to say the truth, I do not know.
  KING RICHARD. Come to me, Tyrrel, soon at after supper,
    When thou shalt tell the process of their death.
    Meantime, but think how I may do thee good
    And be inheritor of thy desire.
    Farewell till then.
  TYRREL. I humbly take my leave.                           Exit
  KING RICHARD. The son of Clarence have I pent up close;
    His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;
    The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,
    And Anne my wife hath bid this world good night.
    Now, for I know the Britaine Richmond aims
    At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,
    And by that knot looks proudly on the crown,
    To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.

                           Enter RATCLIFF

  RATCLIFF. My lord!
  KING RICHARD. Good or bad news, that thou com'st in so
    bluntly?
  RATCLIFF. Bad news, my lord: Morton is fled to Richmond;
    And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welshmen,
    Is in the field, and still his power increaseth.
  KING RICHARD. Ely with Richmond troubles me more near
    Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength.
    Come, I have learn'd that fearful commenting
    Is leaden servitor to dull delay;
    Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary.
    Then fiery expedition be my wing,
    Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king!
    Go, muster men. My counsel is my shield.
    We must be brief when traitors brave the field.       Exeunt

SCENE 4.

London. Before the palace

Enter old QUEEN MARGARET

  QUEEN MARGARET. So now prosperity begins to mellow
    And drop into the rotten mouth of death.
    Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd
    To watch the waning of mine enemies.
    A dire induction am I witness to,
    And will to France, hoping the consequence
    Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.
    Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?
                                                       [Retires]

           Enter QUEEN ELIZABETH and the DUCHESS OF YORK

  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, my poor princes! ah, my tender
    babes!
    My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!
    If yet your gentle souls fly in the air
    And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,
    Hover about me with your airy wings
    And hear your mother's lamentation.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Hover about her; say that right for right
    Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.
  DUCHESS. So many miseries have craz'd my voice
    That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.
    Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead?
  QUEEN MARGARET. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,
    Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle
    lambs
    And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?
    When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?
  QUEEN MARGARET. When holy Harry died, and my sweet
    son.
  DUCHESS. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,
    Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life usurp'd,
    Brief abstract and record of tedious days,
    Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,    [Sitting down]
    Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah, that thou wouldst as soon afford a
    grave
    As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!
    Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.
    Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we?
                                           [Sitting down by her]
  QUEEN MARGARET.  [Coming forward]  If ancient sorrow be
    most reverend,
    Give mine the benefit of seniory,
    And let my griefs frown on the upper hand.
    If sorrow can admit society,        [Sitting down with them]
    Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine.
    I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
    I had a husband, till a Richard kill'd him:
    Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him;
    Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kill'd him.
  DUCHESS. I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill him;
    I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard
    kill'd him.
    From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
    A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death.
    That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes
    To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood,
    That foul defacer of God's handiwork,
    That excellent grand tyrant of the earth
    That reigns in galled eyes of weeping souls,
    Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves.
    O upright, just, and true-disposing God,
    How do I thank thee that this carnal cur
    Preys on the issue of his mother's body
    And makes her pew-fellow with others' moan!
  DUCHESS. O Harry's wife, triumph not in my woes!
    God witness with me, I have wept for thine.
  QUEEN MARGARET. Bear with me; I am hungry for revenge,
    And now I cloy me with beholding it.
    Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward;
    The other Edward dead, to quit my Edward;
    Young York he is but boot, because both they
    Match'd not the high perfection of my loss.
    Thy Clarence he is dead that stabb'd my Edward;
    And the beholders of this frantic play,
    Th' adulterate Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,
    Untimely smother'd in their dusky graves.
    Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer;
    Only reserv'd their factor to buy souls
    And send them thither. But at hand, at hand,
    Ensues his piteous and unpitied end.
    Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,
    To have him suddenly convey'd from hence.
    Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,
    That I may live and say 'The dog is dead.'
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, thou didst prophesy the time would
      come
    That I should wish for thee to help me curse
    That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad!
  QUEEN MARGARET. I Call'd thee then vain flourish of my
      fortune;
    I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen,
    The presentation of but what I was,
    The flattering index of a direful pageant,
    One heav'd a-high to be hurl'd down below,
    A mother only mock'd with two fair babes,
    A dream of what thou wast, a garish flag
    To be the aim of every dangerous shot,
    A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble,
    A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
    Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?
    Where be thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?
    Who sues, and kneels, and says 'God save the Queen'?
    Where be the bending peers that flattered thee?
    Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?
    Decline an this, and see what now thou art:
    For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
    For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
    For one being su'd to, one that humbly sues;
    For Queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;
    For she that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;
    For she being fear'd of all, now fearing one;
    For she commanding all, obey'd of none.
    Thus hath the course of justice whirl'd about
    And left thee but a very prey to time,
    Having no more but thought of what thou wast
    To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
    Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not
    Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?
    Now thy proud neck bears half my burden'd yoke,
    From which even here I slip my weary head
    And leave the burden of it all on thee.
    Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance;
    These English woes shall make me smile in France.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile
    And teach me how to curse mine enemies!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the
      days;
    Compare dead happiness with living woe;
    Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,
    And he that slew them fouler than he is.
    Bett'ring thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;
    Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My words are dull; O, quicken them
    with thine!
  QUEEN MARGARET. Thy woes will make them sharp and
    pierce like mine.                                       Exit
  DUCHESS. Why should calamity be fun of words?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Windy attorneys to their client woes,
    Airy succeeders of intestate joys,
    Poor breathing orators of miseries,
    Let them have scope; though what they will impart
    Help nothing else, yet do they case the heart.
  DUCHESS. If so, then be not tongue-tied. Go with me,
    And in the breath of bitter words let's smother
    My damned son that thy two sweet sons smother'd.
    The trumpet sounds; be copious in exclaims.

         Enter KING RICHARD and his train, marching with
                     drums and trumpets

  KING RICHARD. Who intercepts me in my expedition?
  DUCHESS. O, she that might have intercepted thee,
    By strangling thee in her accursed womb,
    From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Hidest thou that forehead with a golden
    crown
    Where't should be branded, if that right were right,
    The slaughter of the Prince that ow'd that crown,
    And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?
    Tell me, thou villain slave, where are my children?
  DUCHESS. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother
    Clarence?
    And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan,
    Grey?
  DUCHESS. Where is kind Hastings?
  KING RICHARD. A flourish, trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!
    Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
    Rail on the Lord's anointed. Strike, I say!
                                             [Flourish. Alarums]
    Either be patient and entreat me fair,
    Or with the clamorous report of war
    Thus will I drown your exclamations.
  DUCHESS. Art thou my son?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, I thank God, my father, and yourself.
  DUCHESS. Then patiently hear my impatience.
  KING RICHARD. Madam, I have a touch of your condition
    That cannot brook the accent of reproof.
  DUCHESS. O, let me speak!
  KING RICHARD. Do, then; but I'll not hear.
  DUCHESS. I will be mild and gentle in my words.
  KING RICHARD. And brief, good mother; for I am in haste.
  DUCHESS. Art thou so hasty? I have stay'd for thee,
    God knows, in torment and in agony.
  KING RICHARD. And came I not at last to comfort you?
  DUCHESS. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it well
    Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell.
    A grievous burden was thy birth to me;
    Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy;
    Thy school-days frightful, desp'rate, wild, and furious;
    Thy prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous;
    Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,
    More mild, but yet more harmful-kind in hatred.
    What comfortable hour canst thou name
    That ever grac'd me with thy company?
  KING RICHARD. Faith, none but Humphrey Hour, that call'd
    your Grace
    To breakfast once forth of my company.
    If I be so disgracious in your eye,
    Let me march on and not offend you, madam.
    Strike up the drum.
  DUCHESS. I prithee hear me speak.
  KING RICHARD. You speak too bitterly.
  DUCHESS. Hear me a word;
    For I shall never speak to thee again.
  KING RICHARD. So.
  DUCHESS. Either thou wilt die by God's just ordinance
    Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror;
    Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish
    And never more behold thy face again.
    Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse,
    Which in the day of battle tire thee more
    Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st!
    My prayers on the adverse party fight;
    And there the little souls of Edward's children
    Whisper the spirits of thine enemies
    And promise them success and victory.
    Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end.
    Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.        Exit
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Though far more cause, yet much less
      spirit to curse
    Abides in me; I say amen to her.
  KING RICHARD. Stay, madam, I must talk a word with you.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I have no moe sons of the royal blood
    For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
    They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;
    And therefore level not to hit their lives.
  KING RICHARD. You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth.
    Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And must she die for this? O, let her
      live,
    And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty,
    Slander myself as false to Edward's bed,
    Throw over her the veil of infamy;
    So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,
    I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.
  KING RICHARD. Wrong not her birth; she is a royal
    Princess.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To save her life I'll say she is not so.
  KING RICHARD. Her life is safest only in her birth.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And only in that safety died her
      brothers.
  KING RICHARD. Lo, at their birth good stars were opposite.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. No, to their lives ill friends were
      contrary.
  KING RICHARD. All unavoided is the doom of destiny.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. True, when avoided grace makes destiny.
    My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,
    If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.
  KING RICHARD. You speak as if that I had slain my cousins.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle
      cozen'd
    Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
    Whose hand soever lanc'd their tender hearts,
    Thy head, an indirectly, gave direction.
    No doubt the murd'rous knife was dull and blunt
    Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart
    To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
    But that stiff use of grief makes wild grief tame,
    My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys
    Till that my nails were anchor'd in thine eyes;
    And I, in such a desp'rate bay of death,
    Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,
    Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.
  KING RICHARD. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprise
    And dangerous success of bloody wars,
    As I intend more good to you and yours
    Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd!
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What good is cover'd with the face of
      heaven,
    To be discover'd, that can do me good?
  KING RICHARD. advancement of your children, gentle
    lady.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their
    heads?
  KING RICHARD. Unto the dignity and height of Fortune,
    The high imperial type of this earth's glory.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Flatter my sorrow with report of it;
    Tell me what state, what dignity, what honour,
    Canst thou demise to any child of mine?
  KING RICHARD. Even all I have-ay, and myself and all
    Will I withal endow a child of thine;
    So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
    Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs
    Which thou supposest I have done to thee.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Be brief, lest that the process of thy
      kindness
    Last longer telling than thy kindness' date.
  KING RICHARD. Then know, that from my soul I love thy
    daughter.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. My daughter's mother thinks it with her
    soul.
  KING RICHARD. What do you think?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou dost love my daughter from
      thy soul.
    So from thy soul's love didst thou love her brothers,
    And from my heart's love I do thank thee for it.
  KING RICHARD. Be not so hasty to confound my meaning.
    I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter
    And do intend to make her Queen of England.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Well, then, who dost thou mean shall be
    her king?
  KING RICHARD. Even he that makes her Queen. Who else
    should be?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What, thou?
  KING RICHARD. Even so. How think you of it?
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. How canst thou woo her?
  KING RICHARD. That would I learn of you,
    As one being best acquainted with her humour.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. And wilt thou learn of me?
  KING RICHARD. Madam, with all my heart.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Send to her, by the man that slew her
    brothers,
    A pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave
    'Edward' and 'York.' Then haply will she weep;
    Therefore present to her-as sometimes Margaret
    Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood-
    A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain
    The purple sap from her sweet brother's body,
    And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.
    If this inducement move her not to love,
    Send her a letter of thy noble deeds;
    Tell her thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence,
    Her uncle Rivers; ay, and for her sake
    Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.
  KING RICHARD. You mock me, madam; this is not the way
    To win your daughter.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. There is no other way;
    Unless thou couldst put on some other shape
    And not be Richard that hath done all this.
  KING RICHARD. Say that I did all this for love of her.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Nay, then indeed she cannot choose but
      hate thee,
    Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.
  KING RICHARD. Look what is done cannot be now amended.
    Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
    Which after-hours gives leisure to repent.
    If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
    To make amends I'll give it to your daughter.
    If I have kill'd the issue of your womb,
    To quicken your increase I will beget
    Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
    A grandam's name is little less in love
    Than is the doating title of a mother;
    They are as children but one step below,
    Even of your metal, of your very blood;
    Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
    Endur'd of her, for whom you bid like sorrow.
    Your children were vexation to your youth;
    But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
    The loss you have is but a son being King,
    And by that loss your daughter is made Queen.
    I cannot make you what amends I would,
    Therefore accept such kindness as I can.
    Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
    Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
    This fair alliance quickly shall can home
    To high promotions and great dignity.
    The King, that calls your beauteous daughter wife,
    Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother;
    Again shall you be mother to a king,
    And all the ruins of distressful times
    Repair'd with double riches of content.
    What! we have many goodly days to see.
    The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
    Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl,
    Advantaging their loan with interest
    Of ten times double gain of happiness.
    Go, then, my mother, to thy daughter go;
    Make bold her bashful years with your experience;
    Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale;
    Put in her tender heart th' aspiring flame
    Of golden sovereignty; acquaint the Princes
    With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys.
    And when this arm of mine hath chastised
    The petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,
    Bound with triumphant garlands will I come,
    And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed;
    To whom I will retail my conquest won,
    And she shall be sole victoress, Caesar's Caesar.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. What were I best to say? Her father's
      brother
    Would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
    Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?
    Under what title shall I woo for thee
    That God, the law, my honour, and her love
    Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?
  KING RICHARD. Infer fair England's peace by this alliance.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Which she shall purchase with
    still-lasting war.
  KING RICHARD. Tell her the King, that may command,
    entreats.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That at her hands which the King's
    King forbids.
  KING RICHARD. Say she shall be a high and mighty queen.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. To wail the title, as her mother doth.
  KING RICHARD. Say I will love her everlastingly.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long shall that title 'ever' last?
  KING RICHARD. Sweetly in force unto her fair life's end.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But how long fairly shall her sweet life
    last?
  KING RICHARD. As long as heaven and nature lengthens it.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. As long as hell and Richard likes of it.
  KING RICHARD. Say I, her sovereign, am her subject low.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. But she, your subject, loathes such
    sovereignty.
  KING RICHARD. Be eloquent in my behalf to her.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. An honest tale speeds best being plainly
    told.
  KING RICHARD. Then plainly to her tell my loving tale.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Plain and not honest is too harsh a style.
  KING RICHARD. Your reasons are too shallow and too quick.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. O, no, my reasons are too deep and
      dead-
    Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.
  KING RICHARD. Harp not on that string, madam; that is past.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Harp on it still shall I till heartstrings
    break.
  KING RICHARD. Now, by my George, my garter, and my
    crown-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Profan'd, dishonour'd, and the third
    usurp'd.
  KING RICHARD. I swear-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. By nothing; for this is no oath:
    Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his lordly honour;
    Thy garter, blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;
    Thy crown, usurp'd, disgrac'd his kingly glory.
    If something thou wouldst swear to be believ'd,
    Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.
  KING RICHARD. Then, by my self-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy self is self-misus'd.
  KING RICHARD. Now, by the world-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.
  KING RICHARD. My father's death-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Thy life hath it dishonour'd.
  KING RICHARD. Why, then, by God-
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. God's wrong is most of all.
    If thou didst fear to break an oath with Him,
    The unity the King my husband made
    Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died.
    If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by Him,
    Th' imperial metal, circling now thy head,
    Had grac'd the tender temples of my child;
    And both the Princes had been breathing here,
    Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust,
    Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.
    What canst thou swear by now?
  KING RICHARD. The time to come.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. That thou hast wronged in the time
    o'erpast;
    For I myself have many tears to wash
    Hereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.
    The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughter'd,
    Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age;
    The parents live whose children thou hast butcheed,
    Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
    Swear not by time to come; for that thou hast
    Misus'd ere us'd, by times ill-us'd o'erpast.
  KING RICHARD. As I intend to prosper and repent,
    So thrive I in my dangerous affairs
    Of hostile arms! Myself myself confound!
    Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!
    Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest!
    Be opposite all planets of good luck
    To my proceeding!-if, with dear heart's love,
    Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
    I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter.
    In her consists my happiness and thine;
    Without her, follows to myself and thee,
    Herself, the land, and many a Christian soul,
    Death, desolation, ruin, and decay.
    It cannot be avoided but by this;
    It will not be avoided but by this.
    Therefore, dear mother-I must call you so-
    Be the attorney of my love to her;
    Plead what I will be, not what I have been;
    Not my deserts, but what I will deserve.
    Urge the necessity and state of times,
    And be not peevish-fond in great designs.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I be tempted of the devil thus?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, if the devil tempt you to do good.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I forget myself to be myself?
  KING RICHARD. Ay, if your self's remembrance wrong
    yourself.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Yet thou didst kill my children.
  KING RICHARD. But in your daughter's womb I bury them;
    Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed
    Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?
  KING RICHARD. And be a happy mother by the deed.
  QUEEN ELIZABETH. I go. Write to me very shortly,
    And you shall understand from me her mind.
  KING RICHARD. Bear her my true love's kiss; and so, farewell.
                               Kissing her. Exit QUEEN ELIZABETH
    Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!

                 Enter RATCLIFF; CATESBY following

    How now! what news?
  RATCLIFF. Most mighty sovereign, on the western coast
    Rideth a puissant navy; to our shores
    Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,
    Unarm'd, and unresolv'd to beat them back.
    'Tis thought that Richmond is their admiral;
    And there they hull, expecting but the aid
    Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.
  KING RICHARD. Some light-foot friend post to the Duke of
    Norfolk.
    Ratcliff, thyself-or Catesby; where is he?
  CATESBY. Here, my good lord.
  KING RICHARD. Catesby, fly to the Duke.
  CATESBY. I will my lord, with all convenient haste.
  KING RICHARD. Ratcliff, come hither. Post to Salisbury;
    When thou com'st thither-  [To CATESBY]  Dull,
    unmindfull villain,
    Why stay'st thou here, and go'st not to the Duke?
  CATESBY. First, mighty liege, tell me your Highness' pleasure,
    What from your Grace I shall deliver to him.
  KING RICHARD. O, true, good Catesby. Bid him levy straight
    The greatest strength and power that he can make
    And meet me suddenly at Salisbury.
  CATESBY. I go.                                            Exit
  RATCLIFF. What, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?
  KING RICHARD. Why, what wouldst thou do there before I
    go?
  RATCLIFF. Your Highness told me I should post before.
  KING RICHARD. My mind is chang'd.

                           Enter LORD STANLEY

  STANLEY, what news with you?
  STANLEY. None good, my liege, to please you with
    the hearing;
    Nor none so bad but well may be reported.
  KING RICHARD. Hoyday, a riddle! neither good nor bad!
    What need'st thou run so many miles about,
    When thou mayest tell thy tale the nearest way?
    Once more, what news?
  STANLEY. Richmond is on the seas.
  KING RICHARD. There let him sink, and be the seas on him!
    White-liver'd runagate, what doth he there?
  STANLEY. I know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.
  KING RICHARD. Well, as you guess?
  STANLEY. Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and Morton,
    He makes for England here to claim the crown.
  KING RICHARD. Is the chair empty? Is the sword unsway'd?
    Is the King dead, the empire unpossess'd?
    What heir of York is there alive but we?
    And who is England's King but great York's heir?
    Then tell me what makes he upon the seas.
  STANLEY. Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.
  KING RICHARD. Unless for that he comes to be your liege,
    You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.
    Thou wilt revolt and fly to him, I fear.
  STANLEY. No, my good lord; therefore mistrust me not.
  KING RICHARD. Where is thy power then, to beat him back?
    Where be thy tenants and thy followers?
    Are they not now upon the western shore,
    Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships?
  STANLEY. No, my good lord, my friends are in the north.
  KING RICHARD. Cold friends to me. What do they in the
    north,
    When they should serve their sovereign in the west?
  STANLEY. They have not been commanded, mighty King.
    Pleaseth your Majesty to give me leave,
    I'll muster up my friends and meet your Grace
    Where and what time your Majesty shall please.
  KING RICHARD. Ay, ay, thou wouldst be gone to join with
    Richmond;
    But I'll not trust thee.
  STANLEY. Most mighty sovereign,
    You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful.
    I never was nor never will be false.
  KING RICHARD. Go, then, and muster men. But leave behind
    Your son, George Stanley. Look your heart be firm,
    Or else his head's assurance is but frail.
  STANLEY. So deal with him as I prove true to you.         Exit

                          Enter a MESSENGER

  MESSENGER. My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,
    As I by friends am well advertised,
    Sir Edward Courtney and the haughty prelate,
    Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,
    With many moe confederates, are in arms.

                         Enter another MESSENGER

  SECOND MESSENGER. In Kent, my liege, the Guilfords are in
    arms;
    And every hour more competitors
    Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.

                         Enter another MESSENGER

  THIRD MESSENGER. My lord, the army of great Buckingham-
  KING RICHARD. Out on you, owls! Nothing but songs of
    death?                                      [He strikes him]
    There, take thou that till thou bring better news.
  THIRD MESSENGER. The news I have to tell your Majesty
    Is that by sudden floods and fall of waters
    Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scatter'd;
    And he himself wand'red away alone,
    No man knows whither.
  KING RICHARD. I cry thee mercy.
    There is my purse to cure that blow of thine.
    Hath any well-advised friend proclaim'd
    Reward to him that brings the traitor in?
  THIRD MESSENGER. Such proclamation hath been made,
    my Lord.

                      Enter another MESSENGER

  FOURTH MESSENGER. Sir Thomas Lovel and Lord Marquis
    Dorset,
    'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.
    But this good comfort bring I to your Highness-
    The Britaine navy is dispers'd by tempest.
    Richmond in Dorsetshire sent out a boat
    Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks
    If they were his assistants, yea or no;
    Who answer'd him they came from Buckingham
    Upon his party. He, mistrusting them,
    Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Britaine.
  KING RICHARD. March on, march on, since we are up in
    arms;
    If not to fight with foreign enemies,
    Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.

                          Re-enter CATESBY

  CATESBY. My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken-
    That is the best news. That the Earl of Richmond
    Is with a mighty power landed at Milford
    Is colder tidings, yet they must be told.
  KING RICHARD. Away towards Salisbury! While we reason
    here
    A royal battle might be won and lost.
    Some one take order Buckingham be brought
    To Salisbury; the rest march on with me.
    Flourish.                                             Exeunt

SCENE 5.

LORD DERBY'S house

Enter STANLEY and SIR CHRISTOPHER URSWICK

  STANLEY. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:
    That in the sty of the most deadly boar
    My son George Stanley is frank'd up in hold;
    If I revolt, off goes young George's head;
    The fear of that holds off my present aid.
    So, get thee gone; commend me to thy lord.
    Withal say that the Queen hath heartily consented
    He should espouse Elizabeth her daughter.
    But tell me, where is princely Richmond now?
  CHRISTOPHER. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford west in Wales.
  STANLEY. What men of name resort to him?
  CHRISTOPHER. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier;
  SIR Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley,
  OXFORD, redoubted Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,
    And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew;
    And many other of great name and worth;
    And towards London do they bend their power,
    If by the way they be not fought withal.
  STANLEY. Well, hie thee to thy lord; I kiss his hand;
    My letter will resolve him of my mind.
    Farewell.                                             Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1.

Salisbury. An open place

Enter the SHERIFF and guard, with BUCKINGHAM, led to execution

  BUCKINGHAM. Will not King Richard let me speak with
    him?
  SHERIFF. No, my good lord; therefore be patient.
  BUCKINGHAM. Hastings, and Edward's children, Grey, and
    Rivers,
    Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,
    Vaughan, and all that have miscarried
    By underhand corrupted foul injustice,
    If that your moody discontented souls
    Do through the clouds behold this present hour,
    Even for revenge mock my destruction!
    This is All-Souls' day, fellow, is it not?
  SHERIFF. It is, my lord.
  BUCKINGHAM. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's
    doomsday.
    This is the day which in King Edward's time
    I wish'd might fall on me when I was found
    False to his children and his wife's allies;
    This is the day wherein I wish'd to fall
    By the false faith of him whom most I trusted;
    This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul
    Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs;
    That high All-Seer which I dallied with
    Hath turn'd my feigned prayer on my head
    And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.
    Thus doth He force the swords of wicked men
    To turn their own points in their masters' bosoms.
    Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck.
    'When he' quoth she 'shall split thy heart with sorrow,
    Remember Margaret was a prophetess.'
    Come lead me, officers, to the block of shame;
    Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.          Exeunt

SCENE 2.

Camp near Tamworth

Enter RICHMOND, OXFORD, SIR JAMES BLUNT, SIR WALTER HERBERT, and
others, with drum and colours

  RICHMOND. Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,
    Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,
    Thus far into the bowels of the land
    Have we march'd on without impediment;
    And here receive we from our father Stanley
    Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.
    The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,
    That spoil'd your summer fields and fruitful vines,
    Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough
    In your embowell'd bosoms-this foul swine
    Is now even in the centre of this isle,
    Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn.
    From Tamworth thither is but one day's march.
    In God's name cheerly on, courageous friends,
    To reap the harvest of perpetual peace
    By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
  OXFORD. Every man's conscience is a thousand men,
    To fight against this guilty homicide.
  HERBERT. I doubt not but his friends will turn to us.
  BLUNT. He hath no friends but what are friends for fear,
    Which in his dearest need will fly from him.
  RICHMOND. All for our vantage. Then in God's name march.
    True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings;
    Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.      Exeunt

SCENE 3.

Bosworth Field

Enter KING RICHARD in arms, with NORFOLK, RATCLIFF, the EARL of SURREYS
and others

  KING RICHARD. Here pitch our tent, even here in Bosworth
    field.
    My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?
  SURREY. My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.
  KING RICHARD. My Lord of Norfolk!
  NORFOLK. Here, most gracious liege.
  KING RICHARD. Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we
    not?
  NORFOLK. We must both give and take, my loving lord.
  KING RICHARD. Up With my tent! Here will I lie to-night;
                      [Soldiers begin to set up the KING'S tent]
    But where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that.
    Who hath descried the number of the traitors?
  NORFOLK. Six or seven thousand is their utmost power.
  KING RICHARD. Why, our battalia trebles that account;
    Besides, the King's name is a tower of strength,
    Which they upon the adverse faction want.
    Up with the tent! Come, noble gentlemen,
    Let us survey the vantage of the ground.
    Call for some men of sound direction.
    Let's lack no discipline, make no delay;
    For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day.                  Exeunt

             Enter, on the other side of the field,
          RICHMOND, SIR WILLIAM BRANDON, OXFORD, DORSET,
              and others. Some pitch RICHMOND'S tent

  RICHMOND. The weary sun hath made a golden set,
    And by the bright tract of his fiery car
    Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.
    Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.
    Give me some ink and paper in my tent.
    I'll draw the form and model of our battle,
    Limit each leader to his several charge,
    And part in just proportion our small power.
    My Lord of Oxford-you, Sir William Brandon-
    And you, Sir Walter Herbert-stay with me.
    The Earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment;
    Good Captain Blunt, bear my good night to him,
    And by the second hour in the morning
    Desire the Earl to see me in my tent.
    Yet one thing more, good Captain, do for me-
    Where is Lord Stanley quarter'd, do you know?
  BLUNT. Unless I have mista'en his colours much-
    Which well I am assur'd I have not done-
    His regiment lies half a mile at least
    South from the mighty power of the King.
  RICHMOND. If without peril it be possible,
    Sweet Blunt, make some good means to speak with him
    And give him from me this most needful note.
  BLUNT. Upon my life, my lord, I'll undertake it;
    And so, God give you quiet rest to-night!
  RICHMOND. Good night, good Captain Blunt. Come,
    gentlemen,
    Let us consult upon to-morrow's business.
    In to my tent; the dew is raw and cold.
                                   [They withdraw into the tent]

            Enter, to his-tent, KING RICHARD, NORFOLK,
                       RATCLIFF, and CATESBY

  KING RICHARD. What is't o'clock?
  CATESBY. It's supper-time, my lord;
    It's nine o'clock.
  KING RICHARD. I will not sup to-night.
    Give me some ink and paper.
    What, is my beaver easier than it was?
    And all my armour laid into my tent?
  CATESBY. It is, my liege; and all things are in readiness.
  KING RICHARD. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;
    Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.
  NORFOLK. I go, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle Norfolk.
  NORFOLK. I warrant you, my lord.                          Exit
  KING RICHARD. Catesby!
  CATESBY. My lord?
  KING RICHARD. Send out a pursuivant-at-arms
    To Stanley's regiment; bid him bring his power
    Before sunrising, lest his son George fall
    Into the blind cave of eternal night.           Exit CATESBY
    Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.
    Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow.
    Look that my staves be sound, and not too heavy.
    Ratcliff!
  RATCLIFF. My lord?
  KING RICHARD. Saw'st thou the melancholy Lord
    Northumberland?
  RATCLIFF. Thomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,
    Much about cock-shut time, from troop to troop
    Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.
  KING RICHARD. So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine.
    I have not that alacrity of spirit
    Nor cheer of mind that I was wont to have.
    Set it down. Is ink and paper ready?
  RATCLIFF. It is, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. Bid my guard watch; leave me.
  RATCLIFF, about the mid of night come to my tent
    And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.
                                   Exit RATCLIFF. RICHARD sleeps

               Enter DERBY to RICHMOND in his tent;
                        LORDS attending

  DERBY. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm!
  RICHMOND. All comfort that the dark night can afford
    Be to thy person, noble father-in-law!
    Tell me, how fares our loving mother?
  DERBY. I, by attorney, bless thee from thy mother,
    Who prays continually for Richmond's good.
    So much for that. The silent hours steal on,
    And flaky darkness breaks within the east.
    In brief, for so the season bids us be,
    Prepare thy battle early in the morning,
    And put thy fortune to the arbitrement
    Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring war.
    I, as I may-that which I would I cannot-
    With best advantage will deceive the time
    And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms;
    But on thy side I may not be too forward,
    Lest, being seen, thy brother, tender George,
    Be executed in his father's sight.
    Farewell; the leisure and the fearful time
    Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love
    And ample interchange of sweet discourse
    Which so-long-sund'red friends should dwell upon.
    God give us leisure for these rites of love!
    Once more, adieu; be valiant, and speed well!
  RICHMOND. Good lords, conduct him to his regiment.
    I'll strive with troubled thoughts to take a nap,
    Lest leaden slumber peise me down to-morrow
    When I should mount with wings of victory.
    Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.
                                         Exeunt all but RICHMOND
    O Thou, whose captain I account myself,
    Look on my forces with a gracious eye;
    Put in their hands Thy bruising irons of wrath,
    That they may crush down with a heavy fall
    The usurping helmets of our adversaries!
    Make us Thy ministers of chastisement,
    That we may praise Thee in the victory!
    To Thee I do commend my watchful soul
    Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.
    Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!            [Sleeps]

            Enter the GHOST Of YOUNG PRINCE EDWARD,
                    son to HENRY THE SIXTH

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy on thy soul
    to-morrow!
    Think how thou stabb'dst me in my prime of youth
    At Tewksbury; despair, therefore, and die!
    [To RICHMOND]  Be cheerful, Richmond; for the wronged
    souls
    Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf.
    King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.

              Enter the GHOST of HENRY THE SIXTH

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  When I was mortal, my anointed
    body
    By thee was punched full of deadly holes.
    Think on the Tower and me. Despair, and die.
    Harry the Sixth bids thee despair and die.
    [To RICHMOND]  Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!
    Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be King,
    Doth comfort thee in thy sleep. Live and flourish!

                   Enter the GHOST of CLARENCE

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy soul
    to-morrow! I that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine,
    Poor Clarence, by thy guile betray'd to death!
    To-morrow in the battle think on me,
    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die!
    [To RICHMOND]  Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster,
    The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee.
    Good angels guard thy battle! Live and flourish!

           Enter the GHOSTS of RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN

  GHOST OF RIVERS.  [To RICHARD]  Let me sit heavy in thy
    soul to-morrow,
    Rivers that died at Pomfret! Despair and die!
  GHOST OF GREY.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Grey, and let
    thy soul despair!
  GHOST OF VAUGHAN.  [To RICHARD]  Think upon Vaughan,
    and with guilty fear
    Let fall thy lance. Despair and die!
  ALL.  [To RICHMOND]  Awake, and think our wrongs in
    Richard's bosom
    Will conquer him. Awake and win the day.

                Enter the GHOST of HASTINGS

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake,
    And in a bloody battle end thy days!
    Think on Lord Hastings. Despair and die.
    [To RICHMOND]   Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!
    Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake!

         Enter the GHOSTS of the two young PRINCES

  GHOSTS.  [To RICHARD]  Dream on thy cousins smothered in
    the Tower.
    Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,
    And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!
    Thy nephews' souls bid thee despair and die.
    [To RICHMOND]  Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and
    wake in joy;
    Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy!
    Live, and beget a happy race of kings!
    Edward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.

          Enter the GHOST of LADY ANNE, his wife

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  Richard, thy wife, that wretched
    Anne thy wife
    That never slept a quiet hour with thee
    Now fills thy sleep with perturbations.
    To-morrow in the battle think on me,
    And fall thy edgeless sword. Despair and die.
    [To RICHMOND]  Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep;
    Dream of success and happy victory.
    Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.

                   Enter the GHOST of BUCKINGHAM

  GHOST.  [To RICHARD]  The first was I that help'd thee
    to the crown;
    The last was I that felt thy tyranny.
    O, in the battle think on Buckingham,
    And die in terror of thy guiltiness!
    Dream on, dream on of bloody deeds and death;
    Fainting, despair; despairing, yield thy breath!
    [To RICHMOND]  I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid;
    But cheer thy heart and be thou not dismay'd:
    God and good angels fight on Richmond's side;
    And Richard falls in height of all his pride.
            [The GHOSTS vanish. RICHARD starts out of his dream]
  KING RICHARD. Give me another horse. Bind up my wounds.
    Have mercy, Jesu! Soft! I did but dream.
    O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
    The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
    Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
    What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by.
    Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
    Is there a murderer here? No-yes, I am.
    Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why-
    Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself!
    Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
    That I myself have done unto myself?
    O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself
    For hateful deeds committed by myself!
    I am a villain; yet I lie, I am not.
    Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter.
    My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
    And every tongue brings in a several tale,
    And every tale condemns me for a villain.
    Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree;
    Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree;
    All several sins, all us'd in each degree,
    Throng to the bar, crying all 'Guilty! guilty!'
    I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
    And if I die no soul will pity me:
    And wherefore should they, since that I myself
    Find in myself no pity to myself?
    Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
    Came to my tent, and every one did threat
    To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.

                            Enter RATCLIFF

  RATCLIFF. My lord!
  KING RICHARD. Zounds, who is there?
  RATCLIFF. Ratcliff, my lord; 'tis I. The early village-cock
    Hath twice done salutation to the morn;
    Your friends are up and buckle on their armour.
  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream!
    What think'st thou-will our friends prove all true?
  RATCLIFF. No doubt, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. O Ratcliff, I fear, I fear.
  RATCLIFF. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.
  KING RICHARD By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
    Have stuck more terror to the soul of Richard
    Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers
    Armed in proof and led by shallow Richmond.
    'Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me;
    Under our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,
    To see if any mean to shrink from me.                 Exeunt

          Enter the LORDS to RICHMOND sitting in his tent

  LORDS. Good morrow, Richmond!
  RICHMOND. Cry mercy, lords and watchful gentlemen,
    That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.
  LORDS. How have you slept, my lord?
  RICHMOND. The sweetest sleep and fairest-boding dreams
    That ever ent'red in a drowsy head
    Have I since your departure had, my lords.
    Methought their souls whose bodies Richard murder'd
    Came to my tent and cried on victory.
    I promise you my soul is very jocund
    In the remembrance of so fair a dream.
    How far into the morning is it, lords?
  LORDS. Upon the stroke of four.
  RICHMOND. Why, then 'tis time to arm and give direction.

                 His ORATION to his SOLDIERS

    More than I have said, loving countrymen,
    The leisure and enforcement of the time
    Forbids to dwell upon; yet remember this:
    God and our good cause fight upon our side;
    The prayers of holy saints and wronged souls,
    Like high-rear'd bulwarks, stand before our faces;
    Richard except, those whom we fight against
    Had rather have us win than him they follow.
    For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen,
    A bloody tyrant and a homicide;
    One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd;
    One that made means to come by what he hath,
    And slaughtered those that were the means to help him;
    A base foul stone, made precious by the foil
    Of England's chair, where he is falsely set;
    One that hath ever been God's enemy.
    Then if you fight against God's enemy,
    God will in justice ward you as his soldiers;
    If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,
    You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain;
    If you do fight against your country's foes,
    Your country's foes shall pay your pains the hire;
    If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,
    Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors;
    If you do free your children from the sword,
    Your children's children quits it in your age.
    Then, in the name of God and all these rights,
    Advance your standards, draw your willing swords.
    For me, the ransom of my bold attempt
    Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face;
    But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt
    The least of you shall share his part thereof.
    Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully;
    God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!           Exeunt

           Re-enter KING RICHARD, RATCLIFF, attendants,
                         and forces

  KING RICHARD. What said Northumberland as touching
    Richmond?
  RATCLIFF. That he was never trained up in arms.
  KING RICHARD. He said the truth; and what said Surrey
    then?
  RATCLIFF. He smil'd, and said 'The better for our purpose.'
  KING He was in the right; and so indeed it is.
                                                 [Clock strikes]
    Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.
    Who saw the sun to-day?
  RATCLIFF. Not I, my lord.
  KING RICHARD. Then he disdains to shine; for by the book
    He should have brav'd the east an hour ago.
    A black day will it be to somebody.
    Ratcliff!
  RATCLIFF. My lord?
  KING RICHARD. The sun will not be seen to-day;
    The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.
    I would these dewy tears were from the ground.
    Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me
    More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven
    That frowns on me looks sadly upon him.

                       Enter NORFOLK

  NORFOLK. Arm, arm, my lord; the foe vaunts in the field.
  KING RICHARD. Come, bustle, bustle; caparison my horse;
    Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.
    I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,
    And thus my battle shall be ordered:
    My foreward shall be drawn out all in length,
    Consisting equally of horse and foot;
    Our archers shall be placed in the midst.
    John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,
    Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.
    They thus directed, we will follow
    In the main battle, whose puissance on either side
    Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.
    This, and Saint George to boot! What think'st thou,
    Norfolk?
  NORFOLK. A good direction, warlike sovereign.
    This found I on my tent this morning.
                                        [He sheweth him a paper]
  KING RICHARD.                                          [Reads]
    'Jockey of Norfolk, be not so bold,
    For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.'
    A thing devised by the enemy.
    Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge.
    Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls;
    Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
    Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.
    Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
    March on, join bravely, let us to it pell-mell;
    If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.

                      His ORATION to his ARMY

    What shall I say more than I have inferr'd?
    Remember whom you are to cope withal-
    A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways,
    A scum of Britaines, and base lackey peasants,
    Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth
    To desperate adventures and assur'd destruction.
    You sleeping safe, they bring to you unrest;
    You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,
    They would restrain the one, distain the other.
    And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,
    Long kept in Britaine at our mother's cost?
    A milk-sop, one that never in his life
    Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow?
    Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again;
    Lash hence these over-weening rags of France,
    These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives;
    Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,
    For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd themselves.
    If we be conquered, let men conquer us,
    And not these bastard Britaines, whom our fathers
    Have in their own land beaten, bobb'd, and thump'd,
    And, in record, left them the heirs of shame.
    Shall these enjoy our lands? lie with our wives,
    Ravish our daughters?  [Drum afar off]  Hark! I hear their
    drum.
    Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight, bold yeomen!
    Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!
    Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood;
    Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!

                        Enter a MESSENGER

    What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?
  MESSENGER. My lord, he doth deny to come.
  KING RICHARD. Off with his son George's head!
  NORFOLK. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh.
    After the battle let George Stanley die.
  KING RICHARD. A thousand hearts are great within my
    bosom.
    Advance our standards, set upon our foes;
    Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
    Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons!
    Upon them! Victory sits on our helms.                 Exeunt

SCENE 4.

Another part of the field

Alarum; excursions. Enter NORFOLK and forces; to him CATESBY

  CATESBY. Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
    The King enacts more wonders than a man,
    Daring an opposite to every danger.
    His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
    Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
    Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost.

                     Alarums. Enter KING RICHARD

  KING RICHARD. A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
  CATESBY. Withdraw, my lord! I'll help you to a horse.
  KING RICHARD. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast
    And I Will stand the hazard of the die.
    I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
    Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
    A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!             Exeunt

SCENE 5.

Another part of the field

Alarum. Enter RICHARD and RICHMOND; they fight; RICHARD is slain.
Retreat and flourish. Enter RICHMOND, DERBY bearing the crown, with
other LORDS

  RICHMOND. God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends;
    The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.
  DERBY. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee!
    Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty
    From the dead temples of this bloody wretch
    Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal.
    Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.
  RICHMOND. Great God of heaven, say Amen to all!
    But, teLL me is young George Stanley living.
  DERBY. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,
    Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.
  RICHMOND. What men of name are slain on either side?
  DERBY. John Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferrers,
    Sir Robert Brakenbury, and Sir William Brandon.
  RICHMOND. Inter their bodies as becomes their births.
    Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled
    That in submission will return to us.
    And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament,
    We will unite the white rose and the red.
    Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
    That long have frown'd upon their emnity!
    What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?
    England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
    The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
    The father rashly slaughter'd his own son,
    The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire;
    All this divided York and Lancaster,
    Divided in their dire division,
    O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,
    The true succeeders of each royal house,
    By God's fair ordinance conjoin together!
    And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so,
    Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
    With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
    Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
    That would reduce these bloody days again
    And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
    Let them not live to taste this land's increase
    That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
    Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again-
    That she may long live here, God say Amen!            Exeunt

THE END

1595



THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET



by William Shakespeare






Contents

THE PROLOGUE.

ACT I
Scene I. A public place.
Scene II. A Street.
Scene III. Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene IV. A Street.
Scene V. A Hall in Capulet’s House.


ACT II
CHORUS.
Scene I. An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.
Scene II. Capulet’s Garden.
Scene III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene IV. A Street.
Scene V. Capulet’s Garden.
Scene VI. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.


ACT III
Scene I. A public Place.
Scene II. A Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.
Scene IV. A Room in Capulet’s House.
Scene V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.


ACT IV
Scene I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene II. Hall in Capulet’s House.
Scene III. Juliet’s Chamber.
Scene IV. Hall in Capulet’s House.
Scene V. Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.


ACT V
Scene I. Mantua. A Street.
Scene II. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.
Scene III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.




 Dramatis Personæ

ESCALUS, Prince of Verona.
MERCUTIO, kinsman to the Prince, and friend to Romeo.
PARIS, a young Nobleman, kinsman to the Prince.
Page to Paris.

MONTAGUE, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Capulets.
LADY MONTAGUE, wife to Montague.
ROMEO, son to Montague.
BENVOLIO, nephew to Montague, and friend to Romeo.
ABRAM, servant to Montague.
BALTHASAR, servant to Romeo.

CAPULET, head of a Veronese family at feud with the Montagues.
LADY CAPULET, wife to Capulet.
JULIET, daughter to Capulet.
TYBALT, nephew to Lady Capulet.
CAPULET’S COUSIN, an old man.
NURSE to Juliet.
PETER, servant to Juliet’s Nurse.
SAMPSON, servant to Capulet.
GREGORY, servant to Capulet.
Servants.

FRIAR LAWRENCE, a Franciscan.
FRIAR JOHN, of the same Order.
An Apothecary.
CHORUS.
Three Musicians.
An Officer.
Citizens of Verona; several Men and Women, relations to both houses;
Maskers, Guards, Watchmen and Attendants.

SCENE. During the greater part of the Play in Verona; once, in the
Fifth Act, at Mantua.


THE PROLOGUE

 Enter Chorus.

CHORUS.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

 [_Exit._]



ACT I

SCENE I. A public place.

 Enter Sampson and Gregory armed with swords and bucklers.

SAMPSON.
Gregory, on my word, we’ll not carry coals.

GREGORY.
No, for then we should be colliers.

SAMPSON.
I mean, if we be in choler, we’ll draw.

GREGORY.
Ay, while you live, draw your neck out o’ the collar.

SAMPSON.
I strike quickly, being moved.

GREGORY.
But thou art not quickly moved to strike.

SAMPSON.
A dog of the house of Montague moves me.

GREGORY.
To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou
art moved, thou runn’st away.

SAMPSON.
A dog of that house shall move me to stand.
I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s.

GREGORY.
That shows thee a weak slave, for the weakest goes to the wall.

SAMPSON.
True, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to
the wall: therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and
thrust his maids to the wall.

GREGORY.
The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.

SAMPSON.
’Tis all one, I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the
men I will be civil with the maids, I will cut off their heads.

GREGORY.
The heads of the maids?

SAMPSON.
Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads; take it in what sense
thou wilt.

GREGORY.
They must take it in sense that feel it.

SAMPSON.
Me they shall feel while I am able to stand: and ’tis known I am a
pretty piece of flesh.

GREGORY.
’Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John.
Draw thy tool; here comes of the house of Montagues.

 Enter Abram and Balthasar.

SAMPSON.
My naked weapon is out: quarrel, I will back thee.

GREGORY.
How? Turn thy back and run?

SAMPSON.
Fear me not.

GREGORY.
No, marry; I fear thee!

SAMPSON.
Let us take the law of our sides; let them begin.

GREGORY.
I will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.

SAMPSON.
Nay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb at them, which is disgrace to
them if they bear it.

ABRAM.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON.
I do bite my thumb, sir.

ABRAM.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSON.
Is the law of our side if I say ay?

GREGORY.
No.

SAMPSON.
No sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir; but I bite my thumb, sir.

GREGORY.
Do you quarrel, sir?

ABRAM.
Quarrel, sir? No, sir.

SAMPSON.
But if you do, sir, am for you. I serve as good a man as you.

ABRAM.
No better.

SAMPSON.
Well, sir.

 Enter Benvolio.

GREGORY.
Say better; here comes one of my master’s kinsmen.

SAMPSON.
Yes, better, sir.

ABRAM.
You lie.

SAMPSON.
Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy washing blow.

 [_They fight._]

BENVOLIO.
Part, fools! put up your swords, you know not what you do.

 [_Beats down their swords._]

 Enter Tybalt.

TYBALT.
What, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?
Turn thee Benvolio, look upon thy death.

BENVOLIO.
I do but keep the peace, put up thy sword,
Or manage it to part these men with me.

TYBALT.
What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word
As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee:
Have at thee, coward.

 [_They fight._]

 Enter three or four Citizens with clubs.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Clubs, bills and partisans! Strike! Beat them down!
Down with the Capulets! Down with the Montagues!

 Enter Capulet in his gown, and Lady Capulet.

CAPULET.
What noise is this? Give me my long sword, ho!

LADY CAPULET.
A crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?

CAPULET.
My sword, I say! Old Montague is come,
And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

 Enter Montague and his Lady Montague.

MONTAGUE.
Thou villain Capulet! Hold me not, let me go.

LADY MONTAGUE.
Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.

 Enter Prince Escalus, with Attendants.

PRINCE.
Rebellious subjects, enemies to peace,
Profaners of this neighbour-stained steel,—
Will they not hear? What, ho! You men, you beasts,
That quench the fire of your pernicious rage
With purple fountains issuing from your veins,
On pain of torture, from those bloody hands
Throw your mistemper’d weapons to the ground
And hear the sentence of your moved prince.
Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word,
By thee, old Capulet, and Montague,
Have thrice disturb’d the quiet of our streets,
And made Verona’s ancient citizens
Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments,
To wield old partisans, in hands as old,
Canker’d with peace, to part your canker’d hate.
If ever you disturb our streets again,
Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.
For this time all the rest depart away:
You, Capulet, shall go along with me,
And Montague, come you this afternoon,
To know our farther pleasure in this case,
To old Free-town, our common judgement-place.
Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

 [_Exeunt Prince and Attendants; Capulet, Lady Capulet, Tybalt,
 Citizens and Servants._]

MONTAGUE.
Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?
Speak, nephew, were you by when it began?

BENVOLIO.
Here were the servants of your adversary
And yours, close fighting ere I did approach.
I drew to part them, in the instant came
The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepar’d,
Which, as he breath’d defiance to my ears,
He swung about his head, and cut the winds,
Who nothing hurt withal, hiss’d him in scorn.
While we were interchanging thrusts and blows
Came more and more, and fought on part and part,
Till the Prince came, who parted either part.

LADY MONTAGUE.
O where is Romeo, saw you him today?
Right glad I am he was not at this fray.

BENVOLIO.
Madam, an hour before the worshipp’d sun
Peer’d forth the golden window of the east,
A troubled mind drave me to walk abroad,
Where underneath the grove of sycamore
That westward rooteth from this city side,
So early walking did I see your son.
Towards him I made, but he was ware of me,
And stole into the covert of the wood.
I, measuring his affections by my own,
Which then most sought where most might not be found,
Being one too many by my weary self,
Pursu’d my humour, not pursuing his,
And gladly shunn’d who gladly fled from me.

MONTAGUE.
Many a morning hath he there been seen,
With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,
Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs;
But all so soon as the all-cheering sun
Should in the farthest east begin to draw
The shady curtains from Aurora’s bed,
Away from light steals home my heavy son,
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out
And makes himself an artificial night.
Black and portentous must this humour prove,
Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

BENVOLIO.
My noble uncle, do you know the cause?

MONTAGUE.
I neither know it nor can learn of him.

BENVOLIO.
Have you importun’d him by any means?

MONTAGUE.
Both by myself and many other friends;
But he, his own affections’ counsellor,
Is to himself—I will not say how true—
But to himself so secret and so close,
So far from sounding and discovery,
As is the bud bit with an envious worm
Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate his beauty to the sun.
Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,
We would as willingly give cure as know.

 Enter Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
See, where he comes. So please you step aside;
I’ll know his grievance or be much denied.

MONTAGUE.
I would thou wert so happy by thy stay
To hear true shrift. Come, madam, let’s away,

 [_Exeunt Montague and Lady Montague._]

BENVOLIO.
Good morrow, cousin.

ROMEO.
Is the day so young?

BENVOLIO.
But new struck nine.

ROMEO.
Ay me, sad hours seem long.
Was that my father that went hence so fast?

BENVOLIO.
It was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?

ROMEO.
Not having that which, having, makes them short.

BENVOLIO.
In love?

ROMEO.
Out.

BENVOLIO.
Of love?

ROMEO.
Out of her favour where I am in love.

BENVOLIO.
Alas that love so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.

ROMEO.
Alas that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!
Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love:
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O anything, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
Dost thou not laugh?

BENVOLIO.
No coz, I rather weep.

ROMEO.
Good heart, at what?

BENVOLIO.
At thy good heart’s oppression.

ROMEO.
Why such is love’s transgression.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate to have it prest
With more of thine. This love that thou hast shown
Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.
Farewell, my coz.

 [_Going._]

BENVOLIO.
Soft! I will go along:
And if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

ROMEO.
Tut! I have lost myself; I am not here.
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.

BENVOLIO.
Tell me in sadness who is that you love?

ROMEO.
What, shall I groan and tell thee?

BENVOLIO.
Groan! Why, no; but sadly tell me who.

ROMEO.
Bid a sick man in sadness make his will,
A word ill urg’d to one that is so ill.
In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

BENVOLIO.
I aim’d so near when I suppos’d you lov’d.

ROMEO.
A right good markman, and she’s fair I love.

BENVOLIO.
A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

ROMEO.
Well, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow, she hath Dian’s wit;
And in strong proof of chastity well arm’d,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharm’d.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms
Nor bide th’encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O she’s rich in beauty, only poor
That when she dies, with beauty dies her store.

BENVOLIO.
Then she hath sworn that she will still live chaste?

ROMEO.
She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty starv’d with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.
She is too fair, too wise; wisely too fair,
To merit bliss by making me despair.
She hath forsworn to love, and in that vow
Do I live dead, that live to tell it now.

BENVOLIO.
Be rul’d by me, forget to think of her.

ROMEO.
O teach me how I should forget to think.

BENVOLIO.
By giving liberty unto thine eyes;
Examine other beauties.

ROMEO.
’Tis the way
To call hers, exquisite, in question more.
These happy masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows,
Being black, puts us in mind they hide the fair;
He that is strucken blind cannot forget
The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
Show me a mistress that is passing fair,
What doth her beauty serve but as a note
Where I may read who pass’d that passing fair?
Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget.

BENVOLIO.
I’ll pay that doctrine, or else die in debt.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A Street.

 Enter Capulet, Paris and Servant.

CAPULET.
But Montague is bound as well as I,
In penalty alike; and ’tis not hard, I think,
For men so old as we to keep the peace.

PARIS.
Of honourable reckoning are you both,
And pity ’tis you liv’d at odds so long.
But now my lord, what say you to my suit?

CAPULET.
But saying o’er what I have said before.
My child is yet a stranger in the world,
She hath not seen the change of fourteen years;
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARIS.
Younger than she are happy mothers made.

CAPULET.
And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
The earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth:
But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part;
And she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.
This night I hold an old accustom’d feast,
Whereto I have invited many a guest,
Such as I love, and you among the store,
One more, most welcome, makes my number more.
At my poor house look to behold this night
Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light:
Such comfort as do lusty young men feel
When well apparell’d April on the heel
Of limping winter treads, even such delight
Among fresh female buds shall you this night
Inherit at my house. Hear all, all see,
And like her most whose merit most shall be:
Which, on more view of many, mine, being one,
May stand in number, though in reckoning none.
Come, go with me. Go, sirrah, trudge about
Through fair Verona; find those persons out
Whose names are written there, [_gives a paper_] and to them say,
My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.

 [_Exeunt Capulet and Paris._]

SERVANT.
Find them out whose names are written here! It is written that the
shoemaker should meddle with his yard and the tailor with his last, the
fisher with his pencil, and the painter with his nets; but I am sent to
find those persons whose names are here writ, and can never find what
names the writing person hath here writ. I must to the learned. In good
time!

 Enter Benvolio and Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
Tut, man, one fire burns out another’s burning,
One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish;
Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another’s languish:
Take thou some new infection to thy eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.

ROMEO.
Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.

BENVOLIO.
For what, I pray thee?

ROMEO.
For your broken shin.

BENVOLIO.
Why, Romeo, art thou mad?

ROMEO.
Not mad, but bound more than a madman is:
Shut up in prison, kept without my food,
Whipp’d and tormented and—God-den, good fellow.

SERVANT.
God gi’ go-den. I pray, sir, can you read?

ROMEO.
Ay, mine own fortune in my misery.

SERVANT.
Perhaps you have learned it without book.
But I pray, can you read anything you see?

ROMEO.
Ay, If I know the letters and the language.

SERVANT.
Ye say honestly, rest you merry!

ROMEO.
Stay, fellow; I can read.

 [_He reads the letter._]

_Signior Martino and his wife and daughters;
County Anselmo and his beauteous sisters;
The lady widow of Utruvio;
Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces;
Mercutio and his brother Valentine;
Mine uncle Capulet, his wife, and daughters;
My fair niece Rosaline and Livia;
Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt;
Lucio and the lively Helena. _


A fair assembly. [_Gives back the paper_] Whither should they come?

SERVANT.
Up.

ROMEO.
Whither to supper?

SERVANT.
To our house.

ROMEO.
Whose house?

SERVANT.
My master’s.

ROMEO.
Indeed I should have ask’d you that before.

SERVANT.
Now I’ll tell you without asking. My master is the great rich Capulet,
and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come and crush a
cup of wine. Rest you merry.

 [_Exit._]

BENVOLIO.
At this same ancient feast of Capulet’s
Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so lov’st;
With all the admired beauties of Verona.
Go thither and with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

ROMEO.
When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fire;
And these who, often drown’d, could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars.
One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.

BENVOLIO.
Tut, you saw her fair, none else being by,
Herself pois’d with herself in either eye:
But in that crystal scales let there be weigh’d
Your lady’s love against some other maid
That I will show you shining at this feast,
And she shall scant show well that now shows best.

ROMEO.
I’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,
But to rejoice in splendour of my own.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

LADY CAPULET.
Nurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.

NURSE.
Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve year old,
I bade her come. What, lamb! What ladybird!
God forbid! Where’s this girl? What, Juliet!

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
How now, who calls?

NURSE.
Your mother.

JULIET.
Madam, I am here. What is your will?

LADY CAPULET.
This is the matter. Nurse, give leave awhile,
We must talk in secret. Nurse, come back again,
I have remember’d me, thou’s hear our counsel.
Thou knowest my daughter’s of a pretty age.

NURSE.
Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

LADY CAPULET.
She’s not fourteen.

NURSE.
I’ll lay fourteen of my teeth,
And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?

LADY CAPULET.
A fortnight and odd days.

NURSE.
Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Susan and she,—God rest all Christian souls!—
Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;
She was too good for me. But as I said,
On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry; I remember it well.
’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;
And she was wean’d,—I never shall forget it—,
Of all the days of the year, upon that day:
For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,
Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall;
My lord and you were then at Mantua:
Nay, I do bear a brain. But as I said,
When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple
Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,
To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug!
Shake, quoth the dovehouse: ’twas no need, I trow,
To bid me trudge.
And since that time it is eleven years;
For then she could stand alone; nay, by th’rood
She could have run and waddled all about;
For even the day before she broke her brow,
And then my husband,—God be with his soul!
A was a merry man,—took up the child:
‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ and, by my holidame,
The pretty wretch left crying, and said ‘Ay’.
To see now how a jest shall come about.
I warrant, and I should live a thousand years,
I never should forget it. ‘Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he;
And, pretty fool, it stinted, and said ‘Ay.’

LADY CAPULET.
Enough of this; I pray thee hold thy peace.

NURSE.
Yes, madam, yet I cannot choose but laugh,
To think it should leave crying, and say ‘Ay’;
And yet I warrant it had upon it brow
A bump as big as a young cockerel’s stone;
A perilous knock, and it cried bitterly.
‘Yea,’ quoth my husband, ‘fall’st upon thy face?
Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age;
Wilt thou not, Jule?’ it stinted, and said ‘Ay’.

JULIET.
And stint thou too, I pray thee, Nurse, say I.

NURSE.
Peace, I have done. God mark thee to his grace
Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nurs’d:
And I might live to see thee married once, I have my wish.

LADY CAPULET.
Marry, that marry is the very theme
I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,
How stands your disposition to be married?

JULIET.
It is an honour that I dream not of.

NURSE.
An honour! Were not I thine only nurse,
I would say thou hadst suck’d wisdom from thy teat.

LADY CAPULET.
Well, think of marriage now: younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers. By my count
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus, then, in brief;
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

NURSE.
A man, young lady! Lady, such a man
As all the world—why he’s a man of wax.

LADY CAPULET.
Verona’s summer hath not such a flower.

NURSE.
Nay, he’s a flower, in faith a very flower.

LADY CAPULET.
What say you, can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast;
Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face,
And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen.
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscur’d in this fair volume lies,
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover:
The fish lives in the sea; and ’tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
That book in many’s eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story;
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less.

NURSE.
No less, nay bigger. Women grow by men.

LADY CAPULET.
Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?

JULIET.
I’ll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

 Enter a Servant.

SERVANT.
Madam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady
asked for, the Nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity.
I must hence to wait, I beseech you follow straight.

LADY CAPULET.
We follow thee.

 [_Exit Servant._]

Juliet, the County stays.

NURSE.
Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Street.

 Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six Maskers;
 Torch-bearers and others.

ROMEO.
What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse?
Or shall we on without apology?

BENVOLIO.
The date is out of such prolixity:
We’ll have no Cupid hoodwink’d with a scarf,
Bearing a Tartar’s painted bow of lath,
Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper;
Nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke
After the prompter, for our entrance:
But let them measure us by what they will,
We’ll measure them a measure, and be gone.

ROMEO.
Give me a torch, I am not for this ambling;
Being but heavy I will bear the light.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

ROMEO.
Not I, believe me, you have dancing shoes,
With nimble soles, I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

MERCUTIO.
You are a lover, borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.

ROMEO.
I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe.
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

MERCUTIO.
And, to sink in it, should you burden love;
Too great oppression for a tender thing.

ROMEO.
Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous; and it pricks like thorn.

MERCUTIO.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Give me a case to put my visage in: [_Putting on a mask._]
A visor for a visor. What care I
What curious eye doth quote deformities?
Here are the beetle-brows shall blush for me.

BENVOLIO.
Come, knock and enter; and no sooner in
But every man betake him to his legs.

ROMEO.
A torch for me: let wantons, light of heart,
Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels;
For I am proverb’d with a grandsire phrase,
I’ll be a candle-holder and look on,
The game was ne’er so fair, and I am done.

MERCUTIO.
Tut, dun’s the mouse, the constable’s own word:
If thou art dun, we’ll draw thee from the mire
Or save your reverence love, wherein thou stickest
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho.

ROMEO.
Nay, that’s not so.

MERCUTIO.
I mean sir, in delay
We waste our lights in vain, light lights by day.
Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits
Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

ROMEO.
And we mean well in going to this mask;
But ’tis no wit to go.

MERCUTIO.
Why, may one ask?

ROMEO.
I dreamt a dream tonight.

MERCUTIO.
And so did I.

ROMEO.
Well what was yours?

MERCUTIO.
That dreamers often lie.

ROMEO.
In bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

MERCUTIO.
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners’ legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider’s web;
The collars, of the moonshine’s watery beams;
Her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash, of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick’d from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o’ mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail,
Tickling a parson’s nose as a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscados, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them, and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she,—

ROMEO.
Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace,
Thou talk’st of nothing.

MERCUTIO.
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air,
And more inconstant than the wind, who wooes
Even now the frozen bosom of the north,
And, being anger’d, puffs away from thence,
Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

BENVOLIO.
This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves:
Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

ROMEO.
I fear too early: for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels; and expire the term
Of a despised life, clos’d in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But he that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my suit. On, lusty gentlemen!

BENVOLIO.
Strike, drum.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. A Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Musicians waiting. Enter Servants.

FIRST SERVANT.
Where’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away?
He shift a trencher! He scrape a trencher!

SECOND SERVANT.
When good manners shall lie all in one or two men’s hands, and they
unwash’d too, ’tis a foul thing.

FIRST SERVANT.
Away with the join-stools, remove the court-cupboard, look to the
plate. Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane; and as thou loves me,
let the porter let in Susan Grindstone and Nell. Antony and Potpan!

SECOND SERVANT.
Ay, boy, ready.

FIRST SERVANT.
You are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the
great chamber.

SECOND SERVANT.
We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys. Be brisk awhile, and
the longer liver take all.

 [_Exeunt._]

 Enter Capulet, &c. with the Guests and Gentlewomen to the Maskers.

CAPULET.
Welcome, gentlemen, ladies that have their toes
Unplagu’d with corns will have a bout with you.
Ah my mistresses, which of you all
Will now deny to dance? She that makes dainty,
She I’ll swear hath corns. Am I come near ye now?
Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day
That I have worn a visor, and could tell
A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,
Such as would please; ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone,
You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.
A hall, a hall, give room! And foot it, girls.

 [_Music plays, and they dance._]

More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.
Ah sirrah, this unlook’d-for sport comes well.
Nay sit, nay sit, good cousin Capulet,
For you and I are past our dancing days;
How long is’t now since last yourself and I
Were in a mask?

CAPULET’S COUSIN.
By’r Lady, thirty years.

CAPULET.
What, man, ’tis not so much, ’tis not so much:
’Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,
Come Pentecost as quickly as it will,
Some five and twenty years; and then we mask’d.

CAPULET’S COUSIN.
’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir;
His son is thirty.

CAPULET.
Will you tell me that?
His son was but a ward two years ago.

ROMEO.
What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?

SERVANT.
I know not, sir.

ROMEO.
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand,
And touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

TYBALT.
This by his voice, should be a Montague.
Fetch me my rapier, boy. What, dares the slave
Come hither, cover’d with an antic face,
To fleer and scorn at our solemnity?
Now by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

CAPULET.
Why how now, kinsman!
Wherefore storm you so?

TYBALT.
Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe;
A villain that is hither come in spite,
To scorn at our solemnity this night.

CAPULET.
Young Romeo, is it?

TYBALT.
’Tis he, that villain Romeo.

CAPULET.
Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone,
A bears him like a portly gentleman;
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern’d youth.
I would not for the wealth of all the town
Here in my house do him disparagement.
Therefore be patient, take no note of him,
It is my will; the which if thou respect,
Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,
An ill-beseeming semblance for a feast.

TYBALT.
It fits when such a villain is a guest:
I’ll not endure him.

CAPULET.
He shall be endur’d.
What, goodman boy! I say he shall, go to;
Am I the master here, or you? Go to.
You’ll not endure him! God shall mend my soul,
You’ll make a mutiny among my guests!
You will set cock-a-hoop, you’ll be the man!

TYBALT.
Why, uncle, ’tis a shame.

CAPULET.
Go to, go to!
You are a saucy boy. Is’t so, indeed?
This trick may chance to scathe you, I know what.
You must contrary me! Marry, ’tis time.
Well said, my hearts!—You are a princox; go:
Be quiet, or—More light, more light!—For shame!
I’ll make you quiet. What, cheerly, my hearts.

TYBALT.
Patience perforce with wilful choler meeting
Makes my flesh tremble in their different greeting.
I will withdraw: but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitter gall.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
[_To Juliet._] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIET.
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

ROMEO.
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET.
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO.
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET.
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEO.
Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg’d.
[_Kissing her._]

JULIET.
Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEO.
Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d!
Give me my sin again.

JULIET.
You kiss by the book.

NURSE.
Madam, your mother craves a word with you.

ROMEO.
What is her mother?

NURSE.
Marry, bachelor,
Her mother is the lady of the house,
And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.
I nurs’d her daughter that you talk’d withal.
I tell you, he that can lay hold of her
Shall have the chinks.

ROMEO.
Is she a Capulet?
O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.

BENVOLIO.
Away, be gone; the sport is at the best.

ROMEO.
Ay, so I fear; the more is my unrest.

CAPULET.
Nay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone,
We have a trifling foolish banquet towards.
Is it e’en so? Why then, I thank you all;
I thank you, honest gentlemen; good night.
More torches here! Come on then, let’s to bed.
Ah, sirrah, by my fay, it waxes late,
I’ll to my rest.

 [_Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse._]

JULIET.
Come hither, Nurse. What is yond gentleman?

NURSE.
The son and heir of old Tiberio.

JULIET.
What’s he that now is going out of door?

NURSE.
Marry, that I think be young Petruchio.

JULIET.
What’s he that follows here, that would not dance?

NURSE.
I know not.

JULIET.
Go ask his name. If he be married,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.

NURSE.
His name is Romeo, and a Montague,
The only son of your great enemy.

JULIET.
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.

NURSE.
What’s this? What’s this?

JULIET.
A rhyme I learn’d even now
Of one I danc’d withal.

 [_One calls within, ‘Juliet’._]

NURSE.
Anon, anon!
Come let’s away, the strangers all are gone.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT II

 Enter Chorus.

CHORUS.
Now old desire doth in his deathbed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groan’d for and would die,
With tender Juliet match’d, is now not fair.
Now Romeo is belov’d, and loves again,
Alike bewitched by the charm of looks;
But to his foe suppos’d he must complain,
And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new beloved anywhere.
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE I. An open place adjoining Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
Can I go forward when my heart is here?
Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.

 [_He climbs the wall and leaps down within it._]

 Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.

BENVOLIO.
Romeo! My cousin Romeo! Romeo!

MERCUTIO.
He is wise,
And on my life hath stol’n him home to bed.

BENVOLIO.
He ran this way, and leap’d this orchard wall:
Call, good Mercutio.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, I’ll conjure too.
Romeo! Humours! Madman! Passion! Lover!
Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,
Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but ‘Ah me!’ Pronounce but Love and dove;
Speak to my gossip Venus one fair word,
One nickname for her purblind son and heir,
Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so trim
When King Cophetua lov’d the beggar-maid.
He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not;
The ape is dead, and I must conjure him.
I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,
By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,
By her fine foot, straight leg, and quivering thigh,
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie,
That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

BENVOLIO.
An if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

MERCUTIO.
This cannot anger him. ’Twould anger him
To raise a spirit in his mistress’ circle,
Of some strange nature, letting it there stand
Till she had laid it, and conjur’d it down;
That were some spite. My invocation
Is fair and honest, and, in his mistress’ name,
I conjure only but to raise up him.

BENVOLIO.
Come, he hath hid himself among these trees
To be consorted with the humorous night.
Blind is his love, and best befits the dark.

MERCUTIO.
If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.
Now will he sit under a medlar tree,
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone.
O Romeo, that she were, O that she were
An open-arse and thou a poperin pear!
Romeo, good night. I’ll to my truckle-bed.
This field-bed is too cold for me to sleep.
Come, shall we go?

BENVOLIO.
Go then; for ’tis in vain
To seek him here that means not to be found.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

 Juliet appears above at a window.

But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise fair sun and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?
Her eye discourses, I will answer it.
I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.

JULIET.
Ay me.

ROMEO.
She speaks.
O speak again bright angel, for thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

JULIET.
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

ROMEO.
[_Aside._] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

JULIET.
’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O be some other name.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for thy name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.

ROMEO.
I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptis’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

JULIET.
What man art thou that, thus bescreen’d in night
So stumblest on my counsel?

ROMEO.
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee.
Had I it written, I would tear the word.

JULIET.
My ears have yet not drunk a hundred words
Of thy tongue’s utterance, yet I know the sound.
Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?

ROMEO.
Neither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

JULIET.
How cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?
The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,
And the place death, considering who thou art,
If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

ROMEO.
With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt:
Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

JULIET.
If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

ROMEO.
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords. Look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.

JULIET.
I would not for the world they saw thee here.

ROMEO.
I have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes,
And but thou love me, let them find me here.
My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

JULIET.
By whose direction found’st thou out this place?

ROMEO.
By love, that first did prompt me to enquire;
He lent me counsel, and I lent him eyes.
I am no pilot; yet wert thou as far
As that vast shore wash’d with the farthest sea,
I should adventure for such merchandise.

JULIET.
Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face,
Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek
For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight.
Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny
What I have spoke; but farewell compliment.
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say Ay,
And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear’st,
Thou mayst prove false. At lovers’ perjuries,
They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo,
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.
Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won,
I’ll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay,
So thou wilt woo. But else, not for the world.
In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond;
And therefore thou mayst think my ’haviour light:
But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true
Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
I should have been more strange, I must confess,
But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ’ware,
My true-love passion; therefore pardon me,
And not impute this yielding to light love,
Which the dark night hath so discovered.

ROMEO.
Lady, by yonder blessed moon I vow,
That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops,—

JULIET.
O swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

ROMEO.
What shall I swear by?

JULIET.
Do not swear at all.
Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self,
Which is the god of my idolatry,
And I’ll believe thee.

ROMEO.
If my heart’s dear love,—

JULIET.
Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight;
It is too rash, too unadvis’d, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say It lightens. Sweet, good night.
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night. As sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast.

ROMEO.
O wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

JULIET.
What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?

ROMEO.
Th’exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.

JULIET.
I gave thee mine before thou didst request it;
And yet I would it were to give again.

ROMEO.
Would’st thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?

JULIET.
But to be frank and give it thee again.
And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu.
[_Nurse calls within._]
Anon, good Nurse!—Sweet Montague be true.
Stay but a little, I will come again.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
O blessed, blessed night. I am afeard,
Being in night, all this is but a dream,
Too flattering sweet to be substantial.

 Enter Juliet above.

JULIET.
Three words, dear Romeo, and good night indeed.
If that thy bent of love be honourable,
Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow,
By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,
Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite,
And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay
And follow thee my lord throughout the world.

NURSE.
[_Within._] Madam.

JULIET.
I come, anon.— But if thou meanest not well,
I do beseech thee,—

NURSE.
[_Within._] Madam.

JULIET.
By and by I come—
To cease thy strife and leave me to my grief.
Tomorrow will I send.

ROMEO.
So thrive my soul,—

JULIET.
A thousand times good night.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
A thousand times the worse, to want thy light.
Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, towards school with heavy looks.

 [_Retiring slowly._]

 Re-enter Juliet, above.

JULIET.
Hist! Romeo, hist! O for a falconer’s voice
To lure this tassel-gentle back again.
Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud,
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies,
And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine
With repetition of my Romeo’s name.

ROMEO.
It is my soul that calls upon my name.
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears.

JULIET.
Romeo.

ROMEO.
My nyas?

JULIET.
What o’clock tomorrow
Shall I send to thee?

ROMEO.
By the hour of nine.

JULIET.
I will not fail. ’Tis twenty years till then.
I have forgot why I did call thee back.

ROMEO.
Let me stand here till thou remember it.

JULIET.
I shall forget, to have thee still stand there,
Remembering how I love thy company.

ROMEO.
And I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,
Forgetting any other home but this.

JULIET.
’Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone,
And yet no farther than a wanton’s bird,
That lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.

ROMEO.
I would I were thy bird.

JULIET.
Sweet, so would I:
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast.
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest.
The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And darkness fleckled like a drunkard reels
From forth day’s pathway, made by Titan’s wheels
Hence will I to my ghostly Sire’s cell,
His help to crave and my dear hap to tell.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence with a basket.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye,
The day to cheer, and night’s dank dew to dry,
I must upfill this osier cage of ours
With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.
The earth that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb;
What is her burying grave, that is her womb:
And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find.
Many for many virtues excellent,
None but for some, and yet all different.
O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For naught so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;
Nor aught so good but, strain’d from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied,
And vice sometime’s by action dignified.

 Enter Romeo.

Within the infant rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence, and medicine power:
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart.
Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs,—grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

ROMEO.
Good morrow, father.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed.
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,
And where care lodges sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign.
Therefore thy earliness doth me assure
Thou art uprous’d with some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.

ROMEO.
That last is true; the sweeter rest was mine.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
God pardon sin. Wast thou with Rosaline?

ROMEO.
With Rosaline, my ghostly father? No.
I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s my good son. But where hast thou been then?

ROMEO.
I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.
I have been feasting with mine enemy,
Where on a sudden one hath wounded me
That’s by me wounded. Both our remedies
Within thy help and holy physic lies.
I bear no hatred, blessed man; for lo,
My intercession likewise steads my foe.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

ROMEO.
Then plainly know my heart’s dear love is set
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet.
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combin’d, save what thou must combine
By holy marriage. When, and where, and how
We met, we woo’d, and made exchange of vow,
I’ll tell thee as we pass; but this I pray,
That thou consent to marry us today.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!
Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine
Hath wash’d thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!
How much salt water thrown away in waste,
To season love, that of it doth not taste.
The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,
Thy old groans yet ring in mine ancient ears.
Lo here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit
Of an old tear that is not wash’d off yet.
If ere thou wast thyself, and these woes thine,
Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline,
And art thou chang’d? Pronounce this sentence then,
Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.

ROMEO.
Thou chidd’st me oft for loving Rosaline.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
For doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

ROMEO.
And bad’st me bury love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Not in a grave
To lay one in, another out to have.

ROMEO.
I pray thee chide me not, her I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow.
The other did not so.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote, that could not spell.
But come young waverer, come go with me,
In one respect I’ll thy assistant be;
For this alliance may so happy prove,
To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

ROMEO.
O let us hence; I stand on sudden haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Street.

 Enter Benvolio and Mercutio.

MERCUTIO.
Where the devil should this Romeo be? Came he not home tonight?

BENVOLIO.
Not to his father’s; I spoke with his man.

MERCUTIO.
Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline, torments him so
that he will sure run mad.

BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet, hath sent a letter to his father’s
house.

MERCUTIO.
A challenge, on my life.

BENVOLIO.
Romeo will answer it.

MERCUTIO.
Any man that can write may answer a letter.

BENVOLIO.
Nay, he will answer the letter’s master, how he dares, being dared.

MERCUTIO.
Alas poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black
eye; run through the ear with a love song, the very pin of his heart
cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft. And is he a man to encounter
Tybalt?

BENVOLIO.
Why, what is Tybalt?

MERCUTIO.
More than Prince of cats. O, he’s the courageous captain of
compliments. He fights as you sing prick-song, keeps time, distance,
and proportion. He rests his minim rest, one, two, and the third in
your bosom: the very butcher of a silk button, a duellist, a duellist;
a gentleman of the very first house, of the first and second cause. Ah,
the immortal passado, the punto reverso, the hay.

BENVOLIO.
The what?

MERCUTIO.
The pox of such antic lisping, affecting phantasies; these new tuners
of accent. By Jesu, a very good blade, a very tall man, a very good
whore. Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire, that we should
be thus afflicted with these strange flies, these fashion-mongers,
these pardon-me’s, who stand so much on the new form that they cannot
sit at ease on the old bench? O their bones, their bones!

 Enter Romeo.

BENVOLIO.
Here comes Romeo, here comes Romeo!

MERCUTIO.
Without his roe, like a dried herring. O flesh, flesh, how art thou
fishified! Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in. Laura, to
his lady, was but a kitchen wench,—marry, she had a better love to
berhyme her: Dido a dowdy; Cleopatra a gypsy; Helen and Hero hildings
and harlots; Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not to the purpose. Signior
Romeo, bonjour! There’s a French salutation to your French slop. You
gave us the counterfeit fairly last night.

ROMEO.
Good morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

MERCUTIO.
The slip sir, the slip; can you not conceive?

ROMEO.
Pardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case as
mine a man may strain courtesy.

MERCUTIO.
That’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow
in the hams.

ROMEO.
Meaning, to curtsy.

MERCUTIO.
Thou hast most kindly hit it.

ROMEO.
A most courteous exposition.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, I am the very pink of courtesy.

ROMEO.
Pink for flower.

MERCUTIO.
Right.

ROMEO.
Why, then is my pump well flowered.

MERCUTIO.
Sure wit, follow me this jest now, till thou hast worn out thy pump,
that when the single sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the
wearing, solely singular.

ROMEO.
O single-soled jest, solely singular for the singleness!

MERCUTIO.
Come between us, good Benvolio; my wits faint.

ROMEO.
Swits and spurs, swits and spurs; or I’ll cry a match.

MERCUTIO.
Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done. For thou hast
more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits, than I am sure, I have in my
whole five. Was I with you there for the goose?

ROMEO.
Thou wast never with me for anything, when thou wast not there for the
goose.

MERCUTIO.
I will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

ROMEO.
Nay, good goose, bite not.

MERCUTIO.
Thy wit is a very bitter sweeting, it is a most sharp sauce.

ROMEO.
And is it not then well served in to a sweet goose?

MERCUTIO.
O here’s a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an inch narrow to an
ell broad.

ROMEO.
I stretch it out for that word broad, which added to the goose, proves
thee far and wide a broad goose.

MERCUTIO.
Why, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou
sociable, now art thou Romeo; not art thou what thou art, by art as
well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a great natural,
that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole.

BENVOLIO.
Stop there, stop there.

MERCUTIO.
Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.

BENVOLIO.
Thou wouldst else have made thy tale large.

MERCUTIO.
O, thou art deceived; I would have made it short, for I was come to the
whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy the argument no
longer.

 Enter Nurse and Peter.

ROMEO.
Here’s goodly gear!
A sail, a sail!

MERCUTIO.
Two, two; a shirt and a smock.

NURSE.
Peter!

PETER.
Anon.

NURSE.
My fan, Peter.

MERCUTIO.
Good Peter, to hide her face; for her fan’s the fairer face.

NURSE.
God ye good morrow, gentlemen.

MERCUTIO.
God ye good-den, fair gentlewoman.

NURSE.
Is it good-den?

MERCUTIO.
’Tis no less, I tell ye; for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the
prick of noon.

NURSE.
Out upon you! What a man are you?

ROMEO.
One, gentlewoman, that God hath made for himself to mar.

NURSE.
By my troth, it is well said; for himself to mar, quoth a? Gentlemen,
can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?

ROMEO.
I can tell you: but young Romeo will be older when you have found him
than he was when you sought him. I am the youngest of that name, for
fault of a worse.

NURSE.
You say well.

MERCUTIO.
Yea, is the worst well? Very well took, i’faith; wisely, wisely.

NURSE.
If you be he, sir, I desire some confidence with you.

BENVOLIO.
She will endite him to some supper.

MERCUTIO.
A bawd, a bawd, a bawd! So ho!

ROMEO.
What hast thou found?

MERCUTIO.
No hare, sir; unless a hare, sir, in a lenten pie, that is something
stale and hoar ere it be spent.
[_Sings._]
    An old hare hoar,
    And an old hare hoar,
  Is very good meat in Lent;
    But a hare that is hoar
    Is too much for a score
  When it hoars ere it be spent.
Romeo, will you come to your father’s? We’ll to dinner thither.

ROMEO.
I will follow you.

MERCUTIO.
Farewell, ancient lady; farewell, lady, lady, lady.

 [_Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio._]

NURSE.
I pray you, sir, what saucy merchant was this that was so full of his
ropery?

ROMEO.
A gentleman, Nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak
more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.

NURSE.
And a speak anything against me, I’ll take him down, and a were lustier
than he is, and twenty such Jacks. And if I cannot, I’ll find those
that shall. Scurvy knave! I am none of his flirt-gills; I am none of
his skains-mates.—And thou must stand by too and suffer every knave to
use me at his pleasure!

PETER.
I saw no man use you at his pleasure; if I had, my weapon should
quickly have been out. I warrant you, I dare draw as soon as another
man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side.

NURSE.
Now, afore God, I am so vexed that every part about me quivers. Scurvy
knave. Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bid me
enquire you out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself. But first
let me tell ye, if ye should lead her in a fool’s paradise, as they
say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say; for the
gentlewoman is young. And therefore, if you should deal double with
her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and
very weak dealing.

ROMEO. Nurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest unto
thee,—

NURSE.
Good heart, and i’faith I will tell her as much. Lord, Lord, she will
be a joyful woman.

ROMEO.
What wilt thou tell her, Nurse? Thou dost not mark me.

NURSE.
I will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a
gentlemanlike offer.

ROMEO.
Bid her devise
Some means to come to shrift this afternoon,
And there she shall at Friar Lawrence’ cell
Be shriv’d and married. Here is for thy pains.

NURSE.
No truly, sir; not a penny.

ROMEO.
Go to; I say you shall.

NURSE.
This afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.

ROMEO.
And stay, good Nurse, behind the abbey wall.
Within this hour my man shall be with thee,
And bring thee cords made like a tackled stair,
Which to the high topgallant of my joy
Must be my convoy in the secret night.
Farewell, be trusty, and I’ll quit thy pains;
Farewell; commend me to thy mistress.

NURSE.
Now God in heaven bless thee. Hark you, sir.

ROMEO.
What say’st thou, my dear Nurse?

NURSE.
Is your man secret? Did you ne’er hear say,
Two may keep counsel, putting one away?

ROMEO.
I warrant thee my man’s as true as steel.

NURSE.
Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! When ’twas a
little prating thing,—O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that
would fain lay knife aboard; but she, good soul, had as lief see a
toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes, and tell her that
Paris is the properer man, but I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she
looks as pale as any clout in the versal world. Doth not rosemary and
Romeo begin both with a letter?

ROMEO.
Ay, Nurse; what of that? Both with an R.

NURSE.
Ah, mocker! That’s the dog’s name. R is for the—no, I know it begins
with some other letter, and she hath the prettiest sententious of it,
of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.

ROMEO.
Commend me to thy lady.

NURSE.
Ay, a thousand times. Peter!

 [_Exit Romeo._]

PETER.
Anon.

NURSE.
Before and apace.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Capulet’s Garden.

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
The clock struck nine when I did send the Nurse,
In half an hour she promised to return.
Perchance she cannot meet him. That’s not so.
O, she is lame. Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams,
Driving back shadows over lowering hills:
Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.
Now is the sun upon the highmost hill
Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve
Is three long hours, yet she is not come.
Had she affections and warm youthful blood,
She’d be as swift in motion as a ball;
My words would bandy her to my sweet love,
And his to me.
But old folks, many feign as they were dead;
Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.

 Enter Nurse and Peter.

O God, she comes. O honey Nurse, what news?
Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.

NURSE.
Peter, stay at the gate.

 [_Exit Peter._]

JULIET.
Now, good sweet Nurse,—O Lord, why look’st thou sad?
Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily;
If good, thou sham’st the music of sweet news
By playing it to me with so sour a face.

NURSE.
I am aweary, give me leave awhile;
Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunt have I had!

JULIET.
I would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:
Nay come, I pray thee speak; good, good Nurse, speak.

NURSE.
Jesu, what haste? Can you not stay a while? Do you not see that I am
out of breath?

JULIET.
How art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath?
The excuse that thou dost make in this delay
Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.
Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that;
Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance.
Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad?

NURSE.
Well, you have made a simple choice; you know not how to choose a man.
Romeo? No, not he. Though his face be better than any man’s, yet his
leg excels all men’s, and for a hand and a foot, and a body, though
they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare. He is not the
flower of courtesy, but I’ll warrant him as gentle as a lamb. Go thy
ways, wench, serve God. What, have you dined at home?

JULIET.
No, no. But all this did I know before.
What says he of our marriage? What of that?

NURSE.
Lord, how my head aches! What a head have I!
It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.
My back o’ t’other side,—O my back, my back!
Beshrew your heart for sending me about
To catch my death with jauncing up and down.

JULIET.
I’faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.
Sweet, sweet, sweet Nurse, tell me, what says my love?

NURSE.
Your love says like an honest gentleman,
And a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome,
And I warrant a virtuous,—Where is your mother?

JULIET.
Where is my mother? Why, she is within.
Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest.
‘Your love says, like an honest gentleman,
‘Where is your mother?’

NURSE.
O God’s lady dear,
Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow.
Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
Henceforward do your messages yourself.

JULIET.
Here’s such a coil. Come, what says Romeo?

NURSE.
Have you got leave to go to shrift today?

JULIET.
I have.

NURSE.
Then hie you hence to Friar Lawrence’ cell;
There stays a husband to make you a wife.
Now comes the wanton blood up in your cheeks,
They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.
Hie you to church. I must another way,
To fetch a ladder by the which your love
Must climb a bird’s nest soon when it is dark.
I am the drudge, and toil in your delight;
But you shall bear the burden soon at night.
Go. I’ll to dinner; hie you to the cell.

JULIET.
Hie to high fortune! Honest Nurse, farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE VI. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence and Romeo.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
So smile the heavens upon this holy act
That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.

ROMEO.
Amen, amen, but come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
It is enough I may but call her mine.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately: long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

 Enter Juliet.

Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot
Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint.
A lover may bestride the gossamers
That idles in the wanton summer air
And yet not fall; so light is vanity.

JULIET.
Good even to my ghostly confessor.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo shall thank thee, daughter, for us both.

JULIET.
As much to him, else is his thanks too much.

ROMEO.
Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy
Be heap’d like mine, and that thy skill be more
To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath
This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue
Unfold the imagin’d happiness that both
Receive in either by this dear encounter.

JULIET.
Conceit more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament.
They are but beggars that can count their worth;
But my true love is grown to such excess,
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, come with me, and we will make short work,
For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone
Till holy church incorporate two in one.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT III

SCENE I. A public Place.

 Enter Mercutio, Benvolio, Page and Servants.

BENVOLIO.
I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire:
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,
And if we meet, we shall not scape a brawl,
For now these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

MERCUTIO.
Thou art like one of these fellows that, when he enters the confines of
a tavern, claps me his sword upon the table, and says ‘God send me no
need of thee!’ and by the operation of the second cup draws him on the
drawer, when indeed there is no need.

BENVOLIO.
Am I like such a fellow?

MERCUTIO.
Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood as any in Italy; and as
soon moved to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.

BENVOLIO.
And what to?

MERCUTIO.
Nay, an there were two such, we should have none shortly, for one would
kill the other. Thou? Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a
hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel
with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou
hast hazel eyes. What eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel?
Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat, and yet thy
head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling. Thou hast
quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath
wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall
out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter? with
another for tying his new shoes with an old riband? And yet thou wilt
tutor me from quarrelling!

BENVOLIO.
And I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee
simple of my life for an hour and a quarter.

MERCUTIO.
The fee simple! O simple!

 Enter Tybalt and others.

BENVOLIO.
By my head, here comes the Capulets.

MERCUTIO.
By my heel, I care not.

TYBALT.
Follow me close, for I will speak to them.
Gentlemen, good-den: a word with one of you.

MERCUTIO.
And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a
word and a blow.

TYBALT.
You shall find me apt enough to that, sir, and you will give me
occasion.

MERCUTIO.
Could you not take some occasion without giving?

TYBALT.
Mercutio, thou consortest with Romeo.

MERCUTIO.
Consort? What, dost thou make us minstrels? And thou make minstrels of
us, look to hear nothing but discords. Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s
that shall make you dance. Zounds, consort!

BENVOLIO.
We talk here in the public haunt of men.
Either withdraw unto some private place,
And reason coldly of your grievances,
Or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us.

MERCUTIO.
Men’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze.
I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.

 Enter Romeo.

TYBALT.
Well, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man.

MERCUTIO.
But I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery.
Marry, go before to field, he’ll be your follower;
Your worship in that sense may call him man.

TYBALT.
Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford
No better term than this: Thou art a villain.

ROMEO.
Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee
Doth much excuse the appertaining rage
To such a greeting. Villain am I none;
Therefore farewell; I see thou know’st me not.

TYBALT.
Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries
That thou hast done me, therefore turn and draw.

ROMEO.
I do protest I never injur’d thee,
But love thee better than thou canst devise
Till thou shalt know the reason of my love.
And so good Capulet, which name I tender
As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.

MERCUTIO.
O calm, dishonourable, vile submission!
[_Draws._] Alla stoccata carries it away.
Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?

TYBALT.
What wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIO.
Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine lives; that I mean to
make bold withal, and, as you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest
of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher by the ears?
Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.

TYBALT.
[_Drawing._] I am for you.

ROMEO.
Gentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

MERCUTIO.
Come, sir, your passado.

 [_They fight._]

ROMEO.
Draw, Benvolio; beat down their weapons.
Gentlemen, for shame, forbear this outrage,
Tybalt, Mercutio, the Prince expressly hath
Forbid this bandying in Verona streets.
Hold, Tybalt! Good Mercutio!

 [_Exeunt Tybalt with his Partizans._]

MERCUTIO.
I am hurt.
A plague o’ both your houses. I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?

BENVOLIO.
What, art thou hurt?

MERCUTIO.
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch. Marry, ’tis enough.
Where is my page? Go villain, fetch a surgeon.

 [_Exit Page._]

ROMEO.
Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIO.
No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis
enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a
grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’ both
your houses. Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to
death. A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of
arithmetic!—Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your
arm.

ROMEO.
I thought all for the best.

MERCUTIO.
Help me into some house, Benvolio,
Or I shall faint. A plague o’ both your houses.
They have made worms’ meat of me.
I have it, and soundly too. Your houses!

 [_Exeunt Mercutio and Benvolio._]

ROMEO.
This gentleman, the Prince’s near ally,
My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt
In my behalf; my reputation stain’d
With Tybalt’s slander,—Tybalt, that an hour
Hath been my cousin. O sweet Juliet,
Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
And in my temper soften’d valour’s steel.

 Re-enter Benvolio.

BENVOLIO.
O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio’s dead,
That gallant spirit hath aspir’d the clouds,
Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.

ROMEO.
This day’s black fate on mo days doth depend;
This but begins the woe others must end.

 Re-enter Tybalt.

BENVOLIO.
Here comes the furious Tybalt back again.

ROMEO.
Again in triumph, and Mercutio slain?
Away to heaven respective lenity,
And fire-ey’d fury be my conduct now!
Now, Tybalt, take the ‘villain’ back again
That late thou gav’st me, for Mercutio’s soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company.
Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.

TYBALT.
Thou wretched boy, that didst consort him here,
Shalt with him hence.

ROMEO.
This shall determine that.

 [_They fight; Tybalt falls._]

BENVOLIO.
Romeo, away, be gone!
The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.
Stand not amaz’d. The Prince will doom thee death
If thou art taken. Hence, be gone, away!

ROMEO.
O, I am fortune’s fool!

BENVOLIO.
Why dost thou stay?

 [_Exit Romeo._]

 Enter Citizens.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Which way ran he that kill’d Mercutio?
Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?

BENVOLIO.
There lies that Tybalt.

FIRST CITIZEN.
Up, sir, go with me.
I charge thee in the Prince’s name obey.

 Enter Prince, attended; Montague, Capulet, their Wives and others.

PRINCE.
Where are the vile beginners of this fray?

BENVOLIO.
O noble Prince, I can discover all
The unlucky manage of this fatal brawl.
There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,
That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.

LADY CAPULET.
Tybalt, my cousin! O my brother’s child!
O Prince! O husband! O, the blood is spill’d
Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,
For blood of ours shed blood of Montague.
O cousin, cousin.

PRINCE.
Benvolio, who began this bloody fray?

BENVOLIO.
Tybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay;
Romeo, that spoke him fair, bid him bethink
How nice the quarrel was, and urg’d withal
Your high displeasure. All this uttered
With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bow’d
Could not take truce with the unruly spleen
Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts
With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast,
Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,
And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
Cold death aside, and with the other sends
It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
Retorts it. Romeo he cries aloud,
‘Hold, friends! Friends, part!’ and swifter than his tongue,
His agile arm beats down their fatal points,
And ’twixt them rushes; underneath whose arm
An envious thrust from Tybalt hit the life
Of stout Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled.
But by and by comes back to Romeo,
Who had but newly entertain’d revenge,
And to’t they go like lightning; for, ere I
Could draw to part them was stout Tybalt slain;
And as he fell did Romeo turn and fly.
This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.

LADY CAPULET.
He is a kinsman to the Montague.
Affection makes him false, he speaks not true.
Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,
And all those twenty could but kill one life.
I beg for justice, which thou, Prince, must give;
Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.

PRINCE.
Romeo slew him, he slew Mercutio.
Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?

MONTAGUE.
Not Romeo, Prince, he was Mercutio’s friend;
His fault concludes but what the law should end,
The life of Tybalt.

PRINCE.
And for that offence
Immediately we do exile him hence.
I have an interest in your hate’s proceeding,
My blood for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding.
But I’ll amerce you with so strong a fine
That you shall all repent the loss of mine.
I will be deaf to pleading and excuses;
Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,
Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.
Bear hence this body, and attend our will.
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. A Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Juliet.

JULIET.
Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,
Towards Phoebus’ lodging. Such a waggoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west
And bring in cloudy night immediately.
Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen.
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties: or, if love be blind,
It best agrees with night. Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron, all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match,
Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.
Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle, till strange love, grow bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Come, night, come Romeo; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back.
Come gentle night, come loving black-brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess’d it; and though I am sold,
Not yet enjoy’d. So tedious is this day
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child that hath new robes
And may not wear them. O, here comes my Nurse,
And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks
But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.

 Enter Nurse, with cords.

Now, Nurse, what news? What hast thou there?
The cords that Romeo bid thee fetch?

NURSE.
Ay, ay, the cords.

 [_Throws them down._]

JULIET.
Ay me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?

NURSE.
Ah, well-a-day, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!
We are undone, lady, we are undone.
Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s kill’d, he’s dead.

JULIET.
Can heaven be so envious?

NURSE.
Romeo can,
Though heaven cannot. O Romeo, Romeo.
Who ever would have thought it? Romeo!

JULIET.
What devil art thou, that dost torment me thus?
This torture should be roar’d in dismal hell.
Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but Ay,
And that bare vowel I shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
I am not I if there be such an I;
Or those eyes shut that make thee answer Ay.
If he be slain, say Ay; or if not, No.
Brief sounds determine of my weal or woe.

NURSE.
I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,
God save the mark!—here on his manly breast.
A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub’d in blood,
All in gore-blood. I swounded at the sight.

JULIET.
O, break, my heart. Poor bankrout, break at once.
To prison, eyes; ne’er look on liberty.
Vile earth to earth resign; end motion here,
And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.

NURSE.
O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had.
O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman!
That ever I should live to see thee dead.

JULIET.
What storm is this that blows so contrary?
Is Romeo slaughter’d and is Tybalt dead?
My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
Then dreadful trumpet sound the general doom,
For who is living, if those two are gone?

NURSE.
Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished,
Romeo that kill’d him, he is banished.

JULIET.
O God! Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

NURSE.
It did, it did; alas the day, it did.

JULIET.
O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!
Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,
Dove-feather’d raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!
Despised substance of divinest show!
Just opposite to what thou justly seem’st,
A damned saint, an honourable villain!
O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell
When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend
In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?
Was ever book containing such vile matter
So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace.

NURSE.
There’s no trust,
No faith, no honesty in men. All perjur’d,
All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.
Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae.
These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.
Shame come to Romeo.

JULIET.
Blister’d be thy tongue
For such a wish! He was not born to shame.
Upon his brow shame is asham’d to sit;
For ’tis a throne where honour may be crown’d
Sole monarch of the universal earth.
O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

NURSE.
Will you speak well of him that kill’d your cousin?

JULIET.
Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?
Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name,
When I thy three-hours’ wife have mangled it?
But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?
That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband.
Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,
Your tributary drops belong to woe,
Which you mistaking offer up to joy.
My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain,
And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband.
All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then?
Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,
That murder’d me. I would forget it fain,
But O, it presses to my memory
Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds.
Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banished.
That ‘banished,’ that one word ‘banished,’
Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death
Was woe enough, if it had ended there.
Or if sour woe delights in fellowship,
And needly will be rank’d with other griefs,
Why follow’d not, when she said Tybalt’s dead,
Thy father or thy mother, nay or both,
Which modern lamentation might have mov’d?
But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death,
‘Romeo is banished’—to speak that word
Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,
All slain, all dead. Romeo is banished,
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word’s death, no words can that woe sound.
Where is my father and my mother, Nurse?

NURSE.
Weeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corse.
Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

JULIET.
Wash they his wounds with tears. Mine shall be spent,
When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.
Take up those cords. Poor ropes, you are beguil’d,
Both you and I; for Romeo is exil’d.
He made you for a highway to my bed,
But I, a maid, die maiden-widowed.
Come cords, come Nurse, I’ll to my wedding bed,
And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead.

NURSE.
Hie to your chamber. I’ll find Romeo
To comfort you. I wot well where he is.
Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.
I’ll to him, he is hid at Lawrence’ cell.

JULIET.
O find him, give this ring to my true knight,
And bid him come to take his last farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Friar Lawrence’s cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo, come forth; come forth, thou fearful man.
Affliction is enanmour’d of thy parts
And thou art wedded to calamity.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
Father, what news? What is the Prince’s doom?
What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,
That I yet know not?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Too familiar
Is my dear son with such sour company.
I bring thee tidings of the Prince’s doom.

ROMEO.
What less than doomsday is the Prince’s doom?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
A gentler judgment vanish’d from his lips,
Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.

ROMEO.
Ha, banishment? Be merciful, say death;
For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more than death. Do not say banishment.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hence from Verona art thou banished.
Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

ROMEO.
There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
Hence banished is banish’d from the world,
And world’s exile is death. Then banished
Is death misterm’d. Calling death banished,
Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,
And smilest upon the stroke that murders me.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O deadly sin, O rude unthankfulness!
Thy fault our law calls death, but the kind Prince,
Taking thy part, hath brush’d aside the law,
And turn’d that black word death to banishment.
This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.

ROMEO.
’Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog,
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand,
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who, even in pure and vestal modesty
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not, he is banished.
This may flies do, when I from this must fly.
They are free men but I am banished.
And say’st thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mix’d, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
But banished to kill me? Banished?
O Friar, the damned use that word in hell.
Howlings attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend profess’d,
To mangle me with that word banished?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Thou fond mad man, hear me speak a little,

ROMEO.
O, thou wilt speak again of banishment.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I’ll give thee armour to keep off that word,
Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,
To comfort thee, though thou art banished.

ROMEO.
Yet banished? Hang up philosophy.
Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,
Displant a town, reverse a Prince’s doom,
It helps not, it prevails not, talk no more.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O, then I see that mad men have no ears.

ROMEO.
How should they, when that wise men have no eyes?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Let me dispute with thee of thy estate.

ROMEO.
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel.
Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,
An hour but married, Tybalt murdered,
Doting like me, and like me banished,
Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,
And fall upon the ground as I do now,
Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

 [_Knocking within._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Arise; one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.

ROMEO.
Not I, unless the breath of heartsick groans
Mist-like infold me from the search of eyes.

 [_Knocking._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hark, how they knock!—Who’s there?—Romeo, arise,
Thou wilt be taken.—Stay awhile.—Stand up.

 [_Knocking._]

Run to my study.—By-and-by.—God’s will,
What simpleness is this.—I come, I come.

 [_Knocking._]

Who knocks so hard? Whence come you, what’s your will?

NURSE.
[_Within._] Let me come in, and you shall know my errand.
I come from Lady Juliet.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Welcome then.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
O holy Friar, O, tell me, holy Friar,
Where is my lady’s lord, where’s Romeo?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
There on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

NURSE.
O, he is even in my mistress’ case.
Just in her case! O woeful sympathy!
Piteous predicament. Even so lies she,
Blubbering and weeping, weeping and blubbering.
Stand up, stand up; stand, and you be a man.
For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.
Why should you fall into so deep an O?

ROMEO.
Nurse.

NURSE.
Ah sir, ah sir, death’s the end of all.

ROMEO.
Spakest thou of Juliet? How is it with her?
Doth not she think me an old murderer,
Now I have stain’d the childhood of our joy
With blood remov’d but little from her own?
Where is she? And how doth she? And what says
My conceal’d lady to our cancell’d love?

NURSE.
O, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps;
And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,
And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,
And then down falls again.

ROMEO.
As if that name,
Shot from the deadly level of a gun,
Did murder her, as that name’s cursed hand
Murder’d her kinsman. O, tell me, Friar, tell me,
In what vile part of this anatomy
Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack
The hateful mansion.

 [_Drawing his sword._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold thy desperate hand.
Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art.
Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast.
Unseemly woman in a seeming man,
And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amaz’d me. By my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper’d.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?
And slay thy lady, that in thy life lives,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth?
Since birth, and heaven and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit,
Which, like a usurer, abound’st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit.
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow’d to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier’s flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember’d with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man. Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew’st Tybalt; there art thou happy.
The law that threaten’d death becomes thy friend,
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.
A pack of blessings light upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But like a misshaped and sullen wench,
Thou putt’st up thy Fortune and thy love.
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her.
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the Prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.
Go before, Nurse. Commend me to thy lady,
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto.
Romeo is coming.

NURSE.
O Lord, I could have stay’d here all the night
To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!
My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

ROMEO.
Do so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

NURSE.
Here sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir.
Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

 [_Exit._]

ROMEO.
How well my comfort is reviv’d by this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Go hence, good night, and here stands all your state:
Either be gone before the watch be set,
Or by the break of day disguis’d from hence.
Sojourn in Mantua. I’ll find out your man,
And he shall signify from time to time
Every good hap to you that chances here.
Give me thy hand; ’tis late; farewell; good night.

ROMEO.
But that a joy past joy calls out on me,
It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE IV. A Room in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and Paris.

CAPULET.
Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily
That we have had no time to move our daughter.
Look you, she lov’d her kinsman Tybalt dearly,
And so did I. Well, we were born to die.
’Tis very late; she’ll not come down tonight.
I promise you, but for your company,
I would have been abed an hour ago.

PARIS.
These times of woe afford no tune to woo.
Madam, good night. Commend me to your daughter.

LADY CAPULET.
I will, and know her mind early tomorrow;
Tonight she’s mew’d up to her heaviness.

CAPULET.
Sir Paris, I will make a desperate tender
Of my child’s love. I think she will be rul’d
In all respects by me; nay more, I doubt it not.
Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed,
Acquaint her here of my son Paris’ love,
And bid her, mark you me, on Wednesday next,
But, soft, what day is this?

PARIS.
Monday, my lord.

CAPULET.
Monday! Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,
A Thursday let it be; a Thursday, tell her,
She shall be married to this noble earl.
Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?
We’ll keep no great ado,—a friend or two,
For, hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,
It may be thought we held him carelessly,
Being our kinsman, if we revel much.
Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,
And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?

PARIS.
My lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.

CAPULET.
Well, get you gone. A Thursday be it then.
Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed,
Prepare her, wife, against this wedding day.
Farewell, my lord.—Light to my chamber, ho!
Afore me, it is so very very late that we
May call it early by and by. Good night.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. An open Gallery to Juliet’s Chamber, overlooking the Garden.

 Enter Romeo and Juliet.

JULIET.
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree.
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO.
It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale. Look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET.
Yond light is not daylight, I know it, I.
It is some meteor that the sun exhales
To be to thee this night a torchbearer
And light thee on thy way to Mantua.
Therefore stay yet, thou need’st not to be gone.

ROMEO.
Let me be ta’en, let me be put to death,
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.
Nor that is not the lark whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads.
I have more care to stay than will to go.
Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.
How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk. It is not day.

JULIET.
It is, it is! Hie hence, be gone, away.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes.
O, now I would they had chang’d voices too,
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day.
O now be gone, more light and light it grows.

ROMEO.
More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
Madam.

JULIET.
Nurse?

NURSE.
Your lady mother is coming to your chamber.
The day is broke, be wary, look about.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Then, window, let day in, and let life out.

ROMEO.
Farewell, farewell, one kiss, and I’ll descend.

 [_Descends._]

JULIET.
Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay husband, friend,
I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
For in a minute there are many days.
O, by this count I shall be much in years
Ere I again behold my Romeo.

ROMEO.
Farewell!
I will omit no opportunity
That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

JULIET.
O thinkest thou we shall ever meet again?

ROMEO.
I doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve
For sweet discourses in our time to come.

JULIET.
O God! I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.

ROMEO.
And trust me, love, in my eye so do you.
Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu.

 [_Exit below._]

JULIET.
O Fortune, Fortune! All men call thee fickle,
If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him
That is renown’d for faith? Be fickle, Fortune;
For then, I hope thou wilt not keep him long
But send him back.

LADY CAPULET.
[_Within._] Ho, daughter, are you up?

JULIET.
Who is’t that calls? Is it my lady mother?
Is she not down so late, or up so early?
What unaccustom’d cause procures her hither?

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
Why, how now, Juliet?

JULIET.
Madam, I am not well.

LADY CAPULET.
Evermore weeping for your cousin’s death?
What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?
And if thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live.
Therefore have done: some grief shows much of love,
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

JULIET.
Yet let me weep for such a feeling loss.

LADY CAPULET.
So shall you feel the loss, but not the friend
Which you weep for.

JULIET.
Feeling so the loss,
I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

LADY CAPULET.
Well, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death
As that the villain lives which slaughter’d him.

JULIET.
What villain, madam?

LADY CAPULET.
That same villain Romeo.

JULIET.
Villain and he be many miles asunder.
God pardon him. I do, with all my heart.
And yet no man like he doth grieve my heart.

LADY CAPULET.
That is because the traitor murderer lives.

JULIET.
Ay madam, from the reach of these my hands.
Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death.

LADY CAPULET.
We will have vengeance for it, fear thou not.
Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,
Where that same banish’d runagate doth live,
Shall give him such an unaccustom’d dram
That he shall soon keep Tybalt company:
And then I hope thou wilt be satisfied.

JULIET.
Indeed I never shall be satisfied
With Romeo till I behold him—dead—
Is my poor heart so for a kinsman vex’d.
Madam, if you could find out but a man
To bear a poison, I would temper it,
That Romeo should upon receipt thereof,
Soon sleep in quiet. O, how my heart abhors
To hear him nam’d, and cannot come to him,
To wreak the love I bore my cousin
Upon his body that hath slaughter’d him.

LADY CAPULET.
Find thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.
But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

JULIET.
And joy comes well in such a needy time.
What are they, I beseech your ladyship?

LADY CAPULET.
Well, well, thou hast a careful father, child;
One who to put thee from thy heaviness,
Hath sorted out a sudden day of joy,
That thou expects not, nor I look’d not for.

JULIET.
Madam, in happy time, what day is that?

LADY CAPULET.
Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman,
The County Paris, at Saint Peter’s Church,
Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

JULIET.
Now by Saint Peter’s Church, and Peter too,
He shall not make me there a joyful bride.
I wonder at this haste, that I must wed
Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.
I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,
I will not marry yet; and when I do, I swear
It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,
Rather than Paris. These are news indeed.

LADY CAPULET.
Here comes your father, tell him so yourself,
And see how he will take it at your hands.

 Enter Capulet and Nurse.

CAPULET.
When the sun sets, the air doth drizzle dew;
But for the sunset of my brother’s son
It rains downright.
How now? A conduit, girl? What, still in tears?
Evermore showering? In one little body
Thou counterfeits a bark, a sea, a wind.
For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,
Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is,
Sailing in this salt flood, the winds, thy sighs,
Who raging with thy tears and they with them,
Without a sudden calm will overset
Thy tempest-tossed body. How now, wife?
Have you deliver’d to her our decree?

LADY CAPULET.
Ay, sir; but she will none, she gives you thanks.
I would the fool were married to her grave.

CAPULET.
Soft. Take me with you, take me with you, wife.
How, will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?
Is she not proud? Doth she not count her blest,
Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought
So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

JULIET.
Not proud you have, but thankful that you have.
Proud can I never be of what I hate;
But thankful even for hate that is meant love.

CAPULET.
How now, how now, chopp’d logic? What is this?
Proud, and, I thank you, and I thank you not;
And yet not proud. Mistress minion you,
Thank me no thankings, nor proud me no prouds,
But fettle your fine joints ’gainst Thursday next
To go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church,
Or I will drag thee on a hurdle thither.
Out, you green-sickness carrion! Out, you baggage!
You tallow-face!

LADY CAPULET.
Fie, fie! What, are you mad?

JULIET.
Good father, I beseech you on my knees,
Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

CAPULET.
Hang thee young baggage, disobedient wretch!
I tell thee what,—get thee to church a Thursday,
Or never after look me in the face.
Speak not, reply not, do not answer me.
My fingers itch. Wife, we scarce thought us blest
That God had lent us but this only child;
But now I see this one is one too much,
And that we have a curse in having her.
Out on her, hilding.

NURSE.
God in heaven bless her.
You are to blame, my lord, to rate her so.

CAPULET.
And why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue,
Good prudence; smatter with your gossips, go.

NURSE.
I speak no treason.

CAPULET.
O God ye good-en!

NURSE.
May not one speak?

CAPULET.
Peace, you mumbling fool!
Utter your gravity o’er a gossip’s bowl,
For here we need it not.

LADY CAPULET.
You are too hot.

CAPULET.
God’s bread, it makes me mad!
Day, night, hour, ride, time, work, play,
Alone, in company, still my care hath been
To have her match’d, and having now provided
A gentleman of noble parentage,
Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly allied,
Stuff’d, as they say, with honourable parts,
Proportion’d as one’s thought would wish a man,
And then to have a wretched puling fool,
A whining mammet, in her fortune’s tender,
To answer, ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love,
I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’
But, and you will not wed, I’ll pardon you.
Graze where you will, you shall not house with me.
Look to’t, think on’t, I do not use to jest.
Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise.
And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;
And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O sweet my mother, cast me not away,
Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.

LADY CAPULET.
Talk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word.
Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
O God! O Nurse, how shall this be prevented?
My husband is on earth, my faith in heaven.
How shall that faith return again to earth,
Unless that husband send it me from heaven
By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.
Alack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems
Upon so soft a subject as myself.
What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?
Some comfort, Nurse.

NURSE.
Faith, here it is.
Romeo is banished; and all the world to nothing
That he dares ne’er come back to challenge you.
Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.
Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,
I think it best you married with the County.
O, he’s a lovely gentleman.
Romeo’s a dishclout to him. An eagle, madam,
Hath not so green, so quick, so fair an eye
As Paris hath. Beshrew my very heart,
I think you are happy in this second match,
For it excels your first: or if it did not,
Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were,
As living here and you no use of him.

JULIET.
Speakest thou from thy heart?

NURSE.
And from my soul too,
Or else beshrew them both.

JULIET.
Amen.

NURSE.
What?

JULIET.
Well, thou hast comforted me marvellous much.
Go in, and tell my lady I am gone,
Having displeas’d my father, to Lawrence’ cell,
To make confession and to be absolv’d.

NURSE.
Marry, I will; and this is wisely done.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!
Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,
Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue
Which she hath prais’d him with above compare
So many thousand times? Go, counsellor.
Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain.
I’ll to the Friar to know his remedy.
If all else fail, myself have power to die.

 [_Exit._]



ACT IV

SCENE I. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
On Thursday, sir? The time is very short.

PARIS.
My father Capulet will have it so;
And I am nothing slow to slack his haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
You say you do not know the lady’s mind.
Uneven is the course; I like it not.

PARIS.
Immoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.
Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous
That she do give her sorrow so much sway;
And in his wisdom, hastes our marriage,
To stop the inundation of her tears,
Which, too much minded by herself alone,
May be put from her by society.
Now do you know the reason of this haste.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
[_Aside._] I would I knew not why it should be slow’d.—
Look, sir, here comes the lady toward my cell.

 Enter Juliet.

PARIS.
Happily met, my lady and my wife!

JULIET.
That may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

PARIS.
That may be, must be, love, on Thursday next.

JULIET.
What must be shall be.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
That’s a certain text.

PARIS.
Come you to make confession to this father?

JULIET.
To answer that, I should confess to you.

PARIS.
Do not deny to him that you love me.

JULIET.
I will confess to you that I love him.

PARIS.
So will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

JULIET.
If I do so, it will be of more price,
Being spoke behind your back than to your face.

PARIS.
Poor soul, thy face is much abus’d with tears.

JULIET.
The tears have got small victory by that;
For it was bad enough before their spite.

PARIS.
Thou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.

JULIET.
That is no slander, sir, which is a truth,
And what I spake, I spake it to my face.

PARIS.
Thy face is mine, and thou hast slander’d it.

JULIET.
It may be so, for it is not mine own.
Are you at leisure, holy father, now,
Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
My leisure serves me, pensive daughter, now.—
My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

PARIS.
God shield I should disturb devotion!—
Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye,
Till then, adieu; and keep this holy kiss.

 [_Exit._]

JULIET.
O shut the door, and when thou hast done so,
Come weep with me, past hope, past cure, past help!

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
O Juliet, I already know thy grief;
It strains me past the compass of my wits.
I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue it,
On Thursday next be married to this County.

JULIET.
Tell me not, Friar, that thou hear’st of this,
Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it.
If in thy wisdom, thou canst give no help,
Do thou but call my resolution wise,
And with this knife I’ll help it presently.
God join’d my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands;
And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo’s seal’d,
Shall be the label to another deed,
Or my true heart with treacherous revolt
Turn to another, this shall slay them both.
Therefore, out of thy long-experienc’d time,
Give me some present counsel, or behold
’Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife
Shall play the empire, arbitrating that
Which the commission of thy years and art
Could to no issue of true honour bring.
Be not so long to speak. I long to die,
If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold, daughter. I do spy a kind of hope,
Which craves as desperate an execution
As that is desperate which we would prevent.
If, rather than to marry County Paris
Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,
Then is it likely thou wilt undertake
A thing like death to chide away this shame,
That cop’st with death himself to scape from it.
And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

JULIET.
O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
From off the battlements of yonder tower,
Or walk in thievish ways, or bid me lurk
Where serpents are. Chain me with roaring bears;
Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,
O’er-cover’d quite with dead men’s rattling bones,
With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls.
Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud;
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble,
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold then. Go home, be merry, give consent
To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow;
Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone,
Let not thy Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber.
Take thou this vial, being then in bed,
And this distilled liquor drink thou off,
When presently through all thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour; for no pulse
Shall keep his native progress, but surcease.
No warmth, no breath shall testify thou livest,
The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade
To paly ashes; thy eyes’ windows fall,
Like death when he shuts up the day of life.
Each part depriv’d of supple government,
Shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death.
And in this borrow’d likeness of shrunk death
Thou shalt continue two and forty hours,
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.
Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes
To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead.
Then as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes, uncover’d, on the bier,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.
In the meantime, against thou shalt awake,
Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,
And hither shall he come, and he and I
Will watch thy waking, and that very night
Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.
And this shall free thee from this present shame,
If no inconstant toy nor womanish fear
Abate thy valour in the acting it.

JULIET.
Give me, give me! O tell not me of fear!

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Hold; get you gone, be strong and prosperous
In this resolve. I’ll send a friar with speed
To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

JULIET.
Love give me strength, and strength shall help afford.
Farewell, dear father.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet, Nurse and Servants.

CAPULET.
So many guests invite as here are writ.

 [_Exit first Servant._]

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning cooks.

SECOND SERVANT.
You shall have none ill, sir; for I’ll try if they can lick their
fingers.

CAPULET.
How canst thou try them so?

SECOND SERVANT.
Marry, sir, ’tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers;
therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.

CAPULET.
Go, begone.

 [_Exit second Servant._]

We shall be much unfurnish’d for this time.
What, is my daughter gone to Friar Lawrence?

NURSE.
Ay, forsooth.

CAPULET.
Well, he may chance to do some good on her.
A peevish self-will’d harlotry it is.

 Enter Juliet.

NURSE.
See where she comes from shrift with merry look.

CAPULET.
How now, my headstrong. Where have you been gadding?

JULIET.
Where I have learnt me to repent the sin
Of disobedient opposition
To you and your behests; and am enjoin’d
By holy Lawrence to fall prostrate here,
To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you.
Henceforward I am ever rul’d by you.

CAPULET.
Send for the County, go tell him of this.
I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.

JULIET.
I met the youthful lord at Lawrence’ cell,
And gave him what becomed love I might,
Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.

CAPULET.
Why, I am glad on’t. This is well. Stand up.
This is as’t should be. Let me see the County.
Ay, marry. Go, I say, and fetch him hither.
Now afore God, this reverend holy Friar,
All our whole city is much bound to him.

JULIET.
Nurse, will you go with me into my closet,
To help me sort such needful ornaments
As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?

LADY CAPULET.
No, not till Thursday. There is time enough.

CAPULET.
Go, Nurse, go with her. We’ll to church tomorrow.

 [_Exeunt Juliet and Nurse._]

LADY CAPULET.
We shall be short in our provision,
’Tis now near night.

CAPULET.
Tush, I will stir about,
And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife.
Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her.
I’ll not to bed tonight, let me alone.
I’ll play the housewife for this once.—What, ho!—
They are all forth: well, I will walk myself
To County Paris, to prepare him up
Against tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light
Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE III. Juliet’s Chamber.

 Enter Juliet and Nurse.

JULIET.
Ay, those attires are best. But, gentle Nurse,
I pray thee leave me to myself tonight;
For I have need of many orisons
To move the heavens to smile upon my state,
Which, well thou know’st, is cross and full of sin.

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
What, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?

JULIET.
No, madam; we have cull’d such necessaries
As are behoveful for our state tomorrow.
So please you, let me now be left alone,
And let the nurse this night sit up with you,
For I am sure you have your hands full all
In this so sudden business.

LADY CAPULET.
Good night.
Get thee to bed and rest, for thou hast need.

 [_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._]

JULIET.
Farewell. God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins
That almost freezes up the heat of life.
I’ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse!—What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?
No, No! This shall forbid it. Lie thou there.

 [_Laying down her dagger._]

What if it be a poison, which the Friar
Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is. And yet methinks it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where for this many hundred years the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are pack’d,
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort—
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears,
And madly play with my forefathers’ joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O look, methinks I see my cousin’s ghost
Seeking out Romeo that did spit his body
Upon a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, Romeo, Romeo, here’s drink! I drink to thee.

 [_Throws herself on the bed._]

SCENE IV. Hall in Capulet’s House.

 Enter Lady Capulet and Nurse.

LADY CAPULET.
Hold, take these keys and fetch more spices, Nurse.

NURSE.
They call for dates and quinces in the pastry.

 Enter Capulet.

CAPULET.
Come, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crow’d,
The curfew bell hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.
Look to the bak’d meats, good Angelica;
Spare not for cost.

NURSE.
Go, you cot-quean, go,
Get you to bed; faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow
For this night’s watching.

CAPULET.
No, not a whit. What! I have watch’d ere now
All night for lesser cause, and ne’er been sick.

LADY CAPULET.
Ay, you have been a mouse-hunt in your time;
But I will watch you from such watching now.

 [_Exeunt Lady Capulet and Nurse._]

CAPULET.
A jealous-hood, a jealous-hood!

 Enter Servants, with spits, logs and baskets.

Now, fellow, what’s there?

FIRST SERVANT.
Things for the cook, sir; but I know not what.

CAPULET.
Make haste, make haste.

 [_Exit First Servant._]

—Sirrah, fetch drier logs.
Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

SECOND SERVANT.
I have a head, sir, that will find out logs
And never trouble Peter for the matter.

 [_Exit._]

CAPULET.
Mass and well said; a merry whoreson, ha.
Thou shalt be loggerhead.—Good faith, ’tis day.
The County will be here with music straight,
For so he said he would. I hear him near.

 [_Play music._]

Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, Nurse, I say!

 Re-enter Nurse.

Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up.
I’ll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,
Make haste; the bridegroom he is come already.
Make haste I say.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE V. Juliet’s Chamber; Juliet on the bed.

 Enter Nurse.

NURSE.
Mistress! What, mistress! Juliet! Fast, I warrant her, she.
Why, lamb, why, lady, fie, you slug-abed!
Why, love, I say! Madam! Sweetheart! Why, bride!
What, not a word? You take your pennyworths now.
Sleep for a week; for the next night, I warrant,
The County Paris hath set up his rest
That you shall rest but little. God forgive me!
Marry and amen. How sound is she asleep!
I needs must wake her. Madam, madam, madam!
Ay, let the County take you in your bed,
He’ll fright you up, i’faith. Will it not be?
What, dress’d, and in your clothes, and down again?
I must needs wake you. Lady! Lady! Lady!
Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead!
O, well-a-day that ever I was born.
Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! My lady!

 Enter Lady Capulet.

LADY CAPULET.
What noise is here?

NURSE.
O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET.
What is the matter?

NURSE.
Look, look! O heavy day!

LADY CAPULET.
O me, O me! My child, my only life.
Revive, look up, or I will die with thee.
Help, help! Call help.

 Enter Capulet.

CAPULET.
For shame, bring Juliet forth, her lord is come.

NURSE.
She’s dead, deceas’d, she’s dead; alack the day!

LADY CAPULET.
Alack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!

CAPULET.
Ha! Let me see her. Out alas! She’s cold,
Her blood is settled and her joints are stiff.
Life and these lips have long been separated.
Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

NURSE.
O lamentable day!

LADY CAPULET.
O woful time!

CAPULET.
Death, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,
Ties up my tongue and will not let me speak.

 Enter Friar Lawrence and Paris with Musicians.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Come, is the bride ready to go to church?

CAPULET.
Ready to go, but never to return.
O son, the night before thy wedding day
Hath death lain with thy bride. There she lies,
Flower as she was, deflowered by him.
Death is my son-in-law, death is my heir;
My daughter he hath wedded. I will die.
And leave him all; life, living, all is death’s.

PARIS.
Have I thought long to see this morning’s face,
And doth it give me such a sight as this?

LADY CAPULET.
Accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day.
Most miserable hour that e’er time saw
In lasting labour of his pilgrimage.
But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,
But one thing to rejoice and solace in,
And cruel death hath catch’d it from my sight.

NURSE.
O woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day.
Most lamentable day, most woeful day
That ever, ever, I did yet behold!
O day, O day, O day, O hateful day.
Never was seen so black a day as this.
O woeful day, O woeful day.

PARIS.
Beguil’d, divorced, wronged, spited, slain.
Most detestable death, by thee beguil’d,
By cruel, cruel thee quite overthrown.
O love! O life! Not life, but love in death!

CAPULET.
Despis’d, distressed, hated, martyr’d, kill’d.
Uncomfortable time, why cam’st thou now
To murder, murder our solemnity?
O child! O child! My soul, and not my child,
Dead art thou. Alack, my child is dead,
And with my child my joys are buried.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Peace, ho, for shame. Confusion’s cure lives not
In these confusions. Heaven and yourself
Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,
And all the better is it for the maid.
Your part in her you could not keep from death,
But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion,
For ’twas your heaven she should be advanc’d,
And weep ye now, seeing she is advanc’d
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O, in this love, you love your child so ill
That you run mad, seeing that she is well.
She’s not well married that lives married long,
But she’s best married that dies married young.
Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse, and, as the custom is,
And in her best array bear her to church;
For though fond nature bids us all lament,
Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.

CAPULET.
All things that we ordained festival
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change;
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Sir, go you in, and, madam, go with him,
And go, Sir Paris, everyone prepare
To follow this fair corse unto her grave.
The heavens do lower upon you for some ill;
Move them no more by crossing their high will.

 [_Exeunt Capulet, Lady Capulet, Paris and Friar._]

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Faith, we may put up our pipes and be gone.

NURSE.
Honest good fellows, ah, put up, put up,
For well you know this is a pitiful case.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Ay, by my troth, the case may be amended.

 [_Exit Nurse._]

 Enter Peter.

PETER.
Musicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease,’ ‘Heart’s ease’, O, and you
will have me live, play ‘Heart’s ease.’

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Why ‘Heart’s ease’?

PETER.
O musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My heart is full’. O play
me some merry dump to comfort me.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Not a dump we, ’tis no time to play now.

PETER.
You will not then?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
No.

PETER.
I will then give it you soundly.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
What will you give us?

PETER.
No money, on my faith, but the gleek! I will give you the minstrel.

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Then will I give you the serving-creature.

PETER.
Then will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate. I will
carry no crotchets. I’ll re you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
And you re us and fa us, you note us.

SECOND MUSICIAN.
Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

PETER.
Then have at you with my wit. I will dry-beat you with an iron wit, and
put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men.
    ‘When griping griefs the heart doth wound,
      And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
    Then music with her silver sound’—
Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver sound’? What say you,
Simon Catling?

FIRST MUSICIAN.
Marry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

PETER.
Prates. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

SECOND MUSICIAN.
I say ‘silver sound’ because musicians sound for silver.

PETER.
Prates too! What say you, James Soundpost?

THIRD MUSICIAN.
Faith, I know not what to say.

PETER.
O, I cry you mercy, you are the singer. I will say for you. It is
‘music with her silver sound’ because musicians have no gold for
sounding.
      ‘Then music with her silver sound
      With speedy help doth lend redress.’

 [_Exit._]

FIRST MUSICIAN.
What a pestilent knave is this same!

SECOND MUSICIAN.
Hang him, Jack. Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay
dinner.

 [_Exeunt._]



ACT V

SCENE I. Mantua. A Street.

 Enter Romeo.

ROMEO.
If I may trust the flattering eye of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom’d spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead,—
Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think!—
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips,
That I reviv’d, and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possess’d,
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy.

 Enter Balthasar.

News from Verona! How now, Balthasar?
Dost thou not bring me letters from the Friar?
How doth my lady? Is my father well?
How fares my Juliet? That I ask again;
For nothing can be ill if she be well.

BALTHASAR.
Then she is well, and nothing can be ill.
Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,
And her immortal part with angels lives.
I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,
And presently took post to tell it you.
O pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

ROMEO.
Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!
Thou know’st my lodging. Get me ink and paper,
And hire post-horses. I will hence tonight.

BALTHASAR.
I do beseech you sir, have patience.
Your looks are pale and wild, and do import
Some misadventure.

ROMEO.
Tush, thou art deceiv’d.
Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
Hast thou no letters to me from the Friar?

BALTHASAR.
No, my good lord.

ROMEO.
No matter. Get thee gone,
And hire those horses. I’ll be with thee straight.

 [_Exit Balthasar._]

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.
Let’s see for means. O mischief thou art swift
To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.
I do remember an apothecary,—
And hereabouts he dwells,—which late I noted
In tatter’d weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of simples, meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones;
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff’d, and other skins
Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
And if a man did need a poison now,
Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
O, this same thought did but forerun my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this should be the house.
Being holiday, the beggar’s shop is shut.
What, ho! Apothecary!

 Enter Apothecary.

APOTHECARY.
Who calls so loud?

ROMEO.
Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor.
Hold, there is forty ducats. Let me have
A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
As will disperse itself through all the veins,
That the life-weary taker may fall dead,
And that the trunk may be discharg’d of breath
As violently as hasty powder fir’d
Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.

APOTHECARY.
Such mortal drugs I have, but Mantua’s law
Is death to any he that utters them.

ROMEO.
Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
And fear’st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back.
The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law;
The world affords no law to make thee rich;
Then be not poor, but break it and take this.

APOTHECARY.
My poverty, but not my will consents.

ROMEO.
I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

APOTHECARY.
Put this in any liquid thing you will
And drink it off; and, if you had the strength
Of twenty men, it would despatch you straight.

ROMEO.
There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.
Farewell, buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Friar Lawrence’s Cell.

 Enter Friar John.

FRIAR JOHN.
Holy Franciscan Friar! Brother, ho!

 Enter Friar Lawrence.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
This same should be the voice of Friar John.
Welcome from Mantua. What says Romeo?
Or, if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

FRIAR JOHN.
Going to find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me,
Here in this city visiting the sick,
And finding him, the searchers of the town,
Suspecting that we both were in a house
Where the infectious pestilence did reign,
Seal’d up the doors, and would not let us forth,
So that my speed to Mantua there was stay’d.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who bare my letter then to Romeo?

FRIAR JOHN.
I could not send it,—here it is again,—
Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,
So fearful were they of infection.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Unhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,
The letter was not nice, but full of charge,
Of dear import, and the neglecting it
May do much danger. Friar John, go hence,
Get me an iron crow and bring it straight
Unto my cell.

FRIAR JOHN.
Brother, I’ll go and bring it thee.

 [_Exit._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Now must I to the monument alone.
Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake.
She will beshrew me much that Romeo
Hath had no notice of these accidents;
But I will write again to Mantua,
And keep her at my cell till Romeo come.
Poor living corse, clos’d in a dead man’s tomb.

 [_Exit._]

SCENE III. A churchyard; in it a Monument belonging to the Capulets.

 Enter Paris, and his Page bearing flowers and a torch.

PARIS.
Give me thy torch, boy. Hence and stand aloof.
Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.
Under yond yew tree lay thee all along,
Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground;
So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,
Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves,
But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me,
As signal that thou hear’st something approach.
Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.

PAGE.
[_Aside._] I am almost afraid to stand alone
Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure.

 [_Retires._]

PARIS.
Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew.
O woe, thy canopy is dust and stones,
Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,
Or wanting that, with tears distill’d by moans.
The obsequies that I for thee will keep,
Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

 [_The Page whistles._]

The boy gives warning something doth approach.
What cursed foot wanders this way tonight,
To cross my obsequies and true love’s rite?
What, with a torch! Muffle me, night, awhile.

 [_Retires._]

 Enter Romeo and Balthasar with a torch, mattock, &c.

ROMEO.
Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron.
Hold, take this letter; early in the morning
See thou deliver it to my lord and father.
Give me the light; upon thy life I charge thee,
Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof
And do not interrupt me in my course.
Why I descend into this bed of death
Is partly to behold my lady’s face,
But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger
A precious ring, a ring that I must use
In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone.
But if thou jealous dost return to pry
In what I further shall intend to do,
By heaven I will tear thee joint by joint,
And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs.
The time and my intents are savage-wild;
More fierce and more inexorable far
Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

BALTHASAR.
I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

ROMEO.
So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that.
Live, and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.

BALTHASAR.
For all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout.
His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.

 [_Retires_]

ROMEO.
Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death,
Gorg’d with the dearest morsel of the earth,
Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

 [_Breaking open the door of the monument._]

And in despite, I’ll cram thee with more food.

PARIS.
This is that banish’d haughty Montague
That murder’d my love’s cousin,—with which grief,
It is supposed, the fair creature died,—
And here is come to do some villanous shame
To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.

 [_Advances._]

Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague.
Can vengeance be pursu’d further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.
Obey, and go with me, for thou must die.

ROMEO.
I must indeed; and therefore came I hither.
Good gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man.
Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone;
Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,
Put not another sin upon my head
By urging me to fury. O be gone.
By heaven I love thee better than myself;
For I come hither arm’d against myself.
Stay not, be gone, live, and hereafter say,
A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.

PARIS.
I do defy thy conjuration,
And apprehend thee for a felon here.

ROMEO.
Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy!

 [_They fight._]

PAGE.
O lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

 [_Exit._]

PARIS.
O, I am slain! [_Falls._] If thou be merciful,
Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.

 [_Dies._]

ROMEO.
In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.
Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!
What said my man, when my betossed soul
Did not attend him as we rode? I think
He told me Paris should have married Juliet.
Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?
Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,
To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book.
I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.
A grave? O no, a lantern, slaught’red youth,
For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes
This vault a feasting presence full of light.
Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d.

 [_Laying Paris in the monument._]

How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! Which their keepers call
A lightning before death. O, how may I
Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife,
Death that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
Thou art not conquer’d. Beauty’s ensign yet
Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,
And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.
Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?
O, what more favour can I do to thee
Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain
To sunder his that was thine enemy?
Forgive me, cousin. Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous;
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that I still will stay with thee,
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again. Here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest;
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.
Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide.
Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on
The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark.
Here’s to my love! [_Drinks._] O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.

 [_Dies._]

 Enter, at the other end of the Churchyard, Friar Lawrence, with a
 lantern, crow, and spade.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Saint Francis be my speed. How oft tonight
Have my old feet stumbled at graves? Who’s there?
Who is it that consorts, so late, the dead?

BALTHASAR.
Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Bliss be upon you. Tell me, good my friend,
What torch is yond that vainly lends his light
To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,
It burneth in the Capels’ monument.

BALTHASAR.
It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master,
One that you love.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Who is it?

BALTHASAR.
Romeo.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
How long hath he been there?

BALTHASAR.
Full half an hour.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Go with me to the vault.

BALTHASAR.
I dare not, sir;
My master knows not but I am gone hence,
And fearfully did menace me with death
If I did stay to look on his intents.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Stay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me.
O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

BALTHASAR.
As I did sleep under this yew tree here,
I dreamt my master and another fought,
And that my master slew him.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
Romeo! [_Advances._]
Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains
The stony entrance of this sepulchre?
What mean these masterless and gory swords
To lie discolour’d by this place of peace?

 [_Enters the monument._]

Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?
And steep’d in blood? Ah what an unkind hour
Is guilty of this lamentable chance?
The lady stirs.

 [_Juliet wakes and stirs._]

JULIET.
O comfortable Friar, where is my lord?
I do remember well where I should be,
And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

 [_Noise within._]

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest
Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.
Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;
And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee
Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.
Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.
Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay.

JULIET.
Go, get thee hence, for I will not away.

 [_Exit Friar Lawrence._]

What’s here? A cup clos’d in my true love’s hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.
O churl. Drink all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips.
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.

 [_Kisses him._]

Thy lips are warm!

FIRST WATCH.
[_Within._] Lead, boy. Which way?

JULIET.
Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger.

 [_Snatching Romeo’s dagger._]

This is thy sheath. [_stabs herself_] There rest, and let me die.

 [_Falls on Romeo’s body and dies._]

 Enter Watch with the Page of Paris.

PAGE.
This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn.

FIRST WATCH.
The ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard.
Go, some of you, whoe’er you find attach.

 [_Exeunt some of the Watch._]

Pitiful sight! Here lies the County slain,
And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,
Who here hath lain this two days buried.
Go tell the Prince; run to the Capulets.
Raise up the Montagues, some others search.

 [_Exeunt others of the Watch._]

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,
But the true ground of all these piteous woes
We cannot without circumstance descry.

 Re-enter some of the Watch with Balthasar.

SECOND WATCH.
Here’s Romeo’s man. We found him in the churchyard.

FIRST WATCH.
Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither.

 Re-enter others of the Watch with Friar Lawrence.

THIRD WATCH. Here is a Friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.
We took this mattock and this spade from him
As he was coming from this churchyard side.

FIRST WATCH.
A great suspicion. Stay the Friar too.

 Enter the Prince and Attendants.

PRINCE.
What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning’s rest?

 Enter Capulet, Lady Capulet and others.

CAPULET.
What should it be that they so shriek abroad?

LADY CAPULET.
O the people in the street cry Romeo,
Some Juliet, and some Paris, and all run
With open outcry toward our monument.

PRINCE.
What fear is this which startles in our ears?

FIRST WATCH.
Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,
And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,
Warm and new kill’d.

PRINCE.
Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

FIRST WATCH.
Here is a Friar, and slaughter’d Romeo’s man,
With instruments upon them fit to open
These dead men’s tombs.

CAPULET.
O heaven! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!
This dagger hath mista’en, for lo, his house
Is empty on the back of Montague,
And it mis-sheathed in my daughter’s bosom.

LADY CAPULET.
O me! This sight of death is as a bell
That warns my old age to a sepulchre.

 Enter Montague and others.

PRINCE.
Come, Montague, for thou art early up,
To see thy son and heir more early down.

MONTAGUE.
Alas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight.
Grief of my son’s exile hath stopp’d her breath.
What further woe conspires against mine age?

PRINCE.
Look, and thou shalt see.

MONTAGUE.
O thou untaught! What manners is in this,
To press before thy father to a grave?

PRINCE.
Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while,
Till we can clear these ambiguities,
And know their spring, their head, their true descent,
And then will I be general of your woes,
And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear,
And let mischance be slave to patience.
Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I am the greatest, able to do least,
Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder.
And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excus’d.

PRINCE.
Then say at once what thou dost know in this.

FRIAR LAWRENCE.
I will be brief, for my short date of breath
Is not so long as is a tedious tale.
Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,
And she, there dead, that Romeo’s faithful wife.
I married them; and their stol’n marriage day
Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death
Banish’d the new-made bridegroom from this city;
For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin’d.
You, to remove that siege of grief from her,
Betroth’d, and would have married her perforce
To County Paris. Then comes she to me,
And with wild looks, bid me devise some means
To rid her from this second marriage,
Or in my cell there would she kill herself.
Then gave I her, so tutored by my art,
A sleeping potion, which so took effect
As I intended, for it wrought on her
The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo
That he should hither come as this dire night
To help to take her from her borrow’d grave,
Being the time the potion’s force should cease.
But he which bore my letter, Friar John,
Was stay’d by accident; and yesternight
Return’d my letter back. Then all alone
At the prefixed hour of her waking
Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault,
Meaning to keep her closely at my cell
Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.
But when I came, some minute ere the time
Of her awaking, here untimely lay
The noble Paris and true Romeo dead.
She wakes; and I entreated her come forth
And bear this work of heaven with patience.
But then a noise did scare me from the tomb;
And she, too desperate, would not go with me,
But, as it seems, did violence on herself.
All this I know; and to the marriage
Her Nurse is privy. And if ought in this
Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
Be sacrific’d, some hour before his time,
Unto the rigour of severest law.

PRINCE.
We still have known thee for a holy man.
Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this?

BALTHASAR.
I brought my master news of Juliet’s death,
And then in post he came from Mantua
To this same place, to this same monument.
This letter he early bid me give his father,
And threaten’d me with death, going in the vault,
If I departed not, and left him there.

PRINCE.
Give me the letter, I will look on it.
Where is the County’s Page that rais’d the watch?
Sirrah, what made your master in this place?

PAGE.
He came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave,
And bid me stand aloof, and so I did.
Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb,
And by and by my master drew on him,
And then I ran away to call the watch.

PRINCE.
This letter doth make good the Friar’s words,
Their course of love, the tidings of her death.
And here he writes that he did buy a poison
Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal
Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.
Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague,
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love!
And I, for winking at your discords too,
Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.

CAPULET.
O brother Montague, give me thy hand.
This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more
Can I demand.

MONTAGUE.
But I can give thee more,
For I will raise her statue in pure gold,
That whiles Verona by that name is known,
There shall no figure at such rate be set
As that of true and faithful Juliet.

CAPULET.
As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie,
Poor sacrifices of our enmity.

PRINCE.
A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished,
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

 [_Exeunt._]



THE TAMING OF THE SHREW




by William Shakespeare






Contents

INDUCTION
Scene I. Before an alehouse on a heath.
Scene II. A bedchamber in the LORD’S house.

ACT I
Scene I. Padua. A public place.
Scene II. Padua. Before HORTENSIO’S house.

ACT II
Scene I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.

ACT III
Scene I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.
Scene II. The same. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

ACT IV
Scene I. A hall in PETRUCHIO’S country house.
Scene II. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.
Scene III. A room in PETRUCHIO’S house.
Scene IV. Before BAPTISTA’S house.
Scene V. A public road.

ACT V
Scene I. Padua. Before LUCENTIO’S house.
Scene II. A room in LUCENTIO’S house.





Dramatis Personæ

Persons in the Induction
A LORD
CHRISTOPHER SLY, a tinker
HOSTESS
PAGE
PLAYERS
HUNTSMEN
SERVANTS

BAPTISTA MINOLA, a rich gentleman of Padua
VINCENTIO, an old gentleman of Pisa
LUCENTIO, son to Vincentio; in love with Bianca
PETRUCHIO, a gentleman of Verona; suitor to Katherina

Suitors to Bianca
GREMIO
HORTENSIO

Servants to Lucentio
TRANIO
BIONDELLO

Servants to Petruchio
GRUMIO
CURTIS

PEDANT, set up to personate Vincentio

Daughters to Baptista
KATHERINA, the shrew
BIANCA

WIDOW

Tailor, Haberdasher, and Servants attending on Baptista and Petruchio

SCENE: Sometimes in Padua, and sometimes in PETRUCHIO’S house in the
country.




INDUCTION

SCENE I. Before an alehouse on a heath.

Enter Hostess and Sly

SLY.
I’ll pheeze you, in faith.

HOSTESS.
A pair of stocks, you rogue!

SLY.
Y’are a baggage; the Slys are no rogues; look in the chronicles: we
came in with Richard Conqueror. Therefore, _paucas pallabris_; let the
world slide. Sessa!

HOSTESS.
You will not pay for the glasses you have burst?

SLY.
No, not a denier. Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed and warm
thee.

HOSTESS.
I know my remedy; I must go fetch the third-borough.

[_Exit_]

SLY.
Third, or fourth, or fifth borough, I’ll answer him by law. I’ll not
budge an inch, boy: let him come, and kindly.

[_Lies down on the ground, and falls asleep._]

Horns winded. Enter a Lord from hunting, with Huntsmen and Servants.

LORD.
Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds;
Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss’d,
And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth’d brach.
Saw’st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good
At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?
I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.

FIRST HUNTSMAN.
Why, Bellman is as good as he, my lord;
He cried upon it at the merest loss,
And twice today pick’d out the dullest scent;
Trust me, I take him for the better dog.

LORD.
Thou art a fool: if Echo were as fleet,
I would esteem him worth a dozen such.
But sup them well, and look unto them all;
Tomorrow I intend to hunt again.

FIRST HUNTSMAN.
I will, my lord.

LORD.
[ _Sees Sly_.] What’s here? One dead, or drunk?
See, doth he breathe?

SECOND HUNTSMAN.
He breathes, my lord. Were he not warm’d with ale,
This were a bed but cold to sleep so soundly.

LORD.
O monstrous beast! how like a swine he lies!
Grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image!
Sirs, I will practise on this drunken man.
What think you, if he were convey’d to bed,
Wrapp’d in sweet clothes, rings put upon his fingers,
A most delicious banquet by his bed,
And brave attendants near him when he wakes,
Would not the beggar then forget himself?

FIRST HUNTSMAN.
Believe me, lord, I think he cannot choose.

SECOND HUNTSMAN.
It would seem strange unto him when he wak’d.

LORD.
Even as a flattering dream or worthless fancy.
Then take him up, and manage well the jest.
Carry him gently to my fairest chamber,
And hang it round with all my wanton pictures;
Balm his foul head in warm distilled waters,
And burn sweet wood to make the lodging sweet.
Procure me music ready when he wakes,
To make a dulcet and a heavenly sound;
And if he chance to speak, be ready straight,
And with a low submissive reverence
Say ‘What is it your honour will command?’
Let one attend him with a silver basin
Full of rose-water and bestrew’d with flowers;
Another bear the ewer, the third a diaper,
And say ‘Will’t please your lordship cool your hands?’
Someone be ready with a costly suit,
And ask him what apparel he will wear;
Another tell him of his hounds and horse,
And that his lady mourns at his disease.
Persuade him that he hath been lunatic;
And, when he says he is—say that he dreams,
For he is nothing but a mighty lord.
This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs;
It will be pastime passing excellent,
If it be husbanded with modesty.

FIRST HUNTSMAN.
My lord, I warrant you we will play our part,
As he shall think by our true diligence,
He is no less than what we say he is.

LORD.
Take him up gently, and to bed with him,
And each one to his office when he wakes.

[Sly _is bourne out. A trumpet sounds._]

Sirrah, go see what trumpet ’tis that sounds:

[_Exit_ Servant.]

Belike some noble gentleman that means,
Travelling some journey, to repose him here.


Re-enter Servant.

How now! who is it?

SERVANT.
An it please your honour, players
That offer service to your lordship.

LORD.
Bid them come near.


Enter Players.

Now, fellows, you are welcome.

PLAYERS.
We thank your honour.

LORD.
Do you intend to stay with me tonight?

PLAYER.
So please your lordship to accept our duty.

LORD.
With all my heart. This fellow I remember
Since once he play’d a farmer’s eldest son;
’Twas where you woo’d the gentlewoman so well.
I have forgot your name; but, sure, that part
Was aptly fitted and naturally perform’d.

PLAYER.
I think ’twas Soto that your honour means.

LORD.
’Tis very true; thou didst it excellent.
Well, you are come to me in happy time,
The rather for I have some sport in hand
Wherein your cunning can assist me much.
There is a lord will hear you play tonight;
But I am doubtful of your modesties,
Lest, over-eying of his odd behaviour,—
For yet his honour never heard a play,—
You break into some merry passion
And so offend him; for I tell you, sirs,
If you should smile, he grows impatient.

PLAYER.
Fear not, my lord; we can contain ourselves,
Were he the veriest antick in the world.

LORD.
Go, sirrah, take them to the buttery,
And give them friendly welcome everyone:
Let them want nothing that my house affords.

[_Exit one with the Players._]

Sirrah, go you to Barthol’mew my page,
And see him dress’d in all suits like a lady;
That done, conduct him to the drunkard’s chamber,
And call him ‘madam,’ do him obeisance.
Tell him from me—as he will win my love,—
He bear himself with honourable action,
Such as he hath observ’d in noble ladies
Unto their lords, by them accomplished;
Such duty to the drunkard let him do,
With soft low tongue and lowly courtesy,
And say ‘What is’t your honour will command,
Wherein your lady and your humble wife
May show her duty and make known her love?’
And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,
And with declining head into his bosom,
Bid him shed tears, as being overjoy’d
To see her noble lord restor’d to health,
Who for this seven years hath esteemed him
No better than a poor and loathsome beggar.
And if the boy have not a woman’s gift
To rain a shower of commanded tears,
An onion will do well for such a shift,
Which, in a napkin being close convey’d,
Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.
See this dispatch’d with all the haste thou canst;
Anon I’ll give thee more instructions.

[_Exit Servant._]

I know the boy will well usurp the grace,
Voice, gait, and action of a gentlewoman;
I long to hear him call the drunkard husband;
And how my men will stay themselves from laughter
When they do homage to this simple peasant.
I’ll in to counsel them; haply my presence
May well abate the over-merry spleen,
Which otherwise would grow into extremes.

[_Exeunt._]




SCENE II. A bedchamber in the LORD’S house.

Sly is discovered in a rich nightgown, with Attendants: some with
apparel, basin, ewer, and other appurtenances; and Lord, dressed like a
servant.

SLY.
For God’s sake! a pot of small ale.

FIRST SERVANT.
Will’t please your lordship drink a cup of sack?

SECOND SERVANT.
Will’t please your honour taste of these conserves?

THIRD SERVANT.
What raiment will your honour wear today?

SLY.
I am Christophero Sly; call not me honour nor lordship. I ne’er drank
sack in my life; and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of
beef. Ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no more doublets
than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet:
nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look
through the over-leather.

LORD.
Heaven cease this idle humour in your honour!
O, that a mighty man of such descent,
Of such possessions, and so high esteem,
Should be infused with so foul a spirit!

SLY.
What! would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son of
Burton-heath; by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by
transmutation a bear-herd, and now by present profession a tinker? Ask
Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife of Wincot, if she know me not: if she
say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for
the lyingest knave in Christendom. What! I am not bestraught. Here’s—

THIRD SERVANT.
O! this it is that makes your lady mourn.

SECOND SERVANT.
O! this is it that makes your servants droop.

LORD.
Hence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,
As beaten hence by your strange lunacy.
O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,
Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment,
And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.
Look how thy servants do attend on thee,
Each in his office ready at thy beck:
Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo plays,

[_Music._]

And twenty caged nightingales do sing:
Or wilt thou sleep? We’ll have thee to a couch
Softer and sweeter than the lustful bed
On purpose trimm’d up for Semiramis.
Say thou wilt walk: we will bestrew the ground:
Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp’d,
Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.
Dost thou love hawking? Thou hast hawks will soar
Above the morning lark: or wilt thou hunt?
Thy hounds shall make the welkin answer them
And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.

FIRST SERVANT.
Say thou wilt course; thy greyhounds are as swift
As breathed stags; ay, fleeter than the roe.

SECOND SERVANT.
Dost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight
Adonis painted by a running brook,
And Cytherea all in sedges hid,
Which seem to move and wanton with her breath
Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

LORD.
We’ll show thee Io as she was a maid
And how she was beguiled and surpris’d,
As lively painted as the deed was done.

THIRD SERVANT.
Or Daphne roaming through a thorny wood,
Scratching her legs, that one shall swear she bleeds
And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,
So workmanly the blood and tears are drawn.

LORD.
Thou art a lord, and nothing but a lord:
Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.

FIRST SERVANT.
And, till the tears that she hath shed for thee
Like envious floods o’er-run her lovely face,
She was the fairest creature in the world;
And yet she is inferior to none.

SLY.
Am I a lord? and have I such a lady?
Or do I dream? Or have I dream’d till now?
I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak;
I smell sweet savours, and I feel soft things:
Upon my life, I am a lord indeed;
And not a tinker, nor Christophero Sly.
Well, bring our lady hither to our sight;
And once again, a pot o’ the smallest ale.

SECOND SERVANT.
Will’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?

[_Servants present a ewer, basin and napkin._]

O, how we joy to see your wit restor’d!
O, that once more you knew but what you are!
These fifteen years you have been in a dream,
Or, when you wak’d, so wak’d as if you slept.

SLY.
These fifteen years! by my fay, a goodly nap.
But did I never speak of all that time?

FIRST SERVANT.
O! yes, my lord, but very idle words;
For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,
Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door,
And rail upon the hostess of the house,
And say you would present her at the leet,
Because she brought stone jugs and no seal’d quarts.
Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.

SLY.
Ay, the woman’s maid of the house.

THIRD SERVANT.
Why, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,
Nor no such men as you have reckon’d up,
As Stephen Sly, and old John Naps of Greece,
And Peter Turph, and Henry Pimpernell;
And twenty more such names and men as these,
Which never were, nor no man ever saw.

SLY.
Now, Lord be thanked for my good amends!

ALL.
Amen.


Enter the Page, as a lady, with Attendants.

SLY.
I thank thee; thou shalt not lose by it.

PAGE.
How fares my noble lord?

SLY.
Marry, I fare well; for here is cheer enough.
Where is my wife?

PAGE.
Here, noble lord: what is thy will with her?

SLY.
Are you my wife, and will not call me husband?
My men should call me lord: I am your goodman.

PAGE.
My husband and my lord, my lord and husband;
I am your wife in all obedience.

SLY.
I know it well. What must I call her?

LORD.
Madam.

SLY.
Alice madam, or Joan madam?

LORD.
Madam, and nothing else; so lords call ladies.

SLY.
Madam wife, they say that I have dream’d
And slept above some fifteen year or more.

PAGE.
Ay, and the time seems thirty unto me,
Being all this time abandon’d from your bed.

SLY.
’Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.
Madam, undress you, and come now to bed.

PAGE.
Thrice noble lord, let me entreat of you
To pardon me yet for a night or two;
Or, if not so, until the sun be set:
For your physicians have expressly charg’d,
In peril to incur your former malady,
That I should yet absent me from your bed:
I hope this reason stands for my excuse.

SLY.
Ay, it stands so that I may hardly tarry so long; but I would be loath
to fall into my dreams again: I will therefore tarry in despite of the
flesh and the blood.

Enter a Messenger.

MESSENGER.
Your honour’s players, hearing your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal’d your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play,
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.

SLY.
Marry, I will; let them play it. Is not a commonty a Christmas gambold
or a tumbling-trick?

PAGE.
No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.

SLY.
What! household stuff?

PAGE.
It is a kind of history.

SLY.
Well, we’ll see’t. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and let the world
slip: we shall ne’er be younger.




ACT I

SCENE I. Padua. A public place.

Flourish. Enter Lucentio and Tranio.

LUCENTIO.
Tranio, since for the great desire I had
To see fair Padua, nursery of arts,
I am arriv’d for fruitful Lombardy,
The pleasant garden of great Italy,
And by my father’s love and leave am arm’d
With his good will and thy good company,
My trusty servant well approv’d in all,
Here let us breathe, and haply institute
A course of learning and ingenious studies.
Pisa, renowned for grave citizens,
Gave me my being and my father first,
A merchant of great traffic through the world,
Vincentio, come of the Bentivolii.
Vincentio’s son, brought up in Florence,
It shall become to serve all hopes conceiv’d,
To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:
And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,
Virtue and that part of philosophy
Will I apply that treats of happiness
By virtue specially to be achiev’d.
Tell me thy mind; for I have Pisa left
And am to Padua come as he that leaves
A shallow plash to plunge him in the deep,
And with satiety seeks to quench his thirst.

TRANIO.
_Mi perdonato_, gentle master mine;
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur’d.
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you:
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en;
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

LUCENTIO.
Gramercies, Tranio, well dost thou advise.
If, Biondello, thou wert come ashore,
We could at once put us in readiness,
And take a lodging fit to entertain
Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.
But stay awhile; what company is this?

TRANIO.
Master, some show to welcome us to town.

[_Lucentio and Tranio stand aside._]

Enter Baptista, Katherina, Bianca, Gremio and Hortensio.

BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, importune me no farther,
For how I firmly am resolv’d you know;
That is, not to bestow my youngest daughter
Before I have a husband for the elder.
If either of you both love Katherina,
Because I know you well and love you well,
Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.

GREMIO.
To cart her rather: she’s too rough for me.
There, there, Hortensio, will you any wife?

KATHERINA.
[_To Baptista_] I pray you, sir, is it your will
To make a stale of me amongst these mates?

HORTENSIO.
Mates, maid! How mean you that? No mates for you,
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.

KATHERINA.
I’ faith, sir, you shall never need to fear;
I wis it is not half way to her heart;
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legg’d stool,
And paint your face, and use you like a fool.

HORTENSIO.
From all such devils, good Lord deliver us!

GREMIO.
And me, too, good Lord!

TRANIO.
Husht, master! Here’s some good pastime toward:
That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.

LUCENTIO.
But in the other’s silence do I see
Maid’s mild behaviour and sobriety.
Peace, Tranio!

TRANIO.
Well said, master; mum! and gaze your fill.

BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, that I may soon make good
What I have said,—Bianca, get you in:
And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,
For I will love thee ne’er the less, my girl.

KATHERINA.
A pretty peat! it is best put finger in the eye, and she knew why.

BIANCA.
Sister, content you in my discontent.
Sir, to your pleasure humbly I subscribe:
My books and instruments shall be my company,
On them to look, and practise by myself.

LUCENTIO.
Hark, Tranio! thou mayst hear Minerva speak.

HORTENSIO.
Signior Baptista, will you be so strange?
Sorry am I that our good will effects
Bianca’s grief.

GREMIO.
Why will you mew her up,
Signior Baptista, for this fiend of hell,
And make her bear the penance of her tongue?

BAPTISTA.
Gentlemen, content ye; I am resolv’d.
Go in, Bianca.

[_Exit Bianca._]

And for I know she taketh most delight
In music, instruments, and poetry,
Schoolmasters will I keep within my house
Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,
Or, Signior Gremio, you, know any such,
Prefer them hither; for to cunning men
I will be very kind, and liberal
To mine own children in good bringing up;
And so, farewell. Katherina, you may stay;
For I have more to commune with Bianca.

[_Exit._]

KATHERINA.
Why, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What! shall I be appointed
hours, as though, belike, I knew not what to take and what to leave?
Ha!

[_Exit._]

GREMIO.
You may go to the devil’s dam: your gifts are so good here’s none will
hold you. Their love is not so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our
nails together, and fast it fairly out; our cake’s dough on both sides.
Farewell: yet, for the love I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any
means light on a fit man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will
wish him to her father.

HORTENSIO.
So will I, Signior Gremio: but a word, I pray. Though the nature of our
quarrel yet never brooked parle, know now, upon advice, it toucheth us
both,—that we may yet again have access to our fair mistress, and be
happy rivals in Bianca’s love,—to labour and effect one thing
specially.

GREMIO.
What’s that, I pray?

HORTENSIO.
Marry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.

GREMIO.
A husband! a devil.

HORTENSIO.
I say, a husband.

GREMIO.
I say, a devil. Thinkest thou, Hortensio, though her father be very
rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell?

HORTENSIO.
Tush, Gremio! Though it pass your patience and mine to endure her loud
alarums, why, man, there be good fellows in the world, and a man could
light on them, would take her with all faults, and money enough.

GREMIO.
I cannot tell; but I had as lief take her dowry with this condition: to
be whipp’d at the high cross every morning.

HORTENSIO.
Faith, as you say, there’s small choice in rotten apples. But come;
since this bar in law makes us friends, it shall be so far forth
friendly maintained, till by helping Baptista’s eldest daughter to a
husband, we set his youngest free for a husband, and then have to’t
afresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man be his dole! He that runs fastest gets
the ring. How say you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO.
I am agreed; and would I had given him the best horse in Padua to begin
his wooing, that would thoroughly woo her, wed her, and bed her, and
rid the house of her. Come on.

[_Exeunt Gremio and Hortensio._]

TRANIO.
I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?

LUCENTIO.
O Tranio! till I found it to be true,
I never thought it possible or likely;
But see, while idly I stood looking on,
I found the effect of love in idleness;
And now in plainness do confess to thee,
That art to me as secret and as dear
As Anna to the Queen of Carthage was,
Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,
If I achieve not this young modest girl.
Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst:
Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.

TRANIO.
Master, it is no time to chide you now;
Affection is not rated from the heart:
If love have touch’d you, nought remains but so:
_Redime te captum quam queas minimo._

LUCENTIO.
Gramercies, lad; go forward; this contents;
The rest will comfort, for thy counsel’s sound.

TRANIO.
Master, you look’d so longly on the maid.
Perhaps you mark’d not what’s the pith of all.

LUCENTIO.
O, yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,
Such as the daughter of Agenor had,
That made great Jove to humble him to her hand,
When with his knees he kiss’d the Cretan strand.

TRANIO.
Saw you no more? mark’d you not how her sister
Began to scold and raise up such a storm
That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?

LUCENTIO.
Tranio, I saw her coral lips to move,
And with her breath she did perfume the air;
Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

TRANIO.
Nay, then, ’tis time to stir him from his trance.
I pray, awake, sir: if you love the maid,
Bend thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:
Her elder sister is so curst and shrewd,
That till the father rid his hands of her,
Master, your love must live a maid at home;
And therefore has he closely mew’d her up,
Because she will not be annoy’d with suitors.

LUCENTIO.
Ah, Tranio, what a cruel father’s he!
But art thou not advis’d he took some care
To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?

TRANIO.
Ay, marry, am I, sir, and now ’tis plotted.

LUCENTIO.
I have it, Tranio.

TRANIO.
Master, for my hand,
Both our inventions meet and jump in one.

LUCENTIO.
Tell me thine first.

TRANIO.
You will be schoolmaster,
And undertake the teaching of the maid:
That’s your device.

LUCENTIO.
It is: may it be done?

TRANIO.
Not possible; for who shall bear your part
And be in Padua here Vincentio’s son;
Keep house and ply his book, welcome his friends;
Visit his countrymen, and banquet them?

LUCENTIO.
_Basta_, content thee, for I have it full.
We have not yet been seen in any house,
Nor can we be distinguish’d by our faces
For man or master: then it follows thus:
Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,
Keep house and port and servants, as I should;
I will some other be; some Florentine,
Some Neapolitan, or meaner man of Pisa.
’Tis hatch’d, and shall be so: Tranio, at once
Uncase thee; take my colour’d hat and cloak.
When Biondello comes, he waits on thee;
But I will charm him first to keep his tongue.

[_They exchange habits_]

TRANIO.
So had you need.
In brief, sir, sith it your pleasure is,
And I am tied to be obedient;
For so your father charg’d me at our parting,
‘Be serviceable to my son,’ quoth he,
Although I think ’twas in another sense:
I am content to be Lucentio,
Because so well I love Lucentio.

LUCENTIO.
Tranio, be so, because Lucentio loves;
And let me be a slave, to achieve that maid
Whose sudden sight hath thrall’d my wounded eye.


Enter Biondello.

Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?

BIONDELLO.
Where have I been? Nay, how now! where are you?
Master, has my fellow Tranio stol’n your clothes?
Or you stol’n his? or both? Pray, what’s the news?

LUCENTIO.
Sirrah, come hither: ’tis no time to jest,
And therefore frame your manners to the time.
Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,
Puts my apparel and my count’nance on,
And I for my escape have put on his;
For in a quarrel since I came ashore
I kill’d a man, and fear I was descried.
Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,
While I make way from hence to save my life.
You understand me?

BIONDELLO.
I, sir! Ne’er a whit.

LUCENTIO.
And not a jot of Tranio in your mouth:
Tranio is changed to Lucentio.

BIONDELLO.
The better for him: would I were so too!

TRANIO.
So could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,
That Lucentio indeed had Baptista’s youngest daughter.
But, sirrah, not for my sake but your master’s, I advise
You use your manners discreetly in all kind of companies:
When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio;
But in all places else your master, Lucentio.

LUCENTIO.
Tranio, let’s go.
One thing more rests, that thyself execute,
To make one among these wooers: if thou ask me why,
Sufficeth my reasons are both good and weighty.

[_Exeunt._]

[_The Presenters above speak._]

FIRST SERVANT.
My lord, you nod; you do not mind the play.

SLY.
Yes, by Saint Anne, I do. A good matter, surely: comes there any more
of it?

PAGE.
My lord, ’tis but begun.

SLY.
’Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady: would ’twere done!

[_They sit and mark._]




SCENE II. Padua. Before HORTENSIO’S house.

Enter Petruchio and his man Grumio.

PETRUCHIO.
Verona, for a while I take my leave,
To see my friends in Padua; but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.

GRUMIO.
Knock, sir? Whom should I knock? Is there any man has rebused your
worship?

PETRUCHIO.
Villain, I say, knock me here soundly.

GRUMIO.
Knock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you
here, sir?

PETRUCHIO.
Villain, I say, knock me at this gate;
And rap me well, or I’ll knock your knave’s pate.

GRUMIO.
My master is grown quarrelsome. I should knock you first,
And then I know after who comes by the worst.

PETRUCHIO.
Will it not be?
Faith, sirrah, and you’ll not knock, I’ll ring it;
I’ll try how you can sol, fa, and sing it.

[_He wrings Grumio by the ears._]

GRUMIO.
Help, masters, help! my master is mad.

PETRUCHIO.
Now, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain!


Enter Hortensio.

HORTENSIO.
How now! what’s the matter? My old friend Grumio! and my good friend
Petruchio! How do you all at Verona?

PETRUCHIO.
Signior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?
_Con tutto il cuore ben trovato_, may I say.

HORTENSIO.
_Alla nostra casa ben venuto; molto honorato signor mio Petruchio._
Rise, Grumio, rise: we will compound this quarrel.

GRUMIO.
Nay, ’tis no matter, sir, what he ’leges in Latin. If this be not a
lawful cause for me to leave his service, look you, sir, he bid me
knock him and rap him soundly, sir: well, was it fit for a servant to
use his master so; being, perhaps, for aught I see, two-and-thirty, a
pip out? Whom would to God I had well knock’d at first, then had not
Grumio come by the worst.

PETRUCHIO.
A senseless villain! Good Hortensio,
I bade the rascal knock upon your gate,
And could not get him for my heart to do it.

GRUMIO.
Knock at the gate! O heavens! Spake you not these words plain: ‘Sirrah
knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly’? And
come you now with ‘knocking at the gate’?

PETRUCHIO.
Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.

HORTENSIO.
Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio’s pledge;
Why, this’s a heavy chance ’twixt him and you,
Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.
And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale
Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?

PETRUCHIO.
Such wind as scatters young men through the world
To seek their fortunes farther than at home,
Where small experience grows. But in a few,
Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:
Antonio, my father, is deceas’d,
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Haply to wive and thrive as best I may;
Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home,
And so am come abroad to see the world.

HORTENSIO.
Petruchio, shall I then come roundly to thee
And wish thee to a shrewd ill-favour’d wife?
Thou’dst thank me but a little for my counsel;
And yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich,
And very rich: but th’art too much my friend,
And I’ll not wish thee to her.

PETRUCHIO.
Signior Hortensio, ’twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife,
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,
Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates’ Xanthippe or a worse,
She moves me not, or not removes, at least,
Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas:
I come to wive it wealthily in Padua;
If wealthily, then happily in Padua.

GRUMIO.
Nay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind is: why, give him
gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby; or an old trot
with ne’er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as
two-and-fifty horses: why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.

HORTENSIO.
Petruchio, since we are stepp’d thus far in,
I will continue that I broach’d in jest.
I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife
With wealth enough, and young and beauteous;
Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman:
Her only fault,—and that is faults enough,—
Is, that she is intolerable curst,
And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure,
That, were my state far worser than it is,
I would not wed her for a mine of gold.

PETRUCHIO.
Hortensio, peace! thou know’st not gold’s effect:
Tell me her father’s name, and ’tis enough;
For I will board her, though she chide as loud
As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.

HORTENSIO.
Her father is Baptista Minola,
An affable and courteous gentleman;
Her name is Katherina Minola,
Renown’d in Padua for her scolding tongue.

PETRUCHIO.
I know her father, though I know not her;
And he knew my deceased father well.
I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her;
And therefore let me be thus bold with you,
To give you over at this first encounter,
Unless you will accompany me thither.

GRUMIO.
I pray you, sir, let him go while the humour lasts. O’ my word, and she
knew him as well as I do, she would think scolding would do little good
upon him. She may perhaps call him half a score knaves or so; why,
that’s nothing; and he begin once, he’ll rail in his rope-tricks. I’ll
tell you what, sir, and she stand him but a little, he will throw a
figure in her face, and so disfigure her with it that she shall have no
more eyes to see withal than a cat. You know him not, sir.

HORTENSIO.
Tarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,
For in Baptista’s keep my treasure is:
He hath the jewel of my life in hold,
His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca,
And her withholds from me and other more,
Suitors to her and rivals in my love;
Supposing it a thing impossible,
For those defects I have before rehears’d,
That ever Katherina will be woo’d:
Therefore this order hath Baptista ta’en,
That none shall have access unto Bianca
Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.

GRUMIO.
Katherine the curst!
A title for a maid of all titles the worst.

HORTENSIO.
Now shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,
And offer me disguis’d in sober robes,
To old Baptista as a schoolmaster
Well seen in music, to instruct Bianca;
That so I may, by this device at least
Have leave and leisure to make love to her,
And unsuspected court her by herself.

GRUMIO.
Here’s no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the young folks
lay their heads together!

Enter Gremio and Lucentio disguised, with books under his arm.

Master, master, look about you: who goes there, ha?

HORTENSIO.
Peace, Grumio! It is the rival of my love. Petruchio, stand by awhile.

GRUMIO.
A proper stripling, and an amorous!

GREMIO.
O! very well; I have perus’d the note.
Hark you, sir; I’ll have them very fairly bound:
All books of love, see that at any hand,
And see you read no other lectures to her.
You understand me. Over and beside
Signior Baptista’s liberality,
I’ll mend it with a largess. Take your papers too,
And let me have them very well perfum’d;
For she is sweeter than perfume itself
To whom they go to. What will you read to her?

LUCENTIO.
Whate’er I read to her, I’ll plead for you,
As for my patron, stand you so assur’d,
As firmly as yourself were still in place;
Yea, and perhaps with more successful words
Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.

GREMIO.
O! this learning, what a thing it is.

GRUMIO.
O! this woodcock, what an ass it is.

PETRUCHIO.
Peace, sirrah!

HORTENSIO.
Grumio, mum! God save you, Signior Gremio!

GREMIO.
And you are well met, Signior Hortensio.
Trow you whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.
I promis’d to enquire carefully
About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca;
And by good fortune I have lighted well
On this young man; for learning and behaviour
Fit for her turn, well read in poetry
And other books, good ones, I warrant ye.

HORTENSIO.
’Tis well; and I have met a gentleman
Hath promis’d me to help me to another,
A fine musician to instruct our mistress:
So shall I no whit be behind in duty
To fair Bianca, so belov’d of me.

GREMIO.
Belov’d of me, and that my deeds shall prove.

GRUMIO.
[_Aside._] And that his bags shall prove.

HORTENSIO.
Gremio, ’tis now no time to vent our love:
Listen to me, and if you speak me fair,
I’ll tell you news indifferent good for either.
Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,
Upon agreement from us to his liking,
Will undertake to woo curst Katherine;
Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.

GREMIO.
So said, so done, is well.
Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?

PETRUCHIO.
I know she is an irksome brawling scold;
If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.

GREMIO.
No, say’st me so, friend? What countryman?

PETRUCHIO.
Born in Verona, old Antonio’s son.
My father dead, my fortune lives for me;
And I do hope good days and long to see.

GREMIO.
O sir, such a life, with such a wife, were strange!
But if you have a stomach, to’t a God’s name;
You shall have me assisting you in all.
But will you woo this wild-cat?

PETRUCHIO.
Will I live?

GRUMIO.
Will he woo her? Ay, or I’ll hang her.

PETRUCHIO.
Why came I hither but to that intent?
Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?
Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puff’d up with winds,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in a pitched battle heard
Loud ’larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets’ clang?
And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire?
Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.

GRUMIO.
[_Aside_] For he fears none.

GREMIO.
Hortensio, hark:
This gentleman is happily arriv’d,
My mind presumes, for his own good and yours.

HORTENSIO.
I promis’d we would be contributors,
And bear his charge of wooing, whatsoe’er.

GREMIO.
And so we will, provided that he win her.

GRUMIO.
I would I were as sure of a good dinner.


Enter Tranio brave, and Biondello.

TRANIO.
Gentlemen, God save you! If I may be bold,
Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest way
To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?

BIONDELLO.
He that has the two fair daughters; is’t he you mean?

TRANIO.
Even he, Biondello!

GREMIO.
Hark you, sir, you mean not her to—

TRANIO.
Perhaps him and her, sir; what have you to do?

PETRUCHIO.
Not her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.

TRANIO.
I love no chiders, sir. Biondello, let’s away.

LUCENTIO.
[_Aside_]  Well begun, Tranio.

HORTENSIO.
Sir, a word ere you go.
Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?

TRANIO.
And if I be, sir, is it any offence?

GREMIO.
No; if without more words you will get you hence.

TRANIO.
Why, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free
For me as for you?

GREMIO.
But so is not she.

TRANIO.
For what reason, I beseech you?

GREMIO.
For this reason, if you’ll know,
That she’s the choice love of Signior Gremio.

HORTENSIO.
That she’s the chosen of Signior Hortensio.

TRANIO.
Softly, my masters! If you be gentlemen,
Do me this right; hear me with patience.
Baptista is a noble gentleman,
To whom my father is not all unknown;
And were his daughter fairer than she is,
She may more suitors have, and me for one.
Fair Leda’s daughter had a thousand wooers;
Then well one more may fair Bianca have;
And so she shall: Lucentio shall make one,
Though Paris came in hope to speed alone.

GREMIO.
What, this gentleman will out-talk us all.

LUCENTIO.
Sir, give him head; I know he’ll prove a jade.

PETRUCHIO.
Hortensio, to what end are all these words?

HORTENSIO.
Sir, let me be so bold as ask you,
Did you yet ever see Baptista’s daughter?

TRANIO.
No, sir, but hear I do that he hath two,
The one as famous for a scolding tongue
As is the other for beauteous modesty.

PETRUCHIO.
Sir, sir, the first’s for me; let her go by.

GREMIO.
Yea, leave that labour to great Hercules,
And let it be more than Alcides’ twelve.

PETRUCHIO.
Sir, understand you this of me, in sooth:
The youngest daughter, whom you hearken for,
Her father keeps from all access of suitors,
And will not promise her to any man
Until the elder sister first be wed;
The younger then is free, and not before.

TRANIO.
If it be so, sir, that you are the man
Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest;
And if you break the ice, and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free
For our access, whose hap shall be to have her
Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.

HORTENSIO.
Sir, you say well, and well you do conceive;
And since you do profess to be a suitor,
You must, as we do, gratify this gentleman,
To whom we all rest generally beholding.

TRANIO.
Sir, I shall not be slack; in sign whereof,
Please ye we may contrive this afternoon,
And quaff carouses to our mistress’ health;
And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

GRUMIO, BIONDELLO.
O excellent motion! Fellows, let’s be gone.

HORTENSIO.
The motion’s good indeed, and be it so:—
Petruchio, I shall be your _ben venuto_.

[_Exeunt._]




ACT II

SCENE I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Katherina and Bianca.

BIANCA.
Good sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,
To make a bondmaid and a slave of me;
That I disdain; but for these other gawds,
Unbind my hands, I’ll pull them off myself,
Yea, all my raiment, to my petticoat;
Or what you will command me will I do,
So well I know my duty to my elders.

KATHERINA.
Of all thy suitors here I charge thee tell
Whom thou lov’st best: see thou dissemble not.

BIANCA.
Believe me, sister, of all the men alive
I never yet beheld that special face
Which I could fancy more than any other.

KATHERINA.
Minion, thou liest. Is’t not Hortensio?

BIANCA.
If you affect him, sister, here I swear
I’ll plead for you myself but you shall have him.

KATHERINA.
O! then, belike, you fancy riches more:
You will have Gremio to keep you fair.

BIANCA.
Is it for him you do envy me so?
Nay, then you jest; and now I well perceive
You have but jested with me all this while:
I prithee, sister Kate, untie my hands.

KATHERINA.
If that be jest, then all the rest was so.

[_Strikes her._]

Enter Baptista.

BAPTISTA.
Why, how now, dame! Whence grows this insolence?
Bianca, stand aside. Poor girl! she weeps.
Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her.
For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit,
Why dost thou wrong her that did ne’er wrong thee?
When did she cross thee with a bitter word?

KATHERINA.
Her silence flouts me, and I’ll be reveng’d.

[_Flies after Bianca._]

BAPTISTA.
What! in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.

[_Exit Bianca._]

KATHERINA.
What! will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see
She is your treasure, she must have a husband;
I must dance bare-foot on her wedding-day,
And, for your love to her, lead apes in hell.
Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep
Till I can find occasion of revenge.

[_Exit._]

BAPTISTA.
 Was ever gentleman thus griev’d as I?
But who comes here?


Enter Gremio, with Lucentio in the habit of a mean man; Petruchio, with
Hortensio as a musician; and Tranio, with Biondello bearing a lute and
books.

GREMIO.
Good morrow, neighbour Baptista.

BAPTISTA.
Good morrow, neighbour Gremio. God save you, gentlemen!

PETRUCHIO.
And you, good sir! Pray, have you not a daughter
Call’d Katherina, fair and virtuous?

BAPTISTA.
I have a daughter, sir, call’d Katherina.

GREMIO.
You are too blunt: go to it orderly.

PETRUCHIO.
You wrong me, Signior Gremio: give me leave.
I am a gentleman of Verona, sir,
That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,
Her affability and bashful modesty,
Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour,
Am bold to show myself a forward guest
Within your house, to make mine eye the witness
Of that report which I so oft have heard.
And, for an entrance to my entertainment,
I do present you with a man of mine,

[_Presenting Hortensio._]

Cunning in music and the mathematics,
To instruct her fully in those sciences,
Whereof I know she is not ignorant.
Accept of him, or else you do me wrong:
His name is Licio, born in Mantua.

BAPTISTA.
Y’are welcome, sir, and he for your good sake;
But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,
She is not for your turn, the more my grief.

PETRUCHIO.
I see you do not mean to part with her;
Or else you like not of my company.

BAPTISTA.
Mistake me not; I speak but as I find.
Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?

PETRUCHIO.
Petruchio is my name, Antonio’s son;
A man well known throughout all Italy.

BAPTISTA.
I know him well: you are welcome for his sake.

GREMIO.
Saving your tale, Petruchio, I pray,
Let us, that are poor petitioners, speak too.
Backare! you are marvellous forward.

PETRUCHIO.
O, pardon me, Signior Gremio; I would fain be doing.

GREMIO.
I doubt it not, sir; but you will curse your wooing. Neighbour, this is
a gift very grateful, I am sure of it. To express the like kindness,
myself, that have been more kindly beholding to you than any, freely
give unto you this young scholar,

[_Presenting Lucentio._]

that has been long studying at Rheims; as cunning in Greek, Latin, and
other languages, as the other in music and mathematics. His name is
Cambio; pray accept his service.

BAPTISTA.
A thousand thanks, Signior Gremio; welcome, good Cambio. [_To Tranio._]
But, gentle sir, methinks you walk like a stranger. May I be so bold to
know the cause of your coming?

TRANIO.
Pardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,
That, being a stranger in this city here,
Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,
Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.
Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me,
In the preferment of the eldest sister.
This liberty is all that I request,
That, upon knowledge of my parentage,
I may have welcome ’mongst the rest that woo,
And free access and favour as the rest:
And, toward the education of your daughters,
I here bestow a simple instrument,
And this small packet of Greek and Latin books:
If you accept them, then their worth is great.

BAPTISTA.
Lucentio is your name, of whence, I pray?

TRANIO.
Of Pisa, sir; son to Vincentio.

BAPTISTA.
A mighty man of Pisa: by report
I know him well: you are very welcome, sir.
[_To Hortensio_.] Take you the lute,
[_To Lucentio_.] and you the set of books;
You shall go see your pupils presently.
Holla, within!


Enter a Servant.

Sirrah, lead these gentlemen
To my daughters, and tell them both
These are their tutors: bid them use them well.

[_Exeunt Servant with Hortensio, Lucentio and Biondello._]

We will go walk a little in the orchard,
And then to dinner. You are passing welcome,
And so I pray you all to think yourselves.

PETRUCHIO.
Signior Baptista, my business asketh haste,
And every day I cannot come to woo.
You knew my father well, and in him me,
Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,
Which I have bettered rather than decreas’d:
Then tell me, if I get your daughter’s love,
What dowry shall I have with her to wife?

BAPTISTA.
After my death, the one half of my lands,
And in possession twenty thousand crowns.

PETRUCHIO.
And, for that dowry, I’ll assure her of
Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,
In all my lands and leases whatsoever.
Let specialities be therefore drawn between us,
That covenants may be kept on either hand.

BAPTISTA.
Ay, when the special thing is well obtain’d,
That is, her love; for that is all in all.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, that is nothing; for I tell you, father,
I am as peremptory as she proud-minded;
And where two raging fires meet together,
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all;
So I to her, and so she yields to me;
For I am rough and woo not like a babe.

BAPTISTA.
Well mayst thou woo, and happy be thy speed!
But be thou arm’d for some unhappy words.

PETRUCHIO.
Ay, to the proof, as mountains are for winds,
That shake not though they blow perpetually.


Re-enter Hortensio, with his head broke.

BAPTISTA.
How now, my friend! Why dost thou look so pale?

HORTENSIO.
For fear, I promise you, if I look pale.

BAPTISTA.
What, will my daughter prove a good musician?

HORTENSIO.
I think she’ll sooner prove a soldier:
Iron may hold with her, but never lutes.

BAPTISTA.
Why, then thou canst not break her to the lute?

HORTENSIO.
Why, no; for she hath broke the lute to me.
I did but tell her she mistook her frets,
And bow’d her hand to teach her fingering;
When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,
’Frets, call you these?’ quoth she ‘I’ll fume with them’;
And with that word she struck me on the head,
And through the instrument my pate made way;
And there I stood amazed for a while,
As on a pillory, looking through the lute;
While she did call me rascal fiddler,
And twangling Jack, with twenty such vile terms,
As had she studied to misuse me so.

PETRUCHIO.
Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench!
I love her ten times more than e’er I did:
O! how I long to have some chat with her!

BAPTISTA.
[_To Hortensio_.] Well, go with me, and be not so discomfited;
Proceed in practice with my younger daughter;
She’s apt to learn, and thankful for good turns.
Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,
Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?

PETRUCHIO.
I pray you do.

[_Exeunt Baptista, Gremio, Tranio and Hortensio._]

I will attend her here,
And woo her with some spirit when she comes.
Say that she rail; why, then I’ll tell her plain
She sings as sweetly as a nightingale:
Say that she frown; I’ll say she looks as clear
As morning roses newly wash’d with dew:
Say she be mute, and will not speak a word;
Then I’ll commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence:
If she do bid me pack, I’ll give her thanks,
As though she bid me stay by her a week:
If she deny to wed, I’ll crave the day
When I shall ask the banns, and when be married.
But here she comes; and now, Petruchio, speak.


Enter Katherina.

Good morrow, Kate; for that’s your name, I hear.

KATHERINA.
Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing:
They call me Katherine that do talk of me.

PETRUCHIO.
You lie, in faith, for you are call’d plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;
But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness prais’d in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,—
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,—
Myself am mov’d to woo thee for my wife.

KATHERINA.
Mov’d! in good time: let him that mov’d you hither
Remove you hence. I knew you at the first,
You were a moveable.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, what’s a moveable?

KATHERINA.
A joint-stool.

PETRUCHIO.
Thou hast hit it: come, sit on me.

KATHERINA.
Asses are made to bear, and so are you.

PETRUCHIO.
Women are made to bear, and so are you.

KATHERINA.
No such jade as bear you, if me you mean.

PETRUCHIO.
Alas! good Kate, I will not burden thee;
For, knowing thee to be but young and light,—

KATHERINA.
Too light for such a swain as you to catch;
And yet as heavy as my weight should be.

PETRUCHIO.
Should be! should buz!

KATHERINA.
Well ta’en, and like a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO.
O, slow-wing’d turtle! shall a buzzard take thee?

KATHERINA.
Ay, for a turtle, as he takes a buzzard.

PETRUCHIO.
Come, come, you wasp; i’ faith, you are too angry.

KATHERINA.
If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIO.
My remedy is then to pluck it out.

KATHERINA.
Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.

PETRUCHIO.
Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?
In his tail.

KATHERINA.
In his tongue.

PETRUCHIO.
Whose tongue?

KATHERINA.
Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.

PETRUCHIO.
What! with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again,
Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

KATHERINA.
That I’ll try.

[_Striking him._]

PETRUCHIO.
I swear I’ll cuff you if you strike again.

KATHERINA.
So may you lose your arms:
If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

PETRUCHIO.
A herald, Kate? O! put me in thy books.

KATHERINA.
What is your crest? a coxcomb?

PETRUCHIO.
A combless cock, so Kate will be my hen.

KATHERINA.
No cock of mine; you crow too like a craven.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, come, Kate, come; you must not look so sour.

KATHERINA.
It is my fashion when I see a crab.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, here’s no crab, and therefore look not sour.

KATHERINA.
There is, there is.

PETRUCHIO.
Then show it me.

KATHERINA.
Had I a glass I would.

PETRUCHIO.
What, you mean my face?

KATHERINA.
Well aim’d of such a young one.

PETRUCHIO.
Now, by Saint George, I am too young for you.

KATHERINA.
Yet you are wither’d.

PETRUCHIO.
’Tis with cares.

KATHERINA.
I care not.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, hear you, Kate: in sooth, you ’scape not so.

KATHERINA.
I chafe you, if I tarry; let me go.

PETRUCHIO.
No, not a whit; I find you passing gentle.
’Twas told me you were rough, and coy, and sullen,
And now I find report a very liar;
For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
But slow in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers.
Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,
Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,
Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross in talk;
But thou with mildness entertain’st thy wooers;
With gentle conference, soft and affable.
Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
O sland’rous world! Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels.
O! let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.

KATHERINA.
Go, fool, and whom thou keep’st command.

PETRUCHIO.
Did ever Dian so become a grove
As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?
O! be thou Dian, and let her be Kate,
And then let Kate be chaste, and Dian sportful!

KATHERINA.
Where did you study all this goodly speech?

PETRUCHIO.
It is extempore, from my mother-wit.

KATHERINA.
A witty mother! witless else her son.

PETRUCHIO.
Am I not wise?

KATHERINA.
Yes; keep you warm.

PETRUCHIO.
Marry, so I mean, sweet Katherine, in thy bed;
And therefore, setting all this chat aside,
Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented
That you shall be my wife your dowry ’greed on;
And will you, nill you, I will marry you.
Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn;
For, by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,—
Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,—
Thou must be married to no man but me;
For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.


Re-enter Baptista, Gremio and Tranio.

Here comes your father. Never make denial;
I must and will have Katherine to my wife.

BAPTISTA.
Now, Signior Petruchio, how speed you with my daughter?

PETRUCHIO.
How but well, sir? how but well?
It were impossible I should speed amiss.

BAPTISTA.
Why, how now, daughter Katherine, in your dumps?

KATHERINA.
Call you me daughter? Now I promise you
You have show’d a tender fatherly regard
To wish me wed to one half lunatic,
A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.

PETRUCHIO.
Father, ’tis thus: yourself and all the world
That talk’d of her have talk’d amiss of her:
If she be curst, it is for policy,
For she’s not froward, but modest as the dove;
She is not hot, but temperate as the morn;
For patience she will prove a second Grissel,
And Roman Lucrece for her chastity;
And to conclude, we have ’greed so well together
That upon Sunday is the wedding-day.

KATHERINA.
I’ll see thee hang’d on Sunday first.

GREMIO.
Hark, Petruchio; she says she’ll see thee hang’d first.

TRANIO.
Is this your speeding? Nay, then good-night our part!

PETRUCHIO.
Be patient, gentlemen. I choose her for myself;
If she and I be pleas’d, what’s that to you?
’Tis bargain’d ’twixt us twain, being alone,
That she shall still be curst in company.
I tell you, ’tis incredible to believe
How much she loves me: O! the kindest Kate
She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss
She vied so fast, protesting oath on oath,
That in a twink she won me to her love.
O! you are novices: ’tis a world to see,
How tame, when men and women are alone,
A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.
Give me thy hand, Kate; I will unto Venice,
To buy apparel ’gainst the wedding-day.
Provide the feast, father, and bid the guests;
I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.

BAPTISTA.
I know not what to say; but give me your hands.
God send you joy, Petruchio! ’Tis a match.

GREMIO, TRANIO.
Amen, say we; we will be witnesses.

PETRUCHIO.
Father, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.
I will to Venice; Sunday comes apace;
We will have rings and things, and fine array;
And kiss me, Kate; we will be married o’ Sunday.

[_Exeunt Petruchio and Katherina, severally._]

GREMIO.
Was ever match clapp’d up so suddenly?

BAPTISTA.
Faith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant’s part,
And venture madly on a desperate mart.

TRANIO.
’Twas a commodity lay fretting by you;
’Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.

BAPTISTA.
The gain I seek is, quiet in the match.

GREMIO.
No doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.
But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter:
Now is the day we long have looked for;
I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.

TRANIO.
And I am one that love Bianca more
Than words can witness or your thoughts can guess.

GREMIO.
Youngling, thou canst not love so dear as I.

TRANIO.
Greybeard, thy love doth freeze.

GREMIO.
But thine doth fry.
Skipper, stand back; ’tis age that nourisheth.

TRANIO.
But youth in ladies’ eyes that flourisheth.

BAPTISTA.
Content you, gentlemen; I’ll compound this strife:
’Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca’s love.
Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?

GREMIO.
First, as you know, my house within the city
Is richly furnished with plate and gold:
Basins and ewers to lave her dainty hands;
My hangings all of Tyrian tapestry;
In ivory coffers I have stuff’d my crowns;
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Costly apparel, tents, and canopies,
Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss’d with pearl,
Valance of Venice gold in needlework;
Pewter and brass, and all things that belong
To house or housekeeping: then, at my farm
I have a hundred milch-kine to the pail,
Six score fat oxen standing in my stalls,
And all things answerable to this portion.
Myself am struck in years, I must confess;
And if I die tomorrow this is hers,
If whilst I live she will be only mine.

TRANIO.
That ‘only’ came well in. Sir, list to me:
I am my father’s heir and only son;
If I may have your daughter to my wife,
I’ll leave her houses three or four as good
Within rich Pisa’s walls as anyone
Old Signior Gremio has in Padua;
Besides two thousand ducats by the year
Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.
What, have I pinch’d you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIO.
Two thousand ducats by the year of land!
My land amounts not to so much in all:
That she shall have, besides an argosy
That now is lying in Marseilles’ road.
What, have I chok’d you with an argosy?

TRANIO.
Gremio, ’tis known my father hath no less
Than three great argosies, besides two galliasses,
And twelve tight galleys; these I will assure her,
And twice as much, whate’er thou offer’st next.

GREMIO.
Nay, I have offer’d all; I have no more;
And she can have no more than all I have;
If you like me, she shall have me and mine.

TRANIO.
Why, then the maid is mine from all the world,
By your firm promise; Gremio is out-vied.

BAPTISTA.
I must confess your offer is the best;
And let your father make her the assurance,
She is your own; else, you must pardon me;
If you should die before him, where’s her dower?

TRANIO.
That’s but a cavil; he is old, I young.

GREMIO.
And may not young men die as well as old?

BAPTISTA.
Well, gentlemen,
I am thus resolv’d. On Sunday next, you know,
My daughter Katherine is to be married;
Now, on the Sunday following, shall Bianca
Be bride to you, if you make this assurance;
If not, to Signior Gremio.
And so I take my leave, and thank you both.

GREMIO.
Adieu, good neighbour.

[_Exit Baptista._]

Now, I fear thee not:
Sirrah young gamester, your father were a fool
To give thee all, and in his waning age
Set foot under thy table. Tut! a toy!
An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.

[_Exit._]

TRANIO.
A vengeance on your crafty wither’d hide!
Yet I have fac’d it with a card of ten.
’Tis in my head to do my master good:
I see no reason but suppos’d Lucentio
Must get a father, call’d suppos’d Vincentio;
And that’s a wonder: fathers commonly
Do get their children; but in this case of wooing
A child shall get a sire, if I fail not of my cunning.

[_Exit._]




ACT III

SCENE I. Padua. A room in BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Lucentio, Hortensio and Bianca.

LUCENTIO.
Fiddler, forbear; you grow too forward, sir.
Have you so soon forgot the entertainment
Her sister Katherine welcome’d you withal?

HORTENSIO.
But, wrangling pedant, this is
The patroness of heavenly harmony:
Then give me leave to have prerogative;
And when in music we have spent an hour,
Your lecture shall have leisure for as much.

LUCENTIO.
Preposterous ass, that never read so far
To know the cause why music was ordain’d!
Was it not to refresh the mind of man
After his studies or his usual pain?
Then give me leave to read philosophy,
And while I pause serve in your harmony.

HORTENSIO.
Sirrah, I will not bear these braves of thine.

BIANCA.
Why, gentlemen, you do me double wrong,
To strive for that which resteth in my choice.
I am no breeching scholar in the schools,
I’ll not be tied to hours nor ’pointed times,
But learn my lessons as I please myself.
And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down;
Take you your instrument, play you the whiles;
His lecture will be done ere you have tun’d.

HORTENSIO.
You’ll leave his lecture when I am in tune?

[_Retires._]

LUCENTIO.
That will be never: tune your instrument.

BIANCA.
Where left we last?

LUCENTIO.
Here, madam:—
_Hic ibat Simois; hic est Sigeia tellus;
Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis._

BIANCA.
Construe them.

LUCENTIO.
_Hic ibat_, as I told you before, _Simois_, I am Lucentio, _hic est_,
son unto Vincentio of Pisa, _Sigeia tellus_, disguised thus to get your
love, _Hic steterat_, and that Lucentio that comes a-wooing, _Priami_,
is my man Tranio, _regia_, bearing my port, _celsa senis_, that we
might beguile the old pantaloon.

HORTENSIO. [_Returning._]
Madam, my instrument’s in tune.

BIANCA.
Let’s hear.—

[Hortensio _plays._]

O fie! the treble jars.

LUCENTIO.
Spit in the hole, man, and tune again.

BIANCA.
Now let me see if I can construe it: _Hic ibat Simois_, I know you not;
_hic est Sigeia tellus_, I trust you not; _Hic steterat Priami_, take
heed he hear us not; _regia_, presume not; _celsa senis_, despair not.

HORTENSIO.
Madam, ’tis now in tune.

LUCENTIO.
All but the base.

HORTENSIO.
The base is right; ’tis the base knave that jars.
[_Aside_] How fiery and forward our pedant is!
Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love:
Pedascule, I’ll watch you better yet.

BIANCA.
In time I may believe, yet I mistrust.

LUCENTIO.
Mistrust it not; for sure, Æacides
Was Ajax, call’d so from his grandfather.

BIANCA.
I must believe my master; else, I promise you,
I should be arguing still upon that doubt;
But let it rest. Now, Licio, to you.
Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,
That I have been thus pleasant with you both.

HORTENSIO.
[_To Lucentio_] You may go walk and give me leave a while;
My lessons make no music in three parts.

LUCENTIO.
Are you so formal, sir? Well, I must wait,
[_Aside_] And watch withal; for, but I be deceiv’d,
Our fine musician groweth amorous.

HORTENSIO.
Madam, before you touch the instrument,
To learn the order of my fingering,
I must begin with rudiments of art;
To teach you gamut in a briefer sort,
More pleasant, pithy, and effectual,
Than hath been taught by any of my trade:
And there it is in writing, fairly drawn.

BIANCA.
Why, I am past my gamut long ago.

HORTENSIO.
Yet read the gamut of Hortensio.

BIANCA.
   _Gamut_ I am, the ground of all accord,
     _A re_, to plead Hortensio’s passion;
   _B mi_, Bianca, take him for thy lord,
     _C fa ut_, that loves with all affection:
   _D sol re_, one clef, two notes have I
   _E la mi_, show pity or I die.
Call you this gamut? Tut, I like it not:
Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice,
To change true rules for odd inventions.


Enter a Servant.

SERVANT.
Mistress, your father prays you leave your books,
And help to dress your sister’s chamber up:
You know tomorrow is the wedding-day.

BIANCA.
Farewell, sweet masters, both: I must be gone.

[_Exeunt Bianca and Servant._]

LUCENTIO.
Faith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.

[_Exit._]

HORTENSIO.
But I have cause to pry into this pedant:
Methinks he looks as though he were in love.
Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble
To cast thy wand’ring eyes on every stale,
Seize thee that list: if once I find thee ranging,
Hortensio will be quit with thee by changing.

[_Exit._]




SCENE II. The same. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Baptista, Gremio, Tranio, Katherina, Bianca, Lucentio and
Attendants.

BAPTISTA.  [_To Tranio_.]
Signior Lucentio, this is the ’pointed day
That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,
And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.
What will be said? What mockery will it be
To want the bridegroom when the priest attends
To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage!
What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?

KATHERINA.
No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forc’d
To give my hand, oppos’d against my heart,
Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen;
Who woo’d in haste and means to wed at leisure.
I told you, I, he was a frantic fool,
Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour;
And to be noted for a merry man,
He’ll woo a thousand, ’point the day of marriage,
Make friends, invite, and proclaim the banns;
Yet never means to wed where he hath woo’d.
Now must the world point at poor Katherine,
And say ‘Lo! there is mad Petruchio’s wife,
If it would please him come and marry her.’

TRANIO.
Patience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.
Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,
Whatever fortune stays him from his word:
Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise;
Though he be merry, yet withal he’s honest.

KATHERINA.
Would Katherine had never seen him though!

[_Exit weeping, followed by Bianca and others._]

BAPTISTA.
Go, girl, I cannot blame thee now to weep,
For such an injury would vex a very saint;
Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.


Enter Biondello.

Master, master! News! old news, and such news as you never heard of!

BAPTISTA.
Is it new and old too? How may that be?

BIONDELLO.
Why, is it not news to hear of Petruchio’s coming?

BAPTISTA.
Is he come?

BIONDELLO.
Why, no, sir.

BAPTISTA.
What then?

BIONDELLO.
He is coming.

BAPTISTA.
When will he be here?

BIONDELLO.
When he stands where I am and sees you there.

TRANIO.
But say, what to thine old news?

BIONDELLO.
Why, Petruchio is coming, in a new hat and an old jerkin; a pair of old
breeches thrice turned; a pair of boots that have been candle-cases,
one buckled, another laced; an old rusty sword ta’en out of the town
armoury, with a broken hilt, and chapeless; with two broken points: his
horse hipped with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred;
besides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the chine;
troubled with the lampass, infected with the fashions, full of
windgalls, sped with spavins, rayed with the yellows, past cure of the
fives, stark spoiled with the staggers, begnawn with the bots, swayed
in the back and shoulder-shotten; near-legged before, and with a
half-checked bit, and a head-stall of sheep’s leather, which, being
restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst, and now
repaired with knots; one girth six times pieced, and a woman’s crupper
of velure, which hath two letters for her name fairly set down in
studs, and here and there pieced with pack-thread.

BAPTISTA.
Who comes with him?

BIONDELLO.
O, sir! his lackey, for all the world caparisoned like the horse; with
a linen stock on one leg and a kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered
with a red and blue list; an old hat, and the humour of forty fancies
prick’d in’t for a feather: a monster, a very monster in apparel, and
not like a Christian footboy or a gentleman’s lackey.

TRANIO.
’Tis some odd humour pricks him to this fashion;
Yet oftentimes lie goes but mean-apparell’d.

BAPTISTA.
I am glad he’s come, howsoe’er he comes.

BIONDELLO.
Why, sir, he comes not.

BAPTISTA.
Didst thou not say he comes?

BIONDELLO.
Who? that Petruchio came?

BAPTISTA.
Ay, that Petruchio came.

BIONDELLO.
No, sir; I say his horse comes, with him on his back.

BAPTISTA.
Why, that’s all one.

BIONDELLO.
     Nay, by Saint Jamy,
     I hold you a penny,
     A horse and a man
     Is more than one,
     And yet not many.


Enter Petruchio and Grumio.

PETRUCHIO.
Come, where be these gallants? Who is at home?

BAPTISTA.
You are welcome, sir.

PETRUCHIO.
And yet I come not well.

BAPTISTA.
And yet you halt not.

TRANIO.
Not so well apparell’d as I wish you were.

PETRUCHIO.
Were it better, I should rush in thus.
But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?
How does my father? Gentles, methinks you frown;
And wherefore gaze this goodly company,
As if they saw some wondrous monument,
Some comet or unusual prodigy?

BAPTISTA.
Why, sir, you know this is your wedding-day:
First were we sad, fearing you would not come;
Now sadder, that you come so unprovided.
Fie! doff this habit, shame to your estate,
An eye-sore to our solemn festival.

TRANIO.
And tell us what occasion of import
Hath all so long detain’d you from your wife,
And sent you hither so unlike yourself?

PETRUCHIO.
Tedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear;
Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,
Though in some part enforced to digress;
Which at more leisure I will so excuse
As you shall well be satisfied withal.
But where is Kate? I stay too long from her;
The morning wears, ’tis time we were at church.

TRANIO.
See not your bride in these unreverent robes;
Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.

PETRUCHIO.
Not I, believe me: thus I’ll visit her.

BAPTISTA.
But thus, I trust, you will not marry her.

PETRUCHIO.
Good sooth, even thus; therefore ha’ done with words;
To me she’s married, not unto my clothes.
Could I repair what she will wear in me
As I can change these poor accoutrements,
’Twere well for Kate and better for myself.
But what a fool am I to chat with you
When I should bid good morrow to my bride,
And seal the title with a lovely kiss!

[_Exeunt Petruchio, Grumio and Biondello._]

TRANIO.
He hath some meaning in his mad attire.
We will persuade him, be it possible,
To put on better ere he go to church.

BAPTISTA.
I’ll after him and see the event of this.

[_Exeunt Baptista, Gremio and Attendants._]

TRANIO.
But, sir, to love concerneth us to add
Her father’s liking; which to bring to pass,
As I before imparted to your worship,
I am to get a man,—whate’er he be
It skills not much; we’ll fit him to our turn,—
And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa,
And make assurance here in Padua,
Of greater sums than I have promised.
So shall you quietly enjoy your hope,
And marry sweet Bianca with consent.

LUCENTIO.
Were it not that my fellow schoolmaster
Doth watch Bianca’s steps so narrowly,
’Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage;
Which once perform’d, let all the world say no,
I’ll keep mine own despite of all the world.

TRANIO.
That by degrees we mean to look into,
And watch our vantage in this business.
We’ll over-reach the greybeard, Gremio,
The narrow-prying father, Minola,
The quaint musician, amorous Licio;
All for my master’s sake, Lucentio.


Re-enter Gremio.

Signior Gremio, came you from the church?

GREMIO.
As willingly as e’er I came from school.

TRANIO.
And is the bride and bridegroom coming home?

GREMIO.
A bridegroom, say you? ’Tis a groom indeed,
A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.

TRANIO.
Curster than she? Why, ’tis impossible.

GREMIO.
Why, he’s a devil, a devil, a very fiend.

TRANIO.
Why, she’s a devil, a devil, the devil’s dam.

GREMIO.
Tut! she’s a lamb, a dove, a fool, to him.
I’ll tell you, Sir Lucentio: when the priest
Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,
’Ay, by gogs-wouns’ quoth he, and swore so loud
That, all amaz’d, the priest let fall the book;
And as he stoop’d again to take it up,
The mad-brain’d bridegroom took him such a cuff
That down fell priest and book, and book and priest:
‘Now take them up,’ quoth he ‘if any list.’

TRANIO.
What said the wench, when he rose again?

GREMIO.
Trembled and shook, for why, he stamp’d and swore
As if the vicar meant to cozen him.
But after many ceremonies done,
He calls for wine: ‘A health!’ quoth he, as if
He had been abroad, carousing to his mates
After a storm; quaff’d off the muscadel,
And threw the sops all in the sexton’s face,
Having no other reason
But that his beard grew thin and hungerly
And seem’d to ask him sops as he was drinking.
This done, he took the bride about the neck,
And kiss’d her lips with such a clamorous smack
That at the parting all the church did echo.
And I, seeing this, came thence for very shame;
And after me, I know, the rout is coming.
Such a mad marriage never was before.
Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels play.

[_Music plays._]

Enter Petrucio, Katherina, Bianca, Baptista, Hortensio, Grumio and
Train.

PETRUCHIO.
Gentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains:
I know you think to dine with me today,
And have prepar’d great store of wedding cheer
But so it is, my haste doth call me hence,
And therefore here I mean to take my leave.

BAPTISTA.
Is’t possible you will away tonight?

PETRUCHIO.
I must away today before night come.
Make it no wonder: if you knew my business,
You would entreat me rather go than stay.
And, honest company, I thank you all,
That have beheld me give away myself
To this most patient, sweet, and virtuous wife.
Dine with my father, drink a health to me.
For I must hence; and farewell to you all.

TRANIO.
Let us entreat you stay till after dinner.

PETRUCHIO.
It may not be.

GREMIO.
Let me entreat you.

PETRUCHIO.
It cannot be.

KATHERINA.
Let me entreat you.

PETRUCHIO.
I am content.

KATHERINA.
Are you content to stay?

PETRUCHIO.
I am content you shall entreat me stay;
But yet not stay, entreat me how you can.

KATHERINA.
Now, if you love me, stay.

PETRUCHIO.
Grumio, my horse!

GRUMIO.
Ay, sir, they be ready; the oats have eaten the horses.

KATHERINA.
Nay, then,
Do what thou canst, I will not go today;
No, nor tomorrow, not till I please myself.
The door is open, sir; there lies your way;
You may be jogging whiles your boots are green;
For me, I’ll not be gone till I please myself.
’Tis like you’ll prove a jolly surly groom
That take it on you at the first so roundly.

PETRUCHIO.
O Kate! content thee: prithee be not angry.

KATHERINA.
I will be angry: what hast thou to do?
Father, be quiet; he shall stay my leisure.

GREMIO.
Ay, marry, sir, now it begins to work.

KATHERINA.
Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner:
I see a woman may be made a fool,
If she had not a spirit to resist.

PETRUCHIO.
They shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.
Obey the bride, you that attend on her;
Go to the feast, revel and domineer,
Carouse full measure to her maidenhead,
Be mad and merry, or go hang yourselves:
But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.
Nay, look not big, nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret;
I will be master of what is mine own.
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything;
And here she stands, touch her whoever dare;
I’ll bring mine action on the proudest he
That stops my way in Padua. Grumio,
Draw forth thy weapon; we are beset with thieves;
Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.
Fear not, sweet wench; they shall not touch thee, Kate;
I’ll buckler thee against a million.

[_Exeunt Petrucio, Katherina and Grumio._]

BAPTISTA.
Nay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.

GREMIO.
Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.

TRANIO.
Of all mad matches, never was the like.

LUCENTIO.
Mistress, what’s your opinion of your sister?

BIANCA.
That, being mad herself, she’s madly mated.

GREMIO.
I warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.

BAPTISTA.
Neighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants
For to supply the places at the table,
You know there wants no junkets at the feast.
Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom’s place;
And let Bianca take her sister’s room.

TRANIO.
Shall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?

BAPTISTA.
She shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let’s go.

[_Exeunt._]




ACT IV

SCENE I. A hall in PETRUCHIO’S country house.

Enter Grumio.

GRUMIO.
Fie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and all foul ways! Was
ever man so beaten? Was ever man so ray’d? Was ever man so weary? I am
sent before to make a fire, and they are coming after to warm them.
Now, were not I a little pot and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to
my teeth, my tongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere
I should come by a fire to thaw me. But I with blowing the fire shall
warm myself; for, considering the weather, a taller man than I will
take cold. Holla, ho! Curtis!

Enter Curtis.

CURTIS.
Who is that calls so coldly?

GRUMIO.
A piece of ice: if thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from my shoulder to
my heel with no greater a run but my head and my neck. A fire, good
Curtis.

CURTIS.
Is my master and his wife coming, Grumio?

GRUMIO.
O, ay! Curtis, ay; and therefore fire, fire; cast on no water.

CURTIS.
Is she so hot a shrew as she’s reported?

GRUMIO.
She was, good Curtis, before this frost; but thou knowest winter tames
man, woman, and beast; for it hath tamed my old master, and my new
mistress, and myself, fellow Curtis.

CURTIS.
Away, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.

GRUMIO.
Am I but three inches? Why, thy horn is a foot; and so long am I at the
least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain on thee to our
mistress, whose hand,—she being now at hand,— thou shalt soon feel, to
thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?

CURTIS.
I prithee, good Grumio, tell me, how goes the world?

GRUMIO.
A cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine; and therefore fire. Do
thy duty, and have thy duty, for my master and mistress are almost
frozen to death.

CURTIS.
There’s fire ready; and therefore, good Grumio, the news.

GRUMIO.
Why, ‘Jack boy! ho, boy!’ and as much news as wilt thou.

CURTIS.
Come, you are so full of cony-catching.

GRUMIO.
Why, therefore, fire; for I have caught extreme cold. Where’s the cook?
Is supper ready, the house trimmed, rushes strewed, cobwebs swept, the
servingmen in their new fustian, their white stockings, and every
officer his wedding-garment on? Be the Jacks fair within, the Jills
fair without, and carpets laid, and everything in order?

CURTIS.
All ready; and therefore, I pray thee, news.

GRUMIO.
First, know my horse is tired; my master and mistress fallen out.

CURTIS.
How?

GRUMIO.
Out of their saddles into the dirt; and thereby hangs a tale.

CURTIS.
Let’s ha’t, good Grumio.

GRUMIO.
Lend thine ear.

CURTIS.
Here.

GRUMIO.
[_Striking him._] There.

CURTIS.
This ’tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.

GRUMIO.
And therefore ’tis called a sensible tale; and this cuff was but to
knock at your ear and beseech listening. Now I begin: _Imprimis_, we
came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress,—

CURTIS.
Both of one horse?

GRUMIO.
What’s that to thee?

CURTIS.
Why, a horse.

GRUMIO.
Tell thou the tale: but hadst thou not crossed me, thou shouldst have
heard how her horse fell, and she under her horse; thou shouldst have
heard in how miry a place, how she was bemoiled; how he left her with
the horse upon her; how he beat me because her horse stumbled; how she
waded through the dirt to pluck him off me: how he swore; how she
prayed, that never prayed before; how I cried; how the horses ran away;
how her bridle was burst; how I lost my crupper; with many things of
worthy memory, which now shall die in oblivion, and thou return
unexperienced to thy grave.

CURTIS.
By this reckoning he is more shrew than she.

GRUMIO.
Ay; and that thou and the proudest of you all shall find when he comes
home. But what talk I of this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas,
Philip, Walter, Sugarsop, and the rest; let their heads be sleekly
combed, their blue coats brush’d and their garters of an indifferent
knit; let them curtsy with their left legs, and not presume to touch a
hair of my master’s horse-tail till they kiss their hands. Are they all
ready?

CURTIS.
They are.

GRUMIO.
Call them forth.

CURTIS.
Do you hear? ho! You must meet my master to countenance my mistress.

GRUMIO.
Why, she hath a face of her own.

CURTIS.
Who knows not that?

GRUMIO.
Thou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance her.

CURTIS.
I call them forth to credit her.

GRUMIO.
Why, she comes to borrow nothing of them.


Enter four or five Servants.

NATHANIEL.
Welcome home, Grumio!

PHILIP.
How now, Grumio!

JOSEPH.
What, Grumio!

NICHOLAS.
Fellow Grumio!

NATHANIEL.
How now, old lad!

GRUMIO.
Welcome, you; how now, you; what, you; fellow, you; and thus much for
greeting. Now, my spruce companions, is all ready, and all things neat?

NATHANIEL.
All things is ready. How near is our master?

GRUMIO.
E’en at hand, alighted by this; and therefore be not,—
Cock’s passion, silence! I hear my master.


Enter Petrucio and Katherina.

PETRUCHIO.
Where be these knaves? What! no man at door
To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse?
Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?—

ALL SERVANTS.
Here, here, sir; here, sir.

PETRUCHIO.
Here, sir! here, sir! here, sir! here, sir!
You logger-headed and unpolish’d grooms!
What, no attendance? no regard? no duty?
Where is the foolish knave I sent before?

GRUMIO.
Here, sir; as foolish as I was before.

PETRUCHIO.
You peasant swain! you whoreson malt-horse drudge!
Did I not bid thee meet me in the park,
And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?

GRUMIO.
Nathaniel’s coat, sir, was not fully made,
And Gabriel’s pumps were all unpink’d i’ the heel;
There was no link to colour Peter’s hat,
And Walter’s dagger was not come from sheathing;
There was none fine but Adam, Ralph, and Gregory;
The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly;
Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.

PETRUCHIO.
Go, rascals, go and fetch my supper in.

[_Exeunt some of the Servants._]

Where is the life that late I led?
   Where are those—?  Sit down, Kate, and welcome.
Food, food, food, food!


Re-enter Servants with supper.

Why, when, I say?—Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.—
Off with my boots, you rogues! you villains! when?
   It was the friar of orders grey,
   As he forth walked on his way:
Out, you rogue! you pluck my foot awry:

[_Strikes him._]

Take that, and mend the plucking off the other.
Be merry, Kate. Some water, here; what, ho!
Where’s my spaniel Troilus? Sirrah, get you hence
And bid my cousin Ferdinand come hither:

[_Exit Servant._]

One, Kate, that you must kiss and be acquainted with.
Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?
Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.—

[_Servant lets the ewer fall. Petruchio strikes him._]

You whoreson villain! will you let it fall?

KATHERINA.
Patience, I pray you; ’twas a fault unwilling.

PETRUCHIO.
A whoreson, beetle-headed, flap-ear’d knave!
Come, Kate, sit down; I know you have a stomach.
Will you give thanks, sweet Kate, or else shall I?—
What’s this? Mutton?

FIRST SERVANT.
Ay.

PETRUCHIO.
Who brought it?

PETER.
I.

PETRUCHIO.
’Tis burnt; and so is all the meat.
What dogs are these! Where is the rascal cook?
How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser,
And serve it thus to me that love it not?

[_Throws the meat, etc., at them._]

There, take it to you, trenchers, cups, and all.
You heedless joltheads and unmanner’d slaves!
What! do you grumble? I’ll be with you straight.

KATHERINA.
I pray you, husband, be not so disquiet;
The meat was well, if you were so contented.

PETRUCHIO.
I tell thee, Kate, ’twas burnt and dried away,
And I expressly am forbid to touch it;
For it engenders choler, planteth anger;
And better ’twere that both of us did fast,
Since, of ourselves, ourselves are choleric,
Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.
Be patient; tomorrow ’t shall be mended.
And for this night we’ll fast for company:
Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.

[_Exeunt Petruchio, Katherina and Curtis._]

NATHANIEL.
Peter, didst ever see the like?

PETER.
He kills her in her own humour.


Re-enter Curtis.

GRUMIO.
Where is he?

CURTIS.
In her chamber, making a sermon of continency to her;
And rails, and swears, and rates, that she, poor soul,
Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,
And sits as one new risen from a dream.
Away, away! for he is coming hither.

[_Exeunt._]

Re-enter Petruchio.

PETRUCHIO.
Thus have I politicly begun my reign,
And ’tis my hope to end successfully.
My falcon now is sharp and passing empty.
And till she stoop she must not be full-gorg’d,
For then she never looks upon her lure.
Another way I have to man my haggard,
To make her come, and know her keeper’s call,
That is, to watch her, as we watch these kites
That bate and beat, and will not be obedient.
She eat no meat today, nor none shall eat;
Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not;
As with the meat, some undeserved fault
I’ll find about the making of the bed;
And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the bolster,
This way the coverlet, another way the sheets;
Ay, and amid this hurly I intend
That all is done in reverend care of her;
And, in conclusion, she shall watch all night:
And if she chance to nod I’ll rail and brawl,
And with the clamour keep her still awake.
This is a way to kill a wife with kindness;
And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
Now let him speak; ’tis charity to show.

[_Exit._]




SCENE II. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Tranio and Hortensio.

TRANIO.
Is ’t possible, friend Licio, that Mistress Bianca
Doth fancy any other but Lucentio?
I tell you, sir, she bears me fair in hand.

HORTENSIO.
Sir, to satisfy you in what I have said,
Stand by and mark the manner of his teaching.

[_They stand aside._]

Enter Bianca and Lucentio.

LUCENTIO.
Now, mistress, profit you in what you read?

BIANCA.
What, master, read you? First resolve me that.

LUCENTIO.
I read that I profess, _The Art to Love_.

BIANCA.
And may you prove, sir, master of your art!

LUCENTIO.
While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart.

[_They retire._]

HORTENSIO.
Quick proceeders, marry! Now tell me, I pray,
You that durst swear that your Mistress Bianca
Lov’d none in the world so well as Lucentio.

TRANIO.
O despiteful love! unconstant womankind!
I tell thee, Licio, this is wonderful.

HORTENSIO.
Mistake no more; I am not Licio.
Nor a musician as I seem to be;
But one that scorn to live in this disguise
For such a one as leaves a gentleman
And makes a god of such a cullion:
Know, sir, that I am call’d Hortensio.

TRANIO.
Signior Hortensio, I have often heard
Of your entire affection to Bianca;
And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,
I will with you, if you be so contented,
Forswear Bianca and her love for ever.

HORTENSIO.
See, how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,
Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow
Never to woo her more, but do forswear her,
As one unworthy all the former favours
That I have fondly flatter’d her withal.

TRANIO.
And here I take the like unfeigned oath,
Never to marry with her though she would entreat;
Fie on her! See how beastly she doth court him!

HORTENSIO.
Would all the world but he had quite forsworn!
For me, that I may surely keep mine oath,
I will be married to a wealthy widow
Ere three days pass, which hath as long lov’d me
As I have lov’d this proud disdainful haggard.
And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love; and so I take my leave,
In resolution as I swore before.

[_Exit Hortensio. Lucentio and Bianca advance._]

TRANIO.
Mistress Bianca, bless you with such grace
As ’longeth to a lover’s blessed case!
Nay, I have ta’en you napping, gentle love,
And have forsworn you with Hortensio.

BIANCA.
Tranio, you jest; but have you both forsworn me?

TRANIO.
Mistress, we have.

LUCENTIO.
Then we are rid of Licio.

TRANIO.
I’ faith, he’ll have a lusty widow now,
That shall be woo’d and wedded in a day.

BIANCA.
God give him joy!

TRANIO.
Ay, and he’ll tame her.

BIANCA.
He says so, Tranio.

TRANIO.
Faith, he is gone unto the taming-school.

BIANCA.
The taming-school! What, is there such a place?

TRANIO.
Ay, mistress; and Petruchio is the master,
That teacheth tricks eleven and twenty long,
To tame a shrew and charm her chattering tongue.


Enter Biondello, running.

BIONDELLO.
O master, master! I have watch’d so long
That I am dog-weary; but at last I spied
An ancient angel coming down the hill
Will serve the turn.

TRANIO.
What is he, Biondello?

BIONDELLO.
Master, a mercatante or a pedant,
I know not what; but formal in apparel,
In gait and countenance surely like a father.

LUCENTIO.
And what of him, Tranio?

TRANIO.
If he be credulous and trust my tale,
I’ll make him glad to seem Vincentio,
And give assurance to Baptista Minola,
As if he were the right Vincentio.
Take in your love, and then let me alone.

[_Exeunt Lucentio and Bianca._]

Enter a Pedant.

PEDANT.
God save you, sir!

TRANIO.
And you, sir! you are welcome.
Travel you far on, or are you at the farthest?

PEDANT.
Sir, at the farthest for a week or two;
But then up farther, and as far as Rome;
And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.

TRANIO.
What countryman, I pray?

PEDANT.
Of Mantua.

TRANIO.
Of Mantua, sir?  Marry, God forbid,
And come to Padua, careless of your life!

PEDANT.
My life, sir! How, I pray? for that goes hard.

TRANIO.
’Tis death for anyone in Mantua
To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?
Your ships are stay’d at Venice; and the Duke,—
For private quarrel ’twixt your Duke and him,—
Hath publish’d and proclaim’d it openly.
’Tis marvel, but that you are but newly come
You might have heard it else proclaim’d about.

PEDANT.
Alas, sir! it is worse for me than so;
For I have bills for money by exchange
From Florence, and must here deliver them.

TRANIO.
Well, sir, to do you courtesy,
This will I do, and this I will advise you:
First, tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?

PEDANT.
Ay, sir, in Pisa have I often been,
Pisa renowned for grave citizens.

TRANIO.
Among them know you one Vincentio?

PEDANT.
I know him not, but I have heard of him,
A merchant of incomparable wealth.

TRANIO.
He is my father, sir; and, sooth to say,
In countenance somewhat doth resemble you.

BIONDELLO.
[_Aside._]  As much as an apple doth an oyster, and all one.

TRANIO.
To save your life in this extremity,
This favour will I do you for his sake;
And think it not the worst of all your fortunes
That you are like to Sir Vincentio.
His name and credit shall you undertake,
And in my house you shall be friendly lodg’d;
Look that you take upon you as you should!
You understand me, sir; so shall you stay
Till you have done your business in the city.
If this be courtesy, sir, accept of it.

PEDANT.
O, sir, I do; and will repute you ever
The patron of my life and liberty.

TRANIO.
Then go with me to make the matter good.
This, by the way, I let you understand:
My father is here look’d for every day
To pass assurance of a dower in marriage
’Twixt me and one Baptista’s daughter here:
In all these circumstances I’ll instruct you.
Go with me to clothe you as becomes you.

[_Exeunt._]




SCENE III. A room in PETRUCHIO’S house.

Enter Katherina and Grumio.

GRUMIO.
No, no, forsooth; I dare not for my life.

KATHERINA.
The more my wrong, the more his spite appears.
What, did he marry me to famish me?
Beggars that come unto my father’s door
Upon entreaty have a present alms;
If not, elsewhere they meet with charity;
But I, who never knew how to entreat,
Nor never needed that I should entreat,
Am starv’d for meat, giddy for lack of sleep;
With oaths kept waking, and with brawling fed.
And that which spites me more than all these wants,
He does it under name of perfect love;
As who should say, if I should sleep or eat
’Twere deadly sickness, or else present death.
I prithee go and get me some repast;
I care not what, so it be wholesome food.

GRUMIO.
What say you to a neat’s foot?

KATHERINA.
’Tis passing good; I prithee let me have it.

GRUMIO.
I fear it is too choleric a meat.
How say you to a fat tripe finely broil’d?

KATHERINA.
I like it well; good Grumio, fetch it me.

GRUMIO.
I cannot tell; I fear ’tis choleric.
What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?

KATHERINA.
A dish that I do love to feed upon.

GRUMIO.
Ay, but the mustard is too hot a little.

KATHERINA.
Why then the beef, and let the mustard rest.

GRUMIO.
Nay, then I will not: you shall have the mustard,
Or else you get no beef of Grumio.

KATHERINA.
Then both, or one, or anything thou wilt.

GRUMIO.
Why then the mustard without the beef.

KATHERINA.
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave,

[_Beats him._]

That feed’st me with the very name of meat.
Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you
That triumph thus upon my misery!
Go, get thee gone, I say.


Enter Petruchio with a dish of meat; and Hortensio.

PETRUCHIO.
How fares my Kate? What, sweeting, all amort?

HORTENSIO.
Mistress, what cheer?

KATHERINA.
Faith, as cold as can be.

PETRUCHIO.
Pluck up thy spirits; look cheerfully upon me.
Here, love; thou seest how diligent I am,
To dress thy meat myself, and bring it thee:

[_Sets the dish on a table._]

I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.
What! not a word? Nay, then thou lov’st it not,
And all my pains is sorted to no proof.
Here, take away this dish.

KATHERINA.
I pray you, let it stand.

PETRUCHIO.
The poorest service is repaid with thanks;
And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.

KATHERINA.
I thank you, sir.

HORTENSIO.
Signior Petruchio, fie! you are to blame.
Come, Mistress Kate, I’ll bear you company.

PETRUCHIO.
[_Aside._]  Eat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me.
Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!
Kate, eat apace: and now, my honey love,
Will we return unto thy father’s house
And revel it as bravely as the best,
With silken coats and caps, and golden rings,
With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things;
With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery,
With amber bracelets, beads, and all this knavery.
What! hast thou din’d? The tailor stays thy leisure,
To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.


Enter Tailor.

Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments;
Lay forth the gown.—


Enter Haberdasher.

What news with you, sir?

HABERDASHER.
Here is the cap your worship did bespeak.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, this was moulded on a porringer;
A velvet dish: fie, fie! ’tis lewd and filthy:
Why, ’tis a cockle or a walnut-shell,
A knack, a toy, a trick, a baby’s cap:
Away with it! come, let me have a bigger.

KATHERINA.
I’ll have no bigger; this doth fit the time,
And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.

PETRUCHIO.
When you are gentle, you shall have one too,
And not till then.

HORTENSIO.
[_Aside_] That will not be in haste.

KATHERINA.
Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;
And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.
Your betters have endur’d me say my mind,
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart, concealing it, will break;
And rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, thou say’st true; it is a paltry cap,
A custard-coffin, a bauble, a silken pie;
I love thee well in that thou lik’st it not.

KATHERINA.
Love me or love me not, I like the cap;
And it I will have, or I will have none.

[_Exit Haberdasher._]

PETRUCHIO.
Thy gown? Why, ay: come, tailor, let us see’t.
O mercy, God! what masquing stuff is here?
What’s this? A sleeve? ’Tis like a demi-cannon.
What, up and down, carv’d like an apple tart?
Here’s snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,
Like to a censer in a barber’s shop.
Why, what i’ devil’s name, tailor, call’st thou this?

HORTENSIO.
[_Aside_] I see she’s like to have neither cap nor gown.

TAILOR.
You bid me make it orderly and well,
According to the fashion and the time.

PETRUCHIO.
Marry, and did; but if you be remember’d,
I did not bid you mar it to the time.
Go, hop me over every kennel home,
For you shall hop without my custom, sir.
I’ll none of it: hence! make your best of it.

KATHERINA.
I never saw a better fashion’d gown,
More quaint, more pleasing, nor more commendable;
Belike you mean to make a puppet of me.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, true; he means to make a puppet of thee.

TAILOR.
She says your worship means to make a puppet of her.

PETRUCHIO.
O monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread,
Thou thimble,
Thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!
Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!
Brav’d in mine own house with a skein of thread!
Away! thou rag, thou quantity, thou remnant,
Or I shall so be-mete thee with thy yard
As thou shalt think on prating whilst thou liv’st!
I tell thee, I, that thou hast marr’d her gown.

TAILOR.
Your worship is deceiv’d: the gown is made
Just as my master had direction.
Grumio gave order how it should be done.

GRUMIO.
I gave him no order; I gave him the stuff.

TAILOR.
But how did you desire it should be made?

GRUMIO.
Marry, sir, with needle and thread.

TAILOR.
But did you not request to have it cut?

GRUMIO.
Thou hast faced many things.

TAILOR.
I have.

GRUMIO.
Face not me. Thou hast braved many men; brave not me: I will neither be
fac’d nor brav’d. I say unto thee, I bid thy master cut out the gown;
but I did not bid him cut it to pieces: ergo, thou liest.

TAILOR.
Why, here is the note of the fashion to testify.

PETRUCHIO.
Read it.

GRUMIO.
The note lies in ’s throat, if he say I said so.

TAILOR.
’Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown.’

GRUMIO.
Master, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the skirts of it
and beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread; I said, a gown.

PETRUCHIO.
Proceed.

TAILOR.
’With a small compassed cape.’

GRUMIO.
I confess the cape.

TAILOR.
’With a trunk sleeve.’

GRUMIO.
I confess two sleeves.

TAILOR.
’The sleeves curiously cut.’

PETRUCHIO.
Ay, there’s the villainy.

GRUMIO.
Error i’ the bill, sir; error i’ the bill. I commanded the sleeves
should be cut out, and sew’d up again; and that I’ll prove upon thee,
though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.

TAILOR.
This is true that I say; and I had thee in place where thou shouldst
know it.

GRUMIO.
I am for thee straight; take thou the bill, give me thy mete-yard, and
spare not me.

HORTENSIO.
God-a-mercy, Grumio! Then he shall have no odds.

PETRUCHIO.
Well, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.

GRUMIO.
You are i’ the right, sir; ’tis for my mistress.

PETRUCHIO.
Go, take it up unto thy master’s use.

GRUMIO.
Villain, not for thy life! Take up my mistress’ gown for thy master’s
use!

PETRUCHIO.
Why, sir, what’s your conceit in that?

GRUMIO.
O, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for.
Take up my mistress’ gown to his master’s use!
O fie, fie, fie!

PETRUCHIO.
[_Aside_]  Hortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.
[_To Tailor._] Go take it hence; be gone, and say no more.

HORTENSIO.
[_Aside to Tailor._] Tailor, I’ll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow;
Take no unkindness of his hasty words.
Away, I say! commend me to thy master.

[_Exit Tailor._]

PETRUCHIO.
Well, come, my Kate; we will unto your father’s
Even in these honest mean habiliments.
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor
For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich;
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
O no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture and mean array.
If thou account’st it shame, lay it on me;
And therefore frolic; we will hence forthwith,
To feast and sport us at thy father’s house.
Go call my men, and let us straight to him;
And bring our horses unto Long-lane end;
There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.
Let’s see; I think ’tis now some seven o’clock,
And well we may come there by dinner-time.

KATHERINA.
I dare assure you, sir, ’tis almost two,
And ’twill be supper-time ere you come there.

PETRUCHIO.
It shall be seven ere I go to horse.
Look what I speak, or do, or think to do,
You are still crossing it. Sirs, let ’t alone:
I will not go today; and ere I do,
It shall be what o’clock I say it is.

HORTENSIO.
Why, so this gallant will command the sun.

[_Exeunt._]




SCENE IV. Padua. Before BAPTISTA’S house.

Enter Tranio and the Pedant dressed like Vincentio

TRANIO.
Sir, this is the house; please it you that I call?

PEDANT.
Ay, what else? and, but I be deceived,
Signior Baptista may remember me,
Near twenty years ago in Genoa,
Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.

TRANIO.
’Tis well; and hold your own, in any case,
With such austerity as ’longeth to a father.

PEDANT.
I warrant you. But, sir, here comes your boy;
’Twere good he were school’d.


Enter Biondello.

TRANIO.
Fear you not him. Sirrah Biondello,
Now do your duty throughly, I advise you.
Imagine ’twere the right Vincentio.

BIONDELLO.
Tut! fear not me.

TRANIO.
But hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?

BIONDELLO.
I told him that your father was at Venice,
And that you look’d for him this day in Padua.

TRANIO.
Th’art a tall fellow; hold thee that to drink.
Here comes Baptista. Set your countenance, sir.


Enter Baptista and Lucentio.

Signior Baptista, you are happily met.
[_To the Pedant_] Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of;
I pray you stand good father to me now;
Give me Bianca for my patrimony.

PEDANT.
Soft, son!
Sir, by your leave: having come to Padua
To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio
Made me acquainted with a weighty cause
Of love between your daughter and himself:
And,—for the good report I hear of you,
And for the love he beareth to your daughter,
And she to him,—to stay him not too long,
I am content, in a good father’s care,
To have him match’d; and, if you please to like
No worse than I, upon some agreement
Me shall you find ready and willing
With one consent to have her so bestow’d;
For curious I cannot be with you,
Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.

BAPTISTA.
Sir, pardon me in what I have to say.
Your plainness and your shortness please me well.
Right true it is your son Lucentio here
Doth love my daughter, and she loveth him,
Or both dissemble deeply their affections;
And therefore, if you say no more than this,
That like a father you will deal with him,
And pass my daughter a sufficient dower,
The match is made, and all is done:
Your son shall have my daughter with consent.

TRANIO.
I thank you, sir. Where then do you know best
We be affied, and such assurance ta’en
As shall with either part’s agreement stand?

BAPTISTA.
Not in my house, Lucentio, for you know
Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants;
Besides, old Gremio is hearkening still,
And happily we might be interrupted.

TRANIO.
Then at my lodging, and it like you:
There doth my father lie; and there this night
We’ll pass the business privately and well.
Send for your daughter by your servant here;
My boy shall fetch the scrivener presently.
The worst is this, that at so slender warning
You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.

BAPTISTA.
It likes me well. Cambio, hie you home,
And bid Bianca make her ready straight;
And, if you will, tell what hath happened:
Lucentio’s father is arriv’d in Padua,
And how she’s like to be Lucentio’s wife.

LUCENTIO.
I pray the gods she may, with all my heart!

TRANIO.
Dally not with the gods, but get thee gone.
Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?
Welcome! One mess is like to be your cheer;
Come, sir; we will better it in Pisa.

BAPTISTA.
I follow you.

[_Exeunt Tranio, Pedant and Baptista._]

BIONDELLO.
Cambio!

LUCENTIO.
What say’st thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLO.
You saw my master wink and laugh upon you?

LUCENTIO.
Biondello, what of that?

BIONDELLO.
Faith, nothing; but has left me here behind to expound the meaning or
moral of his signs and tokens.

LUCENTIO.
I pray thee moralize them.

BIONDELLO.
Then thus: Baptista is safe, talking with the deceiving father of a
deceitful son.

LUCENTIO.
And what of him?

BIONDELLO.
His daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.

LUCENTIO.
And then?

BIONDELLO.
The old priest at Saint Luke’s church is at your command at all hours.

LUCENTIO.
And what of all this?

BIONDELLO.
I cannot tell, except they are busied about a counterfeit assurance.
Take your assurance of her, _cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum_; to
the church! take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient honest
witnesses.
If this be not that you look for, I have more to say,
But bid Bianca farewell for ever and a day.

[_Going._]

LUCENTIO.
Hear’st thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLO.
I cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to
the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit; and so may you, sir; and so
adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint Luke’s to bid
the priest be ready to come against you come with your appendix.

[_Exit._]

LUCENTIO.
I may, and will, if she be so contented.
She will be pleas’d; then wherefore should I doubt?
Hap what hap may, I’ll roundly go about her;
It shall go hard if Cambio go without her:

[_Exit._]




SCENE V. A public road.

Enter Petruchio, Katherina, Hortensio and Servants.

PETRUCHIO.
Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

KATHERINA.
The moon! The sun; it is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIO.
I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

KATHERINA.
I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

PETRUCHIO.
Now by my mother’s son, and that’s myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father’s house.
Go on and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross’d and cross’d; nothing but cross’d!

HORTENSIO.
Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHERINA.
Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;
And if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIO.
I say it is the moon.

KATHERINA.
I know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.

KATHERINA.
Then, God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun;
But sun it is not when you say it is not,
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it nam’d, even that it is,
And so it shall be so for Katherine.

HORTENSIO.
Petruchio, go thy ways; the field is won.

PETRUCHIO.
Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,
And not unluckily against the bias.
But, soft! Company is coming here.


Enter Vincentio, in a travelling dress.

[_To Vincentio_] Good morrow, gentle mistress; where away?
Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too,
Hast thou beheld a fresher gentlewoman?
Such war of white and red within her cheeks!
What stars do spangle heaven with such beauty
As those two eyes become that heavenly face?
Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.
Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake.

HORTENSIO.
A will make the man mad, to make a woman of him.

KATHERINA.
Young budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,
Whither away, or where is thy abode?
Happy the parents of so fair a child;
Happier the man whom favourable stars
Allot thee for his lovely bedfellow.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, how now, Kate! I hope thou art not mad:
This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, wither’d,
And not a maiden, as thou sayst he is.

KATHERINA.
Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,
That have been so bedazzled with the sun
That everything I look on seemeth green:
Now I perceive thou art a reverend father;
Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.

PETRUCHIO.
Do, good old grandsire, and withal make known
Which way thou travellest: if along with us,
We shall be joyful of thy company.

VINCENTIO.
Fair sir, and you my merry mistress,
That with your strange encounter much amaz’d me,
My name is called Vincentio; my dwelling Pisa;
And bound I am to Padua, there to visit
A son of mine, which long I have not seen.

PETRUCHIO.
What is his name?

VINCENTIO.
Lucentio, gentle sir.

PETRUCHIO.
Happily met; the happier for thy son.
And now by law, as well as reverend age,
I may entitle thee my loving father:
The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,
Thy son by this hath married. Wonder not,
Nor be not griev’d: she is of good esteem,
Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;
Beside, so qualified as may beseem
The spouse of any noble gentleman.
Let me embrace with old Vincentio;
And wander we to see thy honest son,
Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.

VINCENTIO.
But is this true? or is it else your pleasure,
Like pleasant travellers, to break a jest
Upon the company you overtake?

HORTENSIO.
I do assure thee, father, so it is.

PETRUCHIO.
Come, go along, and see the truth hereof;
For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.

[_Exeunt all but Hortensio._]

HORTENSIO.
Well, Petruchio, this has put me in heart.
Have to my widow! and if she be froward,
Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.

[_Exit._]




ACT V

SCENE I. Padua. Before LUCENTIO’S house.

Enter on one side Biondello, Lucentio and Bianca; Gremio walking on
other side.

BIONDELLO.
Softly and swiftly, sir, for the priest is ready.

LUCENTIO.
I fly, Biondello; but they may chance to need thee at home, therefore
leave us.

BIONDELLO.
Nay, faith, I’ll see the church o’ your back; and then come back to my
master’s as soon as I can.

[_Exeunt Lucentio, Bianca and Biondello._]

GREMIO.
I marvel Cambio comes not all this while.


Enter Petruchio, Katherina, Vincentio and Attendants.

PETRUCHIO.
Sir, here’s the door; this is Lucentio’s house:
My father’s bears more toward the market-place;
Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.

VINCENTIO.
You shall not choose but drink before you go.
I think I shall command your welcome here,
And by all likelihood some cheer is toward.

[_Knocks._]

GREMIO.
They’re busy within; you were best knock louder.


Enter Pedant above, at a window.

PEDANT.
What’s he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?

VINCENTIO.
Is Signior Lucentio within, sir?

PEDANT.
He’s within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.

VINCENTIO.
What if a man bring him a hundred pound or two to make merry withal?

PEDANT.
Keep your hundred pounds to yourself: he shall need none so long as I
live.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua. Do you hear, sir?
To leave frivolous circumstances, I pray you tell Signior Lucentio that
his father is come from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with
him.

PEDANT.
Thou liest: his father is come from Padua, and here looking out at the
window.

VINCENTIO.
Art thou his father?

PEDANT.
Ay, sir; so his mother says, if I may believe her.

PETRUCHIO.
[_To Vincentio_]  Why, how now, gentleman! why, this is flat knavery to
take upon you another man’s name.

PEDANT.
Lay hands on the villain: I believe a means to cozen somebody in this
city under my countenance.

Re-enter Biondello.

BIONDELLO.
I have seen them in the church together: God send ’em good shipping!
But who is here? Mine old master, Vincentio! Now we are undone and
brought to nothing.

VINCENTIO.
[_Seeing Biondello._] Come hither, crack-hemp.

BIONDELLO.
I hope I may choose, sir.

VINCENTIO.
Come hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?

BIONDELLO.
Forgot you! No, sir: I could not forget you, for I never saw you before
in all my life.

VINCENTIO.
What, you notorious villain! didst thou never see thy master’s father,
Vincentio?

BIONDELLO.
What, my old worshipful old master? Yes, marry, sir; see where he looks
out of the window.

VINCENTIO.
Is’t so, indeed?

[_He beats Biondello._]

BIONDELLO.
Help, help, help! here’s a madman will murder me.

[_Exit._]

PEDANT.
Help, son! help, Signior Baptista!

[_Exit from the window._]

PETRUCHIO.
Prithee, Kate, let’s stand aside and see the end of this controversy.

[_They retire._]

Re-enter Pedant, below; Baptista, Tranio and Servants.

TRANIO.
Sir, what are you that offer to beat my servant?

VINCENTIO.
What am I, sir! nay, what are you, sir? O immortal gods! O fine
villain! A silken doublet, a velvet hose, a scarlet cloak, and a
copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! While I play the good
husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the university.

TRANIO.
How now! what’s the matter?

BAPTISTA.
What, is the man lunatic?

TRANIO.
Sir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit, but your words
show you a madman. Why, sir, what ’cerns it you if I wear pearl and
gold? I thank my good father, I am able to maintain it.

VINCENTIO.
Thy father! O villain! he is a sailmaker in Bergamo.

BAPTISTA.
You mistake, sir; you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you think is his
name?

VINCENTIO.
His name! As if I knew not his name! I have brought him up ever since
he was three years old, and his name is Tranio.

PEDANT.
Away, away, mad ass! His name is Lucentio; and he is mine only son, and
heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.

VINCENTIO.
Lucentio! O, he hath murdered his master! Lay hold on him, I charge
you, in the Duke’s name. O, my son, my son! Tell me, thou villain,
where is my son, Lucentio?

TRANIO.
Call forth an officer.


Enter one with an Officer.

Carry this mad knave to the gaol. Father Baptista, I charge you see
that he be forthcoming.

VINCENTIO.
Carry me to the gaol!

GREMIO.
Stay, officer; he shall not go to prison.

BAPTISTA.
Talk not, Signior Gremio; I say he shall go to prison.

GREMIO.
Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched in this business;
I dare swear this is the right Vincentio.

PEDANT.
Swear if thou darest.

GREMIO.
Nay, I dare not swear it.

TRANIO.
Then thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.

GREMIO.
Yes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.

BAPTISTA.
Away with the dotard! to the gaol with him!

VINCENTIO.
Thus strangers may be haled and abus’d: O monstrous villain!

Re-enter Biondello, with Lucentio and Bianca.

BIONDELLO.
O! we are spoiled; and yonder he is: deny him, forswear him, or else we
are all undone.

LUCENTIO.
[_Kneeling._] Pardon, sweet father.

VINCENTIO.
Lives my sweetest son?

[_Biondello, Tranio and Pedant run out._]

BIANCA.
[_Kneeling._] Pardon, dear father.

BAPTISTA.
How hast thou offended?
Where is Lucentio?

LUCENTIO.
Here’s Lucentio,
Right son to the right Vincentio;
That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,
While counterfeit supposes blear’d thine eyne.

GREMIO.
Here ’s packing, with a witness, to deceive us all!

VINCENTIO.
Where is that damned villain, Tranio,
That fac’d and brav’d me in this matter so?

BAPTISTA.
Why, tell me, is not this my Cambio?

BIANCA.
Cambio is chang’d into Lucentio.

LUCENTIO.
Love wrought these miracles. Bianca’s love
Made me exchange my state with Tranio,
While he did bear my countenance in the town;
And happily I have arriv’d at the last
Unto the wished haven of my bliss.
What Tranio did, myself enforc’d him to;
Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.

VINCENTIO.
I’ll slit the villain’s nose that would have sent me to the gaol.

BAPTISTA.
[_To Lucentio._] But do you hear, sir? Have you married my daughter
without asking my good will?

VINCENTIO.
Fear not, Baptista; we will content you, go to: but I will in, to be
revenged for this villainy.

[_Exit._]

BAPTISTA.
And I to sound the depth of this knavery.

[_Exit._]

LUCENTIO.
Look not pale, Bianca; thy father will not frown.

[_Exeunt Lucentio and Bianca._]

GREMIO.
My cake is dough, but I’ll in among the rest;
Out of hope of all but my share of the feast.

[_Exit._]

Petruchio and Katherina advance.

KATHERINA.
Husband, let’s follow to see the end of this ado.

PETRUCHIO.
First kiss me, Kate, and we will.

KATHERINA.
What! in the midst of the street?

PETRUCHIO.
What! art thou ashamed of me?

KATHERINA.
No, sir; God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, then, let’s home again. Come, sirrah, let’s away.

KATHERINA.
Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.

PETRUCHIO.
Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:
Better once than never, for never too late.

[_Exeunt._]




SCENE II. A room in LUCENTIO’S house.

Enter Baptista, Vincentio, Gremio, the Pedant, Lucentio, Bianca,
Petruchio, Katherina, Hortensio and Widow. Tranio, Biondello and Grumio
and Others, attending.

LUCENTIO.
At last, though long, our jarring notes agree:
And time it is when raging war is done,
To smile at ’scapes and perils overblown.
My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,
While I with self-same kindness welcome thine.
Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,
And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,
Feast with the best, and welcome to my house:
My banquet is to close our stomachs up,
After our great good cheer. Pray you, sit down;
For now we sit to chat as well as eat.

[_They sit at table._]

PETRUCHIO.
Nothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!

BAPTISTA.
Padua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.

PETRUCHIO.
Padua affords nothing but what is kind.

HORTENSIO.
For both our sakes I would that word were true.

PETRUCHIO.
Now, for my life, Hortensio fears his widow.

WIDOW.
Then never trust me if I be afeard.

PETRUCHIO.
You are very sensible, and yet you miss my sense:
I mean Hortensio is afeard of you.

WIDOW.
He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

PETRUCHIO.
Roundly replied.

KATHERINA.
Mistress, how mean you that?

WIDOW.
Thus I conceive by him.

PETRUCHIO.
Conceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?

HORTENSIO.
My widow says thus she conceives her tale.

PETRUCHIO.
Very well mended. Kiss him for that, good widow.

KATHERINA.
’He that is giddy thinks the world turns round’:
I pray you tell me what you meant by that.

WIDOW.
Your husband, being troubled with a shrew,
Measures my husband’s sorrow by his woe;
And now you know my meaning.

KATHERINA.
A very mean meaning.

WIDOW.
Right, I mean you.

KATHERINA.
And I am mean, indeed, respecting you.

PETRUCHIO.
To her, Kate!

HORTENSIO.
To her, widow!

PETRUCHIO.
A hundred marks, my Kate does put her down.

HORTENSIO.
That’s my office.

PETRUCHIO.
Spoke like an officer: ha’ to thee, lad.

[_Drinks to Hortensio._]

BAPTISTA.
How likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

GREMIO.
Believe me, sir, they butt together well.

BIANCA.
Head and butt! An hasty-witted body
Would say your head and butt were head and horn.

VINCENTIO.
Ay, mistress bride, hath that awaken’d you?

BIANCA.
Ay, but not frighted me; therefore I’ll sleep again.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, that you shall not; since you have begun,
Have at you for a bitter jest or two.

BIANCA.
Am I your bird? I mean to shift my bush,
And then pursue me as you draw your bow.
You are welcome all.

[_Exeunt Bianca, Katherina and Widow._]

PETRUCHIO.
She hath prevented me. Here, Signior Tranio;
This bird you aim’d at, though you hit her not:
Therefore a health to all that shot and miss’d.

TRANIO.
O, sir! Lucentio slipp’d me like his greyhound,
Which runs himself, and catches for his master.

PETRUCHIO.
A good swift simile, but something currish.

TRANIO.
’Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:
’Tis thought your deer does hold you at a bay.

BAPTISTA.
O ho, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.

LUCENTIO.
I thank thee for that gird, good Tranio.

HORTENSIO.
Confess, confess; hath he not hit you here?

PETRUCHIO.
A has a little gall’d me, I confess;
And as the jest did glance away from me,
’Tis ten to one it maim’d you two outright.

BAPTISTA.
Now, in good sadness, son Petruchio,
I think thou hast the veriest shrew of all.

PETRUCHIO.
Well, I say no; and therefore, for assurance,
Let’s each one send unto his wife,
And he whose wife is most obedient,
To come at first when he doth send for her,
Shall win the wager which we will propose.

HORTENSIO.
Content. What’s the wager?

LUCENTIO.
Twenty crowns.

PETRUCHIO.
Twenty crowns!
I’ll venture so much of my hawk or hound,
But twenty times so much upon my wife.

LUCENTIO.
A hundred then.

HORTENSIO.
Content.

PETRUCHIO.
A match! ’tis done.

HORTENSIO.
Who shall begin?

LUCENTIO.
That will I.
Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

BIONDELLO.
I go.

[_Exit._]

BAPTISTA.
Son, I’ll be your half, Bianca comes.

LUCENTIO.
I’ll have no halves; I’ll bear it all myself.


Re-enter Biondello.

How now! what news?

BIONDELLO.
Sir, my mistress sends you word
That she is busy and she cannot come.

PETRUCHIO.
How! She’s busy, and she cannot come!
Is that an answer?

GREMIO.
Ay, and a kind one too:
Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

PETRUCHIO.
I hope better.

HORTENSIO.
Sirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife
To come to me forthwith.

[_Exit Biondello._]

PETRUCHIO.
O, ho! entreat her!
Nay, then she must needs come.

HORTENSIO.
I am afraid, sir,
Do what you can, yours will not be entreated.


Re-enter Biondello.

Now, where’s my wife?

BIONDELLO.
She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come; she bids you come to her.

PETRUCHIO.
Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endur’d!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress,
Say I command her come to me.

[_Exit Grumio._]

HORTENSIO.
I know her answer.

PETRUCHIO.
What?

HORTENSIO.
She will not.

PETRUCHIO.
The fouler fortune mine, and there an end.


Re-enter Katherina.

BAPTISTA.
Now, by my holidame, here comes Katherina!

KATHERINA.
What is your will sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCHIO.
Where is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife?

KATHERINA.
They sit conferring by the parlour fire.

PETRUCHIO.
Go fetch them hither; if they deny to come,
Swinge me them soundly forth unto their husbands.
Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

[_Exit Katherina._]

LUCENTIO.
Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

HORTENSIO.
And so it is. I wonder what it bodes.

PETRUCHIO.
Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy;
And, to be short, what not that’s sweet and happy.

BAPTISTA.
Now fair befall thee, good Petruchio!
The wager thou hast won; and I will add
Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns;
Another dowry to another daughter,
For she is chang’d, as she had never been.

PETRUCHIO.
Nay, I will win my wager better yet,
And show more sign of her obedience,
Her new-built virtue and obedience.
See where she comes, and brings your froward wives
As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.


Re-enter Katherina with Bianca and Widow.

Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not:
Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot.

[_Katherina pulls off her cap and throws it down._]

WIDOW.
Lord, let me never have a cause to sigh
Till I be brought to such a silly pass!

BIANCA.
Fie! what a foolish duty call you this?

LUCENTIO.
I would your duty were as foolish too;
The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,
Hath cost me a hundred crowns since supper-time!

BIANCA.
The more fool you for laying on my duty.

PETRUCHIO.
Katherine, I charge thee, tell these headstrong women
What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

WIDOW.
Come, come, you’re mocking; we will have no telling.

PETRUCHIO.
Come on, I say; and first begin with her.

WIDOW.
She shall not.

PETRUCHIO.
I say she shall: and first begin with her.

KATHERINA.
Fie, fie! unknit that threatening unkind brow,
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor:
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman mov’d is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?—
I am asham’d that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms!
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot:
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready; may it do him ease.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate.

LUCENTIO.
Well, go thy ways, old lad, for thou shalt ha’t.

VINCENTIO.
’Tis a good hearing when children are toward.

LUCENTIO.
But a harsh hearing when women are froward.

PETRUCHIO.
Come, Kate, we’ll to bed.
We three are married, but you two are sped.
’Twas I won the wager,
[_To Lucentio._] though you hit the white;
And being a winner, God give you good night!

[_Exeunt Petrucio and Katherina._]

HORTENSIO.
Now go thy ways; thou hast tam’d a curst shrew.

LUCENTIO.
’Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tam’d so.

[_Exeunt._]



THE TEMPEST

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  ALONSO, King of Naples
  SEBASTIAN, his brother
  PROSPERO, the right Duke of Milan
  ANTONIO, his brother, the usurping Duke of Milan
  FERDINAND, son to the King of Naples
  GONZALO, an honest old counsellor

    Lords
  ADRIAN
  FRANCISCO
  CALIBAN, a savage and deformed slave
  TRINCULO, a jester
  STEPHANO, a drunken butler
  MASTER OF A SHIP
  BOATSWAIN
  MARINERS

  MIRANDA, daughter to Prospero

  ARIEL, an airy spirit

    Spirits
  IRIS
  CERES
  JUNO
  NYMPHS
  REAPERS
  Other Spirits attending on Prospero

SCENE: A ship at sea; afterwards an uninhabited island

THE TEMPEST ACT I. SCENE 1

On a ship at sea; a tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard

Enter a SHIPMASTER and a BOATSWAIN

  MASTER. Boatswain!
  BOATSWAIN. Here, master; what cheer?
  MASTER. Good! Speak to th' mariners; fall to't yarely, or
    we run ourselves aground; bestir, bestir.               Exit

                       Enter MARINERS

  BOATSWAIN. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare!
  Take in the topsail. Tend to th' master's whistle. Blow till thou
  burst thy wind, if room enough.

          Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, FERDINAND
                     GONZALO, and OTHERS

  ALONSO. Good boatswain, have care. Where's the master?
    Play the men.
  BOATSWAIN. I pray now, keep below.
  ANTONIO. Where is the master, boson?
  BOATSWAIN. Do you not hear him? You mar our labour;
    keep your cabins; you do assist the storm.
  GONZALO. Nay, good, be patient.
  BOATSWAIN. When the sea is. Hence! What cares these
    roarers for the name of king? To cabin! silence! Trouble
    us not.
  GONZALO. Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.
  BOATSWAIN. None that I more love than myself. You are
    counsellor; if you can command these elements to
    silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not
    hand a rope more. Use your authority; if you cannot, give
    thanks you have liv'd so long, and make yourself ready
    in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so
    hap.-Cheerly, good hearts!-Out of our way, I say.
 Exit
  GONZALO. I have great comfort from this fellow. Methinks
    he hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is
    perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging;
    make the rope of his destiny our cable, for our own doth
    little advantage. If he be not born to be hang'd, our
    case is miserable.                                    Exeunt

                     Re-enter BOATSWAIN

  BOATSWAIN. Down with the topmast. Yare, lower, lower! Bring her to
  try wi' th' maincourse.  [A cry within]  A plague upon this howling!
  They are louder than the weather or our office.

           Re-enter SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, and GONZALO

    Yet again! What do you here? Shall we give o'er, and
    drown? Have you a mind to sink?
  SEBASTIAN. A pox o' your throat, you bawling, blasphemous,
    incharitable dog!
  BOATSWAIN. Work you, then.
  ANTONIO. Hang, cur; hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker;
    we are less afraid to be drown'd than thou art.
  GONZALO. I'll warrant him for drowning, though the ship were
    no stronger than a nutshell, and as leaky as an unstanched
    wench.
  BOATSWAIN. Lay her a-hold, a-hold; set her two courses; off
    to sea again; lay her off.

                    Enter MARINERS, Wet
  MARINERS. All lost! to prayers, to prayers! all lost!
                                                          Exeunt
  BOATSWAIN. What, must our mouths be cold?
  GONZALO. The King and Prince at prayers!
    Let's assist them,
    For our case is as theirs.
  SEBASTIAN. I am out of patience.
  ANTONIO. We are merely cheated of our lives by drunkards.
    This wide-chopp'd rascal-would thou mightst lie drowning
    The washing of ten tides!
  GONZALO. He'll be hang'd yet,
    Though every drop of water swear against it,
    And gape at wid'st to glut him.
    [A confused noise within: Mercy on us!
    We split, we split! Farewell, my wife and children!
    Farewell, brother! We split, we split, we split!]
  ANTONIO. Let's all sink wi' th' King.
  SEBASTIAN. Let's take leave of him.
                                    Exeunt ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN
  GONZALO. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for
    an acre of barren ground-long heath, brown furze, any
    thing. The wills above be done, but I would fain die
    dry death.                                            Exeunt

SCENE 2

The Island. Before PROSPERO'S cell

Enter PROSPERO and MIRANDA

  MIRANDA. If by your art, my dearest father, you have
    Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.
    The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
    But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek,
    Dashes the fire out. O, I have suffered
    With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,
    Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,
    Dash'd all to pieces! O, the cry did knock
    Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd.
    Had I been any god of power, I would
    Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere
    It should the good ship so have swallow'd and
    The fraughting souls within her.
  PROSPERO. Be conected;
    No more amazement; tell your piteous heart
    There's no harm done.
  MIRANDA. O, woe the day!
  PROSPERO. No harm.
    I have done nothing but in care of thee,
    Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter, who
    Art ignorant of what thou art, nought knowing
    Of whence I am, nor that I am more better
    Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,
    And thy no greater father.
  MIRANDA. More to know
    Did never meddle with my thoughts.
  PROSPERO. 'Tis time
    I should inform thee farther. Lend thy hand,
    And pluck my magic garment from me. So,
                                          [Lays down his mantle]
    Lie there my art. Wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.
    The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch'd
    The very virtue of compassion in thee,
    I have with such provision in mine art
    So safely ordered that there is no soul-
    No, not so much perdition as an hair
    Betid to any creature in the vessel
    Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.
    Sit down, for thou must now know farther.
  MIRANDA. You have often
    Begun to tell me what I am; but stopp'd,
    And left me to a bootless inquisition,
    Concluding 'Stay; not yet.'
  PROSPERO. The hour's now come;
    The very minute bids thee ope thine ear.
    Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember
    A time before we came unto this cell?
    I do not think thou canst; for then thou wast not
    Out three years old.
  MIRANDA. Certainly, sir, I can.
  PROSPERO. By what? By any other house, or person?
    Of any thing the image, tell me, that
    Hath kept with thy remembrance?
  MIRANDA. 'Tis far off,
    And rather like a dream than an assurance
    That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
    Four, or five, women once, that tended me?
  PROSPERO. Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
    That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
    In the dark backward and abysm of time?
    If thou rememb'rest aught, ere thou cam'st here,
    How thou cam'st here thou mayst.
  MIRANDA. But that I do not.
  PROSPERO. Twelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,
    Thy father was the Duke of Milan, and
    A prince of power.
  MIRANDA. Sir, are not you my father?
  PROSPERO. Thy mother was a piece of virtue, and
    She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father
    Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir
    And princess no worse issued.
  MIRANDA. O, the heavens!
    What foul play had we that we came from thence?
    Or blessed was't we did?
  PROSPERO. Both, both, my girl.
    By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heav'd thence;
    But blessedly holp hither.
  MIRANDA. O, my heart bleeds
    To think o' th' teen that I have turn'd you to,
    Which is from my remembrance. Please you, farther.
  PROSPERO. My brother and thy uncle, call'd Antonio-
    I pray thee, mark me that a brother should
    Be so perfidious. He, whom next thyself
    Of all the world I lov'd, and to him put
    The manage of my state; as at that time
    Through all the signories it was the first,
    And Prospero the prime duke, being so reputed
    In dignity, and for the liberal arts
    Without a parallel, those being all my study-
    The government I cast upon my brother
    And to my state grew stranger, being transported
    And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle-
    Dost thou attend me?
  MIRANDA. Sir, most heedfully.
  PROSPERO. Being once perfected how to grant suits,
    How to deny them, who t' advance, and who
    To trash for over-topping, new created
    The creatures that were mine, I say, or chang'd 'em,
    Or else new form'd 'em; having both the key
    Of officer and office, set all hearts i' th' state
    To what tune pleas'd his ear; that now he was
    The ivy which had hid my princely trunk
    And suck'd my verdure out on't. Thou attend'st not.
  MIRANDA. O, good sir, I do!
  PROSPERO. I pray thee, mark me.
    I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
    To closeness and the bettering of my mind
    With that which, but by being so retir'd,
    O'er-priz'd all popular rate, in my false brother
    Awak'd an evil nature; and my trust,
    Like a good parent, did beget of him
    A falsehood, in its contrary as great
    As my trust was; which had indeed no limit,
    A confidence sans bound. He being thus lorded,
    Not only with what my revenue yielded,
    But what my power might else exact, like one
    Who having into truth, by telling of it,
    Made such a sinner of his memory,
    To credit his own lie-he did believe
    He was indeed the Duke; out o' th' substitution,
    And executing th' outward face of royalty
    With all prerogative. Hence his ambition growing-
    Dost thou hear?
  MIRANDA. Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
  PROSPERO. To have no screen between this part he play'd
    And him he play'd it for, he needs will be
    Absolute Milan. Me, poor man-my library
    Was dukedom large enough-of temporal royalties
    He thinks me now incapable; confederates,
    So dry he was for sway, wi' th' King of Naples,
    To give him annual tribute, do him homage,
    Subject his coronet to his crown, and bend
    The dukedom, yet unbow'd-alas, poor Milan!-
    To most ignoble stooping.
  MIRANDA. O the heavens!
  PROSPERO. Mark his condition, and th' event, then tell me
    If this might be a brother.
  MIRANDA. I should sin
    To think but nobly of my grandmother:
    Good wombs have borne bad sons.
  PROSPERO. Now the condition:
    This King of Naples, being an enemy
    To me inveterate, hearkens my brother's suit;
    Which was, that he, in lieu o' th' premises,
    Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,
    Should presently extirpate me and mine
    Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan
    With all the honours on my brother. Whereon,
    A treacherous army levied, one midnight
    Fated to th' purpose, did Antonio open
    The gates of Milan; and, i' th' dead of darkness,
    The ministers for th' purpose hurried thence
    Me and thy crying self.
  MIRANDA. Alack, for pity!
    I, not rememb'ring how I cried out then,
    Will cry it o'er again; it is a hint
    That wrings mine eyes to't.
  PROSPERO. Hear a little further,
    And then I'll bring thee to the present busines
    Which now's upon 's; without the which this story
    Were most impertinent.
  MIRANDA. Wherefore did they not
    That hour destroy us?
  PROSPERO. Well demanded, wench!
    My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst not,
    So dear the love my people bore me; nor set
    A mark so bloody on the business; but
    With colours fairer painted their foul ends.
    In few, they hurried us aboard a bark;
    Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepared
    A rotten carcass of a butt, not rigg'd,
    Nor tackle, sail, nor mast; the very rats
    Instinctively have quit it. There they hoist us,
    To cry to th' sea, that roar'd to us; to sigh
    To th' winds, whose pity, sighing back again,
    Did us but loving wrong.
  MIRANDA. Alack, what trouble
    Was I then to you!
  PROSPERO. O, a cherubin
    Thou wast that did preserve me! Thou didst smile,
    Infused with a fortitude from heaven,
    When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt,
    Under my burden groan'd; which rais'd in me
    An undergoing stomach, to bear up
    Against what should ensue.
  MIRANDA. How came we ashore?
  PROSPERO. By Providence divine.
    Some food we had and some fresh water that
    A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,
    Out of his charity, who being then appointed
    Master of this design, did give us, with
    Rich garments, linens, stuffs, and necessaries,
    Which since have steaded much; so, of his gentleness,
    Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me
    From mine own library with volumes that
    I prize above my dukedom.
  MIRANDA. Would I might
    But ever see that man!
  PROSPERO. Now I arise.                    [Puts on his mantle]
    Sit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.
    Here in this island we arriv'd; and here
    Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit
    Than other princess' can, that have more time
    For vainer hours, and tutors not so careful.
  MIRANDA. Heavens thank you for't! And now, I pray you,
      sir,
    For still 'tis beating in my mind, your reason
    For raising this sea-storm?
  PROSPERO. Know thus far forth:
    By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune,
    Now my dear lady, hath mine enemies
    Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
    I find my zenith doth depend upon
    A most auspicious star, whose influence
    If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
    Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions;
    Thou art inclin'd to sleep; 'tis a good dullness,
    And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.
                                                [MIRANDA sleeps]
    Come away, servant; come; I am ready now.
    Approach, my Ariel. Come.

                        Enter ARIEL

  ARIEL. All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
    To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
    To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
    On the curl'd clouds. To thy strong bidding task
    Ariel and all his quality.
  PROSPERO. Hast thou, spirit,
    Perform'd to point the tempest that I bade thee?
  ARIEL. To every article.
    I boarded the King's ship; now on the beak,
    Now in the waist, the deck, in every cabin,
    I flam'd amazement. Sometime I'd divide,
    And burn in many places; on the topmast,
    The yards, and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
    Then meet and join Jove's lightning, the precursors
    O' th' dreadful thunder-claps, more momentary
    And sight-outrunning were not; the fire and cracks
    Of sulphurous roaring the most mighty Neptune
    Seem to besiege, and make his bold waves tremble,
    Yea, his dread trident shake.
  PROSPERO. My brave spirit!
    Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil
    Would not infect his reason?
  ARIEL. Not a soul
    But felt a fever of the mad, and play'd
    Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners
    Plung'd in the foaming brine, and quit the vessel,
    Then all afire with me; the King's son, Ferdinand,
    With hair up-staring-then like reeds, not hair-
    Was the first man that leapt; cried 'Hell is empty,
    And all the devils are here.'
  PROSPERO. Why, that's my spirit!
    But was not this nigh shore?
  ARIEL. Close by, my master.
  PROSPERO. But are they, Ariel, safe?
  ARIEL. Not a hair perish'd;
    On their sustaining garments not a blemish,
    But fresher than before; and, as thou bad'st me,
    In troops I have dispers'd them 'bout the isle.
    The King's son have I landed by himself,
    Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs
    In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting,
    His arms in this sad knot.
  PROSPERO. Of the King's ship,
    The mariners, say how thou hast dispos'd,
    And all the rest o' th' fleet?
  ARIEL. Safely in harbour
    Is the King's ship; in the deep nook, where once
    Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew
    From the still-vex'd Bermoothes, there she's hid;
    The mariners all under hatches stowed,
    Who, with a charm join'd to their suff'red labour,
    I have left asleep; and for the rest o' th' fleet,
    Which I dispers'd, they all have met again,
    And are upon the Mediterranean flote
    Bound sadly home for Naples,
    Supposing that they saw the King's ship wreck'd,
    And his great person perish.
  PROSPERO. Ariel, thy charge
    Exactly is perform'd; but there's more work.
    What is the time o' th' day?
  ARIEL. Past the mid season.
  PROSPERO. At least two glasses. The time 'twixt six and now
    Must by us both be spent most preciously.
  ARIEL. Is there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,
    Let me remember thee what thou hast promis'd,
    Which is not yet perform'd me.
  PROSPERO. How now, moody?
    What is't thou canst demand?
  ARIEL. My liberty.
  PROSPERO. Before the time be out? No more!
  ARIEL. I prithee,
    Remember I have done thee worthy service,
    Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, serv'd
    Without or grudge or grumblings. Thou didst promise
    To bate me a full year.
  PROSPERO. Dost thou forget
    From what a torment I did free thee?
  ARIEL. No.
  PROSPERO. Thou dost; and think'st it much to tread the ooze
    Of the salt deep,
    To run upon the sharp wind of the north,
    To do me business in the veins o' th' earth
    When it is bak'd with frost.
  ARIEL. I do not, sir.
  PROSPERO. Thou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot
    The foul witch Sycorax, who with age and envy
    Was grown into a hoop? Hast thou forgot her?
  ARIEL. No, sir.
  PROSPERO. Thou hast. Where was she born?
    Speak; tell me.
  ARIEL. Sir, in Argier.
  PROSPERO. O, was she so? I must
    Once in a month recount what thou hast been,
    Which thou forget'st. This damn'd witch Sycorax,
    For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible
    To enter human hearing, from Argier
    Thou know'st was banish'd; for one thing she did
    They would not take her life. Is not this true?
  ARIEL. Ay, sir.
  PROSPERO. This blue-ey'd hag was hither brought with child,
    And here was left by th'sailors. Thou, my slave,
    As thou report'st thyself, wast then her servant;
    And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
    To act her earthy and abhorr'd commands,
    Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
    By help of her more potent ministers,
    And in her most unmitigable rage,
    Into a cloven pine; within which rift
    Imprison'd thou didst painfully remain
    A dozen years; within which space she died,
    And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans
    As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island-
    Save for the son that she did litter here,
    A freckl'd whelp, hag-born-not honour'd with
    A human shape.
  ARIEL. Yes, Caliban her son.
  PROSPERO. Dull thing, I say so; he, that Caliban
    Whom now I keep in service. Thou best know'st
    What torment I did find thee in; thy groans
    Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
    Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment
    To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax
    Could not again undo. It was mine art,
    When I arriv'd and heard thee, that made gape
    The pine, and let thee out.
  ARIEL. I thank thee, master.
  PROSPERO. If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak
    And peg thee in his knotty entrails, till
    Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
  ARIEL. Pardon, master;
    I will be correspondent to command,
    And do my spriting gently.
  PROSPERO. Do so; and after two days
    I will discharge thee.
  ARIEL. That's my noble master!
    What shall I do? Say what. What shall I do?
  PROSPERO. Go make thyself like a nymph o' th' sea; be subject
    To no sight but thine and mine, invisible
    To every eyeball else. Go take this shape,
    And hither come in 't. Go, hence with diligence!
                                                      Exit ARIEL
    Awake, dear heart, awake; thou hast slept well;
    Awake.
  MIRANDA. The strangeness of your story put
    Heaviness in me.
  PROSPERO. Shake it off. Come on,
    We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never
    Yields us kind answer.
  MIRANDA. 'Tis a villain, sir,
    I do not love to look on.
  PROSPERO. But as 'tis,
    We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,
    Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
    That profit us. What ho! slave! Caliban!
    Thou earth, thou! Speak.
  CALIBAN.   [ Within]  There's wood enough within.
  PROSPERO. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee.
    Come, thou tortoise! when?

             Re-enter ARIEL like a water-nymph

    Fine apparition! My quaint Ariel,
    Hark in thine ear.
  ARIEL. My lord, it shall be done.                         Exit
  PROSPERO. Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
    Upon thy wicked dam, come forth!

                       Enter CALIBAN

  CALIBAN. As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd
    With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
    Drop on you both! A south-west blow on ye
    And blister you all o'er!
  PROSPERO. For this, be sure, to-night thou shalt have cramps,
    Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up; urchins
    Shall, for that vast of night that they may work,
    All exercise on thee; thou shalt be pinch'd
    As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
    Than bees that made 'em.
  CALIBAN. I must eat my dinner.
    This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,
    Which thou tak'st from me. When thou cam'st first,
    Thou strok'st me and made much of me, wouldst give me
    Water with berries in't, and teach me how
    To name the bigger light, and how the less,
    That burn by day and night; and then I lov'd thee,
    And show'd thee all the qualities o' th' isle,
    The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.
    Curs'd be I that did so! All the charms
    Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you!
    For I am all the subjects that you have,
    Which first was mine own king; and here you sty me
    In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me
    The rest o' th' island.
  PROSPERO. Thou most lying slave,
    Whom stripes may move, not kindness! I have us'd thee,
    Filth as thou art, with human care, and lodg'd thee
    In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate
    The honour of my child.
  CALIBAN. O ho, O ho! Would't had been done.
    Thou didst prevent me; I had peopl'd else
    This isle with Calibans.
  MIRANDA. Abhorred slave,
    Which any print of goodness wilt not take,
    Being capable of all ill! I pitied thee,
    Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour
    One thing or other. When thou didst not, savage,
    Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like
    A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes
    With words that made them known. But thy vile race,
    Though thou didst learn, had that in't which good natures
    Could not abide to be with; therefore wast thou
    Deservedly confin'd into this rock, who hadst
    Deserv'd more than a prison.
  CALIBAN. You taught me language, and my profit on't
    Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
    For learning me your language!
  PROSPERO. Hag-seed, hence!
    Fetch us in fuel. And be quick, thou 'rt best,
    To answer other business. Shrug'st thou, malice?
    If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly
    What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps,
    Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar,
    That beasts shall tremble at thy din.
  CALIBAN. No, pray thee.
    [Aside]  I must obey. His art is of such pow'r,
    It would control my dam's god, Setebos,
    And make a vassal of him.
  PROSPERO. So, slave; hence!                       Exit CALIBAN

         Re-enter ARIEL invisible, playing ad singing;
                     FERDINAND following

                          ARIEL'S SONG.
            Come unto these yellow sands,
              And then take hands;
            Curtsied when you have and kiss'd,
              The wild waves whist,
            Foot it featly here and there,
            And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.
              Hark, hark!
            [Burden dispersedly: Bow-wow.]
              The watch dogs bark.
            [Burden dispersedly: Bow-wow.]
              Hark, hark! I hear
            The strain of strutting chanticleer
              Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.
  FERDINAND. Where should this music be? I' th' air or th'
    earth?
    It sounds no more; and sure it waits upon
    Some god o' th' island. Sitting on a bank,
    Weeping again the King my father's wreck,
    This music crept by me upon the waters,
    Allaying both their fury and my passion
    With its sweet air; thence I have follow'd it,
    Or it hath drawn me rather. But 'tis gone.
    No, it begins again.

                   ARIEL'S SONG
         Full fathom five thy father lies;
           Of his bones are coral made;
         Those are pearls that were his eyes;
           Nothing of him that doth fade
         But doth suffer a sea-change
         Into something rich and strange.
         Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
           [Burden: Ding-dong.]
         Hark! now I hear them-Ding-dong bell.

  FERDINAND. The ditty does remember my drown'd father.
    This is no mortal business, nor no sound
    That the earth owes. I hear it now above me.
  PROSPERO. The fringed curtains of thine eye advance,
    And say what thou seest yond.
  MIRANDA. What is't? a spirit?
    Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,
    It carries a brave form. But 'tis a spirit.
  PROSPERO. No, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such senses
    As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest
    Was in the wreck; and but he's something stain'd
    With grief, that's beauty's canker, thou mightst call him
    A goodly person. He hath lost his fellows,
    And strays about to find 'em.
  MIRANDA. I might call him
    A thing divine; for nothing natural
    I ever saw so noble.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  It goes on, I see,
    As my soul prompts it. Spirit, fine spirit! I'll free thee
    Within two days for this.
  FERDINAND. Most sure, the goddess
    On whom these airs attend! Vouchsafe my pray'r
    May know if you remain upon this island;
    And that you will some good instruction give
    How I may bear me here. My prime request,
    Which I do last pronounce, is, O you wonder!
    If you be maid or no?
  MIRANDA. No wonder, sir;
    But certainly a maid.
  FERDINAND. My language? Heavens!
    I am the best of them that speak this speech,
    Were I but where 'tis spoken.
  PROSPERO. How? the best?
    What wert thou, if the King of Naples heard thee?
  FERDINAND. A single thing, as I am now, that wonders
    To hear thee speak of Naples. He does hear me;
    And that he does I weep. Myself am Naples,
    Who with mine eyes, never since at ebb, beheld
    The King my father wreck'd.
  MIRANDA. Alack, for mercy!
  FERDINAND. Yes, faith, and all his lords, the Duke of Milan
    And his brave son being twain.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  The Duke of Milan
    And his more braver daughter could control thee,
    If now 'twere fit to do't. At the first sight
    They have chang'd eyes. Delicate Ariel,
    I'll set thee free for this.  [To FERDINAND]  A word, good
    sir;
    I fear you have done yourself some wrong; a word.
  MIRANDA. Why speaks my father so ungently? This
    Is the third man that e'er I saw; the first
    That e'er I sigh'd for. Pity move my father
    To be inclin'd my way!
  FERDINAND. O, if a virgin,
    And your affection not gone forth, I'll make you
    The Queen of Naples.
  PROSPERO. Soft, Sir! one word more.
    [Aside]  They are both in either's pow'rs; but this swift
    busines
    I must uneasy make, lest too light winning
    Make the prize light.  [To FERDINAND]  One word more; I
    charge thee
    That thou attend me; thou dost here usurp
    The name thou ow'st not; and hast put thyself
    Upon this island as a spy, to win it
    From me, the lord on't.
  FERDINAND. No, as I am a man.
  MIRANDA. There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.
    If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
    Good things will strive to dwell with't.
  PROSPERO. Follow me.
    Speak not you for him; he's a traitor. Come;
    I'll manacle thy neck and feet together.
    Sea-water shalt thou drink; thy food shall be
    The fresh-brook mussels, wither'd roots, and husks
    Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow.
  FERDINAND. No;
    I will resist such entertainment till
    Mine enemy has more power.
                          [He draws, and is charmed from moving]
  MIRANDA. O dear father,
    Make not too rash a trial of him, for
    He's gentle, and not fearful.
  PROSPERO. What, I say,
    My foot my tutor? Put thy sword up, traitor;
    Who mak'st a show but dar'st not strike, thy conscience
    Is so possess'd with guilt. Come from thy ward;
    For I can here disarm thee with this stick
    And make thy weapon drop.
  MIRANDA. Beseech you, father!
  PROSPERO. Hence! Hang not on my garments.
  MIRANDA. Sir, have pity;
    I'll be his surety.
  PROSPERO. Silence! One word more
    Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What!
    An advocate for an impostor! hush!
    Thou think'st there is no more such shapes as he,
    Having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish wench!
    To th' most of men this is a Caliban,
    And they to him are angels.
  MIRANDA. My affections
    Are then most humble; I have no ambition
    To see a goodlier man.
  PROSPERO. Come on; obey.
    Thy nerves are in their infancy again,
    And have no vigour in them.
  FERDINAND. So they are;
    My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.
    My father's loss, the weakness which I feel,
    The wreck of all my friends, nor this man's threats
    To whom I am subdu'd, are but light to me,
    Might I but through my prison once a day
    Behold this maid. All corners else o' th' earth
    Let liberty make use of; space enough
    Have I in such a prison.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  It works.  [To FERDINAND]  Come on.-
    Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!  [To FERDINAND]  Follow
    me.
    [To ARIEL]  Hark what thou else shalt do me.
  MIRANDA. Be of comfort;
    My father's of a better nature, sir,
    Than he appears by speech; this is unwonted
    Which now came from him.
  PROSPERO.  [To ARIEL]  Thou shalt be as free
    As mountain winds; but then exactly do
    All points of my command.
  ARIEL. To th' syllable.
  PROSPERO.  [To FERDINAND]  Come, follow.  [To MIRANDA]
    Speak not for him.                                    Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE 1

Another part of the island

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and
OTHERS

  GONZALO. Beseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause,
    So have we all, of joy; for our escape
    Is much beyond our loss. Our hint of woe
    Is common; every day, some sailor's wife,
    The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,
    Have just our theme of woe; but for the miracle,
    I mean our preservation, few in millions
    Can speak like us. Then wisely, good sir, weigh
    Our sorrow with our comfort.
  ALONSO. Prithee, peace.
  SEBASTIAN. He receives comfort like cold porridge.
  ANTONIO. The visitor will not give him o'er so.
  SEBASTIAN. Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by
    and by it will strike.
  GONZALO. Sir-
  SEBASTIAN. One-Tell.
  GONZALO. When every grief is entertain'd that's offer'd,
    Comes to th' entertainer-
  SEBASTIAN. A dollar.
  GONZALO. Dolour comes to him, indeed; you have spoken
    truer than you purpos'd.
  SEBASTIAN. You have taken it wiselier than I meant you
    should.
  GONZALO. Therefore, my lord-
  ANTONIO. Fie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
  ALONSO. I prithee, spare.
  GONZALO. Well, I have done; but yet-
  SEBASTIAN. He will be talking.
  ANTONIO. Which, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first
    begins to crow?
  SEBASTIAN. The old cock.
  ANTONIO. The cock'rel.
  SEBASTIAN. Done. The wager?
  ANTONIO. A laughter.
  SEBASTIAN. A match!
  ADRIAN. Though this island seem to be desert-
  ANTONIO. Ha, ha, ha!
  SEBASTIAN. So, you're paid.
  ADRIAN. Uninhabitable, and almost inaccessible-
  SEBASTIAN. Yet-
  ADRIAN. Yet-
  ANTONIO. He could not miss't.
  ADRIAN. It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate
    temperance.
  ANTONIO. Temperance was a delicate wench.
  SEBASTIAN. Ay, and a subtle; as he most learnedly
    deliver'd.
  ADRIAN. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
  SEBASTIAN. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.
  ANTONIO. Or, as 'twere perfum'd by a fen.
  GONZALO. Here is everything advantageous to life.
  ANTONIO. True; save means to live.
  SEBASTIAN. Of that there's none, or little.
  GONZALO. How lush and lusty the grass looks! how green!
  ANTONIO. The ground indeed is tawny.
  SEBASTIAN. With an eye of green in't.
  ANTONIO. He misses not much.
  SEBASTIAN. No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.
  GONZALO. But the rarity of it is, which is indeed almost
    beyond credit-
  SEBASTIAN. As many vouch'd rarities are.
  GONZALO. That our garments, being, as they were, drench'd
    in the sea, hold, notwithstanding, their freshness and
    glosses, being rather new-dy'd, than stain'd with salt
    water.
  ANTONIO. If but one of his pockets could speak, would it
    not say he lies?
  SEBASTIAN. Ay, or very falsely pocket up his report.
  GONZALO. Methinks our garments are now as fresh as when
    we put them on first in Afric, at the marriage of the
    King's fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.
  SEBASTIAN. 'Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in
    our return.
  ADRIAN. Tunis was never grac'd before with such a paragon
    to their queen.
  GONZALO. Not since widow Dido's time.
  ANTONIO. Widow! a pox o' that! How came that 'widow'
    in? Widow Dido!
  SEBASTIAN. What if he had said 'widower Aeneas' too?
    Good Lord, how you take it!
  ADRIAN. 'Widow Dido' said you? You make me study of
    that. She was of Carthage, not of Tunis.
  GONZALO. This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.
  ADRIAN. Carthage?
  GONZALO. I assure you, Carthage.
  ANTONIO. His word is more than the miraculous harp.
  SEBASTIAN. He hath rais'd the wall, and houses too.
  ANTONIO. What impossible matter will he make easy next?
  SEBASTIAN. I think he will carry this island home in his
    pocket, and give it his son for an apple.
  ANTONIO. And, sowing the kernels of it in the sea, bring
    forth more islands.
  GONZALO. Ay.
  ANTONIO. Why, in good time.
  GONZALO. Sir, we were talking that our garments seem now
    as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of
    your daughter, who is now Queen.
  ANTONIO. And the rarest that e'er came there.
  SEBASTIAN. Bate, I beseech you, widow Dido.
  ANTONIO. O, widow Dido! Ay, widow Dido.
  GONZALO. Is not, sir, my doublet as fresh as the first day I
    wore it? I mean, in a sort.
  ANTONIO. That 'sort' was well fish'd for.
  GONZALO. When I wore it at your daughter's marriage?
  ALONSO. You cram these words into mine ears against
    The stomach of my sense. Would I had never
    Married my daughter there; for, coming thence,
    My son is lost; and, in my rate, she too,
    Who is so far from Italy removed
    I ne'er again shall see her. O thou mine heir
    Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish
    Hath made his meal on thee?
  FRANCISCO. Sir, he may live;
    I saw him beat the surges under him,
    And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,
    Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted
    The surge most swoln that met him; his bold head
    'Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared
    Himself with his good arms in lusty stroke
    To th' shore, that o'er his wave-worn basis bowed,
    As stooping to relieve him. I not doubt
    He came alive to land.
  ALONSO. No, no, he's gone.
  SEBASTIAN. Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,
    That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,
    But rather lose her to an African;
    Where she, at least, is banish'd from your eye,
    Who hath cause to wet the grief on't.
  ALONSO. Prithee, peace.
  SEBASTIAN. You were kneel'd to, and importun'd otherwise
    By all of us; and the fair soul herself
    Weigh'd between loathness and obedience at
    Which end o' th' beam should bow. We have lost your son,
    I fear, for ever. Milan and Naples have
    Moe widows in them of this business' making,
    Than we bring men to comfort them;
    The fault's your own.
  ALONSO. So is the dear'st o' th' loss.
  GONZALO. My lord Sebastian,
    The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,
    And time to speak it in; you rub the sore,
    When you should bring the plaster.
  SEBASTIAN. Very well.
  ANTONIO. And most chirurgeonly.
  GONZALO. It is foul weather in us all, good sir,
    When you are cloudy.
  SEBASTIAN. Foul weather?
  ANTONIO. Very foul.
  GONZALO. Had I plantation of this isle, my lord-
  ANTONIO. He'd sow 't with nettle-seed.
  SEBASTIAN. Or docks, or mallows.
  GONZALO. And were the king on't, what would I do?
  SEBASTIAN. Scape being drunk for want of wine.
  GONZALO. I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries
    Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
    Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
    Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
    And use of service, none; contract, succession,
    Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
    No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
    No occupation; all men idle, all;
    And women too, but innocent and pure;
    No sovereignty-
  SEBASTIAN. Yet he would be king on't.
  ANTONIO. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the
    beginning.
  GONZALO. All things in common nature should produce
    Without sweat or endeavour. Treason, felony,
    Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine,
    Would I not have; but nature should bring forth,
    Of it own kind, all foison, all abundance,
    To feed my innocent people.
  SEBASTIAN. No marrying 'mong his subjects?
  ANTONIO. None, man; all idle; whores and knaves.
  GONZALO. I would with such perfection govern, sir,
    T' excel the golden age.
  SEBASTIAN. Save his Majesty!
  ANTONIO. Long live Gonzalo!
  GONZALO. And-do you mark me, sir?
  ALONSO. Prithee, no more; thou dost talk nothing to me.
  GONZALO. I do well believe your Highness; and did it to
    minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such
    sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh
    at nothing.
  ANTONIO. 'Twas you we laugh'd at.
  GONZALO. Who in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to
    you; so you may continue, and laugh at nothing still.
  ANTONIO. What a blow was there given!
  SEBASTIAN. An it had not fall'n flat-long.
  GONZALO. You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would
    lift the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue
    in it five weeks without changing.

          Enter ARIEL, invisible, playing solemn music

  SEBASTIAN. We would so, and then go a-bat-fowling.
  ANTONIO. Nay, good my lord, be not angry.
  GONZALO. No, I warrant you; I will not adventure my
    discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am
    very heavy?
  ANTONIO. Go sleep, and hear us.
                   [All sleep but ALONSO, SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]
  ALONSO. What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyes
    Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts; I find
    They are inclin'd to do so.
  SEBASTIAN. Please you, sir,
    Do not omit the heavy offer of it:
    It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth,
    It is a comforter.
  ANTONIO. We two, my lord,
    Will guard your person while you take your rest,
    And watch your safety.
  ALONSO. Thank you-wondrous heavy!
                                     [ALONSO sleeps. Exit ARIEL]
  SEBASTIAN. What a strange drowsiness possesses them!
  ANTONIO. It is the quality o' th' climate.
  SEBASTIAN. Why
    Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find not
    Myself dispos'd to sleep.
  ANTONIO. Nor I; my spirits are nimble.
    They fell together all, as by consent;
    They dropp'd, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,
    Worthy Sebastian? O, what might! No more!
    And yet methinks I see it in thy face,
    What thou shouldst be; th' occasion speaks thee; and
    My strong imagination sees a crown
    Dropping upon thy head.
  SEBASTIAN. What, art thou waking?
  ANTONIO. Do you not hear me speak?
  SEBASTIAN. I do; and surely
    It is a sleepy language, and thou speak'st
    Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?
    This is a strange repose, to be asleep
    With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving,
    And yet so fast asleep.
  ANTONIO. Noble Sebastian,
    Thou let'st thy fortune sleep-die rather; wink'st
    Whiles thou art waking.
  SEBASTIAN. Thou dost snore distinctly;
    There's meaning in thy snores.
  ANTONIO. I am more serious than my custom; you
    Must be so too, if heed me; which to do
    Trebles thee o'er.
  SEBASTIAN. Well, I am standing water.
  ANTONIO. I'll teach you how to flow.
  SEBASTIAN. Do so: to ebb,
    Hereditary sloth instructs me.
  ANTONIO. O,
    If you but knew how you the purpose cherish,
    Whiles thus you mock it! how, in stripping it,
    You more invest it! Ebbing men indeed,
    Most often, do so near the bottom run
    By their own fear or sloth.
  SEBASTIAN. Prithee say on.
    The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim
    A matter from thee; and a birth, indeed,
    Which throes thee much to yield.
  ANTONIO. Thus, sir:
    Although this lord of weak remembrance, this
    Who shall be of as little memory
    When he is earth'd, hath here almost persuaded-
    For he's a spirit of persuasion, only
    Professes to persuade-the King his son's alive,
    'Tis as impossible that he's undrown'd
    As he that sleeps here swims.
  SEBASTIAN. I have no hope
    That he's undrown'd.
  ANTONIO. O, out of that 'no hope'
    What great hope have you! No hope that way is
    Another way so high a hope, that even
    Ambition cannot pierce a wink beyond,
    But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me
    That Ferdinand is drown'd?
  SEBASTIAN. He's gone.
  ANTONIO. Then tell me,
    Who's the next heir of Naples?
  SEBASTIAN. Claribel.
  ANTONIO. She that is Queen of Tunis; she that dwells
    Ten leagues beyond man's life; she that from Naples
    Can have no note, unless the sun were post,
    The Man i' th' Moon's too slow, till newborn chins
    Be rough and razorable; she that from whom
    We all were sea-swallow'd, though some cast again,
    And by that destiny, to perform an act
    Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come
    In yours and my discharge.
  SEBASTIAN. What stuff is this! How say you?
    'Tis true, my brother's daughter's Queen of Tunis;
    So is she heir of Naples; 'twixt which regions
    There is some space.
  ANTONIO. A space whose ev'ry cubit
    Seems to cry out 'How shall that Claribel
    Measure us back to Naples? Keep in Tunis,
    And let Sebastian wake.' Say this were death
    That now hath seiz'd them; why, they were no worse
    Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples
    As well as he that sleeps; lords that can prate
    As amply and unnecessarily
    As this Gonzalo; I myself could make
    A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore
    The mind that I do! What a sleep were this
    For your advancement! Do you understand me?
  SEBASTIAN. Methinks I do.
  ANTONIO. And how does your content
    Tender your own good fortune?
  SEBASTIAN. I remember
    You did supplant your brother Prospero.
  ANTONIO. True.
    And look how well my garments sit upon me,
    Much feater than before. My brother's servants
    Were then my fellows; now they are my men.
  SEBASTIAN. But, for your conscience-
  ANTONIO. Ay, sir; where lies that? If 'twere a kibe,
    'Twould put me to my slipper; but I feel not
    This deity in my bosom; twenty consciences
    That stand 'twixt me and Milan, candied be they
    And melt, ere they molest! Here lies your brother,
    No better than the earth he lies upon,
    If he were that which now he's like-that's dead;
    Whom I with this obedient steel, three inches of it,
    Can lay to bed for ever; whiles you, doing thus,
    To the perpetual wink for aye might put
    This ancient morsel, this Sir Prudence, who
    Should not upbraid our course. For all the rest,
    They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk;
    They'll tell the clock to any business that
    We say befits the hour.
  SEBASTIAN. Thy case, dear friend,
    Shall be my precedent; as thou got'st Milan,
    I'll come by Naples. Draw thy sword. One stroke
    Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest;
    And I the King shall love thee.
  ANTONIO. Draw together;
    And when I rear my hand, do you the like,
    To fall it on Gonzalo.
  SEBASTIAN. O, but one word.                  [They talk apart]

          Re-enter ARIEL, invisible, with music and song

  ARIEL. My master through his art foresees the danger
    That you, his friend, are in; and sends me forth-
    For else his project dies-to keep them living.
                                        [Sings in GONZALO'S ear]
    While you here do snoring lie,
    Open-ey'd conspiracy
    His time doth take.
    If of life you keep a care,
    Shake off slumber, and beware.
    Awake, awake!

  ANTONIO. Then let us both be sudden.
  GONZALO. Now, good angels
    Preserve the King!                               [They wake]
  ALONSO. Why, how now?-Ho, awake!-Why are you drawn?
    Wherefore this ghastly looking?
  GONZALO. What's the matter?
  SEBASTIAN. Whiles we stood here securing your repose,
    Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing
    Like bulls, or rather lions; did't not wake you?
    It struck mine ear most terribly.
  ALONSO. I heard nothing.
  ANTONIO. O, 'twas a din to fright a monster's ear,
    To make an earthquake! Sure it was the roar
    Of a whole herd of lions.
  ALONSO. Heard you this, Gonzalo?
  GONZALO. Upon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming,
    And that a strange one too, which did awake me;
    I shak'd you, sir, and cried; as mine eyes open'd,
    I saw their weapons drawn-there was a noise,
    That's verily. 'Tis best we stand upon our guard,
    Or that we quit this place. Let's draw our weapons.
  ALONSO. Lead off this ground; and let's make further
    search
    For my poor son.
  GONZALO. Heavens keep him from these beasts!
    For he is, sure, i' th' island.
  ALONSO. Lead away.
  ARIEL. Prospero my lord shall know what I have done;
    So, King, go safely on to seek thy son.               Exeunt

SCENE 2

Another part of the island

Enter CALIBAN, with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard

  CALIBAN. All the infections that the sun sucks up
    From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him
    By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me,
    And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch,
    Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' th' mire,
    Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark
    Out of my way, unless he bid 'em; but
    For every trifle are they set upon me;
    Sometime like apes that mow and chatter at me,
    And after bite me; then like hedgehogs which
    Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount
    Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I
    All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues
    Do hiss me into madness.

                         Enter TRINCULO

    Lo, now, lo!
    Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me
    For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat;
    Perchance he will not mind me.
  TRINCULO. Here's neither bush nor shrub to bear off any
    weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it
    sing i' th' wind. Yond same black cloud, yond huge one,
    looks like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If
    it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to
    hide my head. Yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by
    pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or
    alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and
    fish-like smell; kind of not-of-the-newest Poor-John. A
    strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and
    had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but
    would give a piece of silver. There would this monster
    make a man; any strange beast there makes a man; when
    they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they
    will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legg'd like a
    man, and his fins like arms! Warm, o' my troth! I do now
    let loose my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no
    fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by
    thunderbolt.  [Thunder]  Alas, the storm is come again! My
    best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no
    other shelter hereabout. Misery acquaints a man with
    strange bed-fellows. I will here shroud till the dregs
    of the storm be past.

            Enter STEPHANO singing; a bottle in his hand

  STEPHANO. I shall no more to sea, to sea,
    Here shall I die ashore-
    This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral;
    well, here's my comfort.                            [Drinks]

    The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I,
    The gunner, and his mate,
    Lov'd Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery,
    But none of us car'd for Kate;
    For she had a tongue with a tang,
    Would cry to a sailor 'Go hang!'
    She lov'd not the savour of tar nor of pitch,
    Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch.
    Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!

    This is a scurvy tune too; but here's my comfort.
                                                        [Drinks]
  CALIBAN. Do not torment me. O!
  STEPHANO. What's the matter? Have we devils here? Do you
    put tricks upon 's with savages and men of Ind? Ha! I
    have not scap'd drowning to be afeard now of your four
    legs; for it hath been said: As proper a man as ever
    went on four legs cannot make him give ground; and it
    shall be said so again, while Stephano breathes at
    nostrils.
  CALIBAN. The spirit torments me. O!
  STEPHANO. This is some monster of the isle with four legs,
    who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil
    should he learn our language? I will give him some
    relief, if it be but for that. If I can recover him, and
    keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, he's a
    present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's
    leather.
  CALIBAN. Do not torment me, prithee; I'll bring my wood
    home faster.
  STEPHANO. He's in his fit now, and does not talk after the
    wisest. He shall taste of my bottle; if he have never
    drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit. If
    I can recover him, and keep him tame, I will not take
    too much for him; he shall pay for him that hath him,
    and that soundly.
  CALIBAN. Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon,
    I know it by thy trembling; now Prosper works upon thee.
  STEPHANO. Come on your ways; open your mouth; here is
    that which will give language to you, cat. Open your
    mouth; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and
    that soundly; you cannot tell who's your friend. Open
    your chaps again.
  TRINCULO. I should know that voice; it should be-but he is
    drown'd; and these are devils. O, defend me!
  STEPHANO. Four legs and two voices; a most delicate monster!
    His forward voice, now, is to speak well of his
    friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and
    to detract. If all the wine in my bottle will recover
    him, I will help his ague. Come-Amen! I will pour some
    in thy other mouth.
  TRINCULO. Stephano!
  STEPHANO. Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy!
    This is a devil, and no monster; I will leave him; I
    have no long spoon.
  TRINCULO. Stephano! If thou beest Stephano, touch me, and
    speak to me; for I am Trinculo-be not afeard-thy good
    friend Trinculo.
  STEPHANO. If thou beest Trinculo, come forth; I'll pull
    the by the lesser legs; if any be Trinculo's legs, these
    are they. Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How cam'st thou
    to be the siege of this moon-calf? Can he vent
    Trinculos?
  TRINCULO. I took him to be kill'd with a thunderstroke.
    But art thou not drown'd, Stephano? I hope now thou are
    not drown'd. Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the
    dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And
    art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans
    scap'd!
  STEPHANO. Prithee, do not turn me about; my stomach is not
    constant.
  CALIBAN.  [Aside]  These be fine things, an if they be not
    sprites.
    That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor.
    I will kneel to him.
  STEPHANO. How didst thou scape? How cam'st thou hither?
    Swear by this bottle how thou cam'st hither-I escap'd
    upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o'erboard-
    by this bottle, which I made of the bark of a tree, with
    mine own hands, since I was cast ashore.
  CALIBAN. I'll swear upon that bottle to be thy true
    subject, for the liquor is not earthly.
  STEPHANO. Here; swear then how thou escap'dst.
  TRINCULO. Swum ashore, man, like a duck; I can swim like
    a duck, I'll be sworn.
  STEPHANO.  [Passing the bottle]  Here, kiss the book. Though
    thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a
    goose.
  TRINCULO. O Stephano, hast any more of this?
  STEPHANO. The whole butt, man; my cellar is in a rock by
    th' seaside, where my wine is hid. How now, moon-calf!
    How does thine ague?
  CALIBAN. Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven?
  STEPHANO. Out o' th' moon, I do assure thee; I was the Man
    i' th' Moon, when time was.
  CALIBAN. I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee. My
    mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog and thy bush.
  STEPHANO. Come, swear to that; kiss the book. I will
    furnish it anon with new contents. Swear.
                                                [CALIBAN drinks]
  TRINCULO. By this good light, this is a very shallow
    monster!
    I afeard of him! A very weak monster! The Man i' th'
    Moon! A most poor credulous monster! Well drawn,
    monster, in good sooth!
  CALIBAN. I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island;
    and will kiss thy foot. I prithee be my god.
  TRINCULO. By this light, a most perfidious and drunken
    monster! When's god's asleep he'll rob his bottle.
  CALIBAN. I'll kiss thy foot; I'll swear myself thy
    subject.
  STEPHANO. Come on, then; down, and swear.
  TRINCULO. I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-
    headed monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in
    my heart to beat him-
  STEPHANO. Come, kiss.
  TRINCULO. But that the poor monster's in drink. An
    abominable monster!
  CALIBAN. I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee
    berries;
    I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.
    A plague upon the tyrant that I serve!
    I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee,
    Thou wondrous man.
  TRINCULO. A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of
    a poor drunkard!
  CALIBAN. I prithee let me bring thee where crabs grow;
    And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts;
    Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how
    To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee
    To clust'ring filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee
    Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?
  STEPHANO. I prithee now, lead the way without any more
    talking. Trinculo, the King and all our company else
    being drown'd, we will inherit here. Here, bear my bottle.
    Fellow Trinculo, we'll fill him by and by again.
  CALIBAN.  [Sings drunkenly]  Farewell, master; farewell,
    farewell!
  TRINCULO. A howling monster; a drunken monster!
  CALIBAN. No more dams I'll make for fish;
    Nor fetch in firing
    At requiring,
    Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish.
    'Ban 'Ban, Ca-Caliban,
    Has a new master-Get a new man.
    Freedom, high-day! high-day, freedom! freedom, high-
    day, freedom!
  STEPHANO. O brave monster! Lead the way.                Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE 1

Before PROSPERO'S cell

Enter FERDINAND, hearing a log

  FERDINAND. There be some sports are painful, and their
    labour
    Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness
    Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
    Point to rich ends. This my mean task
    Would be as heavy to me as odious, but
    The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead,
    And makes my labours pleasures. O, she is
    Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed;
    And he's compos'd of harshness. I must remove
    Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up,
    Upon a sore injunction; my sweet mistress
    Weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness
    Had never like executor. I forget;
    But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,
    Most busy, least when I do it.

        Enter MIRANDA; and PROSPERO at a distance, unseen

  MIRANDA. Alas, now; pray you,
    Work not so hard; I would the lightning had
    Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile.
    Pray, set it down and rest you; when this burns,
    'Twill weep for having wearied you. My father
    Is hard at study; pray, now, rest yourself;
    He's safe for these three hours.
  FERDINAND. O most dear mistress,
    The sun will set before I shall discharge
    What I must strive to do.
  MIRANDA. If you'll sit down,
    I'll bear your logs the while; pray give me that;
    I'll carry it to the pile.
  FERDINAND. No, precious creature;
    I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,
    Than you should such dishonour undergo,
    While I sit lazy by.
  MIRANDA. It would become me
    As well as it does you; and I should do it
    With much more ease; for my good will is to it,
    And yours it is against.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Poor worm, thou art infected!
    This visitation shows it.
  MIRANDA. You look wearily.
  FERDINAND. No, noble mistress; 'tis fresh morning with me
    When you are by at night. I do beseech you,
    Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,
    What is your name?
  MIRANDA. Miranda-O my father,
    I have broke your hest to say so!
  FERDINAND. Admir'd Miranda!
    What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady
    I have ey'd with best regard; and many a time
    Th' harmony of their tongues hath into bondage
    Brought my too diligent ear; for several virtues
    Have I lik'd several women, never any
    With so full soul, but some defect in her
    Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd,
    And put it to the foil; but you, O you,
    So perfect and so peerless, are created
    Of every creature's best!
  MIRANDA. I do not know
    One of my sex; no woman's face remember,
    Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen
    More that I may call men than you, good friend,
    And my dear father. How features are abroad,
    I am skilless of; but, by my modesty,
    The jewel in my dower, I would not wish
    Any companion in the world but you;
    Nor can imagination form a shape,
    Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle
    Something too wildly, and my father's precepts
    I therein do forget.
  FERDINAND. I am, in my condition,
    A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king-
    I would not so!-and would no more endure
    This wooden slavery than to suffer
    The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak:
    The very instant that I saw you, did
    My heart fly to your service; there resides
    To make me slave to it; and for your sake
    Am I this patient log-man.
  MIRANDA. Do you love me?
  FERDINAND. O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,
    And crown what I profess with kind event,
    If I speak true! If hollowly, invert
    What best is boded me to mischief! I,
    Beyond all limit of what else i' th' world,
    Do love, prize, honour you.
  MIRANDA. I am a fool
    To weep at what I am glad of.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Fair encounter
    Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace
    On that which breeds between 'em!
  FERDINAND. Wherefore weep you?
  MIRANDA. At mine unworthiness, that dare not offer
    What I desire to give, and much less take
    What I shall die to want. But this is trifling;
    And all the more it seeks to hide itself,
    The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning!
    And prompt me, plain and holy innocence!
    I am your wife, if you will marry me;
    If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow
    You may deny me; but I'll be your servant,
    Whether you will or no.
  FERDINAND. My mistress, dearest;
    And I thus humble ever.
  MIRANDA. My husband, then?
  FERDINAND. Ay, with a heart as willing
    As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand.
  MIRANDA. And mine, with my heart in't. And now farewell
    Till half an hour hence.
  FERDINAND. A thousand thousand!
                          Exeunt FERDINAND and MIRANDA severally
  PROSPERO. So glad of this as they I cannot be,
    Who are surpris'd withal; but my rejoicing
    At nothing can be more. I'll to my book;
    For yet ere supper time must I perform
    Much business appertaining.                             Exit

SCENE 2

Another part of the island

Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO

  STEPHANO. Tell not me-when the butt is out we will drink
    water, not a drop before; therefore bear up, and board
    'em. Servant-monster, drink to me.
  TRINCULO. Servant-monster! The folly of this island! They
    say there's but five upon this isle: we are three of
    them; if th' other two be brain'd like us, the state
    totters.
  STEPHANO. Drink, servant-monster, when I bid thee; thy
    eyes are almost set in thy head.
  TRINCULO. Where should they be set else? He were a brave
    monster indeed, if they were set in his tail.
  STEPHANO. My man-monster hath drown'd his tongue in
    sack. For my part, the sea cannot drown me; I swam, ere
    I could recover the shore, five and thirty leagues, off
    and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant,
    monster, or my standard.
  TRINCULO. Your lieutenant, if you list; he's no standard.
  STEPHANO. We'll not run, Monsieur Monster.
  TRINCULO. Nor go neither; but you'll lie like dogs, and
    yet say nothing neither.
  STEPHANO. Moon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou beest
    a good moon-calf.
  CALIBAN. How does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe.
    I'll not serve him; he is not valiant.
  TRINCULO. Thou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case
    to justle a constable. Why, thou debosh'd fish, thou,
    was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack
    as I to-day? Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but
    half fish and half a monster?
  CALIBAN. Lo, how he mocks me! Wilt thou let him, my
    lord?
  TRINCULO. 'Lord' quoth he! That a monster should be such
    a natural!
  CALIBAN. Lo, lo again! Bite him to death, I prithee.
  STEPHANO. Trinculo, keep a good tongue in your head; if
    you prove a mutineer-the next tree! The poor monster's
    my subject, and he shall not suffer indignity.
  CALIBAN. I thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleas'd to
    hearken once again to the suit I made to thee?
  STEPHANO. Marry will I; kneel and repeat it; I will stand,
    and so shall Trinculo.

                     Enter ARIEL, invisible

  CALIBAN. As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant,
    sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the
    island.
  ARIEL. Thou liest.
  CALIBAN. Thou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou;
    I would my valiant master would destroy thee.
    I do not lie.
  STEPHANO. Trinculo, if you trouble him any more in's tale,
    by this hand, I will supplant some of your teeth.
  TRINCULO. Why, I said nothing.
  STEPHANO. Mum, then, and no more. Proceed.
  CALIBAN. I say, by sorcery he got this isle;
    From me he got it. If thy greatness will
    Revenge it on him-for I know thou dar'st,
    But this thing dare not-
  STEPHANO. That's most certain.
  CALIBAN. Thou shalt be lord of it, and I'll serve thee.
  STEPHANO. How now shall this be compass'd? Canst thou
    bring me to the party?
  CALIBAN. Yea, yea, my lord; I'll yield him thee asleep,
    Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head.
  ARIEL. Thou liest; thou canst not.
  CALIBAN. What a pied ninny's this! Thou scurvy patch!
    I do beseech thy greatness, give him blows,
    And take his bottle from him. When that's gone
    He shall drink nought but brine; for I'll not show him
    Where the quick freshes are.
  STEPHANO. Trinculo, run into no further danger; interrupt
    the monster one word further and, by this hand, I'll turn
    my mercy out o' doors, and make a stock-fish of thee.
  TRINCULO. Why, what did I? I did nothing. I'll go farther
    off.
  STEPHANO. Didst thou not say he lied?
  ARIEL. Thou liest.
  STEPHANO. Do I so? Take thou that.  [Beats him]  As you like
    this, give me the lie another time.
  TRINCULO. I did not give the lie. Out o' your wits and
    hearing too? A pox o' your bottle! This can sack and
    drinking do. A murrain on your monster, and the devil
    take your fingers!
  CALIBAN. Ha, ha, ha!
  STEPHANO. Now, forward with your tale.-Prithee stand
    further off.
  CALIBAN. Beat him enough; after a little time, I'll beat
    him too.
  STEPHANO. Stand farther. Come, proceed.
  CALIBAN. Why, as I told thee, 'tis a custom with him
    I' th' afternoon to sleep; there thou mayst brain him,
    Having first seiz'd his books; or with a log
    Batter his skull, or paunch him with a stake,
    Or cut his wezand with thy knife. Remember
    First to possess his books; for without them
    He's but a sot, as I am, nor hath not
    One spirit to command; they all do hate him
    As rootedly as I. Burn but his books.
    He has brave utensils-for so he calls them-
    Which, when he has a house, he'll deck withal.
    And that most deeply to consider is
    The beauty of his daughter; he himself
    Calls her a nonpareil. I never saw a woman
    But only Sycorax my dam and she;
    But she as far surpasseth Sycorax
    As great'st does least.
  STEPHANO. Is it so brave a lass?
  CALIBAN. Ay, lord; she will become thy bed, I warrant,
    And bring thee forth brave brood.
  STEPHANO. Monster, I will kill this man; his daughter and I
    will be King and Queen-save our Graces!-and Trinculo
    and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot,
    Trinculo?
  TRINCULO. Excellent.
  STEPHANO. Give me thy hand; I am sorry I beat thee; but
    while thou liv'st, keep a good tongue in thy head.
  CALIBAN. Within this half hour will he be asleep.
    Wilt thou destroy him then?
  STEPHANO. Ay, on mine honour.
  ARIEL. This will I tell my master.
  CALIBAN. Thou mak'st me merry; I am full of pleasure.
    Let us be jocund; will you troll the catch
    You taught me but while-ere?
  STEPHANO. At thy request, monster, I will do reason, any
    reason. Come on, Trinculo, let us sing.              [Sings]

    Flout 'em and scout 'em,
    And scout 'em and flout 'em;
    Thought is free.

  CALIBAN. That's not the tune.
                      [ARIEL plays the tune on a tabor and pipe]
  STEPHANO. What is this same?
  TRINCULO. This is the tune of our catch, play'd by the
    picture of Nobody.
  STEPHANO. If thou beest a man, show thyself in thy
    likeness; if thou beest a devil, take't as thou list.
  TRINCULO. O, forgive me my sins!
  STEPHANO. He that dies pays all debts. I defy thee. Mercy
    upon us!
  CALIBAN. Art thou afeard?
  STEPHANO. No, monster, not I.
  CALIBAN. Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
    Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
    Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
    Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
    That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
    Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
    The clouds methought would open and show riches
    Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak'd,
    I cried to dream again.
  STEPHANO. This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I
    shall have my music for nothing.
  CALIBAN. When Prospero is destroy'd.
  STEPHANO. That shall be by and by; I remember the story.
  TRINCULO. The sound is going away; let's follow it, and
    after do our work.
  STEPHANO. Lead, monster; we'll follow. I would I could see
    this taborer; he lays it on.
  TRINCULO. Wilt come? I'll follow, Stephano.             Exeunt

SCENE 3

Another part of the island

Enter ALONSO, SEBASTIAN, ANTONIO, GONZALO, ADRIAN, FRANCISCO, and
OTHERS

  GONZALO. By'r lakin, I can go no further, sir;
    My old bones ache. Here's a maze trod, indeed,
    Through forth-rights and meanders! By your patience,
    I needs must rest me.
  ALONSO. Old lord, I cannot blame thee,
    Who am myself attach'd with weariness
    To th' dulling of my spirits; sit down and rest.
    Even here I will put off my hope, and keep it
    No longer for my flatterer; he is drown'd
    Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks
    Our frustrate search on land. Well, let him go.
  ANTONIO.  [Aside to SEBASTIAN]  I am right glad that he's
    so out of hope.
    Do not, for one repulse, forgo the purpose
    That you resolv'd t' effect.
  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside to ANTONIO]  The next advantage
    Will we take throughly.
  ANTONIO.  [Aside to SEBASTIAN]  Let it be to-night;
    For, now they are oppress'd with travel, they
    Will not, nor cannot, use such vigilance
    As when they are fresh.
  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside to ANTONIO]  I say, to-night; no more.

           Solemn and strange music; and PROSPERO on the
           top, invisible. Enter several strange SHAPES,
           bringing in a banquet; and dance about it with
           gentle actions of salutations; and inviting the
           KING, etc., to eat, they depart

  ALONSO. What harmony is this? My good friends, hark!
  GONZALO. Marvellous sweet music!
  ALONSO. Give us kind keepers, heavens! What were these?
  SEBASTIAN. A living drollery. Now I will believe
    That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
    There is one tree, the phoenix' throne, one phoenix
    At this hour reigning-there.
  ANTONIO. I'll believe both;
    And what does else want credit, come to me,
    And I'll be sworn 'tis true; travellers ne'er did lie,
    Though fools at home condemn 'em.
  GONZALO. If in Naples
    I should report this now, would they believe me?
    If I should say, I saw such islanders,
    For certes these are people of the island,
    Who though they are of monstrous shape yet, note,
    Their manners are more gentle-kind than of
    Our human generation you shall find
    Many, nay, almost any.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Honest lord,
    Thou hast said well; for some of you there present
    Are worse than devils.
  ALONSO. I cannot too much muse
    Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing,
    Although they want the use of tongue, a kind
    Of excellent dumb discourse.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  Praise in departing.
  FRANCISCO. They vanish'd strangely.
  SEBASTIAN. No matter, since
    They have left their viands behind; for we have stomachs.
    Will't please you taste of what is here?
  ALONSO. Not I.
  GONZALO. Faith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,
    Who would believe that there were mountaineers,
    Dewlapp'd like bulls, whose throats had hanging at 'em
    Wallets of flesh? or that there were such men
    Whose heads stood in their breasts? which now we find
    Each putter-out of five for one will bring us
    Good warrant of.
  ALONSO. I will stand to, and feed,
    Although my last; no matter, since I feel
    The best is past. Brother, my lord the Duke,
    Stand to, and do as we.

       Thunder and lightning. Enter ARIEL, like a harpy;
       claps his wings upon the table; and, with a quaint
                device, the banquet vanishes

  ARIEL. You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,
    That hath to instrument this lower world
    And what is in't, the never-surfeited sea
    Hath caus'd to belch up you; and on this island
    Where man doth not inhabit-you 'mongst men
    Being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;
    And even with such-like valour men hang and drown
    Their proper selves.
                     [ALONSO, SEBASTIAN etc., draw their swords]
    You fools! I and my fellows
    Are ministers of Fate; the elements
    Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well
    Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs
    Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
    One dowle that's in my plume; my fellow-ministers
    Are like invulnerable. If you could hurt,
    Your swords are now too massy for your strengths
    And will not be uplifted. But remember-
    For that's my business to you-that you three
    From Milan did supplant good Prospero;
    Expos'd unto the sea, which hath requit it,
    Him, and his innocent child; for which foul deed
    The pow'rs, delaying, not forgetting, have
    Incens'd the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures,
    Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,
    They have bereft; and do pronounce by me
    Ling'ring perdition, worse than any death
    Can be at once, shall step by step attend
    You and your ways; whose wraths to guard you from-
    Which here, in this most desolate isle, else falls
    Upon your heads-is nothing but heart's sorrow,
    And a clear life ensuing.

        He vanishes in thunder; then, to soft music, enter
        the SHAPES again, and dance, with mocks and mows,
                and carrying out the table

  PROSPERO. Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou
    Perform'd, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring.
    Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated
    In what thou hadst to say; so, with good life
    And observation strange, my meaner ministers
    Their several kinds have done. My high charms work,
    And these mine enemies are all knit up
    In their distractions. They now are in my pow'r;
    And in these fits I leave them, while I visit
    Young Ferdinand, whom they suppose is drown'd,
    And his and mine lov'd darling.                   Exit above
  GONZALO. I' th' name of something holy, sir, why stand you
    In this strange stare?
  ALONSO. O, it is monstrous, monstrous!
    Methought the billows spoke, and told me of it;
    The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder,
    That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd
    The name of Prosper; it did bass my trespass.
    Therefore my son i' th' ooze is bedded; and
    I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded,
    And with him there lie mudded.                          Exit
  SEBASTIAN. But one fiend at a time,
    I'll fight their legions o'er.
  ANTONIO. I'll be thy second.      Exeunt SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO
  GONZALO. All three of them are desperate; their great guilt,
    Like poison given to work a great time after,
    Now gins to bite the spirits. I do beseech you,
    That are of suppler joints, follow them swiftly,
    And hinder them from what this ecstasy
    May now provoke them to.
  ADRIAN. Follow, I pray you.                             Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE 1

Before PROSPERO'S cell

Enter PROSPERO, FERDINAND, and MIRANDA

  PROSPERO. If I have too austerely punish'd you,
    Your compensation makes amends; for
    Have given you here a third of mine own life,
    Or that for which I live; who once again
    I tender to thy hand. All thy vexations
    Were but my trials of thy love, and thou
    Hast strangely stood the test; here, afore heaven,
    I ratify this my rich gift. O Ferdinand!
    Do not smile at me that I boast her off,
    For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise,
    And make it halt behind her.
  FERDINAND. I do believe it
    Against an oracle.
  PROSPERO. Then, as my gift, and thine own acquisition
    Wort'hily purchas'd, take my daughter. But
    If thou dost break her virgin-knot before
    All sanctimonious ceremonies may
    With full and holy rite be minist'red,
    No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall
    To make this contract grow; but barren hate,
    Sour-ey'd disdain, and discord, shall bestrew
    The union of your bed with weeds so loathly
    That you shall hate it both. Therefore take heed,
    As Hymen's lamps shall light you.
  FERDINAND. As I hope
    For quiet days, fair issue, and long life,
    With such love as 'tis now, the murkiest den,
    The most opportune place, the strong'st suggestion
    Our worser genius can, shall never melt
    Mine honour into lust, to take away
    The edge of that day's celebration,
    When I shall think or Phoebus' steeds are founder'd
    Or Night kept chain'd below.
  PROSPERO. Fairly spoke.
    Sit, then, and talk with her; she is thine own.
    What, Ariel! my industrious servant, Ariel!

                           Enter ARIEL

  ARIEL. What would my potent master? Here I am.
  PROSPERO. Thou and thy meaner fellows your last service
    Did worthily perform; and I must use you
    In such another trick. Go bring the rabble,
    O'er whom I give thee pow'r, here to this place.
    Incite them to quick motion; for I must
    Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple
    Some vanity of mine art; it is my promise,
    And they expect it from me.
  ARIEL. Presently?
  PROSPERO. Ay, with a twink.
  ARIEL. Before you can say 'come' and 'go,'
    And breathe twice, and cry 'so, so,'
    Each one, tripping on his toe,
    Will be here with mop and mow.
    Do you love me, master? No?
  PROSPERO. Dearly, my delicate Ariel. Do not approach
    Till thou dost hear me call.
  ARIEL. Well! I conceive.                                  Exit
  PROSPERO. Look thou be true; do not give dalliance
    Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw
    To th' fire i' th' blood. Be more abstemious,
    Or else good night your vow!
  FERDINAND. I warrant you, sir,
    The white cold virgin snow upon my heart
    Abates the ardour of my liver.
  PROSPERO. Well!
    Now come, my Ariel, bring a corollary,
    Rather than want a spirit; appear, and pertly.
    No tongue! All eyes! Be silent.                 [Soft music]

                         Enter IRIS

  IRIS. Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
    Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats, and pease;
    Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
    And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;
    Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,
    Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,
    To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom groves,
    Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
    Being lass-lorn; thy pole-clipt vineyard;
    And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky hard,
    Where thou thyself dost air-the Queen o' th' sky,
    Whose wat'ry arch and messenger am I,
    Bids thee leave these; and with her sovereign grace,
    Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,
    To come and sport. Her peacocks fly amain.
                                      [JUNO descends in her car]
    Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.

                        Enter CERES

  CERES. Hail, many-coloured messenger, that ne'er
    Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
    Who, with thy saffron wings, upon my flow'rs
    Diffusest honey drops, refreshing show'rs;
    And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
    My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down,
    Rich scarf to my proud earth-why hath thy Queen
    Summon'd me hither to this short-grass'd green?
  IRIS. A contract of true love to celebrate,
    And some donation freely to estate
    On the blest lovers.
  CERES. Tell me, heavenly bow,
    If Venus or her son, as thou dost know,
    Do now attend the Queen? Since they did plot
    The means that dusky Dis my daughter got,
    Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company
    I have forsworn.
  IRIS. Of her society
    Be not afraid. I met her Deity
    Cutting the clouds towards Paphos, and her son
    Dove-drawn with her. Here thought they to have done
    Some wanton charm upon this man and maid,
    Whose vows are that no bed-rite shall be paid
    Till Hymen's torch be lighted; but in vain.
    Mars's hot minion is return'd again;
    Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows,
    Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows,
    And be a boy right out.                       [JUNO alights]
  CERES. Highest Queen of State,
    Great Juno, comes; I know her by her gait.
  JUNO. How does my bounteous sister? Go with me
    To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be,
    And honour'd in their issue.                     [They sing]
  JUNO. Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
    Long continuance, and increasing,
    Hourly joys be still upon you!
    Juno sings her blessings on you.
  CERES. Earth's increase, foison plenty,
    Barns and gamers never empty;
    Vines with clust'ring bunches growing,
    Plants with goodly burden bowing;
    Spring come to you at the farthest,
    In the very end of harvest!
    Scarcity and want shall shun you,
    Ceres' blessing so is on you.
  FERDINAND. This is a most majestic vision, and
    Harmonious charmingly. May I be bold
    To think these spirits?
  PROSPERO. Spirits, which by mine art
    I have from their confines call'd to enact
    My present fancies.
  FERDINAND. Let me live here ever;
    So rare a wond'red father and a wise
    Makes this place Paradise.
           [JUNO and CERES whisper, and send IRIS on employment]
  PROSPERO. Sweet now, silence;
    Juno and Ceres whisper seriously.
    There's something else to do; hush, and be mute,
    Or else our spell is marr'd.
  IRIS. You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the wind'ring brooks,
    With your sedg'd crowns and ever harmless looks,
    Leave your crisp channels, and on this green land
    Answer your summons; Juno does command.
    Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate
    A contract of true love; be not too late.

                      Enter certain NYMPHS

    You sun-burnt sicklemen, of August weary,
    Come hither from the furrow, and be merry;
    Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on,
    And these fresh nymphs encounter every one
    In country footing.

        Enter certain REAPERS, properly habited; they join
         with the NYMPHS in a graceful dance; towards the
         end whereof PROSPERO starts suddenly, and speaks,
          after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused
                  noise, they heavily vanish

  PROSPERO.  [Aside]  I had forgot that foul conspiracy
    Of the beast Caliban and his confederates
    Against my life; the minute of their plot
    Is almost come.  [To the SPIRITS]  Well done; avoid; no
    more!
  FERDINAND. This is strange; your father's in some passion
    That works him strongly.
  MIRANDA. Never till this day
    Saw I him touch'd with anger so distemper'd.
  PROSPERO. You do look, my son, in a mov'd sort,
    As if you were dismay'd; be cheerful, sir.
    Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
    As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
    Are melted into air, into thin air;
    And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
    The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
    Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on; and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;
    Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled;
    Be not disturb'd with my infirmity.
    If you be pleas'd, retire into my cell
    And there repose; a turn or two I'll walk
    To still my beating mind.
  FERDINAND, MIRANDA. We wish your peace.                 Exeunt
  PROSPERO. Come, with a thought. I thank thee, Ariel; come.

                       Enter ARIEL

  ARIEL. Thy thoughts I cleave to. What's thy pleasure?
  PROSPERO. Spirit,
    We must prepare to meet with Caliban.
  ARIEL. Ay, my commander. When I presented 'Ceres.'
    I thought to have told thee of it; but I fear'd
    Lest I might anger thee.
  PROSPERO. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets?
  ARIEL. I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
    So full of valour that they smote the air
    For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
    For kissing of their feet; yet always bending
    Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor,
    At which like unback'd colts they prick'd their ears,
    Advanc'd their eyelids, lifted up their noses
    As they smelt music; so I charm'd their cars,
    That calf-like they my lowing follow'd through
    Tooth'd briers, sharp furzes, pricking goss, and thorns,
    Which ent'red their frail shins. At last I left them
    I' th' filthy mantled pool beyond your cell,
    There dancing up to th' chins, that the foul lake
    O'erstunk their feet.
  PROSPERO. This was well done, my bird.
    Thy shape invisible retain thou still.
    The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither
    For stale to catch these thieves.
  ARIEL. I go, I go.                                        Exit
  PROSPERO. A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
    Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
    Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;
    And as with age his body uglier grows,
    So his mind cankers. I will plague them all,
    Even to roaring.

       Re-enter ARIEL, loaden with glistering apparel, &c.

    Come, hang them on this line.
                          [PROSPERO and ARIEL remain, invisible]

         Enter CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, all wet

  CALIBAN. Pray you, tread softly, that the blind mole may not
    Hear a foot fall; we now are near his cell.
  STEPHANO. Monster, your fairy, which you say is a harmless
    fairy, has done little better than play'd the Jack with us.
  TRINCULO. Monster, I do smell all horse-piss at which my
    nose is in great indignation.
  STEPHANO. So is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should
    take a displeasure against you, look you-
  TRINCULO. Thou wert but a lost monster.
  CALIBAN. Good my lord, give me thy favour still.
    Be patient, for the prize I'll bring thee to
    Shall hoodwink this mischance; therefore speak softly.
    All's hush'd as midnight yet.
  TRINCULO. Ay, but to lose our bottles in the pool!
  STEPHANO. There is not only disgrace and dishonour in
    that, monster, but an infinite loss.
  TRINCULO. That's more to me than my wetting; yet this is
    your harmless fairy, monster.
  STEPHANO. I will fetch off my bottle, though I be o'er
    ears for my labour.
  CALIBAN. Prithee, my king, be quiet. Seest thou here,
    This is the mouth o' th' cell; no noise, and enter.
    Do that good mischief which may make this island
    Thine own for ever, and I, thy Caliban,
    For aye thy foot-licker.
  STEPHANO. Give me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody
    thoughts.
  TRINCULO. O King Stephano! O peer! O worthy Stephano!
    Look what a wardrobe here is for thee!
  CALIBAN. Let it alone, thou fool; it is but trash.
  TRINCULO. O, ho, monster; we know what belongs to a
    frippery. O King Stephano!
  STEPHANO. Put off that gown, Trinculo; by this hand, I'll
    have that gown.
  TRINCULO. Thy Grace shall have it.
  CALIBAN. The dropsy drown this fool! What do you mean
    To dote thus on such luggage? Let 't alone,
    And do the murder first. If he awake,
    From toe to crown he'll fill our skins with pinches;
    Make us strange stuff.
  STEPHANO. Be you quiet, monster. Mistress line, is not
    this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line; now,
    jerkin, you are like to lose your hair, and prove a bald
    jerkin.
  TRINCULO. Do, do. We steal by line and level, an't like
    your Grace.
  STEPHANO. I thank thee for that jest; here's a garment
    for't. Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of
    this country. 'Steal by line and level' is an excellent
    pass of pate; there's another garmet for't.
  TRINCULO. Monster, come, put some lime upon your fingers,
    and away with the rest.
  CALIBAN. I will have none on't. We shall lose our time,
    And all be turn'd to barnacles, or to apes
    With foreheads villainous low.
  STEPHANO. Monster, lay-to your fingers; help to bear this
    away where my hogshead of wine is, or I'll turn you out
    of my kingdom. Go to, carry this.
  TRINCULO. And this.
  STEPHANO. Ay, and this.

          A noise of hunters beard. Enter divers SPIRITS, in
             shape of dogs and hounds, bunting them about;
                   PROSPERO and ARIEL setting them on

  PROSPERO. Hey, Mountain, hey!
  ARIEL. Silver! there it goes, Silver!
  PROSPERO. Fury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there! Hark, hark!
                [CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO are driven out]
    Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints
    With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews
    With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them
    Than pard or cat o' mountain.
  ARIEL. Hark, they roar.
  PROSPERO. Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour
    Lies at my mercy all mine enemies.
    Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou
    Shalt have the air at freedom; for a little
    Follow, and do me service.                            Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE 1

Before PROSPERO'S cell

Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL

  PROSPERO. Now does my project gather to a head;
    My charms crack not, my spirits obey; and time
    Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day?
  ARIEL. On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord,
    You said our work should cease.
  PROSPERO. I did say so,
    When first I rais'd the tempest. Say, my spirit,
    How fares the King and 's followers?
  ARIEL. Confin'd together
    In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
    Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,
    In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell;
    They cannot budge till your release. The King,
    His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted,
    And the remainder mourning over them,
    Brim full of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
    Him you term'd, sir, 'the good old lord, Gonzalo';
    His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
    From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em
    That if you now beheld them your affections
    Would become tender.
  PROSPERO. Dost thou think so, spirit?
  ARIEL. Mine would, sir, were I human.
  PROSPERO. And mine shall.
    Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
    Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
    One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
    Passion as they, be kindlier mov'd than thou art?
    Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick,
    Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury
    Do I take part; the rarer action is
    In virtue than in vengeance; they being penitent,
    The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
    Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel;
    My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
    And they shall be themselves.
  ARIEL. I'll fetch them, sir.                              Exit
  PROSPERO. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and
    groves;
    And ye that on the sands with printless foot
    Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him
    When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
    By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
    Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime
    Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
    To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid-
    Weak masters though ye be-I have be-dimm'd
    The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
    And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault
    Set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder
    Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
    With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory
    Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up
    The pine and cedar. Graves at my command
    Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth,
    By my so potent art. But this rough magic
    I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd
    Some heavenly music-which even now I do-
    To work mine end upon their senses that
    This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
    Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
    And deeper than did ever plummet sound
    I'll drown my book.                            [Solem music]

            Here enters ARIEL before; then ALONSO, with
          frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN
           and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN
           and FRANCISCO. They all enter the circle which
          PROSPERO had made, and there stand charm'd; which
                    PROSPERO observing, speaks

    A solemn air, and the best comforter
    To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains,
    Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand,
    For you are spell-stopp'd.
    Holy Gonzalo, honourable man,
    Mine eyes, ev'n sociable to the show of thine,
    Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace,
    And as the morning steals upon the night,
    Melting the darkness, so their rising senses
    Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle
    Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo,
    My true preserver, and a loyal sir
    To him thou follow'st! I will pay thy graces
    Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly
    Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter;
    Thy brother was a furtherer in the act.
    Thou art pinch'd for't now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood,
    You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
    Expell'd remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian-
    Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong-
    Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee,
    Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding
    Begins to swell, and the approaching tide
    Will shortly fill the reasonable shore
    That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them
    That yet looks on me, or would know me. Ariel,
    Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell;           Exit ARIEL
    I will discase me, and myself present
    As I was sometime Milan. Quickly, spirit
    Thou shalt ere long be free.

        ARIEL, on returning, sings and helps to attire him

    Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
    In a cowslip's bell I lie;
    There I couch when owls do cry.
    On the bat's back I do fly
    After summer merrily.
    Merrily, merrily shall I live now
    Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

  PROSPERO. Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee;
    But yet thou shalt have freedom. So, so, so.
    To the King's ship, invisible as thou art;
    There shalt thou find the mariners asleep
    Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain
    Being awake, enforce them to this place;
    And presently, I prithee.
  ARIEL. I drink the air before me, and return
    Or ere your pulse twice beat.                           Exit
  GONZALO. All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement,
    Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us
    Out of this fearful country!
  PROSPERO. Behold, Sir King,
    The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero.
    For more assurance that a living prince
    Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body;
    And to thee and thy company I bid
    A hearty welcome.
  ALONSO. Whe'er thou be'st he or no,
    Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me,
    As late I have been, I not know. Thy pulse
    Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee,
    Th' affliction of my mind amends, with which,
    I fear, a madness held me. This must crave-
    An if this be at all-a most strange story.
    Thy dukedom I resign, and do entreat
    Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero
    Be living and be here?
  PROSPERO. First, noble friend,
    Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot
    Be measur'd or confin'd.
  GONZALO. Whether this be
    Or be not, I'll not swear.
  PROSPERO. You do yet taste
    Some subtleties o' th' isle, that will not let you
    Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all!
    [Aside to SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO]  But you, my brace of
      lords, were I so minded,
    I here could pluck his Highness' frown upon you,
    And justify you traitors; at this time
    I will tell no tales.
  SEBASTIAN.  [Aside]  The devil speaks in him.
  PROSPERO. No.
    For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother
    Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive
    Thy rankest fault-all of them; and require
    My dukedom of thee, which perforce I know
    Thou must restore.
  ALONSO. If thou beest Prospero,
    Give us particulars of thy preservation;
    How thou hast met us here, whom three hours since
    Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost-
    How sharp the point of this remembrance is!-
    My dear son Ferdinand.
  PROSPERO. I am woe for't, sir.
  ALONSO. Irreparable is the loss; and patience
    Says it is past her cure.
  PROSPERO. I rather think
    You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace
    For the like loss I have her sovereign aid,
    And rest myself content.
  ALONSO. You the like loss!
  PROSPERO. As great to me as late; and, supportable
    To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker
    Than you may call to comfort you, for I
    Have lost my daughter.
  ALONSO. A daughter!
    O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,
    The King and Queen there! That they were, I wish
    Myself were mudded in that oozy bed
    Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?
  PROSPERO. In this last tempest. I perceive these lords
    At this encounter do so much admire
    That they devour their reason, and scarce think
    Their eyes do offices of truth, their words
    Are natural breath; but, howsoe'er you have
    Been justled from your senses, know for certain
    That I am Prospero, and that very duke
    Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely
    Upon this shore, where you were wrecked, was landed
    To be the lord on't. No more yet of this;
    For 'tis a chronicle of day by day,
    Not a relation for a breakfast, nor
    Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir;
    This cell's my court; here have I few attendants,
    And subjects none abroad; pray you, look in.
    My dukedom since you have given me again,
    I will requite you with as good a thing;
    At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye
    As much as me my dukedom.

          Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA,
                      playing at chess

  MIRANDA. Sweet lord, you play me false.
  FERDINAND. No, my dearest love,
    I would not for the world.
  MIRANDA. Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle
    And I would call it fair play.
  ALONSO. If this prove
    A vision of the island, one dear son
    Shall I twice lose.
  SEBASTIAN. A most high miracle!
  FERDINAND. Though the seas threaten, they are merciful;
    I have curs'd them without cause.                   [Kneels]
  ALONSO. Now all the blessings
    Of a glad father compass thee about!
    Arise, and say how thou cam'st here.
  MIRANDA. O, wonder!
    How many goodly creatures are there here!
    How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
    That has such people in't!
  PROSPERO. 'Tis new to thee.
  ALONSO. What is this maid with whom thou wast at play?
    Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours;
    Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us,
    And brought us thus together?
  FERDINAND. Sir, she is mortal;
    But by immortal Providence she's mine.
    I chose her when I could not ask my father
    For his advice, nor thought I had one. She
    Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,
    Of whom so often I have heard renown
    But never saw before; of whom I have
    Receiv'd a second life; and second father
    This lady makes him to me.
  ALONSO. I am hers.
    But, O, how oddly will it sound that I
    Must ask my child forgiveness!
  PROSPERO. There, sir, stop;
    Let us not burden our remembrances with
    A heaviness that's gone.
  GONZALO. I have inly wept,
    Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods,
    And on this couple drop a blessed crown;
    For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way
    Which brought us hither.
  ALONSO. I say, Amen, Gonzalo!
  GONZALO. Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue
    Should become Kings of Naples? O, rejoice
    Beyond a common joy, and set it down
    With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage
    Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;
    And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
    Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
    In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves
    When no man was his own.
  ALONSO.  [To FERDINAND and MIRANDA]  Give me your
    hands.
    Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
    That doth not wish you joy.
  GONZALO. Be it so. Amen!

           Re-enter ARIEL, with the MASTER and BOATSWAIN
                     amazedly following

    O look, sir; look, sir! Here is more of us!
    I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,
    This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy,
    That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore?
    Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?
  BOATSWAIN. The best news is that we have safely found
    Our King and company; the next, our ship-
    Which but three glasses since we gave out split-
    Is tight and yare, and bravely rigg'd, as when
    We first put out to sea.
  ARIEL.  [Aside to PROSPERO]  Sir, all this service
    Have I done since I went.
  PROSPERO.  [Aside to ARIEL]  My tricksy spirit!
  ALONSO. These are not natural events; they strengthen
    From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither?
  BOATSWAIN. If I did think, sir, I were well awake,
    I'd strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,
    And-how, we know not-all clapp'd under hatches;
    Where, but even now, with strange and several noises
    Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,
    And moe diversity of sounds, all horrible,
    We were awak'd; straightway at liberty;
    Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld
    Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master
    Cap'ring to eye her. On a trice, so please you,
    Even in a dream, were we divided from them,
    And were brought moping hither.
  ARIEL.  [Aside to PROSPERO]  Was't well done?
  PROSPERO.  [Aside to ARIEL]  Bravely, my diligence. Thou
    shalt be free.
  ALONSO. This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod;
    And there is in this business more than nature
    Was ever conduct of. Some oracle
    Must rectify our knowledge.
  PROSPERO. Sir, my liege,
    Do not infest your mind with beating on
    The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure,
    Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you,
    Which to you shall seem probable, of every
    These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful
    And think of each thing well.  [Aside to ARIEL]  Come
    hither, spirit;
    Set Caliban and his companions free;
    Untie the spell.  [Exit ARIEL]  How fares my gracious sir?
    There are yet missing of your company
    Some few odd lads that you remember not.

         Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and

  TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel
  STEPHANO. Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man
    take care for himself; for all is but fortune. Coragio,
    bully-monster, coragio!
  TRINCULO. If these be true spies which I wear in my head,
    here's a goodly sight.
  CALIBAN. O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!
    How fine my master is! I am afraid
    He will chastise me.
  SEBASTIAN. Ha, ha!
    What things are these, my lord Antonio?
    Will money buy'em?
  ANTONIO. Very like; one of them
    Is a plain fish, and no doubt marketable.
  PROSPERO. Mark but the badges of these men, my lords,
    Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave-
    His mother was a witch, and one so strong
    That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,
    And deal in her command without her power.
    These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil-
    For he's a bastard one-had plotted with them
    To take my life. Two of these fellows you
    Must know and own; this thing of darkness I
    Acknowledge mine.
  CALIBAN. I shall be pinch'd to death.
  ALONSO. Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler?
  SEBASTIAN. He is drunk now; where had he wine?
  ALONSO. And Trinculo is reeling ripe; where should they
    Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?
    How cam'st thou in this pickle?
  TRINCULO. I have been in such a pickle since I saw you
    last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones. I
    shall not fear fly-blowing.
  SEBASTIAN. Why, how now, Stephano!
  STEPHANO. O, touch me not; I am not Stephano, but a
    cramp.
  PROSPERO. You'd be king o' the isle, sirrah?
  STEPHANO. I should have been a sore one, then.
  ALONSO.  [Pointing to CALIBAN]  This is as strange a thing
    as e'er I look'd on.
  PROSPERO. He is as disproportioned in his manners
    As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell;
    Take with you your companions; as you look
    To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.
  CALIBAN. Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter,
    And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass
    Was I to take this drunkard for a god,
    And worship this dull fool!
  PROSPERO. Go to; away!
  ALONSO. Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.
  SEBASTIAN. Or stole it, rather.
                          Exeunt CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO
  PROSPERO. Sir, I invite your Highness and your train
    To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest
    For this one night; which, part of it, I'll waste
    With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it
    Go quick away-the story of my life,
    And the particular accidents gone by
    Since I came to this isle. And in the morn
    I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,
    Where I have hope to see the nuptial
    Of these our dear-belov'd solemnized,
    And thence retire me to my Milan, where
    Every third thought shall be my grave.
  ALONSO. I long
    To hear the story of your life, which must
    Take the ear strangely.
  PROSPERO. I'll deliver all;
    And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales,
    And sail so expeditious that shall catch
    Your royal fleet far off.  [Aside to ARIEL]  My Ariel,
      chick,
    That is thy charge. Then to the elements
    Be free, and fare thou well!-Please you, draw near.
                                                          Exeunt

EPILOGUE
                             EPILOGUE
                        Spoken by PROSPERO

          Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
          And what strength I have's mine own,
          Which is most faint. Now 'tis true,
          I must be here confin'd by you,
          Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
          Since I have my dukedom got,
          And pardon'd the deceiver, dwell
          In this bare island by your spell;
          But release me from my bands
          With the help of your good hands.
          Gentle breath of yours my sails
          Must fill, or else my project fails,
          Which was to please. Now I want
          Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
          And my ending is despair
          Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,
          Which pierces so that it assaults
          Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
          As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
          Let your indulgence set me free.

THE END

1608



THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

    TIMON of Athens

    LUCIUS
    LUCULLUS
    SEMPRONIUS
       flattering lords

    VENTIDIUS, one of Timon's false friends
    ALCIBIADES, an Athenian captain
    APEMANTUS, a churlish philosopher
    FLAVIUS, steward to Timon

    FLAMINIUS
    LUCILIUS
    SERVILIUS
       Timon's servants

    CAPHIS
    PHILOTUS
    TITUS
    HORTENSIUS
       servants to Timon's creditors

    POET PAINTER JEWELLER MERCHANT MERCER AN OLD ATHENIAN THREE
    STRANGERS A PAGE A FOOL

    PHRYNIA
    TIMANDRA
       mistresses to Alcibiades

    CUPID
    AMAZONS
      in the Masque

    Lords, Senators, Officers, Soldiers, Servants, Thieves, and
      Attendants

SCENE: Athens and the neighbouring woods

ACT I. SCENE I. Athens. TIMON'S house

Enter POET, PAINTER, JEWELLER, MERCHANT, and MERCER, at several doors

  POET. Good day, sir.
  PAINTER. I am glad y'are well.
  POET. I have not seen you long; how goes the world?
  PAINTER. It wears, sir, as it grows.
  POET. Ay, that's well known.
    But what particular rarity? What strange,
    Which manifold record not matches? See,
    Magic of bounty, all these spirits thy power
    Hath conjur'd to attend! I know the merchant.
  PAINTER. I know them both; th' other's a jeweller.
  MERCHANT. O, 'tis a worthy lord!
  JEWELLER. Nay, that's most fix'd.
  MERCHANT. A most incomparable man; breath'd, as it were,
    To an untirable and continuate goodness.
    He passes.
  JEWELLER. I have a jewel here-
  MERCHANT. O, pray let's see't. For the Lord Timon, sir?
  JEWELLER. If he will touch the estimate. But for that-
  POET. When we for recompense have prais'd the vile,
    It stains the glory in that happy verse
    Which aptly sings the good.
  MERCHANT. [Looking at the jewel] 'Tis a good form.
  JEWELLER. And rich. Here is a water, look ye.
  PAINTER. You are rapt, sir, in some work, some dedication
    To the great lord.
  POET. A thing slipp'd idly from me.
    Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes
    From whence 'tis nourish'd. The fire i' th' flint
    Shows not till it be struck: our gentle flame
    Provokes itself, and like the current flies
    Each bound it chafes. What have you there?
  PAINTER. A picture, sir. When comes your book forth?
  POET. Upon the heels of my presentment, sir.
    Let's see your piece.
  PAINTER. 'Tis a good piece.
  POET. So 'tis; this comes off well and excellent.
  PAINTER. Indifferent.
  POET. Admirable. How this grace
    Speaks his own standing! What a mental power
    This eye shoots forth! How big imagination
    Moves in this lip! To th' dumbness of the gesture
    One might interpret.
  PAINTER. It is a pretty mocking of the life.
    Here is a touch; is't good?
  POET. I will say of it
    It tutors nature. Artificial strife
    Lives in these touches, livelier than life.

              Enter certain SENATORS, and pass over

  PAINTER. How this lord is followed!
  POET. The senators of Athens- happy man!
  PAINTER. Look, moe!
  POET. You see this confluence, this great flood of visitors.
    I have in this rough work shap'd out a man
    Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug
    With amplest entertainment. My free drift
    Halts not particularly, but moves itself
    In a wide sea of tax. No levell'd malice
    Infects one comma in the course I hold,
    But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,
    Leaving no tract behind.
  PAINTER. How shall I understand you?
  POET. I will unbolt to you.
    You see how all conditions, how all minds-
    As well of glib and slipp'ry creatures as
    Of grave and austere quality, tender down
    Their services to Lord Timon. His large fortune,
    Upon his good and gracious nature hanging,
    Subdues and properties to his love and tendance
    All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-fac'd flatterer
    To Apemantus, that few things loves better
    Than to abhor himself; even he drops down
    The knee before him, and returns in peace
    Most rich in Timon's nod.
  PAINTER. I saw them speak together.
  POET. Sir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill
    Feign'd Fortune to be thron'd. The base o' th' mount
    Is rank'd with all deserts, all kind of natures
    That labour on the bosom of this sphere
    To propagate their states. Amongst them all
    Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady fix'd
    One do I personate of Lord Timon's frame,
    Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts to her;
    Whose present grace to present slaves and servants
    Translates his rivals.
  PAINTER. 'Tis conceiv'd to scope.
    This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,
    With one man beckon'd from the rest below,
    Bowing his head against the steepy mount
    To climb his happiness, would be well express'd
    In our condition.
  POET. Nay, sir, but hear me on.
    All those which were his fellows but of late-
    Some better than his value- on the moment
    Follow his strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,
    Rain sacrificial whisperings in his ear,
    Make sacred even his stirrup, and through him
    Drink the free air.
  PAINTER. Ay, marry, what of these?
  POET. When Fortune in her shift and change of mood
    Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants,
    Which labour'd after him to the mountain's top
    Even on their knees and hands, let him slip down,
    Not one accompanying his declining foot.
  PAINTER. 'Tis common.
    A thousand moral paintings I can show
    That shall demonstrate these quick blows of Fortune's
    More pregnantly than words. Yet you do well
    To show Lord Timon that mean eyes have seen
    The foot above the head.

         Trumpets sound. Enter TIMON, addressing himself
          courteously to every suitor, a MESSENGER from
         VENTIDIUS talking with him; LUCILIUS and other
                       servants following

  TIMON. Imprison'd is he, say you?
  MESSENGER. Ay, my good lord. Five talents is his debt;
    His means most short, his creditors most strait.
    Your honourable letter he desires
    To those have shut him up; which failing,
    Periods his comfort.
  TIMON. Noble Ventidius! Well.
    I am not of that feather to shake of
    My friend when he must need me. I do know him
    A gentleman that well deserves a help,
    Which he shall have. I'll pay the debt, and free him.
  MESSENGER. Your lordship ever binds him.
  TIMON. Commend me to him; I will send his ransom;
    And being enfranchis'd, bid him come to me.
    'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
    But to support him after. Fare you well.
  MESSENGER. All happiness to your honour!                  Exit

                      Enter an OLD ATHENIAN

  OLD ATHENIAN. Lord Timon, hear me speak.
  TIMON. Freely, good father.
  OLD ATHENIAN. Thou hast a servant nam'd Lucilius.
  TIMON. I have so; what of him?
  OLD ATHENIAN. Most noble Timon, call the man before thee.
  TIMON. Attends he here, or no? Lucilius!
  LUCILIUS. Here, at your lordship's service.
  OLD ATHENIAN. This fellow here, Lord Timon, this thy creature,
    By night frequents my house. I am a man
    That from my first have been inclin'd to thrift,
    And my estate deserves an heir more rais'd
    Than one which holds a trencher.
  TIMON. Well; what further?
  OLD ATHENIAN. One only daughter have I, no kin else,
    On whom I may confer what I have got.
    The maid is fair, o' th' youngest for a bride,
    And I have bred her at my dearest cost
    In qualities of the best. This man of thine
    Attempts her love; I prithee, noble lord,
    Join with me to forbid him her resort;
    Myself have spoke in vain.
  TIMON. The man is honest.
  OLD ATHENIAN. Therefore he will be, Timon.
    His honesty rewards him in itself;
    It must not bear my daughter.
  TIMON. Does she love him?
  OLD ATHENIAN. She is young and apt:
    Our own precedent passions do instruct us
    What levity's in youth.
  TIMON. Love you the maid?
  LUCILIUS. Ay, my good lord, and she accepts of it.
  OLD ATHENIAN. If in her marriage my consent be missing,
    I call the gods to witness I will choose
    Mine heir from forth the beggars of the world,
    And dispossess her all.
  TIMON. How shall she be endow'd,
    If she be mated with an equal husband?
  OLD ATHENIAN. Three talents on the present; in future, all.
  TIMON. This gentleman of mine hath serv'd me long;.
    To build his fortune I will strain a little,
    For 'tis a bond in men. Give him thy daughter:
    What you bestow, in him I'll counterpoise,
    And make him weigh with her.
  OLD ATHENIAN. Most noble lord,
    Pawn me to this your honour, she is his.
  TIMON. My hand to thee; mine honour on my promise.
  LUCILIUS. Humbly I thank your lordship. Never may
    That state or fortune fall into my keeping
    Which is not owed to you!
                                Exeunt LUCILIUS and OLD ATHENIAN
  POET. [Presenting his poem] Vouchsafe my labour, and long live your
    lordship!
  TIMON. I thank you; you shall hear from me anon;
    Go not away. What have you there, my friend?
  PAINTER. A piece of painting, which I do beseech
    Your lordship to accept.
  TIMON. Painting is welcome.
    The painting is almost the natural man;
    For since dishonour traffics with man's nature,
    He is but outside; these pencill'd figures are
    Even such as they give out. I like your work,
    And you shall find I like it; wait attendance
    Till you hear further from me.
  PAINTER. The gods preserve ye!
  TIMON. Well fare you, gentleman. Give me your hand;
    We must needs dine together. Sir, your jewel
    Hath suffered under praise.
  JEWELLER. What, my lord! Dispraise?
  TIMON. A mere satiety of commendations;
    If I should pay you for't as 'tis extoll'd,
    It would unclew me quite.
  JEWELLER. My lord, 'tis rated
    As those which sell would give; but you well know
    Things of like value, differing in the owners,
    Are prized by their masters. Believe't, dear lord,
    You mend the jewel by the wearing it.
  TIMON. Well mock'd.

                      Enter APEMANTUS

  MERCHANT. No, my good lord; he speaks the common tongue,
    Which all men speak with him.
  TIMON. Look who comes here; will you be chid?
  JEWELLER. We'll bear, with your lordship.
  MERCHANT. He'll spare none.
  TIMON. Good morrow to thee, gentle Apemantus!
  APEMANTUS. Till I be gentle, stay thou for thy good morrow;
    When thou art Timon's dog, and these knaves honest.
  TIMON. Why dost thou call them knaves? Thou know'st them not.
  APEMANTUS. Are they not Athenians?
  TIMON. Yes.
  APEMANTUS. Then I repent not.
  JEWELLER. You know me, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Thou know'st I do; I call'd thee by thy name.
  TIMON. Thou art proud, Apemantus.
  APEMANTUS. Of nothing so much as that I am not like Timon.
  TIMON. Whither art going?
  APEMANTUS. To knock out an honest Athenian's brains.
  TIMON. That's a deed thou't die for.
  APEMANTUS. Right, if doing nothing be death by th' law.
  TIMON. How lik'st thou this picture, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. The best, for the innocence.
  TIMON. Wrought he not well that painted it?
  APEMANTUS. He wrought better that made the painter; and yet he's
    but a filthy piece of work.
  PAINTER. Y'are a dog.
  APEMANTUS. Thy mother's of my generation; what's she, if I be a dog?
  TIMON. Wilt dine with me, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. No; I eat not lords.
  TIMON. An thou shouldst, thou'dst anger ladies.
  APEMANTUS. O, they eat lords; so they come by great bellies.
  TIMON. That's a lascivious apprehension.
  APEMANTUS. So thou apprehend'st it take it for thy labour.
  TIMON. How dost thou like this jewel, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Not so well as plain dealing, which will not cost a man
    a doit.
  TIMON. What dost thou think 'tis worth?
  APEMANTUS. Not worth my thinking. How now, poet!
  POET. How now, philosopher!
  APEMANTUS. Thou liest.
  POET. Art not one?
  APEMANTUS. Yes.
  POET. Then I lie not.
  APEMANTUS. Art not a poet?
  POET. Yes.
  APEMANTUS. Then thou liest. Look in thy last work, where thou hast
    feign'd him a worthy fellow.
  POET. That's not feign'd- he is so.
  APEMANTUS. Yes, he is worthy of thee, and to pay thee for thy
    labour. He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' th' flatterer.
    Heavens, that I were a lord!
  TIMON. What wouldst do then, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. E'en as Apemantus does now: hate a lord with my heart.
  TIMON. What, thyself?
  APEMANTUS. Ay.
  TIMON. Wherefore?
  APEMANTUS. That I had no angry wit to be a lord.- Art not thou a
    merchant?
  MERCHANT. Ay, Apemantus.
  APEMANTUS. Traffic confound thee, if the gods will not!
  MERCHANT. If traffic do it, the gods do it.
  APEMANTUS. Traffic's thy god, and thy god confound thee!

                Trumpet sounds. Enter a MESSENGER

  TIMON. What trumpet's that?
  MESSENGER. 'Tis Alcibiades, and some twenty horse,
    All of companionship.
  TIMON. Pray entertain them; give them guide to us.
                                          Exeunt some attendants
    You must needs dine with me. Go not you hence
    Till I have thank'd you. When dinner's done
    Show me this piece. I am joyful of your sights.

                Enter ALCIBIADES, with the rest

    Most welcome, sir!                             [They salute]
  APEMANTUS. So, so, there!
    Aches contract and starve your supple joints!
    That there should be small love amongst these sweet knaves,
    And all this courtesy! The strain of man's bred out
    Into baboon and monkey.
  ALCIBIADES. Sir, you have sav'd my longing, and I feed
    Most hungerly on your sight.
  TIMON. Right welcome, sir!
    Ere we depart we'll share a bounteous time
    In different pleasures. Pray you, let us in.
                                        Exeunt all but APEMANTUS

                        Enter two LORDS

  FIRST LORD. What time o' day is't, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Time to be honest.
  FIRST LORD. That time serves still.
  APEMANTUS. The more accursed thou that still omit'st it.
  SECOND LORD. Thou art going to Lord Timon's feast.
  APEMANTUS. Ay; to see meat fill knaves and wine heat fools.
  SECOND LORD. Fare thee well, fare thee well.
  APEMANTUS. Thou art a fool to bid me farewell twice.
  SECOND LORD. Why, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Shouldst have kept one to thyself, for I mean to give
    thee none.
  FIRST LORD. Hang thyself.
  APEMANTUS. No, I will do nothing at thy bidding; make thy requests
    to thy friend.
  SECOND LORD. Away, unpeaceable dog, or I'll spurn thee hence.
  APEMANTUS. I will fly, like a dog, the heels o' th' ass.  Exit
  FIRST LORD. He's opposite to humanity. Come, shall we in
    And taste Lord Timon's bounty? He outgoes
    The very heart of kindness.
  SECOND LORD. He pours it out: Plutus, the god of gold,
    Is but his steward; no meed but he repays
    Sevenfold above itself; no gift to him
    But breeds the giver a return exceeding
    All use of quittance.
  FIRST LORD. The noblest mind he carries
    That ever govern'd man.
  SECOND LORD. Long may he live in fortunes! shall we in?
  FIRST LORD. I'll keep you company.                      Exeunt

SCENE II. A room of state in TIMON'S house

Hautboys playing loud music. A great banquet serv'd in;
FLAVIUS and others attending; and then enter LORD TIMON, the states,
the ATHENIAN LORDS, VENTIDIUS, which TIMON redeem'd from prison.
Then comes, dropping after all, APEMANTUS, discontentedly, like himself

  VENTIDIUS. Most honoured Timon,
    It hath pleas'd the gods to remember my father's age,
    And call him to long peace.
    He is gone happy, and has left me rich.
    Then, as in grateful virtue I am bound
    To your free heart, I do return those talents,
    Doubled with thanks and service, from whose help
    I deriv'd liberty.
  TIMON. O, by no means,
    Honest Ventidius! You mistake my love;
    I gave it freely ever; and there's none
    Can truly say he gives, if he receives.
    If our betters play at that game, we must not dare
    To imitate them: faults that are rich are fair.
  VENTIDIUS. A noble spirit!
  TIMON. Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devis'd at first
    To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,
    Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shown;
    But where there is true friendship there needs none.
    Pray, sit; more welcome are ye to my fortunes
    Than my fortunes to me.                           [They sit]
  FIRST LORD. My lord, we always have confess'd it.
  APEMANTUS. Ho, ho, confess'd it! Hang'd it, have you not?
  TIMON. O, Apemantus, you are welcome.
  APEMANTUS. No;
    You shall not make me welcome.
    I come to have thee thrust me out of doors.
  TIMON. Fie, th'art a churl; ye have got a humour there
    Does not become a man; 'tis much to blame.
    They say, my lords, Ira furor brevis est; but yond man is ever
    angry. Go, let him have a table by himself; for he does neither
    affect company nor is he fit for't indeed.
  APEMANTUS. Let me stay at thine apperil, Timon.
    I come to observe; I give thee warning on't.
  TIMON. I take no heed of thee. Th'art an Athenian, therefore
    welcome. I myself would have no power; prithee let my meat make
    thee silent.
  APEMANTUS. I scorn thy meat; 't'would choke me, for I should ne'er
    flatter thee. O you gods, what a number of men eats Timon, and he
    sees 'em not! It grieves me to see so many dip their meat in one
    man's blood; and all the madness is, he cheers them up too.
    I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.
    Methinks they should invite them without knives:
    Good for their meat and safer for their lives.
    There's much example for't; the fellow that sits next him now,
    parts bread with him, pledges the breath of him in a divided
    draught, is the readiest man to kill him. 'T has been proved. If
    I were a huge man I should fear to drink at meals.
    Lest they should spy my windpipe's dangerous notes:
    Great men should drink with harness on their throats.
  TIMON. My lord, in heart! and let the health go round.
  SECOND LORD. Let it flow this way, my good lord.
  APEMANTUS. Flow this way! A brave fellow! He keeps his tides well.
    Those healths will make thee and thy state look ill, Timon.
    Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner, honest water, which
    ne'er left man i' th' mire.
    This and my food are equals; there's no odds.'
    Feasts are too proud to give thanks to the gods.

                  APEMANTUS' Grace

           Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;
           I pray for no man but myself.
           Grant I may never prove so fond
           To trust man on his oath or bond,
           Or a harlot for her weeping,
           Or a dog that seems a-sleeping,
           Or a keeper with my freedom,
           Or my friends, if I should need 'em.
           Amen. So fall to't.
           Rich men sin, and I eat root.       [Eats and drinks]

    Much good dich thy good heart, Apemantus!
  TIMON. Captain Alcibiades, your heart's in the field now.
  ALCIBIADES. My heart is ever at your service, my lord.
  TIMON. You had rather be at a breakfast of enemies than dinner of
    friends.
  ALCIBIADES. So they were bleeding new, my lord, there's no meat
    like 'em; I could wish my best friend at such a feast.
  APEMANTUS. Would all those flatterers were thine enemies then, that
    then thou mightst kill 'em, and bid me to 'em.
  FIRST LORD. Might we but have that happiness, my lord, that you
    would once use our hearts, whereby we might express some part of
    our zeals, we should think ourselves for ever perfect.
  TIMON. O, no doubt, my good friends, but the gods themselves have
    provided that I shall have much help from you. How had you been
    my friends else? Why have you that charitable title from
    thousands, did not you chiefly belong to my heart? I have told
    more of you to myself than you can with modesty speak in your own
    behalf; and thus far I confirm you. O you gods, think I, what
    need we have any friends if we should ne'er have need of 'em?
    They were the most needless creatures living, should we ne'er
    have use for 'em; and would most resemble sweet instruments hung
    up in cases, that keep their sounds to themselves. Why, I have
    often wish'd myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We
    are born to do benefits; and what better or properer can we call
    our own than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious
    comfort 'tis to have so many like brothers commanding one
    another's fortunes! O, joy's e'en made away ere't can be born!
    Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks. To forget their
    faults, I drink to you.
  APEMANTUS. Thou weep'st to make them drink, Timon.
  SECOND LORD. Joy had the like conception in our eyes,
    And at that instant like a babe sprung up.
  APEMANTUS. Ho, ho! I laugh to think that babe a bastard.
  THIRD LORD. I promise you, my lord, you mov'd me much.
  APEMANTUS. Much!                                [Sound tucket]
  TIMON. What means that trump?

                        Enter a SERVANT

    How now?
  SERVANT. Please you, my lord, there are certain ladies most
    desirous of admittance.
  TIMON. Ladies! What are their wills?
  SERVANT. There comes with them a forerunner, my lord, which bears
    that office to signify their pleasures.
  TIMON. I pray let them be admitted.

                          Enter CUPID
  CUPID. Hail to thee, worthy Timon, and to all
    That of his bounties taste! The five best Senses
    Acknowledge thee their patron, and come freely
    To gratulate thy plenteous bosom. Th' Ear,
    Taste, Touch, Smell, pleas'd from thy table rise;
    They only now come but to feast thine eyes.
  TIMON. They're welcome all; let 'em have kind admittance.
    Music, make their welcome.                        Exit CUPID
  FIRST LORD. You see, my lord, how ample y'are belov'd.

      Music. Re-enter CUPID, witb a Masque of LADIES as Amazons,
          with lutes in their hands, dancing and playing

  APEMANTUS. Hoy-day, what a sweep of vanity comes this way!
    They dance? They are mad women.
    Like madness is the glory of this life,
    As this pomp shows to a little oil and root.
    We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves,
    And spend our flatteries to drink those men
    Upon whose age we void it up again
    With poisonous spite and envy.
    Who lives that's not depraved or depraves?
    Who dies that bears not one spurn to their graves
    Of their friends' gift?
    I should fear those that dance before me now
    Would one day stamp upon me. 'T has been done:
    Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

         The LORDS rise from table, with much adoring of
        TIMON; and to show their loves, each single out an
          Amazon, and all dance, men witb women, a lofty
            strain or two to the hautboys, and cease

  TIMON. You have done our pleasures much grace, fair ladies,
    Set a fair fashion on our entertainment,
    Which was not half so beautiful and kind;
    You have added worth unto't and lustre,
    And entertain'd me with mine own device;
    I am to thank you for't.
  FIRST LADY. My lord, you take us even at the best.
  APEMANTUS. Faith, for the worst is filthy, and would not hold
    taking, I doubt me.
  TIMON. Ladies, there is an idle banquet attends you;
    Please you to dispose yourselves.
  ALL LADIES. Most thankfully, my lord.
                                         Exeunt CUPID and LADIES
  TIMON. Flavius!
  FLAVIUS. My lord?
  TIMON. The little casket bring me hither.
  FLAVIUS. Yes, my lord. [Aside] More jewels yet!
    There is no crossing him in's humour,
    Else I should tell him- well i' faith, I should-
    When all's spent, he'd be cross'd then, an he could.
    'Tis pity bounty had not eyes behind,
    That man might ne'er be wretched for his mind.          Exit
  FIRST LORD. Where be our men?
  SERVANT. Here, my lord, in readiness.
  SECOND LORD. Our horses!

               Re-enter FLAVIUS, with the casket

  TIMON. O my friends,
    I have one word to say to you. Look you, my good lord,
    I must entreat you honour me so much
    As to advance this jewel; accept it and wear it,
    Kind my lord.
  FIRST LORD. I am so far already in your gifts-
  ALL. So are we all.

                       Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. My lord, there are certain nobles of the Senate newly
    alighted and come to visit you.
  TIMON. They are fairly welcome.                   Exit SERVANT
  FLAVIUS. I beseech your honour, vouchsafe me a word; it does
    concern you near.
  TIMON. Near! Why then, another time I'll hear thee. I prithee let's
    be provided to show them entertainment.
  FLAVIUS. [Aside] I scarce know how.

                     Enter another SERVANT

  SECOND SERVANT. May it please vour honour, Lord Lucius, out of his
    free love, hath presented to you four milk-white horses, trapp'd
    in silver.
  TIMON. I shall accept them fairly. Let the presents
    Be worthily entertain'd.                        Exit SERVANT

                      Enter a third SERVANT

    How now! What news?
  THIRD SERVANT. Please you, my lord, that honourable gentleman, Lord
    Lucullus, entreats your company to-morrow to hunt with him and
    has sent your honour two brace of greyhounds.
  TIMON. I'll hunt with him; and let them be receiv'd,
    Not without fair reward.                        Exit SERVANT
  FLAVIUS. [Aside] What will this come to?
    He commands us to provide and give great gifts,
    And all out of an empty coffer;
    Nor will he know his purse, or yield me this,
    To show him what a beggar his heart is,
    Being of no power to make his wishes good.
    His promises fly so beyond his state
    That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes
    For ev'ry word. He is so kind that he now
    Pays interest for't; his land's put to their books.
    Well, would I were gently put out of office
    Before I were forc'd out!
    Happier is he that has no friend to feed
    Than such that do e'en enemies exceed.
    I bleed inwardly for my lord.                           Exit
  TIMON. You do yourselves much wrong;
    You bate too much of your own merits.
    Here, my lord, a trifle of our love.
  SECOND LORD. With more than common thanks I will receive it.
  THIRD LORD. O, he's the very soul of bounty!
  TIMON. And now I remember, my lord, you gave good words the other
    day of a bay courser I rode on. 'Tis yours because you lik'd it.
  THIRD LORD. O, I beseech you pardon me, my lord, in that.
  TIMON. You may take my word, my lord: I know no man
    Can justly praise but what he does affect.
    I weigh my friend's affection with mine own.
    I'll tell you true; I'll call to you.
  ALL LORDS. O, none so welcome!
  TIMON. I take all and your several visitations
    So kind to heart 'tis not enough to give;
    Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends
    And ne'er be weary. Alcibiades,
    Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich.
    It comes in charity to thee; for all thy living
    Is 'mongst the dead, and all the lands thou hast
    Lie in a pitch'd field.
  ALCIBIADES. Ay, defil'd land, my lord.
  FIRST LORD. We are so virtuously bound-
  TIMON. And so am I to you.
  SECOND LORD. So infinitely endear'd-
  TIMON. All to you. Lights, more lights!
  FIRST LORD. The best of happiness, honour, and fortunes, keep with
    you, Lord Timon!
  TIMON. Ready for his friends.
                              Exeunt all but APEMANTUS and TIMON
  APEMANTUS. What a coil's here!
    Serving of becks and jutting-out of bums!
    I doubt whether their legs be worth the sums
    That are given for 'em. Friendship's full of dregs:
    Methinks false hearts should never have sound legs.
    Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on curtsies.
  TIMON. Now, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen
    I would be good to thee.
  APEMANTUS. No, I'll nothing; for if I should be brib'd too, there
    would be none left to rail upon thee, and then thou wouldst sin
    the faster. Thou giv'st so long, Timon, I fear me thou wilt give
    away thyself in paper shortly. What needs these feasts, pomps,
    and vain-glories?
  TIMON. Nay, an you begin to rail on society once, I am sworn not to
    give regard to you. Farewell; and come with better music.
 Exit
  APEMANTUS. So. Thou wilt not hear me now: thou shalt not then. I'll
    lock thy heaven from thee.
    O that men's ears should be
    To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!                   Exit

ACT II. SCENE I. A SENATOR'S house

Enter A SENATOR, with papers in his hand

  SENATOR. And late, five thousand. To Varro and to Isidore
    He owes nine thousand; besides my former sum,
    Which makes it five and twenty. Still in motion
    Of raging waste? It cannot hold; it will not.
    If I want gold, steal but a beggar's dog
    And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold.
    If I would sell my horse and buy twenty moe
    Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon,
    Ask nothing, give it him, it foals me straight,
    And able horses. No porter at his gate,
    But rather one that smiles and still invites
    All that pass by. It cannot hold; no reason
    Can sound his state in safety. Caphis, ho!
    Caphis, I say!

                         Enter CAPHIS

  CAPHIS. Here, sir; what is your pleasure?
  SENATOR. Get on your cloak and haste you to Lord Timon;
    Importune him for my moneys; be not ceas'd
    With slight denial, nor then silenc'd when
    'Commend me to your master' and the cap
    Plays in the right hand, thus; but tell him
    My uses cry to me, I must serve my turn
    Out of mine own; his days and times are past,
    And my reliances on his fracted dates
    Have smit my credit. I love and honour him,
    But must not break my back to heal his finger.
    Immediate are my needs, and my relief
    Must not be toss'd and turn'd to me in words,
    But find supply immediate. Get you gone;
    Put on a most importunate aspect,
    A visage of demand; for I do fear,
    When every feather sticks in his own wing,
    Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
    Which flashes now a phoenix. Get you gone.
  CAPHIS. I go, sir.
  SENATOR. Take the bonds along with you,
    And have the dates in compt.
  CAPHIS. I will, sir.
  SENATOR. Go.                                            Exeunt

SCENE II. Before TIMON'S house

Enter FLAVIUS, TIMON'S Steward, with many bills in his hand

  FLAVIUS. No care, no stop! So senseless of expense
    That he will neither know how to maintain it
    Nor cease his flow of riot; takes no account
    How things go from him, nor resumes no care
    Of what is to continue. Never mind
    Was to be so unwise to be so kind.
    What shall be done? He will not hear till feel.
    I must be round with him. Now he comes from hunting.
    Fie, fie, fie, fie!

       Enter CAPHIS, and the SERVANTS Of ISIDORE and VARRO

  CAPHIS. Good even, Varro. What, you come for money?
  VARRO'S SERVANT. Is't not your business too?
  CAPHIS. It is. And yours too, Isidore?
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. It is so.
  CAPHIS. Would we were all discharg'd!
  VARRO'S SERVANT. I fear it.
  CAPHIS. Here comes the lord.

            Enter TIMON and his train, with ALCIBIADES

  TIMON. So soon as dinner's done we'll forth again,
    My Alcibiades.- With me? What is your will?
  CAPHIS. My lord, here is a note of certain dues.
  TIMON. Dues! Whence are you?
  CAPHIS. Of Athens here, my lord.
  TIMON. Go to my steward.
  CAPHIS. Please it your lordship, he hath put me off
    To the succession of new days this month.
    My master is awak'd by great occasion
    To call upon his own, and humbly prays you
    That with your other noble parts you'll suit
    In giving him his right.
  TIMON. Mine honest friend,
    I prithee but repair to me next morning.
  CAPHIS. Nay, good my lord-
  TIMON. Contain thyself, good friend.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. One Varro's servant, my good lord-
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. From Isidore: he humbly prays your speedy
    payment-
  CAPHIS. If you did know, my lord, my master's wants-
  VARRO'S SERVANT. 'Twas due on forfeiture, my lord, six weeks and
    past.
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. Your steward puts me off, my lord; and
    I am sent expressly to your lordship.
  TIMON. Give me breath.
    I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on;
    I'll wait upon you instantly.
                                     Exeunt ALCIBIADES and LORDS
    [To FLAVIUS] Come hither. Pray you,
    How goes the world that I am thus encount'red
    With clamorous demands of date-broke bonds
    And the detention of long-since-due debts,
    Against my honour?
  FLAVIUS. Please you, gentlemen,
    The time is unagreeable to this business.
    Your importunacy cease till after dinner,
    That I may make his lordship understand
    Wherefore you are not paid.
  TIMON. Do so, my friends.
    See them well entertain'd.                              Exit
  FLAVIUS. Pray draw near.                                  Exit

                      Enter APEMANTUS and FOOL

  CAPHIS. Stay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus.
    Let's ha' some sport with 'em.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. Hang him, he'll abuse us!
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. A plague upon him, dog!
  VARRO'S SERVANT. How dost, fool?
  APEMANTUS. Dost dialogue with thy shadow?
  VARRO'S SERVANT. I speak not to thee.
  APEMANTUS. No, 'tis to thyself. [To the FOOL] Come away.
  ISIDORE'S SERVANT. [To VARRO'S SERVANT] There's the fool hangs on
    your back already.
  APEMANTUS. No, thou stand'st single; th'art not on him yet.
  CAPHIS. Where's the fool now?
  APEMANTUS. He last ask'd the question. Poor rogues and usurers'
    men! Bawds between gold and want!
  ALL SERVANTS. What are we, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Asses.
  ALL SERVANTS. Why?
  APEMANTUS. That you ask me what you are, and do not know
    yourselves. Speak to 'em, fool.
  FOOL. How do you, gentlemen?
  ALL SERVANTS. Gramercies, good fool. How does your mistress?
  FOOL. She's e'en setting on water to scald such chickens as you
    are. Would we could see you at Corinth!
  APEMANTUS. Good! gramercy.

                           Enter PAGE

  FOOL. Look you, here comes my mistress' page.
  PAGE. [To the FOOL] Why, how now, Captain? What do you in this wise
    company? How dost thou, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Would I had a rod in my mouth, that I might answer thee
    profitably!
  PAGE. Prithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription of these
    letters; I know not which is which.
  APEMANTUS. Canst not read?
  PAGE. No.
  APEMANTUS. There will little learning die, then, that day thou art
    hang'd. This is to Lord Timon; this to Alcibiades. Go; thou wast
    born a bastard, and thou't die a bawd.
  PAGE. Thou wast whelp'd a dog, and thou shalt famish dog's death.
    Answer not: I am gone.                             Exit PAGE
  APEMANTUS. E'en so thou outrun'st grace.
    Fool, I will go with you to Lord Timon's.
  FOOL. Will you leave me there?
  APEMANTUS. If Timon stay at home. You three serve three usurers?
  ALL SERVANTS. Ay; would they serv'd us!
  APEMANTUS. So would I- as good a trick as ever hangman serv'd
    thief.
  FOOL. Are you three usurers' men?
  ALL SERVANTS. Ay, fool.
  FOOL. I think no usurer but has a fool to his servant. My mistress
    is one, and I am her fool. When men come to borrow of your
    masters, they approach sadly and go away merry; but they enter my
    mistress' house merrily and go away sadly. The reason of this?
  VARRO'S SERVANT. I could render one.
  APEMANTUS. Do it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster and a
    knave; which notwithstanding, thou shalt be no less esteemed.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. What is a whoremaster, fool?
  FOOL. A fool in good clothes, and something like thee. 'Tis a
    spirit. Sometime 't appears like a lord; sometime like a lawyer;
    sometime like a philosopher, with two stones moe than's
    artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and, generally,
    in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to
    thirteen, this spirit walks in.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. Thou art not altogether a fool.
  FOOL. Nor thou altogether a wise man.
    As much foolery as I have, so much wit thou lack'st.
  APEMANTUS. That answer might have become Apemantus.
  VARRO'S SERVANT. Aside, aside; here comes Lord Timon.

                    Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS

  APEMANTUS. Come with me, fool, come.
  FOOL. I do not always follow lover, elder brother, and woman;
    sometime the philosopher.
                                       Exeunt APEMANTUS and FOOL
  FLAVIUS. Pray you walk near; I'll speak with you anon.
                                                 Exeunt SERVANTS
  TIMON. You make me marvel wherefore ere this time
    Had you not fully laid my state before me,
    That I might so have rated my expense
    As I had leave of means.
  FLAVIUS. You would not hear me
    At many leisures I propos'd.
  TIMON. Go to;
    Perchance some single vantages you took
    When my indisposition put you back,
    And that unaptness made your minister
    Thus to excuse yourself.
  FLAVIUS. O my good lord,
    At many times I brought in my accounts,
    Laid them before you; you would throw them off
    And say you found them in mine honesty.
    When, for some trifling present, you have bid me
    Return so much, I have shook my head and wept;
    Yea, 'gainst th' authority of manners, pray'd you
    To hold your hand more close. I did endure
    Not seldom, nor no slight checks, when I have
    Prompted you in the ebb of your estate
    And your great flow of debts. My lov'd lord,
    Though you hear now- too late!- yet now's a time:
    The greatest of your having lacks a half
    To pay your present debts.
  TIMON. Let all my land be sold.
  FLAVIUS. 'Tis all engag'd, some forfeited and gone;
    And what remains will hardly stop the mouth
    Of present dues. The future comes apace;
    What shall defend the interim? And at length
    How goes our reck'ning?
  TIMON. To Lacedaemon did my land extend.
  FLAVIUS. O my good lord, the world is but a word;
    Were it all yours to give it in a breath,
    How quickly were it gone!
  TIMON. You tell me true.
  FLAVIUS. If you suspect my husbandry or falsehood,
    Call me before th' exactest auditors
    And set me on the proof. So the gods bless me,
    When all our offices have been oppress'd
    With riotous feeders, when our vaults have wept
    With drunken spilth of wine, when every room
    Hath blaz'd with lights and bray'd with minstrelsy,
    I have retir'd me to a wasteful cock
    And set mine eyes at flow.
  TIMON. Prithee no more.
  FLAVIUS. 'Heavens,' have I said 'the bounty of this lord!
    How many prodigal bits have slaves and peasants
    This night englutted! Who is not Lord Timon's?
    What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is Lord Timon's?
    Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!'
    Ah! when the means are gone that buy this praise,
    The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
    Feast-won, fast-lost; one cloud of winter show'rs,
    These flies are couch'd.
  TIMON. Come, sermon me no further.
    No villainous bounty yet hath pass'd my heart;
    Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.
    Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience lack
    To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart:
    If I would broach the vessels of my love,
    And try the argument of hearts by borrowing,
    Men and men's fortunes could I frankly use
    As I can bid thee speak.
  FLAVIUS. Assurance bless your thoughts!
  TIMON. And, in some sort, these wants of mine are crown'd
    That I account them blessings; for by these
    Shall I try friends. You shall perceive how you
    Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
    Within there! Flaminius! Servilius!

           Enter FLAMINIUS, SERVILIUS, and another SERVANT

  SERVANTS. My lord! my lord!
  TIMON. I will dispatch you severally- you to Lord Lucius; to Lord
    Lucullus you; I hunted with his honour to-day. You to Sempronius.
    Commend me to their loves; and I am proud, say, that my occasions
    have found time to use 'em toward a supply of money. Let the
    request be fifty talents.
  FLAMINIUS. As you have said, my lord.          Exeunt SERVANTS
  FLAVIUS. [Aside] Lord Lucius and Lucullus? Humh!
  TIMON. Go you, sir, to the senators,
    Of whom, even to the state's best health, I have
    Deserv'd this hearing. Bid 'em send o' th' instant
    A thousand talents to me.
  FLAVIUS. I have been bold,
    For that I knew it the most general way,
    To them to use your signet and your name;
    But they do shake their heads, and I am here
    No richer in return.
  TIMON. Is't true? Can't be?
  FLAVIUS. They answer, in a joint and corporate voice,
    That now they are at fall, want treasure, cannot
    Do what they would, are sorry- you are honourable-
    But yet they could have wish'd- they know not-
    Something hath been amiss- a noble nature
    May catch a wrench- would all were well!- 'tis pity-
    And so, intending other serious matters,
    After distasteful looks, and these hard fractions,
    With certain half-caps and cold-moving nods,
    They froze me into silence.
  TIMON. You gods, reward them!
    Prithee, man, look cheerly. These old fellows
    Have their ingratitude in them hereditary.
    Their blood is cak'd, 'tis cold, it seldom flows;
    'Tis lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;
    And nature, as it grows again toward earth,
    Is fashion'd for the journey dull and heavy.
    Go to Ventidius. Prithee be not sad,
    Thou art true and honest; ingeniously I speak,
    No blame belongs to thee. Ventidius lately
    Buried his father, by whose death he's stepp'd
    Into a great estate. When he was poor,
    Imprison'd, and in scarcity of friends,
    I clear'd him with five talents. Greet him from me,
    Bid him suppose some good necessity
    Touches his friend, which craves to be rememb'red
    With those five talents. That had, give't these fellows
    To whom 'tis instant due. Nev'r speak or think
    That Timon's fortunes 'mong his friends can sink.
  FLAVIUS. I would I could not think it.
    That thought is bounty's foe;
    Being free itself, it thinks all others so.           Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. LUCULLUS' house

FLAMINIUS waiting to speak with LUCULLUS. Enter SERVANT to him

  SERVANT. I have told my lord of you; he is coming down to you.
  FLAMINIUS. I thank you, sir.

                           Enter LUCULLUS

  SERVANT. Here's my lord.
  LUCULLUS. [Aside] One of Lord Timon's men? A gift, I warrant. Why,
    this hits right; I dreamt of a silver basin and ewer to-night-
    Flaminius, honest Flaminius, you are very respectively welcome,
    sir. Fill me some wine. [Exit SERVANT] And how does that
    honourable, complete, freehearted gentleman of Athens, thy very
    bountiful good lord and master?
  FLAMINIUS. His health is well, sir.
  LUCULLUS. I am right glad that his health is well, sir. And what
    hast thou there under thy cloak, pretty Flaminius?
  FLAMINIUS. Faith, nothing but an empty box, sir, which in my lord's
    behalf I come to entreat your honour to supply;  who, having
    great and instant occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent to
    your lordship to furnish him, nothing doubting your present
    assistance therein.
  LUCULLIUS. La, la, la, la! 'Nothing doubting' says he? Alas, good
    lord! a noble gentleman 'tis, if he would not keep so good a
    house. Many a time and often I ha' din'd with him and told him
    on't; and come again to supper to him of purpose to have him
    spend less; and yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning
    by my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty is his. I ha'
    told him on't, but I could ne'er get him from't.

                    Re-enter SERVANT, with wine

  SERVANT. Please your lordship, here is the wine.
  LUCULLUS. Flaminius, I have noted thee always wise. Here's to thee.
  FLAMINIUS. Your lordship speaks your pleasure.
  LUCULLUS. I have observed thee always for a towardly prompt spirit,
    give thee thy due, and one that knows what belongs to reason, and
    canst use the time well, if the time use thee well. Good parts in
    thee. [To SERVANT] Get you gone, sirrah. [Exit SERVANT] Draw
    nearer, honest Flaminius. Thy lord's a bountiful gentleman; but
    thou art wise, and thou know'st well enough, although thou com'st
    to me, that this is no time to lend money, especially upon bare
    friendship without security. Here's three solidares for thee.
    Good boy, wink at me, and say thou saw'st me not. Fare thee well.
  FLAMINIUS. Is't possible the world should so much differ,
    And we alive that liv'd? Fly, damned baseness,
    To him that worships thee.         [Throwing the money back]
  LUCULLUS. Ha! Now I see thou art a fool, and fit for thy master.
 Exit
  FLAMINIUS. May these add to the number that may scald thee!
    Let molten coin be thy damnation,
    Thou disease of a friend and not himself!
    Has friendship such a faint and milky heart
    It turns in less than two nights? O you gods,
    I feel my master's passion! This slave
    Unto his honour has my lord's meat in him;
    Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment
    When he is turn'd to poison?
    O, may diseases only work upon't!
    And when he's sick to death, let not that part of nature
    Which my lord paid for be of any power
    To expel sickness, but prolong his hour!                Exit

SCENE II. A public place

Enter Lucius, with three STRANGERS

  LUCIUS. Who, the Lord Timon? He is my very good friend, and an
    honourable gentleman.
  FIRST STRANGER. We know him for no less, though we are but
    strangers to him. But I can tell you one thing, my lord, and
    which I hear from common rumours: now Lord Timon's happy hours
    are done and past, and his estate shrinks from him.
  LUCIUS. Fie, no: do not believe it; he cannot want for money.
  SECOND STRANGER. But believe you this, my lord, that not long ago
     one of his men was with the Lord Lucullus to borrow so many
    talents; nay, urg'd extremely for't, and showed what necessity
    belong'd to't, and yet was denied.
  LUCIUS. How?
  SECOND STRANGER. I tell you, denied, my lord.
  LUCIUS. What a strange case was that! Now, before the gods, I am
    asham'd on't. Denied that honourable man! There was very little
    honour show'd in't. For my own part, I must needs confess I have
    received some small kindnesses from him, as money, plate, jewels,
    and such-like trifles, nothing comparing to his; yet, had he
    mistook him and sent to me, I should ne'er have denied his
    occasion so many talents.

                             Enter SERVILIUS

  SERVILIUS. See, by good hap, yonder's my lord; I have sweat to see
    his honour.- My honour'd lord!
  LUCIUS. Servilius? You are kindly met, sir. Fare thee well; commend
    me to thy honourable virtuous lord, my very exquisite friend.
  SERVILIUS. May it please your honour, my lord hath sent-
  LUCIUS. Ha! What has he sent? I am so much endeared to that lord:
    he's ever sending. How shall I thank him, think'st thou? And what
    has he sent now?
  SERVILIUS. Has only sent his present occasion now, my lord,
    requesting your lordship to supply his instant use with so many
    talents.
  LUCIUS. I know his lordship is but merry with me;
    He cannot want fifty-five hundred talents.
  SERVILIUS. But in the mean time he wants less, my lord.
    If his occasion were not virtuous
    I should not urge it half so faithfully.
  LUCIUS. Dost thou speak seriously, Servilius?
  SERVILIUS. Upon my soul, 'tis true, sir.
  LUCIUS. What a wicked beast was I to disfurnish myself against such
    a good time, when I might ha' shown myself honourable! How
    unluckily it happ'ned that I should purchase the day before for a
    little part and undo a great deal of honour! Servilius, now
    before the gods, I am not able to do- the more beast, I say! I
    was sending to use Lord Timon myself, these gentlemen can
    witness; but I would not for the wealth of Athens I had done't
    now. Commend me bountifully to his good lordship, and I hope his
    honour will conceive the fairest of me, because I have no power
    to be kind. And tell him this from me: I count it one of my
    greatest afflictions, say, that I cannot pleasure such an
    honourable gentleman. Good Servilius, will you befriend me so far
    as to use mine own words to him?
  SERVILIUS. Yes, sir, I shall.
  LUCIUS. I'll look you out a good turn, Servilius.
                                                  Exit SERVILIUS
    True, as you said, Timon is shrunk indeed;
    And he that's once denied will hardly speed.            Exit
  FIRST STRANGER. Do you observe this, Hostilius?
  SECOND STRANGER. Ay, too well.
  FIRST STRANGER. Why, this is the world's soul; and just of the same
      piece
    Is every flatterer's spirit. Who can call him his friend
    That dips in the same dish? For, in my knowing,
    Timon has been this lord's father,
    And kept his credit with his purse;
    Supported his estate; nay, Timon's money
    Has paid his men their wages. He ne'er drinks
    But Timon's silver treads upon his lip;
    And yet- O, see the monstrousness of man
    When he looks out in an ungrateful shape!-
    He does deny him, in respect of his,
    What charitable men afford to beggars.
  THIRD STRANGER. Religion groans at it.
  FIRST STRANGER. For mine own part,
    I never tasted Timon in my life,
    Nor came any of his bounties over me
    To mark me for his friend; yet I protest,
    For his right noble mind, illustrious virtue,
    And honourable carriage,
    Had his necessity made use of me,
    I would have put my wealth into donation,
    And the best half should have return'd to him,
    So much I love his heart. But I perceive
    Men must learn now with pity to dispense;
    For policy sits above conscience.                     Exeunt

SCENE III. SEMPRONIUS' house

Enter SEMPRONIUS and a SERVANT of TIMON'S

  SEMPRONIUS. Must he needs trouble me in't? Hum! 'Bove all others?
    He might have tried Lord Lucius or Lucullus;
    And now Ventidius is wealthy too,
    Whom he redeem'd from prison. All these
    Owe their estates unto him.
  SERVANT. My lord,
    They have all been touch'd and found base metal, for
    They have all denied him.
  SEMPRONIUS. How! Have they denied him?
    Has Ventidius and Lucullus denied him?
    And does he send to me? Three? Humh!
    It shows but little love or judgment in him.
    Must I be his last refuge? His friends, like physicians,
    Thrice give him over. Must I take th' cure upon me?
    Has much disgrac'd me in't; I'm angry at him,
    That might have known my place. I see no sense for't,
    But his occasions might have woo'd me first;
    For, in my conscience, I was the first man
    That e'er received gift from him.
    And does he think so backwardly of me now
    That I'll requite it last? No;
    So it may prove an argument of laughter
    To th' rest, and I 'mongst lords be thought a fool.
    I'd rather than the worth of thrice the sum
    Had sent to me first, but for my mind's sake;
    I'd such a courage to do him good. But now return,
    And with their faint reply this answer join:
    Who bates mine honour shall not know my coin.           Exit
  SERVANT. Excellent! Your lordship's a goodly villain. The devil
    knew not what he did when he made man politic- he cross'd himself
    by't; and I cannot think but, in the end, the villainies of man
    will set him clear. How fairly this lord strives to appear foul!
    Takes virtuous copies to be wicked, like those that under hot
    ardent zeal would set whole realms on fire.
    Of such a nature is his politic love.
    This was my lord's best hope; now all are fled,
    Save only the gods. Now his friends are dead,
    Doors that were ne'er acquainted with their wards
    Many a bounteous year must be employ'd
    Now to guard sure their master.
    And this is all a liberal course allows:
    Who cannot keep his wealth must keep his house.         Exit

SCENE IV. A hall in TIMON'S house

Enter two Of VARRO'S MEN, meeting LUCIUS' SERVANT, and others, all
being servants of TIMON's creditors, to wait for his coming out. Then
enter TITUS and HORTENSIUS

  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. Well met; good morrow, Titus and Hortensius.
  TITUS. The like to you, kind Varro.
  HORTENSIUS. Lucius! What, do we meet together?
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, and I think one business does command us all;
    for mine is money.
  TITUS. So is theirs and ours.

                          Enter PHILOTUS

  LUCIUS' SERVANT. And Sir Philotus too!
  PHILOTUS. Good day at once.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. welcome, good brother, what do you think the hour?
  PHILOTUS. Labouring for nine.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. So much?
  PHILOTUS. Is not my lord seen yet?
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Not yet.
  PHILOTUS. I wonder on't; he was wont to shine at seven.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, but the days are wax'd shorter with him;
    You must consider that a prodigal course
    Is like the sun's, but not like his recoverable.
    I fear
    'Tis deepest winter in Lord Timon's purse;
    That is, one may reach deep enough and yet
    Find little.
  PHILOTUS. I am of your fear for that.
  TITUS. I'll show you how t' observe a strange event.
    Your lord sends now for money.
  HORTENSIUS. Most true, he does.
  TITUS. And he wears jewels now of Timon's gift,
    For which I wait for money.
  HORTENSIUS. It is against my heart.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Mark how strange it shows
    Timon in this should pay more than he owes;
    And e'en as if your lord should wear rich jewels
    And send for money for 'em.
  HORTENSIUS. I'm weary of this charge, the gods can witness;
    I know my lord hath spent of Timon's wealth,
    And now ingratitude makes it worse than stealth.
  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. Yes, mine's three thousand crowns; what's
    yours?
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Five thousand mine.
  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. 'Tis much deep; and it should seem by th'
      sum
    Your master's confidence was above mine,
    Else surely his had equall'd.

                           Enter FLAMINIUS

  TITUS. One of Lord Timon's men.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Flaminius! Sir, a word. Pray, is my lord ready to
    come forth?
  FLAMINIUS. No, indeed, he is not.
  TITUS. We attend his lordship; pray signify so much.
  FLAMINIUS. I need not tell him that; he knows you are to diligent.
 Exit

                 Enter FLAVIUS, in a cloak, muffled

  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ha! Is not that his steward muffled so?
    He goes away in a cloud. Call him, call him.
  TITUS. Do you hear, sir?
  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. By your leave, sir.
  FLAVIUS. What do ye ask of me, my friend?
  TITUS. We wait for certain money here, sir.
  FLAVIUS. Ay,
    If money were as certain as your waiting,
    'Twere sure enough.
    Why then preferr'd you not your sums and bills
    When your false masters eat of my lord's meat?
    Then they could smile, and fawn upon his debts,
    And take down th' int'rest into their glutt'nous maws.
    You do yourselves but wrong to stir me up;
    Let me pass quietly.
    Believe't, my lord and I have made an end:
    I have no more to reckon, he to spend.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Ay, but this answer will not serve.
  FLAVIUS. If 'twill not serve, 'tis not so base as you,
    For you serve knaves.                                   Exit
  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. How! What does his cashier'd worship mutter?
  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. No matter what; he's poor, and that's
    revenge enough. Who can speak broader than he that has no house
    to put his head in? Such may rail against great buildings.

                          Enter SERVILIUS

  TITUS. O, here's Servilius; now we shall know some answer.
  SERVILIUS. If I might beseech you, gentlemen, to repair some other
    hour, I should derive much from't; for take't of my soul, my lord
    leans wondrously to discontent. His comfortable temper has
    forsook him; he's much out of health and keeps his chamber.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Many do keep their chambers are not sick;
    And if it be so far beyond his health,
    Methinks he should the sooner pay his debts,
    And make a clear way to the gods.
  SERVILIUS. Good gods!
  TITUS. We cannot take this for answer, sir.
  FLAMINIUS. [Within] Servilius, help! My lord! my lord!

           Enter TIMON, in a rage, FLAMINIUS following

  TIMON. What, are my doors oppos'd against my passage?
    Have I been ever free, and must my house
    Be my retentive enemy, my gaol?
    The place which I have feasted, does it now,
    Like all mankind, show me an iron heart?
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Put in now, Titus.
  TITUS. My lord, here is my bill.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Here's mine.
  HORTENSIUS. And mine, my lord.
  BOTH VARRO'S SERVANTS. And ours, my lord.
  PHILOTUS. All our bills.
  TIMON. Knock me down with 'em; cleave me to the girdle.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Alas, my lord-
  TIMON. Cut my heart in sums.
  TITUS. Mine, fifty talents.
  TIMON. Tell out my blood.
  LUCIUS' SERVANT. Five thousand crowns, my lord.
  TIMON. Five thousand drops pays that. What yours? and yours?
  FIRST VARRO'S SERVANT. My lord-
  SECOND VARRO'S SERVANT. My lord-
  TIMON. Tear me, take me, and the gods fall upon you!      Exit
  HORTENSIUS. Faith, I perceive our masters may throw their caps at
    their money. These debts may well be call'd desperate ones, for a
    madman owes 'em.                                      Exeunt

                    Re-enter TIMON and FLAVIUS

  TIMON. They have e'en put my breath from me, the slaves.
    Creditors? Devils!
  FLAVIUS. My dear lord-
  TIMON. What if it should be so?
  FLAMINIUS. My lord-
  TIMON. I'll have it so. My steward!
  FLAVIUS. Here, my lord.
  TIMON. So fitly? Go, bid all my friends again:
    Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius- all.
    I'll once more feast the rascals.
  FLAVIUS. O my lord,
    You only speak from your distracted soul;
    There is not so much left to furnish out
    A moderate table.
  TIMON. Be it not in thy care.
    Go, I charge thee, invite them all; let in the tide
    Of knaves once more; my cook and I'll provide.        Exeunt

SCENE V. The Senate House

Enter three SENATORS at one door, ALCIBIADES meeting them, with
attendants

  FIRST SENATOR. My lord, you have my voice to't: the fault's bloody.
    'Tis necessary he should die:
    Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
  SECOND SENATOR. Most true; the law shall bruise him.
  ALCIBIADES. Honour, health, and compassion, to the Senate!
  FIRST SENATOR. Now, Captain?
  ALCIBIADES. I am an humble suitor to your virtues;
    For pity is the virtue of the law,
    And none but tyrants use it cruelly.
    It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy
    Upon a friend of mine, who in hot blood
    Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth
    To those that without heed do plunge into't.
    He is a man, setting his fate aside,
    Of comely virtues;
    Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice-
    An honour in him which buys out his fault-
    But with a noble fury and fair spirit,
    Seeing his reputation touch'd to death,
    He did oppose his foe;
    And with such sober and unnoted passion
    He did behove his anger ere 'twas spent,
    As if he had but prov'd an argument.
  FIRST SENATOR. You undergo too strict a paradox,
    Striving to make an ugly deed look fair;
    Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd
    To bring manslaughter into form and set
    Quarrelling upon the head of valour; which, indeed,
    Is valour misbegot, and came into the world
    When sects and factions were newly born.
    He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
    The worst that man can breathe,
    And make his wrongs his outsides,
    To wear them like his raiment, carelessly,
    And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
    To bring it into danger.
    If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill,
    What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill!
  ALCIBIADES. My lord-
  FIRST SENATOR. You cannot make gross sins look clear:
    To revenge is no valour, but to bear.
  ALCIBIADES. My lords, then, under favour, pardon me
    If I speak like a captain:
    Why do fond men expose themselves to battle,
    And not endure all threats? Sleep upon't,
    And let the foes quietly cut their throats,
    Without repugnancy? If there be
    Such valour in the bearing, what make we
    Abroad? Why, then, women are more valiant,
    That stay at home, if bearing carry it;
    And the ass more captain than the lion; the fellow
    Loaden with irons wiser than the judge,
    If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,
    As you are great, be pitifully good.
    Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?
    To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust;
    But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just.
    To be in anger is impiety;
    But who is man that is not angry?
    Weigh but the crime with this.
  SECOND SENATOR. You breathe in vain.
  ALCIBIADES. In vain! His service done
    At Lacedaemon and Byzantium
    Were a sufficient briber for his life.
  FIRST SENATOR. What's that?
  ALCIBIADES. Why, I say, my lords, has done fair service,
    And slain in fight many of your enemies;
    How full of valour did he bear himself
    In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds!
  SECOND SENATOR. He has made too much plenty with 'em.
    He's a sworn rioter; he has a sin that often
    Drowns him and takes his valour prisoner.
    If there were no foes, that were enough
    To overcome him. In that beastly fury
    He has been known to commit outrages
    And cherish factions. 'Tis inferr'd to us
    His days are foul and his drink dangerous.
  FIRST SENATOR. He dies.
  ALCIBIADES. Hard fate! He might have died in war.
    My lords, if not for any parts in him-
    Though his right arm might purchase his own time,
    And be in debt to none- yet, more to move you,
    Take my deserts to his, and join 'em both;
    And, for I know your reverend ages love
    Security, I'll pawn my victories, all
    My honours to you, upon his good returns.
    If by this crime he owes the law his life,
    Why, let the war receive't in valiant gore;
    For law is strict, and war is nothing more.
  FIRST SENATOR. We are for law: he dies. Urge it no more
    On height of our displeasure. Friend or brother,
    He forfeits his own blood that spills another.
  ALCIBIADES. Must it be so? It must not be. My lords,
    I do beseech you, know me.
  SECOND SENATOR. How!
  ALCIBIADES. Call me to your remembrances.
  THIRD SENATOR. What!
  ALCIBIADES. I cannot think but your age has forgot me;
    It could not else be I should prove so base
    To sue, and be denied such common grace.
    My wounds ache at you.
  FIRST SENATOR. Do you dare our anger?
    'Tis in few words, but spacious in effect:
    We banish thee for ever.
  ALCIBIADES. Banish me!
    Banish your dotage! Banish usury
    That makes the Senate ugly.
  FIRST SENATOR. If after two days' shine Athens contain thee,
    Attend our weightier judgment. And, not to swell our spirit,
    He shall be executed presently.              Exeunt SENATORS
  ALCIBIADES. Now the gods keep you old enough that you may live
    Only in bone, that none may look on you!
    I'm worse than mad; I have kept back their foes,
    While they have told their money and let out
    Their coin upon large interest, I myself
    Rich only in large hurts. All those for this?
    Is this the balsam that the usuring Senate
    Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment!
    It comes not ill; I hate not to be banish'd;
    It is a cause worthy my spleen and fury,
    That I may strike at Athens. I'll cheer up
    My discontented troops, and lay for hearts.
    'Tis honour with most lands to be at odds;
    Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods.         Exit

SCENE VI. A banqueting hall in TIMON'S house

Music. Tables set out; servants attending. Enter divers LORDS, friends
of TIMON, at several doors

  FIRST LORD. The good time of day to you, sir.
  SECOND LORD. I also wish it to you. I think this honourable lord
    did but try us this other day.
  FIRST LORD. Upon that were my thoughts tiring when we encount'red.
    I hope it is not so low with him as he made it seem in the trial
    of his several friends.
  SECOND LORD. It should not be, by the persuasion of his new
    feasting.
  FIRST LORD. I should think so. He hath sent me an earnest inviting,
    which many my near occasions did urge me to put off; but he hath
    conjur'd me beyond them, and I must needs appear.
  SECOND LORD. In like manner was I in debt to my importunate
    business, but he would not hear my excuse. I am sorry, when he
    sent to borrow of me, that my provision was out.
  FIRST LORD. I am sick of that grief too, as I understand how all
    things go.
  SECOND LORD. Every man here's so. What would he have borrowed of
    you?
  FIRST LORD. A thousand pieces.
  SECOND LORD. A thousand pieces!
  FIRST LORD. What of you?
  SECOND LORD. He sent to me, sir- here he comes.

                   Enter TIMON and attendants

  TIMON. With all my heart, gentlemen both! And how fare you?
  FIRST LORD. Ever at the best, hearing well of your lordship.
  SECOND LORD. The swallow follows not summer more willing than we
    your lordship.
  TIMON. [Aside] Nor more willingly leaves winter; such summer-birds
    are men- Gentlemen, our dinner will not recompense this long
    stay; feast your ears with the music awhile, if they will fare so
    harshly o' th' trumpet's sound; we shall to't presently.
  FIRST LORD. I hope it remains not unkindly with your lordship that
    I return'd you an empty messenger.
  TIMON. O sir, let it not trouble you.
  SECOND LORD. My noble lord-
  TIMON. Ah, my good friend, what cheer?
  SECOND LORD. My most honourable lord, I am e'en sick of shame that,
    when your lordship this other day sent to me, I was so
    unfortunate a beggar.
  TIMON. Think not on't, sir.
  SECOND LORD. If you had sent but two hours before-
  TIMON. Let it not cumber your better remembrance. [The banquet
    brought in] Come, bring in all together.
  SECOND LORD. All cover'd dishes!
  FIRST LORD. Royal cheer, I warrant you.
  THIRD LORD. Doubt not that, if money and the season can yield it.
  FIRST LORD. How do you? What's the news?
  THIRD LORD. Alcibiades is banish'd. Hear you of it?
  FIRST AND SECOND LORDS. Alcibiades banish'd!
  THIRD LORD. 'Tis so, be sure of it.
  FIRST LORD. How? how?
  SECOND LORD. I pray you, upon what?
  TIMON. My worthy friends, will you draw near?
  THIRD LORD. I'll tell you more anon. Here's a noble feast toward.
  SECOND LORD. This is the old man still.
  THIRD LORD. Will't hold? Will't hold?
  SECOND LORD. It does; but time will- and so-
  THIRD LORD. I do conceive.
  TIMON. Each man to his stool with that spur as he would to the lip
    of his mistress; your diet shall be in all places alike. Make not
    a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon
    the first place. Sit, sit. The gods require our thanks:

    You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness. For
    your own gifts make yourselves prais'd; but reserve still to give,
    lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough, that one
    need not lend to another; for were your god-heads to borrow of men,
    men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be beloved more than the
    man that gives it. Let no assembly of twenty be without a score of
    villains. If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of
    them be- as they are. The rest of your foes, O gods, the senators
    of Athens, together with the common lag of people, what is amiss in
    them, you gods, make suitable for destruction. For these my present
    friends, as they are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and
    to nothing are they welcome.

    Uncover, dogs, and lap.        [The dishes are uncovered and
                                  seen to he full of warm water]
  SOME SPEAK. What does his lordship mean?
  SOME OTHER. I know not.
  TIMON. May you a better feast never behold,
    You knot of mouth-friends! Smoke and lukewarm water
    Is your perfection. This is Timon's last;
    Who, stuck and spangled with your flatteries,
    Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces
                             [Throwing the water in their faces]
    Your reeking villainy. Live loath'd and long,
    Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,
    Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,
    You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time's flies,
    Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-lacks!
    Of man and beast the infinite malady
    Crust you quite o'er! What, dost thou go?
    Soft, take thy physic first; thou too, and thou.
    Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none.       [Throws the
                            dishes at them, and drives them out]
    What, all in motion? Henceforth be no feast
    Whereat a villain's not a welcome guest.
    Burn house! Sink Athens! Henceforth hated be
    Of Timon man and all humanity!                          Exit

                           Re-enter the LORDS

  FIRST LORD. How now, my lords!
  SECOND LORD. Know you the quality of Lord Timon's fury?
  THIRD LORD. Push! Did you see my cap?
  FOURTH LORD. I have lost my gown.
  FIRST LORD. He's but a mad lord, and nought but humours sways him.
    He gave me a jewel th' other day, and now he has beat it out of
    my hat. Did you see my jewel?
  THIRD LORD. Did you see my cap?
  SECOND LORD. Here 'tis.
  FOURTH LORD. Here lies my gown.
  FIRST LORD. Let's make no stay.
  SECOND LORD. Lord Timon's mad.
  THIRD LORD. I feel't upon my bones.
  FOURTH LORD. One day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Without the walls of Athens

Enter TIMON

  TIMON. Let me look back upon thee. O thou wall
    That girdles in those wolves, dive in the earth
    And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent.
    Obedience, fail in children! Slaves and fools,
    Pluck the grave wrinkled Senate from the bench
    And minister in their steads. To general filths
    Convert, o' th' instant, green virginity.
    Do't in your parents' eyes. Bankrupts, hold fast;
    Rather than render back, out with your knives
    And cut your trusters' throats. Bound servants, steal:
    Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
    And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed:
    Thy mistress is o' th' brothel. Son of sixteen,
    Pluck the lin'd crutch from thy old limping sire,
    With it beat out his brains. Piety and fear,
    Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
    Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,
    Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
    Degrees, observances, customs and laws,
    Decline to your confounding contraries
    And let confusion live. Plagues incident to men,
    Your potent and infectious fevers heap
    On Athens, ripe for stroke. Thou cold sciatica,
    Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt
    As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty,
    Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
    That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive
    And drown themselves in riot. Itches, blains,
    Sow all th' Athenian bosoms, and their crop
    Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
    That their society, as their friendship, may
    Be merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee
    But nakedness, thou detestable town!
    Take thou that too, with multiplying bans.
    Timon will to the woods, where he shall find
    Th' unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
    The gods confound- hear me, you good gods all-
    The Athenians both within and out that wall!
    And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
    To the whole race of mankind, high and low!
    Amen.                                                   Exit

SCENE II. Athens. TIMON's house

Enter FLAVIUS, with two or three SERVANTS

  FIRST SERVANT. Hear you, Master Steward, where's our master?
    Are we undone, cast off, nothing remaining?
  FLAVIUS. Alack, my fellows, what should I say to you?
    Let me be recorded by the righteous gods,
    I am as poor as you.
  FIRST SERVANT. Such a house broke!
    So noble a master fall'n! All gone, and not
    One friend to take his fortune by the arm
    And go along with him?
  SECOND SERVANT. As we do turn our backs
    From our companion, thrown into his grave,
    So his familiars to his buried fortunes
    Slink all away; leave their false vows with him,
    Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
    A dedicated beggar to the air,
    With his disease of all-shunn'd poverty,
    Walks, like contempt, alone. More of our fellows.

                     Enter other SERVANTS

  FLAVIUS. All broken implements of a ruin'd house.
  THIRD SERVANT. Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery;
    That see I by our faces. We are fellows still,
    Serving alike in sorrow. Leak'd is our bark;
    And we, poor mates, stand on the dying deck,
    Hearing the surges threat. We must all part
    Into this sea of air.
  FLAVIUS. Good fellows all,
    The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you.
    Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake,
    Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads and say,
    As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortune,
    'We have seen better days.' Let each take some.
                                             [Giving them money]
    Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more!
    Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.
                                [Embrace, and part several ways]
    O the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!
    Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
    Since riches point to misery and contempt?
    Who would be so mock'd with glory, or to live
    But in a dream of friendship,
    To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,
    But only painted, like his varnish'd friends?
    Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,
    Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,
    When man's worst sin is he does too much good!
    Who then dares to be half so kind again?
    For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar men.
    My dearest lord- blest to be most accurst,
    Rich only to be wretched- thy great fortunes
    Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!
    He's flung in rage from this ingrateful seat
    Of monstrous friends; nor has he with him to
    Supply his life, or that which can command it.
    I'll follow and enquire him out.
    I'll ever serve his mind with my best will;
    Whilst I have gold, I'll be his steward still.          Exit

SCENE III. The woods near the sea-shore. Before TIMON'S cave

Enter TIMON in the woods

  TIMON. O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth
    Rotten humidity; below thy sister's orb
    Infect the air! Twinn'd brothers of one womb-
    Whose procreation, residence, and birth,
    Scarce is dividant- touch them with several fortunes:
    The greater scorns the lesser. Not nature,
    To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune
    But by contempt of nature.
    Raise me this beggar and deny't that lord:
    The senator shall bear contempt hereditary,
    The beggar native honour.
    It is the pasture lards the rother's sides,
    The want that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares,
    In purity of manhood stand upright,
    And say 'This man's a flatterer'? If one be,
    So are they all; for every grise of fortune
    Is smooth'd by that below. The learned pate
    Ducks to the golden fool. All's oblique;
    There's nothing level in our cursed natures
    But direct villainy. Therefore be abhorr'd
    All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!
    His semblable, yea, himself, Timon disdains.
    Destruction fang mankind! Earth, yield me roots.
                                                       [Digging]
    Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
    With thy most operant poison. What is here?
    Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
    I am no idle votarist. Roots, you clear heavens!
    Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,
    Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
    Ha, you gods! why this? What, this, you gods? Why, this
    Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,
    Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads-
    This yellow slave
    Will knit and break religions, bless th' accurs'd,
    Make the hoar leprosy ador'd, place thieves
    And give them title, knee, and approbation,
    With senators on the bench. This is it
    That makes the wappen'd widow wed again-
    She whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
    Would cast the gorge at this embalms and spices
    To th 'April day again. Come, damn'd earth,
    Thou common whore of mankind, that puts odds
    Among the rout of nations, I will make thee
    Do thy right nature.                        [March afar off]
    Ha! a drum? Th'art quick,
    But yet I'll bury thee. Thou't go, strong thief,
    When gouty keepers of thee cannot stand.
    Nay, stay thou out for earnest.          [Keeping some gold]

          Enter ALCIBIADES, with drum and fife, in warlike
                  manner; and PHRYNIA and TIMANDRA

  ALCIBIADES. What art thou there? Speak.
  TIMON. A beast, as thou art. The canker gnaw thy heart
    For showing me again the eyes of man!
  ALCIBIADES. What is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee
    That art thyself a man?
  TIMON. I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind.
    For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,
    That I might love thee something.
  ALCIBIADES. I know thee well;
    But in thy fortunes am unlearn'd and strange.
  TIMON. I know thee too; and more than that I know thee
    I not desire to know. Follow thy drum;
    With man's blood paint the ground, gules, gules.
    Religious canons, civil laws, are cruel;
    Then what should war be? This fell whore of thine
    Hath in her more destruction than thy sword
    For all her cherubin look.
  PHRYNIA. Thy lips rot off!
  TIMON. I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns
    To thine own lips again.
  ALCIBIADES. How came the noble Timon to this change?
  TIMON. As the moon does, by wanting light to give.
    But then renew I could not, like the moon;
    There were no suns to borrow of.
  ALCIBIADES. Noble Timon,
    What friendship may I do thee?
  TIMON. None, but to
    Maintain my opinion.
  ALCIBIADES. What is it, Timon?
  TIMON. Promise me friendship, but perform none. If thou wilt not
    promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art man! If thou dost
    perform, confound thee, for thou art a man!
  ALCIBIADES. I have heard in some sort of thy miseries.
  TIMON. Thou saw'st them when I had prosperity.
  ALCIBIADES. I see them now; then was a blessed time.
  TIMON. As thine is now, held with a brace of harlots.
  TIMANDRA. Is this th' Athenian minion whom the world
    Voic'd so regardfully?
  TIMON. Art thou Timandra?
  TIMANDRA. Yes.
  TIMON. Be a whore still; they love thee not that use thee.
    Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.
    Make use of thy salt hours. Season the slaves
    For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheek'd youth
    To the tub-fast and the diet.
  TIMANDRA. Hang thee, monster!
  ALCIBIADES. Pardon him, sweet Timandra, for his wits
    Are drown'd and lost in his calamities.
    I have but little gold of late, brave Timon,
    The want whereof doth daily make revolt
    In my penurious band. I have heard, and griev'd,
    How cursed Athens, mindless of thy worth,
    Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbour states,
    But for thy sword and fortune, trod upon them-
  TIMON. I prithee beat thy drum and get thee gone.
  ALCIBIADES. I am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Timon.
  TIMON. How dost thou pity him whom thou dost trouble?
    I had rather be alone.
  ALCIBIADES. Why, fare thee well;
    Here is some gold for thee.
  TIMON. Keep it: I cannot eat it.
  ALCIBIADES. When I have laid proud Athens on a heap-
  TIMON. War'st thou 'gainst Athens?
  ALCIBIADES. Ay, Timon, and have cause.
  TIMON. The gods confound them all in thy conquest;
    And thee after, when thou hast conquer'd!
  ALCIBIADES. Why me, Timon?
  TIMON. That by killing of villains
    Thou wast born to conquer my country.
    Put up thy gold. Go on. Here's gold. Go on.
    Be as a planetary plague, when Jove
    Will o'er some high-vic'd city hang his poison
    In the sick air; let not thy sword skip one.
    Pity not honour'd age for his white beard:
    He is an usurer. Strike me the counterfeit matron:
    It is her habit only that is honest,
    Herself's a bawd. Let not the virgin's cheek
    Make soft thy trenchant sword; for those milk paps
    That through the window bars bore at men's eyes
    Are not within the leaf of pity writ,
    But set them down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe
    Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy;
    Think it a bastard whom the oracle
    Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall cut,
    And mince it sans remorse. Swear against abjects;
    Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes,
    Whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes,
    Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,
    Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy soldiers.
    Make large confusion; and, thy fury spent,
    Confounded be thyself! Speak not, be gone.
  ALCIBIADES. Hast thou gold yet? I'll take the gold thou givest me,
    Not all thy counsel.
  TIMON. Dost thou, or dost thou not, heaven's curse upon thee!
  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. Give us some gold, good Timon.
    Hast thou more?
  TIMON. Enough to make a whore forswear her trade,
    And to make whores a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,
    Your aprons mountant; you are not oathable,
    Although I know you'll swear, terribly swear,
    Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues,
    Th' immortal gods that hear you. Spare your oaths;
    I'll trust to your conditions. Be whores still;
    And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you-
    Be strong in whore, allure him, burn him up;
    Let your close fire predominate his smoke,
    And be no turncoats. Yet may your pains six months
    Be quite contrary! And thatch your poor thin roofs
    With burdens of the dead- some that were hang'd,
    No matter. Wear them, betray with them. Whore still;
    Paint till a horse may mire upon your face.
    A pox of wrinkles!
  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. Well, more gold. What then?
    Believe't that we'll do anything for gold.
  TIMON. Consumptions sow
    In hollow bones of man; strike their sharp shins,
    And mar men's spurring. Crack the lawyer's voice,
    That he may never more false title plead,
    Nor sound his quillets shrilly. Hoar the flamen,
    That scolds against the quality of flesh
    And not believes himself. Down with the nose,
    Down with it flat, take the bridge quite away
    Of him that, his particular to foresee,
    Smells from the general weal. Make curl'd-pate ruffians bald,
    And let the unscarr'd braggarts of the war
    Derive some pain from you. Plague all,
    That your activity may defeat and quell
    The source of all erection. There's more gold.
    Do you damn others, and let this damn you,
    And ditches grave you all!
  PHRYNIA AND TIMANDRA. More counsel with more money, bounteous
    Timon.
  TIMON. More whore, more mischief first; I have given you earnest.
  ALCIBIADES. Strike up the drum towards Athens. Farewell, Timon;
    If I thrive well, I'll visit thee again.
  TIMON. If I hope well, I'll never see thee more.
  ALCIBIADES. I never did thee harm.
  TIMON. Yes, thou spok'st well of me.
  ALCIBIADES. Call'st thou that harm?
  TIMON. Men daily find it. Get thee away, and take
    Thy beagles with thee.
  ALCIBIADES. We but offend him. Strike.
                                Drum beats. Exeunt all but TIMON
  TIMON. That nature, being sick of man's unkindness,
    Should yet be hungry! Common mother, thou,         [Digging]
    Whose womb unmeasurable and infinite breast
    Teems and feeds all; whose self-same mettle,
    Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd,
    Engenders the black toad and adder blue,
    The gilded newt and eyeless venom'd worm,
    With all th' abhorred births below crisp heaven
    Whereon Hyperion's quick'ning fire doth shine-
    Yield him, who all thy human sons doth hate,
    From forth thy plenteous bosom, one poor root!
    Ensear thy fertile and conceptious womb,
    Let it no more bring out ingrateful man!
    Go great with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears;
    Teem with new monsters whom thy upward face
    Hath to the marbled mansion all above
    Never presented!- O, a root! Dear thanks!-
    Dry up thy marrows, vines, and plough-torn leas,
    Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish draughts
    And morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind,
    That from it all consideration slips-

                        Enter APEMANTUS

    More man? Plague, plague!
  APEMANTUS. I was directed hither. Men report
    Thou dost affect my manners and dost use them.
  TIMON. 'Tis, then, because thou dost not keep a dog,
    Whom I would imitate. Consumption catch thee!
  APEMANTUS. This is in thee a nature but infected,
    A poor unmanly melancholy sprung
    From change of fortune. Why this spade, this place?
    This slave-like habit and these looks of care?
    Thy flatterers yet wear silk, drink wine, lie soft,
    Hug their diseas'd perfumes, and have forgot
    That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods
    By putting on the cunning of a carper.
    Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive
    By that which has undone thee: hinge thy knee,
    And let his very breath whom thou'lt observe
    Blow off thy cap; praise his most vicious strain,
    And call it excellent. Thou wast told thus;
    Thou gav'st thine ears, like tapsters that bade welcome,
    To knaves and all approachers. 'Tis most just
    That thou turn rascal; hadst thou wealth again
    Rascals should have't. Do not assume my likeness.
  TIMON. Were I like thee, I'd throw away myself.
  APEMANTUS. Thou hast cast away thyself, being like thyself;
    A madman so long, now a fool. What, think'st
    That the bleak air, thy boisterous chamberlain,
    Will put thy shirt on warm? Will these moist trees,
    That have outliv'd the eagle, page thy heels
    And skip when thou point'st out? Will the cold brook,
    Candied with ice, caudle thy morning taste
    To cure thy o'ernight's surfeit? Call the creatures
    Whose naked natures live in all the spite
    Of wreakful heaven, whose bare unhoused trunks,
    To the conflicting elements expos'd,
    Answer mere nature- bid them flatter thee.
    O, thou shalt find-
  TIMON. A fool of thee. Depart.
  APEMANTUS. I love thee better now than e'er I did.
  TIMON. I hate thee worse.
  APEMANTUS. Why?
  TIMON. Thou flatter'st misery.
  APEMANTUS. I flatter not, but say thou art a caitiff.
  TIMON. Why dost thou seek me out?
  APEMANTUS. To vex thee.
  TIMON. Always a villain's office or a fool's.
    Dost please thyself in't?
  APEMANTUS. Ay.
  TIMON. What, a knave too?
  APEMANTUS. If thou didst put this sour-cold habit on
    To castigate thy pride, 'twere well; but thou
    Dost it enforcedly. Thou'dst courtier be again
    Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery
    Outlives incertain pomp, is crown'd before.
    The one is filling still, never complete;
    The other, at high wish. Best state, contentless,
    Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
    Worse than the worst, content.
    Thou should'st desire to die, being miserable.
  TIMON. Not by his breath that is more miserable.
    Thou art a slave whom Fortune's tender arm
    With favour never clasp'd, but bred a dog.
    Hadst thou, like us from our first swath, proceeded
    The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
    To such as may the passive drugs of it
    Freely command, thou wouldst have plung'd thyself
    In general riot, melted down thy youth
    In different beds of lust, and never learn'd
    The icy precepts of respect, but followed
    The sug'red game before thee. But myself,
    Who had the world as my confectionary;
    The mouths, the tongues, the eyes, and hearts of men
    At duty, more than I could frame employment;
    That numberless upon me stuck, as leaves
    Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush
    Fell from their boughs, and left me open, bare
    For every storm that blows- I to bear this,
    That never knew but better, is some burden.
    Thy nature did commence in sufferance; time
    Hath made thee hard in't. Why shouldst thou hate men?
    They never flatter'd thee. What hast thou given?
    If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,
    Must be thy subject; who, in spite, put stuff
    To some she-beggar and compounded thee
    Poor rogue hereditary. Hence, be gone.
    If thou hadst not been born the worst of men,
    Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.
  APEMANTUS. Art thou proud yet?
  TIMON. Ay, that I am not thee.
  APEMANTUS. I, that I was
    No prodigal.
  TIMON. I, that I am one now.
    Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee,
    I'd give thee leave to hang it. Get thee gone.
    That the whole life of Athens were in this!
    Thus would I eat it.                         [Eating a root]
  APEMANTUS. Here! I will mend thy feast.
                                             [Offering him food]
  TIMON. First mend my company: take away thyself.
  APEMANTUS. So I shall mend mine own by th' lack of thine.
  TIMON. 'Tis not well mended so; it is but botch'd.
    If not, I would it were.
  APEMANTUS. What wouldst thou have to Athens?
  TIMON. Thee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,
    Tell them there I have gold; look, so I have.
  APEMANTUS. Here is no use for gold.
  TIMON. The best and truest;
    For here it sleeps and does no hired harm.
  APEMANTUS. Where liest a nights, Timon?
  TIMON. Under that's above me.
    Where feed'st thou a days, Apemantus?
  APEMANTUS. Where my stomach. finds meat; or rather, where I eat it.
  TIMON. Would poison were obedient, and knew my mind!
  APEMANTUS. Where wouldst thou send it?
  TIMON. To sauce thy dishes.
  APEMANTUS. The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the
    extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt and thy
    perfume, they mock'd thee for too much curiosity; in thy rags
    thou know'st none, but art despis'd for the contrary. There's a
    medlar for thee; eat it.
  TIMON. On what I hate I feed not.
  APEMANTUS. Dost hate a medlar?
  TIMON. Ay, though it look like thee.
  APEMANTUS. An th' hadst hated medlars sooner, thou shouldst have
    loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift
    that was beloved after his means?
  TIMON. Who, without those means thou talk'st of, didst thou ever
    know belov'd?
  APEMANTUS. Myself.
  TIMON. I understand thee: thou hadst some means to keep a dog.
  APEMANTUS. What things in the world canst thou nearest compare to
    thy flatterers?
  TIMON. Women nearest; but men, men are the things themselves. What
    wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy
    power?
  APEMANTUS. Give it the beasts, to be rid of the men.
  TIMON. Wouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion of men, and
    remain a beast with the beasts?
  APEMANTUS. Ay, Timon.
  TIMON. A beastly ambition, which the gods grant thee t' attain to!
    If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile thee; if thou wert
    the lamb, the fox would eat thee; if thou wert the fox, the lion
    would suspect thee, when, peradventure, thou wert accus'd by the
    ass. If thou wert the ass, thy dulness would torment thee; and
    still thou liv'dst but as a breakfast to the wolf. If thou wert
    the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou
    shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner. Wert thou the unicorn,
    pride and wrath would confound thee, and make thine own self the
    conquest of thy fury. Wert thou bear, thou wouldst be kill'd by
    the horse; wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seiz'd by the
    leopard; wert thou a leopard, thou wert german to the lion, and
    the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life. All thy safety
    were remotion, and thy defence absence. What beast couldst thou
    be that were not subject to a beast? And what beast art thou
    already, that seest not thy loss in transformation!
  APEMANTUS. If thou couldst please me with speaking to me, thou
    mightst have hit upon it here. The commonwealth of Athens is
    become a forest of beasts.
  TIMON. How has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out of the
    city?
  APEMANTUS. Yonder comes a poet and a painter. The plague of company
    light upon thee! I will fear to catch it, and give way. When I
    know not what else to do, I'll see thee again.
  TIMON. When there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be
    welcome. I had rather be a beggar's dog than Apemantus.
  APEMANTUS. Thou art the cap of all the fools alive.
  TIMON. Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!
  APEMANTUS. A plague on thee! thou art too bad to curse.
  TIMON. All villains that do stand by thee are pure.
  APEMANTUS. There is no leprosy but what thou speak'st.
  TIMON. If I name thee.
    I'll beat thee- but I should infect my hands.
  APEMANTUS. I would my tongue could rot them off!
  TIMON. Away, thou issue of a mangy dog!
    Choler does kill me that thou art alive;
    I swoon to see thee.
  APEMANTUS. Would thou wouldst burst!
  TIMON. Away,
    Thou tedious rogue! I am sorry I shall lose
    A stone by thee.                     [Throws a stone at him]
  APEMANTUS. Beast!
  TIMON. Slave!
  APEMANTUS. Toad!
  TIMON. Rogue, rogue, rogue!
    I am sick of this false world, and will love nought
    But even the mere necessities upon't.
    Then, Timon, presently prepare thy grave;
    Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat
    Thy gravestone daily; make thine epitaph,
    That death in me at others' lives may laugh.
    [Looks at the gold] O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
    'Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler
    Of Hymen's purest bed! thou valiant Mars!
    Thou ever young, fresh, lov'd, and delicate wooer,
    Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
    That lies on Dian's lap! thou visible god,
    That sold'rest close impossibilities,
    And mak'st them kiss! that speak'st with every tongue
    To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
    Think thy slave man rebels, and by thy virtue
    Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
    May have the world in empire!
  APEMANTUS. Would 'twere so!
    But not till I am dead. I'll say th' hast gold.
    Thou wilt be throng'd to shortly.
  TIMON. Throng'd to?
  APEMANTUS. Ay.
  TIMON. Thy back, I prithee.
  APEMANTUS. Live, and love thy misery!
  TIMON. Long live so, and so die! [Exit APEMANTUS] I am quit. More
    things like men? Eat, Timon, and abhor them.

                       Enter the BANDITTI

  FIRST BANDIT. Where should he have this gold? It is some poor
    fragment, some slender ort of his remainder. The mere want of
    gold and the falling-from of his friends drove him into this
    melancholy.
  SECOND BANDIT. It is nois'd he hath a mass of treasure.
  THIRD BANDIT. Let us make the assay upon him; if he care not for't,
    he will supply us easily; if he covetously reserve it, how
    shall's get it?
  SECOND BANDIT. True; for he bears it not about him. 'Tis hid.
  FIRST BANDIT. Is not this he?
  BANDITTI. Where?
  SECOND BANDIT. 'Tis his description.
  THIRD BANDIT. He; I know him.
  BANDITTI. Save thee, Timon!
  TIMON. Now, thieves?
  BANDITTI. Soldiers, not thieves.
  TIMON. Both too, and women's sons.
  BANDITTI. We are not thieves, but men that much do want.
  TIMON. Your greatest want is, you want much of meat.
    Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;
    Within this mile break forth a hundred springs;
    The oaks bear mast, the briars scarlet hips;
    The bounteous housewife Nature on each bush
    Lays her full mess before you. Want! Why want?
  FIRST BANDIT. We cannot live on grass, on berries, water,
    As beasts and birds and fishes.
  TIMON. Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes;
    You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you con
    That you are thieves profess'd, that you work not
    In holier shapes; for there is boundless theft
    In limited professions. Rascal thieves,
    Here's gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o' th' grape
    Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth,
    And so scape hanging. Trust not the physician;
    His antidotes are poison, and he slays
    Moe than you rob. Take wealth and lives together;
    Do villainy, do, since you protest to do't,
    Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery:
    The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
    Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
    And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
    The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
    The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,
    That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
    From gen'ral excrement- each thing's a thief.
    The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
    Has uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves; away,
    Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats;
    All that you meet are thieves. To Athens go,
    Break open shops; nothing can you steal
    But thieves do lose it. Steal not less for this
    I give you; and gold confound you howsoe'er!
    Amen.
  THIRD BANDIT. Has almost charm'd me from my profession by
    persuading me to it.
  FIRST BANDIT. 'Tis in the malice of mankind that he thus advises
    us; not to have us thrive in our mystery.
  SECOND BANDIT. I'll believe him as an enemy, and give over my
    trade.
  FIRST BANDIT. Let us first see peace in Athens. There is no time so
    miserable but a man may be true.              Exeunt THIEVES

                         Enter FLAVIUS, to TIMON

  FLAVIUS. O you gods!
    Is yond despis'd and ruinous man my lord?
    Full of decay and failing? O monument
    And wonder of good deeds evilly bestow'd!
    What an alteration of honour
    Has desp'rate want made!
    What viler thing upon the earth than friends,
    Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!
    How rarely does it meet with this time's guise,
    When man was wish'd to love his enemies!
    Grant I may ever love, and rather woo
    Those that would mischief me than those that do!
    Has caught me in his eye; I will present
    My honest grief unto him, and as my lord
    Still serve him with my life. My dearest master!
  TIMON. Away! What art thou?
  FLAVIUS. Have you forgot me, sir?
  TIMON. Why dost ask that? I have forgot all men;
    Then, if thou grant'st th'art a man, I have forgot thee.
  FLAVIUS. An honest poor servant of yours.
  TIMON. Then I know thee not.
    I never had honest man about me, I.
    All I kept were knaves, to serve in meat to villains.
  FLAVIUS. The gods are witness,
    Nev'r did poor steward wear a truer grief
    For his undone lord than mine eyes for you.
  TIMON. What, dost thou weep? Come nearer. Then I love thee
    Because thou art a woman and disclaim'st
    Flinty mankind, whose eyes do never give
    But thorough lust and laughter. Pity's sleeping.
    Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with weeping!
  FLAVIUS. I beg of you to know me, good my lord,
    T' accept my grief, and whilst this poor wealth lasts
    To entertain me as your steward still.
  TIMON. Had I a steward
    So true, so just, and now so comfortable?
    It almost turns my dangerous nature mild.
    Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man
    Was born of woman.
    Forgive my general and exceptless rashness,
    You perpetual-sober gods! I do proclaim
    One honest man- mistake me not, but one;
    No more, I pray- and he's a steward.
    How fain would I have hated all mankind!
    And thou redeem'st thyself. But all, save thee,
    I fell with curses.
    Methinks thou art more honest now than wise;
    For by oppressing and betraying me
    Thou mightst have sooner got another service;
    For many so arrive at second masters
    Upon their first lord's neck. But tell me true,
    For I must ever doubt though ne'er so sure,
    Is not thy kindness subtle, covetous,
    If not a usuring kindness, and as rich men deal gifts,
    Expecting in return twenty for one?
  FLAVIUS. No, my most worthy master, in whose breast
    Doubt and suspect, alas, are plac'd too late!
    You should have fear'd false times when you did feast:
    Suspect still comes where an estate is least.
    That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love,
    Duty, and zeal, to your unmatched mind,
    Care of your food and living; and believe it,
    My most honour'd lord,
    For any benefit that points to me,
    Either in hope or present, I'd exchange
    For this one wish, that you had power and wealth
    To requite me by making rich yourself.
  TIMON. Look thee, 'tis so! Thou singly honest man,
    Here, take. The gods, out of my misery,
    Have sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy,
    But thus condition'd; thou shalt build from men;
    Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,
    But let the famish'd flesh slide from the bone
    Ere thou relieve the beggar. Give to dogs
    What thou deniest to men; let prisons swallow 'em,
    Debts wither 'em to nothing. Be men like blasted woods,
    And may diseases lick up their false bloods!
    And so, farewell and thrive.
  FLAVIUS. O, let me stay
    And comfort you, my master.
  TIMON. If thou hat'st curses,
    Stay not; fly whilst thou art blest and free.
    Ne'er see thou man, and let me ne'er see thee.
                                                Exeunt severally

ACT V. SCENE I. The woods. Before TIMON's cave

Enter POET and PAINTER

  PAINTER. As I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he
    abides.
  POET. to be thought of him? Does the rumour hold for true that he's
    so full of gold?
  PAINTER. Certain. Alcibiades reports it; Phrynia and Timandra had
    gold of him. He likewise enrich'd poor straggling soldiers with
    great quantity. 'Tis said he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.
  POET. Then this breaking of his has been but a try for his friends?
  PAINTER. Nothing else. You shall see him a palm in Athens again,
    and flourish with the highest. Therefore 'tis not amiss we tender
    our loves to him in this suppos'd distress of his; it will show
    honestly in us, and is very likely to load our purposes with what
    they travail for, if it be just and true report that goes of his
    having.
  POET. What have you now to present unto him?
  PAINTER. Nothing at this time but my visitation; only I will
    promise him an excellent piece.
  POET. I must serve him so too, tell him of an intent that's coming
    toward him.
  PAINTER. Good as the best. Promising is the very air o' th' time;
    it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever the duller
    for his act, and but in the plainer and simpler kind of people
    the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most
    courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of will or
    testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that
    makes it.

                    Enter TIMON from his cave

  TIMON. [Aside] Excellent workman! Thou canst not paint a man so bad
    as is thyself.
  POET. I am thinking what I shall say I have provided for him. It
    must be a personating of himself; a satire against the softness
    of prosperity, with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that
    follow youth and opulency.
  TIMON. [Aside] Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own
    work? Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so, I have
    gold for thee.
  POET. Nay, let's seek him;
    Then do we sin against our own estate
    When we may profit meet and come too late.
  PAINTER. True;
    When the day serves, before black-corner'd night,
    Find what thou want'st by free and offer'd light.
    Come.
  TIMON. [Aside] I'll meet you at the turn. What a god's gold,
    That he is worshipp'd in a baser temple
    Than where swine feed!
    'Tis thou that rig'st the bark and plough'st the foam,
    Settlest admired reverence in a slave.
    To thee be worship! and thy saints for aye
    Be crown'd with plagues, that thee alone obey!
    Fit I meet them.                   [Advancing from his cave]
  POET. Hail, worthy Timon!
  PAINTER. Our late noble master!
  TIMON. Have I once liv'd to see two honest men?
  POET. Sir,
    Having often of your open bounty tasted,
    Hearing you were retir'd, your friends fall'n off,
    Whose thankless natures- O abhorred spirits!-
    Not all the whips of heaven are large enough-
    What! to you,
    Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence
    To their whole being! I am rapt, and cannot cover
    The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude
    With any size of words.
  TIMON. Let it go naked: men may see't the better.
    You that are honest, by being what you are,
    Make them best seen and known.
  PAINTER. He and myself
    Have travail'd in the great show'r of your gifts,
    And sweetly felt it.
  TIMON. Ay, you are honest men.
  PAINTER. We are hither come to offer you our service.
  TIMON. Most honest men! Why, how shall I requite you?
    Can you eat roots, and drink cold water- No?
  BOTH. What we can do, we'll do, to do you service.
  TIMON. Y'are honest men. Y'have heard that I have gold;
    I am sure you have. Speak truth; y'are honest men.
  PAINTER. So it is said, my noble lord; but therefore
    Came not my friend nor I.
  TIMON. Good honest men! Thou draw'st a counterfeit
    Best in all Athens. Th'art indeed the best;
    Thou counterfeit'st most lively.
  PAINTER. So, so, my lord.
  TIMON. E'en so, sir, as I say. [To To POET] And for thy fiction,
    Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth
    That thou art even natural in thine art.
    But for all this, my honest-natur'd friends,
    I must needs say you have a little fault.
    Marry, 'tis not monstrous in you; neither wish I
    You take much pains to mend.
  BOTH. Beseech your honour
    To make it known to us.
  TIMON. You'll take it ill.
  BOTH. Most thankfully, my lord.
  TIMON. Will you indeed?
  BOTH. Doubt it not, worthy lord.
  TIMON. There's never a one of you but trusts a knave
    That mightily deceives you.
  BOTH. Do we, my lord?
  TIMON. Ay, and you hear him cog, see him dissemble,
    Know his gross patchery, love him, feed him,
    Keep in your bosom; yet remain assur'd
    That he's a made-up villain.
  PAINTER. I know not such, my lord.
  POET. Nor I.
  TIMON. Look you, I love you well; I'll give you gold,
    Rid me these villains from your companies.
    Hang them or stab them, drown them in a draught,
    Confound them by some course, and come to me,
    I'll give you gold enough.
  BOTH. Name them, my lord; let's know them.
  TIMON. You that way, and you this- but two in company;
    Each man apart, all single and alone,
    Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.
    [To the PAINTER] If, where thou art, two villians shall not be,
    Come not near him. [To the POET] If thou wouldst not reside
    But where one villain is, then him abandon.-
    Hence, pack! there's gold; you came for gold, ye slaves.
    [To the PAINTER] You have work for me; there's payment; hence!
    [To the POET] You are an alchemist; make gold of that.-
    Out, rascal dogs!                [Beats and drives them out]

                    Enter FLAVIUS and two SENATORS

  FLAVIUS. It is vain that you would speak with Timon;
    For he is set so only to himself
    That nothing but himself which looks like man
    Is friendly with him.
  FIRST SENATOR. Bring us to his cave.
    It is our part and promise to th' Athenians
    To speak with Timon.
  SECOND SENATOR. At all times alike
    Men are not still the same; 'twas time and griefs
    That fram'd him thus. Time, with his fairer hand,
    Offering the fortunes of his former days,
    The former man may make him. Bring us to him,
    And chance it as it may.
  FLAVIUS. Here is his cave.
    Peace and content be here! Lord Timon! Timon!
    Look out, and speak to friends. Th' Athenians
    By two of their most reverend Senate greet thee.
    Speak to them, noble Timon.

                   Enter TIMON out of his cave

  TIMON. Thou sun that comforts, burn. Speak and be hang'd!
    For each true word a blister, and each false
    Be as a cauterizing to the root o' th' tongue,
    Consuming it with speaking!
  FIRST SENATOR. Worthy Timon-
  TIMON. Of none but such as you, and you of Timon.
  FIRST SENATOR. The senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.
  TIMON. I thank them; and would send them back the plague,
    Could I but catch it for them.
  FIRST SENATOR. O, forget
    What we are sorry for ourselves in thee.
    The senators with one consent of love
    Entreat thee back to Athens, who have thought
    On special dignities, which vacant lie
    For thy best use and wearing.
  SECOND SENATOR. They confess
    Toward thee forgetfulness too general, gross;
    Which now the public body, which doth seldom
    Play the recanter, feeling in itself
    A lack of Timon's aid, hath sense withal
    Of it own fail, restraining aid to Timon,
    And send forth us to make their sorrowed render,
    Together with a recompense more fruitful
    Than their offence can weigh down by the dram;
    Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth
    As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs
    And write in thee the figures of their love,
    Ever to read them thine.
  TIMON. You witch me in it;
    Surprise me to the very brink of tears.
    Lend me a fool's heart and a woman's eyes,
    And I'll beweep these comforts, worthy senators.
  FIRST SENATOR. Therefore so please thee to return with us,
    And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take
    The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,
    Allow'd with absolute power, and thy good name
    Live with authority. So soon we shall drive back
    Of Alcibiades th' approaches wild,
    Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up
    His country's peace.
  SECOND SENATOR. And shakes his threat'ning sword
    Against the walls of Athens.
  FIRST SENATOR. Therefore, Timon-
  TIMON. Well, sir, I will. Therefore I will, sir, thus:
    If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,
    Let Alcibiades know this of Timon,
    That Timon cares not. But if he sack fair Athens,
    And take our goodly aged men by th' beards,
    Giving our holy virgins to the stain
    Of contumelious, beastly, mad-brain'd war,
    Then let him know- and tell him Timon speaks it
    In pity of our aged and our youth-
    I cannot choose but tell him that I care not,
    And let him take't at worst; for their knives care not,
    While you have throats to answer. For myself,
    There's not a whittle in th' unruly camp
    But I do prize it at my love before
    The reverend'st throat in Athens. So I leave you
    To the protection of the prosperous gods,
    As thieves to keepers.
  FLAVIUS. Stay not, all's in vain.
  TIMON. Why, I was writing of my epitaph;
    It will be seen to-morrow. My long sickness
    Of health and living now begins to mend,
    And nothing brings me all things. Go, live still;
    Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,
    And last so long enough!
  FIRST SENATOR. We speak in vain.
  TIMON. But yet I love my country, and am not
    One that rejoices in the common wreck,
    As common bruit doth put it.
  FIRST SENATOR. That's well spoke.
  TIMON. Commend me to my loving countrymen-
  FIRST SENATOR. These words become your lips as they pass through
    them.
  SECOND SENATOR. And enter in our ears like great triumphers
    In their applauding gates.
  TIMON. Commend me to them,
    And tell them that, to ease them of their griefs,
    Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,
    Their pangs of love, with other incident throes
    That nature's fragile vessel doth sustain
    In life's uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them-
    I'll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades' wrath.
  FIRST SENATOR. I like this well; he will return again.
  TIMON. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
    That mine own use invites me to cut down,
    And shortly must I fell it. Tell my friends,
    Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree
    From high to low throughout, that whoso please
    To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
    Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
    And hang himself. I pray you do my greeting.
  FLAVIUS. Trouble him no further; thus you still shall find him.
  TIMON. Come not to me again; but say to Athens
    Timon hath made his everlasting mansion
    Upon the beached verge of the salt flood,
    Who once a day with his embossed froth
    The turbulent surge shall cover. Thither come,
    And let my gravestone be your oracle.
    Lips, let sour words go by and language end:
    What is amiss, plague and infection mend!
    Graves only be men's works and death their gain!
    Sun, hide thy beams. Timon hath done his reign.
                                        Exit TIMON into his cave
  FIRST SENATOR. His discontents are unremovably
    Coupled to nature.
  SECOND SENATOR. Our hope in him is dead. Let us return
    And strain what other means is left unto us
    In our dear peril.
  FIRST SENATOR. It requires swift foot.                  Exeunt

SCENE II. Before the walls of Athens

Enter two other SENATORS with a MESSENGER

  FIRST SENATOR. Thou hast painfully discover'd; are his files
    As full as thy report?
  MESSENGER. I have spoke the least.
    Besides, his expedition promises
    Present approach.
  SECOND SENATOR. We stand much hazard if they bring not Timon.
  MESSENGER. I met a courier, one mine ancient friend,
    Whom, though in general part we were oppos'd,
    Yet our old love had a particular force,
    And made us speak like friends. This man was riding
    From Alcibiades to Timon's cave
    With letters of entreaty, which imported
    His fellowship i' th' cause against your city,
    In part for his sake mov'd.

               Enter the other SENATORS, from TIMON

  FIRST SENATOR. Here come our brothers.
  THIRD SENATOR. No talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.
    The enemies' drum is heard, and fearful scouring
    Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare.
    Ours is the fall, I fear; our foes the snare.         Exeunt

SCENE III. The TIMON's cave, and a rude tomb seen

Enter a SOLDIER in the woods, seeking TIMON

  SOLDIER. By all description this should be the place.
    Who's here? Speak, ho! No answer? What is this?
    Timon is dead, who hath outstretch'd his span.
    Some beast rear'd this; here does not live a man.
    Dead, sure; and this his grave. What's on this tomb
    I cannot read; the character I'll take with wax.
    Our captain hath in every figure skill,
    An ag'd interpreter, though young in days;
    Before proud Athens he's set down by this,
    Whose fall the mark of his ambition is.                 Exit

SCENE IV. Before the walls of Athens

Trumpets sound. Enter ALCIBIADES with his powers before Athens

  ALCIBIADES. Sound to this coward and lascivious town
    Our terrible approach.

       Sound a parley. The SENATORS appear upon the walls

    Till now you have gone on and fill'd the time
    With all licentious measure, making your wills
    The scope of justice; till now, myself, and such
    As slept within the shadow of your power,
    Have wander'd with our travers'd arms, and breath'd
    Our sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush,
    When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
    Cries of itself 'No more!' Now breathless wrong
    Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,
    And pursy insolence shall break his wind
    With fear and horrid flight.
  FIRST SENATOR. Noble and young,
    When thy first griefs were but a mere conceit,
    Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,
    We sent to thee, to give thy rages balm,
    To wipe out our ingratitude with loves
    Above their quantity.
  SECOND SENATOR. So did we woo
    Transformed Timon to our city's love
    By humble message and by promis'd means.
    We were not all unkind, nor all deserve
    The common stroke of war.
  FIRST SENATOR. These walls of ours
    Were not erected by their hands from whom
    You have receiv'd your griefs; nor are they such
    That these great tow'rs, trophies, and schools, should fall
    For private faults in them.
  SECOND SENATOR. Nor are they living
    Who were the motives that you first went out;
    Shame, that they wanted cunning, in excess
    Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,
    Into our city with thy banners spread.
    By decimation and a tithed death-
    If thy revenges hunger for that food
    Which nature loathes- take thou the destin'd tenth,
    And by the hazard of the spotted die
    Let die the spotted.
  FIRST SENATOR. All have not offended;
    For those that were, it is not square to take,
    On those that are, revenge: crimes, like lands,
    Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,
    Bring in thy ranks, but leave without thy rage;
    Spare thy Athenian cradle, and those kin
    Which, in the bluster of thy wrath, must fall
    With those that have offended. Like a shepherd
    Approach the fold and cull th' infected forth,
    But kill not all together.
  SECOND SENATOR. What thou wilt,
    Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile
    Than hew to't with thy sword.
  FIRST SENATOR. Set but thy foot
    Against our rampir'd gates and they shall ope,
    So thou wilt send thy gentle heart before
    To say thou't enter friendly.
  SECOND SENATOR. Throw thy glove,
    Or any token of thine honour else,
    That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress
    And not as our confusion, all thy powers
    Shall make their harbour in our town till we
    Have seal'd thy full desire.
  ALCIBIADES. Then there's my glove;
    Descend, and open your uncharged ports.
    Those enemies of Timon's and mine own,
    Whom you yourselves shall set out for reproof,
    Fall, and no more. And, to atone your fears
    With my more noble meaning, not a man
    Shall pass his quarter or offend the stream
    Of regular justice in your city's bounds,
    But shall be render'd to your public laws
    At heaviest answer.
  BOTH. 'Tis most nobly spoken.
  ALCIBIADES. Descend, and keep your words.
                       [The SENATORS descend and open the gates]

                 Enter a SOLDIER as a Messenger

  SOLDIER. My noble General, Timon is dead;
    Entomb'd upon the very hem o' th' sea;
    And on his grave-stone this insculpture, which
    With wax I brought away, whose soft impression
    Interprets for my poor ignorance.

                  ALCIBIADES reads the Epitaph

    'Here lies a wretched corse, of wretched soul bereft;
    Seek not my name. A plague consume you wicked caitiffs left!
    Here lie I, Timon, who alive all living men did hate.
    Pass by, and curse thy fill; but pass, and stay not here thy
      gait.'
    These well express in thee thy latter spirits.
    Though thou abhorr'dst in us our human griefs,
    Scorn'dst our brain's flow, and those our droplets which
    From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
    Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
    On thy low grave, on faults forgiven. Dead
    Is noble Timon, of whose memory
    Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,
    And I will use the olive, with my sword;
    Make war breed peace, make peace stint war, make each
    Prescribe to other, as each other's leech.
    Let our drums strike.                                 Exeunt

THE END

1594



THE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS

Dramatis Personae

  SATURNINUS, son to the late Emperor of Rome, afterwards Emperor
  BASSIANUS, brother to Saturninus
  TITUS ANDRONICUS, a noble Roman
  MARCUS ANDRONICUS, Tribune of the People, and brother to Titus

    Sons to Titus Andronicus:
  LUCIUS
  QUINTUS
  MARTIUS
  MUTIUS

  YOUNG LUCIUS, a boy, son to Lucius
  PUBLIUS, son to Marcus Andronicus

    Kinsmen to Titus:
  SEMPRONIUS
  CAIUS
  VALENTINE

  AEMILIUS, a noble Roman

    Sons to Tamora:
  ALARBUS
  DEMETRIUS
  CHIRON

  AARON, a Moor, beloved by Tamora
  A CAPTAIN
  A MESSENGER
  A CLOWN

  TAMORA, Queen of the Goths
  LAVINIA, daughter to Titus Andronicus
  A NURSE, and a black CHILD

  Romans and Goths, Senators, Tribunes, Officers, Soldiers, and
    Attendants

                          SCENE: Rome and the neighbourhood

ACT 1. SCENE I. Rome. Before the Capitol

Flourish. Enter the TRIBUNES and SENATORS aloft; and then enter below
SATURNINUS and his followers at one door, and BASSIANUS and his
followers at the other, with drums and trumpets

  SATURNINUS. Noble patricians, patrons of my right,
    Defend the justice of my cause with arms;
    And, countrymen, my loving followers,
    Plead my successive title with your swords.
    I am his first born son that was the last
    That ware the imperial diadem of Rome;
    Then let my father's honours live in me,
    Nor wrong mine age with this indignity.
  BASSIANUS. Romans, friends, followers, favourers of my right,
    If ever Bassianus, Caesar's son,
    Were gracious in the eyes of royal Rome,
    Keep then this passage to the Capitol;
    And suffer not dishonour to approach
    The imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,
    To justice, continence, and nobility;
    But let desert in pure election shine;
    And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.

        Enter MARCUS ANDRONICUS aloft, with the crown

  MARCUS. Princes, that strive by factions and by friends
    Ambitiously for rule and empery,
    Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand
    A special party, have by common voice
    In election for the Roman empery
    Chosen Andronicus, surnamed Pius
    For many good and great deserts to Rome.
    A nobler man, a braver warrior,
    Lives not this day within the city walls.
    He by the Senate is accited home,
    From weary wars against the barbarous Goths,
    That with his sons, a terror to our foes,
    Hath yok'd a nation strong, train'd up in arms.
    Ten years are spent since first he undertook
    This cause of Rome, and chastised with arms
    Our enemies' pride; five times he hath return'd
    Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons
    In coffins from the field; and at this day
    To the monument of that Andronici
    Done sacrifice of expiation,
    And slain the noblest prisoner of the Goths.
    And now at last, laden with honour's spoils,
    Returns the good Andronicus to Rome,
    Renowned Titus, flourishing in arms.
    Let us entreat, by honour of his name
    Whom worthily you would have now succeed,
    And in the Capitol and Senate's right,
    Whom you pretend to honour and adore,
    That you withdraw you and abate your strength,
    Dismiss your followers, and, as suitors should,
    Plead your deserts in peace and humbleness.
  SATURNINUS. How fair the Tribune speaks to calm my thoughts.
  BASSIANUS. Marcus Andronicus, so I do affy
    In thy uprightness and integrity,
    And so I love and honour thee and thine,
    Thy noble brother Titus and his sons,
    And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,
    Gracious Lavinia, Rome's rich ornament,
    That I will here dismiss my loving friends,
    And to my fortunes and the people's favour
    Commit my cause in balance to be weigh'd.
                                Exeunt the soldiers of BASSIANUS
  SATURNINUS. Friends, that have been thus forward in my right,
    I thank you all and here dismiss you all,
    And to the love and favour of my country
    Commit myself, my person, and the cause.
                               Exeunt the soldiers of SATURNINUS
    Rome, be as just and gracious unto me
    As I am confident and kind to thee.
    Open the gates and let me in.
  BASSIANUS. Tribunes, and me, a poor competitor.
                    [Flourish. They go up into the Senate House]

                      Enter a CAPTAIN

  CAPTAIN. Romans, make way. The good Andronicus,
    Patron of virtue, Rome's best champion,
    Successful in the battles that he fights,
    With honour and with fortune is return'd
    From where he circumscribed with his sword
    And brought to yoke the enemies of Rome.

        Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter MARTIUS and MUTIUS,
        two of TITUS' sons; and then two men bearing a coffin covered
        with black; then LUCIUS and QUINTUS, two other sons; then TITUS
        ANDRONICUS; and then TAMORA the Queen of Goths, with her three
        sons, ALARBUS, DEMETRIUS, and CHIRON, with AARON the Moor, and
        others,  as many as can be. Then set down the coffin and TITUS
        speaks

  TITUS. Hail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds!
    Lo, as the bark that hath discharg'd her fraught
    Returns with precious lading to the bay
    From whence at first she weigh'd her anchorage,
    Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,
    To re-salute his country with his tears,
    Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.
    Thou great defender of this Capitol,
    Stand gracious to the rites that we intend!
    Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,
    Half of the number that King Priam had,
    Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!
    These that survive let Rome reward with love;
    These that I bring unto their latest home,
    With burial amongst their ancestors.
    Here Goths have given me leave to sheathe my sword.
    Titus, unkind, and careless of thine own,
    Why suffer'st thou thy sons, unburied yet,
    To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?
    Make way to lay them by their brethren.
                                            [They open the tomb]
    There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,
    And sleep in peace, slain in your country's wars.
    O sacred receptacle of my joys,
    Sweet cell of virtue and nobility,
    How many sons hast thou of mine in store
    That thou wilt never render to me more!
  LUCIUS. Give us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,
    That we may hew his limbs, and on a pile
    Ad manes fratrum sacrifice his flesh
    Before this earthy prison of their bones,
    That so the shadows be not unappeas'd,
    Nor we disturb'd with prodigies on earth.
  TITUS. I give him you- the noblest that survives,
    The eldest son of this distressed queen.
  TAMORA. Stay, Roman brethen! Gracious conqueror,
    Victorious Titus, rue the tears I shed,
    A mother's tears in passion for her son;
    And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,
    O, think my son to be as dear to me!
    Sufficeth not that we are brought to Rome
    To beautify thy triumphs, and return
    Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke;
    But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets
    For valiant doings in their country's cause?
    O, if to fight for king and commonweal
    Were piety in thine, it is in these.
    Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.
    Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
    Draw near them then in being merciful.
    Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
    Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.
  TITUS. Patient yourself, madam, and pardon me.
    These are their brethren, whom your Goths beheld
    Alive and dead; and for their brethren slain
    Religiously they ask a sacrifice.
    To this your son is mark'd, and die he must
    T' appease their groaning shadows that are gone.
  LUCIUS. Away with him, and make a fire straight;
    And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,
    Let's hew his limbs till they be clean consum'd.
                                Exeunt TITUS' SONS, with ALARBUS
  TAMORA. O cruel, irreligious piety!
  CHIRON. Was never Scythia half so barbarous!
  DEMETRIUS. Oppose not Scythia to ambitious Rome.
    Alarbus goes to rest, and we survive
    To tremble under Titus' threat'ning look.
    Then, madam, stand resolv'd, but hope withal
    The self-same gods that arm'd the Queen of Troy
    With opportunity of sharp revenge
    Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent
    May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths-
    When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen-
    To quit the bloody wrongs upon her foes.

            Re-enter LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS, and
   MUTIUS, the sons of ANDRONICUS, with their swords bloody

  LUCIUS. See, lord and father, how we have perform'd
    Our Roman rites: Alarbus' limbs are lopp'd,
    And entrails feed the sacrificing fire,
    Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.
    Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren,
    And with loud 'larums welcome them to Rome.
  TITUS. Let it be so, and let Andronicus
    Make this his latest farewell to their souls.
                 [Sound trumpets and lay the coffin in the tomb]
    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons;
    Rome's readiest champions, repose you here in rest,
    Secure from worldly chances and mishaps!
    Here lurks no treason, here no envy swells,
    Here grow no damned drugs, here are no storms,
    No noise, but silence and eternal sleep.
    In peace and honour rest you here, my sons!

                       Enter LAVINIA

  LAVINIA. In peace and honour live Lord Titus long;
    My noble lord and father, live in fame!
    Lo, at this tomb my tributary tears
    I render for my brethren's obsequies;
    And at thy feet I kneel, with tears of joy
    Shed on this earth for thy return to Rome.
    O, bless me here with thy victorious hand,
    Whose fortunes Rome's best citizens applaud!
  TITUS. Kind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserv'd
    The cordial of mine age to glad my heart!
    Lavinia, live; outlive thy father's days,
    And fame's eternal date, for virtue's praise!

          Enter, above, MARCUS ANDRONICUS and TRIBUNES;
          re-enter SATURNINUS, BASSIANUS, and attendants

  MARCUS. Long live Lord Titus, my beloved brother,
    Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!
  TITUS. Thanks, gentle Tribune, noble brother Marcus.
  MARCUS. And welcome, nephews, from successful wars,
    You that survive and you that sleep in fame.
    Fair lords, your fortunes are alike in all
    That in your country's service drew your swords;
    But safer triumph is this funeral pomp
    That hath aspir'd to Solon's happiness
    And triumphs over chance in honour's bed.
    Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome,
    Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been,
    Send thee by me, their Tribune and their trust,
    This par]iament of white and spotless hue;
    And name thee in election for the empire
    With these our late-deceased Emperor's sons:
    Be candidatus then, and put it on,
    And help to set a head on headless Rome.
  TITUS. A better head her glorious body fits
    Than his that shakes for age and feebleness.
    What should I don this robe and trouble you?
    Be chosen with proclamations to-day,
    To-morrow yield up rule, resign my life,
    And set abroad new business for you all?
    Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,
    And led my country's strength successfully,
    And buried one and twenty valiant sons,
    Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms,
    In right and service of their noble country.
    Give me a staff of honour for mine age,
    But not a sceptre to control the world.
    Upright he held it, lords, that held it last.
  MARCUS. Titus, thou shalt obtain and ask the empery.
  SATURNINUS. Proud and ambitious Tribune, canst thou tell?
  TITUS. Patience, Prince Saturninus.
  SATURNINUS. Romans, do me right.
    Patricians, draw your swords, and sheathe them not
    Till Saturninus be Rome's Emperor.
    Andronicus, would thou were shipp'd to hell
    Rather than rob me of the people's hearts!
  LUCIUS. Proud Saturnine, interrupter of the good
    That noble-minded Titus means to thee!
  TITUS. Content thee, Prince; I will restore to thee
    The people's hearts, and wean them from themselves.
  BASSIANUS. Andronicus, I do not flatter thee,
    But honour thee, and will do till I die.
    My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,
    I will most thankful be; and thanks to men
    Of noble minds is honourable meed.
  TITUS. People of Rome, and people's Tribunes here,
    I ask your voices and your suffrages:
    Will ye bestow them friendly on Andronicus?
  TRIBUNES. To gratify the good Andronicus,
    And gratulate his safe return to Rome,
    The people will accept whom he admits.
  TITUS. Tribunes, I thank you; and this suit I make,
    That you create our Emperor's eldest son,
    Lord Saturnine; whose virtues will, I hope,
    Reflect on Rome as Titan's rays on earth,
    And ripen justice in this commonweal.
    Then, if you will elect by my advice,
    Crown him, and say 'Long live our Emperor!'
  MARCUS. With voices and applause of every sort,
    Patricians and plebeians, we create
    Lord Saturninus Rome's great Emperor;
    And say 'Long live our Emperor Saturnine!'
                           [A long flourish till they come down]
  SATURNINUS. Titus Andronicus, for thy favours done
    To us in our election this day
    I give thee thanks in part of thy deserts,
    And will with deeds requite thy gentleness;
    And for an onset, Titus, to advance
    Thy name and honourable family,
    Lavinia will I make my emperess,
    Rome's royal mistress, mistress of my heart,
    And in the sacred Pantheon her espouse.
    Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion please thee?
  TITUS. It doth, my worthy lord, and in this match
    I hold me highly honoured of your Grace,
    And here in sight of Rome, to Saturnine,
    King and commander of our commonweal,
    The wide world's Emperor, do I consecrate
    My sword, my chariot, and my prisoners,
    Presents well worthy Rome's imperious lord;
    Receive them then, the tribute that I owe,
    Mine honour's ensigns humbled at thy feet.
  SATURNINUS. Thanks, noble Titus, father of my life.
    How proud I am of thee and of thy gifts
    Rome shall record; and when I do forget
    The least of these unspeakable deserts,
    Romans, forget your fealty to me.
  TITUS.  [To TAMORA]  Now, madam, are you prisoner to an emperor;
    To him that for your honour and your state
    Will use you nobly and your followers.
  SATURNINUS.  [Aside]  A goodly lady, trust me; of the hue
    That I would choose, were I to choose anew.-
    Clear up, fair Queen, that cloudy countenance;
    Though chance of war hath wrought this change of cheer,
    Thou com'st not to be made a scorn in Rome-
    Princely shall be thy usage every way.
    Rest on my word, and let not discontent
    Daunt all your hopes. Madam, he comforts you
    Can make you greater than the Queen of Goths.
    Lavinia, you are not displeas'd with this?
  LAVINIA. Not I, my lord, sith true nobility
    Warrants these words in princely courtesy.
  SATURNINUS. Thanks, sweet Lavinia. Romans, let us go.
    Ransomless here we set our prisoners free.
    Proclaim our honours, lords, with trump and drum.
                                                      [Flourish]
  BASSIANUS. Lord Titus, by your leave, this maid is mine.
                                               [Seizing LAVINIA]
  TITUS. How, sir! Are you in earnest then, my lord?
  BASSIANUS. Ay, noble Titus, and resolv'd withal
    To do myself this reason and this right.
  MARCUS. Suum cuique is our Roman justice:
    This prince in justice seizeth but his own.
  LUCIUS. And that he will and shall, if Lucius live.
  TITUS. Traitors, avaunt! Where is the Emperor's guard?
    Treason, my lord- Lavinia is surpris'd!
  SATURNINUS. Surpris'd! By whom?
  BASSIANUS. By him that justly may
    Bear his betroth'd from all the world away.
                        Exeunt BASSIANUS and MARCUS with LAVINIA
  MUTIUS. Brothers, help to convey her hence away,
    And with my sword I'll keep this door safe.
                             Exeunt LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS
  TITUS. Follow, my lord, and I'll soon bring her back.
  MUTIUS. My lord, you pass not here.
  TITUS. What, villain boy!
    Bar'st me my way in Rome?
  MUTIUS. Help, Lucius, help!
            TITUS kills him. During the fray, exeunt SATURNINUS,
                            TAMORA, DEMETRIUS, CHIRON, and AARON

                      Re-enter Lucius

  LUCIUS. My lord, you are unjust, and more than so:
    In wrongful quarrel you have slain your son.
  TITUS. Nor thou nor he are any sons of mine;
    My sons would never so dishonour me.

                 Re-enter aloft the EMPEROR
      with TAMORA and her two Sons, and AARON the Moor

    Traitor, restore Lavinia to the Emperor.
  LUCIUS. Dead, if you will; but not to be his wife,
    That is another's lawful promis'd love.                 Exit
  SATURNINUS. No, Titus, no; the Emperor needs her not,
    Nor her, nor thee, nor any of thy stock.
    I'll trust by leisure him that mocks me once;
    Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons,
    Confederates all thus to dishonour me.
    Was there none else in Rome to make a stale
    But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus,
    Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine
    That saidst I begg'd the empire at thy hands.
  TITUS. O monstrous! What reproachful words are these?
  SATURNINUS. But go thy ways; go, give that changing piece
    To him that flourish'd for her with his sword.
    A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy;
    One fit to bandy with thy lawless sons,
    To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome.
  TITUS. These words are razors to my wounded heart.
  SATURNINUS. And therefore, lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths,
    That, like the stately Phoebe 'mongst her nymphs,
    Dost overshine the gallant'st dames of Rome,
    If thou be pleas'd with this my sudden choice,
    Behold, I choose thee, Tamora, for my bride
    And will create thee Emperess of Rome.
    Speak, Queen of Goths, dost thou applaud my choice?
    And here I swear by all the Roman gods-
    Sith priest and holy water are so near,
    And tapers burn so bright, and everything
    In readiness for Hymenaeus stand-
    I will not re-salute the streets of Rome,
    Or climb my palace, till from forth this place
    I lead espous'd my bride along with me.
  TAMORA. And here in sight of heaven to Rome I swear,
    If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths,
    She will a handmaid be to his desires,
    A loving nurse, a mother to his youth.
  SATURNINUS. Ascend, fair Queen, Pantheon. Lords, accompany
    Your noble Emperor and his lovely bride,
    Sent by the heavens for Prince Saturnine,
    Whose wisdom hath her fortune conquered;
    There shall we consummate our spousal rites.
                                            Exeunt all but TITUS
  TITUS. I am not bid to wait upon this bride.
  TITUS, when wert thou wont to walk alone,
    Dishonoured thus, and challenged of wrongs?

                      Re-enter MARCUS,
        and TITUS' SONS, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, and MARTIUS

  MARCUS. O Titus, see, O, see what thou hast done!
    In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son.
  TITUS. No, foolish Tribune, no; no son of mine-
    Nor thou, nor these, confederates in the deed
    That hath dishonoured all our family;
    Unworthy brother and unworthy sons!
  LUCIUS. But let us give him burial, as becomes;
    Give Mutius burial with our bretheren.
  TITUS. Traitors, away! He rests not in this tomb.
    This monument five hundred years hath stood,
    Which I have sumptuously re-edified;
    Here none but soldiers and Rome's servitors
    Repose in fame; none basely slain in brawls.
    Bury him where you can, he comes not here.
  MARCUS. My lord, this is impiety in you.
    My nephew Mutius' deeds do plead for him;
    He must be buried with his bretheren.
  QUINTUS & MARTIUS. And shall, or him we will accompany.
  TITUS. 'And shall!' What villain was it spake that word?
  QUINTUS. He that would vouch it in any place but here.
  TITUS. What, would you bury him in my despite?
  MARCUS. No, noble Titus, but entreat of thee
    To pardon Mutius and to bury him.
  TITUS. Marcus, even thou hast struck upon my crest,
    And with these boys mine honour thou hast wounded.
    My foes I do repute you every one;
    So trouble me no more, but get you gone.
  MARTIUS. He is not with himself; let us withdraw.
  QUINTUS. Not I, till Mutius' bones be buried.
                                [The BROTHER and the SONS kneel]
  MARCUS. Brother, for in that name doth nature plead-
  QUINTUS. Father, and in that name doth nature speak-
  TITUS. Speak thou no more, if all the rest will speed.
  MARCUS. Renowned Titus, more than half my soul-
  LUCIUS. Dear father, soul and substance of us all-
  MARCUS. Suffer thy brother Marcus to inter
    His noble nephew here in virtue's nest,
    That died in honour and Lavinia's cause.
    Thou art a Roman- be not barbarous.
    The Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax,
    That slew himself; and wise Laertes' son
    Did graciously plead for his funerals.
    Let not young Mutius, then, that was thy joy,
    Be barr'd his entrance here.
  TITUS. Rise, Marcus, rise;
    The dismal'st day is this that e'er I saw,
    To be dishonoured by my sons in Rome!
    Well, bury him, and bury me the next.
                                   [They put MUTIUS in the tomb]
  LUCIUS. There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,
    Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb.
  ALL.  [Kneeling]  No man shed tears for noble Mutius;
    He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.
  MARCUS. My lord- to step out of these dreary dumps-
    How comes it that the subtle Queen of Goths
    Is of a sudden thus advanc'd in Rome?
  TITUS. I know not, Marcus, but I know it is-
    Whether by device or no, the heavens can tell.
    Is she not, then, beholding to the man
    That brought her for this high good turn so far?
  MARCUS. Yes, and will nobly him remunerate.

           Flourish. Re-enter the EMPEROR, TAMORA
        and her two SONS, with the MOOR, at one door;
    at the other door, BASSIANUS and LAVINIA, with others

  SATURNINUS. So, Bassianus, you have play'd your prize:
    God give you joy, sir, of your gallant bride!
  BASSIANUS. And you of yours, my lord! I say no more,
    Nor wish no less; and so I take my leave.
  SATURNINUS. Traitor, if Rome have law or we have power,
    Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape.
  BASSIANUS. Rape, call you it, my lord, to seize my own,
    My true betrothed love, and now my wife?
    But let the laws of Rome determine all;
    Meanwhile am I possess'd of that is mine.
  SATURNINUS. 'Tis good, sir. You are very short with us;
    But if we live we'll be as sharp with you.
  BASSIANUS. My lord, what I have done, as best I may,
    Answer I must, and shall do with my life.
    Only thus much I give your Grace to know:
    By all the duties that I owe to Rome,
    This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here,
    Is in opinion and in honour wrong'd,
    That, in the rescue of Lavinia,
    With his own hand did slay his youngest son,
    In zeal to you, and highly mov'd to wrath
    To be controll'd in that he frankly gave.
    Receive him then to favour, Saturnine,
    That hath express'd himself in all his deeds
    A father and a friend to thee and Rome.
  TITUS. Prince Bassianus, leave to plead my deeds.
    'Tis thou and those that have dishonoured me.
    Rome and the righteous heavens be my judge
    How I have lov'd and honoured Saturnine!
  TAMORA. My worthy lord, if ever Tamora
    Were gracious in those princely eyes of thine,
    Then hear me speak indifferently for all;
    And at my suit, sweet, pardon what is past.
  SATURNINUS. What, madam! be dishonoured openly,
    And basely put it up without revenge?
  TAMORA. Not so, my lord; the gods of Rome forfend
    I should be author to dishonour you!
    But on mine honour dare I undertake
    For good Lord Titus' innocence in all,
    Whose fury not dissembled speaks his griefs.
    Then at my suit look graciously on him;
    Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose,
    Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart.
    [Aside to SATURNINUS]  My lord, be rul'd by me,
      be won at last;
    Dissemble all your griefs and discontents.
    You are but newly planted in your throne;
    Lest, then, the people, and patricians too,
    Upon a just survey take Titus' part,
    And so supplant you for ingratitude,
    Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,
    Yield at entreats, and then let me alone:
    I'll find a day to massacre them all,
    And raze their faction and their family,
    The cruel father and his traitorous sons,
    To whom I sued for my dear son's life;
    And make them know what 'tis to let a queen
    Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.-
    Come, come, sweet Emperor; come, Andronicus.
    Take up this good old man, and cheer the heart
    That dies in tempest of thy angry frown.
  SATURNINUS. Rise, Titus, rise; my Empress hath prevail'd.
  TITUS. I thank your Majesty and her, my lord;
    These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.
  TAMORA. Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,
    A Roman now adopted happily,
    And must advise the Emperor for his good.
    This day all quarrels die, Andronicus;
    And let it be mine honour, good my lord,
    That I have reconcil'd your friends and you.
    For you, Prince Bassianus, I have pass'd
    My word and promise to the Emperor
    That you will be more mild and tractable.
    And fear not, lords- and you, Lavinia.
    By my advice, all humbled on your knees,
    You shall ask pardon of his Majesty.
  LUCIUS. We do, and vow to heaven and to his Highness
    That what we did was mildly as we might,
    Tend'ring our sister's honour and our own.
  MARCUS. That on mine honour here do I protest.
  SATURNINUS. Away, and talk not; trouble us no more.
  TAMORA. Nay, nay, sweet Emperor, we must all be friends.
    The Tribune and his nephews kneel for grace.
    I will not be denied. Sweet heart, look back.
  SATURNINUS. Marcus, for thy sake, and thy brother's here,
    And at my lovely Tamora's entreats,
    I do remit these young men's heinous faults.
    Stand up.
    Lavinia, though you left me like a churl,
    I found a friend; and sure as death I swore
    I would not part a bachelor from the priest.
    Come, if the Emperor's court can feast two brides,
    You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.
    This day shall be a love-day, Tamora.
  TITUS. To-morrow, and it please your Majesty
    To hunt the panther and the hart with me,
    With horn and hound we'll give your Grace bonjour.
  SATURNINUS. Be it so, Titus, and gramercy too.
                                          Exeunt. Sound trumpets

ACT II. SCENE I. Rome. Before the palace

Enter AARON

  AARON. Now climbeth Tamora Olympus' top,
    Safe out of Fortune's shot, and sits aloft,
    Secure of thunder's crack or lightning flash,
    Advanc'd above pale envy's threat'ning reach.
    As when the golden sun salutes the morn,
    And, having gilt the ocean with his beams,
    Gallops the zodiac in his glistening coach
    And overlooks the highest-peering hills,
    So Tamora.
    Upon her wit doth earthly honour wait,
    And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown.
    Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts
    To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,
    And mount her pitch whom thou in triumph long.
    Hast prisoner held, fett'red in amorous chains,
    And faster bound to Aaron's charming eyes
    Than is Prometheus tied to Caucasus.
    Away with slavish weeds and servile thoughts!
    I will be bright and shine in pearl and gold,
    To wait upon this new-made emperess.
    To wait, said I? To wanton with this queen,
    This goddess, this Semiramis, this nymph,
    This siren that will charm Rome's Saturnine,
    And see his shipwreck and his commonweal's.
    Hullo! what storm is this?

            Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS, braving

  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, thy years wants wit, thy wits wants edge
    And manners, to intrude where I am grac'd,
    And may, for aught thou knowest, affected be.
  CHIRON. Demetrius, thou dost over-ween in all;
    And so in this, to bear me down with braves.
    'Tis not the difference of a year or two
    Makes me less gracious or thee more fortunate:
    I am as able and as fit as thou
    To serve and to deserve my mistress' grace;
    And that my sword upon thee shall approve,
    And plead my passions for Lavinia's love.
  AARON.  [Aside]  Clubs, clubs! These lovers will not keep the
    peace.
  DEMETRIUS. Why, boy, although our mother, unadvis'd,
    Gave you a dancing rapier by your side,
    Are you so desperate grown to threat your friends?
    Go to; have your lath glued within your sheath
    Till you know better how to handle it.
  CHIRON. Meanwhile, sir, with the little skill I have,
    Full well shalt thou perceive how much I dare.
  DEMETRIUS. Ay, boy, grow ye so brave?              [They draw]
  AARON.  [Coming forward]  Why, how now, lords!
    So near the Emperor's palace dare ye draw
    And maintain such a quarrel openly?
    Full well I wot the ground of all this grudge:
    I would not for a million of gold
    The cause were known to them it most concerns;
    Nor would your noble mother for much more
    Be so dishonoured in the court of Rome.
    For shame, put up.
  DEMETRIUS. Not I, till I have sheath'd
    My rapier in his bosom, and withal
    Thrust those reproachful speeches down his throat
    That he hath breath'd in my dishonour here.
  CHIRON. For that I am prepar'd and full resolv'd,
    Foul-spoken coward, that thund'rest with thy tongue,
    And with thy weapon nothing dar'st perform.
  AARON. Away, I say!
    Now, by the gods that warlike Goths adore,
    This pretty brabble will undo us all.
    Why, lords, and think you not how dangerous
    It is to jet upon a prince's right?
    What, is Lavinia then become so loose,
    Or Bassianus so degenerate,
    That for her love such quarrels may be broach'd
    Without controlment, justice, or revenge?
    Young lords, beware; an should the Empress know
    This discord's ground, the music would not please.
  CHIRON. I care not, I, knew she and all the world:
    I love Lavinia more than all the world.
  DEMETRIUS. Youngling, learn thou to make some meaner choice:
    Lavina is thine elder brother's hope.
  AARON. Why, are ye mad, or know ye not in Rome
    How furious and impatient they be,
    And cannot brook competitors in love?
    I tell you, lords, you do but plot your deaths
    By this device.
  CHIRON. Aaron, a thousand deaths
    Would I propose to achieve her whom I love.
  AARON. To achieve her- how?
  DEMETRIUS. Why mak'st thou it so strange?
    She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
    She is a woman, therefore may be won;
    She is Lavinia, therefore must be lov'd.
    What, man! more water glideth by the mill
    Than wots the miller of; and easy it is
    Of a cut loaf to steal a shive, we know.
    Though Bassianus be the Emperor's brother,
    Better than he have worn Vulcan's badge.
  AARON.  [Aside]  Ay, and as good as Saturninus may.
  DEMETRIUS. Then why should he despair that knows to court it
    With words, fair looks, and liberality?
    What, hast not thou full often struck a doe,
    And borne her cleanly by the keeper's nose?
  AARON. Why, then, it seems some certain snatch or so
    Would serve your turns.
  CHIRON. Ay, so the turn were served.
  DEMETRIUS. Aaron, thou hast hit it.
  AARON. Would you had hit it too!
    Then should not we be tir'd with this ado.
    Why, hark ye, hark ye! and are you such fools
    To square for this? Would it offend you, then,
    That both should speed?
  CHIRON. Faith, not me.
  DEMETRIUS. Nor me, so I were one.
  AARON. For shame, be friends, and join for that you jar.
    'Tis policy and stratagem must do
    That you affect; and so must you resolve
    That what you cannot as you would achieve,
    You must perforce accomplish as you may.
    Take this of me: Lucrece was not more chaste
    Than this Lavinia, Bassianus' love.
    A speedier course than ling'ring languishment
    Must we pursue, and I have found the path.
    My lords, a solemn hunting is in hand;
    There will the lovely Roman ladies troop;
    The forest walks are wide and spacious,
    And many unfrequented plots there are
    Fitted by kind for rape and villainy.
    Single you thither then this dainty doe,
    And strike her home by force if not by words.
    This way, or not at all, stand you in hope.
    Come, come, our Empress, with her sacred wit
    To villainy and vengeance consecrate,
    Will we acquaint with all what we intend;
    And she shall file our engines with advice
    That will not suffer you to square yourselves,
    But to your wishes' height advance you both.
    The Emperor's court is like the house of Fame,
    The palace full of tongues, of eyes, and ears;
    The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull.
    There speak and strike, brave boys, and take your turns;
    There serve your lust, shadowed from heaven's eye,
    And revel in Lavinia's treasury.
  CHIRON. Thy counsel, lad, smells of no cowardice.
  DEMETRIUS. Sit fas aut nefas, till I find the stream
    To cool this heat, a charm to calm these fits,
    Per Styga, per manes vehor.                           Exeunt

SCENE II. A forest near Rome

Enter TITUS ANDRONICUS, and his three sons, LUCIUS, QUINTUS, MARTIUS,
making a noise with hounds and horns; and MARCUS

  TITUS. The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,
    The fields are fragrant, and the woods are green.
    Uncouple here, and let us make a bay,
    And wake the Emperor and his lovely bride,
    And rouse the Prince, and ring a hunter's peal,
    That all the court may echo with the noise.
    Sons, let it be your charge, as it is ours,
    To attend the Emperor's person carefully.
    I have been troubled in my sleep this night,
    But dawning day new comfort hath inspir'd.

         Here a cry of hounds, and wind horns in a peal.
       Then enter SATURNINUS, TAMORA, BASSIANUS LAVINIA,
            CHIRON, DEMETRIUS, and their attendants
    Many good morrows to your Majesty!
    Madam, to you as many and as good!
    I promised your Grace a hunter's peal.
  SATURNINUS. And you have rung it lustily, my lords-
    Somewhat too early for new-married ladies.
  BASSIANUS. Lavinia, how say you?
  LAVINIA. I say no;
    I have been broad awake two hours and more.
  SATURNINUS. Come on then, horse and chariots let us have,
    And to our sport.  [To TAMORA]  Madam, now shall ye see
    Our Roman hunting.
  MARCUS. I have dogs, my lord,
    Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase,
    And climb the highest promontory top.
  TITUS. And I have horse will follow where the game
    Makes way, and run like swallows o'er the plain.
  DEMETRIUS. Chiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,
    But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.             Exeunt

SCENE III. A lonely part of the forest

Enter AARON alone, with a bag of gold

  AARON. He that had wit would think that I had none,
    To bury so much gold under a tree
    And never after to inherit it.
    Let him that thinks of me so abjectly
    Know that this gold must coin a stratagem,
    Which, cunningly effected, will beget
    A very excellent piece of villainy.
    And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest
                                                [Hides the gold]
    That have their alms out of the Empress' chest.

               Enter TAMORA alone, to the Moor

  TAMORA. My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad
    When everything does make a gleeful boast?
    The birds chant melody on every bush;
    The snakes lie rolled in the cheerful sun;
    The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind
    And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground;
    Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,
    And while the babbling echo mocks the hounds,
    Replying shrilly to the well-tun'd horns,
    As if a double hunt were heard at once,
    Let us sit down and mark their yellowing noise;
    And- after conflict such as was suppos'd
    The wand'ring prince and Dido once enjoyed,
    When with a happy storm they were surpris'd,
    And curtain'd with a counsel-keeping cave-
    We may, each wreathed in the other's arms,
    Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,
    Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds
    Be unto us as is a nurse's song
    Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.
  AARON. Madam, though Venus govern your desires,
    Saturn is dominator over mine.
    What signifies my deadly-standing eye,
    My silence and my cloudy melancholy,
    My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls
    Even as an adder when she doth unroll
    To do some fatal execution?
    No, madam, these are no venereal signs.
    Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,
    Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
    Hark, Tamora, the empress of my soul,
    Which never hopes more heaven than rests in thee-
    This is the day of doom for Bassianus;
    His Philomel must lose her tongue to-day,
    Thy sons make pillage of her chastity,
    And wash their hands in Bassianus' blood.
    Seest thou this letter? Take it up, I pray thee,
    And give the King this fatal-plotted scroll.
    Now question me no more; we are espied.
    Here comes a parcel of our hopeful booty,
    Which dreads not yet their lives' destruction.

                Enter BASSIANUS and LAVINIA

  TAMORA. Ah, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life!
  AARON. No more, great Empress: Bassianus comes.
    Be cross with him; and I'll go fetch thy sons
    To back thy quarrels, whatsoe'er they be.               Exit
  BASSIANUS. Who have we here? Rome's royal Emperess,
    Unfurnish'd of her well-beseeming troop?
    Or is it Dian, habited like her,
    Who hath abandoned her holy groves
    To see the general hunting in this forest?
  TAMORA. Saucy controller of my private steps!
    Had I the pow'r that some say Dian had,
    Thy temples should be planted presently
    With horns, as was Actaeon's; and the hounds
    Should drive upon thy new-transformed limbs,
    Unmannerly intruder as thou art!
  LAVINIA. Under your patience, gentle Emperess,
    'Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning,
    And to be doubted that your Moor and you
    Are singled forth to try thy experiments.
    Jove shield your husband from his hounds to-day!
    'Tis pity they should take him for a stag.
  BASSIANUS. Believe me, Queen, your swarth Cimmerian
    Doth make your honour of his body's hue,
    Spotted, detested, and abominable.
    Why are you sequest'red from all your train,
    Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,
    And wand'red hither to an obscure plot,
    Accompanied but with a barbarous Moor,
    If foul desire had not conducted you?
  LAVINIA. And, being intercepted in your sport,
    Great reason that my noble lord be rated
    For sauciness. I pray you let us hence,
    And let her joy her raven-coloured love;
    This valley fits the purpose passing well.
  BASSIANUS. The King my brother shall have notice of this.
  LAVINIA. Ay, for these slips have made him noted long.
    Good king, to be so mightily abused!
  TAMORA. Why, I have patience to endure all this.

                  Enter CHIRON and DEMETRIUS

  DEMETRIUS. How now, dear sovereign, and our gracious mother!
    Why doth your Highness look so pale and wan?
  TAMORA. Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?
    These two have 'ticed me hither to this place.
    A barren detested vale you see it is:
    The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
    Overcome with moss and baleful mistletoe;
    Here never shines the sun; here nothing breeds,
    Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.
    And when they show'd me this abhorred pit,
    They told me, here, at dead time of the night,
    A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
    Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
    Would make such fearful and confused cries
    As any mortal body hearing it
    Should straight fall mad or else die suddenly.
    No sooner had they told this hellish tale
    But straight they told me they would bind me here
    Unto the body of a dismal yew,
    And leave me to this miserable death.
    And then they call'd me foul adulteress,
    Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms
    That ever ear did hear to such effect;
    And had you not by wondrous fortune come,
    This vengeance on me had they executed.
    Revenge it, as you love your mother's life,
    Or be ye not henceforth call'd my children.
  DEMETRIUS. This is a witness that I am thy son.
                                               [Stabs BASSIANUS]
  CHIRON. And this for me, struck home to show my strength.
                                                    [Also stabs]
  LAVINIA. Ay, come, Semiramis- nay, barbarous Tamora,
    For no name fits thy nature but thy own!
  TAMORA. Give me the poniard; you shall know, my boys,
    Your mother's hand shall right your mother's wrong.
  DEMETRIUS. Stay, madam, here is more belongs to her;
    First thrash the corn, then after burn the straw.
    This minion stood upon her chastity,
    Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty,
    And with that painted hope braves your mightiness;
    And shall she carry this unto her grave?
  CHIRON. An if she do, I would I were an eunuch.
    Drag hence her husband to some secret hole,
    And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust.
  TAMORA. But when ye have the honey we desire,
    Let not this wasp outlive, us both to sting.
  CHIRON. I warrant you, madam, we will make that sure.
    Come, mistress, now perforce we will enjoy
    That nice-preserved honesty of yours.
  LAVINIA. O Tamora! thou bearest a woman's face-
  TAMORA. I will not hear her speak; away with her!
  LAVINIA. Sweet lords, entreat her hear me but a word.
  DEMETRIUS. Listen, fair madam: let it be your glory
    To see her tears; but be your heart to them
    As unrelenting flint to drops of rain.
  LAVINIA. When did the tiger's young ones teach the dam?
    O, do not learn her wrath- she taught it thee;
    The milk thou suck'dst from her did turn to marble,
    Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.
    Yet every mother breeds not sons alike:
    [To CHIRON]  Do thou entreat her show a woman's pity.
  CHIRON. What, wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard?
  LAVINIA. 'Tis true, the raven doth not hatch a lark.
    Yet have I heard- O, could I find it now!-
    The lion, mov'd with pity, did endure
    To have his princely paws par'd all away.
    Some say that ravens foster forlorn children,
    The whilst their own birds famish in their nests;
    O, be to me, though thy hard heart say no,
    Nothing so kind, but something pitiful!
  TAMORA. I know not what it means; away with her!
  LAVINIA. O, let me teach thee! For my father's sake,
    That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee,
    Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.
  TAMORA. Hadst thou in person ne'er offended me,
    Even for his sake am I pitiless.
    Remember, boys, I pour'd forth tears in vain
    To save your brother from the sacrifice;
    But fierce Andronicus would not relent.
    Therefore away with her, and use her as you will;
    The worse to her the better lov'd of me.
  LAVINIA. O Tamora, be call'd a gentle queen,
    And with thine own hands kill me in this place!
    For 'tis not life that I have begg'd so long;
    Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.
  TAMORA. What beg'st thou, then? Fond woman, let me go.
  LAVINIA. 'Tis present death I beg; and one thing more,
    That womanhood denies my tongue to tell:
    O, keep me from their worse than killing lust,
    And tumble me into some loathsome pit,
    Where never man's eye may behold my body;
    Do this, and be a charitable murderer.
  TAMORA. So should I rob my sweet sons of their fee;
    No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.
  DEMETRIUS. Away! for thou hast stay'd us here too long.
  LAVINIA. No grace? no womanhood? Ah, beastly creature,
    The blot and enemy to our general name!
    Confusion fall-
  CHIRON. Nay, then I'll stop your mouth. Bring thou her husband.
    This is the hole where Aaron bid us hide him.

                 DEMETRIUS throws the body
           of BASSIANUS into the pit; then exeunt
         DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, dragging off LAVINIA

  TAMORA. Farewell, my sons; see that you make her sure.
    Ne'er let my heart know merry cheer indeed
    Till all the Andronici be made away.
    Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor,
    And let my spleenful sons this trull deflower.          Exit

                  Re-enter AARON, with two
             of TITUS' sons, QUINTUS and MARTIUS

  AARON. Come on, my lords, the better foot before;
    Straight will I bring you to the loathsome pit
    Where I espied the panther fast asleep.
  QUINTUS. My sight is very dull, whate'er it bodes.
  MARTIUS. And mine, I promise you; were it not for shame,
    Well could I leave our sport to sleep awhile.
                                            [Falls into the pit]
  QUINTUS. What, art thou fallen? What subtle hole is this,
    Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing briers,
    Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood
    As fresh as morning dew distill'd on flowers?
    A very fatal place it seems to me.
    Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall?
  MARTIUS. O brother, with the dismal'st object hurt
    That ever eye with sight made heart lament!
  AARON.  [Aside]  Now will I fetch the King to find them here,
    That he thereby may have a likely guess
    How these were they that made away his brother.         Exit
  MARTIUS. Why dost not comfort me, and help me out
    From this unhallow'd and blood-stained hole?
  QUINTUS. I am surprised with an uncouth fear;
    A chilling sweat o'er-runs my trembling joints;
    My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.
  MARTIUS. To prove thou hast a true divining heart,
    Aaron and thou look down into this den,
    And see a fearful sight of blood and death.
  QUINTUS. Aaron is gone, and my compassionate heart
    Will not permit mine eyes once to behold
    The thing whereat it trembles by surmise;
    O, tell me who it is, for ne'er till now
    Was I a child to fear I know not what.
  MARTIUS. Lord Bassianus lies beray'd in blood,
    All on a heap, like to a slaughtered lamb,
    In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit.
  QUINTUS. If it be dark, how dost thou know 'tis he?
  MARTIUS. Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
    A precious ring that lightens all this hole,
    Which, like a taper in some monument,
    Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
    And shows the ragged entrails of this pit;
    So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus
    When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood.
    O brother, help me with thy fainting hand-
    If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath-
    Out of this fell devouring receptacle,
    As hateful as Cocytus' misty mouth.
  QUINTUS. Reach me thy hand, that I may help thee out,
    Or, wanting strength to do thee so much good,
    I may be pluck'd into the swallowing womb
    Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus' grave.
    I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink.
  MARTIUS. Nor I no strength to climb without thy help.
  QUINTUS. Thy hand once more; I will not loose again,
    Till thou art here aloft, or I below.
    Thou canst not come to me- I come to thee.        [Falls in]

            Enter the EMPEROR and AARON the Moor

  SATURNINUS. Along with me! I'll see what hole is here,
    And what he is that now is leapt into it.
    Say, who art thou that lately didst descend
    Into this gaping hollow of the earth?
  MARTIUS. The unhappy sons of old Andronicus,
    Brought hither in a most unlucky hour,
    To find thy brother Bassianus dead.
  SATURNINUS. My brother dead! I know thou dost but jest:
    He and his lady both are at the lodge
    Upon the north side of this pleasant chase;
    'Tis not an hour since I left them there.
  MARTIUS. We know not where you left them all alive;
    But, out alas! here have we found him dead.

                   Re-enter TAMORA, with
         attendants; TITUS ANDRONICUS and Lucius

  TAMORA. Where is my lord the King?
  SATURNINUS. Here, Tamora; though griev'd with killing grief.
  TAMORA. Where is thy brother Bassianus?
  SATURNINUS. Now to the bottom dost thou search my wound;
    Poor Bassianus here lies murdered.
  TAMORA. Then all too late I bring this fatal writ,
    The complot of this timeless tragedy;
    And wonder greatly that man's face can fold
    In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny.
                                 [She giveth SATURNINE a letter]
    SATURNINUS.  [Reads]  'An if we miss to meet him handsomely,
    Sweet huntsman- Bassianus 'tis we mean-
    Do thou so much as dig the grave for him.
    Thou know'st our meaning. Look for thy reward
    Among the nettles at the elder-tree
    Which overshades the mouth of that same pit
    Where we decreed to bury Bassianus.
    Do this, and purchase us thy lasting friends.'
    O Tamora! was ever heard the like?
    This is the pit and this the elder-tree.
    Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out
    That should have murdered Bassianus here.
  AARON. My gracious lord, here is the bag of gold.
  SATURNINUS.  [To TITUS]  Two of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody
      kind,
    Have here bereft my brother of his life.
    Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison;
    There let them bide until we have devis'd
    Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.
  TAMORA. What, are they in this pit? O wondrous thing!
    How easily murder is discovered!
  TITUS. High Emperor, upon my feeble knee
    I beg this boon, with tears not lightly shed,
    That this fell fault of my accursed sons-
    Accursed if the fault be prov'd in them-
  SATURNINUS. If it be prov'd! You see it is apparent.
    Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you?
  TAMORA. Andronicus himself did take it up.
  TITUS. I did, my lord, yet let me be their bail;
    For, by my fathers' reverend tomb, I vow
    They shall be ready at your Highness' will
    To answer their suspicion with their lives.
  SATURNINUS. Thou shalt not bail them; see thou follow me.
    Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers;
    Let them not speak a word- the guilt is plain;
    For, by my soul, were there worse end than death,
    That end upon them should be executed.
  TAMORA. Andronicus, I will entreat the King.
    Fear not thy sons; they shall do well enough.
  TITUS. Come, Lucius, come; stay not to talk with them.     Exeunt

SCENE IV. Another part of the forest

Enter the Empress' sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, with LAVINIA, her hands
cut off, and her tongue cut out, and ravish'd

  DEMETRIUS. So, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,
    Who 'twas that cut thy tongue and ravish'd thee.
  CHIRON. Write down thy mind, bewray thy meaning so,
    An if thy stumps will let thee play the scribe.
  DEMETRIUS. See how with signs and tokens she can scrowl.
  CHIRON. Go home, call for sweet water, wash thy hands.
  DEMETRIUS. She hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash;
    And so let's leave her to her silent walks.
  CHIRON. An 'twere my cause, I should go hang myself.
  DEMETRIUS. If thou hadst hands to help thee knit the cord.
                                     Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON

           Wind horns. Enter MARCUS, from hunting

  MARCUS. Who is this?- my niece, that flies away so fast?
    Cousin, a word: where is your husband?
    If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me!
    If I do wake, some planet strike me down,
    That I may slumber an eternal sleep!
    Speak, gentle niece. What stern ungentle hands
    Hath lopp'd, and hew'd, and made thy body bare
    Of her two branches- those sweet ornaments
    Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,
    And might not gain so great a happiness
    As half thy love? Why dost not speak to me?
    Alas, a crimson river of warm blood,
    Like to a bubbling fountain stirr'd with wind,
    Doth rise and fall between thy rosed lips,
    Coming and going with thy honey breath.
    But sure some Tereus hath deflowered thee,
    And, lest thou shouldst detect him, cut thy tongue.
    Ah, now thou turn'st away thy face for shame!
    And notwithstanding all this loss of blood-
    As from a conduit with three issuing spouts-
    Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan's face
    Blushing to be encount'red with a cloud.
    Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say 'tis so?
    O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,
    That I might rail at him to ease my mind!
    Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd,
    Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.
    Fair Philomel, why she but lost her tongue,
    And in a tedious sampler sew'd her mind;
    But, lovely niece, that mean is cut from thee.
    A craftier Tereus, cousin, hast thou met,
    And he hath cut those pretty fingers off
    That could have better sew'd than Philomel.
    O, had the monster seen those lily hands
    Tremble like aspen leaves upon a lute
    And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,
    He would not then have touch'd them for his life!
    Or had he heard the heavenly harmony
    Which that sweet tongue hath made,
    He would have dropp'd his knife, and fell asleep,
    As Cerberus at the Thracian poet's feet.
    Come, let us go, and make thy father blind,
    For such a sight will blind a father's eye;
    One hour's storm will drown the fragrant meads,
    What will whole months of tears thy father's eyes?
    Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee;
    O, could our mourning case thy misery!                Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Rome. A street

Enter the JUDGES, TRIBUNES, and SENATORS, with TITUS' two sons MARTIUS
and QUINTUS bound, passing on the stage to the place of execution, and
TITUS going before, pleading

  TITUS. Hear me, grave fathers; noble Tribunes, stay!
    For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent
    In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;
    For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed,
    For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd,
    And for these bitter tears, which now you see
    Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks,
    Be pitiful to my condemned sons,
    Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.
    For two and twenty sons I never wept,
    Because they died in honour's lofty bed.
                          [ANDRONICUS lieth down, and the judges
                     pass by him with the prisoners, and exeunt]
    For these, Tribunes, in the dust I write
    My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears.
    Let my tears stanch the earth's dry appetite;
    My sons' sweet blood will make it shame and blush.
    O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain
    That shall distil from these two ancient urns,
    Than youthful April shall with all his show'rs.
    In summer's drought I'll drop upon thee still;
    In winter with warm tears I'll melt the snow
    And keep eternal spring-time on thy face,
    So thou refuse to drink my dear sons' blood.

             Enter Lucius with his weapon drawn

    O reverend Tribunes! O gentle aged men!
    Unbind my sons, reverse the doom of death,
    And let me say, that never wept before,
    My tears are now prevailing orators.
  LUCIUS. O noble father, you lament in vain;
    The Tribunes hear you not, no man is by,
    And you recount your sorrows to a stone.
  TITUS. Ah, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead!
    Grave Tribunes, once more I entreat of you.
  LUCIUS. My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.
  TITUS. Why, 'tis no matter, man: if they did hear,
    They would not mark me; if they did mark,
    They would not pity me; yet plead I must,
    And bootless unto them.
    Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;
    Who though they cannot answer my distress,
    Yet in some sort they are better than the Tribunes,
    For that they will not intercept my tale.
    When I do weep, they humbly at my feet
    Receive my tears, and seem to weep with me;
    And were they but attired in grave weeds,
    Rome could afford no tribunes like to these.
    A stone is soft as wax: tribunes more hard than stones.
    A stone is silent and offendeth not,
    And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.
                                                         [Rises]
    But wherefore stand'st thou with thy weapon drawn?
  LUCIUS. To rescue my two brothers from their death;
    For which attempt the judges have pronounc'd
    My everlasting doom of banishment.
  TITUS. O happy man! they have befriended thee.
    Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive
    That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?
    Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey
    But me and mine; how happy art thou then
    From these devourers to be banished!
    But who comes with our brother Marcus here?

                 Enter MARCUS with LAVINIA

  MARCUS. Titus, prepare thy aged eyes to weep,
    Or if not so, thy noble heart to break.
    I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.
  TITUS. Will it consume me? Let me see it then.
  MARCUS. This was thy daughter.
  TITUS. Why, Marcus, so she is.
  LUCIUS. Ay me! this object kills me.
  TITUS. Faint-hearted boy, arise, and look upon her.
    Speak, Lavinia, what accursed hand
    Hath made thee handless in thy father's sight?
    What fool hath added water to the sea,
    Or brought a fagot to bright-burning Troy?
    My grief was at the height before thou cam'st,
    And now like Nilus it disdaineth bounds.
    Give me a sword, I'll chop off my hands too,
    For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain;
    And they have nurs'd this woe in feeding life;
    In bootless prayer have they been held up,
    And they have serv'd me to effectless use.
    Now all the service I require of them
    Is that the one will help to cut the other.
    'Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands;
    For hands to do Rome service is but vain.
  LUCIUS. Speak, gentle sister, who hath martyr'd thee?
  MARCUS. O, that delightful engine of her thoughts
    That blabb'd them with such pleasing eloquence
    Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage,
    Where like a sweet melodious bird it sung
    Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!
  LUCIUS. O, say thou for her, who hath done this deed?
  MARCUS. O, thus I found her straying in the park,
    Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer
    That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.
  TITUS. It was my dear, and he that wounded her
    Hath hurt me more than had he kill'd me dead;
    For now I stand as one upon a rock,
    Environ'd with a wilderness of sea,
    Who marks the waxing tide grow wave by wave,
    Expecting ever when some envious surge
    Will in his brinish bowels swallow him.
    This way to death my wretched sons are gone;
    Here stands my other son, a banish'd man,
    And here my brother, weeping at my woes.
    But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn
    Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.
    Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,
    It would have madded me; what shall I do
    Now I behold thy lively body so?
    Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,
    Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyr'd thee;
    Thy husband he is dead, and for his death
    Thy brothers are condemn'd, and dead by this.
    Look, Marcus! Ah, son Lucius, look on her!
    When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears
    Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey dew
    Upon a gath'red lily almost withered.
  MARCUS. Perchance she weeps because they kill'd her husband;
    Perchance because she knows them innocent.
  TITUS. If they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,
    Because the law hath ta'en revenge on them.
    No, no, they would not do so foul a deed;
    Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.
    Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips,
    Or make some sign how I may do thee ease.
    Shall thy good uncle and thy brother Lucius
    And thou and I sit round about some fountain,
    Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks
    How they are stain'd, like meadows yet not dry
    With miry slime left on them by a flood?
    And in the fountain shall we gaze so long,
    Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,
    And made a brine-pit with our bitter tears?
    Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?
    Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows
    Pass the remainder of our hateful days?
    What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues
    Plot some device of further misery
    To make us wonder'd at in time to come.
  LUCIUS. Sweet father, cease your tears; for at your grief
    See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.
  MARCUS. Patience, dear niece. Good Titus, dry thine eyes.
  TITUS. Ah, Marcus, Marcus! Brother, well I wot
    Thy napkin cannot drink a tear of mine,
    For thou, poor man, hast drown'd it with thine own.
  LUCIUS. Ah, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.
  TITUS. Mark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs.
    Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say
    That to her brother which I said to thee:
    His napkin, with his true tears all bewet,
    Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.
    O, what a sympathy of woe is this
    As far from help as Limbo is from bliss!

                   Enter AARON the Moor

  AARON. Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor
    Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,
    Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,
    Or any one of you, chop off your hand
    And send it to the King: he for the same
    Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,
    And that shall be the ransom for their fault.
  TITUS. O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron!
    Did ever raven sing so like a lark
    That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?
    With all my heart I'll send the Emperor my hand.
    Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?
  LUCIUS. Stay, father! for that noble hand of thine,
    That hath thrown down so many enemies,
    Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn,
    My youth can better spare my blood than you,
    And therefore mine shall save my brothers' lives.
  MARCUS. Which of your hands hath not defended Rome
    And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,
    Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?
    O, none of both but are of high desert!
    My hand hath been but idle; let it serve
    To ransom my two nephews from their death;
    Then have I kept it to a worthy end.
  AARON. Nay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,
    For fear they die before their pardon come.
  MARCUS. My hand shall go.
  LUCIUS. By heaven, it shall not go!
  TITUS. Sirs, strive no more; such with'red herbs as these
    Are meet for plucking up, and therefore mine.
  LUCIUS. Sweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,
    Let me redeem my brothers both from death.
  MARCUS. And for our father's sake and mother's care,
    Now let me show a brother's love to thee.
  TITUS. Agree between you; I will spare my hand.
  LUCIUS. Then I'll go fetch an axe.
  MARCUS. But I will use the axe.
                                        Exeunt LUCIUS and MARCUS
  TITUS. Come hither, Aaron, I'll deceive them both;
    Lend me thy hand, and I will give thee mine.
  AARON.  [Aside]  If that be call'd deceit, I will be honest,
    And never whilst I live deceive men so;
    But I'll deceive you in another sort,
    And that you'll say ere half an hour pass.
                                       [He cuts off TITUS' hand]

                 Re-enter LUCIUS and MARCUS

 TITUS. Now stay your strife. What shall be is dispatch'd.
    Good Aaron, give his Majesty my hand;
    Tell him it was a hand that warded him
    From thousand dangers; bid him bury it.
    More hath it merited- that let it have.
    As for my sons, say I account of them
    As jewels purchas'd at an easy price;
    And yet dear too, because I bought mine own.
  AARON. I go, Andronicus; and for thy hand
    Look by and by to have thy sons with thee.
    [Aside]  Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy
    Doth fat me with the very thoughts of it!
    Let fools do good, and fair men call for grace:
    Aaron will have his soul black like his face.           Exit
  TITUS. O, here I lift this one hand up to heaven,
    And bow this feeble ruin to the earth;
    If any power pities wretched tears,
    To that I call!  [To LAVINIA]  What, would'st thou kneel with me?
    Do, then, dear heart; for heaven shall hear our prayers,
    Or with our sighs we'll breathe the welkin dim
    And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds
    When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.
  MARCUS. O brother, speak with possibility,
    And do not break into these deep extremes.
  TITUS. Is not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?
    Then be my passions bottomless with them.
  MARCUS. But yet let reason govern thy lament.
  TITUS. If there were reason for these miseries,
    Then into limits could I bind my woes.
    When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o'erflow?
    If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
    Threat'ning the welkin with his big-swol'n face?
    And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
    I am the sea; hark how her sighs do blow.
    She is the weeping welkin, I the earth;
    Then must my sea be moved with her sighs;
    Then must my earth with her continual tears
    Become a deluge, overflow'd and drown'd;
    For why my bowels cannot hide her woes,
    But like a drunkard must I vomit them.
    Then give me leave; for losers will have leave
    To ease their stomachs with their bitter tongues.

        Enter a MESSENGER, with two heads and a hand

  MESSENGER. Worthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid
    For that good hand thou sent'st the Emperor.
    Here are the heads of thy two noble sons;
    And here's thy hand, in scorn to thee sent back-
    Thy grief their sports, thy resolution mock'd,
    That woe is me to think upon thy woes,
    More than remembrance of my father's death.             Exit
  MARCUS. Now let hot Aetna cool in Sicily,
    And be my heart an ever-burning hell!
    These miseries are more than may be borne.
    To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,
    But sorrow flouted at is double death.
  LUCIUS. Ah, that this sight should make so deep a wound,
    And yet detested life not shrink thereat!
    That ever death should let life bear his name,
    Where life hath no more interest but to breathe!
                                          [LAVINIA kisses TITUS]
  MARCUS. Alas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless
    As frozen water to a starved snake.
  TITUS. When will this fearful slumber have an end?
  MARCUS. Now farewell, flatt'ry; die, Andronicus.
    Thou dost not slumber: see thy two sons' heads,
    Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here;
    Thy other banish'd son with this dear sight
    Struck pale and bloodless; and thy brother, I,
    Even like a stony image, cold and numb.
    Ah! now no more will I control thy griefs.
    Rent off thy silver hair, thy other hand
    Gnawing with thy teeth; and be this dismal sight
    The closing up of our most wretched eyes.
    Now is a time to storm; why art thou still?
  TITUS. Ha, ha, ha!
  MARCUS. Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.
  TITUS. Why, I have not another tear to shed;
    Besides, this sorrow is an enemy,
    And would usurp upon my wat'ry eyes
    And make them blind with tributary tears.
    Then which way shall I find Revenge's cave?
    For these two heads do seem to speak to me,
    And threat me I shall never come to bliss
    Till all these mischiefs be return'd again
    Even in their throats that have committed them.
    Come, let me see what task I have to do.
    You heavy people, circle me about,
    That I may turn me to each one of you
    And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs.
    The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,
    And in this hand the other will I bear.
    And, Lavinia, thou shalt be employ'd in this;
    Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.
    As for thee, boy, go, get thee from my sight;
    Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay.
    Hie to the Goths and raise an army there;
    And if ye love me, as I think you do,
    Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do.
                                           Exeunt all but Lucius
  LUCIUS. Farewell, Andronicus, my noble father,
    The woefull'st man that ever liv'd in Rome.
    Farewell, proud Rome; till Lucius come again,
    He leaves his pledges dearer than his life.
    Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister;
    O, would thou wert as thou tofore hast been!
    But now nor Lucius nor Lavinia lives
    But in oblivion and hateful griefs.
    If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs
    And make proud Saturnine and his emperess
    Beg at the gates like Tarquin and his queen.
    Now will I to the Goths, and raise a pow'r
    To be reveng'd on Rome and Saturnine.                   Exit

SCENE II. Rome. TITUS' house

A banquet.

Enter TITUS, MARCUS, LAVINIA, and the boy YOUNG LUCIUS

  TITUS. So so, now sit; and look you eat no more
    Than will preserve just so much strength in us
    As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.
    Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot;
    Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want our hands,
    And cannot passionate our tenfold grief
    With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine
    Is left to tyrannize upon my breast;
    Who, when my heart, all mad with misery,
    Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,
    Then thus I thump it down.
    [To LAVINIA]  Thou map of woe, that thus dost talk in signs!
    When thy poor heart beats with outrageous beating,
    Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.
    Wound it with sighing, girl, kill it with groans;
    Or get some little knife between thy teeth
    And just against thy heart make thou a hole,
    That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall
    May run into that sink and, soaking in,
    Drown the lamenting fool in sea-salt tears.
  MARCUS. Fie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay
    Such violent hands upon her tender life.
  TITUS. How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?
    Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.
    What violent hands can she lay on her life?
    Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands?
    To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o'er
    How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?
    O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,
    Lest we remember still that we have none.
    Fie, fie, how franticly I square my talk,
    As if we should forget we had no hands,
    If Marcus did not name the word of hands!
    Come, let's fall to; and, gentle girl, eat this:
    Here is no drink. Hark, Marcus, what she says-
    I can interpret all her martyr'd signs;
    She says she drinks no other drink but tears,
    Brew'd with her sorrow, mesh'd upon her cheeks.
    Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought;
    In thy dumb action will I be as perfect
    As begging hermits in their holy prayers.
    Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,
    Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,
    But I of these will wrest an alphabet,
    And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.
  BOY. Good grandsire, leave these bitter deep laments;
    Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.
  MARCUS. Alas, the tender boy, in passion mov'd,
    Doth weep to see his grandsire's heaviness.
  TITUS. Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,
    And tears will quickly melt thy life away.
                          [MARCUS strikes the dish with a knife]
    What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?
  MARCUS. At that that I have kill'd, my lord- a fly.
  TITUS. Out on thee, murderer, thou kill'st my heart!
    Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny;
    A deed of death done on the innocent
    Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone;
    I see thou art not for my company.
  MARCUS. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.
  TITUS. 'But!' How if that fly had a father and mother?
    How would he hang his slender gilded wings
    And buzz lamenting doings in the air!
    Poor harmless fly,
    That with his pretty buzzing melody
    Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill'd him.
  MARCUS. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly,
    Like to the Empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.
  TITUS. O, O, O!
    Then pardon me for reprehending thee,
    For thou hast done a charitable deed.
    Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,
    Flattering myself as if it were the Moor
    Come hither purposely to poison me.
    There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.
    Ah, sirrah!
    Yet, I think, we are not brought so low
    But that between us we can kill a fly
    That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.
  MARCUS. Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,
    He takes false shadows for true substances.
  TITUS. Come, take away. Lavinia, go with me;
    I'll to thy closet, and go read with thee
    Sad stories chanced in the times of old.
    Come, boy, and go with me; thy sight is young,
    And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.        Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Rome. TITUS' garden

Enter YOUNG LUCIUS and LAVINIA running after him, and the boy flies
from her with his books under his arm.

Enter TITUS and MARCUS

  BOY. Help, grandsire, help! my aunt Lavinia
    Follows me everywhere, I know not why.
    Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes!
    Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.
  MARCUS. Stand by me, Lucius; do not fear thine aunt.
  TITUS. She loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.
  BOY. Ay, when my father was in Rome she did.
  MARCUS. What means my niece Lavinia by these signs?
  TITUS. Fear her not, Lucius; somewhat doth she mean.
    See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee.
    Somewhither would she have thee go with her.
    Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care
    Read to her sons than she hath read to thee
    Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.
  MARCUS. Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies thee thus?
  BOY. My lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,
    Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her;
    For I have heard my grandsire say full oft
    Extremity of griefs would make men mad;
    And I have read that Hecuba of Troy
    Ran mad for sorrow. That made me to fear;
    Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt
    Loves me as dear as e'er my mother did,
    And would not, but in fury, fright my youth;
    Which made me down to throw my books, and fly-
    Causeless, perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt;
    And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,
    I will most willingly attend your ladyship.
  MARCUS. Lucius, I will.           [LAVINIA turns over with her
                     stumps the books which Lucius has let fall]
  TITUS. How now, Lavinia! Marcus, what means this?
    Some book there is that she desires to see.
    Which is it, girl, of these?- Open them, boy.-
    But thou art deeper read and better skill'd;
    Come and take choice of all my library,
    And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens
    Reveal the damn'd contriver of this deed.
    Why lifts she up her arms in sequence thus?
  MARCUS. I think she means that there were more than one
    Confederate in the fact; ay, more there was,
    Or else to heaven she heaves them for revenge.
  TITUS. Lucius, what book is that she tosseth so?
  BOY. Grandsire, 'tis Ovid's Metamorphoses;
    My mother gave it me.
  MARCUS. For love of her that's gone,
    Perhaps she cull'd it from among the rest.
  TITUS. Soft! So busily she turns the leaves! Help her.
    What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?
    This is the tragic tale of Philomel
    And treats of Tereus' treason and his rape;
    And rape, I fear, was root of thy annoy.
  MARCUS. See, brother, see! Note how she quotes the leaves.
  TITUS. Lavinia, wert thou thus surpris'd, sweet girl,
    Ravish'd and wrong'd as Philomela was,
    Forc'd in the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods?
    See, see!
    Ay, such a place there is where we did hunt-
    O, had we never, never hunted there!-
    Pattern'd by that the poet here describes,
    By nature made for murders and for rapes.
  MARCUS. O, why should nature build so foul a den,
    Unless the gods delight in tragedies?
  TITUS. Give signs, sweet girl, for here are none but friends,
    What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.
    Or slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,
    That left the camp to sin in Lucrece' bed?
  MARCUS. Sit down, sweet niece; brother, sit down by me.
    Apollo, Pallas, Jove, or Mercury,
    Inspire me, that I may this treason find!
    My lord, look here! Look here, Lavinia!
                                    [He writes his name with his
                       staff, and guides it with feet and mouth]
    This sandy plot is plain; guide, if thou canst,
    This after me. I have writ my name
    Without the help of any hand at all.
    Curs'd be that heart that forc'd us to this shift!
    Write thou, good niece, and here display at last
    What God will have discovered for revenge.
    Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,
    That we may know the traitors and the truth!
                               [She takes the staff in her mouth
                          and guides it with stumps, and writes]
    O, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?
  TITUS. 'Stuprum- Chiron- Demetrius.'
  MARCUS. What, what! the lustful sons of Tamora
    Performers of this heinous bloody deed?
  TITUS. Magni Dominator poli,
    Tam lentus audis scelera? tam lentus vides?
  MARCUS. O, calm thee, gentle lord! although I know
    There is enough written upon this earth
    To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts,
    And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.
    My lord, kneel down with me; Lavinia, kneel;
    And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector's hope;
    And swear with me- as, with the woeful fere
    And father of that chaste dishonoured dame,
    Lord Junius Brutus sware for Lucrece' rape-
    That we will prosecute, by good advice,
    Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,
    And see their blood or die with this reproach.
  TITUS. 'Tis sure enough, an you knew how;
    But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware:
    The dam will wake; and if she wind ye once,
    She's with the lion deeply still in league,
    And lulls him whilst she playeth on her back,
    And when he sleeps will she do what she list.
    You are a young huntsman, Marcus; let alone;
    And come, I will go get a leaf of brass,
    And with a gad of steel will write these words,
    And lay it by. The angry northern wind
    Will blow these sands like Sibyl's leaves abroad,
    And where's our lesson, then? Boy, what say you?
  BOY. I say, my lord, that if I were a man
    Their mother's bedchamber should not be safe
    For these base bondmen to the yoke of Rome.
  MARCUS. Ay, that's my boy! Thy father hath full oft
    For his ungrateful country done the like.
  BOY. And, uncle, so will I, an if I live.
  TITUS. Come, go with me into mine armoury.
    Lucius, I'll fit thee; and withal my boy
    Shall carry from me to the Empress' sons
    Presents that I intend to send them both.
    Come, come; thou'lt do my message, wilt thou not?
  BOY. Ay, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.
  TITUS. No, boy, not so; I'll teach thee another course.
    Lavinia, come. Marcus, look to my house.
    Lucius and I'll go brave it at the court;
    Ay, marry, will we, sir! and we'll be waited on.
                         Exeunt TITUS, LAVINIA, and YOUNG LUCIUS
  MARCUS. O heavens, can you hear a good man groan
    And not relent, or not compassion him?
    Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy,
    That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart
    Than foemen's marks upon his batt'red shield,
    But yet so just that he will not revenge.
    Revenge the heavens for old Andronicus!                 Exit

SCENE II. Rome. The palace

Enter AARON, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, at one door; and at the other door,
YOUNG LUCIUS and another with a bundle of weapons, and verses writ upon
them

  CHIRON. Demetrius, here's the son of Lucius;
    He hath some message to deliver us.
  AARON. Ay, some mad message from his mad grandfather.
  BOY. My lords, with all the humbleness I may,
    I greet your honours from Andronicus-
    [Aside]  And pray the Roman gods confound you both!
  DEMETRIUS. Gramercy, lovely Lucius. What's the news?
  BOY.  [Aside]  That you are both decipher'd, that's the news,
    For villains mark'd with rape.- May it please you,
    My grandsire, well advis'd, hath sent by me
    The goodliest weapons of his armoury
    To gratify your honourable youth,
    The hope of Rome; for so he bid me say;
    And so I do, and with his gifts present
    Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,
    You may be armed and appointed well.
    And so I leave you both-  [Aside]  like bloody villains.
                               Exeunt YOUNG LUCIUS and attendant
  DEMETRIUS. What's here? A scroll, and written round about.
    Let's see:
    [Reads]  'Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,
    Non eget Mauri iaculis, nec arcu.'
  CHIRON. O, 'tis a verse in Horace, I know it well;
    I read it in the grammar long ago.
  AARON. Ay, just- a verse in Horace. Right, you have it.
    [Aside]  Now, what a thing it is to be an ass!
    Here's no sound jest! The old man hath found their guilt,
    And sends them weapons wrapp'd about with lines
    That wound, beyond their feeling, to the quick.
    But were our witty Empress well afoot,
    She would applaud Andronicus' conceit.
    But let her rest in her unrest awhile-
    And now, young lords, was't not a happy star
    Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,
    Captives, to be advanced to this height?
    It did me good before the palace gate
    To brave the Tribune in his brother's hearing.
  DEMETRIUS. But me more good to see so great a lord
    Basely insinuate and send us gifts.
  AARON. Had he not reason, Lord Demetrius?
    Did you not use his daughter very friendly?
  DEMETRIUS. I would we had a thousand Roman dames
    At such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.
  CHIRON. A charitable wish and full of love.
  AARON. Here lacks but your mother for to say amen.
  CHIRON. And that would she for twenty thousand more.
  DEMETRIUS. Come, let us go and pray to all the gods
    For our beloved mother in her pains.
  AARON.  [Aside]  Pray to the devils; the gods have given us over.
                                                [Trumpets sound]
  DEMETRIUS. Why do the Emperor's trumpets flourish thus?
  CHIRON. Belike, for joy the Emperor hath a son.
  DEMETRIUS. Soft! who comes here?

            Enter NURSE, with a blackamoor CHILD

  NURSE. Good morrow, lords.
    O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?
  AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,
    Here Aaron is; and what with Aaron now?
  NURSE. O gentle Aaron, we are all undone!
    Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!
  AARON. Why, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!
    What dost thou wrap and fumble in thy arms?
  NURSE. O, that which I would hide from heaven's eye:
    Our Empress' shame and stately Rome's disgrace!
    She is delivered, lord; she is delivered.
  AARON. To whom?
  NURSE. I mean she is brought a-bed.
  AARON. Well, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?
  NURSE. A devil.
  AARON. Why, then she is the devil's dam;
    A joyful issue.
  NURSE. A joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue!
    Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad
    Amongst the fair-fac'd breeders of our clime;
    The Empress sends it thee, thy stamp, thy seal,
    And bids thee christen it with thy dagger's point.
  AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?
    Sweet blowse, you are a beauteous blossom sure.
  DEMETRIUS. Villain, what hast thou done?
  AARON. That which thou canst not undo.
  CHIRON. Thou hast undone our mother.
  AARON. Villain, I have done thy mother.
  DEMETRIUS. And therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone her.
    Woe to her chance, and damn'd her loathed choice!
    Accurs'd the offspring of so foul a fiend!
  CHIRON. It shall not live.
  AARON. It shall not die.
  NURSE. Aaron, it must; the mother wills it so.
  AARON. What, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I
    Do execution on my flesh and blood.
  DEMETRIUS. I'll broach the tadpole on my rapier's point.
    Nurse, give it me; my sword shall soon dispatch it.
  AARON. Sooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up.
                     [Takes the CHILD from the NURSE, and draws]
    Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother!
    Now, by the burning tapers of the sky
    That shone so brightly when this boy was got,
    He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point
    That touches this my first-born son and heir.
    I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,
    With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,
    Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,
    Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.
    What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!
    Ye white-lim'd walls! ye alehouse painted signs!
    Coal-black is better than another hue
    In that it scorns to bear another hue;
    For all the water in the ocean
    Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,
    Although she lave them hourly in the flood.
    Tell the Empress from me I am of age
    To keep mine own- excuse it how she can.
  DEMETRIUS. Wilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?
  AARON. My mistress is my mistress: this my self,
    The vigour and the picture of my youth.
    This before all the world do I prefer;
    This maugre all the world will I keep safe,
    Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.
  DEMETRIUS. By this our mother is for ever sham'd.
  CHIRON. Rome will despise her for this foul escape.
  NURSE. The Emperor in his rage will doom her death.
  CHIRON. I blush to think upon this ignomy.
  AARON. Why, there's the privilege your beauty bears:
    Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing
    The close enacts and counsels of thy heart!
    Here's a young lad fram'd of another leer.
    Look how the black slave smiles upon the father,
    As who should say 'Old lad, I am thine own.'
    He is your brother, lords, sensibly fed
    Of that self-blood that first gave life to you;
    And from your womb where you imprisoned were
    He is enfranchised and come to light.
    Nay, he is your brother by the surer side,
    Although my seal be stamped in his face.
  NURSE. Aaron, what shall I say unto the Empress?
  DEMETRIUS. Advise thee, Aaron, what is to be done,
    And we will all subscribe to thy advice.
    Save thou the child, so we may all be safe.
  AARON. Then sit we down and let us all consult.
    My son and I will have the wind of you:
    Keep there; now talk at pleasure of your safety.
                                                      [They sit]
  DEMETRIUS. How many women saw this child of his?
  AARON. Why, so, brave lords! When we join in league
    I am a lamb; but if you brave the Moor,
    The chafed boar, the mountain lioness,
    The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.
    But say, again, how many saw the child?
  NURSE. Cornelia the midwife and myself;
    And no one else but the delivered Empress.
  AARON. The Emperess, the midwife, and yourself.
    Two may keep counsel when the third's away:
    Go to the Empress, tell her this I said.      [He kills her]
    Weeke weeke!
    So cries a pig prepared to the spit.
  DEMETRIUS. What mean'st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?
  AARON. O Lord, sir, 'tis a deed of policy.
    Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours-
    A long-tongu'd babbling gossip? No, lords, no.
    And now be it known to you my full intent:
    Not far, one Muliteus, my countryman-
    His wife but yesternight was brought to bed;
    His child is like to her, fair as you are.
    Go pack with him, and give the mother gold,
    And tell them both the circumstance of all,
    And how by this their child shall be advanc'd,
    And be received for the Emperor's heir
    And substituted in the place of mine,
    To calm this tempest whirling in the court;
    And let the Emperor dandle him for his own.
    Hark ye, lords. You see I have given her physic,
                                         [Pointing to the NURSE]
    And you must needs bestow her funeral;
    The fields are near, and you are gallant grooms.
    This done, see that you take no longer days,
    But send the midwife presently to me.
    The midwife and the nurse well made away,
    Then let the ladies tattle what they please.
  CHIRON. Aaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air
    With secrets.
  DEMETRIUS. For this care of Tamora,
    Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.

         Exeunt DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, bearing off the dead NURSE

  AARON. Now to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,
    There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,
    And secretly to greet the Empress' friends.
    Come on, you thick-lipp'd slave, I'll bear you hence;
    For it is you that puts us to our shifts.
    I'll make you feed on berries and on roots,
    And feed on curds and whey, and suck the goat,
    And cabin in a cave, and bring you up
    To be a warrior and command a camp.
                                             Exit with the CHILD

SCENE III. Rome. A public place

Enter TITUS, bearing arrows with letters on the ends of them; with him
MARCUS, YOUNG LUCIUS, and other gentlemen, PUBLIUS, SEMPRONIUS, and
CAIUS, with bows

  TITUS. Come, Marcus, come; kinsmen, this is the way.
    Sir boy, let me see your archery;
    Look ye draw home enough, and 'tis there straight.
    Terras Astrea reliquit,
    Be you rememb'red, Marcus; she's gone, she's fled.
    Sirs, take you to your tools. You, cousins, shall
    Go sound the ocean and cast your nets;
    Happily you may catch her in the sea;
    Yet there's as little justice as at land.
    No; Publius and Sempronius, you must do it;
    'Tis you must dig with mattock and with spade,
    And pierce the inmost centre of the earth;
    Then, when you come to Pluto's region,
    I pray you deliver him this petition.
    Tell him it is for justice and for aid,
    And that it comes from old Andronicus,
    Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.
    Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable
    What time I threw the people's suffrages
    On him that thus doth tyrannize o'er me.
    Go get you gone; and pray be careful all,
    And leave you not a man-of-war unsearch'd.
    This wicked Emperor may have shipp'd her hence;
    And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for justice.
  MARCUS. O Publius, is not this a heavy case,
    To see thy noble uncle thus distract?
  PUBLIUS. Therefore, my lords, it highly us concerns
    By day and night t' attend him carefully,
    And feed his humour kindly as we may
    Till time beget some careful remedy.
  MARCUS. Kinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy.
    Join with the Goths, and with revengeful war
    Take wreak on Rome for this ingratitude,
    And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.
  TITUS. Publius, how now? How now, my masters?
    What, have you met with her?
  PUBLIUS. No, my good lord; but Pluto sends you word,
    If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall.
    Marry, for Justice, she is so employ'd,
    He thinks, with Jove in heaven, or somewhere else,
    So that perforce you must needs stay a time.
  TITUS. He doth me wrong to feed me with delays.
    I'll dive into the burning lake below
    And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.
    Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,
    No big-bon'd men fram'd of the Cyclops' size;
    But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,
    Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear;
    And, sith there's no justice in earth nor hell,
    We will solicit heaven, and move the gods
    To send down justice for to wreak our wrongs.
    Come, to this gear. You are a good archer, Marcus.
                                      [He gives them the arrows]
    'Ad Jovem' that's for you; here 'Ad Apollinem.'
    'Ad Martem' that's for myself.
    Here, boy, 'To Pallas'; here 'To Mercury.'
    'To Saturn,' Caius- not to Saturnine:
    You were as good to shoot against the wind.
    To it, boy. Marcus, loose when I bid.
    Of my word, I have written to effect;
    There's not a god left unsolicited.
  MARCUS. Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court;
    We will afflict the Emperor in his pride.
  TITUS. Now, masters, draw.  [They shoot]  O, well said, Lucius!
    Good boy, in Virgo's lap! Give it Pallas.
  MARCUS. My lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon;
    Your letter is with Jupiter by this.
  TITUS. Ha! ha!
    Publius, Publius, hast thou done?
    See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus' horns.
  MARCUS. This was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,
    The Bull, being gall'd, gave Aries such a knock
    That down fell both the Ram's horns in the court;
    And who should find them but the Empress' villain?
    She laugh'd, and told the Moor he should not choose
    But give them to his master for a present.
  TITUS. Why, there it goes! God give his lordship joy!

    Enter the CLOWN, with a basket and two pigeons in it

    News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post is come.
    Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?
    Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?
  CLOWN. Ho, the gibbet-maker? He says that he hath taken them down
    again, for the man must not be hang'd till the next week.
  TITUS. But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?
  CLOWN. Alas, sir, I know not Jupiter; I never drank with him in all
    my life.
  TITUS. Why, villain, art not thou the carrier?
  CLOWN. Ay, of my pigeons, sir; nothing else.
  TITUS. Why, didst thou not come from heaven?
  CLOWN. From heaven! Alas, sir, I never came there. God forbid I
    should be so bold to press to heaven in my young days. Why, I am
    going with my pigeons to the Tribunal Plebs, to take up a matter
    of brawl betwixt my uncle and one of the Emperal's men.
  MARCUS. Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for your
    oration; and let him deliver the pigeons to the Emperor from you.
  TITUS. Tell me, can you deliver an oration to the Emperor with a
    grace?
  CLOWN. Nay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life.
  TITUS. Sirrah, come hither. Make no more ado,
    But give your pigeons to the Emperor;
    By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.
    Hold, hold! Meanwhile here's money for thy charges.
    Give me pen and ink. Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver up a
    supplication?
  CLOWN. Ay, sir.
  TITUS. Then here is a supplication for you. And when you come to
    him, at the first approach you must kneel; then kiss his foot;
    then deliver up your pigeons; and then look for your reward. I'll
    be at hand, sir; see you do it bravely.
  CLOWN. I warrant you, sir; let me alone.
  TITUS. Sirrah, hast thou a knife? Come let me see it.
    Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration;
    For thou hast made it like a humble suppliant.
    And when thou hast given it to the Emperor,
    Knock at my door, and tell me what he says.
  CLOWN. God be with you, sir; I will.
  TITUS. Come, Marcus, let us go. Publius, follow me.     Exeunt

SCENE IV. Rome. Before the palace

Enter the EMPEROR, and the EMPRESS and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and
CHIRON; LORDS and others. The EMPEROR brings the arrows in his hand
that TITUS shot at him

  SATURNINUS. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen
    An emperor in Rome thus overborne,
    Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent
    Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt?
    My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,
    However these disturbers of our peace
    Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd
    But even with law against the wilful sons
    Of old Andronicus. And what an if
    His sorrows have so overwhelm'd his wits,
    Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,
    His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?
    And now he writes to heaven for his redress.
    See, here's 'To Jove' and this 'To Mercury';
    This 'To Apollo'; this 'To the God of War'-
    Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!
    What's this but libelling against the Senate,
    And blazoning our unjustice every where?
    A goodly humour, is it not, my lords?
    As who would say in Rome no justice were.
    But if I live, his feigned ecstasies
    Shall be no shelter to these outrages;
    But he and his shall know that justice lives
    In Saturninus' health; whom, if she sleep,
    He'll so awake as he in fury shall
    Cut off the proud'st conspirator that lives.
  TAMORA. My gracious lord, my lovely Saturnine,
    Lord of my life, commander of my thoughts,
    Calm thee, and bear the faults of Titus' age,
    Th' effects of sorrow for his valiant sons
    Whose loss hath pierc'd him deep and scarr'd his heart;
    And rather comfort his distressed plight
    Than prosecute the meanest or the best
    For these contempts.  [Aside]  Why, thus it shall become
    High-witted Tamora to gloze with all.
    But, Titus, I have touch'd thee to the quick,
    Thy life-blood out; if Aaron now be wise,
    Then is all safe, the anchor in the port.

                       Enter CLOWN

    How now, good fellow! Wouldst thou speak with us?
  CLOWN. Yes, forsooth, an your mistriship be Emperial.
  TAMORA. Empress I am, but yonder sits the Emperor.
  CLOWN. 'Tis he.- God and Saint Stephen give you godden. I have
    brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.
                                   [SATURNINUS reads the letter]
  SATURNINUS. Go take him away, and hang him presently.
  CLOWN. How much money must I have?
  TAMORA. Come, sirrah, you must be hang'd.
  CLOWN. Hang'd! by'r lady, then I have brought up a neck to a fair
    end.                                          [Exit guarded]
  SATURNINUS. Despiteful and intolerable wrongs!
    Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?
    I know from whence this same device proceeds.
    May this be borne- as if his traitorous sons
    That died by law for murder of our brother
    Have by my means been butchered wrongfully?
    Go drag the villain hither by the hair;
    Nor age nor honour shall shape privilege.
    For this proud mock I'll be thy slaughterman,
    Sly frantic wretch, that holp'st to make me great,
    In hope thyself should govern Rome and me.

                   Enter NUNTIUS AEMILIUS

    What news with thee, Aemilius?
  AEMILIUS. Arm, my lords! Rome never had more cause.
    The Goths have gathered head; and with a power
    Of high resolved men, bent to the spoil,
    They hither march amain, under conduct
    Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus;
    Who threats in course of this revenge to do
    As much as ever Coriolanus did.
  SATURNINUS. Is warlike Lucius general of the Goths?
    These tidings nip me, and I hang the head
    As flowers with frost, or grass beat down with storms.
    Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach.
    'Tis he the common people love so much;
    Myself hath often heard them say-
    When I have walked like a private man-
    That Lucius' banishment was wrongfully,
    And they have wish'd that Lucius were their emperor.
  TAMORA. Why should you fear? Is not your city strong?
  SATURNINUS. Ay, but the citizens favour Lucius,
    And will revolt from me to succour him.
  TAMORA. King, be thy thoughts imperious like thy name!
    Is the sun dimm'd, that gnats do fly in it?
    The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
    And is not careful what they mean thereby,
    Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
    He can at pleasure stint their melody;
    Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome.
    Then cheer thy spirit; for know thou, Emperor,
    I will enchant the old Andronicus
    With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,
    Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,
    When as the one is wounded with the bait,
    The other rotted with delicious feed.
  SATURNINUS. But he will not entreat his son for us.
  TAMORA. If Tamora entreat him, then he will;
    For I can smooth and fill his aged ears
    With golden promises, that, were his heart
    Almost impregnable, his old ears deaf,
    Yet should both ear and heart obey my tongue.
    [To AEMILIUS]  Go thou before to be our ambassador;
    Say that the Emperor requests a parley
    Of warlike Lucius, and appoint the meeting
    Even at his father's house, the old Andronicus.
  SATURNINUS. Aemilius, do this message honourably;
    And if he stand on hostage for his safety,
    Bid him demand what pledge will please him best.
  AEMILIUS. Your bidding shall I do effectually.            Exit
  TAMORA. Now will I to that old Andronicus,
    And temper him with all the art I have,
    To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.
    And now, sweet Emperor, be blithe again,
    And bury all thy fear in my devices.
  SATURNINUS. Then go successantly, and plead to him.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Plains near Rome

Enter LUCIUS with an army of GOTHS with drums and colours

  LUCIUS. Approved warriors and my faithful friends,
    I have received letters from great Rome
    Which signifies what hate they bear their Emperor
    And how desirous of our sight they are.
    Therefore, great lords, be, as your titles witness,
    Imperious and impatient of your wrongs;
    And wherein Rome hath done you any scath,
    Let him make treble satisfaction.
  FIRST GOTH. Brave slip, sprung from the great Andronicus,
    Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort,
    Whose high exploits and honourable deeds
    Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,
    Be bold in us: we'll follow where thou lead'st,
    Like stinging bees in hottest summer's day,
    Led by their master to the flow'red fields,
    And be aveng'd on cursed Tamora.
  ALL THE GOTHS. And as he saith, so say we all with him.
  LUCIUS. I humbly thank him, and I thank you all.
    But who comes here, led by a lusty Goth?

     Enter a GOTH, leading AARON with his CHILD in his arms

  SECOND GOTH. Renowned Lucius, from our troops I stray'd
    To gaze upon a ruinous monastery;
    And as I earnestly did fix mine eye
    Upon the wasted building, suddenly
    I heard a child cry underneath a wall.
    I made unto the noise, when soon I heard
    The crying babe controll'd with this discourse:
    'Peace, tawny slave, half me and half thy dam!
    Did not thy hue bewray whose brat thou art,
    Had nature lent thee but thy mother's look,
    Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor;
    But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,
    They never do beget a coal-black calf.
    Peace, villain, peace!'- even thus he rates the babe-
    'For I must bear thee to a trusty Goth,
    Who, when he knows thou art the Empress' babe,
    Will hold thee dearly for thy mother's sake.'
    With this, my weapon drawn, I rush'd upon him,
    Surpris'd him suddenly, and brought him hither
    To use as you think needful of the man.
  LUCIUS. O worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil
    That robb'd Andronicus of his good hand;
    This is the pearl that pleas'd your Empress' eye;
    And here's the base fruit of her burning lust.
    Say, wall-ey'd slave, whither wouldst thou convey
    This growing image of thy fiend-like face?
    Why dost not speak? What, deaf? Not a word?
    A halter, soldiers! Hang him on this tree,
    And by his side his fruit of bastardy.
  AARON. Touch not the boy, he is of royal blood.
  LUCIUS. Too like the sire for ever being good.
    First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl-
    A sight to vex the father's soul withal.
    Get me a ladder.
                [A ladder brought, which AARON is made to climb]
  AARON. Lucius, save the child,
    And bear it from me to the Emperess.
    If thou do this, I'll show thee wondrous things
    That highly may advantage thee to hear;
    If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,
    I'll speak no more but 'Vengeance rot you all!'
  LUCIUS. Say on; an if it please me which thou speak'st,
    Thy child shall live, and I will see it nourish'd.
  AARON. An if it please thee! Why, assure thee, Lucius,
    'Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak;
    For I must talk of murders, rapes, and massacres,
    Acts of black night, abominable deeds,
    Complots of mischief, treason, villainies,
    Ruthful to hear, yet piteously perform'd;
    And this shall all be buried in my death,
    Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.
  LUCIUS. Tell on thy mind; I say thy child shall live.
  AARON. Swear that he shall, and then I will begin.
  LUCIUS. Who should I swear by? Thou believest no god;
    That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?
  AARON. What if I do not? as indeed I do not;
    Yet, for I know thou art religious
    And hast a thing within thee called conscience,
    With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies
    Which I have seen thee careful to observe,
    Therefore I urge thy oath. For that I know
    An idiot holds his bauble for a god,
    And keeps the oath which by that god he swears,
    To that I'll urge him. Therefore thou shalt vow
    By that same god- what god soe'er it be
    That thou adorest and hast in reverence-
    To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up;
    Or else I will discover nought to thee.
  LUCIUS. Even by my god I swear to thee I will.
  AARON. First know thou, I begot him on the Empress.
  LUCIUS. O most insatiate and luxurious woman!
  AARON. Tut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity
    To that which thou shalt hear of me anon.
    'Twas her two sons that murdered Bassianus;
    They cut thy sister's tongue, and ravish'd her,
    And cut her hands, and trimm'd her as thou sawest.
  LUCIUS. O detestable villain! Call'st thou that trimming?
  AARON. Why, she was wash'd, and cut, and trimm'd, and 'twas
    Trim sport for them which had the doing of it.
  LUCIUS. O barbarous beastly villains like thyself!
  AARON. Indeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.
    That codding spirit had they from their mother,
    As sure a card as ever won the set;
    That bloody mind, I think, they learn'd of me,
    As true a dog as ever fought at head.
    Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.
    I train'd thy brethren to that guileful hole
    Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay;
    I wrote the letter that thy father found,
    And hid the gold within that letter mention'd,
    Confederate with the Queen and her two sons;
    And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue,
    Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?
    I play'd the cheater for thy father's hand,
    And, when I had it, drew myself apart
    And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter.
    I pried me through the crevice of a wall,
    When, for his hand, he had his two sons' heads;
    Beheld his tears, and laugh'd so heartily
    That both mine eyes were rainy like to his;
    And when I told the Empress of this sport,
    She swooned almost at my pleasing tale,
    And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.
  GOTH. What, canst thou say all this and never blush?
  AARON. Ay, like a black dog, as the saying is.
  LUCIUS. Art thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?
  AARON. Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
    Even now I curse the day- and yet, I think,
    Few come within the compass of my curse-
    Wherein I did not some notorious ill;
    As kill a man, or else devise his death;
    Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it;
    Accuse some innocent, and forswear myself;
    Set deadly enmity between two friends;
    Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
    Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
    And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
    Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
    And set them upright at their dear friends' door
    Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,
    And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
    Have with my knife carved in Roman letters
    'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
    Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
    As willingly as one would kill a fly;
    And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
    But that I cannot do ten thousand more.
  LUCIUS. Bring down the devil, for he must not die
    So sweet a death as hanging presently.
  AARON. If there be devils, would I were a devil,
    To live and burn in everlasting fire,
    So I might have your company in hell
    But to torment you with my bitter tongue!
  LUCIUS. Sirs, stop his mouth, and let him speak no more.

                       Enter AEMILIUS

  GOTH. My lord, there is a messenger from Rome
    Desires to be admitted to your presence.
  LUCIUS. Let him come near.
    Welcome, Aemilius. What's the news from Rome?
  AEMILIUS. Lord Lucius, and you Princes of the Goths,
    The Roman Emperor greets you all by me;
    And, for he understands you are in arms,
    He craves a parley at your father's house,
    Willing you to demand your hostages,
    And they shall be immediately deliver'd.
  FIRST GOTH. What says our general?
  LUCIUS. Aemilius, let the Emperor give his pledges
    Unto my father and my uncle Marcus.
    And we will come. March away.                         Exeunt

SCENE II. Rome. Before TITUS' house

Enter TAMORA, and her two sons, DEMETRIUS and CHIRON, disguised

  TAMORA. Thus, in this strange and sad habiliment,
    I will encounter with Andronicus,
    And say I am Revenge, sent from below
    To join with him and right his heinous wrongs.
    Knock at his study, where they say he keeps
    To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge;
    Tell him Revenge is come to join with him,
    And work confusion on his enemies.

         They knock and TITUS opens his study door, above

  TITUS. Who doth molest my contemplation?
    Is it your trick to make me ope the door,
    That so my sad decrees may fly away
    And all my study be to no effect?
    You are deceiv'd; for what I mean to do
    See here in bloody lines I have set down;
    And what is written shall be executed.
  TAMORA. Titus, I am come to talk with thee.
  TITUS. No, not a word. How can I grace my talk,
    Wanting a hand to give it that accord?
    Thou hast the odds of me; therefore no more.
  TAMORA. If thou didst know me, thou wouldst talk with me.
  TITUS. I am not mad, I know thee well enough:
    Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines;
    Witness these trenches made by grief and care;
    Witness the tiring day and heavy night;
    Witness all sorrow that I know thee well
    For our proud Empress, mighty Tamora.
    Is not thy coming for my other hand?
  TAMORA. Know thou, sad man, I am not Tamora:
    She is thy enemy and I thy friend.
    I am Revenge, sent from th' infernal kingdom
    To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind
    By working wreakful vengeance on thy foes.
    Come down and welcome me to this world's light;
    Confer with me of murder and of death;
    There's not a hollow cave or lurking-place,
    No vast obscurity or misty vale,
    Where bloody murder or detested rape
    Can couch for fear but I will find them out;
    And in their ears tell them my dreadful name-
    Revenge, which makes the foul offender quake.
  TITUS. Art thou Revenge? and art thou sent to me
    To be a torment to mine enemies?
  TAMORA. I am; therefore come down and welcome me.
  TITUS. Do me some service ere I come to thee.
    Lo, by thy side where Rape and Murder stands;
    Now give some surance that thou art Revenge-
    Stab them, or tear them on thy chariot wheels;
    And then I'll come and be thy waggoner
    And whirl along with thee about the globes.
    Provide thee two proper palfreys, black as jet,
    To hale thy vengeful waggon swift away,
    And find out murderers in their guilty caves;
    And when thy car is loaden with their heads,
    I will dismount, and by thy waggon wheel
    Trot, like a servile footman, all day long,
    Even from Hyperion's rising in the east
    Until his very downfall in the sea.
    And day by day I'll do this heavy task,
    So thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.
  TAMORA. These are my ministers, and come with me.
  TITUS. Are they thy ministers? What are they call'd?
  TAMORA. Rape and Murder; therefore called so
    'Cause they take vengeance of such kind of men.
  TITUS. Good Lord, how like the Empress' sons they are!
    And you the Empress! But we worldly men
    Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.
    O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee;
    And, if one arm's embracement will content thee,
    I will embrace thee in it by and by.
  TAMORA. This closing with him fits his lunacy.
    Whate'er I forge to feed his brain-sick humours,
    Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,
    For now he firmly takes me for Revenge;
    And, being credulous in this mad thought,
    I'll make him send for Lucius his son,
    And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,
    I'll find some cunning practice out of hand
    To scatter and disperse the giddy Goths,
    Or, at the least, make them his enemies.
    See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.

                 Enter TITUS, below

  TITUS. Long have I been forlorn, and all for thee.
    Welcome, dread Fury, to my woeful house.
    Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.
    How like the Empress and her sons you are!
    Well are you fitted, had you but a Moor.
    Could not all hell afford you such a devil?
    For well I wot the Empress never wags
    But in her company there is a Moor;
    And, would you represent our queen aright,
    It were convenient you had such a devil.
    But welcome as you are. What shall we do?
  TAMORA. What wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?
  DEMETRIUS. Show me a murderer, I'll deal with him.
  CHIRON. Show me a villain that hath done a rape,
    And I am sent to be reveng'd on him.
  TAMORA. Show me a thousand that hath done thee wrong,
    And I will be revenged on them all.
  TITUS. Look round about the wicked streets of Rome,
    And when thou find'st a man that's like thyself,
    Good Murder, stab him; he's a murderer.
    Go thou with him, and when it is thy hap
    To find another that is like to thee,
    Good Rapine, stab him; he is a ravisher.
    Go thou with them; and in the Emperor's court
    There is a queen, attended by a Moor;
    Well shalt thou know her by thine own proportion,
    For up and down she doth resemble thee.
    I pray thee, do on them some violent death;
    They have been violent to me and mine.
  TAMORA. Well hast thou lesson'd us; this shall we do.
    But would it please thee, good Andronicus,
    To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,
    Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,
    And bid him come and banquet at thy house;
    When he is here, even at thy solemn feast,
    I will bring in the Empress and her sons,
    The Emperor himself, and all thy foes;
    And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,
    And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.
    What says Andronicus to this device?
  TITUS. Marcus, my brother! 'Tis sad Titus calls.

                  Enter MARCUS

    Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius;
    Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths.
    Bid him repair to me, and bring with him
    Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths;
    Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are.
    Tell him the Emperor and the Empress too
    Feast at my house, and he shall feast with them.
    This do thou for my love; and so let him,
    As he regards his aged father's life.
  MARCUS. This will I do, and soon return again.            Exit
  TAMORA. Now will I hence about thy business,
    And take my ministers along with me.
  TITUS. Nay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me,
    Or else I'll call my brother back again,
    And cleave to no revenge but Lucius.
  TAMORA.  [Aside to her sons]  What say you, boys? Will you abide
      with him,
    Whiles I go tell my lord the Emperor
    How I have govern'd our determin'd jest?
    Yield to his humour, smooth and speak him fair,
    And tarry with him till I turn again.
  TITUS.  [Aside]  I knew them all, though they suppos'd me mad,
    And will o'er reach them in their own devices,
    A pair of cursed hell-hounds and their dam.
  DEMETRIUS. Madam, depart at pleasure; leave us here.
  TAMORA. Farewell, Andronicus, Revenge now goes
    To lay a complot to betray thy foes.
  TITUS. I know thou dost; and, sweet Revenge, farewell.
                                                     Exit TAMORA
  CHIRON. Tell us, old man, how shall we be employ'd?
  TITUS. Tut, I have work enough for you to do.
    Publius, come hither, Caius, and Valentine.

          Enter PUBLIUS, CAIUS, and VALENTINE

  PUBLIUS. What is your will?
  TITUS. Know you these two?
  PUBLIUS. The Empress' sons, I take them: Chiron, Demetrius.
  TITUS. Fie, Publius, fie! thou art too much deceiv'd.
    The one is Murder, and Rape is the other's name;
    And therefore bind them, gentle Publius-
    Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.
    Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,
    And now I find it; therefore bind them sure,
    And stop their mouths if they begin to cry.             Exit
                         [They lay hold on CHIRON and DEMETRIUS]
  CHIRON. Villains, forbear! we are the Empress' sons.
  PUBLIUS. And therefore do we what we are commanded.
    Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.
    Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.

               Re-enter TITUS ANDRONICUS
        with a knife, and LAVINIA, with a basin

  TITUS. Come, come, Lavinia; look, thy foes are bound.
    Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me;
    But let them hear what fearful words I utter.
    O villains, Chiron and Demetrius!
    Here stands the spring whom you have stain'd with mud;
    This goodly summer with your winter mix'd.
    You kill'd her husband; and for that vile fault
    Two of her brothers were condemn'd to death,
    My hand cut off and made a merry jest;
    Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear
    Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,
    Inhuman traitors, you constrain'd and forc'd.
    What would you say, if I should let you speak?
    Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.
    Hark, wretches! how I mean to martyr you.
    This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,
    Whiles that Lavinia 'tween her stumps doth hold
    The basin that receives your guilty blood.
    You know your mother means to feast with me,
    And calls herself Revenge, and thinks me mad.
    Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust,
    And with your blood and it I'll make a paste;
    And of the paste a coffin I will rear,
    And make two pasties of your shameful heads;
    And bid that strumpet, your unhallowed dam,
    Like to the earth, swallow her own increase.
    This is the feast that I have bid her to,
    And this the banquet she shall surfeit on;
    For worse than Philomel you us'd my daughter,
    And worse than Progne I will be reveng'd.
    And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,
    Receive the blood; and when that they are dead,
    Let me go grind their bones to powder small,
    And with this hateful liquor temper it;
    And in that paste let their vile heads be bak'd.
    Come, come, be every one officious
    To make this banquet, which I wish may prove
    More stern and bloody than the Centaurs' feast.
                                         [He cuts their throats]
    So.
    Now bring them in, for I will play the cook,
    And see them ready against their mother comes.
                                 Exeunt, bearing the dead bodies

SCENE III. The court of TITUS' house

Enter Lucius, MARCUS, and the GOTHS, with AARON prisoner, and his CHILD
in the arms of an attendant

  LUCIUS. Uncle Marcus, since 'tis my father's mind
    That I repair to Rome, I am content.
    FIRST GOTH. And ours with thine, befall what fortune will.
  LUCIUS. Good uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,
    This ravenous tiger, this accursed devil;
    Let him receive no sust'nance, fetter him,
    Till he be brought unto the Empress' face
    For testimony of her foul proceedings.
    And see the ambush of our friends be strong;
    I fear the Emperor means no good to us.
  AARON. Some devil whisper curses in my ear,
    And prompt me that my tongue may utter forth
    The venomous malice of my swelling heart!
  LUCIUS. Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!
    Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in.
                        Exeunt GOTHS with AARON. Flourish within
    The trumpets show the Emperor is at hand.

            Sound trumpets. Enter SATURNINUS and
    TAMORA, with AEMILIUS, TRIBUNES, SENATORS, and others

  SATURNINUS. What, hath the firmament more suns than one?
  LUCIUS. What boots it thee to can thyself a sun?
  MARCUS. Rome's Emperor, and nephew, break the parle;
    These quarrels must be quietly debated.
    The feast is ready which the careful Titus
    Hath ordain'd to an honourable end,
    For peace, for love, for league, and good to Rome.
    Please you, therefore, draw nigh and take your places.
  SATURNINUS. Marcus, we will.
                      [A table brought in. The company sit down]

               Trumpets sounding, enter TITUS
         like a cook, placing the dishes, and LAVINIA
   with a veil over her face; also YOUNG LUCIUS, and others

  TITUS. Welcome, my lord; welcome, dread Queen;
    Welcome, ye warlike Goths; welcome, Lucius;
    And welcome all. Although the cheer be poor,
    'Twill fill your stomachs; please you eat of it.
  SATURNINUS. Why art thou thus attir'd, Andronicus?
  TITUS. Because I would be sure to have all well
    To entertain your Highness and your Empress.
  TAMORA. We are beholding to you, good Andronicus.
  TITUS. An if your Highness knew my heart, you were.
    My lord the Emperor, resolve me this:
    Was it well done of rash Virginius
    To slay his daughter with his own right hand,
    Because she was enforc'd, stain'd, and deflower'd?
  SATURNINUS. It was, Andronicus.
  TITUS. Your reason, mighty lord.
  SATURNINUS. Because the girl should not survive her shame,
    And by her presence still renew his sorrows.
  TITUS. A reason mighty, strong, and effectual;
    A pattern, precedent, and lively warrant
    For me, most wretched, to perform the like.
    Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee;   [He kills her]
    And with thy shame thy father's sorrow die!
  SATURNINUS. What hast thou done, unnatural and unkind?
  TITUS. Kill'd her for whom my tears have made me blind.
    I am as woeful as Virginius was,
    And have a thousand times more cause than he
    To do this outrage; and it now is done.
  SATURNINUS. What, was she ravish'd? Tell who did the deed.
  TITUS. Will't please you eat?  Will't please your Highness feed?
  TAMORA. Why hast thou slain thine only daughter thus?
  TITUS. Not I; 'twas Chiron and Demetrius.
    They ravish'd her, and cut away her tongue;
    And they, 'twas they, that did her all this wrong.
  SATURNINUS. Go, fetch them hither to us presently.
  TITUS. Why, there they are, both baked in this pie,
    Whereof their mother daintily hath fed,
    Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.
    'Tis true, 'tis true: witness my knife's sharp point.
                                          [He stabs the EMPRESS]
  SATURNINUS. Die, frantic wretch, for this accursed deed!
                                                [He stabs TITUS]
  LUCIUS. Can the son's eye behold his father bleed?
    There's meed for meed, death for a deadly deed.
                   [He stabs SATURNINUS. A great tumult. LUCIUS,
               MARCUS, and their friends go up into the balcony]
  MARCUS. You sad-fac'd men, people and sons of Rome,
    By uproars sever'd, as a flight of fowl
    Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts?
    O, let me teach you how to knit again
    This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf,
    These broken limbs again into one body;
    Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself,
    And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,
    Like a forlorn and desperate castaway,
    Do shameful execution on herself.
    But if my frosty signs and chaps of age,
    Grave witnesses of true experience,
    Cannot induce you to attend my words,
    [To Lucius]  Speak, Rome's dear friend, as erst our ancestor,
    When with his solemn tongue he did discourse
    To love-sick Dido's sad attending ear
    The story of that baleful burning night,
    When subtle Greeks surpris'd King Priam's Troy.
    Tell us what Sinon hath bewitch'd our ears,
    Or who hath brought the fatal engine in
    That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.
    My heart is not compact of flint nor steel;
    Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,
    But floods of tears will drown my oratory
    And break my utt'rance, even in the time
    When it should move ye to attend me most,
    And force you to commiseration.
    Here's Rome's young Captain, let him tell the tale;
    While I stand by and weep to hear him speak.
  LUCIUS. Then, gracious auditory, be it known to you
    That Chiron and the damn'd Demetrius
    Were they that murd'red our Emperor's brother;
    And they it were that ravished our sister.
    For their fell faults our brothers were beheaded,
    Our father's tears despis'd, and basely cozen'd
    Of that true hand that fought Rome's quarrel out
    And sent her enemies unto the grave.
    Lastly, myself unkindly banished,
    The gates shut on me, and turn'd weeping out,
    To beg relief among Rome's enemies;
    Who drown'd their enmity in my true tears,
    And op'd their arms to embrace me as a friend.
    I am the turned forth, be it known to you,
    That have preserv'd her welfare in my blood
    And from her bosom took the enemy's point,
    Sheathing the steel in my advent'rous body.
    Alas! you know I am no vaunter, I;
    My scars can witness, dumb although they are,
    That my report is just and full of truth.
    But, soft! methinks I do digress too much,
    Citing my worthless praise. O, pardon me!
    For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.
  MARCUS. Now is my turn to speak. Behold the child.
                  [Pointing to the CHILD in an attendant's arms]
    Of this was Tamora delivered,
    The issue of an irreligious Moor,
    Chief architect and plotter of these woes.
    The villain is alive in Titus' house,
    Damn'd as he is, to witness this is true.
    Now judge what cause had Titus to revenge
    These wrongs unspeakable, past patience,
    Or more than any living man could bear.
    Now have you heard the truth: what say you, Romans?
    Have we done aught amiss, show us wherein,
    And, from the place where you behold us pleading,
    The poor remainder of Andronici
    Will, hand in hand, all headlong hurl ourselves,
    And on the ragged stones beat forth our souls,
    And make a mutual closure of our house.
    Speak, Romans, speak; and if you say we shall,
    Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.
  AEMILIUS. Come, come, thou reverend man of Rome,
    And bring our Emperor gently in thy hand,
    Lucius our Emperor; for well I know
    The common voice do cry it shall be so.
  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's royal Emperor!
  MARCUS. Go, go into old Titus' sorrowful house,
    And hither hale that misbelieving Moor
    To be adjudg'd some direful slaught'ring death,
    As punishment for his most wicked life.          Exeunt some
              attendants. LUCIUS, MARCUS, and the others descend
  ALL. Lucius, all hail, Rome's gracious governor!
  LUCIUS. Thanks, gentle Romans! May I govern so
    To heal Rome's harms and wipe away her woe!
    But, gentle people, give me aim awhile,
    For nature puts me to a heavy task.
    Stand all aloof; but, uncle, draw you near
    To shed obsequious tears upon this trunk.
    O, take this warm kiss on thy pale cold lips.  [Kisses TITUS]
    These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stain'd face,
    The last true duties of thy noble son!
  MARCUS. Tear for tear and loving kiss for kiss
    Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips.
    O, were the sum of these that I should pay
    Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!
  LUCIUS. Come hither, boy; come, come, come, and learn of us
    To melt in showers. Thy grandsire lov'd thee well;
    Many a time he danc'd thee on his knee,
    Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow;
    Many a story hath he told to thee,
    And bid thee bear his pretty tales in mind
    And talk of them when he was dead and gone.
  MARCUS. How many thousand times hath these poor lips,
    When they were living, warm'd themselves on thine!
    O, now, sweet boy, give them their latest kiss!
    Bid him farewell; commit him to the grave;
    Do them that kindness, and take leave of them.
  BOY. O grandsire, grandsire! ev'n with all my heart
    Would I were dead, so you did live again!
    O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping;
    My tears will choke me, if I ope my mouth.

            Re-enter attendants with AARON

  A ROMAN. You sad Andronici, have done with woes;
    Give sentence on the execrable wretch
    That hath been breeder of these dire events.
  LUCIUS. Set him breast-deep in earth, and famish him;
    There let him stand and rave and cry for food.
    If any one relieves or pities him,
    For the offence he dies. This is our doom.
    Some stay to see him fast'ned in the earth.
  AARON. Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?
    I am no baby, I, that with base prayers
    I should repent the evils I have done;
    Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did
    Would I perform, if I might have my will.
    If one good deed in all my life I did,
    I do repent it from my very soul.
  LUCIUS. Some loving friends convey the Emperor hence,
    And give him burial in his father's grave.
    My father and Lavinia shall forthwith
    Be closed in our household's monument.
    As for that ravenous tiger, Tamora,
    No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weed,
    No mournful bell shall ring her burial;
    But throw her forth to beasts and birds to prey.
    Her life was beastly and devoid of pity,
    And being dead, let birds on her take pity.           Exeunt

THE END

1602



THE HISTORY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA




by William Shakespeare





Contents

ACT I
Prologue.
Scene I. Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace.
Scene II. Troy. A street.
Scene III. The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON’S tent.

ACT II
Scene I. The Grecian camp.
Scene II. Troy. PRIAM’S palace.
Scene III. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES.

ACT III
Scene I. Troy. PRIAM’S palace.
Scene II. Troy. PANDARUS’ orchard.
Scene III. The Greek camp.

ACT IV
Scene I. Troy. A street.
Scene II. Troy. The court of PANDARUS’ house.
Scene III. Troy. A street before PANDARUS’ house.
Scene IV. Troy. PANDARUS’ house.
Scene V. The Grecian camp. Lists set out.

ACT V
Scene I. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES.
Scene II. The Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS’ tent.
Scene III. Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace.
Scene IV. The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp.
Scene V. Another part of the plain.
Scene VI. Another part of the plain.
Scene VII. Another part of the plain.
Scene VIII. Another part of the plain.
Scene IX. Another part of the plain.
Scene X. Another part of the plain.




 Dramatis Personæ

PRIAM, King of Troy

His sons:
HECTOR
TROILUS
PARIS
DEIPHOBUS
HELENUS
MARGARELON, a bastard son of Priam

Trojan commanders:
AENEAS
ANTENOR

CALCHAS, a Trojan priest, taking part with the Greeks
PANDARUS, uncle to Cressida
AGAMEMNON, the Greek general
MENELAUS, his brother

Greek commanders:
ACHILLES
AJAX
ULYSSES
NESTOR
DIOMEDES
PATROCLUS

THERSITES, a deformed and scurrilous Greek
ALEXANDER, servant to Cressida
SERVANT to Troilus
SERVANT to Paris
SERVANT to Diomedes
HELEN, wife to Menelaus
ANDROMACHE, wife to Hector
CASSANDRA, daughter to Priam, a prophetess
CRESSIDA, daughter to Calchas

Trojan and Greek Soldiers, and Attendants

SCENE: Troy and the Greek camp before it

PROLOGUE

In Troy, there lies the scene. From isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf’d,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine that wore
Their crownets regal from the Athenian bay
Put forth toward Phrygia; and their vow is made
To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures
The ravish’d Helen, Menelaus’ queen,
With wanton Paris sleeps—and that’s the quarrel.
To Tenedos they come,
And the deep-drawing barks do there disgorge
Their war-like fraughtage. Now on Dardan plains
The fresh and yet unbruised Greeks do pitch
Their brave pavilions: Priam’s six-gated city,
Dardan, and Tymbria, Ilias, Chetas, Troien,
And Antenorides, with massy staples
And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,
Stir up the sons of Troy.
Now expectation, tickling skittish spirits
On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,
Sets all on hazard. And hither am I come
A prologue arm’d, but not in confidence
Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited
In like conditions as our argument,
To tell you, fair beholders, that our play
Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings of those broils,
Beginning in the middle; starting thence away,
To what may be digested in a play.
Like or find fault; do as your pleasures are;
Now good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.



ACT I

SCENE I. Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace.

 Enter Troilus armed, and Pandarus.

TROILUS.
Call here my varlet; I’ll unarm again.
Why should I war without the walls of Troy
That find such cruel battle here within?
Each Trojan that is master of his heart,
Let him to field; Troilus, alas! hath none.

PANDARUS.
Will this gear ne’er be mended?

TROILUS.
The Greeks are strong, and skilful to their strength,
Fierce to their skill, and to their fierceness valiant;
But I am weaker than a woman’s tear,
Tamer than sleep, fonder than ignorance,
Less valiant than the virgin in the night,
And skilless as unpractis’d infancy.

PANDARUS.
Well, I have told you enough of this; for my part, I’ll not meddle nor
make no farther. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry
the grinding.

TROILUS.
Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS.
Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting.

TROILUS.
Have I not tarried?

PANDARUS.
Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening.

TROILUS.
Still have I tarried.

PANDARUS.
Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet in the word ‘hereafter’ the
kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the
baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance burn your
lips.

TROILUS.
Patience herself, what goddess e’er she be,
Doth lesser blench at suff’rance than I do.
At Priam’s royal table do I sit;
And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts,
So, traitor! ‘when she comes’! when she is thence?

PANDARUS.
Well, she look’d yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any
woman else.

TROILUS.
I was about to tell thee: when my heart,
As wedged with a sigh, would rive in twain,
Lest Hector or my father should perceive me,
I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile.
But sorrow that is couch’d in seeming gladness
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

PANDARUS.
An her hair were not somewhat darker than Helen’s, well, go to, there
were no more comparison between the women. But, for my part, she is my
kinswoman; I would not, as they term it, praise her, but I would
somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise
your sister Cassandra’s wit; but—

TROILUS.
O Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus,
When I do tell thee there my hopes lie drown’d,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench’d. I tell thee I am mad
In Cressid’s love. Thou answer’st ‘She is fair’;
Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart
Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,
Handlest in thy discourse. O! that her hand,
In whose comparison all whites are ink
Writing their own reproach; to whose soft seizure
The cygnet’s down is harsh, and spirit of sense
Hard as the palm of ploughman! This thou tell’st me,
As true thou tell’st me, when I say I love her;
But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,
Thou lay’st in every gash that love hath given me
The knife that made it.

PANDARUS.
I speak no more than truth.

TROILUS.
Thou dost not speak so much.

PANDARUS.
Faith, I’ll not meddle in’t. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, ’tis
the better for her; and she be not, she has the mends in her own hands.

TROILUS.
Good Pandarus! How now, Pandarus!

PANDARUS.
I have had my labour for my travail, ill thought on of her and ill
thought on of you; gone between and between, but small thanks for my
labour.

TROILUS.
What! art thou angry, Pandarus? What! with me?

PANDARUS.
Because she’s kin to me, therefore she’s not so fair as Helen. And she
were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on
Sunday. But what care I? I care not and she were a blackamoor; ’tis all
one to me.

TROILUS.
Say I she is not fair?

PANDARUS.
I do not care whether you do or no. She’s a fool to stay behind her
father. Let her to the Greeks; and so I’ll tell her the next time I see
her. For my part, I’ll meddle nor make no more i’ the matter.

TROILUS.
Pandarus—

PANDARUS.
Not I.

TROILUS.
Sweet Pandarus—

PANDARUS.
Pray you, speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and
there an end.

 [_Exit Pandarus. An alarum._]

TROILUS.
Peace, you ungracious clamours! Peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair,
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
I cannot fight upon this argument;
It is too starv’d a subject for my sword.
But Pandarus, O gods! how do you plague me!
I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar;
And he’s as tetchy to be woo’d to woo
As she is stubborn-chaste against all suit.
Tell me, Apollo, for thy Daphne’s love,
What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?
Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl;
Between our Ilium and where she resides
Let it be call’d the wild and wandering flood;
Ourself the merchant, and this sailing Pandar
Our doubtful hope, our convoy, and our bark.

 Alarum. Enter Aeneas.

AENEAS.
How now, Prince Troilus! Wherefore not afield?

TROILUS.
Because not there. This woman’s answer sorts,
For womanish it is to be from thence.
What news, Aeneas, from the field today?

AENEAS.
That Paris is returned home, and hurt.

TROILUS.
By whom, Aeneas?

AENEAS.
Troilus, by Menelaus.

TROILUS.
Let Paris bleed: ’tis but a scar to scorn;
Paris is gor’d with Menelaus’ horn.

 [_Alarum._]

AENEAS.
Hark what good sport is out of town today!

TROILUS.
Better at home, if ‘would I might’ were ‘may.’
But to the sport abroad. Are you bound thither?

AENEAS.
In all swift haste.

TROILUS.
Come, go we then together.

 [_Exeunt._]

SCENE II. Troy. A street.

 Enter Cressida and her man Alexander.

CRESSIDA.
Who were those went by?

ALEXANDER.
Queen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDA.
And whither go they?

ALEXANDER.
Up to the eastern tower,
Whose height commands as subject all the vale,
To see the battle. Hector, whose patience
Is as a virtue fix’d, today was mov’d.
He chid Andromache, and struck his armourer;
And, like as there were husbandry in war,
Before the sun rose he was harness’d light,
And to the field goes he; where every flower
Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw
In Hector’s wrath.

CRESSIDA.
What was his cause of anger?

ALEXANDER.
The noise goes, this: there is among the Greeks
A lord of Trojan blood, nephew to Hector;
They call him Ajax.

CRESSIDA.
Good; and what of him?

ALEXANDER.
They say he is a very man _per se_
And stands alone.

CRESSIDA.
So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs.

ALEXANDER.
This man, lady, hath robb’d many beasts of their particular additions:
he is as valiant as the lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the
elephant—a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour
is crush’d into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. There is no
man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse of, nor any man an attaint
but he carries some stain of it; he is melancholy without cause and
merry against the hair; he hath the joints of everything; but
everything so out of joint that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and
no use, or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRESSIDA.
But how should this man, that makes me smile, make Hector angry?

ALEXANDER.
They say he yesterday cop’d Hector in the battle and struck him down,
the disdain and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and
waking.

 Enter Pandarus.

CRESSIDA.
Who comes here?

ALEXANDER.
Madam, your uncle Pandarus.

CRESSIDA.
Hector’s a gallant man.

ALEXANDER.
As may be in the world, lady.

PANDARUS.
What’s that? What’s that?

CRESSIDA.
Good morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
Good morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?—Good morrow,
Alexander.—How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?

CRESSIDA.
This morning, uncle.

PANDARUS.
What were you talking of when I came? Was Hector arm’d and gone ere you
came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

CRESSIDA.
Hector was gone; but Helen was not up.

PANDARUS.
E’en so. Hector was stirring early.

CRESSIDA.
That were we talking of, and of his anger.

PANDARUS.
Was he angry?

CRESSIDA.
So he says here.

PANDARUS.
True, he was so; I know the cause too; he’ll lay about him today, I can
tell them that. And there’s Troilus will not come far behind him; let
them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.

CRESSIDA.
What, is he angry too?

PANDARUS.
Who, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

CRESSIDA.
O Jupiter! there’s no comparison.

PANDARUS.
What, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man if you see him?

CRESSIDA.
Ay, if I ever saw him before and knew him.

PANDARUS.
Well, I say Troilus is Troilus.

CRESSIDA.
Then you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.

PANDARUS.
No, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.

CRESSIDA.
’Tis just to each of them: he is himself.

PANDARUS.
Himself! Alas, poor Troilus! I would he were!

CRESSIDA.
So he is.

PANDARUS.
Condition I had gone barefoot to India.

CRESSIDA.
He is not Hector.

PANDARUS.
Himself! no, he’s not himself. Would a’ were himself! Well, the gods
are above; time must friend or end. Well, Troilus, well! I would my
heart were in her body! No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.

CRESSIDA.
Excuse me.

PANDARUS.
He is elder.

CRESSIDA.
Pardon me, pardon me.

PANDARUS.
Th’other’s not come to’t; you shall tell me another tale when
th’other’s come to’t. Hector shall not have his wit this year.

CRESSIDA.
He shall not need it if he have his own.

ANDARUS.
Nor his qualities.

CRESSIDA.
No matter.

PANDARUS.
Nor his beauty.

CRESSIDA.
’Twould not become him: his own’s better.

PANDARUS.
You have no judgement, niece. Helen herself swore th’other day that
Troilus, for a brown favour, for so ’tis, I must confess—not brown
neither—

CRESSIDA.
No, but brown.

PANDARUS.
Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

CRESSIDA.
To say the truth, true and not true.

PANDARUS.
She prais’d his complexion above Paris.

CRESSIDA.
Why, Paris hath colour enough.

PANDARUS.
So he has.

CRESSIDA.
Then Troilus should have too much. If she prais’d him above, his
complexion is higher than his; he having colour enough, and the other
higher, is too flaming a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief
Helen’s golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper nose.

PANDARUS.
I swear to you I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

CRESSIDA.
Then she’s a merry Greek indeed.

PANDARUS.
Nay, I am sure she does. She came to him th’other day into the
compass’d window—and you know he has not past three or four hairs on
his chin—

CRESSIDA.
Indeed a tapster’s arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to
a total.

PANDARUS.
Why, he is very young, and yet will he within three pound lift as much
as his brother Hector.

CRESSIDA.
Is he so young a man and so old a lifter?

PANDARUS.
But to prove to you that Helen loves him: she came and puts me her
white hand to his cloven chin—

CRESSIDA.
Juno have mercy! How came it cloven?

PANDARUS.
Why, you know, ’tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes him better
than any man in all Phrygia.

CRESSIDA.
O, he smiles valiantly!

PANDARUS.
Does he not?

CRESSIDA.
O yes, an ’twere a cloud in autumn!

PANDARUS.
Why, go to, then! But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus—

CRESSIDA.
Troilus will stand to the proof, if you’ll prove it so.

PANDARUS.
Troilus! Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle egg.

CRESSIDA.
If you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would
eat chickens i’ th’ shell.

PANDARUS.
I cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Indeed,
she has a marvell’s white hand, I must needs confess.

CRESSIDA.
Without the rack.

PANDARUS.
And she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

CRESSIDA.
Alas, poor chin! Many a wart is richer.

PANDARUS.
But there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laugh’d that her eyes ran
o’er.

CRESSIDA.
With millstones.

PANDARUS.
And Cassandra laugh’d.

CRESSIDA.
But there was a more temperate fire under the pot of her eyes. Did her
eyes run o’er too?

PANDARUS.
And Hector laugh’d.

CRESSIDA.
At what was all this laughing?

PANDARUS.
Marry, at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus’ chin.

CRESSIDA.
And’t had been a green hair I should have laugh’d too.

PANDARUS.
They laugh’d not so much at the hair as at his pretty answer.

CRESSIDA.
What was his answer?

PANDARUS.
Quoth she ‘Here’s but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them
is white.’

CRESSIDA.
This is her question.

PANDARUS.
That’s true; make no question of that. ‘Two and fifty hairs,’ quoth he
‘and one white. That white hair is my father, and all the rest are his
sons.’ ‘Jupiter!’ quoth she ‘which of these hairs is Paris my husband?’
‘The forked one,’ quoth he, ’pluck’t out and give it him.’ But there
was such laughing! and Helen so blush’d, and Paris so chaf’d; and all
the rest so laugh’d that it pass’d.

CRESSIDA.
So let it now; for it has been a great while going by.

PANDARUS.
Well, cousin, I told you a thing yesterday; think on’t.

CRESSIDA.
So I do.

PANDARUS.
I’ll be sworn ’tis true; he will weep you, and ’twere a man born in
April.

CRESSIDA.
And I’ll spring up in his tears, an ’twere a nettle against May.

 [_Sound a retreat._]

PANDARUS.
Hark! they are coming from the field. Shall we stand up here and see
them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.

CRESSIDA.
At your pleasure.

PANDARUS.
Here, here, here’s an excellent place; here we may see most bravely.
I’ll tell you them all by their names as they pass by; but mark Troilus
above the rest.

 [Aeneas _passes_.]

CRESSIDA.
Speak not so loud.

PANDARUS.
That’s Aeneas. Is not that a brave man? He’s one of the flowers of
Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus; you shall see anon.

 [Antenor _passes_.]

CRESSIDA.
Who’s that?

PANDARUS.
That’s Antenor. He has a shrewd wit, I can tell you; and he’s a man
good enough; he’s one o’ th’ soundest judgements in Troy, whosoever,
and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I’ll show you Troilus
anon. If he see me, you shall see him nod at me.

CRESSIDA.
Will he give you the nod?

PANDARUS.
You shall see.

CRESSIDA.
If he do, the rich shall have more.

 [Hector _passes_.]

PANDARUS.
That’s Hector, that, that, look you, that; there’s a fellow! Go thy
way, Hector! There’s a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he
looks. There’s a countenance! Is’t not a brave man?

CRESSIDA.
O, a brave man!

PANDARUS.
Is a’ not? It does a man’s heart good. Look you what hacks are on his
helmet! Look you yonder, do you see? Look you there. There’s no
jesting; there’s laying on; take’t off who will, as they say. There be
hacks.

CRESSIDA.
Be those with swords?

PANDARUS.
Swords! anything, he cares not; and the devil come to him, it’s all
one. By God’s lid, it does one’s heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder
comes Paris.

 [Paris _passes_.]

Look ye yonder, niece; is’t not a gallant man too, is’t not? Why, this
is brave now. Who said he came hurt home today? He’s not hurt. Why,
this will do Helen’s heart good now, ha! Would I could see Troilus now!
You shall see Troilus anon.

 [Helenus _passes_.]

CRESSIDA.
Who’s that?

PANDARUS.
That’s Helenus. I marvel where Troilus is. That’s
Helenus. I think he went not forth today. That’s Helenus.

CRESSIDA.
Can Helenus fight, uncle?

PANDARUS.
Helenus! no. Yes, he’ll fight indifferent well. I marvel where Troilus
is. Hark! do you not hear the people cry ‘Troilus’?—Helenus is a
priest.

CRESSIDA.
What sneaking fellow comes yonder?

 [Troilus _passes_.]

PANDARUS.
Where? yonder? That’s Deiphobus. ’Tis Troilus. There’s a man, niece.
Hem! Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!

CRESSIDA.
Peace, for shame, peace!

PANDARUS.
Mark him; note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece; look
you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm more hack’d than Hector’s;
and how he looks, and how he goes! O admirable youth! he never saw
three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way. Had I a sister were
a grace or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable
man! Paris? Paris is dirt to him; and, I warrant, Helen, to change,
would give an eye to boot.

CRESSIDA.
Here comes more.

 [_Common soldiers pass_.]

PANDARUS.
Asses, fools, dolts! chaff and bran, chaff and bran! porridge after
meat! I could live and die in the eyes of Troilus. Ne’er look, ne’er
look; the eagles are gone. Crows and daws, crows and daws! I had rather
be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.

CRESSIDA.
There is amongst the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.

PANDARUS.
Achilles? A drayman, a porter, a very camel!

CRESSIDA.
Well, well.

PANDARUS.
Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you any eyes? Do you
know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse,
manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such
like, the spice and salt that season a man?

CRESSIDA.
Ay, a minc’d man; and then to be bak’d with no date in the pie, for
then the man’s date is out.

PANDARUS.
You are such a woman! A man knows not at what ward you lie.

CRESSIDA.
Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon
my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and
you, to defend all these; and at all these wards I lie, at a thousand
watches.

PANDARUS.
Say one of your watches.

CRESSIDA.
Nay, I’ll watch you for that; and that’s one of the chiefest of them
too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit, I can watch you for
telling how I took the blow; unless it swell past hiding, and then it’s
past watching.

PANDARUS.
You are such another!

 Enter Troilus' Boy.

BOY.
Sir, my lord would instantly speak with you.

PANDARUS.
Where?

BOY.
At your own house; there he unarms him.

PANDARUS.
Good boy, tell him I come. [_Exit_ Boy.] I doubt he be hurt. Fare ye
well, good niece.

CRESSIDA.
Adieu, uncle.

PANDARUS.
I will be with you, niece, by and by.

CRESSIDA.
To bring, uncle.

PANDARUS.
Ay, a token from Troilus.

 [_Exit_ Pandarus.]

CRESSIDA.
By the same token, you are a bawd.
Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice,
He offers in another’s enterprise;
But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see
Than in the glass of Pandar’s praise may be,
Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.
That she belov’d knows naught that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungain’d more than it is.
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue;
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
‘Achievement is command; ungain’d, beseech.’
Then though my heart’s content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before AGAMEMNON’S tent.

 Sennet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, Diomedes, Menelaus and
 others.

AGAMEMNON.
Princes,
What grief hath set these jaundies o’er your cheeks?
The ample proposition that hope makes
In all designs begun on earth below
Fails in the promis’d largeness; checks and disasters
Grow in the veins of actions highest rear’d,
As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap,
Infects the sound pine, and diverts his grain
Tortive and errant from his course of growth.
Nor, princes, is it matter new to us
That we come short of our suppose so far
That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand;
Sith every action that hath gone before,
Whereof we have record, trial did draw
Bias and thwart, not answering the aim,
And that unbodied figure of the thought
That gave’t surmised shape. Why then, you princes,
Do you with cheeks abash’d behold our works
And call them shames, which are, indeed, naught else
But the protractive trials of great Jove
To find persistive constancy in men;
The fineness of which metal is not found
In fortune’s love? For then the bold and coward,
The wise and fool, the artist and unread,
The hard and soft, seem all affin’d and kin.
But in the wind and tempest of her frown
Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan,
Puffing at all, winnows the light away;
And what hath mass or matter by itself
Lies rich in virtue and unmingled.

NESTOR.
With due observance of thy godlike seat,
Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply
Thy latest words. In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,
How many shallow bauble boats dare sail
Upon her patient breast, making their way
With those of nobler bulk!
But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage
The gentle Thetis, and anon behold
The strong-ribb’d bark through liquid mountains cut,
Bounding between the two moist elements
Like Perseus’ horse. Where’s then the saucy boat,
Whose weak untimber’d sides but even now
Co-rivall’d greatness? Either to harbour fled
Or made a toast for Neptune. Even so
Doth valour’s show and valour’s worth divide
In storms of fortune; for in her ray and brightness
The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze
Than by the tiger; but when the splitting wind
Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,
And flies fled under shade—why, then the thing of courage,
As rous’d with rage, with rage doth sympathise,
And with an accent tun’d in self-same key
Retorts to chiding fortune.

ULYSSES.
Agamemnon,
Thou great commander, nerve and bone of Greece,
Heart of our numbers, soul and only spirit
In whom the tempers and the minds of all
Should be shut up—hear what Ulysses speaks.
Besides th’applause and approbation
The which, [_To Agamemnon_] most mighty, for thy place and sway,
[_To Nestor_] And, thou most reverend, for thy stretch’d-out life,
I give to both your speeches—which were such
As Agamemnon and the hand of Greece
Should hold up high in brass; and such again
As venerable Nestor, hatch’d in silver,
Should with a bond of air, strong as the axle-tree
On which heaven rides, knit all the Greekish ears
To his experienc’d tongue—yet let it please both,
Thou great, and wise, to hear Ulysses speak.

AGAMEMNON.
Speak, Prince of Ithaca; and be’t of less expect
That matter needless, of importless burden,
Divide thy lips than we are confident,
When rank Thersites opes his mastic jaws,
We shall hear music, wit, and oracle.

ULYSSES.
Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector’s sword had lack’d a master,
But for these instances:
The specialty of rule hath been neglected;
And look how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive,
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
Th’unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthron’d and spher’d
Amidst the other, whose med’cinable eye
Corrects the influence of evil planets,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans check, to good and bad. But when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,
What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,
Commotion in the winds! Frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate,
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixture! O, when degree is shak’d,
Which is the ladder of all high designs,
The enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenity and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And hark what discord follows! Each thing melts
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong—
Between whose endless jar justice resides—
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general’s disdain’d
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampl’d by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.
And ’tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

NESTOR.
Most wisely hath Ulysses here discover’d
The fever whereof all our power is sick.

AGAMEMNON.
The nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,
What is the remedy?

ULYSSES.
The great Achilles, whom opinion crowns
The sinew and the forehand of our host,
Having his ear full of his airy fame,
Grows dainty of his worth, and in his tent
Lies mocking our designs; with him Patroclus
Upon a lazy bed the livelong day
Breaks scurril jests;
And with ridiculous and awkward action—
Which, slanderer, he imitation calls—
He pageants us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,
Thy topless deputation he puts on;
And like a strutting player whose conceit
Lies in his hamstring, and doth think it rich
To hear the wooden dialogue and sound
’Twixt his stretch’d footing and the scaffoldage—
Such to-be-pitied and o’er-wrested seeming
He acts thy greatness in; and when he speaks
’Tis like a chime a-mending; with terms unsquar’d,
Which, from the tongue of roaring Typhon dropp’d,
Would seem hyperboles. At this fusty stuff
The large Achilles, on his press’d bed lolling,
From his deep chest laughs out a loud applause;
Cries ‘Excellent! ’Tis Agamemnon right!
Now play me Nestor; hem, and stroke thy beard,
As he being drest to some oration.’
That’s done—as near as the extremest ends
Of parallels, as like as Vulcan and his wife;
Yet god Achilles still cries ‘Excellent!
’Tis Nestor right. Now play him me, Patroclus,
Arming to answer in a night alarm.’
And then, forsooth, the faint defects of age
Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit
And, with a palsy fumbling on his gorget,
Shake in and out the rivet. And at this sport
Sir Valour dies; cries ‘O, enough, Patroclus;
Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all
In pleasure of my spleen.’ And in this fashion
All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,
Severals and generals of grace exact,
Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,
Excitements to the field or speech for truce,
Success or loss, what is or is not, serves
As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.

NESTOR.
And in the imitation of these twain—
Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns
With an imperial voice—many are infect.
Ajax is grown self-will’d and bears his head
In such a rein, in full as proud a place
As broad Achilles; keeps his tent like him;
Makes factious feasts; rails on our state of war
Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites,
A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint,
To match us in comparisons with dirt,
To weaken and discredit our exposure,
How rank soever rounded in with danger.

ULYSSES.
They tax our policy and call it cowardice,
Count wisdom as no member of the war,
Forestall prescience, and esteem no act
But that of hand. The still and mental parts
That do contrive how many hands shall strike
When fitness calls them on, and know, by measure
Of their observant toil, the enemies’ weight—
Why, this hath not a finger’s dignity:
They call this bed-work, mapp’ry, closet-war;
So that the ram that batters down the wall,
For the great swinge and rudeness of his poise,
They place before his hand that made the engine,
Or those that with the fineness of their souls
By reason guide his execution.

NESTOR.
Let this be granted, and Achilles’ horse
Makes many Thetis’ sons.

 [_Tucket_.]

AGAMEMNON.
What trumpet? Look, Menelaus.

MENELAUS.
From Troy.

 Enter Aeneas.

AGAMEMNON.
What would you fore our tent?

AENEAS.
Is this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?

AGAMEMNON.
Even this.

AENEAS.
May one that is a herald and a prince
Do a fair message to his kingly eyes?

AGAMEMNON.
With surety stronger than Achilles’ arm
Fore all the Greekish heads, which with one voice
Call Agamemnon head and general.

AENEAS.
Fair leave and large security. How may
A stranger to those most imperial looks
Know them from eyes of other mortals?

AGAMEMNON.
How?

AENEAS.
Ay;
I ask, that I might waken reverence,
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phoebus.
Which is that god in office, guiding men?
Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

AGAMEMNON.
This Trojan scorns us, or the men of Troy
Are ceremonious courtiers.

AENEAS.
Courtiers as free, as debonair, unarm’d,
As bending angels; that’s their fame in peace.
But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,
Good arms, strong joints, true swords; and, Jove’s accord,
Nothing so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,
Peace, Trojan; lay thy finger on thy lips.
The worthiness of praise distains his worth,
If that the prais’d himself bring the praise forth;
But what the repining enemy commends,
That breath fame blows; that praise, sole pure, transcends.

AGAMEMNON.
Sir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?

AENEAS.
Ay, Greek, that is my name.

AGAMEMNON.
What’s your affairs, I pray you?

AENEAS.
Sir, pardon; ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears.

AGAMEMNON
He hears naught privately that comes from Troy.

AENEAS.
Nor I from Troy come not to whisper with him;
I bring a trumpet to awake his ear,
To set his sense on the attentive bent,
And then to speak.

AGAMEMNON.
Speak frankly as the wind;
It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour.
That thou shalt know, Trojan, he is awake,
He tells thee so himself.

AENEAS.
Trumpet, blow loud,
Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents;
And every Greek of mettle, let him know
What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.

 [_Sound trumpet_.]

We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy
A prince called Hector—Priam is his father—
Who in this dull and long-continued truce
Is resty grown; he bade me take a trumpet
And to this purpose speak: Kings, princes, lords!
If there be one among the fair’st of Greece
That holds his honour higher than his ease,
That feeds his praise more than he fears his peril,
That knows his valour and knows not his fear,
That loves his mistress more than in confession
With truant vows to her own lips he loves,
And dare avow her beauty and her worth
In other arms than hers—to him this challenge.
Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks,
Shall make it good or do his best to do it:
He hath a lady wiser, fairer, truer,
Than ever Greek did couple in his arms;
And will tomorrow with his trumpet call
Mid-way between your tents and walls of Troy
To rouse a Grecian that is true in love.
If any come, Hector shall honour him;
If none, he’ll say in Troy, when he retires,
The Grecian dames are sunburnt and not worth
The splinter of a lance. Even so much.

AGAMEMNON.
This shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas.
If none of them have soul in such a kind,
We left them all at home. But we are soldiers;
And may that soldier a mere recreant prove
That means not, hath not, or is not in love.
If then one is, or hath, or means to be,
That one meets Hector; if none else, I am he.

NESTOR.
Tell him of Nestor, one that was a man
When Hector’s grandsire suck’d. He is old now;
But if there be not in our Grecian host
A noble man that hath one spark of fire
To answer for his love, tell him from me
I’ll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver,
And in my vambrace put this wither’d brawns,
And meeting him, will tell him that my lady
Was fairer than his grandam, and as chaste
As may be in the world. His youth in flood,
I’ll prove this troth with my three drops of blood.

AENEAS.
Now heavens forfend such scarcity of youth!

ULYSSES.
Amen.

AGAMEMNON.
Fair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand;
To our pavilion shall I lead you, sir.
Achilles shall have word of this intent;
So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.
Yourself shall feast with us before you go,
And find the welcome of a noble foe.

 [_Exeunt all but Ulysses and Nestor_.]

ULYSSES.
Nestor!

NESTOR.
What says Ulysses?

ULYSSES.
I have a young conception in my brain;
Be you my time to bring it to some shape.

NESTOR.
What is’t?

ULYSSES.
This ’tis:
Blunt wedges rive hard knots. The seeded pride
That hath to this maturity blown up
In rank Achilles must or now be cropp’d
Or, shedding, breed a nursery of like evil
To overbulk us all.

NESTOR.
Well, and how?

ULYSSES.
This challenge that the gallant Hector sends,
However it is spread in general name,
Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

NESTOR.
True. The purpose is perspicuous even as substance
Whose grossness little characters sum up;
And, in the publication, make no strain
But that Achilles, were his brain as barren
As banks of Libya—though, Apollo knows,
’Tis dry enough—will with great speed of judgement,
Ay, with celerity, find Hector’s purpose
Pointing on him.

ULYSSES.
And wake him to the answer, think you?

NESTOR.
Why, ’tis most meet. Who may you else oppose
That can from Hector bring those honours off,
If not Achilles? Though ’t be a sportful combat,
Yet in this trial much opinion dwells
For here the Trojans taste our dear’st repute
With their fin’st palate; and trust to me, Ulysses,
Our imputation shall be oddly pois’d
In this vile action; for the success,
Although particular, shall give a scantling
Of good or bad unto the general;
And in such indexes, although small pricks
To their subsequent volumes, there is seen
The baby figure of the giant mass
Of things to come at large. It is suppos’d
He that meets Hector issues from our choice;
And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,
Makes merit her election, and doth boil,
As ’twere from forth us all, a man distill’d
Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,
What heart receives from hence a conquering part,
To steel a strong opinion to themselves?
Which entertain’d, limbs are his instruments,
In no less working than are swords and bows
Directive by the limbs.

ULYSSES.
Give pardon to my speech. Therefore ’tis meet
Achilles meet not Hector. Let us, like merchants,
First show foul wares, and think perchance they’ll sell;
If not, the lustre of the better shall exceed
By showing the worse first. Do not consent
That ever Hector and Achilles meet;
For both our honour and our shame in this
Are dogg’d with two strange followers.

NESTOR.
I see them not with my old eyes. What are they?

ULYSSES.
What glory our Achilles shares from Hector,
Were he not proud, we all should share with him;
But he already is too insolent;
And it were better parch in Afric sun
Than in the pride and salt scorn of his eyes,
Should he scape Hector fair. If he were foil’d,
Why, then we do our main opinion crush
In taint of our best man. No, make a lott’ry;
And, by device, let blockish Ajax draw
The sort to fight with Hector. Among ourselves
Give him allowance for the better man;
For that will physic the great Myrmidon,
Who broils in loud applause, and make him fall
His crest, that prouder than blue Iris bends.
If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,
We’ll dress him up in voices; if he fail,
Yet go we under our opinion still
That we have better men. But, hit or miss,
Our project’s life this shape of sense assumes—
Ajax employ’d plucks down Achilles’ plumes.

NESTOR.
Now, Ulysses, I begin to relish thy advice;
And I will give a taste thereof forthwith
To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.
Two curs shall tame each other: pride alone
Must tarre the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.

 [_Exeunt_.]



ACT II

SCENE I. The Grecian camp.

 Enter Ajax and Thersites.

AJAX.
Thersites!

THERSITES.
Agamemnon—how if he had boils, full, all over, generally?

AJAX.
Thersites!

THERSITES.
And those boils did run—say so. Did not the general run then? Were not
that a botchy core?

AJAX.
Dog!

THERSITES.
Then there would come some matter from him;
I see none now.

AJAX.
Thou bitch-wolf’s son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then.

 [_Strikes him_.]

THERSITES.
The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!

AJAX.
Speak, then, thou unsalted leaven, speak. I will beat thee into
handsomeness.

THERSITES.
I shall sooner rail thee into wit and holiness; but I think thy horse
will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou
canst strike, canst thou? A red murrain o’ thy jade’s tricks!

AJAX.
Toadstool, learn me the proclamation.

THERSITES.
Dost thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus?

AJAX.
The proclamation!

THERSITES.
Thou art proclaim’d fool, I think.

AJAX.
Do not, porpentine, do not; my fingers itch.

THERSITES.
I would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of
thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. When thou art
forth in the incursions, thou strikest as slow as another.

AJAX.
I say, the proclamation.

THERSITES.
Thou grumblest and railest every hour on Achilles; and thou art as full
of envy at his greatness as Cerberus is at Proserpina’s beauty—ay, that
thou bark’st at him.

AJAX.
Mistress Thersites!

THERSITES.
Thou shouldst strike him.

AJAX.
Cobloaf!

THERSITES.
He would pun thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks a
biscuit.

AJAX.
You whoreson cur!

 [_Strikes him_.]

THERSITES.
Do, do.

AJAX.
Thou stool for a witch!

THERSITES.
Ay, do, do; thou sodden-witted lord! Thou hast no more brain than I
have in mine elbows; an asinico may tutor thee. You scurvy valiant ass!
Thou art here but to thrash Trojans, and thou art bought and sold among
those of any wit like a barbarian slave. If thou use to beat me, I will
begin at thy heel and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no
bowels, thou!

AJAX.
You dog!

THERSITES.
You scurvy lord!

AJAX.
You cur!

 [_Strikes him_.]

THERSITES.
Mars his idiot! Do, rudeness; do, camel; do, do.

 Enter Achilles and Patroclus.

ACHILLES.
Why, how now, Ajax! Wherefore do ye thus?
How now, Thersites! What’s the matter, man?

THERSITES.
You see him there, do you?

ACHILLES.
Ay; what’s the matter?

THERSITES.
Nay, look upon him.

ACHILLES.
So I do. What’s the matter?

THERSITES.
Nay, but regard him well.

ACHILLES.
Well! why, so I do.

THERSITES.
But yet you look not well upon him; for whosomever you take him to be,
he is Ajax.

ACHILLES.
I know that, fool.

THERSITES.
Ay, but that fool knows not himself.

AJAX.
Therefore I beat thee.

THERSITES.
Lo, lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! His evasions have ears
thus long. I have bobb’d his brain more than he has beat my bones. I
will buy nine sparrows for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the
ninth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles—Ajax, who wears his wit in
his belly and his guts in his head—I’ll tell you what I say of him.

ACHILLES.
What?

THERSITES.
I say this Ajax—

 [_Ajax offers to strike him_.]

ACHILLES.
Nay, good Ajax.

THERSITES.
Has not so much wit—

ACHILLES.
Nay, I must hold you.

THERSITES.
As will stop the eye of Helen’s needle, for whom he comes to fight.

ACHILLES.
Peace, fool.

THERSITES.
I would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not— he there; that
he; look you there.

AJAX.
O thou damned cur! I shall—

ACHILLES.
Will you set your wit to a fool’s?

THERSITES.
No, I warrant you, the fool’s will shame it.

PATROCLUS.
Good words, Thersites.

ACHILLES.
What’s the quarrel?

AJAX.
I bade the vile owl go learn me the tenour of the proclamation, and he
rails upon me.

THERSITES.
I serve thee not.

AJAX.
Well, go to, go to.

THERSITES.
I serve here voluntary.

ACHILLES.
Your last service was suff’rance; ’twas not voluntary. No man is beaten
voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary, and you as under an impress.

THERSITES.
E’en so; a great deal of your wit too lies in your sinews, or else
there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch and knock out either of
your brains: a’ were as good crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

ACHILLES.
What, with me too, Thersites?

THERSITES.
There’s Ulysses and old Nestor—whose wit was mouldy ere your grandsires
had nails on their toes—yoke you like draught oxen, and make you plough
up the wars.

ACHILLES.
What, what?

THERSITES.
Yes, good sooth. To Achilles, to Ajax, to—

AJAX.
I shall cut out your tongue.

THERSITES.
’Tis no matter; I shall speak as much as thou afterwards.

PATROCLUS.
No more words, Thersites; peace!

THERSITES.
I will hold my peace when Achilles’ brach bids me, shall I?

ACHILLES.
There’s for you, Patroclus.

THERSITES.
I will see you hang’d like clotpoles ere I come any more to your tents.
I will keep where there is wit stirring, and leave the faction of
fools.

 [_Exit_.]

PATROCLUS.
A good riddance.

ACHILLES.
Marry, this, sir, is proclaim’d through all our host,
That Hector, by the fifth hour of the sun,
Will with a trumpet ’twixt our tents and Troy,
Tomorrow morning, call some knight to arms
That hath a stomach; and such a one that dare
Maintain I know not what; ’tis trash. Farewell.

AJAX.
Farewell. Who shall answer him?

ACHILLES.
I know not; ’tis put to lott’ry, otherwise,
He knew his man.

AJAX.
O, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE II. Troy. PRIAM’S palace.

 Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris and Helenus.

PRIAM.
After so many hours, lives, speeches spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:
‘Deliver Helen, and all damage else—
As honour, loss of time, travail, expense,
Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consum’d
In hot digestion of this cormorant war—
Shall be struck off.’ Hector, what say you to’t?

HECTOR.
Though no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,
As far as toucheth my particular,
Yet, dread Priam,
There is no lady of more softer bowels,
More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,
More ready to cry out ‘Who knows what follows?’
Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,
Surety secure; but modest doubt is call’d
The beacon of the wise, the tent that searches
To th’ bottom of the worst. Let Helen go.
Since the first sword was drawn about this question,
Every tithe soul ’mongst many thousand dismes
Hath been as dear as Helen—I mean, of ours.
If we have lost so many tenths of ours
To guard a thing not ours, nor worth to us,
Had it our name, the value of one ten,
What merit’s in that reason which denies
The yielding of her up?

TROILUS.
Fie, fie, my brother!
Weigh you the worth and honour of a king,
So great as our dread father’s, in a scale
Of common ounces? Will you with counters sum
The past-proportion of his infinite,
And buckle in a waist most fathomless
With spans and inches so diminutive
As fears and reasons? Fie, for godly shame!

HELENUS.
No marvel though you bite so sharp of reasons,
You are so empty of them. Should not our father
Bear the great sway of his affairs with reason,
Because your speech hath none that tells him so?

TROILUS.
You are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest;
You fur your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:
You know an enemy intends you harm;
You know a sword employ’d is perilous,
And reason flies the object of all harm.
Who marvels, then, when Helenus beholds
A Grecian and his sword, if he do set
The very wings of reason to his heels
And fly like chidden Mercury from Jove,
Or like a star disorb’d? Nay, if we talk of reason,
Let’s shut our gates and sleep. Manhood and honour
Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts
With this cramm’d reason. Reason and respect
Make livers pale and lustihood deject.

HECTOR.
Brother, she is not worth what she doth cost the keeping.

TROILUS.
What’s aught but as ’tis valued?

HECTOR.
But value dwells not in particular will:
It holds his estimate and dignity
As well wherein ’tis precious of itself
As in the prizer. ’Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god,
And the will dotes that is attributive
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without some image of th’affected merit.

TROILUS.
I take today a wife, and my election
Is led on in the conduct of my will;
My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,
Two traded pilots ’twixt the dangerous shores
Of will and judgement: how may I avoid,
Although my will distaste what it elected,
The wife I chose? There can be no evasion
To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.
We turn not back the silks upon the merchant
When we have soil’d them; nor the remainder viands
We do not throw in unrespective sieve,
Because we now are full. It was thought meet
Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;
Your breath with full consent bellied his sails;
The seas and winds, old wranglers, took a truce,
And did him service. He touch’d the ports desir’d;
And for an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive
He brought a Grecian queen, whose youth and freshness
Wrinkles Apollo’s, and makes stale the morning.
Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt.
Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl
Whose price hath launch’d above a thousand ships,
And turn’d crown’d kings to merchants.
If you’ll avouch ’twas wisdom Paris went—
As you must needs, for you all cried ‘Go, go’—
If you’ll confess he brought home worthy prize—
As you must needs, for you all clapp’d your hands,
And cried ‘Inestimable!’—why do you now
The issue of your proper wisdoms rate,
And do a deed that never Fortune did—
Beggar the estimation which you priz’d
Richer than sea and land? O theft most base,
That we have stol’n what we do fear to keep!
But thieves unworthy of a thing so stol’n
That in their country did them that disgrace
We fear to warrant in our native place!

CASSANDRA.
[_Within_.] Cry, Trojans, cry.

PRIAM.
What noise, what shriek is this?

TROILUS.
’Tis our mad sister; I do know her voice.

CASSANDRA.
[_Within_.] Cry, Trojans.

HECTOR.
It is Cassandra.

 Enter Cassandra, raving.

CASSANDRA.
Cry, Trojans, cry. Lend me ten thousand eyes,
And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

HECTOR.
Peace, sister, peace.

CASSANDRA.
Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled eld,
Soft infancy, that nothing canst but cry,
Add to my clamours. Let us pay betimes
A moiety of that mass of moan to come.
Cry, Trojans, cry. Practise your eyes with tears.
Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilion stand;
Our firebrand brother, Paris, burns us all.
Cry, Trojans, cry, A Helen and a woe!
Cry, cry. Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

 [_Exit_.]

HECTOR.
Now, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains
Of divination in our sister work
Some touches of remorse? Or is your blood
So madly hot, that no discourse of reason,
Nor fear of bad success in a bad cause,
Can qualify the same?

TROILUS.
Why, brother Hector,
We may not think the justness of each act
Such and no other than event doth form it;
Nor once deject the courage of our minds
Because Cassandra’s mad. Her brain-sick raptures
Cannot distaste the goodness of a quarrel
Which hath our several honours all engag’d
To make it gracious. For my private part,
I am no more touch’d than all Priam’s sons;
And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us
Such things as might offend the weakest spleen
To fight for and maintain.

PARIS.
Else might the world convince of levity
As well my undertakings as your counsels;
But I attest the gods, your full consent
Gave wings to my propension, and cut off
All fears attending on so dire a project.
For what, alas, can these my single arms?
What propugnation is in one man’s valour
To stand the push and enmity of those
This quarrel would excite? Yet I protest,
Were I alone to pass the difficulties,
And had as ample power as I have will,
Paris should ne’er retract what he hath done,
Nor faint in the pursuit.

PRIAM.
Paris, you speak
Like one besotted on your sweet delights.
You have the honey still, but these the gall;
So to be valiant is no praise at all.

PARIS.
Sir, I propose not merely to myself
The pleasures such a beauty brings with it;
But I would have the soil of her fair rape
Wip’d off in honourable keeping her.
What treason were it to the ransack’d queen,
Disgrace to your great worths, and shame to me,
Now to deliver her possession up
On terms of base compulsion! Can it be,
That so degenerate a strain as this
Should once set footing in your generous bosoms?
There’s not the meanest spirit on our party
Without a heart to dare or sword to draw
When Helen is defended; nor none so noble
Whose life were ill bestow’d or death unfam’d,
Where Helen is the subject. Then, I say,
Well may we fight for her whom we know well
The world’s large spaces cannot parallel.

HECTOR.
Paris and Troilus, you have both said well;
And on the cause and question now in hand
Have gloz’d, but superficially; not much
Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought
Unfit to hear moral philosophy.
The reasons you allege do more conduce
To the hot passion of distemp’red blood
Than to make up a free determination
’Twixt right and wrong; for pleasure and revenge
Have ears more deaf than adders to the voice
Of any true decision. Nature craves
All dues be rend’red to their owners. Now,
What nearer debt in all humanity
Than wife is to the husband? If this law
Of nature be corrupted through affection;
And that great minds, of partial indulgence
To their benumbed wills, resist the same;
There is a law in each well-order’d nation
To curb those raging appetites that are
Most disobedient and refractory.
If Helen, then, be wife to Sparta’s king—
As it is known she is—these moral laws
Of nature and of nations speak aloud
To have her back return’d. Thus to persist
In doing wrong extenuates not wrong,
But makes it much more heavy. Hector’s opinion
Is this, in way of truth. Yet, ne’ertheless,
My spritely brethren, I propend to you
In resolution to keep Helen still;
For ’tis a cause that hath no mean dependence
Upon our joint and several dignities.

TROILUS.
Why, there you touch’d the life of our design.
Were it not glory that we more affected
Than the performance of our heaving spleens,
I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood
Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,
She is a theme of honour and renown,
A spur to valiant and magnanimous deeds,
Whose present courage may beat down our foes,
And fame in time to come canonize us;
For I presume brave Hector would not lose
So rich advantage of a promis’d glory
As smiles upon the forehead of this action
For the wide world’s revenue.

HECTOR.
I am yours,
You valiant offspring of great Priamus.
I have a roisting challenge sent amongst
The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks
Will strike amazement to their drowsy spirits.
I was advertis’d their great general slept,
Whilst emulation in the army crept.
This, I presume, will wake him.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE III. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES.

 Enter Thersites, solus.

THERSITES.
How now, Thersites! What, lost in the labyrinth of thy fury? Shall the
elephant Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him. O worthy
satisfaction! Would it were otherwise: that I could beat him, whilst he
rail’d at me! ‘Sfoot, I’ll learn to conjure and raise devils, but I’ll
see some issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there’s Achilles, a
rare engineer! If Troy be not taken till these two undermine it, the
walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great
thunder-darter of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods,
and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus, if ye take
not that little little less than little wit from them that they have!
which short-arm’d ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will
not in circumvention deliver a fly from a spider without drawing their
massy irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole
camp! or, rather, the Neapolitan bone-ache! for that, methinks, is the
curse depending on those that war for a placket. I have said my
prayers; and devil Envy say ‘Amen.’ What ho! my Lord Achilles!

 Enter Patroclus.

PATROCLUS.
Who’s there? Thersites! Good Thersites, come in and rail.

THERSITES.
If I could a’ rememb’red a gilt counterfeit, thou wouldst not have
slipp’d out of my contemplation; but it is no matter; thyself upon
thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in
great revenue! Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not
near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction till thy death. Then if she
that lays thee out says thou art a fair corse, I’ll be sworn and sworn
upon’t she never shrouded any but lazars. Amen. Where’s Achilles?

PATROCLUS.
What, art thou devout? Wast thou in prayer?

THERSITES.
Ay, the heavens hear me!

PATROCLUS.
Amen.

 Enter Achilles.

ACHILLES.
Who’s there?

PATROCLUS.
Thersites, my lord.

ACHILLES.
Where, where? O, where? Art thou come? Why, my cheese, my digestion,
why hast thou not served thyself in to my table so many meals? Come,
what’s Agamemnon?

THERSITES.
Thy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what’s Achilles?

PATROCLUS.
Thy lord, Thersites. Then tell me, I pray thee, what’s Thersites?

THERSITES.
Thy knower, Patroclus. Then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?

PATROCLUS.
Thou must tell that knowest.

ACHILLES.
O, tell, tell,

THERSITES.
I’ll decline the whole question. Agamemnon commands Achilles; Achilles
is my lord; I am Patroclus’ knower; and Patroclus is a fool.

PATROCLUS.
You rascal!

THERSITES.
Peace, fool! I have not done.

ACHILLES.
He is a privileg’d man. Proceed, Thersites.

THERSITES.
Agamemnon is a fool; Achilles is a fool; Thersites is a fool; and, as
aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.

ACHILLES.
Derive this; come.

THERSITES.
Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to
be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool;
and this Patroclus is a fool positive.

PATROCLUS.
Why am I a fool?

THERSITES.
Make that demand of the Creator. It suffices me thou art. Look you, who
comes here?

 Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, Ajax and Calchas.

ACHILLES.
Come, Patroclus, I’ll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites.

 [_Exit_.]

THERSITES.
Here is such patchery, such juggling, and such knavery. All the
argument is a whore and a cuckold—a good quarrel to draw emulous
factions and bleed to death upon. Now the dry serpigo on the subject,
and war and lechery confound all!

 [_Exit_.]

AGAMEMNON.
Where is Achilles?

PATROCLUS.
Within his tent; but ill-dispos’d, my lord.

AGAMEMNON.
Let it be known to him that we are here.
He sate our messengers; and we lay by
Our appertainings, visiting of him.
Let him be told so; lest, perchance, he think
We dare not move the question of our place
Or know not what we are.

PATROCLUS.
I shall say so to him.

 [_Exit_.]

ULYSSES.
We saw him at the opening of his tent.
He is not sick.

AJAX.
Yes, lion-sick, sick of proud heart. You may call it melancholy, if you
will favour the man; but, by my head, ’tis pride. But why, why? Let him
show us a cause. A word, my lord.

 [_Takes Agamemnon aside_.]

NESTOR.
What moves Ajax thus to bay at him?

ULYSSES.
Achilles hath inveigled his fool from him.

NESTOR.
Who, Thersites?

ULYSSES.
He.

NESTOR.
Then will Ajax lack matter, if he have lost his argument.

ULYSSES.
No; you see he is his argument that has his argument, Achilles.

NESTOR.
All the better; their fraction is more our wish than their faction. But
it was a strong composure a fool could disunite!

ULYSSES.
The amity that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.

 Re-enter Patroclus.

Here comes Patroclus.

NESTOR.
No Achilles with him.

ULYSSES.
The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for
necessity, not for flexure.

PATROCLUS.
Achilles bids me say he is much sorry
If any thing more than your sport and pleasure
Did move your greatness and this noble state
To call upon him; he hopes it is no other
But for your health and your digestion sake,
An after-dinner’s breath.

AGAMEMNON.
Hear you, Patroclus.
We are too well acquainted with these answers;
But his evasion, wing’d thus swift with scorn,
Cannot outfly our apprehensions.
Much attribute he hath, and much the reason
Why we ascribe it to him. Yet all his virtues,
Not virtuously on his own part beheld,
Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss;
Yea, like fair fruit in an unwholesome dish,
Are like to rot untasted. Go and tell him
We come to speak with him; and you shall not sin
If you do say we think him over-proud
And under-honest, in self-assumption greater
Than in the note of judgement; and worthier than himself
Here tend the savage strangeness he puts on,
Disguise the holy strength of their command,
And underwrite in an observing kind
His humorous predominance; yea, watch
His course and time, his ebbs and flows, as if
The passage and whole stream of this commencement
Rode on his tide. Go tell him this, and add
That if he overhold his price so much
We’ll none of him, but let him, like an engine
Not portable, lie under this report:
Bring action hither; this cannot go to war.
A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant. Tell him so.

PATROCLUS.
I shall, and bring his answer presently.

 [_Exit_.]

AGAMEMNON.
In second voice we’ll not be satisfied;
We come to speak with him. Ulysses, enter you.

 [_Exit_ Ulysses.]

AJAX.
What is he more than another?

AGAMEMNON.
No more than what he thinks he is.

AJAX.
Is he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I
am?

AGAMEMNON.
No question.

AJAX.
Will you subscribe his thought and say he is?

AGAMEMNON.
No, noble Ajax; you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble,
much more gentle, and altogether more tractable.

AJAX.
Why should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what pride
is.

AGAMEMNON.
Your mind is the clearer, Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is
proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own
chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed devours the deed
in the praise.

 Re-enter Ulysses.

AJAX.
I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engend’ring of toads.

NESTOR.
[_Aside._] And yet he loves himself: is’t not strange?

ULYSSES.
Achilles will not to the field tomorrow.

AGAMEMNON.
What’s his excuse?

ULYSSES.
He doth rely on none;
But carries on the stream of his dispose,
Without observance or respect of any,
In will peculiar and in self-admission.

AGAMEMNON.
Why will he not, upon our fair request,
Untent his person and share th’air with us?

ULYSSES.
Things small as nothing, for request’s sake only,
He makes important; possess’d he is with greatness,
And speaks not to himself but with a pride
That quarrels at self-breath. Imagin’d worth
Holds in his blood such swol’n and hot discourse
That ’twixt his mental and his active parts
Kingdom’d Achilles in commotion rages,
And batters down himself. What should I say?
He is so plaguy proud that the death tokens of it
Cry ‘No recovery.’

AGAMEMNON.
Let Ajax go to him.
Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent.
’Tis said he holds you well; and will be led
At your request a little from himself.

ULYSSES.
O Agamemnon, let it not be so!
We’ll consecrate the steps that Ajax makes
When they go from Achilles. Shall the proud lord
That bastes his arrogance with his own seam
And never suffers matter of the world
Enter his thoughts, save such as doth revolve
And ruminate himself—shall he be worshipp’d
Of that we hold an idol more than he?
No, this thrice worthy and right valiant lord
Shall not so stale his palm, nobly acquir’d,
Nor, by my will, assubjugate his merit,
As amply titled as Achilles is,
By going to Achilles.
That were to enlard his fat-already pride,
And add more coals to Cancer when he burns
With entertaining great Hyperion.
This lord go to him! Jupiter forbid,
And say in thunder ‘Achilles go to him.’

NESTOR.
[_Aside_.] O, this is well! He rubs the vein of him.

DIOMEDES.
[_Aside_.] And how his silence drinks up this applause!

AJAX.
If I go to him, with my armed fist I’ll pash him o’er the face.

AGAMEMNON.
O, no, you shall not go.

AJAX.
An a’ be proud with me I’ll pheeze his pride.
Let me go to him.

ULYSSES.
Not for the worth that hangs upon our quarrel.

AJAX.
A paltry, insolent fellow!

NESTOR.
[_Aside_.] How he describes himself!

AJAX.
Can he not be sociable?

ULYSSES.
[_Aside_.] The raven chides blackness.

AJAX.
I’ll let his humours blood.

AGAMEMNON.
[_Aside_.] He will be the physician that should be the patient.

AJAX.
And all men were o’ my mind—

ULYSSES.
[_Aside_.] Wit would be out of fashion.

AJAX.
A’ should not bear it so, a’ should eat’s words first.
Shall pride carry it?

NESTOR.
[_Aside_.] And ’twould, you’d carry half.

ULYSSES.
[_Aside_.] A’ would have ten shares.

AJAX.
I will knead him, I’ll make him supple.

NESTOR.
[_Aside_.] He’s not yet through warm. Force him with praises; pour in,
pour in; his ambition is dry.

ULYSSES.
[_To Agamemnon_.] My lord, you feed too much on this dislike.

NESTOR.
Our noble general, do not do so.

DIOMEDES.
You must prepare to fight without Achilles.

ULYSSES.
Why ’tis this naming of him does him harm.
Here is a man—but ’tis before his face;
I will be silent.

NESTOR.
Wherefore should you so?
He is not emulous, as Achilles is.

ULYSSES.
Know the whole world, he is as valiant.

AJAX.
A whoreson dog, that shall palter with us thus!
Would he were a Trojan!

NESTOR.
What a vice were it in Ajax now—

ULYSSES.
If he were proud.

DIOMEDES.
Or covetous of praise.

ULYSSES.
Ay, or surly borne.

DIOMEDES.
Or strange, or self-affected.

ULYSSES.
Thank the heavens, lord, thou art of sweet composure
Praise him that gat thee, she that gave thee suck;
Fam’d be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature
Thrice fam’d beyond, beyond all erudition;
But he that disciplin’d thine arms to fight—
Let Mars divide eternity in twain
And give him half; and, for thy vigour,
Bull-bearing Milo his addition yield
To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,
Which, like a bourn, a pale, a shore, confines
Thy spacious and dilated parts. Here’s Nestor,
Instructed by the antiquary times—
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise;
But pardon, father Nestor, were your days
As green as Ajax’ and your brain so temper’d,
You should not have the eminence of him,
But be as Ajax.

AJAX.
Shall I call you father?

NESTOR.
Ay, my good son.

DIOMEDES.
Be rul’d by him, Lord Ajax.

ULYSSES.
There is no tarrying here; the hart Achilles
Keeps thicket. Please it our great general
To call together all his state of war;
Fresh kings are come to Troy. Tomorrow
We must with all our main of power stand fast;
And here’s a lord—come knights from east to west
And cull their flower, Ajax shall cope the best.

AGAMEMNON.
Go we to council. Let Achilles sleep.
Light boats sail swift, though greater hulks draw deep.

 [_Exeunt_.]



ACT III

SCENE I. Troy. PRIAM’S palace.

 Music sounds within. Enter Pandarus and a Servant.

PANDARUS.
Friend, you—pray you, a word. Do you not follow the young Lord Paris?

SERVANT.
Ay, sir, when he goes before me.

PANDARUS.
You depend upon him, I mean?

SERVANT.
Sir, I do depend upon the Lord.

PANDARUS.
You depend upon a notable gentleman; I must needs praise him.

SERVANT.
The Lord be praised!

PANDARUS.
You know me, do you not?

SERVANT.
Faith, sir, superficially.

PANDARUS.
Friend, know me better: I am the Lord Pandarus.

SERVANT.
I hope I shall know your honour better.

PANDARUS.
I do desire it.

SERVANT.
You are in the state of grace?

PANDARUS.
Grace? Not so, friend; honour and lordship are my titles. What music is
this?

SERVANT.
I do but partly know, sir; it is music in parts.

PANDARUS.
Know you the musicians?

SERVANT.
Wholly, sir.

PANDARUS.
Who play they to?

SERVANT.
To the hearers, sir.

PANDARUS.
At whose pleasure, friend?

SERVANT.
At mine, sir, and theirs that love music.

PANDARUS.
Command, I mean, friend.

SERVANT.
Who shall I command, sir?

PANDARUS.
Friend, we understand not one another: I am too courtly, and thou art
too cunning. At whose request do these men play?

SERVANT.
That’s to’t, indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of Paris my lord,
who is there in person; with him the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of
beauty, love’s invisible soul—

PANDARUS.
Who, my cousin, Cressida?

SERVANT.
No, sir, Helen. Could not you find out that by her attributes?

PANDARUS.
It should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the Lady Cressida. I
come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus; I will make a
complimental assault upon him, for my business seethes.

SERVANT.
Sodden business! There’s a stew’d phrase indeed!

 Enter Paris and Helen, attended.

PANDARUS.
Fair be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company! Fair desires, in
all fair measure, fairly guide them—especially to you, fair queen! Fair
thoughts be your fair pillow.

HELEN.
Dear lord, you are full of fair words.

PANDARUS.
You speak your fair pleasure, sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good
broken music.

PARIS.
You have broke it, cousin; and by my life, you shall make it whole
again; you shall piece it out with a piece of your performance.

HELEN.
He is full of harmony.

PANDARUS.
Truly, lady, no.

HELEN.
O, sir—

PANDARUS.
Rude, in sooth; in good sooth, very rude.

PARIS.
Well said, my lord. Well, you say so in fits.

PANDARUS.
I have business to my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me
a word?

HELEN.
Nay, this shall not hedge us out. We’ll hear you sing, certainly—

PANDARUS.
Well sweet queen, you are pleasant with me. But, marry, thus, my lord:
my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus—

HELEN.
My Lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord—

PANDARUS.
Go to, sweet queen, go to—commends himself most affectionately to you—

HELEN.
You shall not bob us out of our melody. If you do, our melancholy upon
your head!

PANDARUS.
Sweet queen, sweet queen; that’s a sweet queen, i’ faith.

HELEN.
And to make a sweet lady sad is a sour offence.

PANDARUS.
Nay, that shall not serve your turn; that shall it not, in truth, la.
Nay, I care not for such words; no, no.—And, my lord, he desires you
that, if the King call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

HELEN.
My Lord Pandarus!

PANDARUS.
What says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?

PARIS.
What exploit’s in hand? Where sups he tonight?

HELEN.
Nay, but, my lord—

PANDARUS.
What says my sweet queen?—My cousin will fall out with you.

HELEN.
You must not know where he sups.

PARIS.
I’ll lay my life, with my disposer Cressida.

PANDARUS.
No, no, no such matter; you are wide. Come, your disposer is sick.

PARIS.
Well, I’ll make’s excuse.

PANDARUS.
Ay, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida?
No, your poor disposer’s sick.

PARIS.
I spy.

PANDARUS.
You spy! What do you spy?—Come, give me an instrument. Now, sweet
queen.

HELEN.
Why, this is kindly done.

PANDARUS.
My niece is horribly in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.

HELEN.
She shall have it, my lord, if it be not my Lord Paris.

PANDARUS.
He? No, she’ll none of him; they two are twain.

HELEN.
Falling in, after falling out, may make them three.

PANDARUS.
Come, come. I’ll hear no more of this; I’ll sing you a song now.

HELEN.
Ay, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine
forehead.

PANDARUS.
Ay, you may, you may.

HELEN.
Let thy song be love. This love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid,
Cupid!

PANDARUS.
Love! Ay, that it shall, i’ faith.

PARIS.
Ay, good now, love, love, nothing but love.

PANDARUS.
In good troth, it begins so.

 [_Sings_.]


          _Love, love, nothing but love, still love, still more!
           For, oh, love’s bow
            Shoots buck and doe;
            The shaft confounds
              Not that it wounds,
             But tickles still the sore.
         These lovers cry, O ho, they die!
               Yet that which seems the wound to kill
         Doth turn O ho! to ha! ha! he!
                So dying love lives still.
         O ho! a while, but ha! ha! ha!
         O ho! groans out for ha! ha! ha!—hey ho!_

HELEN.
In love, i’ faith, to the very tip of the nose.

PARIS.
He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot
blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot
deeds is love.

PANDARUS.
Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds?
Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers? Sweet lord, who’s
a-field today?

PARIS.
Hector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry of Troy. I
would fain have arm’d today, but my Nell would not have it so. How
chance my brother Troilus went not?

HELEN.
He hangs the lip at something. You know all, Lord Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
Not I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they spend today. You’ll
remember your brother’s excuse?

PARIS.
To a hair.

PANDARUS.
Farewell, sweet queen.

HELEN.
Commend me to your niece.

PANDARUS.
I will, sweet queen.

 [_Exit. Sound a retreat_.]

PARIS.
They’re come from the field. Let us to Priam’s hall
To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo you
To help unarm our Hector. His stubborn buckles,
With these your white enchanting fingers touch’d,
Shall more obey than to the edge of steel
Or force of Greekish sinews; you shall do more
Than all the island kings—disarm great Hector.

HELEN.
’Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris;
Yea, what he shall receive of us in duty
Gives us more palm in beauty than we have,
Yea, overshines ourself.

PARIS.
Sweet, above thought I love thee.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE II. Troy. PANDARUS’ orchard.

 Enter Pandarus and Troilus’ Boy, meeting.

PANDARUS.
How now! Where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?

BOY.
No, sir; he stays for you to conduct him thither.

 Enter Troilus.

PANDARUS.
O, here he comes. How now, how now?

TROILUS.
Sirrah, walk off.

 [_Exit_ Boy.]

PANDARUS.
Have you seen my cousin?

TROILUS.
No, Pandarus. I stalk about her door
Like a strange soul upon the Stygian banks
Staying for waftage. O, be thou my Charon,
And give me swift transportance to these fields
Where I may wallow in the lily beds
Propos’d for the deserver! O gentle Pandar,
from Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted wings,
and fly with me to Cressid!

PANDARUS.
Walk here i’ th’ orchard, I’ll bring her straight.

 [_Exit_.]

TROILUS.
I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
Th’imaginary relish is so sweet
That it enchants my sense; what will it be
When that the wat’ry palate tastes indeed
Love’s thrice-repured nectar? Death, I fear me;
Sounding destruction; or some joy too fine,
Too subtle-potent, tun’d too sharp in sweetness,
For the capacity of my ruder powers.
I fear it much; and I do fear besides
That I shall lose distinction in my joys;
As doth a battle, when they charge on heaps
The enemy flying.

 Re-enter Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
She’s making her ready, she’ll come straight; you must be witty now.
She does so blush, and fetches her wind so short, as if she were fray’d
with a sprite. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest villain; she fetches
her breath as short as a new-ta’en sparrow.

 [_Exit_.]

TROILUS.
Even such a passion doth embrace my bosom.
My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse,
And all my powers do their bestowing lose,
Like vassalage at unawares encount’ring
The eye of majesty.

 Re-enter Pandarus with Cressida.

PANDARUS.
Come, come, what need you blush? Shame’s a baby. Here she is now; swear
the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.—What, are you gone
again? You must be watch’d ere you be made tame, must you? Come your
ways, come your ways; and you draw backward, we’ll put you i’ th’
fills. Why do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain and let’s
see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight!
And ’twere dark, you’d close sooner. So, so; rub on, and kiss the
mistress. How now, a kiss in fee-farm! Build there, carpenter; the air
is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The
falcon as the tercel, for all the ducks i’ th’ river. Go to, go to.

TROILUS.
You have bereft me of all words, lady.

PANDARUS.
Words pay no debts, give her deeds; but she’ll bereave you o’ th’ deeds
too, if she call your activity in question. What, billing again? Here’s
‘In witness whereof the parties interchangeably.’ Come in, come in;
I’ll go get a fire.

 [_Exit_.]

CRESSIDA.
Will you walk in, my lord?

TROILUS.
O Cressid, how often have I wish’d me thus!

CRESSIDA.
Wish’d, my lord! The gods grant—O my lord!

TROILUS.
What should they grant? What makes this pretty abruption? What too
curious dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

CRESSIDA.
More dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.

TROILUS.
Fears make devils of cherubins; they never see truly.

CRESSIDA.
Blind fear, that seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind
reason stumbling without fear. To fear the worst oft cures the worse.

TROILUS.
O, let my lady apprehend no fear! In all Cupid’s pageant there is
presented no monster.

CRESSIDA.
Nor nothing monstrous neither?

TROILUS.
Nothing, but our undertakings when we vow to weep seas, live in fire,
eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise
imposition enough than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This
is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite, and the
execution confin’d; that the desire is boundless, and the act a slave
to limit.

CRESSIDA.
They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet
reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the
perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.
They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not
monsters?

TROILUS.
Are there such? Such are not we. Praise us as we are tasted, allow us
as we prove; our head shall go bare till merit crown it. No perfection
in reversion shall have a praise in present. We will not name desert
before his birth; and, being born, his addition shall be humble. Few
words to fair faith: Troilus shall be such to Cressid as what envy can
say worst shall be a mock for his truth; and what truth can speak
truest not truer than Troilus.

CRESSIDA.
Will you walk in, my lord?

 Re-enter Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
What, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?

CRESSIDA.
Well, uncle, what folly I commit, I dedicate to you.

PANDARUS.
I thank you for that; if my lord get a boy of you, you’ll give him me.
Be true to my lord; if he flinch, chide me for it.

TROILUS.
You know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.

PANDARUS.
Nay, I’ll give my word for her too: our kindred, though they be long
ere they are wooed, they are constant being won; they are burs, I can
tell you; they’ll stick where they are thrown.

CRESSIDA.
Boldness comes to me now and brings me heart.
Prince Troilus, I have lov’d you night and day
For many weary months.

TROILUS.
Why was my Cressid then so hard to win?

CRESSIDA.
Hard to seem won; but I was won, my lord,
With the first glance that ever—pardon me.
If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.
I love you now; but till now not so much
But I might master it. In faith, I lie;
My thoughts were like unbridled children, grown
Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!
Why have I blabb’d? Who shall be true to us,
When we are so unsecret to ourselves?
But, though I lov’d you well, I woo’d you not;
And yet, good faith, I wish’d myself a man,
Or that we women had men’s privilege
Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,
For in this rapture I shall surely speak
The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,
Cunning in dumbness, from my weakness draws
My very soul of counsel. Stop my mouth.

TROILUS.
And shall, albeit sweet music issues thence.

PANDARUS.
Pretty, i’ faith.

CRESSIDA.
My lord, I do beseech you, pardon me;
’Twas not my purpose thus to beg a kiss.
I am asham’d. O heavens! what have I done?
For this time will I take my leave, my lord.

TROILUS.
Your leave, sweet Cressid!

PANDARUS.
Leave! And you take leave till tomorrow morning—

CRESSIDA.
Pray you, content you.

TROILUS.
What offends you, lady?

CRESSIDA.
Sir, mine own company.

TROILUS.
You cannot shun yourself.

CRESSIDA.
Let me go and try.
I have a kind of self resides with you;
But an unkind self, that itself will leave
To be another’s fool. I would be gone.
Where is my wit? I know not what I speak.

TROILUS.
Well know they what they speak that speak so wisely.

CRESSIDA.
Perchance, my lord, I show more craft than love;
And fell so roundly to a large confession
To angle for your thoughts; but you are wise—
Or else you love not; for to be wise and love
Exceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.

TROILUS.
O that I thought it could be in a woman—
As, if it can, I will presume in you—
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love;
To keep her constancy in plight and youth,
Outliving beauty’s outward, with a mind
That doth renew swifter than blood decays!
Or that persuasion could but thus convince me
That my integrity and truth to you
Might be affronted with the match and weight
Of such a winnowed purity in love.
How were I then uplifted! But, alas,
I am as true as truth’s simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth.

CRESSIDA.
In that I’ll war with you.

TROILUS.
O virtuous fight,
When right with right wars who shall be most right!
True swains in love shall in the world to come
Approve their truth by Troilus, when their rhymes,
Full of protest, of oath, and big compare,
Want similes, truth tir’d with iteration—
As true as steel, as plantage to the moon,
As sun to day, as turtle to her mate,
As iron to adamant, as earth to th’ centre—
Yet, after all comparisons of truth,
As truth’s authentic author to be cited,
‘As true as Troilus’ shall crown up the verse
And sanctify the numbers.

CRESSIDA.
Prophet may you be!
If I be false, or swerve a hair from truth,
When time is old and hath forgot itself,
When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,
And blind oblivion swallow’d cities up,
And mighty states characterless are grated
To dusty nothing—yet let memory
From false to false, among false maids in love,
Upbraid my falsehood when th’ have said ‘As false
As air, as water, wind, or sandy earth,
As fox to lamb, or wolf to heifer’s calf,
Pard to the hind, or stepdame to her son’—
Yea, let them say, to stick the heart of falsehood,
‘As false as Cressid.’

PANDARUS.
Go to, a bargain made; seal it, seal it; I’ll be the witness. Here I
hold your hand; here my cousin’s. If ever you prove false one to
another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all
pitiful goers-between be call’d to the world’s end after my name—call
them all Pandars; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women
Cressids, and all brokers between Pandars. Say ‘Amen.’

TROILUS.
Amen.

CRESSIDA.
Amen.

PANDARUS.
Amen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber and a bed; which bed, because
it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away!

 [_Exeunt Troilus and Cressida_.]

And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens here,
Bed, chamber, pander, to provide this gear!

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE III. The Greek camp.

 Flourish. Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Ajax, Menelaus
 and Calchas.

CALCHAS.
Now, Princes, for the service I have done,
Th’advantage of the time prompts me aloud
To call for recompense. Appear it to your mind
That, through the sight I bear in things to come,
I have abandon’d Troy, left my possession,
Incurr’d a traitor’s name, expos’d myself
From certain and possess’d conveniences
To doubtful fortunes, sequest’ring from me all
That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,
Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
And here, to do you service, am become
As new into the world, strange, unacquainted—
I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
To give me now a little benefit
Out of those many regist’red in promise,
Which you say live to come in my behalf.

AGAMEMNON.
What wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.

CALCHAS.
You have a Trojan prisoner call’d Antenor,
Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear.
Oft have you—often have you thanks therefore—
Desir’d my Cressid in right great exchange,
Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor,
I know, is such a wrest in their affairs
That their negotiations all must slack
Wanting his manage; and they will almost
Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam,
In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes,
And he shall buy my daughter; and her presence
Shall quite strike off all service I have done
In most accepted pain.

AGAMEMNON.
Let Diomedes bear him,
And bring us Cressid hither. Calchas shall have
What he requests of us. Good Diomed,
Furnish you fairly for this interchange;
Withal, bring word if Hector will tomorrow
Be answer’d in his challenge. Ajax is ready.

DIOMEDES.
This shall I undertake; and ’tis a burden
Which I am proud to bear.

 [_Exeunt Diomedes and Calchas_.]

 [_Achilles and Patroclus stand in their tent_.]

ULYSSES.
Achilles stands i’ th’entrance of his tent.
Please it our general pass strangely by him,
As if he were forgot; and, Princes all,
Lay negligent and loose regard upon him.
I will come last. ’Tis like he’ll question me
Why such unplausive eyes are bent, why turn’d on him.
If so, I have derision med’cinable
To use between your strangeness and his pride,
Which his own will shall have desire to drink.
It may do good. Pride hath no other glass
To show itself but pride; for supple knees
Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

AGAMEMNON.
We’ll execute your purpose, and put on
A form of strangeness as we pass along.
So do each lord; and either greet him not,
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not look’d on. I will lead the way.

ACHILLES.
What comes the general to speak with me?
You know my mind. I’ll fight no more ’gainst Troy.

AGAMEMNON.
What says Achilles? Would he aught with us?

NESTOR.
Would you, my lord, aught with the general?

ACHILLES.
No.

NESTOR.
Nothing, my lord.

AGAMEMNON.
The better.

 [_Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor_.]

ACHILLES.
Good day, good day.

MENELAUS.
How do you? How do you?

 [_Exit_.]

ACHILLES.
What, does the cuckold scorn me?

AJAX.
How now, Patroclus?

ACHILLES.
Good morrow, Ajax.

AJAX.
Ha?

ACHILLES.
Good morrow.

AJAX.
Ay, and good next day too.

 [_Exit_.]

ACHILLES.
What mean these fellows? Know they not Achilles?

PATROCLUS.
They pass by strangely. They were us’d to bend,
To send their smiles before them to Achilles,
To come as humbly as they us’d to creep
To holy altars.

ACHILLES.
What, am I poor of late?
’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune,
Must fall out with men too. What the declin’d is,
He shall as soon read in the eyes of others
As feel in his own fall; for men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer;
And not a man for being simply man
Hath any honour, but honour for those honours
That are without him, as place, riches, and favour,
Prizes of accident, as oft as merit;
Which when they fall, as being slippery standers,
The love that lean’d on them as slippery too,
Doth one pluck down another, and together
Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me:
Fortune and I are friends; I do enjoy
At ample point all that I did possess
Save these men’s looks; who do, methinks, find out
Something not worth in me such rich beholding
As they have often given. Here is Ulysses.
I’ll interrupt his reading.
How now, Ulysses!

ULYSSES.
Now, great Thetis’ son!

ACHILLES.
What are you reading?

ULYSSES.
A strange fellow here
Writes me that man—how dearly ever parted,
How much in having, or without or in—
Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,
Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection;
As when his virtues shining upon others
Heat them, and they retort that heat again
To the first giver.

ACHILLES.
This is not strange, Ulysses.
The beauty that is borne here in the face
The bearer knows not, but commends itself
To others’ eyes; nor doth the eye itself—
That most pure spirit of sense—behold itself,
Not going from itself; but eye to eye opposed
Salutes each other with each other’s form;
For speculation turns not to itself
Till it hath travell’d, and is mirror’d there
Where it may see itself. This is not strange at all.

ULYSSES.
I do not strain at the position—
It is familiar—but at the author’s drift;
Who, in his circumstance, expressly proves
That no man is the lord of anything,
Though in and of him there be much consisting,
Till he communicate his parts to others;
Nor doth he of himself know them for aught
Till he behold them formed in the applause
Where th’are extended; who, like an arch, reverb’rate
The voice again; or, like a gate of steel
Fronting the sun, receives and renders back
His figure and his heat. I was much rapt in this;
And apprehended here immediately
Th’unknown Ajax. Heavens, what a man is there!
A very horse that has he knows not what!
Nature, what things there are
Most abject in regard and dear in use!
What things again most dear in the esteem
And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow—
An act that very chance doth throw upon him—
Ajax renown’d. O heavens, what some men do,
While some men leave to do!
How some men creep in skittish Fortune’s hall,
Whiles others play the idiots in her eyes!
How one man eats into another’s pride,
While pride is fasting in his wantonness!
To see these Grecian lords!—why, even already
They clap the lubber Ajax on the shoulder,
As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast,
And great Troy shrieking.

ACHILLES.
I do believe it; for they pass’d by me
As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me
Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?

ULYSSES.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,
A great-siz’d monster of ingratitudes.
Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d
As fast as they are made, forgot as soon
As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright. To have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mock’ry. Take the instant way;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow—
Where one but goes abreast. Keep then the path,
For emulation hath a thousand sons
That one by one pursue; if you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an ent’red tide they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;
Or, like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O’er-run and trampled on. Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours;
For Time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’hand;
And with his arms out-stretch’d, as he would fly,
Grasps in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin—
That all with one consent praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’er-dusted.
The present eye praises the present object.
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax,
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye
Than what stirs not. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might, and yet it may again,
If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive
And case thy reputation in thy tent,
Whose glorious deeds but in these fields of late
Made emulous missions ’mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.

ACHILLES.
Of this my privacy
I have strong reasons.

ULYSSES.
But ’gainst your privacy
The reasons are more potent and heroical.
’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love
With one of Priam’s daughters.

ACHILLES.
Ha! known!

ULYSSES.
Is that a wonder?
The providence that’s in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Plutus’ gold;
Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps;
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Do thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery—with whom relation
Durst never meddle—in the soul of state,
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to.
All the commerce that you have had with Troy
As perfectly is ours as yours, my lord;
And better would it fit Achilles much
To throw down Hector than Polyxena.
But it must grieve young Pyrrhus now at home,
When fame shall in our island sound her trump,
And all the Greekish girls shall tripping sing
‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win;
But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.’
Farewell, my lord. I as your lover speak.
The fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.

 [_Exit_.]

PATROCLUS.
To this effect, Achilles, have I mov’d you.
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loath’d than an effeminate man
In time of action. I stand condemn’d for this;
They think my little stomach to the war
And your great love to me restrains you thus.
Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
And, like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane,
Be shook to air.

ACHILLES.
Shall Ajax fight with Hector?

PATROCLUS.
Ay, and perhaps receive much honour by him.

ACHILLES.
I see my reputation is at stake;
My fame is shrewdly gor’d.

PATROCLUS.
O, then, beware:
Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves;
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, subtly taints
Even then when they sit idly in the sun.

ACHILLES.
Go call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus.
I’ll send the fool to Ajax, and desire him
T’invite the Trojan lords, after the combat,
To see us here unarm’d. I have a woman’s longing,
An appetite that I am sick withal,
To see great Hector in his weeds of peace;
To talk with him, and to behold his visage,
Even to my full of view.

 Enter Thersites.

A labour sav’d!

THERSITES.
A wonder!

ACHILLES.
What?

THERSITES.
Ajax goes up and down the field asking for himself.

ACHILLES.
How so?

THERSITES.
He must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically
proud of an heroical cudgelling that he raves in saying nothing.

ACHILLES.
How can that be?

THERSITES.
Why, a’ stalks up and down like a peacock—a stride and a stand;
ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set
down her reckoning, bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should
say ‘There were wit in this head, and ’twould out’; and so there is;
but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show
without knocking. The man’s undone for ever; for if Hector break not
his neck i’ th’ combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. He knows
not me. I said ‘Good morrow, Ajax’; and he replies ‘Thanks, Agamemnon.’
What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He’s grown a
very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may
wear it on both sides, like leather jerkin.

ACHILLES.
Thou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

THERSITES.
Who, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody; he professes not answering. Speaking
is for beggars: he wears his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his
presence. Let Patroclus make his demands to me, you shall see the
pageant of Ajax.

ACHILLES.
To him, Patroclus. Tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite
the most valorous Hector to come unarm’d to my tent; and to procure
safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious
six-or-seven-times-honour’d Captain General of the Grecian army,
Agamemnon. Do this.

PATROCLUS.
Jove bless great Ajax!

THERSITES.
Hum!

PATROCLUS.
I come from the worthy Achilles—

THERSITES.
Ha!

PATROCLUS.
Who most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent—

THERSITES.
Hum!

PATROCLUS.
And to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.

THERSITES.
Agamemnon?

PATROCLUS.
Ay, my lord.

THERSITES.
Ha!

PATROCLUS.
What you say to’t?

THERSITES.
God buy you, with all my heart.

PATROCLUS.
Your answer, sir.

THERSITES.
If tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven of the clock it will go one way or
other. Howsoever, he shall pay for me ere he has me.

PATROCLUS.
Your answer, sir.

THERSITES.
Fare ye well, with all my heart.

ACHILLES.
Why, but he is not in this tune, is he?

THERSITES.
No, but out of tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has
knock’d out his brains, I know not; but, I am sure, none; unless the
fiddler Apollo get his sinews to make catlings on.

ACHILLES.
Come, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

THERSITES.
Let me bear another to his horse; for that’s the more capable creature.

ACHILLES.
My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d;
And I myself see not the bottom of it.

 [_Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus_.]

THERSITES.
Would the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an
ass at it. I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant
ignorance.

 [_Exit_.]



ACT IV

SCENE I. Troy. A street.

 Enter, at one side, Aeneas and servant with a torch; at another Paris,
 Deiphobus, Antenor, Diomedes the Grecian, and others, with torches.

PARIS.
See, ho! Who is that there?

DEIPHOBUS.
It is the Lord Aeneas.

AENEAS.
Is the Prince there in person?
Had I so good occasion to lie long
As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business
Should rob my bed-mate of my company.

DIOMEDES.
That’s my mind too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.

PARIS.
A valiant Greek, Aeneas—take his hand:
Witness the process of your speech, wherein
You told how Diomed, a whole week by days,
Did haunt you in the field.

AENEAS.
Health to you, valiant sir,
During all question of the gentle truce;
But when I meet you arm’d, as black defiance
As heart can think or courage execute.

DIOMEDES.
The one and other Diomed embraces.
Our bloods are now in calm; and so long health!
But when contention and occasion meet,
By Jove, I’ll play the hunter for thy life
With all my force, pursuit, and policy.

AENEAS.
And thou shalt hunt a lion that will fly
With his face backward. In humane gentleness,
Welcome to Troy! Now, by Anchises’ life,
Welcome indeed! By Venus’ hand I swear
No man alive can love in such a sort
The thing he means to kill, more excellently.

DIOMEDES.
We sympathise. Jove let Aeneas live,
If to my sword his fate be not the glory,
A thousand complete courses of the sun!
But in mine emulous honour let him die
With every joint a wound, and that tomorrow!

AENEAS.
We know each other well.

DIOMEDES.
We do; and long to know each other worse.

PARIS.
This is the most despiteful gentle greeting
The noblest hateful love, that e’er I heard of.
What business, lord, so early?

AENEAS.
I was sent for to the King; but why, I know not.

PARIS.
His purpose meets you: ’twas to bring this Greek
To Calchas’ house, and there to render him,
For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid.
Let’s have your company; or, if you please,
Haste there before us. I constantly believe—
Or rather call my thought a certain knowledge—
My brother Troilus lodges there tonight.
Rouse him and give him note of our approach,
With the whole quality wherefore; I fear
We shall be much unwelcome.

AENEAS.
That I assure you:
Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece
Than Cressid borne from Troy.

PARIS.
There is no help;
The bitter disposition of the time
Will have it so. On, lord; we’ll follow you.

AENEAS.
Good morrow, all.

 [_Exit with servant_.]

PARIS.
And tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true,
Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship,
Who in your thoughts deserves fair Helen best,
Myself, or Menelaus?

DIOMEDES.
Both alike:
He merits well to have her that doth seek her,
Not making any scruple of her soilure,
With such a hell of pain and world of charge;
And you as well to keep her that defend her,
Not palating the taste of her dishonour,
With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.
He like a puling cuckold would drink up
The lees and dregs of a flat tamed piece;
You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins
Are pleas’d to breed out your inheritors.
Both merits pois’d, each weighs nor less nor more,
But he as he, the heavier for a whore.

PARIS.
You are too bitter to your country-woman.

DIOMEDES.
She’s bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris:
For every false drop in her bawdy veins
A Grecian’s life hath sunk; for every scruple
Of her contaminated carrion weight
A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak,
She hath not given so many good words breath
As for her Greeks and Trojans suff’red death.

PARIS.
Fair Diomed, you do as chapmen do,
Dispraise the thing that you desire to buy;
But we in silence hold this virtue well,
We’ll not commend what we intend to sell.
Here lies our way.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE II. Troy. The court of PANDARUS’ house.

 Enter Troilus and Cressida.

TROILUS.
Dear, trouble not yourself; the morn is cold.

CRESSIDA.
Then, sweet my lord, I’ll call mine uncle down;
He shall unbolt the gates.

TROILUS.
Trouble him not;
To bed, to bed! Sleep kill those pretty eyes,
And give as soft attachment to thy senses
As infants empty of all thought!

CRESSIDA.
Good morrow, then.

TROILUS.
I prithee now, to bed.

CRESSIDA.
Are you aweary of me?

TROILUS.
O Cressida! but that the busy day,
Wak’d by the lark, hath rous’d the ribald crows,
And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,
I would not from thee.

CRESSIDA.
Night hath been too brief.

TROILUS.
Beshrew the witch! with venomous wights she stays
As tediously as hell, but flies the grasps of love
With wings more momentary-swift than thought.
You will catch cold, and curse me.

CRESSIDA.
Prithee tarry.
You men will never tarry.
O foolish Cressid! I might have still held off,
And then you would have tarried. Hark! there’s one up.

PANDARUS.
[_Within._] What’s all the doors open here?

TROILUS.
It is your uncle.

 Enter Pandarus.

CRESSIDA.
A pestilence on him! Now will he be mocking.
I shall have such a life!

PANDARUS.
How now, how now! How go maidenheads?
Here, you maid! Where’s my cousin Cressid?

CRESSIDA.
Go hang yourself, you naughty mocking uncle.
You bring me to do, and then you flout me too.

PANDARUS.
To do what? to do what? Let her say what.
What have I brought you to do?

CRESSIDA.
Come, come, beshrew your heart! You’ll ne’er be good, nor suffer
others.

PANDARUS.
Ha, ha! Alas, poor wretch! Ah, poor capocchia! Hast not slept tonight?
Would he not, a naughty man, let it sleep? A bugbear take him!

CRESSIDA.
Did not I tell you? Would he were knock’d i’ th’ head!

 [_One knocks_.]

Who’s that at door? Good uncle, go and see.
My lord, come you again into my chamber.
You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.

TROILUS.
Ha! ha!

CRESSIDA.
Come, you are deceiv’d, I think of no such thing.

 [_Knock_.]

How earnestly they knock! Pray you come in:
I would not for half Troy have you seen here.

 [_Exeunt Troilus and Cressida_.]

PANDARUS.
Who’s there? What’s the matter? Will you beat down the door? How now?
What’s the matter?

 Enter Aeneas.

AENEAS.
Good morrow, lord, good morrow.

PANDARUS.
Who’s there? My lord Aeneas? By my troth,
I knew you not. What news with you so early?

AENEAS.
Is not Prince Troilus here?

PANDARUS.
Here! What should he do here?

AENEAS.
Come, he is here, my lord; do not deny him.
It doth import him much to speak with me.

PANDARUS.
Is he here, say you? It’s more than I know, I’ll be sworn. For my own
part, I came in late. What should he do here?

AENEAS.
Who, nay then! Come, come, you’ll do him wrong ere you are ware; you’ll
be so true to him to be false to him. Do not you know of him, but yet
go fetch him hither; go.

 Re-enter Troilus.

TROILUS.
How now! What’s the matter?

AENEAS.
My lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,
My matter is so rash. There is at hand
Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,
The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor
Deliver’d to us; and for him forthwith,
Ere the first sacrifice, within this hour,
We must give up to Diomedes’ hand
The Lady Cressida.

TROILUS.
Is it so concluded?

AENEAS.
By Priam and the general state of Troy.
They are at hand, and ready to effect it.

TROILUS.
How my achievements mock me!
I will go meet them; and, my Lord Aeneas,
We met by chance; you did not find me here.

AENEAS.
Good, good, my lord, the secrets of neighbour Pandar
Have not more gift in taciturnity.

 [_Exeunt Troilus and Aeneas_.]

PANDARUS.
Is’t possible? No sooner got but lost? The devil take Antenor! The
young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I would they had
broke’s neck.

 Re-enter Cressida.

CRESSIDA.
How now! What’s the matter? Who was here?

PANDARUS.
Ah, ah!

CRESSIDA.
Why sigh you so profoundly? Where’s my lord? Gone? Tell me, sweet
uncle, what’s the matter?

PANDARUS.
Would I were as deep under the earth as I am above!

CRESSIDA.
O the gods! What’s the matter?

PANDARUS.
Pray thee get thee in. Would thou hadst ne’er been born! I knew thou
wouldst be his death! O, poor gentleman! A plague upon Antenor!

CRESSIDA.
Good uncle, I beseech you, on my knees I beseech you, what’s the
matter?

PANDARUS.
Thou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art chang’d for
Antenor; thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troilus. ’Twill be
his death; ’twill be his bane; he cannot bear it.

CRESSIDA.
O you immortal gods! I will not go.

PANDARUS.
Thou must.

CRESSIDA.
I will not, uncle. I have forgot my father;
I know no touch of consanguinity,
No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me
As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine,
Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood,
If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force, and death,
Do to this body what extremes you can,
But the strong base and building of my love
Is as the very centre of the earth,
Drawing all things to it. I’ll go in and weep—

PANDARUS.
Do, do.

CRESSIDA.
Tear my bright hair, and scratch my praised cheeks,
Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart,
With sounding ‘Troilus.’ I will not go from Troy.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE III. Troy. A street before PANDARUS’ house.

 Enter Paris, Troilus, Aeneas, Deiphobus, Antenor and Diomedes.

PARIS.
It is great morning; and the hour prefix’d
For her delivery to this valiant Greek
Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,
Tell you the lady what she is to do
And haste her to the purpose.

TROILUS.
Walk into her house.
I’ll bring her to the Grecian presently;
And to his hand when I deliver her,
Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus
A priest, there off’ring to it his own heart.

 [_Exit_.]

PARIS.
I know what ’tis to love,
And would, as I shall pity, I could help!
Please you walk in, my lords?

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE IV. Troy. PANDARUS’ house.

 Enter Pandarus and Cressida.

PANDARUS.
Be moderate, be moderate.

CRESSIDA.
Why tell you me of moderation?
The grief is fine, full, perfect, that I taste,
And violenteth in a sense as strong
As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it?
If I could temporize with my affections
Or brew it to a weak and colder palate,
The like allayment could I give my grief.
My love admits no qualifying dross;
No more my grief, in such a precious loss.

 Enter Troilus.

PANDARUS.
Here, here, here he comes. Ah, sweet ducks!

CRESSIDA.
[_Embracing him_.] O Troilus! Troilus!

PANDARUS.
What a pair of spectacles is here! Let me embrace too. ‘O heart,’ as
the goodly saying is,—

  O heart, heavy heart,
  Why sigh’st thou without breaking?

where he answers again

  Because thou canst not ease thy smart
  By friendship nor by speaking.

There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we may
live to have need of such a verse. We see it, we see it. How now,
lambs!

TROILUS.
Cressid, I love thee in so strain’d a purity
That the bless’d gods, as angry with my fancy,
More bright in zeal than the devotion which
Cold lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.

CRESSIDA.
Have the gods envy?

PANDARUS.
Ay, ay, ay, ay; ’tis too plain a case.

CRESSIDA.
And is it true that I must go from Troy?

TROILUS.
A hateful truth.

CRESSIDA.
What! and from Troilus too?

TROILUS.
From Troy and Troilus.

CRESSIDA.
Is’t possible?

TROILUS.
And suddenly; where injury of chance
Puts back leave-taking, justles roughly by
All time of pause, rudely beguiles our lips
Of all rejoindure, forcibly prevents
Our lock’d embrasures, strangles our dear vows
Even in the birth of our own labouring breath.
We two, that with so many thousand sighs
Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves
With the rude brevity and discharge of one.
Injurious time now with a robber’s haste
Crams his rich thiev’ry up, he knows not how.
As many farewells as be stars in heaven,
With distinct breath and consign’d kisses to them,
He fumbles up into a loose adieu,
And scants us with a single famish’d kiss,
Distasted with the salt of broken tears.

AENEAS.
[_Within_.] My lord, is the lady ready?

TROILUS.
Hark! you are call’d. Some say the Genius
Cries so to him that instantly must die.
Bid them have patience; she shall come anon.

PANDARUS.
Where are my tears? Rain, to lay this wind, or my heart will be blown
up by my throat!

 [_Exit_.]

CRESSIDA.
I must then to the Grecians?

TROILUS.
No remedy.

CRESSIDA.
A woeful Cressid ’mongst the merry Greeks!
When shall we see again?

TROILUS.
Hear me, my love. Be thou but true of heart.

CRESSIDA.
I true? How now! What wicked deem is this?

TROILUS.
Nay, we must use expostulation kindly,
For it is parting from us.
I speak not ‘Be thou true’ as fearing thee,
For I will throw my glove to Death himself
That there’s no maculation in thy heart;
But ‘Be thou true’ say I to fashion in
My sequent protestation: be thou true,
And I will see thee.

CRESSIDA.
O! you shall be expos’d, my lord, to dangers
As infinite as imminent! But I’ll be true.

TROILUS.
And I’ll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.

CRESSIDA.
And you this glove. When shall I see you?

TROILUS.
I will corrupt the Grecian sentinels
To give thee nightly visitation.
But yet be true.

CRESSIDA.
O heavens! ‘Be true’ again!

TROILUS.
Hear why I speak it, love.
The Grecian youths are full of quality;
They’re loving, well compos’d, with gifts of nature,
Flowing and swelling o’er with arts and exercise.
How novelty may move, and parts with person,
Alas, a kind of godly jealousy,
Which, I beseech you, call a virtuous sin,
Makes me afear’d.

CRESSIDA.
O heavens! you love me not!

TROILUS.
Die I a villain then!
In this I do not call your faith in question
So mainly as my merit. I cannot sing,
Nor heel the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,
Nor play at subtle games; fair virtues all,
To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant;
But I can tell that in each grace of these
There lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil
That tempts most cunningly. But be not tempted.

CRESSIDA.
Do you think I will?

TROILUS.
No.
But something may be done that we will not;
And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,
When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,
Presuming on their changeful potency.

AENEAS.
[_Within_.] Nay, good my lord!

TROILUS.
Come, kiss; and let us part.

PARIS.
[_Within_.] Brother Troilus!

TROILUS.
Good brother, come you hither;
And bring Aeneas and the Grecian with you.

CRESSIDA.
My lord, will you be true?

TROILUS.
Who, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault!
Whiles others fish with craft for great opinion,
I with great truth catch mere simplicity;
Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,
With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.
Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit
Is plain and true; there’s all the reach of it.

 Enter Aeneas, Paris, Antenor, Deiphobus and Diomedes.

Welcome, Sir Diomed! Here is the lady
Which for Antenor we deliver you;
At the port, lord, I’ll give her to thy hand,
And by the way possess thee what she is.
Entreat her fair; and, by my soul, fair Greek,
If e’er thou stand at mercy of my sword,
Name Cressid, and thy life shall be as safe
As Priam is in Ilion.

DIOMEDES.
Fair Lady Cressid,
So please you, save the thanks this prince expects.
The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,
Pleads your fair usage; and to Diomed
You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.

TROILUS.
Grecian, thou dost not use me courteously
To shame the zeal of my petition to thee
In praising her. I tell thee, lord of Greece,
She is as far high-soaring o’er thy praises
As thou unworthy to be call’d her servant.
I charge thee use her well, even for my charge;
For, by the dreadful Pluto, if thou dost not,
Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,
I’ll cut thy throat.

DIOMEDES.
O, be not mov’d, Prince Troilus.
Let me be privileg’d by my place and message
To be a speaker free: when I am hence
I’ll answer to my lust. And know you, lord,
I’ll nothing do on charge: to her own worth
She shall be priz’d. But that you say ‘Be’t so,’
I speak it in my spirit and honour, ‘No.’

TROILUS.
Come, to the port. I’ll tell thee, Diomed,
This brave shall oft make thee to hide thy head.
Lady, give me your hand; and, as we walk,
To our own selves bend we our needful talk.

 [_Exeunt Troilus, Cressida and Diomedes_.]

 [_Sound trumpet_.]

PARIS.
Hark! Hector’s trumpet.

AENEAS.
How have we spent this morning!
The Prince must think me tardy and remiss,
That swore to ride before him to the field.

PARIS.
’Tis Troilus’ fault. Come, come to field with him.

DEIPHOBUS.
Let us make ready straight.

AENEAS.
Yea, with a bridegroom’s fresh alacrity
Let us address to tend on Hector’s heels.
The glory of our Troy doth this day lie
On his fair worth and single chivalry.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE V. The Grecian camp. Lists set out.

 Enter Ajax, armed; Agamemnon, Achilles, Patroclus, Menelaus, Ulysses,
 Nestor and others.

AGAMEMNON.
Here art thou in appointment fresh and fair,
Anticipating time with starting courage.
Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,
Thou dreadful Ajax, that the appalled air
May pierce the head of the great combatant,
And hale him hither.

AJAX.
Thou, trumpet, there’s my purse.
Now crack thy lungs and split thy brazen pipe;
Blow, villain, till thy sphered bias cheek
Out-swell the colic of puff’d Aquilon.
Come, stretch thy chest, and let thy eyes spout blood:
Thou blowest for Hector.

 [_Trumpet sounds_.]

ULYSSES.
No trumpet answers.

ACHILLES.
’Tis but early days.

AGAMEMNON.
Is not yond Diomed, with Calchas’ daughter?

ULYSSES.
’Tis he, I ken the manner of his gait:
He rises on the toe. That spirit of his
In aspiration lifts him from the earth.

 Enter Diomedes and Cressida.

AGAMEMNON.
Is this the Lady Cressid?

DIOMEDES.
Even she.

AGAMEMNON.
Most dearly welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady.

NESTOR.
Our general doth salute you with a kiss.

ULYSSES.
Yet is the kindness but particular;
’Twere better she were kiss’d in general.

NESTOR.
And very courtly counsel: I’ll begin.
So much for Nestor.

ACHILLES.
I’ll take that winter from your lips, fair lady.
Achilles bids you welcome.

MENELAUS.
I had good argument for kissing once.

PATROCLUS.
But that’s no argument for kissing now;
For thus popp’d Paris in his hardiment,
And parted thus you and your argument.

ULYSSES.
O deadly gall, and theme of all our scorns!
For which we lose our heads to gild his horns.

PATROCLUS.
The first was Menelaus’ kiss; this, mine:
Patroclus kisses you.

MENELAUS.
O, this is trim!

PATROCLUS.
Paris and I kiss evermore for him.

MENELAUS.
I’ll have my kiss, sir. Lady, by your leave.

CRESSIDA.
In kissing, do you render or receive?

PATROCLUS.
Both take and give.

CRESSIDA.
I’ll make my match to live,
The kiss you take is better than you give;
Therefore no kiss.

MENELAUS.
I’ll give you boot; I’ll give you three for one.

CRESSIDA.
You are an odd man; give even or give none.

MENELAUS.
An odd man, lady! Every man is odd.

CRESSIDA.
No, Paris is not; for you know ’tis true
That you are odd, and he is even with you.

MENELAUS.
You fillip me o’ th’head.

CRESSIDA.
No, I’ll be sworn.

ULYSSES.
It were no match, your nail against his horn.
May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?

CRESSIDA.
You may.

ULYSSES.
I do desire it.

CRESSIDA.
Why, beg then.

ULYSSES.
Why then, for Venus’ sake give me a kiss
When Helen is a maid again, and his.

CRESSIDA.
I am your debtor; claim it when ’tis due.

ULYSSES.
Never’s my day, and then a kiss of you.

DIOMEDES.
Lady, a word. I’ll bring you to your father.

 [_Exit with_ Cressida.]

NESTOR.
A woman of quick sense.

ULYSSES.
Fie, fie upon her!
There’s language in her eye, her cheek, her lip,
Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
O! these encounterers so glib of tongue
That give a coasting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts
To every tickling reader! Set them down
For sluttish spoils of opportunity,
And daughters of the game.

 [_Trumpet within_.]

ALL.
The Trojans’ trumpet.

AGAMEMNON.
Yonder comes the troop.

 Enter Hector, armed; Aeneas, Troilus, Paris, Deiphobus and other
Trojans, with attendants.

AENEAS.
Hail, all you state of Greece! What shall be done
To him that victory commands? Or do you purpose
A victor shall be known? Will you the knights
Shall to the edge of all extremity
Pursue each other, or shall be divided
By any voice or order of the field?
Hector bade ask.

AGAMEMNON.
Which way would Hector have it?

AENEAS.
He cares not; he’ll obey conditions.

AGAMEMNON.
’Tis done like Hector.

ACHILLES.
But securely done,
A little proudly, and great deal misprising
The knight oppos’d.

AENEAS.
If not Achilles, sir,
What is your name?

ACHILLES.
If not Achilles, nothing.

AENEAS.
Therefore Achilles. But whate’er, know this:
In the extremity of great and little
Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;
The one almost as infinite as all,
The other blank as nothing. Weigh him well,
And that which looks like pride is courtesy.
This Ajax is half made of Hector’s blood;
In love whereof half Hector stays at home;
Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek
This blended knight, half Trojan and half Greek.

ACHILLES.
A maiden battle then? O! I perceive you.

 Re-enter Diomedes.

AGAMEMNON.
Here is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle knight,
Stand by our Ajax. As you and Lord Aeneas
Consent upon the order of their fight,
So be it; either to the uttermost,
Or else a breath. The combatants being kin
Half stints their strife before their strokes begin.

Ajax and Hector enter the lists.

ULYSSES.
They are oppos’d already.

AGAMEMNON.
What Trojan is that same that looks so heavy?

ULYSSES.
The youngest son of Priam, a true knight;
Not yet mature, yet matchless; firm of word;
Speaking in deeds and deedless in his tongue;
Not soon provok’d, nor being provok’d soon calm’d;
His heart and hand both open and both free;
For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows,
Yet gives he not till judgement guide his bounty,
Nor dignifies an impure thought with breath;
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;
For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes
To tender objects, but he in heat of action
Is more vindicative than jealous love.
They call him Troilus, and on him erect
A second hope as fairly built as Hector.
Thus says Aeneas, one that knows the youth
Even to his inches, and, with private soul,
Did in great Ilion thus translate him to me.

 [_Alarum. Hector and Ajax fight._]

AGAMEMNON.
They are in action.

NESTOR.
Now, Ajax, hold thine own!

TROILUS.
Hector, thou sleep’st; awake thee!

AGAMEMNON.
His blows are well dispos’d. There, Ajax!

 [_Trumpets cease_.]

DIOMEDES.
You must no more.

AENEAS.
Princes, enough, so please you.

AJAX.
I am not warm yet; let us fight again.

DIOMEDES.
As Hector pleases.

HECTOR.
Why, then will I no more.
Thou art, great lord, my father’s sister’s son,
A cousin-german to great Priam’s seed;
The obligation of our blood forbids
A gory emulation ’twixt us twain:
Were thy commixtion Greek and Trojan so
That thou could’st say ‘This hand is Grecian all,
And this is Trojan; the sinews of this leg
All Greek, and this all Troy; my mother’s blood
Runs on the dexter cheek, and this sinister
Bounds in my father’s; by Jove multipotent,
Thou shouldst not bear from me a Greekish member
Wherein my sword had not impressure made
Of our rank feud; but the just gods gainsay
That any drop thou borrow’dst from thy mother,
My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword
Be drained! Let me embrace thee, Ajax.
By him that thunders, thou hast lusty arms;
Hector would have them fall upon him thus.
Cousin, all honour to thee!

AJAX.
I thank thee, Hector.
Thou art too gentle and too free a man.
I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence
A great addition earned in thy death.

HECTOR.
Not Neoptolemus so mirable,
On whose bright crest Fame with her loud’st Oyes
Cries ‘This is he!’ could promise to himself
A thought of added honour torn from Hector.

AENEAS.
There is expectance here from both the sides
What further you will do.

HECTOR.
We’ll answer it:
The issue is embracement. Ajax, farewell.

AJAX.
If I might in entreaties find success,
As seld’ I have the chance, I would desire
My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.

DIOMEDES.
’Tis Agamemnon’s wish; and great Achilles
Doth long to see unarm’d the valiant Hector.

HECTOR.
Aeneas, call my brother Troilus to me,
And signify this loving interview
To the expecters of our Trojan part;
Desire them home. Give me thy hand, my cousin;
I will go eat with thee, and see your knights.

Agamemnon and the rest of the Greeks come forward.

AJAX.
Great Agamemnon comes to meet us here.

HECTOR.
The worthiest of them tell me name by name;
But for Achilles, my own searching eyes
Shall find him by his large and portly size.

AGAMEMNON.
Worthy all arms! as welcome as to one
That would be rid of such an enemy.
But that’s no welcome. Understand more clear,
What’s past and what’s to come is strew’d with husks
And formless ruin of oblivion;
But in this extant moment, faith and troth,
Strain’d purely from all hollow bias-drawing,
Bids thee with most divine integrity,
From heart of very heart, great Hector, welcome.

HECTOR.
I thank thee, most imperious Agamemnon.

AGAMEMNON.
[_To Troilus._] My well-fam’d lord of Troy, no less to you.

MENELAUS.
Let me confirm my princely brother’s greeting.
You brace of warlike brothers, welcome hither.

HECTOR.
Who must we answer?

AENEAS.
The noble Menelaus.

HECTOR.
O you, my lord? By Mars his gauntlet, thanks!
Mock not that I affect the untraded oath;
Your quondam wife swears still by Venus’ glove.
She’s well, but bade me not commend her to you.

MENELAUS.
Name her not now, sir; she’s a deadly theme.

HECTOR.
O, pardon; I offend.

NESTOR.
I have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,
Labouring for destiny, make cruel way
Through ranks of Greekish youth; and I have seen thee,
As hot as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,
Despising many forfeits and subduements,
When thou hast hung thy advanced sword i’ th’air,
Not letting it decline on the declined;
That I have said to some my standers-by
‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!’
And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,
When that a ring of Greeks have shrap’d thee in,
Like an Olympian wrestling. This have I seen;
But this thy countenance, still lock’d in steel,
I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,
And once fought with him. He was a soldier good,
But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,
Never like thee. O, let an old man embrace thee;
And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.

AENEAS.
’Tis the old Nestor.

HECTOR.
Let me embrace thee, good old chronicle,
That hast so long walk’d hand in hand with time.
Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp thee.

NESTOR.
I would my arms could match thee in contention
As they contend with thee in courtesy.

HECTOR.
I would they could.

NESTOR.
Ha!
By this white beard, I’d fight with thee tomorrow.
Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.

ULYSSES.
I wonder now how yonder city stands,
When we have here her base and pillar by us.

HECTOR.
I know your favour, Lord Ulysses, well.
Ah, sir, there’s many a Greek and Trojan dead,
Since first I saw yourself and Diomed
In Ilion on your Greekish embassy.

ULYSSES.
Sir, I foretold you then what would ensue.
My prophecy is but half his journey yet;
For yonder walls, that pertly front your town,
Yon towers, whose wanton tops do buss the clouds,
Must kiss their own feet.

HECTOR.
I must not believe you.
There they stand yet; and modestly I think
The fall of every Phrygian stone will cost
A drop of Grecian blood. The end crowns all;
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.

ULYSSES.
So to him we leave it.
Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome.
After the General, I beseech you next
To feast with me and see me at my tent.

ACHILLES.
I shall forestall thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!
Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee;
I have with exact view perus’d thee, Hector,
And quoted joint by joint.

HECTOR.
Is this Achilles?

ACHILLES.
I am Achilles.

HECTOR.
Stand fair, I pray thee; let me look on thee.

ACHILLES.
Behold thy fill.

HECTOR.
Nay, I have done already.

ACHILLES.
Thou art too brief. I will the second time,
As I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

HECTOR.
O, like a book of sport thou’lt read me o’er;
But there’s more in me than thou understand’st.
Why dost thou so oppress me with thine eye?

ACHILLES.
Tell me, you heavens, in which part of his body
Shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there?
That I may give the local wound a name,
And make distinct the very breach whereout
Hector’s great spirit flew. Answer me, heavens.

HECTOR.
It would discredit the blest gods, proud man,
To answer such a question. Stand again.
Think’st thou to catch my life so pleasantly
As to prenominate in nice conjecture
Where thou wilt hit me dead?

ACHILLES.
I tell thee yea.

HECTOR.
Wert thou an oracle to tell me so,
I’d not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well;
For I’ll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there;
But, by the forge that stithied Mars his helm,
I’ll kill thee everywhere, yea, o’er and o’er.
You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag.
His insolence draws folly from my lips;
But I’ll endeavour deeds to match these words,
Or may I never—

AJAX.
Do not chafe thee, cousin;
And you, Achilles, let these threats alone
Till accident or purpose bring you to’t.
You may have every day enough of Hector,
If you have stomach. The general state, I fear,
Can scarce entreat you to be odd with him.

HECTOR.
I pray you let us see you in the field;
We have had pelting wars since you refus’d
The Grecians’ cause.

ACHILLES.
Dost thou entreat me, Hector?
Tomorrow do I meet thee, fell as death;
Tonight all friends.

HECTOR.
Thy hand upon that match.

AGAMEMNON.
First, all you peers of Greece, go to my tent;
There in the full convive we; afterwards,
As Hector’s leisure and your bounties shall
Concur together, severally entreat him.
Beat loud the tambourines, let the trumpets blow,
That this great soldier may his welcome know.

 [_Exeunt all but Troilus and Ulysses_.]

TROILUS.
My Lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,
In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?

ULYSSES.
At Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troilus.
There Diomed doth feast with him tonight,
Who neither looks upon the heaven nor earth,
But gives all gaze and bent of amorous view
On the fair Cressid.

TROILUS.
Shall I, sweet lord, be bound to you so much,
After we part from Agamemnon’s tent,
To bring me thither?

ULYSSES.
You shall command me, sir.
As gentle tell me of what honour was
This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there
That wails her absence?

TROILUS.
O, sir, to such as boasting show their scars
A mock is due. Will you walk on, my lord?
She was belov’d, she lov’d; she is, and doth;
But still sweet love is food for fortune’s tooth.

 [_Exeunt_.]



ACT V

SCENE I. The Grecian camp. Before the tent of ACHILLES.

 Enter Achilles and Patroclus.

ACHILLES.
I’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine tonight,
Which with my scimitar I’ll cool tomorrow.
Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

PATROCLUS.
Here comes Thersites.

 Enter Thersites.

ACHILLES.
How now, thou core of envy!
Thou crusty batch of nature, what’s the news?

THERSITES.
Why, thou picture of what thou seemest, and idol of idiot worshippers,
here’s a letter for thee.

ACHILLES.
From whence, fragment?

THERSITES.
Why, thou full dish of fool, from Troy.

PATROCLUS.
Who keeps the tent now?

THERSITES.
The surgeon’s box or the patient’s wound.

PATROCLUS.
Well said, adversity! And what needs these tricks?

THERSITES.
Prithee, be silent, boy; I profit not by thy talk; thou art said to be
Achilles’ male varlet.

PATROCLUS.
Male varlet, you rogue! What’s that?

THERSITES.
Why, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases of the south, the
guts-griping ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’ gravel in the back,
lethargies, cold palsies, raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs,
bladders full of imposthume, sciaticas, lime-kilns i’ th’ palm,
incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled fee-simple of the tetter, take
and take again such preposterous discoveries!

PATROCLUS.
Why, thou damnable box of envy, thou, what meanest thou to curse thus?

THERSITES.
Do I curse thee?

PATROCLUS.
Why, no, you ruinous butt; you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.

THERSITES.
No! Why art thou, then, exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of
sleave silk, thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a
prodigal’s purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is  pestered with such
water-flies, diminutives of nature!

PATROCLUS.
Out, gall!

THERSITES.
Finch egg!

ACHILLES.
My sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite
From my great purpose in tomorrow’s battle.
Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
A token from her daughter, my fair love,
Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it.
Fall Greeks; fail fame; honour or go or stay;
My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey.
Come, come, Thersites, help to trim my tent;
This night in banqueting must all be spent.
Away, Patroclus!

 [_Exit with_ Patroclus.]

THERSITES.
With too much blood and too little brain these two may run mad; but, if
with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of
madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves
quails, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax; and the goodly
transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive
statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn in a
chain at his brother’s leg, to what form but that he is, should wit
larded with malice, and malice forced with wit, turn him to? To an ass,
were nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox, were nothing: he is both
ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchook, a toad, a lizard,
an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care; but to
be Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would
be, if I were not Thersites; for I care not to be the louse of a lazar,
so I were not Menelaus. Hey-day! sprites and fires!

 Enter Hector, Troilus, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Menelaus and
 Diomedes with lights.

AGAMEMNON.
We go wrong, we go wrong.

AJAX.
No, yonder ’tis;
There, where we see the lights.

HECTOR.
I trouble you.

AJAX.
No, not a whit.

ULYSSES.
Here comes himself to guide you.

 Re-enter Achilles.

ACHILLES.
Welcome, brave Hector; welcome, Princes all.

AGAMEMNON.
So now, fair Prince of Troy, I bid good night;
Ajax commands the guard to tend on you.

HECTOR.
Thanks, and good night to the Greeks’ general.

MENELAUS.
Good night, my lord.

HECTOR.
Good night, sweet Lord Menelaus.

THERSITES.
Sweet draught! ‘Sweet’ quoth a’!
Sweet sink, sweet sewer!

ACHILLES.
Good night and welcome, both at once, to those
That go or tarry.

AGAMEMNON.
Good night.

 [_Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus_.]

ACHILLES.
Old Nestor tarries; and you too, Diomed,
Keep Hector company an hour or two.

DIOMEDES.
I cannot, lord; I have important business,
The tide whereof is now. Good night, great Hector.

HECTOR.
Give me your hand.

ULYSSES.
[_Aside to Troilus._] Follow his torch; he goes to
Calchas’ tent; I’ll keep you company.

TROILUS.
Sweet sir, you honour me.

HECTOR.
And so, good night.

 [_Exit Diomedes, Ulysses and Troilus following._]

ACHILLES.
Come, come, enter my tent.

 [_Exeunt all but_ Thersites.]

THERSITES.
That same Diomed’s a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust knave; I will
no more trust him when he leers than I will a serpent when he hisses.
He will spend his mouth and promise, like Brabbler the hound; but when
he performs, astronomers foretell it: it is prodigious, there will come
some change; the sun borrows of the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I
will rather leave to see Hector than not to dog him. They say he keeps
a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas’ tent. I’ll after. Nothing
but lechery! All incontinent varlets!

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE II. The Grecian camp. Before CALCHAS’ tent.

 Enter Diomedes.

DIOMEDES.
What, are you up here, ho! Speak.

CALCHAS.
[_Within_.] Who calls?

DIOMEDES.
Diomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?

CALCHAS.
[_Within_.] She comes to you.

 Enter Troilus and Ulysses, at a distance; after them Thersites.

ULYSSES.
Stand where the torch may not discover us.

 Enter Cressida.

TROILUS.
Cressid comes forth to him.

DIOMEDES.
How now, my charge!

CRESSIDA.
Now, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you.

 [_Whispers_.]

TROILUS.
Yea, so familiar?

ULYSSES.
She will sing any man at first sight.

THERSITES.
And any man may sing her, if he can take her cliff; she’s noted.

DIOMEDES.
Will you remember?

CRESSIDA.
Remember! Yes.

DIOMEDES.
Nay, but do, then;
And let your mind be coupled with your words.

TROILUS.
What should she remember?

ULYSSES.
List!

CRESSIDA.
Sweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.

THERSITES.
Roguery!

DIOMEDES.
Nay, then—

CRESSIDA.
I’ll tell you what—

DIOMEDES.
Fo, fo! come, tell a pin; you are a forsworn.

CRESSIDA.
In faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?

THERSITES.
A juggling trick, to be secretly open.

DIOMEDES.
What did you swear you would bestow on me?

CRESSIDA.
I prithee, do not hold me to mine oath;
Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.

DIOMEDES.
Good night.

TROILUS.
Hold, patience!

ULYSSES.
How now, Trojan!

CRESSIDA.
Diomed!

DIOMEDES.
No, no, good night; I’ll be your fool no more.

TROILUS.
Thy better must.

CRESSIDA.
Hark! a word in your ear.

TROILUS.
O plague and madness!

ULYSSES.
You are moved, Prince; let us depart, I pray,
Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself
To wrathful terms. This place is dangerous;
The time right deadly; I beseech you, go.

TROILUS.
Behold, I pray you.

ULYSSES.
Nay, good my lord, go off;
You flow to great distraction; come, my lord.

TROILUS.
I pray thee stay.

ULYSSES.
You have not patience; come.

TROILUS.
I pray you, stay; by hell and all hell’s torments,
I will not speak a word.

DIOMEDES.
And so, good night.

CRESSIDA.
Nay, but you part in anger.

TROILUS.
Doth that grieve thee? O withered truth!

ULYSSES.
How now, my lord?

TROILUS.
By Jove, I will be patient.

CRESSIDA.
Guardian! Why, Greek!

DIOMEDES.
Fo, fo! adieu! you palter.

CRESSIDA.
In faith, I do not. Come hither once again.

ULYSSES.
You shake, my lord, at something; will you go?
You will break out.

TROILUS.
She strokes his cheek.

ULYSSES.
Come, come.

TROILUS.
Nay, stay; by Jove, I will not speak a word:
There is between my will and all offences
A guard of patience. Stay a little while.

THERSITES.
How the devil Luxury, with his fat rump and potato finger, tickles
these together! Fry, lechery, fry!

DIOMEDES.
But will you, then?

CRESSIDA.
In faith, I will, la; never trust me else.

DIOMEDES.
Give me some token for the surety of it.

CRESSIDA.
I’ll fetch you one.

 [_Exit_.]

ULYSSES.
You have sworn patience.

TROILUS.
Fear me not, my lord;
I will not be myself, nor have cognition
Of what I feel. I am all patience.

 Re-enter Cressida.

THERSITES.
Now the pledge; now, now, now!

CRESSIDA.
Here, Diomed, keep this sleeve.

TROILUS.
O beauty! where is thy faith?

ULYSSES.
My lord!

TROILUS.
I will be patient; outwardly I will.

CRESSIDA.
You look upon that sleeve; behold it well.
He lov’d me—O false wench!—Give’t me again.

DIOMEDES.
Whose was’t?

CRESSIDA.
It is no matter, now I have’t again.
I will not meet with you tomorrow night.
I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

THERSITES.
Now she sharpens. Well said, whetstone.

DIOMEDES.
I shall have it.

CRESSIDA.
What, this?

DIOMEDES.
Ay, that.

CRESSIDA.
O all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!
Thy master now lies thinking on his bed
Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,
And gives memorial dainty kisses to it,
As I kiss thee. Nay, do not snatch it from me;
He that takes that doth take my heart withal.

DIOMEDES.
I had your heart before; this follows it.

TROILUS.
I did swear patience.

CRESSIDA.
You shall not have it, Diomed; faith, you shall not;
I’ll give you something else.

DIOMEDES.
I will have this. Whose was it?

CRESSIDA.
It is no matter.

DIOMEDES.
Come, tell me whose it was.

CRESSIDA.
’Twas one’s that lov’d me better than you will.
But, now you have it, take it.

DIOMEDES.
Whose was it?

CRESSIDA.
By all Diana’s waiting women yond,
And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

DIOMEDES.
Tomorrow will I wear it on my helm,
And grieve his spirit that dares not challenge it.

TROILUS.
Wert thou the devil and wor’st it on thy horn,
It should be challeng’d.

CRESSIDA.
Well, well, ’tis done, ’tis past; and yet it is not;
I will not keep my word.

DIOMEDES.
Why, then farewell;
Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

CRESSIDA.
You shall not go. One cannot speak a word
But it straight starts you.

DIOMEDES.
I do not like this fooling.

THERSITES.
Nor I, by Pluto; but that that likes not you
Pleases me best.

DIOMEDES.
What, shall I come? The hour?

CRESSIDA.
Ay, come; O Jove! Do come. I shall be plagu’d.

DIOMEDES.
Farewell till then.

CRESSIDA.
Good night. I prithee come.

 [_Exit_ Diomedes.]

Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee;
But with my heart the other eye doth see.
Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind.
What error leads must err; O, then conclude,
Minds sway’d by eyes are full of turpitude.

 [_Exit_.]

THERSITES.
A proof of strength she could not publish more,
Unless she said ‘My mind is now turn’d whore.’

ULYSSES.
All’s done, my lord.

TROILUS.
It is.

ULYSSES.
Why stay we, then?

TROILUS.
To make a recordation to my soul
Of every syllable that here was spoke.
But if I tell how these two did co-act,
Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?
Sith yet there is a credence in my heart,
An esperance so obstinately strong,
That doth invert th’attest of eyes and ears;
As if those organs had deceptious functions
Created only to calumniate.
Was Cressid here?

ULYSSES.
I cannot conjure, Trojan.

TROILUS.
She was not, sure.

ULYSSES.
Most sure she was.

TROILUS.
Why, my negation hath no taste of madness.

ULYSSES.
Nor mine, my lord. Cressid was here but now.

TROILUS.
Let it not be believ’d for womanhood.
Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage
To stubborn critics, apt, without a theme,
For depravation, to square the general sex
By Cressid’s rule. Rather think this not Cressid.

ULYSSES.
What hath she done, Prince, that can soil our mothers?

TROILUS.
Nothing at all, unless that this were she.

THERSITES.
Will he swagger himself out on’s own eyes?

TROILUS.
This she? No; this is Diomed’s Cressida.
If beauty have a soul, this is not she;
If souls guide vows, if vows be sanctimonies,
If sanctimony be the god’s delight,
If there be rule in unity itself,
This was not she. O madness of discourse,
That cause sets up with and against itself!
Bi-fold authority! where reason can revolt
Without perdition, and loss assume all reason
Without revolt: this is, and is not, Cressid.
Within my soul there doth conduce a fight
Of this strange nature, that a thing inseparate
Divides more wider than the sky and earth;
And yet the spacious breadth of this division
Admits no orifice for a point as subtle
As Ariachne’s broken woof to enter.
Instance, O instance! strong as Pluto’s gates:
Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven.
Instance, O instance! strong as heaven itself:
The bonds of heaven are slipp’d, dissolv’d, and loos’d;
And with another knot, five-finger-tied,
The fractions of her faith, orts of her love,
The fragments, scraps, the bits, and greasy relics
Of her o’er-eaten faith, are given to Diomed.

ULYSSES.
May worthy Troilus be half attach’d
With that which here his passion doth express?

TROILUS.
Ay, Greek; and that shall be divulged well
In characters as red as Mars his heart
Inflam’d with Venus. Never did young man fancy
With so eternal and so fix’d a soul.
Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,
So much by weight hate I her Diomed.
That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear on his helm;
Were it a casque compos’d by Vulcan’s skill
My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout
Which shipmen do the hurricano call,
Constring’d in mass by the almighty sun,
Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune’s ear
In his descent than shall my prompted sword
Falling on Diomed.

THERSITES.
He’ll tickle it for his concupy.

TROILUS.
O Cressid! O false Cressid! false, false, false!
Let all untruths stand by thy stained name,
And they’ll seem glorious.

ULYSSES.
O, contain yourself;
Your passion draws ears hither.

 Enter Aeneas.

AENEAS.
I have been seeking you this hour, my lord.
Hector, by this, is arming him in Troy;
Ajax, your guard, stays to conduct you home.

TROILUS.
Have with you, Prince. My courteous lord, adieu.
Fairwell, revolted fair! and, Diomed,
Stand fast, and wear a castle on thy head.

ULYSSES.
I’ll bring you to the gates.

TROILUS.
Accept distracted thanks.

 [_Exeunt Troilus, Aeneas and Ulysses_.]

THERSITES. Would I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a
raven; I would bode, I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for
the intelligence of this whore; the parrot will not do more for an
almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery! Still wars and
lechery! Nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them!

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE III. Troy. Before PRIAM’S palace.

 Enter Hector and Andromache.

ANDROMACHE.
When was my lord so much ungently temper’d
To stop his ears against admonishment?
Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.

HECTOR.
You train me to offend you; get you in.
By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go.

ANDROMACHE.
My dreams will, sure, prove ominous to the day.

HECTOR.
No more, I say.

 Enter Cassandra.

CASSANDRA.
Where is my brother Hector?

ANDROMACHE.
Here, sister, arm’d, and bloody in intent.
Consort with me in loud and dear petition,
Pursue we him on knees; for I have dreamt
Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night
Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.

CASSANDRA.
O, ’tis true!

HECTOR.
Ho! bid my trumpet sound.

CASSANDRA.
No notes of sally, for the heavens, sweet brother!

HECTOR.
Be gone, I say. The gods have heard me swear.

CASSANDRA.
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
They are polluted off’rings, more abhorr’d
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

ANDROMACHE.
O, be persuaded! Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just. It is as lawful,
For we would give much, to use violent thefts
And rob in the behalf of charity.

CASSANDRA.
It is the purpose that makes strong the vow;
But vows to every purpose must not hold.
Unarm, sweet Hector.

HECTOR.
Hold you still, I say.
Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate.
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious dear than life.

 Enter Troilus.

How now, young man! Mean’st thou to fight today?

ANDROMACHE.
Cassandra, call my father to persuade.

 [_Exit_ Cassandra.]

HECTOR.
No, faith, young Troilus; doff thy harness, youth;
I am today i’ th’vein of chivalry.
Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,
And tempt not yet the brushes of the war.
Unarm thee, go; and doubt thou not, brave boy,
I’ll stand today for thee and me and Troy.

TROILUS.
Brother, you have a vice of mercy in you,
Which better fits a lion than a man.

HECTOR.
What vice is that? Good Troilus, chide me for it.

TROILUS.
When many times the captive Grecian falls,
Even in the fan and wind of your fair sword,
You bid them rise and live.

HECTOR.
O, ’tis fair play!

TROILUS.
Fool’s play, by heaven, Hector.

HECTOR.
How now? how now?

TROILUS.
For th’ love of all the gods,
Let’s leave the hermit Pity with our mother;
And when we have our armours buckled on,
The venom’d vengeance ride upon our swords,
Spur them to ruthful work, rein them from ruth!

HECTOR.
Fie, savage, fie!

TROILUS.
Hector, then ’tis wars.

HECTOR.
Troilus, I would not have you fight today.

TROILUS.
Who should withhold me?
Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars
Beckoning with fiery truncheon my retire;
Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,
Their eyes o’er-galled with recourse of tears;
Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,
Oppos’d to hinder me, should stop my way,
But by my ruin.

 Re-enter Cassandra with Priam.

CASSANDRA.
Lay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast;
He is thy crutch; now if thou lose thy stay,
Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,
Fall all together.

PRIAM.
Come, Hector, come, go back.
Thy wife hath dreamt; thy mother hath had visions;
Cassandra doth foresee; and I myself
Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt
To tell thee that this day is ominous.
Therefore, come back.

HECTOR.
Aeneas is a-field;
And I do stand engag’d to many Greeks,
Even in the faith of valour, to appear
This morning to them.

PRIAM.
Ay, but thou shalt not go.

HECTOR.
I must not break my faith.
You know me dutiful; therefore, dear sir,
Let me not shame respect; but give me leave
To take that course by your consent and voice
Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.

CASSANDRA.
O Priam, yield not to him!

ANDROMACHE.
Do not, dear father.

HECTOR.
Andromache, I am offended with you.
Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

 [_Exit_ Andromache.]

TROILUS.
This foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl
Makes all these bodements.

CASSANDRA.
O, farewell, dear Hector!
Look how thou diest. Look how thy eye turns pale.
Look how thy wounds do bleed at many vents.
Hark how Troy roars; how Hecuba cries out;
How poor Andromache shrills her dolours forth;
Behold distraction, frenzy, and amazement,
Like witless antics, one another meet,
And all cry, ‘Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!’

TROILUS.
Away, away!

CASSANDRA.
Farewell! yet, soft! Hector, I take my leave.
Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.

 [_Exit_.]

HECTOR.
You are amaz’d, my liege, at her exclaim.
Go in, and cheer the town; we’ll forth, and fight,
Do deeds worth praise and tell you them at night.

PRIAM.
Farewell. The gods with safety stand about thee!

 [_Exeunt severally Priam and Hector. Alarums._]

TROILUS.
They are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,
I come to lose my arm or win my sleeve.

 Enter Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
Do you hear, my lord? Do you hear?

TROILUS.
What now?

PANDARUS.
Here’s a letter come from yond poor girl.

TROILUS.
Let me read.

PANDARUS.
A whoreson tisick, a whoreson rascally tisick, so troubles me, and the
foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing, what another, that I
shall leave you one o’ these days; and I have a rheum in mine eyes too,
and such an ache in my bones that unless a man were curs’d I cannot
tell what to think on’t. What says she there?

TROILUS.
Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;
Th’effect doth operate another way.

 [_Tearing the letter_.]

Go, wind, to wind, there turn and change together.
My love with words and errors still she feeds,
But edifies another with her deeds.

 [_Exeunt severally_.]

SCENE IV. The plain between Troy and the Grecian camp.

 Alarums. Excursions. Enter Thersites.

THERSITES.
Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I’ll go look on. That
dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy doting
foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain
see them meet, that that same young Trojan ass that loves the whore
there might send that Greekish whoremasterly villain with the sleeve
back to the dissembling luxurious drab of a sleeve-less errand. O’ the
other side, the policy of those crafty swearing rascals that stale old
mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox, Ulysses, is not
prov’d worth a blackberry. They set me up, in policy, that mongrel cur,
Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles; and now is the cur,
Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm today; whereupon
the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism, and policy grows into an ill
opinion.

 Enter Diomedes, Troilus following.

Soft! here comes sleeve, and t’other.

TROILUS.
Fly not; for shouldst thou take the river Styx, I would swim after.

DIOMEDES.
Thou dost miscall retire.
I do not fly; but advantageous care
Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.
Have at thee!

THERSITES.
Hold thy whore, Grecian; now for thy whore,
Trojan! now the sleeve, now the sleeve!

 [_Exeunt Troilus and Diomedes fighting_.]

 Enter Hector.

HECTOR.
What art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match?
Art thou of blood and honour?

THERSITES.
No, no I am a rascal; a scurvy railing knave; a very filthy rogue.

HECTOR.
I do believe thee. Live.

 [_Exit_.]

THERSITES.
God-a-mercy, that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for
frighting me! What’s become of the wenching rogues? I think they have
swallowed one another. I would laugh at that miracle. Yet, in a sort,
lechery eats itself. I’ll seek them.

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE V. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Diomedes and a Servant.

DIOMEDES.
Go, go, my servant, take thou Troilus’ horse;
Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid.
Fellow, commend my service to her beauty;
Tell her I have chastis’d the amorous Trojan,
And am her knight by proof.

SERVANT.
I go, my lord.

 [_Exit_.]

 Enter Agamemnon.

AGAMEMNON.
Renew, renew! The fierce Polydamas
Hath beat down Menon; bastard Margarelon
Hath Doreus prisoner,
And stands colossus-wise, waving his beam,
Upon the pashed corses of the kings
Epistrophus and Cedius. Polixenes is slain;
Amphimacus and Thoas deadly hurt;
Patroclus ta’en, or slain; and Palamedes
Sore hurt and bruis’d. The dreadful Sagittary
Appals our numbers. Haste we, Diomed,
To reinforcement, or we perish all.

 Enter Nestor.

NESTOR.
Go, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles,
And bid the snail-pac’d Ajax arm for shame.
There is a thousand Hectors in the field;
Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,
And there lacks work; anon he’s there afoot,
And there they fly or die, like scaled sculls
Before the belching whale; then is he yonder,
And there the strawy Greeks, ripe for his edge,
Fall down before him like the mower’s swath.
Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes;
Dexterity so obeying appetite
That what he will he does, and does so much
That proof is call’d impossibility.

 Enter Ulysses.

ULYSSES.
O, courage, courage, courage, Princes! Great Achilles
Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance.
Patroclus’ wounds have rous’d his drowsy blood,
Together with his mangled Myrmidons,
That noseless, handless, hack’d and chipp’d, come to him,
Crying on Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend
And foams at mouth, and he is arm’d and at it,
Roaring for Troilus; who hath done today
Mad and fantastic execution,
Engaging and redeeming of himself
With such a careless force and forceless care
As if that lust, in very spite of cunning,
Bade him win all.

 Enter Ajax.

AJAX.
Troilus! thou coward Troilus!

 [_Exit_.]

DIOMEDES.
Ay, there, there.

NESTOR.
So, so, we draw together.

 [_Exit_.]

 Enter Achilles.

ACHILLES.
Where is this Hector?
Come, come, thou boy-queller, show thy face;
Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.
Hector! where’s Hector? I will none but Hector.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE VI. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Ajax.

AJAX.
Troilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head.

 Enter Diomedes.

DIOMEDES.
Troilus, I say! Where’s Troilus?

AJAX.
What wouldst thou?

DIOMEDES.
I would correct him.

AJAX.
Were I the general, thou shouldst have my office
Ere that correction. Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!

 Enter Troilus.

TROILUS.
O traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor,
And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse.

DIOMEDES.
Ha! art thou there?

AJAX.
I’ll fight with him alone. Stand, Diomed.

DIOMEDES.
He is my prize. I will not look upon.

TROILUS.
Come, both, you cogging Greeks; have at you both!

 [_Exeunt fighting_.]

 Enter Hector.

HECTOR.
Yea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!

 Enter Achilles.

ACHILLES.
Now do I see thee. Ha! have at thee, Hector!

HECTOR.
Pause, if thou wilt.

ACHILLES.
I do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan.
Be happy that my arms are out of use;
My rest and negligence befriend thee now,
But thou anon shalt hear of me again;
Till when, go seek thy fortune.

 [_Exit_.]

HECTOR.
Fare thee well.
I would have been much more a fresher man,
Had I expected thee.

 Re-enter Troilus.

How now, my brother!

TROILUS.
Ajax hath ta’en Aeneas. Shall it be?
No, by the flame of yonder glorious heaven,
He shall not carry him; I’ll be ta’en too,
Or bring him off. Fate, hear me what I say:
I reck not though thou end my life today.

 [_Exit_.]

 Enter one in armour.

HECTOR.
Stand, stand, thou Greek; thou art a goodly mark.
No? wilt thou not? I like thy armour well;
I’ll frush it and unlock the rivets all
But I’ll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide?
Why then, fly on; I’ll hunt thee for thy hide.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE VII. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Achilles with Myrmidons.

ACHILLES.
Come here about me, you my Myrmidons;
Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel;
Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath;
And when I have the bloody Hector found,
Empale him with your weapons round about;
In fellest manner execute your arms.
Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye.
It is decreed Hector the great must die.

 [_Exeunt_.]

 Enter Menelaus and Paris, fighting; then Thersites.

THERSITES.
The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! Now, dog! ’Loo,
Paris, ’loo! now my double-hen’d Spartan! ’loo, Paris, ’loo! The bull
has the game. ’Ware horns, ho!

 [_Exeunt Paris and Menelaus_.]

 Enter Margarelon.

MARGARELON.
Turn, slave, and fight.

THERSITES.
What art thou?

MARGARELON.
A bastard son of Priam’s.

THERSITES.
I am a bastard too; I love bastards. I am a bastard begot, bastard
instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything
illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one
bastard? Take heed, the quarrel’s most ominous to us: if the son of a
whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgement. Farewell, bastard.

 [_Exit_.]

MARGARELON.
The devil take thee, coward!

 [_Exit_.]

SCENE VIII. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Hector.

HECTOR.
Most putrified core so fair without,
Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.
Now is my day’s work done; I’ll take my breath:
Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death!

 [_Disarms_.]

 Enter Achilles and Myrmidons.

ACHILLES.
Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set,
How ugly night comes breathing at his heels;
Even with the vail and dark’ning of the sun,
To close the day up, Hector’s life is done.

HECTOR.
I am unarm’d; forego this vantage, Greek.

ACHILLES.
Strike, fellows, strike; this is the man I seek.

 [_Hector falls_.]

So, Ilion, fall thou next! Now, Troy, sink down;
Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.
On, Myrmidons, and cry you all amain
‘Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.’

 [_A retreat sounded_.]

Hark! a retire upon our Grecian part.

MYRMIDON.
The Trojan trumpets sound the like, my lord.

ACHILLES.
The dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth
And, stickler-like, the armies separates.
My half-supp’d sword, that frankly would have fed,
Pleas’d with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.

 [_Sheathes his sword_.]

Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail;
Along the field I will the Trojan trail.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE IX. Another part of the plain.

 Sound retreat. Shout. Enter Agamemnon, Ajax, Menelaus, Nestor,
 Diomedes and the rest, marching.

AGAMEMNON.
Hark! hark! what shout is this?

NESTOR.
Peace, drums!

SOLDIERS.
[_Within_.] Achilles! Achilles! Hector’s slain. Achilles!

DIOMEDES.
The bruit is, Hector’s slain, and by Achilles.

AJAX.
If it be so, yet bragless let it be;
Great Hector was as good a man as he.

AGAMEMNON.
March patiently along. Let one be sent
To pray Achilles see us at our tent.
If in his death the gods have us befriended;
Great Troy is ours, and our sharp wars are ended.

 [_Exeunt_.]

SCENE X. Another part of the plain.

 Enter Aeneas, Paris, Antenor and Deiphobus.

AENEAS.
Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field.
Never go home; here starve we out the night.

 Enter Troilus.

TROILUS.
Hector is slain.

ALL.
Hector! The gods forbid!

TROILUS.
He’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail,
In beastly sort, dragg’d through the shameful field.
Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed.
Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at Troy.
I say at once let your brief plagues be mercy,
And linger not our sure destructions on.

AENEAS.
My lord, you do discomfort all the host.

TROILUS.
You understand me not that tell me so.
I do not speak of flight, of fear of death,
But dare all imminence that gods and men
Address their dangers in. Hector is gone.
Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?
Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call’d
Go in to Troy, and say there ‘Hector’s dead.’
There is a word will Priam turn to stone;
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth; and, in a word,
Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away;
Hector is dead; there is no more to say.
Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,
Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,
I’ll through and through you. And, thou great-siz’d coward,
No space of earth shall sunder our two hates;
I’ll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still,
That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy’s thoughts.
Strike a free march to Troy. With comfort go;
Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.

 Enter Pandarus.

PANDARUS.
But hear you, hear you!

TROILUS.
Hence, broker-lackey. Ignominy and shame
Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!

 [_Exeunt all but_ Pandarus.]

PANDARUS.
A goodly medicine for my aching bones! O world! world! Thus is the poor
agent despis’d! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work,
and how ill requited! Why should our endeavour be so lov’d, and the
performance so loathed? What verse for it? What instance for it? Let me
see—

  Full merrily the humble-bee doth sing
  Till he hath lost his honey and his sting;
  And being once subdu’d in armed trail,
  Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.

Good traders in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths.
As many as be here of Pandar’s hall,
Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar’s fall;
Or, if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be made.
It should be now, but that my fear is this,
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss.
Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases,
And at that time bequeath you my diseases.

 [_Exit_.]



TWELFTH NIGHT; OR, WHAT YOU WILL

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  ORSINO, Duke of Illyria
  SEBASTIAN, brother of Viola
  ANTONIO, a sea captain, friend of Sebastian
  A SEA CAPTAIN, friend of Viola
  VALENTINE, gentleman attending on the Duke
  CURIO, gentleman attending on the Duke
  SIR TOBY BELCH, uncle of Olivia
  SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK
  MALVOLIO, steward to Olivia
  FABIAN, servant to Olivia
  FESTE, a clown, servant to Olivia

  OLIVIA, a rich countess
  VIOLA, sister of Sebastian
  MARIA, Olivia's waiting woman

  Lords, Priests, Sailors, Officers, Musicians, and Attendants

SCENE: A city in Illyria; and the sea-coast near it

ACT I. SCENE I. The DUKE'S palace

Enter ORSINO, Duke of Illyria, CURIO, and other LORDS; MUSICIANS
attending

  DUKE. If music be the food of love, play on,
    Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
    The appetite may sicken and so die.
    That strain again! It had a dying fall;
    O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
    That breathes upon a bank of violets,
    Stealing and giving odour! Enough, no more;
    'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
    O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou!
    That, notwithstanding thy capacity
    Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
    Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
    But falls into abatement and low price
    Even in a minute. So full of shapes is fancy,
    That it alone is high fantastical.
  CURIO. Will you go hunt, my lord?
  DUKE. What, Curio?
  CURIO. The hart.
  DUKE. Why, so I do, the noblest that I have.
    O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
    Methought she purg'd the air of pestilence!
    That instant was I turn'd into a hart,
    And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
    E'er since pursue me.

                     Enter VALENTINE

    How now! what news from her?
  VALENTINE. So please my lord, I might not be admitted,
    But from her handmaid do return this answer:
    The element itself, till seven years' heat,
    Shall not behold her face at ample view;
    But like a cloistress she will veiled walk,
    And water once a day her chamber round
    With eye-offending brine; all this to season
    A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh
    And lasting in her sad remembrance.
  DUKE. O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
    To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
    How will she love when the rich golden shaft
    Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
    That live in her; when liver, brain, and heart,
    These sovereign thrones, are all supplied and fill'd,
    Her sweet perfections, with one self king!
    Away before me to sweet beds of flow'rs:
    Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bow'rs.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. The sea-coast

Enter VIOLA, a CAPTAIN, and SAILORS

  VIOLA. What country, friends, is this?
  CAPTAIN. This is Illyria, lady.
  VIOLA. And what should I do in Illyria?
    My brother he is in Elysium.
    Perchance he is not drown'd- what think you, sailors?
  CAPTAIN. It is perchance that you yourself were saved.
  VIOLA. O my poor brother! and so perchance may he be.
  CAPTAIN. True, madam, and, to comfort you with chance,
    Assure yourself, after our ship did split,
    When you, and those poor number saved with you,
    Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
    Most provident in peril, bind himself-
    Courage and hope both teaching him the practice-
    To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea;
    Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
    I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
    So long as I could see.
  VIOLA. For saying so, there's gold.
    Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,
    Whereto thy speech serves for authority,
    The like of him. Know'st thou this country?
  CAPTAIN. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born
    Not three hours' travel from this very place.
  VIOLA. Who governs here?
  CAPTAIN. A noble duke, in nature as in name.
  VIOLA. What is his name?
  CAPTAIN. Orsino.
  VIOLA. Orsino! I have heard my father name him.
    He was a bachelor then.
  CAPTAIN. And so is now, or was so very late;
    For but a month ago I went from hence,
    And then 'twas fresh in murmur- as, you know,
    What great ones do the less will prattle of-
    That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.
  VIOLA. What's she?
  CAPTAIN. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count
    That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her
    In the protection of his son, her brother,
    Who shortly also died; for whose dear love,
    They say, she hath abjur'd the company
    And sight of men.
  VIOLA. O that I serv'd that lady,
    And might not be delivered to the world,
    Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
    What my estate is!
  CAPTAIN. That were hard to compass,
    Because she will admit no kind of suit-
    No, not the Duke's.
  VIOLA. There is a fair behaviour in thee, Captain;
    And though that nature with a beauteous wall
    Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee
    I will believe thou hast a mind that suits
    With this thy fair and outward character.
    I prithee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,
    Conceal me what I am, and be my aid
    For such disguise as haply shall become
    The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke:
    Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him;
    It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing
    And speak to him in many sorts of music,
    That will allow me very worth his service.
    What else may hap to time I will commit;
    Only shape thou silence to my wit.
  CAPTAIN. Be you his eunuch and your mute I'll be;
    When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.
  VIOLA. I thank thee. Lead me on.                        Exeunt

SCENE III. OLIVIA'S house

Enter SIR TOBY BELCH and MARIA

  SIR TOBY. What a plague means my niece to take the death of her
    brother thus? I am sure care's an enemy to life.
  MARIA. By my troth, Sir Toby, you must come in earlier o' nights;
    your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill hours.
  SIR TOBY. Why, let her except before excepted.
  MARIA. Ay, but you must confine yourself within the modest limits
    of order.
  SIR TOBY. Confine! I'll confine myself no finer than I am. These
    clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too;
    an they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.
  MARIA. That quaffing and drinking will undo you; I heard my lady
    talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in
    one night here to be her wooer.
  SIR TOBY. Who? Sir Andrew Aguecheek?
  MARIA. Ay, he.
  SIR TOBY. He's as tall a man as any's in Illyria.
  MARIA. What's that to th' purpose?
  SIR TOBY. Why, he has three thousand ducats a year.
  MARIA. Ay, but he'll have but a year in all these ducats; he's a
    very fool and a prodigal.
  SIR TOBY. Fie that you'll say so! He plays o' th' viol-de-gamboys,
    and speaks three or four languages word for word without book,
    and hath all the good gifts of nature.
  MARIA. He hath indeed, almost natural; for, besides that he's a
    fool, he's a great quarreller; and but that he hath the gift of a
    coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, 'tis thought
    among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.
  SIR TOBY. By this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors that
    say so of him. Who are they?
  MARIA. They that add, moreover, he's drunk nightly in your company.
  SIR TOBY. With drinking healths to my niece; I'll drink to her as
    long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria.
    He's a coward and a coystrill that will not drink to my niece
    till his brains turn o' th' toe like a parish-top. What, wench!
    Castiliano vulgo! for here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.

                    Enter SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK

  AGUECHEEK. Sir Toby Belch! How now, Sir Toby Belch!
  SIR TOBY. Sweet Sir Andrew!
  AGUECHEEK. Bless you, fair shrew.
  MARIA. And you too, sir.
  SIR TOBY. Accost, Sir Andrew, accost.
  AGUECHEEK. What's that?
  SIR TOBY. My niece's chambermaid.
  AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.
  MARIA. My name is Mary, sir.
  AGUECHEEK. Good Mistress Mary Accost-
  SIR Toby. You mistake, knight. 'Accost' is front her, board her,
    woo her, assail her.
  AGUECHEEK. By my troth, I would not undertake her in this company.
    Is that the meaning of 'accost'?
  MARIA. Fare you well, gentlemen.
  SIR TOBY. An thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never
    draw sword again!
  AGUECHEEK. An you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw
    sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?
  MARIA. Sir, I have not you by th' hand.
  AGUECHEEK. Marry, but you shall have; and here's my hand.
  MARIA. Now, sir, thought is free. I pray you, bring your hand to
    th' buttry-bar and let it drink.
  AGUECHEEK. Wherefore, sweetheart? What's your metaphor?
  MARIA. It's dry, sir.
  AGUECHEEK. Why, I think so; I am not such an ass but I can keep my
    hand dry. But what's your jest?
  MARIA. A dry jest, sir.
  AGUECHEEK. Are you full of them?
  MARIA. Ay, sir, I have them at my fingers' ends; marry, now I let
    go your hand, I am barren.                        Exit MARIA
  SIR TOBY. O knight, thou lack'st a cup of canary! When did I see
    thee so put down?
  AGUECHEEK. Never in your life, I think; unless you see canary put
    me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian
    or an ordinary man has; but I am great eater of beef, and I
    believe that does harm to my wit.
  SIR TOBY. No question.
  AGUECHEEK. An I thought that, I'd forswear it. I'll ride home
    to-morrow, Sir Toby.
  SIR TOBY. Pourquoi, my dear knight?
  AGUECHEEK. What is 'pourquoi'- do or not do? I would I had bestowed
    that time in the tongues that I have in fencing, dancing, and
    bear-baiting. Oh, had I but followed the arts!
  SIR TOBY. Then hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.
  AGUECHEEK. Why, would that have mended my hair?
  SIR TOBY. Past question; for thou seest it will not curl by nature.
  AGUECHEEK. But it becomes me well enough, does't not?
  SIR TOBY. Excellent; it hangs like flax on a distaff, and I hope to
    see a huswife take thee between her legs and spin it off.
  AGUECHEEK. Faith, I'll home to-morrow, Sir Toby. Your niece will
    not be seen, or if she be, it's four to one she'll none of me;
    the Count himself here hard by woos her.
  SIR TOBY. She'll none o' th' Count; she'll not match above her
    degree, neither in estate, years, nor wit; I have heard her
    swear't. Tut, there's life in't, man.
  AGUECHEEK. I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' th' strangest
    mind i' th' world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes
    altogether.
  SIR TOBY. Art thou good at these kickshawses, knight?
  AGUECHEEK. As any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under the
    degree of my betters; and yet I will not compare with an old man.
  SIR TOBY. What is thy excellence in a galliard, knight?
  AGUECHEEK. Faith, I can cut a caper.
  SIR TOBY. And I can cut the mutton to't.
  AGUECHEEK. And I think I have the back-trick simply as strong as
    any man in Illyria.
  SIR TOBY. Wherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these
    gifts a curtain before 'em? Are they like to take dust, like
    Mistress Mall's picture? Why dost thou not go to church in a
    galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a
    jig; I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What
    dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues in? I did think, by
    the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was form'd under the
    star of a galliard.
  AGUECHEEK. Ay, 'tis strong, and it does indifferent well in
    flame-colour'd stock. Shall we set about some revels?
  SIR TOBY. What shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?
  AGUECHEEK. Taurus? That's sides and heart.
  SIR TOBY. No, sir; it is legs and thighs. Let me see the caper. Ha,
    higher! Ha, ha, excellent!                            Exeunt

SCENE IV. The DUKE'S palace

Enter VALENTINE, and VIOLA in man's attire

  VALENTINE. If the Duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario,
    you are like to be much advanc'd; he hath known you but three
    days, and already you are no stranger.
  VIOLA. You either fear his humour or my negligence, that you call
    in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir,
    in his favours?
  VALENTINE. No, believe me.

                  Enter DUKE, CURIO, and ATTENDANTS

  VIOLA. I thank you. Here comes the Count.
  DUKE. Who saw Cesario, ho?
  VIOLA. On your attendance, my lord, here.
  DUKE. Stand you awhile aloof. Cesario,
    Thou know'st no less but all; I have unclasp'd
    To thee the book even of my secret soul.
    Therefore, good youth, address thy gait unto her;
    Be not denied access, stand at her doors,
    And tell them there thy fixed foot shall grow
    Till thou have audience.
  VIOLA. Sure, my noble lord,
    If she be so abandon'd to her sorrow
    As it is spoke, she never will admit me.
  DUKE. Be clamorous and leap all civil bounds,
    Rather than make unprofited return.
  VIOLA. Say I do speak with her, my lord, what then?
  DUKE. O, then unfold the passion of my love,
    Surprise her with discourse of my dear faith!
    It shall become thee well to act my woes:
    She will attend it better in thy youth
    Than in a nuncio's of more grave aspect.
  VIOLA. I think not so, my lord.
  DUKE. Dear lad, believe it,
    For they shall yet belie thy happy years
    That say thou art a man: Diana's lip
    Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe
    Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound,
    And all is semblative a woman's part.
    I know thy constellation is right apt
    For this affair. Some four or five attend him-
    All, if you will, for I myself am best
    When least in company. Prosper well in this,
    And thou shalt live as freely as thy lord
    To call his fortunes thine.
  VIOLA. I'll do my best
    To woo your lady. [Aside] Yet, a barful strife!
    Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.

SCENE V. OLIVIA'S house

Enter MARIA and CLOWN

  MARIA. Nay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open
    my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in way of thy excuse; my
    lady will hang thee for thy absence.
  CLOWN. Let her hang me. He that is well hang'd in this world needs
    to fear no colours.
  MARIA. Make that good.
  CLOWN. He shall see none to fear.
  MARIA. A good lenten answer. I can tell thee where that saying was
    born, of 'I fear no colours.'
  CLOWN. Where, good Mistress Mary?
  MARIA. In the wars; and that may you be bold to say in your
    foolery.
  CLOWN. Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are
    fools, let them use their talents.
  MARIA. Yet you will be hang'd for being so long absent; or to be
    turn'd away- is not that as good as a hanging to you?
  CLOWN. Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage; and for turning
    away, let summer bear it out.
  MARIA. You are resolute, then?
  CLOWN. Not so, neither; but I am resolv'd on two points.
  MARIA. That if one break, the other will hold; or if both break,
    your gaskins fall.
  CLOWN. Apt, in good faith, very apt! Well, go thy way; if Sir Toby
    would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve's flesh
    as any in Illyria.
  MARIA. Peace, you rogue, no more o' that. Here comes my lady. Make
    your excuse wisely, you were best.                      Exit

                     Enter OLIVIA and MALVOLIO

  CLOWN. Wit, an't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits
    that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I that am
    sure I lack thee may pass for a wise man. For what says
    Quinapalus? 'Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.' God bless
    thee, lady!
  OLIVIA. Take the fool away.
  CLOWN. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.
  OLIVIA. Go to, y'are a dry fool; I'll no more of you. Besides, you
    grow dishonest.
  CLOWN. Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend;
    for give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry. Bid the
    dishonest man mend himself: if he mend, he is no longer
    dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Anything
    that's mended is but patch'd; virtue that transgresses is but
    patch'd with sin, and sin that amends is but patch'd with virtue.
    If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not,
    what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so
    beauty's a flower. The lady bade take away the fool; therefore, I
    say again, take her away.
  OLIVIA. Sir, I bade them take away you.
  CLOWN. Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, 'Cucullus non facit
    monachum'; that's as much to say as I wear not motley in my
    brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.
  OLIVIA. Can you do it?
  CLOWN. Dexteriously, good madonna.
  OLIVIA. Make your proof.
  CLOWN. I must catechize you for it, madonna.
    Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.
  OLIVIA. Well, sir, for want of other idleness, I'll bide your
    proof.
  CLOWN. Good madonna, why mourn'st thou?
  OLIVIA. Good fool, for my brother's death.
  CLOWN. I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
  OLIVIA. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
  CLOWN. The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul
    being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.
  OLIVIA. What think you of this fool, Malvolio? Doth he not mend?
  MALVOLIO. Yes, and shall do, till the pangs of death shake him.
    Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.
  CLOWN. God send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better
    increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox;
    but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.
  OLIVIA. How say you to that, Malvolio?
  MALVOLIO. I marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren
    rascal; I saw him put down the other day with an ordinary fool
    that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he's out of
    his guard already; unless you laugh and minister occasion to him,
    he is gagg'd. I protest I take these wise men that crow so at
    these set kind of fools no better than the fools' zanies.
  OLIVIA. O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a
    distemper'd appetite. To be generous, guiltless, and of free
    disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem
    cannon bullets. There is no slander in an allow'd fool, though he
    do nothing but rail; nor no railing in known discreet man, though
    he do nothing but reprove.
  CLOWN. Now Mercury endue thee with leasing, for thou speak'st well
    of fools!

                             Re-enter MARIA

  MARIA. Madam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires
    to speak with you.
  OLIVIA. From the Count Orsino, is it?
  MARIA. I know not, madam; 'tis a fair young man, and well attended.
  OLIVIA. Who of my people hold him in delay?
  MARIA. Sir Toby, madam, your kinsman.
  OLIVIA. Fetch him off, I pray you; he speaks nothing but madman.
    Fie on him! [Exit MARIA] Go you, Malvolio: if it be a suit from
    the Count, I am sick, or not at home- what you will to dismiss
    it. [Exit MALVOLIO] Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old,
    and people dislike it.
  CLOWN. Thou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should
    be a fool; whose skull Jove cram with brains! For- here he comes-
    one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.

                         Enter SIR TOBY

  OLIVIA. By mine honour, half drunk! What is he at the gate, cousin?
  SIR TOBY. A gentleman.
  OLIVIA. A gentleman! What gentleman?
  SIR TOBY. 'Tis a gentleman here. [Hiccups] A plague o' these
    pickle-herring! How now, sot!
  CLOWN. Good Sir Toby!
  OLIVIA. Cousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this
    lethargy?
  SIR TOBY. Lechery! I defy lechery. There's one at the gate.
  OLIVIA. Ay, marry; what is he?
  SIR TOBY. Let him be the devil an he will, I care not; give me
    faith, say I. Well, it's all one.                       Exit
  OLIVIA. What's a drunken man like, fool?
  CLOWN. Like a drown'd man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above
    heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns
    him.
  OLIVIA. Go thou and seek the crowner, and let him sit o' my coz;
    for he's in the third degree of drink, he's drown'd; go look
    after him.
  CLOWN. He is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the
    madman.                                                 Exit

                           Re-enter MALVOLIO

  MALVOLIO. Madam, yond young fellow swears he will speak with you. I
    told him you were sick; he takes on him to understand so much,
     and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were
    asleep; he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too, and
    therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him,
    lady? He's fortified against any denial.
  OLIVIA. Tell him he shall not speak with me.
  MALVOLIO. Has been told so; and he says he'll stand at your door
    like a sheriff's post, and be the supporter to a bench, but he'll
    speak with you.
  OLIVIA. What kind o' man is he?
  MALVOLIO. Why, of mankind.
  OLIVIA. What manner of man?
  MALVOLIO. Of very ill manner; he'll speak with you, will you or no.
  OLIVIA. Of what personage and years is he?
  MALVOLIO. Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy;
    as a squash is before 'tis a peascod, or a codling when 'tis
    almost an apple; 'tis with him in standing water, between boy and
    man. He is very well-favour'd, and he speaks very shrewishly; one
    would think his mother's milk were scarce out of him.
  OLIVIA. Let him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.
  MALVOLIO. Gentlewoman, my lady calls.                     Exit

                          Re-enter MARIA

  OLIVIA. Give me my veil; come, throw it o'er my face;
    We'll once more hear Orsino's embassy.

                             Enter VIOLA

  VIOLA. The honourable lady of the house, which is she?
  OLIVIA. Speak to me; I shall answer for her. Your will?
  VIOLA. Most radiant, exquisite, and unmatchable beauty- I pray you
    tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I
    would be loath to cast away my speech; for, besides that it is
    excellently well penn'd, I have taken great pains to con it. Good
    beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to
    the least sinister usage.
  OLIVIA. Whence came you, sir?
  VIOLA. I can say little more than I have studied, and that
    question's out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest
    assurance if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in
    my speech.
  OLIVIA. Are you a comedian?
  VIOLA. No, my profound heart; and yet, by the very fangs of malice
    I swear, I am not that I play. Are you the lady of the house?
  OLIVIA. If I do not usurp myself, I am.
  VIOLA. Most certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself; for
    what is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from
    my commission. I will on with my speech in your praise, and then
    show you the heart of my message.
  OLIVIA. Come to what is important in't. I forgive you the praise.
  VIOLA. Alas, I took great pains to study it, and 'tis poetical.
  OLIVIA. It is the more like to be feigned; I pray you keep it in. I
    heard you were saucy at my gates, and allow'd your approach
    rather to wonder at you than to hear you. If you be not mad, be
    gone; if you have reason, be brief; 'tis not that time of moon
    with me to make one in so skipping dialogue.
  MARIA. Will you hoist sail, sir? Here lies your way.
  VIOLA. No, good swabber, I am to hull here a little longer.
    Some mollification for your giant, sweet lady.
  OLIVIA. Tell me your mind.
  VIOLA. I am a messenger.
  OLIVIA. Sure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the
    courtesy of it is so fearful. Speak your office.
  VIOLA. It alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture of war, no
    taxation of homage: I hold the olive in my hand; my words are as
    full of peace as matter.
  OLIVIA. Yet you began rudely. What are you? What would you?
  VIOLA. The rudeness that hath appear'd in me have I learn'd from my
    entertainment. What I am and what I would are as secret as
    maidenhead- to your cars, divinity; to any other's, profanation.
  OLIVIA. Give us the place alone; we will hear this divinity.
    [Exeunt MARIA and ATTENDANTS] Now, sir, what is your text?
  VIOLA. Most sweet lady-
  OLIVIA. A comfortable doctrine, and much may be said of it.
    Where lies your text?
  VIOLA. In Orsino's bosom.
  OLIVIA. In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?
  VIOLA. To answer by the method: in the first of his heart.
  OLIVIA. O, I have read it; it is heresy. Have you no more to say?
  VIOLA. Good madam, let me see your face.
  OLIVIA. Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my
    face? You are now out of your text; but we will draw the curtain
    and show you the picture. [Unveiling] Look you, sir, such a one I
    was this present. Is't not well done?
  VIOLA. Excellently done, if God did all.
  OLIVIA. 'Tis in grain, sir; 'twill endure wind and weather.
  VIOLA. 'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
    Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.
    Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive,
    If you will lead these graces to the grave,
    And leave the world no copy.
  OLIVIA. O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted; I will give out
    divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every
    particle and utensil labell'd to my will: as- item, two lips
    indifferent red; item, two grey eyes with lids to them; item, one
    neck, one chin, and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise me?
  VIOLA. I see you what you are: you are too proud;
    But, if you were the devil, you are fair.
    My lord and master loves you- O, such love
    Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd
    The nonpareil of beauty!
  OLIVIA. How does he love me?
  VIOLA. With adorations, fertile tears,
    With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.
  OLIVIA. Your lord does know my mind; I cannot love him.
    Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
    Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;
    In voices well divulg'd, free, learn'd, and valiant,
    And in dimension and the shape of nature
    A gracious person; but yet I cannot love him.
    He might have took his answer long ago.
  VIOLA. If I did love you in my master's flame,
    With such a suff'ring, such a deadly life,
    In your denial I would find no sense;
    I would not understand it.
  OLIVIA. Why, what would you?
  VIOLA. Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
    And call upon my soul within the house;
    Write loyal cantons of contemned love
    And sing them loud even in the dead of night;
    Halloo your name to the reverberate hals,
    And make the babbling gossip of the air
    Cry out 'Olivia!' O, you should not rest
    Between the elements of air and earth
    But you should pity me!
  OLIVIA. You might do much.
    What is your parentage?
  VIOLA. Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
    I am a gentleman.
  OLIVIA. Get you to your lord.
    I cannot love him; let him send no more-
    Unless perchance you come to me again
    To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well.
    I thank you for your pains; spend this for me.
  VIOLA. I am no fee'd post, lady; keep your purse;
    My master, not myself, lacks recompense.
    Love make his heart of flint that you shall love;
    And let your fervour, like my master's, be
    Plac'd in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.             Exit
  OLIVIA. 'What is your parentage?'
    'Above my fortunes, yet my state is well:
    I am a gentleman.' I'll be sworn thou art;
    Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit,
    Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast! Soft, soft!
    Unless the master were the man. How now!
    Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
    Methinks I feel this youth's perfections
    With an invisible and subtle stealth
    To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.
    What ho, Malvolio!

                        Re-enter MALVOLIO

  MALVOLIO. Here, madam, at your service.
  OLIVIA. Run after that same peevish messenger,
    The County's man. He left this ring behind him,
    Would I or not. Tell him I'll none of it.
    Desire him not to flatter with his lord,
    Nor hold him up with hopes; I am not for him.
    If that the youth will come this way to-morrow,
    I'll give him reasons for't. Hie thee, Malvolio.
  MALVOLIO. Madam, I will.                                  Exit
  OLIVIA. I do I know not what, and fear to find
    Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.
    Fate, show thy force: ourselves we do not owe;
    What is decreed must be; and be this so!                Exit

ACT II. SCENE I. The sea-coast

Enter ANTONIO and SEBASTIAN

  ANTONIO. Will you stay no longer; nor will you not that I go with
    you?
  SEBASTIAN. By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the
    malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours; therefore I
    shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It
    were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.
  ANTONIO. Let me know of you whither you are bound.
  SEBASTIAN. No, sooth, sir; my determinate voyage is mere
    extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of
    modesty that you will not extort from me what I am willing to
    keep in; therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express
    myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian,
    which I call'd Roderigo; my father was that Sebastian of
    Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him
    myself and a sister, both born in an hour; if the heavens had
    been pleas'd, would we had so ended! But you, sir, alter'd that;
    for some hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was
    my sister drown'd.
  ANTONIO. Alas the day!
  SEBASTIAN. A lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me,
    was yet of many accounted beautiful; but though I could not with
    such estimable wonder overfar believe that, yet thus far I will
    boldly publish her: she bore mind that envy could not but call
    fair. She is drown'd already, sir, with salt water, though I seem
    to drown her remembrance again with more.
  ANTONIO. Pardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.
  SEBASTIAN. O good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.
  ANTONIO. If you will not murder me for my love, let me be your
    servant.
  SEBASTIAN. If you will not undo what you have done- that is, kill
    him whom you have recover'd-desire it not. Fare ye well at once;
    my bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet so near the manners of
    my mother that, upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell
    tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino's court. Farewell.
 Exit
  ANTONIO. The gentleness of all the gods go with thee!
    I have many cnemies in Orsino's court,
    Else would I very shortly see thee there.
    But come what may, I do adore thee so
    That danger shall seem sport, and I will go.            Exit

SCENE II. A street

Enter VIOLA and MALVOLIO at several doors

  MALVOLIO. Were you not ev'n now with the Countess Olivia?
  VIOLA. Even now, sir; on a moderate pace I have since arriv'd but
    hither.
  MALVOLIO. She returns this ring to you, sir; you might have saved
    me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover,
    that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance she will
    none of him. And one thing more: that you be never so hardy to
    come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord's
    taking of this. Receive it so.
  VIOLA. She took the ring of me; I'll none of it.
  MALVOLIO. Come, sir, you peevishly threw it to her; and her will is
    it should be so return'd. If it be worth stooping for, there it
    lies in your eye; if not, be it his that finds it.
 Exit
  VIOLA. I left no ring with her; what means this lady?
    Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!
    She made good view of me; indeed, so much
    That methought her eyes had lost her tongue,
    For she did speak in starts distractedly.
    She loves me, sure: the cunning of her passion
    Invites me in this churlish messenger.
    None of my lord's ring! Why, he sent her none.
    I am the man. If it be so- as 'tis-
    Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
    Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness
    Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
    How easy is it for the proper-false
    In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
    Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!
    For such as we are made of, such we be.
    How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly,
    And I, poor monster, fond as much on him;
    And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.
    What will become of this? As I am man,
    My state is desperate for my master's love;
    As I am woman- now alas the day!-
    What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!
    O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;
    It is too hard a knot for me t' untie!                  Exit

SCENE III. OLIVIA'S house

Enter SIR TOBY and SIR ANDREW

  SIR TOBY. Approach, Sir Andrew. Not to be abed after midnight is to
    be up betimes; and 'diluculo surgere' thou know'st-
  AGUECHEEK. Nay, by my troth, I know not; but I know to be up late
    is to be up late.
  SIR TOBY. A false conclusion! I hate it as an unfill'd can. To be
    up after midnight and to go to bed then is early; so that to go
    to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our lives
    consist of the four elements?
  AGUECHEEK. Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of
    eating and drinking.
  SIR TOBY. Th'art a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.
    Marian, I say! a stoup of wine.

                          Enter CLOWN

  AGUECHEEK. Here comes the fool, i' faith.
  CLOWN. How now, my hearts! Did you never see the picture of 'we
    three'?
  SIR TOBY. Welcome, ass. Now let's have a catch.
  AGUECHEEK. By my troth, the fool has an excellent breast. I had
    rather than forty shillings I had such a leg, and so sweet a
    breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth, thou wast in very
    gracious fooling last night, when thou spok'st of Pigrogromitus,
    of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus; 'twas very
    good, i' faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman; hadst it?
  CLOWN. I did impeticos thy gratillity; for Malvolio's nose is no
    whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons are no
    bottle-ale houses.
  AGUECHEEK. Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is
    done. Now, a song.
  SIR TOBY. Come on, there is sixpence for you. Let's have a song.
  AGUECHEEK. There's a testril of me too; if one knight give a-
CLOWN. Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?
  SIR TOBY. A love-song, a love-song.
  AGUECHEEK. Ay, ay; I care not for good life.

                         CLOWN sings

         O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
         O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
           That can sing both high and low.
           Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
           Journeys end in lovers meeting,
           Every wise man's son doth know.

  AGUECHEEK. Excellent good, i' faith!
  SIR TOBY. Good, good!

                         CLOWN sings

           What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
           Present mirth hath present laughter;
             What's to come is still unsure.
           In delay there lies no plenty,
           Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;
             Youth's a stuff will not endure.

  AGUECHEEK. A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.
  SIR TOBY. A contagious breath.
  AGUECHEEK. Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.
  SIR TOBY. To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall
    we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse the night-owl in
    a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver? Shall we do
    that?
  AGUECHEEK. An you love me, let's do't. I am dog at a catch.
  CLOWN. By'r lady, sir, and some dogs will catch well.
  AGUECHEEK. Most certain. Let our catch be 'Thou knave.'
  CLOWN. 'Hold thy peace, thou knave' knight? I shall be constrain'd
    in't to call thee knave, knight.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call
    me knave. Begin, fool: it begins 'Hold thy peace.'
  CLOWN. I shall never begin if I hold my peace.
  AGUECHEEK. Good, i' faith! Come, begin.           [Catch sung]

                         Enter MARIA

  MARIA. What a caterwauling do you keep here! If my lady have not
    call'd up her steward Malvolio, and bid him turn you out of
    doors, never trust me.
  SIR TOBY. My lady's a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio's a
    Peg-a-Ramsey, and                                    [Sings]
                  Three merry men be we.
    Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tilly-vally,
    lady.                                                [Sings]
              There dwelt a man in Babylon,
              Lady, lady.
  CLOWN. Beshrew me, the knight's in admirable fooling.
  AGUECHEEK. Ay, he does well enough if he be dispos'd, and so do I
    too; he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] O' the twelfth day of December-
  MARIA. For the love o' God, peace!

                       Enter MALVOLIO

  MALVOLIO. My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no
    wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this
    time of night? Do ye make an ale-house of my lady's house, that
    ye squeak out your coziers' catches without any mitigation or
    remorse of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor
    time, in you?
  SIR TOBY. We did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up!
  MALVOLIO. Sir Toby, I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell
    you that, though she harbours you as her kins-man, she's nothing
    allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your
    misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house; if not, and it would
    please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you
    farewell.
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.
  MARIA. Nay, good Sir Toby.
  CLOWN. [Sings] His eyes do show his days are almost done.
  MALVOLIO. Is't even so?
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] But I will never die.           [Falls down]
  CLOWN. [Sings] Sir Toby, there you lie.
  MALVOLIO. This is much credit to you.
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Shall I bid him go?
  CLOWN. [Sings] What an if you do?
  SIR TOBY. [Sings] Shall I bid him go, and spare not?
  CLOWN. [Sings] O, no, no, no, no, you dare not.
  SIR TOBY. [Rising] Out o' tune, sir! Ye lie. Art any more than a
    steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall
    be no more cakes and ale?
  CLOWN. Yes, by Saint Anne; and ginger shall be hot i' th' mouth
    too.
 SIR TOBY. Th' art i' th' right. Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs.
    A stoup of wine, Maria!
  MALVOLIO. Mistress Mary, if you priz'd my lady's favour at anything
    more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil
    rule; she shall know of it, by this hand.
 Exit
  MARIA. Go shake your ears.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man's ahungry,
    to challenge him the field, and then to break promise with him
    and make a fool of him.
  SIR TOBY. Do't, knight. I'll write thee a challenge; or I'll
    deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.
  MARIA. Sweet Sir Toby, be patient for to-night; since the youth of
    the Count's was to-day with my lady, she is much out of quiet.
    For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him; if I do not gull
    him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not
    think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can
    do it.
  SIR TOBY. Possess us, possess us; tell us something of him.
  MARIA. Marry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of Puritan.
  AGUECHEEK. O, if I thought that, I'd beat him like a dog.
  SIR TOBY. What, for being a Puritan? Thy exquisite reason, dear
    knight?
  AGUECHEEK. I have no exquisite reason for't, but I have reason good
    enough.
  MARIA. The devil a Puritan that he is, or anything constantly but a
    time-pleaser; an affection'd ass that cons state without book and
     utters it by great swarths; the best persuaded of himself, so
    cramm'd, as he thinks, with excellencies that it is his grounds
    of faith that all that look on him love him; and on that vice in
    him will my revenge find notable cause to work.
  SIR TOBY. What wilt thou do?
  MARIA. I will drop in his way some obscure epistles of love;
    wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the
    manner of his gait, the expressure of his eye, forehead, and
    complexion, he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I
    can write very like my lady, your niece; on forgotten matter we
    can hardly make distinction of our hands.
  SIR TOBY. Excellent! I smell a device.
  AGUECHEEK. I have't in my nose too.
  SIR TOBY. He shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that
    they come from my niece, and that she's in love with him.
  MARIA. My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.
  AGUECHEEK. And your horse now would make him an ass.
  MARIA. Ass, I doubt not.
  AGUECHEEK. O, 'twill be admirable!
  MARIA. Sport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic will work with
    him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where
    he shall find the letter; observe his construction of it. For
    this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell.
 Exit
  SIR TOBY. Good night, Penthesilea.
  AGUECHEEK. Before me, she's a good wench.
  SIR TOBY. She's a beagle true-bred, and one that adores me.
    What o' that?
  AGUECHEEK. I was ador'd once too.
  SIR TOBY. Let's to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more
    money.
  AGUECHEEK. If I cannot recover your niece, I am a foul way out.
  SIR TOBY. Send for money, knight; if thou hast her not i' th' end,
    call me Cut.
  AGUECHEEK. If I do not, never trust me; take it how you will.
  SIR TOBY. Come, come, I'll go burn some sack; 'tis too late to go
    to bed now. Come, knight; come, knight.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE IV. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and OTHERS

  DUKE. Give me some music. Now, good morrow, friends.
    Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song,
    That old and antique song we heard last night;
    Methought it did relieve my passion much,
    More than light airs and recollected terms
    Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times.
    Come, but one verse.
  CURIO. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing
    it.
  DUKE. Who was it?
  CURIO. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the Lady Olivia's
    father took much delight in. He is about the house.
  DUKE. Seek him out, and play the tune the while.
                                       Exit CURIO. [Music plays]
    Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,
    In the sweet pangs of it remember me;
    For such as I am all true lovers are,
    Unstaid and skittish in all motions else
    Save in the constant image of the creature
    That is belov'd. How dost thou like this tune?
  VIOLA. It gives a very echo to the seat
    Where Love is thron'd.
  DUKE. Thou dost speak masterly.
    My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye
    Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves;
    Hath it not, boy?
  VIOLA. A little, by your favour.
  DUKE. What kind of woman is't?
  VIOLA. Of your complexion.
  DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith?
  VIOLA. About your years, my lord.
  DUKE. Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman take
    An elder than herself; so wears she to him,
    So sways she level in her husband's heart.
    For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,
    Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm,
    More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won,
    Than women's are.
  VIOLA. I think it well, my lord.
  DUKE. Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
    Or thy affection cannot hold the bent;
    For women are as roses, whose fair flow'r
    Being once display'd doth fall that very hour.
  VIOLA. And so they are; alas, that they are so!
    To die, even when they to perfection grow!

                  Re-enter CURIO and CLOWN

  DUKE. O, fellow, come, the song we had last night.
    Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain;
    The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
    And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
    Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,
    And dallies with the innocence of love,
    Like the old age.
  CLOWN. Are you ready, sir?
  DUKE. Ay; prithee, sing.                               [Music]

                     FESTE'S SONG

            Come away, come away, death;
          And in sad cypress let me be laid;
            Fly away, fly away, breath,
          I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
          My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
                 O, prepare it!
          My part of death no one so true
                 Did share it.

            Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
          On my black coffin let there be strown;
            Not a friend, not a friend greet
          My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown;
          A thousand thousand to save,
                 Lay me, O, where
          Sad true lover never find my grave,
                 To weep there!

  DUKE. There's for thy pains.
  CLOWN. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir.
  DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure, then.
  CLOWN. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another.
  DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee.
  CLOWN. Now the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy
    doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal. I
    would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business
    might be everything, and their intent everywhere: for that's it
    that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.
                                                      Exit CLOWN
  DUKE. Let all the rest give place.
                                     Exeunt CURIO and ATTENDANTS
    Once more, Cesario,
    Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty.
    Tell her my love, more noble than the world,
    Prizes not quantity of dirty lands;
    The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her,
    Tell her I hold as giddily as Fortune;
    But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems
    That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul.
  VIOLA. But if she cannot love you, sir?
  DUKE. I cannot be so answer'd.
  VIOLA. Sooth, but you must.
    Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,
    Hath for your love as great a pang of heart
    As you have for Olivia. You cannot love her;
    You tell her so. Must she not then be answer'd?
  DUKE. There is no woman's sides
    Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
    As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart
    So big to hold so much; they lack retention.
    Alas, their love may be call'd appetite-
    No motion of the liver, but the palate-
    That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt;
    But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
    And can digest as much. Make no compare
    Between that love a woman can bear me
    And that I owe Olivia.
  VIOLA. Ay, but I know-
  DUKE. What dost thou know?
  VIOLA. Too well what love women to men may owe.
    In faith, they are as true of heart as we.
    My father had a daughter lov'd a man,
    As it might be perhaps, were I a woman,
    I should your lordship.
  DUKE. And what's her history?
  VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
    But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud,
    Feed on her damask cheek. She pin'd in thought;
    And with a green and yellow melancholy
    She sat like Patience on a monument,
    Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?
    We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
    Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
    Much in our vows, but little in our love.
  DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy?
  VIOLA. I am all the daughters of my father's house,
    And all the brothers too- and yet I know not.
    Sir, shall I to this lady?
  DUKE. Ay, that's the theme.
    To her in haste. Give her this jewel; say
    My love can give no place, bide no denay.             Exeunt

SCENE V. OLIVIA'S garden

Enter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN

  SIR TOBY. Come thy ways, Signior Fabian.
  FABIAN. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport let me be
    boil'd to death with melancholy.
  SIR TOBY. Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally
    sheep-biter come by some notable shame?
  FABIAN. I would exult, man; you know he brought me out o' favour
    with my lady about a bear-baiting here.
  SIR TOBY. To anger him we'll have the bear again; and we will fool
    him black and blue- shall we not, Sir Andrew?
  AGUECHEEK. And we do not, it is pity of our lives.

                       Enter MARIA

  SIR TOBY. Here comes the little villain.
    How now, my metal of India!
  MARIA. Get ye all three into the box-tree. Malvolio's coming down
    this walk. He has been yonder i' the sun practising behaviour to
    his own shadow this half hour. Observe him, for the love of
    mockery, for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot
    of him. Close, in the name of jesting! [As the men hide she drops
    a letter] Lie thou there; for here comes the trout that must be
    caught with tickling.
 Exit

                      Enter MALVOLIO

  MALVOLIO. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she
    did affect me; and I have heard herself come thus near, that,
    should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she
    uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that
    follows her. What should I think on't?
  SIR TOBY. Here's an overweening rogue!
  FABIAN. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him;
    how he jets under his advanc'd plumes!
  AGUECHEEK. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue-
  SIR TOBY. Peace, I say.
  MALVOLIO. To be Count Malvolio!
  SIR TOBY. Ah, rogue!
  AGUECHEEK. Pistol him, pistol him.
  SIR TOBY. Peace, peace!
  MALVOLIO. There is example for't: the Lady of the Strachy married
    the yeoman of the wardrobe.
  AGUECHEEK. Fie on him, Jezebel!
  FABIAN. O, peace! Now he's deeply in; look how imagination blows
    him.
  MALVOLIO. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my
    state-
  SIR TOBY. O, for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye!
  MALVOLIO. Calling my officers about me, in my branch'd velvet gown,
    having come from a day-bed- where I have left Olivia sleeping-
  SIR TOBY. Fire and brimstone!
  FABIAN. O, peace, peace!
  MALVOLIO. And then to have the humour of state; and after a demure
    travel of regard, telling them I know my place as I would they
    should do theirs, to ask for my kinsman Toby-
  SIR TOBY. Bolts and shackles!
  FABIAN. O, peace, peace, peace! Now, now.
  MALVOLIO. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for
    him. I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch, or play
    with my- some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies there to me-
  SIR TOBY. Shall this fellow live?
  FABIAN. Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace.
  MALVOLIO. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile
   with an austere regard of control-
  SIR TOBY. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then?
  MALVOLIO. Saying 'Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your
    niece give me this prerogative of speech'-
  SIR TOBY. What, what?
  MALVOLIO. 'You must amend your drunkenness'-
  SIR TOBY. Out, scab!
  FABIAN. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot.
  MALVOLIO. 'Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a
    foolish knight'-
  AGUECHEEK. That's me, I warrant you.
  MALVOLIO. 'One Sir Andrew.'
  AGUECHEEK. I knew 'twas I; for many do call me fool.
  MALVOLIO. What employment have we here?
                                          [Taking up the letter]
  FABIAN. Now is the woodcock near the gin.
  SIR TOBY. O, peace! And the spirit of humours intimate reading
    aloud to him!
  MALVOLIO. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very
    C's, her U's, and her T's; and thus makes she her great P's. It
    is, in contempt of question, her hand.
  AGUECHEEK. Her C's, her U's, and her T's. Why that?
  MALVOLIO. [Reads] 'To the unknown belov'd, this, and my good
    wishes.' Her very phrases! By your leave, wax. Soft! And the
    impressure her Lucrece with which she uses to seal; 'tis my lady.
    To whom should this be?
  FABIAN. This wins him, liver and all.
  MALVOLIO. [Reads]

                    Jove knows I love,
                      But who?
                    Lips, do not move;
                    No man must know.'

    'No man must know.' What follows? The numbers alter'd!
    'No man must know.' If this should be thee, Malvolio?
  SIR TOBY. Marry, hang thee, brock!
  MALVOLIO. [Reads]

             'I may command where I adore;
               But silence, like a Lucrece knife,
             With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore;
               M. O. A. I. doth sway my life.'

  FABIAN. A fustian riddle!
  SIR TOBY. Excellent wench, say I.
  MALVOLIO. 'M. O. A. I. doth sway my life.'
    Nay, but first let me see, let me see, let me see.
  FABIAN. What dish o' poison has she dress'd him!
  SIR TOBY. And with what wing the staniel checks at it!
  MALVOLIO. 'I may command where I adore.' Why, she may command me: I
    serve her; she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal
    capacity; there is no obstruction in this. And the end- what
    should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that
    resemble something in me. Softly! M. O. A. I.-
  SIR TOBY. O, ay, make up that! He is now at a cold scent.
  FABIAN. Sowter will cry upon't for all this, though it be as rank
    as a fox.
  MALVOLIO. M- Malvolio; M- why, that begins my name.
  FABIAN. Did not I say he would work it out?
    The cur is excellent at faults.
  MALVOLIO. M- But then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that
    suffers under probation: A should follow, but O does.
  FABIAN. And O shall end, I hope.
  SIR TOBY. Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry 'O!'
  MALVOLIO. And then I comes behind.
  FABIAN. Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more
    detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.
  MALVOLIO. M. O. A. I. This simulation is not as the former; and
    yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of
    these letters are in my name. Soft! here follows prose.
                                                         [Reads]
      'If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above
    thee; but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some
    achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy
    Fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them;
    and, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy
    humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly
    with servants; let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put
    thyself into the trick of singularity. She thus advises thee that
    sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and
    wish'd to see thee ever cross-garter'd. I say, remember, Go to,
    thou art made, if thou desir'st to be so; if not, let me see thee
    a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch
    Fortune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with
    thee,
                                         THE FORTUNATE-UNHAPPY.'

    Daylight and champain discovers not more. This is open. I will be
    proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will
    wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-devise the very man. I
    do not now fool myself to let imagination jade me; for every reason
    excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow
    stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-garter'd; and
    in this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of
    injunction drives me to these habits of her liking. I thank my
    stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings,
    and cross-garter'd, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove and
    my stars be praised! Here is yet a postscript.

    [Reads] 'Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou
    entertain'st my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles
    become thee well. Therefore in my presence still smile, dear my
    sweet, I prithee.'

    Jove, I thank thee. I will smile; I will do everything that thou
    wilt have me.                                           Exit
  FABIAN. I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of
    thousands to be paid from the Sophy.
  SIR TOBY. I could marry this wench for this device.
  AGUECHEEK. So could I too.
  SIR TOBY. And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.

                          Enter MARIA

  AGUECHEEK. Nor I neither.
  FABIAN. Here comes my noble gull-catcher.
  SIR TOBY. Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck?
  AGUECHEEK. Or o' mine either?
  SIR TOBY. Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy
    bond-slave?
  AGUECHEEK. I' faith, or I either?
  SIR TOBY. Why, thou hast put him in such a dream that when the
    image of it leaves him he must run mad.
  MARIA. Nay, but say true; does it work upon him?
  SIR TOBY. Like aqua-vita! with a midwife.
  AIARIA. If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his
    first approach before my lady. He will come to her in yellow
    stockings, and 'tis a colour she abhors, and cross-garter'd, a
    fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which will now
    be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a
    melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable
    contempt. If you will see it, follow me.
  SIR TOBY. To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!
  AGUECHEEK. I'll make one too.                           Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. OLIVIA'S garden

Enter VIOLA, and CLOWN with a tabor

  VIOLA. Save thee, friend, and thy music!
    Dost thou live by thy tabor?
  CLOWN. No, sir, I live by the church.
  VIOLA. Art thou a churchman?
  CLOWN. No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live
    at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.
  VIOLA. So thou mayst say the king lies by a beggar, if a beggar
    dwell near him; or the church stands by thy tabor, if thy tabor
    stand by the church.
  CLOWN. You have said, sir. To see this age! A sentence is but a
    chev'ril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be
    turn'd outward!
  VIOLA. Nay, that's certain; they that dally nicely with words may
    quickly make them wanton.
  CLOWN. I would, therefore, my sister had had name, sir.
  VIOLA. Why, man?
  CLOWN. Why, sir, her name's a word; and to dally with that word
    might make my sister wanton. But indeed words are very rascals
    since bonds disgrac'd them.
  VIOLA. Thy reason, man?
  CLOWN. Troth, sir, I can yield you none without words, and words
    are grown so false I am loath to prove reason with them.
  VIOLA. I warrant thou art a merry fellow and car'st for nothing.
  CLOWN. Not so, sir; I do care for something; but in my conscience,
    sir, I do not care for you. If that be to care for nothing, sir,
    I would it would make you invisible.
  VIOLA. Art not thou the Lady Olivia's fool?
  CLOWN. No, indeed, sir; the Lady Olivia has no folly; she will keep
    no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands
    as pilchers are to herrings- the husband's the bigger. I am
    indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words.
  VIOLA. I saw thee late at the Count Orsino's.
  CLOWN. Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun- it
    shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but the fool should be
    as oft with your master as with my mistress: think I saw your
    wisdom there.
  VIOLA. Nay, an thou pass upon me, I'll no more with thee.
    Hold, there's expenses for thee.             [Giving a coin]
  CLOWN. Now Jove, in his next commodity of hair, send the a beard!
  VIOLA. By my troth, I'll tell thee, I am almost sick for one;
    [Aside] though I would not have it grow on my chin.- Is thy lady
    within?
  CLOWN. Would not a pair of these have bred, sir?
  VIOLA. Yes, being kept together and put to use.
  CLOWN. I would play Lord Pandarus of Phrygia, sir, to bring a
    Cressida to this Troilus.
  VIOLA. I understand you, sir; 'tis well begg'd.
                                           [Giving another coin]
  CLOWN. The matter, I hope, is not great, sir, begging but a beggar:
    Cressida was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will construe to
    them whence you come; who you are and what you would are out of
    my welkin- I might say 'element' but the word is overworn.
                                                      Exit CLOWN
  VIOLA. This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
    And to do that well craves a kind of wit.
    He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
    The quality of persons, and the time;
    And, like the haggard, check at every feather
    That comes before his eye. This is a practice
    As full of labour as a wise man's art;
    For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
    But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.

                Enter SIR TOBY and SIR ANDREW

  SIR TOBY. Save you, gentleman!
  VIOLA. And you, sir.
  AGUECHEEK. Dieu vous garde, monsieur.
  VIOLA. Et vous aussi; votre serviteur.
  AGUECHEEK. I hope, sir, you are; and I am yours.
  SIR TOBY. Will you encounter the house? My niece is desirous you
    should enter, if your trade be to her.
  VIOLA. I am bound to your niece, sir; I mean, she is the list of my
    voyage.
  SIR TOBY. Taste your legs, sir; put them to motion.
  VIOLA. My legs do better understand me, sir, than I understand what
    you mean by bidding me taste my legs.
  SIR TOBY. I mean, to go, sir, to enter.
  VIOLA. I will answer you with gait and entrance. But we are
    prevented.

                  Enter OLIVIA and MARIA

    Most excellent accomplish'd lady, the heavens rain odours on you!
  AGUECHEEK. That youth's a rare courtier- 'Rain odours' well!
  VIOLA. My matter hath no voice, lady, but to your own most pregnant
    and vouchsafed car.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Odours,' 'pregnant,' and 'vouchsafed'- I'll get 'em all
    three all ready.
  OLIVIA. Let the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.
    [Exeunt all but OLIVIA and VIOLA] Give me your hand, sir.
  VIOLA. My duty, madam, and most humble service.
  OLIVIA. What is your name?
  VIOLA. Cesario is your servant's name, fair Princess.
  OLIVIA. My servant, sir! 'Twas never merry world
    Since lowly feigning was call'd compliment.
    Y'are servant to the Count Orsino, youth.
  VIOLA. And he is yours, and his must needs be yours:
    Your servant's servant is your servant, madam.
  OLIVIA. For him, I think not on him; for his thoughts,
    Would they were blanks rather than fill'd with me!
  VIOLA. Madam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts
    On his behalf.
  OLIVIA. O, by your leave, I pray you:
    I bade you never speak again of him;
    But, would you undertake another suit,
    I had rather hear you to solicit that
    Than music from the spheres.
  VIOLA. Dear lady-
  OLIVIA. Give me leave, beseech you. I did send,
    After the last enchantment you did here,
    A ring in chase of you; so did I abuse
    Myself, my servant, and, I fear me, you.
    Under your hard construction must I sit,
    To force that on you in a shameful cunning
    Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?
    Have you not set mine honour at the stake,
    And baited it with all th' unmuzzled thoughts
    That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving
    Enough is shown: a cypress, not a bosom,
    Hides my heart. So, let me hear you speak.
  VIOLA. I Pity YOU.
  OLIVIA. That's a degree to love.
  VIOLA. No, not a grize; for 'tis a vulgar proof
    That very oft we pity enemies.
  OLIVIA. Why, then, methinks 'tis time to smile again.
    O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
    If one should be a prey, how much the better
    To fall before the lion than the wolf!       [Clock strikes]
    The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.
    Be not afraid, good youth; I will not have you;
    And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,
    Your wife is like to reap a proper man.
    There lies your way, due west.
  VIOLA. Then westward-ho!
    Grace and good disposition attend your ladyship!
    You'll nothing, madam, to my lord by me?
  OLIVIA. Stay.
    I prithee tell me what thou think'st of me.
  VIOLA. That you do think you are not what you are.
  OLIVIA. If I think so, I think the same of you.
  VIOLA. Then think you right: I am not what I am.
  OLIVIA. I would you were as I would have you be!
  VIOLA. Would it be better, madam, than I am?
    I wish it might, for now I am your fool.
  OLIVIA. O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
    In the contempt and anger of his lip!
    A murd'rous guilt shows not itself more soon
    Than love that would seem hid: love's night is noon.
    Cesario, by the roses of the spring,
    By maidhood, honour, truth, and every thing,
    I love thee so that, maugre all thy pride,
    Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.
    Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
    For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause;
    But rather reason thus with reason fetter:
    Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
  VIOLA. By innocence I swear, and by my youth,
    I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
    And that no woman has; nor never none
    Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.
    And so adieu, good madam; never more
    Will I my master's tears to you deplore.
  OLIVIA. Yet come again; for thou perhaps mayst move
    That heart which now abhors to like his love.         Exeunt

SCENE II. OLIVIA'S house

Enter SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW and FABIAN

  AGUECHEEK. No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
  SIR TOBY. Thy reason, dear venom, give thy reason.
  FABIAN. You must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.
  AGUECHEEK. Marry, I saw your niece do more favours to the Count's
    servingman than ever she bestow'd upon me; I saw't i' th'
    orchard.
  SIR TOBY. Did she see thee the while, old boy? Tell me that.
  AGUECHEEK. As plain as I see you now.
  FABIAN. This was a great argument of love in her toward you.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Slight! will you make an ass o' me?
  FABIAN. I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgment
    and reason.
  SIR TOBY. And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a
    sailor.
  FABIAN. She did show favour to the youth in your sight only to
    exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valour, to put fire in
    your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then have
    accosted her; and with some excellent jests, fire-new from the
    mint, you should have bang'd the youth into dumbness. This was
    look'd for at your hand, and this was baulk'd. The double gilt of
    this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sail'd
    into the north of my lady's opinion; where you will hang like an
    icicle on Dutchman's beard, unless you do redeem it by some
    laudable attempt either of valour or policy.
  AGUECHEEK. An't be any way, it must be with valour, for policy I
    hate; I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician.
  SIR TOBY. Why, then, build me thy fortunes upon the basis of
    valour. Challenge me the Count's youth to fight with him; hurt
    him in eleven places. My niece shall take note of it; and assure
    thyself there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in
    man's commendation with woman than report of valour.
  FABIAN. There is no way but this, Sir Andrew.
  AGUECHEEK. Will either of you bear me a challenge to him?
  SIR TOBY. Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is
    no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention.
    Taunt him with the license of ink; if thou thou'st him some
    thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in
    thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the
    bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go about it. Let there be
    gall enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen, no
    matter. About it.
  AGUECHEEK. Where shall I find you?
  SIR TOBY. We'll call thee at the cubiculo. Go.
                                                 Exit SIR ANDREW
  FABIAN. This is a dear manakin to you, Sir Toby.
  SIR TOBY. I have been dear to him, lad- some two thousand strong,
    or so.
  FABIAN. We shall have a rare letter from him; but you'll not
    deliver't?
  SIR TOBY. Never trust me then; and by all means stir on the youth
    to an answer. I think oxen and wainropes cannot hale them
    together. For Andrew, if he were open'd and you find so much
    blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I'll eat the
    rest of th' anatomy.
  FABIAN. And his opposite, the youth, bears in his visage no great
    presage of cruelty.

                         Enter MARIA

  SIR TOBY. Look where the youngest wren of nine comes.
  MARIA. If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourselves into
    stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very
    renegado; for there is no Christian that means to be saved by
    believing rightly can ever believe such impossible passages of
    grossness. He's in yellow stockings.
  SIR TOBY. And cross-garter'd?
  MARIA. Most villainously; like a pedant that keeps a school i' th'
    church. I have dogg'd him like his murderer. He does obey every
    point of the letter that I dropp'd to betray him. He does smile
    his face into more lines than is in the new map with the
    augmentation of the Indies. You have not seen such a thing as
    'tis; I  can hardly forbear hurling things at him. I know my lady
    will strike him; if she do, he'll smile and take't for a great
    favour.
  SIR TOBY. Come, bring us, bring us where he is.         Exeunt

SCENE III. A street

Enter SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO

  SEBASTIAN. I would not by my will have troubled you;
    But since you make your pleasure of your pains,
    I will no further chide you.
  ANTONIO. I could not stay behind you: my desire,
    More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;
    And not all love to see you- though so much
    As might have drawn one to a longer voyage-
    But jealousy what might befall your travel,
    Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,
    Unguided and unfriended, often prove
    Rough and unhospitable. My willing love,
    The rather by these arguments of fear,
    Set forth in your pursuit.
  SEBASTIAN. My kind Antonio,
    I can no other answer make but thanks,
    And thanks, and ever thanks; and oft good turns
    Are shuffl'd off with such uncurrent pay;
    But were my worth as is my conscience firm,
    You should find better dealing. What's to do?
    Shall we go see the reliques of this town?
  ANTONIO. To-morrow, sir; best first go see your lodging.
  SEBASTIAN. I am not weary, and 'tis long to night;
    I pray you, let us satisfy our eyes
    With the memorials and the things of fame
    That do renown this city.
  ANTONIO. Would you'd pardon me.
    I do not without danger walk these streets:
    Once in a sea-fight 'gainst the Count his galleys
    I did some service; of such note, indeed,
    That, were I ta'en here, it would scarce be answer'd.
  SEBASTIAN. Belike you slew great number of his people.
  ANTONIO.Th' offence is not of such a bloody nature;
    Albeit the quality of the time and quarrel
    Might well have given us bloody argument.
    It might have since been answer'd in repaying
    What we took from them; which, for traffic's sake,
    Most of our city did. Only myself stood out;
    For which, if I be lapsed in this place,
    I shall pay dear.
  SEBASTIAN. Do not then walk too open.
  ANTONIO. It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here's my purse;
    In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,
    Is best to lodge. I will bespeak our diet,
    Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge
    With viewing of the town; there shall you have me.
  SEBASTIAN. Why I your purse?
  ANTONIO. Haply your eye shall light upon some toy
    You have desire to purchase; and your store,
    I think, is not for idle markets, sir.
  SEBASTIAN. I'll be your purse-bearer, and leave you for
    An hour.
  ANTONIO. To th' Elephant.
  SEBASTIAN. I do remember.                               Exeunt

SCENE IV. OLIVIA'S garden

Enter OLIVIA and MARIA

  OLIVIA. I have sent after him; he says he'll come.
    How shall I feast him? What bestow of him?
    For youth is bought more oft than begg'd or borrow'd.
    I speak too loud.
    Where's Malvolio? He is sad and civil,
    And suits well for a servant with my fortunes.
    Where is Malvolio?
  MARIA. He's coming, madam; but in very strange manner.
    He is sure possess'd, madam.
  OLIVIA. Why, what's the matter? Does he rave?
  MARIA. No, madam, he does nothing but smile. Your ladyship were
    best to have some guard about you if he come; for sure the man is
    tainted in's wits.
  OLIVIA. Go call him hither.                         Exit MARIA
    I am as mad as he,
    If sad and merry madness equal be.

               Re-enter MARIA with MALVOLIO

    How now, Malvolio!
  MALVOLIO. Sweet lady, ho, ho.
  OLIVIA. Smil'st thou?
    I sent for thee upon a sad occasion.
  MALVOLIO. Sad, lady? I could be sad. This does make some
    obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering; but what of that?
    If it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true
    sonnet is: 'Please one and please all.'
  OLIVIA. Why, how dost thou, man? What is the matter with thee?
  MALVOLIO. Not black in my mind, though yellow in my legs.
    It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed.
    I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.
  OLIVIA. Wilt thou go to bed, Malvolio?
  MALVOLIO. To bed? Ay, sweetheart, and I'll come to thee.
  OLIVIA. God comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so, and kiss thy hand
    so oft?
  MARIA. How do you, Malvolio?
  MALVOLIO. At your request? Yes, nightingales answer daws!
  MARIA. Why appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady?
  MALVOLIO. 'Be not afraid of greatness.' 'Twas well writ.
  OLIVIA. What mean'st thou by that, Malvolio?
  AIALVOLIO. 'Some are born great,'-
  OLIVIA. Ha?
  MALVOLIO. 'Some achieve greatness,'-
  OLIVIA. What say'st thou?
  MALVOLIO. 'And some have greatness thrust upon them.'
  OLIVIA. Heaven restore thee!
  MALVOLIO. 'Remember who commended thy yellow stockings,'-
  OLIVIA. 'Thy yellow stockings?'
  MALVOLIO. 'And wish'd to see thee cross-garterd.'
  OLIVIA. 'Cross-garter'd?'
  MALVOLIO. 'Go to, thou an made, if thou desir'st to be so';-
  OLIVIA. Am I made?
  MALVOLIO. 'If not, let me see thee a servant still.'
  OLIVIA. Why, this is very midsummer madness.

                     Enter SERVANT

  SERVANT. Madam, the young gentleman of the Count Orsino's is
    return'd; I could hardly entreat him back; he attends your
    ladyship's pleasure.
  OLIVIA. I'll come to him. [Exit SERVANT] Good Maria, let this
    fellow be look'd to. Where's my cousin Toby? Let some of my
    people have a special care of him; I would not have him miscarry
    for the half of my dowry.
                                         Exeunt OLIVIA and MARIA
  MALVOLIO. O, ho! do you come near me now? No worse man than Sir
    Toby to look to me! This concurs directly with the letter: she
    sends him on purpose, that I may appear stubborn to him; for she
    incites me to that in the letter. 'Cast thy humble slough,' says
    she. 'Be opposite with kinsman, surly with servants; let thy
    tongue tang with arguments of state; put thyself into the trick
    of singularity' and consequently sets down the manner how, as: a
    sad face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the habit of
    some sir of note, and so forth. I have lim'd her; but it is
    Jove's doing, and Jove make me thankful! And when she went away
    now- 'Let this fellow be look'd to.' 'Fellow,' not 'Malvolio' nor
    after my degree, but 'fellow.' Why, everything adheres together,
    that no dram of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle,
    no incredulous or unsafe circumstance- What can be said? Nothing
    that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my
    hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the doer of this, and he is to be
    thanked.

             Re-enter MARIA, with SIR TOBY and FABIAN

  SIR TOBY. Which way is he, in the name of sanctity? If all the
    devils of hell be drawn in little, and Legion himself possess'd
    him, yet I'll speak to him.
  FABIAN. Here he is, here he is. How is't with you, sir?
  SIR TOBY. How is't with you, man?
  MALVOLIO. Go off; I discard you. Let me enjoy my private; go off.
  MARIA. Lo, how hollow the fiend speaks within him! Did not I tell
    you? Sir Toby, my lady prays you to have a care of him.
  MALVOLIO. Ah, ha! does she so?
  SIR TOBY. Go to, go to; peace, peace; we must deal gently with him.
    Let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? How is't with you? What, man,
    defy the devil; consider, he's an enemy to mankind.
  MALVOLIO. Do you know what you say?
  MARIA. La you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at
    heart! Pray God he be not bewitched.
  FABIAN. Carry his water to th' wise woman.
  MARIA. Marry, and it shall be done to-morrow morning, if I live. My
    lady would not lose him for more than I'll say.
  MALVOLIO. How now, mistress!
  MARIA. O Lord!
  SIR TOBY. Prithee hold thy peace; this is not the way. Do you not
    see you move him? Let me alone with him.
  FABIAN. No way but gentleness- gently, gently. The fiend is rough,
    and will not be roughly us'd.
  SIR TOBY. Why, how now, my bawcock!
    How dost thou, chuck?
  MALVOLIO. Sir!
  SIR TOBY. Ay, Biddy, come with me. What, man, 'tis not for gravity
    to play at cherrypit with Satan. Hang him, foul collier!
  MARIA. Get him to say his prayers, good Sir Toby, get him to pray.
  MALVOLIO. My prayers, minx!
  MARIA. No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness.
  MALVOLIO. Go, hang yourselves all! You are idle shallow things; I
    am not of your element; you shall know more hereafter.
 Exit
  SIR TOBY. Is't possible?
  FABIAN. If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as
    an improbable fiction.
  SIR TOBY. His very genius hath taken the infection of the device,
    man.
  MARIA. Nay, pursue him now, lest the device take air and taint.
  FABIAN. Why, we shall make him mad indeed.
  MARIA. The house will be the quieter.
  SIR TOBY. Come, we'll have him in a dark room and bound. My niece
    is already in the belief that he's mad. We may carry it thus, for
    our pleasure and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of
    breath, prompt us to have mercy on him; at which time we will
    bring the device to the bar and crown thee for a finder of
    madmen. But see, but see.

                     Enter SIR ANDREW

  FABIAN. More matter for a May morning.
  AGUECHEEK. Here's the challenge; read it. I warrant there's vinegar
    and pepper in't.
  FABIAN. Is't so saucy?
  AGUECHEEK. Ay, is't, I warrant him; do but read.
  SIR TOBY. Give me. [Reads] 'Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art
    but a scurvy fellow.'
  FABIAN. Good and valiant.
  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Wonder not, nor admire not in thy mind, why I do
    call thee so, for I will show thee no reason for't.'
  FABIAN. A good note; that keeps you from the blow of the law.
  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Thou com'st to the Lady Olivia, and in my sight
    she uses thee kindly; but thou liest in thy throat; that is not
    the matter I challenge thee for.'
  FABIAN. Very brief, and to exceeding good sense- less.
  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'I will waylay thee going home; where if it be
    thy chance to kill me'-
  FABIAN. Good.
  SIR TOBY. 'Thou kill'st me like a rogue and a villain.'
  FABIAN. Still you keep o' th' windy side of the law. Good!
  SIR TOBY. [Reads] 'Fare thee well; and God have mercy upon one of
    our souls! He may have mercy upon mine; but my hope is better,
    and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as thou usest him, and thy
    sworn enemy,
                                              ANDREW AGUECHEEK.'

    If this letter move him not, his legs cannot. I'll give't him.
  MARIA. You may have very fit occasion for't; he is now in some
    commerce with my lady, and will by and by depart.
  SIR TOBY. Go, Sir Andrew; scout me for him at the corner of the
    orchard, like a bum-baily; so soon as ever thou seest him, draw;
    and as thou draw'st, swear horrible; for it comes to pass oft
    that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twang'd
    off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would
    have earn'd him. Away.
  AGUECHEEK. Nay, let me alone for swearing.                Exit
  SIR TOBY. Now will not I deliver his letter; for the behaviour of
    the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity and
    breeding; his employment between his lord and my niece confirms
    no less. Therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant,
    will breed no terror in the youth: he will find it comes from a
    clodpole. But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of
    mouth, set upon Aguecheek notable report of valour, and drive the
    gentleman- as know his youth will aptly receive it- into a most
    hideous opinion of his rage, skill, fury, and impetuosity. This
    will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the
    look, like cockatrices.

                Re-enter OLIVIA. With VIOLA

  FABIAN. Here he comes with your niece; give them way till he take
    leave, and presently after him.
  SIR TOBY. I will meditate the while upon some horrid message for a
    challenge.
                              Exeunt SIR TOBY, FABIAN, and MARIA
  OLIVIA. I have said too much unto a heart of stone,
    And laid mine honour too unchary out;
    There's something in me that reproves my fault;
    But such a headstrong potent fault it is
    That it but mocks reproof.
  VIOLA. With the same haviour that your passion bears
    Goes on my master's griefs.
  OLIVIA. Here, wear this jewel for me; 'tis my picture.
    Refuse it not; it hath no tongue to vex you.
    And I beseech you come again to-morrow.
    What shall you ask of me that I'll deny,
    That honour sav'd may upon asking give?
  VIOLA. Nothing but this- your true love for my master.
  OLIVIA. How with mine honour may I give him that
    Which I have given to you?
  VIOLA. I will acquit you.
  OLIVIA. Well, come again to-morrow. Fare thee well;
    A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell.           Exit

              Re-enter SIR TOBY and SIR FABIAN

  SIR TOBY. Gentleman, God save thee.
  VIOLA. And you, sir.
  SIR TOBY. That defence thou hast, betake thee tot. Of what nature
    the wrongs are thou hast done him, I know not; but thy
    intercepter, full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends
    thee at the orchard end. Dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy
    preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly.
  VIOLA. You mistake, sir; I am sure no man hath any quarrel to me;
    my remembrance is very free and clear from any image of offence
    done to any man.
  SIR TOBY. You'll find it otherwise, I assure you; therefore, if you
    hold your life at any price, betake you to your guard; for your
    opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill, and wrath, can
    furnish man withal.
  VIOLA. I pray you, sir, what is he?
  SIR TOBY. He is knight, dubb'd with unhatch'd rapier and on carpet
    consideration; but he is a devil in private brawl. Souls and
    bodies hath he divorc'd three; and his incensement at this moment
    is so implacable that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of
    death and sepulchre. Hob-nob is his word- give't or take't.
  VIOLA. I will return again into the house and desire some conduct
    of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men
    that put quarrels purposely on others to taste their valour;
    belike this is a man of that quirk.
  SIR TOBY. Sir, no; his indignation derives itself out of a very
    competent injury; therefore, get you on and give him his desire.
    Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that with
    me which with as much safety you might answer him; therefore on,
    or strip your sword stark naked; for meddle you must, that's
    certain, or forswear to wear iron about you.
  VIOLA. This is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you do me this
    courteous office as to know of the knight what my offence to him
    is: it is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose.
  SIR TOBY. I Will do so. Signior Fabian, stay you by this gentleman
    till my return.                                Exit SIR TOBY
  VIOLA. Pray you, sir, do you know of this matter?
  FABIAN. I know the knight is incens'd against you, even to a mortal
    arbitrement; but nothing of the circumstance more.
  VIOLA. I beseech you, what manner of man is he?
  FABIAN. Nothing of that wonderful promise, to read him by his form,
    as you are like to find him in the proof of his valour. He is
    indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody, and fatal opposite that
    you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria. Will you
    walk towards him? I will make your peace with him if I can.
  VIOLA. I shall be much bound to you for't. I am one that would
    rather go with sir priest than sir knight. I care not who knows
    so much of my mettle.                                 Exeunt

                Re-enter SIR TOBY With SIR ANDREW

  SIR TOBY. Why, man, he's a very devil; I have not seen such a
    firago. I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard, and all, and he
    gives me the stuck in with such a mortal motion that it is
    inevitable; and on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet
    hit the ground they step on. They say he has been fencer to the
    Sophy.
  AGUECHEEK. Pox on't, I'll not meddle with him.
  SIR TOBY. Ay, but he will not now be pacified; Fabian can scarce
    hold him yonder.
  AGUECHEEK. Plague on't; an I thought he had been valiant, and so
    cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damn'd ere I'd have
    challeng'd him. Let him let the matter slip, and I'll give him
    my horse, grey Capilet.
  SIR TOBY. I'll make the motion. Stand here, make a good show on't;
    this shall end without the perdition of souls. [Aside] Marry,
    I'll ride your horse as well as I ride you.

              Re-enter FABIAN and VIOLA

    [To FABIAN] I have his horse to take up the quarrel; I have
    persuaded him the youth's a devil.
  FABIAN. [To SIR TOBY] He is as horribly conceited of him; and pants
   and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels.
  SIR TOBY. [To VIOLA] There's no remedy, sir: he will fight with you
    for's oath sake. Marry, he hath better bethought him of his
    quarrel, and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of.
    Therefore draw for the supportance of his vow; he protests he
    will not hurt you.
  VIOLA. [Aside] Pray God defend me! A little thing would make me
    tell them how much I lack of a man.
  FABIAN. Give ground if you see him furious.
  SIR TOBY. Come, Sir Andrew, there's no remedy; the gentleman will,
    for his honour's sake, have one bout with you; he cannot by the
    duello avoid it; but he has promis'd me, as he is a gentleman and
    a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on; to't.
  AGUECHEEK. Pray God he keep his oath!                [They draw]

                      Enter ANTONIO

  VIOLA. I do assure you 'tis against my will.
  ANTONIO. Put up your sword. If this young gentleman
    Have done offence, I take the fault on me:
    If you offend him, I for him defy you.
  SIR TOBY. You, sir! Why, what are you?
  ANTONIO. One, sir, that for his love dares yet do more
    Than you have heard him brag to you he will.
  SIR TOBY. Nay, if you be an undertaker, I am for you.
                                                     [They draw]

                         Enter OFFICERS

  FABIAN. O good Sir Toby, hold! Here come the officers.
  SIR TOBY. [To ANTONIO] I'll be with you anon.
  VIOLA. Pray, sir, put your sword up, if you please.
  AGUECHEEK. Marry, will I, sir; and for that I promis'd you, I'll be
    as good as my word. He will bear you easily and reins well.
  FIRST OFFICER. This is the man; do thy office.
  SECOND OFFICER. Antonio, I arrest thee at the suit
    Of Count Orsino.
  ANTONIO. You do mistake me, sir.
  FIRST OFFICER. No, sir, no jot; I know your favour well,
    Though now you have no sea-cap on your head.
    Take him away; he knows I know him well.
  ANTONIO. I Must obey. [To VIOLA] This comes with seeking you;
    But there's no remedy; I shall answer it.
    What will you do, now my necessity
    Makes me to ask you for my purse? It grieves me
    Much more for what I cannot do for you
    Than what befalls myself. You stand amaz'd;
    But be of comfort.
  SECOND OFFICER. Come, sir, away.
  ANTONIO. I must entreat of you some of that money.
  VIOLA. What money, sir?
    For the fair kindness you have show'd me here,
    And part being prompted by your present trouble,
    Out of my lean and low ability
    I'll lend you something. My having is not much;
    I'll make division of my present with you;
    Hold, there's half my coffer.
  ANTONIO. Will you deny me now?
    Is't possible that my deserts to you
    Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery,
    Lest that it make me so unsound a man
    As to upbraid you with those kindnesses
    That I have done for you.
  VIOLA. I know of none,
    Nor know I you by voice or any feature.
    I hate ingratitude more in a man
    Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness,
    Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
    Inhabits our frail blood.
  ANTONIO. O heavens themselves!
  SECOND OFFICER. Come, sir, I pray you go.
  ANTONIO. Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here
    I snatch'd one half out of the jaws of death,
    Reliev'd him with such sanctity of love,
    And to his image, which methought did promise
    Most venerable worth, did I devotion.
  FIRST OFFICER. What's that to us? The time goes by; away.
  ANTONIO. But, O, how vile an idol proves this god!
    Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.
    In nature there's no blemish but the mind:
    None can be call'd deform'd but the unkind.
    Virtue is beauty; but the beauteous evil
    Are empty trunks, o'erflourish'd by the devil.
  FIRST OFFICER. The man grows mad. Away with him.
    Come, come, sir.
  ANTONIO. Lead me on.                        Exit with OFFICERS
  VIOLA. Methinks his words do from such passion fly
    That he believes himself; so do not I.
    Prove true, imagination, O, prove true,
    That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you!
  SIR TOBY. Come hither, knight; come hither, Fabian; we'll whisper
    o'er a couplet or two of most sage saws.
  VIOLA. He nam'd Sebastian. I my brother know
    Yet living in my glass; even such and so
    In favour was my brother; and he went
    Still in this fashion, colour, ornament,
    For him I imitate. O, if it prove,
    Tempests are kind, and salt waves fresh in love!        Exit
  SIR TOBY. A very dishonest paltry boy, and more a coward than a
    hare. His dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in
    necessity and denying him; and for his cowardship, ask Fabian.
  FABIAN. A coward, a most devout coward, religious in it.
  AGUECHEEK. 'Slid, I'll after him again and beat him.
  SIR TOBY. Do; cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword.
  AGUECHEEK. And I do not-                                  Exit
  FABIAN. Come, let's see the event.
  SIR TOBY. I dare lay any money 'twill be nothing yet.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. Before OLIVIA'S house

Enter SEBASTIAN and CLOWN

  CLOWN. Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you?
  SEBASTIAN. Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow; let me be clear
    of thee.
  CLOWN. Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not
    sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your
    name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither.
    Nothing that is so is so.
  SEBASTIAN. I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else.
    Thou know'st not me.
  CLOWN. Vent my folly! He has heard that word of some great man, and
    now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great
    lubber, the world, will prove a cockney. I prithee now, ungird
    thy strangeness, and tell me what I shall vent to my lady. Shall
    I vent to her that thou art coming?
  SEBASTIAN. I prithee, foolish Greek, depart from me;
    There's money for thee; if you tarry longer
    I shall give worse payment.
  CLOWN. By my troth, thou hast an open hand. These wise men that
    give fools money get themselves a good report after fourteen
    years' purchase.

             Enter SIR ANDREW, SIR TOBY, and FABIAN

  AGUECHEEK. Now, sir, have I met you again?
    [Striking SEBASTIAN] There's for you.
  SEBASTIAN. Why, there's for thee, and there, and there.
    Are all the people mad?
  SIR TOBY. Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house.
                                             [Holding SEBASTIAN]
  CLOWN. This will I tell my lady straight. I would not be in some of
    your coats for two-pence.                               Exit
  SIR TOBY. Come on, sir; hold.
  AGUECHEEK. Nay, let him alone. I'll go another way to work with
    him; I'll have an action of battery against him, if there be any
    law in Illyria; though I struck him first, yet it's no matter for
    that.
  SEBASTIAN. Let go thy hand.
  SIR TOBY. Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier,
    put up your iron; you are well flesh'd. Come on.
  SEBASTIAN. I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now?
    If thou dar'st tempt me further, draw thy sword.     [Draws]
  SIR TOBY. What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this
    malapert blood from you. [Draws]

                        Enter OLIVIA

  OLIVIA. Hold, Toby; on thy life, I charge thee hold.
  SIR TOBY. Madam!
  OLIVIA. Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,
    Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,
    Where manners ne'er were preach'd! Out of my sight!
    Be not offended, dear Cesario-
    Rudesby, be gone!
                         Exeunt SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN
    I prithee, gentle friend,
    Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway
    In this uncivil and unjust extent
    Against thy peace. Go with me to my house,
    And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks
    This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby
    Mayst smile at this. Thou shalt not choose but go;
    Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me!
    He started one poor heart of mine in thee.
  SEBASTIAN. What relish is in this? How runs the stream?
    Or I am mad, or else this is a dream.
    Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep;
    If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!
  OLIVIA. Nay, come, I prithee. Would thou'dst be rul'd by me!
  SEBASTIAN. Madam, I will.
  OLIVIA. O, say so, and so be!                           Exeunt

SCENE II. OLIVIA'S house

Enter MARIA and CLOWN

  MARIA. Nay, I prithee, put on this gown and this beard; make him
    believe thou art Sir Topas the curate; do it quickly. I'll call
    Sir Toby the whilst.                                    Exit
  CLOWN. Well, I'll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in't; and
    I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown. I
    am not tall enough to become the function well nor lean enough to
    be thought a good student; but to be said an honest man and a
    good housekeeper goes as fairly as to say a careful man and a
    great scholar. The competitors enter.

                 Enter SIR TOBY and MARIA

  SIR TOBY. Jove bless thee, Master Parson.
  CLOWN. Bonos dies, Sir Toby; for as the old hermit of Prague, that
    never saw pen and ink, very wittily said to niece of King
    Gorboduc 'That that is is'; so I, being Master Parson, am Master
    Parson; for what is 'that' but that, and 'is' but is?
  SIR TOBY. To him, Sir Topas.
  CLOWN. What ho, I say! Peace in this prison!
  SIR TOBY. The knave counterfeits well; a good knave.
  MALVOLIO. [Within] Who calls there?
  CLOWN. Sir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the
    lunatic.
  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady.
  CLOWN. Out, hyperbolical fiend! How vexest thou this man!
    Talkest thou nothing but of ladies?
  SIR TOBY. Well said, Master Parson.
  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, never was man thus wronged. Good Sir Topas, do
    not think I am mad; they have laid me here in hideous darkness.
  CLOWN. Fie, thou dishonest Satan! I call thee by the most modest
    terms, for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil
    himself with courtesy. Say'st thou that house is dark?
  MALVOLIO. As hell, Sir Topas.
  CLOWN. Why, it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes, and the
    clerestories toward the south north are as lustrous as ebony; and
    yet complainest thou of obstruction?
  MALVOLIO. I am not mad, Sir Topas. I say to you this house is dark.
  CLOWN. Madman, thou errest. I say there is no darkness but
    ignorance; in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in
    their fog.
  MALVOLIO. I say this house is as dark as ignorance, though
    ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there was never man
    thus abus'd. I am no more mad than you are; make the trial of it
    in any constant question.
  CLOWN. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl?
  MALVOLIO. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
  CLOWN. What think'st thou of his opinion?
  MALVOLIO. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his
    opinion.
  CLOWN. Fare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness: thou shalt
   hold th' opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow of thy wits; and
    fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy
    grandam. Fare thee well.
  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas, Sir Topas!
  SIR TOBY. My most exquisite Sir Topas!
  CLOWN. Nay, I am for all waters.
  MARIA. Thou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown: he
    sees thee not.
  SIR TOBY. To him in thine own voice, and bring me word how thou
    find'st him. I would we were well rid of this knavery. If he may
    be conveniently deliver'd, I would he were; for I am now so far
    in offence with my niece that I cannot pursue with any safety
    this sport to the upshot. Come by and by to my chamber.
                                                 Exit with MARIA
  CLOWN. [Sings] Hey, Robin, jolly Robin,
    Tell me how thy lady does.
  MALVOLIO. Fool!
  CLOWN. [Sings] My lady is unkind, perdy.
  MALVOLIO. Fool!
  CLOWN. [Sings] Alas, why is she so?
  MALVOLIO. Fool I say!
  CLOWN. [Sings] She loves another- Who calls, ha?
  MALVOLIO. Good fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well at my hand,
    help me to a candle, and pen, ink, and paper; as I am a
    gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for't.
  CLOWN. Master Malvolio?
  MALVOLIO. Ay, good fool.
  CLOWN. Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?
  MALVOLIO. Fool, there was never man so notoriously abus'd;
    I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art.
  CLOWN. But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in
    your wits than a fool.
  MALVOLIO. They have here propertied me; keep me in darkness, send
    ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face me out of my
    wits.
  CLOWN. Advise you what. you say: the minister is here.
    [Speaking as SIR TOPAS] Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore!
    Endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble-babble.
  MALVOLIO. Sir Topas!
  CLOWN. Maintain no words with him, good fellow.- Who, I, sir? Not
    I, sir. God buy you, good Sir Topas.- Marry, amen.- I will sir, I
    will.
  MALVOLIO. Fool, fool, fool, I say!
  CLOWN. Alas, sir, be patient. What say you, sir? I am shent for
    speaking to you.
  MALVOLIO. Good fool, help me to some light and some paper.
    I tell thee I am as well in my wits as any man in Illyria.
  CLOWN. Well-a-day that you were, sir!
  MALVOLIO. By this hand, I am. Good fool, some ink, paper, and
    light; and convey what I will set down to my lady. It shall
    advantage thee more than ever the bearing of letter did.
  CLOWN. I will help you to't. But tell me true, are you not mad
    indeed, or do you but counterfeit?
  MALVOLIO. Believe me, I am not; I tell thee true.
  CLOWN. Nay, I'll ne'er believe a madman till I see his brains.
    I will fetch you light and paper and ink.
  MALVOLIO. Fool, I'll requite it in the highest degree; I prithe be
    gone.
  CLOWN. [Singing]
                   I am gone, sir,
                   And anon, sir,
                 I'll be with you again,
                   In a trice,
                   Like to the old Vice,
                 Your need to sustain;

                 Who with dagger of lath,
                 In his rage and his wrath,
                   Cries, Ah, ha! to the devil,
                 Like a mad lad,
                 Pare thy nails, dad.
                   Adieu, goodman devil.                    Exit

SCENE III. OLIVIA'S garden

Enter SEBASTIAN

  SEBASTIAN. This is the air; that is the glorious sun;
    This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see't;
    And though 'tis wonder that enwraps me thus,
    Yet 'tis not madness. Where's Antonio, then?
    I could not find him at the Elephant;
    Yet there he was; and there I found this credit,
    That he did range the town to seek me out.
    His counsel now might do me golden service;
    For though my soul disputes well with my sense
    That this may be some error, but no madness,
    Yet doth this accident and flood of fortune
    So far exceed all instance, all discourse,
    That I am ready to distrust mine eyes
    And wrangle with my reason, that persuades me
    To any other trust but that I am mad,
    Or else the lady's mad; yet if 'twere so,
    She could not sway her house, command her followers,
    Take and give back affairs and their dispatch
    With such a smooth, discreet, and stable bearing,
    As I perceive she does. There's something in't
    That is deceivable. But here the lady comes.

                Enter OLIVIA and PRIEST

  OLIVIA. Blame not this haste of mine. If you mean well,
    Now go with me and with this holy man
    Into the chantry by; there, before him
    And underneath that consecrated roof,
    Plight me the fun assurance of your faith,
    That my most jealous and too doubtful soul
    May live at peace. He shall conceal it
    Whiles you are willing it shall come to note,
    What time we will our celebration keep
    According to my birth. What do you say?
  SEBASTIAN. I'll follow this good man, and go with you;
    And, having sworn truth, ever will be true.
  OLIVIA. Then lead the way, good father; and heavens so shine
    That they may fairly note this act of mine!           Exeunt

ACT V. SCENE I. Before OLIVIA's house

Enter CLOWN and FABIAN

  FABIAN. Now, as thou lov'st me, let me see his letter.
  CLOWN. Good Master Fabian, grant me another request.
  FABIAN. Anything.
  CLOWN. Do not desire to see this letter.
  FABIAN. This is to give a dog, and in recompense desire my dog
    again.

             Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and LORDS

  DUKE. Belong you to the Lady Olivia, friends?
  CLOWN. Ay, sir, we are some of her trappings.
  DUKE. I know thee well. How dost thou, my good fellow?
  CLOWN. Truly, sir, the better for my foes and the worse for my
    friends.
  DUKE. Just the contrary: the better for thy friends.
  CLOWN. No, sir, the worse.
  DUKE. How can that be?
  CLOWN. Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me. Now my
    foes tell me plainly I am an ass; so that by my foes, sir, I
    profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused;
    so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make
    your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends, and
    the better for my foes.
  DUKE. Why, this is excellent.
  CLOWN. By my troth, sir, no; though it please you to be one of my
    friends.
  DUKE. Thou shalt not be the worse for me. There's gold.
  CLOWN. But that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could
    make it another.
  DUKE. O, you give me ill counsel.
  CLOWN. Put your grace in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let
    your flesh and blood obey it.
  DUKE. Well, I will be so much a sinner to be a double-dealer.
    There's another.
  CLOWN. Primo, secundo, tertio, is a good play; and the old saying
    is 'The third pays for all.' The triplex, sir, is a good tripping
    measure; or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind-
    one, two, three.
  DUKE. You can fool no more money out of me at this throw; if you
    will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring
    her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.
  CLOWN. Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come again. I go,
    sir; but I would not have you to think that my desire of having
    is the sin of covetousness. But, as you say, sir, let your bounty
    take a nap; I will awake it anon.                       Exit

                 Enter ANTONIO and OFFICERS

  VIOLA. Here comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.
  DUKE. That face of his I do remember well;
    Yet when I saw it last it was besmear'd
    As black as Vulcan in the smoke of war.
    A baubling vessel was he captain of,
    For shallow draught and bulk unprizable,
    With which such scathful grapple did he make
    With the most noble bottom of our fleet
    That very envy and the tongue of los
    Cried fame and honour on him. What's the matter?
  FIRST OFFICER. Orsino, this is that Antonio
    That took the Phoenix and her fraught from Candy;
    And this is he that did the Tiger board
    When your young nephew Titus lost his leg.
    Here in the streets, desperate of shame and state,
    In private brabble did we apprehend him.
  VIOLA. He did me kindness, sir; drew on my side;
    But in conclusion put strange speech upon me.
    I know not what 'twas but distraction.
  DUKE. Notable pirate, thou salt-water thief!
    What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies
    Whom thou, in terms so bloody and so dear,
    Hast made thine enemies?
  ANTONIO. Orsino, noble sir,
    Be pleas'd that I shake off these names you give me:
    Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,
    Though I confess, on base and ground enough,
    Orsino's enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither:
    That most ingrateful boy there by your side
    From the rude sea's enrag'd and foamy mouth
    Did I redeem; a wreck past hope he was.
    His life I gave him, and did thereto ad
    My love without retention or restraint,
    All his in dedication; for his sake,
    Did I expose myself, pure for his love,
    Into the danger of this adverse town;
    Drew to defend him when he was beset;
    Where being apprehended, his false cunning,
    Not meaning to partake with me in danger,
    Taught him to face me out of his acquaintance,
    And grew a twenty years removed thing
    While one would wink; denied me mine own purse,
    Which I had recommended to his use
    Not half an hour before.
  VIOLA. How can this be?
  DUKE. When came he to this town?
  ANTONIO. To-day, my lord; and for three months before,
    No int'rim, not a minute's vacancy,
    Both day and night did we keep company.

              Enter OLIVIA and ATTENDANTS

  DUKE. Here comes the Countess; now heaven walks on earth.
    But for thee, fellow- fellow, thy words are madness.
    Three months this youth hath tended upon me-
    But more of that anon. Take him aside.
  OLIVIA. What would my lord, but that he may not have,
    Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?
    Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.
  VIOLA. Madam?
  DUKE. Gracious Olivia-
  OLIVIA. What do you say, Cesario? Good my lord-
  VIOLA. My lord would speak; my duty hushes me.
  OLIVIA. If it be aught to the old tune, my lord,
    It is as fat and fulsome to mine ear
    As howling after music.
  DUKE. Still so cruel?
  OLIVIA. Still so constant, lord.
  DUKE. What, to perverseness? You uncivil lady,
    To whose ingrate and unauspicious altars
    My soul the faithfull'st off'rings hath breath'd out
    That e'er devotion tender'd! What shall I do?
  OLIVIA. Even what it please my lord, that shall become him.
  DUKE. Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,
    Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,
    Kill what I love?- a savage jealousy
    That sometime savours nobly. But hear me this:
    Since you to non-regardance cast my faith,
    And that I partly know the instrument
    That screws me from my true place in your favour,
    Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still;
    But this your minion, whom I know you love,
    And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender dearly,
    Him will I tear out of that cruel eye
    Where he sits crowned in his master's spite.
    Come, boy, with me; my thoughts are ripe in mischief:
    I'll sacrifice the lamb that I do love
    To spite a raven's heart within a dove.
  VIOLA. And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,
    To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.
  OLIVIA. Where goes Cesario?
  VIOLA. After him I love
    More than I love these eyes, more than my life,
    More, by all mores, than e'er I shall love wife.
    If I do feign, you witnesses above
    Punish my life for tainting of my love!
  OLIVIA. Ay me, detested! How am I beguil'd!
  VIOLA. Who does beguile you? Who does do you wrong?
  OLIVIA. Hast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?
    Call forth the holy father.                Exit an ATTENDANT
  DUKE. Come, away!
  OLIVIA. Whither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.
  DUKE. Husband?
  OLIVIA. Ay, husband; can he that deny?
  DUKE. Her husband, sirrah?
  VIOLA. No, my lord, not I.
  OLIVIA. Alas, it is the baseness of thy fear
    That makes thee strangle thy propriety.
    Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up;
    Be that thou know'st thou art, and then thou art
    As great as that thou fear'st.

                   Enter PRIEST

    O, welcome, father!
    Father, I charge thee, by thy reverence,
    Here to unfold- though lately we intended
    To keep in darkness what occasion now
    Reveals before 'tis ripe- what thou dost know
    Hath newly pass'd between this youth and me.
  PRIEST. A contract of eternal bond of love,
    Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands,
    Attested by the holy close of lips,
    Strength'ned by interchangement of your rings;
    And all the ceremony of this compact
    Seal'd in my function, by my testimony;
    Since when, my watch hath told me, toward my grave,
    I have travell'd but two hours.
  DUKE. O thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be,
    When time hath sow'd a grizzle on thy case?
    Or will not else thy craft so quickly grow
    That thine own trip shall be thine overthrow?
    Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet
    Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.
  VIOLA. My lord, I do protest-
  OLIVIA. O, do not swear!
    Hold little faith, though thou has too much fear.

                  Enter SIR ANDREW

  AGUECHEEK. For the love of God, a surgeon!
    Send one presently to Sir Toby.
  OLIVIA. What's the matter?
  AGUECHEEK. Has broke my head across, and has given Sir Toby a
    bloody coxcomb too. For the love of God, your help! I had rather
    than forty pound I were at home.
  OLIVIA. Who has done this, Sir Andrew?
  AGUECHEEK. The Count's gentleman, one Cesario. We took him for a
    coward, but he's the very devil incardinate.
  DUKE. My gentleman, Cesario?
  AGUECHEEK. Od's lifelings, here he is! You broke my head for
    nothing; and that that did, I was set on to do't by Sir Toby.
  VIOLA. Why do you speak to me? I never hurt you.
    You drew your sword upon me without cause;
    But I bespake you fair and hurt you not.

                Enter SIR TOBY and CLOWN

  AGUECHEEK. If a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me; I think
    you set nothing by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby halting;
    you shall hear more; but if he had not been in drink, he would
    have tickl'd you othergates than he did.
  DUKE. How now, gentleman? How is't with you?
  SIR TOBY. That's all one; has hurt me, and there's th' end on't.
    Sot, didst see Dick Surgeon, sot?
  CLOWN. O, he's drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone; his eyes were set at
    eight i' th' morning.
  SIR TOBY. Then he's a rogue and a passy measures pavin. I hate a
    drunken rogue.
  OLIVIA. Away with him. Who hath made this havoc with them?
  AGUECHEEK. I'll help you, Sir Toby, because we'll be dress'd
    together.
  SIR TOBY. Will you help- an ass-head and a coxcomb and a knave, a
    thin fac'd knave, a gull?
  OLIVIA. Get him to bed, and let his hurt be look'd to.
                  Exeunt CLOWN, FABIAN, SIR TOBY, and SIR ANDREW

                      Enter SEBASTIAN

  SEBASTIAN. I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman;
    But, had it been the brother of my blood,
    I must have done no less with wit and safety.
    You throw a strange regard upon me, and by that
    I do perceive it hath offended you.
    Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows
    We made each other but so late ago.
  DUKE. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons!
    A natural perspective, that is and is not.
  SEBASTIAN. Antonio, O my dear Antonio!
    How have the hours rack'd and tortur'd me
    Since I have lost thee!
  ANTONIO. Sebastian are you?
  SEBASTIAN. Fear'st thou that, Antonio?
  ANTONIO. How have you made division of yourself?
    An apple cleft in two is not more twin
    Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?
  OLIVIA. Most wonderful!
  SEBASTIAN. Do I stand there? I never had a brother;
    Nor can there be that deity in my nature
    Of here and everywhere. I had a sister
    Whom the blind waves and surges have devour'd.
    Of charity, what kin are you to me?
    What countryman, what name, what parentage?
  VIOLA. Of Messaline; Sebastian was my father.
    Such a Sebastian was my brother too;
    So went he suited to his watery tomb;
    If spirits can assume both form and suit,
    You come to fright us.
  SEBASTIAN. A spirit I am indeed,
    But am in that dimension grossly clad
    Which from the womb I did participate.
    Were you a woman, as the rest goes even,
    I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,
    And say 'Thrice welcome, drowned Viola!'
  VIOLA. My father had a mole upon his brow.
  SEBASTIAN. And so had mine.
  VIOLA. And died that day when Viola from her birth
    Had numb'red thirteen years.
  SEBASTIAN. O, that record is lively in my soul!
    He finished indeed his mortal act
    That day that made my sister thirteen years.
  VIOLA. If nothing lets to make us happy both
    But this my masculine usurp'd attire,
    Do not embrace me till each circumstance
    Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump
    That I am Viola; which to confirm,
    I'll bring you to a captain in this town,
    Where lie my maiden weeds; by whose gentle help
    I was preserv'd to serve this noble Count.
    All the occurrence of my fortune since
    Hath been between this lady and this lord.
  SEBASTIAN. [To OLIVIA] So Comes it, lady, you have been mistook;
    But nature to her bias drew in that.
    You would have been contracted to a maid;
    Nor are you therein, by my life, deceiv'd;
    You are betroth'd both to a maid and man.
  DUKE. Be not amaz'd; right noble is his blood.
    If this be so, as yet the glass seems true,
    I shall have share in this most happy wreck.
    [To VIOLA] Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times
    Thou never shouldst love woman like to me.
  VIOLA. And all those sayings will I overswear;
    And all those swearings keep as true in soul
    As doth that orbed continent the fire
    That severs day from night.
  DUKE. Give me thy hand;
    And let me see thee in thy woman's weeds.
  VIOLA. The captain that did bring me first on shore
    Hath my maid's garments. He, upon some action,
    Is now in durance, at Malvolio's suit,
    A gentleman and follower of my lady's.
  OLIVIA. He shall enlarge him. Fetch Malvolio hither;
    And yet, alas, now I remember me,
    They say, poor gentleman, he's much distract.

        Re-enter CLOWN, with a letter, and FABIAN

    A most extracting frenzy of mine own
    From my remembrance clearly banish'd his.
    How does he, sirrah?
  CLOWN. Truly, madam, he holds Belzebub at the stave's end as well
    as a man in his case may do. Has here writ a letter to you; I
    should have given 't you to-day morning, but as a madman's
    epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are
    deliver'd.
  OLIVIA. Open't, and read it.
  CLOWN. Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the
    madman. [Reads madly ] 'By the Lord, madam-'
  OLIVIA. How now! Art thou mad?
  CLOWN. No, madam, I do but read madness. An your ladyship will have
    it as it ought to be, you must allow vox.
  OLIVIA. Prithee read i' thy right wits.
  CLOWN. So I do, madonna; but to read his right wits is to read
    thus; therefore perpend, my Princess, and give ear.
  OLIVIA. [To FABIAN] Read it you, sirrah.
  FABIAN. [Reads] 'By the Lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world
    shall know it. Though you have put me into darkness and given
    your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my
    senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that
    induced me to the semblance I put on, with the which I doubt not
    but to do myself much right or you much shame. Think of me as you
    please. I leave my duty a little unthought of, and speak out of
    my injury.
                                        THE MADLY-US'D MALVOLIO'

  OLIVIA. Did he write this?
  CLOWN. Ay, Madam.
  DUKE. This savours not much of distraction.
  OLIVIA. See him deliver'd, Fabian; bring him hither.
                                                     Exit FABIAN
    My lord, so please you, these things further thought on,
    To think me as well a sister as a wife,
    One day shall crown th' alliance on't, so please you,
    Here at my house, and at my proper cost.
  DUKE. Madam, I am most apt t' embrace your offer.
    [To VIOLA] Your master quits you; and, for your service done
      him,
    So much against the mettle of your sex,
    So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,
    And since you call'd me master for so long,
    Here is my hand; you shall from this time be
    You master's mistress.
  OLIVIA. A sister! You are she.

                Re-enter FABIAN, with MALVOLIO

  DUKE. Is this the madman?
  OLIVIA. Ay, my lord, this same.
    How now, Malvolio!
  MALVOLIO. Madam, you have done me wrong,
    Notorious wrong.
  OLIVIA. Have I, Malvolio? No.
  MALVOLIO. Lady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter.
    You must not now deny it is your hand;
    Write from it if you can, in hand or phrase;
    Or say 'tis not your seal, not your invention;
    You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,
    And tell me, in the modesty of honour,
    Why you have given me such clear lights of favour,
    Bade me come smiling and cross-garter'd to you,
    To put on yellow stockings, and to frown
    Upon Sir Toby and the lighter people;
    And, acting this in an obedient hope,
    Why have you suffer'd me to be imprison'd,
    Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,
    And made the most notorious geck and gul
    That e'er invention play'd on? Tell me why.
  OLIVIA. Alas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,
    Though, I confess, much like the character;
    But out of question 'tis Maria's hand.
    And now I do bethink me, it was she
    First told me thou wast mad; then cam'st in smiling,
    And in such forms which here were presuppos'd
    Upon thee in the letter. Prithee, be content;
    This practice hath most shrewdly pass'd upon thee,
    But, when we know the grounds and authors of it,
    Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge
    Of thine own cause.
  FABIAN. Good madam, hear me speak,
    And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come
    Taint the condition of this present hour,
    Which I have wond'red at. In hope it shall not,
    Most freely I confess myself and Toby
    Set this device against Malvolio here,
    Upon some stubborn and uncourteous parts
    We had conceiv'd against him. Maria writ
    The letter, at Sir Toby's great importance,
    In recompense whereof he hath married her.
    How with a sportful malice it was follow'd
    May rather pluck on laughter than revenge,
    If that the injuries be justly weigh'd
    That have on both sides pass'd.
  OLIVIA. Alas, poor fool, how have they baffl'd thee!
  CLOWN. Why, 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
    have greatness thrown upon them.' I was one, sir, in this
    interlude- one Sir Topas, sir; but that's all one. 'By the Lord,
    fool, I am not mad!' But do you remember- 'Madam, why laugh you
    at such a barren rascal? An you smile not, he's gagg'd'? And thus
    the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
  MALVOLIO. I'll be reveng'd on the whole pack of you.
 Exit
  OLIVIA. He hath been most notoriously abus'd.
  DUKE. Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace;
    He hath not told us of the captain yet.
    When that is known, and golden time convents,
    A solemn combination shall be made
    Of our dear souls. Meantime, sweet sister,
    We will not part from hence. Cesario, come;
    For so you shall be while you are a man;
    But when in other habits you are seen,
    Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen.
                                        Exeunt all but the CLOWN

                        CLOWN sings

           When that I was and a little tiny boy,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           A foolish thing was but a toy,
             For the rain it raineth every day.

           But when I came to man's estate,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,
             For the rain it raineth every day.

           But when I came, alas! to wive,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           By swaggering could I never thrive,
             For the rain it raineth every day.

           But when I came unto my beds,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
             For the rain it raineth every day.

           A great while ago the world begun,
             With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
           But that's all one, our play is done,
           And we'll strive to please you every day.
 Exit

THE END

1595



THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  DUKE OF MILAN, father to Silvia
  VALENTINE, one of the two gentlemen
  PROTEUS,    "  "   "   "     "
  ANTONIO, father to Proteus
  THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine
  EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape
  SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine
  LAUNCE, the like to Proteus
  PANTHINO, servant to Antonio
  HOST, where Julia lodges in Milan
  OUTLAWS, with Valentine

  JULIA, a lady of Verona, beloved of Proteus
  SILVIA, the Duke's daughter, beloved of Valentine
  LUCETTA, waiting-woman to Julia

  SERVANTS MUSICIANS

SCENE: Verona; Milan; the frontiers of Mantua

ACT I. SCENE I. Verona. An open place

Enter VALENTINE and PROTEUS

  VALENTINE. Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus:
    Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
    Were't not affection chains thy tender days
    To the sweet glances of thy honour'd love,
    I rather would entreat thy company
    To see the wonders of the world abroad,
    Than, living dully sluggardiz'd at home,
    Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness.
    But since thou lov'st, love still, and thrive therein,
    Even as I would, when I to love begin.
  PROTEUS. Wilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu!
    Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply seest
    Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.
    Wish me partaker in thy happiness
    When thou dost meet good hap; and in thy danger,
    If ever danger do environ thee,
    Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers,
    For I will be thy headsman, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. And on a love-book pray for my success?
  PROTEUS. Upon some book I love I'll pray for thee.
  VALENTINE. That's on some shallow story of deep love:
    How young Leander cross'd the Hellespont.
  PROTEUS. That's a deep story of a deeper love;
    For he was more than over shoes in love.
  VALENTINE. 'Tis true; for you are over boots in love,
    And yet you never swum the Hellespont.
  PROTEUS. Over the boots! Nay, give me not the boots.
  VALENTINE. No, I will not, for it boots thee not.
  PROTEUS. What?
  VALENTINE. To be in love- where scorn is bought with groans,
    Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth
    With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights;
    If haply won, perhaps a hapless gain;
    If lost, why then a grievous labour won;
    However, but a folly bought with wit,
    Or else a wit by folly vanquished.
  PROTEUS. So, by your circumstance, you call me fool.
  VALENTINE. So, by your circumstance, I fear you'll prove.
  PROTEUS. 'Tis love you cavil at; I am not Love.
  VALENTINE. Love is your master, for he masters you;
    And he that is so yoked by a fool,
    Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.
  PROTEUS. Yet writers say, as in the sweetest bud
    The eating canker dwells, so eating love
    Inhabits in the finest wits of all.
  VALENTINE. And writers say, as the most forward bud
    Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
    Even so by love the young and tender wit
    Is turn'd to folly, blasting in the bud,
    Losing his verdure even in the prime,
    And all the fair effects of future hopes.
    But wherefore waste I time to counsel the
    That art a votary to fond desire?
    Once more adieu. My father at the road
    Expects my coming, there to see me shipp'd.
  PROTEUS. And thither will I bring thee, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. Sweet Proteus, no; now let us take our leave.
    To Milan let me hear from thee by letters
    Of thy success in love, and what news else
    Betideth here in absence of thy friend;
    And I likewise will visit thee with mine.
  PROTEUS. All happiness bechance to thee in Milan!
  VALENTINE. As much to you at home; and so farewell!
                                                  Exit VALENTINE
  PROTEUS. He after honour hunts, I after love;
    He leaves his friends to dignify them more:
    I leave myself, my friends, and all for love.
    Thou, Julia, thou hast metamorphis'd me,
    Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,
    War with good counsel, set the world at nought;
    Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with thought.

                         Enter SPEED

  SPEED. Sir Proteus, save you! Saw you my master?
  PROTEUS. But now he parted hence to embark for Milan.
  SPEED. Twenty to one then he is shipp'd already,
    And I have play'd the sheep in losing him.
  PROTEUS. Indeed a sheep doth very often stray,
    An if the shepherd be awhile away.
  SPEED. You conclude that my master is a shepherd then, and
    I a sheep?
  PROTEUS. I do.
  SPEED. Why then, my horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep.
  PROTEUS. A silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.
  SPEED. This proves me still a sheep.
  PROTEUS. True; and thy master a shepherd.
  SPEED. Nay, that I can deny by a circumstance.
  PROTEUS. It shall go hard but I'll prove it by another.
  SPEED. The shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the
    shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me;
    therefore, I am no sheep.
  PROTEUS. The sheep for fodder follow the shepherd; the shepherd for
    food follows not the sheep: thou for wages followest thy master;
    thy master for wages follows not thee. Therefore, thou art a
    sheep.
  SPEED. Such another proof will make me cry 'baa.'
  PROTEUS. But dost thou hear? Gav'st thou my letter to Julia?
  SPEED. Ay, sir; I, a lost mutton, gave your letter to her, a lac'd
    mutton; and she, a lac'd mutton, gave me, a lost mutton, nothing
    for my labour.
  PROTEUS. Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons.
  SPEED. If the ground be overcharg'd, you were best stick her.
  PROTEUS. Nay, in that you are astray: 'twere best pound you.
  SPEED. Nay, sir, less than a pound shall serve me for carrying your
    letter.
  PROTEUS. You mistake; I mean the pound- a pinfold.
  SPEED. From a pound to a pin? Fold it over and over,
    'Tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover.
  PROTEUS. But what said she?
  SPEED.  [Nodding]  Ay.
  PROTEUS. Nod- ay. Why, that's 'noddy.'
  SPEED. You mistook, sir; I say she did nod; and you ask me if she
    did nod; and I say 'Ay.'
  PROTEUS. And that set together is 'noddy.'
  SPEED. Now you have taken the pains to set it together, take it for
    your pains.
  PROTEUS. No, no; you shall have it for bearing the letter.
  SPEED. Well, I perceive I must be fain to bear with you.
  PROTEUS. Why, sir, how do you bear with me?
  SPEED. Marry, sir, the letter, very orderly; having nothing but the
    word 'noddy' for my pains.
  PROTEUS. Beshrew me, but you have a quick wit.
  SPEED. And yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.
  PROTEUS. Come, come, open the matter; in brief, what said she?
  SPEED. Open your purse, that the money and the matter may be both
    at once delivered.
  PROTEUS. Well, sir, here is for your pains. What said she?
  SPEED. Truly, sir, I think you'll hardly win her.
  PROTEUS. Why, couldst thou perceive so much from her?
  SPEED. Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her; no, not so
    much as a ducat for delivering your letter; and being so hard to
    me that brought your mind, I fear she'll prove as hard to you in
    telling your mind. Give her no token but stones, for she's as
    hard as steel.
  PROTEUS. What said she? Nothing?
  SPEED. No, not so much as 'Take this for thy pains.' To testify
    your bounty, I thank you, you have testern'd me; in requital
    whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself; and so, sir,
    I'll commend you to my master.
  PROTEUS. Go, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,
    Which cannot perish, having thee aboard,
    Being destin'd to a drier death on shore.         Exit SPEED
    I must go send some better messenger.
    I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,
    Receiving them from such a worthless post.              Exit

SCENE II. Verona. The garden Of JULIA'S house

Enter JULIA and LUCETTA

  JULIA. But say, Lucetta, now we are alone,
    Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?
  LUCETTA. Ay, madam; so you stumble not unheedfully.
  JULIA. Of all the fair resort of gentlemen
    That every day with parle encounter me,
    In thy opinion which is worthiest love?
  LUCETTA. Please you, repeat their names; I'll show my mind
    According to my shallow simple skill.
  JULIA. What think'st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?
  LUCETTA. As of a knight well-spoken, neat, and fine;
    But, were I you, he never should be mine.
  JULIA. What think'st thou of the rich Mercatio?
  LUCETTA. Well of his wealth; but of himself, so so.
  JULIA. What think'st thou of the gentle Proteus?
  LUCETTA. Lord, Lord! to see what folly reigns in us!
  JULIA. How now! what means this passion at his name?
  LUCETTA. Pardon, dear madam; 'tis a passing shame
    That I, unworthy body as I am,
    Should censure thus on lovely gentlemen.
  JULIA. Why not on Proteus, as of all the rest?
  LUCETTA. Then thus: of many good I think him best.
  JULIA. Your reason?
  LUCETTA. I have no other but a woman's reason:
    I think him so, because I think him so.
  JULIA. And wouldst thou have me cast my love on him?
  LUCETTA. Ay, if you thought your love not cast away.
  JULIA. Why, he, of all the rest, hath never mov'd me.
  LUCETTA. Yet he, of all the rest, I think, best loves ye.
  JULIA. His little speaking shows his love but small.
  LUCETTA. Fire that's closest kept burns most of all.
  JULIA. They do not love that do not show their love.
  LUCETTA. O, they love least that let men know their love.
  JULIA. I would I knew his mind.
  LUCETTA. Peruse this paper, madam.
  JULIA. 'To Julia'- Say, from whom?
  LUCETTA. That the contents will show.
  JULIA. Say, say, who gave it thee?
  LUCETTA. Sir Valentine's page; and sent, I think, from Proteus.
    He would have given it you; but I, being in the way,
    Did in your name receive it; pardon the fault, I pray.
  JULIA. Now, by my modesty, a goodly broker!
    Dare you presume to harbour wanton lines?
    To whisper and conspire against my youth?
    Now, trust me, 'tis an office of great worth,
    And you an officer fit for the place.
    There, take the paper; see it be return'd;
    Or else return no more into my sight.
  LUCETTA. To plead for love deserves more fee than hate.
  JULIA. Will ye be gone?
  LUCETTA. That you may ruminate.                           Exit
  JULIA. And yet, I would I had o'erlook'd the letter.
    It were a shame to call her back again,
    And pray her to a fault for which I chid her.
    What fool is she, that knows I am a maid
    And would not force the letter to my view!
    Since maids, in modesty, say 'No' to that
    Which they would have the profferer construe 'Ay.'
    Fie, fie, how wayward is this foolish love,
    That like a testy babe will scratch the nurse,
    And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod!
    How churlishly I chid Lucetta hence,
    When willingly I would have had her here!
    How angerly I taught my brow to frown,
    When inward joy enforc'd my heart to smile!
    My penance is to call Lucetta back
    And ask remission for my folly past.
    What ho! Lucetta!

                     Re-enter LUCETTA

  LUCETTA. What would your ladyship?
  JULIA. Is't near dinner time?
  LUCETTA. I would it were,
    That you might kill your stomach on your meat
    And not upon your maid.
  JULIA. What is't that you took up so gingerly?
  LUCETTA. Nothing.
  JULIA. Why didst thou stoop then?
  LUCETTA. To take a paper up that I let fall.
  JULIA. And is that paper nothing?
  LUCETTA. Nothing concerning me.
  JULIA. Then let it lie for those that it concerns.
  LUCETTA. Madam, it will not lie where it concerns,
    Unless it have a false interpreter.
  JULIA. Some love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.
  LUCETTA. That I might sing it, madam, to a tune.
    Give me a note; your ladyship can set.
  JULIA. As little by such toys as may be possible.
    Best sing it to the tune of 'Light o' Love.'
  LUCETTA. It is too heavy for so light a tune.
  JULIA. Heavy! belike it hath some burden then.
  LUCETTA. Ay; and melodious were it, would you sing it.
  JULIA. And why not you?
  LUCETTA. I cannot reach so high.
  JULIA. Let's see your song.     [LUCETTA withholds the letter]
    How now, minion!
  LUCETTA. Keep tune there still, so you will sing it out.
    And yet methinks I do not like this tune.
  JULIA. You do not!
  LUCETTA. No, madam; 'tis too sharp.
  JULIA. You, minion, are too saucy.
  LUCETTA. Nay, now you are too flat
    And mar the concord with too harsh a descant;
    There wanteth but a mean to fill your song.
  JULIA. The mean is drown'd with your unruly bass.
  LUCETTA. Indeed, I bid the base for Proteus.
  JULIA. This babble shall not henceforth trouble me.
    Here is a coil with protestation!         [Tears the letter]
    Go, get you gone; and let the papers lie.
    You would be fing'ring them, to anger me.
  LUCETTA. She makes it strange; but she would be best pleas'd
    To be so ang'red with another letter.                   Exit
  JULIA. Nay, would I were so ang'red with the same!
    O hateful hands, to tear such loving words!
    Injurious wasps, to feed on such sweet honey
    And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!
    I'll kiss each several paper for amends.
    Look, here is writ 'kind Julia.' Unkind Julia,
    As in revenge of thy ingratitude,
    I throw thy name against the bruising stones,
    Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.
    And here is writ 'love-wounded Proteus.'
    Poor wounded name! my bosom,,as a bed,
    Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly heal'd;
    And thus I search it with a sovereign kiss.
    But twice or thrice was 'Proteus' written down.
    Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away
    Till I have found each letter in the letter-
    Except mine own name; that some whirlwind bear
    Unto a ragged, fearful, hanging rock,
    And throw it thence into the raging sea.
    Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:
    'Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,
    To the sweet Julia.' That I'll tear away;
    And yet I will not, sith so prettily
    He couples it to his complaining names.
    Thus will I fold them one upon another;
    Now kiss, embrace, contend, do what you will.

                        Re-enter LUCETTA

  LUCETTA. Madam,
    Dinner is ready, and your father stays.
  JULIA. Well, let us go.
  LUCETTA. What, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?
  JULIA. If you respect them, best to take them up.
  LUCETTA. Nay, I was taken up for laying them down;
    Yet here they shall not lie for catching cold.
  JULIA. I see you have a month's mind to them.
  LUCETTA. Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see;
    I see things too, although you judge I wink.
  JULIA. Come, come; will't please you go?                Exeunt

SCENE III. Verona. ANTONIO'S house

Enter ANTONIO and PANTHINO

  ANTONIO. Tell me, Panthino, what sad talk was that
    Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?
  PANTHINO. 'Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.
  ANTONIO. Why, what of him?
  PANTHINO. He wond'red that your lordship
    Would suffer him to spend his youth at home,
    While other men, of slender reputation,
    Put forth their sons to seek preferment out:
    Some to the wars, to try their fortune there;
    Some to discover islands far away;
    Some to the studious universities.
    For any, or for all these exercises,
    He said that Proteus, your son, was meet;
    And did request me to importune you
    To let him spend his time no more at home,
    Which would be great impeachment to his age,
    In having known no travel in his youth.
  ANTONIO. Nor need'st thou much importune me to that
    Whereon this month I have been hammering.
    I have consider'd well his loss of time,
    And how he cannot be a perfect man,
    Not being tried and tutor'd in the world:
    Experience is by industry achiev'd,
    And perfected by the swift course of time.
    Then tell me whither were I best to send him.
  PANTHINO. I think your lordship is not ignorant
    How his companion, youthful Valentine,
    Attends the Emperor in his royal court.
  ANTONIO. I know it well.
  PANTHINO. 'Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:
    There shall he practise tilts and tournaments,
    Hear sweet discourse, converse with noblemen,
    And be in eye of every exercise
    Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.
  ANTONIO. I like thy counsel; well hast thou advis'd;
    And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,
    The execution of it shall make known:
    Even with the speediest expedition
    I will dispatch him to the Emperor's court.
  PANTHINO. To-morrow, may it please you, Don Alphonso
    With other gentlemen of good esteem
    Are journeying to salute the Emperor,
    And to commend their service to his will.
  ANTONIO. Good company; with them shall Proteus go.

                        Enter PROTEUS

    And- in good time!- now will we break with him.
  PROTEUS. Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!
    Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;
    Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn.
    O that our fathers would applaud our loves,
    To seal our happiness with their consents!
    O heavenly Julia!
  ANTONIO. How now! What letter are you reading there?
  PROTEUS. May't please your lordship, 'tis a word or two
    Of commendations sent from Valentine,
    Deliver'd by a friend that came from him.
  ANTONIO. Lend me the letter; let me see what news.
  PROTEUS. There is no news, my lord; but that he writes
    How happily he lives, how well-belov'd
    And daily graced by the Emperor;
    Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.
  ANTONIO. And how stand you affected to his wish?
  PROTEUS. As one relying on your lordship's will,
    And not depending on his friendly wish.
  ANTONIO. My will is something sorted with his wish.
    Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed;
    For what I will, I will, and there an end.
    I am resolv'd that thou shalt spend some time
    With Valentinus in the Emperor's court;
    What maintenance he from his friends receives,
    Like exhibition thou shalt have from me.
    To-morrow be in readiness to go-
    Excuse it not, for I am peremptory.
  PROTEUS. My lord, I cannot be so soon provided;
    Please you, deliberate a day or two.
  ANTONIO. Look what thou want'st shall be sent after thee.
    No more of stay; to-morrow thou must go.
    Come on, Panthino; you shall be employ'd
    To hasten on his expedition.
                                     Exeunt ANTONIO and PANTHINO
  PROTEUS. Thus have I shunn'd the fire for fear of burning,
    And drench'd me in the sea, where I am drown'd.
    I fear'd to show my father Julia's letter,
    Lest he should take exceptions to my love;
    And with the vantage of mine own excuse
    Hath he excepted most against my love.
    O, how this spring of love resembleth
    The uncertain glory of an April day,
    Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
    And by an by a cloud takes all away!

                       Re-enter PANTHINO

  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, your father calls for you;
    He is in haste; therefore, I pray you, go.
  PROTEUS. Why, this it is: my heart accords thereto;
    And yet a thousand times it answers 'No.'             Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter VALENTINE and SPEED

  SPEED. Sir, your glove.
  VALENTINE. Not mine: my gloves are on.
  SPEED. Why, then, this may be yours; for this is but one.
  VALENTINE. Ha! let me see; ay, give it me, it's mine;
    Sweet ornament that decks a thing divine!
    Ah, Silvia! Silvia!
  SPEED.  [Calling]  Madam Silvia! Madam Silvia!
  VALENTINE. How now, sirrah?
  SPEED. She is not within hearing, sir.
  VALENTINE. Why, sir, who bade you call her?
  SPEED. Your worship, sir; or else I mistook.
  VALENTINE. Well, you'll still be too forward.
  SPEED. And yet I was last chidden for being too slow.
  VALENTINE. Go to, sir; tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?
  SPEED. She that your worship loves?
  VALENTINE. Why, how know you that I am in love?
  SPEED. Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learn'd, like
    Sir Proteus, to wreath your arms like a malcontent; to relish a
    love-song, like a robin redbreast; to walk alone, like one that
    had the pestilence; to sigh, like a school-boy that had lost his
    A B C; to weep, like a young wench that had buried her grandam;
    to fast, like one that takes diet; to watch, like one that fears
    robbing; to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were
    wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walk'd, to
    walk like one of the lions; when you fasted, it was presently
    after dinner; when you look'd sadly, it was for want of money.
    And now you are metamorphis'd with a mistress, that, when I look
    on you, I can hardly think you my master.
  VALENTINE. Are all these things perceiv'd in me?
  SPEED. They are all perceiv'd without ye.
  VALENTINE. Without me? They cannot.
  SPEED. Without you! Nay, that's certain; for, without you were so
    simple, none else would; but you are so without these follies
    that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the
    water in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a
    physician to comment on your malady.
  VALENTINE. But tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?
  SPEED. She that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?
  VALENTINE. Hast thou observ'd that? Even she, I mean.
  SPEED. Why, sir, I know her not.
  VALENTINE. Dost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet know'st
    her not?
  SPEED. Is she not hard-favour'd, sir?
  VALENTINE. Not so fair, boy, as well-favour'd.
  SPEED. Sir, I know that well enough.
  VALENTINE. What dost thou know?
  SPEED. That she is not so fair as, of you, well-favour'd.
  VALENTINE. I mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour
    infinite.
  SPEED. That's because the one is painted, and the other out of all
    count.
  VALENTINE. How painted? and how out of count?
  SPEED. Marry, sir, so painted, to make her fair, that no man counts
    of her beauty.
  VALENTINE. How esteem'st thou me? I account of her beauty.
  SPEED. You never saw her since she was deform'd.
  VALENTINE. How long hath she been deform'd?
  SPEED. Ever since you lov'd her.
  VALENTINE. I have lov'd her ever since I saw her, and still
    I see her beautiful.
  SPEED. If you love her, you cannot see her.
  VALENTINE. Why?
  SPEED. Because Love is blind. O that you had mine eyes; or your own
    eyes had the lights they were wont to have when you chid at Sir
    Proteus for going ungarter'd!
  VALENTINE. What should I see then?
  SPEED. Your own present folly and her passing deformity; for he,
    being in love, could not see to garter his hose; and you, being
    in love, cannot see to put on your hose.
  VALENTINE. Belike, boy, then you are in love; for last morning you
    could not see to wipe my shoes.
  SPEED. True, sir; I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you
    swing'd me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you
    for yours.
  VALENTINE. In conclusion, I stand affected to her.
  SPEED. I would you were set, so your affection would cease.
  VALENTINE. Last night she enjoin'd me to write some lines to one
    she loves.
  SPEED. And have you?
  VALENTINE. I have.
  SPEED. Are they not lamely writ?
  VALENTINE. No, boy, but as well as I can do them.

                           Enter SILVIA

    Peace! here she comes.
  SPEED.  [Aside]  O excellent motion! O exceeding puppet!
    Now will he interpret to her.
  VALENTINE. Madam and mistress, a thousand good morrows.
  SPEED.  [Aside]  O, give ye good ev'n!
    Here's a million of manners.
  SILVIA. Sir Valentine and servant, to you two thousand.
  SPEED.  [Aside]  He should give her interest, and she gives it him.
  VALENTINE. As you enjoin'd me, I have writ your letter
    Unto the secret nameless friend of yours;
    Which I was much unwilling to proceed in,
    But for my duty to your ladyship.
  SILVIA. I thank you, gentle servant. 'Tis very clerkly done.
  VALENTINE. Now trust me, madam, it came hardly off;
    For, being ignorant to whom it goes,
    I writ at random, very doubtfully.
  SILVIA. Perchance you think too much of so much pains?
  VALENTINE. No, madam; so it stead you, I will write,
    Please you command, a thousand times as much;
    And yet-
  SILVIA. A pretty period! Well, I guess the sequel;
    And yet I will not name it- and yet I care not.
    And yet take this again- and yet I thank you-
    Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.
  SPEED.  [Aside]  And yet you will; and yet another' yet.'
  VALENTINE. What means your ladyship? Do you not like it?
  SILVIA. Yes, yes; the lines are very quaintly writ;
    But, since unwillingly, take them again.
    Nay, take them.                      [Gives hack the letter]
  VALENTINE. Madam, they are for you.
  SILVIA. Ay, ay, you writ them, sir, at my request;
    But I will none of them; they are for you:
    I would have had them writ more movingly.
  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll write your ladyship another.
  SILVIA. And when it's writ, for my sake read it over;
    And if it please you, so; if not, why, so.
  VALENTINE. If it please me, madam, what then?
  SILVIA. Why, if it please you, take it for your labour.
    And so good morrow, servant.                     Exit SILVIA
  SPEED. O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible,
    As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple!
    My master sues to her; and she hath taught her suitor,
    He being her pupil, to become her tutor.
    O excellent device! Was there ever heard a better,
    That my master, being scribe, to himself should write the letter?
  VALENTINE. How now, sir! What are you reasoning with yourself?
  SPEED. Nay, I was rhyming: 'tis you that have the reason.
  VALENTINE. To do what?
  SPEED. To be a spokesman from Madam Silvia?
  VALENTINE. To whom?
  SPEED. To yourself; why, she woos you by a figure.
  VALENTINE. What figure?
  SPEED. By a letter, I should say.
  VALENTINE. Why, she hath not writ to me.
  SPEED. What need she, when she hath made you write to yourself?
    Why, do you not perceive the jest?
  VALENTINE. No, believe me.
  SPEED. No believing you indeed, sir. But did you perceive her
    earnest?
  VALENTINE. She gave me none except an angry word.
  SPEED. Why, she hath given you a letter.
  VALENTINE. That's the letter I writ to her friend.
  SPEED. And that letter hath she deliver'd, and there an end.
  VALENTINE. I would it were no worse.
  SPEED. I'll warrant you 'tis as well.
    'For often have you writ to her; and she, in modesty,
    Or else for want of idle time, could not again reply;
    Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,
    Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.'
    All this I speak in print, for in print I found it. Why muse you,
    sir? 'Tis dinner time.
  VALENTINE. I have din'd.
  SPEED. Ay, but hearken, sir; though the chameleon Love can feed on
    the air, I am one that am nourish'd by my victuals, and would
    fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress! Be moved, be moved.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Verona. JULIA'S house

Enter PROTEUS and JULIA

  PROTEUS. Have patience, gentle Julia.
  JULIA. I must, where is no remedy.
  PROTEUS. When possibly I can, I will return.
  JULIA. If you turn not, you will return the sooner.
    Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake.
                                                 [Giving a ring]
  PROTEUS. Why, then, we'll make exchange. Here, take you this.
  JULIA. And seal the bargain with a holy kiss.
  PROTEUS. Here is my hand for my true constancy;
    And when that hour o'erslips me in the day
    Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,
    The next ensuing hour some foul mischance
    Torment me for my love's forgetfulness!
    My father stays my coming; answer not;
    The tide is now- nay, not thy tide of tears:
    That tide will stay me longer than I should.
    Julia, farewell!                                  Exit JULIA
    What, gone without a word?
    Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak;
    For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.

                          Enter PANTHINO

  PANTHINO. Sir Proteus, you are stay'd for.
  PROTEUS. Go; I come, I come.
    Alas! this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.          Exeunt

SCENE III. Verona. A street

Enter LAUNCE, leading a dog

  LAUNCE. Nay, 'twill be this hour ere I have done weeping; all the
  kind of the Launces have this very fault. I have receiv'd my
  proportion, like the Prodigious Son, and am going with Sir Proteus to
  the Imperial's court. I think Crab my dog be the sourest-natured dog
  that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying,
  our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a
  great perplexity; yet did not this cruel-hearted cur shed one tear.
  He is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him than
  a dog. A Jew would have wept to have seen our parting; why, my
  grandam having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting.
  Nay, I'll show you the manner of it. This shoe is my father; no, this
  left shoe is my father; no, no, left shoe is my mother; nay, that
  cannot be so neither; yes, it is so, it is so, it hath the worser
  sole. This shoe with the hole in it is my mother, and this my father.
  A vengeance on 't! There 'tis. Now, sir, this staff is my sister,
  for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand; this
  hat is Nan our maid; I am the dog; no, the dog is himself, and I am
  the dog- O, the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so. Now come I to
  my father: 'Father, your blessing.' Now should not the shoe speak a
  word for weeping; now should I kiss my father; well, he weeps on. Now
  come I to my mother. O that she could speak now like a wood woman!
  Well, I kiss her- why there 'tis; here's my mother's breath up and
  down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog
  all this while sheds not a tear, nor speaks a word; but see how I lay
  the dust with my tears.

                            Enter PANTHINO

  PANTHINO. Launce, away, away, aboard! Thy master is shipp'd, and
    thou art to post after with oars. What's the matter? Why weep'st
    thou, man? Away, ass! You'll lose the tide if you tarry any
    longer.
  LAUNCE. It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the
    unkindest tied that ever any man tied.
  PANTHINO. What's the unkindest tide?
  LAUNCE. Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog.
  PANTHINO. Tut, man, I mean thou'lt lose the flood, and, in losing
    the flood, lose thy voyage, and, in losing thy voyage, lose thy
    master, and, in losing thy master, lose thy service, and, in
    losing thy service- Why dost thou stop my mouth?
  LAUNCE. For fear thou shouldst lose thy tongue.
  PANTHINO. Where should I lose my tongue?
  LAUNCE. In thy tale.
  PANTHINO. In thy tail!
  LAUNCE. Lose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the
    service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able
    to fill it with my tears; if the wind were down, I could drive
    the boat with my sighs.
  PANTHINO. Come, come away, man; I was sent to call thee.
  LAUNCE. Sir, call me what thou dar'st.
  PANTHINO. Will thou go?
  LAUNCE. Well, I will go.                                Exeunt

SCENE IV. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter SILVIA, VALENTINE, THURIO, and SPEED

  SILVIA. Servant!
  VALENTINE. Mistress?
  SPEED. Master, Sir Thurio frowns on you.
  VALENTINE. Ay, boy, it's for love.
  SPEED. Not of you.
  VALENTINE. Of my mistress, then.
  SPEED. 'Twere good you knock'd him.                       Exit
  SILVIA. Servant, you are sad.
  VALENTINE. Indeed, madam, I seem so.
  THURIO. Seem you that you are not?
  VALENTINE. Haply I do.
  THURIO. So do counterfeits.
  VALENTINE. So do you.
  THURIO. What seem I that I am not?
  VALENTINE. Wise.
  THURIO. What instance of the contrary?
  VALENTINE. Your folly.
  THURIO. And how quote you my folly?
  VALENTINE. I quote it in your jerkin.
  THURIO. My jerkin is a doublet.
  VALENTINE. Well, then, I'll double your folly.
  THURIO. How?
  SILVIA. What, angry, Sir Thurio! Do you change colour?
  VALENTINE. Give him leave, madam; he is a kind of chameleon.
  THURIO. That hath more mind to feed on your blood than live in your
    air.
  VALENTINE. You have said, sir.
  THURIO. Ay, sir, and done too, for this time.
  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you always end ere you begin.
  SILVIA. A fine volley of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.
  VALENTINE. 'Tis indeed, madam; we thank the giver.
  SILVIA. Who is that, servant?
  VALENTINE. Yourself, sweet lady; for you gave the fire. Sir Thurio
    borrows his wit from your ladyship's looks, and spends what he
    borrows kindly in your company.
  THURIO. Sir, if you spend word for word with me, I shall make your
    wit bankrupt.
  VALENTINE. I know it well, sir; you have an exchequer of words,
    and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers; for it
    appears by their bare liveries that they live by your bare words.

                             Enter DUKE

  SILVIA. No more, gentlemen, no more. Here comes my father.
  DUKE. Now, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.
    Sir Valentine, your father is in good health.
    What say you to a letter from your friends
    Of much good news?
  VALENTINE. My lord, I will be thankful
    To any happy messenger from thence.
  DUKE. Know ye Don Antonio, your countryman?
  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord, I know the gentleman
    To be of worth and worthy estimation,
    And not without desert so well reputed.
  DUKE. Hath he not a son?
  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord; a son that well deserves
    The honour and regard of such a father.
  DUKE. You know him well?
  VALENTINE. I knew him as myself; for from our infancy
    We have convers'd and spent our hours together;
    And though myself have been an idle truant,
    Omitting the sweet benefit of time
    To clothe mine age with angel-like perfection,
    Yet hath Sir Proteus, for that's his name,
    Made use and fair advantage of his days:
    His years but young, but his experience old;
    His head unmellowed, but his judgment ripe;
    And, in a word, for far behind his worth
    Comes all the praises that I now bestow,
    He is complete in feature and in mind,
    With all good grace to grace a gentleman.
  DUKE. Beshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,
    He is as worthy for an empress' love
    As meet to be an emperor's counsellor.
    Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me
    With commendation from great potentates,
    And here he means to spend his time awhile.
    I think 'tis no unwelcome news to you.
  VALENTINE. Should I have wish'd a thing, it had been he.
  DUKE. Welcome him, then, according to his worth-
    Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Thurio;
    For Valentine, I need not cite him to it.
    I will send him hither to you presently.           Exit DUKE
  VALENTINE. This is the gentleman I told your ladyship
    Had come along with me but that his mistresss
    Did hold his eyes lock'd in her crystal looks.
  SILVIA. Belike that now she hath enfranchis'd them
    Upon some other pawn for fealty.
  VALENTINE. Nay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.
  SILVIA. Nay, then, he should be blind; and, being blind,
    How could he see his way to seek out you?
  VALENTINE. Why, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.
  THURIO. They say that Love hath not an eye at all.
  VALENTINE. To see such lovers, Thurio, as yourself;
    Upon a homely object Love can wink.              Exit THURIO

                         Enter PROTEUS

  SILVIA. Have done, have done; here comes the gentleman.
  VALENTINE. Welcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you
    Confirm his welcome with some special favour.
  SILVIA. His worth is warrant for his welcome hither,
    If this be he you oft have wish'd to hear from.
  VALENTINE. Mistress, it is; sweet lady, entertain him
    To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.
  SILVIA. Too low a mistress for so high a servant.
  PROTEUS. Not so, sweet lady; but too mean a servant
    To have a look of such a worthy mistress.
  VALENTINE. Leave off discourse of disability;
    Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.
  PROTEUS. My duty will I boast of, nothing else.
  SILVIA. And duty never yet did want his meed.
    Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.
  PROTEUS. I'll die on him that says so but yourself.
  SILVIA. That you are welcome?
  PROTEUS. That you are worthless.

                          Re-enter THURIO

  THURIO. Madam, my lord your father would speak with you.
  SILVIA. I wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Thurio,
    Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome.
    I'll leave you to confer of home affairs;
    When you have done we look to hear from you.
  PROTEUS. We'll both attend upon your ladyship.
                                        Exeunt SILVIA and THURIO
  VALENTINE. Now, tell me, how do all from whence you came?
  PROTEUS. Your friends are well, and have them much commended.
  VALENTINE. And how do yours?
  PROTEUS. I left them all in health.
  VALENTINE. How does your lady, and how thrives your love?
  PROTEUS. My tales of love were wont to weary you;
    I know you joy not in a love-discourse.
  VALENTINE. Ay, Proteus, but that life is alter'd now;
    I have done penance for contemning Love,
    Whose high imperious thoughts have punish'd me
    With bitter fasts, with penitential groans,
    With nightly tears, and daily heart-sore sighs;
    For, in revenge of my contempt of love,
    Love hath chas'd sleep from my enthralled eyes
    And made them watchers of mine own heart's sorrow.
    O gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty lord,
    And hath so humbled me as I confess
    There is no woe to his correction,
    Nor to his service no such joy on earth.
    Now no discourse, except it be of love;
    Now can I break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep,
    Upon the very naked name of love.
  PROTEUS. Enough; I read your fortune in your eye.
    Was this the idol that you worship so?
  VALENTINE. Even she; and is she not a heavenly saint?
  PROTEUS. No; but she is an earthly paragon.
  VALENTINE. Call her divine.
  PROTEUS. I will not flatter her.
  VALENTINE. O, flatter me; for love delights in praises!
  PROTEUS. When I was sick you gave me bitter pills,
    And I must minister the like to you.
  VALENTINE. Then speak the truth by her; if not divine,
    Yet let her be a principality,
    Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.
  PROTEUS. Except my mistress.
  VALENTINE. Sweet, except not any;
    Except thou wilt except against my love.
  PROTEUS. Have I not reason to prefer mine own?
  VALENTINE. And I will help thee to prefer her too:
    She shall be dignified with this high honour-
    To bear my lady's train, lest the base earth
    Should from her vesture chance to steal a kiss
    And, of so great a favour growing proud,
    Disdain to root the summer-swelling flow'r
    And make rough winter everlastingly.
  PROTEUS. Why, Valentine, what braggardism is this?
  VALENTINE. Pardon me, Proteus; all I can is nothing
    To her, whose worth makes other worthies nothing;
    She is alone.
  PROTEUS. Then let her alone.
  VALENTINE. Not for the world! Why, man, she is mine own;
    And I as rich in having such a jewel
    As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
    The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.
    Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,
    Because thou seest me dote upon my love.
    My foolish rival, that her father likes
    Only for his possessions are so huge,
    Is gone with her along; and I must after,
    For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.
  PROTEUS. But she loves you?
  VALENTINE. Ay, and we are betroth'd; nay more, our marriage-hour,
    With all the cunning manner of our flight,
    Determin'd of- how I must climb her window,
    The ladder made of cords, and all the means
    Plotted and 'greed on for my happiness.
    Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,
    In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.
  PROTEUS. Go on before; I shall enquire you forth;
    I must unto the road to disembark
    Some necessaries that I needs must use;
    And then I'll presently attend you.
  VALENTINE. Will you make haste?
  PROTEUS. I will.                                Exit VALENTINE
    Even as one heat another heat expels
    Or as one nail by strength drives out another,
    So the remembrance of my former love
    Is by a newer object quite forgotten.
    Is it my mind, or Valentinus' praise,
    Her true perfection, or my false transgression,
    That makes me reasonless to reason thus?
    She is fair; and so is Julia that I love-
    That I did love, for now my love is thaw'd;
    Which like a waxen image 'gainst a fire
    Bears no impression of the thing it was.
    Methinks my zeal to Valentine is cold,
    And that I love him not as I was wont.
    O! but I love his lady too too much,
    And that's the reason I love him so little.
    How shall I dote on her with more advice
    That thus without advice begin to love her!
    'Tis but her picture I have yet beheld,
    And that hath dazzled my reason's light;
    But when I look on her perfections,
    There is no reason but I shall be blind.
    If I can check my erring love, I will;
    If not, to compass her I'll use my skill.               Exit

SCENE V. Milan. A street

Enter SPEED and LAUNCE severally

  SPEED. Launce! by mine honesty, welcome to Padua.
  LAUNCE. Forswear not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I
    reckon this always, that a man is never undone till he be hang'd,
    nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot be paid, and
    the hostess say 'Welcome!'
  SPEED. Come on, you madcap; I'll to the alehouse with you
    presently; where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have
    five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with
    Madam Julia?
  LAUNCE. Marry, after they clos'd in earnest, they parted very
    fairly in jest.
  SPEED. But shall she marry him?
  LAUNCE. No.
  SPEED. How then? Shall he marry her?
  LAUNCE. No, neither.
  SPEED. What, are they broken?
  LAUNCE. No, they are both as whole as a fish.
  SPEED. Why then, how stands the matter with them?
  LAUNCE. Marry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well
    with her.
  SPEED. What an ass art thou! I understand thee not.
  LAUNCE. What a block art thou that thou canst not! My staff
    understands me.
  SPEED. What thou say'st?
  LAUNCE. Ay, and what I do too; look thee, I'll but lean, and my
    staff understands me.
  SPEED. It stands under thee, indeed.
  LAUNCE. Why, stand-under and under-stand is all one.
  SPEED. But tell me true, will't be a match?
  LAUNCE. Ask my dog. If he say ay, it will; if he say no, it will;
    if he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.
  SPEED. The conclusion is, then, that it will.
  LAUNCE. Thou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a
    parable.
  SPEED. 'Tis well that I get it so. But, Launce, how say'st thou
    that my master is become a notable lover?
  LAUNCE. I never knew him otherwise.
  SPEED. Than how?
  LAUNCE. A notable lubber, as thou reportest him to be.
  SPEED. Why, thou whoreson ass, thou mistak'st me.
  LAUNCE. Why, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.
  SPEED. I tell thee my master is become a hot lover.
  LAUNCE. Why, I tell thee I care not though he burn himself in love.
    If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse; if not, thou art an
    Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.
  SPEED. Why?
  LAUNCE. Because thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to
    the ale with a Christian. Wilt thou go?
  SPEED. At thy service.                                  Exeunt

SCENE VI. Milan. The DUKE's palace

Enter PROTEUS

  PROTEUS. To leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn;
    To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn;
    To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn;
    And ev'n that pow'r which gave me first my oath
    Provokes me to this threefold perjury:
    Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear.
    O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinn'd,
    Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
    At first I did adore a twinkling star,
    But now I worship a celestial sun.
    Unheedful vows may heedfully be broken;
    And he wants wit that wants resolved will
    To learn his wit t' exchange the bad for better.
    Fie, fie, unreverend tongue, to call her bad
    Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferr'd
    With twenty thousand soul-confirming oaths!
    I cannot leave to love, and yet I do;
    But there I leave to love where I should love.
    Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose;
    If I keep them, I needs must lose myself;
    If I lose them, thus find I by their loss:
    For Valentine, myself; for Julia, Silvia.
    I to myself am dearer than a friend;
    For love is still most precious in itself;
    And Silvia- witness heaven, that made her fair!-
    Shows Julia but a swarthy Ethiope.
    I will forget that Julia is alive,
    Rememb'ring that my love to her is dead;
    And Valentine I'll hold an enemy,
    Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.
    I cannot now prove constant to myself
    Without some treachery us'd to Valentine.
    This night he meaneth with a corded ladder
    To climb celestial Silvia's chamber window,
    Myself in counsel, his competitor.
    Now presently I'll give her father notice
    Of their disguising and pretended flight,
    Who, all enrag'd, will banish Valentine,
    For Thurio, he intends, shall wed his daughter;
    But, Valentine being gone, I'll quickly cross
    By some sly trick blunt Thurio's dull proceeding.
    Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
    As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.            Exit

SCENE VII. Verona. JULIA'S house

Enter JULIA and LUCETTA

  JULIA. Counsel, Lucetta; gentle girl, assist me;
    And, ev'n in kind love, I do conjure thee,
    Who art the table wherein all my thoughts
    Are visibly character'd and engrav'd,
    To lesson me and tell me some good mean
    How, with my honour, I may undertake
    A journey to my loving Proteus.
  LUCETTA. Alas, the way is wearisome and long!
  JULIA. A true-devoted pilgrim is not weary
    To measure kingdoms with his feeble steps;
    Much less shall she that hath Love's wings to fly,
    And when the flight is made to one so dear,
    Of such divine perfection, as Sir Proteus.
  LUCETTA. Better forbear till Proteus make return.
  JULIA. O, know'st thou not his looks are my soul's food?
    Pity the dearth that I have pined in
    By longing for that food so long a time.
    Didst thou but know the inly touch of love.
    Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow
    As seek to quench the fire of love with words.
  LUCETTA. I do not seek to quench your love's hot fire,
    But qualify the fire's extreme rage,
    Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.
  JULIA. The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns.
    The current that with gentle murmur glides,
    Thou know'st, being stopp'd, impatiently doth rage;
    But when his fair course is not hindered,
    He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones,
    Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge
    He overtaketh in his pilgrimage;
    And so by many winding nooks he strays,
    With willing sport, to the wild ocean.
    Then let me go, and hinder not my course.
    I'll be as patient as a gentle stream,
    And make a pastime of each weary step,
    Till the last step have brought me to my love;
    And there I'll rest as, after much turmoil,
    A blessed soul doth in Elysium.
  LUCETTA. But in what habit will you go along?
  JULIA. Not like a woman, for I would prevent
    The loose encounters of lascivious men;
    Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds
    As may beseem some well-reputed page.
  LUCETTA. Why then, your ladyship must cut your hair.
  JULIA. No, girl; I'll knit it up in silken strings
    With twenty odd-conceited true-love knots-
    To be fantastic may become a youth
    Of greater time than I shall show to be.
  LUCETTA. What fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?
  JULIA. That fits as well as 'Tell me, good my lord,
    What compass will you wear your farthingale.'
    Why ev'n what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.
  LUCETTA. You must needs have them with a codpiece, madam.
  JULIA. Out, out, Lucetta, that will be ill-favour'd.
  LUCETTA. A round hose, madam, now's not worth a pin,
    Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.
  JULIA. Lucetta, as thou lov'st me, let me have
    What thou think'st meet, and is most mannerly.
    But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me
    For undertaking so unstaid a journey?
    I fear me it will make me scandaliz'd.
  LUCETTA. If you think so, then stay at home and go not.
  JULIA. Nay, that I will not.
  LUCETTA. Then never dream on infamy, but go.
    If Proteus like your journey when you come,
    No matter who's displeas'd when you are gone.
    I fear me he will scarce be pleas'd withal.
  JULIA. That is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:
    A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,
    And instances of infinite of love,
    Warrant me welcome to my Proteus.
  LUCETTA. All these are servants to deceitful men.
  JULIA. Base men that use them to so base effect!
    But truer stars did govern Proteus' birth;
    His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles,
    His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,
    His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,
    His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.
  LUCETTA. Pray heav'n he prove so when you come to him.
  JULIA. Now, as thou lov'st me, do him not that wrong
    To bear a hard opinion of his truth;
    Only deserve my love by loving him.
    And presently go with me to my chamber,
    To take a note of what I stand in need of
    To furnish me upon my longing journey.
    All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,
    My goods, my lands, my reputation;
    Only, in lieu thereof, dispatch me hence.
    Come, answer not, but to it presently;
    I am impatient of my tarriance.                       Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE, THURIO, and PROTEUS

  DUKE. Sir Thurio, give us leave, I pray, awhile;
    We have some secrets to confer about.            Exit THURIO
    Now tell me, Proteus, what's your will with me?
  PROTEUS. My gracious lord, that which I would discover
    The law of friendship bids me to conceal;
    But, when I call to mind your gracious favours
    Done to me, undeserving as I am,
    My duty pricks me on to utter that
    Which else no worldly good should draw from me.
    Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine, my friend,
    This night intends to steal away your daughter;
    Myself am one made privy to the plot.
    I know you have determin'd to bestow her
    On Thurio, whom your gentle daughter hates;
    And should she thus be stol'n away from you,
    It would be much vexation to your age.
    Thus, for my duty's sake, I rather chose
    To cross my friend in his intended drift
    Than, by concealing it, heap on your head
    A pack of sorrows which would press you down,
    Being unprevented, to your timeless grave.
  DUKE. Proteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,
    Which to requite, command me while I live.
    This love of theirs myself have often seen,
    Haply when they have judg'd me fast asleep,
    And oftentimes have purpos'd to forbid
    Sir Valentine her company and my court;
    But, fearing lest my jealous aim might err
    And so, unworthily, disgrace the man,
    A rashness that I ever yet have shunn'd,
    I gave him gentle looks, thereby to find
    That which thyself hast now disclos'd to me.
    And, that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,
    Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,
    I nightly lodge her in an upper tow'r,
    The key whereof myself have ever kept;
    And thence she cannot be convey'd away.
  PROTEUS. Know, noble lord, they have devis'd a mean
    How he her chamber window will ascend
    And with a corded ladder fetch her down;
    For which the youthful lover now is gone,
    And this way comes he with it presently;
    Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.
    But, good my lord, do it so cunningly
    That my discovery be not aimed at;
    For love of you, not hate unto my friend,
    Hath made me publisher of this pretence.
  DUKE. Upon mine honour, he shall never know
    That I had any light from thee of this.
  PROTEUS. Adieu, my lord; Sir Valentine is coming.         Exit

                        Enter VALENTINE

  DUKE. Sir Valentine, whither away so fast?
  VALENTINE. Please it your Grace, there is a messenger
    That stays to bear my letters to my friends,
    And I am going to deliver them.
  DUKE. Be they of much import?
  VALENTINE. The tenour of them doth but signify
    My health and happy being at your court.
  DUKE. Nay then, no matter; stay with me awhile;
    I am to break with thee of some affairs
    That touch me near, wherein thou must be secret.
    'Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought
    To match my friend Sir Thurio to my daughter.
  VALENTINE. I know it well, my lord; and, sure, the match
    Were rich and honourable; besides, the gentleman
    Is full of virtue, bounty, worth, and qualities
    Beseeming such a wife as your fair daughter.
    Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?
  DUKE. No, trust me; she is peevish, sullen, froward,
    Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty;
    Neither regarding that she is my child
    Nor fearing me as if I were her father;
    And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,
    Upon advice, hath drawn my love from her;
    And, where I thought the remnant of mine age
    Should have been cherish'd by her childlike duty,
    I now am full resolv'd to take a wife
    And turn her out to who will take her in.
    Then let her beauty be her wedding-dow'r;
    For me and my possessions she esteems not.
  VALENTINE. What would your Grace have me to do in this?
  DUKE. There is a lady, in Verona here,
    Whom I affect; but she is nice, and coy,
    And nought esteems my aged eloquence.
    Now, therefore, would I have thee to my tutor-
    For long agone I have forgot to court;
    Besides, the fashion of the time is chang'd-
    How and which way I may bestow myself
    To be regarded in her sun-bright eye.
  VALENTINE. Win her with gifts, if she respect not words:
    Dumb jewels often in their silent kind
    More than quick words do move a woman's mind.
  DUKE. But she did scorn a present that I sent her.
  VALENTINE. A woman sometime scorns what best contents her.
    Send her another; never give her o'er,
    For scorn at first makes after-love the more.
    If she do frown, 'tis not in hate of you,
    But rather to beget more love in you;
    If she do chide, 'tis not to have you gone,
    For why, the fools are mad if left alone.
    Take no repulse, whatever she doth say;
    For 'Get you gone' she doth not mean 'Away!'
    Flatter and praise, commend, extol their graces;
    Though ne'er so black, say they have angels' faces.
    That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
    If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
  DUKE. But she I mean is promis'd by her friends
    Unto a youthful gentleman of worth;
    And kept severely from resort of men,
    That no man hath access by day to her.
  VALENTINE. Why then I would resort to her by night.
  DUKE. Ay, but the doors be lock'd and keys kept safe,
    That no man hath recourse to her by night.
  VALENTINE. What lets but one may enter at her window?
  DUKE. Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground,
    And built so shelving that one cannot climb it
    Without apparent hazard of his life.
  VALENTINE. Why then a ladder, quaintly made of cords,
    To cast up with a pair of anchoring hooks,
    Would serve to scale another Hero's tow'r,
    So bold Leander would adventure it.
  DUKE. Now, as thou art a gentleman of blood,
    Advise me where I may have such a ladder.
  VALENTINE. When would you use it? Pray, sir, tell me that.
  DUKE. This very night; for Love is like a child,
    That longs for everything that he can come by.
  VALENTINE. By seven o'clock I'll get you such a ladder.
  DUKE. But, hark thee; I will go to her alone;
    How shall I best convey the ladder thither?
  VALENTINE. It will be light, my lord, that you may bear it
    Under a cloak that is of any length.
  DUKE. A cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?
  VALENTINE. Ay, my good lord.
  DUKE. Then let me see thy cloak.
    I'll get me one of such another length.
  VALENTINE. Why, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.
  DUKE. How shall I fashion me to wear a cloak?
    I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me.
    What letter is this same? What's here? 'To Silvia'!
    And here an engine fit for my proceeding!
    I'll be so bold to break the seal for once.          [Reads]
      'My thoughts do harbour with my Silvia nightly,
        And slaves they are to me, that send them flying.
      O, could their master come and go as lightly,
        Himself would lodge where, senseless, they are lying!
      My herald thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them,
        While I, their king, that thither them importune,
      Do curse the grace that with such grace hath blest them,
        Because myself do want my servants' fortune.
      I curse myself, for they are sent by me,
        That they should harbour where their lord should be.'
    What's here?
      'Silvia, this night I will enfranchise thee.'
    'Tis so; and here's the ladder for the purpose.
    Why, Phaethon- for thou art Merops' son-
    Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,
    And with thy daring folly burn the world?
    Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?
    Go, base intruder, over-weening slave,
    Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates;
    And think my patience, more than thy desert,
    Is privilege for thy departure hence.
    Thank me for this more than for all the favours
    Which, all too much, I have bestow'd on thee.
    But if thou linger in my territories
    Longer than swiftest expedition
    Will give thee time to leave our royal court,
    By heaven! my wrath shall far exceed the love
    I ever bore my daughter or thyself.
    Be gone; I will not hear thy vain excuse,
    But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.    Exit
  VALENTINE. And why not death rather than living torment?
    To die is to be banish'd from myself,
    And Silvia is myself; banish'd from her
    Is self from self, a deadly banishment.
    What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
    What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
    Unless it be to think that she is by,
    And feed upon the shadow of perfection.
    Except I be by Silvia in the night,
    There is no music in the nightingale;
    Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
    There is no day for me to look upon.
    She is my essence, and I leave to be
    If I be not by her fair influence
    Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.
    I fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:
    Tarry I here, I but attend on death;
    But fly I hence, I fly away from life.

                      Enter PROTEUS and LAUNCE

  PROTEUS. Run, boy, run, run, seek him out.
  LAUNCE. So-ho, so-ho!
  PROTEUS. What seest thou?
  LAUNCE. Him we go to find: there's not a hair on 's head but 'tis a
    Valentine.
  PROTEUS. Valentine?
  VALENTINE. No.
  PROTEUS. Who then? his spirit?
  VALENTINE. Neither.
  PROTEUS. What then?
  VALENTINE. Nothing.
  LAUNCE. Can nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?
  PROTEUS. Who wouldst thou strike?
  LAUNCE. Nothing.
  PROTEUS. Villain, forbear.
  LAUNCE. Why, sir, I'll strike nothing. I pray you-
  PROTEUS. Sirrah, I say, forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.
  VALENTINE. My ears are stopp'd and cannot hear good news,
    So much of bad already hath possess'd them.
  PROTEUS. Then in dumb silence will I bury mine,
    For they are harsh, untuneable, and bad.
  VALENTINE. Is Silvia dead?
  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. No Valentine, indeed, for sacred Silvia.
    Hath she forsworn me?
  PROTEUS. No, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. No Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.
    What is your news?
  LAUNCE. Sir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.
  PROTEUS. That thou art banished- O, that's the news!-
    From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.
  VALENTINE. O, I have fed upon this woe already,
    And now excess of it will make me surfeit.
    Doth Silvia know that I am banished?
  PROTEUS. Ay, ay; and she hath offered to the doom-
    Which, unrevers'd, stands in effectual force-
    A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears;
    Those at her father's churlish feet she tender'd;
    With them, upon her knees, her humble self,
    Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became them
    As if but now they waxed pale for woe.
    But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,
    Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears,
    Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire-
    But Valentine, if he be ta'en, must die.
    Besides, her intercession chaf'd him so,
    When she for thy repeal was suppliant,
    That to close prison he commanded her,
    With many bitter threats of biding there.
  VALENTINE. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st
    Have some malignant power upon my life:
    If so, I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,
    As ending anthem of my endless dolour.
  PROTEUS. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help,
    And study help for that which thou lament'st.
    Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
    Here if thou stay thou canst not see thy love;
    Besides, thy staying will abridge thy life.
    Hope is a lover's staff; walk hence with that,
    And manage it against despairing thoughts.
    Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence,
    Which, being writ to me, shall be deliver'd
    Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.
    The time now serves not to expostulate.
    Come, I'll convey thee through the city gate;
    And, ere I part with thee, confer at large
    Of all that may concern thy love affairs.
    As thou lov'st Silvia, though not for thyself,
    Regard thy danger, and along with me.
  VALENTINE. I pray thee, Launce, an if thou seest my boy,
    Bid him make haste and meet me at the Northgate.
  PROTEUS. Go, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.
  VALENTINE. O my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!
                                    Exeunt VALENTINE and PROTEUS
  LAUNCE. I am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think
    my master is a kind of a knave; but that's all one if he be but
    one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love; yet I am
    in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor
    who 'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman I will not
    tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not a maid, for
    she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a maid, for she is her master's
    maid and serves for wages. She hath more qualities than a
    water-spaniel- which is much in a bare Christian. Here is the
    cate-log  [Pulling out a paper]  of her condition. 'Inprimis: She
    can fetch and carry.' Why, a horse can do no more; nay, a horse
    cannot fetch, but only carry; therefore is she better than a
    jade. 'Item: She can milk.' Look you, a sweet virtue in a maid
    with clean hands.

                             Enter SPEED

  SPEED. How now, Signior Launce! What news with your mastership?
  LAUNCE. With my master's ship? Why, it is at sea.
  SPEED. Well, your old vice still: mistake the word. What news,
    then, in your paper?
  LAUNCE. The black'st news that ever thou heard'st.
  SPEED. Why, man? how black?
  LAUNCE. Why, as black as ink.
  SPEED. Let me read them.
  LAUNCE. Fie on thee, jolt-head; thou canst not read.
  SPEED. Thou liest; I can.
  LAUNCE. I will try thee. Tell me this: Who begot thee?
  SPEED. Marry, the son of my grandfather.
  LAUNCE. O illiterate loiterer. It was the son of thy grandmother.
    This proves that thou canst not read.
  SPEED. Come, fool, come; try me in thy paper.
  LAUNCE.  [Handing over the paper]  There; and Saint Nicholas be thy
    speed.
  SPEED.  [Reads]  'Inprimis: She can milk.'
  LAUNCE. Ay, that she can.
  SPEED. 'Item: She brews good ale.'
  LAUNCE. And thereof comes the proverb: Blessing of your heart, you
    brew good ale.
  SPEED. 'Item: She can sew.'
  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'Can she so?'
  SPEED. 'Item: She can knit.'
  LAUNCE. What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she can
    knit him a stock.
  SPEED. 'Item: She can wash and scour.'
  LAUNCE. A special virtue; for then she need not be wash'd and
    scour'd.
  SPEED. 'Item: She can spin.'
  LAUNCE. Then may I set the world on wheels, when she can spin for
    her living.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath many nameless virtues.'
  LAUNCE. That's as much as to say 'bastard virtues'; that indeed
    know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.
  SPEED. 'Here follow her vices.'
  LAUNCE. Close at the heels of her virtues.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is not to be kiss'd fasting, in respect of her
    breath.'
  LAUNCE. Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast.
    Read on.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'
  LAUNCE. That makes amends for her sour breath.
  SPEED. 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'
  LAUNCE. It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is slow in words.'
  LAUNCE. O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow
    in words is a woman's only virtue. I pray thee, out with't; and
    place it for her chief virtue.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is proud.'
  LAUNCE. Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en
    from her.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath no teeth.'
  LAUNCE. I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is curst.'
  LAUNCE. Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.
  SPEED. 'Item: She will often praise her liquor.'
  LAUNCE. If her liquor be good, she shall; if she will not, I will;
    for good things should be praised.
  SPEED. 'Item: She is too liberal.'
  LAUNCE. Of her tongue she cannot, for that's writ down she is slow
    of; of her purse she shall not, for that I'll keep shut. Now of
    another thing she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults
    than hairs, and more wealth than faults.'
  LAUNCE. Stop there; I'll have her; she was mine, and not mine,
    twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse that once more.
  SPEED. 'Item: She hath more hair than wit'-
  LAUNCE. More hair than wit. It may be; I'll prove it: the cover of
    the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt;
    the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the
    greater hides the less. What's next?
  SPEED. 'And more faults than hairs'-
  LAUNCE. That's monstrous. O that that were out!
  SPEED. 'And more wealth than faults.'
  LAUNCE. Why, that word makes the faults gracious. Well, I'll have
    her; an if it be a match, as nothing is impossible-
  SPEED. What then?
  LAUNCE. Why, then will I tell thee- that thy master stays for thee
    at the Northgate.
  SPEED. For me?
  LAUNCE. For thee! ay, who art thou? He hath stay'd for a better man
    than thee.
  SPEED. And must I go to him?
  LAUNCE. Thou must run to him, for thou hast stay'd so long that
    going will scarce serve the turn.
  SPEED. Why didst not tell me sooner? Pox of your love letters!
 Exit
  LAUNCE. Now will he be swing'd for reading my letter. An unmannerly
    slave that will thrust himself into secrets! I'll after, to
    rejoice in the boy's correction.                        Exit

SCENE II. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter DUKE and THURIO

  DUKE. Sir Thurio, fear not but that she will love you
    Now Valentine is banish'd from her sight.
  THURIO. Since his exile she hath despis'd me most,
    Forsworn my company and rail'd at me,
    That I am desperate of obtaining her.
  DUKE. This weak impress of love is as a figure
    Trenched in ice, which with an hour's heat
    Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.
    A little time will melt her frozen thoughts,
    And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.

                          Enter PROTEUS

    How now, Sir Proteus! Is your countryman,
    According to our proclamation, gone?
  PROTEUS. Gone, my good lord.
  DUKE. My daughter takes his going grievously.
  PROTEUS. A little time, my lord, will kill that grief.
  DUKE. So I believe; but Thurio thinks not so.
    Proteus, the good conceit I hold of thee-
    For thou hast shown some sign of good desert-
    Makes me the better to confer with thee.
  PROTEUS. Longer than I prove loyal to your Grace
    Let me not live to look upon your Grace.
  DUKE. Thou know'st how willingly I would effect
    The match between Sir Thurio and my daughter.
  PROTEUS. I do, my lord.
  DUKE. And also, I think, thou art not ignorant
    How she opposes her against my will.
  PROTEUS. She did, my lord, when Valentine was here.
  DUKE. Ay, and perversely she persevers so.
    What might we do to make the girl forget
    The love of Valentine, and love Sir Thurio?
  PROTEUS. The best way is to slander Valentine
    With falsehood, cowardice, and poor descent-
    Three things that women highly hold in hate.
  DUKE. Ay, but she'll think that it is spoke in hate.
  PROTEUS. Ay, if his enemy deliver it;
    Therefore it must with circumstance be spoken
    By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.
  DUKE. Then you must undertake to slander him.
  PROTEUS. And that, my lord, I shall be loath to do:
    'Tis an ill office for a gentleman,
    Especially against his very friend.
  DUKE. Where your good word cannot advantage him,
    Your slander never can endamage him;
    Therefore the office is indifferent,
    Being entreated to it by your friend.
  PROTEUS. You have prevail'd, my lord; if I can do it
    By aught that I can speak in his dispraise,
    She shall not long continue love to him.
    But say this weed her love from Valentine,
    It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio.
  THURIO. Therefore, as you unwind her love from him,
    Lest it should ravel and be good to none,
    You must provide to bottom it on me;
    Which must be done by praising me as much
    As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.
  DUKE. And, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind,
    Because we know, on Valentine's report,
    You are already Love's firm votary
    And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.
    Upon this warrant shall you have access
    Where you with Silvia may confer at large-
    For she is lumpish, heavy, melancholy,
    And, for your friend's sake, will be glad of you-
    Where you may temper her by your persuasion
    To hate young Valentine and love my friend.
  PROTEUS. As much as I can do I will effect.
    But you, Sir Thurio, are not sharp enough;
    You must lay lime to tangle her desires
    By wailful sonnets, whose composed rhymes
    Should be full-fraught with serviceable vows.
  DUKE. Ay,
    Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.
  PROTEUS. Say that upon the altar of her beauty
    You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart;
    Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears
    Moist it again, and frame some feeling line
    That may discover such integrity;
    For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews,
    Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
    Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
    Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.
    After your dire-lamenting elegies,
    Visit by night your lady's chamber window
    With some sweet consort; to their instruments
    Tune a deploring dump- the night's dead silence
    Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.
    This, or else nothing, will inherit her.
  DUKE. This discipline shows thou hast been in love.
  THURIO. And thy advice this night I'll put in practice;
    Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,
    Let us into the city presently
    To sort some gentlemen well skill'd in music.
    I have a sonnet that will serve the turn
    To give the onset to thy good advice.
  DUKE. About it, gentlemen!
  PROTEUS. We'll wait upon your Grace till after supper,
    And afterward determine our proceedings.
  DUKE. Even now about it! I will pardon you.             Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I. The frontiers of Mantua. A forest

Enter certain OUTLAWS

  FIRST OUTLAW. Fellows, stand fast; I see a passenger.
  SECOND OUTLAW. If there be ten, shrink not, but down with 'em.

                  Enter VALENTINE and SPEED

  THIRD OUTLAW. Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about ye;
    If not, we'll make you sit, and rifle you.
  SPEED. Sir, we are undone; these are the villains
    That all the travellers do fear so much.
  VALENTINE. My friends-
  FIRST OUTLAW. That's not so, sir; we are your enemies.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Peace! we'll hear him.
  THIRD OUTLAW. Ay, by my beard, will we; for he is a proper man.
  VALENTINE. Then know that I have little wealth to lose;
    A man I am cross'd with adversity;
    My riches are these poor habiliments,
    Of which if you should here disfurnish me,
    You take the sum and substance that I have.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Whither travel you?
  VALENTINE. To Verona.
  FIRST OUTLAW. Whence came you?
  VALENTINE. From Milan.
  THIRD OUTLAW. Have you long sojourn'd there?
  VALENTINE. Some sixteen months, and longer might have stay'd,
    If crooked fortune had not thwarted me.
  FIRST OUTLAW. What, were you banish'd thence?
  VALENTINE. I was.
  SECOND OUTLAW. For what offence?
  VALENTINE. For that which now torments me to rehearse:
    I kill'd a man, whose death I much repent;
    But yet I slew him manfully in fight,
    Without false vantage or base treachery.
  FIRST OUTLAW. Why, ne'er repent it, if it were done so.
    But were you banish'd for so small a fault?
  VALENTINE. I was, and held me glad of such a doom.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Have you the tongues?
  VALENTINE. My youthful travel therein made me happy,
    Or else I often had been miserable.
  THIRD OUTLAW. By the bare scalp of Robin Hood's fat friar,
    This fellow were a king for our wild faction!
  FIRST OUTLAW. We'll have him. Sirs, a word.
  SPEED. Master, be one of them; it's an honourable kind of thievery.
  VALENTINE. Peace, villain!
  SECOND OUTLAW. Tell us this: have you anything to take to?
  VALENTINE. Nothing but my fortune.
  THIRD OUTLAW. Know, then, that some of us are gentlemen,
    Such as the fury of ungovern'd youth
    Thrust from the company of awful men;
    Myself was from Verona banished
    For practising to steal away a lady,
    An heir, and near allied unto the Duke.
  SECOND OUTLAW. And I from Mantua, for a gentleman
    Who, in my mood, I stabb'd unto the heart.
  FIRST OUTLAW. And I for such-like petty crimes as these.
    But to the purpose- for we cite our faults
    That they may hold excus'd our lawless lives;
    And, partly, seeing you are beautified
    With goodly shape, and by your own report
    A linguist, and a man of such perfection
    As we do in our quality much want-
  SECOND OUTLAW. Indeed, because you are a banish'd man,
    Therefore, above the rest, we parley to you.
    Are you content to be our general-
    To make a virtue of necessity,
    And live as we do in this wilderness?
  THIRD OUTLAW. What say'st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?
    Say 'ay' and be the captain of us all.
    We'll do thee homage, and be rul'd by thee,
    Love thee as our commander and our king.
  FIRST OUTLAW. But if thou scorn our courtesy thou diest.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Thou shalt not live to brag what we have offer'd.
  VALENTINE. I take your offer, and will live with you,
    Provided that you do no outrages
    On silly women or poor passengers.
  THIRD OUTLAW. No, we detest such vile base practices.
    Come, go with us; we'll bring thee to our crews,
    And show thee all the treasure we have got;
    Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.       Exeunt

SCENE II. Milan. Outside the DUKE'S palace, under SILVIA'S window

Enter PROTEUS

  PROTEUS. Already have I been false to Valentine,
    And now I must be as unjust to Thurio.
    Under the colour of commending him
    I have access my own love to prefer;
    But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,
    To be corrupted with my worthless gifts.
    When I protest true loyalty to her,
    She twits me with my falsehood to my friend;
    When to her beauty I commend my vows,
    She bids me think how I have been forsworn
    In breaking faith with Julia whom I lov'd;
    And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,
    The least whereof would quell a lover's hope,
    Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love
    The more it grows and fawneth on her still.

                 Enter THURIO and MUSICIANS

    But here comes Thurio. Now must we to her window,
    And give some evening music to her ear.
  THURIO. How now, Sir Proteus, are you crept before us?
  PROTEUS. Ay, gentle Thurio; for you know that love
    Will creep in service where it cannot go.
  THURIO. Ay, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.
  PROTEUS. Sir, but I do; or else I would be hence.
  THURIO. Who? Silvia?
  PROTEUS. Ay, Silvia- for your sake.
  THURIO. I thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen,
    Let's tune, and to it lustily awhile.

    Enter at a distance, HOST, and JULIA in boy's clothes

  HOST. Now, my young guest, methinks you're allycholly; I pray you,
    why is it?
  JULIA. Marry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.
  HOST. Come, we'll have you merry; I'll bring you where you shall
    hear music, and see the gentleman that you ask'd for.
  JULIA. But shall I hear him speak?
  HOST. Ay, that you shall.                        [Music plays]
  JULIA. That will be music.
  HOST. Hark, hark!
  JULIA. Is he among these?
  HOST. Ay; but peace! let's hear 'em.

                   SONG
         Who is Silvia? What is she,
           That all our swains commend her?
         Holy, fair, and wise is she;
           The heaven such grace did lend her,
         That she might admired be.

         Is she kind as she is fair?
           For beauty lives with kindness.
         Love doth to her eyes repair,
           To help him of his blindness;
         And, being help'd, inhabits there.

         Then to Silvia let us sing
           That Silvia is excelling;
         She excels each mortal thing
           Upon the dull earth dwelling.
         'To her let us garlands bring.

  HOST. How now, are you sadder than you were before?
    How do you, man? The music likes you not.
  JULIA. You mistake; the musician likes me not.
  HOST. Why, my pretty youth?
  JULIA. He plays false, father.
  HOST. How, out of tune on the strings?
  JULIA. Not so; but yet so false that he grieves my very
    heart-strings.
  HOST. You have a quick ear.
  JULIA. Ay, I would I were deaf; it makes me have a slow heart.
  HOST. I perceive you delight not in music.
  JULIA. Not a whit, when it jars so.
  HOST. Hark, what fine change is in the music!
  JULIA. Ay, that change is the spite.
  HOST. You would have them always play but one thing?
  JULIA. I would always have one play but one thing.
    But, Host, doth this Sir Proteus, that we talk on,
    Often resort unto this gentlewoman?
  HOST. I tell you what Launce, his man, told me: he lov'd her out of
    all nick.
  JULIA. Where is Launce?
  HOST. Gone to seek his dog, which to-morrow, by his master's
    command, he must carry for a present to his lady.
  JULIA. Peace, stand aside; the company parts.
  PROTEUS. Sir Thurio, fear not you; I will so plead
    That you shall say my cunning drift excels.
  THURIO. Where meet we?
  PROTEUS. At Saint Gregory's well.
  THURIO. Farewell.                  Exeunt THURIO and MUSICIANS

                  Enter SILVIA above, at her window

  PROTEUS. Madam, good ev'n to your ladyship.
  SILVIA. I thank you for your music, gentlemen.
    Who is that that spake?
  PROTEUS. One, lady, if you knew his pure heart's truth,
    You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.
  SILVIA. Sir Proteus, as I take it.
  PROTEUS. Sir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.
  SILVIA. What's your will?
  PROTEUS. That I may compass yours.
  SILVIA. You have your wish; my will is even this,
    That presently you hie you home to bed.
    Thou subtle, perjur'd, false, disloyal man,
    Think'st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,
    To be seduced by thy flattery
    That hast deceiv'd so many with thy vows?
    Return, return, and make thy love amends.
    For me, by this pale queen of night I swear,
    I am so far from granting thy request
    That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,
    And by and by intend to chide myself
    Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.
  PROTEUS. I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
    But she is dead.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Twere false, if I should speak it;
    For I am sure she is not buried.
  SILVIA. Say that she be; yet Valentine, thy friend,
    Survives, to whom, thyself art witness,
    I am betroth'd; and art thou not asham'd
    To wrong him with thy importunacy?
  PROTEUS. I likewise hear that Valentine is dead.
  SILVIA. And so suppose am I; for in his grave
    Assure thyself my love is buried.
  PROTEUS. Sweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.
  SILVIA. Go to thy lady's grave, and call hers thence;
    Or, at the least, in hers sepulchre thine.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  He heard not that.
  PROTEUS. Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
    Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
    The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
    To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep;
    For, since the substance of your perfect self
    Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;
    And to your shadow will I make true love.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  If 'twere a substance, you would, sure, deceive it
    And make it but a shadow, as I am.
  SILVIA. I am very loath to be your idol, sir;
    But since your falsehood shall become you well
    To worship shadows and adore false shapes,
    Send to me in the morning, and I'll send it;
    And so, good rest.
  PROTEUS. As wretches have o'ernight
    That wait for execution in the morn.
                                       Exeunt PROTEUS and SILVIA
  JULIA. Host, will you go?
  HOST. By my halidom, I was fast asleep.
  JULIA. Pray you, where lies Sir Proteus?
  HOST. Marry, at my house. Trust me, I think 'tis almost day.
  JULIA. Not so; but it hath been the longest night
    That e'er I watch'd, and the most heaviest.           Exeunt

SCENE III. Under SILVIA'S window

Enter EGLAMOUR

  EGLAMOUR. This is the hour that Madam Silvia
    Entreated me to call and know her mind;
    There's some great matter she'd employ me in.
    Madam, madam!

             Enter SILVIA above, at her window

  SILVIA. Who calls?
  EGLAMOUR. Your servant and your friend;
    One that attends your ladyship's command.
  SILVIA. Sir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow!
  EGLAMOUR. As many, worthy lady, to yourself!
    According to your ladyship's impose,
    I am thus early come to know what service
    It is your pleasure to command me in.
  SILVIA. O Eglamour, thou art a gentleman-
    Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not-
    Valiant, wise, remorseful, well accomplish'd.
    Thou art not ignorant what dear good will
    I bear unto the banish'd Valentine;
    Nor how my father would enforce me marry
    Vain Thurio, whom my very soul abhors.
    Thyself hast lov'd; and I have heard thee say
    No grief did ever come so near thy heart
    As when thy lady and thy true love died,
    Upon whose grave thou vow'dst pure chastity.
    Sir Eglamour, I would to Valentine,
    To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;
    And, for the ways are dangerous to pass,
    I do desire thy worthy company,
    Upon whose faith and honour I repose.
    Urge not my father's anger, Eglamour,
    But think upon my grief, a lady's grief,
    And on the justice of my flying hence
    To keep me from a most unholy match,
    Which heaven and fortune still rewards with plagues.
    I do desire thee, even from a heart
    As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,
    To bear me company and go with me;
    If not, to hide what I have said to thee,
    That I may venture to depart alone.
  EGLAMOUR. Madam, I pity much your grievances;
    Which since I know they virtuously are plac'd,
    I give consent to go along with you,
    Recking as little what betideth me
    As much I wish all good befortune you.
    When will you go?
  SILVIA. This evening coming.
  EGLAMOUR. Where shall I meet you?
  SILVIA. At Friar Patrick's cell,
    Where I intend holy confession.
  EGLAMOUR. I will not fail your ladyship. Good morrow, gentle lady.
  SILVIA. Good morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.                 Exeunt

SCENE IV. Under SILVIA'S Window

Enter LAUNCE with his dog

  LAUNCE. When a man's servant shall play the cur with him, look you,
  it goes hard- one that I brought up of a puppy; one that I sav'd from
  drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went
  to it. I have taught him, even as one would say precisely 'Thus I
  would teach a dog.' I was sent to deliver him as a present to
  Mistress Silvia from my master; and I came no sooner into the
  dining-chamber, but he steps me to her trencher and steals her
  capon's leg. O, 'tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep himself in
  all companies! I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon
  him to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I
  had not had more wit than he, to take a fault upon me that he did, I
  think verily he had been hang'd for't; sure as I live, he had
  suffer'd for't. You shall judge. He thrusts me himself into the
  company of three or four gentleman-like dogs under the Duke's table;
  he had not been there, bless the mark, a pissing while but all the
  chamber smelt him. 'Out with the dog' says one; 'What cur is that?'
  says another; 'Whip him out' says the third; 'Hang him up' says the
  Duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was
  Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs. 'Friend,' quoth
  I 'you mean to whip the dog.' 'Ay, marry do I' quoth he. 'You do him
  the more wrong,' quoth I; "twas I did the thing you wot of.' He makes
  me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters
  would do this for his servant? Nay, I'll be sworn, I have sat in the
  stock for puddings he hath stol'n, otherwise he had been executed; I
  have stood on the pillory for geese he hath kill'd, otherwise he had
  suffer'd for't. Thou think'st not of this now. Nay, I remember the
  trick you serv'd me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia. Did not I
  bid thee still mark me and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave
  up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman's farthingale? Didst
  thou ever see me do such a trick?

               Enter PROTEUS, and JULIA in boy's clothes

  PROTEUS. Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well,
    And will employ thee in some service presently.
  JULIA. In what you please; I'll do what I can.
  PROTEUS..I hope thou wilt.  [To LAUNCE]  How now, you whoreson
      peasant!
    Where have you been these two days loitering?
  LAUNCE. Marry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me.
  PROTEUS. And what says she to my little jewel?
  LAUNCE. Marry, she says your dog was a cur, and tells you currish
    thanks is good enough for such a present.
  PROTEUS. But she receiv'd my dog?
  LAUNCE. No, indeed, did she not; here have I brought him back
    again.
  PROTEUS. What, didst thou offer her this from me?
  LAUNCE. Ay, sir; the other squirrel was stol'n from me by the
    hangman's boys in the market-place; and then I offer'd her mine
    own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift
    the greater.
  PROTEUS. Go, get thee hence and find my dog again,
    Or ne'er return again into my sight.
    Away, I say. Stayest thou to vex me here?        Exit LAUNCE
    A slave that still an end turns me to shame!
    Sebastian, I have entertained thee
    Partly that I have need of such a youth
    That can with some discretion do my business,
    For 'tis no trusting to yond foolish lout,
    But chiefly for thy face and thy behaviour,
    Which, if my augury deceive me not,
    Witness good bringing up, fortune, and truth;
    Therefore, know thou, for this I entertain thee.
    Go presently, and take this ring with thee,
    Deliver it to Madam Silvia-
    She lov'd me well deliver'd it to me.
  JULIA. It seems you lov'd not her, to leave her token.
    She is dead, belike?
  PROTEUS. Not so; I think she lives.
  JULIA. Alas!
  PROTEUS. Why dost thou cry 'Alas'?
  JULIA. I cannot choose
    But pity her.
  PROTEUS. Wherefore shouldst thou pity her?
  JULIA. Because methinks that she lov'd you as well
    As you do love your lady Silvia.
    She dreams on him that has forgot her love:
    You dote on her that cares not for your love.
    'Tis pity love should be so contrary;
    And thinking on it makes me cry 'Alas!'
  PROTEUS. Well, give her that ring, and therewithal
    This letter. That's her chamber. Tell my lady
    I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.
    Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,
    Where thou shalt find me sad and solitary.      Exit PROTEUS
  JULIA. How many women would do such a message?
    Alas, poor Proteus, thou hast entertain'd
    A fox to be the shepherd of thy lambs.
    Alas, poor fool, why do I pity him
    That with his very heart despiseth me?
    Because he loves her, he despiseth me;
    Because I love him, I must pity him.
    This ring I gave him, when he parted from me,
    To bind him to remember my good will;
    And now am I, unhappy messenger,
    To plead for that which I would not obtain,
    To carry that which I would have refus'd,
    To praise his faith, which I would have disprais'd.
    I am my master's true confirmed love,
    But cannot be true servant to my master
    Unless I prove false traitor to myself.
    Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly
    As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.

                     Enter SILVIA, attended

    Gentlewoman, good day! I pray you be my mean
    To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.
  SILVIA. What would you with her, if that I be she?
  JULIA. If you be she, I do entreat your patience
    To hear me speak the message I am sent on.
  SILVIA. From whom?
  JULIA. From my master, Sir Proteus, madam.
  SILVIA. O, he sends you for a picture?
  JULIA. Ay, madam.
  SILVIA. Ursula, bring my picture there.
    Go, give your master this. Tell him from me,
    One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,
    Would better fit his chamber than this shadow.
  JULIA. Madam, please you peruse this letter.
    Pardon me, madam; I have unadvis'd
    Deliver'd you a paper that I should not.
    This is the letter to your ladyship.
  SILVIA. I pray thee let me look on that again.
  JULIA. It may not be; good madam, pardon me.
  SILVIA. There, hold!
    I will not look upon your master's lines.
    I know they are stuff'd with protestations,
    And full of new-found oaths, which he wul break
    As easily as I do tear his paper.
  JULIA. Madam, he sends your ladyship this ring.
  SILVIA. The more shame for him that he sends it me;
    For I have heard him say a thousand times
    His Julia gave it him at his departure.
    Though his false finger have profan'd the ring,
    Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.
  JULIA. She thanks you.
  SILVIA. What say'st thou?
  JULIA. I thank you, madam, that you tender her.
    Poor gentlewoman, my master wrongs her much.
  SILVIA. Dost thou know her?
  JULIA. Almost as well as I do know myself.
    To think upon her woes, I do protest
    That I have wept a hundred several times.
  SILVIA. Belike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her.
  JULIA. I think she doth, and that's her cause of sorrow.
  SILVIA. Is she not passing fair?
  JULIA. She hath been fairer, madam, than she is.
    When she did think my master lov'd her well,
    She, in my judgment, was as fair as you;
    But since she did neglect her looking-glass
    And threw her sun-expelling mask away,
    The air hath starv'd the roses in her cheeks
    And pinch'd the lily-tincture of her face,
    That now she is become as black as I.
  SILVIA. How tall was she?
  JULIA. About my stature; for at Pentecost,
    When all our pageants of delight were play'd,
    Our youth got me to play the woman's part,
    And I was trimm'd in Madam Julia's gown;
    Which served me as fit, by all men's judgments,
    As if the garment had been made for me;
    Therefore I know she is about my height.
    And at that time I made her weep a good,
    For I did play a lamentable part.
    Madam, 'twas Ariadne passioning
    For Theseus' perjury and unjust flight;
    Which I so lively acted with my tears
    That my poor mistress, moved therewithal,
    Wept bitterly; and would I might be dead
    If I in thought felt not her very sorrow.
  SILVIA. She is beholding to thee, gentle youth.
    Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!
    I weep myself, to think upon thy words.
    Here, youth, there is my purse; I give thee this
    For thy sweet mistress' sake, because thou lov'st her.
    Farewell.                        Exit SILVIA with ATTENDANTS
  JULIA. And she shall thank you for't, if e'er you know her.
    A virtuous gentlewoman, mild and beautiful!
    I hope my master's suit will be but cold,
    Since she respects my mistress' love so much.
    Alas, how love can trifle with itself!
    Here is her picture; let me see. I think,
    If I had such a tire, this face of mine
    Were full as lovely as is this of hers;
    And yet the painter flatter'd her a little,
    Unless I flatter with myself too much.
    Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow;
    If that be all the difference in his love,
    I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.
    Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine;
    Ay, but her forehead's low, and mine's as high.
    What should it be that he respects in her
    But I can make respective in myself,
    If this fond Love were not a blinded god?
    Come, shadow, come, and take this shadow up,
    For 'tis thy rival. O thou senseless form,
    Thou shalt be worshipp'd, kiss'd, lov'd, and ador'd!
    And were there sense in his idolatry
    My substance should be statue in thy stead.
    I'll use thee kindly for thy mistress' sake,
    That us'd me so; or else, by Jove I vow,
    I should have scratch'd out your unseeing eyes,
    To make my master out of love with thee.                Exit

ACT V. SCENE I. Milan. An abbey

Enter EGLAMOUR

  EGLAMOUR. The sun begins to gild the western sky,
    And now it is about the very hour
    That Silvia at Friar Patrick's cell should meet me.
    She will not fail, for lovers break not hours
    Unless it be to come before their time,
    So much they spur their expedition.

                         Enter SILVIA

    See where she comes. Lady, a happy evening!
  SILVIA. Amen, amen! Go on, good Eglamour,
    Out at the postern by the abbey wall;
    I fear I am attended by some spies.
  EGLAMOUR. Fear not. The forest is not three leagues off;
    If we recover that, we are sure enough.               Exeunt

SCENE II. Milan. The DUKE'S palace

Enter THURIO, PROTEUS, and JULIA as SEBASTIAN

  THURIO. Sir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?
  PROTEUS. O, sir, I find her milder than she was;
    And yet she takes exceptions at your person.
  THURIO. What, that my leg is too long?
  PROTEUS. No; that it is too little.
  THURIO. I'll wear a boot to make it somewhat rounder.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  But love will not be spurr'd to what it loathes.
  THURIO. What says she to my face?
  PROTEUS. She says it is a fair one.
  THURIO. Nay, then, the wanton lies; my face is black.
  PROTEUS. But pearls are fair; and the old saying is:
    Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  'Tis true, such pearls as put out ladies' eyes;
    For I had rather wink than look on them.
  THURIO. How likes she my discourse?
  PROTEUS. Ill, when you talk of war.
  THURIO. But well when I discourse of love and peace?
  JULIA.  [Aside]  But better, indeed, when you hold your peace.
  THURIO. What says she to my valour?
  PROTEUS. O, sir, she makes no doubt of that.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  She needs not, when she knows it cowardice.
  THURIO. What says she to my birth?
  PROTEUS. That you are well deriv'd.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  True; from a gentleman to a fool.
  THURIO. Considers she my possessions?
  PROTEUS. O, ay; and pities them.
  THURIO. Wherefore?
  JULIA.  [Aside]  That such an ass should owe them.
  PROTEUS. That they are out by lease.
  JULIA. Here comes the Duke.

                          Enter DUKE

  DUKE. How now, Sir Proteus! how now, Thurio!
    Which of you saw Sir Eglamour of late?
  THURIO. Not I.
  PROTEUS. Nor I.
  DUKE. Saw you my daughter?
  PROTEUS. Neither.
  DUKE. Why then,
    She's fled unto that peasant Valentine;
    And Eglamour is in her company.
    'Tis true; for Friar Lawrence met them both
    As he in penance wander'd through the forest;
    Him he knew well, and guess'd that it was she,
    But, being mask'd, he was not sure of it;
    Besides, she did intend confession
    At Patrick's cell this even; and there she was not.
    These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence;
    Therefore, I pray you, stand not to discourse,
    But mount you presently, and meet with me
    Upon the rising of the mountain foot
    That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled.
    Dispatch, sweet gentlemen, and follow me.               Exit
  THURIO. Why, this it is to be a peevish girl
    That flies her fortune when it follows her.
    I'll after, more to be reveng'd on Eglamour
    Than for the love of reckless Silvia.                   Exit
  PROTEUS. And I will follow, more for Silvia's love
    Than hate of Eglamour, that goes with her.              Exit
  JULIA. And I will follow, more to cross that love
    Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.            Exit

SCENE III. The frontiers of Mantua. The forest

Enter OUTLAWS with SILVA

  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, come.
    Be patient; we must bring you to our captain.
  SILVIA. A thousand more mischances than this one
    Have learn'd me how to brook this patiently.
  SECOND OUTLAW. Come, bring her away.
  FIRST OUTLAW. Where is the gentleman that was with her?
  SECOND OUTLAW. Being nimble-footed, he hath outrun us,
    But Moyses and Valerius follow him.
    Go thou with her to the west end of the wood;
    There is our captain; we'll follow him that's fled.
    The thicket is beset; he cannot 'scape.
  FIRST OUTLAW. Come, I must bring you to our captain's cave;
    Fear not; he bears an honourable mind,
    And will not use a woman lawlessly.
  SILVIA. O Valentine, this I endure for thee!            Exeunt

SCENE IV. Another part of the forest

Enter VALENTINE

  VALENTINE. How use doth breed a habit in a man!
    This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,
    I better brook than flourishing peopled towns.
    Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,
    And to the nightingale's complaining notes
    Tune my distresses and record my woes.
    O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,
    Leave not the mansion so long tenantless,
    Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall
    And leave no memory of what it was!
    Repair me with thy presence, Silvia:
    Thou gentle nymph, cherish thy forlorn swain.
    What halloing and what stir is this to-day?
    These are my mates, that make their wills their law,
    Have some unhappy passenger in chase.
    They love me well; yet I have much to do
    To keep them from uncivil outrages.
    Withdraw thee, Valentine. Who's this comes here?
                                                   [Steps aside]

          Enter PROTEUS, SILVIA, and JULIA as Sebastian

  PROTEUS. Madam, this service I have done for you,
    Though you respect not aught your servant doth,
    To hazard life, and rescue you from him
    That would have forc'd your honour and your love.
    Vouchsafe me, for my meed, but one fair look;
    A smaller boon than this I cannot beg,
    And less than this, I am sure, you cannot give.
  VALENTINE.  [Aside]  How like a dream is this I see and hear!
    Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.
  SILVIA. O miserable, unhappy that I am!
  PROTEUS. Unhappy were you, madam, ere I came;
    But by my coming I have made you happy.
  SILVIA. By thy approach thou mak'st me most unhappy.
  JULIA.  [Aside]  And me, when he approacheth to your presence.
  SILVIA. Had I been seized by a hungry lion,
    I would have been a breakfast to the beast
    Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.
    O, heaven be judge how I love Valentine,
    Whose life's as tender to me as my soul!
    And full as much, for more there cannot be,
    I do detest false, perjur'd Proteus.
    Therefore be gone; solicit me no more.
  PROTEUS. What dangerous action, stood it next to death,
    Would I not undergo for one calm look?
    O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approv'd,
    When women cannot love where they're belov'd!
  SILVIA. When Proteus cannot love where he's belov'd!
    Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,
    For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith
    Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths
    Descended into perjury, to love me.
    Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou'dst two,
    And that's far worse than none; better have none
    Than plural faith, which is too much by one.
    Thou counterfeit to thy true friend!
  PROTEUS. In love,
    Who respects friend?
  SILVIA. All men but Proteus.
  PROTEUS. Nay, if the gentle spirit of moving words
    Can no way change you to a milder form,
    I'll woo you like a soldier, at arms' end,
    And love you 'gainst the nature of love- force ye.
  SILVIA. O heaven!
  PROTEUS. I'll force thee yield to my desire.
  VALENTINE. Ruffian! let go that rude uncivil touch;
    Thou friend of an ill fashion!
  PROTEUS. Valentine!
  VALENTINE. Thou common friend, that's without faith or love-
    For such is a friend now; treacherous man,
    Thou hast beguil'd my hopes; nought but mine eye
    Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say
    I have one friend alive: thou wouldst disprove me.
    Who should be trusted, when one's own right hand
    Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,
    I am sorry I must never trust thee more,
    But count the world a stranger for thy sake.
    The private wound is deepest. O time most accurst!
    'Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!
  PROTEUS. My shame and guilt confounds me.
    Forgive me, Valentine; if hearty sorrow
    Be a sufficient ransom for offence,
    I tender 't here; I do as truly suffer
    As e'er I did commit.
  VALENTINE. Then I am paid;
    And once again I do receive thee honest.
    Who by repentance is not satisfied
    Is nor of heaven nor earth, for these are pleas'd;
    By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeas'd.
    And, that my love may appear plain and free,
    All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.
  JULIA. O me unhappy!                                  [Swoons]
  PROTEUS. Look to the boy.
  VALENTINE. Why, boy! why, wag! how now!
    What's the matter? Look up; speak.
  JULIA. O good sir, my master charg'd me to deliver a ring to Madam
    Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.
  PROTEUS. Where is that ring, boy?
  JULIA. Here 'tis; this is it.
  PROTEUS. How! let me see. Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.
  JULIA. O, cry you mercy, sir, I have mistook;
    This is the ring you sent to Silvia.
  PROTEUS. But how cam'st thou by this ring?
    At my depart I gave this unto Julia.
  JULIA. And Julia herself did give it me;
    And Julia herself have brought it hither.
  PROTEUS. How! Julia!
  JULIA. Behold her that gave aim to all thy oaths,
    And entertain'd 'em deeply in her heart.
    How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root!
    O Proteus, let this habit make thee blush!
    Be thou asham'd that I have took upon me
    Such an immodest raiment- if shame live
    In a disguise of love.
    It is the lesser blot, modesty finds,
    Women to change their shapes than men their minds.
  PROTEUS. Than men their minds! 'tis true. O heaven, were man
    But constant, he were perfect! That one error
    Fills him with faults; makes him run through all th' sins:
    Inconstancy falls off ere it begins.
    What is in Silvia's face but I may spy
    More fresh in Julia's with a constant eye?
  VALENTINE. Come, come, a hand from either.
    Let me be blest to make this happy close;
    'Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.
  PROTEUS. Bear witness, heaven, I have my wish for ever.
  JULIA. And I mine.

                Enter OUTLAWS, with DUKE and THURIO

  OUTLAW. A prize, a prize, a prize!
  VALENTINE. Forbear, forbear, I say; it is my lord the Duke.
    Your Grace is welcome to a man disgrac'd,
    Banished Valentine.
  DUKE. Sir Valentine!
  THURIO. Yonder is Silvia; and Silvia's mine.
  VALENTINE. Thurio, give back, or else embrace thy death;
    Come not within the measure of my wrath;
    Do not name Silvia thine; if once again,
    Verona shall not hold thee. Here she stands
    Take but possession of her with a touch-
    I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.
  THURIO. Sir Valentine, I care not for her, I;
    I hold him but a fool that will endanger
    His body for a girl that loves him not.
    I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.
  DUKE. The more degenerate and base art thou
    To make such means for her as thou hast done
    And leave her on such slight conditions.
    Now, by the honour of my ancestry,
    I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,
    And think thee worthy of an empress' love.
    Know then, I here forget all former griefs,
    Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again,
    Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit,
    To which I thus subscribe: Sir Valentine,
    Thou art a gentleman, and well deriv'd;
    Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserv'd her.
  VALENTINE. I thank your Grace; the gift hath made me happy.
    I now beseech you, for your daughter's sake,
    To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.
  DUKE. I grant it for thine own, whate'er it be.
  VALENTINE. These banish'd men, that I have kept withal,
    Are men endu'd with worthy qualities;
    Forgive them what they have committed here,
    And let them be recall'd from their exile:
    They are reformed, civil, full of good,
    And fit for great employment, worthy lord.
  DUKE. Thou hast prevail'd; I pardon them, and thee;
    Dispose of them as thou know'st their deserts.
    Come, let us go; we will include all jars
    With triumphs, mirth, and rare solemnity.
  VALENTINE. And, as we walk along, I dare be bold
    With our discourse to make your Grace to smile.
    What think you of this page, my lord?
  DUKE. I think the boy hath grace in him; he blushes.
  VALENTINE. I warrant you, my lord- more grace than boy.
  DUKE. What mean you by that saying?
  VALENTINE. Please you, I'll tell you as we pass along,
    That you will wonder what hath fortuned.
    Come, Proteus, 'tis your penance but to hear
    The story of your loves discovered.
    That done, our day of marriage shall be yours;
    One feast, one house, one mutual happiness!     Exeunt

THE END



THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN:

Presented at the Blackfriers by the Kings Maiesties servants, with
great applause:

Written by the memorable Worthies of their time;

Mr John Fletcher, Gent., and
Mr William Shakspeare, Gent.

Printed at London by Tho. Cotes, for John Waterson: and are to be sold
at the signe of the Crowne in Pauls Church-yard. 1634.

(The Persons represented in the Play.

Hymen,
Theseus,
Hippolita, Bride to Theseus
Emelia, Sister to Theseus
[Emelia's Woman],
Nymphs,
Three Queens,
Three valiant Knights,
Palamon, and
Arcite, The two Noble Kinsmen, in love with fair Emelia
[Valerius],
Perithous,
[A Herald],
[A Gentleman],
[A Messenger],
[A Servant],
[Wooer],
[Keeper],
Jaylor,
His Daughter, in love with Palamon
[His brother],
[A Doctor],
[4] Countreymen,
[2 Friends of the Jaylor],
[3 Knights],
[Nel, and other]
Wenches,
A Taborer,
Gerrold, A Schoolmaster.)

PROLOGUE.

[Florish.]

New Playes, and Maydenheads, are neare a kin,
Much follow'd both, for both much mony g'yn,
If they stand sound, and well: And a good Play
(Whose modest Sceanes blush on his marriage day,
And shake to loose his honour) is like hir
That after holy Tye and first nights stir
Yet still is Modestie, and still retaines
More of the maid to sight, than Husbands paines;
We pray our Play may be so; For I am sure
It has a noble Breeder, and a pure,
A learned, and a Poet never went
More famous yet twixt Po and silver Trent:
Chaucer (of all admir'd) the Story gives,
There constant to Eternity it lives.
If we let fall the Noblenesse of this,
And the first sound this child heare, be a hisse,
How will it shake the bones of that good man,
And make him cry from under ground, 'O fan
From me the witles chaffe of such a wrighter
That blastes my Bayes, and my fam'd workes makes lighter
Then Robin Hood!'  This is the feare we bring;
For to say Truth, it were an endlesse thing,
And too ambitious, to aspire to him,
Weake as we are, and almost breathlesse swim
In this deepe water.  Do but you hold out
Your helping hands, and we shall take about,
And something doe to save us: You shall heare
Sceanes, though below his Art, may yet appeare
Worth two houres travell.  To his bones sweet sleepe:
Content to you.  If this play doe not keepe
A little dull time from us, we perceave
Our losses fall so thicke, we must needs leave.  [Florish.]

ACT I

SCENE 1. (Athens.  Before a temple.)

[Enter Hymen with a Torch burning: a Boy, in a white Robe before
 singing, and strewing Flowres: After Hymen, a Nimph, encompast
in
 her Tresses, bearing a wheaten Garland.  Then Theseus betweene
 two other Nimphs with wheaten Chaplets on their heades.  Then
 Hipolita the Bride, lead by Pirithous, and another holding a
 Garland over her head (her Tresses likewise hanging.)  After
 her Emilia holding up her Traine.  (Artesius and Attendants.)]

The Song,  [Musike.]

Roses their sharpe spines being gon,
Not royall in their smels alone,
But in their hew.
Maiden Pinckes, of odour faint,
Dazies smel-lesse, yet most quaint
And sweet Time true.

Prim-rose first borne child of Ver,
Merry Spring times Herbinger,
With her bels dimme.
Oxlips, in their Cradles growing,
Mary-golds, on death beds blowing,
Larkes-heeles trymme.

All deere natures children sweete,
Ly fore Bride and Bridegroomes feete,  [Strew Flowers.]
Blessing their sence.
Not an angle of the aire,
Bird melodious, or bird faire,
Is absent hence.

The Crow, the slaundrous Cuckoe, nor
The boding Raven, nor Chough hore
Nor chattring Pie,
May on our Bridehouse pearch or sing,
Or with them any discord bring,
But from it fly.

[Enter 3. Queenes in Blacke, with vailes staind, with imperiall
 Crownes.  The 1. Queene fals downe at the foote of Theseus; The
 2. fals downe at the foote of Hypolita.  The 3. before Emilia.]

1. QUEEN.
For pitties sake and true gentilities,
Heare, and respect me.

2. QUEEN.
For your Mothers sake,
And as you wish your womb may thrive with faire ones,
Heare and respect me.

3. QUEEN
Now for the love of him whom Iove hath markd
The honour of your Bed, and for the sake
Of cleere virginity, be Advocate
For us, and our distresses.  This good deede
Shall raze you out o'th Booke of Trespasses
All you are set downe there.

THESEUS.
Sad Lady, rise.

HIPPOLITA.
Stand up.

EMILIA.
No knees to me.
What woman I may steed that is distrest,
Does bind me to her.

THESEUS.
What's your request?  Deliver you for all.

1. QUEEN.
We are 3. Queenes, whose Soveraignes fel before
The wrath of cruell Creon; who endured
The Beakes of Ravens, Tallents of the Kights,
And pecks of Crowes, in the fowle feilds of Thebs.
He will not suffer us to burne their bones,
To urne their ashes, nor to take th' offence
Of mortall loathsomenes from the blest eye
Of holy Phoebus, but infects the windes
With stench of our slaine Lords.  O pitty, Duke:
Thou purger of the earth, draw thy feard Sword
That does good turnes to'th world; give us the Bones
Of our dead Kings, that we may Chappell them;
And of thy boundles goodnes take some note
That for our crowned heades we have no roofe,
Save this which is the Lyons, and the Beares,
And vault to every thing.

THESEUS.
Pray you, kneele not:
I was transported with your Speech, and suffer'd
Your knees to wrong themselves; I have heard the fortunes
Of your dead Lords, which gives me such lamenting
As wakes my vengeance, and revenge for'em,
King Capaneus was your Lord: the day
That he should marry you, at such a season,
As now it is with me, I met your Groome,
By Marsis Altar; you were that time faire,
Not Iunos Mantle fairer then your Tresses,
Nor in more bounty spread her.  Your wheaten wreathe
Was then nor threashd, nor blasted; Fortune at you
Dimpled her Cheeke with smiles: Hercules our kinesman
(Then weaker than your eies) laide by his Club,
He tumbled downe upon his Nemean hide
And swore his sinews thawd: O greife, and time,
Fearefull consumers, you will all devoure.

1. QUEEN.
O, I hope some God,
Some God hath put his mercy in your manhood
Whereto heel infuse powre, and presse you forth
Our undertaker.

THESEUS.
O no knees, none, Widdow,
Vnto the Helmeted Belona use them,
And pray for me your Souldier.
Troubled I am.  [turnes away.]

2. QUEEN.
Honoured Hypolita,
Most dreaded Amazonian, that hast slaine
The Sith-tuskd Bore; that with thy Arme as strong
As it is white, wast neere to make the male
To thy Sex captive, but that this thy Lord,
Borne to uphold Creation in that honour
First nature stilde it in, shrunke thee into
The bownd thou wast ore-flowing, at once subduing
Thy force, and thy affection: Soldiresse
That equally canst poize sternenes with pitty,
Whom now I know hast much more power on him
Then ever he had on thee, who ow'st his strength
And his Love too, who is a Servant for
The Tenour of thy Speech: Deere Glasse of Ladies,
Bid him that we, whom flaming war doth scortch,
Vnder the shaddow of his Sword may coole us:
Require him he advance it ore our heades;
Speak't in a womans key: like such a woman
As any of us three; weepe ere you faile;
Lend us a knee;
But touch the ground for us no longer time
Then a Doves motion, when the head's pluckt off:
Tell him if he i'th blood cizd field lay swolne,
Showing the Sun his Teeth, grinning at the Moone,
What you would doe.

HIPPOLITA.
Poore Lady, say no more:
I had as leife trace this good action with you
As that whereto I am going, and never yet
Went I so willing way.  My Lord is taken
Hart deepe with your distresse: Let him consider:
Ile speake anon.

3. QUEEN.
O my petition was  [kneele to Emilia.]
Set downe in yce, which by hot greefe uncandied
Melts into drops, so sorrow, wanting forme,
Is prest with deeper matter.

EMILIA.
Pray stand up,
Your greefe is written in your cheeke.

3. QUEEN.
O woe,
You cannot reade it there, there through my teares—
Like wrinckled peobles in a glassie streame
You may behold 'em.  Lady, Lady, alacke,
He that will all the Treasure know o'th earth
Must know the Center too; he that will fish
For my least minnow, let him lead his line
To catch one at my heart.  O pardon me:
Extremity, that sharpens sundry wits,
Makes me a Foole.

EMILIA.
Pray you say nothing, pray you:
Who cannot feele nor see the raine, being in't,
Knowes neither wet nor dry: if that you were
The ground-peece of some Painter, I would buy you
T'instruct me gainst a Capitall greefe indeed—
Such heart peirc'd demonstration; but, alas,
Being a naturall Sifter of our Sex
Your sorrow beates so ardently upon me,
That it shall make a counter reflect gainst
My Brothers heart, and warme it to some pitty,
Though it were made of stone: pray, have good comfort.

THESEUS.
Forward to'th Temple, leave not out a Iot
O'th sacred Ceremony.

1. QUEEN.
O, This Celebration
Will long last, and be more costly then
Your Suppliants war: Remember that your Fame
Knowles in the eare o'th world: what you doe quickly
Is not done rashly; your first thought is more
Then others laboured meditance: your premeditating
More then their actions: But, oh Iove! your actions,
Soone as they mooves, as Asprayes doe the fish,
Subdue before they touch: thinke, deere Duke, thinke
What beds our slaine Kings have.

2. QUEEN.
What greifes our beds,
That our deere Lords have none.

3. QUEEN.
None fit for 'th dead:
Those that with Cordes, Knives, drams precipitance,
Weary of this worlds light, have to themselves
Beene deathes most horrid Agents, humaine grace
Affords them dust and shaddow.

1. QUEEN.
But our Lords
Ly blistring fore the visitating Sunne,
And were good Kings, when living.

THESEUS.
It is true, and I will give you comfort,
To give your dead Lords graves: the which to doe,
Must make some worke with Creon.

1. QUEEN.
And that worke presents it selfe to'th doing:
Now twill take forme, the heates are gone to morrow.
Then, booteles toyle must recompence it selfe
With it's owne sweat; Now he's secure,
Not dreames we stand before your puissance
Wrinching our holy begging in our eyes
To make petition cleere.

2. QUEEN.
Now you may take him, drunke with his victory.

3. QUEEN.
And his Army full of Bread, and sloth.

THESEUS.
Artesius, that best knowest
How to draw out fit to this enterprise
The prim'st for this proceeding, and the number
To carry such a businesse, forth and levy
Our worthiest Instruments, whilst we despatch
This grand act of our life, this daring deede
Of Fate in wedlocke.

1. QUEEN.
Dowagers, take hands;
Let us be Widdowes to our woes: delay
Commends us to a famishing hope.

ALL.
Farewell.

2. QUEEN.
We come unseasonably: But when could greefe
Cull forth, as unpanged judgement can, fit'st time
For best solicitation.

THESEUS.
Why, good Ladies,
This is a service, whereto I am going,
Greater then any was; it more imports me
Then all the actions that I have foregone,
Or futurely can cope.

1. QUEEN.
The more proclaiming
Our suit shall be neglected: when her Armes
Able to locke Iove from a Synod, shall
By warranting Moone-light corslet thee, oh, when
Her twyning Cherries shall their sweetnes fall
Vpon thy tastefull lips, what wilt thou thinke
Of rotten Kings or blubberd Queenes, what care
For what thou feelst not? what thou feelst being able
To make Mars spurne his Drom.  O, if thou couch
But one night with her, every howre in't will
Take hostage of thee for a hundred, and
Thou shalt remember nothing more then what
That Banket bids thee too.

HIPPOLITA.
Though much unlike  [Kneeling.]
You should be so transported, as much sorry
I should be such a Suitour; yet I thinke,
Did I not by th'abstayning of my joy,
Which breeds a deeper longing, cure their surfeit
That craves a present medcine, I should plucke
All Ladies scandall on me.  Therefore, Sir,
As I shall here make tryall of my prayres,
Either presuming them to have some force,
Or sentencing for ay their vigour dombe:
Prorogue this busines we are going about, and hang
Your Sheild afore your Heart, about that necke
Which is my ffee, and which I freely lend
To doe these poore Queenes service.

ALL QUEENS.
Oh helpe now,
Our Cause cries for your knee.

EMILIA.
If you grant not  [Kneeling.]
My Sister her petition in that force,
With that Celerity and nature, which
Shee makes it in, from henceforth ile not dare
To aske you any thing, nor be so hardy
Ever to take a Husband.

THESEUS.
Pray stand up.
I am entreating of my selfe to doe
That which you kneele to have me.  Pyrithous,
Leade on the Bride; get you and pray the Gods
For successe, and returne; omit not any thing
In the pretended Celebration.  Queenes,
Follow your Soldier.  As before, hence you  [to Artesius]
And at the banckes of Aulis meete us with
The forces you can raise, where we shall finde
The moytie of a number, for a busines
More bigger look't.  Since that our Theame is haste,
I stamp this kisse upon thy currant lippe;
Sweete, keepe it as my Token.  Set you forward,
For I will see you gone.  [Exeunt towards the Temple.]
Farewell, my beauteous Sister: Pyrithous,
Keepe the feast full, bate not an howre on't.

PERITHOUS.
Sir,
Ile follow you at heeles; The Feasts solempnity
Shall want till your returne.

THESEUS.
Cosen, I charge you
Boudge not from Athens; We shall be returning
Ere you can end this Feast, of which, I pray you,
Make no abatement; once more, farewell all.

1. QUEEN.
Thus do'st thou still make good the tongue o'th world.

2. QUEEN.
And earnst a Deity equal with Mars.

3. QUEEN.
If not above him, for
Thou being but mortall makest affections bend
To Godlike honours; they themselves, some say,
Grone under such a Mastry.

THESEUS.
As we are men,
Thus should we doe; being sensually subdude,
We loose our humane tytle.  Good cheere, Ladies.  [Florish.]
Now turne we towards your Comforts.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (Thebs).

[Enter Palamon, and Arcite.]

ARCITE.
Deere Palamon, deerer in love then Blood
And our prime Cosen, yet unhardned in
The Crimes of nature; Let us leave the Citty
Thebs, and the temptings in't, before we further
Sully our glosse of youth:
And here to keepe in abstinence we shame
As in Incontinence; for not to swim
I'th aide o'th Current were almost to sincke,
At least to frustrate striving, and to follow
The common Streame, twold bring us to an Edy
Where we should turne or drowne; if labour through,
Our gaine but life, and weakenes.

PALAMON.
Your advice
Is cride up with example: what strange ruins
Since first we went to Schoole, may we perceive
Walking in Thebs?  Skars, and bare weedes
The gaine o'th Martialist, who did propound
To his bold ends honour, and golden Ingots,
Which though he won, he had not, and now flurted
By peace for whom he fought: who then shall offer
To Marsis so scornd Altar? I doe bleede
When such I meete, and wish great Iuno would
Resume her ancient fit of Ielouzie
To get the Soldier worke, that peace might purge
For her repletion, and retaine anew
Her charitable heart now hard, and harsher
Then strife or war could be.

ARCITE.
Are you not out?
Meete you no ruine but the Soldier in
The Cranckes and turnes of Thebs? you did begin
As if you met decaies of many kindes:
Perceive you none, that doe arowse your pitty
But th'un-considerd Soldier?

PALAMON.
Yes, I pitty
Decaies where ere I finde them, but such most
That, sweating in an honourable Toyle,
Are paide with yce to coole 'em.

ARCITE.
Tis not this
I did begin to speake of: This is vertue
Of no respect in Thebs; I spake of Thebs
How dangerous if we will keepe our Honours,
It is for our resyding, where every evill
Hath a good cullor; where eve'ry seeming good's
A certaine evill, where not to be ev'n Iumpe
As they are, here were to be strangers, and
Such things to be, meere Monsters.

PALAMON.
Tis in our power,
(Vnlesse we feare that Apes can Tutor's) to
Be Masters of our manners: what neede I
Affect anothers gate, which is not catching
Where there is faith, or to be fond upon
Anothers way of speech, when by mine owne
I may be reasonably conceiv'd; sav'd too,
Speaking it truly? why am I bound
By any generous bond to follow him
Followes his Taylor, haply so long untill
The follow'd make pursuit? or let me know,
Why mine owne Barber is unblest, with him
My poore Chinne too, for tis not Cizard iust
To such a Favorites glasse: What Cannon is there
That does command my Rapier from my hip
To dangle't in my hand, or to go tip toe
Before the streete be foule?  Either I am
The fore-horse in the Teame, or I am none
That draw i'th sequent trace: these poore sleight sores
Neede not a plantin; That which rips my bosome
Almost to'th heart's—

ARCITE.
Our Vncle Creon.

PALAMON.
He,
A most unbounded Tyrant, whose successes
Makes heaven unfeard, and villany assured
Beyond its power there's nothing, almost puts
Faith in a feavour, and deifies alone
Voluble chance; who onely attributes
The faculties of other Instruments
To his owne Nerves and act; Commands men service,
And what they winne in't, boot and glory; on(e)
That feares not to do harm; good, dares not; Let
The blood of mine that's sibbe to him be suckt
From me with Leeches; Let them breake and fall
Off me with that corruption.

ARCITE.
Cleere spirited Cozen,
Lets leave his Court, that we may nothing share
Of his lowd infamy: for our milke
Will relish of the pasture, and we must
Be vile or disobedient, not his kinesmen
In blood, unlesse in quality.

PALAMON.
Nothing truer:
I thinke the Ecchoes of his shames have dea'ft
The eares of heav'nly Iustice: widdows cryes
Descend againe into their throates, and have not

[enter Valerius.]

Due audience of the Gods.—Valerius!

VALERIUS.
The King cals for you; yet be leaden footed,
Till his great rage be off him.  Phebus, when
He broke his whipstocke and exclaimd against
The Horses of the Sun, but whisperd too
The lowdenesse of his Fury.

PALAMON.
Small windes shake him:
But whats the matter?

VALERIUS.
Theseus (who where he threates appals,) hath sent
Deadly defyance to him, and pronounces
Ruine to Thebs; who is at hand to seale
The promise of his wrath.

ARCITE.
Let him approach;
But that we feare the Gods in him, he brings not
A jot of terrour to us; Yet what man
Thirds his owne worth (the case is each of ours)
When that his actions dregd with minde assurd
Tis bad he goes about?

PALAMON.
Leave that unreasond.
Our services stand now for Thebs, not Creon,
Yet to be neutrall to him were dishonour;
Rebellious to oppose: therefore we must
With him stand to the mercy of our Fate,
Who hath bounded our last minute.

ARCITE.
So we must.
Ist sed this warres a foote? or it shall be,
On faile of some condition?

VALERIUS.
Tis in motion
The intelligence of state came in the instant
With the defier.

PALAMON.
Lets to the king, who, were he
A quarter carrier of that honour which
His Enemy come in, the blood we venture
Should be as for our health, which were not spent,
Rather laide out for purchase: but, alas,
Our hands advanc'd before our hearts, what will
The fall o'th stroke doe damage?

ARCITE.
Let th'event,
That never erring Arbitratour, tell us
When we know all our selves, and let us follow
The becking of our chance.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 3.  (Before the gates of Athens.)

[Enter Pirithous, Hipolita, Emilia.]

PERITHOUS.
No further.

HIPPOLITA.
Sir, farewell; repeat my wishes
To our great Lord, of whose succes I dare not
Make any timerous question; yet I wish him
Exces and overflow of power, and't might be,
To dure ill-dealing fortune: speede to him,
Store never hurtes good Gouernours.

PERITHOUS.
Though I know
His Ocean needes not my poore drops, yet they
Must yeild their tribute there.  My precious Maide,
Those best affections, that the heavens infuse
In their best temperd peices, keepe enthroand
In your deare heart.

EMILIA.
Thanckes, Sir.  Remember me
To our all royall Brother, for whose speede
The great Bellona ile sollicite; and
Since in our terrene State petitions are not
Without giftes understood, Ile offer to her
What I shall be advised she likes: our hearts
Are in his Army, in his Tent.

HIPPOLITA.
In's bosome:
We have bin Soldiers, and wee cannot weepe
When our Friends don their helmes, or put to sea,
Or tell of Babes broachd on the Launce, or women
That have sod their Infants in (and after eate them)
The brine, they wept at killing 'em; Then if
You stay to see of us such Spincsters, we
Should hold you here for ever.

PERITHOUS.
Peace be to you,
As I pursue this war, which shall be then
Beyond further requiring.  [Exit Pir.]

EMILIA.
How his longing
Followes his Friend! since his depart, his sportes
Though craving seriousnes, and skill, past slightly
His careles execution, where nor gaine
Made him regard, or losse consider; but
Playing one busines in his hand, another
Directing in his head, his minde, nurse equall
To these so diffring Twyns—have you observ'd him,
Since our great Lord departed?

HIPPOLITA.
With much labour,
And I did love him fort: they two have Cabind
In many as dangerous, as poore a Corner,
Perill and want contending; they have skift
Torrents whose roring tyranny and power
I'th least of these was dreadfull, and they have
Fought out together, where Deaths-selfe was lodgd,
Yet fate hath brought them off: Their knot of love,
Tide, weau'd, intangled, with so true, so long,
And with a finger of so deepe a cunning,
May be outworne, never undone.  I thinke
Theseus cannot be umpire to himselfe,
Cleaving his conscience into twaine and doing
Each side like Iustice, which he loves best.

EMILIA.
Doubtlesse
There is a best, and reason has no manners
To say it is not you: I was acquainted
Once with a time, when I enjoyd a Play-fellow;
You were at wars, when she the grave enrichd,
Who made too proud the Bed, tooke leave o th Moone
(Which then lookt pale at parting) when our count
Was each eleven.

HIPPOLITA.
Twas Flaui(n)a.

EMILIA.
Yes.
You talke of Pirithous and Theseus love;
Theirs has more ground, is more maturely seasond,
More buckled with strong Iudgement and their needes
The one of th'other may be said to water  [2. Hearses ready
 with Palamon: and Arcite: the 3. Queenes.  Theseus: and his
 Lordes ready.]
Their intertangled rootes of love; but I
And shee I sigh and spoke of were things innocent,
Lou'd for we did, and like the Elements
That know not what, nor why, yet doe effect
Rare issues by their operance, our soules
Did so to one another; what she lik'd,
Was then of me approov'd, what not, condemd,
No more arraignment; the flowre that I would plucke
And put betweene my breasts (then but beginning
To swell about the blossome) oh, she would long
Till shee had such another, and commit it
To the like innocent Cradle, where Phenix like
They dide in perfume: on my head no toy
But was her patterne; her affections (pretty,
Though, happely, her careles were) I followed
For my most serious decking; had mine eare
Stolne some new aire, or at adventure humd on
From musicall Coynadge, why it was a note
Whereon her spirits would sojourne (rather dwell on)
And sing it in her slumbers.  This rehearsall
(Which ev'ry innocent wots well comes in
Like old importments bastard) has this end,
That the true love tweene Mayde, and mayde, may be
More then in sex idividuall.

HIPPOLITA.
Y'are out of breath
And this high speeded pace, is but to say
That you shall never like the Maide Flavina
Love any that's calld Man.

EMILIA.
I am sure I shall not.

HIPPOLITA.
Now, alacke, weake Sister,
I must no more beleeve thee in this point
(Though in't I know thou dost beleeve thy selfe,)
Then I will trust a sickely appetite,
That loathes even as it longs; but, sure, my Sister,
If I were ripe for your perswasion, you
Have saide enough to shake me from the Arme
Of the all noble Theseus, for whose fortunes
I will now in, and kneele with great assurance,
That we, more then his Pirothous, possesse
The high throne in his heart.

EMILIA.
I am not
Against your faith; yet I continew mine.  [Exeunt. Cornets.]

SCENE 4.  (A field before Thebes.  Dead bodies lying on the ground.)

[A Battaile strooke within: Then a Retrait: Florish.  Then
 Enter Theseus (victor), (Herald and Attendants:) the three
 Queenes meete him, and fall on their faces before him.]

1. QUEEN.
To thee no starre be darke.

2. QUEEN.
Both heaven and earth
Friend thee for ever.

3. QUEEN.
All the good that may
Be wishd upon thy head, I cry Amen too't.

THESEUS.
Th'imparciall Gods, who from the mounted heavens
View us their mortall Heard, behold who erre,
And in their time chastice: goe and finde out
The bones of your dead Lords, and honour them
With treble Ceremonie; rather then a gap
Should be in their deere rights, we would supply't.
But those we will depute, which shall invest
You in your dignities, and even each thing
Our hast does leave imperfect: So, adiew,
And heavens good eyes looke on you.  What are those?  [Exeunt
Queenes.]

HERALD.
Men of great quality, as may be judgd
By their appointment; Sone of Thebs have told's
They are Sisters children, Nephewes to the King.

THESEUS.
By'th Helme of Mars, I saw them in the war,
Like to a paire of Lions, smeard with prey,
Make lanes in troopes agast.  I fixt my note
Constantly on them; for they were a marke
Worth a god's view: what prisoner was't that told me
When I enquired their names?

HERALD.
Wi'leave, they'r called Arcite and Palamon.

THESEUS.
Tis right: those, those.  They are not dead?

HERALD.
Nor in a state of life: had they bin taken,
When their last hurts were given, twas possible  [3. Hearses
ready.]
They might have bin recovered; Yet they breathe
And haue the name of men.

THESEUS.
Then like men use 'em.
The very lees of such (millions of rates)
Exceede the wine of others: all our Surgions
Convent in their behoofe; our richest balmes
Rather then niggard, waft: their lives concerne us
Much more then Thebs is worth: rather then have 'em
Freed of this plight, and in their morning state
(Sound and at liberty) I would 'em dead;
But forty thousand fold we had rather have 'em
Prisoners to us then death.  Beare 'em speedily
From our kinde aire, to them unkinde, and minister
What man to man may doe—for our sake more,
Since I have knowne frights, fury, friends beheastes,
Loves provocations, zeale, a mistris Taske,
Desire of liberty, a feavour, madnes,
Hath set a marke which nature could not reach too
Without some imposition: sicknes in will
Or wrastling strength in reason.  For our Love
And great Appollos mercy, all our best
Their best skill tender.  Leade into the Citty,
Where having bound things scatterd, we will post  [Florish.]
To Athens for(e) our Army  [Exeunt.  Musicke.]

SCENE 5.  (Another part of the same.)

[Enter the Queenes with the Hearses of their Knightes, in a
 Funerall Solempnity, &c.]

Vrnes and odours bring away,
Vapours, sighes, darken the day;
Our dole more deadly lookes than dying;
Balmes, and Gummes, and heavy cheeres,
Sacred vials fill'd with teares,
And clamors through the wild ayre flying.

Come all sad and solempne Showes,
That are quick-eyd pleasures foes;
We convent nought else but woes.
We convent, &c.

3. QUEEN.
This funeral path brings to your housholds grave:
Ioy ceaze on you againe: peace sleepe with him.

2. QUEEN.
And this to yours.

1. QUEEN.
Yours this way: Heavens lend
A thousand differing waies to one sure end.

3. QUEEN.
This world's a Citty full of straying Streetes, And Death's the market
place, where each one meetes.  [Exeunt severally.]

ACT II

SCENE 1.  (Athens.  A garden, with a prison in the background.)

[Enter Iailor, and Wooer.]

IAILOR.
I may depart with little, while I live; some thing I may cast to you,
not much: Alas, the Prison I keepe, though it be for great ones, yet
they seldome come; Before one Salmon, you shall take a number of
Minnowes.  I am given out to be better lyn'd then it can appeare to me
report is a true Speaker: I would I were really that I am deliverd to
be.  Marry, what I have (be it what it will) I will assure upon my
daughter at the day of my death.

WOOER.
Sir, I demaund no more then your owne offer, and I will estate
your
Daughter in what I have promised.

IAILOR.
Wel, we will talke more of this, when the solemnity is past.  But have
you a full promise of her?  When that shall be seene, I tender my
consent.

[Enter Daughter.]

WOOER.
I have Sir; here shee comes.

IAILOR.
Your Friend and I have chanced to name you here, upon the old busines:
But no more of that now; so soone as the Court hurry is over, we will
have an end of it: I'th meane time looke tenderly to the two Prisoners.
 I can tell you they are princes.

DAUGHTER.
These strewings are for their Chamber; tis pitty they are in prison,
and twer pitty they should be out: I doe thinke they have patience to
make any adversity asham'd; the prison it selfe is proud of 'em; and
they have all the world in their Chamber.

IAILOR.
They are fam'd to be a paire of absolute men.

DAUGHTER.
By my troth, I think Fame but stammers 'em; they stand a greise above
the reach of report.

IAILOR.
I heard them reported in the Battaile to be the only doers.

DAUGHTER.
Nay, most likely, for they are noble suffrers; I mervaile how they
would have lookd had they beene Victors, that with such a constant
Nobility enforce a freedome out of Bondage, making misery their Mirth,
and affliction a toy to jest at.

IAILOR.
Doe they so?

DAUGHTER.
It seemes to me they have no more sence of their Captivity, then I of
ruling Athens: they eate well, looke merrily, discourse of many things,
but nothing of their owne restraint, and disasters: yet sometime a
devided sigh, martyrd as 'twer i'th deliverance, will breake from one
of them; when the other presently gives it so sweete a rebuke, that I
could wish my selfe a Sigh to be so chid, or at least a Sigher to be
comforted.

WOOER.
I never saw 'em.

IAILOR.
The Duke himselfe came privately in the night,

[Enter Palamon, and Arcite, above.]

and so did they: what the reason of it is, I know not: Looke, yonder
they are! that's Arcite lookes out.

DAUGHTER.
No, Sir, no, that's Palamon: Arcite is the lower of the twaine; you may
perceive a part of him.

IAILOR.
Goe too, leave your pointing; they would not make us their object; out
of their sight.

DAUGHTER.
It is a holliday to looke on them: Lord, the diffrence of men!
 [Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (The prison)

[Enter Palamon, and Arcite in prison.]

PALAMON.
How doe you, Noble Cosen?

ARCITE.
How doe you, Sir?

PALAMON.
Why strong inough to laugh at misery,
And beare the chance of warre, yet we are prisoners,
I feare, for ever, Cosen.

ARCITE.
I beleeve it,
And to that destiny have patiently
Laide up my houre to come.

PALAMON.
O Cosen Arcite,
Where is Thebs now? where is our noble Country?
Where are our friends, and kindreds? never more
Must we behold those comforts, never see
The hardy youthes strive for the Games of honour
(Hung with the painted favours of their Ladies,
Like tall Ships under saile) then start among'st 'em
And as an Eastwind leave 'en all behinde us,
Like lazy Clowdes, whilst Palamon and Arcite,
Even in the wagging of a wanton leg
Out-stript the peoples praises, won the Garlands,
Ere they have time to wish 'em ours.  O never
Shall we two exercise, like Twyns of honour,
Our Armes againe, and feele our fyry horses
Like proud Seas under us: our good Swords now
(Better the red-eyd god of war nev'r wore)
Ravishd our sides, like age must run to rust,
And decke the Temples of those gods that hate us:
These hands shall never draw'em out like lightning,
To blast whole Armies more.

ARCITE.
No, Palamon,
Those hopes are Prisoners with us; here we are
And here the graces of our youthes must wither
Like a too-timely Spring; here age must finde us,
And, which is heaviest, Palamon, unmarried;
The sweete embraces of a loving wife,
Loden with kisses, armd with thousand Cupids
Shall never claspe our neckes, no issue know us,
No figures of our selves shall we ev'r see,
To glad our age, and like young Eagles teach 'em
Boldly to gaze against bright armes, and say:
'Remember what your fathers were, and conquer.'
The faire-eyd Maides, shall weepe our Banishments,
And in their Songs, curse ever-blinded fortune,
Till shee for shame see what a wrong she has done
To youth and nature.  This is all our world;
We shall know nothing here but one another,
Heare nothing but the Clocke that tels our woes.
The Vine shall grow, but we shall never see it:
Sommer shall come, and with her all delights;
But dead-cold winter must inhabite here still.

PALAMON.
Tis too true, Arcite.  To our Theban houndes,
That shooke the aged Forrest with their ecchoes,
No more now must we halloa, no more shake
Our pointed Iavelyns, whilst the angry Swine
Flyes like a parthian quiver from our rages,
Strucke with our well-steeld Darts: All valiant uses
(The foode, and nourishment of noble mindes,)
In us two here shall perish; we shall die
(Which is the curse of honour) lastly
Children of greife, and Ignorance.

ARCITE.
Yet, Cosen,
Even from the bottom of these miseries,
From all that fortune can inflict upon us,
I see two comforts rysing, two meere blessings,
If the gods please: to hold here a brave patience,
And the enjoying of our greefes together.
Whilst Palamon is with me, let me perish
If I thinke this our prison.

PALAMON.
Certeinly,
Tis a maine goodnes, Cosen, that our fortunes
Were twyn'd together; tis most true, two soules
Put in two noble Bodies—let 'em suffer
The gaule of hazard, so they grow together—
Will never sincke; they must not, say they could:
A willing man dies sleeping, and all's done.

ARCITE.
Shall we make worthy uses of this place
That all men hate so much?

PALAMON.
How, gentle Cosen?

ARCITE.
Let's thinke this prison holy sanctuary,
To keepe us from corruption of worse men.
We are young and yet desire the waies of honour,
That liberty and common Conversation,
The poyson of pure spirits, might like women
Wooe us to wander from.  What worthy blessing
Can be but our Imaginations
May make it ours?  And heere being thus together,
We are an endles mine to one another;
We are one anothers wife, ever begetting
New birthes of love; we are father, friends, acquaintance;
We are, in one another, Families,
I am your heire, and you are mine: This place
Is our Inheritance, no hard Oppressour
Dare take this from us; here, with a little patience,
We shall live long, and loving: No surfeits seeke us:
The hand of war hurts none here, nor the Seas
Swallow their youth: were we at liberty,
A wife might part us lawfully, or busines;
Quarrels consume us, Envy of ill men
Grave our acquaintance; I might sicken, Cosen,
Where you should never know it, and so perish
Without your noble hand to close mine eies,
Or praiers to the gods: a thousand chaunces,
Were we from hence, would seaver us.

PALAMON.
You have made me
(I thanke you, Cosen Arcite) almost wanton
With my Captivity: what a misery
It is to live abroade, and every where!
Tis like a Beast, me thinkes: I finde the Court here—
I am sure, a more content; and all those pleasures
That wooe the wils of men to vanity,
I see through now, and am sufficient
To tell the world, tis but a gaudy shaddow,
That old Time, as he passes by, takes with him.
What had we bin, old in the Court of Creon,
Where sin is Iustice, lust and ignorance
The vertues of the great ones! Cosen Arcite,
Had not the loving gods found this place for us,
We had died as they doe, ill old men, unwept,
And had their Epitaphes, the peoples Curses:
Shall I say more?

ARCITE.
I would heare you still.

PALAMON.
Ye shall.
Is there record of any two that lov'd
Better then we doe, Arcite?

ARCITE.
Sure, there cannot.

PALAMON.
I doe not thinke it possible our friendship
Should ever leave us.

ARCITE.
Till our deathes it cannot;

[Enter Emilia and her woman (below).]

And after death our spirits shall be led
To those that love eternally.  Speake on, Sir.

EMILIA.
This garden has a world of pleasures in't.
What Flowre is this?

WOMAN.
Tis calld Narcissus, Madam.

EMILIA.
That was a faire Boy, certaine, but a foole,
To love himselfe; were there not maides enough?

ARCITE.
Pray forward.

PALAMON.
Yes.

EMILIA.
Or were they all hard hearted?

WOMAN.
They could not be to one so faire.

EMILIA.
Thou wouldst not.

WOMAN.
I thinke I should not, Madam.

EMILIA.
That's a good wench:
But take heede to your kindnes though.

WOMAN.
Why, Madam?

EMILIA.
Men are mad things.

ARCITE.
Will ye goe forward, Cosen?

EMILIA.
Canst not thou worke such flowers in silke, wench?

WOMAN.
Yes.

EMILIA.
Ile have a gowne full of 'em, and of these;
This is a pretty colour, wilt not doe
Rarely upon a Skirt, wench?

WOMAN.
Deinty, Madam.

ARCITE.
Cosen, Cosen, how doe you, Sir?  Why, Palamon?

PALAMON.
Never till now I was in prison, Arcite.

ARCITE.
Why whats the matter, Man?

PALAMON.
Behold, and wonder.
By heaven, shee is a Goddesse.

ARCITE.
Ha.

PALAMON.
Doe reverence.  She is a Goddesse, Arcite.

EMILIA.
Of all Flowres, me thinkes a Rose is best.

WOMAN.
Why, gentle Madam?

EMILIA.
It is the very Embleme of a Maide.
For when the west wind courts her gently,
How modestly she blowes, and paints the Sun,
With her chaste blushes!  When the North comes neere her,
Rude and impatient, then, like Chastity,
Shee lockes her beauties in her bud againe,
And leaves him to base briers.

WOMAN.
Yet, good Madam,
Sometimes her modesty will blow so far
She fals for't: a Mayde,
If shee have any honour, would be loth
To take example by her.

EMILIA.
Thou art wanton.

ARCITE.
She is wondrous faire.

PALAMON.
She is beauty extant.

EMILIA.
The Sun grows high, lets walk in: keep these flowers;
Weele see how neere Art can come neere their colours.
I am wondrous merry hearted, I could laugh now.

WOMAN.
I could lie downe, I am sure.

EMILIA.
And take one with you?

WOMAN.
That's as we bargaine, Madam.

EMILIA.
Well, agree then.  [Exeunt Emilia and woman.]

PALAMON.
What thinke you of this beauty?

ARCITE.
Tis a rare one.

PALAMON.
Is't but a rare one?

ARCITE.
Yes, a matchles beauty.

PALAMON.
Might not a man well lose himselfe and love her?

ARCITE.
I cannot tell what you have done, I have;
Beshrew mine eyes for't: now I feele my Shackles.

PALAMON.
You love her, then?

ARCITE.
Who would not?

PALAMON.
And desire her?

ARCITE.
Before my liberty.

PALAMON.
I saw her first.

ARCITE.
That's nothing.

PALAMON.
But it shall be.

ARCITE.
I saw her too.

PALAMON.
Yes, but you must not love her.

ARCITE.
I will not as you doe, to worship her,
As she is heavenly, and a blessed Goddes;
I love her as a woman, to enjoy her:
So both may love.

PALAMON.
You shall not love at all.

ARCITE.
Not love at all!
Who shall deny me?

PALAMON.
I, that first saw her; I, that tooke possession
First with mine eyes of all those beauties
In her reveald to mankinde: if thou lou'st her,
Or entertain'st a hope to blast my wishes,
Thou art a Traytour, Arcite, and a fellow
False as thy Title to her: friendship, blood,
And all the tyes betweene us I disclaime,
If thou once thinke upon her.

ARCITE.
Yes, I love her,
And if the lives of all my name lay on it,
I must doe so; I love her with my soule:
If that will lose ye, farewell, Palamon;
I say againe, I love, and in loving her maintaine
I am as worthy and as free a lover,
And have as just a title to her beauty
As any Palamon or any living
That is a mans Sonne.

PALAMON.
Have I cald thee friend?

ARCITE.
Yes, and have found me so; why are you mov'd thus?
Let me deale coldly with you: am not I
Part of your blood, part of your soule? you have told me
That I was Palamon, and you were Arcite.

PALAMON.
Yes.

ARCITE.
Am not I liable to those affections,
Those joyes, greifes, angers, feares, my friend shall suffer?

PALAMON.
Ye may be.

ARCITE.
Why, then, would you deale so cunningly,
So strangely, so vnlike a noble kinesman,
To love alone? speake truely: doe you thinke me
Vnworthy of her sight?

PALAMON.
No; but unjust,
If thou pursue that sight.

ARCITE.
Because an other
First sees the Enemy, shall I stand still
And let mine honour downe, and never charge?

PALAMON.
Yes, if he be but one.

ARCITE.
But say that one
Had rather combat me?

PALAMON.
Let that one say so,
And use thy freedome; els if thou pursuest her,
Be as that cursed man that hates his Country,
A branded villaine.

ARCITE.
You are mad.

PALAMON.
I must be,
Till thou art worthy, Arcite; it concernes me,
And in this madnes, if I hazard thee
And take thy life, I deale but truely.

ARCITE.
Fie, Sir,
You play the Childe extreamely: I will love her,
I must, I ought to doe so, and I dare;
And all this justly.

PALAMON.
O that now, that now
Thy false-selfe and thy friend had but this fortune,
To be one howre at liberty, and graspe
Our good Swords in our hands! I would quickly teach thee
What 'twer to filch affection from another:
Thou art baser in it then a Cutpurse;
Put but thy head out of this window more,
And as I have a soule, Ile naile thy life too't.

ARCITE.
Thou dar'st not, foole, thou canst not, thou art feeble.
Put my head out?  Ile throw my Body out,
And leape the garden, when I see her next

[Enter Keeper.]

And pitch between her armes to anger thee.

PALAMON.
No more; the keeper's comming; I shall live
To knocke thy braines out with my Shackles.

ARCITE.
Doe.

KEEPER.
By your leave, Gentlemen—

PALAMON.
Now, honest keeper?

KEEPER.
Lord Arcite, you must presently to'th Duke;
The cause I know not yet.

ARCITE.
I am ready, keeper.

KEEPER.
Prince Palamon, I must awhile bereave you
Of your faire Cosens Company.  [Exeunt Arcite, and Keeper.]

PALAMON.
And me too,
Even when you please, of life.  Why is he sent for?
It may be he shall marry her; he's goodly,
And like enough the Duke hath taken notice
Both of his blood and body: But his falsehood!
Why should a friend be treacherous?  If that
Get him a wife so noble, and so faire,
Let honest men ne're love againe.  Once more
I would but see this faire One.  Blessed Garden,
And fruite, and flowers more blessed, that still blossom
As her bright eies shine on ye! would I were,
For all the fortune of my life hereafter,
Yon little Tree, yon blooming Apricocke;
How I would spread, and fling my wanton armes
In at her window; I would bring her fruite
Fit for the Gods to feed on: youth and pleasure
Still as she tasted should be doubled on her,
And if she be not heavenly, I would make her
So neere the Gods in nature, they should feare her,

[Enter Keeper.]

And then I am sure she would love me.  How now, keeper.
Wher's Arcite?

KEEPER.
Banishd: Prince Pirithous
Obtained his liberty; but never more
Vpon his oth and life must he set foote
Vpon this Kingdome.

PALAMON.
Hees a blessed man!
He shall see Thebs againe, and call to Armes
The bold yong men, that, when he bids 'em charge,
Fall on like fire: Arcite shall have a Fortune,
If he dare make himselfe a worthy Lover,
Yet in the Feild to strike a battle for her;
And if he lose her then, he's a cold Coward;
How bravely may he beare himselfe to win her
If he be noble Arcite—thousand waies.
Were I at liberty, I would doe things
Of such a vertuous greatnes, that this Lady,
This blushing virgine, should take manhood to her
And seeke to ravish me.

KEEPER.
My Lord for you
I have this charge too—

PALAMON.
To discharge my life?

KEEPER.
No, but from this place to remoove your Lordship:
The windowes are too open.

PALAMON.
Devils take 'em,
That are so envious to me! pre'thee kill me.

KEEPER.
And hang for't afterward.

PALAMON.
By this good light,
Had I a sword I would kill thee.

KEEPER.
Why, my Lord?

PALAMON.
Thou bringst such pelting scuruy news continually
Thou art not worthy life.  I will not goe.

KEEPER.
Indeede, you must, my Lord.

PALAMON.
May I see the garden?

KEEPER.
Noe.

PALAMON.
Then I am resolud, I will not goe.

KEEPER.
I must constraine you then: and for you are dangerous,
Ile clap more yrons on you.

PALAMON.
Doe, good keeper.
Ile shake 'em so, ye shall not sleepe;
Ile make ye a new Morrisse: must I goe?

KEEPER.
There is no remedy.

PALAMON.
Farewell, kinde window.
May rude winde never hurt thee.  O, my Lady,
If ever thou hast felt what sorrow was,
Dreame how I suffer.  Come; now bury me.  [Exeunt Palamon, and
Keeper.]

SCENE 3.  (The country near Athens.

[Enter Arcite.]

ARCITE.
Banishd the kingdome? tis a benefit,
A mercy I must thanke 'em for, but banishd
The free enjoying of that face I die for,
Oh twas a studdied punishment, a death
Beyond Imagination: Such a vengeance
That, were I old and wicked, all my sins
Could never plucke upon me.  Palamon,
Thou ha'st the Start now, thou shalt stay and see
Her bright eyes breake each morning gainst thy window,
And let in life into thee; thou shalt feede
Vpon the sweetenes of a noble beauty,
That nature nev'r exceeded, nor nev'r shall:
Good gods! what happines has Palamon!
Twenty to one, hee'le come to speake to her,
And if she be as gentle as she's faire,
I know she's his; he has a Tongue will tame
Tempests, and make the wild Rockes wanton.
Come what can come,
The worst is death; I will not leave the Kingdome.
I know mine owne is but a heape of ruins,
And no redresse there; if I goe, he has her.
I am resolu'd an other shape shall make me,
Or end my fortunes.  Either way, I am happy:
Ile see her, and be neere her, or no more.

[Enter 4. Country people, & one with a garlond before them.]

1. COUNTREYMAN
My Masters, ile be there, that's certaine

2. COUNTREYMAN
And Ile be there.

3. COUNTREYMAN
And I.

4. COUNTREYMAN
Why, then, have with ye, Boyes; Tis but a chiding.
Let the plough play to day, ile tick'lt out
Of the Iades tailes to morrow.

1. COUNTREYMAN
I am sure
To have my wife as jealous as a Turkey:
But that's all one; ile goe through, let her mumble.

2. COUNTREYMAN
Clap her aboard to morrow night, and stoa her,
And all's made up againe.

3. COUNTREYMAN
I, doe but put a feskue in her fist, and you shall see her
Take a new lesson out, and be a good wench.
Doe we all hold against the Maying?

4. COUNTREYMAN
Hold? what should aile us?

3. COUNTREYMAN
Arcas will be there.

2. COUNTREYMAN
And Sennois.
And Rycas, and 3. better lads nev'r dancd
Under green Tree.  And yee know what wenches: ha?
But will the dainty Domine, the Schoolemaster,
Keep touch, doe you thinke? for he do's all, ye know.

3. COUNTREYMAN
Hee'l eate a hornebooke ere he faile: goe too, the matter's too farre
driven betweene him and the Tanners daughter, to let slip now, and she
must see the Duke, and she must daunce too.

4. COUNTREYMAN
Shall we be lusty?

2. COUNTREYMAN
All the Boyes in Athens blow wind i'th breech on's, and heere ile be
and there ile be, for our Towne, and here againe, and there againe: ha,
Boyes, heigh for the weavers.

1. COUNTREYMAN
This must be done i'th woods.

4. COUNTREYMAN
O, pardon me.

2. COUNTREYMAN
By any meanes, our thing of learning saies so:
Where he himselfe will edifie the Duke
Most parlously in our behalfes: hees excellent i'th woods;
Bring him to'th plaines, his learning makes no cry.

3. COUNTREYMAN
Weele see the sports, then; every man to's Tackle:
And, Sweete Companions, lets rehearse by any meanes,
Before the Ladies see us, and doe sweetly,
And God knows what May come on't.

4. COUNTREYMAN
Content; the sports once ended, wee'l performe.
Away, Boyes and hold.

ARCITE.
By your leaves, honest friends: pray you, whither goe you?

4. COUNTREYMAN
Whither? why, what a question's that?

ARCITE.
Yes, tis a question, to me that know not.

3. COUNTREYMAN
To the Games, my Friend.

2. COUNTREYMAN
Where were you bred, you know it not?

ARCITE.
Not farre, Sir,
Are there such Games to day?

1. COUNTREYMAN
Yes, marry, are there:
And such as you neuer saw; The Duke himselfe
Will be in person there.

ARCITE.
What pastimes are they?

2. COUNTREYMAN
Wrastling, and Running.—Tis a pretty Fellow.

3. COUNTREYMAN
Thou wilt not goe along?

ARCITE.
Not yet, Sir.

4. COUNTREYMAN
Well, Sir,
Take your owne time: come, Boyes.

1. COUNTREYMAN
My minde misgives me;
This fellow has a veng'ance tricke o'th hip:
Marke how his Bodi's made for't

2. COUNTREYMAN
Ile be hangd, though,
If he dare venture; hang him, plumb porredge,
He wrastle? he rost eggs! Come, lets be gon, Lads.  [Exeunt.]

ARCITE.
This is an offerd oportunity
I durst not wish for.  Well I could have wrestled,
The best men calld it excellent, and run—
Swifter the winde upon a feild of Corne
(Curling the wealthy eares) never flew: Ile venture,
And in some poore disguize be there; who knowes
Whether my browes may not be girt with garlands?
And happines preferre me to a place,
Where I may ever dwell in sight of her.  [Exit Arcite.]

SCENE 4.  (Athens.  A room in the prison.)

[Enter Iailors Daughter alone.]

DAUGHTER.
Why should I love this Gentleman?  Tis odds
He never will affect me; I am base,
My Father the meane Keeper of his Prison,
And he a prince: To marry him is hopelesse;
To be his whore is witles.  Out upon't,
What pushes are we wenches driven to,
When fifteene once has found us!  First, I saw him;
I (seeing) thought he was a goodly man;
He has as much to please a woman in him,
(If he please to bestow it so) as ever
These eyes yet lookt on.  Next, I pittied him,
And so would any young wench, o' my Conscience,
That ever dream'd, or vow'd her Maydenhead
To a yong hansom Man; Then I lov'd him,
Extreamely lov'd him, infinitely lov'd him;
And yet he had a Cosen, faire as he too.
But in my heart was Palamon, and there,
Lord, what a coyle he keepes!  To heare him
Sing in an evening, what a heaven it is!
And yet his Songs are sad ones.  Fairer spoken
Was never Gentleman.  When I come in
To bring him water in a morning, first
He bowes his noble body, then salutes me, thus:
'Faire, gentle Mayde, good morrow; may thy goodnes
Get thee a happy husband.'  Once he kist me.
I lov'd my lips the better ten daies after.
Would he would doe so ev'ry day!  He greives much,
And me as much to see his misery.
What should I doe, to make him know I love him?
For I would faine enjoy him.  Say I ventur'd
To set him free? what saies the law then?  Thus much
For Law, or kindred!  I will doe it,
And this night, or to morrow, he shall love me.  [Exit.]

SCENE 5.  (An open place in Athens.)

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Pirithous, Emilia: Arcite with a
Garland, &c.]

[This short florish of Cornets and Showtes within.]

THESEUS.
You have done worthily; I have not seene,
Since Hercules, a man of tougher synewes;
What ere you are, you run the best, and wrastle,
That these times can allow.

ARCITE.
I am proud to please you.

THESEUS.
What Countrie bred you?

ARCITE.
This; but far off, Prince.

THESEUS.
Are you a Gentleman?

ARCITE.
My father said so;
And to those gentle uses gave me life.

THESEUS.
Are you his heire?

ARCITE.
His yongest, Sir.

THESEUS.
Your Father
Sure is a happy Sire then: what prooves you?

ARCITE.
A little of all noble Quallities:
I could have kept a Hawke, and well have holloa'd
To a deepe crie of Dogges; I dare not praise
My feat in horsemanship, yet they that knew me
Would say it was my best peece: last, and greatest,
I would be thought a Souldier.

THESEUS.
You are perfect.

PERITHOUS.
Vpon my soule, a proper man.

EMILIA.
He is so.

PERITHOUS.
How doe you like him, Ladie?

HIPPOLITA.
I admire him;
I have not seene so yong a man so noble
(If he say true,) of his sort.

EMILIA.
Beleeve,
His mother was a wondrous handsome woman;
His face, me thinkes, goes that way.

HIPPOLITA.
But his Body
And firie minde illustrate a brave Father.

PERITHOUS.
Marke how his vertue, like a hidden Sun,
Breakes through his baser garments.

HIPPOLITA.
Hee's well got, sure.

THESEUS.
What made you seeke this place, Sir?

ARCITE.
Noble Theseus,
To purchase name, and doe my ablest service
To such a well-found wonder as thy worth,
For onely in thy Court, of all the world,
Dwells faire-eyd honor.

PERITHOUS.
All his words are worthy.

THESEUS.
Sir, we are much endebted to your travell,
Nor shall you loose your wish: Perithous,
Dispose of this faire Gentleman.

PERITHOUS.
Thankes, Theseus.
What ere you are y'ar mine, and I shall give you
To a most noble service, to this Lady,
This bright yong Virgin; pray, observe her goodnesse;
You have honourd hir faire birth-day with your vertues,
And as your due y'ar hirs: kisse her faire hand, Sir.

ARCITE.
Sir, y'ar a noble Giver: dearest Bewtie,
Thus let me seale my vowd faith: when your Servant
(Your most unworthie Creature) but offends you,
Command him die, he shall.

EMILIA.
That were too cruell.
If you deserve well, Sir, I shall soone see't:
Y'ar mine, and somewhat better than your rancke
Ile use you.

PERITHOUS.
Ile see you furnish'd, and because you say
You are a horseman, I must needs intreat you
This after noone to ride, but tis a rough one.

ARCITE.
I like him better, Prince, I shall not then
Freeze in my Saddle.

THESEUS.
Sweet, you must be readie,
And you, Emilia, and you, Friend, and all,
To morrow by the Sun, to doe observance
To flowry May, in Dians wood: waite well, Sir,
Vpon your Mistris.  Emely, I hope
He shall not goe a foote.

EMILIA.
That were a shame, Sir,
While I have horses: take your choice, and what
You want at any time, let me but know it;
If you serve faithfully, I dare assure you
You'l finde a loving Mistris.

ARCITE.
If I doe not,
Let me finde that my Father ever hated,
Disgrace and blowes.

THESEUS.
Go, leade the way; you have won it:
It shall be so; you shall receave all dues
Fit for the honour you have won; Twer wrong else.
Sister, beshrew my heart, you have a Servant,
That, if I were a woman, would be Master,
But you are wise.  [Florish.]

EMILIA.
I hope too wise for that, Sir.  [Exeunt omnes.]

SCENE 6.  (Before the prison.)

[Enter Iaylors Daughter alone.]

DAUGHTER.
Let all the Dukes, and all the divells rore,
He is at liberty: I have venturd for him,
And out I have brought him to a little wood
A mile hence.  I have sent him, where a Cedar,
Higher than all the rest, spreads like a plane
Fast by a Brooke, and there he shall keepe close,
Till I provide him Fyles and foode, for yet
His yron bracelets are not off.  O Love,
What a stout hearted child thou art!  My Father
Durst better have indur'd cold yron, than done it:
I love him beyond love and beyond reason,
Or wit, or safetie: I have made him know it.
I care not, I am desperate; If the law
Finde me, and then condemne me for't, some wenches,
Some honest harted Maides, will sing my Dirge,
And tell to memory my death was noble,
Dying almost a Martyr: That way he takes,
I purpose is my way too: Sure he cannot
Be so unmanly, as to leave me here;
If he doe, Maides will not so easily
Trust men againe: And yet he has not thank'd me
For what I have done: no not so much as kist me,
And that (me thinkes) is not so well; nor scarcely
Could I perswade him to become a Freeman,
He made such scruples of the wrong he did
To me, and to my Father.  Yet I hope,
When he considers more, this love of mine
Will take more root within him: Let him doe
What he will with me, so he use me kindly;
For use me so he shall, or ile proclaime him,
And to his face, no man.  Ile presently
Provide him necessaries, and packe my cloathes up,
And where there is a patch of ground Ile venture,
So hee be with me; By him, like a shadow,
Ile ever dwell; within this houre the whoobub
Will be all ore the prison: I am then
Kissing the man they looke for: farewell, Father;
Get many more such prisoners and such daughters,
And shortly you may keepe your selfe.  Now to him!

ACT III

SCENE 1.  (A forest near Athens.)

[Cornets in sundry places.  Noise and hallowing as people a
Maying.]

[Enter Arcite alone.]

ARCITE.
The Duke has lost Hypolita; each tooke
A severall land.  This is a solemne Right
They owe bloomd May, and the Athenians pay it
To'th heart of Ceremony.  O Queene Emilia,
Fresher then May, sweeter
Then hir gold Buttons on the bowes, or all
Th'enamelld knackes o'th Meade or garden: yea,
We challenge too the bancke of any Nymph
That makes the streame seeme flowers; thou, o Iewell
O'th wood, o'th world, hast likewise blest a place
With thy sole presence: in thy rumination
That I, poore man, might eftsoones come betweene
And chop on some cold thought! thrice blessed chance,
To drop on such a Mistris, expectation
Most giltlesse on't! tell me, O Lady Fortune,
(Next after Emely my Soveraigne) how far
I may be prowd.  She takes strong note of me,
Hath made me neere her; and this beuteous Morne
(The prim'st of all the yeare) presents me with
A brace of horses: two such Steeds might well
Be by a paire of Kings backt, in a Field
That their crownes titles tride.  Alas, alas,
Poore Cosen Palamon, poore prisoner, thou
So little dream'st upon my fortune, that
Thou thinkst thy selfe the happier thing, to be
So neare Emilia; me thou deem'st at Thebs,
And therein wretched, although free.  But if
Thou knew'st my Mistris breathd on me, and that
I ear'd her language, livde in her eye, O Coz,
What passion would enclose thee!

[Enter Palamon as out of a Bush, with his Shackles: bends his fist at
Arcite.]

PALAMON.
Traytor kinesman,
Thou shouldst perceive my passion, if these signes
Of prisonment were off me, and this hand
But owner of a Sword: By all othes in one,
I and the iustice of my love would make thee
A confest Traytor.  O thou most perfidious
That ever gently lookd; the voydest of honour,
That eu'r bore gentle Token; falsest Cosen
That ever blood made kin, call'st thou hir thine?
Ile prove it in my Shackles, with these hands,
Void of appointment, that thou ly'st, and art
A very theefe in love, a Chaffy Lord,
Nor worth the name of villaine: had I a Sword
And these house clogges away—

ARCITE.
Deere Cosin Palamon—

PALAMON.
Cosoner Arcite, give me language such
As thou hast shewd me feate.

ARCITE.
Not finding in
The circuit of my breast any grosse stuffe
To forme me like your blazon, holds me to
This gentlenesse of answer; tis your passion
That thus mistakes, the which to you being enemy,
Cannot to me be kind: honor, and honestie
I cherish, and depend on, how so ev'r
You skip them in me, and with them, faire Coz,
Ile maintaine my proceedings; pray, be pleas'd
To shew in generous termes your griefes, since that
Your question's with your equall, who professes
To cleare his owne way with the minde and Sword
Of a true Gentleman.

PALAMON.
That thou durst, Arcite!

ARCITE.
My Coz, my Coz, you have beene well advertis'd
How much I dare, y'ave seene me use my Sword
Against th'advice of feare: sure, of another
You would not heare me doubted, but your silence
Should breake out, though i'th Sanctuary.

PALAMON.
Sir,
I have seene you move in such a place, which well
Might justifie your manhood; you were calld
A good knight and a bold; But the whole weeke's not faire,
If any day it rayne: Their valiant temper
Men loose when they encline to trecherie,
And then they fight like coupelld Beares, would fly
Were they not tyde.

ARCITE.
Kinsman, you might as well
Speake this and act it in your Glasse, as to
His eare which now disdaines you.

PALAMON.
Come up to me,
Quit me of these cold Gyves, give me a Sword,
Though it be rustie, and the charity
Of one meale lend me; Come before me then,
A good Sword in thy hand, and doe but say
That Emily is thine: I will forgive
The trespasse thou hast done me, yea, my life,
If then thou carry't, and brave soules in shades
That have dyde manly, which will seeke of me
Some newes from earth, they shall get none but this,
That thou art brave and noble.

ARCITE.
Be content:
Againe betake you to your hawthorne house;
With counsaile of the night, I will be here
With wholesome viands; these impediments
Will I file off; you shall have garments and
Perfumes to kill the smell o'th prison; after,
When you shall stretch your selfe and say but, 'Arcite,
I am in plight,' there shall be at your choyce
Both Sword and Armour.

PALAMON.
Oh you heavens, dares any
So noble beare a guilty busines! none
But onely Arcite, therefore none but Arcite
In this kinde is so bold.

ARCITE.
Sweete Palamon.

PALAMON.
I doe embrace you and your offer,—for
Your offer doo't I onely, Sir; your person,
Without hipocrisy I may not wish  [Winde hornes of Cornets.]
More then my Swords edge ont.

ARCITE.
You heare the Hornes;
Enter your Musite least this match between's
Be crost, er met: give me your hand; farewell.
Ile bring you every needfull thing: I pray you,
Take comfort and be strong.

PALAMON.
Pray hold your promise;
And doe the deede with a bent brow: most certaine
You love me not, be rough with me, and powre
This oile out of your language; by this ayre,
I could for each word give a Cuffe, my stomach
Not reconcild by reason.

ARCITE.
Plainely spoken,
Yet pardon me hard language: when I spur  [Winde hornes.]
My horse, I chide him not; content and anger
In me have but one face.  Harke, Sir, they call
The scatterd to the Banket; you must guesse
I have an office there.

PALAMON.
Sir, your attendance
Cannot please heaven, and I know your office
Vnjustly is atcheev'd.

ARCITE.
If a good title,
I am perswaded this question sicke between's
By bleeding must be cur'd.  I am a Suitour,
That to your Sword you will bequeath this plea
And talke of it no more.

PALAMON.
But this one word:
You are going now to gaze upon my Mistris,
For note you, mine she is—

ARCITE.
Nay, then.

PALAMON.
Nay, pray you,
You talke of feeding me to breed me strength:
You are going now to looke upon a Sun
That strengthens what it lookes on; there
You have a vantage ore me, but enjoy't till
I may enforce my remedy.  Farewell.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (Another Part of the forest.)

[Enter Iaylors daughter alone.]

DAUGHTER.
He has mistooke the Brake I meant, is gone
After his fancy.  Tis now welnigh morning;
No matter, would it were perpetuall night,
And darkenes Lord o'th world.  Harke, tis a woolfe:
In me hath greife slaine feare, and but for one thing
I care for nothing, and that's Palamon.
I wreake not if the wolves would jaw me, so
He had this File: what if I hallowd for him?
I cannot hallow: if I whoop'd, what then?
If he not answeard, I should call a wolfe,
And doe him but that service.  I have heard
Strange howles this live-long night, why may't not be
They have made prey of him? he has no weapons,
He cannot run, the Iengling of his Gives
Might call fell things to listen, who have in them
A sence to know a man unarmd, and can
Smell where resistance is.  Ile set it downe
He's torne to peeces; they howld many together
And then they fed on him: So much for that,
Be bold to ring the Bell; how stand I then?
All's char'd when he is gone.  No, no, I lye,
My Father's to be hang'd for his escape;
My selfe to beg, if I prizd life so much
As to deny my act, but that I would not,
Should I try death by dussons.—I am mop't,
Food tooke I none these two daies,
Sipt some water.  I have not closd mine eyes
Save when my lids scowrd off their brine; alas,
Dissolue my life, Let not my sence unsettle,
Least I should drowne, or stab or hang my selfe.
O state of Nature, faile together in me,
Since thy best props are warpt! So, which way now?
The best way is the next way to a grave:
Each errant step beside is torment.  Loe,
The Moone is down, the Cryckets chirpe, the Schreichowle
Calls in the dawne; all offices are done
Save what I faile in: But the point is this,
An end, and that is all.  [Exit.]

SCENE 3.  (Same as Scene I.)

[Enter Arcite, with Meate, Wine, and Files.]

ARCITE.
I should be neere the place: hoa, Cosen Palamon.  [Enter
Palamon.]

PALAMON.
Arcite?

ARCITE.
The same: I have brought you foode and files.
Come forth and feare not, here's no Theseus.

PALAMON.
Nor none so honest, Arcite.

ARCITE.
That's no matter,
Wee'l argue that hereafter: Come, take courage;
You shall not dye thus beastly: here, Sir, drinke;
I know you are faint: then ile talke further with you.

PALAMON.
Arcite, thou mightst now poyson me.

ARCITE.
I might,
But I must feare you first: Sit downe, and, good, now
No more of these vaine parlies; let us not,
Having our ancient reputation with us,
Make talke for Fooles and Cowards.  To your health, &c.

PALAMON.
Doe.

ARCITE.
Pray, sit downe then; and let me entreate you,
By all the honesty and honour in you,
No mention of this woman: t'will disturbe us;
We shall have time enough.

PALAMON.
Well, Sir, Ile pledge you.

ARCITE.
Drinke a good hearty draught; it breeds good blood, man.
Doe not you feele it thaw you?

PALAMON.
Stay, Ile tell you after a draught or two more.

ARCITE.
Spare it not, the Duke has more, Cuz: Eate now.

PALAMON.
Yes.

ARCITE.
I am glad you have so good a stomach.

PALAMON.
I am gladder I have so good meate too't.

ARCITE.
Is't not mad lodging here in the wild woods, Cosen?

PALAMON.
Yes, for them that have wilde Consciences.

ARCITE.
How tasts your vittails? your hunger needs no sawce, I see.

PALAMON.
Not much;
But if it did, yours is too tart, sweete Cosen: what is this?

ARCITE.
Venison.

PALAMON.
Tis a lusty meate:
Giue me more wine; here, Arcite, to the wenches
We have known in our daies.  The Lord Stewards daughter,
Doe you remember her?

ARCITE.
After you, Cuz.

PALAMON.
She lov'd a black-haird man.

ARCITE.
She did so; well, Sir.

PALAMON.
And I have heard some call him Arcite, and—

ARCITE.
Out with't, faith.

PALAMON.
She met him in an Arbour:
What did she there, Cuz? play o'th virginals?

ARCITE.
Something she did, Sir.

PALAMON.
Made her groane a moneth for't, or 2. or 3. or 10.

ARCITE.
The Marshals Sister
Had her share too, as I remember, Cosen,
Else there be tales abroade; you'l pledge her?

PALAMON.
Yes.

ARCITE.
A pretty broune wench t'is.  There was a time
When yong men went a hunting, and a wood,
And a broade Beech: and thereby hangs a tale:—heigh ho!

PALAMON.
For Emily, upon my life!  Foole,
Away with this straind mirth; I say againe,
That sigh was breathd for Emily; base Cosen,
Dar'st thou breake first?

ARCITE.
You are wide.

PALAMON.
By heaven and earth, ther's nothing in thee honest.

ARCITE.
Then Ile leave you: you are a Beast now.

PALAMON.
As thou makst me, Traytour.

ARCITE.
Ther's all things needfull, files and shirts, and perfumes:
Ile come againe some two howres hence, and bring
That that shall quiet all,

PALAMON.
A Sword and Armour?

ARCITE.
Feare me not; you are now too fowle; farewell.
Get off your Trinkets; you shall want nought.

PALAMON.
Sir, ha—

ARCITE.
Ile heare no more.  [Exit.]

PALAMON.
If he keepe touch, he dies for't.  [Exit.]

SCENE 4.  (Another part of the forest.)

[Enter Iaylors daughter.]

DAUGHTER.
I am very cold, and all the Stars are out too,
The little Stars, and all, that looke like aglets:
The Sun has seene my Folly.  Palamon!
Alas no; hees in heaven.  Where am I now?
Yonder's the sea, and ther's a Ship; how't tumbles!
And ther's a Rocke lies watching under water;
Now, now, it beates upon it; now, now, now,
Ther's a leak sprung, a sound one, how they cry!
Spoon her before the winde, you'l loose all els:
Vp with a course or two, and take about, Boyes.
Good night, good night, y'ar gone.—I am very hungry.
Would I could finde a fine Frog; he would tell me
Newes from all parts o'th world, then would I make
A Carecke of a Cockle shell, and sayle
By east and North East to the King of Pigmes,
For he tels fortunes rarely.  Now my Father,
Twenty to one, is trust up in a trice
To morrow morning; Ile say never a word.

[Sing.]

For ile cut my greene coat a foote above my knee, And ile clip my
yellow lockes an inch below mine eie. hey, nonny, nonny, nonny, He's
buy me a white Cut, forth for to ride And ile goe seeke him, throw the
world that is so wide hey nonny, nonny, nonny.

O for a pricke now like a Nightingale,
To put my breast against.  I shall sleepe like a Top else.
[Exit.]

SCENE 5.  (Another part of the forest.)

[Enter a Schoole master, 4. Countrymen, and Bavian. 2. or 3. wenches,
with a Taborer.]

SCHOOLMASTER.
Fy, fy, what tediosity, & disensanity is here among ye? have my
Rudiments bin labourd so long with ye? milkd unto ye, and by a figure
even the very plumbroth & marrow of my understanding laid upon ye? and
do you still cry: where, and how, & wherfore? you most course freeze
capacities, ye jane Iudgements, have I saide: thus let be, and there
let be, and then let be, and no man understand mee?  Proh deum, medius
fidius, ye are all dunces!  For why, here stand I, Here the Duke comes,
there are you close in the Thicket; the Duke appeares, I meete him and
unto him I utter learned things and many figures; he heares, and nods,
and hums, and then cries: rare, and I goe forward; at length I fling my
Cap up; marke there; then do you, as once did Meleager and the Bore,
break comly out before him: like true lovers, cast your selves in a
Body decently, and sweetly, by a figure trace and turne, Boyes.

1. COUNTREYMAN.
And sweetly we will doe it Master Gerrold.

2. COUNTREYMAN.
Draw up the Company.  Where's the Taborour?

3. COUNTREYMAN.
Why, Timothy!

TABORER.
Here, my mad boyes, have at ye.

SCHOOLMASTER.
But I say, where's their women?

4. COUNTREYMAN.
Here's Friz and Maudline.

2. COUNTREYMAN.
And little Luce with the white legs, and bouncing Barbery.

1. COUNTREYMAN.
And freckeled Nel, that never faild her Master.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Wher be your Ribands, maids? swym with your Bodies
And carry it sweetly, and deliverly
And now and then a fauour, and a friske.

NEL.
Let us alone, Sir.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Wher's the rest o'th Musicke?

3. COUNTREYMAN.
Dispersd as you commanded.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Couple, then,
And see what's wanting; wher's the Bavian?
My friend, carry your taile without offence
Or scandall to the Ladies; and be sure
You tumble with audacity and manhood;
And when you barke, doe it with judgement.

BAVIAN.
Yes, Sir.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Quo usque tandem?  Here is a woman wanting.

4. COUNTREYMAN.
We may goe whistle: all the fat's i'th fire.

SCHOOLMASTER.
We have,
As learned Authours utter, washd a Tile,
We have beene FATUUS, and laboured vainely.

2. COUNTREYMAN.
This is that scornefull peece, that scurvy hilding,
That gave her promise faithfully, she would be here,
Cicely the Sempsters daughter:
The next gloves that I give her shall be dog skin;
Nay and she faile me once—you can tell, Arcas,
She swore by wine and bread, she would not breake.

SCHOOLMASTER.
An Eele and woman,
A learned Poet sayes, unles by'th taile
And with thy teeth thou hold, will either faile.
In manners this was false position

1. COUNTREYMAN.
A fire ill take her; do's she flinch now?

3. COUNTREYMAN.
What
Shall we determine, Sir?

SCHOOLMASTER.
Nothing.
Our busines is become a nullity;
Yea, and a woefull, and a pittious nullity.

4. COUNTREYMAN.
Now when the credite of our Towne lay on it,
Now to be frampall, now to pisse o'th nettle!
Goe thy waies; ile remember thee, ile fit thee.

[Enter Iaylors daughter.]

DAUGHTER.
[Sings.]

The George alow came from the South,
From the coast of Barbary a.
And there he met with brave gallants of war
By one, by two, by three, a.

Well haild, well haild, you jolly gallants,
And whither now are you bound a?
O let me have your company  [Chaire and stooles out.]
Till (I) come to the sound a.

There was three fooles, fell out about an howlet:
The one sed it was an owle,
The other he sed nay,
The third he sed it was a hawke,
And her bels wer cut away.

3. COUNTREYMAN.
Ther's a dainty mad woman M(aiste)r
Comes i'th Nick, as mad as a march hare:
If wee can get her daunce, wee are made againe:
I warrant her, shee'l doe the rarest gambols.

1. COUNTREYMAN.
A mad woman? we are made, Boyes.

SCHOOLMASTER.
And are you mad, good woman?

DAUGHTER.
I would be sorry else;
Give me your hand.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Why?

DAUGHTER.
I can tell your fortune.
You are a foole: tell ten.  I have pozd him: Buz!
Friend you must eate no whitebread; if you doe,
Your teeth will bleede extreamely.  Shall we dance, ho?
I know you, y'ar a Tinker: Sirha Tinker,
Stop no more holes, but what you should.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Dij boni.  A Tinker, Damzell?

DAUGHTER.
Or a Conjurer:
Raise me a devill now, and let him play
Quipassa o'th bels and bones.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Goe, take her,
And fluently perswade her to a peace:
Et opus exegi, quod nec Iouis ira, nec ignis.
Strike up, and leade her in.

2. COUNTREYMAN.
Come, Lasse, lets trip it.

DAUGHTER.
Ile leade.  [Winde Hornes.]

3. COUNTREYMAN.
Doe, doe.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Perswasively, and cunningly: away, boyes,  [Ex. all but
Schoolemaster.]
I heare the hornes: give me some meditation,
And marke your Cue.—Pallas inspire me.

[Enter Thes. Pir. Hip. Emil. Arcite, and traine.]

THESEUS.
This way the Stag tooke.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Stay, and edifie.

THESEUS.
What have we here?

PERITHOUS.
Some Countrey sport, upon my life, Sir.

THESEUS.
Well, Sir, goe forward, we will edifie.
Ladies, sit downe, wee'l stay it.

SCHOOLMASTER.
Thou, doughtie Duke, all haile: all haile, sweet Ladies.

THESEUS.
This is a cold beginning.

SCHOOLMASTER.
If you but favour, our Country pastime made is.
We are a few of those collected here,
That ruder Tongues distinguish villager;
And to say veritie, and not to fable,
We are a merry rout, or else a rable,
Or company, or, by a figure, Choris,
That fore thy dignitie will dance a Morris.
And I, that am the rectifier of all,
By title Pedagogus, that let fall
The Birch upon the breeches of the small ones,
And humble with a Ferula the tall ones,
Doe here present this Machine, or this frame:
And daintie Duke, whose doughtie dismall fame
From Dis to Dedalus, from post to pillar,
Is blowne abroad, helpe me thy poore well willer,
And with thy twinckling eyes looke right and straight
Vpon this mighty MORR—of mickle waight;
IS now comes in, which being glewd together,
Makes MORRIS, and the cause that we came hether.
The body of our sport, of no small study,
I first appeare, though rude, and raw, and muddy,
To speake before thy noble grace this tenner:
At whose great feete I offer up my penner.
The next the Lord of May and Lady bright,
The Chambermaid and Servingman by night
That seeke out silent hanging: Then mine Host
And his fat Spowse, that welcomes to their cost
The gauled Traveller, and with a beckning
Informes the Tapster to inflame the reckning:
Then the beast eating Clowne, and next the foole,
The Bavian, with long tayle and eke long toole,
Cum multis alijs that make a dance:
Say 'I,' and all shall presently advance.

THESEUS.
I, I, by any meanes, deere Domine.

PERITHOUS.
Produce.

(SCHOOLMASTER.)
Intrate, filij; Come forth, and foot it.—

[Musicke, Dance.  Knocke for Schoole.]

[Enter the Dance.]

Ladies, if we have beene merry,
And have pleasd yee with a derry,
And a derry, and a downe,
Say the Schoolemaster's no Clowne:
Duke, if we have pleasd thee too,
And have done as good Boyes should doe,
Give us but a tree or twaine
For a Maypole, and againe,
Ere another yeare run out,
Wee'l make thee laugh and all this rout.

THESEUS.
Take 20., Domine; how does my sweet heart?

HIPPOLITA.
Never so pleasd, Sir.

EMILIA.
Twas an excellent dance, and for a preface
I never heard a better.

THESEUS.
Schoolemaster, I thanke you.—One see'em all rewarded.

PERITHOUS.
And heer's something to paint your Pole withall.

THESEUS.
Now to our sports againe.

SCHOOLMASTER.
May the Stag thou huntst stand long,
And thy dogs be swift and strong:
May they kill him without lets,
And the Ladies eate his dowsets!
Come, we are all made.  [Winde Hornes.]
Dij Deoeq(ue) omnes, ye have danc'd rarely, wenches.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 6.  (Same as Scene III.)

[Enter Palamon from the Bush.]

PALAMON.
About this houre my Cosen gave his faith
To visit me againe, and with him bring
Two Swords, and two good Armors; if he faile,
He's neither man nor Souldier.  When he left me,
I did not thinke a weeke could have restord
My lost strength to me, I was growne so low,
And Crest-falne with my wants: I thanke thee, Arcite,
Thou art yet a faire Foe; and I feele my selfe
With this refreshing, able once againe
To out dure danger: To delay it longer
Would make the world think, when it comes to hearing,
That I lay fatting like a Swine to fight,
And not a Souldier: Therefore, this blest morning
Shall be the last; and that Sword he refuses,
If it but hold, I kill him with; tis Iustice:
So love, and Fortune for me!—O, good morrow.

[Enter Arcite with Armors and Swords.]

ARCITE.
Good morrow, noble kinesman.

PALAMON.
I have put you to too much paines, Sir.

ARCITE.
That too much, faire Cosen,
Is but a debt to honour, and my duty.

PALAMON.
Would you were so in all, Sir; I could wish ye
As kinde a kinsman, as you force me finde
A beneficiall foe, that my embraces
Might thanke ye, not my blowes.

ARCITE.
I shall thinke either, well done,
A noble recompence.

PALAMON.
Then I shall quit you.

ARCITE.
Defy me in these faire termes, and you show
More then a Mistris to me, no more anger
As you love any thing that's honourable:
We were not bred to talke, man; when we are arm'd
And both upon our guards, then let our fury,
Like meeting of two tides, fly strongly from us,
And then to whom the birthright of this Beauty
Truely pertaines (without obbraidings, scornes,
Dispisings of our persons, and such powtings,
Fitter for Girles and Schooleboyes) will be seene
And quickly, yours, or mine: wilt please you arme, Sir,
Or if you feele your selfe not fitting yet
And furnishd with your old strength, ile stay, Cosen,
And ev'ry day discourse you into health,
As I am spard: your person I am friends with,
And I could wish I had not saide I lov'd her,
Though I had dide; But loving such a Lady
And justifying my Love, I must not fly from't.

PALAMON.
Arcite, thou art so brave an enemy,
That no man but thy Cosen's fit to kill thee:
I am well and lusty, choose your Armes.

ARCITE.
Choose you, Sir.

PALAMON.
Wilt thou exceede in all, or do'st thou doe it
To make me spare thee?

ARCITE.
If you thinke so, Cosen,
You are deceived, for as I am a Soldier,
I will not spare you.

PALAMON.
That's well said.

ARCITE.
You'l finde it.

PALAMON.
Then, as I am an honest man and love
With all the justice of affection,
Ile pay thee soundly.  This ile take.

ARCITE.
That's mine, then;
Ile arme you first.

PALAMON.
Do: pray thee, tell me, Cosen,
Where gotst thou this good Armour?

ARCITE.
Tis the Dukes,
And to say true, I stole it; doe I pinch you?

PALAMON.
Noe.

ARCITE.
Is't not too heavie?

PALAMON.
I have worne a lighter,
But I shall make it serve.

ARCITE.
Ile buckl't close.

PALAMON.
By any meanes.

ARCITE.
You care not for a Grand guard?

PALAMON.
No, no; wee'l use no horses: I perceave
You would faine be at that Fight.

ARCITE.
I am indifferent.

PALAMON.
Faith, so am I: good Cosen, thrust the buckle
Through far enough.

ARCITE.
I warrant you.

PALAMON.
My Caske now.

ARCITE.
Will you fight bare-armd?

PALAMON.
We shall be the nimbler.

ARCITE.
But use your Gauntlets though; those are o'th least,
Prethee take mine, good Cosen.

PALAMON.
Thanke you, Arcite.
How doe I looke? am I falne much away?

ARCITE.
Faith, very little; love has usd you kindly.

PALAMON.
Ile warrant thee, Ile strike home.

ARCITE.
Doe, and spare not;
Ile give you cause, sweet Cosen.

PALAMON.
Now to you, Sir:
Me thinkes this Armor's very like that, Arcite,
Thou wor'st the day the 3. Kings fell, but lighter.

ARCITE.
That was a very good one; and that day,
I well remember, you outdid me, Cosen.
I never saw such valour: when you chargd
Vpon the left wing of the Enemie,
I spurd hard to come up, and under me
I had a right good horse.

PALAMON.
You had indeede; a bright Bay, I remember.

ARCITE.
Yes, but all
Was vainely labour'd in me; you outwent me,
Nor could my wishes reach you; yet a little
I did by imitation.

PALAMON.
More by vertue;
You are modest, Cosen.

ARCITE.
When I saw you charge first,
Me thought I heard a dreadfull clap of Thunder
Breake from the Troope.

PALAMON.
But still before that flew
The lightning of your valour.  Stay a little,
Is not this peece too streight?

ARCITE.
No, no, tis well.

PALAMON.
I would have nothing hurt thee but my Sword,
A bruise would be dishonour.

ARCITE.
Now I am perfect.

PALAMON.
Stand off, then.

ARCITE.
Take my Sword, I hold it better.

PALAMON.
I thanke ye: No, keepe it; your life lyes on it.
Here's one; if it but hold, I aske no more
For all my hopes: My Cause and honour guard me!  [They bow
 severall wayes: then advance and stand.]

ARCITE.
And me my love!  Is there ought else to say?

PALAMON.
This onely, and no more: Thou art mine Aunts Son,
And that blood we desire to shed is mutuall;
In me, thine, and in thee, mine.  My Sword
Is in my hand, and if thou killst me,
The gods and I forgive thee; If there be
A place prepar'd for those that sleepe in honour,
I wish his wearie soule that falls may win it:
Fight bravely, Cosen; give me thy noble hand.

ARCITE.
Here, Palamon: This hand shall never more
Come neare thee with such friendship.

PALAMON.
I commend thee.

ARCITE.
If I fall, curse me, and say I was a coward,
For none but such dare die in these just Tryalls.
Once more farewell, my Cosen.

PALAMON.
Farewell, Arcite.  [Fight.]

[Hornes within: they stand.]

ARCITE.
Loe, Cosen, loe, our Folly has undon us.

PALAMON.
Why?

ARCITE.
This is the Duke, a hunting as I told you.
If we be found, we are wretched.  O retire
For honours sake, and safety presently
Into your Bush agen; Sir, we shall finde
Too many howres to dye in: gentle Cosen,
If you be seene you perish instantly
For breaking prison, and I, if you reveale me,
For my contempt.  Then all the world will scorne us,
And say we had a noble difference,
But base disposers of it.

PALAMON.
No, no, Cosen,
I will no more be hidden, nor put off
This great adventure to a second Tryall:
I know your cunning, and I know your cause;
He that faints now, shame take him: put thy selfe
Vpon thy present guard—

ARCITE.
You are not mad?

PALAMON.
Or I will make th'advantage of this howre
Mine owne, and what to come shall threaten me,
I feare lesse then my fortune: know, weake Cosen,
I love Emilia, and in that ile bury
Thee, and all crosses else.

ARCITE.
Then, come what can come,
Thou shalt know, Palamon, I dare as well
Die, as discourse, or sleepe: Onely this feares me,
The law will have the honour of our ends.
Have at thy life.

PALAMON.
Looke to thine owne well, Arcite.  [Fight againe.  Hornes.]

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Emilia, Perithous and traine.]

THESEUS.
What ignorant and mad malicious Traitors,
Are you, That gainst the tenor of my Lawes
Are making Battaile, thus like Knights appointed,
Without my leave, and Officers of Armes?
By Castor, both shall dye.

PALAMON.
Hold thy word, Theseus.
We are certainly both Traitors, both despisers
Of thee and of thy goodnesse: I am Palamon,
That cannot love thee, he that broke thy Prison;
Thinke well what that deserves: and this is Arcite,
A bolder Traytor never trod thy ground,
A Falser neu'r seem'd friend: This is the man
Was begd and banish'd; this is he contemnes thee
And what thou dar'st doe, and in this disguise
Against thy owne Edict followes thy Sister,
That fortunate bright Star, the faire Emilia,
Whose servant, (if there be a right in seeing,
And first bequeathing of the soule to) justly
I am, and, which is more, dares thinke her his.
This treacherie, like a most trusty Lover,
I call'd him now to answer; if thou bee'st,
As thou art spoken, great and vertuous,
The true descider of all injuries,
Say, 'Fight againe,' and thou shalt see me, Theseus,
Doe such a Iustice, thou thy selfe wilt envie.
Then take my life; Ile wooe thee too't.

PERITHOUS.
O heaven,
What more then man is this!

THESEUS.
I have sworne.

ARCITE.
We seeke not
Thy breath of mercy, Theseus.  Tis to me
A thing as soone to dye, as thee to say it,
And no more mov'd: where this man calls me Traitor,
Let me say thus much: if in love be Treason,
In service of so excellent a Beutie,
As I love most, and in that faith will perish,
As I have brought my life here to confirme it,
As I have serv'd her truest, worthiest,
As I dare kill this Cosen, that denies it,
So let me be most Traitor, and ye please me.
For scorning thy Edict, Duke, aske that Lady
Why she is faire, and why her eyes command me
Stay here to love her; and if she say 'Traytor,'
I am a villaine fit to lye unburied.

PALAMON.
Thou shalt have pitty of us both, o Theseus,
If unto neither thou shew mercy; stop
(As thou art just) thy noble eare against us.
As thou art valiant, for thy Cosens soule
Whose 12. strong labours crowne his memory,
Lets die together, at one instant, Duke,
Onely a little let him fall before me,
That I may tell my Soule he shall not have her.

THESEUS.
I grant your wish, for, to say true, your Cosen
Has ten times more offended; for I gave him
More mercy then you found, Sir, your offenses
Being no more then his.  None here speake for 'em,
For, ere the Sun set, both shall sleepe for ever.

HIPPOLITA.
Alas the pitty! now or never, Sister,
Speake, not to be denide; That face of yours
Will beare the curses else of after ages
For these lost Cosens.

EMILIA.
In my face, deare Sister,
I finde no anger to 'em, nor no ruyn;
The misadventure of their owne eyes kill 'em;
Yet that I will be woman, and have pitty,
My knees shall grow to'th ground but Ile get mercie.
Helpe me, deare Sister; in a deede so vertuous
The powers of all women will be with us.
Most royall Brother—

HIPPOLITA.
Sir, by our tye of Marriage—

EMILIA.
By your owne spotlesse honour—

HIPPOLITA.
By that faith,
That faire hand, and that honest heart you gave me.

EMILIA.
By that you would have pitty in another,
By your owne vertues infinite.

HIPPOLITA.
By valour,
By all the chaste nights I have ever pleasd you.

THESEUS.
These are strange Conjurings.

PERITHOUS.
Nay, then, Ile in too:
By all our friendship, Sir, by all our dangers,
By all you love most: warres and this sweet Lady.

EMILIA.
By that you would have trembled to deny,
A blushing Maide.

HIPPOLITA.
By your owne eyes: By strength,
In which you swore I went beyond all women,
Almost all men, and yet I yeelded, Theseus.

PERITHOUS.
To crowne all this: By your most noble soule,
Which cannot want due mercie, I beg first.

HIPPOLITA.
Next, heare my prayers.

EMILIA.
Last, let me intreate, Sir.

PERITHOUS.
For mercy.

HIPPOLITA.
Mercy.

EMILIA.
Mercy on these Princes.

THESEUS.
Ye make my faith reele: Say I felt
Compassion to'em both, how would you place it?

EMILIA.
Vpon their lives: But with their banishments.

THESEUS.
You are a right woman, Sister; you have pitty,
But want the vnderstanding where to use it.
If you desire their lives, invent a way
Safer then banishment: Can these two live
And have the agony of love about 'em,
And not kill one another?  Every day
They'ld fight about you; howrely bring your honour
In publique question with their Swords.  Be wise, then,
And here forget 'em; it concernes your credit
And my oth equally: I have said they die;
Better they fall by'th law, then one another.
Bow not my honor.

EMILIA.
O my noble Brother,
That oth was rashly made, and in your anger,
Your reason will not hold it; if such vowes
Stand for expresse will, all the world must perish.
Beside, I have another oth gainst yours,
Of more authority, I am sure more love,
Not made in passion neither, but good heede.

THESEUS.
What is it, Sister?

PERITHOUS.
Vrge it home, brave Lady.

EMILIA.
That you would nev'r deny me any thing
Fit for my modest suit, and your free granting:
I tye you to your word now; if ye fall in't,
Thinke how you maime your honour,
(For now I am set a begging, Sir, I am deafe
To all but your compassion.)  How, their lives
Might breed the ruine of my name, Opinion!
Shall any thing that loves me perish for me?
That were a cruell wisedome; doe men proyne
The straight yong Bowes that blush with thousand Blossoms,
Because they may be rotten?  O Duke Theseus,
The goodly Mothers that have groand for these,
And all the longing Maides that ever lov'd,
If your vow stand, shall curse me and my Beauty,
And in their funerall songs for these two Cosens
Despise my crueltie, and cry woe worth me,
Till I am nothing but the scorne of women;
For heavens sake save their lives, and banish 'em.

THESEUS.
On what conditions?

EMILIA.
Sweare'em never more
To make me their Contention, or to know me,
To tread upon thy Dukedome; and to be,
Where ever they shall travel, ever strangers
To one another.

PALAMON.
Ile be cut a peeces
Before I take this oth: forget I love her?
O all ye gods dispise me, then!  Thy Banishment
I not mislike, so we may fairely carry
Our Swords and cause along: else, never trifle,
But take our lives, Duke: I must love and will,
And for that love must and dare kill this Cosen
On any peece the earth has.

THESEUS.
Will you, Arcite,
Take these conditions?

PALAMON.
He's a villaine, then.

PERITHOUS.
These are men.

ARCITE.
No, never, Duke: Tis worse to me than begging
To take my life so basely; though I thinke
I never shall enjoy her, yet ile preserve
The honour of affection, and dye for her,
Make death a Devill.

THESEUS.
What may be done? for now I feele compassion.

PERITHOUS.
Let it not fall agen, Sir.

THESEUS.
Say, Emilia,
If one of them were dead, as one must, are you
Content to take th'other to your husband?
They cannot both enjoy you; They are Princes
As goodly as your owne eyes, and as noble
As ever fame yet spoke of; looke upon 'em,
And if you can love, end this difference.
I give consent; are you content too, Princes?

BOTH.
With all our soules.

THESEUS.
He that she refuses
Must dye, then.

BOTH.
Any death thou canst invent, Duke.

PALAMON.
If I fall from that mouth, I fall with favour,
And Lovers yet unborne shall blesse my ashes.

ARCITE.
If she refuse me, yet my grave will wed me,
And Souldiers sing my Epitaph.

THESEUS.
Make choice, then.

EMILIA.
I cannot, Sir, they are both too excellent:
For me, a hayre shall never fall of these men.

HIPPOLITA.
What will become of 'em?

THESEUS.
Thus I ordaine it;
And by mine honor, once againe, it stands,
Or both shall dye:—You shall both to your Countrey,
And each within this moneth, accompanied
With three faire Knights, appeare againe in this place,
In which Ile plant a Pyramid; and whether,
Before us that are here, can force his Cosen
By fayre and knightly strength to touch the Pillar,
He shall enjoy her: the other loose his head,
And all his friends; Nor shall he grudge to fall,
Nor thinke he dies with interest in this Lady:
Will this content yee?

PALAMON.
Yes: here, Cosen Arcite,
I am friends againe, till that howre.

ARCITE.
I embrace ye.

THESEUS.
Are you content, Sister?

EMILIA.
Yes, I must, Sir,
Els both miscarry.

THESEUS.
Come, shake hands againe, then;
And take heede, as you are Gentlemen, this Quarrell
Sleepe till the howre prefixt; and hold your course.

PALAMON.
We dare not faile thee, Theseus.

THESEUS.
Come, Ile give ye
Now usage like to Princes, and to Friends:
When ye returne, who wins, Ile settle heere;
Who looses, yet Ile weepe upon his Beere.  [Exeunt.]

ACT IV

SCENE 1.  (Athens.  A room in the prison.)

[Enter Iailor and his friend.]

IAILOR.
Heare you no more? was nothing saide of me
Concerning the escape of Palamon?
Good Sir, remember.

1. FRIEND.
Nothing that I heard,
For I came home before the busines
Was fully ended: Yet I might perceive,
Ere I departed, a great likelihood
Of both their pardons: For Hipolita,
And faire-eyd Emilie, upon their knees
Begd with such hansom pitty, that the Duke
Me thought stood staggering, whether he should follow
His rash oth, or the sweet compassion
Of those two Ladies; and to second them,
That truely noble Prince Perithous,
Halfe his owne heart, set in too, that I hope
All shall be well: Neither heard I one question
Of your name or his scape.

[Enter 2. Friend.]

IAILOR.
Pray heaven it hold so.

2. FRIEND.
Be of good comfort, man; I bring you newes,
Good newes.

IAILOR.
They are welcome,

2. FRIEND.
Palamon has cleerd you,
And got your pardon, and discoverd how
And by whose meanes he escapt, which was your Daughters,
Whose pardon is procurd too; and the Prisoner,
Not to be held ungratefull to her goodnes,
Has given a summe of money to her Marriage,
A large one, ile assure you.

IAILOR.
Ye are a good man
And ever bring good newes.

1. FRIEND.
How was it ended?

2. FRIEND.
Why, as it should be; they that nev'r begd
But they prevaild, had their suites fairely granted,
The prisoners have their lives.

1. FRIEND.
I knew t'would be so.

2. FRIEND.
But there be new conditions, which you'l heare of
At better time.

IAILOR.
I hope they are good.

2. FRIEND.
They are honourable,
How good they'l prove, I know not.

[Enter Wooer.]

1. FRIEND.
T'will be knowne.

WOOER.
Alas, Sir, wher's your Daughter?

IAILOR.
Why doe you aske?

WOOER.
O, Sir, when did you see her?

2. FRIEND.
How he lookes?

IAILOR.
This morning.

WOOER.
Was she well? was she in health, Sir?
When did she sleepe?

1. FRIEND.
These are strange Questions.

IAILOR.
I doe not thinke she was very well, for now
You make me minde her, but this very day
I ask'd her questions, and she answered me
So farre from what she was, so childishly,
So sillily, as if she were a foole,
An Inocent, and I was very angry.
But what of her, Sir?

WOOER.
Nothing but my pitty;
But you must know it, and as good by me
As by an other that lesse loves her—

IAILOR.
Well, Sir.

1. FRIEND.
Not right?

2. FRIEND.
Not well?

WOOER.
No, Sir, not well.
Tis too true, she is mad.

1. FRIEND.
It cannot be.

WOOER.
Beleeve, you'l finde it so.

IAILOR.
I halfe suspected
What you (have) told me: the gods comfort her:
Either this was her love to Palamon,
Or feare of my miscarrying on his scape,
Or both.

WOOER.
Tis likely.

IAILOR.
But why all this haste, Sir?

WOOER.
Ile tell you quickly.  As I late was angling
In the great Lake that lies behind the Pallace,
From the far shore, thicke set with reedes and Sedges,
As patiently I was attending sport,
I heard a voyce, a shrill one, and attentive
I gave my eare, when I might well perceive
T'was one that sung, and by the smallnesse of it
A boy or woman.  I then left my angle
To his owne skill, came neere, but yet perceivd not
Who made the sound, the rushes and the Reeds
Had so encompast it: I laide me downe
And listned to the words she sung, for then,
Through a small glade cut by the Fisher men,
I saw it was your Daughter.

IAILOR.
Pray, goe on, Sir?

WOOER.
She sung much, but no sence; onely I heard her
Repeat this often: 'Palamon is gone,
Is gone to'th wood to gather Mulberies;
Ile finde him out to morrow.'

1. FRIEND.
Pretty soule.

WOOER.
'His shackles will betray him, hee'l be taken,
And what shall I doe then?  Ile bring a beavy,
A hundred blacke eyd Maides, that love as I doe,
With Chaplets on their heads of Daffadillies,
With cherry-lips, and cheekes of Damaske Roses,
And all wee'l daunce an Antique fore the Duke,
And beg his pardon.'  Then she talk'd of you, Sir;
That you must loose your head to morrow morning,
And she must gather flowers to bury you,
And see the house made handsome: then she sung
Nothing but 'Willow, willow, willow,' and betweene
Ever was, 'Palamon, faire Palamon,'
And 'Palamon was a tall yong man.'  The place
Was knee deepe where she sat; her careles Tresses
A wreathe of bull-rush rounded; about her stucke
Thousand fresh water flowers of severall cullors,
That me thought she appeard like the faire Nimph
That feedes the lake with waters, or as Iris
Newly dropt downe from heaven; Rings she made
Of rushes that grew by, and to 'em spoke
The prettiest posies: 'Thus our true love's tide,'
'This you may loose, not me,' and many a one:
And then she wept, and sung againe, and sigh'd,
And with the same breath smil'd, and kist her hand.

2. FRIEND.
Alas, what pitty it is!

WOOER.
I made in to her.
She saw me, and straight sought the flood; I sav'd her,
And set her safe to land: when presently
She slipt away, and to the Citty made,
With such a cry and swiftnes, that, beleeve me,
Shee left me farre behinde her; three or foure
I saw from farre off crosse her, one of 'em
I knew to be your brother; where she staid,
And fell, scarce to be got away: I left them with her,  [Enter
 Brother, Daughter, and others.]
And hether came to tell you.  Here they are.

DAUGHTER.  [sings.]

May you never more enjoy the light, &c.

Is not this a fine Song?

BROTHER.
O, a very fine one.

DAUGHTER.
I can sing twenty more.

BROTHER.
I thinke you can.

DAUGHTER.
Yes, truely, can I; I can sing the Broome,
And Bony Robin.  Are not you a tailour?

BROTHER.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
Wher's my wedding Gowne?

BROTHER.
Ile bring it to morrow.

DAUGHTER.
Doe, very rarely; I must be abroad else
To call the Maides, and pay the Minstrels,
For I must loose my Maydenhead by cock-light;
Twill never thrive else.
[Singes.]  O faire, oh sweete, &c.

BROTHER.
You must ev'n take it patiently.

IAILOR.
Tis true.

DAUGHTER.
Good ev'n, good men; pray, did you ever heare
Of one yong Palamon?

IAILOR.
Yes, wench, we know him.

DAUGHTER.
Is't not a fine yong Gentleman?

IAILOR.
Tis Love.

BROTHER.
By no meane crosse her; she is then distemperd
Far worse then now she showes.

1. FRIEND.
Yes, he's a fine man.

DAUGHTER.
O, is he so? you have a Sister?

1. FRIEND.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
But she shall never have him, tell her so,
For a tricke that I know; y'had best looke to her,
For if she see him once, she's gone, she's done,
And undon in an howre.  All the young Maydes
Of our Towne are in love with him, but I laugh at 'em
And let 'em all alone; Is't not a wise course?

1. FRIEND.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
There is at least two hundred now with child by him—
There must be fowre; yet I keepe close for all this,
Close as a Cockle; and all these must be Boyes,
He has the tricke on't, and at ten yeares old
They must be all gelt for Musitians,
And sing the wars of Theseus.

2. FRIEND.
This is strange.

DAUGHTER.
As ever you heard, but say nothing.

1. FRIEND.
No.

DAUGHTER.
They come from all parts of the Dukedome to him;
Ile warrant ye, he had not so few last night
As twenty to dispatch: hee'l tickl't up
In two howres, if his hand be in.

IAILOR.
She's lost
Past all cure.

BROTHER.
Heaven forbid, man.

DAUGHTER.
Come hither, you are a wise man.

1. FRIEND.
Do's she know him?

2. FRIEND.
No, would she did.

DAUGHTER.
You are master of a Ship?

IAILOR.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
Wher's your Compasse?

IAILOR.
Heere.

DAUGHTER.
Set it too'th North.
And now direct your course to'th wood, wher Palamon
Lyes longing for me; For the Tackling
Let me alone; Come, waygh, my hearts, cheerely!

ALL.
Owgh, owgh, owgh, tis up, the wind's faire,
Top the Bowling, out with the maine saile;
Wher's your Whistle, Master?

BROTHER.
Lets get her in.

IAILOR.
Vp to the top, Boy.

BROTHER.
Wher's the Pilot?

1. FRIEND.
Heere.

DAUGHTER.
What ken'st thou?

2. FRIEND.
A faire wood.

DAUGHTER.
Beare for it, master: take about!  [Singes.]
When Cinthia with her borrowed light, &c.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (A Room in the Palace.)

[Enter Emilia alone, with 2. Pictures.]

EMILIA.
Yet I may binde those wounds up, that must open
And bleed to death for my sake else; Ile choose,
And end their strife: Two such yong hansom men
Shall never fall for me, their weeping Mothers,
Following the dead cold ashes of their Sonnes,
Shall never curse my cruelty.  Good heaven,
What a sweet face has Arcite! if wise nature,
With all her best endowments, all those beuties
She sowes into the birthes of noble bodies,
Were here a mortall woman, and had in her
The coy denialls of yong Maydes, yet doubtles,
She would run mad for this man: what an eye,
Of what a fyry sparkle, and quick sweetnes,
Has this yong Prince!  Here Love himselfe sits smyling,
Iust such another wanton Ganimead
Set Jove a fire with, and enforcd the god
Snatch up the goodly Boy, and set him by him
A shining constellation: What a brow,
Of what a spacious Majesty, he carries!
Arch'd like the great eyd Iuno's, but far sweeter,
Smoother then Pelops Shoulder!  Fame and honour,
Me thinks, from hence, as from a Promontory
Pointed in heaven, should clap their wings, and sing
To all the under world the Loves and Fights
Of gods, and such men neere 'em.  Palamon
Is but his foyle, to him a meere dull shadow:
Hee's swarth and meagre, of an eye as heavy
As if he had lost his mother; a still temper,
No stirring in him, no alacrity,
Of all this sprightly sharpenes not a smile;
Yet these that we count errours may become him:
Narcissus was a sad Boy, but a heavenly:—
Oh who can finde the bent of womans fancy?
I am a Foole, my reason is lost in me;
I have no choice, and I have ly'd so lewdly
That women ought to beate me.  On my knees
I aske thy pardon, Palamon; thou art alone,
And only beutifull, and these the eyes,
These the bright lamps of beauty, that command
And threaten Love, and what yong Mayd dare crosse 'em?
What a bold gravity, and yet inviting,
Has this browne manly face!  O Love, this only
From this howre is Complexion: Lye there, Arcite,
Thou art a changling to him, a meere Gipsey,
And this the noble Bodie.  I am sotted,
Vtterly lost: My Virgins faith has fled me;
For if my brother but even now had ask'd me
Whether I lov'd, I had run mad for Arcite;
Now, if my Sister, More for Palamon.
Stand both together: Now, come aske me, Brother.—
Alas, I know not!  Aske me now, sweet Sister;—
I may goe looke.  What a meere child is Fancie,
That, having two faire gawdes of equall sweetnesse,
Cannot distinguish, but must crie for both.

[Enter (a) Gent(leman.)]

EMILIA.
How now, Sir?

GENTLEMAN.
From the Noble Duke your Brother,
Madam, I bring you newes: The Knights are come.

EMILIA.
To end the quarrell?

GENTLEMAN.
Yes.

EMILIA.
Would I might end first:
What sinnes have I committed, chast Diana,
That my unspotted youth must now be soyld
With blood of Princes? and my Chastitie
Be made the Altar, where the lives of Lovers
(Two greater and two better never yet
Made mothers joy) must be the sacrifice
To my unhappy Beautie?

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Perithous and attendants.]

THESEUS.
Bring 'em in
Quickly, By any meanes; I long to see 'em.—
Your two contending Lovers are return'd,
And with them their faire Knights: Now, my faire Sister,
You must love one of them.

EMILIA.
I had rather both,
So neither for my sake should fall untimely.

[Enter Messenger.  (Curtis.)]

THESEUS.
Who saw 'em?

PERITHOUS.
I, a while.

GENTLEMAN.
And I.

THESEUS.
From whence come you, Sir?

MESSENGER.
From the Knights.

THESEUS.
Pray, speake,
You that have seene them, what they are.

MESSENGER.
I will, Sir,
And truly what I thinke: Six braver spirits
Then these they have brought, (if we judge by the outside)
I never saw, nor read of.  He that stands
In the first place with Arcite, by his seeming,
Should be a stout man, by his face a Prince,
(His very lookes so say him) his complexion,
Nearer a browne, than blacke, sterne, and yet noble,
Which shewes him hardy, fearelesse, proud of dangers:
The circles of his eyes show fire within him,
And as a heated Lyon, so he lookes;
His haire hangs long behind him, blacke and shining
Like Ravens wings: his shoulders broad and strong,
Armd long and round, and on his Thigh a Sword
Hung by a curious Bauldricke, when he frownes
To seale his will with: better, o'my conscience
Was never Souldiers friend.

THESEUS.
Thou ha'st well describde him.

PERITHOUS.
Yet a great deale short,
Me thinkes, of him that's first with Palamon.

THESEUS.
Pray, speake him, friend.

PERITHOUS.
I ghesse he is a Prince too,
And, if it may be, greater; for his show
Has all the ornament of honour in't:
Hee's somewhat bigger, then the Knight he spoke of,
But of a face far sweeter; His complexion
Is (as a ripe grape) ruddy: he has felt,
Without doubt, what he fights for, and so apter
To make this cause his owne: In's face appeares
All the faire hopes of what he undertakes,
And when he's angry, then a setled valour
(Not tainted with extreames) runs through his body,
And guides his arme to brave things: Feare he cannot,
He shewes no such soft temper; his head's yellow,
Hard hayr'd, and curld, thicke twind like Ivy tods,
Not to undoe with thunder; In his face
The liverie of the warlike Maide appeares,
Pure red, and white, for yet no beard has blest him.
And in his rowling eyes sits victory,
As if she ever ment to court his valour:
His Nose stands high, a Character of honour.
His red lips, after fights, are fit for Ladies.

EMILIA.
Must these men die too?

PERITHOUS.
When he speakes, his tongue
Sounds like a Trumpet; All his lyneaments
Are as a man would wish 'em, strong and cleane,
He weares a well-steeld Axe, the staffe of gold;
His age some five and twenty.

MESSENGER.
Ther's another,
A little man, but of a tough soule, seeming
As great as any: fairer promises
In such a Body yet I never look'd on.

PERITHOUS.
O, he that's freckle fac'd?

MESSENGER.
The same, my Lord;
Are they not sweet ones?

PERITHOUS.
Yes, they are well.

MESSENGER.
Me thinkes,
Being so few, and well disposd, they show
Great, and fine art in nature: he's white hair'd,
Not wanton white, but such a manly colour
Next to an aborne; tough, and nimble set,
Which showes an active soule; his armes are brawny,
Linde with strong sinewes: To the shoulder peece
Gently they swell, like women new conceav'd,
Which speakes him prone to labour, never fainting
Vnder the waight of Armes; stout harted, still,
But when he stirs, a Tiger; he's gray eyd,
Which yeelds compassion where he conquers: sharpe
To spy advantages, and where he finds 'em,
He's swift to make 'em his: He do's no wrongs,
Nor takes none; he's round fac'd, and when he smiles
He showes a Lover, when he frownes, a Souldier:
About his head he weares the winners oke,
And in it stucke the favour of his Lady:
His age, some six and thirtie.  In his hand
He beares a charging Staffe, embost with silver.

THESEUS.
Are they all thus?

PERITHOUS.
They are all the sonnes of honour.

THESEUS.
Now, as I have a soule, I long to see'em.
Lady, you shall see men fight now.

HIPPOLITA.
I wish it,
But not the cause, my Lord; They would show
Bravely about the Titles of two Kingdomes;
Tis pitty Love should be so tyrannous:
O my soft harted Sister, what thinke you?
Weepe not, till they weepe blood, Wench; it must be.

THESEUS.
You have steel'd 'em with your Beautie.—Honord Friend,
To you I give the Feild; pray, order it
Fitting the persons that must use it.

PERITHOUS.
Yes, Sir.

THESEUS.
Come, Ile goe visit 'em: I cannot stay,
Their fame has fir'd me so; Till they appeare.
Good Friend, be royall.

PERITHOUS.
There shall want no bravery.

EMILIA.
Poore wench, goe weepe, for whosoever wins,
Looses a noble Cosen for thy sins.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 3.  (A room in the prison.)

[Enter Iailor, Wooer, Doctor.]

DOCTOR.
Her distraction is more at some time of the Moone, then at other some,
is it not?

IAILOR.
She is continually in a harmelesse distemper, sleepes little,
altogether without appetite, save often drinking, dreaming of another
world, and a better; and what broken peece of matter so'ere she's
about, the name Palamon lardes it, that she farces ev'ry busines
withall, fyts it to every question.—

[Enter Daughter.]

Looke where shee comes, you shall perceive her behaviour.

DAUGHTER.
I have forgot it quite; The burden on't, was DOWNE A, DOWNE A, and pend
by no worse man, then Giraldo, Emilias Schoolemaster; he's as
Fantasticall too, as ever he may goe upon's legs,—for in the next world
will Dido see Palamon, and then will she be out of love with Eneas.

DOCTOR.
What stuff's here? pore soule!

IAILOR.
Ev'n thus all day long.

DAUGHTER.
Now for this Charme, that I told you of: you must bring a peece of
silver on the tip of your tongue, or no ferry: then, if it be your
chance to come where the blessed spirits, as ther's a sight now—we
maids that have our Lyvers perish'd, crakt to peeces with Love, we
shall come there, and doe nothing all day long but picke flowers with
Proserpine; then will I make Palamon a Nosegay; then let him marke
me,—then—

DOCTOR.
How prettily she's amisse? note her a little further.

DAUGHTER.
Faith, ile tell you, sometime we goe to Barly breake, we of the
blessed; alas, tis a sore life they have i'th other place, such
burning, frying, boyling, hissing, howling, chattring, cursing, oh they
have shrowd measure! take heede; if one be mad, or hang or drowne
themselves, thither they goe, Iupiter blesse vs, and there shall we be
put in a Caldron of lead, and Vsurers grease, amongst a whole million
of cutpurses, and there boyle like a Gamon of Bacon that will never be
enough.  [Exit.]

DOCTOR.
How her braine coynes!

DAUGHTER.
Lords and Courtiers, that have got maids with Child, they are in this
place: they shall stand in fire up to the Nav'le, and in yce up to'th
hart, and there th'offending part burnes, and the deceaving part
freezes; in troth, a very greevous punishment, as one would thinke, for
such a Trifle; beleve me, one would marry a leaprous witch, to be rid
on't, Ile assure you.

DOCTOR.
How she continues this fancie!  Tis not an engraffed Madnesse, but a
most thicke, and profound mellencholly.

DAUGHTER.
To heare there a proud Lady, and a proud Citty wiffe, howle together! I
were a beast and il'd call it good sport: one cries, 'O this smoake!'
another, 'this fire!'  One cries, 'O, that ever I did it behind the
arras!' and then howles; th'other curses a suing fellow and her garden
house.  [Sings]  I will be true, my stars, my fate, &c.  [Exit Daugh.]

IAILOR.
What thinke you of her, Sir?

DOCTOR.
I thinke she has a perturbed minde, which I cannot minister to.

IAILOR.
Alas, what then?

DOCTOR.
Vnderstand you, she ever affected any man, ere she beheld
Palamon?

IAILOR.
I was once, Sir, in great hope she had fixd her liking on this
gentleman, my friend.

WOOER.
I did thinke so too, and would account I had a great pen-worth on't, to
give halfe my state, that both she and I at this present stood
unfainedly on the same tearmes.

DOCTOR.
That intemprat surfeit of her eye hath distemperd the other sences:
they may returne and settle againe to execute their preordaind
faculties, but they are now in a most extravagant vagary.  This you
must doe: Confine her to a place, where the light may rather seeme to
steale in, then be permitted; take vpon you (yong Sir, her friend) the
name of Palamon; say you come to eate with her, and to commune of Love;
this will catch her attention, for this her minde beates upon; other
objects that are inserted tweene her minde and eye become the prankes
and friskins of her madnes; Sing to her such greene songs of Love, as
she sayes Palamon hath sung in prison; Come to her, stucke in as sweet
flowers as the season is mistres of, and thereto make an addition of
som other compounded odours, which are grateful to the sence: all this
shall become Palamon, for Palamon can sing, and Palamon is sweet, and
ev'ry good thing: desire to eate with her, carve her, drinke to her,
and still among, intermingle your petition of grace and acceptance into
her favour: Learne what Maides have beene her companions and
play-pheeres, and let them repaire to her with Palamon in their
mouthes, and appeare with tokens, as if they suggested for him. It is a
falsehood she is in, which is with falsehood to be combated. This may
bring her to eate, to sleepe, and reduce what's now out of square in
her, into their former law, and regiment; I have seene it approved, how
many times I know not, but to make the number more, I have great hope
in this.  I will, betweene the passages of this project, come in with
my applyance: Let us put it in execution, and hasten the successe,
which, doubt not, will bring forth comfort.  [Florish.  Exeunt.]

ACT V

SCENE 1.  (Before the Temples of Mars, Venus, and Diana.)

[Enter Thesius, Perithous, Hipolita, attendants.]

THESEUS.
Now let'em enter, and before the gods
Tender their holy prayers: Let the Temples
Burne bright with sacred fires, and the Altars
In hallowed clouds commend their swelling Incense
To those above us: Let no due be wanting;  [Florish of Cornets.]
They have a noble worke in hand, will honour
The very powers that love 'em.

[Enter Palamon and Arcite, and their Knights.]

PERITHOUS.
Sir, they enter.

THESEUS.
You valiant and strong harted Enemies,
You royall German foes, that this day come
To blow that furnesse out that flames betweene ye:
Lay by your anger for an houre, and dove-like,
Before the holy Altars of your helpers,
(The all feard gods) bow downe your stubborne bodies.
Your ire is more than mortall; So your helpe be,
And as the gods regard ye, fight with Iustice;
Ile leave you to your prayers, and betwixt ye
I part my wishes.

PERITHOUS.
Honour crowne the worthiest.  [Exit Theseus, and his traine.]

PALAMON.
The glasse is running now that cannot finish
Till one of us expire: Thinke you but thus,
That were there ought in me which strove to show
Mine enemy in this businesse, wer't one eye
Against another, Arme opprest by Arme,
I would destroy th'offender, Coz, I would,
Though parcell of my selfe: Then from this gather
How I should tender you.

ARCITE.
I am in labour
To push your name, your auncient love, our kindred
Out of my memory; and i'th selfe same place
To seate something I would confound: So hoyst we
The sayles, that must these vessells port even where
The heavenly Lymiter pleases.

PALAMON.
You speake well;
Before I turne, Let me embrace thee, Cosen:
This I shall never doe agen.

ARCITE.
One farewell.

PALAMON.
Why, let it be so: Farewell, Coz.  [Exeunt Palamon and his
Knights.]

ARCITE.
Farewell, Sir.—
Knights, Kinsemen, Lovers, yea, my Sacrifices,
True worshippers of Mars, whose spirit in you
Expells the seedes of feare, and th'apprehension
Which still is farther off it, Goe with me
Before the god of our profession: There
Require of him the hearts of Lyons, and
The breath of Tigers, yea, the fearcenesse too,
Yea, the speed also,—to goe on, I meane,
Else wish we to be Snayles: you know my prize
Must be drag'd out of blood; force and great feate
Must put my Garland on, where she stickes
The Queene of Flowers: our intercession then
Must be to him that makes the Campe a Cestron
Brymd with the blood of men: give me your aide
And bend your spirits towards him.  [They kneele.]
Thou mighty one, that with thy power hast turnd
Greene Neptune into purple, (whose Approach)
Comets prewarne, whose havocke in vaste Feild
Vnearthed skulls proclaime, whose breath blowes downe,
The teeming Ceres foyzon, who doth plucke
With hand armypotent from forth blew clowdes
The masond Turrets, that both mak'st and break'st
The stony girthes of Citties: me thy puple,
Yongest follower of thy Drom, instruct this day
With military skill, that to thy lawde
I may advance my Streamer, and by thee,
Be stil'd the Lord o'th day: give me, great Mars,
Some token of thy pleasure.

[Here they fall on their faces as formerly, and there is heard
 clanging of Armor, with a short Thunder as the burst of a
Battaile,
 whereupon they all rise and bow to the Altar.]

O Great Corrector of enormous times,
Shaker of ore-rank States, thou grand decider
Of dustie and old tytles, that healst with blood
The earth when it is sicke, and curst the world
O'th pluresie of people; I doe take
Thy signes auspiciously, and in thy name
To my designe march boldly.  Let us goe.  [Exeunt.]

[Enter Palamon and his Knights, with the former observance.]

PALAMON.
Our stars must glister with new fire, or be
To daie extinct; our argument is love,
Which if the goddesse of it grant, she gives
Victory too: then blend your spirits with mine,
You, whose free noblenesse doe make my cause
Your personall hazard; to the goddesse Venus
Commend we our proceeding, and implore
Her power unto our partie.  [Here they kneele as formerly.]
Haile, Soveraigne Queene of secrets, who hast power
To call the feircest Tyrant from his rage,
And weepe unto a Girle; that ha'st the might,
Even with an ey-glance, to choke Marsis Drom
And turne th'allarme to whispers; that canst make
A Criple florish with his Crutch, and cure him
Before Apollo; that may'st force the King
To be his subjects vassaile, and induce
Stale gravitie to daunce; the pould Bachelour—
Whose youth, like wonton Boyes through Bonfyres,
Have skipt thy flame—at seaventy thou canst catch
And make him, to the scorne of his hoarse throate,
Abuse yong laies of love: what godlike power
Hast thou not power upon?  To Phoebus thou
Add'st flames hotter then his; the heavenly fyres
Did scortch his mortall Son, thine him; the huntresse
All moyst and cold, some say, began to throw
Her Bow away, and sigh.  Take to thy grace
Me, thy vowd Souldier, who doe beare thy yoke
As t'wer a wreath of Roses, yet is heavier
Then Lead it selfe, stings more than Nettles.
I have never beene foule mouthd against thy law,
Nev'r reveald secret, for I knew none—would not,
Had I kend all that were; I never practised
Vpon mans wife, nor would the Libells reade
Of liberall wits; I never at great feastes
Sought to betray a Beautie, but have blush'd
At simpring Sirs that did; I have beene harsh
To large Confessors, and have hotly ask'd them
If they had Mothers: I had one, a woman,
And women t'wer they wrong'd.  I knew a man
Of eightie winters, this I told them, who
A Lasse of foureteene brided; twas thy power
To put life into dust; the aged Crampe
Had screw'd his square foote round,
The Gout had knit his fingers into knots,
Torturing Convulsions from his globie eyes,
Had almost drawne their spheeres, that what was life
In him seem'd torture: this Anatomie
Had by his yong faire pheare a Boy, and I
Beleev'd it was him, for she swore it was,
And who would not beleeve her? briefe, I am
To those that prate and have done no Companion;
To those that boast and have not a defyer;
To those that would and cannot a Rejoycer.
Yea, him I doe not love, that tells close offices
The fowlest way, nor names concealements in
The boldest language: such a one I am,
And vow that lover never yet made sigh
Truer then I.  O, then, most soft, sweet goddesse,
Give me the victory of this question, which
Is true loves merit, and blesse me with a signe
Of thy great pleasure.

[Here Musicke is heard, Doves are seene to flutter; they fall
 againe upon their faces, then on their knees.]

PALAMON.
O thou, that from eleven to ninetie raign'st
In mortall bosomes, whose chase is this world,
And we in heards thy game: I give thee thankes
For this faire Token, which, being layd unto
Mine innocent true heart, armes in assurance  [They bow.]
My body to this businesse.  Let us rise
And bow before the goddesse: Time comes on.  [Exeunt.]

[Still Musicke of Records.]

[Enter Emilia in white, her haire about her shoulders, (wearing) a
wheaten wreath: One in white holding up her traine, her haire stucke
with flowers: One before her carrying a silver Hynde, in which is
conveyd Incense and sweet odours, which being set upon the Altar (of
Diana) her maides standing a loofe, she sets fire to it; then they
curtsey and kneele.]

EMILIA.
O sacred, shadowie, cold and constant Queene,
Abandoner of Revells, mute, contemplative,
Sweet, solitary, white as chaste, and pure
As windefand Snow, who to thy femall knights
Alow'st no more blood than will make a blush,
Which is their orders robe: I heere, thy Priest,
Am humbled fore thine Altar; O vouchsafe,
With that thy rare greene eye, which never yet
Beheld thing maculate, looke on thy virgin;
And, sacred silver Mistris, lend thine eare
(Which nev'r heard scurrill terme, into whose port
Ne're entred wanton found,) to my petition
Seasond with holy feare: This is my last
Of vestall office; I am bride habited,
But mayden harted, a husband I have pointed,
But doe not know him; out of two I should
Choose one and pray for his successe, but I
Am guiltlesse of election: of mine eyes,
Were I to loose one, they are equall precious,
I could doombe neither, that which perish'd should
Goe too't unsentenc'd: Therefore, most modest Queene,
He of the two Pretenders, that best loves me
And has the truest title in't, Let him
Take off my wheaten Gerland, or else grant
The fyle and qualitie I hold, I may
Continue in thy Band.

[Here the Hynde vanishes under the Altar: and in the place ascends
 a Rose Tree, having one Rose upon it.]

See what our Generall of Ebbs and Flowes
Out from the bowells of her holy Altar
With sacred act advances!  But one Rose:
If well inspird, this Battaile shal confound
Both these brave Knights, and I, a virgin flowre
Must grow alone unpluck'd.

[Here is heard a sodaine twang of Instruments, and the Rose fals\
 from the Tree (which vanishes under the altar.)]

The flowre is falne, the Tree descends: O, Mistris,
Thou here dischargest me; I shall be gather'd:
I thinke so, but I know not thine owne will;
Vnclaspe thy Misterie.—I hope she's pleas'd,
Her Signes were gratious.  [They curtsey and Exeunt.]

SCENE 2.  (A darkened Room in the Prison.)

[Enter Doctor, Iaylor and Wooer, in habite of Palamon.]

DOCTOR.
Has this advice I told you, done any good upon her?

WOOER.
O very much; The maids that kept her company
Have halfe perswaded her that I am Palamon;
Within this halfe houre she came smiling to me,
And asked me what I would eate, and when I would kisse her:
I told her presently, and kist her twice.

DOCTOR.
Twas well done; twentie times had bin far better,
For there the cure lies mainely.

WOOER.
Then she told me
She would watch with me to night, for well she knew
What houre my fit would take me.

DOCTOR.
Let her doe so,
And when your fit comes, fit her home,
And presently.

WOOER.
She would have me sing.

DOCTOR.
You did so?

WOOER.
No.

DOCTOR.
Twas very ill done, then;
You should observe her ev'ry way.

WOOER.
Alas,
I have no voice, Sir, to confirme her that way.

DOCTOR.
That's all one, if yee make a noyse;
If she intreate againe, doe any thing,—
Lye with her, if she aske you.

IAILOR.
Hoa, there, Doctor!

DOCTOR.
Yes, in the waie of cure.

IAILOR.
But first, by your leave,
I'th way of honestie.

DOCTOR.
That's but a nicenesse,
Nev'r cast your child away for honestie;
Cure her first this way, then if shee will be honest,
She has the path before her.

IAILOR.
Thanke yee, Doctor.

DOCTOR.
Pray, bring her in,
And let's see how shee is.

IAILOR.
I will, and tell her
Her Palamon staies for her: But, Doctor,
Me thinkes you are i'th wrong still.  [Exit Iaylor.]

DOCTOR.
Goe, goe:
You Fathers are fine Fooles: her honesty?
And we should give her physicke till we finde that—

WOOER.
Why, doe you thinke she is not honest, Sir?

DOCTOR.
How old is she?

WOOER.
She's eighteene.

DOCTOR.
She may be,
But that's all one; tis nothing to our purpose.
What ere her Father saies, if you perceave
Her moode inclining that way that I spoke of,
Videlicet, the way of flesh—you have me?

WOOER.
Yet, very well, Sir.

DOCTOR.
Please her appetite,
And doe it home; it cures her, ipso facto,
The mellencholly humour that infects her.

WOOER.
I am of your minde, Doctor.

[Enter Iaylor, Daughter, Maide.]

DOCTOR.
You'l finde it so; she comes, pray humour her.

IAILOR.
Come, your Love Palamon staies for you, childe,
And has done this long houre, to visite you.

DAUGHTER.
I thanke him for his gentle patience;
He's a kind Gentleman, and I am much bound to him.
Did you nev'r see the horse he gave me?

IAILOR.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
How doe you like him?

IAILOR.
He's a very faire one.

DAUGHTER.
You never saw him dance?

IAILOR.
No.

DAUGHTER.
I have often.
He daunces very finely, very comely,
And for a Iigge, come cut and long taile to him,
He turnes ye like a Top.

IAILOR.
That's fine, indeede.

DAUGHTER.
Hee'l dance the Morris twenty mile an houre,
And that will founder the best hobby-horse
(If I have any skill) in all the parish,
And gallops to the turne of LIGHT A' LOVE:
What thinke you of this horse?

IAILOR.
Having these vertues,
I thinke he might be broght to play at Tennis.

DAUGHTER.
Alas, that's nothing.

IAILOR.
Can he write and reade too?

DAUGHTER.
A very faire hand, and casts himselfe th'accounts
Of all his hay and provender: That Hostler
Must rise betime that cozens him.  You know
The Chestnut Mare the Duke has?

IAILOR.
Very well.

DAUGHTER.
She is horribly in love with him, poore beast,
But he is like his master, coy and scornefull.

IAILOR.
What dowry has she?

DAUGHTER.
Some two hundred Bottles,
And twenty strike of Oates; but hee'l ne're have her;
He lispes in's neighing, able to entice
A Millars Mare: Hee'l be the death of her.

DOCTOR.
What stuffe she utters!

IAILOR.
Make curtsie; here your love comes.

WOOER.
Pretty soule,
How doe ye? that's a fine maide, ther's a curtsie!

DAUGHTER.
Yours to command ith way of honestie.
How far is't now to'th end o'th world, my Masters?

DOCTOR.
Why, a daies Iorney, wench.

DAUGHTER.
Will you goe with me?

WOOER.
What shall we doe there, wench?

DAUGHTER.
Why, play at stoole ball:
What is there else to doe?

WOOER.
I am content,
If we shall keepe our wedding there.

DAUGHTER.
Tis true:
For there, I will assure you, we shall finde
Some blind Priest for the purpose, that will venture
To marry us, for here they are nice, and foolish;
Besides, my father must be hang'd to morrow
And that would be a blot i'th businesse.
Are not you Palamon?

WOOER.
Doe not you know me?

DAUGHTER.
Yes, but you care not for me; I have nothing
But this pore petticoate, and too corse Smockes.

WOOER.
That's all one; I will have you.

DAUGHTER.
Will you surely?

WOOER.
Yes, by this faire hand, will I.

DAUGHTER.
Wee'l to bed, then.

WOOER.
Ev'n when you will.  [Kisses her.]

DAUGHTER.
O Sir, you would faine be nibling.

WOOER.
Why doe you rub my kisse off?

DAUGHTER.
Tis a sweet one,
And will perfume me finely against the wedding.
Is not this your Cosen Arcite?

DOCTOR.
Yes, sweet heart,
And I am glad my Cosen Palamon
Has made so faire a choice.

DAUGHTER.
Doe you thinke hee'l have me?

DOCTOR.
Yes, without doubt.

DAUGHTER.
Doe you thinke so too?

IAILOR.
Yes.

DAUGHTER.
We shall have many children:—Lord, how y'ar growne!
My Palamon, I hope, will grow, too, finely,
Now he's at liberty: Alas, poore Chicken,
He was kept downe with hard meate and ill lodging,
But ile kisse him up againe.

[Emter a Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
What doe you here? you'l loose the noblest sight
That ev'r was seene.

IAILOR.
Are they i'th Field?

MESSENGER.
They are.
You beare a charge there too.

IAILOR.
Ile away straight.
I must ev'n leave you here.

DOCTOR.
Nay, wee'l goe with you;
I will not loose the Fight.

IAILOR.
How did you like her?

DOCTOR.
Ile warrant you, within these 3. or 4. daies
Ile make her right againe.  You must not from her,
But still preserve her in this way.

WOOER.
I will.

DOCTOR.
Lets get her in.

WOOER.
Come, sweete, wee'l goe to dinner;
And then weele play at Cardes.

DAUGHTER.
And shall we kisse too?

WOOER.
A hundred times.

DAUGHTER.
And twenty.

WOOER.
I, and twenty.

DAUGHTER.
And then wee'l sleepe together.

DOCTOR.
Take her offer.

WOOER.
Yes, marry, will we.

DAUGHTER.
But you shall not hurt me.

WOOER.
I will not, sweete.

DAUGHTER.
If you doe, Love, ile cry.  [Florish.  Exeunt]

SCENE 3.  (A Place near the Lists.)

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Emilia, Perithous: and some Attendants,
 (T. Tucke: Curtis.)]

EMILIA.
Ile no step further.

PERITHOUS.
Will you loose this sight?

EMILIA.
I had rather see a wren hawke at a fly
Then this decision; ev'ry blow that falls
Threats a brave life, each stroake laments
The place whereon it fals, and sounds more like
A Bell then blade: I will stay here;
It is enough my hearing shall be punishd
With what shall happen—gainst the which there is
No deaffing, but to heare—not taint mine eye
With dread sights, it may shun.

PERITHOUS.
Sir, my good Lord,
Your Sister will no further.

THESEUS.
Oh, she must.
She shall see deeds of honour in their kinde,
Which sometime show well, pencild.  Nature now
Shall make and act the Story, the beleife
Both seald with eye and eare; you must be present,
You are the victours meede, the price, and garlond
To crowne the Questions title.

EMILIA.
Pardon me;
If I were there, I'ld winke.

THESEUS.
You must be there;
This Tryall is as t'wer i'th night, and you
The onely star to shine.

EMILIA.
I am extinct;
There is but envy in that light, which showes
The one the other: darkenes, which ever was
The dam of horrour, who do's stand accurst
Of many mortall Millions, may even now,
By casting her blacke mantle over both,
That neither coulde finde other, get her selfe
Some part of a good name, and many a murther
Set off wherto she's guilty.

HIPPOLITA.
You must goe.

EMILIA.
In faith, I will not.

THESEUS.
Why, the knights must kindle
Their valour at your eye: know, of this war
You are the Treasure, and must needes be by
To give the Service pay.

EMILIA.
Sir, pardon me;
The tytle of a kingdome may be tride
Out of it selfe.

THESEUS.
Well, well, then, at your pleasure;
Those that remaine with you could wish their office
To any of their Enemies.

HIPPOLITA.
Farewell, Sister;
I am like to know your husband fore your selfe
By some small start of time: he whom the gods
Doe of the two know best, I pray them he
Be made your Lot.

[Exeunt Theseus, Hipolita, Perithous, &c.]

EMILIA.
Arcite is gently visagd; yet his eye
Is like an Engyn bent, or a sharpe weapon
In a soft sheath; mercy and manly courage
Are bedfellowes in his visage.  Palamon
Has a most menacing aspect: his brow
Is grav'd, and seemes to bury what it frownes on;
Yet sometime tis not so, but alters to
The quallity of his thoughts; long time his eye
Will dwell upon his object.  Mellencholly
Becomes him nobly; So do's Arcites mirth,
But Palamons sadnes is a kinde of mirth,
So mingled, as if mirth did make him sad,
And sadnes, merry; those darker humours that
Sticke misbecomingly on others, on them
Live in faire dwelling.  [Cornets.  Trompets sound as to a
charge.]
Harke, how yon spurs to spirit doe incite
The Princes to their proofe! Arcite may win me,
And yet may Palamon wound Arcite to
The spoyling of his figure.  O, what pitty
Enough for such a chance; if I were by,
I might doe hurt, for they would glance their eies
Toward my Seat, and in that motion might
Omit a ward, or forfeit an offence
Which crav'd that very time: it is much better
I am not there; oh better never borne
Then minister to such harme.  [Cornets.  A great cry and noice within,
 crying 'a Palamon'.]  What is the chance?

[Enter Servant.]

SERVANT.
The Crie's 'a Palamon'.

EMILIA.
Then he has won!  Twas ever likely;
He lookd all grace and successe, and he is
Doubtlesse the prim'st of men: I pre'thee, run
And tell me how it goes.  [Showt, and Cornets: Crying, 'a
Palamon.']

SERVANT.
Still Palamon.

EMILIA.
Run and enquire.  Poore Servant, thou hast lost;
Vpon my right side still I wore thy picture,
Palamons on the left: why so, I know not;
I had no end in't else, chance would have it so.
On the sinister side the heart lyes; Palamon
Had the best boding chance.  [Another cry, and showt within, and
 Cornets.]  This burst of clamour
Is sure th'end o'th Combat.

[Enter Servant.]

SERVANT.
They saide that Palamon had Arcites body
Within an inch o'th Pyramid, that the cry
Was generall 'a Palamon': But, anon,
Th'Assistants made a brave redemption, and
The two bold Tytlers, at this instant are
Hand to hand at it.

EMILIA.
Were they metamorphisd
Both into one! oh why? there were no woman
Worth so composd a Man: their single share,
Their noblenes peculier to them, gives
The prejudice of disparity, values shortnes,  [Cornets.  Cry within,
 Arcite, Arcite.]
To any Lady breathing—More exulting?
Palamon still?

SERVANT.
Nay, now the sound is Arcite.

EMILIA.
I pre'thee, lay attention to the Cry,  [Cornets.  A great showt and
cry, 'Arcite, victory!'] Set both thine eares to'th busines.

SERVANT.
The cry is
'Arcite', and 'victory', harke: 'Arcite, victory!'
The Combats consummation is proclaim'd
By the wind Instruments.

EMILIA.
Halfe sights saw
That Arcite was no babe; god's lyd, his richnes
And costlines of spirit look't through him, it could
No more be hid in him then fire in flax,
Then humble banckes can goe to law with waters,
That drift windes force to raging: I did thinke
Good Palamon would miscarry; yet I knew not
Why I did thinke so; Our reasons are not prophets,
When oft our fancies are.  They are comming off:
Alas, poore Palamon!  [Cornets.]

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Pirithous, Arcite as victor, and
 attendants, &c.]

THESEUS.
Lo, where our Sister is in expectation,
Yet quaking, and unsetled.—Fairest Emily,
The gods by their divine arbitrament
Have given you this Knight; he is a good one
As ever strooke at head.  Give me your hands;
Receive you her, you him; be plighted with
A love that growes, as you decay.

ARCITE.
Emily,
To buy you, I have lost what's deerest to me,
Save what is bought, and yet I purchase cheapely,
As I doe rate your value.

THESEUS.
O loved Sister,
He speakes now of as brave a Knight as ere
Did spur a noble Steed: Surely, the gods
Would have him die a Batchelour, least his race
Should shew i'th world too godlike: His behaviour
So charmed me, that me thought Alcides was
To him a sow of lead: if I could praise
Each part of him to'th all I have spoke, your Arcite
Did not loose by't; For he that was thus good
Encountred yet his Better.  I have heard
Two emulous Philomels beate the eare o'th night
With their contentious throates, now one the higher,
Anon the other, then againe the first,
And by and by out breasted, that the sence
Could not be judge betweene 'em: So it far'd
Good space betweene these kinesmen; till heavens did
Make hardly one the winner.  Weare the Girlond
With joy that you have won: For the subdude,
Give them our present Iustice, since I know
Their lives but pinch 'em; Let it here be done.
The Sceane's not for our seeing, goe we hence,
Right joyfull, with some sorrow.—Arme your prize,
I know you will not loose her.—Hipolita,
I see one eye of yours conceives a teare
The which it will deliver.  [Florish.]

EMILIA.
Is this wynning?
Oh all you heavenly powers, where is your mercy?
But that your wils have saide it must be so,
And charge me live to comfort this unfriended,
This miserable Prince, that cuts away
A life more worthy from him then all women,
I should, and would, die too.

HIPPOLITA.
Infinite pitty,
That fowre such eies should be so fixd on one
That two must needes be blinde fort.

THESEUS.
So it is.  [Exeunt.]

SCENE 4.  (The same; a Block prepared.)

[Enter Palamon and his Knightes pyniond: Iaylor, Executioner, &c. 
Gard.]

(PALAMON.)
Ther's many a man alive that hath out liv'd
The love o'th people; yea, i'th selfesame state
Stands many a Father with his childe; some comfort
We have by so considering: we expire
And not without mens pitty.  To live still,
Have their good wishes; we prevent
The loathsome misery of age, beguile
The Gowt and Rheume, that in lag howres attend
For grey approachers; we come towards the gods
Yong and unwapper'd, not halting under Crymes
Many and stale: that sure shall please the gods,
Sooner than such, to give us Nectar with 'em,
For we are more cleare Spirits.  My deare kinesmen,
Whose lives (for this poore comfort) are laid downe,
You have sould 'em too too cheape.

1. KNIGHT.
What ending could be
Of more content? ore us the victors have
Fortune, whose title is as momentary,
As to us death is certaine: A graine of honour
They not ore'-weigh us.

2. KNIGHT.
Let us bid farewell;
And with our patience anger tottring Fortune,
Who at her certain'st reeles.

3. KNIGHT.
Come; who begins?

PALAMON.
Ev'n he that led you to this Banket shall
Taste to you all.—Ah ha, my Friend, my Friend,
Your gentle daughter gave me freedome once;
You'l see't done now for ever: pray, how do'es she?
I heard she was not well; her kind of ill
Gave me some sorrow.

IAILOR.
Sir, she's well restor'd,
And to be marryed shortly.

PALAMON.
By my short life,
I am most glad on't; Tis the latest thing
I shall be glad of; pre'thee tell her so:
Commend me to her, and to peece her portion,
Tender her this.  [Gives purse.]

1. KNIGHT.
Nay lets be offerers all.

2. KNIGHT.
Is it a maide?

PALAMON.
Verily, I thinke so,
A right good creature, more to me deserving
Then I can quight or speake of.

ALL KNIGHTS.
Commend us to her.  [They give their purses.]

IAILOR.
The gods requight you all,
And make her thankefull.

PALAMON.
Adiew; and let my life be now as short,
As my leave taking.  [Lies on the Blocke.]

1. KNIGHT.
Leade, couragious Cosin.

2. KNIGHT.
Wee'l follow cheerefully.  [A great noise within crying, 'run, save,
hold!']

[Enter in hast a Messenger.]

MESSENGER.
Hold, hold!  O hold, hold, hold!

[Enter Pirithous in haste.]

PERITHOUS.
Hold! hoa!  It is a cursed hast you made,
If you have done so quickly.  Noble Palamon,
The gods will shew their glory in a life,
That thou art yet to leade.

PALAMON.
Can that be,
When Venus, I have said, is false?  How doe things fare?

PERITHOUS.
Arise, great Sir, and give the tydings eare
That are most dearly sweet and bitter.

PALAMON.
What
Hath wakt us from our dreame?

PERITHOUS.
List then: your Cosen,
Mounted upon a Steed that Emily
Did first bestow on him, a blacke one, owing
Not a hayre worth of white—which some will say
Weakens his price, and many will not buy
His goodnesse with this note: Which superstition
Heere findes allowance—On this horse is Arcite
Trotting the stones of Athens, which the Calkins
Did rather tell then trample; for the horse
Would make his length a mile, if't pleas'd his Rider
To put pride in him: as he thus went counting
The flinty pavement, dancing, as t'wer, to'th Musicke
His owne hoofes made; (for as they say from iron
Came Musickes origen) what envious Flint,
Cold as old Saturne, and like him possest
With fire malevolent, darted a Sparke,
Or what feirce sulphur else, to this end made,
I comment not;—the hot horse, hot as fire,
Tooke Toy at this, and fell to what disorder
His power could give his will; bounds, comes on end,
Forgets schoole dooing, being therein traind,
And of kind mannadge; pig-like he whines
At the sharpe Rowell, which he freats at rather
Then any jot obaies; seekes all foule meanes
Of boystrous and rough Iadrie, to dis-seate
His Lord, that kept it bravely: when nought serv'd,
When neither Curb would cracke, girth breake nor diffring plunges
Dis-roote his Rider whence he grew, but that
He kept him tweene his legges, on his hind hoofes on end he stands,
That Arcites leggs, being higher then his head,
Seem'd with strange art to hand: His victors wreath
Even then fell off his head: and presently
Backeward the Iade comes ore, and his full poyze
Becomes the Riders loade: yet is he living,
But such a vessell tis, that floates but for
The surge that next approaches: he much desires
To have some speech with you: Loe he appeares.

[Enter Theseus, Hipolita, Emilia, Arcite in a chaire.]

PALAMON.
O miserable end of our alliance!
The gods are mightie, Arcite: if thy heart,
Thy worthie, manly heart, be yet unbroken,
Give me thy last words; I am Palamon,
One that yet loves thee dying.

ARCITE.
Take Emilia
And with her all the worlds joy: Reach thy hand:
Farewell: I have told my last houre.  I was false,
Yet never treacherous: Forgive me, Cosen:—
One kisse from faire Emilia: Tis done:
Take her: I die.

PALAMON.
Thy brave soule seeke Elizium.

EMILIA.
Ile close thine eyes, Prince; blessed soules be with thee!
Thou art a right good man, and while I live,
This day I give to teares.

PALAMON.
And I to honour.

THESEUS.
In this place first you fought: ev'n very here
I sundred you: acknowledge to the gods
Our thankes that you are living.
His part is playd, and though it were too short,
He did it well: your day is lengthned, and
The blissefull dew of heaven do's arowze you.
The powerfull Venus well hath grac'd her Altar,
And given you your love: Our Master Mars
Hath vouch'd his Oracle, and to Arcite gave
The grace of the Contention: So the Deities
Have shewd due justice: Beare this hence.

PALAMON.
O Cosen,
That we should things desire, which doe cost us
The losse of our desire!  That nought could buy
Deare love, but losse of deare love!

THESEUS.
Never Fortune
Did play a subtler Game: The conquerd triumphes,
The victor has the Losse: yet in the passage
The gods have beene most equall: Palamon,
Your kinseman hath confest the right o'th Lady
Did lye in you, for you first saw her, and
Even then proclaimd your fancie: He restord her
As your stolne Iewell, and desir'd your spirit
To send him hence forgiven; The gods my justice
Take from my hand, and they themselves become
The Executioners: Leade your Lady off;
And call your Lovers from the stage of death,
Whom I adopt my Frinds.  A day or two
Let us looke sadly, and give grace unto
The Funerall of Arcite; in whose end
The visages of Bridegroomes weele put on
And smile with Palamon; for whom an houre,
But one houre, since, I was as dearely sorry,
As glad of Arcite: and am now as glad,
As for him sorry.  O you heavenly Charmers,
What things you make of us!  For what we lacke
We laugh, for what we have, are sorry: still
Are children in some kind.  Let us be thankefull
For that which is, and with you leave dispute
That are above our question.  Let's goe off,
And beare us like the time.  [Florish.  Exeunt.]

EPILOGUE

I would now aske ye how ye like the Play,
But, as it is with Schoole Boyes, cannot say,
I am cruell fearefull: pray, yet stay a while,
And let me looke upon ye: No man smile?
Then it goes hard, I see; He that has
Lov'd a yong hansome wench, then, show his face—
Tis strange if none be heere—and if he will
Against his Conscience, let him hisse, and kill
Our Market: Tis in vaine, I see, to stay yee;
Have at the worst can come, then!  Now what say ye?
And yet mistake me not: I am not bold;
We have no such cause.  If the tale we have told
(For tis no other) any way content ye
(For to that honest purpose it was ment ye)
We have our end; and ye shall have ere long,
I dare say, many a better, to prolong
Your old loves to us: we, and all our might
Rest at your service.  Gentlemen, good night.  [Florish.]

FINIS



THE WINTER’S TALE

Dramatis Personae

  LEONTES, King of Sicilia
  MAMILLIUS, his son, the young Prince of Sicilia
  CAMILLO,    lord of Sicilia
  ANTIGONUS,    "   "     "
  CLEOMENES,    "   "     "
  DION,         "   "     "
  POLIXENES, King of Bohemia
  FLORIZEL, his son, Prince of Bohemia
  ARCHIDAMUS, a lord of Bohemia
  OLD SHEPHERD, reputed father of Perdita
  CLOWN, his son
  AUTOLYCUS, a rogue
  A MARINER
  A GAOLER
  TIME, as Chorus

  HERMIONE, Queen to Leontes
  PERDITA, daughter to Leontes and Hermione
  PAULINA, wife to Antigonus
  EMILIA, a lady attending on the Queen
  MOPSA,   shepherdess
  DORCAS,        "

  Other Lords, Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, Servants, Shepherds,
    Shepherdesses

                              SCENE: Sicilia and Bohemia

ACT I. SCENE I. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS

  ARCHIDAMUS. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the
    like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see,
    as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your
    Sicilia.
  CAMILLO. I think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to
    pay Bohemia the visitation which he justly owes him.
  ARCHIDAMUS. Wherein our entertainment shall shame us we will be
    justified in our loves; for indeed-
  CAMILLO. Beseech you-
  ARCHIDAMUS. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we
    cannot with such magnificence, in so rare- I know not what to
    say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses,
    unintelligent of our insufficience, may, though they cannot
    praise us, as little accuse us.
  CAMILLO. You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.
  ARCHIDAMUS. Believe me, I speak as my understanding instructs me
    and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.
  CAMILLO. Sicilia cannot show himself overkind to Bohemia. They were
    train'd together in their childhoods; and there rooted betwixt
    them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch now.
    Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities made
    separation of their society, their encounters, though not
    personal, have been royally attorneyed with interchange of gifts,
    letters, loving embassies; that they have seem'd to be together,
    though absent; shook hands, as over a vast; and embrac'd as it
    were from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their
    loves!
  ARCHIDAMUS. I think there is not in the world either malice or
    matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable comfort of your young
    Prince Mamillius; it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that
    ever came into my note.
  CAMILLO. I very well agree with you in the hopes of him. It is a
    gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject, makes old
    hearts fresh; they that went on crutches ere he was born desire
    yet their life to see him a man.
  ARCHIDAMUS. Would they else be content to die?
  CAMILLO. Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire
    to live.
  ARCHIDAMUS. If the King had no son, they would desire to live on
    crutches till he had one.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, CAMILLO, and ATTENDANTS

  POLIXENES. Nine changes of the wat'ry star hath been
    The shepherd's note since we have left our throne
    Without a burden. Time as long again
    Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks;
    And yet we should for perpetuity
    Go hence in debt. And therefore, like a cipher,
    Yet standing in rich place, I multiply
    With one 'We thank you' many thousands moe
    That go before it.
  LEONTES. Stay your thanks a while,
    And pay them when you part.
  POLIXENES. Sir, that's to-morrow.
    I am question'd by my fears of what may chance
    Or breed upon our absence, that may blow
    No sneaping winds at home, to make us say
    'This is put forth too truly.' Besides, I have stay'd
    To tire your royalty.
  LEONTES. We are tougher, brother,
    Than you can put us to't.
  POLIXENES. No longer stay.
  LEONTES. One sev'night longer.
  POLIXENES. Very sooth, to-morrow.
  LEONTES. We'll part the time between's then; and in that
    I'll no gainsaying.
  POLIXENES. Press me not, beseech you, so.
    There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' th' world,
    So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,
    Were there necessity in your request, although
    'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs
    Do even drag me homeward; which to hinder
    Were in your love a whip to me; my stay
    To you a charge and trouble. To save both,
    Farewell, our brother.
  LEONTES. Tongue-tied, our Queen? Speak you.
  HERMIONE. I had thought, sir, to have held my peace until
    You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,
    Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure
    All in Bohemia's well- this satisfaction
    The by-gone day proclaim'd. Say this to him,
    He's beat from his best ward.
  LEONTES. Well said, Hermione.
  HERMIONE. To tell he longs to see his son were strong;
    But let him say so then, and let him go;
    But let him swear so, and he shall not stay;
    We'll thwack him hence with distaffs.
    [To POLIXENES]  Yet of your royal presence I'll
    adventure the borrow of a week. When at Bohemia
    You take my lord, I'll give him my commission
    To let him there a month behind the gest
    Prefix'd for's parting.- Yet, good deed, Leontes,
    I love thee not a jar o' th' clock behind
    What lady she her lord.- You'll stay?
  POLIXENES. No, madam.
  HERMIONE. Nay, but you will?
  POLIXENES. I may not, verily.
  HERMIONE. Verily!
    You put me off with limber vows; but I,
    Though you would seek t' unsphere the stars with oaths,
    Should yet say 'Sir, no going.' Verily,
    You shall not go; a lady's 'verily' is
    As potent as a lord's. Will go yet?
    Force me to keep you as a prisoner,
    Not like a guest; so you shall pay your fees
    When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?
    My prisoner or my guest? By your dread 'verily,'
    One of them you shall be.
  POLIXENES. Your guest, then, madam:
    To be your prisoner should import offending;
    Which is for me less easy to commit
    Than you to punish.
  HERMIONE. Not your gaoler then,
    But your kind. hostess. Come, I'll question you
    Of my lord's tricks and yours when you were boys.
    You were pretty lordings then!
  POLIXENES. We were, fair Queen,
    Two lads that thought there was no more behind
    But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
    And to be boy eternal.
  HERMIONE. Was not my lord
    The verier wag o' th' two?
  POLIXENES. We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk i' th' sun
    And bleat the one at th' other. What we chang'd
    Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
    The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dream'd
    That any did. Had we pursu'd that life,
    And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd
    With stronger blood, we should have answer'd heaven
    Boldly 'Not guilty,' the imposition clear'd
    Hereditary ours.
  HERMIONE. By this we gather
    You have tripp'd since.
  POLIXENES. O my most sacred lady,
    Temptations have since then been born to 's, for
    In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl;
    Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes
    Of my young playfellow.
  HERMIONE. Grace to boot!
    Of this make no conclusion, lest you say
    Your queen and I are devils. Yet, go on;
    Th' offences we have made you do we'll answer,
    If you first sinn'd with us, and that with us
    You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not
    With any but with us.
  LEONTES. Is he won yet?
  HERMIONE. He'll stay, my lord.
  LEONTES. At my request he would not.
    Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok'st
    To better purpose.
  HERMIONE. Never?
  LEONTES. Never but once.
  HERMIONE. What! Have I twice said well? When was't before?
    I prithee tell me; cram's with praise, and make's
    As fat as tame things. One good deed dying tongueless
    Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that.
    Our praises are our wages; you may ride's
    With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere
    With spur we heat an acre. But to th' goal:
    My last good deed was to entreat his stay;
    What was my first? It has an elder sister,
    Or I mistake you. O, would her name were Grace!
    But once before I spoke to th' purpose- When?
    Nay, let me have't; I long.
  LEONTES. Why, that was when
    Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to death,
    Ere I could make thee open thy white hand
    And clap thyself my love; then didst thou utter
    'I am yours for ever.'
  HERMIONE. 'Tis Grace indeed.
    Why, lo you now, I have spoke to th' purpose twice:
    The one for ever earn'd a royal husband;
    Th' other for some while a friend.
                                  [Giving her hand to POLIXENES]
  LEONTES.  [Aside]  Too hot, too hot!
    To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.
    I have tremor cordis on me; my heart dances,
    But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment
    May a free face put on; derive a liberty
    From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom,
    And well become the agent. 'T may, I grant;
    But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers,
    As now they are, and making practis'd smiles
    As in a looking-glass; and then to sigh, as 'twere
    The mort o' th' deer. O, that is entertainment
    My bosom likes not, nor my brows! Mamillius,
    Art thou my boy?
  MAMILLIUS. Ay, my good lord.
  LEONTES. I' fecks!
    Why, that's my bawcock. What! hast smutch'd thy nose?
    They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, Captain,
    We must be neat- not neat, but cleanly, Captain.
    And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf,
    Are all call'd neat.- Still virginalling
    Upon his palm?- How now, you wanton calf,
    Art thou my calf?
  MAMILLIUS. Yes, if you will, my lord.
  LEONTES. Thou want'st a rough pash and the shoots that I have,
    To be full like me; yet they say we are
    Almost as like as eggs. Women say so,
    That will say anything. But were they false
    As o'er-dy'd blacks, as wind, as waters- false
    As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes
    No bourn 'twixt his and mine; yet were it true
    To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page,
    Look on me with your welkin eye. Sweet villain!
    Most dear'st! my collop! Can thy dam?- may't be?
    Affection! thy intention stabs the centre.
    Thou dost make possible things not so held,
    Communicat'st with dreams- how can this be?-
    With what's unreal thou coactive art,
    And fellow'st nothing. Then 'tis very credent
    Thou mayst co-join with something; and thou dost-
    And that beyond commission; and I find it,
    And that to the infection of my brains
    And hard'ning of my brows.
  POLIXENES. What means Sicilia?
  HERMIONE. He something seems unsettled.
  POLIXENES. How, my lord!
    What cheer? How is't with you, best brother?
  HERMIONE. You look
    As if you held a brow of much distraction.
    Are you mov'd, my lord?
  LEONTES. No, in good earnest.
    How sometimes nature will betray its folly,
    Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime
    To harder bosoms! Looking on the lines
    Of my boy's face, methoughts I did recoil
    Twenty-three years; and saw myself unbreech'd,
    In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzl'd,
    Lest it should bite its master and so prove,
    As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.
    How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,
    This squash, this gentleman. Mine honest friend,
    Will you take eggs for money?
  MAMILLIUS. No, my lord, I'll fight.
  LEONTES. You will? Why, happy man be's dole! My brother,
    Are you so fond of your young prince as we
    Do seem to be of ours?
  POLIXENES. If at home, sir,
    He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter;
    Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy;
    My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all.
    He makes a July's day short as December,
    And with his varying childness cures in me
    Thoughts that would thick my blood.
  LEONTES. So stands this squire
    Offic'd with me. We two will walk, my lord,
    And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione,
    How thou lov'st us show in our brother's welcome;
    Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap;
    Next to thyself and my young rover, he's
    Apparent to my heart.
  HERMIONE. If you would seek us,
    We are yours i' th' garden. Shall's attend you there?
  LEONTES. To your own bents dispose you; you'll be found,
    Be you beneath the sky.  [Aside]  I am angling now,
    Though you perceive me not how I give line.
    Go to, go to!
    How she holds up the neb, the bill to him!
    And arms her with the boldness of a wife
    To her allowing husband!

                      Exeunt POLIXENES, HERMIONE, and ATTENDANTS

    Gone already!
    Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd one!
    Go, play, boy, play; thy mother plays, and I
    Play too; but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue
    Will hiss me to my grave. Contempt and clamour
    Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There have been,
    Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now;
    And many a man there is, even at this present,
    Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th' arm
    That little thinks she has been sluic'd in's absence,
    And his pond fish'd by his next neighbour, by
    Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there's comfort in't,
    Whiles other men have gates and those gates open'd,
    As mine, against their will. Should all despair
    That hath revolted wives, the tenth of mankind
    Would hang themselves. Physic for't there's none;
    It is a bawdy planet, that will strike
    Where 'tis predominant; and 'tis pow'rfull, think it,
    From east, west, north, and south. Be it concluded,
    No barricado for a belly. Know't,
    It will let in and out the enemy
    With bag and baggage. Many thousand on's
    Have the disease, and feel't not. How now, boy!
  MAMILLIUS. I am like you, they say.
  LEONTES. Why, that's some comfort.
    What! Camillo there?
  CAMILLO. Ay, my good lord.
  LEONTES. Go play, Mamillius; thou'rt an honest man.
                                                  Exit MAMILLIUS
    Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.
  CAMILLO. You had much ado to make his anchor hold;
    When you cast out, it still came home.
  LEONTES. Didst note it?
  CAMILLO. He would not stay at your petitions; made
    His business more material.
  LEONTES. Didst perceive it?
    [Aside]  They're here with me already; whisp'ring, rounding,
    'Sicilia is a so-forth.' 'Tis far gone
    When I shall gust it last.- How came't, Camillo,
    That he did stay?
  CAMILLO. At the good Queen's entreaty.
  LEONTES. 'At the Queen's' be't. 'Good' should be pertinent;
    But so it is, it is not. Was this taken
    By any understanding pate but thine?
    For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in
    More than the common blocks. Not noted, is't,
    But of the finer natures, by some severals
    Of head-piece extraordinary? Lower messes
    Perchance are to this business purblind? Say.
  CAMILLO. Business, my lord? I think most understand
    Bohemia stays here longer.
  LEONTES. Ha?
  CAMILLO. Stays here longer.
  LEONTES. Ay, but why?
  CAMILLO. To satisfy your Highness, and the entreaties
    Of our most gracious mistress.
  LEONTES. Satisfy
    Th' entreaties of your mistress! Satisfy!
    Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,
    With all the nearest things to my heart, as well
    My chamber-councils, wherein, priest-like, thou
    Hast cleans'd my bosom- I from thee departed
    Thy penitent reform'd; but we have been
    Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd
    In that which seems so.
  CAMILLO. Be it forbid, my lord!
  LEONTES. To bide upon't: thou art not honest; or,
    If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward,
    Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining
    From course requir'd; or else thou must be counted
    A servant grafted in my serious trust,
    And therein negligent; or else a fool
    That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake drawn,
    And tak'st it all for jest.
  CAMILLO. My gracious lord,
    I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful:
    In every one of these no man is free
    But that his negligence, his folly, fear,
    Among the infinite doings of the world,
    Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,
    If ever I were wilfull-negligent,
    It was my folly; if industriously
    I play'd the fool, it was my negligence,
    Not weighing well the end; if ever fearful
    To do a thing where I the issue doubted,
    Whereof the execution did cry out
    Against the non-performance, 'twas a fear
    Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,
    Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty
    Is never free of. But, beseech your Grace,
    Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
    By its own visage; if I then deny it,
    'Tis none of mine.
  LEONTES. Ha' not you seen, Camillo-
    But that's past doubt; you have, or your eye-glass
    Is thicker than a cuckold's horn- or heard-
    For to a vision so apparent rumour
    Cannot be mute- or thought- for cogitation
    Resides not in that man that does not think-
    My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess-
    Or else be impudently negative,
    To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought- then say
    My wife's a hobby-horse, deserves a name
    As rank as any flax-wench that puts to
    Before her troth-plight. Say't and justify't.
  CAMILLO. I would not be a stander-by to hear
    My sovereign mistress clouded so, without
    My present vengeance taken. Shrew my heart!
    You never spoke what did become you less
    Than this; which to reiterate were sin
    As deep as that, though true.
  LEONTES. Is whispering nothing?
    Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?
    Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career
    Of laughter with a sigh?- a note infallible
    Of breaking honesty. Horsing foot on foot?
    Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift;
    Hours, minutes; noon, midnight? And all eyes
    Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
    That would unseen be wicked- is this nothing?
    Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;
    The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;
    My is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,
    If this be nothing.
  CAMILLO. Good my lord, be cur'd
    Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes;
    For 'tis most dangerous.
  LEONTES. Say it be, 'tis true.
  CAMILLO. No, no, my lord.
  LEONTES. It is; you lie, you lie.
    I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee;
    Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,
    Or else a hovering temporizer that
    Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
    Inclining to them both. Were my wife's liver
    Infected as her life, she would not live
    The running of one glass.
  CAMILLO. Who does her?
  LEONTES. Why, he that wears her like her medal, hanging
    About his neck, Bohemia; who- if I
    Had servants true about me that bare eyes
    To see alike mine honour as their profits,
    Their own particular thrifts, they would do that
    Which should undo more doing. Ay, and thou,
    His cupbearer- whom I from meaner form
    Have bench'd and rear'd to worship; who mayst see,
    Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,
    How I am gall'd- mightst bespice a cup
    To give mine enemy a lasting wink;
    Which draught to me were cordial.
  CAMILLO. Sir, my lord,
    I could do this; and that with no rash potion,
    But with a ling'ring dram that should not work
    Maliciously like poison. But I cannot
    Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,
    So sovereignly being honourable.
    I have lov'd thee-
  LEONTES. Make that thy question, and go rot!
    Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled,
    To appoint myself in this vexation; sully
    The purity and whiteness of my sheets-
    Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted
    Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps;
    Give scandal to the blood o' th' Prince, my son-
    Who I do think is mine, and love as mine-
    Without ripe moving to 't? Would I do this?
    Could man so blench?
  CAMILLO. I must believe you, sir.
    I do; and will fetch off Bohemia for't;
    Provided that, when he's remov'd, your Highness
    Will take again your queen as yours at first,
    Even for your son's sake; and thereby for sealing
    The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms
    Known and allied to yours.
  LEONTES. Thou dost advise me
    Even so as I mine own course have set down.
    I'll give no blemish to her honour, none.
  CAMILLO. My lord,
    Go then; and with a countenance as clear
    As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia
    And with your queen. I am his cupbearer;
    If from me he have wholesome beverage,
    Account me not your servant.
  LEONTES. This is all:
    Do't, and thou hast the one half of my heart;
    Do't not, thou split'st thine own.
  CAMILLO. I'll do't, my lord.
  LEONTES. I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me.   Exit
  CAMILLO. O miserable lady! But, for me,
    What case stand I in? I must be the poisoner
    Of good Polixenes; and my ground to do't
    Is the obedience to a master; one
    Who, in rebellion with himself, will have
    All that are his so too. To do this deed,
    Promotion follows. If I could find example
    Of thousands that had struck anointed kings
    And flourish'd after, I'd not do't; but since
    Nor brass, nor stone, nor parchment, bears not one,
    Let villainy itself forswear't. I must
    Forsake the court. To do't, or no, is certain
    To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now!
    Here comes Bohemia.

                     Enter POLIXENES

  POLIXENES. This is strange. Methinks
    My favour here begins to warp. Not speak?
    Good day, Camillo.
  CAMILLO. Hail, most royal sir!
  POLIXENES. What is the news i' th' court?
  CAMILLO. None rare, my lord.
  POLIXENES. The King hath on him such a countenance
    As he had lost some province, and a region
    Lov'd as he loves himself; even now I met him
    With customary compliment, when he,
    Wafting his eyes to th' contrary and falling
    A lip of much contempt, speeds from me;
    So leaves me to consider what is breeding
    That changes thus his manners.
  CAMILLO. I dare not know, my lord.
  POLIXENES. How, dare not! Do not. Do you know, and dare not
    Be intelligent to me? 'Tis thereabouts;
    For, to yourself, what you do know, you must,
    And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,
    Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror
    Which shows me mine chang'd too; for I must be
    A party in this alteration, finding
    Myself thus alter'd with't.
  CAMILLO. There is a sickness
    Which puts some of us in distemper; but
    I cannot name the disease; and it is caught
    Of you that yet are well.
  POLIXENES. How! caught of me?
    Make me not sighted like the basilisk;
    I have look'd on thousands who have sped the better
    By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo-
    As you are certainly a gentleman; thereto
    Clerk-like experienc'd, which no less adorns
    Our gentry than our parents' noble names,
    In whose success we are gentle- I beseech you,
    If you know aught which does behove my knowledge
    Thereof to be inform'd, imprison't not
    In ignorant concealment.
  CAMILLO. I may not answer.
  POLIXENES. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well?
    I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo?
    I conjure thee, by all the parts of man
    Which honour does acknowledge, whereof the least
    Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare
    What incidency thou dost guess of harm
    Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near;
    Which way to be prevented, if to be;
    If not, how best to bear it.
  CAMILLO. Sir, I will tell you;
    Since I am charg'd in honour, and by him
    That I think honourable. Therefore mark my counsel,
    Which must be ev'n as swiftly followed as
    I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me
    Cry lost, and so goodnight.
  POLIXENES. On, good Camillo.
  CAMILLO. I am appointed him to murder you.
  POLIXENES. By whom, Camillo?
  CAMILLO. By the King.
  POLIXENES. For what?
  CAMILLO. He thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,
    As he had seen 't or been an instrument
    To vice you to't, that you have touch'd his queen
    Forbiddenly.
  POLIXENES. O, then my best blood turn
    To an infected jelly, and my name
    Be yok'd with his that did betray the Best!
    Turn then my freshest reputation to
    A savour that may strike the dullest nostril
    Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd,
    Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection
    That e'er was heard or read!
  CAMILLO. Swear his thought over
    By each particular star in heaven and
    By all their influences, you may as well
    Forbid the sea for to obey the moon
    As or by oath remove or counsel shake
    The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
    Is pil'd upon his faith and will continue
    The standing of his body.
  POLIXENES. How should this grow?
  CAMILLO. I know not; but I am sure 'tis safer to
    Avoid what's grown than question how 'tis born.
    If therefore you dare trust my honesty,
    That lies enclosed in this trunk which you
    Shall bear along impawn'd, away to-night.
    Your followers I will whisper to the business;
    And will, by twos and threes, at several posterns,
    Clear them o' th' city. For myself, I'll put
    My fortunes to your service, which are here
    By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,
    For, by the honour of my parents, I
    Have utt'red truth; which if you seek to prove,
    I dare not stand by; nor shall you be safer
    Than one condemn'd by the King's own mouth, thereon
    His execution sworn.
  POLIXENES. I do believe thee:
    I saw his heart in's face. Give me thy hand;
    Be pilot to me, and thy places shall
    Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready, and
    My people did expect my hence departure
    Two days ago. This jealousy
    Is for a precious creature; as she's rare,
    Must it be great; and, as his person's mighty,
    Must it be violent; and as he does conceive
    He is dishonour'd by a man which ever
    Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must
    In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades me.
    Good expedition be my friend, and comfort
    The gracious Queen, part of this theme, but nothing
    Of his ill-ta'en suspicion! Come, Camillo;
    I will respect thee as a father, if
    Thou bear'st my life off hence. Let us avoid.
  CAMILLO. It is in mine authority to command
    The keys of all the posterns. Please your Highness
    To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.             Exeunt

ACT II. SCENE I. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter HERMIONE, MAMILLIUS, and LADIES

  HERMIONE. Take the boy to you; he so troubles me,
    'Tis past enduring.
  FIRST LADY. Come, my gracious lord,
    Shall I be your playfellow?
  MAMILLIUS. No, I'll none of you.
  FIRST LADY. Why, my sweet lord?
  MAMILLIUS. You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me as if
    I were a baby still. I love you better.
  SECOND LADY. And why so, my lord?
  MAMILLIUS. Not for because
    Your brows are blacker; yet black brows, they say,
    Become some women best; so that there be not
    Too much hair there, but in a semicircle
    Or a half-moon made with a pen.
  SECOND LADY. Who taught't this?
  MAMILLIUS. I learn'd it out of women's faces. Pray now,
    What colour are your eyebrows?
  FIRST LADY. Blue, my lord.
  MAMILLIUS. Nay, that's a mock. I have seen a lady's nose
    That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.
  FIRST LADY. Hark ye:
    The Queen your mother rounds apace. We shall
    Present our services to a fine new prince
    One of these days; and then you'd wanton with us,
    If we would have you.
  SECOND LADY. She is spread of late
    Into a goodly bulk. Good time encounter her!
  HERMIONE. What wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now
    I am for you again. Pray you sit by us,
    And tell's a tale.
  MAMILLIUS. Merry or sad shall't be?
  HERMIONE. As merry as you will.
  MAMILLIUS. A sad tale's best for winter. I have one
    Of sprites and goblins.
  HERMIONE. Let's have that, good sir.
    Come on, sit down; come on, and do your best
    To fright me with your sprites; you're pow'rfull at it.
  MAMILLIUS. There was a man-
  HERMIONE. Nay, come, sit down; then on.
  MAMILLIUS. Dwelt by a churchyard- I will tell it softly;
    Yond crickets shall not hear it.
  HERMIONE. Come on then,
    And give't me in mine ear.

             Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, LORDS, and OTHERS

  LEONTES. he met there? his train? Camillo with him?
  FIRST LORD. Behind the tuft of pines I met them; never
    Saw I men scour so on their way. I ey'd them
    Even to their ships.
  LEONTES. How blest am I
    In my just censure, in my true opinion!
    Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accurs'd
    In being so blest! There may be in the cup
    A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart,
    And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge
    Is not infected; but if one present
    Th' abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known
    How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides,
    With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the spider.
    Camillo was his help in this, his pander.
    There is a plot against my life, my crown;
    All's true that is mistrusted. That false villain
    Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him;
    He has discover'd my design, and I
    Remain a pinch'd thing; yea, a very trick
    For them to play at will. How came the posterns
    So easily open?
  FIRST LORD. By his great authority;
    Which often hath no less prevail'd than so
    On your command.
  LEONTES. I know't too well.
    Give me the boy. I am glad you did not nurse him;
    Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you
    Have too much blood in him.
  HERMIONE. What is this? Sport?
  LEONTES. Bear the boy hence; he shall not come about her;
    Away with him; and let her sport herself
                                          [MAMILLIUS is led out]
    With that she's big with- for 'tis Polixenes
    Has made thee swell thus.
  HERMIONE. But I'd say he had not,
    And I'll be sworn you would believe my saying,
    Howe'er you lean to th' nayward.
  LEONTES. You, my lords,
    Look on her, mark her well; be but about
    To say 'She is a goodly lady' and
    The justice of your hearts will thereto ad
    'Tis pity she's not honest- honourable.'
    Praise her but for this her without-door form,
    Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight
    The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands
    That calumny doth use- O, I am out!-
    That mercy does, for calumny will sear
    Virtue itself- these shrugs, these hum's and ha's,
    When you have said she's goodly, come between,
    Ere you can say she's honest. But be't known,
    From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,
    She's an adultress.
  HERMIONE. Should a villain say so,
    The most replenish'd villain in the world,
    He were as much more villain: you, my lord,
    Do but mistake.
  LEONTES. You have mistook, my lady,
    Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing!
    Which I'll not call a creature of thy place,
    Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,
    Should a like language use to all degrees
    And mannerly distinguishment leave out
    Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said
    She's an adultress; I have said with whom.
    More, she's a traitor; and Camillo is
    A federary with her, and one that knows
    What she should shame to know herself
    But with her most vile principal- that she's
    A bed-swerver, even as bad as those
    That vulgars give bold'st titles; ay, and privy
    To this their late escape.
  HERMIONE. No, by my life,
    Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,
    When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that
    You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord,
    You scarce can right me throughly then to say
    You did mistake.
  LEONTES. No; if I mistake
    In those foundations which I build upon,
    The centre is not big enough to bear
    A school-boy's top. Away with her to prison.
    He who shall speak for her is afar off guilty
    But that he speaks.
  HERMIONE. There's some ill planet reigns.
    I must be patient till the heavens look
    With an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,
    I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
    Commonly are- the want of which vain dew
    Perchance shall dry your pities- but I have
    That honourable grief lodg'd here which burns
    Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords,
    With thoughts so qualified as your charities
    Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
    The King's will be perform'd!
  LEONTES.  [To the GUARD]  Shall I be heard?
  HERMIONE. Who is't that goes with me? Beseech your highness
    My women may be with me, for you see
    My plight requires it. Do not weep, good fools;
    There is no cause; when you shall know your mistress
    Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears
    As I come out: this action I now go on
    Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord.
    I never wish'd to see you sorry; now
    I trust I shall. My women, come; you have leave.
  LEONTES. Go, do our bidding; hence!
                            Exeunt HERMIONE, guarded, and LADIES
  FIRST LORD. Beseech your Highness, call the Queen again.
  ANTIGONUS. Be certain what you do, sir, lest your justice
    Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer,
    Yourself, your queen, your son.
  FIRST LORD. For her, my lord,
    I dare my life lay down- and will do't, sir,
    Please you t' accept it- that the Queen is spotless
    I' th' eyes of heaven and to you- I mean
    In this which you accuse her.
  ANTIGONUS. If it prove
    She's otherwise, I'll keep my stables where
    I lodge my wife; I'll go in couples with her;
    Than when I feel and see her no farther trust her;
    For every inch of woman in the world,
    Ay, every dram of woman's flesh is false,
    If she be.
  LEONTES. Hold your peaces.
  FIRST LORD. Good my lord-
  ANTIGONUS. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves.
    You are abus'd, and by some putter-on
    That will be damn'd for't. Would I knew the villain!
    I would land-damn him. Be she honour-flaw'd-
    I have three daughters: the eldest is eleven;
    The second and the third, nine and some five;
    If this prove true, they'll pay for 't. By mine honour,
    I'll geld 'em all; fourteen they shall not see
    To bring false generations. They are co-heirs;
    And I had rather glib myself than they
    Should not produce fair issue.
  LEONTES. Cease; no more.
    You smell this business with a sense as cold
    As is a dead man's nose; but I do see't and feel't
    As you feel doing thus; and see withal
    The instruments that feel.
  ANTIGONUS. If it be so,
    We need no grave to bury honesty;
    There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten
    Of the whole dungy earth.
  LEONTES. What! Lack I credit?
  FIRST LORD. I had rather you did lack than I, my lord,
    Upon this ground; and more it would content me
    To have her honour true than your suspicion,
    Be blam'd for't how you might.
  LEONTES. Why, what need we
    Commune with you of this, but rather follow
    Our forceful instigation? Our prerogative
    Calls not your counsels; but our natural goodness
    Imparts this; which, if you- or stupified
    Or seeming so in skill- cannot or will not
    Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves
    We need no more of your advice. The matter,
    The loss, the gain, the ord'ring on't, is all
    Properly ours.
  ANTIGONUS. And I wish, my liege,
    You had only in your silent judgment tried it,
    Without more overture.
  LEONTES. How could that be?
    Either thou art most ignorant by age,
    Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight,
    Added to their familiarity-
    Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture,
    That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation
    But only seeing, all other circumstances
    Made up to th' deed- doth push on this proceeding.
    Yet, for a greater confirmation-
    For, in an act of this importance, 'twere
    Most piteous to be wild- I have dispatch'd in post
    To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple,
    Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know
    Of stuff'd sufficiency. Now, from the oracle
    They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had,
    Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?
  FIRST LORD. Well done, my lord.
  LEONTES. Though I am satisfied, and need no more
    Than what I know, yet shall the oracle
    Give rest to th' minds of others such as he
    Whose ignorant credulity will not
    Come up to th' truth. So have we thought it good
    From our free person she should be confin'd,
    Lest that the treachery of the two fled hence
    Be left her to perform. Come, follow us;
    We are to speak in public; for this business
    Will raise us all.
  ANTIGONUS.  [Aside]  To laughter, as I take it,
    If the good truth were known.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE II. Sicilia. A prison

Enter PAULINA, a GENTLEMAN, and ATTENDANTS

  PAULINA. The keeper of the prison- call to him;
    Let him have knowledge who I am.              Exit GENTLEMAN
    Good lady!
    No court in Europe is too good for thee;
    What dost thou then in prison?

                 Re-enter GENTLEMAN with the GAOLER

    Now, good sir,
    You know me, do you not?
  GAOLER. For a worthy lady,
    And one who much I honour.
  PAULINA. Pray you, then,
    Conduct me to the Queen.
  GAOLER. I may not, madam;
    To the contrary I have express commandment.
  PAULINA. Here's ado, to lock up honesty and honour from
    Th' access of gentle visitors! Is't lawful, pray you,
    To see her women- any of them? Emilia?
  GAOLER. So please you, madam,
    To put apart these your attendants,
    Shall bring Emilia forth.
  PAULINA. I pray now, call her.
    Withdraw yourselves.                       Exeunt ATTENDANTS
  GAOLER. And, madam,
    I must be present at your conference.
  PAULINA. Well, be't so, prithee.                   Exit GAOLER
    Here's such ado to make no stain a stain
    As passes colouring.

                 Re-enter GAOLER, with EMILIA

    Dear gentlewoman,
    How fares our gracious lady?
  EMILIA. As well as one so great and so forlorn
    May hold together. On her frights and griefs,
    Which never tender lady hath borne greater,
    She is, something before her time, deliver'd.
  PAULINA. A boy?
  EMILIA. A daughter, and a goodly babe,
    Lusty, and like to live. The Queen receives
    Much comfort in't; says 'My poor prisoner,
    I am as innocent as you.'
  PAULINA. I dare be sworn.
    These dangerous unsafe lunes i' th' King, beshrew them!
    He must be told on't, and he shall. The office
    Becomes a woman best; I'll take't upon me;
    If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister,
    And never to my red-look'd anger be
    The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,
    Commend my best obedience to the Queen;
    If she dares trust me with her little babe,
    I'll show't the King, and undertake to be
    Her advocate to th' loud'st. We do not know
    How he may soften at the sight o' th' child:
    The silence often of pure innocence
    Persuades when speaking fails.
  EMILIA. Most worthy madam,
    Your honour and your goodness is so evident
    That your free undertaking cannot miss
    A thriving issue; there is no lady living
    So meet for this great errand. Please your ladyship
    To visit the next room, I'll presently
    Acquaint the Queen of your most noble offer
    Who but to-day hammer'd of this design,
    But durst not tempt a minister of honour,
    Lest she should be denied.
  PAULINA. Tell her, Emilia,
    I'll use that tongue I have; if wit flow from't
    As boldness from my bosom, let't not be doubted
    I shall do good.
  EMILIA. Now be you blest for it!
    I'll to the Queen. Please you come something nearer.
  GAOLER. Madam, if't please the Queen to send the babe,
    I know not what I shall incur to pass it,
    Having no warrant.
  PAULINA. You need not fear it, sir.
    This child was prisoner to the womb, and is
    By law and process of great Nature thence
    Freed and enfranchis'd- not a party to
    The anger of the King, nor guilty of,
    If any be, the trespass of the Queen.
  GAOLER. I do believe it.
  PAULINA. Do not you fear. Upon mine honour, I
    Will stand betwixt you and danger.                    Exeunt

SCENE III. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter LEONTES, ANTIGONUS, LORDS, and SERVANTS

  LEONTES. Nor night nor day no rest! It is but weakness
    To bear the matter thus- mere weakness. If
    The cause were not in being- part o' th' cause,
    She, th' adultress; for the harlot king
    Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank
    And level of my brain, plot-proof; but she
    I can hook to me- say that she were gone,
    Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest
    Might come to me again. Who's there?
  FIRST SERVANT. My lord?
  LEONTES. How does the boy?
  FIRST SERVANT. He took good rest to-night;
    'Tis hop'd his sickness is discharg'd.
  LEONTES. To see his nobleness!
    Conceiving the dishonour of his mother,
    He straight declin'd, droop'd, took it deeply,
    Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on't in himself,
    Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,
    And downright languish'd. Leave me solely. Go,
    See how he fares.  [Exit SERVANT]  Fie, fie! no thought of him!
    The very thought of my revenges that way
    Recoil upon me- in himself too mighty,
    And in his parties, his alliance. Let him be,
    Until a time may serve; for present vengeance,
    Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes
    Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow.
    They should not laugh if I could reach them; nor
    Shall she, within my pow'r.

                 Enter PAULINA, with a CHILD

  FIRST LORD. You must not enter.
  PAULINA. Nay, rather, good my lords, be second to me.
    Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,
    Than the Queen's life? A gracious innocent soul,
    More free than he is jealous.
  ANTIGONUS. That's enough.
  SECOND SERVANT. Madam, he hath not slept to-night; commanded
    None should come at him.
  PAULINA. Not so hot, good sir;
    I come to bring him sleep. 'Tis such as you,
    That creep like shadows by him, and do sigh
    At each his needless heavings- such as you
    Nourish the cause of his awaking: I
    Do come with words as medicinal as true,
    Honest as either, to purge him of that humour
    That presses him from sleep.
  LEONTES. What noise there, ho?
  PAULINA. No noise, my lord; but needful conference
    About some gossips for your Highness.
  LEONTES. How!
    Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,
    I charg'd thee that she should not come about me;
    I knew she would.
  ANTIGONUS. I told her so, my lord,
    On your displeasure's peril, and on mine,
    She should not visit you.
  LEONTES. What, canst not rule her?
  PAULINA. From all dishonesty he can: in this,
    Unless he take the course that you have done-
    Commit me for committing honour- trust it,
    He shall not rule me.
  ANTIGONUS. La you now, you hear!
    When she will take the rein, I let her run;
    But she'll not stumble.
  PAULINA. Good my liege, I come-
    And I beseech you hear me, who professes
    Myself your loyal servant, your physician,
    Your most obedient counsellor; yet that dares
    Less appear so, in comforting your evils,
    Than such as most seem yours- I say I come
    From your good Queen.
  LEONTES. Good Queen!
  PAULINA. Good Queen, my lord, good Queen- I say good Queen;
    And would by combat make her good, so were I
    A man, the worst about you.
  LEONTES. Force her hence.
  PAULINA. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes
    First hand me. On mine own accord I'll off;
    But first I'll do my errand. The good Queen,
    For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter;
    Here 'tis; commends it to your blessing.
                                         [Laying down the child]
  LEONTES. Out!
    A mankind witch! Hence with her, out o' door!
    A most intelligencing bawd!
  PAULINA. Not so.
    I am as ignorant in that as you
    In so entitling me; and no less honest
    Than you are mad; which is enough, I'll warrant,
    As this world goes, to pass for honest.
  LEONTES. Traitors!
    Will you not push her out? Give her the bastard.
    [To ANTIGONUS]  Thou dotard, thou art woman-tir'd, unroosted
    By thy Dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard;
    Take't up, I say; give't to thy crone.
  PAULINA. For ever
    Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou
    Tak'st up the Princess by that forced baseness
    Which he has put upon't!
  LEONTES. He dreads his wife.
  PAULINA. So I would you did; then 'twere past all doubt
    You'd call your children yours.
  LEONTES. A nest of traitors!
  ANTIGONUS. I am none, by this good light.
  PAULINA. Nor I; nor any
    But one that's here; and that's himself; for he
    The sacred honour of himself, his Queen's,
    His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander,
    Whose sting is sharper than the sword's; and will not-
    For, as the case now stands, it is a curse
    He cannot be compell'd to 't- once remove
    The root of his opinion, which is rotten
    As ever oak or stone was sound.
  LEONTES. A callat
    Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband,
    And now baits me! This brat is none of mine;
    It is the issue of Polixenes.
    Hence with it, and together with the dam
    Commit them to the fire.
  PAULINA. It is yours.
    And, might we lay th' old proverb to your charge,
    So like you 'tis the worse. Behold, my lords,
    Although the print be little, the whole matter
    And copy of the father- eye, nose, lip,
    The trick of's frown, his forehead; nay, the valley,
    The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek; his smiles;
    The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.
    And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it
    So like to him that got it, if thou hast
    The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colours
    No yellow in't, lest she suspect, as he does,
    Her children not her husband's!
  LEONTES. A gross hag!
    And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd
    That wilt not stay her tongue.
  ANTIGONUS. Hang all the husbands
    That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself
    Hardly one subject.
  LEONTES. Once more, take her hence.
  PAULINA. A most unworthy and unnatural lord
    Can do no more.
  LEONTES. I'll ha' thee burnt.
  PAULINA. I care not.
    It is an heretic that makes the fire,
    Not she which burns in't. I'll not call you tyrant
    But this most cruel usage of your Queen-
    Not able to produce more accusation
    Than your own weak-hing'd fancy- something savours
    Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you,
    Yea, scandalous to the world.
  LEONTES. On your allegiance,
    Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,
    Where were her life? She durst not call me so,
    If she did know me one. Away with her!
  PAULINA. I pray you, do not push me; I'll be gone.
    Look to your babe, my lord; 'tis yours. Jove send her
    A better guiding spirit! What needs these hands?
    You that are thus so tender o'er his follies
    Will never do him good, not one of you.
    So, so. Farewell; we are gone.                          Exit
  LEONTES. Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this.
    My child! Away with't. Even thou, that hast
    A heart so tender o'er it, take it hence,
    And see it instantly consum'd with fire;
    Even thou, and none but thou. Take it up straight.
    Within this hour bring me word 'tis done,
    And by good testimony, or I'll seize thy life,
    With that thou else call'st thine. If thou refuse,
    And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;
    The bastard brains with these my proper hands
    Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire;
    For thou set'st on thy wife.
  ANTIGONUS. I did not, sir.
    These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,
    Can clear me in't.
  LORDS. We can. My royal liege,
    He is not guilty of her coming hither.
  LEONTES. You're liars all.
  FIRST LORD. Beseech your Highness, give us better credit.
    We have always truly serv'd you; and beseech
    So to esteem of us; and on our knees we beg,
    As recompense of our dear services
    Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,
    Which being so horrible, so bloody, must
    Lead on to some foul issue. We all kneel.
  LEONTES. I am a feather for each wind that blows.
    Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel
    And call me father? Better burn it now
    Than curse it then. But be it; let it live.
    It shall not neither.  [To ANTIGONUS]  You, Sir, come you hither.
    You that have been so tenderly officious
    With Lady Margery, your midwife there,
    To save this bastard's life- for 'tis a bastard,
    So sure as this beard's grey- what will you adventure
    To save this brat's life?
  ANTIGONUS. Anything, my lord,
    That my ability may undergo,
    And nobleness impose. At least, thus much:
    I'll pawn the little blood which I have left
    To save the innocent- anything possible.
  LEONTES. It shall be possible. Swear by this sword
    Thou wilt perform my bidding.
  ANTIGONUS. I will, my lord.
  LEONTES. Mark, and perform it- seest thou? For the fail
    Of any point in't shall not only be
    Death to thyself, but to thy lewd-tongu'd wife,
    Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin thee,
    As thou art liegeman to us, that thou carry
    This female bastard hence; and that thou bear it
    To some remote and desert place, quite out
    Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,
    Without more mercy, to it own protection
    And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune
    It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,
    On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture,
    That thou commend it strangely to some place
    Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up.
  ANTIGONUS. I swear to do this, though a present death
    Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe.
    Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens
    To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,
    Casting their savageness aside, have done
    Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous
    In more than this deed does require! And blessing
    Against this cruelty fight on thy side,
    Poor thing, condemn'd to loss!           Exit with the child
  LEONTES. No, I'll not rear
    Another's issue.

                         Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. Please your Highness, posts
    From those you sent to th' oracle are come
    An hour since. Cleomenes and Dion,
    Being well arriv'd from Delphos, are both landed,
    Hasting to th' court.
  FIRST LORD. So please you, sir, their speed
    Hath been beyond account.
  LEONTES. Twenty-three days
    They have been absent; 'tis good speed; foretells
    The great Apollo suddenly will have
    The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords;
    Summon a session, that we may arraign
    Our most disloyal lady; for, as she hath
    Been publicly accus'd, so shall she have
    A just and open trial. While she lives,
    My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me;
    And think upon my bidding.                            Exeunt

ACT III. SCENE I. Sicilia. On the road to the Capital

Enter CLEOMENES and DION

  CLEOMENES. The climate's delicate, the air most sweet,
    Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing
    The common praise it bears.
  DION. I shall report,
    For most it caught me, the celestial habits-
    Methinks I so should term them- and the reverence
    Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice!
    How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly,
    It was i' th' off'ring!
  CLEOMENES. But of all, the burst
    And the ear-deaf'ning voice o' th' oracle,
    Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense
    That I was nothing.
  DION. If th' event o' th' journey
    Prove as successful to the Queen- O, be't so!-
    As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy,
    The time is worth the use on't.
  CLEOMENES. Great Apollo
    Turn all to th' best! These proclamations,
    So forcing faults upon Hermione,
    I little like.
  DION. The violent carriage of it
    Will clear or end the business. When the oracle-
    Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up-
    Shall the contents discover, something rare
    Even then will rush to knowledge. Go; fresh horses.
    And gracious be the issue!                            Exeunt

SCENE II. Sicilia. A court of justice

Enter LEONTES, LORDS, and OFFICERS

  LEONTES. This sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,
    Even pushes 'gainst our heart- the party tried,
    The daughter of a king, our wife, and one
    Of us too much belov'd. Let us be clear'd
    Of being tyrannous, since we so openly
    Proceed in justice, which shall have due course,
    Even to the guilt or the purgation.
    Produce the prisoner.
  OFFICER. It is his Highness' pleasure that the Queen
    Appear in person here in court.

         Enter HERMIONE, as to her trial, PAULINA, and LADIES

    Silence!
  LEONTES. Read the indictment.
  OFFICER.  [Reads]  'Hermione, Queen to the worthy Leontes, King of
    Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in
    committing adultery with Polixenes, King of Bohemia; and
    conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign
    lord the King, thy royal husband: the pretence whereof being by
    circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the
    faith and allegiance of true subject, didst counsel and aid them,
    for their better safety, to fly away by night.'
  HERMIONE. Since what I am to say must be but that
    Which contradicts my accusation, and
    The testimony on my part no other
    But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot me
    To say 'Not guilty.' Mine integrity
    Being counted falsehood shall, as I express it,
    Be so receiv'd. But thus- if pow'rs divine
    Behold our human actions, as they do,
    I doubt not then but innocence shall make
    False accusation blush, and tyranny
    Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know-
    Who least will seem to do so- my past life
    Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true,
    As I am now unhappy; which is more
    Than history can pattern, though devis'd
    And play'd to take spectators; for behold me-
    A fellow of the royal bed, which owe
    A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter,
    The mother to a hopeful prince- here standing
    To prate and talk for life and honour fore
    Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it
    As I weigh grief, which I would spare; for honour,
    'Tis a derivative from me to mine,
    And only that I stand for. I appeal
    To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes
    Came to your court, how I was in your grace,
    How merited to be so; since he came,
    With what encounter so uncurrent I
    Have strain'd t' appear thus; if one jot beyond
    The bound of honour, or in act or will
    That way inclining, hard'ned be the hearts
    Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin
    Cry fie upon my grave!
  LEONTES. I ne'er heard yet
    That any of these bolder vices wanted
    Less impudence to gainsay what they did
    Than to perform it first.
  HERMIONE. That's true enough;
    Though 'tis a saying, sir, not due to me.
  LEONTES. You will not own it.
  HERMIONE. More than mistress of
    Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not
    At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,
    With whom I am accus'd, I do confess
    I lov'd him as in honour he requir'd;
    With such a kind of love as might become
    A lady like me; with a love even such,
    So and no other, as yourself commanded;
    Which not to have done, I think had been in me
    Both disobedience and ingratitude
    To you and toward your friend; whose love had spoke,
    Ever since it could speak, from an infant, freely,
    That it was yours. Now for conspiracy:
    I know not how it tastes, though it be dish'd
    For me to try how; all I know of it
    Is that Camillo was an honest man;
    And why he left your court, the gods themselves,
    Wotting no more than I, are ignorant.
  LEONTES. You knew of his departure, as you know
    What you have underta'en to do in's absence.
  HERMIONE. Sir,
    You speak a language that I understand not.
    My life stands in the level of your dreams,
    Which I'll lay down.
  LEONTES. Your actions are my dreams.
    You had a bastard by Polixenes,
    And I but dream'd it. As you were past all shame-
    Those of your fact are so- so past all truth;
    Which to deny concerns more than avails; for as
    Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,
    No father owning it- which is indeed
    More criminal in thee than it- so thou
    Shalt feel our justice; in whose easiest passage
    Look for no less than death.
  HERMIONE. Sir, spare your threats.
    The bug which you would fright me with I seek.
    To me can life be no commodity.
    The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,
    I do give lost, for I do feel it gone,
    But know not how it went; my second joy
    And first fruits of my body, from his presence
    I am barr'd, like one infectious; my third comfort,
    Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast-
    The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth-
    Hal'd out to murder; myself on every post
    Proclaim'd a strumpet; with immodest hatred
    The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs
    To women of all fashion; lastly, hurried
    Here to this place, i' th' open air, before
    I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege,
    Tell me what blessings I have here alive
    That I should fear to die. Therefore proceed.
    But yet hear this- mistake me not: no life,
    I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour
    Which I would free- if I shall be condemn'd
    Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
    But what your jealousies awake, I tell you
    'Tis rigour, and not law. Your honours all,
    I do refer me to the oracle:
    Apollo be my judge!
  FIRST LORD. This your request
    Is altogether just. Therefore, bring forth,
    And in Apollo's name, his oracle.
                                         Exeunt certain OFFICERS
  HERMIONE. The Emperor of Russia was my father;
    O that he were alive, and here beholding
    His daughter's trial! that he did but see
    The flatness of my misery; yet with eyes
    Of pity, not revenge!

           Re-enter OFFICERS, with CLEOMENES and DION

  OFFICER. You here shall swear upon this sword of justice
    That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have
    Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought
    This seal'd-up oracle, by the hand deliver'd
    Of great Apollo's priest; and that since then
    You have not dar'd to break the holy seal
    Nor read the secrets in't.
  CLEOMENES, DION. All this we swear.
  LEONTES. Break up the seals and read.
  OFFICER.  [Reads]  'Hermione is chaste; Polixenes blameless;
    Camillo a true subject; Leontes a jealous tyrant; his innocent
    babe truly begotten; and the King shall live without an heir, if
    that which is lost be not found.'
  LORDS. Now blessed be the great Apollo!
  HERMIONE. Praised!
  LEONTES. Hast thou read truth?
  OFFICER. Ay, my lord; even so
    As it is here set down.
  LEONTES. There is no truth at all i' th' oracle.
    The sessions shall proceed. This is mere falsehood.

                        Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. My lord the King, the King!
  LEONTES. What is the business?
  SERVANT. O sir, I shall be hated to report it:
    The Prince your son, with mere conceit and fear
    Of the Queen's speed, is gone.
  LEONTES. How! Gone?
  SERVANT. Is dead.
  LEONTES. Apollo's angry; and the heavens themselves
    Do strike at my injustice.                 [HERMIONE swoons]
    How now, there!
  PAULINA. This news is mortal to the Queen. Look down
    And see what death is doing.
  LEONTES. Take her hence.
    Her heart is but o'ercharg'd; she will recover.
    I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion.
    Beseech you tenderly apply to her
    Some remedies for life.
                         Exeunt PAULINA and LADIES with HERMIONE
    Apollo, pardon
    My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle.
    I'll reconcile me to Polixenes,
    New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo-
    Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy.
    For, being transported by my jealousies
    To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose
    Camillo for the minister to poison
    My friend Polixenes; which had been done
    But that the good mind of Camillo tardied
    My swift command, though I with death and with
    Reward did threaten and encourage him,
    Not doing it and being done. He, most humane
    And fill'd with honour, to my kingly guest
    Unclasp'd my practice, quit his fortunes here,
    Which you knew great, and to the certain hazard
    Of all incertainties himself commended,
    No richer than his honour. How he glisters
    Thorough my rust! And how his piety
    Does my deeds make the blacker!

                      Re-enter PAULINA

  PAULINA. Woe the while!
    O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it,
    Break too!
  FIRST LORD. What fit is this, good lady?
  PAULINA. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me?
    What wheels, racks, fires? what flaying, boiling
    In leads or oils? What old or newer torture
    Must I receive, whose every word deserves
    To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny
    Together working with thy jealousies,
    Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle
    For girls of nine- O, think what they have done,
    And then run mad indeed, stark mad; for all
    Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it.
    That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 'twas nothing;
    That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant,
    And damnable ingrateful. Nor was't much
    Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's honour,
    To have him kill a king- poor trespasses,
    More monstrous standing by; whereof I reckon
    The casting forth to crows thy baby daughter
    To be or none or little, though a devil
    Would have shed water out of fire ere done't;
    Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death
    Of the young Prince, whose honourable thoughts-
    Thoughts high for one so tender- cleft the heart
    That could conceive a gross and foolish sire
    Blemish'd his gracious dam. This is not, no,
    Laid to thy answer; but the last- O lords,
    When I have said, cry 'Woe!'- the Queen, the Queen,
    The sweet'st, dear'st creature's dead; and vengeance
    For't not dropp'd down yet.
  FIRST LORD. The higher pow'rs forbid!
  PAULINA. I say she's dead; I'll swear't. If word nor oath
    Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring
    Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye,
    Heat outwardly or breath within, I'll serve you
    As I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant!
    Do not repent these things, for they are heavier
    Than all thy woes can stir; therefore betake thee
    To nothing but despair. A thousand knees
    Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,
    Upon a barren mountain, and still winter
    In storm perpetual, could not move the gods
    To look that way thou wert.
  LEONTES. Go on, go on.
    Thou canst not speak too much; I have deserv'd
    All tongues to talk their bitt'rest.
  FIRST LORD. Say no more;
    Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault
    I' th' boldness of your speech.
  PAULINA. I am sorry for't.
    All faults I make, when I shall come to know them.
    I do repent. Alas, I have show'd too much
    The rashness of a woman! He is touch'd
    To th' noble heart. What's gone and what's past help
    Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction
    At my petition; I beseech you, rather
    Let me be punish'd that have minded you
    Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,
    Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.
    The love I bore your queen- lo, fool again!
    I'll speak of her no more, nor of your children;
    I'll not remember you of my own lord,
    Who is lost too. Take your patience to you,
    And I'll say nothing.
  LEONTES. Thou didst speak but well
    When most the truth; which I receive much better
    Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me
    To the dead bodies of my queen and son.
    One grave shall be for both. Upon them shall
    The causes of their death appear, unto
    Our shame perpetual. Once a day I'll visit
    The chapel where they lie; and tears shed there
    Shall be my recreation. So long as nature
    Will bear up with this exercise, so long
    I daily vow to use it. Come, and lead me
    To these sorrows.                                     Exeunt

SCENE III. Bohemia. The sea-coast

Enter ANTIGONUS with the CHILD, and a MARINER

  ANTIGONUS. Thou art perfect then our ship hath touch'd upon
    The deserts of Bohemia?
  MARINER. Ay, my lord, and fear
    We have landed in ill time; the skies look grimly
    And threaten present blusters. In my conscience,
    The heavens with that we have in hand are angry
    And frown upon 's.
  ANTIGONUS. Their sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard;
    Look to thy bark. I'll not be long before
    I call upon thee.
  MARINER. Make your best haste; and go not
    Too far i' th' land; 'tis like to be loud weather;
    Besides, this place is famous for the creatures
    Of prey that keep upon't.
  ANTIGONUS. Go thou away;
    I'll follow instantly.
  MARINER. I am glad at heart
    To be so rid o' th' business.                           Exit
  ANTIGONUS. Come, poor babe.
    I have heard, but not believ'd, the spirits o' th' dead
    May walk again. If such thing be, thy mother
    Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream
    So like a waking. To me comes a creature,
    Sometimes her head on one side some another-
    I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
    So fill'd and so becoming; in pure white robes,
    Like very sanctity, she did approach
    My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me;
    And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes
    Became two spouts; the fury spent, anon
    Did this break from her: 'Good Antigonus,
    Since fate, against thy better disposition,
    Hath made thy person for the thrower-out
    Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,
    Places remote enough are in Bohemia,
    There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the babe
    Is counted lost for ever, Perdita
    I prithee call't. For this ungentle business,
    Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see
    Thy wife Paulina more.' so, with shrieks,
    She melted into air. Affrighted much,
    I did in time collect myself, and thought
    This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys;
    Yet, for this once, yea, superstitiously,
    I will be squar'd by this. I do believe
    Hermione hath suffer'd death, and that
    Apollo would, this being indeed the issue
    Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,
    Either for life or death, upon the earth
    Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well!
                                         [Laying down the child]
    There lie, and there thy character; there these
                                          [Laying down a bundle]
    Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, pretty,
    And still rest thine. The storm begins. Poor wretch,
    That for thy mother's fault art thus expos'd
    To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,
    But my heart bleeds; and most accurs'd am I
    To be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell!
    The day frowns more and more. Thou'rt like to have
    A lullaby too rough; I never saw
    The heavens so dim by day.  [Noise of hunt within]  A savage
      clamour!
    Well may I get aboard! This is the chase;
    I am gone for ever.                  Exit, pursued by a bear

                      Enter an old SHEPHERD

  SHEPHERD. I would there were no age between ten and three and twenty,
  or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the
  between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,
  stealing, fighting-  [Horns]  Hark you now! Would any but these
  boil'd brains of nineteen and two and twenty hunt this weather? They
  have scar'd away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will
  sooner find than the master. If any where I have them, 'tis by the
  sea-side, browsing of ivy. Good luck, an't be thy will! What have we
  here?  [Taking up the child]  Mercy on's, a barne! A very pretty
  barne. A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one; a very pretty one-
  sure, some scape. Though I am not bookish, yet I can read
  waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work, some
  trunk-work, some behind-door-work; they were warmer that got this
  than the poor thing is here. I'll take it up for pity; yet I'll tarry
  till my son come; he halloo'd but even now. Whoa-ho-hoa!

                          Enter CLOWN

  CLOWN. Hilloa, loa!
  SHEPHERD. What, art so near? If thou'lt see a thing to talk on when
    thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ail'st thou, man?
  CLOWN. I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! But I am
    not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky; betwixt the
    firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.
  SHEPHERD. Why, boy, how is it?
  CLOWN. I would you did but see how it chafes, how it rages, how it
    takes up the shore! But that's not to the point. O, the most
    piteous cry of the poor souls! Sometimes to see 'em, and not to
    see 'em; now the ship boring the moon with her mainmast, and anon
    swallowed with yeast and froth, as you'd thrust a cork into a
    hogshead. And then for the land service- to see how the bear tore
    out his shoulder-bone; how he cried to me for help, and said his
    name was Antigonus, a nobleman! But to make an end of the ship-
    to see how the sea flap-dragon'd it; but first, how the poor
    souls roared, and the sea mock'd them; and how the poor gentleman
    roared, and the bear mock'd him, both roaring louder than the sea
    or weather.
  SHEPHERD. Name of mercy, when was this, boy?
  CLOWN. Now, now; I have not wink'd since I saw these sights; the
    men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half din'd on the
    gentleman; he's at it now.
  SHEPHERD. Would I had been by to have help'd the old man!
  CLOWN. I would you had been by the ship-side, to have help'd her;
    there your charity would have lack'd footing.
  SHEPHERD. Heavy matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy.
    Now bless thyself; thou met'st with things dying, I with things
    new-born. Here's a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing-cloth for
    a squire's child! Look thee here; take up, take up, boy; open't.
    So, let's see- it was told me I should be rich by the fairies.
    This is some changeling. Open't. What's within, boy?
  CLOWN. You're a made old man; if the sins of your youth are
    forgiven you, you're well to live. Gold! all gold!
  SHEPHERD. This is fairy gold, boy, and 'twill prove so. Up with't,
    keep it close. Home, home, the next way! We are lucky, boy; and
    to be so still requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go.
    Come, good boy, the next way home.
  CLOWN. Go you the next way with your findings. I'll go see if the
    bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten. They
    are never curst but when they are hungry. If there be any of him
    left, I'll bury it.
  SHEPHERD. That's a good deed. If thou mayest discern by that which
    is left of him what he is, fetch me to th' sight of him.
  CLOWN. Marry, will I; and you shall help to put him i' th' ground.
  SHEPHERD. 'Tis a lucky day, boy; and we'll do good deeds on't.
                                                          Exeunt

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Enter TIME, the CHORUS

  TIME. I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror
    Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
    Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
    To use my wings. Impute it not a crime
    To me or my swift passage that I slide
    O'er sixteen years, and leave the growth untried
    Of that wide gap, since it is in my pow'r
    To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour
    To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass
    The same I am, ere ancient'st order was
    Or what is now receiv'd. I witness to
    The times that brought them in; so shall I do
    To th' freshest things now reigning, and make stale
    The glistering of this present, as my tale
    Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing,
    I turn my glass, and give my scene such growing
    As you had slept between. Leontes leaving-
    Th' effects of his fond jealousies so grieving
    That he shuts up himself- imagine me,
    Gentle spectators, that I now may be
    In fair Bohemia; and remember well
    I mention'd a son o' th' King's, which Florizel
    I now name to you; and with speed so pace
    To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace
    Equal with wond'ring. What of her ensues
    I list not prophesy; but let Time's news
    Be known when 'tis brought forth. A shepherd's daughter,
    And what to her adheres, which follows after,
    Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow,
    If ever you have spent time worse ere now;
    If never, yet that Time himself doth say
    He wishes earnestly you never may.                      Exit

SCENE II. Bohemia. The palace of POLIXENES

Enter POLIXENES and CAMILLO

  POLIXENES. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate: 'tis
    a sickness denying thee anything; a death to grant this.
  CAMILLO. It is fifteen years since I saw my country; though I have
    for the most part been aired abroad, I desire to lay my bones
    there. Besides, the penitent King, my master, hath sent for me;
    to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, or I o'erween to
    think so, which is another spur to my departure.
  POLIXENES. As thou lov'st me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy
    services by leaving me now. The need I have of thee thine own
    goodness hath made. Better not to have had thee than thus to want
    thee; thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can
    sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself, or
    take away with thee the very services thou hast done; which if I
    have not enough considered- as too much I cannot- to be more
    thankful to thee shall be my study; and my profit therein the
    heaping friendships. Of that fatal country Sicilia, prithee,
    speak no more; whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance
    of that penitent, as thou call'st him, and reconciled king, my
    brother; whose loss of his most precious queen and children are
    even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when saw'st thou the
    Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy, their issue
    not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have
    approved their virtues.
  CAMILLO. Sir, it is three days since I saw the Prince. What his
    happier affairs may be are to me unknown; but I have missingly
    noted he is of late much retired from court, and is less frequent
    to his princely exercises than formerly he hath appeared.
  POLIXENES. I have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care,
    so far that I have eyes under my service which look upon his
    removedness; from whom I have this intelligence, that he is
    seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd- a man, they say,
    that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his
    neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.
  CAMILLO. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of
    most rare note. The report of her is extended more than can be
    thought to begin from such a cottage.
  POLIXENES. That's likewise part of my intelligence; but, I fear, the
    angle that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the
    place; where we will, not appearing what we are, have some
    question with the shepherd; from whose simplicity I think it not
    uneasy to get the cause of my son's resort thither. Prithee be my
    present partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of
    Sicilia.
  CAMILLO. I willingly obey your command.
  POLIXENES. My best Camillo! We must disguise ourselves.
                                                          Exeunt

SCENE III. Bohemia. A road near the SHEPHERD'S cottage

Enter AUTOLYCUS, singing

      When daffodils begin to peer,
        With heigh! the doxy over the dale,
      Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year,
        For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.

      The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
        With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
      Doth set my pugging tooth on edge,
        For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

      The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,
        With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay,
      Are summer songs for me and my aunts,
        While we lie tumbling in the hay.

    I have serv'd Prince Florizel, and in my time wore three-pile;
    but now I am out of service.

      But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?
        The pale moon shines by night;
      And when I wander here and there,
        I then do most go right.

      If tinkers may have leave to live,
        And bear the sow-skin budget,
      Then my account I well may give
        And in the stocks avouch it.

    My traffic is sheets; when the kite builds, look to lesser linen.
    My father nam'd me Autolycus; who, being, I as am, litter'd under
    Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles. With
    die and drab I purchas'd this caparison; and my revenue is the
    silly-cheat. Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway;
    beating and hanging are terrors to me; for the life to come, I
    sleep out the thought of it. A prize! a prize!

                            Enter CLOWN

  CLOWN. Let me see: every 'leven wether tods; every tod yields pound
    and odd shilling; fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  If the springe hold, the cock's mine.
  CLOWN. I cannot do 't without counters. Let me see: what am I to
    buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five
    pound of currants, rice- what will this sister of mine do with
    rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she
    lays it on. She hath made me four and twenty nosegays for the
    shearers- three-man song-men all, and very good ones; but they
    are most of them means and bases; but one Puritan amongst them,
    and he sings psalms to hornpipes. I must have saffron to colour
    the warden pies; mace; dates- none, that's out of my note;
    nutmegs, seven; race or two of ginger, but that I may beg; four
    pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o' th' sun.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Grovelling on the ground]  O that ever I was born!
  CLOWN. I' th' name of me!
  AUTOLYCUS. O, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags; and then,
    death, death!
  CLOWN. Alack, poor soul! thou hast need of more rags to lay on
    thee, rather than have these off.
  AUTOLYCUS. O sir, the loathsomeness of them offend me more than the
    stripes I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.
  CLOWN. Alas, poor man! a million of beating may come to a great
    matter.
  AUTOLYCUS. I am robb'd, sir, and beaten; my money and apparel ta'en
    from me, and these detestable things put upon me.
  CLOWN. What, by a horseman or a footman?
  AUTOLYCUS. A footman, sweet sir, a footman.
  CLOWN. Indeed, he should be a footman, by the garments he has left
    with thee; if this be a horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot
    service. Lend me thy hand, I'll help thee. Come, lend me thy
    hand.                                       [Helping him up]
  AUTOLYCUS. O, good sir, tenderly, O!
  CLOWN. Alas, poor soul!
  AUTOLYCUS. O, good sir, softly, good sir; I fear, sir, my shoulder
    blade is out.
  CLOWN. How now! Canst stand?
  AUTOLYCUS. Softly, dear sir  [Picks his pocket];  good sir, softly.
    You ha' done me a charitable office.
  CLOWN. Dost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.
  AUTOLYCUS. No, good sweet sir; no, I beseech you, sir. I have a
    kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was
    going; I shall there have money or anything I want. Offer me no
    money, I pray you; that kills my heart.
  CLOWN. What manner of fellow was he that robb'd you?
  AUTOLYCUS. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with
    troll-my-dames; I knew him once a servant of the Prince. I cannot
    tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was
    certainly whipt out of the court.
  CLOWN. His vices, you would say; there's no virtue whipt out of the
    court. They cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no
    more but abide.
  AUTOLYCUS. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this man well; he hath
    been since an ape-bearer; then a process-server, a bailiff; then
    he compass'd a motion of the Prodigal Son, and married a tinker's
    wife within a mile where my land and living lies; and, having
    flown over many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue.
    Some call him Autolycus.
  CLOWN. Out upon him! prig, for my life, prig! He haunts wakes,
    fairs, and bear-baitings.
  AUTOLYCUS. Very true, sir; he, sir, he; that's the rogue that put
    me into this apparel.
  CLOWN. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but
    look'd big and spit at him, he'd have run.
  AUTOLYCUS. I must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter; I am false
    of heart that way, and that he knew, I warrant him.
  CLOWN. How do you now?
  AUTOLYCUS. Sweet sir, much better than I was; I can stand and walk.
    I will even take my leave of you and pace softly towards my
    kinsman's.
  CLOWN. Shall I bring thee on the way?
  AUTOLYCUS. No, good-fac'd sir; no, sweet sir.
  CLOWN. Then fare thee well. I must go buy spices for our
    sheep-shearing.
  AUTOLYCUS. Prosper you, sweet sir!                  Exit CLOWN
    Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your spice. I'll be with
    you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat bring
    out another, and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unroll'd,
    and my name put in the book of virtue!
                                                         [Sings]
            Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
              And merrily hent the stile-a;
            A merry heart goes all the day,
              Your sad tires in a mile-a.                   Exit

SCENE IV. Bohemia. The SHEPHERD'S cottage

Enter FLORIZEL and PERDITA

  FLORIZEL. These your unusual weeds to each part of you
    Do give a life- no shepherdess, but Flora
    Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shearing
    Is as a meeting of the petty gods,
    And you the Queen on't.
  PERDITA. Sir, my gracious lord,
    To chide at your extremes it not becomes me-
    O, pardon that I name them! Your high self,
    The gracious mark o' th' land, you have obscur'd
    With a swain's wearing; and me, poor lowly maid,
    Most goddess-like prank'd up. But that our feasts
    In every mess have folly, and the feeders
    Digest it with a custom, I should blush
    To see you so attir'd; swoon, I think,
    To show myself a glass.
  FLORIZEL. I bless the time
    When my good falcon made her flight across
    Thy father's ground.
  PERDITA. Now Jove afford you cause!
    To me the difference forges dread; your greatness
    Hath not been us'd to fear. Even now I tremble
    To think your father, by some accident,
    Should pass this way, as you did. O, the Fates!
    How would he look to see his work, so noble,
    Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or how
    Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts, behold
    The sternness of his presence?
  FLORIZEL. Apprehend
    Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,
    Humbling their deities to love, have taken
    The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter
    Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune
    A ram and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god,
    Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
    As I seem now. Their transformations
    Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
    Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires
    Run not before mine honour, nor my lusts
    Burn hotter than my faith.
  PERDITA. O, but, sir,
    Your resolution cannot hold when 'tis
    Oppos'd, as it must be, by th' pow'r of the King.
    One of these two must be necessities,
    Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,
    Or I my life.
  FLORIZEL. Thou dearest Perdita,
    With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee, darken not
    The mirth o' th' feast. Or I'll be thine, my fair,
    Or not my father's; for I cannot be
    Mine own, nor anything to any, if
    I be not thine. To this I am most constant,
    Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle;
    Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing
    That you behold the while. Your guests are coming.
    Lift up your countenance, as it were the day
    Of celebration of that nuptial which
    We two have sworn shall come.
  PERDITA. O Lady Fortune,
    Stand you auspicious!
  FLORIZEL. See, your guests approach.
    Address yourself to entertain them sprightly,
    And let's be red with mirth.

        Enter SHEPHERD, with POLIXENES and CAMILLO, disguised;
                 CLOWN, MOPSA, DORCAS, with OTHERS

  SHEPHERD. Fie, daughter! When my old wife liv'd, upon
    This day she was both pantler, butler, cook;
    Both dame and servant; welcom'd all; serv'd all;
    Would sing her song and dance her turn; now here
    At upper end o' th' table, now i' th' middle;
    On his shoulder, and his; her face o' fire
    With labour, and the thing she took to quench it
    She would to each one sip. You are retired,
    As if you were a feasted one, and not
    The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid
    These unknown friends to's welcome, for it is
    A way to make us better friends, more known.
    Come, quench your blushes, and present yourself
    That which you are, Mistress o' th' Feast. Come on,
    And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,
    As your good flock shall prosper.
  PERDITA.  [To POLIXENES]  Sir, welcome.
    It is my father's will I should take on me
    The hostess-ship o' th' day.  [To CAMILLO]
    You're welcome, sir.
    Give me those flow'rs there, Dorcas. Reverend sirs,
    For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
    Seeming and savour all the winter long.
    Grace and remembrance be to you both!
    And welcome to our shearing.
  POLIXENES. Shepherdess-
    A fair one are you- well you fit our ages
    With flow'rs of winter.
  PERDITA. Sir, the year growing ancient,
    Not yet on summer's death nor on the birth
    Of trembling winter, the fairest flow'rs o' th' season
    Are our carnations and streak'd gillyvors,
    Which some call nature's bastards. Of that kind
    Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not
    To get slips of them.
  POLIXENES. Wherefore, gentle maiden,
    Do you neglect them?
  PERDITA. For I have heard it said
    There is an art which in their piedness shares
    With great creating nature.
  POLIXENES. Say there be;
    Yet nature is made better by no mean
    But nature makes that mean; so over that art
    Which you say adds to nature, is an art
    That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
    A gentler scion to the wildest stock,
    And make conceive a bark of baser kind
    By bud of nobler race. This is an art
    Which does mend nature- change it rather; but
    The art itself is nature.
  PERDITA. So it is.
  POLIXENES. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors,
    And do not call them bastards.
  PERDITA. I'll not put
    The dibble in earth to set one slip of them;
    No more than were I painted I would wish
    This youth should say 'twere well, and only therefore
    Desire to breed by me. Here's flow'rs for you:
    Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram;
    The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th' sun,
    And with him rises weeping; these are flow'rs
    Of middle summer, and I think they are given
    To men of middle age. Y'are very welcome.
  CAMILLO. I should leave grazing, were I of your flock,
    And only live by gazing.
  PERDITA. Out, alas!
    You'd be so lean that blasts of January
    Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend,
    I would I had some flow'rs o' th' spring that might
    Become your time of day- and yours, and yours,
    That wear upon your virgin branches yet
    Your maidenheads growing. O Proserpina,
    From the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall
    From Dis's waggon!- daffodils,
    That come before the swallow dares, and take
    The winds of March with beauty; violets, dim
    But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
    Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
    That die unmarried ere they can behold
    Bright Phoebus in his strength- a malady
    Most incident to maids; bold oxlips, and
    The crown-imperial; lilies of all kinds,
    The flow'r-de-luce being one. O, these I lack
    To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend
    To strew him o'er and o'er!
  FLORIZEL. What, like a corse?
  PERDITA. No; like a bank for love to lie and play on;
    Not like a corse; or if- not to be buried,
    But quick, and in mine arms. Come, take your flow'rs.
    Methinks I play as I have seen them do
    In Whitsun pastorals. Sure, this robe of mine
    Does change my disposition.
  FLORIZEL. What you do
    Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
    I'd have you do it ever. When you sing,
    I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
    Pray so; and, for the ord'ring your affairs,
    To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you
    A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do
    Nothing but that; move still, still so,
    And own no other function. Each your doing,
    So singular in each particular,
    Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
    That all your acts are queens.
  PERDITA. O Doricles,
    Your praises are too large. But that your youth,
    And the true blood which peeps fairly through't,
    Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd,
    With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,
    You woo'd me the false way.
  FLORIZEL. I think you have
    As little skill to fear as I have purpose
    To put you to't. But, come; our dance, I pray.
    Your hand, my Perdita; so turtles pair
    That never mean to part.
  PERDITA. I'll swear for 'em.
  POLIXENES. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever
    Ran on the green-sward; nothing she does or seems
    But smacks of something greater than herself,
    Too noble for this place.
  CAMILLO. He tells her something
    That makes her blood look out. Good sooth, she is
    The queen of curds and cream.
  CLOWN. Come on, strike up.
  DORCAS. Mopsa must be your mistress; marry, garlic,
    To mend her kissing with!
  MOPSA. Now, in good time!
  CLOWN. Not a word, a word; we stand upon our manners.
    Come, strike up.                                     [Music]

          Here a dance Of SHEPHERDS and SHEPHERDESSES

  POLIXENES. Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this
    Which dances with your daughter?
  SHEPHERD. They call him Doricles, and boasts himself
    To have a worthy feeding; but I have it
    Upon his own report, and I believe it:
    He looks like sooth. He says he loves my daughter;
    I think so too; for never gaz'd the moon
    Upon the water as he'll stand and read,
    As 'twere my daughter's eyes; and, to be plain,
    I think there is not half a kiss to choose
    Who loves another best.
  POLIXENES. She dances featly.
  SHEPHERD. So she does any thing; though I report it
    That should be silent. If young Doricles
    Do light upon her, she shall bring him that
    Which he not dreams of.

                      Enter a SERVANT

  SERVANT. O master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you
    would never dance again after a tabor and pipe; no, the bagpipe
    could not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you'll
    tell money; he utters them as he had eaten ballads, and all men's
    ears grew to his tunes.
  CLOWN. He could never come better; he shall come in. I love a
    ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set
    down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.
  SERVANT. He hath songs for man or woman of all sizes; no milliner
    can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest
    love-songs for maids; so without bawdry, which is strange; with
    such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, 'jump her and thump
    her'; and where some stretch-mouth'd rascal would, as it were,
    mean mischief, and break a foul gap into the matter, he makes the
    maid to answer 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man'- puts him off,
    slights him, with 'Whoop, do me no harm, good man.'
  POLIXENES. This is a brave fellow.
  CLOWN. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow.
    Has he any unbraided wares?
  SERVANT. He hath ribbons of all the colours i' th' rainbow; points,
    more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though
    they come to him by th' gross; inkles, caddisses, cambrics,
    lawns. Why he sings 'em over as they were gods or goddesses; you
    would think a smock were she-angel, he so chants to the
    sleeve-hand and the work about the square on't.
  CLOWN. Prithee bring him in; and let him approach singing.
  PERDITA. Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in's tunes.
                                                    Exit SERVANT
  CLOWN. You have of these pedlars that have more in them than you'd
    think, sister.
  PERDITA. Ay, good brother, or go about to think.

                   Enter AUTOLYCUS, Singing

           Lawn as white as driven snow;
           Cypress black as e'er was crow;
           Gloves as sweet as damask roses;
           Masks for faces and for noses;
           Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
           Perfume for a lady's chamber;
           Golden quoifs and stomachers,
           For my lads to give their dears;
           Pins and poking-sticks of steel-
           What maids lack from head to heel.
           Come, buy of me, come; come buy, come buy;
           Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry.
           Come, buy.

  CLOWN. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no
    money of me; but being enthrall'd as I am, it will also be the
    bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.
  MOPSA. I was promis'd them against the feast; but they come not too
    late now.
  DORCAS. He hath promis'd you more than that, or there be liars.
  MOPSA. He hath paid you all he promis'd you. May be he has paid you
    more, which will shame you to give him again.
  CLOWN. Is there no manners left among maids? Will they wear their
    plackets where they should bear their faces? Is there not
    milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to whistle
    off these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our
    guests? 'Tis well they are whisp'ring. Clammer your tongues, and
    not a word more.
  MOPSA. I have done. Come, you promis'd me a tawdry-lace, and a pair
    of sweet gloves.
  CLOWN. Have I not told thee how I was cozen'd by the way, and lost
    all my money?
  AUTOLYCUS. And indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad; therefore it
    behoves men to be wary.
  CLOWN. Fear not thou, man; thou shalt lose nothing here.
  AUTOLYCUS. I hope so, sir; for I have about me many parcels of
    charge.
  CLOWN. What hast here? Ballads?
  MOPSA. Pray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print a-life, for
    then we are sure they are true.
  AUTOLYCUS. Here's one to a very doleful tune: how a usurer's wife
    was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden, and how she
    long'd to eat adders' heads and toads carbonado'd.
  MOPSA. Is it true, think you?
  AUTOLYCUS. Very true, and but a month old.
  DORCAS. Bless me from marrying a usurer!
  AUTOLYCUS. Here's the midwife's name to't, one Mistress Taleporter,
    and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I
    carry lies abroad?
  MOPSA. Pray you now, buy it.
  CLOWN. Come on, lay it by; and let's first see moe ballads; we'll
    buy the other things anon.
  AUTOLYCUS. Here's another ballad, of a fish that appeared upon the
    coast on Wednesday the fourscore of April, forty thousand fathom
    above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of
    maids. It was thought she was a woman, and was turn'd into a cold
    fish for she would not exchange flesh with one that lov'd her.
    The ballad is very pitiful, and as true.
  DORCAS. Is it true too, think you?
  AUTOLYCUS. Five justices' hands at it; and witnesses more than my
    pack will hold.
  CLOWN. Lay it by too. Another.
  AUTOLYCUS. This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.
  MOPSA. Let's have some merry ones.
  AUTOLYCUS. Why, this is a passing merry one, and goes to the tune
    of 'Two maids wooing a man.' There's scarce a maid westward but
    she sings it; 'tis in request, I can tell you.
  MOPSA. can both sing it. If thou'lt bear a part, thou shalt hear;
    'tis in three parts.
  DORCAS. We had the tune on't a month ago.
  AUTOLYCUS. I can bear my part; you must know 'tis my occupation.
    Have at it with you.

                        SONG

  AUTOLYCUS. Get you hence, for I must go
             Where it fits not you to know.
  DORCAS.    Whither?
  MOPSA.       O, whither?
  DORCAS.        Whither?
  MOPSA.     It becomes thy oath full well
             Thou to me thy secrets tell.
  DORCAS.    Me too! Let me go thither
  MOPSA.     Or thou goest to th' grange or mill.
  DORCAS.    If to either, thou dost ill.
  AUTOLYCUS. Neither.
  DORCAS.    What, neither?
  AUTOLYCUS. Neither.
  DORCAS.    Thou hast sworn my love to be.
  MOPSA.     Thou hast sworn it more to me.
             Then whither goest? Say, whither?

  CLOWN. We'll have this song out anon by ourselves; my father and
    the gentlemen are in sad talk, and we'll not trouble them. Come,
    bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I'll buy for you both.
    Pedlar, let's have the first choice. Follow me, girls.
                                      Exit with DORCAS and MOPSA
  AUTOLYCUS. And you shall pay well for 'em.
                                         Exit AUTOLYCUS, Singing

             Will you buy any tape,
             Or lace for your cape,
           My dainty duck, my dear-a?
             Any silk, any thread,
             Any toys for your head,
           Of the new'st and fin'st, fin'st wear-a?
             Come to the pedlar;
             Money's a meddler
           That doth utter all men's ware-a.

                   Re-enter SERVANT

  SERVANT. Master, there is three carters, three shepherds, three
    neat-herds, three swineherds, that have made themselves all men
    of hair; they call themselves Saltiers, and they have dance which
    the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not
    in't; but they themselves are o' th' mind, if it be not too rough
    for some that know little but bowling, it will please
    plentifully.
  SHEPHERD. Away! We'll none on't; here has been too much homely
    foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.
  POLIXENES. You weary those that refresh us. Pray, let's see these
    four threes of herdsmen.
  SERVANT. One three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danc'd
    before the King; and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve
    foot and a half by th' squier.
  SHEPHERD. Leave your prating; since these good men are pleas'd, let
    them come in; but quickly now.
  SERVANT. Why, they stay at door, sir.                     Exit

                    Here a dance of twelve SATYRS

  POLIXENES.  [To SHEPHERD]  O, father, you'll know more of that
      hereafter.
    [To CAMILLO]  Is it not too far gone? 'Tis time to part them.
    He's simple and tells much.  [To FLORIZEL]  How now, fair
      shepherd!
    Your heart is full of something that does take
    Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young
    And handed love as you do, I was wont
    To load my she with knacks; I would have ransack'd
    The pedlar's silken treasury and have pour'd it
    To her acceptance: you have let him go
    And nothing marted with him. If your lass
    Interpretation should abuse and call this
    Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited
    For a reply, at least if you make a care
    Of happy holding her.
  FLORIZEL. Old sir, I know
    She prizes not such trifles as these are.
    The gifts she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd
    Up in my heart, which I have given already,
    But not deliver'd. O, hear me breathe my life
    Before this ancient sir, whom, it should seem,
    Hath sometime lov'd. I take thy hand- this hand,
    As soft as dove's down and as white as it,
    Or Ethiopian's tooth, or the fann'd snow that's bolted
    By th' northern blasts twice o'er.
  POLIXENES. What follows this?
    How prettily the young swain seems to wash
    The hand was fair before! I have put you out.
    But to your protestation; let me hear
    What you profess.
  FLORIZEL. Do, and be witness to't.
  POLIXENES. And this my neighbour too?
  FLORIZEL. And he, and more
    Than he, and men- the earth, the heavens, and all:
    That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,
    Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
    That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
    More than was ever man's, I would not prize them
    Without her love; for her employ them all;
    Commend them and condemn them to her service
    Or to their own perdition.
  POLIXENES. Fairly offer'd.
  CAMILLO. This shows a sound affection.
  SHEPHERD. But, my daughter,
    Say you the like to him?
  PERDITA. I cannot speak
    So well, nothing so well; no, nor mean better.
    By th' pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out
    The purity of his.
  SHEPHERD. Take hands, a bargain!
    And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to't:
    I give my daughter to him, and will make
    Her portion equal his.
  FLORIZEL. O, that must be
    I' th' virtue of your daughter. One being dead,
    I shall have more than you can dream of yet;
    Enough then for your wonder. But come on,
    Contract us fore these witnesses.
  SHEPHERD. Come, your hand;
    And, daughter, yours.
  POLIXENES. Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you;
    Have you a father?
  FLORIZEL. I have, but what of him?
  POLIXENES. Knows he of this?
  FLORIZEL. He neither does nor shall.
  POLIXENES. Methinks a father
    Is at the nuptial of his son a guest
    That best becomes the table. Pray you, once more,
    Is not your father grown incapable
    Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid
    With age and alt'ring rheums? Can he speak, hear,
    Know man from man, dispute his own estate?
    Lies he not bed-rid, and again does nothing
    But what he did being childish?
  FLORIZEL. No, good sir;
    He has his health, and ampler strength indeed
    Than most have of his age.
  POLIXENES. By my white beard,
    You offer him, if this be so, a wrong
    Something unfilial. Reason my son
    Should choose himself a wife; but as good reason
    The father- all whose joy is nothing else
    But fair posterity- should hold some counsel
    In such a business.
  FLORIZEL. I yield all this;
    But, for some other reasons, my grave sir,
    Which 'tis not fit you know, I not acquaint
    My father of this business.
  POLIXENES. Let him know't.
  FLORIZEL. He shall not.
  POLIXENES. Prithee let him.
  FLORIZEL. No, he must not.
  SHEPHERD. Let him, my son; he shall not need to grieve
    At knowing of thy choice.
  FLORIZEL. Come, come, he must not.
    Mark our contract.
  POLIXENES.  [Discovering himself]  Mark your divorce, young sir,
    Whom son I dare not call; thou art too base
    To be acknowledg'd- thou a sceptre's heir,
    That thus affects a sheep-hook! Thou, old traitor,
    I am sorry that by hanging thee I can but
    Shorten thy life one week. And thou, fresh piece
    Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know
    The royal fool thou cop'st with-
  SHEPHERD. O, my heart!
  POLIXENES. I'll have thy beauty scratch'd with briers and made
    More homely than thy state. For thee, fond boy,
    If I may ever know thou dost but sigh
    That thou no more shalt see this knack- as never
    I mean thou shalt- we'll bar thee from succession;
    Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,
    Farre than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.
    Follow us to the court. Thou churl, for this time,
    Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee
    From the dead blow of it. And you, enchantment,
    Worthy enough a herdsman- yea, him too
    That makes himself, but for our honour therein,
    Unworthy thee- if ever henceforth thou
    These rural latches to his entrance open,
    Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,
    I will devise a death as cruel for thee
    As thou art tender to't.                                Exit
  PERDITA. Even here undone!
    I was not much afeard; for once or twice
    I was about to speak and tell him plainly
    The self-same sun that shines upon his court
    Hides not his visage from our cottage, but
    Looks on alike.  [To FLORIZEL]  Will't please you, sir, be gone?
    I told you what would come of this. Beseech you,
    Of your own state take care. This dream of mine-
    Being now awake, I'll queen it no inch farther,
    But milk my ewes and weep.
  CAMILLO. Why, how now, father!
    Speak ere thou diest.
  SHEPHERD. I cannot speak nor think,
    Nor dare to know that which I know.  [To FLORIZEL]  O sir,
    You have undone a man of fourscore-three
    That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea,
    To die upon the bed my father died,
    To lie close by his honest bones; but now
    Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me
    Where no priest shovels in dust. [To PERDITA] O cursed wretch,
    That knew'st this was the Prince, and wouldst adventure
    To mingle faith with him!- Undone, undone!
    If I might die within this hour, I have liv'd
    To die when I desire.                                   Exit
  FLORIZEL. Why look you so upon me?
    I am but sorry, not afeard; delay'd,
    But nothing alt'red. What I was, I am:
    More straining on for plucking back; not following
    My leash unwillingly.
  CAMILLO. Gracious, my lord,
    You know your father's temper. At this time
    He will allow no speech- which I do guess
    You do not purpose to him- and as hardly
    Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear;
    Then, till the fury of his Highness settle,
    Come not before him.
  FLORIZEL. I not purpose it.
    I think Camillo?
  CAMILLO. Even he, my lord.
  PERDITA. How often have I told you 'twould be thus!
    How often said my dignity would last
    But till 'twere known!
  FLORIZEL. It cannot fail but by
    The violation of my faith; and then
    Let nature crush the sides o' th' earth together
    And mar the seeds within! Lift up thy looks.
    From my succession wipe me, father; I
    Am heir to my affection.
  CAMILLO. Be advis'd.
  FLORIZEL. I am- and by my fancy; if my reason
    Will thereto be obedient, I have reason;
    If not, my senses, better pleas'd with madness,
    Do bid it welcome.
  CAMILLO. This is desperate, sir.
  FLORIZEL. So call it; but it does fulfil my vow:
    I needs must think it honesty. Camillo,
    Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may
    Be thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or
    The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hides
    In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath
    To this my fair belov'd. Therefore, I pray you,
    As you have ever been my father's honour'd friend,
    When he shall miss me- as, in faith, I mean not
    To see him any more- cast your good counsels
    Upon his passion. Let myself and Fortune
    Tug for the time to come. This you may know,
    And so deliver: I am put to sea
    With her who here I cannot hold on shore.
    And most opportune to her need I have
    A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd
    For this design. What course I mean to hold
    Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor
    Concern me the reporting.
  CAMILLO. O my lord,
    I would your spirit were easier for advice.
    Or stronger for your need.
  FLORIZEL. Hark, Perdita.                     [Takes her aside]
    [To CAMILLO]  I'll hear you by and by.
  CAMILLO. He's irremovable,
    Resolv'd for flight. Now were I happy if
    His going I could frame to serve my turn,
    Save him from danger, do him love and honour,
    Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia
    And that unhappy king, my master, whom
    I so much thirst to see.
  FLORIZEL. Now, good Camillo,
    I am so fraught with curious business that
    I leave out ceremony.
  CAMILLO. Sir, I think
    You have heard of my poor services i' th' love
    That I have borne your father?
  FLORIZEL. Very nobly
    Have you deserv'd. It is my father's music
    To speak your deeds; not little of his care
    To have them recompens'd as thought on.
  CAMILLO. Well, my lord,
    If you may please to think I love the King,
    And through him what's nearest to him, which is
    Your gracious self, embrace but my direction.
    If your more ponderous and settled project
    May suffer alteration, on mine honour,
    I'll point you where you shall have such receiving
    As shall become your Highness; where you may
    Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see,
    There's no disjunction to be made but by,
    As heavens forfend! your ruin- marry her;
    And with my best endeavours in your absence
    Your discontenting father strive to qualify,
    And bring him up to liking.
  FLORIZEL. How, Camillo,
    May this, almost a miracle, be done?
    That I may call thee something more than man,
    And after that trust to thee.
  CAMILLO. Have you thought on
    A place whereto you'll go?
  FLORIZEL. Not any yet;
    But as th' unthought-on accident is guilty
    To what we wildly do, so we profess
    Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies
    Of every wind that blows.
  CAMILLO. Then list to me.
    This follows, if you will not change your purpose
    But undergo this flight: make for Sicilia,
    And there present yourself and your fair princess-
    For so, I see, she must be- fore Leontes.
    She shall be habited as it becomes
    The partner of your bed. Methinks I see
    Leontes opening his free arms and weeping
    His welcomes forth; asks thee there 'Son, forgiveness!'
    As 'twere i' th' father's person; kisses the hands
    Of your fresh princess; o'er and o'er divides him
    'Twixt his unkindness and his kindness- th' one
    He chides to hell, and bids the other grow
    Faster than thought or time.
  FLORIZEL. Worthy Camillo,
    What colour for my visitation shall I
    Hold up before him?
  CAMILLO. Sent by the King your father
    To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,
    The manner of your bearing towards him, with
    What you as from your father shall deliver,
    Things known betwixt us three, I'll write you down;
    The which shall point you forth at every sitting
    What you must say, that he shall not perceive
    But that you have your father's bosom there
    And speak his very heart.
  FLORIZEL. I am bound to you.
    There is some sap in this.
  CAMILLO. A course more promising
    Than a wild dedication of yourselves
    To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most certain
    To miseries enough; no hope to help you,
    But as you shake off one to take another;
    Nothing so certain as your anchors, who
    Do their best office if they can but stay you
    Where you'll be loath to be. Besides, you know
    Prosperity's the very bond of love,
    Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together
    Affliction alters.
  PERDITA. One of these is true:
    I think affliction may subdue the cheek,
    But not take in the mind.
  CAMILLO. Yea, say you so?
    There shall not at your father's house these seven years
    Be born another such.
  FLORIZEL. My good Camillo,
    She is as forward of her breeding as
    She is i' th' rear o' our birth.
  CAMILLO. I cannot say 'tis pity
    She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress
    To most that teach.
  PERDITA. Your pardon, sir; for this
    I'll blush you thanks.
  FLORIZEL. My prettiest Perdita!
    But, O, the thorns we stand upon! Camillo-
    Preserver of my father, now of me;
    The medicine of our house- how shall we do?
    We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son;
    Nor shall appear in Sicilia.
  CAMILLO. My lord,
    Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes
    Do all lie there. It shall be so my care
    To have you royally appointed as if
    The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir,
    That you may know you shall not want- one word.
                                               [They talk aside]

                     Re-enter AUTOLYCUS

  AUTOLYCUS. Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and Trust, his sworn
  brother, a very simple gentleman! I have sold all my trumpery; not a
  counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, brooch, table-book,
  ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my
  pack from fasting. They throng who should buy first, as if my
  trinkets had been hallowed and brought a benediction to the buyer; by
  which means I saw whose purse was best in picture; and what I saw, to
  my good use I rememb'red. My clown, who wants but something to be a
  reasonable man, grew so in love with the wenches' song that he would
  not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words, which so drew
  the rest of the herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears.
  You might have pinch'd a placket, it was senseless; 'twas nothing to
  geld a codpiece of a purse; I would have fil'd keys off that hung in
  chains. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, and admiring the
  nothing of it. So that in this time of lethargy I pick'd and cut most
  of their festival purses; and had not the old man come in with
  whoobub against his daughter and the King's son and scar'd my choughs
  from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army.

              CAMILLO, FLORIZEL, and PERDITA come forward

  CAMILLO. Nay, but my letters, by this means being there
    So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.
  FLORIZEL. And those that you'll procure from King Leontes?
  CAMILLO. Shall satisfy your father.
  PERDITA. Happy be you!
    All that you speak shows fair.
  CAMILLO.  [seeing AUTOLYCUS]  Who have we here?
    We'll make an instrument of this; omit
    Nothing may give us aid.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  If they have overheard me now- why, hanging.
  CAMILLO. How now, good fellow! Why shak'st thou so?
    Fear not, man; here's no harm intended to thee.
  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.
  CAMILLO. Why, be so still; here's nobody will steal that from thee.
    Yet for the outside of thy poverty we must make an exchange;
    therefore discase thee instantly- thou must think there's a
    necessity in't- and change garments with this gentleman. Though
    the pennyworth on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there's
    some boot.  [Giving money]
  AUTOLYCUS. I am a poor fellow, sir.  [Aside]  I know ye well
    enough.
  CAMILLO. Nay, prithee dispatch. The gentleman is half flay'd
    already.
  AUTOLYCUS. Are you in camest, sir?  [Aside]  I smell the trick
    on't.
  FLORIZEL. Dispatch, I prithee.
  AUTOLYCUS. Indeed, I have had earnest; but I cannot with conscience
    take it.
  CAMILLO. Unbuckle, unbuckle.

             FLORIZEL and AUTOLYCUS exchange garments

    Fortunate mistress- let my prophecy
    Come home to ye!- you must retire yourself
    Into some covert; take your sweetheart's hat
    And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face,
    Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken
    The truth of your own seeming, that you may-
    For I do fear eyes over- to shipboard
    Get undescried.
  PERDITA. I see the play so lies
    That I must bear a part.
  CAMILLO. No remedy.
    Have you done there?
  FLORIZEL. Should I now meet my father,
    He would not call me son.
  CAMILLO. Nay, you shall have no hat.
                                          [Giving it to PERDITA]
    Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.
  AUTOLYCUS. Adieu, sir.
  FLORIZEL. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot!
    Pray you a word.                       [They converse apart]
  CAMILLO.  [Aside]  What I do next shall be to tell the King
    Of this escape, and whither they are bound;
    Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail
    To force him after; in whose company
    I shall re-view Sicilia, for whose sight
    I have a woman's longing.
  FLORIZEL. Fortune speed us!
    Thus we set on, Camillo, to th' sea-side.
  CAMILLO. The swifter speed the better.
                           Exeunt FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and CAMILLO
  AUTOLYCUS. I understand the business, I hear it. To have an open
    ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a
    cut-purse; a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for
    th' other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth
    thrive. What an exchange had this been without boot! What a boot
    is here with this exchange! Sure, the gods do this year connive
    at us, and we may do anything extempore. The Prince himself is
    about a piece of iniquity- stealing away from his father with his
    clog at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to
    acquaint the King withal, I would not do't. I hold it the more
    knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant to my
    profession.

                   Re-enter CLOWN and SHEPHERD

    Aside, aside- here is more matter for a hot brain. Every lane's
    end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a careful man
    work.
  CLOWN. See, see; what a man you are now! There is no other way but to
  tell the King she's a changeling and none of your flesh and blood.
  SHEPHERD. Nay, but hear me.
  CLOWN. Nay- but hear me.
  SHEPHERD. Go to, then.
  CLOWN. She being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood
  has not offended the King; and so your flesh and blood is not to be
  punish'd by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret
  things- all but what she has with her. This being done, let the law
  go whistle; I warrant you.
  SHEPHERD. I will tell the King all, every word- yea, and his son's
  pranks too; who, I may say, is no honest man, neither to his father
  nor to me, to go about to make me the King's brother-in-law.
  CLOWN. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have
  been to him; and then your blood had been the dearer by I know how
  much an ounce.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  Very wisely, puppies!
  SHEPHERD. Well, let us to the King. There is that in this fardel will
  make him scratch his beard.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  I know not what impediment this complaint may be
  to the flight of my master.
  CLOWN. Pray heartily he be at palace.
  AUTOLYCUS.  [Aside]  Though I am not naturally honest, I am so
  sometimes by chance. Let me pocket up my pedlar's excrement. [Takes
  off his false beard]  How now, rustics! Whither are you bound?
  SHEPHERD. To th' palace, an it like your worship.
  AUTOLYCUS. Your affairs there, what, with whom, the condition of that
  fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what
  having, breeding, and anything that is fitting to be known- discover.
  CLOWN. We are but plain fellows, sir.
  AUTOLYCUS. A lie: you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying; it
  becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give us soldiers the lie;
  but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel;
  therefore they do not give us the lie.
  CLOWN. Your worship had like to have given us one, if you had not
  taken yourself with the manner.
  SHEPHERD. Are you a courtier, an't like you, sir?
  AUTOLYCUS. Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest thou not
  the air of the court in these enfoldings? Hath not my gait in it the
  measure of the court? Receives not thy nose court-odour from me?
  Reflect I not on thy baseness court-contempt? Think'st thou, for that
  I insinuate, that toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no
  courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe, and one that will either push on or
  pluck back thy business there; whereupon I command the to open thy
  affair.
  SHEPHERD. My business, sir, is to the King.
  AUTOLYCUS. What advocate hast thou to him?
  SHEPHERD. I know not, an't like you.
  CLOWN. Advocate's the court-word for a pheasant; say you have none.
  SHEPHERD. None, sir; I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.
  AUTOLYCUS. How blessed are we that are not simple men! Yet nature
  might have made me as these are, Therefore I will not disdain.
  CLOWN. This cannot be but a great courtier.
  SHEPHERD. His garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.
  CLOWN. He seems to be the more noble in being fantastical. A great
  man, I'll warrant; I know by the picking on's teeth.
  AUTOLYCUS. The fardel there? What's i' th' fardel? Wherefore that
  box?
  SHEPHERD. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box which
  none must know but the King; and which he shall know within this
  hour, if I may come to th' speech of him.
  AUTOLYCUS. Age, thou hast lost thy labour.
  SHEPHERD. Why, Sir?
  AUTOLYCUS. The King is not at the palace; he is gone aboard a new
  ship to purge melancholy and air himself; for, if thou be'st capable
  of things serious, thou must know the King is full of grief.
  SHEPHERD. So 'tis said, sir- about his son, that should have married
  a shepherd's daughter.
  AUTOLYCUS. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let him fly; the
  curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back
  of man, the heart of monster.
  CLOWN. Think you so, sir?
  AUTOLYCUS. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can make heavy and
  vengeance bitter; but those that are germane to him, though remov'd
  fifty times, shall all come under the hangman- which, though it be
  great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue, a
  ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace! Some say
  he shall be ston'd; but that death is too soft for him, say I. Draw
  our throne into a sheep-cote!- all deaths are too few, the sharpest
  too easy.
  CLOWN. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you hear, an't like you,
    sir?
  AUTOLYCUS. He has a son- who shall be flay'd alive; then 'nointed
  over with honey, set on the head of a wasp's nest; then stand till he
  be three quarters and a dram dead; then recover'd again with
  aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion; then, raw as he is, and in the
  hottest day prognostication proclaims, shall he be set against a
  brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he
  is to behold him with flies blown to death. But what talk we of these
  traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smil'd at, their offences
  being so capital? Tell me, for you seem to be honest plain men, what
  you have to the King. Being something gently consider'd, I'll bring
  you where he is aboard, tender your persons to his presence, whisper
  him in your behalfs; and if it be in man besides the King to effect
  your suits, here is man shall do it.
  CLOWN. He seems to be of great authority. Close with him, give him
  gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by
  the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the outside of
  his hand, and no more ado. Remember- ston'd and flay'd alive.
  SHEPHERD. An't please you, sir, to undertake the business for us,
  here is that gold I have. I'll make it as much more, and leave this
  young man in pawn till I bring it you.
  AUTOLYCUS. After I have done what I promised?
  SHEPHERD. Ay, sir.
  AUTOLYCUS. Well, give me the moiety. Are you a party in this
  business?
  CLOWN. In some sort, sir; but though my case be a pitiful one, I hope
  I shall not be flay'd out of it.
  AUTOLYCUS. O, that's the case of the shepherd's son! Hang him, he'll
  be made an example.
  CLOWN. Comfort, good comfort! We must to the King and show our
  strange sights. He must know 'tis none of your daughter nor my
  sister; we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much as this old
  man does, when the business is performed; and remain, as he says,
  your pawn till it be brought you.
  AUTOLYCUS. I will trust you. Walk before toward the sea-side; go on
  the right-hand; I will but look upon the hedge, and follow you.
  CLOWN. We are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.
  SHEPHERD. Let's before, as he bids us. He was provided to do us good.
  Exeunt SHEPHERD and CLOWN
  AUTOLYCUS. If I had a mind to be honest, I see Fortune would not
  suffer me: she drops booties in my mouth. I am courted now with a
  double occasion- gold, and a means to do the Prince my master good;
  which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will
  bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him. If he think it
  fit to shore them again, and that the complaint they have to the King
  concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far
  officious; for I am proof against that title, and what shame else
  belongs to't. To him will I present them. There may be matter in it.
  Exit

ACT V. SCENE I. Sicilia. The palace of LEONTES

Enter LEONTES, CLEOMENES, DION, PAULINA, and OTHERS

  CLEOMENES. Sir, you have done enough, and have perform'd
    A saint-like sorrow. No fault could you make
    Which you have not redeem'd; indeed, paid down
    More penitence than done trespass. At the last,
    Do as the heavens have done: forget your evil;
    With them forgive yourself.
  LEONTES. Whilst I remember
    Her and her virtues, I cannot forget
    My blemishes in them, and so still think of
    The wrong I did myself; which was so much
    That heirless it hath made my kingdom, and
    Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man
    Bred his hopes out of.
  PAULINA. True, too true, my lord.
    If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
    Or from the all that are took something good
    To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd
    Would be unparallel'd.
  LEONTES. I think so. Kill'd!
    She I kill'd! I did so; but thou strik'st me
    Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter
    Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,
    Say so but seldom.
  CLEOMENES. Not at all, good lady.
    You might have spoken a thousand things that would
    Have done the time more benefit, and grac'd
    Your kindness better.
  PAULINA. You are one of those
    Would have him wed again.
  DION. If you would not so,
    You pity not the state, nor the remembrance
    Of his most sovereign name; consider little
    What dangers, by his Highness' fail of issue,
    May drop upon his kingdom and devour
    Incertain lookers-on. What were more holy
    Than to rejoice the former queen is well?
    What holier than, for royalty's repair,
    For present comfort, and for future good,
    To bless the bed of majesty again
    With a sweet fellow to't?
  PAULINA. There is none worthy,
    Respecting her that's gone. Besides, the gods
    Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes;
    For has not the divine Apollo said,
    Is't not the tenour of his oracle,
    That King Leontes shall not have an heir
    Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall,
    Is all as monstrous to our human reason
    As my Antigonus to break his grave
    And come again to me; who, on my life,
    Did perish with the infant. 'Tis your counsel
    My lord should to the heavens be contrary,
    Oppose against their wills.  [To LEONTES]  Care not for issue;
    The crown will find an heir. Great Alexander
    Left his to th' worthiest; so his successor
    Was like to be the best.
  LEONTES. Good Paulina,
    Who hast the memory of Hermione,
    I know, in honour, O that ever I
    Had squar'd me to thy counsel! Then, even now,
    I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes,
    Have taken treasure from her lips-
  PAULINA. And left them
    More rich for what they yielded.
  LEONTES. Thou speak'st truth.
    No more such wives; therefore, no wife. One worse,
    And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit
    Again possess her corpse, and on this stage,
    Where we offend her now, appear soul-vex'd,
    And begin 'Why to me'-
  PAULINA. Had she such power,
    She had just cause.
  LEONTES. She had; and would incense me
    To murder her I married.
  PAULINA. I should so.
    Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'd bid you mark
    Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't
    You chose her; then I'd shriek, that even your ears
    Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
    Should be 'Remember mine.'
  LEONTES. Stars, stars,
    And all eyes else dead coals! Fear thou no wife;
    I'll have no wife, Paulina.
  PAULINA. Will you swear
    Never to marry but by my free leave?
  LEONTES. Never, Paulina; so be blest my spirit!
  PAULINA. Then, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.
  CLEOMENES. You tempt him over-much.
  PAULINA. Unless another,
    As like Hermione as is her picture,
    Affront his eye.
  CLEOMENES. Good madam-
  PAULINA. I have done.
    Yet, if my lord will marry- if you will, sir,
    No remedy but you will- give me the office
    To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young
    As was your former; but she shall be such
    As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should take joy
    To see her in your arms.
  LEONTES. My true Paulina,
    We shall not marry till thou bid'st us.
  PAULINA. That
    Shall be when your first queen's again in breath;
    Never till then.

                       Enter a GENTLEMAN

  GENTLEMAN. One that gives out himself Prince Florizel,
    Son of Polixenes, with his princess- she
    The fairest I have yet beheld- desires access
    To your high presence.
  LEONTES. What with him? He comes not
    Like to his father's greatness. His approach,
    So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us
    'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd
    By need and accident. What train?
  GENTLEMAN. But few,
    And those but mean.
  LEONTES. His princess, say you, with him?
  GENTLEMAN. Ay; the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
    That e'er the sun shone bright on.
  PAULINA. O Hermione,
    As every present time doth boast itself
    Above a better gone, so must thy grave
    Give way to what's seen now! Sir, you yourself
    Have said and writ so, but your writing now
    Is colder than that theme: 'She had not been,
    Nor was not to be equall'd.' Thus your verse
    Flow'd with her beauty once; 'tis shrewdly ebb'd,
    To say you have seen a better.
  GENTLEMAN. Pardon, madam.
    The one I have almost forgot- your pardon;
    The other, when she has obtain'd your eye,
    Will have your tongue too. This is a creature,
    Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal
    Of all professors else, make proselytes
    Of who she but bid follow.
  PAULINA. How! not women?
  GENTLEMAN. Women will love her that she is a woman
    More worth than any man; men, that she is
    The rarest of all women.
  LEONTES. Go, Cleomenes;
    Yourself, assisted with your honour'd friends,
    Bring them to our embracement.                        Exeunt
    Still, 'tis strange
    He thus should steal upon us.
  PAULINA. Had our prince,
    Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had pair'd
    Well with this lord; there was not full a month
    Between their births.
  LEONTES. Prithee no more; cease. Thou know'st
    He dies to me again when talk'd of. Sure,
    When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches
    Will bring me to consider that which may
    Unfurnish me of reason.

         Re-enter CLEOMENES, with FLORIZEL, PERDITA, and
                            ATTENDANTS

    They are come.
    Your mother was most true to wedlock, Prince;
    For she did print your royal father off,
    Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,
    Your father's image is so hit in you
    His very air, that I should call you brother,
    As I did him, and speak of something wildly
    By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome!
    And your fair princess- goddess! O, alas!
    I lost a couple that 'twixt heaven and earth
    Might thus have stood begetting wonder as
    You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost-
    All mine own folly- the society,
    Amity too, of your brave father, whom,
    Though bearing misery, I desire my life
    Once more to look on him.
  FLORIZEL. By his command
    Have I here touch'd Sicilia, and from him
    Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,
    Can send his brother; and, but infirmity,
    Which waits upon worn times, hath something seiz'd
    His wish'd ability, he had himself
    The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his
    Measur'd, to look upon you; whom he loves,
    He bade me say so, more than all the sceptres
    And those that bear them living.
  LEONTES. O my brother-
    Good gentleman!- the wrongs I have done thee stir
    Afresh within me; and these thy offices,
    So rarely kind, are as interpreters
    Of my behind-hand slackness! Welcome hither,
    As is the spring to th' earth. And hath he too
    Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage,
    At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune,
    To greet a man not worth her pains, much less
    Th' adventure of her person?
  FLORIZEL. Good, my lord,
    She came from Libya.
  LEONTES. Where the warlike Smalus,
    That noble honour'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd?
  FLORIZEL. Most royal sir, from thence; from him whose daughter
    His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her; thence,
    A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have cross'd,
    To execute the charge my father gave me
    For visiting your Highness. My best train
    I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd;
    Who for Bohemia bend, to signify
    Not only my success in Libya, sir,
    But my arrival and my wife's in safety
    Here where we are.
  LEONTES. The blessed gods
    Purge all infection from our air whilst you
    Do climate here! You have a holy father,
    A graceful gentleman, against whose person,
    So sacred as it is, I have done sin,
    For which the heavens, taking angry note,
    Have left me issueless; and your father's blest,
    As he from heaven merits it, with you,
    Worthy his goodness. What might I have been,
    Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on,
    Such goodly things as you!

                      Enter a LORD

  LORD. Most noble sir,
    That which I shall report will bear no credit,
    Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great sir,
    Bohemia greets you from himself by me;
    Desires you to attach his son, who has-
    His dignity and duty both cast off-
    Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with
    A shepherd's daughter.
  LEONTES. Where's Bohemia? Speak.
  LORD. Here in your city; I now came from him.
    I speak amazedly; and it becomes
    My marvel and my message. To your court
    Whiles he was hast'ning- in the chase, it seems,
    Of this fair couple- meets he on the way
    The father of this seeming lady and
    Her brother, having both their country quitted
    With this young prince.
  FLORIZEL. Camillo has betray'd me;
    Whose honour and whose honesty till now
    Endur'd all weathers.
  LORD. Lay't so to his charge;
    He's with the King your father.
  LEONTES. Who? Camillo?
  LORD. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who now
    Has these poor men in question. Never saw I
    Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth;
    Forswear themselves as often as they speak.
    Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them
    With divers deaths in death.
  PERDITA. O my poor father!
    The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have
    Our contract celebrated.
  LEONTES. You are married?
  FLORIZEL. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be;
    The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first.
    The odds for high and low's alike.
  LEONTES. My lord,
    Is this the daughter of a king?
  FLORIZEL. She is,
    When once she is my wife.
  LEONTES. That 'once,' I see by your good father's speed,
    Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,
    Most sorry, you have broken from his liking
    Where you were tied in duty; and as sorry
    Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty,
    That you might well enjoy her.
  FLORIZEL. Dear, look up.
    Though Fortune, visible an enemy,
    Should chase us with my father, pow'r no jot
    Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,
    Remember since you ow'd no more to time
    Than I do now. With thought of such affections,
    Step forth mine advocate; at your request
    My father will grant precious things as trifles.
  LEONTES. Would he do so, I'd beg your precious mistress,
    Which he counts but a trifle.
  PAULINA. Sir, my liege,
    Your eye hath too much youth in't. Not a month
    Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes
    Than what you look on now.
  LEONTES. I thought of her
    Even in these looks I made.  [To FLORIZEL]  But your petition
    Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father.
    Your honour not o'erthrown by your desires,
    I am friend to them and you. Upon which errand
    I now go toward him; therefore, follow me,
    And mark what way I make. Come, good my lord.         Exeunt

SCENE II. Sicilia. Before the palace of LEONTES

Enter AUTOLYCUS and a GENTLEMAN

  AUTOLYCUS. Beseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I was by at the opening of the fardel, heard the
    old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it; whereupon, after
    a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber;
    only this, methought I heard the shepherd say he found the child.
  AUTOLYCUS. I would most gladly know the issue of it.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. I make a broken delivery of the business; but the
    changes I perceived in the King and Camillo were very notes of
    admiration. They seem'd almost, with staring on one another, to
    tear the cases of their eyes; there was speech in their dumbness,
    language in their very gesture; they look'd as they had heard of
    a world ransom'd, or one destroyed. A notable passion of wonder
    appeared in them; but the wisest beholder that knew no more but
    seeing could not say if th' importance were joy or sorrow- but in
    the extremity of the one it must needs be.

                    Enter another GENTLEMAN

    Here comes a gentleman that happily knows more. The news, Rogero?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. Nothing but bonfires. The oracle is fulfill'd:
    the King's daughter is found. Such a deal of wonder is broken out
    within this hour that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it.

                    Enter another GENTLEMAN

    Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward; he can deliver you more. How
    goes it now, sir? This news, which is call'd true, is so like an
    old tale that the verity of it is in strong suspicion. Has the King
    found his heir?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Most true, if ever truth were pregnant by
  circumstance. That which you hear you'll swear you see, there is such
  unity in the proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's; her jewel about
  the neck of it; the letters of Antigonus found with it, which they
  know to be his character; the majesty of the creature in resemblance
  of the mother; the affection of nobleness which nature shows above
  her breeding; and many other evidences- proclaim her with all
  certainty to be the King's daughter. Did you see the meeting of the
  two kings?
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. No.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Then you have lost a sight which was to be seen,
  cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown
  another, so and in such manner that it seem'd sorrow wept to take
  leave of them; for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of
  eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance of such distraction that
  they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being
  ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if
  that joy were now become a loss, cries 'O, thy mother, thy mother!'
  then asks Bohemia forgiveness; then embraces his son-in-law; then
  again worries he his daughter with clipping her. Now he thanks the
  old shepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of many
  kings' reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames
  report to follow it and undoes description to do it.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. What, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried
  hence the child?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Like an old tale still, which will have matter to
  rehearse, though credit be asleep and not an ear open: he was torn to
  pieces with a bear. This avouches the shepherd's son, who has not
  only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a
  handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. What became of his bark and his followers?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. Wreck'd the same instant of their master's death,
  and in the view of the shepherd; so that all the instruments which
  aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But,
  O, the noble combat that 'twixt joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina!
  She had one eye declin'd for the loss of her husband, another
  elevated that the oracle was fulfill'd. She lifted the Princess from
  the earth, and so locks her in embracing as if she would pin her to
  her heart, that she might no more be in danger of losing.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. The dignity of this act was worth the audience of
  kings and princes; for by such was it acted.
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. One of the prettiest touches of all, and that which
  angl'd for mine eyes- caught the water, though not the fish- was,
  when at the relation of the Queen's death, with the manner how she
  came to't bravely confess'd and lamented by the King, how
  attentivenes wounded his daughter; till, from one sign of dolour to
  another, she did with an 'Alas!'- I would fain say- bleed tears; for
  I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble there changed
  colour; some swooned, all sorrowed. If all the world could have
  seen't, the woe had been universal.
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Are they returned to the court?
  THIRD GENTLEMAN. No. The Princess hearing of her mother's statue,
  which is in the keeping of Paulina- a piece many years in doing and
  now newly perform'd by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano, who,
  had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would
  beguile nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape. He so near
  to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one would speak to her
  and stand in hope of answer- thither with all greediness of affection
  are they gone, and there they intend to sup.
  SECOND GENTLEMAN. I thought she had some great matter there in hand;
  for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of
  Hermione, visited that removed house. Shall we thither, and with our
  company piece the rejoicing?
  FIRST GENTLEMAN. Who would be thence that has the benefit of access?
  Every wink of an eye some new grace will be born. Our absence makes
  us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let's along.
                                                Exeunt GENTLEMEN
  AUTOLYCUS. Now, had I not the dash of my former life in me, would
  preferment drop on my head. I brought the old man and his son aboard
  the Prince; told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I know not
  what; but he at that time over-fond of the shepherd's daughter- so he
  then took her to be- who began to be much sea-sick, and himself
  little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained
  undiscover'd. But 'tis all one to me; for had I been the finder-out
  of this secret, it would not have relish'd among my other discredits.

                    Enter SHEPHERD and CLOWN

    Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already
    appearing in the blossoms of their fortune.
  SHEPHERD. Come, boy; I am past moe children, but thy sons and
    daughters will be all gentlemen born.
  CLOWN. You are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this
    other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these
    clothes? Say you see them not and think me still no gentleman
    born. You were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give
    me the lie, do; and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.
  AUTOLYCUS. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.
  CLOWN. Ay, and have been so any time these four hours.
  SHEPHERD. And so have I, boy.
  CLOWN. So you have; but I was a gentleman born before my father;
    for the King's son took me by the hand and call'd me brother; and
    then the two kings call'd my father brother; and then the Prince,
    my brother, and the Princess, my sister, call'd my father father.
    And so we wept; and there was the first gentleman-like tears that
    ever we shed.
  SHEPHERD. We may live, son, to shed many more.
  CLOWN. Ay; or else 'twere hard luck, being in so preposterous
    estate as we are.
  AUTOLYCUS. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I
    have committed to your worship, and to give me your good report
    to the Prince my master.
  SHEPHERD. Prithee, son, do; for we must be gentle, now we are
    gentlemen.
  CLOWN. Thou wilt amend thy life?
  AUTOLYCUS. Ay, an it like your good worship.
  CLOWN. Give me thy hand. I will swear to the Prince thou art as
    honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.
  SHEPHERD. You may say it, but not swear it.
  CLOWN. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors and franklins
    say it: I'll swear it.
  SHEPHERD. How if it be false, son?
  CLOWN. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman may swear it in
    the behalf of his friend. And I'll swear to the Prince thou art a
    tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt not be drunk; but I
    know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be
    drunk. But I'll swear it; and I would thou wouldst be a tall
    fellow of thy hands.
  AUTOLYCUS. I will prove so, sir, to my power.
  CLOWN. Ay, by any means, prove a tall fellow. If I do not wonder
    how thou dar'st venture to be drunk not being a tall fellow,
    trust me not. Hark! the kings and the princes, our kindred, are
    going to see the Queen's picture. Come, follow us; we'll be thy
    good masters.                                         Exeunt

SCENE III. Sicilia. A chapel in PAULINA's house

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, PERDITA, CAMILLO, PAULINA,
LORDS and ATTENDANTS

  LEONTES. O grave and good Paulina, the great comfort
    That I have had of thee!
  PAULINA. What, sovereign sir,
    I did not well, I meant well. All my services
    You have paid home; but that you have vouchsaf'd,
    With your crown'd brother and these your contracted
    Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,
    It is a surplus of your grace, which never
    My life may last to answer.
  LEONTES. O Paulina,
    We honour you with trouble; but we came
    To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery
    Have we pass'd through, not without much content
    In many singularities; but we saw not
    That which my daughter came to look upon,
    The statue of her mother.
  PAULINA. As she liv'd peerless,
    So her dead likeness, I do well believe,
    Excels whatever yet you look'd upon
    Or hand of man hath done; therefore I keep it
    Lonely, apart. But here it is. Prepare
    To see the life as lively mock'd as ever
    Still sleep mock'd death. Behold; and say 'tis well.
                [PAULINA draws a curtain, and discovers HERMIONE
                                         standing like a statue]
    I like your silence; it the more shows off
    Your wonder; but yet speak. First, you, my liege.
    Comes it not something near?
  LEONTES. Her natural posture!
    Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed
    Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she
    In thy not chiding; for she was as tender
    As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,
    Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing
    So aged as this seems.
  POLIXENES. O, not by much!
  PAULINA. So much the more our carver's excellence,
    Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her
    As she liv'd now.
  LEONTES. As now she might have done,
    So much to my good comfort as it is
    Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,
    Even with such life of majesty- warm life,
    As now it coldly stands- when first I woo'd her!
    I am asham'd. Does not the stone rebuke me
    For being more stone than it? O royal piece,
    There's magic in thy majesty, which has
    My evils conjur'd to remembrance, and
    From thy admiring daughter took the spirits,
    Standing like stone with thee!
  PERDITA. And give me leave,
    And do not say 'tis superstition that
    I kneel, and then implore her blessing. Lady,
    Dear queen, that ended when I but began,
    Give me that hand of yours to kiss.
  PAULINA. O, patience!
    The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's
    Not dry.
  CAMILLO. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on,
    Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,
    So many summers dry. Scarce any joy
    Did ever so long live; no sorrow
    But kill'd itself much sooner.
  POLIXENES. Dear my brother,
    Let him that was the cause of this have pow'r
    To take off so much grief from you as he
    Will piece up in himself.
  PAULINA. Indeed, my lord,
    If I had thought the sight of my poor image
    Would thus have wrought you- for the stone is mine-
    I'd not have show'd it.
  LEONTES. Do not draw the curtain.
  PAULINA. No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy
    May think anon it moves.
  LEONTES. Let be, let be.
    Would I were dead, but that methinks already-
    What was he that did make it? See, my lord,
    Would you not deem it breath'd, and that those veins
    Did verily bear blood?
  POLIXENES. Masterly done!
    The very life seems warm upon her lip.
  LEONTES. The fixture of her eye has motion in't,
    As we are mock'd with art.
  PAULINA. I'll draw the curtain.
    My lord's almost so far transported that
    He'll think anon it lives.
  LEONTES. O sweet Paulina,
    Make me to think so twenty years together!
    No settled senses of the world can match
    The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone.
  PAULINA. I am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirr'd you; but
    I could afflict you farther.
  LEONTES. Do, Paulina;
    For this affliction has a taste as sweet
    As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks,
    There is an air comes from her. What fine chisel
    Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,
    For I will kiss her.
  PAULINA. Good my lord, forbear.
    The ruddiness upon her lip is wet;
    You'll mar it if you kiss it; stain your own
    With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?
  LEONTES. No, not these twenty years.
  PERDITA. So long could I
    Stand by, a looker-on.
  PAULINA. Either forbear,
    Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you
    For more amazement. If you can behold it,
    I'll make the statue move indeed, descend,
    And take you by the hand, but then you'll think-
    Which I protest against- I am assisted
    By wicked powers.
  LEONTES. What you can make her do
    I am content to look on; what to speak
    I am content to hear; for 'tis as easy
    To make her speak as move.
  PAULINA. It is requir'd
    You do awake your faith. Then all stand still;
    Or those that think it is unlawful business
    I am about, let them depart.
  LEONTES. Proceed.
    No foot shall stir.
  PAULINA. Music, awake her: strike.                     [Music]
    'Tis time; descend; be stone no more; approach;
    Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come;
    I'll fill your grave up. Stir; nay, come away.
    Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him
    Dear life redeems you. You perceive she stirs.
                         [HERMIONE comes down from the pedestal]
    Start not; her actions shall be holy as
    You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her
    Until you see her die again; for then
    You kill her double. Nay, present your hand.
    When she was young you woo'd her; now in age
    Is she become the suitor?
  LEONTES. O, she's warm!
    If this be magic, let it be an art
    Lawful as eating.
  POLIXENES. She embraces him.
  CAMILLO. She hangs about his neck.
    If she pertain to life, let her speak too.
  POLIXENES. Ay, and make it manifest where she has liv'd,
    Or how stol'n from the dead.
  PAULINA. That she is living,
    Were it but told you, should be hooted at
    Like an old tale; but it appears she lives
    Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.
    Please you to interpose, fair madam. Kneel,
    And pray your mother's blessing. Turn, good lady;
    Our Perdita is found.
  HERMIONE. You gods, look down,
    And from your sacred vials pour your graces
    Upon my daughter's head! Tell me, mine own,
    Where hast thou been preserv'd? Where liv'd? How found
    Thy father's court? For thou shalt hear that I,
    Knowing by Paulina that the oracle
    Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserv'd
    Myself to see the issue.
  PAULINA. There's time enough for that,
    Lest they desire upon this push to trouble
    Your joys with like relation. Go together,
    You precious winners all; your exultation
    Partake to every one. I, an old turtle,
    Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there
    My mate, that's never to be found again,
    Lament till I am lost.
  LEONTES. O peace, Paulina!
    Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,
    As I by thine a wife. This is a match,
    And made between's by vows. Thou hast found mine;
    But how, is to be question'd; for I saw her,
    As I thought, dead; and have, in vain, said many
    A prayer upon her grave. I'll not seek far-
    For him, I partly know his mind- to find thee
    An honourable husband. Come, Camillo,
    And take her by the hand whose worth and honesty
    Is richly noted, and here justified
    By us, a pair of kings. Let's from this place.
    What! look upon my brother. Both your pardons,
    That e'er I put between your holy looks
    My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law,
    And son unto the King, whom heavens directing,
    Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina,
    Lead us from hence where we may leisurely
    Each one demand and answer to his part
    Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first
    We were dissever'd. Hastily lead away.                Exeunt

THE END

1609



A LOVER’S COMPLAINT

 From off a hill whose concave womb reworded
  A plaintful story from a sist'ring vale,
  My spirits t'attend this double voice accorded,
  And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale,
  Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,
  Tearing of papers, breaking rings atwain,
  Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.

  Upon her head a platted hive of straw,
  Which fortified her visage from the sun,
  Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw
  The carcase of a beauty spent and done.
  Time had not scythed all that youth begun,
  Nor youth all quit, but spite of heaven's fell rage
  Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age.

  Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,
  Which on it had conceited characters,
  Laund'ring the silken figures in the brine
  That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears,
  And often reading what contents it bears;
  As often shrieking undistinguished woe,
  In clamours of all size, both high and low.

  Sometimes her levelled eyes their carriage ride,
  As they did batt'ry to the spheres intend;
  Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied
  To th' orbed earth; sometimes they do extend
  Their view right on; anon their gazes lend
  To every place at once, and nowhere fixed,
  The mind and sight distractedly commixed.

  Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,
  Proclaimed in her a careless hand of pride;
  For some, untucked, descended her sheaved hat,
  Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;
  Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,
  And, true to bondage, would not break from thence,
  Though slackly braided in loose negligence.

  A thousand favours from a maund she drew
  Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,
  Which one by one she in a river threw,
  Upon whose weeping margent she was set;
  Like usury applying wet to wet,
  Or monarchs' hands that lets not bounty fall
  Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.

  Of folded schedules had she many a one,
  Which she perused, sighed, tore, and gave the flood;
  Cracked many a ring of posied gold and bone,
  Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;
  Found yet moe letters sadly penned in blood,
  With sleided silk feat and affectedly
  Enswathed and sealed to curious secrecy.

  These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,
  And often kissed, and often 'gan to tear;
  Cried, 'O false blood, thou register of lies,
  What unapproved witness dost thou bear!
  Ink would have seemed more black and damned here!
  This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,
  Big discontents so breaking their contents.

  A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh,
  Sometime a blusterer that the ruffle knew
  Of court, of city, and had let go by
  The swiftest hours observed as they flew,
  Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew;
  And, privileged by age, desires to know
  In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.

  So slides he down upon his grained bat,
  And comely distant sits he by her side;
  When he again desires her, being sat,
  Her grievance with his hearing to divide.
  If that from him there may be aught applied
  Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,
  'Tis promised in the charity of age.

  'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold
  The injury of many a blasting hour,
  Let it not tell your judgement I am old:
  Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power.
  I might as yet have been a spreading flower,
  Fresh to myself, if I had self-applied
  Love to myself, and to no love beside.

  'But woe is me! too early I attended
  A youthful suit- it was to gain my grace-
  O, one by nature's outwards so commended
  That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face.
  Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place;
  And when in his fair parts she did abide,
  She was new lodged and newly deified.

  'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;
  And every light occasion of the wind
  Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.
  What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:
  Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind;
  For on his visage was in little drawn
  What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.

  'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
  His phoenix down began but to appear,
  Like unshorn velvet, on that termless skin,
  Whose bare out-bragged the web it seemed to wear:
  Yet showed his visage by that cost more dear;
  And nice affections wavering stood in doubt
  If best were as it was, or best without.

  'His qualities were beauteous as his form,
  For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;
  Yet if men moved him, was he such a storm
  As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,
  When winds breathe sweet, unruly though they be.
  His rudeness so with his authorized youth
  Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.

  'Well could he ride, and often men would say,
  "That horse his mettle from his rider takes:
  Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,
  What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!"
  And controversy hence a question takes
  Whether the horse by him became his deed,
  Or he his manage by th' well-doing steed.

  'But quickly on this side the verdict went:
  His real habitude gave life and grace
  To appertainings and to ornament,
  Accomplished in himself, not in his case,
  All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
  Came for additions; yet their purposed trim
  Pierced not his grace, but were all graced by him.

  'So on the tip of his subduing tongue
  All kind of arguments and question deep,
  All replication prompt, and reason strong,
  For his advantage still did wake and sleep.
  To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,
  He had the dialect and different skill,
  Catching all passions in his craft of will,

  'That he did in the general bosom reign
  Of young, of old, and sexes both enchanted,
  To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain
  In personal duty, following where he haunted.
  Consents bewitched, ere he desire, have granted,
  And dialogued for him what he would say,
  Asked their own wills, and made their wills obey.

  'Many there were that did his picture get,
  To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;
  Like fools that in th' imagination set
  The goodly objects which abroad they find
  Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assigned;
  And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them
  Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them.

  'So many have, that never touched his hand,
  Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.
  My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,
  And was my own fee-simple, not in part,
  What with his art in youth, and youth in art,
  Threw my affections in his charmed power
  Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.

  'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
  Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
  Finding myself in honour so forbid,
  With safest distance I mine honour shielded.
  Experience for me many bulwarks builded
  Of proofs new-bleeding, which remained the foil
  Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.

  'But ah, who ever shunned by precedent
  The destined ill she must herself assay?
  Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,
  To put the by-past perils in her way?
  Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;
  For when we rage, advice is often seen
  By blunting us to make our wills more keen.

  'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood
  That we must curb it upon others' proof,
  To be forbod the sweets that seems so good
  For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.
  O appetite, from judgement stand aloof!
  The one a palate hath that needs will taste,
  Though Reason weep, and cry it is thy last.

  'For further I could say this man's untrue,
  And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;
  Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew;
  Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;
  Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;
  Thought characters and words merely but art,
  And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.

  'And long upon these terms I held my city,
  Till thus he 'gan besiege me: "Gentle maid,
  Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,
  And be not of my holy vows afraid.
  That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;
  For feasts of love I have been called unto,
  Till now did ne'er invite nor never woo.

  '"All my offences that abroad you see
  Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;
  Love made them not; with acture they may be,
  Where neither party is nor true nor kind.
  They sought their shame that so their shame did find;
  And so much less of shame in me remains
  By how much of me their reproach contains.

  '"Among the many that mine eyes have seen,
  Not one whose flame my heart so much as warmed,
  Or my affection put to th' smallest teen,
  Or any of my leisures ever charmed.
  Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harmed;
  Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,
  And reigned commanding in his monarchy.

  '"Look here what tributes wounded fancies sent me,
  Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;
  Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me
  Of grief and blushes, aptly understood
  In bloodless white and the encrimsoned mood-
  Effects of terror and dear modesty,
  Encamped in hearts, but fighting outwardly.

  '"And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,
  With twisted metal amorously empleached,
  I have receiv'd from many a several fair,
  Their kind acceptance weepingly beseeched,
  With the annexions of fair gems enriched,
  And deep-brained sonnets that did amplify
  Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.

  '"The diamond? why, 'twas beautiful and hard,
  Whereto his invised properties did tend;
  The deep-green em'rald, in whose fresh regard
  Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;
  The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend
  With objects manifold; each several stone,
  With wit well blazoned, smiled, or made some moan.

  '"Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,
  Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,
  Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,
  But yield them up where I myself must render-
  That is, to you, my origin and ender;
  For these, of force, must your oblations be,
  Since I their altar, you enpatron me.

  '"O then advance of yours that phraseless hand
  Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;
  Take all these similes to your own command,
  Hallowed with sighs that burning lungs did raise;
  What me your minister for you obeys
  Works under you; and to your audit comes
  Their distract parcels in combined sums.

  '"Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,
  Or sister sanctified, of holiest note,
  Which late her noble suit in court did shun,
  Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;
  For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,
  But kept cold distance, and did thence remove
  To spend her living in eternal love.

  '"But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave
  The thing we have not, mast'ring what not strives,
  Playing the place which did no form receive,
  Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves!
  She that her fame so to herself contrives,
  The scars of battle scapeth by the flight,
  And makes her absence valiant, not her might.

  '"O pardon me in that my boast is true!
  The accident which brought me to her eye
  Upon the moment did her force subdue,
  And now she would the caged cloister fly.
  Religious love put out religion's eye.
  Not to be tempted, would she be immured,
  And now to tempt all liberty procured.

  '"How mighty then you are, O hear me tell!
  The broken bosoms that to me belong
  Have emptied all their fountains in my well,
  And mine I pour your ocean all among.
  I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,
  Must for your victory us all congest,
  As compound love to physic your cold breast.

  '"My parts had pow'r to charm a sacred nun,
  Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,
  Believed her eyes when they t'assail begun,
  All vows and consecrations giving place,
  O most potential love, vow, bond, nor space,
  In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,
  For thou art all, and all things else are thine.

  '"When thou impressest, what are precepts worth
  Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,
  How coldly those impediments stand forth,
  Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!
  Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense, 'gainst shame.
  And sweetens, in the suff'ring pangs it bears,
  The aloes of all forces, shocks and fears.

  '"Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,
  Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine,
  And supplicant their sighs to your extend,
  To leave the batt'ry that you make 'gainst mine,
  Lending soft audience to my sweet design,
  And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath,
  That shall prefer and undertake my troth."

  'This said, his wat'ry eyes he did dismount,
  Whose sights till then were levelled on my face;
  Each cheek a river running from a fount
  With brinish current downward flowed apace.
  O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!
  Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses
  That flame through water which their hue encloses.

  'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
  In the small orb of one particular tear!
  But with the inundation of the eyes
  What rocky heart to water will not wear?
  What breast so cold that is not warmed here?
  O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,
  Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.

  'For lo, his passion, but an art of craft,
  Even there resolved my reason into tears;
  There my white stole of chastity I daffed,
  Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;
  Appear to him as he to me appears,
  All melting; though our drops this diff'rence bore:
  His poisoned me, and mine did him restore.

  'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
  Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
  Of burning blushes or of weeping water,
  Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
  In either's aptness, as it best deceives,
  To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,
  Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows;

  'That not a heart which in his level came
  Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
  Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;
  And, veiled in them, did win whom he would maim.
  Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
  When he most burned in heart-wished luxury,
  He preached pure maid and praised cold chastity.

  'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace
  The naked and concealed fiend he covered,
  That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,
  Which, like a cherubin, above them hovered.
  Who, young and simple, would not be so lovered?
  Ay me, I fell, and yet do question make
  What I should do again for such a sake.

  'O, that infected moisture of his eye,
  O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed,
  O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,
  O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed,
  O, all that borrowed motion, seeming owed,
  Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed,
  And new pervert a reconciled maid.'

THE END



THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM

by William Shakespeare

I.

Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,
'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,
Persuade my heart to this false perjury?
Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.
A woman I forswore; but I will prove,
Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:
My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;
Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.
My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;
Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine,
Exhale this vapour vow; in thee it is:
If broken, then it is no fault of mine.
  If by me broke, what fool is not so wise
  To break an oath, to win a paradise?

II.

Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook
With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and green,
Did court the lad with many a lovely look,
Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen.
She told him stories to delight his ear;
She show'd him favours to allure his eye;
To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there:
Touches so soft still conquer chastity.
But whether unripe years did want conceit,
Or he refus'd to take her figur'd proffer,
The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
But smile and jest at every gentle offer:
  Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward;
  He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!

III.

If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?
O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd:
Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;
Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd.
Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,
Where all those pleasures live that art can comprehend.
If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;
Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;
All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;
Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire:
Thy eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful thunder,
Which (not to anger bent) is music and sweet fire.
  Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong,
  To sing heavens' praise with such an earthly tongue.

IV.

Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,
And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,
When Cytherea, all in love forlorn,
A longing tarriance for Adonis made,
Under an osier growing by a brook,
A brook where Adon used to cool his spleen.
Hot was the day; she hotter that did look
For his approach, that often there had been.
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by,
And stood stark naked on the brook's green brim;
The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye,
Yet not so wistly as this queen on him:
  He, spying her, bounc'd in, whereas he stood;
  O Jove, quoth she, why was not I a flood?

V.

Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;
Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;
Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle;
Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:
  A lily pale, with damask die to grace her,
  None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.

Her lips to mine how often hath she join'd,
Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!
How many tales to please me hath she coin'd,
Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!
  Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,
  Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.

She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;
She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;
She fram'd the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;
She bade love last, and yet she fell a turning.
  Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
  Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.

VI.

If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.
Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such
As, passing all conceit, needs no defence.
Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd
Whenas himself to singing he betakes.
  One god is god of both, as poets feign;
  One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

VII.

Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love,
    *     *     *     *     *     *
Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,
For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill:
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds;
Once, quoth she, did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,
Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!
See, in my thigh, quoth she, here was the sore.
  She showed hers: he saw more wounds than one,
  And blushing fled, and left her all alone.

VIII.

Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon vaded,
Pluck'd in the bud, and vaded in the spring!
Bright orient pearl, alack! too timely shaded!
Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's sharp sting!
  Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree,
  And falls, through wind, before the fall should be.

I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have;
For why? thou left'st me nothing in thy will:
And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave;
For why? I craved nothing of thee still:
  O yes, dear friend, I pardon crave of thee,
  Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.

IX.

Venus, with young Adonis sitting by her,
Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him:
She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,
And as he fell to her, so fell she to him.
Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god embrac'd me,
And then she clipp'd Adonis in her arms;
Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god unlaced me;
As if the boy should use like loving charms;
Even thus, quoth she, he seized on my lips,
And with her lips on his did act the seizure;
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.
  Ah! that I had my lady at this bay,
  To kiss and clip me till I run away!

X.

   Crabbed age and youth
     Cannot live together
   Youth is full of pleasance,
     Age is full of care;
   Youth like summer morn,
     Age like winter weather;
   Youth like summer brave,
     Age like winter bare;
   Youth is full of sport,
   Age's breath is short;
     Youth is nimble, age is lame;
   Youth is hot and bold,
   Age is weak and cold;
     Youth is wild, and age is tame.
   Age, I do abhor thee;
   Youth, I do adore thee;
     O, my love, my love is young!
   Age, I do defy thee;
   O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
   For methinks thou stay'st too long.

XI.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass, that's broken presently:
  A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
  Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
  So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost,
  In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.

XII.

Good night, good rest.  Ah! neither be my share:
She bade good night that kept my rest away;
And daff'd me to a cabin hang'd with care,
To descant on the doubts of my decay.
 Farewell, quoth she, and come again tomorrow:
 Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorrow;

Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile,
In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether:
'T may be, she joy'd to jest at my exile,
'T may be, again to make me wander thither:
  'Wander,' a word for shadows like myself,
  As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.

XIII.

Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!
My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise
Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.
Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,
  While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,
  And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;

For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,
And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:
The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;
Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;
  Sorrow chang'd to solace, solace mix'd with sorrow;
  For why, she sigh'd and bade me come tomorrow.

Were I with her, the night would post too soon;
But now are minutes added to the hours;
To spite me now, each minute seems a moon;
Yet not for me, shine sun to succour flowers!
  Pack night, peep day; good day, of night now borrow:
  Short, night, to-night, and length thyself to-morrow.



THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE




by William Shakespeare






Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precurrer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather’d king;
Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak’st
With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,
’Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.

So they lov’d, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance and no space was seen
’Twixt this turtle and his queen;
But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix’ sight;
Either was the other’s mine.

Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded.

That it cried, How true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none,
If what parts can so remain.

Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As chorus to their tragic scene.


       THRENOS

Beauty, truth, and rarity.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos’d in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix’ nest;
And the turtle’s loyal breast
To eternity doth rest.

Leaving no posterity:—
’Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.

Truth may seem, but cannot be;
Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.



THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

by William Shakespeare

                THE RAPE OF LUCRECE

                      TO THE

          RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,

        EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TITCHFIELD.

THE love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this
pamphlet, without beginning, is but a superfluous moiety.  The warrant
I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored
lines, makes it assured of acceptance.  What I have done is yours; what
I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours.  Were
my worth greater, my duty would show greater; meantime, as it is, it is
bound to your Lordship, to whom I wish long life, still lengthened with
all happiness.

                         Your Lordship's in all duty,
                              WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

                        THE ARGUMENT.

LUCIUS TARQUINIUS (for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus), after he
had caused his own father-in-law, Servius Tullius, to be cruelly
murdered, and, contrary to the Roman laws and customs, not requiring or
staying for the people's suffrages, had possessed himself of the
kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons and other noblemen of Rome, to
besiege Ardea.  During which siege the principal men of the army
meeting one evening at the tent of Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son,
in their discourses after supper, every one commended the virtues of
his own wife; among whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity
of his wife Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome;
and intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of
that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds his
wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her maids: the
other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or in several
disports.  Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus the victory, and
his wife the fame.  At that time Sextus Tarquinius being inflamed with
Lucrece's beauty, yet smothering his passions for the present, departed
with the rest back to the camp; from whence he shortly after privily
withdrew himself, and was (according to his estate) royally entertained
and lodged by Lucrece at Collatium.  The same night he treacherously
stealeth into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the
morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight, hastily
dispatched messengers, one to Rome for her father, another to the camp
for Collatine.  They came, the one accompanied with Junius Brutus, the
other with Publius Valerius; and finding Lucrece attired in mourning
habit, demanded the cause of her sorrow.  She, first taking an oath of
them for her revenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his
dealing, and withal suddenly stabbed herself.  Which done, with one
consent they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the
Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted the
people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a bitter
invective against the tyranny of the king; wherewith the people were so
moved, that with one consent and a general acclamation the Tarquins
were all exiled, and the state government changed from kings to
consuls.

_______________________________________________________________

From the besieged Ardea all in post,
Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,
Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,
And to Collatium bears the lightless fire
Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire
  And girdle with embracing flames the waist
  Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.

Haply that name of chaste unhapp'ly set
This bateless edge on his keen appetite;
When Collatine unwisely did not let
To praise the clear unmatched red and white
Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight,
  Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,
  With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.

For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,
Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;
What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent
In the possession of his beauteous mate;
Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,
  That kings might be espoused to more fame,
  But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.

O happiness enjoy'd but of a few!
And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
As is the morning's silver-melting dew
Against the golden splendour of the sun!
An expir'd date, cancell'd ere well begun:
  Honour and beauty, in the owner's arms,
  Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator;
What needeth then apologies be made,
To set forth that which is so singular?
Or why is Collatine the publisher
  Of that rich jewel he should keep unknown
  From thievish ears, because it is his own?

Perchance his boast of Lucrece' sovereignty
Suggested this proud issue of a king;
For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be:
Perchance that envy of so rich a thing,
Braving compare, disdainfully did sting
  His high-pitch'd thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt
  That golden hap which their superiors want.

But some untimely thought did instigate
His all-too-timeless speed, if none of those;
His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state,
Neglected all, with swift intent he goes
To quench the coal which in his liver glows.
  O rash false heat, wrapp'd in repentant cold,
  Thy hasty spring still blasts, and ne'er grows old!

When at Collatium this false lord arriv'd,
Well was he welcom'd by the Roman dame,
Within whose face beauty and virtue striv'd
Which of them both should underprop her fame:
When virtue bragg'd, beauty would blush for shame;
  When beauty boasted blushes, in despite
  Virtue would stain that or with silver white.

But beauty, in that white intituled,
From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair field:
Then virtue claims from beauty beauty's red,
Which virtue gave the golden age, to gild
Their silver cheeks, and call'd it then their shield;
  Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,—
  When shame assail'd, the red should fence the white.

This heraldry in Lucrece' face was seen,
Argued by beauty's red, and virtue's white:
Of either's colour was the other queen,
Proving from world's minority their right:
Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;
  The sovereignty of either being so great,
  That oft they interchange each other's seat.

Their silent war of lilies and of roses,
Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field,
In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses;
Where, lest between them both it should be kill'd,
The coward captive vanquish'd doth yield
  To those two armies that would let him go,
  Rather than triumph in so false a foe.

Now thinks he that her husband's shallow tongue,
(The niggard prodigal that prais'd her so)
In that high task hath done her beauty wrong,
Which far exceeds his barren skill to show:
Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe
  Enchanted Tarquin answers with surmise,
  In silent wonder of still-gazing eyes.

This earthly saint, adored by this devil,
Little suspecteth the false worshipper;
For unstain'd thoughts do seldom dream on evil;
Birds never lim'd no secret bushes fear:
So guiltless she securely gives good cheer
  And reverend welcome to her princely guest,
  Whose inward ill no outward harm express'd:

For that he colour'd with his high estate,
Hiding base sin in plaits of majesty;
That nothing in him seem'd inordinate,
Save sometime too much wonder of his eye,
Which, having all, all could not satisfy;
  But, poorly rich, so wanteth in his store,
  That, cloy'd with much, he pineth still for more.

But she, that never cop'd with stranger eyes,
Could pick no meaning from their parling looks,
Nor read the subtle-shining secrecies
Writ in the glassy margents of such books;
She touch'd no unknown baits, nor fear'd no hooks;
  Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,
  More than his eyes were open'd to the light.

He stories to her ears her husband's fame,
Won in the fields of fruitful Italy;
And decks with praises Collatine's high name,
Made glorious by his manly chivalry
With bruised arms and wreaths of victory:
  Her joy with heav'd-up hand she doth express,
  And, wordless, so greets heaven for his success.

Far from the purpose of his coming hither,
He makes excuses for his being there.
No cloudy show of stormy blustering weather
Doth yet in his fair welkin once appear;
Till sable Night, mother of Dread and Fear,
  Upon the world dim darkness doth display,
  And in her vaulty prison stows the day.

For then is Tarquin brought unto his bed,
Intending weariness with heavy spright;
For, after supper, long he questioned
With modest Lucrece, and wore out the night:
Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight;
  And every one to rest themselves betake,
  Save thieves, and cares, and troubled minds, that wake.

As one of which doth Tarquin lie revolving
The sundry dangers of his will's obtaining;
Yet ever to obtain his will resolving,
Though weak-built hopes persuade him to abstaining:
Despair to gain doth traffic oft for gaining;
  And when great treasure is the meed propos'd,
  Though death be adjunct, there's no death suppos'd.

Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
For what they have not, that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
  Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
  That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

The aim of all is but to nurse the life
With honour, wealth, and ease, in waning age;
And in this aim there is such thwarting strife,
That one for all, or all for one we gage;
As life for honour in fell battles' rage;
  Honour for wealth; and oft that wealth doth cost
  The death of all, and all together lost.

So that in vent'ring ill we leave to be
The things we are, for that which we expect;
And this ambitious foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
  The thing we have; and, all for want of wit,
  Make something nothing, by augmenting it.

Such hazard now must doting Tarquin make,
Pawning his honour to obtain his lust;
And for himself himself he must forsake:
Then where is truth, if there be no self-trust?
When shall he think to find a stranger just,
  When he himself himself confounds, betrays
  To slanderous tongues and wretched hateful days?

Now stole upon the time the dead of night,
When heavy sleep had closed up mortal eyes:
No comfortable star did lend his light,
No noise but owls' and wolves' death-boding cries;
Now serves the season that they may surprise
  The silly lambs; pure thoughts are dead and still,
  While lust and murder wake to stain and kill.

And now this lustful lord leap'd from his bed,
Throwing his mantle rudely o'er his arm;
Is madly toss'd between desire and dread;
Th' one sweetly flatters, th' other feareth harm;
But honest Fear, bewitch'd with lust's foul charm,
  Doth too too oft betake him to retire,
  Beaten away by brain-sick rude Desire.

His falchion on a flint he softly smiteth,
That from the cold stone sparks of fire do fly;
Whereat a waxen torch forthwith he lighteth,
Which must be lode-star to his lustful eye;
And to the flame thus speaks advisedly:
  'As from this cold flint I enforced this fire,
  So Lucrece must I force to my desire.'

Here pale with fear he doth premeditate
The dangers of his loathsome enterprise,
And in his inward mind he doth debate
What following sorrow may on this arise;
Then looking scornfully, he doth despise
  His naked armour of still-slaughter'd lust,
  And justly thus controls his thoughts unjust:

'Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not
To darken her whose light excelleth thine:
And die, unhallow'd thoughts, before you blot
With your uncleanness that which is divine!
Offer pure incense to so pure a shrine:
  Let fair humanity abhor the deed
  That spots and stains love's modest snow-white weed.

'O shame to knighthood and to shining arms!
O foul dishonour to my household's grave!
O impious act, including all foul harms!
A martial man to be soft fancy's slave!
True valour still a true respect should have;
  Then my digression is so vile, so base,
  That it will live engraven in my face.

'Yea, though I die, the scandal will survive,
And be an eye-sore in my golden coat;
Some loathsome dash the herald will contrive,
To cipher me how fondly I did dote;
That my posterity, sham'd with the note,
  Shall curse my bones, and hold it for no sin
  To wish that I their father had not been.

'What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy:
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?
For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy?
  Or what fond beggar, but to touch the crown,
  Would with the sceptre straight be strucken down?

'If Collatinus dream of my intent,
Will he not wake, and in a desperate rage
Post hither, this vile purpose to prevent?
This siege that hath engirt his marriage,
This blur to youth, this sorrow to the sage,
  This dying virtue, this surviving shame,
  Whose crime will bear an ever-during blame?

'O, what excuse can my invention make
When thou shalt charge me with so black a deed?
Will not my tongue be mute, my frail joints shake?
Mine eyes forego their light, my false heart bleed?
The guilt being great, the fear doth still exceed;
  And extreme fear can neither fight nor fly,
  But, coward-like, with trembling terror die.

'Had Collatinus kill'd my son or sire,
Or lain in ambush to betray my life,
Or were he not my dear friend, this desire
Might have excuse to work upon his wife;
As in revenge or quittal of such strife:
  But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend,
  The shame and fault finds no excuse nor end.

'Shameful it is;—ay, if the fact be known:
Hateful it is:— there is no hate in loving;
I'll beg her love;—but she is not her own;
The worst is but denial and reproving:
My will is strong, past reason's weak removing.
  Who fears a sentence or an old man's saw
  Shall by a painted cloth be kept in awe.'

Thus, graceless, holds he disputation
'Tween frozen conscience and hot-burning will,
And with good thoughts makes dispensation,
Urging the worser sense for vantage still;
Which in a moment doth confound and kill
  All pure effects, and doth so far proceed,
  That what is vile shows like a virtuous deed.

Quoth he, 'She took me kindly by the hand,
And gaz'd for tidings in my eager eyes,
Fearing some hard news from the warlike band,
Where her beloved Collatinus lies.
O how her fear did make her colour rise!
  First red as roses that on lawn we lay,
  Then white as lawn, the roses took away.

'And how her hand, in my hand being lock'd,
Forc'd it to tremble with her loyal fear;
Which struck her sad, and then it faster rock'd,
Until her husband's welfare she did hear;
Whereat she smiled with so sweet a cheer,
  That had Narcissus seen her as she stood,
  Self-love had never drown'd him in the flood.

'Why hunt I then for colour or excuses?
All orators are dumb when beauty pleadeth;
Poor wretches have remorse in poor abuses;
Love thrives not in the heart that shadows dreadeth:
Affection is my captain, and he leadeth;
  And when his gaudy banner is display'd,
  The coward fights and will not be dismay'd.

'Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating, die!
Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age!
My heart shall never countermand mine eye;
Sad pause and deep regard beseem the sage;
My part is youth, and beats these from the stage:
  Desire my pilot is, beauty my prize;
  Then who fears sinking where such treasure lies?'

As corn o'ergrown by weeds, so heedful fear
Is almost chok'd by unresisted lust.
Away he steals with opening, listening ear,
Full of foul hope, and full of fond mistrust;
Both which, as servitors to the unjust,
  So cross him with their opposite persuasion,
  That now he vows a league, and now invasion.

Within his thought her heavenly image sits,
And in the self-same seat sits Collatine:
That eye which looks on her confounds his wits;
That eye which him beholds, as more divine,
Unto a view so false will not incline;
  But with a pure appeal seeks to the heart,
  Which once corrupted takes the worser part;

And therein heartens up his servile powers,
Who, flatter'd by their leader's jocund show,
Stuff up his lust, as minutes fill up hours;
And as their captain, so their pride doth grow.
Paying more slavish tribute than they owe.
  By reprobate desire thus madly led,
  The Roman lord marcheth to Lucrece' bed.

The locks between her chamber and his will,
Each one by him enforc'd retires his ward;
But, as they open they all rate his ill,
Which drives the creeping thief to some regard,
The threshold grates the door to have him heard;
  Night-wand'ring weasels shriek to see him there;
  They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.

As each unwilling portal yields him way,
Through little vents and crannies of the place
The wind wars with his torch, to make him stay,
And blows the smoke of it into his face,
Extinguishing his conduct in this case;
  But his hot heart, which fond desire doth scorch,
  Puffs forth another wind that fires the torch:

And being lighted, by the light he spies
Lucretia's glove, wherein her needle sticks;
He takes it from the rushes where it lies,
And griping it, the neeld his finger pricks:
As who should say this glove to wanton tricks
  Is not inur'd: return again in haste;
  Thou see'st our mistress' ornaments are chaste.

But all these poor forbiddings could not stay him;
He in the worst sense construes their denial:
The doors, the wind, the glove that did delay him,
He takes for accidental things of trial;
Or as those bars which stop the hourly dial,
  Who with a lingering stay his course doth let,
  Till every minute pays the hour his debt.

'So, so,' quoth he, 'these lets attend the time,
Like little frosts that sometime threat the spring.
To add a more rejoicing to the prime,
And give the sneaped birds more cause to sing.
Pain pays the income of each precious thing;
  Huge rocks, high winds, strong pirates, shelves and sands,
  The merchant fears, ere rich at home he lands.'

Now is he come unto the chamber door,
That shuts him from the heaven of his thought,
Which with a yielding latch, and with no more,
Hath barr'd him from the blessed thing he sought.
So from himself impiety hath wrought,
  That for his prey to pray he doth begin,
  As if the heavens should countenance his sin.

But in the midst of his unfruitful prayer,
Having solicited the eternal power,
That his foul thoughts might compass his fair fair,
And they would stand auspicious to the hour,
Even there he starts:—quoth he, 'I must de-flower;
  The powers to whom I pray abhor this fact,
  How can they then assist me in the act?

'Then Love and Fortune be my gods, my guide!
My will is back'd with resolution:
Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried,
The blackest sin is clear'd with absolution;
Against love's fire fear's frost hath dissolution.
  The eye of heaven is out, and misty night
  Covers the shame that follows sweet delight.'

This said, his guilty hand pluck'd up the latch,
And with his knee the door he opens wide:
The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch;
Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.
Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside;
  But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing,
  Lies at the mercy of his mortal sting.

Into the chamber wickedly he stalks,
And gazeth on her yet unstained bed.
The curtains being close, about he walks,
Rolling his greedy eyeballs in his head:
By their high treason is his heart misled;
  Which gives the watch-word to his hand full soon
  To draw the cloud that hides the silver moon.

Look, as the fair and fiery-pointed sun,
Rushing from forth a cloud, bereaves our sight;
Even so, the curtain drawn, his eyes begun
To wink, being blinded with a greater light:
Whether it is that she reflects so bright,
  That dazzleth them, or else some shame supposed;
  But blind they are, and keep themselves enclosed.

O, had they in that darksome prison died,
Then had they seen the period of their ill!
Then Collatine again by Lucrece' side
In his clear bed might have reposed still:
But they must ope, this blessed league to kill;
  And holy-thoughted Lucrece to their sight
  Must sell her joy, her life, her world's delight.

Her lily hand her rosy cheek lies under,
Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss;
Who, therefore angry, seems to part in sunder,
Swelling on either side to want his bliss;
Between whose hills her head entombed is:
  Where, like a virtuous monument, she lies,
  To be admir'd of lewd unhallow'd eyes.

Without the bed her other fair hand was,
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Show'd like an April daisy on the grass,
With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night,
Her eyes, like marigolds, had sheath'd their light,
  And canopied in darkness sweetly lay,
  Till they might open to adorn the day.

Her hair, like golden threads, play'd with her breath;
O modest wantons! wanton modesty!
Showing life's triumph in the map of death,
And death's dim look in life's mortality:
Each in her sleep themselves so beautify,
  As if between them twain there were no strife,
  But that life liv'd in death, and death in life.

Her breasts, like ivory globes circled with blue,
A pair of maiden worlds unconquered,
Save of their lord no bearing yoke they knew,
And him by oath they truly honoured.
These worlds in Tarquin new ambition bred:
  Who, like a foul usurper, went about
  From this fair throne to heave the owner out.

What could he see but mightily he noted?
What did he note but strongly he desir'd?
What he beheld, on that he firmly doted,
And in his will his wilful eye he tir'd.
With more than admiration he admir'd
  Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
  Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.

As the grim lion fawneth o'er his prey,
Sharp hunger by the conquest satisfied,
So o'er this sleeping soul doth Tarquin stay,
His rage of lust by grazing qualified;
Slack'd, not suppress'd; for standing by her side,
  His eye, which late this mutiny restrains,
  Unto a greater uproar tempts his veins:

And they, like straggling slaves for pillage fighting,
Obdurate vassals. fell exploits effecting,
In bloody death and ravishment delighting,
Nor children's tears nor mothers' groans respecting,
Swell in their pride, the onset still expecting:
  Anon his beating heart, alarum striking,
  Gives the hot charge and bids them do their liking.

His drumming heart cheers up his burning eye,
His eye commends the leading to his hand;
His hand, as proud of such a dignity,
Smoking with pride, march'd on to make his stand
On her bare breast, the heart of all her land;
  Whose ranks of blue veins, as his hand did scale,
  Left their round turrets destitute and pale.

They, mustering to the quiet cabinet
Where their dear governess and lady lies,
Do tell her she is dreadfully beset,
And fright her with confusion of their cries:
She, much amaz'd, breaks ope her lock'd-up eyes,
  Who, peeping forth this tumult to behold,
  Are by his flaming torch dimm'd and controll'd.

Imagine her as one in dead of night
From forth dull sleep by dreadful fancy waking,
That thinks she hath beheld some ghastly sprite,
Whose grim aspect sets every joint a shaking:
What terror 'tis! but she, in worser taking,
  From sleep disturbed, heedfully doth view
  The sight which makes supposed terror true.

Wrapp'd and confounded in a thousand fears,
Like to a new-kill'd bird she trembling lies;
She dares not look; yet, winking, there appears
Quick-shifting antics, ugly in her eyes:
Such shadows are the weak brain's forgeries:
  Who, angry that the eyes fly from their lights,
  In darkness daunts them with more dreadful sights.

His hand, that yet remains upon her breast,
(Rude ram, to batter such an ivory wall!)
May feel her heart, poor citizen, distress'd,
Wounding itself to death, rise up and fall,
Beating her bulk, that his hand shakes withal.
  This moves in him more rage, and lesser pity,
  To make the breach, and enter this sweet city.

First, like a trumpet, doth his tongue begin
To sound a parley to his heartless foe,
Who o'er the white sheet peers her whiter chin,
The reason of this rash alarm to know,
Which he by dumb demeanour seeks to show;
  But she with vehement prayers urgeth still
  Under what colour he commits this ill.

Thus he replies: 'The colour in thy face,
(That even for anger makes the lily pale,
And the red rose blush at her own disgrace)
Shall plead for me and tell my loving tale:
Under that colour am I come to scale
  Thy never-conquer'd fort: the fault is thine,
  For those thine eyes betray thee unto mine.

'Thus I forestall thee, if thou mean to chide:
Thy beauty hath ensnared thee to this night,
Where thou with patience must my will abide,
My will that marks thee for my earth's delight,
Which I to conquer sought with all my might;
  But as reproof and reason beat it dead,
  By thy bright beauty was it newly bred.

'I see what crosses my attempt will bring;
I know what thorns the growing rose defends;
I think the honey guarded with a sting;
All this, beforehand, counsel comprehends:
But will is deaf, and hears no heedful friends;
  Only he hath an eye to gaze on beauty,
  And dotes on what he looks, 'gainst law or duty.

'I have debated, even in my soul,
What wrong, what shame, what sorrow I shall breed;
But nothing can Affection's course control,
Or stop the headlong fury of his speed.
I know repentant tears ensue the deed,
  Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;
  Yet strike I to embrace mine infamy.'

This said, he shakes aloft his Roman blade,
Which, like a falcon towering in the skies,
Coucheth the fowl below with his wings' shade,
Whose crooked beak threats if he mount he dies:
So under his insulting falchion lies
  Harmless Lucretia, marking what he tells
  With trembling fear, as fowl hear falcon's bells.

'Lucrece,' quoth he, 'this night I must enjoy thee:
If thou deny, then force must work my way,
For in thy bed I purpose to destroy thee;
That done, some worthless slave of thine I'll slay.
To kill thine honour with thy life's decay;
  And in thy dead arms do I mean to place him,
  Swearing I slew him, seeing thee embrace him.

'So thy surviving husband shall remain
The scornful mark of every open eye;
Thy kinsmen hang their heads at this disdain,
Thy issue blurr'd with nameless bastardy:
And thou, the author of their obloquy,
  Shalt have thy trespass cited up in rhymes,
   And sung by children in succeeding times.

'But if thou yield, I rest thy secret friend:
The fault unknown is as a thought unacted;
A little harm, done to a great good end,
For lawful policy remains enacted.
The poisonous simple sometimes is compacted
  In a pure compound; being so applied,
  His venom in effect is purified.

'Then, for thy husband and thy children's sake,
Tender my suit: bequeath not to their lot
The shame that from them no device can take,
The blemish that will never be forgot;
Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot:
  For marks descried in men's nativity
  Are nature's faults, not their own infamy.'

Here with a cockatrice' dead-killing eye
He rouseth up himself and makes a pause;
While she, the picture of pure piety,
Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws,
Pleads in a wilderness where are no laws,
  To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,
  Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

But when a black-fac'd cloud the world doth threat,
In his dim mist the aspiring mountains hiding,
From earth's dark womb some gentle gust doth get,
Which blows these pitchy vapours from their biding,
Hindering their present fall by this dividing;
  So his unhallow'd haste her words delays,
  And moody Pluto winks while Orpheus plays.

Yet, foul night-working cat, he doth but dally,
While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth;
Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly,
A swallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth:
His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
  No penetrable entrance to her plaining:
  Tears harden lust, though marble wear with raining.

Her pity-pleading eyes are sadly fix'd
In the remorseless wrinkles of his face;
Her modest eloquence with sighs is mix'd,
Which to her oratory adds more grace.
She puts the period often from his place,
  And midst the sentence so her accent breaks,
  That twice she doth begin ere once she speaks.

She conjures him by high almighty Jove,
By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship's oath,
By her untimely tears, her husband's love,
By holy human law, and common troth,
By heaven and earth, and all the power of both,
  That to his borrow'd bed he make retire,
  And stoop to honour, not to foul desire.

Quoth she, 'Reward not hospitality
With such black payment as thou hast pretended;
Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended;
End thy ill aim before the shoot be ended:
  He is no woodman that doth bend his bow
  To strike a poor unseasonable doe.

'My husband is thy friend; for his sake spare me;
Thyself art mighty; for thine own sake leave me;
Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me;
Thou look'st not like deceit; do not deceive me;
My sighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee.
  If ever man were mov'd with woman's moans,
  Be moved with my tears, my sighs, my groans:

'All which together, like a troubled ocean,
Beat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart;
To soften it with their continual motion;
For stones dissolv'd to water do convert.
O, if no harder than a stone thou art,
  Melt at my tears, and be compassionate!
  Soft pity enters at an iron gate.

'In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee;
Hast thou put on his shape to do him shame?
To all the host of heaven I complain me,
Thou wrong'st his honour, wound'st his princely name.
Thou art not what thou seem'st; and if the same,
  Thou seem'st not what thou art, a god, a king;
  For kings like gods should govern every thing.

'How will thy shame be seeded in thine age,
When thus thy vices bud before thy spring!
If in thy hope thou dar'st do such outrage,
What dar'st thou not when once thou art a king!
O, be remember'd, no outrageous thing
  From vassal actors can he wip'd away;
  Then kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay.

'This deed will make thee only lov'd for fear,
But happy monarchs still are fear'd for love:
With foul offenders thou perforce must bear,
When they in thee the like offences prove:
If but for fear of this, thy will remove;
  For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
  Where subjects eyes do learn, do read, do look.

'And wilt thou be the school where Lust shall learn?
Must he in thee read lectures of such shame:
Wilt thou be glass, wherein it shall discern
Authority for sin, warrant for blame,
To privilege dishonour in thy name?
  Thou back'st reproach against long-living laud,
  And mak'st fair reputation but a bawd.

'Hast thou command? by him that gave it thee,
From a pure heart command thy rebel will:
Draw not thy sword to guard iniquity,
For it was lent thee all that brood to kill.
Thy princely office how canst thou fulfill,
  When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul Sin may say
  He learn'd to sin, and thou didst teach the way?

'Think but how vile a spectacle it were
To view thy present trespass in another.
Men's faults do seldom to themselves appear;
Their own transgressions partially they smother:
This guilt would seem death-worthy in thy brother.
  O how are they wrapp'd in with infamies
  That from their own misdeeds askaunce their eyes!

'To thee, to thee, my heav'd-up hands appeal,
Not to seducing lust, thy rash relier;
I sue for exil'd majesty's repeal;
Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire:
His true respect will 'prison false desire,
  And wipe the dim mist from thy doting eyne,
  That thou shalt see thy state, and pity mine.'

'Have done,' quoth he: 'my uncontrolled tide
Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.
Small lights are soon blown out, huge fires abide,
And with the wind in greater fury fret:
The petty streams that pay a daily debt
  To their salt sovereign, with their fresh falls' haste,
  Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.'

'Thou art,' quoth she, 'a sea, a sovereign king;
And, lo, there falls into thy boundless flood
Black lust, dishonour, shame, misgoverning,
Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.
If all these petty ills shall change thy good,
  Thy sea within a puddle's womb is hears'd,
  And not the puddle in thy sea dispers'd.

'So shall these slaves be king, and thou their slave;
Thou nobly base, they basely dignified;
Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;
Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride:
The lesser thing should not the greater hide;
  The cedar stoops not to the base shrub's foot,
  But low shrubs whither at the cedar's root.

'So let thy thoughts, low vassals to thy state'—
'No more,' quoth he; 'by heaven, I will not hear thee:
Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate,
Instead of love's coy touch, shall rudely tear thee;
That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee
  Unto the base bed of some rascal groom,
  To be thy partner in this shameful doom.'

This said, he sets his foot upon the light,
For light and lust are deadly enemies;
Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
When most unseen, then most doth tyrannize.
The wolf hath seiz'd his prey, the poor lamb cries;
  Till with her own white fleece her voice controll'd
  Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold:

For with the nightly linen that she wears
He pens her piteous clamours in her head;
Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
That ever modest eyes with sorrow shed.
O, that prone lust should stain so pure a bed!
  The spots whereof could weeping purify,
  Her tears should drop on them perpetually.

But she hath lost a dearer thing than life,
And he hath won what he would lose again.
This forced league doth force a further strife;
This momentary joy breeds months of pain,
This hot desire converts to cold disdain:
  Pure Chastity is rifled of her store,
  And Lust, the thief, far poorer than before.

Look, as the full-fed hound or gorged hawk,
Unapt for tender smell or speedy flight,
Make slow pursuit, or altogether balk
The prey wherein by nature they delight;
So surfeit-taking Tarquin fares this night:
  His taste delicious, in digestion souring,
  Devours his will, that liv'd by foul devouring.

O deeper sin than bottomless conceit
Can comprehend in still imagination!
Drunken desire must vomit his receipt,
Ere he can see his own abomination.
While lust is in his pride no exclamation
  Can curb his heat, or rein his rash desire,
  Till, like a jade, self-will himself doth tire.

And then with lank and lean discolour'd cheek,
With heavy eye, knit brow, and strengthless pace,
Feeble desire, all recreant, poor, and meek,
Like to a bankrupt beggar wails his case:
The flesh being proud, desire doth fight with Grace,
  For there it revels; and when that decays,
  The guilty rebel for remission prays.

So fares it with this faultful lord of Rome,
Who this accomplishment so hotly chas'd;
For now against himself he sounds this doom,
That through the length of times he stands disgrac'd:
Besides, his soul's fair temple is defac'd;
  To whose weak ruins muster troops of cares,
  To ask the spotted princess how she fares.

She says, her subjects with foul insurrection
Have batter'd down her consecrated wall,
And by their mortal fault brought in subjection
Her immortality, and made her thrall
To living death, and pain perpetual;
  Which in her prescience she controlled still,
  But her foresight could not forestall their will.

Even in this thought through the dark night he stealeth,
A captive victor that hath lost in gain;
Bearing away the wound that nothing healeth,
The scar that will, despite of cure, remain;
Leaving his spoil perplex'd in greater pain.
  She hears the load of lust he left behind,
  And he the burthen of a guilty mind.

He like a thievish dog creeps sadly thence;
She like a wearied lamb lies panting there;
He scowls, and hates himself for his offence;
She, desperate, with her nails her flesh doth tear;
He faintly flies, sweating with guilty fear;
  She stays, exclaiming on the direful night;
  He runs, and chides his vanish'd, loath'd delight.

He thence departs a heavy convertite;
She there remains a hopeless castaway:
He in his speed looks for the morning light;
She prays she never may behold the day;
'For day,' quoth she, 'night's scapes doth open lay;
  And my true eyes have never practis'd how
  To cloak offences with a cunning brow.

'They think not but that every eye can see
The same disgrace which they themselves behold;
And therefore would they still in darkness be,
To have their unseen sin remain untold;
For they their guilt with weeping will unfold,
  And grave, like water that doth eat in steel,
  Upon my cheeks what helpless shame I feel.'

Here she exclaims against repose and rest,
And bids her eyes hereafter still be blind.
She wakes her heart by beating on her breast,
And bids it leap from thence, where it may find
Some purer chest, to close so pure a mind.
  Frantic with grief thus breathes she forth her spite
  Against the unseen secrecy of night:

'O comfort-killing night, image of hell!
Dim register and notary of shame!
Black stage for tragedies and murders fell!
Vast sin-concealing chaos! nurse of blame!
Blind muffled bawd! dark harbour for defame!
  Grim cave of death, whispering conspirator
  With close-tongued treason and the ravisher!

'O hateful, vaporous, and foggy night!
Since thou art guilty of my cureless crime,
Muster thy mists to meet the eastern light,
Make war against proportion'd course of time!
Or if thou wilt permit the sun to climb
  His wonted height, yet ere he go to bed,
  Knit poisonous clouds about his golden head.

'With rotten damps ravish the morning air;
Let their exhal'd unwholesome breaths make sick
The life of purity, the supreme fair,
Ere he arrive his weary noontide prick;
And let thy misty vapours march so thick,
  That in their smoky ranks his smother'd light
  May set at noon and make perpetual night.

'Were Tarquin night (as he is but night's child),
The silver-shining queen he would distain;
Her twinkling handmaids too, by him defil'd,
Through  Night's  black  bosom  should not peep again:
So should I have co-partners in my pain:
  And fellowship in woe doth woe assuage,
  As palmers' chat makes short their pilgrimage.

'Where now I have no one to blush with me,
To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine,
To mask their brows, and hide their infamy;
But I alone alone must sit and pine,
Seasoning the earth with showers of silver brine,
  Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,
  Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.

'O night, thou furnace of foul-reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous day behold that face
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak
Immodesty lies martyr'd with disgrace!
Keep still possession of thy gloomy place,
  That all the faults which in thy reign are made,
  May likewise be sepulchred in thy shade!

'Make me not object to the tell-tale day!
The light will show, character'd in my brow,
The story of sweet chastity's decay,
The impious breach of holy wedlock vow:
Yea, the illiterate, that know not how
  To cipher what is writ in learned books,
  Will quote my loathsome trespass in my looks.

'The nurse, to still her child, will tell my story
And fright her crying babe with Tarquin's name;
The orator, to deck his oratory,
Will couple my reproach to Tarquin's shame:
Feast-finding minstrels, tuning my defame,
  Will tie the hearers to attend each line,
  How Tarquin wronged me, I Collatine.

'Let my good name, that senseless reputation,
For Collatine's dear love be kept unspotted:
If that be made a theme for disputation,
The branches of another root are rotted,
And undeserved reproach to him allotted,
  That is as clear from this attaint of mine
  As I, ere this, was pure to Collatine.

'O unseen shame! invisible disgrace!
O unfelt sore! crest-wounding, private scar!
Reproach is stamp'd in Collatinus' face,
And Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar,
How he in peace is wounded, not in war.
  Alas, how many bear such shameful blows,
  Which not themselves, but he that gives them knows!

'If, Collatine, thine honour lay in me,
From me by strong assault it is bereft.
My honey lost, and I, a drone-like bee,
Have no perfection of my summer left,
But robb'd and ransack'd by injurious theft:
  In thy weak hive a wandering wasp hath crept,
  And suck'd the honey which thy chaste bee kept.

'Yet am I guilty of thy honour's wrack;—
Yet for thy honour did I entertain him;
Coming from thee, I could not put him back,
For it had been dishonour to disdain him:
Besides, of weariness he did complain him,
  And talk'd of virtue:—O unlook'd-for evil,
  When virtue is profan'd in such a devil!

'Why should the worm intrude the maiden bud?
Or hateful cuckoos hatch in sparrows' nests?
Or toads infect fair founts with venom mud?
Or tyrant folly lurk in gentle breasts?
Or kings be breakers of their own behests?
  But no perfection is so absolute,
  That some impurity doth not pollute.

'The aged man that coffers up his gold
Is plagued with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold,
But like still-pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless barns the harvest of his wits;
  Having no other pleasure of his gain
  But torment that it cannot cure his pain.

'So then he hath it when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young;
Who in their pride do presently abuse it:
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed-blessed fortune long.
  The sweets we wish for turn to loathed sours,
  Even in the moment that we call them ours.

'Unruly blasts wait on the tender spring;
Unwholesome weeds take root with precious flowers;
The adder hisses where the sweet birds sing;
What virtue breeds iniquity devours:
We have no good that we can say is ours,
  But ill-annexed Opportunity
  Or kills his life or else his quality.

'O Opportunity, thy guilt is great:
'Tis thou that executest the traitor's treason;
Thou set'st the wolf where he the lamb may get;
Whoever plots the sin, thou 'point'st the season;
'Tis thou that spurn'st at right, at law, at reason;
  And in thy shady cell, where none may spy him,
  Sits Sin, to seize the souls that wander by him.

'Thou mak'st the vestal violate her oath;
Thou blow'st the fire when temperance is thaw'd;
Thou smother'st honesty, thou murther'st troth;
Thou foul abettor! thou notorious bawd!
Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud:
  Thou ravisher, thou traitor, thou false thief,
  Thy honey turns to gall, thy joy to grief!

'Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame,
Thy private feasting to a public fast;
Thy smoothing titles to a ragged name,
Thy sugar'd tongue to bitter wormwood taste:
Thy violent vanities can never last.
  How comes it then, vile Opportunity,
  Being so bad, such numbers seek for thee?

'When wilt thou be the humble suppliant's friend,
And bring him where his suit may be obtain'd?
When wilt thou sort an hour great strifes to end?
Or free that soul which wretchedness hath chain'd?
Give physic to the sick, ease to the pain'd?
  The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry out for thee;
  But they ne'er meet with Opportunity.

'The patient dies while the physician sleeps;
The orphan pines while the oppressor feeds;
Justice is feasting while the widow weeps;
Advice is sporting while infection breeds;
Thou grant'st no time for charitable deeds:
  Wrath, envy, treason, rape, and murder's rages,
  Thy heinous hours wait on them as their pages.

'When truth and virtue have to do with thee,
A thousand crosses keep them from thy aid;
They buy thy help; but Sin ne'er gives a fee,
He gratis comes; and thou art well appay'd
As well to hear as grant what he hath said.
  My Collatine would else have come to me
  When Tarquin did, but he was stay'd by thee.

'Guilty thou art of murder and of theft;
Guilty of perjury and subornation;
Guilty of treason, forgery, and shift;
Guilty of incest, that abomination:
An accessory by thine inclination
  To all sins past, and all that are to come,
  From the creation to the general doom.

'Mis-shapen Time, copesmate of ugly night,
Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care,
Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,
Base watch of woes, sin's pack-horse, virtue's snare;
Thou nursest all and murtherest all that are:
  O hear me then, injurious, shifting Time!
  Be guilty of my death, since of my crime.

'Why hath thy servant, Opportunity,
Betray'd the hours thou gav'st me to repose?
Cancell'd my fortunes, and enchained me
To endless date of never-ending woes?
Time's office is to fine the hate of foes;
  To eat up errors by opinion bred,
  Not spend the dowry of a lawful bed.

'Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light,
To stamp the seal of time in aged things,
To wake the morn, and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger till he render right;
  To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours,
  And smear with dust their glittering golden towers:

'To fill with worm-holes stately monuments,
To feed oblivion with decay of things,
To blot old books and alter their contents,
To pluck the quills from ancient ravens' wings,
To dry the old oak's sap and cherish springs;
  To spoil antiquities of hammer'd steel,
  And turn the giddy round of Fortune's wheel;

'To show the beldame daughters of her daughter,
To make the child a man, the man a child,
To slay the tiger that doth live by slaughter,
To tame the unicorn and lion wild,
To mock the subtle, in themselves beguil'd;
  To cheer the ploughman with increaseful crops,
  And waste huge stones with little water-drops.

'Why work'st thou mischief in thy pilgrimage,
Unless thou couldst return to make amends?
One poor retiring minute in an age
Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends,
Lending him wit that to bad debtors lends:
  O, this dread night, wouldst thou one hour come back,
  I could prevent this storm, and shun thy wrack!

'Thou cease!ess lackey to eternity,
With some mischance cross Tarquin in his flight:
Devise extremes beyond extremity,
To make him curse this cursed crimeful night:
Let ghastly shadows his lewd eyes affright;
  And the dire thought of his committed evil
  Shape every bush a hideous shapeless devil.

'Disturb his hours of rest with restless trances,
Afflict him in his bed with bedrid groans;
Let there bechance him pitiful mischances,
To make him moan; but pity not his moans:
Stone him with harden'd hearts, harder than stones;
  And let mild women to him lose their mildness,
  Wilder to him than tigers in their wildness.

'Let him have time to tear his curled hair,
Let him have time against himself to rave,
Let him have time of Time's help to despair,
Let him have time to live a loathed slave,
Let him have time a beggar's orts to crave;
  And time to see one that by alms doth live
  Disdain to him disdained scraps to give.

'Let him have time to see his friends his foes,
And merry fools to mock at him resort;
Let him have time to mark how slow time goes
In time of sorrow, and how swift and short
His time of folly and his time of sport:
  And ever let his unrecalling crime
  Have time to wail the abusing of his time.

'O Time, thou tutor both to good and bad,
Teach me to curse him that thou taught'st this ill!
At his own shadow let the thief run mad!
Himself himself seek every hour to kill!
Such wretched hands such wretched blood should spill:
  For who so base would such an office have
  As slanderous deathsman to so base a slave?

The baser is he, coming from a king,
To shame his hope with deeds degenerate.
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
That makes him honour'd, or begets him hate;
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
  The moon being clouded presently is miss'd,
  But little stars may hide them when they list.

'The crow may bathe his coal-black wings in mire,
And unperceived fly with the filth away;
But if the like the snow-white swan desire,
The stain upon his silver down will stay.
Poor grooms are sightless night, kings glorious day:
  Gnats are unnoted wheresoe'er they fly,
  But eagles gazed upon with every eye.

'Out, idle words, servants to shallow fools!
Unprofitable sounds, weak arbitrators!
Busy yourselves in skill-contending schools;
Debate where leisure serves with dull debaters;
To trembling clients be you mediators:
  For me, I force not argument a straw,
  Since that my case is past the help of law.

'In vain I rail at Opportunity,
At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night;
In vain I cavil with mine infamy,
In vain I spurn at my confirm'd despite:
This helpless smoke of words doth me no right.
  The remedy indeed to do me good
  Is to let forth my foul-defil'd blood.

'Poor hand, why quiver'st thou at this decree?
Honour thyself to rid me of this shame;
For if I die, my honour lives in thee;
But if I live, thou livest in my defame:
Since thou couldst not defend thy loyal dame,
  And wast afear'd to scratch her wicked foe,
  Kill both thyself and her for yielding so.'

This said, from her be-tumbled couch she starteth,
To find some desperate instrument of death:
But this no slaughter-house no tool imparteth,
To make more vent for passage of her breath;
Which, thronging through her lips, so vanisheth
  As smoke from Aetna, that in air consumes,
  Or that which from discharged cannon fumes.

'In vain,' quoth she, 'I live, and seek in vain
Some happy mean to end a hapless life.
I fear'd by Tarquin's falchion to be slain,
Yet for the self-same purpose seek a knife:
But when I fear'd I was a loyal wife:
  So am I now:—O no, that cannot be;
  Of that true type hath Tarquin rifled me.

'O! that is gone for which I sought to live,
And therefore now I need not fear to die.
To clear this spot by death, at least I give
A badge of fame to slander's livery;
A dying life to living infamy;
  Poor helpless help, the treasure stolen away,
  To burn the guiltless casket where it lay!

'Well, well, dear Collatine, thou shalt not know
The stained taste of violated troth;
I will not wrong thy true affection so,
To flatter thee with an infringed oath;
This bastard graff shall never come to growth:
  He shall not boast who did thy stock pollute
  That thou art doting father of his fruit.

Nor shall he smile at thee in secret thought,
Nor laugh with his companions at thy state;
But thou shalt know thy interest was not bought
Basely with gold, but stolen from forth thy gate.
For me, I am the mistress of my fate,
  And with my trespass never will dispense,
  Till life to death acquit my forced offence.

'I will not poison thee with my attaint,
Nor fold my fault in cleanly-coin'd excuses;
My sable ground of sin I will not paint,
To hide the truth of this false night's abuses;
My tongue shall utter all; mine eyes, like sluices,
  As from a mountain-spring that feeds a dale,
  Shall gush pure streams to purge my impure tale.'

By this; lamenting Philomel had ended
The well-tun'd warble of her nightly sorrow,
And solemn night with slow-sad gait descended
To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow
Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow:
  But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see,
  And therefore still in night would cloister'd be.

Revealing day through every cranny spies,
And seems to point her out where she sits weeping,
To whom she sobbing speaks: 'O eye of eyes,
Why pryest thou through my window? leave thy peeping;
Mock with thy tickling beams eyes that are sleeping:
  Brand not my forehead with thy piercing light,
  For day hath nought to do what's done by night.'

Thus cavils she with every thing she sees:
True grief is fond and testy as a child,
Who wayward once, his mood with nought agrees.
Old woes, not infant sorrows, bear them mild;
Continuance tames the one: the other wild,
  Like an unpractis'd swimmer plunging still
  With too much labour drowns for want of skill.

So she, deep-drenched in a sea of care,
Holds disputation with each thing she views,
And to herself all sorrow doth compare;
No object but her passion's strength renews;
And as one shifts, another straight ensues:
  Sometime her grief is dumb and hath no words;
  Sometime 'tis mad, and too much talk affords.

The little birds that tune their morning's joy
Make her moans mad with their sweet melody.
For mirth doth search the bottom of annoy;
Sad souls are slain in merry company:
Grief best is pleas'd with grief's society:
  True sorrow then is feelingly suffic'd
  When with like semblance it is sympathiz'd.

'Tis double death to drown in ken of shore;
He ten times pines that pines beholding food;
To see the salve doth make the wound ache more;
Great grief grieves most at that would do it good;
Deep woes roll forward like a gentle flood;
  Who, being stopp'd, the bounding banks o'erflows;
  Grief dallied with nor law nor limit knows.

'You mocking birds,' quoth she, 'your tunes entomb
Within your hollow-swelling feather'd breasts,
And in my hearing be you mute and dumb!
(My restless discord loves no stops nor rests;
A woeful hostess brooks not merry guests:)
  Relish your nimble notes to pleasing ears;
  Distress likes dumps when time is kept with tears.

'Come, Philomel, that sing'st of ravishment,
Make thy sad grove in my dishevell'd hair:
As the dank earth weeps at thy languishment,
So I at each sad strain will strain a tear,
And with deep groans the diapason bear:
  For burthen-wise I'll hum on Tarquin still,
  While thou on Tereus descant'st better skill.

'And whiles against a thorn thou bear'st thy part,
To keep thy sharp woes waking, wretched I,
To imitate thee well, against my heart
Will fix a sharp knife, to affright mine eye;
Who, if it wink, shall thereon fall and die.
  These means, as frets upon an instrument,
  Shall tune our heart-strings to true languishment.

'And for, poor bird, thou sing'st not in the day,
As shaming any eye should thee behold,
Some dark deep desert, seated from the way,
That knows not parching heat nor freezing cold,
Will we find out; and there we will unfold
  To creatures stern sad tunes, to change their kinds:
  Since men prove beasts, let beasts bear gentle minds.'

As the poor frighted deer, that stands at gaze,
Wildly determining which way to fly,
Or one encompass'd with a winding maze,
That cannot tread the way out readily;
So with herself is she in mutiny,
  To live or die which of the twain were better,
  When life is sham'd, and Death reproach's debtor.

'To kill myself,' quoth she, 'alack! what were it,
But with my body my poor soul's pollution?
They that lose half with greater patience bear it
Than they whose whole is swallow'd in confusion.
That mother tries a merciless conclusion
  Who, having two sweet babes, when death takes one,
  Will slay the other, and be nurse to none.

'My body or my soul, which was the dearer,
When the one pure, the other made divine?
Whose love of either to myself was nearer?
When both were kept for heaven and Collatine?
Ah, me! the bark peel'd from the lofty pine,
  His leaves will wither, and his sap decay;
  So must my soul, her bark being peel'd away.

'Her house is sack'd, her quiet interrupted,
Her mansion batter'd by the enemy;
Her sacred temple spotted, spoil'd, corrupted,
Grossly engirt with daring infamy:
Then let it not be call'd impiety,
  If in this blemish'd fort I make some hole
  Through which I may convey this troubled soul.

'Yet die I will not till my Collatine
Have heard the cause of my untimely death;
That he may vow, in that sad hour of mine,
Revenge on him that made me stop my breath.
My stained blood to Tarquin I'll bequeath,
  Which by him tainted shall for him be spent,
  And as his due writ in my testament.

'My honour I'll bequeath unto the knife
That wounds my body so dishonoured.
'Tis honour to deprive dishonour'd life;
The one will live, the other being dead:
So of shame's ashes shall my fame be bred;
  For in my death I murther shameful scorn:
  My shame so dead, mine honour is new-born.

'Dear lord of that dear jewel I have lost,
What legacy shall I bequeath to thee?
My resolution, Love, shall be thy boast,
By whose example thou reveng'd mayst be.
How Tarquin must be used, read it in me:
  Myself, thy friend, will kill myself, thy foe,
  And, for my sake, serve thou false Tarquin so.

'This brief abridgement of my will I make:
My soul and body to the skies and ground;
My resolution, husband, do thou take;
Mine honour be the knife's that makes my wound;
My shame be his that did my fame confound;
  And all my fame that lives disburs'd be
  To those that live, and think no shame of me.

'Thou, Collatine, shalt oversee this will;
How was I overseen that thou shalt see it!
My blood shall wash the slander of mine ill;
My life's foul deed my life's fair end shall free it.
Faint not, faint heart, but stoutly say "so be it:"
  Yield to my hand; my hand shall conquer thee;
  Thou dead, both die, and both shall victors be.'

This plot of death when sadly she had laid,
And wip'd the brinish pearl from her bright eyes,
With untun'd tongue she hoarsely call'd her maid,
Whose swift obedience to her mistress hies;
For fleet-wing'd duty with thought's feathers flies.
  Poor Lucrece' cheeks unto her maid seem so
  As winter meads when sun doth melt their snow.

Her mistress she doth give demure good-morrow,
With soft-slow tongue, true mark of modesty,
And sorts a sad look to her lady's sorrow,
(For why her face wore sorrow's livery,)
But durst not ask of her audaciously
  Why her two suns were cloud-eclipsed so,
  Nor why her fair cheeks over-wash'd with woe.

But as the earth doth weep, the sun being set,
Each flower moisten'd like a melting eye;
Even so the maid with swelling drops 'gan wet
Her circled eyne, enforc'd by sympathy
Of those fair suns, set in her mistress' sky,
  Who in a salt-wav'd ocean quench their light,
  Which makes the maid weep like the dewy night.

A pretty while these pretty creatures stand,
Like ivory conduits coral cisterns filling:
One justly weeps; the other takes in hand
No cause, but company, of her drops spilling:
Their gentle sex to weep are often willing:
  Grieving themselves to guess at others' smarts,
  And then they drown their eyes or break their hearts.

For men have marble, women waxen minds,
And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
  No more than wax shall be accounted evil,
  Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.

Their smoothness, like a goodly champaign plain,
Lays open all the little worms that creep;
In men, as in a rough-grown grove, remain
Cave-keeping evils that obscurely sleep:
Through crystal walls each little mote will peep:
  Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks,
  Poor women's faces are their own faults' books.

No man inveigb against the wither'd flower,
But chide rough winter that the flower hath kill'd!
Not that devour'd, but that which doth devour,
Is worthy blame.  O, let it not be hild
Poor women's faults, that they are so fulfill'd
  With men's abuses! those proud lords, to blame,
  Make weak-made women tenants to their shame.

The precedent whereof in Lucrece view,
Assail'd by night with circumstances strong
Of present death, and shame that might ensue
By that her death, to do her husband wrong:
Such danger to resistance did belong;
  The dying fear through all her body spread;
  And who cannot abuse a body dead?

By this, mild Patience bid fair Lucrece speak
To the poor counterfeit of her complaining:
'My girl,' quoth she, 'on what occasion break
Those tears from thee, that down thy cheeks are raining?
If thou dost weep for grief of my sustaining,
  Know, gentle wench, it small avails my mood:
  If tears could help, mine own would do me good.

'But tell me, girl, when went'—(and there she stay'd
Till after a deep groan) 'Tarquin from, hence?'
'Madam, ere I was up,' replied the maid,
'The more to blame my sluggard negligence:
Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense;
  Myself was stirring ere the break of day,
  And, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away.

'But, lady, if your maid may be so bold,
She would request to know your heaviness.'
'O peace!' quoth Lucrece: 'if it should be told,
The repetition cannot make it less;
For more it is than I can well express:
  And that deep torture may be call'd a hell,
  When more is felt than one hath power to tell.

'Go, get me hither paper, ink, and pen—
Yet save that labour, for I have them here.
What should I say?—One of my husband's men
Bid thou be ready, by and by, to bear
A letter to my lord, my love, my dear;
  Bid him with speed prepare to carry it;
  The cause craves haste, and it will soon be writ.'

Her maid is gone, and she prepares to write,
First hovering o'er the paper with her quill:
Conceit and grief an eager combat fight;
What wit sets down is blotted straight with will;
This is too curious-good, this blunt and ill:
  Much like a press of people at a door,
  Throng her inventions, which shall go before.

At last she thus begins:—'Thou worthy lord
Of that unworthy wife that greeteth thee,
Health to thy person! next vouchsafe to afford
(If ever, love, thy Lucrece thou wilt see)
Some present speed to come and visit me:
  So, I commend me from our house in grief:
  My woes are tedious, though my words are brief.'

Here folds she up the tenor of her woe,
Her certain sorrow writ uncertainly.
By this short schedule Collatine may know
Her grief, but not her grief's true quality;
She dares not thereof make discovery,
  Lest he should hold it her own gross abuse,
  Ere she with blood had stain'd her stain'd excuse.

Besides, the life and feeling of her passion
She hoards, to spend when he is by to hear her;
When sighs, and groans, and tears may grace the fashion
Of her disgrace, the better so to clear her
From that suspicion which the world my might bear her.
  To shun this blot, she would not blot the letter
  With words, till action might become them better.

To see sad sights moves more than hear them told;
For then the eye interprets to the ear
The heavy motion that it doth behold,
When every part a part of woe doth bear.
'Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear:
  Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords,
  And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.

Her letter now is seal'd, and on it writ
'At Ardea to my lord with more than haste;'
The post attends, and she delivers it,
Charging the sour-fac'd groom to hie as fast
As lagging fowls before the northern blast.
  Speed more than speed but dull and slow she deems:
  Extremely still urgeth such extremes.

The homely villain court'sies to her low;
And, blushing on her, with a steadfast eye
Receives the scroll, without or yea or no,
And forth with bashful innocence doth hie.
But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie
  Imagine every eye beholds their blame;
  For Lucrece thought he blush'd to see her shame:

When, silly groom! God wot, it was defect
Of spirit, life, and bold audacity.
Such harmless creatures have a true respect
To talk in deeds, while others saucily
Promise more speed, but do it leisurely:
  Even so this pattern of the worn-out age
  Pawn'd honest looks, but laid no words to gage.

His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,
That two red fires in both their faces blaz'd;
She thought he blush'd, as knowing Tarquin's lust,
And, blushing with him, wistly on him gaz'd;
Her earnest eye did make him more amaz'd:
  The more saw the blood his cheeks replenish,
  The more she thought he spied in her some blemish.

But long she thinks till he return again,
And yet the duteous vassal scarce is gone.
The weary time she cannot entertain,
For now 'tis stale to sigh, to weep, to groan:
So woe hath wearied woe, moan tired moan,
  That she her plaints a little while doth stay,
  Pausing for means to mourn some newer way.

At last she calls to mind where hangs a piece
Of skilful painting, made for Priam's Troy;
Before the which is drawn the power of Greece,
For Helen's rape the city to destroy,
Threat'ning cloud-kissing Ilion with annoy;
  Which the conceited painter drew so proud,
  As heaven (it seem'd) to kiss the turrets bow'd.

A thousand lamentable objects there,
In scorn of Nature, Art gave lifeless life:
Many a dry drop seem'd a weeping tear,
Shed for the slaughter'd husband by the wife:
The red blood reek'd, to show the painter's strife;
  The dying eyes gleam'd forth their ashy lights,
  Like dying coals burnt out in tedious nights.

There might you see the labouring pioner
Begrim'd with sweat, and smeared all with dust;
And from the towers of Troy there would appear
The very eyes of men through loopholes thrust,
Gazing upon the Greeks with little lust:
  Such sweet observance in this work was had,
  That one might see those far-off eyes look sad.

In great commanders grace and majesty
You might behold, triumphing in their faces;
In youth, quick bearing and dexterity;
And here and there the painter interlaces
Pale cowards, marching on with trembling paces;
  Which heartless peasants did so well resemble,
  That one would swear he saw them quake and tremble.

In Ajax and Ulysses, O, what art
Of physiognomy might one behold!
The face of either 'cipher'd either's heart;
Their face their manners most expressly told:
In Ajax' eyes blunt rage and rigour roll'd;
  But the mild glance that sly Ulysses lent
  Show'd deep regard and smiling government.

There pleading might you see grave Nestor stand,
As't were encouraging the Greeks to fight;
Making such sober action with his hand
That it beguiled attention, charm'd the sight:
In speech, it seem'd, his beard, all silver white,
  Wagg'd up and down, and from his lips did fly
  Thin winding breath, which purl'd up to the sky.

About him were a press of gaping faces,
Which seem'd to swallow up his sound advice;
All jointly listening, but with several graces,
As if some mermaid did their ears entice;
Some high, some low, the painter was so nice:
  The scalps of many, almost hid behind,
  To jump up higher seem'd to mock the mind.

Here one man's hand lean'd on another's head,
His nose being shadow'd by his neighbour's ear;
Here one being throng'd bears back, all boll'n and red;
Another smother'd seems to pelt and swear;
And in their rage such signs of rage they bear,
  As, but for loss of Nestor's golden words,
  It seem'd they would debate with angry swords.

For much imaginary work was there;
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
That for Achilles' image stood his spear,
Grip'd in an armed hand; himself, behind,
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind:
  A hand, a foot, a face, a leg, a head,
  Stood for the whole to be imagined,

And from the walls of strong-besieged Troy
When their brave hope, bold Hector, march'd to field,
Stood many Trojan mothers, sharing joy
To see their youthful sons bright weapons wield;
And to their hope they such odd action yield,
  That through their light joy seemed to appear,
  (Like bright things stain'd) a kind of heavy fear,

And, from the strond of Dardan, where they fought,
To Simois' reedy banks, the red blood ran,
Whose waves to imitate the battle sought
With swelling ridges; and their ranks began
To break upon the galled shore, and than
  Retire again, till, meeting greater ranks,
  They join, and shoot their foam at Simois' banks.

To this well-painted piece is Lucrece come,
To find a face where all distress is stell'd.
Many she sees where cares have carved some,
But none where all distress and dolour dwell'd,
Till she despairing Hecuba beheld,
  Staring on Priam's wounds with her old eyes,
  Which bleeding under Pyrrhus' proud foot lies.

In her the painter had anatomiz'd
Time's ruin, beauty's wrack, and grim care's reign:
Her cheeks with chops and wrinkles were disguis'd;
Of what she was no semblance did remain:
Her blue blood, chang'd to black in every vein,
  Wanting the spring that those shrunk pipes had fed,
  Show'd life imprison'd in a body dead.

On this sad shadow Lucrece spends her eyes,
And shapes her sorrow to the beldame's woes,
Who nothing wants to answer her but cries,
And bitter words to ban her cruel foes:
The painter was no god to lend her those;
  And therefore Lucrece swears he did her wrong,
  To give her so much grief, and not a tongue.

'Poor instrument,' quoth she, 'without a sound,
I'll tune thy woes with my lamenting tongue;
And drop sweet balm in Priam's painted wound,
And rail on Pyrrhus that hath done him wrong,
And with my tears quench Troy that burns so long;
  And with my knife scratch out the angry eyes
  Of all the Greeks that are thine enemies.

'Show me the strumpet that began this stir,
That with my nails her beauty I may tear.
Thy heat of lust, fond Paris, did incur
This load of wrath that burning Troy doth bear;
Thy eye kindled the fire that burneth here:
  And here in Troy, for trespass of thine eye,
  The sire, the son, the dame, and daughter die.

'Why should the private pleasure of some one
Become the public plague of many mo?
Let sin, alone committed, light alone
Upon his head that hath transgressed so.
Let guiltless souls be freed from guilty woe:
  For one's offence why should so many fall,
  To plague a private sin in general?

'Lo, here weeps Hecuba, here Priam dies,
Here manly Hector faints, here Troilus swounds;
Here friend by friend in bloody channel lies,
And friend to friend gives unadvised wounds,
And one man's lust these many lives confounds:
  Had doting Priam check'd his son's desire,
  Troy had been bright with fame and not with fire.'

Here feelingly she weeps Troy's painted woes:
For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell,
Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes;
Then little strength rings out the doleful knell:
So Lucrece set a-work sad tales doth tell
  To pencill'd pensiveness and colour'd sorrow;
  She lends them words, and she their looks doth borrow.

She throws her eyes about the painting round,
And whom she finds forlorn she doth lament:
At last she sees a wretched image bound,
That piteous looks to Phrygian shepherds lent:
His face, though full of cares, yet show'd content;
  Onward to Troy with the blunt swains he goes,
  So mild, that Patience seem'd to scorn his woes.

In him the painter labour'd with his skill
To hide deceit, and give the harmless show
An humble gait, calm looks, eyes wailing still,
A brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe;
Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so
  That blushing red no guilty instance gave,
  Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have.

But, like a constant and confirmed devil,
He entertain'd a show so seeming just,
And therein so ensconc'd his secret evil,
That jealousy itself cold not mistrust
False-creeping craft and perjury should thrust
  Into so bright a day such black-fac'd storms,
  Or blot with hell-born sin such saint-like forms.

The well-skill'd workman this mild image drew
For perjur'd Sinon, whose enchanting story
The credulous Old Priam after slew;
Whose words, like wildfire, burnt the shining glory
Of rich-built Ilion, that the skies were sorry,
  And little stars shot from their fixed places,
  When their glass fell wherein they view'd their faces.

This picture she advisedly perus'd,
And chid the painter for his wondrous skill;
Saying, some shape in Sinon's was abus'd;
So fair a form lodged not a mind so ill:
And still on him she gaz'd; and gazing still,
  Such signs of truth in his plain face she spied,
  That she concludes the picture was belied.

'It cannot be,' quoth she, 'that so much guile'—
(She would have said) 'can lurk in such a look;'
But Tarquin's shape came in her mind the while,
And from her tongue 'can lurk' from 'cannot' took;
'It cannot be' she in that sense forsook,
  And turn'd it thus: 'It cannot be, I find,
  But such a face should bear a wicked mind:

'For even as subtle Sinon here is painted,
So sober-sad, so weary, and so mild,
(As if with grief or travail he had fainted,)
To me came Tarquin armed; so beguil'd
With outward honesty, but yet defil'd
  With inward vice: as Priam him did cherish,
  So did I Tarquin; so my Troy did perish.

'Look, look, how listening Priam wets his eyes,
To see those borrow'd tears that Sinon sheds.
Priam, why art thou old and yet not wise?
For every tear he falls a Trojan bleeds;
His eye drops fire, no water thence proceeds;
  Those round clear pearls of his that move thy pity,
  Are balls of quenchless fire to burn thy city.

'Such devils steal effects from lightless hell;
For Sinon in his fire doth quake with cold,
And in that cold hot-burning fire doth dwell;
These contraries such unity do hold,
Only to flatter fools, and make them bold;
  So Priam's trust false Sinon's tears doth flatter,
  That he finds means to burn his Troy with water.'

Here, all enrag'd, such passion her assails,
That patience is quite beaten from her breast.
She tears the senseless Sinon with her nails,
Comparing him to that unhappy guest
Whose deed hath made herself herself detest;
  At last she smilingly with this gives o'er;
  'Fool, fool!' quoth she, 'his wounds will not be sore.'

Thus ebbs and flows the current of her sorrow,
And time doth weary time with her complaining.
She looks for night, and then she longs for morrow,
And both she thinks too long with her remaining:
Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining.
  Though woe be heavy, yet it seldom sleeps;
  And they that watch see time how slow it creeps.

Which all this time hath overslipp'd her thought,
That she with painted images hath spent;
Being from the feeling of her own grief brought
By deep surmise of others' detriment:
Losing her woes in shows of discontent.
  It easeth some, though none it ever cur'd,
  To think their dolour others have endur'd.

But now the mindful messenger, come back,
Brings home his lord and other company;
Who finds his Lucrece clad in mourning black:
And round about her tear-distained eye
Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky.
  These water-galls in her dim element
  Foretell new storms to those already spent.

Which when her sad-beholding husband saw,
Amazedly in her sad face he stares:
Her eyes, though sod in tears, look'd red and raw,
Her lively colour kill'd with deadly cares.
He hath no power to ask her how she fares,
  Both stood, like old acquaintance in a trance,
  Met far from home, wondering each other's chance.

At last he takes her by the bloodless hand,
And thus begins: 'What uncouth ill event
Hath thee befall'n, that thou dost trembling stand?
Sweet love, what spite hath thy fair colour spent?
Why art thou thus attir'd in discontent?
  Unmask, dear dear, this moody heaviness,
  And tell thy grief, that we may give redress.'

Three times with sighs she gives her sorrow fire,
Ere once she can discharge one word of woe:
At length address'd to answer his desire,
She modestly prepares to let them know
Her honour is ta'en prisoner by the foe;
  While Collatine and his consorted lords
  With sad attention long to hear her words.

And now this pale swan in her watery nest
Begins the sad dirge of her certain ending:
'Few words,' quoth she, 'shall fit the trespass best,
Where no excuse can give the fault amending:
In me more woes than words are now depending;
  And my laments would be drawn out too long,
  To tell them all with one poor tired tongue.

'Then be this all the task it hath to say:—
Dear husband, in the interest of thy bed
A stranger came, and on that pillow lay
Where thou wast wont to rest thy weary head;
And what wrong else may be imagined
  By foul enforcement might be done to me,
  From that, alas! thy Lucrece is not free.

'For in the dreadful dead of dark midnight,
With shining falchion in my chamber came
A creeping creature, with a flaming light,
And softly cried Awake, thou Roman dame,
And entertain my love; else lasting shame
  On thee and thine this night I will inflict,
  If thou my love's desire do contradict.

'For some hard-favour'd groom of thine, quoth he,
Unless thou yoke thy liking to my will,
I'll murder straight, and then I'll slaughter thee
And swear I found you where you did fulfil
The loathsome act of lust, and so did kill
  The lechers in their deed: this act will be
  My fame and thy perpetual infamy.

'With this, I did begin to start and cry,
And then against my heart he sets his sword,
Swearing, unless I took all patiently,
I should not live to speak another word;
So should my shame still rest upon record,
  And never be forgot in mighty Rome
  The adulterate death of Lucrece and her groom.

'Mine enemy was strong, my poor self weak,
And far the weaker with so strong a fear:
My bloody judge forbade my tongue to speak;
No rightful plea might plead for justice there:
His scarlet lust came evidence to swear
  That my poor beauty had purloin'd his eyes;
  And when the judge is robb'd the prisoner dies.

'O, teach me how to make mine own excuse!
Or at the least this refuge let me find;
Though my gross blood be stain'd with this abuse,
Immaculate and spotless is my mind;
That was not forc'd; that never was inclin'd
  To accessary yieldings, but still pure
  Doth in her poison'd closet yet endure.'

Lo, here, the hopeless merchant of this loss,
With head declin'd, and voice damm'd up with woe,
With sad set eyes, and wretched arms across,
From lips new-waxen pale begins to blow
The grief away that stops his answer so:
  But wretched as he is he strives in vain;
  What he breathes out his breath drinks up again.

As through an arch the violent roaring tide
Outruns the eye that doth behold his haste;
Yet in the eddy boundeth in his pride
Back to the strait that forc'd him on so fast;
In rage sent out, recall'd in rage, being past:
  Even so his sighs, his sorrows make a saw.
  To push grief on, and back the same grief draw.

Which speechless woe of his poor she attendeth,
And his untimely frenzy thus awaketh:
'Dear Lord, thy sorrow to my sorrow lendeth
Another power; no flood by raining slaketh.
My woe too sensible thy passion maketh
  More feeling-painful: let it then suffice
  To drown one woe, one pair of weeping eyes.

'And for my sake, when I might charm thee so,
For she that was thy Lucrece,—now attend me;
Be suddenly revenged on my foe,
Thine, mine, his own: suppose thou dost defend me
From what is past: the help that thou shalt lend me
  Comes all too late, yet let the traitor die;
  For sparing justice feeds iniquity.

'But ere I name him, you fair lords,' quoth she,
(Speaking to those that came with Collatine)
'Shall plight your honourable faiths to me,
With swift pursuit to venge this wrong of mine;
For 'tis a meritorious fair design
  To chase injustice with revengeful arms:
  Knights, by their oaths, should right poor ladies' harms.'

At this request, with noble disposition
Each present lord began to promise aid,
As bound in knighthood to her imposition,
Longing to hear the hateful foe bewray'd.
But she, that yet her sad task hath not said,
  The protestation stops. 'O, speak,' quoth she,
 'How may this forced stain be wip'd from me?

'What is the quality of mine offence,
Being constrain'd with dreadful circumstance?
May my pure mind with the foul act dispense,
My low-declined honour to advance?
May any terms acquit me from this chance?
  The poison'd fountain clears itself again;
  And why not I from this compelled stain?

With this, they all at once began to say,
Her body's stain her mind untainted clears;
While with a joyless smile she turns away
The face, that map which deep impression bears
Of hard misfortune, carv'd in it with tears.
  'No, no,' quoth she, 'no dame, hereafter living,
  By my excuse shall claim excuse's giving.

Here with a sigh, as if her heart would break,
She throws forth Tarquin's name: 'He, he,' she says,
But more than 'he' her poor tongue could not speak;
Till after many accents and delays,
Untimely breathings, sick and short assays,
  She utters this: 'He, he, fair lords, 'tis he,
  That guides this hand to give this wound to me.'

Even here she sheathed in her harmless breast
A harmful knife, that thence her soul unsheath'd:
That blow did bail it from the deep unrest
Of that polluted prison where it breath'd:
Her contrite sighs unto the clouds bequeath'd
  Her winged sprite, and through her wounds doth fly
  Life's lasting date from cancell'd destiny.

Stone-still, astonish'd with this deadly deed,
Stood Collatine and all his lordly crew;
Till Lucrece' father that beholds her bleed,
Himself on her self-slaughter'd body threw;
And from the purple fountain Brutus drew
  The murderous knife, and, as it left the place,
  Her blood, in poor revenge, held it in chase;

And bubbling from her breast, it doth divide
In two slow rivers, that the crimson blood
Circles her body in on every side,
Who, like a late-sack'd island, vastly stood
Bare and unpeopled, in this fearful flood.
  Some of her blood still pure and red remain'd,
  And some look'd black, and that false Tarquin stain'd.

About the mourning and congealed face
Of that black blood a watery rigol goes,
Which seems to weep upon the tainted place:
And ever since, as pitying Lucrece' woes,
Corrupted blood some watery token shows;
  And blood untainted still doth red abide,
  Blushing at that which is so putrified.

'Daughter, dear daughter,' old Lucretius cries,
'That life was mine which thou hast here depriv'd.
If in the child the father's image lies,
Where shall I live now Lucrece is unliv'd?
Thou wast not to this end from me deriv'd
  If children pre-decease progenitors,
  We are their offspring, and they none of ours.

'Poor broken glass, I often did behold
In thy sweet semblance my old age new born;
But now that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
Shows me a bare-bon'd death by time outworn;
O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn!
  And shiver'd all the beauty of my glass,
  That I no more can see what once I was!

'O time, cease thou thy course and last no longer,
If they surcease to be that should survive.
Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger,
And leave the faltering feeble souls alive?
The old bees die, the young possess their hive:
  Then live, sweet Lucrece, live again, and see
  Thy father die, and not thy father thee!'

By this starts Collatine as from a dream,
And bids Lucretius give his sorrow place;
And then in key-cold Lucrece' bleeding stream
He falls, and bathes the pale fear in his face,
And counterfeits to die with her a space;
  Till manly shame bids him possess his breath,
  And live, to be revenged on her death.

The deep vexation of his inward soul
Hath serv'd a dumb arrest upon his tongue;
Who, mad that sorrow should his use control,
Or keep him from heart-easing words so long,
Begins to talk; but through his lips do throng
  Weak words, so thick come in his poor heart's aid,
  That no man could distinguish what he said.

Yet sometime 'Tarquin' was pronounced plain,
But through his teeth, as if the name he tore.
This windy tempest, till it blow up rain,
Held back his sorrow's tide, to make it more;
At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er:
  Then son and father weep with equal strife,
  Who should weep most, for daughter or for wife.

The one doth call her his, the other his,
Yet neither may possess the claim they lay,
The father says 'She's mine,' 'O, mine she is,'
Replies her husband: 'do not take away
My sorrow's interest; let no mourner say
  He weeps for her, for she was only mine,
  And only must be wail'd by Collatine.'

'O,' quoth Lucretius, 'I did give that life
Which she too early and too late hath spill'd.'
'Woe, woe,' quoth Collatine, 'she was my wife,
I owed her, and 'tis mine that she hath kill'd.'
'My daughter' and 'my wife' with clamours fill'd
  The dispers'd air, who, holding Lucrece' life,
  Answer'd their cries, 'My daughter!' and 'My wife!'

Brutus, who pluck'd the knife from Lucrece' side,
Seeing such emulation in their woe,
Began to clothe his wit in state and pride,
Burying in Lucrece' wound his folly's show.
He with the Romans was esteemed so
  As silly-jeering idiots are with kings,
  For sportive words, and uttering foolish things:

But now he throws that shallow habit by,
Wherein deep policy did him disguise;
And arm'd his long-hid wits advisedly,
To check the tears in Collatinus' eyes.
'Thou wronged lord of Rome,' quoth he, 'arise;
  Let my unsounded self, suppos'd a fool,
  Now set thy long-experienc'd wit to school.

'Why, Collatine, is woe the cure for woe?
Do wounds help wounds, or grief help grievous deeds?
Is it revenge to give thyself a blow,
For his foul act by whom thy fair wife bleeds?
Such childish humour from weak minds proceeds:
  Thy wretched wife mistook the matter so,
  To slay herself, that should have slain her foe.

'Courageous Roman, do not steep thy heart
In such relenting dew of lamentations,
But kneel with me, and help to bear thy part,
To rouse our Roman gods with invocations,
That they will suffer these abominations,
 (Since Rome herself in them doth stand disgrac'd,)
  By our strong arms from forth her fair streets chas'd.

'Now, by the Capitol that we adore,
And by this chaste blood so unjustly stain'd,
By heaven's fair sun that breeds the fat earth's store,
By all our country rights in Rome maintain'd,
And by chaste Lucrece' soul that late complain'd
  Her wrongs to us, and by this bloody knife,
  We will revenge the death of this true wife.'

This said, he struck his hand upon his breast,
And kiss'd the fatal knife, to end his vow;
And to his protestation urg'd the rest,
Who, wondering at him, did his words allow;
Then jointly to the ground their knees they bow;
  And that deep vow, which Brutus made before,
  He doth again repeat, and that they swore.

When they had sworn to this advised doom,
They did conclude to bear dead Lucrece thence;
To show her bleeding body thorough Rome,
And so to publish Tarquin's foul offence:
Which being done with speedy diligence,
  The Romans plausibly did give consent
  To Tarquin's everlasting banishment.






 VENUS AND ADONIS




 by William Shakespeare







            _Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
            Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua._




TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
HENRY WRIOTHESLEY,  EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON,
and Baron of Titchfield.

Right Honourable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my
unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me
for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burthen: only, if
your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow
to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some
graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I
shall be sorry it had so noble a godfather, and never after ear so
barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it
to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart’s content;
which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world’s hopeful
expectation.

Your honour’s in all duty,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.






 VENUS AND ADONIS

Even as the sun with purple-colour’d face
Had ta’en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek’d Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov’d, but love he laugh’d to scorn;        4
  Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
  And like a bold-fac’d suitor ’gins to woo him.

“Thrice fairer than myself,” thus she began,
“The field’s chief flower, sweet above compare,        8
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are:
  Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
  Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.     12

“Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:             16
  Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
  And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.

“And yet not cloy thy lips with loath’d satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,             20
Making them red, and pale, with fresh variety:
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
  A summer’s day will seem an hour but short,
  Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.”         24

With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
The precedent of pith and livelihood,
And trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth’s sovereign salve to do a goddess good:         28
  Being so enrag’d, desire doth lend her force
  Courageously to pluck him from his horse.

Over one arm the lusty courser’s rein,
Under her other was the tender boy,                   32
Who blush’d and pouted in a dull disdain,
With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;
  She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,
  He red for shame, but frosty in desire.             36

The studded bridle on a ragged bough
Nimbly she fastens;—O! how quick is love!—
The steed is stalled up, and even now
To tie the rider she begins to prove:                 40
  Backward she push’d him, as she would be thrust,
  And govern’d him in strength, though not in lust.

So soon was she along, as he was down,
Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:          44
Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,
And ’gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips,
  And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,
  “If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.”    48

He burns with bashful shame, she with her tears
Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;
Then with her windy sighs and golden hairs
To fan and blow them dry again she seeks.             52
  He saith she is immodest, blames her miss;
  What follows more, she murders with a kiss.

Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,
Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh and bone,      56
Shaking her wings, devouring all in haste,
Till either gorge be stuff’d or prey be gone:
  Even so she kiss’d his brow, his cheek, his chin,
  And where she ends she doth anew begin.             60

Forc’d to content, but never to obey,
Panting he lies, and breatheth in her face.
She feedeth on the steam, as on a prey,
And calls it heavenly moisture, air of grace,         64
  Wishing her cheeks were gardens full of flowers
  So they were dew’d with such distilling showers.

Look how a bird lies tangled in a net,
So fasten’d in her arms Adonis lies;                  68
Pure shame and aw’d resistance made him fret,
Which bred more beauty in his angry eyes:
  Rain added to a river that is rank
  Perforce will force it overflow the bank.           72

Still she entreats, and prettily entreats,
For to a pretty ear she tunes her tale.
Still is he sullen, still he lours and frets,
’Twixt crimson shame and anger ashy pale;             76
  Being red she loves him best, and being white,
  Her best is better’d with a more delight.

Look how he can, she cannot choose but love;
And by her fair immortal hand she swears,             80
From his soft bosom never to remove,
Till he take truce with her contending tears,
  Which long have rain’d, making her cheeks all wet;
  And one sweet kiss shall pay this countless debt.

Upon this promise did he raise his chin,               85
Like a dive-dapper peering through a wave,
Who, being look’d on, ducks as quickly in;
So offers he to give what she did crave,               88
  But when her lips were ready for his pay,
  He winks, and turns his lips another way.

Never did passenger in summer’s heat
More thirst for drink than she for this good turn.    92
Her help she sees, but help she cannot get;
She bathes in water, yet her fire must burn:
  “O! pity,” ’gan she cry, “flint-hearted boy,
  ’Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy?            96

“I have been woo’d as I entreat thee now,
Even by the stern and direful god of war,
Whose sinewy neck in battle ne’er did bow,
Who conquers where he comes in every jar;             100
  Yet hath he been my captive and my slave,
  And begg’d for that which thou unask’d shalt have.

“Over my altars hath he hung his lance,
His batter’d shield, his uncontrolled crest,          104
And for my sake hath learn’d to sport and dance,
To toy, to wanton, dally, smile, and jest;
  Scorning his churlish drum and ensign red
  Making my arms his field, his tent my bed.         108

“Thus he that overrul’d I oversway’d,
Leading him prisoner in a red rose chain:
Strong-temper’d steel his stronger strength obey’d,
Yet was he servile to my coy disdain.                112
  Oh be not proud, nor brag not of thy might,
  For mast’ring her that foil’d the god of fight.

“Touch but my lips with those fair lips of thine,
Though mine be not so fair, yet are they red,        116
The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine:
What see’st thou in the ground? hold up thy head,
  Look in mine eyeballs, there thy beauty lies;
  Then why not lips on lips, since eyes in eyes?     120

“Art thou asham’d to kiss? then wink again,
And I will wink; so shall the day seem night.
Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;
Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight,          124
  These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean
  Never can blab, nor know not what we mean.

“The tender spring upon thy tempting lip             127
Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted,
Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted,
  Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their prime
  Rot, and consume themselves in little time.         132

“Were I hard-favour’d, foul, or wrinkled old,
Ill-nurtur’d, crooked, churlish, harsh in voice,
O’erworn, despised, rheumatic, and cold,
Thick-sighted, barren, lean, and lacking juice,      136
  Then mightst thou pause, for then I were not for thee;
  But having no defects, why dost abhor me?

“Thou canst not see one wrinkle in my brow,           139
Mine eyes are grey and bright, and quick in turning;
My beauty as the spring doth yearly grow,
My flesh is soft and plump, my marrow burning,
  My smooth moist hand, were it with thy hand felt,
  Would in thy palm dissolve, or seem to melt.       144

“Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,
Or like a fairy, trip upon the green,
Or like a nymph, with long dishevell’d hair,
Dance on the sands, and yet no footing seen.         148
  Love is a spirit all compact of fire,
  Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.

“Witness this primrose bank whereon I lie:           151
These forceless flowers like sturdy trees support me;
Two strengthless doves will draw me through the sky,
From morn till night, even where I list to sport me.
  Is love so light, sweet boy, and may it be
  That thou shouldst think it heavy unto thee?       156

“Is thine own heart to thine own face affected?
Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?
Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,
Steal thine own freedom, and complain on theft.      160
  Narcissus so himself himself forsook,
  And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.

“Torches are made to light, jewels to wear,
Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use,         164
Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear;
Things growing to themselves are growth’s abuse,
  Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty;
  Thou wast begot; to get it is thy duty.            168

“Upon the earth’s increase why shouldst thou feed,
Unless the earth with thy increase be fed?
By law of nature thou art bound to breed,
That thine may live when thou thyself art dead;      172
  And so in spite of death thou dost survive,
  In that thy likeness still is left alive.”

By this the love-sick queen began to sweat,
For where they lay the shadow had forsook them,      176
And Titan, tired in the midday heat,
With burning eye did hotly overlook them,
  Wishing Adonis had his team to guide,
  So he were like him and by Venus’ side.            180

And now Adonis with a lazy spright,
And with a heavy, dark, disliking eye,
His louring brows o’erwhelming his fair sight,
Like misty vapours when they blot the sky,           184
  Souring his cheeks, cries, “Fie, no more of love:
  The sun doth burn my face; I must remove.”

“Ay me,” quoth Venus, “young, and so unkind!
What bare excuses mak’st thou to be gone!            188
I’ll sigh celestial breath, whose gentle wind
Shall cool the heat of this descending sun:
  I’ll make a shadow for thee of my hairs;
  If they burn too, I’ll quench them with my tears.  192

“The sun that shines from heaven shines but warm,
And lo I lie between that sun and thee:
The heat I have from thence doth little harm,
Thine eye darts forth the fire that burneth me;      196
  And were I not immortal, life were done,
  Between this heavenly and earthly sun.

“Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel?
Nay more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth:    200
Art thou a woman’s son and canst not feel
What ’tis to love, how want of love tormenteth?
  O had thy mother borne so hard a mind,
  She had not brought forth thee, but died unkind.   204

“What am I that thou shouldst contemn me this?
Or what great danger dwells upon my suit?
What were thy lips the worse for one poor kiss?
Speak, fair; but speak fair words, or else be mute:  208
  Give me one kiss, I’ll give it thee again,
  And one for int’rest, if thou wilt have twain.

“Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,
Well-painted idol, image dull and dead,              212
Statue contenting but the eye alone,
Thing like a man, but of no woman bred:
  Thou art no man, though of a man’s complexion,
  For men will kiss even by their own direction.”    216

This said, impatience chokes her pleading tongue,
And swelling passion doth provoke a pause;
Red cheeks and fiery eyes blaze forth her wrong;
Being judge in love, she cannot right her cause.     220
  And now she weeps, and now she fain would speak,
  And now her sobs do her intendments break.

Sometimes she shakes her head, and then his hand,
Now gazeth she on him, now on the ground;            224
Sometimes her arms infold him like a band:
She would, he will not in her arms be bound;
  And when from thence he struggles to be gone,
  She locks her lily fingers one in one.             228

“Fondling,” she saith, “since I have hemm’d thee here
Within the circuit of this ivory pale,
I’ll be a park, and thou shalt be my deer;
Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in dale:        232
  Graze on my lips, and if those hills be dry,
  Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.

“Within this limit is relief enough,
Sweet bottom grass and high delightful plain,        236
Round rising hillocks, brakes obscure and rough,
To shelter thee from tempest and from rain:
  Then be my deer, since I am such a park,           239
  No dog shall rouse thee, though a thousand bark.”

At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,
That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple;
Love made those hollows, if himself were slain,
He might be buried in a tomb so simple;              244
  Foreknowing well, if there he came to lie,
  Why there love liv’d, and there he could not die.

These lovely caves, these round enchanting pits,
Open’d their mouths to swallow Venus’ liking.        248
Being mad before, how doth she now for wits?
Struck dead at first, what needs a second striking?
  Poor queen of love, in thine own law forlorn,
  To love a cheek that smiles at thee in scorn!      252

Now which way shall she turn? what shall she say?
Her words are done, her woes the more increasing;
The time is spent, her object will away,
And from her twining arms doth urge releasing:       256
  “Pity,” she cries; “some favour, some remorse!”
  Away he springs, and hasteth to his horse.

But lo from forth a copse that neighbours by,
A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,          260
Adonis’ tramping courser doth espy,
And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud:
  The strong-neck’d steed, being tied unto a tree,
  Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.    264

Imperiously he leaps, he neighs, he bounds,
And now his woven girths he breaks asunder;
The bearing earth with his hard hoof he wounds,
Whose hollow womb resounds like heaven’s thunder;
  The iron bit he crusheth ’tween his teeth,         269
  Controlling what he was controlled with.

His ears up-prick’d; his braided hanging mane
Upon his compass’d crest now stand on end;           272
His nostrils drink the air, and forth again,
As from a furnace, vapours doth he send:
  His eye, which scornfully glisters like fire,
  Shows his hot courage and his high desire.         276

Sometime he trots, as if he told the steps,
With gentle majesty and modest pride;
Anon he rears upright, curvets and leaps,
As who should say, “Lo thus my strength is tried;
  And this I do to captivate the eye                 281
  Of the fair breeder that is standing by.”

What recketh he his rider’s angry stir,
His flattering “Holla”, or his “Stand, I say”?       284
What cares he now for curb or pricking spur?
For rich caparisons or trappings gay?
  He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
  Nor nothing else with his proud sight agrees.      288

Look when a painter would surpass the life,
In limning out a well-proportion’d steed,
His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed:             292
  So did this horse excel a common one,
  In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.

Round-hoof’d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long,
Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
  Look, what a horse should have he did not lack,
  Save a proud rider on so proud a back.             300

Sometimes he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather:
To bid the wind a base he now prepares,
And where he run or fly they know not whether;       304
  For through his mane and tail the high wind sings,
  Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather’d wings.

He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her;
She answers him as if she knew his mind,             308
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,
She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind,
  Spurns at his love and scorns the heat he feels,
  Beating his kind embracements with her heels.      312

Then like a melancholy malcontent,
He vails his tail that like a falling plume,
Cool shadow to his melting buttock lent:
He stamps, and bites the poor flies in his fume.     316
  His love, perceiving how he was enrag’d,
  Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag’d.

His testy master goeth about to take him,
When lo the unback’d breeder, full of fear,         320
Jealous of catching, swiftly doth forsake him,
With her the horse, and left Adonis there:
  As they were mad, unto the wood they hie them,
  Outstripping crows that strive to overfly them.    324

All swoln with chafing, down Adonis sits,
Banning his boisterous and unruly beast;
And now the happy season once more fits
That love-sick love by pleading may be blest;        328
  For lovers say, the heart hath treble wrong,
  When it is barr’d the aidance of the tongue.

An oven that is stopp’d, or river stay’d,
Burneth more hotly, swelleth with more rage:         332
So of concealed sorrow may be said,
Free vent of words love’s fire doth assuage;
  But when the heart’s attorney once is mute,
  The client breaks, as desperate in his suit.       336

He sees her coming, and begins to glow,
Even as a dying coal revives with wind,
And with his bonnet hides his angry brow,
Looks on the dull earth with disturbed mind,         340
  Taking no notice that she is so nigh,
  For all askance he holds her in his eye.

O what a sight it was, wistly to view
How she came stealing to the wayward boy,            344
To note the fighting conflict of her hue,
How white and red each other did destroy:
  But now her cheek was pale, and by and by
  It flash’d forth fire, as lightning from the sky.  348

Now was she just before him as he sat,
And like a lowly lover down she kneels;
With one fair hand she heaveth up his hat,
Her other tender hand his fair cheek feels:          352
  His tend’rer cheek receives her soft hand’s print,
  As apt as new-fall’n snow takes any dint.

Oh what a war of looks was then between them,
Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing,              356
His eyes saw her eyes, as they had not seen them,
Her eyes woo’d still, his eyes disdain’d the wooing:
  And all this dumb play had his acts made plain
  With tears, which, chorus-like, her eyes did rain.

Full gently now she takes him by the hand,           361
A lily prison’d in a gaol of snow,
Or ivory in an alabaster band,
So white a friend engirts so white a foe:            364
  This beauteous combat, wilful and unwilling,
  Show’d like two silver doves that sit a-billing.

Once more the engine of her thoughts began:
“O fairest mover on this mortal round,               368
Would thou wert as I am, and I a man,
My heart all whole as thine, thy heart my wound,
  For one sweet look thy help I would assure thee,
  Though nothing but my body’s bane would cure thee.”

“Give me my hand,” saith he, “why dost thou feel it?”
“Give me my heart,” saith she, “and thou shalt have it.
O give it me lest thy hard heart do steel it,
And being steel’d, soft sighs can never grave it.    376
  Then love’s deep groans I never shall regard,
  Because Adonis’ heart hath made mine hard.”

“For shame,” he cries, “let go, and let me go,
My day’s delight is past, my horse is gone,          380
And ’tis your fault I am bereft him so,
I pray you hence, and leave me here alone,
  For all my mind, my thought, my busy care,
  Is how to get my palfrey from the mare.”           384

Thus she replies: “Thy palfrey as he should,
Welcomes the warm approach of sweet desire,
Affection is a coal that must be cool’d;
Else, suffer’d, it will set the heart on fire,       388
  The sea hath bounds, but deep desire hath none;
  Therefore no marvel though thy horse be gone.

“How like a jade he stood tied to the tree,
Servilely master’d with a leathern rein!             392
But when he saw his love, his youth’s fair fee,
He held such petty bondage in disdain;
  Throwing the base thong from his bending crest,
  Enfranchising his mouth, his back, his breast.     396

“Who sees his true-love in her naked bed,
Teaching the sheets a whiter hue than white,
But when his glutton eye so full hath fed,
His other agents aim at like delight?                400
  Who is so faint that dare not be so bold
  To touch the fire, the weather being cold?

“Let me excuse thy courser, gentle boy,
And learn of him, I heartily beseech thee,           404
To take advantage on presented joy,
Though I were dumb, yet his proceedings teach thee.
  O learn to love, the lesson is but plain,
  And once made perfect, never lost again.”          408

“I know not love,” quoth he, “nor will not know it,
Unless it be a boar, and then I chase it;
’Tis much to borrow, and I will not owe it;
My love to love is love but to disgrace it;          412
  For I have heard, it is a life in death,
  That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath.

“Who wears a garment shapeless and unfinish’d?
Who plucks the bud before one leaf put forth?        416
If springing things be any jot diminish’d,
They wither in their prime, prove nothing worth;
  The colt that’s back’d and burden’d being young,
  Loseth his pride, and never waxeth strong.         420

“You hurt my hand with wringing. Let us part,
And leave this idle theme, this bootless chat:
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart,
To love’s alarms it will not ope the gate:           424
  Dismiss your vows, your feigned tears, your flatt’ry;
  For where a heart is hard they make no batt’ry.”

“What! canst thou talk?” quoth she, “hast thou a tongue?
O would thou hadst not, or I had no hearing;        428
Thy mermaid’s voice hath done me double wrong;
I had my load before, now press’d with bearing:
  Melodious discord, heavenly tune, harsh-sounding,
  Ear’s deep sweet music, and heart’s deep sore wounding.

“Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love          433
That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move
Each part in me that were but sensible:              436
  Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see,
  Yet should I be in love by touching thee.

“Say that the sense of feeling were bereft me,
And that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch,       440
And nothing but the very smell were left me,
Yet would my love to thee be still as much;
  For from the stillitory of thy face excelling
  Comes breath perfum’d, that breedeth love by smelling.

“But oh what banquet wert thou to the taste,         445
Being nurse and feeder of the other four;
Would they not wish the feast might ever last,
And bid suspicion double-lock the door,
  Lest jealousy, that sour unwelcome guest,
  Should by his stealing in disturb the feast?”      448

Once more the ruby-colour’d portal open’d,
Which to his speech did honey passage yield,         452
Like a red morn that ever yet betoken’d
Wrack to the seaman, tempest to the field,
  Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,
  Gusts and foul flaws to herdmen and to herds.      456

This ill presage advisedly she marketh:
Even as the wind is hush’d before it raineth,
Or as the wolf doth grin before he barketh,
Or as the berry breaks before it staineth,           460
  Or like the deadly bullet of a gun,
  His meaning struck her ere his words begun.

And at his look she flatly falleth down
For looks kill love, and love by looks reviveth;     464
A smile recures the wounding of a frown;
But blessed bankrout, that by love so thriveth!
  The silly boy, believing she is dead,
  Claps her pale cheek, till clapping makes it red.  468

And all amaz’d brake off his late intent,
For sharply he did think to reprehend her,
Which cunning love did wittily prevent:
Fair fall the wit that can so well defend her!       472
  For on the grass she lies as she were slain,
  Till his breath breatheth life in her again.

He wrings her nose, he strikes her on the cheeks,
He bends her fingers, holds her pulses hard,         476
He chafes her lips; a thousand ways he seeks
To mend the hurt that his unkindness marr’d:
  He kisses her; and she, by her good will,
  Will never rise, so he will kiss her still.        480

The night of sorrow now is turn’d to day:
Her two blue windows faintly she up-heaveth,
Like the fair sun when in his fresh array
He cheers the morn, and all the world relieveth:     484
  And as the bright sun glorifies the sky,
  So is her face illumin’d with her eye.

Whose beams upon his hairless face are fix’d,
As if from thence they borrow’d all their shine.     488
Were never four such lamps together mix’d,
Had not his clouded with his brow’s repine;
  But hers, which through the crystal tears gave light
  Shone like the moon in water seen by night.        492

“O where am I?” quoth she, “in earth or heaven?
Or in the ocean drench’d, or in the fire?
What hour is this? or morn or weary even?
Do I delight to die, or life desire?                 496
  But now I liv’d, and life was death’s annoy;
  But now I died, and death was lively joy.

“O thou didst kill me; kill me once again:
Thy eyes’ shrewd tutor, that hard heart of thine,    500
Hath taught them scornful tricks, and such disdain,
That they have murder’d this poor heart of mine;
  And these mine eyes, true leaders to their queen,
  But for thy piteous lips no more had seen.         504

“Long may they kiss each other for this cure!
Oh never let their crimson liveries wear,
And as they last, their verdure still endure,
To drive infection from the dangerous year:          508
  That the star-gazers, having writ on death,
  May say, the plague is banish’d by thy breath.

“Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,
What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?       512
To sell myself I can be well contented,
So thou wilt buy, and pay, and use good dealing;
  Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips,
  Set thy seal manual on my wax-red lips.            516

“A thousand kisses buys my heart from me;
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one,
What is ten hundred touches unto thee?
Are they not quickly told and quickly gone?          520
  Say, for non-payment that the debt should double,
  Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?”

“Fair queen,” quoth he, “if any love you owe me,
Measure my strangeness with my unripe years:         524
Before I know myself, seek not to know me;
No fisher but the ungrown fry forbears:
  The mellow plum doth fall, the green sticks fast,
  Or being early pluck’d, is sour to taste.          528

“Look the world’s comforter, with weary gait
His day’s hot task hath ended in the west;
The owl, night’s herald, shrieks, ’tis very late;
The sheep are gone to fold, birds to their nest,     532
  And coal-black clouds that shadow heaven’s light
  Do summon us to part, and bid good night.

“Now let me say good night, and so say you;
If you will say so, you shall have a kiss.”          536
“Good night,” quoth she; and ere he says adieu,
The honey fee of parting tender’d is:
  Her arms do lend his neck a sweet embrace;
  Incorporate then they seem, face grows to face.    540

Till breathless he disjoin’d, and backward drew
The heavenly moisture, that sweet coral mouth,
Whose precious taste her thirsty lips well knew,
Whereon they surfeit, yet complain on drouth,        544
  He with her plenty press’d, she faint with dearth,
  Their lips together glued, fall to the earth.

Now quick desire hath caught the yielding prey,
And glutton-like she feeds, yet never filleth;       548
Her lips are conquerors, his lips obey,
Paying what ransom the insulter willeth;
  Whose vulture thought doth pitch the price so high,
  That she will draw his lips’ rich treasure dry.    552

And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,
With blindfold fury she begins to forage;
Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage,      556
  Planting oblivion, beating reason back,
  Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honour’s wrack.

Hot, faint, and weary, with her hard embracing,
Like a wild bird being tam’d with too much handling,
Or as the fleet-foot roe that’s tir’d with chasing,  561
Or like the froward infant still’d with dandling:
  He now obeys, and now no more resisteth,
  While she takes all she can, not all she listeth.  564

What wax so frozen but dissolves with temp’ring,
And yields at last to every light impression?
Things out of hope are compass’d oft with vent’ring,
Chiefly in love, whose leave exceeds commission:     568
  Affection faints not like a pale-fac’d coward,
  But then woos best when most his choice is froward.

When he did frown, O had she then gave over,
Such nectar from his lips she had not suck’d.        572
Foul words and frowns must not repel a lover;
What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis pluck’d.
  Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,
  Yet love breaks through, and picks them all at last.

For pity now she can no more detain him;             577
The poor fool prays her that he may depart:
She is resolv’d no longer to restrain him,
Bids him farewell, and look well to her heart,       580
  The which by Cupid’s bow she doth protest,
  He carries thence encaged in his breast.

“Sweet boy,” she says, “this night I’ll waste in sorrow,
For my sick heart commands mine eyes to watch.       584
Tell me, love’s master, shall we meet tomorrow
Say, shall we? shall we? wilt thou make the match?”
  He tells her no, tomorrow he intends
  To hunt the boar with certain of his friends.      588

“The boar!” quoth she; whereat a sudden pale,
Like lawn being spread upon the blushing rose,
Usurps her cheek, she trembles at his tale,
And on his neck her yoking arms she throws.          592
  She sinketh down, still hanging by his neck,
  He on her belly falls, she on her back.

Now is she in the very lists of love,
Her champion mounted for the hot encounter:          596
All is imaginary she doth prove,
He will not manage her, although he mount her;
  That worse than Tantalus’ is her annoy,
  To clip Elysium and to lack her joy.               600

Even as poor birds, deceiv’d with painted grapes,
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw:
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps,
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.       604
  The warm effects which she in him finds missing,
  She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.

But all in vain, good queen, it will not be,
She hath assay’d as much as may be prov’d;           608
Her pleading hath deserv’d a greater fee;
She’s love, she loves, and yet she is not lov’d.
  “Fie, fie,” he says, “you crush me; let me go;
  You have no reason to withhold me so.”             612

“Thou hadst been gone,” quoth she, “sweet boy, ere this,
But that thou told’st me thou wouldst hunt the boar.
Oh be advis’d; thou know’st not what it is,
With javelin’s point a churlish swine to gore,       616
  Whose tushes never sheath’d he whetteth still,
  Like to a mortal butcher, bent to kill.

“On his bow-back he hath a battle set
Of bristly pikes, that ever threat his foes;         620
His eyes like glow-worms shine when he doth fret;
His snout digs sepulchres where’er he goes;
  Being mov’d, he strikes whate’er is in his way,
  And whom he strikes his crooked tushes slay.       624

“His brawny sides, with hairy bristles armed,
Are better proof than thy spear’s point can enter;
His short thick neck cannot be easily harmed;
Being ireful, on the lion he will venture:           628
  The thorny brambles and embracing bushes,
  As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes.

“Alas! he naught esteems that face of thine,
To which love’s eyes pay tributary gazes;            632
Nor thy soft hands, sweet lips, and crystal eyne,
Whose full perfection all the world amazes;
  But having thee at vantage, wondrous dread!
  Would root these beauties as he roots the mead.

“Oh let him keep his loathsome cabin still,          637
Beauty hath naught to do with such foul fiends:
Come not within his danger by thy will;
They that thrive well, take counsel of their friends.
  When thou didst name the boar, not to dissemble,
  I fear’d thy fortune, and my joints did tremble.

“Didst thou not mark my face, was it not white?
Saw’st thou not signs of fear lurk in mine eye?      644
Grew I not faint, and fell I not downright?
Within my bosom, whereon thou dost lie,
  My boding heart pants, beats, and takes no rest,
  But like an earthquake, shakes thee on my breast.

“For where love reigns, disturbing jealousy          649
Doth call himself affection’s sentinel;
Gives false alarms, suggesteth mutiny,
And in a peaceful hour doth cry “Kill, kill!”        652
  Distemp’ring gentle love in his desire,
  As air and water do abate the fire.

“This sour informer, this bate-breeding spy,
This canker that eats up love’s tender spring,       656
This carry-tale, dissentious jealousy,
That sometime true news, sometime false doth bring,
  Knocks at my heart, and whispers in mine ear,
  That if I love thee, I thy death should fear.      660

“And more than so, presenteth to mine eye
The picture of an angry chafing boar,
Under whose sharp fangs on his back doth lie
An image like thyself, all stain’d with gore;        664
  Whose blood upon the fresh flowers being shed,
  Doth make them droop with grief and hang the head.

“What should I do, seeing thee so indeed,
That tremble at th’imagination?                      668
The thought of it doth make my faint heart bleed,
And fear doth teach it divination:
  I prophesy thy death, my living sorrow,
  If thou encounter with the boar tomorrow.          672

“But if thou needs wilt hunt, be rul’d by me;
Uncouple at the timorous flying hare,
Or at the fox which lives by subtilty,
Or at the roe which no encounter dare:               676
  Pursue these fearful creatures o’er the downs,
  And on thy well-breath’d horse keep with thy hounds.

“And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles      680
How he outruns the wind, and with what care
He cranks and crosses with a thousand doubles:
  The many musits through the which he goes
  Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.            684

“Sometime he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,             688
  And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
  Danger deviseth shifts, wit waits on fear.

“For there his smell with others being mingled,      691
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out;
  Then do they spend their mouths: echo replies,
  As if another chase were in the skies.             696

“By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with list’ning ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still.
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;                700
  And now his grief may be compared well
  To one sore sick that hears the passing bell.

“Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way,            704
Each envious briar his weary legs do scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
  For misery is trodden on by many,
  And being low never reliev’d by any.               708

“Lie quietly, and hear a little more;
Nay, do not struggle, for thou shalt not rise:
To make thee hate the hunting of the boar,
Unlike myself thou hear’st me moralize,              712
  Applying this to that, and so to so,
  For love can comment upon every woe.

“Where did I leave?” “No matter where,” quoth he
“Leave me, and then the story aptly ends:            716
The night is spent.” “Why, what of that?” quoth she.
“I am,” quoth he, “expected of my friends;
  And now ’tis dark, and going I shall fall.”
  “In night,” quoth she, “desire sees best of all.”  720

But if thou fall, oh then imagine this,
The earth, in love with thee, thy footing trips,
And all is but to rob thee of a kiss.                723
Rich preys make true men thieves; so do thy lips
  Make modest Dian cloudy and forlorn,
  Lest she should steal a kiss and die forsworn.

“Now of this dark night I perceive the reason:
Cynthia for shame obscures her silver shine          728
Till forging nature be condemn’d of treason,
For stealing moulds from heaven, that were divine;
  Wherein she fram’d thee, in high heaven’s despite,
  To shame the sun by day and her by night.          732

“And therefore hath she brib’d the destinies,
To cross the curious workmanship of nature,
To mingle beauty with infirmities,
And pure perfection with impure defeature,           736
  Making it subject to the tyranny
  Of mad mischances and much misery.

“As burning fevers, agues pale and faint,
Life-poisoning pestilence and frenzies wood,         740
The marrow-eating sickness, whose attaint
Disorder breeds by heating of the blood;
  Surfeits, imposthumes, grief, and damn’d despair,
  Swear nature’s death, for framing thee so fair.    744

“And not the least of all these maladies
But in one minute’s fight brings beauty under:
Both favour, savour, hue and qualities,
Whereat th’impartial gazer late did wonder,          748
  Are on the sudden wasted, thaw’d and done,
  As mountain snow melts with the midday sun.

“Therefore despite of fruitless chastity,
Love-lacking vestals and self-loving nuns,           752
That on the earth would breed a scarcity
And barren dearth of daughters and of sons,
  Be prodigal: the lamp that burns by night
  Dries up his oil to lend the world his light.      756

“What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity,
Which by the rights of time thou needs must have,
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?          760
  If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
  Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.

“So in thyself thyself art made away;
A mischief worse than civil home-bred strife,        764
Or theirs whose desperate hands themselves do slay,
Or butcher sire that reeves his son of life.
  Foul cank’ring rust the hidden treasure frets,
  But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.”      768

“Nay then,” quoth Adon, “you will fall again
Into your idle over-handled theme;
The kiss I gave you is bestow’d in vain,
And all in vain you strive against the stream;       772
  For by this black-fac’d night, desire’s foul nurse,
  Your treatise makes me like you worse and worse.

“If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,
And every tongue more moving than your own,          776
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid’s songs,
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;
  For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,
  And will not let a false sound enter there.        780

“Lest the deceiving harmony should run
Into the quiet closure of my breast,
And then my little heart were quite undone,
In his bedchamber to be barr’d of rest.              784
  No, lady, no; my heart longs not to groan,
  But soundly sleeps, while now it sleeps alone.

“What have you urg’d that I cannot reprove?
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger;        790
I hate not love, but your device in love
That lends embracements unto every stranger.
  You do it for increase: O strange excuse!
  When reason is the bawd to lust’s abuse.           792

“Call it not, love, for love to heaven is fled,
Since sweating lust on earth usurp’d his name;
Under whose simple semblance he hath fed
Upon fresh beauty, blotting it with blame;           796
  Which the hot tyrant stains and soon bereaves,
  As caterpillars do the tender leaves.

“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,
But lust’s effect is tempest after sun;              800
Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain,
Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done.
  Love surfeits not, lust like a glutton dies;
  Love is all truth, lust full of forged lies.       804

“More I could tell, but more I dare not say;
The text is old, the orator too green.
Therefore, in sadness, now I will away;
My face is full of shame, my heart of teen,          808
  Mine ears, that to your wanton talk attended
  Do burn themselves for having so offended.”

With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace         811
Of those fair arms which bound him to her breast,
And homeward through the dark laund runs apace;
Leaves love upon her back deeply distress’d.
  Look how a bright star shooteth from the sky,
  So glides he in the night from Venus’ eye.         816

Which after him she darts, as one on shore
Gazing upon a late embarked friend,
Till the wild waves will have him seen no more,
Whose ridges with the meeting clouds contend:        820
  So did the merciless and pitchy night
  Fold in the object that did feed her sight.

Whereat amaz’d, as one that unaware
Hath dropp’d a precious jewel in the flood,          824
Or ’stonish’d as night-wanderers often are,
Their light blown out in some mistrustful wood;
  Even so confounded in the dark she lay,
  Having lost the fair discovery of her way.         828

And now she beats her heart, whereat it groans,
That all the neighbour caves, as seeming troubled,
Make verbal repetition of her moans;
Passion on passion deeply is redoubled:              832
  “Ay me!” she cries, and twenty times, “Woe, woe!”
  And twenty echoes twenty times cry so.

She marking them, begins a wailing note,
And sings extemporally a woeful ditty;               836
How love makes young men thrall, and old men dote,
How love is wise in folly foolish witty:
  Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe,
  And still the choir of echoes answer so.           840

Her song was tedious, and outwore the night,
For lovers’ hours are long, though seeming short,
If pleas’d themselves, others they think, delight
In such like circumstance, with such like sport:     844
  Their copious stories oftentimes begun,
  End without audience, and are never done.

For who hath she to spend the night withal,
But idle sounds resembling parasites;                848
Like shrill-tongu’d tapsters answering every call,
Soothing the humour of fantastic wits?
  She says, “’Tis so:” they answer all, “’Tis so;”
  And would say after her, if she said “No.”         852

Lo here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast
The sun ariseth in his majesty;                      856
  Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
  That cedar tops and hills seem burnish’d gold.

Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:
“Oh thou clear god, and patron of all light,         860
From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow
The beauteous influence that makes him bright,
  There lives a son that suck’d an earthly mother,
  May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other.”

This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,            865
Musing the morning is so much o’erworn,
And yet she hears no tidings of her love;
She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn.        868
  Anon she hears them chant it lustily,
  And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.

And as she runs, the bushes in the way
Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,      872
Some twine about her thigh to make her stay:
She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,
  Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,
  Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake.        876

By this she hears the hounds are at a bay,
Whereat she starts like one that spies an adder
Wreath’d up in fatal folds just in his way,
The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;    880
  Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds
  Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds.

For now she knows it is no gentle chase,
But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud,       884
Because the cry remaineth in one place,
Where fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud,
  Finding their enemy to be so curst,
  They all strain court’sy who shall cope him first. 888

This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear,
Through which it enters to surprise her heart;
Who overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,
With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part;     892
  Like soldiers when their captain once doth yield,
  They basely fly and dare not stay the field.

Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,
Till cheering up her senses sore dismay’d,           896
She tells them ’tis a causeless fantasy,
And childish error, that they are afraid;
  Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:
  And with that word, she spied the hunted boar.     900

Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,
Like milk and blood being mingled both together,
A second fear through all her sinews spread,
Which madly hurries her she knows not whither:       904
  This way she runs, and now she will no further,
  But back retires, to rate the boar for murther.

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,
She treads the path that she untreads again;         908
Her more than haste is mated with delays,
Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,
  Full of respects, yet naught at all respecting,
  In hand with all things, naught at all effecting.

Here kennel’d in a brake she finds a hound,          913
And asks the weary caitiff for his master,
And there another licking of his wound,
’Gainst venom’d sores the only sovereign plaster.    916
  And here she meets another sadly scowling,
  To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.

When he hath ceas’d his ill-resounding noise,
Another flap-mouth’d mourner, black and grim,        920
Against the welkin volleys out his voice;
Another and another answer him,
  Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,
  Shaking their scratch’d ears, bleeding as they go.

Look how the world’s poor people are amazed          925
At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,
Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gazed,
Infusing them with dreadful prophecies;              928
  So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath,
  And sighing it again, exclaims on death.

“Hard-favour’d tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,           931
Hateful divorce of love,” thus chides she death,
“Grim-grinning ghost, earth’s worm, what dost thou mean?
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,
  Who when he liv’d, his breath and beauty set
  Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet.            936

“If he be dead, O no, it cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it,
O yes, it may, thou hast no eyes to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit.               940
  Thy mark is feeble age, but thy false dart
  Mistakes that aim, and cleaves an infant’s heart.

“Hadst thou but bid beware, then he had spoke,
And hearing him, thy power had lost his power.       944
The destinies will curse thee for this stroke;
They bid thee crop a weed, thou pluck’st a flower.
  Love’s golden arrow at him should have fled,
  And not death’s ebon dart to strike him dead.      948

“Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok’st such weeping?
What may a heavy groan advantage thee?
Why hast thou cast into eternal sleeping
Those eyes that taught all other eyes to see?        952
  Now nature cares not for thy mortal vigour,
  Since her best work is ruin’d with thy rigour.”

Here overcome, as one full of despair,
She vail’d her eyelids, who like sluices stopp’d     956
The crystal tide that from her two cheeks fair
In the sweet channel of her bosom dropp’d
  But through the flood-gates breaks the silver rain,
  And with his strong course opens them again.       960

O how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow;
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view’d each other’s sorrow,
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;      964
  But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
  Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.

Variable passions throng her constant woe,
As striving who should best become her grief;        968
All entertain’d, each passion labours so,
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,
  But none is best, then join they all together,
  Like many clouds consulting for foul weather.      972

By this, far off she hears some huntsman holla;
A nurse’s song ne’er pleas’d her babe so well:
The dire imagination she did follow
This sound of hope doth labour to expel;             976
  For now reviving joy bids her rejoice,
  And flatters her it is Adonis’ voice.

Whereat her tears began to turn their tide,
Being prison’d in her eye, like pearls in glass;     980
Yet sometimes falls an orient drop beside,
Which her cheek melts, as scorning it should pass
  To wash the foul face of the sluttish ground,
  Who is but drunken when she seemeth drown’d.

O hard-believing love, how strange it seems          985
Not to believe, and yet too credulous;
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous,               988
  The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
  In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly.

Now she unweaves the web that she hath wrought,
Adonis lives, and death is not to blame;             992
It was not she that call’d him all to naught;
Now she adds honours to his hateful name.
  She clepes him king of graves, and grave for kings,
  Imperious supreme of all mortal things.            996

“No, no,” quoth she, “sweet death, I did but jest;
Yet pardon me, I felt a kind of fear
Whenas I met the boar, that bloody beast,
Which knows no pity, but is still severe;           1000
  Then, gentle shadow,—truth I must confess—
  I rail’d on thee, fearing my love’s decease.

“’Tis not my fault, the boar provok’d my tongue;
Be wreak’d on him, invisible commander;             1004
’Tis he, foul creature, that hath done thee wrong;
I did but act, he’s author of my slander.
  Grief hath two tongues, and never woman yet,
  Could rule them both, without ten women’s wit.”

Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,                   1009
Her rash suspect she doth extenuate;
And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With death she humbly doth insinuate;               1012
  Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs and stories
  His victories, his triumphs and his glories.

“O love!” quoth she, “how much a fool was I,
To be of such a weak and silly mind,                1016
To wail his death who lives, and must not die
Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind;
  For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,
  And beauty dead, black Chaos comes again.         1020

“Fie, fie, fond love, thou art as full of fear
As one with treasure laden, hemm’d with thieves,
Trifles unwitnessed with eye or ear,
Thy coward heart with false bethinking grieves.”    1024
  Even at this word she hears a merry horn,
  Whereat she leaps that was but late forlorn.

As falcon to the lure, away she flies;
The grass stoops not, she treads on it so light,    1028
And in her haste unfortunately spies
The foul boar’s conquest on her fair delight;
  Which seen, her eyes, as murder’d with the view,
  Like stars asham’d of day, themselves withdrew.

Or as the snail, whose tender horns being hit,      1033
Shrinks backwards in his shelly cave with pain,
And there all smother’d up, in shade doth sit,
Long after fearing to creep forth again:            1036
  So at his bloody view her eyes are fled
  Into the deep dark cabins of her head.

Where they resign their office and their light
To the disposing of her troubled brain,             1040
Who bids them still consort with ugly night,
And never wound the heart with looks again;
  Who like a king perplexed in his throne,
  By their suggestion gives a deadly groan.         1044

Whereat each tributary subject quakes,
As when the wind imprison’d in the ground,
Struggling for passage, earth’s foundation shakes,
Which with cold terror doth men’s minds confound.
  This mutiny each part doth so surprise            1049
  That from their dark beds once more leap her eyes.

And being open’d, threw unwilling light
Upon the wide wound that the boar had trench’d
In his soft flank, whose wonted lily white          1053
With purple tears that his wound wept, was drench’d.
  No flower was nigh, no grass, herb, leaf or weed,
  But stole his blood and seem’d with him to bleed.

This solemn sympathy poor Venus noteth,             1057
Over one shoulder doth she hang her head,
Dumbly she passions, franticly she doteth;
She thinks he could not die, he is not dead:        1060
  Her voice is stopp’d, her joints forget to bow,
  Her eyes are mad, that they have wept till now.

Upon his hurt she looks so steadfastly,
That her sight dazzling makes the wound seem three;
And then she reprehends her mangling eye,           1065
That makes more gashes, where no breach should be:
  His face seems twain, each several limb is doubled,
  For oft the eye mistakes, the brain being troubled.

“My tongue cannot express my grief for one,         1069
And yet,” quoth she, “behold two Adons dead!
My sighs are blown away, my salt tears gone,
Mine eyes are turn’d to fire, my heart to lead:     1072
  Heavy heart’s lead, melt at mine eyes’ red fire!
  So shall I die by drops of hot desire.

“Alas poor world, what treasure hast thou lost!
What face remains alive that’s worth the viewing?
Whose tongue is music now? what canst thou boast
Of things long since, or anything ensuing?          1078
  The flowers are sweet, their colours fresh and trim,
  But true sweet beauty liv’d and died with him.

“Bonnet nor veil henceforth no creature wear!       1081
Nor sun nor wind will ever strive to kiss you:
Having no fair to lose, you need not fear;
The sun doth scorn you, and the wind doth hiss you.
  But when Adonis liv’d, sun and sharp air          1085
  Lurk’d like two thieves, to rob him of his fair.

“And therefore would he put his bonnet on,
Under whose brim the gaudy sun would peep;          1088
The wind would blow it off, and being gone,
Play with his locks; then would Adonis weep;
  And straight, in pity of his tender years,
  They both would strive who first should dry his tears.

“To see his face the lion walk’d along              1093
Behind some hedge, because he would not fear him;
To recreate himself when he hath sung,
The tiger would be tame and gently hear him.        1096
  If he had spoke, the wolf would leave his prey,
  And never fright the silly lamb that day.

“When he beheld his shadow in the brook,
The fishes spread on it their golden gills;         1100
When he was by, the birds such pleasure took,
That some would sing, some other in their bills
  Would bring him mulberries and ripe-red cherries,
  He fed them with his sight, they him with berries.

“But this foul, grim, and urchin-snouted boar,      1105
Whose downward eye still looketh for a grave,
Ne’er saw the beauteous livery that he wore;
Witness the entertainment that he gave.             1108
  If he did see his face, why then I know
  He thought to kiss him, and hath kill’d him so.

“’Tis true, ’tis true; thus was Adonis slain:
He ran upon the boar with his sharp spear,          1112
Who did not whet his teeth at him again,
But by a kiss thought to persuade him there;
  And nuzzling in his flank, the loving swine
  Sheath’d unaware the tusk in his soft groin.      1116

“Had I been tooth’d like him, I must confess,
With kissing him I should have kill’d him first;
But he is dead, and never did he bless
My youth with his; the more am I accurst.”          1120
  With this she falleth in the place she stood,
  And stains her face with his congealed blood.

She looks upon his lips, and they are pale;
She takes him by the hand, and that is cold,        1124
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale,
As if they heard the woeful words she told;
She lifts the coffer-lids that close his eyes,
Where lo, two lamps burnt out in darkness lies.

Two glasses where herself herself beheld            1129
A thousand times, and now no more reflect;
Their virtue lost, wherein they late excell’d,
And every beauty robb’d of his effect.              1132
  “Wonder of time,” quoth she, “this is my spite,
  That thou being dead, the day should yet be light.

“Since thou art dead, lo here I prophesy,
Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:              1136
It shall be waited on with jealousy,
Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end;
  Ne’er settled equally, but high or low,
  That all love’s pleasure shall not match his woe.

“It shall be fickle, false and full of fraud,       1141
Bud, and be blasted in a breathing while;
The bottom poison, and the top o’erstraw’d
With sweets that shall the truest sight beguile.    1144
  The strongest body shall it make most weak,
  Strike the wise dumb, and teach the fool to speak.

“It shall be sparing, and too full of riot,
Teaching decrepit age to tread the measures;        1148
The staring ruffian shall it keep in quiet,
Pluck down the rich, enrich the poor with treasures;
  It shall be raging mad, and silly mild,
  Make the young old, the old become a child.       1152

“It shall suspect where is no cause of fear,
It shall not fear where it should most mistrust;
It shall be merciful, and too severe,
And most deceiving when it seems most just;         1156
  Perverse it shall be, where it shows most toward,
  Put fear to valour, courage to the coward.

“It shall be cause of war and dire events,
And set dissension ’twixt the son and sire;         1160
Subject and servile to all discontents,
As dry combustious matter is to fire,
  Sith in his prime death doth my love destroy,
  They that love best their love shall not enjoy.”  1164

By this the boy that by her side lay kill’d
Was melted like a vapour from her sight,
And in his blood that on the ground lay spill’d,
A purple flower sprung up, chequer’d with white,    1168
  Resembling well his pale cheeks, and the blood
  Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.

She bows her head, the new-sprung flower to smell,
Comparing it to her Adonis’ breath;                 1172
And says within her bosom it shall dwell,
Since he himself is reft from her by death;
  She drops the stalk, and in the breach appears
  Green-dropping sap, which she compares to tears.

“Poor flower,” quoth she, “this was thy father’s guise,
Sweet issue of a more sweet-smelling sire,
For every little grief to wet his eyes,
To grow unto himself was his desire,                1180
  And so ’tis thine; but know, it is as good
  To wither in my breast as in his blood.

“Here was thy father’s bed, here in my breast;
Thou art the next of blood, and ’tis thy right:     1184
Lo in this hollow cradle take thy rest,
My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night:
  There shall not be one minute in an hour
  Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love’s flower.”

Thus weary of the world, away she hies,             1189
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies,
In her light chariot quickly is convey’d;           1192
  Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
  Means to immure herself and not be seen.


    

  FINIS
    












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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: Don Quixote

Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Release Date: July 27, 2004 [EBook #996]
Last Updated: March 4,2015

Language: English


*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DON QUIXOTE ***




Produced by David Widger





DON QUIXOTE

Complete

by Miguel de Cervantes [Saavedra]

Translated by John Ormsby




CONTENTS

Volume I.

CHAPTER I
WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF THE FAMOUS GENTLEMAN
DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA

CHAPTER II
WHICH TREATS OF THE FIRST SALLY THE INGENIOUS DON QUIXOTE MADE
FROM HOME

CHAPTER III
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE DROLL WAY IN WHICH DON QUIXOTE HAD HIMSELF
DUBBED A KNIGHT

CHAPTER IV
OF WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR KNIGHT WHEN HE LEFT THE INN

CHAPTER V
IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE OF OUR KNIGHT'S MISHAP IS CONTINUED

CHAPTER VI
OF THE DIVERTING AND IMPORTANT SCRUTINY WHICH THE CURATE AND THE
BARBER MADE IN THE LIBRARY OF OUR INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN

CHAPTER VII
OF THE SECOND SALLY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA

CHAPTER VIII
OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE
TERRIBLE AND UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE WINDMILLS, WITH OTHER
OCCURRENCES WORTHY TO BE FITLY RECORDED

CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH IS CONCLUDED AND FINISHED THE TERRIFIC BATTLE BETWEEN THE
GALLANT BISCAYAN AND THE VALIANT MANCHEGAN

CHAPTER X
OF THE PLEASANT DISCOURSE THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS
SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA

CHAPTER XI
OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH CERTAIN GOATHERDS

CHAPTER XII
OF WHAT A GOATHERD RELATED TO THOSE WITH DON QUIXOTE

CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH IS ENDED THE STORY OF THE SHEPHERDESS MARCELA, WITH OTHER
INCIDENTS

CHAPTER XIV
WHEREIN ARE INSERTED THE DESPAIRING VERSES OF THE DEAD SHEPHERD,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS NOT LOOKED FOR

CHAPTER XV
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE UNFORTUNATE ADVENTURE THAT DON QUIXOTE
FELL IN WITH WHEN HE FELL OUT WITH CERTAIN HEARTLESS YANGUESANS

CHAPTER XVI
OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE
TOOK TO BE A CASTLE

CHAPTER XVII
IN WHICH ARE CONTAINED THE INNUMERABLE TROUBLES WHICH THE BRAVE
DON QUIXOTE AND HIS GOOD SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA ENDURED IN THE INN,
WHICH TO HIS MISFORTUNE HE TOOK TO BE A CASTLE

CHAPTER XVIII
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE DISCOURSE SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH HIS MASTER,
DON QUIXOTE, AND OTHER ADVENTURES WORTH RELATING

CHAPTER XIX
OF THE SHREWD DISCOURSE WHICH SANCHO HELD WITH HIS MASTER, AND OF
THE ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL HIM WITH A DEAD BODY, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
NOTABLE OCCURRENCES

CHAPTER XX
OF THE UNEXAMPLED AND UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURE WHICH WAS ACHIEVED BY THE
VALIANT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA WITH LESS PERIL THAN ANY EVER
ACHIEVED BY ANY FAMOUS KNIGHT IN THE WORLD

CHAPTER XXI
WHICH TREATS OF THE EXALTED ADVENTURE AND RICH PRIZE OF MAMBRINO'S
HELMET, TOGETHER WITH OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO OUR INVINCIBLE
KNIGHT

CHAPTER XXII
OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO
AGAINST THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO

CHAPTER XXIII
OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE SIERRA MORENA, WHICH WAS ONE OF
THE RAREST ADVENTURES RELATED IN THIS VERACIOUS HISTORY

CHAPTER XXIV
IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA

CHAPTER XXV
WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT
KNIGHT OF LA MANCHA IN THE SIERRA MORENA, AND OF HIS IMITATION
OF THE PENANCE OF BELTENEBROS

CHAPTER XXVI
IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE REFINEMENTS WHEREWITH DON QUIXOTE
PLAYED THE PART OF A LOVER IN THE SIERRA MORENA

CHAPTER XXVII
OF HOW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER PROCEEDED WITH THEIR SCHEME;
TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF RECORD IN THIS GREAT HISTORY

CHAPTER XXVIII
WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE AND DELIGHTFUL ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL
THE CURATE AND THE BARBER IN THE SAME SIERRA

CHAPTER XXIX
WHICH TREATS OF THE DROLL DEVICE AND METHOD ADOPTED TO EXTRICATE
OUR LOVE-STRICKEN KNIGHT FROM THE SEVERE PENANCE HE HAD IMPOSED
UPON HIMSELF

CHAPTER XXX
WHICH TREATS OF ADDRESS DISPLAYED BY THE FAIR DOROTHEA, WITH OTHER
MATTERS PLEASANT AND AMUSING

CHAPTER XXXI
OF THE DELECTABLE DISCUSSION BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA,
HIS SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS

CHAPTER XXXII
WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE'S PARTY AT THE INN

CHAPTER XXXIII
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE NOVEL OF "THE ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY"

CHAPTER XXXIV
IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE NOVEL OF "THE ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY"

CHAPTER XXXV
WHICH TREATS OF THE HEROIC AND PRODIGIOUS BATTLE DON QUIXOTE HAD
WITH CERTAIN SKINS OF RED WINE, AND BRINGS THE NOVEL OF "THE
ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY" TO A CLOSE

CHAPTER XXXVI
WHICH TREATS OF MORE CURIOUS INCIDENTS THAT OCCURRED AT THE INN

CHAPTER XXXVII
IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE STORY OF THE FAMOUS PRINCESS MICOMICONA,
WITH OTHER DROLL ADVENTURES

CHAPTER XXXVIII
WHICH TREATS OF THE CURIOUS DISCOURSE DON QUIXOTE DELIVERED ON
ARMS AND LETTERS

CHAPTER XXXIX
WHEREIN THE CAPTIVE RELATES HIS LIFE AND ADVENTURES

CHAPTER XL
IN WHICH THE STORY OF THE CAPTIVE IS CONTINUED.

CHAPTER XLI
IN WHICH THE CAPTIVE STILL CONTINUES HIS ADVENTURES

CHAPTER XLII
WHICH TREATS OF WHAT FURTHER TOOK PLACE IN THE INN, AND OF
SEVERAL OTHER THINGS WORTH KNOWING

CHAPTER XLIII
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE PLEASANT STORY OF THE MULETEER, TOGETHER
WITH OTHER STRANGE THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS IN THE INN

CHAPTER XLIV
IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURES OF THE INN

CHAPTER XLV
IN WHICH THE DOUBTFUL QUESTION OF MAMBRINO'S HELMET AND THE
PACK-SADDLE IS FINALLY SETTLED, WITH OTHER ADVENTURES THAT
OCCURRED IN TRUTH AND EARNEST

CHAPTER XLVI
OF THE END OF THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE OFFICERS OF THE HOLY
BROTHERHOOD; AND OF THE GREAT FEROCITY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT, DON
QUIXOTE

CHAPTER XLVII
OF THE STRANGE MANNER IN WHICH DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA WAS
CARRIED AWAY ENCHANTED, TOGETHER WITH OTHER REMARKABLE INCIDENTS

CHAPTER XLVIII
IN WHICH THE CANON PURSUES THE SUBJECT OF THE BOOKS OF CHIVALRY,
WITH OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF HIS WIT

CHAPTER XLIX
WHICH TREATS OF THE SHREWD CONVERSATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HELD
WITH HIS MASTER DON QUIXOTE

CHAPTER L
OF THE SHREWD CONTROVERSY WHICH DON QUIXOTE AND THE CANON HELD,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS

CHAPTER LI
WHICH DEALS WITH WHAT THE GOATHERD TOLD THOSE WHO WERE CARRYING
OFF DON QUIXOTE

CHAPTER LII
OF THE QUARREL THAT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH THE GOATHERD, TOGETHER
WITH THE RARE ADVENTURE OF THE PENITENTS, WHICH WITH AN
EXPENDITURE OF SWEAT HE BROUGHT TO A HAPPY CONCLUSION


TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE


I: ABOUT THIS TRANSLATION

It was with considerable reluctance that I abandoned in favour of the
present undertaking what had long been a favourite project: that of a new
edition of Shelton's "Don Quixote," which has now become a somewhat
scarce book. There are some--and I confess myself to be one--for whom
Shelton's racy old version, with all its defects, has a charm that no
modern translation, however skilful or correct, could possess. Shelton
had the inestimable advantage of belonging to the same generation as
Cervantes; "Don Quixote" had to him a vitality that only a contemporary
could feel; it cost him no dramatic effort to see things as Cervantes saw
them; there is no anachronism in his language; he put the Spanish of
Cervantes into the English of Shakespeare. Shakespeare himself most
likely knew the book; he may have carried it home with him in his
saddle-bags to Stratford on one of his last journeys, and under the
mulberry tree at New Place joined hands with a kindred genius in its
pages.

But it was soon made plain to me that to hope for even a moderate
popularity for Shelton was vain. His fine old crusted English would, no
doubt, be relished by a minority, but it would be only by a minority. His
warmest admirers must admit that he is not a satisfactory representative
of Cervantes. His translation of the First Part was very hastily made and
was never revised by him. It has all the freshness and vigour, but also a
full measure of the faults, of a hasty production. It is often very
literal--barbarously literal frequently--but just as often very loose. He
had evidently a good colloquial knowledge of Spanish, but apparently not
much more. It never seems to occur to him that the same translation of a
word will not suit in every case.

It is often said that we have no satisfactory translation of "Don
Quixote." To those who are familiar with the original, it savours of
truism or platitude to say so, for in truth there can be no thoroughly
satisfactory translation of "Don Quixote" into English or any other
language. It is not that the Spanish idioms are so utterly unmanageable,
or that the untranslatable words, numerous enough no doubt, are so
superabundant, but rather that the sententious terseness to which the
humour of the book owes its flavour is peculiar to Spanish, and can at
best be only distantly imitated in any other tongue.

The history of our English translations of "Don Quixote" is instructive.
Shelton's, the first in any language, was made, apparently, about 1608,
but not published till 1612. This of course was only the First Part. It
has been asserted that the Second, published in 1620, is not the work of
Shelton, but there is nothing to support the assertion save the fact that
it has less spirit, less of what we generally understand by "go," about
it than the first, which would be only natural if the first were the work
of a young man writing currente calamo, and the second that of a
middle-aged man writing for a bookseller. On the other hand, it is closer
and more literal, the style is the same, the very same translations, or
mistranslations, occur in it, and it is extremely unlikely that a new
translator would, by suppressing his name, have allowed Shelton to carry
off the credit.

In 1687 John Phillips, Milton's nephew, produced a "Don Quixote" "made
English," he says, "according to the humour of our modern language." His
"Quixote" is not so much a translation as a travesty, and a travesty that
for coarseness, vulgarity, and buffoonery is almost unexampled even in
the literature of that day.

Ned Ward's "Life and Notable Adventures of Don Quixote, merrily
translated into Hudibrastic Verse" (1700), can scarcely be reckoned a
translation, but it serves to show the light in which "Don Quixote" was
regarded at the time.

A further illustration may be found in the version published in 1712 by
Peter Motteux, who had then recently combined tea-dealing with
literature. It is described as "translated from the original by several
hands," but if so all Spanish flavour has entirely evaporated under the
manipulation of the several hands. The flavour that it has, on the other
hand, is distinctly Franco-cockney. Anyone who compares it carefully with
the original will have little doubt that it is a concoction from Shelton
and the French of Filleau de Saint Martin, eked out by borrowings from
Phillips, whose mode of treatment it adopts. It is, to be sure, more
decent and decorous, but it treats "Don Quixote" in the same fashion as a
comic book that cannot be made too comic.

To attempt to improve the humour of "Don Quixote" by an infusion of
cockney flippancy and facetiousness, as Motteux's operators did, is not
merely an impertinence like larding a sirloin of prize beef, but an
absolute falsification of the spirit of the book, and it is a proof of
the uncritical way in which "Don Quixote" is generally read that this
worse than worthless translation--worthless as failing to represent,
worse than worthless as misrepresenting--should have been favoured as it
has been.

It had the effect, however, of bringing out a translation undertaken and
executed in a very different spirit, that of Charles Jervas, the portrait
painter, and friend of Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Gay. Jervas has been
allowed little credit for his work, indeed it may be said none, for it is
known to the world in general as Jarvis's. It was not published until
after his death, and the printers gave the name according to the current
pronunciation of the day. It has been the most freely used and the most
freely abused of all the translations. It has seen far more editions than
any other, it is admitted on all hands to be by far the most faithful,
and yet nobody seems to have a good word to say for it or for its author.
Jervas no doubt prejudiced readers against himself in his preface, where
among many true words about Shelton, Stevens, and Motteux, he rashly and
unjustly charges Shelton with having translated not from the Spanish, but
from the Italian version of Franciosini, which did not appear until ten
years after Shelton's first volume. A suspicion of incompetence, too,
seems to have attached to him because he was by profession a painter and
a mediocre one (though he has given us the best portrait we have of
Swift), and this may have been strengthened by Pope's remark that he
"translated 'Don Quixote' without understanding Spanish." He has been
also charged with borrowing from Shelton, whom he disparaged. It is true
that in a few difficult or obscure passages he has followed Shelton, and
gone astray with him; but for one case of this sort, there are fifty
where he is right and Shelton wrong. As for Pope's dictum, anyone who
examines Jervas's version carefully, side by side with the original, will
see that he was a sound Spanish scholar, incomparably a better one than
Shelton, except perhaps in mere colloquial Spanish. He was, in fact, an
honest, faithful, and painstaking translator, and he has left a version
which, whatever its shortcomings may be, is singularly free from errors
and mistranslations.

The charge against it is that it is stiff, dry--"wooden" in a word,-and
no one can deny that there is a foundation for it. But it may be pleaded
for Jervas that a good deal of this rigidity is due to his abhorrence of
the light, flippant, jocose style of his predecessors. He was one of the
few, very few, translators that have shown any apprehension of the
unsmiling gravity which is the essence of Quixotic humour; it seemed to
him a crime to bring Cervantes forward smirking and grinning at his own
good things, and to this may be attributed in a great measure the ascetic
abstinence from everything savouring of liveliness which is the
characteristic of his translation. In most modern editions, it should be
observed, his style has been smoothed and smartened, but without any
reference to the original Spanish, so that if he has been made to read
more agreeably he has also been robbed of his chief merit of fidelity.

Smollett's version, published in 1755, may be almost counted as one of
these. At any rate it is plain that in its construction Jervas's
translation was very freely drawn upon, and very little or probably no
heed given to the original Spanish.

The later translations may be dismissed in a few words. George Kelly's,
which appeared in 1769, "printed for the Translator," was an impudent
imposture, being nothing more than Motteux's version with a few of the
words, here and there, artfully transposed; Charles Wilmot's (1774) was
only an abridgment like Florian's, but not so skilfully executed; and the
version published by Miss Smirke in 1818, to accompany her brother's
plates, was merely a patchwork production made out of former
translations. On the latest, Mr. A. J. Duffield's, it would be in every
sense of the word impertinent in me to offer an opinion here. I had not
even seen it when the present undertaking was proposed to me, and since
then I may say vidi tantum, having for obvious reasons resisted the
temptation which Mr. Duffield's reputation and comely volumes hold out to
every lover of Cervantes.

From the foregoing history of our translations of "Don Quixote," it will
be seen that there are a good many people who, provided they get the mere
narrative with its full complement of facts, incidents, and adventures
served up to them in a form that amuses them, care very little whether
that form is the one in which Cervantes originally shaped his ideas. On
the other hand, it is clear that there are many who desire to have not
merely the story he tells, but the story as he tells it, so far at least
as differences of idiom and circumstances permit, and who will give a
preference to the conscientious translator, even though he may have
acquitted himself somewhat awkwardly.

But after all there is no real antagonism between the two classes; there
is no reason why what pleases the one should not please the other, or why
a translator who makes it his aim to treat "Don Quixote" with the respect
due to a great classic, should not be as acceptable even to the careless
reader as the one who treats it as a famous old jest-book. It is not a
question of caviare to the general, or, if it is, the fault rests with
him who makes so. The method by which Cervantes won the ear of the
Spanish people ought, mutatis mutandis, to be equally effective with the
great majority of English readers. At any rate, even if there are readers
to whom it is a matter of indifference, fidelity to the method is as much
a part of the translator's duty as fidelity to the matter. If he can
please all parties, so much the better; but his first duty is to those
who look to him for as faithful a representation of his author as it is
in his power to give them, faithful to the letter so long as fidelity is
practicable, faithful to the spirit so far as he can make it.

My purpose here is not to dogmatise on the rules of translation, but to
indicate those I have followed, or at least tried to the best of my
ability to follow, in the present instance. One which, it seems to me,
cannot be too rigidly followed in translating "Don Quixote," is to avoid
everything that savours of affectation. The book itself is, indeed, in
one sense a protest against it, and no man abhorred it more than
Cervantes. For this reason, I think, any temptation to use antiquated or
obsolete language should be resisted. It is after all an affectation, and
one for which there is no warrant or excuse. Spanish has probably
undergone less change since the seventeenth century than any language in
Europe, and by far the greater and certainly the best part of "Don
Quixote" differs but little in language from the colloquial Spanish of
the present day. Except in the tales and Don Quixote's speeches, the
translator who uses the simplest and plainest everyday language will
almost always be the one who approaches nearest to the original.

Seeing that the story of "Don Quixote" and all its characters and
incidents have now been for more than two centuries and a half familiar
as household words in English mouths, it seems to me that the old
familiar names and phrases should not be changed without good reason. Of
course a translator who holds that "Don Quixote" should receive the
treatment a great classic deserves, will feel himself bound by the
injunction laid upon the Morisco in Chap. IX not to omit or add anything.

II: ABOUT CERVANTES AND DON QUIXOTE

Four generations had laughed over "Don Quixote" before it occurred to
anyone to ask, who and what manner of man was this Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra whose name is on the title-page; and it was too late for a
satisfactory answer to the question when it was proposed to add a life of
the author to the London edition published at Lord Carteret's instance in
1738. All traces of the personality of Cervantes had by that time
disappeared. Any floating traditions that may once have existed,
transmitted from men who had known him, had long since died out, and of
other record there was none; for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
were incurious as to "the men of the time," a reproach against which the
nineteenth has, at any rate, secured itself, if it has produced no
Shakespeare or Cervantes. All that Mayans y Siscar, to whom the task was
entrusted, or any of those who followed him, Rios, Pellicer, or
Navarrete, could do was to eke out the few allusions Cervantes makes to
himself in his various prefaces with such pieces of documentary evidence
bearing upon his life as they could find.

This, however, has been done by the last-named biographer to such good
purpose that he has superseded all predecessors. Thoroughness is the
chief characteristic of Navarrete's work. Besides sifting, testing, and
methodising with rare patience and judgment what had been previously
brought to light, he left, as the saying is, no stone unturned under
which anything to illustrate his subject might possibly be found.
Navarrete has done all that industry and acumen could do, and it is no
fault of his if he has not given us what we want. What Hallam says of
Shakespeare may be applied to the almost parallel case of Cervantes: "It
is not the register of his baptism, or the draft of his will, or the
orthography of his name that we seek; no letter of his writing, no record
of his conversation, no character of him drawn ... by a contemporary has
been produced."

It is only natural, therefore, that the biographers of Cervantes, forced
to make brick without straw, should have recourse largely to conjecture,
and that conjecture should in some instances come by degrees to take the
place of established fact. All that I propose to do here is to separate
what is matter of fact from what is matter of conjecture, and leave it to
the reader's judgment to decide whether the data justify the inference or
not.

The men whose names by common consent stand in the front rank of Spanish
literature, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Calderon, Garcilaso de la
Vega, the Mendozas, Gongora, were all men of ancient families, and,
curiously, all, except the last, of families that traced their origin to
the same mountain district in the North of Spain. The family of Cervantes
is commonly said to have been of Galician origin, and unquestionably it
was in possession of lands in Galicia at a very early date; but I think
the balance of the evidence tends to show that the "solar," the original
site of the family, was at Cervatos in the north-west corner of Old
Castile, close to the junction of Castile, Leon, and the Asturias. As it
happens, there is a complete history of the Cervantes family from the
tenth century down to the seventeenth extant under the title of
"Illustrious Ancestry, Glorious Deeds, and Noble Posterity of the Famous
Nuno Alfonso, Alcaide of Toledo," written in 1648 by the industrious
genealogist Rodrigo Mendez Silva, who availed himself of a manuscript
genealogy by Juan de Mena, the poet laureate and historiographer of John
II.

The origin of the name Cervantes is curious. Nuno Alfonso was almost as
distinguished in the struggle against the Moors in the reign of Alfonso
VII as the Cid had been half a century before in that of Alfonso VI, and
was rewarded by divers grants of land in the neighbourhood of Toledo. On
one of his acquisitions, about two leagues from the city, he built
himself a castle which he called Cervatos, because "he was lord of the
solar of Cervatos in the Montana," as the mountain region extending from
the Basque Provinces to Leon was always called. At his death in battle in
1143, the castle passed by his will to his son Alfonso Munio, who, as
territorial or local surnames were then coming into vogue in place of the
simple patronymic, took the additional name of Cervatos. His eldest son
Pedro succeeded him in the possession of the castle, and followed his
example in adopting the name, an assumption at which the younger son,
Gonzalo, seems to have taken umbrage.

Everyone who has paid even a flying visit to Toledo will remember the
ruined castle that crowns the hill above the spot where the bridge of
Alcantara spans the gorge of the Tagus, and with its broken outline and
crumbling walls makes such an admirable pendant to the square solid
Alcazar towering over the city roofs on the opposite side. It was built,
or as some say restored, by Alfonso VI shortly after his occupation of
Toledo in 1085, and called by him San Servando after a Spanish martyr, a
name subsequently modified into San Servan (in which form it appears in
the "Poem of the Cid"), San Servantes, and San Cervantes: with regard to
which last the "Handbook for Spain" warns its readers against the
supposition that it has anything to do with the author of "Don Quixote."
Ford, as all know who have taken him for a companion and counsellor on
the roads of Spain, is seldom wrong in matters of literature or history.
In this instance, however, he is in error. It has everything to do with
the author of "Don Quixote," for it is in fact these old walls that have
given to Spain the name she is proudest of to-day. Gonzalo, above
mentioned, it may be readily conceived, did not relish the appropriation
by his brother of a name to which he himself had an equal right, for
though nominally taken from the castle, it was in reality derived from
the ancient territorial possession of the family, and as a set-off, and
to distinguish himself (diferenciarse) from his brother, he took as a
surname the name of the castle on the bank of the Tagus, in the building
of which, according to a family tradition, his great-grandfather had a
share.

Both brothers founded families. The Cervantes branch had more tenacity;
it sent offshoots in various directions, Andalusia, Estremadura, Galicia,
and Portugal, and produced a goodly line of men distinguished in the
service of Church and State. Gonzalo himself, and apparently a son of
his, followed Ferdinand III in the great campaign of 1236-48 that gave
Cordova and Seville to Christian Spain and penned up the Moors in the
kingdom of Granada, and his descendants intermarried with some of the
noblest families of the Peninsula and numbered among them soldiers,
magistrates, and Church dignitaries, including at least two
cardinal-archbishops.

Of the line that settled in Andalusia, Deigo de Cervantes, Commander of
the Order of Santiago, married Juana Avellaneda, daughter of Juan Arias
de Saavedra, and had several sons, of whom one was Gonzalo Gomez,
Corregidor of Jerez and ancestor of the Mexican and Columbian branches of
the family; and another, Juan, whose son Rodrigo married Dona Leonor de
Cortinas, and by her had four children, Rodrigo, Andrea, Luisa, and
Miguel, our author.

The pedigree of Cervantes is not without its bearing on "Don Quixote." A
man who could look back upon an ancestry of genuine knights-errant
extending from well-nigh the time of Pelayo to the siege of Granada was
likely to have a strong feeling on the subject of the sham chivalry of
the romances. It gives a point, too, to what he says in more than one
place about families that have once been great and have tapered away
until they have come to nothing, like a pyramid. It was the case of his
own.

He was born at Alcala de Henares and baptised in the church of Santa
Maria Mayor on the 9th of October, 1547. Of his boyhood and youth we know
nothing, unless it be from the glimpse he gives us in the preface to his
"Comedies" of himself as a boy looking on with delight while Lope de
Rueda and his company set up their rude plank stage in the plaza and
acted the rustic farces which he himself afterwards took as the model of
his interludes. This first glimpse, however, is a significant one, for it
shows the early development of that love of the drama which exercised
such an influence on his life and seems to have grown stronger as he grew
older, and of which this very preface, written only a few months before
his death, is such a striking proof. He gives us to understand, too, that
he was a great reader in his youth; but of this no assurance was needed,
for the First Part of "Don Quixote" alone proves a vast amount of
miscellaneous reading, romances of chivalry, ballads, popular poetry,
chronicles, for which he had no time or opportunity except in the first
twenty years of his life; and his misquotations and mistakes in matters
of detail are always, it may be noticed, those of a man recalling the
reading of his boyhood.

Other things besides the drama were in their infancy when Cervantes was a
boy. The period of his boyhood was in every way a transition period for
Spain. The old chivalrous Spain had passed away. The new Spain was the
mightiest power the world had seen since the Roman Empire and it had not
yet been called upon to pay the price of its greatness. By the policy of
Ferdinand and Ximenez the sovereign had been made absolute, and the
Church and Inquisition adroitly adjusted to keep him so. The nobles, who
had always resisted absolutism as strenuously as they had fought the
Moors, had been divested of all political power, a like fate had befallen
the cities, the free constitutions of Castile and Aragon had been swept
away, and the only function that remained to the Cortes was that of
granting money at the King's dictation.

The transition extended to literature. Men who, like Garcilaso de la Vega
and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, followed the Italian wars, had brought back
from Italy the products of the post-Renaissance literature, which took
root and flourished and even threatened to extinguish the native growths.
Damon and Thyrsis, Phyllis and Chloe had been fairly naturalised in
Spain, together with all the devices of pastoral poetry for investing
with an air of novelty the idea of a dispairing shepherd and inflexible
shepherdess. As a set-off against this, the old historical and
traditional ballads, and the true pastorals, the songs and ballads of
peasant life, were being collected assiduously and printed in the
cancioneros that succeeded one another with increasing rapidity. But the
most notable consequence, perhaps, of the spread of printing was the
flood of romances of chivalry that had continued to pour from the press
ever since Garci Ordonez de Montalvo had resuscitated "Amadis of Gaul" at
the beginning of the century.

For a youth fond of reading, solid or light, there could have been no
better spot in Spain than Alcala de Henares in the middle of the
sixteenth century. It was then a busy, populous university town,
something more than the enterprising rival of Salamanca, and altogether a
very different place from the melancholy, silent, deserted Alcala the
traveller sees now as he goes from Madrid to Saragossa. Theology and
medicine may have been the strong points of the university, but the town
itself seems to have inclined rather to the humanities and light
literature, and as a producer of books Alcala was already beginning to
compete with the older presses of Toledo, Burgos, Salamanca and Seville.

A pendant to the picture Cervantes has given us of his first playgoings
might, no doubt, have been often seen in the streets of Alcala at that
time; a bright, eager, tawny-haired boy peering into a book-shop where
the latest volumes lay open to tempt the public, wondering, it may be,
what that little book with the woodcut of the blind beggar and his boy,
that called itself "Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, segunda impresion,"
could be about; or with eyes brimming over with merriment gazing at one
of those preposterous portraits of a knight-errant in outrageous panoply
and plumes with which the publishers of chivalry romances loved to
embellish the title-pages of their folios. If the boy was the father of
the man, the sense of the incongruous that was strong at fifty was lively
at ten, and some such reflections as these may have been the true genesis
of "Don Quixote."

For his more solid education, we are told, he went to Salamanca. But why
Rodrigo de Cervantes, who was very poor, should have sent his son to a
university a hundred and fifty miles away when he had one at his own
door, would be a puzzle, if we had any reason for supposing that he did
so. The only evidence is a vague statement by Professor Tomas Gonzalez,
that he once saw an old entry of the matriculation of a Miguel de
Cervantes. This does not appear to have been ever seen again; but even if
it had, and if the date corresponded, it would prove nothing, as there
were at least two other Miguels born about the middle of the century; one
of them, moreover, a Cervantes Saavedra, a cousin, no doubt, who was a
source of great embarrassment to the biographers.

That he was a student neither at Salamanca nor at Alcala is best proved
by his own works. No man drew more largely upon experience than he did,
and he has nowhere left a single reminiscence of student life-for the
"Tia Fingida," if it be his, is not one--nothing, not even "a college
joke," to show that he remembered days that most men remember best. All
that we know positively about his education is that Juan Lopez de Hoyos,
a professor of humanities and belles-lettres of some eminence, calls him
his "dear and beloved pupil." This was in a little collection of verses
by different hands on the death of Isabel de Valois, second queen of
Philip II, published by the professor in 1569, to which Cervantes
contributed four pieces, including an elegy, and an epitaph in the form
of a sonnet. It is only by a rare chance that a "Lycidas" finds its way
into a volume of this sort, and Cervantes was no Milton. His verses are
no worse than such things usually are; so much, at least, may be said for
them.

By the time the book appeared he had left Spain, and, as fate ordered it,
for twelve years, the most eventful ones of his life. Giulio, afterwards
Cardinal, Acquaviva had been sent at the end of 1568 to Philip II by the
Pope on a mission, partly of condolence, partly political, and on his
return to Rome, which was somewhat brusquely expedited by the King, he
took Cervantes with him as his camarero (chamberlain), the office he
himself held in the Pope's household. The post would no doubt have led to
advancement at the Papal Court had Cervantes retained it, but in the
summer of 1570 he resigned it and enlisted as a private soldier in
Captain Diego Urbina's company, belonging to Don Miguel de Moncada's
regiment, but at that time forming a part of the command of Marc Antony
Colonna. What impelled him to this step we know not, whether it was
distaste for the career before him, or purely military enthusiasm. It may
well have been the latter, for it was a stirring time; the events,
however, which led to the alliance between Spain, Venice, and the Pope,
against the common enemy, the Porte, and to the victory of the combined
fleets at Lepanto, belong rather to the history of Europe than to the
life of Cervantes. He was one of those that sailed from Messina, in
September 1571, under the command of Don John of Austria; but on the
morning of the 7th of October, when the Turkish fleet was sighted, he was
lying below ill with fever. At the news that the enemy was in sight he
rose, and, in spite of the remonstrances of his comrades and superiors,
insisted on taking his post, saying he preferred death in the service of
God and the King to health. His galley, the Marquesa, was in the thick of
the fight, and before it was over he had received three gunshot wounds,
two in the breast and one in the left hand or arm. On the morning after
the battle, according to Navarrete, he had an interview with the
commander-in-chief, Don John, who was making a personal inspection of the
wounded, one result of which was an addition of three crowns to his pay,
and another, apparently, the friendship of his general.

How severely Cervantes was wounded may be inferred from the fact, that
with youth, a vigorous frame, and as cheerful and buoyant a temperament
as ever invalid had, he was seven months in hospital at Messina before he
was discharged. He came out with his left hand permanently disabled; he
had lost the use of it, as Mercury told him in the "Viaje del Parnaso"
for the greater glory of the right. This, however, did not absolutely
unfit him for service, and in April 1572 he joined Manuel Ponce de Leon's
company of Lope de Figueroa's regiment, in which, it seems probable, his
brother Rodrigo was serving, and shared in the operations of the next
three years, including the capture of the Goletta and Tunis. Taking
advantage of the lull which followed the recapture of these places by the
Turks, he obtained leave to return to Spain, and sailed from Naples in
September 1575 on board the Sun galley, in company with his brother
Rodrigo, Pedro Carrillo de Quesada, late Governor of the Goletta, and
some others, and furnished with letters from Don John of Austria and the
Duke of Sesa, the Viceroy of Sicily, recommending him to the King for the
command of a company, on account of his services; a dono infelice as
events proved. On the 26th they fell in with a squadron of Algerine
galleys, and after a stout resistance were overpowered and carried into
Algiers.

By means of a ransomed fellow-captive the brothers contrived to inform
their family of their condition, and the poor people at Alcala at once
strove to raise the ransom money, the father disposing of all he
possessed, and the two sisters giving up their marriage portions. But
Dali Mami had found on Cervantes the letters addressed to the King by Don
John and the Duke of Sesa, and, concluding that his prize must be a
person of great consequence, when the money came he refused it scornfully
as being altogether insufficient. The owner of Rodrigo, however, was more
easily satisfied; ransom was accepted in his case, and it was arranged
between the brothers that he should return to Spain and procure a vessel
in which he was to come back to Algiers and take off Miguel and as many
of their comrades as possible. This was not the first attempt to escape
that Cervantes had made. Soon after the commencement of his captivity he
induced several of his companions to join him in trying to reach Oran,
then a Spanish post, on foot; but after the first day's journey, the Moor
who had agreed to act as their guide deserted them, and they had no
choice but to return. The second attempt was more disastrous. In a garden
outside the city on the sea-shore, he constructed, with the help of the
gardener, a Spaniard, a hiding-place, to which he brought, one by one,
fourteen of his fellow-captives, keeping them there in secrecy for
several months, and supplying them with food through a renegade known as
El Dorador, "the Gilder." How he, a captive himself, contrived to do all
this, is one of the mysteries of the story. Wild as the project may
appear, it was very nearly successful. The vessel procured by Rodrigo
made its appearance off the coast, and under cover of night was
proceeding to take off the refugees, when the crew were alarmed by a
passing fishing boat, and beat a hasty retreat. On renewing the attempt
shortly afterwards, they, or a portion of them at least, were taken
prisoners, and just as the poor fellows in the garden were exulting in
the thought that in a few moments more freedom would be within their
grasp, they found themselves surrounded by Turkish troops, horse and
foot. The Dorador had revealed the whole scheme to the Dey Hassan.

When Cervantes saw what had befallen them, he charged his companions to
lay all the blame upon him, and as they were being bound he declared
aloud that the whole plot was of his contriving, and that nobody else had
any share in it. Brought before the Dey, he said the same. He was
threatened with impalement and with torture; and as cutting off ears and
noses were playful freaks with the Algerines, it may be conceived what
their tortures were like; but nothing could make him swerve from his
original statement that he and he alone was responsible. The upshot was
that the unhappy gardener was hanged by his master, and the prisoners
taken possession of by the Dey, who, however, afterwards restored most of
them to their masters, but kept Cervantes, paying Dali Mami 500 crowns
for him. He felt, no doubt, that a man of such resource, energy, and
daring, was too dangerous a piece of property to be left in private
hands; and he had him heavily ironed and lodged in his own prison. If he
thought that by these means he could break the spirit or shake the
resolution of his prisoner, he was soon undeceived, for Cervantes
contrived before long to despatch a letter to the Governor of Oran,
entreating him to send him some one that could be trusted, to enable him
and three other gentlemen, fellow-captives of his, to make their escape;
intending evidently to renew his first attempt with a more trustworthy
guide. Unfortunately the Moor who carried the letter was stopped just
outside Oran, and the letter being found upon him, he was sent back to
Algiers, where by the order of the Dey he was promptly impaled as a
warning to others, while Cervantes was condemned to receive two thousand
blows of the stick, a number which most likely would have deprived the
world of "Don Quixote," had not some persons, who they were we know not,
interceded on his behalf.

After this he seems to have been kept in still closer confinement than
before, for nearly two years passed before he made another attempt. This
time his plan was to purchase, by the aid of a Spanish renegade and two
Valencian merchants resident in Algiers, an armed vessel in which he and
about sixty of the leading captives were to make their escape; but just
as they were about to put it into execution one Doctor Juan Blanco de
Paz, an ecclesiastic and a compatriot, informed the Dey of the plot.
Cervantes by force of character, by his self-devotion, by his untiring
energy and his exertions to lighten the lot of his companions in misery,
had endeared himself to all, and become the leading spirit in the captive
colony, and, incredible as it may seem, jealousy of his influence and the
esteem in which he was held, moved this man to compass his destruction by
a cruel death. The merchants finding that the Dey knew all, and fearing
that Cervantes under torture might make disclosures that would imperil
their own lives, tried to persuade him to slip away on board a vessel
that was on the point of sailing for Spain; but he told them they had
nothing to fear, for no tortures would make him compromise anybody, and
he went at once and gave himself up to the Dey.

As before, the Dey tried to force him to name his accomplices. Everything
was made ready for his immediate execution; the halter was put round his
neck and his hands tied behind him, but all that could be got from him
was that he himself, with the help of four gentlemen who had since left
Algiers, had arranged the whole, and that the sixty who were to accompany
him were not to know anything of it until the last moment. Finding he
could make nothing of him, the Dey sent him back to prison more heavily
ironed than before.

The poverty-stricken Cervantes family had been all this time trying once
more to raise the ransom money, and at last a sum of three hundred ducats
was got together and entrusted to the Redemptorist Father Juan Gil, who
was about to sail for Algiers. The Dey, however, demanded more than
double the sum offered, and as his term of office had expired and he was
about to sail for Constantinople, taking all his slaves with him, the
case of Cervantes was critical. He was already on board heavily ironed,
when the Dey at length agreed to reduce his demand by one-half, and
Father Gil by borrowing was able to make up the amount, and on September
19, 1580, after a captivity of five years all but a week, Cervantes was
at last set free. Before long he discovered that Blanco de Paz, who
claimed to be an officer of the Inquisition, was now concocting on false
evidence a charge of misconduct to be brought against him on his return
to Spain. To checkmate him Cervantes drew up a series of twenty-five
questions, covering the whole period of his captivity, upon which he
requested Father Gil to take the depositions of credible witnesses before
a notary. Eleven witnesses taken from among the principal captives in
Algiers deposed to all the facts above stated and to a great deal more
besides. There is something touching in the admiration, love, and
gratitude we see struggling to find expression in the formal language of
the notary, as they testify one after another to the good deeds of
Cervantes, how he comforted and helped the weak-hearted, how he kept up
their drooping courage, how he shared his poor purse with this deponent,
and how "in him this deponent found father and mother."

On his return to Spain he found his old regiment about to march for
Portugal to support Philip's claim to the crown, and utterly penniless
now, had no choice but to rejoin it. He was in the expeditions to the
Azores in 1582 and the following year, and on the conclusion of the war
returned to Spain in the autumn of 1583, bringing with him the manuscript
of his pastoral romance, the "Galatea," and probably also, to judge by
internal evidence, that of the first portion of "Persiles and
Sigismunda." He also brought back with him, his biographers assert, an
infant daughter, the offspring of an amour, as some of them with great
circumstantiality inform us, with a Lisbon lady of noble birth, whose
name, however, as well as that of the street she lived in, they omit to
mention. The sole foundation for all this is that in 1605 there certainly
was living in the family of Cervantes a Dona Isabel de Saavedra, who is
described in an official document as his natural daughter, and then
twenty years of age.

With his crippled left hand promotion in the army was hopeless, now that
Don John was dead and he had no one to press his claims and services, and
for a man drawing on to forty life in the ranks was a dismal prospect; he
had already a certain reputation as a poet; he made up his mind,
therefore, to cast his lot with literature, and for a first venture
committed his "Galatea" to the press. It was published, as Salva y Mallen
shows conclusively, at Alcala, his own birth-place, in 1585 and no doubt
helped to make his name more widely known, but certainly did not do him
much good in any other way.

While it was going through the press, he married Dona Catalina de
Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano, a lady of Esquivias near Madrid, and
apparently a friend of the family, who brought him a fortune which may
possibly have served to keep the wolf from the door, but if so, that was
all. The drama had by this time outgrown market-place stages and
strolling companies, and with his old love for it he naturally turned to
it for a congenial employment. In about three years he wrote twenty or
thirty plays, which he tells us were performed without any throwing of
cucumbers or other missiles, and ran their course without any hisses,
outcries, or disturbance. In other words, his plays were not bad enough
to be hissed off the stage, but not good enough to hold their own upon
it. Only two of them have been preserved, but as they happen to be two of
the seven or eight he mentions with complacency, we may assume they are
favourable specimens, and no one who reads the "Numancia" and the "Trato
de Argel" will feel any surprise that they failed as acting dramas.
Whatever merits they may have, whatever occasional they may show, they
are, as regards construction, incurably clumsy. How completely they
failed is manifest from the fact that with all his sanguine temperament
and indomitable perseverance he was unable to maintain the struggle to
gain a livelihood as a dramatist for more than three years; nor was the
rising popularity of Lope the cause, as is often said, notwithstanding
his own words to the contrary. When Lope began to write for the stage is
uncertain, but it was certainly after Cervantes went to Seville.

Among the "Nuevos Documentos" printed by Senor Asensio y Toledo is one
dated 1592, and curiously characteristic of Cervantes. It is an agreement
with one Rodrigo Osorio, a manager, who was to accept six comedies at
fifty ducats (about 6l.) apiece, not to be paid in any case unless it
appeared on representation that the said comedy was one of the best that
had ever been represented in Spain. The test does not seem to have been
ever applied; perhaps it was sufficiently apparent to Rodrigo Osorio that
the comedies were not among the best that had ever been represented.
Among the correspondence of Cervantes there might have been found, no
doubt, more than one letter like that we see in the "Rake's Progress,"
"Sir, I have read your play, and it will not doo."

He was more successful in a literary contest at Saragossa in 1595 in
honour of the canonisation of St. Jacinto, when his composition won the
first prize, three silver spoons. The year before this he had been
appointed a collector of revenues for the kingdom of Granada. In order to
remit the money he had collected more conveniently to the treasury, he
entrusted it to a merchant, who failed and absconded; and as the
bankrupt's assets were insufficient to cover the whole, he was sent to
prison at Seville in September 1597. The balance against him, however,
was a small one, about 26l., and on giving security for it he was
released at the end of the year.

It was as he journeyed from town to town collecting the king's taxes,
that he noted down those bits of inn and wayside life and character that
abound in the pages of "Don Quixote:" the Benedictine monks with
spectacles and sunshades, mounted on their tall mules; the strollers in
costume bound for the next village; the barber with his basin on his
head, on his way to bleed a patient; the recruit with his breeches in his
bundle, tramping along the road singing; the reapers gathered in the
venta gateway listening to "Felixmarte of Hircania" read out to them; and
those little Hogarthian touches that he so well knew how to bring in, the
ox-tail hanging up with the landlord's comb stuck in it, the wine-skins
at the bed-head, and those notable examples of hostelry art, Helen going
off in high spirits on Paris's arm, and Dido on the tower dropping tears
as big as walnuts. Nay, it may well be that on those journeys into remote
regions he came across now and then a specimen of the pauper gentleman,
with his lean hack and his greyhound and his books of chivalry, dreaming
away his life in happy ignorance that the world had changed since his
great-grandfather's old helmet was new. But it was in Seville that he
found out his true vocation, though he himself would not by any means
have admitted it to be so. It was there, in Triana, that he was first
tempted to try his hand at drawing from life, and first brought his
humour into play in the exquisite little sketch of "Rinconete y
Cortadillo," the germ, in more ways than one, of "Don Quixote."

Where and when that was written, we cannot tell. After his imprisonment
all trace of Cervantes in his official capacity disappears, from which it
may be inferred that he was not reinstated. That he was still in Seville
in November 1598 appears from a satirical sonnet of his on the elaborate
catafalque erected to testify the grief of the city at the death of
Philip II, but from this up to 1603 we have no clue to his movements. The
words in the preface to the First Part of "Don Quixote" are generally
held to be conclusive that he conceived the idea of the book, and wrote
the beginning of it at least, in a prison, and that he may have done so
is extremely likely.

There is a tradition that Cervantes read some portions of his work to a
select audience at the Duke of Bejar's, which may have helped to make the
book known; but the obvious conclusion is that the First Part of "Don
Quixote" lay on his hands some time before he could find a publisher bold
enough to undertake a venture of so novel a character; and so little
faith in it had Francisco Robles of Madrid, to whom at last he sold it,
that he did not care to incur the expense of securing the copyright for
Aragon or Portugal, contenting himself with that for Castile. The
printing was finished in December, and the book came out with the new
year, 1605. It is often said that "Don Quixote" was at first received
coldly. The facts show just the contrary. No sooner was it in the hands
of the public than preparations were made to issue pirated editions at
Lisbon and Valencia, and to bring out a second edition with the
additional copyrights for Aragon and Portugal, which he secured in
February.

No doubt it was received with something more than coldness by certain
sections of the community. Men of wit, taste, and discrimination among
the aristocracy gave it a hearty welcome, but the aristocracy in general
were not likely to relish a book that turned their favourite reading into
ridicule and laughed at so many of their favourite ideas. The dramatists
who gathered round Lope as their leader regarded Cervantes as their
common enemy, and it is plain that he was equally obnoxious to the other
clique, the culto poets who had Gongora for their chief. Navarrete, who
knew nothing of the letter above mentioned, tries hard to show that the
relations between Cervantes and Lope were of a very friendly sort, as
indeed they were until "Don Quixote" was written. Cervantes, indeed, to
the last generously and manfully declared his admiration of Lope's
powers, his unfailing invention, and his marvellous fertility; but in the
preface of the First Part of "Don Quixote" and in the verses of "Urganda
the Unknown," and one or two other places, there are, if we read between
the lines, sly hits at Lope's vanities and affectations that argue no
personal good-will; and Lope openly sneers at "Don Quixote" and
Cervantes, and fourteen years after his death gives him only a few lines
of cold commonplace in the "Laurel de Apolo," that seem all the colder
for the eulogies of a host of nonentities whose names are found nowhere
else.

In 1601 Valladolid was made the seat of the Court, and at the beginning
of 1603 Cervantes had been summoned thither in connection with the
balance due by him to the Treasury, which was still outstanding. He
remained at Valladolid, apparently supporting himself by agencies and
scrivener's work of some sort; probably drafting petitions and drawing up
statements of claims to be presented to the Council, and the like. So, at
least, we gather from the depositions taken on the occasion of the death
of a gentleman, the victim of a street brawl, who had been carried into
the house in which he lived. In these he himself is described as a man
who wrote and transacted business, and it appears that his household then
consisted of his wife, the natural daughter Isabel de Saavedra already
mentioned, his sister Andrea, now a widow, her daughter Constanza, a
mysterious Magdalena de Sotomayor calling herself his sister, for whom
his biographers cannot account, and a servant-maid.

Meanwhile "Don Quixote" had been growing in favour, and its author's name
was now known beyond the Pyrenees. In 1607 an edition was printed at
Brussels. Robles, the Madrid publisher, found it necessary to meet the
demand by a third edition, the seventh in all, in 1608. The popularity of
the book in Italy was such that a Milan bookseller was led to bring out
an edition in 1610; and another was called for in Brussels in 1611. It
might naturally have been expected that, with such proofs before him that
he had hit the taste of the public, Cervantes would have at once set
about redeeming his rather vague promise of a second volume.

But, to all appearance, nothing was farther from his thoughts. He had
still by him one or two short tales of the same vintage as those he had
inserted in "Don Quixote" and instead of continuing the adventures of Don
Quixote, he set to work to write more of these "Novelas Exemplares" as he
afterwards called them, with a view to making a book of them.

The novels were published in the summer of 1613, with a dedication to the
Conde de Lemos, the Maecenas of the day, and with one of those chatty
confidential prefaces Cervantes was so fond of. In this, eight years and
a half after the First Part of "Don Quixote" had appeared, we get the
first hint of a forthcoming Second Part. "You shall see shortly," he
says, "the further exploits of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza."
His idea of "shortly" was a somewhat elastic one, for, as we know by the
date to Sancho's letter, he had barely one-half of the book completed
that time twelvemonth.

But more than poems, or pastorals, or novels, it was his dramatic
ambition that engrossed his thoughts. The same indomitable spirit that
kept him from despair in the bagnios of Algiers, and prompted him to
attempt the escape of himself and his comrades again and again, made him
persevere in spite of failure and discouragement in his efforts to win
the ear of the public as a dramatist. The temperament of Cervantes was
essentially sanguine. The portrait he draws in the preface to the novels,
with the aquiline features, chestnut hair, smooth untroubled forehead,
and bright cheerful eyes, is the very portrait of a sanguine man. Nothing
that the managers might say could persuade him that the merits of his
plays would not be recognised at last if they were only given a fair
chance. The old soldier of the Spanish Salamis was bent on being the
Aeschylus of Spain. He was to found a great national drama, based on the
true principles of art, that was to be the envy of all nations; he was to
drive from the stage the silly, childish plays, the "mirrors of nonsense
and models of folly" that were in vogue through the cupidity of the
managers and shortsightedness of the authors; he was to correct and
educate the public taste until it was ripe for tragedies on the model of
the Greek drama--like the "Numancia" for instance--and comedies that
would not only amuse but improve and instruct. All this he was to do,
could he once get a hearing: there was the initial difficulty.

He shows plainly enough, too, that "Don Quixote" and the demolition of
the chivalry romances was not the work that lay next his heart. He was,
indeed, as he says himself in his preface, more a stepfather than a
father to "Don Quixote." Never was great work so neglected by its author.
That it was written carelessly, hastily, and by fits and starts, was not
always his fault, but it seems clear he never read what he sent to the
press. He knew how the printers had blundered, but he never took the
trouble to correct them when the third edition was in progress, as a man
who really cared for the child of his brain would have done. He appears
to have regarded the book as little more than a mere libro de
entretenimiento, an amusing book, a thing, as he says in the "Viaje," "to
divert the melancholy moody heart at any time or season." No doubt he had
an affection for his hero, and was very proud of Sancho Panza. It would
have been strange indeed if he had not been proud of the most humorous
creation in all fiction. He was proud, too, of the popularity and success
of the book, and beyond measure delightful is the naivete with which he
shows his pride in a dozen passages in the Second Part. But it was not
the success he coveted. In all probability he would have given all the
success of "Don Quixote," nay, would have seen every copy of "Don
Quixote" burned in the Plaza Mayor, for one such success as Lope de Vega
was enjoying on an average once a week.

And so he went on, dawdling over "Don Quixote," adding a chapter now and
again, and putting it aside to turn to "Persiles and Sigismunda"--which,
as we know, was to be the most entertaining book in the language, and the
rival of "Theagenes and Chariclea"--or finishing off one of his darling
comedies; and if Robles asked when "Don Quixote" would be ready, the
answer no doubt was: En breve-shortly, there was time enough for that. At
sixty-eight he was as full of life and hope and plans for the future as a
boy of eighteen.

Nemesis was coming, however. He had got as far as Chapter LIX, which at
his leisurely pace he could hardly have reached before October or
November 1614, when there was put into his hand a small octave lately
printed at Tarragona, and calling itself "Second Volume of the Ingenious
Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: by the Licentiate Alonso Fernandez de
Avellaneda of Tordesillas." The last half of Chapter LIX and most of the
following chapters of the Second Part give us some idea of the effect
produced upon him, and his irritation was not likely to be lessened by
the reflection that he had no one to blame but himself. Had Avellaneda,
in fact, been content with merely bringing out a continuation to "Don
Quixote," Cervantes would have had no reasonable grievance. His own
intentions were expressed in the very vaguest language at the end of the
book; nay, in his last words, "forse altro cantera con miglior plettro,"
he seems actually to invite some one else to continue the work, and he
made no sign until eight years and a half had gone by; by which time
Avellaneda's volume was no doubt written.

In fact Cervantes had no case, or a very bad one, as far as the mere
continuation was concerned. But Avellaneda chose to write a preface to
it, full of such coarse personal abuse as only an ill-conditioned man
could pour out. He taunts Cervantes with being old, with having lost his
hand, with having been in prison, with being poor, with being friendless,
accuses him of envy of Lope's success, of petulance and querulousness,
and so on; and it was in this that the sting lay. Avellaneda's reason for
this personal attack is obvious enough. Whoever he may have been, it is
clear that he was one of the dramatists of Lope's school, for he has the
impudence to charge Cervantes with attacking him as well as Lope in his
criticism on the drama. His identification has exercised the best critics
and baffled all the ingenuity and research that has been brought to bear
on it. Navarrete and Ticknor both incline to the belief that Cervantes
knew who he was; but I must say I think the anger he shows suggests an
invisible assailant; it is like the irritation of a man stung by a
mosquito in the dark. Cervantes from certain solecisms of language
pronounces him to be an Aragonese, and Pellicer, an Aragonese himself,
supports this view and believes him, moreover, to have been an
ecclesiastic, a Dominican probably.

Any merit Avellaneda has is reflected from Cervantes, and he is too dull
to reflect much. "Dull and dirty" will always be, I imagine, the verdict
of the vast majority of unprejudiced readers. He is, at best, a poor
plagiarist; all he can do is to follow slavishly the lead given him by
Cervantes; his only humour lies in making Don Quixote take inns for
castles and fancy himself some legendary or historical personage, and
Sancho mistake words, invert proverbs, and display his gluttony; all
through he shows a proclivity to coarseness and dirt, and he has
contrived to introduce two tales filthier than anything by the sixteenth
century novellieri and without their sprightliness.

But whatever Avellaneda and his book may be, we must not forget the debt
we owe them. But for them, there can be no doubt, "Don Quixote" would
have come to us a mere torso instead of a complete work. Even if
Cervantes had finished the volume he had in hand, most assuredly he would
have left off with a promise of a Third Part, giving the further
adventures of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza as shepherds. It is
plain that he had at one time an intention of dealing with the pastoral
romances as he had dealt with the books of chivalry, and but for
Avellaneda he would have tried to carry it out. But it is more likely
that, with his plans, and projects, and hopefulness, the volume would
have remained unfinished till his death, and that we should have never
made the acquaintance of the Duke and Duchess, or gone with Sancho to
Barataria.

From the moment the book came into his hands he seems to have been
haunted by the fear that there might be more Avellanedas in the field,
and putting everything else aside, he set himself to finish off his task
and protect Don Quixote in the only way he could, by killing him. The
conclusion is no doubt a hasty and in some places clumsy piece of work
and the frequent repetition of the scolding administered to Avellaneda
becomes in the end rather wearisome; but it is, at any rate, a conclusion
and for that we must thank Avellaneda.

The new volume was ready for the press in February, but was not printed
till the very end of 1615, and during the interval Cervantes put together
the comedies and interludes he had written within the last few years,
and, as he adds plaintively, found no demand for among the managers, and
published them with a preface, worth the book it introduces tenfold, in
which he gives an account of the early Spanish stage, and of his own
attempts as a dramatist. It is needless to say they were put forward by
Cervantes in all good faith and full confidence in their merits. The
reader, however, was not to suppose they were his last word or final
effort in the drama, for he had in hand a comedy called "Engano a los
ojos," about which, if he mistook not, there would be no question.

Of this dramatic masterpiece the world has no opportunity of judging; his
health had been failing for some time, and he died, apparently of dropsy,
on the 23rd of April, 1616, the day on which England lost Shakespeare,
nominally at least, for the English calendar had not yet been reformed.
He died as he had lived, accepting his lot bravely and cheerfully.

Was it an unhappy life, that of Cervantes? His biographers all tell us
that it was; but I must say I doubt it. It was a hard life, a life of
poverty, of incessant struggle, of toil ill paid, of disappointment, but
Cervantes carried within himself the antidote to all these evils. His was
not one of those light natures that rise above adversity merely by virtue
of their own buoyancy; it was in the fortitude of a high spirit that he
was proof against it. It is impossible to conceive Cervantes giving way
to despondency or prostrated by dejection. As for poverty, it was with
him a thing to be laughed over, and the only sigh he ever allows to
escape him is when he says, "Happy he to whom Heaven has given a piece of
bread for which he is not bound to give thanks to any but Heaven itself."
Add to all this his vital energy and mental activity, his restless
invention and his sanguine temperament, and there will be reason enough
to doubt whether his could have been a very unhappy life. He who could
take Cervantes' distresses together with his apparatus for enduring them
would not make so bad a bargain, perhaps, as far as happiness in life is
concerned.

Of his burial-place nothing is known except that he was buried, in
accordance with his will, in the neighbouring convent of Trinitarian
nuns, of which it is supposed his daughter, Isabel de Saavedra, was an
inmate, and that a few years afterwards the nuns removed to another
convent, carrying their dead with them. But whether the remains of
Cervantes were included in the removal or not no one knows, and the clue
to their resting-place is now lost beyond all hope. This furnishes
perhaps the least defensible of the items in the charge of neglect
brought against his contemporaries. In some of the others there is a good
deal of exaggeration. To listen to most of his biographers one would
suppose that all Spain was in league not only against the man but against
his memory, or at least that it was insensible to his merits, and left
him to live in misery and die of want. To talk of his hard life and
unworthy employments in Andalusia is absurd. What had he done to
distinguish him from thousands of other struggling men earning a
precarious livelihood? True, he was a gallant soldier, who had been
wounded and had undergone captivity and suffering in his country's cause,
but there were hundreds of others in the same case. He had written a
mediocre specimen of an insipid class of romance, and some plays which
manifestly did not comply with the primary condition of pleasing: were
the playgoers to patronise plays that did not amuse them, because the
author was to produce "Don Quixote" twenty years afterwards?

The scramble for copies which, as we have seen, followed immediately on
the appearance of the book, does not look like general insensibility to
its merits. No doubt it was received coldly by some, but if a man writes
a book in ridicule of periwigs he must make his account with being coldly
received by the periwig wearers and hated by the whole tribe of
wigmakers. If Cervantes had the chivalry-romance readers, the
sentimentalists, the dramatists, and the poets of the period all against
him, it was because "Don Quixote" was what it was; and if the general
public did not come forward to make him comfortable for the rest of his
days, it is no more to be charged with neglect and ingratitude than the
English-speaking public that did not pay off Scott's liabilities. It did
the best it could; it read his book and liked it and bought it, and
encouraged the bookseller to pay him well for others.

It has been also made a reproach to Spain that she has erected no
monument to the man she is proudest of; no monument, that is to say, of
him; for the bronze statue in the little garden of the Plaza de las
Cortes, a fair work of art no doubt, and unexceptionable had it been set
up to the local poet in the market-place of some provincial town, is not
worthy of Cervantes or of Madrid. But what need has Cervantes of "such
weak witness of his name;" or what could a monument do in his case except
testify to the self-glorification of those who had put it up? Si
monumentum quoeris, circumspice. The nearest bookseller's shop will show
what bathos there would be in a monument to the author of "Don Quixote."

Nine editions of the First Part of "Don Quixote" had already appeared
before Cervantes died, thirty thousand copies in all, according to his
own estimate, and a tenth was printed at Barcelona the year after his
death. So large a number naturally supplied the demand for some time, but
by 1634 it appears to have been exhausted; and from that time down to the
present day the stream of editions has continued to flow rapidly and
regularly. The translations show still more clearly in what request the
book has been from the very outset. In seven years from the completion of
the work it had been translated into the four leading languages of
Europe. Except the Bible, in fact, no book has been so widely diffused as
"Don Quixote." The "Imitatio Christi" may have been translated into as
many different languages, and perhaps "Robinson Crusoe" and the "Vicar of
Wakefield" into nearly as many, but in multiplicity of translations and
editions "Don Quixote" leaves them all far behind.

Still more remarkable is the character of this wide diffusion. "Don
Quixote" has been thoroughly naturalised among people whose ideas about
knight-errantry, if they had any at all, were of the vaguest, who had
never seen or heard of a book of chivalry, who could not possibly feel
the humour of the burlesque or sympathise with the author's purpose.
Another curious fact is that this, the most cosmopolitan book in the
world, is one of the most intensely national. "Manon Lescaut" is not more
thoroughly French, "Tom Jones" not more English, "Rob Roy" not more
Scotch, than "Don Quixote" is Spanish, in character, in ideas, in
sentiment, in local colour, in everything. What, then, is the secret of
this unparalleled popularity, increasing year by year for well-nigh three
centuries? One explanation, no doubt, is that of all the books in the
world, "Don Quixote" is the most catholic. There is something in it for
every sort of reader, young or old, sage or simple, high or low. As
Cervantes himself says with a touch of pride, "It is thumbed and read and
got by heart by people of all sorts; the children turn its leaves, the
young people read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk praise
it."

But it would be idle to deny that the ingredient which, more than its
humour, or its wisdom, or the fertility of invention or knowledge of
human nature it displays, has insured its success with the multitude, is
the vein of farce that runs through it. It was the attack upon the sheep,
the battle with the wine-skins, Mambrino's helmet, the balsam of
Fierabras, Don Quixote knocked over by the sails of the windmill, Sancho
tossed in the blanket, the mishaps and misadventures of master and man,
that were originally the great attraction, and perhaps are so still to
some extent with the majority of readers. It is plain that "Don Quixote"
was generally regarded at first, and indeed in Spain for a long time, as
little more than a queer droll book, full of laughable incidents and
absurd situations, very amusing, but not entitled to much consideration
or care. All the editions printed in Spain from 1637 to 1771, when the
famous printer Ibarra took it up, were mere trade editions, badly and
carelessly printed on vile paper and got up in the style of chap-books
intended only for popular use, with, in most instances, uncouth
illustrations and clap-trap additions by the publisher.

To England belongs the credit of having been the first country to
recognise the right of "Don Quixote" to better treatment than this. The
London edition of 1738, commonly called Lord Carteret's from having been
suggested by him, was not a mere edition de luxe. It produced "Don
Quixote" in becoming form as regards paper and type, and embellished with
plates which, if not particularly happy as illustrations, were at least
well intentioned and well executed, but it also aimed at correctness of
text, a matter to which nobody except the editors of the Valencia and
Brussels editions had given even a passing thought; and for a first
attempt it was fairly successful, for though some of its emendations are
inadmissible, a good many of them have been adopted by all subsequent
editors.

The zeal of publishers, editors, and annotators brought about a
remarkable change of sentiment with regard to "Don Quixote." A vast
number of its admirers began to grow ashamed of laughing over it. It
became almost a crime to treat it as a humorous book. The humour was not
entirely denied, but, according to the new view, it was rated as an
altogether secondary quality, a mere accessory, nothing more than the
stalking-horse under the presentation of which Cervantes shot his
philosophy or his satire, or whatever it was he meant to shoot; for on
this point opinions varied. All were agreed, however, that the object he
aimed at was not the books of chivalry. He said emphatically in the
preface to the First Part and in the last sentence of the Second, that he
had no other object in view than to discredit these books, and this, to
advanced criticism, made it clear that his object must have been
something else.

One theory was that the book was a kind of allegory, setting forth the
eternal struggle between the ideal and the real, between the spirit of
poetry and the spirit of prose; and perhaps German philosophy never
evolved a more ungainly or unlikely camel out of the depths of its inner
consciousness. Something of the antagonism, no doubt, is to be found in
"Don Quixote," because it is to be found everywhere in life, and
Cervantes drew from life. It is difficult to imagine a community in which
the never-ceasing game of cross-purposes between Sancho Panza and Don
Quixote would not be recognized as true to nature. In the stone age,
among the lake dwellers, among the cave men, there were Don Quixotes and
Sancho Panzas; there must have been the troglodyte who never could see
the facts before his eyes, and the troglodyte who could see nothing else.
But to suppose Cervantes deliberately setting himself to expound any such
idea in two stout quarto volumes is to suppose something not only very
unlike the age in which he lived, but altogether unlike Cervantes
himself, who would have been the first to laugh at an attempt of the sort
made by anyone else.

The extraordinary influence of the romances of chivalry in his day is
quite enough to account for the genesis of the book. Some idea of the
prodigious development of this branch of literature in the sixteenth
century may be obtained from the scrutiny of Chapter VII, if the reader
bears in mind that only a portion of the romances belonging to by far the
largest group are enumerated. As to its effect upon the nation, there is
abundant evidence. From the time when the Amadises and Palmerins began to
grow popular down to the very end of the century, there is a steady
stream of invective, from men whose character and position lend weight to
their words, against the romances of chivalry and the infatuation of
their readers. Ridicule was the only besom to sweep away that dust.

That this was the task Cervantes set himself, and that he had ample
provocation to urge him to it, will be sufficiently clear to those who
look into the evidence; as it will be also that it was not chivalry
itself that he attacked and swept away. Of all the absurdities that,
thanks to poetry, will be repeated to the end of time, there is no
greater one than saying that "Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away." In
the first place there was no chivalry for him to smile away. Spain's
chivalry had been dead for more than a century. Its work was done when
Granada fell, and as chivalry was essentially republican in its nature,
it could not live under the rule that Ferdinand substituted for the free
institutions of mediaeval Spain. What he did smile away was not chivalry
but a degrading mockery of it.

The true nature of the "right arm" and the "bright array," before which,
according to the poet, "the world gave ground," and which Cervantes'
single laugh demolished, may be gathered from the words of one of his own
countrymen, Don Felix Pacheco, as reported by Captain George Carleton, in
his "Military Memoirs from 1672 to 1713." "Before the appearance in the
world of that labour of Cervantes," he said, "it was next to an
impossibility for a man to walk the streets with any delight or without
danger. There were seen so many cavaliers prancing and curvetting before
the windows of their mistresses, that a stranger would have imagined the
whole nation to have been nothing less than a race of knight-errants. But
after the world became a little acquainted with that notable history, the
man that was seen in that once celebrated drapery was pointed at as a Don
Quixote, and found himself the jest of high and low. And I verily believe
that to this, and this only, we owe that dampness and poverty of spirit
which has run through all our councils for a century past, so little
agreeable to those nobler actions of our famous ancestors."

To call "Don Quixote" a sad book, preaching a pessimist view of life,
argues a total misconception of its drift. It would be so if its moral
were that, in this world, true enthusiasm naturally leads to ridicule and
discomfiture. But it preaches nothing of the sort; its moral, so far as
it can be said to have one, is that the spurious enthusiasm that is born
of vanity and self-conceit, that is made an end in itself, not a means to
an end, that acts on mere impulse, regardless of circumstances and
consequences, is mischievous to its owner, and a very considerable
nuisance to the community at large. To those who cannot distinguish
between the one kind and the other, no doubt "Don Quixote" is a sad book;
no doubt to some minds it is very sad that a man who had just uttered so
beautiful a sentiment as that "it is a hard case to make slaves of those
whom God and Nature made free," should be ungratefully pelted by the
scoundrels his crazy philanthropy had let loose on society; but to others
of a more judicial cast it will be a matter of regret that reckless
self-sufficient enthusiasm is not oftener requited in some such way for
all the mischief it does in the world.

A very slight examination of the structure of "Don Quixote" will suffice
to show that Cervantes had no deep design or elaborate plan in his mind
when he began the book. When he wrote those lines in which "with a few
strokes of a great master he sets before us the pauper gentleman," he had
no idea of the goal to which his imagination was leading him. There can
be little doubt that all he contemplated was a short tale to range with
those he had already written, a tale setting forth the ludicrous results
that might be expected to follow the attempt of a crazy gentleman to act
the part of a knight-errant in modern life.

It is plain, for one thing, that Sancho Panza did not enter into the
original scheme, for had Cervantes thought of him he certainly would not
have omitted him in his hero's outfit, which he obviously meant to be
complete. Him we owe to the landlord's chance remark in Chapter III that
knights seldom travelled without squires. To try to think of a Don
Quixote without Sancho Panza is like trying to think of a one-bladed pair
of scissors.

The story was written at first, like the others, without any division and
without the intervention of Cide Hamete Benengeli; and it seems not
unlikely that Cervantes had some intention of bringing Dulcinea, or
Aldonza Lorenzo, on the scene in person. It was probably the ransacking
of the Don's library and the discussion on the books of chivalry that
first suggested it to him that his idea was capable of development. What,
if instead of a mere string of farcical misadventures, he were to make
his tale a burlesque of one of these books, caricaturing their style,
incidents, and spirit?

In pursuance of this change of plan, he hastily and somewhat clumsily
divided what he had written into chapters on the model of "Amadis,"
invented the fable of a mysterious Arabic manuscript, and set up Cide
Hamete Benengeli in imitation of the almost invariable practice of the
chivalry-romance authors, who were fond of tracing their books to some
recondite source. In working out the new ideas, he soon found the value
of Sancho Panza. Indeed, the keynote, not only to Sancho's part, but to
the whole book, is struck in the first words Sancho utters when he
announces his intention of taking his ass with him. "About the ass," we
are told, "Don Quixote hesitated a little, trying whether he could call
to mind any knight-errant taking with him an esquire mounted on ass-back;
but no instance occurred to his memory." We can see the whole scene at a
glance, the stolid unconsciousness of Sancho and the perplexity of his
master, upon whose perception the incongruity has just forced itself.
This is Sancho's mission throughout the book; he is an unconscious
Mephistopheles, always unwittingly making mockery of his master's
aspirations, always exposing the fallacy of his ideas by some
unintentional ad absurdum, always bringing him back to the world of fact
and commonplace by force of sheer stolidity.

By the time Cervantes had got his volume of novels off his hands, and
summoned up resolution enough to set about the Second Part in earnest,
the case was very much altered. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had not
merely found favour, but had already become, what they have never since
ceased to be, veritable entities to the popular imagination. There was no
occasion for him now to interpolate extraneous matter; nay, his readers
told him plainly that what they wanted of him was more Don Quixote and
more Sancho Panza, and not novels, tales, or digressions. To himself,
too, his creations had become realities, and he had become proud of them,
especially of Sancho. He began the Second Part, therefore, under very
different conditions, and the difference makes itself manifest at once.
Even in translation the style will be seen to be far easier, more
flowing, more natural, and more like that of a man sure of himself and of
his audience. Don Quixote and Sancho undergo a change also. In the First
Part, Don Quixote has no character or individuality whatever. He is
nothing more than a crazy representative of the sentiments of the
chivalry romances. In all that he says and does he is simply repeating
the lesson he has learned from his books; and therefore, it is absurd to
speak of him in the gushing strain of the sentimental critics when they
dilate upon his nobleness, disinterestedness, dauntless courage, and so
forth. It was the business of a knight-errant to right wrongs, redress
injuries, and succour the distressed, and this, as a matter of course, he
makes his business when he takes up the part; a knight-errant was bound
to be intrepid, and so he feels bound to cast fear aside. Of all Byron's
melodious nonsense about Don Quixote, the most nonsensical statement is
that "'t is his virtue makes him mad!" The exact opposite is the truth;
it is his madness makes him virtuous.

In the Second Part, Cervantes repeatedly reminds the reader, as if it was
a point upon which he was anxious there should be no mistake, that his
hero's madness is strictly confined to delusions on the subject of
chivalry, and that on every other subject he is discreto, one, in fact,
whose faculty of discernment is in perfect order. The advantage of this
is that he is enabled to make use of Don Quixote as a mouthpiece for his
own reflections, and so, without seeming to digress, allow himself the
relief of digression when he requires it, as freely as in a commonplace
book.

It is true the amount of individuality bestowed upon Don Quixote is not
very great. There are some natural touches of character about him, such
as his mixture of irascibility and placability, and his curious affection
for Sancho together with his impatience of the squire's loquacity and
impertinence; but in the main, apart from his craze, he is little more
than a thoughtful, cultured gentleman, with instinctive good taste and a
great deal of shrewdness and originality of mind.

As to Sancho, it is plain, from the concluding words of the preface to
the First Part, that he was a favourite with his creator even before he
had been taken into favour by the public. An inferior genius, taking him
in hand a second time, would very likely have tried to improve him by
making him more comical, clever, amiable, or virtuous. But Cervantes was
too true an artist to spoil his work in this way. Sancho, when he
reappears, is the old Sancho with the old familiar features; but with a
difference; they have been brought out more distinctly, but at the same
time with a careful avoidance of anything like caricature; the outline
has been filled in where filling in was necessary, and, vivified by a few
touches of a master's hand, Sancho stands before us as he might in a
character portrait by Velazquez. He is a much more important and
prominent figure in the Second Part than in the First; indeed, it is his
matchless mendacity about Dulcinea that to a great extent supplies the
action of the story.

His development in this respect is as remarkable as in any other. In the
First Part he displays a great natural gift of lying. His lies are not of
the highly imaginative sort that liars in fiction commonly indulge in;
like Falstaff's, they resemble the father that begets them; they are
simple, homely, plump lies; plain working lies, in short. But in the
service of such a master as Don Quixote he develops rapidly, as we see
when he comes to palm off the three country wenches as Dulcinea and her
ladies in waiting. It is worth noticing how, flushed by his success in
this instance, he is tempted afterwards to try a flight beyond his powers
in his account of the journey on Clavileno.

In the Second Part it is the spirit rather than the incidents of the
chivalry romances that is the subject of the burlesque. Enchantments of
the sort travestied in those of Dulcinea and the Trifaldi and the cave of
Montesinos play a leading part in the later and inferior romances, and
another distinguishing feature is caricatured in Don Quixote's blind
adoration of Dulcinea. In the romances of chivalry love is either a mere
animalism or a fantastic idolatry. Only a coarse-minded man would care to
make merry with the former, but to one of Cervantes' humour the latter
was naturally an attractive subject for ridicule. Like everything else in
these romances, it is a gross exaggeration of the real sentiment of
chivalry, but its peculiar extravagance is probably due to the influence
of those masters of hyperbole, the Provencal poets. When a troubadour
professed his readiness to obey his lady in all things, he made it
incumbent upon the next comer, if he wished to avoid the imputation of
tameness and commonplace, to declare himself the slave of her will, which
the next was compelled to cap by some still stronger declaration; and so
expressions of devotion went on rising one above the other like biddings
at an auction, and a conventional language of gallantry and theory of
love came into being that in time permeated the literature of Southern
Europe, and bore fruit, in one direction in the transcendental worship of
Beatrice and Laura, and in another in the grotesque idolatry which found
exponents in writers like Feliciano de Silva. This is what Cervantes
deals with in Don Quixote's passion for Dulcinea, and in no instance has
he carried out the burlesque more happily. By keeping Dulcinea in the
background, and making her a vague shadowy being of whose very existence
we are left in doubt, he invests Don Quixote's worship of her virtues and
charms with an additional extravagance, and gives still more point to the
caricature of the sentiment and language of the romances.

One of the great merits of "Don Quixote," and one of the qualities that
have secured its acceptance by all classes of readers and made it the
most cosmopolitan of books, is its simplicity. There are, of course,
points obvious enough to a Spanish seventeenth century audience which do
not immediately strike a reader now-a-days, and Cervantes often takes it
for granted that an allusion will be generally understood which is only
intelligible to a few. For example, on many of his readers in Spain, and
most of his readers out of it, the significance of his choice of a
country for his hero is completely lost. It would be going too far to say
that no one can thoroughly comprehend "Don Quixote" without having seen
La Mancha, but undoubtedly even a glimpse of La Mancha will give an
insight into the meaning of Cervantes such as no commentator can give. Of
all the regions of Spain it is the last that would suggest the idea of
romance. Of all the dull central plateau of the Peninsula it is the
dullest tract. There is something impressive about the grim solitudes of
Estremadura; and if the plains of Leon and Old Castile are bald and
dreary, they are studded with old cities renowned in history and rich in
relics of the past. But there is no redeeming feature in the Manchegan
landscape; it has all the sameness of the desert without its dignity; the
few towns and villages that break its monotony are mean and commonplace,
there is nothing venerable about them, they have not even the
picturesqueness of poverty; indeed, Don Quixote's own village,
Argamasilla, has a sort of oppressive respectability in the prim
regularity of its streets and houses; everything is ignoble; the very
windmills are the ugliest and shabbiest of the windmill kind.

To anyone who knew the country well, the mere style and title of "Don
Quixote of La Mancha" gave the key to the author's meaning at once. La
Mancha as the knight's country and scene of his chivalries is of a piece
with the pasteboard helmet, the farm-labourer on ass-back for a squire,
knighthood conferred by a rascally ventero, convicts taken for victims of
oppression, and the rest of the incongruities between Don Quixote's world
and the world he lived in, between things as he saw them and things as
they were.

It is strange that this element of incongruity, underlying the whole
humour and purpose of the book, should have been so little heeded by the
majority of those who have undertaken to interpret "Don Quixote." It has
been completely overlooked, for example, by the illustrators. To be sure,
the great majority of the artists who illustrated "Don Quixote" knew
nothing whatever of Spain. To them a venta conveyed no idea but the
abstract one of a roadside inn, and they could not therefore do full
justice to the humour of Don Quixote's misconception in taking it for a
castle, or perceive the remoteness of all its realities from his ideal.
But even when better informed they seem to have no apprehension of the
full force of the discrepancy. Take, for instance, Gustave Dore's drawing
of Don Quixote watching his armour in the inn-yard. Whether or not the
Venta de Quesada on the Seville road is, as tradition maintains, the inn
described in "Don Quixote," beyond all question it was just such an
inn-yard as the one behind it that Cervantes had in his mind's eye, and
it was on just such a rude stone trough as that beside the primitive
draw-well in the corner that he meant Don Quixote to deposit his armour.
Gustave Dore makes it an elaborate fountain such as no arriero ever
watered his mules at in the corral of any venta in Spain, and thereby
entirely misses the point aimed at by Cervantes. It is the mean, prosaic,
commonplace character of all the surroundings and circumstances that
gives a significance to Don Quixote's vigil and the ceremony that
follows.

Cervantes' humour is for the most part of that broader and simpler sort,
the strength of which lies in the perception of the incongruous. It is
the incongruity of Sancho in all his ways, words, and works, with the
ideas and aims of his master, quite as much as the wonderful vitality and
truth to nature of the character, that makes him the most humorous
creation in the whole range of fiction. That unsmiling gravity of which
Cervantes was the first great master, "Cervantes' serious air," which
sits naturally on Swift alone, perhaps, of later humourists, is essential
to this kind of humour, and here again Cervantes has suffered at the
hands of his interpreters. Nothing, unless indeed the coarse buffoonery
of Phillips, could be more out of place in an attempt to represent
Cervantes, than a flippant, would-be facetious style, like that of
Motteux's version for example, or the sprightly, jaunty air, French
translators sometimes adopt. It is the grave matter-of-factness of the
narrative, and the apparent unconsciousness of the author that he is
saying anything ludicrous, anything but the merest commonplace, that give
its peculiar flavour to the humour of Cervantes. His, in fact, is the
exact opposite of the humour of Sterne and the self-conscious humourists.
Even when Uncle Toby is at his best, you are always aware of "the man
Sterne" behind him, watching you over his shoulder to see what effect he
is producing. Cervantes always leaves you alone with Don Quixote and
Sancho. He and Swift and the great humourists always keep themselves out
of sight, or, more properly speaking, never think about themselves at
all, unlike our latter-day school of humourists, who seem to have revived
the old horse-collar method, and try to raise a laugh by some grotesque
assumption of ignorance, imbecility, or bad taste.

It is true that to do full justice to Spanish humour in any other
language is well-nigh an impossibility. There is a natural gravity and a
sonorous stateliness about Spanish, be it ever so colloquial, that make
an absurdity doubly absurd, and give plausibility to the most
preposterous statement. This is what makes Sancho Panza's drollery the
despair of the conscientious translator. Sancho's curt comments can never
fall flat, but they lose half their flavour when transferred from their
native Castilian into any other medium. But if foreigners have failed to
do justice to the humour of Cervantes, they are no worse than his own
countrymen. Indeed, were it not for the Spanish peasant's relish of "Don
Quixote," one might be tempted to think that the great humourist was not
looked upon as a humourist at all in his own country.

The craze of Don Quixote seems, in some instances, to have communicated
itself to his critics, making them see things that are not in the book
and run full tilt at phantoms that have no existence save in their own
imaginations. Like a good many critics now-a-days, they forget that
screams are not criticism, and that it is only vulgar tastes that are
influenced by strings of superlatives, three-piled hyperboles, and
pompous epithets. But what strikes one as particularly strange is that
while they deal in extravagant eulogies, and ascribe all manner of
imaginary ideas and qualities to Cervantes, they show no perception of
the quality that ninety-nine out of a hundred of his readers would rate
highest in him, and hold to be the one that raises him above all rivalry.

To speak of "Don Quixote" as if it were merely a humorous book would be a
manifest misdescription. Cervantes at times makes it a kind of
commonplace book for occasional essays and criticisms, or for the
observations and reflections and gathered wisdom of a long and stirring
life. It is a mine of shrewd observation on mankind and human nature.
Among modern novels there may be, here and there, more elaborate studies
of character, but there is no book richer in individualised character.
What Coleridge said of Shakespeare in minimis is true of Cervantes; he
never, even for the most temporary purpose, puts forward a lay figure.
There is life and individuality in all his characters, however little
they may have to do, or however short a time they may be before the
reader. Samson Carrasco, the curate, Teresa Panza, Altisidora, even the
two students met on the road to the cave of Montesinos, all live and move
and have their being; and it is characteristic of the broad humanity of
Cervantes that there is not a hateful one among them all. Even poor
Maritornes, with her deplorable morals, has a kind heart of her own and
"some faint and distant resemblance to a Christian about her;" and as for
Sancho, though on dissection we fail to find a lovable trait in him,
unless it be a sort of dog-like affection for his master, who is there
that in his heart does not love him?

But it is, after all, the humour of "Don Quixote" that distinguishes it
from all other books of the romance kind. It is this that makes it, as
one of the most judicial-minded of modern critics calls it, "the best
novel in the world beyond all comparison." It is its varied humour,
ranging from broad farce to comedy as subtle as Shakespeare's or
Moliere's that has naturalised it in every country where there are
readers, and made it a classic in every language that has a literature.



SOME COMMENDATORY VERSES


URGANDA THE UNKNOWN

To the book of Don Quixote of la Mancha

 If to be welcomed by the good,
   O Book! thou make thy steady aim,
 No empty chatterer will dare
   To question or dispute thy claim.
 But if perchance thou hast a mind
   To win of idiots approbation,
 Lost labour will be thy reward,
   Though they'll pretend appreciation.

 They say a goodly shade he finds
   Who shelters 'neath a goodly tree;
 And such a one thy kindly star
   In Bejar bath provided thee:
 A royal tree whose spreading boughs
   A show of princely fruit display;
 A tree that bears a noble Duke,
   The Alexander of his day.

 Of a Manchegan gentleman
   Thy purpose is to tell the story,
 Relating how he lost his wits
   O'er idle tales of love and glory,
 Of "ladies, arms, and cavaliers:"
   A new Orlando Furioso-
 Innamorato, rather--who
   Won Dulcinea del Toboso.

 Put no vain emblems on thy shield;
   All figures--that is bragging play.
 A modest dedication make,
   And give no scoffer room to say,
 "What! Alvaro de Luna here?
   Or is it Hannibal again?
 Or does King Francis at Madrid
   Once more of destiny complain?"

 Since Heaven it hath not pleased on thee
   Deep erudition to bestow,
 Or black Latino's gift of tongues,
   No Latin let thy pages show.
 Ape not philosophy or wit,
   Lest one who cannot comprehend,
 Make a wry face at thee and ask,
   "Why offer flowers to me, my friend?"

 Be not a meddler; no affair
   Of thine the life thy neighbours lead:
 Be prudent; oft the random jest
   Recoils upon the jester's head.
 Thy constant labour let it be
   To earn thyself an honest name,
 For fooleries preserved in print
   Are perpetuity of shame.

 A further counsel bear in mind:
   If that thy roof be made of glass,
 It shows small wit to pick up stones
   To pelt the people as they pass.
 Win the attention of the wise,
   And give the thinker food for thought;
 Whoso indites frivolities,
   Will but by simpletons be sought.




             AMADIS OF GAUL
       To Don Quixote of la Mancha

SONNET

 Thou that didst imitate that life of mine
   When I in lonely sadness on the great
   Rock Pena Pobre sat disconsolate,
 In self-imposed penance there to pine;
 Thou, whose sole beverage was the bitter brine
   Of thine own tears, and who withouten plate
   Of silver, copper, tin, in lowly state
 Off the bare earth and on earth's fruits didst dine;
 Live thou, of thine eternal glory sure.
   So long as on the round of the fourth sphere
   The bright Apollo shall his coursers steer,
 In thy renown thou shalt remain secure,
 Thy country's name in story shall endure,
   And thy sage author stand without a peer.




DON BELIANIS OF GREECE
To Don Quixote of la Mancha

SONNET

 In slashing, hewing, cleaving, word and deed,
   I was the foremost knight of chivalry,
   Stout, bold, expert, as e'er the world did see;
 Thousands from the oppressor's wrong I freed;
 Great were my feats, eternal fame their meed;
   In love I proved my truth and loyalty;
   The hugest giant was a dwarf for me;
 Ever to knighthood's laws gave I good heed.
 My mastery the Fickle Goddess owned,
   And even Chance, submitting to control,
     Grasped by the forelock, yielded to my will.
 Yet--though above yon horned moon enthroned
     My fortune seems to sit--great Quixote, still
   Envy of thy achievements fills my soul.




THE LADY OF ORIANA
To Dulcinea del Toboso

SONNET

 Oh, fairest Dulcinea, could it be!
   It were a pleasant fancy to suppose so--
   Could Miraflores change to El Toboso,
 And London's town to that which shelters thee!
 Oh, could mine but acquire that livery
   Of countless charms thy mind and body show so!
   Or him, now famous grown--thou mad'st him grow so--
 Thy knight, in some dread combat could I see!
 Oh, could I be released from Amadis
   By exercise of such coy chastity
 As led thee gentle Quixote to dismiss!
     Then would my heavy sorrow turn to joy;
   None would I envy, all would envy me,
     And happiness be mine without alloy.

GANDALIN, SQUIRE OF AMADIS OF GAUL,
To Sancho Panza, squire of Don Quixote

SONNET

 All hail, illustrious man! Fortune, when she
   Bound thee apprentice to the esquire trade,
   Her care and tenderness of thee displayed,
 Shaping thy course from misadventure free.
 No longer now doth proud knight-errantry
   Regard with scorn the sickle and the spade;
   Of towering arrogance less count is made
 Than of plain esquire-like simplicity.
 I envy thee thy Dapple, and thy name,
   And those alforjas thou wast wont to stuff
 With comforts that thy providence proclaim.
     Excellent Sancho! hail to thee again!
     To thee alone the Ovid of our Spain
   Does homage with the rustic kiss and cuff.




   FROM EL DONOSO, THE MOTLEY POET,

On Sancho Panza and Rocinante

ON SANCHO

I am the esquire Sancho Pan--
Who served Don Quixote of La Man--;
But from his service I retreat-,
Resolved to pass my life discreet-;
For Villadiego, called the Si--,
Maintained that only in reti--
Was found the secret of well-be--,
According to the "Celesti--:"
A book divine, except for sin--
By speech too plain, in my opin--

ON ROCINANTE

I am that Rocinante fa--,
Great-grandson of great Babie--,
Who, all for being lean and bon--,
Had one Don Quixote for an own--;
But if I matched him well in weak--,
I never took short commons meek--,
But kept myself in corn by steal--,
A trick I learned from Lazaril--,
When with a piece of straw so neat--
The blind man of his wine he cheat--.

ORLANDO FURIOSO
To Don Quixote of La Mancha

SONNET

 If thou art not a Peer, peer thou hast none;
   Among a thousand Peers thou art a peer;
   Nor is there room for one when thou art near,
 Unvanquished victor, great unconquered one!
 Orlando, by Angelica undone,
   Am I; o'er distant seas condemned to steer,
   And to Fame's altars as an offering bear
 Valour respected by Oblivion.
 I cannot be thy rival, for thy fame
   And prowess rise above all rivalry,
     Albeit both bereft of wits we go.
 But, though the Scythian or the Moor to tame
   Was not thy lot, still thou dost rival me:
    Love binds us in a fellowship of woe.




THE KNIGHT OF PHOEBUS

To Don Quixote of La Mancha

 My sword was not to be compared with thine
   Phoebus of Spain, marvel of courtesy,
 Nor with thy famous arm this hand of mine
   That smote from east to west as lightnings fly.
   I scorned all empire, and that monarchy
 The rosy east held out did I resign
   For one glance of Claridiana's eye,
 The bright Aurora for whose love I pine.
 A miracle of constancy my love;
   And banished by her ruthless cruelty,
     This arm had might the rage of Hell to tame.
 But, Gothic Quixote, happier thou dost prove,
     For thou dost live in Dulcinea's name,
   And famous, honoured, wise, she lives in thee.




FROM SOLISDAN
To Don Quixote of La Mancha

SONNET

 Your fantasies, Sir Quixote, it is true,
   That crazy brain of yours have quite upset,
   But aught of base or mean hath never yet
 Been charged by any in reproach to you.
 Your deeds are open proof in all men's view;
   For you went forth injustice to abate,
   And for your pains sore drubbings did you get
 From many a rascally and ruffian crew.
 If the fair Dulcinea, your heart's queen,
   Be unrelenting in her cruelty,
     If still your woe be powerless to move her,
   In such hard case your comfort let it be
 That Sancho was a sorry go-between:
     A booby he, hard-hearted she, and you no lover.

DIALOGUE
Between Babieca and Rocinante

SONNET

B.  "How comes it, Rocinante, you're so lean?"
R.  "I'm underfed, with overwork I'm worn."
B.  "But what becomes of all the hay and corn?"
R.  "My master gives me none; he's much too mean."
B.  "Come, come, you show ill-breeding, sir, I ween;
  'T is like an ass your master thus to scorn."
R.  He is an ass, will die an ass, an ass was born;
  Why, he's in love; what's what's plainer to be seen?"
B.  "To be in love is folly?"--R. "No great sense."
B.  "You're metaphysical."--R. "From want of food."
B.  "Rail at the squire, then."--R. "Why, what's the good?
    I might indeed complain of him, I grant ye,
  But, squire or master, where's the difference?
    They're both as sorry hacks as Rocinante."




THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

Idle reader: thou mayest believe me without any oath that I would this
book, as it is the child of my brain, were the fairest, gayest, and
cleverest that could be imagined. But I could not counteract Nature's law
that everything shall beget its like; and what, then, could this sterile,
illtilled wit of mine beget but the story of a dry, shrivelled, whimsical
offspring, full of thoughts of all sorts and such as never came into any
other imagination--just what might be begotten in a prison, where every
misery is lodged and every doleful sound makes its dwelling?
Tranquillity, a cheerful retreat, pleasant fields, bright skies,
murmuring brooks, peace of mind, these are the things that go far to make
even the most barren muses fertile, and bring into the world births that
fill it with wonder and delight. Sometimes when a father has an ugly,
loutish son, the love he bears him so blindfolds his eyes that he does
not see his defects, or, rather, takes them for gifts and charms of mind
and body, and talks of them to his friends as wit and grace. I,
however--for though I pass for the father, I am but the stepfather to
"Don Quixote"--have no desire to go with the current of custom, or to
implore thee, dearest reader, almost with tears in my eyes, as others do,
to pardon or excuse the defects thou wilt perceive in this child of mine.
Thou art neither its kinsman nor its friend, thy soul is thine own and
thy will as free as any man's, whate'er he be, thou art in thine own
house and master of it as much as the king of his taxes and thou knowest
the common saying, "Under my cloak I kill the king;" all which exempts
and frees thee from every consideration and obligation, and thou canst
say what thou wilt of the story without fear of being abused for any ill
or rewarded for any good thou mayest say of it.

My wish would be simply to present it to thee plain and unadorned,
without any embellishment of preface or uncountable muster of customary
sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies, such as are commonly put at the
beginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it cost me some
labour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou art now
reading. Many times did I take up my pen to write it, and many did I lay
it down again, not knowing what to write. One of these times, as I was
pondering with the paper before me, a pen in my ear, my elbow on the
desk, and my cheek in my hand, thinking of what I should say, there came
in unexpectedly a certain lively, clever friend of mine, who, seeing me
so deep in thought, asked the reason; to which I, making no mystery of
it, answered that I was thinking of the Preface I had to make for the
story of "Don Quixote," which so troubled me that I had a mind not to
make any at all, nor even publish the achievements of so noble a knight.

"For, how could you expect me not to feel uneasy about what that ancient
lawgiver they call the Public will say when it sees me, after slumbering
so many years in the silence of oblivion, coming out now with all my
years upon my back, and with a book as dry as a rush, devoid of
invention, meagre in style, poor in thoughts, wholly wanting in learning
and wisdom, without quotations in the margin or annotations at the end,
after the fashion of other books I see, which, though all fables and
profanity, are so full of maxims from Aristotle, and Plato, and the whole
herd of philosophers, that they fill the readers with amazement and
convince them that the authors are men of learning, erudition, and
eloquence. And then, when they quote the Holy Scriptures!--anyone would
say they are St. Thomases or other doctors of the Church, observing as
they do a decorum so ingenious that in one sentence they describe a
distracted lover and in the next deliver a devout little sermon that it
is a pleasure and a treat to hear and read. Of all this there will be
nothing in my book, for I have nothing to quote in the margin or to note
at the end, and still less do I know what authors I follow in it, to
place them at the beginning, as all do, under the letters A, B, C,
beginning with Aristotle and ending with Xenophon, or Zoilus, or Zeuxis,
though one was a slanderer and the other a painter. Also my book must do
without sonnets at the beginning, at least sonnets whose authors are
dukes, marquises, counts, bishops, ladies, or famous poets. Though if I
were to ask two or three obliging friends, I know they would give me
them, and such as the productions of those that have the highest
reputation in our Spain could not equal.

"In short, my friend," I continued, "I am determined that Senor Don
Quixote shall remain buried in the archives of his own La Mancha until
Heaven provide some one to garnish him with all those things he stands in
need of; because I find myself, through my shallowness and want of
learning, unequal to supplying them, and because I am by nature shy and
careless about hunting for authors to say what I myself can say without
them. Hence the cogitation and abstraction you found me in, and reason
enough, what you have heard from me."

Hearing this, my friend, giving himself a slap on the forehead and
breaking into a hearty laugh, exclaimed, "Before God, Brother, now am I
disabused of an error in which I have been living all this long time I
have known you, all through which I have taken you to be shrewd and
sensible in all you do; but now I see you are as far from that as the
heaven is from the earth. It is possible that things of so little moment
and so easy to set right can occupy and perplex a ripe wit like yours,
fit to break through and crush far greater obstacles? By my faith, this
comes, not of any want of ability, but of too much indolence and too
little knowledge of life. Do you want to know if I am telling the truth?
Well, then, attend to me, and you will see how, in the opening and
shutting of an eye, I sweep away all your difficulties, and supply all
those deficiencies which you say check and discourage you from bringing
before the world the story of your famous Don Quixote, the light and
mirror of all knight-errantry."

"Say on," said I, listening to his talk; "how do you propose to make up
for my diffidence, and reduce to order this chaos of perplexity I am in?"

To which he made answer, "Your first difficulty about the sonnets,
epigrams, or complimentary verses which you want for the beginning, and
which ought to be by persons of importance and rank, can be removed if
you yourself take a little trouble to make them; you can afterwards
baptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them on
Prester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to my
knowledge, were said to have been famous poets: and even if they were
not, and any pedants or bachelors should attack you and question the
fact, never care two maravedis for that, for even if they prove a lie
against you they cannot cut off the hand you wrote it with.

"As to references in the margin to the books and authors from whom you
take the aphorisms and sayings you put into your story, it is only
contriving to fit in nicely any sentences or scraps of Latin you may
happen to have by heart, or at any rate that will not give you much
trouble to look up; so as, when you speak of freedom and captivity, to
insert

_Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro;_

and then refer in the margin to Horace, or whoever said it; or, if you
allude to the power of death, to come in with--

_Pallida mors Aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,
Regumque turres._

"If it be friendship and the love God bids us bear to our enemy, go at
once to the Holy Scriptures, which you can do with a very small amount of
research, and quote no less than the words of God himself: Ego autem dico
vobis: diligite inimicos vestros. If you speak of evil thoughts, turn to
the Gospel: De corde exeunt cogitationes malae. If of the fickleness of
friends, there is Cato, who will give you his distich:

_Donec eris felix multos numerabis amicos,
Tempora si fuerint nubila, solus eris._

"With these and such like bits of Latin they will take you for a
grammarian at all events, and that now-a-days is no small honour and
profit.

"With regard to adding annotations at the end of the book, you may safely
do it in this way. If you mention any giant in your book contrive that it
shall be the giant Goliath, and with this alone, which will cost you
almost nothing, you have a grand note, for you can put--The giant Golias
or Goliath was a Philistine whom the shepherd David slew by a mighty
stone-cast in the Terebinth valley, as is related in the Book of
Kings--in the chapter where you find it written.

"Next, to prove yourself a man of erudition in polite literature and
cosmography, manage that the river Tagus shall be named in your story,
and there you are at once with another famous annotation, setting
forth--The river Tagus was so called after a King of Spain: it has its
source in such and such a place and falls into the ocean, kissing the
walls of the famous city of Lisbon, and it is a common belief that it has
golden sands, etc. If you should have anything to do with robbers, I will
give you the story of Cacus, for I have it by heart; if with loose women,
there is the Bishop of Mondonedo, who will give you the loan of Lamia,
Laida, and Flora, any reference to whom will bring you great credit; if
with hard-hearted ones, Ovid will furnish you with Medea; if with witches
or enchantresses, Homer has Calypso, and Virgil Circe; if with valiant
captains, Julius Caesar himself will lend you himself in his own
'Commentaries,' and Plutarch will give you a thousand Alexanders. If you
should deal with love, with two ounces you may know of Tuscan you can go
to Leon the Hebrew, who will supply you to your heart's content; or if
you should not care to go to foreign countries you have at home Fonseca's
'Of the Love of God,' in which is condensed all that you or the most
imaginative mind can want on the subject. In short, all you have to do is
to manage to quote these names, or refer to these stories I have
mentioned, and leave it to me to insert the annotations and quotations,
and I swear by all that's good to fill your margins and use up four
sheets at the end of the book.

"Now let us come to those references to authors which other books have,
and you want for yours. The remedy for this is very simple: You have only
to look out for some book that quotes them all, from A to Z as you say
yourself, and then insert the very same alphabet in your book, and though
the imposition may be plain to see, because you have so little need to
borrow from them, that is no matter; there will probably be some simple
enough to believe that you have made use of them all in this plain,
artless story of yours. At any rate, if it answers no other purpose, this
long catalogue of authors will serve to give a surprising look of
authority to your book. Besides, no one will trouble himself to verify
whether you have followed them or whether you have not, being no way
concerned in it; especially as, if I mistake not, this book of yours has
no need of any one of those things you say it wants, for it is, from
beginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry, of which
Aristotle never dreamt, nor St. Basil said a word, nor Cicero had any
knowledge; nor do the niceties of truth nor the observations of astrology
come within the range of its fanciful vagaries; nor have geometrical
measurements or refutations of the arguments used in rhetoric anything to
do with it; nor does it mean to preach to anybody, mixing up things human
and divine, a sort of motley in which no Christian understanding should
dress itself. It has only to avail itself of truth to nature in its
composition, and the more perfect the imitation the better the work will
be. And as this piece of yours aims at nothing more than to destroy the
authority and influence which books of chivalry have in the world and
with the public, there is no need for you to go a-begging for aphorisms
from philosophers, precepts from Holy Scripture, fables from poets,
speeches from orators, or miracles from saints; but merely to take care
that your style and diction run musically, pleasantly, and plainly, with
clear, proper, and well-placed words, setting forth your purpose to the
best of your power, and putting your ideas intelligibly, without
confusion or obscurity. Strive, too, that in reading your story the
melancholy may be moved to laughter, and the merry made merrier still;
that the simple shall not be wearied, that the judicious shall admire the
invention, that the grave shall not despise it, nor the wise fail to
praise it. Finally, keep your aim fixed on the destruction of that
ill-founded edifice of the books of chivalry, hated by some and praised
by many more; for if you succeed in this you will have achieved no small
success."

In profound silence I listened to what my friend said, and his
observations made such an impression on me that, without attempting to
question them, I admitted their soundness, and out of them I determined
to make this Preface; wherein, gentle reader, thou wilt perceive my
friend's good sense, my good fortune in finding such an adviser in such a
time of need, and what thou hast gained in receiving, without addition or
alteration, the story of the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, who is held
by all the inhabitants of the district of the Campo de Montiel to have
been the chastest lover and the bravest knight that has for many years
been seen in that neighbourhood. I have no desire to magnify the service
I render thee in making thee acquainted with so renowned and honoured a
knight, but I do desire thy thanks for the acquaintance thou wilt make
with the famous Sancho Panza, his squire, in whom, to my thinking, I have
given thee condensed all the squirely drolleries that are scattered
through the swarm of the vain books of chivalry. And so--may God give
thee health, and not forget me. Vale.




DEDICATION OF VOLUME I

TO THE DUKE OF BEJAR, MARQUIS OF GIBRALEON, COUNT OF BENALCAZAR AND
BANARES, VICECOUNT OF THE PUEBLA DE ALCOCER, MASTER OF THE TOWNS OF
CAPILLA, CURIEL AND BURGUILLOS

In belief of the good reception and honours that Your Excellency bestows
on all sort of books, as prince so inclined to favor good arts, chiefly
those who by their nobleness do not submit to the service and bribery of
the vulgar, I have determined bringing to light The Ingenious Gentleman
Don Quixote of la Mancha, in shelter of Your Excellency's glamorous name,
to whom, with the obeisance I owe to such grandeur, I pray to receive it
agreeably under his protection, so that in this shadow, though deprived
of that precious ornament of elegance and erudition that clothe the works
composed in the houses of those who know, it dares appear with assurance
in the judgment of some who, trespassing the bounds of their own
ignorance, use to condemn with more rigour and less justice the writings
of others. It is my earnest hope that Your Excellency's good counsel in
regard to my honourable purpose, will not disdain the littleness of so
humble a service.

Miguel de Cervantes




VOLUME I.


CHAPTER I.

WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF THE FAMOUS GENTLEMAN DON
QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA


In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to
mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance
in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for
coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most
nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra
on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it
went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match
for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best
homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under
twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the
hack as well as handle the bill-hook. The age of this gentleman of ours
was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a
very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was
Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among
the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable
conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is
of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a
hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it.

You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman whenever he was at
leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading
books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity that he almost entirely
neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the management of his
property; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that
he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of chivalry to read, and
brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none
he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition,
for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in
his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and
cartels, where he often found passages like "the reason of the unreason
with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I
murmur at your beauty;" or again, "the high heavens, that of your
divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the
desert your greatness deserves." Over conceits of this sort the poor
gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand
them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not
have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special
purpose. He was not at all easy about the wounds which Don Belianis gave
and took, because it seemed to him that, great as were the surgeons who
had cured him, he must have had his face and body covered all over with
seams and scars. He commended, however, the author's way of ending his
book with the promise of that interminable adventure, and many a time was
he tempted to take up his pen and finish it properly as is there
proposed, which no doubt he would have done, and made a successful piece
of work of it too, had not greater and more absorbing thoughts prevented
him.

Many an argument did he have with the curate of his village (a learned
man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better knight,
Palmerin of England or Amadis of Gaul. Master Nicholas, the village
barber, however, used to say that neither of them came up to the Knight
of Phoebus, and that if there was any that could compare with him it was
Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, because he had a spirit that
was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin knight, nor lachrymose
like his brother, while in the matter of valour he was not a whit behind
him. In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his
nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring
over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so
dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he used to read
about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds,
wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so
possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read
of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it.
He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was
not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword who with one
back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. He thought more
of Bernardo del Carpio because at Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of
enchantments, availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he
strangled Antaeus the son of Terra in his arms. He approved highly of the
giant Morgante, because, although of the giant breed which is always
arrogant and ill-conditioned, he alone was affable and well-bred. But
above all he admired Reinaldos of Montalban, especially when he saw him
sallying forth from his castle and robbing everyone he met, and when
beyond the seas he stole that image of Mahomet which, as his history
says, was entirely of gold. To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of
a Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the
bargain.

In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion
that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it
was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for
the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of
himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest
of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as
being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of
wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue,
he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man saw himself
crowned by the might of his arm Emperor of Trebizond at least; and so,
led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he
set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution.

The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to
his great-grandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a corner
eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished it as
best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it, that it had no
closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency, however, his
ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard
which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. It is true that,
in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a cut, he drew his
sword and gave it a couple of slashes, the first of which undid in an
instant what had taken him a week to do. The ease with which he had
knocked it to pieces disconcerted him somewhat, and to guard against that
danger he set to work again, fixing bars of iron on the inside until he
was satisfied with its strength; and then, not caring to try any more
experiments with it, he passed it and adopted it as a helmet of the most
perfect construction.

He next proceeded to inspect his hack, which, with more quartos than a
real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, that "tantum pellis et
ossa fuit," surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander or the
Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give
him, because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse
belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own,
should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as
to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant, and
what he then was; for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a
new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a
distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and calling
he was about to follow. And so, after having composed, struck out,
rejected, added to, unmade, and remade a multitude of names out of his
memory and fancy, he decided upon calling him Rocinante, a name, to his
thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack
before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all the hacks
in the world.

Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was anxious to
get one for himself, and he was eight days more pondering over this
point, till at last he made up his mind to call himself "Don Quixote,"
whence, as has been already said, the authors of this veracious history
have inferred that his name must have been beyond a doubt Quixada, and
not Quesada as others would have it. Recollecting, however, that the
valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and nothing
more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to make it famous,
and called himself Amadis of Gaul, he, like a good knight, resolved to
add on the name of his, and to style himself Don Quixote of La Mancha,
whereby, he considered, he described accurately his origin and country,
and did honour to it in taking his surname from it.

So then, his armour being furbished, his morion turned into a helmet, his
hack christened, and he himself confirmed, he came to the conclusion that
nothing more was needed now but to look out for a lady to be in love
with; for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or
fruit, or a body without a soul. As he said to himself, "If, for my sins,
or by my good fortune, I come across some giant hereabouts, a common
occurrence with knights-errant, and overthrow him in one onslaught, or
cleave him asunder to the waist, or, in short, vanquish and subdue him,
will it not be well to have some one I may send him to as a present, that
he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a
humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the
island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never
sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded
me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me
at your pleasure'?" Oh, how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of
this speech, especially when he had thought of some one to call his Lady!
There was, so the story goes, in a village near his own a very
good-looking farm-girl with whom he had been at one time in love, though,
so far as is known, she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter.
Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and upon her he thought fit to confer the
title of Lady of his Thoughts; and after some search for a name which
should not be out of harmony with her own, and should suggest and
indicate that of a princess and great lady, he decided upon calling her
Dulcinea del Toboso--she being of El Toboso--a name, to his mind,
musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already
bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him.




CHAPTER II.

WHICH TREATS OF THE FIRST SALLY THE INGENIOUS DON QUIXOTE MADE FROM HOME


These preliminaries settled, he did not care to put off any longer the
execution of his design, urged on to it by the thought of all the world
was losing by his delay, seeing what wrongs he intended to right,
grievances to redress, injustices to repair, abuses to remove, and duties
to discharge. So, without giving notice of his intention to anyone, and
without anybody seeing him, one morning before the dawning of the day
(which was one of the hottest of the month of July) he donned his suit of
armour, mounted Rocinante with his patched-up helmet on, braced his
buckler, took his lance, and by the back door of the yard sallied forth
upon the plain in the highest contentment and satisfaction at seeing with
what ease he had made a beginning with his grand purpose. But scarcely
did he find himself upon the open plain, when a terrible thought struck
him, one all but enough to make him abandon the enterprise at the very
outset. It occurred to him that he had not been dubbed a knight, and that
according to the law of chivalry he neither could nor ought to bear arms
against any knight; and that even if he had been, still he ought, as a
novice knight, to wear white armour, without a device upon the shield
until by his prowess he had earned one. These reflections made him waver
in his purpose, but his craze being stronger than any reasoning, he made
up his mind to have himself dubbed a knight by the first one he came
across, following the example of others in the same case, as he had read
in the books that brought him to this pass. As for white armour, he
resolved, on the first opportunity, to scour his until it was whiter than
an ermine; and so comforting himself he pursued his way, taking that
which his horse chose, for in this he believed lay the essence of
adventures.

Thus setting out, our new-fledged adventurer paced along, talking to
himself and saying, "Who knows but that in time to come, when the
veracious history of my famous deeds is made known, the sage who writes
it, when he has to set forth my first sally in the early morning, will do
it after this fashion? 'Scarce had the rubicund Apollo spread o'er the
face of the broad spacious earth the golden threads of his bright hair,
scarce had the little birds of painted plumage attuned their notes to
hail with dulcet and mellifluous harmony the coming of the rosy Dawn,
that, deserting the soft couch of her jealous spouse, was appearing to
mortals at the gates and balconies of the Manchegan horizon, when the
renowned knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, quitting the lazy down, mounted
his celebrated steed Rocinante and began to traverse the ancient and
famous Campo de Montiel;'" which in fact he was actually traversing.
"Happy the age, happy the time," he continued, "in which shall be made
known my deeds of fame, worthy to be moulded in brass, carved in marble,
limned in pictures, for a memorial for ever. And thou, O sage magician,
whoever thou art, to whom it shall fall to be the chronicler of this
wondrous history, forget not, I entreat thee, my good Rocinante, the
constant companion of my ways and wanderings." Presently he broke out
again, as if he were love-stricken in earnest, "O Princess Dulcinea, lady
of this captive heart, a grievous wrong hast thou done me to drive me
forth with scorn, and with inexorable obduracy banish me from the
presence of thy beauty. O lady, deign to hold in remembrance this heart,
thy vassal, that thus in anguish pines for love of thee."

So he went on stringing together these and other absurdities, all in the
style of those his books had taught him, imitating their language as well
as he could; and all the while he rode so slowly and the sun mounted so
rapidly and with such fervour that it was enough to melt his brains if he
had any. Nearly all day he travelled without anything remarkable
happening to him, at which he was in despair, for he was anxious to
encounter some one at once upon whom to try the might of his strong arm.

Writers there are who say the first adventure he met with was that of
Puerto Lapice; others say it was that of the windmills; but what I have
ascertained on this point, and what I have found written in the annals of
La Mancha, is that he was on the road all day, and towards nightfall his
hack and he found themselves dead tired and hungry, when, looking all
around to see if he could discover any castle or shepherd's shanty where
he might refresh himself and relieve his sore wants, he perceived not far
out of his road an inn, which was as welcome as a star guiding him to the
portals, if not the palaces, of his redemption; and quickening his pace
he reached it just as night was setting in. At the door were standing two
young women, girls of the district as they call them, on their way to
Seville with some carriers who had chanced to halt that night at the inn;
and as, happen what might to our adventurer, everything he saw or imaged
seemed to him to be and to happen after the fashion of what he read of,
the moment he saw the inn he pictured it to himself as a castle with its
four turrets and pinnacles of shining silver, not forgetting the
drawbridge and moat and all the belongings usually ascribed to castles of
the sort. To this inn, which to him seemed a castle, he advanced, and at
a short distance from it he checked Rocinante, hoping that some dwarf
would show himself upon the battlements, and by sound of trumpet give
notice that a knight was approaching the castle. But seeing that they
were slow about it, and that Rocinante was in a hurry to reach the
stable, he made for the inn door, and perceived the two gay damsels who
were standing there, and who seemed to him to be two fair maidens or
lovely ladies taking their ease at the castle gate.

At this moment it so happened that a swineherd who was going through the
stubbles collecting a drove of pigs (for, without any apology, that is
what they are called) gave a blast of his horn to bring them together,
and forthwith it seemed to Don Quixote to be what he was expecting, the
signal of some dwarf announcing his arrival; and so with prodigious
satisfaction he rode up to the inn and to the ladies, who, seeing a man
of this sort approaching in full armour and with lance and buckler, were
turning in dismay into the inn, when Don Quixote, guessing their fear by
their flight, raising his pasteboard visor, disclosed his dry dusty
visage, and with courteous bearing and gentle voice addressed them, "Your
ladyships need not fly or fear any rudeness, for that it belongs not to
the order of knighthood which I profess to offer to anyone, much less to
highborn maidens as your appearance proclaims you to be." The girls were
looking at him and straining their eyes to make out the features which
the clumsy visor obscured, but when they heard themselves called maidens,
a thing so much out of their line, they could not restrain their
laughter, which made Don Quixote wax indignant, and say, "Modesty becomes
the fair, and moreover laughter that has little cause is great silliness;
this, however, I say not to pain or anger you, for my desire is none
other than to serve you."

The incomprehensible language and the unpromising looks of our cavalier
only increased the ladies' laughter, and that increased his irritation,
and matters might have gone farther if at that moment the landlord had
not come out, who, being a very fat man, was a very peaceful one. He,
seeing this grotesque figure clad in armour that did not match any more
than his saddle, bridle, lance, buckler, or corselet, was not at all
indisposed to join the damsels in their manifestations of amusement; but,
in truth, standing in awe of such a complicated armament, he thought it
best to speak him fairly, so he said, "Senor Caballero, if your worship
wants lodging, bating the bed (for there is not one in the inn) there is
plenty of everything else here." Don Quixote, observing the respectful
bearing of the Alcaide of the fortress (for so innkeeper and inn seemed
in his eyes), made answer, "Sir Castellan, for me anything will suffice,
for

'My armour is my only wear,
My only rest the fray.'"

The host fancied he called him Castellan because he took him for a
"worthy of Castile," though he was in fact an Andalusian, and one from
the strand of San Lucar, as crafty a thief as Cacus and as full of tricks
as a student or a page. "In that case," said he,

"'Your bed is on the flinty rock,
Your sleep to watch alway;'

and if so, you may dismount and safely reckon upon any quantity of
sleeplessness under this roof for a twelvemonth, not to say for a single
night." So saying, he advanced to hold the stirrup for Don Quixote, who
got down with great difficulty and exertion (for he had not broken his
fast all day), and then charged the host to take great care of his horse,
as he was the best bit of flesh that ever ate bread in this world. The
landlord eyed him over but did not find him as good as Don Quixote said,
nor even half as good; and putting him up in the stable, he returned to
see what might be wanted by his guest, whom the damsels, who had by this
time made their peace with him, were now relieving of his armour. They
had taken off his breastplate and backpiece, but they neither knew nor
saw how to open his gorget or remove his make-shift helmet, for he had
fastened it with green ribbons, which, as there was no untying the knots,
required to be cut. This, however, he would not by any means consent to,
so he remained all the evening with his helmet on, the drollest and
oddest figure that can be imagined; and while they were removing his
armour, taking the baggages who were about it for ladies of high degree
belonging to the castle, he said to them with great sprightliness:

"Oh, never, surely, was there knight
  So served by hand of dame,
As served was he, Don Quixote hight,
  When from his town he came;
With maidens waiting on himself,
  Princesses on his hack--

or Rocinante, for that, ladies mine, is my horse's name, and Don Quixote
of La Mancha is my own; for though I had no intention of declaring myself
until my achievements in your service and honour had made me known, the
necessity of adapting that old ballad of Lancelot to the present occasion
has given you the knowledge of my name altogether prematurely. A time,
however, will come for your ladyships to command and me to obey, and then
the might of my arm will show my desire to serve you."

The girls, who were not used to hearing rhetoric of this sort, had
nothing to say in reply; they only asked him if he wanted anything to
eat. "I would gladly eat a bit of something," said Don Quixote, "for I
feel it would come very seasonably." The day happened to be a Friday, and
in the whole inn there was nothing but some pieces of the fish they call
in Castile "abadejo," in Andalusia "bacallao," and in some places
"curadillo," and in others "troutlet;" so they asked him if he thought he
could eat troutlet, for there was no other fish to give him. "If there be
troutlets enough," said Don Quixote, "they will be the same thing as a
trout; for it is all one to me whether I am given eight reals in small
change or a piece of eight; moreover, it may be that these troutlets are
like veal, which is better than beef, or kid, which is better than goat.
But whatever it be let it come quickly, for the burden and pressure of
arms cannot be borne without support to the inside." They laid a table
for him at the door of the inn for the sake of the air, and the host
brought him a portion of ill-soaked and worse cooked stockfish, and a
piece of bread as black and mouldy as his own armour; but a laughable
sight it was to see him eating, for having his helmet on and the beaver
up, he could not with his own hands put anything into his mouth unless
some one else placed it there, and this service one of the ladies
rendered him. But to give him anything to drink was impossible, or would
have been so had not the landlord bored a reed, and putting one end in
his mouth poured the wine into him through the other; all which he bore
with patience rather than sever the ribbons of his helmet.

While this was going on there came up to the inn a sowgelder, who, as he
approached, sounded his reed pipe four or five times, and thereby
completely convinced Don Quixote that he was in some famous castle, and
that they were regaling him with music, and that the stockfish was trout,
the bread the whitest, the wenches ladies, and the landlord the castellan
of the castle; and consequently he held that his enterprise and sally had
been to some purpose. But still it distressed him to think he had not
been dubbed a knight, for it was plain to him he could not lawfully
engage in any adventure without receiving the order of knighthood.




CHAPTER III.

WHEREIN IS RELATED THE DROLL WAY IN WHICH DON QUIXOTE HAD HIMSELF DUBBED
A KNIGHT


Harassed by this reflection, he made haste with his scanty pothouse
supper, and having finished it called the landlord, and shutting himself
into the stable with him, fell on his knees before him, saying, "From
this spot I rise not, valiant knight, until your courtesy grants me the
boon I seek, one that will redound to your praise and the benefit of the
human race." The landlord, seeing his guest at his feet and hearing a
speech of this kind, stood staring at him in bewilderment, not knowing
what to do or say, and entreating him to rise, but all to no purpose
until he had agreed to grant the boon demanded of him. "I looked for no
less, my lord, from your High Magnificence," replied Don Quixote, "and I
have to tell you that the boon I have asked and your liberality has
granted is that you shall dub me knight to-morrow morning, and that
to-night I shall watch my arms in the chapel of this your castle; thus
to-morrow, as I have said, will be accomplished what I so much desire,
enabling me lawfully to roam through all the four quarters of the world
seeking adventures on behalf of those in distress, as is the duty of
chivalry and of knights-errant like myself, whose ambition is directed to
such deeds."

The landlord, who, as has been mentioned, was something of a wag, and had
already some suspicion of his guest's want of wits, was quite convinced
of it on hearing talk of this kind from him, and to make sport for the
night he determined to fall in with his humour. So he told him he was
quite right in pursuing the object he had in view, and that such a motive
was natural and becoming in cavaliers as distinguished as he seemed and
his gallant bearing showed him to be; and that he himself in his younger
days had followed the same honourable calling, roaming in quest of
adventures in various parts of the world, among others the Curing-grounds
of Malaga, the Isles of Riaran, the Precinct of Seville, the Little
Market of Segovia, the Olivera of Valencia, the Rondilla of Granada, the
Strand of San Lucar, the Colt of Cordova, the Taverns of Toledo, and
divers other quarters, where he had proved the nimbleness of his feet and
the lightness of his fingers, doing many wrongs, cheating many widows,
ruining maids and swindling minors, and, in short, bringing himself under
the notice of almost every tribunal and court of justice in Spain; until
at last he had retired to this castle of his, where he was living upon
his property and upon that of others; and where he received all
knights-errant of whatever rank or condition they might be, all for the
great love he bore them and that they might share their substance with
him in return for his benevolence. He told him, moreover, that in this
castle of his there was no chapel in which he could watch his armour, as
it had been pulled down in order to be rebuilt, but that in a case of
necessity it might, he knew, be watched anywhere, and he might watch it
that night in a courtyard of the castle, and in the morning, God willing,
the requisite ceremonies might be performed so as to have him dubbed a
knight, and so thoroughly dubbed that nobody could be more so. He asked
if he had any money with him, to which Don Quixote replied that he had
not a farthing, as in the histories of knights-errant he had never read
of any of them carrying any. On this point the landlord told him he was
mistaken; for, though not recorded in the histories, because in the
author's opinion there was no need to mention anything so obvious and
necessary as money and clean shirts, it was not to be supposed therefore
that they did not carry them, and he might regard it as certain and
established that all knights-errant (about whom there were so many full
and unimpeachable books) carried well-furnished purses in case of
emergency, and likewise carried shirts and a little box of ointment to
cure the wounds they received. For in those plains and deserts where they
engaged in combat and came out wounded, it was not always that there was
some one to cure them, unless indeed they had for a friend some sage
magician to succour them at once by fetching through the air upon a cloud
some damsel or dwarf with a vial of water of such virtue that by tasting
one drop of it they were cured of their hurts and wounds in an instant
and left as sound as if they had not received any damage whatever. But in
case this should not occur, the knights of old took care to see that
their squires were provided with money and other requisites, such as lint
and ointments for healing purposes; and when it happened that knights had
no squires (which was rarely and seldom the case) they themselves carried
everything in cunning saddle-bags that were hardly seen on the horse's
croup, as if it were something else of more importance, because, unless
for some such reason, carrying saddle-bags was not very favourably
regarded among knights-errant. He therefore advised him (and, as his
godson so soon to be, he might even command him) never from that time
forth to travel without money and the usual requirements, and he would
find the advantage of them when he least expected it.

Don Quixote promised to follow his advice scrupulously, and it was
arranged forthwith that he should watch his armour in a large yard at one
side of the inn; so, collecting it all together, Don Quixote placed it on
a trough that stood by the side of a well, and bracing his buckler on his
arm he grasped his lance and began with a stately air to march up and
down in front of the trough, and as he began his march night began to
fall.

The landlord told all the people who were in the inn about the craze of
his guest, the watching of the armour, and the dubbing ceremony he
contemplated. Full of wonder at so strange a form of madness, they
flocked to see it from a distance, and observed with what composure he
sometimes paced up and down, or sometimes, leaning on his lance, gazed on
his armour without taking his eyes off it for ever so long; and as the
night closed in with a light from the moon so brilliant that it might vie
with his that lent it, everything the novice knight did was plainly seen
by all.

Meanwhile one of the carriers who were in the inn thought fit to water
his team, and it was necessary to remove Don Quixote's armour as it lay
on the trough; but he seeing the other approach hailed him in a loud
voice, "O thou, whoever thou art, rash knight that comest to lay hands on
the armour of the most valorous errant that ever girt on sword, have a
care what thou dost; touch it not unless thou wouldst lay down thy life
as the penalty of thy rashness." The carrier gave no heed to these words
(and he would have done better to heed them if he had been heedful of his
health), but seizing it by the straps flung the armour some distance from
him. Seeing this, Don Quixote raised his eyes to heaven, and fixing his
thoughts, apparently, upon his lady Dulcinea, exclaimed, "Aid me, lady
mine, in this the first encounter that presents itself to this breast
which thou holdest in subjection; let not thy favour and protection fail
me in this first jeopardy;" and, with these words and others to the same
purpose, dropping his buckler he lifted his lance with both hands and
with it smote such a blow on the carrier's head that he stretched him on
the ground, so stunned that had he followed it up with a second there
would have been no need of a surgeon to cure him. This done, he picked up
his armour and returned to his beat with the same serenity as before.




Shortly after this, another, not knowing what had happened (for the
carrier still lay senseless), came with the same object of giving water
to his mules, and was proceeding to remove the armour in order to clear
the trough, when Don Quixote, without uttering a word or imploring aid
from anyone, once more dropped his buckler and once more lifted his
lance, and without actually breaking the second carrier's head into
pieces, made more than three of it, for he laid it open in four. At the
noise all the people of the inn ran to the spot, and among them the
landlord. Seeing this, Don Quixote braced his buckler on his arm, and
with his hand on his sword exclaimed, "O Lady of Beauty, strength and
support of my faint heart, it is time for thee to turn the eyes of thy
greatness on this thy captive knight on the brink of so mighty an
adventure." By this he felt himself so inspired that he would not have
flinched if all the carriers in the world had assailed him. The comrades
of the wounded perceiving the plight they were in began from a distance
to shower stones on Don Quixote, who screened himself as best he could
with his buckler, not daring to quit the trough and leave his armour
unprotected. The landlord shouted to them to leave him alone, for he had
already told them that he was mad, and as a madman he would not be
accountable even if he killed them all. Still louder shouted Don Quixote,
calling them knaves and traitors, and the lord of the castle, who allowed
knights-errant to be treated in this fashion, a villain and a low-born
knight whom, had he received the order of knighthood, he would call to
account for his treachery. "But of you," he cried, "base and vile rabble,
I make no account; fling, strike, come on, do all ye can against me, ye
shall see what the reward of your folly and insolence will be." This he
uttered with so much spirit and boldness that he filled his assailants
with a terrible fear, and as much for this reason as at the persuasion of
the landlord they left off stoning him, and he allowed them to carry off
the wounded, and with the same calmness and composure as before resumed
the watch over his armour.

But these freaks of his guest were not much to the liking of the
landlord, so he determined to cut matters short and confer upon him at
once the unlucky order of knighthood before any further misadventure
could occur; so, going up to him, he apologised for the rudeness which,
without his knowledge, had been offered to him by these low people, who,
however, had been well punished for their audacity. As he had already
told him, he said, there was no chapel in the castle, nor was it needed
for what remained to be done, for, as he understood the ceremonial of the
order, the whole point of being dubbed a knight lay in the accolade and
in the slap on the shoulder, and that could be administered in the middle
of a field; and that he had now done all that was needful as to watching
the armour, for all requirements were satisfied by a watch of two hours
only, while he had been more than four about it. Don Quixote believed it
all, and told him he stood there ready to obey him, and to make an end of
it with as much despatch as possible; for, if he were again attacked, and
felt himself to be dubbed knight, he would not, he thought, leave a soul
alive in the castle, except such as out of respect he might spare at his
bidding.

Thus warned and menaced, the castellan forthwith brought out a book in
which he used to enter the straw and barley he served out to the
carriers, and, with a lad carrying a candle-end, and the two damsels
already mentioned, he returned to where Don Quixote stood, and bade him
kneel down. Then, reading from his account-book as if he were repeating
some devout prayer, in the middle of his delivery he raised his hand and
gave him a sturdy blow on the neck, and then, with his own sword, a smart
slap on the shoulder, all the while muttering between his teeth as if he
was saying his prayers. Having done this, he directed one of the ladies
to gird on his sword, which she did with great self-possession and
gravity, and not a little was required to prevent a burst of laughter at
each stage of the ceremony; but what they had already seen of the novice
knight's prowess kept their laughter within bounds. On girding him with
the sword the worthy lady said to him, "May God make your worship a very
fortunate knight, and grant you success in battle." Don Quixote asked her
name in order that he might from that time forward know to whom he was
beholden for the favour he had received, as he meant to confer upon her
some portion of the honour he acquired by the might of his arm. She
answered with great humility that she was called La Tolosa, and that she
was the daughter of a cobbler of Toledo who lived in the stalls of
Sanchobienaya, and that wherever she might be she would serve and esteem
him as her lord. Don Quixote said in reply that she would do him a favour
if thenceforward she assumed the "Don" and called herself Dona Tolosa.
She promised she would, and then the other buckled on his spur, and with
her followed almost the same conversation as with the lady of the sword.
He asked her name, and she said it was La Molinera, and that she was the
daughter of a respectable miller of Antequera; and of her likewise Don
Quixote requested that she would adopt the "Don" and call herself Dona
Molinera, making offers to her further services and favours.

Having thus, with hot haste and speed, brought to a conclusion these
never-till-now-seen ceremonies, Don Quixote was on thorns until he saw
himself on horseback sallying forth in quest of adventures; and saddling
Rocinante at once he mounted, and embracing his host, as he returned
thanks for his kindness in knighting him, he addressed him in language so
extraordinary that it is impossible to convey an idea of it or report it.
The landlord, to get him out of the inn, replied with no less rhetoric
though with shorter words, and without calling upon him to pay the
reckoning let him go with a Godspeed.




CHAPTER IV.

OF WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR KNIGHT WHEN HE LEFT THE INN


Day was dawning when Don Quixote quitted the inn, so happy, so gay, so
exhilarated at finding himself now dubbed a knight, that his joy was like
to burst his horse-girths. However, recalling the advice of his host as
to the requisites he ought to carry with him, especially that referring
to money and shirts, he determined to go home and provide himself with
all, and also with a squire, for he reckoned upon securing a
farm-labourer, a neighbour of his, a poor man with a family, but very
well qualified for the office of squire to a knight. With this object he
turned his horse's head towards his village, and Rocinante, thus reminded
of his old quarters, stepped out so briskly that he hardly seemed to
tread the earth.

He had not gone far, when out of a thicket on his right there seemed to
come feeble cries as of some one in distress, and the instant he heard
them he exclaimed, "Thanks be to heaven for the favour it accords me,
that it so soon offers me an opportunity of fulfilling the obligation I
have undertaken, and gathering the fruit of my ambition. These cries, no
doubt, come from some man or woman in want of help, and needing my aid
and protection;" and wheeling, he turned Rocinante in the direction
whence the cries seemed to proceed. He had gone but a few paces into the
wood, when he saw a mare tied to an oak, and tied to another, and
stripped from the waist upwards, a youth of about fifteen years of age,
from whom the cries came. Nor were they without cause, for a lusty farmer
was flogging him with a belt and following up every blow with scoldings
and commands, repeating, "Your mouth shut and your eyes open!" while the
youth made answer, "I won't do it again, master mine; by God's passion I
won't do it again, and I'll take more care of the flock another time."

Seeing what was going on, Don Quixote said in an angry voice,
"Discourteous knight, it ill becomes you to assail one who cannot defend
himself; mount your steed and take your lance" (for there was a lance
leaning against the oak to which the mare was tied), "and I will make you
know that you are behaving as a coward." The farmer, seeing before him
this figure in full armour brandishing a lance over his head, gave
himself up for dead, and made answer meekly, "Sir Knight, this youth that
I am chastising is my servant, employed by me to watch a flock of sheep
that I have hard by, and he is so careless that I lose one every day, and
when I punish him for his carelessness and knavery he says I do it out of
niggardliness, to escape paying him the wages I owe him, and before God,
and on my soul, he lies."

"Lies before me, base clown!" said Don Quixote. "By the sun that shines
on us I have a mind to run you through with this lance. Pay him at once
without another word; if not, by the God that rules us I will make an end
of you, and annihilate you on the spot; release him instantly."




The farmer hung his head, and without a word untied his servant, of whom
Don Quixote asked how much his master owed him.

He replied, nine months at seven reals a month. Don Quixote added it up,
found that it came to sixty-three reals, and told the farmer to pay it
down immediately, if he did not want to die for it.

The trembling clown replied that as he lived and by the oath he had sworn
(though he had not sworn any) it was not so much; for there were to be
taken into account and deducted three pairs of shoes he had given him,
and a real for two blood-lettings when he was sick.

"All that is very well," said Don Quixote; "but let the shoes and the
blood-lettings stand as a setoff against the blows you have given him
without any cause; for if he spoiled the leather of the shoes you paid
for, you have damaged that of his body, and if the barber took blood from
him when he was sick, you have drawn it when he was sound; so on that
score he owes you nothing."

"The difficulty is, Sir Knight, that I have no money here; let Andres
come home with me, and I will pay him all, real by real."

"I go with him!" said the youth. "Nay, God forbid! No, senor, not for the
world; for once alone with me, he would ray me like a Saint Bartholomew."

"He will do nothing of the kind," said Don Quixote; "I have only to
command, and he will obey me; and as he has sworn to me by the order of
knighthood which he has received, I leave him free, and I guarantee the
payment."

"Consider what you are saying, senor," said the youth; "this master of
mine is not a knight, nor has he received any order of knighthood; for he
is Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar."

"That matters little," replied Don Quixote; "there may be Haldudos
knights; moreover, everyone is the son of his works."

"That is true," said Andres; "but this master of mine--of what works is
he the son, when he refuses me the wages of my sweat and labour?"

"I do not refuse, brother Andres," said the farmer, "be good enough to
come along with me, and I swear by all the orders of knighthood there are
in the world to pay you as I have agreed, real by real, and perfumed."

"For the perfumery I excuse you," said Don Quixote; "give it to him in
reals, and I shall be satisfied; and see that you do as you have sworn;
if not, by the same oath I swear to come back and hunt you out and punish
you; and I shall find you though you should lie closer than a lizard. And
if you desire to know who it is lays this command upon you, that you be
more firmly bound to obey it, know that I am the valorous Don Quixote of
La Mancha, the undoer of wrongs and injustices; and so, God be with you,
and keep in mind what you have promised and sworn under those penalties
that have been already declared to you."

So saying, he gave Rocinante the spur and was soon out of reach. The
farmer followed him with his eyes, and when he saw that he had cleared
the wood and was no longer in sight, he turned to his boy Andres, and
said, "Come here, my son, I want to pay you what I owe you, as that
undoer of wrongs has commanded me."

"My oath on it," said Andres, "your worship will be well advised to obey
the command of that good knight--may he live a thousand years--for, as he
is a valiant and just judge, by Roque, if you do not pay me, he will come
back and do as he said."

"My oath on it, too," said the farmer; "but as I have a strong affection
for you, I want to add to the debt in order to add to the payment;" and
seizing him by the arm, he tied him up again, and gave him such a
flogging that he left him for dead.

"Now, Master Andres," said the farmer, "call on the undoer of wrongs; you
will find he won't undo that, though I am not sure that I have quite done
with you, for I have a good mind to flay you alive." But at last he
untied him, and gave him leave to go look for his judge in order to put
the sentence pronounced into execution.

Andres went off rather down in the mouth, swearing he would go to look
for the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha and tell him exactly what had
happened, and that all would have to be repaid him sevenfold; but for all
that, he went off weeping, while his master stood laughing.

Thus did the valiant Don Quixote right that wrong, and, thoroughly
satisfied with what had taken place, as he considered he had made a very
happy and noble beginning with his knighthood, he took the road towards
his village in perfect self-content, saying in a low voice, "Well mayest
thou this day call thyself fortunate above all on earth, O Dulcinea del
Toboso, fairest of the fair! since it has fallen to thy lot to hold
subject and submissive to thy full will and pleasure a knight so renowned
as is and will be Don Quixote of La Mancha, who, as all the world knows,
yesterday received the order of knighthood, and hath to-day righted the
greatest wrong and grievance that ever injustice conceived and cruelty
perpetrated: who hath to-day plucked the rod from the hand of yonder
ruthless oppressor so wantonly lashing that tender child."

He now came to a road branching in four directions, and immediately he
was reminded of those cross-roads where knights-errant used to stop to
consider which road they should take. In imitation of them he halted for
a while, and after having deeply considered it, he gave Rocinante his
head, submitting his own will to that of his hack, who followed out his
first intention, which was to make straight for his own stable. After he
had gone about two miles Don Quixote perceived a large party of people,
who, as afterwards appeared, were some Toledo traders, on their way to
buy silk at Murcia. There were six of them coming along under their
sunshades, with four servants mounted, and three muleteers on foot.
Scarcely had Don Quixote descried them when the fancy possessed him that
this must be some new adventure; and to help him to imitate as far as he
could those passages he had read of in his books, here seemed to come one
made on purpose, which he resolved to attempt. So with a lofty bearing
and determination he fixed himself firmly in his stirrups, got his lance
ready, brought his buckler before his breast, and planting himself in the
middle of the road, stood waiting the approach of these knights-errant,
for such he now considered and held them to be; and when they had come
near enough to see and hear, he exclaimed with a haughty gesture, "All
the world stand, unless all the world confess that in all the world there
is no maiden fairer than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea
del Toboso."

The traders halted at the sound of this language and the sight of the
strange figure that uttered it, and from both figure and language at once
guessed the craze of their owner; they wished, however, to learn quietly
what was the object of this confession that was demanded of them, and one
of them, who was rather fond of a joke and was very sharp-witted, said to
him, "Sir Knight, we do not know who this good lady is that you speak of;
show her to us, for, if she be of such beauty as you suggest, with all
our hearts and without any pressure we will confess the truth that is on
your part required of us."

"If I were to show her to you," replied Don Quixote, "what merit would
you have in confessing a truth so manifest? The essential point is that
without seeing her you must believe, confess, affirm, swear, and defend
it; else ye have to do with me in battle, ill-conditioned, arrogant
rabble that ye are; and come ye on, one by one as the order of knighthood
requires, or all together as is the custom and vile usage of your breed,
here do I bide and await you relying on the justice of the cause I
maintain."

"Sir Knight," replied the trader, "I entreat your worship in the name of
this present company of princes, that, to save us from charging our
consciences with the confession of a thing we have never seen or heard
of, and one moreover so much to the prejudice of the Empresses and Queens
of the Alcarria and Estremadura, your worship will be pleased to show us
some portrait of this lady, though it be no bigger than a grain of wheat;
for by the thread one gets at the ball, and in this way we shall be
satisfied and easy, and you will be content and pleased; nay, I believe
we are already so far agreed with you that even though her portrait
should show her blind of one eye, and distilling vermilion and sulphur
from the other, we would nevertheless, to gratify your worship, say all
in her favour that you desire."

"She distils nothing of the kind, vile rabble," said Don Quixote, burning
with rage, "nothing of the kind, I say, only ambergris and civet in
cotton; nor is she one-eyed or humpbacked, but straighter than a
Guadarrama spindle: but ye must pay for the blasphemy ye have uttered
against beauty like that of my lady."

And so saying, he charged with levelled lance against the one who had
spoken, with such fury and fierceness that, if luck had not contrived
that Rocinante should stumble midway and come down, it would have gone
hard with the rash trader. Down went Rocinante, and over went his master,
rolling along the ground for some distance; and when he tried to rise he
was unable, so encumbered was he with lance, buckler, spurs, helmet, and
the weight of his old armour; and all the while he was struggling to get
up he kept saying, "Fly not, cowards and caitiffs! stay, for not by my
fault, but my horse's, am I stretched here."




One of the muleteers in attendance, who could not have had much good
nature in him, hearing the poor prostrate man blustering in this style,
was unable to refrain from giving him an answer on his ribs; and coming
up to him he seized his lance, and having broken it in pieces, with one
of them he began so to belabour our Don Quixote that, notwithstanding and
in spite of his armour, he milled him like a measure of wheat. His
masters called out not to lay on so hard and to leave him alone, but the
muleteers blood was up, and he did not care to drop the game until he had
vented the rest of his wrath, and gathering up the remaining fragments of
the lance he finished with a discharge upon the unhappy victim, who all
through the storm of sticks that rained on him never ceased threatening
heaven, and earth, and the brigands, for such they seemed to him. At last
the muleteer was tired, and the traders continued their journey, taking
with them matter for talk about the poor fellow who had been cudgelled.
He when he found himself alone made another effort to rise; but if he was
unable when whole and sound, how was he to rise after having been
thrashed and well-nigh knocked to pieces? And yet he esteemed himself
fortunate, as it seemed to him that this was a regular knight-errant's
mishap, and entirely, he considered, the fault of his horse. However,
battered in body as he was, to rise was beyond his power.




CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE OF OUR KNIGHT'S MISHAP IS CONTINUED


Finding, then, that, in fact he could not move, he thought himself of
having recourse to his usual remedy, which was to think of some passage
in his books, and his craze brought to his mind that about Baldwin and
the Marquis of Mantua, when Carloto left him wounded on the mountain
side, a story known by heart by the children, not forgotten by the young
men, and lauded and even believed by the old folk; and for all that not a
whit truer than the miracles of Mahomet. This seemed to him to fit
exactly the case in which he found himself, so, making a show of severe
suffering, he began to roll on the ground and with feeble breath repeat
the very words which the wounded knight of the wood is said to have
uttered:

Where art thou, lady mine, that thou
  My sorrow dost not rue?
Thou canst not know it, lady mine,
  Or else thou art untrue.

And so he went on with the ballad as far as the lines:

O noble Marquis of Mantua,
  My Uncle and liege lord!

As chance would have it, when he had got to this line there happened to
come by a peasant from his own village, a neighbour of his, who had been
with a load of wheat to the mill, and he, seeing the man stretched there,
came up to him and asked him who he was and what was the matter with him
that he complained so dolefully.

Don Quixote was firmly persuaded that this was the Marquis of Mantua, his
uncle, so the only answer he made was to go on with his ballad, in which
he told the tale of his misfortune, and of the loves of the Emperor's son
and his wife all exactly as the ballad sings it.

The peasant stood amazed at hearing such nonsense, and relieving him of
the visor, already battered to pieces by blows, he wiped his face, which
was covered with dust, and as soon as he had done so he recognised him
and said, "Senor Quixada" (for so he appears to have been called when he
was in his senses and had not yet changed from a quiet country gentleman
into a knight-errant), "who has brought your worship to this pass?" But
to all questions the other only went on with his ballad.

Seeing this, the good man removed as well as he could his breastplate and
backpiece to see if he had any wound, but he could perceive no blood nor
any mark whatever. He then contrived to raise him from the ground, and
with no little difficulty hoisted him upon his ass, which seemed to him
to be the easiest mount for him; and collecting the arms, even to the
splinters of the lance, he tied them on Rocinante, and leading him by the
bridle and the ass by the halter he took the road for the village, very
sad to hear what absurd stuff Don Quixote was talking.

Nor was Don Quixote less so, for what with blows and bruises he could not
sit upright on the ass, and from time to time he sent up sighs to heaven,
so that once more he drove the peasant to ask what ailed him. And it
could have been only the devil himself that put into his head tales to
match his own adventures, for now, forgetting Baldwin, he bethought
himself of the Moor Abindarraez, when the Alcaide of Antequera, Rodrigo
de Narvaez, took him prisoner and carried him away to his castle; so that
when the peasant again asked him how he was and what ailed him, he gave
him for reply the same words and phrases that the captive Abindarraez
gave to Rodrigo de Narvaez, just as he had read the story in the "Diana"
of Jorge de Montemayor where it is written, applying it to his own case
so aptly that the peasant went along cursing his fate that he had to
listen to such a lot of nonsense; from which, however, he came to the
conclusion that his neighbour was mad, and so made all haste to reach the
village to escape the wearisomeness of this harangue of Don Quixote's;
who, at the end of it, said, "Senor Don Rodrigo de Narvaez, your worship
must know that this fair Xarifa I have mentioned is now the lovely
Dulcinea del Toboso, for whom I have done, am doing, and will do the most
famous deeds of chivalry that in this world have been seen, are to be
seen, or ever shall be seen."

To this the peasant answered, "Senor--sinner that I am!--cannot your
worship see that I am not Don Rodrigo de Narvaez nor the Marquis of
Mantua, but Pedro Alonso your neighbour, and that your worship is neither
Baldwin nor Abindarraez, but the worthy gentleman Senor Quixada?"

"I know who I am," replied Don Quixote, "and I know that I may be not
only those I have named, but all the Twelve Peers of France and even all
the Nine Worthies, since my achievements surpass all that they have done
all together and each of them on his own account."

With this talk and more of the same kind they reached the village just as
night was beginning to fall, but the peasant waited until it was a little
later that the belaboured gentleman might not be seen riding in such a
miserable trim. When it was what seemed to him the proper time he entered
the village and went to Don Quixote's house, which he found all in
confusion, and there were the curate and the village barber, who were
great friends of Don Quixote, and his housekeeper was saying to them in a
loud voice, "What does your worship think can have befallen my master,
Senor Licentiate Pero Perez?" for so the curate was called; "it is three
days now since anything has been seen of him, or the hack, or the
buckler, lance, or armour. Miserable me! I am certain of it, and it is as
true as that I was born to die, that these accursed books of chivalry he
has, and has got into the way of reading so constantly, have upset his
reason; for now I remember having often heard him saying to himself that
he would turn knight-errant and go all over the world in quest of
adventures. To the devil and Barabbas with such books, that have brought
to ruin in this way the finest understanding there was in all La Mancha!"

The niece said the same, and, more: "You must know, Master Nicholas"--for
that was the name of the barber--"it was often my uncle's way to stay two
days and nights together poring over these unholy books of misventures,
after which he would fling the book away and snatch up his sword and fall
to slashing the walls; and when he was tired out he would say he had
killed four giants like four towers; and the sweat that flowed from him
when he was weary he said was the blood of the wounds he had received in
battle; and then he would drink a great jug of cold water and become calm
and quiet, saying that this water was a most precious potion which the
sage Esquife, a great magician and friend of his, had brought him. But I
take all the blame upon myself for never having told your worships of my
uncle's vagaries, that you might put a stop to them before things had
come to this pass, and burn all these accursed books--for he has a great
number--that richly deserve to be burned like heretics."

"So say I too," said the curate, "and by my faith to-morrow shall not
pass without public judgment upon them, and may they be condemned to the
flames lest they lead those that read to behave as my good friend seems
to have behaved."

All this the peasant heard, and from it he understood at last what was
the matter with his neighbour, so he began calling aloud, "Open, your
worships, to Senor Baldwin and to Senor the Marquis of Mantua, who comes
badly wounded, and to Senor Abindarraez, the Moor, whom the valiant
Rodrigo de Narvaez, the Alcaide of Antequera, brings captive."

At these words they all hurried out, and when they recognised their
friend, master, and uncle, who had not yet dismounted from the ass
because he could not, they ran to embrace him.

"Hold!" said he, "for I am badly wounded through my horse's fault; carry
me to bed, and if possible send for the wise Urganda to cure and see to
my wounds."

"See there! plague on it!" cried the housekeeper at this: "did not my
heart tell the truth as to which foot my master went lame of? To bed with
your worship at once, and we will contrive to cure you here without
fetching that Hurgada. A curse I say once more, and a hundred times more,
on those books of chivalry that have brought your worship to such a
pass."

They carried him to bed at once, and after searching for his wounds could
find none, but he said they were all bruises from having had a severe
fall with his horse Rocinante when in combat with ten giants, the biggest
and the boldest to be found on earth.

"So, so!" said the curate, "are there giants in the dance? By the sign of
the Cross I will burn them to-morrow before the day is over."

They put a host of questions to Don Quixote, but his only answer to all
was--give him something to eat, and leave him to sleep, for that was what
he needed most. They did so, and the curate questioned the peasant at
great length as to how he had found Don Quixote. He told him, and the
nonsense he had talked when found and on the way home, all which made the
licentiate the more eager to do what he did the next day, which was to
summon his friend the barber, Master Nicholas, and go with him to Don
Quixote's house.




CHAPTER VI.

OF THE DIVERTING AND IMPORTANT SCRUTINY WHICH THE CURATE AND THE BARBER
MADE IN THE LIBRARY OF OUR INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN


He was still sleeping; so the curate asked the niece for the keys of the
room where the books, the authors of all the mischief, were, and right
willingly she gave them. They all went in, the housekeeper with them, and
found more than a hundred volumes of big books very well bound, and some
other small ones. The moment the housekeeper saw them she turned about
and ran out of the room, and came back immediately with a saucer of holy
water and a sprinkler, saying, "Here, your worship, senor licentiate,
sprinkle this room; don't leave any magician of the many there are in
these books to bewitch us in revenge for our design of banishing them
from the world."

The simplicity of the housekeeper made the licentiate laugh, and he
directed the barber to give him the books one by one to see what they
were about, as there might be some to be found among them that did not
deserve the penalty of fire.

"No," said the niece, "there is no reason for showing mercy to any of
them; they have every one of them done mischief; better fling them out of
the window into the court and make a pile of them and set fire to them;
or else carry them into the yard, and there a bonfire can be made without
the smoke giving any annoyance." The housekeeper said the same, so eager
were they both for the slaughter of those innocents, but the curate would
not agree to it without first reading at any rate the titles.

The first that Master Nicholas put into his hand was "The four books of
Amadis of Gaul." "This seems a mysterious thing," said the curate, "for,
as I have heard say, this was the first book of chivalry printed in
Spain, and from this all the others derive their birth and origin; so it
seems to me that we ought inexorably to condemn it to the flames as the
founder of so vile a sect."

"Nay, sir," said the barber, "I too, have heard say that this is the best
of all the books of this kind that have been written, and so, as
something singular in its line, it ought to be pardoned."

"True," said the curate; "and for that reason let its life be spared for
the present. Let us see that other which is next to it."

"It is," said the barber, "the 'Sergas de Esplandian,' the lawful son of
Amadis of Gaul."

"Then verily," said the curate, "the merit of the father must not be put
down to the account of the son. Take it, mistress housekeeper; open the
window and fling it into the yard and lay the foundation of the pile for
the bonfire we are to make."

The housekeeper obeyed with great satisfaction, and the worthy
"Esplandian" went flying into the yard to await with all patience the
fire that was in store for him.

"Proceed," said the curate.

"This that comes next," said the barber, "is 'Amadis of Greece,' and,
indeed, I believe all those on this side are of the same Amadis lineage."

"Then to the yard with the whole of them," said the curate; "for to have
the burning of Queen Pintiquiniestra, and the shepherd Darinel and his
eclogues, and the bedevilled and involved discourses of his author, I
would burn with them the father who begot me if he were going about in
the guise of a knight-errant."

"I am of the same mind," said the barber.

"And so am I," added the niece.

"In that case," said the housekeeper, "here, into the yard with them!"

They were handed to her, and as there were many of them, she spared
herself the staircase, and flung them down out of the window.

"Who is that tub there?" said the curate.

"This," said the barber, "is 'Don Olivante de Laura.'"

"The author of that book," said the curate, "was the same that wrote 'The
Garden of Flowers,' and truly there is no deciding which of the two books
is the more truthful, or, to put it better, the less lying; all I can say
is, send this one into the yard for a swaggering fool."

"This that follows is 'Florismarte of Hircania,'" said the barber.

"Senor Florismarte here?" said the curate; "then by my faith he must take
up his quarters in the yard, in spite of his marvellous birth and
visionary adventures, for the stiffness and dryness of his style deserve
nothing else; into the yard with him and the other, mistress
housekeeper."

"With all my heart, senor," said she, and executed the order with great
delight.

"This," said the barber, "is The Knight Platir.'"

"An old book that," said the curate, "but I find no reason for clemency
in it; send it after the others without appeal;" which was done.

Another book was opened, and they saw it was entitled, "The Knight of the
Cross."

"For the sake of the holy name this book has," said the curate, "its
ignorance might be excused; but then, they say, 'behind the cross there's
the devil; to the fire with it."

Taking down another book, the barber said, "This is 'The Mirror of
Chivalry.'"

"I know his worship," said the curate; "that is where Senor Reinaldos of
Montalvan figures with his friends and comrades, greater thieves than
Cacus, and the Twelve Peers of France with the veracious historian
Turpin; however, I am not for condemning them to more than perpetual
banishment, because, at any rate, they have some share in the invention
of the famous Matteo Boiardo, whence too the Christian poet Ludovico
Ariosto wove his web, to whom, if I find him here, and speaking any
language but his own, I shall show no respect whatever; but if he speaks
his own tongue I will put him upon my head."

"Well, I have him in Italian," said the barber, "but I do not understand
him."

"Nor would it be well that you should understand him," said the curate,
"and on that score we might have excused the Captain if he had not
brought him into Spain and turned him into Castilian. He robbed him of a
great deal of his natural force, and so do all those who try to turn
books written in verse into another language, for, with all the pains
they take and all the cleverness they show, they never can reach the
level of the originals as they were first produced. In short, I say that
this book, and all that may be found treating of those French affairs,
should be thrown into or deposited in some dry well, until after more
consideration it is settled what is to be done with them; excepting
always one 'Bernardo del Carpio' that is going about, and another called
'Roncesvalles;' for these, if they come into my hands, shall pass at once
into those of the housekeeper, and from hers into the fire without any
reprieve."

To all this the barber gave his assent, and looked upon it as right and
proper, being persuaded that the curate was so staunch to the Faith and
loyal to the Truth that he would not for the world say anything opposed
to them. Opening another book he saw it was "Palmerin de Oliva," and
beside it was another called "Palmerin of England," seeing which the
licentiate said, "Let the Olive be made firewood of at once and burned
until no ashes even are left; and let that Palm of England be kept and
preserved as a thing that stands alone, and let such another case be made
for it as that which Alexander found among the spoils of Darius and set
aside for the safe keeping of the works of the poet Homer. This book,
gossip, is of authority for two reasons, first because it is very good,
and secondly because it is said to have been written by a wise and witty
king of Portugal. All the adventures at the Castle of Miraguarda are
excellent and of admirable contrivance, and the language is polished and
clear, studying and observing the style befitting the speaker with
propriety and judgment. So then, provided it seems good to you, Master
Nicholas, I say let this and 'Amadis of Gaul' be remitted the penalty of
fire, and as for all the rest, let them perish without further question
or query."

"Nay, gossip," said the barber, "for this that I have here is the famous
'Don Belianis.'"

"Well," said the curate, "that and the second, third, and fourth parts
all stand in need of a little rhubarb to purge their excess of bile, and
they must be cleared of all that stuff about the Castle of Fame and other
greater affectations, to which end let them be allowed the over-seas
term, and, according as they mend, so shall mercy or justice be meted out
to them; and in the mean time, gossip, do you keep them in your house and
let no one read them."

"With all my heart," said the barber; and not caring to tire himself with
reading more books of chivalry, he told the housekeeper to take all the
big ones and throw them into the yard. It was not said to one dull or
deaf, but to one who enjoyed burning them more than weaving the broadest
and finest web that could be; and seizing about eight at a time, she
flung them out of the window.

In carrying so many together she let one fall at the feet of the barber,
who took it up, curious to know whose it was, and found it said, "History
of the Famous Knight, Tirante el Blanco."

"God bless me!" said the curate with a shout, "'Tirante el Blanco' here!
Hand it over, gossip, for in it I reckon I have found a treasury of
enjoyment and a mine of recreation. Here is Don Kyrieleison of Montalvan,
a valiant knight, and his brother Thomas of Montalvan, and the knight
Fonseca, with the battle the bold Tirante fought with the mastiff, and
the witticisms of the damsel Placerdemivida, and the loves and wiles of
the widow Reposada, and the empress in love with the squire Hipolito--in
truth, gossip, by right of its style it is the best book in the world.
Here knights eat and sleep, and die in their beds, and make their wills
before dying, and a great deal more of which there is nothing in all the
other books. Nevertheless, I say he who wrote it, for deliberately
composing such fooleries, deserves to be sent to the galleys for life.
Take it home with you and read it, and you will see that what I have said
is true."

"As you will," said the barber; "but what are we to do with these little
books that are left?"

"These must be, not chivalry, but poetry," said the curate; and opening
one he saw it was the "Diana" of Jorge de Montemayor, and, supposing all
the others to be of the same sort, "these," he said, "do not deserve to
be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do the mischief
the books of chivalry have done, being books of entertainment that can
hurt no one."

"Ah, senor!" said the niece, "your worship had better order these to be
burned as well as the others; for it would be no wonder if, after being
cured of his chivalry disorder, my uncle, by reading these, took a fancy
to turn shepherd and range the woods and fields singing and piping; or,
what would be still worse, to turn poet, which they say is an incurable
and infectious malady."

"The damsel is right," said the curate, "and it will be well to put this
stumbling-block and temptation out of our friend's way. To begin, then,
with the 'Diana' of Montemayor. I am of opinion it should not be burned,
but that it should be cleared of all that about the sage Felicia and the
magic water, and of almost all the longer pieces of verse: let it keep,
and welcome, its prose and the honour of being the first of books of the
kind."

"This that comes next," said the barber, "is the 'Diana,' entitled the
'Second Part, by the Salamancan,' and this other has the same title, and
its author is Gil Polo."

"As for that of the Salamancan," replied the curate, "let it go to swell
the number of the condemned in the yard, and let Gil Polo's be preserved
as if it came from Apollo himself: but get on, gossip, and make haste,
for it is growing late."

"This book," said the barber, opening another, "is the ten books of the
'Fortune of Love,' written by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet."

"By the orders I have received," said the curate, "since Apollo has been
Apollo, and the Muses have been Muses, and poets have been poets, so
droll and absurd a book as this has never been written, and in its way it
is the best and the most singular of all of this species that have as yet
appeared, and he who has not read it may be sure he has never read what
is delightful. Give it here, gossip, for I make more account of having
found it than if they had given me a cassock of Florence stuff."

He put it aside with extreme satisfaction, and the barber went on, "These
that come next are 'The Shepherd of Iberia,' 'Nymphs of Henares,' and
'The Enlightenment of Jealousy.'"

"Then all we have to do," said the curate, "is to hand them over to the
secular arm of the housekeeper, and ask me not why, or we shall never
have done."

"This next is the 'Pastor de Filida.'"

"No Pastor that," said the curate, "but a highly polished courtier; let
it be preserved as a precious jewel."

"This large one here," said the barber, "is called 'The Treasury of
various Poems.'"

"If there were not so many of them," said the curate, "they would be more
relished: this book must be weeded and cleansed of certain vulgarities
which it has with its excellences; let it be preserved because the author
is a friend of mine, and out of respect for other more heroic and loftier
works that he has written."

"This," continued the barber, "is the 'Cancionero' of Lopez de
Maldonado."

"The author of that book, too," said the curate, "is a great friend of
mine, and his verses from his own mouth are the admiration of all who
hear them, for such is the sweetness of his voice that he enchants when
he chants them: it gives rather too much of its eclogues, but what is
good was never yet plentiful: let it be kept with those that have been
set apart. But what book is that next it?"

"The 'Galatea' of Miguel de Cervantes," said the barber.

"That Cervantes has been for many years a great friend of mine, and to my
knowledge he has had more experience in reverses than in verses. His book
has some good invention in it, it presents us with something but brings
nothing to a conclusion: we must wait for the Second Part it promises:
perhaps with amendment it may succeed in winning the full measure of
grace that is now denied it; and in the mean time do you, senor gossip,
keep it shut up in your own quarters."

"Very good," said the barber; "and here come three together, the
'Araucana' of Don Alonso de Ercilla, the 'Austriada' of Juan Rufo,
Justice of Cordova, and the 'Montserrate' of Christobal de Virues, the
Valencian poet."

"These three books," said the curate, "are the best that have been
written in Castilian in heroic verse, and they may compare with the most
famous of Italy; let them be preserved as the richest treasures of poetry
that Spain possesses."

The curate was tired and would not look into any more books, and so he
decided that, "contents uncertified," all the rest should be burned; but
just then the barber held open one, called "The Tears of Angelica."

"I should have shed tears myself," said the curate when he heard the
title, "had I ordered that book to be burned, for its author was one of
the famous poets of the world, not to say of Spain, and was very happy in
the translation of some of Ovid's fables."




CHAPTER VII.

OF THE SECOND SALLY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA


At this instant Don Quixote began shouting out, "Here, here, valiant
knights! here is need for you to put forth the might of your strong arms,
for they of the Court are gaining the mastery in the tourney!" Called
away by this noise and outcry, they proceeded no farther with the
scrutiny of the remaining books, and so it is thought that "The Carolea,"
"The Lion of Spain," and "The Deeds of the Emperor," written by Don Luis
de Avila, went to the fire unseen and unheard; for no doubt they were
among those that remained, and perhaps if the curate had seen them they
would not have undergone so severe a sentence.

When they reached Don Quixote he was already out of bed, and was still
shouting and raving, and slashing and cutting all round, as wide awake as
if he had never slept.

They closed with him and by force got him back to bed, and when he had
become a little calm, addressing the curate, he said to him, "Of a truth,
Senor Archbishop Turpin, it is a great disgrace for us who call ourselves
the Twelve Peers, so carelessly to allow the knights of the Court to gain
the victory in this tourney, we the adventurers having carried off the
honour on the three former days."

"Hush, gossip," said the curate; "please God, the luck may turn, and what
is lost to-day may be won to-morrow; for the present let your worship
have a care of your health, for it seems to me that you are
over-fatigued, if not badly wounded."

"Wounded no," said Don Quixote, "but bruised and battered no doubt, for
that bastard Don Roland has cudgelled me with the trunk of an oak tree,
and all for envy, because he sees that I alone rival him in his
achievements. But I should not call myself Reinaldos of Montalvan did he
not pay me for it in spite of all his enchantments as soon as I rise from
this bed. For the present let them bring me something to eat, for that, I
feel, is what will be more to my purpose, and leave it to me to avenge
myself."

They did as he wished; they gave him something to eat, and once more he
fell asleep, leaving them marvelling at his madness.

That night the housekeeper burned to ashes all the books that were in the
yard and in the whole house; and some must have been consumed that
deserved preservation in everlasting archives, but their fate and the
laziness of the examiner did not permit it, and so in them was verified
the proverb that the innocent suffer for the guilty.

One of the remedies which the curate and the barber immediately applied
to their friend's disorder was to wall up and plaster the room where the
books were, so that when he got up he should not find them (possibly the
cause being removed the effect might cease), and they might say that a
magician had carried them off, room and all; and this was done with all
despatch. Two days later Don Quixote got up, and the first thing he did
was to go and look at his books, and not finding the room where he had
left it, he wandered from side to side looking for it. He came to the
place where the door used to be, and tried it with his hands, and turned
and twisted his eyes in every direction without saying a word; but after
a good while he asked his housekeeper whereabouts was the room that held
his books.

The housekeeper, who had been already well instructed in what she was to
answer, said, "What room or what nothing is it that your worship is
looking for? There are neither room nor books in this house now, for the
devil himself has carried all away."

"It was not the devil," said the niece, "but a magician who came on a
cloud one night after the day your worship left this, and dismounting
from a serpent that he rode he entered the room, and what he did there I
know not, but after a little while he made off, flying through the roof,
and left the house full of smoke; and when we went to see what he had
done we saw neither book nor room: but we remember very well, the
housekeeper and I, that on leaving, the old villain said in a loud voice
that, for a private grudge he owed the owner of the books and the room,
he had done mischief in that house that would be discovered by-and-by: he
said too that his name was the Sage Munaton."

"He must have said Friston," said Don Quixote.

"I don't know whether he called himself Friston or Friton," said the
housekeeper, "I only know that his name ended with 'ton.'"

"So it does," said Don Quixote, "and he is a sage magician, a great enemy
of mine, who has a spite against me because he knows by his arts and lore
that in process of time I am to engage in single combat with a knight
whom he befriends and that I am to conquer, and he will be unable to
prevent it; and for this reason he endeavours to do me all the ill turns
that he can; but I promise him it will be hard for him to oppose or avoid
what is decreed by Heaven."

"Who doubts that?" said the niece; "but, uncle, who mixes you up in these
quarrels? Would it not be better to remain at peace in your own house
instead of roaming the world looking for better bread than ever came of
wheat, never reflecting that many go for wool and come back shorn?"

"Oh, niece of mine," replied Don Quixote, "how much astray art thou in
thy reckoning: ere they shear me I shall have plucked away and stripped
off the beards of all who dare to touch only the tip of a hair of mine."

The two were unwilling to make any further answer, as they saw that his
anger was kindling.

In short, then, he remained at home fifteen days very quietly without
showing any signs of a desire to take up with his former delusions, and
during this time he held lively discussions with his two gossips, the
curate and the barber, on the point he maintained, that knights-errant
were what the world stood most in need of, and that in him was to be
accomplished the revival of knight-errantry. The curate sometimes
contradicted him, sometimes agreed with him, for if he had not observed
this precaution he would have been unable to bring him to reason.

Meanwhile Don Quixote worked upon a farm labourer, a neighbour of his, an
honest man (if indeed that title can be given to him who is poor), but
with very little wit in his pate. In a word, he so talked him over, and
with such persuasions and promises, that the poor clown made up his mind
to sally forth with him and serve him as esquire. Don Quixote, among
other things, told him he ought to be ready to go with him gladly,
because any moment an adventure might occur that might win an island in
the twinkling of an eye and leave him governor of it. On these and the
like promises Sancho Panza (for so the labourer was called) left wife and
children, and engaged himself as esquire to his neighbour.

Don Quixote next set about getting some money; and selling one thing and
pawning another, and making a bad bargain in every case, he got together
a fair sum. He provided himself with a buckler, which he begged as a loan
from a friend, and, restoring his battered helmet as best he could, he
warned his squire Sancho of the day and hour he meant to set out, that he
might provide himself with what he thought most needful. Above all, he
charged him to take alforjas with him. The other said he would, and that
he meant to take also a very good ass he had, as he was not much given to
going on foot. About the ass, Don Quixote hesitated a little, trying
whether he could call to mind any knight-errant taking with him an
esquire mounted on ass-back, but no instance occurred to his memory. For
all that, however, he determined to take him, intending to furnish him
with a more honourable mount when a chance of it presented itself, by
appropriating the horse of the first discourteous knight he encountered.
Himself he provided with shirts and such other things as he could,
according to the advice the host had given him; all which being done,
without taking leave, Sancho Panza of his wife and children, or Don
Quixote of his housekeeper and niece, they sallied forth unseen by
anybody from the village one night, and made such good way in the course
of it that by daylight they held themselves safe from discovery, even
should search be made for them.

Sancho rode on his ass like a patriarch, with his alforjas and bota, and
longing to see himself soon governor of the island his master had
promised him. Don Quixote decided upon taking the same route and road he
had taken on his first journey, that over the Campo de Montiel, which he
travelled with less discomfort than on the last occasion, for, as it was
early morning and the rays of the sun fell on them obliquely, the heat
did not distress them.

And now said Sancho Panza to his master, "Your worship will take care,
Senor Knight-errant, not to forget about the island you have promised me,
for be it ever so big I'll be equal to governing it."

To which Don Quixote replied, "Thou must know, friend Sancho Panza, that
it was a practice very much in vogue with the knights-errant of old to
make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they won, and I
am determined that there shall be no failure on my part in so liberal a
custom; on the contrary, I mean to improve upon it, for they sometimes,
and perhaps most frequently, waited until their squires were old, and
then when they had had enough of service and hard days and worse nights,
they gave them some title or other, of count, or at the most marquis, of
some valley or province more or less; but if thou livest and I live, it
may well be that before six days are over, I may have won some kingdom
that has others dependent upon it, which will be just the thing to enable
thee to be crowned king of one of them. Nor needst thou count this
wonderful, for things and chances fall to the lot of such knights in ways
so unexampled and unexpected that I might easily give thee even more than
I promise thee."

"In that case," said Sancho Panza, "if I should become a king by one of
those miracles your worship speaks of, even Juana Gutierrez, my old
woman, would come to be queen and my children infantes."

"Well, who doubts it?" said Don Quixote.

"I doubt it," replied Sancho Panza, "because for my part I am persuaded
that though God should shower down kingdoms upon earth, not one of them
would fit the head of Mari Gutierrez. Let me tell you, senor, she is not
worth two maravedis for a queen; countess will fit her better, and that
only with God's help."

"Leave it to God, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "for he will give her
what suits her best; but do not undervalue thyself so much as to come to
be content with anything less than being governor of a province."

"I will not, senor," answered Sancho, "specially as I have a man of such
quality for a master in your worship, who will know how to give me all
that will be suitable for me and that I can bear."




CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE GOOD FORTUNE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE TERRIBLE AND
UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE WINDMILLS, WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY TO
BE FITLY RECORDED


At this point they came in sight of thirty forty windmills that there are
on plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire,
"Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our
desires ourselves, for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or
more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in
battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our
fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to
sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those thou seest there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and
some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship," said Sancho; "what we see there are not giants but
windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by
the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that thou art not used to this
business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away
with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer while I engage them in
fierce and unequal combat."

So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rocinante, heedless of the cries
his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they
were windmills and not giants he was going to attack. He, however, was so
positive they were giants that he neither heard the cries of Sancho, nor
perceived, near as he was, what they were, but made at them shouting,
"Fly not, cowards and vile beings, for a single knight attacks you."

A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to
move, seeing which Don Quixote exclaimed, "Though ye flourish more arms
than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with me."

So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady
Dulcinea, imploring her to support him in such a peril, with lance in
rest and covered by his buckler, he charged at Rocinante's fullest gallop
and fell upon the first mill that stood in front of him; but as he drove
his lance-point into the sail the wind whirled it round with such force
that it shivered the lance to pieces, sweeping with it horse and rider,
who went rolling over on the plain, in a sorry condition. Sancho hastened
to his assistance as fast as his ass could go, and when he came up found
him unable to move, with such a shock had Rocinante fallen with him.

"God bless me!" said Sancho, "did I not tell your worship to mind what
you were about, for they were only windmills? and no one could have made
any mistake about it but one who had something of the same kind in his
head."

"Hush, friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "the fortunes of war more
than any other are liable to frequent fluctuations; and moreover I think,
and it is the truth, that that same sage Friston who carried off my study
and books, has turned these giants into mills in order to rob me of the
glory of vanquishing them, such is the enmity he bears me; but in the end
his wicked arts will avail but little against my good sword."

"God order it as he may," said Sancho Panza, and helping him to rise got
him up again on Rocinante, whose shoulder was half out; and then,
discussing the late adventure, they followed the road to Puerto Lapice,
for there, said Don Quixote, they could not fail to find adventures in
abundance and variety, as it was a great thoroughfare. For all that, he
was much grieved at the loss of his lance, and saying so to his squire,
he added, "I remember having read how a Spanish knight, Diego Perez de
Vargas by name, having broken his sword in battle, tore from an oak a
ponderous bough or branch, and with it did such things that day, and
pounded so many Moors, that he got the surname of Machuca, and he and his
descendants from that day forth were called Vargas y Machuca. I mention
this because from the first oak I see I mean to rend such another branch,
large and stout like that, with which I am determined and resolved to do
such deeds that thou mayest deem thyself very fortunate in being found
worthy to come and see them, and be an eyewitness of things that will
with difficulty be believed."

"Be that as God will," said Sancho, "I believe it all as your worship
says it; but straighten yourself a little, for you seem all on one side,
may be from the shaking of the fall."

"That is the truth," said Don Quixote, "and if I make no complaint of the
pain it is because knights-errant are not permitted to complain of any
wound, even though their bowels be coming out through it."

"If so," said Sancho, "I have nothing to say; but God knows I would
rather your worship complained when anything ailed you. For my part, I
confess I must complain however small the ache may be; unless this rule
about not complaining extends to the squires of knights-errant also."

Don Quixote could not help laughing at his squire's simplicity, and he
assured him he might complain whenever and however he chose, just as he
liked, for, so far, he had never read of anything to the contrary in the
order of knighthood.

Sancho bade him remember it was dinner-time, to which his master answered
that he wanted nothing himself just then, but that he might eat when he
had a mind. With this permission Sancho settled himself as comfortably as
he could on his beast, and taking out of the alforjas what he had stowed
away in them, he jogged along behind his master munching deliberately,
and from time to time taking a pull at the bota with a relish that the
thirstiest tapster in Malaga might have envied; and while he went on in
this way, gulping down draught after draught, he never gave a thought to
any of the promises his master had made him, nor did he rate it as
hardship but rather as recreation going in quest of adventures, however
dangerous they might be. Finally they passed the night among some trees,
from one of which Don Quixote plucked a dry branch to serve him after a
fashion as a lance, and fixed on it the head he had removed from the
broken one. All that night Don Quixote lay awake thinking of his lady
Dulcinea, in order to conform to what he had read in his books, how many
a night in the forests and deserts knights used to lie sleepless
supported by the memory of their mistresses. Not so did Sancho Panza
spend it, for having his stomach full of something stronger than chicory
water he made but one sleep of it, and, if his master had not called him,
neither the rays of the sun beating on his face nor all the cheery notes
of the birds welcoming the approach of day would have had power to waken
him. On getting up he tried the bota and found it somewhat less full than
the night before, which grieved his heart because they did not seem to be
on the way to remedy the deficiency readily. Don Quixote did not care to
break his fast, for, as has been already said, he confined himself to
savoury recollections for nourishment.

They returned to the road they had set out with, leading to Puerto
Lapice, and at three in the afternoon they came in sight of it. "Here,
brother Sancho Panza," said Don Quixote when he saw it, "we may plunge
our hands up to the elbows in what they call adventures; but observe,
even shouldst thou see me in the greatest danger in the world, thou must
not put a hand to thy sword in my defence, unless indeed thou perceivest
that those who assail me are rabble or base folk; for in that case thou
mayest very properly aid me; but if they be knights it is on no account
permitted or allowed thee by the laws of knighthood to help me until thou
hast been dubbed a knight."

"Most certainly, senor," replied Sancho, "your worship shall be fully
obeyed in this matter; all the more as of myself I am peaceful and no
friend to mixing in strife and quarrels: it is true that as regards the
defence of my own person I shall not give much heed to those laws, for
laws human and divine allow each one to defend himself against any
assailant whatever."

"That I grant," said Don Quixote, "but in this matter of aiding me
against knights thou must put a restraint upon thy natural impetuosity."

"I will do so, I promise you," answered Sancho, "and will keep this
precept as carefully as Sunday."

While they were thus talking there appeared on the road two friars of the
order of St. Benedict, mounted on two dromedaries, for not less tall were
the two mules they rode on. They wore travelling spectacles and carried
sunshades; and behind them came a coach attended by four or five persons
on horseback and two muleteers on foot. In the coach there was, as
afterwards appeared, a Biscay lady on her way to Seville, where her
husband was about to take passage for the Indies with an appointment of
high honour. The friars, though going the same road, were not in her
company; but the moment Don Quixote perceived them he said to his squire,
"Either I am mistaken, or this is going to be the most famous adventure
that has ever been seen, for those black bodies we see there must be, and
doubtless are, magicians who are carrying off some stolen princess in
that coach, and with all my might I must undo this wrong."

"This will be worse than the windmills," said Sancho. "Look, senor; those
are friars of St. Benedict, and the coach plainly belongs to some
travellers: I tell you to mind well what you are about and don't let the
devil mislead you."

"I have told thee already, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "that on the
subject of adventures thou knowest little. What I say is the truth, as
thou shalt see presently."

So saying, he advanced and posted himself in the middle of the road along
which the friars were coming, and as soon as he thought they had come
near enough to hear what he said, he cried aloud, "Devilish and unnatural
beings, release instantly the highborn princesses whom you are carrying
off by force in this coach, else prepare to meet a speedy death as the
just punishment of your evil deeds."

The friars drew rein and stood wondering at the appearance of Don Quixote
as well as at his words, to which they replied, "Senor Caballero, we are
not devilish or unnatural, but two brothers of St. Benedict following our
road, nor do we know whether or not there are any captive princesses
coming in this coach."

"No soft words with me, for I know you, lying rabble," said Don Quixote,
and without waiting for a reply he spurred Rocinante and with levelled
lance charged the first friar with such fury and determination, that, if
the friar had not flung himself off the mule, he would have brought him
to the ground against his will, and sore wounded, if not killed outright.
The second brother, seeing how his comrade was treated, drove his heels
into his castle of a mule and made off across the country faster than the
wind.

Sancho Panza, when he saw the friar on the ground, dismounting briskly
from his ass, rushed towards him and began to strip off his gown. At that
instant the friars muleteers came up and asked what he was stripping him
for. Sancho answered them that this fell to him lawfully as spoil of the
battle which his lord Don Quixote had won. The muleteers, who had no idea
of a joke and did not understand all this about battles and spoils,
seeing that Don Quixote was some distance off talking to the travellers
in the coach, fell upon Sancho, knocked him down, and leaving hardly a
hair in his beard, belaboured him with kicks and left him stretched
breathless and senseless on the ground; and without any more delay helped
the friar to mount, who, trembling, terrified, and pale, as soon as he
found himself in the saddle, spurred after his companion, who was
standing at a distance looking on, watching the result of the onslaught;
then, not caring to wait for the end of the affair just begun, they
pursued their journey making more crosses than if they had the devil
after them.

Don Quixote was, as has been said, speaking to the lady in the coach:
"Your beauty, lady mine," said he, "may now dispose of your person as may
be most in accordance with your pleasure, for the pride of your ravishers
lies prostrate on the ground through this strong arm of mine; and lest
you should be pining to know the name of your deliverer, know that I am
called Don Quixote of La Mancha, knight-errant and adventurer, and
captive to the peerless and beautiful lady Dulcinea del Toboso: and in
return for the service you have received of me I ask no more than that
you should return to El Toboso, and on my behalf present yourself before
that lady and tell her what I have done to set you free."

One of the squires in attendance upon the coach, a Biscayan, was
listening to all Don Quixote was saying, and, perceiving that he would
not allow the coach to go on, but was saying it must return at once to El
Toboso, he made at him, and seizing his lance addressed him in bad
Castilian and worse Biscayan after his fashion, "Begone, caballero, and
ill go with thee; by the God that made me, unless thou quittest coach,
slayest thee as art here a Biscayan."

Don Quixote understood him quite well, and answered him very quietly, "If
thou wert a knight, as thou art none, I should have already chastised thy
folly and rashness, miserable creature." To which the Biscayan returned,
"I no gentleman!--I swear to God thou liest as I am Christian: if thou
droppest lance and drawest sword, soon shalt thou see thou art carrying
water to the cat: Biscayan on land, hidalgo at sea, hidalgo at the devil,
and look, if thou sayest otherwise thou liest."

"'"You will see presently," said Agrajes,'" replied Don Quixote; and
throwing his lance on the ground he drew his sword, braced his buckler on
his arm, and attacked the Biscayan, bent upon taking his life.

The Biscayan, when he saw him coming on, though he wished to dismount
from his mule, in which, being one of those sorry ones let out for hire,
he had no confidence, had no choice but to draw his sword; it was lucky
for him, however, that he was near the coach, from which he was able to
snatch a cushion that served him for a shield; and they went at one
another as if they had been two mortal enemies. The others strove to make
peace between them, but could not, for the Biscayan declared in his
disjointed phrase that if they did not let him finish his battle he would
kill his mistress and everyone that strove to prevent him. The lady in
the coach, amazed and terrified at what she saw, ordered the coachman to
draw aside a little, and set herself to watch this severe struggle, in
the course of which the Biscayan smote Don Quixote a mighty stroke on the
shoulder over the top of his buckler, which, given to one without armour,
would have cleft him to the waist. Don Quixote, feeling the weight of
this prodigious blow, cried aloud, saying, "O lady of my soul, Dulcinea,
flower of beauty, come to the aid of this your knight, who, in fulfilling
his obligations to your beauty, finds himself in this extreme peril." To
say this, to lift his sword, to shelter himself well behind his buckler,
and to assail the Biscayan was the work of an instant, determined as he
was to venture all upon a single blow. The Biscayan, seeing him come on
in this way, was convinced of his courage by his spirited bearing, and
resolved to follow his example, so he waited for him keeping well under
cover of his cushion, being unable to execute any sort of manoeuvre with
his mule, which, dead tired and never meant for this kind of game, could
not stir a step.

On, then, as aforesaid, came Don Quixote against the wary Biscayan, with
uplifted sword and a firm intention of splitting him in half, while on
his side the Biscayan waited for him sword in hand, and under the
protection of his cushion; and all present stood trembling, waiting in
suspense the result of blows such as threatened to fall, and the lady in
the coach and the rest of her following were making a thousand vows and
offerings to all the images and shrines of Spain, that God might deliver
her squire and all of them from this great peril in which they found
themselves. But it spoils all, that at this point and crisis the author
of the history leaves this battle impending, giving as excuse that he
could find nothing more written about these achievements of Don Quixote
than what has been already set forth. It is true the second author of
this work was unwilling to believe that a history so curious could have
been allowed to fall under the sentence of oblivion, or that the wits of
La Mancha could have been so undiscerning as not to preserve in their
archives or registries some documents referring to this famous knight;
and this being his persuasion, he did not despair of finding the
conclusion of this pleasant history, which, heaven favouring him, he did
find in a way that shall be related in the Second Part.




CHAPTER IX.

IN WHICH IS CONCLUDED AND FINISHED THE TERRIFIC BATTLE BETWEEN THE
GALLANT BISCAYAN AND THE VALIANT MANCHEGAN

In the First Part of this history we left the valiant Biscayan and the
renowned Don Quixote with drawn swords uplifted, ready to deliver two
such furious slashing blows that if they had fallen full and fair they
would at least have split and cleft them asunder from top to toe and laid
them open like a pomegranate; and at this so critical point the
delightful history came to a stop and stood cut short without any
intimation from the author where what was missing was to be found.

This distressed me greatly, because the pleasure derived from having read
such a small portion turned to vexation at the thought of the poor chance
that presented itself of finding the large part that, so it seemed to me,
was missing of such an interesting tale. It appeared to me to be a thing
impossible and contrary to all precedent that so good a knight should
have been without some sage to undertake the task of writing his
marvellous achievements; a thing that was never wanting to any of those
knights-errant who, they say, went after adventures; for every one of
them had one or two sages as if made on purpose, who not only recorded
their deeds but described their most trifling thoughts and follies,
however secret they might be; and such a good knight could not have been
so unfortunate as not to have what Platir and others like him had in
abundance. And so I could not bring myself to believe that such a gallant
tale had been left maimed and mutilated, and I laid the blame on Time,
the devourer and destroyer of all things, that had either concealed or
consumed it.

On the other hand, it struck me that, inasmuch as among his books there
had been found such modern ones as "The Enlightenment of Jealousy" and
the "Nymphs and Shepherds of Henares," his story must likewise be modern,
and that though it might not be written, it might exist in the memory of
the people of his village and of those in the neighbourhood. This
reflection kept me perplexed and longing to know really and truly the
whole life and wondrous deeds of our famous Spaniard, Don Quixote of La
Mancha, light and mirror of Manchegan chivalry, and the first that in our
age and in these so evil days devoted himself to the labour and exercise
of the arms of knight-errantry, righting wrongs, succouring widows, and
protecting damsels of that sort that used to ride about, whip in hand, on
their palfreys, with all their virginity about them, from mountain to
mountain and valley to valley--for, if it were not for some ruffian, or
boor with a hood and hatchet, or monstrous giant, that forced them, there
were in days of yore damsels that at the end of eighty years, in all
which time they had never slept a day under a roof, went to their graves
as much maids as the mothers that bore them. I say, then, that in these
and other respects our gallant Don Quixote is worthy of everlasting and
notable praise, nor should it be withheld even from me for the labour and
pains spent in searching for the conclusion of this delightful history;
though I know well that if Heaven, chance and good fortune had not helped
me, the world would have remained deprived of an entertainment and
pleasure that for a couple of hours or so may well occupy him who shall
read it attentively. The discovery of it occurred in this way.

One day, as I was in the Alcana of Toledo, a boy came up to sell some
pamphlets and old papers to a silk mercer, and, as I am fond of reading
even the very scraps of paper in the streets, led by this natural bent of
mine I took up one of the pamphlets the boy had for sale, and saw that it
was in characters which I recognised as Arabic, and as I was unable to
read them though I could recognise them, I looked about to see if there
were any Spanish-speaking Morisco at hand to read them for me; nor was
there any great difficulty in finding such an interpreter, for even had I
sought one for an older and better language I should have found him. In
short, chance provided me with one, who when I told him what I wanted and
put the book into his hands, opened it in the middle and after reading a
little in it began to laugh. I asked him what he was laughing at, and he
replied that it was at something the book had written in the margin by
way of a note. I bade him tell it to me; and he still laughing said, "In
the margin, as I told you, this is written: 'This Dulcinea del Toboso so
often mentioned in this history, had, they say, the best hand of any
woman in all La Mancha for salting pigs.'"

When I heard Dulcinea del Toboso named, I was struck with surprise and
amazement, for it occurred to me at once that these pamphlets contained
the history of Don Quixote. With this idea I pressed him to read the
beginning, and doing so, turning the Arabic offhand into Castilian, he
told me it meant, "History of Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Cide
Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian." It required great caution to hide
the joy I felt when the title of the book reached my ears, and snatching
it from the silk mercer, I bought all the papers and pamphlets from the
boy for half a real; and if he had had his wits about him and had known
how eager I was for them, he might have safely calculated on making more
than six reals by the bargain. I withdrew at once with the Morisco into
the cloister of the cathedral, and begged him to turn all these pamphlets
that related to Don Quixote into the Castilian tongue, without omitting
or adding anything to them, offering him whatever payment he pleased. He
was satisfied with two arrobas of raisins and two bushels of wheat, and
promised to translate them faithfully and with all despatch; but to make
the matter easier, and not to let such a precious find out of my hands, I
took him to my house, where in little more than a month and a half he
translated the whole just as it is set down here.

In the first pamphlet the battle between Don Quixote and the Biscayan was
drawn to the very life, they planted in the same attitude as the history
describes, their swords raised, and the one protected by his buckler, the
other by his cushion, and the Biscayan's mule so true to nature that it
could be seen to be a hired one a bowshot off. The Biscayan had an
inscription under his feet which said, "Don Sancho de Azpeitia," which no
doubt must have been his name; and at the feet of Rocinante was another
that said, "Don Quixote." Rocinante was marvellously portrayed, so long
and thin, so lank and lean, with so much backbone and so far gone in
consumption, that he showed plainly with what judgment and propriety the
name of Rocinante had been bestowed upon him. Near him was Sancho Panza
holding the halter of his ass, at whose feet was another label that said,
"Sancho Zancas," and according to the picture, he must have had a big
belly, a short body, and long shanks, for which reason, no doubt, the
names of Panza and Zancas were given him, for by these two surnames the
history several times calls him. Some other trifling particulars might be
mentioned, but they are all of slight importance and have nothing to do
with the true relation of the history; and no history can be bad so long
as it is true.

If against the present one any objection be raised on the score of its
truth, it can only be that its author was an Arab, as lying is a very
common propensity with those of that nation; though, as they are such
enemies of ours, it is conceivable that there were omissions rather than
additions made in the course of it. And this is my own opinion; for,
where he could and should give freedom to his pen in praise of so worthy
a knight, he seems to me deliberately to pass it over in silence; which
is ill done and worse contrived, for it is the business and duty of
historians to be exact, truthful, and wholly free from passion, and
neither interest nor fear, hatred nor love, should make them swerve from
the path of truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, storehouse of
deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel for the present, and
warning for the future. In this I know will be found all that can be
desired in the pleasantest, and if it be wanting in any good quality, I
maintain it is the fault of its hound of an author and not the fault of
the subject. To be brief, its Second Part, according to the translation,
began in this way:

With trenchant swords upraised and poised on high, it seemed as though
the two valiant and wrathful combatants stood threatening heaven, and
earth, and hell, with such resolution and determination did they bear
themselves. The fiery Biscayan was the first to strike a blow, which was
delivered with such force and fury that had not the sword turned in its
course, that single stroke would have sufficed to put an end to the
bitter struggle and to all the adventures of our knight; but that good
fortune which reserved him for greater things, turned aside the sword of
his adversary, so that although it smote him upon the left shoulder, it
did him no more harm than to strip all that side of its armour, carrying
away a great part of his helmet with half of his ear, all which with
fearful ruin fell to the ground, leaving him in a sorry plight.

Good God! Who is there that could properly describe the rage that filled
the heart of our Manchegan when he saw himself dealt with in this
fashion? All that can be said is, it was such that he again raised
himself in his stirrups, and, grasping his sword more firmly with both
hands, he came down on the Biscayan with such fury, smiting him full over
the cushion and over the head, that--even so good a shield proving
useless--as if a mountain had fallen on him, he began to bleed from nose,
mouth, and ears, reeling as if about to fall backwards from his mule, as
no doubt he would have done had he not flung his arms about its neck; at
the same time, however, he slipped his feet out of the stirrups and then
unclasped his arms, and the mule, taking fright at the terrible blow,
made off across the plain, and with a few plunges flung its master to the
ground. Don Quixote stood looking on very calmly, and, when he saw him
fall, leaped from his horse and with great briskness ran to him, and,
presenting the point of his sword to his eyes, bade him surrender, or he
would cut his head off. The Biscayan was so bewildered that he was unable
to answer a word, and it would have gone hard with him, so blind was Don
Quixote, had not the ladies in the coach, who had hitherto been watching
the combat in great terror, hastened to where he stood and implored him
with earnest entreaties to grant them the great grace and favour of
sparing their squire's life; to which Don Quixote replied with much
gravity and dignity, "In truth, fair ladies, I am well content to do what
ye ask of me; but it must be on one condition and understanding, which is
that this knight promise me to go to the village of El Toboso, and on my
behalf present himself before the peerless lady Dulcinea, that she deal
with him as shall be most pleasing to her."

The terrified and disconsolate ladies, without discussing Don Quixote's
demand or asking who Dulcinea might be, promised that their squire should
do all that had been commanded.

"Then, on the faith of that promise," said Don Quixote, "I shall do him
no further harm, though he well deserves it of me."




CHAPTER X.

OF THE PLEASANT DISCOURSE THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE
SANCHO PANZA


Now by this time Sancho had risen, rather the worse for the handling of
the friars' muleteers, and stood watching the battle of his master, Don
Quixote, and praying to God in his heart that it might be his will to
grant him the victory, and that he might thereby win some island to make
him governor of, as he had promised. Seeing, therefore, that the struggle
was now over, and that his master was returning to mount Rocinante, he
approached to hold the stirrup for him, and, before he could mount, he
went on his knees before him, and taking his hand, kissed it saying, "May
it please your worship, Senor Don Quixote, to give me the government of
that island which has been won in this hard fight, for be it ever so big
I feel myself in sufficient force to be able to govern it as much and as
well as anyone in the world who has ever governed islands."

To which Don Quixote replied, "Thou must take notice, brother Sancho,
that this adventure and those like it are not adventures of islands, but
of cross-roads, in which nothing is got except a broken head or an ear
the less: have patience, for adventures will present themselves from
which I may make you, not only a governor, but something more."

Sancho gave him many thanks, and again kissing his hand and the skirt of
his hauberk, helped him to mount Rocinante, and mounting his ass himself,
proceeded to follow his master, who at a brisk pace, without taking
leave, or saying anything further to the ladies belonging to the coach,
turned into a wood that was hard by. Sancho followed him at his ass's
best trot, but Rocinante stepped out so that, seeing himself left behind,
he was forced to call to his master to wait for him. Don Quixote did so,
reining in Rocinante until his weary squire came up, who on reaching him
said, "It seems to me, senor, it would be prudent in us to go and take
refuge in some church, for, seeing how mauled he with whom you fought has
been left, it will be no wonder if they give information of the affair to
the Holy Brotherhood and arrest us, and, faith, if they do, before we
come out of gaol we shall have to sweat for it."

"Peace," said Don Quixote; "where hast thou ever seen or heard that a
knight-errant has been arraigned before a court of justice, however many
homicides he may have committed?"

"I know nothing about omecils," answered Sancho, "nor in my life have had
anything to do with one; I only know that the Holy Brotherhood looks
after those who fight in the fields, and in that other matter I do not
meddle."

"Then thou needst have no uneasiness, my friend," said Don Quixote, "for
I will deliver thee out of the hands of the Chaldeans, much more out of
those of the Brotherhood. But tell me, as thou livest, hast thou seen a
more valiant knight than I in all the known world; hast thou read in
history of any who has or had higher mettle in attack, more spirit in
maintaining it, more dexterity in wounding or skill in overthrowing?"

"The truth is," answered Sancho, "that I have never read any history, for
I can neither read nor write, but what I will venture to bet is that a
more daring master than your worship I have never served in all the days
of my life, and God grant that this daring be not paid for where I have
said; what I beg of your worship is to dress your wound, for a great deal
of blood flows from that ear, and I have here some lint and a little
white ointment in the alforjas."

"All that might be well dispensed with," said Don Quixote, "if I had
remembered to make a vial of the balsam of Fierabras, for time and
medicine are saved by one single drop."

"What vial and what balsam is that?" said Sancho Panza.

"It is a balsam," answered Don Quixote, "the receipt of which I have in
my memory, with which one need have no fear of death, or dread dying of
any wound; and so when I make it and give it to thee thou hast nothing to
do when in some battle thou seest they have cut me in half through the
middle of the body--as is wont to happen frequently,--but neatly and with
great nicety, ere the blood congeal, to place that portion of the body
which shall have fallen to the ground upon the other half which remains
in the saddle, taking care to fit it on evenly and exactly. Then thou
shalt give me to drink but two drops of the balsam I have mentioned, and
thou shalt see me become sounder than an apple."

"If that be so," said Panza, "I renounce henceforth the government of the
promised island, and desire nothing more in payment of my many and
faithful services than that your worship give me the receipt of this
supreme liquor, for I am persuaded it will be worth more than two reals
an ounce anywhere, and I want no more to pass the rest of my life in ease
and honour; but it remains to be told if it costs much to make it."

"With less than three reals, six quarts of it may be made," said Don
Quixote.

"Sinner that I am!" said Sancho, "then why does your worship put off
making it and teaching it to me?"

"Peace, friend," answered Don Quixote; "greater secrets I mean to teach
thee and greater favours to bestow upon thee; and for the present let us
see to the dressing, for my ear pains me more than I could wish."

Sancho took out some lint and ointment from the alforjas; but when Don
Quixote came to see his helmet shattered, he was like to lose his senses,
and clapping his hand upon his sword and raising his eyes to heaven, be
said, "I swear by the Creator of all things and the four Gospels in their
fullest extent, to do as the great Marquis of Mantua did when he swore to
avenge the death of his nephew Baldwin (and that was not to eat bread
from a table-cloth, nor embrace his wife, and other points which, though
I cannot now call them to mind, I here grant as expressed) until I take
complete vengeance upon him who has committed such an offence against
me."

Hearing this, Sancho said to him, "Your worship should bear in mind,
Senor Don Quixote, that if the knight has done what was commanded him in
going to present himself before my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, he will have
done all that he was bound to do, and does not deserve further punishment
unless he commits some new offence."

"Thou hast said well and hit the point," answered Don Quixote; and so I
recall the oath in so far as relates to taking fresh vengeance on him,
but I make and confirm it anew to lead the life I have said until such
time as I take by force from some knight another helmet such as this and
as good; and think not, Sancho, that I am raising smoke with straw in
doing so, for I have one to imitate in the matter, since the very same
thing to a hair happened in the case of Mambrino's helmet, which cost
Sacripante so dear."

"Senor," replied Sancho, "let your worship send all such oaths to the
devil, for they are very pernicious to salvation and prejudicial to the
conscience; just tell me now, if for several days to come we fall in with
no man armed with a helmet, what are we to do? Is the oath to be observed
in spite of all the inconvenience and discomfort it will be to sleep in
your clothes, and not to sleep in a house, and a thousand other
mortifications contained in the oath of that old fool the Marquis of
Mantua, which your worship is now wanting to revive? Let your worship
observe that there are no men in armour travelling on any of these roads,
nothing but carriers and carters, who not only do not wear helmets, but
perhaps never heard tell of them all their lives."

"Thou art wrong there," said Don Quixote, "for we shall not have been
above two hours among these cross-roads before we see more men in armour
than came to Albraca to win the fair Angelica."

"Enough," said Sancho; "so be it then, and God grant us success, and that
the time for winning that island which is costing me so dear may soon
come, and then let me die."

"I have already told thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "not to give
thyself any uneasiness on that score; for if an island should fail, there
is the kingdom of Denmark, or of Sobradisa, which will fit thee as a ring
fits the finger, and all the more that, being on terra firma, thou wilt
all the better enjoy thyself. But let us leave that to its own time; see
if thou hast anything for us to eat in those alforjas, because we must
presently go in quest of some castle where we may lodge to-night and make
the balsam I told thee of, for I swear to thee by God, this ear is giving
me great pain."

"I have here an onion and a little cheese and a few scraps of bread,"
said Sancho, "but they are not victuals fit for a valiant knight like
your worship."

"How little thou knowest about it," answered Don Quixote; "I would have
thee to know, Sancho, that it is the glory of knights-errant to go
without eating for a month, and even when they do eat, that it should be
of what comes first to hand; and this would have been clear to thee hadst
thou read as many histories as I have, for, though they are very many,
among them all I have found no mention made of knights-errant eating,
unless by accident or at some sumptuous banquets prepared for them, and
the rest of the time they passed in dalliance. And though it is plain
they could not do without eating and performing all the other natural
functions, because, in fact, they were men like ourselves, it is plain
too that, wandering as they did the most part of their lives through
woods and wilds and without a cook, their most usual fare would be rustic
viands such as those thou now offer me; so that, friend Sancho, let not
that distress thee which pleases me, and do not seek to make a new world
or pervert knight-errantry."

"Pardon me, your worship," said Sancho, "for, as I cannot read or write,
as I said just now, I neither know nor comprehend the rules of the
profession of chivalry: henceforward I will stock the alforjas with every
kind of dry fruit for your worship, as you are a knight; and for myself,
as I am not one, I will furnish them with poultry and other things more
substantial."

"I do not say, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "that it is imperative on
knights-errant not to eat anything else but the fruits thou speakest of;
only that their more usual diet must be those, and certain herbs they
found in the fields which they knew and I know too."

"A good thing it is," answered Sancho, "to know those herbs, for to my
thinking it will be needful some day to put that knowledge into
practice."

And here taking out what he said he had brought, the pair made their
repast peaceably and sociably. But anxious to find quarters for the
night, they with all despatch made an end of their poor dry fare, mounted
at once, and made haste to reach some habitation before night set in; but
daylight and the hope of succeeding in their object failed them close by
the huts of some goatherds, so they determined to pass the night there,
and it was as much to Sancho's discontent not to have reached a house, as
it was to his master's satisfaction to sleep under the open heaven, for
he fancied that each time this happened to him he performed an act of
ownership that helped to prove his chivalry.




CHAPTER XI.

WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH CERTAIN GOATHERDS


He was cordially welcomed by the goatherds, and Sancho, having as best he
could put up Rocinante and the ass, drew towards the fragrance that came
from some pieces of salted goat simmering in a pot on the fire; and
though he would have liked at once to try if they were ready to be
transferred from the pot to the stomach, he refrained from doing so as
the goatherds removed them from the fire, and laying sheepskins on the
ground, quickly spread their rude table, and with signs of hearty
good-will invited them both to share what they had. Round the skins six
of the men belonging to the fold seated themselves, having first with
rough politeness pressed Don Quixote to take a seat upon a trough which
they placed for him upside down. Don Quixote seated himself, and Sancho
remained standing to serve the cup, which was made of horn. Seeing him
standing, his master said to him:

"That thou mayest see, Sancho, the good that knight-errantry contains in
itself, and how those who fill any office in it are on the high road to
be speedily honoured and esteemed by the world, I desire that thou seat
thyself here at my side and in the company of these worthy people, and
that thou be one with me who am thy master and natural lord, and that
thou eat from my plate and drink from whatever I drink from; for the same
may be said of knight-errantry as of love, that it levels all."

"Great thanks," said Sancho, "but I may tell your worship that provided I
have enough to eat, I can eat it as well, or better, standing, and by
myself, than seated alongside of an emperor. And indeed, if the truth is
to be told, what I eat in my corner without form or fuss has much more
relish for me, even though it be bread and onions, than the turkeys of
those other tables where I am forced to chew slowly, drink little, wipe
my mouth every minute, and cannot sneeze or cough if I want or do other
things that are the privileges of liberty and solitude. So, senor, as for
these honours which your worship would put upon me as a servant and
follower of knight-errantry, exchange them for other things which may be
of more use and advantage to me; for these, though I fully acknowledge
them as received, I renounce from this moment to the end of the world."

"For all that," said Don Quixote, "thou must seat thyself, because him
who humbleth himself God exalteth;" and seizing him by the arm he forced
him to sit down beside himself.

The goatherds did not understand this jargon about squires and
knights-errant, and all they did was to eat in silence and stare at their
guests, who with great elegance and appetite were stowing away pieces as
big as one's fist. The course of meat finished, they spread upon the
sheepskins a great heap of parched acorns, and with them they put down a
half cheese harder than if it had been made of mortar. All this while the
horn was not idle, for it went round so constantly, now full, now empty,
like the bucket of a water-wheel, that it soon drained one of the two
wine-skins that were in sight. When Don Quixote had quite appeased his
appetite he took up a handful of the acorns, and contemplating them
attentively delivered himself somewhat in this fashion:

"Happy the age, happy the time, to which the ancients gave the name of
golden, not because in that fortunate age the gold so coveted in this our
iron one was gained without toil, but because they that lived in it knew
not the two words "mine" and "thine"! In that blessed age all things were
in common; to win the daily food no labour was required of any save to
stretch forth his hand and gather it from the sturdy oaks that stood
generously inviting him with their sweet ripe fruit. The clear streams
and running brooks yielded their savoury limpid waters in noble
abundance. The busy and sagacious bees fixed their republic in the clefts
of the rocks and hollows of the trees, offering without usance the
plenteous produce of their fragrant toil to every hand. The mighty cork
trees, unenforced save of their own courtesy, shed the broad light bark
that served at first to roof the houses supported by rude stakes, a
protection against the inclemency of heaven alone. Then all was peace,
all friendship, all concord; as yet the dull share of the crooked plough
had not dared to rend and pierce the tender bowels of our first mother
that without compulsion yielded from every portion of her broad fertile
bosom all that could satisfy, sustain, and delight the children that then
possessed her. Then was it that the innocent and fair young shepherdess
roamed from vale to vale and hill to hill, with flowing locks, and no
more garments than were needful modestly to cover what modesty seeks and
ever sought to hide. Nor were their ornaments like those in use to-day,
set off by Tyrian purple, and silk tortured in endless fashions, but the
wreathed leaves of the green dock and ivy, wherewith they went as bravely
and becomingly decked as our Court dames with all the rare and
far-fetched artifices that idle curiosity has taught them. Then the
love-thoughts of the heart clothed themselves simply and naturally as the
heart conceived them, nor sought to commend themselves by forced and
rambling verbiage. Fraud, deceit, or malice had then not yet mingled with
truth and sincerity. Justice held her ground, undisturbed and unassailed
by the efforts of favour and of interest, that now so much impair,
pervert, and beset her. Arbitrary law had not yet established itself in
the mind of the judge, for then there was no cause to judge and no one to
be judged. Maidens and modesty, as I have said, wandered at will alone
and unattended, without fear of insult from lawlessness or libertine
assault, and if they were undone it was of their own will and pleasure.
But now in this hateful age of ours not one is safe, not though some new
labyrinth like that of Crete conceal and surround her; even there the
pestilence of gallantry will make its way to them through chinks or on
the air by the zeal of its accursed importunity, and, despite of all
seclusion, lead them to ruin. In defence of these, as time advanced and
wickedness increased, the order of knights-errant was instituted, to
defend maidens, to protect widows and to succour the orphans and the
needy. To this order I belong, brother goatherds, to whom I return thanks
for the hospitality and kindly welcome ye offer me and my squire; for
though by natural law all living are bound to show favour to
knights-errant, yet, seeing that without knowing this obligation ye have
welcomed and feasted me, it is right that with all the good-will in my
power I should thank you for yours."

All this long harangue (which might very well have been spared) our
knight delivered because the acorns they gave him reminded him of the
golden age; and the whim seized him to address all this unnecessary
argument to the goatherds, who listened to him gaping in amazement
without saying a word in reply. Sancho likewise held his peace and ate
acorns, and paid repeated visits to the second wine-skin, which they had
hung up on a cork tree to keep the wine cool.

Don Quixote was longer in talking than the supper in finishing, at the
end of which one of the goatherds said, "That your worship, senor
knight-errant, may say with more truth that we show you hospitality with
ready good-will, we will give you amusement and pleasure by making one of
our comrades sing: he will be here before long, and he is a very
intelligent youth and deep in love, and what is more he can read and
write and play on the rebeck to perfection."

The goatherd had hardly done speaking, when the notes of the rebeck
reached their ears; and shortly after, the player came up, a very
good-looking young man of about two-and-twenty. His comrades asked him if
he had supped, and on his replying that he had, he who had already made
the offer said to him:

"In that case, Antonio, thou mayest as well do us the pleasure of singing
a little, that the gentleman, our guest, may see that even in the
mountains and woods there are musicians: we have told him of thy
accomplishments, and we want thee to show them and prove that we say
true; so, as thou livest, pray sit down and sing that ballad about thy
love that thy uncle the prebendary made thee, and that was so much liked
in the town."

"With all my heart," said the young man, and without waiting for more
pressing he seated himself on the trunk of a felled oak, and tuning his
rebeck, presently began to sing to these words.

ANTONIO'S BALLAD

Thou dost love me well, Olalla;
  Well I know it, even though
Love's mute tongues, thine eyes, have never
  By their glances told me so.

For I know my love thou knowest,
  Therefore thine to claim I dare:
Once it ceases to be secret,
  Love need never feel despair.

True it is, Olalla, sometimes
  Thou hast all too plainly shown
That thy heart is brass in hardness,
  And thy snowy bosom stone.

Yet for all that, in thy coyness,
  And thy fickle fits between,
Hope is there--at least the border
  Of her garment may be seen.

Lures to faith are they, those glimpses,
  And to faith in thee I hold;
Kindness cannot make it stronger,
  Coldness cannot make it cold.

If it be that love is gentle,
  In thy gentleness I see
Something holding out assurance
  To the hope of winning thee.

If it be that in devotion
  Lies a power hearts to move,
That which every day I show thee,
  Helpful to my suit should prove.

Many a time thou must have noticed--
  If to notice thou dost care--
How I go about on Monday
  Dressed in all my Sunday wear.

Love's eyes love to look on brightness;
  Love loves what is gaily drest;
Sunday, Monday, all I care is
  Thou shouldst see me in my best.

No account I make of dances,
  Or of strains that pleased thee so,
Keeping thee awake from midnight
  Till the cocks began to crow;

Or of how I roundly swore it
  That there's none so fair as thou;
True it is, but as I said it,
  By the girls I'm hated now.

For Teresa of the hillside
  At my praise of thee was sore;
Said, "You think you love an angel;
  It's a monkey you adore;

"Caught by all her glittering trinkets,
  And her borrowed braids of hair,
And a host of made-up beauties
  That would Love himself ensnare."

'T was a lie, and so I told her,
  And her cousin at the word
Gave me his defiance for it;
  And what followed thou hast heard.

Mine is no high-flown affection,
  Mine no passion par amours--
As they call it--what I offer
  Is an honest love, and pure.

Cunning cords the holy Church has,
  Cords of softest silk they be;
Put thy neck beneath the yoke, dear;
  Mine will follow, thou wilt see.

Else--and once for all I swear it
  By the saint of most renown--
If I ever quit the mountains,
  'T will be in a friar's gown.

Here the goatherd brought his song to an end, and though Don Quixote
entreated him to sing more, Sancho had no mind that way, being more
inclined for sleep than for listening to songs; so said he to his master,
"Your worship will do well to settle at once where you mean to pass the
night, for the labour these good men are at all day does not allow them
to spend the night in singing."

"I understand thee, Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "I perceive clearly
that those visits to the wine-skin demand compensation in sleep rather
than in music."

"It's sweet to us all, blessed be God," said Sancho.

"I do not deny it," replied Don Quixote; "but settle thyself where thou
wilt; those of my calling are more becomingly employed in watching than
in sleeping; still it would be as well if thou wert to dress this ear for
me again, for it is giving me more pain than it need."

Sancho did as he bade him, but one of the goatherds, seeing the wound,
told him not to be uneasy, as he would apply a remedy with which it would
be soon healed; and gathering some leaves of rosemary, of which there was
a great quantity there, he chewed them and mixed them with a little salt,
and applying them to the ear he secured them firmly with a bandage,
assuring him that no other treatment would be required, and so it proved.




CHAPTER XII.

OF WHAT A GOATHERD RELATED TO THOSE WITH DON QUIXOTE


Just then another young man, one of those who fetched their provisions
from the village, came up and said, "Do you know what is going on in the
village, comrades?"

"How could we know it?" replied one of them.

"Well, then, you must know," continued the young man, "this morning that
famous student-shepherd called Chrysostom died, and it is rumoured that
he died of love for that devil of a village girl the daughter of
Guillermo the Rich, she that wanders about the wolds here in the dress of
a shepherdess."

"You mean Marcela?" said one.

"Her I mean," answered the goatherd; "and the best of it is, he has
directed in his will that he is to be buried in the fields like a Moor,
and at the foot of the rock where the Cork-tree spring is, because, as
the story goes (and they say he himself said so), that was the place
where he first saw her. And he has also left other directions which the
clergy of the village say should not and must not be obeyed because they
savour of paganism. To all which his great friend Ambrosio the student,
he who, like him, also went dressed as a shepherd, replies that
everything must be done without any omission according to the directions
left by Chrysostom, and about this the village is all in commotion;
however, report says that, after all, what Ambrosio and all the shepherds
his friends desire will be done, and to-morrow they are coming to bury
him with great ceremony where I said. I am sure it will be something
worth seeing; at least I will not fail to go and see it even if I knew I
should not return to the village to-morrow."

"We will do the same," answered the goatherds, "and cast lots to see who
must stay to mind the goats of all."

"Thou sayest well, Pedro," said one, "though there will be no need of
taking that trouble, for I will stay behind for all; and don't suppose it
is virtue or want of curiosity in me; it is that the splinter that ran
into my foot the other day will not let me walk."

"For all that, we thank thee," answered Pedro.

Don Quixote asked Pedro to tell him who the dead man was and who the
shepherdess, to which Pedro replied that all he knew was that the dead
man was a wealthy gentleman belonging to a village in those mountains,
who had been a student at Salamanca for many years, at the end of which
he returned to his village with the reputation of being very learned and
deeply read. "Above all, they said, he was learned in the science of the
stars and of what went on yonder in the heavens and the sun and the moon,
for he told us of the cris of the sun and moon to exact time."

"Eclipse it is called, friend, not cris, the darkening of those two
luminaries," said Don Quixote; but Pedro, not troubling himself with
trifles, went on with his story, saying, "Also he foretold when the year
was going to be one of abundance or estility."

"Sterility, you mean," said Don Quixote.

"Sterility or estility," answered Pedro, "it is all the same in the end.
And I can tell you that by this his father and friends who believed him
grew very rich because they did as he advised them, bidding them 'sow
barley this year, not wheat; this year you may sow pulse and not barley;
the next there will be a full oil crop, and the three following not a
drop will be got.'"

"That science is called astrology," said Don Quixote.

"I do not know what it is called," replied Pedro, "but I know that he
knew all this and more besides. But, to make an end, not many months had
passed after he returned from Salamanca, when one day he appeared dressed
as a shepherd with his crook and sheepskin, having put off the long gown
he wore as a scholar; and at the same time his great friend, Ambrosio by
name, who had been his companion in his studies, took to the shepherd's
dress with him. I forgot to say that Chrysostom, who is dead, was a great
man for writing verses, so much so that he made carols for Christmas Eve,
and plays for Corpus Christi, which the young men of our village acted,
and all said they were excellent. When the villagers saw the two scholars
so unexpectedly appearing in shepherd's dress, they were lost in wonder,
and could not guess what had led them to make so extraordinary a change.
About this time the father of our Chrysostom died, and he was left heir
to a large amount of property in chattels as well as in land, no small
number of cattle and sheep, and a large sum of money, of all of which the
young man was left dissolute owner, and indeed he was deserving of it
all, for he was a very good comrade, and kind-hearted, and a friend of
worthy folk, and had a countenance like a benediction. Presently it came
to be known that he had changed his dress with no other object than to
wander about these wastes after that shepherdess Marcela our lad
mentioned a while ago, with whom the deceased Chrysostom had fallen in
love. And I must tell you now, for it is well you should know it, who
this girl is; perhaps, and even without any perhaps, you will not have
heard anything like it all the days of your life, though you should live
more years than sarna."

"Say Sarra," said Don Quixote, unable to endure the goatherd's confusion
of words.

"The sarna lives long enough," answered Pedro; "and if, senor, you must
go finding fault with words at every step, we shall not make an end of it
this twelvemonth."

"Pardon me, friend," said Don Quixote; "but, as there is such a
difference between sarna and Sarra, I told you of it; however, you have
answered very rightly, for sarna lives longer than Sarra: so continue
your story, and I will not object any more to anything."

"I say then, my dear sir," said the goatherd, "that in our village there
was a farmer even richer than the father of Chrysostom, who was named
Guillermo, and upon whom God bestowed, over and above great wealth, a
daughter at whose birth her mother died, the most respected woman there
was in this neighbourhood; I fancy I can see her now with that
countenance which had the sun on one side and the moon on the other; and
moreover active, and kind to the poor, for which I trust that at the
present moment her soul is in bliss with God in the other world. Her
husband Guillermo died of grief at the death of so good a wife, leaving
his daughter Marcela, a child and rich, to the care of an uncle of hers,
a priest and prebendary in our village. The girl grew up with such beauty
that it reminded us of her mother's, which was very great, and yet it was
thought that the daughter's would exceed it; and so when she reached the
age of fourteen to fifteen years nobody beheld her but blessed God that
had made her so beautiful, and the greater number were in love with her
past redemption. Her uncle kept her in great seclusion and retirement,
but for all that the fame of her great beauty spread so that, as well for
it as for her great wealth, her uncle was asked, solicited, and
importuned, to give her in marriage not only by those of our town but of
those many leagues round, and by the persons of highest quality in them.
But he, being a good Christian man, though he desired to give her in
marriage at once, seeing her to be old enough, was unwilling to do so
without her consent, not that he had any eye to the gain and profit which
the custody of the girl's property brought him while he put off her
marriage; and, faith, this was said in praise of the good priest in more
than one set in the town. For I would have you know, Sir Errant, that in
these little villages everything is talked about and everything is carped
at, and rest assured, as I am, that the priest must be over and above
good who forces his parishioners to speak well of him, especially in
villages."

"That is the truth," said Don Quixote; "but go on, for the story is very
good, and you, good Pedro, tell it with very good grace."

"May that of the Lord not be wanting to me," said Pedro; "that is the one
to have. To proceed; you must know that though the uncle put before his
niece and described to her the qualities of each one in particular of the
many who had asked her in marriage, begging her to marry and make a
choice according to her own taste, she never gave any other answer than
that she had no desire to marry just yet, and that being so young she did
not think herself fit to bear the burden of matrimony. At these, to all
appearance, reasonable excuses that she made, her uncle ceased to urge
her, and waited till she was somewhat more advanced in age and could mate
herself to her own liking. For, said he--and he said quite right--parents
are not to settle children in life against their will. But when one least
looked for it, lo and behold! one day the demure Marcela makes her
appearance turned shepherdess; and, in spite of her uncle and all those
of the town that strove to dissuade her, took to going a-field with the
other shepherd-lasses of the village, and tending her own flock. And so,
since she appeared in public, and her beauty came to be seen openly, I
could not well tell you how many rich youths, gentlemen and peasants,
have adopted the costume of Chrysostom, and go about these fields making
love to her. One of these, as has been already said, was our deceased
friend, of whom they say that he did not love but adore her. But you must
not suppose, because Marcela chose a life of such liberty and
independence, and of so little or rather no retirement, that she has
given any occasion, or even the semblance of one, for disparagement of
her purity and modesty; on the contrary, such and so great is the
vigilance with which she watches over her honour, that of all those that
court and woo her not one has boasted, or can with truth boast, that she
has given him any hope however small of obtaining his desire. For
although she does not avoid or shun the society and conversation of the
shepherds, and treats them courteously and kindly, should any one of them
come to declare his intention to her, though it be one as proper and holy
as that of matrimony, she flings him from her like a catapult. And with
this kind of disposition she does more harm in this country than if the
plague had got into it, for her affability and her beauty draw on the
hearts of those that associate with her to love her and to court her, but
her scorn and her frankness bring them to the brink of despair; and so
they know not what to say save to proclaim her aloud cruel and
hard-hearted, and other names of the same sort which well describe the
nature of her character; and if you should remain here any time, senor,
you would hear these hills and valleys resounding with the laments of the
rejected ones who pursue her. Not far from this there is a spot where
there are a couple of dozen of tall beeches, and there is not one of them
but has carved and written on its smooth bark the name of Marcela, and
above some a crown carved on the same tree as though her lover would say
more plainly that Marcela wore and deserved that of all human beauty.
Here one shepherd is sighing, there another is lamenting; there love
songs are heard, here despairing elegies. One will pass all the hours of
the night seated at the foot of some oak or rock, and there, without
having closed his weeping eyes, the sun finds him in the morning bemused
and bereft of sense; and another without relief or respite to his sighs,
stretched on the burning sand in the full heat of the sultry summer
noontide, makes his appeal to the compassionate heavens, and over one and
the other, over these and all, the beautiful Marcela triumphs free and
careless. And all of us that know her are waiting to see what her pride
will come to, and who is to be the happy man that will succeed in taming
a nature so formidable and gaining possession of a beauty so supreme. All
that I have told you being such well-established truth, I am persuaded
that what they say of the cause of Chrysostom's death, as our lad told
us, is the same. And so I advise you, senor, fail not to be present
to-morrow at his burial, which will be well worth seeing, for Chrysostom
had many friends, and it is not half a league from this place to where he
directed he should be buried."

"I will make a point of it," said Don Quixote, "and I thank you for the
pleasure you have given me by relating so interesting a tale."

"Oh," said the goatherd, "I do not know even the half of what has
happened to the lovers of Marcela, but perhaps to-morrow we may fall in
with some shepherd on the road who can tell us; and now it will be well
for you to go and sleep under cover, for the night air may hurt your
wound, though with the remedy I have applied to you there is no fear of
an untoward result."

Sancho Panza, who was wishing the goatherd's loquacity at the devil, on
his part begged his master to go into Pedro's hut to sleep. He did so,
and passed all the rest of the night in thinking of his lady Dulcinea, in
imitation of the lovers of Marcela. Sancho Panza settled himself between
Rocinante and his ass, and slept, not like a lover who had been
discarded, but like a man who had been soundly kicked.




CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH IS ENDED THE STORY OF THE SHEPHERDESS MARCELA, WITH OTHER
INCIDENTS

Bit hardly had day begun to show itself through the balconies of the
east, when five of the six goatherds came to rouse Don Quixote and tell
him that if he was still of a mind to go and see the famous burial of
Chrysostom they would bear him company. Don Quixote, who desired nothing
better, rose and ordered Sancho to saddle and pannel at once, which he
did with all despatch, and with the same they all set out forthwith. They
had not gone a quarter of a league when at the meeting of two paths they
saw coming towards them some six shepherds dressed in black sheepskins
and with their heads crowned with garlands of cypress and bitter
oleander. Each of them carried a stout holly staff in his hand, and along
with them there came two men of quality on horseback in handsome
travelling dress, with three servants on foot accompanying them.
Courteous salutations were exchanged on meeting, and inquiring one of the
other which way each party was going, they learned that all were bound
for the scene of the burial, so they went on all together.

One of those on horseback addressing his companion said to him, "It seems
to me, Senor Vivaldo, that we may reckon as well spent the delay we shall
incur in seeing this remarkable funeral, for remarkable it cannot but be
judging by the strange things these shepherds have told us, of both the
dead shepherd and homicide shepherdess."

"So I think too," replied Vivaldo, "and I would delay not to say a day,
but four, for the sake of seeing it."

Don Quixote asked them what it was they had heard of Marcela and
Chrysostom. The traveller answered that the same morning they had met
these shepherds, and seeing them dressed in this mournful fashion they
had asked them the reason of their appearing in such a guise; which one
of them gave, describing the strange behaviour and beauty of a
shepherdess called Marcela, and the loves of many who courted her,
together with the death of that Chrysostom to whose burial they were
going. In short, he repeated all that Pedro had related to Don Quixote.

This conversation dropped, and another was commenced by him who was
called Vivaldo asking Don Quixote what was the reason that led him to go
armed in that fashion in a country so peaceful. To which Don Quixote
replied, "The pursuit of my calling does not allow or permit me to go in
any other fashion; easy life, enjoyment, and repose were invented for
soft courtiers, but toil, unrest, and arms were invented and made for
those alone whom the world calls knights-errant, of whom I, though
unworthy, am the least of all."

The instant they heard this all set him down as mad, and the better to
settle the point and discover what kind of madness his was, Vivaldo
proceeded to ask him what knights-errant meant.

"Have not your worships," replied Don Quixote, "read the annals and
histories of England, in which are recorded the famous deeds of King
Arthur, whom we in our popular Castilian invariably call King Artus, with
regard to whom it is an ancient tradition, and commonly received all over
that kingdom of Great Britain, that this king did not die, but was
changed by magic art into a raven, and that in process of time he is to
return to reign and recover his kingdom and sceptre; for which reason it
cannot be proved that from that time to this any Englishman ever killed a
raven? Well, then, in the time of this good king that famous order of
chivalry of the Knights of the Round Table was instituted, and the amour
of Don Lancelot of the Lake with the Queen Guinevere occurred, precisely
as is there related, the go-between and confidante therein being the
highly honourable dame Quintanona, whence came that ballad so well known
and widely spread in our Spain--

O never surely was there knight
  So served by hand of dame,
As served was he Sir Lancelot hight
  When he from Britain came--

with all the sweet and delectable course of his achievements in love and
war. Handed down from that time, then, this order of chivalry went on
extending and spreading itself over many and various parts of the world;
and in it, famous and renowned for their deeds, were the mighty Amadis of
Gaul with all his sons and descendants to the fifth generation, and the
valiant Felixmarte of Hircania, and the never sufficiently praised
Tirante el Blanco, and in our own days almost we have seen and heard and
talked with the invincible knight Don Belianis of Greece. This, then,
sirs, is to be a knight-errant, and what I have spoken of is the order of
his chivalry, of which, as I have already said, I, though a sinner, have
made profession, and what the aforesaid knights professed that same do I
profess, and so I go through these solitudes and wilds seeking
adventures, resolved in soul to oppose my arm and person to the most
perilous that fortune may offer me in aid of the weak and needy."

By these words of his the travellers were able to satisfy themselves of
Don Quixote's being out of his senses and of the form of madness that
overmastered him, at which they felt the same astonishment that all felt
on first becoming acquainted with it; and Vivaldo, who was a person of
great shrewdness and of a lively temperament, in order to beguile the
short journey which they said was required to reach the mountain, the
scene of the burial, sought to give him an opportunity of going on with
his absurdities. So he said to him, "It seems to me, Senor Knight-errant,
that your worship has made choice of one of the most austere professions
in the world, and I imagine even that of the Carthusian monks is not so
austere."

"As austere it may perhaps be," replied our Don Quixote, "but so
necessary for the world I am very much inclined to doubt. For, if the
truth is to be told, the soldier who executes what his captain orders
does no less than the captain himself who gives the order. My meaning,
is, that churchmen in peace and quiet pray to Heaven for the welfare of
the world, but we soldiers and knights carry into effect what they pray
for, defending it with the might of our arms and the edge of our swords,
not under shelter but in the open air, a target for the intolerable rays
of the sun in summer and the piercing frosts of winter. Thus are we God's
ministers on earth and the arms by which his justice is done therein. And
as the business of war and all that relates and belongs to it cannot be
conducted without exceeding great sweat, toil, and exertion, it follows
that those who make it their profession have undoubtedly more labour than
those who in tranquil peace and quiet are engaged in praying to God to
help the weak. I do not mean to say, nor does it enter into my thoughts,
that the knight-errant's calling is as good as that of the monk in his
cell; I would merely infer from what I endure myself that it is beyond a
doubt a more laborious and a more belaboured one, a hungrier and
thirstier, a wretcheder, raggeder, and lousier; for there is no reason to
doubt that the knights-errant of yore endured much hardship in the course
of their lives. And if some of them by the might of their arms did rise
to be emperors, in faith it cost them dear in the matter of blood and
sweat; and if those who attained to that rank had not had magicians and
sages to help them they would have been completely baulked in their
ambition and disappointed in their hopes."

"That is my own opinion," replied the traveller; "but one thing among
many others seems to me very wrong in knights-errant, and that is that
when they find themselves about to engage in some mighty and perilous
adventure in which there is manifest danger of losing their lives, they
never at the moment of engaging in it think of commending themselves to
God, as is the duty of every good Christian in like peril; instead of
which they commend themselves to their ladies with as much devotion as if
these were their gods, a thing which seems to me to savour somewhat of
heathenism."

"Sir," answered Don Quixote, "that cannot be on any account omitted, and
the knight-errant would be disgraced who acted otherwise: for it is usual
and customary in knight-errantry that the knight-errant, who on engaging
in any great feat of arms has his lady before him, should turn his eyes
towards her softly and lovingly, as though with them entreating her to
favour and protect him in the hazardous venture he is about to undertake,
and even though no one hear him, he is bound to say certain words between
his teeth, commending himself to her with all his heart, and of this we
have innumerable instances in the histories. Nor is it to be supposed
from this that they are to omit commending themselves to God, for there
will be time and opportunity for doing so while they are engaged in their
task."

"For all that," answered the traveller, "I feel some doubt still, because
often I have read how words will arise between two knights-errant, and
from one thing to another it comes about that their anger kindles and
they wheel their horses round and take a good stretch of field, and then
without any more ado at the top of their speed they come to the charge,
and in mid-career they are wont to commend themselves to their ladies;
and what commonly comes of the encounter is that one falls over the
haunches of his horse pierced through and through by his antagonist's
lance, and as for the other, it is only by holding on to the mane of his
horse that he can help falling to the ground; but I know not how the dead
man had time to commend himself to God in the course of such rapid work
as this; it would have been better if those words which he spent in
commending himself to his lady in the midst of his career had been
devoted to his duty and obligation as a Christian. Moreover, it is my
belief that all knights-errant have not ladies to commend themselves to,
for they are not all in love."

"That is impossible," said Don Quixote: "I say it is impossible that
there could be a knight-errant without a lady, because to such it is as
natural and proper to be in love as to the heavens to have stars: most
certainly no history has been seen in which there is to be found a
knight-errant without an amour, and for the simple reason that without
one he would be held no legitimate knight but a bastard, and one who had
gained entrance into the stronghold of the said knighthood, not by the
door, but over the wall like a thief and a robber."

"Nevertheless," said the traveller, "if I remember rightly, I think I
have read that Don Galaor, the brother of the valiant Amadis of Gaul,
never had any special lady to whom he might commend himself, and yet he
was not the less esteemed, and was a very stout and famous knight."

To which our Don Quixote made answer, "Sir, one solitary swallow does not
make summer; moreover, I know that knight was in secret very deeply in
love; besides which, that way of falling in love with all that took his
fancy was a natural propensity which he could not control. But, in short,
it is very manifest that he had one alone whom he made mistress of his
will, to whom he commended himself very frequently and very secretly, for
he prided himself on being a reticent knight."

"Then if it be essential that every knight-errant should be in love,"
said the traveller, "it may be fairly supposed that your worship is so,
as you are of the order; and if you do not pride yourself on being as
reticent as Don Galaor, I entreat you as earnestly as I can, in the name
of all this company and in my own, to inform us of the name, country,
rank, and beauty of your lady, for she will esteem herself fortunate if
all the world knows that she is loved and served by such a knight as your
worship seems to be."

At this Don Quixote heaved a deep sigh and said, "I cannot say positively
whether my sweet enemy is pleased or not that the world should know I
serve her; I can only say in answer to what has been so courteously asked
of me, that her name is Dulcinea, her country El Toboso, a village of La
Mancha, her rank must be at least that of a princess, since she is my
queen and lady, and her beauty superhuman, since all the impossible and
fanciful attributes of beauty which the poets apply to their ladies are
verified in her; for her hairs are gold, her forehead Elysian fields, her
eyebrows rainbows, her eyes suns, her cheeks roses, her lips coral, her
teeth pearls, her neck alabaster, her bosom marble, her hands ivory, her
fairness snow, and what modesty conceals from sight such, I think and
imagine, as rational reflection can only extol, not compare."

"We should like to know her lineage, race, and ancestry," said Vivaldo.

To which Don Quixote replied, "She is not of the ancient Roman Curtii,
Caii, or Scipios, nor of the modern Colonnas or Orsini, nor of the
Moncadas or Requesenes of Catalonia, nor yet of the Rebellas or
Villanovas of Valencia; Palafoxes, Nuzas, Rocabertis, Corellas, Lunas,
Alagones, Urreas, Foces, or Gurreas of Aragon; Cerdas, Manriques,
Mendozas, or Guzmans of Castile; Alencastros, Pallas, or Meneses of
Portugal; but she is of those of El Toboso of La Mancha, a lineage that
though modern, may furnish a source of gentle blood for the most
illustrious families of the ages that are to come, and this let none
dispute with me save on the condition that Zerbino placed at the foot of
the trophy of Orlando's arms, saying,

'These let none move Who dareth not his might with Roland prove.'"

"Although mine is of the Cachopins of Laredo," said the traveller, "I
will not venture to compare it with that of El Toboso of La Mancha,
though, to tell the truth, no such surname has until now ever reached my
ears."

"What!" said Don Quixote, "has that never reached them?"

The rest of the party went along listening with great attention to the
conversation of the pair, and even the very goatherds and shepherds
perceived how exceedingly out of his wits our Don Quixote was. Sancho
Panza alone thought that what his master said was the truth, knowing who
he was and having known him from his birth; and all that he felt any
difficulty in believing was that about the fair Dulcinea del Toboso,
because neither any such name nor any such princess had ever come to his
knowledge though he lived so close to El Toboso. They were going along
conversing in this way, when they saw descending a gap between two high
mountains some twenty shepherds, all clad in sheepskins of black wool,
and crowned with garlands which, as afterwards appeared, were, some of
them of yew, some of cypress. Six of the number were carrying a bier
covered with a great variety of flowers and branches, on seeing which one
of the goatherds said, "Those who come there are the bearers of
Chrysostom's body, and the foot of that mountain is the place where he
ordered them to bury him." They therefore made haste to reach the spot,
and did so by the time those who came had laid the bier upon the ground,
and four of them with sharp pickaxes were digging a grave by the side of
a hard rock. They greeted each other courteously, and then Don Quixote
and those who accompanied him turned to examine the bier, and on it,
covered with flowers, they saw a dead body in the dress of a shepherd, to
all appearance of one thirty years of age, and showing even in death that
in life he had been of comely features and gallant bearing. Around him on
the bier itself were laid some books, and several papers open and folded;
and those who were looking on as well as those who were opening the grave
and all the others who were there preserved a strange silence, until one
of those who had borne the body said to another, "Observe carefully,
Ambrosia if this is the place Chrysostom spoke of, since you are anxious
that what he directed in his will should be so strictly complied with."

"This is the place," answered Ambrosia "for in it many a time did my poor
friend tell me the story of his hard fortune. Here it was, he told me,
that he saw for the first time that mortal enemy of the human race, and
here, too, for the first time he declared to her his passion, as
honourable as it was devoted, and here it was that at last Marcela ended
by scorning and rejecting him so as to bring the tragedy of his wretched
life to a close; here, in memory of misfortunes so great, he desired to
be laid in the bowels of eternal oblivion." Then turning to Don Quixote
and the travellers he went on to say, "That body, sirs, on which you are
looking with compassionate eyes, was the abode of a soul on which Heaven
bestowed a vast share of its riches. That is the body of Chrysostom, who
was unrivalled in wit, unequalled in courtesy, unapproached in gentle
bearing, a phoenix in friendship, generous without limit, grave without
arrogance, gay without vulgarity, and, in short, first in all that
constitutes goodness and second to none in all that makes up misfortune.
He loved deeply, he was hated; he adored, he was scorned; he wooed a wild
beast, he pleaded with marble, he pursued the wind, he cried to the
wilderness, he served ingratitude, and for reward was made the prey of
death in the mid-course of life, cut short by a shepherdess whom he
sought to immortalise in the memory of man, as these papers which you see
could fully prove, had he not commanded me to consign them to the fire
after having consigned his body to the earth."

"You would deal with them more harshly and cruelly than their owner
himself," said Vivaldo, "for it is neither right nor proper to do the
will of one who enjoins what is wholly unreasonable; it would not have
been reasonable in Augustus Caesar had he permitted the directions left
by the divine Mantuan in his will to be carried into effect. So that,
Senor Ambrosia while you consign your friend's body to the earth, you
should not consign his writings to oblivion, for if he gave the order in
bitterness of heart, it is not right that you should irrationally obey
it. On the contrary, by granting life to those papers, let the cruelty of
Marcela live for ever, to serve as a warning in ages to come to all men
to shun and avoid falling into like danger; or I and all of us who have
come here know already the story of this your love-stricken and
heart-broken friend, and we know, too, your friendship, and the cause of
his death, and the directions he gave at the close of his life; from
which sad story may be gathered how great was the cruelty of Marcela, the
love of Chrysostom, and the loyalty of your friendship, together with the
end awaiting those who pursue rashly the path that insane passion opens
to their eyes. Last night we learned the death of Chrysostom and that he
was to be buried here, and out of curiosity and pity we left our direct
road and resolved to come and see with our eyes that which when heard of
had so moved our compassion, and in consideration of that compassion and
our desire to prove it if we might by condolence, we beg of you,
excellent Ambrosia, or at least I on my own account entreat you, that
instead of burning those papers you allow me to carry away some of them."

And without waiting for the shepherd's answer, he stretched out his hand
and took up some of those that were nearest to him; seeing which Ambrosio
said, "Out of courtesy, senor, I will grant your request as to those you
have taken, but it is idle to expect me to abstain from burning the
remainder."

Vivaldo, who was eager to see what the papers contained, opened one of
them at once, and saw that its title was "Lay of Despair."

Ambrosio hearing it said, "That is the last paper the unhappy man wrote;
and that you may see, senor, to what an end his misfortunes brought him,
read it so that you may be heard, for you will have time enough for that
while we are waiting for the grave to be dug."

"I will do so very willingly," said Vivaldo; and as all the bystanders
were equally eager they gathered round him, and he, reading in a loud
voice, found that it ran as follows.




CHAPTER XIV.

WHEREIN ARE INSERTED THE DESPAIRING VERSES OF THE DEAD SHEPHERD, TOGETHER
WITH OTHER INCIDENTS NOT LOOKED FOR


THE LAY OF CHRYSOSTOM

  Since thou dost in thy cruelty desire
The ruthless rigour of thy tyranny
From tongue to tongue, from land to land proclaimed,
The very Hell will I constrain to lend
This stricken breast of mine deep notes of woe
To serve my need of fitting utterance.
And as I strive to body forth the tale
Of all I suffer, all that thou hast done,
Forth shall the dread voice roll, and bear along
Shreds from my vitals torn for greater pain.
Then listen, not to dulcet harmony,
But to a discord wrung by mad despair
Out of this bosom's depths of bitterness,
To ease my heart and plant a sting in thine.

  The lion's roar, the fierce wolf's savage howl,
The horrid hissing of the scaly snake,
The awesome cries of monsters yet unnamed,
The crow's ill-boding croak, the hollow moan
Of wild winds wrestling with the restless sea,
The wrathful bellow of the vanquished bull,
The plaintive sobbing of the widowed dove,
The envied owl's sad note, the wail of woe
That rises from the dreary choir of Hell,
Commingled in one sound, confusing sense,
Let all these come to aid my soul's complaint,
For pain like mine demands new modes of song.

  No echoes of that discord shall be heard
Where Father Tagus rolls, or on the banks
Of olive-bordered Betis; to the rocks
Or in deep caverns shall my plaint be told,
And by a lifeless tongue in living words;
Or in dark valleys or on lonely shores,
Where neither foot of man nor sunbeam falls;
Or in among the poison-breathing swarms
Of monsters nourished by the sluggish Nile.
For, though it be to solitudes remote
The hoarse vague echoes of my sorrows sound
Thy matchless cruelty, my dismal fate
Shall carry them to all the spacious world.

  Disdain hath power to kill, and patience dies
Slain by suspicion, be it false or true;
And deadly is the force of jealousy;
Long absence makes of life a dreary void;
No hope of happiness can give repose
To him that ever fears to be forgot;
And death, inevitable, waits in hall.
But I, by some strange miracle, live on
A prey to absence, jealousy, disdain;
Racked by suspicion as by certainty;
Forgotten, left to feed my flame alone.
And while I suffer thus, there comes no ray
Of hope to gladden me athwart the gloom;
Nor do I look for it in my despair;
But rather clinging to a cureless woe,
All hope do I abjure for evermore.

  Can there be hope where fear is? Were it well,
When far more certain are the grounds of fear?
Ought I to shut mine eyes to jealousy,
If through a thousand heart-wounds it appears?
Who would not give free access to distrust,
Seeing disdain unveiled, and--bitter change!--
All his suspicions turned to certainties,
And the fair truth transformed into a lie?
Oh, thou fierce tyrant of the realms of love,
Oh, Jealousy! put chains upon these hands,
And bind me with thy strongest cord, Disdain.
But, woe is me! triumphant over all,
My sufferings drown the memory of you.

  And now I die, and since there is no hope
Of happiness for me in life or death,
Still to my fantasy I'll fondly cling.
I'll say that he is wise who loveth well,
And that the soul most free is that most bound
In thraldom to the ancient tyrant Love.
I'll say that she who is mine enemy
In that fair body hath as fair a mind,
And that her coldness is but my desert,
And that by virtue of the pain he sends
Love rules his kingdom with a gentle sway.
Thus, self-deluding, and in bondage sore,
And wearing out the wretched shred of life
To which I am reduced by her disdain,
I'll give this soul and body to the winds,
All hopeless of a crown of bliss in store.

  Thou whose injustice hath supplied the cause
That makes me quit the weary life I loathe,
As by this wounded bosom thou canst see
How willingly thy victim I become,
Let not my death, if haply worth a tear,
Cloud the clear heaven that dwells in thy bright eyes;
I would not have thee expiate in aught
The crime of having made my heart thy prey;
But rather let thy laughter gaily ring
And prove my death to be thy festival.
Fool that I am to bid thee! well I know
Thy glory gains by my untimely end.

  And now it is the time; from Hell's abyss
Come thirsting Tantalus, come Sisyphus
Heaving the cruel stone, come Tityus
With vulture, and with wheel Ixion come,
And come the sisters of the ceaseless toil;
And all into this breast transfer their pains,
And (if such tribute to despair be due)
Chant in their deepest tones a doleful dirge
Over a corse unworthy of a shroud.
Let the three-headed guardian of the gate,
And all the monstrous progeny of hell,
The doleful concert join: a lover dead
Methinks can have no fitter obsequies.

  Lay of despair, grieve not when thou art gone
Forth from this sorrowing heart: my misery
Brings fortune to the cause that gave thee birth;
Then banish sadness even in the tomb.


The "Lay of Chrysostom" met with the approbation of the listeners, though
the reader said it did not seem to him to agree with what he had heard of
Marcela's reserve and propriety, for Chrysostom complained in it of
jealousy, suspicion, and absence, all to the prejudice of the good name
and fame of Marcela; to which Ambrosio replied as one who knew well his
friend's most secret thoughts, "Senor, to remove that doubt I should tell
you that when the unhappy man wrote this lay he was away from Marcela,
from whom he had voluntarily separated himself, to try if absence would
act with him as it is wont; and as everything distresses and every fear
haunts the banished lover, so imaginary jealousies and suspicions,
dreaded as if they were true, tormented Chrysostom; and thus the truth of
what report declares of the virtue of Marcela remains unshaken, and with
her envy itself should not and cannot find any fault save that of being
cruel, somewhat haughty, and very scornful."

"That is true," said Vivaldo; and as he was about to read another paper
of those he had preserved from the fire, he was stopped by a marvellous
vision (for such it seemed) that unexpectedly presented itself to their
eyes; for on the summit of the rock where they were digging the grave
there appeared the shepherdess Marcela, so beautiful that her beauty
exceeded its reputation. Those who had never till then beheld her gazed
upon her in wonder and silence, and those who were accustomed to see her
were not less amazed than those who had never seen her before. But the
instant Ambrosio saw her he addressed her, with manifest indignation:

"Art thou come, by chance, cruel basilisk of these mountains, to see if
in thy presence blood will flow from the wounds of this wretched being
thy cruelty has robbed of life; or is it to exult over the cruel work of
thy humours that thou art come; or like another pitiless Nero to look
down from that height upon the ruin of his Rome in embers; or in thy
arrogance to trample on this ill-fated corpse, as the ungrateful daughter
trampled on her father Tarquin's? Tell us quickly for what thou art come,
or what it is thou wouldst have, for, as I know the thoughts of
Chrysostom never failed to obey thee in life, I will make all these who
call themselves his friends obey thee, though he be dead."

"I come not, Ambrosia for any of the purposes thou hast named," replied
Marcela, "but to defend myself and to prove how unreasonable are all
those who blame me for their sorrow and for Chrysostom's death; and
therefore I ask all of you that are here to give me your attention, for
will not take much time or many words to bring the truth home to persons
of sense. Heaven has made me, so you say, beautiful, and so much so that
in spite of yourselves my beauty leads you to love me; and for the love
you show me you say, and even urge, that I am bound to love you. By that
natural understanding which God has given me I know that everything
beautiful attracts love, but I cannot see how, by reason of being loved,
that which is loved for its beauty is bound to love that which loves it;
besides, it may happen that the lover of that which is beautiful may be
ugly, and ugliness being detestable, it is very absurd to say, "I love
thee because thou art beautiful, thou must love me though I be ugly." But
supposing the beauty equal on both sides, it does not follow that the
inclinations must be therefore alike, for it is not every beauty that
excites love, some but pleasing the eye without winning the affection;
and if every sort of beauty excited love and won the heart, the will
would wander vaguely to and fro unable to make choice of any; for as
there is an infinity of beautiful objects there must be an infinity of
inclinations, and true love, I have heard it said, is indivisible, and
must be voluntary and not compelled. If this be so, as I believe it to
be, why do you desire me to bend my will by force, for no other reason
but that you say you love me? Nay--tell me--had Heaven made me ugly, as it
has made me beautiful, could I with justice complain of you for not
loving me? Moreover, you must remember that the beauty I possess was no
choice of mine, for, be it what it may, Heaven of its bounty gave it me
without my asking or choosing it; and as the viper, though it kills with
it, does not deserve to be blamed for the poison it carries, as it is a
gift of nature, neither do I deserve reproach for being beautiful; for
beauty in a modest woman is like fire at a distance or a sharp sword; the
one does not burn, the other does not cut, those who do not come too
near. Honour and virtue are the ornaments of the mind, without which the
body, though it be so, has no right to pass for beautiful; but if modesty
is one of the virtues that specially lend a grace and charm to mind and
body, why should she who is loved for her beauty part with it to gratify
one who for his pleasure alone strives with all his might and energy to
rob her of it? I was born free, and that I might live in freedom I chose
the solitude of the fields; in the trees of the mountains I find society,
the clear waters of the brooks are my mirrors, and to the trees and
waters I make known my thoughts and charms. I am a fire afar off, a sword
laid aside. Those whom I have inspired with love by letting them see me,
I have by words undeceived, and if their longings live on hope--and I
have given none to Chrysostom or to any other--it cannot justly be said
that the death of any is my doing, for it was rather his own obstinacy
than my cruelty that killed him; and if it be made a charge against me
that his wishes were honourable, and that therefore I was bound to yield
to them, I answer that when on this very spot where now his grave is made
he declared to me his purity of purpose, I told him that mine was to live
in perpetual solitude, and that the earth alone should enjoy the fruits
of my retirement and the spoils of my beauty; and if, after this open
avowal, he chose to persist against hope and steer against the wind, what
wonder is it that he should sink in the depths of his infatuation? If I
had encouraged him, I should be false; if I had gratified him, I should
have acted against my own better resolution and purpose. He was
persistent in spite of warning, he despaired without being hated. Bethink
you now if it be reasonable that his suffering should be laid to my
charge. Let him who has been deceived complain, let him give way to
despair whose encouraged hopes have proved vain, let him flatter himself
whom I shall entice, let him boast whom I shall receive; but let not him
call me cruel or homicide to whom I make no promise, upon whom I practise
no deception, whom I neither entice nor receive. It has not been so far
the will of Heaven that I should love by fate, and to expect me to love
by choice is idle. Let this general declaration serve for each of my
suitors on his own account, and let it be understood from this time forth
that if anyone dies for me it is not of jealousy or misery he dies, for
she who loves no one can give no cause for jealousy to any, and candour
is not to be confounded with scorn. Let him who calls me wild beast and
basilisk, leave me alone as something noxious and evil; let him who calls
me ungrateful, withhold his service; who calls me wayward, seek not my
acquaintance; who calls me cruel, pursue me not; for this wild beast,
this basilisk, this ungrateful, cruel, wayward being has no kind of
desire to seek, serve, know, or follow them. If Chrysostom's impatience
and violent passion killed him, why should my modest behaviour and
circumspection be blamed? If I preserve my purity in the society of the
trees, why should he who would have me preserve it among men, seek to rob
me of it? I have, as you know, wealth of my own, and I covet not that of
others; my taste is for freedom, and I have no relish for constraint; I
neither love nor hate anyone; I do not deceive this one or court that, or
trifle with one or play with another. The modest converse of the shepherd
girls of these hamlets and the care of my goats are my recreations; my
desires are bounded by these mountains, and if they ever wander hence it
is to contemplate the beauty of the heavens, steps by which the soul
travels to its primeval abode."

With these words, and not waiting to hear a reply, she turned and passed
into the thickest part of a wood that was hard by, leaving all who were
there lost in admiration as much of her good sense as of her beauty.
Some--those wounded by the irresistible shafts launched by her bright
eyes--made as though they would follow her, heedless of the frank
declaration they had heard; seeing which, and deeming this a fitting
occasion for the exercise of his chivalry in aid of distressed damsels,
Don Quixote, laying his hand on the hilt of his sword, exclaimed in a
loud and distinct voice:

"Let no one, whatever his rank or condition, dare to follow the beautiful
Marcela, under pain of incurring my fierce indignation. She has shown by
clear and satisfactory arguments that little or no fault is to be found
with her for the death of Chrysostom, and also how far she is from
yielding to the wishes of any of her lovers, for which reason, instead of
being followed and persecuted, she should in justice be honoured and
esteemed by all the good people of the world, for she shows that she is
the only woman in it that holds to such a virtuous resolution."

Whether it was because of the threats of Don Quixote, or because Ambrosio
told them to fulfil their duty to their good friend, none of the
shepherds moved or stirred from the spot until, having finished the grave
and burned Chrysostom's papers, they laid his body in it, not without
many tears from those who stood by. They closed the grave with a heavy
stone until a slab was ready which Ambrosio said he meant to have
prepared, with an epitaph which was to be to this effect:

Beneath the stone before your eyes
The body of a lover lies;
In life he was a shepherd swain,
In death a victim to disdain.
Ungrateful, cruel, coy, and fair,
Was she that drove him to despair,
And Love hath made her his ally
For spreading wide his tyranny.

They then strewed upon the grave a profusion of flowers and branches, and
all expressing their condolence with his friend ambrosio, took their
Vivaldo and his companion did the same; and Don Quixote bade farewell to
his hosts and to the travellers, who pressed him to come with them to
Seville, as being such a convenient place for finding adventures, for
they presented themselves in every street and round every corner oftener
than anywhere else. Don Quixote thanked them for their advice and for the
disposition they showed to do him a favour, and said that for the present
he would not, and must not go to Seville until he had cleared all these
mountains of highwaymen and robbers, of whom report said they were full.
Seeing his good intention, the travellers were unwilling to press him
further, and once more bidding him farewell, they left him and pursued
their journey, in the course of which they did not fail to discuss the
story of Marcela and Chrysostom as well as the madness of Don Quixote.
He, on his part, resolved to go in quest of the shepherdess Marcela, and
make offer to her of all the service he could render her; but things did
not fall out with him as he expected, according to what is related in the
course of this veracious history, of which the Second Part ends here.




CHAPTER XV.

IN WHICH IS RELATED THE UNFORTUNATE ADVENTURE THAT DON QUIXOTE FELL IN
WITH WHEN HE FELL OUT WITH CERTAIN HEARTLESS YANGUESANS


The sage Cide Hamete Benengeli relates that as soon as Don Quixote took
leave of his hosts and all who had been present at the burial of
Chrysostom, he and his squire passed into the same wood which they had
seen the shepherdess Marcela enter, and after having wandered for more
than two hours in all directions in search of her without finding her,
they came to a halt in a glade covered with tender grass, beside which
ran a pleasant cool stream that invited and compelled them to pass there
the hours of the noontide heat, which by this time was beginning to come
on oppressively. Don Quixote and Sancho dismounted, and turning Rocinante
and the ass loose to feed on the grass that was there in abundance, they
ransacked the alforjas, and without any ceremony very peacefully and
sociably master and man made their repast on what they found in them.

Sancho had not thought it worth while to hobble Rocinante, feeling sure,
from what he knew of his staidness and freedom from incontinence, that
all the mares in the Cordova pastures would not lead him into an
impropriety. Chance, however, and the devil, who is not always asleep, so
ordained it that feeding in this valley there was a drove of Galician
ponies belonging to certain Yanguesan carriers, whose way it is to take
their midday rest with their teams in places and spots where grass and
water abound; and that where Don Quixote chanced to be suited the
Yanguesans' purpose very well. It so happened, then, that Rocinante took
a fancy to disport himself with their ladyships the ponies, and
abandoning his usual gait and demeanour as he scented them, he, without
asking leave of his master, got up a briskish little trot and hastened to
make known his wishes to them; they, however, it seemed, preferred their
pasture to him, and received him with their heels and teeth to such
effect that they soon broke his girths and left him naked without a
saddle to cover him; but what must have been worse to him was that the
carriers, seeing the violence he was offering to their mares, came
running up armed with stakes, and so belaboured him that they brought him
sorely battered to the ground.

By this time Don Quixote and Sancho, who had witnessed the drubbing of
Rocinante, came up panting, and said Don Quixote to Sancho:

"So far as I can see, friend Sancho, these are not knights but base folk
of low birth: I mention it because thou canst lawfully aid me in taking
due vengeance for the insult offered to Rocinante before our eyes."

"What the devil vengeance can we take," answered Sancho, "if they are
more than twenty, and we no more than two, or, indeed, perhaps not more
than one and a half?"

"I count for a hundred," replied Don Quixote, and without more words he
drew his sword and attacked the Yanguesans and excited and impelled by
the example of his master, Sancho did the same; and to begin with, Don
Quixote delivered a slash at one of them that laid open the leather
jerkin he wore, together with a great portion of his shoulder. The
Yanguesans, seeing themselves assaulted by only two men while they were
so many, betook themselves to their stakes, and driving the two into the
middle they began to lay on with great zeal and energy; in fact, at the
second blow they brought Sancho to the ground, and Don Quixote fared the
same way, all his skill and high mettle availing him nothing, and fate
willed it that he should fall at the feet of Rocinante, who had not yet
risen; whereby it may be seen how furiously stakes can pound in angry
boorish hands.

Then, seeing the mischief they had done, the Yanguesans with all the
haste they could loaded their team and pursued their journey, leaving the
two adventurers a sorry sight and in sorrier mood.

Sancho was the first to come to, and finding himself close to his master
he called to him in a weak and doleful voice, "Senor Don Quixote, ah,
Senor Don Quixote!"

"What wouldst thou, brother Sancho?" answered Don Quixote in the same
feeble suffering tone as Sancho.

"I would like, if it were possible," answered Sancho Panza, "your worship
to give me a couple of sups of that potion of the fiery Blas, if it be
that you have any to hand there; perhaps it will serve for broken bones
as well as for wounds."

"If I only had it here, wretch that I am, what more should we want?" said
Don Quixote; "but I swear to thee, Sancho Panza, on the faith of a
knight-errant, ere two days are over, unless fortune orders otherwise, I
mean to have it in my possession, or my hand will have lost its cunning."

"But in how many does your worship think we shall have the use of our
feet?" answered Sancho Panza.

"For myself I must say I cannot guess how many," said the battered knight
Don Quixote; "but I take all the blame upon myself, for I had no business
to put hand to sword against men who where not dubbed knights like
myself, and so I believe that in punishment for having transgressed the
laws of chivalry the God of battles has permitted this chastisement to be
administered to me; for which reason, brother Sancho, it is well thou
shouldst receive a hint on the matter which I am now about to mention to
thee, for it is of much importance to the welfare of both of us. It is at
when thou shalt see rabble of this sort offering us insult thou art not
to wait till I draw sword against them, for I shall not do so at all; but
do thou draw sword and chastise them to thy heart's content, and if any
knights come to their aid and defence I will take care to defend thee and
assail them with all my might; and thou hast already seen by a thousand
signs and proofs what the might of this strong arm of mine is equal
to"--so uplifted had the poor gentleman become through the victory over
the stout Biscayan.

But Sancho did not so fully approve of his master's admonition as to let
it pass without saying in reply, "Senor, I am a man of peace, meek and
quiet, and I can put up with any affront because I have a wife and
children to support and bring up; so let it be likewise a hint to your
worship, as it cannot be a mandate, that on no account will I draw sword
either against clown or against knight, and that here before God I
forgive the insults that have been offered me, whether they have been,
are, or shall be offered me by high or low, rich or poor, noble or
commoner, not excepting any rank or condition whatsoever."

To all which his master said in reply, "I wish I had breath enough to
speak somewhat easily, and that the pain I feel on this side would abate
so as to let me explain to thee, Panza, the mistake thou makest. Come
now, sinner, suppose the wind of fortune, hitherto so adverse, should
turn in our favour, filling the sails of our desires so that safely and
without impediment we put into port in some one of those islands I have
promised thee, how would it be with thee if on winning it I made thee
lord of it? Why, thou wilt make it well-nigh impossible through not being
a knight nor having any desire to be one, nor possessing the courage nor
the will to avenge insults or defend thy lordship; for thou must know
that in newly conquered kingdoms and provinces the minds of the
inhabitants are never so quiet nor so well disposed to the new lord that
there is no fear of their making some move to change matters once more,
and try, as they say, what chance may do for them; so it is essential
that the new possessor should have good sense to enable him to govern,
and valour to attack and defend himself, whatever may befall him."

"In what has now befallen us," answered Sancho, "I'd have been well
pleased to have that good sense and that valour your worship speaks of,
but I swear on the faith of a poor man I am more fit for plasters than
for arguments. See if your worship can get up, and let us help Rocinante,
though he does not deserve it, for he was the main cause of all this
thrashing. I never thought it of Rocinante, for I took him to be a
virtuous person and as quiet as myself. After all, they say right that it
takes a long time to come to know people, and that there is nothing sure
in this life. Who would have said that, after such mighty slashes as your
worship gave that unlucky knight-errant, there was coming, travelling
post and at the very heels of them, such a great storm of sticks as has
fallen upon our shoulders?"

"And yet thine, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "ought to be used to such
squalls; but mine, reared in soft cloth and fine linen, it is plain they
must feel more keenly the pain of this mishap, and if it were not that I
imagine--why do I say imagine?--know of a certainty that all these
annoyances are very necessary accompaniments of the calling of arms, I
would lay me down here to die of pure vexation."

To this the squire replied, "Senor, as these mishaps are what one reaps
of chivalry, tell me if they happen very often, or if they have their own
fixed times for coming to pass; because it seems to me that after two
harvests we shall be no good for the third, unless God in his infinite
mercy helps us."

"Know, friend Sancho," answered Don Quixote, "that the life of
knights-errant is subject to a thousand dangers and reverses, and neither
more nor less is it within immediate possibility for knights-errant to
become kings and emperors, as experience has shown in the case of many
different knights with whose histories I am thoroughly acquainted; and I
could tell thee now, if the pain would let me, of some who simply by
might of arm have risen to the high stations I have mentioned; and those
same, both before and after, experienced divers misfortunes and miseries;
for the valiant Amadis of Gaul found himself in the power of his mortal
enemy Arcalaus the magician, who, it is positively asserted, holding him
captive, gave him more than two hundred lashes with the reins of his
horse while tied to one of the pillars of a court; and moreover there is
a certain recondite author of no small authority who says that the Knight
of Phoebus, being caught in a certain pitfall, which opened under his
feet in a certain castle, on falling found himself bound hand and foot in
a deep pit underground, where they administered to him one of those
things they call clysters, of sand and snow-water, that well-nigh
finished him; and if he had not been succoured in that sore extremity by
a sage, a great friend of his, it would have gone very hard with the poor
knight; so I may well suffer in company with such worthy folk, for
greater were the indignities which they had to suffer than those which we
suffer. For I would have thee know, Sancho, that wounds caused by any
instruments which happen by chance to be in hand inflict no indignity,
and this is laid down in the law of the duel in express words: if, for
instance, the cobbler strikes another with the last which he has in his
hand, though it be in fact a piece of wood, it cannot be said for that
reason that he whom he struck with it has been cudgelled. I say this lest
thou shouldst imagine that because we have been drubbed in this affray we
have therefore suffered any indignity; for the arms those men carried,
with which they pounded us, were nothing more than their stakes, and not
one of them, so far as I remember, carried rapier, sword, or dagger."

"They gave me no time to see that much," answered Sancho, "for hardly had
I laid hand on my tizona when they signed the cross on my shoulders with
their sticks in such style that they took the sight out of my eyes and
the strength out of my feet, stretching me where I now lie, and where
thinking of whether all those stake-strokes were an indignity or not
gives me no uneasiness, which the pain of the blows does, for they will
remain as deeply impressed on my memory as on my shoulders."

"For all that let me tell thee, brother Panza," said Don Quixote, "that
there is no recollection which time does not put an end to, and no pain
which death does not remove."

"And what greater misfortune can there be," replied Panza, "than the one
that waits for time to put an end to it and death to remove it? If our
mishap were one of those that are cured with a couple of plasters, it
would not be so bad; but I am beginning to think that all the plasters in
a hospital almost won't be enough to put us right."

"No more of that: pluck strength out of weakness, Sancho, as I mean to
do," returned Don Quixote, "and let us see how Rocinante is, for it seems
to me that not the least share of this mishap has fallen to the lot of
the poor beast."

"There is nothing wonderful in that," replied Sancho, "since he is a
knight-errant too; what I wonder at is that my beast should have come off
scot-free where we come out scotched."

"Fortune always leaves a door open in adversity in order to bring relief
to it," said Don Quixote; "I say so because this little beast may now
supply the want of Rocinante, carrying me hence to some castle where I
may be cured of my wounds. And moreover I shall not hold it any dishonour
to be so mounted, for I remember having read how the good old Silenus,
the tutor and instructor of the gay god of laughter, when he entered the
city of the hundred gates, went very contentedly mounted on a handsome
ass."

"It may be true that he went mounted as your worship says," answered
Sancho, "but there is a great difference between going mounted and going
slung like a sack of manure."

To which Don Quixote replied, "Wounds received in battle confer honour
instead of taking it away; and so, friend Panza, say no more, but, as I
told thee before, get up as well as thou canst and put me on top of thy
beast in whatever fashion pleases thee best, and let us go hence ere
night come on and surprise us in these wilds."

"And yet I have heard your worship say," observed Panza, "that it is very
meet for knights-errant to sleep in wastes and deserts, and that they
esteem it very good fortune."

"That is," said Don Quixote, "when they cannot help it, or when they are
in love; and so true is this that there have been knights who have
remained two years on rocks, in sunshine and shade and all the
inclemencies of heaven, without their ladies knowing anything of it; and
one of these was Amadis, when, under the name of Beltenebros, he took up
his abode on the Pena Pobre for--I know not if it was eight years or
eight months, for I am not very sure of the reckoning; at any rate he
stayed there doing penance for I know not what pique the Princess Oriana
had against him; but no more of this now, Sancho, and make haste before a
mishap like Rocinante's befalls the ass."

"The very devil would be in it in that case," said Sancho; and letting
off thirty "ohs," and sixty sighs, and a hundred and twenty maledictions
and execrations on whomsoever it was that had brought him there, he
raised himself, stopping half-way bent like a Turkish bow without power
to bring himself upright, but with all his pains he saddled his ass, who
too had gone astray somewhat, yielding to the excessive licence of the
day; he next raised up Rocinante, and as for him, had he possessed a
tongue to complain with, most assuredly neither Sancho nor his master
would have been behind him.

To be brief, Sancho fixed Don Quixote on the ass and secured Rocinante
with a leading rein, and taking the ass by the halter, he proceeded more
or less in the direction in which it seemed to him the high road might
be; and, as chance was conducting their affairs for them from good to
better, he had not gone a short league when the road came in sight, and
on it he perceived an inn, which to his annoyance and to the delight of
Don Quixote must needs be a castle. Sancho insisted that it was an inn,
and his master that it was not one, but a castle, and the dispute lasted
so long that before the point was settled they had time to reach it, and
into it Sancho entered with all his team without any further controversy.




CHAPTER XVI.

OF WHAT HAPPENED TO THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN IN THE INN WHICH HE TOOK TO
BE A CASTLE


The innkeeper, seeing Don Quixote slung across the ass, asked Sancho what
was amiss with him. Sancho answered that it was nothing, only that he had
fallen down from a rock and had his ribs a little bruised. The innkeeper
had a wife whose disposition was not such as those of her calling
commonly have, for she was by nature kind-hearted and felt for the
sufferings of her neighbours, so she at once set about tending Don
Quixote, and made her young daughter, a very comely girl, help her in
taking care of her guest. There was besides in the inn, as servant, an
Asturian lass with a broad face, flat poll, and snub nose, blind of one
eye and not very sound in the other. The elegance of her shape, to be
sure, made up for all her defects; she did not measure seven palms from
head to foot, and her shoulders, which overweighted her somewhat, made
her contemplate the ground more than she liked. This graceful lass, then,
helped the young girl, and the two made up a very bad bed for Don Quixote
in a garret that showed evident signs of having formerly served for many
years as a straw-loft, in which there was also quartered a carrier whose
bed was placed a little beyond our Don Quixote's, and, though only made
of the pack-saddles and cloths of his mules, had much the advantage of
it, as Don Quixote's consisted simply of four rough boards on two not
very even trestles, a mattress, that for thinness might have passed for a
quilt, full of pellets which, were they not seen through the rents to be
wool, would to the touch have seemed pebbles in hardness, two sheets made
of buckler leather, and a coverlet the threads of which anyone that chose
might have counted without missing one in the reckoning.

On this accursed bed Don Quixote stretched himself, and the hostess and
her daughter soon covered him with plasters from top to toe, while
Maritornes--for that was the name of the Asturian--held the light for
them, and while plastering him, the hostess, observing how full of wheals
Don Quixote was in some places, remarked that this had more the look of
blows than of a fall.

It was not blows, Sancho said, but that the rock had many points and
projections, and that each of them had left its mark. "Pray, senora," he
added, "manage to save some tow, as there will be no want of some one to
use it, for my loins too are rather sore."

"Then you must have fallen too," said the hostess.

"I did not fall," said Sancho Panza, "but from the shock I got at seeing
my master fall, my body aches so that I feel as if I had had a thousand
thwacks."

"That may well be," said the young girl, "for it has many a time happened
to me to dream that I was falling down from a tower and never coming to
the ground, and when I awoke from the dream to find myself as weak and
shaken as if I had really fallen."

"There is the point, senora," replied Sancho Panza, "that I without
dreaming at all, but being more awake than I am now, find myself with
scarcely less wheals than my master, Don Quixote."

"How is the gentleman called?" asked Maritornes the Asturian.

"Don Quixote of La Mancha," answered Sancho Panza, "and he is a
knight-adventurer, and one of the best and stoutest that have been seen
in the world this long time past."

"What is a knight-adventurer?" said the lass.

"Are you so new in the world as not to know?" answered Sancho Panza.
"Well, then, you must know, sister, that a knight-adventurer is a thing
that in two words is seen drubbed and emperor, that is to-day the most
miserable and needy being in the world, and to-morrow will have two or
three crowns of kingdoms to give his squire."

"Then how is it," said the hostess, "that belonging to so good a master
as this, you have not, to judge by appearances, even so much as a
county?"

"It is too soon yet," answered Sancho, "for we have only been a month
going in quest of adventures, and so far we have met with nothing that
can be called one, for it will happen that when one thing is looked for
another thing is found; however, if my master Don Quixote gets well of
this wound, or fall, and I am left none the worse of it, I would not
change my hopes for the best title in Spain."

To all this conversation Don Quixote was listening very attentively, and
sitting up in bed as well as he could, and taking the hostess by the hand
he said to her, "Believe me, fair lady, you may call yourself fortunate
in having in this castle of yours sheltered my person, which is such that
if I do not myself praise it, it is because of what is commonly said,
that self-praise debaseth; but my squire will inform you who I am. I only
tell you that I shall preserve for ever inscribed on my memory the
service you have rendered me in order to tender you my gratitude while
life shall last me; and would to Heaven love held me not so enthralled
and subject to its laws and to the eyes of that fair ingrate whom I name
between my teeth, but that those of this lovely damsel might be the
masters of my liberty."

The hostess, her daughter, and the worthy Maritornes listened in
bewilderment to the words of the knight-errant; for they understood about
as much of them as if he had been talking Greek, though they could
perceive they were all meant for expressions of good-will and
blandishments; and not being accustomed to this kind of language, they
stared at him and wondered to themselves, for he seemed to them a man of
a different sort from those they were used to, and thanking him in
pothouse phrase for his civility they left him, while the Asturian gave
her attention to Sancho, who needed it no less than his master.

The carrier had made an arrangement with her for recreation that night,
and she had given him her word that when the guests were quiet and the
family asleep she would come in search of him and meet his wishes
unreservedly. And it is said of this good lass that she never made
promises of the kind without fulfilling them, even though she made them
in a forest and without any witness present, for she plumed herself
greatly on being a lady and held it no disgrace to be in such an
employment as servant in an inn, because, she said, misfortunes and
ill-luck had brought her to that position. The hard, narrow, wretched,
rickety bed of Don Quixote stood first in the middle of this star-lit
stable, and close beside it Sancho made his, which merely consisted of a
rush mat and a blanket that looked as if it was of threadbare canvas
rather than of wool. Next to these two beds was that of the carrier, made
up, as has been said, of the pack-saddles and all the trappings of the
two best mules he had, though there were twelve of them, sleek, plump,
and in prime condition, for he was one of the rich carriers of Arevalo,
according to the author of this history, who particularly mentions this
carrier because he knew him very well, and they even say was in some
degree a relation of his; besides which Cide Hamete Benengeli was a
historian of great research and accuracy in all things, as is very
evident since he would not pass over in silence those that have been
already mentioned, however trifling and insignificant they might be, an
example that might be followed by those grave historians who relate
transactions so curtly and briefly that we hardly get a taste of them,
all the substance of the work being left in the inkstand from
carelessness, perverseness, or ignorance. A thousand blessings on the
author of "Tablante de Ricamonte" and that of the other book in which the
deeds of the Conde Tomillas are recounted; with what minuteness they
describe everything!

To proceed, then: after having paid a visit to his team and given them
their second feed, the carrier stretched himself on his pack-saddles and
lay waiting for his conscientious Maritornes. Sancho was by this time
plastered and had lain down, and though he strove to sleep the pain of
his ribs would not let him, while Don Quixote with the pain of his had
his eyes as wide open as a hare's.

The inn was all in silence, and in the whole of it there was no light
except that given by a lantern that hung burning in the middle of the
gateway. This strange stillness, and the thoughts, always present to our
knight's mind, of the incidents described at every turn in the books that
were the cause of his misfortune, conjured up to his imagination as
extraordinary a delusion as can well be conceived, which was that he
fancied himself to have reached a famous castle (for, as has been said,
all the inns he lodged in were castles to his eyes), and that the
daughter of the innkeeper was daughter of the lord of the castle, and
that she, won by his high-bred bearing, had fallen in love with him, and
had promised to come to his bed for a while that night without the
knowledge of her parents; and holding all this fantasy that he had
constructed as solid fact, he began to feel uneasy and to consider the
perilous risk which his virtue was about to encounter, and he resolved in
his heart to commit no treason to his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, even
though the queen Guinevere herself and the dame Quintanona should present
themselves before him.

While he was taken up with these vagaries, then, the time and the
hour--an unlucky one for him--arrived for the Asturian to come, who in
her smock, with bare feet and her hair gathered into a fustian coif, with
noiseless and cautious steps entered the chamber where the three were
quartered, in quest of the carrier; but scarcely had she gained the door
when Don Quixote perceived her, and sitting up in his bed in spite of his
plasters and the pain of his ribs, he stretched out his arms to receive
his beauteous damsel. The Asturian, who went all doubled up and in
silence with her hands before her feeling for her lover, encountered the
arms of Don Quixote, who grasped her tightly by the wrist, and drawing
her towards him, while she dared not utter a word, made her sit down on
the bed. He then felt her smock, and although it was of sackcloth it
appeared to him to be of the finest and softest silk: on her wrists she
wore some glass beads, but to him they had the sheen of precious Orient
pearls: her hair, which in some measure resembled a horse's mane, he
rated as threads of the brightest gold of Araby, whose refulgence dimmed
the sun himself: her breath, which no doubt smelt of yesterday's stale
salad, seemed to him to diffuse a sweet aromatic fragrance from her
mouth; and, in short, he drew her portrait in his imagination with the
same features and in the same style as that which he had seen in his
books of the other princesses who, smitten by love, came with all the
adornments that are here set down, to see the sorely wounded knight; and
so great was the poor gentleman's blindness that neither touch, nor
smell, nor anything else about the good lass that would have made any but
a carrier vomit, were enough to undeceive him; on the contrary, he was
persuaded he had the goddess of beauty in his arms, and holding her
firmly in his grasp he went on to say in low, tender voice:

"Would that found myself, lovely and exalted lady, in a position to repay
such a favour as that which you, by the sight of your great beauty, have
granted me; but fortune, which is never weary of persecuting the good,
has chosen to place me upon this bed, where I lie so bruised and broken
that though my inclination would gladly comply with yours it is
impossible; besides, to this impossibility another yet greater is to be
added, which is the faith that I have pledged to the peerless Dulcinea
del Toboso, sole lady of my most secret thoughts; and were it not that
this stood in the way I should not be so insensible a knight as to miss
the happy opportunity which your great goodness has offered me."

Maritornes was fretting and sweating at finding herself held so fast by
Don Quixote, and not understanding or heeding the words he addressed to
her, she strove without speaking to free herself. The worthy carrier,
whose unholy thoughts kept him awake, was aware of his doxy the moment
she entered the door, and was listening attentively to all Don Quixote
said; and jealous that the Asturian should have broken her word with him
for another, drew nearer to Don Quixote's bed and stood still to see what
would come of this talk which he could not understand; but when he
perceived the wench struggling to get free and Don Quixote striving to
hold her, not relishing the joke he raised his arm and delivered such a
terrible cuff on the lank jaws of the amorous knight that he bathed all
his mouth in blood, and not content with this he mounted on his ribs and
with his feet tramped all over them at a pace rather smarter than a trot.
The bed which was somewhat crazy and not very firm on its feet, unable to
support the additional weight of the carrier, came to the ground, and at
the mighty crash of this the innkeeper awoke and at once concluded that
it must be some brawl of Maritornes', because after calling loudly to her
he got no answer. With this suspicion he got up, and lighting a lamp
hastened to the quarter where he had heard the disturbance. The wench,
seeing that her master was coming and knowing that his temper was
terrible, frightened and panic-stricken made for the bed of Sancho Panza,
who still slept, and crouching upon it made a ball of herself.

The innkeeper came in exclaiming, "Where art thou, strumpet? Of course
this is some of thy work." At this Sancho awoke, and feeling this mass
almost on top of him fancied he had the nightmare and began to distribute
fisticuffs all round, of which a certain share fell upon Maritornes, who,
irritated by the pain and flinging modesty aside, paid back so many in
return to Sancho that she woke him up in spite of himself. He then,
finding himself so handled, by whom he knew not, raising himself up as
well as he could, grappled with Maritornes, and he and she between them
began the bitterest and drollest scrimmage in the world. The carrier,
however, perceiving by the light of the innkeeper candle how it fared
with his ladylove, quitting Don Quixote, ran to bring her the help she
needed; and the innkeeper did the same but with a different intention,
for his was to chastise the lass, as he believed that beyond a doubt she
alone was the cause of all the harmony. And so, as the saying is, cat to
rat, rat to rope, rope to stick, the carrier pounded Sancho, Sancho the
lass, she him, and the innkeeper her, and all worked away so briskly that
they did not give themselves a moment's rest; and the best of it was that
the innkeeper's lamp went out, and as they were left in the dark they all
laid on one upon the other in a mass so unmercifully that there was not a
sound spot left where a hand could light.

It so happened that there was lodging that night in the inn a caudrillero
of what they call the Old Holy Brotherhood of Toledo, who, also hearing
the extraordinary noise of the conflict, seized his staff and the tin
case with his warrants, and made his way in the dark into the room
crying: "Hold! in the name of the Jurisdiction! Hold! in the name of the
Holy Brotherhood!"

The first that he came upon was the pummelled Don Quixote, who lay
stretched senseless on his back upon his broken-down bed, and, his hand
falling on the beard as he felt about, he continued to cry, "Help for the
Jurisdiction!" but perceiving that he whom he had laid hold of did not
move or stir, he concluded that he was dead and that those in the room
were his murderers, and with this suspicion he raised his voice still
higher, calling out, "Shut the inn gate; see that no one goes out; they
have killed a man here!" This cry startled them all, and each dropped the
contest at the point at which the voice reached him. The innkeeper
retreated to his room, the carrier to his pack-saddles, the lass to her
crib; the unlucky Don Quixote and Sancho alone were unable to move from
where they were. The cuadrillero on this let go Don Quixote's beard, and
went out to look for a light to search for and apprehend the culprits;
but not finding one, as the innkeeper had purposely extinguished the
lantern on retreating to his room, he was compelled to have recourse to
the hearth, where after much time and trouble he lit another lamp.




CHAPTER XVII.

IN WHICH ARE CONTAINED THE INNUMERABLE TROUBLES WHICH THE BRAVE DON
QUIXOTE AND HIS GOOD SQUIRE SANCHO PANZA ENDURED IN THE INN, WHICH TO HIS
MISFORTUNE HE TOOK TO BE A CASTLE

By this time Don Quixote had recovered from his swoon; and in the same
tone of voice in which he had called to his squire the day before when he
lay stretched "in the vale of the stakes," he began calling to him now,
"Sancho, my friend, art thou asleep? sleepest thou, friend Sancho?"

"How can I sleep, curses on it!" returned Sancho discontentedly and
bitterly, "when it is plain that all the devils have been at me this
night?"

"Thou mayest well believe that," answered Don Quixote, "because, either I
know little, or this castle is enchanted, for thou must know-but this
that I am now about to tell thee thou must swear to keep secret until
after my death."

"I swear it," answered Sancho.

"I say so," continued Don Quixote, "because I hate taking away anyone's
good name."

"I say," replied Sancho, "that I swear to hold my tongue about it till
the end of your worship's days, and God grant I may be able to let it out
to-morrow."

"Do I do thee such injuries, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that thou
wouldst see me dead so soon?"

"It is not for that," replied Sancho, "but because I hate keeping things
long, and I don't want them to grow rotten with me from over-keeping."

"At any rate," said Don Quixote, "I have more confidence in thy affection
and good nature; and so I would have thee know that this night there
befell me one of the strangest adventures that I could describe, and to
relate it to thee briefly thou must know that a little while ago the
daughter of the lord of this castle came to me, and that she is the most
elegant and beautiful damsel that could be found in the wide world. What
I could tell thee of the charms of her person! of her lively wit! of
other secret matters which, to preserve the fealty I owe to my lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, I shall pass over unnoticed and in silence! I will
only tell thee that, either fate being envious of so great a boon placed
in my hands by good fortune, or perhaps (and this is more probable) this
castle being, as I have already said, enchanted, at the time when I was
engaged in the sweetest and most amorous discourse with her, there came,
without my seeing or knowing whence it came, a hand attached to some arm
of some huge giant, that planted such a cuff on my jaws that I have them
all bathed in blood, and then pummelled me in such a way that I am in a
worse plight than yesterday when the carriers, on account of Rocinante's
misbehaviour, inflicted on us the injury thou knowest of; whence
conjecture that there must be some enchanted Moor guarding the treasure
of this damsel's beauty, and that it is not for me."

"Not for me either," said Sancho, "for more than four hundred Moors have
so thrashed me that the drubbing of the stakes was cakes and fancy-bread
to it. But tell me, senor, what do you call this excellent and rare
adventure that has left us as we are left now? Though your worship was
not so badly off, having in your arms that incomparable beauty you spoke
of; but I, what did I have, except the heaviest whacks I think I had in
all my life? Unlucky me and the mother that bore me! for I am not a
knight-errant and never expect to be one, and of all the mishaps, the
greater part falls to my share."

"Then thou hast been thrashed too?" said Don Quixote.

"Didn't I say so? worse luck to my line!" said Sancho.

"Be not distressed, friend," said Don Quixote, "for I will now make the
precious balsam with which we shall cure ourselves in the twinkling of an
eye."

By this time the cuadrillero had succeeded in lighting the lamp, and came
in to see the man that he thought had been killed; and as Sancho caught
sight of him at the door, seeing him coming in his shirt, with a cloth on
his head, and a lamp in his hand, and a very forbidding countenance, he
said to his master, "Senor, can it be that this is the enchanted Moor
coming back to give us more castigation if there be anything still left
in the ink-bottle?"

"It cannot be the Moor," answered Don Quixote, "for those under
enchantment do not let themselves be seen by anyone."

"If they don't let themselves be seen, they let themselves be felt," said
Sancho; "if not, let my shoulders speak to the point."

"Mine could speak too," said Don Quixote, "but that is not a sufficient
reason for believing that what we see is the enchanted Moor."

The officer came up, and finding them engaged in such a peaceful
conversation, stood amazed; though Don Quixote, to be sure, still lay on
his back unable to move from pure pummelling and plasters. The officer
turned to him and said, "Well, how goes it, good man?"

"I would speak more politely if I were you," replied Don Quixote; "is it
the way of this country to address knights-errant in that style, you
booby?"

The cuadrillero finding himself so disrespectfully treated by such a
sorry-looking individual, lost his temper, and raising the lamp full of
oil, smote Don Quixote such a blow with it on the head that he gave him a
badly broken pate; then, all being in darkness, he went out, and Sancho
Panza said, "That is certainly the enchanted Moor, Senor, and he keeps
the treasure for others, and for us only the cuffs and lamp-whacks."

"That is the truth," answered Don Quixote, "and there is no use in
troubling oneself about these matters of enchantment or being angry or
vexed at them, for as they are invisible and visionary we shall find no
one on whom to avenge ourselves, do what we may; rise, Sancho, if thou
canst, and call the alcaide of this fortress, and get him to give me a
little oil, wine, salt, and rosemary to make the salutiferous balsam, for
indeed I believe I have great need of it now, because I am losing much
blood from the wound that phantom gave me."

Sancho got up with pain enough in his bones, and went after the innkeeper
in the dark, and meeting the officer, who was looking to see what had
become of his enemy, he said to him, "Senor, whoever you are, do us the
favour and kindness to give us a little rosemary, oil, salt, and wine,
for it is wanted to cure one of the best knights-errant on earth, who
lies on yonder bed wounded by the hands of the enchanted Moor that is in
this inn."

When the officer heard him talk in this way, he took him for a man out of
his senses, and as day was now beginning to break, he opened the inn
gate, and calling the host, he told him what this good man wanted. The
host furnished him with what he required, and Sancho brought it to Don
Quixote, who, with his hand to his head, was bewailing the pain of the
blow of the lamp, which had done him no more harm than raising a couple
of rather large lumps, and what he fancied blood was only the sweat that
flowed from him in his sufferings during the late storm. To be brief, he
took the materials, of which he made a compound, mixing them all and
boiling them a good while until it seemed to him they had come to
perfection. He then asked for some vial to pour it into, and as there was
not one in the inn, he decided on putting it into a tin oil-bottle or
flask of which the host made him a free gift; and over the flask he
repeated more than eighty paternosters and as many more ave-marias,
salves, and credos, accompanying each word with a cross by way of
benediction, at all which there were present Sancho, the innkeeper, and
the cuadrillero; for the carrier was now peacefully engaged in attending
to the comfort of his mules.

This being accomplished, he felt anxious to make trial himself, on the
spot, of the virtue of this precious balsam, as he considered it, and so
he drank near a quart of what could not be put into the flask and
remained in the pigskin in which it had been boiled; but scarcely had he
done drinking when he began to vomit in such a way that nothing was left
in his stomach, and with the pangs and spasms of vomiting he broke into a
profuse sweat, on account of which he bade them cover him up and leave
him alone. They did so, and he lay sleeping more than three hours, at the
end of which he awoke and felt very great bodily relief and so much ease
from his bruises that he thought himself quite cured, and verily believed
he had hit upon the balsam of Fierabras; and that with this remedy he
might thenceforward, without any fear, face any kind of destruction,
battle, or combat, however perilous it might be.

Sancho Panza, who also regarded the amendment of his master as
miraculous, begged him to give him what was left in the pigskin, which
was no small quantity. Don Quixote consented, and he, taking it with both
hands, in good faith and with a better will, gulped down and drained off
very little less than his master. But the fact is, that the stomach of
poor Sancho was of necessity not so delicate as that of his master, and
so, before vomiting, he was seized with such gripings and retchings, and
such sweats and faintness, that verily and truly he believed his last
hour had come, and finding himself so racked and tormented he cursed the
balsam and the thief that had given it to him.

Don Quixote seeing him in this state said, "It is my belief, Sancho, that
this mischief comes of thy not being dubbed a knight, for I am persuaded
this liquor cannot be good for those who are not so."

"If your worship knew that," returned Sancho--"woe betide me and all my
kindred!--why did you let me taste it?"

At this moment the draught took effect, and the poor squire began to
discharge both ways at such a rate that the rush mat on which he had
thrown himself and the canvas blanket he had covering him were fit for
nothing afterwards. He sweated and perspired with such paroxysms and
convulsions that not only he himself but all present thought his end had
come. This tempest and tribulation lasted about two hours, at the end of
which he was left, not like his master, but so weak and exhausted that he
could not stand. Don Quixote, however, who, as has been said, felt
himself relieved and well, was eager to take his departure at once in
quest of adventures, as it seemed to him that all the time he loitered
there was a fraud upon the world and those in it who stood in need of his
help and protection, all the more when he had the security and confidence
his balsam afforded him; and so, urged by this impulse, he saddled
Rocinante himself and put the pack-saddle on his squire's beast, whom
likewise he helped to dress and mount the ass; after which he mounted his
horse and turning to a corner of the inn he laid hold of a pike that
stood there, to serve him by way of a lance. All that were in the inn,
who were more than twenty persons, stood watching him; the innkeeper's
daughter was likewise observing him, and he too never took his eyes off
her, and from time to time fetched a sigh that he seemed to pluck up from
the depths of his bowels; but they all thought it must be from the pain
he felt in his ribs; at any rate they who had seen him plastered the
night before thought so.

As soon as they were both mounted, at the gate of the inn, he called to
the host and said in a very grave and measured voice, "Many and great are
the favours, Senor Alcaide, that I have received in this castle of yours,
and I remain under the deepest obligation to be grateful to you for them
all the days of my life; if I can repay them in avenging you of any
arrogant foe who may have wronged you, know that my calling is no other
than to aid the weak, to avenge those who suffer wrong, and to chastise
perfidy. Search your memory, and if you find anything of this kind you
need only tell me of it, and I promise you by the order of knighthood
which I have received to procure you satisfaction and reparation to the
utmost of your desire."

The innkeeper replied to him with equal calmness, "Sir Knight, I do not
want your worship to avenge me of any wrong, because when any is done me
I can take what vengeance seems good to me; the only thing I want is that
you pay me the score that you have run up in the inn last night, as well
for the straw and barley for your two beasts, as for supper and beds."

"Then this is an inn?" said Don Quixote.

"And a very respectable one," said the innkeeper.

"I have been under a mistake all this time," answered Don Quixote, "for
in truth I thought it was a castle, and not a bad one; but since it
appears that it is not a castle but an inn, all that can be done now is
that you should excuse the payment, for I cannot contravene the rule of
knights-errant, of whom I know as a fact (and up to the present I have
read nothing to the contrary) that they never paid for lodging or
anything else in the inn where they might be; for any hospitality that
might be offered them is their due by law and right in return for the
insufferable toil they endure in seeking adventures by night and by day,
in summer and in winter, on foot and on horseback, in hunger and thirst,
cold and heat, exposed to all the inclemencies of heaven and all the
hardships of earth."

"I have little to do with that," replied the innkeeper; "pay me what you
owe me, and let us have no more talk of chivalry, for all I care about is
to get my money."

"You are a stupid, scurvy innkeeper," said Don Quixote, and putting spurs
to Rocinante and bringing his pike to the slope he rode out of the inn
before anyone could stop him, and pushed on some distance without looking
to see if his squire was following him.

The innkeeper when he saw him go without paying him ran to get payment of
Sancho, who said that as his master would not pay neither would he,
because, being as he was squire to a knight-errant, the same rule and
reason held good for him as for his master with regard to not paying
anything in inns and hostelries. At this the innkeeper waxed very wroth,
and threatened if he did not pay to compel him in a way that he would not
like. To which Sancho made answer that by the law of chivalry his master
had received he would not pay a rap, though it cost him his life; for the
excellent and ancient usage of knights-errant was not going to be
violated by him, nor should the squires of such as were yet to come into
the world ever complain of him or reproach him with breaking so just a
privilege.

The ill-luck of the unfortunate Sancho so ordered it that among the
company in the inn there were four woolcarders from Segovia, three
needle-makers from the Colt of Cordova, and two lodgers from the Fair of
Seville, lively fellows, tender-hearted, fond of a joke, and playful,
who, almost as if instigated and moved by a common impulse, made up to
Sancho and dismounted him from his ass, while one of them went in for the
blanket of the host's bed; but on flinging him into it they looked up,
and seeing that the ceiling was somewhat lower than what they required for
their work, they decided upon going out into the yard, which was bounded
by the sky, and there, putting Sancho in the middle of the blanket, they
began to raise him high, making sport with him as they would with a dog
at Shrovetide.

The cries of the poor blanketed wretch were so loud that they reached the
ears of his master, who, halting to listen attentively, was persuaded
that some new adventure was coming, until he clearly perceived that it
was his squire who uttered them. Wheeling about he came up to the inn
with a laborious gallop, and finding it shut went round it to see if he
could find some way of getting in; but as soon as he came to the wall of
the yard, which was not very high, he discovered the game that was being
played with his squire. He saw him rising and falling in the air with
such grace and nimbleness that, had his rage allowed him, it is my belief
he would have laughed. He tried to climb from his horse on to the top of
the wall, but he was so bruised and battered that he could not even
dismount; and so from the back of his horse he began to utter such
maledictions and objurgations against those who were blanketing Sancho as
it would be impossible to write down accurately: they, however, did not
stay their laughter or their work for this, nor did the flying Sancho
cease his lamentations, mingled now with threats, now with entreaties but
all to little purpose, or none at all, until from pure weariness they
left off. They then brought him his ass, and mounting him on top of it
they put his jacket round him; and the compassionate Maritornes, seeing
him so exhausted, thought fit to refresh him with a jug of water, and
that it might be all the cooler she fetched it from the well. Sancho took
it, and as he was raising it to his mouth he was stopped by the cries of
his master exclaiming, "Sancho, my son, drink not water; drink it not, my
son, for it will kill thee; see, here I have the blessed balsam (and he
held up the flask of liquor), and with drinking two drops of it thou wilt
certainly be restored."

At these words Sancho turned his eyes asquint, and in a still louder
voice said, "Can it be your worship has forgotten that I am not a knight,
or do you want me to end by vomiting up what bowels I have left after
last night? Keep your liquor in the name of all the devils, and leave me
to myself!" and at one and the same instant he left off talking and began
drinking; but as at the first sup he perceived it was water he did not
care to go on with it, and begged Maritornes to fetch him some wine,
which she did with right good will, and paid for it with her own money;
for indeed they say of her that, though she was in that line of life,
there was some faint and distant resemblance to a Christian about her.
When Sancho had done drinking he dug his heels into his ass, and the gate
of the inn being thrown open he passed out very well pleased at having
paid nothing and carried his point, though it had been at the expense of
his usual sureties, his shoulders. It is true that the innkeeper detained
his alforjas in payment of what was owing to him, but Sancho took his
departure in such a flurry that he never missed them. The innkeeper, as
soon as he saw him off, wanted to bar the gate close, but the blanketers
would not agree to it, for they were fellows who would not have cared two
farthings for Don Quixote, even had he been really one of the
knights-errant of the Round Table.




CHAPTER XVIII.

IN WHICH IS RELATED THE DISCOURSE SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH HIS MASTER, DON
QUIXOTE, AND OTHER ADVENTURES WORTH RELATING

Sancho reached his master so limp and faint that he could not urge on his
beast. When Don Quixote saw the state he was in he said, "I have now come
to the conclusion, good Sancho, that this castle or inn is beyond a doubt
enchanted, because those who have so atrociously diverted themselves with
thee, what can they be but phantoms or beings of another world? and I
hold this confirmed by having noticed that when I was by the wall of the
yard witnessing the acts of thy sad tragedy, it was out of my power to
mount upon it, nor could I even dismount from Rocinante, because they no
doubt had me enchanted; for I swear to thee by the faith of what I am
that if I had been able to climb up or dismount, I would have avenged
thee in such a way that those braggart thieves would have remembered
their freak for ever, even though in so doing I knew that I contravened
the laws of chivalry, which, as I have often told thee, do not permit a
knight to lay hands on him who is not one, save in case of urgent and
great necessity in defence of his own life and person."

"I would have avenged myself too if I could," said Sancho, "whether I had
been dubbed knight or not, but I could not; though for my part I am
persuaded those who amused themselves with me were not phantoms or
enchanted men, as your worship says, but men of flesh and bone like
ourselves; and they all had their names, for I heard them name them when
they were tossing me, and one was called Pedro Martinez, and another
Tenorio Hernandez, and the innkeeper, I heard, was called Juan Palomeque
the Left-handed; so that, senor, your not being able to leap over the
wall of the yard or dismount from your horse came of something else
besides enchantments; and what I make out clearly from all this is, that
these adventures we go seeking will in the end lead us into such
misadventures that we shall not know which is our right foot; and that
the best and wisest thing, according to my small wits, would be for us to
return home, now that it is harvest-time, and attend to our business, and
give over wandering from Zeca to Mecca and from pail to bucket, as the
saying is."

"How little thou knowest about chivalry, Sancho," replied Don Quixote;
"hold thy peace and have patience; the day will come when thou shalt see
with thine own eyes what an honourable thing it is to wander in the
pursuit of this calling; nay, tell me, what greater pleasure can there be
in the world, or what delight can equal that of winning a battle, and
triumphing over one's enemy? None, beyond all doubt."

"Very likely," answered Sancho, "though I do not know it; all I know is
that since we have been knights-errant, or since your worship has been
one (for I have no right to reckon myself one of so honourable a number)
we have never won any battle except the one with the Biscayan, and even
out of that your worship came with half an ear and half a helmet the
less; and from that till now it has been all cudgellings and more
cudgellings, cuffs and more cuffs, I getting the blanketing over and
above, and falling in with enchanted persons on whom I cannot avenge
myself so as to know what the delight, as your worship calls it, of
conquering an enemy is like."

"That is what vexes me, and what ought to vex thee, Sancho," replied Don
Quixote; "but henceforward I will endeavour to have at hand some sword
made by such craft that no kind of enchantments can take effect upon him
who carries it, and it is even possible that fortune may procure for me
that which belonged to Amadis when he was called 'The Knight of the
Burning Sword,' which was one of the best swords that ever knight in the
world possessed, for, besides having the said virtue, it cut like a
razor, and there was no armour, however strong and enchanted it might be,
that could resist it."

"Such is my luck," said Sancho, "that even if that happened and your
worship found some such sword, it would, like the balsam, turn out
serviceable and good for dubbed knights only, and as for the squires,
they might sup sorrow."

"Fear not that, Sancho," said Don Quixote: "Heaven will deal better by
thee."

Thus talking, Don Quixote and his squire were going along, when, on the
road they were following, Don Quixote perceived approaching them a large
and thick cloud of dust, on seeing which he turned to Sancho and said:

"This is the day, Sancho, on which will be seen the boon my fortune is
reserving for me; this, I say, is the day on which as much as on any
other shall be displayed the might of my arm, and on which I shall do
deeds that shall remain written in the book of fame for all ages to come.
Seest thou that cloud of dust which rises yonder? Well, then, all that is
churned up by a vast army composed of various and countless nations that
comes marching there."

"According to that there must be two," said Sancho, "for on this opposite
side also there rises just such another cloud of dust."

Don Quixote turned to look and found that it was true, and rejoicing
exceedingly, he concluded that they were two armies about to engage and
encounter in the midst of that broad plain; for at all times and seasons
his fancy was full of the battles, enchantments, adventures, crazy feats,
loves, and defiances that are recorded in the books of chivalry, and
everything he said, thought, or did had reference to such things. Now the
cloud of dust he had seen was raised by two great droves of sheep coming
along the same road in opposite directions, which, because of the dust,
did not become visible until they drew near, but Don Quixote asserted so
positively that they were armies that Sancho was led to believe it and
say, "Well, and what are we to do, senor?"

"What?" said Don Quixote: "give aid and assistance to the weak and those
who need it; and thou must know, Sancho, that this which comes opposite
to us is conducted and led by the mighty emperor Alifanfaron, lord of the
great isle of Trapobana; this other that marches behind me is that of his
enemy the king of the Garamantas, Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, for he
always goes into battle with his right arm bare."

"But why are these two lords such enemies?"

"They are at enmity," replied Don Quixote, "because this Alifanfaron is a
furious pagan and is in love with the daughter of Pentapolin, who is a
very beautiful and moreover gracious lady, and a Christian, and her
father is unwilling to bestow her upon the pagan king unless he first
abandons the religion of his false prophet Mahomet, and adopts his own."

"By my beard," said Sancho, "but Pentapolin does quite right, and I will
help him as much as I can."

"In that thou wilt do what is thy duty, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for
to engage in battles of this sort it is not requisite to be a dubbed
knight."

"That I can well understand," answered Sancho; "but where shall we put
this ass where we may be sure to find him after the fray is over? for I
believe it has not been the custom so far to go into battle on a beast of
this kind."

"That is true," said Don Quixote, "and what you had best do with him is
to leave him to take his chance whether he be lost or not, for the horses
we shall have when we come out victors will be so many that even
Rocinante will run a risk of being changed for another. But attend to me
and observe, for I wish to give thee some account of the chief knights
who accompany these two armies; and that thou mayest the better see and
mark, let us withdraw to that hillock which rises yonder, whence both
armies may be seen."

They did so, and placed themselves on a rising ground from which the two
droves that Don Quixote made armies of might have been plainly seen if
the clouds of dust they raised had not obscured them and blinded the
sight; nevertheless, seeing in his imagination what he did not see and
what did not exist, he began thus in a loud voice:

"That knight whom thou seest yonder in yellow armour, who bears upon his
shield a lion crowned crouching at the feet of a damsel, is the valiant
Laurcalco, lord of the Silver Bridge; that one in armour with flowers of
gold, who bears on his shield three crowns argent on an azure field, is
the dreaded Micocolembo, grand duke of Quirocia; that other of gigantic
frame, on his right hand, is the ever dauntless Brandabarbaran de
Boliche, lord of the three Arabias, who for armour wears that serpent
skin, and has for shield a gate which, according to tradition, is one of
those of the temple that Samson brought to the ground when by his death
he revenged himself upon his enemies. But turn thine eyes to the other
side, and thou shalt see in front and in the van of this other army the
ever victorious and never vanquished Timonel of Carcajona, prince of New
Biscay, who comes in armour with arms quartered azure, vert, white, and
yellow, and bears on his shield a cat or on a field tawny with a motto
which says Miau, which is the beginning of the name of his lady, who
according to report is the peerless Miaulina, daughter of the duke
Alfeniquen of the Algarve; the other, who burdens and presses the loins
of that powerful charger and bears arms white as snow and a shield blank
and without any device, is a novice knight, a Frenchman by birth, Pierres
Papin by name, lord of the baronies of Utrique; that other, who with
iron-shod heels strikes the flanks of that nimble parti-coloured zebra,
and for arms bears azure vair, is the mighty duke of Nerbia,
Espartafilardo del Bosque, who bears for device on his shield an
asparagus plant with a motto in Castilian that says, Rastrea mi suerte."
And so he went on naming a number of knights of one squadron or the other
out of his imagination, and to all he assigned off-hand their arms,
colours, devices, and mottoes, carried away by the illusions of his
unheard-of craze; and without a pause, he continued, "People of divers
nations compose this squadron in front; here are those that drink of the
sweet waters of the famous Xanthus, those that scour the woody Massilian
plains, those that sift the pure fine gold of Arabia Felix, those that
enjoy the famed cool banks of the crystal Thermodon, those that in many
and various ways divert the streams of the golden Pactolus, the
Numidians, faithless in their promises, the Persians renowned in archery,
the Parthians and the Medes that fight as they fly, the Arabs that ever
shift their dwellings, the Scythians as cruel as they are fair, the
Ethiopians with pierced lips, and an infinity of other nations whose
features I recognise and descry, though I cannot recall their names. In
this other squadron there come those that drink of the crystal streams of
the olive-bearing Betis, those that make smooth their countenances with
the water of the ever rich and golden Tagus, those that rejoice in the
fertilising flow of the divine Genil, those that roam the Tartesian
plains abounding in pasture, those that take their pleasure in the
Elysian meadows of Jerez, the rich Manchegans crowned with ruddy ears of
corn, the wearers of iron, old relics of the Gothic race, those that
bathe in the Pisuerga renowned for its gentle current, those that feed
their herds along the spreading pastures of the winding Guadiana famed
for its hidden course, those that tremble with the cold of the pineclad
Pyrenees or the dazzling snows of the lofty Apennine; in a word, as many
as all Europe includes and contains."

Good God! what a number of countries and nations he named! giving to each
its proper attributes with marvellous readiness; brimful and saturated
with what he had read in his lying books! Sancho Panza hung upon his
words without speaking, and from time to time turned to try if he could
see the knights and giants his master was describing, and as he could not
make out one of them he said to him:

"Senor, devil take it if there's a sign of any man you talk of, knight or
giant, in the whole thing; maybe it's all enchantment, like the phantoms
last night."

"How canst thou say that!" answered Don Quixote; "dost thou not hear the
neighing of the steeds, the braying of the trumpets, the roll of the
drums?"

"I hear nothing but a great bleating of ewes and sheep," said Sancho;
which was true, for by this time the two flocks had come close.

"The fear thou art in, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "prevents thee from
seeing or hearing correctly, for one of the effects of fear is to derange
the senses and make things appear different from what they are; if thou
art in such fear, withdraw to one side and leave me to myself, for alone
I suffice to bring victory to that side to which I shall give my aid;"
and so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and putting the lance in rest,
shot down the slope like a thunderbolt. Sancho shouted after him, crying,
"Come back, Senor Don Quixote; I vow to God they are sheep and ewes you
are charging! Come back! Unlucky the father that begot me! what madness
is this! Look, there is no giant, nor knight, nor cats, nor arms, nor
shields quartered or whole, nor vair azure or bedevilled. What are you
about? Sinner that I am before God!" But not for all these entreaties did
Don Quixote turn back; on the contrary he went on shouting out, "Ho,
knights, ye who follow and fight under the banners of the valiant emperor
Pentapolin of the Bare Arm, follow me all; ye shall see how easily I
shall give him his revenge over his enemy Alifanfaron of the Trapobana."

So saying, he dashed into the midst of the squadron of ewes, and began
spearing them with as much spirit and intrepidity as if he were
transfixing mortal enemies in earnest. The shepherds and drovers
accompanying the flock shouted to him to desist; seeing it was no use,
they ungirt their slings and began to salute his ears with stones as big
as one's fist. Don Quixote gave no heed to the stones, but, letting drive
right and left kept saying:

"Where art thou, proud Alifanfaron? Come before me; I am a single knight
who would fain prove thy prowess hand to hand, and make thee yield thy
life a penalty for the wrong thou dost to the valiant Pentapolin
Garamanta." Here came a sugar-plum from the brook that struck him on the
side and buried a couple of ribs in his body. Feeling himself so smitten,
he imagined himself slain or badly wounded for certain, and recollecting
his liquor he drew out his flask, and putting it to his mouth began to
pour the contents into his stomach; but ere he had succeeded in
swallowing what seemed to him enough, there came another almond which
struck him on the hand and on the flask so fairly that it smashed it to
pieces, knocking three or four teeth and grinders out of his mouth in its
course, and sorely crushing two fingers of his hand. Such was the force
of the first blow and of the second, that the poor knight in spite of
himself came down backwards off his horse. The shepherds came up, and
felt sure they had killed him; so in all haste they collected their flock
together, took up the dead beasts, of which there were more than seven,
and made off without waiting to ascertain anything further.

All this time Sancho stood on the hill watching the crazy feats his
master was performing, and tearing his beard and cursing the hour and the
occasion when fortune had made him acquainted with him. Seeing him, then,
brought to the ground, and that the shepherds had taken themselves off,
he ran to him and found him in very bad case, though not unconscious; and
said he:

"Did I not tell you to come back, Senor Don Quixote; and that what you
were going to attack were not armies but droves of sheep?"

"That's how that thief of a sage, my enemy, can alter and falsify
things," answered Don Quixote; "thou must know, Sancho, that it is a very
easy matter for those of his sort to make us believe what they choose;
and this malignant being who persecutes me, envious of the glory he knew
I was to win in this battle, has turned the squadrons of the enemy into
droves of sheep. At any rate, do this much, I beg of thee, Sancho, to
undeceive thyself, and see that what I say is true; mount thy ass and
follow them quietly, and thou shalt see that when they have gone some
little distance from this they will return to their original shape and,
ceasing to be sheep, become men in all respects as I described them to
thee at first. But go not just yet, for I want thy help and assistance;
come hither, and see how many of my teeth and grinders are missing, for I
feel as if there was not one left in my mouth."

Sancho came so close that he almost put his eyes into his mouth; now just
at that moment the balsam had acted on the stomach of Don Quixote, so, at
the very instant when Sancho came to examine his mouth, he discharged all
its contents with more force than a musket, and full into the beard of
the compassionate squire.

"Holy Mary!" cried Sancho, "what is this that has happened me? Clearly
this sinner is mortally wounded, as he vomits blood from the mouth;" but
considering the matter a little more closely he perceived by the colour,
taste, and smell, that it was not blood but the balsam from the flask
which he had seen him drink; and he was taken with such a loathing that
his stomach turned, and he vomited up his inside over his very master,
and both were left in a precious state. Sancho ran to his ass to get
something wherewith to clean himself, and relieve his master, out of his
alforjas; but not finding them, he well-nigh took leave of his senses,
and cursed himself anew, and in his heart resolved to quit his master and
return home, even though he forfeited the wages of his service and all
hopes of the promised island.

Don Quixote now rose, and putting his left hand to his mouth to keep his
teeth from falling out altogether, with the other he laid hold of the
bridle of Rocinante, who had never stirred from his master's side--so
loyal and well-behaved was he--and betook himself to where the squire
stood leaning over his ass with his hand to his cheek, like one in deep
dejection. Seeing him in this mood, looking so sad, Don Quixote said to
him:

"Bear in mind, Sancho, that one man is no more than another, unless he
does more than another; all these tempests that fall upon us are signs
that fair weather is coming shortly, and that things will go well with
us, for it is impossible for good or evil to last for ever; and hence it
follows that the evil having lasted long, the good must be now nigh at
hand; so thou must not distress thyself at the misfortunes which happen
to me, since thou hast no share in them."

"How have I not?" replied Sancho; "was he whom they blanketed yesterday
perchance any other than my father's son? and the alforjas that are
missing to-day with all my treasures, did they belong to any other but
myself?"

"What! are the alforjas missing, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"Yes, they are missing," answered Sancho.

"In that case we have nothing to eat to-day," replied Don Quixote.

"It would be so," answered Sancho, "if there were none of the herbs your
worship says you know in these meadows, those with which knights-errant
as unlucky as your worship are wont to supply such-like shortcomings."

"For all that," answered Don Quixote, "I would rather have just now a
quarter of bread, or a loaf and a couple of pilchards' heads, than all
the herbs described by Dioscorides, even with Doctor Laguna's notes.
Nevertheless, Sancho the Good, mount thy beast and come along with me,
for God, who provides for all things, will not fail us (more especially
when we are so active in his service as we are), since he fails not the
midges of the air, nor the grubs of the earth, nor the tadpoles of the
water, and is so merciful that he maketh his sun to rise on the good and
on the evil, and sendeth rain on the unjust and on the just."

"Your worship would make a better preacher than knight-errant," said
Sancho.

"Knights-errant knew and ought to know everything, Sancho," said Don
Quixote; "for there were knights-errant in former times as well qualified
to deliver a sermon or discourse in the middle of an encampment, as if
they had graduated in the University of Paris; whereby we may see that
the lance has never blunted the pen, nor the pen the lance."

"Well, be it as your worship says," replied Sancho; "let us be off now
and find some place of shelter for the night, and God grant it may be
somewhere where there are no blankets, nor blanketeers, nor phantoms, nor
enchanted Moors; for if there are, may the devil take the whole concern."

"Ask that of God, my son," said Don Quixote; "and do thou lead on where
thou wilt, for this time I leave our lodging to thy choice; but reach me
here thy hand, and feel with thy finger, and find out how many of my
teeth and grinders are missing from this right side of the upper jaw, for
it is there I feel the pain."

Sancho put in his fingers, and feeling about asked him, "How many
grinders used your worship have on this side?"

"Four," replied Don Quixote, "besides the back-tooth, all whole and quite
sound."

"Mind what you are saying, senor."

"I say four, if not five," answered Don Quixote, "for never in my life
have I had tooth or grinder drawn, nor has any fallen out or been
destroyed by any decay or rheum."

"Well, then," said Sancho, "in this lower side your worship has no more
than two grinders and a half, and in the upper neither a half nor any at
all, for it is all as smooth as the palm of my hand."

"Luckless that I am!" said Don Quixote, hearing the sad news his squire
gave him; "I had rather they despoiled me of an arm, so it were not the
sword-arm; for I tell thee, Sancho, a mouth without teeth is like a mill
without a millstone, and a tooth is much more to be prized than a
diamond; but we who profess the austere order of chivalry are liable to
all this. Mount, friend, and lead the way, and I will follow thee at
whatever pace thou wilt."

Sancho did as he bade him, and proceeded in the direction in which he
thought he might find refuge without quitting the high road, which was
there very much frequented. As they went along, then, at a slow pace--for
the pain in Don Quixote's jaws kept him uneasy and ill-disposed for
speed--Sancho thought it well to amuse and divert him by talk of some
kind, and among the things he said to him was that which will be told in
the following chapter.




CHAPTER XIX.

OF THE SHREWD DISCOURSE WHICH SANCHO HELD WITH HIS MASTER, AND OF THE
ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL HIM WITH A DEAD BODY, TOGETHER WITH OTHER NOTABLE
OCCURRENCES

"It seems to me, senor, that all these mishaps that have befallen us of
late have been without any doubt a punishment for the offence committed
by your worship against the order of chivalry in not keeping the oath you
made not to eat bread off a tablecloth or embrace the queen, and all the
rest of it that your worship swore to observe until you had taken that
helmet of Malandrino's, or whatever the Moor is called, for I do not very
well remember."

"Thou art very right, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "but to tell the truth,
it had escaped my memory; and likewise thou mayest rely upon it that the
affair of the blanket happened to thee because of thy fault in not
reminding me of it in time; but I will make amends, for there are ways of
compounding for everything in the order of chivalry."

"Why! have I taken an oath of some sort, then?" said Sancho.

"It makes no matter that thou hast not taken an oath," said Don Quixote;
"suffice it that I see thou art not quite clear of complicity; and
whether or no, it will not be ill done to provide ourselves with a
remedy."

"In that case," said Sancho, "mind that your worship does not forget this
as you did the oath; perhaps the phantoms may take it into their heads to
amuse themselves once more with me; or even with your worship if they see
you so obstinate."

While engaged in this and other talk, night overtook them on the road
before they had reached or discovered any place of shelter; and what made
it still worse was that they were dying of hunger, for with the loss of
the alforjas they had lost their entire larder and commissariat; and to
complete the misfortune they met with an adventure which without any
invention had really the appearance of one. It so happened that the night
closed in somewhat darkly, but for all that they pushed on, Sancho
feeling sure that as the road was the king's highway they might
reasonably expect to find some inn within a league or two. Going along,
then, in this way, the night dark, the squire hungry, the master
sharp-set, they saw coming towards them on the road they were travelling
a great number of lights which looked exactly like stars in motion.
Sancho was taken aback at the sight of them, nor did Don Quixote
altogether relish them: the one pulled up his ass by the halter, the
other his hack by the bridle, and they stood still, watching anxiously to
see what all this would turn out to be, and found that the lights were
approaching them, and the nearer they came the greater they seemed, at
which spectacle Sancho began to shake like a man dosed with mercury, and
Don Quixote's hair stood on end; he, however, plucking up spirit a
little, said:

"This, no doubt, Sancho, will be a most mighty and perilous adventure, in
which it will be needful for me to put forth all my valour and
resolution."

"Unlucky me!" answered Sancho; "if this adventure happens to be one of
phantoms, as I am beginning to think it is, where shall I find the ribs
to bear it?"

"Be they phantoms ever so much," said Don Quixote, "I will not permit
them to touch a thread of thy garments; for if they played tricks with
thee the time before, it was because I was unable to leap the walls of
the yard; but now we are on a wide plain, where I shall be able to wield
my sword as I please."

"And if they enchant and cripple you as they did the last time," said
Sancho, "what difference will it make being on the open plain or not?"

"For all that," replied Don Quixote, "I entreat thee, Sancho, to keep a
good heart, for experience will tell thee what mine is."

"I will, please God," answered Sancho, and the two retiring to one side
of the road set themselves to observe closely what all these moving
lights might be; and very soon afterwards they made out some twenty
encamisados, all on horseback, with lighted torches in their hands, the
awe-inspiring aspect of whom completely extinguished the courage of
Sancho, who began to chatter with his teeth like one in the cold fit of
an ague; and his heart sank and his teeth chattered still more when they
perceived distinctly that behind them there came a litter covered over
with black and followed by six more mounted figures in mourning down to
the very feet of their mules--for they could perceive plainly they were
not horses by the easy pace at which they went. And as the encamisados
came along they muttered to themselves in a low plaintive tone. This
strange spectacle at such an hour and in such a solitary place was quite
enough to strike terror into Sancho's heart, and even into his master's;
and (save in Don Quixote's case) did so, for all Sancho's resolution had
now broken down. It was just the opposite with his master, whose
imagination immediately conjured up all this to him vividly as one of the
adventures of his books.

He took it into his head that the litter was a bier on which was borne
some sorely wounded or slain knight, to avenge whom was a task reserved
for him alone; and without any further reasoning he laid his lance in
rest, fixed himself firmly in his saddle, and with gallant spirit and
bearing took up his position in the middle of the road where the
encamisados must of necessity pass; and as soon as he saw them near at
hand he raised his voice and said:

"Halt, knights, or whosoever ye may be, and render me account of who ye
are, whence ye come, where ye go, what it is ye carry upon that bier,
for, to judge by appearances, either ye have done some wrong or some
wrong has been done to you, and it is fitting and necessary that I should
know, either that I may chastise you for the evil ye have done, or else
that I may avenge you for the injury that has been inflicted upon you."

"We are in haste," answered one of the encamisados, "and the inn is far
off, and we cannot stop to render you such an account as you demand;" and
spurring his mule he moved on.

Don Quixote was mightily provoked by this answer, and seizing the mule by
the bridle he said, "Halt, and be more mannerly, and render an account of
what I have asked of you; else, take my defiance to combat, all of you."

The mule was shy, and was so frightened at her bridle being seized that
rearing up she flung her rider to the ground over her haunches. An
attendant who was on foot, seeing the encamisado fall, began to abuse Don
Quixote, who now moved to anger, without any more ado, laying his lance
in rest charged one of the men in mourning and brought him badly wounded
to the ground, and as he wheeled round upon the others the agility with
which he attacked and routed them was a sight to see, for it seemed just
as if wings had that instant grown upon Rocinante, so lightly and proudly
did he bear himself. The encamisados were all timid folk and unarmed, so
they speedily made their escape from the fray and set off at a run across
the plain with their lighted torches, looking exactly like maskers
running on some gala or festival night. The mourners, too, enveloped and
swathed in their skirts and gowns, were unable to bestir themselves, and
so with entire safety to himself Don Quixote belaboured them all and
drove them off against their will, for they all thought it was no man but
a devil from hell come to carry away the dead body they had in the
litter.

Sancho beheld all this in astonishment at the intrepidity of his lord,
and said to himself, "Clearly this master of mine is as bold and valiant
as he says he is."

A burning torch lay on the ground near the first man whom the mule had
thrown, by the light of which Don Quixote perceived him, and coming up to
him he presented the point of the lance to his face, calling on him to
yield himself prisoner, or else he would kill him; to which the prostrate
man replied, "I am prisoner enough as it is; I cannot stir, for one of my
legs is broken: I entreat you, if you be a Christian gentleman, not to
kill me, which will be committing grave sacrilege, for I am a licentiate
and I hold first orders."

"Then what the devil brought you here, being a churchman?" said Don
Quixote.

"What, senor?" said the other. "My bad luck."

"Then still worse awaits you," said Don Quixote, "if you do not satisfy
me as to all I asked you at first."

"You shall be soon satisfied," said the licentiate; "you must know, then,
that though just now I said I was a licentiate, I am only a bachelor, and
my name is Alonzo Lopez; I am a native of Alcobendas, I come from the
city of Baeza with eleven others, priests, the same who fled with the
torches, and we are going to the city of Segovia accompanying a dead body
which is in that litter, and is that of a gentleman who died in Baeza,
where he was interred; and now, as I said, we are taking his bones to
their burial-place, which is in Segovia, where he was born."

"And who killed him?" asked Don Quixote.

"God, by means of a malignant fever that took him," answered the
bachelor.

"In that case," said Don Quixote, "the Lord has relieved me of the task
of avenging his death had any other slain him; but, he who slew him
having slain him, there is nothing for it but to be silent, and shrug
one's shoulders; I should do the same were he to slay myself; and I would
have your reverence know that I am a knight of La Mancha, Don Quixote by
name, and it is my business and calling to roam the world righting wrongs
and redressing injuries."

"I do not know how that about righting wrongs can be," said the bachelor,
"for from straight you have made me crooked, leaving me with a broken leg
that will never see itself straight again all the days of its life; and
the injury you have redressed in my case has been to leave me injured in
such a way that I shall remain injured for ever; and the height of
misadventure it was to fall in with you who go in search of adventures."

"Things do not all happen in the same way," answered Don Quixote; "it all
came, Sir Bachelor Alonzo Lopez, of your going, as you did, by night,
dressed in those surplices, with lighted torches, praying, covered with
mourning, so that naturally you looked like something evil and of the
other world; and so I could not avoid doing my duty in attacking you, and
I should have attacked you even had I known positively that you were the
very devils of hell, for such I certainly believed and took you to be."

"As my fate has so willed it," said the bachelor, "I entreat you, sir
knight-errant, whose errand has been such an evil one for me, to help me
to get from under this mule that holds one of my legs caught between the
stirrup and the saddle."

"I would have talked on till to-morrow," said Don Quixote; "how long were
you going to wait before telling me of your distress?"

He at once called to Sancho, who, however, had no mind to come, as he was
just then engaged in unloading a sumpter mule, well laden with provender,
which these worthy gentlemen had brought with them. Sancho made a bag of
his coat, and, getting together as much as he could, and as the bag would
hold, he loaded his beast, and then hastened to obey his master's call,
and helped him to remove the bachelor from under the mule; then putting
him on her back he gave him the torch, and Don Quixote bade him follow
the track of his companions, and beg pardon of them on his part for the
wrong which he could not help doing them.

And said Sancho, "If by chance these gentlemen should want to know who
was the hero that served them so, your worship may tell them that he is
the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called the Knight of the
Rueful Countenance."

The bachelor then took his departure.

I forgot to mention that before he did so he said to Don Quixote,
"Remember that you stand excommunicated for having laid violent hands on
a holy thing, juxta illud, si quis, suadente diabolo."

"I do not understand that Latin," answered Don Quixote, "but I know well
I did not lay hands, only this pike; besides, I did not think I was
committing an assault upon priests or things of the Church, which, like a
Catholic and faithful Christian as I am, I respect and revere, but upon
phantoms and spectres of the other world; but even so, I remember how it
fared with Cid Ruy Diaz when he broke the chair of the ambassador of that
king before his Holiness the Pope, who excommunicated him for the same;
and yet the good Roderick of Vivar bore himself that day like a very
noble and valiant knight."

On hearing this the bachelor took his departure, as has been said,
without making any reply; and Don Quixote asked Sancho what had induced
him to call him the "Knight of the Rueful Countenance" more then than at
any other time.

"I will tell you," answered Sancho; "it was because I have been looking
at you for some time by the light of the torch held by that unfortunate,
and verily your worship has got of late the most ill-favoured countenance
I ever saw: it must be either owing to the fatigue of this combat, or
else to the want of teeth and grinders."

"It is not that," replied Don Quixote, "but because the sage whose duty
it will be to write the history of my achievements must have thought it
proper that I should take some distinctive name as all knights of yore
did; one being 'He of the Burning Sword,' another 'He of the Unicorn,'
this one 'He of the Damsels,' that 'He of the Phoenix,' another 'The
Knight of the Griffin,' and another 'He of the Death,' and by these names
and designations they were known all the world round; and so I say that
the sage aforesaid must have put it into your mouth and mind just now to
call me 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance,' as I intend to call
myself from this day forward; and that the said name may fit me better, I
mean, when the opportunity offers, to have a very rueful countenance
painted on my shield."

"There is no occasion, senor, for wasting time or money on making that
countenance," said Sancho; "for all that need be done is for your worship
to show your own, face to face, to those who look at you, and without
anything more, either image or shield, they will call you 'Him of the
Rueful Countenance' and believe me I am telling you the truth, for I
assure you, senor (and in good part be it said), hunger and the loss of
your grinders have given you such an ill-favoured face that, as I say,
the rueful picture may be very well spared."

Don Quixote laughed at Sancho's pleasantry; nevertheless he resolved to
call himself by that name, and have his shield or buckler painted as he
had devised.

Don Quixote would have looked to see whether the body in the litter were
bones or not, but Sancho would not have it, saying:

"Senor, you have ended this perilous adventure more safely for yourself
than any of those I have seen: perhaps these people, though beaten and
routed, may bethink themselves that it is a single man that has beaten
them, and feeling sore and ashamed of it may take heart and come in
search of us and give us trouble enough. The ass is in proper trim, the
mountains are near at hand, hunger presses, we have nothing more to do
but make good our retreat, and, as the saying is, the dead to the grave
and the living to the loaf."

And driving his ass before him he begged his master to follow, who,
feeling that Sancho was right, did so without replying; and after
proceeding some little distance between two hills they found themselves
in a wide and retired valley, where they alighted, and Sancho unloaded
his beast, and stretched upon the green grass, with hunger for sauce,
they breakfasted, dined, lunched, and supped all at once, satisfying
their appetites with more than one store of cold meat which the dead
man's clerical gentlemen (who seldom put themselves on short allowance)
had brought with them on their sumpter mule. But another piece of
ill-luck befell them, which Sancho held the worst of all, and that was
that they had no wine to drink, nor even water to moisten their lips; and
as thirst tormented them, Sancho, observing that the meadow where they
were was full of green and tender grass, said what will be told in the
following chapter.




CHAPTER XX.

OF THE UNEXAMPLED AND UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURE WHICH WAS ACHIEVED BY THE
VALIANT DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA WITH LESS PERIL THAN ANY EVER ACHIEVED
BY ANY FAMOUS KNIGHT IN THE WORLD

"It cannot be, senor, but that this grass is a proof that there must be
hard by some spring or brook to give it moisture, so it would be well to
move a little farther on, that we may find some place where we may quench
this terrible thirst that plagues us, which beyond a doubt is more
distressing than hunger."

The advice seemed good to Don Quixote, and, he leading Rocinante by the
bridle and Sancho the ass by the halter, after he had packed away upon
him the remains of the supper, they advanced the meadow feeling their
way, for the darkness of the night made it impossible to see anything;
but they had not gone two hundred paces when a loud noise of water, as if
falling from great rocks, struck their ears. The sound cheered them
greatly; but halting to make out by listening from what quarter it came
they heard unseasonably another noise which spoiled the satisfaction the
sound of the water gave them, especially for Sancho, who was by nature
timid and faint-hearted. They heard, I say, strokes falling with a
measured beat, and a certain rattling of iron and chains that, together
with the furious din of the water, would have struck terror into any
heart but Don Quixote's. The night was, as has been said, dark, and they
had happened to reach a spot in among some tall trees, whose leaves
stirred by a gentle breeze made a low ominous sound; so that, what with
the solitude, the place, the darkness, the noise of the water, and the
rustling of the leaves, everything inspired awe and dread; more
especially as they perceived that the strokes did not cease, nor the wind
lull, nor morning approach; to all which might be added their ignorance
as to where they were.

But Don Quixote, supported by his intrepid heart, leaped on Rocinante,
and bracing his buckler on his arm, brought his pike to the slope, and
said, "Friend Sancho, know that I by Heaven's will have been born in this
our iron age to revive in it the age of gold, or the golden as it
is called; I am he for whom perils, mighty achievements, and valiant
deeds are reserved; I am, I say again, he who is to revive the Knights of
the Round Table, the Twelve of France and the Nine Worthies; and he who
is to consign to oblivion the Platirs, the Tablantes, the Olivantes and
Tirantes, the Phoebuses and Belianises, with the whole herd of famous
knights-errant of days gone by, performing in these in which I live such
exploits, marvels, and feats of arms as shall obscure their brightest
deeds. Thou dost mark well, faithful and trusty squire, the gloom of this
night, its strange silence, the dull confused murmur of those trees, the
awful sound of that water in quest of which we came, that seems as though
it were precipitating and dashing itself down from the lofty mountains of
the Moon, and that incessant hammering that wounds and pains our ears;
which things all together and each of itself are enough to instil fear,
dread, and dismay into the breast of Mars himself, much more into one not
used to hazards and adventures of the kind. Well, then, all this that I
put before thee is but an incentive and stimulant to my spirit, making my
heart burst in my bosom through eagerness to engage in this adventure,
arduous as it promises to be; therefore tighten Rocinante's girths a
little, and God be with thee; wait for me here three days and no more,
and if in that time I come not back, thou canst return to our village,
and thence, to do me a favour and a service, thou wilt go to El Toboso,
where thou shalt say to my incomparable lady Dulcinea that her captive
knight hath died in attempting things that might make him worthy of being
called hers."

When Sancho heard his master's words he began to weep in the most
pathetic way, saying:

"Senor, I know not why your worship wants to attempt this so dreadful
adventure; it is night now, no one sees us here, we can easily turn about
and take ourselves out of danger, even if we don't drink for three days
to come; and as there is no one to see us, all the less will there be
anyone to set us down as cowards; besides, I have many a time heard the
curate of our village, whom your worship knows well, preach that he who
seeks danger perishes in it; so it is not right to tempt God by trying so
tremendous a feat from which there can be no escape save by a miracle,
and Heaven has performed enough of them for your worship in delivering
you from being blanketed as I was, and bringing you out victorious and
safe and sound from among all those enemies that were with the dead man;
and if all this does not move or soften that hard heart, let this thought
and reflection move it, that you will have hardly quitted this spot when
from pure fear I shall yield my soul up to anyone that will take it. I
left home and wife and children to come and serve your worship, trusting
to do better and not worse; but as covetousness bursts the bag, it has
rent my hopes asunder, for just as I had them highest about getting that
wretched unlucky island your worship has so often promised me, I see that
instead and in lieu of it you mean to desert me now in a place so far
from human reach: for God's sake, master mine, deal not so unjustly by
me, and if your worship will not entirely give up attempting this feat,
at least put it off till morning, for by what the lore I learned when I
was a shepherd tells me it cannot want three hours of dawn now, because
the mouth of the Horn is overhead and makes midnight in the line of the
left arm."

"How canst thou see, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "where it makes that
line, or where this mouth or this occiput is that thou talkest of, when
the night is so dark that there is not a star to be seen in the whole
heaven?"

"That's true," said Sancho, "but fear has sharp eyes, and sees things
underground, much more above in heavens; besides, there is good reason to
show that it now wants but little of day."

"Let it want what it may," replied Don Quixote, "it shall not be said of
me now or at any time that tears or entreaties turned me aside from doing
what was in accordance with knightly usage; and so I beg of thee, Sancho,
to hold thy peace, for God, who has put it into my heart to undertake now
this so unexampled and terrible adventure, will take care to watch over
my safety and console thy sorrow; what thou hast to do is to tighten
Rocinante's girths well, and wait here, for I shall come back shortly,
alive or dead."

Sancho perceiving it his master's final resolve, and how little his
tears, counsels, and entreaties prevailed with him, determined to have
recourse to his own ingenuity and compel him, if he could, to wait till
daylight; and so, while tightening the girths of the horse, he quietly
and without being felt, with his ass' halter tied both Rocinante's legs,
so that when Don Quixote strove to go he was unable as the horse could
only move by jumps. Seeing the success of his trick, Sancho Panza said:

"See there, senor! Heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has so ordered
it that Rocinante cannot stir; and if you will be obstinate, and spur and
strike him, you will only provoke fortune, and kick, as they say, against
the pricks."

Don Quixote at this grew desperate, but the more he drove his heels into
the horse, the less he stirred him; and not having any suspicion of the
tying, he was fain to resign himself and wait till daybreak or until
Rocinante could move, firmly persuaded that all this came of something
other than Sancho's ingenuity. So he said to him, "As it is so, Sancho,
and as Rocinante cannot move, I am content to wait till dawn smiles upon
us, even though I weep while it delays its coming."

"There is no need to weep," answered Sancho, "for I will amuse your
worship by telling stories from this till daylight, unless indeed you
like to dismount and lie down to sleep a little on the green grass after
the fashion of knights-errant, so as to be fresher when day comes and the
moment arrives for attempting this extraordinary adventure you are
looking forward to."

"What art thou talking about dismounting or sleeping for?" said Don
Quixote. "Am I, thinkest thou, one of those knights that take their rest
in the presence of danger? Sleep thou who art born to sleep, or do as
thou wilt, for I will act as I think most consistent with my character."

"Be not angry, master mine," replied Sancho, "I did not mean to say
that;" and coming close to him he laid one hand on the pommel of the
saddle and the other on the cantle so that he held his master's left
thigh in his embrace, not daring to separate a finger's width from him;
so much afraid was he of the strokes which still resounded with a regular
beat. Don Quixote bade him tell some story to amuse him as he had
proposed, to which Sancho replied that he would if his dread of what he
heard would let him; "Still," said he, "I will strive to tell a story
which, if I can manage to relate it, and nobody interferes with the
telling, is the best of stories, and let your worship give me your
attention, for here I begin. What was, was; and may the good that is to
come be for all, and the evil for him who goes to look for it--your
worship must know that the beginning the old folk used to put to their
tales was not just as each one pleased; it was a maxim of Cato Zonzorino
the Roman, that says 'the evil for him that goes to look for it,' and it
comes as pat to the purpose now as ring to finger, to show that your
worship should keep quiet and not go looking for evil in any quarter, and
that we should go back by some other road, since nobody forces us to
follow this in which so many terrors affright us."

"Go on with thy story, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and leave the choice
of our road to my care."

"I say then," continued Sancho, "that in a village of Estremadura there
was a goat-shepherd--that is to say, one who tended goats--which shepherd
or goatherd, as my story goes, was called Lope Ruiz, and this Lope Ruiz
was in love with a shepherdess called Torralva, which shepherdess called
Torralva was the daughter of a rich grazier, and this rich grazier-"

"If that is the way thou tellest thy tale, Sancho," said Don Quixote,
"repeating twice all thou hast to say, thou wilt not have done these two
days; go straight on with it, and tell it like a reasonable man, or else
say nothing."

"Tales are always told in my country in the very way I am telling this,"
answered Sancho, "and I cannot tell it in any other, nor is it right of
your worship to ask me to make new customs."

"Tell it as thou wilt," replied Don Quixote; "and as fate will have it
that I cannot help listening to thee, go on."

"And so, lord of my soul," continued Sancho, as I have said, this
shepherd was in love with Torralva the shepherdess, who was a wild buxom
lass with something of the look of a man about her, for she had little
moustaches; I fancy I see her now."

"Then you knew her?" said Don Quixote.

"I did not know her," said Sancho, "but he who told me the story said it
was so true and certain that when I told it to another I might safely
declare and swear I had seen it all myself. And so in course of time, the
devil, who never sleeps and puts everything in confusion, contrived that
the love the shepherd bore the shepherdess turned into hatred and
ill-will, and the reason, according to evil tongues, was some little
jealousy she caused him that crossed the line and trespassed on forbidden
ground; and so much did the shepherd hate her from that time forward
that, in order to escape from her, he determined to quit the country and
go where he should never set eyes on her again. Torralva, when she found
herself spurned by Lope, was immediately smitten with love for him,
though she had never loved him before."

"That is the natural way of women," said Don Quixote, "to scorn the one
that loves them, and love the one that hates them: go on, Sancho."

"It came to pass," said Sancho, "that the shepherd carried out his
intention, and driving his goats before him took his way across the
plains of Estremadura to pass over into the Kingdom of Portugal.
Torralva, who knew of it, went after him, and on foot and barefoot
followed him at a distance, with a pilgrim's staff in her hand and a
scrip round her neck, in which she carried, it is said, a bit of
looking-glass and a piece of a comb and some little pot or other of paint
for her face; but let her carry what she did, I am not going to trouble
myself to prove it; all I say is, that the shepherd, they say, came with
his flock to cross over the river Guadiana, which was at that time
swollen and almost overflowing its banks, and at the spot he came to
there was neither ferry nor boat nor anyone to carry him or his flock to
the other side, at which he was much vexed, for he perceived that
Torralva was approaching and would give him great annoyance with her
tears and entreaties; however, he went looking about so closely that he
discovered a fisherman who had alongside of him a boat so small that it
could only hold one person and one goat; but for all that he spoke to him
and agreed with him to carry himself and his three hundred goats across.
The fisherman got into the boat and carried one goat over; he came back
and carried another over; he came back again, and again brought over
another--let your worship keep count of the goats the fisherman is taking
across, for if one escapes the memory there will be an end of the story,
and it will be impossible to tell another word of it. To proceed, I must
tell you the landing place on the other side was miry and slippery, and
the fisherman lost a great deal of time in going and coming; still he
returned for another goat, and another, and another."

"Take it for granted he brought them all across," said Don Quixote, "and
don't keep going and coming in this way, or thou wilt not make an end of
bringing them over this twelvemonth."

"How many have gone across so far?" said Sancho.

"How the devil do I know?" replied Don Quixote.

"There it is," said Sancho, "what I told you, that you must keep a good
count; well then, by God, there is an end of the story, for there is no
going any farther."

"How can that be?" said Don Quixote; "is it so essential to the story to
know to a nicety the goats that have crossed over, that if there be a
mistake of one in the reckoning, thou canst not go on with it?"

"No, senor, not a bit," replied Sancho; "for when I asked your worship to
tell me how many goats had crossed, and you answered you did not know, at
that very instant all I had to say passed away out of my memory, and,
faith, there was much virtue in it, and entertainment."

"So, then," said Don Quixote, "the story has come to an end?"

"As much as my mother has," said Sancho.

"In truth," said Don Quixote, "thou hast told one of the rarest stories,
tales, or histories, that anyone in the world could have imagined, and
such a way of telling it and ending it was never seen nor will be in a
lifetime; though I expected nothing else from thy excellent
understanding. But I do not wonder, for perhaps those ceaseless strokes
may have confused thy wits."

"All that may be," replied Sancho, "but I know that as to my story, all
that can be said is that it ends there where the mistake in the count of
the passage of the goats begins."

"Let it end where it will, well and good," said Don Quixote, "and let us
see if Rocinante can go;" and again he spurred him, and again Rocinante
made jumps and remained where he was, so well tied was he.

Just then, whether it was the cold of the morning that was now
approaching, or that he had eaten something laxative at supper, or that
it was only natural (as is most likely), Sancho felt a desire to do what
no one could do for him; but so great was the fear that had penetrated
his heart, he dared not separate himself from his master by as much as
the black of his nail; to escape doing what he wanted was, however, also
impossible; so what he did for peace's sake was to remove his right hand,
which held the back of the saddle, and with it to untie gently and
silently the running string which alone held up his breeches, so that on
loosening it they at once fell down round his feet like fetters; he then
raised his shirt as well as he could and bared his hind quarters, no slim
ones. But, this accomplished, which he fancied was all he had to do to
get out of this terrible strait and embarrassment, another still greater
difficulty presented itself, for it seemed to him impossible to relieve
himself without making some noise, and he ground his teeth and squeezed
his shoulders together, holding his breath as much as he could; but in
spite of his precautions he was unlucky enough after all to make a little
noise, very different from that which was causing him so much fear.

Don Quixote, hearing it, said, "What noise is that, Sancho?"

"I don't know, senor," said he; "it must be something new, for adventures
and misadventures never begin with a trifle." Once more he tried his
luck, and succeeded so well, that without any further noise or
disturbance he found himself relieved of the burden that had given him so
much discomfort. But as Don Quixote's sense of smell was as acute as his
hearing, and as Sancho was so closely linked with him that the fumes rose
almost in a straight line, it could not be but that some should reach his
nose, and as soon as they did he came to its relief by compressing it
between his fingers, saying in a rather snuffing tone, "Sancho, it
strikes me thou art in great fear."

"I am," answered Sancho; "but how does your worship perceive it now more
than ever?"

"Because just now thou smellest stronger than ever, and not of
ambergris," answered Don Quixote.

"Very likely," said Sancho, "but that's not my fault, but your worship's,
for leading me about at unseasonable hours and at such unwonted paces."

"Then go back three or four, my friend," said Don Quixote, all the time
with his fingers to his nose; "and for the future pay more attention to
thy person and to what thou owest to mine; for it is my great familiarity
with thee that has bred this contempt."

"I'll bet," replied Sancho, "that your worship thinks I have done
something I ought not with my person."

"It makes it worse to stir it, friend Sancho," returned Don Quixote.

With this and other talk of the same sort master and man passed the
night, till Sancho, perceiving that daybreak was coming on apace, very
cautiously untied Rocinante and tied up his breeches. As soon as
Rocinante found himself free, though by nature he was not at all
mettlesome, he seemed to feel lively and began pawing--for as to
capering, begging his pardon, he knew not what it meant. Don Quixote,
then, observing that Rocinante could move, took it as a good sign and a
signal that he should attempt the dread adventure. By this time day had
fully broken and everything showed distinctly, and Don Quixote saw that
he was among some tall trees, chestnuts, which cast a very deep shade; he
perceived likewise that the sound of the strokes did not cease, but could
not discover what caused it, and so without any further delay he let
Rocinante feel the spur, and once more taking leave of Sancho, he told
him to wait for him there three days at most, as he had said before, and
if he should not have returned by that time, he might feel sure it had
been God's will that he should end his days in that perilous adventure.
He again repeated the message and commission with which he was to go on
his behalf to his lady Dulcinea, and said he was not to be uneasy as to
the payment of his services, for before leaving home he had made his
will, in which he would find himself fully recompensed in the matter of
wages in due proportion to the time he had served; but if God delivered
him safe, sound, and unhurt out of that danger, he might look upon the
promised island as much more than certain. Sancho began to weep afresh on
again hearing the affecting words of his good master, and resolved to
stay with him until the final issue and end of the business. From these
tears and this honourable resolve of Sancho Panza's the author of this
history infers that he must have been of good birth and at least an old
Christian; and the feeling he displayed touched his but not so much as to
make him show any weakness; on the contrary, hiding what he felt as well
as he could, he began to move towards that quarter whence the sound of
the water and of the strokes seemed to come.

Sancho followed him on foot, leading by the halter, as his custom was,
his ass, his constant comrade in prosperity or adversity; and advancing
some distance through the shady chestnut trees they came upon a little
meadow at the foot of some high rocks, down which a mighty rush of water
flung itself. At the foot of the rocks were some rudely constructed
houses looking more like ruins than houses, from among which came, they
perceived, the din and clatter of blows, which still continued without
intermission. Rocinante took fright at the noise of the water and of the
blows, but quieting him Don Quixote advanced step by step towards the
houses, commending himself with all his heart to his lady, imploring her
support in that dread pass and enterprise, and on the way commending
himself to God, too, not to forget him. Sancho who never quitted his
side, stretched his neck as far as he could and peered between the legs
of Rocinante to see if he could now discover what it was that caused him
such fear and apprehension. They went it might be a hundred paces
farther, when on turning a corner the true cause, beyond the possibility
of any mistake, of that dread-sounding and to them awe-inspiring noise
that had kept them all the night in such fear and perplexity, appeared
plain and obvious; and it was (if, reader, thou art not disgusted and
disappointed) six fulling hammers which by their alternate strokes made
all the din.

When Don Quixote perceived what it was, he was struck dumb and rigid from
head to foot. Sancho glanced at him and saw him with his head bent down
upon his breast in manifest mortification; and Don Quixote glanced at
Sancho and saw him with his cheeks puffed out and his mouth full of
laughter, and evidently ready to explode with it, and in spite of his
vexation he could not help laughing at the sight of him; and when Sancho
saw his master begin he let go so heartily that he had to hold his sides
with both hands to keep himself from bursting with laughter. Four times
he stopped, and as many times did his laughter break out afresh with the
same violence as at first, whereat Don Quixote grew furious, above all
when he heard him say mockingly, "Thou must know, friend Sancho, that of
Heaven's will I was born in this our iron age to revive in it the golden
or age of gold; I am he for whom are reserved perils, mighty
achievements, valiant deeds;" and here he went on repeating the words
that Don Quixote uttered the first time they heard the awful strokes.

Don Quixote, then, seeing that Sancho was turning him into ridicule, was
so mortified and vexed that he lifted up his pike and smote him two such
blows that if, instead of catching them on his shoulders, he had caught
them on his head there would have been no wages to pay, unless indeed to
his heirs. Sancho seeing that he was getting an awkward return in earnest
for his jest, and fearing his master might carry it still further, said
to him very humbly, "Calm yourself, sir, for by God I am only joking."

"Well, then, if you are joking I am not," replied Don Quixote. "Look
here, my lively gentleman, if these, instead of being fulling hammers,
had been some perilous adventure, have I not, think you, shown the
courage required for the attempt and achievement? Am I, perchance, being,
as I am, a gentleman, bound to know and distinguish sounds and tell
whether they come from fulling mills or not; and that, when perhaps, as
is the case, I have never in my life seen any as you have, low boor as
you are, that have been born and bred among them? But turn me these six
hammers into six giants, and bring them to beard me, one by one or all
together, and if I do not knock them head over heels, then make what
mockery you like of me."

"No more of that, senor," returned Sancho; "I own I went a little too far
with the joke. But tell me, your worship, now that peace is made between
us (and may God bring you out of all the adventures that may befall you
as safe and sound as he has brought you out of this one), was it not a
thing to laugh at, and is it not a good story, the great fear we were
in?--at least that I was in; for as to your worship I see now that you
neither know nor understand what either fear or dismay is."

"I do not deny," said Don Quixote, "that what happened to us may be worth
laughing at, but it is not worth making a story about, for it is not
everyone that is shrewd enough to hit the right point of a thing."

"At any rate," said Sancho, "your worship knew how to hit the right point
with your pike, aiming at my head and hitting me on the shoulders, thanks
be to God and my own smartness in dodging it. But let that pass; all will
come out in the scouring; for I have heard say 'he loves thee well that
makes thee weep;' and moreover that it is the way with great lords after
any hard words they give a servant to give him a pair of breeches; though
I do not know what they give after blows, unless it be that
knights-errant after blows give islands, or kingdoms on the mainland."

"It may be on the dice," said Don Quixote, "that all thou sayest will
come true; overlook the past, for thou art shrewd enough to know that our
first movements are not in our own control; and one thing for the future
bear in mind, that thou curb and restrain thy loquacity in my company;
for in all the books of chivalry that I have read, and they are
innumerable, I never met with a squire who talked so much to his lord as
thou dost to thine; and in fact I feel it to be a great fault of thine
and of mine: of thine, that thou hast so little respect for me; of mine,
that I do not make myself more respected. There was Gandalin, the squire
of Amadis of Gaul, that was Count of the Insula Firme, and we read of him
that he always addressed his lord with his cap in his hand, his head
bowed down and his body bent double, more turquesco. And then, what shall
we say of Gasabal, the squire of Galaor, who was so silent that in order
to indicate to us the greatness of his marvellous taciturnity his name is
only once mentioned in the whole of that history, as long as it is
truthful? From all I have said thou wilt gather, Sancho, that there must
be a difference between master and man, between lord and lackey, between
knight and squire: so that from this day forward in our intercourse we
must observe more respect and take less liberties, for in whatever way I
may be provoked with you it will be bad for the pitcher. The favours and
benefits that I have promised you will come in due time, and if they do
not your wages at least will not be lost, as I have already told you."

"All that your worship says is very well," said Sancho, "but I should
like to know (in case the time of favours should not come, and it might
be necessary to fall back upon wages) how much did the squire of a
knight-errant get in those days, and did they agree by the month, or by
the day like bricklayers?"

"I do not believe," replied Don Quixote, "that such squires were ever on
wages, but were dependent on favour; and if I have now mentioned thine in
the sealed will I have left at home, it was with a view to what may
happen; for as yet I know not how chivalry will turn out in these
wretched times of ours, and I do not wish my soul to suffer for trifles
in the other world; for I would have thee know, Sancho, that in this
there is no condition more hazardous than that of adventurers."

"That is true," said Sancho, "since the mere noise of the hammers of a
fulling mill can disturb and disquiet the heart of such a valiant errant
adventurer as your worship; but you may be sure I will not open my lips
henceforward to make light of anything of your worship's, but only to
honour you as my master and natural lord."

"By so doing," replied Don Quixote, "shalt thou live long on the face of
the earth; for next to parents, masters are to be respected as though
they were parents."




CHAPTER XXI.

WHICH TREATS OF THE EXALTED ADVENTURE AND RICH PRIZE OF MAMBRINO'S
HELMET, TOGETHER WITH OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO OUR INVINCIBLE KNIGHT


It now began to rain a little, and Sancho was for going into the fulling
mills, but Don Quixote had taken such an abhorrence to them on account of
the late joke that he would not enter them on any account; so turning
aside to right they came upon another road, different from that which
they had taken the night before. Shortly afterwards Don Quixote perceived
a man on horseback who wore on his head something that shone like gold,
and the moment he saw him he turned to Sancho and said:

"I think, Sancho, there is no proverb that is not true, all being maxims
drawn from experience itself, the mother of all the sciences, especially
that one that says, 'Where one door shuts, another opens.' I say so
because if last night fortune shut the door of the adventure we were
looking for against us, cheating us with the fulling mills, it now opens
wide another one for another better and more certain adventure, and if I
do not contrive to enter it, it will be my own fault, and I cannot lay it
to my ignorance of fulling mills, or the darkness of the night. I say
this because, if I mistake not, there comes towards us one who wears on
his head the helmet of Mambrino, concerning which I took the oath thou
rememberest."

"Mind what you say, your worship, and still more what you do," said
Sancho, "for I don't want any more fulling mills to finish off fulling
and knocking our senses out."

"The devil take thee, man," said Don Quixote; "what has a helmet to do
with fulling mills?"

"I don't know," replied Sancho, "but, faith, if I might speak as I used,
perhaps I could give such reasons that your worship would see you were
mistaken in what you say."

"How can I be mistaken in what I say, unbelieving traitor?" returned Don
Quixote; "tell me, seest thou not yonder knight coming towards us on a
dappled grey steed, who has upon his head a helmet of gold?"

"What I see and make out," answered Sancho, "is only a man on a grey ass
like my own, who has something that shines on his head."

"Well, that is the helmet of Mambrino," said Don Quixote; "stand to one
side and leave me alone with him; thou shalt see how, without saying a
word, to save time, I shall bring this adventure to an issue and possess
myself of the helmet I have so longed for."

"I will take care to stand aside," said Sancho; "but God grant, I say
once more, that it may be marjoram and not fulling mills."

"I have told thee, brother, on no account to mention those fulling mills
to me again," said Don Quixote, "or I vow--and I say no more-I'll full
the soul out of you."

Sancho held his peace in dread lest his master should carry out the vow
he had hurled like a bowl at him.

The fact of the matter as regards the helmet, steed, and knight that Don
Quixote saw, was this. In that neighbourhood there were two villages, one
of them so small that it had neither apothecary's shop nor barber, which
the other that was close to it had, so the barber of the larger served
the smaller, and in it there was a sick man who required to be bled and
another man who wanted to be shaved, and on this errand the barber was
going, carrying with him a brass basin; but as luck would have it, as he
was on the way it began to rain, and not to spoil his hat, which probably
was a new one, he put the basin on his head, and being clean it glittered
at half a league's distance. He rode upon a grey ass, as Sancho said, and
this was what made it seem to Don Quixote to be a dapple-grey steed and a
knight and a golden helmet; for everything he saw he made to fall in with
his crazy chivalry and ill-errant notions; and when he saw the poor
knight draw near, without entering into any parley with him, at
Rocinante's top speed he bore down upon him with the pike pointed low,
fully determined to run him through and through, and as he reached him,
without checking the fury of his charge, he cried to him:

"Defend thyself, miserable being, or yield me of thine own accord that
which is so reasonably my due."

The barber, who without any expectation or apprehension of it saw this
apparition coming down upon him, had no other way of saving himself from
the stroke of the lance but to let himself fall off his ass; and no
sooner had he touched the ground than he sprang up more nimbly than a
deer and sped away across the plain faster than the wind.

He left the basin on the ground, with which Don Quixote contented
himself, saying that the pagan had shown his discretion and imitated the
beaver, which finding itself pressed by the hunters bites and cuts off
with its teeth that for which, by its natural instinct, it knows it is
pursued.

He told Sancho to pick up the helmet, and he taking it in his hands said:

"By God the basin is a good one, and worth a real of eight if it is worth
a maravedis," and handed it to his master, who immediately put it on his
head, turning it round, now this way, now that, in search of fitment, and
not finding it he said, "Clearly the pagan to whose measure this famous
head-piece was first forged must have had a very large head; but the
worst of it is half of it is wanting."

When Sancho heard him call the basin a headpiece he was unable to
restrain his laughter, but remembering his master's wrath he checked
himself in the midst of it.

"What art thou laughing at, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"I am laughing," said he, "to think of the great head the pagan must have
had who owned this helmet, for it looks exactly like a regular barber's
basin."

"Dost thou know what I suspect, Sancho?" said Don Quixote; "that this
wonderful piece of this enchanted helmet must by some strange accident
have come into the hands of some one who was unable to recognise or
realise its value, and who, not knowing what he did, and seeing it to be
of the purest gold, must have melted down one half for the sake of what
it might be worth, and of the other made this which is like a barber's
basin as thou sayest; but be it as it may, to me who recognise it, its
transformation makes no difference, for I will set it to rights at the
first village where there is a blacksmith, and in such style that that
helmet the god of smithies forged for the god of battles shall not
surpass it or even come up to it; and in the meantime I will wear it as
well as I can, for something is better than nothing; all the more as it
will be quite enough to protect me from any chance blow of a stone."

"That is," said Sancho, "if it is not shot with a sling as they were in
the battle of the two armies, when they signed the cross on your
worship's grinders and smashed the flask with that blessed draught that
made me vomit my bowels up."

"It does not grieve me much to have lost it," said Don Quixote, "for thou
knowest, Sancho, that I have the receipt in my memory."

"So have I," answered Sancho, "but if ever I make it, or try it again as
long as I live, may this be my last hour; moreover, I have no intention
of putting myself in the way of wanting it, for I mean, with all my five
senses, to keep myself from being wounded or from wounding anyone: as to
being blanketed again I say nothing, for it is hard to prevent mishaps of
that sort, and if they come there is nothing for it but to squeeze our
shoulders together, hold our breath, shut our eyes, and let ourselves go
where luck and the blanket may send us."

"Thou art a bad Christian, Sancho," said Don Quixote on hearing this,
"for once an injury has been done thee thou never forgettest it: but know
that it is the part of noble and generous hearts not to attach importance
to trifles. What lame leg hast thou got by it, what broken rib, what
cracked head, that thou canst not forget that jest? For jest and sport it
was, properly regarded, and had I not seen it in that light I would have
returned and done more mischief in revenging thee than the Greeks did for
the rape of Helen, who, if she were alive now, or if my Dulcinea had
lived then, might depend upon it she would not be so famous for her
beauty as she is;" and here he heaved a sigh and sent it aloft; and said
Sancho, "Let it pass for a jest as it cannot be revenged in earnest, but
I know what sort of jest and earnest it was, and I know it will never be
rubbed out of my memory any more than off my shoulders. But putting that
aside, will your worship tell me what are we to do with this dapple-grey
steed that looks like a grey ass, which that Martino that your worship
overthrew has left deserted here? for, from the way he took to his heels
and bolted, he is not likely ever to come back for it; and by my beard
but the grey is a good one."

"I have never been in the habit," said Don Quixote, "of taking spoil of
those whom I vanquish, nor is it the practice of chivalry to take away
their horses and leave them to go on foot, unless indeed it be that the
victor have lost his own in the combat, in which case it is lawful to
take that of the vanquished as a thing won in lawful war; therefore,
Sancho, leave this horse, or ass, or whatever thou wilt have it to be;
for when its owner sees us gone hence he will come back for it."

"God knows I should like to take it," returned Sancho, "or at least to
change it for my own, which does not seem to me as good a one: verily the
laws of chivalry are strict, since they cannot be stretched to let one
ass be changed for another; I should like to know if I might at least
change trappings."

"On that head I am not quite certain," answered Don Quixote, "and the
matter being doubtful, pending better information, I say thou mayest
change them, if so be thou hast urgent need of them."

"So urgent is it," answered Sancho, "that if they were for my own person
I could not want them more;" and forthwith, fortified by this licence, he
effected the mutatio capparum, rigging out his beast to the ninety-nines
and making quite another thing of it. This done, they broke their fast on
the remains of the spoils of war plundered from the sumpter mule, and
drank of the brook that flowed from the fulling mills, without casting a
look in that direction, in such loathing did they hold them for the alarm
they had caused them; and, all anger and gloom removed, they mounted and,
without taking any fixed road (not to fix upon any being the proper thing
for true knights-errant), they set out, guided by Rocinante's will, which
carried along with it that of his master, not to say that of the ass,
which always followed him wherever he led, lovingly and sociably;
nevertheless they returned to the high road, and pursued it at a venture
without any other aim.

As they went along, then, in this way Sancho said to his master, "Senor,
would your worship give me leave to speak a little to you? For since you
laid that hard injunction of silence on me several things have gone to
rot in my stomach, and I have now just one on the tip of my tongue that I
don't want to be spoiled."

"Say, on, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and be brief in thy discourse, for
there is no pleasure in one that is long."

"Well then, senor," returned Sancho, "I say that for some days past I
have been considering how little is got or gained by going in search of
these adventures that your worship seeks in these wilds and cross-roads,
where, even if the most perilous are victoriously achieved, there is no
one to see or know of them, and so they must be left untold for ever, to
the loss of your worship's object and the credit they deserve; therefore
it seems to me it would be better (saving your worship's better judgment)
if we were to go and serve some emperor or other great prince who may
have some war on hand, in whose service your worship may prove the worth
of your person, your great might, and greater understanding, on
perceiving which the lord in whose service we may be will perforce have
to reward us, each according to his merits; and there you will not be at
a loss for some one to set down your achievements in writing so as to
preserve their memory for ever. Of my own I say nothing, as they will not
go beyond squirely limits, though I make bold to say that, if it be the
practice in chivalry to write the achievements of squires, I think mine
must not be left out."

"Thou speakest not amiss, Sancho," answered Don Quixote, "but before that
point is reached it is requisite to roam the world, as it were on
probation, seeking adventures, in order that, by achieving some, name and
fame may be acquired, such that when he betakes himself to the court of
some great monarch the knight may be already known by his deeds, and that
the boys, the instant they see him enter the gate of the city, may all
follow him and surround him, crying, 'This is the Knight of the Sun'-or
the Serpent, or any other title under which he may have achieved great
deeds. 'This,' they will say, 'is he who vanquished in single combat the
gigantic Brocabruno of mighty strength; he who delivered the great
Mameluke of Persia out of the long enchantment under which he had been
for almost nine hundred years.' So from one to another they will go
proclaiming his achievements; and presently at the tumult of the boys and
the others the king of that kingdom will appear at the windows of his
royal palace, and as soon as he beholds the knight, recognising him by
his arms and the device on his shield, he will as a matter of course say,
'What ho! Forth all ye, the knights of my court, to receive the flower of
chivalry who cometh hither!' At which command all will issue forth, and
he himself, advancing half-way down the stairs, will embrace him closely,
and salute him, kissing him on the cheek, and will then lead him to the
queen's chamber, where the knight will find her with the princess her
daughter, who will be one of the most beautiful and accomplished damsels
that could with the utmost pains be discovered anywhere in the known
world. Straightway it will come to pass that she will fix her eyes upon
the knight and he his upon her, and each will seem to the other something
more divine than human, and, without knowing how or why they will be
taken and entangled in the inextricable toils of love, and sorely
distressed in their hearts not to see any way of making their pains and
sufferings known by speech. Thence they will lead him, no doubt, to some
richly adorned chamber of the palace, where, having removed his armour,
they will bring him a rich mantle of scarlet wherewith to robe himself,
and if he looked noble in his armour he will look still more so in a
doublet. When night comes he will sup with the king, queen, and princess;
and all the time he will never take his eyes off her, stealing stealthy
glances, unnoticed by those present, and she will do the same, and with
equal cautiousness, being, as I have said, a damsel of great discretion.
The tables being removed, suddenly through the door of the hall there
will enter a hideous and diminutive dwarf followed by a fair dame,
between two giants, who comes with a certain adventure, the work of an
ancient sage; and he who shall achieve it shall be deemed the best knight
in the world.

"The king will then command all those present to essay it, and none will
bring it to an end and conclusion save the stranger knight, to the great
enhancement of his fame, whereat the princess will be overjoyed and will
esteem herself happy and fortunate in having fixed and placed her
thoughts so high. And the best of it is that this king, or prince, or
whatever he is, is engaged in a very bitter war with another as powerful
as himself, and the stranger knight, after having been some days at his
court, requests leave from him to go and serve him in the said war. The
king will grant it very readily, and the knight will courteously kiss his
hands for the favour done to him; and that night he will take leave of
his lady the princess at the grating of the chamber where she sleeps,
which looks upon a garden, and at which he has already many times
conversed with her, the go-between and confidante in the matter being a
damsel much trusted by the princess. He will sigh, she will swoon, the
damsel will fetch water, much distressed because morning approaches, and
for the honour of her lady he would not that they were discovered; at
last the princess will come to herself and will present her white hands
through the grating to the knight, who will kiss them a thousand and a
thousand times, bathing them with his tears. It will be arranged between
them how they are to inform each other of their good or evil fortunes,
and the princess will entreat him to make his absence as short as
possible, which he will promise to do with many oaths; once more he
kisses her hands, and takes his leave in such grief that he is well-nigh
ready to die. He betakes him thence to his chamber, flings himself on his
bed, cannot sleep for sorrow at parting, rises early in the morning, goes
to take leave of the king, queen, and princess, and, as he takes his
leave of the pair, it is told him that the princess is indisposed and
cannot receive a visit; the knight thinks it is from grief at his
departure, his heart is pierced, and he is hardly able to keep from
showing his pain. The confidante is present, observes all, goes to tell
her mistress, who listens with tears and says that one of her greatest
distresses is not knowing who this knight is, and whether he is of kingly
lineage or not; the damsel assures her that so much courtesy, gentleness,
and gallantry of bearing as her knight possesses could not exist in any
save one who was royal and illustrious; her anxiety is thus relieved, and
she strives to be of good cheer lest she should excite suspicion in her
parents, and at the end of two days she appears in public. Meanwhile the
knight has taken his departure; he fights in the war, conquers the king's
enemy, wins many cities, triumphs in many battles, returns to the court,
sees his lady where he was wont to see her, and it is agreed that he
shall demand her in marriage of her parents as the reward of his
services; the king is unwilling to give her, as he knows not who he is,
but nevertheless, whether carried off or in whatever other way it may be,
the princess comes to be his bride, and her father comes to regard it as
very good fortune; for it so happens that this knight is proved to be the
son of a valiant king of some kingdom, I know not what, for I fancy it is
not likely to be on the map. The father dies, the princess inherits, and
in two words the knight becomes king. And here comes in at once the
bestowal of rewards upon his squire and all who have aided him in rising
to so exalted a rank. He marries his squire to a damsel of the
princess's, who will be, no doubt, the one who was confidante in their
amour, and is daughter of a very great duke."

"That's what I want, and no mistake about it!" said Sancho. "That's what
I'm waiting for; for all this, word for word, is in store for your
worship under the title of the Knight of the Rueful Countenance."

"Thou needst not doubt it, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "for in the same
manner, and by the same steps as I have described here, knights-errant
rise and have risen to be kings and emperors; all we want now is to find
out what king, Christian or pagan, is at war and has a beautiful
daughter; but there will be time enough to think of that, for, as I have
told thee, fame must be won in other quarters before repairing to the
court. There is another thing, too, that is wanting; for supposing we
find a king who is at war and has a beautiful daughter, and that I have
won incredible fame throughout the universe, I know not how it can be
made out that I am of royal lineage, or even second cousin to an emperor;
for the king will not be willing to give me his daughter in marriage
unless he is first thoroughly satisfied on this point, however much my
famous deeds may deserve it; so that by this deficiency I fear I shall
lose what my arm has fairly earned. True it is I am a gentleman of known
house, of estate and property, and entitled to the five hundred sueldos
mulct; and it may be that the sage who shall write my history will so
clear up my ancestry and pedigree that I may find myself fifth or sixth
in descent from a king; for I would have thee know, Sancho, that there
are two kinds of lineages in the world; some there be tracing and
deriving their descent from kings and princes, whom time has reduced
little by little until they end in a point like a pyramid upside down;
and others who spring from the common herd and go on rising step by step
until they come to be great lords; so that the difference is that the one
were what they no longer are, and the others are what they formerly were
not. And I may be of such that after investigation my origin may prove
great and famous, with which the king, my father-in-law that is to be,
ought to be satisfied; and should he not be, the princess will so love me
that even though she well knew me to be the son of a water-carrier, she
will take me for her lord and husband in spite of her father; if not,
then it comes to seizing her and carrying her off where I please; for
time or death will put an end to the wrath of her parents."

"It comes to this, too," said Sancho, "what some naughty people say,
'Never ask as a favour what thou canst take by force;' though it would
fit better to say, 'A clear escape is better than good men's prayers.' I
say so because if my lord the king, your worship's father-in-law, will
not condescend to give you my lady the princess, there is nothing for it
but, as your worship says, to seize her and transport her. But the
mischief is that until peace is made and you come into the peaceful
enjoyment of your kingdom, the poor squire is famishing as far as rewards
go, unless it be that the confidante damsel that is to be his wife comes
with the princess, and that with her he tides over his bad luck until
Heaven otherwise orders things; for his master, I suppose, may as well
give her to him at once for a lawful wife."

"Nobody can object to that," said Don Quixote.

"Then since that may be," said Sancho, "there is nothing for it but to
commend ourselves to God, and let fortune take what course it will."

"God guide it according to my wishes and thy wants," said Don Quixote,
"and mean be he who thinks himself mean."

"In God's name let him be so," said Sancho: "I am an old Christian, and
to fit me for a count that's enough."

"And more than enough for thee," said Don Quixote; "and even wert thou
not, it would make no difference, because I being the king can easily
give thee nobility without purchase or service rendered by thee, for when
I make thee a count, then thou art at once a gentleman; and they may say
what they will, but by my faith they will have to call thee 'your
lordship,' whether they like it or not."

"Not a doubt of it; and I'll know how to support the tittle," said
Sancho.

"Title thou shouldst say, not tittle," said his master.

"So be it," answered Sancho. "I say I will know how to behave, for once
in my life I was beadle of a brotherhood, and the beadle's gown sat so
well on me that all said I looked as if I was to be steward of the same
brotherhood. What will it be, then, when I put a duke's robe on my back,
or dress myself in gold and pearls like a count? I believe they'll come a
hundred leagues to see me."

"Thou wilt look well," said Don Quixote, "but thou must shave thy beard
often, for thou hast it so thick and rough and unkempt, that if thou dost
not shave it every second day at least, they will see what thou art at
the distance of a musket shot."

"What more will it be," said Sancho, "than having a barber, and keeping
him at wages in the house? and even if it be necessary, I will make him
go behind me like a nobleman's equerry."

"Why, how dost thou know that noblemen have equerries behind them?" asked
Don Quixote.

"I will tell you," answered Sancho. "Years ago I was for a month at the
capital and there I saw taking the air a very small gentleman who they
said was a very great man, and a man following him on horseback in every
turn he took, just as if he was his tail. I asked why this man did not
join the other man, instead of always going behind him; they answered me
that he was his equerry, and that it was the custom with nobles to have
such persons behind them, and ever since then I know it, for I have never
forgotten it."

"Thou art right," said Don Quixote, "and in the same way thou mayest
carry thy barber with thee, for customs did not come into use all
together, nor were they all invented at once, and thou mayest be the
first count to have a barber to follow him; and, indeed, shaving one's
beard is a greater trust than saddling one's horse."

"Let the barber business be my look-out," said Sancho; "and your
worship's be it to strive to become a king, and make me a count."

"So it shall be," answered Don Quixote, and raising his eyes he saw what
will be told in the following chapter.




CHAPTER XXII.

OF THE FREEDOM DON QUIXOTE CONFERRED ON SEVERAL UNFORTUNATES WHO AGAINST
THEIR WILL WERE BEING CARRIED WHERE THEY HAD NO WISH TO GO


Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Arab and Manchegan author, relates in this
most grave, high-sounding, minute, delightful, and original history that
after the discussion between the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha and his
squire Sancho Panza which is set down at the end of chapter twenty-one,
Don Quixote raised his eyes and saw coming along the road he was
following some dozen men on foot strung together by the neck, like beads,
on a great iron chain, and all with manacles on their hands. With them
there came also two men on horseback and two on foot; those on horseback
with wheel-lock muskets, those on foot with javelins and swords, and as
soon as Sancho saw them he said:

"That is a chain of galley slaves, on the way to the galleys by force of
the king's orders."

"How by force?" asked Don Quixote; "is it possible that the king uses
force against anyone?"

"I do not say that," answered Sancho, "but that these are people
condemned for their crimes to serve by force in the king's galleys."

"In fact," replied Don Quixote, "however it may be, these people are
going where they are taking them by force, and not of their own will."

"Just so," said Sancho.

"Then if so," said Don Quixote, "here is a case for the exercise of my
office, to put down force and to succour and help the wretched."

"Recollect, your worship," said Sancho, "Justice, which is the king
himself, is not using force or doing wrong to such persons, but punishing
them for their crimes."

The chain of galley slaves had by this time come up, and Don Quixote in
very courteous language asked those who were in custody of it to be good
enough to tell him the reason or reasons for which they were conducting
these people in this manner. One of the guards on horseback answered that
they were galley slaves belonging to his majesty, that they were going to
the galleys, and that was all that was to be said and all he had any
business to know.

"Nevertheless," replied Don Quixote, "I should like to know from each of
them separately the reason of his misfortune;" to this he added more to
the same effect to induce them to tell him what he wanted so civilly that
the other mounted guard said to him:

"Though we have here the register and certificate of the sentence of
every one of these wretches, this is no time to take them out or read
them; come and ask themselves; they can tell if they choose, and they
will, for these fellows take a pleasure in doing and talking about
rascalities."

With this permission, which Don Quixote would have taken even had they
not granted it, he approached the chain and asked the first for what
offences he was now in such a sorry case.

He made answer that it was for being a lover.

"For that only?" replied Don Quixote; "why, if for being lovers they send
people to the galleys I might have been rowing in them long ago."

"The love is not the sort your worship is thinking of," said the galley
slave; "mine was that I loved a washerwoman's basket of clean linen so
well, and held it so close in my embrace, that if the arm of the law had
not forced it from me, I should never have let it go of my own will to
this moment; I was caught in the act, there was no occasion for torture,
the case was settled, they treated me to a hundred lashes on the back,
and three years of gurapas besides, and that was the end of it."

"What are gurapas?" asked Don Quixote.

"Gurapas are galleys," answered the galley slave, who was a young man of
about four-and-twenty, and said he was a native of Piedrahita.

Don Quixote asked the same question of the second, who made no reply, so
downcast and melancholy was he; but the first answered for him, and said,
"He, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and a singer."

"What!" said Don Quixote, "for being musicians and singers are people
sent to the galleys too?"

"Yes, sir," answered the galley slave, "for there is nothing worse than
singing under suffering."

"On the contrary, I have heard say," said Don Quixote, "that he who sings
scares away his woes."

"Here it is the reverse," said the galley slave; "for he who sings once
weeps all his life."

"I do not understand it," said Don Quixote; but one of the guards said to
him, "Sir, to sing under suffering means with the non sancta fraternity
to confess under torture; they put this sinner to the torture and he
confessed his crime, which was being a cuatrero, that is a
cattle-stealer, and on his confession they sentenced him to six years in
the galleys, besides two hundred lashes that he has already had on the
back; and he is always dejected and downcast because the other thieves
that were left behind and that march here ill-treat, and snub, and jeer,
and despise him for confessing and not having spirit enough to say nay;
for, say they, 'nay' has no more letters in it than 'yea,' and a culprit
is well off when life or death with him depends on his own tongue and not
on that of witnesses or evidence; and to my thinking they are not very
far out."

"And I think so too," answered Don Quixote; then passing on to the third
he asked him what he had asked the others, and the man answered very
readily and unconcernedly, "I am going for five years to their ladyships
the gurapas for the want of ten ducats."

"I will give twenty with pleasure to get you out of that trouble," said
Don Quixote.

"That," said the galley slave, "is like a man having money at sea when he
is dying of hunger and has no way of buying what he wants; I say so
because if at the right time I had had those twenty ducats that your
worship now offers me, I would have greased the notary's pen and
freshened up the attorney's wit with them, so that to-day I should be in
the middle of the plaza of the Zocodover at Toledo, and not on this road
coupled like a greyhound. But God is great; patience--there, that's
enough of it."

Don Quixote passed on to the fourth, a man of venerable aspect with a
white beard falling below his breast, who on hearing himself asked the
reason of his being there began to weep without answering a word, but the
fifth acted as his tongue and said, "This worthy man is going to the
galleys for four years, after having gone the rounds in ceremony and on
horseback."

"That means," said Sancho Panza, "as I take it, to have been exposed to
shame in public."

"Just so," replied the galley slave, "and the offence for which they gave
him that punishment was having been an ear-broker, nay body-broker; I
mean, in short, that this gentleman goes as a pimp, and for having
besides a certain touch of the sorcerer about him."

"If that touch had not been thrown in," said Don Quixote, "he would not
deserve, for mere pimping, to row in the galleys, but rather to command
and be admiral of them; for the office of pimp is no ordinary one, being
the office of persons of discretion, one very necessary in a well-ordered
state, and only to be exercised by persons of good birth; nay, there
ought to be an inspector and overseer of them, as in other offices, and
recognised number, as with the brokers on change; in this way many of the
evils would be avoided which are caused by this office and calling being
in the hands of stupid and ignorant people, such as women more or less
silly, and pages and jesters of little standing and experience, who on
the most urgent occasions, and when ingenuity of contrivance is needed,
let the crumbs freeze on the way to their mouths, and know not which is
their right hand. I should like to go farther, and give reasons to show
that it is advisable to choose those who are to hold so necessary an
office in the state, but this is not the fit place for it; some day I
will expound the matter to some one able to see to and rectify it; all I
say now is, that the additional fact of his being a sorcerer has removed
the sorrow it gave me to see these white hairs and this venerable
countenance in so painful a position on account of his being a pimp;
though I know well there are no sorceries in the world that can move or
compel the will as some simple folk fancy, for our will is free, nor is
there herb or charm that can force it. All that certain silly women and
quacks do is to turn men mad with potions and poisons, pretending that
they have power to cause love, for, as I say, it is an impossibility to
compel the will."

"It is true," said the good old man, "and indeed, sir, as far as the
charge of sorcery goes I was not guilty; as to that of being a pimp I
cannot deny it; but I never thought I was doing any harm by it, for my
only object was that all the world should enjoy itself and live in peace
and quiet, without quarrels or troubles; but my good intentions were
unavailing to save me from going where I never expect to come back from,
with this weight of years upon me and a urinary ailment that never gives
me a moment's ease;" and again he fell to weeping as before, and such
compassion did Sancho feel for him that he took out a real of four from
his bosom and gave it to him in alms.

Don Quixote went on and asked another what his crime was, and the man
answered with no less but rather much more sprightliness than the last
one.

"I am here because I carried the joke too far with a couple of cousins of
mine, and with a couple of other cousins who were none of mine; in short,
I carried the joke so far with them all that it ended in such a
complicated increase of kindred that no accountant could make it clear:
it was all proved against me, I got no favour, I had no money, I was near
having my neck stretched, they sentenced me to the galleys for six years,
I accepted my fate, it is the punishment of my fault; I am a young man;
let life only last, and with that all will come right. If you, sir, have
anything wherewith to help the poor, God will repay it to you in heaven,
and we on earth will take care in our petitions to him to pray for the
life and health of your worship, that they may be as long and as good as
your amiable appearance deserves."

This one was in the dress of a student, and one of the guards said he was
a great talker and a very elegant Latin scholar.

Behind all these there came a man of thirty, a very personable fellow,
except that when he looked, his eyes turned in a little one towards the
other. He was bound differently from the rest, for he had to his leg a
chain so long that it was wound all round his body, and two rings on his
neck, one attached to the chain, the other to what they call a
"keep-friend" or "friend's foot," from which hung two irons reaching to
his waist with two manacles fixed to them in which his hands were secured
by a big padlock, so that he could neither raise his hands to his mouth
nor lower his head to his hands. Don Quixote asked why this man carried
so many more chains than the others. The guard replied that it was
because he alone had committed more crimes than all the rest put
together, and was so daring and such a villain, that though they marched
him in that fashion they did not feel sure of him, but were in dread of
his making his escape.

"What crimes can he have committed," said Don Quixote, "if they have not
deserved a heavier punishment than being sent to the galleys?"

"He goes for ten years," replied the guard, "which is the same thing as
civil death, and all that need be said is that this good fellow is the
famous Gines de Pasamonte, otherwise called Ginesillo de Parapilla."

"Gently, senor commissary," said the galley slave at this, "let us have
no fixing of names or surnames; my name is Gines, not Ginesillo, and my
family name is Pasamonte, not Parapilla as you say; let each one mind his
own business, and he will be doing enough."

"Speak with less impertinence, master thief of extra measure," replied
the commissary, "if you don't want me to make you hold your tongue in
spite of your teeth."

"It is easy to see," returned the galley slave, "that man goes as God
pleases, but some one shall know some day whether I am called Ginesillo
de Parapilla or not."

"Don't they call you so, you liar?" said the guard.

"They do," returned Gines, "but I will make them give over calling me so,
or I will be shaved, where, I only say behind my teeth. If you, sir, have
anything to give us, give it to us at once, and God speed you, for you
are becoming tiresome with all this inquisitiveness about the lives of
others; if you want to know about mine, let me tell you I am Gines de
Pasamonte, whose life is written by these fingers."

"He says true," said the commissary, "for he has himself written his
story as grand as you please, and has left the book in the prison in pawn
for two hundred reals."

"And I mean to take it out of pawn," said Gines, "though it were in for
two hundred ducats."

"Is it so good?" said Don Quixote.

"So good is it," replied Gines, "that a fig for 'Lazarillo de Tormes,'
and all of that kind that have been written, or shall be written compared
with it: all I will say about it is that it deals with facts, and facts
so neat and diverting that no lies could match them."

"And how is the book entitled?" asked Don Quixote.

"The 'Life of Gines de Pasamonte,'" replied the subject of it.

"And is it finished?" asked Don Quixote.

"How can it be finished," said the other, "when my life is not yet
finished? All that is written is from my birth down to the point when
they sent me to the galleys this last time."

"Then you have been there before?" said Don Quixote.

"In the service of God and the king I have been there for four years
before now, and I know by this time what the biscuit and courbash are
like," replied Gines; "and it is no great grievance to me to go back to
them, for there I shall have time to finish my book; I have still many
things left to say, and in the galleys of Spain there is more than enough
leisure; though I do not want much for what I have to write, for I have
it by heart."

"You seem a clever fellow," said Don Quixote.

"And an unfortunate one," replied Gines, "for misfortune always
persecutes good wit."

"It persecutes rogues," said the commissary.

"I told you already to go gently, master commissary," said Pasamonte;
"their lordships yonder never gave you that staff to ill-treat us
wretches here, but to conduct and take us where his majesty orders you;
if not, by the life of-never mind-; it may be that some day the stains
made in the inn will come out in the scouring; let everyone hold his
tongue and behave well and speak better; and now let us march on, for we
have had quite enough of this entertainment."

The commissary lifted his staff to strike Pasamonte in return for his
threats, but Don Quixote came between them, and begged him not to ill-use
him, as it was not too much to allow one who had his hands tied to have
his tongue a trifle free; and turning to the whole chain of them he said:

"From all you have told me, dear brethren, make out clearly that though
they have punished you for your faults, the punishments you are about to
endure do not give you much pleasure, and that you go to them very much
against the grain and against your will, and that perhaps this one's want
of courage under torture, that one's want of money, the other's want of
advocacy, and lastly the perverted judgment of the judge may have been
the cause of your ruin and of your failure to obtain the justice you had
on your side. All which presents itself now to my mind, urging,
persuading, and even compelling me to demonstrate in your case the
purpose for which Heaven sent me into the world and caused me to make
profession of the order of chivalry to which I belong, and the vow I took
therein to give aid to those in need and under the oppression of the
strong. But as I know that it is a mark of prudence not to do by foul
means what may be done by fair, I will ask these gentlemen, the guards
and commissary, to be so good as to release you and let you go in peace,
as there will be no lack of others to serve the king under more
favourable circumstances; for it seems to me a hard case to make slaves
of those whom God and nature have made free. Moreover, sirs of the
guard," added Don Quixote, "these poor fellows have done nothing to you;
let each answer for his own sins yonder; there is a God in Heaven who
will not forget to punish the wicked or reward the good; and it is not
fitting that honest men should be the instruments of punishment to
others, they being therein no way concerned. This request I make thus
gently and quietly, that, if you comply with it, I may have reason for
thanking you; and, if you will not voluntarily, this lance and sword
together with the might of my arm shall compel you to comply with it by
force."

"Nice nonsense!" said the commissary; "a fine piece of pleasantry he has
come out with at last! He wants us to let the king's prisoners go, as if
we had any authority to release them, or he to order us to do so! Go your
way, sir, and good luck to you; put that basin straight that you've got
on your head, and don't go looking for three feet on a cat."

"'Tis you that are the cat, rat, and rascal," replied Don Quixote, and
acting on the word he fell upon him so suddenly that without giving him
time to defend himself he brought him to the ground sorely wounded with a
lance-thrust; and lucky it was for him that it was the one that had the
musket. The other guards stood thunderstruck and amazed at this
unexpected event, but recovering presence of mind, those on horseback
seized their swords, and those on foot their javelins, and attacked Don
Quixote, who was waiting for them with great calmness; and no doubt it
would have gone badly with him if the galley slaves, seeing the chance
before them of liberating themselves, had not effected it by contriving
to break the chain on which they were strung. Such was the confusion,
that the guards, now rushing at the galley slaves who were breaking
loose, now to attack Don Quixote who was waiting for them, did nothing at
all that was of any use. Sancho, on his part, gave a helping hand to
release Gines de Pasamonte, who was the first to leap forth upon the
plain free and unfettered, and who, attacking the prostrate commissary,
took from him his sword and the musket, with which, aiming at one and
levelling at another, he, without ever discharging it, drove every one of
the guards off the field, for they took to flight, as well to escape
Pasamonte's musket, as the showers of stones the now released galley
slaves were raining upon them. Sancho was greatly grieved at the affair,
because he anticipated that those who had fled would report the matter to
the Holy Brotherhood, who at the summons of the alarm-bell would at once
sally forth in quest of the offenders; and he said so to his master, and
entreated him to leave the place at once, and go into hiding in the
sierra that was close by.

"That is all very well," said Don Quixote, "but I know what must be done
now;" and calling together all the galley slaves, who were now running
riot, and had stripped the commissary to the skin, he collected them
round him to hear what he had to say, and addressed them as follows: "To
be grateful for benefits received is the part of persons of good birth,
and one of the sins most offensive to God is ingratitude; I say so
because, sirs, ye have already seen by manifest proof the benefit ye have
received of me; in return for which I desire, and it is my good pleasure
that, laden with that chain which I have taken off your necks, ye at once
set out and proceed to the city of El Toboso, and there present
yourselves before the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and say to her that her
knight, he of the Rueful Countenance, sends to commend himself to her;
and that ye recount to her in full detail all the particulars of this
notable adventure, up to the recovery of your longed-for liberty; and
this done ye may go where ye will, and good fortune attend you."

Gines de Pasamonte made answer for all, saying, "That which you, sir, our
deliverer, demand of us, is of all impossibilities the most impossible to
comply with, because we cannot go together along the roads, but only
singly and separate, and each one his own way, endeavouring to hide
ourselves in the bowels of the earth to escape the Holy Brotherhood,
which, no doubt, will come out in search of us. What your worship may do,
and fairly do, is to change this service and tribute as regards the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso for a certain quantity of ave-marias and credos which
we will say for your worship's intention, and this is a condition that
can be complied with by night as by day, running or resting, in peace or
in war; but to imagine that we are going now to return to the flesh-pots
of Egypt, I mean to take up our chain and set out for El Toboso, is to
imagine that it is now night, though it is not yet ten in the morning,
and to ask this of us is like asking pears of the elm tree."

"Then by all that's good," said Don Quixote (now stirred to wrath), "Don
son of a bitch, Don Ginesillo de Paropillo, or whatever your name is, you
will have to go yourself alone, with your tail between your legs and the
whole chain on your back."

Pasamonte, who was anything but meek (being by this time thoroughly
convinced that Don Quixote was not quite right in his head as he had
committed such a vagary as to set them free), finding himself abused in
this fashion, gave the wink to his companions, and falling back they
began to shower stones on Don Quixote at such a rate that he was quite
unable to protect himself with his buckler, and poor Rocinante no more
heeded the spur than if he had been made of brass. Sancho planted himself
behind his ass, and with him sheltered himself from the hailstorm that
poured on both of them. Don Quixote was unable to shield himself so well
but that more pebbles than I could count struck him full on the body with
such force that they brought him to the ground; and the instant he fell
the student pounced upon him, snatched the basin from his head, and with
it struck three or four blows on his shoulders, and as many more on the
ground, knocking it almost to pieces. They then stripped him of a jacket
that he wore over his armour, and they would have stripped off his
stockings if his greaves had not prevented them. From Sancho they took
his coat, leaving him in his shirt-sleeves; and dividing among themselves
the remaining spoils of the battle, they went each one his own way, more
solicitous about keeping clear of the Holy Brotherhood they dreaded, than
about burdening themselves with the chain, or going to present themselves
before the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. The ass and Rocinante, Sancho and
Don Quixote, were all that were left upon the spot; the ass with drooping
head, serious, shaking his ears from time to time as if he thought the
storm of stones that assailed them was not yet over; Rocinante stretched
beside his master, for he too had been brought to the ground by a stone;
Sancho stripped, and trembling with fear of the Holy Brotherhood; and Don
Quixote fuming to find himself so served by the very persons for whom he
had done so much.




CHAPTER XXIII.

OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE SIERRA MORENA, WHICH WAS ONE OF THE
RAREST ADVENTURES RELATED IN THIS VERACIOUS HISTORY


Seeing himself served in this way, Don Quixote said to his squire, "I
have always heard it said, Sancho, that to do good to boors is to throw
water into the sea. If I had believed thy words, I should have avoided
this trouble; but it is done now, it is only to have patience and take
warning for the future."

"Your worship will take warning as much as I am a Turk," returned Sancho;
"but, as you say this mischief might have been avoided if you had
believed me, believe me now, and a still greater one will be avoided; for
I tell you chivalry is of no account with the Holy Brotherhood, and they
don't care two maravedis for all the knights-errant in the world; and I
can tell you I fancy I hear their arrows whistling past my ears this
minute."

"Thou art a coward by nature, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "but lest thou
shouldst say I am obstinate, and that I never do as thou dost advise,
this once I will take thy advice, and withdraw out of reach of that fury
thou so dreadest; but it must be on one condition, that never, in life or
in death, thou art to say to anyone that I retired or withdrew from this
danger out of fear, but only in compliance with thy entreaties; for if
thou sayest otherwise thou wilt lie therein, and from this time to that,
and from that to this, I give thee lie, and say thou liest and wilt lie
every time thou thinkest or sayest it; and answer me not again; for at
the mere thought that I am withdrawing or retiring from any danger, above
all from this, which does seem to carry some little shadow of fear with
it, I am ready to take my stand here and await alone, not only that Holy
Brotherhood you talk of and dread, but the brothers of the twelve tribes
of Israel, and the Seven Maccabees, and Castor and Pollux, and all the
brothers and brotherhoods in the world."

"Senor," replied Sancho, "to retire is not to flee, and there is no
wisdom in waiting when danger outweighs hope, and it is the part of wise
men to preserve themselves to-day for to-morrow, and not risk all in one
day; and let me tell you, though I am a clown and a boor, I have got some
notion of what they call safe conduct; so repent not of having taken my
advice, but mount Rocinante if you can, and if not I will help you; and
follow me, for my mother-wit tells me we have more need of legs than
hands just now."

Don Quixote mounted without replying, and, Sancho leading the way on his
ass, they entered the side of the Sierra Morena, which was close by, as
it was Sancho's design to cross it entirely and come out again at El Viso
or Almodovar del Campo, and hide for some days among its crags so as to
escape the search of the Brotherhood should they come to look for them.
He was encouraged in this by perceiving that the stock of provisions
carried by the ass had come safe out of the fray with the galley slaves,
a circumstance that he regarded as a miracle, seeing how they pillaged
and ransacked.

That night they reached the very heart of the Sierra Morena, where it
seemed prudent to Sancho to pass the night and even some days, at least
as many as the stores he carried might last, and so they encamped between
two rocks and among some cork trees; but fatal destiny, which, according
to the opinion of those who have not the light of the true faith,
directs, arranges, and settles everything in its own way, so ordered it
that Gines de Pasamonte, the famous knave and thief who by the virtue and
madness of Don Quixote had been released from the chain, driven by fear
of the Holy Brotherhood, which he had good reason to dread, resolved to
take hiding in the mountains; and his fate and fear led him to the same
spot to which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza had been led by theirs, just
in time to recognise them and leave them to fall asleep: and as the
wicked are always ungrateful, and necessity leads to evildoing, and
immediate advantage overcomes all considerations of the future, Gines,
who was neither grateful nor well-principled, made up his mind to steal
Sancho Panza's ass, not troubling himself about Rocinante, as being a
prize that was no good either to pledge or sell. While Sancho slept he
stole his ass, and before day dawned he was far out of reach.

Aurora made her appearance bringing gladness to the earth but sadness to
Sancho Panza, for he found that his Dapple was missing, and seeing
himself bereft of him he began the saddest and most doleful lament in the
world, so loud that Don Quixote awoke at his exclamations and heard him
saying, "O son of my bowels, born in my very house, my children's
plaything, my wife's joy, the envy of my neighbours, relief of my
burdens, and lastly, half supporter of myself, for with the
six-and-twenty maravedis thou didst earn me daily I met half my charges."

Don Quixote, when he heard the lament and learned the cause, consoled
Sancho with the best arguments he could, entreating him to be patient,
and promising to give him a letter of exchange ordering three out of five
ass-colts that he had at home to be given to him. Sancho took comfort at
this, dried his tears, suppressed his sobs, and returned thanks for the
kindness shown him by Don Quixote. He on his part was rejoiced to the
heart on entering the mountains, as they seemed to him to be just the
place for the adventures he was in quest of. They brought back to his
memory the marvellous adventures that had befallen knights-errant in like
solitudes and wilds, and he went along reflecting on these things, so
absorbed and carried away by them that he had no thought for anything
else.

Nor had Sancho any other care (now that he fancied he was travelling in a
safe quarter) than to satisfy his appetite with such remains as were left
of the clerical spoils, and so he marched behind his master laden with
what Dapple used to carry, emptying the sack and packing his paunch, and
so long as he could go that way, he would not have given a farthing to
meet with another adventure.

While so engaged he raised his eyes and saw that his master had halted,
and was trying with the point of his pike to lift some bulky object that
lay upon the ground, on which he hastened to join him and help him if it
were needful, and reached him just as with the point of the pike he was
raising a saddle-pad with a valise attached to it, half or rather wholly
rotten and torn; but so heavy were they that Sancho had to help to take
them up, and his master directed him to see what the valise contained.
Sancho did so with great alacrity, and though the valise was secured by a
chain and padlock, from its torn and rotten condition he was able to see
its contents, which were four shirts of fine holland, and other articles
of linen no less curious than clean; and in a handkerchief he found a
good lot of gold crowns, and as soon as he saw them he exclaimed:

"Blessed be all Heaven for sending us an adventure that is good for
something!"

Searching further he found a little memorandum book richly bound; this
Don Quixote asked of him, telling him to take the money and keep it for
himself. Sancho kissed his hands for the favour, and cleared the valise
of its linen, which he stowed away in the provision sack. Considering the
whole matter, Don Quixote observed:

"It seems to me, Sancho--and it is impossible it can be otherwise-that
some strayed traveller must have crossed this sierra and been attacked
and slain by footpads, who brought him to this remote spot to bury him."

"That cannot be," answered Sancho, "because if they had been robbers they
would not have left this money."

"Thou art right," said Don Quixote, "and I cannot guess or explain what
this may mean; but stay; let us see if in this memorandum book there is
anything written by which we may be able to trace out or discover what we
want to know."

He opened it, and the first thing he found in it, written roughly but in
a very good hand, was a sonnet, and reading it aloud that Sancho might
hear it, he found that it ran as follows:

SONNET

Or Love is lacking in intelligence,
  Or to the height of cruelty attains,
  Or else it is my doom to suffer pains
Beyond the measure due to my offence.
But if Love be a God, it follows thence
  That he knows all, and certain it remains
  No God loves cruelty; then who ordains
This penance that enthrals while it torments?
It were a falsehood, Chloe, thee to name;
  Such evil with such goodness cannot live;
And against Heaven I dare not charge the blame,
  I only know it is my fate to die.
  To him who knows not whence his malady
  A miracle alone a cure can give.

"There is nothing to be learned from that rhyme," said Sancho, "unless by
that clue there's in it, one may draw out the ball of the whole matter."

"What clue is there?" said Don Quixote.

"I thought your worship spoke of a clue in it," said Sancho.

"I only said Chloe," replied Don Quixote; "and that no doubt, is the name
of the lady of whom the author of the sonnet complains; and, faith, he
must be a tolerable poet, or I know little of the craft."

"Then your worship understands rhyming too?"

"And better than thou thinkest," replied Don Quixote, "as thou shalt see
when thou carriest a letter written in verse from beginning to end to my
lady Dulcinea del Toboso, for I would have thee know, Sancho, that all or
most of the knights-errant in days of yore were great troubadours and
great musicians, for both of these accomplishments, or more properly
speaking gifts, are the peculiar property of lovers-errant: true it is
that the verses of the knights of old have more spirit than neatness in
them."

"Read more, your worship," said Sancho, "and you will find something that
will enlighten us."

Don Quixote turned the page and said, "This is prose and seems to be a
letter."

"A correspondence letter, senor?"

"From the beginning it seems to be a love letter," replied Don Quixote.

"Then let your worship read it aloud," said Sancho, "for I am very fond
of love matters."

"With all my heart," said Don Quixote, and reading it aloud as Sancho had
requested him, he found it ran thus:

Thy false promise and my sure misfortune carry me to a place whence the
news of my death will reach thy ears before the words of my complaint.
Ungrateful one, thou hast rejected me for one more wealthy, but not more
worthy; but if virtue were esteemed wealth I should neither envy the
fortunes of others nor weep for misfortunes of my own. What thy beauty
raised up thy deeds have laid low; by it I believed thee to be an angel,
by them I know thou art a woman. Peace be with thee who hast sent war to
me, and Heaven grant that the deceit of thy husband be ever hidden from
thee, so that thou repent not of what thou hast done, and I reap not a
revenge I would not have.

When he had finished the letter, Don Quixote said, "There is less to be
gathered from this than from the verses, except that he who wrote it is
some rejected lover;" and turning over nearly all the pages of the book
he found more verses and letters, some of which he could read, while
others he could not; but they were all made up of complaints, laments,
misgivings, desires and aversions, favours and rejections, some
rapturous, some doleful. While Don Quixote examined the book, Sancho
examined the valise, not leaving a corner in the whole of it or in the
pad that he did not search, peer into, and explore, or seam that he did
not rip, or tuft of wool that he did not pick to pieces, lest anything
should escape for want of care and pains; so keen was the covetousness
excited in him by the discovery of the crowns, which amounted to near a
hundred; and though he found no more booty, he held the blanket flights,
balsam vomits, stake benedictions, carriers' fisticuffs, missing
alforjas, stolen coat, and all the hunger, thirst, and weariness he had
endured in the service of his good master, cheap at the price; as he
considered himself more than fully indemnified for all by the payment he
received in the gift of the treasure-trove.

The Knight of the Rueful Countenance was still very anxious to find out
who the owner of the valise could be, conjecturing from the sonnet and
letter, from the money in gold, and from the fineness of the shirts, that
he must be some lover of distinction whom the scorn and cruelty of his
lady had driven to some desperate course; but as in that uninhabited and
rugged spot there was no one to be seen of whom he could inquire, he saw
nothing else for it but to push on, taking whatever road Rocinante
chose--which was where he could make his way--firmly persuaded that among
these wilds he could not fail to meet some rare adventure. As he went
along, then, occupied with these thoughts, he perceived on the summit of
a height that rose before their eyes a man who went springing from rock
to rock and from tussock to tussock with marvellous agility. As well as
he could make out he was unclad, with a thick black beard, long tangled
hair, and bare legs and feet, his thighs were covered by breeches
apparently of tawny velvet but so ragged that they showed his skin in
several places.

He was bareheaded, and notwithstanding the swiftness with which he passed
as has been described, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance observed and
noted all these trifles, and though he made the attempt, he was unable to
follow him, for it was not granted to the feebleness of Rocinante to make
way over such rough ground, he being, moreover, slow-paced and sluggish
by nature. Don Quixote at once came to the conclusion that this was the
owner of the saddle-pad and of the valise, and made up his mind to go in
search of him, even though he should have to wander a year in those
mountains before he found him, and so he directed Sancho to take a short
cut over one side of the mountain, while he himself went by the other,
and perhaps by this means they might light upon this man who had passed
so quickly out of their sight.

"I could not do that," said Sancho, "for when I separate from your
worship fear at once lays hold of me, and assails me with all sorts of
panics and fancies; and let what I now say be a notice that from this
time forth I am not going to stir a finger's width from your presence."

"It shall be so," said he of the Rueful Countenance, "and I am very glad
that thou art willing to rely on my courage, which will never fail thee,
even though the soul in thy body fail thee; so come on now behind me
slowly as well as thou canst, and make lanterns of thine eyes; let us
make the circuit of this ridge; perhaps we shall light upon this man that
we saw, who no doubt is no other than the owner of what we found."

To which Sancho made answer, "Far better would it be not to look for him,
for, if we find him, and he happens to be the owner of the money, it is
plain I must restore it; it would be better, therefore, that without
taking this needless trouble, I should keep possession of it until in
some other less meddlesome and officious way the real owner may be
discovered; and perhaps that will be when I shall have spent it, and then
the king will hold me harmless."

"Thou art wrong there, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for now that we have a
suspicion who the owner is, and have him almost before us, we are bound
to seek him and make restitution; and if we do not see him, the strong
suspicion we have as to his being the owner makes us as guilty as if he
were so; and so, friend Sancho, let not our search for him give thee any
uneasiness, for if we find him it will relieve mine."

And so saying he gave Rocinante the spur, and Sancho followed him on foot
and loaded, and after having partly made the circuit of the mountain they
found lying in a ravine, dead and half devoured by dogs and pecked by
jackdaws, a mule saddled and bridled, all which still further
strengthened their suspicion that he who had fled was the owner of the
mule and the saddle-pad.

As they stood looking at it they heard a whistle like that of a shepherd
watching his flock, and suddenly on their left there appeared a great
number of goats and behind them on the summit of the mountain the
goatherd in charge of them, a man advanced in years. Don Quixote called
aloud to him and begged him to come down to where they stood. He shouted
in return, asking what had brought them to that spot, seldom or never
trodden except by the feet of goats, or of the wolves and other wild
beasts that roamed around. Sancho in return bade him come down, and they
would explain all to him.

The goatherd descended, and reaching the place where Don Quixote stood,
he said, "I will wager you are looking at that hack mule that lies dead
in the hollow there, and, faith, it has been lying there now these six
months; tell me, have you come upon its master about here?"

"We have come upon nobody," answered Don Quixote, "nor on anything except
a saddle-pad and a little valise that we found not far from this."

"I found it too," said the goatherd, "but I would not lift it nor go near
it for fear of some ill-luck or being charged with theft, for the devil
is crafty, and things rise up under one's feet to make one fall without
knowing why or wherefore."

"That's exactly what I say," said Sancho; "I found it too, and I would
not go within a stone's throw of it; there I left it, and there it lies
just as it was, for I don't want a dog with a bell."

"Tell me, good man," said Don Quixote, "do you know who is the owner of
this property?"

"All I can tell you," said the goatherd, "is that about six months ago,
more or less, there arrived at a shepherd's hut three leagues, perhaps,
away from this, a youth of well-bred appearance and manners, mounted on
that same mule which lies dead here, and with the same saddle-pad and
valise which you say you found and did not touch. He asked us what part
of this sierra was the most rugged and retired; we told him that it was
where we now are; and so in truth it is, for if you push on half a league
farther, perhaps you will not be able to find your way out; and I am
wondering how you have managed to come here, for there is no road or path
that leads to this spot. I say, then, that on hearing our answer the
youth turned about and made for the place we pointed out to him, leaving
us all charmed with his good looks, and wondering at his question and the
haste with which we saw him depart in the direction of the sierra; and
after that we saw him no more, until some days afterwards he crossed the
path of one of our shepherds, and without saying a word to him, came up
to him and gave him several cuffs and kicks, and then turned to the ass
with our provisions and took all the bread and cheese it carried, and
having done this made off back again into the sierra with extraordinary
swiftness. When some of us goatherds learned this we went in search of
him for about two days through the most remote portion of this sierra, at
the end of which we found him lodged in the hollow of a large thick cork
tree. He came out to meet us with great gentleness, with his dress now
torn and his face so disfigured and burned by the sun, that we hardly
recognised him but that his clothes, though torn, convinced us, from the
recollection we had of them, that he was the person we were looking for.
He saluted us courteously, and in a few well-spoken words he told us not
to wonder at seeing him going about in this guise, as it was binding upon
him in order that he might work out a penance which for his many sins had
been imposed upon him. We asked him to tell us who he was, but we were
never able to find out from him: we begged of him too, when he was in
want of food, which he could not do without, to tell us where we should
find him, as we would bring it to him with all good-will and readiness;
or if this were not to his taste, at least to come and ask it of us and
not take it by force from the shepherds. He thanked us for the offer,
begged pardon for the late assault, and promised for the future to ask it
in God's name without offering violence to anybody. As for fixed abode,
he said he had no other than that which chance offered wherever night
might overtake him; and his words ended in an outburst of weeping so
bitter that we who listened to him must have been very stones had we not
joined him in it, comparing what we saw of him the first time with what
we saw now; for, as I said, he was a graceful and gracious youth, and in
his courteous and polished language showed himself to be of good birth
and courtly breeding, and rustics as we were that listened to him, even
to our rusticity his gentle bearing sufficed to make it plain.

"But in the midst of his conversation he stopped and became silent,
keeping his eyes fixed upon the ground for some time, during which we
stood still waiting anxiously to see what would come of this abstraction;
and with no little pity, for from his behaviour, now staring at the
ground with fixed gaze and eyes wide open without moving an eyelid, again
closing them, compressing his lips and raising his eyebrows, we could
perceive plainly that a fit of madness of some kind had come upon him;
and before long he showed that what we imagined was the truth, for he
arose in a fury from the ground where he had thrown himself, and attacked
the first he found near him with such rage and fierceness that if we had
not dragged him off him, he would have beaten or bitten him to death, all
the while exclaiming, 'Oh faithless Fernando, here, here shalt thou pay
the penalty of the wrong thou hast done me; these hands shall tear out
that heart of thine, abode and dwelling of all iniquity, but of deceit
and fraud above all; and to these he added other words all in effect
upbraiding this Fernando and charging him with treachery and
faithlessness.

"We forced him to release his hold with no little difficulty, and without
another word he left us, and rushing off plunged in among these brakes
and brambles, so as to make it impossible for us to follow him; from this
we suppose that madness comes upon him from time to time, and that some
one called Fernando must have done him a wrong of a grievous nature such
as the condition to which it had brought him seemed to show. All this has
been since then confirmed on those occasions, and they have been many, on
which he has crossed our path, at one time to beg the shepherds to give
him some of the food they carry, at another to take it from them by
force; for when there is a fit of madness upon him, even though the
shepherds offer it freely, he will not accept it but snatches it from
them by dint of blows; but when he is in his senses he begs it for the
love of God, courteously and civilly, and receives it with many thanks
and not a few tears. And to tell you the truth, sirs," continued the
goatherd, "it was yesterday that we resolved, I and four of the lads, two
of them our servants, and the other two friends of mine, to go in search
of him until we find him, and when we do to take him, whether by force or
of his own consent, to the town of Almodovar, which is eight leagues from
this, and there strive to cure him (if indeed his malady admits of a
cure), or learn when he is in his senses who he is, and if he has
relatives to whom we may give notice of his misfortune. This, sirs, is
all I can say in answer to what you have asked me; and be sure that the
owner of the articles you found is he whom you saw pass by with such
nimbleness and so naked."

For Don Quixote had already described how he had seen the man go bounding
along the mountain side, and he was now filled with amazement at what he
heard from the goatherd, and more eager than ever to discover who the
unhappy madman was; and in his heart he resolved, as he had done before,
to search for him all over the mountain, not leaving a corner or cave
unexamined until he had found him. But chance arranged matters better
than he expected or hoped, for at that very moment, in a gorge on the
mountain that opened where they stood, the youth he wished to find made
his appearance, coming along talking to himself in a way that would have
been unintelligible near at hand, much more at a distance. His garb was
what has been described, save that as he drew near, Don Quixote perceived
that a tattered doublet which he wore was amber-tanned, from which he
concluded that one who wore such garments could not be of very low rank.

Approaching them, the youth greeted them in a harsh and hoarse voice but
with great courtesy. Don Quixote returned his salutation with equal
politeness, and dismounting from Rocinante advanced with well-bred
bearing and grace to embrace him, and held him for some time close in his
arms as if he had known him for a long time. The other, whom we may call
the Ragged One of the Sorry Countenance, as Don Quixote was of the
Rueful, after submitting to the embrace pushed him back a little and,
placing his hands on Don Quixote's shoulders, stood gazing at him as if
seeking to see whether he knew him, not less amazed, perhaps, at the
sight of the face, figure, and armour of Don Quixote than Don Quixote was
at the sight of him. To be brief, the first to speak after embracing was
the Ragged One, and he said what will be told farther on.




CHAPTER XXIV.

IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SIERRA MORENA


The history relates that it was with the greatest attention Don Quixote
listened to the ragged knight of the Sierra, who began by saying:

"Of a surety, senor, whoever you are, for I know you not, I thank you for
the proofs of kindness and courtesy you have shown me, and would I were
in a condition to requite with something more than good-will that which
you have displayed towards me in the cordial reception you have given me;
but my fate does not afford me any other means of returning kindnesses
done me save the hearty desire to repay them."

"Mine," replied Don Quixote, "is to be of service to you, so much so that
I had resolved not to quit these mountains until I had found you, and
learned of you whether there is any kind of relief to be found for that
sorrow under which from the strangeness of your life you seem to labour;
and to search for you with all possible diligence, if search had been
necessary. And if your misfortune should prove to be one of those that
refuse admission to any sort of consolation, it was my purpose to join
you in lamenting and mourning over it, so far as I could; for it is still
some comfort in misfortune to find one who can feel for it. And if my
good intentions deserve to be acknowledged with any kind of courtesy, I
entreat you, senor, by that which I perceive you possess in so high a
degree, and likewise conjure you by whatever you love or have loved best
in life, to tell me who you are and the cause that has brought you to
live or die in these solitudes like a brute beast, dwelling among them in
a manner so foreign to your condition as your garb and appearance show.
And I swear," added Don Quixote, "by the order of knighthood which I have
received, and by my vocation of knight-errant, if you gratify me in this,
to serve you with all the zeal my calling demands of me, either in
relieving your misfortune if it admits of relief, or in joining you in
lamenting it as I promised to do."

The Knight of the Thicket, hearing him of the Rueful Countenance talk in
this strain, did nothing but stare at him, and stare at him again, and
again survey him from head to foot; and when he had thoroughly examined
him, he said to him:

"If you have anything to give me to eat, for God's sake give it me, and
after I have eaten I will do all you ask in acknowledgment of the
goodwill you have displayed towards me."

Sancho from his sack, and the goatherd from his pouch, furnished the
Ragged One with the means of appeasing his hunger, and what they gave him
he ate like a half-witted being, so hastily that he took no time between
mouthfuls, gorging rather than swallowing; and while he ate neither he
nor they who observed him uttered a word. As soon as he had done he made
signs to them to follow him, which they did, and he led them to a green
plot which lay a little farther off round the corner of a rock. On
reaching it he stretched himself upon the grass, and the others did the
same, all keeping silence, until the Ragged One, settling himself in his
place, said:

"If it is your wish, sirs, that I should disclose in a few words the
surpassing extent of my misfortunes, you must promise not to break the
thread of my sad story with any question or other interruption, for the
instant you do so the tale I tell will come to an end."

These words of the Ragged One reminded Don Quixote of the tale his squire
had told him, when he failed to keep count of the goats that had crossed
the river and the story remained unfinished; but to return to the Ragged
One, he went on to say:

"I give you this warning because I wish to pass briefly over the story of
my misfortunes, for recalling them to memory only serves to add fresh
ones, and the less you question me the sooner shall I make an end of the
recital, though I shall not omit to relate anything of importance in
order fully to satisfy your curiosity."

Don Quixote gave the promise for himself and the others, and with this
assurance he began as follows:

"My name is Cardenio, my birthplace one of the best cities of this
Andalusia, my family noble, my parents rich, my misfortune so great that
my parents must have wept and my family grieved over it without being
able by their wealth to lighten it; for the gifts of fortune can do
little to relieve reverses sent by Heaven. In that same country there was
a heaven in which love had placed all the glory I could desire; such was
the beauty of Luscinda, a damsel as noble and as rich as I, but of
happier fortunes, and of less firmness than was due to so worthy a
passion as mine. This Luscinda I loved, worshipped, and adored from my
earliest and tenderest years, and she loved me in all the innocence and
sincerity of childhood. Our parents were aware of our feelings, and were
not sorry to perceive them, for they saw clearly that as they ripened
they must lead at last to a marriage between us, a thing that seemed
almost prearranged by the equality of our families and wealth. We grew
up, and with our growth grew the love between us, so that the father of
Luscinda felt bound for propriety's sake to refuse me admission to his
house, in this perhaps imitating the parents of that Thisbe so celebrated
by the poets, and this refusal but added love to love and flame to flame;
for though they enforced silence upon our tongues they could not impose
it upon our pens, which can make known the heart's secrets to a loved one
more freely than tongues; for many a time the presence of the object of
love shakes the firmest will and strikes dumb the boldest tongue. Ah
heavens! how many letters did I write her, and how many dainty modest
replies did I receive! how many ditties and love-songs did I compose in
which my heart declared and made known its feelings, described its ardent
longings, revelled in its recollections and dallied with its desires! At
length growing impatient and feeling my heart languishing with longing to
see her, I resolved to put into execution and carry out what seemed to me
the best mode of winning my desired and merited reward, to ask her of her
father for my lawful wife, which I did. To this his answer was that he
thanked me for the disposition I showed to do honour to him and to regard
myself as honoured by the bestowal of his treasure; but that as my father
was alive it was his by right to make this demand, for if it were not in
accordance with his full will and pleasure, Luscinda was not to be taken
or given by stealth. I thanked him for his kindness, reflecting that
there was reason in what he said, and that my father would assent to it
as soon as I should tell him, and with that view I went the very same
instant to let him know what my desires were. When I entered the room
where he was I found him with an open letter in his hand, which, before I
could utter a word, he gave me, saying, 'By this letter thou wilt see,
Cardenio, the disposition the Duke Ricardo has to serve thee.' This Duke
Ricardo, as you, sirs, probably know already, is a grandee of Spain who
has his seat in the best part of this Andalusia. I took and read the
letter, which was couched in terms so flattering that even I myself felt
it would be wrong in my father not to comply with the request the duke
made in it, which was that he would send me immediately to him, as he
wished me to become the companion, not servant, of his eldest son, and
would take upon himself the charge of placing me in a position
corresponding to the esteem in which he held me. On reading the letter my
voice failed me, and still more when I heard my father say, 'Two days
hence thou wilt depart, Cardenio, in accordance with the duke's wish, and
give thanks to God who is opening a road to thee by which thou mayest
attain what I know thou dost deserve; and to these words he added others
of fatherly counsel. The time for my departure arrived; I spoke one night
to Luscinda, I told her all that had occurred, as I did also to her
father, entreating him to allow some delay, and to defer the disposal of
her hand until I should see what the Duke Ricardo sought of me: he gave
me the promise, and she confirmed it with vows and swoonings unnumbered.
Finally, I presented myself to the duke, and was received and treated by
him so kindly that very soon envy began to do its work, the old servants
growing envious of me, and regarding the duke's inclination to show me
favour as an injury to themselves. But the one to whom my arrival gave
the greatest pleasure was the duke's second son, Fernando by name, a
gallant youth, of noble, generous, and amorous disposition, who very soon
made so intimate a friend of me that it was remarked by everybody; for
though the elder was attached to me, and showed me kindness, he did not
carry his affectionate treatment to the same length as Don Fernando. It
so happened, then, that as between friends no secret remains unshared,
and as the favour I enjoyed with Don Fernando had grown into friendship,
he made all his thoughts known to me, and in particular a love affair
which troubled his mind a little. He was deeply in love with a peasant
girl, a vassal of his father's, the daughter of wealthy parents, and
herself so beautiful, modest, discreet, and virtuous, that no one who
knew her was able to decide in which of these respects she was most
highly gifted or most excelled. The attractions of the fair peasant
raised the passion of Don Fernando to such a point that, in order to gain
his object and overcome her virtuous resolutions, he determined to pledge
his word to her to become her husband, for to attempt it in any other way
was to attempt an impossibility. Bound to him as I was by friendship, I
strove by the best arguments and the most forcible examples I could think
of to restrain and dissuade him from such a course; but perceiving I
produced no effect I resolved to make the Duke Ricardo, his father,
acquainted with the matter; but Don Fernando, being sharp-witted and
shrewd, foresaw and apprehended this, perceiving that by my duty as a
good servant I was bound not to keep concealed a thing so much opposed to
the honour of my lord the duke; and so, to mislead and deceive me, he
told me he could find no better way of effacing from his mind the beauty
that so enslaved him than by absenting himself for some months, and that
he wished the absence to be effected by our going, both of us, to my
father's house under the pretence, which he would make to the duke, of
going to see and buy some fine horses that there were in my city, which
produces the best in the world. When I heard him say so, even if his
resolution had not been so good a one I should have hailed it as one of
the happiest that could be imagined, prompted by my affection, seeing
what a favourable chance and opportunity it offered me of returning to
see my Luscinda. With this thought and wish I commended his idea and
encouraged his design, advising him to put it into execution as quickly
as possible, as, in truth, absence produced its effect in spite of the
most deeply rooted feelings. But, as afterwards appeared, when he said
this to me he had already enjoyed the peasant girl under the title of
husband, and was waiting for an opportunity of making it known with
safety to himself, being in dread of what his father the duke would do
when he came to know of his folly. It happened, then, that as with young
men love is for the most part nothing more than appetite, which, as its
final object is enjoyment, comes to an end on obtaining it, and that
which seemed to be love takes to flight, as it cannot pass the limit
fixed by nature, which fixes no limit to true love--what I mean is that
after Don Fernando had enjoyed this peasant girl his passion subsided and
his eagerness cooled, and if at first he feigned a wish to absent himself
in order to cure his love, he was now in reality anxious to go to avoid
keeping his promise.

"The duke gave him permission, and ordered me to accompany him; we
arrived at my city, and my father gave him the reception due to his rank;
I saw Luscinda without delay, and, though it had not been dead or
deadened, my love gathered fresh life. To my sorrow I told the story of
it to Don Fernando, for I thought that in virtue of the great friendship
he bore me I was bound to conceal nothing from him. I extolled her
beauty, her gaiety, her wit, so warmly, that my praises excited in him a
desire to see a damsel adorned by such attractions. To my misfortune I
yielded to it, showing her to him one night by the light of a taper at a
window where we used to talk to one another. As she appeared to him in
her dressing-gown, she drove all the beauties he had seen until then out
of his recollection; speech failed him, his head turned, he was
spell-bound, and in the end love-smitten, as you will see in the course
of the story of my misfortune; and to inflame still further his passion,
which he hid from me and revealed to Heaven alone, it so happened that
one day he found a note of hers entreating me to demand her of her father
in marriage, so delicate, so modest, and so tender, that on reading it he
told me that in Luscinda alone were combined all the charms of beauty and
understanding that were distributed among all the other women in the
world. It is true, and I own it now, that though I knew what good cause
Don Fernando had to praise Luscinda, it gave me uneasiness to hear these
praises from his mouth, and I began to fear, and with reason to feel
distrust of him, for there was no moment when he was not ready to talk of
Luscinda, and he would start the subject himself even though he dragged
it in unseasonably, a circumstance that aroused in me a certain amount of
jealousy; not that I feared any change in the constancy or faith of
Luscinda; but still my fate led me to forebode what she assured me
against. Don Fernando contrived always to read the letters I sent to
Luscinda and her answers to me, under the pretence that he enjoyed the
wit and sense of both. It so happened, then, that Luscinda having begged
of me a book of chivalry to read, one that she was very fond of, Amadis
of Gaul-"

Don Quixote no sooner heard a book of chivalry mentioned, than he said:

"Had your worship told me at the beginning of your story that the Lady
Luscinda was fond of books of chivalry, no other laudation would have
been requisite to impress upon me the superiority of her understanding,
for it could not have been of the excellence you describe had a taste for
such delightful reading been wanting; so, as far as I am concerned, you
need waste no more words in describing her beauty, worth, and
intelligence; for, on merely hearing what her taste was, I declare her to
be the most beautiful and the most intelligent woman in the world; and I
wish your worship had, along with Amadis of Gaul, sent her the worthy Don
Rugel of Greece, for I know the Lady Luscinda would greatly relish
Daraida and Garaya, and the shrewd sayings of the shepherd Darinel, and
the admirable verses of his bucolics, sung and delivered by him with such
sprightliness, wit, and ease; but a time may come when this omission can
be remedied, and to rectify it nothing more is needed than for your
worship to be so good as to come with me to my village, for there I can
give you more than three hundred books which are the delight of my soul
and the entertainment of my life;--though it occurs to me that I have not
got one of them now, thanks to the spite of wicked and envious
enchanters;--but pardon me for having broken the promise we made not to
interrupt your discourse; for when I hear chivalry or knights-errant
mentioned, I can no more help talking about them than the rays of the sun
can help giving heat, or those of the moon moisture; pardon me,
therefore, and proceed, for that is more to the purpose now."

While Don Quixote was saying this, Cardenio allowed his head to fall upon
his breast, and seemed plunged in deep thought; and though twice Don
Quixote bade him go on with his story, he neither looked up nor uttered a
word in reply; but after some time he raised his head and said, "I cannot
get rid of the idea, nor will anyone in the world remove it, or make me
think otherwise--and he would be a blockhead who would hold or believe
anything else than that that arrant knave Master Elisabad made free with
Queen Madasima."

"That is not true, by all that's good," said Don Quixote in high wrath,
turning upon him angrily, as his way was; "and it is a very great
slander, or rather villainy. Queen Madasima was a very illustrious lady,
and it is not to be supposed that so exalted a princess would have made
free with a quack; and whoever maintains the contrary lies like a great
scoundrel, and I will give him to know it, on foot or on horseback, armed
or unarmed, by night or by day, or as he likes best."

Cardenio was looking at him steadily, and his mad fit having now come
upon him, he had no disposition to go on with his story, nor would Don
Quixote have listened to it, so much had what he had heard about Madasima
disgusted him. Strange to say, he stood up for her as if she were in
earnest his veritable born lady; to such a pass had his unholy books
brought him. Cardenio, then, being, as I said, now mad, when he heard
himself given the lie, and called a scoundrel and other insulting names,
not relishing the jest, snatched up a stone that he found near him, and
with it delivered such a blow on Don Quixote's breast that he laid him on
his back. Sancho Panza, seeing his master treated in this fashion,
attacked the madman with his closed fist; but the Ragged One received him
in such a way that with a blow of his fist he stretched him at his feet,
and then mounting upon him crushed his ribs to his own satisfaction; the
goatherd, who came to the rescue, shared the same fate; and having beaten
and pummelled them all he left them and quietly withdrew to his
hiding-place on the mountain. Sancho rose, and with the rage he felt at
finding himself so belaboured without deserving it, ran to take vengeance
on the goatherd, accusing him of not giving them warning that this man
was at times taken with a mad fit, for if they had known it they would
have been on their guard to protect themselves. The goatherd replied that
he had said so, and that if he had not heard him, that was no fault of
his. Sancho retorted, and the goatherd rejoined, and the altercation
ended in their seizing each other by the beard, and exchanging such
fisticuffs that if Don Quixote had not made peace between them, they
would have knocked one another to pieces.

"Leave me alone, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance," said Sancho,
grappling with the goatherd, "for of this fellow, who is a clown like
myself, and no dubbed knight, I can safely take satisfaction for the
affront he has offered me, fighting with him hand to hand like an honest
man."

"That is true," said Don Quixote, "but I know that he is not to blame for
what has happened."

With this he pacified them, and again asked the goatherd if it would be
possible to find Cardenio, as he felt the greatest anxiety to know the
end of his story. The goatherd told him, as he had told him before, that
there was no knowing of a certainty where his lair was; but that if he
wandered about much in that neighbourhood he could not fail to fall in
with him either in or out of his senses.




CHAPTER XXV.

WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THE STOUT KNIGHT OF
LA MANCHA IN THE SIERRA MORENA, AND OF HIS IMITATION OF THE PENANCE OF
BELTENEBROS


Don Quixote took leave of the goatherd, and once more mounting Rocinante
bade Sancho follow him, which he having no ass, did very discontentedly.
They proceeded slowly, making their way into the most rugged part of the
mountain, Sancho all the while dying to have a talk with his master, and
longing for him to begin, so that there should be no breach of the
injunction laid upon him; but unable to keep silence so long he said to
him:

"Senor Don Quixote, give me your worship's blessing and dismissal, for
I'd like to go home at once to my wife and children with whom I can at
any rate talk and converse as much as I like; for to want me to go
through these solitudes day and night and not speak to you when I have a
mind is burying me alive. If luck would have it that animals spoke as
they did in the days of Guisopete, it would not be so bad, because I
could talk to Rocinante about whatever came into my head, and so put up
with my ill-fortune; but it is a hard case, and not to be borne with
patience, to go seeking adventures all one's life and get nothing but
kicks and blanketings, brickbats and punches, and with all this to have
to sew up one's mouth without daring to say what is in one's heart, just
as if one were dumb."

"I understand thee, Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "thou art dying to have
the interdict I placed upon thy tongue removed; consider it removed, and
say what thou wilt while we are wandering in these mountains."

"So be it," said Sancho; "let me speak now, for God knows what will
happen by-and-by; and to take advantage of the permit at once, I ask,
what made your worship stand up so for that Queen Majimasa, or whatever
her name is, or what did it matter whether that abbot was a friend of
hers or not? for if your worship had let that pass--and you were not a
judge in the matter--it is my belief the madman would have gone on with
his story, and the blow of the stone, and the kicks, and more than half a
dozen cuffs would have been escaped."

"In faith, Sancho," answered Don Quixote, "if thou knewest as I do what
an honourable and illustrious lady Queen Madasima was, I know thou
wouldst say I had great patience that I did not break in pieces the mouth
that uttered such blasphemies, for a very great blasphemy it is to say or
imagine that a queen has made free with a surgeon. The truth of the story
is that that Master Elisabad whom the madman mentioned was a man of great
prudence and sound judgment, and served as governor and physician to the
queen, but to suppose that she was his mistress is nonsense deserving
very severe punishment; and as a proof that Cardenio did not know what he
was saying, remember when he said it he was out of his wits."

"That is what I say," said Sancho; "there was no occasion for minding the
words of a madman; for if good luck had not helped your worship, and he
had sent that stone at your head instead of at your breast, a fine way we
should have been in for standing up for my lady yonder, God confound her!
And then, would not Cardenio have gone free as a madman?"

"Against men in their senses or against madmen," said Don Quixote, "every
knight-errant is bound to stand up for the honour of women, whoever they
may be, much more for queens of such high degree and dignity as Queen
Madasima, for whom I have a particular regard on account of her amiable
qualities; for, besides being extremely beautiful, she was very wise, and
very patient under her misfortunes, of which she had many; and the
counsel and society of the Master Elisabad were a great help and support
to her in enduring her afflictions with wisdom and resignation; hence the
ignorant and ill-disposed vulgar took occasion to say and think that she
was his mistress; and they lie, I say it once more, and will lie two
hundred times more, all who think and say so."

"I neither say nor think so," said Sancho; "let them look to it; with
their bread let them eat it; they have rendered account to God whether
they misbehaved or not; I come from my vineyard, I know nothing; I am not
fond of prying into other men's lives; he who buys and lies feels it in
his purse; moreover, naked was I born, naked I find myself, I neither
lose nor gain; but if they did, what is that to me? many think there are
flitches where there are no hooks; but who can put gates to the open
plain? moreover they said of God-"

"God bless me," said Don Quixote, "what a set of absurdities thou art
stringing together! What has what we are talking about got to do with the
proverbs thou art threading one after the other? for God's sake hold thy
tongue, Sancho, and henceforward keep to prodding thy ass and don't
meddle in what does not concern thee; and understand with all thy five
senses that everything I have done, am doing, or shall do, is well
founded on reason and in conformity with the rules of chivalry, for I
understand them better than all the world that profess them."

"Senor," replied Sancho, "is it a good rule of chivalry that we should go
astray through these mountains without path or road, looking for a madman
who when he is found will perhaps take a fancy to finish what he began,
not his story, but your worship's head and my ribs, and end by breaking
them altogether for us?"

"Peace, I say again, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for let me tell thee it
is not so much the desire of finding that madman that leads me into these
regions as that which I have of performing among them an achievement
wherewith I shall win eternal name and fame throughout the known world;
and it shall be such that I shall thereby set the seal on all that can
make a knight-errant perfect and famous."

"And is it very perilous, this achievement?"

"No," replied he of the Rueful Countenance; "though it may be in the dice
that we may throw deuce-ace instead of sixes; but all will depend on thy
diligence."

"On my diligence!" said Sancho.

"Yes," said Don Quixote, "for if thou dost return soon from the place
where I mean to send thee, my penance will be soon over, and my glory
will soon begin. But as it is not right to keep thee any longer in
suspense, waiting to see what comes of my words, I would have thee know,
Sancho, that the famous Amadis of Gaul was one of the most perfect
knights-errant--I am wrong to say he was one; he stood alone, the first,
the only one, the lord of all that were in the world in his time. A fig
for Don Belianis, and for all who say he equalled him in any respect,
for, my oath upon it, they are deceiving themselves! I say, too, that
when a painter desires to become famous in his art he endeavours to copy
the originals of the rarest painters that he knows; and the same rule
holds good for all the most important crafts and callings that serve to
adorn a state; thus must he who would be esteemed prudent and patient
imitate Ulysses, in whose person and labours Homer presents to us a
lively picture of prudence and patience; as Virgil, too, shows us in the
person of AEneas the virtue of a pious son and the sagacity of a brave
and skilful captain; not representing or describing them as they were,
but as they ought to be, so as to leave the example of their virtues to
posterity. In the same way Amadis was the polestar, day-star, sun of
valiant and devoted knights, whom all we who fight under the banner of
love and chivalry are bound to imitate. This, then, being so, I consider,
friend Sancho, that the knight-errant who shall imitate him most closely
will come nearest to reaching the perfection of chivalry. Now one of the
instances in which this knight most conspicuously showed his prudence,
worth, valour, endurance, fortitude, and love, was when he withdrew,
rejected by the Lady Oriana, to do penance upon the Pena Pobre, changing
his name into that of Beltenebros, a name assuredly significant and
appropriate to the life which he had voluntarily adopted. So, as it is
easier for me to imitate him in this than in cleaving giants asunder,
cutting off serpents' heads, slaying dragons, routing armies, destroying
fleets, and breaking enchantments, and as this place is so well suited
for a similar purpose, I must not allow the opportunity to escape which
now so conveniently offers me its forelock."

"What is it in reality," said Sancho, "that your worship means to do in
such an out-of-the-way place as this?"

"Have I not told thee," answered Don Quixote, "that I mean to imitate
Amadis here, playing the victim of despair, the madman, the maniac, so as
at the same time to imitate the valiant Don Roland, when at the fountain
he had evidence of the fair Angelica having disgraced herself with Medoro
and through grief thereat went mad, and plucked up trees, troubled the
waters of the clear springs, slew destroyed flocks, burned down huts,
levelled houses, dragged mares after him, and perpetrated a hundred
thousand other outrages worthy of everlasting renown and record? And
though I have no intention of imitating Roland, or Orlando, or Rotolando
(for he went by all these names), step by step in all the mad things he
did, said, and thought, I will make a rough copy to the best of my power
of all that seems to me most essential; but perhaps I shall content
myself with the simple imitation of Amadis, who without giving way to any
mischievous madness but merely to tears and sorrow, gained as much fame
as the most famous."

"It seems to me," said Sancho, "that the knights who behaved in this way
had provocation and cause for those follies and penances; but what cause
has your worship for going mad? What lady has rejected you, or what
evidence have you found to prove that the lady Dulcinea del Toboso has
been trifling with Moor or Christian?"

"There is the point," replied Don Quixote, "and that is the beauty of
this business of mine; no thanks to a knight-errant for going mad when he
has cause; the thing is to turn crazy without any provocation, and let my
lady know, if I do this in the dry, what I would do in the moist;
moreover I have abundant cause in the long separation I have endured from
my lady till death, Dulcinea del Toboso; for as thou didst hear that
shepherd Ambrosio say the other day, in absence all ills are felt and
feared; and so, friend Sancho, waste no time in advising me against so
rare, so happy, and so unheard-of an imitation; mad I am, and mad I must
be until thou returnest with the answer to a letter that I mean to send
by thee to my lady Dulcinea; and if it be such as my constancy deserves,
my insanity and penance will come to an end; and if it be to the opposite
effect, I shall become mad in earnest, and, being so, I shall suffer no
more; thus in whatever way she may answer I shall escape from the
struggle and affliction in which thou wilt leave me, enjoying in my
senses the boon thou bearest me, or as a madman not feeling the evil thou
bringest me. But tell me, Sancho, hast thou got Mambrino's helmet safe?
for I saw thee take it up from the ground when that ungrateful wretch
tried to break it in pieces but could not, by which the fineness of its
temper may be seen."

To which Sancho made answer, "By the living God, Sir Knight of the Rueful
Countenance, I cannot endure or bear with patience some of the things
that your worship says; and from them I begin to suspect that all you
tell me about chivalry, and winning kingdoms and empires, and giving
islands, and bestowing other rewards and dignities after the custom of
knights-errant, must be all made up of wind and lies, and all pigments or
figments, or whatever we may call them; for what would anyone think that
heard your worship calling a barber's basin Mambrino's helmet without
ever seeing the mistake all this time, but that one who says and
maintains such things must have his brains addled? I have the basin in my
sack all dinted, and I am taking it home to have it mended, to trim my
beard in it, if, by God's grace, I am allowed to see my wife and children
some day or other."

"Look here, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "by him thou didst swear by just
now I swear thou hast the most limited understanding that any squire in
the world has or ever had. Is it possible that all this time thou hast
been going about with me thou hast never found out that all things
belonging to knights-errant seem to be illusions and nonsense and
ravings, and to go always by contraries? And not because it really is so,
but because there is always a swarm of enchanters in attendance upon us
that change and alter everything with us, and turn things as they please,
and according as they are disposed to aid or destroy us; thus what seems
to thee a barber's basin seems to me Mambrino's helmet, and to another it
will seem something else; and rare foresight it was in the sage who is on
my side to make what is really and truly Mambrine's helmet seem a basin
to everybody, for, being held in such estimation as it is, all the world
would pursue me to rob me of it; but when they see it is only a barber's
basin they do not take the trouble to obtain it; as was plainly shown by
him who tried to break it, and left it on the ground without taking it,
for, by my faith, had he known it he would never have left it behind.
Keep it safe, my friend, for just now I have no need of it; indeed, I
shall have to take off all this armour and remain as naked as I was born,
if I have a mind to follow Roland rather than Amadis in my penance."

Thus talking they reached the foot of a high mountain which stood like an
isolated peak among the others that surrounded it. Past its base there
flowed a gentle brook, all around it spread a meadow so green and
luxuriant that it was a delight to the eyes to look upon it, and forest
trees in abundance, and shrubs and flowers, added to the charms of the
spot. Upon this place the Knight of the Rueful Countenance fixed his
choice for the performance of his penance, and as he beheld it exclaimed
in a loud voice as though he were out of his senses:

"This is the place, oh, ye heavens, that I select and choose for
bewailing the misfortune in which ye yourselves have plunged me: this is
the spot where the overflowings of mine eyes shall swell the waters of
yon little brook, and my deep and endless sighs shall stir unceasingly
the leaves of these mountain trees, in testimony and token of the pain my
persecuted heart is suffering. Oh, ye rural deities, whoever ye be that
haunt this lone spot, give ear to the complaint of a wretched lover whom
long absence and brooding jealousy have driven to bewail his fate among
these wilds and complain of the hard heart of that fair and ungrateful
one, the end and limit of all human beauty! Oh, ye wood nymphs and
dryads, that dwell in the thickets of the forest, so may the nimble
wanton satyrs by whom ye are vainly wooed never disturb your sweet
repose, help me to lament my hard fate or at least weary not at listening
to it! Oh, Dulcinea del Toboso, day of my night, glory of my pain, guide
of my path, star of my fortune, so may Heaven grant thee in full all thou
seekest of it, bethink thee of the place and condition to which absence
from thee has brought me, and make that return in kindness that is due to
my fidelity! Oh, lonely trees, that from this day forward shall bear me
company in my solitude, give me some sign by the gentle movement of your
boughs that my presence is not distasteful to you! Oh, thou, my squire,
pleasant companion in my prosperous and adverse fortunes, fix well in thy
memory what thou shalt see me do here, so that thou mayest relate and
report it to the sole cause of all," and so saying he dismounted from
Rocinante, and in an instant relieved him of saddle and bridle, and
giving him a slap on the croup, said, "He gives thee freedom who is
bereft of it himself, oh steed as excellent in deed as thou art
unfortunate in thy lot; begone where thou wilt, for thou bearest written
on thy forehead that neither Astolfo's hippogriff, nor the famed Frontino
that cost Bradamante so dear, could equal thee in speed."

Seeing this Sancho said, "Good luck to him who has saved us the trouble
of stripping the pack-saddle off Dapple! By my faith he would not have
gone without a slap on the croup and something said in his praise; though
if he were here I would not let anyone strip him, for there would be no
occasion, as he had nothing of the lover or victim of despair about him,
inasmuch as his master, which I was while it was God's pleasure, was
nothing of the sort; and indeed, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, if
my departure and your worship's madness are to come off in earnest, it
will be as well to saddle Rocinante again in order that he may supply the
want of Dapple, because it will save me time in going and returning: for
if I go on foot I don't know when I shall get there or when I shall get
back, as I am, in truth, a bad walker."

"I declare, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "it shall be as thou wilt, for
thy plan does not seem to me a bad one, and three days hence thou wilt
depart, for I wish thee to observe in the meantime what I do and say for
her sake, that thou mayest be able to tell it."

"But what more have I to see besides what I have seen?" said Sancho.

"Much thou knowest about it!" said Don Quixote. "I have now got to tear
up my garments, to scatter about my armour, knock my head against these
rocks, and more of the same sort of thing, which thou must witness."

"For the love of God," said Sancho, "be careful, your worship, how you
give yourself those knocks on the head, for you may come across such a
rock, and in such a way, that the very first may put an end to the whole
contrivance of this penance; and I should think, if indeed knocks on the
head seem necessary to you, and this business cannot be done without
them, you might be content--as the whole thing is feigned, and
counterfeit, and in joke--you might be content, I say, with giving them
to yourself in the water, or against something soft, like cotton; and
leave it all to me; for I'll tell my lady that your worship knocked your
head against a point of rock harder than a diamond."

"I thank thee for thy good intentions, friend Sancho," answered Don
Quixote, "but I would have thee know that all these things I am doing are
not in joke, but very much in earnest, for anything else would be a
transgression of the ordinances of chivalry, which forbid us to tell any
lie whatever under the penalties due to apostasy; and to do one thing
instead of another is just the same as lying; so my knocks on the head
must be real, solid, and valid, without anything sophisticated or
fanciful about them, and it will be needful to leave me some lint to
dress my wounds, since fortune has compelled us to do without the balsam
we lost."

"It was worse losing the ass," replied Sancho, "for with him lint and all
were lost; but I beg of your worship not to remind me again of that
accursed liquor, for my soul, not to say my stomach, turns at hearing the
very name of it; and I beg of you, too, to reckon as past the three days
you allowed me for seeing the mad things you do, for I take them as seen
already and pronounced upon, and I will tell wonderful stories to my
lady; so write the letter and send me off at once, for I long to return
and take your worship out of this purgatory where I am leaving you."

"Purgatory dost thou call it, Sancho?" said Don Quixote, "rather call it
hell, or even worse if there be anything worse."

"For one who is in hell," said Sancho, "nulla est retentio, as I have
heard say."

"I do not understand what retentio means," said Don Quixote.

"Retentio," answered Sancho, "means that whoever is in hell never comes
nor can come out of it, which will be the opposite case with your worship
or my legs will be idle, that is if I have spurs to enliven Rocinante:
let me once get to El Toboso and into the presence of my lady Dulcinea,
and I will tell her such things of the follies and madnesses (for it is
all one) that your worship has done and is still doing, that I will
manage to make her softer than a glove though I find her harder than a
cork tree; and with her sweet and honeyed answer I will come back through
the air like a witch, and take your worship out of this purgatory that
seems to be hell but is not, as there is hope of getting out of it;
which, as I have said, those in hell have not, and I believe your worship
will not say anything to the contrary."

"That is true," said he of the Rueful Countenance, "but how shall we
manage to write the letter?"

"And the ass-colt order too," added Sancho.

"All shall be included," said Don Quixote; "and as there is no paper, it
would be well done to write it on the leaves of trees, as the ancients
did, or on tablets of wax; though that would be as hard to find just now
as paper. But it has just occurred to me how it may be conveniently and
even more than conveniently written, and that is in the note-book that
belonged to Cardenio, and thou wilt take care to have it copied on paper,
in a good hand, at the first village thou comest to where there is a
schoolmaster, or if not, any sacristan will copy it; but see thou give it
not to any notary to copy, for they write a law hand that Satan could not
make out."

"But what is to be done about the signature?" said Sancho.

"The letters of Amadis were never signed," said Don Quixote.

"That is all very well," said Sancho, "but the order must needs be
signed, and if it is copied they will say the signature is false, and I
shall be left without ass-colts."

"The order shall go signed in the same book," said Don Quixote, "and on
seeing it my niece will make no difficulty about obeying it; as to the
loveletter thou canst put by way of signature, 'Yours till death, the
Knight of the Rueful Countenance.' And it will be no great matter if it
is in some other person's hand, for as well as I recollect Dulcinea can
neither read nor write, nor in the whole course of her life has she seen
handwriting or letter of mine, for my love and hers have been always
platonic, not going beyond a modest look, and even that so seldom that I
can safely swear I have not seen her four times in all these twelve years
I have been loving her more than the light of these eyes that the earth
will one day devour; and perhaps even of those four times she has not
once perceived that I was looking at her: such is the retirement and
seclusion in which her father Lorenzo Corchuelo and her mother Aldonza
Nogales have brought her up."

"So, so!" said Sancho; "Lorenzo Corchuelo's daughter is the lady Dulcinea
del Toboso, otherwise called Aldonza Lorenzo?"

"She it is," said Don Quixote, "and she it is that is worthy to be lady
of the whole universe."

"I know her well," said Sancho, "and let me tell you she can fling a
crowbar as well as the lustiest lad in all the town. Giver of all good!
but she is a brave lass, and a right and stout one, and fit to be
helpmate to any knight-errant that is or is to be, who may make her his
lady: the whoreson wench, what sting she has and what a voice! I can tell
you one day she posted herself on the top of the belfry of the village to
call some labourers of theirs that were in a ploughed field of her
father's, and though they were better than half a league off they heard
her as well as if they were at the foot of the tower; and the best of her
is that she is not a bit prudish, for she has plenty of affability, and
jokes with everybody, and has a grin and a jest for everything. So, Sir
Knight of the Rueful Countenance, I say you not only may and ought to do
mad freaks for her sake, but you have a good right to give way to despair
and hang yourself; and no one who knows of it but will say you did well,
though the devil should take you; and I wish I were on my road already,
simply to see her, for it is many a day since I saw her, and she must be
altered by this time, for going about the fields always, and the sun and
the air spoil women's looks greatly. But I must own the truth to your
worship, Senor Don Quixote; until now I have been under a great mistake,
for I believed truly and honestly that the lady Dulcinea must be some
princess your worship was in love with, or some person great enough to
deserve the rich presents you have sent her, such as the Biscayan and the
galley slaves, and many more no doubt, for your worship must have won
many victories in the time when I was not yet your squire. But all things
considered, what good can it do the lady Aldonza Lorenzo, I mean the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, to have the vanquished your worship sends or will
send coming to her and going down on their knees before her? Because may
be when they came she'd be hackling flax or threshing on the threshing
floor, and they'd be ashamed to see her, and she'd laugh, or resent the
present."

"I have before now told thee many times, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that
thou art a mighty great chatterer, and that with a blunt wit thou art
always striving at sharpness; but to show thee what a fool thou art and
how rational I am, I would have thee listen to a short story. Thou must
know that a certain widow, fair, young, independent, and rich, and above
all free and easy, fell in love with a sturdy strapping young
lay-brother; his superior came to know of it, and one day said to the
worthy widow by way of brotherly remonstrance, 'I am surprised, senora,
and not without good reason, that a woman of such high standing, so fair,
and so rich as you are, should have fallen in love with such a mean, low,
stupid fellow as So-and-so, when in this house there are so many masters,
graduates, and divinity students from among whom you might choose as if
they were a lot of pears, saying this one I'll take, that I won't take;'
but she replied to him with great sprightliness and candour, 'My dear
sir, you are very much mistaken, and your ideas are very old-fashioned,
if you think that I have made a bad choice in So-and-so, fool as he
seems; because for all I want with him he knows as much and more
philosophy than Aristotle.' In the same way, Sancho, for all I want with
Dulcinea del Toboso she is just as good as the most exalted princess on
earth. It is not to be supposed that all those poets who sang the praises
of ladies under the fancy names they give them, had any such mistresses.
Thinkest thou that the Amarillises, the Phillises, the Sylvias, the
Dianas, the Galateas, the Filidas, and all the rest of them, that the
books, the ballads, the barber's shops, the theatres are full of, were
really and truly ladies of flesh and blood, and mistresses of those that
glorify and have glorified them? Nothing of the kind; they only invent
them for the most part to furnish a subject for their verses, and that
they may pass for lovers, or for men valiant enough to be so; and so it
suffices me to think and believe that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is fair
and virtuous; and as to her pedigree it is very little matter, for no one
will examine into it for the purpose of conferring any order upon her,
and I, for my part, reckon her the most exalted princess in the world.
For thou shouldst know, Sancho, if thou dost not know, that two things
alone beyond all others are incentives to love, and these are great
beauty and a good name, and these two things are to be found in Dulcinea
in the highest degree, for in beauty no one equals her and in good name
few approach her; and to put the whole thing in a nutshell, I persuade
myself that all I say is as I say, neither more nor less, and I picture
her in my imagination as I would have her to be, as well in beauty as in
condition; Helen approaches her not nor does Lucretia come up to her, nor
any other of the famous women of times past, Greek, Barbarian, or Latin;
and let each say what he will, for if in this I am taken to task by the
ignorant, I shall not be censured by the critical."

"I say that your worship is entirely right," said Sancho, "and that I am
an ass. But I know not how the name of ass came into my mouth, for a rope
is not to be mentioned in the house of him who has been hanged; but now
for the letter, and then, God be with you, I am off."

Don Quixote took out the note-book, and, retiring to one side, very
deliberately began to write the letter, and when he had finished it he
called to Sancho, saying he wished to read it to him, so that he might
commit it to memory, in case of losing it on the road; for with evil
fortune like his anything might be apprehended. To which Sancho replied,
"Write it two or three times there in the book and give it to me, and I
will carry it very carefully, because to expect me to keep it in my
memory is all nonsense, for I have such a bad one that I often forget my
own name; but for all that repeat it to me, as I shall like to hear it,
for surely it will run as if it was in print."

"Listen," said Don Quixote, "this is what it says:


"DON QUIXOTE'S LETTER TO DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO

"Sovereign and exalted Lady,--The pierced by the point of absence, the
wounded to the heart's core, sends thee, sweetest Dulcinea del Toboso,
the health that he himself enjoys not. If thy beauty despises me, if thy
worth is not for me, if thy scorn is my affliction, though I be
sufficiently long-suffering, hardly shall I endure this anxiety, which,
besides being oppressive, is protracted. My good squire Sancho will
relate to thee in full, fair ingrate, dear enemy, the condition to which
I am reduced on thy account: if it be thy pleasure to give me relief, I
am thine; if not, do as may be pleasing to thee; for by ending my life I
shall satisfy thy cruelty and my desire.

"Thine till death,

"The Knight of the Rueful Countenance."


"By the life of my father," said Sancho, when he heard the letter, "it is
the loftiest thing I ever heard. Body of me! how your worship says
everything as you like in it! And how well you fit in 'The Knight of the
Rueful Countenance' into the signature. I declare your worship is indeed
the very devil, and there is nothing you don't know."

"Everything is needed for the calling I follow," said Don Quixote.

"Now then," said Sancho, "let your worship put the order for the three
ass-colts on the other side, and sign it very plainly, that they may
recognise it at first sight."

"With all my heart," said Don Quixote, and as he had written it he read
it to this effect:

"Mistress Niece,--By this first of ass-colts please pay to Sancho Panza,
my squire, three of the five I left at home in your charge: said three
ass-colts to be paid and delivered for the same number received here in
hand, which upon this and upon his receipt shall be duly paid. Done in
the heart of the Sierra Morena, the twenty-seventh of August of this
present year."

"That will do," said Sancho; "now let your worship sign it."

"There is no need to sign it," said Don Quixote, "but merely to put my
flourish, which is the same as a signature, and enough for three asses,
or even three hundred."

"I can trust your worship," returned Sancho; "let me go and saddle
Rocinante, and be ready to give me your blessing, for I mean to go at
once without seeing the fooleries your worship is going to do; I'll say I
saw you do so many that she will not want any more."

"At any rate, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "I should like--and there is
reason for it--I should like thee, I say, to see me stripped to the skin
and performing a dozen or two of insanities, which I can get done in less
than half an hour; for having seen them with thine own eyes, thou canst
then safely swear to the rest that thou wouldst add; and I promise thee
thou wilt not tell of as many as I mean to perform."

"For the love of God, master mine," said Sancho, "let me not see your
worship stripped, for it will sorely grieve me, and I shall not be able
to keep from tears, and my head aches so with all I shed last night for
Dapple, that I am not fit to begin any fresh weeping; but if it is your
worship's pleasure that I should see some insanities, do them in your
clothes, short ones, and such as come readiest to hand; for I myself want
nothing of the sort, and, as I have said, it will be a saving of time for
my return, which will be with the news your worship desires and deserves.
If not, let the lady Dulcinea look to it; if she does not answer
reasonably, I swear as solemnly as I can that I will fetch a fair answer
out of her stomach with kicks and cuffs; for why should it be borne that
a knight-errant as famous as your worship should go mad without rhyme or
reason for a--? Her ladyship had best not drive me to say it, for by God
I will speak out and let off everything cheap, even if it doesn't sell: I
am pretty good at that! she little knows me; faith, if she knew me she'd
be in awe of me."

"In faith, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "to all appearance thou art no
sounder in thy wits than I."

"I am not so mad," answered Sancho, "but I am more peppery; but apart
from all this, what has your worship to eat until I come back? Will you
sally out on the road like Cardenio to force it from the shepherds?"

"Let not that anxiety trouble thee," replied Don Quixote, "for even if I
had it I should not eat anything but the herbs and the fruits which this
meadow and these trees may yield me; the beauty of this business of mine
lies in not eating, and in performing other mortifications."

"Do you know what I am afraid of?" said Sancho upon this; "that I shall
not be able to find my way back to this spot where I am leaving you, it
is such an out-of-the-way place."

"Observe the landmarks well," said Don Quixote, "for I will try not to go
far from this neighbourhood, and I will even take care to mount the
highest of these rocks to see if I can discover thee returning; however,
not to miss me and lose thyself, the best plan will be to cut some
branches of the broom that is so abundant about here, and as thou goest
to lay them at intervals until thou hast come out upon the plain; these
will serve thee, after the fashion of the clue in the labyrinth of
Theseus, as marks and signs for finding me on thy return."

"So I will," said Sancho Panza, and having cut some, he asked his
master's blessing, and not without many tears on both sides, took his
leave of him, and mounting Rocinante, of whom Don Quixote charged him
earnestly to have as much care as of his own person, he set out for the
plain, strewing at intervals the branches of broom as his master had
recommended him; and so he went his way, though Don Quixote still
entreated him to see him do were it only a couple of mad acts. He had not
gone a hundred paces, however, when he returned and said:

"I must say, senor, your worship said quite right, that in order to be
able to swear without a weight on my conscience that I had seen you do
mad things, it would be well for me to see if it were only one; though in
your worship's remaining here I have seen a very great one."

"Did I not tell thee so?" said Don Quixote. "Wait, Sancho, and I will do
them in the saying of a credo," and pulling off his breeches in all haste
he stripped himself to his skin and his shirt, and then, without more
ado, he cut a couple of gambados in the air, and a couple of somersaults,
heels over head, making such a display that, not to see it a second time,
Sancho wheeled Rocinante round, and felt easy, and satisfied in his mind
that he could swear he had left his master mad; and so we will leave him
to follow his road until his return, which was a quick one.




CHAPTER XXVI.

IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE REFINEMENTS WHEREWITH DON QUIXOTE PLAYED THE
PART OF A LOVER IN THE SIERRA MORENA


Returning to the proceedings of him of the Rueful Countenance when he
found himself alone, the history says that when Don Quixote had completed
the performance of the somersaults or capers, naked from the waist down
and clothed from the waist up, and saw that Sancho had gone off without
waiting to see any more crazy feats, he climbed up to the top of a high
rock, and there set himself to consider what he had several times before
considered without ever coming to any conclusion on the point, namely
whether it would be better and more to his purpose to imitate the
outrageous madness of Roland, or the melancholy madness of Amadis; and
communing with himself he said:

"What wonder is it if Roland was so good a knight and so valiant as
everyone says he was, when, after all, he was enchanted, and nobody could
kill him save by thrusting a corking pin into the sole of his foot, and
he always wore shoes with seven iron soles? Though cunning devices did
not avail him against Bernardo del Carpio, who knew all about them, and
strangled him in his arms at Roncesvalles. But putting the question of
his valour aside, let us come to his losing his wits, for certain it is
that he did lose them in consequence of the proofs he discovered at the
fountain, and the intelligence the shepherd gave him of Angelica having
slept more than two siestas with Medoro, a little curly-headed Moor, and
page to Agramante. If he was persuaded that this was true, and that his
lady had wronged him, it is no wonder that he should have gone mad; but
I, how am I to imitate him in his madness, unless I can imitate him in
the cause of it? For my Dulcinea, I will venture to swear, never saw a
Moor in her life, as he is, in his proper costume, and she is this day as
the mother that bore her, and I should plainly be doing her a wrong if,
fancying anything else, I were to go mad with the same kind of madness as
Roland the Furious. On the other hand, I see that Amadis of Gaul, without
losing his senses and without doing anything mad, acquired as a lover as
much fame as the most famous; for, according to his history, on finding
himself rejected by his lady Oriana, who had ordered him not to appear in
her presence until it should be her pleasure, all he did was to retire to
the Pena Pobre in company with a hermit, and there he took his fill of
weeping until Heaven sent him relief in the midst of his great grief and
need. And if this be true, as it is, why should I now take the trouble to
strip stark naked, or do mischief to these trees which have done me no
harm, or why am I to disturb the clear waters of these brooks which will
give me to drink whenever I have a mind? Long live the memory of Amadis
and let him be imitated so far as is possible by Don Quixote of La
Mancha, of whom it will be said, as was said of the other, that if he did
not achieve great things, he died in attempting them; and if I am not
repulsed or rejected by my Dulcinea, it is enough for me, as I have said,
to be absent from her. And so, now to business; come to my memory ye
deeds of Amadis, and show me how I am to begin to imitate you. I know
already that what he chiefly did was to pray and commend himself to God;
but what am I to do for a rosary, for I have not got one?"

And then it occurred to him how he might make one, and that was by
tearing a great strip off the tail of his shirt which hung down, and
making eleven knots on it, one bigger than the rest, and this served him
for a rosary all the time he was there, during which he repeated
countless ave-marias. But what distressed him greatly was not having
another hermit there to confess him and receive consolation from; and so
he solaced himself with pacing up and down the little meadow, and writing
and carving on the bark of the trees and on the fine sand a multitude of
verses all in harmony with his sadness, and some in praise of Dulcinea;
but, when he was found there afterwards, the only ones completely legible
that could be discovered were those that follow here:

Ye on the mountain side that grow,
  Ye green things all, trees, shrubs, and bushes,
Are ye aweary of the woe
  That this poor aching bosom crushes?
If it disturb you, and I owe
    Some reparation, it may be a
Defence for me to let you know
Don Quixote's tears are on the flow,
    And all for distant Dulcinea
                         Del Toboso.

The lealest lover time can show,
  Doomed for a lady-love to languish,
Among these solitudes doth go,
  A prey to every kind of anguish.
Why Love should like a spiteful foe
  Thus use him, he hath no idea,
But hogsheads full--this doth he know--
Don Quixote's tears are on the flow,
    And all for distant Dulcinea
                       Del Toboso.

Adventure-seeking doth he go
  Up rugged heights, down rocky valleys,
But hill or dale, or high or low,
  Mishap attendeth all his sallies:
Love still pursues him to and fro,
  And plies his cruel scourge--ah me! a
Relentless fate, an endless woe;
Don Quixote's tears are on the flow,
    And all for distant Dulcinea
                       Del Toboso.

The addition of "Del Toboso" to Dulcinea's name gave rise to no little
laughter among those who found the above lines, for they suspected Don
Quixote must have fancied that unless he added "del Toboso" when he
introduced the name of Dulcinea the verse would be unintelligible; which
was indeed the fact, as he himself afterwards admitted. He wrote many
more, but, as has been said, these three verses were all that could be
plainly and perfectly deciphered. In this way, and in sighing and calling
on the fauns and satyrs of the woods and the nymphs of the streams, and
Echo, moist and mournful, to answer, console, and hear him, as well as in
looking for herbs to sustain him, he passed his time until Sancho's
return; and had that been delayed three weeks, as it was three days, the
Knight of the Rueful Countenance would have worn such an altered
countenance that the mother that bore him would not have known him: and
here it will be well to leave him, wrapped up in sighs and verses, to
relate how Sancho Panza fared on his mission.

As for him, coming out upon the high road, he made for El Toboso, and the
next day reached the inn where the mishap of the blanket had befallen
him. As soon as he recognised it he felt as if he were once more living
through the air, and he could not bring himself to enter it though it was
an hour when he might well have done so, for it was dinner-time, and he
longed to taste something hot as it had been all cold fare with him for
many days past. This craving drove him to draw near to the inn, still
undecided whether to go in or not, and as he was hesitating there came
out two persons who at once recognised him, and said one to the other:

"Senor licentiate, is not he on the horse there Sancho Panza who, our
adventurer's housekeeper told us, went off with her master as esquire?"

"So it is," said the licentiate, "and that is our friend Don Quixote's
horse;" and if they knew him so well it was because they were the curate
and the barber of his own village, the same who had carried out the
scrutiny and sentence upon the books; and as soon as they recognised
Sancho Panza and Rocinante, being anxious to hear of Don Quixote, they
approached, and calling him by his name the curate said, "Friend Sancho
Panza, where is your master?"

Sancho recognised them at once, and determined to keep secret the place
and circumstances where and under which he had left his master, so he
replied that his master was engaged in a certain quarter on a certain
matter of great importance to him which he could not disclose for the
eyes in his head.

"Nay, nay," said the barber, "if you don't tell us where he is, Sancho
Panza, we will suspect as we suspect already, that you have murdered and
robbed him, for here you are mounted on his horse; in fact, you must
produce the master of the hack, or else take the consequences."

"There is no need of threats with me," said Sancho, "for I am not a man
to rob or murder anybody; let his own fate, or God who made him, kill
each one; my master is engaged very much to his taste doing penance in
the midst of these mountains;" and then, offhand and without stopping, he
told them how he had left him, what adventures had befallen him, and how
he was carrying a letter to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, the daughter of
Lorenzo Corchuelo, with whom he was over head and ears in love. They were
both amazed at what Sancho Panza told them; for though they were aware of
Don Quixote's madness and the nature of it, each time they heard of it
they were filled with fresh wonder. They then asked Sancho Panza to show
them the letter he was carrying to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. He said
it was written in a note-book, and that his master's directions were that
he should have it copied on paper at the first village he came to. On
this the curate said if he showed it to him, he himself would make a fair
copy of it. Sancho put his hand into his bosom in search of the note-book
but could not find it, nor, if he had been searching until now, could he
have found it, for Don Quixote had kept it, and had never given it to
him, nor had he himself thought of asking for it. When Sancho discovered
he could not find the book his face grew deadly pale, and in great haste
he again felt his body all over, and seeing plainly it was not to be
found, without more ado he seized his beard with both hands and plucked
away half of it, and then, as quick as he could and without stopping,
gave himself half a dozen cuffs on the face and nose till they were
bathed in blood.

Seeing this, the curate and the barber asked him what had happened him
that he gave himself such rough treatment.

"What should happen me?" replied Sancho, "but to have lost from one hand
to the other, in a moment, three ass-colts, each of them like a castle?"

"How is that?" said the barber.

"I have lost the note-book," said Sancho, "that contained the letter to
Dulcinea, and an order signed by my master in which he directed his niece
to give me three ass-colts out of four or five he had at home;" and he
then told them about the loss of Dapple.

The curate consoled him, telling him that when his master was found he
would get him to renew the order, and make a fresh draft on paper, as was
usual and customary; for those made in notebooks were never accepted or
honoured.

Sancho comforted himself with this, and said if that were so the loss of
Dulcinea's letter did not trouble him much, for he had it almost by
heart, and it could be taken down from him wherever and whenever they
liked.

"Repeat it then, Sancho," said the barber, "and we will write it down
afterwards."

Sancho Panza stopped to scratch his head to bring back the letter to his
memory, and balanced himself now on one foot, now the other, one moment
staring at the ground, the next at the sky, and after having half gnawed
off the end of a finger and kept them in suspense waiting for him to
begin, he said, after a long pause, "By God, senor licentiate, devil a
thing can I recollect of the letter; but it said at the beginning,
'Exalted and scrubbing Lady.'"

"It cannot have said 'scrubbing,'" said the barber, "but 'superhuman' or
'sovereign.'"

"That is it," said Sancho; "then, as well as I remember, it went on, 'The
wounded, and wanting of sleep, and the pierced, kisses your worship's
hands, ungrateful and very unrecognised fair one; and it said something
or other about health and sickness that he was sending her; and from that
it went tailing off until it ended with 'Yours till death, the Knight of
the Rueful Countenance."

It gave them no little amusement, both of them, to see what a good memory
Sancho had, and they complimented him greatly upon it, and begged him to
repeat the letter a couple of times more, so that they too might get it
by heart to write it out by-and-by. Sancho repeated it three times, and
as he did, uttered three thousand more absurdities; then he told them
more about his master but he never said a word about the blanketing that
had befallen himself in that inn, into which he refused to enter. He told
them, moreover, how his lord, if he brought him a favourable answer from
the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, was to put himself in the way of
endeavouring to become an emperor, or at least a monarch; for it had been
so settled between them, and with his personal worth and the might of his
arm it was an easy matter to come to be one: and how on becoming one his
lord was to make a marriage for him (for he would be a widower by that
time, as a matter of course) and was to give him as a wife one of the
damsels of the empress, the heiress of some rich and grand state on the
mainland, having nothing to do with islands of any sort, for he did not
care for them now. All this Sancho delivered with so much
composure--wiping his nose from time to time--and with so little
common-sense that his two hearers were again filled with wonder at the
force of Don Quixote's madness that could run away with this poor man's
reason. They did not care to take the trouble of disabusing him of his
error, as they considered that since it did not in any way hurt his
conscience it would be better to leave him in it, and they would have all
the more amusement in listening to his simplicities; and so they bade him
pray to God for his lord's health, as it was a very likely and a very
feasible thing for him in course of time to come to be an emperor, as he
said, or at least an archbishop or some other dignitary of equal rank.

To which Sancho made answer, "If fortune, sirs, should bring things about
in such a way that my master should have a mind, instead of being an
emperor, to be an archbishop, I should like to know what
archbishops-errant commonly give their squires?"

"They commonly give them," said the curate, some simple benefice or cure,
or some place as sacristan which brings them a good fixed income, not
counting the altar fees, which may be reckoned at as much more."

"But for that," said Sancho, "the squire must be unmarried, and must
know, at any rate, how to help at mass, and if that be so, woe is me, for
I am married already and I don't know the first letter of the A B C. What
will become of me if my master takes a fancy to be an archbishop and not
an emperor, as is usual and customary with knights-errant?"

"Be not uneasy, friend Sancho," said the barber, "for we will entreat
your master, and advise him, even urging it upon him as a case of
conscience, to become an emperor and not an archbishop, because it will
be easier for him as he is more valiant than lettered."

"So I have thought," said Sancho; "though I can tell you he is fit for
anything: what I mean to do for my part is to pray to our Lord to place
him where it may be best for him, and where he may be able to bestow most
favours upon me."

"You speak like a man of sense," said the curate, "and you will be acting
like a good Christian; but what must now be done is to take steps to coax
your master out of that useless penance you say he is performing; and we
had best turn into this inn to consider what plan to adopt, and also to
dine, for it is now time."

Sancho said they might go in, but that he would wait there outside, and
that he would tell them afterwards the reason why he was unwilling, and
why it did not suit him to enter it; but he begged them to bring him out
something to eat, and to let it be hot, and also to bring barley for
Rocinante. They left him and went in, and presently the barber brought
him out something to eat. By-and-by, after they had between them
carefully thought over what they should do to carry out their object, the
curate hit upon an idea very well adapted to humour Don Quixote, and
effect their purpose; and his notion, which he explained to the barber,
was that he himself should assume the disguise of a wandering damsel,
while the other should try as best he could to pass for a squire, and
that they should thus proceed to where Don Quixote was, and he,
pretending to be an aggrieved and distressed damsel, should ask a favour
of him, which as a valiant knight-errant he could not refuse to grant;
and the favour he meant to ask him was that he should accompany her
whither she would conduct him, in order to redress a wrong which a wicked
knight had done her, while at the same time she should entreat him not to
require her to remove her mask, nor ask her any question touching her
circumstances until he had righted her with the wicked knight. And he had
no doubt that Don Quixote would comply with any request made in these
terms, and that in this way they might remove him and take him to his own
village, where they would endeavour to find out if his extraordinary
madness admitted of any kind of remedy.




CHAPTER XXVII.

OF HOW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER PROCEEDED WITH THEIR SCHEME; TOGETHER
WITH OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF RECORD IN THIS GREAT HISTORY


The curate's plan did not seem a bad one to the barber, but on the
contrary so good that they immediately set about putting it in execution.
They begged a petticoat and hood of the landlady, leaving her in pledge a
new cassock of the curate's; and the barber made a beard out of a
grey-brown or red ox-tail in which the landlord used to stick his comb.
The landlady asked them what they wanted these things for, and the curate
told her in a few words about the madness of Don Quixote, and how this
disguise was intended to get him away from the mountain where he then
was. The landlord and landlady immediately came to the conclusion that
the madman was their guest, the balsam man and master of the blanketed
squire, and they told the curate all that had passed between him and
them, not omitting what Sancho had been so silent about. Finally the
landlady dressed up the curate in a style that left nothing to be
desired; she put on him a cloth petticoat with black velvet stripes a
palm broad, all slashed, and a bodice of green velvet set off by a
binding of white satin, which as well as the petticoat must have been
made in the time of king Wamba. The curate would not let them hood him,
but put on his head a little quilted linen cap which he used for a
night-cap, and bound his forehead with a strip of black silk, while with
another he made a mask with which he concealed his beard and face very
well. He then put on his hat, which was broad enough to serve him for an
umbrella, and enveloping himself in his cloak seated himself
woman-fashion on his mule, while the barber mounted his with a beard down
to the waist of mingled red and white, for it was, as has been said, the
tail of a clay-red ox.

They took leave of all, and of the good Maritornes, who, sinner as she
was, promised to pray a rosary of prayers that God might grant them
success in such an arduous and Christian undertaking as that they had in
hand. But hardly had he sallied forth from the inn when it struck the
curate that he was doing wrong in rigging himself out in that fashion, as
it was an indecorous thing for a priest to dress himself that way even
though much might depend upon it; and saying so to the barber he begged
him to change dresses, as it was fitter he should be the distressed
damsel, while he himself would play the squire's part, which would be
less derogatory to his dignity; otherwise he was resolved to have nothing
more to do with the matter, and let the devil take Don Quixote. Just at
this moment Sancho came up, and on seeing the pair in such a costume he
was unable to restrain his laughter; the barber, however, agreed to do as
the curate wished, and, altering their plan, the curate went on to
instruct him how to play his part and what to say to Don Quixote to
induce and compel him to come with them and give up his fancy for the
place he had chosen for his idle penance. The barber told him he could
manage it properly without any instruction, and as he did not care to
dress himself up until they were near where Don Quixote was, he folded up
the garments, and the curate adjusted his beard, and they set out under
the guidance of Sancho Panza, who went along telling them of the
encounter with the madman they met in the Sierra, saying nothing,
however, about the finding of the valise and its contents; for with all
his simplicity the lad was a trifle covetous.

The next day they reached the place where Sancho had laid the
broom-branches as marks to direct him to where he had left his master,
and recognising it he told them that here was the entrance, and that they
would do well to dress themselves, if that was required to deliver his
master; for they had already told him that going in this guise and
dressing in this way were of the highest importance in order to rescue
his master from the pernicious life he had adopted; and they charged him
strictly not to tell his master who they were, or that he knew them, and
should he ask, as ask he would, if he had given the letter to Dulcinea,
to say that he had, and that, as she did not know how to read, she had
given an answer by word of mouth, saying that she commanded him, on pain
of her displeasure, to come and see her at once; and it was a very
important matter for himself, because in this way and with what they
meant to say to him they felt sure of bringing him back to a better mode
of life and inducing him to take immediate steps to become an emperor or
monarch, for there was no fear of his becoming an archbishop. All this
Sancho listened to and fixed it well in his memory, and thanked them
heartily for intending to recommend his master to be an emperor instead
of an archbishop, for he felt sure that in the way of bestowing rewards
on their squires emperors could do more than archbishops-errant. He said,
too, that it would be as well for him to go on before them to find him,
and give him his lady's answer; for that perhaps might be enough to bring
him away from the place without putting them to all this trouble. They
approved of what Sancho proposed, and resolved to wait for him until he
brought back word of having found his master.

Sancho pushed on into the glens of the Sierra, leaving them in one
through which there flowed a little gentle rivulet, and where the rocks
and trees afforded a cool and grateful shade. It was an August day with
all the heat of one, and the heat in those parts is intense, and the hour
was three in the afternoon, all which made the spot the more inviting and
tempted them to wait there for Sancho's return, which they did. They were
reposing, then, in the shade, when a voice unaccompanied by the notes of
any instrument, but sweet and pleasing in its tone, reached their ears,
at which they were not a little astonished, as the place did not seem to
them likely quarters for one who sang so well; for though it is often
said that shepherds of rare voice are to be found in the woods and
fields, this is rather a flight of the poet's fancy than the truth. And
still more surprised were they when they perceived that what they heard
sung were the verses not of rustic shepherds, but of the polished wits of
the city; and so it proved, for the verses they heard were these:

What makes my quest of happiness seem vain?
    Disdain.
What bids me to abandon hope of ease?
    Jealousies.
What holds my heart in anguish of suspense?
    Absence.
  If that be so, then for my grief
  Where shall I turn to seek relief,
  When hope on every side lies slain
  By Absence, Jealousies, Disdain?

What the prime cause of all my woe doth prove?
    Love.
What at my glory ever looks askance?
    Chance.
Whence is permission to afflict me given?
    Heaven.
  If that be so, I but await
  The stroke of a resistless fate,
  Since, working for my woe, these three,
  Love, Chance and Heaven, in league I see.

What must I do to find a remedy?
    Die.
What is the lure for love when coy and strange?
    Change.
What, if all fail, will cure the heart of sadness?
    Madness.
  If that be so, it is but folly
  To seek a cure for melancholy:
  Ask where it lies; the answer saith
  In Change, in Madness, or in Death.

The hour, the summer season, the solitary place, the voice and skill of
the singer, all contributed to the wonder and delight of the two
listeners, who remained still waiting to hear something more; finding,
however, that the silence continued some little time, they resolved to go
in search of the musician who sang with so fine a voice; but just as they
were about to do so they were checked by the same voice, which once more
fell upon their ears, singing this

SONNET

When heavenward, holy Friendship, thou didst go
  Soaring to seek thy home beyond the sky,
  And take thy seat among the saints on high,
It was thy will to leave on earth below
Thy semblance, and upon it to bestow
  Thy veil, wherewith at times hypocrisy,
  Parading in thy shape, deceives the eye,
And makes its vileness bright as virtue show.
Friendship, return to us, or force the cheat
  That wears it now, thy livery to restore,
    By aid whereof sincerity is slain.
If thou wilt not unmask thy counterfeit,
  This earth will be the prey of strife once more,
    As when primaeval discord held its reign.

The song ended with a deep sigh, and again the listeners remained waiting
attentively for the singer to resume; but perceiving that the music had
now turned to sobs and heart-rending moans they determined to find out
who the unhappy being could be whose voice was as rare as his sighs were
piteous, and they had not proceeded far when on turning the corner of a
rock they discovered a man of the same aspect and appearance as Sancho
had described to them when he told them the story of Cardenio. He,
showing no astonishment when he saw them, stood still with his head bent
down upon his breast like one in deep thought, without raising his eyes
to look at them after the first glance when they suddenly came upon him.
The curate, who was aware of his misfortune and recognised him by the
description, being a man of good address, approached him and in a few
sensible words entreated and urged him to quit a life of such misery,
lest he should end it there, which would be the greatest of all
misfortunes. Cardenio was then in his right mind, free from any attack of
that madness which so frequently carried him away, and seeing them
dressed in a fashion so unusual among the frequenters of those wilds,
could not help showing some surprise, especially when he heard them speak
of his case as if it were a well-known matter (for the curate's words
gave him to understand as much) so he replied to them thus:

"I see plainly, sirs, whoever you may be, that Heaven, whose care it is
to succour the good, and even the wicked very often, here, in this remote
spot, cut off from human intercourse, sends me, though I deserve it not,
those who seek to draw me away from this to some better retreat, showing
me by many and forcible arguments how unreasonably I act in leading the
life I do; but as they know, that if I escape from this evil I shall fall
into another still greater, perhaps they will set me down as a
weak-minded man, or, what is worse, one devoid of reason; nor would it be
any wonder, for I myself can perceive that the effect of the recollection
of my misfortunes is so great and works so powerfully to my ruin, that in
spite of myself I become at times like a stone, without feeling or
consciousness; and I come to feel the truth of it when they tell me and
show me proofs of the things I have done when the terrible fit
overmasters me; and all I can do is bewail my lot in vain, and idly curse
my destiny, and plead for my madness by telling how it was caused, to any
that care to hear it; for no reasonable beings on learning the cause will
wonder at the effects; and if they cannot help me at least they will not
blame me, and the repugnance they feel at my wild ways will turn into
pity for my woes. If it be, sirs, that you are here with the same design
as others have come wah, before you proceed with your wise arguments, I
entreat you to hear the story of my countless misfortunes, for perhaps
when you have heard it you will spare yourselves the trouble you would
take in offering consolation to grief that is beyond the reach of it."

As they, both of them, desired nothing more than to hear from his own
lips the cause of his suffering, they entreated him to tell it, promising
not to do anything for his relief or comfort that he did not wish; and
thereupon the unhappy gentleman began his sad story in nearly the same
words and manner in which he had related it to Don Quixote and the
goatherd a few days before, when, through Master Elisabad, and Don
Quixote's scrupulous observance of what was due to chivalry, the tale was
left unfinished, as this history has already recorded; but now
fortunately the mad fit kept off, allowed him to tell it to the end; and
so, coming to the incident of the note which Don Fernando had found in
the volume of "Amadis of Gaul," Cardenio said that he remembered it
perfectly and that it was in these words:

"Luscinda to Cardenio.

"Every day I discover merits in you that oblige and compel me to hold you
in higher estimation; so if you desire to relieve me of this obligation
without cost to my honour, you may easily do so. I have a father who
knows you and loves me dearly, who without putting any constraint on my
inclination will grant what will be reasonable for you to have, if it be
that you value me as you say and as I believe you do."

"By this letter I was induced, as I told you, to demand Luscinda for my
wife, and it was through it that Luscinda came to be regarded by Don
Fernando as one of the most discreet and prudent women of the day, and
this letter it was that suggested his design of ruining me before mine
could be carried into effect. I told Don Fernando that all Luscinda's
father was waiting for was that mine should ask her of him, which I did
not dare to suggest to him, fearing that he would not consent to do so;
not because he did not know perfectly well the rank, goodness, virtue,
and beauty of Luscinda, and that she had qualities that would do honour
to any family in Spain, but because I was aware that he did not wish me
to marry so soon, before seeing what the Duke Ricardo would do for me. In
short, I told him I did not venture to mention it to my father, as well
on account of that difficulty, as of many others that discouraged me
though I knew not well what they were, only that it seemed to me that
what I desired was never to come to pass. To all this Don Fernando
answered that he would take it upon himself to speak to my father, and
persuade him to speak to Luscinda's father. O, ambitious Marius! O, cruel
Catiline! O, wicked Sylla! O, perfidious Ganelon! O, treacherous Vellido!
O, vindictive Julian! O, covetous Judas! Traitor, cruel, vindictive, and
perfidious, wherein had this poor wretch failed in his fidelity, who with
such frankness showed thee the secrets and the joys of his heart? What
offence did I commit? What words did I utter, or what counsels did I give
that had not the furtherance of thy honour and welfare for their aim?
But, woe is me, wherefore do I complain? for sure it is that when
misfortunes spring from the stars, descending from on high they fall upon
us with such fury and violence that no power on earth can check their
course nor human device stay their coming. Who could have thought that
Don Fernando, a highborn gentleman, intelligent, bound to me by gratitude
for my services, one that could win the object of his love wherever he
might set his affections, could have become so obdurate, as they say, as
to rob me of my one ewe lamb that was not even yet in my possession? But
laying aside these useless and unavailing reflections, let us take up the
broken thread of my unhappy story.

"To proceed, then: Don Fernando finding my presence an obstacle to the
execution of his treacherous and wicked design, resolved to send me to
his elder brother under the pretext of asking money from him to pay for
six horses which, purposely, and with the sole object of sending me away
that he might the better carry out his infernal scheme, he had purchased
the very day he offered to speak to my father, and the price of which he
now desired me to fetch. Could I have anticipated this treachery? Could I
by any chance have suspected it? Nay; so far from that, I offered with
the greatest pleasure to go at once, in my satisfaction at the good
bargain that had been made. That night I spoke with Luscinda, and told
her what had been agreed upon with Don Fernando, and how I had strong
hopes of our fair and reasonable wishes being realised. She, as
unsuspicious as I was of the treachery of Don Fernando, bade me try to
return speedily, as she believed the fulfilment of our desires would be
delayed only so long as my father put off speaking to hers. I know not
why it was that on saying this to me her eyes filled with tears, and
there came a lump in her throat that prevented her from uttering a word
of many more that it seemed to me she was striving to say to me. I was
astonished at this unusual turn, which I never before observed in her.
for we always conversed, whenever good fortune and my ingenuity gave us
the chance, with the greatest gaiety and cheerfulness, mingling tears,
sighs, jealousies, doubts, or fears with our words; it was all on my part
a eulogy of my good fortune that Heaven should have given her to me for
my mistress; I glorified her beauty, I extolled her worth and her
understanding; and she paid me back by praising in me what in her love
for me she thought worthy of praise; and besides we had a hundred
thousand trifles and doings of our neighbours and acquaintances to talk
about, and the utmost extent of my boldness was to take, almost by force,
one of her fair white hands and carry it to my lips, as well as the
closeness of the low grating that separated us allowed me. But the night
before the unhappy day of my departure she wept, she moaned, she sighed,
and she withdrew leaving me filled with perplexity and amazement,
overwhelmed at the sight of such strange and affecting signs of grief and
sorrow in Luscinda; but not to dash my hopes I ascribed it all to the
depth of her love for me and the pain that separation gives those who
love tenderly. At last I took my departure, sad and dejected, my heart
filled with fancies and suspicions, but not knowing well what it was I
suspected or fancied; plain omens pointing to the sad event and
misfortune that was awaiting me.

"I reached the place whither I had been sent, gave the letter to Don
Fernando's brother, and was kindly received but not promptly dismissed,
for he desired me to wait, very much against my will, eight days in some
place where the duke his father was not likely to see me, as his brother
wrote that the money was to be sent without his knowledge; all of which
was a scheme of the treacherous Don Fernando, for his brother had no want
of money to enable him to despatch me at once.

"The command was one that exposed me to the temptation of disobeying it,
as it seemed to me impossible to endure life for so many days separated
from Luscinda, especially after leaving her in the sorrowful mood I have
described to you; nevertheless as a dutiful servant I obeyed, though I
felt it would be at the cost of my well-being. But four days later there
came a man in quest of me with a letter which he gave me, and which by
the address I perceived to be from Luscinda, as the writing was hers. I
opened it with fear and trepidation, persuaded that it must be something
serious that had impelled her to write to me when at a distance, as she
seldom did so when I was near. Before reading it I asked the man who it
was that had given it to him, and how long he had been upon the road; he
told me that as he happened to be passing through one of the streets of
the city at the hour of noon, a very beautiful lady called to him from a
window, and with tears in her eyes said to him hurriedly, 'Brother, if
you are, as you seem to be, a Christian, for the love of God I entreat
you to have this letter despatched without a moment's delay to the place
and person named in the address, all which is well known, and by this you
will render a great service to our Lord; and that you may be at no
inconvenience in doing so take what is in this handkerchief;' and said
he, 'with this she threw me a handkerchief out of the window in which
were tied up a hundred reals and this gold ring which I bring here
together with the letter I have given you. And then without waiting for
any answer she left the window, though not before she saw me take the
letter and the handkerchief, and I had by signs let her know that I would
do as she bade me; and so, seeing myself so well paid for the trouble I
would have in bringing it to you, and knowing by the address that it was
to you it was sent (for, senor, I know you very well), and also unable to
resist that beautiful lady's tears, I resolved to trust no one else, but
to come myself and give it to you, and in sixteen hours from the time
when it was given me I have made the journey, which, as you know, is
eighteen leagues.'

"All the while the good-natured improvised courier was telling me this, I
hung upon his words, my legs trembling under me so that I could scarcely
stand. However, I opened the letter and read these words:

"'The promise Don Fernando gave you to urge your father to speak to mine,
he has fulfilled much more to his own satisfaction than to your
advantage. I have to tell you, senor, that he has demanded me for a wife,
and my father, led away by what he considers Don Fernando's superiority
over you, has favoured his suit so cordially, that in two days hence the
betrothal is to take place with such secrecy and so privately that the
only witnesses are to be the Heavens above and a few of the household.
Picture to yourself the state I am in; judge if it be urgent for you to
come; the issue of the affair will show you whether I love you or not.
God grant this may come to your hand before mine shall be forced to link
itself with his who keeps so ill the faith that he has pledged.'

"Such, in brief, were the words of the letter, words that made me set out
at once without waiting any longer for reply or money; for I now saw
clearly that it was not the purchase of horses but of his own pleasure
that had made Don Fernando send me to his brother. The exasperation I
felt against Don Fernando, joined with the fear of losing the prize I had
won by so many years of love and devotion, lent me wings; so that almost
flying I reached home the same day, by the hour which served for speaking
with Luscinda. I arrived unobserved, and left the mule on which I had
come at the house of the worthy man who had brought me the letter, and
fortune was pleased to be for once so kind that I found Luscinda at the
grating that was the witness of our loves. She recognised me at once, and
I her, but not as she ought to have recognised me, or I her. But who is
there in the world that can boast of having fathomed or understood the
wavering mind and unstable nature of a woman? Of a truth no one. To
proceed: as soon as Luscinda saw me she said, 'Cardenio, I am in my
bridal dress, and the treacherous Don Fernando and my covetous father are
waiting for me in the hall with the other witnesses, who shall be the
witnesses of my death before they witness my betrothal. Be not
distressed, my friend, but contrive to be present at this sacrifice, and
if that cannot be prevented by my words, I have a dagger concealed which
will prevent more deliberate violence, putting an end to my life and
giving thee a first proof of the love I have borne and bear thee.' I
replied to her distractedly and hastily, in fear lest I should not have
time to reply, 'May thy words be verified by thy deeds, lady; and if thou
hast a dagger to save thy honour, I have a sword to defend thee or kill
myself if fortune be against us.'

"I think she could not have heard all these words, for I perceived that
they called her away in haste, as the bridegroom was waiting. Now the
night of my sorrow set in, the sun of my happiness went down, I felt my
eyes bereft of sight, my mind of reason. I could not enter the house, nor
was I capable of any movement; but reflecting how important it was that I
should be present at what might take place on the occasion, I nerved
myself as best I could and went in, for I well knew all the entrances and
outlets; and besides, with the confusion that in secret pervaded the
house no one took notice of me, so, without being seen, I found an
opportunity of placing myself in the recess formed by a window of the
hall itself, and concealed by the ends and borders of two tapestries,
from between which I could, without being seen, see all that took place
in the room. Who could describe the agitation of heart I suffered as I
stood there--the thoughts that came to me--the reflections that passed
through my mind? They were such as cannot be, nor were it well they
should be, told. Suffice it to say that the bridegroom entered the hall
in his usual dress, without ornament of any kind; as groomsman he had
with him a cousin of Luscinda's and except the servants of the house
there was no one else in the chamber. Soon afterwards Luscinda came out
from an antechamber, attended by her mother and two of her damsels,
arrayed and adorned as became her rank and beauty, and in full festival
and ceremonial attire. My anxiety and distraction did not allow me to
observe or notice particularly what she wore; I could only perceive the
colours, which were crimson and white, and the glitter of the gems and
jewels on her head dress and apparel, surpassed by the rare beauty of her
lovely auburn hair that vying with the precious stones and the light of
the four torches that stood in the hall shone with a brighter gleam than
all. Oh memory, mortal foe of my peace! why bring before me now the
incomparable beauty of that adored enemy of mine? Were it not better,
cruel memory, to remind me and recall what she then did, that stirred by
a wrong so glaring I may seek, if not vengeance now, at least to rid
myself of life? Be not weary, sirs, of listening to these digressions; my
sorrow is not one of those that can or should be told tersely and
briefly, for to me each incident seems to call for many words."

To this the curate replied that not only were they not weary of listening
to him, but that the details he mentioned interested them greatly, being
of a kind by no means to be omitted and deserving of the same attention
as the main story.

"To proceed, then," continued Cardenio: "all being assembled in the hall,
the priest of the parish came in and as he took the pair by the hand to
perform the requisite ceremony, at the words, 'Will you, Senora Luscinda,
take Senor Don Fernando, here present, for your lawful husband, as the
holy Mother Church ordains?' I thrust my head and neck out from between
the tapestries, and with eager ears and throbbing heart set myself to
listen to Luscinda's answer, awaiting in her reply the sentence of death
or the grant of life. Oh, that I had but dared at that moment to rush
forward crying aloud, 'Luscinda, Luscinda! have a care what thou dost;
remember what thou owest me; bethink thee thou art mine and canst not be
another's; reflect that thy utterance of "Yes" and the end of my life
will come at the same instant. O, treacherous Don Fernando! robber of my
glory, death of my life! What seekest thou? Remember that thou canst not
as a Christian attain the object of thy wishes, for Luscinda is my bride,
and I am her husband!' Fool that I am! now that I am far away, and out of
danger, I say I should have done what I did not do: now that I have
allowed my precious treasure to be robbed from me, I curse the robber, on
whom I might have taken vengeance had I as much heart for it as I have
for bewailing my fate; in short, as I was then a coward and a fool,
little wonder is it if I am now dying shame-stricken, remorseful, and
mad.

"The priest stood waiting for the answer of Luscinda, who for a long time
withheld it; and just as I thought she was taking out the dagger to save
her honour, or struggling for words to make some declaration of the truth
on my behalf, I heard her say in a faint and feeble voice, 'I will:' Don
Fernando said the same, and giving her the ring they stood linked by a
knot that could never be loosed. The bridegroom then approached to
embrace his bride; and she, pressing her hand upon her heart, fell
fainting in her mother's arms. It only remains now for me to tell you the
state I was in when in that consent that I heard I saw all my hopes
mocked, the words and promises of Luscinda proved falsehoods, and the
recovery of the prize I had that instant lost rendered impossible for
ever. I stood stupefied, wholly abandoned, it seemed, by Heaven, declared
the enemy of the earth that bore me, the air refusing me breath for my
sighs, the water moisture for my tears; it was only the fire that
gathered strength so that my whole frame glowed with rage and jealousy.
They were all thrown into confusion by Luscinda's fainting, and as her
mother was unlacing her to give her air a sealed paper was discovered in
her bosom which Don Fernando seized at once and began to read by the
light of one of the torches. As soon as he had read it he seated himself
in a chair, leaning his cheek on his hand in the attitude of one deep in
thought, without taking any part in the efforts that were being made to
recover his bride from her fainting fit.

"Seeing all the household in confusion, I ventured to come out regardless
whether I were seen or not, and determined, if I were, to do some
frenzied deed that would prove to all the world the righteous indignation
of my breast in the punishment of the treacherous Don Fernando, and even
in that of the fickle fainting traitress. But my fate, doubtless
reserving me for greater sorrows, if such there be, so ordered it that
just then I had enough and to spare of that reason which has since been
wanting to me; and so, without seeking to take vengeance on my greatest
enemies (which might have been easily taken, as all thought of me was so
far from their minds), I resolved to take it upon myself, and on myself
to inflict the pain they deserved, perhaps with even greater severity
than I should have dealt out to them had I then slain them; for sudden
pain is soon over, but that which is protracted by tortures is ever
slaying without ending life. In a word, I quitted the house and reached
that of the man with whom I had left my mule; I made him saddle it for
me, mounted without bidding him farewell, and rode out of the city, like
another Lot, not daring to turn my head to look back upon it; and when I
found myself alone in the open country, screened by the darkness of the
night, and tempted by the stillness to give vent to my grief without
apprehension or fear of being heard or seen, then I broke silence and
lifted up my voice in maledictions upon Luscinda and Don Fernando, as if
I could thus avenge the wrong they had done me. I called her cruel,
ungrateful, false, thankless, but above all covetous, since the wealth of
my enemy had blinded the eyes of her affection, and turned it from me to
transfer it to one to whom fortune had been more generous and liberal.
And yet, in the midst of this outburst of execration and upbraiding, I
found excuses for her, saying it was no wonder that a young girl in the
seclusion of her parents' house, trained and schooled to obey them
always, should have been ready to yield to their wishes when they offered
her for a husband a gentleman of such distinction, wealth, and noble
birth, that if she had refused to accept him she would have been thought
out of her senses, or to have set her affection elsewhere, a suspicion
injurious to her fair name and fame. But then again, I said, had she
declared I was her husband, they would have seen that in choosing me she
had not chosen so ill but that they might excuse her, for before Don
Fernando had made his offer, they themselves could not have desired, if
their desires had been ruled by reason, a more eligible husband for their
daughter than I was; and she, before taking the last fatal step of giving
her hand, might easily have said that I had already given her mine, for I
should have come forward to support any assertion of hers to that effect.
In short, I came to the conclusion that feeble love, little reflection,
great ambition, and a craving for rank, had made her forget the words
with which she had deceived me, encouraged and supported by my firm hopes
and honourable passion.

"Thus soliloquising and agitated, I journeyed onward for the remainder of
the night, and by daybreak I reached one of the passes of these
mountains, among which I wandered for three days more without taking any
path or road, until I came to some meadows lying on I know not which side
of the mountains, and there I inquired of some herdsmen in what direction
the most rugged part of the range lay. They told me that it was in this
quarter, and I at once directed my course hither, intending to end my
life here; but as I was making my way among these crags, my mule dropped
dead through fatigue and hunger, or, as I think more likely, in order to
have done with such a worthless burden as it bore in me. I was left on
foot, worn out, famishing, without anyone to help me or any thought of
seeking help: and so thus I lay stretched on the ground, how long I know
not, after which I rose up free from hunger, and found beside me some
goatherds, who no doubt were the persons who had relieved me in my need,
for they told me how they had found me, and how I had been uttering
ravings that showed plainly I had lost my reason; and since then I am
conscious that I am not always in full possession of it, but at times so
deranged and crazed that I do a thousand mad things, tearing my clothes,
crying aloud in these solitudes, cursing my fate, and idly calling on the
dear name of her who is my enemy, and only seeking to end my life in
lamentation; and when I recover my senses I find myself so exhausted and
weary that I can scarcely move. Most commonly my dwelling is the hollow
of a cork tree large enough to shelter this miserable body; the herdsmen
and goatherds who frequent these mountains, moved by compassion, furnish
me with food, leaving it by the wayside or on the rocks, where they think
I may perhaps pass and find it; and so, even though I may be then out of
my senses, the wants of nature teach me what is required to sustain me,
and make me crave it and eager to take it. At other times, so they tell
me when they find me in a rational mood, I sally out upon the road, and
though they would gladly give it me, I snatch food by force from the
shepherds bringing it from the village to their huts. Thus do pass the
wretched life that remains to me, until it be Heaven's will to bring it
to a close, or so to order my memory that I no longer recollect the
beauty and treachery of Luscinda, or the wrong done me by Don Fernando;
for if it will do this without depriving me of life, I will turn my
thoughts into some better channel; if not, I can only implore it to have
full mercy on my soul, for in myself I feel no power or strength to
release my body from this strait in which I have of my own accord chosen
to place it.

"Such, sirs, is the dismal story of my misfortune: say if it be one that
can be told with less emotion than you have seen in me; and do not
trouble yourselves with urging or pressing upon me what reason suggests
as likely to serve for my relief, for it will avail me as much as the
medicine prescribed by a wise physician avails the sick man who will not
take it. I have no wish for health without Luscinda; and since it is her
pleasure to be another's, when she is or should be mine, let it be mine
to be a prey to misery when I might have enjoyed happiness. She by her
fickleness strove to make my ruin irretrievable; I will strive to gratify
her wishes by seeking destruction; and it will show generations to come
that I alone was deprived of that of which all others in misfortune have
a superabundance, for to them the impossibility of being consoled is
itself a consolation, while to me it is the cause of greater sorrows and
sufferings, for I think that even in death there will not be an end of
them."

Here Cardenio brought to a close his long discourse and story, as full of
misfortune as it was of love; but just as the curate was going to address
some words of comfort to him, he was stopped by a voice that reached his
ear, saying in melancholy tones what will be told in the Fourth Part of
this narrative; for at this point the sage and sagacious historian, Cide
Hamete Benengeli, brought the Third to a conclusion.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

WHICH TREATS OF THE STRANGE AND DELIGHTFUL ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL THE
CURATE AND THE BARBER IN THE SAME SIERRA


Happy and fortunate were the times when that most daring knight Don
Quixote of La Mancha was sent into the world; for by reason of his having
formed a resolution so honourable as that of seeking to revive and
restore to the world the long-lost and almost defunct order of
knight-errantry, we now enjoy in this age of ours, so poor in light
entertainment, not only the charm of his veracious history, but also of
the tales and episodes contained in it which are, in a measure, no less
pleasing, ingenious, and truthful, than the history itself; which,
resuming its thread, carded, spun, and wound, relates that just as the
curate was going to offer consolation to Cardenio, he was interrupted by
a voice that fell upon his ear saying in plaintive tones:

"O God! is it possible I have found a place that may serve as a secret
grave for the weary load of this body that I support so unwillingly? If
the solitude these mountains promise deceives me not, it is so; ah! woe
is me! how much more grateful to my mind will be the society of these
rocks and brakes that permit me to complain of my misfortune to Heaven,
than that of any human being, for there is none on earth to look to for
counsel in doubt, comfort in sorrow, or relief in distress!"

All this was heard distinctly by the curate and those with him, and as it
seemed to them to be uttered close by, as indeed it was, they got up to
look for the speaker, and before they had gone twenty paces they
discovered behind a rock, seated at the foot of an ash tree, a youth in
the dress of a peasant, whose face they were unable at the moment to see
as he was leaning forward, bathing his feet in the brook that flowed
past. They approached so silently that he did not perceive them, being
fully occupied in bathing his feet, which were so fair that they looked
like two pieces of shining crystal brought forth among the other stones
of the brook. The whiteness and beauty of these feet struck them with
surprise, for they did not seem to have been made to crush clods or to
follow the plough and the oxen as their owner's dress suggested; and so,
finding they had not been noticed, the curate, who was in front, made a
sign to the other two to conceal themselves behind some fragments of rock
that lay there; which they did, observing closely what the youth was
about. He had on a loose double-skirted dark brown jacket bound tight to
his body with a white cloth; he wore besides breeches and gaiters of
brown cloth, and on his head a brown montera; and he had the gaiters
turned up as far as the middle of the leg, which verily seemed to be of
pure alabaster.

As soon as he had done bathing his beautiful feet, he wiped them with a
towel he took from under the montera, on taking off which he raised his
face, and those who were watching him had an opportunity of seeing a
beauty so exquisite that Cardenio said to the curate in a whisper:

"As this is not Luscinda, it is no human creature but a divine being."

The youth then took off the montera, and shaking his head from side to
side there broke loose and spread out a mass of hair that the beams of
the sun might have envied; by this they knew that what had seemed a
peasant was a lovely woman, nay the most beautiful the eyes of two of
them had ever beheld, or even Cardenio's if they had not seen and known
Luscinda, for he afterwards declared that only the beauty of Luscinda
could compare with this. The long auburn tresses not only covered her
shoulders, but such was their length and abundance, concealed her all
round beneath their masses, so that except the feet nothing of her form
was visible. She now used her hands as a comb, and if her feet had seemed
like bits of crystal in the water, her hands looked like pieces of driven
snow among her locks; all which increased not only the admiration of the
three beholders, but their anxiety to learn who she was. With this object
they resolved to show themselves, and at the stir they made in getting
upon their feet the fair damsel raised her head, and parting her hair
from before her eyes with both hands, she looked to see who had made the
noise, and the instant she perceived them she started to her feet, and
without waiting to put on her shoes or gather up her hair, hastily
snatched up a bundle as though of clothes that she had beside her, and,
scared and alarmed, endeavoured to take flight; but before she had gone
six paces she fell to the ground, her delicate feet being unable to bear
the roughness of the stones; seeing which, the three hastened towards
her, and the curate addressing her first said:

"Stay, senora, whoever you may be, for those whom you see here only
desire to be of service to you; you have no need to attempt a flight so
heedless, for neither can your feet bear it, nor we allow it."

Taken by surprise and bewildered, she made no reply to these words. They,
however, came towards her, and the curate taking her hand went on to say:

"What your dress would hide, senora, is made known to us by your hair; a
clear proof that it can be no trifling cause that has disguised your
beauty in a garb so unworthy of it, and sent it into solitudes like these
where we have had the good fortune to find you, if not to relieve your
distress, at least to offer you comfort; for no distress, so long as life
lasts, can be so oppressive or reach such a height as to make the
sufferer refuse to listen to comfort offered with good intention. And so,
senora, or senor, or whatever you prefer to be, dismiss the fears that
our appearance has caused you and make us acquainted with your good or
evil fortunes, for from all of us together, or from each one of us, you
will receive sympathy in your trouble."

While the curate was speaking, the disguised damsel stood as if
spell-bound, looking at them without opening her lips or uttering a word,
just like a village rustic to whom something strange that he has never
seen before has been suddenly shown; but on the curate addressing some
further words to the same effect to her, sighing deeply she broke silence
and said:

"Since the solitude of these mountains has been unable to conceal me, and
the escape of my dishevelled tresses will not allow my tongue to deal in
falsehoods, it would be idle for me now to make any further pretence of
what, if you were to believe me, you would believe more out of courtesy
than for any other reason. This being so, I say I thank you, sirs, for
the offer you have made me, which places me under the obligation of
complying with the request you have made of me; though I fear the account
I shall give you of my misfortunes will excite in you as much concern as
compassion, for you will be unable to suggest anything to remedy them or
any consolation to alleviate them. However, that my honour may not be
left a matter of doubt in your minds, now that you have discovered me to
be a woman, and see that I am young, alone, and in this dress, things
that taken together or separately would be enough to destroy any good
name, I feel bound to tell what I would willingly keep secret if I
could."

All this she who was now seen to be a lovely woman delivered without any
hesitation, with so much ease and in so sweet a voice that they were not
less charmed by her intelligence than by her beauty, and as they again
repeated their offers and entreaties to her to fulfil her promise, she
without further pressing, first modestly covering her feet and gathering
up her hair, seated herself on a stone with the three placed around her,
and, after an effort to restrain some tears that came to her eyes, in a
clear and steady voice began her story thus:

"In this Andalusia there is a town from which a duke takes a title which
makes him one of those that are called Grandees of Spain. This nobleman
has two sons, the elder heir to his dignity and apparently to his good
qualities; the younger heir to I know not what, unless it be the
treachery of Vellido and the falsehood of Ganelon. My parents are this
lord's vassals, lowly in origin, but so wealthy that if birth had
conferred as much on them as fortune, they would have had nothing left to
desire, nor should I have had reason to fear trouble like that in which I
find myself now; for it may be that my ill fortune came of theirs in not
having been nobly born. It is true they are not so low that they have any
reason to be ashamed of their condition, but neither are they so high as
to remove from my mind the impression that my mishap comes of their
humble birth. They are, in short, peasants, plain homely people, without
any taint of disreputable blood, and, as the saying is, old rusty
Christians, but so rich that by their wealth and free-handed way of life
they are coming by degrees to be considered gentlefolk by birth, and even
by position; though the wealth and nobility they thought most of was
having me for their daughter; and as they have no other child to make
their heir, and are affectionate parents, I was one of the most indulged
daughters that ever parents indulged.

"I was the mirror in which they beheld themselves, the staff of their old
age, and the object in which, with submission to Heaven, all their wishes
centred, and mine were in accordance with theirs, for I knew their worth;
and as I was mistress of their hearts, so was I also of their
possessions. Through me they engaged or dismissed their servants; through
my hands passed the accounts and returns of what was sown and reaped; the
oil-mills, the wine-presses, the count of the flocks and herds, the
beehives, all in short that a rich farmer like my father has or can have,
I had under my care, and I acted as steward and mistress with an
assiduity on my part and satisfaction on theirs that I cannot well
describe to you. The leisure hours left to me after I had given the
requisite orders to the head-shepherds, overseers, and other labourers, I
passed in such employments as are not only allowable but necessary for
young girls, those that the needle, embroidery cushion, and spinning
wheel usually afford, and if to refresh my mind I quitted them for a
while, I found recreation in reading some devotional book or playing the
harp, for experience taught me that music soothes the troubled mind and
relieves weariness of spirit. Such was the life I led in my parents'
house and if I have depicted it thus minutely, it is not out of
ostentation, or to let you know that I am rich, but that you may see how,
without any fault of mine, I have fallen from the happy condition I have
described, to the misery I am in at present. The truth is, that while I
was leading this busy life, in a retirement that might compare with that
of a monastery, and unseen as I thought by any except the servants of the
house (for when I went to Mass it was so early in the morning, and I was
so closely attended by my mother and the women of the household, and so
thickly veiled and so shy, that my eyes scarcely saw more ground than I
trod on), in spite of all this, the eyes of love, or idleness, more
properly speaking, that the lynx's cannot rival, discovered me, with the
help of the assiduity of Don Fernando; for that is the name of the
younger son of the duke I told of."

The moment the speaker mentioned the name of Don Fernando, Cardenio
changed colour and broke into a sweat, with such signs of emotion that
the curate and the barber, who observed it, feared that one of the mad
fits which they heard attacked him sometimes was coming upon him; but
Cardenio showed no further agitation and remained quiet, regarding the
peasant girl with fixed attention, for he began to suspect who she was.
She, however, without noticing the excitement of Cardenio, continuing her
story, went on to say:

"And they had hardly discovered me, when, as he owned afterwards, he was
smitten with a violent love for me, as the manner in which it displayed
itself plainly showed. But to shorten the long recital of my woes, I will
pass over in silence all the artifices employed by Don Fernando for
declaring his passion for me. He bribed all the household, he gave and
offered gifts and presents to my parents; every day was like a holiday or
a merry-making in our street; by night no one could sleep for the music;
the love letters that used to come to my hand, no one knew how, were
innumerable, full of tender pleadings and pledges, containing more
promises and oaths than there were letters in them; all which not only
did not soften me, but hardened my heart against him, as if he had been
my mortal enemy, and as if everything he did to make me yield were done
with the opposite intention. Not that the high-bred bearing of Don
Fernando was disagreeable to me, or that I found his importunities
wearisome; for it gave me a certain sort of satisfaction to find myself
so sought and prized by a gentleman of such distinction, and I was not
displeased at seeing my praises in his letters (for however ugly we women
may be, it seems to me it always pleases us to hear ourselves called
beautiful) but that my own sense of right was opposed to all this, as
well as the repeated advice of my parents, who now very plainly perceived
Don Fernando's purpose, for he cared very little if all the world knew
it. They told me they trusted and confided their honour and good name to
my virtue and rectitude alone, and bade me consider the disparity between
Don Fernando and myself, from which I might conclude that his intentions,
whatever he might say to the contrary, had for their aim his own pleasure
rather than my advantage; and if I were at all desirous of opposing an
obstacle to his unreasonable suit, they were ready, they said, to marry
me at once to anyone I preferred, either among the leading people of our
own town, or of any of those in the neighbourhood; for with their wealth
and my good name, a match might be looked for in any quarter. This offer,
and their sound advice strengthened my resolution, and I never gave Don
Fernando a word in reply that could hold out to him any hope of success,
however remote.

"All this caution of mine, which he must have taken for coyness, had
apparently the effect of increasing his wanton appetite--for that is the
name I give to his passion for me; had it been what he declared it to be,
you would not know of it now, because there would have been no occasion
to tell you of it. At length he learned that my parents were
contemplating marriage for me in order to put an end to his hopes of
obtaining possession of me, or at least to secure additional protectors
to watch over me, and this intelligence or suspicion made him act as you
shall hear. One night, as I was in my chamber with no other companion
than a damsel who waited on me, with the doors carefully locked lest my
honour should be imperilled through any carelessness, I know not nor can
conceive how it happened, but, with all this seclusion and these
precautions, and in the solitude and silence of my retirement, I found
him standing before me, a vision that so astounded me that it deprived my
eyes of sight, and my tongue of speech. I had no power to utter a cry,
nor, I think, did he give me time to utter one, as he immediately
approached me, and taking me in his arms (for, overwhelmed as I was, I
was powerless, I say, to help myself), he began to make such professions
to me that I know not how falsehood could have had the power of dressing
them up to seem so like truth; and the traitor contrived that his tears
should vouch for his words, and his sighs for his sincerity.

"I, a poor young creature alone, ill versed among my people in cases such
as this, began, I know not how, to think all these lying protestations
true, though without being moved by his sighs and tears to anything more
than pure compassion; and so, as the first feeling of bewilderment passed
away, and I began in some degree to recover myself, I said to him with
more courage than I thought I could have possessed, 'If, as I am now in
your arms, senor, I were in the claws of a fierce lion, and my
deliverance could be procured by doing or saying anything to the
prejudice of my honour, it would no more be in my power to do it or say
it, than it would be possible that what was should not have been; so
then, if you hold my body clasped in your arms, I hold my soul secured by
virtuous intentions, very different from yours, as you will see if you
attempt to carry them into effect by force. I am your vassal, but I am
not your slave; your nobility neither has nor should have any right to
dishonour or degrade my humble birth; and low-born peasant as I am, I
have my self-respect as much as you, a lord and gentleman: with me your
violence will be to no purpose, your wealth will have no weight, your
words will have no power to deceive me, nor your sighs or tears to soften
me: were I to see any of the things I speak of in him whom my parents
gave me as a husband, his will should be mine, and mine should be bounded
by his; and my honour being preserved even though my inclinations were
not would willingly yield him what you, senor, would now obtain by force;
and this I say lest you should suppose that any but my lawful husband
shall ever win anything of me.' 'If that,' said this disloyal gentleman,
'be the only scruple you feel, fairest Dorothea' (for that is the name of
this unhappy being), 'see here I give you my hand to be yours, and let
Heaven, from which nothing is hid, and this image of Our Lady you have
here, be witnesses of this pledge.'"

When Cardenio heard her say she was called Dorothea, he showed fresh
agitation and felt convinced of the truth of his former suspicion, but he
was unwilling to interrupt the story, and wished to hear the end of what
he already all but knew, so he merely said:

"What! is Dorothea your name, senora? I have heard of another of the same
name who can perhaps match your misfortunes. But proceed; by-and-by I may
tell you something that will astonish you as much as it will excite your
compassion."

Dorothea was struck by Cardenio's words as well as by his strange and
miserable attire, and begged him if he knew anything concerning her to
tell it to her at once, for if fortune had left her any blessing it was
courage to bear whatever calamity might fall upon her, as she felt sure
that none could reach her capable of increasing in any degree what she
endured already.

"I would not let the occasion pass, senora," replied Cardenio, "of
telling you what I think, if what I suspect were the truth, but so far
there has been no opportunity, nor is it of any importance to you to know
it."

"Be it as it may," replied Dorothea, "what happened in my story was that
Don Fernando, taking an image that stood in the chamber, placed it as a
witness of our betrothal, and with the most binding words and extravagant
oaths gave me his promise to become my husband; though before he had made
an end of pledging himself I bade him consider well what he was doing,
and think of the anger his father would feel at seeing him married to a
peasant girl and one of his vassals; I told him not to let my beauty,
such as it was, blind him, for that was not enough to furnish an excuse
for his transgression; and if in the love he bore me he wished to do me
any kindness, it would be to leave my lot to follow its course at the
level my condition required; for marriages so unequal never brought
happiness, nor did they continue long to afford the enjoyment they began
with.

"All this that I have now repeated I said to him, and much more which I
cannot recollect; but it had no effect in inducing him to forego his
purpose; he who has no intention of paying does not trouble himself about
difficulties when he is striking the bargain. At the same time I argued
the matter briefly in my own mind, saying to myself, 'I shall not be the
first who has risen through marriage from a lowly to a lofty station, nor
will Don Fernando be the first whom beauty or, as is more likely, a blind
attachment, has led to mate himself below his rank. Then, since I am
introducing no new usage or practice, I may as well avail myself of the
honour that chance offers me, for even though his inclination for me
should not outlast the attainment of his wishes, I shall be, after all,
his wife before God. And if I strive to repel him by scorn, I can see
that, fair means failing, he is in a mood to use force, and I shall be
left dishonoured and without any means of proving my innocence to those
who cannot know how innocently I have come to be in this position; for
what arguments would persuade my parents that this gentleman entered my
chamber without my consent?'

"All these questions and answers passed through my mind in a moment; but
the oaths of Don Fernando, the witnesses he appealed to, the tears he
shed, and lastly the charms of his person and his high-bred grace, which,
accompanied by such signs of genuine love, might well have conquered a
heart even more free and coy than mine--these were the things that more
than all began to influence me and lead me unawares to my ruin. I called
my waiting-maid to me, that there might be a witness on earth besides
those in Heaven, and again Don Fernando renewed and repeated his oaths,
invoked as witnesses fresh saints in addition to the former ones, called
down upon himself a thousand curses hereafter should he fail to keep his
promise, shed more tears, redoubled his sighs and pressed me closer in
his arms, from which he had never allowed me to escape; and so I was left
by my maid, and ceased to be one, and he became a traitor and a perjured
man.

"The day which followed the night of my misfortune did not come so
quickly, I imagine, as Don Fernando wished, for when desire has attained
its object, the greatest pleasure is to fly from the scene of pleasure. I
say so because Don Fernando made all haste to leave me, and by the
adroitness of my maid, who was indeed the one who had admitted him,
gained the street before daybreak; but on taking leave of me he told me,
though not with as much earnestness and fervour as when he came, that I
might rest assured of his faith and of the sanctity and sincerity of his
oaths; and to confirm his words he drew a rich ring off his finger and
placed it upon mine. He then took his departure and I was left, I know
not whether sorrowful or happy; all I can say is, I was left agitated and
troubled in mind and almost bewildered by what had taken place, and I had
not the spirit, or else it did not occur to me, to chide my maid for the
treachery she had been guilty of in concealing Don Fernando in my
chamber; for as yet I was unable to make up my mind whether what had
befallen me was for good or evil. I told Don Fernando at parting, that as
I was now his, he might see me on other nights in the same way, until it
should be his pleasure to let the matter become known; but, except the
following night, he came no more, nor for more than a month could I catch
a glimpse of him in the street or in church, while I wearied myself with
watching for one; although I knew he was in the town, and almost every
day went out hunting, a pastime he was very fond of. I remember well how
sad and dreary those days and hours were to me; I remember well how I
began to doubt as they went by, and even to lose confidence in the faith
of Don Fernando; and I remember, too, how my maid heard those words in
reproof of her audacity that she had not heard before, and how I was
forced to put a constraint on my tears and on the expression of my
countenance, not to give my parents cause to ask me why I was so
melancholy, and drive me to invent falsehoods in reply. But all this was
suddenly brought to an end, for the time came when all such
considerations were disregarded, and there was no further question of
honour, when my patience gave way and the secret of my heart became known
abroad. The reason was, that a few days later it was reported in the town
that Don Fernando had been married in a neighbouring city to a maiden of
rare beauty, the daughter of parents of distinguished position, though
not so rich that her portion would entitle her to look for so brilliant a
match; it was said, too, that her name was Luscinda, and that at the
betrothal some strange things had happened."

Cardenio heard the name of Luscinda, but he only shrugged his shoulders,
bit his lips, bent his brows, and before long two streams of tears
escaped from his eyes. Dorothea, however, did not interrupt her story,
but went on in these words:

"This sad intelligence reached my ears, and, instead of being struck with
a chill, with such wrath and fury did my heart burn that I scarcely
restrained myself from rushing out into the streets, crying aloud and
proclaiming openly the perfidy and treachery of which I was the victim;
but this transport of rage was for the time checked by a resolution I
formed, to be carried out the same night, and that was to assume this
dress, which I got from a servant of my father's, one of the zagals, as
they are called in farmhouses, to whom I confided the whole of my
misfortune, and whom I entreated to accompany me to the city where I
heard my enemy was. He, though he remonstrated with me for my boldness,
and condemned my resolution, when he saw me bent upon my purpose, offered
to bear me company, as he said, to the end of the world. I at once packed
up in a linen pillow-case a woman's dress, and some jewels and money to
provide for emergencies, and in the silence of the night, without letting
my treacherous maid know, I sallied forth from the house, accompanied by
my servant and abundant anxieties, and on foot set out for the city, but
borne as it were on wings by my eagerness to reach it, if not to prevent
what I presumed to be already done, at least to call upon Don Fernando to
tell me with what conscience he had done it. I reached my destination in
two days and a half, and on entering the city inquired for the house of
Luscinda's parents. The first person I asked gave me more in reply than I
sought to know; he showed me the house, and told me all that had occurred
at the betrothal of the daughter of the family, an affair of such
notoriety in the city that it was the talk of every knot of idlers in the
street. He said that on the night of Don Fernando's betrothal with
Luscinda, as soon as she had consented to be his bride by saying 'Yes,'
she was taken with a sudden fainting fit, and that on the bridegroom
approaching to unlace the bosom of her dress to give her air, he found a
paper in her own handwriting, in which she said and declared that she
could not be Don Fernando's bride, because she was already Cardenio's,
who, according to the man's account, was a gentleman of distinction of
the same city; and that if she had accepted Don Fernando, it was only in
obedience to her parents. In short, he said, the words of the paper made
it clear she meant to kill herself on the completion of the betrothal,
and gave her reasons for putting an end to herself all which was
confirmed, it was said, by a dagger they found somewhere in her clothes.
On seeing this, Don Fernando, persuaded that Luscinda had befooled,
slighted, and trifled with him, assailed her before she had recovered
from her swoon, and tried to stab her with the dagger that had been
found, and would have succeeded had not her parents and those who were
present prevented him. It was said, moreover, that Don Fernando went away
at once, and that Luscinda did not recover from her prostration until the
next day, when she told her parents how she was really the bride of that
Cardenio I have mentioned. I learned besides that Cardenio, according to
report, had been present at the betrothal; and that upon seeing her
betrothed contrary to his expectation, he had quitted the city in
despair, leaving behind him a letter declaring the wrong Luscinda had
done him, and his intention of going where no one should ever see him
again. All this was a matter of notoriety in the city, and everyone spoke
of it; especially when it became known that Luscinda was missing from her
father's house and from the city, for she was not to be found anywhere,
to the distraction of her parents, who knew not what steps to take to
recover her. What I learned revived my hopes, and I was better pleased
not to have found Don Fernando than to find him married, for it seemed to
me that the door was not yet entirely shut upon relief in my case, and I
thought that perhaps Heaven had put this impediment in the way of the
second marriage, to lead him to recognise his obligations under the
former one, and reflect that as a Christian he was bound to consider his
soul above all human objects. All this passed through my mind, and I
strove to comfort myself without comfort, indulging in faint and distant
hopes of cherishing that life that I now abhor.

"But while I was in the city, uncertain what to do, as I could not find
Don Fernando, I heard notice given by the public crier offering a great
reward to anyone who should find me, and giving the particulars of my age
and of the very dress I wore; and I heard it said that the lad who came
with me had taken me away from my father's house; a thing that cut me to
the heart, showing how low my good name had fallen, since it was not
enough that I should lose it by my flight, but they must add with whom I
had fled, and that one so much beneath me and so unworthy of my
consideration. The instant I heard the notice I quitted the city with my
servant, who now began to show signs of wavering in his fidelity to me,
and the same night, for fear of discovery, we entered the most thickly
wooded part of these mountains. But, as is commonly said, one evil calls
up another and the end of one misfortune is apt to be the beginning of
one still greater, and so it proved in my case; for my worthy servant,
until then so faithful and trusty when he found me in this lonely spot,
moved more by his own villainy than by my beauty, sought to take
advantage of the opportunity which these solitudes seemed to present him,
and with little shame and less fear of God and respect for me, began to
make overtures to me; and finding that I replied to the effrontery of his
proposals with justly severe language, he laid aside the entreaties which
he had employed at first, and began to use violence.

"But just Heaven, that seldom fails to watch over and aid good intentions,
so aided mine that with my slight strength and with little exertion I
pushed him over a precipice, where I left him, whether dead or alive I
know not; and then, with greater speed than seemed possible in my terror
and fatigue, I made my way into the mountains, without any other thought
or purpose save that of hiding myself among them, and escaping my father
and those despatched in search of me by his orders. It is now I know not
how many months since with this object I came here, where I met a
herdsman who engaged me as his servant at a place in the heart of this
Sierra, and all this time I have been serving him as herd, striving to
keep always afield to hide these locks which have now unexpectedly
betrayed me. But all my care and pains were unavailing, for my master
made the discovery that I was not a man, and harboured the same base
designs as my servant; and as fortune does not always supply a remedy in
cases of difficulty, and I had no precipice or ravine at hand down which
to fling the master and cure his passion, as I had in the servant's case,
I thought it a lesser evil to leave him and again conceal myself among
these crags, than make trial of my strength and argument with him. So, as
I say, once more I went into hiding to seek for some place where I might
with sighs and tears implore Heaven to have pity on my misery, and grant
me help and strength to escape from it, or let me die among the
solitudes, leaving no trace of an unhappy being who, by no fault of hers,
has furnished matter for talk and scandal at home and abroad."




CHAPTER XXIX.

WHICH TREATS OF THE DROLL DEVICE AND METHOD ADOPTED TO EXTRICATE OUR
LOVE-STRICKEN KNIGHT FROM THE SEVERE PENANCE HE HAD IMPOSED UPON HIMSELF


"Such, sirs, is the true story of my sad adventures; judge for yourselves
now whether the sighs and lamentations you heard, and the tears that
flowed from my eyes, had not sufficient cause even if I had indulged in
them more freely; and if you consider the nature of my misfortune you
will see that consolation is idle, as there is no possible remedy for it.
All I ask of you is, what you may easily and reasonably do, to show me
where I may pass my life unharassed by the fear and dread of discovery by
those who are in search of me; for though the great love my parents bear
me makes me feel sure of being kindly received by them, so great is my
feeling of shame at the mere thought that I cannot present myself before
them as they expect, that I had rather banish myself from their sight for
ever than look them in the face with the reflection that they beheld mine
stripped of that purity they had a right to expect in me."

With these words she became silent, and the colour that overspread her
face showed plainly the pain and shame she was suffering at heart. In
theirs the listeners felt as much pity as wonder at her misfortunes; but
as the curate was just about to offer her some consolation and advice
Cardenio forestalled him, saying, "So then, senora, you are the fair
Dorothea, the only daughter of the rich Clenardo?" Dorothea was
astonished at hearing her father's name, and at the miserable appearance
of him who mentioned it, for it has been already said how wretchedly clad
Cardenio was; so she said to him:

"And who may you be, brother, who seem to know my father's name so well?
For so far, if I remember rightly, I have not mentioned it in the whole
story of my misfortunes."

"I am that unhappy being, senora," replied Cardenio, "whom, as you have
said, Luscinda declared to be her husband; I am the unfortunate Cardenio,
whom the wrong-doing of him who has brought you to your present condition
has reduced to the state you see me in, bare, ragged, bereft of all human
comfort, and what is worse, of reason, for I only possess it when Heaven
is pleased for some short space to restore it to me. I, Dorothea, am he
who witnessed the wrong done by Don Fernando, and waited to hear the
'Yes' uttered by which Luscinda owned herself his betrothed: I am he who
had not courage enough to see how her fainting fit ended, or what came of
the paper that was found in her bosom, because my heart had not the
fortitude to endure so many strokes of ill-fortune at once; and so losing
patience I quitted the house, and leaving a letter with my host, which I
entreated him to place in Luscinda's hands, I betook myself to these
solitudes, resolved to end here the life I hated as if it were my mortal
enemy. But fate would not rid me of it, contenting itself with robbing me
of my reason, perhaps to preserve me for the good fortune I have had in
meeting you; for if that which you have just told us be true, as I
believe it to be, it may be that Heaven has yet in store for both of us a
happier termination to our misfortunes than we look for; because seeing
that Luscinda cannot marry Don Fernando, being mine, as she has herself
so openly declared, and that Don Fernando cannot marry her as he is
yours, we may reasonably hope that Heaven will restore to us what is
ours, as it is still in existence and not yet alienated or destroyed. And
as we have this consolation springing from no very visionary hope or wild
fancy, I entreat you, senora, to form new resolutions in your better
mind, as I mean to do in mine, preparing yourself to look forward to
happier fortunes; for I swear to you by the faith of a gentleman and a
Christian not to desert you until I see you in possession of Don
Fernando, and if I cannot by words induce him to recognise his obligation
to you, in that case to avail myself of the right which my rank as a
gentleman gives me, and with just cause challenge him on account of the
injury he has done you, not regarding my own wrongs, which I shall leave
to Heaven to avenge, while I on earth devote myself to yours."

Cardenio's words completed the astonishment of Dorothea, and not knowing
how to return thanks for such an offer, she attempted to kiss his feet;
but Cardenio would not permit it, and the licentiate replied for both,
commended the sound reasoning of Cardenio, and lastly, begged, advised,
and urged them to come with him to his village, where they might furnish
themselves with what they needed, and take measures to discover Don
Fernando, or restore Dorothea to her parents, or do what seemed to them
most advisable. Cardenio and Dorothea thanked him, and accepted the kind
offer he made them; and the barber, who had been listening to all
attentively and in silence, on his part some kindly words also, and with
no less good-will than the curate offered his services in any way that
might be of use to them. He also explained to them in a few words the
object that had brought them there, and the strange nature of Don
Quixote's madness, and how they were waiting for his squire, who had gone
in search of him. Like the recollection of a dream, the quarrel he had
had with Don Quixote came back to Cardenio's memory, and he described it
to the others; but he was unable to say what the dispute was about.

At this moment they heard a shout, and recognised it as coming from
Sancho Panza, who, not finding them where he had left them, was calling
aloud to them. They went to meet him, and in answer to their inquiries
about Don Quixote, he told them how he had found him stripped to his
shirt, lank, yellow, half dead with hunger, and sighing for his lady
Dulcinea; and although he had told him that she commanded him to quit
that place and come to El Toboso, where she was expecting him, he had
answered that he was determined not to appear in the presence of her
beauty until he had done deeds to make him worthy of her favour; and if
this went on, Sancho said, he ran the risk of not becoming an emperor as
in duty bound, or even an archbishop, which was the least he could be;
for which reason they ought to consider what was to be done to get him
away from there. The licentiate in reply told him not to be uneasy, for
they would fetch him away in spite of himself. He then told Cardenio and
Dorothea what they had proposed to do to cure Don Quixote, or at any rate
take him home; upon which Dorothea said that she could play the
distressed damsel better than the barber; especially as she had there the
dress in which to do it to the life, and that they might trust to her
acting the part in every particular requisite for carrying out their
scheme, for she had read a great many books of chivalry, and knew exactly
the style in which afflicted damsels begged boons of knights-errant.

"In that case," said the curate, "there is nothing more required than to
set about it at once, for beyond a doubt fortune is declaring itself in
our favour, since it has so unexpectedly begun to open a door for your
relief, and smoothed the way for us to our object."

Dorothea then took out of her pillow-case a complete petticoat of some
rich stuff, and a green mantle of some other fine material, and a
necklace and other ornaments out of a little box, and with these in an
instant she so arrayed herself that she looked like a great and rich
lady. All this, and more, she said, she had taken from home in case of
need, but that until then she had had no occasion to make use of it. They
were all highly delighted with her grace, air, and beauty, and declared
Don Fernando to be a man of very little taste when he rejected such
charms. But the one who admired her most was Sancho Panza, for it seemed
to him (what indeed was true) that in all the days of his life he had
never seen such a lovely creature; and he asked the curate with great
eagerness who this beautiful lady was, and what she wanted in these
out-of-the-way quarters.

"This fair lady, brother Sancho," replied the curate, "is no less a
personage than the heiress in the direct male line of the great kingdom
of Micomicon, who has come in search of your master to beg a boon of him,
which is that he redress a wrong or injury that a wicked giant has done
her; and from the fame as a good knight which your master has acquired
far and wide, this princess has come from Guinea to seek him."

"A lucky seeking and a lucky finding!" said Sancho Panza at this;
"especially if my master has the good fortune to redress that injury, and
right that wrong, and kill that son of a bitch of a giant your worship
speaks of; as kill him he will if he meets him, unless, indeed, he
happens to be a phantom; for my master has no power at all against
phantoms. But one thing among others I would beg of you, senor
licentiate, which is, that, to prevent my master taking a fancy to be an
archbishop, for that is what I'm afraid of, your worship would recommend
him to marry this princess at once; for in this way he will be disabled
from taking archbishop's orders, and will easily come into his empire,
and I to the end of my desires; I have been thinking over the matter
carefully, and by what I can make out I find it will not do for me that
my master should become an archbishop, because I am no good for the
Church, as I am married; and for me now, having as I have a wife and
children, to set about obtaining dispensations to enable me to hold a
place of profit under the Church, would be endless work; so that, senor,
it all turns on my master marrying this lady at once--for as yet I do not
know her grace, and so I cannot call her by her name."

"She is called the Princess Micomicona," said the curate; "for as her
kingdom is Micomicon, it is clear that must be her name."

"There's no doubt of that," replied Sancho, "for I have known many to
take their name and title from the place where they were born and call
themselves Pedro of Alcala, Juan of Ubeda, and Diego of Valladolid; and
it may be that over there in Guinea queens have the same way of taking
the names of their kingdoms."

"So it may," said the curate; "and as for your master's marrying, I will
do all in my power towards it:" with which Sancho was as much pleased as
the curate was amazed at his simplicity and at seeing what a hold the
absurdities of his master had taken of his fancy, for he had evidently
persuaded himself that he was going to be an emperor.

By this time Dorothea had seated herself upon the curate's mule, and the
barber had fitted the ox-tail beard to his face, and they now told Sancho
to conduct them to where Don Quixote was, warning him not to say that he
knew either the licentiate or the barber, as his master's becoming an
emperor entirely depended on his not recognising them; neither the curate
nor Cardenio, however, thought fit to go with them; Cardenio lest he
should remind Don Quixote of the quarrel he had with him, and the curate
as there was no necessity for his presence just yet, so they allowed the
others to go on before them, while they themselves followed slowly on
foot. The curate did not forget to instruct Dorothea how to act, but she
said they might make their minds easy, as everything would be done
exactly as the books of chivalry required and described.

They had gone about three-quarters of a league when they discovered Don
Quixote in a wilderness of rocks, by this time clothed, but without his
armour; and as soon as Dorothea saw him and was told by Sancho that that
was Don Quixote, she whipped her palfrey, the well-bearded barber
following her, and on coming up to him her squire sprang from his mule
and came forward to receive her in his arms, and she dismounting with
great ease of manner advanced to kneel before the feet of Don Quixote;
and though he strove to raise her up, she without rising addressed him in
this fashion:

"From this spot I will not rise, valiant and doughty knight, until your
goodness and courtesy grant me a boon, which will redound to the honour
and renown of your person and render a service to the most disconsolate
and afflicted damsel the sun has seen; and if the might of your strong
arm corresponds to the repute of your immortal fame, you are bound to aid
the helpless being who, led by the savour of your renowned name, hath
come from far distant lands to seek your aid in her misfortunes."

"I will not answer a word, beauteous lady," replied Don Quixote, "nor
will I listen to anything further concerning you, until you rise from the
earth."

"I will not rise, senor," answered the afflicted damsel, "unless of your
courtesy the boon I ask is first granted me."

"I grant and accord it," said Don Quixote, "provided without detriment or
prejudice to my king, my country, or her who holds the key of my heart
and freedom, it may be complied with."

"It will not be to the detriment or prejudice of any of them, my worthy
lord," said the afflicted damsel; and here Sancho Panza drew close to his
master's ear and said to him very softly, "Your worship may very safely
grant the boon she asks; it's nothing at all; only to kill a big giant;
and she who asks it is the exalted Princess Micomicona, queen of the
great kingdom of Micomicon of Ethiopia."

"Let her be who she may," replied Don Quixote, "I will do what is my
bounden duty, and what my conscience bids me, in conformity with what I
have professed;" and turning to the damsel he said, "Let your great
beauty rise, for I grant the boon which you would ask of me."

"Then what I ask," said the damsel, "is that your magnanimous person
accompany me at once whither I will conduct you, and that you promise not
to engage in any other adventure or quest until you have avenged me of a
traitor who against all human and divine law, has usurped my kingdom."

"I repeat that I grant it," replied Don Quixote; "and so, lady, you may
from this day forth lay aside the melancholy that distresses you, and let
your failing hopes gather new life and strength, for with the help of God
and of my arm you will soon see yourself restored to your kingdom, and
seated upon the throne of your ancient and mighty realm, notwithstanding
and despite of the felons who would gainsay it; and now hands to the
work, for in delay there is apt to be danger."

The distressed damsel strove with much pertinacity to kiss his hands; but
Don Quixote, who was in all things a polished and courteous knight, would
by no means allow it, but made her rise and embraced her with great
courtesy and politeness, and ordered Sancho to look to Rocinante's
girths, and to arm him without a moment's delay. Sancho took down the
armour, which was hung up on a tree like a trophy, and having seen to the
girths armed his master in a trice, who as soon as he found himself in
his armour exclaimed:

"Let us be gone in the name of God to bring aid to this great lady."

The barber was all this time on his knees at great pains to hide his
laughter and not let his beard fall, for had it fallen maybe their fine
scheme would have come to nothing; but now seeing the boon granted, and
the promptitude with which Don Quixote prepared to set out in compliance
with it, he rose and took his lady's hand, and between them they placed
her upon the mule. Don Quixote then mounted Rocinante, and the barber
settled himself on his beast, Sancho being left to go on foot, which made
him feel anew the loss of his Dapple, finding the want of him now. But he
bore all with cheerfulness, being persuaded that his master had now
fairly started and was just on the point of becoming an emperor; for he
felt no doubt at all that he would marry this princess, and be king of
Micomicon at least. The only thing that troubled him was the reflection
that this kingdom was in the land of the blacks, and that the people they
would give him for vassals would be all black; but for this he soon found
a remedy in his fancy, and said he to himself, "What is it to me if my
vassals are blacks? What more have I to do than make a cargo of them and
carry them to Spain, where I can sell them and get ready money for them,
and with it buy some title or some office in which to live at ease all
the days of my life? Not unless you go to sleep and haven't the wit or
skill to turn things to account and sell three, six, or ten thousand
vassals while you would be talking about it! By God I will stir them up,
big and little, or as best I can, and let them be ever so black I'll turn
them into white or yellow. Come, come, what a fool I am!" And so he
jogged on, so occupied with his thoughts and easy in his mind that he
forgot all about the hardship of travelling on foot.

Cardenio and the curate were watching all this from among some bushes,
not knowing how to join company with the others; but the curate, who was
very fertile in devices, soon hit upon a way of effecting their purpose,
and with a pair of scissors he had in a case he quickly cut off
Cardenio's beard, and putting on him a grey jerkin of his own he gave him
a black cloak, leaving himself in his breeches and doublet, while
Cardenio's appearance was so different from what it had been that he
would not have known himself had he seen himself in a mirror. Having
effected this, although the others had gone on ahead while they were
disguising themselves, they easily came out on the high road before them,
for the brambles and awkward places they encountered did not allow those
on horseback to go as fast as those on foot. They then posted themselves
on the level ground at the outlet of the Sierra, and as soon as Don
Quixote and his companions emerged from it the curate began to examine
him very deliberately, as though he were striving to recognise him, and
after having stared at him for some time he hastened towards him with
open arms exclaiming, "A happy meeting with the mirror of chivalry, my
worthy compatriot Don Quixote of La Mancha, the flower and cream of high
breeding, the protection and relief of the distressed, the quintessence
of knights-errant!" And so saying he clasped in his arms the knee of Don
Quixote's left leg. He, astonished at the stranger's words and behaviour,
looked at him attentively, and at length recognised him, very much
surprised to see him there, and made great efforts to dismount. This,
however, the curate would not allow, on which Don Quixote said, "Permit
me, senor licentiate, for it is not fitting that I should be on horseback
and so reverend a person as your worship on foot."

"On no account will I allow it," said the curate; "your mightiness must
remain on horseback, for it is on horseback you achieve the greatest
deeds and adventures that have been beheld in our age; as for me, an
unworthy priest, it will serve me well enough to mount on the haunches of
one of the mules of these gentlefolk who accompany your worship, if they
have no objection, and I will fancy I am mounted on the steed Pegasus, or
on the zebra or charger that bore the famous Moor, Muzaraque, who to this
day lies enchanted in the great hill of Zulema, a little distance from
the great Complutum."

"Nor even that will I consent to, senor licentiate," answered Don
Quixote, "and I know it will be the good pleasure of my lady the
princess, out of love for me, to order her squire to give up the saddle
of his mule to your worship, and he can sit behind if the beast will bear
it."

"It will, I am sure," said the princess, "and I am sure, too, that I need
not order my squire, for he is too courteous and considerate to allow a
Churchman to go on foot when he might be mounted."

"That he is," said the barber, and at once alighting, he offered his
saddle to the curate, who accepted it without much entreaty; but
unfortunately as the barber was mounting behind, the mule, being as it
happened a hired one, which is the same thing as saying ill-conditioned,
lifted its hind hoofs and let fly a couple of kicks in the air, which
would have made Master Nicholas wish his expedition in quest of Don
Quixote at the devil had they caught him on the breast or head. As it
was, they so took him by surprise that he came to the ground, giving so
little heed to his beard that it fell off, and all he could do when he
found himself without it was to cover his face hastily with both his
hands and moan that his teeth were knocked out. Don Quixote when he saw
all that bundle of beard detached, without jaws or blood, from the face
of the fallen squire, exclaimed:

"By the living God, but this is a great miracle! it has knocked off and
plucked away the beard from his face as if it had been shaved off
designedly."

The curate, seeing the danger of discovery that threatened his scheme, at
once pounced upon the beard and hastened with it to where Master Nicholas
lay, still uttering moans, and drawing his head to his breast had it on
in an instant, muttering over him some words which he said were a certain
special charm for sticking on beards, as they would see; and as soon as
he had it fixed he left him, and the squire appeared well bearded and
whole as before, whereat Don Quixote was beyond measure astonished, and
begged the curate to teach him that charm when he had an opportunity, as
he was persuaded its virtue must extend beyond the sticking on of beards,
for it was clear that where the beard had been stripped off the flesh
must have remained torn and lacerated, and when it could heal all that it
must be good for more than beards.

"And so it is," said the curate, and he promised to teach it to him on
the first opportunity. They then agreed that for the present the curate
should mount, and that the three should ride by turns until they reached
the inn, which might be about six leagues from where they were.

Three then being mounted, that is to say, Don Quixote, the princess, and
the curate, and three on foot, Cardenio, the barber, and Sancho Panza,
Don Quixote said to the damsel:

"Let your highness, lady, lead on whithersoever is most pleasing to you;"
but before she could answer the licentiate said:

"Towards what kingdom would your ladyship direct our course? Is it
perchance towards that of Micomicon? It must be, or else I know little
about kingdoms."

She, being ready on all points, understood that she was to answer "Yes,"
so she said "Yes, senor, my way lies towards that kingdom."

"In that case," said the curate, "we must pass right through my village,
and there your worship will take the road to Cartagena, where you will be
able to embark, fortune favouring; and if the wind be fair and the sea
smooth and tranquil, in somewhat less than nine years you may come in
sight of the great lake Meona, I mean Meotides, which is little more than
a hundred days' journey this side of your highness's kingdom."

"Your worship is mistaken, senor," said she; "for it is not two years
since I set out from it, and though I never had good weather,
nevertheless I am here to behold what I so longed for, and that is my
lord Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose fame came to my ears as soon as I
set foot in Spain and impelled me to go in search of him, to commend
myself to his courtesy, and entrust the justice of my cause to the might
of his invincible arm."

"Enough; no more praise," said Don Quixote at this, "for I hate all
flattery; and though this may not be so, still language of the kind is
offensive to my chaste ears. I will only say, senora, that whether it has
might or not, that which it may or may not have shall be devoted to your
service even to death; and now, leaving this to its proper season, I
would ask the senor licentiate to tell me what it is that has brought him
into these parts, alone, unattended, and so lightly clad that I am filled
with amazement."

"I will answer that briefly," replied the curate; "you must know then,
Senor Don Quixote, that Master Nicholas, our friend and barber, and I
were going to Seville to receive some money that a relative of mine who
went to the Indies many years ago had sent me, and not such a small sum
but that it was over sixty thousand pieces of eight, full weight, which
is something; and passing by this place yesterday we were attacked by
four footpads, who stripped us even to our beards, and them they stripped
off so that the barber found it necessary to put on a false one, and even
this young man here"-pointing to Cardenio--"they completely transformed.
But the best of it is, the story goes in the neighbourhood that those who
attacked us belong to a number of galley slaves who, they say, were set
free almost on the very same spot by a man of such valour that, in spite
of the commissary and of the guards, he released the whole of them; and
beyond all doubt he must have been out of his senses, or he must be as
great a scoundrel as they, or some man without heart or conscience to let
the wolf loose among the sheep, the fox among the hens, the fly among the
honey. He has defrauded justice, and opposed his king and lawful master,
for he opposed his just commands; he has, I say, robbed the galleys of
their feet, stirred up the Holy Brotherhood which for many years past has
been quiet, and, lastly, has done a deed by which his soul may be lost
without any gain to his body." Sancho had told the curate and the barber
of the adventure of the galley slaves, which, so much to his glory, his
master had achieved, and hence the curate in alluding to it made the most
of it to see what would be said or done by Don Quixote; who changed
colour at every word, not daring to say that it was he who had been the
liberator of those worthy people. "These, then," said the curate, "were
they who robbed us; and God in his mercy pardon him who would not let
them go to the punishment they deserved."




CHAPTER XXX.

WHICH TREATS OF ADDRESS DISPLAYED BY THE FAIR DOROTHEA, WITH OTHER
MATTERS PLEASANT AND AMUSING


The curate had hardly ceased speaking, when Sancho said, "In faith, then,
senor licentiate, he who did that deed was my master; and it was not for
want of my telling him beforehand and warning him to mind what he was
about, and that it was a sin to set them at liberty, as they were all on
the march there because they were special scoundrels."

"Blockhead!" said Don Quixote at this, "it is no business or concern of
knights-errant to inquire whether any persons in affliction, in chains,
or oppressed that they may meet on the high roads go that way and suffer
as they do because of their faults or because of their misfortunes. It
only concerns them to aid them as persons in need of help, having regard
to their sufferings and not to their rascalities. I encountered a chaplet
or string of miserable and unfortunate people, and did for them what my
sense of duty demands of me, and as for the rest be that as it may; and
whoever takes objection to it, saving the sacred dignity of the senor
licentiate and his honoured person, I say he knows little about chivalry
and lies like a whoreson villain, and this I will give him to know to the
fullest extent with my sword;" and so saying he settled himself in his
stirrups and pressed down his morion; for the barber's basin, which
according to him was Mambrino's helmet, he carried hanging at the
saddle-bow until he could repair the damage done to it by the galley
slaves.

Dorothea, who was shrewd and sprightly, and by this time thoroughly
understood Don Quixote's crazy turn, and that all except Sancho Panza
were making game of him, not to be behind the rest said to him, on
observing his irritation, "Sir Knight, remember the boon you have
promised me, and that in accordance with it you must not engage in any
other adventure, be it ever so pressing; calm yourself, for if the
licentiate had known that the galley slaves had been set free by that
unconquered arm he would have stopped his mouth thrice over, or even
bitten his tongue three times before he would have said a word that
tended towards disrespect of your worship."

"That I swear heartily," said the curate, "and I would have even plucked
off a moustache."

"I will hold my peace, senora," said Don Quixote, "and I will curb the
natural anger that had arisen in my breast, and will proceed in peace and
quietness until I have fulfilled my promise; but in return for this
consideration I entreat you to tell me, if you have no objection to do
so, what is the nature of your trouble, and how many, who, and what are
the persons of whom I am to require due satisfaction, and on whom I am to
take vengeance on your behalf?"

"That I will do with all my heart," replied Dorothea, "if it will not be
wearisome to you to hear of miseries and misfortunes."

"It will not be wearisome, senora," said Don Quixote; to which Dorothea
replied, "Well, if that be so, give me your attention." As soon as she
said this, Cardenio and the barber drew close to her side, eager to hear
what sort of story the quick-witted Dorothea would invent for herself;
and Sancho did the same, for he was as much taken in by her as his
master; and she having settled herself comfortably in the saddle, and
with the help of coughing and other preliminaries taken time to think,
began with great sprightliness of manner in this fashion.

"First of all, I would have you know, sirs, that my name is-" and here
she stopped for a moment, for she forgot the name the curate had given
her; but he came to her relief, seeing what her difficulty was, and said,
"It is no wonder, senora, that your highness should be confused and
embarrassed in telling the tale of your misfortunes; for such afflictions
often have the effect of depriving the sufferers of memory, so that they
do not even remember their own names, as is the case now with your
ladyship, who has forgotten that she is called the Princess Micomicona,
lawful heiress of the great kingdom of Micomicon; and with this cue your
highness may now recall to your sorrowful recollection all you may wish
to tell us."

"That is the truth," said the damsel; "but I think from this on I shall
have no need of any prompting, and I shall bring my true story safe into
port, and here it is. The king my father, who was called Tinacrio the
Sapient, was very learned in what they call magic arts, and became aware
by his craft that my mother, who was called Queen Jaramilla, was to die
before he did, and that soon after he too was to depart this life, and I
was to be left an orphan without father or mother. But all this, he
declared, did not so much grieve or distress him as his certain knowledge
that a prodigious giant, the lord of a great island close to our kingdom,
Pandafilando of the Scowl by name--for it is averred that, though his
eyes are properly placed and straight, he always looks askew as if he
squinted, and this he does out of malignity, to strike fear and terror
into those he looks at--that he knew, I say, that this giant on becoming
aware of my orphan condition would overrun my kingdom with a mighty force
and strip me of all, not leaving me even a small village to shelter me;
but that I could avoid all this ruin and misfortune if I were willing to
marry him; however, as far as he could see, he never expected that I
would consent to a marriage so unequal; and he said no more than the
truth in this, for it has never entered my mind to marry that giant, or
any other, let him be ever so great or enormous. My father said, too,
that when he was dead, and I saw Pandafilando about to invade my kingdom,
I was not to wait and attempt to defend myself, for that would be
destructive to me, but that I should leave the kingdom entirely open to
him if I wished to avoid the death and total destruction of my good and
loyal vassals, for there would be no possibility of defending myself
against the giant's devilish power; and that I should at once with some
of my followers set out for Spain, where I should obtain relief in my
distress on finding a certain knight-errant whose fame by that time would
extend over the whole kingdom, and who would be called, if I remember
rightly, Don Azote or Don Gigote."

"'Don Quixote,' he must have said, senora," observed Sancho at this,
"otherwise called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance."

"That is it," said Dorothea; "he said, moreover, that he would be tall of
stature and lank featured; and that on his right side under the left
shoulder, or thereabouts, he would have a grey mole with hairs like
bristles."

On hearing this, Don Quixote said to his squire, "Here, Sancho my son,
bear a hand and help me to strip, for I want to see if I am the knight
that sage king foretold."

"What does your worship want to strip for?" said Dorothea.

"To see if I have that mole your father spoke of," answered Don Quixote.

"There is no occasion to strip," said Sancho; "for I know your worship
has just such a mole on the middle of your backbone, which is the mark of
a strong man."

"That is enough," said Dorothea, "for with friends we must not look too
closely into trifles; and whether it be on the shoulder or on the
backbone matters little; it is enough if there is a mole, be it where it
may, for it is all the same flesh; no doubt my good father hit the truth
in every particular, and I have made a lucky hit in commending myself to
Don Quixote; for he is the one my father spoke of, as the features of his
countenance correspond with those assigned to this knight by that wide
fame he has acquired not only in Spain but in all La Mancha; for I had
scarcely landed at Osuna when I heard such accounts of his achievements,
that at once my heart told me he was the very one I had come in search
of."

"But how did you land at Osuna, senora," asked Don Quixote, "when it is
not a seaport?"

But before Dorothea could reply the curate anticipated her, saying, "The
princess meant to say that after she had landed at Malaga the first place
where she heard of your worship was Osuna."

"That is what I meant to say," said Dorothea.

"And that would be only natural," said the curate. "Will your majesty
please proceed?"

"There is no more to add," said Dorothea, "save that in finding Don
Quixote I have had such good fortune, that I already reckon and regard
myself queen and mistress of my entire dominions, since of his courtesy
and magnanimity he has granted me the boon of accompanying me
whithersoever I may conduct him, which will be only to bring him face to
face with Pandafilando of the Scowl, that he may slay him and restore to
me what has been unjustly usurped by him: for all this must come to pass
satisfactorily since my good father Tinacrio the Sapient foretold it, who
likewise left it declared in writing in Chaldee or Greek characters (for
I cannot read them), that if this predicted knight, after having cut the
giant's throat, should be disposed to marry me I was to offer myself at
once without demur as his lawful wife, and yield him possession of my
kingdom together with my person."

"What thinkest thou now, friend Sancho?" said Don Quixote at this.
"Hearest thou that? Did I not tell thee so? See how we have already got a
kingdom to govern and a queen to marry!"

"On my oath it is so," said Sancho; "and foul fortune to him who won't
marry after slitting Senor Pandahilado's windpipe! And then, how
ill-favoured the queen is! I wish the fleas in my bed were that sort!"

And so saying he cut a couple of capers in the air with every sign of
extreme satisfaction, and then ran to seize the bridle of Dorothea's
mule, and checking it fell on his knees before her, begging her to give
him her hand to kiss in token of his acknowledgment of her as his queen
and mistress. Which of the bystanders could have helped laughing to see
the madness of the master and the simplicity of the servant? Dorothea
therefore gave her hand, and promised to make him a great lord in her
kingdom, when Heaven should be so good as to permit her to recover and
enjoy it, for which Sancho returned thanks in words that set them all
laughing again.

"This, sirs," continued Dorothea, "is my story; it only remains to tell
you that of all the attendants I took with me from my kingdom I have none
left except this well-bearded squire, for all were drowned in a great
tempest we encountered when in sight of port; and he and I came to land
on a couple of planks as if by a miracle; and indeed the whole course of
my life is a miracle and a mystery as you may have observed; and if I
have been over minute in any respect or not as precise as I ought, let it
be accounted for by what the licentiate said at the beginning of my tale,
that constant and excessive troubles deprive the sufferers of their
memory."

"They shall not deprive me of mine, exalted and worthy princess," said
Don Quixote, "however great and unexampled those which I shall endure in
your service may be; and here I confirm anew the boon I have promised
you, and I swear to go with you to the end of the world until I find
myself in the presence of your fierce enemy, whose haughty head I trust
by the aid of my arm to cut off with the edge of this--I will not say
good sword, thanks to Gines de Pasamonte who carried away mine"--(this he
said between his teeth, and then continued), "and when it has been cut
off and you have been put in peaceful possession of your realm it shall
be left to your own decision to dispose of your person as may be most
pleasing to you; for so long as my memory is occupied, my will enslaved,
and my understanding enthralled by her-I say no more--it is impossible
for me for a moment to contemplate marriage, even with a Phoenix."

The last words of his master about not wanting to marry were so
disagreeable to Sancho that raising his voice he exclaimed with great
irritation:

"By my oath, Senor Don Quixote, you are not in your right senses; for how
can your worship possibly object to marrying such an exalted princess as
this? Do you think Fortune will offer you behind every stone such a piece
of luck as is offered you now? Is my lady Dulcinea fairer, perchance? Not
she; nor half as fair; and I will even go so far as to say she does not
come up to the shoe of this one here. A poor chance I have of getting
that county I am waiting for if your worship goes looking for dainties in
the bottom of the sea. In the devil's name, marry, marry, and take this
kingdom that comes to hand without any trouble, and when you are king
make me a marquis or governor of a province, and for the rest let the
devil take it all."

Don Quixote, when he heard such blasphemies uttered against his lady
Dulcinea, could not endure it, and lifting his pike, without saying
anything to Sancho or uttering a word, he gave him two such thwacks that
he brought him to the ground; and had it not been that Dorothea cried out
to him to spare him he would have no doubt taken his life on the spot.

"Do you think," he said to him after a pause, "you scurvy clown, that you
are to be always interfering with me, and that you are to be always
offending and I always pardoning? Don't fancy it, impious scoundrel, for
that beyond a doubt thou art, since thou hast set thy tongue going
against the peerless Dulcinea. Know you not, lout, vagabond, beggar, that
were it not for the might that she infuses into my arm I should not have
strength enough to kill a flea? Say, scoffer with a viper's tongue, what
think you has won this kingdom and cut off this giant's head and made you
a marquis (for all this I count as already accomplished and decided), but
the might of Dulcinea, employing my arm as the instrument of her
achievements? She fights in me and conquers in me, and I live and breathe
in her, and owe my life and being to her. O whoreson scoundrel, how
ungrateful you are, you see yourself raised from the dust of the earth to
be a titled lord, and the return you make for so great a benefit is to
speak evil of her who has conferred it upon you!"

Sancho was not so stunned but that he heard all his master said, and
rising with some degree of nimbleness he ran to place himself behind
Dorothea's palfrey, and from that position he said to his master:

"Tell me, senor; if your worship is resolved not to marry this great
princess, it is plain the kingdom will not be yours; and not being so,
how can you bestow favours upon me? That is what I complain of. Let your
worship at any rate marry this queen, now that we have got her here as if
showered down from heaven, and afterwards you may go back to my lady
Dulcinea; for there must have been kings in the world who kept
mistresses. As to beauty, I have nothing to do with it; and if the truth
is to be told, I like them both; though I have never seen the lady
Dulcinea."

"How! never seen her, blasphemous traitor!" exclaimed Don Quixote; "hast
thou not just now brought me a message from her?"

"I mean," said Sancho, "that I did not see her so much at my leisure that
I could take particular notice of her beauty, or of her charms piecemeal;
but taken in the lump I like her."

"Now I forgive thee," said Don Quixote; "and do thou forgive me the
injury I have done thee; for our first impulses are not in our control."

"That I see," replied Sancho, "and with me the wish to speak is always
the first impulse, and I cannot help saying, once at any rate, what I
have on the tip of my tongue."

"For all that, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "take heed of what thou sayest,
for the pitcher goes so often to the well--I need say no more to thee."

"Well, well," said Sancho, "God is in heaven, and sees all tricks, and
will judge who does most harm, I in not speaking right, or your worship
in not doing it."

"That is enough," said Dorothea; "run, Sancho, and kiss your lord's hand
and beg his pardon, and henceforward be more circumspect with your praise
and abuse; and say nothing in disparagement of that lady Toboso, of whom
I know nothing save that I am her servant; and put your trust in God, for
you will not fail to obtain some dignity so as to live like a prince."

Sancho advanced hanging his head and begged his master's hand, which Don
Quixote with dignity presented to him, giving him his blessing as soon as
he had kissed it; he then bade him go on ahead a little, as he had
questions to ask him and matters of great importance to discuss with him.
Sancho obeyed, and when the two had gone some distance in advance Don
Quixote said to him, "Since thy return I have had no opportunity or time
to ask thee many particulars touching thy mission and the answer thou
hast brought back, and now that chance has granted us the time and
opportunity, deny me not the happiness thou canst give me by such good
news."

"Let your worship ask what you will," answered Sancho, "for I shall find
a way out of all as as I found a way in; but I implore you, senor, not
not to be so revengeful in future."

"Why dost thou say that, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"I say it," he returned, "because those blows just now were more because
of the quarrel the devil stirred up between us both the other night, than
for what I said against my lady Dulcinea, whom I love and reverence as I
would a relic--though there is nothing of that about her--merely as
something belonging to your worship."

"Say no more on that subject for thy life, Sancho," said Don Quixote,
"for it is displeasing to me; I have already pardoned thee for that, and
thou knowest the common saying, 'for a fresh sin a fresh penance.'"

While this was going on they saw coming along the road they were
following a man mounted on an ass, who when he came close seemed to be a
gipsy; but Sancho Panza, whose eyes and heart were there wherever he saw
asses, no sooner beheld the man than he knew him to be Gines de
Pasamonte; and by the thread of the gipsy he got at the ball, his ass,
for it was, in fact, Dapple that carried Pasamonte, who to escape
recognition and to sell the ass had disguised himself as a gipsy, being
able to speak the gipsy language, and many more, as well as if they were
his own. Sancho saw him and recognised him, and the instant he did so he
shouted to him, "Ginesillo, you thief, give up my treasure, release my
life, embarrass thyself not with my repose, quit my ass, leave my
delight, be off, rip, get thee gone, thief, and give up what is not
thine."

There was no necessity for so many words or objurgations, for at the
first one Gines jumped down, and at a like racing speed made off and got
clear of them all. Sancho hastened to his Dapple, and embracing him he
said, "How hast thou fared, my blessing, Dapple of my eyes, my comrade?"
all the while kissing him and caressing him as if he were a human being.
The ass held his peace, and let himself be kissed and caressed by Sancho
without answering a single word. They all came up and congratulated him
on having found Dapple, Don Quixote especially, who told him that
notwithstanding this he would not cancel the order for the three
ass-colts, for which Sancho thanked him.

While the two had been going along conversing in this fashion, the curate
observed to Dorothea that she had shown great cleverness, as well in the
story itself as in its conciseness, and the resemblance it bore to those
of the books of chivalry. She said that she had many times amused herself
reading them; but that she did not know the situation of the provinces or
seaports, and so she had said at haphazard that she had landed at Osuna.

"So I saw," said the curate, "and for that reason I made haste to say
what I did, by which it was all set right. But is it not a strange thing
to see how readily this unhappy gentleman believes all these figments and
lies, simply because they are in the style and manner of the absurdities
of his books?"

"So it is," said Cardenio; "and so uncommon and unexampled, that were one
to attempt to invent and concoct it in fiction, I doubt if there be any
wit keen enough to imagine it."

"But another strange thing about it," said the curate, "is that, apart
from the silly things which this worthy gentleman says in connection with
his craze, when other subjects are dealt with, he can discuss them in a
perfectly rational manner, showing that his mind is quite clear and
composed; so that, provided his chivalry is not touched upon, no one
would take him to be anything but a man of thoroughly sound
understanding."

While they were holding this conversation Don Quixote continued his with
Sancho, saying:

"Friend Panza, let us forgive and forget as to our quarrels, and tell me
now, dismissing anger and irritation, where, how, and when didst thou
find Dulcinea? What was she doing? What didst thou say to her? What did
she answer? How did she look when she was reading my letter? Who copied
it out for thee? and everything in the matter that seems to thee worth
knowing, asking, and learning; neither adding nor falsifying to give me
pleasure, nor yet curtailing lest you should deprive me of it."

"Senor," replied Sancho, "if the truth is to be told, nobody copied out
the letter for me, for I carried no letter at all."

"It is as thou sayest," said Don Quixote, "for the note-book in which I
wrote it I found in my own possession two days after thy departure, which
gave me very great vexation, as I knew not what thou wouldst do on
finding thyself without any letter; and I made sure thou wouldst return
from the place where thou didst first miss it."

"So I should have done," said Sancho, "if I had not got it by heart when
your worship read it to me, so that I repeated it to a sacristan, who
copied it out for me from hearing it, so exactly that he said in all the
days of his life, though he had read many a letter of excommunication, he
had never seen or read so pretty a letter as that."

"And hast thou got it still in thy memory, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"No, senor," replied Sancho, "for as soon as I had repeated it, seeing
there was no further use for it, I set about forgetting it; and if I
recollect any of it, it is that about 'Scrubbing,'I mean to say
'Sovereign Lady,' and the end 'Yours till death, the Knight of the Rueful
Countenance;' and between these two I put into it more than three hundred
'my souls' and 'my life's' and 'my eyes."




CHAPTER XXXI.

OF THE DELECTABLE DISCUSSION BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA, HIS
SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH OTHER INCIDENTS


"All that is not unsatisfactory to me," said Don Quixote. "Go on; thou
didst reach her; and what was that queen of beauty doing? Surely thou
didst find her stringing pearls, or embroidering some device in gold
thread for this her enslaved knight."

"I did not," said Sancho, "but I found her winnowing two bushels of wheat
in the yard of her house."

"Then depend upon it," said Don Quixote, "the grains of that wheat were
pearls when touched by her hands; and didst thou look, friend? was it
white wheat or brown?"

"It was neither, but red," said Sancho.

"Then I promise thee," said Don Quixote, "that, winnowed by her hands,
beyond a doubt the bread it made was of the whitest; but go on; when thou
gavest her my letter, did she kiss it? Did she place it on her head? Did
she perform any ceremony befitting it, or what did she do?"

"When I went to give it to her," replied Sancho, "she was hard at it
swaying from side to side with a lot of wheat she had in the sieve, and
she said to me, 'Lay the letter, friend, on the top of that sack, for I
cannot read it until I have done sifting all this."

"Discreet lady!" said Don Quixote; "that was in order to read it at her
leisure and enjoy it; proceed, Sancho; while she was engaged in her
occupation what converse did she hold with thee? What did she ask about
me, and what answer didst thou give? Make haste; tell me all, and let not
an atom be left behind in the ink-bottle."

"She asked me nothing," said Sancho; "but I told her how your worship was
left doing penance in her service, naked from the waist up, in among
these mountains like a savage, sleeping on the ground, not eating bread
off a tablecloth nor combing your beard, weeping and cursing your
fortune."

"In saying I cursed my fortune thou saidst wrong," said Don Quixote; "for
rather do I bless it and shall bless it all the days of my life for
having made me worthy of aspiring to love so lofty a lady as Dulcinea del
Toboso."

"And so lofty she is," said Sancho, "that she overtops me by more than a
hand's-breadth."

"What! Sancho," said Don Quixote, "didst thou measure with her?"

"I measured in this way," said Sancho; "going to help her to put a sack
of wheat on the back of an ass, we came so close together that I could
see she stood more than a good palm over me."

"Well!" said Don Quixote, "and doth she not of a truth accompany and
adorn this greatness with a thousand million charms of mind! But one
thing thou wilt not deny, Sancho; when thou camest close to her didst
thou not perceive a Sabaean odour, an aromatic fragrance, a, I know not
what, delicious, that I cannot find a name for; I mean a redolence, an
exhalation, as if thou wert in the shop of some dainty glover?"

"All I can say is," said Sancho, "that I did perceive a little odour,
something goaty; it must have been that she was all in a sweat with hard
work."

"It could not be that," said Don Quixote, "but thou must have been
suffering from cold in the head, or must have smelt thyself; for I know
well what would be the scent of that rose among thorns, that lily of the
field, that dissolved amber."

"Maybe so," replied Sancho; "there often comes from myself that same
odour which then seemed to me to come from her grace the lady Dulcinea;
but that's no wonder, for one devil is like another."

"Well then," continued Don Quixote, "now she has done sifting the corn
and sent it to the mill; what did she do when she read the letter?"

"As for the letter," said Sancho, "she did not read it, for she said she
could neither read nor write; instead of that she tore it up into small
pieces, saying that she did not want to let anyone read it lest her
secrets should become known in the village, and that what I had told her
by word of mouth about the love your worship bore her, and the
extraordinary penance you were doing for her sake, was enough; and, to
make an end of it, she told me to tell your worship that she kissed your
hands, and that she had a greater desire to see you than to write to you;
and that therefore she entreated and commanded you, on sight of this
present, to come out of these thickets, and to have done with carrying on
absurdities, and to set out at once for El Toboso, unless something else
of greater importance should happen, for she had a great desire to see
your worship. She laughed greatly when I told her how your worship was
called The Knight of the Rueful Countenance; I asked her if that Biscayan
the other day had been there; and she told me he had, and that he was an
honest fellow; I asked her too about the galley slaves, but she said she
had not seen any as yet."

"So far all goes well," said Don Quixote; "but tell me what jewel was it
that she gave thee on taking thy leave, in return for thy tidings of me?
For it is a usual and ancient custom with knights and ladies errant to
give the squires, damsels, or dwarfs who bring tidings of their ladies to
the knights, or of their knights to the ladies, some rich jewel as a
guerdon for good news,' and acknowledgment of the message."

"That is very likely," said Sancho, "and a good custom it was, to my
mind; but that must have been in days gone by, for now it would seem to
be the custom only to give a piece of bread and cheese; because that was
what my lady Dulcinea gave me over the top of the yard-wall when I took
leave of her; and more by token it was sheep's-milk cheese."

"She is generous in the extreme," said Don Quixote, "and if she did not
give thee a jewel of gold, no doubt it must have been because she had not
one to hand there to give thee; but sleeves are good after Easter; I
shall see her and all shall be made right. But knowest thou what amazes
me, Sancho? It seems to me thou must have gone and come through the air,
for thou hast taken but little more than three days to go to El Toboso
and return, though it is more than thirty leagues from here to there.
From which I am inclined to think that the sage magician who is my
friend, and watches over my interests (for of necessity there is and must
be one, or else I should not be a right knight-errant), that this same, I
say, must have helped thee to travel without thy knowledge; for some of
these sages will catch up a knight-errant sleeping in his bed, and
without his knowing how or in what way it happened, he wakes up the next
day more than a thousand leagues away from the place where he went to
sleep. And if it were not for this, knights-errant would not be able to
give aid to one another in peril, as they do at every turn. For a knight,
maybe, is fighting in the mountains of Armenia with some dragon, or
fierce serpent, or another knight, and gets the worst of the battle, and
is at the point of death; but when he least looks for it, there appears
over against him on a cloud, or chariot of fire, another knight, a friend
of his, who just before had been in England, and who takes his part, and
delivers him from death; and at night he finds himself in his own
quarters supping very much to his satisfaction; and yet from one place to
the other will have been two or three thousand leagues. And all this is
done by the craft and skill of the sage enchanters who take care of those
valiant knights; so that, friend Sancho, I find no difficulty in
believing that thou mayest have gone from this place to El Toboso and
returned in such a short time, since, as I have said, some friendly sage
must have carried thee through the air without thee perceiving it."

"That must have been it," said Sancho, "for indeed Rocinante went like a
gipsy's ass with quicksilver in his ears."

"Quicksilver!" said Don Quixote, "aye and what is more, a legion of
devils, folk that can travel and make others travel without being weary,
exactly as the whim seizes them. But putting this aside, what thinkest
thou I ought to do about my lady's command to go and see her? For though
I feel that I am bound to obey her mandate, I feel too that I am debarred
by the boon I have accorded to the princess that accompanies us, and the
law of chivalry compels me to have regard for my word in preference to my
inclination; on the one hand the desire to see my lady pursues and
harasses me, on the other my solemn promise and the glory I shall win in
this enterprise urge and call me; but what I think I shall do is to
travel with all speed and reach quickly the place where this giant is,
and on my arrival I shall cut off his head, and establish the princess
peacefully in her realm, and forthwith I shall return to behold the light
that lightens my senses, to whom I shall make such excuses that she will
be led to approve of my delay, for she will see that it entirely tends to
increase her glory and fame; for all that I have won, am winning, or
shall win by arms in this life, comes to me of the favour she extends to
me, and because I am hers."

"Ah! what a sad state your worship's brains are in!" said Sancho. "Tell
me, senor, do you mean to travel all that way for nothing, and to let
slip and lose so rich and great a match as this where they give as a
portion a kingdom that in sober truth I have heard say is more than
twenty thousand leagues round about, and abounds with all things
necessary to support human life, and is bigger than Portugal and Castile
put together? Peace, for the love of God! Blush for what you have said,
and take my advice, and forgive me, and marry at once in the first
village where there is a curate; if not, here is our licentiate who will
do the business beautifully; remember, I am old enough to give advice,
and this I am giving comes pat to the purpose; for a sparrow in the hand
is better than a vulture on the wing, and he who has the good to his hand
and chooses the bad, that the good he complains of may not come to him."

"Look here, Sancho," said Don Quixote. "If thou art advising me to marry,
in order that immediately on slaying the giant I may become king, and be
able to confer favours on thee, and give thee what I have promised, let
me tell thee I shall be able very easily to satisfy thy desires without
marrying; for before going into battle I will make it a stipulation that,
if I come out of it victorious, even I do not marry, they shall give me a
portion of the kingdom, that I may bestow it upon whomsoever I
choose, and when they give it to me upon whom wouldst thou have me bestow
it but upon thee?"

"That is plain speaking," said Sancho; "but let your worship take care to
choose it on the seacoast, so that if I don't like the life, I may be
able to ship off my black vassals and deal with them as I have said;
don't mind going to see my lady Dulcinea now, but go and kill this giant
and let us finish off this business; for by God it strikes me it will be
one of great honour and great profit."

"I hold thou art in the right of it, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and I
will take thy advice as to accompanying the princess before going to see
Dulcinea; but I counsel thee not to say anything to any one, or to those
who are with us, about what we have considered and discussed, for as
Dulcinea is so decorous that she does not wish her thoughts to be known
it is not right that I or anyone for me should disclose them."

"Well then, if that be so," said Sancho, "how is it that your worship
makes all those you overcome by your arm go to present themselves before
my lady Dulcinea, this being the same thing as signing your name to it
that you love her and are her lover? And as those who go must perforce
kneel before her and say they come from your worship to submit themselves
to her, how can the thoughts of both of you be hid?"

"O, how silly and simple thou art!" said Don Quixote; "seest thou not,
Sancho, that this tends to her greater exaltation? For thou must know
that according to our way of thinking in chivalry, it is a high honour to
a lady to have many knights-errant in her service, whose thoughts never
go beyond serving her for her own sake, and who look for no other reward
for their great and true devotion than that she should be willing to
accept them as her knights."

"It is with that kind of love," said Sancho, "I have heard preachers say
we ought to love our Lord, for himself alone, without being moved by the
hope of glory or the fear of punishment; though for my part, I would
rather love and serve him for what he could do."

"The devil take thee for a clown!" said Don Quixote, "and what shrewd
things thou sayest at times! One would think thou hadst studied."

"In faith, then, I cannot even read."

Master Nicholas here called out to them to wait a while, as they wanted
to halt and drink at a little spring there was there. Don Quixote drew
up, not a little to the satisfaction of Sancho, for he was by this time
weary of telling so many lies, and in dread of his master catching him
tripping, for though he knew that Dulcinea was a peasant girl of El
Toboso, he had never seen her in all his life. Cardenio had now put on
the clothes which Dorothea was wearing when they found her, and though
they were not very good, they were far better than those he put off. They
dismounted together by the side of the spring, and with what the curate
had provided himself with at the inn they appeased, though not very well,
the keen appetite they all of them brought with them.

While they were so employed there happened to come by a youth passing on
his way, who stopping to examine the party at the spring, the next moment
ran to Don Quixote and clasping him round the legs, began to weep freely,
saying, "O, senor, do you not know me? Look at me well; I am that lad
Andres that your worship released from the oak-tree where I was tied."

Don Quixote recognised him, and taking his hand he turned to those
present and said: "That your worships may see how important it is to have
knights-errant to redress the wrongs and injuries done by tyrannical and
wicked men in this world, I may tell you that some days ago passing
through a wood, I heard cries and piteous complaints as of a person in
pain and distress; I immediately hastened, impelled by my bounden duty,
to the quarter whence the plaintive accents seemed to me to proceed, and
I found tied to an oak this lad who now stands before you, which in my
heart I rejoice at, for his testimony will not permit me to depart from
the truth in any particular. He was, I say, tied to an oak, naked from
the waist up, and a clown, whom I afterwards found to be his master, was
scarifying him by lashes with the reins of his mare. As soon as I saw him
I asked the reason of so cruel a flagellation. The boor replied that he
was flogging him because he was his servant and because of carelessness
that proceeded rather from dishonesty than stupidity; on which this boy
said, 'Senor, he flogs me only because I ask for my wages.' The master
made I know not what speeches and explanations, which, though I listened
to them, I did not accept. In short, I compelled the clown to unbind him,
and to swear he would take him with him, and pay him real by real, and
perfumed into the bargain. Is not all this true, Andres my son? Didst
thou not mark with what authority I commanded him, and with what humility
he promised to do all I enjoined, specified, and required of him? Answer
without hesitation; tell these gentlemen what took place, that they may
see that it is as great an advantage as I say to have knights-errant
abroad."

"All that your worship has said is quite true," answered the lad; "but
the end of the business turned out just the opposite of what your worship
supposes."

"How! the opposite?" said Don Quixote; "did not the clown pay thee then?"

"Not only did he not pay me," replied the lad, "but as soon as your
worship had passed out of the wood and we were alone, he tied me up again
to the same oak and gave me a fresh flogging, that left me like a flayed
Saint Bartholomew; and every stroke he gave me he followed up with some
jest or gibe about having made a fool of your worship, and but for the
pain I was suffering I should have laughed at the things he said. In
short he left me in such a condition that I have been until now in a
hospital getting cured of the injuries which that rascally clown
inflicted on me then; for all which your worship is to blame; for if you
had gone your own way and not come where there was no call for you, nor
meddled in other people's affairs, my master would have been content with
giving me one or two dozen lashes, and would have then loosed me and paid
me what he owed me; but when your worship abused him so out of measure,
and gave him so many hard words, his anger was kindled; and as he could
not revenge himself on you, as soon as he saw you had left him the storm
burst upon me in such a way, that I feel as if I should never be a man
again."

"The mischief," said Don Quixote, "lay in my going away; for I should not
have gone until I had seen thee paid; because I ought to have known well
by long experience that there is no clown who will keep his word if he
finds it will not suit him to keep it; but thou rememberest, Andres, that
I swore if he did not pay thee I would go and seek him, and find him
though he were to hide himself in the whale's belly."

"That is true," said Andres; "but it was of no use."

"Thou shalt see now whether it is of use or not," said Don Quixote; and
so saying, he got up hastily and bade Sancho bridle Rocinante, who was
browsing while they were eating. Dorothea asked him what he meant to do.
He replied that he meant to go in search of this clown and chastise him
for such iniquitous conduct, and see Andres paid to the last maravedi,
despite and in the teeth of all the clowns in the world. To which she
replied that he must remember that in accordance with his promise he
could not engage in any enterprise until he had concluded hers; and that
as he knew this better than anyone, he should restrain his ardour until
his return from her kingdom.

"That is true," said Don Quixote, "and Andres must have patience until my
return as you say, senora; but I once more swear and promise not to stop
until I have seen him avenged and paid."

"I have no faith in those oaths," said Andres; "I would rather have now
something to help me to get to Seville than all the revenges in the
world; if you have here anything to eat that I can take with me, give it
me, and God be with your worship and all knights-errant; and may their
errands turn out as well for themselves as they have for me."

Sancho took out from his store a piece of bread and another of cheese,
and giving them to the lad he said, "Here, take this, brother Andres, for
we have all of us a share in your misfortune."

"Why, what share have you got?"

"This share of bread and cheese I am giving you," answered Sancho; "and
God knows whether I shall feel the want of it myself or not; for I would
have you know, friend, that we squires to knights-errant have to bear a
great deal of hunger and hard fortune, and even other things more easily
felt than told."

Andres seized his bread and cheese, and seeing that nobody gave him
anything more, bent his head, and took hold of the road, as the saying
is. However, before leaving he said, "For the love of God, sir
knight-errant, if you ever meet me again, though you may see them cutting
me to pieces, give me no aid or succour, but leave me to my misfortune,
which will not be so great but that a greater will come to me by being
helped by your worship, on whom and all the knights-errant that have ever
been born God send his curse."

Don Quixote was getting up to chastise him, but he took to his heels at
such a pace that no one attempted to follow him; and mightily chapfallen
was Don Quixote at Andres' story, and the others had to take great care
to restrain their laughter so as not to put him entirely out of
countenance.




CHAPTER XXXII.

WHICH TREATS OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE'S PARTY AT THE INN


Their dainty repast being finished, they saddled at once, and without any
adventure worth mentioning they reached next day the inn, the object of
Sancho Panza's fear and dread; but though he would have rather not
entered it, there was no help for it. The landlady, the landlord, their
daughter, and Maritornes, when they saw Don Quixote and Sancho coming,
went out to welcome them with signs of hearty satisfaction, which Don
Quixote received with dignity and gravity, and bade them make up a better
bed for him than the last time: to which the landlady replied that if he
paid better than he did the last time she would give him one fit for a
prince. Don Quixote said he would, so they made up a tolerable one for
him in the same garret as before; and he lay down at once, being sorely
shaken and in want of sleep.

No sooner was the door shut upon him than the landlady made at the
barber, and seizing him by the beard, said:

"By my faith you are not going to make a beard of my tail any longer; you
must give me back tail, for it is a shame the way that thing of my
husband's goes tossing about on the floor; I mean the comb that I used to
stick in my good tail."

But for all she tugged at it the barber would not give it up until the
licentiate told him to let her have it, as there was now no further
occasion for that stratagem, because he might declare himself and appear
in his own character, and tell Don Quixote that he had fled to this inn
when those thieves the galley slaves robbed him; and should he ask for
the princess's squire, they could tell him that she had sent him on
before her to give notice to the people of her kingdom that she was
coming, and bringing with her the deliverer of them all. On this the
barber cheerfully restored the tail to the landlady, and at the same time
they returned all the accessories they had borrowed to effect Don
Quixote's deliverance. All the people of the inn were struck with
astonishment at the beauty of Dorothea, and even at the comely figure of
the shepherd Cardenio. The curate made them get ready such fare as there
was in the inn, and the landlord, in hope of better payment, served them
up a tolerably good dinner. All this time Don Quixote was asleep, and
they thought it best not to waken him, as sleeping would now do him more
good than eating.

While at dinner, the company consisting of the landlord, his wife, their
daughter, Maritornes, and all the travellers, they discussed the strange
craze of Don Quixote and the manner in which he had been found; and the
landlady told them what had taken place between him and the carrier; and
then, looking round to see if Sancho was there, when she saw he was not,
she gave them the whole story of his blanketing, which they received with
no little amusement. But on the curate observing that it was the books of
chivalry which Don Quixote had read that had turned his brain, the
landlord said:

"I cannot understand how that can be, for in truth to my mind there is no
better reading in the world, and I have here two or three of them, with
other writings that are the very life, not only of myself but of plenty
more; for when it is harvest-time, the reapers flock here on holidays,
and there is always one among them who can read and who takes up one of
these books, and we gather round him, thirty or more of us, and stay
listening to him with a delight that makes our grey hairs grow young
again. At least I can say for myself that when I hear of what furious and
terrible blows the knights deliver, I am seized with the longing to do
the same, and I would like to be hearing about them night and day."

"And I just as much," said the landlady, "because I never have a quiet
moment in my house except when you are listening to some one reading; for
then you are so taken up that for the time being you forget to scold."

"That is true," said Maritornes; "and, faith, I relish hearing these
things greatly too, for they are very pretty; especially when they
describe some lady or another in the arms of her knight under the orange
trees, and the duenna who is keeping watch for them half dead with envy
and fright; all this I say is as good as honey."

"And you, what do you think, young lady?" said the curate turning to the
landlord's daughter.

"I don't know indeed, senor," said she; "I listen too, and to tell the
truth, though I do not understand it, I like hearing it; but it is not
the blows that my father likes that I like, but the laments the knights
utter when they are separated from their ladies; and indeed they
sometimes make me weep with the pity I feel for them."

"Then you would console them if it was for you they wept, young lady?"
said Dorothea.

"I don't know what I should do," said the girl; "I only know that there
are some of those ladies so cruel that they call their knights tigers and
lions and a thousand other foul names: and Jesus! I don't know what sort
of folk they can be, so unfeeling and heartless, that rather than bestow
a glance upon a worthy man they leave him to die or go mad. I don't know
what is the good of such prudery; if it is for honour's sake, why not
marry them? That's all they want."

"Hush, child," said the landlady; "it seems to me thou knowest a great
deal about these things, and it is not fit for girls to know or talk so
much."

"As the gentleman asked me, I could not help answering him," said the
girl.

"Well then," said the curate, "bring me these books, senor landlord, for
I should like to see them."

"With all my heart," said he, and going into his own room he brought out
an old valise secured with a little chain, on opening which the curate
found in it three large books and some manuscripts written in a very good
hand. The first that he opened he found to be "Don Cirongilio of Thrace,"
and the second "Don Felixmarte of Hircania," and the other the "History
of the Great Captain Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova, with the Life of Diego
Garcia de Paredes."

When the curate read the two first titles he looked over at the barber
and said, "We want my friend's housekeeper and niece here now."

"Nay," said the barber, "I can do just as well to carry them to the yard
or to the hearth, and there is a very good fire there."

"What! your worship would burn my books!" said the landlord.

"Only these two," said the curate, "Don Cirongilio, and Felixmarte."

"Are my books, then, heretics or phlegmaties that you want to burn them?"
said the landlord.

"Schismatics you mean, friend," said the barber, "not phlegmatics."

"That's it," said the landlord; "but if you want to burn any, let it be
that about the Great Captain and that Diego Garcia; for I would rather
have a child of mine burnt than either of the others."

"Brother," said the curate, "those two books are made up of lies, and are
full of folly and nonsense; but this of the Great Captain is a true
history, and contains the deeds of Gonzalo Hernandez of Cordova, who by
his many and great achievements earned the title all over the world of
the Great Captain, a famous and illustrious name, and deserved by him
alone; and this Diego Garcia de Paredes was a distinguished knight of the
city of Trujillo in Estremadura, a most gallant soldier, and of such
bodily strength that with one finger he stopped a mill-wheel in full
motion; and posted with a two-handed sword at the foot of a bridge he
kept the whole of an immense army from passing over it, and achieved such
other exploits that if, instead of his relating them himself with the
modesty of a knight and of one writing his own history, some free and
unbiassed writer had recorded them, they would have thrown into the shade
all the deeds of the Hectors, Achilleses, and Rolands."

"Tell that to my father," said the landlord. "There's a thing to be
astonished at! Stopping a mill-wheel! By God your worship should read
what I have read of Felixmarte of Hircania, how with one single
backstroke he cleft five giants asunder through the middle as if they had
been made of bean-pods like the little friars the children make; and
another time he attacked a very great and powerful army, in which there
were more than a million six hundred thousand soldiers, all armed from
head to foot, and he routed them all as if they had been flocks of sheep.

"And then, what do you say to the good Cirongilio of Thrace, that was so
stout and bold; as may be seen in the book, where it is related that as
he was sailing along a river there came up out of the midst of the water
against him a fiery serpent, and he, as soon as he saw it, flung himself
upon it and got astride of its scaly shoulders, and squeezed its throat
with both hands with such force that the serpent, finding he was
throttling it, had nothing for it but to let itself sink to the bottom of
the river, carrying with it the knight who would not let go his hold; and
when they got down there he found himself among palaces and gardens so
pretty that it was a wonder to see; and then the serpent changed itself
into an old ancient man, who told him such things as were never heard.
Hold your peace, senor; for if you were to hear this you would go mad
with delight. A couple of figs for your Great Captain and your Diego
Garcia!"

Hearing this Dorothea said in a whisper to Cardenio, "Our landlord is
almost fit to play a second part to Don Quixote."

"I think so," said Cardenio, "for, as he shows, he accepts it as a
certainty that everything those books relate took place exactly as it is
written down; and the barefooted friars themselves would not persuade him
to the contrary."

"But consider, brother," said the curate once more, "there never was any
Felixmarte of Hircania in the world, nor any Cirongilio of Thrace, or any
of the other knights of the same sort, that the books of chivalry talk
of; the whole thing is the fabrication and invention of idle wits,
devised by them for the purpose you describe of beguiling the time, as
your reapers do when they read; for I swear to you in all seriousness
there never were any such knights in the world, and no such exploits or
nonsense ever happened anywhere."

"Try that bone on another dog," said the landlord; "as if I did not know
how many make five, and where my shoe pinches me; don't think to feed me
with pap, for by God I am no fool. It is a good joke for your worship to
try and persuade me that everything these good books say is nonsense and
lies, and they printed by the license of the Lords of the Royal Council,
as if they were people who would allow such a lot of lies to be printed
all together, and so many battles and enchantments that they take away
one's senses."

"I have told you, friend," said the curate, "that this is done to divert
our idle thoughts; and as in well-ordered states games of chess, fives,
and billiards are allowed for the diversion of those who do not care, or
are not obliged, or are unable to work, so books of this kind are allowed
to be printed, on the supposition that, what indeed is the truth, there
can be nobody so ignorant as to take any of them for true stories; and if
it were permitted me now, and the present company desired it, I could say
something about the qualities books of chivalry should possess to be good
ones, that would be to the advantage and even to the taste of some; but I
hope the time will come when I can communicate my ideas to some one who
may be able to mend matters; and in the meantime, senor landlord, believe
what I have said, and take your books, and make up your mind about their
truth or falsehood, and much good may they do you; and God grant you may
not fall lame of the same foot your guest Don Quixote halts on."

"No fear of that," returned the landlord; "I shall not be so mad as to
make a knight-errant of myself; for I see well enough that things are not
now as they used to be in those days, when they say those famous knights
roamed about the world."

Sancho had made his appearance in the middle of this conversation, and he
was very much troubled and cast down by what he heard said about
knights-errant being now no longer in vogue, and all books of chivalry
being folly and lies; and he resolved in his heart to wait and see what
came of this journey of his master's, and if it did not turn out as
happily as his master expected, he determined to leave him and go back to
his wife and children and his ordinary labour.

The landlord was carrying away the valise and the books, but the curate
said to him, "Wait; I want to see what those papers are that are written
in such a good hand." The landlord taking them out handed them to him to
read, and he perceived they were a work of about eight sheets of
manuscript, with, in large letters at the beginning, the title of "Novel
of the Ill-advised Curiosity." The curate read three or four lines to
himself, and said, "I must say the title of this novel does not seem to
me a bad one, and I feel an inclination to read it all." To which the
landlord replied, "Then your reverence will do well to read it, for I can
tell you that some guests who have read it here have been much pleased
with it, and have begged it of me very earnestly; but I would not give
it, meaning to return it to the person who forgot the valise, books, and
papers here, for maybe he will return here some time or other; and though
I know I shall miss the books, faith I mean to return them; for though I
am an innkeeper, still I am a Christian."

"You are very right, friend," said the curate; "but for all that, if the
novel pleases me you must let me copy it."

"With all my heart," replied the host.

While they were talking Cardenio had taken up the novel and begun to read
it, and forming the same opinion of it as the curate, he begged him to
read it so that they might all hear it.

"I would read it," said the curate, "if the time would not be better
spent in sleeping."

"It will be rest enough for me," said Dorothea, "to while away the time
by listening to some tale, for my spirits are not yet tranquil enough to
let me sleep when it would be seasonable."

"Well then, in that case," said the curate, "I will read it, if it were
only out of curiosity; perhaps it may contain something pleasant."

Master Nicholas added his entreaties to the same effect, and Sancho too;
seeing which, and considering that he would give pleasure to all, and
receive it himself, the curate said, "Well then, attend to me everyone,
for the novel begins thus."




CHAPTER XXXIII.

IN WHICH IS RELATED THE NOVEL OF "THE ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY"


In Florence, a rich and famous city of Italy in the province called
Tuscany, there lived two gentlemen of wealth and quality, Anselmo and
Lothario, such great friends that by way of distinction they were called
by all that knew them "The Two Friends." They were unmarried, young, of
the same age and of the same tastes, which was enough to account for the
reciprocal friendship between them. Anselmo, it is true, was somewhat
more inclined to seek pleasure in love than Lothario, for whom the
pleasures of the chase had more attraction; but on occasion Anselmo would
forego his own tastes to yield to those of Lothario, and Lothario would
surrender his to fall in with those of Anselmo, and in this way their
inclinations kept pace one with the other with a concord so perfect that
the best regulated clock could not surpass it.

Anselmo was deep in love with a high-born and beautiful maiden of the
same city, the daughter of parents so estimable, and so estimable
herself, that he resolved, with the approval of his friend Lothario,
without whom he did nothing, to ask her of them in marriage, and did so,
Lothario being the bearer of the demand, and conducting the negotiation
so much to the satisfaction of his friend that in a short time he was in
possession of the object of his desires, and Camilla so happy in having
won Anselmo for her husband, that she gave thanks unceasingly to heaven
and to Lothario, by whose means such good fortune had fallen to her. The
first few days, those of a wedding being usually days of merry-making,
Lothario frequented his friend Anselmo's house as he had been wont,
striving to do honour to him and to the occasion, and to gratify him in
every way he could; but when the wedding days were over and the
succession of visits and congratulations had slackened, he began
purposely to leave off going to the house of Anselmo, for it seemed to
him, as it naturally would to all men of sense, that friends' houses
ought not to be visited after marriage with the same frequency as in
their masters' bachelor days: because, though true and genuine friendship
cannot and should not be in any way suspicious, still a married man's
honour is a thing of such delicacy that it is held liable to injury from
brothers, much more from friends. Anselmo remarked the cessation of
Lothario's visits, and complained of it to him, saying that if he had
known that marriage was to keep him from enjoying his society as he used,
he would have never married; and that, if by the thorough harmony that
subsisted between them while he was a bachelor they had earned such a
sweet name as that of "The Two Friends," he should not allow a title so
rare and so delightful to be lost through a needless anxiety to act
circumspectly; and so he entreated him, if such a phrase was allowable
between them, to be once more master of his house and to come in and go
out as formerly, assuring him that his wife Camilla had no other desire
or inclination than that which he would wish her to have, and that
knowing how sincerely they loved one another she was grieved to see such
coldness in him.

To all this and much more that Anselmo said to Lothario to persuade him
to come to his house as he had been in the habit of doing, Lothario
replied with so much prudence, sense, and judgment, that Anselmo was
satisfied of his friend's good intentions, and it was agreed that on two
days in the week, and on holidays, Lothario should come to dine with him;
but though this arrangement was made between them Lothario resolved to
observe it no further than he considered to be in accordance with the
honour of his friend, whose good name was more to him than his own. He
said, and justly, that a married man upon whom heaven had bestowed a
beautiful wife should consider as carefully what friends he brought to
his house as what female friends his wife associated with, for what
cannot be done or arranged in the market-place, in church, at public
festivals or at stations (opportunities that husbands cannot always deny
their wives), may be easily managed in the house of the female friend or
relative in whom most confidence is reposed. Lothario said, too, that
every married man should have some friend who would point out to him any
negligence he might be guilty of in his conduct, for it will sometimes
happen that owing to the deep affection the husband bears his wife either
he does not caution her, or, not to vex her, refrains from telling her to
do or not to do certain things, doing or avoiding which may be a matter
of honour or reproach to him; and errors of this kind he could easily
correct if warned by a friend. But where is such a friend to be found as
Lothario would have, so judicious, so loyal, and so true?

Of a truth I know not; Lothario alone was such a one, for with the utmost
care and vigilance he watched over the honour of his friend, and strove
to diminish, cut down, and reduce the number of days for going to his
house according to their agreement, lest the visits of a young man,
wealthy, high-born, and with the attractions he was conscious of
possessing, at the house of a woman so beautiful as Camilla, should be
regarded with suspicion by the inquisitive and malicious eyes of the idle
public. For though his integrity and reputation might bridle slanderous
tongues, still he was unwilling to hazard either his own good name or
that of his friend; and for this reason most of the days agreed upon he
devoted to some other business which he pretended was unavoidable; so
that a great portion of the day was taken up with complaints on one side
and excuses on the other. It happened, however, that on one occasion when
the two were strolling together outside the city, Anselmo addressed the
following words to Lothario.

"Thou mayest suppose, Lothario my friend, that I am unable to give
sufficient thanks for the favours God has rendered me in making me the
son of such parents as mine were, and bestowing upon me with no niggard
hand what are called the gifts of nature as well as those of fortune, and
above all for what he has done in giving me thee for a friend and Camilla
for a wife--two treasures that I value, if not as highly as I ought, at
least as highly as I am able. And yet, with all these good things, which
are commonly all that men need to enable them to live happily, I am the
most discontented and dissatisfied man in the whole world; for, I know
not how long since, I have been harassed and oppressed by a desire so
strange and so unusual, that I wonder at myself and blame and chide
myself when I am alone, and strive to stifle it and hide it from my own
thoughts, and with no better success than if I were endeavouring
deliberately to publish it to all the world; and as, in short, it must
come out, I would confide it to thy safe keeping, feeling sure that by
this means, and by thy readiness as a true friend to afford me relief, I
shall soon find myself freed from the distress it causes me, and that thy
care will give me happiness in the same degree as my own folly has caused
me misery."

The words of Anselmo struck Lothario with astonishment, unable as he was
to conjecture the purport of such a lengthy preamble; and though he
strove to imagine what desire it could be that so troubled his friend,
his conjectures were all far from the truth, and to relieve the anxiety
which this perplexity was causing him, he told him he was doing a
flagrant injustice to their great friendship in seeking circuitous
methods of confiding to him his most hidden thoughts, for he well knew he
might reckon upon his counsel in diverting them, or his help in carrying
them into effect.

"That is the truth," replied Anselmo, "and relying upon that I will tell
thee, friend Lothario, that the desire which harasses me is that of
knowing whether my wife Camilla is as good and as perfect as I think her
to be; and I cannot satisfy myself of the truth on this point except by
testing her in such a way that the trial may prove the purity of her
virtue as the fire proves that of gold; because I am persuaded, my
friend, that a woman is virtuous only in proportion as she is or is not
tempted; and that she alone is strong who does not yield to the promises,
gifts, tears, and importunities of earnest lovers; for what thanks does a
woman deserve for being good if no one urges her to be bad, and what
wonder is it that she is reserved and circumspect to whom no opportunity
is given of going wrong and who knows she has a husband that will take
her life the first time he detects her in an impropriety? I do not
therefore hold her who is virtuous through fear or want of opportunity in
the same estimation as her who comes out of temptation and trial with a
crown of victory; and so, for these reasons and many others that I could
give thee to justify and support the opinion I hold, I am desirous that
my wife Camilla should pass this crisis, and be refined and tested by the
fire of finding herself wooed and by one worthy to set his affections
upon her; and if she comes out, as I know she will, victorious from this
struggle, I shall look upon my good fortune as unequalled, I shall be
able to say that the cup of my desire is full, and that the virtuous
woman of whom the sage says 'Who shall find her?' has fallen to my lot.
And if the result be the contrary of what I expect, in the satisfaction
of knowing that I have been right in my opinion, I shall bear without
complaint the pain which my so dearly bought experience will naturally
cause me. And, as nothing of all thou wilt urge in opposition to my wish
will avail to keep me from carrying it into effect, it is my desire,
friend Lothario, that thou shouldst consent to become the instrument for
effecting this purpose that I am bent upon, for I will afford thee
opportunities to that end, and nothing shall be wanting that I may think
necessary for the pursuit of a virtuous, honourable, modest and
high-minded woman. And among other reasons, I am induced to entrust this
arduous task to thee by the consideration that if Camilla be conquered by
thee the conquest will not be pushed to extremes, but only far enough to
account that accomplished which from a sense of honour will be left
undone; thus I shall not be wronged in anything more than intention, and
my wrong will remain buried in the integrity of thy silence, which I know
well will be as lasting as that of death in what concerns me. If,
therefore, thou wouldst have me enjoy what can be called life, thou wilt
at once engage in this love struggle, not lukewarmly nor slothfully, but
with the energy and zeal that my desire demands, and with the loyalty our
friendship assures me of."

Such were the words Anselmo addressed to Lothario, who listened to them
with such attention that, except to say what has been already mentioned,
he did not open his lips until the other had finished. Then perceiving
that he had no more to say, after regarding him for awhile, as one would
regard something never before seen that excited wonder and amazement, he
said to him, "I cannot persuade myself, Anselmo my friend, that what thou
hast said to me is not in jest; if I thought that thou wert speaking
seriously I would not have allowed thee to go so far; so as to put a stop
to thy long harangue by not listening to thee I verily suspect that
either thou dost not know me, or I do not know thee; but no, I know well
thou art Anselmo, and thou knowest that I am Lothario; the misfortune is,
it seems to me, that thou art not the Anselmo thou wert, and must have
thought that I am not the Lothario I should be; for the things that thou
hast said to me are not those of that Anselmo who was my friend, nor are
those that thou demandest of me what should be asked of the Lothario thou
knowest. True friends will prove their friends and make use of them, as a
poet has said, usque ad aras; whereby he meant that they will not make
use of their friendship in things that are contrary to God's will. If
this, then, was a heathen's feeling about friendship, how much more
should it be a Christian's, who knows that the divine must not be
forfeited for the sake of any human friendship? And if a friend should go
so far as to put aside his duty to Heaven to fulfil his duty to his
friend, it should not be in matters that are trifling or of little
moment, but in such as affect the friend's life and honour. Now tell me,
Anselmo, in which of these two art thou imperilled, that I should hazard
myself to gratify thee, and do a thing so detestable as that thou seekest
of me? Neither forsooth; on the contrary, thou dost ask of me, so far as
I understand, to strive and labour to rob thee of honour and life, and to
rob myself of them at the same time; for if I take away thy honour it is
plain I take away thy life, as a man without honour is worse than dead;
and being the instrument, as thou wilt have it so, of so much wrong to
thee, shall not I, too, be left without honour, and consequently without
life? Listen to me, Anselmo my friend, and be not impatient to answer me
until I have said what occurs to me touching the object of thy desire,
for there will be time enough left for thee to reply and for me to hear."

"Be it so," said Anselmo, "say what thou wilt."

Lothario then went on to say, "It seems to me, Anselmo, that thine is
just now the temper of mind which is always that of the Moors, who can
never be brought to see the error of their creed by quotations from the
Holy Scriptures, or by reasons which depend upon the examination of the
understanding or are founded upon the articles of faith, but must have
examples that are palpable, easy, intelligible, capable of proof, not
admitting of doubt, with mathematical demonstrations that cannot be
denied, like, 'If equals be taken from equals, the remainders are equal:'
and if they do not understand this in words, and indeed they do not, it
has to be shown to them with the hands, and put before their eyes, and
even with all this no one succeeds in convincing them of the truth of our
holy religion. This same mode of proceeding I shall have to adopt with
thee, for the desire which has sprung up in thee is so absurd and remote
from everything that has a semblance of reason, that I feel it would be a
waste of time to employ it in reasoning with thy simplicity, for at
present I will call it by no other name; and I am even tempted to leave
thee in thy folly as a punishment for thy pernicious desire; but the
friendship I bear thee, which will not allow me to desert thee in such
manifest danger of destruction, keeps me from dealing so harshly by thee.
And that thou mayest clearly see this, say, Anselmo, hast thou not told
me that I must force my suit upon a modest woman, decoy one that is
virtuous, make overtures to one that is pure-minded, pay court to one
that is prudent? Yes, thou hast told me so. Then, if thou knowest that
thou hast a wife, modest, virtuous, pure-minded and prudent, what is it
that thou seekest? And if thou believest that she will come forth
victorious from all my attacks--as doubtless she would--what higher
titles than those she possesses now dost thou think thou canst upon her
then, or in what will she be better then than she is now? Either thou
dost not hold her to be what thou sayest, or thou knowest not what thou
dost demand. If thou dost not hold her to be what thou why dost thou seek
to prove her instead of treating her as guilty in the way that may seem
best to thee? but if she be as virtuous as thou believest, it is an
uncalled-for proceeding to make trial of truth itself, for, after trial,
it will but be in the same estimation as before. Thus, then, it is
conclusive that to attempt things from which harm rather than advantage
may come to us is the part of unreasoning and reckless minds, more
especially when they are things which we are not forced or compelled to
attempt, and which show from afar that it is plainly madness to attempt
them.

"Difficulties are attempted either for the sake of God or for the sake of
the world, or for both; those undertaken for God's sake are those which
the saints undertake when they attempt to live the lives of angels in
human bodies; those undertaken for the sake of the world are those of the
men who traverse such a vast expanse of water, such a variety of
climates, so many strange countries, to acquire what are called the
blessings of fortune; and those undertaken for the sake of God and the
world together are those of brave soldiers, who no sooner do they see in
the enemy's wall a breach as wide as a cannon ball could make, than,
casting aside all fear, without hesitating, or heeding the manifest peril
that threatens them, borne onward by the desire of defending their faith,
their country, and their king, they fling themselves dauntlessly into the
midst of the thousand opposing deaths that await them. Such are the
things that men are wont to attempt, and there is honour, glory, gain, in
attempting them, however full of difficulty and peril they may be; but
that which thou sayest it is thy wish to attempt and carry out will not
win thee the glory of God nor the blessings of fortune nor fame among
men; for even if the issue be as thou wouldst have it, thou wilt be no
happier, richer, or more honoured than thou art this moment; and if it be
otherwise thou wilt be reduced to misery greater than can be imagined,
for then it will avail thee nothing to reflect that no one is aware of
the misfortune that has befallen thee; it will suffice to torture and
crush thee that thou knowest it thyself. And in confirmation of the truth
of what I say, let me repeat to thee a stanza made by the famous poet
Luigi Tansillo at the end of the first part of his 'Tears of Saint
Peter,' which says thus:

The anguish and the shame but greater grew In Peter's heart as morning
slowly came; No eye was there to see him, well he knew, Yet he himself
was to himself a shame; Exposed to all men's gaze, or screened from view,
A noble heart will feel the pang the same; A prey to shame the sinning
soul will be, Though none but heaven and earth its shame can see.

Thus by keeping it secret thou wilt not escape thy sorrow, but rather
thou wilt shed tears unceasingly, if not tears of the eyes, tears of
blood from the heart, like those shed by that simple doctor our poet
tells us of, that tried the test of the cup, which the wise Rinaldo,
better advised, refused to do; for though this may be a poetic fiction it
contains a moral lesson worthy of attention and study and imitation.
Moreover by what I am about to say to thee thou wilt be led to see the
great error thou wouldst commit.

"Tell me, Anselmo, if Heaven or good fortune had made thee master and
lawful owner of a diamond of the finest quality, with the excellence and
purity of which all the lapidaries that had seen it had been satisfied,
saying with one voice and common consent that in purity, quality, and
fineness, it was all that a stone of the kind could possibly be, thou
thyself too being of the same belief, as knowing nothing to the contrary,
would it be reasonable in thee to desire to take that diamond and place
it between an anvil and a hammer, and by mere force of blows and strength
of arm try if it were as hard and as fine as they said? And if thou
didst, and if the stone should resist so silly a test, that would add
nothing to its value or reputation; and if it were broken, as it might
be, would not all be lost? Undoubtedly it would, leaving its owner to be
rated as a fool in the opinion of all. Consider, then, Anselmo my friend,
that Camilla is a diamond of the finest quality as well in thy estimation
as in that of others, and that it is contrary to reason to expose her to
the risk of being broken; for if she remains intact she cannot rise to a
higher value than she now possesses; and if she give way and be unable to
resist, bethink thee now how thou wilt be deprived of her, and with what
good reason thou wilt complain of thyself for having been the cause of
her ruin and thine own. Remember there is no jewel in the world so
precious as a chaste and virtuous woman, and that the whole honour of
women consists in reputation; and since thy wife's is of that high
excellence that thou knowest, wherefore shouldst thou seek to call that
truth in question? Remember, my friend, that woman is an imperfect
animal, and that impediments are not to be placed in her way to make her
trip and fall, but that they should be removed, and her path left clear
of all obstacles, so that without hindrance she may run her course freely
to attain the desired perfection, which consists in being virtuous.
Naturalists tell us that the ermine is a little animal which has a fur of
purest white, and that when the hunters wish to take it, they make use of
this artifice. Having ascertained the places which it frequents and
passes, they stop the way to them with mud, and then rousing it, drive it
towards the spot, and as soon as the ermine comes to the mud it halts,
and allows itself to be taken captive rather than pass through the mire,
and spoil and sully its whiteness, which it values more than life and
liberty. The virtuous and chaste woman is an ermine, and whiter and purer
than snow is the virtue of modesty; and he who wishes her not to lose it,
but to keep and preserve it, must adopt a course different from that
employed with the ermine; he must not put before her the mire of the
gifts and attentions of persevering lovers, because perhaps--and even
without a perhaps--she may not have sufficient virtue and natural
strength in herself to pass through and tread under foot these
impediments; they must be removed, and the brightness of virtue and the
beauty of a fair fame must be put before her. A virtuous woman, too, is
like a mirror, of clear shining crystal, liable to be tarnished and
dimmed by every breath that touches it. She must be treated as relics
are; adored, not touched. She must be protected and prized as one
protects and prizes a fair garden full of roses and flowers, the owner of
which allows no one to trespass or pluck a blossom; enough for others
that from afar and through the iron grating they may enjoy its fragrance
and its beauty. Finally let me repeat to thee some verses that come to my
mind; I heard them in a modern comedy, and it seems to me they bear upon
the point we are discussing. A prudent old man was giving advice to
another, the father of a young girl, to lock her up, watch over her and
keep her in seclusion, and among other arguments he used these:

Woman is a thing of glass;
But her brittleness 'tis best
Not too curiously to test:
Who knows what may come to pass?

Breaking is an easy matter,
And it's folly to expose
What you cannot mend to blows;
What you can't make whole to shatter.

This, then, all may hold as true,
And the reason's plain to see;
For if Danaes there be,
There are golden showers too.

"All that I have said to thee so far, Anselmo, has had reference to what
concerns thee; now it is right that I should say something of what
regards myself; and if I be prolix, pardon me, for the labyrinth into
which thou hast entered and from which thou wouldst have me extricate
thee makes it necessary.

"Thou dost reckon me thy friend, and thou wouldst rob me of honour, a
thing wholly inconsistent with friendship; and not only dost thou aim at
this, but thou wouldst have me rob thee of it also. That thou wouldst rob
me of it is clear, for when Camilla sees that I pay court to her as thou
requirest, she will certainly regard me as a man without honour or right
feeling, since I attempt and do a thing so much opposed to what I owe to
my own position and thy friendship. That thou wouldst have me rob thee of
it is beyond a doubt, for Camilla, seeing that I press my suit upon her,
will suppose that I have perceived in her something light that has
encouraged me to make known to her my base desire; and if she holds
herself dishonoured, her dishonour touches thee as belonging to her; and
hence arises what so commonly takes place, that the husband of the
adulterous woman, though he may not be aware of or have given any cause
for his wife's failure in her duty, or (being careless or negligent) have
had it in his power to prevent his dishonour, nevertheless is stigmatised
by a vile and reproachful name, and in a manner regarded with eyes of
contempt instead of pity by all who know of his wife's guilt, though they
see that he is unfortunate not by his own fault, but by the lust of a
vicious consort. But I will tell thee why with good reason dishonour
attaches to the husband of the unchaste wife, though he know not that she
is so, nor be to blame, nor have done anything, or given any provocation
to make her so; and be not weary with listening to me, for it will be for
thy good.

"When God created our first parent in the earthly paradise, the Holy
Scripture says that he infused sleep into Adam and while he slept took a
rib from his left side of which he formed our mother Eve, and when Adam
awoke and beheld her he said, 'This is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my
bone.' And God said 'For this shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and they shall be two in one flesh; and then was instituted the
divine sacrament of marriage, with such ties that death alone can loose
them. And such is the force and virtue of this miraculous sacrament that
it makes two different persons one and the same flesh; and even more than
this when the virtuous are married; for though they have two souls they
have but one will. And hence it follows that as the flesh of the wife is
one and the same with that of her husband the stains that may come upon
it, or the injuries it incurs fall upon the husband's flesh, though he,
as has been said, may have given no cause for them; for as the pain of
the foot or any member of the body is felt by the whole body, because all
is one flesh, as the head feels the hurt to the ankle without having
caused it, so the husband, being one with her, shares the dishonour of
the wife; and as all worldly honour or dishonour comes of flesh and
blood, and the erring wife's is of that kind, the husband must needs bear
his part of it and be held dishonoured without knowing it. See, then,
Anselmo, the peril thou art encountering in seeking to disturb the peace
of thy virtuous consort; see for what an empty and ill-advised curiosity
thou wouldst rouse up passions that now repose in quiet in the breast of
thy chaste wife; reflect that what thou art staking all to win is little,
and what thou wilt lose so much that I leave it undescribed, not having
the words to express it. But if all I have said be not enough to turn
thee from thy vile purpose, thou must seek some other instrument for thy
dishonour and misfortune; for such I will not consent to be, though I
lose thy friendship, the greatest loss that I can conceive."

Having said this, the wise and virtuous Lothario was silent, and Anselmo,
troubled in mind and deep in thought, was unable for a while to utter a
word in reply; but at length he said, "I have listened, Lothario my
friend, attentively, as thou hast seen, to what thou hast chosen to say
to me, and in thy arguments, examples, and comparisons I have seen that
high intelligence thou dost possess, and the perfection of true
friendship thou hast reached; and likewise I see and confess that if I am
not guided by thy opinion, but follow my own, I am flying from the good
and pursuing the evil. This being so, thou must remember that I am now
labouring under that infirmity which women sometimes suffer from, when
the craving seizes them to eat clay, plaster, charcoal, and things even
worse, disgusting to look at, much more to eat; so that it will be
necessary to have recourse to some artifice to cure me; and this can be
easily effected if only thou wilt make a beginning, even though it be in
a lukewarm and make-believe fashion, to pay court to Camilla, who will
not be so yielding that her virtue will give way at the first attack:
with this mere attempt I shall rest satisfied, and thou wilt have done
what our friendship binds thee to do, not only in giving me life, but in
persuading me not to discard my honour. And this thou art bound to do for
one reason alone, that, being, as I am, resolved to apply this test, it
is not for thee to permit me to reveal my weakness to another, and so
imperil that honour thou art striving to keep me from losing; and if
thine may not stand as high as it ought in the estimation of Camilla
while thou art paying court to her, that is of little or no importance,
because ere long, on finding in her that constancy which we expect, thou
canst tell her the plain truth as regards our stratagem, and so regain
thy place in her esteem; and as thou art venturing so little, and by the
venture canst afford me so much satisfaction, refuse not to undertake it,
even if further difficulties present themselves to thee; for, as I have
said, if thou wilt only make a beginning I will acknowledge the issue
decided."

Lothario seeing the fixed determination of Anselmo, and not knowing what
further examples to offer or arguments to urge in order to dissuade him
from it, and perceiving that he threatened to confide his pernicious
scheme to some one else, to avoid a greater evil resolved to gratify him
and do what he asked, intending to manage the business so as to satisfy
Anselmo without corrupting the mind of Camilla; so in reply he told him
not to communicate his purpose to any other, for he would undertake the
task himself, and would begin it as soon as he pleased. Anselmo embraced
him warmly and affectionately, and thanked him for his offer as if he had
bestowed some great favour upon him; and it was agreed between them to
set about it the next day, Anselmo affording opportunity and time to
Lothario to converse alone with Camilla, and furnishing him with money
and jewels to offer and present to her. He suggested, too, that he should
treat her to music, and write verses in her praise, and if he was
unwilling to take the trouble of composing them, he offered to do it
himself. Lothario agreed to all with an intention very different from
what Anselmo supposed, and with this understanding they returned to
Anselmo's house, where they found Camilla awaiting her husband anxiously
and uneasily, for he was later than usual in returning that day. Lothario
repaired to his own house, and Anselmo remained in his, as well satisfied
as Lothario was troubled in mind; for he could see no satisfactory way
out of this ill-advised business. That night, however, he thought of a
plan by which he might deceive Anselmo without any injury to Camilla. The
next day he went to dine with his friend, and was welcomed by Camilla,
who received and treated him with great cordiality, knowing the affection
her husband felt for him. When dinner was over and the cloth removed,
Anselmo told Lothario to stay there with Camilla while he attended to
some pressing business, as he would return in an hour and a half. Camilla
begged him not to go, and Lothario offered to accompany him, but nothing
could persuade Anselmo, who on the contrary pressed Lothario to remain
waiting for him as he had a matter of great importance to discuss with
him. At the same time he bade Camilla not to leave Lothario alone until
he came back. In short he contrived to put so good a face on the reason,
or the folly, of his absence that no one could have suspected it was a
pretence.

Anselmo took his departure, and Camilla and Lothario were left alone at
the table, for the rest of the household had gone to dinner. Lothario saw
himself in the lists according to his friend's wish, and facing an enemy
that could by her beauty alone vanquish a squadron of armed knights;
judge whether he had good reason to fear; but what he did was to lean his
elbow on the arm of the chair, and his cheek upon his hand, and, asking
Camilla's pardon for his ill manners, he said he wished to take a little
sleep until Anselmo returned. Camilla in reply said he could repose more
at his ease in the reception-room than in his chair, and begged of him to
go in and sleep there; but Lothario declined, and there he remained
asleep until the return of Anselmo, who finding Camilla in her own room,
and Lothario asleep, imagined that he had stayed away so long as to have
afforded them time enough for conversation and even for sleep, and was
all impatience until Lothario should wake up, that he might go out with
him and question him as to his success. Everything fell out as he wished;
Lothario awoke, and the two at once left the house, and Anselmo asked
what he was anxious to know, and Lothario in answer told him that he had
not thought it advisable to declare himself entirely the first time, and
therefore had only extolled the charms of Camilla, telling her that all
the city spoke of nothing else but her beauty and wit, for this seemed to
him an excellent way of beginning to gain her good-will and render her
disposed to listen to him with pleasure the next time, thus availing
himself of the device the devil has recourse to when he would deceive one
who is on the watch; for he being the angel of darkness transforms
himself into an angel of light, and, under cover of a fair seeming,
discloses himself at length, and effects his purpose if at the beginning
his wiles are not discovered. All this gave great satisfaction to
Anselmo, and he said he would afford the same opportunity every day, but
without leaving the house, for he would find things to do at home so that
Camilla should not detect the plot.

Thus, then, several days went by, and Lothario, without uttering a word
to Camilla, reported to Anselmo that he had talked with her and that he
had never been able to draw from her the slightest indication of consent
to anything dishonourable, nor even a sign or shadow of hope; on the
contrary, he said she would inform her husband of it.

"So far well," said Anselmo; "Camilla has thus far resisted words; we
must now see how she will resist deeds. I will give you to-morrow two
thousand crowns in gold for you to offer or even present, and as many
more to buy jewels to lure her, for women are fond of being becomingly
attired and going gaily dressed, and all the more so if they are
beautiful, however chaste they may be; and if she resists this
temptation, I will rest satisfied and will give you no more trouble."

Lothario replied that now he had begun he would carry on the undertaking
to the end, though he perceived he was to come out of it wearied and
vanquished. The next day he received the four thousand crowns, and with
them four thousand perplexities, for he knew not what to say by way of a
new falsehood; but in the end he made up his mind to tell him that
Camilla stood as firm against gifts and promises as against words, and
that there was no use in taking any further trouble, for the time was all
spent to no purpose.

But chance, directing things in a different manner, so ordered it that
Anselmo, having left Lothario and Camilla alone as on other occasions,
shut himself into a chamber and posted himself to watch and listen
through the keyhole to what passed between them, and perceived that for
more than half an hour Lothario did not utter a word to Camilla, nor
would utter a word though he were to be there for an age; and he came to
the conclusion that what his friend had told him about the replies of
Camilla was all invention and falsehood, and to ascertain if it were so,
he came out, and calling Lothario aside asked him what news he had and in
what humour Camilla was. Lothario replied that he was not disposed to go
on with the business, for she had answered him so angrily and harshly
that he had no heart to say anything more to her.

"Ah, Lothario, Lothario," said Anselmo, "how ill dost thou meet thy
obligations to me, and the great confidence I repose in thee! I have been
just now watching through this keyhole, and I have seen that thou has not
said a word to Camilla, whence I conclude that on the former occasions
thou hast not spoken to her either, and if this be so, as no doubt it is,
why dost thou deceive me, or wherefore seekest thou by craft to deprive
me of the means I might find of attaining my desire?"

Anselmo said no more, but he had said enough to cover Lothario with shame
and confusion, and he, feeling as it were his honour touched by having
been detected in a lie, swore to Anselmo that he would from that moment
devote himself to satisfying him without any deception, as he would see
if he had the curiosity to watch; though he need not take the trouble,
for the pains he would take to satisfy him would remove all suspicions
from his mind. Anselmo believed him, and to afford him an opportunity
more free and less liable to surprise, he resolved to absent himself from
his house for eight days, betaking himself to that of a friend of his who
lived in a village not far from the city; and, the better to account for
his departure to Camilla, he so arranged it that the friend should send
him a very pressing invitation.

Unhappy, shortsighted Anselmo, what art thou doing, what art thou
plotting, what art thou devising? Bethink thee thou art working against
thyself, plotting thine own dishonour, devising thine own ruin. Thy wife
Camilla is virtuous, thou dost possess her in peace and quietness, no one
assails thy happiness, her thoughts wander not beyond the walls of thy
house, thou art her heaven on earth, the object of her wishes, the
fulfilment of her desires, the measure wherewith she measures her will,
making it conform in all things to thine and Heaven's. If, then, the mine
of her honour, beauty, virtue, and modesty yields thee without labour all
the wealth it contains and thou canst wish for, why wilt thou dig the
earth in search of fresh veins, of new unknown treasure, risking the
collapse of all, since it but rests on the feeble props of her weak
nature? Bethink thee that from him who seeks impossibilities that which
is possible may with justice be withheld, as was better expressed by a
poet who said:

'Tis mine to seek for life in death,
Health in disease seek I,
I seek in prison freedom's breath,
In traitors loyalty.
So Fate that ever scorns to grant
Or grace or boon to me,
Since what can never be I want,
Denies me what might be.

The next day Anselmo took his departure for the village, leaving
instructions with Camilla that during his absence Lothario would come to
look after his house and to dine with her, and that she was to treat him
as she would himself. Camilla was distressed, as a discreet and
right-minded woman would be, at the orders her husband left her, and bade
him remember that it was not becoming that anyone should occupy his seat
at the table during his absence, and if he acted thus from not feeling
confidence that she would be able to manage his house, let him try her
this time, and he would find by experience that she was equal to greater
responsibilities. Anselmo replied that it was his pleasure to have it so,
and that she had only to submit and obey. Camilla said she would do so,
though against her will.

Anselmo went, and the next day Lothario came to his house, where he was
received by Camilla with a friendly and modest welcome; but she never
suffered Lothario to see her alone, for she was always attended by her
men and women servants, especially by a handmaid of hers, Leonela by
name, to whom she was much attached (for they had been brought up
together from childhood in her father's house), and whom she had kept
with her after her marriage with Anselmo. The first three days Lothario
did not speak to her, though he might have done so when they removed the
cloth and the servants retired to dine hastily; for such were Camilla's
orders; nay more, Leonela had directions to dine earlier than Camilla and
never to leave her side. She, however, having her thoughts fixed upon
other things more to her taste, and wanting that time and opportunity for
her own pleasures, did not always obey her mistress's commands, but on
the contrary left them alone, as if they had ordered her to do so; but
the modest bearing of Camilla, the calmness of her countenance, the
composure of her aspect were enough to bridle the tongue of Lothario. But
the influence which the many virtues of Camilla exerted in imposing
silence on Lothario's tongue proved mischievous for both of them, for if
his tongue was silent his thoughts were busy, and could dwell at leisure
upon the perfections of Camilla's goodness and beauty one by one, charms
enough to warm with love a marble statue, not to say a heart of flesh.
Lothario gazed upon her when he might have been speaking to her, and
thought how worthy of being loved she was; and thus reflection began
little by little to assail his allegiance to Anselmo, and a thousand
times he thought of withdrawing from the city and going where Anselmo
should never see him nor he see Camilla. But already the delight he found
in gazing on her interposed and held him fast. He put a constraint upon
himself, and struggled to repel and repress the pleasure he found in
contemplating Camilla; when alone he blamed himself for his weakness,
called himself a bad friend, nay a bad Christian; then he argued the
matter and compared himself with Anselmo; always coming to the conclusion
that the folly and rashness of Anselmo had been worse than his
faithlessness, and that if he could excuse his intentions as easily
before God as with man, he had no reason to fear any punishment for his
offence.

In short the beauty and goodness of Camilla, joined with the opportunity
which the blind husband had placed in his hands, overthrew the loyalty of
Lothario; and giving heed to nothing save the object towards which his
inclinations led him, after Anselmo had been three days absent, during
which he had been carrying on a continual struggle with his passion, he
began to make love to Camilla with so much vehemence and warmth of
language that she was overwhelmed with amazement, and could only rise
from her place and retire to her room without answering him a word. But
the hope which always springs up with love was not weakened in Lothario
by this repelling demeanour; on the contrary his passion for Camilla
increased, and she discovering in him what she had never expected, knew
not what to do; and considering it neither safe nor right to give him the
chance or opportunity of speaking to her again, she resolved to send, as
she did that very night, one of her servants with a letter to Anselmo, in
which she addressed the following words to him.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE NOVEL OF "THE ILL-ADVISED CURIOSITY"


"It is commonly said that an army looks ill without its general and a
castle without its castellan, and I say that a young married woman looks
still worse without her husband unless there are very good reasons for
it. I find myself so ill at ease without you, and so incapable of
enduring this separation, that unless you return quickly I shall have to
go for relief to my parents' house, even if I leave yours without a
protector; for the one you left me, if indeed he deserved that title,
has, I think, more regard to his own pleasure than to what concerns you:
as you are possessed of discernment I need say no more to you, nor indeed
is it fitting I should say more."

Anselmo received this letter, and from it he gathered that Lothario had
already begun his task and that Camilla must have replied to him as he
would have wished; and delighted beyond measure at such intelligence he
sent word to her not to leave his house on any account, as he would very
shortly return. Camilla was astonished at Anselmo's reply, which placed
her in greater perplexity than before, for she neither dared to remain in
her own house, nor yet to go to her parents'; for in remaining her virtue
was imperilled, and in going she was opposing her husband's commands.
Finally she decided upon what was the worse course for her, to remain,
resolving not to fly from the presence of Lothario, that she might not
give food for gossip to her servants; and she now began to regret having
written as she had to her husband, fearing he might imagine that Lothario
had perceived in her some lightness which had impelled him to lay aside
the respect he owed her; but confident of her rectitude she put her trust
in God and in her own virtuous intentions, with which she hoped to resist
in silence all the solicitations of Lothario, without saying anything to
her husband so as not to involve him in any quarrel or trouble; and she
even began to consider how to excuse Lothario to Anselmo when he should
ask her what it was that induced her to write that letter. With these
resolutions, more honourable than judicious or effectual, she remained
the next day listening to Lothario, who pressed his suit so strenuously
that Camilla's firmness began to waver, and her virtue had enough to do
to come to the rescue of her eyes and keep them from showing signs of a
certain tender compassion which the tears and appeals of Lothario had
awakened in her bosom. Lothario observed all this, and it inflamed him
all the more. In short he felt that while Anselmo's absence afforded time
and opportunity he must press the siege of the fortress, and so he
assailed her self-esteem with praises of her beauty, for there is nothing
that more quickly reduces and levels the castle towers of fair women's
vanity than vanity itself upon the tongue of flattery. In fact with the
utmost assiduity he undermined the rock of her purity with such engines
that had Camilla been of brass she must have fallen. He wept, he
entreated, he promised, he flattered, he importuned, he pretended with so
much feeling and apparent sincerity, that he overthrew the virtuous
resolves of Camilla and won the triumph he least expected and most longed
for. Camilla yielded, Camilla fell; but what wonder if the friendship of
Lothario could not stand firm? A clear proof to us that the passion of
love is to be conquered only by flying from it, and that no one should
engage in a struggle with an enemy so mighty; for divine strength is
needed to overcome his human power. Leonela alone knew of her mistress's
weakness, for the two false friends and new lovers were unable to conceal
it. Lothario did not care to tell Camilla the object Anselmo had in view,
nor that he had afforded him the opportunity of attaining such a result,
lest she should undervalue his love and think that it was by chance and
without intending it and not of his own accord that he had made love to
her.

A few days later Anselmo returned to his house and did not perceive what
it had lost, that which he so lightly treated and so highly prized. He
went at once to see Lothario, and found him at home; they embraced each
other, and Anselmo asked for the tidings of his life or his death.

"The tidings I have to give thee, Anselmo my friend," said Lothario, "are
that thou dost possess a wife that is worthy to be the pattern and crown
of all good wives. The words that I have addressed to her were borne away
on the wind, my promises have been despised, my presents have been
refused, such feigned tears as I shed have been turned into open
ridicule. In short, as Camilla is the essence of all beauty, so is she
the treasure-house where purity dwells, and gentleness and modesty abide
with all the virtues that can confer praise, honour, and happiness upon a
woman. Take back thy money, my friend; here it is, and I have had no need
to touch it, for the chastity of Camilla yields not to things so base as
gifts or promises. Be content, Anselmo, and refrain from making further
proof; and as thou hast passed dryshod through the sea of those doubts
and suspicions that are and may be entertained of women, seek not to
plunge again into the deep ocean of new embarrassments, or with another
pilot make trial of the goodness and strength of the bark that Heaven has
granted thee for thy passage across the sea of this world; but reckon
thyself now safe in port, moor thyself with the anchor of sound
reflection, and rest in peace until thou art called upon to pay that debt
which no nobility on earth can escape paying."

Anselmo was completely satisfied by the words of Lothario, and believed
them as fully as if they had been spoken by an oracle; nevertheless he
begged of him not to relinquish the undertaking, were it but for the sake
of curiosity and amusement; though thenceforward he need not make use of
the same earnest endeavours as before; all he wished him to do was to
write some verses to her, praising her under the name of Chloris, for he
himself would give her to understand that he was in love with a lady to
whom he had given that name to enable him to sing her praises with the
decorum due to her modesty; and if Lothario were unwilling to take the
trouble of writing the verses he would compose them himself.

"That will not be necessary," said Lothario, "for the muses are not such
enemies of mine but that they visit me now and then in the course of the
year. Do thou tell Camilla what thou hast proposed about a pretended
amour of mine; as for the verses will make them, and if not as good as
the subject deserves, they shall be at least the best I can produce." An
agreement to this effect was made between the friends, the ill-advised
one and the treacherous, and Anselmo returning to his house asked Camilla
the question she already wondered he had not asked before--what it was
that had caused her to write the letter she had sent him. Camilla replied
that it had seemed to her that Lothario looked at her somewhat more
freely than when he had been at home; but that now she was undeceived and
believed it to have been only her own imagination, for Lothario now
avoided seeing her, or being alone with her. Anselmo told her she might
be quite easy on the score of that suspicion, for he knew that Lothario
was in love with a damsel of rank in the city whom he celebrated under
the name of Chloris, and that even if he were not, his fidelity and their
great friendship left no room for fear. Had not Camilla, however, been
informed beforehand by Lothario that this love for Chloris was a
pretence, and that he himself had told Anselmo of it in order to be able
sometimes to give utterance to the praises of Camilla herself, no doubt
she would have fallen into the despairing toils of jealousy; but being
forewarned she received the startling news without uneasiness.

The next day as the three were at table Anselmo asked Lothario to recite
something of what he had composed for his mistress Chloris; for as
Camilla did not know her, he might safely say what he liked.

"Even did she know her," returned Lothario, "I would hide nothing, for
when a lover praises his lady's beauty, and charges her with cruelty, he
casts no imputation upon her fair name; at any rate, all I can say is
that yesterday I made a sonnet on the ingratitude of this Chloris, which
goes thus:

SONNET

At midnight, in the silence, when the eyes
  Of happier mortals balmy slumbers close,
  The weary tale of my unnumbered woes
To Chloris and to Heaven is wont to rise.
And when the light of day returning dyes
  The portals of the east with tints of rose,
  With undiminished force my sorrow flows
In broken accents and in burning sighs.
And when the sun ascends his star-girt throne,
  And on the earth pours down his midday beams,
    Noon but renews my wailing and my tears;
And with the night again goes up my moan.
  Yet ever in my agony it seems
    To me that neither Heaven nor Chloris hears."

The sonnet pleased Camilla, and still more Anselmo, for he praised it and
said the lady was excessively cruel who made no return for sincerity so
manifest. On which Camilla said, "Then all that love-smitten poets say is
true?"

"As poets they do not tell the truth," replied Lothario; "but as lovers
they are not more defective in expression than they are truthful."

"There is no doubt of that," observed Anselmo, anxious to support and
uphold Lothario's ideas with Camilla, who was as regardless of his design
as she was deep in love with Lothario; and so taking delight in anything
that was his, and knowing that his thoughts and writings had her for
their object, and that she herself was the real Chloris, she asked him to
repeat some other sonnet or verses if he recollected any.

"I do," replied Lothario, "but I do not think it as good as the first
one, or, more correctly speaking, less bad; but you can easily judge, for
it is this.

SONNET

I know that I am doomed; death is to me
  As certain as that thou, ungrateful fair,
  Dead at thy feet shouldst see me lying, ere
My heart repented of its love for thee.
If buried in oblivion I should be,
  Bereft of life, fame, favour, even there
  It would be found that I thy image bear
Deep graven in my breast for all to see.
This like some holy relic do I prize
  To save me from the fate my truth entails,
    Truth that to thy hard heart its vigour owes.
Alas for him that under lowering skies,
  In peril o'er a trackless ocean sails,
    Where neither friendly port nor pole-star shows."

Anselmo praised this second sonnet too, as he had praised the first; and
so he went on adding link after link to the chain with which he was
binding himself and making his dishonour secure; for when Lothario was
doing most to dishonour him he told him he was most honoured; and thus
each step that Camilla descended towards the depths of her abasement, she
mounted, in his opinion, towards the summit of virtue and fair fame.

It so happened that finding herself on one occasion alone with her maid,
Camilla said to her, "I am ashamed to think, my dear Leonela, how lightly
I have valued myself that I did not compel Lothario to purchase by at
least some expenditure of time that full possession of me that I so
quickly yielded him of my own free will. I fear that he will think ill of
my pliancy or lightness, not considering the irresistible influence he
brought to bear upon me."

"Let not that trouble you, my lady," said Leonela, "for it does not take
away the value of the thing given or make it the less precious to give it
quickly if it be really valuable and worthy of being prized; nay, they
are wont to say that he who gives quickly gives twice."

"They say also," said Camilla, "that what costs little is valued less."

"That saying does not hold good in your case," replied Leonela, "for
love, as I have heard say, sometimes flies and sometimes walks; with this
one it runs, with that it moves slowly; some it cools, others it burns;
some it wounds, others it slays; it begins the course of its desires, and
at the same moment completes and ends it; in the morning it will lay
siege to a fortress and by night will have taken it, for there is no
power that can resist it; so what are you in dread of, what do you fear,
when the same must have befallen Lothario, love having chosen the absence
of my lord as the instrument for subduing you? and it was absolutely
necessary to complete then what love had resolved upon, without affording
the time to let Anselmo return and by his presence compel the work to be
left unfinished; for love has no better agent for carrying out his
designs than opportunity; and of opportunity he avails himself in all his
feats, especially at the outset. All this I know well myself, more by
experience than by hearsay, and some day, senora, I will enlighten you on
the subject, for I am of your flesh and blood too. Moreover, lady
Camilla, you did not surrender yourself or yield so quickly but that
first you saw Lothario's whole soul in his eyes, in his sighs, in his
words, his promises and his gifts, and by it and his good qualities
perceived how worthy he was of your love. This, then, being the case, let
not these scrupulous and prudish ideas trouble your imagination, but be
assured that Lothario prizes you as you do him, and rest content and
satisfied that as you are caught in the noose of love it is one of worth
and merit that has taken you, and one that has not only the four S's that
they say true lovers ought to have, but a complete alphabet; only listen
to me and you will see how I can repeat it by rote. He is to my eyes and
thinking, Amiable, Brave, Courteous, Distinguished, Elegant, Fond, Gay,
Honourable, Illustrious, Loyal, Manly, Noble, Open, Polite, Quickwitted,
Rich, and the S's according to the saying, and then Tender, Veracious: X
does not suit him, for it is a rough letter; Y has been given already;
and Z Zealous for your honour."

Camilla laughed at her maid's alphabet, and perceived her to be more
experienced in love affairs than she said, which she admitted, confessing
to Camilla that she had love passages with a young man of good birth of
the same city. Camilla was uneasy at this, dreading lest it might prove
the means of endangering her honour, and asked whether her intrigue had
gone beyond words, and she with little shame and much effrontery said it
had; for certain it is that ladies' imprudences make servants shameless,
who, when they see their mistresses make a false step, think nothing of
going astray themselves, or of its being known. All that Camilla could do
was to entreat Leonela to say nothing about her doings to him whom she
called her lover, and to conduct her own affairs secretly lest they
should come to the knowledge of Anselmo or of Lothario. Leonela said she
would, but kept her word in such a way that she confirmed Camilla's
apprehension of losing her reputation through her means; for this
abandoned and bold Leonela, as soon as she perceived that her mistress's
demeanour was not what it was wont to be, had the audacity to introduce
her lover into the house, confident that even if her mistress saw him she
would not dare to expose him; for the sins of mistresses entail this
mischief among others; they make themselves the slaves of their own
servants, and are obliged to hide their laxities and depravities; as was
the case with Camilla, who though she perceived, not once but many times,
that Leonela was with her lover in some room of the house, not only did
not dare to chide her, but afforded her opportunities for concealing him
and removed all difficulties, lest he should be seen by her husband. She
was unable, however, to prevent him from being seen on one occasion, as
he sallied forth at daybreak, by Lothario, who, not knowing who he was,
at first took him for a spectre; but, as soon as he saw him hasten away,
muffling his face with his cloak and concealing himself carefully and
cautiously, he rejected this foolish idea, and adopted another, which
would have been the ruin of all had not Camilla found a remedy. It did
not occur to Lothario that this man he had seen issuing at such an
untimely hour from Anselmo's house could have entered it on Leonela's
account, nor did he even remember there was such a person as Leonela; all
he thought was that as Camilla had been light and yielding with him, so
she had been with another; for this further penalty the erring woman's
sin brings with it, that her honour is distrusted even by him to whose
overtures and persuasions she has yielded; and he believes her to have
surrendered more easily to others, and gives implicit credence to every
suspicion that comes into his mind. All Lothario's good sense seems to
have failed him at this juncture; all his prudent maxims escaped his
memory; for without once reflecting rationally, and without more ado, in
his impatience and in the blindness of the jealous rage that gnawed his
heart, and dying to revenge himself upon Camilla, who had done him no
wrong, before Anselmo had risen he hastened to him and said to him,
"Know, Anselmo, that for several days past I have been struggling with
myself, striving to withhold from thee what it is no longer possible or
right that I should conceal from thee. Know that Camilla's fortress has
surrendered and is ready to submit to my will; and if I have been slow to
reveal this fact to thee, it was in order to see if it were some light
caprice of hers, or if she sought to try me and ascertain if the love I
began to make to her with thy permission was made with a serious
intention. I thought, too, that she, if she were what she ought to be,
and what we both believed her, would have ere this given thee information
of my addresses; but seeing that she delays, I believe the truth of the
promise she has given me that the next time thou art absent from the
house she will grant me an interview in the closet where thy jewels are
kept (and it was true that Camilla used to meet him there); but I do not
wish thee to rush precipitately to take vengeance, for the sin is as yet
only committed in intention, and Camilla's may change perhaps between
this and the appointed time, and repentance spring up in its place. As
hitherto thou hast always followed my advice wholly or in part, follow
and observe this that I will give thee now, so that, without mistake, and
with mature deliberation, thou mayest satisfy thyself as to what may seem
the best course; pretend to absent thyself for two or three days as thou
hast been wont to do on other occasions, and contrive to hide thyself in
the closet; for the tapestries and other things there afford great
facilities for thy concealment, and then thou wilt see with thine own
eyes and I with mine what Camilla's purpose may be. And if it be a guilty
one, which may be feared rather than expected, with silence, prudence,
and discretion thou canst thyself become the instrument of punishment for
the wrong done thee."

Anselmo was amazed, overwhelmed, and astounded at the words of Lothario,
which came upon him at a time when he least expected to hear them, for he
now looked upon Camilla as having triumphed over the pretended attacks of
Lothario, and was beginning to enjoy the glory of her victory. He
remained silent for a considerable time, looking on the ground with fixed
gaze, and at length said, "Thou hast behaved, Lothario, as I expected of
thy friendship: I will follow thy advice in everything; do as thou wilt,
and keep this secret as thou seest it should be kept in circumstances so
unlooked for."

Lothario gave him his word, but after leaving him he repented altogether
of what he had said to him, perceiving how foolishly he had acted, as he
might have revenged himself upon Camilla in some less cruel and degrading
way. He cursed his want of sense, condemned his hasty resolution, and
knew not what course to take to undo the mischief or find some ready
escape from it. At last he decided upon revealing all to Camilla, and, as
there was no want of opportunity for doing so, he found her alone the
same day; but she, as soon as she had the chance of speaking to him,
said, "Lothario my friend, I must tell thee I have a sorrow in my heart
which fills it so that it seems ready to burst; and it will be a wonder
if it does not; for the audacity of Leonela has now reached such a pitch
that every night she conceals a gallant of hers in this house and remains
with him till morning, at the expense of my reputation; inasmuch as it is
open to anyone to question it who may see him quitting my house at such
unseasonable hours; but what distresses me is that I cannot punish or
chide her, for her privity to our intrigue bridles my mouth and keeps me
silent about hers, while I am dreading that some catastrophe will come of
it."

As Camilla said this Lothario at first imagined it was some device to
delude him into the idea that the man he had seen going out was Leonela's
lover and not hers; but when he saw how she wept and suffered, and begged
him to help her, he became convinced of the truth, and the conviction
completed his confusion and remorse; however, he told Camilla not to
distress herself, as he would take measures to put a stop to the
insolence of Leonela. At the same time he told her what, driven by the
fierce rage of jealousy, he had said to Anselmo, and how he had arranged
to hide himself in the closet that he might there see plainly how little
she preserved her fidelity to him; and he entreated her pardon for this
madness, and her advice as to how to repair it, and escape safely from
the intricate labyrinth in which his imprudence had involved him. Camilla
was struck with alarm at hearing what Lothario said, and with much anger,
and great good sense, she reproved him and rebuked his base design and
the foolish and mischievous resolution he had made; but as woman has by
nature a nimbler wit than man for good and for evil, though it is apt to
fail when she sets herself deliberately to reason, Camilla on the spur of
the moment thought of a way to remedy what was to all appearance
irremediable, and told Lothario to contrive that the next day Anselmo
should conceal himself in the place he mentioned, for she hoped from his
concealment to obtain the means of their enjoying themselves for the
future without any apprehension; and without revealing her purpose to him
entirely she charged him to be careful, as soon as Anselmo was concealed,
to come to her when Leonela should call him, and to all she said to him
to answer as he would have answered had he not known that Anselmo was
listening. Lothario pressed her to explain her intention fully, so that
he might with more certainty and precaution take care to do what he saw
to be needful.

"I tell you," said Camilla, "there is nothing to take care of except to
answer me what I shall ask you;" for she did not wish to explain to him
beforehand what she meant to do, fearing lest he should be unwilling to
follow out an idea which seemed to her such a good one, and should try or
devise some other less practicable plan.

Lothario then retired, and the next day Anselmo, under pretence of going
to his friend's country house, took his departure, and then returned to
conceal himself, which he was able to do easily, as Camilla and Leonela
took care to give him the opportunity; and so he placed himself in hiding
in the state of agitation that it may be imagined he would feel who
expected to see the vitals of his honour laid bare before his eyes, and
found himself on the point of losing the supreme blessing he thought he
possessed in his beloved Camilla. Having made sure of Anselmo's being in
his hiding-place, Camilla and Leonela entered the closet, and the instant
she set foot within it Camilla said, with a deep sigh, "Ah! dear Leonela,
would it not be better, before I do what I am unwilling you should know
lest you should seek to prevent it, that you should take Anselmo's dagger
that I have asked of you and with it pierce this vile heart of mine? But
no; there is no reason why I should suffer the punishment of another's
fault. I will first know what it is that the bold licentious eyes of
Lothario have seen in me that could have encouraged him to reveal to me a
design so base as that which he has disclosed regardless of his friend
and of my honour. Go to the window, Leonela, and call him, for no doubt
he is in the street waiting to carry out his vile project; but mine,
cruel it may be, but honourable, shall be carried out first."

"Ah, senora," said the crafty Leonela, who knew her part, "what is it you
want to do with this dagger? Can it be that you mean to take your own
life, or Lothario's? for whichever you mean to do, it will lead to the
loss of your reputation and good name. It is better to dissemble your
wrong and not give this wicked man the chance of entering the house now
and finding us alone; consider, senora, we are weak women and he is a
man, and determined, and as he comes with such a base purpose, blind and
urged by passion, perhaps before you can put yours into execution he may
do what will be worse for you than taking your life. Ill betide my
master, Anselmo, for giving such authority in his house to this shameless
fellow! And supposing you kill him, senora, as I suspect you mean to do,
what shall we do with him when he is dead?"

"What, my friend?" replied Camilla, "we shall leave him for Anselmo to
bury him; for in reason it will be to him a light labour to hide his own
infamy under ground. Summon him, make haste, for all the time I delay in
taking vengeance for my wrong seems to me an offence against the loyalty
I owe my husband."

Anselmo was listening to all this, and every word that Camilla uttered
made him change his mind; but when he heard that it was resolved to kill
Lothario his first impulse was to come out and show himself to avert such
a disaster; but in his anxiety to see the issue of a resolution so bold
and virtuous he restrained himself, intending to come forth in time to
prevent the deed. At this moment Camilla, throwing herself upon a bed
that was close by, swooned away, and Leonela began to weep bitterly,
exclaiming, "Woe is me! that I should be fated to have dying here in my
arms the flower of virtue upon earth, the crown of true wives, the
pattern of chastity!" with more to the same effect, so that anyone who
heard her would have taken her for the most tender-hearted and faithful
handmaid in the world, and her mistress for another persecuted Penelope.

Camilla was not long in recovering from her fainting fit and on coming to
herself she said, "Why do you not go, Leonela, to call hither that
friend, the falsest to his friend the sun ever shone upon or night
concealed? Away, run, haste, speed! lest the fire of my wrath burn itself
out with delay, and the righteous vengeance that I hope for melt away in
menaces and maledictions."

"I am just going to call him, senora," said Leonela; "but you must first
give me that dagger, lest while I am gone you should by means of it give
cause to all who love you to weep all their lives."

"Go in peace, dear Leonela, I will not do so," said Camilla, "for rash
and foolish as I may be, to your mind, in defending my honour, I am not
going to be so much so as that Lucretia who they say killed herself
without having done anything wrong, and without having first killed him
on whom the guilt of her misfortune lay. I shall die, if I am to die; but
it must be after full vengeance upon him who has brought me here to weep
over audacity that no fault of mine gave birth to."

Leonela required much pressing before she would go to summon Lothario,
but at last she went, and while awaiting her return Camilla continued, as
if speaking to herself, "Good God! would it not have been more prudent to
have repulsed Lothario, as I have done many a time before, than to allow
him, as I am now doing, to think me unchaste and vile, even for the short
time I must wait until I undeceive him? No doubt it would have been
better; but I should not be avenged, nor the honour of my husband
vindicated, should he find so clear and easy an escape from the strait
into which his depravity has led him. Let the traitor pay with his life
for the temerity of his wanton wishes, and let the world know (if haply
it shall ever come to know) that Camilla not only preserved her
allegiance to her husband, but avenged him of the man who dared to wrong
him. Still, I think it might be better to disclose this to Anselmo. But
then I have called his attention to it in the letter I wrote to him in
the country, and, if he did nothing to prevent the mischief I there
pointed out to him, I suppose it was that from pure goodness of heart and
trustfulness he would not and could not believe that any thought against
his honour could harbour in the breast of so stanch a friend; nor indeed
did I myself believe it for many days, nor should I have ever believed it
if his insolence had not gone so far as to make it manifest by open
presents, lavish promises, and ceaseless tears. But why do I argue thus?
Does a bold determination stand in need of arguments? Surely not. Then
traitors avaunt! Vengeance to my aid! Let the false one come, approach,
advance, die, yield up his life, and then befall what may. Pure I came to
him whom Heaven bestowed upon me, pure I shall leave him; and at the
worst bathed in my own chaste blood and in the foul blood of the falsest
friend that friendship ever saw in the world;" and as she uttered these
words she paced the room holding the unsheathed dagger, with such
irregular and disordered steps, and such gestures that one would have
supposed her to have lost her senses, and taken her for some violent
desperado instead of a delicate woman.

Anselmo, hidden behind some tapestries where he had concealed himself,
beheld and was amazed at all, and already felt that what he had seen and
heard was a sufficient answer to even greater suspicions; and he would
have been now well pleased if the proof afforded by Lothario's coming
were dispensed with, as he feared some sudden mishap; but as he was on
the point of showing himself and coming forth to embrace and undeceive
his wife he paused as he saw Leonela returning, leading Lothario. Camilla
when she saw him, drawing a long line in front of her on the floor with
the dagger, said to him, "Lothario, pay attention to what I say to thee:
if by any chance thou darest to cross this line thou seest, or even
approach it, the instant I see thee attempt it that same instant will I
pierce my bosom with this dagger that I hold in my hand; and before thou
answerest me a word desire thee to listen to a few from me, and
afterwards thou shalt reply as may please thee. First, I desire thee to
tell me, Lothario, if thou knowest my husband Anselmo, and in what light
thou regardest him; and secondly I desire to know if thou knowest me too.
Answer me this, without embarrassment or reflecting deeply what thou wilt
answer, for they are no riddles I put to thee."

Lothario was not so dull but that from the first moment when Camilla
directed him to make Anselmo hide himself he understood what she intended
to do, and therefore he fell in with her idea so readily and promptly
that between them they made the imposture look more true than truth; so
he answered her thus: "I did not think, fair Camilla, that thou wert
calling me to ask questions so remote from the object with which I come;
but if it is to defer the promised reward thou art doing so, thou mightst
have put it off still longer, for the longing for happiness gives the
more distress the nearer comes the hope of gaining it; but lest thou
shouldst say that I do not answer thy questions, I say that I know thy
husband Anselmo, and that we have known each other from our earliest
years; I will not speak of what thou too knowest, of our friendship, that
I may not compel myself to testify against the wrong that love, the
mighty excuse for greater errors, makes me inflict upon him. Thee I know
and hold in the same estimation as he does, for were it not so I had not
for a lesser prize acted in opposition to what I owe to my station and
the holy laws of true friendship, now broken and violated by me through
that powerful enemy, love."

"If thou dost confess that," returned Camilla, "mortal enemy of all that
rightly deserves to be loved, with what face dost thou dare to come
before one whom thou knowest to be the mirror wherein he is reflected on
whom thou shouldst look to see how unworthily thou him? But, woe is me, I
now comprehend what has made thee give so little heed to what thou owest
to thyself; it must have been some freedom of mine, for I will not call
it immodesty, as it did not proceed from any deliberate intention, but
from some heedlessness such as women are guilty of through inadvertence
when they think they have no occasion for reserve. But tell me, traitor,
when did I by word or sign give a reply to thy prayers that could awaken
in thee a shadow of hope of attaining thy base wishes? When were not thy
professions of love sternly and scornfully rejected and rebuked? When
were thy frequent pledges and still more frequent gifts believed or
accepted? But as I am persuaded that no one can long persevere in the
attempt to win love unsustained by some hope, I am willing to attribute
to myself the blame of thy assurance, for no doubt some thoughtlessness
of mine has all this time fostered thy hopes; and therefore will I punish
myself and inflict upon myself the penalty thy guilt deserves. And that
thou mayest see that being so relentless to myself I cannot possibly be
otherwise to thee, I have summoned thee to be a witness of the sacrifice
I mean to offer to the injured honour of my honoured husband, wronged by
thee with all the assiduity thou wert capable of, and by me too through
want of caution in avoiding every occasion, if I have given any, of
encouraging and sanctioning thy base designs. Once more I say the
suspicion in my mind that some imprudence of mine has engendered these
lawless thoughts in thee, is what causes me most distress and what I
desire most to punish with my own hands, for were any other instrument of
punishment employed my error might become perhaps more widely known; but
before I do so, in my death I mean to inflict death, and take with me one
that will fully satisfy my longing for the revenge I hope for and have;
for I shall see, wheresoever it may be that I go, the penalty awarded by
inflexible, unswerving justice on him who has placed me in a position so
desperate."

As she uttered these words, with incredible energy and swiftness she flew
upon Lothario with the naked dagger, so manifestly bent on burying it in
his breast that he was almost uncertain whether these demonstrations were
real or feigned, for he was obliged to have recourse to all his skill and
strength to prevent her from striking him; and with such reality did she
act this strange farce and mystification that, to give it a colour of
truth, she determined to stain it with her own blood; for perceiving, or
pretending, that she could not wound Lothario, she said, "Fate, it seems,
will not grant my just desire complete satisfaction, but it will not be
able to keep me from satisfying it partially at least;" and making an
effort to free the hand with the dagger which Lothario held in his grasp,
she released it, and directing the point to a place where it could not
inflict a deep wound, she plunged it into her left side high up close to
the shoulder, and then allowed herself to fall to the ground as if in a
faint.

Leonela and Lothario stood amazed and astounded at the catastrophe, and
seeing Camilla stretched on the ground and bathed in her blood they were
still uncertain as to the true nature of the act. Lothario, terrified and
breathless, ran in haste to pluck out the dagger; but when he saw how
slight the wound was he was relieved of his fears and once more admired
the subtlety, coolness, and ready wit of the fair Camilla; and the better
to support the part he had to play he began to utter profuse and doleful
lamentations over her body as if she were dead, invoking maledictions not
only on himself but also on him who had been the means of placing him in
such a position: and knowing that his friend Anselmo heard him he spoke
in such a way as to make a listener feel much more pity for him than for
Camilla, even though he supposed her dead. Leonela took her up in her
arms and laid her on the bed, entreating Lothario to go in quest of some
one to attend to her wound in secret, and at the same time asking his
advice and opinion as to what they should say to Anselmo about his lady's
wound if he should chance to return before it was healed. He replied they
might say what they liked, for he was not in a state to give advice that
would be of any use; all he could tell her was to try and stanch the
blood, as he was going where he should never more be seen; and with every
appearance of deep grief and sorrow he left the house; but when he found
himself alone, and where there was nobody to see him, he crossed himself
unceasingly, lost in wonder at the adroitness of Camilla and the
consistent acting of Leonela. He reflected how convinced Anselmo would be
that he had a second Portia for a wife, and he looked forward anxiously
to meeting him in order to rejoice together over falsehood and truth the
most craftily veiled that could be imagined.

Leonela, as he told her, stanched her lady's blood, which was no more
than sufficed to support her deception; and washing the wound with a
little wine she bound it up to the best of her skill, talking all the
time she was tending her in a strain that, even if nothing else had been
said before, would have been enough to assure Anselmo that he had in
Camilla a model of purity. To Leonela's words Camilla added her own,
calling herself cowardly and wanting in spirit, since she had not enough
at the time she had most need of it to rid herself of the life she so
much loathed. She asked her attendant's advice as to whether or not she
ought to inform her beloved husband of all that had happened, but the
other bade her say nothing about it, as she would lay upon him the
obligation of taking vengeance on Lothario, which he could not do but at
great risk to himself; and it was the duty of a true wife not to give her
husband provocation to quarrel, but, on the contrary, to remove it as far
as possible from him.

Camilla replied that she believed she was right and that she would follow
her advice, but at any rate it would be well to consider how she was to
explain the wound to Anselmo, for he could not help seeing it; to which
Leonela answered that she did not know how to tell a lie even in jest.

"How then can I know, my dear?" said Camilla, "for I should not dare to
forge or keep up a falsehood if my life depended on it. If we can think
of no escape from this difficulty, it will be better to tell him the
plain truth than that he should find us out in an untrue story."

"Be not uneasy, senora," said Leonela; "between this and to-morrow I will
think of what we must say to him, and perhaps the wound being where it is
it can be hidden from his sight, and Heaven will be pleased to aid us in
a purpose so good and honourable. Compose yourself, senora, and endeavour
to calm your excitement lest my lord find you agitated; and leave the
rest to my care and God's, who always supports good intentions."

Anselmo had with the deepest attention listened to and seen played out
the tragedy of the death of his honour, which the performers acted with
such wonderfully effective truth that it seemed as if they had become the
realities of the parts they played. He longed for night and an
opportunity of escaping from the house to go and see his good friend
Lothario, and with him give vent to his joy over the precious pearl he
had gained in having established his wife's purity. Both mistress and
maid took care to give him time and opportunity to get away, and taking
advantage of it he made his escape, and at once went in quest of
Lothario, and it would be impossible to describe how he embraced him when
he found him, and the things he said to him in the joy of his heart, and
the praises he bestowed upon Camilla; all which Lothario listened to
without being able to show any pleasure, for he could not forget how
deceived his friend was, and how dishonourably he had wronged him; and
though Anselmo could see that Lothario was not glad, still he imagined it
was only because he had left Camilla wounded and had been himself the
cause of it; and so among other things he told him not to be distressed
about Camilla's accident, for, as they had agreed to hide it from him,
the wound was evidently trifling; and that being so, he had no cause for
fear, but should henceforward be of good cheer and rejoice with him,
seeing that by his means and adroitness he found himself raised to the
greatest height of happiness that he could have ventured to hope for, and
desired no better pastime than making verses in praise of Camilla that
would preserve her name for all time to come. Lothario commended his
purpose, and promised on his own part to aid him in raising a monument so
glorious.

And so Anselmo was left the most charmingly hoodwinked man there could be
in the world. He himself, persuaded he was conducting the instrument of
his glory, led home by the hand of him who had been the utter destruction of
his good name; whom Camilla received with averted countenance, though
with smiles in her heart. The deception was carried on for some time,
until at the end of a few months Fortune turned her wheel and the guilt
which had been until then so skilfully concealed was published abroad,
and Anselmo paid with his life the penalty of his ill-advised curiosity.




CHAPTER XXXV.

WHICH TREATS OF THE HEROIC AND PRODIGIOUS BATTLE DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH
CERTAIN SKINS OF RED WINE, AND BRINGS THE NOVEL OF "THE ILL-ADVISED
CURIOSITY" TO A CLOSE


There remained but little more of the novel to be read, when Sancho Panza
burst forth in wild excitement from the garret where Don Quixote was
lying, shouting, "Run, sirs! quick; and help my master, who is in the
thick of the toughest and stiffest battle I ever laid eyes on. By the
living God he has given the giant, the enemy of my lady the Princess
Micomicona, such a slash that he has sliced his head clean off as if it
were a turnip."

"What are you talking about, brother?" said the curate, pausing as he was
about to read the remainder of the novel. "Are you in your senses,
Sancho? How the devil can it be as you say, when the giant is two
thousand leagues away?"

Here they heard a loud noise in the chamber, and Don Quixote shouting
out, "Stand, thief, brigand, villain; now I have got thee, and thy
scimitar shall not avail thee!" And then it seemed as though he were
slashing vigorously at the wall.

"Don't stop to listen," said Sancho, "but go in and part them or help my
master: though there is no need of that now, for no doubt the giant is
dead by this time and giving account to God of his past wicked life; for
I saw the blood flowing on the ground, and the head cut off and fallen on
one side, and it is as big as a large wine-skin."

"May I die," said the landlord at this, "if Don Quixote or Don Devil has
not been slashing some of the skins of red wine that stand full at his
bed's head, and the spilt wine must be what this good fellow takes for
blood;" and so saying he went into the room and the rest after him, and
there they found Don Quixote in the strangest costume in the world. He
was in his shirt, which was not long enough in front to cover his thighs
completely and was six fingers shorter behind; his legs were very long
and lean, covered with hair, and anything but clean; on his head he had a
little greasy red cap that belonged to the host, round his left arm he
had rolled the blanket of the bed, to which Sancho, for reasons best
known to himself, owed a grudge, and in his right hand he held his
unsheathed sword, with which he was slashing about on all sides, uttering
exclamations as if he were actually fighting some giant: and the best of
it was his eyes were not open, for he was fast asleep, and dreaming that
he was doing battle with the giant. For his imagination was so wrought
upon by the adventure he was going to accomplish, that it made him dream
he had already reached the kingdom of Micomicon, and was engaged in
combat with his enemy; and believing he was laying on the giant, he had
given so many sword cuts to the skins that the whole room was full of
wine. On seeing this the landlord was so enraged that he fell on Don
Quixote, and with his clenched fist began to pummel him in such a way,
that if Cardenio and the curate had not dragged him off, he would have
brought the war of the giant to an end. But in spite of all the poor
gentleman never woke until the barber brought a great pot of cold water
from the well and flung it with one dash all over his body, on which Don
Quixote woke up, but not so completely as to understand what was the
matter. Dorothea, seeing how short and slight his attire was, would not
go in to witness the battle between her champion and her opponent. As for
Sancho, he went searching all over the floor for the head of the giant,
and not finding it he said, "I see now that it's all enchantment in this
house; for the last time, on this very spot where I am now, I got ever so
many thumps without knowing who gave them to me, or being able to see
anybody; and now this head is not to be seen anywhere about, though I saw
it cut off with my own eyes and the blood running from the body as if
from a fountain."

"What blood and fountains are you talking about, enemy of God and his
saints?" said the landlord. "Don't you see, you thief, that the blood and
the fountain are only these skins here that have been stabbed and the red
wine swimming all over the room?--and I wish I saw the soul of him that
stabbed them swimming in hell."

"I know nothing about that," said Sancho; "all I know is it will be my
bad luck that through not finding this head my county will melt away like
salt in water;"--for Sancho awake was worse than his master asleep, so
much had his master's promises addled his wits.

The landlord was beside himself at the coolness of the squire and the
mischievous doings of the master, and swore it should not be like the
last time when they went without paying; and that their privileges of
chivalry should not hold good this time to let one or other of them off
without paying, even to the cost of the plugs that would have to be put
to the damaged wine-skins. The curate was holding Don Quixote's hands,
who, fancying he had now ended the adventure and was in the presence of
the Princess Micomicona, knelt before the curate and said, "Exalted and
beauteous lady, your highness may live from this day forth fearless of
any harm this base being could do you; and I too from this day forth am
released from the promise I gave you, since by the help of God on high
and by the favour of her by whom I live and breathe, I have fulfilled it
so successfully."

"Did not I say so?" said Sancho on hearing this. "You see I wasn't drunk;
there you see my master has already salted the giant; there's no doubt
about the bulls; my county is all right!"

Who could have helped laughing at the absurdities of the pair, master and
man? And laugh they did, all except the landlord, who cursed himself; but
at length the barber, Cardenio, and the curate contrived with no small
trouble to get Don Quixote on the bed, and he fell asleep with every
appearance of excessive weariness. They left him to sleep, and came out
to the gate of the inn to console Sancho Panza on not having found the
head of the giant; but much more work had they to appease the landlord,
who was furious at the sudden death of his wine-skins; and said the
landlady half scolding, half crying, "At an evil moment and in an unlucky
hour he came into my house, this knight-errant--would that I had never
set eyes on him, for dear he has cost me; the last time he went off with
the overnight score against him for supper, bed, straw, and barley, for
himself and his squire and a hack and an ass, saying he was a knight
adventurer--God send unlucky adventures to him and all the adventurers in
the world--and therefore not bound to pay anything, for it was so settled
by the knight-errantry tariff: and then, all because of him, came the
other gentleman and carried off my tail, and gives it back more than two
cuartillos the worse, all stripped of its hair, so that it is no use for
my husband's purpose; and then, for a finishing touch to all, to burst my
wine-skins and spill my wine! I wish I saw his own blood spilt! But let
him not deceive himself, for, by the bones of my father and the shade of
my mother, they shall pay me down every quarts; or my name is not what it
is, and I am not my father's daughter." All this and more to the same
effect the landlady delivered with great irritation, and her good maid
Maritornes backed her up, while the daughter held her peace and smiled
from time to time. The curate smoothed matters by promising to make good
all losses to the best of his power, not only as regarded the wine-skins
but also the wine, and above all the depreciation of the tail which they
set such store by. Dorothea comforted Sancho, telling him that she
pledged herself, as soon as it should appear certain that his master had
decapitated the giant, and she found herself peacefully established in
her kingdom, to bestow upon him the best county there was in it. With
this Sancho consoled himself, and assured the princess she might rely
upon it that he had seen the head of the giant, and more by token it had
a beard that reached to the girdle, and that if it was not to be seen now
it was because everything that happened in that house went by
enchantment, as he himself had proved the last time he had lodged there.
Dorothea said she fully believed it, and that he need not be uneasy, for
all would go well and turn out as he wished. All therefore being
appeased, the curate was anxious to go on with the novel, as he saw there
was but little more left to read. Dorothea and the others begged him to
finish it, and he, as he was willing to please them, and enjoyed reading
it himself, continued the tale in these words:

The result was, that from the confidence Anselmo felt in Camilla's
virtue, he lived happy and free from anxiety, and Camilla purposely
looked coldly on Lothario, that Anselmo might suppose her feelings
towards him to be the opposite of what they were; and the better to
support the position, Lothario begged to be excused from coming to the
house, as the displeasure with which Camilla regarded his presence was
plain to be seen. But the befooled Anselmo said he would on no account
allow such a thing, and so in a thousand ways he became the author of his
own dishonour, while he believed he was insuring his happiness. Meanwhile
the satisfaction with which Leonela saw herself empowered to carry on her
amour reached such a height that, regardless of everything else, she
followed her inclinations unrestrainedly, feeling confident that her
mistress would screen her, and even show her how to manage it safely. At
last one night Anselmo heard footsteps in Leonela's room, and on trying
to enter to see who it was, he found that the door was held against him,
which made him all the more determined to open it; and exerting his
strength he forced it open, and entered the room in time to see a man
leaping through the window into the street. He ran quickly to seize him
or discover who he was, but he was unable to effect either purpose, for
Leonela flung her arms round him crying, "Be calm, senor; do not give way
to passion or follow him who has escaped from this; he belongs to me, and
in fact he is my husband."

Anselmo would not believe it, but blind with rage drew a dagger and
threatened to stab Leonela, bidding her tell the truth or he would kill
her. She, in her fear, not knowing what she was saying, exclaimed, "Do
not kill me, senor, for I can tell you things more important than any you
can imagine."

"Tell me then at once or thou diest," said Anselmo.

"It would be impossible for me now," said Leonela, "I am so agitated:
leave me till to-morrow, and then you shall hear from me what will fill
you with astonishment; but rest assured that he who leaped through the
window is a young man of this city, who has given me his promise to
become my husband."

Anselmo was appeased with this, and was content to wait the time she
asked of him, for he never expected to hear anything against Camilla, so
satisfied and sure of her virtue was he; and so he quitted the room, and
left Leonela locked in, telling her she should not come out until she had
told him all she had to make known to him. He went at once to see
Camilla, and tell her, as he did, all that had passed between him and her
handmaid, and the promise she had given him to inform him matters of
serious importance.

There is no need of saying whether Camilla was agitated or not, for so
great was her fear and dismay, that, making sure, as she had good reason
to do, that Leonela would tell Anselmo all she knew of her faithlessness,
she had not the courage to wait and see if her suspicions were confirmed;
and that same night, as soon as she thought that Anselmo was asleep, she
packed up the most valuable jewels she had and some money, and without
being observed by anybody escaped from the house and betook herself to
Lothario's, to whom she related what had occurred, imploring him to
convey her to some place of safety or fly with her where they might be
safe from Anselmo. The state of perplexity to which Camilla reduced
Lothario was such that he was unable to utter a word in reply, still less
to decide upon what he should do. At length he resolved to conduct her to
a convent of which a sister of his was prioress; Camilla agreed to this,
and with the speed which the circumstances demanded, Lothario took her to
the convent and left her there, and then himself quitted the city without
letting anyone know of his departure.

As soon as daylight came Anselmo, without missing Camilla from his side,
rose eager to learn what Leonela had to tell him, and hastened to the
room where he had locked her in. He opened the door, entered, but found
no Leonela; all he found was some sheets knotted to the window, a plain
proof that she had let herself down from it and escaped. He returned,
uneasy, to tell Camilla, but not finding her in bed or anywhere in the
house he was lost in amazement. He asked the servants of the house about
her, but none of them could give him any explanation. As he was going in
search of Camilla it happened by chance that he observed her boxes were
lying open, and that the greater part of her jewels were gone; and now he
became fully aware of his disgrace, and that Leonela was not the cause of
his misfortune; and, just as he was, without delaying to dress himself
completely, he repaired, sad at heart and dejected, to his friend
Lothario to make known his sorrow to him; but when he failed to find him
and the servants reported that he had been absent from his house all
night and had taken with him all the money he had, he felt as though he
were losing his senses; and to make all complete on returning to his own
house he found it deserted and empty, not one of all his servants, male
or female, remaining in it. He knew not what to think, or say, or do, and
his reason seemed to be deserting him little by little. He reviewed his
position, and saw himself in a moment left without wife, friend, or
servants, abandoned, he felt, by the heaven above him, and more than all
robbed of his honour, for in Camilla's disappearance he saw his own ruin.
After long reflection he resolved at last to go to his friend's village,
where he had been staying when he afforded opportunities for the
contrivance of this complication of misfortune. He locked the doors of
his house, mounted his horse, and with a broken spirit set out on his
journey; but he had hardly gone half-way when, harassed by his
reflections, he had to dismount and tie his horse to a tree, at the foot
of which he threw himself, giving vent to piteous heartrending sighs; and
there he remained till nearly nightfall, when he observed a man
approaching on horseback from the city, of whom, after saluting him, he
asked what was the news in Florence.

The citizen replied, "The strangest that have been heard for many a day;
for it is reported abroad that Lothario, the great friend of the wealthy
Anselmo, who lived at San Giovanni, carried off last night Camilla, the
wife of Anselmo, who also has disappeared. All this has been told by a
maid-servant of Camilla's, whom the governor found last night lowering
herself by a sheet from the windows of Anselmo's house. I know not
indeed, precisely, how the affair came to pass; all I know is that the
whole city is wondering at the occurrence, for no one could have expected
a thing of the kind, seeing the great and intimate friendship that
existed between them, so great, they say, that they were called 'The Two
Friends.'"

"Is it known at all," said Anselmo, "what road Lothario and Camilla
took?"

"Not in the least," said the citizen, "though the governor has been very
active in searching for them."

"God speed you, senor," said Anselmo.

"God be with you," said the citizen and went his way.

This disastrous intelligence almost robbed Anselmo not only of his senses
but of his life. He got up as well as he was able and reached the house
of his friend, who as yet knew nothing of his misfortune, but seeing him
come pale, worn, and haggard, perceived that he was suffering some heavy
affliction. Anselmo at once begged to be allowed to retire to rest, and
to be given writing materials. His wish was complied with and he was left
lying down and alone, for he desired this, and even that the door should
be locked. Finding himself alone he so took to heart the thought of his
misfortune that by the signs of death he felt within him he knew well his
life was drawing to a close, and therefore he resolved to leave behind
him a declaration of the cause of his strange end. He began to write, but
before he had put down all he meant to say, his breath failed him and he
yielded up his life, a victim to the suffering which his ill-advised
curiosity had entailed upon him. The master of the house observing that
it was now late and that Anselmo did not call, determined to go in and
ascertain if his indisposition was increasing, and found him lying on his
face, his body partly in the bed, partly on the writing-table, on which
he lay with the written paper open and the pen still in his hand. Having
first called to him without receiving any answer, his host approached
him, and taking him by the hand, found that it was cold, and saw that he
was dead. Greatly surprised and distressed he summoned the household to
witness the sad fate which had befallen Anselmo; and then he read the
paper, the handwriting of which he recognised as his, and which contained
these words:

"A foolish and ill-advised desire has robbed me of life. If the news of
my death should reach the ears of Camilla, let her know that I forgive
her, for she was not bound to perform miracles, nor ought I to have
required her to perform them; and since I have been the author of my own
dishonour, there is no reason why-"

So far Anselmo had written, and thus it was plain that at this point,
before he could finish what he had to say, his life came to an end. The
next day his friend sent intelligence of his death to his relatives, who
had already ascertained his misfortune, as well as the convent where
Camilla lay almost on the point of accompanying her husband on that
inevitable journey, not on account of the tidings of his death, but
because of those she received of her lover's departure. Although she saw
herself a widow, it is said she refused either to quit the convent or
take the veil, until, not long afterwards, intelligence reached her that
Lothario had been killed in a battle in which M. de Lautrec had been
recently engaged with the Great Captain Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordova in
the kingdom of Naples, whither her too late repentant lover had repaired.
On learning this Camilla took the veil, and shortly afterwards died, worn
out by grief and melancholy. This was the end of all three, an end that
came of a thoughtless beginning.

"I like this novel," said the curate; "but I cannot persuade myself of
its truth; and if it has been invented, the author's invention is faulty,
for it is impossible to imagine any husband so foolish as to try such a
costly experiment as Anselmo's. If it had been represented as occurring
between a gallant and his mistress it might pass; but between husband and
wife there is something of an impossibility about it. As to the way in
which the story is told, however, I have no fault to find."




CHAPTER XXXVI.

WHICH TREATS OF MORE CURIOUS INCIDENTS THAT OCCURRED AT THE INN


Just at that instant the landlord, who was standing at the gate of the
inn, exclaimed, "Here comes a fine troop of guests; if they stop here we
may say gaudeamus."

"What are they?" said Cardenio.

"Four men," said the landlord, "riding a la jineta, with lances and
bucklers, and all with black veils, and with them there is a woman in
white on a side-saddle, whose face is also veiled, and two attendants on
foot."

"Are they very near?" said the curate.

"So near," answered the landlord, "that here they come."

Hearing this Dorothea covered her face, and Cardenio retreated into Don
Quixote's room, and they hardly had time to do so before the whole party
the host had described entered the inn, and the four that were on
horseback, who were of highbred appearance and bearing, dismounted, and
came forward to take down the woman who rode on the side-saddle, and one
of them taking her in his arms placed her in a chair that stood at the
entrance of the room where Cardenio had hidden himself. All this time
neither she nor they had removed their veils or spoken a word, only on
sitting down on the chair the woman gave a deep sigh and let her arms
fall like one that was ill and weak. The attendants on foot then led the
horses away to the stable. Observing this the curate, curious to know who
these people in such a dress and preserving such silence were, went to
where the servants were standing and put the question to one of them, who
answered him.

"Faith, sir, I cannot tell you who they are, I only know they seem to be
people of distinction, particularly he who advanced to take the lady you
saw in his arms; and I say so because all the rest show him respect, and
nothing is done except what he directs and orders."

"And the lady, who is she?" asked the curate.

"That I cannot tell you either," said the servant, "for I have not seen
her face all the way: I have indeed heard her sigh many times and utter
such groans that she seems to be giving up the ghost every time; but it
is no wonder if we do not know more than we have told you, as my comrade
and I have only been in their company two days, for having met us on the
road they begged and persuaded us to accompany them to Andalusia,
promising to pay us well."

"And have you heard any of them called by his name?" asked the curate.

"No, indeed," replied the servant; "they all preserve a marvellous
silence on the road, for not a sound is to be heard among them except the
poor lady's sighs and sobs, which make us pity her; and we feel sure that
wherever it is she is going, it is against her will, and as far as one
can judge from her dress she is a nun or, what is more likely, about to
become one; and perhaps it is because taking the vows is not of her own
free will, that she is so unhappy as she seems to be."

"That may well be," said the curate, and leaving them he returned to
where Dorothea was, who, hearing the veiled lady sigh, moved by natural
compassion drew near to her and said, "What are you suffering from,
senora? If it be anything that women are accustomed and know how to
relieve, I offer you my services with all my heart."

To this the unhappy lady made no reply; and though Dorothea repeated her
offers more earnestly she still kept silence, until the gentleman with
the veil, who, the servant said, was obeyed by the rest, approached and
said to Dorothea, "Do not give yourself the trouble, senora, of making
any offers to that woman, for it is her way to give no thanks for
anything that is done for her; and do not try to make her answer unless
you want to hear some lie from her lips."

"I have never told a lie," was the immediate reply of her who had been
silent until now; "on the contrary, it is because I am so truthful and so
ignorant of lying devices that I am now in this miserable condition; and
this I call you yourself to witness, for it is my unstained truth that
has made you false and a liar."

Cardenio heard these words clearly and distinctly, being quite close to
the speaker, for there was only the door of Don Quixote's room between
them, and the instant he did so, uttering a loud exclamation he cried,
"Good God! what is this I hear? What voice is this that has reached my
ears?" Startled at the voice the lady turned her head; and not seeing the
speaker she stood up and attempted to enter the room; observing which the
gentleman held her back, preventing her from moving a step. In her
agitation and sudden movement the silk with which she had covered her
face fell off and disclosed a countenance of incomparable and marvellous
beauty, but pale and terrified; for she kept turning her eyes, everywhere
she could direct her gaze, with an eagerness that made her look as if she
had lost her senses, and so marked that it excited the pity of Dorothea
and all who beheld her, though they knew not what caused it. The
gentleman grasped her firmly by the shoulders, and being so fully
occupied with holding her back, he was unable to put a hand to his veil
which was falling off, as it did at length entirely, and Dorothea, who
was holding the lady in her arms, raising her eyes saw that he who
likewise held her was her husband, Don Fernando. The instant she
recognised him, with a prolonged plaintive cry drawn from the depths of
her heart, she fell backwards fainting, and but for the barber being
close by to catch her in his arms, she would have fallen completely to
the ground. The curate at once hastened to uncover her face and throw
water on it, and as he did so Don Fernando, for he it was who held the
other in his arms, recognised her and stood as if death-stricken by the
sight; not, however, relaxing his grasp of Luscinda, for it was she that
was struggling to release herself from his hold, having recognised
Cardenio by his voice, as he had recognised her. Cardenio also heard
Dorothea's cry as she fell fainting, and imagining that it came from his
Luscinda burst forth in terror from the room, and the first thing he saw
was Don Fernando with Luscinda in his arms. Don Fernando, too, knew
Cardenio at once; and all three, Luscinda, Cardenio, and Dorothea, stood
in silent amazement scarcely knowing what had happened to them.

They gazed at one another without speaking, Dorothea at Don Fernando, Don
Fernando at Cardenio, Cardenio at Luscinda, and Luscinda at Cardenio. The
first to break silence was Luscinda, who thus addressed Don Fernando:
"Leave me, Senor Don Fernando, for the sake of what you owe to yourself;
if no other reason will induce you, leave me to cling to the wall of
which I am the ivy, to the support from which neither your importunities,
nor your threats, nor your promises, nor your gifts have been able to
detach me. See how Heaven, by ways strange and hidden from our sight, has
brought me face to face with my true husband; and well you know by
dear-bought experience that death alone will be able to efface him from
my memory. May this plain declaration, then, lead you, as you can do
nothing else, to turn your love into rage, your affection into
resentment, and so to take my life; for if I yield it up in the presence
of my beloved husband I count it well bestowed; it may be by my death he
will be convinced that I kept my faith to him to the last moment of
life."

Meanwhile Dorothea had come to herself, and had heard Luscinda's words,
by means of which she divined who she was; but seeing that Don Fernando
did not yet release her or reply to her, summoning up her resolution as
well as she could she rose and knelt at his feet, and with a flood of
bright and touching tears addressed him thus:

"If, my lord, the beams of that sun that thou holdest eclipsed in thine
arms did not dazzle and rob thine eyes of sight thou wouldst have seen by
this time that she who kneels at thy feet is, so long as thou wilt have
it so, the unhappy and unfortunate Dorothea. I am that lowly peasant girl
whom thou in thy goodness or for thy pleasure wouldst raise high enough
to call herself thine; I am she who in the seclusion of innocence led a
contented life until at the voice of thy importunity, and thy true and
tender passion, as it seemed, she opened the gates of her modesty and
surrendered to thee the keys of her liberty; a gift received by thee but
thanklessly, as is clearly shown by my forced retreat to the place where
thou dost find me, and by thy appearance under the circumstances in which
I see thee. Nevertheless, I would not have thee suppose that I have come
here driven by my shame; it is only grief and sorrow at seeing myself
forgotten by thee that have led me. It was thy will to make me thine, and
thou didst so follow thy will, that now, even though thou repentest, thou
canst not help being mine. Bethink thee, my lord, the unsurpassable
affection I bear thee may compensate for the beauty and noble birth for
which thou wouldst desert me. Thou canst not be the fair Luscinda's
because thou art mine, nor can she be thine because she is Cardenio's;
and it will be easier, remember, to bend thy will to love one who adores
thee, than to lead one to love thee who abhors thee now. Thou didst
address thyself to my simplicity, thou didst lay siege to my virtue, thou
wert not ignorant of my station, well dost thou know how I yielded wholly
to thy will; there is no ground or reason for thee to plead deception,
and if it be so, as it is, and if thou art a Christian as thou art a
gentleman, why dost thou by such subterfuges put off making me as happy
at last as thou didst at first? And if thou wilt not have me for what I
am, thy true and lawful wife, at least take and accept me as thy slave,
for so long as I am thine I will count myself happy and fortunate. Do not
by deserting me let my shame become the talk of the gossips in the
streets; make not the old age of my parents miserable; for the loyal
services they as faithful vassals have ever rendered thine are not
deserving of such a return; and if thou thinkest it will debase thy blood
to mingle it with mine, reflect that there is little or no nobility in
the world that has not travelled the same road, and that in illustrious
lineages it is not the woman's blood that is of account; and, moreover,
that true nobility consists in virtue, and if thou art wanting in that,
refusing me what in justice thou owest me, then even I have higher claims
to nobility than thine. To make an end, senor, these are my last words to
thee: whether thou wilt, or wilt not, I am thy wife; witness thy words,
which must not and ought not to be false, if thou dost pride thyself on
that for want of which thou scornest me; witness the pledge which thou
didst give me, and witness Heaven, which thou thyself didst call to
witness the promise thou hadst made me; and if all this fail, thy own
conscience will not fail to lift up its silent voice in the midst of all
thy gaiety, and vindicate the truth of what I say and mar thy highest
pleasure and enjoyment."

All this and more the injured Dorothea delivered with such earnest
feeling and such tears that all present, even those who came with Don
Fernando, were constrained to join her in them. Don Fernando listened to
her without replying, until, ceasing to speak, she gave way to such sobs
and sighs that it must have been a heart of brass that was not softened
by the sight of so great sorrow. Luscinda stood regarding her with no
less compassion for her sufferings than admiration for her intelligence
and beauty, and would have gone to her to say some words of comfort to
her, but was prevented by Don Fernando's grasp which held her fast. He,
overwhelmed with confusion and astonishment, after regarding Dorothea for
some moments with a fixed gaze, opened his arms, and, releasing Luscinda,
exclaimed:

"Thou hast conquered, fair Dorothea, thou hast conquered, for it is
impossible to have the heart to deny the united force of so many truths."

Luscinda in her feebleness was on the point of falling to the ground when
Don Fernando released her, but Cardenio, who stood near, having retreated
behind Don Fernando to escape recognition, casting fear aside and
regardless of what might happen, ran forward to support her, and said as
he clasped her in his arms, "If Heaven in its compassion is willing to
let thee rest at last, mistress of my heart, true, constant, and fair,
nowhere canst thou rest more safely than in these arms that now receive
thee, and received thee before when fortune permitted me to call thee
mine."

At these words Luscinda looked up at Cardenio, at first beginning to
recognise him by his voice and then satisfying herself by her eyes that
it was he, and hardly knowing what she did, and heedless of all
considerations of decorum, she flung her arms around his neck and
pressing her face close to his, said, "Yes, my dear lord, you are the
true master of this your slave, even though adverse fate interpose again,
and fresh dangers threaten this life that hangs on yours."

A strange sight was this for Don Fernando and those that stood around,
filled with surprise at an incident so unlooked for. Dorothea fancied
that Don Fernando changed colour and looked as though he meant to take
vengeance on Cardenio, for she observed him put his hand to his sword;
and the instant the idea struck her, with wonderful quickness she clasped
him round the knees, and kissing them and holding him so as to prevent
his moving, she said, while her tears continued to flow, "What is it thou
wouldst do, my only refuge, in this unforeseen event? Thou hast thy wife
at thy feet, and she whom thou wouldst have for thy wife is in the arms
of her husband: reflect whether it will be right for thee, whether it
will be possible for thee to undo what Heaven has done, or whether it
will be becoming in thee to seek to raise her to be thy mate who in spite
of every obstacle, and strong in her truth and constancy, is before thine
eyes, bathing with the tears of love the face and bosom of her lawful
husband. For God's sake I entreat of thee, for thine own I implore thee,
let not this open manifestation rouse thy anger; but rather so calm it as
to allow these two lovers to live in peace and quiet without any
interference from thee so long as Heaven permits them; and in so doing
thou wilt prove the generosity of thy lofty noble spirit, and the world
shall see that with thee reason has more influence than passion."

All the time Dorothea was speaking, Cardenio, though he held Luscinda in
his arms, never took his eyes off Don Fernando, determined, if he saw him
make any hostile movement, to try and defend himself and resist as best
he could all who might assail him, though it should cost him his life.
But now Don Fernando's friends, as well as the curate and the barber, who
had been present all the while, not forgetting the worthy Sancho Panza,
ran forward and gathered round Don Fernando, entreating him to have
regard for the tears of Dorothea, and not suffer her reasonable hopes to
be disappointed, since, as they firmly believed, what she said was but
the truth; and bidding him observe that it was not, as it might seem, by
accident, but by a special disposition of Providence that they had all
met in a place where no one could have expected a meeting. And the curate
bade him remember that only death could part Luscinda from Cardenio; that
even if some sword were to separate them they would think their death
most happy; and that in a case that admitted of no remedy his wisest
course was, by conquering and putting a constraint upon himself, to show
a generous mind, and of his own accord suffer these two to enjoy the
happiness Heaven had granted them. He bade him, too, turn his eyes upon
the beauty of Dorothea and he would see that few if any could equal much
less excel her; while to that beauty should be added her modesty and the
surpassing love she bore him. But besides all this, he reminded him that
if he prided himself on being a gentleman and a Christian, he could not
do otherwise than keep his plighted word; and that in doing so he would
obey God and meet the approval of all sensible people, who know and
recognised it to be the privilege of beauty, even in one of humble birth,
provided virtue accompany it, to be able to raise itself to the level of
any rank, without any slur upon him who places it upon an equality with
himself; and furthermore that when the potent sway of passion asserts
itself, so long as there be no mixture of sin in it, he is not to be
blamed who gives way to it.

To be brief, they added to these such other forcible arguments that Don
Fernando's manly heart, being after all nourished by noble blood, was
touched, and yielded to the truth which, even had he wished it, he could
not gainsay; and he showed his submission, and acceptance of the good
advice that had been offered to him, by stooping down and embracing
Dorothea, saying to her, "Rise, dear lady, it is not right that what I
hold in my heart should be kneeling at my feet; and if until now I have
shown no sign of what I own, it may have been by Heaven's decree in order
that, seeing the constancy with which you love me, I may learn to value
you as you deserve. What I entreat of you is that you reproach me not
with my transgression and grievous wrong-doing; for the same cause and
force that drove me to make you mine impelled me to struggle against
being yours; and to prove this, turn and look at the eyes of the now
happy Luscinda, and you will see in them an excuse for all my errors: and
as she has found and gained the object of her desires, and I have found
in you what satisfies all my wishes, may she live in peace and
contentment as many happy years with her Cardenio, as on my knees I pray
Heaven to allow me to live with my Dorothea;" and with these words he
once more embraced her and pressed his face to hers with so much
tenderness that he had to take great heed to keep his tears from
completing the proof of his love and repentance in the sight of all. Not
so Luscinda, and Cardenio, and almost all the others, for they shed so
many tears, some in their own happiness, some at that of the others, that
one would have supposed a heavy calamity had fallen upon them all. Even
Sancho Panza was weeping; though afterwards he said he only wept because
he saw that Dorothea was not as he fancied the queen Micomicona, of whom
he expected such great favours. Their wonder as well as their weeping
lasted some time, and then Cardenio and Luscinda went and fell on their
knees before Don Fernando, returning him thanks for the favour he had
rendered them in language so grateful that he knew not how to answer
them, and raising them up embraced them with every mark of affection and
courtesy.

He then asked Dorothea how she had managed to reach a place so far
removed from her own home, and she in a few fitting words told all that
she had previously related to Cardenio, with which Don Fernando and his
companions were so delighted that they wished the story had been longer;
so charmingly did Dorothea describe her misadventures. When she had
finished Don Fernando recounted what had befallen him in the city after
he had found in Luscinda's bosom the paper in which she declared that she
was Cardenio's wife, and never could be his. He said he meant to kill
her, and would have done so had he not been prevented by her parents, and
that he quitted the house full of rage and shame, and resolved to avenge
himself when a more convenient opportunity should offer. The next day he
learned that Luscinda had disappeared from her father's house, and that
no one could tell whither she had gone. Finally, at the end of some
months he ascertained that she was in a convent and meant to remain there
all the rest of her life, if she were not to share it with Cardenio; and
as soon as he had learned this, taking these three gentlemen as his
companions, he arrived at the place where she was, but avoided speaking
to her, fearing that if it were known he was there stricter precautions
would be taken in the convent; and watching a time when the porter's
lodge was open he left two to guard the gate, and he and the other
entered the convent in quest of Luscinda, whom they found in the
cloisters in conversation with one of the nuns, and carrying her off
without giving her time to resist, they reached a place with her where
they provided themselves with what they required for taking her away; all
which they were able to do in complete safety, as the convent was in the
country at a considerable distance from the city. He added that when
Luscinda found herself in his power she lost all consciousness, and after
returning to herself did nothing but weep and sigh without speaking a
word; and thus in silence and tears they reached that inn, which for him
was reaching heaven where all the mischances of earth are over and at an
end.





CHAPTER XXXVII.

IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE STORY OF THE FAMOUS PRINCESS MICOMICONA, WITH
OTHER DROLL ADVENTURES


To all this Sancho listened with no little sorrow at heart to see how his
hopes of dignity were fading away and vanishing in smoke, and how the
fair Princess Micomicona had turned into Dorothea, and the giant into Don
Fernando, while his master was sleeping tranquilly, totally unconscious
of all that had come to pass. Dorothea was unable to persuade herself
that her present happiness was not all a dream; Cardenio was in a similar
state of mind, and Luscinda's thoughts ran in the same direction. Don
Fernando gave thanks to Heaven for the favour shown to him and for having
been rescued from the intricate labyrinth in which he had been brought so
near the destruction of his good name and of his soul; and in short
everybody in the inn was full of contentment and satisfaction at the
happy issue of such a complicated and hopeless business. The curate as a
sensible man made sound reflections upon the whole affair, and
congratulated each upon his good fortune; but the one that was in the
highest spirits and good humour was the landlady, because of the promise
Cardenio and the curate had given her to pay for all the losses and
damage she had sustained through Don Quixote's means. Sancho, as has been
already said, was the only one who was distressed, unhappy, and dejected;
and so with a long face he went in to his master, who had just awoke, and
said to him:

"Sir Rueful Countenance, your worship may as well sleep on as much as you
like, without troubling yourself about killing any giant or restoring her
kingdom to the princess; for that is all over and settled now."

"I should think it was," replied Don Quixote, "for I have had the most
prodigious and stupendous battle with the giant that I ever remember
having had all the days of my life; and with one back-stroke-swish!--I
brought his head tumbling to the ground, and so much blood gushed forth
from him that it ran in rivulets over the earth like water."

"Like red wine, your worship had better say," replied Sancho; "for I
would have you know, if you don't know it, that the dead giant is a
hacked wine-skin, and the blood four-and-twenty gallons of red wine that
it had in its belly, and the cut-off head is the bitch that bore me; and
the devil take it all."

"What art thou talking about, fool?" said Don Quixote; "art thou in thy
senses?"

"Let your worship get up," said Sancho, "and you will see the nice
business you have made of it, and what we have to pay; and you will see
the queen turned into a private lady called Dorothea, and other things
that will astonish you, if you understand them."

"I shall not be surprised at anything of the kind," returned Don Quixote;
"for if thou dost remember the last time we were here I told thee that
everything that happened here was a matter of enchantment, and it would
be no wonder if it were the same now."

"I could believe all that," replied Sancho, "if my blanketing was the
same sort of thing also; only it wasn't, but real and genuine; for I saw
the landlord, Who is here to-day, holding one end of the blanket and
jerking me up to the skies very neatly and smartly, and with as much
laughter as strength; and when it comes to be a case of knowing people, I
hold for my part, simple and sinner as I am, that there is no enchantment
about it at all, but a great deal of bruising and bad luck."

"Well, well, God will give a remedy," said Don Quixote; "hand me my
clothes and let me go out, for I want to see these transformations and
things thou speakest of."

Sancho fetched him his clothes; and while he was dressing, the curate
gave Don Fernando and the others present an account of Don Quixote's
madness and of the stratagem they had made use of to withdraw him from
that Pena Pobre where he fancied himself stationed because of his lady's
scorn. He described to them also nearly all the adventures that Sancho
had mentioned, at which they marvelled and laughed not a little, thinking
it, as all did, the strangest form of madness a crazy intellect could be
capable of. But now, the curate said, that the lady Dorothea's good
fortune prevented her from proceeding with their purpose, it would be
necessary to devise or discover some other way of getting him home.

Cardenio proposed to carry out the scheme they had begun, and suggested
that Luscinda would act and support Dorothea's part sufficiently well.

"No," said Don Fernando, "that must not be, for I want Dorothea to follow
out this idea of hers; and if the worthy gentleman's village is not very
far off, I shall be happy if I can do anything for his relief."

"It is not more than two days' journey from this," said the curate.

"Even if it were more," said Don Fernando, "I would gladly travel so far
for the sake of doing so good a work."

At this moment Don Quixote came out in full panoply, with Mambrino's
helmet, all dinted as it was, on his head, his buckler on his arm, and
leaning on his staff or pike. The strange figure he presented filled Don
Fernando and the rest with amazement as they contemplated his lean yellow
face half a league long, his armour of all sorts, and the solemnity of
his deportment. They stood silent waiting to see what he would say, and
he, fixing his eyes on the fair Dorothea, addressed her with great gravity
and composure:

"I am informed, fair lady, by my squire here that your greatness has been
annihilated and your being abolished, since, from a queen and lady of
high degree as you used to be, you have been turned into a private
maiden. If this has been done by the command of the magician king your
father, through fear that I should not afford you the aid you need and
are entitled to, I may tell you he did not know and does not know half
the mass, and was little versed in the annals of chivalry; for, if he had
read and gone through them as attentively and deliberately as I have, he
would have found at every turn that knights of less renown than mine have
accomplished things more difficult: it is no great matter to kill a whelp
of a giant, however arrogant he may be; for it is not many hours since I
myself was engaged with one, and-I will not speak of it, that they may
not say I am lying; time, however, that reveals all, will tell the tale
when we least expect it."

"You were engaged with a couple of wine-skins, and not a giant," said the
landlord at this; but Don Fernando told him to hold his tongue and on no
account interrupt Don Quixote, who continued, "I say in conclusion, high
and disinherited lady, that if your father has brought about this
metamorphosis in your person for the reason I have mentioned, you ought
not to attach any importance to it; for there is no peril on earth
through which my sword will not force a way, and with it, before many
days are over, I will bring your enemy's head to the ground and place on
yours the crown of your kingdom."

Don Quixote said no more, and waited for the reply of the princess, who
aware of Don Fernando's determination to carry on the deception until Don
Quixote had been conveyed to his home, with great ease of manner and
gravity made answer, "Whoever told you, valiant Knight of the Rueful
Countenance, that I had undergone any change or transformation did not
tell you the truth, for I am the same as I was yesterday. It is true that
certain strokes of good fortune, that have given me more than I could
have hoped for, have made some alteration in me; but I have not therefore
ceased to be what I was before, or to entertain the same desire I have
had all through of availing myself of the might of your valiant and
invincible arm. And so, senor, let your goodness reinstate the father
that begot me in your good opinion, and be assured that he was a wise and
prudent man, since by his craft he found out such a sure and easy way of
remedying my misfortune; for I believe, senor, that had it not been for
you I should never have lit upon the good fortune I now possess; and in
this I am saying what is perfectly true; as most of these gentlemen who
are present can fully testify. All that remains is to set out on our
journey to-morrow, for to-day we could not make much way; and for the
rest of the happy result I am looking forward to, I trust to God and the
valour of your heart."

So said the sprightly Dorothea, and on hearing her Don Quixote turned to
Sancho, and said to him, with an angry air, "I declare now, little
Sancho, thou art the greatest little villain in Spain. Say, thief and
vagabond, hast thou not just now told me that this princess had been
turned into a maiden called Dorothea, and that the head which I am
persuaded I cut off from a giant was the bitch that bore thee, and other
nonsense that put me in the greatest perplexity I have ever been in all
my life? I vow" (and here he looked to heaven and ground his teeth) "I
have a mind to play the mischief with thee, in a way that will teach
sense for the future to all lying squires of knights-errant in the
world."

"Let your worship be calm, senor," returned Sancho, "for it may well be
that I have been mistaken as to the change of the lady princess
Micomicona; but as to the giant's head, or at least as to the piercing of
the wine-skins, and the blood being red wine, I make no mistake, as sure
as there is a God; because the wounded skins are there at the head of
your worship's bed, and the wine has made a lake of the room; if not you
will see when the eggs come to be fried; I mean when his worship the
landlord calls for all the damages: for the rest, I am heartily glad that
her ladyship the queen is as she was, for it concerns me as much as
anyone."

"I tell thee again, Sancho, thou art a fool," said Don Quixote; "forgive
me, and that will do."

"That will do," said Don Fernando; "let us say no more about it; and as
her ladyship the princess proposes to set out to-morrow because it is too
late to-day, so be it, and we will pass the night in pleasant
conversation, and to-morrow we will all accompany Senor Don Quixote; for
we wish to witness the valiant and unparalleled achievements he is about
to perform in the course of this mighty enterprise which he has
undertaken."

"It is I who shall wait upon and accompany you," said Don Quixote; "and I
am much gratified by the favour that is bestowed upon me, and the good
opinion entertained of me, which I shall strive to justify or it shall
cost me my life, or even more, if it can possibly cost me more."

Many were the compliments and expressions of politeness that passed
between Don Quixote and Don Fernando; but they were brought to an end by
a traveller who at this moment entered the inn, and who seemed from his
attire to be a Christian lately come from the country of the Moors, for
he was dressed in a short-skirted coat of blue cloth with half-sleeves
and without a collar; his breeches were also of blue cloth, and his cap
of the same colour, and he wore yellow buskins and had a Moorish cutlass
slung from a baldric across his breast. Behind him, mounted upon an ass,
there came a woman dressed in Moorish fashion, with her face veiled and a
scarf on her head, and wearing a little brocaded cap, and a mantle that
covered her from her shoulders to her feet. The man was of a robust and
well-proportioned frame, in age a little over forty, rather swarthy in
complexion, with long moustaches and a full beard, and, in short, his
appearance was such that if he had been well dressed he would have been
taken for a person of quality and good birth. On entering he asked for a
room, and when they told him there was none in the inn he seemed
distressed, and approaching her who by her dress seemed to be a Moor he
her down from saddle in his arms. Luscinda, Dorothea, the landlady, her
daughter and Maritornes, attracted by the strange, and to them entirely
new costume, gathered round her; and Dorothea, who was always kindly,
courteous, and quick-witted, perceiving that both she and the man who had
brought her were annoyed at not finding a room, said to her, "Do not be
put out, senora, by the discomfort and want of luxuries here, for it is
the way of road-side inns to be without them; still, if you will be
pleased to share our lodging with us (pointing to Luscinda) perhaps you
will have found worse accommodation in the course of your journey."

To this the veiled lady made no reply; all she did was to rise from her
seat, crossing her hands upon her bosom, bowing her head and bending her
body as a sign that she returned thanks. From her silence they concluded
that she must be a Moor and unable to speak a Christian tongue.

At this moment the captive came up, having been until now otherwise
engaged, and seeing that they all stood round his companion and that she
made no reply to what they addressed to her, he said, "Ladies, this
damsel hardly understands my language and can speak none but that of her
own country, for which reason she does not and cannot answer what has
been asked of her."

"Nothing has been asked of her," returned Luscinda; "she has only been
offered our company for this evening and a share of the quarters we
occupy, where she shall be made as comfortable as the circumstances
allow, with the good-will we are bound to show all strangers that stand
in need of it, especially if it be a woman to whom the service is
rendered."

"On her part and my own, senora," replied the captive, "I kiss your
hands, and I esteem highly, as I ought, the favour you have offered,
which, on such an occasion and coming from persons of your appearance,
is, it is plain to see, a very great one."

"Tell me, senor," said Dorothea, "is this lady a Christian or a Moor? for
her dress and her silence lead us to imagine that she is what we could
wish she was not."

"In dress and outwardly," said he, "she is a Moor, but at heart she is a
thoroughly good Christian, for she has the greatest desire to become
one."

"Then she has not been baptised?" returned Luscinda.

"There has been no opportunity for that," replied the captive, "since she
left Algiers, her native country and home; and up to the present she has
not found herself in any such imminent danger of death as to make it
necessary to baptise her before she has been instructed in all the
ceremonies our holy mother Church ordains; but, please God, ere long she
shall be baptised with the solemnity befitting her which is higher than
her dress or mine indicates."

By these words he excited a desire in all who heard him, to know who the
Moorish lady and the captive were, but no one liked to ask just then,
seeing that it was a fitter moment for helping them to rest themselves
than for questioning them about their lives. Dorothea took the Moorish
lady by the hand and leading her to a seat beside herself, requested her
to remove her veil. She looked at the captive as if to ask him what they
meant and what she was to do. He said to her in Arabic that they asked
her to take off her veil, and thereupon she removed it and disclosed a
countenance so lovely, that to Dorothea she seemed more beautiful than
Luscinda, and to Luscinda more beautiful than Dorothea, and all the
bystanders felt that if any beauty could compare with theirs it was the
Moorish lady's, and there were even those who were inclined to give it
somewhat the preference. And as it is the privilege and charm of beauty
to win the heart and secure good-will, all forthwith became eager to show
kindness and attention to the lovely Moor.

Don Fernando asked the captive what her name was, and he replied that it
was Lela Zoraida; but the instant she heard him, she guessed what the
Christian had asked, and said hastily, with some displeasure and energy,
"No, not Zoraida; Maria, Maria!" giving them to understand that she was
called "Maria" and not "Zoraida." These words, and the touching
earnestness with which she uttered them, drew more than one tear from
some of the listeners, particularly the women, who are by nature
tender-hearted and compassionate. Luscinda embraced her affectionately,
saying, "Yes, yes, Maria, Maria," to which the Moor replied, "Yes, yes,
Maria; Zoraida macange," which means "not Zoraida."

Night was now approaching, and by the orders of those who accompanied Don
Fernando the landlord had taken care and pains to prepare for them the
best supper that was in his power. The hour therefore having arrived they
all took their seats at a long table like a refectory one, for round or
square table there was none in the inn, and the seat of honour at the
head of it, though he was for refusing it, they assigned to Don Quixote,
who desired the lady Micomicona to place herself by his side, as he was
her protector. Luscinda and Zoraida took their places next her, opposite
to them were Don Fernando and Cardenio, and next the captive and the
other gentlemen, and by the side of the ladies, the curate and the
barber. And so they supped in high enjoyment, which was increased when
they observed Don Quixote leave off eating, and, moved by an impulse like
that which made him deliver himself at such length when he supped with
the goatherds, begin to address them:

"Verily, gentlemen, if we reflect upon it, great and marvellous are the
things they see, who make profession of the order of knight-errantry.
Say, what being is there in this world, who entering the gate of this
castle at this moment, and seeing us as we are here, would suppose or
imagine us to be what we are? Who would say that this lady who is beside
me was the great queen that we all know her to be, or that I am that
Knight of the Rueful Countenance, trumpeted far and wide by the mouth of
Fame? Now, there can be no doubt that this art and calling surpasses all
those that mankind has invented, and is the more deserving of being held
in honour in proportion as it is the more exposed to peril. Away with
those who assert that letters have the preeminence over arms; I will tell
them, whosoever they may be, that they know not what they say. For the
reason which such persons commonly assign, and upon which they chiefly
rest, is, that the labours of the mind are greater than those of the
body, and that arms give employment to the body alone; as if the calling
were a porter's trade, for which nothing more is required than sturdy
strength; or as if, in what we who profess them call arms, there were not
included acts of vigour for the execution of which high intelligence is
requisite; or as if the soul of the warrior, when he has an army, or the
defence of a city under his care, did not exert itself as much by mind as
by body. Nay; see whether by bodily strength it be possible to learn or
divine the intentions of the enemy, his plans, stratagems, or obstacles,
or to ward off impending mischief; for all these are the work of the
mind, and in them the body has no share whatever. Since, therefore, arms
have need of the mind, as much as letters, let us see now which of the
two minds, that of the man of letters or that of the warrior, has most to
do; and this will be seen by the end and goal that each seeks to attain;
for that purpose is the more estimable which has for its aim the nobler
object. The end and goal of letters--I am not speaking now of divine
letters, the aim of which is to raise and direct the soul to Heaven; for
with an end so infinite no other can be compared--I speak of human
letters, the end of which is to establish distributive justice, give to
every man that which is his, and see and take care that good laws are
observed: an end undoubtedly noble, lofty, and deserving of high praise,
but not such as should be given to that sought by arms, which have for
their end and object peace, the greatest boon that men can desire in this
life. The first good news the world and mankind received was that which
the angels announced on the night that was our day, when they sang in the
air, 'Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of
good-will;' and the salutation which the great Master of heaven and earth
taught his disciples and chosen followers when they entered any house,
was to say, 'Peace be on this house;' and many other times he said to
them, 'My peace I give unto you, my peace I leave you, peace be with
you;' a jewel and a precious gift given and left by such a hand: a jewel
without which there can be no happiness either on earth or in heaven.
This peace is the true end of war; and war is only another name for arms.
This, then, being admitted, that the end of war is peace, and that so far
it has the advantage of the end of letters, let us turn to the bodily
labours of the man of letters, and those of him who follows the
profession of arms, and see which are the greater."

Don Quixote delivered his discourse in such a manner and in such correct
language, that for the time being he made it impossible for any of his
hearers to consider him a madman; on the contrary, as they were mostly
gentlemen, to whom arms are an appurtenance by birth, they listened to
him with great pleasure as he continued: "Here, then, I say is what the
student has to undergo; first of all poverty: not that all are poor, but
to put the case as strongly as possible: and when I have said that he
endures poverty, I think nothing more need be said about his hard
fortune, for he who is poor has no share of the good things of life. This
poverty he suffers from in various ways, hunger, or cold, or nakedness,
or all together; but for all that it is not so extreme but that he gets
something to eat, though it may be at somewhat unseasonable hours and
from the leavings of the rich; for the greatest misery of the student is
what they themselves call 'going out for soup,' and there is always some
neighbour's brazier or hearth for them, which, if it does not warm, at
least tempers the cold to them, and lastly, they sleep comfortably at
night under a roof. I will not go into other particulars, as for example
want of shirts, and no superabundance of shoes, thin and threadbare
garments, and gorging themselves to surfeit in their voracity when good
luck has treated them to a banquet of some sort. By this road that I have
described, rough and hard, stumbling here, falling there, getting up
again to fall again, they reach the rank they desire, and that once
attained, we have seen many who have passed these Syrtes and Scyllas and
Charybdises, as if borne flying on the wings of favouring fortune; we
have seen them, I say, ruling and governing the world from a chair, their
hunger turned into satiety, their cold into comfort, their nakedness into
fine raiment, their sleep on a mat into repose in holland and damask, the
justly earned reward of their virtue; but, contrasted and compared with
what the warrior undergoes, all they have undergone falls far short of
it, as I am now about to show."




CHAPTER XXXVIII.

WHICH TREATS OF THE CURIOUS DISCOURSE DON QUIXOTE DELIVERED ON ARMS AND
LETTERS


Continuing his discourse Don Quixote said: "As we began in the student's
case with poverty and its accompaniments, let us see now if the soldier
is richer, and we shall find that in poverty itself there is no one
poorer; for he is dependent on his miserable pay, which comes late or
never, or else on what he can plunder, seriously imperilling his life and
conscience; and sometimes his nakedness will be so great that a slashed
doublet serves him for uniform and shirt, and in the depth of winter he
has to defend himself against the inclemency of the weather in the open
field with nothing better than the breath of his mouth, which I need not
say, coming from an empty place, must come out cold, contrary to the laws
of nature. To be sure he looks forward to the approach of night to make
up for all these discomforts on the bed that awaits him, which, unless by
some fault of his, never sins by being over narrow, for he can easily
measure out on the ground as he likes, and roll himself about in it to
his heart's content without any fear of the sheets slipping away from
him. Then, after all this, suppose the day and hour for taking his degree
in his calling to have come; suppose the day of battle to have arrived,
when they invest him with the doctor's cap made of lint, to mend some
bullet-hole, perhaps, that has gone through his temples, or left him with
a crippled arm or leg. Or if this does not happen, and merciful Heaven
watches over him and keeps him safe and sound, it may be he will be in
the same poverty he was in before, and he must go through more
engagements and more battles, and come victorious out of all before he
betters himself; but miracles of that sort are seldom seen. For tell me,
sirs, if you have ever reflected upon it, by how much do those who have
gained by war fall short of the number of those who have perished in it?
No doubt you will reply that there can be no comparison, that the dead
cannot be numbered, while the living who have been rewarded may be summed
up with three figures. All which is the reverse in the case of men of
letters; for by skirts, to say nothing of sleeves, they all find means of
support; so that though the soldier has more to endure, his reward is
much less. But against all this it may be urged that it is easier to
reward two thousand soldiers, for the former may be remunerated by giving
them places, which must perforce be conferred upon men of their calling,
while the latter can only be recompensed out of the very property of the
master they serve; but this impossibility only strengthens my argument.

"Putting this, however, aside, for it is a puzzling question for which it
is difficult to find a solution, let us return to the superiority of arms
over letters, a matter still undecided, so many are the arguments put
forward on each side; for besides those I have mentioned, letters say
that without them arms cannot maintain themselves, for war, too, has its
laws and is governed by them, and laws belong to the domain of letters
and men of letters. To this arms make answer that without them laws
cannot be maintained, for by arms states are defended, kingdoms
preserved, cities protected, roads made safe, seas cleared of pirates;
and, in short, if it were not for them, states, kingdoms, monarchies,
cities, ways by sea and land would be exposed to the violence and
confusion which war brings with it, so long as it lasts and is free to
make use of its privileges and powers. And then it is plain that whatever
costs most is valued and deserves to be valued most. To attain to
eminence in letters costs a man time, watching, hunger, nakedness,
headaches, indigestions, and other things of the sort, some of which I
have already referred to. But for a man to come in the ordinary course of
things to be a good soldier costs him all the student suffers, and in an
incomparably higher degree, for at every step he runs the risk of losing
his life. For what dread of want or poverty that can reach or harass the
student can compare with what the soldier feels, who finds himself
beleaguered in some stronghold mounting guard in some ravelin or
cavalier, knows that the enemy is pushing a mine towards the post where
he is stationed, and cannot under any circumstances retire or fly from
the imminent danger that threatens him? All he can do is to inform his
captain of what is going on so that he may try to remedy it by a
counter-mine, and then stand his ground in fear and expectation of the
moment when he will fly up to the clouds without wings and descend into
the deep against his will. And if this seems a trifling risk, let us see
whether it is equalled or surpassed by the encounter of two galleys stem
to stem, in the midst of the open sea, locked and entangled one with the
other, when the soldier has no more standing room than two feet of the
plank of the spur; and yet, though he sees before him threatening him as
many ministers of death as there are cannon of the foe pointed at him,
not a lance length from his body, and sees too that with the first
heedless step he will go down to visit the profundities of Neptune's
bosom, still with dauntless heart, urged on by honour that nerves him, he
makes himself a target for all that musketry, and struggles to cross that
narrow path to the enemy's ship. And what is still more marvellous, no
sooner has one gone down into the depths he will never rise from till the
end of the world, than another takes his place; and if he too falls into
the sea that waits for him like an enemy, another and another will
succeed him without a moment's pause between their deaths: courage and
daring the greatest that all the chances of war can show. Happy the blest
ages that knew not the dread fury of those devilish engines of artillery,
whose inventor I am persuaded is in hell receiving the reward of his
diabolical invention, by which he made it easy for a base and cowardly
arm to take the life of a gallant gentleman; and that, when he knows not
how or whence, in the height of the ardour and enthusiasm that fire and
animate brave hearts, there should come some random bullet, discharged
perhaps by one who fled in terror at the flash when he fired off his
accursed machine, which in an instant puts an end to the projects and
cuts off the life of one who deserved to live for ages to come. And thus
when I reflect on this, I am almost tempted to say that in my heart I
repent of having adopted this profession of knight-errant in so
detestable an age as we live in now; for though no peril can make me
fear, still it gives me some uneasiness to think that powder and lead may
rob me of the opportunity of making myself famous and renowned throughout
the known earth by the might of my arm and the edge of my sword. But
Heaven's will be done; if I succeed in my attempt I shall be all the more
honoured, as I have faced greater dangers than the knights-errant of yore
exposed themselves to."

All this lengthy discourse Don Quixote delivered while the others supped,
forgetting to raise a morsel to his lips, though Sancho more than once
told him to eat his supper, as he would have time enough afterwards to
say all he wanted. It excited fresh pity in those who had heard him to
see a man of apparently sound sense, and with rational views on every
subject he discussed, so hopelessly wanting in all, when his wretched
unlucky chivalry was in question. The curate told him he was quite right
in all he had said in favour of arms, and that he himself, though a man
of letters and a graduate, was of the same opinion.

They finished their supper, the cloth was removed, and while the hostess,
her daughter, and Maritornes were getting Don Quixote of La Mancha's
garret ready, in which it was arranged that the women were to be
quartered by themselves for the night, Don Fernando begged the captive to
tell them the story of his life, for it could not fail to be strange and
interesting, to judge by the hints he had let fall on his arrival in
company with Zoraida. To this the captive replied that he would very
willingly yield to his request, only he feared his tale would not give
them as much pleasure as he wished; nevertheless, not to be wanting in
compliance, he would tell it. The curate and the others thanked him and
added their entreaties, and he finding himself so pressed said there was
no occasion ask, where a command had such weight, and added, "If your
worships will give me your attention you will hear a true story which,
perhaps, fictitious ones constructed with ingenious and studied art
cannot come up to." These words made them settle themselves in their
places and preserve a deep silence, and he seeing them waiting on his
words in mute expectation, began thus in a pleasant quiet voice.




CHAPTER XXXIX.

WHEREIN THE CAPTIVE RELATES HIS LIFE AND ADVENTURES


My family had its origin in a village in the mountains of Leon, and
nature had been kinder and more generous to it than fortune; though in
the general poverty of those communities my father passed for being even
a rich man; and he would have been so in reality had he been as clever in
preserving his property as he was in spending it. This tendency of his to
be liberal and profuse he had acquired from having been a soldier in his
youth, for the soldier's life is a school in which the niggard becomes
free-handed and the free-handed prodigal; and if any soldiers are to be
found who are misers, they are monsters of rare occurrence. My father
went beyond liberality and bordered on prodigality, a disposition by no
means advantageous to a married man who has children to succeed to his
name and position. My father had three, all sons, and all of sufficient
age to make choice of a profession. Finding, then, that he was unable to
resist his propensity, he resolved to divest himself of the instrument
and cause of his prodigality and lavishness, to divest himself of wealth,
without which Alexander himself would have seemed parsimonious; and so
calling us all three aside one day into a room, he addressed us in words
somewhat to the following effect:

"My sons, to assure you that I love you, no more need be known or said
than that you are my sons; and to encourage a suspicion that I do not
love you, no more is needed than the knowledge that I have no
self-control as far as preservation of your patrimony is concerned;
therefore, that you may for the future feel sure that I love you like a
father, and have no wish to ruin you like a stepfather, I propose to do
with you what I have for some time back meditated, and after mature
deliberation decided upon. You are now of an age to choose your line of
life or at least make choice of a calling that will bring you honour and
profit when you are older; and what I have resolved to do is to divide my
property into four parts; three I will give to you, to each his portion
without making any difference, and the other I will retain to live upon
and support myself for whatever remainder of life Heaven may be pleased
to grant me. But I wish each of you on taking possession of the share
that falls to him to follow one of the paths I shall indicate. In this
Spain of ours there is a proverb, to my mind very true--as they all are,
being short aphorisms drawn from long practical experience--and the one I
refer to says, 'The church, or the sea, or the king's house;' as much as
to say, in plainer language, whoever wants to flourish and become rich,
let him follow the church, or go to sea, adopting commerce as his
calling, or go into the king's service in his household, for they say,
'Better a king's crumb than a lord's favour.' I say so because it is my
will and pleasure that one of you should follow letters, another trade,
and the third serve the king in the wars, for it is a difficult matter to
gain admission to his service in his household, and if war does not bring
much wealth it confers great distinction and fame. Eight days hence I
will give you your full shares in money, without defrauding you of a
farthing, as you will see in the end. Now tell me if you are willing to
follow out my idea and advice as I have laid it before you."

Having called upon me as the eldest to answer, I, after urging him not to
strip himself of his property but to spend it all as he pleased, for we
were young men able to gain our living, consented to comply with his
wishes, and said that mine were to follow the profession of arms and
thereby serve God and my king. My second brother having made the same
proposal, decided upon going to the Indies, embarking the portion that
fell to him in trade. The youngest, and in my opinion the wisest, said he
would rather follow the church, or go to complete his studies at
Salamanca. As soon as we had come to an understanding, and made choice of
our professions, my father embraced us all, and in the short time he
mentioned carried into effect all he had promised; and when he had given
to each his share, which as well as I remember was three thousand ducats
apiece in cash (for an uncle of ours bought the estate and paid for it
down, not to let it go out of the family), we all three on the same day
took leave of our good father; and at the same time, as it seemed to me
inhuman to leave my father with such scanty means in his old age, I
induced him to take two of my three thousand ducats, as the remainder
would be enough to provide me with all a soldier needed. My two brothers,
moved by my example, gave him each a thousand ducats, so that there was
left for my father four thousand ducats in money, besides three thousand,
the value of the portion that fell to him which he preferred to retain in
land instead of selling it. Finally, as I said, we took leave of him, and
of our uncle whom I have mentioned, not without sorrow and tears on both
sides, they charging us to let them know whenever an opportunity offered
how we fared, whether well or ill. We promised to do so, and when he had
embraced us and given us his blessing, one set out for Salamanca, the
other for Seville, and I for Alicante, where I had heard there was a
Genoese vessel taking in a cargo of wool for Genoa.

It is now some twenty-two years since I left my father's house, and all
that time, though I have written several letters, I have had no news
whatever of him or of my brothers; my own adventures during that period I
will now relate briefly. I embarked at Alicante, reached Genoa after a
prosperous voyage, and proceeded thence to Milan, where I provided myself
with arms and a few soldier's accoutrements; thence it was my intention
to go and take service in Piedmont, but as I was already on the road to
Alessandria della Paglia, I learned that the great Duke of Alva was on
his way to Flanders. I changed my plans, joined him, served under him in
the campaigns he made, was present at the deaths of the Counts Egmont and
Horn, and was promoted to be ensign under a famous captain of
Guadalajara, Diego de Urbina by name. Some time after my arrival in
Flanders news came of the league that his Holiness Pope Pius V of happy
memory, had made with Venice and Spain against the common enemy, the
Turk, who had just then with his fleet taken the famous island of Cyprus,
which belonged to the Venetians, a loss deplorable and disastrous. It was
known as a fact that the Most Serene Don John of Austria, natural brother
of our good king Don Philip, was coming as commander-in-chief of the
allied forces, and rumours were abroad of the vast warlike preparations
which were being made, all which stirred my heart and filled me with a
longing to take part in the campaign which was expected; and though I had
reason to believe, and almost certain promises, that on the first
opportunity that presented itself I should be promoted to be captain, I
preferred to leave all and betake myself, as I did, to Italy; and it was
my good fortune that Don John had just arrived at Genoa, and was going on
to Naples to join the Venetian fleet, as he afterwards did at Messina. I
may say, in short, that I took part in that glorious expedition, promoted
by this time to be a captain of infantry, to which honourable charge my
good luck rather than my merits raised me; and that day--so fortunate for
Christendom, because then all the nations of the earth were disabused of
the error under which they lay in imagining the Turks to be invincible on
sea-on that day, I say, on which the Ottoman pride and arrogance were
broken, among all that were there made happy (for the Christians who died
that day were happier than those who remained alive and victorious) I
alone was miserable; for, instead of some naval crown that I might have
expected had it been in Roman times, on the night that followed that
famous day I found myself with fetters on my feet and manacles on my
hands.

It happened in this way: El Uchali, the king of Algiers, a daring and
successful corsair, having attacked and taken the leading Maltese galley
(only three knights being left alive in it, and they badly wounded), the
chief galley of John Andrea, on board of which I and my company were
placed, came to its relief, and doing as was bound to do in such a case,
I leaped on board the enemy's galley, which, sheering off from that which
had attacked it, prevented my men from following me, and so I found
myself alone in the midst of my enemies, who were in such numbers that I
was unable to resist; in short I was taken, covered with wounds; El
Uchali, as you know, sirs, made his escape with his entire squadron, and
I was left a prisoner in his power, the only sad being among so many
filled with joy, and the only captive among so many free; for there were
fifteen thousand Christians, all at the oar in the Turkish fleet, that
regained their longed-for liberty that day.

They carried me to Constantinople, where the Grand Turk, Selim, made my
master general at sea for having done his duty in the battle and carried
off as evidence of his bravery the standard of the Order of Malta. The
following year, which was the year seventy-two, I found myself at
Navarino rowing in the leading galley with the three lanterns. There I
saw and observed how the opportunity of capturing the whole Turkish fleet
in harbour was lost; for all the marines and janizzaries that belonged to
it made sure that they were about to be attacked inside the very harbour,
and had their kits and pasamaques, or shoes, ready to flee at once on
shore without waiting to be assailed, in so great fear did they stand of
our fleet. But Heaven ordered it otherwise, not for any fault or neglect
of the general who commanded on our side, but for the sins of
Christendom, and because it was God's will and pleasure that we should
always have instruments of punishment to chastise us. As it was, El
Uchali took refuge at Modon, which is an island near Navarino, and
landing forces fortified the mouth of the harbour and waited quietly
until Don John retired. On this expedition was taken the galley called
the Prize, whose captain was a son of the famous corsair Barbarossa. It
was taken by the chief Neapolitan galley called the She-wolf, commanded
by that thunderbolt of war, that father of his men, that successful and
unconquered captain Don Alvaro de Bazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz; and I
cannot help telling you what took place at the capture of the Prize.

The son of Barbarossa was so cruel, and treated his slaves so badly,
that, when those who were at the oars saw that the She-wolf galley was
bearing down upon them and gaining upon them, they all at once dropped
their oars and seized their captain who stood on the stage at the end of
the gangway shouting to them to row lustily; and passing him on from
bench to bench, from the poop to the prow, they so bit him that before he
had got much past the mast his soul had already got to hell; so great, as
I said, was the cruelty with which he treated them, and the hatred with
which they hated him.

We returned to Constantinople, and the following year, seventy-three, it
became known that Don John had seized Tunis and taken the kingdom from
the Turks, and placed Muley Hamet in possession, putting an end to the
hopes which Muley Hamida, the cruelest and bravest Moor in the world,
entertained of returning to reign there. The Grand Turk took the loss
greatly to heart, and with the cunning which all his race possess, he
made peace with the Venetians (who were much more eager for it than he
was), and the following year, seventy-four, he attacked the Goletta and
the fort which Don John had left half built near Tunis. While all these
events were occurring, I was labouring at the oar without any hope of
freedom; at least I had no hope of obtaining it by ransom, for I was
firmly resolved not to write to my father telling him of my misfortunes.
At length the Goletta fell, and the fort fell, before which places there
were seventy-five thousand regular Turkish soldiers, and more than four
hundred thousand Moors and Arabs from all parts of Africa, and in the
train of all this great host such munitions and engines of war, and so
many pioneers that with their hands they might have covered the Goletta
and the fort with handfuls of earth. The first to fall was the Goletta,
until then reckoned impregnable, and it fell, not by any fault of its
defenders, who did all that they could and should have done, but because
experiment proved how easily entrenchments could be made in the desert
sand there; for water used to be found at two palms depth, while the
Turks found none at two yards; and so by means of a quantity of sandbags
they raised their works so high that they commanded the walls of the
fort, sweeping them as if from a cavalier, so that no one was able to
make a stand or maintain the defence.

It was a common opinion that our men should not have shut themselves up
in the Goletta, but should have waited in the open at the landing-place;
but those who say so talk at random and with little knowledge of such
matters; for if in the Goletta and in the fort there were barely seven
thousand soldiers, how could such a small number, however resolute, sally
out and hold their own against numbers like those of the enemy? And how
is it possible to help losing a stronghold that is not relieved, above
all when surrounded by a host of determined enemies in their own country?
But many thought, and I thought so too, that it was special favour and
mercy which Heaven showed to Spain in permitting the destruction of that
source and hiding place of mischief, that devourer, sponge, and moth of
countless money, fruitlessly wasted there to no other purpose save
preserving the memory of its capture by the invincible Charles V; as if
to make that eternal, as it is and will be, these stones were needed to
support it. The fort also fell; but the Turks had to win it inch by inch,
for the soldiers who defended it fought so gallantly and stoutly that the
number of the enemy killed in twenty-two general assaults exceeded
twenty-five thousand. Of three hundred that remained alive not one was
taken unwounded, a clear and manifest proof of their gallantry and
resolution, and how sturdily they had defended themselves and held their
post. A small fort or tower which was in the middle of the lagoon under
the command of Don Juan Zanoguera, a Valencian gentleman and a famous
soldier, capitulated upon terms. They took prisoner Don Pedro
Puertocarrero, commandant of the Goletta, who had done all in his power
to defend his fortress, and took the loss of it so much to heart that he
died of grief on the way to Constantinople, where they were carrying him
a prisoner. They also took the commandant of the fort, Gabrio Cerbellon
by name, a Milanese gentleman, a great engineer and a very brave soldier.
In these two fortresses perished many persons of note, among whom was
Pagano Doria, knight of the Order of St. John, a man of generous
disposition, as was shown by his extreme liberality to his brother, the
famous John Andrea Doria; and what made his death the more sad was that
he was slain by some Arabs to whom, seeing that the fort was now lost, he
entrusted himself, and who offered to conduct him in the disguise of a
Moor to Tabarca, a small fort or station on the coast held by the Genoese
employed in the coral fishery. These Arabs cut off his head and carried
it to the commander of the Turkish fleet, who proved on them the truth of
our Castilian proverb, that "though the treason may please, the traitor
is hated;" for they say he ordered those who brought him the present to
be hanged for not having brought him alive.

Among the Christians who were taken in the fort was one named Don Pedro
de Aguilar, a native of some place, I know not what, in Andalusia, who
had been ensign in the fort, a soldier of great repute and rare
intelligence, who had in particular a special gift for what they call
poetry. I say so because his fate brought him to my galley and to my
bench, and made him a slave to the same master; and before we left the
port this gentleman composed two sonnets by way of epitaphs, one on the
Goletta and the other on the fort; indeed, I may as well repeat them, for
I have them by heart, and I think they will be liked rather than
disliked.

The instant the captive mentioned the name of Don Pedro de Aguilar, Don
Fernando looked at his companions and they all three smiled; and when he
came to speak of the sonnets one of them said, "Before your worship
proceeds any further I entreat you to tell me what became of that Don
Pedro de Aguilar you have spoken of."

"All I know is," replied the captive, "that after having been in
Constantinople two years, he escaped in the disguise of an Arnaut, in
company with a Greek spy; but whether he regained his liberty or not I
cannot tell, though I fancy he did, because a year afterwards I saw the
Greek at Constantinople, though I was unable to ask him what the result
of the journey was."

"Well then, you are right," returned the gentleman, "for that Don Pedro
is my brother, and he is now in our village in good health, rich,
married, and with three children."

"Thanks be to God for all the mercies he has shown him," said the
captive; "for to my mind there is no happiness on earth to compare with
recovering lost liberty."

"And what is more," said the gentleman, "I know the sonnets my brother
made."

"Then let your worship repeat them," said the captive, "for you will
recite them better than I can."

"With all my heart," said the gentleman; "that on the Goletta runs thus."




CHAPTER XL.

IN WHICH THE STORY OF THE CAPTIVE IS CONTINUED.


SONNET

"Blest souls, that, from this mortal husk set free,
  In guerdon of brave deeds beatified,
  Above this lowly orb of ours abide
Made heirs of heaven and immortality,
With noble rage and ardour glowing ye
  Your strength, while strength was yours, in battle plied,
  And with your own blood and the foeman's dyed
The sandy soil and the encircling sea.
It was the ebbing life-blood first that failed
The weary arms; the stout hearts never quailed.
  Though vanquished, yet ye earned the victor's crown:
Though mourned, yet still triumphant was your fall
For there ye won, between the sword and wall,
  In Heaven glory and on earth renown."
"That is it exactly, according to my recollection," said the captive.

"Well then, that on the fort," said the gentleman, "if my memory serves
me, goes thus:

SONNET

"Up from this wasted soil, this shattered shell,
  Whose walls and towers here in ruin lie,
  Three thousand soldier souls took wing on high,
In the bright mansions of the blest to dwell.
The onslaught of the foeman to repel
  By might of arm all vainly did they try,
  And when at length 'twas left them but to die,
Wearied and few the last defenders fell.
And this same arid soil hath ever been
A haunt of countless mournful memories,
  As well in our day as in days of yore.
But never yet to Heaven it sent, I ween,
From its hard bosom purer souls than these,
  Or braver bodies on its surface bore."

The sonnets were not disliked, and the captive was rejoiced at the
tidings they gave him of his comrade, and continuing his tale, he went on
to say:

The Goletta and the fort being thus in their hands, the Turks gave orders
to dismantle the Goletta--for the fort was reduced to such a state that
there was nothing left to level--and to do the work more quickly and
easily they mined it in three places; but nowhere were they able to blow
up the part which seemed to be the least strong, that is to say, the old
walls, while all that remained standing of the new fortifications that
the Fratin had made came to the ground with the greatest ease. Finally
the fleet returned victorious and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few
months later died my master, El Uchali, otherwise Uchali Fartax, which
means in Turkish "the scabby renegade;" for that he was; it is the
practice with the Turks to name people from some defect or virtue they
may possess; the reason being that there are among them only four
surnames belonging to families tracing their descent from the Ottoman
house, and the others, as I have said, take their names and surnames
either from bodily blemishes or moral qualities. This "scabby one" rowed
at the oar as a slave of the Grand Signor's for fourteen years, and when
over thirty-four years of age, in resentment at having been struck by a
Turk while at the oar, turned renegade and renounced his faith in order
to be able to revenge himself; and such was his valour that, without
owing his advancement to the base ways and means by which most favourites
of the Grand Signor rise to power, he came to be king of Algiers, and
afterwards general-on-sea, which is the third place of trust in the
realm. He was a Calabrian by birth, and a worthy man morally, and he
treated his slaves with great humanity. He had three thousand of them,
and after his death they were divided, as he directed by his will,
between the Grand Signor (who is heir of all who die and shares with the
children of the deceased) and his renegades. I fell to the lot of a
Venetian renegade who, when a cabin boy on board a ship, had been taken
by Uchali and was so much beloved by him that he became one of his most
favoured youths. He came to be the most cruel renegade I ever saw: his
name was Hassan Aga, and he grew very rich and became king of Algiers.
With him I went there from Constantinople, rather glad to be so near
Spain, not that I intended to write to anyone about my unhappy lot, but
to try if fortune would be kinder to me in Algiers than in
Constantinople, where I had attempted in a thousand ways to escape
without ever finding a favourable time or chance; but in Algiers I
resolved to seek for other means of effecting the purpose I cherished so
dearly; for the hope of obtaining my liberty never deserted me; and when
in my plots and schemes and attempts the result did not answer my
expectations, without giving way to despair I immediately began to look
out for or conjure up some new hope to support me, however faint or
feeble it might be.

In this way I lived on immured in a building or prison called by the
Turks a bano in which they confine the Christian captives, as well those
that are the king's as those belonging to private individuals, and also
what they call those of the Almacen, which is as much as to say the
slaves of the municipality, who serve the city in the public works and
other employments; but captives of this kind recover their liberty with
great difficulty, for, as they are public property and have no particular
master, there is no one with whom to treat for their ransom, even though
they may have the means. To these banos, as I have said, some private
individuals of the town are in the habit of bringing their captives,
especially when they are to be ransomed; because there they can keep them
in safety and comfort until their ransom arrives. The king's captives
also, that are on ransom, do not go out to work with the rest of the
crew, unless when their ransom is delayed; for then, to make them write
for it more pressingly, they compel them to work and go for wood, which
is no light labour.

I, however, was one of those on ransom, for when it was discovered that I
was a captain, although I declared my scanty means and want of fortune,
nothing could dissuade them from including me among the gentlemen and
those waiting to be ransomed. They put a chain on me, more as a mark of
this than to keep me safe, and so I passed my life in that bano with
several other gentlemen and persons of quality marked out as held to
ransom; but though at times, or rather almost always, we suffered from
hunger and scanty clothing, nothing distressed us so much as hearing and
seeing at every turn the unexampled and unheard-of cruelties my master
inflicted upon the Christians. Every day he hanged a man, impaled one,
cut off the ears of another; and all with so little provocation, or so
entirely without any, that the Turks acknowledged he did it merely for
the sake of doing it, and because he was by nature murderously disposed
towards the whole human race. The only one that fared at all well with
him was a Spanish soldier, something de Saavedra by name, to whom he
never gave a blow himself, or ordered a blow to be given, or addressed a
hard word, although he had done things that will dwell in the memory of
the people there for many a year, and all to recover his liberty; and for
the least of the many things he did we all dreaded that he would be
impaled, and he himself was in fear of it more than once; and only that
time does not allow, I could tell you now something of what that soldier
did, that would interest and astonish you much more than the narration of
my own tale.

To go on with my story; the courtyard of our prison was overlooked by the
windows of the house belonging to a wealthy Moor of high position; and
these, as is usual in Moorish houses, were rather loopholes than windows,
and besides were covered with thick and close lattice-work. It so
happened, then, that as I was one day on the terrace of our prison with
three other comrades, trying, to pass away the time, how far we could
leap with our chains, we being alone, for all the other Christians had
gone out to work, I chanced to raise my eyes, and from one of these
little closed windows I saw a reed appear with a cloth attached to the
end of it, and it kept waving to and fro, and moving as if making signs
to us to come and take it. We watched it, and one of those who were with
me went and stood under the reed to see whether they would let it drop,
or what they would do, but as he did so the reed was raised and moved
from side to side, as if they meant to say "no" by a shake of the head.
The Christian came back, and it was again lowered, making the same
movements as before. Another of my comrades went, and with him the same
happened as with the first, and then the third went forward, but with the
same result as the first and second. Seeing this I did not like not to
try my luck, and as soon as I came under the reed it was dropped and fell
inside the bano at my feet. I hastened to untie the cloth, in which I
perceived a knot, and in this were ten cianis, which are coins of base
gold, current among the Moors, and each worth ten reals of our money.

It is needless to say I rejoiced over this godsend, and my joy was not
less than my wonder as I strove to imagine how this good fortune could
have come to us, but to me specially; for the evident unwillingness to
drop the reed for any but me showed that it was for me the favour was
intended. I took my welcome money, broke the reed, and returned to the
terrace, and looking up at the window, I saw a very white hand put out
that opened and shut very quickly. From this we gathered or fancied that
it must be some woman living in that house that had done us this
kindness, and to show that we were grateful for it, we made salaams after
the fashion of the Moors, bowing the head, bending the body, and crossing
the arms on the breast. Shortly afterwards at the same window a small
cross made of reeds was put out and immediately withdrawn. This sign led
us to believe that some Christian woman was a captive in the house, and
that it was she who had been so good to us; but the whiteness of the hand
and the bracelets we had perceived made us dismiss that idea, though we
thought it might be one of the Christian renegades whom their masters
very often take as lawful wives, and gladly, for they prefer them to the
women of their own nation. In all our conjectures we were wide of the
truth; so from that time forward our sole occupation was watching and
gazing at the window where the cross had appeared to us, as if it were
our pole-star; but at least fifteen days passed without our seeing either
it or the hand, or any other sign and though meanwhile we endeavoured
with the utmost pains to ascertain who it was that lived in the house,
and whether there were any Christian renegade in it, nobody could ever
tell us anything more than that he who lived there was a rich Moor of
high position, Hadji Morato by name, formerly alcaide of La Pata, an
office of high dignity among them. But when we least thought it was going
to rain any more cianis from that quarter, we saw the reed suddenly
appear with another cloth tied in a larger knot attached to it, and this
at a time when, as on the former occasion, the bano was deserted and
unoccupied.

We made trial as before, each of the same three going forward before I
did; but the reed was delivered to none but me, and on my approach it was
let drop. I untied the knot and I found forty Spanish gold crowns with a
paper written in Arabic, and at the end of the writing there was a large
cross drawn. I kissed the cross, took the crowns and returned to the
terrace, and we all made our salaams; again the hand appeared, I made
signs that I would read the paper, and then the window was closed. We
were all puzzled, though filled with joy at what had taken place; and as
none of us understood Arabic, great was our curiosity to know what the
paper contained, and still greater the difficulty of finding some one to
read it. At last I resolved to confide in a renegade, a native of Murcia,
who professed a very great friendship for me, and had given pledges that
bound him to keep any secret I might entrust to him; for it is the custom
with some renegades, when they intend to return to Christian territory,
to carry about them certificates from captives of mark testifying, in
whatever form they can, that such and such a renegade is a worthy man who
has always shown kindness to Christians, and is anxious to escape on the
first opportunity that may present itself. Some obtain these testimonials
with good intentions, others put them to a cunning use; for when they go
to pillage on Christian territory, if they chance to be cast away, or
taken prisoners, they produce their certificates and say that from these
papers may be seen the object they came for, which was to remain on
Christian ground, and that it was to this end they joined the Turks in
their foray. In this way they escape the consequences of the first
outburst and make their peace with the Church before it does them any
harm, and then when they have the chance they return to Barbary to become
what they were before. Others, however, there are who procure these
papers and make use of them honestly, and remain on Christian soil. This
friend of mine, then, was one of these renegades that I have described;
he had certificates from all our comrades, in which we testified in his
favour as strongly as we could; and if the Moors had found the papers
they would have burned him alive.

I knew that he understood Arabic very well, and could not only speak but
also write it; but before I disclosed the whole matter to him, I asked
him to read for me this paper which I had found by accident in a hole in
my cell. He opened it and remained some time examining it and muttering
to himself as he translated it. I asked him if he understood it, and he
told me he did perfectly well, and that if I wished him to tell me its
meaning word for word, I must give him pen and ink that he might do it
more satisfactorily. We at once gave him what he required, and he set
about translating it bit by bit, and when he had done he said:

"All that is here in Spanish is what the Moorish paper contains, and you
must bear in mind that when it says 'Lela Marien' it means 'Our Lady the
Virgin Mary.'"

We read the paper and it ran thus:

"When I was a child my father had a slave who taught me to pray the
Christian prayer in my own language, and told me many things about Lela
Marien. The Christian died, and I know that she did not go to the fire,
but to Allah, because since then I have seen her twice, and she told me
to go to the land of the Christians to see Lela Marien, who had great
love for me. I know not how to go. I have seen many Christians, but
except thyself none has seemed to me to be a gentleman. I am young and
beautiful, and have plenty of money to take with me. See if thou canst
contrive how we may go, and if thou wilt thou shalt be my husband there,
and if thou wilt not it will not distress me, for Lela Marien will find
me some one to marry me. I myself have written this: have a care to whom
thou givest it to read: trust no Moor, for they are all perfidious. I am
greatly troubled on this account, for I would not have thee confide in
anyone, because if my father knew it he would at once fling me down a
well and cover me with stones. I will put a thread to the reed; tie the
answer to it, and if thou hast no one to write for thee in Arabic, tell
it to me by signs, for Lela Marien will make me understand thee. She and
Allah and this cross, which I often kiss as the captive bade me, protect
thee."

Judge, sirs, whether we had reason for surprise and joy at the words of
this paper; and both one and the other were so great, that the renegade
perceived that the paper had not been found by chance, but had been in
reality addressed to some one of us, and he begged us, if what he
suspected were the truth, to trust him and tell him all, for he would
risk his life for our freedom; and so saying he took out from his breast
a metal crucifix, and with many tears swore by the God the image
represented, in whom, sinful and wicked as he was, he truly and
faithfully believed, to be loyal to us and keep secret whatever we chose
to reveal to him; for he thought and almost foresaw that by means of her
who had written that paper, he and all of us would obtain our liberty,
and he himself obtain the object he so much desired, his restoration to
the bosom of the Holy Mother Church, from which by his own sin and
ignorance he was now severed like a corrupt limb. The renegade said this
with so many tears and such signs of repentance, that with one consent we
all agreed to tell him the whole truth of the matter, and so we gave him
a full account of all, without hiding anything from him. We pointed out
to him the window at which the reed appeared, and he by that means took
note of the house, and resolved to ascertain with particular care who
lived in it. We agreed also that it would be advisable to answer the
Moorish lady's letter, and the renegade without a moment's delay took
down the words I dictated to him, which were exactly what I shall tell
you, for nothing of importance that took place in this affair has escaped
my memory, or ever will while life lasts. This, then, was the answer
returned to the Moorish lady:

"The true Allah protect thee, Lady, and that blessed Marien who is the
true mother of God, and who has put it into thy heart to go to the land
of the Christians, because she loves thee. Entreat her that she be
pleased to show thee how thou canst execute the command she gives thee,
for she will, such is her goodness. On my own part, and on that of all
these Christians who are with me, I promise to do all that we can for
thee, even to death. Fail not to write to me and inform me what thou dost
mean to do, and I will always answer thee; for the great Allah has given
us a Christian captive who can speak and write thy language well, as thou
mayest see by this paper; without fear, therefore, thou canst inform us
of all thou wouldst. As to what thou sayest, that if thou dost reach the
land of the Christians thou wilt be my wife, I give thee my promise upon
it as a good Christian; and know that the Christians keep their promises
better than the Moors. Allah and Marien his mother watch over thee, my
Lady."

The paper being written and folded I waited two days until the bano was
empty as before, and immediately repaired to the usual walk on the
terrace to see if there were any sign of the reed, which was not long in
making its appearance. As soon as I saw it, although I could not
distinguish who put it out, I showed the paper as a sign to attach the
thread, but it was already fixed to the reed, and to it I tied the paper;
and shortly afterwards our star once more made its appearance with the
white flag of peace, the little bundle. It was dropped, and I picked it
up, and found in the cloth, in gold and silver coins of all sorts, more
than fifty crowns, which fifty times more strengthened our joy and
doubled our hope of gaining our liberty. That very night our renegade
returned and said he had learned that the Moor we had been told of lived
in that house, that his name was Hadji Morato, that he was enormously
rich, that he had one only daughter the heiress of all his wealth, and
that it was the general opinion throughout the city that she was the most
beautiful woman in Barbary, and that several of the viceroys who came
there had sought her for a wife, but that she had been always unwilling
to marry; and he had learned, moreover, that she had a Christian slave
who was now dead; all which agreed with the contents of the paper. We
immediately took counsel with the renegade as to what means would have to
be adopted in order to carry off the Moorish lady and bring us all to
Christian territory; and in the end it was agreed that for the present we
should wait for a second communication from Zoraida (for that was the
name of her who now desires to be called Maria), because we saw clearly
that she and no one else could find a way out of all these difficulties.
When we had decided upon this the renegade told us not to be uneasy, for
he would lose his life or restore us to liberty. For four days the bano
was filled with people, for which reason the reed delayed its appearance
for four days, but at the end of that time, when the bano was, as it
generally was, empty, it appeared with the cloth so bulky that it
promised a happy birth. Reed and cloth came down to me, and I found
another paper and a hundred crowns in gold, without any other coin. The
renegade was present, and in our cell we gave him the paper to read,
which was to this effect:

"I cannot think of a plan, senor, for our going to Spain, nor has Lela
Marien shown me one, though I have asked her. All that can be done is for
me to give you plenty of money in gold from this window. With it ransom
yourself and your friends, and let one of you go to the land of the
Christians, and there buy a vessel and come back for the others; and he
will find me in my father's garden, which is at the Babazon gate near the
seashore, where I shall be all this summer with my father and my
servants. You can carry me away from there by night without any danger,
and bring me to the vessel. And remember thou art to be my husband, else
I will pray to Marien to punish thee. If thou canst not trust anyone to
go for the vessel, ransom thyself and do thou go, for I know thou wilt
return more surely than any other, as thou art a gentleman and a
Christian. Endeavour to make thyself acquainted with the garden; and when
I see thee walking yonder I shall know that the bano is empty and I will
give thee abundance of money. Allah protect thee, senor."

These were the words and contents of the second paper, and on hearing
them, each declared himself willing to be the ransomed one, and promised
to go and return with scrupulous good faith; and I too made the same
offer; but to all this the renegade objected, saying that he would not on
any account consent to one being set free before all went together, as
experience had taught him how ill those who have been set free keep
promises which they made in captivity; for captives of distinction
frequently had recourse to this plan, paying the ransom of one who was to
go to Valencia or Majorca with money to enable him to arm a bark and
return for the others who had ransomed him, but who never came back; for
recovered liberty and the dread of losing it again efface from the memory
all the obligations in the world. And to prove the truth of what he said,
he told us briefly what had happened to a certain Christian gentleman
almost at that very time, the strangest case that had ever occurred even
there, where astonishing and marvellous things are happening every
instant. In short, he ended by saying that what could and ought to be
done was to give the money intended for the ransom of one of us
Christians to him, so that he might with it buy a vessel there in Algiers
under the pretence of becoming a merchant and trader at Tetuan and along
the coast; and when master of the vessel, it would be easy for him to hit
on some way of getting us all out of the bano and putting us on board;
especially if the Moorish lady gave, as she said, money enough to ransom
all, because once free it would be the easiest thing in the world for us
to embark even in open day; but the greatest difficulty was that the
Moors do not allow any renegade to buy or own any craft, unless it be a
large vessel for going on roving expeditions, because they are afraid
that anyone who buys a small vessel, especially if he be a Spaniard, only
wants it for the purpose of escaping to Christian territory. This however
he could get over by arranging with a Tagarin Moor to go shares with him
in the purchase of the vessel, and in the profit on the cargo; and under
cover of this he could become master of the vessel, in which case he
looked upon all the rest as accomplished. But though to me and my
comrades it had seemed a better plan to send to Majorca for the vessel,
as the Moorish lady suggested, we did not dare to oppose him, fearing
that if we did not do as he said he would denounce us, and place us in
danger of losing all our lives if he were to disclose our dealings with
Zoraida, for whose life we would have all given our own. We therefore
resolved to put ourselves in the hands of God and in the renegade's; and
at the same time an answer was given to Zoraida, telling her that we
would do all she recommended, for she had given as good advice as if Lela
Marien had delivered it, and that it depended on her alone whether we
were to defer the business or put it in execution at once. I renewed my
promise to be her husband; and thus the next day that the bano chanced to
be empty she at different times gave us by means of the reed and cloth
two thousand gold crowns and a paper in which she said that the next
Juma, that is to say Friday, she was going to her father's garden, but
that before she went she would give us more money; and if it were not
enough we were to let her know, as she would give us as much as we asked,
for her father had so much he would not miss it, and besides she kept all
the keys.

We at once gave the renegade five hundred crowns to buy the vessel, and
with eight hundred I ransomed myself, giving the money to a Valencian
merchant who happened to be in Algiers at the time, and who had me
released on his word, pledging it that on the arrival of the first ship
from Valencia he would pay my ransom; for if he had given the money at
once it would have made the king suspect that my ransom money had been
for a long time in Algiers, and that the merchant had for his own
advantage kept it secret. In fact my master was so difficult to deal with
that I dared not on any account pay down the money at once. The Thursday
before the Friday on which the fair Zoraida was to go to the garden she
gave us a thousand crowns more, and warned us of her departure, begging
me, if I were ransomed, to find out her father's garden at once, and by
all means to seek an opportunity of going there to see her. I answered in
a few words that I would do so, and that she must remember to commend us
to Lela Marien with all the prayers the captive had taught her. This
having been done, steps were taken to ransom our three comrades, so as to
enable them to quit the bano, and lest, seeing me ransomed and themselves
not, though the money was forthcoming, they should make a disturbance
about it and the devil should prompt them to do something that might
injure Zoraida; for though their position might be sufficient to relieve
me from this apprehension, nevertheless I was unwilling to run any risk
in the matter; and so I had them ransomed in the same way as I was,
handing over all the money to the merchant so that he might with safety
and confidence give security; without, however, confiding our arrangement
and secret to him, which might have been dangerous.




CHAPTER XLI.

IN WHICH THE CAPTIVE STILL CONTINUES HIS ADVENTURES


Before fifteen days were over our renegade had already purchased an
excellent vessel with room for more than thirty persons; and to make the
transaction safe and lend a colour to it, he thought it well to make, as
he did, a voyage to a place called Shershel, twenty leagues from Algiers
on the Oran side, where there is an extensive trade in dried figs. Two or
three times he made this voyage in company with the Tagarin already
mentioned. The Moors of Aragon are called Tagarins in Barbary, and those
of Granada Mudejars; but in the Kingdom of Fez they call the Mudejars
Elches, and they are the people the king chiefly employs in war. To
proceed: every time he passed with his vessel he anchored in a cove that
was not two crossbow shots from the garden where Zoraida was waiting; and
there the renegade, together with the two Moorish lads that rowed, used
purposely to station himself, either going through his prayers, or else
practising as a part what he meant to perform in earnest. And thus he
would go to Zoraida's garden and ask for fruit, which her father gave
him, not knowing him; but though, as he afterwards told me, he sought to
speak to Zoraida, and tell her who he was, and that by my orders he was
to take her to the land of the Christians, so that she might feel
satisfied and easy, he had never been able to do so; for the Moorish
women do not allow themselves to be seen by any Moor or Turk, unless
their husband or father bid them: with Christian captives they permit
freedom of intercourse and communication, even more than might be
considered proper. But for my part I should have been sorry if he had
spoken to her, for perhaps it might have alarmed her to find her affairs
talked of by renegades. But God, who ordered it otherwise, afforded no
opportunity for our renegade's well-meant purpose; and he, seeing how
safely he could go to Shershel and return, and anchor when and how and
where he liked, and that the Tagarin his partner had no will but his, and
that, now I was ransomed, all we wanted was to find some Christians to
row, told me to look out for any I should be willing to take with me,
over and above those who had been ransomed, and to engage them for the
next Friday, which he fixed upon for our departure. On this I spoke to
twelve Spaniards, all stout rowers, and such as could most easily leave
the city; but it was no easy matter to find so many just then, because
there were twenty ships out on a cruise and they had taken all the rowers
with them; and these would not have been found were it not that their
master remained at home that summer without going to sea in order to
finish a galliot that he had upon the stocks. To these men I said nothing
more than that the next Friday in the evening they were to come out
stealthily one by one and hang about Hadji Morato's garden, waiting for
me there until I came. These directions I gave each one separately, with
orders that if they saw any other Christians there they were not to say
anything to them except that I had directed them to wait at that spot.

This preliminary having been settled, another still more necessary step
had to be taken, which was to let Zoraida know how matters stood that she
might be prepared and forewarned, so as not to be taken by surprise if we
were suddenly to seize upon her before she thought the Christians' vessel
could have returned. I determined, therefore, to go to the garden and try
if I could speak to her; and the day before my departure I went there
under the pretence of gathering herbs. The first person I met was her
father, who addressed me in the language that all over Barbary and even
in Constantinople is the medium between captives and Moors, and is
neither Morisco nor Castilian, nor of any other nation, but a mixture of
all languages, by means of which we can all understand one another. In
this sort of language, I say, he asked me what I wanted in his garden,
and to whom I belonged. I replied that I was a slave of the Arnaut Mami
(for I knew as a certainty that he was a very great friend of his), and
that I wanted some herbs to make a salad. He asked me then whether I were
on ransom or not, and what my master demanded for me. While these
questions and answers were proceeding, the fair Zoraida, who had already
perceived me some time before, came out of the house in the garden, and
as Moorish women are by no means particular about letting themselves be
seen by Christians, or, as I have said before, at all coy, she had no
hesitation in coming to where her father stood with me; moreover her
father, seeing her approaching slowly, called to her to come. It would be
beyond my power now to describe to you the great beauty, the high-bred
air, the brilliant attire of my beloved Zoraida as she presented herself
before my eyes. I will content myself with saying that more pearls hung
from her fair neck, her ears, and her hair than she had hairs on her
head. On her ankles, which as is customary were bare, she had carcajes
(for so bracelets or anklets are called in Morisco) of the purest gold,
set with so many diamonds that she told me afterwards her father valued
them at ten thousand doubloons, and those she had on her wrists were
worth as much more. The pearls were in profusion and very fine, for the
highest display and adornment of the Moorish women is decking themselves
with rich pearls and seed-pearls; and of these there are therefore more
among the Moors than among any other people. Zoraida's father had to the
reputation of possessing a great number, and the purest in all Algiers,
and of possessing also more than two hundred thousand Spanish crowns; and
she, who is now mistress of me only, was mistress of all this. Whether
thus adorned she would have been beautiful or not, and what she must have
been in her prosperity, may be imagined from the beauty remaining to her
after so many hardships; for, as everyone knows, the beauty of some women
has its times and its seasons, and is increased or diminished by chance
causes; and naturally the emotions of the mind will heighten or impair
it, though indeed more frequently they totally destroy it. In a word she
presented herself before me that day attired with the utmost splendour,
and supremely beautiful; at any rate, she seemed to me the most beautiful
object I had ever seen; and when, besides, I thought of all I owed to her
I felt as though I had before me some heavenly being come to earth to
bring me relief and happiness.

As she approached her father told her in his own language that I was a
captive belonging to his friend the Arnaut Mami, and that I had come for
salad.

She took up the conversation, and in that mixture of tongues I have
spoken of she asked me if I was a gentleman, and why I was not ransomed.

I answered that I was already ransomed, and that by the price it might be
seen what value my master set on me, as I had given one thousand five
hundred zoltanis for me; to which she replied, "Hadst thou been my
father's, I can tell thee, I would not have let him part with thee for
twice as much, for you Christians always tell lies about yourselves and
make yourselves out poor to cheat the Moors."

"That may be, lady," said I; "but indeed I dealt truthfully with my
master, as I do and mean to do with everybody in the world."

"And when dost thou go?" said Zoraida.

"To-morrow, I think," said I, "for there is a vessel here from France
which sails to-morrow, and I think I shall go in her."

"Would it not be better," said Zoraida, "to wait for the arrival of ships
from Spain and go with them and not with the French who are not your
friends?"

"No," said I; "though if there were intelligence that a vessel were now
coming from Spain it is true I might, perhaps, wait for it; however, it
is more likely I shall depart to-morrow, for the longing I feel to return
to my country and to those I love is so great that it will not allow me
to wait for another opportunity, however more convenient, if it be
delayed."

"No doubt thou art married in thine own country," said Zoraida, "and for
that reason thou art anxious to go and see thy wife."

"I am not married," I replied, "but I have given my promise to marry on
my arrival there."

"And is the lady beautiful to whom thou hast given it?" said Zoraida.

"So beautiful," said I, "that, to describe her worthily and tell thee the
truth, she is very like thee."

At this her father laughed very heartily and said, "By Allah, Christian,
she must be very beautiful if she is like my daughter, who is the most
beautiful woman in all this kingdom: only look at her well and thou wilt
see I am telling the truth."

Zoraida's father as the better linguist helped to interpret most of these
words and phrases, for though she spoke the bastard language, that, as I
have said, is employed there, she expressed her meaning more by signs
than by words.

While we were still engaged in this conversation, a Moor came running up,
exclaiming that four Turks had leaped over the fence or wall of the
garden, and were gathering the fruit though it was not yet ripe. The old
man was alarmed and Zoraida too, for the Moors commonly, and, so to
speak, instinctively have a dread of the Turks, but particularly of the
soldiers, who are so insolent and domineering to the Moors who are under
their power that they treat them worse than if they were their slaves.
Her father said to Zoraida, "Daughter, retire into the house and shut
thyself in while I go and speak to these dogs; and thou, Christian, pick
thy herbs, and go in peace, and Allah bring thee safe to thy own
country."

I bowed, and he went away to look for the Turks, leaving me alone with
Zoraida, who made as if she were about to retire as her father bade her;
but the moment he was concealed by the trees of the garden, turning to me
with her eyes full of tears she said, "Tameji, cristiano, tameji?" that is
to say, "Art thou going, Christian, art thou going?"

I made answer, "Yes, lady, but not without thee, come what may: be on the
watch for me on the next Juma, and be not alarmed when thou seest us; for
most surely we shall go to the land of the Christians."

This I said in such a way that she understood perfectly all that passed
between us, and throwing her arm round my neck she began with feeble
steps to move towards the house; but as fate would have it (and it might
have been very unfortunate if Heaven had not otherwise ordered it), just
as we were moving on in the manner and position I have described, with
her arm round my neck, her father, as he returned after having sent away
the Turks, saw how we were walking and we perceived that he saw us; but
Zoraida, ready and quickwitted, took care not to remove her arm from my
neck, but on the contrary drew closer to me and laid her head on my
breast, bending her knees a little and showing all the signs and tokens
of fainting, while I at the same time made it seem as though I were
supporting her against my will. Her father came running up to where we
were, and seeing his daughter in this state asked what was the matter
with her; she, however, giving no answer, he said, "No doubt she has
fainted in alarm at the entrance of those dogs," and taking her from mine
he drew her to his own breast, while she sighing, her eyes still wet with
tears, said again, "Ameji, cristiano, ameji"--"Go, Christian, go." To
this her father replied, "There is no need, daughter, for the Christian
to go, for he has done thee no harm, and the Turks have now gone; feel no
alarm, there is nothing to hurt thee, for as I say, the Turks at my
request have gone back the way they came."

"It was they who terrified her, as thou hast said, senor," said I to her
father; "but since she tells me to go, I have no wish to displease her:
peace be with thee, and with thy leave I will come back to this garden
for herbs if need be, for my master says there are nowhere better herbs
for salad then here."

"Come back for any thou hast need of," replied Hadji Morato; "for my
daughter does not speak thus because she is displeased with thee or any
Christian: she only meant that the Turks should go, not thou; or that it
was time for thee to look for thy herbs."

With this I at once took my leave of both; and she, looking as though her
heart were breaking, retired with her father. While pretending to look
for herbs I made the round of the garden at my ease, and studied
carefully all the approaches and outlets, and the fastenings of the house
and everything that could be taken advantage of to make our task easy.

Having done so I went and gave an account of all that had taken place to
the renegade and my comrades, and looked forward with impatience to the
hour when, all fear at an end, I should find myself in possession of the
prize which fortune held out to me in the fair and lovely Zoraida. The
time passed at length, and the appointed day we so longed for arrived;
and, all following out the arrangement and plan which, after careful
consideration and many a long discussion, we had decided upon, we
succeeded as fully as we could have wished; for on the Friday following
the day upon which I spoke to Zoraida in the garden, the renegade
anchored his vessel at nightfall almost opposite the spot where she was.
The Christians who were to row were ready and in hiding in different
places round about, all waiting for me, anxious and elated, and eager to
attack the vessel they had before their eyes; for they did not know the
renegade's plan, but expected that they were to gain their liberty by
force of arms and by killing the Moors who were on board the vessel. As
soon, then, as I and my comrades made our appearance, all those that were
in hiding seeing us came and joined us. It was now the time when the city
gates are shut, and there was no one to be seen in all the space outside.
When we were collected together we debated whether it would be better
first to go for Zoraida, or to make prisoners of the Moorish rowers who
rowed in the vessel; but while we were still uncertain our renegade came
up asking us what kept us, as it was now the time, and all the Moors were
off their guard and most of them asleep. We told him why we hesitated,
but he said it was of more importance first to secure the vessel, which
could be done with the greatest ease and without any danger, and then we
could go for Zoraida. We all approved of what he said, and so without
further delay, guided by him we made for the vessel, and he leaping on
board first, drew his cutlass and said in Morisco, "Let no one stir from
this if he does not want it to cost him his life." By this almost all the
Christians were on board, and the Moors, who were fainthearted, hearing
their captain speak in this way, were cowed, and without any one of them
taking to his arms (and indeed they had few or hardly any) they submitted
without saying a word to be bound by the Christians, who quickly secured
them, threatening them that if they raised any kind of outcry they would
be all put to the sword. This having been accomplished, and half of our
party being left to keep guard over them, the rest of us, again taking
the renegade as our guide, hastened towards Hadji Morato's garden, and as
good luck would have it, on trying the gate it opened as easily as if it
had not been locked; and so, quite quietly and in silence, we reached the
house without being perceived by anybody. The lovely Zoraida was watching
for us at a window, and as soon as she perceived that there were people
there, she asked in a low voice if we were "Nizarani," as much as to say
or ask if we were Christians. I answered that we were, and begged her to
come down. As soon as she recognised me she did not delay an instant, but
without answering a word came down immediately, opened the door and
presented herself before us all, so beautiful and so richly attired that
I cannot attempt to describe her. The moment I saw her I took her hand
and kissed it, and the renegade and my two comrades did the same; and the
rest, who knew nothing of the circumstances, did as they saw us do, for
it only seemed as if we were returning thanks to her, and recognising her
as the giver of our liberty. The renegade asked her in the Morisco
language if her father was in the house. She replied that he was and that
he was asleep.

"Then it will be necessary to waken him and take him with us," said the
renegade, "and everything of value in this fair mansion."

"Nay," said she, "my father must not on any account be touched, and there
is nothing in the house except what I shall take, and that will be quite
enough to enrich and satisfy all of you; wait a little and you shall
see," and so saying she went in, telling us she would return immediately
and bidding us keep quiet making any noise.

I asked the renegade what had passed between them, and when he told me, I
declared that nothing should be done except in accordance with the wishes
of Zoraida, who now came back with a little trunk so full of gold crowns
that she could scarcely carry it. Unfortunately her father awoke while
this was going on, and hearing a noise in the garden, came to the window,
and at once perceiving that all those who were there were Christians,
raising a prodigiously loud outcry, he began to call out in Arabic,
"Christians, Christians! thieves, thieves!" by which cries we were all
thrown into the greatest fear and embarrassment; but the renegade seeing
the danger we were in and how important it was for him to effect his
purpose before we were heard, mounted with the utmost quickness to where
Hadji Morato was, and with him went some of our party; I, however, did
not dare to leave Zoraida, who had fallen almost fainting in my arms. To
be brief, those who had gone upstairs acted so promptly that in an
instant they came down, carrying Hadji Morato with his hands bound and a
napkin tied over his mouth, which prevented him from uttering a word,
warning him at the same time that to attempt to speak would cost him his
life. When his daughter caught sight of him she covered her eyes so as
not to see him, and her father was horror-stricken, not knowing how
willingly she had placed herself in our hands. But it was now most
essential for us to be on the move, and carefully and quickly we regained
the vessel, where those who had remained on board were waiting for us in
apprehension of some mishap having befallen us. It was barely two hours
after night set in when we were all on board the vessel, where the cords
were removed from the hands of Zoraida's father, and the napkin from his
mouth; but the renegade once more told him not to utter a word, or they
would take his life. He, when he saw his daughter there, began to sigh
piteously, and still more when he perceived that I held her closely
embraced and that she lay quiet without resisting or complaining, or
showing any reluctance; nevertheless he remained silent lest they should
carry into effect the repeated threats the renegade had addressed to him.

Finding herself now on board, and that we were about to give way with the
oars, Zoraida, seeing her father there, and the other Moors bound, bade
the renegade ask me to do her the favour of releasing the Moors and
setting her father at liberty, for she would rather drown herself in the
sea than suffer a father that had loved her so dearly to be carried away
captive before her eyes and on her account. The renegade repeated this to
me, and I replied that I was very willing to do so; but he replied that
it was not advisable, because if they were left there they would at once
raise the country and stir up the city, and lead to the despatch of swift
cruisers in pursuit, and our being taken, by sea or land, without any
possibility of escape; and that all that could be done was to set them
free on the first Christian ground we reached. On this point we all
agreed; and Zoraida, to whom it was explained, together with the reasons
that prevented us from doing at once what she desired, was satisfied
likewise; and then in glad silence and with cheerful alacrity each of our
stout rowers took his oar, and commending ourselves to God with all our
hearts, we began to shape our course for the island of Majorca, the
nearest Christian land. Owing, however, to the Tramontana rising a
little, and the sea growing somewhat rough, it was impossible for us to
keep a straight course for Majorca, and we were compelled to coast in the
direction of Oran, not without great uneasiness on our part lest we
should be observed from the town of Shershel, which lies on that coast,
not more than sixty miles from Algiers. Moreover we were afraid of
meeting on that course one of the galliots that usually come with goods
from Tetuan; although each of us for himself and all of us together felt
confident that, if we were to meet a merchant galliot, so that it were
not a cruiser, not only should we not be lost, but that we should take a
vessel in which we could more safely accomplish our voyage. As we pursued
our course Zoraida kept her head between my hands so as not to see her
father, and I felt that she was praying to Lela Marien to help us.

We might have made about thirty miles when daybreak found us some three
musket-shots off the land, which seemed to us deserted, and without
anyone to see us. For all that, however, by hard rowing we put out a
little to sea, for it was now somewhat calmer, and having gained about
two leagues the word was given to row by batches, while we ate something,
for the vessel was well provided; but the rowers said it was not a time
to take any rest; let food be served out to those who were not rowing,
but they would not leave their oars on any account. This was done, but
now a stiff breeze began to blow, which obliged us to leave off rowing
and make sail at once and steer for Oran, as it was impossible to make
any other course. All this was done very promptly, and under sail we ran
more than eight miles an hour without any fear, except that of coming
across some vessel out on a roving expedition. We gave the Moorish rowers
some food, and the renegade comforted them by telling them that they were
not held as captives, as we should set them free on the first
opportunity.

The same was said to Zoraida's father, who replied, "Anything else,
Christian, I might hope for or think likely from your generosity and good
behaviour, but do not think me so simple as to imagine you will give me
my liberty; for you would have never exposed yourselves to the danger of
depriving me of it only to restore it to me so generously, especially as
you know who I am and the sum you may expect to receive on restoring it;
and if you will only name that, I here offer you all you require for
myself and for my unhappy daughter there; or else for her alone, for she
is the greatest and most precious part of my soul."

As he said this he began to weep so bitterly that he filled us all with
compassion and forced Zoraida to look at him, and when she saw him
weeping she was so moved that she rose from my feet and ran to throw her
arms round him, and pressing her face to his, they both gave way to such
an outburst of tears that several of us were constrained to keep them
company.

But when her father saw her in full dress and with all her jewels about
her, he said to her in his own language, "What means this, my daughter?
Last night, before this terrible misfortune in which we are plunged
befell us, I saw thee in thy everyday and indoor garments; and now,
without having had time to attire thyself, and without my bringing thee
any joyful tidings to furnish an occasion for adorning and bedecking
thyself, I see thee arrayed in the finest attire it would be in my power
to give thee when fortune was most kind to us. Answer me this; for it
causes me greater anxiety and surprise than even this misfortune itself."

The renegade interpreted to us what the Moor said to his daughter; she,
however, returned him no answer. But when he observed in one corner of
the vessel the little trunk in which she used to keep her jewels, which
he well knew he had left in Algiers and had not brought to the garden, he
was still more amazed, and asked her how that trunk had come into our
hands, and what there was in it. To which the renegade, without waiting
for Zoraida to reply, made answer, "Do not trouble thyself by asking thy
daughter Zoraida so many questions, senor, for the one answer I will give
thee will serve for all; I would have thee know that she is a Christian,
and that it is she who has been the file for our chains and our deliverer
from captivity. She is here of her own free will, as glad, I imagine, to
find herself in this position as he who escapes from darkness into the
light, from death to life, and from suffering to glory."

"Daughter, is this true, what he says?" cried the Moor.

"It is," replied Zoraida.

"That thou art in truth a Christian," said the old man, "and that thou
hast given thy father into the power of his enemies?"

To which Zoraida made answer, "A Christian I am, but it is not I who have
placed thee in this position, for it never was my wish to leave thee or
do thee harm, but only to do good to myself."

"And what good hast thou done thyself, daughter?" said he.

"Ask thou that," said she, "of Lela Marien, for she can tell thee better
than I."

The Moor had hardly heard these words when with marvellous quickness he
flung himself headforemost into the sea, where no doubt he would have
been drowned had not the long and full dress he wore held him up for a
little on the surface of the water. Zoraida cried aloud to us to save
him, and we all hastened to help, and seizing him by his robe we drew him
in half drowned and insensible, at which Zoraida was in such distress
that she wept over him as piteously and bitterly as though he were
already dead. We turned him upon his face and he voided a great quantity
of water, and at the end of two hours came to himself. Meanwhile, the
wind having changed we were compelled to head for the land, and ply our
oars to avoid being driven on shore; but it was our good fortune to reach
a creek that lies on one side of a small promontory or cape, called by
the Moors that of the "Cava rumia," which in our language means "the
wicked Christian woman;" for it is a tradition among them that La Cava,
through whom Spain was lost, lies buried at that spot; "cava" in their
language meaning "wicked woman," and "rumia" "Christian;" moreover, they
count it unlucky to anchor there when necessity compels them, and they
never do so otherwise. For us, however, it was not the resting-place of
the wicked woman but a haven of safety for our relief, so much had the
sea now got up. We posted a look-out on shore, and never let the oars out
of our hands, and ate of the stores the renegade had laid in, imploring
God and Our Lady with all our hearts to help and protect us, that we
might give a happy ending to a beginning so prosperous. At the entreaty
of Zoraida orders were given to set on shore her father and the other
Moors who were still bound, for she could not endure, nor could her
tender heart bear to see her father in bonds and her fellow-countrymen
prisoners before her eyes. We promised her to do this at the moment of
departure, for as it was uninhabited we ran no risk in releasing them at
that place.

Our prayers were not so far in vain as to be unheard by Heaven, for after
a while the wind changed in our favour, and made the sea calm, inviting
us once more to resume our voyage with a good heart. Seeing this we
unbound the Moors, and one by one put them on shore, at which they were
filled with amazement; but when we came to land Zoraida's father, who had
now completely recovered his senses, he said:

"Why is it, think ye, Christians, that this wicked woman is rejoiced at
your giving me my liberty? Think ye it is because of the affection she
bears me? Nay verily, it is only because of the hindrance my presence
offers to the execution of her base designs. And think not that it is her
belief that yours is better than ours that has led her to change her
religion; it is only because she knows that immodesty is more freely
practised in your country than in ours." Then turning to Zoraida, while I
and another of the Christians held him fast by both arms, lest he should
do some mad act, he said to her, "Infamous girl, misguided maiden,
whither in thy blindness and madness art thou going in the hands of these
dogs, our natural enemies? Cursed be the hour when I begot thee! Cursed
the luxury and indulgence in which I reared thee!"

But seeing that he was not likely soon to cease I made haste to put him
on shore, and thence he continued his maledictions and lamentations
aloud; calling on Mohammed to pray to Allah to destroy us, to confound
us, to make an end of us; and when, in consequence of having made sail,
we could no longer hear what he said we could see what he did; how he
plucked out his beard and tore his hair and lay writhing on the ground.
But once he raised his voice to such a pitch that we were able to hear
what he said. "Come back, dear daughter, come back to shore; I forgive
thee all; let those men have the money, for it is theirs now, and come
back to comfort thy sorrowing father, who will yield up his life on this
barren strand if thou dost leave him."

All this Zoraida heard, and heard with sorrow and tears, and all she
could say in answer was, "Allah grant that Lela Marien, who has made me
become a Christian, give thee comfort in thy sorrow, my father. Allah
knows that I could not do otherwise than I have done, and that these
Christians owe nothing to my will; for even had I wished not to accompany
them, but remain at home, it would have been impossible for me, so
eagerly did my soul urge me on to the accomplishment of this purpose,
which I feel to be as righteous as to thee, dear father, it seems
wicked."

But neither could her father hear her nor we see him when she said this;
and so, while I consoled Zoraida, we turned our attention to our voyage,
in which a breeze from the right point so favoured us that we made sure
of finding ourselves off the coast of Spain on the morrow by daybreak.
But, as good seldom or never comes pure and unmixed, without being
attended or followed by some disturbing evil that gives a shock to it,
our fortune, or perhaps the curses which the Moor had hurled at his
daughter (for whatever kind of father they may come from these are always
to be dreaded), brought it about that when we were now in mid-sea, and
the night about three hours spent, as we were running with all sail set
and oars lashed, for the favouring breeze saved us the trouble of using
them, we saw by the light of the moon, which shone brilliantly, a
square-rigged vessel in full sail close to us, luffing up and standing
across our course, and so close that we had to strike sail to avoid
running foul of her, while they too put the helm hard up to let us pass.
They came to the side of the ship to ask who we were, whither we were
bound, and whence we came, but as they asked this in French our renegade
said, "Let no one answer, for no doubt these are French corsairs who
plunder all comers."

Acting on this warning no one answered a word, but after we had gone a
little ahead, and the vessel was now lying to leeward, suddenly they
fired two guns, and apparently both loaded with chain-shot, for with one
they cut our mast in half and brought down both it and the sail into the
sea, and the other, discharged at the same moment, sent a ball into our
vessel amidships, staving her in completely, but without doing any
further damage. We, however, finding ourselves sinking began to shout for
help and call upon those in the ship to pick us up as we were beginning
to fill. They then lay to, and lowering a skiff or boat, as many as a
dozen Frenchmen, well armed with match-locks, and their matches burning,
got into it and came alongside; and seeing how few we were, and that our
vessel was going down, they took us in, telling us that this had come to
us through our incivility in not giving them an answer. Our renegade took
the trunk containing Zoraida's wealth and dropped it into the sea without
anyone perceiving what he did. In short we went on board with the
Frenchmen, who, after having ascertained all they wanted to know about
us, rifled us of everything we had, as if they had been our bitterest
enemies, and from Zoraida they took even the anklets she wore on her
feet; but the distress they caused her did not distress me so much as the
fear I was in that from robbing her of her rich and precious jewels they
would proceed to rob her of the most precious jewel that she valued more
than all. The desires, however, of those people do not go beyond money,
but of that their covetousness is insatiable, and on this occasion it was
carried to such a pitch that they would have taken even the clothes we
wore as captives if they had been worth anything to them. It was the
advice of some of them to throw us all into the sea wrapped up in a sail;
for their purpose was to trade at some of the ports of Spain, giving
themselves out as Bretons, and if they brought us alive they would be
punished as soon as the robbery was discovered; but the captain (who was
the one who had plundered my beloved Zoraida) said he was satisfied with
the prize he had got, and that he would not touch at any Spanish port,
but pass the Straits of Gibraltar by night, or as best he could, and make
for La Rochelle, from which he had sailed. So they agreed by common
consent to give us the skiff belonging to their ship and all we required
for the short voyage that remained to us, and this they did the next day
on coming in sight of the Spanish coast, with which, and the joy we felt,
all our sufferings and miseries were as completely forgotten as if they
had never been endured by us, such is the delight of recovering lost
liberty.

It may have been about mid-day when they placed us in the boat, giving us
two kegs of water and some biscuit; and the captain, moved by I know not
what compassion, as the lovely Zoraida was about to embark, gave her some
forty gold crowns, and would not permit his men to take from her those
same garments which she has on now. We got into the boat, returning them
thanks for their kindness to us, and showing ourselves grateful rather
than indignant. They stood out to sea, steering for the straits; we,
without looking to any compass save the land we had before us, set
ourselves to row with such energy that by sunset we were so near that we
might easily, we thought, land before the night was far advanced. But as
the moon did not show that night, and the sky was clouded, and as we knew
not whereabouts we were, it did not seem to us a prudent thing to make
for the shore, as several of us advised, saying we ought to run ourselves
ashore even if it were on rocks and far from any habitation, for in this
way we should be relieved from the apprehensions we naturally felt of the
prowling vessels of the Tetuan corsairs, who leave Barbary at nightfall
and are on the Spanish coast by daybreak, where they commonly take some
prize, and then go home to sleep in their own houses. But of the
conflicting counsels the one which was adopted was that we should
approach gradually, and land where we could if the sea were calm enough
to permit us. This was done, and a little before midnight we drew near to
the foot of a huge and lofty mountain, not so close to the sea but that
it left a narrow space on which to land conveniently. We ran our boat up
on the sand, and all sprang out and kissed the ground, and with tears of
joyful satisfaction returned thanks to God our Lord for all his
incomparable goodness to us on our voyage. We took out of the boat the
provisions it contained, and drew it up on the shore, and then climbed a
long way up the mountain, for even there we could not feel easy in our
hearts, or persuade ourselves that it was Christian soil that was now
under our feet.

The dawn came, more slowly, I think, than we could have wished; we
completed the ascent in order to see if from the summit any habitation or
any shepherds' huts could be discovered, but strain our eyes as we might,
neither dwelling, nor human being, nor path nor road could we perceive.
However, we determined to push on farther, as it could not but be that
ere long we must see some one who could tell us where we were. But what
distressed me most was to see Zoraida going on foot over that rough
ground; for though I once carried her on my shoulders, she was more
wearied by my weariness than rested by the rest; and so she would never
again allow me to undergo the exertion, and went on very patiently and
cheerfully, while I led her by the hand. We had gone rather less than a
quarter of a league when the sound of a little bell fell on our ears, a
clear proof that there were flocks hard by, and looking about carefully
to see if any were within view, we observed a young shepherd tranquilly
and unsuspiciously trimming a stick with his knife at the foot of a cork
tree. We called to him, and he, raising his head, sprang nimbly to his
feet, for, as we afterwards learned, the first who presented themselves
to his sight were the renegade and Zoraida, and seeing them in Moorish
dress he imagined that all the Moors of Barbary were upon him; and
plunging with marvellous swiftness into the thicket in front of him, he
began to raise a prodigious outcry, exclaiming, "The Moors--the Moors
have landed! To arms, to arms!" We were all thrown into perplexity by
these cries, not knowing what to do; but reflecting that the shouts of
the shepherd would raise the country and that the mounted coast-guard
would come at once to see what was the matter, we agreed that the
renegade must strip off his Turkish garments and put on a captive's
jacket or coat which one of our party gave him at once, though he himself
was reduced to his shirt; and so commending ourselves to God, we followed
the same road which we saw the shepherd take, expecting every moment that
the coast-guard would be down upon us. Nor did our expectation deceive
us, for two hours had not passed when, coming out of the brushwood into
the open ground, we perceived some fifty mounted men swiftly approaching
us at a hand-gallop. As soon as we saw them we stood still, waiting for
them; but as they came close and, instead of the Moors they were in quest
of, saw a set of poor Christians, they were taken aback, and one of them
asked if it could be we who were the cause of the shepherd having raised
the call to arms. I said "Yes," and as I was about to explain to him what
had occurred, and whence we came and who we were, one of the Christians
of our party recognised the horseman who had put the question to us, and
before I could say anything more he exclaimed:

"Thanks be to God, sirs, for bringing us to such good quarters; for, if I
do not deceive myself, the ground we stand on is that of Velez Malaga
unless, indeed, all my years of captivity have made me unable to
recollect that you, senor, who ask who we are, are Pedro de Bustamante,
my uncle."

The Christian captive had hardly uttered these words, when the horseman
threw himself off his horse, and ran to embrace the young man, crying:

"Nephew of my soul and life! I recognise thee now; and long have I
mourned thee as dead, I, and my sister, thy mother, and all thy kin that
are still alive, and whom God has been pleased to preserve that they may
enjoy the happiness of seeing thee. We knew long since that thou wert in
Algiers, and from the appearance of thy garments and those of all this
company, I conclude that ye have had a miraculous restoration to
liberty."

"It is true," replied the young man, "and by-and-by we will tell you
all."

As soon as the horsemen understood that we were Christian captives, they
dismounted from their horses, and each offered his to carry us to the
city of Velez Malaga, which was a league and a half distant. Some of them
went to bring the boat to the city, we having told them where we had left
it; others took us up behind them, and Zoraida was placed on the horse of
the young man's uncle. The whole town came out to meet us, for they had
by this time heard of our arrival from one who had gone on in advance.
They were not astonished to see liberated captives or captive Moors, for
people on that coast are well used to see both one and the other; but
they were astonished at the beauty of Zoraida, which was just then
heightened, as well by the exertion of travelling as by joy at finding
herself on Christian soil, and relieved of all fear of being lost; for
this had brought such a glow upon her face, that unless my affection for
her were deceiving me, I would venture to say that there was not a more
beautiful creature in the world--at least, that I had ever seen. We went
straight to the church to return thanks to God for the mercies we had
received, and when Zoraida entered it she said there were faces there
like Lela Marien's. We told her they were her images; and as well as he
could the renegade explained to her what they meant, that she might adore
them as if each of them were the very same Lela Marien that had spoken to
her; and she, having great intelligence and a quick and clear instinct,
understood at once all he said to her about them. Thence they took us
away and distributed us all in different houses in the town; but as for
the renegade, Zoraida, and myself, the Christian who came with us brought
us to the house of his parents, who had a fair share of the gifts of
fortune, and treated us with as much kindness as they did their own son.

We remained six days in Velez, at the end of which the renegade, having
informed himself of all that was requisite for him to do, set out for the
city of Granada to restore himself to the sacred bosom of the Church
through the medium of the Holy Inquisition. The other released captives
took their departures, each the way that seemed best to him, and Zoraida
and I were left alone, with nothing more than the crowns which the
courtesy of the Frenchman had bestowed upon Zoraida, out of which I
bought the beast on which she rides; and, I for the present attending her
as her father and squire and not as her husband, we are now going to
ascertain if my father is living, or if any of my brothers has had better
fortune than mine has been; though, as Heaven has made me the companion
of Zoraida, I think no other lot could be assigned to me, however happy,
that I would rather have. The patience with which she endures the
hardships that poverty brings with it, and the eagerness she shows to
become a Christian, are such that they fill me with admiration, and bind
me to serve her all my life; though the happiness I feel in seeing myself
hers, and her mine, is disturbed and marred by not knowing whether I
shall find any corner to shelter her in my own country, or whether time
and death may not have made such changes in the fortunes and lives of my
father and brothers, that I shall hardly find anyone who knows me, if
they are not alive.

I have no more of my story to tell you, gentlemen; whether it be an
interesting or a curious one let your better judgments decide; all I can
say is I would gladly have told it to you more briefly; although my fear
of wearying you has made me leave out more than one circumstance.




CHAPTER XLII.

WHICH TREATS OF WHAT FURTHER TOOK PLACE IN THE INN, AND OF SEVERAL OTHER
THINGS WORTH KNOWING


With these words the captive held his peace, and Don Fernando said to
him, "In truth, captain, the manner in which you have related this
remarkable adventure has been such as befitted the novelty and
strangeness of the matter. The whole story is curious and uncommon, and
abounds with incidents that fill the hearers with wonder and
astonishment; and so great is the pleasure we have found in listening to
it that we should be glad if it were to begin again, even though
to-morrow were to find us still occupied with the same tale." And while
he said this Cardenio and the rest of them offered to be of service to
him in any way that lay in their power, and in words and language so
kindly and sincere that the captain was much gratified by their
good-will. In particular Don Fernando offered, if he would go back with
him, to get his brother the marquis to become godfather at the baptism of
Zoraida, and on his own part to provide him with the means of making his
appearance in his own country with the credit and comfort he was entitled
to. For all this the captive returned thanks very courteously, although
he would not accept any of their generous offers.

By this time night closed in, and as it did, there came up to the inn a
coach attended by some men on horseback, who demanded accommodation; to
which the landlady replied that there was not a hand's breadth of the
whole inn unoccupied.

"Still, for all that," said one of those who had entered on horseback,
"room must be found for his lordship the Judge here."

At this name the landlady was taken aback, and said, "Senor, the fact is
I have no beds; but if his lordship the Judge carries one with him, as no
doubt he does, let him come in and welcome; for my husband and I will
give up our room to accommodate his worship."

"Very good, so be it," said the squire; but in the meantime a man had got
out of the coach whose dress indicated at a glance the office and post he
held, for the long robe with ruffled sleeves that he wore showed that he
was, as his servant said, a Judge of appeal. He led by the hand a young
girl in a travelling dress, apparently about sixteen years of age, and of
such a high-bred air, so beautiful and so graceful, that all were filled
with admiration when she made her appearance, and but for having seen
Dorothea, Luscinda, and Zoraida, who were there in the inn, they would
have fancied that a beauty like that of this maiden's would have been
hard to find. Don Quixote was present at the entrance of the Judge with
the young lady, and as soon as he saw him he said, "Your worship may with
confidence enter and take your ease in this castle; for though the
accommodation be scanty and poor, there are no quarters so cramped or
inconvenient that they cannot make room for arms and letters; above all
if arms and letters have beauty for a guide and leader, as letters
represented by your worship have in this fair maiden, to whom not only
ought castles to throw themselves open and yield themselves up, but rocks
should rend themselves asunder and mountains divide and bow themselves
down to give her a reception. Enter, your worship, I say, into this
paradise, for here you will find stars and suns to accompany the heaven
your worship brings with you, here you will find arms in their supreme
excellence, and beauty in its highest perfection."

The Judge was struck with amazement at the language of Don Quixote, whom
he scrutinized very carefully, no less astonished by his figure than by
his talk; and before he could find words to answer him he had a fresh
surprise, when he saw opposite to him Luscinda, Dorothea, and Zoraida,
who, having heard of the new guests and of the beauty of the young lady,
had come to see her and welcome her; Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the
curate, however, greeted him in a more intelligible and polished style.
In short, the Judge made his entrance in a state of bewilderment, as well
with what he saw as what he heard, and the fair ladies of the inn gave
the fair damsel a cordial welcome. On the whole he could perceive that
all who were there were people of quality; but with the figure,
countenance, and bearing of Don Quixote he was at his wits' end; and all
civilities having been exchanged, and the accommodation of the inn
inquired into, it was settled, as it had been before settled, that all
the women should retire to the garret that has been already mentioned,
and that the men should remain outside as if to guard them; the Judge,
therefore, was very well pleased to allow his daughter, for such the
damsel was, to go with the ladies, which she did very willingly; and with
part of the host's narrow bed and half of what the Judge had brought with
him, they made a more comfortable arrangement for the night than they had
expected.

The captive, whose heart had leaped within him the instant he saw the
Judge, telling him somehow that this was his brother, asked one of the
servants who accompanied him what his name was, and whether he knew from
what part of the country he came. The servant replied that he was called
the Licentiate Juan Perez de Viedma, and that he had heard it said he
came from a village in the mountains of Leon. From this statement, and
what he himself had seen, he felt convinced that this was his brother who
had adopted letters by his father's advice; and excited and rejoiced, he
called Don Fernando and Cardenio and the curate aside, and told them how
the matter stood, assuring them that the judge was his brother. The
servant had further informed him that he was now going to the Indies with
the appointment of Judge of the Supreme Court of Mexico; and he had
learned, likewise, that the young lady was his daughter, whose mother had
died in giving birth to her, and that he was very rich in consequence of
the dowry left to him with the daughter. He asked their advice as to what
means he should adopt to make himself known, or to ascertain beforehand
whether, when he had made himself known, his brother, seeing him so poor,
would be ashamed of him, or would receive him with a warm heart.

"Leave it to me to find out that," said the curate; "though there is no
reason for supposing, senor captain, that you will not be kindly
received, because the worth and wisdom that your brother's bearing shows
him to possess do not make it likely that he will prove haughty or
insensible, or that he will not know how to estimate the accidents of
fortune at their proper value."

"Still," said the captain, "I would not make myself known abruptly, but
in some indirect way."

"I have told you already," said the curate, "that I will manage it in a
way to satisfy us all."

By this time supper was ready, and they all took their seats at the
table, except the captive, and the ladies, who supped by themselves in
their own room. In the middle of supper the curate said:

"I had a comrade of your worship's name, Senor Judge, in Constantinople,
where I was a captive for several years, and that same comrade was one of
the stoutest soldiers and captains in the whole Spanish infantry; but he
had as large a share of misfortune as he had of gallantry and courage."

"And how was the captain called, senor?" asked the Judge.

"He was called Ruy Perez de Viedma," replied the curate, "and he was born
in a village in the mountains of Leon; and he mentioned a circumstance
connected with his father and his brothers which, had it not been told me
by so truthful a man as he was, I should have set down as one of those
fables the old women tell over the fire in winter; for he said his father
had divided his property among his three sons and had addressed words of
advice to them sounder than any of Cato's. But I can say this much, that
the choice he made of going to the wars was attended with such success,
that by his gallant conduct and courage, and without any help save his
own merit, he rose in a few years to be captain of infantry, and to see
himself on the high-road and in position to be given the command of a
corps before long; but Fortune was against him, for where he might have
expected her favour he lost it, and with it his liberty, on that glorious
day when so many recovered theirs, at the battle of Lepanto. I lost mine
at the Goletta, and after a variety of adventures we found ourselves
comrades at Constantinople. Thence he went to Algiers, where he met with
one of the most extraordinary adventures that ever befell anyone in the
world."

Here the curate went on to relate briefly his brother's adventure with
Zoraida; to all which the Judge gave such an attentive hearing that he
never before had been so much of a hearer. The curate, however, only went
so far as to describe how the Frenchmen plundered those who were in the
boat, and the poverty and distress in which his comrade and the fair Moor
were left, of whom he said he had not been able to learn what became of
them, or whether they had reached Spain, or been carried to France by the
Frenchmen.

The captain, standing a little to one side, was listening to all the
curate said, and watching every movement of his brother, who, as soon as
he perceived the curate had made an end of his story, gave a deep sigh
and said with his eyes full of tears, "Oh, senor, if you only knew what
news you have given me and how it comes home to me, making me show how I
feel it with these tears that spring from my eyes in spite of all my
worldly wisdom and self-restraint! That brave captain that you speak of
is my eldest brother, who, being of a bolder and loftier mind than my
other brother or myself, chose the honourable and worthy calling of arms,
which was one of the three careers our father proposed to us, as your
comrade mentioned in that fable you thought he was telling you. I
followed that of letters, in which God and my own exertions have raised
me to the position in which you see me. My second brother is in Peru, so
wealthy that with what he has sent to my father and to me he has fully
repaid the portion he took with him, and has even furnished my father's
hands with the means of gratifying his natural generosity, while I too
have been enabled to pursue my studies in a more becoming and creditable
fashion, and so to attain my present standing. My father is still alive,
though dying with anxiety to hear of his eldest son, and he prays God
unceasingly that death may not close his eyes until he has looked upon
those of his son; but with regard to him what surprises me is, that
having so much common sense as he had, he should have neglected to give
any intelligence about himself, either in his troubles and sufferings, or
in his prosperity, for if his father or any of us had known of his
condition he need not have waited for that miracle of the reed to obtain
his ransom; but what now disquiets me is the uncertainty whether those
Frenchmen may have restored him to liberty, or murdered him to hide the
robbery. All this will make me continue my journey, not with the
satisfaction in which I began it, but in the deepest melancholy and
sadness. Oh dear brother! that I only knew where thou art now, and I
would hasten to seek thee out and deliver thee from thy sufferings,
though it were to cost me suffering myself! Oh that I could bring news to
our old father that thou art alive, even wert thou the deepest dungeon of
Barbary; for his wealth and my brother's and mine would rescue thee
thence! Oh beautiful and generous Zoraida, that I could repay thy good
goodness to a brother! That I could be present at the new birth of thy
soul, and at thy bridal that would give us all such happiness!"

All this and more the Judge uttered with such deep emotion at the news he
had received of his brother that all who heard him shared in it, showing
their sympathy with his sorrow. The curate, seeing, then, how well he had
succeeded in carrying out his purpose and the captain's wishes, had no
desire to keep them unhappy any longer, so he rose from the table and
going into the room where Zoraida was he took her by the hand, Luscinda,
Dorothea, and the Judge's daughter following her. The captain was waiting
to see what the curate would do, when the latter, taking him with the
other hand, advanced with both of them to where the Judge and the other
gentlemen were and said, "Let your tears cease to flow, Senor Judge, and
the wish of your heart be gratified as fully as you could desire, for you
have before you your worthy brother and your good sister-in-law. He whom
you see here is the Captain Viedma, and this is the fair Moor who has
been so good to him. The Frenchmen I told you of have reduced them to the
state of poverty you see that you may show the generosity of your kind
heart."

The captain ran to embrace his brother, who placed both hands on his
breast so as to have a good look at him, holding him a little way off but
as soon as he had fully recognised him he clasped him in his arms so
closely, shedding such tears of heartfelt joy, that most of those present
could not but join in them. The words the brothers exchanged, the emotion
they showed can scarcely be imagined, I fancy, much less put down in
writing. They told each other in a few words the events of their lives;
they showed the true affection of brothers in all its strength; then the
judge embraced Zoraida, putting all he possessed at her disposal; then he
made his daughter embrace her, and the fair Christian and the lovely Moor
drew fresh tears from every eye. And there was Don Quixote observing all
these strange proceedings attentively without uttering a word, and
attributing the whole to chimeras of knight-errantry. Then they agreed
that the captain and Zoraida should return with his brother to Seville,
and send news to his father of his having been delivered and found, so as
to enable him to come and be present at the marriage and baptism of
Zoraida, for it was impossible for the Judge to put off his journey, as
he was informed that in a month from that time the fleet was to sail from
Seville for New Spain, and to miss the passage would have been a great
inconvenience to him. In short, everybody was well pleased and glad at
the captive's good fortune; and as now almost two-thirds of the night
were past, they resolved to retire to rest for the remainder of it. Don
Quixote offered to mount guard over the castle lest they should be
attacked by some giant or other malevolent scoundrel, covetous of the
great treasure of beauty the castle contained. Those who understood him
returned him thanks for this service, and they gave the Judge an account
of his extraordinary humour, with which he was not a little amused.
Sancho Panza alone was fuming at the lateness of the hour for retiring to
rest; and he of all was the one that made himself most comfortable, as he
stretched himself on the trappings of his ass, which, as will be told
farther on, cost him so dear.

The ladies, then, having retired to their chamber, and the others having
disposed themselves with as little discomfort as they could, Don Quixote
sallied out of the inn to act as sentinel of the castle as he had
promised. It happened, however, that a little before the approach of dawn
a voice so musical and sweet reached the ears of the ladies that it
forced them all to listen attentively, but especially Dorothea, who had
been awake, and by whose side Dona Clara de Viedma, for so the Judge's
daughter was called, lay sleeping. No one could imagine who it was that
sang so sweetly, and the voice was unaccompanied by any instrument. At
one moment it seemed to them as if the singer were in the courtyard, at
another in the stable; and as they were all attention, wondering,
Cardenio came to the door and said, "Listen, whoever is not asleep, and
you will hear a muleteer's voice that enchants as it chants."

"We are listening to it already, senor," said Dorothea; on which Cardenio
went away; and Dorothea, giving all her attention to it, made out the
words of the song to be these:




CHAPTER XLIII.

WHEREIN IS RELATED THE PLEASANT STORY OF THE MULETEER, TOGETHER WITH
OTHER STRANGE THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS IN THE INN

Ah me, Love's mariner am I
  On Love's deep ocean sailing;
I know not where the haven lies,
  I dare not hope to gain it.

One solitary distant star
  Is all I have to guide me,
A brighter orb than those of old
  That Palinurus lighted.

And vaguely drifting am I borne,
  I know not where it leads me;
I fix my gaze on it alone,
  Of all beside it heedless.

But over-cautious prudery,
  And coyness cold and cruel,
When most I need it, these, like clouds,
  Its longed-for light refuse me.

Bright star, goal of my yearning eyes
  As thou above me beamest,
When thou shalt hide thee from my sight
  I'll know that death is near me.

The singer had got so far when it struck Dorothea that it was not fair to
let Clara miss hearing such a sweet voice, so, shaking her from side to
side, she woke her, saying:

"Forgive me, child, for waking thee, but I do so that thou mayest have
the pleasure of hearing the best voice thou hast ever heard, perhaps, in
all thy life."

Clara awoke quite drowsy, and not understanding at the moment what
Dorothea said, asked her what it was; she repeated what she had said, and
Clara became attentive at once; but she had hardly heard two lines, as
the singer continued, when a strange trembling seized her, as if she were
suffering from a severe attack of quartan ague, and throwing her arms
round Dorothea she said:

"Ah, dear lady of my soul and life! why did you wake me? The greatest
kindness fortune could do me now would be to close my eyes and ears so as
neither to see or hear that unhappy musician."

"What art thou talking about, child?" said Dorothea. "Why, they say this
singer is a muleteer!"

"Nay, he is the lord of many places," replied Clara, "and that one in my
heart which he holds so firmly shall never be taken from him, unless he
be willing to surrender it."

Dorothea was amazed at the ardent language of the girl, for it seemed to
be far beyond such experience of life as her tender years gave any
promise of, so she said to her:

"You speak in such a way that I cannot understand you, Senora Clara;
explain yourself more clearly, and tell me what is this you are saying
about hearts and places and this musician whose voice has so moved you?
But do not tell me anything now; I do not want to lose the pleasure I get
from listening to the singer by giving my attention to your transports,
for I perceive he is beginning to sing a new strain and a new air."

"Let him, in Heaven's name," returned Clara; and not to hear him she
stopped both ears with her hands, at which Dorothea was again surprised;
but turning her attention to the song she found that it ran in this
fashion:

  Sweet Hope, my stay,
That onward to the goal of thy intent
  Dost make thy way,
Heedless of hindrance or impediment,
  Have thou no fear
If at each step thou findest death is near.

  No victory,
No joy of triumph doth the faint heart know;
  Unblest is he
That a bold front to Fortune dares not show,
  But soul and sense
In bondage yieldeth up to indolence.

  If Love his wares
Do dearly sell, his right must be contest;
  What gold compares
With that whereon his stamp he hath imprest?
  And all men know
What costeth little that we rate but low.

  Love resolute
Knows not the word "impossibility;"
  And though my suit
Beset by endless obstacles I see,
  Yet no despair
Shall hold me bound to earth while heaven is there.

Here the voice ceased and Clara's sobs began afresh, all which excited
Dorothea's curiosity to know what could be the cause of singing so sweet
and weeping so bitter, so she again asked her what it was she was going
to say before. On this Clara, afraid that Luscinda might overhear her,
winding her arms tightly round Dorothea put her mouth so close to her ear
that she could speak without fear of being heard by anyone else, and
said:

"This singer, dear senora, is the son of a gentleman of Aragon, lord of
two villages, who lives opposite my father's house at Madrid; and though
my father had curtains to the windows of his house in winter, and
lattice-work in summer, in some way--I know not how--this gentleman, who
was pursuing his studies, saw me, whether in church or elsewhere, I
cannot tell, and, in fact, fell in love with me, and gave me to know it
from the windows of his house, with so many signs and tears that I was
forced to believe him, and even to love him, without knowing what it was
he wanted of me. One of the signs he used to make me was to link one hand
in the other, to show me he wished to marry me; and though I should have
been glad if that could be, being alone and motherless I knew not whom to
open my mind to, and so I left it as it was, showing him no favour,
except when my father, and his too, were from home, to raise the curtain
or the lattice a little and let him see me plainly, at which he would
show such delight that he seemed as if he were going mad. Meanwhile the
time for my father's departure arrived, which he became aware of, but not
from me, for I had never been able to tell him of it. He fell sick, of
grief I believe, and so the day we were going away I could not see him to
take farewell of him, were it only with the eyes. But after we had been
two days on the road, on entering the posada of a village a day's journey
from this, I saw him at the inn door in the dress of a muleteer, and so
well disguised, that if I did not carry his image graven on my heart it
would have been impossible for me to recognise him. But I knew him, and I
was surprised, and glad; he watched me, unsuspected by my father, from
whom he always hides himself when he crosses my path on the road, or in
the posadas where we halt; and, as I know what he is, and reflect that
for love of me he makes this journey on foot in all this hardship, I am
ready to die of sorrow; and where he sets foot there I set my eyes. I
know not with what object he has come; or how he could have got away from
his father, who loves him beyond measure, having no other heir, and
because he deserves it, as you will perceive when you see him. And
moreover, I can tell you, all that he sings is out of his own head; for I
have heard them say he is a great scholar and poet; and what is more,
every time I see him or hear him sing I tremble all over, and am
terrified lest my father should recognise him and come to know of our
loves. I have never spoken a word to him in my life; and for all that I
love him so that I could not live without him. This, dear senora, is all
I have to tell you about the musician whose voice has delighted you so
much; and from it alone you might easily perceive he is no muleteer, but
a lord of hearts and towns, as I told you already."

"Say no more, Dona Clara," said Dorothea at this, at the same time
kissing her a thousand times over, "say no more, I tell you, but wait
till day comes; when I trust in God to arrange this affair of yours so
that it may have the happy ending such an innocent beginning deserves."

"Ah, senora," said Dona Clara, "what end can be hoped for when his father
is of such lofty position, and so wealthy, that he would think I was not
fit to be even a servant to his son, much less wife? And as to marrying
without the knowledge of my father, I would not do it for all the world.
I would not ask anything more than that this youth should go back and
leave me; perhaps with not seeing him, and the long distance we shall
have to travel, the pain I suffer now may become easier; though I daresay
the remedy I propose will do me very little good. I don't know how the
devil this has come about, or how this love I have for him got in; I such
a young girl, and he such a mere boy; for I verily believe we are both of
an age, and I am not sixteen yet; for I will be sixteen Michaelmas Day,
next, my father says."

Dorothea could not help laughing to hear how like a child Dona Clara
spoke. "Let us go to sleep now, senora," said she, "for the little of the
night that I fancy is left to us: God will soon send us daylight, and we
will set all to rights, or it will go hard with me."

With this they fell asleep, and deep silence reigned all through the inn.
The only persons not asleep were the landlady's daughter and her servant
Maritornes, who, knowing the weak point of Don Quixote's humour, and that
he was outside the inn mounting guard in armour and on horseback,
resolved, the pair of them, to play some trick upon him, or at any rate
to amuse themselves for a while by listening to his nonsense. As it so
happened there was not a window in the whole inn that looked outwards
except a hole in the wall of a straw-loft through which they used to
throw out the straw. At this hole the two demi-damsels posted themselves,
and observed Don Quixote on his horse, leaning on his pike and from time
to time sending forth such deep and doleful sighs, that he seemed to
pluck up his soul by the roots with each of them; and they could hear
him, too, saying in a soft, tender, loving tone, "Oh my lady Dulcinea del
Toboso, perfection of all beauty, summit and crown of discretion,
treasure house of grace, depositary of virtue, and finally, ideal of all
that is good, honourable, and delectable in this world! What is thy grace
doing now? Art thou, perchance, mindful of thy enslaved knight who of his
own free will hath exposed himself to so great perils, and all to serve
thee? Give me tidings of her, oh luminary of the three faces! Perhaps at
this moment, envious of hers, thou art regarding her, either as she paces
to and fro some gallery of her sumptuous palaces, or leans over some
balcony, meditating how, whilst preserving her purity and greatness, she
may mitigate the tortures this wretched heart of mine endures for her
sake, what glory should recompense my sufferings, what repose my toil,
and lastly what death my life, and what reward my services? And thou, oh
sun, that art now doubtless harnessing thy steeds in haste to rise
betimes and come forth to see my lady; when thou seest her I entreat of
thee to salute her on my behalf: but have a care, when thou shalt see her
and salute her, that thou kiss not her face; for I shall be more jealous
of thee than thou wert of that light-footed ingrate that made thee sweat
and run so on the plains of Thessaly, or on the banks of the Peneus (for
I do not exactly recollect where it was thou didst run on that occasion)
in thy jealousy and love."

Don Quixote had got so far in his pathetic speech when the landlady's
daughter began to signal to him, saying, "Senor, come over here, please."

At these signals and voice Don Quixote turned his head and saw by the
light of the moon, which then was in its full splendour, that some one
was calling to him from the hole in the wall, which seemed to him to be a
window, and what is more, with a gilt grating, as rich castles, such as
he believed the inn to be, ought to have; and it immediately suggested
itself to his imagination that, as on the former occasion, the fair
damsel, the daughter of the lady of the castle, overcome by love for him,
was once more endeavouring to win his affections; and with this idea, not
to show himself discourteous, or ungrateful, he turned Rocinante's head
and approached the hole, and as he perceived the two wenches he said:

"I pity you, beauteous lady, that you should have directed your thoughts
of love to a quarter from whence it is impossible that such a return can
be made to you as is due to your great merit and gentle birth, for which
you must not blame this unhappy knight-errant whom love renders incapable
of submission to any other than her whom, the first moment his eyes
beheld her, he made absolute mistress of his soul. Forgive me, noble
lady, and retire to your apartment, and do not, by any further
declaration of your passion, compel me to show myself more ungrateful;
and if, of the love you bear me, you should find that there is anything
else in my power wherein I can gratify you, provided it be not love
itself, demand it of me; for I swear to you by that sweet absent enemy of
mine to grant it this instant, though it be that you require of me a lock
of Medusa's hair, which was all snakes, or even the very beams of the sun
shut up in a vial."

"My mistress wants nothing of that sort, sir knight," said Maritornes at
this.

"What then, discreet dame, is it that your mistress wants?" replied Don
Quixote.

"Only one of your fair hands," said Maritornes, "to enable her to vent
over it the great passion which has brought her to this loophole,
so much to the risk of her honour; for if the lord her father had heard
her, the least slice he would cut off her would be her ear."

"I should like to see that tried," said Don Quixote; "but he had better
beware of that, if he does not want to meet the most disastrous end that
ever father in the world met for having laid hands on the tender limbs of
a love-stricken daughter."

Maritornes felt sure that Don Quixote would present the hand she had
asked, and making up her mind what to do, she got down from the hole and
went into the stable, where she took the halter of Sancho Panza's ass,
and in all haste returned to the hole, just as Don Quixote had planted
himself standing on Rocinante's saddle in order to reach the grated
window where he supposed the lovelorn damsel to be; and giving her his
hand, he said, "Lady, take this hand, or rather this scourge of the
evil-doers of the earth; take, I say, this hand which no other hand of
woman has ever touched, not even hers who has complete possession of my
entire body. I present it to you, not that you may kiss it, but that you
may observe the contexture of the sinews, the close network of the
muscles, the breadth and capacity of the veins, whence you may infer what
must be the strength of the arm that has such a hand."

"That we shall see presently," said Maritornes, and making a running knot
on the halter, she passed it over his wrist and coming down from the hole
tied the other end very firmly to the bolt of the door of the straw-loft.

Don Quixote, feeling the roughness of the rope on his wrist, exclaimed,
"Your grace seems to be grating rather than caressing my hand; treat it
not so harshly, for it is not to blame for the offence my resolution has
given you, nor is it just to wreak all your vengeance on so small a part;
remember that one who loves so well should not revenge herself so
cruelly."

But there was nobody now to listen to these words of Don Quixote's, for
as soon as Maritornes had tied him she and the other made off, ready to
die with laughing, leaving him fastened in such a way that it was
impossible for him to release himself.

He was, as has been said, standing on Rocinante, with his arm passed
through the hole and his wrist tied to the bolt of the door, and in
mighty fear and dread of being left hanging by the arm if Rocinante were
to stir one side or the other; so he did not dare to make the least
movement, although from the patience and imperturbable disposition of
Rocinante, he had good reason to expect that he would stand without
budging for a whole century. Finding himself fast, then, and that the
ladies had retired, he began to fancy that all this was done by
enchantment, as on the former occasion when in that same castle that
enchanted Moor of a carrier had belaboured him; and he cursed in his
heart his own want of sense and judgment in venturing to enter the castle
again, after having come off so badly the first time; it being a settled
point with knights-errant that when they have tried an adventure, and
have not succeeded in it, it is a sign that it is not reserved for them
but for others, and that therefore they need not try it again.
Nevertheless he pulled his arm to see if he could release himself, but it
had been made so fast that all his efforts were in vain. It is true he
pulled it gently lest Rocinante should move, but try as he might to seat
himself in the saddle, he had nothing for it but to stand upright or pull
his hand off. Then it was he wished for the sword of Amadis, against
which no enchantment whatever had any power; then he cursed his ill
fortune; then he magnified the loss the world would sustain by his
absence while he remained there enchanted, for that he believed he was
beyond all doubt; then he once more took to thinking of his beloved
Dulcinea del Toboso; then he called to his worthy squire Sancho Panza,
who, buried in sleep and stretched upon the pack-saddle of his ass, was
oblivious, at that moment, of the mother that bore him; then he called
upon the sages Lirgandeo and Alquife to come to his aid; then he invoked
his good friend Urganda to succour him; and then, at last, morning found
him in such a state of desperation and perplexity that he was bellowing
like a bull, for he had no hope that day would bring any relief to his
suffering, which he believed would last for ever, inasmuch as he was
enchanted; and of this he was convinced by seeing that Rocinante never
stirred, much or little, and he felt persuaded that he and his horse were
to remain in this state, without eating or drinking or sleeping, until
the malign influence of the stars was overpast, or until some other more
sage enchanter should disenchant him.

But he was very much deceived in this conclusion, for daylight had hardly
begun to appear when there came up to the inn four men on horseback, well
equipped and accoutred, with firelocks across their saddle-bows. They
called out and knocked loudly at the gate of the inn, which was still
shut; on seeing which, Don Quixote, even there where he was, did not
forget to act as sentinel, and said in a loud and imperious tone,
"Knights, or squires, or whatever ye be, ye have no right to knock at the
gates of this castle; for it is plain enough that they who are within are
either asleep, or else are not in the habit of throwing open the fortress
until the sun's rays are spread over the whole surface of the earth.
Withdraw to a distance, and wait till it is broad daylight, and then we
shall see whether it will be proper or not to open to you."

"What the devil fortress or castle is this," said one, "to make us stand
on such ceremony? If you are the innkeeper bid them open to us; we are
travellers who only want to feed our horses and go on, for we are in
haste."

"Do you think, gentlemen, that I look like an innkeeper?" said Don
Quixote.

"I don't know what you look like," replied the other; "but I know that
you are talking nonsense when you call this inn a castle."

"A castle it is," returned Don Quixote, "nay, more, one of the best in
this whole province, and it has within it people who have had the sceptre
in the hand and the crown on the head."

"It would be better if it were the other way," said the traveller, "the
sceptre on the head and the crown in the hand; but if so, may be there is
within some company of players, with whom it is a common thing to have
those crowns and sceptres you speak of; for in such a small inn as this,
and where such silence is kept, I do not believe any people entitled to
crowns and sceptres can have taken up their quarters."

"You know but little of the world," returned Don Quixote, "since you are
ignorant of what commonly occurs in knight-errantry."

But the comrades of the spokesman, growing weary of the dialogue with Don
Quixote, renewed their knocks with great vehemence, so much so that the
host, and not only he but everybody in the inn, awoke, and he got up to
ask who knocked. It happened at this moment that one of the horses of the
four who were seeking admittance went to smell Rocinante, who melancholy,
dejected, and with drooping ears stood motionless, supporting his sorely
stretched master; and as he was, after all, flesh, though he looked as if
he were made of wood, he could not help giving way and in return smelling
the one who had come to offer him attentions. But he had hardly moved at
all when Don Quixote lost his footing; and slipping off the saddle, he
would have come to the ground, but for being suspended by the arm, which
caused him such agony that he believed either his wrist would be cut
through or his arm torn off; and he hung so near the ground that he could
just touch it with his feet, which was all the worse for him; for,
finding how little was wanted to enable him to plant his feet firmly, he
struggled and stretched himself as much as he could to gain a footing;
just like those undergoing the torture of the strappado, when they are
fixed at "touch and no touch," who aggravate their own sufferings by
their violent efforts to stretch themselves, deceived by the hope which
makes them fancy that with a very little more they will reach the ground.




CHAPTER XLIV.

IN WHICH ARE CONTINUED THE UNHEARD-OF ADVENTURES OF THE INN


So loud, in fact, were the shouts of Don Quixote, that the landlord
opening the gate of the inn in all haste, came out in dismay, and ran to
see who was uttering such cries, and those who were outside joined him.
Maritornes, who had been by this time roused up by the same outcry,
suspecting what it was, ran to the loft and, without anyone seeing her,
untied the halter by which Don Quixote was suspended, and down he came to
the ground in the sight of the landlord and the travellers, who
approaching asked him what was the matter with him that he shouted so. He
without replying a word took the rope off his wrist, and rising to his
feet leaped upon Rocinante, braced his buckler on his arm, put his lance
in rest, and making a considerable circuit of the plain came back at a
half-gallop exclaiming:

"Whoever shall say that I have been enchanted with just cause, provided
my lady the Princess Micomicona grants me permission to do so, I give him
the lie, challenge him and defy him to single combat."

The newly arrived travellers were amazed at the words of Don Quixote; but
the landlord removed their surprise by telling them who he was, and not
to mind him as he was out of his senses. They then asked the landlord if
by any chance a youth of about fifteen years of age had come to that inn,
one dressed like a muleteer, and of such and such an appearance,
describing that of Dona Clara's lover. The landlord replied that there
were so many people in the inn he had not noticed the person they were
inquiring for; but one of them observing the coach in which the Judge had
come, said, "He is here no doubt, for this is the coach he is following:
let one of us stay at the gate, and the rest go in to look for him; or
indeed it would be as well if one of us went round the inn, lest he
should escape over the wall of the yard." "So be it," said another; and
while two of them went in, one remained at the gate and the other made
the circuit of the inn; observing all which, the landlord was unable to
conjecture for what reason they were taking all these precautions, though
he understood they were looking for the youth whose description they had
given him.

It was by this time broad daylight; and for that reason, as well as in
consequence of the noise Don Quixote had made, everybody was awake and
up, but particularly Dona Clara and Dorothea; for they had been able to
sleep but badly that night, the one from agitation at having her lover so
near her, the other from curiosity to see him. Don Quixote, when he saw
that not one of the four travellers took any notice of him or replied to
his challenge, was furious and ready to die with indignation and wrath;
and if he could have found in the ordinances of chivalry that it was
lawful for a knight-errant to undertake or engage in another enterprise,
when he had plighted his word and faith not to involve himself in any
until he had made an end of the one to which he was pledged, he would
have attacked the whole of them, and would have made them return an
answer in spite of themselves. But considering that it would not become
him, nor be right, to begin any new emprise until he had established
Micomicona in her kingdom, he was constrained to hold his peace and wait
quietly to see what would be the upshot of the proceedings of those same
travellers; one of whom found the youth they were seeking lying asleep by
the side of a muleteer, without a thought of anyone coming in search of
him, much less finding him.

The man laid hold of him by the arm, saying, "It becomes you well indeed,
Senor Don Luis, to be in the dress you wear, and well the bed in which I
find you agrees with the luxury in which your mother reared you."

The youth rubbed his sleepy eyes and stared for a while at him who held
him, but presently recognised him as one of his father's servants, at
which he was so taken aback that for some time he could not find or utter
a word; while the servant went on to say, "There is nothing for it now,
Senor Don Luis, but to submit quietly and return home, unless it is your
wish that my lord, your father, should take his departure for the other
world, for nothing else can be the consequence of the grief he is in at
your absence."

"But how did my father know that I had gone this road and in this dress?"
said Don Luis.

"It was a student to whom you confided your intentions," answered the
servant, "that disclosed them, touched with pity at the distress he saw
your father suffer on missing you; he therefore despatched four of his
servants in quest of you, and here we all are at your service, better
pleased than you can imagine that we shall return so soon and be able to
restore you to those eyes that so yearn for you."

"That shall be as I please, or as heaven orders," returned Don Luis.

"What can you please or heaven order," said the other, "except to agree
to go back? Anything else is impossible."

All this conversation between the two was overheard by the muleteer at
whose side Don Luis lay, and rising, he went to report what had taken
place to Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the others, who had by this time
dressed themselves; and told them how the man had addressed the youth as
"Don," and what words had passed, and how he wanted him to return to his
father, which the youth was unwilling to do. With this, and what they
already knew of the rare voice that heaven had bestowed upon him, they
all felt very anxious to know more particularly who he was, and even to
help him if it was attempted to employ force against him; so they
hastened to where he was still talking and arguing with his servant.
Dorothea at this instant came out of her room, followed by Dona Clara all
in a tremor; and calling Cardenio aside, she told him in a few words the
story of the musician and Dona Clara, and he at the same time told her
what had happened, how his father's servants had come in search of him;
but in telling her so, he did not speak low enough but that Dona Clara
heard what he said, at which she was so much agitated that had not
Dorothea hastened to support her she would have fallen to the ground.
Cardenio then bade Dorothea return to her room, as he would endeavour to
make the whole matter right, and they did as he desired. All the four who
had come in quest of Don Luis had now come into the inn and surrounded
him, urging him to return and console his father at once and without a
moment's delay. He replied that he could not do so on any account until
he had concluded some business in which his life, honour, and heart were
at stake. The servants pressed him, saying that most certainly they would
not return without him, and that they would take him away whether he
liked it or not.

"You shall not do that," replied Don Luis, "unless you take me dead;
though however you take me, it will be without life."

By this time most of those in the inn had been attracted by the dispute,
but particularly Cardenio, Don Fernando, his companions, the Judge, the
curate, the barber, and Don Quixote; for he now considered there was no
necessity for mounting guard over the castle any longer. Cardenio being
already acquainted with the young man's story, asked the men who wanted
to take him away, what object they had in seeking to carry off this youth
against his will.

"Our object," said one of the four, "is to save the life of his father,
who is in danger of losing it through this gentleman's disappearance."

Upon this Don Luis exclaimed, "There is no need to make my affairs public
here; I am free, and I will return if I please; and if not, none of you
shall compel me."

"Reason will compel your worship," said the man, "and if it has no power
over you, it has power over us, to make us do what we came for, and what
it is our duty to do."

"Let us hear what the whole affair is about," said the Judge at this; but
the man, who knew him as a neighbour of theirs, replied, "Do you not know
this gentleman, Senor Judge? He is the son of your neighbour, who has run
away from his father's house in a dress so unbecoming his rank, as your
worship may perceive."

The judge on this looked at him more carefully and recognised him, and
embracing him said, "What folly is this, Senor Don Luis, or what can have
been the cause that could have induced you to come here in this way, and
in this dress, which so ill becomes your condition?"

Tears came into the eyes of the young man, and he was unable to utter a
word in reply to the Judge, who told the four servants not to be uneasy,
for all would be satisfactorily settled; and then taking Don Luis by the
hand, he drew him aside and asked the reason of his having come there.

But while he was questioning him they heard a loud outcry at the gate of
the inn, the cause of which was that two of the guests who had passed the
night there, seeing everybody busy about finding out what it was the four
men wanted, had conceived the idea of going off without paying what they
owed; but the landlord, who minded his own affairs more than other
people's, caught them going out of the gate and demanded his reckoning,
abusing them for their dishonesty with such language that he drove them
to reply with their fists, and so they began to lay on him in such a
style that the poor man was forced to cry out, and call for help. The
landlady and her daughter could see no one more free to give aid than Don
Quixote, and to him the daughter said, "Sir knight, by the virtue God has
given you, help my poor father, for two wicked men are beating him to a
mummy."

To which Don Quixote very deliberately and phlegmatically replied, "Fair
damsel, at the present moment your request is inopportune, for I am
debarred from involving myself in any adventure until I have brought to a
happy conclusion one to which my word has pledged me; but that which I
can do for you is what I will now mention: run and tell your father to
stand his ground as well as he can in this battle, and on no account to
allow himself to be vanquished, while I go and request permission of the
Princess Micomicona to enable me to succour him in his distress; and if
she grants it, rest assured I will relieve him from it."

"Sinner that I am," exclaimed Maritornes, who stood by; "before you have
got your permission my master will be in the other world."

"Give me leave, senora, to obtain the permission I speak of," returned
Don Quixote; "and if I get it, it will matter very little if he is in the
other world; for I will rescue him thence in spite of all the same world
can do; or at any rate I will give you such a revenge over those who
shall have sent him there that you will be more than moderately
satisfied;" and without saying anything more he went and knelt before
Dorothea, requesting her Highness in knightly and errant phrase to be
pleased to grant him permission to aid and succour the castellan of that
castle, who now stood in grievous jeopardy. The princess granted it
graciously, and he at once, bracing his buckler on his arm and drawing
his sword, hastened to the inn-gate, where the two guests were still
handling the landlord roughly; but as soon as he reached the spot he
stopped short and stood still, though Maritornes and the landlady asked
him why he hesitated to help their master and husband.

"I hesitate," said Don Quixote, "because it is not lawful for me to draw
sword against persons of squirely condition; but call my squire Sancho to
me; for this defence and vengeance are his affair and business."

Thus matters stood at the inn-gate, where there was a very lively
exchange of fisticuffs and punches, to the sore damage of the landlord
and to the wrath of Maritornes, the landlady, and her daughter, who were
furious when they saw the pusillanimity of Don Quixote, and the hard
treatment their master, husband and father was undergoing. But let us
leave him there; for he will surely find some one to help him, and if
not, let him suffer and hold his tongue who attempts more than his
strength allows him to do; and let us go back fifty paces to see what Don
Luis said in reply to the Judge whom we left questioning him privately as
to his reasons for coming on foot and so meanly dressed.

To which the youth, pressing his hand in a way that showed his heart was
troubled by some great sorrow, and shedding a flood of tears, made
answer:

"Senor, I have no more to tell you than that from the moment when,
through heaven's will and our being near neighbours, I first saw Dona
Clara, your daughter and my lady, from that instant I made her the
mistress of my will, and if yours, my true lord and father, offers no
impediment, this very day she shall become my wife. For her I left my
father's house, and for her I assumed this disguise, to follow her
whithersoever she may go, as the arrow seeks its mark or the sailor the
pole-star. She knows nothing more of my passion than what she may have
learned from having sometimes seen from a distance that my eyes were
filled with tears. You know already, senor, the wealth and noble birth of
my parents, and that I am their sole heir; if this be a sufficient
inducement for you to venture to make me completely happy, accept me at
once as your son; for if my father, influenced by other objects of his
own, should disapprove of this happiness I have sought for myself, time
has more power to alter and change things, than human will."

With this the love-smitten youth was silent, while the Judge, after
hearing him, was astonished, perplexed, and surprised, as well at the
manner and intelligence with which Don Luis had confessed the secret of
his heart, as at the position in which he found himself, not knowing what
course to take in a matter so sudden and unexpected. All the answer,
therefore, he gave him was to bid him to make his mind easy for the
present, and arrange with his servants not to take him back that day, so
that there might be time to consider what was best for all parties. Don
Luis kissed his hands by force, nay, bathed them with his tears, in a way
that would have touched a heart of marble, not to say that of the Judge,
who, as a shrewd man, had already perceived how advantageous the marriage
would be to his daughter; though, were it possible, he would have
preferred that it should be brought about with the consent of the father
of Don Luis, who he knew looked for a title for his son.

The guests had by this time made peace with the landlord, for, by
persuasion and Don Quixote's fair words more than by threats, they had
paid him what he demanded, and the servants of Don Luis were waiting for
the end of the conversation with the Judge and their master's decision,
when the devil, who never sleeps, contrived that the barber, from whom
Don Quixote had taken Mambrino's helmet, and Sancho Panza the trappings
of his ass in exchange for those of his own, should at this instant enter
the inn; which said barber, as he led his ass to the stable, observed
Sancho Panza engaged in repairing something or other belonging to the
pack-saddle; and the moment he saw it he knew it, and made bold to attack
Sancho, exclaiming, "Ho, sir thief, I have caught you! hand over my basin
and my pack-saddle, and all my trappings that you robbed me of."

Sancho, finding himself so unexpectedly assailed, and hearing the abuse
poured upon him, seized the pack-saddle with one hand, and with the other
gave the barber a cuff that bathed his teeth in blood. The barber,
however, was not so ready to relinquish the prize he had made in the
pack-saddle; on the contrary, he raised such an outcry that everyone in
the inn came running to know what the noise and quarrel meant. "Here, in
the name of the king and justice!" he cried, "this thief and highwayman
wants to kill me for trying to recover my property."

"You lie," said Sancho, "I am no highwayman; it was in fair war my master
Don Quixote won these spoils."

Don Quixote was standing by at the time, highly pleased to see his
squire's stoutness, both offensive and defensive, and from that time
forth he reckoned him a man of mettle, and in his heart resolved to dub
him a knight on the first opportunity that presented itself, feeling sure
that the order of chivalry would be fittingly bestowed upon him.

In the course of the altercation, among other things the barber said,
"Gentlemen, this pack-saddle is mine as surely as I owe God a death, and
I know it as well as if I had given birth to it, and here is my ass in
the stable who will not let me lie; only try it, and if it does not fit
him like a glove, call me a rascal; and what is more, the same day I was
robbed of this, they robbed me likewise of a new brass basin, never yet
handselled, that would fetch a crown any day."

At this Don Quixote could not keep himself from answering; and
interposing between the two, and separating them, he placed the
pack-saddle on the ground, to lie there in sight until the truth was
established, and said, "Your worships may perceive clearly and plainly
the error under which this worthy squire lies when he calls a basin which
was, is, and shall be the helmet of Mambrino which I won from him in fair
war, and made myself master of by legitimate and lawful possession. With
the pack-saddle I do not concern myself; but I may tell you on that head
that my squire Sancho asked my permission to strip off the caparison of
this vanquished poltroon's steed, and with it adorn his own; I allowed
him, and he took it; and as to its having been changed from a caparison
into a pack-saddle, I can give no explanation except the usual one, that
such transformations will take place in adventures of chivalry. To
confirm all which, run, Sancho my son, and fetch hither the helmet which
this good fellow calls a basin."

"Egad, master," said Sancho, "if we have no other proof of our case than
what your worship puts forward, Mambrino's helmet is just as much a basin
as this good fellow's caparison is a pack-saddle."

"Do as I bid thee," said Don Quixote; "it cannot be that everything in
this castle goes by enchantment."

Sancho hastened to where the basin was, and brought it back with him, and
when Don Quixote saw it, he took hold of it and said:

"Your worships may see with what a face this squire can assert that this
is a basin and not the helmet I told you of; and I swear by the order of
chivalry I profess, that this helmet is the identical one I took from
him, without anything added to or taken from it."

"There is no doubt of that," said Sancho, "for from the time my master
won it until now he has only fought one battle in it, when he let loose
those unlucky men in chains; and if had not been for this basin-helmet he
would not have come off over well that time, for there was plenty of
stone-throwing in that affair."




CHAPTER XLV.

IN WHICH THE DOUBTFUL QUESTION OF MAMBRINO'S HELMET AND THE PACK-SADDLE
IS FINALLY SETTLED, WITH OTHER ADVENTURES THAT OCCURRED IN TRUTH AND
EARNEST


"What do you think now, gentlemen," said the barber, "of what these
gentles say, when they want to make out that this is a helmet?"

"And whoever says the contrary," said Don Quixote, "I will let him know
he lies if he is a knight, and if he is a squire that he lies again a
thousand times."

Our own barber, who was present at all this, and understood Don Quixote's
humour so thoroughly, took it into his head to back up his delusion and
carry on the joke for the general amusement; so addressing the other
barber he said:

"Senor barber, or whatever you are, you must know that I belong to your
profession too, and have had a licence to practise for more than twenty
years, and I know the implements of the barber craft, every one of them,
perfectly well; and I was likewise a soldier for some time in the days of
my youth, and I know also what a helmet is, and a morion, and a headpiece
with a visor, and other things pertaining to soldiering, I meant to say
to soldiers' arms; and I say-saving better opinions and always with
submission to sounder judgments--that this piece we have now before us,
which this worthy gentleman has in his hands, not only is no barber's
basin, but is as far from being one as white is from black, and truth
from falsehood; I say, moreover, that this, although it is a helmet, is
not a complete helmet."

"Certainly not," said Don Quixote, "for half of it is wanting, that is to
say the beaver."

"It is quite true," said the curate, who saw the object of his friend the
barber; and Cardenio, Don Fernando and his companions agreed with him,
and even the Judge, if his thoughts had not been so full of Don Luis's
affair, would have helped to carry on the joke; but he was so taken up
with the serious matters he had on his mind that he paid little or no
attention to these facetious proceedings.

"God bless me!" exclaimed their butt the barber at this; "is it possible
that such an honourable company can say that this is not a basin but a
helmet? Why, this is a thing that would astonish a whole university,
however wise it might be! That will do; if this basin is a helmet, why,
then the pack-saddle must be a horse's caparison, as this gentleman has
said."

"To me it looks like a pack-saddle," said Don Quixote; "but I have
already said that with that question I do not concern myself."

"As to whether it be pack-saddle or caparison," said the curate, "it is
only for Senor Don Quixote to say; for in these matters of chivalry all
these gentlemen and I bow to his authority."

"By God, gentlemen," said Don Quixote, "so many strange things have
happened to me in this castle on the two occasions on which I have
sojourned in it, that I will not venture to assert anything positively in
reply to any question touching anything it contains; for it is my belief
that everything that goes on within it goes by enchantment. The first
time, an enchanted Moor that there is in it gave me sore trouble, nor did
Sancho fare well among certain followers of his; and last night I was
kept hanging by this arm for nearly two hours, without knowing how or why
I came by such a mishap. So that now, for me to come forward to give an
opinion in such a puzzling matter, would be to risk a rash decision. As
regards the assertion that this is a basin and not a helmet I have
already given an answer; but as to the question whether this is a
pack-saddle or a caparison I will not venture to give a positive opinion,
but will leave it to your worships' better judgment. Perhaps as you are
not dubbed knights like myself, the enchantments of this place have
nothing to do with you, and your faculties are unfettered, and you can
see things in this castle as they really and truly are, and not as they
appear to me."

"There can be no question," said Don Fernando on this, "but that Senor
Don Quixote has spoken very wisely, and that with us rests the decision
of this matter; and that we may have surer ground to go on, I will take
the votes of the gentlemen in secret, and declare the result clearly and
fully."

To those who were in the secret of Don Quixote's humour all this afforded
great amusement; but to those who knew nothing about it, it seemed the
greatest nonsense in the world, in particular to the four servants of Don
Luis, as well as to Don Luis himself, and to three other travellers who
had by chance come to the inn, and had the appearance of officers of the
Holy Brotherhood, as indeed they were; but the one who above all was at
his wits' end, was the barber whose basin, there before his very eyes, had been
turned into Mambrino's helmet, and whose pack-saddle he had no doubt
whatever was about to become a rich caparison for a horse. All laughed to
see Don Fernando going from one to another collecting the votes, and
whispering to them to give him their private opinion whether the treasure
over which there had been so much fighting was a pack-saddle or a
caparison; but after he had taken the votes of those who knew Don
Quixote, he said aloud, "The fact is, my good fellow, that I am tired
collecting such a number of opinions, for I find that there is not one of
whom I ask what I desire to know, who does not tell me that it is absurd
to say that this is the pack-saddle of an ass, and not the caparison of a
horse, nay, of a thoroughbred horse; so you must submit, for, in spite of
you and your ass, this is a caparison and no pack-saddle, and you have
stated and proved your case very badly."

"May I never share heaven," said the poor barber, "if your worships are
not all mistaken; and may my soul appear before God as that appears to me
a pack-saddle and not a caparison; but, 'laws go,'-I say no more; and
indeed I am not drunk, for I am fasting, except it be from sin."

The simple talk of the barber did not afford less amusement than the
absurdities of Don Quixote, who now observed:

"There is no more to be done now than for each to take what belongs to
him, and to whom God has given it, may St. Peter add his blessing."

But said one of the four servants, "Unless, indeed, this is a deliberate
joke, I cannot bring myself to believe that men so intelligent as those
present are, or seem to be, can venture to declare and assert that this
is not a basin, and that not a pack-saddle; but as I perceive that they
do assert and declare it, I can only come to the conclusion that there is
some mystery in this persistence in what is so opposed to the evidence of
experience and truth itself; for I swear by"--and here he rapped out a
round oath-"all the people in the world will not make me believe that
this is not a barber's basin and that a jackass's pack-saddle."

"It might easily be a she-ass's," observed the curate.

"It is all the same," said the servant; "that is not the point; but
whether it is or is not a pack-saddle, as your worships say."

On hearing this one of the newly arrived officers of the Brotherhood, who
had been listening to the dispute and controversy, unable to restrain his
anger and impatience, exclaimed, "It is a pack-saddle as sure as my
father is my father, and whoever has said or will say anything else must
be drunk."

"You lie like a rascally clown," returned Don Quixote; and lifting his
pike, which he had never let out of his hand, he delivered such a blow at
his head that, had not the officer dodged it, it would have stretched him
at full length. The pike was shivered in pieces against the ground, and
the rest of the officers, seeing their comrade assaulted, raised a shout,
calling for help for the Holy Brotherhood. The landlord, who was of the
fraternity, ran at once to fetch his staff of office and his sword, and
ranged himself on the side of his comrades; the servants of Don Luis
clustered round him, lest he should escape from them in the confusion;
the barber, seeing the house turned upside down, once more laid hold of
his pack-saddle and Sancho did the same; Don Quixote drew his sword and
charged the officers; Don Luis cried out to his servants to leave him
alone and go and help Don Quixote, and Cardenio and Don Fernando, who
were supporting him; the curate was shouting at the top of his voice, the
landlady was screaming, her daughter was wailing, Maritornes was weeping,
Dorothea was aghast, Luscinda terror-stricken, and Dona Clara in a faint.
The barber cudgelled Sancho, and Sancho pommelled the barber; Don Luis
gave one of his servants, who ventured to catch him by the arm to keep
him from escaping, a cuff that bathed his teeth in blood; the Judge took
his part; Don Fernando had got one of the officers down and was
belabouring him heartily; the landlord raised his voice again calling for
help for the Holy Brotherhood; so that the whole inn was nothing but
cries, shouts, shrieks, confusion, terror, dismay, mishaps, sword-cuts,
fisticuffs, cudgellings, kicks, and bloodshed; and in the midst of all
this chaos, complication, and general entanglement, Don Quixote took it
into his head that he had been plunged into the thick of the discord of
Agramante's camp; and, in a voice that shook the inn like thunder, he
cried out:

"Hold all, let all sheathe their swords, let all be calm and attend to me
as they value their lives!"

All paused at his mighty voice, and he went on to say, "Did I not tell
you, sirs, that this castle was enchanted, and that a legion or so of
devils dwelt in it? In proof whereof I call upon you to behold with your
own eyes how the discord of Agramante's camp has come hither, and been
transferred into the midst of us. See how they fight, there for the
sword, here for the horse, on that side for the eagle, on this for the
helmet; we are all fighting, and all at cross purposes. Come then, you,
Senor Judge, and you, senor curate; let the one represent King Agramante
and the other King Sobrino, and make peace among us; for by God Almighty
it is a sorry business that so many persons of quality as we are should
slay one another for such trifling cause." The officers, who did not
understand Don Quixote's mode of speaking, and found themselves roughly
handled by Don Fernando, Cardenio, and their companions, were not to be
appeased; the barber was, however, for both his beard and his pack-saddle
were the worse for the struggle; Sancho like a good servant obeyed the
slightest word of his master; while the four servants of Don Luis kept
quiet when they saw how little they gained by not being so. The landlord
alone insisted upon it that they must punish the insolence of this
madman, who at every turn raised a disturbance in the inn; but at length
the uproar was stilled for the present; the pack-saddle remained a
caparison till the day of judgment, and the basin a helmet and the inn a
castle in Don Quixote's imagination.

All having been now pacified and made friends by the persuasion of the
Judge and the curate, the servants of Don Luis began again to urge him to
return with them at once; and while he was discussing the matter with
them, the Judge took counsel with Don Fernando, Cardenio, and the curate
as to what he ought to do in the case, telling them how it stood, and
what Don Luis had said to him. It was agreed at length that Don Fernando
should tell the servants of Don Luis who he was, and that it was his
desire that Don Luis should accompany him to Andalusia, where he would
receive from the marquis his brother the welcome his quality entitled him
to; for, otherwise, it was easy to see from the determination of Don Luis
that he would not return to his father at present, though they tore him
to pieces. On learning the rank of Don Fernando and the resolution of Don
Luis the four then settled it between themselves that three of them
should return to tell his father how matters stood, and that the other
should remain to wait upon Don Luis, and not leave him until they came
back for him, or his father's orders were known. Thus by the authority of
Agramante and the wisdom of King Sobrino all this complication of
disputes was arranged; but the enemy of concord and hater of peace,
feeling himself slighted and made a fool of, and seeing how little he had
gained after having involved them all in such an elaborate entanglement,
resolved to try his hand once more by stirring up fresh quarrels and
disturbances.

It came about in this wise: the officers were pacified on learning the
rank of those with whom they had been engaged, and withdrew from the
contest, considering that whatever the result might be they were likely
to get the worst of the battle; but one of them, the one who had been
thrashed and kicked by Don Fernando, recollected that among some warrants
he carried for the arrest of certain delinquents, he had one against Don
Quixote, whom the Holy Brotherhood had ordered to be arrested for setting
the galley slaves free, as Sancho had, with very good reason,
apprehended. Suspecting how it was, then, he wished to satisfy himself as
to whether Don Quixote's features corresponded; and taking a parchment
out of his bosom he lit upon what he was in search of, and setting
himself to read it deliberately, for he was not a quick reader, as he
made out each word he fixed his eyes on Don Quixote, and went on
comparing the description in the warrant with his face, and discovered
that beyond all doubt he was the person described in it. As soon as he
had satisfied himself, folding up the parchment, he took the warrant in
his left hand and with his right seized Don Quixote by the collar so
tightly that he did not allow him to breathe, and shouted aloud, "Help
for the Holy Brotherhood! and that you may see I demand it in earnest,
read this warrant which says this highwayman is to be arrested."

The curate took the warrant and saw that what the officer said was true,
and that it agreed with Don Quixote's appearance, who, on his part, when
he found himself roughly handled by this rascally clown, worked up to the
highest pitch of wrath, and all his joints cracking with rage, with both
hands seized the officer by the throat with all his might, so that had he
not been helped by his comrades he would have yielded up his life ere Don
Quixote released his hold. The landlord, who had perforce to support his
brother officers, ran at once to aid them. The landlady, when she saw her
husband engaged in a fresh quarrel, lifted up her voice afresh, and its
note was immediately caught up by Maritornes and her daughter, calling
upon heaven and all present for help; and Sancho, seeing what was going
on, exclaimed, "By the Lord, it is quite true what my master says about
the enchantments of this castle, for it is impossible to live an hour in
peace in it!"

Don Fernando parted the officer and Don Quixote, and to their mutual
contentment made them relax the grip by which they held, the one the coat
collar, the other the throat of his adversary; for all this, however, the
officers did not cease to demand their prisoner and call on them to help,
and deliver him over bound into their power, as was required for the
service of the King and of the Holy Brotherhood, on whose behalf they
again demanded aid and assistance to effect the capture of this robber
and footpad of the highways.

Don Quixote smiled when he heard these words, and said very calmly, "Come
now, base, ill-born brood; call ye it highway robbery to give freedom to
those in bondage, to release the captives, to succour the miserable, to
raise up the fallen, to relieve the needy? Infamous beings, who by your
vile grovelling intellects deserve that heaven should not make known to
you the virtue that lies in knight-errantry, or show you the sin and
ignorance in which ye lie when ye refuse to respect the shadow, not to
say the presence, of any knight-errant! Come now; band, not of officers,
but of thieves; footpads with the licence of the Holy Brotherhood; tell
me who was the ignoramus who signed a warrant of arrest against such a
knight as I am? Who was he that did not know that knights-errant are
independent of all jurisdictions, that their law is their sword, their
charter their prowess, and their edicts their will? Who, I say again, was
the fool that knows not that there are no letters patent of nobility that
confer such privileges or exemptions as a knight-errant acquires the day
he is dubbed a knight, and devotes himself to the arduous calling of
chivalry? What knight-errant ever paid poll-tax, duty, queen's pin-money,
king's dues, toll or ferry? What tailor ever took payment of him for
making his clothes? What castellan that received him in his castle ever
made him pay his shot? What king did not seat him at his table? What
damsel was not enamoured of him and did not yield herself up wholly to
his will and pleasure? And, lastly, what knight-errant has there been, is
there, or will there ever be in the world, not bold enough to give,
single-handed, four hundred cudgellings to four hundred officers of the
Holy Brotherhood if they come in his way?"




CHAPTER XLVI.

OF THE END OF THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE OFFICERS OF THE HOLY
BROTHERHOOD; AND OF THE GREAT FEROCITY OF OUR WORTHY KNIGHT, DON QUIXOTE


While Don Quixote was talking in this strain, the curate was endeavouring
to persuade the officers that he was out of his senses, as they might
perceive by his deeds and his words, and that they need not press the
matter any further, for even if they arrested him and carried him off,
they would have to release him by-and-by as a madman; to which the holder
of the warrant replied that he had nothing to do with inquiring into Don
Quixote's madness, but only to execute his superior's orders, and that
once taken they might let him go three hundred times if they liked.

"For all that," said the curate, "you must not take him away this time,
nor will he, it is my opinion, let himself be taken away."

In short, the curate used such arguments, and Don Quixote did such mad
things, that the officers would have been more mad than he was if they
had not perceived his want of wits, and so they thought it best to allow
themselves to be pacified, and even to act as peacemakers between the
barber and Sancho Panza, who still continued their altercation with much
bitterness. In the end they, as officers of justice, settled the question
by arbitration in such a manner that both sides were, if not perfectly
contented, at least to some extent satisfied; for they changed the
pack-saddles, but not the girths or head-stalls; and as to Mambrino's
helmet, the curate, under the rose and without Don Quixote's knowing it,
paid eight reals for the basin, and the barber executed a full receipt
and engagement to make no further demand then or thenceforth for
evermore, amen. These two disputes, which were the most important and
gravest, being settled, it only remained for the servants of Don Luis to
consent that three of them should return while one was left to accompany
him whither Don Fernando desired to take him; and good luck and better
fortune, having already begun to solve difficulties and remove
obstructions in favour of the lovers and warriors of the inn, were
pleased to persevere and bring everything to a happy issue; for the
servants agreed to do as Don Luis wished; which gave Dona Clara such
happiness that no one could have looked into her face just then without
seeing the joy of her heart. Zoraida, though she did not fully comprehend
all she saw, was grave or gay without knowing why, as she watched and
studied the various countenances, but particularly her Spaniard's, whom
she followed with her eyes and clung to with her soul. The gift and
compensation which the curate gave the barber had not escaped the
landlord's notice, and he demanded Don Quixote's reckoning, together with
the amount of the damage to his wine-skins, and the loss of his wine,
swearing that neither Rocinante nor Sancho's ass should leave the inn
until he had been paid to the very last farthing. The curate settled all
amicably, and Don Fernando paid; though the Judge had also very readily
offered to pay the score; and all became so peaceful and quiet that the
inn no longer reminded one of the discord of Agramante's camp, as Don
Quixote said, but of the peace and tranquillity of the days of
Octavianus: for all which it was the universal opinion that their thanks
were due to the great zeal and eloquence of the curate, and to the
unexampled generosity of Don Fernando.

Finding himself now clear and quit of all quarrels, his squire's as well
as his own, Don Quixote considered that it would be advisable to continue
the journey he had begun, and bring to a close that great adventure for
which he had been called and chosen; and with this high resolve he went
and knelt before Dorothea, who, however, would not allow him to utter a
word until he had risen; so to obey her he rose, and said, "It is a
common proverb, fair lady, that 'diligence is the mother of good
fortune,' and experience has often shown in important affairs that the
earnestness of the negotiator brings the doubtful case to a successful
termination; but in nothing does this truth show itself more plainly than
in war, where quickness and activity forestall the devices of the enemy,
and win the victory before the foe has time to defend himself. All this I
say, exalted and esteemed lady, because it seems to me that for us to
remain any longer in this castle now is useless, and may be injurious to
us in a way that we shall find out some day; for who knows but that your
enemy the giant may have learned by means of secret and diligent spies
that I am going to destroy him, and if the opportunity be given him he
may seize it to fortify himself in some impregnable castle or stronghold,
against which all my efforts and the might of my indefatigable arm may
avail but little? Therefore, lady, let us, as I say, forestall his
schemes by our activity, and let us depart at once in quest of fair
fortune; for your highness is only kept from enjoying it as fully as you
could desire by my delay in encountering your adversary."

Don Quixote held his peace and said no more, calmly awaiting the reply of
the beauteous princess, who, with commanding dignity and in a style
adapted to Don Quixote's own, replied to him in these words, "I give you
thanks, sir knight, for the eagerness you, like a good knight to whom it
is a natural obligation to succour the orphan and the needy, display to
afford me aid in my sore trouble; and heaven grant that your wishes and
mine may be realised, so that you may see that there are women in this
world capable of gratitude; as to my departure, let it be forthwith, for
I have no will but yours; dispose of me entirely in accordance with your
good pleasure; for she who has once entrusted to you the defence of her
person, and placed in your hands the recovery of her dominions, must not
think of offering opposition to that which your wisdom may ordain."

"On, then, in God's name," said Don Quixote; "for, when a lady humbles
herself to me, I will not lose the opportunity of raising her up and
placing her on the throne of her ancestors. Let us depart at once, for
the common saying that in delay there is danger, lends spurs to my
eagerness to take the road; and as neither heaven has created nor hell
seen any that can daunt or intimidate me, saddle Rocinante, Sancho, and
get ready thy ass and the queen's palfrey, and let us take leave of the
castellan and these gentlemen, and go hence this very instant."

Sancho, who was standing by all the time, said, shaking his head, "Ah!
master, master, there is more mischief in the village than one hears of,
begging all good bodies' pardon."

"What mischief can there be in any village, or in all the cities of the
world, you booby, that can hurt my reputation?" said Don Quixote.

"If your worship is angry," replied Sancho, "I will hold my tongue and
leave unsaid what as a good squire I am bound to say, and what a good
servant should tell his master."

"Say what thou wilt," returned Don Quixote, "provided thy words be not
meant to work upon my fears; for thou, if thou fearest, art behaving like
thyself; but I like myself, in not fearing."

"It is nothing of the sort, as I am a sinner before God," said Sancho,
"but that I take it to be sure and certain that this lady, who calls
herself queen of the great kingdom of Micomicon, is no more so than my
mother; for, if she was what she says, she would not go rubbing noses
with one that is here every instant and behind every door."

Dorothea turned red at Sancho's words, for the truth was that her husband
Don Fernando had now and then, when the others were not looking, gathered
from her lips some of the reward his love had earned, and Sancho seeing
this had considered that such freedom was more like a courtesan than a
queen of a great kingdom; she, however, being unable or not caring to
answer him, allowed him to proceed, and he continued, "This I say, senor,
because, if after we have travelled roads and highways, and passed bad
nights and worse days, one who is now enjoying himself in this inn is to
reap the fruit of our labours, there is no need for me to be in a hurry
to saddle Rocinante, put the pad on the ass, or get ready the palfrey;
for it will be better for us to stay quiet, and let every jade mind her
spinning, and let us go to dinner."

Good God, what was the indignation of Don Quixote when he heard the
audacious words of his squire! So great was it, that in a voice
inarticulate with rage, with a stammering tongue, and eyes that flashed
living fire, he exclaimed, "Rascally clown, boorish, insolent, and
ignorant, ill-spoken, foul-mouthed, impudent backbiter and slanderer!
Hast thou dared to utter such words in my presence and in that of these
illustrious ladies? Hast thou dared to harbour such gross and shameless
thoughts in thy muddled imagination? Begone from my presence, thou born
monster, storehouse of lies, hoard of untruths, garner of knaveries,
inventor of scandals, publisher of absurdities, enemy of the respect due
to royal personages! Begone, show thyself no more before me under pain of
my wrath;" and so saying he knitted his brows, puffed out his cheeks,
gazed around him, and stamped on the ground violently with his right
foot, showing in every way the rage that was pent up in his heart; and at
his words and furious gestures Sancho was so scared and terrified that he
would have been glad if the earth had opened that instant and swallowed
him, and his only thought was to turn round and make his escape from the
angry presence of his master.

But the ready-witted Dorothea, who by this time so well understood Don
Quixote's humour, said, to mollify his wrath, "Be not irritated at the
absurdities your good squire has uttered, Sir Knight of the Rueful
Countenance, for perhaps he did not utter them without cause, and from
his good sense and Christian conscience it is not likely that he would
bear false witness against anyone. We may therefore believe, without any
hesitation, that since, as you say, sir knight, everything in this castle
goes and is brought about by means of enchantment, Sancho, I say, may
possibly have seen, through this diabolical medium, what he says he saw
so much to the detriment of my modesty."

"I swear by God Omnipotent," exclaimed Don Quixote at this, "your
highness has hit the point; and that some vile illusion must have come
before this sinner of a Sancho, that made him see what it would have been
impossible to see by any other means than enchantments; for I know well
enough, from the poor fellow's goodness and harmlessness, that he is
incapable of bearing false witness against anybody."

"True, no doubt," said Don Fernando, "for which reason, Senor Don
Quixote, you ought to forgive him and restore him to the bosom of your
favour, sicut erat in principio, before illusions of this sort had taken
away his senses."

Don Quixote said he was ready to pardon him, and the curate went for
Sancho, who came in very humbly, and falling on his knees begged for the
hand of his master, who having presented it to him and allowed him to
kiss it, gave him his blessing and said, "Now, Sancho my son, thou wilt
be convinced of the truth of what I have many a time told thee, that
everything in this castle is done by means of enchantment."

"So it is, I believe," said Sancho, "except the affair of the blanket,
which came to pass in reality by ordinary means."

"Believe it not," said Don Quixote, "for had it been so, I would have
avenged thee that instant, or even now; but neither then nor now could I,
nor have I seen anyone upon whom to avenge thy wrong."

They were all eager to know what the affair of the blanket was, and the
landlord gave them a minute account of Sancho's flights, at which they
laughed not a little, and at which Sancho would have been no less out of
countenance had not his master once more assured him it was all
enchantment. For all that his simplicity never reached so high a pitch
that he could persuade himself it was not the plain and simple truth,
without any deception whatever about it, that he had been blanketed by
beings of flesh and blood, and not by visionary and imaginary phantoms,
as his master believed and protested.

The illustrious company had now been two days in the inn; and as it
seemed to them time to depart, they devised a plan so that, without
giving Dorothea and Don Fernando the trouble of going back with Don
Quixote to his village under pretence of restoring Queen Micomicona, the
curate and the barber might carry him away with them as they proposed,
and the curate be able to take his madness in hand at home; and in
pursuance of their plan they arranged with the owner of an oxcart who
happened to be passing that way to carry him after this fashion. They
constructed a kind of cage with wooden bars, large enough to hold Don
Quixote comfortably; and then Don Fernando and his companions, the
servants of Don Luis, and the officers of the Brotherhood, together with
the landlord, by the directions and advice of the curate, covered their
faces and disguised themselves, some in one way, some in another, so as
to appear to Don Quixote quite different from the persons he had seen in
the castle. This done, in profound silence they entered the room where he
was asleep, taking his rest after the past frays, and advancing to
where he was sleeping tranquilly, not dreaming of anything of the kind
happening, they seized him firmly and bound him fast hand and foot, so
that, when he awoke startled, he was unable to move, and could only
marvel and wonder at the strange figures he saw before him; upon which he
at once gave way to the idea which his crazed fancy invariably conjured
up before him, and took it into his head that all these shapes were
phantoms of the enchanted castle, and that he himself was unquestionably
enchanted as he could neither move nor help himself; precisely what the
curate, the concoctor of the scheme, expected would happen. Of all that
were there Sancho was the only one who was at once in his senses and in
his own proper character, and he, though he was within very little of
sharing his master's infirmity, did not fail to perceive who all these
disguised figures were; but he did not dare to open his lips until he saw
what came of this assault and capture of his master; nor did the latter
utter a word, waiting to the upshot of his mishap; which was that
bringing in the cage, they shut him up in it and nailed the bars so
firmly that they could not be easily burst open.

They then took him on their shoulders, and as they passed out of the room
an awful voice--as much so as the barber, not he of the pack-saddle but
the other, was able to make it--was heard to say, "O Knight of the Rueful
Countenance, let not this captivity in which thou art placed afflict
thee, for this must needs be, for the more speedy accomplishment of the
adventure in which thy great heart has engaged thee; the which shall be
accomplished when the raging Manchegan lion and the white Tobosan dove
shall be linked together, having first humbled their haughty necks to the
gentle yoke of matrimony. And from this marvellous union shall come forth
to the light of the world brave whelps that shall rival the ravening
claws of their valiant father; and this shall come to pass ere the
pursuer of the flying nymph shall in his swift natural course have twice
visited the starry signs. And thou, O most noble and obedient squire that
ever bore sword at side, beard on face, or nose to smell with, be not
dismayed or grieved to see the flower of knight-errantry carried away
thus before thy very eyes; for soon, if it so please the Framer of the
universe, thou shalt see thyself exalted to such a height that thou shalt
not know thyself, and the promises which thy good master has made thee
shall not prove false; and I assure thee, on the authority of the sage
Mentironiana, that thy wages shall be paid thee, as thou shalt see in due
season. Follow then the footsteps of the valiant enchanted knight, for it
is expedient that thou shouldst go to the destination assigned to both of
you; and as it is not permitted to me to say more, God be with thee; for
I return to that place I wot of;" and as he brought the prophecy to a
close he raised his voice to a high pitch, and then lowered it to such a
soft tone, that even those who knew it was all a joke were almost
inclined to take what they heard seriously.

Don Quixote was comforted by the prophecy he heard, for he at once
comprehended its meaning perfectly, and perceived it was promised to him
that he should see himself united in holy and lawful matrimony with his
beloved Dulcinea del Toboso, from whose blessed womb should proceed the
whelps, his sons, to the eternal glory of La Mancha; and being thoroughly
and firmly persuaded of this, he lifted up his voice, and with a deep
sigh exclaimed, "Oh thou, whoever thou art, who hast foretold me so much
good, I implore of thee that on my part thou entreat that sage enchanter
who takes charge of my interests, that he leave me not to perish in this
captivity in which they are now carrying me away, ere I see fulfilled
promises so joyful and incomparable as those which have been now made me;
for, let this but come to pass, and I shall glory in the pains of my
prison, find comfort in these chains wherewith they bind me, and regard
this bed whereon they stretch me, not as a hard battle-field, but as a
soft and happy nuptial couch; and touching the consolation of Sancho
Panza, my squire, I rely upon his goodness and rectitude that he will not
desert me in good or evil fortune; for if, by his ill luck or mine, it
may not happen to be in my power to give him the island I have promised,
or any equivalent for it, at least his wages shall not be lost; for in my
will, which is already made, I have declared the sum that shall be paid
to him, measured, not by his many faithful services, but by the means at
my disposal."

Sancho bowed his head very respectfully and kissed both his hands, for,
being tied together, he could not kiss one; and then the apparitions
lifted the cage upon their shoulders and fixed it upon the ox-cart.




CHAPTER XLVII.

OF THE STRANGE MANNER IN WHICH DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA WAS CARRIED AWAY
ENCHANTED, TOGETHER WITH OTHER REMARKABLE INCIDENTS


When Don Quixote saw himself caged and hoisted on the cart in this way,
he said, "Many grave histories of knights-errant have I read; but never
yet have I read, seen, or heard of their carrying off enchanted
knights-errant in this fashion, or at the slow pace that these lazy,
sluggish animals promise; for they always take them away through the air
with marvellous swiftness, enveloped in a dark thick cloud, or on a
chariot of fire, or it may be on some hippogriff or other beast of the
kind; but to carry me off like this on an ox-cart! By God, it puzzles me!
But perhaps the chivalry and enchantments of our day take a different
course from that of those in days gone by; and it may be, too, that as I
am a new knight in the world, and the first to revive the already
forgotten calling of knight-adventurers, they may have newly invented
other kinds of enchantments and other modes of carrying off the
enchanted. What thinkest thou of the matter, Sancho my son?"

"I don't know what to think," answered Sancho, "not being as well read as
your worship in errant writings; but for all that I venture to say and
swear that these apparitions that are about us are not quite catholic."

"Catholic!" said Don Quixote. "Father of me! how can they be Catholic
when they are all devils that have taken fantastic shapes to come and do
this, and bring me to this condition? And if thou wouldst prove it, touch
them, and feel them, and thou wilt find they have only bodies of air, and
no consistency except in appearance."

"By God, master," returned Sancho, "I have touched them already; and that
devil, that goes about there so busily, has firm flesh, and another
property very different from what I have heard say devils have, for by
all accounts they all smell of brimstone and other bad smells; but this
one smells of amber half a league off." Sancho was here speaking of Don
Fernando, who, like a gentleman of his rank, was very likely perfumed as
Sancho said.

"Marvel not at that, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote; "for let me
tell thee devils are crafty; and even if they do carry odours about with
them, they themselves have no smell, because they are spirits; or, if
they have any smell, they cannot smell of anything sweet, but of
something foul and fetid; and the reason is that as they carry hell with
them wherever they go, and can get no ease whatever from their torments,
and as a sweet smell is a thing that gives pleasure and enjoyment, it is
impossible that they can smell sweet; if, then, this devil thou speakest
of seems to thee to smell of amber, either thou art deceiving thyself, or
he wants to deceive thee by making thee fancy he is not a devil."

Such was the conversation that passed between master and man; and Don
Fernando and Cardenio, apprehensive of Sancho's making a complete
discovery of their scheme, towards which he had already gone some way,
resolved to hasten their departure, and calling the landlord aside, they
directed him to saddle Rocinante and put the pack-saddle on Sancho's ass,
which he did with great alacrity. In the meantime the curate had made an
arrangement with the officers that they should bear them company as far
as his village, he paying them so much a day. Cardenio hung the buckler
on one side of the bow of Rocinante's saddle and the basin on the other,
and by signs commanded Sancho to mount his ass and take Rocinante's
bridle, and at each side of the cart he placed two officers with their
muskets; but before the cart was put in motion, out came the landlady and
her daughter and Maritornes to bid Don Quixote farewell, pretending to
weep with grief at his misfortune; and to them Don Quixote said:

"Weep not, good ladies, for all these mishaps are the lot of those who
follow the profession I profess; and if these reverses did not befall me
I should not esteem myself a famous knight-errant; for such things never
happen to knights of little renown and fame, because nobody in the world
thinks about them; to valiant knights they do, for these are envied for
their virtue and valour by many princes and other knights who compass the
destruction of the worthy by base means. Nevertheless, virtue is of
herself so mighty, that, in spite of all the magic that Zoroaster its
first inventor knew, she will come victorious out of every trial, and
shed her light upon the earth as the sun does upon the heavens. Forgive
me, fair ladies, if, through inadvertence, I have in aught offended you;
for intentionally and wittingly I have never done so to any; and pray to
God that he deliver me from this captivity to which some malevolent
enchanter has consigned me; and should I find myself released therefrom,
the favours that ye have bestowed upon me in this castle shall be held in
memory by me, that I may acknowledge, recognise, and requite them as they
deserve."

While this was passing between the ladies of the castle and Don Quixote,
the curate and the barber bade farewell to Don Fernando and his
companions, to the captain, his brother, and the ladies, now all made
happy, and in particular to Dorothea and Luscinda. They all embraced one
another, and promised to let each other know how things went with them,
and Don Fernando directed the curate where to write to him, to tell him
what became of Don Quixote, assuring him that there was nothing that
could give him more pleasure than to hear of it, and that he too, on his
part, would send him word of everything he thought he would like to know,
about his marriage, Zoraida's baptism, Don Luis's affair, and Luscinda's
return to her home. The curate promised to comply with his request
carefully, and they embraced once more, and renewed their promises.

The landlord approached the curate and handed him some papers, saying he
had discovered them in the lining of the valise in which the novel of
"The Ill-advised Curiosity" had been found, and that he might take them
all away with him as their owner had not since returned; for, as he could
not read, he did not want them himself. The curate thanked him, and
opening them he saw at the beginning of the manuscript the words, "Novel
of Rinconete and Cortadillo," by which he perceived that it was a novel,
and as that of "The Ill-advised Curiosity" had been good he concluded
this would be so too, as they were both probably by the same author; so
he kept it, intending to read it when he had an opportunity. He then
mounted and his friend the barber did the same, both masked, so as not to
be recognised by Don Quixote, and set out following in the rear of the
cart. The order of march was this: first went the cart with the owner
leading it; at each side of it marched the officers of the Brotherhood,
as has been said, with their muskets; then followed Sancho Panza on his
ass, leading Rocinante by the bridle; and behind all came the curate and
the barber on their mighty mules, with faces covered, as aforesaid, and a
grave and serious air, measuring their pace to suit the slow steps of the
oxen. Don Quixote was seated in the cage, with his hands tied and his
feet stretched out, leaning against the bars as silent and as patient as
if he were a stone statue and not a man of flesh. Thus slowly and
silently they made, it might be, two leagues, until they reached a valley
which the carter thought a convenient place for resting and feeding his
oxen, and he said so to the curate, but the barber was of opinion that
they ought to push on a little farther, as at the other side of a hill
which appeared close by he knew there was a valley that had more grass
and much better than the one where they proposed to halt; and his advice
was taken and they continued their journey.

Just at that moment the curate, looking back, saw coming on behind them
six or seven mounted men, well found and equipped, who soon overtook
them, for they were travelling, not at the sluggish, deliberate pace of
oxen, but like men who rode canons' mules, and in haste to take their
noontide rest as soon as possible at the inn which was in sight not a
league off. The quick travellers came up with the slow, and courteous
salutations were exchanged; and one of the new comers, who was, in fact,
a canon of Toledo and master of the others who accompanied him, observing
the regular order of the procession, the cart, the officers, Sancho,
Rocinante, the curate and the barber, and above all Don Quixote caged and
confined, could not help asking what was the meaning of carrying the man
in that fashion; though, from the badges of the officers, he already
concluded that he must be some desperate highwayman or other malefactor
whose punishment fell within the jurisdiction of the Holy Brotherhood.
One of the officers to whom he had put the question, replied, "Let the
gentleman himself tell you the meaning of his going this way, senor, for
we do not know."

Don Quixote overheard the conversation and said, "Haply, gentlemen, you
are versed and learned in matters of errant chivalry? Because if you are
I will tell you my misfortunes; if not, there is no good in my giving
myself the trouble of relating them;" but here the curate and the barber,
seeing that the travellers were engaged in conversation with Don Quixote,
came forward, in order to answer in such a way as to save their stratagem
from being discovered.

The canon, replying to Don Quixote, said, "In truth, brother, I know more
about books of chivalry than I do about Villalpando's elements of logic;
so if that be all, you may safely tell me what you please."

"In God's name, then, senor," replied Don Quixote; "if that be so, I
would have you know that I am held enchanted in this cage by the envy and
fraud of wicked enchanters; for virtue is more persecuted by the wicked
than loved by the good. I am a knight-errant, and not one of those whose
names Fame has never thought of immortalising in her record, but of those
who, in defiance and in spite of envy itself, and all the magicians that
Persia, or Brahmans that India, or Gymnosophists that Ethiopia ever
produced, will place their names in the temple of immortality, to serve
as examples and patterns for ages to come, whereby knights-errant may see
the footsteps in which they must tread if they would attain the summit
and crowning point of honour in arms."

"What Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha says," observed the curate, "is the
truth; for he goes enchanted in this cart, not from any fault or sins of
his, but because of the malevolence of those to whom virtue is odious and
valour hateful. This, senor, is the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, if
you have ever heard him named, whose valiant achievements and mighty
deeds shall be written on lasting brass and imperishable marble,
notwithstanding all the efforts of envy to obscure them and malice to
hide them."

When the canon heard both the prisoner and the man who was at liberty
talk in such a strain he was ready to cross himself in his astonishment,
and could not make out what had befallen him; and all his attendants were
in the same state of amazement.

At this point Sancho Panza, who had drawn near to hear the conversation,
said, in order to make everything plain, "Well, sirs, you may like or
dislike what I am going to say, but the fact of the matter is, my master,
Don Quixote, is just as much enchanted as my mother. He is in his full
senses, he eats and he drinks, and he has his calls like other men and as
he had yesterday, before they caged him. And if that's the case, what do
they mean by wanting me to believe that he is enchanted? For I have heard
many a one say that enchanted people neither eat, nor sleep, nor talk;
and my master, if you don't stop him, will talk more than thirty
lawyers." Then turning to the curate he exclaimed, "Ah, senor curate,
senor curate! do you think I don't know you? Do you think I don't guess
and see the drift of these new enchantments? Well then, I can tell you I
know you, for all your face is covered, and I can tell you I am up to
you, however you may hide your tricks. After all, where envy reigns
virtue cannot live, and where there is niggardliness there can be no
liberality. Ill betide the devil! if it had not been for your worship my
master would be married to the Princess Micomicona this minute, and I
should be a count at least; for no less was to be expected, as well from
the goodness of my master, him of the Rueful Countenance, as from the
greatness of my services. But I see now how true it is what they say in
these parts, that the wheel of fortune turns faster than a mill-wheel,
and that those who were up yesterday are down to-day. I am sorry for my
wife and children, for when they might fairly and reasonably expect to
see their father return to them a governor or viceroy of some island or
kingdom, they will see him come back a horse-boy. I have said all this,
senor curate, only to urge your paternity to lay to your conscience your
ill-treatment of my master; and have a care that God does not call you to
account in another life for making a prisoner of him in this way, and
charge against you all the succours and good deeds that my lord Don
Quixote leaves undone while he is shut up.

"Trim those lamps there!" exclaimed the barber at this; "so you are of
the same fraternity as your master, too, Sancho? By God, I begin to see
that you will have to keep him company in the cage, and be enchanted like
him for having caught some of his humour and chivalry. It was an evil
hour when you let yourself be got with child by his promises, and that
island you long so much for found its way into your head."

"I am not with child by anyone," returned Sancho, "nor am I a man to let
myself be got with child, if it was by the King himself. Though I am poor
I am an old Christian, and I owe nothing to nobody, and if I long for an
island, other people long for worse. Each of us is the son of his own
works; and being a man I may come to be pope, not to say governor of an
island, especially as my master may win so many that he will not know
whom to give them to. Mind how you talk, master barber; for shaving is
not everything, and there is some difference between Peter and Peter. I
say this because we all know one another, and it will not do to throw
false dice with me; and as to the enchantment of my master, God knows the
truth; leave it as it is; it only makes it worse to stir it."

The barber did not care to answer Sancho lest by his plain speaking he
should disclose what the curate and he himself were trying so hard to
conceal; and under the same apprehension the curate had asked the canon
to ride on a little in advance, so that he might tell him the mystery of
this man in the cage, and other things that would amuse him. The canon
agreed, and going on ahead with his servants, listened with attention to
the account of the character, life, madness, and ways of Don Quixote,
given him by the curate, who described to him briefly the beginning and
origin of his craze, and told him the whole story of his adventures up to
his being confined in the cage, together with the plan they had of taking
him home to try if by any means they could discover a cure for his
madness. The canon and his servants were surprised anew when they heard
Don Quixote's strange story, and when it was finished he said, "To tell
the truth, senor curate, I for my part consider what they call books of
chivalry to be mischievous to the State; and though, led by idle and
false taste, I have read the beginnings of almost all that have been
printed, I never could manage to read any one of them from beginning to
end; for it seems to me they are all more or less the same thing; and one
has nothing more in it than another; this no more than that. And in my
opinion this sort of writing and composition is of the same species as
the fables they call the Milesian, nonsensical tales that aim solely at
giving amusement and not instruction, exactly the opposite of the
apologue fables which amuse and instruct at the same time. And though it
may be the chief object of such books to amuse, I do not know how they
can succeed, when they are so full of such monstrous nonsense. For the
enjoyment the mind feels must come from the beauty and harmony which it
perceives or contemplates in the things that the eye or the imagination
brings before it; and nothing that has any ugliness or disproportion
about it can give any pleasure. What beauty, then, or what proportion of
the parts to the whole, or of the whole to the parts, can there be in a
book or fable where a lad of sixteen cuts down a giant as tall as a tower
and makes two halves of him as if he was an almond cake? And when they
want to give us a picture of a battle, after having told us that there
are a million of combatants on the side of the enemy, let the hero of the
book be opposed to them, and we have perforce to believe, whether we like
it or not, that the said knight wins the victory by the single might of
his strong arm. And then, what shall we say of the facility with which a
born queen or empress will give herself over into the arms of some
unknown wandering knight? What mind, that is not wholly barbarous and
uncultured, can find pleasure in reading of how a great tower full of
knights sails away across the sea like a ship with a fair wind, and will
be to-night in Lombardy and to-morrow morning in the land of Prester John
of the Indies, or some other that Ptolemy never described nor Marco Polo
saw? And if, in answer to this, I am told that the authors of books of
the kind write them as fiction, and therefore are not bound to regard
niceties of truth, I would reply that fiction is all the better the more
it looks like truth, and gives the more pleasure the more probability and
possibility there is about it. Plots in fiction should be wedded to the
understanding of the reader, and be constructed in such a way that,
reconciling impossibilities, smoothing over difficulties, keeping the
mind on the alert, they may surprise, interest, divert, and entertain, so
that wonder and delight joined may keep pace one with the other; all
which he will fail to effect who shuns verisimilitude and truth to
nature, wherein lies the perfection of writing. I have never yet seen any
book of chivalry that puts together a connected plot complete in all its
numbers, so that the middle agrees with the beginning, and the end with
the beginning and middle; on the contrary, they construct them with such
a multitude of members that it seems as though they meant to produce a
chimera or monster rather than a well-proportioned figure. And besides
all this they are harsh in their style, incredible in their achievements,
licentious in their amours, uncouth in their courtly speeches, prolix in
their battles, silly in their arguments, absurd in their travels, and, in
short, wanting in everything like intelligent art; for which reason they
deserve to be banished from the Christian commonwealth as a worthless
breed."

The curate listened to him attentively and felt that he was a man of
sound understanding, and that there was good reason in what he said; so
he told him that, being of the same opinion himself, and bearing a grudge
to books of chivalry, he had burned all Don Quixote's, which were many;
and gave him an account of the scrutiny he had made of them, and of those
he had condemned to the flames and those he had spared, with which the
canon was not a little amused, adding that though he had said so much in
condemnation of these books, still he found one good thing in them, and
that was the opportunity they afforded to a gifted intellect for
displaying itself; for they presented a wide and spacious field over
which the pen might range freely, describing shipwrecks, tempests,
combats, battles, portraying a valiant captain with all the
qualifications requisite to make one, showing him sagacious in foreseeing
the wiles of the enemy, eloquent in speech to encourage or restrain his
soldiers, ripe in counsel, rapid in resolve, as bold in biding his time
as in pressing the attack; now picturing some sad tragic incident, now
some joyful and unexpected event; here a beauteous lady, virtuous, wise,
and modest; there a Christian knight, brave and gentle; here a lawless,
barbarous braggart; there a courteous prince, gallant and gracious;
setting forth the devotion and loyalty of vassals, the greatness and
generosity of nobles. "Or again," said he, "the author may show himself
to be an astronomer, or a skilled cosmographer, or musician, or one
versed in affairs of state, and sometimes he will have a chance of coming
forward as a magician if he likes. He can set forth the craftiness of
Ulysses, the piety of AEneas, the valour of Achilles, the misfortunes of
Hector, the treachery of Sinon, the friendship of Euryalus, the
generosity of Alexander, the boldness of Caesar, the clemency and truth
of Trajan, the fidelity of Zopyrus, the wisdom of Cato, and in short all
the faculties that serve to make an illustrious man perfect, now uniting
them in one individual, again distributing them among many; and if this
be done with charm of style and ingenious invention, aiming at the truth
as much as possible, he will assuredly weave a web of bright and varied
threads that, when finished, will display such perfection and beauty that
it will attain the worthiest object any writing can seek, which, as I
said before, is to give instruction and pleasure combined; for the
unrestricted range of these books enables the author to show his powers,
epic, lyric, tragic, or comic, and all the moods the sweet and winning
arts of poesy and oratory are capable of; for the epic may be written in
prose just as well as in verse."




CHAPTER XLVIII.

IN WHICH THE CANON PURSUES THE SUBJECT OF THE BOOKS OF CHIVALRY, WITH
OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF HIS WIT


"It is as you say, senor canon," said the curate; "and for that reason
those who have hitherto written books of the sort deserve all the more
censure for writing without paying any attention to good taste or the
rules of art, by which they might guide themselves and become as famous
in prose as the two princes of Greek and Latin poetry are in verse."

"I myself, at any rate," said the canon, "was once tempted to write a
book of chivalry in which all the points I have mentioned were to be
observed; and if I must own the truth I have more than a hundred sheets
written; and to try if it came up to my own opinion of it, I showed them
to persons who were fond of this kind of reading, to learned and
intelligent men as well as to ignorant people who cared for nothing but
the pleasure of listening to nonsense, and from all I obtained flattering
approval; nevertheless I proceeded no farther with it, as well because it
seemed to me an occupation inconsistent with my profession, as because I
perceived that the fools are more numerous than the wise; and, though it
is better to be praised by the wise few than applauded by the foolish
many, I have no mind to submit myself to the stupid judgment of the silly
public, to whom the reading of such books falls for the most part.

"But what most of all made me hold my hand and even abandon all idea of
finishing it was an argument I put to myself taken from the plays that
are acted now-a-days, which was in this wise: if those that are now in
vogue, as well those that are pure invention as those founded on history,
are, all or most of them, downright nonsense and things that have neither
head nor tail, and yet the public listens to them with delight, and
regards and cries them up as perfection when they are so far from it; and
if the authors who write them, and the players who act them, say that
this is what they must be, for the public wants this and will have
nothing else; and that those that go by rule and work out a plot
according to the laws of art will only find some half-dozen intelligent
people to understand them, while all the rest remain blind to the merit
of their composition; and that for themselves it is better to get bread
from the many than praise from the few; then my book will fare the same
way, after I have burnt off my eyebrows in trying to observe the
principles I have spoken of, and I shall be 'the tailor of the corner.'
And though I have sometimes endeavoured to convince actors that they are
mistaken in this notion they have adopted, and that they would attract
more people, and get more credit, by producing plays in accordance with
the rules of art, than by absurd ones, they are so thoroughly wedded to
their own opinion that no argument or evidence can wean them from it.

"I remember saying one day to one of these obstinate fellows, 'Tell me,
do you not recollect that a few years ago, there were three tragedies
acted in Spain, written by a famous poet of these kingdoms, which were
such that they filled all who heard them with admiration, delight, and
interest, the ignorant as well as the wise, the masses as well as the
higher orders, and brought in more money to the performers, these three
alone, than thirty of the best that have been since produced?'

"'No doubt,' replied the actor in question, 'you mean the "Isabella," the
"Phyllis," and the "Alexandra."'

"'Those are the ones I mean,' said I; 'and see if they did not observe
the principles of art, and if, by observing them, they failed to show
their superiority and please all the world; so that the fault does not
lie with the public that insists upon nonsense, but with those who don't
know how to produce something else. "The Ingratitude Revenged" was not
nonsense, nor was there any in "The Numantia," nor any to be found in
"The Merchant Lover," nor yet in "The Friendly Fair Foe," nor in some
others that have been written by certain gifted poets, to their own fame
and renown, and to the profit of those that brought them out;' some
further remarks I added to these, with which, I think, I left him rather
dumbfoundered, but not so satisfied or convinced that I could disabuse
him of his error."

"You have touched upon a subject, senor canon," observed the curate here,
"that has awakened an old enmity I have against the plays in vogue at the
present day, quite as strong as that which I bear to the books of
chivalry; for while the drama, according to Tully, should be the mirror
of human life, the model of manners, and the image of the truth, those
which are presented now-a-days are mirrors of nonsense, models of folly,
and images of lewdness. For what greater nonsense can there be in
connection with what we are now discussing than for an infant to appear
in swaddling clothes in the first scene of the first act, and in the
second a grown-up bearded man? Or what greater absurdity can there be
than putting before us an old man as a swashbuckler, a young man as a
poltroon, a lackey using fine language, a page giving sage advice, a king
plying as a porter, a princess who is a kitchen-maid? And then what shall
I say of their attention to the time in which the action they represent
may or can take place, save that I have seen a play where the first act
began in Europe, the second in Asia, the third finished in Africa, and no
doubt, had it been in four acts, the fourth would have ended in America,
and so it would have been laid in all four quarters of the globe? And if
truth to life is the main thing the drama should keep in view, how is it
possible for any average understanding to be satisfied when the action is
supposed to pass in the time of King Pepin or Charlemagne, and the
principal personage in it they represent to be the Emperor Heraclius who
entered Jerusalem with the cross and won the Holy Sepulchre, like Godfrey
of Bouillon, there being years innumerable between the one and the other?
or, if the play is based on fiction and historical facts are introduced,
or bits of what occurred to different people and at different times mixed
up with it, all, not only without any semblance of probability, but with
obvious errors that from every point of view are inexcusable? And the
worst of it is, there are ignorant people who say that this is
perfection, and that anything beyond this is affected refinement. And
then if we turn to sacred dramas--what miracles they invent in them! What
apocryphal, ill-devised incidents, attributing to one saint the miracles
of another! And even in secular plays they venture to introduce miracles
without any reason or object except that they think some such miracle, or
transformation as they call it, will come in well to astonish stupid
people and draw them to the play. All this tends to the prejudice of the
truth and the corruption of history, nay more, to the reproach of the
wits of Spain; for foreigners who scrupulously observe the laws of the
drama look upon us as barbarous and ignorant, when they see the absurdity
and nonsense of the plays we produce. Nor will it be a sufficient excuse
to say that the chief object well-ordered governments have in view when
they permit plays to be performed in public is to entertain the people
with some harmless amusement occasionally, and keep it from those evil
humours which idleness is apt to engender; and that, as this may be
attained by any sort of play, good or bad, there is no need to lay down
laws, or bind those who write or act them to make them as they ought to
be made, since, as I say, the object sought for may be secured by any
sort. To this I would reply that the same end would be, beyond all
comparison, better attained by means of good plays than by those that are
not so; for after listening to an artistic and properly constructed play,
the hearer will come away enlivened by the jests, instructed by the
serious parts, full of admiration at the incidents, his wits sharpened by
the arguments, warned by the tricks, all the wiser for the examples,
inflamed against vice, and in love with virtue; for in all these ways a
good play will stimulate the mind of the hearer be he ever so boorish or
dull; and of all impossibilities the greatest is that a play endowed with
all these qualities will not entertain, satisfy, and please much more
than one wanting in them, like the greater number of those which are
commonly acted now-a-days. Nor are the poets who write them to be blamed
for this; for some there are among them who are perfectly well aware of
their faults, and know what they ought to do; but as plays have become a
salable commodity, they say, and with truth, that the actors will not buy
them unless they are after this fashion; and so the poet tries to adapt
himself to the requirements of the actor who is to pay him for his work.
And that this is the truth may be seen by the countless plays that a most
fertile wit of these kingdoms has written, with so much brilliancy, so
much grace and gaiety, such polished versification, such choice language,
such profound reflections, and in a word, so rich in eloquence and
elevation of style, that he has filled the world with his fame; and yet,
in consequence of his desire to suit the taste of the actors, they have
not all, as some of them have, come as near perfection as they ought.
Others write plays with such heedlessness that, after they have been
acted, the actors have to fly and abscond, afraid of being punished, as
they often have been, for having acted something offensive to some king
or other, or insulting to some noble family. All which evils, and many
more that I say nothing of, would be removed if there were some
intelligent and sensible person at the capital to examine all plays
before they were acted, not only those produced in the capital itself,
but all that were intended to be acted in Spain; without whose approval,
seal, and signature, no local magistracy should allow any play to be
acted. In that case actors would take care to send their plays to the
capital, and could act them in safety, and those who write them would be
more careful and take more pains with their work, standing in awe of
having to submit it to the strict examination of one who understood the
matter; and so good plays would be produced and the objects they aim at
happily attained; as well the amusement of the people, as the credit of
the wits of Spain, the interest and safety of the actors, and the saving
of trouble in inflicting punishment on them. And if the same or some
other person were authorised to examine the newly written books of
chivalry, no doubt some would appear with all the perfections you have
described, enriching our language with the gracious and precious treasure
of eloquence, and driving the old books into obscurity before the light
of the new ones that would come out for the harmless entertainment, not
merely of the idle but of the very busiest; for the bow cannot be always
bent, nor can weak human nature exist without some lawful amusement."

The canon and the curate had proceeded thus far with their conversation,
when the barber, coming forward, joined them, and said to the curate,
"This is the spot, senor licentiate, that I said was a good one for fresh
and plentiful pasture for the oxen, while we take our noontide rest."

"And so it seems," returned the curate, and he told the canon what he
proposed to do, on which he too made up his mind to halt with them,
attracted by the aspect of the fair valley that lay before their eyes;
and to enjoy it as well as the conversation of the curate, to whom he had
begun to take a fancy, and also to learn more particulars about the
doings of Don Quixote, he desired some of his servants to go on to the
inn, which was not far distant, and fetch from it what eatables there
might be for the whole party, as he meant to rest for the afternoon where
he was; to which one of his servants replied that the sumpter mule, which
by this time ought to have reached the inn, carried provisions enough to
make it unnecessary to get anything from the inn except barley.

"In that case," said the canon, "take all the beasts there, and bring the
sumpter mule back."

While this was going on, Sancho, perceiving that he could speak to his
master without having the curate and the barber, of whom he had his
suspicions, present all the time, approached the cage in which Don
Quixote was placed, and said, "Senor, to ease my conscience I want to
tell you the state of the case as to your enchantment, and that is that
these two here, with their faces covered, are the curate of our village
and the barber; and I suspect they have hit upon this plan of carrying
you off in this fashion, out of pure envy because your worship surpasses
them in doing famous deeds; and if this be the truth it follows that you
are not enchanted, but hoodwinked and made a fool of. And to prove this I
want to ask you one thing; and if you answer me as I believe you will
answer, you will be able to lay your finger on the trick, and you will
see that you are not enchanted but gone wrong in your wits."

"Ask what thou wilt, Sancho my son," returned Don Quixote, "for I will
satisfy thee and answer all thou requirest. As to what thou sayest, that
these who accompany us yonder are the curate and the barber, our
neighbours and acquaintances, it is very possible that they may seem to
be those same persons; but that they are so in reality and in fact,
believe it not on any account; what thou art to believe and think is
that, if they look like them, as thou sayest, it must be that those who
have enchanted me have taken this shape and likeness; for it is easy for
enchanters to take any form they please, and they may have taken those of
our friends in order to make thee think as thou dost, and lead thee into
a labyrinth of fancies from which thou wilt find no escape though thou
hadst the cord of Theseus; and they may also have done it to make me
uncertain in my mind, and unable to conjecture whence this evil comes to
me; for if on the one hand thou dost tell me that the barber and curate
of our village are here in company with us, and on the other I find
myself shut up in a cage, and know in my heart that no power on earth
that was not supernatural would have been able to shut me in, what
wouldst thou have me say or think, but that my enchantment is of a sort
that transcends all I have ever read of in all the histories that deal
with knights-errant that have been enchanted? So thou mayest set thy mind
at rest as to the idea that they are what thou sayest, for they are as
much so as I am a Turk. But touching thy desire to ask me something, say
on, and I will answer thee, though thou shouldst ask questions from this
till to-morrow morning."

"May Our Lady be good to me!" said Sancho, lifting up his voice; "and is
it possible that your worship is so thick of skull and so short of brains
that you cannot see that what I say is the simple truth, and that malice
has more to do with your imprisonment and misfortune than enchantment?
But as it is so, I will prove plainly to you that you are not enchanted.
Now tell me, so may God deliver you from this affliction, and so may you
find yourself when you least expect it in the arms of my lady Dulcinea-"

"Leave off conjuring me," said Don Quixote, "and ask what thou wouldst
know; I have already told thee I will answer with all possible
precision."

"That is what I want," said Sancho; "and what I would know, and have you
tell me, without adding or leaving out anything, but telling the whole
truth as one expects it to be told, and as it is told, by all who profess
arms, as your worship professes them, under the title of knights-errant-"

"I tell thee I will not lie in any particular," said Don Quixote; "finish
thy question; for in truth thou weariest me with all these asseverations,
requirements, and precautions, Sancho."

"Well, I rely on the goodness and truth of my master," said Sancho; "and
so, because it bears upon what we are talking about, I would ask,
speaking with all reverence, whether since your worship has been shut up
and, as you think, enchanted in this cage, you have felt any desire or
inclination to go anywhere, as the saying is?"

"I do not understand 'going anywhere,'" said Don Quixote; "explain
thyself more clearly, Sancho, if thou wouldst have me give an answer to
the point."

"Is it possible," said Sancho, "that your worship does not understand
'going anywhere'? Why, the schoolboys know that from the time they were
babes. Well then, you must know I mean have you had any desire to do what
cannot be avoided?"

"Ah! now I understand thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "yes, often, and
even this minute; get me out of this strait, or all will not go right."




CHAPTER XLIX.

WHICH TREATS OF THE SHREWD CONVERSATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HELD WITH HIS
MASTER DON QUIXOTE


"Aha, I have caught you," said Sancho; "this is what in my heart and soul
I was longing to know. Come now, senor, can you deny what is commonly
said around us, when a person is out of humour, 'I don't know what ails
so-and-so, that he neither eats, nor drinks, nor sleeps, nor gives a
proper answer to any question; one would think he was enchanted'? From
which it is to be gathered that those who do not eat, or drink, or sleep,
or do any of the natural acts I am speaking of-that such persons are
enchanted; but not those that have the desire your worship has, and drink
when drink is given them, and eat when there is anything to eat, and
answer every question that is asked them."

"What thou sayest is true, Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "but I have
already told thee there are many sorts of enchantments, and it may be
that in the course of time they have been changed one for another, and
that now it may be the way with enchanted people to do all that I do,
though they did not do so before; so it is vain to argue or draw
inferences against the usage of the time. I know and feel that I am
enchanted, and that is enough to ease my conscience; for it would weigh
heavily on it if I thought that I was not enchanted, and that in a
faint-hearted and cowardly way I allowed myself to lie in this cage,
defrauding multitudes of the succour I might afford to those in need and
distress, who at this very moment may be in sore want of my aid and
protection."

"Still for all that," replied Sancho, "I say that, for your greater and
fuller satisfaction, it would be well if your worship were to try to get
out of this prison (and I promise to do all in my power to help, and even
to take you out of it), and see if you could once more mount your good
Rocinante, who seems to be enchanted too, he is so melancholy and
dejected; and then we might try our chance in looking for adventures
again; and if we have no luck there will be time enough to go back to the
cage; in which, on the faith of a good and loyal squire, I promise to
shut myself up along with your worship, if so be you are so unfortunate,
or I so stupid, as not to be able to carry out my plan."

"I am content to do as thou sayest, brother Sancho," said Don Quixote,
"and when thou seest an opportunity for effecting my release I will obey
thee absolutely; but thou wilt see, Sancho, how mistaken thou art in thy
conception of my misfortune."

The knight-errant and the ill-errant squire kept up their conversation
till they reached the place where the curate, the canon, and the barber,
who had already dismounted, were waiting for them. The carter at once
unyoked the oxen and left them to roam at large about the pleasant green
spot, the freshness of which seemed to invite, not enchanted people like
Don Quixote, but wide-awake, sensible folk like his squire, who begged
the curate to allow his master to leave the cage for a little; for if
they did not let him out, the prison might not be as clean as the
propriety of such a gentleman as his master required. The curate
understood him, and said he would very gladly comply with his request,
only that he feared his master, finding himself at liberty, would take to
his old courses and make off where nobody could ever find him again.

"I will answer for his not running away," said Sancho.

"And I also," said the canon, "especially if he gives me his word as a
knight not to leave us without our consent."

Don Quixote, who was listening to all this, said, "I give it;-moreover
one who is enchanted as I am cannot do as he likes with himself; for he
who had enchanted him could prevent his moving from one place for three
ages, and if he attempted to escape would bring him back flying."--And
that being so, they might as well release him, particularly as it would
be to the advantage of all; for, if they did not let him out, he
protested he would be unable to avoid offending their nostrils unless
they kept their distance.

The canon took his hand, tied together as they both were, and on his word
and promise they unbound him, and rejoiced beyond measure he was to find
himself out of the cage. The first thing he did was to stretch himself
all over, and then he went to where Rocinante was standing and giving him
a couple of slaps on the haunches said, "I still trust in God and in his
blessed mother, O flower and mirror of steeds, that we shall soon see
ourselves, both of us, as we wish to be, thou with thy master on thy
back, and I mounted upon thee, following the calling for which God sent
me into the world." And so saying, accompanied by Sancho, he withdrew to
a retired spot, from which he came back much relieved and more eager than
ever to put his squire's scheme into execution.

The canon gazed at him, wondering at the extraordinary nature of his
madness, and that in all his remarks and replies he should show such
excellent sense, and only lose his stirrups, as has been already said,
when the subject of chivalry was broached. And so, moved by compassion,
he said to him, as they all sat on the green grass awaiting the arrival
of the provisions:

"Is it possible, gentle sir, that the nauseous and idle reading of books
of chivalry can have had such an effect on your worship as to upset your
reason so that you fancy yourself enchanted, and the like, all as far
from the truth as falsehood itself is? How can there be any human
understanding that can persuade itself there ever was all that infinity
of Amadises in the world, or all that multitude of famous knights, all
those emperors of Trebizond, all those Felixmartes of Hircania, all those
palfreys, and damsels-errant, and serpents, and monsters, and giants, and
marvellous adventures, and enchantments of every kind, and battles, and
prodigious encounters, splendid costumes, love-sick princesses, squires
made counts, droll dwarfs, love letters, billings and cooings,
swashbuckler women, and, in a word, all that nonsense the books of
chivalry contain? For myself, I can only say that when I read them, so
long as I do not stop to think that they are all lies and frivolity, they
give me a certain amount of pleasure; but when I come to consider what
they are, I fling the very best of them at the wall, and would fling it
into the fire if there were one at hand, as richly deserving such
punishment as cheats and impostors out of the range of ordinary
toleration, and as founders of new sects and modes of life, and teachers
that lead the ignorant public to believe and accept as truth all the
folly they contain. And such is their audacity, they even dare to
unsettle the wits of gentlemen of birth and intelligence, as is shown
plainly by the way they have served your worship, when they have brought
you to such a pass that you have to be shut up in a cage and carried on
an ox-cart as one would carry a lion or a tiger from place to place to
make money by showing it. Come, Senor Don Quixote, have some compassion
for yourself, return to the bosom of common sense, and make use of the
liberal share of it that heaven has been pleased to bestow upon you,
employing your abundant gifts of mind in some other reading that may
serve to benefit your conscience and add to your honour. And if, still
led away by your natural bent, you desire to read books of achievements
and of chivalry, read the Book of Judges in the Holy Scriptures, for
there you will find grand reality, and deeds as true as they are heroic.
Lusitania had a Viriatus, Rome a Caesar, Carthage a Hannibal, Greece an
Alexander, Castile a Count Fernan Gonzalez, Valencia a Cid, Andalusia a
Gonzalo Fernandez, Estremadura a Diego Garcia de Paredes, Jerez a Garci
Perez de Vargas, Toledo a Garcilaso, Seville a Don Manuel de Leon, to
read of whose valiant deeds will entertain and instruct the loftiest
minds and fill them with delight and wonder. Here, Senor Don Quixote,
will be reading worthy of your sound understanding; from which you will
rise learned in history, in love with virtue, strengthened in goodness,
improved in manners, brave without rashness, prudent without cowardice;
and all to the honour of God, your own advantage and the glory of La
Mancha, whence, I am informed, your worship derives your birth."

Don Quixote listened with the greatest attention to the canon's words,
and when he found he had finished, after regarding him for some time, he
replied to him:

"It appears to me, gentle sir, that your worship's discourse is intended
to persuade me that there never were any knights-errant in the world, and
that all the books of chivalry are false, lying, mischievous and useless
to the State, and that I have done wrong in reading them, and worse in
believing them, and still worse in imitating them, when I undertook to
follow the arduous calling of knight-errantry which they set forth; for
you deny that there ever were Amadises of Gaul or of Greece, or any other
of the knights of whom the books are full."

"It is all exactly as you state it," said the canon; to which Don Quixote
returned, "You also went on to say that books of this kind had done me
much harm, inasmuch as they had upset my senses, and shut me up in a
cage, and that it would be better for me to reform and change my studies,
and read other truer books which would afford more pleasure and
instruction."

"Just so," said the canon.

"Well then," returned Don Quixote, "to my mind it is you who are the one
that is out of his wits and enchanted, as you have ventured to utter such
blasphemies against a thing so universally acknowledged and accepted as
true that whoever denies it, as you do, deserves the same punishment
which you say you inflict on the books that irritate you when you read
them. For to try to persuade anybody that Amadis, and all the other
knights-adventurers with whom the books are filled, never existed, would
be like trying to persuade him that the sun does not yield light, or ice
cold, or earth nourishment. What wit in the world can persuade another
that the story of the Princess Floripes and Guy of Burgundy is not true,
or that of Fierabras and the bridge of Mantible, which happened in the
time of Charlemagne? For by all that is good it is as true as that it is
daylight now; and if it be a lie, it must be a lie too that there was a
Hector, or Achilles, or Trojan war, or Twelve Peers of France, or Arthur
of England, who still lives changed into a raven, and is unceasingly
looked for in his kingdom. One might just as well try to make out that
the history of Guarino Mezquino, or of the quest of the Holy Grail, is
false, or that the loves of Tristram and the Queen Yseult are apocryphal,
as well as those of Guinevere and Lancelot, when there are persons who
can almost remember having seen the Dame Quintanona, who was the best
cupbearer in Great Britain. And so true is this, that I recollect a
grandmother of mine on the father's side, whenever she saw any dame in a
venerable hood, used to say to me, 'Grandson, that one is like Dame
Quintanona,' from which I conclude that she must have known her, or at
least had managed to see some portrait of her. Then who can deny that the
story of Pierres and the fair Magalona is true, when even to this day may
be seen in the king's armoury the pin with which the valiant Pierres
guided the wooden horse he rode through the air, and it is a trifle
bigger than the pole of a cart? And alongside of the pin is Babieca's
saddle, and at Roncesvalles there is Roland's horn, as large as a large
beam; whence we may infer that there were Twelve Peers, and a Pierres,
and a Cid, and other knights like them, of the sort people commonly call
adventurers. Or perhaps I shall be told, too, that there was no such
knight-errant as the valiant Lusitanian Juan de Merlo, who went to
Burgundy and in the city of Arras fought with the famous lord of Charny,
Mosen Pierres by name, and afterwards in the city of Basle with Mosen
Enrique de Remesten, coming out of both encounters covered with fame and
honour; or adventures and challenges achieved and delivered, also in
Burgundy, by the valiant Spaniards Pedro Barba and Gutierre Quixada (of
whose family I come in the direct male line), when they vanquished the
sons of the Count of San Polo. I shall be told, too, that Don Fernando de
Guevara did not go in quest of adventures to Germany, where he engaged in
combat with Micer George, a knight of the house of the Duke of Austria. I
shall be told that the jousts of Suero de Quinones, him of the 'Paso,'
and the emprise of Mosen Luis de Falces against the Castilian knight, Don
Gonzalo de Guzman, were mere mockeries; as well as many other
achievements of Christian knights of these and foreign realms, which are
so authentic and true, that, I repeat, he who denies them must be totally
wanting in reason and good sense."

The canon was amazed to hear the medley of truth and fiction Don Quixote
uttered, and to see how well acquainted he was with everything relating
or belonging to the achievements of his knight-errantry; so he said in
reply:

"I cannot deny, Senor Don Quixote, that there is some truth in what you
say, especially as regards the Spanish knights-errant; and I am willing
to grant too that the Twelve Peers of France existed, but I am not
disposed to believe that they did all the things that the Archbishop
Turpin relates of them. For the truth of the matter is they were knights
chosen by the kings of France, and called 'Peers' because they were all
equal in worth, rank and prowess (at least if they were not they ought to
have been), and it was a kind of religious order like those of Santiago
and Calatrava in the present day, in which it is assumed that those who
take it are valiant knights of distinction and good birth; and just as we
say now a Knight of St. John, or of Alcantara, they used to say then a
Knight of the Twelve Peers, because twelve equals were chosen for that
military order. That there was a Cid, as well as a Bernardo del Carpio,
there can be no doubt; but that they did the deeds people say they did, I
hold to be very doubtful. In that other matter of the pin of Count
Pierres that you speak of, and say is near Babieca's saddle in the
Armoury, I confess my sin; for I am either so stupid or so short-sighted,
that, though I have seen the saddle, I have never been able to see the
pin, in spite of it being as big as your worship says it is."

"For all that it is there, without any manner of doubt," said Don
Quixote; "and more by token they say it is inclosed in a sheath of
cowhide to keep it from rusting."

"All that may be," replied the canon; "but, by the orders I have
received, I do not remember seeing it. However, granting it is there,
that is no reason why I am bound to believe the stories of all those
Amadises and of all that multitude of knights they tell us about, nor is
it reasonable that a man like your worship, so worthy, and with so many
good qualities, and endowed with such a good understanding, should allow
himself to be persuaded that such wild crazy things as are written in
those absurd books of chivalry are really true."




CHAPTER L.

OF THE SHREWD CONTROVERSY WHICH DON QUIXOTE AND THE CANON HELD, TOGETHER
WITH OTHER INCIDENTS


"A good joke, that!" returned Don Quixote. "Books that have been printed
with the king's licence, and with the approbation of those to whom they
have been submitted, and read with universal delight, and extolled by
great and small, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, gentle and simple,
in a word by people of every sort, of whatever rank or condition they may
be--that these should be lies! And above all when they carry such an
appearance of truth with them; for they tell us the father, mother,
country, kindred, age, place, and the achievements, step by step, and day
by day, performed by such a knight or knights! Hush, sir; utter not such
blasphemy; trust me I am advising you now to act as a sensible man
should; only read them, and you will see the pleasure you will derive
from them. For, come, tell me, can there be anything more delightful than
to see, as it were, here now displayed before us a vast lake of bubbling
pitch with a host of snakes and serpents and lizards, and ferocious and
terrible creatures of all sorts swimming about in it, while from the
middle of the lake there comes a plaintive voice saying: 'Knight,
whosoever thou art who beholdest this dread lake, if thou wouldst win the
prize that lies hidden beneath these dusky waves, prove the valour of thy
stout heart and cast thyself into the midst of its dark burning waters,
else thou shalt not be worthy to see the mighty wonders contained in the
seven castles of the seven Fays that lie beneath this black expanse;' and
then the knight, almost ere the awful voice has ceased, without stopping
to consider, without pausing to reflect upon the danger to which he is
exposing himself, without even relieving himself of the weight of his
massive armour, commending himself to God and to his lady, plunges into
the midst of the boiling lake, and when he little looks for it, or knows
what his fate is to be, he finds himself among flowery meadows, with
which the Elysian fields are not to be compared.

"The sky seems more transparent there, and the sun shines with a strange
brilliancy, and a delightful grove of green leafy trees presents itself
to the eyes and charms the sight with its verdure, while the ear is
soothed by the sweet untutored melody of the countless birds of gay
plumage that flit to and fro among the interlacing branches. Here he sees
a brook whose limpid waters, like liquid crystal, ripple over fine sands
and white pebbles that look like sifted gold and purest pearls. There he
perceives a cunningly wrought fountain of many-coloured jasper and
polished marble; here another of rustic fashion where the little
mussel-shells and the spiral white and yellow mansions of the snail
disposed in studious disorder, mingled with fragments of glittering
crystal and mock emeralds, make up a work of varied aspect, where art,
imitating nature, seems to have outdone it.

"Suddenly there is presented to his sight a strong castle or gorgeous
palace with walls of massy gold, turrets of diamond and gates of jacinth;
in short, so marvellous is its structure that though the materials of
which it is built are nothing less than diamonds, carbuncles, rubies,
pearls, gold, and emeralds, the workmanship is still more rare. And after
having seen all this, what can be more charming than to see how a bevy of
damsels comes forth from the gate of the castle in gay and gorgeous
attire, such that, were I to set myself now to depict it as the histories
describe it to us, I should never have done; and then how she who seems
to be the first among them all takes the bold knight who plunged into the
boiling lake by the hand, and without addressing a word to him leads him
into the rich palace or castle, and strips him as naked as when his
mother bore him, and bathes him in lukewarm water, and anoints him all
over with sweet-smelling unguents, and clothes him in a shirt of the
softest sendal, all scented and perfumed, while another damsel comes and
throws over his shoulders a mantle which is said to be worth at the very
least a city, and even more? How charming it is, then, when they tell us
how, after all this, they lead him to another chamber where he finds the
tables set out in such style that he is filled with amazement and wonder;
to see how they pour out water for his hands distilled from amber and
sweet-scented flowers; how they seat him on an ivory chair; to see how
the damsels wait on him all in profound silence; how they bring him such
a variety of dainties so temptingly prepared that the appetite is at a
loss which to select; to hear the music that resounds while he is at
table, by whom or whence produced he knows not. And then when the repast
is over and the tables removed, for the knight to recline in the chair,
picking his teeth perhaps as usual, and a damsel, much lovelier than any
of the others, to enter unexpectedly by the chamber door, and herself by
his side, and begin to tell him what the castle is, and how she is held
enchanted there, and other things that amaze the knight and astonish the
readers who are perusing his history.

"But I will not expatiate any further upon this, as it may be gathered
from it that whatever part of whatever history of a knight-errant one
reads, it will fill the reader, whoever he be, with delight and wonder;
and take my advice, sir, and, as I said before, read these books and you
will see how they will banish any melancholy you may feel and raise your
spirits should they be depressed. For myself I can say that since I have
been a knight-errant I have become valiant, polite, generous, well-bred,
magnanimous, courteous, dauntless, gentle, patient, and have learned to
bear hardships, imprisonments, and enchantments; and though it be such a
short time since I have seen myself shut up in a cage like a madman, I
hope by the might of my arm, if heaven aid me and fortune thwart me not,
to see myself king of some kingdom where I may be able to show the
gratitude and generosity that dwell in my heart; for by my faith, senor,
the poor man is incapacitated from showing the virtue of generosity to
anyone, though he may possess it in the highest degree; and gratitude
that consists of disposition only is a dead thing, just as faith without
works is dead. For this reason I should be glad were fortune soon to
offer me some opportunity of making myself an emperor, so as to show my
heart in doing good to my friends, particularly to this poor Sancho
Panza, my squire, who is the best fellow in the world; and I would gladly
give him a county I have promised him this ever so long, only that I am
afraid he has not the capacity to govern his realm."

Sancho partly heard these last words of his master, and said to him,
"Strive hard you, Senor Don Quixote, to give me that county so often
promised by you and so long looked for by me, for I promise you there
will be no want of capacity in me to govern it; and even if there is, I
have heard say there are men in the world who farm seigniories, paying so
much a year, and they themselves taking charge of the government, while
the lord, with his legs stretched out, enjoys the revenue they pay him,
without troubling himself about anything else. That's what I'll do, and
not stand haggling over trifles, but wash my hands at once of the whole
business, and enjoy my rents like a duke, and let things go their own
way."

"That, brother Sancho," said the canon, "only holds good as far as the
enjoyment of the revenue goes; but the lord of the seigniory must attend
to the administration of justice, and here capacity and sound judgment
come in, and above all a firm determination to find out the truth; for if
this be wanting in the beginning, the middle and the end will always go
wrong; and God as commonly aids the honest intentions of the simple as he
frustrates the evil designs of the crafty."

"I don't understand those philosophies," returned Sancho Panza; "all I
know is I would I had the county as soon as I shall know how to govern
it; for I have as much soul as another, and as much body as anyone, and I
shall be as much king of my realm as any other of his; and being so I
should do as I liked, and doing as I liked I should please myself, and
pleasing myself I should be content, and when one is content he has
nothing more to desire, and when one has nothing more to desire there is
an end of it; so let the county come, and God be with you, and let us see
one another, as one blind man said to the other."

"That is not bad philosophy thou art talking, Sancho," said the canon;
"but for all that there is a good deal to be said on this matter of
counties."

To which Don Quixote returned, "I know not what more there is to be said;
I only guide myself by the example set me by the great Amadis of Gaul,
when he made his squire count of the Insula Firme; and so, without any
scruples of conscience, I can make a count of Sancho Panza, for he is one
of the best squires that ever knight-errant had."

The canon was astonished at the methodical nonsense (if nonsense be
capable of method) that Don Quixote uttered, at the way in which he had
described the adventure of the knight of the lake, at the impression that
the deliberate lies of the books he read had made upon him, and lastly he
marvelled at the simplicity of Sancho, who desired so eagerly to obtain
the county his master had promised him.

By this time the canon's servants, who had gone to the inn to fetch the
sumpter mule, had returned, and making a carpet and the green grass of
the meadow serve as a table, they seated themselves in the shade of some
trees and made their repast there, that the carter might not be deprived
of the advantage of the spot, as has been already said. As they were
eating they suddenly heard a loud noise and the sound of a bell that
seemed to come from among some brambles and thick bushes that were close
by, and the same instant they observed a beautiful goat, spotted all over
black, white, and brown, spring out of the thicket with a goatherd after
it, calling to it and uttering the usual cries to make it stop or turn
back to the fold. The fugitive goat, scared and frightened, ran towards
the company as if seeking their protection and then stood still, and the
goatherd coming up seized it by the horns and began to talk to it as if
it were possessed of reason and understanding: "Ah wanderer, wanderer,
Spotty, Spotty; how have you gone limping all this time? What wolves have
frightened you, my daughter? Won't you tell me what is the matter, my
beauty? But what else can it be except that you are a she, and cannot
keep quiet? A plague on your humours and the humours of those you take
after! Come back, come back, my darling; and if you will not be so happy,
at any rate you will be safe in the fold or with your companions; for if
you who ought to keep and lead them, go wandering astray, what will
become of them?"

The goatherd's talk amused all who heard it, but especially the canon,
who said to him, "As you live, brother, take it easy, and be not in such
a hurry to drive this goat back to the fold; for, being a female, as you
say, she will follow her natural instinct in spite of all you can do to
prevent it. Take this morsel and drink a sup, and that will soothe your
irritation, and in the meantime the goat will rest herself," and so
saying, he handed him the loins of a cold rabbit on a fork.

The goatherd took it with thanks, and drank and calmed himself, and then
said, "I should be sorry if your worships were to take me for a simpleton
for having spoken so seriously as I did to this animal; but the truth is
there is a certain mystery in the words I used. I am a clown, but not so
much of one but that I know how to behave to men and to beasts."

"That I can well believe," said the curate, "for I know already by
experience that the woods breed men of learning, and shepherds' harbour
philosophers."

"At all events, senor," returned the goatherd, "they shelter men of
experience; and that you may see the truth of this and grasp it, though I
may seem to put myself forward without being asked, I will, if it will
not tire you, gentlemen, and you will give me your attention for a
little, tell you a true story which will confirm this gentleman's word
(and he pointed to the curate) as well as my own."

To this Don Quixote replied, "Seeing that this affair has a certain
colour of chivalry about it, I for my part, brother, will hear you most
gladly, and so will all these gentlemen, from the high intelligence they
possess and their love of curious novelties that interest, charm, and
entertain the mind, as I feel quite sure your story will do. So begin,
friend, for we are all prepared to listen."

"I draw my stakes," said Sancho, "and will retreat with this pasty to the
brook there, where I mean to victual myself for three days; for I have
heard my lord, Don Quixote, say that a knight-errant's squire should eat
until he can hold no more, whenever he has the chance, because it often
happens them to get by accident into a wood so thick that they cannot
find a way out of it for six days; and if the man is not well filled or
his alforjas well stored, there he may stay, as very often he does,
turned into a dried mummy."

"Thou art in the right of it, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "go where thou
wilt and eat all thou canst, for I have had enough, and only want to give
my mind its refreshment, as I shall by listening to this good fellow's
story."

"It is what we shall all do," said the canon; and then begged the
goatherd to begin the promised tale.

The goatherd gave the goat which he held by the horns a couple of slaps
on the back, saying, "Lie down here beside me, Spotty, for we have time
enough to return to our fold." The goat seemed to understand him, for as
her master seated himself, she stretched herself quietly beside him and
looked up in his face to show him she was all attention to what he was
going to say, and then in these words he began his story.




CHAPTER LI.

WHICH DEALS WITH WHAT THE GOATHERD TOLD THOSE WHO WERE CARRYING OFF DON
QUIXOTE


Three leagues from this valley there is a village which, though small, is
one of the richest in all this neighbourhood, and in it there lived a
farmer, a very worthy man, and so much respected that, although to be so
is the natural consequence of being rich, he was even more respected for
his virtue than for the wealth he had acquired. But what made him still
more fortunate, as he said himself, was having a daughter of such
exceeding beauty, rare intelligence, gracefulness, and virtue, that
everyone who knew her and beheld her marvelled at the extraordinary gifts
with which heaven and nature had endowed her. As a child she was
beautiful, she continued to grow in beauty, and at the age of sixteen she
was most lovely. The fame of her beauty began to spread abroad through
all the villages around--but why do I say the villages around, merely,
when it spread to distant cities, and even made its way into the halls of
royalty and reached the ears of people of every class, who came from all
sides to see her as if to see something rare and curious, or some
wonder-working image?

Her father watched over her and she watched over herself; for there are
no locks, or guards, or bolts that can protect a young girl better than
her own modesty. The wealth of the father and the beauty of the daughter
led many neighbours as well as strangers to seek her for a wife; but he,
as one might well be who had the disposal of so rich a jewel, was
perplexed and unable to make up his mind to which of her countless
suitors he should entrust her. I was one among the many who felt a desire
so natural, and, as her father knew who I was, and I was of the same
town, of pure blood, in the bloom of life, and very rich in possessions,
I had great hopes of success. There was another of the same place and
qualifications who also sought her, and this made her father's choice
hang in the balance, for he felt that on either of us his daughter would
be well bestowed; so to escape from this state of perplexity he resolved
to refer the matter to Leandra (for that is the name of the rich damsel
who has reduced me to misery), reflecting that as we were both equal it
would be best to leave it to his dear daughter to choose according to her
inclination--a course that is worthy of imitation by all fathers who wish
to settle their children in life. I do not mean that they ought to leave
them to make a choice of what is contemptible and bad, but that they
should place before them what is good and then allow them to make a good
choice as they please. I do not know which Leandra chose; I only know her
father put us both off with the tender age of his daughter and vague
words that neither bound him nor dismissed us. My rival is called Anselmo
and I myself Eugenio--that you may know the names of the personages that
figure in this tragedy, the end of which is still in suspense, though it
is plain to see it must be disastrous.

About this time there arrived in our town one Vicente de la Roca, the son
of a poor peasant of the same town, the said Vicente having returned from
service as a soldier in Italy and divers other parts. A captain who
chanced to pass that way with his company had carried him off from our
village when he was a boy of about twelve years, and now twelve years
later the young man came back in a soldier's uniform, arrayed in a
thousand colours, and all over glass trinkets and fine steel chains.
To-day he would appear in one gay dress, to-morrow in another; but all
flimsy and gaudy, of little substance and less worth. The peasant folk,
who are naturally malicious, and when they have nothing to do can be
malice itself, remarked all this, and took note of his finery and
jewellery, piece by piece, and discovered that he had three suits of
different colours, with garters and stockings to match; but he made so
many arrangements and combinations out of them, that if they had not
counted them, anyone would have sworn that he had made a display of more
than ten suits of clothes and twenty plumes. Do not look upon all this
that I am telling you about the clothes as uncalled for or spun out, for
they have a great deal to do with the story. He used to seat himself on a
bench under the great poplar in our plaza, and there he would keep us all
hanging open-mouthed on the stories he told us of his exploits. There was
no country on the face of the globe he had not seen, nor battle he had
not been engaged in; he had killed more Moors than there are in Morocco
and Tunis, and fought more single combats, according to his own account,
than Garcilaso, Diego Garcia de Paredes and a thousand others he named,
and out of all he had come victorious without losing a drop of blood. On
the other hand he showed marks of wounds, which, though they could not be
made out, he said were gunshot wounds received in divers encounters and
actions. Lastly, with monstrous impudence he used to say "you" to his
equals and even those who knew what he was, and declare that his arm was
his father and his deeds his pedigree, and that being a soldier he was as
good as the king himself. And to add to these swaggering ways he was a
trifle of a musician, and played the guitar with such a flourish that
some said he made it speak; nor did his accomplishments end here, for he
was something of a poet too, and on every trifle that happened in the
town he made a ballad a league long.

This soldier, then, that I have described, this Vicente de la Roca, this
bravo, gallant, musician, poet, was often seen and watched by Leandra
from a window of her house which looked out on the plaza. The glitter of
his showy attire took her fancy, his ballads bewitched her (for he gave
away twenty copies of every one he made), the tales of his exploits which
he told about himself came to her ears; and in short, as the devil no
doubt had arranged it, she fell in love with him before the presumption
of making love to her had suggested itself to him; and as in love-affairs
none are more easily brought to an issue than those which have the
inclination of the lady for an ally, Leandra and Vicente came to an
understanding without any difficulty; and before any of her numerous
suitors had any suspicion of her design, she had already carried it into
effect, having left the house of her dearly beloved father (for mother
she had none), and disappeared from the village with the soldier, who
came more triumphantly out of this enterprise than out of any of the
large number he laid claim to. All the village and all who heard of it
were amazed at the affair; I was aghast, Anselmo thunderstruck, her
father full of grief, her relations indignant, the authorities all in a
ferment, the officers of the Brotherhood in arms. They scoured the roads,
they searched the woods and all quarters, and at the end of three days
they found the flighty Leandra in a mountain cave, stript to her shift,
and robbed of all the money and precious jewels she had carried away from
home with her.

They brought her back to her unhappy father, and questioned her as to her
misfortune, and she confessed without pressure that Vicente de la Roca
had deceived her, and under promise of marrying her had induced her to
leave her father's house, as he meant to take her to the richest and most
delightful city in the whole world, which was Naples; and that she,
ill-advised and deluded, had believed him, and robbed her father, and
handed over all to him the night she disappeared; and that he had carried
her away to a rugged mountain and shut her up in the cave where they had
found her. She said, moreover, that the soldier, without robbing her of
her honour, had taken from her everything she had, and made off, leaving
her in the cave, a thing that still further surprised everybody. It was
not easy for us to credit the young man's continence, but she asserted it
with such earnestness that it helped to console her distressed father,
who thought nothing of what had been taken since the jewel that once lost
can never be recovered had been left to his daughter. The same day that
Leandra made her appearance her father removed her from our sight and
took her away to shut her up in a convent in a town near this, in the
hope that time may wear away some of the disgrace she has incurred.
Leandra's youth furnished an excuse for her fault, at least with those to
whom it was of no consequence whether she was good or bad; but those who
knew her shrewdness and intelligence did not attribute her misdemeanour
to ignorance but to wantonness and the natural disposition of women,
which is for the most part flighty and ill-regulated.

Leandra withdrawn from sight, Anselmo's eyes grew blind, or at any rate
found nothing to look at that gave them any pleasure, and mine were in
darkness without a ray of light to direct them to anything enjoyable
while Leandra was away. Our melancholy grew greater, our patience grew
less; we cursed the soldier's finery and railed at the carelessness of
Leandra's father. At last Anselmo and I agreed to leave the village and
come to this valley; and, he feeding a great flock of sheep of his own,
and I a large herd of goats of mine, we pass our life among the trees,
giving vent to our sorrows, together singing the fair Leandra's praises,
or upbraiding her, or else sighing alone, and to heaven pouring forth our
complaints in solitude. Following our example, many more of Leandra's
lovers have come to these rude mountains and adopted our mode of life,
and they are so numerous that one would fancy the place had been turned
into the pastoral Arcadia, so full is it of shepherds and sheep-folds;
nor is there a spot in it where the name of the fair Leandra is not
heard. Here one curses her and calls her capricious, fickle, and
immodest, there another condemns her as frail and frivolous; this pardons
and absolves her, that spurns and reviles her; one extols her beauty,
another assails her character, and in short all abuse her, and all adore
her, and to such a pitch has this general infatuation gone that there are
some who complain of her scorn without ever having exchanged a word with
her, and even some that bewail and mourn the raging fever of jealousy,
for which she never gave anyone cause, for, as I have already said, her
misconduct was known before her passion. There is no nook among the
rocks, no brookside, no shade beneath the trees that is not haunted by
some shepherd telling his woes to the breezes; wherever there is an echo
it repeats the name of Leandra; the mountains ring with "Leandra,"
"Leandra" murmur the brooks, and Leandra keeps us all bewildered and
bewitched, hoping without hope and fearing without knowing what we fear.
Of all this silly set the one that shows the least and also the most
sense is my rival Anselmo, for having so many other things to complain
of, he only complains of separation, and to the accompaniment of a
rebeck, which he plays admirably, he sings his complaints in verses that
show his ingenuity. I follow another, easier, and to my mind wiser
course, and that is to rail at the frivolity of women, at their
inconstancy, their double dealing, their broken promises, their unkept
pledges, and in short the want of reflection they show in fixing their
affections and inclinations. This, sirs, was the reason of words and
expressions I made use of to this goat when I came up just now; for as
she is a female I have a contempt for her, though she is the best in all
my fold. This is the story I promised to tell you, and if I have been
tedious in telling it, I will not be slow to serve you; my hut is close
by, and I have fresh milk and dainty cheese there, as well as a variety
of toothsome fruit, no less pleasing to the eye than to the palate.




CHAPTER LII.

OF THE QUARREL THAT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH THE GOATHERD, TOGETHER WITH THE
RARE ADVENTURE OF THE PENITENTS, WHICH WITH AN EXPENDITURE OF SWEAT HE
BROUGHT TO A HAPPY CONCLUSION


The goatherd's tale gave great satisfaction to all the hearers, and the
canon especially enjoyed it, for he had remarked with particular
attention the manner in which it had been told, which was as unlike the
manner of a clownish goatherd as it was like that of a polished city wit;
and he observed that the curate had been quite right in saying that the
woods bred men of learning. They all offered their services to Eugenio
but he who showed himself most liberal in this way was Don Quixote, who
said to him, "Most assuredly, brother goatherd, if I found myself in a
position to attempt any adventure, I would, this very instant, set out on
your behalf, and would rescue Leandra from that convent (where no doubt
she is kept against her will), in spite of the abbess and all who might
try to prevent me, and would place her in your hands to deal with her
according to your will and pleasure, observing, however, the laws of
chivalry which lay down that no violence of any kind is to be offered to
any damsel. But I trust in God our Lord that the might of one malignant
enchanter may not prove so great but that the power of another better
disposed may prove superior to it, and then I promise you my support and
assistance, as I am bound to do by my profession, which is none other
than to give aid to the weak and needy."

The goatherd eyed him, and noticing Don Quixote's sorry appearance and
looks, he was filled with wonder, and asked the barber, who was next him,
"Senor, who is this man who makes such a figure and talks in such a
strain?"

"Who should it be," said the barber, "but the famous Don Quixote of La
Mancha, the undoer of injustice, the righter of wrongs, the protector of
damsels, the terror of giants, and the winner of battles?"

"That," said the goatherd, "sounds like what one reads in the books of
the knights-errant, who did all that you say this man does; though it is
my belief that either you are joking, or else this gentleman has empty
lodgings in his head."

"You are a great scoundrel," said Don Quixote, "and it is you who are
empty and a fool. I am fuller than ever was the whoreson bitch that bore
you;" and passing from words to deeds, he caught up a loaf that was near
him and sent it full in the goatherd's face, with such force that he
flattened his nose; but the goatherd, who did not understand jokes, and
found himself roughly handled in such good earnest, paying no respect to
carpet, tablecloth, or diners, sprang upon Don Quixote, and seizing him
by the throat with both hands would no doubt have throttled him, had not
Sancho Panza that instant come to the rescue, and grasping him by the
shoulders flung him down on the table, smashing plates, breaking glasses,
and upsetting and scattering everything on it. Don Quixote, finding
himself free, strove to get on top of the goatherd, who, with his face
covered with blood, and soundly kicked by Sancho, was on all fours
feeling about for one of the table-knives to take a bloody revenge with.
The canon and the curate, however, prevented him, but the barber so
contrived it that he got Don Quixote under him, and rained down upon him
such a shower of fisticuffs that the poor knight's face streamed with
blood as freely as his own. The canon and the curate were bursting with
laughter, the officers were capering with delight, and both the one and
the other hissed them on as they do dogs that are worrying one another in
a fight. Sancho alone was frantic, for he could not free himself from the
grasp of one of the canon's servants, who kept him from going to his
master's assistance.

At last, while they were all, with the exception of the two bruisers who
were mauling each other, in high glee and enjoyment, they heard a trumpet
sound a note so doleful that it made them all look in the direction
whence the sound seemed to come. But the one that was most excited by
hearing it was Don Quixote, who though sorely against his will he was
under the goatherd, and something more than pretty well pummelled, said
to him, "Brother devil (for it is impossible but that thou must be one
since thou hast had might and strength enough to overcome mine), I ask
thee to agree to a truce for but one hour for the solemn note of yonder
trumpet that falls on our ears seems to me to summon me to some new
adventure." The goatherd, who was by this time tired of pummelling and
being pummelled, released him at once, and Don Quixote rising to his feet
and turning his eyes to the quarter where the sound had been heard,
suddenly saw coming down the slope of a hill several men clad in white
like penitents.

The fact was that the clouds had that year withheld their moisture from
the earth, and in all the villages of the district they were organising
processions, rogations, and penances, imploring God to open the hands of
his mercy and send the rain; and to this end the people of a village that
was hard by were going in procession to a holy hermitage there was on one
side of that valley. Don Quixote when he saw the strange garb of the
penitents, without reflecting how often he had seen it before, took it
into his head that this was a case of adventure, and that it fell to him
alone as a knight-errant to engage in it; and he was all the more
confirmed in this notion, by the idea that an image draped in black they
had with them was some illustrious lady that these villains and
discourteous thieves were carrying off by force. As soon as this occurred
to him he ran with all speed to Rocinante who was grazing at large, and
taking the bridle and the buckler from the saddle-bow, he had him bridled
in an instant, and calling to Sancho for his sword he mounted Rocinante,
braced his buckler on his arm, and in a loud voice exclaimed to those who
stood by, "Now, noble company, ye shall see how important it is that
there should be knights in the world professing the order of knight-errantry;
now, I say, ye shall see, by the deliverance of that worthy lady who is
borne captive there, whether knights-errant deserve to be held in
estimation," and so saying he brought his legs to bear on Rocinante--for
he had no spurs--and at a full canter (for in all this veracious history
we never read of Rocinante fairly galloping) set off to encounter the
penitents, though the curate, the canon, and the barber ran to prevent
him. But it was out of their power, nor did he even stop for the shouts
of Sancho calling after him, "Where are you going, Senor Don Quixote?
What devils have possessed you to set you on against our Catholic faith?
Plague take me! mind, that is a procession of penitents, and the lady
they are carrying on that stand there is the blessed image of the
immaculate Virgin. Take care what you are doing, senor, for this time it
may be safely said you don't know what you are about." Sancho laboured in
vain, for his master was so bent on coming to quarters with these sheeted
figures and releasing the lady in black that he did not hear a word; and
even had he heard, he would not have turned back if the king had ordered
him. He came up with the procession and reined in Rocinante, who was
already anxious enough to slacken speed a little, and in a hoarse,
excited voice he exclaimed, "You who hide your faces, perhaps because you
are not good subjects, pay attention and listen to what I am about to say
to you." The first to halt were those who were carrying the image, and
one of the four ecclesiastics who were chanting the Litany, struck by the
strange figure of Don Quixote, the leanness of Rocinante, and the other
ludicrous peculiarities he observed, said in reply to him, "Brother, if
you have anything to say to us say it quickly, for these brethren are
whipping themselves, and we cannot stop, nor is it reasonable we should
stop to hear anything, unless indeed it is short enough to be said in two
words."

"I will say it in one," replied Don Quixote, "and it is this; that at
once, this very instant, ye release that fair lady whose tears and sad
aspect show plainly that ye are carrying her off against her will, and
that ye have committed some scandalous outrage against her; and I, who
was born into the world to redress all such like wrongs, will not permit
you to advance another step until you have restored to her the liberty
she pines for and deserves."

From these words all the hearers concluded that he must be a madman, and
began to laugh heartily, and their laughter acted like gunpowder on Don
Quixote's fury, for drawing his sword without another word he made a rush
at the stand. One of those who supported it, leaving the burden to his
comrades, advanced to meet him, flourishing a forked stick that he had
for propping up the stand when resting, and with this he caught a mighty
cut Don Quixote made at him that severed it in two; but with the portion
that remained in his hand he dealt such a thwack on the shoulder of Don
Quixote's sword arm (which the buckler could not protect against the
clownish assault) that poor Don Quixote came to the ground in a sad
plight.

Sancho Panza, who was coming on close behind puffing and blowing, seeing
him fall, cried out to his assailant not to strike him again, for he was
a poor enchanted knight, who had never harmed anyone all the days of his
life; but what checked the clown was, not Sancho's shouting, but seeing
that Don Quixote did not stir hand or foot; and so, fancying he had
killed him, he hastily hitched up his tunic under his girdle and took to
his heels across the country like a deer.

By this time all Don Quixote's companions had come up to where he lay;
but the processionists seeing them come running, and with them the
officers of the Brotherhood with their crossbows, apprehended mischief,
and clustering round the image, raised their hoods, and grasped their
scourges, as the priests did their tapers, and awaited the attack,
resolved to defend themselves and even to take the offensive against
their assailants if they could. Fortune, however, arranged the matter
better than they expected, for all Sancho did was to fling himself on his
master's body, raising over him the most doleful and laughable
lamentation that ever was heard, for he believed he was dead. The curate
was known to another curate who walked in the procession, and their
recognition of one another set at rest the apprehensions of both parties;
the first then told the other in two words who Don Quixote was, and he
and the whole troop of penitents went to see if the poor gentleman was
dead, and heard Sancho Panza saying, with tears in his eyes, "Oh flower
of chivalry, that with one blow of a stick hast ended the course of thy
well-spent life! Oh pride of thy race, honour and glory of all La Mancha,
nay, of all the world, that for want of thee will be full of evil-doers,
no longer in fear of punishment for their misdeeds! Oh thou, generous
above all the Alexanders, since for only eight months of service thou
hast given me the best island the sea girds or surrounds! Humble with the
proud, haughty with the humble, encounterer of dangers, endurer of
outrages, enamoured without reason, imitator of the good, scourge of the
wicked, enemy of the mean, in short, knight-errant, which is all that can
be said!"

At the cries and moans of Sancho, Don Quixote came to himself, and the
first word he said was, "He who lives separated from you, sweetest
Dulcinea, has greater miseries to endure than these. Aid me, friend
Sancho, to mount the enchanted cart, for I am not in a condition to press
the saddle of Rocinante, as this shoulder is all knocked to pieces."

"That I will do with all my heart, senor," said Sancho; "and let us
return to our village with these gentlemen, who seek your good, and there
we will prepare for making another sally, which may turn out more
profitable and creditable to us."

"Thou art right, Sancho," returned Don Quixote; "It will be wise to let
the malign influence of the stars which now prevails pass off."

The canon, the curate, and the barber told him he would act very wisely
in doing as he said; and so, highly amused at Sancho Panza's
simplicities, they placed Don Quixote in the cart as before. The
procession once more formed itself in order and proceeded on its road;
the goatherd took his leave of the party; the officers of the Brotherhood
declined to go any farther, and the curate paid them what was due to
them; the canon begged the curate to let him know how Don Quixote did,
whether he was cured of his madness or still suffered from it, and then
begged leave to continue his journey; in short, they all separated and
went their ways, leaving to themselves the curate and the barber, Don
Quixote, Sancho Panza, and the good Rocinante, who regarded everything
with as great resignation as his master. The carter yoked his oxen and
made Don Quixote comfortable on a truss of hay, and at his usual
deliberate pace took the road the curate directed, and at the end of six
days they reached Don Quixote's village, and entered it about the middle
of the day, which it so happened was a Sunday, and the people were all in
the plaza, through which Don Quixote's cart passed. They all flocked to
see what was in the cart, and when they recognised their townsman they
were filled with amazement, and a boy ran off to bring the news to his
housekeeper and his niece that their master and uncle had come back all
lean and yellow and stretched on a truss of hay on an ox-cart. It was
piteous to hear the cries the two good ladies raised, how they beat their
breasts and poured out fresh maledictions on those accursed books of
chivalry; all which was renewed when they saw Don Quixote coming in at
the gate.

At the news of Don Quixote's arrival Sancho Panza's wife came running,
for she by this time knew that her husband had gone away with him as his
squire, and on seeing Sancho, the first thing she asked him was if the
ass was well. Sancho replied that he was, better than his master was.

"Thanks be to God," said she, "for being so good to me; but now tell me,
my friend, what have you made by your squirings? What gown have you
brought me back? What shoes for your children?"

"I bring nothing of that sort, wife," said Sancho; "though I bring other
things of more consequence and value."

"I am very glad of that," returned his wife; "show me these things of
more value and consequence, my friend; for I want to see them to cheer my
heart that has been so sad and heavy all these ages that you have been
away."

"I will show them to you at home, wife," said Sancho; "be content for the
present; for if it please God that we should again go on our travels in
search of adventures, you will soon see me a count, or governor of an
island, and that not one of those everyday ones, but the best that is to
be had."

"Heaven grant it, husband," said she, "for indeed we have need of it. But
tell me, what's this about islands, for I don't understand it?"

"Honey is not for the mouth of the ass," returned Sancho; "all in good
time thou shalt see, wife--nay, thou wilt be surprised to hear thyself
called 'your ladyship' by all thy vassals."

"What are you talking about, Sancho, with your ladyships, islands, and
vassals?" returned Teresa Panza--for so Sancho's wife was called, though
they were not relations, for in La Mancha it is customary for wives to
take their husbands' surnames.

"Don't be in such a hurry to know all this, Teresa," said Sancho; "it is
enough that I am telling you the truth, so shut your mouth. But I may
tell you this much by the way, that there is nothing in the world more
delightful than to be a person of consideration, squire to a
knight-errant, and a seeker of adventures. To be sure most of those one
finds do not end as pleasantly as one could wish, for out of a hundred,
ninety-nine will turn out cross and contrary. I know it by experience,
for out of some I came blanketed, and out of others belaboured. Still,
for all that, it is a fine thing to be on the look-out for what may
happen, crossing mountains, searching woods, climbing rocks, visiting
castles, putting up at inns, all at free quarters, and devil take the
maravedi to pay."

While this conversation passed between Sancho Panza and his wife, Don
Quixote's housekeeper and niece took him in and undressed him and laid
him in his old bed. He eyed them askance, and could not make out where he
was. The curate charged his niece to be very careful to make her uncle
comfortable and to keep a watch over him lest he should make his escape
from them again, telling her what they had been obliged to do to bring
him home. On this the pair once more lifted up their voices and renewed
their maledictions upon the books of chivalry, and implored heaven to
plunge the authors of such lies and nonsense into the midst of the
bottomless pit. They were, in short, kept in anxiety and dread lest their
uncle and master should give them the slip the moment he found himself
somewhat better, and as they feared so it fell out.

But the author of this history, though he has devoted research and
industry to the discovery of the deeds achieved by Don Quixote in his
third sally, has been unable to obtain any information respecting them,
at any rate derived from authentic documents; tradition has merely
preserved in the memory of La Mancha the fact that Don Quixote, the third
time he sallied forth from his home, betook himself to Saragossa, where
he was present at some famous jousts which came off in that city, and
that he had adventures there worthy of his valour and high intelligence.
Of his end and death he could learn no particulars, nor would he have
ascertained it or known of it, if good fortune had not produced an old
physician for him who had in his possession a leaden box, which,
according to his account, had been discovered among the crumbling
foundations of an ancient hermitage that was being rebuilt; in which box
were found certain parchment manuscripts in Gothic character, but in
Castilian verse, containing many of his achievements, and setting forth
the beauty of Dulcinea, the form of Rocinante, the fidelity of Sancho
Panza, and the burial of Don Quixote himself, together with sundry
epitaphs and eulogies on his life and character; but all that could be
read and deciphered were those which the trustworthy author of this new
and unparalleled history here presents. And the said author asks of those
that shall read it nothing in return for the vast toil which it has cost
him in examining and searching the Manchegan archives in order to bring
it to light, save that they give him the same credit that people of sense
give to the books of chivalry that pervade the world and are so popular;
for with this he will consider himself amply paid and fully satisfied,
and will be encouraged to seek out and produce other histories, if not as
truthful, at least equal in invention and not less entertaining. The
first words written on the parchment found in the leaden box were these:


      THE ACADEMICIANS OF
   ARGAMASILLA, A VILLAGE OF
           LA MANCHA,
     ON THE LIFE AND DEATH
   OF DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA,
        HOC SCRIPSERUNT
MONICONGO, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,


ON THE TOMB OF DON QUIXOTE
EPITAPH

The scatterbrain that gave La Mancha more
  Rich spoils than Jason's; who a point so keen
  Had to his wit, and happier far had been
If his wit's weathercock a blunter bore;
The arm renowned far as Gaeta's shore,
  Cathay, and all the lands that lie between;
  The muse discreet and terrible in mien
As ever wrote on brass in days of yore;
He who surpassed the Amadises all,
  And who as naught the Galaors accounted,
    Supported by his love and gallantry:
Who made the Belianises sing small,
  And sought renown on Rocinante mounted;
    Here, underneath this cold stone, doth he lie.



PANIAGUADO,
ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
IN LAUDEM DULCINEAE DEL TOBOSO

SONNET

She, whose full features may be here descried,
  High-bosomed, with a bearing of disdain,
  Is Dulcinea, she for whom in vain
The great Don Quixote of La Mancha sighed.
For her, Toboso's queen, from side to side
  He traversed the grim sierra, the champaign
  Of Aranjuez, and Montiel's famous plain:
On Rocinante oft a weary ride.
Malignant planets, cruel destiny,
  Pursued them both, the fair Manchegan dame,
And the unconquered star of chivalry.
  Nor youth nor beauty saved her from the claim
Of death; he paid love's bitter penalty,
  And left the marble to preserve his name.



CAPRICHOSO, A MOST ACUTE ACADEMICIAN
OF ARGAMASILLA, IN PRAISE OF ROCINANTE,
STEED OF DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA

SONNET

On that proud throne of diamantine sheen,
  Which the blood-reeking feet of Mars degrade,
The mad Manchegan's banner now hath been
  By him in all its bravery displayed.
  There hath he hung his arms and trenchant blade
Wherewith, achieving deeds till now unseen,
  He slays, lays low, cleaves, hews; but art hath made
A novel style for our new paladin.
If Amadis be the proud boast of Gaul,
  If by his progeny the fame of Greece
    Through all the regions of the earth be spread,
Great Quixote crowned in grim Bellona's hall
  To-day exalts La Mancha over these,
    And above Greece or Gaul she holds her head.
Nor ends his glory here, for his good steed
Doth Brillador and Bayard far exceed;
As mettled steeds compared with Rocinante,
The reputation they have won is scanty.

BURLADOR, ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
ON SANCHO PANZA

SONNET

  The worthy Sancho Panza here you see;
    A great soul once was in that body small,
    Nor was there squire upon this earthly ball
So plain and simple, or of guile so free.
Within an ace of being Count was he,
    And would have been but for the spite and gall
    Of this vile age, mean and illiberal,
That cannot even let a donkey be.
For mounted on an ass (excuse the word),
    By Rocinante's side this gentle squire
      Was wont his wandering master to attend.
Delusive hopes that lure the common herd
    With promises of ease, the heart's desire,
      In shadows, dreams, and smoke ye always end.




CACHIDIABLO,
ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
ON THE TOMB OF DON QUIXOTE
EPITAPH

The knight lies here below,
  Ill-errant and bruised sore,
  Whom Rocinante bore
In his wanderings to and fro.
By the side of the knight is laid
  Stolid man Sancho too,
  Than whom a squire more true
Was not in the esquire trade.

            TIQUITOC,
   ACADEMICIAN OF ARGAMASILLA,
ON THE TOMB OF DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO

           EPITAPH
Here Dulcinea lies.
  Plump was she and robust:
  Now she is ashes and dust:
The end of all flesh that dies.
A lady of high degree,
  With the port of a lofty dame,
  And the great Don Quixote's flame,
And the pride of her village was she.

These were all the verses that could be deciphered; the rest, the writing
being worm-eaten, were handed over to one of the Academicians to make out
their meaning conjecturally. We have been informed that at the cost of
many sleepless nights and much toil he has succeeded, and that he means
to publish them in hopes of Don Quixote's third sally.

"Forse altro cantera con miglior plectro."



END OF PART I.




    ===




DON QUIXOTE

Volume II.

Complete

by Miguel de Cervantes


Translated by John Ormsby




CONTENTS

Part II.


CHAPTER I
OF THE INTERVIEW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER HAD WITH DON QUIXOTE
ABOUT HIS MALADY

CHAPTER II
WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD
WITH DON QUIXOTE'S NIECE, AND HOUSEKEEPER, TOGETHER WITH OTHER DROLL
MATTERS

CHAPTER III
OF THE LAUGHABLE CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE,
SANCHO PANZA, AND THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO

CHAPTER IV
IN WHICH SANCHO PANZA GIVES A SATISFACTORY REPLY TO THE DOUBTS AND
QUESTIONS OF THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS
WORTH KNOWING AND TELLING

CHAPTER V
OF THE SHREWD AND DROLL CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN SANCHO
PANZA AND HIS WIFE TERESA PANZA, AND OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF BEING
DULY RECORDED

CHAPTER VI
OF WHAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS NIECE AND
HOUSEKEEPER; ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE WHOLE HISTORY

CHAPTER VII
OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH
OTHER VERY NOTABLE INCIDENTS

CHAPTER VIII
WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO SEE HIS
LADY DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO

CHAPTER IX
WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE

CHAPTER X
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE CRAFTY DEVICE SANCHO ADOPTED TO ENCHANT THE
LADY DULCINEA, AND OTHER INCIDENTS AS LUDICROUS AS THEY ARE TRUE

CHAPTER XI
OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH
THE CAR OR CART OF "THE CORTES OF DEATH"

CHAPTER XII
OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE WITH
THE BOLD KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS

CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE,
TOGETHER WITH THE SENSIBLE, ORIGINAL, AND TRANQUIL COLLOQUY THAT
PASSED BETWEEN THE TWO SQUIRES

CHAPTER XIV
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE

CHAPTER XV
WHEREIN IT IS TOLD AND KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS AND HIS
SQUIRE WERE

CHAPTER XVI
OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH A DISCREET GENTLEMAN OF LA MANCHA

CHAPTER XVII
WHEREIN IS SHOWN THE FURTHEST AND HIGHEST POINT WHICH THE UNEXAMPLED
COURAGE OF DON QUIXOTE REACHED OR COULD REACH; TOGETHER WITH THE
HAPPILY ACHIEVED ADVENTURE OF THE LIONS

CHAPTER XVIII
OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE OR HOUSE OF THE KNIGHT OF
THE GREEN GABAN, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS OUT OF THE COMMON

CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENAMOURED SHEPHERD,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER TRULY DROLL INCIDENTS

CHAPTER XX
WHEREIN AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE WEDDING OF CAMACHO THE RICH,
TOGETHER WITH THE INCIDENT OF BASILIO THE POOR

CHAPTER XXI
IN WHICH CAMACHO'S WEDDING IS CONTINUED, WITH OTHER DELIGHTFUL INCIDENTS

CHAPTER XXII
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE GRAND ADVENTURE OF THE CAVE OF MONTESINOS IN
THE HEART OF LA MANCHA, WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE BROUGHT TO A
HAPPY TERMINATION

CHAPTER XXIII
OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS THE INCOMPARABLE DON QUIXOTE SAID HE SAW
IN THE PROFOUND CAVE OF MONTESINOS, THE IMPOSSIBILITY AND MAGNITUDE OF
WHICH CAUSE THIS ADVENTURE TO BE DEEMED APOCRYPHAL

CHAPTER XXIV
WHEREIN ARE RELATED A THOUSAND TRIFLING MATTERS, AS TRIVIAL AS
THEY ARE NECESSARY TO THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THIS GREAT HISTORY

CHAPTER XXV
WHEREIN IS SET DOWN THE BRAYING ADVENTURE, AND THE DROLL ONE OF
THE PUPPET-SHOWMAN, TOGETHER WITH THE MEMORABLE DIVINATIONS OF THE
DIVINING APE

CHAPTER XXVI
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE DROLL ADVENTURE OF THE PUPPET-SHOWMAN,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER THINGS IN TRUTH RIGHT GOOD

CHAPTER XXVII
WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN WHO MASTER PEDRO AND HIS APE WERE, TOGETHER WITH
THE MISHAP DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE BRAYING ADVENTURE, WHICH HE DID
NOT CONCLUDE AS HE WOULD HAVE LIKED OR AS HE HAD EXPECTED

CHAPTER XXVIII
OF MATTERS THAT BENENGELI SAYS HE WHO READS THEM WILL KNOW, IF HE
READS THEM WITH ATTENTION

CHAPTER XXIX
OF THE FAMOUS ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED BARK

CHAPTER XXX
OF DON QUIXOTE'S ADVENTURE WITH A FAIR HUNTRESS

CHAPTER XXXI
WHICH TREATS OF MANY AND GREAT MATTERS

CHAPTER XXXII
OF THE REPLY DON QUIXOTE GAVE HIS CENSURER, WITH OTHER INCIDENTS,
GRAVE AND DROLL

CHAPTER XXXIII
OF THE DELECTABLE DISCOURSE WHICH THE DUCHESS AND HER DAMSELS HELD
WITH SANCHO PANZA, WELL WORTH READING AND NOTING

CHAPTER XXXIV
WHICH RELATES HOW THEY LEARNED THE WAY IN WHICH THEY WERE TO
DISENCHANT THE PEERLESS DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO, WHICH IS ONE OF THE
RAREST ADVENTURES IN THIS BOOK

CHAPTER XXXV
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN TO DON QUIXOTE TOUCHING
THE DISENCHANTMENT OF DULCINEA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MARVELLOUS INCIDENTS

CHAPTER XXXVI
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE AND UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE
DISTRESSED DUENNA, ALIAS THE COUNTESS TRIFALDI, TOGETHER WITH A LETTER
WHICH SANCHO PANZA WROTE TO HIS WIFE, TERESA PANZA

CHAPTER XXXVII
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE DISTRESSED DUENNA

CHAPTER XXXVIII
WHEREIN IS TOLD THE DISTRESSED DUENNA'S TALE OF HER MISFORTUNES

CHAPTER XXXIX
IN WHICH THE TRIFALDI CONTINUES HER MARVELLOUS AND MEMORABLE STORY

CHAPTER XL
OF MATTERS RELATING AND BELONGING TO THIS ADVENTURE AND TO THIS
MEMORABLE HISTORY

CHAPTER XLI
OF THE ARRIVAL OF CLAVILENO AND THE END OF THIS PROTRACTED ADVENTURE

CHAPTER XLII
OF THE COUNSELS WHICH DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA BEFORE HE SET
OUT TO GOVERN THE ISLAND, TOGETHER WITH OTHER WELL-CONSIDERED MATTERS

CHAPTER XLIII
OF THE SECOND SET OF COUNSELS DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA

CHAPTER XLIV
HOW SANCHO PANZA WAS CONDUCTED TO HIS GOVERNMENT, AND OF THE STRANGE
ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE

CHAPTER XLV
OF HOW THE GREAT SANCHO PANZA TOOK POSSESSION OF HIS ISLAND, AND
OF HOW HE MADE A BEGINNING IN GOVERNING

CHAPTER XLVI
OF THE TERRIBLE BELL AND CAT FRIGHT THAT DON QUIXOTE GOT IN THE
COURSE OF THE ENAMOURED ALTISIDORA'S WOOING

CHAPTER XLVII
WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ACCOUNT OF HOW SANCHO PANZA CONDUCTED
HIMSELF IN HIS GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER XLVIII
OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH DONA RODRIGUEZ, THE DUCHESS'S
DUENNA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY OF RECORD AND ETERNAL
REMEMBRANCE

CHAPTER XLIX
OF WHAT HAPPENED SANCHO IN MAKING THE ROUND OF HIS ISLAND

CHAPTER L
WHEREIN IS SET FORTH WHO THE ENCHANTERS AND EXECUTIONERS WERE WHO
FLOGGED THE DUENNA AND PINCHED DON QUIXOTE, AND ALSO WHAT BEFELL THE
PAGE WHO CARRIED THE LETTER TO TERESA PANZA, SANCHO PANZA'S WIFE

CHAPTER LI
OF THE PROGRESS OF SANCHO'S GOVERNMENT, AND OTHER SUCH
ENTERTAINING MATTERS

CHAPTER LII
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND DISTRESSED OR
AFFLICTED DUENNA, OTHERWISE CALLED DONA RODRIGUEZ

CHAPTER LIII
OF THE TROUBLOUS END AND TERMINATION SANCHO PANZA'S GOVERNMENT CAME TO

CHAPTER LIV
WHICH DEALS WITH MATTERS RELATING TO THIS HISTORY AND NO OTHER

CHAPTER LV
OF WHAT BEFELL SANCHO ON THE ROAD, AND OTHER THINGS THAT CANNOT BE
SURPASSED

CHAPTER LVI
OF THE PRODIGIOUS AND UNPARALLELED BATTLE THAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN
DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA AND THE LACQUEY TOSILOS IN DEFENCE OF THE
DAUGHTER OF DONA RODRIGUEZ

CHAPTER LVII
WHICH TREATS OF HOW DON QUIXOTE TOOK LEAVE OF THE DUKE, AND OF
WHAT FOLLOWED WITH THE WITTY AND IMPUDENT ALTISIDORA, ONE OF THE
DUCHESS'S DAMSELS

CHAPTER LVIII
WHICH TELLS HOW ADVENTURES CAME CROWDING ON DON QUIXOTE IN SUCH
NUMBERS THAT THEY GAVE ONE ANOTHER NO BREATHING-TIME

CHAPTER LIX
WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE THING, WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS AN
ADVENTURE, THAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE

CHAPTER LX
OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO BARCELONA

CHAPTER LXI
OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON ENTERING BARCELONA, TOGETHER WITH
OTHER MATTERS THAT PARTAKE OF THE TRUE RATHER THAN OF THE INGENIOUS

CHAPTER LXII
WHICH DEALS WITH THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED HEAD, TOGETHER
WITH OTHER TRIVIAL MATTERS WHICH CANNOT BE LEFT UNTOLD

CHAPTER LXIII
OF THE MISHAP THAT BEFELL SANCHO PANZA THROUGH THE VISIT TO THE
GALLEYS, AND THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR MORISCO

CHAPTER LXIV
TREATING OF THE ADVENTURE WHICH GAVE DON QUIXOTE MORE UNHAPPINESS
THAN ALL THAT HAD HITHERTO BEFALLEN HIM

CHAPTER LXV
WHEREIN IS MADE KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE MOON WAS; LIKEWISE
DON GREGORIO'S RELEASE, AND OTHER EVENTS

CHAPTER LXVI
WHICH TREATS OF WHAT HE WHO READS WILL SEE, OR WHAT HE WHO HAS IT
READ TO HIM WILL HEAR

CHAPTER LXVII
OF THE RESOLUTION DON QUIXOTE FORMED TO TURN SHEPHERD AND TAKE TO
A LIFE IN THE FIELDS WHILE THE YEAR FOR WHICH HE HAD GIVEN HIS WORD
WAS RUNNING ITS COURSE; WITH OTHER EVENTS TRULY DELECTABLE AND HAPPY

CHAPTER LXVIII
OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE

CHAPTER LXIX
OF THE STRANGEST AND MOST EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON
QUIXOTE IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF THIS GREAT HISTORY

CHAPTER LXX
WHICH FOLLOWS SIXTY-NINE AND DEALS WITH MATTERS INDISPENSABLE FOR
THE CLEAR COMPREHENSION OF THIS HISTORY

CHAPTER LXXI
OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO ON THE
WAY TO THEIR VILLAGE

CHAPTER LXXII
OF HOW DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO REACHED THEIR VILLAGE

CHAPTER LXXIII
OF THE OMENS DON QUIXOTE HAD AS HE ENTERED HIS OWN VILLAGE, AND
OTHER INCIDENTS THAT EMBELLISH AND GIVE A COLOUR TO THIS GREAT HISTORY

CHAPTER LXXIV
OF HOW DON QUIXOTE FELL SICK, AND OF THE WILL HE MADE, AND HOW HE DIED




DON QUIXOTE


PART II.


DEDICATION OF PART II.

TO THE COUNT OF LEMOS:

These days past, when sending Your Excellency my plays, that had appeared
in print before being shown on the stage, I said, if I remember well,
that Don Quixote was putting on his spurs to go and render homage to Your
Excellency. Now I say that "with his spurs, he is on his way." Should he
reach destination methinks I shall have rendered some service to Your
Excellency, as from many parts I am urged to send him off, so as to
dispel the loathing and disgust caused by another Don Quixote who, under
the name of Second Part, has run masquerading through the whole world.
And he who has shown the greatest longing for him has been the great
Emperor of China, who wrote me a letter in Chinese a month ago and sent
it by a special courier. He asked me, or to be truthful, he begged me to
send him Don Quixote, for he intended to found a college where the
Spanish tongue would be taught, and it was his wish that the book to be
read should be the History of Don Quixote. He also added that I should go
and be the rector of this college. I asked the bearer if His Majesty had
afforded a sum in aid of my travel expenses. He answered, "No, not even
in thought."

"Then, brother," I replied, "you can return to your China, post haste or
at whatever haste you are bound to go, as I am not fit for so long a
travel and, besides being ill, I am very much without money, while
Emperor for Emperor and Monarch for Monarch, I have at Naples the great
Count of Lemos, who, without so many petty titles of colleges and
rectorships, sustains me, protects me and does me more favour than I can
wish for."

Thus I gave him his leave and I beg mine from you, offering Your
Excellency the "Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda," a book I shall finish
within four months, Deo volente, and which will be either the worst or
the best that has been composed in our language, I mean of those intended
for entertainment; at which I repent of having called it the worst, for,
in the opinion of friends, it is bound to attain the summit of possible
quality. May Your Excellency return in such health that is wished you;
Persiles will be ready to kiss your hand and I your feet, being as I am,
Your Excellency's most humble servant.

From Madrid, this last day of October of the year one thousand six
hundred and fifteen.

At the service of Your Excellency:

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA






VOLUME II.



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE

God bless me, gentle (or it may be plebeian) reader, how eagerly must
thou be looking forward to this preface, expecting to find there
retaliation, scolding, and abuse against the author of the second Don
Quixote--I mean him who was, they say, begotten at Tordesillas and born
at Tarragona! Well then, the truth is, I am not going to give thee that
satisfaction; for, though injuries stir up anger in humbler breasts, in
mine the rule must admit of an exception. Thou wouldst have me call him
ass, fool, and malapert, but I have no such intention; let his offence be
his punishment, with his bread let him eat it, and there's an end of it.
What I cannot help taking amiss is that he charges me with being old and
one-handed, as if it had been in my power to keep time from passing over
me, or as if the loss of my hand had been brought about in some tavern,
and not on the grandest occasion the past or present has seen, or the
future can hope to see. If my wounds have no beauty to the beholder's
eye, they are, at least, honourable in the estimation of those who know
where they were received; for the soldier shows to greater advantage dead
in battle than alive in flight; and so strongly is this my feeling, that
if now it were proposed to perform an impossibility for me, I would
rather have had my share in that mighty action, than be free from my
wounds this minute without having been present at it. Those the soldier
shows on his face and breast are stars that direct others to the heaven
of honour and ambition of merited praise; and moreover it is to be
observed that it is not with grey hairs that one writes, but with the
understanding, and that commonly improves with years. I take it amiss,
too, that he calls me envious, and explains to me, as if I were ignorant,
what envy is; for really and truly, of the two kinds there are, I only
know that which is holy, noble, and high-minded; and if that be so, as it
is, I am not likely to attack a priest, above all if, in addition, he
holds the rank of familiar of the Holy Office. And if he said what he did
on account of him on whose behalf it seems he spoke, he is entirely
mistaken; for I worship the genius of that person, and admire his works
and his unceasing and strenuous industry. After all, I am grateful to
this gentleman, the author, for saying that my novels are more satirical
than exemplary, but that they are good; for they could not be that unless
there was a little of everything in them.

I suspect thou wilt say that I am taking a very humble line, and keeping
myself too much within the bounds of my moderation, from a feeling that
additional suffering should not be inflicted upon a sufferer, and that
what this gentleman has to endure must doubtless be very great, as he
does not dare to come out into the open field and broad daylight, but
hides his name and disguises his country as if he had been guilty of some
lese majesty. If perchance thou shouldst come to know him, tell him from
me that I do not hold myself aggrieved; for I know well what the
temptations of the devil are, and that one of the greatest is putting it
into a man's head that he can write and print a book by which he will get
as much fame as money, and as much money as fame; and to prove it I will
beg of you, in your own sprightly, pleasant way, to tell him this story.

There was a madman in Seville who took to one of the drollest absurdities
and vagaries that ever madman in the world gave way to. It was this: he
made a tube of reed sharp at one end, and catching a dog in the street,
or wherever it might be, he with his foot held one of its legs fast, and
with his hand lifted up the other, and as best he could fixed the tube
where, by blowing, he made the dog as round as a ball; then holding it in
this position, he gave it a couple of slaps on the belly, and let it go,
saying to the bystanders (and there were always plenty of them): "Do your
worships think, now, that it is an easy thing to blow up a dog?"--Does
your worship think now, that it is an easy thing to write a book?

And if this story does not suit him, you may, dear reader, tell him this
one, which is likewise of a madman and a dog.

In Cordova there was another madman, whose way it was to carry a piece of
marble slab or a stone, not of the lightest, on his head, and when he
came upon any unwary dog he used to draw close to him and let the weight
fall right on top of him; on which the dog in a rage, barking and
howling, would run three streets without stopping. It so happened,
however, that one of the dogs he discharged his load upon was a
cap-maker's dog, of which his master was very fond. The stone came down
hitting it on the head, the dog raised a yell at the blow, the master saw
the affair and was wroth, and snatching up a measuring-yard rushed out at
the madman and did not leave a sound bone in his body, and at every
stroke he gave him he said, "You dog, you thief! my lurcher! Don't you
see, you brute, that my dog is a lurcher?" and so, repeating the word
"lurcher" again and again, he sent the madman away beaten to a jelly. The
madman took the lesson to heart, and vanished, and for more than a month
never once showed himself in public; but after that he came out again
with his old trick and a heavier load than ever. He came up to where
there was a dog, and examining it very carefully without venturing to let
the stone fall, he said: "This is a lurcher; ware!" In short, all the
dogs he came across, be they mastiffs or terriers, he said were lurchers;
and he discharged no more stones. Maybe it will be the same with this
historian; that he will not venture another time to discharge the weight
of his wit in books, which, being bad, are harder than stones. Tell him,
too, that I do not care a farthing for the threat he holds out to me of
depriving me of my profit by means of his book; for, to borrow from the
famous interlude of "The Perendenga," I say in answer to him, "Long life
to my lord the Veintiquatro, and Christ be with us all." Long life to the
great Conde de Lemos, whose Christian charity and well-known generosity
support me against all the strokes of my curst fortune; and long life to
the supreme benevolence of His Eminence of Toledo, Don Bernardo de
Sandoval y Rojas; and what matter if there be no printing-presses in the
world, or if they print more books against me than there are letters in
the verses of Mingo Revulgo! These two princes, unsought by any adulation
or flattery of mine, of their own goodness alone, have taken it upon them
to show me kindness and protect me, and in this I consider myself happier
and richer than if Fortune had raised me to her greatest height in the
ordinary way. The poor man may retain honour, but not the vicious;
poverty may cast a cloud over nobility, but cannot hide it altogether;
and as virtue of itself sheds a certain light, even though it be through
the straits and chinks of penury, it wins the esteem of lofty and noble
spirits, and in consequence their protection. Thou needst say no more to
him, nor will I say anything more to thee, save to tell thee to bear in
mind that this Second Part of "Don Quixote" which I offer thee is cut by
the same craftsman and from the same cloth as the First, and that in it I
present thee Don Quixote continued, and at length dead and buried, so
that no one may dare to bring forward any further evidence against him,
for that already produced is sufficient; and suffice it, too, that some
reputable person should have given an account of all these shrewd
lunacies of his without going into the matter again; for abundance, even
of good things, prevents them from being valued; and scarcity, even in
the case of what is bad, confers a certain value. I was forgetting to
tell thee that thou mayest expect the "Persiles," which I am now
finishing, and also the Second Part of "Galatea."




CHAPTER I.

OF THE INTERVIEW THE CURATE AND THE BARBER HAD WITH DON QUIXOTE ABOUT HIS
MALADY


Cide Hamete Benengeli, in the Second Part of this history, and third
sally of Don Quixote, says that the curate and the barber remained nearly
a month without seeing him, lest they should recall or bring back to his
recollection what had taken place. They did not, however, omit to visit
his niece and housekeeper, and charge them to be careful to treat him
with attention, and give him comforting things to eat, and such as were
good for the heart and the brain, whence, it was plain to see, all his
misfortune proceeded. The niece and housekeeper replied that they did so,
and meant to do so with all possible care and assiduity, for they could
perceive that their master was now and then beginning to show signs of
being in his right mind. This gave great satisfaction to the curate and
the barber, for they concluded they had taken the right course in
carrying him off enchanted on the ox-cart, as has been described in the
First Part of this great as well as accurate history, in the last chapter
thereof. So they resolved to pay him a visit and test the improvement in
his condition, although they thought it almost impossible that there
could be any; and they agreed not to touch upon any point connected with
knight-errantry so as not to run the risk of reopening wounds which were
still so tender.

They came to see him consequently, and found him sitting up in bed in a
green baize waistcoat and a red Toledo cap, and so withered and dried up
that he looked as if he had been turned into a mummy. They were very
cordially received by him; they asked him after his health, and he talked
to them about himself very naturally and in very well-chosen language. In
the course of their conversation they fell to discussing what they call
State-craft and systems of government, correcting this abuse and
condemning that, reforming one practice and abolishing another, each of
the three setting up for a new legislator, a modern Lycurgus, or a
brand-new Solon; and so completely did they remodel the State, that they
seemed to have thrust it into a furnace and taken out something quite
different from what they had put in; and on all the subjects they dealt
with, Don Quixote spoke with such good sense that the pair of examiners
were fully convinced that he was quite recovered and in his full senses.

The niece and housekeeper were present at the conversation and could not
find words enough to express their thanks to God at seeing their master
so clear in his mind; the curate, however, changing his original plan,
which was to avoid touching upon matters of chivalry, resolved to test
Don Quixote's recovery thoroughly, and see whether it were genuine or
not; and so, from one subject to another, he came at last to talk of the
news that had come from the capital, and, among other things, he said it
was considered certain that the Turk was coming down with a powerful
fleet, and that no one knew what his purpose was, or when the great storm
would burst; and that all Christendom was in apprehension of this, which
almost every year calls us to arms, and that his Majesty had made
provision for the security of the coasts of Naples and Sicily and the
island of Malta.

To this Don Quixote replied, "His Majesty has acted like a prudent
warrior in providing for the safety of his realms in time, so that the
enemy may not find him unprepared; but if my advice were taken I would
recommend him to adopt a measure which at present, no doubt, his Majesty
is very far from thinking of."

The moment the curate heard this he said to himself, "God keep thee in
his hand, poor Don Quixote, for it seems to me thou art precipitating
thyself from the height of thy madness into the profound abyss of thy
simplicity."

But the barber, who had the same suspicion as the curate, asked Don
Quixote what would be his advice as to the measures that he said ought to
be adopted; for perhaps it might prove to be one that would have to be
added to the list of the many impertinent suggestions that people were in
the habit of offering to princes.

"Mine, master shaver," said Don Quixote, "will not be impertinent, but,
on the contrary, pertinent."

"I don't mean that," said the barber, "but that experience has shown that
all or most of the expedients which are proposed to his Majesty are
either impossible, or absurd, or injurious to the King and to the
kingdom."

"Mine, however," replied Don Quixote, "is neither impossible nor absurd,
but the easiest, the most reasonable, the readiest and most expeditious
that could suggest itself to any projector's mind."

"You take a long time to tell it, Senor Don Quixote," said the curate.

"I don't choose to tell it here, now," said Don Quixote, "and have it
reach the ears of the lords of the council to-morrow morning, and some
other carry off the thanks and rewards of my trouble."

"For my part," said the barber, "I give my word here and before God that
I will not repeat what your worship says, to King, Rook or earthly
man--an oath I learned from the ballad of the curate, who, in the
prelude, told the king of the thief who had robbed him of the hundred
gold crowns and his pacing mule."

"I am not versed in stories," said Don Quixote; "but I know the oath is a
good one, because I know the barber to be an honest fellow."

"Even if he were not," said the curate, "I will go bail and answer for
him that in this matter he will be as silent as a dummy, under pain of
paying any penalty that may be pronounced."

"And who will be security for you, senor curate?" said Don Quixote.

"My profession," replied the curate, "which is to keep secrets."

"Ods body!" said Don Quixote at this, "what more has his Majesty to do
but to command, by public proclamation, all the knights-errant that are
scattered over Spain to assemble on a fixed day in the capital, for even
if no more than half a dozen come, there may be one among them who alone
will suffice to destroy the entire might of the Turk. Give me your
attention and follow me. Is it, pray, any new thing for a single
knight-errant to demolish an army of two hundred thousand men, as if they
all had but one throat or were made of sugar paste? Nay, tell me, how
many histories are there filled with these marvels? If only (in an evil
hour for me: I don't speak for anyone else) the famous Don Belianis were
alive now, or any one of the innumerable progeny of Amadis of Gaul! If
any these were alive to-day, and were to come face to face with the Turk,
by my faith, I would not give much for the Turk's chance. But God will
have regard for his people, and will provide some one, who, if not so
valiant as the knights-errant of yore, at least will not be inferior to
them in spirit; but God knows what I mean, and I say no more."

"Alas!" exclaimed the niece at this, "may I die if my master does not
want to turn knight-errant again;" to which Don Quixote replied, "A
knight-errant I shall die, and let the Turk come down or go up when he
likes, and in as strong force as he can, once more I say, God knows what
I mean." But here the barber said, "I ask your worships to give me leave
to tell a short story of something that happened in Seville, which comes
so pat to the purpose just now that I should like greatly to tell it."
Don Quixote gave him leave, and the rest prepared to listen, and he began
thus:

"In the madhouse at Seville there was a man whom his relations had placed
there as being out of his mind. He was a graduate of Osuna in canon law;
but even if he had been of Salamanca, it was the opinion of most people
that he would have been mad all the same. This graduate, after some years
of confinement, took it into his head that he was sane and in his full
senses, and under this impression wrote to the Archbishop, entreating him
earnestly, and in very correct language, to have him released from the
misery in which he was living; for by God's mercy he had now recovered
his lost reason, though his relations, in order to enjoy his property,
kept him there, and, in spite of the truth, would make him out to be mad
until his dying day. The Archbishop, moved by repeated sensible,
well-written letters, directed one of his chaplains to make inquiry of
the madhouse as to the truth of the licentiate's statements, and to have
an interview with the madman himself, and, if it should appear that he
was in his senses, to take him out and restore him to liberty. The
chaplain did so, and the governor assured him that the man was still mad,
and that though he often spoke like a highly intelligent person, he would
in the end break out into nonsense that in quantity and quality
counterbalanced all the sensible things he had said before, as might be
easily tested by talking to him. The chaplain resolved to try the
experiment, and obtaining access to the madman conversed with him for an
hour or more, during the whole of which time he never uttered a word that
was incoherent or absurd, but, on the contrary, spoke so rationally that
the chaplain was compelled to believe him to be sane. Among other things,
he said the governor was against him, not to lose the presents his
relations made him for reporting him still mad but with lucid intervals;
and that the worst foe he had in his misfortune was his large property;
for in order to enjoy it his enemies disparaged and threw doubts upon the
mercy our Lord had shown him in turning him from a brute beast into a
man. In short, he spoke in such a way that he cast suspicion on the
governor, and made his relations appear covetous and heartless, and
himself so rational that the chaplain determined to take him away with
him that the Archbishop might see him, and ascertain for himself the
truth of the matter. Yielding to this conviction, the worthy chaplain
begged the governor to have the clothes in which the licentiate had
entered the house given to him. The governor again bade him beware of
what he was doing, as the licentiate was beyond a doubt still mad; but
all his cautions and warnings were unavailing to dissuade the chaplain
from taking him away. The governor, seeing that it was the order of the
Archbishop, obeyed, and they dressed the licentiate in his own clothes,
which were new and decent. He, as soon as he saw himself clothed like one
in his senses, and divested of the appearance of a madman, entreated the
chaplain to permit him in charity to go and take leave of his comrades
the madmen. The chaplain said he would go with him to see what madmen
there were in the house; so they went upstairs, and with them some of
those who were present. Approaching a cage in which there was a furious
madman, though just at that moment calm and quiet, the licentiate said to
him, 'Brother, think if you have any commands for me, for I am going
home, as God has been pleased, in his infinite goodness and mercy,
without any merit of mine, to restore me my reason. I am now cured and in
my senses, for with God's power nothing is impossible. Have strong hope
and trust in him, for as he has restored me to my original condition, so
likewise he will restore you if you trust in him. I will take care to
send you some good things to eat; and be sure you eat them; for I would
have you know I am convinced, as one who has gone through it, that all
this madness of ours comes of having the stomach empty and the brains
full of wind. Take courage! take courage! for despondency in misfortune
breaks down health and brings on death.'

"To all these words of the licentiate another madman in a cage opposite
that of the furious one was listening; and raising himself up from an old
mat on which he lay stark naked, he asked in a loud voice who it was that
was going away cured and in his senses. The licentiate answered, 'It is
I, brother, who am going; I have now no need to remain here any longer,
for which I return infinite thanks to Heaven that has had so great mercy
upon me.'

"'Mind what you are saying, licentiate; don't let the devil deceive you,'
replied the madman. 'Keep quiet, stay where you are, and you will save
yourself the trouble of coming back.'

"'I know I am cured,' returned the licentiate, 'and that I shall not have
to go stations again.'

"'You cured!' said the madman; 'well, we shall see; God be with you; but
I swear to you by Jupiter, whose majesty I represent on earth, that for
this crime alone, which Seville is committing to-day in releasing you
from this house, and treating you as if you were in your senses, I shall
have to inflict such a punishment on it as will be remembered for ages
and ages, amen. Dost thou not know, thou miserable little licentiate,
that I can do it, being, as I say, Jupiter the Thunderer, who hold in my
hands the fiery bolts with which I am able and am wont to threaten and
lay waste the world? But in one way only will I punish this ignorant
town, and that is by not raining upon it, nor on any part of its district
or territory, for three whole years, to be reckoned from the day and
moment when this threat is pronounced. Thou free, thou cured, thou in thy
senses! and I mad, I disordered, I bound! I will as soon think of sending
rain as of hanging myself.

"Those present stood listening to the words and exclamations of the
madman; but our licentiate, turning to the chaplain and seizing him by
the hands, said to him, 'Be not uneasy, senor; attach no importance to
what this madman has said; for if he is Jupiter and will not send rain,
I, who am Neptune, the father and god of the waters, will rain as often
as it pleases me and may be needful.'

"The governor and the bystanders laughed, and at their laughter the
chaplain was half ashamed, and he replied, 'For all that, Senor Neptune,
it will not do to vex Senor Jupiter; remain where you are, and some other
day, when there is a better opportunity and more time, we will come back
for you.' So they stripped the licentiate, and he was left where he was;
and that's the end of the story."

"So that's the story, master barber," said Don Quixote, "which came in so
pat to the purpose that you could not help telling it? Master shaver,
master shaver! how blind is he who cannot see through a sieve. Is it
possible that you do not know that comparisons of wit with wit, valour
with valour, beauty with beauty, birth with birth, are always odious and
unwelcome? I, master barber, am not Neptune, the god of the waters, nor
do I try to make anyone take me for an astute man, for I am not one. My
only endeavour is to convince the world of the mistake it makes in not
reviving in itself the happy time when the order of knight-errantry was
in the field. But our depraved age does not deserve to enjoy such a
blessing as those ages enjoyed when knights-errant took upon their
shoulders the defence of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the succour
of orphans and minors, the chastisement of the proud, and the recompense
of the humble. With the knights of these days, for the most part, it is
the damask, brocade, and rich stuffs they wear, that rustle as they go,
not the chain mail of their armour; no knight now-a-days sleeps in the
open field exposed to the inclemency of heaven, and in full panoply from
head to foot; no one now takes a nap, as they call it, without drawing
his feet out of the stirrups, and leaning upon his lance, as the
knights-errant used to do; no one now, issuing from the wood, penetrates
yonder mountains, and then treads the barren, lonely shore of the
sea--mostly a tempestuous and stormy one--and finding on the beach a
little bark without oars, sail, mast, or tackling of any kind, in the
intrepidity of his heart flings himself into it and commits himself to
the wrathful billows of the deep sea, that one moment lift him up to
heaven and the next plunge him into the depths; and opposing his breast
to the irresistible gale, finds himself, when he least expects it, three
thousand leagues and more away from the place where he embarked; and
leaping ashore in a remote and unknown land has adventures that deserve
to be written, not on parchment, but on brass. But now sloth triumphs
over energy, indolence over exertion, vice over virtue, arrogance over
courage, and theory over practice in arms, which flourished and shone
only in the golden ages and in knights-errant. For tell me, who was more
virtuous and more valiant than the famous Amadis of Gaul? Who more
discreet than Palmerin of England? Who more gracious and easy than
Tirante el Blanco? Who more courtly than Lisuarte of Greece? Who more
slashed or slashing than Don Belianis? Who more intrepid than Perion of
Gaul? Who more ready to face danger than Felixmarte of Hircania? Who more
sincere than Esplandian? Who more impetuous than Don Cirongilio of
Thrace? Who more bold than Rodamonte? Who more prudent than King Sobrino?
Who more daring than Reinaldos? Who more invincible than Roland? and who
more gallant and courteous than Ruggiero, from whom the dukes of Ferrara
of the present day are descended, according to Turpin in his
'Cosmography.' All these knights, and many more that I could name, senor
curate, were knights-errant, the light and glory of chivalry. These, or
such as these, I would have to carry out my plan, and in that case his
Majesty would find himself well served and would save great expense, and
the Turk would be left tearing his beard. And so I will stay where I am,
as the chaplain does not take me away; and if Jupiter, as the barber has
told us, will not send rain, here am I, and I will rain when I please. I
say this that Master Basin may know that I understand him."

"Indeed, Senor Don Quixote," said the barber, "I did not mean it in that
way, and, so help me God, my intention was good, and your worship ought
not to be vexed."

"As to whether I ought to be vexed or not," returned Don Quixote, "I
myself am the best judge."

Hereupon the curate observed, "I have hardly said a word as yet; and I
would gladly be relieved of a doubt, arising from what Don Quixote has
said, that worries and works my conscience."

"The senor curate has leave for more than that," returned Don Quixote,
"so he may declare his doubt, for it is not pleasant to have a doubt on
one's conscience."

"Well then, with that permission," said the curate, "I say my doubt is
that, all I can do, I cannot persuade myself that the whole pack of
knights-errant you, Senor Don Quixote, have mentioned, were really and
truly persons of flesh and blood, that ever lived in the world; on the
contrary, I suspect it to be all fiction, fable, and falsehood, and
dreams told by men awakened from sleep, or rather still half asleep."

"That is another mistake," replied Don Quixote, "into which many have
fallen who do not believe that there ever were such knights in the world,
and I have often, with divers people and on divers occasions, tried to
expose this almost universal error to the light of truth. Sometimes I
have not been successful in my purpose, sometimes I have, supporting it
upon the shoulders of the truth; which truth is so clear that I can
almost say I have with my own eyes seen Amadis of Gaul, who was a man of
lofty stature, fair complexion, with a handsome though black beard, of a
countenance between gentle and stern in expression, sparing of words,
slow to anger, and quick to put it away from him; and as I have depicted
Amadis, so I could, I think, portray and describe all the knights-errant
that are in all the histories in the world; for by the perception I have
that they were what their histories describe, and by the deeds they did
and the dispositions they displayed, it is possible, with the aid of
sound philosophy, to deduce their features, complexion, and stature."

"How big, in your worship's opinion, may the giant Morgante have been,
Senor Don Quixote?" asked the barber.

"With regard to giants," replied Don Quixote, "opinions differ as to
whether there ever were any or not in the world; but the Holy Scripture,
which cannot err by a jot from the truth, shows us that there were, when
it gives us the history of that big Philistine, Goliath, who was seven
cubits and a half in height, which is a huge size. Likewise, in the
island of Sicily, there have been found leg-bones and arm-bones so large
that their size makes it plain that their owners were giants, and as tall
as great towers; geometry puts this fact beyond a doubt. But, for all
that, I cannot speak with certainty as to the size of Morgante, though I
suspect he cannot have been very tall; and I am inclined to be of this
opinion because I find in the history in which his deeds are particularly
mentioned, that he frequently slept under a roof and as he found houses
to contain him, it is clear that his bulk could not have been anything
excessive."

"That is true," said the curate, and yielding to the enjoyment of hearing
such nonsense, he asked him what was his notion of the features of
Reinaldos of Montalban, and Don Roland and the rest of the Twelve Peers
of France, for they were all knights-errant.

"As for Reinaldos," replied Don Quixote, "I venture to say that he was
broad-faced, of ruddy complexion, with roguish and somewhat prominent
eyes, excessively punctilious and touchy, and given to the society of
thieves and scapegraces. With regard to Roland, or Rotolando, or Orlando
(for the histories call him by all these names), I am of opinion, and
hold, that he was of middle height, broad-shouldered, rather bow-legged,
swarthy-complexioned, red-bearded, with a hairy body and a severe
expression of countenance, a man of few words, but very polite and
well-bred."

"If Roland was not a more graceful person than your worship has
described," said the curate, "it is no wonder that the fair Lady Angelica
rejected him and left him for the gaiety, liveliness, and grace of that
budding-bearded little Moor to whom she surrendered herself; and she
showed her sense in falling in love with the gentle softness of Medoro
rather than the roughness of Roland."

"That Angelica, senor curate," returned Don Quixote, "was a giddy damsel,
flighty and somewhat wanton, and she left the world as full of her
vagaries as of the fame of her beauty. She treated with scorn a thousand
gentlemen, men of valour and wisdom, and took up with a smooth-faced
sprig of a page, without fortune or fame, except such reputation for
gratitude as the affection he bore his friend got for him. The great poet
who sang her beauty, the famous Ariosto, not caring to sing her
adventures after her contemptible surrender (which probably were not over
and above creditable), dropped her where he says:

How she received the sceptre of Cathay,
Some bard of defter quill may sing some day;

and this was no doubt a kind of prophecy, for poets are also called
vates, that is to say diviners; and its truth was made plain; for since
then a famous Andalusian poet has lamented and sung her tears, and
another famous and rare poet, a Castilian, has sung her beauty."

"Tell me, Senor Don Quixote," said the barber here, "among all those who
praised her, has there been no poet to write a satire on this Lady
Angelica?"

"I can well believe," replied Don Quixote, "that if Sacripante or Roland
had been poets they would have given the damsel a trimming; for it is
naturally the way with poets who have been scorned and rejected by their
ladies, whether fictitious or not, in short by those whom they select as
the ladies of their thoughts, to avenge themselves in satires and
libels--a vengeance, to be sure, unworthy of generous hearts; but up to
the present I have not heard of any defamatory verse against the Lady
Angelica, who turned the world upside down."

"Strange," said the curate; but at this moment they heard the housekeeper
and the niece, who had previously withdrawn from the conversation,
exclaiming aloud in the courtyard, and at the noise they all ran out.




CHAPTER II.

WHICH TREATS OF THE NOTABLE ALTERCATION WHICH SANCHO PANZA HAD WITH DON
QUIXOTE'S NIECE, AND HOUSEKEEPER, TOGETHER WITH OTHER DROLL MATTERS


The history relates that the outcry Don Quixote, the curate, and the
barber heard came from the niece and the housekeeper exclaiming to
Sancho, who was striving to force his way in to see Don Quixote while
they held the door against him, "What does the vagabond want in this
house? Be off to your own, brother, for it is you, and no one else, that
delude my master, and lead him astray, and take him tramping about the
country."

To which Sancho replied, "Devil's own housekeeper! it is I who am
deluded, and led astray, and taken tramping about the country, and not
thy master! He has carried me all over the world, and you are mightily
mistaken. He enticed me away from home by a trick, promising me an
island, which I am still waiting for."

"May evil islands choke thee, thou detestable Sancho," said the niece;
"What are islands? Is it something to eat, glutton and gormandiser that
thou art?"

"It is not something to eat," replied Sancho, "but something to govern
and rule, and better than four cities or four judgeships at court."

"For all that," said the housekeeper, "you don't enter here, you bag of
mischief and sack of knavery; go govern your house and dig your
seed-patch, and give over looking for islands or shylands."

The curate and the barber listened with great amusement to the words of
the three; but Don Quixote, uneasy lest Sancho should blab and blurt out
a whole heap of mischievous stupidities, and touch upon points that might
not be altogether to his credit, called to him and made the other two
hold their tongues and let him come in. Sancho entered, and the curate
and the barber took their leave of Don Quixote, of whose recovery they
despaired when they saw how wedded he was to his crazy ideas, and how
saturated with the nonsense of his unlucky chivalry; and said the curate
to the barber, "You will see, gossip, that when we are least thinking of
it, our gentleman will be off once more for another flight."

"I have no doubt of it," returned the barber; "but I do not wonder so
much at the madness of the knight as at the simplicity of the squire, who
has such a firm belief in all that about the island, that I suppose all
the exposures that could be imagined would not get it out of his head."

"God help them," said the curate; "and let us be on the look-out to see
what comes of all these absurdities of the knight and squire, for it
seems as if they had both been cast in the same mould, and the madness of
the master without the simplicity of the man would not be worth a
farthing."

"That is true," said the barber, "and I should like very much to know
what the pair are talking about at this moment."

"I promise you," said the curate, "the niece or the housekeeper will tell
us by-and-by, for they are not the ones to forget to listen."

Meanwhile Don Quixote shut himself up in his room with Sancho, and when
they were alone he said to him, "It grieves me greatly, Sancho, that thou
shouldst have said, and sayest, that I took thee out of thy cottage, when
thou knowest I did not remain in my house. We sallied forth together, we
took the road together, we wandered abroad together; we have had the same
fortune and the same luck; if they blanketed thee once, they belaboured
me a hundred times, and that is the only advantage I have of thee."

"That was only reasonable," replied Sancho, "for, by what your worship
says, misfortunes belong more properly to knights-errant than to their
squires."

"Thou art mistaken, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "according to the maxim
quando caput dolet, etc."

"I don't understand any language but my own," said Sancho.

"I mean to say," said Don Quixote, "that when the head suffers all the
members suffer; and so, being thy lord and master, I am thy head, and
thou a part of me as thou art my servant; and therefore any evil that
affects or shall affect me should give thee pain, and what affects thee
give pain to me."

"It should be so," said Sancho; "but when I was blanketed as a member, my
head was on the other side of the wall, looking on while I was flying
through the air, and did not feel any pain whatever; and if the members
are obliged to feel the suffering of the head, it should be obliged to
feel their sufferings."

"Dost thou mean to say now, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that I did not
feel when they were blanketing thee? If thou dost, thou must not say so
or think so, for I felt more pain then in spirit than thou didst in body.
But let us put that aside for the present, for we shall have
opportunities enough for considering and settling the point; tell me,
Sancho my friend, what do they say about me in the village here? What do
the common people think of me? What do the hidalgos? What do the
caballeros? What do they say of my valour; of my achievements; of my
courtesy? How do they treat the task I have undertaken in reviving and
restoring to the world the now forgotten order of chivalry? In short,
Sancho, I would have thee tell me all that has come to thine ears on this
subject; and thou art to tell me, without adding anything to the good or
taking away anything from the bad; for it is the duty of loyal vassals to
tell the truth to their lords just as it is and in its proper shape, not
allowing flattery to add to it or any idle deference to lessen it. And I
would have thee know, Sancho, that if the naked truth, undisguised by
flattery, came to the ears of princes, times would be different, and
other ages would be reckoned iron ages more than ours, which I hold to be
the golden of these latter days. Profit by this advice, Sancho, and
report to me clearly and faithfully the truth of what thou knowest
touching what I have demanded of thee."

"That I will do with all my heart, master," replied Sancho, "provided
your worship will not be vexed at what I say, as you wish me to say it
out in all its nakedness, without putting any more clothes on it than it
came to my knowledge in."

"I will not be vexed at all," returned Don Quixote; "thou mayest speak
freely, Sancho, and without any beating about the bush."

"Well then," said he, "first of all, I have to tell you that the common
people consider your worship a mighty great madman, and me no less a
fool. The hidalgos say that, not keeping within the bounds of your
quality of gentleman, you have assumed the 'Don,' and made a knight of
yourself at a jump, with four vine-stocks and a couple of acres of land,
and never a shirt to your back. The caballeros say they do not want to
have hidalgos setting up in opposition to them, particularly squire
hidalgos who polish their own shoes and darn their black stockings with
green silk."

"That," said Don Quixote, "does not apply to me, for I always go well
dressed and never patched; ragged I may be, but ragged more from the wear
and tear of arms than of time."

"As to your worship's valour, courtesy, accomplishments, and task, there
is a variety of opinions. Some say, 'mad but droll;' others, 'valiant but
unlucky;' others, 'courteous but meddling,' and then they go into such a
number of things that they don't leave a whole bone either in your
worship or in myself."

"Recollect, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that wherever virtue exists in an
eminent degree it is persecuted. Few or none of the famous men that have
lived escaped being calumniated by malice. Julius Caesar, the boldest,
wisest, and bravest of captains, was charged with being ambitious, and
not particularly cleanly in his dress, or pure in his morals. Of
Alexander, whose deeds won him the name of Great, they say that he was
somewhat of a drunkard. Of Hercules, him of the many labours, it is said
that he was lewd and luxurious. Of Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of
Gaul, it was whispered that he was over-quarrelsome, and of his brother
that he was lachrymose. So that, O Sancho, amongst all these calumnies
against good men, mine may be let pass, since they are no more than thou
hast said."

"That's just where it is, body of my father!"

"Is there more, then?" asked Don Quixote.

"There's the tail to be skinned yet," said Sancho; "all so far is cakes
and fancy bread; but if your worship wants to know all about the
calumnies they bring against you, I will fetch you one this instant who
can tell you the whole of them without missing an atom; for last night
the son of Bartholomew Carrasco, who has been studying at Salamanca, came
home after having been made a bachelor, and when I went to welcome him,
he told me that your worship's history is already abroad in books, with
the title of THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA; and he
says they mention me in it by my own name of Sancho Panza, and the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso too, and divers things that happened to us when we
were alone; so that I crossed myself in my wonder how the historian who
wrote them down could have known them."

"I promise thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "the author of our history
will be some sage enchanter; for to such nothing that they choose to
write about is hidden."

"What!" said Sancho, "a sage and an enchanter! Why, the bachelor Samson
Carrasco (that is the name of him I spoke of) says the author of the
history is called Cide Hamete Berengena."

"That is a Moorish name," said Don Quixote.

"May be so," replied Sancho; "for I have heard say that the Moors are
mostly great lovers of berengenas."

"Thou must have mistaken the surname of this 'Cide'--which means in
Arabic 'Lord'--Sancho," observed Don Quixote.

"Very likely," replied Sancho, "but if your worship wishes me to fetch
the bachelor I will go for him in a twinkling."

"Thou wilt do me a great pleasure, my friend," said Don Quixote, "for
what thou hast told me has amazed me, and I shall not eat a morsel that
will agree with me until I have heard all about it."

"Then I am off for him," said Sancho; and leaving his master he went in
quest of the bachelor, with whom he returned in a short time, and, all
three together, they had a very droll colloquy.




CHAPTER III.

OF THE LAUGHABLE CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE, SANCHO
PANZA, AND THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO


Don Quixote remained very deep in thought, waiting for the bachelor
Carrasco, from whom he was to hear how he himself had been put into a
book as Sancho said; and he could not persuade himself that any such
history could be in existence, for the blood of the enemies he had slain
was not yet dry on the blade of his sword, and now they wanted to make
out that his mighty achievements were going about in print. For all that,
he fancied some sage, either a friend or an enemy, might, by the aid of
magic, have given them to the press; if a friend, in order to magnify and
exalt them above the most famous ever achieved by any knight-errant; if
an enemy, to bring them to naught and degrade them below the meanest ever
recorded of any low squire, though as he said to himself, the
achievements of squires never were recorded. If, however, it were the
fact that such a history were in existence, it must necessarily, being
the story of a knight-errant, be grandiloquent, lofty, imposing, grand
and true. With this he comforted himself somewhat, though it made him
uncomfortable to think that the author was a Moor, judging by the title
of "Cide;" and that no truth was to be looked for from Moors, as they are
all impostors, cheats, and schemers. He was afraid he might have dealt
with his love affairs in some indecorous fashion, that might tend to the
discredit and prejudice of the purity of his lady Dulcinea del Toboso; he
would have had him set forth the fidelity and respect he had always
observed towards her, spurning queens, empresses, and damsels of all
sorts, and keeping in check the impetuosity of his natural impulses.
Absorbed and wrapped up in these and divers other cogitations, he was
found by Sancho and Carrasco, whom Don Quixote received with great
courtesy.

The bachelor, though he was called Samson, was of no great bodily size,
but he was a very great wag; he was of a sallow complexion, but very
sharp-witted, somewhere about four-and-twenty years of age, with a round
face, a flat nose, and a large mouth, all indications of a mischievous
disposition and a love of fun and jokes; and of this he gave a sample as
soon as he saw Don Quixote, by falling on his knees before him and
saying, "Let me kiss your mightiness's hand, Senor Don Quixote of La
Mancha, for, by the habit of St. Peter that I wear, though I have no more
than the first four orders, your worship is one of the most famous
knights-errant that have ever been, or will be, all the world over. A
blessing on Cide Hamete Benengeli, who has written the history of your
great deeds, and a double blessing on that connoisseur who took the
trouble of having it translated out of the Arabic into our Castilian
vulgar tongue for the universal entertainment of the people!"

Don Quixote made him rise, and said, "So, then, it is true that there is
a history of me, and that it was a Moor and a sage who wrote it?"

"So true is it, senor," said Samson, "that my belief is there are more
than twelve thousand volumes of the said history in print this very day.
Only ask Portugal, Barcelona, and Valencia, where they have been printed,
and moreover there is a report that it is being printed at Antwerp, and I
am persuaded there will not be a country or language in which there will
not be a translation of it."

"One of the things," here observed Don Quixote, "that ought to give most
pleasure to a virtuous and eminent man is to find himself in his lifetime
in print and in type, familiar in people's mouths with a good name; I say
with a good name, for if it be the opposite, then there is no death to be
compared to it."

"If it goes by good name and fame," said the bachelor, "your worship
alone bears away the palm from all the knights-errant; for the Moor in
his own language, and the Christian in his, have taken care to set before
us your gallantry, your high courage in encountering dangers, your
fortitude in adversity, your patience under misfortunes as well as
wounds, the purity and continence of the platonic loves of your worship
and my lady Dona Dulcinea del Toboso-"

"I never heard my lady Dulcinea called Dona," observed Sancho here;
"nothing more than the lady Dulcinea del Toboso; so here already the
history is wrong."

"That is not an objection of any importance," replied Carrasco.

"Certainly not," said Don Quixote; "but tell me, senor bachelor, what
deeds of mine are they that are made most of in this history?"

"On that point," replied the bachelor, "opinions differ, as tastes do;
some swear by the adventure of the windmills that your worship took to be
Briareuses and giants; others by that of the fulling mills; one cries up
the description of the two armies that afterwards took the appearance of
two droves of sheep; another that of the dead body on its way to be
buried at Segovia; a third says the liberation of the galley slaves is
the best of all, and a fourth that nothing comes up to the affair with
the Benedictine giants, and the battle with the valiant Biscayan."

"Tell me, senor bachelor," said Sancho at this point, "does the adventure
with the Yanguesans come in, when our good Rocinante went hankering after
dainties?"

"The sage has left nothing in the ink-bottle," replied Samson; "he tells
all and sets down everything, even to the capers that worthy Sancho cut
in the blanket."

"I cut no capers in the blanket," returned Sancho; "in the air I did, and
more of them than I liked."

"There is no human history in the world, I suppose," said Don Quixote,
"that has not its ups and downs, but more than others such as deal with
chivalry, for they can never be entirely made up of prosperous
adventures."

"For all that," replied the bachelor, "there are those who have read the
history who say they would have been glad if the author had left out some
of the countless cudgellings that were inflicted on Senor Don Quixote in
various encounters."

"That's where the truth of the history comes in," said Sancho.

"At the same time they might fairly have passed them over in silence,"
observed Don Quixote; "for there is no need of recording events which do
not change or affect the truth of a history, if they tend to bring the
hero of it into contempt. AEneas was not in truth and earnest so pious as
Virgil represents him, nor Ulysses so wise as Homer describes him."

"That is true," said Samson; "but it is one thing to write as a poet,
another to write as a historian; the poet may describe or sing things,
not as they were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian has
to write them down, not as they ought to have been, but as they were,
without adding anything to the truth or taking anything from it."

"Well then," said Sancho, "if this senor Moor goes in for telling the
truth, no doubt among my master's drubbings mine are to be found; for
they never took the measure of his worship's shoulders without doing the
same for my whole body; but I have no right to wonder at that, for, as my
master himself says, the members must share the pain of the head."

"You are a sly dog, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "i' faith, you have no
want of memory when you choose to remember."

"If I were to try to forget the thwacks they gave me," said Sancho, "my
weals would not let me, for they are still fresh on my ribs."

"Hush, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and don't interrupt the bachelor, whom
I entreat to go on and tell all that is said about me in this history."

"And about me," said Sancho, "for they say, too, that I am one of the
principal presonages in it."

"Personages, not presonages, friend Sancho," said Samson.

"What! Another word-catcher!" said Sancho; "if that's to be the way we
shall not make an end in a lifetime."

"May God shorten mine, Sancho," returned the bachelor, "if you are not
the second person in the history, and there are even some who would
rather hear you talk than the cleverest in the whole book; though there
are some, too, who say you showed yourself over-credulous in believing
there was any possibility in the government of that island offered you by
Senor Don Quixote."

"There is still sunshine on the wall," said Don Quixote; "and when Sancho
is somewhat more advanced in life, with the experience that years bring,
he will be fitter and better qualified for being a governor than he is at
present."

"By God, master," said Sancho, "the island that I cannot govern with the
years I have, I'll not be able to govern with the years of Methuselah;
the difficulty is that the said island keeps its distance somewhere, I
know not where; and not that there is any want of head in me to govern
it."

"Leave it to God, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for all will be and perhaps
better than you think; no leaf on the tree stirs but by God's will."

"That is true," said Samson; "and if it be God's will, there will not be
any want of a thousand islands, much less one, for Sancho to govern."

"I have seen governors in these parts," said Sancho, "that are not to be
compared to my shoe-sole; and for all that they are called 'your
lordship' and served on silver."

"Those are not governors of islands," observed Samson, "but of other
governments of an easier kind: those that govern islands must at least
know grammar."

"I could manage the gram well enough," said Sancho; "but for the mar I
have neither leaning nor liking, for I don't know what it is; but leaving
this matter of the government in God's hands, to send me wherever it may
be most to his service, I may tell you, senor bachelor Samson Carrasco,
it has pleased me beyond measure that the author of this history should
have spoken of me in such a way that what is said of me gives no offence;
for, on the faith of a true squire, if he had said anything about me that
was at all unbecoming an old Christian, such as I am, the deaf would have
heard of it."

"That would be working miracles," said Samson.

"Miracles or no miracles," said Sancho, "let everyone mind how he speaks
or writes about people, and not set down at random the first thing that
comes into his head."

"One of the faults they find with this history," said the bachelor, "is
that its author inserted in it a novel called 'The Ill-advised
Curiosity;' not that it is bad or ill-told, but that it is out of place
and has nothing to do with the history of his worship Senor Don Quixote."

"I will bet the son of a dog has mixed the cabbages and the baskets,"
said Sancho.

"Then, I say," said Don Quixote, "the author of my history was no sage,
but some ignorant chatterer, who, in a haphazard and heedless way, set
about writing it, let it turn out as it might, just as Orbaneja, the
painter of Ubeda, used to do, who, when they asked him what he was
painting, answered, 'What it may turn out.' Sometimes he would paint a
cock in such a fashion, and so unlike, that he had to write alongside of
it in Gothic letters, 'This is a cock; and so it will be with my history,
which will require a commentary to make it intelligible."

"No fear of that," returned Samson, "for it is so plain that there is
nothing in it to puzzle over; the children turn its leaves, the young
people read it, the grown men understand it, the old folk praise it; in a
word, it is so thumbed, and read, and got by heart by people of all
sorts, that the instant they see any lean hack, they say, 'There goes
Rocinante.' And those that are most given to reading it are the pages,
for there is not a lord's ante-chamber where there is not a 'Don Quixote'
to be found; one takes it up if another lays it down; this one pounces
upon it, and that begs for it. In short, the said history is the most
delightful and least injurious entertainment that has been hitherto seen,
for there is not to be found in the whole of it even the semblance of an
immodest word, or a thought that is other than Catholic."

"To write in any other way," said Don Quixote, "would not be to write
truth, but falsehood, and historians who have recourse to falsehood ought
to be burned, like those who coin false money; and I know not what could
have led the author to have recourse to novels and irrelevant stories,
when he had so much to write about in mine; no doubt he must have gone by
the proverb 'with straw or with hay, etc,' for by merely setting forth my
thoughts, my sighs, my tears, my lofty purposes, my enterprises, he might
have made a volume as large, or larger than all the works of El Tostado
would make up. In fact, the conclusion I arrive at, senor bachelor, is,
that to write histories, or books of any kind, there is need of great
judgment and a ripe understanding. To give expression to humour, and
write in a strain of graceful pleasantry, is the gift of great geniuses.
The cleverest character in comedy is the clown, for he who would make
people take him for a fool, must not be one. History is in a measure a
sacred thing, for it should be true, and where the truth is, there God
is; but notwithstanding this, there are some who write and fling books
broadcast on the world as if they were fritters."

"There is no book so bad but it has something good in it," said the
bachelor.

"No doubt of that," replied Don Quixote; "but it often happens that those
who have acquired and attained a well-deserved reputation by their
writings, lose it entirely, or damage it in some degree, when they give
them to the press."

"The reason of that," said Samson, "is, that as printed works are
examined leisurely, their faults are easily seen; and the greater the
fame of the writer, the more closely are they scrutinised. Men famous for
their genius, great poets, illustrious historians, are always, or most
commonly, envied by those who take a particular delight and pleasure in
criticising the writings of others, without having produced any of their
own."

"That is no wonder," said Don Quixote; "for there are many divines who
are no good for the pulpit, but excellent in detecting the defects or
excesses of those who preach."

"All that is true, Senor Don Quixote," said Carrasco; "but I wish such
fault-finders were more lenient and less exacting, and did not pay so
much attention to the spots on the bright sun of the work they grumble
at; for if aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus, they should remember how
long he remained awake to shed the light of his work with as little shade
as possible; and perhaps it may be that what they find fault with may be
moles, that sometimes heighten the beauty of the face that bears them;
and so I say very great is the risk to which he who prints a book exposes
himself, for of all impossibilities the greatest is to write one that
will satisfy and please all readers."

"That which treats of me must have pleased few," said Don Quixote.

"Quite the contrary," said the bachelor; "for, as stultorum infinitum est
numerus, innumerable are those who have relished the said history; but
some have brought a charge against the author's memory, inasmuch as he
forgot to say who the thief was who stole Sancho's Dapple; for it is not
stated there, but only to be inferred from what is set down, that he was
stolen, and a little farther on we see Sancho mounted on the same ass,
without any reappearance of it. They say, too, that he forgot to state
what Sancho did with those hundred crowns that he found in the valise in
the Sierra Morena, as he never alludes to them again, and there are many
who would be glad to know what he did with them, or what he spent them
on, for it is one of the serious omissions of the work."

"Senor Samson, I am not in a humour now for going into accounts or
explanations," said Sancho; "for there's a sinking of the stomach come
over me, and unless I doctor it with a couple of sups of the old stuff it
will put me on the thorn of Santa Lucia. I have it at home, and my old
woman is waiting for me; after dinner I'll come back, and will answer you
and all the world every question you may choose to ask, as well about the
loss of the ass as about the spending of the hundred crowns;" and without
another word or waiting for a reply he made off home.

Don Quixote begged and entreated the bachelor to stay and do penance with
him. The bachelor accepted the invitation and remained, a couple of young
pigeons were added to the ordinary fare, at dinner they talked chivalry,
Carrasco fell in with his host's humour, the banquet came to an end, they
took their afternoon sleep, Sancho returned, and their conversation was
resumed.




CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH SANCHO PANZA GIVES A SATISFACTORY REPLY TO THE DOUBTS AND
QUESTIONS OF THE BACHELOR SAMSON CARRASCO, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS
WORTH KNOWING AND TELLING


Sancho came back to Don Quixote's house, and returning to the late
subject of conversation, he said, "As to what Senor Samson said, that he
would like to know by whom, or how, or when my ass was stolen, I say in
reply that the same night we went into the Sierra Morena, flying from the
Holy Brotherhood after that unlucky adventure of the galley slaves, and
the other of the corpse that was going to Segovia, my master and I
ensconced ourselves in a thicket, and there, my master leaning on his
lance, and I seated on my Dapple, battered and weary with the late frays
we fell asleep as if it had been on four feather mattresses; and I in
particular slept so sound, that, whoever he was, he was able to come and
prop me up on four stakes, which he put under the four corners of the
pack-saddle in such a way that he left me mounted on it, and took away
Dapple from under me without my feeling it."

"That is an easy matter," said Don Quixote, "and it is no new occurrence,
for the same thing happened to Sacripante at the siege of Albracca; the
famous thief, Brunello, by the same contrivance, took his horse from
between his legs."

"Day came," continued Sancho, "and the moment I stirred the stakes gave
way and I fell to the ground with a mighty come down; I looked about for
the ass, but could not see him; the tears rushed to my eyes and I raised
such a lamentation that, if the author of our history has not put it in,
he may depend upon it he has left out a good thing. Some days after, I
know not how many, travelling with her ladyship the Princess Micomicona,
I saw my ass, and mounted upon him, in the dress of a gipsy, was that
Gines de Pasamonte, the great rogue and rascal that my master and I freed
from the chain."

"That is not where the mistake is," replied Samson; "it is, that before
the ass has turned up, the author speaks of Sancho as being mounted on
it."

"I don't know what to say to that," said Sancho, "unless that the
historian made a mistake, or perhaps it might be a blunder of the
printer's."

"No doubt that's it," said Samson; "but what became of the hundred
crowns? Did they vanish?"

To which Sancho answered, "I spent them for my own good, and my wife's,
and my children's, and it is they that have made my wife bear so
patiently all my wanderings on highways and byways, in the service of my
master, Don Quixote; for if after all this time I had come back to the
house without a rap and without the ass, it would have been a poor
look-out for me; and if anyone wants to know anything more about me, here
I am, ready to answer the king himself in person; and it is no affair of
anyone's whether I took or did not take, whether I spent or did not
spend; for the whacks that were given me in these journeys were to be
paid for in money, even if they were valued at no more than four
maravedis apiece, another hundred crowns would not pay me for half of
them. Let each look to himself and not try to make out white black, and
black white; for each of us is as God made him, aye, and often worse."

"I will take care," said Carrasco, "to impress upon the author of the
history that, if he prints it again, he must not forget what worthy
Sancho has said, for it will raise it a good span higher."

"Is there anything else to correct in the history, senor bachelor?" asked
Don Quixote.

"No doubt there is," replied he; "but not anything that will be of the
same importance as those I have mentioned."

"Does the author promise a second part at all?" said Don Quixote.

"He does promise one," replied Samson; "but he says he has not found it,
nor does he know who has got it; and we cannot say whether it will appear
or not; and so, on that head, as some say that no second part has ever
been good, and others that enough has been already written about Don
Quixote, it is thought there will be no second part; though some, who are
jovial rather than saturnine, say, 'Let us have more Quixotades, let Don
Quixote charge and Sancho chatter, and no matter what it may turn out, we
shall be satisfied with that.'"

"And what does the author mean to do?" said Don Quixote.

"What?" replied Samson; "why, as soon as he has found the history which
he is now searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will at once
give it to the press, moved more by the profit that may accrue to him
from doing so than by any thought of praise."

Whereat Sancho observed, "The author looks for money and profit, does he?
It will be a wonder if he succeeds, for it will be only hurry, hurry,
with him, like the tailor on Easter Eve; and works done in a hurry are
never finished as perfectly as they ought to be. Let master Moor, or
whatever he is, pay attention to what he is doing, and I and my master
will give him as much grouting ready to his hand, in the way of
adventures and accidents of all sorts, as would make up not only one
second part, but a hundred. The good man fancies, no doubt, that we are
fast asleep in the straw here, but let him hold up our feet to be shod
and he will see which foot it is we go lame on. All I say is, that if my
master would take my advice, we would be now afield, redressing outrages
and righting wrongs, as is the use and custom of good knights-errant."

Sancho had hardly uttered these words when the neighing of Rocinante fell
upon their ears, which neighing Don Quixote accepted as a happy omen, and
he resolved to make another sally in three or four days from that time.
Announcing his intention to the bachelor, he asked his advice as to the
quarter in which he ought to commence his expedition, and the bachelor
replied that in his opinion he ought to go to the kingdom of Aragon, and
the city of Saragossa, where there were to be certain solemn joustings at
the festival of St. George, at which he might win renown above all the
knights of Aragon, which would be winning it above all the knights of the
world. He commended his very praiseworthy and gallant resolution, but
admonished him to proceed with greater caution in encountering dangers,
because his life did not belong to him, but to all those who had need of
him to protect and aid them in their misfortunes.

"There's where it is, what I abominate, Senor Samson," said Sancho here;
"my master will attack a hundred armed men as a greedy boy would half a
dozen melons. Body of the world, senor bachelor! there is a time to
attack and a time to retreat, and it is not to be always 'Santiago, and
close Spain!' Moreover, I have heard it said (and I think by my master
himself, if I remember rightly) that the mean of valour lies between the
extremes of cowardice and rashness; and if that be so, I don't want him
to fly without having good reason, or to attack when the odds make it
better not. But, above all things, I warn my master that if he is to take
me with him it must be on the condition that he is to do all the
fighting, and that I am not to be called upon to do anything except what
concerns keeping him clean and comfortable; in this I will dance
attendance on him readily; but to expect me to draw sword, even against
rascally churls of the hatchet and hood, is idle. I don't set up to be a
fighting man, Senor Samson, but only the best and most loyal squire that
ever served knight-errant; and if my master Don Quixote, in consideration
of my many faithful services, is pleased to give me some island of the
many his worship says one may stumble on in these parts, I will take it
as a great favour; and if he does not give it to me, I was born like
everyone else, and a man must not live in dependence on anyone except
God; and what is more, my bread will taste as well, and perhaps even
better, without a government than if I were a governor; and how do I know
but that in these governments the devil may have prepared some trip for
me, to make me lose my footing and fall and knock my grinders out? Sancho
I was born and Sancho I mean to die. But for all that, if heaven were to
make me a fair offer of an island or something else of the kind, without
much trouble and without much risk, I am not such a fool as to refuse it;
for they say, too, 'when they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter; and
'when good luck comes to thee, take it in.'"

"Brother Sancho," said Carrasco, "you have spoken like a professor; but,
for all that, put your trust in God and in Senor Don Quixote, for he will
give you a kingdom, not to say an island."

"It is all the same, be it more or be it less," replied Sancho; "though I
can tell Senor Carrasco that my master would not throw the kingdom he
might give me into a sack all in holes; for I have felt my own pulse and
I find myself sound enough to rule kingdoms and govern islands; and I
have before now told my master as much."

"Take care, Sancho," said Samson; "honours change manners, and perhaps
when you find yourself a governor you won't know the mother that bore
you."

"That may hold good of those that are born in the ditches," said Sancho,
"not of those who have the fat of an old Christian four fingers deep on
their souls, as I have. Nay, only look at my disposition, is that likely
to show ingratitude to anyone?"

"God grant it," said Don Quixote; "we shall see when the government
comes; and I seem to see it already."

He then begged the bachelor, if he were a poet, to do him the favour of
composing some verses for him conveying the farewell he meant to take of
his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, and to see that a letter of her name was
placed at the beginning of each line, so that, at the end of the verses,
"Dulcinea del Toboso" might be read by putting together the first
letters. The bachelor replied that although he was not one of the famous
poets of Spain, who were, they said, only three and a half, he would not
fail to compose the required verses; though he saw a great difficulty in
the task, as the letters which made up the name were seventeen; so, if he
made four ballad stanzas of four lines each, there would be a letter
over, and if he made them of five, what they called decimas or
redondillas, there were three letters short; nevertheless he would try to
drop a letter as well as he could, so that the name "Dulcinea del Toboso"
might be got into four ballad stanzas.

"It must be, by some means or other," said Don Quixote, "for unless the
name stands there plain and manifest, no woman would believe the verses
were made for her."

They agreed upon this, and that the departure should take place in three
days from that time. Don Quixote charged the bachelor to keep it a
secret, especially from the curate and Master Nicholas, and from his
niece and the housekeeper, lest they should prevent the execution of his
praiseworthy and valiant purpose. Carrasco promised all, and then took
his leave, charging Don Quixote to inform him of his good or evil
fortunes whenever he had an opportunity; and thus they bade each other
farewell, and Sancho went away to make the necessary preparations for
their expedition.




CHAPTER V.

OF THE SHREWD AND DROLL CONVERSATION THAT PASSED BETWEEN SANCHO PANZA AND
HIS WIFE TERESA PANZA, AND OTHER MATTERS WORTHY OF BEING DULY RECORDED


The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth
chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza
speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his
limited intelligence, and says things so subtle that he does not think it
possible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing what
his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and
therefore he went on to say:

Sancho came home in such glee and spirits that his wife noticed his
happiness a bowshot off, so much so that it made her ask him, "What have
you got, Sancho friend, that you are so glad?"

To which he replied, "Wife, if it were God's will, I should be very glad
not to be so well pleased as I show myself."

"I don't understand you, husband," said she, "and I don't know what you
mean by saying you would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be well
pleased; for, fool as I am, I don't know how one can find pleasure in not
having it."

"Hark ye, Teresa," replied Sancho, "I am glad because I have made up my
mind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to go
out a third time to seek for adventures; and I am going with him again,
for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me with
the thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we have
spent; though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children; and
if God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dry-shod and at
home, without taking me out into the byways and cross-roads--and he could
do it at small cost by merely willing it--it is clear my happiness would
be more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled with
sorrow at leaving thee; so that I was right in saying I would be glad, if
it were God's will, not to be well pleased."

"Look here, Sancho," said Teresa; "ever since you joined on to a
knight-errant you talk in such a roundabout way that there is no
understanding you."

"It is enough that God understands me, wife," replied Sancho; "for he is
the understander of all things; that will do; but mind, sister, you must
look to Dapple carefully for the next three days, so that he may be fit
to take arms; double his feed, and see to the pack-saddle and other
harness, for it is not to a wedding we are bound, but to go round the
world, and play at give and take with giants and dragons and monsters,
and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings; and even all
this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and
enchanted Moors."

"I know well enough, husband," said Teresa, "that squires-errant don't
eat their bread for nothing, and so I will be always praying to our Lord
to deliver you speedily from all that hard fortune."

"I can tell you, wife," said Sancho, "if I did not expect to see myself
governor of an island before long, I would drop down dead on the spot."

"Nay, then, husband," said Teresa; "let the hen live, though it be with
her pip, live, and let the devil take all the governments in the world;
you came out of your mother's womb without a government, you have lived
until now without a government, and when it is God's will you will go, or
be carried, to your grave without a government. How many there are in the
world who live without a government, and continue to live all the same,
and are reckoned in the number of the people. The best sauce in the world
is hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a
relish. But mind, Sancho, if by good luck you should find yourself with
some government, don't forget me and your children. Remember that
Sanchico is now full fifteen, and it is right he should go to school, if
his uncle the abbot has a mind to have him trained for the Church.
Consider, too, that your daughter Mari-Sancha will not die of grief if we
marry her; for I have my suspicions that she is as eager to get a husband
as you to get a government; and, after all, a daughter looks better ill
married than well whored."

"By my faith," replied Sancho, "if God brings me to get any sort of a
government, I intend, wife, to make such a high match for Mari-Sancha
that there will be no approaching her without calling her 'my lady."

"Nay, Sancho," returned Teresa; "marry her to her equal, that is the
safest plan; for if you put her out of wooden clogs into high-heeled
shoes, out of her grey flannel petticoat into hoops and silk gowns, out
of the plain 'Marica' and 'thou,' into 'Dona So-and-so' and 'my lady,'
the girl won't know where she is, and at every turn she will fall into a
thousand blunders that will show the thread of her coarse homespun
stuff."

"Tut, you fool," said Sancho; "it will be only to practise it for two or
three years; and then dignity and decorum will fit her as easily as a
glove; and if not, what matter? Let her be 'my lady,' and never mind what
happens."

"Keep to your own station, Sancho," replied Teresa; "don't try to raise
yourself higher, and bear in mind the proverb that says, 'wipe the nose
of your neigbbour's son, and take him into your house.' A fine thing it
would be, indeed, to marry our Maria to some great count or grand
gentleman, who, when the humour took him, would abuse her and call her
clown-bred and clodhopper's daughter and spinning wench. I have not been
bringing up my daughter for that all this time, I can tell you, husband.
Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marrying her to my care; there
is Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho's son, a stout, sturdy young fellow that we
know, and I can see he does not look sour at the girl; and with him, one
of our own sort, she will be well married, and we shall have her always
under our eyes, and be all one family, parents and children,
grandchildren and sons-in-law, and the peace and blessing of God will
dwell among us; so don't you go marrying her in those courts and grand
palaces where they won't know what to make of her, or she what to make of
herself."

"Why, you idiot and wife for Barabbas," said Sancho, "what do you mean by
trying, without why or wherefore, to keep me from marrying my daughter to
one who will give me grandchildren that will be called 'your lordship'?
Look ye, Teresa, I have always heard my elders say that he who does not
know how to take advantage of luck when it comes to him, has no right to
complain if it gives him the go-by; and now that it is knocking at our
door, it will not do to shut it out; let us go with the favouring breeze
that blows upon us."

It is this sort of talk, and what Sancho says lower down, that made the
translator of the history say he considered this chapter apocryphal.

"Don't you see, you animal," continued Sancho, "that it will be well for
me to drop into some profitable government that will lift us out of the
mire, and marry Mari-Sancha to whom I like; and you yourself will find
yourself called 'Dona Teresa Panza,' and sitting in church on a fine
carpet and cushions and draperies, in spite and in defiance of all the
born ladies of the town? No, stay as you are, growing neither greater nor
less, like a tapestry figure--Let us say no more about it, for Sanchica
shall be a countess, say what you will."

"Are you sure of all you say, husband?" replied Teresa. "Well, for all
that, I am afraid this rank of countess for my daughter will be her ruin.
You do as you like, make a duchess or a princess of her, but I can tell
you it will not be with my will and consent. I was always a lover of
equality, brother, and I can't bear to see people give themselves airs
without any right. They called me Teresa at my baptism, a plain, simple
name, without any additions or tags or fringes of Dons or Donas; Cascajo
was my father's name, and as I am your wife, I am called Teresa Panza,
though by right I ought to be called Teresa Cascajo; but 'kings go where
laws like,' and I am content with this name without having the 'Don' put
on top of it to make it so heavy that I cannot carry it; and I don't want
to make people talk about me when they see me go dressed like a countess
or governor's wife; for they will say at once, 'See what airs the slut
gives herself! Only yesterday she was always spinning flax, and used to
go to mass with the tail of her petticoat over her head instead of a
mantle, and there she goes to-day in a hooped gown with her broaches and
airs, as if we didn't know her!' If God keeps me in my seven senses, or
five, or whatever number I have, I am not going to bring myself to such a
pass; go you, brother, and be a government or an island man, and swagger
as much as you like; for by the soul of my mother, neither my daughter
nor I are going to stir a step from our village; a respectable woman
should have a broken leg and keep at home; and to be busy at something is
a virtuous damsel's holiday; be off to your adventures along with your
Don Quixote, and leave us to our misadventures, for God will mend them
for us according as we deserve it. I don't know, I'm sure, who fixed the
'Don' to him, what neither his father nor grandfather ever had."

"I declare thou hast a devil of some sort in thy body!" said Sancho. "God
help thee, what a lot of things thou hast strung together, one after the
other, without head or tail! What have Cascajo, and the broaches and the
proverbs and the airs, to do with what I say? Look here, fool and dolt
(for so I may call you, when you don't understand my words, and run away
from good fortune), if I had said that my daughter was to throw herself
down from a tower, or go roaming the world, as the Infanta Dona Urraca
wanted to do, you would be right in not giving way to my will; but if in
an instant, in less than the twinkling of an eye, I put the 'Don' and 'my
lady' on her back, and take her out of the stubble, and place her under a
canopy, on a dais, and on a couch, with more velvet cushions than all the
Almohades of Morocco ever had in their family, why won't you consent and
fall in with my wishes?"

"Do you know why, husband?" replied Teresa; "because of the proverb that
says 'who covers thee, discovers thee.' At the poor man people only throw
a hasty glance; on the rich man they fix their eyes; and if the said rich
man was once on a time poor, it is then there is the sneering and the
tattle and spite of backbiters; and in the streets here they swarm as
thick as bees."

"Look here, Teresa," said Sancho, "and listen to what I am now going to
say to you; maybe you never heard it in all your life; and I do not give
my own notions, for what I am about to say are the opinions of his
reverence the preacher, who preached in this town last Lent, and who
said, if I remember rightly, that all things present that our eyes
behold, bring themselves before us, and remain and fix themselves on our
memory much better and more forcibly than things past."

These observations which Sancho makes here are the other ones on account
of which the translator says he regards this chapter as apocryphal,
inasmuch as they are beyond Sancho's capacity.

"Whence it arises," he continued, "that when we see any person well
dressed and making a figure with rich garments and retinue of servants,
it seems to lead and impel us perforce to respect him, though memory may
at the same moment recall to us some lowly condition in which we have
seen him, but which, whether it may have been poverty or low birth, being
now a thing of the past, has no existence; while the only thing that has
any existence is what we see before us; and if this person whom fortune
has raised from his original lowly state (these were the very words the
padre used) to his present height of prosperity, be well bred, generous,
courteous to all, without seeking to vie with those whose nobility is of
ancient date, depend upon it, Teresa, no one will remember what he was,
and everyone will respect what he is, except indeed the envious, from
whom no fair fortune is safe."

"I do not understand you, husband," replied Teresa; "do as you like, and
don't break my head with any more speechifying and rethoric; and if you
have revolved to do what you say-"

"Resolved, you should say, woman," said Sancho, "not revolved."

"Don't set yourself to wrangle with me, husband," said Teresa; "I speak
as God pleases, and don't deal in out-of-the-way phrases; and I say if
you are bent upon having a government, take your son Sancho with you, and
teach him from this time on how to hold a government; for sons ought to
inherit and learn the trades of their fathers."

"As soon as I have the government," said Sancho, "I will send for him by
post, and I will send thee money, of which I shall have no lack, for
there is never any want of people to lend it to governors when they have
not got it; and do thou dress him so as to hide what he is and make him
look what he is to be."

"You send the money," said Teresa, "and I'll dress him up for you as fine
as you please."

"Then we are agreed that our daughter is to be a countess," said Sancho.

"The day that I see her a countess," replied Teresa, "it will be the same
to me as if I was burying her; but once more I say do as you please, for
we women are born to this burden of being obedient to our husbands,
though they be dogs;" and with this she began to weep in earnest, as if
she already saw Sanchica dead and buried.

Sancho consoled her by saying that though he must make her a countess, he
would put it off as long as possible. Here their conversation came to an
end, and Sancho went back to see Don Quixote, and make arrangements for
their departure.




CHAPTER VI.

OF WHAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS NIECE AND HOUSEKEEPER; ONE
OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHAPTERS IN THE WHOLE HISTORY


While Sancho Panza and his wife, Teresa Cascajo, held the above
irrelevant conversation, Don Quixote's niece and housekeeper were not
idle, for by a thousand signs they began to perceive that their uncle and
master meant to give them the slip the third time, and once more betake
himself to his, for them, ill-errant chivalry. They strove by all the
means in their power to divert him from such an unlucky scheme; but it
was all preaching in the desert and hammering cold iron. Nevertheless,
among many other representations made to him, the housekeeper said to
him, "In truth, master, if you do not keep still and stay quiet at home,
and give over roaming mountains and valleys like a troubled spirit,
looking for what they say are called adventures, but what I call
misfortunes, I shall have to make complaint to God and the king with loud
supplication to send some remedy."

To which Don Quixote replied, "What answer God will give to your
complaints, housekeeper, I know not, nor what his Majesty will answer
either; I only know that if I were king I should decline to answer the
numberless silly petitions they present every day; for one of the
greatest among the many troubles kings have is being obliged to listen to
all and answer all, and therefore I should be sorry that any affairs of
mine should worry him."

Whereupon the housekeeper said, "Tell us, senor, at his Majesty's court
are there no knights?"

"There are," replied Don Quixote, "and plenty of them; and it is right
there should be, to set off the dignity of the prince, and for the
greater glory of the king's majesty."

"Then might not your worship," said she, "be one of those that, without
stirring a step, serve their king and lord in his court?"

"Recollect, my friend," said Don Quixote, "all knights cannot be
courtiers, nor can all courtiers be knights-errant, nor need they be.
There must be all sorts in the world; and though we may be all knights,
there is a great difference between one and another; for the courtiers,
without quitting their chambers, or the threshold of the court, range the
world over by looking at a map, without its costing them a farthing, and
without suffering heat or cold, hunger or thirst; but we, the true
knights-errant, measure the whole earth with our own feet, exposed to the
sun, to the cold, to the air, to the inclemencies of heaven, by day and
night, on foot and on horseback; nor do we only know enemies in pictures,
but in their own real shapes; and at all risks and on all occasions we
attack them, without any regard to childish points or rules of single
combat, whether one has or has not a shorter lance or sword, whether one
carries relics or any secret contrivance about him, whether or not the
sun is to be divided and portioned out, and other niceties of the sort
that are observed in set combats of man to man, that you know nothing
about, but I do. And you must know besides, that the true knight-errant,
though he may see ten giants, that not only touch the clouds with their
heads but pierce them, and that go, each of them, on two tall towers by
way of legs, and whose arms are like the masts of mighty ships, and each
eye like a great mill-wheel, and glowing brighter than a glass furnace,
must not on any account be dismayed by them. On the contrary, he must
attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart,
and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for
armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than
diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus
steel, or clubs studded with spikes also of steel, such as I have more
than once seen. All this I say, housekeeper, that you may see the
difference there is between the one sort of knight and the other; and it
would be well if there were no prince who did not set a higher value on
this second, or more properly speaking first, kind of knights-errant;
for, as we read in their histories, there have been some among them who
have been the salvation, not merely of one kingdom, but of many."

"Ah, senor," here exclaimed the niece, "remember that all this you are
saying about knights-errant is fable and fiction; and their histories, if
indeed they were not burned, would deserve, each of them, to have a
sambenito put on it, or some mark by which it might be known as infamous
and a corrupter of good manners."

"By the God that gives me life," said Don Quixote, "if thou wert not my
full niece, being daughter of my own sister, I would inflict a
chastisement upon thee for the blasphemy thou hast uttered that all the
world should ring with. What! can it be that a young hussy that hardly
knows how to handle a dozen lace-bobbins dares to wag her tongue and
criticise the histories of knights-errant? What would Senor Amadis say if
he heard of such a thing? He, however, no doubt would forgive thee, for
he was the most humble-minded and courteous knight of his time, and
moreover a great protector of damsels; but some there are that might have
heard thee, and it would not have been well for thee in that case; for
they are not all courteous or mannerly; some are ill-conditioned
scoundrels; nor is it everyone that calls himself a gentleman, that is so
in all respects; some are gold, others pinchbeck, and all look like
gentlemen, but not all can stand the touchstone of truth. There are men
of low rank who strain themselves to bursting to pass for gentlemen, and
high gentlemen who, one would fancy, were dying to pass for men of low
rank; the former raise themselves by their ambition or by their virtues,
the latter debase themselves by their lack of spirit or by their vices;
and one has need of experience and discernment to distinguish these two
kinds of gentlemen, so much alike in name and so different in conduct."

"God bless me!" said the niece, "that you should know so much,
uncle--enough, if need be, to get up into a pulpit and go preach in the
streets--and yet that you should fall into a delusion so great and a
folly so manifest as to try to make yourself out vigorous when you are
old, strong when you are sickly, able to put straight what is crooked
when you yourself are bent by age, and, above all, a caballero when you
are not one; for though gentlefolk may be so, poor men are nothing of the
kind!"

"There is a great deal of truth in what you say, niece," returned Don
Quixote, "and I could tell you somewhat about birth that would astonish
you; but, not to mix up things human and divine, I refrain. Look you, my
dears, all the lineages in the world (attend to what I am saying) can be
reduced to four sorts, which are these: those that had humble beginnings,
and went on spreading and extending themselves until they attained
surpassing greatness; those that had great beginnings and maintained
them, and still maintain and uphold the greatness of their origin; those,
again, that from a great beginning have ended in a point like a pyramid,
having reduced and lessened their original greatness till it has come to
nought, like the point of a pyramid, which, relatively to its base or
foundation, is nothing; and then there are those--and it is they that are
the most numerous--that have had neither an illustrious beginning nor a
remarkable mid-course, and so will have an end without a name, like an
ordinary plebeian line. Of the first, those that had an humble origin and
rose to the greatness they still preserve, the Ottoman house may serve as
an example, which from an humble and lowly shepherd, its founder, has
reached the height at which we now see it. For examples of the second
sort of lineage, that began with greatness and maintains it still without
adding to it, there are the many princes who have inherited the dignity,
and maintain themselves in their inheritance, without increasing or
diminishing it, keeping peacefully within the limits of their states. Of
those that began great and ended in a point, there are thousands of
examples, for all the Pharaohs and Ptolemies of Egypt, the Caesars of
Rome, and the whole herd (if I may apply such a word to them) of countless
princes, monarchs, lords, Medes, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and
barbarians, all these lineages and lordships have ended in a point and
come to nothing, they themselves as well as their founders, for it would
be impossible now to find one of their descendants, and, even should we
find one, it would be in some lowly and humble condition. Of plebeian
lineages I have nothing to say, save that they merely serve to swell the
number of those that live, without any eminence to entitle them to any
fame or praise beyond this. From all I have said I would have you gather,
my poor innocents, that great is the confusion among lineages, and that
only those are seen to be great and illustrious that show themselves so
by the virtue, wealth, and generosity of their possessors. I have said
virtue, wealth, and generosity, because a great man who is vicious will
be a great example of vice, and a rich man who is not generous will be
merely a miserly beggar; for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by
possessing it, but by spending it, and not by spending as he pleases, but
by knowing how to spend it well. The poor gentleman has no way of showing
that he is a gentleman but by virtue, by being affable, well-bred,
courteous, gentle-mannered, and kindly, not haughty, arrogant, or
censorious, but above all by being charitable; for by two maravedis given
with a cheerful heart to the poor, he will show himself as generous as he
who distributes alms with bell-ringing, and no one that perceives him to
be endowed with the virtues I have named, even though he know him not,
will fail to recognise and set him down as one of good blood; and it
would be strange were it not so; praise has ever been the reward of
virtue, and those who are virtuous cannot fail to receive commendation.
There are two roads, my daughters, by which men may reach wealth and
honours; one is that of letters, the other that of arms. I have more of
arms than of letters in my composition, and, judging by my inclination to
arms, was born under the influence of the planet Mars. I am, therefore,
in a measure constrained to follow that road, and by it I must travel in
spite of all the world, and it will be labour in vain for you to urge me
to resist what heaven wills, fate ordains, reason requires, and, above
all, my own inclination favours; for knowing as I do the countless toils
that are the accompaniments of knight-errantry, I know, too, the infinite
blessings that are attained by it; I know that the path of virtue is very
narrow, and the road of vice broad and spacious; I know their ends and
goals are different, for the broad and easy road of vice ends in death,
and the narrow and toilsome one of virtue in life, and not transitory
life, but in that which has no end; I know, as our great Castilian poet
says, that--

It is by rugged paths like these they go
That scale the heights of immortality,
Unreached by those that falter here below."

"Woe is me!" exclaimed the niece, "my lord is a poet, too! He knows
everything, and he can do everything; I will bet, if he chose to turn
mason, he could make a house as easily as a cage."

"I can tell you, niece," replied Don Quixote, "if these chivalrous
thoughts did not engage all my faculties, there would be nothing that I
could not do, nor any sort of knickknack that would not come from my
hands, particularly cages and tooth-picks."

At this moment there came a knocking at the door, and when they asked who
was there, Sancho Panza made answer that it was he. The instant the
housekeeper knew who it was, she ran to hide herself so as not to see
him; in such abhorrence did she hold him. The niece let him in, and his
master Don Quixote came forward to receive him with open arms, and the
pair shut themselves up in his room, where they had another conversation
not inferior to the previous one.




CHAPTER VII.

OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
VERY NOTABLE INCIDENTS


The instant the housekeeper saw Sancho Panza shut himself in with her
master, she guessed what they were about; and suspecting that the result
of the consultation would be a resolve to undertake a third sally, she
seized her mantle, and in deep anxiety and distress, ran to find the
bachelor Samson Carrasco, as she thought that, being a well-spoken man,
and a new friend of her master's, he might be able to persuade him to
give up any such crazy notion. She found him pacing the patio of his
house, and, perspiring and flurried, she fell at his feet the moment she
saw him.

Carrasco, seeing how distressed and overcome she was, said to her, "What
is this, mistress housekeeper? What has happened to you? One would think
you heart-broken."

"Nothing, Senor Samson," said she, "only that my master is breaking out,
plainly breaking out."

"Whereabouts is he breaking out, senora?" asked Samson; "has any part of
his body burst?"

"He is only breaking out at the door of his madness," she replied; "I
mean, dear senor bachelor, that he is going to break out again (and this
will be the third time) to hunt all over the world for what he calls
ventures, though I can't make out why he gives them that name. The first
time he was brought back to us slung across the back of an ass, and
belaboured all over; and the second time he came in an ox-cart, shut up
in a cage, in which he persuaded himself he was enchanted, and the poor
creature was in such a state that the mother that bore him would not have
known him; lean, yellow, with his eyes sunk deep in the cells of his
skull; so that to bring him round again, ever so little, cost me more
than six hundred eggs, as God knows, and all the world, and my hens too,
that won't let me tell a lie."

"That I can well believe," replied the bachelor, "for they are so good
and so fat, and so well-bred, that they would not say one thing for
another, though they were to burst for it. In short then, mistress
housekeeper, that is all, and there is nothing the matter, except what it
is feared Don Quixote may do?"

"No, senor," said she.

"Well then," returned the bachelor, "don't be uneasy, but go home in
peace; get me ready something hot for breakfast, and while you are on the
way say the prayer of Santa Apollonia, that is if you know it; for I will
come presently and you will see miracles."

"Woe is me," cried the housekeeper, "is it the prayer of Santa Apollonia
you would have me say? That would do if it was the toothache my master
had; but it is in the brains, what he has got."

"I know what I am saying, mistress housekeeper; go, and don't set
yourself to argue with me, for you know I am a bachelor of Salamanca, and
one can't be more of a bachelor than that," replied Carrasco; and with
this the housekeeper retired, and the bachelor went to look for the
curate, and arrange with him what will be told in its proper place.

While Don Quixote and Sancho were shut up together, they had a discussion
which the history records with great precision and scrupulous exactness.
Sancho said to his master, "Senor, I have educed my wife to let me go
with your worship wherever you choose to take me."

"Induced, you should say, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "not educed."

"Once or twice, as well as I remember," replied Sancho, "I have begged of
your worship not to mend my words, if so be as you understand what I mean
by them; and if you don't understand them to say 'Sancho,' or 'devil,' 'I
don't understand thee; and if I don't make my meaning plain, then you may
correct me, for I am so focile-"

"I don't understand thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote at once; "for I know
not what 'I am so focile' means."

"'So focile' means I am so much that way," replied Sancho.

"I understand thee still less now," said Don Quixote.

"Well, if you can't understand me," said Sancho, "I don't know how to put
it; I know no more, God help me."

"Oh, now I have hit it," said Don Quixote; "thou wouldst say thou art so
docile, tractable, and gentle that thou wilt take what I say to thee, and
submit to what I teach thee."

"I would bet," said Sancho, "that from the very first you understood me,
and knew what I meant, but you wanted to put me out that you might hear
me make another couple of dozen blunders."

"May be so," replied Don Quixote; "but to come to the point, what does
Teresa say?"

"Teresa says," replied Sancho, "that I should make sure with your
worship, and 'let papers speak and beards be still,' for 'he who binds
does not wrangle,' since one 'take' is better than two 'I'll give
thee's;' and I say a woman's advice is no great thing, and he who won't
take it is a fool."

"And so say I," said Don Quixote; "continue, Sancho my friend; go on; you
talk pearls to-day."

"The fact is," continued Sancho, "that, as your worship knows better than
I do, we are all of us liable to death, and to-day we are, and to-morrow
we are not, and the lamb goes as soon as the sheep, and nobody can
promise himself more hours of life in this world than God may be pleased
to give him; for death is deaf, and when it comes to knock at our life's
door, it is always urgent, and neither prayers, nor struggles, nor
sceptres, nor mitres, can keep it back, as common talk and report say,
and as they tell us from the pulpits every day."

"All that is very true," said Don Quixote; "but I cannot make out what
thou art driving at."

"What I am driving at," said Sancho, "is that your worship settle some
fixed wages for me, to be paid monthly while I am in your service, and
that the same be paid me out of your estate; for I don't care to stand on
rewards which either come late, or ill, or never at all; God help me with
my own. In short, I would like to know what I am to get, be it much or
little; for the hen will lay on one egg, and many littles make a much,
and so long as one gains something there is nothing lost. To be sure, if
it should happen (what I neither believe nor expect) that your worship
were to give me that island you have promised me, I am not so ungrateful
nor so grasping but that I would be willing to have the revenue of such
island valued and stopped out of my wages in due promotion."

"Sancho, my friend," replied Don Quixote, "sometimes proportion may be as
good as promotion."

"I see," said Sancho; "I'll bet I ought to have said proportion, and not
promotion; but it is no matter, as your worship has understood me."

"And so well understood," returned Don Quixote, "that I have seen into
the depths of thy thoughts, and know the mark thou art shooting at with
the countless shafts of thy proverbs. Look here, Sancho, I would readily
fix thy wages if I had ever found any instance in the histories of the
knights-errant to show or indicate, by the slightest hint, what their
squires used to get monthly or yearly; but I have read all or the best
part of their histories, and I cannot remember reading of any
knight-errant having assigned fixed wages to his squire; I only know that
they all served on reward, and that when they least expected it, if good
luck attended their masters, they found themselves recompensed with an
island or something equivalent to it, or at the least they were left with
a title and lordship. If with these hopes and additional inducements you,
Sancho, please to return to my service, well and good; but to suppose
that I am going to disturb or unhinge the ancient usage of
knight-errantry, is all nonsense. And so, my Sancho, get you back to your
house and explain my intentions to your Teresa, and if she likes and you
like to be on reward with me, bene quidem; if not, we remain friends; for
if the pigeon-house does not lack food, it will not lack pigeons; and
bear in mind, my son, that a good hope is better than a bad holding, and
a good grievance better than a bad compensation. I speak in this way,
Sancho, to show you that I can shower down proverbs just as well as
yourself; and in short, I mean to say, and I do say, that if you don't
like to come on reward with me, and run the same chance that I run, God
be with you and make a saint of you; for I shall find plenty of squires
more obedient and painstaking, and not so thickheaded or talkative as you
are."

When Sancho heard his master's firm, resolute language, a cloud came over
the sky with him and the wings of his heart drooped, for he had made sure
that his master would not go without him for all the wealth of the world;
and as he stood there dumbfoundered and moody, Samson Carrasco came in
with the housekeeper and niece, who were anxious to hear by what
arguments he was about to dissuade their master from going to seek
adventures. The arch wag Samson came forward, and embracing him as he had
done before, said with a loud voice, "O flower of knight-errantry! O
shining light of arms! O honour and mirror of the Spanish nation! may God
Almighty in his infinite power grant that any person or persons, who
would impede or hinder thy third sally, may find no way out of the
labyrinth of their schemes, nor ever accomplish what they most desire!"
And then, turning to the housekeeper, he said, "Mistress housekeeper may
just as well give over saying the prayer of Santa Apollonia, for I know
it is the positive determination of the spheres that Senor Don Quixote
shall proceed to put into execution his new and lofty designs; and I
should lay a heavy burden on my conscience did I not urge and persuade
this knight not to keep the might of his strong arm and the virtue of his
valiant spirit any longer curbed and checked, for by his inactivity he is
defrauding the world of the redress of wrongs, of the protection of
orphans, of the honour of virgins, of the aid of widows, and of the
support of wives, and other matters of this kind appertaining, belonging,
proper and peculiar to the order of knight-errantry. On, then, my lord
Don Quixote, beautiful and brave, let your worship and highness set out
to-day rather than to-morrow; and if anything be needed for the execution
of your purpose, here am I ready in person and purse to supply the want;
and were it requisite to attend your magnificence as squire, I should
esteem it the happiest good fortune."

At this, Don Quixote, turning to Sancho, said, "Did I not tell thee,
Sancho, there would be squires enough and to spare for me? See now who
offers to become one; no less than the illustrious bachelor Samson
Carrasco, the perpetual joy and delight of the courts of the Salamancan
schools, sound in body, discreet, patient under heat or cold, hunger or
thirst, with all the qualifications requisite to make a knight-errant's
squire! But heaven forbid that, to gratify my own inclination, I should
shake or shatter this pillar of letters and vessel of the sciences, and
cut down this towering palm of the fair and liberal arts. Let this new
Samson remain in his own country, and, bringing honour to it, bring
honour at the same time on the grey heads of his venerable parents; for I
will be content with any squire that comes to hand, as Sancho does not
deign to accompany me."

"I do deign," said Sancho, deeply moved and with tears in his eyes; "it
shall not be said of me, master mine," he continued, "'the bread eaten
and the company dispersed.' Nay, I come of no ungrateful stock, for all
the world knows, but particularly my own town, who the Panzas from whom I
am descended were; and, what is more, I know and have learned, by many
good words and deeds, your worship's desire to show me favour; and if I
have been bargaining more or less about my wages, it was only to please
my wife, who, when she sets herself to press a point, no hammer drives
the hoops of a cask as she drives one to do what she wants; but, after
all, a man must be a man, and a woman a woman; and as I am a man anyhow,
which I can't deny, I will be one in my own house too, let who will take
it amiss; and so there's nothing more to do but for your worship to make
your will with its codicil in such a way that it can't be provoked, and
let us set out at once, to save Senor Samson's soul from suffering, as he
says his conscience obliges him to persuade your worship to sally out
upon the world a third time; so I offer again to serve your worship
faithfully and loyally, as well and better than all the squires that
served knights-errant in times past or present."

The bachelor was filled with amazement when he heard Sancho's phraseology
and style of talk, for though he had read the first part of his master's
history he never thought that he could be so droll as he was there
described; but now, hearing him talk of a "will and codicil that could
not be provoked," instead of "will and codicil that could not be
revoked," he believed all he had read of him, and set him down as one of
the greatest simpletons of modern times; and he said to himself that two
such lunatics as master and man the world had never seen. In fine, Don
Quixote and Sancho embraced one another and made friends, and by the
advice and with the approval of the great Carrasco, who was now their
oracle, it was arranged that their departure should take place three days
thence, by which time they could have all that was requisite for the
journey ready, and procure a closed helmet, which Don Quixote said he
must by all means take. Samson offered him one, as he knew a friend of
his who had it would not refuse it to him, though it was more dingy with
rust and mildew than bright and clean like burnished steel.

The curses which both housekeeper and niece poured out on the bachelor
were past counting; they tore their hair, they clawed their faces, and in
the style of the hired mourners that were once in fashion, they raised a
lamentation over the departure of their master and uncle, as if it had
been his death. Samson's intention in persuading him to sally forth once
more was to do what the history relates farther on; all by the advice of
the curate and barber, with whom he had previously discussed the subject.
Finally, then, during those three days, Don Quixote and Sancho provided
themselves with what they considered necessary, and Sancho having
pacified his wife, and Don Quixote his niece and housekeeper, at
nightfall, unseen by anyone except the bachelor, who thought fit to
accompany them half a league out of the village, they set out for El
Toboso, Don Quixote on his good Rocinante and Sancho on his old Dapple,
his alforjas furnished with certain matters in the way of victuals, and
his purse with money that Don Quixote gave him to meet emergencies.
Samson embraced him, and entreated him to let him hear of his good or
evil fortunes, so that he might rejoice over the former or condole with
him over the latter, as the laws of friendship required. Don Quixote
promised him he would do so, and Samson returned to the village, and the
other two took the road for the great city of El Toboso.




CHAPTER VIII.

WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO SEE HIS LADY
DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO


"Blessed be Allah the all-powerful!" says Hamete Benengeli on beginning
this eighth chapter; "blessed be Allah!" he repeats three times; and he
says he utters these thanksgivings at seeing that he has now got Don
Quixote and Sancho fairly afield, and that the readers of his delightful
history may reckon that the achievements and humours of Don Quixote and
his squire are now about to begin; and he urges them to forget the former
chivalries of the ingenious gentleman and to fix their eyes on those that
are to come, which now begin on the road to El Toboso, as the others
began on the plains of Montiel; nor is it much that he asks in
consideration of all he promises, and so he goes on to say:

Don Quixote and Sancho were left alone, and the moment Samson took his
departure, Rocinante began to neigh, and Dapple to sigh, which, by both
knight and squire, was accepted as a good sign and a very happy omen;
though, if the truth is to be told, the sighs and brays of Dapple were
louder than the neighings of the hack, from which Sancho inferred that
his good fortune was to exceed and overtop that of his master, building,
perhaps, upon some judicial astrology that he may have known, though the
history says nothing about it; all that can be said is, that when he
stumbled or fell, he was heard to say he wished he had not come out, for
by stumbling or falling there was nothing to be got but a damaged shoe or
a broken rib; and, fool as he was, he was not much astray in this.

Said Don Quixote, "Sancho, my friend, night is drawing on upon us as we
go, and more darkly than will allow us to reach El Toboso by daylight;
for there I am resolved to go before I engage in another adventure, and
there I shall obtain the blessing and generous permission of the peerless
Dulcinea, with which permission I expect and feel assured that I shall
conclude and bring to a happy termination every perilous adventure; for
nothing in life makes knights-errant more valorous than finding
themselves favoured by their ladies."

"So I believe," replied Sancho; "but I think it will be difficult for
your worship to speak with her or see her, at any rate where you will be
able to receive her blessing; unless, indeed, she throws it over the wall
of the yard where I saw her the time before, when I took her the letter
that told of the follies and mad things your worship was doing in the
heart of Sierra Morena."

"Didst thou take that for a yard wall, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "where
or at which thou sawest that never sufficiently extolled grace and
beauty? It must have been the gallery, corridor, or portico of some rich
and royal palace."

"It might have been all that," returned Sancho, "but to me it looked like
a wall, unless I am short of memory."

"At all events, let us go there, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for, so that
I see her, it is the same to me whether it be over a wall, or at a
window, or through the chink of a door, or the grate of a garden; for any
beam of the sun of her beauty that reaches my eyes will give light to my
reason and strength to my heart, so that I shall be unmatched and
unequalled in wisdom and valour."

"Well, to tell the truth, senor," said Sancho, "when I saw that sun of
the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, it was not bright enough to throw out beams
at all; it must have been, that as her grace was sifting that wheat I
told you of, the thick dust she raised came before her face like a cloud
and dimmed it."

"What! dost thou still persist, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "in saying,
thinking, believing, and maintaining that my lady Dulcinea was sifting
wheat, that being an occupation and task entirely at variance with what
is and should be the employment of persons of distinction, who are
constituted and reserved for other avocations and pursuits that show
their rank a bowshot off? Thou hast forgotten, O Sancho, those lines of
our poet wherein he paints for us how, in their crystal abodes, those
four nymphs employed themselves who rose from their loved Tagus and
seated themselves in a verdant meadow to embroider those tissues which
the ingenious poet there describes to us, how they were worked and woven
with gold and silk and pearls; and something of this sort must have been
the employment of my lady when thou sawest her, only that the spite which
some wicked enchanter seems to have against everything of mine changes
all those things that give me pleasure, and turns them into shapes unlike
their own; and so I fear that in that history of my achievements which
they say is now in print, if haply its author was some sage who is an
enemy of mine, he will have put one thing for another, mingling a
thousand lies with one truth, and amusing himself by relating
transactions which have nothing to do with the sequence of a true
history. O envy, root of all countless evils, and cankerworm of the
virtues! All the vices, Sancho, bring some kind of pleasure with them;
but envy brings nothing but irritation, bitterness, and rage."

"So I say too," replied Sancho; "and I suspect in that legend or history
of us that the bachelor Samson Carrasco told us he saw, my honour goes
dragged in the dirt, knocked about, up and down, sweeping the streets, as
they say. And yet, on the faith of an honest man, I never spoke ill of
any enchanter, and I am not so well off that I am to be envied; to be
sure, I am rather sly, and I have a certain spice of the rogue in me; but
all is covered by the great cloak of my simplicity, always natural and
never acted; and if I had no other merit save that I believe, as I always
do, firmly and truly in God, and all the holy Roman Catholic Church holds
and believes, and that I am a mortal enemy of the Jews, the historians
ought to have mercy on me and treat me well in their writings. But let
them say what they like; naked was I born, naked I find myself, I neither
lose nor gain; nay, while I see myself put into a book and passed on from
hand to hand over the world, I don't care a fig, let them say what they
like of me."

"That, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "reminds me of what happened to a
famous poet of our own day, who, having written a bitter satire against
all the courtesan ladies, did not insert or name in it a certain lady of
whom it was questionable whether she was one or not. She, seeing she was
not in the list of the poet, asked him what he had seen in her that he
did not include her in the number of the others, telling him he must add
to his satire and put her in the new part, or else look out for the
consequences. The poet did as she bade him, and left her without a shred
of reputation, and she was satisfied by getting fame though it was
infamy. In keeping with this is what they relate of that shepherd who set
fire to the famous temple of Diana, by repute one of the seven wonders of
the world, and burned it with the sole object of making his name live in
after ages; and, though it was forbidden to name him, or mention his name
by word of mouth or in writing, lest the object of his ambition should be
attained, nevertheless it became known that he was called Erostratus. And
something of the same sort is what happened in the case of the great
emperor Charles V and a gentleman in Rome. The emperor was anxious to see
that famous temple of the Rotunda, called in ancient times the temple 'of
all the gods,' but now-a-days, by a better nomenclature, 'of all the
saints,' which is the best preserved building of all those of pagan
construction in Rome, and the one which best sustains the reputation of
mighty works and magnificence of its founders. It is in the form of a
half orange, of enormous dimensions, and well lighted, though no light
penetrates it save that which is admitted by a window, or rather round
skylight, at the top; and it was from this that the emperor examined the
building. A Roman gentleman stood by his side and explained to him the
skilful construction and ingenuity of the vast fabric and its wonderful
architecture, and when they had left the skylight he said to the emperor,
'A thousand times, your Sacred Majesty, the impulse came upon me to seize
your Majesty in my arms and fling myself down from yonder skylight, so as
to leave behind me in the world a name that would last for ever.' 'I am
thankful to you for not carrying such an evil thought into effect,' said
the emperor, 'and I shall give you no opportunity in future of again
putting your loyalty to the test; and I therefore forbid you ever to
speak to me or to be where I am; and he followed up these words by
bestowing a liberal bounty upon him. My meaning is, Sancho, that the
desire of acquiring fame is a very powerful motive. What, thinkest thou,
was it that flung Horatius in full armour down from the bridge into the
depths of the Tiber? What burned the hand and arm of Mutius? What
impelled Curtius to plunge into the deep burning gulf that opened in the
midst of Rome? What, in opposition to all the omens that declared against
him, made Julius Caesar cross the Rubicon? And to come to more modern
examples, what scuttled the ships, and left stranded and cut off the
gallant Spaniards under the command of the most courteous Cortes in the
New World? All these and a variety of other great exploits are, were and
will be, the work of fame that mortals desire as a reward and a portion
of the immortality their famous deeds deserve; though we Catholic
Christians and knights-errant look more to that future glory that is
everlasting in the ethereal regions of heaven than to the vanity of the
fame that is to be acquired in this present transitory life; a fame that,
however long it may last, must after all end with the world itself, which
has its own appointed end. So that, O Sancho, in what we do we must not
overpass the bounds which the Christian religion we profess has assigned
to us. We have to slay pride in giants, envy by generosity and nobleness
of heart, anger by calmness of demeanour and equanimity, gluttony and
sloth by the spareness of our diet and the length of our vigils, lust and
lewdness by the loyalty we preserve to those whom we have made the
mistresses of our thoughts, indolence by traversing the world in all
directions seeking opportunities of making ourselves, besides Christians,
famous knights. Such, Sancho, are the means by which we reach those
extremes of praise that fair fame carries with it."

"All that your worship has said so far," said Sancho, "I have understood
quite well; but still I would be glad if your worship would dissolve a
doubt for me, which has just this minute come into my mind."

"Solve, thou meanest, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "say on, in God's name,
and I will answer as well as I can."

"Tell me, senor," Sancho went on to say, "those Julys or Augusts, and all
those venturous knights that you say are now dead--where are they now?"

"The heathens," replied Don Quixote, "are, no doubt, in hell; the
Christians, if they were good Christians, are either in purgatory or in
heaven."

"Very good," said Sancho; "but now I want to know--the tombs where the
bodies of those great lords are, have they silver lamps before them, or
are the walls of their chapels ornamented with crutches, winding-sheets,
tresses of hair, legs and eyes in wax? Or what are they ornamented with?"

To which Don Quixote made answer: "The tombs of the heathens were
generally sumptuous temples; the ashes of Julius Caesar's body were
placed on the top of a stone pyramid of vast size, which they now call in
Rome Saint Peter's needle. The emperor Hadrian had for a tomb a castle as
large as a good-sized village, which they called the Moles Adriani, and
is now the castle of St. Angelo in Rome. The queen Artemisia buried her
husband Mausolus in a tomb which was reckoned one of the seven wonders of
the world; but none of these tombs, or of the many others of the
heathens, were ornamented with winding-sheets or any of those other
offerings and tokens that show that they who are buried there are
saints."

"That's the point I'm coming to," said Sancho; "and now tell me, which is
the greater work, to bring a dead man to life or to kill a giant?"

"The answer is easy," replied Don Quixote; "it is a greater work to bring
to life a dead man."

"Now I have got you," said Sancho; "in that case the fame of them who
bring the dead to life, who give sight to the blind, cure cripples,
restore health to the sick, and before whose tombs there are lamps
burning, and whose chapels are filled with devout folk on their knees
adoring their relics be a better fame in this life and in the other than
that which all the heathen emperors and knights-errant that have ever
been in the world have left or may leave behind them?"

"That I grant, too," said Don Quixote.

"Then this fame, these favours, these privileges, or whatever you call
it," said Sancho, "belong to the bodies and relics of the saints who,
with the approbation and permission of our holy mother Church, have
lamps, tapers, winding-sheets, crutches, pictures, eyes and legs, by
means of which they increase devotion and add to their own Christian
reputation. Kings carry the bodies or relics of saints on their
shoulders, and kiss bits of their bones, and enrich and adorn their
oratories and favourite altars with them."

"What wouldst thou have me infer from all thou hast said, Sancho?" asked
Don Quixote.

"My meaning is," said Sancho, "let us set about becoming saints, and we
shall obtain more quickly the fair fame we are striving after; for you
know, senor, yesterday or the day before yesterday (for it is so lately
one may say so) they canonised and beatified two little barefoot friars,
and it is now reckoned the greatest good luck to kiss or touch the iron
chains with which they girt and tortured their bodies, and they are held
in greater veneration, so it is said, than the sword of Roland in the
armoury of our lord the King, whom God preserve. So that, senor, it is
better to be an humble little friar of no matter what order, than a
valiant knight-errant; with God a couple of dozen of penance lashings are
of more avail than two thousand lance-thrusts, be they given to giants,
or monsters, or dragons."

"All that is true," returned Don Quixote, "but we cannot all be friars,
and many are the ways by which God takes his own to heaven; chivalry is a
religion, there are sainted knights in glory."

"Yes," said Sancho, "but I have heard say that there are more friars in
heaven than knights-errant."

"That," said Don Quixote, "is because those in religious orders are more
numerous than knights."

"The errants are many," said Sancho.

"Many," replied Don Quixote, "but few they who deserve the name of
knights."

With these, and other discussions of the same sort, they passed that
night and the following day, without anything worth mention happening to
them, whereat Don Quixote was not a little dejected; but at length the
next day, at daybreak, they descried the great city of El Toboso, at the
sight of which Don Quixote's spirits rose and Sancho's fell, for he did
not know Dulcinea's house, nor in all his life had he ever seen her, any
more than his master; so that they were both uneasy, the one to see her,
the other at not having seen her, and Sancho was at a loss to know what
he was to do when his master sent him to El Toboso. In the end, Don
Quixote made up his mind to enter the city at nightfall, and they waited
until the time came among some oak trees that were near El Toboso; and
when the moment they had agreed upon arrived, they made their entrance
into the city, where something happened them that may fairly be called
something.




CHAPTER IX.

WHEREIN IS RELATED WHAT WILL BE SEEN THERE


'Twas at the very midnight hour--more or less--when Don Quixote and
Sancho quitted the wood and entered El Toboso. The town was in deep
silence, for all the inhabitants were asleep, and stretched on the broad
of their backs, as the saying is. The night was darkish, though Sancho
would have been glad had it been quite dark, so as to find in the
darkness an excuse for his blundering. All over the place nothing was to
be heard except the barking of dogs, which deafened the ears of Don
Quixote and troubled the heart of Sancho. Now and then an ass brayed,
pigs grunted, cats mewed, and the various noises they made seemed louder
in the silence of the night; all which the enamoured knight took to be of
evil omen; nevertheless he said to Sancho, "Sancho, my son, lead on to
the palace of Dulcinea, it may be that we shall find her awake."

"Body of the sun! what palace am I to lead to," said Sancho, "when what I
saw her highness in was only a very little house?"

"Most likely she had then withdrawn into some small apartment of her
palace," said Don Quixote, "to amuse herself with damsels, as great
ladies and princesses are accustomed to do."

"Senor," said Sancho, "if your worship will have it in spite of me that
the house of my lady Dulcinea is a palace, is this an hour, think you, to
find the door open; and will it be right for us to go knocking till they
hear us and open the door; making a disturbance and confusion all through
the household? Are we going, do you fancy, to the house of our wenches,
like gallants who come and knock and go in at any hour, however late it
may be?"

"Let us first of all find out the palace for certain," replied Don
Quixote, "and then I will tell thee, Sancho, what we had best do; but
look, Sancho, for either I see badly, or that dark mass that one sees
from here should be Dulcinea's palace."

"Then let your worship lead the way," said Sancho, "perhaps it may be so;
though I see it with my eyes and touch it with my hands, I'll believe it
as much as I believe it is daylight now."

Don Quixote took the lead, and having gone a matter of two hundred paces
he came upon the mass that produced the shade, and found it was a great
tower, and then he perceived that the building in question was no palace,
but the chief church of the town, and said he, "It's the church we have
lit upon, Sancho."

"So I see," said Sancho, "and God grant we may not light upon our graves;
it is no good sign to find oneself wandering in a graveyard at this time
of night; and that, after my telling your worship, if I don't mistake,
that the house of this lady will be in an alley without an outlet."

"The curse of God on thee for a blockhead!" said Don Quixote; "where hast
thou ever heard of castles and royal palaces being built in alleys
without an outlet?"

"Senor," replied Sancho, "every country has a way of its own; perhaps
here in El Toboso it is the way to build palaces and grand buildings in
alleys; so I entreat your worship to let me search about among these
streets or alleys before me, and perhaps, in some corner or other, I may
stumble on this palace--and I wish I saw the dogs eating it for leading
us such a dance."

"Speak respectfully of what belongs to my lady, Sancho," said Don
Quixote; "let us keep the feast in peace, and not throw the rope after
the bucket."

"I'll hold my tongue," said Sancho, "but how am I to take it patiently
when your worship wants me, with only once seeing the house of our
mistress, to know always, and find it in the middle of the night, when
your worship can't find it, who must have seen it thousands of times?"

"Thou wilt drive me to desperation, Sancho," said Don Quixote. "Look
here, heretic, have I not told thee a thousand times that I have never
once in my life seen the peerless Dulcinea or crossed the threshold of
her palace, and that I am enamoured solely by hearsay and by the great
reputation she bears for beauty and discretion?"

"I hear it now," returned Sancho; "and I may tell you that if you have
not seen her, no more have I."

"That cannot be," said Don Quixote, "for, at any rate, thou saidst, on
bringing back the answer to the letter I sent by thee, that thou sawest
her sifting wheat."

"Don't mind that, senor," said Sancho; "I must tell you that my seeing
her and the answer I brought you back were by hearsay too, for I can no
more tell who the lady Dulcinea is than I can hit the sky."

"Sancho, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "there are times for jests and times
when jests are out of place; if I tell thee that I have neither seen nor
spoken to the lady of my heart, it is no reason why thou shouldst say
thou hast not spoken to her or seen her, when the contrary is the case,
as thou well knowest."

While the two were engaged in this conversation, they perceived some one
with a pair of mules approaching the spot where they stood, and from the
noise the plough made, as it dragged along the ground, they guessed him
to be some labourer who had got up before daybreak to go to his work, and
so it proved to be. He came along singing the ballad that says--

Ill did ye fare, ye men of France, In Roncesvalles chase--

"May I die, Sancho," said Don Quixote, when he heard him, "if any good
will come to us to-night! Dost thou not hear what that clown is singing?"

"I do," said Sancho, "but what has Roncesvalles chase to do with what we
have in hand? He might just as well be singing the ballad of Calainos,
for any good or ill that can come to us in our business."

By this time the labourer had come up, and Don Quixote asked him, "Can
you tell me, worthy friend, and God speed you, whereabouts here is the
palace of the peerless princess Dona Dulcinea del Toboso?"

"Senor," replied the lad, "I am a stranger, and I have been only a few
days in the town, doing farm work for a rich farmer. In that house
opposite there live the curate of the village and the sacristan, and both
or either of them will be able to give your worship some account of this
lady princess, for they have a list of all the people of El Toboso;
though it is my belief there is not a princess living in the whole of it;
many ladies there are, of quality, and in her own house each of them may
be a princess."

"Well, then, she I am inquiring for will be one of these, my friend,"
said Don Quixote.

"May be so," replied the lad; "God be with you, for here comes the
daylight;" and without waiting for any more of his questions, he whipped
on his mules.

Sancho, seeing his master downcast and somewhat dissatisfied, said to
him, "Senor, daylight will be here before long, and it will not do for us
to let the sun find us in the street; it will be better for us to quit
the city, and for your worship to hide in some forest in the
neighbourhood, and I will come back in the daytime, and I won't leave a
nook or corner of the whole village that I won't search for the house,
castle, or palace, of my lady, and it will be hard luck for me if I don't
find it; and as soon as I have found it I will speak to her grace, and
tell her where and how your worship is waiting for her to arrange some
plan for you to see her without any damage to her honour and reputation."

"Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou hast delivered a thousand sentences
condensed in the compass of a few words; I thank thee for the advice thou
hast given me, and take it most gladly. Come, my son, let us go look for
some place where I may hide, while thou dost return, as thou sayest, to
seek, and speak with my lady, from whose discretion and courtesy I look
for favours more than miraculous."

Sancho was in a fever to get his master out of the town, lest he should
discover the falsehood of the reply he had brought to him in the Sierra
Morena on behalf of Dulcinea; so he hastened their departure, which they
took at once, and two miles out of the village they found a forest or
thicket wherein Don Quixote ensconced himself, while Sancho returned to
the city to speak to Dulcinea, in which embassy things befell him which
demand fresh attention and a new chapter.




CHAPTER X.

WHEREIN IS RELATED THE CRAFTY DEVICE SANCHO ADOPTED TO ENCHANT THE LADY
DULCINEA, AND OTHER INCIDENTS AS LUDICROUS AS THEY ARE TRUE


When the author of this great history comes to relate what is set down in
this chapter he says he would have preferred to pass it over in silence,
fearing it would not be believed, because here Don Quixote's madness
reaches the confines of the greatest that can be conceived, and even goes
a couple of bowshots beyond the greatest. But after all, though still
under the same fear and apprehension, he has recorded it without adding
to the story or leaving out a particle of the truth, and entirely
disregarding the charges of falsehood that might be brought against him;
and he was right, for the truth may run fine but will not break, and
always rises above falsehood as oil above water; and so, going on with
his story, he says that as soon as Don Quixote had ensconced himself in
the forest, oak grove, or wood near El Toboso, he bade Sancho return to
the city, and not come into his presence again without having first
spoken on his behalf to his lady, and begged of her that it might be her
good pleasure to permit herself to be seen by her enslaved knight, and
deign to bestow her blessing upon him, so that he might thereby hope for
a happy issue in all his encounters and difficult enterprises. Sancho
undertook to execute the task according to the instructions, and to bring
back an answer as good as the one he brought back before.

"Go, my son," said Don Quixote, "and be not dazed when thou findest
thyself exposed to the light of that sun of beauty thou art going to
seek. Happy thou, above all the squires in the world! Bear in mind, and
let it not escape thy memory, how she receives thee; if she changes
colour while thou art giving her my message; if she is agitated and
disturbed at hearing my name; if she cannot rest upon her cushion,
shouldst thou haply find her seated in the sumptuous state chamber proper
to her rank; and should she be standing, observe if she poises herself
now on one foot, now on the other; if she repeats two or three times the
reply she gives thee; if she passes from gentleness to austerity, from
asperity to tenderness; if she raises her hand to smooth her hair though
it be not disarranged. In short, my son, observe all her actions and
motions, for if thou wilt report them to me as they were, I will gather
what she hides in the recesses of her heart as regards my love; for I
would have thee know, Sancho, if thou knowest it not, that with lovers
the outward actions and motions they give way to when their loves are in
question are the faithful messengers that carry the news of what is going
on in the depths of their hearts. Go, my friend, may better fortune than
mine attend thee, and bring thee a happier issue than that which I await
in dread in this dreary solitude."

"I will go and return quickly," said Sancho; "cheer up that little heart
of yours, master mine, for at the present moment you seem to have got one
no bigger than a hazel nut; remember what they say, that a stout heart
breaks bad luck, and that where there are no fletches there are no pegs;
and moreover they say, the hare jumps up where it's not looked for. I say
this because, if we could not find my lady's palaces or castles to-night,
now that it is daylight I count upon finding them when I least expect it,
and once found, leave it to me to manage her."

"Verily, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou dost always bring in thy
proverbs happily, whatever we deal with; may God give me better luck in
what I am anxious about."

With this, Sancho wheeled about and gave Dapple the stick, and Don
Quixote remained behind, seated on his horse, resting in his stirrups and
leaning on the end of his lance, filled with sad and troubled
forebodings; and there we will leave him, and accompany Sancho, who went
off no less serious and troubled than he left his master; so much so,
that as soon as he had got out of the thicket, and looking round saw that
Don Quixote was not within sight, he dismounted from his ass, and seating
himself at the foot of a tree began to commune with himself, saying,
"Now, brother Sancho, let us know where your worship is going. Are you
going to look for some ass that has been lost? Not at all. Then what are
you going to look for? I am going to look for a princess, that's all; and
in her for the sun of beauty and the whole heaven at once. And where do
you expect to find all this, Sancho? Where? Why, in the great city of El
Toboso. Well, and for whom are you going to look for her? For the famous
knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who rights wrongs, gives food to those
who thirst and drink to the hungry. That's all very well, but do you know
her house, Sancho? My master says it will be some royal palace or grand
castle. And have you ever seen her by any chance? Neither I nor my master
ever saw her. And does it strike you that it would be just and right if
the El Toboso people, finding out that you were here with the intention
of going to tamper with their princesses and trouble their ladies, were
to come and cudgel your ribs, and not leave a whole bone in you? They
would, indeed, have very good reason, if they did not see that I am under
orders, and that 'you are a messenger, my friend, no blame belongs to
you.' Don't you trust to that, Sancho, for the Manchegan folk are as
hot-tempered as they are honest, and won't put up with liberties from
anybody. By the Lord, if they get scent of you, it will be worse for you,
I promise you. Be off, you scoundrel! Let the bolt fall. Why should I go
looking for three feet on a cat, to please another man; and what is more,
when looking for Dulcinea will be looking for Marica in Ravena, or the
bachelor in Salamanca? The devil, the devil and nobody else, has mixed me
up in this business!"

Such was the soliloquy Sancho held with himself, and all the conclusion
he could come to was to say to himself again, "Well, there's remedy for
everything except death, under whose yoke we have all to pass, whether we
like it or not, when life's finished. I have seen by a thousand signs
that this master of mine is a madman fit to be tied, and for that matter,
I too, am not behind him; for I'm a greater fool than he is when I follow
him and serve him, if there's any truth in the proverb that says, 'Tell
me what company thou keepest, and I'll tell thee what thou art,' or in
that other, 'Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art fed.'
Well then, if he be mad, as he is, and with a madness that mostly takes
one thing for another, and white for black, and black for white, as was
seen when he said the windmills were giants, and the monks' mules
dromedaries, flocks of sheep armies of enemies, and much more to the same
tune, it will not be very hard to make him believe that some country
girl, the first I come across here, is the lady Dulcinea; and if he does
not believe it, I'll swear it; and if he should swear, I'll swear again;
and if he persists I'll persist still more, so as, come what may, to have
my quoit always over the peg. Maybe, by holding out in this way, I may
put a stop to his sending me on messages of this kind another time; or
maybe he will think, as I suspect he will, that one of those wicked
enchanters, who he says have a spite against him, has changed her form
for the sake of doing him an ill turn and injuring him."

With this reflection Sancho made his mind easy, counting the business as
good as settled, and stayed there till the afternoon so as to make Don
Quixote think he had time enough to go to El Toboso and return; and
things turned out so luckily for him that as he got up to mount Dapple,
he spied, coming from El Toboso towards the spot where he stood, three
peasant girls on three colts, or fillies--for the author does not make
the point clear, though it is more likely they were she-asses, the usual
mount with village girls; but as it is of no great consequence, we need
not stop to prove it.

To be brief, the instant Sancho saw the peasant girls, he returned full
speed to seek his master, and found him sighing and uttering a thousand
passionate lamentations. When Don Quixote saw him he exclaimed, "What
news, Sancho, my friend? Am I to mark this day with a white stone or a
black?"

"Your worship," replied Sancho, "had better mark it with ruddle, like the
inscriptions on the walls of class rooms, that those who see it may see
it plain."

"Then thou bringest good news," said Don Quixote.

"So good," replied Sancho, "that your worship has only to spur Rocinante
and get out into the open field to see the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, who,
with two others, damsels of hers, is coming to see your worship."

"Holy God! what art thou saying, Sancho, my friend?" exclaimed Don
Quixote. "Take care thou art not deceiving me, or seeking by false joy to
cheer my real sadness."

"What could I get by deceiving your worship," returned Sancho,
"especially when it will so soon be shown whether I tell the truth or
not? Come, senor, push on, and you will see the princess our mistress
coming, robed and adorned--in fact, like what she is. Her damsels and she
are all one glow of gold, all bunches of pearls, all diamonds, all
rubies, all cloth of brocade of more than ten borders; with their hair
loose on their shoulders like so many sunbeams playing with the wind; and
moreover, they come mounted on three piebald cackneys, the finest sight
ever you saw."

"Hackneys, you mean, Sancho," said Don Quixote.

"There is not much difference between cackneys and hackneys," said
Sancho; "but no matter what they come on, there they are, the finest
ladies one could wish for, especially my lady the princess Dulcinea, who
staggers one's senses."

"Let us go, Sancho, my son," said Don Quixote, "and in guerdon of this
news, as unexpected as it is good, I bestow upon thee the best spoil I
shall win in the first adventure I may have; or if that does not satisfy
thee, I promise thee the foals I shall have this year from my three mares
that thou knowest are in foal on our village common."

"I'll take the foals," said Sancho; "for it is not quite certain that the
spoils of the first adventure will be good ones."

By this time they had cleared the wood, and saw the three village lasses
close at hand. Don Quixote looked all along the road to El Toboso, and as
he could see nobody except the three peasant girls, he was completely
puzzled, and asked Sancho if it was outside the city he had left them.

"How outside the city?" returned Sancho. "Are your worship's eyes in the
back of your head, that you can't see that they are these who are coming
here, shining like the very sun at noonday?"

"I see nothing, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "but three country girls on
three jackasses."

"Now, may God deliver me from the devil!" said Sancho, "and can it be
that your worship takes three hackneys--or whatever they're called-as
white as the driven snow, for jackasses? By the Lord, I could tear my
beard if that was the case!"

"Well, I can only say, Sancho, my friend," said Don Quixote, "that it is
as plain they are jackasses--or jennyasses--as that I am Don Quixote, and
thou Sancho Panza: at any rate, they seem to me to be so."

"Hush, senor," said Sancho, "don't talk that way, but open your eyes, and
come and pay your respects to the lady of your thoughts, who is close
upon us now;" and with these words he advanced to receive the three
village lasses, and dismounting from Dapple, caught hold of one of the
asses of the three country girls by the halter, and dropping on both
knees on the ground, he said, "Queen and princess and duchess of beauty,
may it please your haughtiness and greatness to receive into your favour
and good-will your captive knight who stands there turned into marble
stone, and quite stupefied and benumbed at finding himself in your
magnificent presence. I am Sancho Panza, his squire, and he the vagabond
knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, otherwise called 'The Knight of the
Rueful Countenance.'"

Don Quixote had by this time placed himself on his knees beside Sancho,
and, with eyes starting out of his head and a puzzled gaze, was regarding
her whom Sancho called queen and lady; and as he could see nothing in her
except a village lass, and not a very well-favoured one, for she was
platter-faced and snub-nosed, he was perplexed and bewildered, and did
not venture to open his lips. The country girls, at the same time, were
astonished to see these two men, so different in appearance, on their
knees, preventing their companion from going on. She, however, who had
been stopped, breaking silence, said angrily and testily, "Get out of the
way, bad luck to you, and let us pass, for we are in a hurry."

To which Sancho returned, "Oh, princess and universal lady of El Toboso,
is not your magnanimous heart softened by seeing the pillar and prop of
knight-errantry on his knees before your sublimated presence?"

On hearing this, one of the others exclaimed, "Woa then! why, I'm rubbing
thee down, she-ass of my father-in-law! See how the lordlings come to
make game of the village girls now, as if we here could not chaff as well
as themselves. Go your own way, and let us go ours, and it will be better
for you."

"Get up, Sancho," said Don Quixote at this; "I see that fortune, 'with
evil done to me unsated still,' has taken possession of all the roads by
which any comfort may reach 'this wretched soul' that I carry in my
flesh. And thou, highest perfection of excellence that can be desired,
utmost limit of grace in human shape, sole relief of this afflicted heart
that adores thee, though the malign enchanter that persecutes me has
brought clouds and cataracts on my eyes, and to them, and them only,
transformed thy unparagoned beauty and changed thy features into those of
a poor peasant girl, if so be he has not at the same time changed mine
into those of some monster to render them loathsome in thy sight, refuse
not to look upon me with tenderness and love; seeing in this submission
that I make on my knees to thy transformed beauty the humility with which
my soul adores thee."

"Hey-day! My grandfather!" cried the girl, "much I care for your
love-making! Get out of the way and let us pass, and we'll thank you."

Sancho stood aside and let her go, very well pleased to have got so well
out of the hobble he was in. The instant the village lass who had done
duty for Dulcinea found herself free, prodding her "cackney" with a spike
she had at the end of a stick, she set off at full speed across the
field. The she-ass, however, feeling the point more acutely than usual,
began cutting such capers, that it flung the lady Dulcinea to the ground;
seeing which, Don Quixote ran to raise her up, and Sancho to fix and
girth the pack-saddle, which also had slipped under the ass's belly. The
pack-saddle being secured, as Don Quixote was about to lift up his
enchanted mistress in his arms and put her upon her beast, the lady,
getting up from the ground, saved him the trouble, for, going back a
little, she took a short run, and putting both hands on the croup of the
ass she dropped into the saddle more lightly than a falcon, and sat
astride like a man, whereat Sancho said, "Rogue! but our lady is lighter
than a lanner, and might teach the cleverest Cordovan or Mexican how to
mount; she cleared the back of the saddle in one jump, and without spurs
she is making the hackney go like a zebra; and her damsels are no way
behind her, for they all fly like the wind;" which was the truth, for as
soon as they saw Dulcinea mounted, they pushed on after her, and sped
away without looking back, for more than half a league.

Don Quixote followed them with his eyes, and when they were no longer in
sight, he turned to Sancho and said, "How now, Sancho? thou seest how I
am hated by enchanters! And see to what a length the malice and spite
they bear me go, when they seek to deprive me of the happiness it would
give me to see my lady in her own proper form. The fact is I was born to
be an example of misfortune, and the target and mark at which the arrows
of adversity are aimed and directed. Observe too, Sancho, that these
traitors were not content with changing and transforming my Dulcinea, but
they transformed and changed her into a shape as mean and ill-favoured as
that of the village girl yonder; and at the same time they robbed her of
that which is such a peculiar property of ladies of distinction, that is
to say, the sweet fragrance that comes of being always among perfumes and
flowers. For I must tell thee, Sancho, that when I approached to put
Dulcinea upon her hackney (as thou sayest it was, though to me it
appeared a she-ass), she gave me a whiff of raw garlic that made my head
reel, and poisoned my very heart."

"O scum of the earth!" cried Sancho at this, "O miserable, spiteful
enchanters! O that I could see you all strung by the gills, like sardines
on a twig! Ye know a great deal, ye can do a great deal, and ye do a
great deal more. It ought to have been enough for you, ye scoundrels, to
have changed the pearls of my lady's eyes into oak galls, and her hair of
purest gold into the bristles of a red ox's tail, and in short, all her
features from fair to foul, without meddling with her smell; for by that
we might somehow have found out what was hidden underneath that ugly
rind; though, to tell the truth, I never perceived her ugliness, but only
her beauty, which was raised to the highest pitch of perfection by a mole
she had on her right lip, like a moustache, with seven or eight red hairs
like threads of gold, and more than a palm long."

"From the correspondence which exists between those of the face and those
of the body," said Don Quixote, "Dulcinea must have another mole
resembling that on the thick of the thigh on that side on which she has
the one on her face; but hairs of the length thou hast mentioned are very
long for moles."

"Well, all I can say is there they were as plain as could be," replied
Sancho.

"I believe it, my friend," returned Don Quixote; "for nature bestowed
nothing on Dulcinea that was not perfect and well-finished; and so, if
she had a hundred moles like the one thou hast described, in her they
would not be moles, but moons and shining stars. But tell me, Sancho,
that which seemed to me to be a pack-saddle as thou wert fixing it, was
it a flat-saddle or a side-saddle?"

"It was neither," replied Sancho, "but a jineta saddle, with a field
covering worth half a kingdom, so rich is it."

"And that I could not see all this, Sancho!" said Don Quixote; "once more
I say, and will say a thousand times, I am the most unfortunate of men."

Sancho, the rogue, had enough to do to hide his laughter, at hearing the
simplicity of the master he had so nicely befooled. At length, after a
good deal more conversation had passed between them, they remounted their
beasts, and followed the road to Saragossa, which they expected to reach
in time to take part in a certain grand festival which is held every year
in that illustrious city; but before they got there things happened to
them, so many, so important, and so strange, that they deserve to be
recorded and read, as will be seen farther on.




CHAPTER XI.

OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE HAD WITH THE CAR
OR CART OF "THE CORTES OF DEATH"


Dejected beyond measure did Don Quixote pursue his journey, turning over
in his mind the cruel trick the enchanters had played him in changing his
lady Dulcinea into the vile shape of the village lass, nor could he think
of any way of restoring her to her original form; and these reflections
so absorbed him, that without being aware of it he let go Rocinante's
bridle, and he, perceiving the liberty that was granted him, stopped at
every step to crop the fresh grass with which the plain abounded.

Sancho recalled him from his reverie. "Melancholy, senor," said he, "was
made, not for beasts, but for men; but if men give way to it overmuch
they turn to beasts; control yourself, your worship; be yourself again;
gather up Rocinante's reins; cheer up, rouse yourself and show that
gallant spirit that knights-errant ought to have. What the devil is this?
What weakness is this? Are we here or in France? The devil fly away with
all the Dulcineas in the world; for the well-being of a single
knight-errant is of more consequence than all the enchantments and
transformations on earth."

"Hush, Sancho," said Don Quixote in a weak and faint voice, "hush and
utter no blasphemies against that enchanted lady; for I alone am to blame
for her misfortune and hard fate; her calamity has come of the hatred the
wicked bear me."

"So say I," returned Sancho; "his heart rend in twain, I trow, who saw
her once, to see her now."

"Thou mayest well say that, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "as thou sawest
her in the full perfection of her beauty; for the enchantment does not go
so far as to pervert thy vision or hide her loveliness from thee; against
me alone and against my eyes is the strength of its venom directed.
Nevertheless, there is one thing which has occurred to me, and that is
that thou didst ill describe her beauty to me, for, as well as I
recollect, thou saidst that her eyes were pearls; but eyes that are like
pearls are rather the eyes of a sea-bream than of a lady, and I am
persuaded that Dulcinea's must be green emeralds, full and soft, with two
rainbows for eyebrows; take away those pearls from her eyes and transfer
them to her teeth; for beyond a doubt, Sancho, thou hast taken the one
for the other, the eyes for the teeth."

"Very likely," said Sancho; "for her beauty bewildered me as much as her
ugliness did your worship; but let us leave it all to God, who alone
knows what is to happen in this vale of tears, in this evil world of
ours, where there is hardly a thing to be found without some mixture of
wickedness, roguery, and rascality. But one thing, senor, troubles me
more than all the rest, and that is thinking what is to be done when your
worship conquers some giant, or some other knight, and orders him to go
and present himself before the beauty of the lady Dulcinea. Where is this
poor giant, or this poor wretch of a vanquished knight, to find her? I
think I can see them wandering all over El Toboso, looking like noddies,
and asking for my lady Dulcinea; and even if they meet her in the middle
of the street they won't know her any more than they would my father."

"Perhaps, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "the enchantment does not go so
far as to deprive conquered and presented giants and knights of the power
of recognising Dulcinea; we will try by experiment with one or two of the
first I vanquish and send to her, whether they see her or not, by
commanding them to return and give me an account of what happened to them
in this respect."

"I declare, I think what your worship has proposed is excellent," said
Sancho; "and that by this plan we shall find out what we want to know;
and if it be that it is only from your worship she is hidden, the
misfortune will be more yours than hers; but so long as the lady Dulcinea
is well and happy, we on our part will make the best of it, and get on as
well as we can, seeking our adventures, and leaving Time to take his own
course; for he is the best physician for these and greater ailments."

Don Quixote was about to reply to Sancho Panza, but he was prevented by a
cart crossing the road full of the most diverse and strange personages
and figures that could be imagined. He who led the mules and acted as
carter was a hideous demon; the cart was open to the sky, without a tilt
or cane roof, and the first figure that presented itself to Don Quixote's
eyes was that of Death itself with a human face; next to it was an angel
with large painted wings, and at one side an emperor, with a crown, to
all appearance of gold, on his head. At the feet of Death was the god
called Cupid, without his bandage, but with his bow, quiver, and arrows;
there was also a knight in full armour, except that he had no morion or
helmet, but only a hat decked with plumes of divers colours; and along
with these there were others with a variety of costumes and faces. All
this, unexpectedly encountered, took Don Quixote somewhat aback, and
struck terror into the heart of Sancho; but the next instant Don Quixote
was glad of it, believing that some new perilous adventure was presenting
itself to him, and under this impression, and with a spirit prepared to
face any danger, he planted himself in front of the cart, and in a loud
and menacing tone, exclaimed, "Carter, or coachman, or devil, or whatever
thou art, tell me at once who thou art, whither thou art going, and who
these folk are thou carriest in thy wagon, which looks more like Charon's
boat than an ordinary cart."

To which the devil, stopping the cart, answered quietly, "Senor, we are
players of Angulo el Malo's company; we have been acting the play of 'The
Cortes of Death' this morning, which is the octave of Corpus Christi, in
a village behind that hill, and we have to act it this afternoon in that
village which you can see from this; and as it is so near, and to save
the trouble of undressing and dressing again, we go in the costumes in
which we perform. That lad there appears as Death, that other as an
angel, that woman, the manager's wife, plays the queen, this one the
soldier, that the emperor, and I the devil; and I am one of the principal
characters of the play, for in this company I take the leading parts. If
you want to know anything more about us, ask me and I will answer with
the utmost exactitude, for as I am a devil I am up to everything."

"By the faith of a knight-errant," replied Don Quixote, "when I saw this
cart I fancied some great adventure was presenting itself to me; but I
declare one must touch with the hand what appears to the eye, if
illusions are to be avoided. God speed you, good people; keep your
festival, and remember, if you demand of me ought wherein I can render
you a service, I will do it gladly and willingly, for from a child I was
fond of the play, and in my youth a keen lover of the actor's art."

While they were talking, fate so willed it that one of the company in a
mummers' dress with a great number of bells, and armed with three blown
ox-bladders at the end of a stick, joined them, and this merry-andrew
approaching Don Quixote, began flourishing his stick and banging the
ground with the bladders and cutting capers with great jingling of the
bells, which untoward apparition so startled Rocinante that, in spite of
Don Quixote's efforts to hold him in, taking the bit between his teeth he
set off across the plain with greater speed than the bones of his anatomy
ever gave any promise of.

Sancho, who thought his master was in danger of being thrown, jumped off
Dapple, and ran in all haste to help him; but by the time he reached him
he was already on the ground, and beside him was Rocinante, who had come
down with his master, the usual end and upshot of Rocinante's vivacity
and high spirits. But the moment Sancho quitted his beast to go and help
Don Quixote, the dancing devil with the bladders jumped up on Dapple, and
beating him with them, more by the fright and the noise than by the pain
of the blows, made him fly across the fields towards the village where
they were going to hold their festival. Sancho witnessed Dapple's career
and his master's fall, and did not know which of the two cases of need he
should attend to first; but in the end, like a good squire and good
servant, he let his love for his master prevail over his affection for
his ass; though every time he saw the bladders rise in the air and come
down on the hind quarters of his Dapple he felt the pains and terrors of
death, and he would have rather had the blows fall on the apples of his
own eyes than on the least hair of his ass's tail. In this trouble and
perplexity he came to where Don Quixote lay in a far sorrier plight than
he liked, and having helped him to mount Rocinante, he said to him,
"Senor, the devil has carried off my Dapple."

"What devil?" asked Don Quixote.

"The one with the bladders," said Sancho.

"Then I will recover him," said Don Quixote, "even if he be shut up with
him in the deepest and darkest dungeons of hell. Follow me, Sancho, for
the cart goes slowly, and with the mules of it I will make good the loss
of Dapple."

"You need not take the trouble, senor," said Sancho; "keep cool, for as I
now see, the devil has let Dapple go and he is coming back to his old
quarters;" and so it turned out, for, having come down with Dapple, in
imitation of Don Quixote and Rocinante, the devil made off on foot to the
town, and the ass came back to his master.

"For all that," said Don Quixote, "it will be well to visit the
discourtesy of that devil upon some of those in the cart, even if it were
the emperor himself."

"Don't think of it, your worship," returned Sancho; "take my advice and
never meddle with actors, for they are a favoured class; I myself have
known an actor taken up for two murders, and yet come off scot-free;
remember that, as they are merry folk who give pleasure, everyone favours
and protects them, and helps and makes much of them, above all when they
are those of the royal companies and under patent, all or most of whom in
dress and appearance look like princes."

"Still, for all that," said Don Quixote, "the player devil must not go
off boasting, even if the whole human race favours him."

So saying, he made for the cart, which was now very near the town,
shouting out as he went, "Stay! halt! ye merry, jovial crew! I want to
teach you how to treat asses and animals that serve the squires of
knights-errant for steeds."

So loud were the shouts of Don Quixote, that those in the cart heard and
understood them, and, guessing by the words what the speaker's intention
was, Death in an instant jumped out of the cart, and the emperor, the
devil carter and the angel after him, nor did the queen or the god Cupid
stay behind; and all armed themselves with stones and formed in line,
prepared to receive Don Quixote on the points of their pebbles. Don
Quixote, when he saw them drawn up in such a gallant array with uplifted
arms ready for a mighty discharge of stones, checked Rocinante and began
to consider in what way he could attack them with the least danger to
himself. As he halted Sancho came up, and seeing him disposed to attack
this well-ordered squadron, said to him, "It would be the height of
madness to attempt such an enterprise; remember, senor, that against sops
from the brook, and plenty of them, there is no defensive armour in the
world, except to stow oneself away under a brass bell; and besides, one
should remember that it is rashness, and not valour, for a single man to
attack an army that has Death in it, and where emperors fight in person,
with angels, good and bad, to help them; and if this reflection will not
make you keep quiet, perhaps it will to know for certain that among all
these, though they look like kings, princes, and emperors, there is not a
single knight-errant."

"Now indeed thou hast hit the point, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "which
may and should turn me from the resolution I had already formed. I cannot
and must not draw sword, as I have many a time before told thee, against
anyone who is not a dubbed knight; it is for thee, Sancho, if thou wilt,
to take vengeance for the wrong done to thy Dapple; and I will help thee
from here by shouts and salutary counsels."

"There is no occasion to take vengeance on anyone, senor," replied
Sancho; "for it is not the part of good Christians to revenge wrongs; and
besides, I will arrange it with my ass to leave his grievance to my
good-will and pleasure, and that is to live in peace as long as heaven
grants me life."

"Well," said Don Quixote, "if that be thy determination, good Sancho,
sensible Sancho, Christian Sancho, honest Sancho, let us leave these
phantoms alone and turn to the pursuit of better and worthier adventures;
for, from what I see of this country, we cannot fail to find plenty of
marvellous ones in it."

He at once wheeled about, Sancho ran to take possession of his Dapple,
Death and his flying squadron returned to their cart and pursued their
journey, and thus the dread adventure of the cart of Death ended happily,
thanks to the advice Sancho gave his master; who had, the following day,
a fresh adventure, of no less thrilling interest than the last, with an
enamoured knight-errant.




CHAPTER XII.

OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE WHICH BEFELL THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE WITH THE
BOLD KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS


The night succeeding the day of the encounter with Death, Don Quixote and
his squire passed under some tall shady trees, and Don Quixote at
Sancho's persuasion ate a little from the store carried by Dapple, and
over their supper Sancho said to his master, "Senor, what a fool I should
have looked if I had chosen for my reward the spoils of the first
adventure your worship achieved, instead of the foals of the three mares.
After all, 'a sparrow in the hand is better than a vulture on the wing.'"

"At the same time, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "if thou hadst let me
attack them as I wanted, at the very least the emperor's gold crown and
Cupid's painted wings would have fallen to thee as spoils, for I should
have taken them by force and given them into thy hands."

"The sceptres and crowns of those play-actor emperors," said Sancho,
"were never yet pure gold, but only brass foil or tin."

"That is true," said Don Quixote, "for it would not be right that the
accessories of the drama should be real, instead of being mere fictions
and semblances, like the drama itself; towards which, Sancho-and, as a
necessary consequence, towards those who represent and produce it--I
would that thou wert favourably disposed, for they are all instruments of
great good to the State, placing before us at every step a mirror in
which we may see vividly displayed what goes on in human life; nor is
there any similitude that shows us more faithfully what we are and ought
to be than the play and the players. Come, tell me, hast thou not seen a
play acted in which kings, emperors, pontiffs, knights, ladies, and
divers other personages were introduced? One plays the villain, another
the knave, this one the merchant, that the soldier, one the sharp-witted
fool, another the foolish lover; and when the play is over, and they have
put off the dresses they wore in it, all the actors become equal."

"Yes, I have seen that," said Sancho.

"Well then," said Don Quixote, "the same thing happens in the comedy and
life of this world, where some play emperors, others popes, and, in
short, all the characters that can be brought into a play; but when it is
over, that is to say when life ends, death strips them all of the
garments that distinguish one from the other, and all are equal in the
grave."

"A fine comparison!" said Sancho; "though not so new but that I have
heard it many and many a time, as well as that other one of the game of
chess; how, so long as the game lasts, each piece has its own particular
office, and when the game is finished they are all mixed, jumbled up and
shaken together, and stowed away in the bag, which is much like ending
life in the grave."

"Thou art growing less doltish and more shrewd every day, Sancho," said
Don Quixote.

"Ay," said Sancho; "it must be that some of your worship's shrewdness
sticks to me; land that, of itself, is barren and dry, will come to yield
good fruit if you dung it and till it; what I mean is that your worship's
conversation has been the dung that has fallen on the barren soil of my
dry wit, and the time I have been in your service and society has been
the tillage; and with the help of this I hope to yield fruit in abundance
that will not fall away or slide from those paths of good breeding that
your worship has made in my parched understanding."

Don Quixote laughed at Sancho's affected phraseology, and perceived that
what he said about his improvement was true, for now and then he spoke in
a way that surprised him; though always, or mostly, when Sancho tried to
talk fine and attempted polite language, he wound up by toppling over
from the summit of his simplicity into the abyss of his ignorance; and
where he showed his culture and his memory to the greatest advantage was
in dragging in proverbs, no matter whether they had any bearing or not
upon the subject in hand, as may have been seen already and will be
noticed in the course of this history.

In conversation of this kind they passed a good part of the night, but
Sancho felt a desire to let down the curtains of his eyes, as he used to
say when he wanted to go to sleep; and stripping Dapple he left him at
liberty to graze his fill. He did not remove Rocinante's saddle, as his
master's express orders were, that so long as they were in the field or
not sleeping under a roof Rocinante was not to be stripped--the ancient
usage established and observed by knights-errant being to take off the
bridle and hang it on the saddle-bow, but to remove the saddle from the
horse--never! Sancho acted accordingly, and gave him the same liberty he
had given Dapple, between whom and Rocinante there was a friendship so
unequalled and so strong, that it is handed down by tradition from father
to son, that the author of this veracious history devoted some special
chapters to it, which, in order to preserve the propriety and decorum due
to a history so heroic, he did not insert therein; although at times he
forgets this resolution of his and describes how eagerly the two beasts
would scratch one another when they were together and how, when they were
tired or full, Rocinante would lay his neck across Dapple's, stretching
half a yard or more on the other side, and the pair would stand thus,
gazing thoughtfully on the ground, for three days, or at least so long as
they were left alone, or hunger did not drive them to go and look for
food. I may add that they say the author left it on record that he
likened their friendship to that of Nisus and Euryalus, and Pylades and
Orestes; and if that be so, it may be perceived, to the admiration of
mankind, how firm the friendship must have been between these two
peaceful animals, shaming men, who preserve friendships with one another
so badly. This was why it was said--

For friend no longer is there friend;
The reeds turn lances now.

And some one else has sung--

Friend to friend the bug, etc.

And let no one fancy that the author was at all astray when he compared
the friendship of these animals to that of men; for men have received
many lessons from beasts, and learned many important things, as, for
example, the clyster from the stork, vomit and gratitude from the dog,
watchfulness from the crane, foresight from the ant, modesty from the
elephant, and loyalty from the horse.

Sancho at last fell asleep at the foot of a cork tree, while Don Quixote
dozed at that of a sturdy oak; but a short time only had elapsed when a
noise he heard behind him awoke him, and rising up startled, he listened
and looked in the direction the noise came from, and perceived two men on
horseback, one of whom, letting himself drop from the saddle, said to the
other, "Dismount, my friend, and take the bridles off the horses, for, so
far as I can see, this place will furnish grass for them, and the
solitude and silence my love-sick thoughts need of." As he said this he
stretched himself upon the ground, and as he flung himself down, the
armour in which he was clad rattled, whereby Don Quixote perceived that
he must be a knight-errant; and going over to Sancho, who was asleep, he
shook him by the arm and with no small difficulty brought him back to his
senses, and said in a low voice to him, "Brother Sancho, we have got an
adventure."

"God send us a good one," said Sancho; "and where may her ladyship the
adventure be?"

"Where, Sancho?" replied Don Quixote; "turn thine eyes and look, and thou
wilt see stretched there a knight-errant, who, it strikes me, is not over
and above happy, for I saw him fling himself off his horse and throw
himself on the ground with a certain air of dejection, and his armour
rattled as he fell."

"Well," said Sancho, "how does your worship make out that to be an
adventure?"

"I do not mean to say," returned Don Quixote, "that it is a complete
adventure, but that it is the beginning of one, for it is in this way
adventures begin. But listen, for it seems he is tuning a lute or guitar,
and from the way he is spitting and clearing his chest he must be getting
ready to sing something."

"Faith, you are right," said Sancho, "and no doubt he is some enamoured
knight."

"There is no knight-errant that is not," said Don Quixote; "but let us
listen to him, for, if he sings, by that thread we shall extract the ball
of his thoughts; because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh."

Sancho was about to reply to his master, but the Knight of the Grove's
voice, which was neither very bad nor very good, stopped him, and
listening attentively the pair heard him sing this

SONNET

Your pleasure, prithee, lady mine, unfold;
  Declare the terms that I am to obey;
My will to yours submissively I mould,
  And from your law my feet shall never stray.
  Would you I die, to silent grief a prey?
Then count me even now as dead and cold;
  Would you I tell my woes in some new way?
Then shall my tale by Love itself be told.
The unison of opposites to prove,
  Of the soft wax and diamond hard am I;
But still, obedient to the laws of love,
  Here, hard or soft, I offer you my breast,
  Whate'er you grave or stamp thereon shall rest
    Indelible for all eternity.

With an "Ah me!" that seemed to be drawn from the inmost recesses of his
heart, the Knight of the Grove brought his lay to an end, and shortly
afterwards exclaimed in a melancholy and piteous voice, "O fairest and
most ungrateful woman on earth! What! can it be, most serene Casildea de
Vandalia, that thou wilt suffer this thy captive knight to waste away and
perish in ceaseless wanderings and rude and arduous toils? It is not
enough that I have compelled all the knights of Navarre, all the Leonese,
all the Tartesians, all the Castilians, and finally all the knights of La
Mancha, to confess thee the most beautiful in the world?"

"Not so," said Don Quixote at this, "for I am of La Mancha, and I have
never confessed anything of the sort, nor could I nor should I confess a
thing so much to the prejudice of my lady's beauty; thou seest how this
knight is raving, Sancho. But let us listen, perhaps he will tell us more
about himself."

"That he will," returned Sancho, "for he seems in a mood to bewail
himself for a month at a stretch."

But this was not the case, for the Knight of the Grove, hearing voices
near him, instead of continuing his lamentation, stood up and exclaimed
in a distinct but courteous tone, "Who goes there? What are you? Do you
belong to the number of the happy or of the miserable?"

"Of the miserable," answered Don Quixote.

"Then come to me," said he of the Grove, "and rest assured that it is to
woe itself and affliction itself you come."

Don Quixote, finding himself answered in such a soft and courteous
manner, went over to him, and so did Sancho.

The doleful knight took Don Quixote by the arm, saying, "Sit down here,
sir knight; for, that you are one, and of those that profess
knight-errantry, it is to me a sufficient proof to have found you in this
place, where solitude and night, the natural couch and proper retreat of
knights-errant, keep you company." To which Don made answer, "A knight I
am of the profession you mention, and though sorrows, misfortunes, and
calamities have made my heart their abode, the compassion I feel for the
misfortunes of others has not been thereby banished from it. From what
you have just now sung I gather that yours spring from love, I mean from
the love you bear that fair ingrate you named in your lament."

In the meantime, they had seated themselves together on the hard ground
peaceably and sociably, just as if, as soon as day broke, they were not
going to break one another's heads.

"Are you, sir knight, in love perchance?" asked he of the Grove of Don
Quixote.

"By mischance I am," replied Don Quixote; "though the ills arising from
well-bestowed affections should be esteemed favours rather than
misfortunes."

"That is true," returned he of the Grove, "if scorn did not unsettle our
reason and understanding, for if it be excessive it looks like revenge."

"I was never scorned by my lady," said Don Quixote.

"Certainly not," said Sancho, who stood close by, "for my lady is as a
lamb, and softer than a roll of butter."

"Is this your squire?" asked he of the Grove.

"He is," said Don Quixote.

"I never yet saw a squire," said he of the Grove, "who ventured to speak
when his master was speaking; at least, there is mine, who is as big as
his father, and it cannot be proved that he has ever opened his lips when
I am speaking."

"By my faith then," said Sancho, "I have spoken, and am fit to speak, in
the presence of one as much, or even--but never mind--it only makes it
worse to stir it."

The squire of the Grove took Sancho by the arm, saying to him, "Let us
two go where we can talk in squire style as much as we please, and leave
these gentlemen our masters to fight it out over the story of their
loves; and, depend upon it, daybreak will find them at it without having
made an end of it."

"So be it by all means," said Sancho; "and I will tell your worship who I
am, that you may see whether I am to be reckoned among the number of the
most talkative squires."

With this the two squires withdrew to one side, and between them there
passed a conversation as droll as that which passed between their masters
was serious.




CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE, TOGETHER
WITH THE SENSIBLE, ORIGINAL, AND TRANQUIL COLLOQUY THAT PASSED BETWEEN
THE TWO SQUIRES


The knights and the squires made two parties, these telling the story of
their lives, the others the story of their loves; but the history relates
first of all the conversation of the servants, and afterwards takes up
that of the masters; and it says that, withdrawing a little from the
others, he of the Grove said to Sancho, "A hard life it is we lead and
live, senor, we that are squires to knights-errant; verily, we eat our
bread in the sweat of our faces, which is one of the curses God laid on
our first parents."

"It may be said, too," added Sancho, "that we eat it in the chill of our
bodies; for who gets more heat and cold than the miserable squires of
knight-errantry? Even so it would not be so bad if we had something to
eat, for woes are lighter if there's bread; but sometimes we go a day or
two without breaking our fast, except with the wind that blows."

"All that," said he of the Grove, "may be endured and put up with when we
have hopes of reward; for, unless the knight-errant he serves is
excessively unlucky, after a few turns the squire will at least find
himself rewarded with a fine government of some island or some fair
county."

"I," said Sancho, "have already told my master that I shall be content
with the government of some island, and he is so noble and generous that
he has promised it to me ever so many times."

"I," said he of the Grove, "shall be satisfied with a canonry for my
services, and my master has already assigned me one."

"Your master," said Sancho, "no doubt is a knight in the Church line, and
can bestow rewards of that sort on his good squire; but mine is only a
layman; though I remember some clever, but, to my mind, designing people,
strove to persuade him to try and become an archbishop. He, however,
would not be anything but an emperor; but I was trembling all the time
lest he should take a fancy to go into the Church, not finding myself fit
to hold office in it; for I may tell you, though I seem a man, I am no
better than a beast for the Church."

"Well, then, you are wrong there," said he of the Grove; "for those
island governments are not all satisfactory; some are awkward, some are
poor, some are dull, and, in short, the highest and choicest brings with
it a heavy burden of cares and troubles which the unhappy wight to whose
lot it has fallen bears upon his shoulders. Far better would it be for us
who have adopted this accursed service to go back to our own houses, and
there employ ourselves in pleasanter occupations--in hunting or fishing,
for instance; for what squire in the world is there so poor as not to
have a hack and a couple of greyhounds and a fishingrod to amuse himself
with in his own village?"

"I am not in want of any of those things," said Sancho; "to be sure I
have no hack, but I have an ass that is worth my master's horse twice
over; God send me a bad Easter, and that the next one I am to see, if I
would swap, even if I got four bushels of barley to boot. You will laugh
at the value I put on my Dapple--for dapple is the colour of my beast. As
to greyhounds, I can't want for them, for there are enough and to spare
in my town; and, moreover, there is more pleasure in sport when it is at
other people's expense."

"In truth and earnest, sir squire," said he of the Grove, "I have made up
my mind and determined to have done with these drunken vagaries of these
knights, and go back to my village, and bring up my children; for I have
three, like three Oriental pearls."

"I have two," said Sancho, "that might be presented before the Pope
himself, especially a girl whom I am breeding up for a countess, please
God, though in spite of her mother."

"And how old is this lady that is being bred up for a countess?" asked he
of the Grove.

"Fifteen, a couple of years more or less," answered Sancho; "but she is
as tall as a lance, and as fresh as an April morning, and as strong as a
porter."

"Those are gifts to fit her to be not only a countess but a nymph of the
greenwood," said he of the Grove; "whoreson strumpet! what pith the rogue
must have!"

To which Sancho made answer, somewhat sulkily, "She's no strumpet, nor
was her mother, nor will either of them be, please God, while I live;
speak more civilly; for one bred up among knights-errant, who are
courtesy itself, your words don't seem to me to be very becoming."

"O how little you know about compliments, sir squire," returned he of the
Grove. "What! don't you know that when a horseman delivers a good lance
thrust at the bull in the plaza, or when anyone does anything very well,
the people are wont to say, 'Ha, whoreson rip! how well he has done it!'
and that what seems to be abuse in the expression is high praise? Disown
sons and daughters, senor, who don't do what deserves that compliments of
this sort should be paid to their parents."

"I do disown them," replied Sancho, "and in this way, and by the same
reasoning, you might call me and my children and my wife all the
strumpets in the world, for all they do and say is of a kind that in the
highest degree deserves the same praise; and to see them again I pray God
to deliver me from mortal sin, or, what comes to the same thing, to
deliver me from this perilous calling of squire into which I have fallen
a second time, decayed and beguiled by a purse with a hundred ducats that
I found one day in the heart of the Sierra Morena; and the devil is
always putting a bag full of doubloons before my eyes, here, there,
everywhere, until I fancy at every stop I am putting my hand on it, and
hugging it, and carrying it home with me, and making investments, and
getting interest, and living like a prince; and so long as I think of
this I make light of all the hardships I endure with this simpleton of a
master of mine, who, I well know, is more of a madman than a knight."

"There's why they say that 'covetousness bursts the bag,'" said he of the
Grove; "but if you come to talk of that sort, there is not a greater one
in the world than my master, for he is one of those of whom they say,
'the cares of others kill the ass;' for, in order that another knight may
recover the senses he has lost, he makes a madman of himself and goes
looking for what, when found, may, for all I know, fly in his own face."
"And is he in love perchance?" asked Sancho.

"He is," said of the Grove, "with one Casildea de Vandalia, the rawest
and best roasted lady the whole world could produce; but that rawness is
not the only foot he limps on, for he has greater schemes rumbling in his
bowels, as will be seen before many hours are over."

"There's no road so smooth but it has some hole or hindrance in it," said
Sancho; "in other houses they cook beans, but in mine it's by the potful;
madness will have more followers and hangers-on than sound sense; but if
there be any truth in the common saying, that to have companions in
trouble gives some relief, I may take consolation from you, inasmuch as
you serve a master as crazy as my own."

"Crazy but valiant," replied he of the Grove, "and more roguish than
crazy or valiant."

"Mine is not that," said Sancho; "I mean he has nothing of the rogue in
him; on the contrary, he has the soul of a pitcher; he has no thought of
doing harm to anyone, only good to all, nor has he any malice whatever in
him; a child might persuade him that it is night at noonday; and for this
simplicity I love him as the core of my heart, and I can't bring myself
to leave him, let him do ever such foolish things."

"For all that, brother and senor," said he of the Grove, "if the blind
lead the blind, both are in danger of falling into the pit. It is better
for us to beat a quiet retreat and get back to our own quarters; for
those who seek adventures don't always find good ones."

Sancho kept spitting from time to time, and his spittle seemed somewhat
ropy and dry, observing which the compassionate squire of the Grove said,
"It seems to me that with all this talk of ours our tongues are sticking
to the roofs of our mouths; but I have a pretty good loosener hanging
from the saddle-bow of my horse," and getting up he came back the next
minute with a large bota of wine and a pasty half a yard across; and this
is no exaggeration, for it was made of a house rabbit so big that Sancho,
as he handled it, took it to be made of a goat, not to say a kid, and
looking at it he said, "And do you carry this with you, senor?"

"Why, what are you thinking about?" said the other; "do you take me for
some paltry squire? I carry a better larder on my horse's croup than a
general takes with him when he goes on a march."

Sancho ate without requiring to be pressed, and in the dark bolted
mouthfuls like the knots on a tether, and said he, "You are a proper
trusty squire, one of the right sort, sumptuous and grand, as this
banquet shows, which, if it has not come here by magic art, at any rate
has the look of it; not like me, unlucky beggar, that have nothing more
in my alforjas than a scrap of cheese, so hard that one might brain a
giant with it, and, to keep it company, a few dozen carobs and as many
more filberts and walnuts; thanks to the austerity of my master, and the
idea he has and the rule he follows, that knights-errant must not live or
sustain themselves on anything except dried fruits and the herbs of the
field."

"By my faith, brother," said he of the Grove, "my stomach is not made for
thistles, or wild pears, or roots of the woods; let our masters do as
they like, with their chivalry notions and laws, and eat what those
enjoin; I carry my prog-basket and this bota hanging to the saddle-bow,
whatever they may say; and it is such an object of worship with me, and I
love it so, that there is hardly a moment but I am kissing and embracing
it over and over again;" and so saying he thrust it into Sancho's hands,
who raising it aloft pointed to his mouth, gazed at the stars for a
quarter of an hour; and when he had done drinking let his head fall on
one side, and giving a deep sigh, exclaimed, "Ah, whoreson rogue, how
catholic it is!"

"There, you see," said he of the Grove, hearing Sancho's exclamation,
"how you have called this wine whoreson by way of praise."

"Well," said Sancho, "I own it, and I grant it is no dishonour to call
anyone whoreson when it is to be understood as praise. But tell me,
senor, by what you love best, is this Ciudad Real wine?"

"O rare wine-taster!" said he of the Grove; "nowhere else indeed does it
come from, and it has some years' age too."

"Leave me alone for that," said Sancho; "never fear but I'll hit upon the
place it came from somehow. What would you say, sir squire, to my having
such a great natural instinct in judging wines that you have only to let
me smell one and I can tell positively its country, its kind, its flavour
and soundness, the changes it will undergo, and everything that
appertains to a wine? But it is no wonder, for I have had in my family,
on my father's side, the two best wine-tasters that have been known in La
Mancha for many a long year, and to prove it I'll tell you now a thing
that happened them. They gave the two of them some wine out of a cask, to
try, asking their opinion as to the condition, quality, goodness or
badness of the wine. One of them tried it with the tip of his tongue, the
other did no more than bring it to his nose. The first said the wine had
a flavour of iron, the second said it had a stronger flavour of cordovan.
The owner said the cask was clean, and that nothing had been added to the
wine from which it could have got a flavour of either iron or leather.
Nevertheless, these two great wine-tasters held to what they had said.
Time went by, the wine was sold, and when they came to clean out the
cask, they found in it a small key hanging to a thong of cordovan; see
now if one who comes of the same stock has not a right to give his
opinion in such like cases."

"Therefore, I say," said he of the Grove, "let us give up going in quest
of adventures, and as we have loaves let us not go looking for cakes, but
return to our cribs, for God will find us there if it be his will."

"Until my master reaches Saragossa," said Sancho, "I'll remain in his
service; after that we'll see."

The end of it was that the two squires talked so much and drank so much
that sleep had to tie their tongues and moderate their thirst, for to
quench it was impossible; and so the pair of them fell asleep clinging to
the now nearly empty bota and with half-chewed morsels in their mouths;
and there we will leave them for the present, to relate what passed
between the Knight of the Grove and him of the Rueful Countenance.




CHAPTER XIV.

WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ADVENTURE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE GROVE


Among the things that passed between Don Quixote and the Knight of the
Wood, the history tells us he of the Grove said to Don Quixote, "In fine,
sir knight, I would have you know that my destiny, or, more properly
speaking, my choice led me to fall in love with the peerless Casildea de
Vandalia. I call her peerless because she has no peer, whether it be in
bodily stature or in the supremacy of rank and beauty. This same
Casildea, then, that I speak of, requited my honourable passion and
gentle aspirations by compelling me, as his stepmother did Hercules, to
engage in many perils of various sorts, at the end of each promising me
that, with the end of the next, the object of my hopes should be
attained; but my labours have gone on increasing link by link until they
are past counting, nor do I know what will be the last one that is to be
the beginning of the accomplishment of my chaste desires. On one occasion
she bade me go and challenge the famous giantess of Seville, La Giralda
by name, who is as mighty and strong as if made of brass, and though
never stirring from one spot, is the most restless and changeable woman
in the world. I came, I saw, I conquered, and I made her stay quiet and
behave herself, for nothing but north winds blew for more than a week.
Another time I was ordered to lift those ancient stones, the mighty bulls
of Guisando, an enterprise that might more fitly be entrusted to porters
than to knights. Again, she bade me fling myself into the cavern of
Cabra--an unparalleled and awful peril--and bring her a minute account of
all that is concealed in those gloomy depths. I stopped the motion of the
Giralda, I lifted the bulls of Guisando, I flung myself into the cavern
and brought to light the secrets of its abyss; and my hopes are as dead
as dead can be, and her scorn and her commands as lively as ever. To be
brief, last of all she has commanded me to go through all the provinces
of Spain and compel all the knights-errant wandering therein to confess
that she surpasses all women alive to-day in beauty, and that I am the
most valiant and the most deeply enamoured knight on earth; in support of
which claim I have already travelled over the greater part of Spain, and
have there vanquished several knights who have dared to contradict me;
but what I most plume and pride myself upon is having vanquished in
single combat that so famous knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, and made
him confess that my Casildea is more beautiful than his Dulcinea; and in
this one victory I hold myself to have conquered all the knights in the
world; for this Don Quixote that I speak of has vanquished them all, and
I having vanquished him, his glory, his fame, and his honour have passed
and are transferred to my person; for

  The more the vanquished hath of fair renown,
  The greater glory gilds the victor's crown.

Thus the innumerable achievements of the said Don Quixote are now set
down to my account and have become mine."

Don Quixote was amazed when he heard the Knight of the Grove, and was a
thousand times on the point of telling him he lied, and had the lie
direct already on the tip of his tongue; but he restrained himself as
well as he could, in order to force him to confess the lie with his own
lips; so he said to him quietly, "As to what you say, sir knight, about
having vanquished most of the knights of Spain, or even of the whole
world, I say nothing; but that you have vanquished Don Quixote of La
Mancha I consider doubtful; it may have been some other that resembled
him, although there are few like him."

"How! not vanquished?" said he of the Grove; "by the heaven that is above
us I fought Don Quixote and overcame him and made him yield; and he is a
man of tall stature, gaunt features, long, lank limbs, with hair turning
grey, an aquiline nose rather hooked, and large black drooping
moustaches; he does battle under the name of 'The Countenance,' and he
has for squire a peasant called Sancho Panza; he presses the loins and
rules the reins of a famous steed called Rocinante; and lastly, he has
for the mistress of his will a certain Dulcinea del Toboso, once upon a
time called Aldonza Lorenzo, just as I call mine Casildea de Vandalia
because her name is Casilda and she is of Andalusia. If all these tokens
are not enough to vindicate the truth of what I say, here is my sword,
that will compel incredulity itself to give credence to it."

"Calm yourself, sir knight," said Don Quixote, "and give ear to what I am
about to say to you. I would have you know that this Don Quixote you
speak of is the greatest friend I have in the world; so much so that I
may say I regard him in the same light as my own person; and from the
precise and clear indications you have given I cannot but think that he
must be the very one you have vanquished. On the other hand, I see with
my eyes and feel with my hands that it is impossible it can have been the
same; unless indeed it be that, as he has many enemies who are
enchanters, and one in particular who is always persecuting him, some one
of these may have taken his shape in order to allow himself to be
vanquished, so as to defraud him of the fame that his exalted
achievements as a knight have earned and acquired for him throughout the
known world. And in confirmation of this, I must tell you, too, that it
is but ten hours since these said enchanters his enemies transformed the
shape and person of the fair Dulcinea del Toboso into a foul and mean
village lass, and in the same way they must have transformed Don Quixote;
and if all this does not suffice to convince you of the truth of what I
say, here is Don Quixote himself, who will maintain it by arms, on foot
or on horseback or in any way you please."

And so saying he stood up and laid his hand on his sword, waiting to see
what the Knight of the Grove would do, who in an equally calm voice said
in reply, "Pledges don't distress a good payer; he who has succeeded in
vanquishing you once when transformed, Sir Don Quixote, may fairly hope
to subdue you in your own proper shape; but as it is not becoming for
knights to perform their feats of arms in the dark, like highwaymen and
bullies, let us wait till daylight, that the sun may behold our deeds;
and the conditions of our combat shall be that the vanquished shall be at
the victor's disposal, to do all that he may enjoin, provided the
injunction be such as shall be becoming a knight."

"I am more than satisfied with these conditions and terms," replied Don
Quixote; and so saying, they betook themselves to where their squires
lay, and found them snoring, and in the same posture they were in when
sleep fell upon them. They roused them up, and bade them get the horses
ready, as at sunrise they were to engage in a bloody and arduous single
combat; at which intelligence Sancho was aghast and thunderstruck,
trembling for the safety of his master because of the mighty deeds he had
heard the squire of the Grove ascribe to his; but without a word the two
squires went in quest of their cattle; for by this time the three horses
and the ass had smelt one another out, and were all together.

On the way, he of the Grove said to Sancho, "You must know, brother, that
it is the custom with the fighting men of Andalusia, when they are
godfathers in any quarrel, not to stand idle with folded arms while their
godsons fight; I say so to remind you that while our masters are
fighting, we, too, have to fight, and knock one another to shivers."

"That custom, sir squire," replied Sancho, "may hold good among those
bullies and fighting men you talk of, but certainly not among the squires
of knights-errant; at least, I have never heard my master speak of any
custom of the sort, and he knows all the laws of knight-errantry by
heart; but granting it true that there is an express law that squires are
to fight while their masters are fighting, I don't mean to obey it, but
to pay the penalty that may be laid on peacefully minded squires like
myself; for I am sure it cannot be more than two pounds of wax, and I
would rather pay that, for I know it will cost me less than the lint I
shall be at the expense of to mend my head, which I look upon as broken
and split already; there's another thing that makes it impossible for me
to fight, that I have no sword, for I never carried one in my life."

"I know a good remedy for that," said he of the Grove; "I have here two
linen bags of the same size; you shall take one, and I the other, and we
will fight at bag blows with equal arms."

"If that's the way, so be it with all my heart," said Sancho, "for that
sort of battle will serve to knock the dust out of us instead of hurting
us."

"That will not do," said the other, "for we must put into the bags, to
keep the wind from blowing them away, half a dozen nice smooth pebbles,
all of the same weight; and in this way we shall be able to baste one
another without doing ourselves any harm or mischief."

"Body of my father!" said Sancho, "see what marten and sable, and pads of
carded cotton he is putting into the bags, that our heads may not be
broken and our bones beaten to jelly! But even if they are filled with
toss silk, I can tell you, senor, I am not going to fight; let our
masters fight, that's their lookout, and let us drink and live; for time
will take care to ease us of our lives, without our going to look for
fillips so that they may be finished off before their proper time comes
and they drop from ripeness."

"Still," returned he of the Grove, "we must fight, if it be only for half
an hour."

"By no means," said Sancho; "I am not going to be so discourteous or so
ungrateful as to have any quarrel, be it ever so small, with one I have
eaten and drunk with; besides, who the devil could bring himself to fight
in cold blood, without anger or provocation?"

"I can remedy that entirely," said he of the Grove, "and in this way:
before we begin the battle, I will come up to your worship fair and
softly, and give you three or four buffets, with which I shall stretch
you at my feet and rouse your anger, though it were sleeping sounder than
a dormouse."

"To match that plan," said Sancho, "I have another that is not a whit
behind it; I will take a cudgel, and before your worship comes near
enough to waken my anger I will send yours so sound to sleep with whacks,
that it won't waken unless it be in the other world, where it is known
that I am not a man to let my face be handled by anyone; let each look
out for the arrow--though the surer way would be to let everyone's anger
sleep, for nobody knows the heart of anyone, and a man may come for wool
and go back shorn; God gave his blessing to peace and his curse to
quarrels; if a hunted cat, surrounded and hard pressed, turns into a
lion, God knows what I, who am a man, may turn into; and so from this
time forth I warn you, sir squire, that all the harm and mischief that
may come of our quarrel will be put down to your account."

"Very good," said he of the Grove; "God will send the dawn and we shall
be all right."

And now gay-plumaged birds of all sorts began to warble in the trees, and
with their varied and gladsome notes seemed to welcome and salute the
fresh morn that was beginning to show the beauty of her countenance at
the gates and balconies of the east, shaking from her locks a profusion
of liquid pearls; in which dulcet moisture bathed, the plants, too,
seemed to shed and shower down a pearly spray, the willows distilled
sweet manna, the fountains laughed, the brooks babbled, the woods
rejoiced, and the meadows arrayed themselves in all their glory at her
coming. But hardly had the light of day made it possible to see and
distinguish things, when the first object that presented itself to the
eyes of Sancho Panza was the squire of the Grove's nose, which was so big
that it almost overshadowed his whole body. It is, in fact, stated, that
it was of enormous size, hooked in the middle, covered with warts, and of
a mulberry colour like an egg-plant; it hung down two fingers' length
below his mouth, and the size, the colour, the warts, and the bend of it,
made his face so hideous, that Sancho, as he looked at him, began to
tremble hand and foot like a child in convulsions, and he vowed in his
heart to let himself be given two hundred buffets, sooner than be
provoked to fight that monster. Don Quixote examined his adversary, and
found that he already had his helmet on and visor lowered, so that he
could not see his face; he observed, however, that he was a sturdily
built man, but not very tall in stature. Over his armour he wore a
surcoat or cassock of what seemed to be the finest cloth of gold, all
bespangled with glittering mirrors like little moons, which gave him an
extremely gallant and splendid appearance; above his helmet fluttered a
great quantity of plumes, green, yellow, and white, and his lance, which
was leaning against a tree, was very long and stout, and had a steel
point more than a palm in length.

Don Quixote observed all, and took note of all, and from what he saw and
observed he concluded that the said knight must be a man of great
strength, but he did not for all that give way to fear, like Sancho
Panza; on the contrary, with a composed and dauntless air, he said to the
Knight of the Mirrors, "If, sir knight, your great eagerness to fight has
not banished your courtesy, by it I would entreat you to raise your visor
a little, in order that I may see if the comeliness of your countenance
corresponds with that of your equipment."

"Whether you come victorious or vanquished out of this emprise, sir
knight," replied he of the Mirrors, "you will have more than enough time
and leisure to see me; and if now I do not comply with your request, it
is because it seems to me I should do a serious wrong to the fair
Casildea de Vandalia in wasting time while I stopped to raise my visor
before compelling you to confess what you are already aware I maintain."

"Well then," said Don Quixote, "while we are mounting you can at least
tell me if I am that Don Quixote whom you said you vanquished."

"To that we answer you," said he of the Mirrors, "that you are as like
the very knight I vanquished as one egg is like another, but as you say
enchanters persecute you, I will not venture to say positively whether
you are the said person or not."

"That," said Don Quixote, "is enough to convince me that you are under a
deception; however, entirely to relieve you of it, let our horses be
brought, and in less time than it would take you to raise your visor, if
God, my lady, and my arm stand me in good stead, I shall see your face,
and you shall see that I am not the vanquished Don Quixote you take me to
be."

With this, cutting short the colloquy, they mounted, and Don Quixote
wheeled Rocinante round in order to take a proper distance to charge back
upon his adversary, and he of the Mirrors did the same; but Don Quixote
had not moved away twenty paces when he heard himself called by the
other, and, each returning half-way, he of the Mirrors said to him,
"Remember, sir knight, that the terms of our combat are, that the
vanquished, as I said before, shall be at the victor's disposal."

"I am aware of it already," said Don Quixote; "provided what is commanded
and imposed upon the vanquished be things that do not transgress the
limits of chivalry."

"That is understood," replied he of the Mirrors.

At this moment the extraordinary nose of the squire presented itself to
Don Quixote's view, and he was no less amazed than Sancho at the sight;
insomuch that he set him down as a monster of some kind, or a human being
of some new species or unearthly breed. Sancho, seeing his master
retiring to run his course, did not like to be left alone with the nosy
man, fearing that with one flap of that nose on his own the battle would
be all over for him and he would be left stretched on the ground, either
by the blow or with fright; so he ran after his master, holding on to
Rocinante's stirrup-leather, and when it seemed to him time to turn
about, he said, "I implore of your worship, senor, before you turn to
charge, to help me up into this cork tree, from which I will be able to
witness the gallant encounter your worship is going to have with this
knight, more to my taste and better than from the ground."

"It seems to me rather, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that thou wouldst
mount a scaffold in order to see the bulls without danger."

"To tell the truth," returned Sancho, "the monstrous nose of that squire
has filled me with fear and terror, and I dare not stay near him."

"It is," said Don Quixote, "such a one that were I not what I am it would
terrify me too; so, come, I will help thee up where thou wilt."

While Don Quixote waited for Sancho to mount into the cork tree he of the
Mirrors took as much ground as he considered requisite, and, supposing
Don Quixote to have done the same, without waiting for any sound of
trumpet or other signal to direct them, he wheeled his horse, which was
not more agile or better-looking than Rocinante, and at his top speed,
which was an easy trot, he proceeded to charge his enemy; seeing him,
however, engaged in putting Sancho up, he drew rein, and halted in mid
career, for which his horse was very grateful, as he was already unable
to go. Don Quixote, fancying that his foe was coming down upon him
flying, drove his spurs vigorously into Rocinante's lean flanks and made
him scud along in such style that the history tells us that on this
occasion only was he known to make something like running, for on all
others it was a simple trot with him; and with this unparalleled fury he
bore down where he of the Mirrors stood digging his spurs into his horse
up to buttons, without being able to make him stir a finger's length from
the spot where he had come to a standstill in his course. At this lucky
moment and crisis, Don Quixote came upon his adversary, in trouble with
his horse, and embarrassed with his lance, which he either could not
manage, or had no time to lay in rest. Don Quixote, however, paid no
attention to these difficulties, and in perfect safety to himself and
without any risk encountered him of the Mirrors with such force that he
brought him to the ground in spite of himself over the haunches of his
horse, and with so heavy a fall that he lay to all appearance dead, not
stirring hand or foot. The instant Sancho saw him fall he slid down from
the cork tree, and made all haste to where his master was, who,
dismounting from Rocinante, went and stood over him of the Mirrors, and
unlacing his helmet to see if he was dead, and to give him air if he
should happen to be alive, he saw--who can say what he saw, without
filling all who hear it with astonishment, wonder, and awe? He saw, the
history says, the very countenance, the very face, the very look, the
very physiognomy, the very effigy, the very image of the bachelor Samson
Carrasco! As soon as he saw it he called out in a loud voice, "Make haste
here, Sancho, and behold what thou art to see but not to believe; quick,
my son, and learn what magic can do, and wizards and enchanters are
capable of."

Sancho came up, and when he saw the countenance of the bachelor Carrasco,
he fell to crossing himself a thousand times, and blessing himself as
many more. All this time the prostrate knight showed no signs of life,
and Sancho said to Don Quixote, "It is my opinion, senor, that in any
case your worship should take and thrust your sword into the mouth of
this one here that looks like the bachelor Samson Carrasco; perhaps in
him you will kill one of your enemies, the enchanters."

"Thy advice is not bad," said Don Quixote, "for of enemies the fewer the
better;" and he was drawing his sword to carry into effect Sancho's
counsel and suggestion, when the squire of the Mirrors came up, now
without the nose which had made him so hideous, and cried out in a loud
voice, "Mind what you are about, Senor Don Quixote; that is your friend,
the bachelor Samson Carrasco, you have at your feet, and I am his
squire."

"And the nose?" said Sancho, seeing him without the hideous feature he
had before; to which he replied, "I have it here in my pocket," and
putting his hand into his right pocket, he pulled out a masquerade nose
of varnished pasteboard of the make already described; and Sancho,
examining him more and more closely, exclaimed aloud in a voice of
amazement, "Holy Mary be good to me! Isn't it Tom Cecial, my neighbour
and gossip?"

"Why, to be sure I am!" returned the now unnosed squire; "Tom Cecial I
am, gossip and friend Sancho Panza; and I'll tell you presently the means
and tricks and falsehoods by which I have been brought here; but in the
meantime, beg and entreat of your master not to touch, maltreat, wound,
or slay the Knight of the Mirrors whom he has at his feet; because,
beyond all dispute, it is the rash and ill-advised bachelor Samson
Carrasco, our fellow townsman."

At this moment he of the Mirrors came to himself, and Don Quixote
perceiving it, held the naked point of his sword over his face, and said
to him, "You are a dead man, knight, unless you confess that the peerless
Dulcinea del Toboso excels your Casildea de Vandalia in beauty; and in
addition to this you must promise, if you should survive this encounter
and fall, to go to the city of El Toboso and present yourself before her
on my behalf, that she deal with you according to her good pleasure; and
if she leaves you free to do yours, you are in like manner to return and
seek me out (for the trail of my mighty deeds will serve you as a guide
to lead you to where I may be), and tell me what may have passed between
you and her-conditions which, in accordance with what we stipulated
before our combat, do not transgress the just limits of knight-errantry."

"I confess," said the fallen knight, "that the dirty tattered shoe of the
lady Dulcinea del Toboso is better than the ill-combed though clean beard
of Casildea; and I promise to go and to return from her presence to
yours, and to give you a full and particular account of all you demand of
me."

"You must also confess and believe," added Don Quixote, "that the knight
you vanquished was not and could not be Don Quixote of La Mancha, but
some one else in his likeness, just as I confess and believe that you,
though you seem to be the bachelor Samson Carrasco, are not so, but some
other resembling him, whom my enemies have here put before me in his
shape, in order that I may restrain and moderate the vehemence of my
wrath, and make a gentle use of the glory of my victory."

"I confess, hold, and think everything to be as you believe, hold, and
think it," the crippled knight; "let me rise, I entreat you; if, indeed,
the shock of my fall will allow me, for it has left me in a sorry plight
enough."

Don Quixote helped him to rise, with the assistance of his squire Tom
Cecial; from whom Sancho never took his eyes, and to whom he put
questions, the replies to which furnished clear proof that he was really
and truly the Tom Cecial he said; but the impression made on Sancho's
mind by what his master said about the enchanters having changed the face
of the Knight of the Mirrors into that of the bachelor Samson Carrasco,
would not permit him to believe what he saw with his eyes. In fine, both
master and man remained under the delusion; and, down in the mouth, and
out of luck, he of the Mirrors and his squire parted from Don Quixote and
Sancho, he meaning to go look for some village where he could plaster and
strap his ribs. Don Quixote and Sancho resumed their journey to
Saragossa, and on it the history leaves them in order that it may tell
who the Knight of the Mirrors and his long-nosed squire were.




CHAPTER XV.

WHEREIN IT IS TOLD AND KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE MIRRORS AND HIS SQUIRE
WERE


Don Quixote went off satisfied, elated, and vain-glorious in the highest
degree at having won a victory over such a valiant knight as he fancied
him of the Mirrors to be, and one from whose knightly word he expected to
learn whether the enchantment of his lady still continued; inasmuch as
the said vanquished knight was bound, under the penalty of ceasing to be
one, to return and render him an account of what took place between him
and her. But Don Quixote was of one mind, he of the Mirrors of another,
for he just then had no thought of anything but finding some village
where he could plaster himself, as has been said already. The history
goes on to say, then, that when the bachelor Samson Carrasco recommended
Don Quixote to resume his knight-errantry which he had laid aside, it was
in consequence of having been previously in conclave with the curate and
the barber on the means to be adopted to induce Don Quixote to stay at
home in peace and quiet without worrying himself with his ill-starred
adventures; at which consultation it was decided by the unanimous vote of
all, and on the special advice of Carrasco, that Don Quixote should be
allowed to go, as it seemed impossible to restrain him, and that Samson
should sally forth to meet him as a knight-errant, and do battle with
him, for there would be no difficulty about a cause, and vanquish him,
that being looked upon as an easy matter; and that it should be agreed
and settled that the vanquished was to be at the mercy of the victor.
Then, Don Quixote being vanquished, the bachelor knight was to command
him to return to his village and his house, and not quit it for two
years, or until he received further orders from him; all which it was
clear Don Quixote would unhesitatingly obey, rather than contravene or
fail to observe the laws of chivalry; and during the period of his
seclusion he might perhaps forget his folly, or there might be an
opportunity of discovering some ready remedy for his madness. Carrasco
undertook the task, and Tom Cecial, a gossip and neighbour of Sancho
Panza's, a lively, feather-headed fellow, offered himself as his squire.
Carrasco armed himself in the fashion described, and Tom Cecial, that he
might not be known by his gossip when they met, fitted on over his own
natural nose the false masquerade one that has been mentioned; and so
they followed the same route Don Quixote took, and almost came up with
him in time to be present at the adventure of the cart of Death and
finally encountered them in the grove, where all that the sagacious
reader has been reading about took place; and had it not been for the
extraordinary fancies of Don Quixote, and his conviction that the
bachelor was not the bachelor, senor bachelor would have been
incapacitated for ever from taking his degree of licentiate, all through
not finding nests where he thought to find birds.

Tom Cecial, seeing how ill they had succeeded, and what a sorry end their
expedition had come to, said to the bachelor, "Sure enough, Senor Samson
Carrasco, we are served right; it is easy enough to plan and set about an
enterprise, but it is often a difficult matter to come well out of it.
Don Quixote a madman, and we sane; he goes off laughing, safe, and sound,
and you are left sore and sorry! I'd like to know now which is the
madder, he who is so because he cannot help it, or he who is so of his
own choice?"

To which Samson replied, "The difference between the two sorts of madmen
is, that he who is so will he nil he, will be one always, while he who is
so of his own accord can leave off being one whenever he likes."

"In that case," said Tom Cecial, "I was a madman of my own accord when I
volunteered to become your squire, and, of my own accord, I'll leave off
being one and go home."

"That's your affair," returned Samson, "but to suppose that I am going
home until I have given Don Quixote a thrashing is absurd; and it is not
any wish that he may recover his senses that will make me hunt him out
now, but a wish for the sore pain I am in with my ribs won't let me
entertain more charitable thoughts."

Thus discoursing, the pair proceeded until they reached a town where it
was their good luck to find a bone-setter, with whose help the
unfortunate Samson was cured. Tom Cecial left him and went home, while he
stayed behind meditating vengeance; and the history will return to him
again at the proper time, so as not to omit making merry with Don Quixote
now.




CHAPTER XVI.

OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH A DISCREET GENTLEMAN OF LA MANCHA


Don Quixote pursued his journey in the high spirits, satisfaction, and
self-complacency already described, fancying himself the most valorous
knight-errant of the age in the world because of his late victory. All
the adventures that could befall him from that time forth he regarded as
already done and brought to a happy issue; he made light of enchantments
and enchanters; he thought no more of the countless drubbings that had
been administered to him in the course of his knight-errantry, nor of the
volley of stones that had levelled half his teeth, nor of the ingratitude
of the galley slaves, nor of the audacity of the Yanguesans and the
shower of stakes that fell upon him; in short, he said to himself that
could he discover any means, mode, or way of disenchanting his lady
Dulcinea, he would not envy the highest fortune that the most fortunate
knight-errant of yore ever reached or could reach.

He was going along entirely absorbed in these fancies, when Sancho said
to him, "Isn't it odd, senor, that I have still before my eyes that
monstrous enormous nose of my gossip, Tom Cecial?"

"And dost thou, then, believe, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that the
Knight of the Mirrors was the bachelor Carrasco, and his squire Tom
Cecial thy gossip?"

"I don't know what to say to that," replied Sancho; "all I know is that
the tokens he gave me about my own house, wife and children, nobody else
but himself could have given me; and the face, once the nose was off, was
the very face of Tom Cecial, as I have seen it many a time in my town and
next door to my own house; and the sound of the voice was just the same."

"Let us reason the matter, Sancho," said Don Quixote. "Come now, by what
process of thinking can it be supposed that the bachelor Samson Carrasco
would come as a knight-errant, in arms offensive and defensive, to fight
with me? Have I ever been by any chance his enemy? Have I ever given him
any occasion to owe me a grudge? Am I his rival, or does he profess arms,
that he should envy the fame I have acquired in them?"

"Well, but what are we to say, senor," returned Sancho, "about that
knight, whoever he is, being so like the bachelor Carrasco, and his
squire so like my gossip, Tom Cecial? And if that be enchantment, as your
worship says, was there no other pair in the world for them to take the
likeness of?"

"It is all," said Don Quixote, "a scheme and plot of the malignant
magicians that persecute me, who, foreseeing that I was to be victorious
in the conflict, arranged that the vanquished knight should display the
countenance of my friend the bachelor, in order that the friendship I
bear him should interpose to stay the edge of my sword and might of my
arm, and temper the just wrath of my heart; so that he who sought to take
my life by fraud and falsehood should save his own. And to prove it, thou
knowest already, Sancho, by experience which cannot lie or deceive, how
easy it is for enchanters to change one countenance into another, turning
fair into foul, and foul into fair; for it is not two days since thou
sawest with thine own eyes the beauty and elegance of the peerless
Dulcinea in all its perfection and natural harmony, while I saw her in
the repulsive and mean form of a coarse country wench, with cataracts in
her eyes and a foul smell in her mouth; and when the perverse enchanter
ventured to effect so wicked a transformation, it is no wonder if he
effected that of Samson Carrasco and thy gossip in order to snatch the
glory of victory out of my grasp. For all that, however, I console
myself, because, after all, in whatever shape he may have been, I have
victorious over my enemy."

"God knows what's the truth of it all," said Sancho; and knowing as he
did that the transformation of Dulcinea had been a device and imposition
of his own, his master's illusions were not satisfactory to him; but he
did not like to reply lest he should say something that might disclose
his trickery.

As they were engaged in this conversation they were overtaken by a man
who was following the same road behind them, mounted on a very handsome
flea-bitten mare, and dressed in a gaban of fine green cloth, with tawny
velvet facings, and a montera of the same velvet. The trappings of the
mare were of the field and jineta fashion, and of mulberry colour and
green. He carried a Moorish cutlass hanging from a broad green and gold
baldric; the buskins were of the same make as the baldric; the spurs were
not gilt, but lacquered green, and so brightly polished that, matching as
they did the rest of his apparel, they looked better than if they had
been of pure gold.

When the traveller came up with them he saluted them courteously, and
spurring his mare was passing them without stopping, but Don Quixote
called out to him, "Gallant sir, if so be your worship is going our road,
and has no occasion for speed, it would be a pleasure to me if we were to
join company."

"In truth," replied he on the mare, "I would not pass you so hastily but
for fear that horse might turn restive in the company of my mare."

"You may safely hold in your mare, senor," said Sancho in reply to this,
"for our horse is the most virtuous and well-behaved horse in the world;
he never does anything wrong on such occasions, and the only time he
misbehaved, my master and I suffered for it sevenfold; I say again your
worship may pull up if you like; for if she was offered to him between
two plates the horse would not hanker after her."

The traveller drew rein, amazed at the trim and features of Don Quixote,
who rode without his helmet, which Sancho carried like a valise in front
of Dapple's pack-saddle; and if the man in green examined Don Quixote
closely, still more closely did Don Quixote examine the man in green, who
struck him as being a man of intelligence. In appearance he was about
fifty years of age, with but few grey hairs, an aquiline cast of
features, and an expression between grave and gay; and his dress and
accoutrements showed him to be a man of good condition. What he in green
thought of Don Quixote of La Mancha was that a man of that sort and shape
he had never yet seen; he marvelled at the length of his hair, his lofty
stature, the lankness and sallowness of his countenance, his armour, his
bearing and his gravity--a figure and picture such as had not been seen
in those regions for many a long day.

Don Quixote saw very plainly the attention with which the traveller was
regarding him, and read his curiosity in his astonishment; and courteous
as he was and ready to please everybody, before the other could ask him
any question he anticipated him by saying, "The appearance I present to
your worship being so strange and so out of the common, I should not be
surprised if it filled you with wonder; but you will cease to wonder when
I tell you, as I do, that I am one of those knights who, as people say,
go seeking adventures. I have left my home, I have mortgaged my estate, I
have given up my comforts, and committed myself to the arms of Fortune,
to bear me whithersoever she may please. My desire was to bring to life
again knight-errantry, now dead, and for some time past, stumbling here,
falling there, now coming down headlong, now raising myself up again, I
have carried out a great portion of my design, succouring widows,
protecting maidens, and giving aid to wives, orphans, and minors, the
proper and natural duty of knights-errant; and, therefore, because of my
many valiant and Christian achievements, I have been already found worthy
to make my way in print to well-nigh all, or most, of the nations of the
earth. Thirty thousand volumes of my history have been printed, and it is
on the high-road to be printed thirty thousand thousands of times, if
heaven does not put a stop to it. In short, to sum up all in a few words,
or in a single one, I may tell you I am Don Quixote of La Mancha,
otherwise called 'The Knight of the Rueful Countenance;' for though
self-praise is degrading, I must perforce sound my own sometimes, that is
to say, when there is no one at hand to do it for me. So that, gentle
sir, neither this horse, nor this lance, nor this shield, nor this
squire, nor all these arms put together, nor the sallowness of my
countenance, nor my gaunt leanness, will henceforth astonish you, now
that you know who I am and what profession I follow."

With these words Don Quixote held his peace, and, from the time he took
to answer, the man in green seemed to be at a loss for a reply; after a
long pause, however, he said to him, "You were right when you saw
curiosity in my amazement, sir knight; but you have not succeeded in
removing the astonishment I feel at seeing you; for although you say,
senor, that knowing who you are ought to remove it, it has not done so;
on the contrary, now that I know, I am left more amazed and astonished
than before. What! is it possible that there are knights-errant in the
world in these days, and histories of real chivalry printed? I cannot
realise the fact that there can be anyone on earth now-a-days who aids
widows, or protects maidens, or defends wives, or succours orphans; nor
should I believe it had I not seen it in your worship with my own eyes.
Blessed be heaven! for by means of this history of your noble and genuine
chivalrous deeds, which you say has been printed, the countless stories
of fictitious knights-errant with which the world is filled, so much to
the injury of morality and the prejudice and discredit of good histories,
will have been driven into oblivion."

"There is a good deal to be said on that point," said Don Quixote, "as to
whether the histories of the knights-errant are fiction or not."

"Why, is there anyone who doubts that those histories are false?" said
the man in green.

"I doubt it," said Don Quixote, "but never mind that just now; if our
journey lasts long enough, I trust in God I shall show your worship that
you do wrong in going with the stream of those who regard it as a matter
of certainty that they are not true."

From this last observation of Don Quixote's, the traveller began to have
a suspicion that he was some crazy being, and was waiting for him to confirm
it by something further; but before they could turn to any new subject
Don Quixote begged him to tell him who he was, since he himself had
rendered account of his station and life. To this, he in the green gaban
replied "I, Sir Knight of the Rueful Countenance, am a gentleman by
birth, native of the village where, please God, we are going to dine
to-day; I am more than fairly well off, and my name is Don Diego de
Miranda. I pass my life with my wife, children, and friends; my pursuits
are hunting and fishing, but I keep neither hawks nor greyhounds, nothing
but a tame partridge or a bold ferret or two; I have six dozen or so of
books, some in our mother tongue, some Latin, some of them history,
others devotional; those of chivalry have not as yet crossed the
threshold of my door; I am more given to turning over the profane than
the devotional, so long as they are books of honest entertainment that
charm by their style and attract and interest by the invention they
display, though of these there are very few in Spain. Sometimes I dine
with my neighbours and friends, and often invite them; my entertainments
are neat and well served without stint of anything. I have no taste for
tattle, nor do I allow tattling in my presence; I pry not into my
neighbours' lives, nor have I lynx-eyes for what others do. I hear mass
every day; I share my substance with the poor, making no display of good
works, lest I let hypocrisy and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take
possession of the most watchful heart, find an entrance into mine. I
strive to make peace between those whom I know to be at variance; I am
the devoted servant of Our Lady, and my trust is ever in the infinite
mercy of God our Lord."

Sancho listened with the greatest attention to the account of the
gentleman's life and occupation; and thinking it a good and a holy life,
and that he who led it ought to work miracles, he threw himself off
Dapple, and running in haste seized his right stirrup and kissed his foot
again and again with a devout heart and almost with tears.

Seeing this the gentleman asked him, "What are you about, brother? What
are these kisses for?"

"Let me kiss," said Sancho, "for I think your worship is the first saint
in the saddle I ever saw all the days of my life."

"I am no saint," replied the gentleman, "but a great sinner; but you are,
brother, for you must be a good fellow, as your simplicity shows."

Sancho went back and regained his pack-saddle, having extracted a laugh
from his master's profound melancholy, and excited fresh amazement in Don
Diego. Don Quixote then asked him how many children he had, and observed
that one of the things wherein the ancient philosophers, who were without
the true knowledge of God, placed the summum bonum was in the gifts of
nature, in those of fortune, in having many friends, and many and good
children.

"I, Senor Don Quixote," answered the gentleman, "have one son, without
whom, perhaps, I should count myself happier than I am, not because he is
a bad son, but because he is not so good as I could wish. He is eighteen
years of age; he has been for six at Salamanca studying Latin and Greek,
and when I wished him to turn to the study of other sciences I found him
so wrapped up in that of poetry (if that can be called a science) that
there is no getting him to take kindly to the law, which I wished him to
study, or to theology, the queen of them all. I would like him to be an
honour to his family, as we live in days when our kings liberally reward
learning that is virtuous and worthy; for learning without virtue is a
pearl on a dunghill. He spends the whole day in settling whether Homer
expressed himself correctly or not in such and such a line of the Iliad,
whether Martial was indecent or not in such and such an epigram, whether
such and such lines of Virgil are to be understood in this way or in
that; in short, all his talk is of the works of these poets, and those of
Horace, Perseus, Juvenal, and Tibullus; for of the moderns in our own
language he makes no great account; but with all his seeming indifference
to Spanish poetry, just now his thoughts are absorbed in making a gloss
on four lines that have been sent him from Salamanca, which I suspect are
for some poetical tournament."

To all this Don Quixote said in reply, "Children, senor, are portions of
their parents' bowels, and therefore, be they good or bad, are to be
loved as we love the souls that give us life; it is for the parents to
guide them from infancy in the ways of virtue, propriety, and worthy
Christian conduct, so that when grown up they may be the staff of their
parents' old age, and the glory of their posterity; and to force them to
study this or that science I do not think wise, though it may be no harm
to persuade them; and when there is no need to study for the sake of pane
lucrando, and it is the student's good fortune that heaven has given him
parents who provide him with it, it would be my advice to them to let him
pursue whatever science they may see him most inclined to; and though
that of poetry is less useful than pleasurable, it is not one of those
that bring discredit upon the possessor. Poetry, gentle sir, is, as I
take it, like a tender young maiden of supreme beauty, to array, bedeck,
and adorn whom is the task of several other maidens, who are all the rest
of the sciences; and she must avail herself of the help of all, and all
derive their lustre from her. But this maiden will not bear to be
handled, nor dragged through the streets, nor exposed either at the
corners of the market-places, or in the closets of palaces. She is the
product of an Alchemy of such virtue that he who is able to practise it,
will turn her into pure gold of inestimable worth. He that possesses her
must keep her within bounds, not permitting her to break out in ribald
satires or soulless sonnets. She must on no account be offered for sale,
unless, indeed, it be in heroic poems, moving tragedies, or sprightly and
ingenious comedies. She must not be touched by the buffoons, nor by the
ignorant vulgar, incapable of comprehending or appreciating her hidden
treasures. And do not suppose, senor, that I apply the term vulgar here
merely to plebeians and the lower orders; for everyone who is ignorant,
be he lord or prince, may and should be included among the vulgar. He,
then, who shall embrace and cultivate poetry under the conditions I have
named, shall become famous, and his name honoured throughout all the
civilised nations of the earth. And with regard to what you say, senor,
of your son having no great opinion of Spanish poetry, I am inclined to
think that he is not quite right there, and for this reason: the great
poet Homer did not write in Latin, because he was a Greek, nor did Virgil
write in Greek, because he was a Latin; in short, all the ancient poets
wrote in the language they imbibed with their mother's milk, and never
went in quest of foreign ones to express their sublime conceptions; and
that being so, the usage should in justice extend to all nations, and the
German poet should not be undervalued because he writes in his own
language, nor the Castilian, nor even the Biscayan, for writing in his.
But your son, senor, I suspect, is not prejudiced against Spanish poetry,
but against those poets who are mere Spanish verse writers, without any
knowledge of other languages or sciences to adorn and give life and
vigour to their natural inspiration; and yet even in this he may be
wrong; for, according to a true belief, a poet is born one; that is to
say, the poet by nature comes forth a poet from his mother's womb; and
following the bent that heaven has bestowed upon him, without the aid of
study or art, he produces things that show how truly he spoke who said,
'Est Deus in nobis,' etc. At the same time, I say that the poet by nature
who calls in art to his aid will be a far better poet, and will surpass
him who tries to be one relying upon his knowledge of art alone. The
reason is, that art does not surpass nature, but only brings it to
perfection; and thus, nature combined with art, and art with nature, will
produce a perfect poet. To bring my argument to a close, I would say
then, gentle sir, let your son go on as his star leads him, for being so
studious as he seems to be, and having already successfully surmounted
the first step of the sciences, which is that of the languages, with
their help he will by his own exertions reach the summit of polite
literature, which so well becomes an independent gentleman, and adorns,
honours, and distinguishes him, as much as the mitre does the bishop, or
the gown the learned counsellor. If your son write satires reflecting on
the honour of others, chide and correct him, and tear them up; but if he
compose discourses in which he rebukes vice in general, in the style of
Horace, and with elegance like his, commend him; for it is legitimate for
a poet to write against envy and lash the envious in his verse, and the
other vices too, provided he does not single out individuals; there are,
however, poets who, for the sake of saying something spiteful, would run
the risk of being banished to the coast of Pontus. If the poet be pure in
his morals, he will be pure in his verses too; the pen is the tongue of
the mind, and as the thought engendered there, so will be the things that
it writes down. And when kings and princes observe this marvellous
science of poetry in wise, virtuous, and thoughtful subjects, they
honour, value, exalt them, and even crown them with the leaves of that
tree which the thunderbolt strikes not, as if to show that they whose
brows are honoured and adorned with such a crown are not to be assailed
by anyone."

He of the green gaban was filled with astonishment at Don Quixote's
argument, so much so that he began to abandon the notion he had taken up
about his being crazy. But in the middle of the discourse, it being not
very much to his taste, Sancho had turned aside out of the road to beg a
little milk from some shepherds, who were milking their ewes hard by; and
just as the gentleman, highly pleased, was about to renew the
conversation, Don Quixote, raising his head, perceived a cart covered
with royal flags coming along the road they were travelling; and
persuaded that this must be some new adventure, he called aloud to Sancho
to come and bring him his helmet. Sancho, hearing himself called, quitted
the shepherds, and, prodding Dapple vigorously, came up to his master, to
whom there fell a terrific and desperate adventure.




CHAPTER XVII.

WHEREIN IS SHOWN THE FURTHEST AND HIGHEST POINT WHICH THE UNEXAMPLED
COURAGE OF DON QUIXOTE REACHED OR COULD REACH; TOGETHER WITH THE HAPPILY
ACHIEVED ADVENTURE OF THE LIONS


The history tells that when Don Quixote called out to Sancho to bring him
his helmet, Sancho was buying some curds the shepherds agreed to sell
him, and flurried by the great haste his master was in did not know what
to do with them or what to carry them in; so, not to lose them, for he
had already paid for them, he thought it best to throw them into his
master's helmet, and acting on this bright idea he went to see what his
master wanted with him. He, as he approached, exclaimed to him:

"Give me that helmet, my friend, for either I know little of adventures,
or what I observe yonder is one that will, and does, call upon me to arm
myself."

He of the green gaban, on hearing this, looked in all directions, but
could perceive nothing, except a cart coming towards them with two or
three small flags, which led him to conclude it must be carrying treasure
of the King's, and he said so to Don Quixote. He, however, would not
believe him, being always persuaded and convinced that all that happened
to him must be adventures and still more adventures; so he replied to the
gentleman, "He who is prepared has his battle half fought; nothing is
lost by my preparing myself, for I know by experience that I have
enemies, visible and invisible, and I know not when, or where, or at what
moment, or in what shapes they will attack me;" and turning to Sancho he
called for his helmet; and Sancho, as he had no time to take out the
curds, had to give it just as it was. Don Quixote took it, and without
perceiving what was in it thrust it down in hot haste upon his head; but
as the curds were pressed and squeezed the whey began to run all over his
face and beard, whereat he was so startled that he cried out to Sancho:

"Sancho, what's this? I think my head is softening, or my brains are
melting, or I am sweating from head to foot! If I am sweating it is not
indeed from fear. I am convinced beyond a doubt that the adventure which
is about to befall me is a terrible one. Give me something to wipe myself
with, if thou hast it, for this profuse sweat is blinding me."

Sancho held his tongue, and gave him a cloth, and gave thanks to God at
the same time that his master had not found out what was the matter. Don
Quixote then wiped himself, and took off his helmet to see what it was
that made his head feel so cool, and seeing all that white mash inside
his helmet he put it to his nose, and as soon as he had smelt it he
exclaimed:

"By the life of my lady Dulcinea del Toboso, but it is curds thou hast
put here, thou treacherous, impudent, ill-mannered squire!"

To which, with great composure and pretended innocence, Sancho replied,
"If they are curds let me have them, your worship, and I'll eat them; but
let the devil eat them, for it must have been he who put them there. I
dare to dirty your helmet! You have guessed the offender finely! Faith,
sir, by the light God gives me, it seems I must have enchanters too, that
persecute me as a creature and limb of your worship, and they must have
put that nastiness there in order to provoke your patience to anger, and
make you baste my ribs as you are wont to do. Well, this time, indeed,
they have missed their aim, for I trust to my master's good sense to see
that I have got no curds or milk, or anything of the sort; and that if I
had it is in my stomach I would put it and not in the helmet."

"May be so," said Don Quixote. All this the gentleman was observing, and
with astonishment, more especially when, after having wiped himself
clean, his head, face, beard, and helmet, Don Quixote put it on, and
settling himself firmly in his stirrups, easing his sword in the
scabbard, and grasping his lance, he cried, "Now, come who will, here am
I, ready to try conclusions with Satan himself in person!"

By this time the cart with the flags had come up, unattended by anyone
except the carter on a mule, and a man sitting in front. Don Quixote
planted himself before it and said, "Whither are you going, brothers?
What cart is this? What have you got in it? What flags are those?"

To this the carter replied, "The cart is mine; what is in it is a pair of
wild caged lions, which the governor of Oran is sending to court as a
present to his Majesty; and the flags are our lord the King's, to show
that what is here is his property."

"And are the lions large?" asked Don Quixote.

"So large," replied the man who sat at the door of the cart, "that
larger, or as large, have never crossed from Africa to Spain; I am the
keeper, and I have brought over others, but never any like these. They
are male and female; the male is in that first cage and the female in the
one behind, and they are hungry now, for they have eaten nothing to-day,
so let your worship stand aside, for we must make haste to the place
where we are to feed them."

Hereupon, smiling slightly, Don Quixote exclaimed, "Lion-whelps to me! to
me whelps of lions, and at such a time! Then, by God! those gentlemen who
send them here shall see if I am a man to be frightened by lions. Get
down, my good fellow, and as you are the keeper open the cages, and turn
me out those beasts, and in the midst of this plain I will let them know
who Don Quixote of La Mancha is, in spite and in the teeth of the
enchanters who send them to me."

"So, so," said the gentleman to himself at this; "our worthy knight has
shown of what sort he is; the curds, no doubt, have softened his skull
and brought his brains to a head."

At this instant Sancho came up to him, saying, "Senor, for God's sake do
something to keep my master, Don Quixote, from tackling these lions; for
if he does they'll tear us all to pieces here."

"Is your master then so mad," asked the gentleman, "that you believe and
are afraid he will engage such fierce animals?"

"He is not mad," said Sancho, "but he is venturesome."

"I will prevent it," said the gentleman; and going over to Don Quixote,
who was insisting upon the keeper's opening the cages, he said to him,
"Sir knight, knights-errant should attempt adventures which encourage the
hope of a successful issue, not those which entirely withhold it; for
valour that trenches upon temerity savours rather of madness than of
courage; moreover, these lions do not come to oppose you, nor do they
dream of such a thing; they are going as presents to his Majesty, and it
will not be right to stop them or delay their journey."

"Gentle sir," replied Don Quixote, "you go and mind your tame partridge
and your bold ferret, and leave everyone to manage his own business; this
is mine, and I know whether these gentlemen the lions come to me or not;"
and then turning to the keeper he exclaimed, "By all that's good, sir
scoundrel, if you don't open the cages this very instant, I'll pin you to
the cart with this lance."

The carter, seeing the determination of this apparition in armour, said
to him, "Please your worship, for charity's sake, senor, let me unyoke
the mules and place myself in safety along with them before the lions are
turned out; for if they kill them on me I am ruined for life, for all I
possess is this cart and mules."

"O man of little faith," replied Don Quixote, "get down and unyoke; you
will soon see that you are exerting yourself for nothing, and that you
might have spared yourself the trouble."

The carter got down and with all speed unyoked the mules, and the keeper
called out at the top of his voice, "I call all here to witness that
against my will and under compulsion I open the cages and let the lions
loose, and that I warn this gentleman that he will be accountable for all
the harm and mischief which these beasts may do, and for my salary and
dues as well. You, gentlemen, place yourselves in safety before I open,
for I know they will do me no harm."

Once more the gentleman strove to persuade Don Quixote not to do such a
mad thing, as it was tempting God to engage in such a piece of folly. To
this, Don Quixote replied that he knew what he was about. The gentleman
in return entreated him to reflect, for he knew he was under a delusion.

"Well, senor," answered Don Quixote, "if you do not like to be a
spectator of this tragedy, as in your opinion it will be, spur your
flea-bitten mare, and place yourself in safety."

Hearing this, Sancho with tears in his eyes entreated him to give up an
enterprise compared with which the one of the windmills, and the awful
one of the fulling mills, and, in fact, all the feats he had attempted in
the whole course of his life, were cakes and fancy bread. "Look ye,
senor," said Sancho, "there's no enchantment here, nor anything of the
sort, for between the bars and chinks of the cage I have seen the paw of
a real lion, and judging by that I reckon the lion such a paw could
belong to must be bigger than a mountain."

"Fear at any rate," replied Don Quixote, "will make him look bigger to
thee than half the world. Retire, Sancho, and leave me; and if I die here
thou knowest our old compact; thou wilt repair to Dulcinea--I say no
more." To these he added some further words that banished all hope of his
giving up his insane project. He of the green gaban would have offered
resistance, but he found himself ill-matched as to arms, and did not
think it prudent to come to blows with a madman, for such Don Quixote now
showed himself to be in every respect; and the latter, renewing his
commands to the keeper and repeating his threats, gave warning to the
gentleman to spur his mare, Sancho his Dapple, and the carter his mules,
all striving to get away from the cart as far as they could before the
lions broke loose. Sancho was weeping over his master's death, for this
time he firmly believed it was in store for him from the claws of the
lions; and he cursed his fate and called it an unlucky hour when he
thought of taking service with him again; but with all his tears and
lamentations he did not forget to thrash Dapple so as to put a good space
between himself and the cart. The keeper, seeing that the fugitives were
now some distance off, once more entreated and warned him as before; but
he replied that he heard him, and that he need not trouble himself with
any further warnings or entreaties, as they would be fruitless, and bade
him make haste.

During the delay that occurred while the keeper was opening the first
cage, Don Quixote was considering whether it would not be well to do
battle on foot, instead of on horseback, and finally resolved to fight on
foot, fearing that Rocinante might take fright at the sight of the lions;
he therefore sprang off his horse, flung his lance aside, braced his
buckler on his arm, and drawing his sword, advanced slowly with
marvellous intrepidity and resolute courage, to plant himself in front of
the cart, commending himself with all his heart to God and to his lady
Dulcinea.

It is to be observed, that on coming to this passage, the author of this
veracious history breaks out into exclamations. "O doughty Don Quixote!
high-mettled past extolling! Mirror, wherein all the heroes of the world
may see themselves! Second modern Don Manuel de Leon, once the glory and
honour of Spanish knighthood! In what words shall I describe this dread
exploit, by what language shall I make it credible to ages to come, what
eulogies are there unmeet for thee, though they be hyperboles piled on
hyperboles! On foot, alone, undaunted, high-souled, with but a simple
sword, and that no trenchant blade of the Perrillo brand, a shield, but
no bright polished steel one, there stoodst thou, biding and awaiting the
two fiercest lions that Africa's forests ever bred! Thy own deeds be thy
praise, valiant Manchegan, and here I leave them as they stand, wanting
the words wherewith to glorify them!"

Here the author's outburst came to an end, and he proceeded to take up
the thread of his story, saying that the keeper, seeing that Don Quixote
had taken up his position, and that it was impossible for him to avoid
letting out the male without incurring the enmity of the fiery and daring
knight, flung open the doors of the first cage, containing, as has been
said, the lion, which was now seen to be of enormous size, and grim and
hideous mien. The first thing he did was to turn round in the cage in
which he lay, and protrude his claws, and stretch himself thoroughly; he
next opened his mouth, and yawned very leisurely, and with near two
palms' length of tongue that he had thrust forth, he licked the dust out
of his eyes and washed his face; having done this, he put his head out of
the cage and looked all round with eyes like glowing coals, a spectacle
and demeanour to strike terror into temerity itself. Don Quixote merely
observed him steadily, longing for him to leap from the cart and come to
close quarters with him, when he hoped to hew him in pieces.

So far did his unparalleled madness go; but the noble lion, more
courteous than arrogant, not troubling himself about silly bravado, after
having looked all round, as has been said, turned about and presented his
hind-quarters to Don Quixote, and very coolly and tranquilly lay down
again in the cage. Seeing this, Don Quixote ordered the keeper to take a
stick to him and provoke him to make him come out.

"That I won't," said the keeper; "for if I anger him, the first he'll
tear in pieces will be myself. Be satisfied, sir knight, with what you
have done, which leaves nothing more to be said on the score of courage,
and do not seek to tempt fortune a second time. The lion has the door
open; he is free to come out or not to come out; but as he has not come
out so far, he will not come out to-day. Your worship's great courage has
been fully manifested already; no brave champion, so it strikes me, is
bound to do more than challenge his enemy and wait for him on the field;
if his adversary does not come, on him lies the disgrace, and he who
waits for him carries off the crown of victory."

"That is true," said Don Quixote; "close the door, my friend, and let me
have, in the best form thou canst, what thou hast seen me do, by way of
certificate; to wit, that thou didst open for the lion, that I waited for
him, that he did not come out, that I still waited for him, and that
still he did not come out, and lay down again. I am not bound to do more;
enchantments avaunt, and God uphold the right, the truth, and true
chivalry! Close the door as I bade thee, while I make signals to the
fugitives that have left us, that they may learn this exploit from thy
lips."

The keeper obeyed, and Don Quixote, fixing on the point of his lance the
cloth he had wiped his face with after the deluge of curds, proceeded to
recall the others, who still continued to fly, looking back at every
step, all in a body, the gentleman bringing up the rear. Sancho, however,
happening to observe the signal of the white cloth, exclaimed, "May I
die, if my master has not overcome the wild beasts, for he is calling to
us."

They all stopped, and perceived that it was Don Quixote who was making
signals, and shaking off their fears to some extent, they approached
slowly until they were near enough to hear distinctly Don Quixote's voice
calling to them. They returned at length to the cart, and as they came
up, Don Quixote said to the carter, "Put your mules to once more,
brother, and continue your journey; and do thou, Sancho, give him two
gold crowns for himself and the keeper, to compensate for the delay they
have incurred through me."

"That will I give with all my heart," said Sancho; "but what has become
of the lions? Are they dead or alive?"

The keeper, then, in full detail, and bit by bit, described the end of
the contest, exalting to the best of his power and ability the valour of
Don Quixote, at the sight of whom the lion quailed, and would not and
dared not come out of the cage, although he had held the door open ever
so long; and showing how, in consequence of his having represented to the
knight that it was tempting God to provoke the lion in order to force him
out, which he wished to have done, he very reluctantly, and altogether
against his will, had allowed the door to be closed.

"What dost thou think of this, Sancho?" said Don Quixote. "Are there any
enchantments that can prevail against true valour? The enchanters may be
able to rob me of good fortune, but of fortitude and courage they
cannot."

Sancho paid the crowns, the carter put to, the keeper kissed Don
Quixote's hands for the bounty bestowed upon him, and promised to give an
account of the valiant exploit to the King himself, as soon as he saw him
at court.

"Then," said Don Quixote, "if his Majesty should happen to ask who
performed it, you must say THE KNIGHT OF THE LIONS; for it is my desire
that into this the name I have hitherto borne of Knight of the Rueful
Countenance be from this time forward changed, altered, transformed, and
turned; and in this I follow the ancient usage of knights-errant, who
changed their names when they pleased, or when it suited their purpose."

The cart went its way, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and he of the green gaban
went theirs. All this time, Don Diego de Miranda had not spoken a word,
being entirely taken up with observing and noting all that Don Quixote
did and said, and the opinion he formed was that he was a man of brains
gone mad, and a madman on the verge of rationality. The first part of his
history had not yet reached him, for, had he read it, the amazement with
which his words and deeds filled him would have vanished, as he would
then have understood the nature of his madness; but knowing nothing of
it, he took him to be rational one moment, and crazy the next, for what
he said was sensible, elegant, and well expressed, and what he did,
absurd, rash, and foolish; and said he to himself, "What could be madder
than putting on a helmet full of curds, and then persuading oneself that
enchanters are softening one's skull; or what could be greater rashness
and folly than wanting to fight lions tooth and nail?"

Don Quixote roused him from these reflections and this soliloquy by
saying, "No doubt, Senor Don Diego de Miranda, you set me down in your
mind as a fool and a madman, and it would be no wonder if you did, for my
deeds do not argue anything else. But for all that, I would have you take
notice that I am neither so mad nor so foolish as I must have seemed to
you. A gallant knight shows to advantage bringing his lance to bear
adroitly upon a fierce bull under the eyes of his sovereign, in the midst
of a spacious plaza; a knight shows to advantage arrayed in glittering
armour, pacing the lists before the ladies in some joyous tournament, and
all those knights show to advantage that entertain, divert, and, if we
may say so, honour the courts of their princes by warlike exercises, or
what resemble them; but to greater advantage than all these does a
knight-errant show when he traverses deserts, solitudes, cross-roads,
forests, and mountains, in quest of perilous adventures, bent on bringing
them to a happy and successful issue, all to win a glorious and lasting
renown. To greater advantage, I maintain, does the knight-errant show
bringing aid to some widow in some lonely waste, than the court knight
dallying with some city damsel. All knights have their own special parts
to play; let the courtier devote himself to the ladies, let him add
lustre to his sovereign's court by his liveries, let him entertain poor
gentlemen with the sumptuous fare of his table, let him arrange
joustings, marshal tournaments, and prove himself noble, generous, and
magnificent, and above all a good Christian, and so doing he will fulfil
the duties that are especially his; but let the knight-errant explore the
corners of the earth and penetrate the most intricate labyrinths, at each
step let him attempt impossibilities, on desolate heaths let him endure
the burning rays of the midsummer sun, and the bitter inclemency of the
winter winds and frosts; let no lions daunt him, no monsters terrify him,
no dragons make him quail; for to seek these, to attack those, and to
vanquish all, are in truth his main duties. I, then, as it has fallen to
my lot to be a member of knight-errantry, cannot avoid attempting all
that to me seems to come within the sphere of my duties; thus it was my
bounden duty to attack those lions that I just now attacked, although I
knew it to be the height of rashness; for I know well what valour is,
that it is a virtue that occupies a place between two vicious extremes,
cowardice and temerity; but it will be a lesser evil for him who is
valiant to rise till he reaches the point of rashness, than to sink until
he reaches the point of cowardice; for, as it is easier for the prodigal
than for the miser to become generous, so it is easier for a rash man to
prove truly valiant than for a coward to rise to true valour; and believe
me, Senor Don Diego, in attempting adventures it is better to lose by a
card too many than by a card too few; for to hear it said, 'such a knight
is rash and daring,' sounds better than 'such a knight is timid and
cowardly.'"

"I protest, Senor Don Quixote," said Don Diego, "everything you have said
and done is proved correct by the test of reason itself; and I believe,
if the laws and ordinances of knight-errantry should be lost, they might
be found in your worship's breast as in their own proper depository and
muniment-house; but let us make haste, and reach my village, where you
shall take rest after your late exertions; for if they have not been of
the body they have been of the spirit, and these sometimes tend to
produce bodily fatigue."

"I take the invitation as a great favour and honour, Senor Don Diego,"
replied Don Quixote; and pressing forward at a better pace than before,
at about two in the afternoon they reached the village and house of Don
Diego, or, as Don Quixote called him, "The Knight of the Green Gaban."




CHAPTER XVIII.

OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE OR HOUSE OF THE KNIGHT OF THE
GREEN GABAN, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MATTERS OUT OF THE COMMON


Don Quixote found Don Diego de Miranda's house built in village style,
with his arms in rough stone over the street door; in the patio was the
store-room, and at the entrance the cellar, with plenty of wine-jars
standing round, which, coming from El Toboso, brought back to his memory
his enchanted and transformed Dulcinea; and with a sigh, and not thinking
of what he was saying, or in whose presence he was, he exclaimed--

  "O ye sweet treasures, to my sorrow found!
  Once sweet and welcome when 'twas heaven's good-will.

  "O ye Tobosan jars, how ye bring back to my memory the
  sweet object of my bitter regrets!"

The student poet, Don Diego's son, who had come out with his mother to
receive him, heard this exclamation, and both mother and son were filled
with amazement at the extraordinary figure he presented; he, however,
dismounting from Rocinante, advanced with great politeness to ask
permission to kiss the lady's hand, while Don Diego said, "Senora, pray
receive with your wonted kindness Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha, whom
you see before you, a knight-errant, and the bravest and wisest in the
world."

The lady, whose name was Dona Christina, received him with every sign of
good-will and great courtesy, and Don Quixote placed himself at her
service with an abundance of well-chosen and polished phrases. Almost the
same civilities were exchanged between him and the student, who listening
to Don Quixote, took him to be a sensible, clear-headed person.

Here the author describes minutely everything belonging to Don Diego's
mansion, putting before us in his picture the whole contents of a rich
gentleman-farmer's house; but the translator of the history thought it
best to pass over these and other details of the same sort in silence, as
they are not in harmony with the main purpose of the story, the strong
point of which is truth rather than dull digressions.

They led Don Quixote into a room, and Sancho removed his armour, leaving
him in loose Walloon breeches and chamois-leather doublet, all stained
with the rust of his armour; his collar was a falling one of scholastic
cut, without starch or lace, his buskins buff-coloured, and his shoes
polished. He wore his good sword, which hung in a baldric of sea-wolf's
skin, for he had suffered for many years, they say, from an ailment of
the kidneys; and over all he threw a long cloak of good grey cloth. But
first of all, with five or six buckets of water (for as regard the number
of buckets there is some dispute), he washed his head and face, and still
the water remained whey-coloured, thanks to Sancho's greediness and
purchase of those unlucky curds that turned his master so white. Thus
arrayed, and with an easy, sprightly, and gallant air, Don Quixote passed
out into another room, where the student was waiting to entertain him
while the table was being laid; for on the arrival of so distinguished a
guest, Dona Christina was anxious to show that she knew how and was able
to give a becoming reception to those who came to her house.

While Don Quixote was taking off his armour, Don Lorenzo (for so Don
Diego's son was called) took the opportunity to say to his father, "What
are we to make of this gentleman you have brought home to us, sir? For
his name, his appearance, and your describing him as a knight-errant have
completely puzzled my mother and me."

"I don't know what to say, my son," replied. Don Diego; "all I can tell
thee is that I have seen him act the acts of the greatest madman in the
world, and heard him make observations so sensible that they efface and
undo all he does; do thou talk to him and feel the pulse of his wits, and
as thou art shrewd, form the most reasonable conclusion thou canst as to
his wisdom or folly; though, to tell the truth, I am more inclined to
take him to be mad than sane."

With this Don Lorenzo went away to entertain Don Quixote as has been
said, and in the course of the conversation that passed between them Don
Quixote said to Don Lorenzo, "Your father, Senor Don Diego de Miranda,
has told me of the rare abilities and subtle intellect you possess, and,
above all, that you are a great poet."

"A poet, it may be," replied Don Lorenzo, "but a great one, by no means.
It is true that I am somewhat given to poetry and to reading good poets,
but not so much so as to justify the title of 'great' which my father
gives me."

"I do not dislike that modesty," said Don Quixote; "for there is no poet
who is not conceited and does not think he is the best poet in the
world."

"There is no rule without an exception," said Don Lorenzo; "there may be
some who are poets and yet do not think they are."

"Very few," said Don Quixote; "but tell me, what verses are those which
you have now in hand, and which your father tells me keep you somewhat
restless and absorbed? If it be some gloss, I know something about
glosses, and I should like to hear them; and if they are for a poetical
tournament, contrive to carry off the second prize; for the first always
goes by favour or personal standing, the second by simple justice; and so
the third comes to be the second, and the first, reckoning in this way,
will be third, in the same way as licentiate degrees are conferred at the
universities; but, for all that, the title of first is a great
distinction."

"So far," said Don Lorenzo to himself, "I should not take you to be a
madman; but let us go on." So he said to him, "Your worship has
apparently attended the schools; what sciences have you studied?"

"That of knight-errantry," said Don Quixote, "which is as good as that of
poetry, and even a finger or two above it."

"I do not know what science that is," said Don Lorenzo, "and until now I
have never heard of it."

"It is a science," said Don Quixote, "that comprehends in itself all or
most of the sciences in the world, for he who professes it must be a
jurist, and must know the rules of justice, distributive and equitable,
so as to give to each one what belongs to him and is due to him. He must
be a theologian, so as to be able to give a clear and distinctive reason
for the Christian faith he professes, wherever it may be asked of him. He
must be a physician, and above all a herbalist, so as in wastes and
solitudes to know the herbs that have the property of healing wounds, for
a knight-errant must not go looking for some one to cure him at every
step. He must be an astronomer, so as to know by the stars how many hours
of the night have passed, and what clime and quarter of the world he is
in. He must know mathematics, for at every turn some occasion for them
will present itself to him; and, putting it aside that he must be adorned
with all the virtues, cardinal and theological, to come down to minor
particulars, he must, I say, be able to swim as well as Nicholas or
Nicolao the Fish could, as the story goes; he must know how to shoe a
horse, and repair his saddle and bridle; and, to return to higher
matters, he must be faithful to God and to his lady; he must be pure in
thought, decorous in words, generous in works, valiant in deeds, patient
in suffering, compassionate towards the needy, and, lastly, an upholder
of the truth though its defence should cost him his life. Of all these
qualities, great and small, is a true knight-errant made up; judge then,
Senor Don Lorenzo, whether it be a contemptible science which the knight
who studies and professes it has to learn, and whether it may not compare
with the very loftiest that are taught in the schools."

"If that be so," replied Don Lorenzo, "this science, I protest, surpasses
all."

"How, if that be so?" said Don Quixote.

"What I mean to say," said Don Lorenzo, "is, that I doubt whether there
are now, or ever were, any knights-errant, and adorned with such
virtues."

"Many a time," replied Don Quixote, "have I said what I now say once
more, that the majority of the world are of opinion that there never were
any knights-errant in it; and as it is my opinion that, unless heaven by
some miracle brings home to them the truth that there were and are, all
the pains one takes will be in vain (as experience has often proved to
me), I will not now stop to disabuse you of the error you share with the
multitude. All I shall do is to pray to heaven to deliver you from it,
and show you how beneficial and necessary knights-errant were in days of
yore, and how useful they would be in these days were they but in vogue;
but now, for the sins of the people, sloth and indolence, gluttony and
luxury are triumphant."

"Our guest has broken out on our hands," said Don Lorenzo to himself at
this point; "but, for all that, he is a glorious madman, and I should be
a dull blockhead to doubt it."

Here, being summoned to dinner, they brought their colloquy to a close.
Don Diego asked his son what he had been able to make out as to the wits
of their guest. To which he replied, "All the doctors and clever scribes
in the world will not make sense of the scrawl of his madness; he is a
madman full of streaks, full of lucid intervals."

They went in to dinner, and the repast was such as Don Diego said on the
road he was in the habit of giving to his guests, neat, plentiful, and
tasty; but what pleased Don Quixote most was the marvellous silence that
reigned throughout the house, for it was like a Carthusian monastery.

When the cloth had been removed, grace said and their hands washed, Don
Quixote earnestly pressed Don Lorenzo to repeat to him his verses for the
poetical tournament, to which he replied, "Not to be like those poets
who, when they are asked to recite their verses, refuse, and when they
are not asked for them vomit them up, I will repeat my gloss, for which I
do not expect any prize, having composed it merely as an exercise of
ingenuity."

"A discerning friend of mine," said Don Quixote, "was of opinion that no
one ought to waste labour in glossing verses; and the reason he gave was
that the gloss can never come up to the text, and that often or most
frequently it wanders away from the meaning and purpose aimed at in the
glossed lines; and besides, that the laws of the gloss were too strict,
as they did not allow interrogations, nor 'said he,' nor 'I say,' nor
turning verbs into nouns, or altering the construction, not to speak of
other restrictions and limitations that fetter gloss-writers, as you no
doubt know."

"Verily, Senor Don Quixote," said Don Lorenzo, "I wish I could catch your
worship tripping at a stretch, but I cannot, for you slip through my
fingers like an eel."

"I don't understand what you say, or mean by slipping," said Don Quixote.

"I will explain myself another time," said Don Lorenzo; "for the present
pray attend to the glossed verses and the gloss, which run thus:

Could 'was' become an 'is' for me,
Then would I ask no more than this;
Or could, for me, the time that is
Become the time that is to be!--

GLOSS

Dame Fortune once upon a day
  To me was bountiful and kind;
  But all things change; she changed her mind,
And what she gave she took away.
O Fortune, long I've sued to thee;
  The gifts thou gavest me restore,
  For, trust me, I would ask no more,
Could 'was' become an 'is' for me.

No other prize I seek to gain,
  No triumph, glory, or success,
  Only the long-lost happiness,
The memory whereof is pain.
One taste, methinks, of bygone bliss
  The heart-consuming fire might stay;
  And, so it come without delay,
Then would I ask no more than this.

I ask what cannot be, alas!
  That time should ever be, and then
  Come back to us, and be again,
No power on earth can bring to pass;
For fleet of foot is he, I wis,
  And idly, therefore, do we pray
  That what for aye hath left us may
Become for us the time that is.

Perplexed, uncertain, to remain
  'Twixt hope and fear, is death, not life;
  'Twere better, sure, to end the strife,
And dying, seek release from pain.
And yet, thought were the best for me.
  Anon the thought aside I fling,
  And to the present fondly cling,
And dread the time that is to be."

When Don Lorenzo had finished reciting his gloss, Don Quixote stood up,
and in a loud voice, almost a shout, exclaimed as he grasped Don
Lorenzo's right hand in his, "By the highest heavens, noble youth, but
you are the best poet on earth, and deserve to be crowned with laurel,
not by Cyprus or by Gaeta--as a certain poet, God forgive him, said--but
by the Academies of Athens, if they still flourished, and by those that
flourish now, Paris, Bologna, Salamanca. Heaven grant that the judges who
rob you of the first prize--that Phoebus may pierce them with his arrows,
and the Muses never cross the thresholds of their doors. Repeat me some
of your long-measure verses, senor, if you will be so good, for I want
thoroughly to feel the pulse of your rare genius."

Is there any need to say that Don Lorenzo enjoyed hearing himself praised
by Don Quixote, albeit he looked upon him as a madman? power of flattery,
how far-reaching art thou, and how wide are the bounds of thy pleasant
jurisdiction! Don Lorenzo gave a proof of it, for he complied with Don
Quixote's request and entreaty, and repeated to him this sonnet on the
fable or story of Pyramus and Thisbe.

SONNET

The lovely maid, she pierces now the wall;
  Heart-pierced by her young Pyramus doth lie;
  And Love spreads wing from Cyprus isle to fly,
A chink to view so wondrous great and small.
There silence speaketh, for no voice at all
  Can pass so strait a strait; but love will ply
  Where to all other power 'twere vain to try;
For love will find a way whate'er befall.
Impatient of delay, with reckless pace
  The rash maid wins the fatal spot where she
Sinks not in lover's arms but death's embrace.
  So runs the strange tale, how the lovers twain
One sword, one sepulchre, one memory,
  Slays, and entombs, and brings to life again.

"Blessed be God," said Don Quixote when he had heard Don Lorenzo's
sonnet, "that among the hosts there are of irritable poets I have found
one consummate one, which, senor, the art of this sonnet proves to me
that you are!"

For four days was Don Quixote most sumptuously entertained in Don Diego's
house, at the end of which time he asked his permission to depart,
telling him he thanked him for the kindness and hospitality he had
received in his house, but that, as it did not become knights-errant to
give themselves up for long to idleness and luxury, he was anxious to
fulfill the duties of his calling in seeking adventures, of which he was
informed there was an abundance in that neighbourhood, where he hoped to
employ his time until the day came round for the jousts at Saragossa, for
that was his proper destination; and that, first of all, he meant to
enter the cave of Montesinos, of which so many marvellous things were
reported all through the country, and at the same time to investigate and
explore the origin and true source of the seven lakes commonly called the
lakes of Ruidera.

Don Diego and his son commended his laudable resolution, and bade him
furnish himself with all he wanted from their house and belongings, as
they would most gladly be of service to him; which, indeed, his personal
worth and his honourable profession made incumbent upon them.

The day of his departure came at length, as welcome to Don Quixote as it
was sad and sorrowful to Sancho Panza, who was very well satisfied with
the abundance of Don Diego's house, and objected to return to the
starvation of the woods and wilds and the short-commons of his
ill-stocked alforjas; these, however, he filled and packed with what he
considered needful. On taking leave, Don Quixote said to Don Lorenzo, "I
know not whether I have told you already, but if I have I tell you once
more, that if you wish to spare yourself fatigue and toil in reaching the
inaccessible summit of the temple of fame, you have nothing to do but to
turn aside out of the somewhat narrow path of poetry and take the still
narrower one of knight-errantry, wide enough, however, to make you an
emperor in the twinkling of an eye."

In this speech Don Quixote wound up the evidence of his madness, but
still better in what he added when he said, "God knows, I would gladly
take Don Lorenzo with me to teach him how to spare the humble, and
trample the proud under foot, virtues that are part and parcel of the
profession I belong to; but since his tender age does not allow of it,
nor his praiseworthy pursuits permit it, I will simply content myself
with impressing it upon your worship that you will become famous as a
poet if you are guided by the opinion of others rather than by your own;
because no fathers or mothers ever think their own children ill-favoured,
and this sort of deception prevails still more strongly in the case of
the children of the brain."

Both father and son were amazed afresh at the strange medley Don Quixote
talked, at one moment sense, at another nonsense, and at the pertinacity
and persistence he displayed in going through thick and thin in quest of
his unlucky adventures, which he made the end and aim of his desires.
There was a renewal of offers of service and civilities, and then, with
the gracious permission of the lady of the castle, they took their
departure, Don Quixote on Rocinante, and Sancho on Dapple.




CHAPTER XIX.

IN WHICH IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENAMOURED SHEPHERD, TOGETHER
WITH OTHER TRULY DROLL INCIDENTS


Don Quixote had gone but a short distance beyond Don Diego's village,
when he fell in with a couple of either priests or students, and a couple
of peasants, mounted on four beasts of the ass kind. One of the students
carried, wrapped up in a piece of green buckram by way of a portmanteau,
what seemed to be a little linen and a couple of pairs of ribbed
stockings; the other carried nothing but a pair of new fencing-foils with
buttons. The peasants carried divers articles that showed they were on
their way from some large town where they had bought them, and were
taking them home to their village; and both students and peasants were
struck with the same amazement that everybody felt who saw Don Quixote
for the first time, and were dying to know who this man, so different
from ordinary men, could be. Don Quixote saluted them, and after
ascertaining that their road was the same as his, made them an offer of
his company, and begged them to slacken their pace, as their young asses
travelled faster than his horse; and then, to gratify them, he told them
in a few words who he was and the calling and profession he followed,
which was that of a knight-errant seeking adventures in all parts of the
world. He informed them that his own name was Don Quixote of La Mancha,
and that he was called, by way of surname, the Knight of the Lions.

All this was Greek or gibberish to the peasants, but not so to the
students, who very soon perceived the crack in Don Quixote's pate; for
all that, however, they regarded him with admiration and respect, and one
of them said to him, "If you, sir knight, have no fixed road, as it is
the way with those who seek adventures not to have any, let your worship
come with us; you will see one of the finest and richest weddings that up
to this day have ever been celebrated in La Mancha, or for many a league
round."

Don Quixote asked him if it was some prince's, that he spoke of it in
this way. "Not at all," said the student; "it is the wedding of a farmer
and a farmer's daughter, he the richest in all this country, and she the
fairest mortal ever set eyes on. The display with which it is to be
attended will be something rare and out of the common, for it will be
celebrated in a meadow adjoining the town of the bride, who is called,
par excellence, Quiteria the fair, as the bridegroom is called Camacho
the rich. She is eighteen, and he twenty-two, and they are fairly
matched, though some knowing ones, who have all the pedigrees in the
world by heart, will have it that the family of the fair Quiteria is
better than Camacho's; but no one minds that now-a-days, for wealth can
solder a great many flaws. At any rate, Camacho is free-handed, and it is
his fancy to screen the whole meadow with boughs and cover it in
overhead, so that the sun will have hard work if he tries to get in to
reach the grass that covers the soil. He has provided dancers too, not
only sword but also bell-dancers, for in his own town there are those who
ring the changes and jingle the bells to perfection; of shoe-dancers I
say nothing, for of them he has engaged a host. But none of these things,
nor of the many others I have omitted to mention, will do more to make
this a memorable wedding than the part which I suspect the despairing
Basilio will play in it. This Basilio is a youth of the same village as
Quiteria, and he lived in the house next door to that of her parents, of
which circumstance Love took advantage to reproduce to the word the
long-forgotten loves of Pyramus and Thisbe; for Basilio loved Quiteria
from his earliest years, and she responded to his passion with countless
modest proofs of affection, so that the loves of the two children,
Basilio and Quiteria, were the talk and the amusement of the town. As
they grew up, the father of Quiteria made up his mind to refuse Basilio
his wonted freedom of access to the house, and to relieve himself of
constant doubts and suspicions, he arranged a match for his daughter with
the rich Camacho, as he did not approve of marrying her to Basilio, who
had not so large a share of the gifts of fortune as of nature; for if the
truth be told ungrudgingly, he is the most agile youth we know, a mighty
thrower of the bar, a first-rate wrestler, and a great ball-player; he
runs like a deer, and leaps better than a goat, bowls over the nine-pins
as if by magic, sings like a lark, plays the guitar so as to make it
speak, and, above all, handles a sword as well as the best."

"For that excellence alone," said Don Quixote at this, "the youth
deserves to marry, not merely the fair Quiteria, but Queen Guinevere
herself, were she alive now, in spite of Launcelot and all who would try
to prevent it."

"Say that to my wife," said Sancho, who had until now listened in
silence, "for she won't hear of anything but each one marrying his equal,
holding with the proverb 'each ewe to her like.' What I would like is
that this good Basilio (for I am beginning to take a fancy to him
already) should marry this lady Quiteria; and a blessing and good luck--I
meant to say the opposite--on people who would prevent those who love one
another from marrying."

"If all those who love one another were to marry," said Don Quixote, "it
would deprive parents of the right to choose, and marry their children to
the proper person and at the proper time; and if it was left to daughters
to choose husbands as they pleased, one would be for choosing her
father's servant, and another, some one she has seen passing in the
street and fancies gallant and dashing, though he may be a drunken bully;
for love and fancy easily blind the eyes of the judgment, so much wanted
in choosing one's way of life; and the matrimonial choice is very liable
to error, and it needs great caution and the special favour of heaven to
make it a good one. He who has to make a long journey, will, if he is
wise, look out for some trusty and pleasant companion to accompany him
before he sets out. Why, then, should not he do the same who has to make
the whole journey of life down to the final halting-place of death, more
especially when the companion has to be his companion in bed, at board,
and everywhere, as the wife is to her husband? The companionship of one's
wife is no article of merchandise, that, after it has been bought, may be
returned, or bartered, or changed; for it is an inseparable accident that
lasts as long as life lasts; it is a noose that, once you put it round
your neck, turns into a Gordian knot, which, if the scythe of Death does
not cut it, there is no untying. I could say a great deal more on this
subject, were I not prevented by the anxiety I feel to know if the senor
licentiate has anything more to tell about the story of Basilio."

To this the student, bachelor, or, as Don Quixote called him, licentiate,
replied, "I have nothing whatever to say further, but that from the
moment Basilio learned that the fair Quiteria was to be married to
Camacho the rich, he has never been seen to smile, or heard to utter
rational word, and he always goes about moody and dejected, talking to
himself in a way that shows plainly he is out of his senses. He eats
little and sleeps little, and all he eats is fruit, and when he sleeps,
if he sleeps at all, it is in the field on the hard earth like a brute
beast. Sometimes he gazes at the sky, at other times he fixes his eyes on
the earth in such an abstracted way that he might be taken for a clothed
statue, with its drapery stirred by the wind. In short, he shows such
signs of a heart crushed by suffering, that all we who know him believe
that when to-morrow the fair Quiteria says 'yes,' it will be his sentence
of death."

"God will guide it better," said Sancho, "for God who gives the wound
gives the salve; nobody knows what will happen; there are a good many
hours between this and to-morrow, and any one of them, or any moment, the
house may fall; I have seen the rain coming down and the sun shining all
at one time; many a one goes to bed in good health who can't stir the
next day. And tell me, is there anyone who can boast of having driven a
nail into the wheel of fortune? No, faith; and between a woman's 'yes'
and 'no' I wouldn't venture to put the point of a pin, for there would
not be room for it; if you tell me Quiteria loves Basilio heart and soul,
then I'll give him a bag of good luck; for love, I have heard say, looks
through spectacles that make copper seem gold, poverty wealth, and bleary
eyes pearls."

"What art thou driving at, Sancho? curses on thee!" said Don Quixote;
"for when thou takest to stringing proverbs and sayings together, no one
can understand thee but Judas himself, and I wish he had thee. Tell me,
thou animal, what dost thou know about nails or wheels, or anything
else?"

"Oh, if you don't understand me," replied Sancho, "it is no wonder my
words are taken for nonsense; but no matter; I understand myself, and I
know I have not said anything very foolish in what I have said; only your
worship, senor, is always gravelling at everything I say, nay, everything
I do."

"Cavilling, not gravelling," said Don Quixote, "thou prevaricator of
honest language, God confound thee!"

"Don't find fault with me, your worship," returned Sancho, "for you know
I have not been bred up at court or trained at Salamanca, to know whether
I am adding or dropping a letter or so in my words. Why! God bless me,
it's not fair to force a Sayago-man to speak like a Toledan; maybe there
are Toledans who do not hit it off when it comes to polished talk."

"That is true," said the licentiate, "for those who have been bred up in
the Tanneries and the Zocodover cannot talk like those who are almost all
day pacing the cathedral cloisters, and yet they are all Toledans. Pure,
correct, elegant and lucid language will be met with in men of courtly
breeding and discrimination, though they may have been born in
Majalahonda; I say of discrimination, because there are many who are not
so, and discrimination is the grammar of good language, if it be
accompanied by practice. I, sirs, for my sins have studied canon law at
Salamanca, and I rather pique myself on expressing my meaning in clear,
plain, and intelligible language."

"If you did not pique yourself more on your dexterity with those foils
you carry than on dexterity of tongue," said the other student, "you
would have been head of the degrees, where you are now tail."

"Look here, bachelor Corchuelo," returned the licentiate, "you have the
most mistaken idea in the world about skill with the sword, if you think
it useless."

"It is no idea on my part, but an established truth," replied Corchuelo;
"and if you wish me to prove it to you by experiment, you have swords
there, and it is a good opportunity; I have a steady hand and a strong
arm, and these joined with my resolution, which is not small, will make
you confess that I am not mistaken. Dismount and put in practice your
positions and circles and angles and science, for I hope to make you see
stars at noonday with my rude raw swordsmanship, in which, next to God, I
place my trust that the man is yet to be born who will make me turn my
back, and that there is not one in the world I will not compel to give
ground."

"As to whether you turn your back or not, I do not concern myself,"
replied the master of fence; "though it might be that your grave would be
dug on the spot where you planted your foot the first time; I mean that
you would be stretched dead there for despising skill with the sword."

"We shall soon see," replied Corchuelo, and getting off his ass briskly,
he drew out furiously one of the swords the licentiate carried on his
beast.

"It must not be that way," said Don Quixote at this point; "I will be the
director of this fencing match, and judge of this often disputed
question;" and dismounting from Rocinante and grasping his lance, he
planted himself in the middle of the road, just as the licentiate, with
an easy, graceful bearing and step, advanced towards Corchuelo, who came
on against him, darting fire from his eyes, as the saying is. The other
two of the company, the peasants, without dismounting from their asses,
served as spectators of the mortal tragedy. The cuts, thrusts, down
strokes, back strokes and doubles, that Corchuelo delivered were past
counting, and came thicker than hops or hail. He attacked like an angry
lion, but he was met by a tap on the mouth from the button of the
licentiate's sword that checked him in the midst of his furious onset,
and made him kiss it as if it were a relic, though not as devoutly as
relics are and ought to be kissed. The end of it was that the licentiate
reckoned up for him by thrusts every one of the buttons of the short
cassock he wore, tore the skirts into strips, like the tails of a
cuttlefish, knocked off his hat twice, and so completely tired him out,
that in vexation, anger, and rage, he took the sword by the hilt and
flung it away with such force, that one of the peasants that were there,
who was a notary, and who went for it, made an affidavit afterwards that
he sent it nearly three-quarters of a league, which testimony will serve,
and has served, to show and establish with all certainty that strength is
overcome by skill.

Corchuelo sat down wearied, and Sancho approaching him said, "By my
faith, senor bachelor, if your worship takes my advice, you will never
challenge anyone to fence again, only to wrestle and throw the bar, for
you have the youth and strength for that; but as for these fencers as
they call them, I have heard say they can put the point of a sword
through the eye of a needle."

"I am satisfied with having tumbled off my donkey," said Corchuelo, "and
with having had the truth I was so ignorant of proved to me by
experience;" and getting up he embraced the licentiate, and they were
better friends than ever; and not caring to wait for the notary who had
gone for the sword, as they saw he would be a long time about it, they
resolved to push on so as to reach the village of Quiteria, to which they
all belonged, in good time.

During the remainder of the journey the licentiate held forth to them on
the excellences of the sword, with such conclusive arguments, and such
figures and mathematical proofs, that all were convinced of the value of
the science, and Corchuelo cured of his dogmatism.

It grew dark; but before they reached the town it seemed to them all as
if there was a heaven full of countless glittering stars in front of it.
They heard, too, the pleasant mingled notes of a variety of instruments,
flutes, drums, psalteries, pipes, tabors, and timbrels, and as they drew
near they perceived that the trees of a leafy arcade that had been
constructed at the entrance of the town were filled with lights
unaffected by the wind, for the breeze at the time was so gentle that it
had not power to stir the leaves on the trees. The musicians were the
life of the wedding, wandering through the pleasant grounds in separate
bands, some dancing, others singing, others playing the various
instruments already mentioned. In short, it seemed as though mirth and
gaiety were frisking and gambolling all over the meadow. Several other
persons were engaged in erecting raised benches from which people might
conveniently see the plays and dances that were to be performed the next
day on the spot dedicated to the celebration of the marriage of Camacho
the rich and the obsequies of Basilio. Don Quixote would not enter the
village, although the peasant as well as the bachelor pressed him; he
excused himself, however, on the grounds, amply sufficient in his
opinion, that it was the custom of knights-errant to sleep in the fields
and woods in preference to towns, even were it under gilded ceilings; and
so turned aside a little out of the road, very much against Sancho's
will, as the good quarters he had enjoyed in the castle or house of Don
Diego came back to his mind.




CHAPTER XX.

WHEREIN AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE WEDDING OF CAMACHO THE RICH, TOGETHER
WITH THE INCIDENT OF BASILIO THE POOR


Scarce had the fair Aurora given bright Phoebus time to dry the liquid
pearls upon her golden locks with the heat of his fervent rays, when Don
Quixote, shaking off sloth from his limbs, sprang to his feet and called
to his squire Sancho, who was still snoring; seeing which Don Quixote ere
he roused him thus addressed him: "Happy thou, above all the dwellers on
the face of the earth, that, without envying or being envied, sleepest
with tranquil mind, and that neither enchanters persecute nor
enchantments affright. Sleep, I say, and will say a hundred times,
without any jealous thoughts of thy mistress to make thee keep ceaseless
vigils, or any cares as to how thou art to pay the debts thou owest, or
find to-morrow's food for thyself and thy needy little family, to
interfere with thy repose. Ambition breaks not thy rest, nor doth this
world's empty pomp disturb thee, for the utmost reach of thy anxiety is
to provide for thy ass, since upon my shoulders thou hast laid the
support of thyself, the counterpoise and burden that nature and custom
have imposed upon masters. The servant sleeps and the master lies awake
thinking how he is to feed him, advance him, and reward him. The distress
of seeing the sky turn brazen, and withhold its needful moisture from the
earth, is not felt by the servant but by the master, who in time of
scarcity and famine must support him who has served him in times of
plenty and abundance."

To all this Sancho made no reply because he was asleep, nor would he have
wakened up so soon as he did had not Don Quixote brought him to his
senses with the butt of his lance. He awoke at last, drowsy and lazy, and
casting his eyes about in every direction, observed, "There comes, if I
don't mistake, from the quarter of that arcade a steam and a smell a
great deal more like fried rashers than galingale or thyme; a wedding
that begins with smells like that, by my faith, ought to be plentiful and
unstinting."

"Have done, thou glutton," said Don Quixote; "come, let us go and witness
this bridal, and see what the rejected Basilio does."

"Let him do what he likes," returned Sancho; "be he not poor, he would
marry Quiteria. To make a grand match for himself, and he without a
farthing; is there nothing else? Faith, senor, it's my opinion the poor
man should be content with what he can get, and not go looking for
dainties in the bottom of the sea. I will bet my arm that Camacho could
bury Basilio in reals; and if that be so, as no doubt it is, what a fool
Quiteria would be to refuse the fine dresses and jewels Camacho must have
given her and will give her, and take Basilio's bar-throwing and
sword-play. They won't give a pint of wine at the tavern for a good cast
of the bar or a neat thrust of the sword. Talents and accomplishments
that can't be turned into money, let Count Dirlos have them; but when
such gifts fall to one that has hard cash, I wish my condition of life
was as becoming as they are. On a good foundation you can raise a good
building, and the best foundation in the world is money."

"For God's sake, Sancho," said Don Quixote here, "stop that harangue; it
is my belief, if thou wert allowed to continue all thou beginnest every
instant, thou wouldst have no time left for eating or sleeping; for thou
wouldst spend it all in talking."

"If your worship had a good memory," replied Sancho, "you would remember
the articles of our agreement before we started from home this last time;
one of them was that I was to be let say all I liked, so long as it was
not against my neighbour or your worship's authority; and so far, it
seems to me, I have not broken the said article."

"I remember no such article, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "and even if it
were so, I desire you to hold your tongue and come along; for the
instruments we heard last night are already beginning to enliven the
valleys again, and no doubt the marriage will take place in the cool of
the morning, and not in the heat of the afternoon."

Sancho did as his master bade him, and putting the saddle on Rocinante
and the pack-saddle on Dapple, they both mounted and at a leisurely pace
entered the arcade. The first thing that presented itself to Sancho's
eyes was a whole ox spitted on a whole elm tree, and in the fire at which
it was to be roasted there was burning a middling-sized mountain of
faggots, and six stewpots that stood round the blaze had not been made in
the ordinary mould of common pots, for they were six half wine-jars, each
fit to hold the contents of a slaughter-house; they swallowed up whole
sheep and hid them away in their insides without showing any more sign of
them than if they were pigeons. Countless were the hares ready skinned
and the plucked fowls that hung on the trees for burial in the pots,
numberless the wildfowl and game of various sorts suspended from the
branches that the air might keep them cool. Sancho counted more than
sixty wine skins of over six gallons each, and all filled, as it proved
afterwards, with generous wines. There were, besides, piles of the
whitest bread, like the heaps of corn one sees on the threshing-floors.
There was a wall made of cheeses arranged like open brick-work, and two
cauldrons full of oil, bigger than those of a dyer's shop, served for
cooking fritters, which when fried were taken out with two mighty
shovels, and plunged into another cauldron of prepared honey that stood
close by. Of cooks and cook-maids there were over fifty, all clean,
brisk, and blithe. In the capacious belly of the ox were a dozen soft
little sucking-pigs, which, sewn up there, served to give it tenderness
and flavour. The spices of different kinds did not seem to have been
bought by the pound but by the quarter, and all lay open to view in a
great chest. In short, all the preparations made for the wedding were in
rustic style, but abundant enough to feed an army.

Sancho observed all, contemplated all, and everything won his heart. The
first to captivate and take his fancy were the pots, out of which he
would have very gladly helped himself to a moderate pipkinful; then the
wine skins secured his affections; and lastly, the produce of the
frying-pans, if, indeed, such imposing cauldrons may be called
frying-pans; and unable to control himself or bear it any longer, he
approached one of the busy cooks and civilly but hungrily begged
permission to soak a scrap of bread in one of the pots; to which the cook
made answer, "Brother, this is not a day on which hunger is to have any
sway, thanks to the rich Camacho; get down and look about for a ladle and
skim off a hen or two, and much good may they do you."

"I don't see one," said Sancho.

"Wait a bit," said the cook; "sinner that I am! how particular and
bashful you are!" and so saying, he seized a bucket and plunging it into
one of the half jars took up three hens and a couple of geese, and said
to Sancho, "Fall to, friend, and take the edge off your appetite with
these skimmings until dinner-time comes."

"I have nothing to put them in," said Sancho.

"Well then," said the cook, "take spoon and all; for Camacho's wealth and
happiness furnish everything."

While Sancho fared thus, Don Quixote was watching the entrance, at one
end of the arcade, of some twelve peasants, all in holiday and gala
dress, mounted on twelve beautiful mares with rich handsome field
trappings and a number of little bells attached to their petrals, who,
marshalled in regular order, ran not one but several courses over the
meadow, with jubilant shouts and cries of "Long live Camacho and
Quiteria! he as rich as she is fair; and she the fairest on earth!"

Hearing this, Don Quixote said to himself, "It is easy to see these folk
have never seen my Dulcinea del Toboso; for if they had they would be
more moderate in their praises of this Quiteria of theirs."

Shortly after this, several bands of dancers of various sorts began to
enter the arcade at different points, and among them one of sword-dancers
composed of some four-and-twenty lads of gallant and high-spirited mien,
clad in the finest and whitest of linen, and with handkerchiefs
embroidered in various colours with fine silk; and one of those on the
mares asked an active youth who led them if any of the dancers had been
wounded. "As yet, thank God, no one has been wounded," said he, "we are
all safe and sound;" and he at once began to execute complicated figures
with the rest of his comrades, with so many turns and so great dexterity,
that although Don Quixote was well used to see dances of the same kind,
he thought he had never seen any so good as this. He also admired another
that came in composed of fair young maidens, none of whom seemed to be
under fourteen or over eighteen years of age, all clad in green stuff,
with their locks partly braided, partly flowing loose, but all of such
bright gold as to vie with the sunbeams, and over them they wore garlands
of jessamine, roses, amaranth, and honeysuckle. At their head were a
venerable old man and an ancient dame, more brisk and active, however,
than might have been expected from their years. The notes of a Zamora
bagpipe accompanied them, and with modesty in their countenances and in
their eyes, and lightness in their feet, they looked the best dancers in
the world.

Following these there came an artistic dance of the sort they call
"speaking dances." It was composed of eight nymphs in two files, with the
god Cupid leading one and Interest the other, the former furnished with
wings, bow, quiver and arrows, the latter in a rich dress of gold and
silk of divers colours. The nymphs that followed Love bore their names
written on white parchment in large letters on their backs. "Poetry" was
the name of the first, "Wit" of the second, "Birth" of the third, and
"Valour" of the fourth. Those that followed Interest were distinguished
in the same way; the badge of the first announced "Liberality," that of
the second "Largess," the third "Treasure," and the fourth "Peaceful
Possession." In front of them all came a wooden castle drawn by four wild
men, all clad in ivy and hemp stained green, and looking so natural that
they nearly terrified Sancho. On the front of the castle and on each of
the four sides of its frame it bore the inscription "Castle of Caution."
Four skillful tabor and flute players accompanied them, and the dance
having been opened, Cupid, after executing two figures, raised his eyes
and bent his bow against a damsel who stood between the turrets of the
castle, and thus addressed her:

I am the mighty God whose sway
  Is potent over land and sea.
The heavens above us own me; nay,
  The shades below acknowledge me.
I know not fear, I have my will,
  Whate'er my whim or fancy be;
For me there's no impossible,
  I order, bind, forbid, set free.

Having concluded the stanza he discharged an arrow at the top of the
castle, and went back to his place. Interest then came forward and went
through two more figures, and as soon as the tabors ceased, he said:

But mightier than Love am I,
  Though Love it be that leads me on,
Than mine no lineage is more high,
  Or older, underneath the sun.
To use me rightly few know how,
  To act without me fewer still,
For I am Interest, and I vow
  For evermore to do thy will.

Interest retired, and Poetry came forward, and when she had gone through
her figures like the others, fixing her eyes on the damsel of the castle,
she said:

With many a fanciful conceit,
  Fair Lady, winsome Poesy
Her soul, an offering at thy feet,
  Presents in sonnets unto thee.
If thou my homage wilt not scorn,
  Thy fortune, watched by envious eyes,
On wings of poesy upborne
  Shall be exalted to the skies.

Poetry withdrew, and on the side of Interest Liberality advanced, and
after having gone through her figures, said:

To give, while shunning each extreme,
  The sparing hand, the over-free,
Therein consists, so wise men deem,
  The virtue Liberality.
But thee, fair lady, to enrich,
  Myself a prodigal I'll prove,
A vice not wholly shameful, which
  May find its fair excuse in love.

In the same manner all the characters of the two bands advanced and
retired, and each executed its figures, and delivered its verses, some of
them graceful, some burlesque, but Don Quixote's memory (though he had an
excellent one) only carried away those that have been just quoted. All
then mingled together, forming chains and breaking off again with
graceful, unconstrained gaiety; and whenever Love passed in front of the
castle he shot his arrows up at it, while Interest broke gilded pellets
against it. At length, after they had danced a good while, Interest drew
out a great purse, made of the skin of a large brindled cat and to all
appearance full of money, and flung it at the castle, and with the force
of the blow the boards fell asunder and tumbled down, leaving the damsel
exposed and unprotected. Interest and the characters of his band
advanced, and throwing a great chain of gold over her neck pretended to
take her and lead her away captive, on seeing which, Love and his
supporters made as though they would release her, the whole action being
to the accompaniment of the tabors and in the form of a regular dance.
The wild men made peace between them, and with great dexterity readjusted
and fixed the boards of the castle, and the damsel once more ensconced
herself within; and with this the dance wound up, to the great enjoyment
of the beholders.

Don Quixote asked one of the nymphs who it was that had composed and
arranged it. She replied that it was a beneficiary of the town who had a
nice taste in devising things of the sort. "I will lay a wager," said Don
Quixote, "that the same bachelor or beneficiary is a greater friend of
Camacho's than of Basilio's, and that he is better at satire than at
vespers; he has introduced the accomplishments of Basilio and the riches
of Camacho very neatly into the dance." Sancho Panza, who was listening
to all this, exclaimed, "The king is my cock; I stick to Camacho." "It is
easy to see thou art a clown, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and one of that
sort that cry 'Long life to the conqueror.'"

"I don't know of what sort I am," returned Sancho, "but I know very well
I'll never get such elegant skimmings off Basilio's pots as these I have
got off Camacho's;" and he showed him the bucketful of geese and hens,
and seizing one began to eat with great gaiety and appetite, saying, "A
fig for the accomplishments of Basilio! As much as thou hast so much art
thou worth, and as much as thou art worth so much hast thou. As a
grandmother of mine used to say, there are only two families in the
world, the Haves and the Haven'ts; and she stuck to the Haves; and to
this day, Senor Don Quixote, people would sooner feel the pulse of
'Have,' than of 'Know;' an ass covered with gold looks better than a
horse with a pack-saddle. So once more I say I stick to Camacho, the
bountiful skimmings of whose pots are geese and hens, hares and rabbits;
but of Basilio's, if any ever come to hand, or even to foot, they'll be
only rinsings."

"Hast thou finished thy harangue, Sancho?" said Don Quixote. "Of course I
have finished it," replied Sancho, "because I see your worship takes
offence at it; but if it was not for that, there was work enough cut out
for three days."

"God grant I may see thee dumb before I die, Sancho," said Don Quixote.

"At the rate we are going," said Sancho, "I'll be chewing clay before
your worship dies; and then, maybe, I'll be so dumb that I'll not say a
word until the end of the world, or, at least, till the day of judgment."

"Even should that happen, O Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thy silence will
never come up to all thou hast talked, art talking, and wilt talk all thy
life; moreover, it naturally stands to reason, that my death will come
before thine; so I never expect to see thee dumb, not even when thou art
drinking or sleeping, and that is the utmost I can say."

"In good faith, senor," replied Sancho, "there's no trusting that
fleshless one, I mean Death, who devours the lamb as soon as the sheep,
and, as I have heard our curate say, treads with equal foot upon the
lofty towers of kings and the lowly huts of the poor. That lady is more
mighty than dainty, she is in no way squeamish, she devours all and is ready
for all, and fills her alforjas with people of all sorts, ages, and
ranks. She is no reaper that sleeps out the noontide; at all times she is
reaping and cutting down, as well the dry grass as the green; she never
seems to chew, but bolts and swallows all that is put before her, for she
has a canine appetite that is never satisfied; and though she has no
belly, she shows she has a dropsy and is athirst to drink the lives of
all that live, as one would drink a jug of cold water."

"Say no more, Sancho," said Don Quixote at this; "don't try to better it,
and risk a fall; for in truth what thou hast said about death in thy
rustic phrase is what a good preacher might have said. I tell thee,
Sancho, if thou hadst discretion equal to thy mother wit, thou mightst
take a pulpit in hand, and go about the world preaching fine sermons."
"He preaches well who lives well," said Sancho, "and I know no more
theology than that."

"Nor needst thou," said Don Quixote, "but I cannot conceive or make out
how it is that, the fear of God being the beginning of wisdom, thou, who
art more afraid of a lizard than of him, knowest so much."

"Pass judgment on your chivalries, senor," returned Sancho, "and don't
set yourself up to judge of other men's fears or braveries, for I am as
good a fearer of God as my neighbours; but leave me to despatch these
skimmings, for all the rest is only idle talk that we shall be called to
account for in the other world;" and so saying, he began a fresh attack
on the bucket, with such a hearty appetite that he aroused Don Quixote's,
who no doubt would have helped him had he not been prevented by what must
be told farther on.




CHAPTER XXI.

IN WHICH CAMACHO'S WEDDING IS CONTINUED, WITH OTHER DELIGHTFUL INCIDENTS


While Don Quixote and Sancho were engaged in the discussion set forth the
last chapter, they heard loud shouts and a great noise, which were
uttered and made by the men on the mares as they went at full gallop,
shouting, to receive the bride and bridegroom, who were approaching with
musical instruments and pageantry of all sorts around them, and
accompanied by the priest and the relatives of both, and all the most
distinguished people of the surrounding villages. When Sancho saw the
bride, he exclaimed, "By my faith, she is not dressed like a country
girl, but like some fine court lady; egad, as well as I can make out, the
patena she wears rich coral, and her green Cuenca stuff is thirty-pile
velvet; and then the white linen trimming--by my oath, but it's satin!
Look at her hands--jet rings on them! May I never have luck if they're
not gold rings, and real gold, and set with pearls as white as a curdled
milk, and every one of them worth an eye of one's head! Whoreson baggage,
what hair she has! if it's not a wig, I never saw longer or fairer all
the days of my life. See how bravely she bears herself--and her shape!
Wouldn't you say she was like a walking palm tree loaded with clusters of
dates? for the trinkets she has hanging from her hair and neck look just
like them. I swear in my heart she is a brave lass, and fit 'to pass over
the banks of Flanders.'"

Don Quixote laughed at Sancho's boorish eulogies and thought that, saving
his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, he had never seen a more beautiful woman.
The fair Quiteria appeared somewhat pale, which was, no doubt, because of
the bad night brides always pass dressing themselves out for their
wedding on the morrow. They advanced towards a theatre that stood on one
side of the meadow decked with carpets and boughs, where they were to
plight their troth, and from which they were to behold the dances and
plays; but at the moment of their arrival at the spot they heard a loud
outcry behind them, and a voice exclaiming, "Wait a little, ye, as
inconsiderate as ye are hasty!" At these words all turned round, and
perceived that the speaker was a man clad in what seemed to be a loose
black coat garnished with crimson patches like flames. He was crowned (as
was presently seen) with a crown of gloomy cypress, and in his hand he
held a long staff. As he approached he was recognised by everyone as the
gay Basilio, and all waited anxiously to see what would come of his
words, in dread of some catastrophe in consequence of his appearance at
such a moment. He came up at last weary and breathless, and planting
himself in front of the bridal pair, drove his staff, which had a steel
spike at the end, into the ground, and, with a pale face and eyes fixed
on Quiteria, he thus addressed her in a hoarse, trembling voice:

"Well dost thou know, ungrateful Quiteria, that according to the holy law
we acknowledge, so long as live thou canst take no husband; nor art thou
ignorant either that, in my hopes that time and my own exertions would
improve my fortunes, I have never failed to observe the respect due to
thy honour; but thou, casting behind thee all thou owest to my true love,
wouldst surrender what is mine to another whose wealth serves to bring
him not only good fortune but supreme happiness; and now to complete it
(not that I think he deserves it, but inasmuch as heaven is pleased to
bestow it upon him), I will, with my own hands, do away with the obstacle
that may interfere with it, and remove myself from between you. Long live
the rich Camacho! many a happy year may he live with the ungrateful
Quiteria! and let the poor Basilio die, Basilio whose poverty clipped the
wings of his happiness, and brought him to the grave!"

And so saying, he seized the staff he had driven into the ground, and
leaving one half of it fixed there, showed it to be a sheath that
concealed a tolerably long rapier; and, what may be called its hilt being
planted in the ground, he swiftly, coolly, and deliberately threw himself
upon it, and in an instant the bloody point and half the steel blade
appeared at his back, the unhappy man falling to the earth bathed in his
blood, and transfixed by his own weapon.

His friends at once ran to his aid, filled with grief at his misery and
sad fate, and Don Quixote, dismounting from Rocinante, hastened to
support him, and took him in his arms, and found he had not yet ceased to
breathe. They were about to draw out the rapier, but the priest who was
standing by objected to its being withdrawn before he had confessed him,
as the instant of its withdrawal would be that of this death. Basilio,
however, reviving slightly, said in a weak voice, as though in pain, "If
thou wouldst consent, cruel Quiteria, to give me thy hand as my bride in
this last fatal moment, I might still hope that my rashness would find
pardon, as by its means I attained the bliss of being thine."

Hearing this the priest bade him think of the welfare of his soul rather
than of the cravings of the body, and in all earnestness implore God's
pardon for his sins and for his rash resolve; to which Basilio replied
that he was determined not to confess unless Quiteria first gave him her
hand in marriage, for that happiness would compose his mind and give him
courage to make his confession.

Don Quixote hearing the wounded man's entreaty, exclaimed aloud that what
Basilio asked was just and reasonable, and moreover a request that might
be easily complied with; and that it would be as much to Senor Camacho's
honour to receive the lady Quiteria as the widow of the brave Basilio as
if he received her direct from her father.

"In this case," said he, "it will be only to say 'yes,' and no
consequences can follow the utterance of the word, for the nuptial couch
of this marriage must be the grave."

Camacho was listening to all this, perplexed and bewildered and not
knowing what to say or do; but so urgent were the entreaties of Basilio's
friends, imploring him to allow Quiteria to give him her hand, so that
his soul, quitting this life in despair, should not be lost, that they
moved, nay, forced him, to say that if Quiteria were willing to give it
he was satisfied, as it was only putting off the fulfillment of his
wishes for a moment. At once all assailed Quiteria and pressed her, some
with prayers, and others with tears, and others with persuasive
arguments, to give her hand to poor Basilio; but she, harder than marble
and more unmoved than any statue, seemed unable or unwilling to utter a
word, nor would she have given any reply had not the priest bade her
decide quickly what she meant to do, as Basilio now had his soul at his
teeth, and there was no time for hesitation.

On this the fair Quiteria, to all appearance distressed, grieved, and
repentant, advanced without a word to where Basilio lay, his eyes already
turned in his head, his breathing short and painful, murmuring the name
of Quiteria between his teeth, and apparently about to die like a heathen
and not like a Christian. Quiteria approached him, and kneeling, demanded
his hand by signs without speaking. Basilio opened his eyes and gazing
fixedly at her, said, "O Quiteria, why hast thou turned compassionate at
a moment when thy compassion will serve as a dagger to rob me of life,
for I have not now the strength left either to bear the happiness thou
givest me in accepting me as thine, or to suppress the pain that is
rapidly drawing the dread shadow of death over my eyes? What I entreat of
thee, O thou fatal star to me, is that the hand thou demandest of me and
wouldst give me, be not given out of complaisance or to deceive me
afresh, but that thou confess and declare that without any constraint
upon thy will thou givest it to me as to thy lawful husband; for it is
not meet that thou shouldst trifle with me at such a moment as this, or
have recourse to falsehoods with one who has dealt so truly by thee."

While uttering these words he showed such weakness that the bystanders
expected each return of faintness would take his life with it. Then
Quiteria, overcome with modesty and shame, holding in her right hand the
hand of Basilio, said, "No force would bend my will; as freely,
therefore, as it is possible for me to do so, I give thee the hand of a
lawful wife, and take thine if thou givest it to me of thine own free
will, untroubled and unaffected by the calamity thy hasty act has brought
upon thee."

"Yes, I give it," said Basilio, "not agitated or distracted, but with
unclouded reason that heaven is pleased to grant me, thus do I give
myself to be thy husband."

"And I give myself to be thy wife," said Quiteria, "whether thou livest
many years, or they carry thee from my arms to the grave."

"For one so badly wounded," observed Sancho at this point, "this young
man has a great deal to say; they should make him leave off billing and
cooing, and attend to his soul; for to my thinking he has it more on his
tongue than at his teeth."

Basilio and Quiteria having thus joined hands, the priest, deeply moved
and with tears in his eyes, pronounced the blessing upon them, and
implored heaven to grant an easy passage to the soul of the newly wedded
man, who, the instant he received the blessing, started nimbly to his
feet and with unparalleled effrontery pulled out the rapier that had been
sheathed in his body. All the bystanders were astounded, and some, more
simple than inquiring, began shouting, "A miracle, a miracle!" But
Basilio replied, "No miracle, no miracle; only a trick, a trick!" The
priest, perplexed and amazed, made haste to examine the wound with both
hands, and found that the blade had passed, not through Basilio's flesh
and ribs, but through a hollow iron tube full of blood, which he had
adroitly fixed at the place, the blood, as was afterwards ascertained,
having been so prepared as not to congeal. In short, the priest and
Camacho and most of those present saw they were tricked and made fools
of. The bride showed no signs of displeasure at the deception; on the
contrary, hearing them say that the marriage, being fraudulent, would not
be valid, she said that she confirmed it afresh, whence they all
concluded that the affair had been planned by agreement and understanding
between the pair, whereat Camacho and his supporters were so mortified
that they proceeded to revenge themselves by violence, and a great number
of them drawing their swords attacked Basilio, in whose protection as
many more swords were in an instant unsheathed, while Don Quixote taking
the lead on horseback, with his lance over his arm and well covered with
his shield, made all give way before him. Sancho, who never found any
pleasure or enjoyment in such doings, retreated to the wine-jars from
which he had taken his delectable skimmings, considering that, as a holy
place, that spot would be respected.

"Hold, sirs, hold!" cried Don Quixote in a loud voice; "we have no right
to take vengeance for wrongs that love may do to us: remember love and
war are the same thing, and as in war it is allowable and common to make
use of wiles and stratagems to overcome the enemy, so in the contests and
rivalries of love the tricks and devices employed to attain the desired
end are justifiable, provided they be not to the discredit or dishonour
of the loved object. Quiteria belonged to Basilio and Basilio to Quiteria
by the just and beneficent disposal of heaven. Camacho is rich, and can
purchase his pleasure when, where, and as it pleases him. Basilio has but
this ewe-lamb, and no one, however powerful he may be, shall take her
from him; these two whom God hath joined man cannot separate; and he who
attempts it must first pass the point of this lance;" and so saying he
brandished it so stoutly and dexterously that he overawed all who did not
know him.

But so deep an impression had the rejection of Quiteria made on Camacho's
mind that it banished her at once from his thoughts; and so the counsels
of the priest, who was a wise and kindly disposed man, prevailed with
him, and by their means he and his partisans were pacified and
tranquillised, and to prove it put up their swords again, inveighing
against the pliancy of Quiteria rather than the craftiness of Basilio;
Camacho maintaining that, if Quiteria as a maiden had such a love for
Basilio, she would have loved him too as a married woman, and that he
ought to thank heaven more for having taken her than for having given
her.

Camacho and those of his following, therefore, being consoled and
pacified, those on Basilio's side were appeased; and the rich Camacho, to
show that he felt no resentment for the trick, and did not care about it,
desired the festival to go on just as if he were married in reality.
Neither Basilio, however, nor his bride, nor their followers would take
any part in it, and they withdrew to Basilio's village; for the poor, if
they are persons of virtue and good sense, have those who follow, honour,
and uphold them, just as the rich have those who flatter and dance
attendance on them. With them they carried Don Quixote, regarding him as
a man of worth and a stout one. Sancho alone had a cloud on his soul, for
he found himself debarred from waiting for Camacho's splendid feast and
festival, which lasted until night; and thus dragged away, he moodily
followed his master, who accompanied Basilio's party, and left behind him
the flesh-pots of Egypt; though in his heart he took them with him, and
their now nearly finished skimmings that he carried in the bucket
conjured up visions before his eyes of the glory and abundance of the
good cheer he was losing. And so, vexed and dejected though not hungry,
without dismounting from Dapple he followed in the footsteps of
Rocinante.




CHAPTER XXII.

WHEREIN IS RELATED THE GRAND ADVENTURE OF THE CAVE OF MONTESINOS IN THE
HEART OF LA MANCHA, WHICH THE VALIANT DON QUIXOTE BROUGHT TO A HAPPY
TERMINATION


Many and great were the attentions shown to Don Quixote by the newly
married couple, who felt themselves under an obligation to him for coming
forward in defence of their cause; and they exalted his wisdom to the
same level with his courage, rating him as a Cid in arms, and a Cicero in
eloquence. Worthy Sancho enjoyed himself for three days at the expense of
the pair, from whom they learned that the sham wound was not a scheme
arranged with the fair Quiteria, but a device of Basilio's, who counted
on exactly the result they had seen; he confessed, it is true, that he
had confided his idea to some of his friends, so that at the proper time
they might aid him in his purpose and insure the success of the
deception.

"That," said Don Quixote, "is not and ought not to be called deception
which aims at virtuous ends;" and the marriage of lovers he maintained to
be a most excellent end, reminding them, however, that love has no
greater enemy than hunger and constant want; for love is all gaiety,
enjoyment, and happiness, especially when the lover is in the possession
of the object of his love, and poverty and want are the declared enemies
of all these; which he said to urge Senor Basilio to abandon the practice
of those accomplishments he was skilled in, for though they brought him
fame, they brought him no money, and apply himself to the acquisition of
wealth by legitimate industry, which will never fail those who are
prudent and persevering. The poor man who is a man of honour (if indeed a
poor man can be a man of honour) has a jewel when he has a fair wife, and
if she is taken from him, his honour is taken from him and slain. The
fair woman who is a woman of honour, and whose husband is poor, deserves
to be crowned with the laurels and crowns of victory and triumph. Beauty
by itself attracts the desires of all who behold it, and the royal eagles
and birds of towering flight stoop on it as on a dainty lure; but if
beauty be accompanied by want and penury, then the ravens and the kites
and other birds of prey assail it, and she who stands firm against such
attacks well deserves to be called the crown of her husband. "Remember, O
prudent Basilio," added Don Quixote, "it was the opinion of a certain
sage, I know not whom, that there was not more than one good woman in the
whole world; and his advice was that each one should think and believe
that this one good woman was his own wife, and in this way he would live
happy. I myself am not married, nor, so far, has it ever entered my
thoughts to be so; nevertheless I would venture to give advice to anyone
who might ask it, as to the mode in which he should seek a wife such as
he would be content to marry. The first thing I would recommend him,
would be to look to good name rather than to wealth, for a good woman
does not win a good name merely by being good, but by letting it be seen
that she is so, and open looseness and freedom do much more damage to a
woman's honour than secret depravity. If you take a good woman into your
house it will be an easy matter to keep her good, and even to make her
still better; but if you take a bad one you will find it hard work to
mend her, for it is no very easy matter to pass from one extreme to
another. I do not say it is impossible, but I look upon it as difficult."

Sancho, listening to all this, said to himself, "This master of mine,
when I say anything that has weight and substance, says I might take a
pulpit in hand, and go about the world preaching fine sermons; but I say
of him that, when he begins stringing maxims together and giving advice
not only might he take a pulpit in hand, but two on each finger, and go
into the market-places to his heart's content. Devil take you for a
knight-errant, what a lot of things you know! I used to think in my heart
that the only thing he knew was what belonged to his chivalry; but there
is nothing he won't have a finger in."

Sancho muttered this somewhat aloud, and his master overheard him, and
asked, "What art thou muttering there, Sancho?"

"I'm not saying anything or muttering anything," said Sancho; "I was only
saying to myself that I wish I had heard what your worship has said just
now before I married; perhaps I'd say now, 'The ox that's loose licks
himself well.'"

"Is thy Teresa so bad then, Sancho?"

"She is not very bad," replied Sancho; "but she is not very good; at
least she is not as good as I could wish."

"Thou dost wrong, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "to speak ill of thy wife;
for after all she is the mother of thy children." "We are quits,"
returned Sancho; "for she speaks ill of me whenever she takes it into her
head, especially when she is jealous; and Satan himself could not put up
with her then."

In fine, they remained three days with the newly married couple, by whom
they were entertained and treated like kings. Don Quixote begged the
fencing licentiate to find him a guide to show him the way to the cave of
Montesinos, as he had a great desire to enter it and see with his own
eyes if the wonderful tales that were told of it all over the country
were true. The licentiate said he would get him a cousin of his own, a
famous scholar, and one very much given to reading books of chivalry, who
would have great pleasure in conducting him to the mouth of the very
cave, and would show him the lakes of Ruidera, which were likewise famous
all over La Mancha, and even all over Spain; and he assured him he would
find him entertaining, for he was a youth who could write books good
enough to be printed and dedicated to princes. The cousin arrived at
last, leading an ass in foal, with a pack-saddle covered with a
parti-coloured carpet or sackcloth; Sancho saddled Rocinante, got Dapple
ready, and stocked his alforjas, along with which went those of the
cousin, likewise well filled; and so, commending themselves to God and
bidding farewell to all, they set out, taking the road for the famous
cave of Montesinos.

On the way Don Quixote asked the cousin of what sort and character his
pursuits, avocations, and studies were, to which he replied that he was
by profession a humanist, and that his pursuits and studies were making
books for the press, all of great utility and no less entertainment to
the nation. One was called "The Book of Liveries," in which he described
seven hundred and three liveries, with their colours, mottoes, and
ciphers, from which gentlemen of the court might pick and choose any they
fancied for festivals and revels, without having to go a-begging for them
from anyone, or puzzling their brains, as the saying is, to have them
appropriate to their objects and purposes; "for," said he, "I give the
jealous, the rejected, the forgotten, the absent, what will suit them,
and fit them without fail. I have another book, too, which I shall call
'Metamorphoses, or the Spanish Ovid,' one of rare and original invention,
for imitating Ovid in burlesque style, I show in it who the Giralda of
Seville and the Angel of the Magdalena were, what the sewer of
Vecinguerra at Cordova was, what the bulls of Guisando, the Sierra
Morena, the Leganitos and Lavapies fountains at Madrid, not forgetting
those of the Piojo, of the Cano Dorado, and of the Priora; and all with
their allegories, metaphors, and changes, so that they are amusing,
interesting, and instructive, all at once. Another book I have which I
call 'The Supplement to Polydore Vergil,' which treats of the invention
of things, and is a work of great erudition and research, for I establish
and elucidate elegantly some things of great importance which Polydore
omitted to mention. He forgot to tell us who was the first man in the
world that had a cold in his head, and who was the first to try
salivation for the French disease, but I give it accurately set forth,
and quote more than five-and-twenty authors in proof of it, so you may
perceive I have laboured to good purpose and that the book will be of
service to the whole world."

Sancho, who had been very attentive to the cousin's words, said to him,
"Tell me, senor--and God give you luck in printing your books-can you
tell me (for of course you know, as you know everything) who was the
first man that scratched his head? For to my thinking it must have been
our father Adam."

"So it must," replied the cousin; "for there is no doubt but Adam had a
head and hair; and being the first man in the world he would have
scratched himself sometimes."

"So I think," said Sancho; "but now tell me, who was the first tumbler in
the world?"

"Really, brother," answered the cousin, "I could not at this moment say
positively without having investigated it; I will look it up when I go
back to where I have my books, and will satisfy you the next time we
meet, for this will not be the last time."

"Look here, senor," said Sancho, "don't give yourself any trouble about
it, for I have just this minute hit upon what I asked you. The first
tumbler in the world, you must know, was Lucifer, when they cast or
pitched him out of heaven; for he came tumbling into the bottomless pit."

"You are right, friend," said the cousin; and said Don Quixote, "Sancho,
that question and answer are not thine own; thou hast heard them from
some one else."

"Hold your peace, senor," said Sancho; "faith, if I take to asking
questions and answering, I'll go on from this till to-morrow morning.
Nay! to ask foolish things and answer nonsense I needn't go looking for
help from my neighbours."

"Thou hast said more than thou art aware of, Sancho," said Don Quixote;
"for there are some who weary themselves out in learning and proving
things that, after they are known and proved, are not worth a farthing to
the understanding or memory."

In this and other pleasant conversation the day went by, and that night
they put up at a small hamlet whence it was not more than two leagues to
the cave of Montesinos, so the cousin told Don Quixote, adding, that if
he was bent upon entering it, it would be requisite for him to provide
himself with ropes, so that he might be tied and lowered into its depths.
Don Quixote said that even if it reached to the bottomless pit he meant
to see where it went to; so they bought about a hundred fathoms of rope,
and next day at two in the afternoon they arrived at the cave, the mouth
of which is spacious and wide, but full of thorn and wild-fig bushes and
brambles and briars, so thick and matted that they completely close it up
and cover it over.

On coming within sight of it the cousin, Sancho, and Don Quixote
dismounted, and the first two immediately tied the latter very firmly
with the ropes, and as they were girding and swathing him Sancho said to
him, "Mind what you are about, master mine; don't go burying yourself
alive, or putting yourself where you'll be like a bottle put to cool in a
well; it's no affair or business of your worship's to become the explorer
of this, which must be worse than a Moorish dungeon."

"Tie me and hold thy peace," said Don Quixote, "for an emprise like this,
friend Sancho, was reserved for me;" and said the guide, "I beg of you,
Senor Don Quixote, to observe carefully and examine with a hundred eyes
everything that is within there; perhaps there may be some things for me
to put into my book of 'Transformations.'"

"The drum is in hands that will know how to beat it well enough," said
Sancho Panza.

When he had said this and finished the tying (which was not over the
armour but only over the doublet) Don Quixote observed, "It was careless
of us not to have provided ourselves with a small cattle-bell to be tied
on the rope close to me, the sound of which would show that I was still
descending and alive; but as that is out of the question now, in God's
hand be it to guide me;" and forthwith he fell on his knees and in a low
voice offered up a prayer to heaven, imploring God to aid him and grant
him success in this to all appearance perilous and untried adventure, and
then exclaimed aloud, "O mistress of my actions and movements,
illustrious and peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, if so be the prayers and
supplications of this fortunate lover can reach thy ears, by thy
incomparable beauty I entreat thee to listen to them, for they but ask
thee not to refuse me thy favour and protection now that I stand in such
need of them. I am about to precipitate, to sink, to plunge myself into
the abyss that is here before me, only to let the world know that while
thou dost favour me there is no impossibility I will not attempt and
accomplish." With these words he approached the cavern, and perceived
that it was impossible to let himself down or effect an entrance except
by sheer force or cleaving a passage; so drawing his sword he began to
demolish and cut away the brambles at the mouth of the cave, at the noise
of which a vast multitude of crows and choughs flew out of it so thick
and so fast that they knocked Don Quixote down; and if he had been as
much of a believer in augury as he was a Catholic Christian he would have
taken it as a bad omen and declined to bury himself in such a place. He
got up, however, and as there came no more crows, or night-birds like the
bats that flew out at the same time with the crows, the cousin and Sancho
giving him rope, he lowered himself into the depths of the dread cavern;
and as he entered it Sancho sent his blessing after him, making a
thousand crosses over him and saying, "God, and the Pena de Francia, and
the Trinity of Gaeta guide thee, flower and cream of knights-errant.
There thou goest, thou dare-devil of the earth, heart of steel, arm of
brass; once more, God guide thee and send thee back safe, sound, and
unhurt to the light of this world thou art leaving to bury thyself in the
darkness thou art seeking there;" and the cousin offered up almost the
same prayers and supplications.

Don Quixote kept calling to them to give him rope and more rope, and they
gave it out little by little, and by the time the calls, which came out
of the cave as out of a pipe, ceased to be heard they had let down the
hundred fathoms of rope. They were inclined to pull Don Quixote up again,
as they could give him no more rope; however, they waited about half an
hour, at the end of which time they began to gather in the rope again
with great ease and without feeling any weight, which made them fancy Don
Quixote was remaining below; and persuaded that it was so, Sancho wept
bitterly, and hauled away in great haste in order to settle the question.
When, however, they had come to, as it seemed, rather more than eighty
fathoms they felt a weight, at which they were greatly delighted; and at
last, at ten fathoms more, they saw Don Quixote distinctly, and Sancho
called out to him, saying, "Welcome back, senor, for we had begun to
think you were going to stop there to found a family." But Don Quixote
answered not a word, and drawing him out entirely they perceived he had
his eyes shut and every appearance of being fast asleep.

They stretched him on the ground and untied him, but still he did not
awake; however, they rolled him back and forwards and shook and pulled
him about, so that after some time he came to himself, stretching himself
just as if he were waking up from a deep and sound sleep, and looking
about him he said, "God forgive you, friends; ye have taken me away from
the sweetest and most delightful existence and spectacle that ever human
being enjoyed or beheld. Now indeed do I know that all the pleasures of
this life pass away like a shadow and a dream, or fade like the flower of
the field. O ill-fated Montesinos! O sore-wounded Durandarte! O unhappy
Belerma! O tearful Guadiana, and ye O hapless daughters of Ruidera who
show in your waves the tears that flowed from your beauteous eyes!"

The cousin and Sancho Panza listened with deep attention to the words of
Don Quixote, who uttered them as though with immense pain he drew them up
from his very bowels. They begged of him to explain himself, and tell
them what he had seen in that hell down there.

"Hell do you call it?" said Don Quixote; "call it by no such name, for it
does not deserve it, as ye shall soon see."

He then begged them to give him something to eat, as he was very hungry.
They spread the cousin's sackcloth on the grass, and put the stores of
the alforjas into requisition, and all three sitting down lovingly and
sociably, they made a luncheon and a supper of it all in one; and when
the sackcloth was removed, Don Quixote of La Mancha said, "Let no one
rise, and attend to me, my sons, both of you."




CHAPTER XXIII.

OF THE WONDERFUL THINGS THE INCOMPARABLE DON QUIXOTE SAID HE SAW IN THE
PROFOUND CAVE OF MONTESINOS, THE IMPOSSIBILITY AND MAGNITUDE OF WHICH
CAUSE THIS ADVENTURE TO BE DEEMED APOCRYPHAL


It was about four in the afternoon when the sun, veiled in clouds, with
subdued light and tempered beams, enabled Don Quixote to relate, without
heat or inconvenience, what he had seen in the cave of Montesinos to his
two illustrious hearers, and he began as follows:

"A matter of some twelve or fourteen times a man's height down in this
pit, on the right-hand side, there is a recess or space, roomy enough to
contain a large cart with its mules. A little light reaches it through
some chinks or crevices, communicating with it and open to the surface of
the earth. This recess or space I perceived when I was already growing
weary and disgusted at finding myself hanging suspended by the rope,
travelling downwards into that dark region without any certainty or
knowledge of where I was going, so I resolved to enter it and rest myself
for a while. I called out, telling you not to let out more rope until I
bade you, but you cannot have heard me. I then gathered in the rope you
were sending me, and making a coil or pile of it I seated myself upon it,
ruminating and considering what I was to do to lower myself to the
bottom, having no one to hold me up; and as I was thus deep in thought
and perplexity, suddenly and without provocation a profound sleep fell
upon me, and when I least expected it, I know not how, I awoke and found
myself in the midst of the most beautiful, delightful meadow that nature
could produce or the most lively human imagination conceive. I opened my
eyes, I rubbed them, and found I was not asleep but thoroughly awake.
Nevertheless, I felt my head and breast to satisfy myself whether it was
I myself who was there or some empty delusive phantom; but touch,
feeling, the collected thoughts that passed through my mind, all
convinced me that I was the same then and there that I am this moment.
Next there presented itself to my sight a stately royal palace or castle,
with walls that seemed built of clear transparent crystal; and through
two great doors that opened wide therein, I saw coming forth and
advancing towards me a venerable old man, clad in a long gown of
mulberry-coloured serge that trailed upon the ground. On his shoulders
and breast he had a green satin collegiate hood, and covering his head a
black Milanese bonnet, and his snow-white beard fell below his girdle. He
carried no arms whatever, nothing but a rosary of beads bigger than
fair-sized filberts, each tenth bead being like a moderate ostrich egg;
his bearing, his gait, his dignity and imposing presence held me
spellbound and wondering. He approached me, and the first thing he did
was to embrace me closely, and then he said to me, 'For a long time now,
O valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, we who are here enchanted in
these solitudes have been hoping to see thee, that thou mayest make known
to the world what is shut up and concealed in this deep cave, called the
cave of Montesinos, which thou hast entered, an achievement reserved for
thy invincible heart and stupendous courage alone to attempt. Come with
me, illustrious sir, and I will show thee the marvels hidden within this
transparent castle, whereof I am the alcaide and perpetual warden; for I
am Montesinos himself, from whom the cave takes its name.'

"The instant he told me he was Montesinos, I asked him if the story they
told in the world above here was true, that he had taken out the heart of
his great friend Durandarte from his breast with a little dagger, and
carried it to the lady Belerma, as his friend when at the point of death
had commanded him. He said in reply that they spoke the truth in every
respect except as to the dagger, for it was not a dagger, nor little, but
a burnished poniard sharper than an awl."

"That poniard must have been made by Ramon de Hoces the Sevillian," said
Sancho.

"I do not know," said Don Quixote; "it could not have been by that
poniard maker, however, because Ramon de Hoces was a man of yesterday,
and the affair of Roncesvalles, where this mishap occurred, was long ago;
but the question is of no great importance, nor does it affect or make
any alteration in the truth or substance of the story."

"That is true," said the cousin; "continue, Senor Don Quixote, for I am
listening to you with the greatest pleasure in the world."

"And with no less do I tell the tale," said Don Quixote; "and so, to
proceed--the venerable Montesinos led me into the palace of crystal,
where, in a lower chamber, strangely cool and entirely of alabaster, was
an elaborately wrought marble tomb, upon which I beheld, stretched at
full length, a knight, not of bronze, or marble, or jasper, as are seen
on other tombs, but of actual flesh and bone. His right hand (which
seemed to me somewhat hairy and sinewy, a sign of great strength in its
owner) lay on the side of his heart; but before I could put any question
to Montesinos, he, seeing me gazing at the tomb in amazement, said to me,
'This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of the true lovers and
valiant knights of his time. He is held enchanted here, as I myself and
many others are, by that French enchanter Merlin, who, they say, was the
devil's son; but my belief is, not that he was the devil's son, but that
he knew, as the saying is, a point more than the devil. How or why he
enchanted us, no one knows, but time will tell, and I suspect that time
is not far off. What I marvel at is, that I know it to be as sure as that
it is now day, that Durandarte ended his life in my arms, and that, after
his death, I took out his heart with my own hands; and indeed it must
have weighed more than two pounds, for, according to naturalists, he who
has a large heart is more largely endowed with valour than he who has a
small one. Then, as this is the case, and as the knight did really die,
how comes it that he now moans and sighs from time to time, as if he were
still alive?'

"As he said this, the wretched Durandarte cried out in a loud voice:

O cousin Montesinos!
  'T was my last request of thee,
When my soul hath left the body,
  And that lying dead I be,
With thy poniard or thy dagger
  Cut the heart from out my breast,
And bear it to Belerma.
  This was my last request."

On hearing which, the venerable Montesinos fell on his knees before the
unhappy knight, and with tearful eyes exclaimed, 'Long since, Senor
Durandarte, my beloved cousin, long since have I done what you bade me on
that sad day when I lost you; I took out your heart as well as I could,
not leaving an atom of it in your breast, I wiped it with a lace
handkerchief, and I took the road to France with it, having first laid
you in the bosom of the earth with tears enough to wash and cleanse my
hands of the blood that covered them after wandering among your bowels;
and more by token, O cousin of my soul, at the first village I came to
after leaving Roncesvalles, I sprinkled a little salt upon your heart to
keep it sweet, and bring it, if not fresh, at least pickled, into the
presence of the lady Belerma, whom, together with you, myself, Guadiana
your squire, the duenna Ruidera and her seven daughters and two nieces,
and many more of your friends and acquaintances, the sage Merlin has been
keeping enchanted here these many years; and although more than five
hundred have gone by, not one of us has died; Ruidera and her daughters
and nieces alone are missing, and these, because of the tears they shed,
Merlin, out of the compassion he seems to have felt for them, changed
into so many lakes, which to this day in the world of the living, and in
the province of La Mancha, are called the Lakes of Ruidera. The seven
daughters belong to the kings of Spain and the two nieces to the knights
of a very holy order called the Order of St. John. Guadiana your squire,
likewise bewailing your fate, was changed into a river of his own name,
but when he came to the surface and beheld the sun of another heaven, so
great was his grief at finding he was leaving you, that he plunged into
the bowels of the earth; however, as he cannot help following his natural
course, he from time to time comes forth and shows himself to the sun and
the world. The lakes aforesaid send him their waters, and with these, and
others that come to him, he makes a grand and imposing entrance into
Portugal; but for all that, go where he may, he shows his melancholy and
sadness, and takes no pride in breeding dainty choice fish, only coarse
and tasteless sorts, very different from those of the golden Tagus. All
this that I tell you now, O cousin mine, I have told you many times
before, and as you make no answer, I fear that either you believe me not,
or do not hear me, whereat I feel God knows what grief. I have now news
to give you, which, if it serves not to alleviate your sufferings, will
not in any wise increase them. Know that you have here before you (open
your eyes and you will see) that great knight of whom the sage Merlin has
prophesied such great things; that Don Quixote of La Mancha I mean, who
has again, and to better purpose than in past times, revived in these
days knight-errantry, long since forgotten, and by whose intervention and
aid it may be we shall be disenchanted; for great deeds are reserved for
great men.'

"'And if that may not be,' said the wretched Durandarte in a low and
feeble voice, 'if that may not be, then, my cousin, I say "patience and
shuffle;"' and turning over on his side, he relapsed into his former
silence without uttering another word.

"And now there was heard a great outcry and lamentation, accompanied by
deep sighs and bitter sobs. I looked round, and through the crystal wall
I saw passing through another chamber a procession of two lines of fair
damsels all clad in mourning, and with white turbans of Turkish fashion
on their heads. Behind, in the rear of these, there came a lady, for so
from her dignity she seemed to be, also clad in black, with a white veil
so long and ample that it swept the ground. Her turban was twice as large
as the largest of any of the others; her eyebrows met, her nose was
rather flat, her mouth was large but with ruddy lips, and her teeth, of
which at times she allowed a glimpse, were seen to be sparse and ill-set,
though as white as peeled almonds. She carried in her hands a fine cloth,
and in it, as well as I could make out, a heart that had been mummied, so
parched and dried was it. Montesinos told me that all those forming the
procession were the attendants of Durandarte and Belerma, who were
enchanted there with their master and mistress, and that the last, she
who carried the heart in the cloth, was the lady Belerma, who, with her
damsels, four days in the week went in procession singing, or rather
weeping, dirges over the body and miserable heart of his cousin; and that
if she appeared to me somewhat ill-favoured or not so beautiful as fame
reported her, it was because of the bad nights and worse days that she
passed in that enchantment, as I could see by the great dark circles
round her eyes, and her sickly complexion; 'her sallowness, and the rings
round her eyes,' said he, 'are not caused by the periodical ailment usual
with women, for it is many months and even years since she has had any,
but by the grief her own heart suffers because of that which she holds in
her hand perpetually, and which recalls and brings back to her memory the
sad fate of her lost lover; were it not for this, hardly would the great
Dulcinea del Toboso, so celebrated in all these parts, and even in the
world, come up to her for beauty, grace, and gaiety.'

"'Hold hard!' said I at this, 'tell your story as you ought, Senor Don
Montesinos, for you know very well that all comparisons are odious, and
there is no occasion to compare one person with another; the peerless
Dulcinea del Toboso is what she is, and the lady Dona Belerma is what she
is and has been, and that's enough.' To which he made answer, 'Forgive
me, Senor Don Quixote; I own I was wrong and spoke unadvisedly in saying
that the lady Dulcinea could scarcely come up to the lady Belerma; for it
were enough for me to have learned, by what means I know not, that you
are her knight, to make me bite my tongue out before I compared her to
anything save heaven itself.' After this apology which the great
Montesinos made me, my heart recovered itself from the shock I had
received in hearing my lady compared with Belerma."

"Still I wonder," said Sancho, "that your worship did not get upon the
old fellow and bruise every bone of him with kicks, and pluck his beard
until you didn't leave a hair in it."

"Nay, Sancho, my friend," said Don Quixote, "it would not have been right
in me to do that, for we are all bound to pay respect to the aged, even
though they be not knights, but especially to those who are, and who are
enchanted; I only know I gave him as good as he brought in the many other
questions and answers we exchanged."

"I cannot understand, Senor Don Quixote," remarked the cousin here, "how
it is that your worship, in such a short space of time as you have been
below there, could have seen so many things, and said and answered so
much."

"How long is it since I went down?" asked Don Quixote.

"Little better than an hour," replied Sancho.

"That cannot be," returned Don Quixote, "because night overtook me while
I was there, and day came, and it was night again and day again three
times; so that, by my reckoning, I have been three days in those remote
regions beyond our ken."

"My master must be right," replied Sancho; "for as everything that has
happened to him is by enchantment, maybe what seems to us an hour would
seem three days and nights there."

"That's it," said Don Quixote.

"And did your worship eat anything all that time, senor?" asked the
cousin.

"I never touched a morsel," answered Don Quixote, "nor did I feel hunger,
or think of it."

"And do the enchanted eat?" said the cousin.

"They neither eat," said Don Quixote; "nor are they subject to the
greater excrements, though it is thought that their nails, beards, and
hair grow."

"And do the enchanted sleep, now, senor?" asked Sancho.

"Certainly not," replied Don Quixote; "at least, during those three days
I was with them not one of them closed an eye, nor did I either."

"The proverb, 'Tell me what company thou keepest and I'll tell thee what
thou art,' is to the point here," said Sancho; "your worship keeps
company with enchanted people that are always fasting and watching; what
wonder is it, then, that you neither eat nor sleep while you are with
them? But forgive me, senor, if I say that of all this you have told us
now, may God take me--I was just going to say the devil--if I believe a
single particle."

"What!" said the cousin, "has Senor Don Quixote, then, been lying? Why,
even if he wished it he has not had time to imagine and put together such
a host of lies."

"I don't believe my master lies," said Sancho.

"If not, what dost thou believe?" asked Don Quixote.

"I believe," replied Sancho, "that this Merlin, or those enchanters who
enchanted the whole crew your worship says you saw and discoursed with
down there, stuffed your imagination or your mind with all this rigmarole
you have been treating us to, and all that is still to come."

"All that might be, Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "but it is not so, for
everything that I have told you I saw with my own eyes, and touched with
my own hands. But what will you say when I tell you now how, among the
countless other marvellous things Montesinos showed me (of which at
leisure and at the proper time I will give thee an account in the course
of our journey, for they would not be all in place here), he showed me
three country girls who went skipping and capering like goats over the
pleasant fields there, and the instant I beheld them I knew one to be the
peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, and the other two those same country girls
that were with her and that we spoke to on the road from El Toboso! I
asked Montesinos if he knew them, and he told me he did not, but he
thought they must be some enchanted ladies of distinction, for it was
only a few days before that they had made their appearance in those
meadows; but I was not to be surprised at that, because there were a
great many other ladies there of times past and present, enchanted in
various strange shapes, and among them he had recognised Queen Guinevere
and her dame Quintanona, she who poured out the wine for Lancelot when he
came from Britain."

When Sancho Panza heard his master say this he was ready to take leave of
his senses, or die with laughter; for, as he knew the real truth about
the pretended enchantment of Dulcinea, in which he himself had been the
enchanter and concocter of all the evidence, he made up his mind at last
that, beyond all doubt, his master was out of his wits and stark mad, so
he said to him, "It was an evil hour, a worse season, and a sorrowful
day, when your worship, dear master mine, went down to the other world,
and an unlucky moment when you met with Senor Montesinos, who has sent
you back to us like this. You were well enough here above in your full
senses, such as God had given you, delivering maxims and giving advice at
every turn, and not as you are now, talking the greatest nonsense that
can be imagined."

"As I know thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "I heed not thy words."

"Nor I your worship's," said Sancho, "whether you beat me or kill me for
those I have spoken, and will speak if you don't correct and mend your
own. But tell me, while we are still at peace, how or by what did you
recognise the lady our mistress; and if you spoke to her, what did you
say, and what did she answer?"

"I recognised her," said Don Quixote, "by her wearing the same garments
she wore when thou didst point her out to me. I spoke to her, but she did
not utter a word in reply; on the contrary, she turned her back on me and
took to flight, at such a pace that crossbow bolt could not have
overtaken her. I wished to follow her, and would have done so had not
Montesinos recommended me not to take the trouble as it would be useless,
particularly as the time was drawing near when it would be necessary for
me to quit the cavern. He told me, moreover, that in course of time he
would let me know how he and Belerma, and Durandarte, and all who were
there, were to be disenchanted. But of all I saw and observed down there,
what gave me most pain was, that while Montesinos was speaking to me, one
of the two companions of the hapless Dulcinea approached me on one
without my having seen her coming, and with tears in her eyes said to me,
in a low, agitated voice, 'My lady Dulcinea del Toboso kisses your
worship's hands, and entreats you to do her the favour of letting her
know how you are; and, being in great need, she also entreats your
worship as earnestly as she can to be so good as to lend her half a dozen
reals, or as much as you may have about you, on this new dimity petticoat
that I have here; and she promises to repay them very speedily.' I was
amazed and taken aback by such a message, and turning to Senor Montesinos
I asked him, 'Is it possible, Senor Montesinos, that persons of
distinction under enchantment can be in need?' To which he replied,
'Believe me, Senor Don Quixote, that which is called need is to be met
with everywhere, and penetrates all quarters and reaches everyone, and
does not spare even the enchanted; and as the lady Dulcinea del Toboso
sends to beg those six reals, and the pledge is to all appearance a good
one, there is nothing for it but to give them to her, for no doubt she
must be in some great strait.' 'I will take no pledge of her,' I replied,
'nor yet can I give her what she asks, for all I have is four reals;
which I gave (they were those which thou, Sancho, gavest me the other day
to bestow in alms upon the poor I met along the road), and I said, 'Tell
your mistress, my dear, that I am grieved to the heart because of her
distresses, and wish I was a Fucar to remedy them, and that I would have
her know that I cannot be, and ought not be, in health while deprived of
the happiness of seeing her and enjoying her discreet conversation, and
that I implore her as earnestly as I can, to allow herself to be seen and
addressed by this her captive servant and forlorn knight. Tell her, too,
that when she least expects it she will hear it announced that I have
made an oath and vow after the fashion of that which the Marquis of
Mantua made to avenge his nephew Baldwin, when he found him at the point
of death in the heart of the mountains, which was, not to eat bread off a
tablecloth, and other trifling matters which he added, until he had
avenged him; and I will make the same to take no rest, and to roam the
seven regions of the earth more thoroughly than the Infante Don Pedro of
Portugal ever roamed them, until I have disenchanted her.' 'All that and
more, you owe my lady,' the damsel's answer to me, and taking the four
reals, instead of making me a curtsey she cut a caper, springing two full
yards into the air."

"O blessed God!" exclaimed Sancho aloud at this, "is it possible that
such things can be in the world, and that enchanters and enchantments can
have such power in it as to have changed my master's right senses into a
craze so full of absurdity! O senor, senor, for God's sake, consider
yourself, have a care for your honour, and give no credit to this silly
stuff that has left you scant and short of wits."

"Thou talkest in this way because thou lovest me, Sancho," said Don
Quixote; "and not being experienced in the things of the world,
everything that has some difficulty about it seems to thee impossible;
but time will pass, as I said before, and I will tell thee some of the
things I saw down there which will make thee believe what I have related
now, the truth of which admits of neither reply nor question."




CHAPTER XXIV.

WHEREIN ARE RELATED A THOUSAND TRIFLING MATTERS, AS TRIVIAL AS THEY ARE
NECESSARY TO THE RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THIS GREAT HISTORY


He who translated this great history from the original written by its
first author, Cide Hamete Benengeli, says that on coming to the chapter
giving the adventures of the cave of Montesinos he found written on the
margin of it, in Hamete's own hand, these exact words:

"I cannot convince or persuade myself that everything that is written in
the preceding chapter could have precisely happened to the valiant Don
Quixote; and for this reason, that all the adventures that have occurred
up to the present have been possible and probable; but as for this one of
the cave, I see no way of accepting it as true, as it passes all
reasonable bounds. For me to believe that Don Quixote could lie, he being
the most truthful gentleman and the noblest knight of his time, is
impossible; he would not have told a lie though he were shot to death
with arrows. On the other hand, I reflect that he related and told the
story with all the circumstances detailed, and that he could not in so
short a space have fabricated such a vast complication of absurdities;
if, then, this adventure seems apocryphal, it is no fault of mine; and
so, without affirming its falsehood or its truth, I write it down. Decide
for thyself in thy wisdom, reader; for I am not bound, nor is it in my
power, to do more; though certain it is they say that at the time of his
death he retracted, and said he had invented it, thinking it matched and
tallied with the adventures he had read of in his histories." And then he
goes on to say:

The cousin was amazed as well at Sancho's boldness as at the patience of
his master, and concluded that the good temper the latter displayed arose
from the happiness he felt at having seen his lady Dulcinea, even
enchanted as she was; because otherwise the words and language Sancho had
addressed to him deserved a thrashing; for indeed he seemed to him to
have been rather impudent to his master, to whom he now observed, "I,
Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha, look upon the time I have spent in
travelling with your worship as very well employed, for I have gained
four things in the course of it; the first is that I have made your
acquaintance, which I consider great good fortune; the second, that I
have learned what the cave of Montesinos contains, together with the
transformations of Guadiana and of the lakes of Ruidera; which will be of
use to me for the Spanish Ovid that I have in hand; the third, to have
discovered the antiquity of cards, that they were in use at least in the
time of Charlemagne, as may be inferred from the words you say Durandarte
uttered when, at the end of that long spell while Montesinos was talking
to him, he woke up and said, 'Patience and shuffle.' This phrase and
expression he could not have learned while he was enchanted, but only
before he had become so, in France, and in the time of the aforesaid
emperor Charlemagne. And this demonstration is just the thing for me for
that other book I am writing, the 'Supplement to Polydore Vergil on the
Invention of Antiquities;' for I believe he never thought of inserting
that of cards in his book, as I mean to do in mine, and it will be a
matter of great importance, particularly when I can cite so grave and
veracious an authority as Senor Durandarte. And the fourth thing is, that
I have ascertained the source of the river Guadiana, heretofore unknown
to mankind."

"You are right," said Don Quixote; "but I should like to know, if by
God's favour they grant you a licence to print those books of yours-which
I doubt--to whom do you mean to dedicate them?"

"There are lords and grandees in Spain to whom they can be dedicated,"
said the cousin.

"Not many," said Don Quixote; "not that they are unworthy of it, but
because they do not care to accept books and incur the obligation of
making the return that seems due to the author's labour and courtesy. One
prince I know who makes up for all the rest, and more-how much more, if I
ventured to say, perhaps I should stir up envy in many a noble breast;
but let this stand over for some more convenient time, and let us go and
look for some place to shelter ourselves in to-night."

"Not far from this," said the cousin, "there is a hermitage, where there
lives a hermit, who they say was a soldier, and who has the reputation of
being a good Christian and a very intelligent and charitable man. Close
to the hermitage he has a small house which he built at his own cost, but
though small it is large enough for the reception of guests."

"Has this hermit any hens, do you think?" asked Sancho.

"Few hermits are without them," said Don Quixote; "for those we see
now-a-days are not like the hermits of the Egyptian deserts who were clad
in palm-leaves, and lived on the roots of the earth. But do not think
that by praising these I am disparaging the others; all I mean to say is
that the penances of those of the present day do not come up to the
asceticism and austerity of former times; but it does not follow from
this that they are not all worthy; at least I think them so; and at the
worst the hypocrite who pretends to be good does less harm than the open
sinner."

At this point they saw approaching the spot where they stood a man on
foot, proceeding at a rapid pace, and beating a mule loaded with lances
and halberds. When he came up to them, he saluted them and passed on
without stopping. Don Quixote called to him, "Stay, good fellow; you seem
to be making more haste than suits that mule."

"I cannot stop, senor," answered the man; "for the arms you see I carry
here are to be used to-morrow, so I must not delay; God be with you. But
if you want to know what I am carrying them for, I mean to lodge to-night
at the inn that is beyond the hermitage, and if you be going the same
road you will find me there, and I will tell you some curious things;
once more God be with you;" and he urged on his mule at such a pace that
Don Quixote had no time to ask him what these curious things were that he
meant to tell them; and as he was somewhat inquisitive, and always
tortured by his anxiety to learn something new, he decided to set out at
once, and go and pass the night at the inn instead of stopping at the
hermitage, where the cousin would have had them halt. Accordingly they
mounted and all three took the direct road for the inn, which they
reached a little before nightfall. On the road the cousin proposed they
should go up to the hermitage to drink a sup. The instant Sancho heard
this he steered his Dapple towards it, and Don Quixote and the cousin did
the same; but it seems Sancho's bad luck so ordered it that the hermit
was not at home, for so a sub-hermit they found in the hermitage told
them. They called for some of the best. She replied that her master had
none, but that if they liked cheap water she would give it with great
pleasure.

"If I found any in water," said Sancho, "there are wells along the road
where I could have had enough of it. Ah, Camacho's wedding, and plentiful
house of Don Diego, how often do I miss you!"

Leaving the hermitage, they pushed on towards the inn, and a little
farther they came upon a youth who was pacing along in front of them at
no great speed, so that they overtook him. He carried a sword over his
shoulder, and slung on it a budget or bundle of his clothes apparently,
probably his breeches or pantaloons, and his cloak and a shirt or two;
for he had on a short jacket of velvet with a gloss like satin on it in
places, and had his shirt out; his stockings were of silk, and his shoes
square-toed as they wear them at court. His age might have been eighteen
or nineteen; he was of a merry countenance, and to all appearance of an
active habit, and he went along singing seguidillas to beguile the
wearisomeness of the road. As they came up with him he was just finishing
one, which the cousin got by heart and they say ran thus--

I'm off to the wars
  For the want of pence,
Oh, had I but money
  I'd show more sense.

The first to address him was Don Quixote, who said, "You travel very
airily, sir gallant; whither bound, may we ask, if it is your pleasure to
tell us?"

To which the youth replied, "The heat and my poverty are the reason of my
travelling so airily, and it is to the wars that I am bound."

"How poverty?" asked Don Quixote; "the heat one can understand."

"Senor," replied the youth, "in this bundle I carry velvet pantaloons to
match this jacket; if I wear them out on the road, I shall not be able to
make a decent appearance in them in the city, and I have not the
wherewithal to buy others; and so for this reason, as well as to keep
myself cool, I am making my way in this fashion to overtake some
companies of infantry that are not twelve leagues off, in which I shall
enlist, and there will be no want of baggage trains to travel with after
that to the place of embarkation, which they say will be Carthagena; I
would rather have the King for a master, and serve him in the wars, than
serve a court pauper."

"And did you get any bounty, now?" asked the cousin.

"If I had been in the service of some grandee of Spain or personage of
distinction," replied the youth, "I should have been safe to get it; for
that is the advantage of serving good masters, that out of the servants'
hall men come to be ancients or captains, or get a good pension. But I,
to my misfortune, always served place-hunters and adventurers, whose keep
and wages were so miserable and scanty that half went in paying for the
starching of one's collars; it would be a miracle indeed if a page
volunteer ever got anything like a reasonable bounty."

"And tell me, for heaven's sake," asked Don Quixote, "is it possible, my
friend, that all the time you served you never got any livery?"

"They gave me two," replied the page; "but just as when one quits a
religious community before making profession, they strip him of the dress
of the order and give him back his own clothes, so did my masters return
me mine; for as soon as the business on which they came to court was
finished, they went home and took back the liveries they had given merely
for show."

"What spilorceria!--as an Italian would say," said Don Quixote; "but for
all that, consider yourself happy in having left court with as worthy an
object as you have, for there is nothing on earth more honourable or
profitable than serving, first of all God, and then one's king and
natural lord, particularly in the profession of arms, by which, if not
more wealth, at least more honour is to be won than by letters, as I have
said many a time; for though letters may have founded more great houses
than arms, still those founded by arms have I know not what superiority
over those founded by letters, and a certain splendour belonging to them
that distinguishes them above all. And bear in mind what I am now about
to say to you, for it will be of great use and comfort to you in time of
trouble; it is, not to let your mind dwell on the adverse chances that
may befall you; for the worst of all is death, and if it be a good death,
the best of all is to die. They asked Julius Caesar, the valiant Roman
emperor, what was the best death. He answered, that which is unexpected,
which comes suddenly and unforeseen; and though he answered like a pagan,
and one without the knowledge of the true God, yet, as far as sparing our
feelings is concerned, he was right; for suppose you are killed in the
first engagement or skirmish, whether by a cannon ball or blown up by
mine, what matters it? It is only dying, and all is over; and according
to Terence, a soldier shows better dead in battle, than alive and safe in
flight; and the good soldier wins fame in proportion as he is obedient to
his captains and those in command over him. And remember, my son, that it
is better for the soldier to smell of gunpowder than of civet, and that
if old age should come upon you in this honourable calling, though you
may be covered with wounds and crippled and lame, it will not come upon
you without honour, and that such as poverty cannot lessen; especially
now that provisions are being made for supporting and relieving old and
disabled soldiers; for it is not right to deal with them after the
fashion of those who set free and get rid of their black slaves when they
are old and useless, and, turning them out of their houses under the
pretence of making them free, make them slaves to hunger, from which they
cannot expect to be released except by death. But for the present I won't
say more than get ye up behind me on my horse as far as the inn, and sup
with me there, and to-morrow you shall pursue your journey, and God give
you as good speed as your intentions deserve."

The page did not accept the invitation to mount, though he did that to
supper at the inn; and here they say Sancho said to himself, "God be with
you for a master; is it possible that a man who can say things so many
and so good as he has said just now, can say that he saw the impossible
absurdities he reports about the cave of Montesinos? Well, well, we shall
see."

And now, just as night was falling, they reached the inn, and it was not
without satisfaction that Sancho perceived his master took it for a real
inn, and not for a castle as usual. The instant they entered Don Quixote
asked the landlord after the man with the lances and halberds, and was
told that he was in the stable seeing to his mule; which was what Sancho
and the cousin proceeded to do for their beasts, giving the best manger
and the best place in the stable to Rocinante.




CHAPTER XXV.

WHEREIN IS SET DOWN THE BRAYING ADVENTURE, AND THE DROLL ONE OF THE
PUPPET-SHOWMAN, TOGETHER WITH THE MEMORABLE DIVINATIONS OF THE DIVINING
APE


Don Quixote's bread would not bake, as the common saying is, until he had
heard and learned the curious things promised by the man who carried the
arms. He went to seek him where the innkeeper said he was and having
found him, bade him say now at any rate what he had to say in answer to
the question he had asked him on the road. "The tale of my wonders must
be taken more leisurely and not standing," said the man; "let me finish
foddering my beast, good sir; and then I'll tell you things that will
astonish you."

"Don't wait for that," said Don Quixote; "I'll help you in everything,"
and so he did, sifting the barley for him and cleaning out the manger; a
degree of humility which made the other feel bound to tell him with a
good grace what he had asked; so seating himself on a bench, with Don
Quixote beside him, and the cousin, the page, Sancho Panza, and the
landlord, for a senate and an audience, he began his story in this way:

"You must know that in a village four leagues and a half from this inn,
it so happened that one of the regidors, by the tricks and roguery of a
servant girl of his (it's too long a tale to tell), lost an ass; and
though he did all he possibly could to find it, it was all to no purpose.
A fortnight might have gone by, so the story goes, since the ass had been
missing, when, as the regidor who had lost it was standing in the plaza,
another regidor of the same town said to him, 'Pay me for good news,
gossip; your ass has turned up.' 'That I will, and well, gossip,' said
the other; 'but tell us, where has he turned up?' 'In the forest,' said
the finder; 'I saw him this morning without pack-saddle or harness of any
sort, and so lean that it went to one's heart to see him. I tried to
drive him before me and bring him to you, but he is already so wild and
shy that when I went near him he made off into the thickest part of the
forest. If you have a mind that we two should go back and look for him,
let me put up this she-ass at my house and I'll be back at once.' 'You
will be doing me a great kindness,' said the owner of the ass, 'and I'll
try to pay it back in the same coin.' It is with all these circumstances,
and in the very same way I am telling it now, that those who know all
about the matter tell the story. Well then, the two regidors set off on
foot, arm in arm, for the forest, and coming to the place where they
hoped to find the ass they could not find him, nor was he to be seen
anywhere about, search as they might. Seeing, then, that there was no
sign of him, the regidor who had seen him said to the other, 'Look here,
gossip; a plan has occurred to me, by which, beyond a doubt, we shall
manage to discover the animal, even if he is stowed away in the bowels of
the earth, not to say the forest. Here it is. I can bray to perfection,
and if you can ever so little, the thing's as good as done.' 'Ever so
little did you say, gossip?' said the other; 'by God, I'll not give in to
anybody, not even to the asses themselves.' 'We'll soon see,' said the
second regidor, 'for my plan is that you should go one side of the
forest, and I the other, so as to go all round about it; and every now
and then you will bray and I will bray; and it cannot be but that the ass
will hear us, and answer us if he is in the forest.' To which the owner
of the ass replied, 'It's an excellent plan, I declare, gossip, and
worthy of your great genius;' and the two separating as agreed, it so
fell out that they brayed almost at the same moment, and each, deceived
by the braying of the other, ran to look, fancying the ass had turned up
at last. When they came in sight of one another, said the loser, 'Is it
possible, gossip, that it was not my ass that brayed?' 'No, it was I,'
said the other. 'Well then, I can tell you, gossip,' said the ass's
owner, 'that between you and an ass there is not an atom of difference as
far as braying goes, for I never in all my life saw or heard anything
more natural.' 'Those praises and compliments belong to you more justly
than to me, gossip,' said the inventor of the plan; 'for, by the God that
made me, you might give a couple of brays odds to the best and most
finished brayer in the world; the tone you have got is deep, your voice
is well kept up as to time and pitch, and your finishing notes come thick
and fast; in fact, I own myself beaten, and yield the palm to you, and
give in to you in this rare accomplishment.' 'Well then,' said the owner,
'I'll set a higher value on myself for the future, and consider that I
know something, as I have an excellence of some sort; for though I always
thought I brayed well, I never supposed I came up to the pitch of
perfection you say.' 'And I say too,' said the second, 'that there are
rare gifts going to loss in the world, and that they are ill bestowed
upon those who don't know how to make use of them.' 'Ours,' said the
owner of the ass, 'unless it is in cases like this we have now in hand,
cannot be of any service to us, and even in this God grant they may be of
some use.' So saying they separated, and took to their braying once more,
but every instant they were deceiving one another, and coming to meet one
another again, until they arranged by way of countersign, so as to know
that it was they and not the ass, to give two brays, one after the other.
In this way, doubling the brays at every step, they made the complete
circuit of the forest, but the lost ass never gave them an answer or even
the sign of one. How could the poor ill-starred brute have answered,
when, in the thickest part of the forest, they found him devoured by
wolves? As soon as he saw him his owner said, 'I was wondering he did not
answer, for if he wasn't dead he'd have brayed when he heard us, or he'd
have been no ass; but for the sake of having heard you bray to such
perfection, gossip, I count the trouble I have taken to look for him well
bestowed, even though I have found him dead.' 'It's in a good hand,
gossip,' said the other; 'if the abbot sings well, the acolyte is not
much behind him.' So they returned disconsolate and hoarse to their
village, where they told their friends, neighbours, and acquaintances
what had befallen them in their search for the ass, each crying up the
other's perfection in braying. The whole story came to be known and
spread abroad through the villages of the neighbourhood; and the devil,
who never sleeps, with his love for sowing dissensions and scattering
discord everywhere, blowing mischief about and making quarrels out of
nothing, contrived to make the people of the other towns fall to braying
whenever they saw anyone from our village, as if to throw the braying of
our regidors in our teeth. Then the boys took to it, which was the same
thing for it as getting into the hands and mouths of all the devils of
hell; and braying spread from one town to another in such a way that the
men of the braying town are as easy to be known as blacks are to be known
from whites, and the unlucky joke has gone so far that several times the
scoffed have come out in arms and in a body to do battle with the
scoffers, and neither king nor rook, fear nor shame, can mend matters.
To-morrow or the day after, I believe, the men of my town, that is, of
the braying town, are going to take the field against another village two
leagues away from ours, one of those that persecute us most; and that we
may turn out well prepared I have bought these lances and halberds you
have seen. These are the curious things I told you I had to tell, and if
you don't think them so, I have got no others;" and with this the worthy
fellow brought his story to a close.

Just at this moment there came in at the gate of the inn a man entirely
clad in chamois leather, hose, breeches, and doublet, who said in a loud
voice, "Senor host, have you room? Here's the divining ape and the show
of the Release of Melisendra just coming."

"Ods body!" said the landlord, "why, it's Master Pedro! We're in for a
grand night!" I forgot to mention that the said Master Pedro had his left
eye and nearly half his cheek covered with a patch of green taffety,
showing that something ailed all that side. "Your worship is welcome,
Master Pedro," continued the landlord; "but where are the ape and the
show, for I don't see them?" "They are close at hand," said he in the
chamois leather, "but I came on first to know if there was any room."
"I'd make the Duke of Alva himself clear out to make room for Master
Pedro," said the landlord; "bring in the ape and the show; there's
company in the inn to-night that will pay to see that and the cleverness
of the ape." "So be it by all means," said the man with the patch; "I'll
lower the price, and be well satisfied if I only pay my expenses; and now
I'll go back and hurry on the cart with the ape and the show;" and with
this he went out of the inn.

Don Quixote at once asked the landlord what this Master Pedro was, and
what was the show and what was the ape he had with him; which the
landlord replied, "This is a famous puppet-showman, who for some time
past has been going about this Mancha de Aragon, exhibiting a show of the
release of Melisendra by the famous Don Gaiferos, one of the best and
best-represented stories that have been seen in this part of the kingdom
for many a year; he has also with him an ape with the most extraordinary
gift ever seen in an ape or imagined in a human being; for if you ask him
anything, he listens attentively to the question, and then jumps on his
master's shoulder, and pressing close to his ear tells him the answer
which Master Pedro then delivers. He says a great deal more about things
past than about things to come; and though he does not always hit the
truth in every case, most times he is not far wrong, so that he makes us
fancy he has got the devil in him. He gets two reals for every question
if the ape answers; I mean if his master answers for him after he has
whispered into his ear; and so it is believed that this same Master Pedro
is very rich. He is a 'gallant man' as they say in Italy, and good
company, and leads the finest life in the world; talks more than six,
drinks more than a dozen, and all by his tongue, and his ape, and his
show."

Master Pedro now came back, and in a cart followed the show and the
ape--a big one, without a tail and with buttocks as bare as felt, but not
vicious-looking. As soon as Don Quixote saw him, he asked him, "Can you
tell me, sir fortune-teller, what fish do we catch, and how will it be
with us? See, here are my two reals," and he bade Sancho give them to
Master Pedro; but he answered for the ape and said, "Senor, this animal
does not give any answer or information touching things that are to come;
of things past he knows something, and more or less of things present."

"Gad," said Sancho, "I would not give a farthing to be told what's past
with me, for who knows that better than I do myself? And to pay for being
told what I know would be mighty foolish. But as you know things present,
here are my two reals, and tell me, most excellent sir ape, what is my
wife Teresa Panza doing now, and what is she diverting herself with?"

Master Pedro refused to take the money, saying, "I will not receive
payment in advance or until the service has been first rendered;" and
then with his right hand he gave a couple of slaps on his left shoulder,
and with one spring the ape perched himself upon it, and putting his
mouth to his master's ear began chattering his teeth rapidly; and having
kept this up as long as one would be saying a credo, with another spring
he brought himself to the ground, and the same instant Master Pedro ran
in great haste and fell upon his knees before Don Quixote, and embracing
his legs exclaimed, "These legs do I embrace as I would embrace the two
pillars of Hercules, O illustrious reviver of knight-errantry, so long
consigned to oblivion! O never yet duly extolled knight, Don Quixote of
La Mancha, courage of the faint-hearted, prop of the tottering, arm of
the fallen, staff and counsel of all who are unfortunate!"

Don Quixote was thunderstruck, Sancho astounded, the cousin staggered,
the page astonished, the man from the braying town agape, the landlord in
perplexity, and, in short, everyone amazed at the words of the
puppet-showman, who went on to say, "And thou, worthy Sancho Panza, the
best squire and squire to the best knight in the world! Be of good cheer,
for thy good wife Teresa is well, and she is at this moment hackling a
pound of flax; and more by token she has at her left hand a jug with a
broken spout that holds a good drop of wine, with which she solaces
herself at her work."

"That I can well believe," said Sancho. "She is a lucky one, and if it
was not for her jealousy I would not change her for the giantess
Andandona, who by my master's account was a very clever and worthy woman;
my Teresa is one of those that won't let themselves want for anything,
though their heirs may have to pay for it."

"Now I declare," said Don Quixote, "he who reads much and travels much
sees and knows a great deal. I say so because what amount of persuasion
could have persuaded me that there are apes in the world that can divine
as I have seen now with my own eyes? For I am that very Don Quixote of La
Mancha this worthy animal refers to, though he has gone rather too far in
my praise; but whatever I may be, I thank heaven that it has endowed me
with a tender and compassionate heart, always disposed to do good to all
and harm to none."

"If I had money," said the page, "I would ask senor ape what will happen
to me in the peregrination I am making."

To this Master Pedro, who had by this time risen from Don Quixote's feet,
replied, "I have already said that this little beast gives no answer as
to the future; but if he did, not having money would be of no
consequence, for to oblige Senor Don Quixote, here present, I would give
up all the profits in the world. And now, because I have promised it, and
to afford him pleasure, I will set up my show and offer entertainment to
all who are in the inn, without any charge whatever." As soon as he heard
this, the landlord, delighted beyond measure, pointed out a place where
the show might be fixed, which was done at once.

Don Quixote was not very well satisfied with the divinations of the ape,
as he did not think it proper that an ape should divine anything, either
past or future; so while Master Pedro was arranging the show, he retired
with Sancho into a corner of the stable, where, without being overheard
by anyone, he said to him, "Look here, Sancho, I have been seriously
thinking over this ape's extraordinary gift, and have come to the
conclusion that beyond doubt this Master Pedro, his master, has a pact,
tacit or express, with the devil."

"If the packet is express from the devil," said Sancho, "it must be a
very dirty packet no doubt; but what good can it do Master Pedro to have
such packets?"

"Thou dost not understand me, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "I only mean he
must have made some compact with the devil to infuse this power into the
ape, that he may get his living, and after he has grown rich he will give
him his soul, which is what the enemy of mankind wants; this I am led to
believe by observing that the ape only answers about things past or
present, and the devil's knowledge extends no further; for the future he
knows only by guesswork, and that not always; for it is reserved for God
alone to know the times and the seasons, and for him there is neither
past nor future; all is present. This being as it is, it is clear that
this ape speaks by the spirit of the devil; and I am astonished they have
not denounced him to the Holy Office, and put him to the question, and
forced it out of him by whose virtue it is that he divines; because it is
certain this ape is not an astrologer; neither his master nor he sets up,
or knows how to set up, those figures they call judiciary, which are now
so common in Spain that there is not a jade, or page, or old cobbler,
that will not undertake to set up a figure as readily as pick up a knave
of cards from the ground, bringing to nought the marvellous truth of the
science by their lies and ignorance. I know of a lady who asked one of
these figure schemers whether her little lap-dog would be in pup and
would breed, and how many and of what colour the little pups would be. To
which senor astrologer, after having set up his figure, made answer that
the bitch would be in pup, and would drop three pups, one green, another
bright red, and the third parti-coloured, provided she conceived between
eleven and twelve either of the day or night, and on a Monday or
Saturday; but as things turned out, two days after this the bitch died of
a surfeit, and senor planet-ruler had the credit all over the place of
being a most profound astrologer, as most of these planet-rulers have."

"Still," said Sancho, "I would be glad if your worship would make Master
Pedro ask his ape whether what happened your worship in the cave of
Montesinos is true; for, begging your worship's pardon, I, for my part,
take it to have been all flam and lies, or at any rate something you
dreamt."

"That may be," replied Don Quixote; "however, I will do what you suggest;
though I have my own scruples about it."

At this point Master Pedro came up in quest of Don Quixote, to tell him
the show was now ready and to come and see it, for it was worth seeing.
Don Quixote explained his wish, and begged him to ask his ape at once to
tell him whether certain things which had happened to him in the cave of
Montesinos were dreams or realities, for to him they appeared to partake
of both. Upon this Master Pedro, without answering, went back to fetch
the ape, and, having placed it in front of Don Quixote and Sancho, said:
"See here, senor ape, this gentleman wishes to know whether certain
things which happened to him in the cave called the cave of Montesinos
were false or true." On his making the usual sign the ape mounted on his
left shoulder and seemed to whisper in his ear, and Master Pedro said at
once, "The ape says that the things you saw or that happened to you in
that cave are, part of them false, part true; and that he only knows this
and no more as regards this question; but if your worship wishes to know
more, on Friday next he will answer all that may be asked him, for his
virtue is at present exhausted, and will not return to him till Friday,
as he has said."

"Did I not say, senor," said Sancho, "that I could not bring myself to
believe that all your worship said about the adventures in the cave was
true, or even the half of it?"

"The course of events will tell, Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "time,
that discloses all things, leaves nothing that it does not drag into the
light of day, though it be buried in the bosom of the earth. But enough
of that for the present; let us go and see Master Pedro's show, for I am
sure there must be something novel in it."

"Something!" said Master Pedro; "this show of mine has sixty thousand
novel things in it; let me tell you, Senor Don Quixote, it is one of the
best-worth-seeing things in the world this day; but operibus credite et
non verbis, and now let's get to work, for it is growing late, and we
have a great deal to do and to say and show."

Don Quixote and Sancho obeyed him and went to where the show was already
put up and uncovered, set all around with lighted wax tapers which made
it look splendid and bright. When they came to it Master Pedro ensconced
himself inside it, for it was he who had to work the puppets, and a boy,
a servant of his, posted himself outside to act as showman and explain
the mysteries of the exhibition, having a wand in his hand to point to
the figures as they came out. And so, all who were in the inn being
arranged in front of the show, some of them standing, and Don Quixote,
Sancho, the page, and cousin, accommodated with the best places, the
interpreter began to say what he will hear or see who reads or hears the
next chapter.




CHAPTER XXVI.

WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE DROLL ADVENTURE OF THE PUPPET-SHOWMAN, TOGETHER
WITH OTHER THINGS IN TRUTH RIGHT GOOD


All were silent, Tyrians and Trojans; I mean all who were watching the
show were hanging on the lips of the interpreter of its wonders, when
drums and trumpets were heard to sound inside it and cannon to go off.
The noise was soon over, and then the boy lifted up his voice and said,
"This true story which is here represented to your worships is taken word
for word from the French chronicles and from the Spanish ballads that are
in everybody's mouth, and in the mouth of the boys about the streets. Its
subject is the release by Senor Don Gaiferos of his wife Melisendra, when
a captive in Spain at the hands of the Moors in the city of Sansuena, for
so they called then what is now called Saragossa; and there you may see
how Don Gaiferos is playing at the tables, just as they sing it--

At tables playing Don Gaiferos sits,
For Melisendra is forgotten now.

And that personage who appears there with a crown on his head and a
sceptre in his hand is the Emperor Charlemagne, the supposed father of
Melisendra, who, angered to see his son-in-law's inaction and unconcern,
comes in to chide him; and observe with what vehemence and energy he
chides him, so that you would fancy he was going to give him half a dozen
raps with his sceptre; and indeed there are authors who say he did give
them, and sound ones too; and after having said a great deal to him about
imperilling his honour by not effecting the release of his wife, he said,
so the tale runs,

Enough I've said, see to it now.

Observe, too, how the emperor turns away, and leaves Don Gaiferos fuming;
and you see now how in a burst of anger, he flings the table and the
board far from him and calls in haste for his armour, and asks his cousin
Don Roland for the loan of his sword, Durindana, and how Don Roland
refuses to lend it, offering him his company in the difficult enterprise
he is undertaking; but he, in his valour and anger, will not accept it,
and says that he alone will suffice to rescue his wife, even though she
were imprisoned deep in the centre of the earth, and with this he retires
to arm himself and set out on his journey at once. Now let your worships
turn your eyes to that tower that appears there, which is supposed to be
one of the towers of the alcazar of Saragossa, now called the Aljaferia;
that lady who appears on that balcony dressed in Moorish fashion is the
peerless Melisendra, for many a time she used to gaze from thence upon
the road to France, and seek consolation in her captivity by thinking of
Paris and her husband. Observe, too, a new incident which now occurs,
such as, perhaps, never was seen. Do you not see that Moor, who silently
and stealthily, with his finger on his lip, approaches Melisendra from
behind? Observe now how he prints a kiss upon her lips, and what a hurry
she is in to spit, and wipe them with the white sleeve of her smock, and
how she bewails herself, and tears her fair hair as though it were to
blame for the wrong. Observe, too, that the stately Moor who is in that
corridor is King Marsilio of Sansuena, who, having seen the Moor's
insolence, at once orders him (though his kinsman and a great favourite
of his) to be seized and given two hundred lashes, while carried through
the streets of the city according to custom, with criers going before him
and officers of justice behind; and here you see them come out to execute
the sentence, although the offence has been scarcely committed; for among
the Moors there are no indictments nor remands as with us."

Here Don Quixote called out, "Child, child, go straight on with your
story, and don't run into curves and slants, for to establish a fact
clearly there is need of a great deal of proof and confirmation;" and
said Master Pedro from within, "Boy, stick to your text and do as the
gentleman bids you; it's the best plan; keep to your plain song, and
don't attempt harmonies, for they are apt to break down from being over
fine."

"I will," said the boy, and he went on to say, "This figure that you see
here on horseback, covered with a Gascon cloak, is Don Gaiferos himself,
whom his wife, now avenged of the insult of the amorous Moor, and taking
her stand on the balcony of the tower with a calmer and more tranquil
countenance, has perceived without recognising him; and she addresses her
husband, supposing him to be some traveller, and holds with him all that
conversation and colloquy in the ballad that runs--

If you, sir knight, to France are bound,
Oh! for Gaiferos ask--

which I do not repeat here because prolixity begets disgust; suffice it
to observe how Don Gaiferos discovers himself, and that by her joyful
gestures Melisendra shows us she has recognised him; and what is more, we
now see she lowers herself from the balcony to place herself on the
haunches of her good husband's horse. But ah! unhappy lady, the edge of
her petticoat has caught on one of the bars of the balcony and she is
left hanging in the air, unable to reach the ground. But you see how
compassionate heaven sends aid in our sorest need; Don Gaiferos advances,
and without minding whether the rich petticoat is torn or not, he seizes
her and by force brings her to the ground, and then with one jerk places
her on the haunches of his horse, astraddle like a man, and bids her hold
on tight and clasp her arms round his neck, crossing them on his breast
so as not to fall, for the lady Melisendra was not used to that style of
riding. You see, too, how the neighing of the horse shows his
satisfaction with the gallant and beautiful burden he bears in his lord
and lady. You see how they wheel round and quit the city, and in joy and
gladness take the road to Paris. Go in peace, O peerless pair of true
lovers! May you reach your longed-for fatherland in safety, and may
fortune interpose no impediment to your prosperous journey; may the eyes
of your friends and kinsmen behold you enjoying in peace and tranquillity
the remaining days of your life--and that they may be as many as those of
Nestor!"

Here Master Pedro called out again and said, "Simplicity, boy! None of
your high flights; all affectation is bad."

The interpreter made no answer, but went on to say, "There was no want of
idle eyes, that see everything, to see Melisendra come down and mount,
and word was brought to King Marsilio, who at once gave orders to sound
the alarm; and see what a stir there is, and how the city is drowned with
the sound of the bells pealing in the towers of all the mosques."

"Nay, nay," said Don Quixote at this; "on that point of the bells Master
Pedro is very inaccurate, for bells are not in use among the Moors; only
kettledrums, and a kind of small trumpet somewhat like our clarion; to
ring bells this way in Sansuena is unquestionably a great absurdity."

On hearing this, Master Pedro stopped ringing, and said, "Don't look into
trifles, Senor Don Quixote, or want to have things up to a pitch of
perfection that is out of reach. Are there not almost every day a
thousand comedies represented all round us full of thousands of
inaccuracies and absurdities, and, for all that, they have a successful
run, and are listened to not only with applause, but with admiration and
all the rest of it? Go on, boy, and don't mind; for so long as I fill my
pouch, no matter if I show as many inaccuracies as there are motes in a
sunbeam."

"True enough," said Don Quixote; and the boy went on: "See what a
numerous and glittering crowd of horsemen issues from the city in pursuit
of the two faithful lovers, what a blowing of trumpets there is, what
sounding of horns, what beating of drums and tabors; I fear me they will
overtake them and bring them back tied to the tail of their own horse,
which would be a dreadful sight."

Don Quixote, however, seeing such a swarm of Moors and hearing such a
din, thought it would be right to aid the fugitives, and standing up he
exclaimed in a loud voice, "Never, while I live, will I permit foul play
to be practised in my presence on such a famous knight and fearless lover
as Don Gaiferos. Halt! ill-born rabble, follow him not nor pursue him, or
ye will have to reckon with me in battle!" and suiting the action to the
word, he drew his sword, and with one bound placed himself close to the
show, and with unexampled rapidity and fury began to shower down blows on
the puppet troop of Moors, knocking over some, decapitating others,
maiming this one and demolishing that; and among many more he delivered
one down stroke which, if Master Pedro had not ducked, made himself
small, and got out of the way, would have sliced off his head as easily
as if it had been made of almond-paste. Master Pedro kept shouting, "Hold
hard! Senor Don Quixote! can't you see they're not real Moors you're
knocking down and killing and destroying, but only little pasteboard
figures! Look--sinner that I am!--how you're wrecking and ruining all
that I'm worth!" But in spite of this, Don Quixote did not leave off
discharging a continuous rain of cuts, slashes, downstrokes, and
backstrokes, and at length, in less than the space of two credos, he
brought the whole show to the ground, with all its fittings and figures
shivered and knocked to pieces, King Marsilio badly wounded, and the
Emperor Charlemagne with his crown and head split in two. The whole
audience was thrown into confusion, the ape fled to the roof of the inn,
the cousin was frightened, and even Sancho Panza himself was in mighty
fear, for, as he swore after the storm was over, he had never seen his
master in such a furious passion.

The complete destruction of the show being thus accomplished, Don Quixote
became a little calmer, said, "I wish I had here before me now all those
who do not or will not believe how useful knights-errant are in the
world; just think, if I had not been here present, what would have become
of the brave Don Gaiferos and the fair Melisendra! Depend upon it, by
this time those dogs would have overtaken them and inflicted some outrage
upon them. So, then, long live knight-errantry beyond everything living
on earth this day!"

"Let it live, and welcome," said Master Pedro at this in a feeble voice,
"and let me die, for I am so unfortunate that I can say with King Don
Rodrigo--

Yesterday was I lord of Spain
To-day I've not a turret left
That I may call mine own.

Not half an hour, nay, barely a minute ago, I saw myself lord of kings
and emperors, with my stables filled with countless horses, and my trunks
and bags with gay dresses unnumbered; and now I find myself ruined and
laid low, destitute and a beggar, and above all without my ape, for, by
my faith, my teeth will have to sweat for it before I have him caught;
and all through the reckless fury of sir knight here, who, they say,
protects the fatherless, and rights wrongs, and does other charitable
deeds; but whose generous intentions have been found wanting in my case
only, blessed and praised be the highest heavens! Verily, knight of the
rueful figure he must be to have disfigured mine."

Sancho Panza was touched by Master Pedro's words, and said to him, "Don't
weep and lament, Master Pedro; you break my heart; let me tell you my
master, Don Quixote, is so catholic and scrupulous a Christian that, if
he can make out that he has done you any wrong, he will own it, and be
willing to pay for it and make it good, and something over and above."

"Only let Senor Don Quixote pay me for some part of the work he has
destroyed," said Master Pedro, "and I would be content, and his worship
would ease his conscience, for he cannot be saved who keeps what is
another's against the owner's will, and makes no restitution."

"That is true," said Don Quixote; "but at present I am not aware that I
have got anything of yours, Master Pedro."

"What!" returned Master Pedro; "and these relics lying here on the bare
hard ground--what scattered and shattered them but the invincible
strength of that mighty arm? And whose were the bodies they belonged to
but mine? And what did I get my living by but by them?"

"Now am I fully convinced," said Don Quixote, "of what I had many a time
before believed; that the enchanters who persecute me do nothing more
than put figures like these before my eyes, and then change and turn them
into what they please. In truth and earnest, I assure you gentlemen who
now hear me, that to me everything that has taken place here seemed to
take place literally, that Melisendra was Melisendra, Don Gaiferos Don
Gaiferos, Marsilio Marsilio, and Charlemagne Charlemagne. That was why my
anger was roused; and to be faithful to my calling as a knight-errant I
sought to give aid and protection to those who fled, and with this good
intention I did what you have seen. If the result has been the opposite
of what I intended, it is no fault of mine, but of those wicked beings
that persecute me; but, for all that, I am willing to condemn myself in
costs for this error of mine, though it did not proceed from malice; let
Master Pedro see what he wants for the spoiled figures, for I agree to
pay it at once in good and current money of Castile."

Master Pedro made him a bow, saying, "I expected no less of the rare
Christianity of the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha, true helper and
protector of all destitute and needy vagabonds; master landlord here and
the great Sancho Panza shall be the arbitrators and appraisers between
your worship and me of what these dilapidated figures are worth or may be
worth."

The landlord and Sancho consented, and then Master Pedro picked up from
the ground King Marsilio of Saragossa with his head off, and said, "Here
you see how impossible it is to restore this king to his former state, so
I think, saving your better judgments, that for his death, decease, and
demise, four reals and a half may be given me."

"Proceed," said Don Quixote.

"Well then, for this cleavage from top to bottom," continued Master
Pedro, taking up the split Emperor Charlemagne, "it would not be much if
I were to ask five reals and a quarter."

"It's not little," said Sancho.

"Nor is it much," said the landlord; "make it even, and say five reals."

"Let him have the whole five and a quarter," said Don Quixote; "for the
sum total of this notable disaster does not stand on a quarter more or
less; and make an end of it quickly, Master Pedro, for it's getting on to
supper-time, and I have some hints of hunger."

"For this figure," said Master Pedro, "that is without a nose, and wants
an eye, and is the fair Melisendra, I ask, and I am reasonable in my
charge, two reals and twelve maravedis."

"The very devil must be in it," said Don Quixote, "if Melisendra and her
husband are not by this time at least on the French border, for the horse
they rode on seemed to me to fly rather than gallop; so you needn't try
to sell me the cat for the hare, showing me here a noseless Melisendra
when she is now, may be, enjoying herself at her ease with her husband in
France. God help every one to his own, Master Pedro, and let us all
proceed fairly and honestly; and now go on."

Master Pedro, perceiving that Don Quixote was beginning to wander, and
return to his original fancy, was not disposed to let him escape, so he
said to him, "This cannot be Melisendra, but must be one of the damsels
that waited on her; so if I'm given sixty maravedis for her, I'll be
content and sufficiently paid."

And so he went on, putting values on ever so many more smashed figures,
which, after the two arbitrators had adjusted them to the satisfaction of
both parties, came to forty reals and three-quarters; and over and above
this sum, which Sancho at once disbursed, Master Pedro asked for two
reals for his trouble in catching the ape.

"Let him have them, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "not to catch the ape, but
to get drunk; and two hundred would I give this minute for the good news,
to anyone who could tell me positively, that the lady Dona Melisandra and
Senor Don Gaiferos were now in France and with their own people."

"No one could tell us that better than my ape," said Master Pedro; "but
there's no devil that could catch him now; I suspect, however, that
affection and hunger will drive him to come looking for me to-night; but
to-morrow will soon be here and we shall see."

In short, the puppet-show storm passed off, and all supped in peace and
good fellowship at Don Quixote's expense, for he was the height of
generosity. Before it was daylight the man with the lances and halberds
took his departure, and soon after daybreak the cousin and the page came
to bid Don Quixote farewell, the former returning home, the latter
resuming his journey, towards which, to help him, Don Quixote gave him
twelve reals. Master Pedro did not care to engage in any more palaver
with Don Quixote, whom he knew right well; so he rose before the sun, and
having got together the remains of his show and caught his ape, he too
went off to seek his adventures. The landlord, who did not know Don
Quixote, was as much astonished at his mad freaks as at his generosity.
To conclude, Sancho, by his master's orders, paid him very liberally, and
taking leave of him they quitted the inn at about eight in the morning
and took to the road, where we will leave them to pursue their journey,
for this is necessary in order to allow certain other matters to be set
forth, which are required to clear up this famous history.




CHAPTER XXVII.

WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN WHO MASTER PEDRO AND HIS APE WERE, TOGETHER WITH THE
MISHAP DON QUIXOTE HAD IN THE BRAYING ADVENTURE, WHICH HE DID NOT
CONCLUDE AS HE WOULD HAVE LIKED OR AS HE HAD EXPECTED


Cide Hamete, the chronicler of this great history, begins this chapter
with these words, "I swear as a Catholic Christian;" with regard to which
his translator says that Cide Hamete's swearing as a Catholic Christian,
he being--as no doubt he was--a Moor, only meant that, just as a Catholic
Christian taking an oath swears, or ought to swear, what is true, and
tell the truth in what he avers, so he was telling the truth, as much as
if he swore as a Catholic Christian, in all he chose to write about
Quixote, especially in declaring who Master Pedro was and what was the
divining ape that astonished all the villages with his divinations. He
says, then, that he who has read the First Part of this history will
remember well enough the Gines de Pasamonte whom, with other galley
slaves, Don Quixote set free in the Sierra Morena: a kindness for which
he afterwards got poor thanks and worse payment from that evil-minded,
ill-conditioned set. This Gines de Pasamonte--Don Ginesillo de Parapilla,
Don Quixote called him--it was that stole Dapple from Sancho Panza;
which, because by the fault of the printers neither the how nor the when
was stated in the First Part, has been a puzzle to a good many people,
who attribute to the bad memory of the author what was the error of the
press. In fact, however, Gines stole him while Sancho Panza was asleep on
his back, adopting the plan and device that Brunello had recourse to when
he stole Sacripante's horse from between his legs at the siege of
Albracca; and, as has been told, Sancho afterwards recovered him. This
Gines, then, afraid of being caught by the officers of justice, who were
looking for him to punish him for his numberless rascalities and offences
(which were so many and so great that he himself wrote a big book giving
an account of them), resolved to shift his quarters into the kingdom of
Aragon, and cover up his left eye, and take up the trade of a
puppet-showman; for this, as well as juggling, he knew how to practise to
perfection. From some released Christians returning from Barbary, it so
happened, he bought the ape, which he taught to mount upon his shoulder
on his making a certain sign, and to whisper, or seem to do so, in his
ear. Thus prepared, before entering any village whither he was bound with
his show and his ape, he used to inform himself at the nearest village,
or from the most likely person he could find, as to what particular
things had happened there, and to whom; and bearing them well in mind,
the first thing he did was to exhibit his show, sometimes one story,
sometimes another, but all lively, amusing, and familiar. As soon as the
exhibition was over he brought forward the accomplishments of his ape,
assuring the public that he divined all the past and the present, but as
to the future he had no skill. For each question answered he asked two
reals, and for some he made a reduction, just as he happened to feel the
pulse of the questioners; and when now and then he came to houses where
things that he knew of had happened to the people living there, even if
they did not ask him a question, not caring to pay for it, he would make
the sign to the ape and then declare that it had said so and so, which
fitted the case exactly. In this way he acquired a prodigious name and
all ran after him; on other occasions, being very crafty, he would answer
in such a way that the answers suited the questions; and as no one
cross-questioned him or pressed him to tell how his ape divined, he made
fools of them all and filled his pouch. The instant he entered the inn he
knew Don Quixote and Sancho, and with that knowledge it was easy for him
to astonish them and all who were there; but it would have cost him dear
had Don Quixote brought down his hand a little lower when he cut off King
Marsilio's head and destroyed all his horsemen, as related in the
preceeding chapter.

So much for Master Pedro and his ape; and now to return to Don Quixote of
La Mancha. After he had left the inn he determined to visit, first of
all, the banks of the Ebro and that neighbourhood, before entering the
city of Saragossa, for the ample time there was still to spare before the
jousts left him enough for all. With this object in view he followed the
road and travelled along it for two days, without meeting any adventure
worth committing to writing until on the third day, as he was ascending a
hill, he heard a great noise of drums, trumpets, and musket-shots. At
first he imagined some regiment of soldiers was passing that way, and to
see them he spurred Rocinante and mounted the hill. On reaching the top
he saw at the foot of it over two hundred men, as it seemed to him, armed
with weapons of various sorts, lances, crossbows, partisans, halberds,
and pikes, and a few muskets and a great many bucklers. He descended the
slope and approached the band near enough to see distinctly the flags,
make out the colours and distinguish the devices they bore, especially
one on a standard or ensign of white satin, on which there was painted in
a very life-like style an ass like a little sard, with its head up, its
mouth open and its tongue out, as if it were in the act and attitude of
braying; and round it were inscribed in large characters these two lines--

They did not bray in vain,
Our alcaldes twain.

From this device Don Quixote concluded that these people must be from the
braying town, and he said so to Sancho, explaining to him what was
written on the standard. At the same time he observed that the man who
had told them about the matter was wrong in saying that the two who
brayed were regidors, for according to the lines of the standard they
were alcaldes. To which Sancho replied, "Senor, there's nothing to stick
at in that, for maybe the regidors who brayed then came to be alcaldes of
their town afterwards, and so they may go by both titles; moreover, it
has nothing to do with the truth of the story whether the brayers were
alcaldes or regidors, provided at any rate they did bray; for an alcalde
is just as likely to bray as a regidor." They perceived, in short,
clearly that the town which had been twitted had turned out to do battle
with some other that had jeered it more than was fair or neighbourly.

Don Quixote proceeded to join them, not a little to Sancho's uneasiness,
for he never relished mixing himself up in expeditions of that sort. The
members of the troop received him into the midst of them, taking him to
be some one who was on their side. Don Quixote, putting up his visor,
advanced with an easy bearing and demeanour to the standard with the ass,
and all the chief men of the army gathered round him to look at him,
staring at him with the usual amazement that everybody felt on seeing him
for the first time. Don Quixote, seeing them examining him so
attentively, and that none of them spoke to him or put any question to
him, determined to take advantage of their silence; so, breaking his own,
he lifted up his voice and said, "Worthy sirs, I entreat you as earnestly
as I can not to interrupt an argument I wish to address to you, until you
find it displeases or wearies you; and if that come to pass, on the
slightest hint you give me I will put a seal upon my lips and a gag upon
my tongue."

They all bade him say what he liked, for they would listen to him
willingly.

With this permission Don Quixote went on to say, "I, sirs, am a
knight-errant whose calling is that of arms, and whose profession is to
protect those who require protection, and give help to such as stand in
need of it. Some days ago I became acquainted with your misfortune and
the cause which impels you to take up arms again and again to revenge
yourselves upon your enemies; and having many times thought over your
business in my mind, I find that, according to the laws of combat, you
are mistaken in holding yourselves insulted; for a private individual
cannot insult an entire community; unless it be by defying it
collectively as a traitor, because he cannot tell who in particular is
guilty of the treason for which he defies it. Of this we have an example
in Don Diego Ordonez de Lara, who defied the whole town of Zamora,
because he did not know that Vellido Dolfos alone had committed the
treachery of slaying his king; and therefore he defied them all, and the
vengeance and the reply concerned all; though, to be sure, Senor Don
Diego went rather too far, indeed very much beyond the limits of a
defiance; for he had no occasion to defy the dead, or the waters, or the
fishes, or those yet unborn, and all the rest of it as set forth; but let
that pass, for when anger breaks out there's no father, governor, or
bridle to check the tongue. The case being, then, that no one person can
insult a kingdom, province, city, state, or entire community, it is clear
there is no reason for going out to avenge the defiance of such an
insult, inasmuch as it is not one. A fine thing it would be if the people
of the clock town were to be at loggerheads every moment with everyone
who called them by that name,--or the Cazoleros, Berengeneros,
Ballenatos, Jaboneros, or the bearers of all the other names and titles
that are always in the mouth of the boys and common people! It would be a
nice business indeed if all these illustrious cities were to take huff
and revenge themselves and go about perpetually making trombones of their
swords in every petty quarrel! No, no; God forbid! There are four things
for which sensible men and well-ordered States ought to take up arms,
draw their swords, and risk their persons, lives, and properties. The
first is to defend the Catholic faith; the second, to defend one's life,
which is in accordance with natural and divine law; the third, in defence
of one's honour, family, and property; the fourth, in the service of
one's king in a just war; and if to these we choose to add a fifth (which
may be included in the second), in defence of one's country. To these
five, as it were capital causes, there may be added some others that may
be just and reasonable, and make it a duty to take up arms; but to take
them up for trifles and things to laugh at and be amused by rather than
offended, looks as though he who did so was altogether wanting in common
sense. Moreover, to take an unjust revenge (and there cannot be any just
one) is directly opposed to the sacred law that we acknowledge, wherein
we are commanded to do good to our enemies and to love them that hate us;
a command which, though it seems somewhat difficult to obey, is only so
to those who have in them less of God than of the world, and more of the
flesh than of the spirit; for Jesus Christ, God and true man, who never
lied, and could not and cannot lie, said, as our law-giver, that his yoke
was easy and his burden light; he would not, therefore, have laid any
command upon us that it was impossible to obey. Thus, sirs, you are bound
to keep quiet by human and divine law."

"The devil take me," said Sancho to himself at this, "but this master of
mine is a theologian; or, if not, faith, he's as like one as one egg is
like another."

Don Quixote stopped to take breath, and, observing that silence was still
preserved, had a mind to continue his discourse, and would have done so
had not Sancho interposed with his smartness; for he, seeing his master
pause, took the lead, saying, "My lord Don Quixote of La Mancha, who once
was called the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, but now is called the
Knight of the Lions, is a gentleman of great discretion who knows Latin
and his mother tongue like a bachelor, and in everything that he deals
with or advises proceeds like a good soldier, and has all the laws and
ordinances of what they call combat at his fingers' ends; so you have
nothing to do but to let yourselves be guided by what he says, and on my
head be it if it is wrong. Besides which, you have been told that it is
folly to take offence at merely hearing a bray. I remember when I was a
boy I brayed as often as I had a fancy, without anyone hindering me, and
so elegantly and naturally that when I brayed all the asses in the town
would bray; but I was none the less for that the son of my parents who
were greatly respected; and though I was envied because of the gift by
more than one of the high and mighty ones of the town, I did not care two
farthings for it; and that you may see I am telling the truth, wait a bit
and listen, for this art, like swimming, once learnt is never forgotten;"
and then, taking hold of his nose, he began to bray so vigorously that
all the valleys around rang again.

One of those, however, that stood near him, fancying he was mocking them,
lifted up a long staff he had in his hand and smote him such a blow with
it that Sancho dropped helpless to the ground. Don Quixote, seeing him so
roughly handled, attacked the man who had struck him lance in hand, but
so many thrust themselves between them that he could not avenge him. Far
from it, finding a shower of stones rained upon him, and crossbows and
muskets unnumbered levelled at him, he wheeled Rocinante round and, as
fast as his best gallop could take him, fled from the midst of them,
commending himself to God with all his heart to deliver him out of this
peril, in dread every step of some ball coming in at his back and coming
out at his breast, and every minute drawing his breath to see whether it
had gone from him. The members of the band, however, were satisfied with
seeing him take to flight, and did not fire on him. They put up Sancho,
scarcely restored to his senses, on his ass, and let him go after his
master; not that he was sufficiently in his wits to guide the beast, but
Dapple followed the footsteps of Rocinante, from whom he could not remain
a moment separated. Don Quixote having got some way off looked back, and
seeing Sancho coming, waited for him, as he perceived that no one
followed him. The men of the troop stood their ground till night, and as
the enemy did not come out to battle, they returned to their town
exulting; and had they been aware of the ancient custom of the Greeks,
they would have erected a trophy on the spot.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

OF MATTERS THAT BENENGELI SAYS HE WHO READS THEM WILL KNOW, IF HE READS
THEM WITH ATTENTION


When the brave man flees, treachery is manifest and it is for wise men to
reserve themselves for better occasions. This proved to be the case with
Don Quixote, who, giving way before the fury of the townsfolk and the
hostile intentions of the angry troop, took to flight and, without a
thought of Sancho or the danger in which he was leaving him, retreated to
such a distance as he thought made him safe. Sancho, lying across his
ass, followed him, as has been said, and at length came up, having by
this time recovered his senses, and on joining him let himself drop off
Dapple at Rocinante's feet, sore, bruised, and belaboured. Don Quixote
dismounted to examine his wounds, but finding him whole from head to
foot, he said to him, angrily enough, "In an evil hour didst thou take to
braying, Sancho! Where hast thou learned that it is well done to mention
the rope in the house of the man that has been hanged? To the music of
brays what harmonies couldst thou expect to get but cudgels? Give thanks
to God, Sancho, that they signed the cross on thee just now with a stick,
and did not mark thee per signum crucis with a cutlass."

"I'm not equal to answering," said Sancho, "for I feel as if I was
speaking through my shoulders; let us mount and get away from this; I'll
keep from braying, but not from saying that knights-errant fly and leave
their good squires to be pounded like privet, or made meal of at the
hands of their enemies."

"He does not fly who retires," returned Don Quixote; "for I would have
thee know, Sancho, that the valour which is not based upon a foundation
of prudence is called rashness, and the exploits of the rash man are to
be attributed rather to good fortune than to courage; and so I own that I
retired, but not that I fled; and therein I have followed the example of
many valiant men who have reserved themselves for better times; the
histories are full of instances of this, but as it would not be any good
to thee or pleasure to me, I will not recount them to thee now."

Sancho was by this time mounted with the help of Don Quixote, who then
himself mounted Rocinante, and at a leisurely pace they proceeded to take
shelter in a grove which was in sight about a quarter of a league off.
Every now and then Sancho gave vent to deep sighs and dismal groans, and
on Don Quixote asking him what caused such acute suffering, he replied
that, from the end of his back-bone up to the nape of his neck, he was so
sore that it nearly drove him out of his senses.

"The cause of that soreness," said Don Quixote, "will be, no doubt, that
the staff wherewith they smote thee being a very long one, it caught thee
all down the back, where all the parts that are sore are situated, and
had it reached any further thou wouldst be sorer still."

"By God," said Sancho, "your worship has relieved me of a great doubt,
and cleared up the point for me in elegant style! Body o' me! is the
cause of my soreness such a mystery that there's any need to tell me I am
sore everywhere the staff hit me? If it was my ankles that pained me
there might be something in going divining why they did, but it is not
much to divine that I'm sore where they thrashed me. By my faith, master
mine, the ills of others hang by a hair; every day I am discovering more
and more how little I have to hope for from keeping company with your
worship; for if this time you have allowed me to be drubbed, the next
time, or a hundred times more, we'll have the blanketings of the other
day over again, and all the other pranks which, if they have fallen on my
shoulders now, will be thrown in my teeth by-and-by. I would do a great
deal better (if I was not an ignorant brute that will never do any good
all my life), I would do a great deal better, I say, to go home to my
wife and children and support them and bring them up on what God may
please to give me, instead of following your worship along roads that
lead nowhere and paths that are none at all, with little to drink and
less to eat. And then when it comes to sleeping! Measure out seven feet
on the earth, brother squire, and if that's not enough for you, take as
many more, for you may have it all your own way and stretch yourself to
your heart's content. Oh that I could see burnt and turned to ashes the
first man that meddled with knight-errantry or at any rate the first who
chose to be squire to such fools as all the knights-errant of past times
must have been! Of those of the present day I say nothing, because, as
your worship is one of them, I respect them, and because I know your
worship knows a point more than the devil in all you say and think."

"I would lay a good wager with you, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that now
that you are talking on without anyone to stop you, you don't feel a pain
in your whole body. Talk away, my son, say whatever comes into your head
or mouth, for so long as you feel no pain, the irritation your
impertinences give me will be a pleasure to me; and if you are so anxious
to go home to your wife and children, God forbid that I should prevent
you; you have money of mine; see how long it is since we left our village
this third time, and how much you can and ought to earn every month, and
pay yourself out of your own hand."

"When I worked for Tom Carrasco, the father of the bachelor Samson
Carrasco that your worship knows," replied Sancho, "I used to earn two
ducats a month besides my food; I can't tell what I can earn with your
worship, though I know a knight-errant's squire has harder times of it
than he who works for a farmer; for after all, we who work for farmers,
however much we toil all day, at the worst, at night, we have our olla
supper and sleep in a bed, which I have not slept in since I have been in
your worship's service, if it wasn't the short time we were in Don Diego
de Miranda's house, and the feast I had with the skimmings I took off
Camacho's pots, and what I ate, drank, and slept in Basilio's house; all
the rest of the time I have been sleeping on the hard ground under the
open sky, exposed to what they call the inclemencies of heaven, keeping
life in me with scraps of cheese and crusts of bread, and drinking water
either from the brooks or from the springs we come to on these by-paths
we travel."

"I own, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that all thou sayest is true; how
much, thinkest thou, ought I to give thee over and above what Tom
Carrasco gave thee?"

"I think," said Sancho, "that if your worship was to add on two reals a
month I'd consider myself well paid; that is, as far as the wages of my
labour go; but to make up to me for your worship's pledge and promise to
me to give me the government of an island, it would be fair to add six
reals more, making thirty in all."

"Very good," said Don Quixote; "it is twenty-five days since we left our
village, so reckon up, Sancho, according to the wages you have made out
for yourself, and see how much I owe you in proportion, and pay yourself,
as I said before, out of your own hand."

"O body o' me!" said Sancho, "but your worship is very much out in that
reckoning; for when it comes to the promise of the island we must count
from the day your worship promised it to me to this present hour we are
at now."

"Well, how long is it, Sancho, since I promised it to you?" said Don
Quixote.

"If I remember rightly," said Sancho, "it must be over twenty years,
three days more or less."

Don Quixote gave himself a great slap on the forehead and began to laugh
heartily, and said he, "Why, I have not been wandering, either in the
Sierra Morena or in the whole course of our sallies, but barely two
months, and thou sayest, Sancho, that it is twenty years since I promised
thee the island. I believe now thou wouldst have all the money thou hast
of mine go in thy wages. If so, and if that be thy pleasure, I give it to
thee now, once and for all, and much good may it do thee, for so long as
I see myself rid of such a good-for-nothing squire I'll be glad to be
left a pauper without a rap. But tell me, thou perverter of the squirely
rules of knight-errantry, where hast thou ever seen or read that any
knight-errant's squire made terms with his lord, 'you must give me so
much a month for serving you'? Plunge, scoundrel, rogue, monster--for
such I take thee to be--plunge, I say, into the mare magnum of their
histories; and if thou shalt find that any squire ever said or thought
what thou hast said now, I will let thee nail it on my forehead, and give
me, over and above, four sound slaps in the face. Turn the rein, or the
halter, of thy Dapple, and begone home; for one single step further thou
shalt not make in my company. O bread thanklessly received! O promises
ill-bestowed! O man more beast than human being! Now, when I was about to
raise thee to such a position, that, in spite of thy wife, they would
call thee 'my lord,' thou art leaving me? Thou art going now when I had a
firm and fixed intention of making thee lord of the best island in the
world? Well, as thou thyself hast said before now, honey is not for the
mouth of the ass. Ass thou art, ass thou wilt be, and ass thou wilt end
when the course of thy life is run; for I know it will come to its close
before thou dost perceive or discern that thou art a beast."

Sancho regarded Don Quixote earnestly while he was giving him this
rating, and was so touched by remorse that the tears came to his eyes,
and in a piteous and broken voice he said to him, "Master mine, I confess
that, to be a complete ass, all I want is a tail; if your worship will
only fix one on to me, I'll look on it as rightly placed, and I'll serve
you as an ass all the remaining days of my life. Forgive me and have pity
on my folly, and remember I know but little, and, if I talk much, it's
more from infirmity than malice; but he who sins and mends commends
himself to God."

"I should have been surprised, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "if thou hadst
not introduced some bit of a proverb into thy speech. Well, well, I
forgive thee, provided thou dost mend and not show thyself in future so
fond of thine own interest, but try to be of good cheer and take heart,
and encourage thyself to look forward to the fulfillment of my promises,
which, by being delayed, does not become impossible."

Sancho said he would do so, and keep up his heart as best he could. They
then entered the grove, and Don Quixote settled himself at the foot of an
elm, and Sancho at that of a beech, for trees of this kind and others
like them always have feet but no hands. Sancho passed the night in pain,
for with the evening dews the blow of the staff made itself felt all the
more. Don Quixote passed it in his never-failing meditations; but, for
all that, they had some winks of sleep, and with the appearance of
daylight they pursued their journey in quest of the banks of the famous
Ebro, where that befell them which will be told in the following chapter.




CHAPTER XXIX.

OF THE FAMOUS ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED BARK


By stages as already described or left undescribed, two days after
quitting the grove Don Quixote and Sancho reached the river Ebro, and the
sight of it was a great delight to Don Quixote as he contemplated and
gazed upon the charms of its banks, the clearness of its stream, the
gentleness of its current and the abundance of its crystal waters; and
the pleasant view revived a thousand tender thoughts in his mind. Above
all, he dwelt upon what he had seen in the cave of Montesinos; for though
Master Pedro's ape had told him that of those things part was true, part
false, he clung more to their truth than to their falsehood, the very
reverse of Sancho, who held them all to be downright lies.

As they were thus proceeding, then, they discovered a small boat, without
oars or any other gear, that lay at the water's edge tied to the stem of
a tree growing on the bank. Don Quixote looked all round, and seeing
nobody, at once, without more ado, dismounted from Rocinante and bade
Sancho get down from Dapple and tie both beasts securely to the trunk of
a poplar or willow that stood there. Sancho asked him the reason of this
sudden dismounting and tying. Don Quixote made answer, "Thou must know,
Sancho, that this bark is plainly, and without the possibility of any
alternative, calling and inviting me to enter it, and in it go to give
aid to some knight or other person of distinction in need of it, who is
no doubt in some sore strait; for this is the way of the books of
chivalry and of the enchanters who figure and speak in them. When a
knight is involved in some difficulty from which he cannot be delivered
save by the hand of another knight, though they may be at a distance of
two or three thousand leagues or more one from the other, they either
take him up on a cloud, or they provide a bark for him to get into, and
in less than the twinkling of an eye they carry him where they will and
where his help is required; and so, Sancho, this bark is placed here for
the same purpose; this is as true as that it is now day, and ere this one
passes tie Dapple and Rocinante together, and then in God's hand be it to
guide us; for I would not hold back from embarking, though barefooted
friars were to beg me."

"As that's the case," said Sancho, "and your worship chooses to give in
to these--I don't know if I may call them absurdities--at every turn,
there's nothing for it but to obey and bow the head, bearing in mind the
proverb, 'Do as thy master bids thee, and sit down to table with him;'
but for all that, for the sake of easing my conscience, I warn your
worship that it is my opinion this bark is no enchanted one, but belongs
to some of the fishermen of the river, for they catch the best shad in
the world here."

As Sancho said this, he tied the beasts, leaving them to the care and
protection of the enchanters with sorrow enough in his heart. Don Quixote
bade him not be uneasy about deserting the animals, "for he who would
carry themselves over such longinquous roads and regions would take care
to feed them."

"I don't understand that logiquous," said Sancho, "nor have I ever heard
the word all the days of my life."

"Longinquous," replied Don Quixote, "means far off; but it is no wonder
thou dost not understand it, for thou art not bound to know Latin, like
some who pretend to know it and don't."

"Now they are tied," said Sancho; "what are we to do next?"

"What?" said Don Quixote, "cross ourselves and weigh anchor; I mean,
embark and cut the moorings by which the bark is held;" and the bark
began to drift away slowly from the bank. But when Sancho saw himself
somewhere about two yards out in the river, he began to tremble and give
himself up for lost; but nothing distressed him more than hearing Dapple
bray and seeing Rocinante struggling to get loose, and said he to his
master, "Dapple is braying in grief at our leaving him, and Rocinante is
trying to escape and plunge in after us. O dear friends, peace be with
you, and may this madness that is taking us away from you, turned into
sober sense, bring us back to you." And with this he fell weeping so
bitterly, that Don Quixote said to him, sharply and angrily, "What art
thou afraid of, cowardly creature? What art thou weeping at, heart of
butter-paste? Who pursues or molests thee, thou soul of a tame mouse?
What dost thou want, unsatisfied in the very heart of abundance? Art
thou, perchance, tramping barefoot over the Riphaean mountains, instead
of being seated on a bench like an archduke on the tranquil stream of
this pleasant river, from which in a short space we shall come out upon
the broad sea? But we must have already emerged and gone seven hundred or
eight hundred leagues; and if I had here an astrolabe to take the
altitude of the pole, I could tell thee how many we have travelled,
though either I know little, or we have already crossed or shall shortly
cross the equinoctial line which parts the two opposite poles midway."

"And when we come to that line your worship speaks of," said Sancho, "how
far shall we have gone?"

"Very far," said Don Quixote, "for of the three hundred and sixty degrees
that this terraqueous globe contains, as computed by Ptolemy, the
greatest cosmographer known, we shall have travelled one-half when we
come to the line I spoke of."

"By God," said Sancho, "your worship gives me a nice authority for what
you say, putrid Dolly something transmogrified, or whatever it is."

Don Quixote laughed at the interpretation Sancho put upon "computed," and
the name of the cosmographer Ptolemy, and said he, "Thou must know,
Sancho, that with the Spaniards and those who embark at Cadiz for the
East Indies, one of the signs they have to show them when they have
passed the equinoctial line I told thee of, is, that the lice die upon
everybody on board the ship, and not a single one is left, or to be found
in the whole vessel if they gave its weight in gold for it; so, Sancho,
thou mayest as well pass thy hand down thy thigh, and if thou comest upon
anything alive we shall be no longer in doubt; if not, then we have
crossed."

"I don't believe a bit of it," said Sancho; "still, I'll do as your
worship bids me; though I don't know what need there is for trying these
experiments, for I can see with my own eyes that we have not moved five
yards away from the bank, or shifted two yards from where the animals
stand, for there are Rocinante and Dapple in the very same place where we
left them; and watching a point, as I do now, I swear by all that's good,
we are not stirring or moving at the pace of an ant."

"Try the test I told thee of, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and don't mind
any other, for thou knowest nothing about colures, lines, parallels,
zodiacs, ecliptics, poles, solstices, equinoxes, planets, signs,
bearings, the measures of which the celestial and terrestrial spheres are
composed; if thou wert acquainted with all these things, or any portion
of them, thou wouldst see clearly how many parallels we have cut, what
signs we have seen, and what constellations we have left behind and are
now leaving behind. But again I tell thee, feel and hunt, for I am
certain thou art cleaner than a sheet of smooth white paper."

Sancho felt, and passing his hand gently and carefully down to the hollow
of his left knee, he looked up at his master and said, "Either the test
is a false one, or we have not come to where your worship says, nor
within many leagues of it."

"Why, how so?" asked Don Quixote; "hast thou come upon aught?"

"Ay, and aughts," replied Sancho; and shaking his fingers he washed his
whole hand in the river along which the boat was quietly gliding in
midstream, not moved by any occult intelligence or invisible enchanter,
but simply by the current, just there smooth and gentle.

They now came in sight of some large water mills that stood in the middle
of the river, and the instant Don Quixote saw them he cried out, "Seest
thou there, my friend? there stands the castle or fortress, where there
is, no doubt, some knight in durance, or ill-used queen, or infanta, or
princess, in whose aid I am brought hither."

"What the devil city, fortress, or castle is your worship talking about,
senor?" said Sancho; "don't you see that those are mills that stand in
the river to grind corn?"

"Hold thy peace, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "though they look like mills
they are not so; I have already told thee that enchantments transform
things and change their proper shapes; I do not mean to say they really
change them from one form into another, but that it seems as though they
did, as experience proved in the transformation of Dulcinea, sole refuge
of my hopes."

By this time, the boat, having reached the middle of the stream, began to
move less slowly than hitherto. The millers belonging to the mills, when
they saw the boat coming down the river, and on the point of being sucked
in by the draught of the wheels, ran out in haste, several of them, with
long poles to stop it, and being all mealy, with faces and garments
covered with flour, they presented a sinister appearance. They raised
loud shouts, crying, "Devils of men, where are you going to? Are you mad?
Do you want to drown yourselves, or dash yourselves to pieces among these
wheels?"

"Did I not tell thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote at this, "that we had
reached the place where I am to show what the might of my arm can do? See
what ruffians and villains come out against me; see what monsters oppose
me; see what hideous countenances come to frighten us! You shall soon
see, scoundrels!" And then standing up in the boat he began in a loud
voice to hurl threats at the millers, exclaiming, "Ill-conditioned and
worse-counselled rabble, restore to liberty and freedom the person ye
hold in durance in this your fortress or prison, high or low or of
whatever rank or quality he be, for I am Don Quixote of La Mancha,
otherwise called the Knight of the Lions, for whom, by the disposition of
heaven above, it is reserved to give a happy issue to this adventure;"
and so saying he drew his sword and began making passes in the air at the
millers, who, hearing but not understanding all this nonsense, strove to
stop the boat, which was now getting into the rushing channel of the
wheels. Sancho fell upon his knees devoutly appealing to heaven to
deliver him from such imminent peril; which it did by the activity and
quickness of the millers, who, pushing against the boat with their poles,
stopped it, not, however, without upsetting and throwing Don Quixote and
Sancho into the water; and lucky it was for Don Quixote that he could
swim like a goose, though the weight of his armour carried him twice to
the bottom; and had it not been for the millers, who plunged in and
hoisted them both out, it would have been Troy town with the pair of
them. As soon as, more drenched than thirsty, they were landed, Sancho
went down on his knees and with clasped hands and eyes raised to heaven,
prayed a long and fervent prayer to God to deliver him evermore from the
rash projects and attempts of his master. The fishermen, the owners of
the boat, which the mill-wheels had knocked to pieces, now came up, and
seeing it smashed they proceeded to strip Sancho and to demand payment
for it from Don Quixote; but he with great calmness, just as if nothing
had happened him, told the millers and fishermen that he would pay for
the bark most cheerfully, on condition that they delivered up to him,
free and unhurt, the person or persons that were in durance in that
castle of theirs.

"What persons or what castle art thou talking of, madman? Art thou for
carrying off the people who come to grind corn in these mills?"

"That's enough," said Don Quixote to himself, "it would be preaching in
the desert to attempt by entreaties to induce this rabble to do any
virtuous action. In this adventure two mighty enchanters must have
encountered one another, and one frustrates what the other attempts; one
provided the bark for me, and the other upset me; God help us, this world
is all machinations and schemes at cross purposes one with the other. I
can do no more." And then turning towards the mills he said aloud,
"Friends, whoe'er ye be that are immured in that prison, forgive me that,
to my misfortune and yours, I cannot deliver you from your misery; this
adventure is doubtless reserved and destined for some other knight."

So saying he settled with the fishermen, and paid fifty reals for the
boat, which Sancho handed to them very much against the grain, saying,
"With a couple more bark businesses like this we shall have sunk our
whole capital."

The fishermen and the millers stood staring in amazement at the two
figures, so very different to all appearance from ordinary men, and were
wholly unable to make out the drift of the observations and questions Don
Quixote addressed to them; and coming to the conclusion that they were
madmen, they left them and betook themselves, the millers to their mills,
and the fishermen to their huts. Don Quixote and Sancho returned to their
beasts, and to their life of beasts, and so ended the adventure of the
enchanted bark.




CHAPTER XXX.

OF DON QUIXOTE'S ADVENTURE WITH A FAIR HUNTRESS


They reached their beasts in low spirits and bad humour enough, knight
and squire, Sancho particularly, for with him what touched the stock of
money touched his heart, and when any was taken from him he felt as if he
was robbed of the apples of his eyes. In fine, without exchanging a word,
they mounted and quitted the famous river, Don Quixote absorbed in
thoughts of his love, Sancho in thinking of his advancement, which just
then, it seemed to him, he was very far from securing; for, fool as he
was, he saw clearly enough that his master's acts were all or most of
them utterly senseless; and he began to cast about for an opportunity of
retiring from his service and going home some day, without entering into
any explanations or taking any farewell of him. Fortune, however, ordered
matters after a fashion very much the opposite of what he contemplated.

It so happened that the next day towards sunset, on coming out of a wood,
Don Quixote cast his eyes over a green meadow, and at the far end of it
observed some people, and as he drew nearer saw that it was a hawking
party. Coming closer, he distinguished among them a lady of graceful
mien, on a pure white palfrey or hackney caparisoned with green trappings
and a silver-mounted side-saddle. The lady was also in green, and so
richly and splendidly dressed that splendour itself seemed personified in
her. On her left hand she bore a hawk, a proof to Don Quixote's mind that
she must be some great lady and the mistress of the whole hunting party,
which was the fact; so he said to Sancho, "Run Sancho, my son, and say to
that lady on the palfrey with the hawk that I, the Knight of the Lions,
kiss the hands of her exalted beauty, and if her excellence will grant me
leave I will go and kiss them in person and place myself at her service
for aught that may be in my power and her highness may command; and mind,
Sancho, how thou speakest, and take care not to thrust in any of thy
proverbs into thy message."

"You've got a likely one here to thrust any in!" said Sancho; "leave me
alone for that! Why, this is not the first time in my life I have carried
messages to high and exalted ladies."

"Except that thou didst carry to the lady Dulcinea," said Don Quixote, "I
know not that thou hast carried any other, at least in my service."

"That is true," replied Sancho; "but pledges don't distress a good payer,
and in a house where there's plenty supper is soon cooked; I mean there's
no need of telling or warning me about anything; for I'm ready for
everything and know a little of everything."

"That I believe, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "go and good luck to thee,
and God speed thee."

Sancho went off at top speed, forcing Dapple out of his regular pace, and
came to where the fair huntress was standing, and dismounting knelt
before her and said, "Fair lady, that knight that you see there, the
Knight of the Lions by name, is my master, and I am a squire of his, and
at home they call me Sancho Panza. This same Knight of the Lions, who was
called not long since the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, sends by me
to say may it please your highness to give him leave that, with your
permission, approbation, and consent, he may come and carry out his
wishes, which are, as he says and I believe, to serve your exalted
loftiness and beauty; and if you give it, your ladyship will do a thing
which will redound to your honour, and he will receive a most
distinguished favour and happiness."

"You have indeed, squire," said the lady, "delivered your message with
all the formalities such messages require; rise up, for it is not right
that the squire of a knight so great as he of the Rueful Countenance, of
whom we have heard a great deal here, should remain on his knees; rise,
my friend, and bid your master welcome to the services of myself and the
duke my husband, in a country house we have here."

Sancho got up, charmed as much by the beauty of the good lady as by her
high-bred air and her courtesy, but, above all, by what she had said
about having heard of his master, the Knight of the Rueful Countenance;
for if she did not call him Knight of the Lions it was no doubt because
he had so lately taken the name. "Tell me, brother squire," asked the
duchess (whose title, however, is not known), "this master of yours, is
he not one of whom there is a history extant in print, called 'The
Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote of La Mancha,' who has for the lady of
his heart a certain Dulcinea del Toboso?"

"He is the same, senora," replied Sancho; "and that squire of his who
figures, or ought to figure, in the said history under the name of Sancho
Panza, is myself, unless they have changed me in the cradle, I mean in
the press."

"I am rejoiced at all this," said the duchess; "go, brother Panza, and
tell your master that he is welcome to my estate, and that nothing could
happen to me that could give me greater pleasure."

Sancho returned to his master mightily pleased with this gratifying
answer, and told him all the great lady had said to him, lauding to the
skies, in his rustic phrase, her rare beauty, her graceful gaiety, and
her courtesy. Don Quixote drew himself up briskly in his saddle, fixed
himself in his stirrups, settled his visor, gave Rocinante the spur, and
with an easy bearing advanced to kiss the hands of the duchess, who,
having sent to summon the duke her husband, told him while Don Quixote
was approaching all about the message; and as both of them had read the
First Part of this history, and from it were aware of Don Quixote's crazy
turn, they awaited him with the greatest delight and anxiety to make his
acquaintance, meaning to fall in with his humour and agree with
everything he said, and, so long as he stayed with them, to treat him as
a knight-errant, with all the ceremonies usual in the books of chivalry
they had read, for they themselves were very fond of them.

Don Quixote now came up with his visor raised, and as he seemed about to
dismount Sancho made haste to go and hold his stirrup for him; but in
getting down off Dapple he was so unlucky as to hitch his foot in one of
the ropes of the pack-saddle in such a way that he was unable to free it,
and was left hanging by it with his face and breast on the ground. Don
Quixote, who was not used to dismount without having the stirrup held,
fancying that Sancho had by this time come to hold it for him, threw
himself off with a lurch and brought Rocinante's saddle after him, which
was no doubt badly girthed, and saddle and he both came to the ground;
not without discomfiture to him and abundant curses muttered between his
teeth against the unlucky Sancho, who had his foot still in the shackles.
The duke ordered his huntsmen to go to the help of knight and squire, and
they raised Don Quixote, sorely shaken by his fall; and he, limping,
advanced as best he could to kneel before the noble pair. This, however,
the duke would by no means permit; on the contrary, dismounting from his
horse, he went and embraced Don Quixote, saying, "I am grieved, Sir
Knight of the Rueful Countenance, that your first experience on my ground
should have been such an unfortunate one as we have seen; but the
carelessness of squires is often the cause of worse accidents."

"That which has happened me in meeting you, mighty prince," replied Don
Quixote, "cannot be unfortunate, even if my fall had not stopped short of
the depths of the bottomless pit, for the glory of having seen you would
have lifted me up and delivered me from it. My squire, God's curse upon
him, is better at unloosing his tongue in talking impertinence than in
tightening the girths of a saddle to keep it steady; but however I may
be, fallen or raised up, on foot or on horseback, I shall always be at
your service and that of my lady the duchess, your worthy consort, worthy
queen of beauty and paramount princess of courtesy."

"Gently, Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha," said the duke; "where my lady
Dona Dulcinea del Toboso is, it is not right that other beauties should
be praised."

Sancho, by this time released from his entanglement, was standing by, and
before his master could answer he said, "There is no denying, and it must
be maintained, that my lady Dulcinea del Toboso is very beautiful; but
the hare jumps up where one least expects it; and I have heard say that
what we call nature is like a potter that makes vessels of clay, and he
who makes one fair vessel can as well make two, or three, or a hundred; I
say so because, by my faith, my lady the duchess is in no way behind my
mistress the lady Dulcinea del Toboso."

Don Quixote turned to the duchess and said, "Your highness may conceive
that never had knight-errant in this world a more talkative or a droller
squire than I have, and he will prove the truth of what I say, if your
highness is pleased to accept of my services for a few days."

To which the duchess made answer, "that worthy Sancho is droll I consider
a very good thing, because it is a sign that he is shrewd; for drollery
and sprightliness, Senor Don Quixote, as you very well know, do not take
up their abode with dull wits; and as good Sancho is droll and sprightly
I here set him down as shrewd."

"And talkative," added Don Quixote.

"So much the better," said the duke, "for many droll things cannot be
said in few words; but not to lose time in talking, come, great Knight of
the Rueful Countenance-"

"Of the Lions, your highness must say," said Sancho, "for there is no
Rueful Countenance nor any such character now."

"He of the Lions be it," continued the duke; "I say, let Sir Knight of
the Lions come to a castle of mine close by, where he shall be given that
reception which is due to so exalted a personage, and which the duchess
and I are wont to give to all knights-errant who come there."

By this time Sancho had fixed and girthed Rocinante's saddle, and Don
Quixote having got on his back and the duke mounted a fine horse, they
placed the duchess in the middle and set out for the castle. The duchess
desired Sancho to come to her side, for she found infinite enjoyment in
listening to his shrewd remarks. Sancho required no pressing, but pushed
himself in between them and the duke, who thought it rare good fortune to
receive such a knight-errant and such a homely squire in their castle.




CHAPTER XXXI.

WHICH TREATS OF MANY AND GREAT MATTERS


Supreme was the satisfaction that Sancho felt at seeing himself, as it
seemed, an established favourite with the duchess, for he looked forward
to finding in her castle what he had found in Don Diego's house and in
Basilio's; he was always fond of good living, and always seized by the
forelock any opportunity of feasting himself whenever it presented
itself. The history informs us, then, that before they reached the
country house or castle, the duke went on in advance and instructed all
his servants how they were to treat Don Quixote; and so the instant he
came up to the castle gates with the duchess, two lackeys or equerries,
clad in what they call morning gowns of fine crimson satin reaching to
their feet, hastened out, and catching Don Quixote in their arms before
he saw or heard them, said to him, "Your highness should go and take my
lady the duchess off her horse."

Don Quixote obeyed, and great bandying of compliments followed between
the two over the matter; but in the end the duchess's determination
carried the day, and she refused to get down or dismount from her palfrey
except in the arms of the duke, saying she did not consider herself
worthy to impose so unnecessary a burden on so great a knight. At length
the duke came out to take her down, and as they entered a spacious court
two fair damsels came forward and threw over Don Quixote's shoulders a
large mantle of the finest scarlet cloth, and at the same instant all the
galleries of the court were lined with the men-servants and
women-servants of the household, crying, "Welcome, flower and cream of
knight-errantry!" while all or most of them flung pellets filled with
scented water over Don Quixote and the duke and duchess; at all which Don
Quixote was greatly astonished, and this was the first time that he
thoroughly felt and believed himself to be a knight-errant in reality and
not merely in fancy, now that he saw himself treated in the same way as
he had read of such knights being treated in days of yore.

Sancho, deserting Dapple, hung on to the duchess and entered the castle,
but feeling some twinges of conscience at having left the ass alone, he
approached a respectable duenna who had come out with the rest to receive
the duchess, and in a low voice he said to her, "Senora Gonzalez, or
however your grace may be called-"

"I am called Dona Rodriguez de Grijalba," replied the duenna; "what is
your will, brother?" To which Sancho made answer, "I should be glad if
your worship would do me the favour to go out to the castle gate, where
you will find a grey ass of mine; make them, if you please, put him in
the stable, or put him there yourself, for the poor little beast is
rather easily frightened, and cannot bear being alone at all."

"If the master is as wise as the man," said the duenna, "we have got a
fine bargain. Be off with you, brother, and bad luck to you and him who
brought you here; go, look after your ass, for we, the duennas of this
house, are not used to work of that sort."

"Well then, in troth," returned Sancho, "I have heard my master, who is
the very treasure-finder of stories, telling the story of Lancelot when
he came from Britain, say that ladies waited upon him and duennas upon
his hack; and, if it comes to my ass, I wouldn't change him for Senor
Lancelot's hack."

"If you are a jester, brother," said the duenna, "keep your drolleries
for some place where they'll pass muster and be paid for; for you'll get
nothing from me but a fig."

"At any rate, it will be a very ripe one," said Sancho, "for you won't
lose the trick in years by a point too little."

"Son of a bitch," said the duenna, all aglow with anger, "whether I'm old
or not, it's with God I have to reckon, not with you, you garlic-stuffed
scoundrel!" and she said it so loud, that the duchess heard it, and
turning round and seeing the duenna in such a state of excitement, and
her eyes flaming so, asked whom she was wrangling with.

"With this good fellow here," said the duenna, "who has particularly
requested me to go and put an ass of his that is at the castle gate into
the stable, holding it up to me as an example that they did the same I
don't know where--that some ladies waited on one Lancelot, and duennas on
his hack; and what is more, to wind up with, he called me old."

"That," said the duchess, "I should have considered the greatest affront
that could be offered me;" and addressing Sancho, she said to him, "You
must know, friend Sancho, that Dona Rodriguez is very youthful, and that
she wears that hood more for authority and custom's sake than because of
her years."

"May all the rest of mine be unlucky," said Sancho, "if I meant it that
way; I only spoke because the affection I have for my ass is so great,
and I thought I could not commend him to a more kind-hearted person than
the lady Dona Rodriguez."

Don Quixote, who was listening, said to him, "Is this proper conversation
for the place, Sancho?"

"Senor," replied Sancho, "every one must mention what he wants wherever
he may be; I thought of Dapple here, and I spoke of him here; if I had
thought of him in the stable I would have spoken there."

On which the duke observed, "Sancho is quite right, and there is no
reason at all to find fault with him; Dapple shall be fed to his heart's
content, and Sancho may rest easy, for he shall be treated like himself."

While this conversation, amusing to all except Don Quixote, was
proceeding, they ascended the staircase and ushered Don Quixote into a
chamber hung with rich cloth of gold and brocade; six damsels relieved
him of his armour and waited on him like pages, all of them prepared and
instructed by the duke and duchess as to what they were to do, and how
they were to treat Don Quixote, so that he might see and believe they
were treating him like a knight-errant. When his armour was removed,
there stood Don Quixote in his tight-fitting breeches and chamois
doublet, lean, lanky, and long, with cheeks that seemed to be kissing
each other inside; such a figure, that if the damsels waiting on him had
not taken care to check their merriment (which was one of the particular
directions their master and mistress had given them), they would have
burst with laughter. They asked him to let himself be stripped that they
might put a shirt on him, but he would not on any account, saying that
modesty became knights-errant just as much as valour. However, he said
they might give the shirt to Sancho; and shutting himself in with him in
a room where there was a sumptuous bed, he undressed and put on the
shirt; and then, finding himself alone with Sancho, he said to him, "Tell
me, thou new-fledged buffoon and old booby, dost thou think it right to
offend and insult a duenna so deserving of reverence and respect as that
one just now? Was that a time to bethink thee of thy Dapple, or are these
noble personages likely to let the beasts fare badly when they treat
their owners in such elegant style? For God's sake, Sancho, restrain
thyself, and don't show the thread so as to let them see what a coarse,
boorish texture thou art of. Remember, sinner that thou art, the master
is the more esteemed the more respectable and well-bred his servants are;
and that one of the greatest advantages that princes have over other men
is that they have servants as good as themselves to wait on them. Dost
thou not see--shortsighted being that thou art, and unlucky mortal that I
am!--that if they perceive thee to be a coarse clown or a dull blockhead,
they will suspect me to be some impostor or swindler? Nay, nay, Sancho
friend, keep clear, oh, keep clear of these stumbling-blocks; for he who
falls into the way of being a chatterbox and droll, drops into a wretched
buffoon the first time he trips; bridle thy tongue, consider and weigh
thy words before they escape thy mouth, and bear in mind we are now in
quarters whence, by God's help, and the strength of my arm, we shall come
forth mightily advanced in fame and fortune."

Sancho promised him with much earnestness to keep his mouth shut, and to
bite off his tongue before he uttered a word that was not altogether to
the purpose and well considered, and told him he might make his mind easy
on that point, for it should never be discovered through him what they
were.

Don Quixote dressed himself, put on his baldric with his sword, threw the
scarlet mantle over his shoulders, placed on his head a montera of green
satin that the damsels had given him, and thus arrayed passed out into
the large room, where he found the damsels drawn up in double file, the
same number on each side, all with the appliances for washing the hands,
which they presented to him with profuse obeisances and ceremonies. Then
came twelve pages, together with the seneschal, to lead him to dinner, as
his hosts were already waiting for him. They placed him in the midst of
them, and with much pomp and stateliness they conducted him into another
room, where there was a sumptuous table laid with but four covers. The
duchess and the duke came out to the door of the room to receive him, and
with them a grave ecclesiastic, one of those who rule noblemen's houses;
one of those who, not being born magnates themselves, never know how to
teach those who are how to behave as such; one of those who would have
the greatness of great folk measured by their own narrowness of mind; one
of those who, when they try to introduce economy into the household they
rule, lead it into meanness. One of this sort, I say, must have been the
grave churchman who came out with the duke and duchess to receive Don
Quixote.

A vast number of polite speeches were exchanged, and at length, taking
Don Quixote between them, they proceeded to sit down to table. The duke
pressed Don Quixote to take the head of the table, and, though he
refused, the entreaties of the duke were so urgent that he had to accept
it.

The ecclesiastic took his seat opposite to him, and the duke and duchess
those at the sides. All this time Sancho stood by, gaping with amazement
at the honour he saw shown to his master by these illustrious persons;
and observing all the ceremonious pressing that had passed between the
duke and Don Quixote to induce him to take his seat at the head of the
table, he said, "If your worship will give me leave I will tell you a
story of what happened in my village about this matter of seats."

The moment Sancho said this Don Quixote trembled, making sure that he was
about to say something foolish. Sancho glanced at him, and guessing his
thoughts, said, "Don't be afraid of my going astray, senor, or saying
anything that won't be pat to the purpose; I haven't forgotten the advice
your worship gave me just now about talking much or little, well or ill."

"I have no recollection of anything, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "say what
thou wilt, only say it quickly."

"Well then," said Sancho, "what I am going to say is so true that my
master Don Quixote, who is here present, will keep me from lying."

"Lie as much as thou wilt for all I care, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for
I am not going to stop thee, but consider what thou art going to say."

"I have so considered and reconsidered," said Sancho, "that the
bell-ringer's in a safe berth; as will be seen by what follows."

"It would be well," said Don Quixote, "if your highnesses would order
them to turn out this idiot, for he will talk a heap of nonsense."

"By the life of the duke, Sancho shall not be taken away from me for a
moment," said the duchess; "I am very fond of him, for I know he is very
discreet."

"Discreet be the days of your holiness," said Sancho, "for the good
opinion you have of my wit, though there's none in me; but the story I
want to tell is this. There was an invitation given by a gentleman of my
town, a very rich one, and one of quality, for he was one of the Alamos
of Medina del Campo, and married to Dona Mencia de Quinones, the daughter
of Don Alonso de Maranon, Knight of the Order of Santiago, that was
drowned at the Herradura--him there was that quarrel about years ago in
our village, that my master Don Quixote was mixed up in, to the best of
my belief, that Tomasillo the scapegrace, the son of Balbastro the smith,
was wounded in.--Isn't all this true, master mine? As you live, say so,
that these gentlefolk may not take me for some lying chatterer."

"So far," said the ecclesiastic, "I take you to be more a chatterer than
a liar; but I don't know what I shall take you for by-and-by."

"Thou citest so many witnesses and proofs, Sancho," said Don Quixote,
"that I have no choice but to say thou must be telling the truth; go on,
and cut the story short, for thou art taking the way not to make an end
for two days to come."

"He is not to cut it short," said the duchess; "on the contrary, for my
gratification, he is to tell it as he knows it, though he should not
finish it these six days; and if he took so many they would be to me the
pleasantest I ever spent."

"Well then, sirs, I say," continued Sancho, "that this same gentleman,
whom I know as well as I do my own hands, for it's not a bowshot from my
house to his, invited a poor but respectable labourer-"

"Get on, brother," said the churchman; "at the rate you are going you
will not stop with your story short of the next world."

"I'll stop less than half-way, please God," said Sancho; "and so I say
this labourer, coming to the house of the gentleman I spoke of that
invited him--rest his soul, he is now dead; and more by token he died the
death of an angel, so they say; for I was not there, for just at that
time I had gone to reap at Tembleque-"

"As you live, my son," said the churchman, "make haste back from
Tembleque, and finish your story without burying the gentleman, unless
you want to make more funerals."

"Well then, it so happened," said Sancho, "that as the pair of them were
going to sit down to table--and I think I can see them now plainer than
ever-"

Great was the enjoyment the duke and duchess derived from the irritation
the worthy churchman showed at the long-winded, halting way Sancho had of
telling his story, while Don Quixote was chafing with rage and vexation.

"So, as I was saying," continued Sancho, "as the pair of them were going
to sit down to table, as I said, the labourer insisted upon the
gentleman's taking the head of the table, and the gentleman insisted upon
the labourer's taking it, as his orders should be obeyed in his house;
but the labourer, who plumed himself on his politeness and good breeding,
would not on any account, until the gentleman, out of patience, putting
his hands on his shoulders, compelled him by force to sit down, saying,
'Sit down, you stupid lout, for wherever I sit will be the head to you;
and that's the story, and, troth, I think it hasn't been brought in amiss
here."

Don Quixote turned all colours, which, on his sunburnt face, mottled it
till it looked like jasper. The duke and duchess suppressed their
laughter so as not altogether to mortify Don Quixote, for they saw
through Sancho's impertinence; and to change the conversation, and keep
Sancho from uttering more absurdities, the duchess asked Don Quixote what
news he had of the lady Dulcinea, and if he had sent her any presents of
giants or miscreants lately, for he could not but have vanquished a good
many.

To which Don Quixote replied, "Senora, my misfortunes, though they had a
beginning, will never have an end. I have vanquished giants and I have
sent her caitiffs and miscreants; but where are they to find her if she
is enchanted and turned into the most ill-favoured peasant wench that can
be imagined?"

"I don't know," said Sancho Panza; "to me she seems the fairest creature
in the world; at any rate, in nimbleness and jumping she won't give in to
a tumbler; by my faith, senora duchess, she leaps from the ground on to
the back of an ass like a cat."

"Have you seen her enchanted, Sancho?" asked the duke.

"What, seen her!" said Sancho; "why, who the devil was it but myself that
first thought of the enchantment business? She is as much enchanted as my
father."

The ecclesiastic, when he heard them talking of giants and caitiffs and
enchantments, began to suspect that this must be Don Quixote of La
Mancha, whose story the duke was always reading; and he had himself often
reproved him for it, telling him it was foolish to read such fooleries;
and becoming convinced that his suspicion was correct, addressing the
duke, he said very angrily to him, "Senor, your excellence will have to
give account to God for what this good man does. This Don Quixote, or Don
Simpleton, or whatever his name is, cannot, I imagine, be such a
blockhead as your excellence would have him, holding out encouragement to
him to go on with his vagaries and follies." Then turning to address Don
Quixote he said, "And you, num-skull, who put it into your head that you
are a knight-errant, and vanquish giants and capture miscreants? Go your
ways in a good hour, and in a good hour be it said to you. Go home and
bring up your children if you have any, and attend to your business, and
give over going wandering about the world, gaping and making a
laughing-stock of yourself to all who know you and all who don't. Where,
in heaven's name, have you discovered that there are or ever were
knights-errant? Where are there giants in Spain or miscreants in La
Mancha, or enchanted Dulcineas, or all the rest of the silly things they
tell about you?"

Don Quixote listened attentively to the reverend gentleman's words, and
as soon as he perceived he had done speaking, regardless of the presence
of the duke and duchess, he sprang to his feet with angry looks and an
agitated countenance, and said--But the reply deserves a chapter to
itself.




CHAPTER XXXII.

OF THE REPLY DON QUIXOTE GAVE HIS CENSURER, WITH OTHER INCIDENTS, GRAVE
AND DROLL


Don Quixote, then, having risen to his feet, trembling from head to foot
like a man dosed with mercury, said in a hurried, agitated voice, "The
place I am in, the presence in which I stand, and the respect I have and
always have had for the profession to which your worship belongs, hold
and bind the hands of my just indignation; and as well for these reasons
as because I know, as everyone knows, that a gownsman's weapon is the
same as a woman's, the tongue, I will with mine engage in equal combat
with your worship, from whom one might have expected good advice instead
of foul abuse. Pious, well-meant reproof requires a different demeanour
and arguments of another sort; at any rate, to have reproved me in
public, and so roughly, exceeds the bounds of proper reproof, for that
comes better with gentleness than with rudeness; and it is not seemly to
call the sinner roundly blockhead and booby, without knowing anything of
the sin that is reproved. Come, tell me, for which of the stupidities you
have observed in me do you condemn and abuse me, and bid me go home and
look after my house and wife and children, without knowing whether I have
any? Is nothing more needed than to get a footing, by hook or by crook,
in other people's houses to rule over the masters (and that, perhaps,
after having been brought up in all the straitness of some seminary, and
without having ever seen more of the world than may lie within twenty or
thirty leagues round), to fit one to lay down the law rashly for
chivalry, and pass judgment on knights-errant? Is it, haply, an idle
occupation, or is the time ill-spent that is spent in roaming the world
in quest, not of its enjoyments, but of those arduous toils whereby the
good mount upwards to the abodes of everlasting life? If gentlemen, great
lords, nobles, men of high birth, were to rate me as a fool I should take
it as an irreparable insult; but I care not a farthing if clerks who have
never entered upon or trod the paths of chivalry should think me foolish.
Knight I am, and knight I will die, if such be the pleasure of the Most
High. Some take the broad road of overweening ambition; others that of
mean and servile flattery; others that of deceitful hypocrisy, and some
that of true religion; but I, led by my star, follow the narrow path of
knight-errantry, and in pursuit of that calling I despise wealth, but not
honour. I have redressed injuries, righted wrongs, punished insolences,
vanquished giants, and crushed monsters; I am in love, for no other
reason than that it is incumbent on knights-errant to be so; but though I
am, I am no carnal-minded lover, but one of the chaste, platonic sort. My
intentions are always directed to worthy ends, to do good to all and evil
to none; and if he who means this, does this, and makes this his practice
deserves to be called a fool, it is for your highnesses to say, O most
excellent duke and duchess."

"Good, by God!" cried Sancho; "say no more in your own defence, master
mine, for there's nothing more in the world to be said, thought, or
insisted on; and besides, when this gentleman denies, as he has, that
there are or ever have been any knights-errant in the world, is it any
wonder if he knows nothing of what he has been talking about?"

"Perhaps, brother," said the ecclesiastic, "you are that Sancho Panza
that is mentioned, to whom your master has promised an island?"

"Yes, I am," said Sancho, "and what's more, I am one who deserves it as
much as anyone; I am one of the sort--'Attach thyself to the good, and
thou wilt be one of them,' and of those, 'Not with whom thou art bred,
but with whom thou art fed,' and of those, 'Who leans against a good
tree, a good shade covers him;' I have leant upon a good master, and I
have been for months going about with him, and please God I shall be just
such another; long life to him and long life to me, for neither will he
be in any want of empires to rule, or I of islands to govern."

"No, Sancho my friend, certainly not," said the duke, "for in the name of
Senor Don Quixote I confer upon you the government of one of no small
importance that I have at my disposal."

"Go down on thy knees, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and kiss the feet of
his excellence for the favour he has bestowed upon thee."

Sancho obeyed, and on seeing this the ecclesiastic stood up from table
completely out of temper, exclaiming, "By the gown I wear, I am almost
inclined to say that your excellence is as great a fool as these sinners.
No wonder they are mad, when people who are in their senses sanction
their madness! I leave your excellence with them, for so long as they are
in the house, I will remain in my own, and spare myself the trouble of
reproving what I cannot remedy;" and without uttering another word, or
eating another morsel, he went off, the entreaties of the duke and
duchess being entirely unavailing to stop him; not that the duke said
much to him, for he could not, because of the laughter his uncalled-for
anger provoked.

When he had done laughing, he said to Don Quixote, "You have replied on
your own behalf so stoutly, Sir Knight of the Lions, that there is no
occasion to seek further satisfaction for this, which, though it may look
like an offence, is not so at all, for, as women can give no offence, no
more can ecclesiastics, as you very well know."

"That is true," said Don Quixote, "and the reason is, that he who is not
liable to offence cannot give offence to anyone. Women, children, and
ecclesiastics, as they cannot defend themselves, though they may receive
offence cannot be insulted, because between the offence and the insult
there is, as your excellence very well knows, this difference: the insult
comes from one who is capable of offering it, and does so, and maintains
it; the offence may come from any quarter without carrying insult. To
take an example: a man is standing unsuspectingly in the street and ten
others come up armed and beat him; he draws his sword and quits himself
like a man, but the number of his antagonists makes it impossible for him
to effect his purpose and avenge himself; this man suffers an offence but
not an insult. Another example will make the same thing plain: a man is
standing with his back turned, another comes up and strikes him, and
after striking him takes to flight, without waiting an instant, and the
other pursues him but does not overtake him; he who received the blow
received an offence, but not an insult, because an insult must be
maintained. If he who struck him, though he did so sneakingly and
treacherously, had drawn his sword and stood and faced him, then he who
had been struck would have received offence and insult at the same time;
offence because he was struck treacherously, insult because he who struck
him maintained what he had done, standing his ground without taking to
flight. And so, according to the laws of the accursed duel, I may have
received offence, but not insult, for neither women nor children can
maintain it, nor can they wound, nor have they any way of standing their
ground, and it is just the same with those connected with religion; for
these three sorts of persons are without arms offensive or defensive, and
so, though naturally they are bound to defend themselves, they have no
right to offend anybody; and though I said just now I might have received
offence, I say now certainly not, for he who cannot receive an insult can
still less give one; for which reasons I ought not to feel, nor do I
feel, aggrieved at what that good man said to me; I only wish he had
stayed a little longer, that I might have shown him the mistake he makes
in supposing and maintaining that there are not and never have been any
knights-errant in the world; had Amadis or any of his countless
descendants heard him say as much, I am sure it would not have gone well
with his worship."

"I will take my oath of that," said Sancho; "they would have given him a
slash that would have slit him down from top to toe like a pomegranate or
a ripe melon; they were likely fellows to put up with jokes of that sort!
By my faith, I'm certain if Reinaldos of Montalvan had heard the little
man's words he would have given him such a spank on the mouth that he
wouldn't have spoken for the next three years; ay, let him tackle them,
and he'll see how he'll get out of their hands!"

The duchess, as she listened to Sancho, was ready to die with laughter,
and in her own mind she set him down as droller and madder than his
master; and there were a good many just then who were of the same
opinion.

Don Quixote finally grew calm, and dinner came to an end, and as the
cloth was removed four damsels came in, one of them with a silver basin,
another with a jug also of silver, a third with two fine white towels on
her shoulder, and the fourth with her arms bared to the elbows, and in
her white hands (for white they certainly were) a round ball of Naples
soap. The one with the basin approached, and with arch composure and
impudence, thrust it under Don Quixote's chin, who, wondering at such a
ceremony, said never a word, supposing it to be the custom of that
country to wash beards instead of hands; he therefore stretched his out
as far as he could, and at the same instant the jug began to pour and the
damsel with the soap rubbed his beard briskly, raising snow-flakes, for
the soap lather was no less white, not only over the beard, but all over
the face, and over the eyes of the submissive knight, so that they were
perforce obliged to keep shut. The duke and duchess, who had not known
anything about this, waited to see what came of this strange washing. The
barber damsel, when she had him a hand's breadth deep in lather,
pretended that there was no more water, and bade the one with the jug go
and fetch some, while Senor Don Quixote waited. She did so, and Don
Quixote was left the strangest and most ludicrous figure that could be
imagined. All those present, and there were a good many, were watching
him, and as they saw him there with half a yard of neck, and that
uncommonly brown, his eyes shut, and his beard full of soap, it was a
great wonder, and only by great discretion, that they were able to
restrain their laughter. The damsels, the concocters of the joke, kept
their eyes down, not daring to look at their master and mistress; and as
for them, laughter and anger struggled within them, and they knew not
what to do, whether to punish the audacity of the girls, or to reward
them for the amusement they had received from seeing Don Quixote in such
a plight.

At length the damsel with the jug returned and they made an end of
washing Don Quixote, and the one who carried the towels very deliberately
wiped him and dried him; and all four together making him a profound
obeisance and curtsey, they were about to go, when the duke, lest Don
Quixote should see through the joke, called out to the one with the basin
saying, "Come and wash me, and take care that there is water enough." The
girl, sharp-witted and prompt, came and placed the basin for the duke as
she had done for Don Quixote, and they soon had him well soaped and
washed, and having wiped him dry they made their obeisance and retired.
It appeared afterwards that the duke had sworn that if they had not
washed him as they had Don Quixote he would have punished them for their
impudence, which they adroitly atoned for by soaping him as well.

Sancho observed the ceremony of the washing very attentively, and said to
himself, "God bless me, if it were only the custom in this country to
wash squires' beards too as well as knights'. For by God and upon my soul
I want it badly; and if they gave me a scrape of the razor besides I'd
take it as a still greater kindness."

"What are you saying to yourself, Sancho?" asked the duchess.

"I was saying, senora," he replied, "that in the courts of other princes,
when the cloth is taken away, I have always heard say they give water for
the hands, but not lye for the beard; and that shows it is good to live
long that you may see much; to be sure, they say too that he who lives a
long life must undergo much evil, though to undergo a washing of that
sort is pleasure rather than pain."

"Don't be uneasy, friend Sancho," said the duchess; "I will take care
that my damsels wash you, and even put you in the tub if necessary."

"I'll be content with the beard," said Sancho, "at any rate for the
present; and as for the future, God has decreed what is to be."

"Attend to worthy Sancho's request, seneschal," said the duchess, "and do
exactly what he wishes."

The seneschal replied that Senor Sancho should be obeyed in everything;
and with that he went away to dinner and took Sancho along with him,
while the duke and duchess and Don Quixote remained at table discussing a
great variety of things, but all bearing on the calling of arms and
knight-errantry.

The duchess begged Don Quixote, as he seemed to have a retentive memory,
to describe and portray to her the beauty and features of the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, for, judging by what fame trumpeted abroad of her
beauty, she felt sure she must be the fairest creature in the world, nay,
in all La Mancha.

Don Quixote sighed on hearing the duchess's request, and said, "If I
could pluck out my heart, and lay it on a plate on this table here before
your highness's eyes, it would spare my tongue the pain of telling what
can hardly be thought of, for in it your excellence would see her
portrayed in full. But why should I attempt to depict and describe in
detail, and feature by feature, the beauty of the peerless Dulcinea, the
burden being one worthy of other shoulders than mine, an enterprise
wherein the pencils of Parrhasius, Timantes, and Apelles, and the graver
of Lysippus ought to be employed, to paint it in pictures and carve it in
marble and bronze, and Ciceronian and Demosthenian eloquence to sound its
praises?"

"What does Demosthenian mean, Senor Don Quixote?" said the duchess; "it
is a word I never heard in all my life."

"Demosthenian eloquence," said Don Quixote, "means the eloquence of
Demosthenes, as Ciceronian means that of Cicero, who were the two most
eloquent orators in the world."

"True," said the duke; "you must have lost your wits to ask such a
question. Nevertheless, Senor Don Quixote would greatly gratify us if he
would depict her to us; for never fear, even in an outline or sketch she
will be something to make the fairest envious."

"I would do so certainly," said Don Quixote, "had she not been blurred to
my mind's eye by the misfortune that fell upon her a short time since,
one of such a nature that I am more ready to weep over it than to
describe it. For your highnesses must know that, going a few days back to
kiss her hands and receive her benediction, approbation, and permission
for this third sally, I found her altogether a different being from the
one I sought; I found her enchanted and changed from a princess into a
peasant, from fair to foul, from an angel into a devil, from fragrant to
pestiferous, from refined to clownish, from a dignified lady into a
jumping tomboy, and, in a word, from Dulcinea del Toboso into a coarse
Sayago wench."

"God bless me!" said the duke aloud at this, "who can have done the world
such an injury? Who can have robbed it of the beauty that gladdened it,
of the grace and gaiety that charmed it, of the modesty that shed a
lustre upon it?"

"Who?" replied Don Quixote; "who could it be but some malignant enchanter
of the many that persecute me out of envy--that accursed race born into
the world to obscure and bring to naught the achievements of the good,
and glorify and exalt the deeds of the wicked? Enchanters have persecuted
me, enchanters persecute me still, and enchanters will continue to
persecute me until they have sunk me and my lofty chivalry in the deep
abyss of oblivion; and they injure and wound me where they know I feel it
most. For to deprive a knight-errant of his lady is to deprive him of the
eyes he sees with, of the sun that gives him light, of the food whereby
he lives. Many a time before have I said it, and I say it now once more,
a knight-errant without a lady is like a tree without leaves, a building
without a foundation, or a shadow without the body that causes it."

"There is no denying it," said the duchess; "but still, if we are to
believe the history of Don Quixote that has come out here lately with
general applause, it is to be inferred from it, if I mistake not, that
you never saw the lady Dulcinea, and that the said lady is nothing in the
world but an imaginary lady, one that you yourself begot and gave birth
to in your brain, and adorned with whatever charms and perfections you
chose."

"There is a good deal to be said on that point," said Don Quixote; "God
knows whether there be any Dulcinea or not in the world, or whether she
is imaginary or not imaginary; these are things the proof of which must
not be pushed to extreme lengths. I have not begotten nor given birth to
my lady, though I behold her as she needs must be, a lady who contains in
herself all the qualities to make her famous throughout the world,
beautiful without blemish, dignified without haughtiness, tender and yet
modest, gracious from courtesy and courteous from good breeding, and
lastly, of exalted lineage, because beauty shines forth and excels with a
higher degree of perfection upon good blood than in the fair of lowly
birth."

"That is true," said the duke; "but Senor Don Quixote will give me leave
to say what I am constrained to say by the story of his exploits that I
have read, from which it is to be inferred that, granting there is a
Dulcinea in El Toboso, or out of it, and that she is in the highest
degree beautiful as you have described her to us, as regards the
loftiness of her lineage she is not on a par with the Orianas,
Alastrajareas, Madasimas, or others of that sort, with whom, as you well
know, the histories abound."

"To that I may reply," said Don Quixote, "that Dulcinea is the daughter
of her own works, and that virtues rectify blood, and that lowly virtue
is more to be regarded and esteemed than exalted vice. Dulcinea, besides,
has that within her that may raise her to be a crowned and sceptred
queen; for the merit of a fair and virtuous woman is capable of
performing greater miracles; and virtually, though not formally, she has
in herself higher fortunes."

"I protest, Senor Don Quixote," said the duchess, "that in all you say,
you go most cautiously and lead in hand, as the saying is; henceforth I
will believe myself, and I will take care that everyone in my house
believes, even my lord the duke if needs be, that there is a Dulcinea in
El Toboso, and that she is living to-day, and that she is beautiful and
nobly born and deserves to have such a knight as Senor Don Quixote in her
service, and that is the highest praise that it is in my power to give
her or that I can think of. But I cannot help entertaining a doubt, and
having a certain grudge against Sancho Panza; the doubt is this, that the
aforesaid history declares that the said Sancho Panza, when he carried a
letter on your worship's behalf to the said lady Dulcinea, found her
sifting a sack of wheat; and more by token it says it was red wheat; a
thing which makes me doubt the loftiness of her lineage."

To this Don Quixote made answer, "Senora, your highness must know that
everything or almost everything that happens me transcends the ordinary
limits of what happens to other knights-errant; whether it be that it is
directed by the inscrutable will of destiny, or by the malice of some
jealous enchanter. Now it is an established fact that all or most famous
knights-errant have some special gift, one that of being proof against
enchantment, another that of being made of such invulnerable flesh that
he cannot be wounded, as was the famous Roland, one of the twelve peers
of France, of whom it is related that he could not be wounded except in
the sole of his left foot, and that it must be with the point of a stout
pin and not with any other sort of weapon whatever; and so, when Bernardo
del Carpio slew him at Roncesvalles, finding that he could not wound him
with steel, he lifted him up from the ground in his arms and strangled
him, calling to mind seasonably the death which Hercules inflicted on
Antaeus, the fierce giant that they say was the son of Terra. I would
infer from what I have mentioned that perhaps I may have some gift of
this kind, not that of being invulnerable, because experience has many
times proved to me that I am of tender flesh and not at all impenetrable;
nor that of being proof against enchantment, for I have already seen
myself thrust into a cage, in which all the world would not have been
able to confine me except by force of enchantments. But as I delivered
myself from that one, I am inclined to believe that there is no other
that can hurt me; and so, these enchanters, seeing that they cannot exert
their vile craft against my person, revenge themselves on what I love
most, and seek to rob me of life by maltreating that of Dulcinea in whom
I live; and therefore I am convinced that when my squire carried my
message to her, they changed her into a common peasant girl, engaged in
such a mean occupation as sifting wheat; I have already said, however,
that that wheat was not red wheat, nor wheat at all, but grains of orient
pearl. And as a proof of all this, I must tell your highnesses that,
coming to El Toboso a short time back, I was altogether unable to
discover the palace of Dulcinea; and that the next day, though Sancho, my
squire, saw her in her own proper shape, which is the fairest in the
world, to me she appeared to be a coarse, ill-favoured farm-wench, and by
no means a well-spoken one, she who is propriety itself. And so, as I am
not and, so far as one can judge, cannot be enchanted, she it is that is
enchanted, that is smitten, that is altered, changed, and transformed; in
her have my enemies revenged themselves upon me, and for her shall I live
in ceaseless tears, until I see her in her pristine state. I have
mentioned this lest anybody should mind what Sancho said about Dulcinea's
winnowing or sifting; for, as they changed her to me, it is no wonder if
they changed her to him. Dulcinea is illustrious and well-born, and of
one of the gentle families of El Toboso, which are many, ancient, and
good. Therein, most assuredly, not small is the share of the peerless
Dulcinea, through whom her town will be famous and celebrated in ages to
come, as Troy was through Helen, and Spain through La Cava, though with a
better title and tradition. For another thing; I would have your graces
understand that Sancho Panza is one of the drollest squires that ever
served knight-errant; sometimes there is a simplicity about him so acute
that it is an amusement to try and make out whether he is simple or
sharp; he has mischievous tricks that stamp him rogue, and blundering
ways that prove him a booby; he doubts everything and believes
everything; when I fancy he is on the point of coming down headlong from
sheer stupidity, he comes out with something shrewd that sends him up to
the skies. After all, I would not exchange him for another squire, though
I were given a city to boot, and therefore I am in doubt whether it will
be well to send him to the government your highness has bestowed upon
him; though I perceive in him a certain aptitude for the work of
governing, so that, with a little trimming of his understanding, he would
manage any government as easily as the king does his taxes; and moreover,
we know already ample experience that it does not require much cleverness
or much learning to be a governor, for there are a hundred round about us
that scarcely know how to read, and govern like gerfalcons. The main
point is that they should have good intentions and be desirous of doing
right in all things, for they will never be at a loss for persons to
advise and direct them in what they have to do, like those
knight-governors who, being no lawyers, pronounce sentences with the aid
of an assessor. My advice to him will be to take no bribe and surrender
no right, and I have some other little matters in reserve, that shall be
produced in due season for Sancho's benefit and the advantage of the
island he is to govern."

The duke, duchess, and Don Quixote had reached this point in their
conversation, when they heard voices and a great hubbub in the palace,
and Sancho burst abruptly into the room all glowing with anger, with a
straining-cloth by way of a bib, and followed by several servants, or,
more properly speaking, kitchen-boys and other underlings, one of whom
carried a small trough full of water, that from its colour and impurity
was plainly dishwater. The one with the trough pursued him and followed
him everywhere he went, endeavouring with the utmost persistence to
thrust it under his chin, while another kitchen-boy seemed anxious to
wash his beard.

"What is all this, brothers?" asked the duchess. "What is it? What do you
want to do to this good man? Do you forget he is a governor-elect?"

To which the barber kitchen-boy replied, "The gentleman will not let
himself be washed as is customary, and as my lord and the senor his
master have been."

"Yes, I will," said Sancho, in a great rage; "but I'd like it to be with
cleaner towels, clearer lye, and not such dirty hands; for there's not so
much difference between me and my master that he should be washed with
angels' water and I with devil's lye. The customs of countries and
princes' palaces are only good so long as they give no annoyance; but the
way of washing they have here is worse than doing penance. I have a clean
beard, and I don't require to be refreshed in that fashion, and whoever
comes to wash me or touch a hair of my head, I mean to say my beard, with
all due respect be it said, I'll give him a punch that will leave my fist
sunk in his skull; for cirimonies and soapings of this sort are more like
jokes than the polite attentions of one's host."

The duchess was ready to die with laughter when she saw Sancho's rage and
heard his words; but it was no pleasure to Don Quixote to see him in such
a sorry trim, with the dingy towel about him, and the hangers-on of the
kitchen all round him; so making a low bow to the duke and duchess, as if
to ask their permission to speak, he addressed the rout in a dignified
tone: "Holloa, gentlemen! you let that youth alone, and go back to where
you came from, or anywhere else if you like; my squire is as clean as any
other person, and those troughs are as bad as narrow thin-necked jars to
him; take my advice and leave him alone, for neither he nor I understand
joking."

Sancho took the word out of his mouth and went on, "Nay, let them come
and try their jokes on the country bumpkin, for it's about as likely I'll
stand them as that it's now midnight! Let them bring me a comb here, or
what they please, and curry this beard of mine, and if they get anything
out of it that offends against cleanliness, let them clip me to the
skin."

Upon this, the duchess, laughing all the while, said, "Sancho Panza is
right, and always will be in all he says; he is clean, and, as he says
himself, he does not require to be washed; and if our ways do not please
him, he is free to choose. Besides, you promoters of cleanliness have
been excessively careless and thoughtless, I don't know if I ought not to
say audacious, to bring troughs and wooden utensils and kitchen
dishclouts, instead of basins and jugs of pure gold and towels of
holland, to such a person and such a beard; but, after all, you are
ill-conditioned and ill-bred, and spiteful as you are, you cannot help
showing the grudge you have against the squires of knights-errant."

The impudent servitors, and even the seneschal who came with them, took
the duchess to be speaking in earnest, so they removed the
straining-cloth from Sancho's neck, and with something like shame and
confusion of face went off all of them and left him; whereupon he, seeing
himself safe out of that extreme danger, as it seemed to him, ran and
fell on his knees before the duchess, saying, "From great ladies great
favours may be looked for; this which your grace has done me to-day cannot
be requited with less than wishing I was dubbed a knight-errant, to
devote myself all the days of my life to the service of so exalted a
lady. I am a labouring man, my name is Sancho Panza, I am married, I have
children, and I am serving as a squire; if in any one of these ways I can
serve your highness, I will not be longer in obeying than your grace in
commanding."

"It is easy to see, Sancho," replied the duchess, "that you have learned
to be polite in the school of politeness itself; I mean to say it is easy
to see that you have been nursed in the bosom of Senor Don Quixote, who
is, of course, the cream of good breeding and flower of ceremony--or
cirimony, as you would say yourself. Fair be the fortunes of such a
master and such a servant, the one the cynosure of knight-errantry, the
other the star of squirely fidelity! Rise, Sancho, my friend; I will
repay your courtesy by taking care that my lord the duke makes good to
you the promised gift of the government as soon as possible."

With this, the conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote retired to
take his midday sleep; but the duchess begged Sancho, unless he had a
very great desire to go to sleep, to come and spend the afternoon with
her and her damsels in a very cool chamber. Sancho replied that, though
he certainly had the habit of sleeping four or five hours in the heat of
the day in summer, to serve her excellence he would try with all his
might not to sleep even one that day, and that he would come in obedience
to her command, and with that he went off. The duke gave fresh orders
with respect to treating Don Quixote as a knight-errant, without
departing even in smallest particular from the style in which, as the
stories tell us, they used to treat the knights of old.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

OF THE DELECTABLE DISCOURSE WHICH THE DUCHESS AND HER DAMSELS HELD WITH
SANCHO PANZA, WELL WORTH READING AND NOTING


The history records that Sancho did not sleep that afternoon, but in
order to keep his word came, before he had well done dinner, to visit the
duchess, who, finding enjoyment in listening to him, made him sit down
beside her on a low seat, though Sancho, out of pure good breeding,
wanted not to sit down; the duchess, however, told him he was to sit down
as governor and talk as squire, as in both respects he was worthy of even
the chair of the Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador. Sancho shrugged his
shoulders, obeyed, and sat down, and all the duchess's damsels and
duennas gathered round him, waiting in profound silence to hear what he
would say. It was the duchess, however, who spoke first, saying:

"Now that we are alone, and that there is nobody here to overhear us, I
should be glad if the senor governor would relieve me of certain doubts I
have, rising out of the history of the great Don Quixote that is now in
print. One is: inasmuch as worthy Sancho never saw Dulcinea, I mean the
lady Dulcinea del Toboso, nor took Don Quixote's letter to her, for it
was left in the memorandum book in the Sierra Morena, how did he dare to
invent the answer and all that about finding her sifting wheat, the whole
story being a deception and falsehood, and so much to the prejudice of
the peerless Dulcinea's good name, a thing that is not at all becoming
the character and fidelity of a good squire?"

At these words, Sancho, without uttering one in reply, got up from his
chair, and with noiseless steps, with his body bent and his finger on his
lips, went all round the room lifting up the hangings; and this done, he
came back to his seat and said, "Now, senora, that I have seen that there
is no one except the bystanders listening to us on the sly, I will answer
what you have asked me, and all you may ask me, without fear or dread.
And the first thing I have got to say is, that for my own part I hold my
master Don Quixote to be stark mad, though sometimes he says things that,
to my mind, and indeed everybody's that listens to him, are so wise, and
run in such a straight furrow, that Satan himself could not have said
them better; but for all that, really, and beyond all question, it's my
firm belief he is cracked. Well, then, as this is clear to my mind, I can
venture to make him believe things that have neither head nor tail, like
that affair of the answer to the letter, and that other of six or eight
days ago, which is not yet in history, that is to say, the affair of the
enchantment of my lady Dulcinea; for I made him believe she is enchanted,
though there's no more truth in it than over the hills of Ubeda."

The duchess begged him to tell her about the enchantment or deception, so
Sancho told the whole story exactly as it had happened, and his hearers
were not a little amused by it; and then resuming, the duchess said, "In
consequence of what worthy Sancho has told me, a doubt starts up in my
mind, and there comes a kind of whisper to my ear that says, 'If Don
Quixote be mad, crazy, and cracked, and Sancho Panza his squire knows it,
and, notwithstanding, serves and follows him, and goes trusting to his
empty promises, there can be no doubt he must be still madder and sillier
than his master; and that being so, it will be cast in your teeth, senora
duchess, if you give the said Sancho an island to govern; for how will he
who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?'"

"By God, senora," said Sancho, "but that doubt comes timely; but your
grace may say it out, and speak plainly, or as you like; for I know what
you say is true, and if I were wise I should have left my master long
ago; but this was my fate, this was my bad luck; I can't help it, I must
follow him; we're from the same village, I've eaten his bread, I'm fond
of him, I'm grateful, he gave me his ass-colts, and above all I'm
faithful; so it's quite impossible for anything to separate us, except
the pickaxe and shovel. And if your highness does not like to give me the
government you promised, God made me without it, and maybe your not
giving it to me will be all the better for my conscience, for fool as I
am I know the proverb 'to her hurt the ant got wings,' and it may be that
Sancho the squire will get to heaven sooner than Sancho the governor.
'They make as good bread here as in France,' and 'by night all cats are
grey,' and 'a hard case enough his, who hasn't broken his fast at two in
the afternoon,' and 'there's no stomach a hand's breadth bigger than
another,' and the same can be filled 'with straw or hay,' as the saying
is, and 'the little birds of the field have God for their purveyor and
caterer,' and 'four yards of Cuenca frieze keep one warmer than four of
Segovia broad-cloth,' and 'when we quit this world and are put
underground the prince travels by as narrow a path as the journeyman,'
and 'the Pope's body does not take up more feet of earth than the
sacristan's,' for all that the one is higher than the other; for when we
go to our graves we all pack ourselves up and make ourselves small, or
rather they pack us up and make us small in spite of us, and then--good
night to us. And I say once more, if your ladyship does not like to give
me the island because I'm a fool, like a wise man I will take care to
give myself no trouble about it; I have heard say that 'behind the cross
there's the devil,' and that 'all that glitters is not gold,' and that
from among the oxen, and the ploughs, and the yokes, Wamba the husbandman
was taken to be made King of Spain, and from among brocades, and
pleasures, and riches, Roderick was taken to be devoured by adders, if
the verses of the old ballads don't lie."

"To be sure they don't lie!" exclaimed Dona Rodriguez, the duenna, who
was one of the listeners. "Why, there's a ballad that says they put King
Rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads, and adders, and lizards, and
that two days afterwards the king, in a plaintive, feeble voice, cried
out from within the tomb--

They gnaw me now, they gnaw me now,
There where I most did sin.

And according to that the gentleman has good reason to say he would
rather be a labouring man than a king, if vermin are to eat him."

The duchess could not help laughing at the simplicity of her duenna, or
wondering at the language and proverbs of Sancho, to whom she said,
"Worthy Sancho knows very well that when once a knight has made a promise
he strives to keep it, though it should cost him his life. My lord and
husband the duke, though not one of the errant sort, is none the less a
knight for that reason, and will keep his word about the promised island,
in spite of the envy and malice of the world. Let Sancho be of good
cheer; for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the
throne of his island and seat of dignity, and will take possession of his
government that he may discard it for another of three-bordered brocade.
The charge I give him is to be careful how he governs his vassals,
bearing in mind that they are all loyal and well-born."

"As to governing them well," said Sancho, "there's no need of charging me
to do that, for I'm kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for
the poor; there's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes;'
and by my faith it won't do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog,
and I know all about 'tus, tus;' I can be wide-awake if need be, and I
don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches
me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection,
and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that, in
governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe, after having
been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more
about it than the field labour I have been brought up to."

"You are right, Sancho," said the duchess, "for no one is born ready
taught, and the bishops are made out of men and not out of stones. But to
return to the subject we were discussing just now, the enchantment of the
lady Dulcinea, I look upon it as certain, and something more than
evident, that Sancho's idea of practising a deception upon his master,
making him believe that the peasant girl was Dulcinea and that if he did
not recognise her it must be because she was enchanted, was all a device
of one of the enchanters that persecute Don Quixote. For in truth and
earnest, I know from good authority that the coarse country wench who
jumped up on the ass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, and that worthy
Sancho, though he fancies himself the deceiver, is the one that is
deceived; and that there is no more reason to doubt the truth of this,
than of anything else we never saw. Senor Sancho Panza must know that we
too have enchanters here that are well disposed to us, and tell us what
goes on in the world, plainly and distinctly, without subterfuge or
deception; and believe me, Sancho, that agile country lass was and is
Dulcinea del Toboso, who is as much enchanted as the mother that bore
her; and when we least expect it, we shall see her in her own proper
form, and then Sancho will be disabused of the error he is under at
present."

"All that's very possible," said Sancho Panza; "and now I'm willing to
believe what my master says about what he saw in the cave of Montesinos,
where he says he saw the lady Dulcinea del Toboso in the very same dress
and apparel that I said I had seen her in when I enchanted her all to
please myself. It must be all exactly the other way, as your ladyship
says; because it is impossible to suppose that out of my poor wit such a
cunning trick could be concocted in a moment, nor do I think my master is
so mad that by my weak and feeble persuasion he could be made to believe
a thing so out of all reason. But, senora, your excellence must not
therefore think me ill-disposed, for a dolt like me is not bound to see
into the thoughts and plots of those vile enchanters. I invented all that
to escape my master's scolding, and not with any intention of hurting
him; and if it has turned out differently, there is a God in heaven who
judges our hearts."

"That is true," said the duchess; "but tell me, Sancho, what is this you
say about the cave of Montesinos, for I should like to know."

Sancho upon this related to her, word for word, what has been said
already touching that adventure, and having heard it the duchess said,
"From this occurrence it may be inferred that, as the great Don Quixote
says he saw there the same country wench Sancho saw on the way from El
Toboso, it is, no doubt, Dulcinea, and that there are some very active
and exceedingly busy enchanters about."

"So I say," said Sancho, "and if my lady Dulcinea is enchanted, so much
the worse for her, and I'm not going to pick a quarrel with my master's
enemies, who seem to be many and spiteful. The truth is that the one I
saw was a country wench, and I set her down to be a country wench; and if
that was Dulcinea it must not be laid at my door, nor should I be called
to answer for it or take the consequences. But they must go nagging at me
at every step--'Sancho said it, Sancho did it, Sancho here, Sancho
there,' as if Sancho was nobody at all, and not that same Sancho Panza
that's now going all over the world in books, so Samson Carrasco told me,
and he's at any rate one that's a bachelor of Salamanca; and people of
that sort can't lie, except when the whim seizes them or they have some
very good reason for it. So there's no occasion for anybody to quarrel
with me; and then I have a good character, and, as I have heard my master
say, 'a good name is better than great riches;' let them only stick me
into this government and they'll see wonders, for one who has been a good
squire will be a good governor."

"All worthy Sancho's observations," said the duchess, "are Catonian
sentences, or at any rate out of the very heart of Michael Verino
himself, who florentibus occidit annis. In fact, to speak in his own
style, 'under a bad cloak there's often a good drinker.'"

"Indeed, senora," said Sancho, "I never yet drank out of wickedness; from
thirst I have very likely, for I have nothing of the hypocrite in me; I
drink when I'm inclined, or, if I'm not inclined, when they offer it to
me, so as not to look either strait-laced or ill-bred; for when a friend
drinks one's health what heart can be so hard as not to return it? But if
I put on my shoes I don't dirty them; besides, squires to knights-errant
mostly drink water, for they are always wandering among woods, forests
and meadows, mountains and crags, without a drop of wine to be had if
they gave their eyes for it."

"So I believe," said the duchess; "and now let Sancho go and take his
sleep, and we will talk by-and-by at greater length, and settle how he
may soon go and stick himself into the government, as he says."

Sancho once more kissed the duchess's hand, and entreated her to let good
care be taken of his Dapple, for he was the light of his eyes.

"What is Dapple?" said the duchess.

"My ass," said Sancho, "which, not to mention him by that name, I'm
accustomed to call Dapple; I begged this lady duenna here to take care of
him when I came into the castle, and she got as angry as if I had said
she was ugly or old, though it ought to be more natural and proper for
duennas to feed asses than to ornament chambers. God bless me! what a
spite a gentleman of my village had against these ladies!"

"He must have been some clown," said Dona Rodriguez the duenna; "for if
he had been a gentleman and well-born he would have exalted them higher
than the horns of the moon."

"That will do," said the duchess; "no more of this; hush, Dona Rodriguez,
and let Senor Panza rest easy and leave the treatment of Dapple in my
charge, for as he is a treasure of Sancho's, I'll put him on the apple of
my eye."

"It will be enough for him to be in the stable," said Sancho, "for
neither he nor I are worthy to rest a moment in the apple of your
highness's eye, and I'd as soon stab myself as consent to it; for though
my master says that in civilities it is better to lose by a card too many
than a card too few, when it comes to civilities to asses we must mind
what we are about and keep within due bounds."

"Take him to your government, Sancho," said the duchess, "and there you
will be able to make as much of him as you like, and even release him
from work and pension him off."

"Don't think, senora duchess, that you have said anything absurd," said
Sancho; "I have seen more than two asses go to governments, and for me to
take mine with me would be nothing new."

Sancho's words made the duchess laugh again and gave her fresh amusement,
and dismissing him to sleep she went away to tell the duke the
conversation she had had with him, and between them they plotted and
arranged to play a joke upon Don Quixote that was to be a rare one and
entirely in knight-errantry style, and in that same style they practised
several upon him, so much in keeping and so clever that they form the
best adventures this great history contains.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

WHICH RELATES HOW THEY LEARNED THE WAY IN WHICH THEY WERE TO DISENCHANT
THE PEERLESS DULCINEA DEL TOBOSO, WHICH IS ONE OF THE RAREST ADVENTURES
IN THIS BOOK


Great was the pleasure the duke and duchess took in the conversation of
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; and, more bent than ever upon the plan they
had of practising some jokes upon them that should have the look and
appearance of adventures, they took as their basis of action what Don
Quixote had already told them about the cave of Montesinos, in order to
play him a famous one. But what the duchess marvelled at above all was
that Sancho's simplicity could be so great as to make him believe as
absolute truth that Dulcinea had been enchanted, when it was he himself
who had been the enchanter and trickster in the business. Having,
therefore, instructed their servants in everything they were to do, six
days afterwards they took him out to hunt, with as great a retinue of
huntsmen and beaters as a crowned king.

They presented Don Quixote with a hunting suit, and Sancho with another
of the finest green cloth; but Don Quixote declined to put his on, saying
that he must soon return to the hard pursuit of arms, and could not carry
wardrobes or stores with him. Sancho, however, took what they gave him,
meaning to sell it at the first opportunity.

The appointed day having arrived, Don Quixote armed himself, and Sancho
arrayed himself, and mounted on his Dapple (for he would not give him up
though they offered him a horse), he placed himself in the midst of the
troop of huntsmen. The duchess came out splendidly attired, and Don
Quixote, in pure courtesy and politeness, held the rein of her palfrey,
though the duke wanted not to allow him; and at last they reached a wood
that lay between two high mountains, where, after occupying various
posts, ambushes, and paths, and distributing the party in different
positions, the hunt began with great noise, shouting, and hallooing, so
that, between the baying of the hounds and the blowing of the horns, they
could not hear one another. The duchess dismounted, and with a sharp
boar-spear in her hand posted herself where she knew the wild boars were
in the habit of passing. The duke and Don Quixote likewise dismounted and
placed themselves one at each side of her. Sancho took up a position in
the rear of all without dismounting from Dapple, whom he dared not desert
lest some mischief should befall him. Scarcely had they taken their stand
in a line with several of their servants, when they saw a huge boar,
closely pressed by the hounds and followed by the huntsmen, making
towards them, grinding his teeth and tusks, and scattering foam from his
mouth. As soon as he saw him Don Quixote, bracing his shield on his arm,
and drawing his sword, advanced to meet him; the duke with boar-spear did
the same; but the duchess would have gone in front of them all had not
the duke prevented her. Sancho alone, deserting Dapple at the sight of
the mighty beast, took to his heels as hard as he could and strove in
vain to mount a tall oak. As he was clinging to a branch, however,
half-way up in his struggle to reach the top, the bough, such was his
ill-luck and hard fate, gave way, and caught in his fall by a broken limb
of the oak, he hung suspended in the air unable to reach the ground.
Finding himself in this position, and that the green coat was beginning
to tear, and reflecting that if the fierce animal came that way he might
be able to get at him, he began to utter such cries, and call for help so
earnestly, that all who heard him and did not see him felt sure he must
be in the teeth of some wild beast. In the end the tusked boar fell
pierced by the blades of the many spears they held in front of him; and
Don Quixote, turning round at the cries of Sancho, for he knew by them
that it was he, saw him hanging from the oak head downwards, with Dapple,
who did not forsake him in his distress, close beside him; and Cide
Hamete observes that he seldom saw Sancho Panza without seeing Dapple, or
Dapple without seeing Sancho Panza; such was their attachment and loyalty
one to the other. Don Quixote went over and unhooked Sancho, who, as soon
as he found himself on the ground, looked at the rent in his huntingcoat
and was grieved to the heart, for he thought he had got a patrimonial
estate in that suit.

Meanwhile they had slung the mighty boar across the back of a mule, and
having covered it with sprigs of rosemary and branches of myrtle, they
bore it away as the spoils of victory to some large field-tents which had
been pitched in the middle of the wood, where they found the tables laid
and dinner served, in such grand and sumptuous style that it was easy to
see the rank and magnificence of those who had provided it. Sancho, as he
showed the rents in his torn suit to the duchess, observed, "If we had
been hunting hares, or after small birds, my coat would have been safe
from being in the plight it's in; I don't know what pleasure one can find
in lying in wait for an animal that may take your life with his tusk if
he gets at you. I recollect having heard an old ballad sung that says,

  By bears be thou devoured, as erst
  Was famous Favila."

"That," said Don Quixote, "was a Gothic king, who, going a-hunting, was
devoured by a bear."

"Just so," said Sancho; "and I would not have kings and princes expose
themselves to such dangers for the sake of a pleasure which, to my mind,
ought not to be one, as it consists in killing an animal that has done no
harm whatever."

"Quite the contrary, Sancho; you are wrong there," said the duke; "for
hunting is more suitable and requisite for kings and princes than for
anybody else. The chase is the emblem of war; it has stratagems, wiles,
and crafty devices for overcoming the enemy in safety; in it extreme cold
and intolerable heat have to be borne, indolence and sleep are despised,
the bodily powers are invigorated, the limbs of him who engages in it are
made supple, and, in a word, it is a pursuit which may be followed
without injury to anyone and with enjoyment to many; and the best of it
is, it is not for everybody, as field-sports of other sorts are, except
hawking, which also is only for kings and great lords. Reconsider your
opinion therefore, Sancho, and when you are governor take to hunting, and
you will find the good of it."

"Nay," said Sancho, "the good governor should have a broken leg and keep
at home;" it would be a nice thing if, after people had been at the
trouble of coming to look for him on business, the governor were to be
away in the forest enjoying himself; the government would go on badly in
that fashion. By my faith, senor, hunting and amusements are more fit for
idlers than for governors; what I intend to amuse myself with is playing
all fours at Eastertime, and bowls on Sundays and holidays; for these
huntings don't suit my condition or agree with my conscience."

"God grant it may turn out so," said the duke; "because it's a long step
from saying to doing."

"Be that as it may," said Sancho, "'pledges don't distress a good payer,'
and 'he whom God helps does better than he who gets up early,' and 'it's
the tripes that carry the feet and not the feet the tripes;' I mean to
say that if God gives me help and I do my duty honestly, no doubt I'll
govern better than a gerfalcon. Nay, let them only put a finger in my
mouth, and they'll see whether I can bite or not."

"The curse of God and all his saints upon thee, thou accursed Sancho!"
exclaimed Don Quixote; "when will the day come--as I have often said to
thee--when I shall hear thee make one single coherent, rational remark
without proverbs? Pray, your highnesses, leave this fool alone, for he
will grind your souls between, not to say two, but two thousand proverbs,
dragged in as much in season, and as much to the purpose as--may God
grant as much health to him, or to me if I want to listen to them!"

"Sancho Panza's proverbs," said the duchess, "though more in number than
the Greek Commander's, are not therefore less to be esteemed for the
conciseness of the maxims. For my own part, I can say they give me more
pleasure than others that may be better brought in and more seasonably
introduced."

In pleasant conversation of this sort they passed out of the tent into
the wood, and the day was spent in visiting some of the posts and
hiding-places, and then night closed in, not, however, as brilliantly or
tranquilly as might have been expected at the season, for it was then
midsummer; but bringing with it a kind of haze that greatly aided the
project of the duke and duchess; and thus, as night began to fall, and a
little after twilight set in, suddenly the whole wood on all four sides
seemed to be on fire, and shortly after, here, there, on all sides, a
vast number of trumpets and other military instruments were heard, as if
several troops of cavalry were passing through the wood. The blaze of the
fire and the noise of the warlike instruments almost blinded the eyes and
deafened the ears of those that stood by, and indeed of all who were in
the wood. Then there were heard repeated lelilies after the fashion of
the Moors when they rush to battle; trumpets and clarions brayed, drums
beat, fifes played, so unceasingly and so fast that he could not have had
any senses who did not lose them with the confused din of so many
instruments. The duke was astounded, the duchess amazed, Don Quixote
wondering, Sancho Panza trembling, and indeed, even they who were aware
of the cause were frightened. In their fear, silence fell upon them, and
a postillion, in the guise of a demon, passed in front of them, blowing,
in lieu of a bugle, a huge hollow horn that gave out a horrible hoarse
note.

"Ho there! brother courier," cried the duke, "who are you? Where are you
going? What troops are these that seem to be passing through the wood?"

To which the courier replied in a harsh, discordant voice, "I am the
devil; I am in search of Don Quixote of La Mancha; those who are coming
this way are six troops of enchanters, who are bringing on a triumphal
car the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso; she comes under enchantment,
together with the gallant Frenchman Montesinos, to give instructions to
Don Quixote as to how, she the said lady, may be disenchanted."

"If you were the devil, as you say and as your appearance indicates,"
said the duke, "you would have known the said knight Don Quixote of La
Mancha, for you have him here before you."

"By God and upon my conscience," said the devil, "I never observed it,
for my mind is occupied with so many different things that I was
forgetting the main thing I came about."

"This demon must be an honest fellow and a good Christian," said Sancho;
"for if he wasn't he wouldn't swear by God and his conscience; I feel
sure now there must be good souls even in hell itself."

Without dismounting, the demon then turned to Don Quixote and said, "The
unfortunate but valiant knight Montesinos sends me to thee, the Knight of
the Lions (would that I saw thee in their claws), bidding me tell thee to
wait for him wherever I may find thee, as he brings with him her whom
they call Dulcinea del Toboso, that he may show thee what is needful in
order to disenchant her; and as I came for no more I need stay no longer;
demons of my sort be with thee, and good angels with these gentles;" and
so saying he blew his huge horn, turned about and went off without
waiting for a reply from anyone.

They all felt fresh wonder, but particularly Sancho and Don Quixote;
Sancho to see how, in defiance of the truth, they would have it that
Dulcinea was enchanted; Don Quixote because he could not feel sure
whether what had happened to him in the cave of Montesinos was true or
not; and as he was deep in these cogitations the duke said to him, "Do
you mean to wait, Senor Don Quixote?"

"Why not?" replied he; "here will I wait, fearless and firm, though all
hell should come to attack me."

"Well then, if I see another devil or hear another horn like the last,
I'll wait here as much as in Flanders," said Sancho.

Night now closed in more completely, and many lights began to flit
through the wood, just as those fiery exhalations from the earth, that
look like shooting-stars to our eyes, flit through the heavens; a
frightful noise, too, was heard, like that made by the solid wheels the
ox-carts usually have, by the harsh, ceaseless creaking of which, they
say, the bears and wolves are put to flight, if there happen to be any
where they are passing. In addition to all this commotion, there came a
further disturbance to increase the tumult, for now it seemed as if in
truth, on all four sides of the wood, four encounters or battles were
going on at the same time; in one quarter resounded the dull noise of a
terrible cannonade, in another numberless muskets were being discharged,
the shouts of the combatants sounded almost close at hand, and farther
away the Moorish lelilies were raised again and again. In a word, the
bugles, the horns, the clarions, the trumpets, the drums, the cannon, the
musketry, and above all the tremendous noise of the carts, all made up
together a din so confused and terrific that Don Quixote had need to
summon up all his courage to brave it; but Sancho's gave way, and he fell
fainting on the skirt of the duchess's robe, who let him lie there and
promptly bade them throw water in his face. This was done, and he came to
himself by the time that one of the carts with the creaking wheels
reached the spot. It was drawn by four plodding oxen all covered with
black housings; on each horn they had fixed a large lighted wax taper,
and on the top of the cart was constructed a raised seat, on which sat a
venerable old man with a beard whiter than the very snow, and so long
that it fell below his waist; he was dressed in a long robe of black
buckram; for as the cart was thickly set with a multitude of candles it
was easy to make out everything that was on it. Leading it were two
hideous demons, also clad in buckram, with countenances so frightful that
Sancho, having once seen them, shut his eyes so as not to see them again.
As soon as the cart came opposite the spot the old man rose from his
lofty seat, and standing up said in a loud voice, "I am the sage
Lirgandeo," and without another word the cart then passed on. Behind it
came another of the same form, with another aged man enthroned, who,
stopping the cart, said in a voice no less solemn than that of the first,
"I am the sage Alquife, the great friend of Urganda the Unknown," and
passed on. Then another cart came by at the same pace, but the occupant
of the throne was not old like the others, but a man stalwart and robust,
and of a forbidding countenance, who as he came up said in a voice far
hoarser and more devilish, "I am the enchanter Archelaus, the mortal
enemy of Amadis of Gaul and all his kindred," and then passed on. Having
gone a short distance the three carts halted and the monotonous noise of
their wheels ceased, and soon after they heard another, not noise, but
sound of sweet, harmonious music, of which Sancho was very glad, taking
it to be a good sign; and said he to the duchess, from whom he did not
stir a step, or for a single instant, "Senora, where there's music there
can't be mischief."

"Nor where there are lights and it is bright," said the duchess; to which
Sancho replied, "Fire gives light, and it's bright where there are
bonfires, as we see by those that are all round us and perhaps may burn
us; but music is a sign of mirth and merrymaking."

"That remains to be seen," said Don Quixote, who was listening to all
that passed; and he was right, as is shown in the following chapter.




CHAPTER XXXV.

WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE INSTRUCTION GIVEN TO DON QUIXOTE TOUCHING THE
DISENCHANTMENT OF DULCINEA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER MARVELLOUS INCIDENTS


They saw advancing towards them, to the sound of this pleasing music,
what they call a triumphal car, drawn by six grey mules with white linen
housings, on each of which was mounted a penitent, robed also in white,
with a large lighted wax taper in his hand. The car was twice or,
perhaps, three times as large as the former ones, and in front and on the
sides stood twelve more penitents, all as white as snow and all with
lighted tapers, a spectacle to excite fear as well as wonder; and on a
raised throne was seated a nymph draped in a multitude of silver-tissue
veils with an embroidery of countless gold spangles glittering all over
them, that made her appear, if not richly, at least brilliantly,
apparelled. She had her face covered with thin transparent sendal, the
texture of which did not prevent the fair features of a maiden from being
distinguished, while the numerous lights made it possible to judge of her
beauty and of her years, which seemed to be not less than seventeen but
not to have yet reached twenty. Beside her was a figure in a robe of
state, as they call it, reaching to the feet, while the head was covered
with a black veil. But the instant the car was opposite the duke and
duchess and Don Quixote the music of the clarions ceased, and then that
of the lutes and harps on the car, and the figure in the robe rose up,
and flinging it apart and removing the veil from its face, disclosed to
their eyes the shape of Death itself, fleshless and hideous, at which
sight Don Quixote felt uneasy, Sancho frightened, and the duke and
duchess displayed a certain trepidation. Having risen to its feet, this
living death, in a sleepy voice and with a tongue hardly awake, held
forth as follows:

I am that Merlin who the legends say
The devil had for father, and the lie
Hath gathered credence with the lapse of time.
Of magic prince, of Zoroastric lore
Monarch and treasurer, with jealous eye
I view the efforts of the age to hide
The gallant deeds of doughty errant knights,
Who are, and ever have been, dear to me.
  Enchanters and magicians and their kind

Are mostly hard of heart; not so am I;
For mine is tender, soft, compassionate,
And its delight is doing good to all.
In the dim caverns of the gloomy Dis,
Where, tracing mystic lines and characters,
My soul abideth now, there came to me
The sorrow-laden plaint of her, the fair,
The peerless Dulcinea del Toboso.
I knew of her enchantment and her fate,
From high-born dame to peasant wench transformed
And touched with pity, first I turned the leaves
Of countless volumes of my devilish craft,
And then, in this grim grisly skeleton
Myself encasing, hither have I come
To show where lies the fitting remedy
To give relief in such a piteous case.
  O thou, the pride and pink of all that I wear

The adamantine steel! O shining light,
O beacon, polestar, path and guide of all
Who, scorning slumber and the lazy down,
Adopt the toilsome life of bloodstained arms!
To thee, great hero who all praise transcends,
La Mancha's lustre and Iberia's star,
Don Quixote, wise as brave, to thee I say--
For peerless Dulcinea del Toboso
Her pristine form and beauty to regain,
'T is needful that thy esquire Sancho shall,
On his own sturdy buttocks bared to heaven,
Three thousand and three hundred lashes lay,
And that they smart and sting and hurt him well.
Thus have the authors of her woe resolved.
And this is, gentles, wherefore I have come.

"By all that's good," exclaimed Sancho at this, "I'll just as soon give
myself three stabs with a dagger as three, not to say three thousand,
lashes. The devil take such a way of disenchanting! I don't see what my
backside has got to do with enchantments. By God, if Senor Merlin has not
found out some other way of disenchanting the lady Dulcinea del Toboso,
she may go to her grave enchanted."

"But I'll take you, Don Clown stuffed with garlic," said Don Quixote,
"and tie you to a tree as naked as when your mother brought you forth,
and give you, not to say three thousand three hundred, but six thousand
six hundred lashes, and so well laid on that they won't be got rid of if
you try three thousand three hundred times; don't answer me a word or
I'll tear your soul out."

On hearing this Merlin said, "That will not do, for the lashes worthy
Sancho has to receive must be given of his own free will and not by
force, and at whatever time he pleases, for there is no fixed limit
assigned to him; but it is permitted him, if he likes to commute by half
the pain of this whipping, to let them be given by the hand of another,
though it may be somewhat weighty."

"Not a hand, my own or anybody else's, weighty or weighable, shall touch
me," said Sancho. "Was it I that gave birth to the lady Dulcinea del
Toboso, that my backside is to pay for the sins of her eyes? My master,
indeed, that's a part of her--for, he's always calling her 'my life' and
'my soul,' and his stay and prop--may and ought to whip himself for her
and take all the trouble required for her disenchantment. But for me to
whip myself! Abernuncio!"

As soon as Sancho had done speaking the nymph in silver that was at the
side of Merlin's ghost stood up, and removing the thin veil from her face
disclosed one that seemed to all something more than exceedingly
beautiful; and with a masculine freedom from embarrassment and in a voice
not very like a lady's, addressing Sancho directly, said, "Thou wretched
squire, soul of a pitcher, heart of a cork tree, with bowels of flint and
pebbles; if, thou impudent thief, they bade thee throw thyself down from
some lofty tower; if, enemy of mankind, they asked thee to swallow a
dozen of toads, two of lizards, and three of adders; if they wanted thee
to slay thy wife and children with a sharp murderous scimitar, it would
be no wonder for thee to show thyself stubborn and squeamish. But to make
a piece of work about three thousand three hundred lashes, what every
poor little charity-boy gets every month--it is enough to amaze,
astonish, astound the compassionate bowels of all who hear it, nay, all
who come to hear it in the course of time. Turn, O miserable,
hard-hearted animal, turn, I say, those timorous owl's eyes upon these of
mine that are compared to radiant stars, and thou wilt see them weeping
trickling streams and rills, and tracing furrows, tracks, and paths over
the fair fields of my cheeks. Let it move thee, crafty, ill-conditioned
monster, to see my blooming youth--still in its teens, for I am not yet
twenty--wasting and withering away beneath the husk of a rude peasant
wench; and if I do not appear in that shape now, it is a special favour
Senor Merlin here has granted me, to the sole end that my beauty may
soften thee; for the tears of beauty in distress turn rocks into cotton
and tigers into ewes. Lay on to that hide of thine, thou great untamed
brute, rouse up thy lusty vigour that only urges thee to eat and eat, and
set free the softness of my flesh, the gentleness of my nature, and the
fairness of my face. And if thou wilt not relent or come to reason for
me, do so for the sake of that poor knight thou hast beside thee; thy
master I mean, whose soul I can this moment see, how he has it stuck in
his throat not ten fingers from his lips, and only waiting for thy
inflexible or yielding reply to make its escape by his mouth or go back
again into his stomach."

Don Quixote on hearing this felt his throat, and turning to the duke he
said, "By God, senor, Dulcinea says true, I have my soul stuck here in my
throat like the nut of a crossbow."

"What say you to this, Sancho?" said the duchess.

"I say, senora," returned Sancho, "what I said before; as for the lashes,
abernuncio!"

"Abrenuncio, you should say, Sancho, and not as you do," said the duke.

"Let me alone, your highness," said Sancho. "I'm not in a humour now to
look into niceties or a letter more or less, for these lashes that are to
be given me, or I'm to give myself, have so upset me, that I don't know
what I'm saying or doing. But I'd like to know of this lady, my lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, where she learned this way she has of asking
favours. She comes to ask me to score my flesh with lashes, and she calls
me soul of a pitcher, and great untamed brute, and a string of foul names
that the devil is welcome to. Is my flesh brass? or is it anything to me
whether she is enchanted or not? Does she bring with her a basket of fair
linen, shirts, kerchiefs, socks-not that wear any--to coax me? No,
nothing but one piece of abuse after another, though she knows the
proverb they have here that 'an ass loaded with gold goes lightly up a
mountain,' and that 'gifts break rocks,' and 'praying to God and plying
the hammer,' and that 'one "take" is better than two "I'll give thee's."'
Then there's my master, who ought to stroke me down and pet me to make me
turn wool and carded cotton; he says if he gets hold of me he'll tie me
naked to a tree and double the tale of lashes on me. These tender-hearted
gentry should consider that it's not merely a squire, but a governor they
are asking to whip himself; just as if it was 'drink with cherries.' Let
them learn, plague take them, the right way to ask, and beg, and behave
themselves; for all times are not alike, nor are people always in good
humour. I'm now ready to burst with grief at seeing my green coat torn,
and they come to ask me to whip myself of my own free will, I having as
little fancy for it as for turning cacique."

"Well then, the fact is, friend Sancho," said the duke, "that unless you
become softer than a ripe fig, you shall not get hold of the government.
It would be a nice thing for me to send my islanders a cruel governor
with flinty bowels, who won't yield to the tears of afflicted damsels or
to the prayers of wise, magisterial, ancient enchanters and sages. In
short, Sancho, either you must be whipped by yourself, or they must whip
you, or you shan't be governor."

"Senor," said Sancho, "won't two days' grace be given me in which to
consider what is best for me?"

"No, certainly not," said Merlin; "here, this minute, and on the spot,
the matter must be settled; either Dulcinea will return to the cave of
Montesinos and to her former condition of peasant wench, or else in her
present form shall be carried to the Elysian fields, where she will
remain waiting until the number of stripes is completed."

"Now then, Sancho!" said the duchess, "show courage, and gratitude for
your master Don Quixote's bread that you have eaten; we are all bound to
oblige and please him for his benevolent disposition and lofty chivalry.
Consent to this whipping, my son; to the devil with the devil, and leave
fear to milksops, for 'a stout heart breaks bad luck,' as you very well
know."

To this Sancho replied with an irrelevant remark, which, addressing
Merlin, he made to him, "Will your worship tell me, Senor Merlin--when
that courier devil came up he gave my master a message from Senor
Montesinos, charging him to wait for him here, as he was coming to
arrange how the lady Dona Dulcinea del Toboso was to be disenchanted; but
up to the present we have not seen Montesinos, nor anything like him."

To which Merlin made answer, "The devil, Sancho, is a blockhead and a
great scoundrel; I sent him to look for your master, but not with a
message from Montesinos but from myself; for Montesinos is in his cave
expecting, or more properly speaking, waiting for his disenchantment; for
there's the tail to be skinned yet for him; if he owes you anything, or
you have any business to transact with him, I'll bring him to you and put
him where you choose; but for the present make up your mind to consent to
this penance, and believe me it will be very good for you, for soul as
well for body--for your soul because of the charity with which you
perform it, for your body because I know that you are of a sanguine habit
and it will do you no harm to draw a little blood."

"There are a great many doctors in the world; even the enchanters are
doctors," said Sancho; "however, as everybody tells me the same
thing--though I can't see it myself--I say I am willing to give myself
the three thousand three hundred lashes, provided I am to lay them on
whenever I like, without any fixing of days or times; and I'll try and
get out of debt as quickly as I can, that the world may enjoy the beauty
of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso; as it seems, contrary to what I thought,
that she is beautiful after all. It must be a condition, too, that I am
not to be bound to draw blood with the scourge, and that if any of the
lashes happen to be fly-flappers they are to count. Item, that, in case I
should make any mistake in the reckoning, Senor Merlin, as he knows
everything, is to keep count, and let me know how many are still wanting
or over the number."

"There will be no need to let you know of any over," said Merlin,
"because, when you reach the full number, the lady Dulcinea will at once,
and that very instant, be disenchanted, and will come in her gratitude to
seek out the worthy Sancho, and thank him, and even reward him for the
good work. So you have no cause to be uneasy about stripes too many or
too few; heaven forbid I should cheat anyone of even a hair of his head."

"Well then, in God's hands be it," said Sancho; "in the hard case I'm in
I give in; I say I accept the penance on the conditions laid down."

The instant Sancho uttered these last words the music of the clarions
struck up once more, and again a host of muskets were discharged, and Don
Quixote hung on Sancho's neck kissing him again and again on the forehead
and cheeks. The duchess and the duke expressed the greatest satisfaction,
the car began to move on, and as it passed the fair Dulcinea bowed to the
duke and duchess and made a low curtsey to Sancho.

And now bright smiling dawn came on apace; the flowers of the field,
revived, raised up their heads, and the crystal waters of the brooks,
murmuring over the grey and white pebbles, hastened to pay their tribute
to the expectant rivers; the glad earth, the unclouded sky, the fresh
breeze, the clear light, each and all showed that the day that came
treading on the skirts of morning would be calm and bright. The duke and
duchess, pleased with their hunt and at having carried out their plans so
cleverly and successfully, returned to their castle resolved to follow up
their joke; for to them there was no reality that could afford them more
amusement.




CHAPTER XXXVI.

WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE AND UNDREAMT-OF ADVENTURE OF THE
DISTRESSED DUENNA, ALIAS THE COUNTESS TRIFALDI, TOGETHER WITH A LETTER
WHICH SANCHO PANZA WROTE TO HIS WIFE, TERESA PANZA


The duke had a majordomo of a very facetious and sportive turn, and he it
was that played the part of Merlin, made all the arrangements for the
late adventure, composed the verses, and got a page to represent
Dulcinea; and now, with the assistance of his master and mistress, he got
up another of the drollest and strangest contrivances that can be
imagined.

The duchess asked Sancho the next day if he had made a beginning with his
penance task which he had to perform for the disenchantment of Dulcinea.
He said he had, and had given himself five lashes overnight.

The duchess asked him what he had given them with.

He said with his hand.

"That," said the duchess, "is more like giving oneself slaps than lashes;
I am sure the sage Merlin will not be satisfied with such tenderness;
worthy Sancho must make a scourge with claws, or a cat-o'-nine tails,
that will make itself felt; for it's with blood that letters enter, and
the release of so great a lady as Dulcinea will not be granted so
cheaply, or at such a paltry price; and remember, Sancho, that works of
charity done in a lukewarm and half-hearted way are without merit and of
no avail."

To which Sancho replied, "If your ladyship will give me a proper scourge
or cord, I'll lay on with it, provided it does not hurt too much; for you
must know, boor as I am, my flesh is more cotton than hemp, and it won't
do for me to destroy myself for the good of anybody else."

"So be it by all means," said the duchess; "to-morrow I'll give you a
scourge that will be just the thing for you, and will accommodate itself
to the tenderness of your flesh, as if it was its own sister."

Then said Sancho, "Your highness must know, dear lady of my soul, that I
have a letter written to my wife, Teresa Panza, giving her an account of
all that has happened me since I left her; I have it here in my bosom,
and there's nothing wanting but to put the address to it; I'd be glad if
your discretion would read it, for I think it runs in the governor style;
I mean the way governors ought to write."

"And who dictated it?" asked the duchess.

"Who should have dictated but myself, sinner as I am?" said Sancho.

"And did you write it yourself?" said the duchess.

"That I didn't," said Sancho; "for I can neither read nor write, though I
can sign my name."

"Let us see it," said the duchess, "for never fear but you display in it
the quality and quantity of your wit."

Sancho drew out an open letter from his bosom, and the duchess, taking
it, found it ran in this fashion:


SANCHO PANZA'S LETTER TO HIS WIFE, TERESA PANZA

If I was well whipped I went mounted like a gentleman; if I have got a
good government it is at the cost of a good whipping. Thou wilt not
understand this just now, my Teresa; by-and-by thou wilt know what it
means. I may tell thee, Teresa, I mean thee to go in a coach, for that is
a matter of importance, because every other way of going is going on
all-fours. Thou art a governor's wife; take care that nobody speaks evil
of thee behind thy back. I send thee here a green hunting suit that my
lady the duchess gave me; alter it so as to make a petticoat and bodice
for our daughter. Don Quixote, my master, if I am to believe what I hear
in these parts, is a madman of some sense, and a droll blockhead, and I
am no way behind him. We have been in the cave of Montesinos, and the
sage Merlin has laid hold of me for the disenchantment of Dulcinea del
Toboso, her that is called Aldonza Lorenzo over there. With three
thousand three hundred lashes, less five, that I'm to give myself, she
will be left as entirely disenchanted as the mother that bore her. Say
nothing of this to anyone; for, make thy affairs public, and some will
say they are white and others will say they are black. I shall leave this
in a few days for my government, to which I am going with a mighty great
desire to make money, for they tell me all new governors set out with the
same desire; I will feel the pulse of it and will let thee know if thou
art to come and live with me or not. Dapple is well and sends many
remembrances to thee; I am not going to leave him behind though they took
me away to be Grand Turk. My lady the duchess kisses thy hands a thousand
times; do thou make a return with two thousand, for as my master says,
nothing costs less or is cheaper than civility. God has not been pleased
to provide another valise for me with another hundred crowns, like the
one the other day; but never mind, my Teresa, the bell-ringer is in safe
quarters, and all will come out in the scouring of the government; only
it troubles me greatly what they tell me--that once I have tasted it I
will eat my hands off after it; and if that is so it will not come very
cheap to me; though to be sure the maimed have a benefice of their own in
the alms they beg for; so that one way or another thou wilt be rich and
in luck. God give it to thee as he can, and keep me to serve thee. From
this castle, the 20th of July, 1614.

Thy husband, the governor.

SANCHO PANZA


When she had done reading the letter the duchess said to Sancho, "On two
points the worthy governor goes rather astray; one is in saying or
hinting that this government has been bestowed upon him for the lashes
that he is to give himself, when he knows (and he cannot deny it) that
when my lord the duke promised it to him nobody ever dreamt of such a
thing as lashes; the other is that he shows himself here to be very
covetous; and I would not have him a money-seeker, for 'covetousness
bursts the bag,' and the covetous governor does ungoverned justice."

"I don't mean it that way, senora," said Sancho; "and if you think the
letter doesn't run as it ought to do, it's only to tear it up and make
another; and maybe it will be a worse one if it is left to my gumption."

"No, no," said the duchess, "this one will do, and I wish the duke to see
it."

With this they betook themselves to a garden where they were to dine, and
the duchess showed Sancho's letter to the duke, who was highly delighted
with it. They dined, and after the cloth had been removed and they had
amused themselves for a while with Sancho's rich conversation, the
melancholy sound of a fife and harsh discordant drum made itself heard.
All seemed somewhat put out by this dull, confused, martial harmony,
especially Don Quixote, who could not keep his seat from pure
disquietude; as to Sancho, it is needless to say that fear drove him to
his usual refuge, the side or the skirts of the duchess; and indeed and
in truth the sound they heard was a most doleful and melancholy one.
While they were still in uncertainty they saw advancing towards them
through the garden two men clad in mourning robes so long and flowing
that they trailed upon the ground. As they marched they beat two great
drums which were likewise draped in black, and beside them came the fife
player, black and sombre like the others. Following these came a
personage of gigantic stature enveloped rather than clad in a gown of the
deepest black, the skirt of which was of prodigious dimensions. Over the
gown, girdling or crossing his figure, he had a broad baldric which was
also black, and from which hung a huge scimitar with a black scabbard and
furniture. He had his face covered with a transparent black veil, through
which might be descried a very long beard as white as snow. He came on
keeping step to the sound of the drums with great gravity and dignity;
and, in short, his stature, his gait, the sombreness of his appearance
and his following might well have struck with astonishment, as they did,
all who beheld him without knowing who he was. With this measured pace
and in this guise he advanced to kneel before the duke, who, with the
others, awaited him standing. The duke, however, would not on any account
allow him to speak until he had risen. The prodigious scarecrow obeyed,
and standing up, removed the veil from his face and disclosed the most
enormous, the longest, the whitest and the thickest beard that human eyes
had ever beheld until that moment, and then fetching up a grave, sonorous
voice from the depths of his broad, capacious chest, and fixing his eyes
on the duke, he said:

"Most high and mighty senor, my name is Trifaldin of the White Beard; I
am squire to the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed
Duenna, on whose behalf I bear a message to your highness, which is that
your magnificence will be pleased to grant her leave and permission to
come and tell you her trouble, which is one of the strangest and most
wonderful that the mind most familiar with trouble in the world could
have imagined; but first she desires to know if the valiant and never
vanquished knight, Don Quixote of La Mancha, is in this your castle, for
she has come in quest of him on foot and without breaking her fast from
the kingdom of Kandy to your realms here; a thing which may and ought to
be regarded as a miracle or set down to enchantment; she is even now at
the gate of this fortress or plaisance, and only waits for your
permission to enter. I have spoken." And with that he coughed, and
stroked down his beard with both his hands, and stood very tranquilly
waiting for the response of the duke, which was to this effect: "Many
days ago, worthy squire Trifaldin of the White Beard, we heard of the
misfortune of my lady the Countess Trifaldi, whom the enchanters have
caused to be called the Distressed Duenna. Bid her enter, O stupendous
squire, and tell her that the valiant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha is
here, and from his generous disposition she may safely promise herself
every protection and assistance; and you may tell her, too, that if my
aid be necessary it will not be withheld, for I am bound to give it to
her by my quality of knight, which involves the protection of women of
all sorts, especially widowed, wronged, and distressed dames, such as her
ladyship seems to be."

On hearing this Trifaldin bent the knee to the ground, and making a sign
to the fifer and drummers to strike up, he turned and marched out of the
garden to the same notes and at the same pace as when he entered, leaving
them all amazed at his bearing and solemnity. Turning to Don Quixote, the
duke said, "After all, renowned knight, the mists of malice and ignorance
are unable to hide or obscure the light of valour and virtue. I say so,
because your excellence has been barely six days in this castle, and
already the unhappy and the afflicted come in quest of you from lands far
distant and remote, and not in coaches or on dromedaries, but on foot and
fasting, confident that in that mighty arm they will find a cure for
their sorrows and troubles; thanks to your great achievements, which are
circulated all over the known earth."

"I wish, senor duke," replied Don Quixote, "that blessed ecclesiastic,
who at table the other day showed such ill-will and bitter spite against
knights-errant, were here now to see with his own eyes whether knights of
the sort are needed in the world; he would at any rate learn by
experience that those suffering any extraordinary affliction or sorrow,
in extreme cases and unusual misfortunes do not go to look for a remedy
to the houses of jurists or village sacristans, or to the knight who has
never attempted to pass the bounds of his own town, or to the indolent
courtier who only seeks for news to repeat and talk of, instead of
striving to do deeds and exploits for others to relate and record. Relief
in distress, help in need, protection for damsels, consolation for
widows, are to be found in no sort of persons better than in
knights-errant; and I give unceasing thanks to heaven that I am one, and
regard any misfortune or suffering that may befall me in the pursuit of
so honourable a calling as endured to good purpose. Let this duenna come
and ask what she will, for I will effect her relief by the might of my
arm and the dauntless resolution of my bold heart."




CHAPTER XXXVII.

WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE NOTABLE ADVENTURE OF THE DISTRESSED DUENNA


The duke and duchess were extremely glad to see how readily Don Quixote
fell in with their scheme; but at this moment Sancho observed, "I hope
this senora duenna won't be putting any difficulties in the way of the
promise of my government; for I have heard a Toledo apothecary, who
talked like a goldfinch, say that where duennas were mixed up nothing
good could happen. God bless me, how he hated them, that same apothecary!
And so what I'm thinking is, if all duennas, of whatever sort or
condition they may be, are plagues and busybodies, what must they be that
are distressed, like this Countess Three-skirts or Three-tails!--for in
my country skirts or tails, tails or skirts, it's all one."

"Hush, friend Sancho," said Don Quixote; "since this lady duenna comes in
quest of me from such a distant land she cannot be one of those the
apothecary meant; moreover this is a countess, and when countesses serve
as duennas it is in the service of queens and empresses, for in their own
houses they are mistresses paramount and have other duennas to wait on
them."

To this Dona Rodriguez, who was present, made answer, "My lady the
duchess has duennas in her service that might be countesses if it was the
will of fortune; 'but laws go as kings like;' let nobody speak ill of
duennas, above all of ancient maiden ones; for though I am not one
myself, I know and am aware of the advantage a maiden duenna has over one
that is a widow; but 'he who clipped us has kept the scissors.'"

"For all that," said Sancho, "there's so much to be clipped about
duennas, so my barber said, that 'it will be better not to stir the rice
even though it sticks.'"

"These squires," returned Dona Rodriguez, "are always our enemies; and as
they are the haunting spirits of the antechambers and watch us at every
step, whenever they are not saying their prayers (and that's often
enough) they spend their time in tattling about us, digging up our bones
and burying our good name. But I can tell these walking blocks that we
will live in spite of them, and in great houses too, though we die of
hunger and cover our flesh, be it delicate or not, with widow's weeds, as
one covers or hides a dunghill on a procession day. By my faith, if it
were permitted me and time allowed, I could prove, not only to those here
present, but to all the world, that there is no virtue that is not to be
found in a duenna."

"I have no doubt," said the duchess, "that my good Dona Rodriguez is
right, and very much so; but she had better bide her time for fighting
her own battle and that of the rest of the duennas, so as to crush the
calumny of that vile apothecary, and root out the prejudice in the great
Sancho Panza's mind."

To which Sancho replied, "Ever since I have sniffed the governorship I
have got rid of the humours of a squire, and I don't care a wild fig for
all the duennas in the world."

They would have carried on this duenna dispute further had they not heard
the notes of the fife and drums once more, from which they concluded that
the Distressed Duenna was making her entrance. The duchess asked the duke
if it would be proper to go out to receive her, as she was a countess and
a person of rank.

"In respect of her being a countess," said Sancho, before the duke could
reply, "I am for your highnesses going out to receive her; but in respect
of her being a duenna, it is my opinion you should not stir a step."

"Who bade thee meddle in this, Sancho?" said Don Quixote.

"Who, senor?" said Sancho; "I meddle for I have a right to meddle, as a
squire who has learned the rules of courtesy in the school of your
worship, the most courteous and best-bred knight in the whole world of
courtliness; and in these things, as I have heard your worship say, as
much is lost by a card too many as by a card too few, and to one who has
his ears open, few words."

"Sancho is right," said the duke; "we'll see what the countess is like,
and by that measure the courtesy that is due to her."

And now the drums and fife made their entrance as before; and here the
author brought this short chapter to an end and began the next, following
up the same adventure, which is one of the most notable in the history.




CHAPTER XXXVIII.

WHEREIN IS TOLD THE DISTRESSED DUENNA'S TALE OF HER MISFORTUNES


Following the melancholy musicians there filed into the garden as many as
twelve duennas, in two lines, all dressed in ample mourning robes
apparently of milled serge, with hoods of fine white gauze so long that
they allowed only the border of the robe to be seen. Behind them came the
Countess Trifaldi, the squire Trifaldin of the White Beard leading her by
the hand, clad in the finest unnapped black baize, such that, had it a
nap, every tuft would have shown as big as a Martos chickpea; the tail,
or skirt, or whatever it might be called, ended in three points which
were borne up by the hands of three pages, likewise dressed in mourning,
forming an elegant geometrical figure with the three acute angles made by
the three points, from which all who saw the peaked skirt concluded that
it must be because of it the countess was called Trifaldi, as though it
were Countess of the Three Skirts; and Benengeli says it was so, and that
by her right name she was called the Countess Lobuna, because wolves bred
in great numbers in her country; and if, instead of wolves, they had been
foxes, she would have been called the Countess Zorruna, as it was the
custom in those parts for lords to take distinctive titles from the thing
or things most abundant in their dominions; this countess, however, in
honour of the new fashion of her skirt, dropped Lobuna and took up
Trifaldi.

The twelve duennas and the lady came on at procession pace, their faces
being covered with black veils, not transparent ones like Trifaldin's,
but so close that they allowed nothing to be seen through them. As soon
as the band of duennas was fully in sight, the duke, the duchess, and Don
Quixote stood up, as well as all who were watching the slow-moving
procession. The twelve duennas halted and formed a lane, along which the
Distressed One advanced, Trifaldin still holding her hand. On seeing this
the duke, the duchess, and Don Quixote went some twelve paces forward to
meet her. She then, kneeling on the ground, said in a voice hoarse and
rough, rather than fine and delicate, "May it please your highnesses not
to offer such courtesies to this your servant, I should say to this your
handmaid, for I am in such distress that I shall never be able to make a
proper return, because my strange and unparalleled misfortune has carried
off my wits, and I know not whither; but it must be a long way off, for
the more I look for them the less I find them."

"He would be wanting in wits, senora countess," said the duke, "who did
not perceive your worth by your person, for at a glance it may be seen it
deserves all the cream of courtesy and flower of polite usage;" and
raising her up by the hand he led her to a seat beside the duchess, who
likewise received her with great urbanity. Don Quixote remained silent,
while Sancho was dying to see the features of Trifaldi and one or two of
her many duennas; but there was no possibility of it until they
themselves displayed them of their own accord and free will.

All kept still, waiting to see who would break silence, which the
Distressed Duenna did in these words: "I am confident, most mighty lord,
most fair lady, and most discreet company, that my most miserable misery
will be accorded a reception no less dispassionate than generous and
condolent in your most valiant bosoms, for it is one that is enough to
melt marble, soften diamonds, and mollify the steel of the most hardened
hearts in the world; but ere it is proclaimed to your hearing, not to say
your ears, I would fain be enlightened whether there be present in this
society, circle, or company, that knight immaculatissimus, Don Quixote de
la Manchissima, and his squirissimus Panza."

"The Panza is here," said Sancho, before anyone could reply, "and Don
Quixotissimus too; and so, most distressedest Duenissima, you may say
what you willissimus, for we are all readissimus to do you any
servissimus."

On this Don Quixote rose, and addressing the Distressed Duenna, said, "If
your sorrows, afflicted lady, can indulge in any hope of relief from the
valour or might of any knight-errant, here are mine, which, feeble and
limited though they be, shall be entirely devoted to your service. I am
Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose calling it is to give aid to the needy of
all sorts; and that being so, it is not necessary for you, senora, to
make any appeal to benevolence, or deal in preambles, only to tell your
woes plainly and straightforwardly: for you have hearers that will know
how, if not to remedy them, to sympathise with them."

On hearing this, the Distressed Duenna made as though she would throw
herself at Don Quixote's feet, and actually did fall before them and
said, as she strove to embrace them, "Before these feet and legs I cast
myself, O unconquered knight, as before, what they are, the foundations
and pillars of knight-errantry; these feet I desire to kiss, for upon
their steps hangs and depends the sole remedy for my misfortune, O
valorous errant, whose veritable achievements leave behind and eclipse
the fabulous ones of the Amadises, Esplandians, and Belianises!" Then
turning from Don Quixote to Sancho Panza, and grasping his hands, she
said, "O thou, most loyal squire that ever served knight-errant in this
present age or ages past, whose goodness is more extensive than the beard
of Trifaldin my companion here of present, well mayest thou boast thyself
that, in serving the great Don Quixote, thou art serving, summed up in
one, the whole host of knights that have ever borne arms in the world. I
conjure thee, by what thou owest to thy most loyal goodness, that thou
wilt become my kind intercessor with thy master, that he speedily give
aid to this most humble and most unfortunate countess."

To this Sancho made answer, "As to my goodness, senora, being as long and
as great as your squire's beard, it matters very little to me; may I have
my soul well bearded and moustached when it comes to quit this life,
that's the point; about beards here below I care little or nothing; but
without all these blandishments and prayers, I will beg my master (for I
know he loves me, and, besides, he has need of me just now for a certain
business) to help and aid your worship as far as he can; unpack your woes
and lay them before us, and leave us to deal with them, for we'll be all
of one mind."

The duke and duchess, as it was they who had made the experiment of this
adventure, were ready to burst with laughter at all this, and between
themselves they commended the clever acting of the Trifaldi, who,
returning to her seat, said, "Queen Dona Maguncia reigned over the famous
kingdom of Kandy, which lies between the great Trapobana and the Southern
Sea, two leagues beyond Cape Comorin. She was the widow of King
Archipiela, her lord and husband, and of their marriage they had issue
the Princess Antonomasia, heiress of the kingdom; which Princess
Antonomasia was reared and brought up under my care and direction, I
being the oldest and highest in rank of her mother's duennas. Time
passed, and the young Antonomasia reached the age of fourteen, and such a
perfection of beauty, that nature could not raise it higher. Then, it
must not be supposed her intelligence was childish; she was as
intelligent as she was fair, and she was fairer than all the world; and
is so still, unless the envious fates and hard-hearted sisters three have
cut for her the thread of life. But that they have not, for Heaven will
not suffer so great a wrong to Earth, as it would be to pluck unripe the
grapes of the fairest vineyard on its surface. Of this beauty, to which
my poor feeble tongue has failed to do justice, countless princes, not
only of that country, but of others, were enamoured, and among them a
private gentleman, who was at the court, dared to raise his thoughts to
the heaven of so great beauty, trusting to his youth, his gallant
bearing, his numerous accomplishments and graces, and his quickness and
readiness of wit; for I may tell your highnesses, if I am not wearying
you, that he played the guitar so as to make it speak, and he was,
besides, a poet and a great dancer, and he could make birdcages so well,
that by making them alone he might have gained a livelihood, had he found
himself reduced to utter poverty; and gifts and graces of this kind are
enough to bring down a mountain, not to say a tender young girl. But all
his gallantry, wit, and gaiety, all his graces and accomplishments, would
have been of little or no avail towards gaining the fortress of my pupil,
had not the impudent thief taken the precaution of gaining me over first.
First, the villain and heartless vagabond sought to win my good-will and
purchase my compliance, so as to get me, like a treacherous warder, to
deliver up to him the keys of the fortress I had in charge. In a word, he
gained an influence over my mind, and overcame my resolutions with I know
not what trinkets and jewels he gave me; but it was some verses I heard
him singing one night from a grating that opened on the street where he
lived, that, more than anything else, made me give way and led to my
fall; and if I remember rightly they ran thus:

  From that sweet enemy of mine
  My bleeding heart hath had its wound;
  And to increase the pain I'm bound
  To suffer and to make no sign.

The lines seemed pearls to me and his voice sweet as syrup; and
afterwards, I may say ever since then, looking at the misfortune into
which I have fallen, I have thought that poets, as Plato advised, ought
to be banished from all well-ordered States; at least the amatory ones,
for they write verses, not like those of 'The Marquis of Mantua,' that
delight and draw tears from the women and children, but sharp-pointed
conceits that pierce the heart like soft thorns, and like the lightning
strike it, leaving the raiment uninjured. Another time he sang:

  Come Death, so subtly veiled that I
  Thy coming know not, how or when,
  Lest it should give me life again
  To find how sweet it is to die.

--and other verses and burdens of the same sort, such as enchant when
sung and fascinate when written. And then, when they condescend to
compose a sort of verse that was at that time in vogue in Kandy, which
they call seguidillas! Then it is that hearts leap and laughter breaks
forth, and the body grows restless and all the senses turn quicksilver.
And so I say, sirs, that these troubadours richly deserve to be banished
to the isles of the lizards. Though it is not they that are in fault, but
the simpletons that extol them, and the fools that believe in them; and
had I been the faithful duenna I should have been, his stale conceits
would have never moved me, nor should I have been taken in by such
phrases as 'in death I live,' 'in ice I burn,' 'in flames I shiver,'
'hopeless I hope,' 'I go and stay,' and paradoxes of that sort which
their writings are full of. And then when they promise the Phoenix of
Arabia, the crown of Ariadne, the horses of the Sun, the pearls of the
South, the gold of Tibar, and the balsam of Panchaia! Then it is they
give a loose to their pens, for it costs them little to make promises
they have no intention or power of fulfilling. But where am I wandering
to? Woe is me, unfortunate being! What madness or folly leads me to speak
of the faults of others, when there is so much to be said about my own?
Again, woe is me, hapless that I am! it was not verses that conquered me,
but my own simplicity; it was not music made me yield, but my own
imprudence; my own great ignorance and little caution opened the way and
cleared the path for Don Clavijo's advances, for that was the name of the
gentleman I have referred to; and so, with my help as go-between, he
found his way many a time into the chamber of the deceived Antonomasia
(deceived not by him but by me) under the title of a lawful husband; for,
sinner though I was, would not have allowed him to approach the edge of
her shoe-sole without being her husband. No, no, not that; marriage must
come first in any business of this sort that I take in hand. But there
was one hitch in this case, which was that of inequality of rank, Don
Clavijo being a private gentleman, and the Princess Antonomasia, as I
said, heiress to the kingdom. The entanglement remained for some time a
secret, kept hidden by my cunning precautions, until I perceived that a
certain expansion of waist in Antonomasia must before long disclose it,
the dread of which made us all there take counsel together, and it was
agreed that before the mischief came to light, Don Clavijo should demand
Antonomasia as his wife before the Vicar, in virtue of an agreement to
marry him made by the princess, and drafted by my wit in such binding
terms that the might of Samson could not have broken it. The necessary
steps were taken; the Vicar saw the agreement, and took the lady's
confession; she confessed everything in full, and he ordered her into the
custody of a very worthy alguacil of the court."

"Are there alguacils of the court in Kandy, too," said Sancho at this,
"and poets, and seguidillas? I swear I think the world is the same all
over! But make haste, Senora Trifaldi; for it is late, and I am dying to
know the end of this long story."

"I will," replied the countess.




CHAPTER XXXIX.

IN WHICH THE TRIFALDI CONTINUES HER MARVELLOUS AND MEMORABLE STORY


By every word that Sancho uttered, the duchess was as much delighted as
Don Quixote was driven to desperation. He bade him hold his tongue, and
the Distressed One went on to say: "At length, after much questioning and
answering, as the princess held to her story, without changing or varying
her previous declaration, the Vicar gave his decision in favour of Don
Clavijo, and she was delivered over to him as his lawful wife; which the
Queen Dona Maguncia, the Princess Antonomasia's mother, so took to heart,
that within the space of three days we buried her."

"She died, no doubt," said Sancho.

"Of course," said Trifaldin; "they don't bury living people in Kandy,
only the dead."

"Senor Squire," said Sancho, "a man in a swoon has been known to be
buried before now, in the belief that he was dead; and it struck me that
Queen Maguncia ought to have swooned rather than died; because with life
a great many things come right, and the princess's folly was not so great
that she need feel it so keenly. If the lady had married some page of
hers, or some other servant of the house, as many another has done, so I
have heard say, then the mischief would have been past curing. But to
marry such an elegant accomplished gentleman as has been just now
described to us--indeed, indeed, though it was a folly, it was not such a
great one as you think; for according to the rules of my master here--and
he won't allow me to lie--as of men of letters bishops are made, so of
gentlemen knights, specially if they be errant, kings and emperors may be
made."

"Thou art right, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for with a knight-errant, if
he has but two fingers' breadth of good fortune, it is on the cards to
become the mightiest lord on earth. But let senora the Distressed One
proceed; for I suspect she has got yet to tell us the bitter part of this
so far sweet story."

"The bitter is indeed to come," said the countess; "and such bitter that
colocynth is sweet and oleander toothsome in comparison. The queen, then,
being dead, and not in a swoon, we buried her; and hardly had we covered
her with earth, hardly had we said our last farewells, when, quis talia
fando temperet a lachrymis? over the queen's grave there appeared,
mounted upon a wooden horse, the giant Malambruno, Maguncia's first
cousin, who besides being cruel is an enchanter; and he, to revenge the
death of his cousin, punish the audacity of Don Clavijo, and in wrath at
the contumacy of Antonomasia, left them both enchanted by his art on the
grave itself; she being changed into an ape of brass, and he into a
horrible crocodile of some unknown metal; while between the two there
stands a pillar, also of metal, with certain characters in the Syriac
language inscribed upon it, which, being translated into Kandian, and now
into Castilian, contain the following sentence: 'These two rash lovers
shall not recover their former shape until the valiant Manchegan comes to
do battle with me in single combat; for the Fates reserve this unexampled
adventure for his mighty valour alone.' This done, he drew from its
sheath a huge broad scimitar, and seizing me by the hair he made as
though he meant to cut my throat and shear my head clean off. I was
terror-stricken, my voice stuck in my throat, and I was in the deepest
distress; nevertheless I summoned up my strength as well as I could, and
in a trembling and piteous voice I addressed such words to him as induced
him to stay the infliction of a punishment so severe. He then caused all
the duennas of the palace, those that are here present, to be brought
before him; and after having dwelt upon the enormity of our offence, and
denounced duennas, their characters, their evil ways and worse intrigues,
laying to the charge of all what I alone was guilty of, he said he would
not visit us with capital punishment, but with others of a slow nature
which would be in effect civil death for ever; and the very instant he
ceased speaking we all felt the pores of our faces opening, and pricking
us, as if with the points of needles. We at once put our hands up to our
faces and found ourselves in the state you now see."

Here the Distressed One and the other duennas raised the veils with which
they were covered, and disclosed countenances all bristling with beards,
some red, some black, some white, and some grizzled, at which spectacle
the duke and duchess made a show of being filled with wonder. Don Quixote
and Sancho were overwhelmed with amazement, and the bystanders lost in
astonishment, while the Trifaldi went on to say: "Thus did that
malevolent villain Malambruno punish us, covering the tenderness and
softness of our faces with these rough bristles! Would to heaven that he
had swept off our heads with his enormous scimitar instead of obscuring
the light of our countenances with these wool-combings that cover us! For
if we look into the matter, sirs (and what I am now going to say I would
say with eyes flowing like fountains, only that the thought of our
misfortune and the oceans they have already wept, keep them as dry as
barley spears, and so I say it without tears), where, I ask, can a duenna
with a beard go to? What father or mother will feel pity for her? Who
will help her? For, if even when she has a smooth skin, and a face
tortured by a thousand kinds of washes and cosmetics, she can hardly get
anybody to love her, what will she do when she shows a countenance turned
into a thicket? Oh duennas, companions mine! it was an unlucky moment
when we were born and an ill-starred hour when our fathers begot us!" And
as she said this she showed signs of being about to faint.




CHAPTER XL.

OF MATTERS RELATING AND BELONGING TO THIS ADVENTURE AND TO THIS MEMORABLE
HISTORY


Verily and truly all those who find pleasure in histories like this ought
show their gratitude to Cide Hamete, its original author, for the
scrupulous care he has taken to set before us all its minute particulars,
not leaving anything, however trifling it may be, that he does not make
clear and plain. He portrays the thoughts, he reveals the fancies, he
answers implied questions, clears up doubts, sets objections at rest,
and, in a word, makes plain the smallest points the most inquisitive can
desire to know. O renowned author! O happy Don Quixote! O famous famous
droll Sancho! All and each, may ye live countless ages for the delight
and amusement of the dwellers on earth!

The history goes on to say that when Sancho saw the Distressed One faint
he exclaimed: "I swear by the faith of an honest man and the shades of
all my ancestors the Panzas, that never I did see or hear of, nor has my
master related or conceived in his mind, such an adventure as this. A
thousand devils--not to curse thee--take thee, Malambruno, for an
enchanter and a giant! Couldst thou find no other sort of punishment for
these sinners but bearding them? Would it not have been better--it would
have been better for them--to have taken off half their noses from the
middle upwards, even though they'd have snuffled when they spoke, than to
have put beards on them? I'll bet they have not the means of paying
anybody to shave them."

"That is the truth, senor," said one of the twelve; "we have not the
money to get ourselves shaved, and so we have, some of us, taken to using
sticking-plasters by way of an economical remedy, for by applying them to
our faces and plucking them off with a jerk we are left as bare and
smooth as the bottom of a stone mortar. There are, to be sure, women in
Kandy that go about from house to house to remove down, and trim
eyebrows, and make cosmetics for the use of the women, but we, the
duennas of my lady, would never let them in, for most of them have a
flavour of agents that have ceased to be principals; and if we are not
relieved by Senor Don Quixote we shall be carried to our graves with
beards."

"I will pluck out my own in the land of the Moors," said Don Quixote, "if
I don't cure yours."

At this instant the Trifaldi recovered from her swoon and said, "The
chink of that promise, valiant knight, reached my ears in the midst of my
swoon, and has been the means of reviving me and bringing back my senses;
and so once more I implore you, illustrious errant, indomitable sir, to
let your gracious promises be turned into deeds."

"There shall be no delay on my part," said Don Quixote. "Bethink you,
senora, of what I must do, for my heart is most eager to serve you."

"The fact is," replied the Distressed One, "it is five thousand leagues,
a couple more or less, from this to the kingdom of Kandy, if you go by
land; but if you go through the air and in a straight line, it is three
thousand two hundred and twenty-seven. You must know, too, that
Malambruno told me that, whenever fate provided the knight our deliverer,
he himself would send him a steed far better and with less tricks than a
post-horse; for he will be that same wooden horse on which the valiant
Pierres carried off the fair Magalona; which said horse is guided by a
peg he has in his forehead that serves for a bridle, and flies through
the air with such rapidity that you would fancy the very devils were
carrying him. This horse, according to ancient tradition, was made by
Merlin. He lent him to Pierres, who was a friend of his, and who made
long journeys with him, and, as has been said, carried off the fair
Magalona, bearing her through the air on its haunches and making all who
beheld them from the earth gape with astonishment; and he never lent him
save to those whom he loved or those who paid him well; and since the
great Pierres we know of no one having mounted him until now. From him
Malambruno stole him by his magic art, and he has him now in his
possession, and makes use of him in his journeys which he constantly
makes through different parts of the world; he is here to-day, to-morrow
in France, and the next day in Potosi; and the best of it is the said
horse neither eats nor sleeps nor wears out shoes, and goes at an ambling
pace through the air without wings, so that he whom he has mounted upon
him can carry a cup full of water in his hand without spilling a drop, so
smoothly and easily does he go, for which reason the fair Magalona
enjoyed riding him greatly."

"For going smoothly and easily," said Sancho at this, "give me my Dapple,
though he can't go through the air; but on the ground I'll back him
against all the amblers in the world."

They all laughed, and the Distressed One continued: "And this same horse,
if so be that Malambruno is disposed to put an end to our sufferings,
will be here before us ere the night shall have advanced half an hour;
for he announced to me that the sign he would give me whereby I might
know that I had found the knight I was in quest of, would be to send me
the horse wherever he might be, speedily and promptly."

"And how many is there room for on this horse?" asked Sancho.

"Two," said the Distressed One, "one in the saddle, and the other on the
croup; and generally these two are knight and squire, when there is no
damsel that's being carried off."

"I'd like to know, Senora Distressed One," said Sancho, "what is the name
of this horse?"

"His name," said the Distressed One, "is not the same as Bellerophon's
horse that was called Pegasus, or Alexander the Great's, called
Bucephalus, or Orlando Furioso's, the name of which was Brigliador, nor
yet Bayard, the horse of Reinaldos of Montalvan, nor Frontino like
Ruggiero's, nor Bootes or Peritoa, as they say the horses of the sun were
called, nor is he called Orelia, like the horse on which the unfortunate
Rodrigo, the last king of the Goths, rode to the battle where he lost his
life and his kingdom."

"I'll bet," said Sancho, "that as they have given him none of these
famous names of well-known horses, no more have they given him the name
of my master's Rocinante, which for being apt surpasses all that have
been mentioned."

"That is true," said the bearded countess, "still it fits him very well,
for he is called Clavileno the Swift, which name is in accordance with
his being made of wood, with the peg he has in his forehead, and with the
swift pace at which he travels; and so, as far as name goes, he may
compare with the famous Rocinante."

"I have nothing to say against his name," said Sancho; "but with what
sort of bridle or halter is he managed?"

"I have said already," said the Trifaldi, "that it is with a peg, by
turning which to one side or the other the knight who rides him makes him
go as he pleases, either through the upper air, or skimming and almost
sweeping the earth, or else in that middle course that is sought and
followed in all well-regulated proceedings."

"I'd like to see him," said Sancho; "but to fancy I'm going to mount him,
either in the saddle or on the croup, is to ask pears of the elm tree. A
good joke indeed! I can hardly keep my seat upon Dapple, and on a
pack-saddle softer than silk itself, and here they'd have me hold on upon
haunches of plank without pad or cushion of any sort! Gad, I have no
notion of bruising myself to get rid of anyone's beard; let each one
shave himself as best he can; I'm not going to accompany my master on any
such long journey; besides, I can't give any help to the shaving of these
beards as I can to the disenchantment of my lady Dulcinea."

"Yes, you can, my friend," replied the Trifaldi; "and so much, that
without you, so I understand, we shall be able to do nothing."

"In the king's name!" exclaimed Sancho, "what have squires got to do with
the adventures of their masters? Are they to have the fame of such as
they go through, and we the labour? Body o' me! if the historians would
only say, 'Such and such a knight finished such and such an adventure,
but with the help of so and so, his squire, without which it would have
been impossible for him to accomplish it;' but they write curtly, "Don
Paralipomenon of the Three Stars accomplished the adventure of the six
monsters;' without mentioning such a person as his squire, who was there
all the time, just as if there was no such being. Once more, sirs, I say
my master may go alone, and much good may it do him; and I'll stay here
in the company of my lady the duchess; and maybe when he comes back, he
will find the lady Dulcinea's affair ever so much advanced; for I mean in
leisure hours, and at idle moments, to give myself a spell of whipping
without so much as a hair to cover me."

"For all that you must go if it be necessary, my good Sancho," said the
duchess, "for they are worthy folk who ask you; and the faces of these
ladies must not remain overgrown in this way because of your idle fears;
that would be a hard case indeed."

"In the king's name, once more!" said Sancho; "If this charitable work
were to be done for the sake of damsels in confinement or charity-girls,
a man might expose himself to some hardships; but to bear it for the sake
of stripping beards off duennas! Devil take it! I'd sooner see them all
bearded, from the highest to the lowest, and from the most prudish to the
most affected."

"You are very hard on duennas, Sancho my friend," said the duchess; "you
incline very much to the opinion of the Toledo apothecary. But indeed you
are wrong; there are duennas in my house that may serve as patterns of
duennas; and here is my Dona Rodriguez, who will not allow me to say
otherwise."

"Your excellence may say it if you like," said the Rodriguez; "for God
knows the truth of everything; and whether we duennas are good or bad,
bearded or smooth, we are our mothers' daughters like other women; and as
God sent us into the world, he knows why he did, and on his mercy I rely,
and not on anybody's beard."

"Well, Senora Rodriguez, Senora Trifaldi, and present company," said Don
Quixote, "I trust in Heaven that it will look with kindly eyes upon your
troubles, for Sancho will do as I bid him. Only let Clavileno come and
let me find myself face to face with Malambruno, and I am certain no
razor will shave you more easily than my sword shall shave Malambruno's
head off his shoulders; for 'God bears with the wicked, but not for
ever."

"Ah!" exclaimed the Distressed One at this, "may all the stars of the
celestial regions look down upon your greatness with benign eyes, valiant
knight, and shed every prosperity and valour upon your heart, that it may
be the shield and safeguard of the abused and downtrodden race of
duennas, detested by apothecaries, sneered at by squires, and made game
of by pages. Ill betide the jade that in the flower of her youth would
not sooner become a nun than a duenna! Unfortunate beings that we are, we
duennas! Though we may be descended in the direct male line from Hector
of Troy himself, our mistresses never fail to address us as 'you' if they
think it makes queens of them. O giant Malambruno, though thou art an
enchanter, thou art true to thy promises. Send us now the peerless
Clavileno, that our misfortune may be brought to an end; for if the hot
weather sets in and these beards of ours are still there, alas for our
lot!"

The Trifaldi said this in such a pathetic way that she drew tears from
the eyes of all and even Sancho's filled up; and he resolved in his heart
to accompany his master to the uttermost ends of the earth, if so be the
removal of the wool from those venerable countenances depended upon it.




CHAPTER XLI.

OF THE ARRIVAL OF CLAVILENO AND THE END OF THIS PROTRACTED ADVENTURE


And now night came, and with it the appointed time for the arrival of the
famous horse Clavileno, the non-appearance of which was already beginning
to make Don Quixote uneasy, for it struck him that, as Malambruno was so
long about sending it, either he himself was not the knight for whom the
adventure was reserved, or else Malambruno did not dare to meet him in
single combat. But lo! suddenly there came into the garden four wild-men
all clad in green ivy bearing on their shoulders a great wooden horse.
They placed it on its feet on the ground, and one of the wild-men said,
"Let the knight who has heart for it mount this machine."

Here Sancho exclaimed, "I don't mount, for neither have I the heart nor
am I a knight."

"And let the squire, if he has one," continued the wild-man, "take his
seat on the croup, and let him trust the valiant Malambruno; for by no
sword save his, nor by the malice of any other, shall he be assailed. It
is but to turn this peg the horse has in his neck, and he will bear them
through the air to where Malambruno awaits them; but lest the vast
elevation of their course should make them giddy, their eyes must be
covered until the horse neighs, which will be the sign of their having
completed their journey."

With these words, leaving Clavileno behind them, they retired with easy
dignity the way they came. As soon as the Distressed One saw the horse,
almost in tears she exclaimed to Don Quixote, "Valiant knight, the
promise of Malambruno has proved trustworthy; the horse has come, our
beards are growing, and by every hair in them all of us implore thee to
shave and shear us, as it is only mounting him with thy squire and making
a happy beginning with your new journey."

"That I will, Senora Countess Trifaldi," said Don Quixote, "most gladly
and with right goodwill, without stopping to take a cushion or put on my
spurs, so as not to lose time, such is my desire to see you and all these
duennas shaved clean."

"That I won't," said Sancho, "with good-will or bad-will, or any way at
all; and if this shaving can't be done without my mounting on the croup,
my master had better look out for another squire to go with him, and
these ladies for some other way of making their faces smooth; I'm no
witch to have a taste for travelling through the air. What would my
islanders say when they heard their governor was going, strolling about
on the winds? And another thing, as it is three thousand and odd leagues
from this to Kandy, if the horse tires, or the giant takes huff, we'll be
half a dozen years getting back, and there won't be isle or island in the
world that will know me: and so, as it is a common saying 'in delay
there's danger,' and 'when they offer thee a heifer run with a halter,'
these ladies' beards must excuse me; 'Saint Peter is very well in Rome;'
I mean I am very well in this house where so much is made of me, and I
hope for such a good thing from the master as to see myself a governor."

"Friend Sancho," said the duke at this, "the island that I have promised
you is not a moving one, or one that will run away; it has roots so
deeply buried in the bowels of the earth that it will be no easy matter
to pluck it up or shift it from where it is; you know as well as I do
that there is no sort of office of any importance that is not obtained by
a bribe of some kind, great or small; well then, that which I look to
receive for this government is that you go with your master Don Quixote,
and bring this memorable adventure to a conclusion; and whether you
return on Clavileno as quickly as his speed seems to promise, or adverse
fortune brings you back on foot travelling as a pilgrim from hostel to
hostel and from inn to inn, you will always find your island on your
return where you left it, and your islanders with the same eagerness they
have always had to receive you as their governor, and my good-will will
remain the same; doubt not the truth of this, Senor Sancho, for that
would be grievously wronging my disposition to serve you."

"Say no more, senor," said Sancho; "I am a poor squire and not equal to
carrying so much courtesy; let my master mount; bandage my eyes and
commit me to God's care, and tell me if I may commend myself to our Lord
or call upon the angels to protect me when we go towering up there."

To this the Trifaldi made answer, "Sancho, you may freely commend
yourself to God or whom you will; for Malambruno though an enchanter is a
Christian, and works his enchantments with great circumspection, taking
very good care not to fall out with anyone."

"Well then," said Sancho, "God and the most holy Trinity of Gaeta give me
help!"

"Since the memorable adventure of the fulling mills," said Don Quixote,
"I have never seen Sancho in such a fright as now; were I as
superstitious as others his abject fear would cause me some little
trepidation of spirit. But come here, Sancho, for with the leave of these
gentles I would say a word or two to thee in private;" and drawing Sancho
aside among the trees of the garden and seizing both his hands he said,
"Thou seest, brother Sancho, the long journey we have before us, and God
knows when we shall return, or what leisure or opportunities this
business will allow us; I wish thee therefore to retire now to thy
chamber, as though thou wert going to fetch something required for the
road, and in a trice give thyself if it be only five hundred lashes on
account of the three thousand three hundred to which thou art bound; it
will be all to the good, and to make a beginning with a thing is to have
it half finished."

"By God," said Sancho, "but your worship must be out of your senses! This
is like the common saying, 'You see me with child, and you want me a
virgin.' Just as I'm about to go sitting on a bare board, your worship
would have me score my backside! Indeed, your worship is not reasonable.
Let us be off to shave these duennas; and on our return I promise on my
word to make such haste to wipe off all that's due as will satisfy your
worship; I can't say more."

"Well, I will comfort myself with that promise, my good Sancho," replied
Don Quixote, "and I believe thou wilt keep it; for indeed though stupid
thou art veracious."

"I'm not voracious," said Sancho, "only peckish; but even if I was a
little, still I'd keep my word."

With this they went back to mount Clavileno, and as they were about to do
so Don Quixote said, "Cover thine eyes, Sancho, and mount; for one who
sends for us from lands so far distant cannot mean to deceive us for the
sake of the paltry glory to be derived from deceiving persons who trust
in him; though all should turn out the contrary of what I hope, no malice
will be able to dim the glory of having undertaken this exploit."

"Let us be off, senor," said Sancho, "for I have taken the beards and
tears of these ladies deeply to heart, and I shan't eat a bit to relish
it until I have seen them restored to their former smoothness. Mount,
your worship, and blindfold yourself, for if I am to go on the croup, it
is plain the rider in the saddle must mount first."

"That is true," said Don Quixote, and, taking a handkerchief out of his
pocket, he begged the Distressed One to bandage his eyes very carefully;
but after having them bandaged he uncovered them again, saying, "If my
memory does not deceive me, I have read in Virgil of the Palladium of
Troy, a wooden horse the Greeks offered to the goddess Pallas, which was
big with armed knights, who were afterwards the destruction of Troy; so
it would be as well to see, first of all, what Clavileno has in his
stomach."

"There is no occasion," said the Distressed One; "I will be bail for him,
and I know that Malambruno has nothing tricky or treacherous about him;
you may mount without any fear, Senor Don Quixote; on my head be it if
any harm befalls you."

Don Quixote thought that to say anything further with regard to his
safety would be putting his courage in an unfavourable light; and so,
without more words, he mounted Clavileno, and tried the peg, which turned
easily; and as he had no stirrups and his legs hung down, he looked like
nothing so much as a figure in some Roman triumph painted or embroidered
on a Flemish tapestry.

Much against the grain, and very slowly, Sancho proceeded to mount, and,
after settling himself as well as he could on the croup, found it rather
hard, and not at all soft, and asked the duke if it would be possible to
oblige him with a pad of some kind, or a cushion; even if it were off the
couch of his lady the duchess, or the bed of one of the pages; as the
haunches of that horse were more like marble than wood. On this the
Trifaldi observed that Clavileno would not bear any kind of harness or
trappings, and that his best plan would be to sit sideways like a woman,
as in that way he would not feel the hardness so much.

Sancho did so, and, bidding them farewell, allowed his eyes to be
bandaged, but immediately afterwards uncovered them again, and looking
tenderly and tearfully on those in the garden, bade them help him in his
present strait with plenty of Paternosters and Ave Marias, that God might
provide some one to say as many for them, whenever they found themselves
in a similar emergency.

At this Don Quixote exclaimed, "Art thou on the gallows, thief, or at thy
last moment, to use pitiful entreaties of that sort? Cowardly, spiritless
creature, art thou not in the very place the fair Magalona occupied, and
from which she descended, not into the grave, but to become Queen of
France; unless the histories lie? And I who am here beside thee, may I
not put myself on a par with the valiant Pierres, who pressed this very
spot that I now press? Cover thine eyes, cover thine eyes, abject animal,
and let not thy fear escape thy lips, at least in my presence."

"Blindfold me," said Sancho; "as you won't let me commend myself or be
commended to God, is it any wonder if I am afraid there is a region of
devils about here that will carry us off to Peralvillo?"

They were then blindfolded, and Don Quixote, finding himself settled to
his satisfaction, felt for the peg, and the instant he placed his fingers
on it, all the duennas and all who stood by lifted up their voices
exclaiming, "God guide thee, valiant knight! God be with thee, intrepid
squire! Now, now ye go cleaving the air more swiftly than an arrow! Now
ye begin to amaze and astonish all who are gazing at you from the earth!
Take care not to wobble about, valiant Sancho! Mind thou fall not, for
thy fall will be worse than that rash youth's who tried to steer the
chariot of his father the Sun!"

As Sancho heard the voices, clinging tightly to his master and winding
his arms round him, he said, "Senor, how do they make out we are going up
so high, if their voices reach us here and they seem to be speaking quite
close to us?"

"Don't mind that, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "for as affairs of this
sort, and flights like this are out of the common course of things, you
can see and hear as much as you like a thousand leagues off; but don't
squeeze me so tight or thou wilt upset me; and really I know not what
thou hast to be uneasy or frightened at, for I can safely swear I never
mounted a smoother-going steed all the days of my life; one would fancy
we never stirred from one place. Banish fear, my friend, for indeed
everything is going as it ought, and we have the wind astern."

"That's true," said Sancho, "for such a strong wind comes against me on
this side, that it seems as if people were blowing on me with a thousand
pair of bellows;" which was the case; they were puffing at him with a
great pair of bellows; for the whole adventure was so well planned by the
duke, the duchess, and their majordomo, that nothing was omitted to make
it perfectly successful.

Don Quixote now, feeling the blast, said, "Beyond a doubt, Sancho, we
must have already reached the second region of the air, where the hail
and snow are generated; the thunder, the lightning, and the thunderbolts
are engendered in the third region, and if we go on ascending at this
rate, we shall shortly plunge into the region of fire, and I know not how
to regulate this peg, so as not to mount up where we shall be burned."

And now they began to warm their faces, from a distance, with tow that
could be easily set on fire and extinguished again, fixed on the end of a
cane. On feeling the heat Sancho said, "May I die if we are not already
in that fire place, or very near it, for a good part of my beard has been
singed, and I have a mind, senor, to uncover and see whereabouts we are."

"Do nothing of the kind," said Don Quixote; "remember the true story of
the licentiate Torralva that the devils carried flying through the air
riding on a stick with his eyes shut; who in twelve hours reached Rome
and dismounted at Torre di Nona, which is a street of the city, and saw
the whole sack and storming and the death of Bourbon, and was back in
Madrid the next morning, where he gave an account of all he had seen; and
he said moreover that as he was going through the air, the devil bade him
open his eyes, and he did so, and saw himself so near the body of the
moon, so it seemed to him, that he could have laid hold of it with his
hand, and that he did not dare to look at the earth lest he should be
seized with giddiness. So that, Sancho, it will not do for us to uncover
ourselves, for he who has us in charge will be responsible for us; and
perhaps we are gaining an altitude and mounting up to enable us to
descend at one swoop on the kingdom of Kandy, as the saker or falcon does
on the heron, so as to seize it however high it may soar; and though it
seems to us not half an hour since we left the garden, believe me we must
have travelled a great distance."

"I don't know how that may be," said Sancho; "all I know is that if the
Senora Magallanes or Magalona was satisfied with this croup, she could
not have been very tender of flesh."

The duke, the duchess, and all in the garden were listening to the
conversation of the two heroes, and were beyond measure amused by it; and
now, desirous of putting a finishing touch to this rare and
well-contrived adventure, they applied a light to Clavileno's tail with
some tow, and the horse, being full of squibs and crackers, immediately
blew up with a prodigious noise, and brought Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
to the ground half singed. By this time the bearded band of duennas, the
Trifaldi and all, had vanished from the garden, and those that remained
lay stretched on the ground as if in a swoon. Don Quixote and Sancho got
up rather shaken, and, looking about them, were filled with amazement at
finding themselves in the same garden from which they had started, and
seeing such a number of people stretched on the ground; and their
astonishment was increased when at one side of the garden they perceived
a tall lance planted in the ground, and hanging from it by two cords of
green silk a smooth white parchment on which there was the following
inscription in large gold letters: "The illustrious knight Don Quixote of
La Mancha has, by merely attempting it, finished and concluded the
adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, otherwise called the Distressed
Duenna; Malambruno is now satisfied on every point, the chins of the
duennas are now smooth and clean, and King Don Clavijo and Queen
Antonomasia in their original form; and when the squirely flagellation
shall have been completed, the white dove shall find herself delivered
from the pestiferous gerfalcons that persecute her, and in the arms of
her beloved mate; for such is the decree of the sage Merlin,
arch-enchanter of enchanters."

As soon as Don Quixote had read the inscription on the parchment he
perceived clearly that it referred to the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and
returning hearty thanks to heaven that he had with so little danger
achieved so grand an exploit as to restore to their former complexion the
countenances of those venerable duennas, he advanced towards the duke and
duchess, who had not yet come to themselves, and taking the duke by the
hand he said, "Be of good cheer, worthy sir, be of good cheer; it's
nothing at all; the adventure is now over and without any harm done, as
the inscription fixed on this post shows plainly."

The duke came to himself slowly and like one recovering consciousness
after a heavy sleep, and the duchess and all who had fallen prostrate
about the garden did the same, with such demonstrations of wonder and
amazement that they would have almost persuaded one that what they
pretended so adroitly in jest had happened to them in reality. The duke
read the placard with half-shut eyes, and then ran to embrace Don Quixote
with open arms, declaring him to be the best knight that had ever been
seen in any age. Sancho kept looking about for the Distressed One, to see
what her face was like without the beard, and if she was as fair as her
elegant person promised; but they told him that, the instant Clavileno
descended flaming through the air and came to the ground, the whole band
of duennas with the Trifaldi vanished, and that they were already shaved
and without a stump left.

The duchess asked Sancho how he had fared on that long journey, to which
Sancho replied, "I felt, senora, that we were flying through the region
of fire, as my master told me, and I wanted to uncover my eyes for a bit;
but my master, when I asked leave to uncover myself, would not let me;
but as I have a little bit of curiosity about me, and a desire to know
what is forbidden and kept from me, quietly and without anyone seeing me
I drew aside the handkerchief covering my eyes ever so little, close to
my nose, and from underneath looked towards the earth, and it seemed to
me that it was altogether no bigger than a grain of mustard seed, and
that the men walking on it were little bigger than hazel nuts; so you may
see how high we must have got to then."

To this the duchess said, "Sancho, my friend, mind what you are saying;
it seems you could not have seen the earth, but only the men walking on
it; for if the earth looked to you like a grain of mustard seed, and each
man like a hazel nut, one man alone would have covered the whole earth."

"That is true," said Sancho, "but for all that I got a glimpse of a bit
of one side of it, and saw it all."

"Take care, Sancho," said the duchess, "with a bit of one side one does
not see the whole of what one looks at."

"I don't understand that way of looking at things," said Sancho; "I only
know that your ladyship will do well to bear in mind that as we were
flying by enchantment so I might have seen the whole earth and all the
men by enchantment whatever way I looked; and if you won't believe this,
no more will you believe that, uncovering myself nearly to the eyebrows,
I saw myself so close to the sky that there was not a palm and a half
between me and it; and by everything that I can swear by, senora, it is
mighty great! And it so happened we came by where the seven goats are,
and by God and upon my soul, as in my youth I was a goatherd in my own
country, as soon as I saw them I felt a longing to be among them for a
little, and if I had not given way to it I think I'd have burst. So I
come and take, and what do I do? without saying anything to anybody, not
even to my master, softly and quietly I got down from Clavileno and
amused myself with the goats--which are like violets, like flowers--for
nigh three-quarters of an hour; and Clavileno never stirred or moved from
one spot."

"And while the good Sancho was amusing himself with the goats," said the
duke, "how did Senor Don Quixote amuse himself?"

To which Don Quixote replied, "As all these things and such like
occurrences are out of the ordinary course of nature, it is no wonder
that Sancho says what he does; for my own part I can only say that I did
not uncover my eyes either above or below, nor did I see sky or earth or
sea or shore. It is true I felt that I was passing through the region of
the air, and even that I touched that of fire; but that we passed farther
I cannot believe; for the region of fire being between the heaven of the
moon and the last region of the air, we could not have reached that
heaven where the seven goats Sancho speaks of are without being burned;
and as we were not burned, either Sancho is lying or Sancho is dreaming."

"I am neither lying nor dreaming," said Sancho; "only ask me the tokens
of those same goats, and you'll see by that whether I'm telling the truth
or not."

"Tell us them then, Sancho," said the duchess.

"Two of them," said Sancho, "are green, two blood-red, two blue, and one
a mixture of all colours."

"An odd sort of goat, that," said the duke; "in this earthly region of
ours we have no such colours; I mean goats of such colours."

"That's very plain," said Sancho; "of course there must be a difference
between the goats of heaven and the goats of the earth."

"Tell me, Sancho," said the duke, "did you see any he-goat among those
goats?"

"No, senor," said Sancho; "but I have heard say that none ever passed the
horns of the moon."

They did not care to ask him anything more about his journey, for they
saw he was in the vein to go rambling all over the heavens giving an
account of everything that went on there, without having ever stirred
from the garden. Such, in short, was the end of the adventure of the
Distressed Duenna, which gave the duke and duchess laughing matter not
only for the time being, but for all their lives, and Sancho something to
talk about for ages, if he lived so long; but Don Quixote, coming close
to his ear, said to him, "Sancho, as you would have us believe what you
saw in heaven, I require you to believe me as to what I saw in the cave
of Montesinos; I say no more."




CHAPTER XLII.

OF THE COUNSELS WHICH DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA BEFORE HE SET OUT TO
GOVERN THE ISLAND, TOGETHER WITH OTHER WELL-CONSIDERED MATTERS


The duke and duchess were so well pleased with the successful and droll
result of the adventure of the Distressed One, that they resolved to
carry on the joke, seeing what a fit subject they had to deal with for
making it all pass for reality. So having laid their plans and given
instructions to their servants and vassals how to behave to Sancho in his
government of the promised island, the next day, that following
Clavileno's flight, the duke told Sancho to prepare and get ready to go
and be governor, for his islanders were already looking out for him as
for the showers of May.

Sancho made him an obeisance, and said, "Ever since I came down from
heaven, and from the top of it beheld the earth, and saw how little it
is, the great desire I had to be a governor has been partly cooled in me;
for what is there grand in being ruler on a grain of mustard seed, or
what dignity or authority in governing half a dozen men about as big as
hazel nuts; for, so far as I could see, there were no more on the whole
earth? If your lordship would be so good as to give me ever so small a
bit of heaven, were it no more than half a league, I'd rather have it
than the best island in the world."

"Recollect, Sancho," said the duke, "I cannot give a bit of heaven, no
not so much as the breadth of my nail, to anyone; rewards and favours of
that sort are reserved for God alone. What I can give I give you, and
that is a real, genuine island, compact, well proportioned, and
uncommonly fertile and fruitful, where, if you know how to use your
opportunities, you may, with the help of the world's riches, gain those
of heaven."

"Well then," said Sancho, "let the island come; and I'll try and be such
a governor, that in spite of scoundrels I'll go to heaven; and it's not
from any craving to quit my own humble condition or better myself, but
from the desire I have to try what it tastes like to be a governor."

"If you once make trial of it, Sancho," said the duke, "you'll eat your
fingers off after the government, so sweet a thing is it to command and
be obeyed. Depend upon it when your master comes to be emperor (as he
will beyond a doubt from the course his affairs are taking), it will be
no easy matter to wrest the dignity from him, and he will be sore and
sorry at heart to have been so long without becoming one."

"Senor," said Sancho, "it is my belief it's a good thing to be in
command, if it's only over a drove of cattle."

"May I be buried with you, Sancho," said the duke, "but you know
everything; I hope you will make as good a governor as your sagacity
promises; and that is all I have to say; and now remember to-morrow is
the day you must set out for the government of the island, and this
evening they will provide you with the proper attire for you to wear, and
all things requisite for your departure."

"Let them dress me as they like," said Sancho; "however I'm dressed I'll
be Sancho Panza."

"That's true," said the duke; "but one's dress must be suited to the
office or rank one holds; for it would not do for a jurist to dress like
a soldier, or a soldier like a priest. You, Sancho, shall go partly as a
lawyer, partly as a captain, for, in the island I am giving you, arms are
needed as much as letters, and letters as much as arms."

"Of letters I know but little," said Sancho, "for I don't even know the A
B C; but it is enough for me to have the Christus in my memory to be a
good governor. As for arms, I'll handle those they give me till I drop,
and then, God be my help!"

"With so good a memory," said the duke, "Sancho cannot go wrong in
anything."

Here Don Quixote joined them; and learning what passed, and how soon
Sancho was to go to his government, he with the duke's permission took
him by the hand, and retired to his room with him for the purpose of
giving him advice as to how he was to demean himself in his office. As
soon as they had entered the chamber he closed the door after him, and
almost by force made Sancho sit down beside him, and in a quiet tone thus
addressed him: "I give infinite thanks to heaven, friend Sancho, that,
before I have met with any good luck, fortune has come forward to meet
thee. I who counted upon my good fortune to discharge the recompense of
thy services, find myself still waiting for advancement, while thou,
before the time, and contrary to all reasonable expectation, seest
thyself blessed in the fulfillment of thy desires. Some will bribe, beg,
solicit, rise early, entreat, persist, without attaining the object of
their suit; while another comes, and without knowing why or wherefore,
finds himself invested with the place or office so many have sued for;
and here it is that the common saying, 'There is good luck as well as bad
luck in suits,' applies. Thou, who, to my thinking, art beyond all doubt
a dullard, without early rising or night watching or taking any trouble,
with the mere breath of knight-errantry that has breathed upon thee,
seest thyself without more ado governor of an island, as though it were a
mere matter of course. This I say, Sancho, that thou attribute not the
favour thou hast received to thine own merits, but give thanks to heaven
that disposes matters beneficently, and secondly thanks to the great
power the profession of knight-errantry contains in itself. With a heart,
then, inclined to believe what I have said to thee, attend, my son, to
thy Cato here who would counsel thee and be thy polestar and guide to
direct and pilot thee to a safe haven out of this stormy sea wherein thou
art about to ingulf thyself; for offices and great trusts are nothing
else but a mighty gulf of troubles.

"First of all, my son, thou must fear God, for in the fear of him is
wisdom, and being wise thou canst not err in aught.

"Secondly, thou must keep in view what thou art, striving to know
thyself, the most difficult thing to know that the mind can imagine. If
thou knowest thyself, it will follow thou wilt not puff thyself up like
the frog that strove to make himself as large as the ox; if thou dost,
the recollection of having kept pigs in thine own country will serve as
the ugly feet for the wheel of thy folly."

"That's the truth," said Sancho; "but that was when I was a boy;
afterwards when I was something more of a man it was geese I kept, not
pigs. But to my thinking that has nothing to do with it; for all who are
governors don't come of a kingly stock."

"True," said Don Quixote, "and for that reason those who are not of noble
origin should take care that the dignity of the office they hold be
accompanied by a gentle suavity, which wisely managed will save them from
the sneers of malice that no station escapes.

"Glory in thy humble birth, Sancho, and be not ashamed of saying thou art
peasant-born; for when it is seen thou art not ashamed no one will set
himself to put thee to the blush; and pride thyself rather upon being one
of lowly virtue than a lofty sinner. Countless are they who, born of mean
parentage, have risen to the highest dignities, pontifical and imperial,
and of the truth of this I could give thee instances enough to weary
thee.

"Remember, Sancho, if thou make virtue thy aim, and take a pride in doing
virtuous actions, thou wilt have no cause to envy those who have princely
and lordly ones, for blood is an inheritance, but virtue an acquisition,
and virtue has in itself alone a worth that blood does not possess.

"This being so, if perchance anyone of thy kinsfolk should come to see
thee when thou art in thine island, thou art not to repel or slight him,
but on the contrary to welcome him, entertain him, and make much of him;
for in so doing thou wilt be approved of heaven (which is not pleased
that any should despise what it hath made), and wilt comply with the laws
of well-ordered nature.

"If thou carriest thy wife with thee (and it is not well for those that
administer governments to be long without their wives), teach and
instruct her, and strive to smooth down her natural roughness; for all
that may be gained by a wise governor may be lost and wasted by a boorish
stupid wife.

"If perchance thou art left a widower--a thing which may happen--and in
virtue of thy office seekest a consort of higher degree, choose not one
to serve thee for a hook, or for a fishing-rod, or for the hood of thy
'won't have it;' for verily, I tell thee, for all the judge's wife
receives, the husband will be held accountable at the general calling to
account; where he will have repay in death fourfold, items that in life
he regarded as naught.

"Never go by arbitrary law, which is so much favoured by ignorant men who
plume themselves on cleverness.

"Let the tears of the poor man find with thee more compassion, but not
more justice, than the pleadings of the rich.

"Strive to lay bare the truth, as well amid the promises and presents of
the rich man, as amid the sobs and entreaties of the poor.

"When equity may and should be brought into play, press not the utmost
rigour of the law against the guilty; for the reputation of the stern
judge stands not higher than that of the compassionate.

"If perchance thou permittest the staff of justice to swerve, let it be
not by the weight of a gift, but by that of mercy.

"If it should happen to thee to give judgment in the cause of one who is
thine enemy, turn thy thoughts away from thy injury and fix them on the
justice of the case.

"Let not thine own passion blind thee in another man's cause; for the
errors thou wilt thus commit will be most frequently irremediable; or if
not, only to be remedied at the expense of thy good name and even of thy
fortune.

"If any handsome woman come to seek justice of thee, turn away thine eyes
from her tears and thine ears from her lamentations, and consider
deliberately the merits of her demand, if thou wouldst not have thy
reason swept away by her weeping, and thy rectitude by her sighs.

"Abuse not by word him whom thou hast to punish in deed, for the pain of
punishment is enough for the unfortunate without the addition of thine
objurgations.

"Bear in mind that the culprit who comes under thy jurisdiction is but a
miserable man subject to all the propensities of our depraved nature, and
so far as may be in thy power show thyself lenient and forbearing; for
though the attributes of God are all equal, to our eyes that of mercy is
brighter and loftier than that of justice.

"If thou followest these precepts and rules, Sancho, thy days will be
long, thy fame eternal, thy reward abundant, thy felicity unutterable;
thou wilt marry thy children as thou wouldst; they and thy grandchildren
will bear titles; thou wilt live in peace and concord with all men; and,
when life draws to a close, death will come to thee in calm and ripe old
age, and the light and loving hands of thy great-grandchildren will close
thine eyes.

"What I have thus far addressed to thee are instructions for the
adornment of thy mind; listen now to those which tend to that of the
body."




CHAPTER XLIII.

OF THE SECOND SET OF COUNSELS DON QUIXOTE GAVE SANCHO PANZA


Who, hearing the foregoing discourse of Don Quixote, would not have set
him down for a person of great good sense and greater rectitude of
purpose? But, as has been frequently observed in the course of this great
history, he only talked nonsense when he touched on chivalry, and in
discussing all other subjects showed that he had a clear and unbiassed
understanding; so that at every turn his acts gave the lie to his
intellect, and his intellect to his acts; but in the case of these second
counsels that he gave Sancho, he showed himself to have a lively turn of
humour, and displayed conspicuously his wisdom, and also his folly.

Sancho listened to him with the deepest attention, and endeavoured to fix
his counsels in his memory, like one who meant to follow them and by
their means bring the full promise of his government to a happy issue.
Don Quixote, then, went on to say:

"With regard to the mode in which thou shouldst govern thy person and thy
house, Sancho, the first charge I have to give thee is to be clean, and
to cut thy nails, not letting them grow as some do, whose ignorance makes
them fancy that long nails are an ornament to their hands, as if those
excrescences they neglect to cut were nails, and not the talons of a
lizard-catching kestrel--a filthy and unnatural abuse.

"Go not ungirt and loose, Sancho; for disordered attire is a sign of an
unstable mind, unless indeed the slovenliness and slackness is to be set
down to craft, as was the common opinion in the case of Julius Caesar.

"Ascertain cautiously what thy office may be worth; and if it will allow
thee to give liveries to thy servants, give them respectable and
serviceable, rather than showy and gay ones, and divide them between thy
servants and the poor; that is to say, if thou canst clothe six pages,
clothe three and three poor men, and thus thou wilt have pages for heaven
and pages for earth; the vainglorious never think of this new mode of
giving liveries.

"Eat not garlic nor onions, lest they find out thy boorish origin by the
smell; walk slowly and speak deliberately, but not in such a way as to
make it seem thou art listening to thyself, for all affectation is bad.

"Dine sparingly and sup more sparingly still; for the health of the whole
body is forged in the workshop of the stomach.

"Be temperate in drinking, bearing in mind that wine in excess keeps
neither secrets nor promises.

"Take care, Sancho, not to chew on both sides, and not to eruct in
anybody's presence."

"Eruct!" said Sancho; "I don't know what that means."

"To eruct, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "means to belch, and that is one of
the filthiest words in the Spanish language, though a very expressive
one; and therefore nice folk have had recourse to the Latin, and instead
of belch say eruct, and instead of belches say eructations; and if some
do not understand these terms it matters little, for custom will bring
them into use in the course of time, so that they will be readily
understood; this is the way a language is enriched; custom and the public
are all-powerful there."

"In truth, senor," said Sancho, "one of the counsels and cautions I mean
to bear in mind shall be this, not to belch, for I'm constantly doing
it."

"Eruct, Sancho, not belch," said Don Quixote.

"Eruct, I shall say henceforth, and I swear not to forget it," said
Sancho.

"Likewise, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "thou must not mingle such a
quantity of proverbs in thy discourse as thou dost; for though proverbs
are short maxims, thou dost drag them in so often by the head and
shoulders that they savour more of nonsense than of maxims."

"God alone can cure that," said Sancho; "for I have more proverbs in me
than a book, and when I speak they come so thick together into my mouth
that they fall to fighting among themselves to get out; that's why my
tongue lets fly the first that come, though they may not be pat to the
purpose. But I'll take care henceforward to use such as befit the dignity
of my office; for 'in a house where there's plenty, supper is soon
cooked,' and 'he who binds does not wrangle,' and 'the bell-ringer's in a
safe berth,' and 'giving and keeping require brains.'"

"That's it, Sancho!" said Don Quixote; "pack, tack, string proverbs
together; nobody is hindering thee! 'My mother beats me, and I go on with
my tricks.' I am bidding thee avoid proverbs, and here in a second thou
hast shot out a whole litany of them, which have as much to do with what
we are talking about as 'over the hills of Ubeda.' Mind, Sancho, I do not
say that a proverb aptly brought in is objectionable; but to pile up and
string together proverbs at random makes conversation dull and vulgar.

"When thou ridest on horseback, do not go lolling with thy body on the
back of the saddle, nor carry thy legs stiff or sticking out from the
horse's belly, nor yet sit so loosely that one would suppose thou wert on
Dapple; for the seat on a horse makes gentlemen of some and grooms of
others.

"Be moderate in thy sleep; for he who does not rise early does not get
the benefit of the day; and remember, Sancho, diligence is the mother of
good fortune, and indolence, its opposite, never yet attained the object
of an honest ambition.

"The last counsel I will give thee now, though it does not tend to bodily
improvement, I would have thee carry carefully in thy memory, for I
believe it will be no less useful to thee than those I have given thee
already, and it is this--never engage in a dispute about families, at
least in the way of comparing them one with another; for necessarily one
of those compared will be better than the other, and thou wilt be hated
by the one thou hast disparaged, and get nothing in any shape from the
one thou hast exalted.

"Thy attire shall be hose of full length, a long jerkin, and a cloak a
trifle longer; loose breeches by no means, for they are becoming neither
for gentlemen nor for governors.

"For the present, Sancho, this is all that has occurred to me to advise
thee; as time goes by and occasions arise my instructions shall follow,
if thou take care to let me know how thou art circumstanced."

"Senor," said Sancho, "I see well enough that all these things your
worship has said to me are good, holy, and profitable; but what use will
they be to me if I don't remember one of them? To be sure that about not
letting my nails grow, and marrying again if I have the chance, will not
slip out of my head; but all that other hash, muddle, and jumble--I don't
and can't recollect any more of it than of last year's clouds; so it must
be given me in writing; for though I can't either read or write, I'll
give it to my confessor, to drive it into me and remind me of it whenever
it is necessary."

"Ah, sinner that I am!" said Don Quixote, "how bad it looks in governors
not to know how to read or write; for let me tell thee, Sancho, when a
man knows not how to read, or is left-handed, it argues one of two
things; either that he was the son of exceedingly mean and lowly parents,
or that he himself was so incorrigible and ill-conditioned that neither
good company nor good teaching could make any impression on him. It is a
great defect that thou labourest under, and therefore I would have thee
learn at any rate to sign thy name." "I can sign my name well enough,"
said Sancho, "for when I was steward of the brotherhood in my village I
learned to make certain letters, like the marks on bales of goods, which
they told me made out my name. Besides I can pretend my right hand is
disabled and make some one else sign for me, for 'there's a remedy for
everything except death;' and as I shall be in command and hold the
staff, I can do as I like; moreover, 'he who has the alcalde for his
father-,' and I'll be governor, and that's higher than alcalde. Only come
and see! Let them make light of me and abuse me; 'they'll come for wool
and go back shorn;' 'whom God loves, his house is known to Him;' 'the
silly sayings of the rich pass for saws in the world;' and as I'll be
rich, being a governor, and at the same time generous, as I mean to be,
no fault will be seen in me. 'Only make yourself honey and the flies will
suck you;' 'as much as thou hast so much art thou worth,' as my
grandmother used to say; and 'thou canst have no revenge of a man of
substance.'"

"Oh, God's curse upon thee, Sancho!" here exclaimed Don Quixote; "sixty
thousand devils fly away with thee and thy proverbs! For the last hour
thou hast been stringing them together and inflicting the pangs of
torture on me with every one of them. Those proverbs will bring thee to
the gallows one day, I promise thee; thy subjects will take the
government from thee, or there will be revolts among them. Tell me, where
dost thou pick them up, thou booby? How dost thou apply them, thou
blockhead? For with me, to utter one and make it apply properly, I have
to sweat and labour as if I were digging."

"By God, master mine," said Sancho, "your worship is making a fuss about
very little. Why the devil should you be vexed if I make use of what is
my own? And I have got nothing else, nor any other stock in trade except
proverbs and more proverbs; and here are three just this instant come
into my head, pat to the purpose and like pears in a basket; but I won't
repeat them, for 'sage silence is called Sancho.'"

"That, Sancho, thou art not," said Don Quixote; "for not only art thou
not sage silence, but thou art pestilent prate and perversity; still I
would like to know what three proverbs have just now come into thy
memory, for I have been turning over mine own--and it is a good one--and
none occurs to me."

"What can be better," said Sancho, "than 'never put thy thumbs between
two back teeth;' and 'to "get out of my house" and "what do you want with
my wife?" there is no answer;' and 'whether the pitcher hits the stove,
or the stove the pitcher, it's a bad business for the pitcher;' all which
fit to a hair? For no one should quarrel with his governor, or him in
authority over him, because he will come off the worst, as he does who
puts his finger between two back and if they are not back teeth it makes
no difference, so long as they are teeth; and to whatever the governor
may say there's no answer, any more than to 'get out of my house' and
'what do you want with my wife?' and then, as for that about the stone
and the pitcher, a blind man could see that. So that he 'who sees the
mote in another's eye had need to see the beam in his own,' that it be
not said of himself, 'the dead woman was frightened at the one with her
throat cut;' and your worship knows well that 'the fool knows more in his
own house than the wise man in another's.'"

"Nay, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "the fool knows nothing, either in his
own house or in anybody else's, for no wise structure of any sort can
stand on a foundation of folly; but let us say no more about it, Sancho,
for if thou governest badly, thine will be the fault and mine the shame;
but I comfort myself with having done my duty in advising thee as
earnestly and as wisely as I could; and thus I am released from my
obligations and my promise. God guide thee, Sancho, and govern thee in
thy government, and deliver me from the misgiving I have that thou wilt
turn the whole island upside down, a thing I might easily prevent by
explaining to the duke what thou art and telling him that all that fat
little person of thine is nothing else but a sack full of proverbs and
sauciness."

"Senor," said Sancho, "if your worship thinks I'm not fit for this
government, I give it up on the spot; for the mere black of the nail of
my soul is dearer to me than my whole body; and I can live just as well,
simple Sancho, on bread and onions, as governor, on partridges and
capons; and what's more, while we're asleep we're all equal, great and
small, rich and poor. But if your worship looks into it, you will see it
was your worship alone that put me on to this business of governing; for
I know no more about the government of islands than a buzzard; and if
there's any reason to think that because of my being a governor the devil
will get hold of me, I'd rather go Sancho to heaven than governor to
hell."

"By God, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for those last words thou hast
uttered alone, I consider thou deservest to be governor of a thousand
islands. Thou hast good natural instincts, without which no knowledge is
worth anything; commend thyself to God, and try not to swerve in the
pursuit of thy main object; I mean, always make it thy aim and fixed
purpose to do right in all matters that come before thee, for heaven
always helps good intentions; and now let us go to dinner, for I think my
lord and lady are waiting for us."




CHAPTER XLIV.

HOW SANCHO PANZA WAS CONDUCTED TO HIS GOVERNMENT, AND OF THE STRANGE
ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE IN THE CASTLE


It is stated, they say, in the true original of this history, that when
Cide Hamete came to write this chapter, his interpreter did not translate
it as he wrote it--that is, as a kind of complaint the Moor made against
himself for having taken in hand a story so dry and of so little variety
as this of Don Quixote, for he found himself forced to speak perpetually
of him and Sancho, without venturing to indulge in digressions and
episodes more serious and more interesting. He said, too, that to go on,
mind, hand, pen always restricted to writing upon one single subject, and
speaking through the mouths of a few characters, was intolerable
drudgery, the result of which was never equal to the author's labour, and
that to avoid this he had in the First Part availed himself of the device
of novels, like "The Ill-advised Curiosity," and "The Captive Captain,"
which stand, as it were, apart from the story; the others are given there
being incidents which occurred to Don Quixote himself and could not be
omitted. He also thought, he says, that many, engrossed by the interest
attaching to the exploits of Don Quixote, would take none in the novels,
and pass them over hastily or impatiently without noticing the elegance
and art of their composition, which would be very manifest were they
published by themselves and not as mere adjuncts to the crazes of Don
Quixote or the simplicities of Sancho. Therefore in this Second Part he
thought it best not to insert novels, either separate or interwoven, but
only episodes, something like them, arising out of the circumstances the
facts present; and even these sparingly, and with no more words than
suffice to make them plain; and as he confines and restricts himself to
the narrow limits of the narrative, though he has ability; capacity, and
brains enough to deal with the whole universe, he requests that his
labours may not be despised, and that credit be given him, not alone for
what he writes, but for what he has refrained from writing.

And so he goes on with his story, saying that the day Don Quixote gave
the counsels to Sancho, the same afternoon after dinner he handed them to
him in writing so that he might get some one to read them to him. They
had scarcely, however, been given to him when he let them drop, and they
fell into the hands of the duke, who showed them to the duchess and they
were both amazed afresh at the madness and wit of Don Quixote. To carry
on the joke, then, the same evening they despatched Sancho with a large
following to the village that was to serve him for an island. It happened
that the person who had him in charge was a majordomo of the duke's, a
man of great discretion and humour--and there can be no humour without
discretion--and the same who played the part of the Countess Trifaldi in
the comical way that has been already described; and thus qualified, and
instructed by his master and mistress as to how to deal with Sancho, he
carried out their scheme admirably. Now it came to pass that as soon as
Sancho saw this majordomo he seemed in his features to recognise those of
the Trifaldi, and turning to his master, he said to him, "Senor, either
the devil will carry me off, here on this spot, righteous and believing,
or your worship will own to me that the face of this majordomo of the
duke's here is the very face of the Distressed One."

Don Quixote regarded the majordomo attentively, and having done so, said
to Sancho, "There is no reason why the devil should carry thee off,
Sancho, either righteous or believing--and what thou meanest by that I
know not; the face of the Distressed One is that of the majordomo, but
for all that the majordomo is not the Distressed One; for his being so
would involve a mighty contradiction; but this is not the time for going
into questions of the sort, which would be involving ourselves in an
inextricable labyrinth. Believe me, my friend, we must pray earnestly to
our Lord that he deliver us both from wicked wizards and enchanters."

"It is no joke, senor," said Sancho, "for before this I heard him speak,
and it seemed exactly as if the voice of the Trifaldi was sounding in my
ears. Well, I'll hold my peace; but I'll take care to be on the look-out
henceforth for any sign that may be seen to confirm or do away with this
suspicion."

"Thou wilt do well, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "and thou wilt let me know
all thou discoverest, and all that befalls thee in thy government."

Sancho at last set out attended by a great number of people. He was
dressed in the garb of a lawyer, with a gaban of tawny watered camlet
over all and a montera cap of the same material, and mounted a la gineta
upon a mule. Behind him, in accordance with the duke's orders, followed
Dapple with brand new ass-trappings and ornaments of silk, and from time
to time Sancho turned round to look at his ass, so well pleased to have
him with him that he would not have changed places with the emperor of
Germany. On taking leave he kissed the hands of the duke and duchess and
got his master's blessing, which Don Quixote gave him with tears, and he
received blubbering.

Let worthy Sancho go in peace, and good luck to him, Gentle Reader; and
look out for two bushels of laughter, which the account of how he behaved
himself in office will give thee. In the meantime turn thy attention to
what happened his master the same night, and if thou dost not laugh
thereat, at any rate thou wilt stretch thy mouth with a grin; for Don
Quixote's adventures must be honoured either with wonder or with
laughter.

It is recorded, then, that as soon as Sancho had gone, Don Quixote felt
his loneliness, and had it been possible for him to revoke the mandate
and take away the government from him he would have done so. The duchess
observed his dejection and asked him why he was melancholy; because, she
said, if it was for the loss of Sancho, there were squires, duennas, and
damsels in her house who would wait upon him to his full satisfaction.

"The truth is, senora," replied Don Quixote, "that I do feel the loss of
Sancho; but that is not the main cause of my looking sad; and of all the
offers your excellence makes me, I accept only the good-will with which
they are made, and as to the remainder I entreat of your excellence to
permit and allow me alone to wait upon myself in my chamber."

"Indeed, Senor Don Quixote," said the duchess, "that must not be; four of
my damsels, as beautiful as flowers, shall wait upon you."

"To me," said Don Quixote, "they will not be flowers, but thorns to
pierce my heart. They, or anything like them, shall as soon enter my
chamber as fly. If your highness wishes to gratify me still further,
though I deserve it not, permit me to please myself, and wait upon myself
in my own room; for I place a barrier between my inclinations and my
virtue, and I do not wish to break this rule through the generosity your
highness is disposed to display towards me; and, in short, I will sleep
in my clothes, sooner than allow anyone to undress me."

"Say no more, Senor Don Quixote, say no more," said the duchess; "I
assure you I will give orders that not even a fly, not to say a damsel,
shall enter your room. I am not the one to undermine the propriety of
Senor Don Quixote, for it strikes me that among his many virtues the one
that is pre-eminent is that of modesty. Your worship may undress and
dress in private and in your own way, as you please and when you please,
for there will be no one to hinder you; and in your chamber you will find
all the utensils requisite to supply the wants of one who sleeps with his
door locked, to the end that no natural needs compel you to open it. May
the great Dulcinea del Toboso live a thousand years, and may her fame
extend all over the surface of the globe, for she deserves to be loved by
a knight so valiant and so virtuous; and may kind heaven infuse zeal into
the heart of our governor Sancho Panza to finish off his discipline
speedily, so that the world may once more enjoy the beauty of so grand a
lady."

To which Don Quixote replied, "Your highness has spoken like what you
are; from the mouth of a noble lady nothing bad can come; and Dulcinea
will be more fortunate, and better known to the world by the praise of
your highness than by all the eulogies the greatest orators on earth
could bestow upon her."

"Well, well, Senor Don Quixote," said the duchess, it is nearly supper-time,
and the duke is probably waiting; come let us go to supper, and retire
to rest early, for the journey you made yesterday from Kandy was not such
a short one but that it must have caused you some fatigue."

"I feel none, senora," said Don Quixote, "for I would go so far as to
swear to your excellence that in all my life I never mounted a quieter
beast, or a pleasanter paced one, than Clavileno; and I don't know what
could have induced Malambruno to discard a steed so swift and so gentle,
and burn it so recklessly as he did."

"Probably," said the duchess, "repenting of the evil he had done to the
Trifaldi and company, and others, and the crimes he must have committed
as a wizard and enchanter, he resolved to make away with all the
instruments of his craft; and so burned Clavileno as the chief one, and
that which mainly kept him restless, wandering from land to land; and by
its ashes and the trophy of the placard the valour of the great Don
Quixote of La Mancha is established for ever."

Don Quixote renewed his thanks to the duchess; and having supped, retired
to his chamber alone, refusing to allow anyone to enter with him to wait
on him, such was his fear of encountering temptations that might lead or
drive him to forget his chaste fidelity to his lady Dulcinea; for he had
always present to his mind the virtue of Amadis, that flower and mirror
of knights-errant. He locked the door behind him, and by the light of two
wax candles undressed himself, but as he was taking off his stockings--O
disaster unworthy of such a personage!--there came a burst, not of sighs,
or anything belying his delicacy or good breeding, but of some two dozen
stitches in one of his stockings, that made it look like a
window-lattice. The worthy gentleman was beyond measure distressed, and
at that moment he would have given an ounce of silver to have had half a
drachm of green silk there; I say green silk, because the stockings were
green.

Here Cide Hamete exclaimed as he was writing, "O poverty, poverty! I know
not what could have possessed the great Cordovan poet to call thee 'holy
gift ungratefully received.' Although a Moor, I know well enough from the
intercourse I have had with Christians that holiness consists in charity,
humility, faith, obedience, and poverty; but for all that, I say he must
have a great deal of godliness who can find any satisfaction in being
poor; unless, indeed, it be the kind of poverty one of their greatest
saints refers to, saying, 'possess all things as though ye possessed them
not;' which is what they call poverty in spirit. But thou, that other
poverty--for it is of thee I am speaking now--why dost thou love to fall
out with gentlemen and men of good birth more than with other people? Why
dost thou compel them to smear the cracks in their shoes, and to have the
buttons of their coats, one silk, another hair, and another glass? Why
must their ruffs be always crinkled like endive leaves, and not crimped
with a crimping iron?" (From this we may perceive the antiquity of starch
and crimped ruffs.) Then he goes on: "Poor gentleman of good family!
always cockering up his honour, dining miserably and in secret, and
making a hypocrite of the toothpick with which he sallies out into the
street after eating nothing to oblige him to use it! Poor fellow, I say,
with his nervous honour, fancying they perceive a league off the patch on
his shoe, the sweat-stains on his hat, the shabbiness of his cloak, and
the hunger of his stomach!"

All this was brought home to Don Quixote by the bursting of his stitches;
however, he comforted himself on perceiving that Sancho had left behind a
pair of travelling boots, which he resolved to wear the next day. At last
he went to bed, out of spirits and heavy at heart, as much because he
missed Sancho as because of the irreparable disaster to his stockings,
the stitches of which he would have even taken up with silk of another
colour, which is one of the greatest signs of poverty a gentleman can
show in the course of his never-failing embarrassments. He put out the
candles; but the night was warm and he could not sleep; he rose from his
bed and opened slightly a grated window that looked out on a beautiful
garden, and as he did so he perceived and heard people walking and
talking in the garden. He set himself to listen attentively, and those
below raised their voices so that he could hear these words:

"Urge me not to sing, Emerencia, for thou knowest that ever since this
stranger entered the castle and my eyes beheld him, I cannot sing but
only weep; besides my lady is a light rather than a heavy sleeper, and I
would not for all the wealth of the world that she found us here; and
even if she were asleep and did not waken, my singing would be in vain,
if this strange AEneas, who has come into my neighbourhood to flout me,
sleeps on and wakens not to hear it."

"Heed not that, dear Altisidora," replied a voice; "the duchess is no
doubt asleep, and everybody in the house save the lord of thy heart and
disturber of thy soul; for just now I perceived him open the grated
window of his chamber, so he must be awake; sing, my poor sufferer, in a
low sweet tone to the accompaniment of thy harp; and even if the duchess
hears us we can lay the blame on the heat of the night."

"That is not the point, Emerencia," replied Altisidora, "it is that I
would not that my singing should lay bare my heart, and that I should be
thought a light and wanton maiden by those who know not the mighty power
of love; but come what may; better a blush on the cheeks than a sore in
the heart;" and here a harp softly touched made itself heard. As he
listened to all this Don Quixote was in a state of breathless amazement,
for immediately the countless adventures like this, with windows,
gratings, gardens, serenades, lovemakings, and languishings, that he had
read of in his trashy books of chivalry, came to his mind. He at once
concluded that some damsel of the duchess's was in love with him, and
that her modesty forced her to keep her passion secret. He trembled lest
he should fall, and made an inward resolution not to yield; and
commending himself with all his might and soul to his lady Dulcinea he
made up his mind to listen to the music; and to let them know he was
there he gave a pretended sneeze, at which the damsels were not a little
delighted, for all they wanted was that Don Quixote should hear them. So
having tuned the harp, Altisidora, running her hand across the strings,
began this ballad:

O thou that art above in bed,
  Between the holland sheets,
A-lying there from night till morn,
  With outstretched legs asleep;

O thou, most valiant knight of all
  The famed Manchegan breed,
Of purity and virtue more
  Than gold of Araby;

Give ear unto a suffering maid,
  Well-grown but evil-starr'd,
For those two suns of thine have lit
  A fire within her heart.

Adventures seeking thou dost rove,
  To others bringing woe;
Thou scatterest wounds, but, ah, the balm
  To heal them dost withhold!

Say, valiant youth, and so may God
  Thy enterprises speed,
Didst thou the light mid Libya's sands
  Or Jaca's rocks first see?

Did scaly serpents give thee suck?
  Who nursed thee when a babe?
Wert cradled in the forest rude,
  Or gloomy mountain cave?

O Dulcinea may be proud,
  That plump and lusty maid;
For she alone hath had the power
  A tiger fierce to tame.

And she for this shall famous be
  From Tagus to Jarama,
From Manzanares to Genil,
  From Duero to Arlanza.

Fain would I change with her, and give
  A petticoat to boot,
The best and bravest that I have,
  All trimmed with gold galloon.

O for to be the happy fair
  Thy mighty arms enfold,
Or even sit beside thy bed
  And scratch thy dusty poll!

I rave,--to favours such as these
  Unworthy to aspire;
Thy feet to tickle were enough
  For one so mean as I.

What caps, what slippers silver-laced,
  Would I on thee bestow!
What damask breeches make for thee;
  What fine long holland cloaks!

And I would give thee pearls that should
  As big as oak-galls show;
So matchless big that each might well
  Be called the great "Alone."

Manchegan Nero, look not down
  From thy Tarpeian Rock
Upon this burning heart, nor add
  The fuel of thy wrath.

A virgin soft and young am I,
  Not yet fifteen years old;
(I'm only three months past fourteen,
  I swear upon my soul).

I hobble not nor do I limp,
  All blemish I'm without,
And as I walk my lily locks
  Are trailing on the ground.

And though my nose be rather flat,
  And though my mouth be wide,
My teeth like topazes exalt
  My beauty to the sky.

Thou knowest that my voice is sweet,
  That is if thou dost hear;
And I am moulded in a form
  Somewhat below the mean.

These charms, and many more, are thine,
  Spoils to thy spear and bow all;
A damsel of this house am I,
  By name Altisidora.

Here the lay of the heart-stricken Altisidora came to an end, while the
warmly wooed Don Quixote began to feel alarm; and with a deep sigh he
said to himself, "O that I should be such an unlucky knight that no
damsel can set eyes on me but falls in love with me! O that the peerless
Dulcinea should be so unfortunate that they cannot let her enjoy my
incomparable constancy in peace! What would ye with her, ye queens? Why
do ye persecute her, ye empresses? Why ye pursue her, ye virgins of from
fourteen to fifteen? Leave the unhappy being to triumph, rejoice and
glory in the lot love has been pleased to bestow upon her in surrendering
my heart and yielding up my soul to her. Ye love-smitten host, know that
to Dulcinea only I am dough and sugar-paste, flint to all others; for her
I am honey, for you aloes. For me Dulcinea alone is beautiful, wise,
virtuous, graceful, and high-bred, and all others are ill-favoured,
foolish, light, and low-born. Nature sent me into the world to be hers
and no other's; Altisidora may weep or sing, the lady for whose sake they
belaboured me in the castle of the enchanted Moor may give way to
despair, but I must be Dulcinea's, boiled or roast, pure, courteous, and
chaste, in spite of all the magic-working powers on earth." And with that
he shut the window with a bang, and, as much out of temper and out of
sorts as if some great misfortune had befallen him, stretched himself on
his bed, where we will leave him for the present, as the great Sancho
Panza, who is about to set up his famous government, now demands our
attention.




CHAPTER XLV.

OF HOW THE GREAT SANCHO PANZA TOOK POSSESSION OF HIS ISLAND, AND OF HOW
HE MADE A BEGINNING IN GOVERNING


O perpetual discoverer of the antipodes, torch of the world, eye of
heaven, sweet stimulator of the water-coolers! Thimbraeus here, Phoebus
there, now archer, now physician, father of poetry, inventor of music;
thou that always risest and, notwithstanding appearances, never settest!
To thee, O Sun, by whose aid man begetteth man, to thee I appeal to help
me and lighten the darkness of my wit that I may be able to proceed with
scrupulous exactitude in giving an account of the great Sancho Panza's
government; for without thee I feel myself weak, feeble, and uncertain.

To come to the point, then--Sancho with all his attendants arrived at a
village of some thousand inhabitants, and one of the largest the duke
possessed. They informed him that it was called the island of Barataria,
either because the name of the village was Baratario, or because of the
joke by way of which the government had been conferred upon him. On
reaching the gates of the town, which was a walled one, the municipality
came forth to meet him, the bells rang out a peal, and the inhabitants
showed every sign of general satisfaction; and with great pomp they
conducted him to the principal church to give thanks to God, and then
with burlesque ceremonies they presented him with the keys of the town,
and acknowledged him as perpetual governor of the island of Barataria.
The costume, the beard, and the fat squat figure of the new governor
astonished all those who were not in on the secret, and even all who were,
and they were not a few. Finally, leading him out of the church they
carried him to the judgment seat and seated him on it, and the duke's
majordomo said to him, "It is an ancient custom in this island, senor
governor, that he who comes to take possession of this famous island is
bound to answer a question which shall be put to him, and which must be a
somewhat knotty and difficult one; and by his answer the people take the
measure of their new governor's wit, and hail with joy or deplore his
arrival accordingly."

While the majordomo was making this speech Sancho was gazing at several
large letters inscribed on the wall opposite his seat, and as he could
not read he asked what that was that was painted on the wall. The answer
was, "Senor, there is written and recorded the day on which your lordship
took possession of this island, and the inscription says, 'This day, the
so-and-so of such-and-such a month and year, Senor Don Sancho Panza took
possession of this island; many years may he enjoy it.'"

"And whom do they call Don Sancho Panza?" asked Sancho.

"Your lordship," replied the majordomo; "for no other Panza but the one
who is now seated in that chair has ever entered this island."

"Well then, let me tell you, brother," said Sancho, "I haven't got the
'Don,' nor has any one of my family ever had it; my name is plain Sancho
Panza, and Sancho was my father's name, and Sancho was my grandfather's
and they were all Panzas, without any Dons or Donas tacked on; I suspect
that in this island there are more Dons than stones; but never mind; God
knows what I mean, and maybe if my government lasts four days I'll weed
out these Dons that no doubt are as great a nuisance as the midges,
they're so plenty. Let the majordomo go on with his question, and I'll
give the best answer I can, whether the people deplore or not."

At this instant there came into court two old men, one carrying a cane by
way of a walking-stick, and the one who had no stick said, "Senor, some
time ago I lent this good man ten gold-crowns in gold to gratify him and
do him a service, on the condition that he was to return them to me
whenever I should ask for them. A long time passed before I asked for
them, for I would not put him to any greater straits to return them than
he was in when I lent them to him; but thinking he was growing careless
about payment I asked for them once and several times; and not only will
he not give them back, but he denies that he owes them, and says I never
lent him any such crowns; or if I did, that he repaid them; and I have no
witnesses either of the loan, or the payment, for he never paid me; I
want your worship to put him to his oath, and if he swears he returned
them to me I forgive him the debt here and before God."

"What say you to this, good old man, you with the stick?" said Sancho.

To which the old man replied, "I admit, senor, that he lent them to me;
but let your worship lower your staff, and as he leaves it to my oath,
I'll swear that I gave them back, and paid him really and truly."

The governor lowered the staff, and as he did so the old man who had the
stick handed it to the other old man to hold for him while he swore, as
if he found it in his way; and then laid his hand on the cross of the
staff, saying that it was true the ten crowns that were demanded of him
had been lent him; but that he had with his own hand given them back into
the hand of the other, and that he, not recollecting it, was always
asking for them.

Seeing this the great governor asked the creditor what answer he had to
make to what his opponent said. He said that no doubt his debtor had told
the truth, for he believed him to be an honest man and a good Christian,
and he himself must have forgotten when and how he had given him back the
crowns; and that from that time forth he would make no further demand
upon him.

The debtor took his stick again, and bowing his head left the court.
Observing this, and how, without another word, he made off, and observing
too the resignation of the plaintiff, Sancho buried his head in his bosom
and remained for a short space in deep thought, with the forefinger of
his right hand on his brow and nose; then he raised his head and bade
them call back the old man with the stick, for he had already taken his
departure. They brought him back, and as soon as Sancho saw him he said,
"Honest man, give me that stick, for I want it."

"Willingly," said the old man; "here it is senor," and he put it into his
hand.

Sancho took it and, handing it to the other old man, said to him, "Go,
and God be with you; for now you are paid."

"I, senor!" returned the old man; "why, is this cane worth ten
gold-crowns?"

"Yes," said the governor, "or if not I am the greatest dolt in the world;
now you will see whether I have got the headpiece to govern a whole
kingdom;" and he ordered the cane to be broken in two, there, in the
presence of all. It was done, and in the middle of it they found ten
gold-crowns. All were filled with amazement, and looked upon their
governor as another Solomon. They asked him how he had come to the
conclusion that the ten crowns were in the cane; he replied, that
observing how the old man who swore gave the stick to his opponent while
he was taking the oath, and swore that he had really and truly given him
the crowns, and how as soon as he had done swearing he asked for the
stick again, it came into his head that the sum demanded must be inside
it; and from this he said it might be seen that God sometimes guides
those who govern in their judgments, even though they may be fools;
besides he had himself heard the curate of his village mention just such
another case, and he had so good a memory, that if it was not that he
forgot everything he wished to remember, there would not be such a memory
in all the island. To conclude, the old men went off, one crestfallen,
and the other in high contentment, all who were present were astonished,
and he who was recording the words, deeds, and movements of Sancho could
not make up his mind whether he was to look upon him and set him down as
a fool or as a man of sense.

As soon as this case was disposed of, there came into court a woman
holding on with a tight grip to a man dressed like a well-to-do cattle
dealer, and she came forward making a great outcry and exclaiming,
"Justice, senor governor, justice! and if I don't get it on earth I'll go
look for it in heaven. Senor governor of my soul, this wicked man caught
me in the middle of the fields here and used my body as if it was an
ill-washed rag, and, woe is me! got from me what I had kept these
three-and-twenty years and more, defending it against Moors and
Christians, natives and strangers; and I always as hard as an oak, and
keeping myself as pure as a salamander in the fire, or wool among the
brambles, for this good fellow to come now with clean hands to handle
me!"

"It remains to be proved whether this gallant has clean hands or not,"
said Sancho; and turning to the man he asked him what he had to say in
answer to the woman's charge.

He all in confusion made answer, "Sirs, I am a poor pig dealer, and this
morning I left the village to sell (saving your presence) four pigs, and
between dues and cribbings they got out of me little less than the worth
of them. As I was returning to my village I fell in on the road with this
good dame, and the devil who makes a coil and a mess out of everything,
yoked us together. I paid her fairly, but she not contented laid hold of
me and never let go until she brought me here; she says I forced her, but
she lies by the oath I swear or am ready to swear; and this is the whole
truth and every particle of it."

The governor on this asked him if he had any money in silver about him;
he said he had about twenty ducats in a leather purse in his bosom. The
governor bade him take it out and hand it to the complainant; he obeyed
trembling; the woman took it, and making a thousand salaams to all and
praying to God for the long life and health of the senor governor who had
such regard for distressed orphans and virgins, she hurried out of court
with the purse grasped in both her hands, first looking, however, to see
if the money it contained was silver.

As soon as she was gone Sancho said to the cattle dealer, whose tears
were already starting and whose eyes and heart were following his purse,
"Good fellow, go after that woman and take the purse from her, by force
even, and come back with it here;" and he did not say it to one who was a
fool or deaf, for the man was off like a flash of lightning, and ran to
do as he was bid.

All the bystanders waited anxiously to see the end of the case, and
presently both man and woman came back at even closer grips than before,
she with her petticoat up and the purse in the lap of it, and he
struggling hard to take it from her, but all to no purpose, so stout was
the woman's defence, she all the while crying out, "Justice from God and
the world! see here, senor governor, the shamelessness and boldness of
this villain, who in the middle of the town, in the middle of the street,
wanted to take from me the purse your worship bade him give me."

"And did he take it?" asked the governor.

"Take it!" said the woman; "I'd let my life be taken from me sooner than
the purse. A pretty child I'd be! It's another sort of cat they must
throw in my face, and not that poor scurvy knave. Pincers and hammers,
mallets and chisels would not get it out of my grip; no, nor lions'
claws; the soul from out of my body first!"

"She is right," said the man; "I own myself beaten and powerless; I
confess I haven't the strength to take it from her;" and he let go his
hold of her.

Upon this the governor said to the woman, "Let me see that purse, my
worthy and sturdy friend." She handed it to him at once, and the governor
returned it to the man, and said to the unforced mistress of force,
"Sister, if you had shown as much, or only half as much, spirit and
vigour in defending your body as you have shown in defending that purse,
the strength of Hercules could not have forced you. Be off, and God speed
you, and bad luck to you, and don't show your face in all this island, or
within six leagues of it on any side, under pain of two hundred lashes;
be off at once, I say, you shameless, cheating shrew."

The woman was cowed and went off disconsolately, hanging her head; and
the governor said to the man, "Honest man, go home with your money, and
God speed you; and for the future, if you don't want to lose it, see that
you don't take it into your head to yoke with anybody." The man thanked
him as clumsily as he could and went his way, and the bystanders were
again filled with admiration at their new governor's judgments and
sentences.

Next, two men, one apparently a farm labourer, and the other a tailor,
for he had a pair of shears in his hand, presented themselves before him,
and the tailor said, "Senor governor, this labourer and I come before
your worship by reason of this honest man coming to my shop yesterday
(for saving everybody's presence I'm a passed tailor, God be thanked),
and putting a piece of cloth into my hands and asking me, 'Senor, will
there be enough in this cloth to make me a cap?' Measuring the cloth I
said there would. He probably suspected--as I supposed, and I supposed
right--that I wanted to steal some of the cloth, led to think so by his
own roguery and the bad opinion people have of tailors; and he told me to
see if there would be enough for two. I guessed what he would be at, and
I said 'yes.' He, still following up his original unworthy notion, went
on adding cap after cap, and I 'yes' after 'yes,' until we got as far as
five. He has just this moment come for them; I gave them to him, but he
won't pay me for the making; on the contrary, he calls upon me to pay
him, or else return his cloth."

"Is all this true, brother?" said Sancho.

"Yes," replied the man; "but will your worship make him show the five
caps he has made me?"

"With all my heart," said the tailor; and drawing his hand from under his
cloak he showed five caps stuck upon the five fingers of it, and said,
"there are the caps this good man asks for; and by God and upon my
conscience I haven't a scrap of cloth left, and I'll let the work be
examined by the inspectors of the trade."

All present laughed at the number of caps and the novelty of the suit;
Sancho set himself to think for a moment, and then said, "It seems to me
that in this case it is not necessary to deliver long-winded arguments,
but only to give off-hand the judgment of an honest man; and so my
decision is that the tailor lose the making and the labourer the cloth,
and that the caps go to the prisoners in the gaol, and let there be no
more about it."

If the previous decision about the cattle dealer's purse excited the
admiration of the bystanders, this provoked their laughter; however, the
governor's orders were after all executed. All this, having been taken
down by his chronicler, was at once despatched to the duke, who was
looking out for it with great eagerness; and here let us leave the good
Sancho; for his master, sorely troubled in mind by Altisidora's music,
has pressing claims upon us now.




CHAPTER XLVI.

OF THE TERRIBLE BELL AND CAT FRIGHT THAT DON QUIXOTE GOT IN THE COURSE OF
THE ENAMOURED ALTISIDORA'S WOOING


We left Don Quixote wrapped up in the reflections which the music of the
enamourned maid Altisidora had given rise to. He went to bed with them,
and just like fleas they would not let him sleep or get a moment's rest,
and the broken stitches of his stockings helped them. But as Time is
fleet and no obstacle can stay his course, he came riding on the hours,
and morning very soon arrived. Seeing which Don Quixote quitted the soft
down, and, nowise slothful, dressed himself in his chamois suit and put
on his travelling boots to hide the disaster to his stockings. He threw
over him his scarlet mantle, put on his head a montera of green velvet
trimmed with silver edging, flung across his shoulder the baldric with
his good trenchant sword, took up a large rosary that he always carried
with him, and with great solemnity and precision of gait proceeded to the
antechamber where the duke and duchess were already dressed and waiting
for him. But as he passed through a gallery, Altisidora and the other
damsel, her friend, were lying in wait for him, and the instant
Altisidora saw him she pretended to faint, while her friend caught her in
her lap, and began hastily unlacing the bosom of her dress.

Don Quixote observed it, and approaching them said, "I know very well
what this seizure arises from."

"I know not from what," replied the friend, "for Altisidora is the
healthiest damsel in all this house, and I have never heard her complain
all the time I have known her. A plague on all the knights-errant in the
world, if they be all ungrateful! Go away, Senor Don Quixote; for this
poor child will not come to herself again so long as you are here."

To which Don Quixote returned, "Do me the favour, senora, to let a lute
be placed in my chamber to-night; and I will comfort this poor maiden to
the best of my power; for in the early stages of love a prompt
disillusion is an approved remedy;" and with this he retired, so as not
to be remarked by any who might see him there.

He had scarcely withdrawn when Altisidora, recovering from her swoon,
said to her companion, "The lute must be left, for no doubt Don Quixote
intends to give us some music; and being his it will not be bad."

They went at once to inform the duchess of what was going on, and of the
lute Don Quixote asked for, and she, delighted beyond measure, plotted
with the duke and her two damsels to play him a trick that should be
amusing but harmless; and in high glee they waited for night, which came
quickly as the day had come; and as for the day, the duke and duchess
spent it in charming conversation with Don Quixote.

When eleven o'clock came, Don Quixote found a guitar in his chamber; he
tried it, opened the window, and perceived that some persons were walking
in the garden; and having passed his fingers over the frets of the guitar
and tuned it as well as he could, he spat and cleared his chest, and then
with a voice a little hoarse but full-toned, he sang the following
ballad, which he had himself that day composed:

Mighty Love the hearts of maidens
  Doth unsettle and perplex,
And the instrument he uses
  Most of all is idleness.

Sewing, stitching, any labour,
  Having always work to do,
To the poison Love instilleth
  Is the antidote most sure.

And to proper-minded maidens
  Who desire the matron's name
Modesty's a marriage portion,
  Modesty their highest praise.

Men of prudence and discretion,
  Courtiers gay and gallant knights,
With the wanton damsels dally,
  But the modest take to wife.

There are passions, transient, fleeting,
  Loves in hostelries declar'd,
Sunrise loves, with sunset ended,
  When the guest hath gone his way.

Love that springs up swift and sudden,
  Here to-day, to-morrow flown,
Passes, leaves no trace behind it,
  Leaves no image on the soul.

Painting that is laid on painting
  Maketh no display or show;
Where one beauty's in possession
  There no other can take hold.

Dulcinea del Toboso
  Painted on my heart I wear;
Never from its tablets, never,
  Can her image be eras'd.

The quality of all in lovers
  Most esteemed is constancy;
'T is by this that love works wonders,
  This exalts them to the skies.

Don Quixote had got so far with his song, to which the duke, the duchess,
Altisidora, and nearly the whole household of the castle were listening,
when all of a sudden from a gallery above that was exactly over his
window they let down a cord with more than a hundred bells attached to
it, and immediately after that discharged a great sack full of cats,
which also had bells of smaller size tied to their tails. Such was the
din of the bells and the squalling of the cats, that though the duke and
duchess were the contrivers of the joke they were startled by it, while
Don Quixote stood paralysed with fear; and as luck would have it, two or
three of the cats made their way in through the grating of his chamber,
and flying from one side to the other, made it seem as if there was a
legion of devils at large in it. They extinguished the candles that were
burning in the room, and rushed about seeking some way of escape; the
cord with the large bells never ceased rising and falling; and most of
the people of the castle, not knowing what was really the matter, were at
their wits' end with astonishment. Don Quixote sprang to his feet, and
drawing his sword, began making passes at the grating, shouting out,
"Avaunt, malignant enchanters! avaunt, ye witchcraft-working rabble! I am
Don Quixote of La Mancha, against whom your evil machinations avail not
nor have any power." And turning upon the cats that were running about
the room, he made several cuts at them. They dashed at the grating and
escaped by it, save one that, finding itself hard pressed by the slashes
of Don Quixote's sword, flew at his face and held on to his nose tooth
and nail, with the pain of which he began to shout his loudest. The duke
and duchess hearing this, and guessing what it was, ran with all haste to
his room, and as the poor gentleman was striving with all his might to
detach the cat from his face, they opened the door with a master-key and
went in with lights and witnessed the unequal combat. The duke ran
forward to part the combatants, but Don Quixote cried out aloud, "Let no
one take him from me; leave me hand to hand with this demon, this wizard,
this enchanter; I will teach him, I myself, who Don Quixote of La Mancha
is." The cat, however, never minding these threats, snarled and held on;
but at last the duke pulled it off and flung it out of the window. Don
Quixote was left with a face as full of holes as a sieve and a nose not
in very good condition, and greatly vexed that they did not let him
finish the battle he had been so stoutly fighting with that villain of an
enchanter. They sent for some oil of John's wort, and Altisidora herself
with her own fair hands bandaged all the wounded parts; and as she did so
she said to him in a low voice. "All these mishaps have befallen thee,
hardhearted knight, for the sin of thy insensibility and obstinacy; and
God grant thy squire Sancho may forget to whip himself, so that that
dearly beloved Dulcinea of thine may never be released from her
enchantment, that thou mayest never come to her bed, at least while I who
adore thee am alive."

To all this Don Quixote made no answer except to heave deep sighs, and
then stretched himself on his bed, thanking the duke and duchess for
their kindness, not because he stood in any fear of that bell-ringing
rabble of enchanters in cat shape, but because he recognised their good
intentions in coming to his rescue. The duke and duchess left him to
repose and withdrew greatly grieved at the unfortunate result of the
joke; as they never thought the adventure would have fallen so heavy on
Don Quixote or cost him so dear, for it cost him five days of confinement
to his bed, during which he had another adventure, pleasanter than the
late one, which his chronicler will not relate just now in order that he
may turn his attention to Sancho Panza, who was proceeding with great
diligence and drollery in his government.




CHAPTER XLVII.

WHEREIN IS CONTINUED THE ACCOUNT OF HOW SANCHO PANZA CONDUCTED HIMSELF IN
HIS GOVERNMENT


The history says that from the justice court they carried Sancho to a
sumptuous palace, where in a spacious chamber there was a table laid out
with royal magnificence. The clarions sounded as Sancho entered the room,
and four pages came forward to present him with water for his hands,
which Sancho received with great dignity. The music ceased, and Sancho
seated himself at the head of the table, for there was only that seat
placed, and no more than one cover laid. A personage, who it appeared
afterwards was a physician, placed himself standing by his side with a
whalebone wand in his hand. They then lifted up a fine white cloth
covering fruit and a great variety of dishes of different sorts; one who
looked like a student said grace, and a page put a laced bib on Sancho,
while another who played the part of head carver placed a dish of fruit
before him. But hardly had he tasted a morsel when the man with the wand
touched the plate with it, and they took it away from before him with the
utmost celerity. The carver, however, brought him another dish, and
Sancho proceeded to try it; but before he could get at it, not to say
taste it, already the wand had touched it and a page had carried it off
with the same promptitude as the fruit. Sancho seeing this was puzzled,
and looking from one to another asked if this dinner was to be eaten
after the fashion of a jugglery trick.

To this he with the wand replied, "It is not to be eaten, senor governor,
except as is usual and customary in other islands where there are
governors. I, senor, am a physician, and I am paid a salary in this
island to serve its governors as such, and I have a much greater regard
for their health than for my own, studying day and night and making
myself acquainted with the governor's constitution, in order to be able
to cure him when he falls sick. The chief thing I have to do is to attend
at his dinners and suppers and allow him to eat what appears to me to be
fit for him, and keep from him what I think will do him harm and be
injurious to his stomach; and therefore I ordered that plate of fruit to
be removed as being too moist, and that other dish I ordered to be
removed as being too hot and containing many spices that stimulate
thirst; for he who drinks much kills and consumes the radical moisture
wherein life consists."

"Well then," said Sancho, "that dish of roast partridges there that seems
so savoury will not do me any harm."

To this the physician replied, "Of those my lord the governor shall not
eat so long as I live."

"Why so?" said Sancho.

"Because," replied the doctor, "our master Hippocrates, the polestar and
beacon of medicine, says in one of his aphorisms omnis saturatio mala,
perdicis autem pessima, which means 'all repletion is bad, but that of
partridge is the worst of all."

"In that case," said Sancho, "let senor doctor see among the dishes that
are on the table what will do me most good and least harm, and let me eat
it, without tapping it with his stick; for by the life of the governor,
and so may God suffer me to enjoy it, but I'm dying of hunger; and in
spite of the doctor and all he may say, to deny me food is the way to
take my life instead of prolonging it."

"Your worship is right, senor governor," said the physician; "and
therefore your worship, I consider, should not eat of those stewed
rabbits there, because it is a furry kind of food; if that veal were not
roasted and served with pickles, you might try it; but it is out of the
question."

"That big dish that is smoking farther off," said Sancho, "seems to me to
be an olla podrida, and out of the diversity of things in such ollas, I
can't fail to light upon something tasty and good for me."

"Absit," said the doctor; "far from us be any such base thought! There is
nothing in the world less nourishing than an olla podrida; to canons, or
rectors of colleges, or peasants' weddings with your ollas podridas, but
let us have none of them on the tables of governors, where everything
that is present should be delicate and refined; and the reason is, that
always, everywhere and by everybody, simple medicines are more esteemed
than compound ones, for we cannot go wrong in those that are simple,
while in the compound we may, by merely altering the quantity of the
things composing them. But what I am of opinion the governor should eat
now in order to preserve and fortify his health is a hundred or so of
wafer cakes and a few thin slices of conserve of quinces, which will
settle his stomach and help his digestion."

Sancho on hearing this threw himself back in his chair and surveyed the
doctor steadily, and in a solemn tone asked him what his name was and
where he had studied.

He replied, "My name, senor governor, is Doctor Pedro Recio de Aguero I
am a native of a place called Tirteafuera which lies between Caracuel and
Almodovar del Campo, on the right-hand side, and I have the degree of
doctor from the university of Osuna."

To which Sancho, glowing all over with rage, returned, "Then let Doctor
Pedro Recio de Malaguero, native of Tirteafuera, a place that's on the
right-hand side as we go from Caracuel to Almodovar del Campo, graduate
of Osuna, get out of my presence at once; or I swear by the sun I'll take
a cudgel, and by dint of blows, beginning with him, I'll not leave a
doctor in the whole island; at least of those I know to be ignorant; for
as to learned, wise, sensible physicians, them I will reverence and
honour as divine persons. Once more I say let Pedro Recio get out of this
or I'll take this chair I am sitting on and break it over his head. And
if they call me to account for it, I'll clear myself by saying I served
God in killing a bad doctor--a general executioner. And now give me
something to eat, or else take your government; for a trade that does not
feed its master is not worth two beans."

The doctor was dismayed when he saw the governor in such a passion, and
he would have made a Tirteafuera out of the room but that the same
instant a post-horn sounded in the street; and the carver putting his
head out of the window turned round and said, "It's a courier from my
lord the duke, no doubt with some despatch of importance."

The courier came in all sweating and flurried, and taking a paper from
his bosom, placed it in the governor's hands. Sancho handed it to the
majordomo and bade him read the superscription, which ran thus: To Don
Sancho Panza, Governor of the Island of Barataria, into his own hands or
those of his secretary. Sancho when he heard this said, "Which of you is
my secretary?" "I am, senor," said one of those present, "for I can read
and write, and am a Biscayan." "With that addition," said Sancho, "you
might be secretary to the emperor himself; open this paper and see what
it says." The new-born secretary obeyed, and having read the contents
said the matter was one to be discussed in private. Sancho ordered the
chamber to be cleared, the majordomo and the carver only remaining; so
the doctor and the others withdrew, and then the secretary read the
letter, which was as follows:


It has come to my knowledge, Senor Don Sancho Panza, that certain enemies
of mine and of the island are about to make a furious attack upon it some
night, I know not when. It behoves you to be on the alert and keep watch,
that they surprise you not. I also know by trustworthy spies that four
persons have entered the town in disguise in order to take your life,
because they stand in dread of your great capacity; keep your eyes open
and take heed who approaches you to address you, and eat nothing that is
presented to you. I will take care to send you aid if you find yourself
in difficulty, but in all things you will act as may be expected of your
judgment. From this place, the Sixteenth of August, at four in the
morning.

Your friend,

THE DUKE


Sancho was astonished, and those who stood by made believe to be so too,
and turning to the majordomo he said to him, "What we have got to do
first, and it must be done at once, is to put Doctor Recio in the
lock-up; for if anyone wants to kill me it is he, and by a slow death and
the worst of all, which is hunger."

"Likewise," said the carver, "it is my opinion your worship should not
eat anything that is on this table, for the whole was a present from some
nuns; and as they say, 'behind the cross there's the devil.'"

"I don't deny it," said Sancho; "so for the present give me a piece of
bread and four pounds or so of grapes; no poison can come in them; for
the fact is I can't go on without eating; and if we are to be prepared
for these battles that are threatening us we must be well provisioned;
for it is the tripes that carry the heart and not the heart the tripes.
And you, secretary, answer my lord the duke and tell him that all his
commands shall be obeyed to the letter, as he directs; and say from me to
my lady the duchess that I kiss her hands, and that I beg of her not to
forget to send my letter and bundle to my wife Teresa Panza by a
messenger; and I will take it as a great favour and will not fail to
serve her in all that may lie within my power; and as you are about it
you may enclose a kiss of the hand to my master Don Quixote that he may
see I am grateful bread; and as a good secretary and a good Biscayan you
may add whatever you like and whatever will come in best; and now take
away this cloth and give me something to eat, and I'll be ready to meet
all the spies and assassins and enchanters that may come against me or my
island."

At this instant a page entered saying, "Here is a farmer on business, who
wants to speak to your lordship on a matter of great importance, he
says."

"It's very odd," said Sancho, "the ways of these men on business; is it
possible they can be such fools as not to see that an hour like this is
no hour for coming on business? We who govern and we who are judges--are
we not men of flesh and blood, and are we not to be allowed the time
required for taking rest, unless they'd have us made of marble? By God
and on my conscience, if the government remains in my hands (which I have
a notion it won't), I'll bring more than one man on business to order.
However, tell this good man to come in; but take care first of all that
he is not some spy or one of my assassins."

"No, my lord," said the page, "for he looks like a simple fellow, and
either I know very little or he is as good as good bread."

"There is nothing to be afraid of," said the majordomo, "for we are all
here."

"Would it be possible, carver," said Sancho, "now that Doctor Pedro Recio
is not here, to let me eat something solid and substantial, if it were
even a piece of bread and an onion?"

"To-night at supper," said the carver, "the shortcomings of the dinner
shall be made good, and your lordship shall be fully contented."

"God grant it," said Sancho.

The farmer now came in, a well-favoured man that one might see a thousand
leagues off was an honest fellow and a good soul. The first thing he said
was, "Which is the lord governor here?"

"Which should it be," said the secretary, "but he who is seated in the
chair?"

"Then I humble myself before him," said the farmer; and going on his
knees he asked for his hand, to kiss it. Sancho refused it, and bade him
stand up and say what he wanted. The farmer obeyed, and then said, "I am
a farmer, senor, a native of Miguelturra, a village two leagues from
Ciudad Real."

"Another Tirteafuera!" said Sancho; "say on, brother; I know Miguelturra
very well I can tell you, for it's not very far from my own town."

"The case is this, senor," continued the farmer, "that by God's mercy I
am married with the leave and licence of the holy Roman Catholic Church;
I have two sons, students, and the younger is studying to become
bachelor, and the elder to be licentiate; I am a widower, for my wife
died, or more properly speaking, a bad doctor killed her on my hands,
giving her a purge when she was with child; and if it had pleased God
that the child had been born, and was a boy, I would have put him to
study for doctor, that he might not envy his brothers the bachelor and
the licentiate."

"So that if your wife had not died, or had not been killed, you would not
now be a widower," said Sancho.

"No, senor, certainly not," said the farmer.

"We've got that much settled," said Sancho; "get on, brother, for it's
more bed-time than business-time."

"Well then," said the farmer, "this son of mine who is going to be a
bachelor, fell in love in the said town with a damsel called Clara
Perlerina, daughter of Andres Perlerino, a very rich farmer; and this
name of Perlerines does not come to them by ancestry or descent, but
because all the family are paralytics, and for a better name they call
them Perlerines; though to tell the truth the damsel is as fair as an
Oriental pearl, and like a flower of the field, if you look at her on the
right side; on the left not so much, for on that side she wants an eye
that she lost by small-pox; and though her face is thickly and deeply
pitted, those who love her say they are not pits that are there, but the
graves where the hearts of her lovers are buried. She is so cleanly that
not to soil her face she carries her nose turned up, as they say, so that
one would fancy it was running away from her mouth; and with all this she
looks extremely well, for she has a wide mouth; and but for wanting ten
or a dozen teeth and grinders she might compare and compete with the
comeliest. Of her lips I say nothing, for they are so fine and thin that,
if lips might be reeled, one might make a skein of them; but being of a
different colour from ordinary lips they are wonderful, for they are
mottled, blue, green, and purple--let my lord the governor pardon me for
painting so minutely the charms of her who some time or other will be my
daughter; for I love her, and I don't find her amiss."

"Paint what you will," said Sancho; "I enjoy your painting, and if I had
dined there could be no dessert more to my taste than your portrait."

"That I have still to furnish," said the farmer; "but a time will come
when we may be able if we are not now; and I can tell you, senor, if I
could paint her gracefulness and her tall figure, it would astonish you;
but that is impossible because she is bent double with her knees up to
her mouth; but for all that it is easy to see that if she could stand up
she'd knock her head against the ceiling; and she would have given her
hand to my bachelor ere this, only that she can't stretch it out, for
it's contracted; but still one can see its elegance and fine make by its
long furrowed nails."

"That will do, brother," said Sancho; "consider you have painted her from
head to foot; what is it you want now? Come to the point without all this
beating about the bush, and all these scraps and additions."

"I want your worship, senor," said the farmer, "to do me the favour of
giving me a letter of recommendation to the girl's father, begging him to
be so good as to let this marriage take place, as we are not ill-matched
either in the gifts of fortune or of nature; for to tell the truth, senor
governor, my son is possessed of a devil, and there is not a day but the
evil spirits torment him three or four times; and from having once fallen
into the fire, he has his face puckered up like a piece of parchment, and
his eyes watery and always running; but he has the disposition of an
angel, and if it was not for belabouring and pummelling himself he'd be a
saint."

"Is there anything else you want, good man?" said Sancho.

"There's another thing I'd like," said the farmer, "but I'm afraid to
mention it; however, out it must; for after all I can't let it be rotting
in my breast, come what may. I mean, senor, that I'd like your worship to
give me three hundred or six hundred ducats as a help to my bachelor's
portion, to help him in setting up house; for they must, in short, live
by themselves, without being subject to the interferences of their
fathers-in-law."

"Just see if there's anything else you'd like," said Sancho, "and don't
hold back from mentioning it out of bashfulness or modesty."

"No, indeed there is not," said the farmer.

The moment he said this the governor started to his feet, and seizing the
chair he had been sitting on exclaimed, "By all that's good, you
ill-bred, boorish Don Bumpkin, if you don't get out of this at once and
hide yourself from my sight, I'll lay your head open with this chair. You
whoreson rascal, you devil's own painter, and is it at this hour you come
to ask me for six hundred ducats! How should I have them, you stinking
brute? And why should I give them to you if I had them, you knave and
blockhead? What have I to do with Miguelturra or the whole family of the
Perlerines? Get out I say, or by the life of my lord the duke I'll do as
I said. You're not from Miguelturra, but some knave sent here from hell
to tempt me. Why, you villain, I have not yet had the government half a
day, and you want me to have six hundred ducats already!"

The carver made signs to the farmer to leave the room, which he did with
his head down, and to all appearance in terror lest the governor should
carry his threats into effect, for the rogue knew very well how to play
his part.

But let us leave Sancho in his wrath, and peace be with them all; and let
us return to Don Quixote, whom we left with his face bandaged and
doctored after the cat wounds, of which he was not cured for eight days;
and on one of these there befell him what Cide Hamete promises to relate
with that exactitude and truth with which he is wont to set forth
everything connected with this great history, however minute it may be.




CHAPTER XLVIII.

OF WHAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE WITH DONA RODRIGUEZ, THE DUCHESS'S DUENNA,
TOGETHER WITH OTHER OCCURRENCES WORTHY OF RECORD AND ETERNAL REMEMBRANCE


Exceedingly moody and dejected was the sorely wounded Don Quixote, with
his face bandaged and marked, not by the hand of God, but by the claws of
a cat, mishaps incidental to knight-errantry.

Six days he remained without appearing in public, and one night as he lay
awake thinking of his misfortunes and of Altisidora's pursuit of him, he
perceived that some one was opening the door of his room with a key, and
he at once made up his mind that the enamoured damsel was coming to make
an assault upon his chastity and put him in danger of failing in the
fidelity he owed to his lady Dulcinea del Toboso. "No," said he, firmly
persuaded of the truth of his idea (and he said it loud enough to be
heard), "the greatest beauty upon earth shall not avail to make me
renounce my adoration of her whom I bear stamped and graved in the core
of my heart and the secret depths of my bowels; be thou, lady mine,
transformed into a clumsy country wench, or into a nymph of golden Tagus
weaving a web of silk and gold, let Merlin or Montesinos hold thee
captive where they will; where'er thou art, thou art mine, and where'er I
am, must be thine." The very instant he had uttered these words, the door
opened. He stood up on the bed wrapped from head to foot in a yellow
satin coverlet, with a cap on his head, and his face and his moustaches
tied up, his face because of the scratches, and his moustaches to keep
them from drooping and falling down, in which trim he looked the most
extraordinary scarecrow that could be conceived. He kept his eyes fixed
on the door, and just as he was expecting to see the love-smitten and
unhappy Altisidora make her appearance, he saw coming in a most venerable
duenna, in a long white-bordered veil that covered and enveloped her from
head to foot. Between the fingers of her left hand she held a short
lighted candle, while with her right she shaded it to keep the light from
her eyes, which were covered by spectacles of great size, and she
advanced with noiseless steps, treading very softly.

Don Quixote kept an eye upon her from his watchtower, and observing her
costume and noting her silence, he concluded that it must be some witch
or sorceress that was coming in such a guise to work him some mischief,
and he began crossing himself at a great rate. The spectre still
advanced, and on reaching the middle of the room, looked up and saw the
energy with which Don Quixote was crossing himself; and if he was scared
by seeing such a figure as hers, she was terrified at the sight of his;
for the moment she saw his tall yellow form with the coverlet and the
bandages that disfigured him, she gave a loud scream, and exclaiming,
"Jesus! what's this I see?" let fall the candle in her fright, and then
finding herself in the dark, turned about to make off, but stumbling on
her skirts in her consternation, she measured her length with a mighty
fall.

Don Quixote in his trepidation began saying, "I conjure thee, phantom, or
whatever thou art, tell me what thou art and what thou wouldst with me.
If thou art a soul in torment, say so, and all that my powers can do I
will do for thee; for I am a Catholic Christian and love to do good to
all the world, and to this end I have embraced the order of
knight-errantry to which I belong, the province of which extends to doing
good even to souls in purgatory."

The unfortunate duenna hearing herself thus conjured, by her own fear
guessed Don Quixote's and in a low plaintive voice answered, "Senor Don
Quixote--if so be you are indeed Don Quixote--I am no phantom or spectre
or soul in purgatory, as you seem to think, but Dona Rodriguez, duenna of
honour to my lady the duchess, and I come to you with one of those
grievances your worship is wont to redress."

"Tell me, Senora Dona Rodriguez," said Don Quixote, "do you perchance
come to transact any go-between business? Because I must tell you I am
not available for anybody's purpose, thanks to the peerless beauty of my
lady Dulcinea del Toboso. In short, Senora Dona Rodriguez, if you will
leave out and put aside all love messages, you may go and light your
candle and come back, and we will discuss all the commands you have for
me and whatever you wish, saving only, as I said, all seductive
communications."

"I carry nobody's messages, senor," said the duenna; "little you know me.
Nay, I'm not far enough advanced in years to take to any such childish
tricks. God be praised I have a soul in my body still, and all my teeth
and grinders in my mouth, except one or two that the colds, so common in
this Aragon country, have robbed me of. But wait a little, while I go and
light my candle, and I will return immediately and lay my sorrows before
you as before one who relieves those of all the world;" and without
staying for an answer she quitted the room and left Don Quixote
tranquilly meditating while he waited for her. A thousand thoughts at
once suggested themselves to him on the subject of this new adventure,
and it struck him as being ill done and worse advised in him to expose
himself to the danger of breaking his plighted faith to his lady; and
said he to himself, "Who knows but that the devil, being wily and
cunning, may be trying now to entrap me with a duenna, having failed with
empresses, queens, duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses? Many a time
have I heard it said by many a man of sense that he will sooner offer you
a flat-nosed wench than a roman-nosed one; and who knows but this
privacy, this opportunity, this silence, may awaken my sleeping desires,
and lead me in these my latter years to fall where I have never tripped?
In cases of this sort it is better to flee than to await the battle. But
I must be out of my senses to think and utter such nonsense; for it is
impossible that a long, white-hooded spectacled duenna could stir up or
excite a wanton thought in the most graceless bosom in the world. Is
there a duenna on earth that has fair flesh? Is there a duenna in the
world that escapes being ill-tempered, wrinkled, and prudish? Avaunt,
then, ye duenna crew, undelightful to all mankind. Oh, but that lady did
well who, they say, had at the end of her reception room a couple of
figures of duennas with spectacles and lace-cushions, as if at work, and
those statues served quite as well to give an air of propriety to the
room as if they had been real duennas."

So saying he leaped off the bed, intending to close the door and not
allow Senora Rodriguez to enter; but as he went to shut it Senora
Rodriguez returned with a wax candle lighted, and having a closer view of
Don Quixote, with the coverlet round him, and his bandages and night-cap,
she was alarmed afresh, and retreating a couple of paces, exclaimed, "Am
I safe, sir knight? for I don't look upon it as a sign of very great
virtue that your worship should have got up out of bed."

"I may well ask the same, senora," said Don Quixote; "and I do ask
whether I shall be safe from being assailed and forced?"

"Of whom and against whom do you demand that security, sir knight?" said
the duenna.

"Of you and against you I ask it," said Don Quixote; "for I am not
marble, nor are you brass, nor is it now ten o'clock in the morning, but
midnight, or a trifle past it I fancy, and we are in a room more secluded
and retired than the cave could have been where the treacherous and
daring AEneas enjoyed the fair soft-hearted Dido. But give me your hand,
senora; I require no better protection than my own continence, and my own
sense of propriety; as well as that which is inspired by that venerable
head-dress;" and so saying he kissed her right hand and took it in his
own, she yielding it to him with equal ceremoniousness. And here Cide
Hamete inserts a parenthesis in which he says that to have seen the pair
marching from the door to the bed, linked hand in hand in this way, he
would have given the best of the two tunics he had.

Don Quixote finally got into bed, and Dona Rodriguez took her seat on a
chair at some little distance from his couch, without taking off her
spectacles or putting aside the candle. Don Quixote wrapped the
bedclothes round him and covered himself up completely, leaving nothing
but his face visible, and as soon as they had both regained their
composure he broke silence, saying, "Now, Senora Dona Rodriguez, you may
unbosom yourself and out with everything you have in your sorrowful heart
and afflicted bowels; and by me you shall be listened to with chaste
ears, and aided by compassionate exertions."

"I believe it," replied the duenna; "from your worship's gentle and
winning presence only such a Christian answer could be expected. The fact
is, then, Senor Don Quixote, that though you see me seated in this chair,
here in the middle of the kingdom of Aragon, and in the attire of a
despised outcast duenna, I am from the Asturias of Oviedo, and of a
family with which many of the best of the province are connected by
blood; but my untoward fate and the improvidence of my parents, who, I
know not how, were unseasonably reduced to poverty, brought me to the
court of Madrid, where as a provision and to avoid greater misfortunes,
my parents placed me as seamstress in the service of a lady of quality,
and I would have you know that for hemming and sewing I have never been
surpassed by any all my life. My parents left me in service and returned
to their own country, and a few years later went, no doubt, to heaven,
for they were excellent good Catholic Christians. I was left an orphan
with nothing but the miserable wages and trifling presents that are given
to servants of my sort in palaces; but about this time, without any
encouragement on my part, one of the esquires of the household fell in
love with me, a man somewhat advanced in years, full-bearded and
personable, and above all as good a gentleman as the king himself, for he
came of a mountain stock. We did not carry on our loves with such secrecy
but that they came to the knowledge of my lady, and she, not to have any
fuss about it, had us married with the full sanction of the holy mother
Roman Catholic Church, of which marriage a daughter was born to put an
end to my good fortune, if I had any; not that I died in childbirth, for
I passed through it safely and in due season, but because shortly
afterwards my husband died of a certain shock he received, and had I time
to tell you of it I know your worship would be surprised;" and here she
began to weep bitterly and said, "Pardon me, Senor Don Quixote, if I am
unable to control myself, for every time I think of my unfortunate
husband my eyes fill up with tears. God bless me, with what an air of
dignity he used to carry my lady behind him on a stout mule as black as
jet! for in those days they did not use coaches or chairs, as they say
they do now, and ladies rode behind their squires. This much at least I
cannot help telling you, that you may observe the good breeding and
punctiliousness of my worthy husband. As he was turning into the Calle de
Santiago in Madrid, which is rather narrow, one of the alcaldes of the
Court, with two alguacils before him, was coming out of it, and as soon
as my good squire saw him he wheeled his mule about and made as if he
would turn and accompany him. My lady, who was riding behind him, said to
him in a low voice, 'What are you about, you sneak, don't you see that I
am here?' The alcalde like a polite man pulled up his horse and said to
him, 'Proceed, senor, for it is I, rather, who ought to accompany my lady
Dona Casilda'--for that was my mistress's name. Still my husband, cap in
hand, persisted in trying to accompany the alcalde, and seeing this my
lady, filled with rage and vexation, pulled out a big pin, or, I rather
think, a bodkin, out of her needle-case and drove it into his back with
such force that my husband gave a loud yell, and writhing fell to the
ground with his lady. Her two lacqueys ran to rise her up, and the
alcalde and the alguacils did the same; the Guadalajara gate was all in
commotion--I mean the idlers congregated there; my mistress came back on
foot, and my husband hurried away to a barber's shop protesting that he
was run right through the guts. The courtesy of my husband was noised
abroad to such an extent, that the boys gave him no peace in the street;
and on this account, and because he was somewhat shortsighted, my lady
dismissed him; and it was chagrin at this I am convinced beyond a doubt
that brought on his death. I was left a helpless widow, with a daughter
on my hands growing up in beauty like the sea-foam; at length, however,
as I had the character of being an excellent needlewoman, my lady the
duchess, then lately married to my lord the duke, offered to take me with
her to this kingdom of Aragon, and my daughter also, and here as time
went by my daughter grew up and with her all the graces in the world; she
sings like a lark, dances quick as thought, foots it like a gipsy, reads
and writes like a schoolmaster, and does sums like a miser; of her
neatness I say nothing, for the running water is not purer, and her age
is now, if my memory serves me, sixteen years five months and three days,
one more or less. To come to the point, the son of a very rich farmer,
living in a village of my lord the duke's not very far from here, fell in
love with this girl of mine; and in short, how I know not, they came
together, and under the promise of marrying her he made a fool of my
daughter, and will not keep his word. And though my lord the duke is
aware of it (for I have complained to him, not once but many and many a
time, and entreated him to order the farmer to marry my daughter), he
turns a deaf ear and will scarcely listen to me; the reason being that as
the deceiver's father is so rich, and lends him money, and is constantly
going security for his debts, he does not like to offend or annoy him in
any way. Now, senor, I want your worship to take it upon yourself to
redress this wrong either by entreaty or by arms; for by what all the
world says you came into it to redress grievances and right wrongs and
help the unfortunate. Let your worship put before you the unprotected
condition of my daughter, her youth, and all the perfections I have said
she possesses; and before God and on my conscience, out of all the
damsels my lady has, there is not one that comes up to the sole of her
shoe, and the one they call Altisidora, and look upon as the boldest and
gayest of them, put in comparison with my daughter, does not come within
two leagues of her. For I would have you know, senor, all is not gold
that glitters, and that same little Altisidora has more forwardness than
good looks, and more impudence than modesty; besides being not very
sound, for she has such a disagreeable breath that one cannot bear to be
near her for a moment; and even my lady the duchess--but I'll hold my
tongue, for they say that walls have ears."

"For heaven's sake, Dona Rodriguez, what ails my lady the duchess?" asked
Don Quixote.

"Adjured in that way," replied the duenna, "I cannot help answering the
question and telling the whole truth. Senor Don Quixote, have you
observed the comeliness of my lady the duchess, that smooth complexion of
hers like a burnished polished sword, those two cheeks of milk and
carmine, that gay lively step with which she treads or rather seems to
spurn the earth, so that one would fancy she went radiating health
wherever she passed? Well then, let me tell you she may thank, first of
all God, for this, and next, two issues that she has, one in each leg, by
which all the evil humours, of which the doctors say she is full, are
discharged."

"Blessed Virgin!" exclaimed Don Quixote; "and is it possible that my lady
the duchess has drains of that sort? I would not have believed it if the
barefoot friars had told it me; but as the lady Dona Rodriguez says so,
it must be so. But surely such issues, and in such places, do not
discharge humours, but liquid amber. Verily, I do believe now that this
practice of opening issues is a very important matter for the health."

Don Quixote had hardly said this, when the chamber door flew open with a
loud bang, and with the start the noise gave her Dona Rodriguez let the
candle fall from her hand, and the room was left as dark as a wolf's
mouth, as the saying is. Suddenly the poor duenna felt two hands seize
her by the throat, so tightly that she could not croak, while some one
else, without uttering a word, very briskly hoisted up her petticoats,
and with what seemed to be a slipper began to lay on so heartily that
anyone would have felt pity for her; but although Don Quixote felt it he
never stirred from his bed, but lay quiet and silent, nay apprehensive
that his turn for a drubbing might be coming. Nor was the apprehension an
idle one; for leaving the duenna (who did not dare to cry out) well
basted, the silent executioners fell upon Don Quixote, and stripping him
of the sheet and the coverlet, they pinched him so fast and so hard that
he was driven to defend himself with his fists, and all this in
marvellous silence. The battle lasted nearly half an hour, and then the
phantoms fled; Dona Rodriguez gathered up her skirts, and bemoaning her
fate went out without saying a word to Don Quixote, and he, sorely
pinched, puzzled, and dejected, remained alone, and there we will leave
him, wondering who could have been the perverse enchanter who had reduced
him to such a state; but that shall be told in due season, for Sancho
claims our attention, and the methodical arrangement of the story demands
it.




CHAPTER XLIX.

OF WHAT HAPPENED SANCHO IN MAKING THE ROUND OF HIS ISLAND


We left the great governor angered and irritated by that
portrait-painting rogue of a farmer who, instructed the majordomo, as the
majordomo was by the duke, tried to practise upon him; he however, fool,
boor, and clown as he was, held his own against them all, saying to those
round him and to Doctor Pedro Recio, who as soon as the private business
of the duke's letter was disposed of had returned to the room, "Now I see
plainly enough that judges and governors ought to be and must be made of
brass not to feel the importunities of the applicants that at all times
and all seasons insist on being heard, and having their business
despatched, and their own affairs and no others attended to, come what
may; and if the poor judge does not hear them and settle the
matter--either because he cannot or because that is not the time set
apart for hearing them-forthwith they abuse him, and run him down, and
gnaw at his bones, and even pick holes in his pedigree. You silly, stupid
applicant, don't be in a hurry; wait for the proper time and season for
doing business; don't come at dinner-hour, or at bed-time; for judges are
only flesh and blood, and must give to Nature what she naturally demands
of them; all except myself, for in my case I give her nothing to eat,
thanks to Senor Doctor Pedro Recio Tirteafuera here, who would have me
die of hunger, and declares that death to be life; and the same sort of
life may God give him and all his kind--I mean the bad doctors; for the
good ones deserve palms and laurels."

All who knew Sancho Panza were astonished to hear him speak so elegantly,
and did not know what to attribute it to unless it were that office and
grave responsibility either smarten or stupefy men's wits. At last Doctor
Pedro Recio Agilers of Tirteafuera promised to let him have supper that
night though it might be in contravention of all the aphorisms of
Hippocrates. With this the governor was satisfied and looked forward to
the approach of night and supper-time with great anxiety; and though
time, to his mind, stood still and made no progress, nevertheless the
hour he so longed for came, and they gave him a beef salad with onions
and some boiled calves' feet rather far gone. At this he fell to with
greater relish than if they had given him francolins from Milan,
pheasants from Rome, veal from Sorrento, partridges from Moron, or geese
from Lavajos, and turning to the doctor at supper he said to him, "Look
here, senor doctor, for the future don't trouble yourself about giving me
dainty things or choice dishes to eat, for it will be only taking my
stomach off its hinges; it is accustomed to goat, cow, bacon, hung beef,
turnips and onions; and if by any chance it is given these palace dishes,
it receives them squeamishly, and sometimes with loathing. What the
head-carver had best do is to serve me with what they call ollas podridas
(and the rottener they are the better they smell); and he can put
whatever he likes into them, so long as it is good to eat, and I'll be
obliged to him, and will requite him some day. But let nobody play pranks
on me, for either we are or we are not; let us live and eat in peace and
good-fellowship, for when God sends the dawn, he sends it for all. I mean
to govern this island without giving up a right or taking a bribe; let
everyone keep his eye open, and look out for the arrow; for I can tell
them 'the devil's in Cantillana,' and if they drive me to it they'll see
something that will astonish them. Nay! make yourself honey and the flies
eat you."

"Of a truth, senor governor," said the carver, "your worship is in the
right of it in everything you have said; and I promise you in the name of
all the inhabitants of this island that they will serve your worship with
all zeal, affection, and good-will, for the mild kind of government you
have given a sample of to begin with, leaves them no ground for doing or
thinking anything to your worship's disadvantage."

"That I believe," said Sancho; "and they would be great fools if they did
or thought otherwise; once more I say, see to my feeding and my Dapple's
for that is the great point and what is most to the purpose; and when the
hour comes let us go the rounds, for it is my intention to purge this
island of all manner of uncleanness and of all idle good-for-nothing
vagabonds; for I would have you know that lazy idlers are the same thing
in a State as the drones in a hive, that eat up the honey the industrious
bees make. I mean to protect the husbandman, to preserve to the gentleman
his privileges, to reward the virtuous, and above all to respect religion
and honour its ministers. What say you to that, my friends? Is there
anything in what I say, or am I talking to no purpose?"

"There is so much in what your worship says, senor governor," said the
majordomo, "that I am filled with wonder when I see a man like your
worship, entirely without learning (for I believe you have none at all),
say such things, and so full of sound maxims and sage remarks, very
different from what was expected of your worship's intelligence by those
who sent us or by us who came here. Every day we see something new in
this world; jokes become realities, and the jokers find the tables turned
upon them."

Night came, and with the permission of Doctor Pedro Recio, the governor
had supper. They then got ready to go the rounds, and he started with the
majordomo, the secretary, the head-carver, the chronicler charged with
recording his deeds, and alguacils and notaries enough to form a
fair-sized squadron. In the midst marched Sancho with his staff, as fine
a sight as one could wish to see, and but a few streets of the town had
been traversed when they heard a noise as of a clashing of swords. They
hastened to the spot, and found that the combatants were but two, who
seeing the authorities approaching stood still, and one of them
exclaimed, "Help, in the name of God and the king! Are men to be allowed
to rob in the middle of this town, and rush out and attack people in the
very streets?"

"Be calm, my good man," said Sancho, "and tell me what the cause of this
quarrel is; for I am the governor."

Said the other combatant, "Senor governor, I will tell you in a very few
words. Your worship must know that this gentleman has just now won more
than a thousand reals in that gambling house opposite, and God knows how.
I was there, and gave more than one doubtful point in his favour, very
much against what my conscience told me. He made off with his winnings,
and when I made sure he was going to give me a crown or so at least by
way of a present, as it is usual and customary to give men of quality of
my sort who stand by to see fair or foul play, and back up swindles, and
prevent quarrels, he pocketed his money and left the house. Indignant at
this I followed him, and speaking him fairly and civilly asked him to
give me if it were only eight reals, for he knows I am an honest man and
that I have neither profession nor property, for my parents never brought
me up to any or left me any; but the rogue, who is a greater thief than
Cacus and a greater sharper than Andradilla, would not give me more than
four reals; so your worship may see how little shame and conscience he
has. But by my faith if you had not come up I'd have made him disgorge
his winnings, and he'd have learned what the range of the steel-yard
was."

"What say you to this?" asked Sancho. The other replied that all his
antagonist said was true, and that he did not choose to give him more
than four reals because he very often gave him money; and that those who
expected presents ought to be civil and take what is given them with a
cheerful countenance, and not make any claim against winners unless they
know them for certain to be sharpers and their winnings to be unfairly
won; and that there could be no better proof that he himself was an
honest man than his having refused to give anything; for sharpers always
pay tribute to lookers-on who know them.

"That is true," said the majordomo; "let your worship consider what is to
be done with these men."

"What is to be done," said Sancho, "is this; you, the winner, be you
good, bad, or indifferent, give this assailant of yours a hundred reals
at once, and you must disburse thirty more for the poor prisoners; and
you who have neither profession nor property, and hang about the island
in idleness, take these hundred reals now, and some time of the day
to-morrow quit the island under sentence of banishment for ten years, and
under pain of completing it in another life if you violate the sentence,
for I'll hang you on a gibbet, or at least the hangman will by my orders;
not a word from either of you, or I'll make him feel my hand."

The one paid down the money and the other took it, and the latter quitted
the island, while the other went home; and then the governor said,
"Either I am not good for much, or I'll get rid of these gambling houses,
for it strikes me they are very mischievous."

"This one at least," said one of the notaries, "your worship will not be
able to get rid of, for a great man owns it, and what he loses every year
is beyond all comparison more than what he makes by the cards. On the
minor gambling houses your worship may exercise your power, and it is
they that do most harm and shelter the most barefaced practices; for in
the houses of lords and gentlemen of quality the notorious sharpers dare
not attempt to play their tricks; and as the vice of gambling has become
common, it is better that men should play in houses of repute than in
some tradesman's, where they catch an unlucky fellow in the small hours
of the morning and skin him alive."

"I know already, notary, that there is a good deal to be said on that
point," said Sancho.

And now a tipstaff came up with a young man in his grasp, and said,
"Senor governor, this youth was coming towards us, and as soon as he saw
the officers of justice he turned about and ran like a deer, a sure proof
that he must be some evil-doer; I ran after him, and had it not been that
he stumbled and fell, I should never have caught him."

"What did you run for, fellow?" said Sancho.

To which the young man replied, "Senor, it was to avoid answering all the
questions officers of justice put."

"What are you by trade?"

"A weaver."

"And what do you weave?"

"Lance heads, with your worship's good leave."

"You're facetious with me! You plume yourself on being a wag? Very good;
and where were you going just now?"

"To take the air, senor."

"And where does one take the air in this island?"

"Where it blows."

"Good! your answers are very much to the point; you are a smart youth;
but take notice that I am the air, and that I blow upon you a-stern, and
send you to gaol. Ho there! lay hold of him and take him off; I'll make
him sleep there to-night without air."

"By God," said the young man, "your worship will make me sleep in gaol
just as soon as make me king."

"Why shan't I make thee sleep in gaol?" said Sancho. "Have I not the
power to arrest thee and release thee whenever I like?"

"All the power your worship has," said the young man, "won't be able to
make me sleep in gaol."

"How? not able!" said Sancho; "take him away at once where he'll see his
mistake with his own eyes, even if the gaoler is willing to exert his
interested generosity on his behalf; for I'll lay a penalty of two
thousand ducats on him if he allows him to stir a step from the prison."

"That's ridiculous," said the young man; "the fact is, all the men on
earth will not make me sleep in prison."

"Tell me, you devil," said Sancho, "have you got any angel that will
deliver you, and take off the irons I am going to order them to put upon
you?"

"Now, senor governor," said the young man in a sprightly manner, "let us
be reasonable and come to the point. Granted your worship may order me to
be taken to prison, and to have irons and chains put on me, and to be
shut up in a cell, and may lay heavy penalties on the gaoler if he lets
me out, and that he obeys your orders; still, if I don't choose to sleep,
and choose to remain awake all night without closing an eye, will your
worship with all your power be able to make me sleep if I don't choose?"

"No, truly," said the secretary, "and the fellow has made his point."

"So then," said Sancho, "it would be entirely of your own choice you
would keep from sleeping; not in opposition to my will?"

"No, senor," said the youth, "certainly not."

"Well then, go, and God be with you," said Sancho; "be off home to sleep,
and God give you sound sleep, for I don't want to rob you of it; but for
the future, let me advise you don't joke with the authorities, because
you may come across some one who will bring down the joke on your own
skull."

The young man went his way, and the governor continued his round, and
shortly afterwards two tipstaffs came up with a man in custody, and said,
"Senor governor, this person, who seems to be a man, is not so, but a
woman, and not an ill-favoured one, in man's clothes." They raised two or
three lanterns to her face, and by their light they distinguished the
features of a woman to all appearance of the age of sixteen or a little
more, with her hair gathered into a gold and green silk net, and fair as
a thousand pearls. They scanned her from head to foot, and observed that
she had on red silk stockings with garters of white taffety bordered with
gold and pearl; her breeches were of green and gold stuff, and under an
open jacket or jerkin of the same she wore a doublet of the finest white
and gold cloth; her shoes were white and such as men wear; she carried no
sword at her belt, but only a richly ornamented dagger, and on her
fingers she had several handsome rings. In short, the girl seemed fair to
look at in the eyes of all, and none of those who beheld her knew her,
the people of the town said they could not imagine who she was, and those
who were in on the secret of the jokes that were to be practised upon Sancho
were the ones who were most surprised, for this incident or discovery had
not been arranged by them; and they watched anxiously to see how the
affair would end.

Sancho was fascinated by the girl's beauty, and he asked her who she was,
where she was going, and what had induced her to dress herself in that
garb. She with her eyes fixed on the ground answered in modest confusion,
"I cannot tell you, senor, before so many people what it is of such
consequence to me to have kept secret; one thing I wish to be known, that
I am no thief or evildoer, but only an unhappy maiden whom the power of
jealousy has led to break through the respect that is due to modesty."

Hearing this the majordomo said to Sancho, "Make the people stand back,
senor governor, that this lady may say what she wishes with less
embarrassment."

Sancho gave the order, and all except the majordomo, the head-carver, and
the secretary fell back. Finding herself then in the presence of no more,
the damsel went on to say, "I am the daughter, sirs, of Pedro Perez
Mazorca, the wool-farmer of this town, who is in the habit of coming very
often to my father's house."

"That won't do, senora," said the majordomo; "for I know Pedro Perez very
well, and I know he has no child at all, either son or daughter; and
besides, though you say he is your father, you add then that he comes
very often to your father's house."

"I had already noticed that," said Sancho.

"I am confused just now, sirs," said the damsel, "and I don't know what I
am saying; but the truth is that I am the daughter of Diego de la Llana,
whom you must all know."

"Ay, that will do," said the majordomo; "for I know Diego de la Llana,
and know that he is a gentleman of position and a rich man, and that he
has a son and a daughter, and that since he was left a widower nobody in
all this town can speak of having seen his daughter's face; for he keeps
her so closely shut up that he does not give even the sun a chance of
seeing her; and for all that report says she is extremely beautiful."

"It is true," said the damsel, "and I am that daughter; whether report
lies or not as to my beauty, you, sirs, will have decided by this time,
as you have seen me;" and with this she began to weep bitterly.

On seeing this the secretary leant over to the head-carver's ear, and
said to him in a low voice, "Something serious has no doubt happened this
poor maiden, that she goes wandering from home in such a dress and at
such an hour, and one of her rank too." "There can be no doubt about it,"
returned the carver, "and moreover her tears confirm your suspicion."
Sancho gave her the best comfort he could, and entreated her to tell them
without any fear what had happened her, as they would all earnestly and
by every means in their power endeavour to relieve her.

"The fact is, sirs," said she, "that my father has kept me shut up these
ten years, for so long is it since the earth received my mother. Mass is
said at home in a sumptuous chapel, and all this time I have seen but the
sun in the heaven by day, and the moon and the stars by night; nor do I
know what streets are like, or plazas, or churches, or even men, except
my father and a brother I have, and Pedro Perez the wool-farmer; whom,
because he came frequently to our house, I took it into my head to call
my father, to avoid naming my own. This seclusion and the restrictions
laid upon my going out, were it only to church, have been keeping me
unhappy for many a day and month past; I longed to see the world, or at
least the town where I was born, and it did not seem to me that this wish
was inconsistent with the respect maidens of good quality should have for
themselves. When I heard them talking of bull-fights taking place, and of
javelin games, and of acting plays, I asked my brother, who is a year
younger than myself, to tell me what sort of things these were, and many
more that I had never seen; he explained them to me as well as he could,
but the only effect was to kindle in me a still stronger desire to see
them. At last, to cut short the story of my ruin, I begged and entreated
my brother--O that I had never made such an entreaty-" And once more she
gave way to a burst of weeping.

"Proceed, senora," said the majordomo, "and finish your story of what has
happened to you, for your words and tears are keeping us all in
suspense."

"I have but little more to say, though many a tear to shed," said the
damsel; "for ill-placed desires can only be paid for in some such way."

The maiden's beauty had made a deep impression on the head-carver's
heart, and he again raised his lantern for another look at her, and
thought they were not tears she was shedding, but seed-pearl or dew of
the meadow, nay, he exalted them still higher, and made Oriental pearls
of them, and fervently hoped her misfortune might not be so great a one
as her tears and sobs seemed to indicate. The governor was losing
patience at the length of time the girl was taking to tell her story, and
told her not to keep them waiting any longer; for it was late, and there
still remained a good deal of the town to be gone over.

She, with broken sobs and half-suppressed sighs, went on to say, "My
misfortune, my misadventure, is simply this, that I entreated my brother
to dress me up as a man in a suit of his clothes, and take me some night,
when our father was asleep, to see the whole town; he, overcome by my
entreaties, consented, and dressing me in this suit and himself in
clothes of mine that fitted him as if made for him (for he has not a hair
on his chin, and might pass for a very beautiful young girl), to-night,
about an hour ago, more or less, we left the house, and guided by our
youthful and foolish impulse we made the circuit of the whole town, and
then, as we were about to return home, we saw a great troop of people
coming, and my brother said to me, 'Sister, this must be the round, stir
your feet and put wings to them, and follow me as fast as you can, lest
they recognise us, for that would be a bad business for us;' and so
saying he turned about and began, I cannot say to run but to fly; in less
than six paces I fell from fright, and then the officer of justice came
up and carried me before your worships, where I find myself put to shame
before all these people as whimsical and vicious."

"So then, senora," said Sancho, "no other mishap has befallen you, nor
was it jealousy that made you leave home, as you said at the beginning of
your story?"

"Nothing has happened me," said she, "nor was it jealousy that brought me
out, but merely a longing to see the world, which did not go beyond
seeing the streets of this town."

The appearance of the tipstaffs with her brother in custody, whom one of
them had overtaken as he ran away from his sister, now fully confirmed
the truth of what the damsel said. He had nothing on but a rich petticoat
and a short blue damask cloak with fine gold lace, and his head was
uncovered and adorned only with its own hair, which looked like rings of
gold, so bright and curly was it. The governor, the majordomo, and the
carver went aside with him, and, unheard by his sister, asked him how he
came to be in that dress, and he with no less shame and embarrassment
told exactly the same story as his sister, to the great delight of the
enamoured carver; the governor, however, said to them, "In truth, young
lady and gentleman, this has been a very childish affair, and to explain
your folly and rashness there was no necessity for all this delay and all
these tears and sighs; for if you had said we are so-and-so, and we
escaped from our father's house in this way in order to ramble about, out
of mere curiosity and with no other object, there would have been an end
of the matter, and none of these little sobs and tears and all the rest
of it."

"That is true," said the damsel, "but you see the confusion I was in was
so great it did not let me behave as I ought."

"No harm has been done," said Sancho; "come, we will leave you at your
father's house; perhaps they will not have missed you; and another time
don't be so childish or eager to see the world; for a respectable damsel
should have a broken leg and keep at home; and the woman and the hen by
gadding about are soon lost; and she who is eager to see is also eager to
be seen; I say no more."

The youth thanked the governor for his kind offer to take them home, and
they directed their steps towards the house, which was not far off. On
reaching it the youth threw a pebble up at a grating, and immediately a
woman-servant who was waiting for them came down and opened the door to
them, and they went in, leaving the party marvelling as much at their
grace and beauty as at the fancy they had for seeing the world by night
and without quitting the village; which, however, they set down to their
youth.

The head-carver was left with a heart pierced through and through, and he
made up his mind on the spot to demand the damsel in marriage of her
father on the morrow, making sure she would not be refused him as he was
a servant of the duke's; and even to Sancho ideas and schemes of marrying
the youth to his daughter Sanchica suggested themselves, and he resolved
to open the negotiation at the proper season, persuading himself that no
husband could be refused to a governor's daughter. And so the night's
round came to an end, and a couple of days later the government, whereby
all his plans were overthrown and swept away, as will be seen farther on.




CHAPTER L.

WHEREIN IS SET FORTH WHO THE ENCHANTERS AND EXECUTIONERS WERE WHO FLOGGED
THE DUENNA AND PINCHED DON QUIXOTE, AND ALSO WHAT BEFELL THE PAGE WHO
CARRIED THE LETTER TO TERESA PANZA, SANCHO PANZA'S WIFE


Cide Hamete, the painstaking investigator of the minute points of this
veracious history, says that when Dona Rodriguez left her own room to go
to Don Quixote's, another duenna who slept with her observed her, and as
all duennas are fond of prying, listening, and sniffing, she followed her
so silently that the good Rodriguez never perceived it; and as soon as
the duenna saw her enter Don Quixote's room, not to fail in a duenna's
invariable practice of tattling, she hurried off that instant to report
to the duchess how Dona Rodriguez was closeted with Don Quixote. The
duchess told the duke, and asked him to let her and Altisidora go and see
what the said duenna wanted with Don Quixote. The duke gave them leave,
and the pair cautiously and quietly crept to the door of the room and
posted themselves so close to it that they could hear all that was said
inside. But when the duchess heard how the Rodriguez had made public the
Aranjuez of her issues she could not restrain herself, nor Altisidora
either; and so, filled with rage and thirsting for vengeance, they burst
into the room and tormented Don Quixote and flogged the duenna in the
manner already described; for indignities offered to their charms and
self-esteem mightily provoke the anger of women and make them eager for
revenge. The duchess told the duke what had happened, and he was much
amused by it; and she, in pursuance of her design of making merry and
diverting herself with Don Quixote, despatched the page who had played
the part of Dulcinea in the negotiations for her disenchantment (which
Sancho Panza in the cares of government had forgotten all about) to
Teresa Panza his wife with her husband's letter and another from herself,
and also a great string of fine coral beads as a present.

Now the history says this page was very sharp and quick-witted; and eager
to serve his lord and lady he set off very willingly for Sancho's
village. Before he entered it he observed a number of women washing in a
brook, and asked them if they could tell him whether there lived there a
woman of the name of Teresa Panza, wife of one Sancho Panza, squire to a
knight called Don Quixote of La Mancha. At the question a young girl who
was washing stood up and said, "Teresa Panza is my mother, and that
Sancho is my father, and that knight is our master."

"Well then, miss," said the page, "come and show me where your mother is,
for I bring her a letter and a present from your father."

"That I will with all my heart, senor," said the girl, who seemed to be
about fourteen, more or less; and leaving the clothes she was washing to
one of her companions, and without putting anything on her head or feet,
for she was bare-legged and had her hair hanging about her, away she
skipped in front of the page's horse, saying, "Come, your worship, our
house is at the entrance of the town, and my mother is there, sorrowful
enough at not having had any news of my father this ever so long."

"Well," said the page, "I am bringing her such good news that she will
have reason to thank God."

And then, skipping, running, and capering, the girl reached the town, but
before going into the house she called out at the door, "Come out, mother
Teresa, come out, come out; here's a gentleman with letters and other
things from my good father." At these words her mother Teresa Panza came
out spinning a bundle of flax, in a grey petticoat (so short was it one
would have fancied "they to her shame had cut it short"), a grey bodice
of the same stuff, and a smock. She was not very old, though plainly past
forty, strong, healthy, vigorous, and sun-dried; and seeing her daughter
and the page on horseback, she exclaimed, "What's this, child? What
gentleman is this?"

"A servant of my lady, Dona Teresa Panza," replied the page; and suiting
the action to the word he flung himself off his horse, and with great
humility advanced to kneel before the lady Teresa, saying, "Let me kiss
your hand, Senora Dona Teresa, as the lawful and only wife of Senor Don
Sancho Panza, rightful governor of the island of Barataria."

"Ah, senor, get up, do that," said Teresa; "for I'm not a bit of a court
lady, but only a poor country woman, the daughter of a clodcrusher, and
the wife of a squire-errant and not of any governor at all."

"You are," said the page, "the most worthy wife of a most arch-worthy
governor; and as a proof of what I say accept this letter and this
present;" and at the same time he took out of his pocket a string of
coral beads with gold clasps, and placed it on her neck, and said, "This
letter is from his lordship the governor, and the other as well as these
coral beads from my lady the duchess, who sends me to your worship."

Teresa stood lost in astonishment, and her daughter just as much, and the
girl said, "May I die but our master Don Quixote's at the bottom of this;
he must have given father the government or county he so often promised
him."

"That is the truth," said the page; "for it is through Senor Don Quixote
that Senor Sancho is now governor of the island of Barataria, as will be
seen by this letter."

"Will your worship read it to me, noble sir?" said Teresa; "for though I
can spin I can't read, not a scrap."

"Nor I either," said Sanchica; "but wait a bit, and I'll go and fetch
some one who can read it, either the curate himself or the bachelor
Samson Carrasco, and they'll come gladly to hear any news of my father."

"There is no need to fetch anybody," said the page; "for though I can't
spin I can read, and I'll read it;" and so he read it through, but as it
has been already given it is not inserted here; and then he took out the
other one from the duchess, which ran as follows:

Friend Teresa,--Your husband Sancho's good qualities, of heart as well as
of head, induced and compelled me to request my husband the duke to give
him the government of one of his many islands. I am told he governs like
a gerfalcon, of which I am very glad, and my lord the duke, of course,
also; and I am very thankful to heaven that I have not made a mistake in
choosing him for that same government; for I would have Senora Teresa
know that a good governor is hard to find in this world and may God make
me as good as Sancho's way of governing. Herewith I send you, my dear, a
string of coral beads with gold clasps; I wish they were Oriental pearls;
but "he who gives thee a bone does not wish to see thee dead;" a time
will come when we shall become acquainted and meet one another, but God
knows the future. Commend me to your daughter Sanchica, and tell her from
me to hold herself in readiness, for I mean to make a high match for her
when she least expects it. They tell me there are big acorns in your
village; send me a couple of dozen or so, and I shall value them greatly
as coming from your hand; and write to me at length to assure me of your
health and well-being; and if there be anything you stand in need of, it
is but to open your mouth, and that shall be the measure; and so God keep
you.

From this place. Your loving friend, THE DUCHESS.

"Ah, what a good, plain, lowly lady!" said Teresa when she heard the
letter; "that I may be buried with ladies of that sort, and not the
gentlewomen we have in this town, that fancy because they are gentlewomen
the wind must not touch them, and go to church with as much airs as if
they were queens, no less, and seem to think they are disgraced if they
look at a farmer's wife! And see here how this good lady, for all she's a
duchess, calls me 'friend,' and treats me as if I was her equal--and
equal may I see her with the tallest church-tower in La Mancha! And as
for the acorns, senor, I'll send her ladyship a peck and such big ones
that one might come to see them as a show and a wonder. And now,
Sanchica, see that the gentleman is comfortable; put up his horse, and
get some eggs out of the stable, and cut plenty of bacon, and let's give
him his dinner like a prince; for the good news he has brought, and his
own bonny face deserve it all; and meanwhile I'll run out and give the
neighbours the news of our good luck, and father curate, and Master
Nicholas the barber, who are and always have been such friends of thy
father's."

"That I will, mother," said Sanchica; "but mind, you must give me half of
that string; for I don't think my lady the duchess could have been so
stupid as to send it all to you."

"It is all for thee, my child," said Teresa; "but let me wear it round my
neck for a few days; for verily it seems to make my heart glad."

"You will be glad too," said the page, "when you see the bundle there is
in this portmanteau, for it is a suit of the finest cloth, that the
governor only wore one day out hunting and now sends, all for Senora
Sanchica."

"May he live a thousand years," said Sanchica, "and the bearer as many,
nay two thousand, if needful."

With this Teresa hurried out of the house with the letters, and with the
string of beads round her neck, and went along thrumming the letters as
if they were a tambourine, and by chance coming across the curate and
Samson Carrasco she began capering and saying, "None of us poor now,
faith! We've got a little government! Ay, let the finest fine lady tackle
me, and I'll give her a setting down!"

"What's all this, Teresa Panza," said they; "what madness is this, and
what papers are those?"

"The madness is only this," said she, "that these are the letters of
duchesses and governors, and these I have on my neck are fine coral
beads, with ave-marias and paternosters of beaten gold, and I am a
governess."

"God help us," said the curate, "we don't understand you, Teresa, or know
what you are talking about."

"There, you may see it yourselves," said Teresa, and she handed them the
letters.

The curate read them out for Samson Carrasco to hear, and Samson and he
regarded one another with looks of astonishment at what they had read,
and the bachelor asked who had brought the letters. Teresa in reply bade
them come with her to her house and they would see the messenger, a most
elegant youth, who had brought another present which was worth as much
more. The curate took the coral beads from her neck and examined them
again and again, and having satisfied himself as to their fineness he
fell to wondering afresh, and said, "By the gown I wear I don't know what
to say or think of these letters and presents; on the one hand I can see
and feel the fineness of these coral beads, and on the other I read how a
duchess sends to beg for a couple of dozen of acorns."

"Square that if you can," said Carrasco; "well, let's go and see the
messenger, and from him we'll learn something about this mystery that has
turned up."

They did so, and Teresa returned with them. They found the page sifting a
little barley for his horse, and Sanchica cutting a rasher of bacon to be
paved with eggs for his dinner. His looks and his handsome apparel
pleased them both greatly; and after they had saluted him courteously,
and he them, Samson begged him to give them his news, as well of Don
Quixote as of Sancho Panza, for, he said, though they had read the
letters from Sancho and her ladyship the duchess, they were still puzzled
and could not make out what was meant by Sancho's government, and above
all of an island, when all or most of those in the Mediterranean belonged
to his Majesty.

To this the page replied, "As to Senor Sancho Panza's being a governor
there is no doubt whatever; but whether it is an island or not that he
governs, with that I have nothing to do; suffice it that it is a town of
more than a thousand inhabitants; with regard to the acorns I may tell
you my lady the duchess is so unpretending and unassuming that, not to
speak of sending to beg for acorns from a peasant woman, she has been
known to send to ask for the loan of a comb from one of her neighbours;
for I would have your worships know that the ladies of Aragon, though
they are just as illustrious, are not so punctilious and haughty as the
Castilian ladies; they treat people with greater familiarity."

In the middle of this conversation Sanchica came in with her skirt full
of eggs, and said she to the page, "Tell me, senor, does my father wear
trunk-hose since he has been governor?"

"I have not noticed," said the page; "but no doubt he wears them."

"Ah! my God!" said Sanchica, "what a sight it must be to see my father in
tights! Isn't it odd that ever since I was born I have had a longing to
see my father in trunk-hose?"

"As things go you will see that if you live," said the page; "by God he
is in the way to take the road with a sunshade if the government only
lasts him two months more."

The curate and the bachelor could see plainly enough that the page spoke
in a waggish vein; but the fineness of the coral beads, and the hunting
suit that Sancho sent (for Teresa had already shown it to them) did away
with the impression; and they could not help laughing at Sanchica's wish,
and still more when Teresa said, "Senor curate, look about if there's
anybody here going to Madrid or Toledo, to buy me a hooped petticoat, a
proper fashionable one of the best quality; for indeed and indeed I must
do honour to my husband's government as well as I can; nay, if I am put
to it and have to, I'll go to Court and set a coach like all the world;
for she who has a governor for her husband may very well have one and
keep one."

"And why not, mother!" said Sanchica; "would to God it were to-day
instead of to-morrow, even though they were to say when they saw me
seated in the coach with my mother, 'See that rubbish, that
garlic-stuffed fellow's daughter, how she goes stretched at her ease in a
coach as if she was a she-pope!' But let them tramp through the mud, and
let me go in my coach with my feet off the ground. Bad luck to backbiters
all over the world; 'let me go warm and the people may laugh.' Do I say
right, mother?"

"To be sure you do, my child," said Teresa; "and all this good luck, and
even more, my good Sancho foretold me; and thou wilt see, my daughter, he
won't stop till he has made me a countess; for to make a beginning is
everything in luck; and as I have heard thy good father say many a time
(for besides being thy father he's the father of proverbs too), 'When
they offer thee a heifer, run with a halter; when they offer thee a
government, take it; when they would give thee a county, seize it; when
they say, "Here, here!" to thee with something good, swallow it.' Oh no!
go to sleep, and don't answer the strokes of good fortune and the lucky
chances that are knocking at the door of your house!"

"And what do I care," added Sanchica, "whether anybody says when he sees
me holding my head up, 'The dog saw himself in hempen breeches,' and the
rest of it?"

Hearing this the curate said, "I do believe that all this family of the
Panzas are born with a sackful of proverbs in their insides, every one of
them; I never saw one of them that does not pour them out at all times
and on all occasions."

"That is true," said the page, "for Senor Governor Sancho utters them at
every turn; and though a great many of them are not to the purpose, still
they amuse one, and my lady the duchess and the duke praise them highly."

"Then you still maintain that all this about Sancho's government is true,
senor," said the bachelor, "and that there actually is a duchess who
sends him presents and writes to him? Because we, although we have
handled the present and read the letters, don't believe it and suspect it
to be something in the line of our fellow-townsman Don Quixote, who
fancies that everything is done by enchantment; and for this reason I am
almost ready to say that I'd like to touch and feel your worship to see
whether you are a mere ambassador of the imagination or a man of flesh
and blood."

"All I know, sirs," replied the page, "is that I am a real ambassador,
and that Senor Sancho Panza is governor as a matter of fact, and that my
lord and lady the duke and duchess can give, and have given him this same
government, and that I have heard it said Sancho Panza bears himself
very stoutly therein; whether there be any enchantment in all this or
not, it is for your worships to settle between you; for that's all I know
by the oath I swear, and that is by the life of my parents whom I have
still alive, and love dearly."

"It may be so," said the bachelor; "but dubitat Augustinus."

"Doubt who will," said the page; "what I have told you is the truth, and
that will always rise above falsehood as oil above water; if not operibus
credite, et non verbis. Let one of you come with me, and he will see with
his eyes what he does not believe with his ears."

"It's for me to make that trip," said Sanchica; "take me with you, senor,
behind you on your horse; for I'll go with all my heart to see my
father."

"Governors' daughters," said the page, "must not travel along the roads
alone, but accompanied by coaches and litters and a great number of
attendants."

"By God," said Sanchica, "I can go just as well mounted on a she-ass as
in a coach; what a dainty lass you must take me for!"

"Hush, girl," said Teresa; "you don't know what you're talking about; the
gentleman is quite right, for 'as the time so the behaviour;' when it was
Sancho it was 'Sancha;' when it is governor it's 'senora;' I don't know
if I'm right."

"Senora Teresa says more than she is aware of," said the page; "and now
give me something to eat and let me go at once, for I mean to return this
evening."

"Come and do penance with me," said the curate at this; "for Senora
Teresa has more will than means to serve so worthy a guest."

The page refused, but had to consent at last for his own sake; and the
curate took him home with him very gladly, in order to have an
opportunity of questioning him at leisure about Don Quixote and his
doings. The bachelor offered to write the letters in reply for Teresa;
but she did not care to let him mix himself up in her affairs, for she
thought him somewhat given to joking; and so she gave a cake and a couple
of eggs to a young acolyte who was a penman, and he wrote for her two
letters, one for her husband and the other for the duchess, dictated out
of her own head, which are not the worst inserted in this great history,
as will be seen farther on.




CHAPTER LI.

OF THE PROGRESS OF SANCHO'S GOVERNMENT, AND OTHER SUCH ENTERTAINING
MATTERS


Day came after the night of the governor's round; a night which the
head-carver passed without sleeping, so were his thoughts of the face and
air and beauty of the disguised damsel, while the majordomo spent what
was left of it in writing an account to his lord and lady of all Sancho
said and did, being as much amazed at his sayings as at his doings, for
there was a mixture of shrewdness and simplicity in all his words and
deeds. The senor governor got up, and by Doctor Pedro Recio's directions
they made him break his fast on a little conserve and four sups of cold
water, which Sancho would have readily exchanged for a piece of bread and
a bunch of grapes; but seeing there was no help for it, he submitted with
no little sorrow of heart and discomfort of stomach; Pedro Recio having
persuaded him that light and delicate diet enlivened the wits, and that
was what was most essential for persons placed in command and in
responsible situations, where they have to employ not only the bodily
powers but those of the mind also.

By means of this sophistry Sancho was made to endure hunger, and hunger
so keen that in his heart he cursed the government, and even him who had
given it to him; however, with his hunger and his conserve he undertook
to deliver judgments that day, and the first thing that came before him
was a question that was submitted to him by a stranger, in the presence
of the majordomo and the other attendants, and it was in these words:
"Senor, a large river separated two districts of one and the same
lordship--will your worship please to pay attention, for the case is an
important and a rather knotty one? Well then, on this river there was a
bridge, and at one end of it a gallows, and a sort of tribunal, where
four judges commonly sat to administer the law which the lord of river,
bridge and the lordship had enacted, and which was to this effect, 'If
anyone crosses by this bridge from one side to the other he shall declare
on oath where he is going to and with what object; and if he swears
truly, he shall be allowed to pass, but if falsely, he shall be put to
death for it by hanging on the gallows erected there, without any
remission.' Though the law and its severe penalty were known, many
persons crossed, but in their declarations it was easy to see at once
they were telling the truth, and the judges let them pass free. It
happened, however, that one man, when they came to take his declaration,
swore and said that by the oath he took he was going to die upon that
gallows that stood there, and nothing else. The judges held a
consultation over the oath, and they said, 'If we let this man pass free
he has sworn falsely, and by the law he ought to die; but if we hang him,
as he swore he was going to die on that gallows, and therefore swore the
truth, by the same law he ought to go free.' It is asked of your worship,
senor governor, what are the judges to do with this man? For they are
still in doubt and perplexity; and having heard of your worship's acute
and exalted intellect, they have sent me to entreat your worship on their
behalf to give your opinion on this very intricate and puzzling case."

To this Sancho made answer, "Indeed those gentlemen the judges that send
you to me might have spared themselves the trouble, for I have more of
the obtuse than the acute in me; but repeat the case over again, so that
I may understand it, and then perhaps I may be able to hit the point."

The querist repeated again and again what he had said before, and then
Sancho said, "It seems to me I can set the matter right in a moment, and
in this way; the man swears that he is going to die upon the gallows; but
if he dies upon it, he has sworn the truth, and by the law enacted
deserves to go free and pass over the bridge; but if they don't hang him,
then he has sworn falsely, and by the same law deserves to be hanged."

"It is as the senor governor says," said the messenger; "and as regards a
complete comprehension of the case, there is nothing left to desire or
hesitate about."

"Well then I say," said Sancho, "that of this man they should let pass
the part that has sworn truly, and hang the part that has lied; and in
this way the conditions of the passage will be fully complied with."

"But then, senor governor," replied the querist, "the man will have to be
divided into two parts; and if he is divided of course he will die; and
so none of the requirements of the law will be carried out, and it is
absolutely necessary to comply with it."

"Look here, my good sir," said Sancho; "either I'm a numskull or else
there is the same reason for this passenger dying as for his living and
passing over the bridge; for if the truth saves him the falsehood equally
condemns him; and that being the case it is my opinion you should say to
the gentlemen who sent you to me that as the arguments for condemning him
and for absolving him are exactly balanced, they should let him pass
freely, as it is always more praiseworthy to do good than to do evil;
this I would give signed with my name if I knew how to sign; and what I
have said in this case is not out of my own head, but one of the many
precepts my master Don Quixote gave me the night before I left to become
governor of this island, that came into my mind, and it was this, that
when there was any doubt about the justice of a case I should lean to
mercy; and it is God's will that I should recollect it now, for it fits
this case as if it was made for it."

"That is true," said the majordomo; "and I maintain that Lycurgus
himself, who gave laws to the Lacedemonians, could not have pronounced a
better decision than the great Panza has given; let the morning's
audience close with this, and I will see that the senor governor has
dinner entirely to his liking."

"That's all I ask for--fair play," said Sancho; "give me my dinner, and
then let it rain cases and questions on me, and I'll despatch them in a
twinkling."

The majordomo kept his word, for he felt it against his conscience to
kill so wise a governor by hunger; particularly as he intended to have
done with him that same night, playing off the last joke he was
commissioned to practise upon him.

It came to pass, then, that after he had dined that day, in opposition to
the rules and aphorisms of Doctor Tirteafuera, as they were taking away
the cloth there came a courier with a letter from Don Quixote for the
governor. Sancho ordered the secretary to read it to himself, and if
there was nothing in it that demanded secrecy to read it aloud. The
secretary did so, and after he had skimmed the contents he said, "It may
well be read aloud, for what Senor Don Quixote writes to your worship
deserves to be printed or written in letters of gold, and it is as
follows."


DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA'S LETTER TO SANCHO PANZA, GOVERNOR OF THE ISLAND
OF BARATARIA.

When I was expecting to hear of thy stupidities and blunders, friend
Sancho, I have received intelligence of thy displays of good sense, for
which I give special thanks to heaven that can raise the poor from the
dunghill and of fools to make wise men. They tell me thou dost govern as
if thou wert a man, and art a man as if thou wert a beast, so great is
the humility wherewith thou dost comport thyself. But I would have thee
bear in mind, Sancho, that very often it is fitting and necessary for the
authority of office to resist the humility of the heart; for the seemly
array of one who is invested with grave duties should be such as they
require and not measured by what his own humble tastes may lead him to
prefer. Dress well; a stick dressed up does not look like a stick; I do
not say thou shouldst wear trinkets or fine raiment, or that being a
judge thou shouldst dress like a soldier, but that thou shouldst array
thyself in the apparel thy office requires, and that at the same time it
be neat and handsome. To win the good-will of the people thou governest
there are two things, among others, that thou must do; one is to be civil
to all (this, however, I told thee before), and the other to take care
that food be abundant, for there is nothing that vexes the heart of the
poor more than hunger and high prices. Make not many proclamations; but
those thou makest take care that they be good ones, and above all that
they be observed and carried out; for proclamations that are not observed
are the same as if they did not exist; nay, they encourage the idea that
the prince who had the wisdom and authority to make them had not the
power to enforce them; and laws that threaten and are not enforced come
to be like the log, the king of the frogs, that frightened them at first,
but that in time they despised and mounted upon. Be a father to virtue
and a stepfather to vice. Be not always strict, nor yet always lenient,
but observe a mean between these two extremes, for in that is the aim of
wisdom. Visit the gaols, the slaughter-houses, and the market-places; for
the presence of the governor is of great importance in such places; it
comforts the prisoners who are in hopes of a speedy release, it is the
bugbear of the butchers who have then to give just weight, and it is the
terror of the market-women for the same reason. Let it not be seen that
thou art (even if perchance thou art, which I do not believe) covetous, a
follower of women, or a glutton; for when the people and those that have
dealings with thee become aware of thy special weakness they will bring
their batteries to bear upon thee in that quarter, till they have brought
thee down to the depths of perdition. Consider and reconsider, con and
con over again the advices and the instructions I gave thee before thy
departure hence to thy government, and thou wilt see that in them, if
thou dost follow them, thou hast a help at hand that will lighten for
thee the troubles and difficulties that beset governors at every step.
Write to thy lord and lady and show thyself grateful to them, for
ingratitude is the daughter of pride, and one of the greatest sins we
know of; and he who is grateful to those who have been good to him shows
that he will be so to God also who has bestowed and still bestows so many
blessings upon him.

My lady the duchess sent off a messenger with thy suit and another
present to thy wife Teresa Panza; we expect the answer every moment. I
have been a little indisposed through a certain scratching I came in for,
not very much to the benefit of my nose; but it was nothing; for if there
are enchanters who maltreat me, there are also some who defend me. Let me
know if the majordomo who is with thee had any share in the Trifaldi
performance, as thou didst suspect; and keep me informed of everything
that happens thee, as the distance is so short; all the more as I am
thinking of giving over very shortly this idle life I am now leading, for
I was not born for it. A thing has occurred to me which I am inclined to
think will put me out of favour with the duke and duchess; but though I
am sorry for it I do not care, for after all I must obey my calling
rather than their pleasure, in accordance with the common saying, amicus
Plato, sed magis amica veritas. I quote this Latin to thee because I
conclude that since thou hast been a governor thou wilt have learned it.
Adieu; God keep thee from being an object of pity to anyone.

Thy friend, DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA.


Sancho listened to the letter with great attention, and it was praised
and considered wise by all who heard it; he then rose up from table, and
calling his secretary shut himself in with him in his own room, and
without putting it off any longer set about answering his master Don
Quixote at once; and he bade the secretary write down what he told him
without adding or suppressing anything, which he did, and the answer was
to the following effect.


SANCHO PANZA'S LETTER TO DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA.

The pressure of business is so great upon me that I have no time to
scratch my head or even to cut my nails; and I have them so long-God send
a remedy for it. I say this, master of my soul, that you may not be
surprised if I have not until now sent you word of how I fare, well or
ill, in this government, in which I am suffering more hunger than when we
two were wandering through the woods and wastes.

My lord the duke wrote to me the other day to warn me that certain spies
had got into this island to kill me; but up to the present I have not
found out any except a certain doctor who receives a salary in this town
for killing all the governors that come here; he is called Doctor Pedro
Recio, and is from Tirteafuera; so you see what a name he has to make me
dread dying under his hands. This doctor says of himself that he does not
cure diseases when there are any, but prevents them coming, and the
medicines he uses are diet and more diet until he brings one down to bare
bones; as if leanness was not worse than fever.

In short he is killing me with hunger, and I am dying myself of vexation;
for when I thought I was coming to this government to get my meat hot and
my drink cool, and take my ease between holland sheets on feather beds, I
find I have come to do penance as if I was a hermit; and as I don't do it
willingly I suspect that in the end the devil will carry me off.

So far I have not handled any dues or taken any bribes, and I don't know
what to think of it; for here they tell me that the governors that come
to this island, before entering it have plenty of money either given to
them or lent to them by the people of the town, and that this is the
usual custom not only here but with all who enter upon governments.

Last night going the rounds I came upon a fair damsel in man's clothes,
and a brother of hers dressed as a woman; my head-carver has fallen in
love with the girl, and has in his own mind chosen her for a wife, so he
says, and I have chosen the youth for a son-in-law; to-day we are going to
explain our intentions to the father of the pair, who is one Diego de la
Llana, a gentleman and an old Christian as much as you please.

I have visited the market-places, as your worship advises me, and
yesterday I found a stall-keeper selling new hazel nuts and proved her to
have mixed a bushel of old empty rotten nuts with a bushel of new; I
confiscated the whole for the children of the charity-school, who will
know how to distinguish them well enough, and I sentenced her not to come
into the market-place for a fortnight; they told me I did bravely. I can
tell your worship it is commonly said in this town that there are no
people worse than the market-women, for they are all barefaced,
unconscionable, and impudent, and I can well believe it from what I have
seen of them in other towns.

I am very glad my lady the duchess has written to my wife Teresa Panza
and sent her the present your worship speaks of; and I will strive to
show myself grateful when the time comes; kiss her hands for me, and tell
her I say she has not thrown it into a sack with a hole in it, as she
will see in the end. I should not like your worship to have any
difference with my lord and lady; for if you fall out with them it is
plain it must do me harm; and as you give me advice to be grateful it
will not do for your worship not to be so yourself to those who have
shown you such kindness, and by whom you have been treated so hospitably
in their castle.

That about the scratching I don't understand; but I suppose it must be
one of the ill-turns the wicked enchanters are always doing your worship;
when we meet I shall know all about it. I wish I could send your worship
something; but I don't know what to send, unless it be some very curious
clyster pipes, to work with bladders, that they make in this island; but
if the office remains with me I'll find out something to send, one way or
another. If my wife Teresa Panza writes to me, pay the postage and send
me the letter, for I have a very great desire to hear how my house and
wife and children are going on. And so, may God deliver your worship from
evil-minded enchanters, and bring me well and peacefully out of this
government, which I doubt, for I expect to take leave of it and my life
together, from the way Doctor Pedro Recio treats me.

Your worship's servant

SANCHO PANZA THE GOVERNOR.


The secretary sealed the letter, and immediately dismissed the courier;
and those who were carrying on the joke against Sancho putting their
heads together arranged how he was to be dismissed from the government.
Sancho spent the afternoon in drawing up certain ordinances relating to
the good government of what he fancied the island; and he ordained that
there were to be no provision hucksters in the State, and that men might
import wine into it from any place they pleased, provided they declared
the quarter it came from, so that a price might be put upon it according
to its quality, reputation, and the estimation it was held in; and he
that watered his wine, or changed the name, was to forfeit his life for
it. He reduced the prices of all manner of shoes, boots, and stockings,
but of shoes in particular, as they seemed to him to run extravagantly
high. He established a fixed rate for servants' wages, which were
becoming recklessly exorbitant. He laid extremely heavy penalties upon
those who sang lewd or loose songs either by day or night. He decreed
that no blind man should sing of any miracle in verse, unless he could
produce authentic evidence that it was true, for it was his opinion that
most of those the blind men sing are trumped up, to the detriment of the
true ones. He established and created an alguacil of the poor, not to
harass them, but to examine them and see whether they really were so; for
many a sturdy thief or drunkard goes about under cover of a make-believe
crippled limb or a sham sore. In a word, he made so many good rules that
to this day they are preserved there, and are called The constitutions of
the great governor Sancho Panza.




CHAPTER LII.

WHEREIN IS RELATED THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND DISTRESSED OR AFFLICTED
DUENNA, OTHERWISE CALLED DONA RODRIGUEZ


Cide Hamete relates that Don Quixote being now cured of his scratches
felt that the life he was leading in the castle was entirely inconsistent
with the order of chivalry he professed, so he determined to ask the duke
and duchess to permit him to take his departure for Saragossa, as the
time of the festival was now drawing near, and he hoped to win there the
suit of armour which is the prize at festivals of the sort. But one day
at table with the duke and duchess, just as he was about to carry his
resolution into effect and ask for their permission, lo and behold
suddenly there came in through the door of the great hall two women, as
they afterwards proved to be, draped in mourning from head to foot, one
of whom approaching Don Quixote flung herself at full length at his feet,
pressing her lips to them, and uttering moans so sad, so deep, and so
doleful that she put all who heard and saw her into a state of
perplexity; and though the duke and duchess supposed it must be some joke
their servants were playing off upon Don Quixote, still the earnest way
the woman sighed and moaned and wept puzzled them and made them feel
uncertain, until Don Quixote, touched with compassion, raised her up and
made her unveil herself and remove the mantle from her tearful face. She
complied and disclosed what no one could have ever anticipated, for she
disclosed the countenance of Dona Rodriguez, the duenna of the house; the
other female in mourning being her daughter, who had been made a fool of
by the rich farmer's son. All who knew her were filled with astonishment,
and the duke and duchess more than any; for though they thought her a
simpleton and a weak creature, they did not think her capable of crazy
pranks. Dona Rodriguez, at length, turning to her master and mistress
said to them, "Will your excellences be pleased to permit me to speak to
this gentleman for a moment, for it is requisite I should do so in order
to get successfully out of the business in which the boldness of an
evil-minded clown has involved me?"

The duke said that for his part he gave her leave, and that she might
speak with Senor Don Quixote as much as she liked.

She then, turning to Don Quixote and addressing herself to him said,
"Some days since, valiant knight, I gave you an account of the injustice
and treachery of a wicked farmer to my dearly beloved daughter, the
unhappy damsel here before you, and you promised me to take her part and
right the wrong that has been done her; but now it has come to my hearing
that you are about to depart from this castle in quest of such fair
adventures as God may vouchsafe to you; therefore, before you take the
road, I would that you challenge this froward rustic, and compel him to
marry my daughter in fulfillment of the promise he gave her to become her
husband before he seduced her; for to expect that my lord the duke will
do me justice is to ask pears from the elm tree, for the reason I stated
privately to your worship; and so may our Lord grant you good health and
forsake us not."

To these words Don Quixote replied very gravely and solemnly, "Worthy
duenna, check your tears, or rather dry them, and spare your sighs, for I
take it upon myself to obtain redress for your daughter, for whom it
would have been better not to have been so ready to believe lovers'
promises, which are for the most part quickly made and very slowly
performed; and so, with my lord the duke's leave, I will at once go in
quest of this inhuman youth, and will find him out and challenge him and
slay him, if so be he refuses to keep his promised word; for the chief
object of my profession is to spare the humble and chastise the proud; I
mean, to help the distressed and destroy the oppressors."

"There is no necessity," said the duke, "for your worship to take the
trouble of seeking out the rustic of whom this worthy duenna complains,
nor is there any necessity, either, for asking my leave to challenge him;
for I admit him duly challenged, and will take care that he is informed
of the challenge, and accepts it, and comes to answer it in person to
this castle of mine, where I shall afford to both a fair field, observing
all the conditions which are usually and properly observed in such
trials, and observing too justice to both sides, as all princes who offer
a free field to combatants within the limits of their lordships are bound
to do."

"Then with that assurance and your highness's good leave," said Don
Quixote, "I hereby for this once waive my privilege of gentle blood, and
come down and put myself on a level with the lowly birth of the
wrong-doer, making myself equal with him and enabling him to enter into
combat with me; and so, I challenge and defy him, though absent, on the
plea of his malfeasance in breaking faith with this poor damsel, who was
a maiden and now by his misdeed is none; and say that he shall fulfill
the promise he gave her to become her lawful husband, or else stake his
life upon the question."

And then plucking off a glove he threw it down in the middle of the hall,
and the duke picked it up, saying, as he had said before, that he
accepted the challenge in the name of his vassal, and fixed six days
thence as the time, the courtyard of the castle as the place, and for
arms the customary ones of knights, lance and shield and full armour,
with all the other accessories, without trickery, guile, or charms of any
sort, and examined and passed by the judges of the field. "But first of
all," he said, "it is requisite that this worthy duenna and unworthy
damsel should place their claim for justice in the hands of Don Quixote;
for otherwise nothing can be done, nor can the said challenge be brought
to a lawful issue."

"I do so place it," replied the duenna.

"And I too," added her daughter, all in tears and covered with shame and
confusion.

This declaration having been made, and the duke having settled in his own
mind what he would do in the matter, the ladies in black withdrew, and
the duchess gave orders that for the future they were not to be treated
as servants of hers, but as lady adventurers who came to her house to
demand justice; so they gave them a room to themselves and waited on them
as they would on strangers, to the consternation of the other
women-servants, who did not know where the folly and imprudence of Dona
Rodriguez and her unlucky daughter would stop.

And now, to complete the enjoyment of the feast and bring the dinner to a
satisfactory end, lo and behold the page who had carried the letters and
presents to Teresa Panza, the wife of the governor Sancho, entered the
hall; and the duke and duchess were very well pleased to see him, being
anxious to know the result of his journey; but when they asked him the
page said in reply that he could not give it before so many people or in
a few words, and begged their excellences to be pleased to let it wait
for a private opportunity, and in the meantime amuse themselves with
these letters; and taking out the letters he placed them in the duchess's
hand. One bore by way of address, Letter for my lady the Duchess
So-and-so, of I don't know where; and the other To my husband Sancho
Panza, governor of the island of Barataria, whom God prosper longer than
me. The duchess's bread would not bake, as the saying is, until she had
read her letter; and having looked over it herself and seen that it might
be read aloud for the duke and all present to hear, she read out as
follows.


TERESA PANZA'S LETTER TO THE DUCHESS.

The letter your highness wrote me, my lady, gave me great pleasure, for
indeed I found it very welcome. The string of coral beads is very fine,
and my husband's hunting suit does not fall short of it. All this village
is very much pleased that your ladyship has made a governor of my good
man Sancho; though nobody will believe it, particularly the curate, and
Master Nicholas the barber, and the bachelor Samson Carrasco; but I don't
care for that, for so long as it is true, as it is, they may all say what
they like; though, to tell the truth, if the coral beads and the suit had
not come I would not have believed it either; for in this village
everybody thinks my husband a numskull, and except for governing a flock
of goats, they cannot fancy what sort of government he can be fit for.
God grant it, and direct him according as he sees his children stand in
need of it. I am resolved with your worship's leave, lady of my soul, to
make the most of this fair day, and go to Court to stretch myself at ease
in a coach, and make all those I have envying me already burst their eyes
out; so I beg your excellence to order my husband to send me a small
trifle of money, and to let it be something to speak of, because one's
expenses are heavy at the Court; for a loaf costs a real, and meat thirty
maravedis a pound, which is beyond everything; and if he does not want me
to go let him tell me in time, for my feet are on the fidgets to be off;
and my friends and neighbours tell me that if my daughter and I make a
figure and a brave show at Court, my husband will come to be known far
more by me than I by him, for of course plenty of people will ask, "Who
are those ladies in that coach?" and some servant of mine will answer,
"The wife and daughter of Sancho Panza, governor of the island of
Barataria;" and in this way Sancho will become known, and I'll be thought
well of, and "to Rome for everything." I am as vexed as vexed can be that
they have gathered no acorns this year in our village; for all that I
send your highness about half a peck that I went to the wood to gather
and pick out one by one myself, and I could find no bigger ones; I wish
they were as big as ostrich eggs.

Let not your high mightiness forget to write to me; and I will take care
to answer, and let you know how I am, and whatever news there may be in
this place, where I remain, praying our Lord to have your highness in his
keeping and not to forget me.

Sancha my daughter, and my son, kiss your worship's hands.

She who would rather see your ladyship than write to you,

Your servant,

TERESA PANZA.


All were greatly amused by Teresa Panza's letter, but particularly the
duke and duchess; and the duchess asked Don Quixote's opinion whether
they might open the letter that had come for the governor, which she
suspected must be very good. Don Quixote said that to gratify them he
would open it, and did so, and found that it ran as follows.


TERESA PANZA'S LETTER TO HER HUSBAND SANCHO PANZA.

I got thy letter, Sancho of my soul, and I promise thee and swear as a
Catholic Christian that I was within two fingers' breadth of going mad I
was so happy. I can tell thee, brother, when I came to hear that thou
wert a governor I thought I should have dropped dead with pure joy; and
thou knowest they say sudden joy kills as well as great sorrow; and as
for Sanchica thy daughter, she leaked from sheer happiness. I had before
me the suit thou didst send me, and the coral beads my lady the duchess
sent me round my neck, and the letters in my hands, and there was the
bearer of them standing by, and in spite of all this I verily believed
and thought that what I saw and handled was all a dream; for who could
have thought that a goatherd would come to be a governor of islands? Thou
knowest, my friend, what my mother used to say, that one must live long
to see much; I say it because I expect to see more if I live longer; for
I don't expect to stop until I see thee a farmer of taxes or a collector
of revenue, which are offices where, though the devil carries off those
who make a bad use of them, still they make and handle money. My lady the
duchess will tell thee the desire I have to go to the Court; consider the
matter and let me know thy pleasure; I will try to do honour to thee by
going in a coach.

Neither the curate, nor the barber, nor the bachelor, nor even the
sacristan, can believe that thou art a governor, and they say the whole
thing is a delusion or an enchantment affair, like everything belonging
to thy master Don Quixote; and Samson says he must go in search of thee
and drive the government out of thy head and the madness out of Don
Quixote's skull; I only laugh, and look at my string of beads, and plan
out the dress I am going to make for our daughter out of thy suit. I sent
some acorns to my lady the duchess; I wish they had been gold. Send me
some strings of pearls if they are in fashion in that island. Here is the
news of the village; La Berrueca has married her daughter to a
good-for-nothing painter, who came here to paint anything that might turn
up. The council gave him an order to paint his Majesty's arms over the
door of the town-hall; he asked two ducats, which they paid him in
advance; he worked for eight days, and at the end of them had nothing
painted, and then said he had no turn for painting such trifling things;
he returned the money, and for all that has married on the pretence of
being a good workman; to be sure he has now laid aside his paint-brush
and taken a spade in hand, and goes to the field like a gentleman. Pedro
Lobo's son has received the first orders and tonsure, with the intention
of becoming a priest. Minguilla, Mingo Silvato's granddaughter, found it
out, and has gone to law with him on the score of having given her
promise of marriage. Evil tongues say she is with child by him, but he
denies it stoutly. There are no olives this year, and there is not a drop
of vinegar to be had in the whole village. A company of soldiers passed
through here; when they left they took away with them three of the girls
of the village; I will not tell thee who they are; perhaps they will come
back, and they will be sure to find those who will take them for wives
with all their blemishes, good or bad. Sanchica is making bonelace; she
earns eight maravedis a day clear, which she puts into a moneybox as a
help towards house furnishing; but now that she is a governor's daughter
thou wilt give her a portion without her working for it. The fountain in
the plaza has run dry. A flash of lightning struck the gibbet, and I wish
they all lit there. I look for an answer to this, and to know thy mind
about my going to the Court; and so, God keep thee longer than me, or as
long, for I would not leave thee in this world without me.

Thy wife,

TERESA PANZA.


The letters were applauded, laughed over, relished, and admired; and
then, as if to put the seal to the business, the courier arrived,
bringing the one Sancho sent to Don Quixote, and this, too, was read out,
and it raised some doubts as to the governor's simplicity. The duchess
withdrew to hear from the page about his adventures in Sancho's village,
which he narrated at full length without leaving a single circumstance
unmentioned. He gave her the acorns, and also a cheese which Teresa had
given him as being particularly good and superior to those of Tronchon.
The duchess received it with greatest delight, in which we will leave
her, to describe the end of the government of the great Sancho Panza,
flower and mirror of all governors of islands.




CHAPTER LIII.

OF THE TROUBLOUS END AND TERMINATION SANCHO PANZA'S GOVERNMENT CAME TO


To fancy that in this life anything belonging to it will remain for ever
in the same state is an idle fancy; on the contrary, in it everything
seems to go in a circle, I mean round and round. The spring succeeds the
summer, the summer the fall, the fall the autumn, the autumn the winter,
and the winter the spring, and so time rolls with never-ceasing wheel.
Man's life alone, swifter than time, speeds onward to its end without any
hope of renewal, save it be in that other life which is endless and
boundless. Thus saith Cide Hamete the Mahometan philosopher; for there
are many that by the light of nature alone, without the light of faith,
have a comprehension of the fleeting nature and instability of this
present life and the endless duration of that eternal life we hope for;
but our author is here speaking of the rapidity with which Sancho's
government came to an end, melted away, disappeared, vanished as it were
in smoke and shadow. For as he lay in bed on the night of the seventh day
of his government, sated, not with bread and wine, but with delivering
judgments and giving opinions and making laws and proclamations, just as
sleep, in spite of hunger, was beginning to close his eyelids, he heard
such a noise of bell-ringing and shouting that one would have fancied the
whole island was going to the bottom. He sat up in bed and remained
listening intently to try if he could make out what could be the cause of
so great an uproar; not only, however, was he unable to discover what it
was, but as countless drums and trumpets now helped to swell the din of
the bells and shouts, he was more puzzled than ever, and filled with fear
and terror; and getting up he put on a pair of slippers because of the
dampness of the floor, and without throwing a dressing gown or anything
of the kind over him he rushed out of the door of his room, just in time
to see approaching along a corridor a band of more than twenty persons
with lighted torches and naked swords in their hands, all shouting out,
"To arms, to arms, senor governor, to arms! The enemy is in the island in
countless numbers, and we are lost unless your skill and valour come to
our support."

Keeping up this noise, tumult, and uproar, they came to where Sancho
stood dazed and bewildered by what he saw and heard, and as they
approached one of them called out to him, "Arm at once, your lordship, if
you would not have yourself destroyed and the whole island lost."

"What have I to do with arming?" said Sancho. "What do I know about arms
or supports? Better leave all that to my master Don Quixote, who will
settle it and make all safe in a trice; for I, sinner that I am, God help
me, don't understand these scuffles."

"Ah, senor governor," said another, "what slackness of mettle this is!
Arm yourself; here are arms for you, offensive and defensive; come out to
the plaza and be our leader and captain; it falls upon you by right, for
you are our governor."

"Arm me then, in God's name," said Sancho, and they at once produced two
large shields they had come provided with, and placed them upon him over
his shirt, without letting him put on anything else, one shield in front
and the other behind, and passing his arms through openings they had
made, they bound him tight with ropes, so that there he was walled and
boarded up as straight as a spindle and unable to bend his knees or stir
a single step. In his hand they placed a lance, on which he leant to keep
himself from falling, and as soon as they had him thus fixed they bade
him march forward and lead them on and give them all courage; for with
him for their guide and lamp and morning star, they were sure to bring
their business to a successful issue.

"How am I to march, unlucky being that I am?" said Sancho, "when I can't
stir my knee-caps, for these boards I have bound so tight to my body
won't let me. What you must do is carry me in your arms, and lay me
across or set me upright in some postern, and I'll hold it either with
this lance or with my body."

"On, senor governor!" cried another, "it is fear more than the boards
that keeps you from moving; make haste, stir yourself, for there is no
time to lose; the enemy is increasing in numbers, the shouts grow louder,
and the danger is pressing."

Urged by these exhortations and reproaches the poor governor made an
attempt to advance, but fell to the ground with such a crash that he
fancied he had broken himself all to pieces. There he lay like a tortoise
enclosed in its shell, or a side of bacon between two kneading-troughs,
or a boat bottom up on the beach; nor did the gang of jokers feel any
compassion for him when they saw him down; so far from that,
extinguishing their torches they began to shout afresh and to renew the
calls to arms with such energy, trampling on poor Sancho, and slashing at
him over the shield with their swords in such a way that, if he had not
gathered himself together and made himself small and drawn in his head
between the shields, it would have fared badly with the poor governor,
as, squeezed into that narrow compass, he lay, sweating and sweating
again, and commending himself with all his heart to God to deliver him
from his present peril. Some stumbled over him, others fell upon him, and
one there was who took up a position on top of him for some time, and
from thence as if from a watchtower issued orders to the troops, shouting
out, "Here, our side! Here the enemy is thickest! Hold the breach there!
Shut that gate! Barricade those ladders! Here with your stink-pots of
pitch and resin, and kettles of boiling oil! Block the streets with
feather beds!" In short, in his ardour he mentioned every little thing,
and every implement and engine of war by means of which an assault upon a
city is warded off, while the bruised and battered Sancho, who heard and
suffered all, was saying to himself, "O if it would only please the Lord
to let the island be lost at once, and I could see myself either dead or
out of this torture!" Heaven heard his prayer, and when he least expected
it he heard voices exclaiming, "Victory, victory! The enemy retreats
beaten! Come, senor governor, get up, and come and enjoy the victory, and
divide the spoils that have been won from the foe by the might of that
invincible arm."

"Lift me up," said the wretched Sancho in a woebegone voice. They helped
him to rise, and as soon as he was on his feet said, "The enemy I have
beaten you may nail to my forehead; I don't want to divide the spoils of
the foe, I only beg and entreat some friend, if I have one, to give me a
sup of wine, for I'm parched with thirst, and wipe me dry, for I'm
turning to water."

They rubbed him down, fetched him wine and unbound the shields, and he
seated himself upon his bed, and with fear, agitation, and fatigue he
fainted away. Those who had been concerned in the joke were now sorry
they had pushed it so far; however, the anxiety his fainting away had
caused them was relieved by his returning to himself. He asked what
o'clock it was; they told him it was just daybreak. He said no more, and
in silence began to dress himself, while all watched him, waiting to see
what the haste with which he was putting on his clothes meant.

He got himself dressed at last, and then, slowly, for he was sorely
bruised and could not go fast, he proceeded to the stable, followed by
all who were present, and going up to Dapple embraced him and gave him a
loving kiss on the forehead, and said to him, not without tears in his
eyes, "Come along, comrade and friend and partner of my toils and
sorrows; when I was with you and had no cares to trouble me except
mending your harness and feeding your little carcass, happy were my
hours, my days, and my years; but since I left you, and mounted the
towers of ambition and pride, a thousand miseries, a thousand troubles,
and four thousand anxieties have entered into my soul;" and all the while
he was speaking in this strain he was fixing the pack-saddle on the ass,
without a word from anyone. Then having Dapple saddled, he, with great
pain and difficulty, got up on him, and addressing himself to the
majordomo, the secretary, the head-carver, and Pedro Recio the doctor and
several others who stood by, he said, "Make way, gentlemen, and let me go
back to my old freedom; let me go look for my past life, and raise myself
up from this present death. I was not born to be a governor or protect
islands or cities from the enemies that choose to attack them. Ploughing
and digging, vinedressing and pruning, are more in my way than defending
provinces or kingdoms. Saint Peter is very well at Rome; I mean each of
us is best following the trade he was born to. A reaping-hook fits my
hand better than a governor's sceptre; I'd rather have my fill of
gazpacho than be subject to the misery of a meddling doctor who
kills me with hunger, and I'd rather lie in summer under the shade of
an oak, and in winter wrap myself in a double sheepskin jacket in
freedom, than go to bed between holland sheets and dress in sables under
the restraint of a government. God be with your worships, and tell my
lord the duke that 'naked I was born, naked I find myself, I neither
lose nor gain;' I mean that without a farthing I came into this
government, and without a farthing I go out of it, very different from
the way governors commonly leave other islands. Stand aside and let me
go; I have to plaster myself, for I believe every one of my ribs is
crushed, thanks to the enemies that have been trampling over me
to-night."

"That is unnecessary, senor governor," said Doctor Recio, "for I will
give your worship a draught against falls and bruises that will soon make
you as sound and strong as ever; and as for your diet I promise your
worship to behave better, and let you eat plentifully of whatever you
like."

"You spoke late," said Sancho. "I'd as soon turn Turk as stay any longer.
Those jokes won't pass a second time. By God I'd as soon remain in this
government, or take another, even if it was offered me between two
plates, as fly to heaven without wings. I am of the breed of the Panzas,
and they are every one of them obstinate, and if they once say 'odds,'
odds it must be, no matter if it is evens, in spite of all the world.
Here in this stable I leave the ant's wings that lifted me up into the
air for the swifts and other birds to eat me, and let's take to level
ground and our feet once more; and if they're not shod in pinked shoes of
cordovan, they won't want for rough sandals of hemp; 'every ewe to her
like,' 'and let no one stretch his leg beyond the length of the sheet;'
and now let me pass, for it's growing late with me."

To this the majordomo said, "Senor governor, we would let your worship go
with all our hearts, though it sorely grieves us to lose you, for your
wit and Christian conduct naturally make us regret you; but it is well
known that every governor, before he leaves the place where he has been
governing, is bound first of all to render an account. Let your worship
do so for the ten days you have held the government, and then you may go
and the peace of God go with you."

"No one can demand it of me," said Sancho, "but he whom my lord the duke
shall appoint; I am going to meet him, and to him I will render an exact
one; besides, when I go forth naked as I do, there is no other proof
needed to show that I have governed like an angel."

"By God the great Sancho is right," said Doctor Recio, "and we should let
him go, for the duke will be beyond measure glad to see him."

They all agreed to this, and allowed him to go, first offering to bear
him company and furnish him with all he wanted for his own comfort or for
the journey. Sancho said he did not want anything more than a little
barley for Dapple, and half a cheese and half a loaf for himself; for the
distance being so short there was no occasion for any better or bulkier
provant. They all embraced him, and he with tears embraced all of them,
and left them filled with admiration not only at his remarks but at his
firm and sensible resolution.




CHAPTER LIV.

WHICH DEALS WITH MATTERS RELATING TO THIS HISTORY AND NO OTHER


The duke and duchess resolved that the challenge Don Quixote had, for the
reason already mentioned, given their vassal, should be proceeded with;
and as the young man was in Flanders, whither he had fled to escape
having Dona Rodriguez for a mother-in-law, they arranged to substitute
for him a Gascon lacquey, named Tosilos, first of all carefully
instructing him in all he had to do. Two days later the duke told Don
Quixote that in four days from that time his opponent would present
himself on the field of battle armed as a knight, and would maintain that
the damsel lied by half a beard, nay a whole beard, if she affirmed that
he had given her a promise of marriage. Don Quixote was greatly pleased
at the news, and promised himself to do wonders in the lists, and
reckoned it rare good fortune that an opportunity should have offered for
letting his noble hosts see what the might of his strong arm was capable
of; and so in high spirits and satisfaction he awaited the expiration of
the four days, which measured by his impatience seemed spinning
themselves out into four hundred ages. Let us leave them to pass as we do
other things, and go and bear Sancho company, as mounted on Dapple, half
glad, half sad, he paced along on his road to join his master, in whose
society he was happier than in being governor of all the islands in the
world. Well then, it so happened that before he had gone a great way from
the island of his government (and whether it was island, city, town, or
village that he governed he never troubled himself to inquire) he saw
coming along the road he was travelling six pilgrims with staves,
foreigners of that sort that beg for alms singing; who as they drew near
arranged themselves in a line and lifting up their voices all together
began to sing in their own language something that Sancho could not understand, with
the exception of one word which sounded plainly "alms," from which he
gathered that it was alms they asked for in their song; and being, as
Cide Hamete says, remarkably charitable, he took out of his alforjas the
half loaf and half cheese he had been provided with, and gave them to
them, explaining to them by signs that he had nothing else to give them.
They received them very gladly, but exclaimed, "Geld! Geld!"

"I don't understand what you want of me, good people," said Sancho.

On this one of them took a purse out of his bosom and showed it to
Sancho, by which he comprehended they were asking for money, and putting
his thumb to his throat and spreading his hand upwards he gave them to
understand that he had not the sign of a coin about him, and urging
Dapple forward he broke through them. But as he was passing, one of them
who had been examining him very closely rushed towards him, and flinging
his arms round him exclaimed in a loud voice and good Spanish, "God bless
me! What's this I see? Is it possible that I hold in my arms my dear
friend, my good neighbour Sancho Panza? But there's no doubt about it,
for I'm not asleep, nor am I drunk just now."

Sancho was surprised to hear himself called by his name and find himself
embraced by a foreign pilgrim, and after regarding him steadily without
speaking he was still unable to recognise him; but the pilgrim perceiving
his perplexity cried, "What! and is it possible, Sancho Panza, that thou
dost not know thy neighbour Ricote, the Morisco shopkeeper of thy
village?"

Sancho upon this looking at him more carefully began to recall his
features, and at last recognised him perfectly, and without getting off
the ass threw his arms round his neck saying, "Who the devil could have
known thee, Ricote, in this mummer's dress thou art in? Tell me, who has
frenchified thee, and how dost thou dare to return to Spain, where if
they catch thee and recognise thee it will go hard enough with thee?"

"If thou dost not betray me, Sancho," said the pilgrim, "I am safe; for
in this dress no one will recognise me; but let us turn aside out of the
road into that grove there where my comrades are going to eat and rest,
and thou shalt eat with them there, for they are very good fellows; I'll
have time enough to tell thee then all that has happened me since I left
our village in obedience to his Majesty's edict that threatened such
severities against the unfortunate people of my nation, as thou hast
heard."

Sancho complied, and Ricote having spoken to the other pilgrims they
withdrew to the grove they saw, turning a considerable distance out of
the road. They threw down their staves, took off their pilgrim's cloaks
and remained in their under-clothing; they were all good-looking young
fellows, except Ricote, who was a man somewhat advanced in years. They
carried alforjas all of them, and all apparently well filled, at least
with things provocative of thirst, such as would summon it from two
leagues off. They stretched themselves on the ground, and making a
tablecloth of the grass they spread upon it bread, salt, knives, walnut,
scraps of cheese, and well-picked ham-bones which if they were past
gnawing were not past sucking. They also put down a black dainty called,
they say, caviar, and made of the eggs of fish, a great thirst-wakener.
Nor was there any lack of olives, dry, it is true, and without any
seasoning, but for all that toothsome and pleasant. But what made the
best show in the field of the banquet was half a dozen botas of wine, for
each of them produced his own from his alforjas; even the good Ricote,
who from a Morisco had transformed himself into a German or Dutchman,
took out his, which in size might have vied with the five others. They
then began to eat with very great relish and very leisurely, making the
most of each morsel--very small ones of everything--they took up on the
point of the knife; and then all at the same moment raised their arms and
botas aloft, the mouths placed in their mouths, and all eyes fixed on
heaven just as if they were taking aim at it; and in this attitude they
remained ever so long, wagging their heads from side to side as if in
acknowledgment of the pleasure they were enjoying while they decanted the
bowels of the bottles into their own stomachs.

Sancho beheld all, "and nothing gave him pain;" so far from that, acting
on the proverb he knew so well, "when thou art at Rome do as thou seest,"
he asked Ricote for his bota and took aim like the rest of them, and with
not less enjoyment. Four times did the botas bear being uplifted, but the
fifth it was all in vain, for they were drier and more sapless than a
rush by that time, which made the jollity that had been kept up so far
begin to flag.

Every now and then some one of them would grasp Sancho's right hand in
his own saying, "Espanoli y Tudesqui tuto uno: bon compano;" and Sancho
would answer, "Bon compano, jur a Di!" and then go off into a fit of
laughter that lasted an hour, without a thought for the moment of
anything that had befallen him in his government; for cares have very
little sway over us while we are eating and drinking. At length, the wine
having come to an end with them, drowsiness began to come over them, and
they dropped asleep on their very table and tablecloth. Ricote and Sancho
alone remained awake, for they had eaten more and drunk less, and Ricote
drawing Sancho aside, they seated themselves at the foot of a beech,
leaving the pilgrims buried in sweet sleep; and without once falling into
his own Morisco tongue Ricote spoke as follows in pure Castilian:

"Thou knowest well, neighbour and friend Sancho Panza, how the
proclamation or edict his Majesty commanded to be issued against those of
my nation filled us all with terror and dismay; me at least it did,
insomuch that I think before the time granted us for quitting Spain was
out, the full force of the penalty had already fallen upon me and upon my
children. I decided, then, and I think wisely (just like one who knows
that at a certain date the house he lives in will be taken from him, and
looks out beforehand for another to change into), I decided, I say, to
leave the town myself, alone and without my family, and go to seek out
some place to remove them to comfortably and not in the hurried way in
which the others took their departure; for I saw very plainly, and so did
all the older men among us, that the proclamations were not mere threats,
as some said, but positive enactments which would be enforced at the
appointed time; and what made me believe this was what I knew of the base
and extravagant designs which our people harboured, designs of such a
nature that I think it was a divine inspiration that moved his Majesty to
carry out a resolution so spirited; not that we were all guilty, for some
there were true and steadfast Christians; but they were so few that they
could make no head against those who were not; and it was not prudent to
cherish a viper in the bosom by having enemies in the house. In short it
was with just cause that we were visited with the penalty of banishment,
a mild and lenient one in the eyes of some, but to us the most terrible
that could be inflicted upon us. Wherever we are we weep for Spain; for
after all we were born there and it is our natural fatherland. Nowhere do
we find the reception our unhappy condition needs; and in Barbary and all
the parts of Africa where we counted upon being received, succoured, and
welcomed, it is there they insult and ill-treat us most. We knew not our
good fortune until we lost it; and such is the longing we almost all of
us have to return to Spain, that most of those who like myself know the
language, and there are many who do, come back to it and leave their
wives and children forsaken yonder, so great is their love for it; and
now I know by experience the meaning of the saying, sweet is the love of
one's country.

"I left our village, as I said, and went to France, but though they gave
us a kind reception there I was anxious to see all I could. I crossed
into Italy, and reached Germany, and there it seemed to me we might live
with more freedom, as the inhabitants do not pay any attention to
trifling points; everyone lives as he likes, for in most parts they enjoy
liberty of conscience. I took a house in a town near Augsburg, and then
joined these pilgrims, who are in the habit of coming to Spain in great
numbers every year to visit the shrines there, which they look upon as
their Indies and a sure and certain source of gain. They travel nearly
all over it, and there is no town out of which they do not go full up of
meat and drink, as the saying is, and with a real, at least, in money,
and they come off at the end of their travels with more than a hundred
crowns saved, which, changed into gold, they smuggle out of the kingdom
either in the hollow of their staves or in the patches of their pilgrim's
cloaks or by some device of their own, and carry to their own country in
spite of the guards at the posts and passes where they are searched. Now
my purpose is, Sancho, to carry away the treasure that I left buried,
which, as it is outside the town, I shall be able to do without risk, and
to write, or cross over from Valencia, to my daughter and wife, who I
know are at Algiers, and find some means of bringing them to some French
port and thence to Germany, there to await what it may be God's will to
do with us; for, after all, Sancho, I know well that Ricota my daughter
and Francisca Ricota my wife are Catholic Christians, and though I am not
so much so, still I am more of a Christian than a Moor, and it is always
my prayer to God that he will open the eyes of my understanding and show
me how I am to serve him; but what amazes me and I cannot understand is
why my wife and daughter should have gone to Barbary rather than to
France, where they could live as Christians."

To this Sancho replied, "Remember, Ricote, that may not have been open to
them, for Juan Tiopieyo thy wife's brother took them, and being a true
Moor he went where he could go most easily; and another thing I can tell
thee, it is my belief thou art going in vain to look for what thou hast
left buried, for we heard they took from thy brother-in-law and thy wife
a great quantity of pearls and money in gold which they brought to be
passed."

"That may be," said Ricote; "but I know they did not touch my hoard, for
I did not tell them where it was, for fear of accidents; and so, if thou
wilt come with me, Sancho, and help me to take it away and conceal it, I
will give thee two hundred crowns wherewith thou mayest relieve thy
necessities, and, as thou knowest, I know they are many."

"I would do it," said Sancho; "but I am not at all covetous, for I gave
up an office this morning in which, if I was, I might have made the walls
of my house of gold and dined off silver plates before six months were
over; and so for this reason, and because I feel I would be guilty of
treason to my king if I helped his enemies, I would not go with thee if
instead of promising me two hundred crowns thou wert to give me four
hundred here in hand."

"And what office is this thou hast given up, Sancho?" asked Ricote.

"I have given up being governor of an island," said Sancho, "and such a
one, faith, as you won't find the like of easily."

"And where is this island?" said Ricote.

"Where?" said Sancho; "two leagues from here, and it is called the island
of Barataria."

"Nonsense! Sancho," said Ricote; "islands are away out in the sea; there
are no islands on the mainland."

"What? No islands!" said Sancho; "I tell thee, friend Ricote, I left it
this morning, and yesterday I was governing there as I pleased like a
sagittarius; but for all that I gave it up, for it seemed to me a
dangerous office, a governor's."

"And what hast thou gained by the government?" asked Ricote.

"I have gained," said Sancho, "the knowledge that I am no good for
governing, unless it is a drove of cattle, and that the riches that are
to be got by these governments are got at the cost of one's rest and
sleep, ay and even one's food; for in islands the governors must eat
little, especially if they have doctors to look after their health."

"I don't understand thee, Sancho," said Ricote; "but it seems to me all
nonsense thou art talking. Who would give thee islands to govern? Is
there any scarcity in the world of cleverer men than thou art for
governors? Hold thy peace, Sancho, and come back to thy senses, and
consider whether thou wilt come with me as I said to help me to take away
treasure I left buried (for indeed it may be called a treasure, it is so
large), and I will give thee wherewithal to keep thee, as I told thee."

"And I have told thee already, Ricote, that I will not," said Sancho;
"let it content thee that by me thou shalt not be betrayed, and go thy
way in God's name and let me go mine; for I know that well-gotten gain
may be lost, but ill-gotten gain is lost, itself and its owner likewise."

"I will not press thee, Sancho," said Ricote; "but tell me, wert thou in
our village when my wife and daughter and brother-in-law left it?"

"I was so," said Sancho; "and I can tell thee thy daughter left it
looking so lovely that all the village turned out to see her, and
everybody said she was the fairest creature in the world. She wept as she
went, and embraced all her friends and acquaintances and those who came
out to see her, and she begged them all to commend her to God and Our
Lady his mother, and this in such a touching way that it made me weep
myself, though I'm not much given to tears commonly; and, faith, many a
one would have liked to hide her, or go out and carry her off on the
road; but the fear of going against the king's command kept them back.
The one who showed himself most moved was Don Pedro Gregorio, the rich
young heir thou knowest of, and they say he was deep in love with her;
and since she left he has not been seen in our village again, and we all
suspect he has gone after her to steal her away, but so far nothing has
been heard of it."

"I always had a suspicion that gentleman had a passion for my daughter,"
said Ricote; "but as I felt sure of my Ricota's virtue it gave me no
uneasiness to know that he loved her; for thou must have heard it said,
Sancho, that the Morisco women seldom or never engage in amours with the
old Christians; and my daughter, who I fancy thought more of being a
Christian than of lovemaking, would not trouble herself about the
attentions of this heir."

"God grant it," said Sancho, "for it would be a bad business for both of
them; but now let me be off, friend Ricote, for I want to reach where my
master Don Quixote is to-night."

"God be with thee, brother Sancho," said Ricote; "my comrades are
beginning to stir, and it is time, too, for us to continue our journey;"
and then they both embraced, and Sancho mounted Dapple, and Ricote leant
upon his staff, and so they parted.




CHAPTER LV.

OF WHAT BEFELL SANCHO ON THE ROAD, AND OTHER THINGS THAT CANNOT BE
SURPASSED


The length of time he delayed with Ricote prevented Sancho from reaching
the duke's castle that day, though he was within half a league of it when
night, somewhat dark and cloudy, overtook him. This, however, as it was
summer time, did not give him much uneasiness, and he turned aside out of
the road intending to wait for morning; but his ill luck and hard fate so
willed it that as he was searching about for a place to make himself as
comfortable as possible, he and Dapple fell into a deep dark hole that
lay among some very old buildings. As he fell he commended himself with
all his heart to God, fancying he was not going to stop until he reached
the depths of the bottomless pit; but it did not turn out so, for at
little more than thrice a man's height Dapple touched bottom, and he
found himself sitting on him without having received any hurt or damage
whatever. He felt himself all over and held his breath to try whether he
was quite sound or had a hole made in him anywhere, and finding himself
all right and whole and in perfect health he was profuse in his thanks to
God our Lord for the mercy that had been shown him, for he made sure he
had been broken into a thousand pieces. He also felt along the sides of
the pit with his hands to see if it were possible to get out of it
without help, but he found they were quite smooth and afforded no hold
anywhere, at which he was greatly distressed, especially when he heard
how pathetically and dolefully Dapple was bemoaning himself, and no
wonder he complained, nor was it from ill-temper, for in truth he was not
in a very good case. "Alas," said Sancho, "what unexpected accidents
happen at every step to those who live in this miserable world! Who would
have said that one who saw himself yesterday sitting on a throne,
governor of an island, giving orders to his servants and his vassals,
would see himself to-day buried in a pit without a soul to help him, or
servant or vassal to come to his relief? Here must we perish with hunger,
my ass and myself, if indeed we don't die first, he of his bruises and
injuries, and I of grief and sorrow. At any rate I'll not be as lucky as
my master Don Quixote of La Mancha, when he went down into the cave of
that enchanted Montesinos, where he found people to make more of him than
if he had been in his own house; for it seems he came in for a table laid
out and a bed ready made. There he saw fair and pleasant visions, but
here I'll see, I imagine, toads and adders. Unlucky wretch that I am,
what an end my follies and fancies have come to! They'll take up my bones
out of this, when it is heaven's will that I'm found, picked clean, white
and polished, and my good Dapple's with them, and by that, perhaps, it
will be found out who we are, at least by such as have heard that Sancho
Panza never separated from his ass, nor his ass from Sancho Panza.
Unlucky wretches, I say again, that our hard fate should not let us die
in our own country and among our own people, where if there was no help
for our misfortune, at any rate there would be some one to grieve for it
and to close our eyes as we passed away! O comrade and friend, how ill
have I repaid thy faithful services! Forgive me, and entreat Fortune, as
well as thou canst, to deliver us out of this miserable strait we are
both in; and I promise to put a crown of laurel on thy head, and make
thee look like a poet laureate, and give thee double feeds."

In this strain did Sancho bewail himself, and his ass listened to him,
but answered him never a word, such was the distress and anguish the poor
beast found himself in. At length, after a night spent in bitter moanings
and lamentations, day came, and by its light Sancho perceived that it was
wholly impossible to escape out of that pit without help, and he fell to
bemoaning his fate and uttering loud shouts to find out if there was
anyone within hearing; but all his shouting was only crying in the
wilderness, for there was not a soul anywhere in the neighbourhood to
hear him, and then at last he gave himself up for dead. Dapple was lying
on his back, and Sancho helped him to his feet, which he was scarcely
able to keep; and then taking a piece of bread out of his alforjas which
had shared their fortunes in the fall, he gave it to the ass, to whom it
was not unwelcome, saying to him as if he understood him, "With bread all
sorrows are less."

And now he perceived on one side of the pit a hole large enough to admit
a person if he stooped and squeezed himself into a small compass. Sancho
made for it, and entered it by creeping, and found it wide and spacious
on the inside, which he was able to see as a ray of sunlight that
penetrated what might be called the roof showed it all plainly. He
observed too that it opened and widened out into another spacious cavity;
seeing which he made his way back to where the ass was, and with a stone
began to pick away the clay from the hole until in a short time he had
made room for the beast to pass easily, and this accomplished, taking him
by the halter, he proceeded to traverse the cavern to see if there was
any outlet at the other end. He advanced, sometimes in the dark,
sometimes without light, but never without fear; "God Almighty help me!"
said he to himself; "this that is a misadventure to me would make a good
adventure for my master Don Quixote. He would have been sure to take
these depths and dungeons for flowery gardens or the palaces of Galiana,
and would have counted upon issuing out of this darkness and imprisonment
into some blooming meadow; but I, unlucky that I am, hopeless and
spiritless, expect at every step another pit deeper than the first to
open under my feet and swallow me up for good; 'welcome evil, if thou
comest alone.'"

In this way and with these reflections he seemed to himself to have
travelled rather more than half a league, when at last he perceived a dim
light that looked like daylight and found its way in on one side, showing
that this road, which appeared to him the road to the other world, led to
some opening.

Here Cide Hamete leaves him, and returns to Don Quixote, who in high
spirits and satisfaction was looking forward to the day fixed for the
battle he was to fight with him who had robbed Dona Rodriguez's daughter
of her honour, for whom he hoped to obtain satisfaction for the wrong and
injury shamefully done to her. It came to pass, then, that having sallied
forth one morning to practise and exercise himself in what he would have
to do in the encounter he expected to find himself engaged in the next
day, as he was putting Rocinante through his paces or pressing him to the
charge, he brought his feet so close to a pit that but for reining him in
tightly it would have been impossible for him to avoid falling into it.
He pulled him up, however, without a fall, and coming a little closer
examined the hole without dismounting; but as he was looking at it he
heard loud cries proceeding from it, and by listening attentively was
able to make out that he who uttered them was saying, "Ho, above there!
is there any Christian that hears me, or any charitable gentleman that
will take pity on a sinner buried alive, on an unfortunate disgoverned
governor?"

It struck Don Quixote that it was the voice of Sancho Panza he heard,
whereat he was taken aback and amazed, and raising his own voice as much
as he could, he cried out, "Who is below there? Who is that complaining?"

"Who should be here, or who should complain," was the answer, "but the
forlorn Sancho Panza, for his sins and for his ill-luck governor of the
island of Barataria, squire that was to the famous knight Don Quixote of
La Mancha?"

When Don Quixote heard this his amazement was redoubled and his
perturbation grew greater than ever, for it suggested itself to his mind
that Sancho must be dead, and that his soul was in torment down there;
and carried away by this idea he exclaimed, "I conjure thee by everything
that as a Catholic Christian I can conjure thee by, tell me who thou art;
and if thou art a soul in torment, tell me what thou wouldst have me do
for thee; for as my profession is to give aid and succour to those that
need it in this world, it will also extend to aiding and succouring the
distressed of the other, who cannot help themselves."

"In that case," answered the voice, "your worship who speaks to me must
be my master Don Quixote of La Mancha; nay, from the tone of the voice it
is plain it can be nobody else."

"Don Quixote I am," replied Don Quixote, "he whose profession it is to
aid and succour the living and the dead in their necessities; wherefore
tell me who thou art, for thou art keeping me in suspense; because, if
thou art my squire Sancho Panza, and art dead, since the devils have not
carried thee off, and thou art by God's mercy in purgatory, our holy
mother the Roman Catholic Church has intercessory means sufficient to
release thee from the pains thou art in; and I for my part will plead
with her to that end, so far as my substance will go; without further
delay, therefore, declare thyself, and tell me who thou art."

"By all that's good," was the answer, "and by the birth of whomsoever
your worship chooses, I swear, Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha, that I am
your squire Sancho Panza, and that I have never died all my life; but
that, having given up my government for reasons that would require more
time to explain, I fell last night into this pit where I am now, and
Dapple is witness and won't let me lie, for more by token he is here with
me."

Nor was this all; one would have fancied the ass understood what Sancho
said, because that moment he began to bray so loudly that the whole cave
rang again.

"Famous testimony!" exclaimed Don Quixote; "I know that bray as well as
if I was its mother, and thy voice too, my Sancho. Wait while I go to the
duke's castle, which is close by, and I will bring some one to take thee
out of this pit into which thy sins no doubt have brought thee."

"Go, your worship," said Sancho, "and come back quick for God's sake; for
I cannot bear being buried alive any longer, and I'm dying of fear."

Don Quixote left him, and hastened to the castle to tell the duke and
duchess what had happened Sancho, and they were not a little astonished
at it; they could easily understand his having fallen, from the
confirmatory circumstance of the cave which had been in existence there
from time immemorial; but they could not imagine how he had quitted the
government without their receiving any intimation of his coming. To be
brief, they fetched ropes and tackle, as the saying is, and by dint of
many hands and much labour they drew up Dapple and Sancho Panza out of
the darkness into the light of day. A student who saw him remarked,
"That's the way all bad governors should come out of their governments,
as this sinner comes out of the depths of the pit, dead with hunger,
pale, and I suppose without a farthing."

Sancho overheard him and said, "It is eight or ten days, brother growler,
since I entered upon the government of the island they gave me, and all
that time I never had a bellyful of victuals, no not for an hour; doctors
persecuted me and enemies crushed my bones; nor had I any opportunity of
taking bribes or levying taxes; and if that be the case, as it is, I
don't deserve, I think, to come out in this fashion; but 'man proposes
and God disposes;' and God knows what is best, and what suits each one
best; and 'as the occasion, so the behaviour;' and 'let nobody say "I
won't drink of this water;"' and 'where one thinks there are flitches,
there are no pegs;' God knows my meaning and that's enough; I say no
more, though I could."

"Be not angry or annoyed at what thou hearest, Sancho," said Don Quixote,
"or there will never be an end of it; keep a safe conscience and let them
say what they like; for trying to stop slanderers' tongues is like trying
to put gates to the open plain. If a governor comes out of his government
rich, they say he has been a thief; and if he comes out poor, that he has
been a noodle and a blockhead."

"They'll be pretty sure this time," said Sancho, "to set me down for a
fool rather than a thief."

Thus talking, and surrounded by boys and a crowd of people, they reached
the castle, where in one of the corridors the duke and duchess stood
waiting for them; but Sancho would not go up to see the duke until he had
first put up Dapple in the stable, for he said he had passed a very bad
night in his last quarters; then he went upstairs to see his lord and
lady, and kneeling before them he said, "Because it was your highnesses'
pleasure, not because of any desert of my own, I went to govern your
island of Barataria, which 'I entered naked, and naked I find myself; I
neither lose nor gain.' Whether I have governed well or ill, I have had
witnesses who will say what they think fit. I have answered questions, I
have decided causes, and always dying of hunger, for Doctor Pedro Recio
of Tirteafuera, the island and governor doctor, would have it so. Enemies
attacked us by night and put us in a great quandary, but the people of
the island say they came off safe and victorious by the might of my arm;
and may God give them as much health as there's truth in what they say.
In short, during that time I have weighed the cares and responsibilities
governing brings with it, and by my reckoning I find my shoulders can't
bear them, nor are they a load for my loins or arrows for my quiver; and
so, before the government threw me over I preferred to throw the
government over; and yesterday morning I left the island as I found it,
with the same streets, houses, and roofs it had when I entered it. I
asked no loan of anybody, nor did I try to fill my pocket; and though I
meant to make some useful laws, I made hardly any, as I was afraid they
would not be kept; for in that case it comes to the same thing to make
them or not to make them. I quitted the island, as I said, without any
escort except my ass; I fell into a pit, I pushed on through it, until
this morning by the light of the sun I saw an outlet, but not so easy a
one but that, had not heaven sent me my master Don Quixote, I'd have
stayed there till the end of the world. So now my lord and lady duke and
duchess, here is your governor Sancho Panza, who in the bare ten days he
has held the government has come by the knowledge that he would not give
anything to be governor, not to say of an island, but of the whole world;
and that point being settled, kissing your worships' feet, and imitating
the game of the boys when they say, 'leap thou, and give me one,' I take
a leap out of the government and pass into the service of my master Don
Quixote; for after all, though in it I eat my bread in fear and
trembling, at any rate I take my fill; and for my part, so long as I'm
full, it's all alike to me whether it's with carrots or with partridges."

Here Sancho brought his long speech to an end, Don Quixote having been
the whole time in dread of his uttering a host of absurdities; and when
he found him leave off with so few, he thanked heaven in his heart. The
duke embraced Sancho and told him he was heartily sorry he had given up
the government so soon, but that he would see that he was provided with
some other post on his estate less onerous and more profitable. The
duchess also embraced him, and gave orders that he should be taken good
care of, as it was plain to see he had been badly treated and worse
bruised.




CHAPTER LVI.

OF THE PRODIGIOUS AND UNPARALLELED BATTLE THAT TOOK PLACE BETWEEN DON
QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA AND THE LACQUEY TOSILOS IN DEFENCE OF THE DAUGHTER
OF DONA RODRIGUEZ


The duke and duchess had no reason to regret the joke that had been
played upon Sancho Panza in giving him the government; especially as
their majordomo returned the same day, and gave them a minute account of
almost every word and deed that Sancho uttered or did during the time;
and to wind up with, eloquently described to them the attack upon the
island and Sancho's fright and departure, with which they were not a
little amused. After this the history goes on to say that the day fixed
for the battle arrived, and that the duke, after having repeatedly
instructed his lacquey Tosilos how to deal with Don Quixote so as to
vanquish him without killing or wounding him, gave orders to have the
heads removed from the lances, telling Don Quixote that Christian
charity, on which he plumed himself, could not suffer the battle to be
fought with so much risk and danger to life; and that he must be content
with the offer of a battlefield on his territory (though that was against
the decree of the holy Council, which prohibits all challenges of the
sort) and not push such an arduous venture to its extreme limits. Don
Quixote bade his excellence arrange all matters connected with the affair
as he pleased, as on his part he would obey him in everything. The dread
day, then, having arrived, and the duke having ordered a spacious stand
to be erected facing the court of the castle for the judges of the field
and the appellant duennas, mother and daughter, vast crowds flocked from
all the villages and hamlets of the neighbourhood to see the novel
spectacle of the battle; nobody, dead or alive, in those parts having
ever seen or heard of such a one.

The first person to enter the field and the lists was the master of the
ceremonies, who surveyed and paced the whole ground to see that there was
nothing unfair and nothing concealed to make the combatants stumble or
fall; then the duennas entered and seated themselves, enveloped in
mantles covering their eyes, nay even their bosoms, and displaying no
slight emotion as Don Quixote appeared in the lists. Shortly afterwards,
accompanied by several trumpets and mounted on a powerful steed that
threatened to crush the whole place, the great lacquey Tosilos made his
appearance on one side of the courtyard with his visor down and stiffly
cased in a suit of stout shining armour. The horse was a manifest
Frieslander, broad-backed and flea-bitten, and with half a hundred of
wool hanging to each of his fetlocks. The gallant combatant came well
primed by his master the duke as to how he was to bear himself against
the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha; being warned that he must on no
account slay him, but strive to shirk the first encounter so as to avoid
the risk of killing him, as he was sure to do if he met him full tilt. He
crossed the courtyard at a walk, and coming to where the duennas were
placed stopped to look at her who demanded him for a husband; the marshal
of the field summoned Don Quixote, who had already presented himself in
the courtyard, and standing by the side of Tosilos he addressed the
duennas, and asked them if they consented that Don Quixote of La Mancha
should do battle for their right. They said they did, and that whatever
he should do in that behalf they declared rightly done, final and valid.
By this time the duke and duchess had taken their places in a gallery
commanding the enclosure, which was filled to overflowing with a
multitude of people eager to see this perilous and unparalleled
encounter. The conditions of the combat were that if Don Quixote proved
the victor his antagonist was to marry the daughter of Dona Rodriguez;
but if he should be vanquished his opponent was released from the promise
that was claimed against him and from all obligations to give
satisfaction. The master of the ceremonies apportioned the sun to them,
and stationed them, each on the spot where he was to stand. The drums
beat, the sound of the trumpets filled the air, the earth trembled under
foot, the hearts of the gazing crowd were full of anxiety, some hoping
for a happy issue, some apprehensive of an untoward ending to the affair,
and lastly, Don Quixote, commending himself with all his heart to God our
Lord and to the lady Dulcinea del Toboso, stood waiting for them to give
the necessary signal for the onset. Our lacquey, however, was thinking of
something very different; he only thought of what I am now going to
mention.

It seems that as he stood contemplating his enemy she struck him as the
most beautiful woman he had ever seen all his life; and the little blind
boy whom in our streets they commonly call Love had no mind to let slip
the chance of triumphing over a lacquey heart, and adding it to the list
of his trophies; and so, stealing gently upon him unseen, he drove a dart
two yards long into the poor lacquey's left side and pierced his heart
through and through; which he was able to do quite at his ease, for Love
is invisible, and comes in and goes out as he likes, without anyone
calling him to account for what he does. Well then, when they gave the
signal for the onset our lacquey was in an ecstasy, musing upon the
beauty of her whom he had already made mistress of his liberty, and so he
paid no attention to the sound of the trumpet, unlike Don Quixote, who
was off the instant he heard it, and, at the highest speed Rocinante was
capable of, set out to meet his enemy, his good squire Sancho shouting
lustily as he saw him start, "God guide thee, cream and flower of
knights-errant! God give thee the victory, for thou hast the right on thy
side!" But though Tosilos saw Don Quixote coming at him he never stirred
a step from the spot where he was posted; and instead of doing so called
loudly to the marshal of the field, to whom when he came up to see what
he wanted he said, "Senor, is not this battle to decide whether I marry
or do not marry that lady?" "Just so," was the answer. "Well then," said
the lacquey, "I feel qualms of conscience, and I should lay a-heavy
burden upon it if I were to proceed any further with the combat; I
therefore declare that I yield myself vanquished, and that I am willing
to marry the lady at once."

The marshal of the field was lost in astonishment at the words of
Tosilos; and as he was one of those who were privy to the arrangement of
the affair he knew not what to say in reply. Don Quixote pulled up in mid
career when he saw that his enemy was not coming on to the attack. The
duke could not make out the reason why the battle did not go on; but the
marshal of the field hastened to him to let him know what Tosilos said,
and he was amazed and extremely angry at it. In the meantime Tosilos
advanced to where Dona Rodriguez sat and said in a loud voice, "Senora, I
am willing to marry your daughter, and I have no wish to obtain by strife
and fighting what I can obtain in peace and without any risk to my life."

The valiant Don Quixote heard him, and said, "As that is the case I am
released and absolved from my promise; let them marry by all means, and
as 'God our Lord has given her, may Saint Peter add his blessing.'"

The duke had now descended to the courtyard of the castle, and going up
to Tosilos he said to him, "Is it true, sir knight, that you yield
yourself vanquished, and that moved by scruples of conscience you wish to
marry this damsel?"

"It is, senor," replied Tosilos.

"And he does well," said Sancho, "for what thou hast to give to the
mouse, give to the cat, and it will save thee all trouble."

Tosilos meanwhile was trying to unlace his helmet, and he begged them to
come to his help at once, as his power of breathing was failing him, and
he could not remain so long shut up in that confined space. They removed
it in all haste, and his lacquey features were revealed to public gaze.
At this sight Dona Rodriguez and her daughter raised a mighty outcry,
exclaiming, "This is a trick! This is a trick! They have put Tosilos, my
lord the duke's lacquey, upon us in place of the real husband. The
justice of God and the king against such trickery, not to say roguery!"

"Do not distress yourselves, ladies," said Don Quixote; "for this is no
trickery or roguery; or if it is, it is not the duke who is at the bottom
of it, but those wicked enchanters who persecute me, and who, jealous of
my reaping the glory of this victory, have turned your husband's features
into those of this person, who you say is a lacquey of the duke's; take
my advice, and notwithstanding the malice of my enemies marry him, for
beyond a doubt he is the one you wish for a husband."

When the duke heard this all his anger was near vanishing in a fit of
laughter, and he said, "The things that happen to Senor Don Quixote are
so extraordinary that I am ready to believe this lacquey of mine is not
one; but let us adopt this plan and device; let us put off the marriage
for, say, a fortnight, and let us keep this person about whom we are
uncertain in close confinement, and perhaps in the course of that time he
may return to his original shape; for the spite which the enchanters
entertain against Senor Don Quixote cannot last so long, especially as it
is of so little advantage to them to practise these deceptions and
transformations."

"Oh, senor," said Sancho, "those scoundrels are well used to changing
whatever concerns my master from one thing into another. A knight that he
overcame some time back, called the Knight of the Mirrors, they turned
into the shape of the bachelor Samson Carrasco of our town and a great
friend of ours; and my lady Dulcinea del Toboso they have turned into a
common country wench; so I suspect this lacquey will have to live and die
a lacquey all the days of his life."

Here the Rodriguez's daughter exclaimed, "Let him be who he may, this man
that claims me for a wife; I am thankful to him for the same, for I had
rather be the lawful wife of a lacquey than the cheated mistress of a
gentleman; though he who played me false is nothing of the kind."

To be brief, all the talk and all that had happened ended in Tosilos
being shut up until it was seen how his transformation turned out. All
hailed Don Quixote as victor, but the greater number were vexed and
disappointed at finding that the combatants they had been so anxiously
waiting for had not battered one another to pieces, just as the boys are
disappointed when the man they are waiting to see hanged does not come
out, because the prosecution or the court has pardoned him. The people
dispersed, the duke and Don Quixote returned to the castle, they locked
up Tosilos, Dona Rodriguez and her daughter remained perfectly contented
when they saw that any way the affair must end in marriage, and Tosilos
wanted nothing else.




CHAPTER LVII.

WHICH TREATS OF HOW DON QUIXOTE TOOK LEAVE OF THE DUKE, AND OF WHAT
FOLLOWED WITH THE WITTY AND IMPUDENT ALTISIDORA, ONE OF THE DUCHESS'S
DAMSELS


Don Quixote now felt it right to quit a life of such idleness as he was
leading in the castle; for he fancied that he was making himself sorely
missed by suffering himself to remain shut up and inactive amid the
countless luxuries and enjoyments his hosts lavished upon him as a
knight, and he felt too that he would have to render a strict account to
heaven of that indolence and seclusion; and so one day he asked the duke
and duchess to grant him permission to take his departure. They gave it,
showing at the same time that they were very sorry he was leaving them.

The duchess gave his wife's letters to Sancho Panza, who shed tears over
them, saying, "Who would have thought that such grand hopes as the news
of my government bred in my wife Teresa Panza's breast would end in my
going back now to the vagabond adventures of my master Don Quixote of La
Mancha? Still I'm glad to see my Teresa behaved as she ought in sending
the acorns, for if she had not sent them I'd have been sorry, and she'd
have shown herself ungrateful. It is a comfort to me that they can't call
that present a bribe; for I had got the government already when she sent
them, and it's but reasonable that those who have had a good turn done
them should show their gratitude, if it's only with a trifle. After all I
went into the government naked, and I come out of it naked; so I can say
with a safe conscience--and that's no small matter--'naked I was born,
naked I find myself, I neither lose nor gain.'"

Thus did Sancho soliloquise on the day of their departure, as Don
Quixote, who had the night before taken leave of the duke and duchess,
coming out made his appearance at an early hour in full armour in the
courtyard of the castle. The whole household of the castle were watching
him from the corridors, and the duke and duchess, too, came out to see
him. Sancho was mounted on his Dapple, with his alforjas, valise, and
proven, supremely happy because the duke's majordomo, the same that had
acted the part of the Trifaldi, had given him a little purse with two
hundred gold crowns to meet the necessary expenses of the road, but of
this Don Quixote knew nothing as yet. While all were, as has been said,
observing him, suddenly from among the duennas and handmaidens the
impudent and witty Altisidora lifted up her voice and said in pathetic
tones:

Give ear, cruel knight;
  Draw rein; where's the need
Of spurring the flanks
  Of that ill-broken steed?
From what art thou flying?
  No dragon I am,
Not even a sheep,
  But a tender young lamb.
Thou hast jilted a maiden
  As fair to behold
As nymph of Diana
  Or Venus of old.

Bireno, AEneas, what worse shall I call thee?

Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!

In thy claws, ruthless robber,
  Thou bearest away
The heart of a meek
  Loving maid for thy prey,
Three kerchiefs thou stealest,
  And garters a pair,
From legs than the whitest
  Of marble more fair;
And the sighs that pursue thee
  Would burn to the ground
Two thousand Troy Towns,
  If so many were found.

Bireno, AEneas, what worse shall I call thee?

Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!

May no bowels of mercy
  To Sancho be granted,
And thy Dulcinea
  Be left still enchanted,
May thy falsehood to me
  Find its punishment in her,
For in my land the just
  Often pays for the sinner.
May thy grandest adventures
  Discomfitures prove,
May thy joys be all dreams,
  And forgotten thy love.

Bireno, AEneas, what worse shall I call thee?

Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!

May thy name be abhorred
  For thy conduct to ladies,
From London to England,
  From Seville to Cadiz;
May thy cards be unlucky,
  Thy hands contain ne'er a
King, seven, or ace
  When thou playest primera;
When thy corns are cut
  May it be to the quick;
When thy grinders are drawn
  May the roots of them stick.

Bireno, AEneas, what worse shall I call thee?

Barabbas go with thee! All evil befall thee!

All the while the unhappy Altisidora was bewailing herself in the above
strain Don Quixote stood staring at her; and without uttering a word in
reply to her he turned round to Sancho and said, "Sancho my friend, I
conjure thee by the life of thy forefathers tell me the truth; say, hast
thou by any chance taken the three kerchiefs and the garters this
love-sick maid speaks of?"

To this Sancho made answer, "The three kerchiefs I have; but the garters,
as much as 'over the hills of Ubeda.'"

The duchess was amazed at Altisidora's assurance; she knew that she was
bold, lively, and impudent, but not so much so as to venture to make free
in this fashion; and not being prepared for the joke, her astonishment
was all the greater. The duke had a mind to keep up the sport, so he
said, "It does not seem to me well done in you, sir knight, that after
having received the hospitality that has been offered you in this very
castle, you should have ventured to carry off even three kerchiefs, not
to say my handmaid's garters. It shows a bad heart and does not tally
with your reputation. Restore her garters, or else I defy you to mortal
combat, for I am not afraid of rascally enchanters changing or altering
my features as they changed his who encountered you into those of my
lacquey, Tosilos."

"God forbid," said Don Quixote, "that I should draw my sword against your
illustrious person from which I have received such great favours. The
kerchiefs I will restore, as Sancho says he has them; as to the garters
that is impossible, for I have not got them, neither has he; and if your
handmaiden here will look in her hiding-places, depend upon it she will
find them. I have never been a thief, my lord duke, nor do I mean to be
so long as I live, if God cease not to have me in his keeping. This
damsel by her own confession speaks as one in love, for which I am not to
blame, and therefore need not ask pardon, either of her or of your
excellence, whom I entreat to have a better opinion of me, and once more
to give me leave to pursue my journey."

"And may God so prosper it, Senor Don Quixote," said the duchess, "that
we may always hear good news of your exploits; God speed you; for the
longer you stay, the more you inflame the hearts of the damsels who
behold you; and as for this one of mine, I will so chastise her that she
will not transgress again, either with her eyes or with her words."

"One word and no more, O valiant Don Quixote, I ask you to hear," said
Altisidora, "and that is that I beg your pardon about the theft of the
garters; for by God and upon my soul I have got them on, and I have
fallen into the same blunder as he did who went looking for his ass being
all the while mounted on it."

"Didn't I say so?" said Sancho. "I'm a likely one to hide thefts! Why if
I wanted to deal in them, opportunities came ready enough to me in my
government."

Don Quixote bowed his head, and saluted the duke and duchess and all the
bystanders, and wheeling Rocinante round, Sancho following him on Dapple,
he rode out of the castle, shaping his course for Saragossa.




CHAPTER LVIII.

WHICH TELLS HOW ADVENTURES CAME CROWDING ON DON QUIXOTE IN SUCH NUMBERS
THAT THEY GAVE ONE ANOTHER NO BREATHING-TIME


When Don Quixote saw himself in open country, free, and relieved from the
attentions of Altisidora, he felt at his ease, and in fresh spirits to
take up the pursuit of chivalry once more; and turning to Sancho he said,
"Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that heaven has
bestowed upon men; no treasures that the earth holds buried or the sea
conceals can compare with it; for freedom, as for honour, life may and
should be ventured; and on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil
that can fall to the lot of man. I say this, Sancho, because thou hast
seen the good cheer, the abundance we have enjoyed in this castle we are
leaving; well then, amid those dainty banquets and snow-cooled beverages
I felt as though I were undergoing the straits of hunger, because I did
not enjoy them with the same freedom as if they had been mine own; for
the sense of being under an obligation to return benefits and favours
received is a restraint that checks the independence of the spirit. Happy
he, to whom heaven has given a piece of bread for which he is not bound
to give thanks to any but heaven itself!"

"For all your worship says," said Sancho, "it is not becoming that there
should be no thanks on our part for two hundred gold crowns that the
duke's majordomo has given me in a little purse which I carry next my
heart, like a warming plaster or comforter, to meet any chance calls; for
we shan't always find castles where they'll entertain us; now and then we
may light upon roadside inns where they'll cudgel us."

In conversation of this sort the knight and squire errant were pursuing
their journey, when, after they had gone a little more than half a
league, they perceived some dozen men dressed like labourers stretched
upon their cloaks on the grass of a green meadow eating their dinner.
They had beside them what seemed to be white sheets concealing some
objects under them, standing upright or lying flat, and arranged at
intervals. Don Quixote approached the diners, and, saluting them
courteously first, he asked them what it was those cloths covered.
"Senor," answered one of the party, "under these cloths are some images
carved in relief intended for a retablo we are putting up in our village;
we carry them covered up that they may not be soiled, and on our
shoulders that they may not be broken."

"With your good leave," said Don Quixote, "I should like to see them; for
images that are carried so carefully no doubt must be fine ones."

"I should think they were!" said the other; "let the money they cost
speak for that; for as a matter of fact there is not one of them that
does not stand us in more than fifty ducats; and that your worship may
judge; wait a moment, and you shall see with your own eyes;" and getting
up from his dinner he went and uncovered the first image, which proved to
be one of Saint George on horseback with a serpent writhing at his feet
and the lance thrust down its throat with all that fierceness that is
usually depicted. The whole group was one blaze of gold, as the saying
is. On seeing it Don Quixote said, "That knight was one of the best
knights-errant the army of heaven ever owned; he was called Don Saint
George, and he was moreover a defender of maidens. Let us see this next
one."

The man uncovered it, and it was seen to be that of Saint Martin on his
horse, dividing his cloak with the beggar. The instant Don Quixote saw it
he said, "This knight too was one of the Christian adventurers, but I
believe he was generous rather than valiant, as thou mayest perceive,
Sancho, by his dividing his cloak with the beggar and giving him half of
it; no doubt it was winter at the time, for otherwise he would have given
him the whole of it, so charitable was he."

"It was not that, most likely," said Sancho, "but that he held with the
proverb that says, 'For giving and keeping there's need of brains.'"

Don Quixote laughed, and asked them to take off the next cloth,
underneath which was seen the image of the patron saint of the Spains
seated on horseback, his sword stained with blood, trampling on Moors and
treading heads underfoot; and on seeing it Don Quixote exclaimed, "Ay,
this is a knight, and of the squadrons of Christ! This one is called Don
Saint James the Moorslayer, one of the bravest saints and knights the
world ever had or heaven has now."

They then raised another cloth which it appeared covered Saint Paul
falling from his horse, with all the details that are usually given in
representations of his conversion. When Don Quixote saw it, rendered in
such lifelike style that one would have said Christ was speaking and Paul
answering, "This," he said, "was in his time the greatest enemy that the
Church of God our Lord had, and the greatest champion it will ever have;
a knight-errant in life, a steadfast saint in death, an untiring labourer
in the Lord's vineyard, a teacher of the Gentiles, whose school was
heaven, and whose instructor and master was Jesus Christ himself."

There were no more images, so Don Quixote bade them cover them up again,
and said to those who had brought them, "I take it as a happy omen,
brothers, to have seen what I have; for these saints and knights were of
the same profession as myself, which is the calling of arms; only there
is this difference between them and me, that they were saints, and fought
with divine weapons, and I am a sinner and fight with human ones. They
won heaven by force of arms, for heaven suffereth violence; and I, so
far, know not what I have won by dint of my sufferings; but if my
Dulcinea del Toboso were to be released from hers, perhaps with mended
fortunes and a mind restored to itself I might direct my steps in a
better path than I am following at present."

"May God hear and sin be deaf," said Sancho to this.

The men were filled with wonder, as well at the figure as at the words of
Don Quixote, though they did not understand one half of what he meant by
them. They finished their dinner, took their images on their backs, and
bidding farewell to Don Quixote resumed their journey.

Sancho was amazed afresh at the extent of his master's knowledge, as much
as if he had never known him, for it seemed to him that there was no
story or event in the world that he had not at his fingers' ends and
fixed in his memory, and he said to him, "In truth, master mine, if this
that has happened to us to-day is to be called an adventure, it has been
one of the sweetest and pleasantest that have befallen us in the whole
course of our travels; we have come out of it unbelaboured and
undismayed, neither have we drawn sword nor have we smitten the earth
with our bodies, nor have we been left famishing; blessed be God that he
has let me see such a thing with my own eyes!"

"Thou sayest well, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "but remember all times are
not alike nor do they always run the same way; and these things the
vulgar commonly call omens, which are not based upon any natural reason,
will by him who is wise be esteemed and reckoned happy accidents merely.
One of these believers in omens will get up of a morning, leave his
house, and meet a friar of the order of the blessed Saint Francis, and,
as if he had met a griffin, he will turn about and go home. With another
Mendoza the salt is spilt on his table, and gloom is spilt over his
heart, as if nature was obliged to give warning of coming misfortunes by
means of such trivial things as these. The wise man and the Christian
should not trifle with what it may please heaven to do. Scipio on coming
to Africa stumbled as he leaped on shore; his soldiers took it as a bad
omen; but he, clasping the soil with his arms, exclaimed, 'Thou canst not
escape me, Africa, for I hold thee tight between my arms.' Thus, Sancho,
meeting those images has been to me a most happy occurrence."

"I can well believe it," said Sancho; "but I wish your worship would tell
me what is the reason that the Spaniards, when they are about to give
battle, in calling on that Saint James the Moorslayer, say 'Santiago and
close Spain!' Is Spain, then, open, so that it is needful to close it; or
what is the meaning of this form?"

"Thou art very simple, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "God, look you, gave
that great knight of the Red Cross to Spain as her patron saint and
protector, especially in those hard struggles the Spaniards had with the
Moors; and therefore they invoke and call upon him as their defender in
all their battles; and in these he has been many a time seen beating
down, trampling under foot, destroying and slaughtering the Hagarene
squadrons in the sight of all; of which fact I could give thee many
examples recorded in truthful Spanish histories."

Sancho changed the subject, and said to his master, "I marvel, senor, at
the boldness of Altisidora, the duchess's handmaid; he whom they call
Love must have cruelly pierced and wounded her; they say he is a little
blind urchin who, though blear-eyed, or more properly speaking sightless,
if he aims at a heart, be it ever so small, hits it and pierces it
through and through with his arrows. I have heard it said too that the
arrows of Love are blunted and robbed of their points by maidenly modesty
and reserve; but with this Altisidora it seems they are sharpened rather
than blunted."

"Bear in mind, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that love is influenced by no
consideration, recognises no restraints of reason, and is of the same
nature as death, that assails alike the lofty palaces of kings and the
humble cabins of shepherds; and when it takes entire possession of a
heart, the first thing it does is to banish fear and shame from it; and
so without shame Altisidora declared her passion, which excited in my
mind embarrassment rather than commiseration."

"Notable cruelty!" exclaimed Sancho; "unheard-of ingratitude! I can only
say for myself that the very smallest loving word of hers would have
subdued me and made a slave of me. The devil! What a heart of marble,
what bowels of brass, what a soul of mortar! But I can't imagine what it
is that this damsel saw in your worship that could have conquered and
captivated her so. What gallant figure was it, what bold bearing, what
sprightly grace, what comeliness of feature, which of these things by
itself, or what all together, could have made her fall in love with you?
For indeed and in truth many a time I stop to look at your worship from
the sole of your foot to the topmost hair of your head, and I see more to
frighten one than to make one fall in love; moreover I have heard say
that beauty is the first and main thing that excites love, and as your
worship has none at all, I don't know what the poor creature fell in love
with."

"Recollect, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "there are two sorts of beauty,
one of the mind, the other of the body; that of the mind displays and
exhibits itself in intelligence, in modesty, in honourable conduct, in
generosity, in good breeding; and all these qualities are possible and
may exist in an ugly man; and when it is this sort of beauty and not that
of the body that is the attraction, love is apt to spring up suddenly and
violently. I, Sancho, perceive clearly enough that I am not beautiful,
but at the same time I know I am not hideous; and it is enough for an
honest man not to be a monster to be an object of love, if only he
possesses the endowments of mind I have mentioned."

While engaged in this discourse they were making their way through a wood
that lay beyond the road, when suddenly, without expecting anything of
the kind, Don Quixote found himself caught in some nets of green cord
stretched from one tree to another; and unable to conceive what it could
be, he said to Sancho, "Sancho, it strikes me this affair of these nets
will prove one of the strangest adventures imaginable. May I die if the
enchanters that persecute me are not trying to entangle me in them and
delay my journey, by way of revenge for my obduracy towards Altisidora.
Well then let me tell them that if these nets, instead of being green
cord, were made of the hardest diamonds, or stronger than that wherewith
the jealous god of blacksmiths enmeshed Venus and Mars, I would break
them as easily as if they were made of rushes or cotton threads." But
just as he was about to press forward and break through all, suddenly
from among some trees two shepherdesses of surpassing beauty presented
themselves to his sight--or at least damsels dressed like shepherdesses,
save that their jerkins and sayas were of fine brocade; that is to say,
the sayas were rich farthingales of gold embroidered tabby. Their hair,
that in its golden brightness vied with the beams of the sun itself, fell
loose upon their shoulders and was crowned with garlands twined with
green laurel and red everlasting; and their years to all appearance were
not under fifteen nor above eighteen.

Such was the spectacle that filled Sancho with amazement, fascinated Don
Quixote, made the sun halt in his course to behold them, and held all
four in a strange silence. One of the shepherdesses, at length, was the
first to speak and said to Don Quixote, "Hold, sir knight, and do not
break these nets; for they are not spread here to do you any harm, but
only for our amusement; and as I know you will ask why they have been put
up, and who we are, I will tell you in a few words. In a village some two
leagues from this, where there are many people of quality and rich
gentlefolk, it was agreed upon by a number of friends and relations to
come with their wives, sons and daughters, neighbours, friends and
kinsmen, and make holiday in this spot, which is one of the pleasantest
in the whole neighbourhood, setting up a new pastoral Arcadia among
ourselves, we maidens dressing ourselves as shepherdesses and the youths
as shepherds. We have prepared two eclogues, one by the famous poet
Garcilasso, the other by the most excellent Camoens, in its own
Portuguese tongue, but we have not as yet acted them. Yesterday was the
first day of our coming here; we have a few of what they say are called
field-tents pitched among the trees on the bank of an ample brook that
fertilises all these meadows; last night we spread these nets in the
trees here to snare the silly little birds that startled by the noise we
make may fly into them. If you please to be our guest, senor, you will be
welcomed heartily and courteously, for here just now neither care nor
sorrow shall enter."

She held her peace and said no more, and Don Quixote made answer, "Of a
truth, fairest lady, Actaeon when he unexpectedly beheld Diana bathing in
the stream could not have been more fascinated and wonderstruck than I at
the sight of your beauty. I commend your mode of entertainment, and thank
you for the kindness of your invitation; and if I can serve you, you may
command me with full confidence of being obeyed, for my profession is
none other than to show myself grateful, and ready to serve persons of
all conditions, but especially persons of quality such as your appearance
indicates; and if, instead of taking up, as they probably do, but a small
space, these nets took up the whole surface of the globe, I would seek
out new worlds through which to pass, so as not to break them; and that
ye may give some degree of credence to this exaggerated language of mine,
know that it is no less than Don Quixote of La Mancha that makes this
declaration to you, if indeed it be that such a name has reached your
ears."

"Ah! friend of my soul," instantly exclaimed the other shepherdess, "what
great good fortune has befallen us! Seest thou this gentleman we have
before us? Well then let me tell thee he is the most valiant and the most
devoted and the most courteous gentleman in all the world, unless a
history of his achievements that has been printed and I have read is
telling lies and deceiving us. I will lay a wager that this good fellow
who is with him is one Sancho Panza his squire, whose drolleries none can
equal."

"That's true," said Sancho; "I am that same droll and squire you speak
of, and this gentleman is my master Don Quixote of La Mancha, the same
that's in the history and that they talk about."

"Oh, my friend," said the other, "let us entreat him to stay; for it will
give our fathers and brothers infinite pleasure; I too have heard just
what thou hast told me of the valour of the one and the drolleries of the
other; and what is more, of him they say that he is the most constant and
loyal lover that was ever heard of, and that his lady is one Dulcinea del
Toboso, to whom all over Spain the palm of beauty is awarded."

"And justly awarded," said Don Quixote, "unless, indeed, your unequalled
beauty makes it a matter of doubt. But spare yourselves the trouble,
ladies, of pressing me to stay, for the urgent calls of my profession do
not allow me to take rest under any circumstances."

At this instant there came up to the spot where the four stood a brother
of one of the two shepherdesses, like them in shepherd costume, and as
richly and gaily dressed as they were. They told him that their companion
was the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha, and the other Sancho his
squire, of whom he knew already from having read their history. The gay
shepherd offered him his services and begged that he would accompany him
to their tents, and Don Quixote had to give way and comply. And now the
game was started, and the nets were filled with a variety of birds that
deceived by the colour fell into the danger they were flying from.
Upwards of thirty persons, all gaily attired as shepherds and
shepherdesses, assembled on the spot, and were at once informed who Don
Quixote and his squire were, whereat they were not a little delighted, as
they knew of him already through his history. They repaired to the tents,
where they found tables laid out, and choicely, plentifully, and neatly
furnished. They treated Don Quixote as a person of distinction, giving
him the place of honour, and all observed him, and were full of
astonishment at the spectacle. At last the cloth being removed, Don
Quixote with great composure lifted up his voice and said:

"One of the greatest sins that men are guilty of is--some will say
pride--but I say ingratitude, going by the common saying that hell is
full of ingrates. This sin, so far as it has lain in my power, I have
endeavoured to avoid ever since I have enjoyed the faculty of reason; and
if I am unable to requite good deeds that have been done me by other
deeds, I substitute the desire to do so; and if that be not enough I make
them known publicly; for he who declares and makes known the good deeds
done to him would repay them by others if it were in his power, and for
the most part those who receive are the inferiors of those who give.
Thus, God is superior to all because he is the supreme giver, and the
offerings of man fall short by an infinite distance of being a full
return for the gifts of God; but gratitude in some degree makes up for
this deficiency and shortcoming. I therefore, grateful for the favour
that has been extended to me here, and unable to make a return in the
same measure, restricted as I am by the narrow limits of my power, offer
what I can and what I have to offer in my own way; and so I declare that
for two full days I will maintain in the middle of this highway leading
to Saragossa, that these ladies disguised as shepherdesses, who are here
present, are the fairest and most courteous maidens in the world,
excepting only the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, sole mistress of my
thoughts, be it said without offence to those who hear me, ladies and
gentlemen."

On hearing this Sancho, who had been listening with great attention,
cried out in a loud voice, "Is it possible there is anyone in the world
who will dare to say and swear that this master of mine is a madman? Say,
gentlemen shepherds, is there a village priest, be he ever so wise or
learned, who could say what my master has said; or is there
knight-errant, whatever renown he may have as a man of valour, that could
offer what my master has offered now?"

Don Quixote turned upon Sancho, and with a countenance glowing with anger
said to him, "Is it possible, Sancho, there is anyone in the whole world
who will say thou art not a fool, with a lining to match, and I know not
what trimmings of impertinence and roguery? Who asked thee to meddle in
my affairs, or to inquire whether I am a wise man or a blockhead? Hold
thy peace; answer me not a word; saddle Rocinante if he be unsaddled; and
let us go to put my offer into execution; for with the right that I have
on my side thou mayest reckon as vanquished all who shall venture to
question it;" and in a great rage, and showing his anger plainly, he rose
from his seat, leaving the company lost in wonder, and making them feel
doubtful whether they ought to regard him as a madman or a rational
being. In the end, though they sought to dissuade him from involving
himself in such a challenge, assuring him they admitted his gratitude as
fully established, and needed no fresh proofs to be convinced of his
valiant spirit, as those related in the history of his exploits were
sufficient, still Don Quixote persisted in his resolve; and mounted on
Rocinante, bracing his buckler on his arm and grasping his lance, he
posted himself in the middle of a high road that was not far from the
green meadow. Sancho followed on Dapple, together with all the members of
the pastoral gathering, eager to see what would be the upshot of his
vainglorious and extraordinary proposal.

Don Quixote, then, having, as has been said, planted himself in the
middle of the road, made the welkin ring with words to this effect: "Ho
ye travellers and wayfarers, knights, squires, folk on foot or on
horseback, who pass this way or shall pass in the course of the next two
days! Know that Don Quixote of La Mancha, knight-errant, is posted here
to maintain by arms that the beauty and courtesy enshrined in the nymphs
that dwell in these meadows and groves surpass all upon earth, putting
aside the lady of my heart, Dulcinea del Toboso. Wherefore, let him who
is of the opposite opinion come on, for here I await him."

Twice he repeated the same words, and twice they fell unheard by any
adventurer; but fate, that was guiding affairs for him from better to
better, so ordered it that shortly afterwards there appeared on the road
a crowd of men on horseback, many of them with lances in their hands, all
riding in a compact body and in great haste. No sooner had those who were
with Don Quixote seen them than they turned about and withdrew to some
distance from the road, for they knew that if they stayed some harm might
come to them; but Don Quixote with intrepid heart stood his ground, and
Sancho Panza shielded himself with Rocinante's hind-quarters. The troop
of lancers came up, and one of them who was in advance began shouting to
Don Quixote, "Get out of the way, you son of the devil, or these bulls
will knock you to pieces!"

"Rabble!" returned Don Quixote, "I care nothing for bulls, be they the
fiercest Jarama breeds on its banks. Confess at once, scoundrels, that
what I have declared is true; else ye have to deal with me in combat."

The herdsman had no time to reply, nor Don Quixote to get out of the way
even if he wished; and so the drove of fierce bulls and tame bullocks,
together with the crowd of herdsmen and others who were taking them to be
penned up in a village where they were to be run the next day, passed
over Don Quixote and over Sancho, Rocinante and Dapple, hurling them all
to the earth and rolling them over on the ground. Sancho was left
crushed, Don Quixote scared, Dapple belaboured and Rocinante in no very
sound condition.

They all got up, however, at length, and Don Quixote in great haste,
stumbling here and falling there, started off running after the drove,
shouting out, "Hold! stay! ye rascally rabble, a single knight awaits
you, and he is not of the temper or opinion of those who say, 'For a
flying enemy make a bridge of silver.'" The retreating party in their
haste, however, did not stop for that, or heed his menaces any more than
last year's clouds. Weariness brought Don Quixote to a halt, and more
enraged than avenged he sat down on the road to wait until Sancho,
Rocinante and Dapple came up. When they reached him master and man
mounted once more, and without going back to bid farewell to the mock or
imitation Arcadia, and more in humiliation than contentment, they
continued their journey.




CHAPTER LIX.

WHEREIN IS RELATED THE STRANGE THING, WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS AN
ADVENTURE, THAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE


A clear limpid spring which they discovered in a cool grove relieved Don
Quixote and Sancho of the dust and fatigue due to the unpolite behaviour
of the bulls, and by the side of this, having turned Dapple and Rocinante
loose without headstall or bridle, the forlorn pair, master and man,
seated themselves. Sancho had recourse to the larder of his alforjas and
took out of them what he called the prog; Don Quixote rinsed his mouth
and bathed his face, by which cooling process his flagging energies were
revived. Out of pure vexation he remained without eating, and out of pure
politeness Sancho did not venture to touch a morsel of what was before
him, but waited for his master to act as taster. Seeing, however, that,
absorbed in thought, he was forgetting to carry the bread to his mouth,
he said never a word, and trampling every sort of good breeding under
foot, began to stow away in his paunch the bread and cheese that came to
his hand.

"Eat, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote; "support life, which is of
more consequence to thee than to me, and leave me to die under the pain
of my thoughts and pressure of my misfortunes. I was born, Sancho, to
live dying, and thou to die eating; and to prove the truth of what I say,
look at me, printed in histories, famed in arms, courteous in behaviour,
honoured by princes, courted by maidens; and after all, when I looked
forward to palms, triumphs, and crowns, won and earned by my valiant
deeds, I have this morning seen myself trampled on, kicked, and crushed
by the feet of unclean and filthy animals. This thought blunts my teeth,
paralyses my jaws, cramps my hands, and robs me of all appetite for food;
so much so that I have a mind to let myself die of hunger, the cruelest
death of all deaths."

"So then," said Sancho, munching hard all the time, "your worship does
not agree with the proverb that says, 'Let Martha die, but let her die
with a full belly.' I, at any rate, have no mind to kill myself; so far
from that, I mean to do as the cobbler does, who stretches the leather
with his teeth until he makes it reach as far as he wants. I'll stretch
out my life by eating until it reaches the end heaven has fixed for it;
and let me tell you, senor, there's no greater folly than to think of
dying of despair as your worship does; take my advice, and after eating
lie down and sleep a bit on this green grass-mattress, and you will see
that when you awake you'll feel something better."

Don Quixote did as he recommended, for it struck him that Sancho's
reasoning was more like a philosopher's than a blockhead's, and said he,
"Sancho, if thou wilt do for me what I am going to tell thee my ease of
mind would be more assured and my heaviness of heart not so great; and it
is this; to go aside a little while I am sleeping in accordance with thy
advice, and, making bare thy carcase to the air, to give thyself three or
four hundred lashes with Rocinante's reins, on account of the three
thousand and odd thou art to give thyself for the disenchantment of
Dulcinea; for it is a great pity that the poor lady should be left
enchanted through thy carelessness and negligence."

"There is a good deal to be said on that point," said Sancho; "let us
both go to sleep now, and after that, God has decreed what will happen.
Let me tell your worship that for a man to whip himself in cold blood is
a hard thing, especially if the stripes fall upon an ill-nourished and
worse-fed body. Let my lady Dulcinea have patience, and when she is least
expecting it, she will see me made a riddle of with whipping, and 'until
death it's all life;' I mean that I have still life in me, and the desire
to make good what I have promised."

Don Quixote thanked him, and ate a little, and Sancho a good deal, and
then they both lay down to sleep, leaving those two inseparable friends
and comrades, Rocinante and Dapple, to their own devices and to feed
unrestrained upon the abundant grass with which the meadow was furnished.
They woke up rather late, mounted once more and resumed their journey,
pushing on to reach an inn which was in sight, apparently a league off. I
say an inn, because Don Quixote called it so, contrary to his usual
practice of calling all inns castles. They reached it, and asked the
landlord if they could put up there. He said yes, with as much comfort
and as good fare as they could find in Saragossa. They dismounted, and
Sancho stowed away his larder in a room of which the landlord gave him
the key. He took the beasts to the stable, fed them, and came back to see
what orders Don Quixote, who was seated on a bench at the door, had for
him, giving special thanks to heaven that this inn had not been taken for
a castle by his master. Supper-time came, and they repaired to their
room, and Sancho asked the landlord what he had to give them for supper.
To this the landlord replied that his mouth should be the measure; he had
only to ask what he would; for that inn was provided with the birds of
the air and the fowls of the earth and the fish of the sea.

"There's no need of all that," said Sancho; "if they'll roast us a couple
of chickens we'll be satisfied, for my master is delicate and eats
little, and I'm not over and above gluttonous."

The landlord replied he had no chickens, for the kites had stolen them.

"Well then," said Sancho, "let senor landlord tell them to roast a
pullet, so that it is a tender one."

"Pullet! My father!" said the landlord; "indeed and in truth it's only
yesterday I sent over fifty to the city to sell; but saving pullets ask
what you will."

"In that case," said Sancho, "you will not be without veal or kid."

"Just now," said the landlord, "there's none in the house, for it's all
finished; but next week there will be enough and to spare."

"Much good that does us," said Sancho; "I'll lay a bet that all these
short-comings are going to wind up in plenty of bacon and eggs."

"By God," said the landlord, "my guest's wits must be precious dull; I
tell him I have neither pullets nor hens, and he wants me to have eggs!
Talk of other dainties, if you please, and don't ask for hens again."

"Body o' me!" said Sancho, "let's settle the matter; say at once what you
have got, and let us have no more words about it."

"In truth and earnest, senor guest," said the landlord, "all I have is a
couple of cow-heels like calves' feet, or a couple of calves' feet like
cowheels; they are boiled with chick-peas, onions, and bacon, and at this
moment they are crying 'Come eat me, come eat me."

"I mark them for mine on the spot," said Sancho; "let nobody touch them;
I'll pay better for them than anyone else, for I could not wish for
anything more to my taste; and I don't care a pin whether they are feet
or heels."

"Nobody shall touch them," said the landlord; "for the other guests I
have, being persons of high quality, bring their own cook and caterer and
larder with them."

"If you come to people of quality," said Sancho, "there's nobody more so
than my master; but the calling he follows does not allow of larders or
store-rooms; we lay ourselves down in the middle of a meadow, and fill
ourselves with acorns or medlars."

Here ended Sancho's conversation with the landlord, Sancho not caring to
carry it any farther by answering him; for he had already asked him what
calling or what profession it was his master was of.

Supper-time having come, then, Don Quixote betook himself to his room,
the landlord brought in the stew-pan just as it was, and he sat himself
down to sup very resolutely. It seems that in another room, which was
next to Don Quixote's, with nothing but a thin partition to separate it,
he overheard these words, "As you live, Senor Don Jeronimo, while they
are bringing supper, let us read another chapter of the Second Part of
'Don Quixote of La Mancha.'"

The instant Don Quixote heard his own name, he started to his feet and
listened with open ears to catch what they said about him, and heard the
Don Jeronimo who had been addressed say in reply, "Why would you have us
read that absurd stuff, Don Juan, when it is impossible for anyone who
has read the First Part of the history of 'Don Quixote of La Mancha' to
take any pleasure in reading this Second Part?"

"For all that," said he who was addressed as Don Juan, "we shall do well
to read it, for there is no book so bad but it has something good in it.
What displeases me most in it is that it represents Don Quixote as now
cured of his love for Dulcinea del Toboso."

On hearing this Don Quixote, full of wrath and indignation, lifted up his
voice and said, "Whoever he may be who says that Don Quixote of La Mancha
has forgotten or can forget Dulcinea del Toboso, I will teach him with
equal arms that what he says is very far from the truth; for neither can
the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso be forgotten, nor can forgetfulness have
a place in Don Quixote; his motto is constancy, and his profession to
maintain the same with his life and never wrong it."

"Who is this that answers us?" said they in the next room.

"Who should it be," said Sancho, "but Don Quixote of La Mancha himself,
who will make good all he has said and all he will say; for pledges don't
trouble a good payer."

Sancho had hardly uttered these words when two gentlemen, for such they
seemed to be, entered the room, and one of them, throwing his arms round
Don Quixote's neck, said to him, "Your appearance cannot leave any
question as to your name, nor can your name fail to identify your
appearance; unquestionably, senor, you are the real Don Quixote of La
Mancha, cynosure and morning star of knight-errantry, despite and in
defiance of him who has sought to usurp your name and bring to naught
your achievements, as the author of this book which I here present to you
has done;" and with this he put a book which his companion carried into
the hands of Don Quixote, who took it, and without replying began to run
his eye over it; but he presently returned it saying, "In the little I
have seen I have discovered three things in this author that deserve to
be censured. The first is some words that I have read in the preface; the
next that the language is Aragonese, for sometimes he writes without
articles; and the third, which above all stamps him as ignorant, is that
he goes wrong and departs from the truth in the most important part of
the history, for here he says that my squire Sancho Panza's wife is
called Mari Gutierrez, when she is called nothing of the sort, but Teresa
Panza; and when a man errs on such an important point as this there is
good reason to fear that he is in error on every other point in the
history."

"A nice sort of historian, indeed!" exclaimed Sancho at this; "he must
know a deal about our affairs when he calls my wife Teresa Panza, Mari
Gutierrez; take the book again, senor, and see if I am in it and if he
has changed my name."

"From your talk, friend," said Don Jeronimo, "no doubt you are Sancho
Panza, Senor Don Quixote's squire."

"Yes, I am," said Sancho; "and I'm proud of it."

"Faith, then," said the gentleman, "this new author does not handle you
with the decency that displays itself in your person; he makes you out a
heavy feeder and a fool, and not in the least droll, and a very different
being from the Sancho described in the First Part of your master's
history."

"God forgive him," said Sancho; "he might have left me in my corner
without troubling his head about me; 'let him who knows how ring the
bells; 'Saint Peter is very well in Rome.'"

The two gentlemen pressed Don Quixote to come into their room and have
supper with them, as they knew very well there was nothing in that inn
fit for one of his sort. Don Quixote, who was always polite, yielded to
their request and supped with them. Sancho stayed behind with the stew.
and invested with plenary delegated authority seated himself at the head
of the table, and the landlord sat down with him, for he was no less fond
of cow-heel and calves' feet than Sancho was.

While at supper Don Juan asked Don Quixote what news he had of the lady
Dulcinea del Toboso, was she married, had she been brought to bed, or was
she with child, or did she in maidenhood, still preserving her modesty
and delicacy, cherish the remembrance of the tender passion of Senor Don
Quixote?

To this he replied, "Dulcinea is a maiden still, and my passion more
firmly rooted than ever, our intercourse unsatisfactory as before, and
her beauty transformed into that of a foul country wench;" and then he
proceeded to give them a full and particular account of the enchantment
of Dulcinea, and of what had happened him in the cave of Montesinos,
together with what the sage Merlin had prescribed for her disenchantment,
namely the scourging of Sancho.

Exceedingly great was the amusement the two gentlemen derived from
hearing Don Quixote recount the strange incidents of his history; and if
they were amazed by his absurdities they were equally amazed by the
elegant style in which he delivered them. On the one hand they regarded
him as a man of wit and sense, and on the other he seemed to them a
maundering blockhead, and they could not make up their minds whereabouts
between wisdom and folly they ought to place him.

Sancho having finished his supper, and left the landlord in the X
condition, repaired to the room where his master was, and as he came in
said, "May I die, sirs, if the author of this book your worships have got
has any mind that we should agree; as he calls me glutton (according to
what your worships say) I wish he may not call me drunkard too."

"But he does," said Don Jeronimo; "I cannot remember, however, in what
way, though I know his words are offensive, and what is more, lying, as I
can see plainly by the physiognomy of the worthy Sancho before me."

"Believe me," said Sancho, "the Sancho and the Don Quixote of this
history must be different persons from those that appear in the one Cide
Hamete Benengeli wrote, who are ourselves; my master valiant, wise, and
true in love, and I simple, droll, and neither glutton nor drunkard."

"I believe it," said Don Juan; "and were it possible, an order should be
issued that no one should have the presumption to deal with anything
relating to Don Quixote, save his original author Cide Hamete; just as
Alexander commanded that no one should presume to paint his portrait save
Apelles."

"Let him who will paint me," said Don Quixote; "but let him not abuse me;
for patience will often break down when they heap insults upon it."

"None can be offered to Senor Don Quixote," said Don Juan, "that he
himself will not be able to avenge, if he does not ward it off with the
shield of his patience, which, I take it, is great and strong."

A considerable portion of the night passed in conversation of this sort,
and though Don Juan wished Don Quixote to read more of the book to see
what it was all about, he was not to be prevailed upon, saying that he
treated it as read and pronounced it utterly silly; and, if by any chance
it should come to its author's ears that he had it in his hand, he did
not want him to flatter himself with the idea that he had read it; for
our thoughts, and still more our eyes, should keep themselves aloof from
what is obscene and filthy.

They asked him whither he meant to direct his steps. He replied, to
Saragossa, to take part in the harness jousts which were held in that
city every year. Don Juan told him that the new history described how Don
Quixote, let him be who he might, took part there in a tilting at the
ring, utterly devoid of invention, poor in mottoes, very poor in costume,
though rich in sillinesses.

"For that very reason," said Don Quixote, "I will not set foot in
Saragossa; and by that means I shall expose to the world the lie of this
new history writer, and people will see that I am not the Don Quixote he
speaks of."

"You will do quite right," said Don Jeronimo; "and there are other jousts
at Barcelona in which Senor Don Quixote may display his prowess."

"That is what I mean to do," said Don Quixote; "and as it is now time, I
pray your worships to give me leave to retire to bed, and to place and
retain me among the number of your greatest friends and servants."

"And me too," said Sancho; "maybe I'll be good for something."

With this they exchanged farewells, and Don Quixote and Sancho retired to
their room, leaving Don Juan and Don Jeronimo amazed to see the medley he
made of his good sense and his craziness; and they felt thoroughly
convinced that these, and not those their Aragonese author described,
were the genuine Don Quixote and Sancho. Don Quixote rose betimes, and
bade adieu to his hosts by knocking at the partition of the other room.
Sancho paid the landlord magnificently, and recommended him either to say
less about the providing of his inn or to keep it better provided.




CHAPTER LX.

OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON HIS WAY TO BARCELONA


It was a fresh morning giving promise of a cool day as Don Quixote
quitted the inn, first of all taking care to ascertain the most direct
road to Barcelona without touching upon Saragossa; so anxious was he to
make out this new historian, who they said abused him so, to be a liar.
Well, as it fell out, nothing worthy of being recorded happened him for
six days, at the end of which, having turned aside out of the road, he
was overtaken by night in a thicket of oak or cork trees; for on this
point Cide Hamete is not as precise as he usually is on other matters.

Master and man dismounted from their beasts, and as soon as they had
settled themselves at the foot of the trees, Sancho, who had had a good
noontide meal that day, let himself, without more ado, pass the gates of
sleep. But Don Quixote, whom his thoughts, far more than hunger, kept
awake, could not close an eye, and roamed in fancy to and fro through all
sorts of places. At one moment it seemed to him that he was in the cave
of Montesinos and saw Dulcinea, transformed into a country wench,
skipping and mounting upon her she-ass; again that the words of the sage
Merlin were sounding in his ears, setting forth the conditions to be
observed and the exertions to be made for the disenchantment of Dulcinea.
He lost all patience when he considered the laziness and want of charity
of his squire Sancho; for to the best of his belief he had only given
himself five lashes, a number paltry and disproportioned to the vast
number required. At this thought he felt such vexation and anger that he
reasoned the matter thus: "If Alexander the Great cut the Gordian knot,
saying, 'To cut comes to the same thing as to untie,' and yet did not
fail to become lord paramount of all Asia, neither more nor less could
happen now in Dulcinea's disenchantment if I scourge Sancho against his
will; for, if it is the condition of the remedy that Sancho shall receive
three thousand and odd lashes, what does it matter to me whether he
inflicts them himself, or some one else inflicts them, when the essential
point is that he receives them, let them come from whatever quarter they
may?"

With this idea he went over to Sancho, having first taken Rocinante's
reins and arranged them so as to be able to flog him with them, and began
to untie the points (the common belief is he had but one in front) by
which his breeches were held up; but the instant he approached him Sancho
woke up in his full senses and cried out, "What is this? Who is touching
me and untrussing me?"

"It is I," said Don Quixote, "and I come to make good thy shortcomings
and relieve my own distresses; I come to whip thee, Sancho, and wipe off
some portion of the debt thou hast undertaken. Dulcinea is perishing,
thou art living on regardless, I am dying of hope deferred; therefore
untruss thyself with a good will, for mine it is, here, in this retired
spot, to give thee at least two thousand lashes."

"Not a bit of it," said Sancho; "let your worship keep quiet, or else by
the living God the deaf shall hear us; the lashes I pledged myself to
must be voluntary and not forced upon me, and just now I have no fancy to
whip myself; it is enough if I give you my word to flog and flap myself
when I have a mind."

"It will not do to leave it to thy courtesy, Sancho," said Don Quixote,
"for thou art hard of heart and, though a clown, tender of flesh;" and at
the same time he strove and struggled to untie him.

Seeing this Sancho got up, and grappling with his master he gripped him
with all his might in his arms, giving him a trip with the heel stretched
him on the ground on his back, and pressing his right knee on his chest
held his hands in his own so that he could neither move nor breathe.

"How now, traitor!" exclaimed Don Quixote. "Dost thou revolt against thy
master and natural lord? Dost thou rise against him who gives thee his
bread?"

"I neither put down king, nor set up king," said Sancho; "I only stand up
for myself who am my own lord; if your worship promises me to be quiet,
and not to offer to whip me now, I'll let you go free and unhindered; if
not--

Traitor and Dona Sancha's foe,
Thou diest on the spot."
Don Quixote gave his promise, and swore by the life of his thoughts not
to touch so much as a hair of his garments, and to leave him entirely
free and to his own discretion to whip himself whenever he pleased.

Sancho rose and removed some distance from the spot, but as he was about
to place himself leaning against another tree he felt something touch his
head, and putting up his hands encountered somebody's two feet with shoes
and stockings on them. He trembled with fear and made for another tree,
where the very same thing happened to him, and he fell a-shouting,
calling upon Don Quixote to come and protect him. Don Quixote did so, and
asked him what had happened to him, and what he was afraid of. Sancho
replied that all the trees were full of men's feet and legs. Don Quixote
felt them, and guessed at once what it was, and said to Sancho, "Thou
hast nothing to be afraid of, for these feet and legs that thou feelest
but canst not see belong no doubt to some outlaws and freebooters that
have been hanged on these trees; for the authorities in these parts are
wont to hang them up by twenties and thirties when they catch them;
whereby I conjecture that I must be near Barcelona;" and it was, in fact,
as he supposed; with the first light they looked up and saw that the
fruit hanging on those trees were freebooters' bodies.

And now day dawned; and if the dead freebooters had scared them, their
hearts were no less troubled by upwards of forty living ones, who all of
a sudden surrounded them, and in the Catalan tongue bade them stand and
wait until their captain came up. Don Quixote was on foot with his horse
unbridled and his lance leaning against a tree, and in short completely
defenceless; he thought it best therefore to fold his arms and bow his
head and reserve himself for a more favourable occasion and opportunity.
The robbers made haste to search Dapple, and did not leave him a single
thing of all he carried in the alforjas and in the valise; and lucky it
was for Sancho that the duke's crowns and those he brought from home were
in a girdle that he wore round him; but for all that these good folk
would have stripped him, and even looked to see what he had hidden
between the skin and flesh, but for the arrival at that moment of their
captain, who was about thirty-four years of age apparently, strongly
built, above the middle height, of stern aspect and swarthy complexion.
He was mounted upon a powerful horse, and had on a coat of mail, with
four of the pistols they call petronels in that country at his waist. He
saw that his squires (for so they call those who follow that trade) were
about to rifle Sancho Panza, but he ordered them to desist and was at
once obeyed, so the girdle escaped. He wondered to see the lance leaning
against the tree, the shield on the ground, and Don Quixote in armour and
dejected, with the saddest and most melancholy face that sadness itself
could produce; and going up to him he said, "Be not so cast down, good
man, for you have not fallen into the hands of any inhuman Busiris, but
into Roque Guinart's, which are more merciful than cruel."

"The cause of my dejection," returned Don Quixote, "is not that I have
fallen into thy hands, O valiant Roque, whose fame is bounded by no
limits on earth, but that my carelessness should have been so great that
thy soldiers should have caught me unbridled, when it is my duty,
according to the rule of knight-errantry which I profess, to be always on
the alert and at all times my own sentinel; for let me tell thee, great
Roque, had they found me on my horse, with my lance and shield, it would
not have been very easy for them to reduce me to submission, for I am Don
Quixote of La Mancha, he who hath filled the whole world with his
achievements."

Roque Guinart at once perceived that Don Quixote's weakness was more akin
to madness than to swagger; and though he had sometimes heard him spoken
of, he never regarded the things attributed to him as true, nor could he
persuade himself that such a humour could become dominant in the heart of
man; he was extremely glad, therefore, to meet him and test at close
quarters what he had heard of him at a distance; so he said to him,
"Despair not, valiant knight, nor regard as an untoward fate the position
in which thou findest thyself; it may be that by these slips thy crooked
fortune will make itself straight; for heaven by strange circuitous ways,
mysterious and incomprehensible to man, raises up the fallen and makes
rich the poor."

Don Quixote was about to thank him, when they heard behind them a noise
as of a troop of horses; there was, however, but one, riding on which at
a furious pace came a youth, apparently about twenty years of age, clad
in green damask edged with gold and breeches and a loose frock, with a
hat looped up in the Walloon fashion, tight-fitting polished boots, gilt
spurs, dagger and sword, and in his hand a musketoon, and a pair of
pistols at his waist.

Roque turned round at the noise and perceived this comely figure, which
drawing near thus addressed him, "I came in quest of thee, valiant Roque,
to find in thee if not a remedy at least relief in my misfortune; and not
to keep thee in suspense, for I see thou dost not recognise me, I will
tell thee who I am; I am Claudia Jeronima, the daughter of Simon Forte,
thy good friend, and special enemy of Clauquel Torrellas, who is thine
also as being of the faction opposed to thee. Thou knowest that this
Torrellas has a son who is called, or at least was not two hours since,
Don Vicente Torrellas. Well, to cut short the tale of my misfortune, I
will tell thee in a few words what this youth has brought upon me. He saw
me, he paid court to me, I listened to him, and, unknown to my father, I
loved him; for there is no woman, however secluded she may live or close
she may be kept, who will not have opportunities and to spare for
following her headlong impulses. In a word, he pledged himself to be
mine, and I promised to be his, without carrying matters any further.
Yesterday I learned that, forgetful of his pledge to me, he was about to
marry another, and that he was to go this morning to plight his troth,
intelligence which overwhelmed and exasperated me; my father not being at
home I was able to adopt this costume you see, and urging my horse to
speed I overtook Don Vicente about a league from this, and without
waiting to utter reproaches or hear excuses I fired this musket at him,
and these two pistols besides, and to the best of my belief I must have
lodged more than two bullets in his body, opening doors to let my honour
go free, enveloped in his blood. I left him there in the hands of his
servants, who did not dare and were not able to interfere in his defence,
and I come to seek from thee a safe-conduct into France, where I have
relatives with whom I can live; and also to implore thee to protect my
father, so that Don Vicente's numerous kinsmen may not venture to wreak
their lawless vengeance upon him."

Roque, filled with admiration at the gallant bearing, high spirit, comely
figure, and adventure of the fair Claudia, said to her, "Come, senora,
let us go and see if thy enemy is dead; and then we will consider what
will be best for thee." Don Quixote, who had been listening to what
Claudia said and Roque Guinart said in reply to her, exclaimed, "Nobody
need trouble himself with the defence of this lady, for I take it upon
myself. Give me my horse and arms, and wait for me here; I will go in
quest of this knight, and dead or alive I will make him keep his word
plighted to so great beauty."

"Nobody need have any doubt about that," said Sancho, "for my master has
a very happy knack of matchmaking; it's not many days since he forced
another man to marry, who in the same way backed out of his promise to
another maiden; and if it had not been for his persecutors the enchanters
changing the man's proper shape into a lacquey's the said maiden would
not be one this minute."

Roque, who was paying more attention to the fair Claudia's adventure than
to the words of master or man, did not hear them; and ordering his
squires to restore to Sancho everything they had stripped Dapple of, he
directed them to return to the place where they had been quartered during
the night, and then set off with Claudia at full speed in search of the
wounded or slain Don Vicente. They reached the spot where Claudia met
him, but found nothing there save freshly spilt blood; looking all round,
however, they descried some people on the slope of a hill above them, and
concluded, as indeed it proved to be, that it was Don Vicente, whom
either dead or alive his servants were removing to attend to his wounds
or to bury him. They made haste to overtake them, which, as the party
moved slowly, they were able to do with ease. They found Don Vicente in
the arms of his servants, whom he was entreating in a broken feeble voice
to leave him there to die, as the pain of his wounds would not suffer him
to go any farther. Claudia and Roque threw themselves off their horses
and advanced towards him; the servants were overawed by the appearance of
Roque, and Claudia was moved by the sight of Don Vicente, and going up to
him half tenderly half sternly, she seized his hand and said to him,
"Hadst thou given me this according to our compact thou hadst never come
to this pass."

The wounded gentleman opened his all but closed eyes, and recognising
Claudia said, "I see clearly, fair and mistaken lady, that it is thou
that hast slain me, a punishment not merited or deserved by my feelings
towards thee, for never did I mean to, nor could I, wrong thee in thought
or deed."

"It is not true, then," said Claudia, "that thou wert going this morning
to marry Leonora the daughter of the rich Balvastro?"

"Assuredly not," replied Don Vicente; "my cruel fortune must have carried
those tidings to thee to drive thee in thy jealousy to take my life; and
to assure thyself of this, press my hands and take me for thy husband if
thou wilt; I have no better satisfaction to offer thee for the wrong thou
fanciest thou hast received from me."

Claudia wrung his hands, and her own heart was so wrung that she lay
fainting on the bleeding breast of Don Vicente, whom a death spasm seized
the same instant. Roque was in perplexity and knew not what to do; the
servants ran to fetch water to sprinkle their faces, and brought some and
bathed them with it. Claudia recovered from her fainting fit, but not so
Don Vicente from the paroxysm that had overtaken him, for his life had
come to an end. On perceiving this, Claudia, when she had convinced
herself that her beloved husband was no more, rent the air with her sighs
and made the heavens ring with her lamentations; she tore her hair and
scattered it to the winds, she beat her face with her hands and showed
all the signs of grief and sorrow that could be conceived to come from an
afflicted heart. "Cruel, reckless woman!" she cried, "how easily wert
thou moved to carry out a thought so wicked! O furious force of jealousy,
to what desperate lengths dost thou lead those that give thee lodging in
their bosoms! O husband, whose unhappy fate in being mine hath borne thee
from the marriage bed to the grave!"

So vehement and so piteous were the lamentations of Claudia that they
drew tears from Roque's eyes, unused as they were to shed them on any
occasion. The servants wept, Claudia swooned away again and again, and
the whole place seemed a field of sorrow and an abode of misfortune. In
the end Roque Guinart directed Don Vicente's servants to carry his body
to his father's village, which was close by, for burial. Claudia told him
she meant to go to a monastery of which an aunt of hers was abbess, where
she intended to pass her life with a better and everlasting spouse. He
applauded her pious resolution, and offered to accompany her
whithersoever she wished, and to protect her father against the kinsmen
of Don Vicente and all the world, should they seek to injure him. Claudia
would not on any account allow him to accompany her; and thanking him for
his offers as well as she could, took leave of him in tears. The servants
of Don Vicente carried away his body, and Roque returned to his comrades,
and so ended the love of Claudia Jeronima; but what wonder, when it was
the insuperable and cruel might of jealousy that wove the web of her sad
story?

Roque Guinart found his squires at the place to which he had ordered
them, and Don Quixote on Rocinante in the midst of them delivering a
harangue to them in which he urged them to give up a mode of life so full
of peril, as well to the soul as to the body; but as most of them were
Gascons, rough lawless fellows, his speech did not make much impression
on them. Roque on coming up asked Sancho if his men had returned and
restored to him the treasures and jewels they had stripped off Dapple.
Sancho said they had, but that three kerchiefs that were worth three
cities were missing.

"What are you talking about, man?" said one of the bystanders; "I have
got them, and they are not worth three reals."

"That is true," said Don Quixote; "but my squire values them at the rate
he says, as having been given me by the person who gave them."

Roque Guinart ordered them to be restored at once; and making his men
fall in in line he directed all the clothing, jewellery, and money that
they had taken since the last distribution to be produced; and making a
hasty valuation, and reducing what could not be divided into money, he
made shares for the whole band so equitably and carefully, that in no
case did he exceed or fall short of strict distributive justice.

When this had been done, and all left satisfied, Roque observed to Don
Quixote, "If this scrupulous exactness were not observed with these
fellows there would be no living with them."

Upon this Sancho remarked, "From what I have seen here, justice is such a
good thing that there is no doing without it, even among the thieves
themselves."

One of the squires heard this, and raising the butt-end of his harquebuss
would no doubt have broken Sancho's head with it had not Roque Guinart
called out to him to hold his hand. Sancho was frightened out of his
wits, and vowed not to open his lips so long as he was in the company of
these people.

At this instant one or two of those squires who were posted as sentinels
on the roads, to watch who came along them and report what passed to
their chief, came up and said, "Senor, there is a great troop of people
not far off coming along the road to Barcelona."

To which Roque replied, "Hast thou made out whether they are of the sort
that are after us, or of the sort we are after?"

"The sort we are after," said the squire.

"Well then, away with you all," said Roque, "and bring them here to me at
once without letting one of them escape."

They obeyed, and Don Quixote, Sancho, and Roque, left by themselves,
waited to see what the squires brought, and while they were waiting Roque
said to Don Quixote, "It must seem a strange sort of life to Senor Don
Quixote, this of ours, strange adventures, strange incidents, and all
full of danger; and I do not wonder that it should seem so, for in truth
I must own there is no mode of life more restless or anxious than ours.
What led me into it was a certain thirst for vengeance, which is strong
enough to disturb the quietest hearts. I am by nature tender-hearted and
kindly, but, as I said, the desire to revenge myself for a wrong that was
done me so overturns all my better impulses that I keep on in this way of
life in spite of what conscience tells me; and as one depth calls to
another, and one sin to another sin, revenges have linked themselves
together, and I have taken upon myself not only my own but those of
others: it pleases God, however, that, though I see myself in this maze
of entanglements, I do not lose all hope of escaping from it and reaching
a safe port."

Don Quixote was amazed to hear Roque utter such excellent and just
sentiments, for he did not think that among those who followed such
trades as robbing, murdering, and waylaying, there could be anyone
capable of a virtuous thought, and he said in reply, "Senor Roque, the
beginning of health lies in knowing the disease and in the sick man's
willingness to take the medicines which the physician prescribes; you are
sick, you know what ails you, and heaven, or more properly speaking God,
who is our physician, will administer medicines that will cure you, and
cure gradually, and not of a sudden or by a miracle; besides, sinners of
discernment are nearer amendment than those who are fools; and as your
worship has shown good sense in your remarks, all you have to do is to
keep up a good heart and trust that the weakness of your conscience will
be strengthened. And if you have any desire to shorten the journey and
put yourself easily in the way of salvation, come with me, and I will
show you how to become a knight-errant, a calling wherein so many
hardships and mishaps are encountered that if they be taken as penances
they will lodge you in heaven in a trice."

Roque laughed at Don Quixote's exhortation, and changing the conversation
he related the tragic affair of Claudia Jeronima, at which Sancho was
extremely grieved; for he had not found the young woman's beauty,
boldness, and spirit at all amiss.

And now the squires despatched to make the prize came up, bringing with
them two gentlemen on horseback, two pilgrims on foot, and a coach full
of women with some six servants on foot and on horseback in attendance on
them, and a couple of muleteers whom the gentlemen had with them. The
squires made a ring round them, both victors and vanquished maintaining
profound silence, waiting for the great Roque Guinart to speak. He asked
the gentlemen who they were, whither they were going, and what money they
carried with them; "Senor," replied one of them, "we are two captains of
Spanish infantry; our companies are at Naples, and we are on our way to
embark in four galleys which they say are at Barcelona under orders for
Sicily; and we have about two or three hundred crowns, with which we are,
according to our notions, rich and contented, for a soldier's poverty
does not allow a more extensive hoard."

Roque asked the pilgrims the same questions he had put to the captains,
and was answered that they were going to take ship for Rome, and that
between them they might have about sixty reals. He asked also who was in
the coach, whither they were bound and what money they had, and one of
the men on horseback replied, "The persons in the coach are my lady Dona
Guiomar de Quinones, wife of the regent of the Vicaria at Naples, her
little daughter, a handmaid and a duenna; we six servants are in
attendance upon her, and the money amounts to six hundred crowns."

"So then," said Roque Guinart, "we have got here nine hundred crowns and
sixty reals; my soldiers must number some sixty; see how much there falls
to each, for I am a bad arithmetician." As soon as the robbers heard this
they raised a shout of "Long life to Roque Guinart, in spite of the
lladres that seek his ruin!"

The captains showed plainly the concern they felt, the regent's lady was
downcast, and the pilgrims did not at all enjoy seeing their property
confiscated. Roque kept them in suspense in this way for a while; but he
had no desire to prolong their distress, which might be seen a bowshot
off, and turning to the captains he said, "Sirs, will your worships be
pleased of your courtesy to lend me sixty crowns, and her ladyship the
regent's wife eighty, to satisfy this band that follows me, for 'it is by
his singing the abbot gets his dinner;' and then you may at once proceed
on your journey, free and unhindered, with a safe-conduct which I shall
give you, so that if you come across any other bands of mine that I have
scattered in these parts, they may do you no harm; for I have no
intention of doing injury to soldiers, or to any woman, especially one of
quality."

Profuse and hearty were the expressions of gratitude with which the
captains thanked Roque for his courtesy and generosity; for such they
regarded his leaving them their own money. Senora Dona Guiomar de
Quinones wanted to throw herself out of the coach to kiss the feet and
hands of the great Roque, but he would not suffer it on any account; so
far from that, he begged her pardon for the wrong he had done her under
pressure of the inexorable necessities of his unfortunate calling. The
regent's lady ordered one of her servants to give the eighty crowns that
had been assessed as her share at once, for the captains had already paid
down their sixty. The pilgrims were about to give up the whole of their
little hoard, but Roque bade them keep quiet, and turning to his men he
said, "Of these crowns two fall to each man and twenty remain over; let
ten be given to these pilgrims, and the other ten to this worthy squire
that he may be able to speak favourably of this adventure;" and then
having writing materials, with which he always went provided, brought to
him, he gave them in writing a safe-conduct to the leaders of his bands;
and bidding them farewell let them go free and filled with admiration at
his magnanimity, his generous disposition, and his unusual conduct, and
inclined to regard him as an Alexander the Great rather than a notorious
robber.

One of the squires observed in his mixture of Gascon and Catalan, "This
captain of ours would make a better friar than highwayman; if he wants to
be so generous another time, let it be with his own property and not
ours."

The unlucky wight did not speak so low but that Roque overheard him, and
drawing his sword almost split his head in two, saying, "That is the way
I punish impudent saucy fellows." They were all taken aback, and not one
of them dared to utter a word, such deference did they pay him. Roque
then withdrew to one side and wrote a letter to a friend of his at
Barcelona, telling him that the famous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the
knight-errant of whom there was so much talk, was with him, and was, he
assured him, the drollest and wisest man in the world; and that in four
days from that date, that is to say, on Saint John the Baptist's Day, he
was going to deposit him in full armour mounted on his horse Rocinante,
together with his squire Sancho on an ass, in the middle of the strand of
the city; and bidding him give notice of this to his friends the Niarros,
that they might divert themselves with him. He wished, he said, his
enemies the Cadells could be deprived of this pleasure; but that was
impossible, because the crazes and shrewd sayings of Don Quixote and the
humours of his squire Sancho Panza could not help giving general pleasure
to all the world. He despatched the letter by one of his squires, who,
exchanging the costume of a highwayman for that of a peasant, made his
way into Barcelona and gave it to the person to whom it was directed.




CHAPTER LXI.

OF WHAT HAPPENED DON QUIXOTE ON ENTERING BARCELONA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
MATTERS THAT PARTAKE OF THE TRUE RATHER THAN OF THE INGENIOUS


Don Quixote passed three days and three nights with Roque, and had he
passed three hundred years he would have found enough to observe and
wonder at in his mode of life. At daybreak they were in one spot, at
dinner-time in another; sometimes they fled without knowing from whom, at
other times they lay in wait, not knowing for what. They slept standing,
breaking their slumbers to shift from place to place. There was nothing
but sending out spies and scouts, posting sentinels and blowing the
matches of harquebusses, though they carried but few, for almost all used
flintlocks. Roque passed his nights in some place or other apart from his
men, that they might not know where he was, for the many proclamations
the viceroy of Barcelona had issued against his life kept him in fear and
uneasiness, and he did not venture to trust anyone, afraid that even his
own men would kill him or deliver him up to the authorities; of a truth,
a weary miserable life! At length, by unfrequented roads, short cuts, and
secret paths, Roque, Don Quixote, and Sancho, together with six squires,
set out for Barcelona. They reached the strand on Saint John's Eve during
the night; and Roque, after embracing Don Quixote and Sancho (to whom he
presented the ten crowns he had promised but had not until then given),
left them with many expressions of good-will on both sides.

Roque went back, while Don Quixote remained on horseback, just as he was,
waiting for day, and it was not long before the countenance of the fair
Aurora began to show itself at the balconies of the east, gladdening the
grass and flowers, if not the ear, though to gladden that too there came
at the same moment a sound of clarions and drums, and a din of bells, and
a tramp, tramp, and cries of "Clear the way there!" of some runners, that
seemed to issue from the city.

The dawn made way for the sun that with a face broader than a buckler
began to rise slowly above the low line of the horizon; Don Quixote and
Sancho gazed all round them; they beheld the sea, a sight until then
unseen by them; it struck them as exceedingly spacious and broad, much
more so than the lakes of Ruidera which they had seen in La Mancha. They
saw the galleys along the beach, which, lowering their awnings, displayed
themselves decked with streamers and pennons that trembled in the breeze
and kissed and swept the water, while on board the bugles, trumpets, and
clarions were sounding and filling the air far and near with melodious
warlike notes. Then they began to move and execute a kind of skirmish
upon the calm water, while a vast number of horsemen on fine horses and
in showy liveries, issuing from the city, engaged on their side in a
somewhat similar movement. The soldiers on board the galleys kept up a
ceaseless fire, which they on the walls and forts of the city returned,
and the heavy cannon rent the air with the tremendous noise they made, to
which the gangway guns of the galleys replied. The bright sea, the
smiling earth, the clear air--though at times darkened by the smoke of
the guns--all seemed to fill the whole multitude with unexpected delight.
Sancho could not make out how it was that those great masses that moved
over the sea had so many feet.

And now the horsemen in livery came galloping up with shouts and
outlandish cries and cheers to where Don Quixote stood amazed and
wondering; and one of them, he to whom Roque had sent word, addressing
him exclaimed, "Welcome to our city, mirror, beacon, star and cynosure of
all knight-errantry in its widest extent! Welcome, I say, valiant Don
Quixote of La Mancha; not the false, the fictitious, the apocryphal, that
these latter days have offered us in lying histories, but the true, the
legitimate, the real one that Cide Hamete Benengeli, flower of
historians, has described to us!"

Don Quixote made no answer, nor did the horsemen wait for one, but
wheeling again with all their followers, they began curvetting round Don
Quixote, who, turning to Sancho, said, "These gentlemen have plainly
recognised us; I will wager they have read our history, and even that
newly printed one by the Aragonese."

The cavalier who had addressed Don Quixote again approached him and said,
"Come with us, Senor Don Quixote, for we are all of us your servants and
great friends of Roque Guinart's;" to which Don Quixote returned, "If
courtesy breeds courtesy, yours, sir knight, is daughter or very nearly
akin to the great Roque's; carry me where you please; I will have no will
but yours, especially if you deign to employ it in your service."

The cavalier replied with words no less polite, and then, all closing in
around him, they set out with him for the city, to the music of the
clarions and the drums. As they were entering it, the wicked one, who is
the author of all mischief, and the boys who are wickeder than the wicked
one, contrived that a couple of these audacious irrepressible urchins
should force their way through the crowd, and lifting up, one of them
Dapple's tail and the other Rocinante's, insert a bunch of furze under
each. The poor beasts felt the strange spurs and added to their anguish
by pressing their tails tight, so much so that, cutting a multitude of
capers, they flung their masters to the ground. Don Quixote, covered with
shame and out of countenance, ran to pluck the plume from his poor jade's
tail, while Sancho did the same for Dapple. His conductors tried to
punish the audacity of the boys, but there was no possibility of doing
so, for they hid themselves among the hundreds of others that were
following them. Don Quixote and Sancho mounted once more, and with the
same music and acclamations reached their conductor's house, which was
large and stately, that of a rich gentleman, in short; and there for the
present we will leave them, for such is Cide Hamete's pleasure.




CHAPTER LXII.

WHICH DEALS WITH THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENCHANTED HEAD, TOGETHER WITH OTHER
TRIVIAL MATTERS WHICH CANNOT BE LEFT UNTOLD


Don Quixote's host was one Don Antonio Moreno by name, a gentleman of
wealth and intelligence, and very fond of diverting himself in any fair
and good-natured way; and having Don Quixote in his house he set about
devising modes of making him exhibit his mad points in some harmless
fashion; for jests that give pain are no jests, and no sport is worth
anything if it hurts another. The first thing he did was to make Don
Quixote take off his armour, and lead him, in that tight chamois suit we
have already described and depicted more than once, out on a balcony
overhanging one of the chief streets of the city, in full view of the
crowd and of the boys, who gazed at him as they would at a monkey. The
cavaliers in livery careered before him again as though it were for him
alone, and not to enliven the festival of the day, that they wore it, and
Sancho was in high delight, for it seemed to him that, how he knew not,
he had fallen upon another Camacho's wedding, another house like Don
Diego de Miranda's, another castle like the duke's. Some of Don Antonio's
friends dined with him that day, and all showed honour to Don Quixote and
treated him as a knight-errant, and he becoming puffed up and exalted in
consequence could not contain himself for satisfaction. Such were the
drolleries of Sancho that all the servants of the house, and all who
heard him, were kept hanging upon his lips. While at table Don Antonio
said to him, "We hear, worthy Sancho, that you are so fond of manjar
blanco and forced-meat balls, that if you have any left, you keep them in
your bosom for the next day."

"No, senor, that's not true," said Sancho, "for I am more cleanly than
greedy, and my master Don Quixote here knows well that we two are used to
live for a week on a handful of acorns or nuts. To be sure, if it so
happens that they offer me a heifer, I run with a halter; I mean, I eat
what I'm given, and make use of opportunities as I find them; but whoever
says that I'm an out-of-the-way eater or not cleanly, let me tell him
that he is wrong; and I'd put it in a different way if I did not respect
the honourable beards that are at the table."

"Indeed," said Don Quixote, "Sancho's moderation and cleanliness in
eating might be inscribed and graved on plates of brass, to be kept in
eternal remembrance in ages to come. It is true that when he is hungry
there is a certain appearance of voracity about him, for he eats at a
great pace and chews with both jaws; but cleanliness he is always mindful
of; and when he was governor he learned how to eat daintily, so much so
that he eats grapes, and even pomegranate pips, with a fork."

"What!" said Don Antonio, "has Sancho been a governor?"

"Ay," said Sancho, "and of an island called Barataria. I governed it to
perfection for ten days; and lost my rest all the time; and learned to
look down upon all the governments in the world; I got out of it by
taking to flight, and fell into a pit where I gave myself up for dead,
and out of which I escaped alive by a miracle."

Don Quixote then gave them a minute account of the whole affair of
Sancho's government, with which he greatly amused his hearers.

On the cloth being removed Don Antonio, taking Don Quixote by the hand,
passed with him into a distant room in which there was nothing in the way
of furniture except a table, apparently of jasper, resting on a pedestal
of the same, upon which was set up, after the fashion of the busts of the
Roman emperors, a head which seemed to be of bronze. Don Antonio
traversed the whole apartment with Don Quixote and walked round the table
several times, and then said, "Now, Senor Don Quixote, that I am
satisfied that no one is listening to us, and that the door is shut, I
will tell you of one of the rarest adventures, or more properly speaking
strange things, that can be imagined, on condition that you will keep
what I say to you in the remotest recesses of secrecy."

"I swear it," said Don Quixote, "and for greater security I will put a
flag-stone over it; for I would have you know, Senor Don Antonio" (he had
by this time learned his name), "that you are addressing one who, though
he has ears to hear, has no tongue to speak; so that you may safely
transfer whatever you have in your bosom into mine, and rely upon it that
you have consigned it to the depths of silence."

"In reliance upon that promise," said Don Antonio, "I will astonish you
with what you shall see and hear, and relieve myself of some of the
vexation it gives me to have no one to whom I can confide my secrets, for
they are not of a sort to be entrusted to everybody."

Don Quixote was puzzled, wondering what could be the object of such
precautions; whereupon Don Antonio taking his hand passed it over the
bronze head and the whole table and the pedestal of jasper on which it
stood, and then said, "This head, Senor Don Quixote, has been made and
fabricated by one of the greatest magicians and wizards the world ever
saw, a Pole, I believe, by birth, and a pupil of the famous Escotillo of
whom such marvellous stories are told. He was here in my house, and for a
consideration of a thousand crowns that I gave him he constructed this
head, which has the property and virtue of answering whatever questions
are put to its ear. He observed the points of the compass, he traced
figures, he studied the stars, he watched favourable moments, and at
length brought it to the perfection we shall see to-morrow, for on
Fridays it is mute, and this being Friday we must wait till the next day.
In the interval your worship may consider what you would like to ask it;
and I know by experience that in all its answers it tells the truth."

Don Quixote was amazed at the virtue and property of the head, and was
inclined to disbelieve Don Antonio; but seeing what a short time he had
to wait to test the matter, he did not choose to say anything except that
he thanked him for having revealed to him so mighty a secret. They then
quitted the room, Don Antonio locked the door, and they repaired to the
chamber where the rest of the gentlemen were assembled. In the meantime
Sancho had recounted to them several of the adventures and accidents that
had happened his master.

That afternoon they took Don Quixote out for a stroll, not in his armour
but in street costume, with a surcoat of tawny cloth upon him, that at
that season would have made ice itself sweat. Orders were left with the
servants to entertain Sancho so as not to let him leave the house. Don
Quixote was mounted, not on Rocinante, but upon a tall mule of easy pace
and handsomely caparisoned. They put the surcoat on him, and on the back,
without his perceiving it, they stitched a parchment on which they wrote
in large letters, "This is Don Quixote of La Mancha." As they set out
upon their excursion the placard attracted the eyes of all who chanced to
see him, and as they read out, "This is Don Quixote of La Mancha," Don
Quixote was amazed to see how many people gazed at him, called him by his
name, and recognised him, and turning to Don Antonio, who rode at his
side, he observed to him, "Great are the privileges knight-errantry
involves, for it makes him who professes it known and famous in every
region of the earth; see, Don Antonio, even the very boys of this city
know me without ever having seen me."

"True, Senor Don Quixote," returned Don Antonio; "for as fire cannot be
hidden or kept secret, virtue cannot escape being recognised; and that
which is attained by the profession of arms shines distinguished above
all others."

It came to pass, however, that as Don Quixote was proceeding amid the
acclamations that have been described, a Castilian, reading the
inscription on his back, cried out in a loud voice, "The devil take thee
for a Don Quixote of La Mancha! What! art thou here, and not dead of the
countless drubbings that have fallen on thy ribs? Thou art mad; and if
thou wert so by thyself, and kept thyself within thy madness, it would
not be so bad; but thou hast the gift of making fools and blockheads of
all who have anything to do with thee or say to thee. Why, look at these
gentlemen bearing thee company! Get thee home, blockhead, and see after
thy affairs, and thy wife and children, and give over these fooleries
that are sapping thy brains and skimming away thy wits."

"Go your own way, brother," said Don Antonio, "and don't offer advice to
those who don't ask you for it. Senor Don Quixote is in his full senses,
and we who bear him company are not fools; virtue is to be honoured
wherever it may be found; go, and bad luck to you, and don't meddle where
you are not wanted."

"By God, your worship is right," replied the Castilian; "for to advise
this good man is to kick against the pricks; still for all that it fills
me with pity that the sound wit they say the blockhead has in everything
should dribble away by the channel of his knight-errantry; but may the
bad luck your worship talks of follow me and all my descendants, if, from
this day forth, though I should live longer than Methuselah, I ever give
advice to anybody even if he asks me for it."

The advice-giver took himself off, and they continued their stroll; but
so great was the press of the boys and people to read the placard, that
Don Antonio was forced to remove it as if he were taking off something
else.

Night came and they went home, and there was a ladies' dancing party, for
Don Antonio's wife, a lady of rank and gaiety, beauty and wit, had
invited some friends of hers to come and do honour to her guest and amuse
themselves with his strange delusions. Several of them came, they supped
sumptuously, the dance began at about ten o'clock. Among the ladies were
two of a mischievous and frolicsome turn, and, though perfectly modest,
somewhat free in playing tricks for harmless diversion's sake. These two
were so indefatigable in taking Don Quixote out to dance that they tired
him down, not only in body but in spirit. It was a sight to see the
figure Don Quixote made, long, lank, lean, and yellow, his garments
clinging tight to him, ungainly, and above all anything but agile.

The gay ladies made secret love to him, and he on his part secretly
repelled them, but finding himself hard pressed by their blandishments he
lifted up his voice and exclaimed, "Fugite, partes adversae! Leave me in
peace, unwelcome overtures; avaunt, with your desires, ladies, for she
who is queen of mine, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, suffers none but
hers to lead me captive and subdue me;" and so saying he sat down on the
floor in the middle of the room, tired out and broken down by all this
exertion in the dance.

Don Antonio directed him to be taken up bodily and carried to bed, and
the first that laid hold of him was Sancho, saying as he did so, "In an
evil hour you took to dancing, master mine; do you fancy all mighty men
of valour are dancers, and all knights-errant given to capering? If you
do, I can tell you you are mistaken; there's many a man would rather
undertake to kill a giant than cut a caper. If it had been the shoe-fling
you were at I could take your place, for I can do the shoe-fling like a
gerfalcon; but I'm no good at dancing."

With these and other observations Sancho set the whole ball-room
laughing, and then put his master to bed, covering him up well so that he
might sweat out any chill caught after his dancing.

The next day Don Antonio thought he might as well make trial of the
enchanted head, and with Don Quixote, Sancho, and two others, friends of
his, besides the two ladies that had tired out Don Quixote at the ball,
who had remained for the night with Don Antonio's wife, he locked himself
up in the chamber where the head was. He explained to them the property
it possessed and entrusted the secret to them, telling them that now for
the first time he was going to try the virtue of the enchanted head; but
except Don Antonio's two friends no one else was privy to the mystery of
the enchantment, and if Don Antonio had not first revealed it to them
they would have been inevitably reduced to the same state of amazement as
the rest, so artfully and skilfully was it contrived.

The first to approach the ear of the head was Don Antonio himself, and in
a low voice but not so low as not to be audible to all, he said to it,
"Head, tell me by the virtue that lies in thee what am I at this moment
thinking of?"

The head, without any movement of the lips, answered in a clear and
distinct voice, so as to be heard by all, "I cannot judge of thoughts."

All were thunderstruck at this, and all the more so as they saw that
there was nobody anywhere near the table or in the whole room that could
have answered. "How many of us are here?" asked Don Antonio once more;
and it was answered him in the same way softly, "Thou and thy wife, with
two friends of thine and two of hers, and a famous knight called Don
Quixote of La Mancha, and a squire of his, Sancho Panza by name."

Now there was fresh astonishment; now everyone's hair was standing on end
with awe; and Don Antonio retiring from the head exclaimed, "This
suffices to show me that I have not been deceived by him who sold thee to
me, O sage head, talking head, answering head, wonderful head! Let some
one else go and put what question he likes to it."

And as women are commonly impulsive and inquisitive, the first to come
forward was one of the two friends of Don Antonio's wife, and her
question was, "Tell me, Head, what shall I do to be very beautiful?" and
the answer she got was, "Be very modest."

"I question thee no further," said the fair querist.

Her companion then came up and said, "I should like to know, Head,
whether my husband loves me or not;" the answer given to her was, "Think
how he uses thee, and thou mayest guess;" and the married lady went off
saying, "That answer did not need a question; for of course the treatment
one receives shows the disposition of him from whom it is received."

Then one of Don Antonio's two friends advanced and asked it, "Who am I?"
"Thou knowest," was the answer. "That is not what I ask thee," said the
gentleman, "but to tell me if thou knowest me." "Yes, I know thee, thou
art Don Pedro Noriz," was the reply.

"I do not seek to know more," said the gentleman, "for this is enough to
convince me, O Head, that thou knowest everything;" and as he retired the
other friend came forward and asked it, "Tell me, Head, what are the
wishes of my eldest son?"

"I have said already," was the answer, "that I cannot judge of wishes;
however, I can tell thee the wish of thy son is to bury thee."

"That's 'what I see with my eyes I point out with my finger,'" said the
gentleman, "so I ask no more."

Don Antonio's wife came up and said, "I know not what to ask thee, Head;
I would only seek to know of thee if I shall have many years of enjoyment
of my good husband;" and the answer she received was, "Thou shalt, for
his vigour and his temperate habits promise many years of life, which by
their intemperance others so often cut short."

Then Don Quixote came forward and said, "Tell me, thou that answerest,
was that which I describe as having happened to me in the cave of
Montesinos the truth or a dream? Will Sancho's whipping be accomplished
without fail? Will the disenchantment of Dulcinea be brought about?"

"As to the question of the cave," was the reply, "there is much to be
said; there is something of both in it. Sancho's whipping will proceed
leisurely. The disenchantment of Dulcinea will attain its due
consummation."

"I seek to know no more," said Don Quixote; "let me but see Dulcinea
disenchanted, and I will consider that all the good fortune I could wish
for has come upon me all at once."

The last questioner was Sancho, and his questions were, "Head, shall I by
any chance have another government? Shall I ever escape from the hard
life of a squire? Shall I get back to see my wife and children?" To which
the answer came, "Thou shalt govern in thy house; and if thou returnest
to it thou shalt see thy wife and children; and on ceasing to serve thou
shalt cease to be a squire."

"Good, by God!" said Sancho Panza; "I could have told myself that; the
prophet Perogrullo could have said no more."

"What answer wouldst thou have, beast?" said Don Quixote; "is it not
enough that the replies this head has given suit the questions put to
it?"

"Yes, it is enough," said Sancho; "but I should have liked it to have
made itself plainer and told me more."

The questions and answers came to an end here, but not the wonder with
which all were filled, except Don Antonio's two friends who were in the
secret. This Cide Hamete Benengeli thought fit to reveal at once, not to
keep the world in suspense, fancying that the head had some strange
magical mystery in it. He says, therefore, that on the model of another
head, the work of an image maker, which he had seen at Madrid, Don
Antonio made this one at home for his own amusement and to astonish
ignorant people; and its mechanism was as follows. The table was of wood
painted and varnished to imitate jasper, and the pedestal on which it
stood was of the same material, with four eagles' claws projecting from
it to support the weight more steadily. The head, which resembled a bust
or figure of a Roman emperor, and was coloured like bronze, was hollow
throughout, as was the table, into which it was fitted so exactly that no
trace of the joining was visible. The pedestal of the table was also
hollow and communicated with the throat and neck of the head, and the
whole was in communication with another room underneath the chamber in
which the head stood. Through the entire cavity in the pedestal, table,
throat and neck of the bust or figure, there passed a tube of tin
carefully adjusted and concealed from sight. In the room below
corresponding to the one above was placed the person who was to answer,
with his mouth to the tube, and the voice, as in an ear-trumpet, passed
from above downwards, and from below upwards, the words coming clearly
and distinctly; it was impossible, thus, to detect the trick. A nephew of
Don Antonio's, a smart sharp-witted student, was the answerer, and as he
had been told beforehand by his uncle who the persons were that would
come with him that day into the chamber where the head was, it was an
easy matter for him to answer the first question at once and correctly;
the others he answered by guess-work, and, being clever, cleverly. Cide
Hamete adds that this marvellous contrivance stood for some ten or twelve
days; but that, as it became noised abroad through the city that he had
in his house an enchanted head that answered all who asked questions of
it, Don Antonio, fearing it might come to the ears of the watchful
sentinels of our faith, explained the matter to the inquisitors, who
commanded him to break it up and have done with it, lest the ignorant
vulgar should be scandalised. By Don Quixote, however, and by Sancho the
head was still held to be an enchanted one, and capable of answering
questions, though more to Don Quixote's satisfaction than Sancho's.

The gentlemen of the city, to gratify Don Antonio and also to do the
honours to Don Quixote, and give him an opportunity of displaying his
folly, made arrangements for a tilting at the ring in six days from that
time, which, however, for reason that will be mentioned hereafter, did
not take place.

Don Quixote took a fancy to stroll about the city quietly and on foot,
for he feared that if he went on horseback the boys would follow him; so
he and Sancho and two servants that Don Antonio gave him set out for a
walk. Thus it came to pass that going along one of the streets Don
Quixote lifted up his eyes and saw written in very large letters over a
door, "Books printed here," at which he was vastly pleased, for until
then he had never seen a printing office, and he was curious to know what
it was like. He entered with all his following, and saw them drawing
sheets in one place, correcting in another, setting up type here,
revising there; in short all the work that is to be seen in great
printing offices. He went up to one case and asked what they were about
there; the workmen told him, he watched them with wonder, and passed on.
He approached one man, among others, and asked him what he was doing. The
workman replied, "Senor, this gentleman here" (pointing to a man of
prepossessing appearance and a certain gravity of look) "has translated
an Italian book into our Spanish tongue, and I am setting it up in type
for the press."

"What is the title of the book?" asked Don Quixote; to which the author
replied, "Senor, in Italian the book is called Le Bagatelle."

"And what does Le Bagatelle import in our Spanish?" asked Don Quixote.

"Le Bagatelle," said the author, "is as though we should say in Spanish
Los Juguetes; but though the book is humble in name it has good solid
matter in it."

"I," said Don Quixote, "have some little smattering of Italian, and I
plume myself on singing some of Ariosto's stanzas; but tell me, senor--I
do not say this to test your ability, but merely out of curiosity--have
you ever met with the word pignatta in your book?"

"Yes, often," said the author.

"And how do you render that in Spanish?"

"How should I render it," returned the author, "but by olla?"

"Body o' me," exclaimed Don Quixote, "what a proficient you are in the
Italian language! I would lay a good wager that where they say in Italian
piace you say in Spanish place, and where they say piu you say mas, and
you translate su by arriba and giu by abajo."

"I translate them so of course," said the author, "for those are their
proper equivalents."

"I would venture to swear," said Don Quixote, "that your worship is not
known in the world, which always begrudges their reward to rare wits and
praiseworthy labours. What talents lie wasted there! What genius thrust
away into corners! What worth left neglected! Still it seems to me that
translation from one language into another, if it be not from the queens
of languages, the Greek and the Latin, is like looking at Flemish
tapestries on the wrong side; for though the figures are visible, they
are full of threads that make them indistinct, and they do not show with
the smoothness and brightness of the right side; and translation from
easy languages argues neither ingenuity nor command of words, any more
than transcribing or copying out one document from another. But I do not
mean by this to draw the inference that no credit is to be allowed for
the work of translating, for a man may employ himself in ways worse and
less profitable to himself. This estimate does not include two famous
translators, Doctor Cristobal de Figueroa, in his Pastor Fido, and Don
Juan de Jauregui, in his Aminta, wherein by their felicity they leave it
in doubt which is the translation and which the original. But tell me,
are you printing this book at your own risk, or have you sold the
copyright to some bookseller?"

"I print at my own risk," said the author, "and I expect to make a
thousand ducats at least by this first edition, which is to be of two
thousand copies that will go off in a twinkling at six reals apiece."

"A fine calculation you are making!" said Don Quixote; "it is plain you
don't know the ins and outs of the printers, and how they play into one
another's hands. I promise you when you find yourself saddled with two
thousand copies you will feel so sore that it will astonish you,
particularly if the book is a little out of the common and not in any way
highly spiced."

"What!" said the author, "would your worship, then, have me give it to a
bookseller who will give three maravedis for the copyright and think he
is doing me a favour? I do not print my books to win fame in the world,
for I am known in it already by my works; I want to make money, without
which reputation is not worth a rap."

"God send your worship good luck," said Don Quixote; and he moved on to
another case, where he saw them correcting a sheet of a book with the
title of "Light of the Soul;" noticing it he observed, "Books like this,
though there are many of the kind, are the ones that deserve to be
printed, for many are the sinners in these days, and lights unnumbered
are needed for all that are in darkness."

He passed on, and saw they were also correcting another book, and when he
asked its title they told him it was called, "The Second Part of the
Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha," by one of Tordesillas.

"I have heard of this book already," said Don Quixote, "and verily and on
my conscience I thought it had been by this time burned to ashes as a
meddlesome intruder; but its Martinmas will come to it as it does to
every pig; for fictions have the more merit and charm about them the more
nearly they approach the truth or what looks like it; and true stories,
the truer they are the better they are;" and so saying he walked out of
the printing office with a certain amount of displeasure in his looks.
That same day Don Antonio arranged to take him to see the galleys that
lay at the beach, whereat Sancho was in high delight, as he had never
seen any all his life. Don Antonio sent word to the commandant of the
galleys that he intended to bring his guest, the famous Don Quixote of La
Mancha, of whom the commandant and all the citizens had already heard,
that afternoon to see them; and what happened on board of them will be
told in the next chapter.




CHAPTER LXIII.

OF THE MISHAP THAT BEFELL SANCHO PANZA THROUGH THE VISIT TO THE GALLEYS,
AND THE STRANGE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR MORISCO


Profound were Don Quixote's reflections on the reply of the enchanted
head, not one of them, however, hitting on the secret of the trick, but
all concentrated on the promise, which he regarded as a certainty, of
Dulcinea's disenchantment. This he turned over in his mind again and
again with great satisfaction, fully persuaded that he would shortly see
its fulfillment; and as for Sancho, though, as has been said, he hated
being a governor, still he had a longing to be giving orders and finding
himself obeyed once more; this is the misfortune that being in authority,
even in jest, brings with it.

To resume; that afternoon their host Don Antonio Moreno and his two
friends, with Don Quixote and Sancho, went to the galleys. The commandant
had been already made aware of his good fortune in seeing two such famous
persons as Don Quixote and Sancho, and the instant they came to the shore
all the galleys struck their awnings and the clarions rang out. A skiff
covered with rich carpets and cushions of crimson velvet was immediately
lowered into the water, and as Don Quixote stepped on board of it, the
leading galley fired her gangway gun, and the other galleys did the same;
and as he mounted the starboard ladder the whole crew saluted him (as is
the custom when a personage of distinction comes on board a galley) by
exclaiming "Hu, hu, hu," three times. The general, for so we shall call
him, a Valencian gentleman of rank, gave him his hand and embraced him,
saying, "I shall mark this day with a white stone as one of the happiest
I can expect to enjoy in my lifetime, since I have seen Senor Don Quixote
of La Mancha, pattern and image wherein we see contained and condensed
all that is worthy in knight-errantry."

Don Quixote delighted beyond measure with such a lordly reception,
replied to him in words no less courteous. All then proceeded to the
poop, which was very handsomely decorated, and seated themselves on the
bulwark benches; the boatswain passed along the gangway and piped all
hands to strip, which they did in an instant. Sancho, seeing such a
number of men stripped to the skin, was taken aback, and still more when
he saw them spread the awning so briskly that it seemed to him as if all
the devils were at work at it; but all this was cakes and fancy bread to
what I am going to tell now. Sancho was seated on the captain's stage,
close to the aftermost rower on the right-hand side. He, previously
instructed in what he was to do, laid hold of Sancho, hoisting him up in
his arms, and the whole crew, who were standing ready, beginning on the
right, proceeded to pass him on, whirling him along from hand to hand and
from bench to bench with such rapidity that it took the sight out of poor
Sancho's eyes, and he made quite sure that the devils themselves were
flying away with him; nor did they leave off with him until they had sent
him back along the left side and deposited him on the poop; and the poor
fellow was left bruised and breathless and all in a sweat, and unable to
comprehend what it was that had happened to him.

Don Quixote when he saw Sancho's flight without wings asked the general
if this was a usual ceremony with those who came on board the galleys for
the first time; for, if so, as he had no intention of adopting them as a
profession, he had no mind to perform such feats of agility, and if
anyone offered to lay hold of him to whirl him about, he vowed to God he
would kick his soul out; and as he said this he stood up and clapped his
hand upon his sword. At this instant they struck the awning and lowered
the yard with a prodigious rattle. Sancho thought heaven was coming off
its hinges and going to fall on his head, and full of terror he ducked it
and buried it between his knees; nor were Don Quixote's knees altogether
under control, for he too shook a little, squeezed his shoulders together
and lost colour. The crew then hoisted the yard with the same rapidity
and clatter as when they lowered it, all the while keeping silence as
though they had neither voice nor breath. The boatswain gave the signal
to weigh anchor, and leaping upon the middle of the gangway began to lay
on to the shoulders of the crew with his courbash or whip, and to haul
out gradually to sea.

When Sancho saw so many red feet (for such he took the oars to be) moving
all together, he said to himself, "It's these that are the real chanted
things, and not the ones my master talks of. What can those wretches have
done to be so whipped; and how does that one man who goes along there
whistling dare to whip so many? I declare this is hell, or at least
purgatory!"

Don Quixote, observing how attentively Sancho regarded what was going on,
said to him, "Ah, Sancho my friend, how quickly and cheaply might you
finish off the disenchantment of Dulcinea, if you would strip to the
waist and take your place among those gentlemen! Amid the pain and
sufferings of so many you would not feel your own much; and moreover
perhaps the sage Merlin would allow each of these lashes, being laid on
with a good hand, to count for ten of those which you must give yourself
at last."

The general was about to ask what these lashes were, and what was
Dulcinea's disenchantment, when a sailor exclaimed, "Monjui signals that
there is an oared vessel off the coast to the west."

On hearing this the general sprang upon the gangway crying, "Now then, my
sons, don't let her give us the slip! It must be some Algerine corsair
brigantine that the watchtower signals to us." The three others
immediately came alongside the chief galley to receive their orders. The
general ordered two to put out to sea while he with the other kept in
shore, so that in this way the vessel could not escape them. The crews
plied the oars driving the galleys so furiously that they seemed to fly.
The two that had put out to sea, after a couple of miles sighted a vessel
which, so far as they could make out, they judged to be one of fourteen
or fifteen banks, and so she proved. As soon as the vessel discovered the
galleys she went about with the object and in the hope of making her
escape by her speed; but the attempt failed, for the chief galley was one
of the fastest vessels afloat, and overhauled her so rapidly that they on
board the brigantine saw clearly there was no possibility of escaping,
and the rais therefore would have had them drop their oars and give
themselves up so as not to provoke the captain in command of our galleys
to anger. But chance, directing things otherwise, so ordered it that just
as the chief galley came close enough for those on board the vessel to
hear the shouts from her calling on them to surrender, two Toraquis, that
is to say two Turks, both drunken, that with a dozen more were on board
the brigantine, discharged their muskets, killing two of the soldiers
that lined the sides of our vessel. Seeing this the general swore he
would not leave one of those he found on board the vessel alive, but as
he bore down furiously upon her she slipped away from him underneath the
oars. The galley shot a good way ahead; those on board the vessel saw
their case was desperate, and while the galley was coming about they made
sail, and by sailing and rowing once more tried to sheer off; but their
activity did not do them as much good as their rashness did them harm,
for the galley coming up with them in a little more than half a mile
threw her oars over them and took the whole of them alive. The other two
galleys now joined company and all four returned with the prize to the
beach, where a vast multitude stood waiting for them, eager to see what
they brought back. The general anchored close in, and perceived that the
viceroy of the city was on the shore. He ordered the skiff to push off to
fetch him, and the yard to be lowered for the purpose of hanging
forthwith the rais and the rest of the men taken on board the vessel,
about six-and-thirty in number, all smart fellows and most of them
Turkish musketeers. He asked which was the rais of the brigantine, and
was answered in Spanish by one of the prisoners (who afterwards proved to
be a Spanish renegade), "This young man, senor that you see here is our
rais," and he pointed to one of the handsomest and most gallant-looking
youths that could be imagined. He did not seem to be twenty years of age.

"Tell me, dog," said the general, "what led thee to kill my soldiers,
when thou sawest it was impossible for thee to escape? Is that the way to
behave to chief galleys? Knowest thou not that rashness is not valour?
Faint prospects of success should make men bold, but not rash."

The rais was about to reply, but the general could not at that moment
listen to him, as he had to hasten to receive the viceroy, who was now
coming on board the galley, and with him certain of his attendants and
some of the people.

"You have had a good chase, senor general," said the viceroy.

"Your excellency shall soon see how good, by the game strung up to this
yard," replied the general.

"How so?" returned the viceroy.

"Because," said the general, "against all law, reason, and usages of war
they have killed on my hands two of the best soldiers on board these
galleys, and I have sworn to hang every man that I have taken, but above
all this youth who is the rais of the brigantine," and he pointed to him
as he stood with his hands already bound and the rope round his neck,
ready for death.

The viceroy looked at him, and seeing him so well-favoured, so graceful,
and so submissive, he felt a desire to spare his life, the comeliness of
the youth furnishing him at once with a letter of recommendation. He
therefore questioned him, saying, "Tell me, rais, art thou Turk, Moor, or
renegade?"

To which the youth replied, also in Spanish, "I am neither Turk, nor
Moor, nor renegade."

"What art thou, then?" said the viceroy.

"A Christian woman," replied the youth.

"A woman and a Christian, in such a dress and in such circumstances! It
is more marvellous than credible," said the viceroy.

"Suspend the execution of the sentence," said the youth; "your vengeance
will not lose much by waiting while I tell you the story of my life."

What heart could be so hard as not to be softened by these words, at any
rate so far as to listen to what the unhappy youth had to say? The
general bade him say what he pleased, but not to expect pardon for his
flagrant offence. With this permission the youth began in these words.

"Born of Morisco parents, I am of that nation, more unhappy than wise,
upon which of late a sea of woes has poured down. In the course of our
misfortune I was carried to Barbary by two uncles of mine, for it was in
vain that I declared I was a Christian, as in fact I am, and not a mere
pretended one, or outwardly, but a true Catholic Christian. It availed me
nothing with those charged with our sad expatriation to protest this, nor
would my uncles believe it; on the contrary, they treated it as an
untruth and a subterfuge set up to enable me to remain behind in the land
of my birth; and so, more by force than of my own will, they took me with
them. I had a Christian mother, and a father who was a man of sound sense
and a Christian too; I imbibed the Catholic faith with my mother's milk,
I was well brought up, and neither in word nor in deed did I, I think,
show any sign of being a Morisco. To accompany these virtues, for such I
hold them, my beauty, if I possess any, grew with my growth; and great as
was the seclusion in which I lived it was not so great but that a young
gentleman, Don Gaspar Gregorio by name, eldest son of a gentleman who is
lord of a village near ours, contrived to find opportunities of seeing
me. How he saw me, how we met, how his heart was lost to me, and mine not
kept from him, would take too long to tell, especially at a moment when I
am in dread of the cruel cord that threatens me interposing between
tongue and throat; I will only say, therefore, that Don Gregorio chose to
accompany me in our banishment. He joined company with the Moriscoes who
were going forth from other villages, for he knew their language very
well, and on the voyage he struck up a friendship with my two uncles who
were carrying me with them; for my father, like a wise and far-sighted
man, as soon as he heard the first edict for our expulsion, quitted the
village and departed in quest of some refuge for us abroad. He left
hidden and buried, at a spot of which I alone have knowledge, a large
quantity of pearls and precious stones of great value, together with a
sum of money in gold cruzadoes and doubloons. He charged me on no account
to touch the treasure, if by any chance they expelled us before his
return. I obeyed him, and with my uncles, as I have said, and others of
our kindred and neighbours, passed over to Barbary, and the place where
we took up our abode was Algiers, much the same as if we had taken it up
in hell itself. The king heard of my beauty, and report told him of my
wealth, which was in some degree fortunate for me. He summoned me before
him, and asked me what part of Spain I came from, and what money and
jewels I had. I mentioned the place, and told him the jewels and money
were buried there; but that they might easily be recovered if I myself
went back for them. All this I told him, in dread lest my beauty and not
his own covetousness should influence him. While he was engaged in
conversation with me, they brought him word that in company with me was
one of the handsomest and most graceful youths that could be imagined. I
knew at once that they were speaking of Don Gaspar Gregorio, whose
comeliness surpasses the most highly vaunted beauty. I was troubled when
I thought of the danger he was in, for among those barbarous Turks a fair
youth is more esteemed than a woman, be she ever so beautiful. The king
immediately ordered him to be brought before him that he might see him,
and asked me if what they said about the youth was true. I then, almost
as if inspired by heaven, told him it was, but that I would have him to
know it was not a man, but a woman like myself, and I entreated him to
allow me to go and dress her in the attire proper to her, so that her
beauty might be seen to perfection, and that she might present herself
before him with less embarrassment. He bade me go by all means, and said
that the next day we should discuss the plan to be adopted for my return
to Spain to carry away the hidden treasure. I saw Don Gaspar, I told him
the danger he was in if he let it be seen he was a man, I dressed him as
a Moorish woman, and that same afternoon I brought him before the king,
who was charmed when he saw him, and resolved to keep the damsel and make
a present of her to the Grand Signor; and to avoid the risk she might run
among the women of his seraglio, and distrustful of himself, he commanded
her to be placed in the house of some Moorish ladies of rank who would
protect and attend to her; and thither he was taken at once. What we both
suffered (for I cannot deny that I love him) may be left to the
imagination of those who are separated if they love one another dearly.
The king then arranged that I should return to Spain in this brigantine,
and that two Turks, those who killed your soldiers, should accompany me.
There also came with me this Spanish renegade"--and here she pointed to
him who had first spoken--"whom I know to be secretly a Christian, and to
be more desirous of being left in Spain than of returning to Barbary. The
rest of the crew of the brigantine are Moors and Turks, who merely serve
as rowers. The two Turks, greedy and insolent, instead of obeying the
orders we had to land me and this renegade in Christian dress (with which
we came provided) on the first Spanish ground we came to, chose to run
along the coast and make some prize if they could, fearing that if they
put us ashore first, we might, in case of some accident befalling us,
make it known that the brigantine was at sea, and thus, if there happened
to be any galleys on the coast, they might be taken. We sighted this
shore last night, and knowing nothing of these galleys, we were
discovered, and the result was what you have seen. To sum up, there is
Don Gregorio in woman's dress, among women, in imminent danger of his
life; and here am I, with hands bound, in expectation, or rather in
dread, of losing my life, of which I am already weary. Here, sirs, ends
my sad story, as true as it is unhappy; all I ask of you is to allow me
to die like a Christian, for, as I have already said, I am not to be
charged with the offence of which those of my nation are guilty;" and she
stood silent, her eyes filled with moving tears, accompanied by plenty
from the bystanders. The viceroy, touched with compassion, went up to her
without speaking and untied the cord that bound the hands of the Moorish
girl.

But all the while the Morisco Christian was telling her strange story, an
elderly pilgrim, who had come on board of the galley at the same time as
the viceroy, kept his eyes fixed upon her; and the instant she ceased
speaking he threw himself at her feet, and embracing them said in a voice
broken by sobs and sighs, "O Ana Felix, my unhappy daughter, I am thy
father Ricote, come back to look for thee, unable to live without thee,
my soul that thou art!"

At these words of his, Sancho opened his eyes and raised his head, which
he had been holding down, brooding over his unlucky excursion; and
looking at the pilgrim he recognised in him that same Ricote he met the
day he quitted his government, and felt satisfied that this was his
daughter. She being now unbound embraced her father, mingling her tears
with his, while he addressing the general and the viceroy said, "This,
sirs, is my daughter, more unhappy in her adventures than in her name.
She is Ana Felix, surnamed Ricote, celebrated as much for her own beauty
as for my wealth. I quitted my native land in search of some shelter or
refuge for us abroad, and having found one in Germany I returned in this
pilgrim's dress, in the company of some other German pilgrims, to seek my
daughter and take up a large quantity of treasure I had left buried. My
daughter I did not find, the treasure I found and have with me; and now,
in this strange roundabout way you have seen, I find the treasure that
more than all makes me rich, my beloved daughter. If our innocence and
her tears and mine can with strict justice open the door to clemency,
extend it to us, for we never had any intention of injuring you, nor do
we sympathise with the aims of our people, who have been justly
banished."

"I know Ricote well," said Sancho at this, "and I know too that what he
says about Ana Felix being his daughter is true; but as to those other
particulars about going and coming, and having good or bad intentions, I
say nothing."

While all present stood amazed at this strange occurrence the general
said, "At any rate your tears will not allow me to keep my oath; live,
fair Ana Felix, all the years that heaven has allotted you; but these
rash insolent fellows must pay the penalty of the crime they have
committed;" and with that he gave orders to have the two Turks who had
killed his two soldiers hanged at once at the yard-arm. The viceroy,
however, begged him earnestly not to hang them, as their behaviour
savoured rather of madness than of bravado. The general yielded to the
viceroy's request, for revenge is not easily taken in cold blood. They
then tried to devise some scheme for rescuing Don Gaspar Gregorio from
the danger in which he had been left. Ricote offered for that object more
than two thousand ducats that he had in pearls and gems; they proposed
several plans, but none so good as that suggested by the renegade already
mentioned, who offered to return to Algiers in a small vessel of about
six banks, manned by Christian rowers, as he knew where, how, and when he
could and should land, nor was he ignorant of the house in which Don
Gaspar was staying. The general and the viceroy had some hesitation about
placing confidence in the renegade and entrusting him with the Christians
who were to row, but Ana Felix said she could answer for him, and her
father offered to go and pay the ransom of the Christians if by any
chance they should not be forthcoming. This, then, being agreed upon, the
viceroy landed, and Don Antonio Moreno took the fair Morisco and her
father home with him, the viceroy charging him to give them the best
reception and welcome in his power, while on his own part he offered all
that house contained for their entertainment; so great was the good-will
and kindliness the beauty of Ana Felix had infused into his heart.




CHAPTER LXIV.

TREATING OF THE ADVENTURE WHICH GAVE DON QUIXOTE MORE UNHAPPINESS THAN
ALL THAT HAD HITHERTO BEFALLEN HIM


The wife of Don Antonio Moreno, so the history says, was extremely happy
to see Ana Felix in her house. She welcomed her with great kindness,
charmed as well by her beauty as by her intelligence; for in both
respects the fair Morisco was richly endowed, and all the people of the
city flocked to see her as though they had been summoned by the ringing
of the bells.

Don Quixote told Don Antonio that the plan adopted for releasing Don
Gregorio was not a good one, for its risks were greater than its
advantages, and that it would be better to land himself with his arms and
horse in Barbary; for he would carry him off in spite of the whole
Moorish host, as Don Gaiferos carried off his wife Melisendra.

"Remember, your worship," observed Sancho on hearing him say so, "Senor
Don Gaiferos carried off his wife from the mainland, and took her to
France by land; but in this case, if by chance we carry off Don Gregorio,
we have no way of bringing him to Spain, for there's the sea between."

"There's a remedy for everything except death," said Don Quixote; "if
they bring the vessel close to the shore we shall be able to get on board
though all the world strive to prevent us."

"Your worship hits it off mighty well and mighty easy," said Sancho; "but
'it's a long step from saying to doing;' and I hold to the renegade, for
he seems to me an honest good-hearted fellow."

Don Antonio then said that if the renegade did not prove successful, the
expedient of the great Don Quixote's expedition to Barbary should be
adopted. Two days afterwards the renegade put to sea in a light vessel of
six oars a-side manned by a stout crew, and two days later the galleys
made sail eastward, the general having begged the viceroy to let him know
all about the release of Don Gregorio and about Ana Felix, and the
viceroy promised to do as he requested.

One morning as Don Quixote went out for a stroll along the beach, arrayed
in full armour (for, as he often said, that was "his only gear, his only
rest the fray," and he never was without it for a moment), he saw coming
towards him a knight, also in full armour, with a shining moon painted on
his shield, who, on approaching sufficiently near to be heard, said in a
loud voice, addressing himself to Don Quixote, "Illustrious knight, and
never sufficiently extolled Don Quixote of La Mancha, I am the Knight of
the White Moon, whose unheard-of achievements will perhaps have recalled
him to thy memory. I come to do battle with thee and prove the might of
thy arm, to the end that I make thee acknowledge and confess that my
lady, let her be who she may, is incomparably fairer than thy Dulcinea
del Toboso. If thou dost acknowledge this fairly and openly, thou shalt
escape death and save me the trouble of inflicting it upon thee; if thou
fightest and I vanquish thee, I demand no other satisfaction than that,
laying aside arms and abstaining from going in quest of adventures, thou
withdraw and betake thyself to thine own village for the space of a year,
and live there without putting hand to sword, in peace and quiet and
beneficial repose, the same being needful for the increase of thy
substance and the salvation of thy soul; and if thou dost vanquish me, my
head shall be at thy disposal, my arms and horse thy spoils, and the
renown of my deeds transferred and added to thine. Consider which will be
thy best course, and give me thy answer speedily, for this day is all the
time I have for the despatch of this business."

Don Quixote was amazed and astonished, as well at the Knight of the White
Moon's arrogance, as at his reason for delivering the defiance, and with
calm dignity he answered him, "Knight of the White Moon, of whose
achievements I have never heard until now, I will venture to swear you
have never seen the illustrious Dulcinea; for had you seen her I know you
would have taken care not to venture yourself upon this issue, because
the sight would have removed all doubt from your mind that there ever has
been or can be a beauty to be compared with hers; and so, not saying you
lie, but merely that you are not correct in what you state, I accept your
challenge, with the conditions you have proposed, and at once, that the
day you have fixed may not expire; and from your conditions I except only
that of the renown of your achievements being transferred to me, for I
know not of what sort they are nor what they may amount to; I am
satisfied with my own, such as they be. Take, therefore, the side of the
field you choose, and I will do the same; and to whom God shall give it
may Saint Peter add his blessing."

The Knight of the White Moon had been seen from the city, and it was told
the viceroy how he was in conversation with Don Quixote. The viceroy,
fancying it must be some fresh adventure got up by Don Antonio Moreno or
some other gentleman of the city, hurried out at once to the beach
accompanied by Don Antonio and several other gentlemen, just as Don
Quixote was wheeling Rocinante round in order to take up the necessary
distance. The viceroy upon this, seeing that the pair of them were
evidently preparing to come to the charge, put himself between them,
asking them what it was that led them to engage in combat all of a sudden
in this way. The Knight of the White Moon replied that it was a question
of precedence of beauty; and briefly told him what he had said to Don
Quixote, and how the conditions of the defiance agreed upon on both sides
had been accepted. The viceroy went over to Don Antonio, and asked in a
low voice did he know who the Knight of the White Moon was, or was it
some joke they were playing on Don Quixote. Don Antonio replied that he
neither knew who he was nor whether the defiance was in joke or in
earnest. This answer left the viceroy in a state of perplexity, not
knowing whether he ought to let the combat go on or not; but unable to
persuade himself that it was anything but a joke he fell back, saying,
"If there be no other way out of it, gallant knights, except to confess
or die, and Don Quixote is inflexible, and your worship of the White Moon
still more so, in God's hand be it, and fall on."

He of the White Moon thanked the viceroy in courteous and well-chosen
words for the permission he gave them, and so did Don Quixote, who then,
commending himself with all his heart to heaven and to his Dulcinea, as
was his custom on the eve of any combat that awaited him, proceeded to
take a little more distance, as he saw his antagonist was doing the same;
then, without blast of trumpet or other warlike instrument to give them
the signal to charge, both at the same instant wheeled their horses; and
he of the White Moon, being the swifter, met Don Quixote after having
traversed two-thirds of the course, and there encountered him with such
violence that, without touching him with his lance (for he held it high,
to all appearance purposely), he hurled Don Quixote and Rocinante to the
earth, a perilous fall. He sprang upon him at once, and placing the lance
over his visor said to him, "You are vanquished, sir knight, nay dead
unless you admit the conditions of our defiance."

Don Quixote, bruised and stupefied, without raising his visor said in a
weak feeble voice as if he were speaking out of a tomb, "Dulcinea del
Toboso is the fairest woman in the world, and I the most unfortunate
knight on earth; it is not fitting that this truth should suffer by my
feebleness; drive your lance home, sir knight, and take my life, since
you have taken away my honour."

"That will I not, in sooth," said he of the White Moon; "live the fame of
the lady Dulcinea's beauty undimmed as ever; all I require is that the
great Don Quixote retire to his own home for a year, or for so long a
time as shall by me be enjoined upon him, as we agreed before engaging in
this combat."

The viceroy, Don Antonio, and several others who were present heard all
this, and heard too how Don Quixote replied that so long as nothing in
prejudice of Dulcinea was demanded of him, he would observe all the rest
like a true and loyal knight. The engagement given, he of the White Moon
wheeled about, and making obeisance to the viceroy with a movement of the
head, rode away into the city at a half gallop. The viceroy bade Don
Antonio hasten after him, and by some means or other find out who he was.
They raised Don Quixote up and uncovered his face, and found him pale and
bathed with sweat.

Rocinante from the mere hard measure he had received lay unable to stir
for the present. Sancho, wholly dejected and woebegone, knew not what to
say or do. He fancied that all was a dream, that the whole business was a
piece of enchantment. Here was his master defeated, and bound not to take
up arms for a year. He saw the light of the glory of his achievements
obscured; the hopes of the promises lately made him swept away like smoke
before the wind; Rocinante, he feared, was crippled for life, and his
master's bones out of joint; for if he were only shaken out of his
madness it would be no small luck. In the end they carried him into the
city in a hand-chair which the viceroy sent for, and thither the viceroy
himself returned, eager to ascertain who this Knight of the White Moon
was who had left Don Quixote in such a sad plight.




CHAPTER LXV.

WHEREIN IS MADE KNOWN WHO THE KNIGHT OF THE WHITE MOON WAS; LIKEWISE DON
GREGORIO'S RELEASE, AND OTHER EVENTS


Don Antonia Moreno followed the Knight of the White Moon, and a number of
boys followed him too, nay pursued him, until they had him fairly housed
in a hostel in the heart of the city. Don Antonio, eager to make his
acquaintance, entered also; a squire came out to meet him and remove his
armour, and he shut himself into a lower room, still attended by Don
Antonio, whose bread would not bake until he had found out who he was. He
of the White Moon, seeing then that the gentleman would not leave him,
said, "I know very well, senor, what you have come for; it is to find out
who I am; and as there is no reason why I should conceal it from you,
while my servant here is taking off my armour I will tell you the true
state of the case, without leaving out anything. You must know, senor,
that I am called the bachelor Samson Carrasco. I am of the same village
as Don Quixote of La Mancha, whose craze and folly make all of us who
know him feel pity for him, and I am one of those who have felt it most;
and persuaded that his chance of recovery lay in quiet and keeping at
home and in his own house, I hit upon a device for keeping him there.
Three months ago, therefore, I went out to meet him as a knight-errant,
under the assumed name of the Knight of the Mirrors, intending to engage
him in combat and overcome him without hurting him, making it the
condition of our combat that the vanquished should be at the disposal of
the victor. What I meant to demand of him (for I regarded him as
vanquished already) was that he should return to his own village, and not
leave it for a whole year, by which time he might be cured. But fate
ordered it otherwise, for he vanquished me and unhorsed me, and so my
plan failed. He went his way, and I came back conquered, covered with
shame, and sorely bruised by my fall, which was a particularly dangerous
one. But this did not quench my desire to meet him again and overcome
him, as you have seen to-day. And as he is so scrupulous in his
observance of the laws of knight-errantry, he will, no doubt, in order to
keep his word, obey the injunction I have laid upon him. This, senor, is
how the matter stands, and I have nothing more to tell you. I implore of
you not to betray me, or tell Don Quixote who I am; so that my honest
endeavours may be successful, and that a man of excellent wits--were he
only rid of the fooleries of chivalry--may get them back again."

"O senor," said Don Antonio, "may God forgive you the wrong you have done
the whole world in trying to bring the most amusing madman in it back to
his senses. Do you not see, senor, that the gain by Don Quixote's sanity
can never equal the enjoyment his crazes give? But my belief is that all
the senor bachelor's pains will be of no avail to bring a man so
hopelessly cracked to his senses again; and if it were not uncharitable,
I would say may Don Quixote never be cured, for by his recovery we lose
not only his own drolleries, but his squire Sancho Panza's too, any one
of which is enough to turn melancholy itself into merriment. However,
I'll hold my peace and say nothing to him, and we'll see whether I am
right in my suspicion that Senor Carrasco's efforts will be fruitless."

The bachelor replied that at all events the affair promised well, and he
hoped for a happy result from it; and putting his services at Don
Antonio's commands he took his leave of him; and having had his armour
packed at once upon a mule, he rode away from the city the same day on
the horse he rode to battle, and returned to his own country without
meeting any adventure calling for record in this veracious history.

Don Antonio reported to the viceroy what Carrasco told him, and the
viceroy was not very well pleased to hear it, for with Don Quixote's
retirement there was an end to the amusement of all who knew anything of
his mad doings.

Six days did Don Quixote keep his bed, dejected, melancholy, moody and
out of sorts, brooding over the unhappy event of his defeat. Sancho
strove to comfort him, and among other things he said to him, "Hold up
your head, senor, and be of good cheer if you can, and give thanks to
heaven that if you have had a tumble to the ground you have not come off
with a broken rib; and, as you know that 'where they give they take,' and
that 'there are not always fletches where there are pegs,' a fig for the
doctor, for there's no need of him to cure this ailment. Let us go home,
and give over going about in search of adventures in strange lands and
places; rightly looked at, it is I that am the greater loser, though it
is your worship that has had the worse usage. With the government I gave
up all wish to be a governor again, but I did not give up all longing to
be a count; and that will never come to pass if your worship gives up
becoming a king by renouncing the calling of chivalry; and so my hopes
are going to turn into smoke."

"Peace, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "thou seest my suspension and
retirement is not to exceed a year; I shall soon return to my honoured
calling, and I shall not be at a loss for a kingdom to win and a county
to bestow on thee."

"May God hear it and sin be deaf," said Sancho; "I have always heard say
that 'a good hope is better than a bad holding."

As they were talking Don Antonio came in looking extremely pleased and
exclaiming, "Reward me for my good news, Senor Don Quixote! Don Gregorio
and the renegade who went for him have come ashore--ashore do I say? They
are by this time in the viceroy's house, and will be here immediately."

Don Quixote cheered up a little and said, "Of a truth I am almost ready
to say I should have been glad had it turned out just the other way, for
it would have obliged me to cross over to Barbary, where by the might of
my arm I should have restored to liberty, not only Don Gregorio, but all
the Christian captives there are in Barbary. But what am I saying,
miserable being that I am? Am I not he that has been conquered? Am I not
he that has been overthrown? Am I not he who must not take up arms for a
year? Then what am I making professions for; what am I bragging about;
when it is fitter for me to handle the distaff than the sword?"

"No more of that, senor," said Sancho; "'let the hen live, even though it
be with her pip;' 'to-day for thee and to-morrow for me;' in these affairs
of encounters and whacks one must not mind them, for he that falls to-day
may get up to-morrow; unless indeed he chooses to lie in bed, I mean
gives way to weakness and does not pluck up fresh spirit for fresh
battles; let your worship get up now to receive Don Gregorio; for the
household seems to be in a bustle, and no doubt he has come by this
time;" and so it proved, for as soon as Don Gregorio and the renegade had
given the viceroy an account of the voyage out and home, Don Gregorio,
eager to see Ana Felix, came with the renegade to Don Antonio's house.
When they carried him away from Algiers he was in woman's dress; on board
the vessel, however, he exchanged it for that of a captive who escaped
with him; but in whatever dress he might be he looked like one to be
loved and served and esteemed, for he was surpassingly well-favoured, and
to judge by appearances some seventeen or eighteen years of age. Ricote
and his daughter came out to welcome him, the father with tears, the
daughter with bashfulness. They did not embrace each other, for where
there is deep love there will never be overmuch boldness. Seen side by
side, the comeliness of Don Gregorio and the beauty of Ana Felix were the
admiration of all who were present. It was silence that spoke for the
lovers at that moment, and their eyes were the tongues that declared
their pure and happy feelings. The renegade explained the measures and
means he had adopted to rescue Don Gregorio, and Don Gregorio at no great
length, but in a few words, in which he showed that his intelligence was
in advance of his years, described the peril and embarrassment he found
himself in among the women with whom he had sojourned. To conclude,
Ricote liberally recompensed and rewarded as well the renegade as the men
who had rowed; and the renegade effected his readmission into the body of
the Church and was reconciled with it, and from a rotten limb became by
penance and repentance a clean and sound one.

Two days later the viceroy discussed with Don Antonio the steps they
should take to enable Ana Felix and her father to stay in Spain, for it
seemed to them there could be no objection to a daughter who was so good
a Christian and a father to all appearance so well disposed remaining
there. Don Antonio offered to arrange the matter at the capital, whither
he was compelled to go on some other business, hinting that many a
difficult affair was settled there with the help of favour and bribes.

"Nay," said Ricote, who was present during the conversation, "it will not
do to rely upon favour or bribes, because with the great Don Bernardino
de Velasco, Conde de Salazar, to whom his Majesty has entrusted our
expulsion, neither entreaties nor promises, bribes nor appeals to
compassion, are of any use; for though it is true he mingles mercy with
justice, still, seeing that the whole body of our nation is tainted and
corrupt, he applies to it the cautery that burns rather than the salve
that soothes; and thus, by prudence, sagacity, care and the fear he
inspires, he has borne on his mighty shoulders the weight of this great
policy and carried it into effect, all our schemes and plots,
importunities and wiles, being ineffectual to blind his Argus eyes, ever
on the watch lest one of us should remain behind in concealment, and like
a hidden root come in course of time to sprout and bear poisonous fruit
in Spain, now cleansed, and relieved of the fear in which our vast
numbers kept it. Heroic resolve of the great Philip the Third, and
unparalleled wisdom to have entrusted it to the said Don Bernardino de
Velasco!"

"At any rate," said Don Antonio, "when I am there I will make all
possible efforts, and let heaven do as pleases it best; Don Gregorio will
come with me to relieve the anxiety which his parents must be suffering
on account of his absence; Ana Felix will remain in my house with my
wife, or in a monastery; and I know the viceroy will be glad that the
worthy Ricote should stay with him until we see what terms I can make."

The viceroy agreed to all that was proposed; but Don Gregorio on learning
what had passed declared he could not and would not on any account leave
Ana Felix; however, as it was his purpose to go and see his parents and
devise some way of returning for her, he fell in with the proposed
arrangement. Ana Felix remained with Don Antonio's wife, and Ricote in
the viceroy's house.

The day for Don Antonio's departure came; and two days later that for Don
Quixote's and Sancho's, for Don Quixote's fall did not suffer him to take
the road sooner. There were tears and sighs, swoonings and sobs, at the
parting between Don Gregorio and Ana Felix. Ricote offered Don Gregorio a
thousand crowns if he would have them, but he would not take any save
five which Don Antonio lent him and he promised to repay at the capital.
So the two of them took their departure, and Don Quixote and Sancho
afterwards, as has been already said, Don Quixote without his armour and
in travelling gear, and Sancho on foot, Dapple being loaded with the
armour.




CHAPTER LXVI.

WHICH TREATS OF WHAT HE WHO READS WILL SEE, OR WHAT HE WHO HAS IT READ TO
HIM WILL HEAR


As he left Barcelona, Don Quixote turned gaze upon the spot where he had
fallen. "Here Troy was," said he; "here my ill-luck, not my cowardice,
robbed me of all the glory I had won; here Fortune made me the victim of
her caprices; here the lustre of my achievements was dimmed; here, in a
word, fell my happiness never to rise again."

"Senor," said Sancho on hearing this, "it is the part of brave hearts to
be patient in adversity just as much as to be glad in prosperity; I judge
by myself, for, if when I was a governor I was glad, now that I am a
squire and on foot I am not sad; and I have heard say that she whom
commonly they call Fortune is a drunken whimsical jade, and, what is
more, blind, and therefore neither sees what she does, nor knows whom she
casts down or whom she sets up."

"Thou art a great philosopher, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "thou speakest
very sensibly; I know not who taught thee. But I can tell thee there is
no such thing as Fortune in the world, nor does anything which takes
place there, be it good or bad, come about by chance, but by the special
preordination of heaven; and hence the common saying that 'each of us is
the maker of his own Fortune.' I have been that of mine; but not with the
proper amount of prudence, and my self-confidence has therefore made me
pay dearly; for I ought to have reflected that Rocinante's feeble
strength could not resist the mighty bulk of the Knight of the White
Moon's horse. In a word, I ventured it, I did my best, I was overthrown,
but though I lost my honour I did not lose nor can I lose the virtue of
keeping my word. When I was a knight-errant, daring and valiant, I
supported my achievements by hand and deed, and now that I am a humble
squire I will support my words by keeping the promise I have given.
Forward then, Sancho my friend, let us go to keep the year of the
novitiate in our own country, and in that seclusion we shall pick up
fresh strength to return to the by me never-forgotten calling of arms."

"Senor," returned Sancho, "travelling on foot is not such a pleasant
thing that it makes me feel disposed or tempted to make long marches. Let
us leave this armour hung up on some tree, instead of some one that has
been hanged; and then with me on Dapple's back and my feet off the ground
we will arrange the stages as your worship pleases to measure them out;
but to suppose that I am going to travel on foot, and make long ones, is
to suppose nonsense."

"Thou sayest well, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "let my armour be hung up
for a trophy, and under it or round it we will carve on the trees what
was inscribed on the trophy of Roland's armour--

These let none move
Who dareth not his might with Roland prove."

"That's the very thing," said Sancho; "and if it was not that we should
feel the want of Rocinante on the road, it would be as well to leave him
hung up too."

"And yet, I had rather not have either him or the armour hung up," said
Don Quixote, "that it may not be said, 'for good service a bad return.'"

"Your worship is right," said Sancho; "for, as sensible people hold, 'the
fault of the ass must not be laid on the pack-saddle;' and, as in this
affair the fault is your worship's, punish yourself and don't let your
anger break out against the already battered and bloody armour, or the
meekness of Rocinante, or the tenderness of my feet, trying to make them
travel more than is reasonable."

In converse of this sort the whole of that day went by, as did the four
succeeding ones, without anything occurring to interrupt their journey,
but on the fifth as they entered a village they found a great number of
people at the door of an inn enjoying themselves, as it was a holiday.
Upon Don Quixote's approach a peasant called out, "One of these two
gentlemen who come here, and who don't know the parties, will tell us
what we ought to do about our wager."

"That I will, certainly," said Don Quixote, "and according to the rights
of the case, if I can manage to understand it."

"Well, here it is, worthy sir," said the peasant; "a man of this village
who is so fat that he weighs twenty stone challenged another, a neighbour
of his, who does not weigh more than nine, to run a race. The agreement
was that they were to run a distance of a hundred paces with equal
weights; and when the challenger was asked how the weights were to be
equalised he said that the other, as he weighed nine stone, should put
eleven in iron on his back, and that in this way the twenty stone of the
thin man would equal the twenty stone of the fat one."

"Not at all," exclaimed Sancho at once, before Don Quixote could answer;
"it's for me, that only a few days ago left off being a governor and a
judge, as all the world knows, to settle these doubtful questions and
give an opinion in disputes of all sorts."

"Answer in God's name, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote, "for I am not
fit to give crumbs to a cat, my wits are so confused and upset."

With this permission Sancho said to the peasants who stood clustered
round him, waiting with open mouths for the decision to come from his,
"Brothers, what the fat man requires is not in reason, nor has it a
shadow of justice in it; because, if it be true, as they say, that the
challenged may choose the weapons, the other has no right to choose such
as will prevent and keep him from winning. My decision, therefore, is
that the fat challenger prune, peel, thin, trim and correct himself, and
take eleven stone of his flesh off his body, here or there, as he
pleases, and as suits him best; and being in this way reduced to nine
stone weight, he will make himself equal and even with nine stone of his
opponent, and they will be able to run on equal terms."

"By all that's good," said one of the peasants as he heard Sancho's
decision, "but the gentleman has spoken like a saint, and given judgment
like a canon! But I'll be bound the fat man won't part with an ounce of
his flesh, not to say eleven stone."

"The best plan will be for them not to run," said another, "so that
neither the thin man break down under the weight, nor the fat one strip
himself of his flesh; let half the wager be spent in wine, and let's take
these gentlemen to the tavern where there's the best, and 'over me be the
cloak when it rains."

"I thank you, sirs," said Don Quixote; "but I cannot stop for an instant,
for sad thoughts and unhappy circumstances force me to seem discourteous
and to travel apace;" and spurring Rocinante he pushed on, leaving them
wondering at what they had seen and heard, at his own strange figure and
at the shrewdness of his servant, for such they took Sancho to be; and
another of them observed, "If the servant is so clever, what must the
master be? I'll bet, if they are going to Salamanca to study, they'll
come to be alcaldes of the Court in a trice; for it's a mere joke--only
to read and read, and have interest and good luck; and before a man knows
where he is he finds himself with a staff in his hand or a mitre on his
head."

That night master and man passed out in the fields in the open air, and
the next day as they were pursuing their journey they saw coming towards
them a man on foot with alforjas at the neck and a javelin or spiked
staff in his hand, the very cut of a foot courier; who, as soon as he
came close to Don Quixote, increased his pace and half running came up to
him, and embracing his right thigh, for he could reach no higher,
exclaimed with evident pleasure, "O Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha, what
happiness it will be to the heart of my lord the duke when he knows your
worship is coming back to his castle, for he is still there with my lady
the duchess!"

"I do not recognise you, friend," said Don Quixote, "nor do I know who
you are, unless you tell me."

"I am Tosilos, my lord the duke's lacquey, Senor Don Quixote," replied
the courier; "he who refused to fight your worship about marrying the
daughter of Dona Rodriguez."

"God bless me!" exclaimed Don Quixote; "is it possible that you are the
one whom mine enemies the enchanters changed into the lacquey you speak
of in order to rob me of the honour of that battle?"

"Nonsense, good sir!" said the messenger; "there was no enchantment or
transformation at all; I entered the lists just as much lacquey Tosilos
as I came out of them lacquey Tosilos. I thought to marry without
fighting, for the girl had taken my fancy; but my scheme had a very
different result, for as soon as your worship had left the castle my lord
the duke had a hundred strokes of the stick given me for having acted
contrary to the orders he gave me before engaging in the combat; and the
end of the whole affair is that the girl has become a nun, and Dona
Rodriguez has gone back to Castile, and I am now on my way to Barcelona
with a packet of letters for the viceroy which my master is sending him.
If your worship would like a drop, sound though warm, I have a gourd here
full of the best, and some scraps of Tronchon cheese that will serve as a
provocative and wakener of your thirst if so be it is asleep."

"I take the offer," said Sancho; "no more compliments about it; pour out,
good Tosilos, in spite of all the enchanters in the Indies."

"Thou art indeed the greatest glutton in the world, Sancho," said Don
Quixote, "and the greatest booby on earth, not to be able to see that
this courier is enchanted and this Tosilos a sham one; stop with him and
take thy fill; I will go on slowly and wait for thee to come up with me."

The lacquey laughed, unsheathed his gourd, unwalletted his scraps, and
taking out a small loaf of bread he and Sancho seated themselves on the
green grass, and in peace and good fellowship finished off the contents
of the alforjas down to the bottom, so resolutely that they licked the
wrapper of the letters, merely because it smelt of cheese.

Said Tosilos to Sancho, "Beyond a doubt, Sancho my friend, this master of
thine ought to be a madman."

"Ought!" said Sancho; "he owes no man anything; he pays for everything,
particularly when the coin is madness. I see it plain enough, and I tell
him so plain enough; but what's the use? especially now that it is all
over with him, for here he is beaten by the Knight of the White Moon."

Tosilos begged him to explain what had happened him, but Sancho replied
that it would not be good manners to leave his master waiting for him;
and that some other day if they met there would be time enough for that;
and then getting up, after shaking his doublet and brushing the crumbs
out of his beard, he drove Dapple on before him, and bidding adieu to
Tosilos left him and rejoined his master, who was waiting for him under
the shade of a tree.




CHAPTER LXVII.

OF THE RESOLUTION DON QUIXOTE FORMED TO TURN SHEPHERD AND TAKE TO A LIFE
IN THE FIELDS WHILE THE YEAR FOR WHICH HE HAD GIVEN HIS WORD WAS RUNNING
ITS COURSE; WITH OTHER EVENTS TRULY DELECTABLE AND HAPPY


If a multitude of reflections used to harass Don Quixote before he had
been overthrown, a great many more harassed him since his fall. He was
under the shade of a tree, as has been said, and there, like flies on
honey, thoughts came crowding upon him and stinging him. Some of them
turned upon the disenchantment of Dulcinea, others upon the life he was
about to lead in his enforced retirement. Sancho came up and spoke in
high praise of the generous disposition of the lacquey Tosilos.

"Is it possible, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that thou dost still think
that he yonder is a real lacquey? Apparently it has escaped thy memory
that thou hast seen Dulcinea turned and transformed into a peasant wench,
and the Knight of the Mirrors into the bachelor Carrasco; all the work of
the enchanters that persecute me. But tell me now, didst thou ask this
Tosilos, as thou callest him, what has become of Altisidora, did she weep
over my absence, or has she already consigned to oblivion the love
thoughts that used to afflict her when I was present?"

"The thoughts that I had," said Sancho, "were not such as to leave time
for asking fool's questions. Body o' me, senor! is your worship in a
condition now to inquire into other people's thoughts, above all love
thoughts?"

"Look ye, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "there is a great difference between
what is done out of love and what is done out of gratitude. A knight may
very possibly be proof against love; but it is impossible, strictly
speaking, for him to be ungrateful. Altisidora, to all appearance, loved
me truly; she gave me the three kerchiefs thou knowest of; she wept at my
departure, she cursed me, she abused me, casting shame to the winds she
bewailed herself in public; all signs that she adored me; for the wrath
of lovers always ends in curses. I had no hopes to give her, nor
treasures to offer her, for mine are given to Dulcinea, and the treasures
of knights-errant are like those of the fairies,' illusory and deceptive;
all I can give her is the place in my memory I keep for her, without
prejudice, however, to that which I hold devoted to Dulcinea, whom thou
art wronging by thy remissness in whipping thyself and scourging that
flesh--would that I saw it eaten by wolves--which would rather keep
itself for the worms than for the relief of that poor lady."

"Senor," replied Sancho, "if the truth is to be told, I cannot persuade
myself that the whipping of my backside has anything to do with the
disenchantment of the enchanted; it is like saying, 'If your head aches
rub ointment on your knees;' at any rate I'll make bold to swear that in
all the histories dealing with knight-errantry that your worship has read
you have never come across anybody disenchanted by whipping; but whether
or no I'll whip myself when I have a fancy for it, and the opportunity
serves for scourging myself comfortably."

"God grant it," said Don Quixote; "and heaven give thee grace to take it
to heart and own the obligation thou art under to help my lady, who is
thine also, inasmuch as thou art mine."

As they pursued their journey talking in this way they came to the very
same spot where they had been trampled on by the bulls. Don Quixote
recognised it, and said he to Sancho, "This is the meadow where we came
upon those gay shepherdesses and gallant shepherds who were trying to
revive and imitate the pastoral Arcadia there, an idea as novel as it was
happy, in emulation whereof, if so be thou dost approve of it, Sancho, I
would have ourselves turn shepherds, at any rate for the time I have to
live in retirement. I will buy some ewes and everything else requisite
for the pastoral calling; and, I under the name of the shepherd Quixotize
and thou as the shepherd Panzino, we will roam the woods and groves and
meadows singing songs here, lamenting in elegies there, drinking of the
crystal waters of the springs or limpid brooks or flowing rivers. The
oaks will yield us their sweet fruit with bountiful hand, the trunks of
the hard cork trees a seat, the willows shade, the roses perfume, the
widespread meadows carpets tinted with a thousand dyes; the clear pure
air will give us breath, the moon and stars lighten the darkness of the
night for us, song shall be our delight, lamenting our joy, Apollo will
supply us with verses, and love with conceits whereby we shall make
ourselves famed for ever, not only in this but in ages to come."

"Egad," said Sancho, "but that sort of life squares, nay corners, with my
notions; and what is more the bachelor Samson Carrasco and Master
Nicholas the barber won't have well seen it before they'll want to follow
it and turn shepherds along with us; and God grant it may not come into
the curate's head to join the sheepfold too, he's so jovial and fond of
enjoying himself."

"Thou art in the right of it, Sancho," said Don Quixote; "and the
bachelor Samson Carrasco, if he enters the pastoral fraternity, as no
doubt he will, may call himself the shepherd Samsonino, or perhaps the
shepherd Carrascon; Nicholas the barber may call himself Niculoso, as old
Boscan formerly was called Nemoroso; as for the curate I don't know what
name we can fit to him unless it be something derived from his title, and
we call him the shepherd Curiambro. For the shepherdesses whose lovers we
shall be, we can pick names as we would pears; and as my lady's name does
just as well for a shepherdess's as for a princess's, I need not trouble
myself to look for one that will suit her better; to thine, Sancho, thou
canst give what name thou wilt."

"I don't mean to give her any but Teresona," said Sancho, "which will go
well with her stoutness and with her own right name, as she is called
Teresa; and then when I sing her praises in my verses I'll show how
chaste my passion is, for I'm not going to look 'for better bread than
ever came from wheat' in other men's houses. It won't do for the curate
to have a shepherdess, for the sake of good example; and if the bachelor
chooses to have one, that is his look-out."

"God bless me, Sancho my friend!" said Don Quixote, "what a life we shall
lead! What hautboys and Zamora bagpipes we shall hear, what tabors,
timbrels, and rebecks! And then if among all these different sorts of
music that of the albogues is heard, almost all the pastoral instruments
will be there."

"What are albogues?" asked Sancho, "for I never in my life heard tell of
them or saw them."

"Albogues," said Don Quixote, "are brass plates like candlesticks that
struck against one another on the hollow side make a noise which, if not
very pleasing or harmonious, is not disagreeable and accords very well
with the rude notes of the bagpipe and tabor. The word albogue is
Morisco, as are all those in our Spanish tongue that begin with al; for
example, almohaza, almorzar, alhombra, alguacil, alhucema, almacen,
alcancia, and others of the same sort, of which there are not many more;
our language has only three that are Morisco and end in i, which are
borcegui, zaquizami, and maravedi. Alheli and alfaqui are seen to be
Arabic, as well by the al at the beginning as by the i they end with. I
mention this incidentally, the chance allusion to albogues having
reminded me of it; and it will be of great assistance to us in the
perfect practice of this calling that I am something of a poet, as thou
knowest, and that besides the bachelor Samson Carrasco is an accomplished
one. Of the curate I say nothing; but I will wager he has some spice of
the poet in him, and no doubt Master Nicholas too, for all barbers, or
most of them, are guitar players and stringers of verses. I will bewail
my separation; thou shalt glorify thyself as a constant lover; the
shepherd Carrascon will figure as a rejected one, and the curate
Curiambro as whatever may please him best; and so all will go as gaily as
heart could wish."

To this Sancho made answer, "I am so unlucky, senor, that I'm afraid the
day will never come when I'll see myself at such a calling. O what neat
spoons I'll make when I'm a shepherd! What messes, creams, garlands,
pastoral odds and ends! And if they don't get me a name for wisdom,
they'll not fail to get me one for ingenuity. My daughter Sanchica will
bring us our dinner to the pasture. But stay-she's good-looking, and
shepherds there are with more mischief than simplicity in them; I would
not have her 'come for wool and go back shorn;' love-making and lawless
desires are just as common in the fields as in the cities, and in
shepherds' shanties as in royal palaces; 'do away with the cause, you do
away with the sin;' 'if eyes don't see hearts don't break' and 'better a
clear escape than good men's prayers.'"

"A truce to thy proverbs, Sancho," exclaimed Don Quixote; "any one of
those thou hast uttered would suffice to explain thy meaning; many a time
have I recommended thee not to be so lavish with proverbs and to exercise
some moderation in delivering them; but it seems to me it is only
'preaching in the desert;' 'my mother beats me and I go on with my
tricks."

"It seems to me," said Sancho, "that your worship is like the common
saying, 'Said the frying-pan to the kettle, Get away, blackbreech.' You
chide me for uttering proverbs, and you string them in couples yourself."

"Observe, Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "I bring in proverbs to the
purpose, and when I quote them they fit like a ring to the finger; thou
bringest them in by the head and shoulders, in such a way that thou dost
drag them in, rather than introduce them; if I am not mistaken, I have
told thee already that proverbs are short maxims drawn from the
experience and observation of our wise men of old; but the proverb that
is not to the purpose is a piece of nonsense and not a maxim. But enough
of this; as nightfall is drawing on let us retire some little distance
from the high road to pass the night; what is in store for us to-morrow
God knoweth."

They turned aside, and supped late and poorly, very much against Sancho's
will, who turned over in his mind the hardships attendant upon
knight-errantry in woods and forests, even though at times plenty
presented itself in castles and houses, as at Don Diego de Miranda's, at
the wedding of Camacho the Rich, and at Don Antonio Moreno's; he
reflected, however, that it could not be always day, nor always night;
and so that night he passed in sleeping, and his master in waking.




CHAPTER LXVIII.

OF THE BRISTLY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE


The night was somewhat dark, for though there was a moon in the sky it
was not in a quarter where she could be seen; for sometimes the lady
Diana goes on a stroll to the antipodes, and leaves the mountains all
black and the valleys in darkness. Don Quixote obeyed nature so far as to
sleep his first sleep, but did not give way to the second, very different
from Sancho, who never had any second, because with him sleep lasted from
night till morning, wherein he showed what a sound constitution and few
cares he had. Don Quixote's cares kept him restless, so much so that he
awoke Sancho and said to him, "I am amazed, Sancho, at the unconcern of
thy temperament. I believe thou art made of marble or hard brass,
incapable of any emotion or feeling whatever. I lie awake while thou
sleepest, I weep while thou singest, I am faint with fasting while thou
art sluggish and torpid from pure repletion. It is the duty of good
servants to share the sufferings and feel the sorrows of their masters,
if it be only for the sake of appearances. See the calmness of the night,
the solitude of the spot, inviting us to break our slumbers by a vigil of
some sort. Rise as thou livest, and retire a little distance, and with a
good heart and cheerful courage give thyself three or four hundred lashes
on account of Dulcinea's disenchantment score; and this I entreat of
thee, making it a request, for I have no desire to come to grips with
thee a second time, as I know thou hast a heavy hand. As soon as thou
hast laid them on we will pass the rest of the night, I singing my
separation, thou thy constancy, making a beginning at once with the
pastoral life we are to follow at our village."

"Senor," replied Sancho, "I'm no monk to get up out of the middle of my
sleep and scourge myself, nor does it seem to me that one can pass from
one extreme of the pain of whipping to the other of music. Will your
worship let me sleep, and not worry me about whipping myself? or you'll
make me swear never to touch a hair of my doublet, not to say my flesh."

"O hard heart!" said Don Quixote, "O pitiless squire! O bread
ill-bestowed and favours ill-acknowledged, both those I have done thee
and those I mean to do thee! Through me hast thou seen thyself a
governor, and through me thou seest thyself in immediate expectation of
being a count, or obtaining some other equivalent title, for I-post
tenebras spero lucem."

"I don't know what that is," said Sancho; "all I know is that so long as
I am asleep I have neither fear nor hope, trouble nor glory; and good
luck betide him that invented sleep, the cloak that covers over all a
man's thoughts, the food that removes hunger, the drink that drives away
thirst, the fire that warms the cold, the cold that tempers the heat,
and, to wind up with, the universal coin wherewith everything is bought,
the weight and balance that makes the shepherd equal with the king and
the fool with the wise man. Sleep, I have heard say, has only one fault,
that it is like death; for between a sleeping man and a dead man there is
very little difference."

"Never have I heard thee speak so elegantly as now, Sancho," said Don
Quixote; "and here I begin to see the truth of the proverb thou dost
sometimes quote, 'Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art
fed.'"

"Ha, by my life, master mine," said Sancho, "it's not I that am stringing
proverbs now, for they drop in pairs from your worship's mouth faster
than from mine; only there is this difference between mine and yours,
that yours are well-timed and mine are untimely; but anyhow, they are all
proverbs."

At this point they became aware of a harsh indistinct noise that seemed
to spread through all the valleys around. Don Quixote stood up and laid
his hand upon his sword, and Sancho ensconced himself under Dapple and
put the bundle of armour on one side of him and the ass's pack-saddle on
the other, in fear and trembling as great as Don Quixote's perturbation.
Each instant the noise increased and came nearer to the two terrified
men, or at least to one, for as to the other, his courage is known to
all. The fact of the matter was that some men were taking above six
hundred pigs to sell at a fair, and were on their way with them at that
hour, and so great was the noise they made and their grunting and
blowing, that they deafened the ears of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and
they could not make out what it was. The wide-spread grunting drove came
on in a surging mass, and without showing any respect for Don Quixote's
dignity or Sancho's, passed right over the pair of them, demolishing
Sancho's entrenchments, and not only upsetting Don Quixote but sweeping
Rocinante off his feet into the bargain; and what with the trampling and
the grunting, and the pace at which the unclean beasts went, pack-saddle,
armour, Dapple and Rocinante were left scattered on the ground and Sancho
and Don Quixote at their wits' end.

Sancho got up as well as he could and begged his master to give him his
sword, saying he wanted to kill half a dozen of those dirty unmannerly
pigs, for he had by this time found out that that was what they were.

"Let them be, my friend," said Don Quixote; "this insult is the penalty
of my sin; and it is the righteous chastisement of heaven that jackals
should devour a vanquished knight, and wasps sting him and pigs trample
him under foot."

"I suppose it is the chastisement of heaven, too," said Sancho, "that
flies should prick the squires of vanquished knights, and lice eat them,
and hunger assail them. If we squires were the sons of the knights we
serve, or their very near relations, it would be no wonder if the penalty
of their misdeeds overtook us, even to the fourth generation. But what
have the Panzas to do with the Quixotes? Well, well, let's lie down again
and sleep out what little of the night there's left, and God will send us
dawn and we shall be all right."

"Sleep thou, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "for thou wast born to sleep
as I was born to watch; and during the time it now wants of dawn I will
give a loose rein to my thoughts, and seek a vent for them in a little
madrigal which, unknown to thee, I composed in my head last night."

"I should think," said Sancho, "that the thoughts that allow one to make
verses cannot be of great consequence; let your worship string verses as
much as you like and I'll sleep as much as I can;" and forthwith, taking
the space of ground he required, he muffled himself up and fell into a
sound sleep, undisturbed by bond, debt, or trouble of any sort. Don
Quixote, propped up against the trunk of a beech or a cork tree--for Cide
Hamete does not specify what kind of tree it was--sang in this strain to
the accompaniment of his own sighs:

  When in my mind
I muse, O Love, upon thy cruelty,
  To death I flee,
In hope therein the end of all to find.

  But drawing near
That welcome haven in my sea of woe,
  Such joy I know,
That life revives, and still I linger here.

  Thus life doth slay,
And death again to life restoreth me;
  Strange destiny,
That deals with life and death as with a play!

He accompanied each verse with many sighs and not a few tears, just like
one whose heart was pierced with grief at his defeat and his separation
from Dulcinea.

And now daylight came, and the sun smote Sancho on the eyes with his
beams. He awoke, roused himself up, shook himself and stretched his lazy
limbs, and seeing the havoc the pigs had made with his stores he cursed
the drove, and more besides. Then the pair resumed their journey, and as
evening closed in they saw coming towards them some ten men on horseback
and four or five on foot. Don Quixote's heart beat quick and Sancho's
quailed with fear, for the persons approaching them carried lances and
bucklers, and were in very warlike guise. Don Quixote turned to Sancho
and said, "If I could make use of my weapons, and my promise had not tied
my hands, I would count this host that comes against us but cakes and
fancy bread; but perhaps it may prove something different from what we
apprehend." The men on horseback now came up, and raising their lances
surrounded Don Quixote in silence, and pointed them at his back and
breast, menacing him with death. One of those on foot, putting his finger
to his lips as a sign to him to be silent, seized Rocinante's bridle and
drew him out of the road, and the others driving Sancho and Dapple before
them, and all maintaining a strange silence, followed in the steps of the
one who led Don Quixote. The latter two or three times attempted to ask
where they were taking him to and what they wanted, but the instant he
began to open his lips they threatened to close them with the points of
their lances; and Sancho fared the same way, for the moment he seemed
about to speak one of those on foot punched him with a goad, and Dapple
likewise, as if he too wanted to talk. Night set in, they quickened their
pace, and the fears of the two prisoners grew greater, especially as they
heard themselves assailed with--"Get on, ye Troglodytes;" "Silence, ye
barbarians;" "March, ye cannibals;" "No murmuring, ye Scythians;" "Don't
open your eyes, ye murderous Polyphemes, ye blood-thirsty lions," and
suchlike names with which their captors harassed the ears of the wretched
master and man. Sancho went along saying to himself, "We, tortolites,
barbers, animals! I don't like those names at all; 'it's in a bad wind
our corn is being winnowed;' 'misfortune comes upon us all at once like
sticks on a dog,' and God grant it may be no worse than them that this
unlucky adventure has in store for us."

Don Quixote rode completely dazed, unable with the aid of all his wits to
make out what could be the meaning of these abusive names they called
them, and the only conclusion he could arrive at was that there was no
good to be hoped for and much evil to be feared. And now, about an hour
after midnight, they reached a castle which Don Quixote saw at once was
the duke's, where they had been but a short time before. "God bless me!"
said he, as he recognised the mansion, "what does this mean? It is all
courtesy and politeness in this house; but with the vanquished good turns
into evil, and evil into worse."

They entered the chief court of the castle and found it prepared and
fitted up in a style that added to their amazement and doubled their
fears, as will be seen in the following chapter.




CHAPTER LXIX.

OF THE STRANGEST AND MOST EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURE THAT BEFELL DON QUIXOTE
IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF THIS GREAT HISTORY


The horsemen dismounted, and, together with the men on foot, without a
moment's delay taking up Sancho and Don Quixote bodily, they carried them
into the court, all round which near a hundred torches fixed in sockets
were burning, besides above five hundred lamps in the corridors, so that
in spite of the night, which was somewhat dark, the want of daylight
could not be perceived. In the middle of the court was a catafalque,
raised about two yards above the ground and covered completely by an
immense canopy of black velvet, and on the steps all round it white wax
tapers burned in more than a hundred silver candlesticks. Upon the
catafalque was seen the dead body of a damsel so lovely that by her
beauty she made death itself look beautiful. She lay with her head
resting upon a cushion of brocade and crowned with a garland of
sweet-smelling flowers of divers sorts, her hands crossed upon her bosom,
and between them a branch of yellow palm of victory. On one side of the
court was erected a stage, where upon two chairs were seated two persons
who from having crowns on their heads and sceptres in their hands
appeared to be kings of some sort, whether real or mock ones. By the side
of this stage, which was reached by steps, were two other chairs on which
the men carrying the prisoners seated Don Quixote and Sancho, all in
silence, and by signs giving them to understand that they too were to be
silent; which, however, they would have been without any signs, for their
amazement at all they saw held them tongue-tied. And now two persons of
distinction, who were at once recognised by Don Quixote as his hosts the
duke and duchess, ascended the stage attended by a numerous suite, and
seated themselves on two gorgeous chairs close to the two kings, as they
seemed to be. Who would not have been amazed at this? Nor was this all,
for Don Quixote had perceived that the dead body on the catafalque was
that of the fair Altisidora. As the duke and duchess mounted the stage
Don Quixote and Sancho rose and made them a profound obeisance, which
they returned by bowing their heads slightly. At this moment an official
crossed over, and approaching Sancho threw over him a robe of black
buckram painted all over with flames of fire, and taking off his cap put
upon his head a mitre such as those undergoing the sentence of the Holy
Office wear; and whispered in his ear that he must not open his lips, or
they would put a gag upon him, or take his life. Sancho surveyed himself
from head to foot and saw himself all ablaze with flames; but as they did
not burn him, he did not care two farthings for them. He took off the
mitre, and seeing it painted with devils he put it on again, saying to
himself, "Well, so far those don't burn me nor do these carry me off."
Don Quixote surveyed him too, and though fear had got the better of his
faculties, he could not help smiling to see the figure Sancho presented.
And now from underneath the catafalque, so it seemed, there rose a low
sweet sound of flutes, which, coming unbroken by human voice (for there
silence itself kept silence), had a soft and languishing effect. Then,
beside the pillow of what seemed to be the dead body, suddenly appeared a
fair youth in a Roman habit, who, to the accompaniment of a harp which he
himself played, sang in a sweet and clear voice these two stanzas:

While fair Altisidora, who the sport
  Of cold Don Quixote's cruelty hath been,
Returns to life, and in this magic court
  The dames in sables come to grace the scene,
And while her matrons all in seemly sort
  My lady robes in baize and bombazine,
Her beauty and her sorrows will I sing
With defter quill than touched the Thracian string.

But not in life alone, methinks, to me
  Belongs the office; Lady, when my tongue
Is cold in death, believe me, unto thee
  My voice shall raise its tributary song.
My soul, from this strait prison-house set free,
  As o'er the Stygian lake it floats along,
Thy praises singing still shall hold its way,
And make the waters of oblivion stay.

At this point one of the two that looked like kings exclaimed, "Enough,
enough, divine singer! It would be an endless task to put before us now
the death and the charms of the peerless Altisidora, not dead as the
ignorant world imagines, but living in the voice of fame and in the
penance which Sancho Panza, here present, has to undergo to restore her
to the long-lost light. Do thou, therefore, O Rhadamanthus, who sittest
in judgment with me in the murky caverns of Dis, as thou knowest all that
the inscrutable fates have decreed touching the resuscitation of this
damsel, announce and declare it at once, that the happiness we look
forward to from her restoration be no longer deferred."

No sooner had Minos the fellow judge of Rhadamanthus said this, than
Rhadamanthus rising up said:

"Ho, officials of this house, high and low, great and small, make haste
hither one and all, and print on Sancho's face four-and-twenty smacks,
and give him twelve pinches and six pin thrusts in the back and arms; for
upon this ceremony depends the restoration of Altisidora."

On hearing this Sancho broke silence and cried out, "By all that's good,
I'll as soon let my face be smacked or handled as turn Moor. Body o' me!
What has handling my face got to do with the resurrection of this damsel?
'The old woman took kindly to the blits; they enchant Dulcinea, and whip
me in order to disenchant her; Altisidora dies of ailments God was
pleased to send her, and to bring her to life again they must give me
four-and-twenty smacks, and prick holes in my body with pins, and raise
weals on my arms with pinches! Try those jokes on a brother-in-law; 'I'm
an old dog, and "tus, tus" is no use with me.'"

"Thou shalt die," said Rhadamanthus in a loud voice; "relent, thou tiger;
humble thyself, proud Nimrod; suffer and be silent, for no
impossibilities are asked of thee; it is not for thee to inquire into the
difficulties in this matter; smacked thou must be, pricked thou shalt see
thyself, and with pinches thou must be made to howl. Ho, I say,
officials, obey my orders; or by the word of an honest man, ye shall see
what ye were born for."

At this some six duennas, advancing across the court, made their
appearance in procession, one after the other, four of them with
spectacles, and all with their right hands uplifted, showing four fingers
of wrist to make their hands look longer, as is the fashion now-a-days.
No sooner had Sancho caught sight of them than, bellowing like a bull, he
exclaimed, "I might let myself be handled by all the world; but allow
duennas to touch me--not a bit of it! Scratch my face, as my master was
served in this very castle; run me through the body with burnished
daggers; pinch my arms with red-hot pincers; I'll bear all in patience to
serve these gentlefolk; but I won't let duennas touch me, though the
devil should carry me off!"

Here Don Quixote, too, broke silence, saying to Sancho, "Have patience,
my son, and gratify these noble persons, and give all thanks to heaven
that it has infused such virtue into thy person, that by its sufferings
thou canst disenchant the enchanted and restore to life the dead."

The duennas were now close to Sancho, and he, having become more
tractable and reasonable, settling himself well in his chair presented
his face and beard to the first, who delivered him a smack very stoutly
laid on, and then made him a low curtsey.

"Less politeness and less paint, senora duenna," said Sancho; "by God
your hands smell of vinegar-wash."

In fine, all the duennas smacked him and several others of the household
pinched him; but what he could not stand was being pricked by the pins;
and so, apparently out of patience, he started up out of his chair, and
seizing a lighted torch that stood near him fell upon the duennas and the
whole set of his tormentors, exclaiming, "Begone, ye ministers of hell;
I'm not made of brass not to feel such out-of-the-way tortures."

At this instant Altisidora, who probably was tired of having been so long
lying on her back, turned on her side; seeing which the bystanders cried
out almost with one voice, "Altisidora is alive! Altisidora lives!"

Rhadamanthus bade Sancho put away his wrath, as the object they had in
view was now attained. When Don Quixote saw Altisidora move, he went on
his knees to Sancho saying to him, "Now is the time, son of my bowels,
not to call thee my squire, for thee to give thyself some of those lashes
thou art bound to lay on for the disenchantment of Dulcinea. Now, I say,
is the time when the virtue that is in thee is ripe, and endowed with
efficacy to work the good that is looked for from thee."

To which Sancho made answer, "That's trick upon trick, I think, and not
honey upon pancakes; a nice thing it would be for a whipping to come now,
on the top of pinches, smacks, and pin-proddings! You had better take a
big stone and tie it round my neck, and pitch me into a well; I should
not mind it much, if I'm to be always made the cow of the wedding for the
cure of other people's ailments. Leave me alone; or else by God I'll
fling the whole thing to the dogs, let come what may."

Altisidora had by this time sat up on the catafalque, and as she did so
the clarions sounded, accompanied by the flutes, and the voices of all
present exclaiming, "Long life to Altisidora! long life to Altisidora!"
The duke and duchess and the kings Minos and Rhadamanthus stood up, and
all, together with Don Quixote and Sancho, advanced to receive her and
take her down from the catafalque; and she, making as though she were
recovering from a swoon, bowed her head to the duke and duchess and to
the kings, and looking sideways at Don Quixote, said to him, "God forgive
thee, insensible knight, for through thy cruelty I have been, to me it
seems, more than a thousand years in the other world; and to thee, the
most compassionate upon earth, I render thanks for the life I am now in
possession of. From this day forth, friend Sancho, count as thine six
smocks of mine which I bestow upon thee, to make as many shirts for
thyself, and if they are not all quite whole, at any rate they are all
clean."

Sancho kissed her hands in gratitude, kneeling, and with the mitre in his
hand. The duke bade them take it from him, and give him back his cap and
doublet and remove the flaming robe. Sancho begged the duke to let them
leave him the robe and mitre; as he wanted to take them home for a token
and memento of that unexampled adventure. The duchess said they must
leave them with him; for he knew already what a great friend of his she
was. The duke then gave orders that the court should be cleared, and that
all should retire to their chambers, and that Don Quixote and Sancho
should be conducted to their old quarters.




CHAPTER LXX.

WHICH FOLLOWS SIXTY-NINE AND DEALS WITH MATTERS INDISPENSABLE FOR THE
CLEAR COMPREHENSION OF THIS HISTORY


Sancho slept that night in a cot in the same chamber with Don Quixote, a
thing he would have gladly excused if he could for he knew very well that
with questions and answers his master would not let him sleep, and he was
in no humour for talking much, as he still felt the pain of his late
martyrdom, which interfered with his freedom of speech; and it would have
been more to his taste to sleep in a hovel alone, than in that luxurious
chamber in company. And so well founded did his apprehension prove, and
so correct was his anticipation, that scarcely had his master got into
bed when he said, "What dost thou think of to-night's adventure, Sancho?
Great and mighty is the power of cold-hearted scorn, for thou with thine
own eyes hast seen Altisidora slain, not by arrows, nor by the sword, nor
by any warlike weapon, nor by deadly poisons, but by the thought of the
sternness and scorn with which I have always treated her."

"She might have died and welcome," said Sancho, "when she pleased and how
she pleased; and she might have left me alone, for I never made her fall
in love or scorned her. I don't know nor can I imagine how the recovery
of Altisidora, a damsel more fanciful than wise, can have, as I have said
before, anything to do with the sufferings of Sancho Panza. Now I begin
to see plainly and clearly that there are enchanters and enchanted people
in the world; and may God deliver me from them, since I can't deliver
myself; and so I beg of your worship to let me sleep and not ask me any
more questions, unless you want me to throw myself out of the window."

"Sleep, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote, "if the pinprodding and
pinches thou hast received and the smacks administered to thee will let
thee."

"No pain came up to the insult of the smacks," said Sancho, "for the
simple reason that it was duennas, confound them, that gave them to me;
but once more I entreat your worship to let me sleep, for sleep is relief
from misery to those who are miserable when awake."

"Be it so, and God be with thee," said Don Quixote.

They fell asleep, both of them, and Cide Hamete, the author of this great
history, took this opportunity to record and relate what it was that
induced the duke and duchess to get up the elaborate plot that has been
described. The bachelor Samson Carrasco, he says, not forgetting how he
as the Knight of the Mirrors had been vanquished and overthrown by Don
Quixote, which defeat and overthrow upset all his plans, resolved to try
his hand again, hoping for better luck than he had before; and so, having
learned where Don Quixote was from the page who brought the letter and
present to Sancho's wife, Teresa Panza, he got himself new armour and
another horse, and put a white moon upon his shield, and to carry his
arms he had a mule led by a peasant, not by Tom Cecial his former squire
for fear he should be recognised by Sancho or Don Quixote. He came to the
duke's castle, and the duke informed him of the road and route Don
Quixote had taken with the intention of being present at the jousts at
Saragossa. He told him, too, of the jokes he had practised upon him, and
of the device for the disenchantment of Dulcinea at the expense of
Sancho's backside; and finally he gave him an account of the trick Sancho
had played upon his master, making him believe that Dulcinea was
enchanted and turned into a country wench; and of how the duchess, his
wife, had persuaded Sancho that it was he himself who was deceived,
inasmuch as Dulcinea was really enchanted; at which the bachelor laughed
not a little, and marvelled as well at the sharpness and simplicity of
Sancho as at the length to which Don Quixote's madness went. The duke
begged of him if he found him (whether he overcame him or not) to return
that way and let him know the result. This the bachelor did; he set out
in quest of Don Quixote, and not finding him at Saragossa, he went on,
and how he fared has been already told. He returned to the duke's castle
and told him all, what the conditions of the combat were, and how Don
Quixote was now, like a loyal knight-errant, returning to keep his
promise of retiring to his village for a year, by which time, said the
bachelor, he might perhaps be cured of his madness; for that was the
object that had led him to adopt these disguises, as it was a sad thing
for a gentleman of such good parts as Don Quixote to be a madman. And so
he took his leave of the duke, and went home to his village to wait there
for Don Quixote, who was coming after him. Thereupon the duke seized the
opportunity of practising this mystification upon him; so much did he
enjoy everything connected with Sancho and Don Quixote. He had the roads
about the castle far and near, everywhere he thought Don Quixote was
likely to pass on his return, occupied by large numbers of his servants
on foot and on horseback, who were to bring him to the castle, by fair
means or foul, if they met him. They did meet him, and sent word to the
duke, who, having already settled what was to be done, as soon as he
heard of his arrival, ordered the torches and lamps in the court to be
lit and Altisidora to be placed on the catafalque with all the pomp and
ceremony that has been described, the whole affair being so well arranged
and acted that it differed but little from reality. And Cide Hamete says,
moreover, that for his part he considers the concocters of the joke as
crazy as the victims of it, and that the duke and duchess were not two
fingers' breadth removed from being something like fools themselves when
they took such pains to make game of a pair of fools.

As for the latter, one was sleeping soundly and the other lying awake
occupied with his desultory thoughts, when daylight came to them bringing
with it the desire to rise; for the lazy down was never a delight to Don
Quixote, victor or vanquished. Altisidora, come back from death to life
as Don Quixote fancied, following up the freak of her lord and lady,
entered the chamber, crowned with the garland she had worn on the
catafalque and in a robe of white taffeta embroidered with gold flowers,
her hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and leaning upon a staff of
fine black ebony. Don Quixote, disconcerted and in confusion at her
appearance, huddled himself up and well-nigh covered himself altogether
with the sheets and counterpane of the bed, tongue-tied, and unable to
offer her any civility. Altisidora seated herself on a chair at the head
of the bed, and, after a deep sigh, said to him in a feeble, soft voice,
"When women of rank and modest maidens trample honour under foot, and
give a loose to the tongue that breaks through every impediment,
publishing abroad the inmost secrets of their hearts, they are reduced to
sore extremities. Such a one am I, Senor Don Quixote of La Mancha,
crushed, conquered, love-smitten, but yet patient under suffering and
virtuous, and so much so that my heart broke with grief and I lost my
life. For the last two days I have been dead, slain by the thought of the
cruelty with which thou hast treated me, obdurate knight,

O harder thou than marble to my plaint;

or at least believed to be dead by all who saw me; and had it not been
that Love, taking pity on me, let my recovery rest upon the sufferings of
this good squire, there I should have remained in the other world."

"Love might very well have let it rest upon the sufferings of my ass, and
I should have been obliged to him," said Sancho. "But tell me,
senora--and may heaven send you a tenderer lover than my master-what did
you see in the other world? What goes on in hell? For of course that's
where one who dies in despair is bound for."

"To tell you the truth," said Altisidora, "I cannot have died outright,
for I did not go into hell; had I gone in, it is very certain I should
never have come out again, do what I might. The truth is, I came to the
gate, where some dozen or so of devils were playing tennis, all in
breeches and doublets, with falling collars trimmed with Flemish
bonelace, and ruffles of the same that served them for wristbands, with
four fingers' breadth of the arms exposed to make their hands look
longer; in their hands they held rackets of fire; but what amazed me
still more was that books, apparently full of wind and rubbish, served
them for tennis balls, a strange and marvellous thing; this, however, did
not astonish me so much as to observe that, although with players it is
usual for the winners to be glad and the losers sorry, there in that game
all were growling, all were snarling, and all were cursing one another."
"That's no wonder," said Sancho; "for devils, whether playing or not, can
never be content, win or lose."

"Very likely," said Altisidora; "but there is another thing that
surprises me too, I mean surprised me then, and that was that no ball
outlasted the first throw or was of any use a second time; and it was
wonderful the constant succession there was of books, new and old. To one
of them, a brand-new, well-bound one, they gave such a stroke that they
knocked the guts out of it and scattered the leaves about. 'Look what
book that is,' said one devil to another, and the other replied, 'It is
the "Second Part of the History of Don Quixote of La Mancha," not by Cide
Hamete, the original author, but by an Aragonese who by his own account
is of Tordesillas.' 'Out of this with it,' said the first, 'and into the
depths of hell with it out of my sight.' 'Is it so bad?' said the other.
'So bad is it,' said the first, 'that if I had set myself deliberately to
make a worse, I could not have done it.' They then went on with their
game, knocking other books about; and I, having heard them mention the
name of Don Quixote whom I love and adore so, took care to retain this
vision in my memory."

"A vision it must have been, no doubt," said Don Quixote, "for there is
no other I in the world; this history has been going about here for some
time from hand to hand, but it does not stay long in any, for everybody
gives it a taste of his foot. I am not disturbed by hearing that I am
wandering in a fantastic shape in the darkness of the pit or in the
daylight above, for I am not the one that history treats of. If it should
be good, faithful, and true, it will have ages of life; but if it should
be bad, from its birth to its burial will not be a very long journey."

Altisidora was about to proceed with her complaint against Don Quixote,
when he said to her, "I have several times told you, senora that it
grieves me you should have set your affections upon me, as from mine they
can only receive gratitude, but no return. I was born to belong to
Dulcinea del Toboso, and the fates, if there are any, dedicated me to
her; and to suppose that any other beauty can take the place she occupies
in my heart is to suppose an impossibility. This frank declaration should
suffice to make you retire within the bounds of your modesty, for no one
can bind himself to do impossibilities."

Hearing this, Altisidora, with a show of anger and agitation, exclaimed,
"God's life! Don Stockfish, soul of a mortar, stone of a date, more
obstinate and obdurate than a clown asked a favour when he has his mind
made up, if I fall upon you I'll tear your eyes out! Do you fancy, Don
Vanquished, Don Cudgelled, that I died for your sake? All that you have
seen to-night has been make-believe; I'm not the woman to let the black
of my nail suffer for such a camel, much less die!"

"That I can well believe," said Sancho; "for all that about lovers pining
to death is absurd; they may talk of it, but as for doing it-Judas may
believe that!"

While they were talking, the musician, singer, and poet, who had sung the
two stanzas given above came in, and making a profound obeisance to Don
Quixote said, "Will your worship, sir knight, reckon and retain me in the
number of your most faithful servants, for I have long been a great
admirer of yours, as well because of your fame as because of your
achievements?" "Will your worship tell me who you are," replied Don
Quixote, "so that my courtesy may be answerable to your deserts?" The
young man replied that he was the musician and songster of the night
before. "Of a truth," said Don Quixote, "your worship has a most
excellent voice; but what you sang did not seem to me very much to the
purpose; for what have Garcilasso's stanzas to do with the death of this
lady?"

"Don't be surprised at that," returned the musician; "for with the callow
poets of our day the way is for every one to write as he pleases and
pilfer where he chooses, whether it be germane to the matter or not, and
now-a-days there is no piece of silliness they can sing or write that is
not set down to poetic licence."

Don Quixote was about to reply, but was prevented by the duke and
duchess, who came in to see him, and with them there followed a long and
delightful conversation, in the course of which Sancho said so many droll
and saucy things that he left the duke and duchess wondering not only at
his simplicity but at his sharpness. Don Quixote begged their permission
to take his departure that same day, inasmuch as for a vanquished knight
like himself it was fitter he should live in a pig-sty than in a royal
palace. They gave it very readily, and the duchess asked him if
Altisidora was in his good graces.

He replied, "Senora, let me tell your ladyship that this damsel's ailment
comes entirely of idleness, and the cure for it is honest and constant
employment. She herself has told me that lace is worn in hell; and as she
must know how to make it, let it never be out of her hands; for when she
is occupied in shifting the bobbins to and fro, the image or images of
what she loves will not shift to and fro in her thoughts; this is the
truth, this is my opinion, and this is my advice."

"And mine," added Sancho; "for I never in all my life saw a lace-maker
that died for love; when damsels are at work their minds are more set on
finishing their tasks than on thinking of their loves. I speak from my
own experience; for when I'm digging I never think of my old woman; I
mean my Teresa Panza, whom I love better than my own eyelids." "You say
well, Sancho," said the duchess, "and I will take care that my Altisidora
employs herself henceforward in needlework of some sort; for she is
extremely expert at it." "There is no occasion to have recourse to that
remedy, senora," said Altisidora; "for the mere thought of the cruelty
with which this vagabond villain has treated me will suffice to blot him
out of my memory without any other device; with your highness's leave I
will retire, not to have before my eyes, I won't say his rueful
countenance, but his abominable, ugly looks." "That reminds me of the
common saying, that 'he that rails is ready to forgive,'" said the duke.

Altisidora then, pretending to wipe away her tears with a handkerchief,
made an obeisance to her master and mistress and quitted the room.

"Ill luck betide thee, poor damsel," said Sancho, "ill luck betide thee!
Thou hast fallen in with a soul as dry as a rush and a heart as hard as
oak; had it been me, i'faith 'another cock would have crowed to thee.'"

So the conversation came to an end, and Don Quixote dressed himself and
dined with the duke and duchess, and set out the same evening.




CHAPTER LXXI.

OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN DON QUIXOTE AND HIS SQUIRE SANCHO ON THE WAY TO
THEIR VILLAGE


The vanquished and afflicted Don Quixote went along very downcast in one
respect and very happy in another. His sadness arose from his defeat, and
his satisfaction from the thought of the virtue that lay in Sancho, as
had been proved by the resurrection of Altisidora; though it was with
difficulty he could persuade himself that the love-smitten damsel had
been really dead. Sancho went along anything but cheerful, for it grieved
him that Altisidora had not kept her promise of giving him the smocks;
and turning this over in his mind he said to his master, "Surely, senor,
I'm the most unlucky doctor in the world; there's many a physician that,
after killing the sick man he had to cure, requires to be paid for his
work, though it is only signing a bit of a list of medicines, that the
apothecary and not he makes up, and, there, his labour is over; but with
me though to cure somebody else costs me drops of blood, smacks, pinches,
pinproddings, and whippings, nobody gives me a farthing. Well, I swear by
all that's good if they put another patient into my hands, they'll have
to grease them for me before I cure him; for, as they say, 'it's by his
singing the abbot gets his dinner,' and I'm not going to believe that
heaven has bestowed upon me the virtue I have, that I should be dealing
it out to others all for nothing."

"Thou art right, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote, "and Altisidora has
behaved very badly in not giving thee the smocks she promised; and
although that virtue of thine is gratis data--as it has cost thee no
study whatever, any more than such study as thy personal sufferings may
be--I can say for myself that if thou wouldst have payment for the lashes
on account of the disenchant of Dulcinea, I would have given it to thee
freely ere this. I am not sure, however, whether payment will comport
with the cure, and I would not have the reward interfere with the
medicine. I think there will be nothing lost by trying it; consider how
much thou wouldst have, Sancho, and whip thyself at once, and pay thyself
down with thine own hand, as thou hast money of mine."

At this proposal Sancho opened his eyes and his ears a palm's breadth
wide, and in his heart very readily acquiesced in whipping himself, and
said he to his master, "Very well then, senor, I'll hold myself in
readiness to gratify your worship's wishes if I'm to profit by it; for
the love of my wife and children forces me to seem grasping. Let your
worship say how much you will pay me for each lash I give myself."

"If Sancho," replied Don Quixote, "I were to requite thee as the
importance and nature of the cure deserves, the treasures of Venice, the
mines of Potosi, would be insufficient to pay thee. See what thou hast of
mine, and put a price on each lash."

"Of them," said Sancho, "there are three thousand three hundred and odd;
of these I have given myself five, the rest remain; let the five go for
the odd ones, and let us take the three thousand three hundred, which at
a quarter real apiece (for I will not take less though the whole world
should bid me) make three thousand three hundred quarter reals; the three
thousand are one thousand five hundred half reals, which make seven
hundred and fifty reals; and the three hundred make a hundred and fifty
half reals, which come to seventy-five reals, which added to the seven
hundred and fifty make eight hundred and twenty-five reals in all. These
I will stop out of what I have belonging to your worship, and I'll return
home rich and content, though well whipped, for 'there's no taking
trout'--but I say no more."

"O blessed Sancho! O dear Sancho!" said Don Quixote; "how we shall be
bound to serve thee, Dulcinea and I, all the days of our lives that
heaven may grant us! If she returns to her lost shape (and it cannot be
but that she will) her misfortune will have been good fortune, and my
defeat a most happy triumph. But look here, Sancho; when wilt thou begin
the scourging? For if thou wilt make short work of it, I will give thee a
hundred reals over and above."

"When?" said Sancho; "this night without fail. Let your worship order it
so that we pass it out of doors and in the open air, and I'll scarify
myself."

Night, longed for by Don Quixote with the greatest anxiety in the world,
came at last, though it seemed to him that the wheels of Apollo's car had
broken down, and that the day was drawing itself out longer than usual,
just as is the case with lovers, who never make the reckoning of their
desires agree with time. They made their way at length in among some
pleasant trees that stood a little distance from the road, and there
vacating Rocinante's saddle and Dapple's pack-saddle, they stretched
themselves on the green grass and made their supper off Sancho's stores,
and he making a powerful and flexible whip out of Dapple's halter and
headstall retreated about twenty paces from his master among some beech
trees. Don Quixote seeing him march off with such resolution and spirit,
said to him, "Take care, my friend, not to cut thyself to pieces; allow
the lashes to wait for one another, and do not be in so great a hurry as
to run thyself out of breath midway; I mean, do not lay on so strenuously
as to make thy life fail thee before thou hast reached the desired
number; and that thou mayest not lose by a card too much or too little, I
will station myself apart and count on my rosary here the lashes thou
givest thyself. May heaven help thee as thy good intention deserves."

"'Pledges don't distress a good payer,'" said Sancho; "I mean to lay on
in such a way as without killing myself to hurt myself, for in that, no
doubt, lies the essence of this miracle."

He then stripped himself from the waist upwards, and snatching up the
rope he began to lay on and Don Quixote to count the lashes. He might
have given himself six or eight when he began to think the joke no
trifle, and its price very low; and holding his hand for a moment, he
told his master that he cried off on the score of a blind bargain, for
each of those lashes ought to be paid for at the rate of half a real
instead of a quarter.

"Go on, Sancho my friend, and be not disheartened," said Don Quixote;
"for I double the stakes as to price."

"In that case," said Sancho, "in God's hand be it, and let it rain
lashes." But the rogue no longer laid them on his shoulders, but laid on
to the trees, with such groans every now and then, that one would have
thought at each of them his soul was being plucked up by the roots. Don
Quixote, touched to the heart, and fearing he might make an end of
himself, and that through Sancho's imprudence he might miss his own
object, said to him, "As thou livest, my friend, let the matter rest
where it is, for the remedy seems to me a very rough one, and it will be
well to have patience; 'Zamora was not won in an hour.' If I have not
reckoned wrong thou hast given thyself over a thousand lashes; that is
enough for the present; 'for the ass,' to put it in homely phrase, 'bears
the load, but not the overload.'"

"No, no, senor," replied Sancho; "it shall never be said of me, 'The
money paid, the arms broken;' go back a little further, your worship, and
let me give myself at any rate a thousand lashes more; for in a couple of
bouts like this we shall have finished off the lot, and there will be
even cloth to spare."

"As thou art in such a willing mood," said Don Quixote, "may heaven aid
thee; lay on and I'll retire."

Sancho returned to his task with so much resolution that he soon had the
bark stripped off several trees, such was the severity with which he
whipped himself; and one time, raising his voice, and giving a beech a
tremendous lash, he cried out, "Here dies Samson, and all with him!"

At the sound of his piteous cry and of the stroke of the cruel lash, Don
Quixote ran to him at once, and seizing the twisted halter that served
him for a courbash, said to him, "Heaven forbid, Sancho my friend, that
to please me thou shouldst lose thy life, which is needed for the support
of thy wife and children; let Dulcinea wait for a better opportunity, and
I will content myself with a hope soon to be realised, and have patience
until thou hast gained fresh strength so as to finish off this business
to the satisfaction of everybody."

"As your worship will have it so, senor," said Sancho, "so be it; but
throw your cloak over my shoulders, for I'm sweating and I don't want to
take cold; it's a risk that novice disciplinants run."

Don Quixote obeyed, and stripping himself covered Sancho, who slept until
the sun woke him; they then resumed their journey, which for the time
being they brought to an end at a village that lay three leagues farther
on. They dismounted at a hostelry which Don Quixote recognised as such
and did not take to be a castle with moat, turrets, portcullis, and
drawbridge; for ever since he had been vanquished he talked more
rationally about everything, as will be shown presently. They quartered
him in a room on the ground floor, where in place of leather hangings
there were pieces of painted serge such as they commonly use in villages.
On one of them was painted by some very poor hand the Rape of Helen, when
the bold guest carried her off from Menelaus, and on the other was the
story of Dido and AEneas, she on a high tower, as though she were making
signals with a half sheet to her fugitive guest who was out at sea flying
in a frigate or brigantine. He noticed in the two stories that Helen did
not go very reluctantly, for she was laughing slyly and roguishly; but
the fair Dido was shown dropping tears the size of walnuts from her eyes.
Don Quixote as he looked at them observed, "Those two ladies were very
unfortunate not to have been born in this age, and I unfortunate above
all men not to have been born in theirs. Had I fallen in with those
gentlemen, Troy would not have been burned or Carthage destroyed, for it
would have been only for me to slay Paris, and all these misfortunes
would have been avoided."

"I'll lay a bet," said Sancho, "that before long there won't be a tavern,
roadside inn, hostelry, or barber's shop where the story of our doings
won't be painted up; but I'd like it painted by the hand of a better
painter than painted these."

"Thou art right, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for this painter is like
Orbaneja, a painter there was at Ubeda, who when they asked him what he
was painting, used to say, 'Whatever it may turn out; and if he chanced
to paint a cock he would write under it, 'This is a cock,' for fear they
might think it was a fox. The painter or writer, for it's all the same,
who published the history of this new Don Quixote that has come out, must
have been one of this sort I think, Sancho, for he painted or wrote
'whatever it might turn out;' or perhaps he is like a poet called Mauleon
that was about the Court some years ago, who used to answer at haphazard
whatever he was asked, and on one asking him what Deum de Deo meant, he
replied De donde diere. But, putting this aside, tell me, Sancho, hast
thou a mind to have another turn at thyself to-night, and wouldst thou
rather have it indoors or in the open air?"

"Egad, senor," said Sancho, "for what I'm going to give myself, it comes
all the same to me whether it is in a house or in the fields; still I'd
like it to be among trees; for I think they are company for me and help
me to bear my pain wonderfully."

"And yet it must not be, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote; "but, to
enable thee to recover strength, we must keep it for our own village; for
at the latest we shall get there the day after to-morrow."

Sancho said he might do as he pleased; but that for his own part he would
like to finish off the business quickly before his blood cooled and while
he had an appetite, because "in delay there is apt to be danger" very
often, and "praying to God and plying the hammer," and "one take was
better than two I'll give thee's," and "a sparrow in the hand than a
vulture on the wing."

"For God's sake, Sancho, no more proverbs!" exclaimed Don Quixote; "it
seems to me thou art becoming sicut erat again; speak in a plain, simple,
straight-forward way, as I have often told thee, and thou wilt find the
good of it."

"I don't know what bad luck it is of mine," said Sancho, "but I can't
utter a word without a proverb that is not as good as an argument to my
mind; however, I mean to mend if I can;" and so for the present the
conversation ended.




CHAPTER LXXII.

OF HOW DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO REACHED THEIR VILLAGE


All that day Don Quixote and Sancho remained in the village and inn
waiting for night, the one to finish off his task of scourging in the
open country, the other to see it accomplished, for therein lay the
accomplishment of his wishes. Meanwhile there arrived at the hostelry a
traveller on horseback with three or four servants, one of whom said to
him who appeared to be the master, "Here, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, your
worship may take your siesta to-day; the quarters seem clean and cool."

When he heard this Don Quixote said to Sancho, "Look here, Sancho; on
turning over the leaves of that book of the Second Part of my history I
think I came casually upon this name of Don Alvaro Tarfe."

"Very likely," said Sancho; "we had better let him dismount, and
by-and-by we can ask about it."

The gentleman dismounted, and the landlady gave him a room on the ground
floor opposite Don Quixote's and adorned with painted serge hangings of
the same sort. The newly arrived gentleman put on a summer coat, and
coming out to the gateway of the hostelry, which was wide and cool,
addressing Don Quixote, who was pacing up and down there, he asked, "In
what direction is your worship bound, gentle sir?"

"To a village near this which is my own village," replied Don Quixote;
"and your worship, where are you bound for?"

"I am going to Granada, senor," said the gentleman, "to my own country."

"And a goodly country," said Don Quixote; "but will your worship do me
the favour of telling me your name, for it strikes me it is of more
importance to me to know it than I can tell you."

"My name is Don Alvaro Tarfe," replied the traveller.

To which Don Quixote returned, "I have no doubt whatever that your
worship is that Don Alvaro Tarfe who appears in print in the Second Part
of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha, lately printed and published
by a new author."

"I am the same," replied the gentleman; "and that same Don Quixote, the
principal personage in the said history, was a very great friend of mine,
and it was I who took him away from home, or at least induced him to come
to some jousts that were to be held at Saragossa, whither I was going
myself; indeed, I showed him many kindnesses, and saved him from having
his shoulders touched up by the executioner because of his extreme
rashness."

"Tell me, Senor Don Alvaro," said Don Quixote, "am I at all like that Don
Quixote you talk of?"

"No indeed," replied the traveller, "not a bit."

"And that Don Quixote-" said our one, "had he with him a squire called
Sancho Panza?"

"He had," said Don Alvaro; "but though he had the name of being very
droll, I never heard him say anything that had any drollery in it."

"That I can well believe," said Sancho at this, "for to come out with
drolleries is not in everybody's line; and that Sancho your worship
speaks of, gentle sir, must be some great scoundrel, dunderhead, and
thief, all in one; for I am the real Sancho Panza, and I have more
drolleries than if it rained them; let your worship only try; come along
with me for a year or so, and you will find they fall from me at every
turn, and so rich and so plentiful that though mostly I don't know what I
am saying I make everybody that hears me laugh. And the real Don Quixote
of La Mancha, the famous, the valiant, the wise, the lover, the righter
of wrongs, the guardian of minors and orphans, the protector of widows,
the killer of damsels, he who has for his sole mistress the peerless
Dulcinea del Toboso, is this gentleman before you, my master; all other
Don Quixotes and all other Sancho Panzas are dreams and mockeries."

"By God I believe it," said Don Alvaro; "for you have uttered more
drolleries, my friend, in the few words you have spoken than the other
Sancho Panza in all I ever heard from him, and they were not a few. He
was more greedy than well-spoken, and more dull than droll; and I am
convinced that the enchanters who persecute Don Quixote the Good have
been trying to persecute me with Don Quixote the Bad. But I don't know
what to say, for I am ready to swear I left him shut up in the Casa del
Nuncio at Toledo, and here another Don Quixote turns up, though a very
different one from mine."

"I don't know whether I am good," said Don Quixote, "but I can safely say
I am not 'the Bad;' and to prove it, let me tell you, Senor Don Alvaro
Tarfe, I have never in my life been in Saragossa; so far from that, when
it was told me that this imaginary Don Quixote had been present at the
jousts in that city, I declined to enter it, in order to drag his
falsehood before the face of the world; and so I went on straight to
Barcelona, the treasure-house of courtesy, haven of strangers, asylum of
the poor, home of the valiant, champion of the wronged, pleasant exchange
of firm friendships, and city unrivalled in site and beauty. And though
the adventures that befell me there are not by any means matters of
enjoyment, but rather of regret, I do not regret them, simply because I
have seen it. In a word, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, I am Don Quixote of La
Mancha, the one that fame speaks of, and not the unlucky one that has
attempted to usurp my name and deck himself out in my ideas. I entreat
your worship by your devoir as a gentleman to be so good as to make a
declaration before the alcalde of this village that you never in all your
life saw me until now, and that neither am I the Don Quixote in print in
the Second Part, nor this Sancho Panza, my squire, the one your worship
knew."

"That I will do most willingly," replied Don Alvaro; "though it amazes me
to find two Don Quixotes and two Sancho Panzas at once, as much alike in
name as they differ in demeanour; and again I say and declare that what I
saw I cannot have seen, and that what happened me cannot have happened."

"No doubt your worship is enchanted, like my lady Dulcinea del Toboso,"
said Sancho; "and would to heaven your disenchantment rested on my giving
myself another three thousand and odd lashes like what I'm giving myself
for her, for I'd lay them on without looking for anything."

"I don't understand that about the lashes," said Don Alvaro. Sancho
replied that it was a long story to tell, but he would tell him if they
happened to be going the same road.

By this dinner-time arrived, and Don Quixote and Don Alvaro dined
together. The alcalde of the village came by chance into the inn together
with a notary, and Don Quixote laid a petition before him, showing that
it was requisite for his rights that Don Alvaro Tarfe, the gentleman
there present, should make a declaration before him that he did not know
Don Quixote of La Mancha, also there present, and that he was not the one
that was in print in a history entitled "Second Part of Don Quixote of La
Mancha, by one Avellaneda of Tordesillas." The alcalde finally put it in
legal form, and the declaration was made with all the formalities
required in such cases, at which Don Quixote and Sancho were in high
delight, as if a declaration of the sort was of any great importance to
them, and as if their words and deeds did not plainly show the difference
between the two Don Quixotes and the two Sanchos. Many civilities and
offers of service were exchanged by Don Alvaro and Don Quixote, in the
course of which the great Manchegan displayed such good taste that he
disabused Don Alvaro of the error he was under; and he, on his part, felt
convinced he must have been enchanted, now that he had been brought in
contact with two such opposite Don Quixotes.

Evening came, they set out from the village, and after about half a
league two roads branched off, one leading to Don Quixote's village, the
other the road Don Alvaro was to follow. In this short interval Don
Quixote told him of his unfortunate defeat, and of Dulcinea's enchantment
and the remedy, all which threw Don Alvaro into fresh amazement, and
embracing Don Quixote and Sancho he went his way, and Don Quixote went
his. That night he passed among trees again in order to give Sancho an
opportunity of working out his penance, which he did in the same fashion
as the night before, at the expense of the bark of the beech trees much
more than of his back, of which he took such good care that the lashes
would not have knocked off a fly had there been one there. The duped Don
Quixote did not miss a single stroke of the count, and he found that
together with those of the night before they made up three thousand and
twenty-nine. The sun apparently had got up early to witness the
sacrifice, and with his light they resumed their journey, discussing the
deception practised on Don Alvaro, and saying how well done it was to
have taken his declaration before a magistrate in such an unimpeachable
form. That day and night they travelled on, nor did anything worth
mention happen to them, unless it was that in the course of the night Sancho
finished off his task, whereat Don Quixote was beyond measure joyful. He
watched for daylight, to see if along the road he should fall in with his
already disenchanted lady Dulcinea; and as he pursued his journey there
was no woman he met that he did not go up to, to see if she was Dulcinea
del Toboso, as he held it absolutely certain that Merlin's promises could
not lie. Full of these thoughts and anxieties, they ascended a rising
ground wherefrom they descried their own village, at the sight of which
Sancho fell on his knees exclaiming, "Open thine eyes, longed-for home,
and see how thy son Sancho Panza comes back to thee, if not very rich,
very well whipped! Open thine arms and receive, too, thy son Don Quixote,
who, if he comes vanquished by the arm of another, comes victor over
himself, which, as he himself has told me, is the greatest victory anyone
can desire. I'm bringing back money, for if I was well whipped, I went
mounted like a gentleman."

"Have done with these fooleries," said Don Quixote; "let us push on
straight and get to our own place, where we will give free range to our
fancies, and settle our plans for our future pastoral life."

With this they descended the slope and directed their steps to their
village.




CHAPTER LXXIII.

OF THE OMENS DON QUIXOTE HAD AS HE ENTERED HIS OWN VILLAGE, AND OTHER
INCIDENTS THAT EMBELLISH AND GIVE A COLOUR TO THIS GREAT HISTORY


At the entrance of the village, so says Cide Hamete, Don Quixote saw two
boys quarrelling on the village threshing-floor, one of whom said to the
other, "Take it easy, Periquillo; thou shalt never see it again as long
as thou livest."

Don Quixote heard this, and said he to Sancho, "Dost thou not mark,
friend, what that boy said, 'Thou shalt never see it again as long as
thou livest'?"

"Well," said Sancho, "what does it matter if the boy said so?"

"What!" said Don Quixote, "dost thou not see that, applied to the object
of my desires, the words mean that I am never to see Dulcinea more?"

Sancho was about to answer, when his attention was diverted by seeing a
hare come flying across the plain pursued by several greyhounds and
sportsmen. In its terror it ran to take shelter and hide itself under
Dapple. Sancho caught it alive and presented it to Don Quixote, who was
saying, "Malum signum, malum signum! a hare flies, greyhounds chase it,
Dulcinea appears not."

"Your worship's a strange man," said Sancho; "let's take it for granted
that this hare is Dulcinea, and these greyhounds chasing it the malignant
enchanters who turned her into a country wench; she flies, and I catch
her and put her into your worship's hands, and you hold her in your arms
and cherish her; what bad sign is that, or what ill omen is there to be
found here?"

The two boys who had been quarrelling came over to look at the hare, and
Sancho asked one of them what their quarrel was about. He was answered by
the one who had said, "Thou shalt never see it again as long as thou
livest," that he had taken a cage full of crickets from the other boy,
and did not mean to give it back to him as long as he lived. Sancho took
out four cuartos from his pocket and gave them to the boy for the cage,
which he placed in Don Quixote's hands, saying, "There, senor! there are
the omens broken and destroyed, and they have no more to do with our
affairs, to my thinking, fool as I am, than with last year's clouds; and
if I remember rightly I have heard the curate of our village say that it
does not become Christians or sensible people to give any heed to these
silly things; and even you yourself said the same to me some time ago,
telling me that all Christians who minded omens were fools; but there's
no need of making words about it; let us push on and go into our
village."

The sportsmen came up and asked for their hare, which Don Quixote gave
them. They then went on, and upon the green at the entrance of the town
they came upon the curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco busy with
their breviaries. It should be mentioned that Sancho had thrown, by way
of a sumpter-cloth, over Dapple and over the bundle of armour, the
buckram robe painted with flames which they had put upon him at the
duke's castle the night Altisidora came back to life. He had also fixed
the mitre on Dapple's head, the oddest transformation and decoration that
ever ass in the world underwent. They were at once recognised by both the
curate and the bachelor, who came towards them with open arms. Don
Quixote dismounted and received them with a close embrace; and the boys,
who are lynxes that nothing escapes, spied out the ass's mitre and came
running to see it, calling out to one another, "Come here, boys, and see
Sancho Panza's ass figged out finer than Mingo, and Don Quixote's beast
leaner than ever."

So at length, with the boys capering round them, and accompanied by the
curate and the bachelor, they made their entrance into the town, and
proceeded to Don Quixote's house, at the door of which they found his
housekeeper and niece, whom the news of his arrival had already reached.
It had been brought to Teresa Panza, Sancho's wife, as well, and she with
her hair all loose and half naked, dragging Sanchica her daughter by the
hand, ran out to meet her husband; but seeing him coming in by no means
as good case as she thought a governor ought to be, she said to him, "How
is it you come this way, husband? It seems to me you come tramping and
footsore, and looking more like a disorderly vagabond than a governor."

"Hold your tongue, Teresa," said Sancho; "often 'where there are pegs
there are no flitches;' let's go into the house and there you'll hear
strange things. I bring money, and that's the main thing, got by my own
industry without wronging anybody."

"You bring the money, my good husband," said Teresa, "and no matter
whether it was got this way or that; for, however you may have got it,
you'll not have brought any new practice into the world."

Sanchica embraced her father and asked him if he brought her anything,
for she had been looking out for him as for the showers of May; and she
taking hold of him by the girdle on one side, and his wife by the hand,
while the daughter led Dapple, they made for their house, leaving Don
Quixote in his, in the hands of his niece and housekeeper, and in the
company of the curate and the bachelor.

Don Quixote at once, without any regard to time or season, withdrew in
private with the bachelor and the curate, and in a few words told them of
his defeat, and of the engagement he was under not to quit his village
for a year, which he meant to keep to the letter without departing a
hair's breadth from it, as became a knight-errant bound by scrupulous
good faith and the laws of knight-errantry; and of how he thought of
turning shepherd for that year, and taking his diversion in the solitude
of the fields, where he could with perfect freedom give range to his
thoughts of love while he followed the virtuous pastoral calling; and he
besought them, if they had not a great deal to do and were not prevented
by more important business, to consent to be his companions, for he would
buy sheep enough to qualify them for shepherds; and the most important
point of the whole affair, he could tell them, was settled, for he had
given them names that would fit them to a T. The curate asked what they
were. Don Quixote replied that he himself was to be called the shepherd
Quixotize and the bachelor the shepherd Carrascon, and the curate the
shepherd Curambro, and Sancho Panza the shepherd Pancino.

Both were astounded at Don Quixote's new craze; however, lest he should
once more make off out of the village from them in pursuit of his
chivalry, they trusting that in the course of the year he might be cured,
fell in with his new project, applauded his crazy idea as a bright one,
and offered to share the life with him. "And what's more," said Samson
Carrasco, "I am, as all the world knows, a very famous poet, and I'll be
always making verses, pastoral, or courtly, or as it may come into my
head, to pass away our time in those secluded regions where we shall be
roaming. But what is most needful, sirs, is that each of us should choose
the name of the shepherdess he means to glorify in his verses, and that
we should not leave a tree, be it ever so hard, without writing up and
carving her name on it, as is the habit and custom of love-smitten
shepherds."

"That's the very thing," said Don Quixote; "though I am relieved from
looking for the name of an imaginary shepherdess, for there's the
peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, the glory of these brooksides, the ornament
of these meadows, the mainstay of beauty, the cream of all the graces,
and, in a word, the being to whom all praise is appropriate, be it ever
so hyperbolical."

"Very true," said the curate; "but we the others must look about for
accommodating shepherdesses that will answer our purpose one way or
another."

"And," added Samson Carrasco, "if they fail us, we can call them by the
names of the ones in print that the world is filled with, Filidas,
Amarilises, Dianas, Fleridas, Galateas, Belisardas; for as they sell them
in the market-places we may fairly buy them and make them our own. If my
lady, or I should say my shepherdess, happens to be called Ana, I'll sing
her praises under the name of Anarda, and if Francisca, I'll call her
Francenia, and if Lucia, Lucinda, for it all comes to the same thing; and
Sancho Panza, if he joins this fraternity, may glorify his wife Teresa
Panza as Teresaina."

Don Quixote laughed at the adaptation of the name, and the curate
bestowed vast praise upon the worthy and honourable resolution he had
made, and again offered to bear him company all the time that he could
spare from his imperative duties. And so they took their leave of him,
recommending and beseeching him to take care of his health and treat
himself to a suitable diet.

It so happened his niece and the housekeeper overheard all the three of
them said; and as soon as they were gone they both of them came in to Don
Quixote, and said the niece, "What's this, uncle? Now that we were
thinking you had come back to stay at home and lead a quiet respectable
life there, are you going to get into fresh entanglements, and turn
'young shepherd, thou that comest here, young shepherd going there?' Nay!
indeed 'the straw is too hard now to make pipes of.'"

"And," added the housekeeper, "will your worship be able to bear, out in
the fields, the heats of summer, and the chills of winter, and the
howling of the wolves? Not you; for that's a life and a business for
hardy men, bred and seasoned to such work almost from the time they were
in swaddling-clothes. Why, to make choice of evils, it's better to be a
knight-errant than a shepherd! Look here, senor; take my advice--and I'm
not giving it to you full of bread and wine, but fasting, and with fifty
years upon my head--stay at home, look after your affairs, go often to
confession, be good to the poor, and upon my soul be it if any evil comes
to you."

"Hold your peace, my daughters," said Don Quixote; "I know very well what
my duty is; help me to bed, for I don't feel very well; and rest assured
that, knight-errant now or wandering shepherd to be, I shall never fail
to have a care for your interests, as you will see in the end." And the
good wenches (for that they undoubtedly were), the housekeeper and niece,
helped him to bed, where they gave him something to eat and made him as
comfortable as possible.




CHAPTER LXXIV.

OF HOW DON QUIXOTE FELL SICK, AND OF THE WILL HE MADE, AND HOW HE DIED


As nothing that is man's can last for ever, but all tends ever downwards
from its beginning to its end, and above all man's life, and as Don
Quixote's enjoyed no special dispensation from heaven to stay its course,
its end and close came when he least looked for it. For whether it was of
the dejection the thought of his defeat produced, or of heaven's will
that so ordered it--a fever settled upon him and kept him in his bed for
six days, during which he was often visited by his friends the curate,
the bachelor, and the barber, while his good squire Sancho Panza never
quitted his bedside. They, persuaded that it was grief at finding himself
vanquished, and the object of his heart, the liberation and
disenchantment of Dulcinea, unattained, that kept him in this state,
strove by all the means in their power to cheer him up; the bachelor
bidding him take heart and get up to begin his pastoral life, for which
he himself, he said, had already composed an eclogue that would take the
shine out of all Sannazaro had ever written, and had bought with his own
money two famous dogs to guard the flock, one called Barcino and the
other Butron, which a herdsman of Quintanar had sold him.

But for all this Don Quixote could not shake off his sadness. His friends
called in the doctor, who felt his pulse and was not very well satisfied
with it, and said that in any case it would be well for him to attend to
the health of his soul, as that of his body was in a bad way. Don Quixote
heard this calmly; but not so his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire,
who fell weeping bitterly, as if they had him lying dead before them. The
doctor's opinion was that melancholy and depression were bringing him to
his end. Don Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a
wish to sleep a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the
saying is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought
he was going to sleep for ever. But at the end of that time he woke up,
and in a loud voice exclaimed, "Blessed be Almighty God, who has shown me
such goodness. In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men
can neither limit them nor keep them back!"

The niece listened with attention to her uncle's words, and they struck
her as more coherent than what usually fell from him, at least during his
illness, so she asked, "What are you saying, senor? Has anything strange
occurred? What mercies or what sins of men are you talking of?"

"The mercies, niece," said Don Quixote, "are those that God has this
moment shown me, and with him, as I said, my sins are no impediment to
them. My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of
ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of
chivalry cast over it. Now I see through their absurdities and
deceptions, and it only grieves me that this destruction of my illusions
has come so late that it leaves me no time to make some amends by reading
other books that might be a light to my soul. Niece, I feel myself at the
point of death, and I would fain meet it in such a way as to show that my
life has not been so ill that I should leave behind me the name of a
madman; for though I have been one, I would not that the fact should be
made plainer at my death. Call in to me, my dear, my good friends the
curate, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, and Master Nicholas the barber, for
I wish to confess and make my will." But his niece was saved the trouble
by the entrance of the three. The instant Don Quixote saw them he
exclaimed, "Good news for you, good sirs, that I am no longer Don Quixote
of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose way of life won for him the name
of Good. Now am I the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and of the whole countless
troop of his descendants; odious to me now are all the profane stories of
knight-errantry; now I perceive my folly, and the peril into which
reading them brought me; now, by God's mercy schooled into my right
senses, I loathe them."

When the three heard him speak in this way, they had no doubt whatever
that some new craze had taken possession of him; and said Samson, "What?
Senor Don Quixote! Now that we have intelligence of the lady Dulcinea
being disenchanted, are you taking this line; now, just as we are on the
point of becoming shepherds, to pass our lives singing, like princes, are
you thinking of turning hermit? Hush, for heaven's sake, be rational and
let's have no more nonsense."

"All that nonsense," said Don Quixote, "that until now has been a reality
to my hurt, my death will, with heaven's help, turn to my good. I feel,
sirs, that I am rapidly drawing near death; a truce to jesting; let me
have a confessor to confess me, and a notary to make my will; for in
extremities like this, man must not trifle with his soul; and while the
curate is confessing me let some one, I beg, go for the notary."

They looked at one another, wondering at Don Quixote's words; but, though
uncertain, they were inclined to believe him, and one of the signs by
which they came to the conclusion he was dying was this so sudden and
complete return to his senses after having been mad; for to the words
already quoted he added much more, so well expressed, so devout, and so
rational, as to banish all doubt and convince them that he was sound of
mind. The curate turned them all out, and left alone with him confessed
him. The bachelor went for the notary and returned shortly afterwards
with him and with Sancho, who, having already learned from the bachelor
the condition his master was in, and finding the housekeeper and niece
weeping, began to blubber and shed tears.

The confession over, the curate came out saying, "Alonso Quixano the Good
is indeed dying, and is indeed in his right mind; we may now go in to him
while he makes his will."

This news gave a tremendous impulse to the brimming eyes of the
housekeeper, niece, and Sancho Panza his good squire, making the tears
burst from their eyes and a host of sighs from their hearts; for of a
truth, as has been said more than once, whether as plain Alonso Quixano
the Good, or as Don Quixote of La Mancha, Don Quixote was always of a
gentle disposition and kindly in all his ways, and hence he was beloved,
not only by those of his own house, but by all who knew him.

The notary came in with the rest, and as soon as the preamble of the will had
been set out and Don Quixote had commended his soul to God with all the
devout formalities that are usual, coming to the bequests, he said,
"Item, it is my will that, touching certain moneys in the hands of Sancho
Panza (whom in my madness I made my squire), inasmuch as between him and
me there have been certain accounts and debits and credits, no claim be
made against him, nor any account demanded of him in respect of them; but
that if anything remain over and above, after he has paid himself what I
owe him, the balance, which will be but little, shall be his, and much
good may it do him; and if, as when I was mad I had a share in giving him
the government of an island, so, now that I am in my senses, I could give
him that of a kingdom, it should be his, for the simplicity of his
character and the fidelity of his conduct deserve it." And then, turning
to Sancho, he said, "Forgive me, my friend, that I led thee to seem as
mad as myself, making thee fall into the same error I myself fell into,
that there were and still are knights-errant in the world."

"Ah!" said Sancho weeping, "don't die, master, but take my advice and
live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to
let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or
any hands but melancholy's making an end of him. Come, don't be lazy, but
get up from your bed and let us take to the fields in shepherd's trim as
we agreed. Perhaps behind some bush we shall find the lady Dulcinea
disenchanted, as fine as fine can be. If it be that you are dying of
vexation at having been vanquished, lay the blame on me, and say you were
overthrown because I had girthed Rocinante badly; besides you must have
seen in your books of chivalry that it is a common thing for knights to
upset one another, and for him who is conquered to-day to be conqueror
to-morrow."

"Very true," said Samson, "and good Sancho Panza's view of these cases is
quite right."

"Sirs, not so fast," said Don Quixote, "'in last year's nests there are
no birds this year.' I was mad, now I am in my senses; I was Don Quixote
of La Mancha, I am now, as I said, Alonso Quixano the Good; and may my
repentance and sincerity restore me to the esteem you used to have for
me; and now let Master Notary proceed.

"Item, I leave all my property absolutely to Antonia Quixana my niece,
here present, after all has been deducted from the most available portion
of it that may be required to satisfy the bequests I have made. And the
first disbursement I desire to be made is the payment of the wages I owe
for the time my housekeeper has served me, with twenty ducats, over and
above, for a gown. The curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, now
present, I appoint my executors.

"Item, it is my wish that if Antonia Quixana, my niece, desires to marry,
she shall marry a man of whom it shall be first of all ascertained by
information taken that he does not know what books of chivalry are; and
if it should be proved that he does, and if, in spite of this, my niece
insists upon marrying him, and does marry him, then that she shall
forfeit the whole of what I have left her, which my executors shall
devote to works of charity as they please.

"Item, I entreat the aforesaid gentlemen my executors, that, if any happy
chance should lead them to discover the author who is said to have
written a history now going about under the title of 'Second Part of the
Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha,' they beg of him on my behalf
as earnestly as they can to forgive me for having been, without intending
it, the cause of his writing so many and such monstrous absurdities as he
has written in it; for I am leaving the world with a feeling of
compunction at having provoked him to write them."

With this he closed his will, and a faintness coming over him he
stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter
and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after
that on which he made his will he fainted away very often. The house was
all in confusion; but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and
Sancho Panza enjoyed himself; for inheriting property wipes out or
softens down in the heir the feeling of grief the dead man might be
expected to leave behind him.

At last Don Quixote's end came, after he had received all the sacraments,
and had in full and forcible terms expressed his detestation of books of
chivalry. The notary was there at the time, and he said that in no book
of chivalry had he ever read of any knight-errant dying in his bed so
calmly and so like a Christian as Don Quixote, who amid the tears and
lamentations of all present yielded up his spirit, that is to say died.
On perceiving it the curate begged the notary to bear witness that Alonso
Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote of La Mancha, had passed
away from this present life, and died naturally; and said he desired this
testimony in order to remove the possibility of any other author save
Cide Hamete Benengeli bringing him to life again falsely and making
interminable stories out of his achievements.

Such was the end of the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha, whose village
Cide Hamete would not indicate precisely, in order to leave all the towns
and villages of La Mancha to contend among themselves for the right to
adopt him and claim him as a son, as the seven cities of Greece contended
for Homer. The lamentations of Sancho and the niece and housekeeper are
omitted here, as well as the new epitaphs upon his tomb; Samson Carrasco,
however, put the following lines:

A doughty gentleman lies here;
A stranger all his life to fear;
Nor in his death could Death prevail,
In that last hour, to make him quail.
He for the world but little cared;
And at his feats the world was scared;
A crazy man his life he passed,
But in his senses died at last.

And said most sage Cide Hamete to his pen, "Rest here, hung up by this
brass wire, upon this shelf, O my pen, whether of skilful make or clumsy
cut I know not; here shalt thou remain long ages hence, unless
presumptuous or malignant story-tellers take thee down to profane thee.
But ere they touch thee warn them, and, as best thou canst, say to them:

Hold off! ye weaklings; hold your hands!
  Adventure it let none,
For this emprise, my lord the king,
  Was meant for me alone.

For me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him; it was his to act, mine
to write; we two together make but one, notwithstanding and in spite of
that pretended Tordesillesque writer who has ventured or would venture
with his great, coarse, ill-trimmed ostrich quill to write the
achievements of my valiant knight;--no burden for his shoulders, nor
subject for his frozen wit: whom, if perchance thou shouldst come to know
him, thou shalt warn to leave at rest where they lie the weary mouldering
bones of Don Quixote, and not to attempt to carry him off, in opposition
to all the privileges of death, to Old Castile, making him rise from the
grave where in reality and truth he lies stretched at full length,
powerless to make any third expedition or new sally; for the two that he
has already made, so much to the enjoyment and approval of everybody to
whom they have become known, in this as well as in foreign countries, are
quite sufficient for the purpose of turning into ridicule the whole of
those made by the whole set of the knights-errant; and so doing shalt
thou discharge thy Christian calling, giving good counsel to one that
bears ill-will to thee. And I shall remain satisfied, and proud to have
been the first who has ever enjoyed the fruit of his writings as fully as
he could desire; for my desire has been no other than to deliver over to
the detestation of mankind the false and foolish tales of the books of
chivalry, which, thanks to that of my true Don Quixote, are even now
tottering, and doubtless doomed to fall for ever. Farewell."





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